"Citizenfour" and Our Freedom of Expression

Citizenfour is the story of how Edward Snowden became the whistleblower and/or traitor of the NSA. This documentary starts with Snowden contacting reporters anonymously, trying to find someone he could talk to with a safe connection. The first reporter he attempted to contact could not establish a safe enough connection for his requirements, so he moved on to Laura Poitras, the documentary maker.

Laura Poistras had made an earlier documentary about life in Iraq under U.S. occupation, and as she began her second film about the trial of a man held at Guantanamo Bay, she began to be detained when she crossed the U.S. border. She says she moved to Berlin to avoid having her cameras and files seized. Her efforts to document reality and her experience with the Department of Homeland Security led Snowden to believe that she would be willing to listen.

The most interesting aspect of this film is that it shows a sort of history in the making. The then 29-year-old Snowden made big headlines as he leaked the enormity of the NSA’s surveillance of world leaders as well as more average U.S. citizens. Viewers find a likeable enough young man who spends 8 days in a room at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong as reporters ask him questions and verify what he is saying, writing up stories on different aspects of his information as they continue to interview him.

Citizenfour is a very quiet movie, sticking to the hotel room and talking heads for the most part. At times, you see signs of an idealistic young man who is horrified at what his own government is doing under the banner of protecting the homeland and who is worried about the effect this will have on his family. On the other hand, there are times that you wonder whether he has crossed over the line into mental illness, as his paranoia about the reach of surveillance leads him to do things like put a blanket over his head when he types his passcode into the computer.  

 

He certainly seems to enjoy the prospect of being someone who is making a big play; he looks forward to seeing how the world reacts.

I'm not much for conspiracy theories. For the most part though, his story seems very credible, and it is astonishing to think about how much information the US collects, how government officials may have lied under testimony about what they are up to, how much money they spend on facilities to accomplish their surveillance, and how little privacy we have left.

As frightening as it is to think that our own government is spying on us, then comes the news about North Korea’s involvement in getting a big-budget movie scuttled because they were unhappy with the storyline. I might not be the biggest proponent of ridiculous comedy efforts like The Interview, but I am a proponent of free speech and thought. In both the documentary and in the controversy surrounding Sony’s withdrawal of The Interview from theaters, the “chilling effect” of governments acting as thought police comes up again and again.

I would welcome anyone else's thoughts on the Snowden events and/or the movie. This documentary is an important one as we consider the freedoms that we enjoy and the potential for losing them.

Hospitality and Doing Church in "The Overnighters"

The town of Williston, ND has experienced an influx of new people and new money in the last decade. The fracking industry has turned towns like Williston into boomtowns, while all over the United States people struggle to find work. The result? Migration.

Men from all over migrate to North Dakota in search of work, good wages, or a fresh start. Some have done time in prison and can’t get hired elsewhere; others have been sent out by their families to make a better life for the whole family.

But reality can never live up to the dream. The boom has created massive increases in the cost of living, and housing at any cost is in short supply. One pastor’s response to the need is the subject of the documentary, The Overnighters.

Jay Reinke, the pastor at the Lutheran church in Williston, sees the arrival of strangers in need as an opportunity to practice hospitality and grace. After one person needed a place for the night and stayed at the church, a new ministry began. The church welcomed people to sleep in the church itself or in their vehicles in the church parking lot while they searched for work and housing.

The pastor, who speaks eloquently for the need to help our fellow human beings and to resist the temptation to live in fear, makes some mistakes along the way, mistakes that you may have seen at any given church in any given situation. The program is never formally voted on or created—it just happens. So some people never buy in. He is also not entirely upfront with the elders about some issues because he is concerned that they will throw in the towel.

Most of the film, I sat there astounded at the way the good and the ugly of being part of a church family was so well represented here. I kept thinking “Everyone in every church should see this movie and be part of a discussion group about it.”

But there is a twist close to the end of the movie that could easily change the conversation. It left me dumbfounded that people would choose to have these particular conversations on camera. Still, if you like documentaries that make you think, and particularly if you are in a movie group, I would recommend this fascinating and sad portrait of our times.

Birdman and the Trouble with Recommending Movies

So there’s this thing that happens where critics absolutely love a movie. And then us normal people go see it, because the critics love it. And a portion of the people who go see it love it. A few of that portion love it because they were told they were going to love it. And the rest of the people who go see it come out saying “that was one weird movie.”

I figure I’m somewhere on the spectrum between critic and normal person. I often think critically-acclaimed movies are weird. I also get why critics look at movies differently, because if you see a ton of movies you start to see a lot of the same things over and over, so something unusual really stands out. I think that’s why lots of people read critics like the GR Press’s John Serba and wonder why his opinions seldom mesh with their own.

This is all a very long way of explaining my mixed reactions to movies. A few weeks ago I saw St. Vincent, which had Bill Murray behaving very badly while the neighbor boy saw more in him than anyone else. I enjoyed it very much. As a film, it had some faults—there are some flaws in its sequencing, it is predictable, and it is sentimental. But I laughed a lot, had some surprises along the way, and left with a warm feeling for my fellow human beings. It’s a movie I would recommend to a number of people, in spite of the flaws.

Last week I saw Birdman, which is also about people behaving very badly, and which gives us Michael Keaton in the best performance of his life. He plays an aging actor, Riggan Thomson, who is best known for a superhero role he had in the 90s, Birdman. Sort of like Batman, who Keaton himself played in the 90s.

The movie opens on Riggan, meditating while wearing only his tighty-whities. He is trying to make a name for himself again by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play. He is haunted by a voice that constantly tells him either what a loser he is or that he is way too good for everyone and everything around him.

Emma Stone plays Riggan’s daughter, Sam. She is fresh out of rehab, and he has hired her to be his assistant. Riggan’s been a poor father, and he is trying, pretty unsuccessfully, to make it up to her.

As opening night draws closer, it becomes obvious that the younger actor in the play is not right for the part, and at the last minute Riggan brings in Mike (the also amazing Edward Norton), a big-name actor who will draw a crowd. Mike is very good, at least while he’s in character. As himself, he is on a constant power trip, and he treats the people around him terribly.

The egos and the insecurities are enormous and they make for an incestuous crew as the actors look to each other for validation and support in different, mostly destructive, ways. All of these actors demonstrate that they are, in reality, “a gaping black hole of need” as a writer friend describes her dog. They hurt themselves and those around them in their search for importance and acceptance. At one point, Sam turns to father and tells him "you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter!" 

And then there is the theater critic, waiting in the wings to swoop in and either make or break the production. Riggan tells her that while actors and directors pour their lifeblood and energy into a play, all she does is sit back and criticize, risking nothing. Hey, wait a minute, how did I end up paying to have someone attack my little hobby??? There is truth in what he says.

Birdman is a technically brilliant movie. The acting is incredible. The director used a small number of “sets” to give the feeling of watching a stage play, and at the same time the use of tight spaces gives viewers the same claustrophobic feeling that the actors must experience in their tightly circumscribed roles and expectations.

The film is also probably a very sharp skewering of theater life, but I have very little knowledge of theater life. My teens are on the sets and props crew for this fall’s high school version of Oliver! but I don’t think that qualifies me to speak knowledgably on the subject!

The characters are mostly coarse, self-absorbed, and/or mean-spirited people. Sam is the most sympathetic character, and she still seems pretty lost.

So while St. Vincent entertained and left me loving people a little more, Birdman gives me a stark, at times funny, look at the naked need and ambition of less lovable characters. At the same time, St. Vincent is guilty of some sloppy filmmaking, but Birdman is razor sharp. Whether or not you should see either of them all depends on what you are looking for when you go to the movies.

 

 

Middle-Aged White Lady on "Dear White People"

The headline I read that called Dear White People “White Privilege 101” was not far off. This movie, set at a fictional Ivy League institution called Winchester University, explores what it is like to live as the minority in a predominantly white place, where white people have most of the power.

At the start of the movie, you learn that there has been a party where white students came in black-face, and it turned into a protest or a riot, depending on your perspective. Over the course of the film, the events leading up to the party give insight into the problems that have been brewing on the campus, which are numerous.

Sam, a young woman with a campus radio show called “Dear White People,” becomes a figurehead for a group that is trying to create change at the school. As much as she wants change, she chafes under the label of angry young black woman.

Troy Fairbanks, incumbent head of house of the historically black residence, is the son of the black dean at Winchester and is intended to be the poster child for the successful black Winchester student. Troy is dating the white daughter of the university president, who is also the frenemy of Troy’s father. To escape the tension of being who his father wants to be, Troy is getting high in his bathroom.

Lionel, a gay black man with an enormous Afro, is trying to survive his educational experience at a school where he doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. When one student asks him sarcastically “What’s harder, being black enough for the black kids or being black enough for the white ones?” he answers “Being neither.”

And Coco is a young woman from a less financially stable background who wants to fit in. At first, she wants to pretend that all is well racially and just move on already. At the same time, she is wanting to make a name for herself.  

All of these people are struggling with their identity. Who do they want to be? Who do they have to represent? How are they perceived? These are normal questions for young people, but when you add in the social expectations and assumptions that people make about you because of your skin color, it becomes much more difficult to sort out.

As a very heated campus moves closer to the fateful night of the party, everyone’s identity issues come to a head.

There are touches of Do the Right Thing and the old TV shows “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World.” There are also somewhat derisive comments directed at all three of those things.

The big man on campus is Kurt, son of the aforementioned university president. He is white, and for some reason he dresses and talks like he is one of the Jets who just walked off the set of West Side Story. But he does some truly hateful things that I’m sure even the Jets never would have done.

There are some downfalls to the movie. What makes it work is that the film has, for the most part, a sharp, intelligent humor that makes everyone watching it think deeply about who you are and who you expect people to be. And a few photos from real-life college parties like this one are shown during the end credits, which really brought it all home to me.

I think this would be a great movie to see with a group of people interested in having an honest discussion of racism and white privilege. Don’t take the kids just yet—the language and other, um, college activities are not intended for younger eyes.

 

 

Sort of Stellar "Interstellar"

This week my two teens and I went to see an early screening of Interstellar, an epic space movie that has been eagerly awaited by the legion who are fans of director Christopher Nolan. You can count me in that category thanks to Memento and Inception, because I love the puzzle-like qualities of those films.

Interstellar is about a dystopian Earth that has dried up and just suffers one sandstorm after another due to overpopulation and climate change. The only thing they can grow now is corn. Matthew McConaughey used to be an engineer and a NASA test pilot, but now he’s a farmer just like everyone else, trying to grow enough corn to keep the population alive.

Eventually he ends up discovering a scientific team who is working to find another planet that people can inhabit. He gets sent into space to explore some possible planets, which is possible thanks to a mysterious wormhole that has opened up near Saturn (think tesseract like in A Wrinkle in Time). Of course, his children, and his daughter in particular, are not happy that he is going to be shot into another galaxy, because if you had Matthew McConaughey in your family you might want to keep him close too. I enjoyed the warmth and family dynamics of the early portion of the movie.

The space travel that came next felt very real. I say that with all of the space travel knowledge of someone who has both seen all the Star Wars movies AND has been to Epcot. We saw the movie in IMAX which is likely the best (and loudest) way to see this one. I enjoyed the tremendous visuals of the different planets.

There were also lots of stars, by which I mean the people in the movie. But they aren’t all given something interesting to do, which is unfortunate. John Lithgow is such a talented actor, but he’s not given much to work with. I also really enjoy Anne Hathaway sometimes (see Becoming Jane in which she plays a young Jane Austen in a somewhat maudlin yet sighworthy film opposite James McAvoy. Sigh. Wait, what was I saying?). Here her character was never fully developed.

The movie is overlong and too drawn out. There is lots of scientific talk with varying degrees of realness, not that I would know the difference. But I did read an article afterward that told me what was real and what was not. The point isn’t whether it was real or not, but that they talked about it too much.

A big piece of the movie is relativity—particularly in time. Time passes slower on one planet than on another. Let’s just say that at the end of three hours I felt like I’d been on a space journey myself and that I came back a few years older than when I left. Reactions from my teens: the manchild felt satisfied by such an egregious amount of science that he could pick apart and ruminate on. He really liked it. The womanchild looked a bit like she might fall asleep a few times, but at the end she stood up and said “I saw a smart person’s movie. And I think I even understood it.”

So it’s a mixed bag. For a movie that, in part, deals with more dimensions than we currently perceive, it fell a bit flat.

 

 

Saint, Maybe: Bill Murray in "St. Vincent"

Vinnie is no saint. At least, that’s what most people who know him think. He’s a drunk and a gambler who spends time with a, um, “lady of the night.” When his new neighbors move in, a newly-single mother named Maggie and her son Oliver, he isn’t exactly the neighborhood welcome wagon. Maggie has a new job and no one else to turn to, so she asks Vinnie to watch Oliver after school.

Oliver begins attending a Catholic school, where his priest-teacher is a warm and kind person. Unfortunately the kids aren’t so nice, and Oliver is bullied. Vinnie teaches him some self-defense. Vinnie also takes him to the horse track and the local bar. He’s sorely lacking in good judgment as relates to childcare, or to his own life for that matter. On the other hand, Oliver accompanies him to the nursing home, where Vinnie regularly cares for a loved one. Oliver starts to see a different side of Vinnie.

Bill Murray plays this man of no moral standing quite convincingly, though he’s still likeable in some way. It’s possible this movie would be more effective if the neighbor weren’t someone I have always liked. I’m predisposed. I must not be the only one, because this theater was packed. This isn’t the kind of movie that generally packs in a crowd!

Murray’s is not the only strong performance. Melissa McCarthy plays Maggie. I have only ever known McCarthy from her female gross-out roles in things like Bridesmaids and Saturday Night Live skits. About two weeks ago I found a completely new side of her that many already knew about—I started watching the old TV series Gilmore Girls, and McCarthy is the sweet, bumbling cook who is best friends with Lorelai Gilmore. I love her in the show.

St. Vincent gives her something more to do with her acting chops. She definitely draws out some laughs, but Maggie takes a heartbreaking turn when she confesses to Oliver’s teacher the difficulties of her new life and the pain caused by her former husband.

And then there’s the prostitute, a pregnant Russian stripper, played with relish by Naomi Watts. Brian and I both spent some time trying to figure out where we’d seen this Russian actress before, until after the movie when we realized it was the Aussie actress. She brings another dimension to Vinnie’s character.

This movie is sappy and predictable; it’s also warm and full of a weird kind of joy. These people are dealing with the day-to-day dirt of life, and there’s no easy way out for any of them. No one turns into someone completely different; they are who they are. But they are slowly learning more about themselves and the people around them. They are finding the good hidden under the hard edges and the tough words. Although this movie is about a more humanistic variety of saints, we Christians might see it as finding the image of Christ that is in everyone. And that’s what we're supposed to be all about.

 

A Very Lively "Book of Life"

This animated ode to the Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead is a colorful, folk-art inspired vision. It’s also a bit confusing, both in storyline and in spirituality. I think it would be a lot for a small child to try to take in. I took my 11-year-old, who found it entertaining and interesting.

The animation is unusual because the characters are all meant to be wooden figures, and so their movement and body structure is very different from the ever-more-lifelike computer animation in many movies.

Manolo and Joaquin are competing for the lovely and independent Maria’s heart. Manolo wants to be a musician, but his family tradition is bullfighting. Joaquin’s father was a brave defender of the town, so Joaquin is also feeling pressure to follow in his footsteps.

The story is told during the celebration of the Day of the Dead, which is a time when people put out food and gifts for their deceased loved ones, remembering their time on earth. It is the way that the living show respect and love for those who have come before. This thread complements the fact that Manolo, Joaquin, and Maria are all trying to find the paths they will follow, even while they are heavily influenced by what their families desire from them.

At the same time, La Muerte, who rules the beautiful and wondrous Land of the Remembered, and Xibalba, who rules the sad and colorless Land of the Forgotten, make a wager over which young man will win Maria’s hand in marriage. Xibalba’s trickery leads to the death of one of the young men, who makes a dangerous journey back to the land of the living to save Maria and their town from a terrible bandit.

There are all kinds of spiritual components to the story, which would make good discussion starters with a child who is open to it. How does the Land of the Remembered compare to a new earth? How does the Land of the Forgotten compare to hell? How much of our lives are predetermined and how much is free will? You don’t get those kind of spiritual questions from Monsters University! I’d take kids ages 8-12, and I’d plan to ask some deeper questions on the way home.

Plus we live in a country that is increasingly influenced by our neighbors to the south, so it seems like a little cultural education might be a good thing.

Strangely, in the midst of a very Mexican-looking movie, you have pop culture references to Mumford & Sons, Radiohead, and Biz Markie, among others. A 20-something man in the audience burst out laughing when he recognized one song before everyone else. Which is fun if you are into spotting such things, which I am, but doesn’t really seem to fit the tone of the movie.

All in all, this is a fun movie with lots to think about and even more visual beauty to wonder at. But parents should take seriously the spiritual terrain it covers.

 

 

Reliving My Boy's "Boyhood"

Boyhood follows the life of a boy, Mason, and it was filmed over 12 years as he grew from youngster until he left for college. Sounds like a documentary, but it’s not. Boyhood presents a fictional boy from a fictional dysfunctional family, but the actors were all filmed over a 12-year period. It makes for a unique movie experience.

This movie isn’t driven by a neat story arc—the plot is more like life itself, meandering through events and phases. But you still want to see what happens next. The fact that I can say that when the movie is almost three hours long tells me that the director, Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Before Midnight), has definitely gotten something right here.

As my son is just a year or two younger than the boy in the movie, it was fascinating to revisit so much of the culture we’ve moved through. I brought Andrew to a midnight release party for the seventh Harry Potter book, just as in the movie. Ethan Hawke’s character is reading Into Thin Air right about the time I did. He has run through his own string of video games in much the same order as Mason. We even had the same 20 Questions gadget.

It’s a gutsy move for a director, counting on the fact that none of his actors will drop out or be forced to drop out of the filming over that long of a time period. He had to gamble on the kids who would grow up in the film, hoping they would turn out to be good actors. In particular the boy in question needed to turn out to be a good actor. It worked out for him; Ellar Coltrane delivers a great performance as a young man struggling to see what future he should be chasing.

But the director is not the only one taking risks. It seems to me a pretty gutsy move for actors too. Especially for Patricia Arquette, who plays his mother. It’s not likely to be flattering to see yourself age, for real, in a movie that you started in as a young adult (though I would argue she was not young enough for this role) and ended squarely in middle age. Especially when your character has very questionable taste in fashion. Somewhere in the middle viewers see her as she appeared in the TV show “Medium,” if you remember such things. Arquette takes on this challenge, playing an intelligent, caring mother who has some serious flaws and makes a few terrible life choices.

Ethan Hawke, who plays Mason’s dad, ages too, but let’s be real, it’s never as flattering for the woman. Plus you get the feeling they make him look dorkier as he ages on purpose—I think he hasn’t really changed all that much.

This movie gives you a sense of how much happens in twelve years, and also how quickly it goes by for the adults. As Arquette’s character says toward the end, “I thought there was going to be more!” That’s a sentiment any of us of a certain age have experienced at one time or another.

While the parents are busy getting on with their lives and trying to make something more for themselves, sometimes the children are just collateral damage along the way. At moments you (or at least I) want to shake the parents into thinking about what they are doing. And the advice they hand out to their kids is for the most part a fistful of nothing. At one point he admits that when Mason and his sister were babies, he had no concern for the state of their souls. It seems that this is true of most of the adults in their lives. If nothing else, the movie might make you feel better about your own parenting!

So, mothers of teen boys who will soon be testing their wings, beware, this may hit too close to home. But it’s a fascinating look at the fleeting nature of youth, of life in general. At the end you may be whisked right back to being 18 or 19, when the whole world awaited.

Divergent: Does it Diverge from the Book?

Chicago is ruined, inhabited by five different factions. Abnegation strives for total selflessness.
Erudite seeks knowledge. Candor speaks only the truth. Amity aims for peace, avoiding all conflict. And the Dauntless seek to embody bravery. At the age of 16, young adults must choose the faction that they will join, leaving their families behind forever if their choice is different from their parents’. Let’s just say that at 16 I probably would have chosen anything but my parents’ choices!

Tris, who grew up in Abnegation, decides to join the Dauntless. The tests she takes to make this decision are supposed to make the choice obvious, but her tests turn up something unusual—she is Divergent, which is a fact she’s supposed to hide from everyone.

Her Dauntless initiation is violent and disturbing, but it’s also loaded with the kind of sexual tension that would have had me riveted as a teen and still keeps my attention as a middle-aged lady. However, I never have appreciated the kind of violence that characterizes the Dauntless rite of passage, a beatdown that no longer adheres to the original goals of the faction that seeks to instill courage. Instead, it breeds cruelty. And the Divergent are seen as a danger. Plus, one wonders why a futuristic society that can come up with some sort of electronic tattooing device can't find a way to make boxing gloves.

Shailene Woodley, who has demonstrated her acting chops in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now, plays Tris. Theo James takes on the part of the complex and conflicted hottie named Four, Tris’s instructor and possible love interest. They are great; they are just better than the movie itself. And I can't wait to see Woodley in The Fault in Our Stars later this year.

The heroes of Divergent are defined by one characteristic, a situation with which a few of them are discontent. They long to be more. But they have been reared to believe that the ultimate goal is to embody one characteristic. Which gets complicated when you start feeling compassion toward a rival, or when you are willing to bravely sacrifice yourself for someone you love.

The author, Veronica Roth, has mentioned on her blog that she started writing Tris’s character as a way to combat her own anxiety, a way to be brave and take control. This is certainly a theme that would resonate with any teen.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t do justice to the book. Even my 15-year-old daughter, a Divergent fan, thought that it was basically just a typical action movie. I don’t think her opinion was shared by all of the opening-night crowd, which cheered at many violent moments in the film. And then there was the older woman behind me, who at a particularly violent moment, exclaimed her discomfort with the events.

Divergent the movie has lost track of the soul of the books they are based on—Tris’s innocence, the desire to be more than what they have chosen, and the relationship that is more than just the sexual tension. The movie version of Divergent is less challenging and less interesting than the book from which it arose, leaving the film a bit hollow, like the factions themselves.

Miyazaki's Rising Wind

Last week I took 4 Miyazaki nerds to see his latest movie, The Wind Rises. What is a Miyazaki nerd, you may ask? Well, you obviously don’t live in my house.

Two and a half Miyazaki nerds live in my house. The ‘half’ is the youngest child, who might not have been such a nerd if not influenced by the two older siblings. What is a Miyazaki? Well.

Hayao Miyazaki is a legend of Japanese animation. He has made many, many movies, and a good number of them have become known to American audiences (Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky to name a few). And my kids happen to love them.

So, when they heard that he was retiring, and The Wind Rises was going to be his last film, the older two couldn’t wait to see it. And it was worth the wait, even though he seems to have once again retracted his desire to retire.

The Wind Rises is based on the life of Jiro Hirokoshi, a Japanese airplane designer. In the movie, he came of age just after World War I, dreaming of the beautiful machines he could design. He dreamed, literally, of meeting his hero, Italian plane designer Giovanni Caproni, who encouraged him to follow his dreams.

If you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s other movies, you know there is always a whimsical and mystical quality to them. Even as he carries out a biographical movie, Jiro’s dreams allow for the magical element.

At the same time, Miyazaki gives us an epic historical movie of Japan, illustrating the great earthquake that hit Tokyo and the surrounding area, as well as the effects of poverty and war.

And then there is the romance, which I think affected the young viewers who accompanied me as much as anything. It is a sweet and melancholy romance, marked by devotion and tragedy.

In case you see the title Ponyo and think you should bring your young child to see this film, please don’t. It deals with war and devastation and illness. On top of that is some of the most attractive smoking I’ve ever seen in a movie. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to smoke this much since the days of candy cigarettes, when my friends and I practiced how cool we would look if we actually could stand to smoke a cigarette.

Here’s the thing. Jiro’s primetime of life occurred in the time between World War I and World War II. We don’t get to choose the time period in which we exist. And all Jiro wanted to do was design airplanes. In Japan, at that time, the only group producing planes was the military. Which means that all his beautiful dreams were funneled into producing bombers that resulted in a lot of devastation during World War II. Are we responsible to use our gifts in ethical and morally responsible ways?

Since Miyazaki seems to portray Jiro as an alter-ego to himself, making “beautiful things”, it feels like he leaves Jiro off the hook for this ethical and moral dilemma. The movie presents a beautiful, moving opportunity to talk about what that means.

The refrain of the movie comes from a poem by French poet Valéry: “the wind is rising, we must try to live.” This echoes the experience of the main characters who, like us, are stuck in a very particular place and time, and they must make the most of it.

Son of God and the Pitfalls of Biblical Moviemaking

I will admit to going into this one a bit wary. I’m always ready to cringe when anyone brings a Bible story to life. It’s so easy for these movies turn a vast, extraordinarily complex story, shot through with both light and darkness, into something with poor production values and a smarmy feel to it. I’ve heard The Passion of the Christ is good filmmaking, but the reports of flying flesh during flogging scenes have kept away from it. Violence is probably the thing I tolerate least in movies.

But I went to Son of God anyway. And in some ways, my fears were realized. There were some poor production values. The chief problem is the pace. The first part of the movies whizzes you through the highlights reel of the Old Testament, then the birth and life of Christ get a bit more airtime. From the Last Supper on, it slows down to a crawl. At the end there are lots of close ups of agonized and emotional people in slow motion, and the music plays on loudly. It reminded me of a critic who complained that the movie War Horse had too much “inspirational plowing.”

Also, as I had mentioned to the Friday Noon Movie Club, there is the problem of Jesus. He still looks way too much like the traditional Western image of him. In fact, he looks like Brad Pitt with some smudges on his face. I liked the actors who played John and Peter, and they looked like they might actually be from that time and place. I’ve nothing against the appealing Diogo Morgado who portrays Christ, but he does not appear to be from the pre-orthodontia phase of the world, which becomes quite obvious as he’s reduced to smiling spiritually much of the time. I wanted to see him righteously angry when he turned the tables over in the temple, but Morgado couldn’t quite summon up that kind of strength.

Personally, I think that filmmakers often fail at this because we just don’t know the man Christ well enough. We know enough to model our lives after him as best we can, but as has often been pointed out, it’s not so simple to decide things based on What Would Jesus Do. He was a mystery, and he was God. Even the disciples wondered what he was talking about half the time.

All that said, there were a few things I took away from this film.

First, though the character of Pontius Pilate comes off ridiculously at the beginning, in the end I appreciated some aspects of his characterization. The film makes clear the kind of politics he is dealing with. He allows his concerns for himself and his position to overtake his desire to do the right thing. At the end, as he tells his wife that it’s no matter, that this won’t mean anything, you see a person who is on the way to convincing himself that he is right. The Bible often mentions someone’s heart being hardened, which I’ve always wondered about. This gave me a glimpse of what that might actually look like.

Second, while I wished for more stellar cinematography (see the IMAX movie Jerusalem if you really want to have this old city take your breath away), I still felt like a got a feeling of what life was like then. Particularly what it means to journey from one place to another on foot in the arid land.

And, of course, I was reminded again of just what Christ’s sacrifice really was. I’m a very story-driven person, which is why movies appeal to me so much in the first place. A fleshed-out version of these events brings me a fresh reminder of what is so easily glossed over as I speak the words of the Apostles’ Creed.

And so, don’t go to this for great moviemaking. But if you want a taste of the land, or the life, or how some miracles might have looked, or most of all a fresh reminder of what price Christ paid, it might be worth your time.

Saving Mr. Banks

Those of us attending the Friday Noon Movie Club last week were taken by surprise. We knew the basic idea of Saving Mr. Banks: P. L. Travers, curmudgeonly author of Mary Poppins, was reluctant to let her book become a Disney movie, and Mr. Walt Disney somehow convinces her to allow it. I even knew that it had something to do with her traumatic childhood experiences.

As it turns out, about half of the movie is dedicated to flashbacks to her childhood and the tragic nature of her father’s life. For at least one of us, the loss of a beloved, flawed father is fresh enough history that the movie prompted a new wave of grief. This movie is at least as much a father-daughter film as it is movie history.

Emma Thompson was, as expected, spectacularly crusty as Mrs. Travers, a woman aghast at the prospect of her characters joining the ranks of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Thompson also gave her Travers a few fleeting moments of vulnerability that made her sympathetic in spite of her unrelenting sharp edges.

Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney, and he does it capably. It seems like a sort of thankless role, really, because he has no choice but to be affable and smart, and fit the mold of someone who created the Happiest Place on Earth. Which can only feel like propaganda. And in this movie, Disney & co. is truly a Happy Place. Everyone is smiling, and the writers and the administrative assistants seem just this side of cartoon characters themselves. They are charming and entertaining, and it’s fun to see how they deal with this gruff woman.

But if Thompson weren’t so good at straddling the line between crustiness and humanity, the adult-Travers portion of the movie would be way too saccharine. And we can only wonder if Walt himself is the real reason that Mary Poppins became a movie. Was he really that good a student of human nature? I guess it’s fairly obvious he read human nature right on a couple of points, or he wouldn’t have been so successful.

The movie is also a bit long, possibly testing some viewers’ patience; the sad story of her family may also be a bit much for the young ones. Our viewing seemed to be populated by women in their 30s and 40s, which is not the usual crowd for Friday noon movies—often I’m surrounded by either retirees or younger men who may possibly be escaping their life in their parents’ basement for the afternoon.

I do think it’s a shame that Emma Thompson wasn’t nominated for this, though Cate Blanchett has the Oscar all but wrapped up. I don’t really think Amy Adams has anything on Emma for this one.

This was a fun and touching way to spend a couple of hours with friends, and I recommend it for anyone who likes Mary Poppins, Emma Thompson, or indulging in a bit of orneriness.

 

The Book Thief

If you’ve read the book, The Book Thief, as I have, you know that it is an unusual book with a very different storytelling style—it is narrated by Death, and it is filled with beautiful imagery and language. It remains one of my favorite books.

If you’ve forgotten much of what you read, as I have, that’s about all you can remember about it.

So when I found that reviewers didn’t love the movie, that they thought it too sentimental and sanitized, I didn’t rush right out to see it. But when it made it to our second-run theater, it seemed like it was time to give it a try. It might not be great, but for 4 bucks, who cares?

Well. I’m the first to admit that I can’t compare the two very closely, because I just don’t remember the book that well anymore. I think that it was a bit grittier, and that the girl Liesel and her friend Rudy were a little more rough-and-tumble than they appear in this movie.

However, the story remains the same—after talking to others who have read the book, they confirmed that the movie stuck very closely to the plot of the book. It’s the style that is different.

That said, the movie is lovely. Warm and beautiful images that are still somehow stark bring viewers back to the time and place of this German town during World War II. Liesel is taken into a foster home by a harsh woman named Rosa and her gentle, loving husband Hans. Geoffrey Rush plays Liesel’s foster father, and you can’t help but wish this man were your own grandfather or uncle or something. He is just wonderful in the role.

Liesel is played by Sophie Nélisse, a beautiful girl whose large, luminous eyes clearly captured the director and those operating the cameras. In fact, in the beginning, when Rosa complains that she has been sent a dirty child, I was left momentarily confused because I rarely see children who are that cleaned up! Apparently they couldn’t bear to make her less beautiful.

Rudy seems somehow younger and littler than I imagined him, but Max, the young Jewish man that Rosa and Hans hide in the basement, fits exactly. Aside from the fact that, again, he should have looked a little rougher. He did not look nearly sickly enough.

If you are a book lover, this is a movie you can hardly dislike—the importance of words, language and books is such a central part of the story. Keep the tissue handy if you are so inclined.

While there is something that is less hard-hitting about the movie than the book that it is based on, this is a lovely little film. I think they made the movie appropriate for a slightly younger audience than the book was aimed at, which I’m happy about because I fully intend to show this to all three of my children, 10 and up. Though I might leave them to watch it without me, because that 10-year-old really hates it when I cry.

Things Heat Up in "August: Osage County"

The first thing you notice at August: Osage County (if you are early enough) is that this is a Weinstein movie. Not just because their logo appears on the screen so much, but because every preview you see is for a movie that you really want to see. At least if you are me. And the friend sitting next to me.

And then August: Osage County begins. If you are feeling weary of the continuous cold this winter, this will bring you right into hot and stuffy August.

This movie, especially if viewed soon after Nebraska, will have many viewers swearing off the Great Plains forever. I mean, seriously. It can’t be good for tourism. Although I would love to see this house in real life. On second thought, I want to go to the settings of these movies just to wander around with a camera.

So. Meryl Streep: brilliant in the dark and thankless role of a drug-addled, aging matriarch who bullies her family. Julia Roberts: also excellent as the bitter oldest daughter who has not recovered from her childhood. Neither of these women display any inclination toward being divas as they are willing to let their respective ages show quite clearly at times.

Mom and Dad made their money in the 80s, by the looks of things, as their house is furnished from that time period, and their vehicles also look to be that vintage. Things don’t seem to have moved on since then, as everyone in the house becomes not so much preserved as pickled in that season of their lives, or doing everything they can to escape it.

Don’t go to this movie if you are looking for a pick-me-up. Dark is an understatement. However, it might make you feel better about any family dysfunction you may experience. It’s hard to imagine that ANYONE’s family could be much worse than this. You should go home more appreciative of yours. These people are messed up, and everything that could happen does. There are times that the Calvinists among you will think you are viewing a case study in total depravity.

While it is very dark, there are moments of humor. Streep’s expressions are like no other, such as when her daughter asks her if she’s supposed to be smoking in her condition. She delivers the response, “Is anybody supposed to smoke?” with a husky depth that no one else could.

While I found the movie a downer, a friend suggested that it might be a cathartic experience for those who have suffered through family situations with many rifts that are never spoken of. Streep’s character decides to do some “truth-telling”, laying all (almost all, anyway) the dirty laundry on the table, and all-out war ensues in a way that some beaten-down children may fantasize about.

The acting is fantastic on all counts, though I just can’t quite deal with Benedict Cumberbatch and Ewan McGregor speaking with what seems to be an Oklahoman accent.

Go to this one if you really appreciate acting, but if you need a movie for escapist purposes, go see something else.