The Celebration

In 1998, this film won the Jury Prize at Cannes. It is a hard film to watch, dealing, as it does honestly and unflinchingly, with family sexual abuse, and the revelation of it within the extended family. One son, whose twin sister has just committed suicide, due, we learn later, to the emotional and psychic consequences of the childhood sexual abuse, has come to the estate of his parents for a family reunion on the occasion of his father's 60th birthday.

On the heels of his daughter's funeral, the patriarch is celebrating his birthday. His son toasts him, revealing the childhood sexual abuse he and his sister endured during and before "daddy's baths." The way that the rest of the family reacts to this bombshell is a metaphor for how real families deal with the ugliness of this in their lives. They hear the news with no visible reaction, and slowly, as the knowledge sinks in, they choose to try to silence the messenger. He is physically carried out of the room, bound, removed to the woods, beaten,  and each time he comes back and says more. He is not violent. He is simply not willing to be silent in the face of losing his sister.  He is relentless, and finally, the relentlessness of his honesty breaks down the denial and repudiation, especially in his father, who, in the end, voluntarily removes himself from the family.

This is a searing portrait of a family. The quite complicit relatives, including the grandparents, who provide a glimpse into the father's childhood (after all, where did he learn this behavior?), the silent, nervously laughing, eager-to-please wife, who pretended what she saw wasn't happening (prefigured by the grandmother's performance of a children's song in the midst of this catastrophe,) the father's original dismissal of the charge, blank-faced and calm (followed by his doppelganger father's telling of the old and inappropriate joke about the potato in the swim trunks), the uncles as a group participating in trying to silence and extricate the accuser, the rest of the family continuing to celebrate by dancing, drinking, laughing, as if nothing extraordinary has occurred--this is, writ large, how real families act when presented with the ugliness and the reality of sexual abuse within.

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg helmed this small masterpiece with great attention to detail and character development. There are small moments here that capture whole narratives in relationships. The younger son who was sent away to school, perhaps by the mother, doing for him what she did not or could not do for her older children. Interracial relationships, rebellion, appeasement--there are comments on family dynamics which make us think about the world at large--how the family is really a microcosm of human relationships everywhere, across cultures, countries, environments, and philosophies.

In the end, the title of this film becomes, not just ironic, but also a comment on the resilience of people and the flawed families in which they grow. Here, as is very necessary and appropriate, the current abuser voluntarily, because of a self-realization we fervently hope is the denouement of all such real-life scenarios, ostracizes himself.  The poisoning limb, after all, must be amputated, and then the body can heal.

The Burmese Harp

I think this may be the most powerful and subtle antiwar film I have seen. It presents the Japanese defeat in WWII from the Japanese soldier's point of view. That culture's sensitivity to humiliation and loss of face plays into the demise of one unit which vows to fight to the death rather than accept capture. The heavily shadowed black and white photography in the beginning when the outcome for Mizushima, the private and harp player, is still circumscribed by combat, gives way toward the end to lighter, clearer shots of a more serene nature when he has made his choice.

His odyssey toward spirituality and away from waging war is a tortured look at what war does, not only to people's lives, but to their ideals. Confronted by the enormity of hundreds of unburied Japanese bodies, he endeavors to pay respect to them. He attempts to bury some by hand, he burns others and constructs an altar. In the end, when repatriation comes for the Japanese prisoners, he stays behind in Burma to honor and protect these dead brothers with his presence as a Buddhist monk in training. Perhaps that is all one man can do in the face of such meaningless destruction of human life. Can we ever stop it? The question here is 'Can this ever be worth what it costs?' The answer is never easy. And it is a very personal one. That this man, this eager-to-please private, should devote the rest of his life to peace is a powerful statement.

This film is widely considered a masterpiece from director Kon Ichikawa. He does not demonize the enemy. In fact, there is a touching sequence in which both sides in a standoff, both unaware that the war ended three days earlier, sing to each other across the battlefield. We see the vulnerable humanity of both sides, their longing to go home. Music is used very beautifully here. The Captain, played by Rentaro Mikuri, who is interviewed on this Criterion disc in 2005, is a choral director in his pre-war life, and he teaches his unit choral singing as a way to unite them. The songs are haunting in their plaintive longing and a perfect metaphor for what unites us as a species, which, I think, is our intrinsic desire for harmony and peace.

Also included on this disc is an interview with director Ichikawa taped, I think, in 2002. He, too, (like Ozu about whom I wrote earlier) was a director who relied heavily on his storyboarding. The screenplay, based on a Japanese children's novel by Michio Takeyama, was written by Ichikawa's wife, Natto Wada. From the comments in the interviews, it seems that Wada, with Takeyama's permission, took considerable license with the story and the characters, adding much, I believe, that elevated this film to universal understanding, rather than removing anything essential.

This film was remade in 1985, and I have not seen the remake, but my question about remakes of classics is always, 'Why?'  There is a relevance to the 1956 version that will never be lost. We continue to wage war, men continue to fight for causes not their own, war costs so very, very much, in every way conceivable. A film which says so clearly and beautifully why war is not worth it deserves to stand on its own.

The Hangover Part II

OMG seems appropriate in more ways than one--both as a comment in itself and as a recognizable label for Generation Z, the core audience (I want to believe). This comedy had the biggest weekend opening to date--the price of tickets has something to do with that--so when it seemed like the only possible movie I could imagine myself watching at the cineplex last night, even though I hated the original, my husband and I added to the total take, ensuring that there will, indeed, be a Part III sometime soon.  Hollywood believes that something which works the first time must continue to work, all elements being equal and identical, and if money were the only measure, the truth of that is borne out here.

But for me, a movie's box office has little to do with its value, especially in present day America. While I was sitting in the theater, only partially engaged with the action on the screen, I had an opportunity to ruminate on the forces and predilections that brought Hangover II to the screen, and the reasons that it is, for me, a dire comment on American tastes and values. It strikes me that, for a country which has gone in the direction of conservatism and religious extremism politically and socially, this movie represents and showcases the ugly underbelly of that. As a nation when we are most vociferously touting Christian and/or family values, our history has shown that we are doing dirty things in the closet, waging war in the name of our skewed values, and tolerating hypocrisy in ourselves.  And this movie seems to me to be a metaphor for that.

The plot is Hangover I redux with more crudity, nudity, jokes to the grossest common denominator, and situations which, if real, would cause not just havoc, but despair, in anyone's life. I'm not sure that I ever laughed throughout. And I love to laugh, which is one of the reasons I chose this movie. My sons, who loved Hangover I, think that I didn't give it a fair assessment, so I saw viewing Hangover II as a way to give the series a second chance. As one of my sons said, there may be a disconnect between my generation (Baby Boomer) and Generation Z in comedy appreciation.  But I don't believe that. As I told him, I will never look back on this movie and say, "Well, that was a classic!" Time will not improve Hangover II; instead it will expose its stereotypical humor and its impoverished view of society.

My standard for good comedy is Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert--intelligent comedy that comments on the world at large and exposes its insanity, prejudice, and ridiculousness. I loved Sacha Baron Cohen's parodies, and Bill Maher's "Religulous" because they actually SAID something about society. While still being very funny, they exposed truths about us, and made us think. The only thing Hangover II made me think was how sad it is that we have come to this. The really sad part is the box office take because SO many people are willing to pay to see this. What has happened to our taste, our standards?

For instance a lot of the comedy concerns, for mainstream cinema, sexual taboos, yet none of it serves any larger purpose. Like the diarrhea sequence in "Bridesmaids" it just seems a little pathetic, and both pander to the bodily function discomfort in all of us, about which we laugh, out of EMBARRASSMENT, not actual amusement. We have all been there, and the memory is uncomfortable, not truly funny. It is just TOO EASY to make those jokes. So why do it?

Leaving the movie, I looked at some in the audience. One man with his, at most, twelve year old son. Parenting is something I won't get into here, but this is another societal concern. Young people--early 20's--laughing and talking about how funny it was. A couple of  middle-aged women who sat behind me and giggled all through the movie. To say that I felt a disconnect with them is putting it mildly. I suppose I am the one who is out of step here. But the only value this movie has for me is to point out the society from which it springs, so it saddens and disheartens me. Sometimes my son tells me not to watch so many serious movies that are, he thinks, downers for me. No, THIS is the real downer for me, a movie with no real humor, no intelligence, no self-knowledge. See it if you want, but it is truly a waste of time.

And by the way, I think a monkey was harmed in the making of this movie. No kidding.

Cedar Rapids

I saw this film at an art house theater so it will not have a wide release, but instead will come to an HBO or Showtime near you very soon. John C. Reilly  continues to impress me with his range. He plays a loveable flawed goofball, but with a layered complexity that gives the audience a glimpse of the pain behind his crude facade.
I first noticed his ability as an actor in "Chicago," and since then, no matter what the role, he has done a great job of character interpretation.
The lead actor here is a face I've seen somewhere before (the kind of face we like, but really don't take much notice of) but can't place. His unassuming name, Ed Helms, does not ring with movie lead heft, yet his performance as a naive rube going to the city for a convention for the first time, is entirely believable and engaging, and not at all a caricature, as it could have been in less capable hands.
Anne Heche is well cast as the small town insurance agent in real life/brittle party girl of "what happens in Cedar Rapids, stays in Cedar Rapids" lore. Confronted with the unaffected innocence of Helms' character, her hard shell begins to crack.
But the most interesting thing about this movie is its setting at a mid-level insurance convention which recognition most participants see as the pinnacle of their success. Everything about the settings-- (the faintly seedy yet still respectable mid-level hotel with its out-of-date furniture and bland expanses of carpet), the costumes (the lower middle class take on "business attire"), the color palate (beige, taupe, touches of orange, brown and more brown)--adds to the sense of futility the film seems to have about these people's lives.
This is a comedy, but a comedy that lets the audience see the tragedy at its core.
The plot is completely pedestrian and we see its resolution coming right away, and, as a comedy is wont to deliver, there is a happy ending.  All of these unhappy people come together and make something out of their friendship, something that even improves their industry, even if on a very small, very personal, level. And isn't that the meaning we all search for in our lives? Something on which to hang a little hope?

Blue Valentine

When my son saw that I had watched this on PPV, he groaned, "Oh Mom, you've got to stop watching movies like this!" Yes, it is a movie about the dissolution of a marriage (a particular hot button of mine), but more than that, it is a view of a particular blue collar dead end life that somehow contributes to the end of the relationship as much as do its inherent problems--one-sided love, thwarted ambition, anger issues, unresolved jealousy.
Michelle Williams plays a woman who is born to be used by men, to be attracted to those with that proclivity. To her earnest, uncomprehending husband she feels little love and much resentment. Circumstances have conspired to keep her from what she thinks she wants, but she has been a willing co-conspirator in the downward spiral of her existence. She does not, however, have the insight to realize this.
When her work life and her home life and perhaps her dream life all come tumbling down at once, she is ill-equipped to understand why, and so opts to end her marriage as some kind of proactive response to the chaos.
Everyone here has no anchor, no stability, even of the mental or spritual variety. These are lives lived wholly without examination. And let me say that perhaps there is no ability to examine or critically evaluate. Ryan Gosling plays the husband with just the right degree of hapless ignorance and nervous striving. We know, as we watch the trickling down of their lives, that everything will go downhill from here.
We can see the future--her dates with men who will use her, her gradual fade into hardness and bitterness; his aimless drift from job to job, fighting when he can't deal with his fate; the child's (the child!) unmoored life mourning her once-upon-a-time little family, prey to the same yearning for love that seized her mother. It is a sad, but terribly truthful, tale.
The loss and eventual death of the dog in the first scene is a metaphor for this marriage. Bad things happen to unattended beings.

Early Summer

My first exposure to the cinematic art of Yasujiro Ozu, and a prosaic revelation. This film was made in 1951, only six years after the end of WWII, and just after the occupation of Japan had ended. Yet it is universal, even unintentionally so, in its depiction of the family unit. Ozu said that he was making films for the Japanese, not for an international audience, yet this one says much about humanity that is coded in our DNA.

Are we not the species that knows it will die, that is aware that nothing lasts, that understands that change is the only certainty? And in this film, which unfolds with the humdrum pace and feel of a day in the life of an extended everyfamily, the magic of life's inconstancy is realized.

Ozu used an almost formulaic approach to scene setting and advancing, a static camera (for the most part) and an unvarying low camera angle from which to craft his almost plotless story. But he lets us into his characters' lives seamlessly and stealthily. They don't know we are there, and we often see them just as we would if we were in the room, from the back, in a group, from a distance. All is not told-- we deduce, we imagine, we put bits and pieces of information together-- as some far less able directors are wont to do, we are not told everything.

There is something basic and elemental and very truthful in this style of storytelling. In the same way that I love the spareness and order of Oriental art and design, I love Ozu's beautifully patterned cinematic vision.

This is the story of a cohesive, rather small extended Japanese family at the crossroads of societal change (they are in it but unaware that it is happening). And this little family breaks apart, pieces being scattered in different directions, a change society has inexorably taken or been driven. This means different things for the three generations of the family, and it is most poignant and revealing for the old parents who know best what it bodes. That almost everything happens organically and naturally and true to character is another of Ozu's triumphs since he wrote the screenplay with his co-author.

The stories told on this Criterion Collection disc of how Ozu worked show that everything we see on the screen was planned, orchestrated, fine-tuned by him, from five month writing sessions to exhaustive storyboarding to endless takes. He was, quite simply, an artist.

The Black Swan

Where to begin? This movie captivated me at first. I fell hard for its cinema verite quality, the incandescent and often searing performance of Natalie Portman, and, yes, the handheld camera following the action.
But somewhere between the lesbian sex and the shard stabbing, I began to notice that I was watching a movie. I began to see the puppet strings: the chocolate pudding blood, the costume bait and switch, the makeup masquerading as madness.
In the end, I couldn't make the leap with Aronofsky. He lost me somewhere on the way, and I think it was when he began hoisting me over the incongruities as if I would not notice they were there.
It seemed that he wanted to remake "The Red Shoes" without the poetry, the beauty or the pathos. It's a "Red Shoes" for the modern world--raw, ugly, and doomed. Portman's performance alone redeems this film and saves it from being a parody of mental anguish and thwarted desire.