OF GODS AND MEN (2010): Religion and Tolerance

Of Gods and Men is one of the most thoughtful movies I have ever seen.  I’d probably go back to The Apostle – Robert Duvall’s extremely undervalued 1997 production – to find a film that would have forced a viewer to so question their own assumptions concerning a particular subject.  In both films, religion has been treated respectfully to such an extent that one has to marvel as to how either came to be filmed.  It goes without saying that neither movie was made in a major Hollywood studio.

In Of Gods and Men, we have a group of Cistercian Trappist monks performing good works to a small and impoverished community located in Algeria.  The members of that community also happen to be Muslims.  Headed by a priest named Christian (Lambert Wilson), the monks partake in the religious rituals of the local people, provide mainly practical rather than religious advice, and never seem to proselytize. An elderly monk named Luc (Michael Lonsdale) is particularly loved by the people for his humor and for his efforts to provide medical care to anyone that happens to be in need of it.  When not helping members of the community, the monks sing their chants and comply with their priestly rituals.  These monks also happen to be in a country torn by civil war between a corrupt government and certain Muslim factions that are deemed to be terrorists. Near the monastery there was a slaughter of civilians that brought the area under the scrutiny of the government.  That the monks are willing to provide any humanitarian assistance at all to the local population is viewed with suspicion by government leaders. 

One Christmas Eve, the monks are visited by a group of men led by Rabbia (Sabrina Ouazani) that the government suspects of being terrorists.  Christian prevents the group of men from occupying the monastery by demonstrating his knowledge of Islam, and by asking Rabbia to respect their religion as Christian and the other monks respect theirs.  Though Christian refuses to allow Luc to go with Rabbia’s men to treat one of the group members that happens to be wounded, Christian does allow Luc to provide medicine and medical advice to this group of men that the monastery can afford.  When local government officials discover that medical care is dispensed by members of the monastery (without the monks inquiring about the politics of individuals receiving such medical aid), the government withdraws all protection of the monastery.  The monks understand that they are now in danger.  The members debate their situation and some of them argue that they should leave.  However, any dissension among the monks is soon put aside out of concerns for the people living in the community, and the monks democratically and unanimously vote to stay there.  Eventually, the monks are abducted by a militant Islamic group.  After this abduction (which took place sometime in 1996), those monks abducted are never seen from again.  The film ends showing the monks marching single file with their captors through the mountains in the snow.  Two monks (that hid in the monastery) did survive to tell their story.

Filmed in French and directed by Xavier Beauvois, Of Gods and Men is 120 minutes long.  Probably this is too long for those turned off by displays of religious piety, yet without question the dignity and simplicity of the life of such monks is deftly displayed.  The monks exhibit poise and even humor in their day to day interactions with a community that does not share their faith.  The confrontation with Rabbia comes across as authentic rather than forced.  Rabbia may or may not have been involved in the earlier slaughter, but Christian and his monks are able to bring out Rabbia’s humanity.  The acting of Wilson, Lonsdale and Sabrina Ouazani is superb, but then so is the acting of every other member in the cast.

The movie is highly critical of the Algerian government’s approach to the terrorist issue in their methods of fighting the power of the terrorists only with the purpose of maintaining their own power.  It is clear that virtue did not belong in either case to those wielding the power.  The example of the monks provides an alternative vision for the Algerians under their care.  It’s not their religious faith but their tolerance and compassion that make this alternative desirable.  And this film sends a message that communication between two faiths that at first seem so different may be bridged by compassion and decency.

A few critics dismissed Of Gods and Men because they wanted more cynicism.  In their jaded world, cynicism passes for sophistication.  Even Roger Ebert, who does not completely dismiss the film, seems befuddled by the film’s message.  Ebert is troubled by the monks’ decision to stay at the monastery in the face of known danger.  “Did they make the right choice? In their own idealistic terms, yes. In realistic terms, I say no. They have the ability to help many who need it for years to come. It is egotism to believe their help must take place in this specific monastery. Between the eight of them, they have perhaps a century of life of usefulness remaining. Do they have a right to deprive those who need it of their service? In doing so, are they committing the sin of pride?” 

I could see Ebert with this pretzel logic coming to some similar conclusions about the film Schindler’s List.  Why did Oscar Schindler confront Nazi authority to try to rescue 300 members on his list that were inadvertently shipped to Auschwitz when he could instead have been supplied (and thus possibly saved) 300 other workers for his factory that were also facing deportation?   Fortunately, Ebert is a movie reviewer and not someone that others depend upon for their lives. Schindler had made a promise to those he kept on his list just as the Cistercian Trappist monks had made an implicit promise to those in a small Algerian community.  Ebert seems to feel that the monks should have chosen the intelligent (i.e. prudent) course of action rather than one that was courageous and compelling.  What truly would have been the intelligent course of action under such circumstances of course could be debated, but there is no question that the monks chose to take a great risk.  In the face of torture and death by marauding terrorists, I doubt very much that pride had anything to do with the decision that they made.  Yet in a world filled with such danger and risk, what smaller lives we would live if we allowed circumstances to force us to live less beautiful lives.  And that is what Ebert is asking us to consider doing.

Of Gods and Men is a film about genuine greatness of character.  That the film demonstrates this in such a truthful manner demonstrates greatness in storytelling as well – something that is unfortunately rare in the history of moviemaking.

April 23, 2011

©  Robert S. Miller 2011

BIUTIFUL (2010): Good Acting, Poor Story Telling

Writer, producer and director Alejandro González Iñárritu is so conscious of appearing relevant that he consistently wrecks a good storyline.  He did this in Babel, and he has done it in Biutiful as well.  At 148 minutes Biutiful is about one hour too long, but this is not the worst of the film’s defects.   I wouldn’t be bothered that the director was trying to say too much with his films if he wouldn’t be so pretentious in saying it.  We have a poor Spanish family (the father staring Javier Bardem, mother played by Maricel Alvarez, and two young children played by Hanaa Bouchaib and Guillermo Estrella) dealing with the mother’s insanity and the father’s cancer.  Concerning this part of the story, the film just about comes across as authentic.  Then we have an underworld story of trafficking in immigrant labor, the death of these immigrants due to a faulty heater, the clumsy disposal of the dead bodies in the ocean which is soon discovered and broadcast by the media worldwide, and the murder of the individual that disposed of the bodies by that individual’s gay lover.  The events of this film become so distant from reality that we stop caring what the writer, producer and director is attempting to say.

Javier Bardem as Uxbal (the father), Maricel Alvarez as Maramba (the mother), Hanaa Bouchaib as Ana (the seven or eight year old daughter) and Guillermo Estrella as Mateo (the four year old son) almost make this film work through their acting ability.  Eduard Fernandez as Tito, Uxbal’s untrustworthy brother (who happens to be sleeping with Maramba) is adequately played.  Uxbal’s maid, Ige (Diaryatou Daff), Uxbal’s own father and a Chinese immigrant mother and her child, are also individuals we come to care about.  All other characters in the film are forgettable. 

Uxbal is haunted by thoughts of his dead father that he has never met.  (He meets his father at the beginning and end of this film in the afterlife.)  This all coincides with the knowledge that he soon will die.  Uxbal is most concerned that no one will be left to look after his two young children after he does die because Maramba cannot be trusted with this task (due to her bi-polar disorder), Tito probably does not give a damn about anyone, and Ige wants to rejoin her husband in Senegal.  It is out of sheer decency that Ige decides to stay in Spain and look after the children.

There are attributes to the film.  The setting in the side streets of Barcelona befits the movie’s theme.  By no means is the Barcelona we come to expect as a locale so heavily promoted in the tourist trade.  Alejandro González Iñárritu may be the only current director that seems to understand that real poverty is a problem worth consideration.  There is also a redemption story that probably would not have worked if Javier Bardem wasn’t cast as the lead character.  His character, while all the while surrounded by trouble and sadness, displays dignity in attempting to overcome these obstacles.  There is joy in Uxbal’s interaction with his children, and sorrow in the anxiety and grief the family is forced to endure.  No additional storyline was required to make a statement that resonates. 

Still, the filmmakers seemed to feel the need to pour additional grief upon the lead character.  Dying from cancer, having a wife that is mentally ill and having no legitimate means of support for his family was not enough for them.  The filmmakers try tricking the viewer into watching this film.  They cheapen the film by including themes of drug abuse, infidelity and buggery in an attempt to lure in an audience that otherwise would have no interest in such a plot.  The misspelling of the word beautiful to come up with the title for this film is just one more desperate attempt to bring the film attention.  It didn’t work.  Like Babel, there is a core to this movie that is almost as good as anything we will ever find on the screen.  In both films that nugget is buried in excess.

March 24, 2011

© Robert S. Miller 2011

THE KING’S SPEECH (2010): King George VI

The Academy Award Ceremonies for movies filmed in 2010 is this evening so I am in a rush to get this review out before the award for best picture is announced.  I neither know nor care which film is going to win (as a general rule, committees seldom get it right), but I do know that The King’s Speech will receive accolades.  It’s a well made and extremely conventional film that for the most part accomplishes what the director set out to do: make the audience feel sympathetic towards the lead character, King George VI (Colin Firth).  Since we’ve only had two or three movies in the last twenty years that have won the Best Picture Oscar that were anything but conventional movies, I’d say that The King’s Speech has a good chance of winning.

George VI (called “Bertie” by his family) never expected that he would ascend to the throne.  That was to be the destiny of his older brother, David (Guy Pearce), later to become King Edward VIII.  There were a couple of complications in having Edward VIII retain his key role in the monarchy, however.  For one, he intended to marry a twice divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson (Eve Best).  This would be totally unacceptable to the Church of England.  More significantly (and something barely hinted at in The King’s Speech) are the fascist leanings of the Edward VIII and the close ties that Simpson had with members of the Nazi regime in power in Germany.  Within a few years, Hitler’s troops would be bombing London, so Edward VIII getting married off in this manner was actually a blessing to the English people.

There was one problem with Bertie taking the throne (and it was impossible not to know this with the publicity that this film has received): he was a stutterer.  Whether it was because he was left-handed, bullied by his domineering father, ridiculed by other family members (especially by David), abused by his nanny, haunted by the death of another brother who suffered from epilepsy, or mostly friendless as a child - all of these circumstances are tossed out as possible contributing factors for this speech defect.  If Bertie was to take the throne, he would also be expected to make wartime speeches to counter the rabble rousing diatribes given by Hitler to increasingly larger rallies throughout Germany.  Thus, before and after he ascended the throne, Bertie is seen on almost a daily basis by a brilliant speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush).  Logue, a failed actor (not a licensed physician), has many years of experience working with those struggling to speak including soldiers wounded in World War I.  Logue insists that he and his royal client treat each other as equals – something that one about to take the throne might find to be a difficult task.  Nevertheless, because of Logue’s therapy and the support of Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), King George VI succeeds at making that first speech (and we’re to presume many others) to the English people with little to indicate the presence of any speech impediment whatsoever.

The King’s Speech is a simple and moving story.  The film does as good a job of presenting Collin Firth in the role of underdog as any film about the royalty could possibly deliver.  Firth, Rush and Pearce are all excellently cast in their respective roles.  We at all times feel like we are in pre-war England throughout the movie, and at 111 minutes the film does not seem overly long for a movie that’s a borderline melodrama.  That’s probably enough for this kind of film because it certainly wasn’t designed to get below the depths of anything.   David Siedler wrote the screenplay (who never has written anything else significant that has appeared in film to date) and Tom Hooper directed the movie (who has always directed films for television before this).  If the film was intended to show us the human side of the royal family, it certainly accomplishes this (though probably no better than The Queen filmed in 2006).  The story of Edward VIII abdication from the throne was so well publicized in the tabloid news that we don’t get much dirt known only among the inner circles of the royal family.  Edward VIII was the bad king that thankfully stepped aside for the good king, George VI.  The movie is not about Edward VIII, so I guess we didn’t need to know about his incessant womanizing that went on long before he met Wallis Simpson, that after the abdication he and his wife (who became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor) visited Hitler in Germany, that the couple were guarded by Nazi security when they lived in occupied Paris, that Winston Churchill threatened the Duke with court marshal if he did not return to British soil and show at least a little concern that England may be destroyed by the Nazi bombings, and otherwise harbored racist feelings to all non-white members of the British empire.  Since it is about George VI, one good deed of the king never mentioned in the film was that he and his wife remained in London during the blitzkrieg that was occurring in the skies of London during the entire Battle of Britain.  Because of this show of courage, George VI probably renewed faith in a monarchy that many will always debate to be a useless institution.

As much as I pretend otherwise, I was somewhat impressed that the Academy Award committee last year showed a bit of acumen by choosing The Hurt Locker over the obscenely popular Avatar.  Still, it doesn’t bother me that conventional films often get the nod because what passes for “edgy” in Hollywood is often pseudo-babble dressed up as profundity.  If The King’s Speech receives the Oscar instead of The Social Network, I will await the critics lamenting that once again a film with social relevance has been passed up for the award.  It’s these same critics that are guilty of hyping pretension and cynicism over stories that they never quite admit affect them emotionally.

February 27, 2011

© Robert S. Miller 2011

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (2010): The Education of Our Children

Whatever the merit is of his films, Director Davis Guggenheim has a knack for getting his documentaries discussed in the mainstream media.  The last documentary that was discussed as much as Waiting for Superman was An Inconvenient Truth, released in 2006 and also directed by Guggenheim.  With An Inconvenient Truth Guggenheim was doing the bidding for those in the environmental movement that supported legislative reform such as “Cap and Trade,” and with Waiting for Superman he is doing the bidding of those that support educational reform such as those that advocate further implementation of the use of charter schools.  I guess Guggenheim deserves credit for on one hand going after the corporate polluters (endearing him to liberals such as Al Gore) and on the other hand going after teacher unions (endearing him to cultural conservatives that feel our public education system is failing our children).  Then again, Guggenheim is probably guilty of opportunism by pushing whatever cause may be popular at the time.

Waiting for Superman does raise some extremely valid points.  Whether our educational system is or is not failing our children, there is not a thoughtful person in our nation that doesn’t hope that our school system can do better.  George W. Bush brought in “No Child Left Behind,” and the Obama administration is now calling to overhaul that legislation with their own initiative named “Race to the Top,” calling it our “Sputnik moment” to improve our educational system (see President Obama’s State-of-the-Union address).  The educational reform movement would not have become so politicized unless the whole issue was vital to the American public. 

In Waiting for Superman, we follow the families of five students desperate enough to apply for admission to charter schools so these students can escape a public school system plagued by crime, violence, drug abuse and incompetent teachers and administrators.  Anthony, who is being raised by his grandmother, is applying for a school with 69 applicants vying for 24 admissions.  Francisco lives in Harlem and is among 792 students applying for 40 possible openings.  Bianca, who also lives in Harlem, is among 767 students applying for 35 openings.  Emily, who lives in Silicon Valley, is nevertheless applying for a charter school because in even such a wealthy community the schools are failing their students.  And sadly, the prodigal Daisy, who desires to become a doctor and shows a great aptitude for learning, is one of 135 students applying for a charter school in Los Angeles with only 10 openings.  The students applying to charter schools such as these are chosen through a lottery system, and their presence is required when the numbers are drawn to see if they are or are not selected for admission.

We’re fed a lot of statistics in Waiting for Superman - with little context provided throughout the showing.  In this the film lacks any in-depth analysis, which was also missing in An Inconvenient Truth.  Yes, the statistics report that America’s school system is falling behind those of other industrial nations (our students are 21^st in science and 25^th in math in the rankings), but accepting this at face value is dependent on whether those statistics presented from other nations and our own are actually reported accurately.  We also have sound bites from individuals such as Geoffrey Canada, a former educator and current educational activist with a non-profit organization called “The After School Corporation.”  Michelle Rhee, the controversial former Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools, utters some incendiary remarks about the quality of our teachers and schools (“I know they’re getting a crappy education …”).  Bill Strickland, who served on the board for the National Endowment of the Arts, is shown in a charter school demonstrating his novel application of the arts to reach youths from troubled neighborhoods.   Strickland is quoted as saying that “everybody is going to drown” if we don’t do something about our schools.  Bill Gates talks about his own foundation's effort to finance alternate forms of education.  Finally, Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, makes an appearance not so much to present the other side of the story, but to be quoted to supposedly demonstrate that the teachers’ union is unsympathetic and basically opposed to any kind of education reform.

Waiting for Superman contains a good storyline in that it demonstrates how potentially good students are being neglected a decent education - especially in the poorer neighborhoods of our country.  For example, we discover a school that graduated only 20,000 of the 60,000 students that had attended it.  And though they are not becoming executives among our corporations, minorities are populating our prisons.  We spend approximately $667 billion in federal money annually on our schools (though according to one set of Congressional budget statistics, only 23 cents of every dollar allotted to education is actually spent on education) and propose $100 billion dollars of educational spending increases in Congress every year.  As Guggenheim is quick to point out, lack of funding might not be the problem.

But Guggenheim presents to us a problem without much of a solution.  Charter Schools, he seems to be saying, are the Holy Grail.  That he only presents to us a handful of charter schools, and that we have no way of knowing if the schools he shows are either as good as he suggests or representative of charter schools as a whole, does not seem to concern Guggenheim.  We’re not given a complete answer as to why some schools succeed and others fail.  Blame in this film is directed at the public schools, the teachers’ union, and the failure of either to base teacher salaries upon merit.  Guggenheim barely addresses crime, drug abuse and violence.  A criticism of Waiting for Superman is that it only presents students raised by family members motivated in seeing their children succeed.  These students may not be typical of those in our public schools.  If students in charter schools are more successful (and that contention is debatable), it may be because they have someone at home that cares enough to see them succeed.  Also, what denotes a failing school is tossed around in the movie without precision.  “No Child Left Behind” has been criticized because it encourages schools to focus on making children better at taking tests while not making them better students.  Certain charter schools prepare students to take standard tests without preparing them to function better in the outside world.  Nor do we ever learn in the film how feasible it would be to create a system of charter schools that could be used by more than a small percentage of the population.

Still, what critics of Waiting for Superman have missed is that the importance of the film is not in a specific solution, but in its plea that something needs to be done.  Whether we do or do not think the public school system is in as difficult of a predicament as Guggenheim seems to suggest, educational reform is not an issue that is going to go away.  (I even saw a remark in a Mother Jones article, a magazine known for forwarding progressive causes, criticizing many liberals for not getting behind the reform of our educational system.)  Whether we are or are not satisfied with the quality of education in this country, again, no one is saying that we do not want for our schools to be better.  Critics of Waiting for Superman poke fun at Guggenheim’s suggestion that charter schools are the answer, but these critics do not provide any solution of their own – outside of suggesting we spend more money.  Waiting for Superman is a 102 minute conversation starter.

When watching the children waiting to see if their number is picked in the heartless lottery system that the charter schools employed (and for some reason the five students featured in this film had to witness), one still felt empathy for the children and hoped that each of them somehow could receive an education that would better their situations.  If the quality of our education is truly the most important consideration to the future of our country, then we also need to address the competency of our teachers and the resistance of the teachers’ union to change.

February 8, 2011

©  Robert Miller 2011

BLACK SWAN (2010): Ballet Horror Flick

Black Swan is about a young dancer’s plunge into madness.  It is a joyless film displaying good choreography and an incredible work ethic on the part of the lead actress that will endear it to pretentious critics and the Academy Award Committee.  It is much like The Reader with its muddled storyline that some audience members will label as brilliance.  It’s much more like Carrie starring Sissy Spacek (though not nearly so good because Carrie really was intended to be a horror flick) in that both movies attempt to blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Nina (Natalie Portman), a naïve and somewhat sexually confused young woman, tries out for the lead in Swan Lake.  Along with this comes many of the more negative attributes of being in such a profession (self-loathing, addiction to overworking, eating disorders, etc.).  Her mother (Barbara Hershey) is a controlling mother and failed ballet dancer that secretly wishes that her daughter would fail in any particular pursuit.  Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the director of the ballet, is a lecher and a tyrant who spends his time humiliating his cast – and in particular, Nina, who he believes in as the “White Swan” but not as the “Black Swan.”  Beth (Winona Ryder) is the aging ballerina that used to be the favorite of Thomas before Nina began to impress the director with her (Nina’s) dancing skills.  Finally, there is Lily (Mila Kunis), who at first pretends to befriend Nina, but later becomes her competitor for the role of the lead in the ballet.  Thomas spends his time fondling Nina and insulting her alleged frigidity to supposedly help Nina metamorphose into the “Black Swan.”   He encourages Nina to masturbate which is somehow supposed to help her better understand her role.  Nina also begins to fantasize about having a lesbian encounter with Lily.  Beth is so jealous of Nina that Beth throws herself in front of a car and badly injures herself to gain the attention of Thomas.  Nina’s mother is so jealous of Nina spending all her time in training that she tries to keep Nina at home to sabotage Nina’s career.  All of this leads to Nina going insane.  The insanity manifests itself in hallucinations, fantasies, rages and the belief that she is growing feathers and has webbed feet and hands.  Nina nevertheless perseveres and gives a brilliant rendition of the “White Swan” and the “Black Swan” in front of a live audience.  Only at the end do we discover that she had pierced herself with a piece of broken glass and as a result she dies just after the performance of Swan Lake was completed.  (We’re not sure if she actually dies or if this is one more fantasy.)

There’s no question that Black Swan has its attributes.  The dance sequences are dazzling, and Natalie Portman is believable as the dancer determined to be a success at all costs to her own peace of mind.  There is a certain suspense that is sustained throughout the movie as we are always kept guessing at to what will happen next.  And juxtaposing the “Black Swan” role along with Nina’s mental state is actually some effective use of symbolism.

There’s also no question that the movie is a mess.  There is no coherent storyline, and nobody in the supporting cast does a decent job in playing their part. Hershey, Cassel, Kunis and Ryder come across as real and one-dimensional as plastic plants.  If the parts these individuals played were the only characters to provide Nina with guidance, one couldn’t blame her for committing (a supposed) suicide in the end.  The portrayal of sexuality throughout the film is relatively mild by today’s standards, but in the context of this particular film it comes out about as wholesome as if we watched a couple of hours of hardcore porn.  It’s gratuitous and completely false.  And the filmmakers did a bit too adequate of a job in making Nina’s flight into madness completely over the top.  It’s too easy hiding a faulty storyline behind the mental fog of a deranged individual.  It would be more difficult to attempt to make sense of the main character’s insanity by providing some plot development.  She was supposed to be an innocent girl, so why did she plunge herself into such depravity?  As it is, whether “White Swan,” “Black Swan,” or combination of “White Swan” and “Black Swan,” we never have the feeling that whatever direction Nina chose to go her destiny would have been anything but tragic. 

The movie runs for 108 minutes, rather short for a movie blockbuster, and this is at least a relief.  It’s directed by Darren Aronofsky, who also directed The Wrestler.  Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising.  A female friend of mine felt that Black Swan was too much like a teenage boy’s idea of how young women dancers would speak and behave - when not practicing their dance moves.  Black Swan is one of the most disappointing movies that I have seen in years (usually I don’t expect much to begin with) because, as evidenced by The Wrestler, I thought that Anonofsky could hold such an unpredictable storyline together as we have in Black Swan.

We will see what kind of accolades Black Swan receives at all of the award ceremonies.  Not surprisingly, Natalie Portman won a Golden Globe award.  She was at least believable as a dancer and as a fragile human being.  The more important indicator of the quality of this movie will be determined over time.  Will this movie standup in ten or fifteen years?  I’m not convinced that it will because in just twenty-four hours I have no desire to ever see this movie again.  It is a movie that tears down yet never builds anything up in its place.  It is entirely negative in its treatment.  One walks away from this and so many other Hollywood movies with little to give anyone hope.

January 17, 2011

© Robert S. Miller 2011