thomasdosborneii Reviews

The Boy Who Couldn't Swim (2011)

The Journey May Be The Companion

[9/10 · 12 October 2013]

This was a very beautiful film with two young actors whose faces were very expressive of their personal sense of unsureness and disconnectedness with the world, yet wishing to demonstrate a bravado and control of their personal circumstances. The opening shots of the film showed the yearning and glistening hope in the eyes of the boy, Rasmus, as he looked out the train window, contrasted with the harsh face of a middle-aged stranger sitting next to him on the train whose face showed the angry lines of a firm acceptance of his place in hard world where dreams won't come true. One can see in that that youth is not apt to find much of value from people such as those, who are more apt to destroy their spirit than they are to ignite it.

In the train station, the other boy, Niklas, almost by a kind of bodily magnetism instantly connects with Rasmus as someone he can trust to help him by holding a stolen item while he escapes from men who are pursuing him. A while later, Niklas, having escaped from the pursuing men, meets up with Rasmus and while it seems that Rasmus has a vague destination he is heading for that he doesn't feel like revealing to Niklas, Niklas convinces him that they need to go there together with Rasmus riding in the cart of Rasmus's bicycle cart. And that really was the true journey, the two of them toward, or with, each other, they who share certain personal circumstances and need.

This action of them traveling together seemed to put them together in their own isolated bubble. Much of the movie was simply their traveling together throughout the city of Copenhagen from one destination to another (which I appreciated seeing, as while I have passed through Copenhagen, I haven't seen very much of it), but the beauty of the city, the simple shared exuberance of the boys as they felt the wind in their hair and a feeling of their own motive power, and the various expressions on their faces, sometimes wide open, sometimes cautiously masked, tell the true story without a need for words. And what words there were, were pointed and expressive, and throughout those conversations the boys were continually reaching out in yearning for connection, and then drawing back into unsureness, wavering on that balance beam between "yes I need" and "no I don't".

The title of the movie, "The Boy Who Couldn't Swim", made me think of a wise Jewish saying that I learned about in a psychology book, "A father's job is to teach his children how to swim." While at first that seems trivial, you come to realize that "swimming" is metaphorical of leaving the safety of home and venturing out bit by bit into an alien and dangerous world (or an uncaring and exploitative one). The father is not to hang onto his children, but to help them grow up into a secure adulthood. So what of those children who have not been "taught how to swim?" How do they maneuver out in this world without having had a secure center to start out from? Perhaps they can have another chance, by finding helpers along the way, if only they can recognize them and take the risk of connecting with them when they find them.

Close to Leo (2002 TV Movie)

How Would WE?

[8/10 · 9 October 2011]

How DOES a person react to the news that they have HIV and how does their family act? In fact, how do we think WE would act? Well, regarding that second question, I honestly don't have the slightest idea and fortunately, haven't had to find out. But I am guessing that it would involve a vast variety of conflicting and changeable emotions and behaviors, both rational and irrational, as was expressed here in this, what I can only believe is a very realistic film...because each individual and family may have their own responses. I think all emotional responses and behaviors are realistic and justified under the circumstances, even some that might generate distaste among some viewers of this film. A family, with its shock, fear, grief, and shame, if they feel those emotions, may decide to protect whom they believe is a more vulnerable member of the family. Then they may decide that that was the wrong tack to follow. Or maybe not. Who knows WHAT to do, really? Sometimes paralysis is bound to take over to the extent of collapsing into semi-catatonia, or maybe the opposite, such as running wildly toward a futile sense of escape. Any and everything may happen, and all are valid.

Isn't it realistic that one so stricken might want to reach out to people who had held meaning in the past, but not really have any idea how to go about that in a prudent way? Or maybe there will be feelings of hatred or envy of those who are able to peacefully go through the normalcy of their lives, because they do not have this issue to suddenly contend with. Maybe one might for a moment become utterly irresponsible and uncaring, or self-destructive, for in the face of death, or certain pain and anguish, what of any shreds of a former morality may seem to truly matter?

I believe that this film accurately explores the potential universe of reactions in a powerfully communicative way. This maybe made the "narrative story" jerky or uncomfortable to watch or understand, but if so, welcome to THEIR world.

I don't believe that the makers of this film believe that this film, or any other, shows the definitive way things will happen under these circumstances. I think they know more than that...that they know that we all DON'T know and all bets are off, but in their work, here, they are going to explore and have the viewer live some of the possibilities. And I felt that as a viewer, they were very successful. I couldn't help but feel throughout this movie, things maybe I didn't want to feel, but I then I shouldn't watch a movie like this if I wanted to be protected. We all knew going into it what the subject matter was.

One thing that I thoroughly appreciated about the film was the physical affection and body contact among the various family members that seemed to disturb the sensibilities of some reviewers, when it is so clear to me that one valid reaction might be the family's desire (either being satisfied in actuality or else communicated metaphorically via the visual language of film) to utterly ABSORB every precious square inch of not only the body of the loved one that is soon to be falling apart, possibly into nothingness, but also those suddenly even-more- precious-than-ever-before who will remain after the one so stricken has gone, all of whom will have to live with this shared loss for the rest of their lives. And for the one stricken, to connect with the sweet human flesh of those whom he loves while he still can effect such a connection, I submit that the most fundamental and reliable communication of all may be through touch and the body, for the emotions and the intellect would be too much in a typhoon to be constant.

Private Romeo (2011)

An Entrancing Dreamtime: Shakespeare Himself Would Have Loved This Film

[9/10 · 17 July 2011]

I loved and was entranced by this very beautiful, and beautifully done, movie. At first I was worried that the use of Shakespeare's original language was going to feel gimmicky or distracting (as it often has been in other projects...such as, in my opinion, in the Baz Luhrmann "Romeo+Juliet" film, which had other charms, to be sure, and I liked it a lot, but regarding the Shakespearean spoken dialog, I had felt that neither Leonardo DiCaprio nor Clare Danes, who are certainly otherwise good actors, had the slightest idea what they were actually saying), but instead, this film illuminated Shakespeare's language and I feel that I had rarely heard those words spoken with such beauty, clarity, and understanding. The actors completely inhabited those lines and from the powerfully projective strength of their voices, it was obvious to me that these were very talented and even classically-trained actors.

They all had the physical good looks that makes you think they could have been cast on looks, alone, and yet to see the actual TALENT they all had, was rather amazing. A little investigation later revealed that many, if not all, of them were far more interested in the New York and London theater scenes than they were in "Hollywood", and this film is probably not a "Hollywood" film, anyway.

For typical Hollywood film audiences, this film might have been narratively confusing in several different ways. For example, the director made the decision to retain the feminine gender pronouns in the dialog, and yet, despite the fact that this movie was set in an all-boys military academy, I didn't feel that these words were meant to be used insultingly or as put-downs, even when spoken to or about those in "enemy" camps. Nor was their use meant to take on a "drag queen" type of persona, like "say girl", and "she" this and that. No. These men were always clearly masculine, and especially so throughout all their wooing and love-making, and let's underscore that they were young WARRIORS, so no asking "who is the man and who is the woman in the relationship", they are both (as were all of them) MEN, okay?

For me, at any rate, it was almost automatic to either ignore the specificity of the gender pronouns (understanding that the original Shakespeare was being used without alteration or distortion), or, perhaps better, to transcend the sexual implications of gender into their spiritual qualities. For, in truth, it is only those with the least developed masculinity who are afraid to express love, to be tender and physically affectionate toward other men, to be caring and sheltering, for the fear that those qualities will "compromise" their masculinity (instead of what actually happens, it enhances it). And if sex, and marriage comes along with it, well, they're sovereign adults who know their own hearts.

I admit that were some aspects that I didn't quite get, such as why were these two "camps" enemies? They weren't from rival schools, they were in the same classrooms and shower rooms, but maybe they were on rival athletic teams within the school, and, being quite competitive naturally, any alliance across teams was frowned upon. But I never really quite got where that conflict came from. (Perhaps oversimplifying it, I can best think of this in "Harry Potter" terms, different "houses", that in this film the "Capulet" and "Montague" were equivalent to "Gryffendor" and "Slitherin".)

I did not pick up on any homophobia; it might have been there or alluded to or assumed, but I did not think that it specifically was the love between the two boys, AS two boys, that was, itself, a problem, and if I am right, then this unquestioned acceptance of that added quite a bit to the dream-like quality or maybe idealized atmosphere of the film. For then in the film's "dreamtime," then, they are beyond that issue (as it is way high time for it to be in our everyday world).

I am willing to accept that my various problems in understanding certain things indicates my imperceptions rather than failings in the construction of the film. A subsequent watching (which I am eager to do) may very well clear up every question.

But, instead of getting lost in the minutia of plot points and evaluating the correlation of the meaning between the original Shakespearean love story and a modern-day version set in an all-boys military school, I think it was much better to merely swim in the dreamy artistry and beauty of the project as a whole, to enjoy it as the work of art it is instead of merely as a narrative story.

The two boys, "Romeo" and "Juliet" were fantastic together while swirling in and speaking to one another Shakespeare's gorgeous words. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I think that Shakespeare, himself, would have loved this film, and from reading his "Sonnets", I especially think so! I am also reminded of another of his plays that I love, "As You Like It", where, in my view, love transcends "gender" (or, at least, the temporary appearance of gender).

All in all, despite a few minor flaws, this was a very worthwhile film to see and if you like Shakespeare at all, I think this film will increase your appreciation of his work (and to see how well it continues to universally apply), and if you hadn't known the director and the performers previously, the film introduces you to some seriously talented professionals whose careers are very much to be kept abreast of.

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)

Belongs in your heart

[17 May 2009]

I've got to say that I hadn't thought of this incredible film in a while, but it came up recently (the current year is 2009) and I decided to check out the reviews here. The reviews, all by themselves, and the memory of the film, and the music, and of what the film meant and of the stories of the people in it, made me cry all over again--THAT'S how powerful it is, memories of it in my heart 20 years later.

In my view, this movie should be required viewing for all those people out there who still hate. And for all those precious people out there who genuinely love, this movie will find a welcome home in your heart, whether this be a first viewing, or a refreshed memory from decades ago.

While You Are Here (2006)

Rank Amateurs

[1/10 · 22 July 2007]

It's interesting that all who (so far) seemed to like this film had no expectations--I guess that's the trick. In contrast with them, I had optimistic expectations, and that was a mistake. As soon as I saw how close to the faces the camera always was, I knew we were in the hands of an extremely amateur director--that's always a clear sign of them, they think it is arty or effective or intense to hold the camera about two inches away from the actors. The actors in this film, though, had only one facial expression each.

If the close camera wasn't enough, the lack of light in the film killed it. The film seemed to be entirely filmed in the dark. So now we know that the cinematographer was a rank amateur, as well. "Ooh ooh, we're going to light the set with a flashlight! That will make it all seem intimate!" No, that made it all seem invisible.

On top of the serious technical flaws, there was absolutely no story beyond the barest hint of an idea that was never developed, and nothing new about this kind of relationship was illuminated. (Perhaps this is a new kind of film for Germany, but in Los Angeles, forget about it.)

The fact that this film won a couple of film festival awards doesn't indicate the quality of the film, but besmirches the quality of these particular festivals. I can assure you that this film won't win anything in the festival where I saw it. In fact, two times during the film it seemed that it was finally over and people started to get up to leave (this was one of the side effects of the cinematographer's "total darkness" technique). But when the film shuddered on, instead, there were moans coming from the audience. And once the movie finally DID end, it was clear that it hadn't mattered if it actually had ended at either of the two earlier points. An earlier ending would have saved the audience from yet more monotonous scenes of domesticity (folding sheets, cutting vegetables, spreading honey on bread). Yeah, we get it, the life of the lonely old man was boring-- but we figured that one out at the very beginning.

I recommend that audiences miss this one, it has absolutely nothing to offer sophisticated movie-goers.

Time to Leave (2005)

The Qualities of True Humanity

[10/10 · 14 July 2006]

With this film, I am unable to write a review without including spoilers, because so many specific details are essential in appreciating it.

This beautiful film, about Romain, a young, successful fashion photographer learning that he has only a few months left to live, was all the more poignant and meaningful due to the man's homosexuality, which generally does not involve the creation and nurturing of children. Parents at least have a physical embodiment of their legacy that obviously continues on. For those who are childless, a completely unique energy is in danger of dying from the earth unless they figure out a way to make some shifts.

After children, the next realm for legacy is probably some other long-living accomplishment, which far fewer people are qualified or able to achieve. In the case of Romain here, he has his art, but it is a shallow, fleeting one, worth only a glance as a page is turned in a magazine or frames flip by on television. It's an artificial, temporary realm of no abiding significance and depth. So, it was almost as if he were just a mayfly, or had never even existed at all, that he had to start over and create himself anew, this time correctly and significantly, starting by rejecting all that currently existed in the WAY that it existed (the old, dying world), and reconfigure it into one with more long-lasting meaning.

With starting over at ground zero came the appearance of and interaction with Romain's childhood self. While we all have thought for a second or two about "what we would do if we learned that we had only a few months left to live," we still think from the mind of our current self and end up shrugging off that question as nearly impossible to answer. Here I felt that the answer was to ask your childhood self, "Did I make any of your dreams come true?", powerfully indicated by the expressions and body language of the child actor (whom I believe deserves immense praise for his performance). This is a technique we all can use whether we have a terminal illness or not, and I believe that we SHOULD, in order to ensure that we don't discover at the end that we have lived a wasted life.

One scene that brought tears to my eyes was during the opportunity of providing his sperm for making a baby for the woman who had the sterile husband, Romain brilliantly drew in and included the husband in the baby-making-love-making. (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, by the way, who, although playing here a small but significant role as the mother-to-be who asks Romain to do her this favor, is quickly becoming my favorite French actress.) Yeah, sure, maybe as a practical matter Romain needed a male in the picture so he could "get it up," but much deeper than that, he was knitting together a human energy of generosity (not selfishness and not egotism) by which the husband could genuinely feel that HE was the true father of this baby that HE generously allowed his wife to have via the agency of Romain's sperm. What a parent leaves with their children is far less the physical cells of their children's bodies, but more their "GIVINGNESS". Parents stopped living just for themselves, but instead live for the nurturing of another.

Homosexuals for so long have complained about being socially configured as mere adjuncts to the "true" lives of heterosexuals, but in casting Romain here as "temporarily a baby-making heterosexual" and thus in THAT his life had meaning (which, if so, I think would be a cop-out in and a failure of the story), this film instead shows that what happened here wasn't the baby-making, but the GIVING that is of essential human significance, and that, in fact, "the human family" cannot and does not exist without it. One's sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with whether one can be a GIVER or not and the fact that homosexuality has existed since the beginning of time and will continue to exist shows that it has an essential and abidingly necessary place within the family of humanity.

I had only one disappointment in this film, and that was that I desired (and expected) some ending display of all the photographs that Romain took during his final months, perhaps during the credits, or as a final "Cinema Paradiso" type of scene. In fact, just imagining it brought tears to my eyes, but perhaps that was where the filmmaker considered it to be the most powerful, within the viewer's imagination.

For where the dying artist finally left his true legacy and demonstrated that his life had meaning was in all the ways he expressed his awareness of the qualities of true humanity.

Peaceful Warrior (2006)

Having Once Been Shown The Way, Maybe Now You Can Find It Again

[10/10 · 11 June 2006]

I never did read the Dan Millman book from which this movie was made (but I do plan to read it now), but I have read several others wherein seekers pursuing physical achievements received powerful spiritual guidance from mysterious mentors, such as the Richard Bach books (aircraft piloting) and "The Legend of Bagger Vance" (golf), and others, and this movie quite well measures up to the requirements of the genre. Where this one is different is that from a purely materialistic, earth-based, egotistical perspective, this seeker already pretty much had good reason to feel that he was already "perfect," what with his great looks, smarts, Olympic-level prowess, and easy sexual achievements, he was not "broken" initially (like many who seek because they have failed, or they are alcoholics, or they have lost everything, or never had anything in the first place), but was already conscious of an impending dissatisfaction or imminent tragedy--he was being called from within to create for himself a skyhook, and while externally he felt he had it all made, internally he knew that he was made for something more.

I feel that Scott Mechlowicz was a great casting choice for this part, as his considerable physical beauty was magnificently metaphorical of this earth-based sense of perfection, while his acting performance perfectly foreshadowed that his life was going to require of him something more and that ultimately he would arrange it so that he would succeed in taking on a challenge that few would be willing to take on.

Being on an Olympic team, striving for a gold medal, must be an almost unbreakable ego addiction, for whereas a more ordinary member of the herd could be understood as wanting a way out, how does this apply to a person on the brink of being number ONE in the WORLD in something? This really demonstrates how, while few are called, even fewer would ever answer.

Nick Nolte's performance perfectly walked the razor's edge between compassion for his student and emotional detachment from him--he would train this student well, but the student had to come to HIM. And as the mentor, Nolte never wavered, never doubted, never succumbed to a game of clashing egos, but quietly demonstrated the authenticity of his mastery.

To me Nolte's character seemed to exemplify the strength, awareness, and control of an aikido master, the existence of which is not a fiction but something that can be genuinely experienced. There really are people out there in the world like this, ready and able to help those who choose them. I particularly appreciated Socrates's line, "I didn't choose you, you chose me," for that is how it must work and does work.

Dan Millman said that this story was based on true events, although the actual novel, itself, is a fiction. This is true and not a paradox, as these things do genuinely happen all the time. Maybe not in everybody's life, of course, that is obvious. But those who truly WANT it, their mentors will come.

There was a quality to this film that pierced right through the veil of the screen and shot consciousness into a realm of hyper-reality. Millman's nightmares were almost unbearable to watch and experience from the audience seats, but tension was relieved by extremely powerful and effective camera work that demonstrated the stopping of time and experiencing the NOW. Perhaps this is how the story changes lives--it grabs the bull by the horns and MAKES the book reader or movie viewer actually EXPERIENCE this state of consciousness. And once having been shown the way, maybe now they can find it again.

This is definitely a movie to be experienced, but perhaps only few will really benefit from it.

The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973)

A Movie with Style and Great Henry Mancini Music

[10/10 · 10 June 2006]

For some reason, I very much love "heist" movies, perhaps because I would never steal anything in my life and I guess opposites attract. While I don't quite like this one as well as I love the Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway "Thomas Crown Affair," another heist movie with great style from the 70s, the marvelous Henry Mancini soundtrack and the involvement of Ryan O'Neil, Jacqueline Bisset, and Warren Oates make this one a winner in my view. All those reviewers who declared the movie "dated" or "slow" are revealing their MTV-generation mind-rot, where if each frame doesn't flicker by in a quarter second or if the film isn't loaded with computer graphics or special effects, they get bored, because I really don't know what they are talking about--the movie moves along just fine for an adult. It seems that most of the action in the movie, and particularly each robbery, is practically a dance which is fluidly paired with the Mancini music. This is set up almost at the very beginning when the thief is perfecting his lock-picking, safe-cracking, and breaking-and-entering techniques, and it never lets up from there. I suppose, though, that if you don't like Henry Mancini, this movie is not for you.

O'Neal demonstrates here his skills for comedy that he had put to even better use in the absolutely hilarious "What's Up Doc" with Barbra Streisand and Madeline Kahn (possibly the funniest movie ever made), also sharing with this movie cast members Austin Pendleton and Michael Murphy. Whereas O'Neal succeeds here with his charm and definite good looks, and he is clearly a good match for the beautiful, somewhat rebellious and "alternative" Jaqueline Bisset, the best pairing is probably the "cat and mouse" interaction with insurance investigator Warren Oates. This, too, is psychologically another example of "opposites attract," as despite being on nearly opposite poles, the two form a kind of mutual bond. Like prison guard and prisoner, they exist in the same realm of life, I guess.

I also enjoyed O'Neal's two partners in crime, the nervous-but-excited fence played by Ned Beatty and his humorous boxer sidekick, played by Gregory Sierra.

It was fun to see the early mainframe computer technology shown in the film (current at the time the film was made), which is what computers WERE when I started my adult working life (and which it seems they are going back to with all the servers and workstations, now). And I appreciated seeing the Houston setting, not often shown in films. As America's oil capital, Houston's prosperity rises and falls with the energy cycles and probably at the time the film was made, Houston was at one of its prosperity peaks. The beautiful mansions of the Texan oil rich (who aren't at all shy about spending their wealth on jewelry, art, and other luxury goods) quite reasonably make an attractive target for a thief.

Thanks to video, I've been able to watch this movie many, many times, much in the same way that I might watch a music video--for the interaction of music and action, although in a more languid and less frenetic way. Not slow, not dated, but very much fun and quite beautiful and enjoyable.

RV (2006)

Lots of Fun

[7/10 · 28 April 2006]

The movie's advertising poster somehow made me think this film was going to be like the Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz classic, The Long, Long Trailer, a movie I had long loved. As it turns out, this film really wasn't like that one, but I enjoyed it anyway. While it was loaded with sometimes predictable slapstick comedy and was kind of heavy on potty situation jokes (but definitely not entirely, there was adult humor, too), there were some lines in there that were really great, particularly the ones uttered by Joanna Levesque (whose delivery was such that I found myself laughing again over some of her lines when I thought about them later), who played the daughter, and who was beautiful, by the way. Cheryl Hines as the wife had some great lines, too, and I enjoyed her quirky beauty and great personality. Josh Hutcherson, whom I first saw and enjoyed in Zathura, playing the son in this movie, is revealing himself to be quite a good actor, and I see that he has been cast in the upcoming film based on the award-winning children's novel, Bridge to Terabithia, which is likely to be a plum role for him.

Robin Williams in his films can sometimes be irritating, but he can also be extremely funny, particularly in the way he uses his voice, and in this film, I didn't think he was ever irritating, and I particularly liked his "hip hop" or "homeboy" routine in this film.

I mostly enjoyed this movie for the pleasure of being with the people in it, including all members of the Gornicke family, whose generosity of spirit I appreciated, and I thought they had a real cool bus. The truth is that a road trip in an RV like this can be lots of fun for a family, and exploring what America has to offer is a great thing to do. In this film, the stunning "Colorado" scenery (really Canada) was quite appealing and made me want to go to the Rockies this summer.

The movie had a great soundtrack and I also noticed some clever sound effects that made the comedy situations even funnier.

All in all, this movie has a great heart and is a lot of fun, and I enjoyed it a lot, as did the audience in the theater when I saw it.

Brass on Fire (2002)

Mycological Music

[6/10 · 17 February 2006]

Prior to seeing this documentary, I had never heard of the band "Fanfare Ciocarlia" (Fanfare of the Larks), but once I got back home again and checked them out, I was surprised to see Amazon.com offering several of their CDs, so perhaps they're not so obscure. If one is already a fan of this band, or, alternatively, have some interest in gypsy music, or maybe are interested in having a little peek into life in a hidden Romanian village, this film might be worth seeing.

When I think of the kind of gypsy music that has an appeal to me, though, I think of the inclusion of some kind of violin in the sound, but Fanfare Ciocarlia is strictly "blown" instruments, mostly brass, but also with the inclusion of two woodwinds (a clarinet and a saxophone), along with drums, of course. It's hard to imagine that they can manage to get any kind of decent sound out of their instruments at all, instruments that are dented, bent, soldered-together, and seriously tarnished, but there is a man in town with a blowtorch sitting on what appears to be a brass instrument graveyard, who, apparently, can find enough spare parts to fix anything (even a horn that had been found lost and corroding in a lake by one of the village boys), and to me, this is a loud testament to the villager's strong and unstoppable desire to play music, which seems to rise up out of them as an organic aspect of their nature. And they never seem to STOP making music, either with their instruments or with just their mouths, making music is what they DO. And whether one likes their sound or not, their energy and enthusiasm is infectious.

The film itself is like a patchwork, much like the band's instruments, pieced together with whatever was on hand, intermixing color and black and white film stock, jumping back and forth in time, and inexplicably cutting around geographically, such as showing a concert in Tokyo inter-cut with one shown earlier in Berlin, and then back to Tokyo. Inbetween concert tours across Europe (in, apparently, the group's own bus, so they must be making some good money), they live their normal daily life in an entirely off-the-map village at the far eastern end of Europe, which seems to be a dead zone out of the global mainstream. Their main link to the world beyond seems to be a decrepit, slow-moving train that appears throughout the film like a shoelace tying the whole thing together. The train was somehow metaphorical, as a narrator continued to underscore that there was no official stop for this village, no station, no platform, and no announcement; you just had to know where the village was and the train would slow down a little and you would jump off. This "already having to know" is important, and I think this isolation means that the village was pretty much self-sufficient and left to its own devices, not assisted by any external forces. Even their church, a partially-built concrete-block affair with a crooked cross made of two pipes, described as the only gypsy church in Romania, was alone and had to wait for the band's financial success and the resulting donations in order to complete its construction.

Other than assistance to the little church, throughout all this there was no clear and obvious sign of the band members having moved forward from near-economic squalor. They had the same constantly muddy streets, the same battered Soviet car that continued to break down, the same horse-drawn carts; they definitely did not seem to be part of the modern era. Weddings were a big event. Therefore there was a sense of timelessness and nothing-ever-changes in all of this, which probably provides deep roots to their music, which rises up out of them like an instinct. From a Western, first world point of view, their life in the forgotten back end of Europe as a once Communist country and now, we're not quite so sure what it is, makes me wonder if after the fall of the Soviet Union, the second world merely collapsed into the third world. I suspect these people are no different than those living much further east in Siberia; the same isolation, the same lack of roads and modern conveniences, and the same situation of a train being the only link with an outer world. Apparently, whatever the economic system or government, it is all really irrelevant to the people. This seems to be, culturally, like a place where one would grow mushrooms...dark, damp, hidden, and yet fertile with a rich, organic life until expanding itself by sending spores out. For the people of this village, and perhaps for Romanian culture as a whole, these spores could be Fanfare Ciocarlia. Let what they have accomplished plant itself in you, and grow into an exotic nourishment. Life and culture survives and the human heart is gladdened by this.

Monsieur Ibrahim (2003)

Whirling Around God In The Heart

[7 March 2004]

The film "Monsieur Ibrahim" was a precious jewel that I enjoyed for several viewings and, like the character Monsieur Ibrahim, is one that knows much more than it actually tells. There are nuggets of wisdom hidden across the surface of the film like binary codes invisible on the shiny surface of a Digital Versatile Disc...apply the laser of your consciousness and allow what's really there to be amplified in your heart.

I should present a warning, though, that those who go to see this film hoping it will hammer out through intellectual discussion a meeting of the minds between a Jew and Muslim will be disappointed. While the choice of religions is not insignificant, the true weight of the story is the loving mentor-filial relationship between an older man and a boy who is on the searching cusp of manhood, and almost any religion could have sufficed, or even none at all. I did appreciate, though, the use of Islam, a religion to which previously I had never given much thought, and certainly not much positive thought. To me, Islam was simply a "bad" religion, full of sexual fear and shamefully-veiled women, stonings and cutting off the hands of thieves, Jihads, and the spawning of terrorists and relentless destruction, a backward religion having absolutely nothing valuable to give to a modern society, save, materialistically, the oil that they happen to be sitting on. So, it was, in a way, enlightening to see how a quiet, gentle shopkeeper, eyes open to the plight of one young customer, could find sweet comfort in the Koran (and I wonder if this story was somewhat autobiographical of the original book's author, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt?). And, even better, Monsieur Ibrahim does not push the Koran, does not come knocking on the door like a missionary and threatening dire eternal consequences if one fails to accept it, he simply offers the Koran as something that has given him comfort and even when Momo, the boy, due to his own curiosity begins reading the Koran, Monsieur Ibrahim nevertheless says, "You don't learn about life from books." What a wonderful mentor, one who does not with one simple thought destroy the entire road that lies ahead of the youth by thinking that several thousand years ago everything was solved and answered.

Monsieur Ibrahim embraces Momo as he is, supporting the realities of a life lived on the Earth with all its pleasures and pitfalls, even to the extent of accepting Momo's use of the prostitutes, but is clear that this is just the first step on the way to an ever-deepening, genuine love with a life-long partner. This movie resonates with a favorite theme of mine, the willingness of an elder to take on the responsibility for a lost, unfathered boy, and Monsieur Ibrahim correctly shows this to not be a one-way street; this mentoring is not charity. Monsieur Ibrahim's life is just as much enhanced by his involvement with Momo as Momo's life is by the presence of Monsieur Ibrahim. Those older men who have retained the sparkle in their eyes have a great deal of love and wisdom to give to growing boys, and to share this with someone who will accept it is a craving almost like cow's milk that has to be milked or it will cause pain and sickness. This is a fact that seems to be little understood by our society that seeks more to stuff the elderly into a forgotten back room, much like Monsieur Ibrahim's store, yet a room that is packed from floor to ceiling with treasures that are essential for the maintenance of life.

Despite my having said that the particular religion did not matter, to my taste, it was valuable that Monsieur Ibrahim's religion was Sufiism, the mystical arm of Islam, for if the moral guidance he had sought to give was something fundamentalist, then rather than helping the boy to open up to the spiritual wonders within himself and beyond, it would have been more like pouring concrete over the boy's head. I believe that it is due to there having been so many generations of fathers who had nothing to give to their sons but brutal, unfeeling and unthinking law and dogma, that the sons finally rebelled and would rather receive nothing at all than to be hampered by what would be spiritual stagnation. Our society suffers from this lack of moral guidance today, but the answer is not a return to the conservatism of before that had too many limits then and certainly will not work now, but to open an expansive spiritual passageway into the wondrous heart the way Monsieur Ibrahim did for Momo.

I have only one complaint about this movie, and that is a typical complaint of mine that I offer to all movies that I like as much as I liked this one--it was too short! I would have enjoyed a six-hour mini-series (but I know that the book itself from which this movie came was not much longer than the film). I would have liked Monsieur Ibrahim to get deeper into the religious philosophy; I would have wanted to broaden the journey from Paris to the Black Sea that Monsieur Ibrahim and Momo underwent; and I simply would have wanted to have spent much more time with these two very appealing characters, both of whom were radiant and beautiful, Monsieur Ibrahim due to his comfortable wisdom and generous spirit, and Momo due to the vast appeal of his beauty and promise. (I was glad to see Omar Sharif again, and I hope to see much, much more of Pierre Boulanger in other films.)

But no, I will sublimate my greed, the film was perfect as it was, bittersweet and leaving me wanting much more. Where can I find much more? Perhaps with one hand pointing to the sky and one hand pointing to the ground, I can whirl around God that I find in my heart, learning to read the infinity that is written there, and be ever-satisfied.

Whale Rider (2002)

Running Deep in an Ancient Culture's Foundation

[27 October 2003]

There is no question that the Maori have an ancient and marvelous culture well-worthy of respecting, appreciating, and preserving. Their intricate carvings are spectacular, their ability to find their way from island to island on canoes in an ocean as large as half the globe is second to none, and they have a mythology that explains the workings of the universe in ways much deeper and more meaningful than just the surface of the various stories would reveal at first blush.

This film is about a particular group of Maori whose chief traces his lineage back to an ancestor who was brought to their land on the back of a whale. This cooperation between whale and human is an intriguing undercurrent that secretly animates the story, most effectively portrayed by the mystical and dreamy "destiny" music that is subtly reminiscent of whale songs, music that resonates in the heart of the granddaughter of the chief, and in the watchful awareness of the whales who can recognize in their two-legged soul-mates revitalizing power without the prejudice of human limitations.

At the time of the movie, this group of Maori is in bad shape, looking and acting much like Native Americans vegetating on the reservation here in our own country. Everything is old and decrepit and almost without hope, slowly dying out, and even the barnacle-encrusted whales, apparently waiting out in the ocean for something to happen, look likewise forlorn and at the end of their rope.

The only fresh and vital force among the tribe is the chief's granddaughter, with whom the chief has a love-hate relationship. He can't miss the spark of her spirit, and yet he resents her very presence because of her gender. His only desire is to have an heir, which in his mind has to be a first-born male. However, his first-born son is not interested in the responsibility of leading his people, and when his wife dies in childbirth and at the same time the male half of a pair of fraternal twins, the hoped-for heir, dies, it's as if there's virtually no vitality left in their line. All but the grandmother miss the obvious vitality that exists right in front of their eyes, the female twin who was strong enough to survive. The father abandons his daughter into the care of his parents and escapes to Europe where he seeks a more progressive society.

Despite the father's desire to escape, he can't quite abandon his culture, though...he attempts to establish a career as an artist, utilizing Maorian art forms as the springboard for his own artistic creations. He returns home, only to find that he is still unable to stay. Other than the maturing of his daughter, things are much the same in his village. He offers to take his daughter back to Europe with him, and at first she agrees to go, but then the dreamy whale destiny songs play in her heart and she realizes that her destiny is with her people.

The grandfather, the chief, while not blind to his granddaughter's brilliance, is blind to the meaning of her abilities. He sets out to train and test all the first born boys in the tribe in an attempt to discover or produce a new chief, but the company of sad-sack boys, some of whom are so physically out of shape and fat that they can barely hold their eyes open through the layers of fat that cover their faces, is not up to the task. One telling moment: the chief throws a whale's tooth overboard and explains to the boys in the boat, "this is a test of your spirit, go bring back this tooth." While some of the boys make a valiant effort at retrieving the tooth, two boys don't even consider leaving the boat, because one has a cold and the other can't swim!

Meanwhile, there is the granddaughter, who studies and performs the tribe's cherished legends, songs, and dances, secretly yearns to learn all that her grandfather is trying to teach the boys. The grandfather's patriarchal, almost misogynist attitude seems to represent everything that holds the tribe back...his idea of being a leader is to keep to the old, traditional ways. This is conservativism to the point of backwardness. What is needed for the tribe's revitalization is entirely beyond him.

The little girl is a marvelous actress and perfectly portrays a spirit whose dreams are able to relentlessly survive in a hostile, unaccepting environment. In a way, I would expect the conflict over the emergence of a female leader to be almost too primitive for modern audiences. After all, from a European perspective, probably the greatest monarch in all of the history of Europe was Queen Elizabeth I, so successful female leaders are hardly new. It's almost a yawn that the grandfather continues to serve as obstacle to his granddaughter's obvious destiny. What gave this film its importance is seeing how ancient cultural traditions do not have to be abandoned in order to progress, but can be revitalized through an expansion of the basic ideas to include greater possibilities. The little girl said as much, when she gave a speech that said that the leadership of a people can come from the empowerment of all who are willing to accept the responsibilities--this is an equalizing force for the good of all. Nature and spirit sometimes take a new course or a new branch, but the roots may still remain deep in the culture's foundation.

Elephant (2003)

Elephantine in Significance

[10/10 · 26 October 2003]

Film, like any artistic medium, can be a true work of art, or a velvet painting of a bleeding Jesus. `Elephant' is definitely in the former category, a true work of the filmmaker's art, although maybe a disappointment to the average movie-goer who, drawn by the hope of violence and wanting the cheap velvet, will be turned off by the lack of an easily understood narrative story and clear heroes and villains. This is not a movie that can be forgotten as easily as the empty popcorn container that is dropped to the theater's floor.

Regarding the allusion to the blind men and the elephant, what is Van Sant's subject in this film that is being seen by and from different points of view? Teenagers? High school? American society? Education? Violence? Columbine? It is possible that he means all of these, and more, and even, maybe, things he hadn't even thought of. After all, while there were some conscious intentions utilized in the making of this film, there also was a mixing up of various elements to discover what would ultimately be produced by genuine dynamic.

I once heard a National Geographic photographer say he didn't have to go looking for a story to photograph, he only had to stand in one place and the stories would arise around him. This is true of Van Sant's film. He wanted, I suppose, to do a film about Columbine, but ended up throwing out whatever his original plan was and letting whatever arose among the points of view, ideas, and stories of certain teenagers become the basis for the film-he stood in one place and let the story arise around him.

Much can be credited to Mali Finn, the casting director. Beyond the astonishingly beautiful cinematography by Harris Savides, the creative elements in the film were the individuals cast right out of high school to portray the students. Each one is so beautiful and expressive and seemed to represent a stereotype of student while at the same time being unique individuals caught in a moment among infinite dimensions of time. The camera does not allow you to dismiss them as a `type,' but real live people you gaze nearly inside of as they go about their daily business.

One thing that struck me about the individuals in this film was how ready for real productive life these kids were, yet they were imprisoned within the walls and the petty rules of an institution that was no longer relevant. For example, a boy doing a big thing by being responsible enough to take over the driving from his drunken father is punished for the very small thing of being `tardy.'

These people are obviously chomping on the bit at the starting gate, and yet they are warehoused in this useless holding pattern. Is there really any wonder that when one student understands that he has the power to make up a `plan' that can make him the master of his realm, that he goes for it without remorse or conscience, as if the life he is forced to live is merely an extension of the artificial video game world. When the energetic, creative impulses of life are put on hold for four more years in pursuit of a temporary reality that is all a game of artifice, then the rules of life may become confused with game-playing rules.

Elephants, the largest animals on land, have a highly-ordered social structure and an almost subliminal way of communicating, are affectionate and compassionate, and while strong, can be seen as lumbering and awkward. Elephants are exploited, such as an elephant being made to spin around on one leg on top of a barrel in a circus. Elephants are an endangered species, in demand for the value of their ivory that is cut off by poachers with chainsaws and otherwise left to die a cruel death. One may want to consider what the `ivory tusks' are of teenagers that society is cutting off and exploiting as marketable in unseen worlds beyond (metaphorically analyze the time-line from the golden blond boy to the depleted state of his drunken father).

Maybe the overriding atmosphere of Gus Van Sant's film is this idea that something is endangered, something powerful, highly-evolved socially, deeply communicative, open-hearted and wants to belong, wants a productive place in the world and needs useful guidance in that direction, not given useless and meaningless tasks to perform, and is therefore something appealing, precious, and ought to be saved, and yet is currently only being exploited by some kind of diabolical system.

The film came to a sudden end, but this was not a complete story, it was an extraction, a core, a biopsy. The end of the film was merely the edge of where the sample was cut. Like an oncologist, it is up to the viewer to intuit a broader meaning from the sample taken. Here, too, is another elephant in the room that nobody wants to recognize--we're all endangered, and there will be an ending to our life, and when it comes, it will be instant, thoughtless, and heartless, and only to our own unique point of view, elephantine in significance.

The Mudge Boy (2003)

The Failure of Masculinity

[27 July 2003]

`The Mudge Boy' is a tragic film about the failure of masculinity. Masculinity, at its most advanced, mature, and evolved is a protector of women, a mentor to children, a caretaker of animals, and a steward of the environment. We do not get to see this mature masculinity very often and its very rarity has led so many to believe that the only form of masculinity is its degraded form of tyranny, irresponsibility, violence, and mindless cruelty.

This film is close in genre to a prison movie or film noir. Its males, except for young Duncan, the Mudge boy himself, are all so degraded that they are fermenting in their toxic wastes and are unable to produce any positive energy even if only just to get the hell out of there. Their isolation cells are not made of steel bars, but of the wood of dense Vermont forests and the walls are not made of stone bricks, but of rolling green hills covered in pasture. Their prison is made of insularity and ignorance. The film is so relentlessly dark and uncomfortable to watch with its atmosphere of ever-existing potential and erupting violence, and with any hope of redemption wrung at the neck, that I think of this as a new genre, "rural' film noir, instead of urban, and something that should be categorized alongside a movie like `Deliverance'.

Femininity, with its life-giving fecundity, fares only slightly better in this film with at least one female having enough compassion to not only extend tenderness to someone weaker, but also attempt to protect herself from physical exploitation. But even she is ultimately helpless and alone in the face of relentlessly rampant violent and unrestrained male energy to which women are only as useful for copulation as animals are for the extraction of eggs and milk. The Mudge boy's mother, too, who in her absence seemed to leave her husband empty of all reason to live, had only herself been sucked dry of her life blood and left to die with an empty heart. The illusion of escape afforded by alcoholism was not enough to protect her with her basketful of tender eggs from the same fate of her beloved and memorialized chickens. How much better will her son fare?

So much of the Mudge boy's mother lived on in her son, but so did so much of his father, who was unable to communicate the needs of his heart and thus left his son alone with this rejection of their mutual need for tenderness. Although this film is presented as a gay film, and even won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, this is much more a father and son film, and a story about how ultimately lost masculinity can be without fully developed and receptive hearts.

In this film's setting, the gentle, caring heart of the Mudge boy could be considered feminine and weak by those who confuse such qualities with the homosexual, but I think the boy's desire was only for tenderness and understanding, as was his father's desire. And in this involuted, backward setting, rather than that being enough for the men to earn what they wanted, what was required was for the Mudge boy to finally sink to a level so low as to chew off the very portion of himself that yearned for and needed such love. In the swallowing of what was precious in him, he was finally able to attract what he had wanted. But I wonder if by then, it was already too late to matter.

Camp (2003)

I Wanted Twelve More Hours

[22 July 2003]

This enjoyable movie seemed to me to be the tip of an iceberg...I wonder if it were originally produced as a pilot for a TV series, and if so, I wish it had been successful in getting the show on the air. Honestly, I would have been interested in spending much more time with these kids and their singing talents, and the movie had way more talented and attractive characters than were really made use of during the movie. It is not really a criticism to say that some of the plot issues were not resolved, but were only introduced, or, contrastingly, some characters whose parts in the story were minor (or nonexistent) seemed to be more powerfully featured in some of the concluding musical numbers--like one's appreciation of their triumphs had to be understood intellectually rather than truly felt emotionally. Was this a flaw in the script, or actually a sign that so much more had been planned and hoped for?

The movie was marketed and presented as gay-positive, and yet the main character, the dominant guy of all the action, was a straight guy "wanted" by all the girls and all the gay guys--the assumption was he could pretty much have whomever he wanted (and pretty much did), whereas the main gay guy remained an oddball and a second-stringer to the straight guy, even in this camp where gay boys supposedly could finally find acceptance and a place where they unquestionably would belong. In real life, the straight boy has all the power because he is in the majority, whereas in the camp, he has all the power because he is in the minority. Even the fact that he had some kind of mental disorder did not diminish his assumed position as the "alpha male".

My favorite character was the little blond gay boy who couldn't believe that there is a sport director at the camp, nor could he care less, either. He had way too powerful of a singing voice and was way too cute for only the two or three lines he had in the whole movie. Again, as I said, the tip of the iceberg...this movie seemed to be preparing for so much more...otherwise, its individual parts were greater than the sum of its whole. But go see it anyway, if only for the entertainment value of the truly talented singing. There's more in there, but what's in there might not interest the average movie-goer who will have to mine it out.

Prey for Rock & Roll (2003)

Hot Women and Hot Music Mutually Generating the Power of Each

[21 July 2003]

I was interested in this movie because of the "do your dreams have to die because you are over 40?" angle, but was completely blown away by the total quality of the movie. I'm not a huge rock fan so much (preferring jazz), but this movie made me a believer in the power of rock and I swear I am now going to regularly devour the entertainment listings in the "L.A. Weekly" with hopes of catching Cheri Lovedog (who wrote the autobiographical script) and I will be lining up at the Dragonfly or wherever with the rest of the explosive fans if she is still performing and I sure hope to God she is. Cheri--as you know better than most, dreams are eternal and age is a cipher. Maybe with this movie, you have made it like you deserve.

The music is hot and the women are even hotter--but there are no boundaries between the music and the women. Tender and tough all in the same package, those women are true stars. And these are no cookie-cutter characters, not by a long shot, and every single one of them is interesting to the max and were portrayed as not only very real, but people you have to care about despite how tough they come across--or maybe BECAUSE they are so tough, because no matter what life throws at them, they measure up to the challenge. They're fighters and survivors and I count that as an inspiring thing.

Probably my favorite character was "Faith," played by Lori Petty, although the entire cast was outstanding (and I have a tender place in my heart for Animal) but I have now firmly placed Gina Gershon at the head of the "sex is sex, I don't care which body parts you've got" list on which she was the charter member after her role in the movie "Bound". If I ever am asked why I won't explain whether I am gay or bi or whatever-the-hell, all I have to say is "Gina Gershon" and I hope that explains it all. This movie is the answer to so many questions I didn't even know I was asking. For those who love the power of music, for artists, for men and women, for the older and the younger, and for people everywhere just trying to love and to make it in life with as many pieces as possible, go see this film. I guess that includes everybody!

Carnets d'ado: You'll Get Over It (2002) Season 1, Episode 5

Being Pulled Backward In A Slingshot

[14 July 2003]

This is a beautiful film about a seventeen-year-old swimming champion who is sexually outed in high school, and rather than deny his gayness, admits it and then gets to work dealing with it. I saw this at a gay film festival under the name of "You'll Get Over It," but I gather it was originally shown on prime time television in France, where I hope it reached a broad audience. Bravo to the French, who seem to be the masters of all things regarding love and sensuality.

The lead character's name, Vincent Molina, is the also the name of the writer of the screenplay. I wonder how autobiographical this story is?

Generally, I wouldn't recommend that a young gay guy come out until he is free and on his own in the world, not living under the roof of his parents or still in repressive, dangerous high school. But then again, to follow such a recommendation would be to waste so many precious, significant years when the hormones are screaming and the participants are at the peak of their physical beauty. How many of us would love to have the chance to go back to those days and this time do them right? Sure, as this movie so well shows, coming out at such an early age is extremely difficult emotionally, socially, and physically, and to do so is definitely beyond the abilities of most. But to do so is also phenomenally empowering to those who manage it. The huge set-back and loss in status that seems to accompanying coming out is later revealed to be merely pulled backward in a SLINGSHOT, after which there is a letting go and a powerful projection forward that puts one far, far ahead in the game.

Vincent, the swimmer, has a lot to lose. He's a beloved athletic champion with adoring fans, he has a luscious girlfriend who loves him and with whom he is having sex, he has respectful teammates and a best friend, and parents for whom he is the apple of their eye. He also has a male sex partner on the sly, but even though Vincent's true nature is better known by the sex partner, that's about all that the sex partner knows or cares about, so the relationships that truly matter are with the others in Vicent's life who did not know about his true sexual orientation.

Despite the beauty and sensitivity of the film, and the story of the hero being a gay student instead of it being a misfit, what really keeps this from being a typical teenage coming out story is the masterful ability of the lead actor to express the complexity of the emotions via his use of the interplay of subtle facial expressions. A lot of the time he seems to be in a state of blank questioning, as if he were not sure what to do next, and that if he were going to proceed, it would have to be very cautiously. And yet, it is clear that from now on, he will only proceed genuinely--he was aware that previously he had been using a mask (and it was his only shame), but now he isn't sure how to dispense with the mask or what will compose his face now that the mask is gone, he only knows that he won't be able to use a mask any more. His every step would take him into unknown territory, and the actor genuinely expresses the reality of those insecurities and the feelings of hopes, fears, wishes, disappointments, hurts, promises, comfort-seeking, sexual interest, and more, all playing out a fascinating symphony across his face.

The movie is clear that the burden of self-identity rests clearly on the shoulders of the individual, but it also underscores the principle that helpmates will come out of the woodwork to support a genuine individual who is willing to be real. The losses are painful, but the gains bring an overriding joy that is beyond measure.

My Life on Ice (2002)

Beauty and Intimacy: The Means Can Be An End In Itself

[12 July 2003]

I'm not normally one to care so much about film technique or movie technology, the story or the characters are what usually drive my interest. However, this is the third film I have seen that was filmed using Digital Video (the other two were Barbet Schroeder's "Our Lady of the Assassins" and "Manic", both of which I have also reviewed here on IMDb) and I have come to realize that I like this style of movie-making very, very much. I might go so far as to say that the means may actually be the ends, although all these films have also given so much more than just an appealing technique. But to just simply feel that much closer and more intimate with beautiful and appealing people, regardless of their problems or whatever they are going through, is a pleasure just by itself.

This film really could have been a video journal of a teenage ice skater, one who was, at least, quite skilled with the camera, and, in fact, throughout the film, I simply believed that such a video journal is what it actually was. Living in Los Angeles like I do where so many are would-be filmmakers, and at a time when so many kids have video cameras and are so often putting them in your face or surreptitiously filming you (and themselves), it would not be far-fetched that an ice skater as disciplined and talented as the actor in the film (genuinely a second-place holder in a French figure-skating championship) could also develop skill in this other artistic medium...as, indeed, successfully done by the skater Jimmy Tavares who also demonstrated his notable acting ability in this film.

I found the video technique fascinating as, appropriately, an intimate visual expose of the coming of age of a character in a FILM, just like a diary or personal letters would be in a BOOK. It was as if Etienne, the ice skater, wanted to objectify his life by recording his activities and those of the other people who interacted with or were of interest to him in such a way that he could then step aside and see his life from the outside.

It helped a lot that the boy, Etienne, was so beautiful, as was his whole family and the people associated with him, and his personality, as was theirs, was also so charming and humorous. It was not boring or meaningless to be with these people for a year (film time). In fact, I myself, not only want to buy my own video camera and start filming myself and all the people in my life, but I also wished all the people in my life were French! And the video camera with such great depth of field picks up so many more images in a scene that one does not normally see in a movie, and this quality added to the magnitude of the experience. For example, as Etienne would be filmed skating around in his practice arena, metro trains would go speeding by outside the arena's window with perfect clarity, adding the rhythm and beauty of their motion with that of the skater gracefully doing his swirls and spins.

But all this intimacy and beauty in the camera work does not overshadow the fact that something is supposed to be happening with these characters, and, as far as I am concerned, there was no disappointment there. There were times when Etienne's subjects rebelled against his intruding in their life with his camera, and yet in the end the only one really intruded into was Etienne himself, who got particularly nervous or upset when others used his camera, but he was at the same time quite willing to film himself when he was the one at the controls.

Inexorably, the story does move to the conclusion that must have been what had been motivating Etienne the whole time, and it was here that his good acting ability was revealed to be great. As appealing as Etienne's character had always been (despite his occasional anger or bad moods), upon achieving his self-realization, some subtle dark filter or cloud seemed to have been removed from his character and he then radiated a light that was several notches brighter than what had been expressed before. I almost would have thought that a filter had been removed from the camera lense, but this new light really was from within Jimmy Tavares, himself. And that what he came to understand about himself is nowadays understood to not necessarily be all that unusual or spectacular, for him, alone, of course, it certainly would matter very much and since we had been so close to him throughout the movie, it mattered to us, too.

I could have watched so much more, but in this movie, the climax was also the denouement--as sudden as a camera can stop, or, more importantly, START (controlled with a simple pressing of a button on a remote control), so, too, are there sudden stops and starts in the life of the character effected, where what was before has now been severely EDITED, and the personal DEPTH OF FIELD is now so much greater.

The Italian Job (2003)

A Great Heist Movie

[6 June 2003]

I really do like heist movies and this one was no disappointment--in fact, it's essentially three heists for the price of one, and they were jam-packed with style and clever energy. I'm glad I hadn't seen the trailer until afterwards (which I saw on this site), I think it gives too much of the good stuff away--so please, skip the trailer and just go see the movie! I saw the movie based on its Venice location, but I ended up liking even better the L.A. location, thanks to clever use of such features as the Metro, the empty concrete river, and the killer traffic. If, along with the new GPS systems, cars offered a small handful of us a device like what "The Napster" put together, L.A. really would be a paradise!

There was great chemistry and humor among the interesting and sometimes peculiar characters. I guess Seth Green was probably the best (everytime the word "Napster" was spoken, the audience in the theater laughed, clapped, or cheered), but Mark Wahlberg was effective, as always, Charlize Theron, well, she just looks good and acts with such style, and I had a particular liking for Mos Def's character (although I half expected him to break out in a cockney accent like Don Cheadle's character in "Ocean's 11"! Fortunately, he didn't). Also, I really happened to like a lot the golf-practicing explosives supplier, what a unique character and you know what, this is L.A. and we've really got people like you've never seen before!

All in all, this movie was great fun, a kick to watch, and a great advertisement for Mini Coopers. Who wouldn't crave to have one after seeing this movie?

Manic (2001)

As Well-Constructed As A Poem

[10/10 · 10 May 2003]

There wasn't a soul working on this film who did not produce brilliant, genuinely communicative work that demonstrates exactly what the art of filmmaking is at its very best. And it was only the very clear and obvious display of such tight creative genius at work that kept reminding me that this was actually a film instead of real life recorded at an institution by an inmate with an ever-intrusive video camera. In my life I have known youths suffering from the uncontrollable volatility of a rage as extreme as shown in the film, and just as justifiable as their defensive reaction to the powerful external forces that have waged against them their whole lives. When any biological creature, animal or human, is backed helpless and wounded into a corner, what solution is there other than to bare one's fangs and claws and fight to the death? What can really be done to help people like that get out of their trap, to reverse their ever-spinning deeper into themselves until they have irretrievably locked themselves into madness? From this film I can see why the same word, madness, is used to describe both anger and mental illness.

Lyle, the lead character vividly realized by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was certainly mad, although his face ingeniously was always comported into an expression of a questioning sadness and resignation, like he was rather surprised that life had turned out to be this way. And he was violent, although for those who are squeamish, his violence was never really clearly shown face-on, but was revealed in an almost subliminal way via quick frames that suggested a fiery atmosphere of angry voices, relentless punches, and splatters of blood--this is the world he has lived in externally and now it demonizes his inner world. And the actor, even when at rest, continued to maintain the demeanor of a coiled spring so tightly wound that it was a wonder his body didn't implosively burst or rip itself apart like a case of tetanus. And yet he was entirely sympathetic, and the groundwork for that sympathy was laid the very first moment when we met him, getting his wounds dressed in a medical clinic. The camera moved behind him and casually revealed him sitting there in a hospital gown that had fallen open in the rear, revealing a vulnerable, skinny back its spinal cord nodules, a smooth back that perhaps his mother when he was a baby or a current lover ought to have soothingly and reassuringly rubbed, if only there had ever been someone who had actually loved him.

I wondered at an institution that so casually mixed up different patients with such diverse problems--the criminally violent with those who cut only themselves, or the changeably manic with those who have an almost invisible self-esteem, or, the relentlessly demeaning with those who are deeply suffering to the point of catatonia or austism. And yet it soon became clear that beyond the realistic and compassionate guidance of a truly dedicated counselor (played to standing-ovation intensity by Don Cheadle), the only hope for them was to be stimulated into opening their hearts to each other and in this way discovering meaning beyond their personal demons.

The patients in the adult ward separated from the youths by a chain-link fence seemed to be irretrievably lost; the freedom of the crows that soon became a symbol of flight out their tight corners for the youths, became only a mocking crowing absorbed by one of the adults. Madness in this institution metaphorically became a clear, legible story, such as the beautiful girl who hid herself behind black lipstick and heavy black eye-liner, or the boy who relentlessly tried to build a house of cards, and yet never seemed to manage to set up the first three.

Without a doubt one of the best scenes was a spontaneous mosh pit that erupted around the playing of a cassette of the Deftones. As I am at least one whole generation older than kids who would smash around in a mosh pit, it might be easy for me to be repelled by this kind of music and scene, and instead I am fascinated and can see how perfectly expressive and either dangerously visceral or benevolently cathartic such music really is and this scene in the film, which to me was like a ballet, was enlightening on many levels. Ultimately, it is clear that the suffering of these youths in the mental institution is metaphorical of the suffering that we all experience in real life and demands a relief of some kind--rage against the machine, indeed.

All in all, Manic is a movie for those who truly care about the craft of film, care about collaborative, creative skill that can come from a work of the heart, care about humanity's relief from suffering, and care about compassionate answers for otherwise seemingly unsolvable problems. For all these reasons, I highly recommend this film.

Nicholas Nickleby (2002)

I need to believe there are people like Nicholas

[10/10 · 19 December 2002]

I am proud to be the first person on IMDb to review this inspiring and love-engendering film. Casting Charlie Hunnam, who had shown such brilliant promise and human beauty in the original version of "Queer As Folk", was inspired. He belongs in the lead role of this movie like no other actor. No one else quite has that incredible expressive quality of open face, loving eyes, memorable voice, and, to my reckoning, phenomenally expressive hands (as I was fortunate enough to tell him at tonight's screening when I got to shake them...I will be high for a month!). If you go see this movie, please look for the hands and you will see what I mean, Charlie is a person who, even without words, can express his meaning right down through the very tips of his fingers.

One of my favorite lines of his (of many) was, "I'm not an angel, but I will be careful in listing my faults for fear that I would be too persuasive" and the whole time he is saying it, you keep thinking, "But he IS an angel, he really is." This is a character who goes to any length to collect under his protective wings as many deserving lost and wounded people as he can, and in Victorian London, there were tons of them. I find that I don't crave to know somebody like that, but to BE somebody like that. I feel that I am not protecting nearly enough people (actually, I'm really not protecting anybody), but, as compensation, I can at least be thankful that our society provides more safety nets.

But for those movie-goers who aren't as receptive to human goodness as perhaps they ought to be, those who like to see a little evil, this movie will not fail to disappoint...in fact, to me, the evil shown in this movie, which is so very REAL and kept me at the edge of my seat in fearful misery more than anything ever induced by something as ridiculous as the typical horror movie, far outshines the level of evil such as shown in a movie like the "The Lord of the Rings," which is really just a disembodied fantasy, too nebulous to wrestle with. Although I fervently pray that there are no people like the Sqeers around, those who not only exploit children but who delight in hurting them in every conceivable way (Mrs. Squeer is the first character I have ever seen whom I would truly brand as a witch, who ought to be burned at the stake), I'm afraid that is a vain hope. And to be sure, lifeblood-sucking evil as shown by the Uncle Ralph character is certainly alive and well and exists everywhere in our society (our government is composed of people like that).

I need to believe in the existence of people like Nicholas Nickleby, and of the possibilities of individual power, friendship such as he had with the Jamie Bell character, Smike (and if THAT, too, wasn't the most brilliant casting, I don't know what is), familial love as he faithfully retained for his sister and mother, and all the other forms of heart that he displayed with so many of the characters...he was truly inspiring. And fortunately Nicholas wasn't the only good, loving character in the movie...fortunately, there were dozens of them, each of which revealed that humanity wasn't finished yet. And if we can learn from example, neither will we be finished yet.

The film was beautiful and humorous and I couldn't keep my eyes dry for a second. You may think you don't like Dickens...but this could just be the film that changes your mind. See it as a holiday gift to yourself. And marvel at Charlie Hunnam's hands, and Jamie Bell's feet!

Legend (1985)

One of the strangest movies ever made

[15 November 2002]

Without a doubt, this is one of the strangest and most peculiarly bad movies ever made and was virtually impossible to sit through. Visually and in demeanor this movie most closely reminded me of James Bidgood's "Pink Narcissus", with it's immensely crowded and cluttered forest set filled with a riot of glitter and junk, although apparently it wasn't enough to cover absolutely every square inch of surface with fake greenery, trees, flowers, and rocks, but the very air, too, had to be packed solid with the inexplicable disturbance of constantly blowing pollen, leaves, flower petals, butterflies, dandelion seeds, and for all I know, party confetti and ticker tape. It's a wonder each actor didn't die from hayfever asphyxiation, and it was like they were in the middle of a relentless mosquito infestation or a swarm of drunken moths. This was supposed to be an innocent paradise, but only if paradise is the aftermath of a pillow fight inside Sleeping Beauty's briarpatch.

The music, too, was relentlessly awful, the worst effect of all being whale songs as a musical illustration for the unicorns. Yes, one can argue that whales have an "innocent mystical" quality, but their songs immediately put one in mind of the ocean, not horses with horns glued to their foreheads!

There were some plusses to the movie--the appearance of a devilish Tim Curry was amazing and all of his evil henchmen were well-created, particularly Brix, with his smarmy demeanor. Both the Tom Cruise character and the Princess were well cast and appropriately beautiful-looking (if a bit too clueless) as representatives of the forces of light. The Princess had the additional good quality of demonstrating a slight distrustability about her, like it actually would be possible for her to succumb to the charms of the lord of darkness. I thought the elf that helped Tom Cruise was sufficiently involutionary in his appearance, except I believe the character's voice was dubbed in by someone other than the actor playing the part...it just didn't fit him at all.

The story itself was just plain stupid and ultimately meaningless, with not one sense of wonder, danger, bravery, cleverness, or triumph. It didn't matter the slightest what happened to any of the characters and actually what did happen, I think, was in violation of the structure that the story attempted to set up, that the two opposing forces HAD to coexist, so how could one ever triumph over the other one?

In short, I felt that this had to be Ridley Scott's very first film (and I couldn't imagine that he would have been given the chance to ever make another), and was surprised to discover that it was his second or his third! Whoever green-lighted this project and actually let it be released the way it ended up probably was, themselves, lost in a swirling cloud of too much substance taken up the nose.

Home Movie (2001)

Living outside the box

[25 May 2002]

A big, burly guy who makes his living working with 'gators lives in a home-made houseboat in the Louisiana bayous and takes people on tours to see the water lilies blooming. An electronic genius in Illinois lives in an all-electric house that is his greatest toy, and when he says all-electric he doesn't just mean the cooktop--rooms change locations, living room chairs are as mobile as wheelchairs, soapdish hands pop out of the wall, and everything is controlled by pressing code numbers on the telephone. A new age family in Kansas lives in an abandoned Atlas missile silo that they converted into what they call their "twentieth century castle" and play Native American instruments in rooms where potential nuclear destruction was once housed. A childless couple living in California have turned their house completely over to their eleven or twelve cats who have hundreds of yards of overhead walkways, secret passages into hidden rooms, and every single thing that a cat could want, and the couple makes their living by photographing their cats for greeting cards, calendars, and cat-lover books. In Hawaii a pioneering elderly lady lives in a tree-house generating her own electricity in a remote jungle valley that is barely assessible via her SUV only when the level of a boundary river is low enough. Come meet these fascinating, unusual, genuine people who fashioned for themselves EXACTLY the kind of life that THEY want. We can too. What are we doing with our tract houses, our ticky-tacky apartments, our nine-to-five jobs, our outrageous mortgages, and we don't even have what we really want! These people broke free (if, indeed, they were ever trapped in the first place), because the only voices they listened to were their own, inner ones. Very inspiring for the rest of us. It's not too late to dig up that forgotten wishbook, roll up our sleeves, and start making our desires come true, too.

Murder by Numbers (2002)

Not about brains, but bodies

[22 May 2002]

Probably most people expected this film to be similar to the psychological thriller "Seven" (this film would be "Eight", based on its advertising graphics). However, despite a carefully-thought-out murder plot executed as a kind of demonstration of "intellectual muscle" by two pampered and otherwise ignored boys who have no sense of what productive place they can achieve in the world (and who want to test their view of power in that world), the underpinning of this movie wasn't about mind at all, but about what I would call "the mesmerizing power of male beauty," which I think is valid for a story about teenagers, for whom physicality is their main concern, anyway (not being stuck sitting around in class learning philosophy or calculus, which must drive them crazy). To me the most interesting element in the film was Ryan Gosling and his hypnotic performance; I don't believe I have seen an actor "move" quite so well since Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise. It is obvious how the "class nerd" would be drawn to him, to want to be like him, and to relish their association beyond the point of all reason. This is pretty typical "high school," "popularity" stuff, which, I believe, is worth psychologically exploring to the depths, but which was not done here. Fortunately, in real life, this does not routinely lead to grisly murder. The Sandra Bullock character sub-plot also involved the same issue, where about her ex-husband, she said, "He was the most beautiful guy I had ever seen," which explains her own helpless involvement with the dance of a cobra. Even her male partner contains elements of the treacherous male, as it was made abundantly clear that he had formerly been a vice cop, those members of the police force who use, essentially, their beauty and sexual attractiveness to entrap perpetrators of victimless crimes. To my reckoning, vice cops are a poison on the police force--whether their target is female prostitutes or male cruisers--a hold-over from more puritan values where the area they infiltrate is none of their business and whose whole operation might be put to better use, if they must, infiltrating organized crime operations al la Donnie Brasco.

Perhaps even more interesting than the Michael Pitt character's attraction to the Ryan Gosling character, was the Ryan Gosling character's attraction to the Michael Pitt character, which bordered upon the sexual, although for psychologically stunted characters like these I would never identify them with something as psychologically mature as a sexual orientation. These people operate in a shadow land of indescriminate physical desires.

This film, to be sure, is populated by attractive females, the Sandra Bullock character, of course, and notably, the high school girl "Goldilocks" whose beauty amazed me and was shown for a disappointingly short period time...but here every female was a victim of her attraction to a poisonous male. The story is definitely about MALE sexual power, not female, which I think is an interesting twist.

All in all, I feel that this film took a step into new ground, which I would expect for a film directed by Barbet Shroeder, a director I admire immensely. If for no other reason, I recommend watching this film for Ryan Gosling, who I believe has quite an exciting career ahead of him.

Chocolat (2000)

Irresistable

[10/10 · 17 August 2001]

This delicious, enticing fable is, in my opinion, broadly about the battle between the abundant pleasures of nature and artificially-imposed, dogmatic thought systems that fear nature and its power and use a form of civilization as an attempt to keep nature at bay (where the mere fact of being born in a body is to be born in sin). But just as the winds blow in the seeds that can take root and ultimately reclaim structures that have become crystalized (I'm thinking, for example, of how the jungle in Cambodia completely overtook the abandoned temple of Angor Wat), the revitilizing spirit of Veanne blows into an insular French village and sends tendrils of sensual pleasure into the lives of the people, breaking apart completely the stone and mortar that had been keeping the spirits of the villagers in a Dark Age prison.

Just like when men get together to drink beer or housewives attend a "kaffeklache" (I have no idea how to spell it), it is the "klache" that is the point, not the "kaffe"; chocolate was the enticement and the bonding agent for the much-needed revitalized human relationships that the chocolate, in the expert hands of its practitioner, Veanne, could engender. And what an enticement the chocolate was, with its deep powers that almost seem like magic, yet the true magic was the spirit and heart of Veanne who dispensed the chocolate like a prescription and was following a mysterious thread of nature and a spiritual commitment to bring with the wind these seeds of healing. "This is your favorite," Veanne would say, secure in her ability to see the cherished desires that resided hidden in each person's heart. And in her hands, this was like a Tibeten prayer and a greeting: "I recognize and salute the greatness that is within you." Only with the fluid complexity of "Roux," Veanne's love interest who was also an unsettled spirit like her, was it harder to uncover or to realize what was the dream in both of their hearts, to find out what was "his favorite". I know with names like "Roux" (a complex blending of flavors) and "the Compte de Reynard" (a "fox"), there was some hidden communication in the marvelous names that makes me regret that I don't know French better.

Veanne is like an elemental plant spirit; she carried on her journeys practically no possessions, and yet, upon alighting on fertile ground, some imprint within her would react with the soil and environmental elements to produce seemingly from nowhere a complete and beautiful chocolate shop overflowing with preColumbian artifacts and an infinite variety of chocolate treats in every shape of candy, drink, cake, or other form imaginable--indeed, a veritable jungle of chocolate emerging from out of only two seed-pod suitcases.

One amazing and ironic undercurrent in the film's battle between Catholic morality and the natural, perhaps pagan pleasures was symbolized by the chocolate itself. Chocolate did not exist in Europe prior to the discovery of the New World in 1492. It was one of the many transformative agricultural products discovered and brought back to the Old World as a result of the Spanish invasions that intended to plunder gold and Catholicize the native inhabitants. Here, now, the chocolate comes in like a form of Montezuma's revenge, invading a Catholic stronghold to retake the natural spirit and, as a form of commerce, get THEIR gold--the chocolate shop was a business, after all. So, what goes around, comes around, as the North Wind might say.

Among all the beautiful details in this movie, and the movie was as much of a visual a feast as the chocolate that was in the shop, one of my favorites was the fascinating color of Veanne's hair, which I can only describe as "chocolate mixed with chili peppers," a rich, delicious brown mixed with red. Whoever was the design genius who came up with that exact shade of hair dye deserves a special award--she or he captured completely the flavored essence of the story. Hair artificially colored for "vanity", a "work of the devil", for sure, reflective of the energetic, fiery overtones lying in wait among the sweet allure of the chocolate itself. Without even knowing what Veanne was about, the Mayor probably took one look at her and immediately began to sweat. Heat and fecund passions arose in him that only the cold shower of abstinence could combat. Is this a battle he could win? Chocolate...who can resist it?