Change Your Image
cindy_bcr
Reviews
Changing Lanes (2002)
finding meaning in life
Good Friday is the darkest day of the Christian year, when evil was let loose to do the greatest damage. The actions of this movie happens all on Good Friday, when evil is let loose, not as the time when a Savior was crucified, but the daily evil that affects human life. The love of money is the root of all evil, and the members of law firm is filled with that love as they seek to control a hundred million dollar foundation.
We meet two men, Doyle and Gavin, who never would've met each other except for a car accident. Instead of exchanging insurance info, Gavin refuses to take the time and offers a blank check. Doyle wants to do the right thing and refuses the check, for which he is repaid by being stranded in the middle of the road. However, as Gavin was searching for his checkbook, he drops a legal file from his briefcase. That file becomes the basis of the story, which links the two men for the rest of the day.
It turns out that both men were on the way to court. Gavin, the rich white lawyer, arrives late and is given the rest of the day to retrieve the file. Doyle, the black alcoholic who works for an insurance call center, arrives too late at the custody hearing, and loses his sons to their mother who is set to move across the country.
So it goes back and forth, with a scene of each man's day being paired to one from the other's. As the story unfolds, we see that the lanes that were changed were not merely what led to the car accident, but their lives. A vendetta is unleashed as Doyle, so full of hope at buying a house and keeping his kids, responds to Gavin's destroying his hopes as a way to force him to turn over the file. Both men outdo themselves as they sink lower into evil.
Finally, Gavin wanders into a church to collect himself, and sees a processional of the cross; finding the only empty seat is in the confessional, he asks the priest to help him find some meaning in life. At the same time, Gavin is showing his wife the old house he planned to buy, empty except for a picture of the `Sacred Heart of Jesus' left in the closet. Neither man hears what they want, from the priest or the wife, but Jesus is what gives life meaning. No amount of money can fix our past mistakes. We can never get our lost time back, but we can move on and make the most of the time we have left.
In weiter Ferne, so nah! (1993)
comedy about the strange world of humans
It's difficult to make a sequel as good as the original. If it's done in the same style, it becomes a poor shadow. Here, Wim Wenders has made something different than in "Wings of Desire:" what I consider a comedy of a misfit ex-angel, to counter the desire of an angel to become human in the other film.
Near the end of the other movie, we saw one of the angels, Damiel, become human for the love of a beautiful trapeze artist. In this film, we see the other angel, Cassiel, become human by accident as he wanted to help people. As much as he wanted to fit in with our world, the more he tried to do good, the worse trouble actually made of things. He often quotes the Lou Reed song he heard: "Why can't I be good, make something of this life?"
There is a cameo appearance of a world leader, when Mikhail Gorbachev (filmed the summer after resigning as Soviet president) ponders the age-old question about the meaning and purpose of life; or two leaders if counting that the guard dog's name is Khadafy. There are jokes about getting lost between East and West, since the Wall no longer was there as a landmark. But there is the serious side at the beginning, of the war and the Nazi past, which is a little hard to follow. I almost forgot about it as I got caught up in the humor of the fallen angel, but even that had the darker side of an evil angel who was leading him astray. Yet the ending tied everything together nicely.
Like "Wings of Desire," there are nice transitions between black and white, which is how the angels see the world, and color, for how humans see things. There is also a poem started at the beginning, about humans being everything to the angels, when Cassiel looks down from the statue to "you whom we love." The angels are just the "messengers who bring light to those in darkness." The poem is repeated at the ending, adding that the message is love.
The angels lament that humans can only believe what they can see and touch. The Wall fell, the tangible symbol of the division between East and West, yet still one driver whose thoughts we heard couldn't see what the difference was between the two areas; freedom can't be seen or touched. Love, the angels message, can be neither seen nor touched, yet that, and not "blood and steel" (as said the Russian poet and diplomat that Gorbachev quotes), is what is needed for there to be peace.
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
SPOILER Alert -- a most unusual re-telling of Jesus
Before any movies about Jesus, there was the book. No, not the Bible here, although some events mentioned there do take place here. This movie is not based on any of the Gospels, but is a "fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict," based on Nikos Kazantzakis' novel of the same title (which I haven't read to compare, but the film stands well on its own).
Jesus here is truly human. By all appearances he's a mentally-ill cross-maker from Nazareth. For instance, he joins a group of men sitting in a waiting line at the prostitute's house, watching the peep show. Because this film goes way beyond what the Bible says, and allows us to think in new ways, it's controversial. What if Mary was a prostitute and Judas was a good guy? What if Jesus was reluctant, and thought of God's directions as just voices in his head? What if there was no literal devil at the temptation in the wilderness? What if Jesus didn't even die on the cross? Would there still be such a thing as Christianity? It is through exploring the "what ifs" that we have enough options to decide for ourselves. Faith is a personal matter, and our beliefs can not be decided by others. One should not fear looking at all the possibilities, even if they are outside of the church's traditions.
The point where this film diverges from traditional Christian thought is when Jesus is hanging on the cross, and a little girl appears as his guardian angel, to save him from death. She takes him to his new life: he marries Mary and has a family. One day, he sees Paul preaching that Christ had died and was risen. When Jesus confronts him and tells that he didn't die, Paul tells Jesus that people need God, and that "my Jesus is much more important and much more powerful," because only a resurrected Jesus can give the people hope. God will give the people what they need, whether or not it happens in the exact way it's told. Jesus is an old man on his deathbed when the Romans destroy Jerusalem.
The music is superb, Peter Gabriel's contribution of traditional rhythms done on traditional instruments. The casting is good, for the most part, since Willem Defoe makes a good human Jesus and Harvey Keitel is convincing as a likeable strong disciple and unwilling traitor. I was a little disappointed, being a David Bowie fan, that his role of Pilate was less than four minutes, and when asking if Jesus' miracles are good or bad magic, requesting a trick, I was reminded of his previous acting role in "Labyrinth." And although Paul gives Jesus a good message, his telling the list of sins during public preaching reminded me of a Monty Python monologue.
As a whole I liked this film, since hearing opposing views cannot weaken a strong faith. It's only a movie, although an excellently done one, and nothing can guarantee absolute accuracy (the disciples didn't have a videocamera). Some things we just have to take on faith, that God will provide what we need, even if it's not as we'd always thought.
Der Himmel über Berlin (1987)
human life has value
In the first scenes after the opening credits, we see an aerial view of Berlin, but this is a Berlin that doesn't exist anymore. It's a city divided, between East and West, that still bears the scars of the second World War, and can't rebuild where the Wall stands in the way. There is a vast vacant lot where the cultural center of pre-war Berlin stood, with the facade of an old station, and nearby stands a bomb-shelter and the tower of a bombed-out church.
It is from this church where an angel stands looking out over the city, and then we see the people going about their daily lives. All this is shot in black and white, and we realize that we are seeing the world through the angel's eyes, seeing the same colorless world and hearing the same thoughts of the people around. As the story goes on, we realize that this is not just one angel in Berlin, for he goes to a car showroom, and compares observations with another angel. Then we go to the library, which is filled with angels.
The first library scene is my favorite scene of the whole movie. It is here where we see many different people studying, and their thoughts reverberate around the space until they are just a murmur, which becomes music. Because there are so few distinct voices, it doesn't matter that they are in German, which I don't understand. However, there was one young man studying the creation story of Genesis in Hebrew, which ties in with a later point where the two lead angels are discussing how they witnessed creation. First they saw the glacier recede, then fish and animals appear. They laughed when they saw the first biped, someone who shared their image, but they stopped laughing when the people learned how to make war.
As idyllic as the angels' lives are, it is through the pain we humans endure that know we are fully alive. And this is what the angels miss, to see colors, to touch, to taste, to smell, the ability to love and affect others' lives. The children can see them, but the adults may at times only feel some vague presence. They lay hands on people's shoulders, to try to understand their feelings beyond mere words. This is illustrated by a scene on a rooftop, where a man is about to commit suicide; as he sits on the ledge, an angel lays a hand on him as if holding him back, and when he jumps, the angel shouts `no!' For these angels are observers, spending their time being a presence among the living, not just to primarily serve as ushers to the afterlife (where I was sorely disappointed after watching "City of Angels," the American re-make). They are not harbingers of doom, but benign symbols of a creator's concern for humans.
Don't be turned off by the fact that it's in black and white, because one thing that really makes an impact is that it's only through viewing as an angel is it in monochrome, because when humans see the world, it's in color. A poem continues throughout the movie and ties everything together, repeating "When the child was a child..." and we realize that humans are the children, the ones younger than angels, just learning and enjoying life. The music adds a lot to the movie, since this film is more visual than verbal, which means that subtitles don't get in the way. I can't say enough about this filmit's wonderful!
The Sixth Sense (1999)
trying to redeem a past mistake
Malcolm Crowe is a child psychiatrist who, at the beginning of the film, has just been awarded a citation for professional excellence by the city of Philadelphia. When a former patient, Vincent, breaks into the house, he learns that his excellent work has not done all the good that he'd hoped, in fact his promise to a young patient that everything would work out alright, has not come true, and results in the young man's suicide. He tries to make sure this will never happen with another patient.
Later that fall, he finds Cole, a boy who is suffering from the same symptoms as Vincent. Cole spends his free time playing in a church, so the ghosts won't frighten him. As Malcolm studies the case further, he finds connections between the two boys, and figures that by helping Cole deal with his problems, surely stemming from his father's abandonment, he can redeem himself from his failure with Vincent.
Eventually he figures that Cole is telling the truth, that he can see beyond what is apparent in this world. It is by allowing him to face his fears, and use the gift he's been given to help the departed rest in peace and comfort those still living, that he can himself live without fear. He doesn't need to hide in either a church or a tent in his bedroom filled with religious statues.
Malcolm didn't think that something glibly promised in a session with Vincent would come to such a drastic conclusion. He didn't think that Cole could actually see dead people, and was suffering from severe pathology and school-age schizophrenia. He didn't think there was any realm beyond the five senses. He wasn't counting on a little boy, like a boy he had counseled years earlier, had a sixth sense that enabled a person to see beyond what is normally perceived, to the world of souls who had not realized that their bodies had died when they had work still to do.
Likewise, I didn't think that the movie would have such a startling conclusion. I hadn't seen it coming, and had trusted that what I'd seen naturally led to the conclusion of Malcolm's restored marriage, since he'd alienated his wife by being obsessed with Cole's case, and find faith in himself, that he was a good doctor who could heal children's troubled minds and really deserved an award for excellence. Without that ending, it would've been a good movie. With it, it was a great movie. If the mind can be tricked in this way, within the span of two hours, it might also be tricked about preconceived ideas about what happens after death, to consider the existence of spirits lost on their way to the afterlife.
Metropolis (1927)
important in film history, but a tad long
In this last German expressionist film, we see two opposite classes of people: the workers who live in a city deep below the ground, and the privileged sons of the wealthy of Metropolis, in the "Club of the Sons" and the "Eternal Gardens" high above the surface. As Freder, the son of Joh Fredersen, the master of the city, has his choice of beautiful young ladies in the garden, Maria comes out of the elevator leading the workers' children. She tells them that they are brothers.
After she is ushered out, Freder, taken by her beauty, goes down to the workers' city to find her. There he sees a huge machine with men working feverishly to keep the controls going, but when they can't keep pace, the machine turns into Moloch. In the Old Testament, Molech was the false god to whom children were sacrificed by fire. So also here, the workers are sacrificed for the sake of the wealth of the citizens above ground.
Freder goes to his father's office, and warns him of the dangerous working conditions, to which his father merely answers that they belong down there in the depths. A foreman from below brings in some strange maps found in the workers' pockets. Because both news of the explosion and the maps are brought by others, Joh fires his assistant Josaphat (in the Old Testament, Jehoshaphat was one of King David's officers).
The workers go down to the catacombs after their shift, where Maria preaches (the early Christians met in catacombs). She is the Christ figure, spreading her arms in front of the crosses and candles before them (another Christ-like image was when she earlier led the children). In her sermon, the legend (parable) of the Tower of Babel is retold as a class struggle, even though the Genesis account doesn't make any distinction between the architects who planned the tower and the workers who built it.
To counter the good of Maria and Freder, are Joh and Rotwang, the mad scientist of the film. Both men had earlier loved Hel, who died in giving birth to Freder. While Joh is content to let her rest in peace, Rotwang, builds a Machine-Man in the form of a woman, who will be Hel for him. We first see the robot sitting (`like an Egyptian deity' the intertitles say later) underneath a pentagram (a sign of witchcraft).
"The mediator of head and hands must be the heart," and the theme is that the thinkers of above-ground and the workers of below-ground must be brought together through love. The same rules must apply to both groups, instead of only allowing the workers 10 hours on the clock-face, while the privileged get to have the usual 12 -- they have more of everything that money can buy, but also time. The workers have the drudgery of being shuffled back and forth between shifts, and the citizens have the Yoshiwara district with its nightclubs.
For 1927, this was a marvel of special effects, starting the genre of science fiction. For me, it seemed rather long, since our society has become too fast-paced to tolerate the long stares between characters in silent movies (They must have thought it long even then -- shortly after it's release, it was pared down for audiences, which is why so much of it, over a quarter, has been lost.). But if viewed as an important work of history, it is worth sitting through, and perhaps even be enjoyed in its restored state, with the original music score.
Dead Man Walking (1995)
no easy answer
Spoiler Alert "Dead man walking" is the warden's shout when a prisoner goes from death row to the execution chamber. Matthew Poncelet, trying to escape that line being used for him, writes to a city mission, asking for help obtaining legal representation. Instead, he gets a nun to visit, who finds that this convicted killer needs more than a lawyer. He needs to get right with God by facing whatever part he played in the murder of two teenagers. Even we are not sure what the real truth is, since the many flashbacks to the event are different, as Matthew's story changes, until his final confession.
No matter what stance held on the death penalty, this movie will cause one to rethink the issue. On one hand are the families of the victims, who demand justice. On the other hand, killing-even executing-is wrong, and the accused also have families. There are quotes from the Bible to support either opinion. One scene does just that, showing Sister Prejean arguing with Chaplain Farlely quoting from the same Bible to arrive at two different points; in the next scene, the warden refuses to even get into that argument with a nun, knowing he'd lose.
The main point is that "every person deserves respect." The main question seems to be: how does a person differ from an animal? We see a scene near the beginning of children beating a dead opossum. The lawyer goes through the list of how people have been executed through the ages, but "now we can kill them humanely, just like a horse." The father of the girl who was killed said that Matthew was not a person, but an animal, God's mistake. Because this film deals with such a heavy subject, I was glad to see some humor come in, when Sister Prejean and the lawyer are driving to the prison, and pass a sign: "Have Many Rabbit." They aren't sure if it's a "for sale" sign, a boast, or a cry for help. So too, we're not sure what the answer is to the question of how we deal with those who commit evil deeds among us, if we should consider them an animal beyond redemption, or a child of God who's chosen the wrong path. As Sister Helen pointed out, "Jesus... said that a person is not as bad as his worst deed."
Leap of Faith (1992)
exploring miracles
In the opening scene we see the tour buses that carry the `Miracles and Wonders' that Jonas Nightengale brings as they speed down a country road. A police officer stops them, and those who work on the show take bets on whether Jonas can finagle his way out of a ticket. Here we see just what tricks he uses to peddle religion, specifically, a sharp eye for details and a hidden mike, among other high-tech gadgets.
When one of the trucks breaks down, the troupe pulls into the next town of Rustwater, Kansas. They proceed to set up shop, since they're stuck in town waiting for repairs, even though the town is less than ideal for their enterprise. When they first arrive in town, they stop at the local diner, and Jonas attempts to work his magic on the waitress. The place is too small to guarantee the large haul they can take from other places, so Jonas' assistant, Jane, grills him into memorizing the details of life there, to guarantee the maximum wallet-opening emotional impact. Sheriff Braverman is hostile to their form of fund-raising, but Jonas and Jane manage to get the necessary permit for a gathering.
Marva, the waitress, is skeptical that miracles exist, and definitely believes that Jonas is not the one to work them. Later in the film, we see Jonas in the diner talking to Marva's brother, Boyd. When the boy asks Jonas, `So, you believe in miracles, right?', Marva says, `I believe in life, what it does to you, and what you do back,' while Jonas answers about faith, not miracles, evading any straight answer, as always.
Besides the diner, the other important location is the tent. The gospel choir sings as the pieces are put in place, from the poles and canvas, to the staging and a giant crucifix. This latter item seems most out of place in an evangelistic setting of a healing service, but it points out how mixed up Jonas' idea of religion really is. The services held there seem to me to come across as extreme (almost offensively so), but goes to show how people can get caught up in the spirit of a vibrant personality.
Truth and fiction are so intertwined that at times I was confused as to what were the motives. Was Jane's falling in love with the sheriff merely a show to allow them to stay in town, or did it only start out that way? Was her confession to him of Jonas' unhappy childhood that led to his behavior true? Were the black women in the diner really that dumb, or did they just say things as part of an act? (It's interesting to note that the only thing blacks are portrayed as doing is, stereotypically, playing basketball and singing gospel.)
The lead role of Jonas is played by Steve Martin, but don't look for the `wild and crazy guy' we've come to expect. However, a comedian seems necessary to keep the movie from being overwhelming. But the humor is subtle, and the message of the existence of miracles seems more important. I considered the ending well done enough to make up for any flaws.
Because Jonas' miracles are mere sleight of hand, we are led to believe that no miracles exist. Or perhaps miracles are not necessarily the large-scale healings that Jonas plies as his trade, and can be something as small as a flock of butterflies. But can a miracle-worker more interested in showmanship deal with a real miracle if one should come along?
Saving Grace (1986)
the Pope's big adventure
After one year as pope, Leo XIV becomes disillusioned with the job. He is caught up in the cramped schedules of visiting dignitaries and the sick expecting miracles. Every morning he is briefed on world events, for which he feels powerless to do anything. He feels `completely out of touch with how most people live,' and wonders if anything he says has any effect outside the Vatican walls. He misses being a priest, when he knew he helped those he came in contact with.
One day, as he makes his way past one of the rooms, he hears a nun talk as she signed to a deaf girl who'd hitch-hiked to see the pope and ask for a priest to come back to her village. He promises her he'll find a priest for Montepetra. So when the wind blows the paper with his gardening instructions up over the walls and he chases it and finds himself locked out, he makes the most of his predicament. He makes his way to Montepetra, to be able to actually answer one of the many requests he'd had. He finds a town crippled by a plague, but more importantly, townspeople crippled by poverty. It is there that he struggles to actually do some good as a priest. He seeks to empower the residents to find the will to improve their lives.
One character worth watching is the mysterious stranger, the shepherd who stumbles upon Leo, and recognizes him as the pope.
The scenery is beautiful, as it's filmed in Italy. There's a shot early on of an aerial view of Rome, and scenes of people going about their business among the statues. The rural views must have been beautiful in the theater, but it's hard to appreciate them on the small screen.
I found this move, a comedy-drama, to be a delightful little tale about how we might be able to do some good for others, and find ourselves, our purpose, even if we get lost. While the story of Leo as the rural priest is touching, the scenes of the runaway pope is where the comedy comes in. For instance, on the same day the visitor list includes the ambassador of Brazil and the Italian soccer team, and when told of the second group, Leo asks, `Is it all right if I bless them, or would that set off an international incident?' We are shown that things aren't as bleak as they often seem. The line that illustrates this is when Leo tells the shepherd that the pope can even be `a tramp who comes to a deserted village to help some neglected people.'
It may just as well be that God can better use a tramp than a pope, or whoever we are in between.