Children of Paradise

It is the 1820s.

"Paradise", in this case, is the abode of the gods, and the gods are the audience of the theatres of the Boulevard of Crime (so called because adultery and murder happen in the theatres ever night).  Thus, the "children" are the actors, writers and producers of the stage who cater to these "gods", their whole lives revolving around the pleasure of the audience.

The central figure is Garance, a woman of such remarkable beauty that four men request, demand and battle for her hand, as well as her evening companionship.  She, on the other hand, smiles at them all, remains distant, and wanders where her interest takes her.  She never participates in crime, although observes many crimes.  She does not dance or sing or act, so she is only ever window dressing for the various theatres, never wanting a speaking role.  Three of the four men are up-and-coming central figures of the Boulevard, Baptiste, the gentle pantomime, Frederick the Shakespearean actor, and Lacenaire the boastful criminal.  Garance would like to dance like a butterfly between the three men, but a powerful fourth man appears, a proud nobleman who changes their whole world.

There are three sets of stories: that of the multiple-party romance, the highs and lows of the theatres and the stories on the stage, all reflecting what is happening in the actors' lives.  While there is a light touch on all of these deep real-life events, I prefer the stage productions, both silent and spoken, that portray both entertainment and serious themes.

This film is spoken of by some as the greatest French film, and it's epic scale, intermission and grand credit sequences indicate that it wants to be seen as an important film.  I am sure it is important.  It has it's significant place in the history of cinema.  But as a whole, I am not sure I want to give it too much credit.  It is good, the characters are well-drawn and it uses it's length of time well, but I do not know how much I will consider this film in the future.  It has to do with show business and with romance, and the presentation of both are far removed from my own experience, nor does it teach me much about the context.  The acting is an older style, almost vaudevillian, that keeps me distant from the characters, even as I am somewhat involved in their stories.

There are a number of things that I can admire about this film.  It was created and filmed in a Paris occupied by the Nazis. It presents it's worlds distinctly, each having their own manner of speaking and focus and running gags. And it also shows how there are pathways from the world of the stage to the world of the personal lives to the world of the theatre and back.

Yes, it's three hours.  But it is certainly a significant watch, and a generally enjoyable one.  

A Deadly Lust: Two films by Claire Denis

For Claire Denis, sex is a hazardous decision.  Gone is the thought that one might casually, flippantly hold the attitude of Marline Dietrich, “It’s just sex.”  Sex is a life-and-death compulsion, it drives and destroys in equal measures, it is a deadly lust.  Dare anyone call these films “erotic”?  They do not titillate, but rather warn.  And we wince.

The title “Bastards” really says it all.  Men manipulating, forcing themselves upon women, using them and casting them aside as an old sex doll.  Men, all men it seems, are so goal-oriented that nothing will stand in their way, but their goal is never relationship, but relationship is used as a means to their ends.  A female human being is simply a hurdle, a means, but never the end in and of themselves.  One man might be considered a good father, another might be a good uncle, but they are never, nor do they have the capacity to be, a caring husband, a stirring lover.  The good male companion is a fantasy, never to be fully fleshed out because they never give more than a cursory glance at their partner.

In “Trouble Every Day” lust is a drive to consume.  Perhaps we have experienced this—our love of a child might cause us to pinch them, to claim, “I could just eat you up!”  But in this film the compulsion for sex is always accompanied with the drive to devour flesh.  This leads to a couple of the most disturbing sex scenes possibly every put upon screen—revolting, disgusting.  And yet, and yet…  Perhaps Denis is speaking about addictive personalities, perhaps she is opening up the fetish can of worms in which lust occasionally leads down darker paths.  Or perhaps she is revealing something about all of us, that in the end our lust is about our appetite, and no matter how we try in the end our compulsion will drive us and destroy others.  Maybe we just can’t help it.

My friends who have seen more of Clair Denis will tell me that these films are different for  her.  Perhaps so, but this is a side of her that must be recognized.  The driven darkness of us all are explored and exposed and there is a time that we must look right in the mirror of cinema and confess, “That is me.”

A Conversation Imagined While Watching Walker/The Journey To the West

A girl wanders by the red-robed Asian man, staring.  She comes closer, and then draws away, unable to make out any purpose.  A woman also passes by, nervously notices the monk, takes a picture and then giggles, and saunters down the stairs.  Many people pass by the Metro stairway, all politely ignoring the monk, avoiding him, pretending not to see him except for the girl, who is still transfixed.

She then hears a male voice clearly state, “Freak.”

She turns to the man, and find that he too is staring, although disinterestedly, at the slow moving monk.

Since he seems to be the only one with any interest in the man, she asks, “Why does he walk so slow?”

The passerby responds, “He is just some crazy Asian.”

Dissatisfied, she asks again, “Why does he walk so deliberately?”

The man spits at the monk’s feet and says, “He’s probably some dirty protester.  Wanting to shame us into not walking so quickly, to show off his ability and to demonstrate that we are all heathen for not taking up his disgustingly slow ways.”

Another man stops and speaks.  “I have heard of this condition.  Oliver Sacks speaks of it.  There are people who’s time sense is remarkably different than our own, and while they consider themselves acting and walking at the same time as the rest of us, from our perspective they are standing still, not communicating.  From their point of view, we are the ones who cannot stand still, who never finish a conversation.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said the first man.  “No one is like that.”

“Well, I suppose you shall have to take that up with Dr. Sacks.”  And both men left, one down the stairs, the other up.

A woman then came close to the girl and spoke quietly to her, “He is a performer.  See?  He is always striving toward the light.  He desires the light, for he desires attention.  Because he is in the light, see how the red of his robes reflects and bleeds all over the stairs, creating a symphony of color.  He does this, not for any protest, but because he wants to give the rest of us joy.”

An Asian woman, dressed in a suit, looking quite proper heard this and said in a clear, loud voice, “He is the Walker.  He is the ultimate radical Buddhist.”

“Ha!” said a young female, dressed to the nines.  “I don’t think he’s Buddhist.  He’s not even human.  How can he be?  He walks this way for hours—I know, for I saw him on the station earlier today—and he doesn’t cough, doesn’t sneeze, never stumbles, I’m not even certain he breathes.  He must be a robot.”

The Asian woman mildly addressed the fab girl, “Have you ever learned a musical instrument?”

“Sure, my mom made me take piano.”

“When you played the piano, in your course of study, did you ever get to the point where you ignored the notes and just played, forgetting all that you were taught about time and pitch and chord and just played because it was in your heart and in forgetting all your lessons, you knew, at that moment, that you had learned them all perfectly, for they were just flowing out of you?”

“I suppose… Yes.  Yes, I did.  When playing Ode to Joy at times it wasn’t a bunch of notes, but it was real music.”

“That, my dear, is called discipline.  It is when a human fully adopts a learned behavior that it becomes second nature to him. We can do it with anything—reading, typing, singing, talking, jumprope, video games—actions that become such a part of us that we do it without thinking, without considering what exactly we are doing.  So is this man seemingly ‘not human’, for he is so practiced at his art, his ethic, that he need not consider his actions.

“And yet consider is exactly what he is doing.  Little girl, I believe you asked why he is walking so slow?  He is doing that because every life is precious.  When we walk by quickly, when we speed by in our cars, when we fly in our airplanes, we pass hundreds, thousands even millions of separate living organisms every split second.  Some we pass by, some we trod on, some we breathe in, some we simply ignore… because we are moving too fast to take notice.

“This man, the Walker, and those who follow him, are the ones who slow down so that they might have the opportunity to notice every life.  To notice the life around us is the first step of compassion.  To have compassion is, at the very least, to refrain from taking a life that we might otherwise destroy without even knowing they exist.  To have compassion is to recognize the equality of life in an insect, in an amoeba, and giving them their due.  The Walker moves slowly so that life may be seen and honored by him.  He is the true Buddhist.”

A group of young men stopped and listened to her lecture, and one man at the front asked her, “So are you saying that the best man is the one who is in a coma?  The one who never moves, who never eats, but drinks from an IV?  Even this monk steps on insects.  He just knows he’s doing it.  Wouldn’t it be better if he were completely still?”

“No.  For he walks on the earth, not in a hermitage, but in the cities where thousands may see him and consider.  If they consider him, perhaps they will consider other life as well.  Perhaps they will learn the lesson of slowness and compassion.  Some have already taken on this task.  He is not just an observer, but a teacher to all who observe.”

And she briskly walks away to her next appointment.

The group of young men looked at each other and laughed uproariously.   The leader walked up to the Walker and spoke loudly to him, “So, grandpa, I think what she said was a bunch of horseshit, what do you think?”

The man in red continued his agonizingly slow descent.

“I think this gentlemen needs some help down the stairs, what do you think, men?”

“Certainly.  I would love to help the gentleman.”

“Well, fine.  I will take this arm, and you take the other.”

They gripped his arms and picked him up.  He remained still, as if he were still standing on the stairs.  Then one and the other threw his arms forward, causing him to descend the rest of the staircase through the air and land with a hard thump on the concrete pad below.

“Aren’t you grateful?  Have you no ‘thank you’ for us?”

The group of five surrounded him, kicking him and beating him, calling him ethnic slurs and filthy names.

Finally, their thirst for violence quenched, they stopped.  The leader looked up at the little girl, who saw the whole incident.  He cocked his head, tipped his hat and said, “That’s what happens to you when you stand out, you know.  Better to just be like everyone else.”  And they went their way as the little girl’s tears fell on the concrete. 

Death and the Maiden: Cleo From 5 to 7

This film is famous for being a capstone of the French New Wave by Agnes Varda.  What I love about Varda is her playfulness, her casual relationship with what is called a plot, and her distractions.   Although seemingly very structured—it follows Cleo (short for Cleopatra, whose real name is Florence) for literally an hour and a half, every minute taken account of—yet it seems so distracted.  There are montages of faces, of items, so much time is spent driving, and it passes from one relationship to another.

The film begins at a fortune teller who, through Tarot cards, sees the main relationships in her life: her widowed servant, her too-busy lover, her songwriter, her close friend and a talkative man, and also clearly sees Death.  This is what Cleo was most concerned about.  She has the results to come back this very hour as to whether she has cancer or not.  Her friends all tell her not to worry, they are sure it’s nothing.  But she is just as sure it is something.

And this film is not about the incidents and relationships of an everyday life.  Rather, it is about how Death colors one’s life.  Every face she sees, every friendship, every acquaintance is affected by the fact that Death is looming over her, creating a fear that she had never felt before.

Part of the tension of the film is how can a woman so beautiful, so vibrant, so full of future, be hindered by death?  Yes, older people, sickly people, poets, priests, we can see them hindered by thoughts of a sudden cessation of being, but how can a fresh young woman have this.  This is why almost all of her friends dismiss her concerns, and lead her attention away from the eternal to the everyday.  But she already seems bored by the everyday-- couldn't she use a dose of reality, of cynicism, of higher thoughts?

There is much there I could not catch the first time.  I look forward to my next viewing of the film.

Memory Lapse: Last Year at Marienbad

It has been discovered by scientists that our memory isn't like a hard drive with videos, but rather that we re-create our memories every time we think of them.  Our presuppositions and prejudices, our ideals and desires get in the way of us remembering things correctly.  So when a man tells a story about what happened last year, the woman he was with (or not with) might have a very different version of that story, not just from perspective, but because the memory might actually differ.  The only way we know is if it were mechanically filmed.

Unless the director was Alaine Robbe-Grillet, who directed Last Year at Marienbad.

If there was a film I would call pretentious, this might get the closest.  Many awkward stances, actors being told to freeze, choppy editing, awful organ music.  I can see why the haters want to hate this film.

But I don't think so (I don't really believe in using the term "pretentious" in criticism anyway).  The filmmakers were trying to accomplish something new, and use a new style, but that doesn't equal pretension.  The question isn't what their motivation was in making the film, but whether they succeeded at making a good one.

And I am torn.  The "story" is, at best, difficult to grasp, and there are many questions left unresolved (like whether any of the memories have truth to them at all.)  The acting is, at best, unrealistic-- which is probably done purposefully.  I guess I would just have to say that I am not used to this style, and don't know that I will.  But I am glad for the opportunity to watch this famous film.  Now I will have to take some time to think about what I really think about the film.

Feasting Amidst Famine

From ancient times, food and community have been connected, and this with spiritual life.  Sacrifices weren't the surrender of goods so much as the participation of feasts with one's family and friends, held before the gods or God.  One of Moses' tithes was an annual community feast, held at God's temple, which was so rich that ten percent of all their harvest that year was to be used at one time.  To eat together was to be family, even if you were not blood, and to be family was to be unified before God.  From this rich tradition Christians have their mass, and Muslims have their Id.  And Americans have Thanksgiving.

The film Babette's Feast (1987) imagines a town where everyone was so pious that feasts were unknown.  Not hard to imagine, is it?  To partake in pleasure, for many, is to forsake God, and a feast is tantamount to a gluttonous orgy.  That which God had originally ordained to enjoy, these religious zealots determined to forsake.  A "sacrifice" for God.

Through a particular, and wonderful, set of circumstances, this group of aesthetics sat down to eat the most scrumptious meal ever presented.  Each course is described in the most delectable detail, and the palate is cleansed between them with the finest of wines.  They are determined not to enjoy themselves but the spirits-- or Spirit?-- fill them and they are beside themselves with joy at this feast.

The film itself is simple and quiet, but full of joi de vivre.  It is like Amelie without the quirkiness or plotting.  Despite the spare tastes of this religious order, the film is full of deep charity, deeper relationship, all of it finally spilling over to overwhelming joy.

The basic conceit of this film is the idea of a group refusing to take pleasure in the most magnificent feast.  How difficult this must be!  And the idea of refusing God's gift of enjoyment of food, the very mortar of community, for the sake of God? Truly an abomination.

However, how much more of an abomination that there could be someone watching this film who did not have enough to eat.  A hungry man after laboring all day watching this film would be horrified at the town's refusal to enjoy what any starving child would take the greatest enjoyment in!  To think that some might have the greatest feasts, while others have nothing.  That some could eat whenever they felt like it, while a billion people go to bed hungry each night.  That there is now an orphanage in Uganda, in the midst of a famine-covered region, where the managers desperately seek to find food for their children, while I am overfull of my wife's soup and banana bread, writing about a movie about feasts.  That is an abomination.

May we all find ways to help the hungry to be fed.  Wherever they are.  Whoever they are.  To deny food is to deny community, to deny God.  Let us feed others, not just ourselves.

This post is part of Blog Action Day: 2001

The Double Life of Veronique: Review and Analysis

Two girls are born on the same day in 1968, one in Poland, the other in France. One is called Weronika and the other Veronique.  They both are raised by loving parents, both of their mothers died young and they both have good relationships with their fathers. And even though they grew up thousands of miles apart, they both had this sense that they were not alone.  That somewhere there is a counterpart to themselves.


This is the heart of the Double Life of Veronique, and yet the film is so much more than this.  Directed by Krzysztof Keislowski, the film is much like his other films.  Like all his later films, it explores metaphysical and ethical issues.  Although the subject is very down-to-earth, the cinematography is full of ethereal beauty, full of golds and greens. It is simply one of the most stunning pieces of art ever created.

Why do you play out of tune? Is it because W sang out of tune when she died?.

In addition to that physical beauty, there is the beauty of the music.  The score was composed by Zbigniew Preisner who later also composed the beautiful score for Keislowski's next film, Three Colors: Blue.  Most of the score is a single piece of music, played or sung in different ways, different tempos with different instruments.  But the haunting, spiritual nature of the piece is perfect for the mood of the whole.


I've watched it twice now and each time I am drawn in, stunned by the beauty and power of the simple story.  It is intellectually stimulating and sensual, but somehow it is the beauty of it that captures me.  I am misty-eyed at the end of the film, and I don't know why.  It moves me as no other film does, and it is a mystery how it stirs my soul at all.  In all, The Double Life is one of my favorite films of all time.

Why the ring? Is it simply a connection between the two doppleganers?     

*   *    *


Below is the analysis, which contains spoilers and discusses details of the film: 


All of this gushing praise doesn't mean that Double Life is easy to understand.  There are a lot of seemingly meaningless details, but like all Keislowski films, the details add up to a singular whole.  Of course, the puzzle is, what is that whole?


I believe that the title is a misdirection, as is the main plot of having Veronique/Weronika be doppelgangers. Of course, it is significant, but it doesn't really add much to the main point of the theme.  This theme can be found right at the first two shots of the film.   

First, we see Weronika as a small girl, being held by her mother.  Her mother is interpreting what little Weronika is seeing: an upside down Polish city.  But rather than draw her attention to the city itself, her mother tells her to "look" at the stars.  And this heaven-gaze directs all of Weronika's life, which takes up the first half hour of the film.


Weronika is pulled back and forth between joy and a kind of an illness throughout her portion of the film. She is addicted to heaven, to the spirit realm. Keislowski puts many different symbols of this spiritual, non-earthy, viewpoint throughout the film: stars, rain, seeing the world upside down, but the main basis of spirituality in this film is art: music, dancing, drawing. And the purer the art, the more it is art for its own sake, the more spiritual the art is.  And thus, the less it belongs with the earth.

The illness Weronika struggles with is, frankly, a spiritual sickness.  She is so caught up with the spirit world that her body has a hard time living.  When she sings to practice for her recital, she is so weak she can barely walk.  She becomes pale and her eyes wander.  The connection to the spirit is the greatest joy in her life, but it finally kills her when she completely surrenders herself to the music.


Why did she not die before?  Because of her connection to the flesh, to the earth.  The earthly is seen in her relationship with her boyfriend, in her helping a friend in a legal situation. And whenever see connects in those ways, she becomes grounded again and her body is able to endure.  The funniest example of this is when, after a particularly spiritual practice for her concert, she wobbles out to the street and almost collapses onto a bench.  A man in a trench coat comes by and opens his coat, exposing himself.  This "grounds" Weronika, giving her a connection to the earth once more, so she feels better and gets up. 


In the end, Weronika's commitment to the spiritual kills her, because a soul so connected to the heavens can no longer live on earth.


Veronique, although a copy of Weronika in so many ways, is, in this aspect her opposite.  In the opening scene, Veronique is also with her mother, but her mother is showing her a leaf, describing the details.  Veronique is the one who is focused on the earth, on the flesh.

Love's not enough, in itself.  Or is it? 

The first scene in which the adult Veronique is focused on, we see her having casual sex with someone she hasn't seen for a long time. This demonstrates her groundedness.  But this is happening right at the same time as Weronika's death, an Veronique feels it.  Suddenly, in the middle of the lovemaking, she grieves.  She can't stop herself from crying and it makes no sense to her. This is because she has been free to live a life completely grounded, because her counterpart was living a life in the spirit.  Both are unbalanced, both are one-sided, because they had the other who unknowingly balanced them. Veronique has remained somewhat balanced, seeking music in a class instead of the pure form (she quits personal development of her music after her greiving).   


When Weronika dies, however, Veronique is imbalanced, undirected, seeking stasis.  And she finds this balance in the form of a marionette artist, Alexandre (as a side note, W's boyfriend and V's sought lover's names both begin with "A").  Just his art communicates balance, in that his art is embodied, grounded at all times.  There is always an audience and always a human shown behind the puppet.  His art is the kind of balance Veronique now so desperately seeks.

And for the rest of the film she seeks him and he seeks her.  In the climax, her grief for the loss of Weronika threatens to overwhelm her, but Alexandre makes love to her through her grief.  He brings her back to earth.   Because, for Veronique, her grieving of her lost spirit-component threatened to undo her. But the love of another, frankly, sex itself, grounds her, gives her balance between the grief and continued living in the world.  In the final shot, Veronique is touching a tree, even as her mother showed her the leaf, guiding her to the path of embodiment. 

I'd love to hear any comments on my analysis.                            

The Gleaners And I: A Personal Confession

I am a gleaner.

No, I am not found in fields after harvest, picking through the leftover fruit for what I can eat or share with others. I am a gleaner in the sense that Agnes Varda, the filmmaker of the film, The Gleaners and I, defines it in the course of her film.

Here's a pic of Agnes Varda:

She gives a dictionary definition of "gleaners" at the beginning of her film, but she broadens that definition, first subtlety, and then obviously throughout the film. In the end, her definition of "gleaner" might be rendered: "Someone who takes what was discarded and gives it use."

First, she shows us the famous painting of The Gleaners by Jean Millet. See, here it is:

And she talks about modern day gleaners. People who harvest potatoes after the farmers have collected all they could. People who harvest grapes after vineyards were shut down (but not working vineyards in Burgundy, because that's illegal now). People who collect food from trash bins or from markets after they are closed. But also people who collect trash and make it art. People who find televisions and dolls and pieces of metal that have been discarded and find new use for them, if only for scrap.

Different gleaners do their gleaning for different reasons. Some do it for survival. Some do it for charity. Some glean for environmental reasons. Some glean for fun. Yes, fun. Because it's fun to glean. Taking what others think is useless and making it useful is creative and enjoyable. And when you glean, the sky is the limit for what you might find. Today, in my gleaning, I found 30 lbs of frozen kale, some fried chicken, an office chair with a drip of Pepsi syrup on it, some floor cleaner, a lot of burritos, radishes, folded paper towels amidst much more. Then I had the task of figuring out what I would do with all of this. The best part is to take a whole variety of food from different places and create a meal out of who-knows-what-you-will-get. If you make a delicious, nutritious meal from whatever you find, then your day was successful.

But the ultimate gleaner in The Gleaners and I is "I", Agnes Verdes herself. Let's look at her again:

She's beautiful, isn't she? The wheat she's carrying she didn't glean. She's just feeling her way through the painting above. She does do some gleaning in the film. Here's some heart potatoes she found and took home:

Her touch is all over the film. She speaks the narrative, and, like any older person, sometimes is distracted by the thing around her and she just rambles for a bit. Here she is trying to catch a truck:

But she doesn't glean wheat, or trucks (although she tries). Rather, she gleans people. People, some of whom are discarded by society, and she collects them and places them within her art. However, this isn't a sad film. Rather, it is full of joy. Instead of seeing lives of depression or injustice, she finds the joy in redemption. Much like the wonderful Finnish film, The Man Without A Past, the film could have been full of sorrow or guilt, but instead it has wry humor and personality and joy.

In this way, I, too am a gleaner. I am a modern gleaner, to be sure. I pay dues at a gleaning community service, which collects food and products that cannot be sold at supermarkets anymore and I go through their warehouse for a nominal fee and collect hundreds of pounds of food and miscelanious items to give it to the poor and homeless. I go to people who run food trucks and collect the food that could not be sold. I jump in dumpsters and find items that grocery stores couldn't sell. But more importantly, I take the discarded people of our society and tell them they are important, give them work to do and care for them. Sometimes they find homes and work. Sometimes they don't. But they are now gathered into a single community, helping and supporting each other to live better lives than they could have lived apart. Some of these folks live in my home now.

Anawim is a gleaner. I feel really connected to Agnes Verda now. That's pretty cool.

I'm giving the movie a 4.5/5

If you want to know more about Anawim, my organization, check out:
Nowhere To Lay His Head