Familar, but with Depth: Brief Encounter

I do not understand how a single director knows the human emotional state to such a degree that he can make two such perfect films as Lawrence of Arabia and Brief Encounter. The movie Lawrence, from the early scenes, seem to tap into my inner ideas of heroism and draw them out, expand them and place O'Toole's character right in the heart of it, so that I will never again think about heroism without in some way relating it to this film.

Brief Encounter did the same thing. In different hands, this would have been a simple, even dull tale about a couple's extramarital affair. Instead, he took all my thoughts about tragic love, expands them and I will never forget that this film perfectly reflects it, even drawing me into the emotions of the couple doing what I have never done.

All the emotions are familiar: desire, regret, guilt, joy, denial, hope, yet Lean weaves all these familiar notes into a symphony of such power and tragic beauty that it can never be forgotten. It begins right from the first 15 minutes when we see the end of their affair. We know what is happening, although no one else pays any attention, and the hidden passion burns so brightly, yet it is frozen beneath a sheet of social ice so thick, it is as if the entire Arctic were a bright lantern.

We go through the story, and we feel what they feel and even more so because another couple in a similar situation plays before us, but takes it so lightly, so casually, that we understand the depth of passions of our focused couple. Finally, the entire movie rests on the final scene, all having run through Laura's mind, and her husband walks over and is perfect in a way that cannot be imagined. That's when I lost it and realized that this would be one of my favorite movies of all time.

The Apostle: A Question Without an Answer

Sonny is a preacher somewhere in the South.  He finds that his wife is having an affair with a young man, and then she works to steal his church away from him and fires him.  Sonny later attacks the young man and kills him.  He runs from the town, changes his name and begins anew, establishing a new church and doing many good acts.

One of the main reasons I love this film is because it is a tour de force of Duvall's ability as an actor.   He begins with a series of scenes which poison us against the main character of the film and then spends the rest of the film confusing our perception of him and then eventually helping us appreciate him.   The performance is as complex as the character, infusing it with charisma and power and hypocrisy and, strangely, sincerity.  Pacino and DeNiro had powerhouse performances in the 70s to display their full ability to work under directors who had free range to exploit the abilities of their character actors.  Duvall, I feel, never had this opportunity in the golden age of director-guided films.  This is his film, where he shows the full extent of what he can do as an actor.

But more than just a character study, I think that this film is a film about religion in general.  Religion is one of the most powerful forces in human society, able to stir the deepest, strongest emotions and also to bring out the deepest speculation of the most meaningful concepts.  This has positive and negative aspects to it.  Religion creates amazing art-- cathedrals and magnificent music-- and it creates community which can accomplish great works of charity and philosophical thought.  But religion also stirs hate and it murders and it deepens bigotry and abuses those who do not deserve it.  Religion sets up standards that seem arbitrary from the perspective of those who stand outside of the logic of those standards, and those standard can seem noble to some and disgusting to others.

The Apostle presents religion in all its best and worst, wrapped up in the single person, Sonny.  In this one person we can see why religion deserves such respect and derision, why it is both powerful and silly, why it encourages both love and anger.  All the contradictions, hypocrisies, miracles, lusts, glories and carnality of religion are on display here.  Religion is humanity at its finest and lowest, and we see the full range of humanity.  No, we are not all Sonny.  But we are all somewhere in this picture, influenced by or repulsed by a person or community or organization that is just like him.

I love questions without an answer, but takes us down a long road while we consider the answer.  The Apostle is a question like that for me. 

Hunger: Who is Willing to Endure?

Hunger is the story of Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican put in prison for political violence against the British.  While in prison, he leads protests, demanding to be treated as political prisoners—POWs— instead of just criminals.  As the British refuse, he and his co-prisoners suffer the filthiest existence at their own hands.  And then they endure forced bathings and the most inhumane searches.  Finally, Bobby Sands decides on a hunger strike, for him and his comrades.  And the horror of that fast is depicted gruesomely.

Obviously, this is not a movie for everyone.  By the end of this film I began to wonder why I was putting myself through this torturous movie.  Then I wondered why the director put in all of this amazing effort, with some of the greatest filmmaking talent ever, to put us through this experience with Bobby.  It seems that Bobby is going through some of the most terrible self-torture, and for what?  Political recognition?  For the recognition of human rights, most of which were in their grasp at any point?  To make some petty point?

But I realized that this was not a political film.  The director depicts the suffering of the guards as well as the prisoners.  The fact how everyone’s life involved was simply miserable because of this system, because of the determination of these men.

Finally, I realized what the movie is about.  Endurance.  It doesn’t matter what Bobby Sands was fighting for, or what methods he used.  The point is simple—he was willing to go to whatever extent to obtain his goals.  He had the steadfastness to put his body through any degradation, to suffer whatever the cost, to go through any pain or mutilation in order to achieve his goals.  The ethic nature of the goals weren’t significant.  But his determination was.

And, honestly, that’s what makes any cause great.  Not the rightness of the cause, but the stark determination of the promoters of the cause.  This is what made the civil rights movement great, as well as the Indian freedom protests—they were willing to suffer all, while not causing the suffering of anyone.  This is what made the early Anabaptists great, the early Franciscans, the first century church.  They all promoted their cause to the death, while never harming another.

I am ashamed of our modern day church.  How little determination we have.  How we speak so much about “balance” and “cycles”, as if the main text of Scripture we should be living out is not the Sermon on the Mount, but Ecclesiastes 3.  We speak of the “discipline” of rest, but the fact is our lives are full of rest and we do little work for those who honestly need it.  Pastors are the ultimate compromisers, seeking salaries and retirements and office hours, instead of trusting and giving. 

I know true endurance.  I once lived it.  For fifteen years, I worked hard for the people on the street until my body, slowly but decidedly gave up on me—until my stress levels exploded.  Surely, people would say, that is the need for balance.  And I will say, no one’s body is meant to endure terrible stress for twelve or fifteen years.  We just can’t keep doing it.  Even Jesus only dealt with daily suffering for three years or so. 

And this kind of endurance isn’t for everyone.  It is a saintly life to support the spiritual athletes and soldiers—those who lay down their lives for the cause.  But, honestly, we are in a time of the church where those who are willing to lay their lives down for the gospel are few.  Very few. 

What is the task?  To love others, even if it means our own death.

What is the cost?  Our lives, our sanity, our family, our “balance.

Who is willing to endure?

Who is willing to endure?

8 1/2, a personal view

Some spoilers ahead, but they don't ruin the enjoyment of the film:

The plot is confusing and switches time frame frequently.  It is the story of Guido, a director in the midst of creating a film that no one making the film knows the story or anything about it.  At the beginning is a dream in which Guido is in a car filled with smoke and he is choking, then he dreams that he flies out of the sunroof of the car and floats in the air, until his producer captures him with a rope at the beach, where he is pulled down, falling to the ocean.

 As he is making this film, he is in a spa and mineral springs for his deteriorating health.  He had handed the script over to his harshest critic, a cinematic artist, who condemned the script as trash through and through.  Guido knew that changes had to be made to the script, but he wanted to stick with it, because within it is a kernel of truth about himself that had to come out.  His mistress follows him to the spa, where she expects to take a holiday with him, but she gets sick and he ends up having to take care of her.  And all those making the movie with him need constant direction or coddling or help from him—but he feels that he is washed up, unable to direct anymore.

Eventually he invites his estranged wife to join him, which she does with joy until she notices his mistress, of whom she knows.  His wife becomes sullen and distant, until she explains her anger to him.  He has a fantasy about him having a harem of all the women he is attracted to which is very pleasant, until they rebel against him because of his rule to discard any of his harem who is older than twenty nine. 

In an examination of a number of screen tests, it is obvious to those who know him that, rather than the science fiction film they thought he was making, that he was planning a film about his life.  Some of the script comes out, and his wife understands that he is trying to defend his unfaithfulness and lies.  She tells him at that point that she is leaving him. 

He decides to listen to his critic and to abandon the project.  The sets are taken down, and he imagines himself attacked by critics and his producer, and he crawls under a table and shoots himself.  Then his entertainment self convinces him to go through with the movie, presenting it as a musical comedy, where everyone in is life is dancing together to make the film.  He begs his wife to join them, saying that all he wanted to do is to present the truth, even her side of the truth.  She reluctantly joins the dance, and the film is made.

There is so much else about this movie that should be said.  I only gave the barest bones, and communicated none of the wonderful complexity, the richness of the fantasy, the fullness of the life presented.  Interestingly enough, Guido, although a well-known director, is relatively passive throughout the film, doing whatever people wished of him, saying whatever they wanted to hear.  I didn’t get around to the important sub-plots of Claudia, Guido’s idealized woman and actress or Seraphina, whom his Catholic teachers called “the devil”, but Guido as a child was drawn to because of her seductive dance.  There is so much here, that to summarize it is to lose something significant.

My personal interpretation:

All throughout this film, I had two other movies running through my head: All that Jazz, (the Bob Fosse auto-bio pic) and Adaptation (the Charlie Kauffman auto-bio-pic).  All three movies talk about aging, the creative process and has interchange between autobiography and fantasy.  Clearly the two later movies depended much on Fillini’s classic, and 8 ½ is the more complex, more human and more likeable film. 

Another movie I thought of is Altman’s The Player, because of the self-referential nature of both films and their critique of filmmaking and those who make movies.  Also, both films attempt to be comedies (The Player is more successful in that), but the utter gravity with which they take filmmaking ultimately belies the humor they present.

But never have I seen a movie so successful at being a satire of itself.  The movie Guido is directing is a mystery throughout much of 8 ½, until the watcher understands that Guido is making 8 ½ itself.  But what kind of a movie is it?  There are different characters presented to guide the direction of the movie.  The critic, who dislikes it’s lack of art and popular notions.  The producer, who wants something popular, with famous actors, that will sell tickets.  The entertainer, who wants it to fascinate and captivate the audience.  But they are all a part of Guido/Fellini, who’s indecision is actually playing out in his own head.  And then there is the personal nature of the film—what will the film mean to his wife, his mistress, to others whom he portrayed?  All of this adds to the indecision.

Ultimately, he decides on an entertainment that tells the truth—about himself and about the creative process.  No, the truth may not be pleasant for himself or his loved ones, but it must be told.  But, in deciding on the entertainer, he has made the art film par-excellance—despite his critic telling him it is no such thing. 

In the end, this is one of the greatest films I have ever seen.  After just this one seeing, I am putting it my top five.  I don’t know when I have ever seen a movie so complicated and yet almost perfectly balanced, so fascinating and yet so entertaining, such an equal use of my heart and my head.  

-Written in 2010

I'm Not There's Approach to Biography

At the beginning of I’m Not There, we are introduced to Bob Dylan a southern black child blues singer.  If you think that’s unique, given that Dylan is a Jewish kid from Minnesota,  we might conclude that this biographical film isn’t necessarily concerned with accuracy.  And we would be right.  Later in the film we are introduced to Dylan, the poet under inquisition, the folk singer, the born again preacher, the western hero and the rock star (played brilliantly by Cate Blanchett).  To think of all these characters as one person, in one life is dizzying, in that it is both confusing and exhilarating.

I think that I'm Not There is one of the best biography films ever made, if not the best. It recognizes that his subject is not a single person, able to simplify into a recognizable pattern or plot. Rather, he is multiple people, a community, that should be represented by many characters. I think that there are many, many people like that-- on this forum, even-- who cannot be shoehorned into a stereotype, and to reduce them to a single storyline is to do injustice to their whole selves.

I love how this film incorporates fantasy of a self into the whole picture of who the man is or was. He is a hero of the West, a genius child performer, and these fantasies informed who he was in real life. They created a context for how he acted that "real life" couldn't explain.

The fact that the film is about Dylan isn't the point. Dylan is just a starting point. The real point is the complexity of every individual, the community of people that we all live with, the multiple personality disorder that we all control, or fail to control, in unique ways.

Perfection In Depicting the Evil in All of Us: Schindler's List

I have a short list of films, including Rear Window, Citizen Kane and The Godfather which I consider "perfect." There is not a frame out of place, not a sour note, not a dull moment. In these films, the great directors were at the top of their powers and they created their master pieces, that which we could all point to, which declare their greatness.

I will have to include Schindler's List in that short canon of films.

I feel, at times, that I am Schindler. The man whose motivation is questionable, but whose compassion and humanity grows through time and relationship and crisis. He who had to be led by the hand to mercy, but in the end weeps because he has not done enough.

There are Schindlers in every age, every era, stumbling upon a small way out of the horrors of prejudice and dehumanization. This film is not just about a moment in history, but about every moment. A call to sacrifice for those who die around us.

* * *

At this point I need to apologize to Liam Neeson for my "Rule of Liam Neeson", which goes, "An excellent actor, in order to obtain the maximum praise, must choose films in which he is the best aspect of the film."  Clearly, Schindler's List does not fit that restriction, despite the fact that The Phantom Menace, Taken, Les Miserables (1998), Clash of the Titans, Non-Stop, and many other films he starred in do qualify.  

- It is interesting to note that a film about the real life Schindler has been talked about since 1951 when Poldek Pfefferberg spoke to Fritz Lang about the possibility.  Poldek finally enouraged Thomas Keneally to write the novel on which this film was based.

-Spielberg didn't take a fee for this filming, feeling that if he did it would be "blood money".

-Auschwitz scenes were only filmed outside the gates, not inside, out of respect for the dead.

Llewyn Davis: A Serious Man

Inside Llewyn Davis has received a lot of critical acclaim, but probably more about the soundtrack by T Bone Burnett than by the film by Joel and Ethan Coen.  Like many of the Coen Bros. films, there are unlikable people, but less of the quirk or the criminal that keep people interested.  Instead, it is the story of a wandering performer, following his wandering and his interactions between a variety of girls, musicians, managers, and music admirers.  It just doesn’t seem as entertaining as many of the Coen’s films. 

I believe that it is one of Coen’s “message” films, with a symbolic plot.  And it deals with many of the same themes and ethical queries as their previous film A Serious Man.   Before I discuss the themes of Llewyn Davis, I’d like to spend some time on A Serious Man and the themes in that film.

Warning: there are serious spoilers ahead.

A Serious Man takes place in 1967 and is the story of Larry Gopnik, a Jewish professor whose life is falling apart.  His wife is leaving him for another man, he is bribed and then threatened by a student failing his class, his brother is accused of various legal issues and his son, who is about to have his bar mitzvah, is a first class jerk.  He feels that his life is falling apart, and he doesn’t understand why.  After all, “I didn’t do anything.”

The film makes it clear that his main problem is just that: He isn’t doing anything.  He is so passive that he is allowing others to enact evil around him without taking any action against it.  He is just moving from one bad situation to another, which he neither created nor did anything to prevent. 

A central theme in the film is the situation in which a being is neither one or the other, but in stasis.  This is introduced with the story of Schrodinger’s cat, who is in a box, in a state of both being alive and dead, until the box is opened and then it is either one or the other state.  Even so, there are many situations in the film which is neither here nor there.  Larry is married and not married.  His wife is both married to him and to Sy.  F Troop is both on and off.  And the rabbi at the beginning of the film is both a dybbuk (a ghost/demon) and is not.

What changes all of these situations is direct action, which Larry won’t take.  He just wanders from person to person, being pushed or led or advised, while he never does anything.

The main conclusion to this theme is found in the conversation with the senior Rabbi, whom Larry is unable to speak with, but his son, having just had his bar mitzvah, could speak to the Rabbi.  Rabbi Marshak quotes from Jefferson Airplane, as if their lyrics were Torah—the word of God--, “When the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies…” and he expects Danny, a student of the Torah, to come up with the next line.  And that line is the center point of the movie: “Don’t you want somebody to love, don’t you need somebody to love, wouldn’t you love somebody to love, you’d better find somebody to love.”

The issue in the film is that each person is either passive or doing evil to others around them.  The film is about why there is evil in the world, and the answer is: because too few people are actively loving.  Everything is in stasis because some are passive, and there is evil because some are acting out evil against their fellow man.   But if the passive would actively stop the evil and begin to actively love, then evil would no longer reign in the world.  But, instead, we live in a world of selfishness and inaction.

Okay, now we are ready to talk about Inside Llewyn Davis.

Llewyn isn’t exactly passive the way that Larry is in A Serious Man.  Llewyn is a travelling musician, trying to make a career for himself, attempting to get gigs and to get money for his album.  But something seems to be stopping him. 

As a “mistaken” line in the film shows, Llewyn is the cat whom he happens to be carrying around with him. And the cat is neither here nor there, neither this nor that.  Assuming that the cat is the same one throughout the film, it is both male and female, both housed and wandering (it’s name is Ulysses, the epic wanderer), both alive and dead.  Just like Schrodinger’s cat.  And so is Llewyn.  He acts and makes decisions, but they never accomplish anything.  Even when he decides to give up on his music and become a merchant marine, he find that he is unable to.  What is his problem?

His problem is his lack of connection with other people, his lack of love.  He never stays in any one place, he never grows roots.  He impregnates two girls, but he never becomes a father, either through abortion or because he doesn’t follow through.  He agrees to not receive credit for a song he helps record.  He used to have a partner, but his troubles start when his partner commits suicide.  He is invited to join a trio, but he refuses.  And when he is invited, the theme of the movie is spoken to him by a nightclub manager (quote is approximate): “You’re an okay singer, but you’re no good on your own.”

Like A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis is a study of a man who thinks he can live his life without pursuing love.  Through these negative examples, the Coens hope to prod us toward love.

In the end, I think that A Serious Man is a better film.  The characters are more compelling and Larry's plight really draws us on, while Llewyn just seems kind of pathetic.  Also, A Serious Man weaves a variety of stories on their theme, allowing us to see a number of perspectives, while Llewyn Davis is a more straight forward (and less interesting) approach.  I like them both, but only one makes my top 100. 

Battle for the Soul: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

For me, books ruin movies. Not the books written after the movie, but books from which a movie is adapted. When I watched this film in my teens it was soon after reading the Ken Kesey novel, which I found magnificent. But when I watched the film, all I could think of is the many things that were changed, and how the tone of the film differed from that of the book.

Now, more than twenty years later, the book has mostly faded from memory. All three productions of this story-- book, film and play-- melded in some vague outline of a story. Yep, time to watch the film again.

What the film stands against this time is years of going into various state and private mental facilities in Oregon, including the one where this was filmed, the State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, in a pastoral role. I've had a lot of experience with the mentally ill and have seen hospital officials deal with their clients in many different situations. How does this film hold up against that experience?

Amazingly well. Mind you, the situations in 1968 were quite different from the last 15 years when I've visited institutions. At this point security is set at a much higher priority. And after the purging of hospitals in the 80's you don't find many clients able to play cards with other clients.

But much is the same. Line ups for medications, the high priority on keeping control of the clients by the hospital staff, as well as the fact that a prison sentence has an end, but a committed patient, if ordered by the state, can remain in the state hospital for the majority of one's life.

The idea of a con using the state hospital as a way out of prison is brilliant, because then we can see the clashing of these two similar but very different worlds. Both inmates are institutionalized, both are in an underground rebellion against "normal" society. Yet the approach differs. The prisoner often feels trapped, screwed by society. The mentally ill feels screwed by their own minds. Within both institutions, there are those who feel that it is best for them to be set free, to live their lives as they see fit; while others feel that freedom is a trap that forces them to be whom they never want to see again.

This story could just as well be called McMurphy's War. Because it is not just the story of how McMurphy turned the hospital upside down, but it is a battle between two approaches toward health: one, as represented by Nurse Rached is an institutional approach, offering discipline, medication and cool exteriors to assist toward normalcy. McMurphy offers plunging the clients into chaotic human experience, and pushing personal boundaries. While we might personally be drawn to a more human approach, the brutal nature of the film is that of all wars-- it is the conflict, not any single approach, that brings destruction. And when the battle is for the human soul confrontation and competition is the very worst approach, for the fragile soul must be torn in the midst of battle, as seen in divorce courts all over the world.

The Human Condition: A Personal Perspective

***Mild spoilers below***

The Human Condition is the story of Kaji, a leader in fascist Japan with a heart of compassion.  He travels all over occupied Manchuria from 1943-1945 and leads a bold but quiet fight against the heartless nature of the military machine.  He is a labor organizer, a soldier, a lead private, a refugee, a POW and a homeless beggar. 

It is a nine hour film and it is not for the faint of heart.  It is divided into six equal measures of an hour and a half, and it was meant to be watched over a period of time,  not one day.  But it doesn't feel long for all that. This film is also one of the most powerful experiences of my life.  

This is the most personal film I’ve ever experienced. I feel like I’ve lost my best friend and my very self to despair and madness.  To say this film is “depressing” doesn’t get to it.  I am devastated, in mourning, in almost physical pain.  And yet I would watch this film again, right now.  All nine hours. There is so much I missed and I want to experience it all.  And I don’t want to lose my relationship with Kaji, the man who is in every scene of the film. He is my friend, my counterpart, even in his lowest points.  He sees the world as I see it, with all the naiveté and sorrow and struggle that accompany such a vision.

Ever since I spent months in India decades ago, observing desperate poverty and experiencing a mild form of it myself, I see the world as a battle between peace and collapse.  Peace, as I understand it, is wholeness.  A self wholly at peace, a community united, a nation set on providing needs, a religion of love and compassion for all people. 

That’s a big order, really.  Especially in a world that is filled with powers attempting to break that shalom.  There are billions of hungry, wars in many nations, violence on almost every major street, the chronically ill in every family.  And there are those who, just in the normal course of things, require more attention: children, those nearing the end of their lives, the infirm, the very poor, the mentally ill.  To battle this requires stamina, focus, strength and resources.

That’s how I see the world.  It’s how I’ve seen the world since I visited India in 1985 and saw real poverty and suffering and my own complacent reaction to it. From the beginning of 1986 I determined that I would do all I could to combat it, with whatever I had.  If that is taking my paltry life in its fragile eggshell and throwing it against the stone wall, so be it.

The film The Human Condition comes from a similar viewpoint.  Although locked into a very specific cultural construct—Manchuria from 1943-1945 from the viewpoint of the Japanese invaders—it introduces the idea of the poor and the lowly again and again.  Draftees in boot camp, forced workers, POWs, refugees, women forced to trade sex for survival, some lost in the wilderness, the homeless, the despairing, the lost.  Each of these are given their fair time and a voice in this film.  They are able to express their anguish and the corner that they are put in.  This movie is, more than anything, about the plight of the lowly, and how they suffer not only their everyday sorrow, but beating, raping, insults, forced hunger, unpaid labor, and more leveled on them.

Why do the lowly suffer this way?  Because some have power over them.  The power forces the lowly into their place of suffering and the lowly must, in their way, support the system that causes their suffering. These powerful are not only the thumbs of the system, but they also heap on additional abuse onto the lowly that isn’t required or even legal by the system they represent.  Why should they do this?     It isn’t just their power, but their assumption of superiority that makes them so deadly.  They “deserve” the better treatment as opposed to the lowly, and the lowly “deserve” the additional abuse heaped on them.   Their petty complaints are really more important than the survival of the lowly. It’s as if some people think that being homeless isn’t enough, they also must be criminalized and harmed to teach them that being homeless is a bad idea.  Who would do that?  Oh yeah… we do.

Kaji is our protagonist, he is the mediator between the outcast and the powerful.  He has charismatic power that gives him authority even when the system hasn’t given him that authority.  He is like Joseph in the Hebrew Bible—no matter how low he lands, he still rises to the top of the heap.  He is smart and courageous and strong and determined.  He is also compassionate for the plight of the lowly, but that compassion isn’t all.  It is that he stands up for better treatment for the lowly, so that they may thrive, or at least survive.  He is the persistent voice of justice for the outcast.  He is sometimes listened to, always reluctantly.  More often than not, he is mocked and derided.

Kaji attacked by both sides.  By the powerful because he is seen as subversive, by the lowly because he is seen as an oppressor.  What is funny is that he is not subversive at all.  He gathers what resources he must to allow the lowly to survive and thrive.  Nor is he oppressive.  He is in the place of power so that he might cushion the attack against the lowly, but the lowly only feel the attack, they don't see the softening of it.

I understand Kaji, better than many, if I may be so bold.  I just read some critics wondering if Kaji is a realistic character, standing with compassion when the rule of the day was prejudice.  I have been given the opportunity to be a pastor of the homeless and the mentally ill in a United States that thinks the poor are lazy and unworthy of compassion.  The treatment of the homeless and the mentally ill by the police here in Portland and its suburbs is comparable to the treatment of the POWs after WWII or the Chinese by fascist Japan.  Their possessions are stolen from them or destroyed by local government forces.  Even as some of us attempt to assist these very poor, we are hindered by others.  The local housed people consider themselves superior to the homeless and consider the homeless worthy of being punished just because they are homeless.  The neighbors of our church and the local government wants to stop us from providing showers or overnight shelter on the coldest nights because they have fears or policies.  Me and my kind have stood up, attempting to help the community see the homeless as human beings, worthy of respect as anyone else, local citizens and not criminals unless they have actually done criminal activity.  And for this work, we have been insulted by the neighbors, threatened, yelled at by the police, knives drawn on us, and kicked out of our homes. 

Because of this background, I truly appreciate Kaji.  I haven’t been through all he has, but I understand his perspective and I can appreciate his suffering, even if I haven’t been through it all. Kaji represents my heart, and when he speaks I can see myself speaking the words, even if I am at times uncomfortable with them.  At this point, I am older than Kaji ever got, and sometimes I think of him as a younger version of myself and I’d love to give him some counsel.

When Kaji is naïve, in the first film, I understand, for I was once naïve and considered that I could change the world myself.  I want to sit down with Kaji and explain to him that his difficulties came from thinking that the uncompassionate, oppressive world would just see the justice of his position and agree to it.  He is so humble that he fails to see the assuredness of the oppressors superiority.  The lowly aren’t just lowly because of some twist of fate but because they “deserve” their position in some karmic insanity.  And their suffering is “good” for them in some twisted logic.  Kaji can’t understand this logic so he keeps speaking the language of compassion, of empathy with the lowly, which the powerful cannot understand.  So Kaji is alone and persecuted.

Kaji is also like Jesus.  Not in some false Christ-type many movies attempt to throw in.  In many scenes, however, he is willing to suffer and take on the beatings and tortures that would have gone to the lowly.  He

accepted it so they wouldn’t have to.  Perhaps that was his own hubris, that he could handle the suffering better than they.  But in a way this was true.  Because he was taking on suffering out of nobility, not out of some false sense of justice.  No one who punished him considered him worthy of punishment.  Rather they punished him because they had to release their own wickedness in some way.  Kaji accepted it so others would not.

Eventually that suffering broke him down.  He is only human.  In the second film, Kaji becomes angry, sometimes irrationally so, lashing out at his persecutors and I wanted to have another session with him.  I understand why he is angry.  He is angry because his body cannot endure such suffering anymore.  He is angry because he cannot endure the irrational punishment any more.  But I’d like to remind him of the result of his anger. His anger wouldn’t create compassion for the lowly, nor would it force the oppressor’s hand.  In fact, he is undermining his own compassion, for he fails to see that the oppressors are enslaved by their own actions and that they need deliverance as much as the lowly do.  Perhaps he can’t help it, but if he can, he should control it, for other’s sake.

In the third film, Kaji cannot forgive himself for his own acts of oppression.  Again, I understand, as I too have oppressed and beat myself with guilt.  What I wanted to comfort him with was that the system of power makes it all too easy to oppress those who are weak.  We can oppress with a word, with a glance, or by simply ignoring the lowly.  We must resist those impulses, but we will slip into them.  When we do, we cannot beat ourselves up because of our failings in a system of destruction, but resolve never to do it again.  We must remain strong so as to both help the needy and fight the system of injustice.  And it is easy to fall into the trap of weakening ourselves with shame or a too-quick-surrender.

Finally, Kaji snaps and takes his vengeance out on one who caused the death of the lowly. Again, I wish I could have spoken to him, even yelled at him.  Take your vengeance out by changing the world!  See your ideal flourish!  Look at the long view-- he isn't the problem, and you can't take vengeance out on a system.  You are just participating in the system by being the criminal against it.  You are fitting into their idea of you!  I don't know that he would listen to me, though. 

What kept Kaji going, waking up each day, was the thought of going home to his wife.  My home is even more distant than his: I see a world of justice, a world where the poor aren’t oppressed, a world where governments and religions are organized around compassion instead of a false sense of justice.  My home is where the poorest of the poor have a home and a comfort and can contribute creatively to society. 

Now I’m going to get all religious on you, that the film never went.  In this view of the world, Kaji had to go mad.  His hope was pointless.  In fact, in the third film there are hints that his wife was probably raped, beaten, starved or sold her virtue for food, possibly dead.  The home that Kaji longed for probably wasn’t there. 

In Christianity, we are told that we will get to the end of our lives and not find this home we seek, a world of justice and hope for the lowly.  The next world is where we will find it, and those who gave mercy and suffered for would get a second chance at life, successfully creating a just world that could not be done in this life.

And I’ll be honest.  I am often stumbling in the snow, wondering if my hope is in vain.  The way I figure it, Kaji, is that even if there is no home to come to, I have done what little I can to make the world a place where others can have home.  Perhaps this world wasn’t meant for us, Kaji.  Perhaps we were never meant to find home.  But isn’t it enough to know that we offered comfort to others?  Isn’t it enough that our lives were lived for the ease and survival of others?  We may not have done much.  Helped a few hundred people.  But isn’t that enough to keep living for?  Even if that means we go to Siberia, isn’t that enough? Certainly better than dying of frostbite, longing for a home we’ll never have.

Isn’t it?

A Happy-Go-Lucky Life on the Streets of Helsinki

The Man Without A Past



This is a Finnish film of 2002, about a man who is brutally mugged and so forgets everything about his past, who he is, everything, and then tries to make do amidst the down and out of Helsinki.  Despite the obvious plot devises, this is a subtle and hilarious film.

I placed this film in my top 100 last year partly because of the characterization and partly because of the personal connections to those struggling to make due in an urban context.  For some reason, there were two things I forgot.  First of all, it’s in color.  I don’t know why I thought it was in black and white, but there you have it.  Secondly, it is hilarious.  The humor is sly and quiet, and I’m sure much of the humor I didn’t get the first time around.  All this to say, I enjoyed this film even more this second viewing.




Technical—4/5—It’s fine.  Nothing special, no tricks, no fuss.  Just basic filmmaking.  Nothing more than necessary.

Interest—5/5—I really enjoyed it this time.  I was hesitating seeing it again because I thought it would be too dull for me to watch only about a year or so since I last watched it.  Oh, I was wrong.  It was great, every scene.  It was good to know the end this time as well because it helped me to recognize where it was all heading.  And this time, I could see the quiet joy in almost every scene.  Wonderful.

Tension—3/5—Not much tension, this time around, except when the muggers show up.  

Emotional—3/5—There is some emotion, but it’s hard to feel when the acting is so dry and flat.  It is flat on purpose, and it helps one appreciate even more the obvious happiness that is there.  But we have to put that in, the actors won’t help us a whit.  On the other hand, see what I say under “personal”.




Characters—4/5—Excellent.  Sure the acting is flat, but since everyone does it, it looks like Helsinki is just that way.  I suspect that they are playing it as a Finnish stereotype, but it just adds to the humor and the local color.  The characters themselves are wonderful and funny and clever.  I wish more had been done for Kati Oetenin, because she just seemed sad.  

Theme—3/5—It’s not a strong thematic film.  I’d guess the theme might be, “It will all work out” or “There is a place for everyone” or some other generally uplifting cliché.

Ethics—5/5—I love films that show communities that work well, even in difficult circumstances.  Lars and the Real Girl and Notting Hill are among my favorites for just this quality. In TMWaP, the way they took our hero in and how he was instantly accepted, and the community helped him in quiet, small ways but that brought him life was wonderful to behold.  It is the ideal for my community as well, but that's getting toward...

Personal—5/5—I live and work amidst a community much like this.  Yes, there are struggles and not many resources, but there can also be joy and strength.  This personal connection is probably what really makes me emotional about this film. Not even so much because of these people, but because of the people I know on the streets of Portland and their joys and strengths.  It makes me happy.


This film is really a favorite of mine.  It gets better and more enjoyable with each viewing.  

I [Heart] Nemo

My son, on his 18th birthday this last December decided to celebrate this first step into adulthood by inviting a couple of his friends to our home to watch Finding Nemo while eating homemade Portal Cake (recipe changed from the original).  This was a marvelous idea and a great opportunity for me to reevaluate one of my favorite movies of all time.

When I first watched Finding Nemo, my reaction was much like a comment made about this film, “A talking animals movie—how unique!”  The story was simple, and while Dorry is hilarious, overall the impression it left me was “meh”.   After watching it with my children more times than I can count, my appreciation for this film knows no bounds.  This is a deep film, a touching film, a truly human film that has to be told in the sea, for only the sea has the complexity of human society.  Yeah, it’s played for laughs—a lot of wonderful, freeing, joyous laughs—but it isn’t just a funny film.  It’s a film about love and relationships.





Technical—5/5—Amazing.  This is one of the peaks of Pixar’s art.  Every plant, every tentacle, every fin is perfectly realized.  The characters are completely fish and completely human, much in the way Disney has done at their best.  This is a marvel of computer animation.










Interest—5/5—How can I turn away from this film?  Every second is interesting.  It’s funny, then tense, then touching, then funny again. 



Tension—5/5—This is the first film I remember Mercy and I watching together.  We saw it in the theatre, she was three, and was scared to death.  The sharks, the lantern fish, the whale… it was all too intense for her (she still gets nervous about too much tension).  She wanted to leave, but I just held her in my lap and told her to shut her eyes if it was too much.  By the end of the movie she loved it, but it was touch and go for a bit.  Sure, it’s not really scary for adults, but the lantern fish still creeps me out a bit and the jellyfish scene still makes me tense.

Emotional—5/5—Yeah.  When the Pelican tells Nemo the story of his dad braving all of the dangers of the ocean to find his son, I get tears in my eyes.  Heck, they are there right now, just thinking about it.



Characters—5/5—This is the best.  Rarely is character better shown through plot than in this film.  The prologue which establishes the reason for Marlin’s fears, but especially the time taken for Marlin’s attempt at humor.  He can’t tell the joke because he needs to over explain everything, and that tells us everything we need to know, and we can see from the beginning how this damages his relationship with his son.  And instead of Dory and Nemo just being “the funny one” and “the object of desire”, they are given character arcs as well, where all three of them learn to trust.  Marlin learns to trust his son, Dory learns to trust a family and Nemo learns to trust himself.  Brilliant.



Theme—5/5—There’s a lot going on in the film, as it is a quest movie.  Most quest stories rely on the next thing coming to keep the interest, as does FN.  But this is the most human of quest stories, because it is about relationships and how trust is essential.  It isn’t just that the father needs to give the son more freedom (like the shallow Little Mermaid), but that they all needed to trust each other, and to trust the love that they have for each other.  And the way to develop trust is to see each other (and oneself) in crisis.  After the worst has happened and every acted heroically, there is no more need for fear.   This is simple, a child could get it.  But there’s enough in the telling of it that a psychologist or ethicist to spend hours on it, understanding how it works.

Ethics—5/5—Fear leads to overprotection, trust—even dangerous trust—builds love.  That’s powerful.



Personal—5/5—Despite it’s depth, its hilarity, its ethical nature… Finding Nemo is a story about parenting.  We all have a tendency to overprotect as parents (unless we are so wigged out on addiction we don’t notice our children).  It is interesting that a significant part of the story is Nemo learning from Gil what Marlin couldn’t teach him.  It isn’t that Marlin didn’t get Nemo back, but Gil is just as important to Nemo’s growth as Marlin was.   Letting go, in parenting, often means letting others teach what you cannot.  That is real trust.  It is hard to let our children go, and necessary.  These are all lessons I am still learning.

Okay, yeah.  It still belongs in my top 5. 

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.