GrowingMind Reviews

Spirited Away (2001)

Spirited Away: Curing the illness of modern society with traditional values

[9/10 · 30 May 2007]

Writer/Director Hayao Miyazaki supplies us with an animated adventure full of social commentary on the illnesses of modern society. Miyazaki asserts that the youth of the world must learn and respect traditional values to cure the illnesses.

In this story a young girl, named Chihiro, is moving to the suburbs with her family. Living in the city her entire life, she is very against the move to the country. By chance they come upon the entrance into the Shinto spirit world. Her parents are turned into pigs, which represents modern consumerism, and must find a way to rescue them.

Miyazaki uses symbolism at just about every turn in the film. Chihiro represents the modern youth with no connection to the past. At one point they pass "little houses" that she did not recognize as Shinto shrines. Miyazaki basically sees the current youth as lazy, spoiled, cry-babies without manners. Chihiro even bumps her head in one scene because she did not bow.

Miyazaki symbolizes his modern illnesses with two monsters. The first monster we meet is the Stink Spirit which represents pollution, an illness of modern nature. The second monster is the No-Face spirit which represents the greed of modern society.

Miyazaki does see hope in the future through the young people by having his main character learn to work hard, display courage, and learn strength through tradition. Chihiro pulls out a bunch of modern trash from the Stink Spirit and comes to find that it was actually a polluted River Spirit, curing it's illness. Chihiro also defeats the no-face spirit by refusing the handfuls of gold that it was offering and showing it kindness.

The setting and atmosphere was successful. The anime was beautifully done. The plot flowed well throughout the film. The characters were convincing even though the were dubbed into English. The background music was appropriately added in as well.

This was a very well done film filled with symbolism. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I will say though, if I had not had a college course in southeast Asian literature that specifically discussed 'tradition versus modernity' with a sampling of many different authors and genre, I probably would not have enjoyed this film. Chances are that a lot of the people who did not like this film didn't understand the symbolism involved and had little or no knowledge of Shinto. With that in mind, I do recommend this film to anyone who enjoys anime.

Rashomon (1950)

Roshomon: The First CSI?

[8/10 · 30 April 2007]

If you are a fan of CSI or courtroom dramas, the style of this film may seem familiar. Director Kurasawa Akira broke a lot of ground with this film from the cinematography to the storytelling. He adapted two short stories by Akutagawa Ryunosuke called "Roshomon" and "In a Grove". The film is told in a series of flashbacks by four witnesses to a rape and murder, including the murder victim (a samurai) through a medium. To make it somewhat more complicated, these flashbacks are told through flashbacks of a witness at the trial. As with those shows of today, such as CSI and courtroom dramas, each person has a completely different story and it is left up to you to be the judge.

The film visits the idea of truth. Who is telling the truth? Can anyone ever really know the truth? What is truth? The film also visits the state of man at the time, filmed a few short years after WWII in 1950, Kurasawa seems to be asking a question about the selfishness and self-centeredness of man. Does man need to be selfish to survive? You will have to judge for yourself if you agree with how he answers these questions by the end of the film.

I enjoyed this film. Reading the short stories the story is based on helped my understanding of the film, not to mention some background information on the director. The setting was very appropriate for the story. I liked the flashbacks from the different characters' points of view. The camera work, from a film history perspective, was very well done and I enjoyed the music which added to the overall effect.

If you don't like foreign films or story lines with flashbacks, stay away. Also if you are expecting great sword play or fighting scenes, I will warn you now…it's not what you'd expect

Marooned in Iraq (2002)

Marooned In Iraq: Nomadic Kurds Heed No Political Boundaries

[7/10 · 6 March 2007]

Marooned in Iraq is a story about a Kurdish father named Mirza and his two sons living in Iran who embark on a quest to find Mirza's former wife who is the one marooned in Iraq. Straight from a modern soap opera, she left Mirza for hist best friend and broke up their band in the process. Something has happened and she has sent for Mirza to help her.

The story occurs during Saddam Hussein's brutal attacks on the Kurds. During the three men's quest, there is the constant reminder of Saddam's hostility by the sounds of bombers flying overhead and a scene of a mass grave filled with massacred Kurdish men. The director is evidently making his commentary on the inhumanity shown by the ruthless dictator.

Another political statement being made by the director is on the issue of political boundaries being placed on a historically nomadic people. The Kurds have occupied what they call Kurdistan for thousands of years in the area now politically divided between the countries of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. During a scene late in the film, Mirza simply steps on the border between Iraq and Iran as he crosses over showing that to the nomadic Kurds, they heed no boundaries.

The director does a great job of using the terrain in the backdrops of each scene making you feel like you are there. Although the film is subtitled, not every word is translated; however, you get enough to understand the conversation. The film was quite educational on the life of the Kurds and what they went through under Saddam Hussein's regime.

I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the middle east, specifically the Kurds. If you don't like foreign/subtitled film, this movie is not for you. Overall, I enjoyed this film and felt it quite educational.

Children of Heaven (1997)

Children of Heaven (1997) Warms the Heart and Teaches Compassion

[8/10 · 11 February 2007]

This Iranian film depicts the love a young boy named Ali has for his younger sister named Zahra. Early in the film Ali loses his sister's most prized possession, a pair of shoes, and spends the remainder of the film doing his best to make it up to her. The fact that the family is extremely poor and the feared wrath of the father if he were to find out about the lost shoes add to the tension of the film.

One idea that helped me to appreciate what I have a little more, was the poverty portrayed in the film. The family is very poor. They live in one room apartment and shoes are the most prized possessions the children own. Even though this family is extremely poor, they still find it in themselves to give soup to a nearby family even worse off. Zahra desperately wants to find her missing shoes but when she finds the little girl who has them.... The disparate in living conditions from the poor areas to the big cities and higher class neighborhoods is very vividly pictured. I believe the director was also hoping to provoke a response of compassion in the middle and upper class citizens along with the government in Iran with the reality of poverty in some areas.

The director's use of settings and atmosphere pulled me into the story. The young actors did such a convincing job I could begin to feel the emotions they were portraying on the screen. I would recommend this film for anyone who enjoys foreign film or for anyone who would like to gain a slight bit of insight into middle eastern culture.

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

The Gods Must Be Crazy not to laugh at this movie!

[9/10 · 17 November 2006]

The Three Stooges, Benny Hill, slapstick humor at its best. Writer/Director Jamie Uys must have been a fan. He put a South African spin on the genre that makes it his own. The story follows three plot lines that come together in the end producing a hilarious trot through the African wilderness.

The story begins with the bushman of the Kalahari Desert (the !Kung) where we meet our first unlikely hero named Xi. His people discover a mysterious object from the gods (a coke bottle dropped from an airplane) that causes mischief throughout the band. Xi leaves on a quest to return the object to the gods before it can cause anymore trouble.

The next of our heroes is the bumbling academic Mr. Styne who studies the animals in the wilderness by collecting and analyzing dung. And in the presence of women, our poor hero not only has trouble speaking, he has trouble with just about everything else as well.

Enter the fair maiden of the film, Ms. Thompson, a reporter turn teacher who ends up the object of Mr. Styne's desire. With any maiden, she will end up needing to be rescued from a villain. The villain in this case is a Russian and his gang being pursued for trying to assassinate the President.

Writer/Director Jamie Uys does a good job in intertwining the three plot lines taking us on a fun journey. For me, I kept wanting to see more of Xi and his journey with the coke bottle. Some people have suggested that this movie is racist. I don't see it as over-the-top racism. If there is any racism it would have to be subtle, such as the "National Geographic" style narration used in scenes with the !Kung peoples normally reserved for exotic wildlife. Subtitles of their language would have been nice as well. But it is hard to tell if Uys was using that style to prove a point, just to be different, or actually saw the !Kung in that light.

Overall, I really like this movie. I still remember when it was shown all the time on Showtime in the 80's but haven't watched it in nearly 20 years. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of slapstick humor. This film may not be liked to much by the younger generation due to lack of special effects and hot babes, but I loved it…again!

Twist à Popenguine (1994)

American + French + African(Wolof) = Popenguine, Senegal?

[8/10 · 21 October 2006]

Cultural mathematics might not be your thing, but in writer/director Moussa Sene Absa's 1994 film Ca Twiste a Popenguine, he portrays the influence of the American and French cultures upon the peoples of the town of Popenguine, Senegal during the mid-1960's. Absa does a good job of showing this cultural mix by focusing on a struggle between two cliques of teenagers and adds just enough humor to keep the film on a light note and interesting. The cliques have similarities in that they have both forsaken their parents' traditional garb for more Western/European styles and they listen to artists such as James Brown and Jimmy Hendrix. What separates the two groups involves what they have and don't have. The "Kings" have the only record player in town, but no girls in their group. The "Inseparables" have the girls, but no record player. Absa also shows the influence of the French colonialism with the school teacher Mr. Benoit who is sent from France to teach the children of Popenguine French language and literature. A subplot involves his struggles and acceptance by the townspeople. The actual conflict between the two groups, the Kings and the Ins, is the main storyline of the film and Absa uses that storyline to convey the theme that involves the changing from the native African Wolof culture brought on by the influence of American and French culture to a mixed culture.

Absa's use of untrained actors/actresses works well in this film by giving it a flavor of reality. I would recommend this movie to anyone interested in seeing things from a non-western point of view or anyone wanting to see how different cultures interact and intertwine. If you do not like subtitled/foreign films, I would not recommend this movie unless you have a grasp of the French language. There is some fun poked at the differences involving Islam and Christianity, so if you are not tolerant or can't find humor in religion, you may be slightly offended.

This was my first fully subtitled foreign film, so once I became accustomed to that aspect I really enjoyed the film and appreciated Absa's sense of humor.