terribracy Reviews

The Fisher King (1991)

Redemption and Resurrection

[29 May 2004]

Warning: Possible spoilers.

The Fisher King, a 1991 film directed by Terry Gilliam is based on the myth of the same name-a medieval legend that tells the tale of a dying king who through betrayal and tragedy has lost the Holy Grail. Ostensibly the cup Jesus used at the last supper and into which drops of his blood were collected at the crucifixion, it is the only thing that can save him. He knows this but he is powerless to do anything about it, and although it is right in front of him, he can no longer have the ability to recognize it. It takes an innocent fool with unclouded eyes and a compassionate heart to see it and to fill it with the healing water that the Fisher King needs to be restored.

In the film version, Parry (Robin Williams) and Jack (Jeff Bridges) alternately play the fool and the king, each in retreat from his own reality and each the vehicle for the other's redemption. Their lives first intersect when Jack-a shock jock-inadvertently incites a disturbed listener to commit a horrific act of violence that destroys many lives including Parry's. Parry escapes into madness and homelessness, as in a sense does Jack (though his is manifested through alcohol and a parasitic relationship) and they are each lost in a world of guilt that they are powerless to overcome. It will take each to play the fool to the other's king to open each another's eyes to the possibility of redemption and new life.

Other characters are interwoven (Mercedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer aptly play the love interests) but it is Parry and Jack who are both the redeemed and the redeemer in this tale. There are stops and starts and other theological and social messages that are interwoven throughout, but this is first and foremost a story about healing the wounds of others, and the importance of giving over receiving. Through Parry's redeeming act, Jack is redeemed and through Jack's redeeming act, so is Parry. Unable to heal or even see their own wounds, they clearly see the wounds of the other, and like Christ, they provide the bridge to life. The Holy Grail, visible only through the compassionate eyes of the fool, becomes the cup filled with the water of life from which they both take a drink and are resurrected.

Black Robe (1991)

Conversion: A onetime event?

[25 April 2004]

Warning: Possible Spoilers

In Black Robe, Australian director Bruce Beresford tells the story of the Jesuit missionary experience in New France (Canada) during the 17th century. Beresford's reputation for historical drama and his ability to elicit multilayered dramatic performances serves him well in this film based upon Brian Moore's 1985 novel. Lothaire Bluteau, the French-Canadian actor who was so well received in "Jesus of Montreal," plays Father LaForgue, a pious priest who is traveling 1,500 miles to a wilderness mission with a family of Huron Indians led by Chomina, who is played by August Schellenbarger. The award winning Schellenbarger brings a multifaceted dimension to the role that reveals his 30 years experience playing Native Americans. One wonders if he is ever offered a role based solely upon what he can do as an actor (which is considerable) and not chiefly because he has the right ancestral background. Both actors are understated in their performance and hit the right note in their portrayals. The priest, who is driven by faith, is convinced that he is saving souls from eternal damnation. This is his sole purpose at the beginning of the film begin, although it becomes less so toward the end as his character evolves and his ministry grows into more of a Jesus-oriented ministry of love rather than a Church-oriented ministry of conversion.

The film's depiction of indigenous life is convincing in it's illustration of both the intertribal savagery and the traditional generosity at the heart of their community that helped to preserve their society before the Europeans arrived. It is widely held among anthropologists that it was the European introduction of trade and religion that advanced the demise of a people who had flourished for centuries. Few films have been able to juxtapose these competing points of view, erring on either one side or the other. Skimming the list of the 442 films that IMDB logs under the keyword "Native American," I would guess that the majority of them err on the side of the other-the non-white. Black Robe makes an effort to offer a balanced portrayal. The film's success lies less in its depiction of either the tribes or the Europeans en masse, than it does it in depicting the growth of certain individuals within each community-especially Father LaForgue.

The Jesuit missionaries who were sent to save the "savage souls" in the New World were absolutely convinced of their rightness and were thus willing to martyr themselves for their God. It was this very conviction that disallowed any alternate view, even when confronted with the possibility that one existed. The young Frenchman Daniel (Aden Young) argues with Father LaForgue that the tribe instinctively lives a life steeped in parallel values: "They share everything without question." The priest's retort is immediate, "They should question!" His response may be more of a knee-jerk reaction to his own burgeoning doubts than it is to their lack of the same.

Conflicting cultures and divergent world-views create circumstances that are misconstrued as evil. The film visually depicts this contrast during a canoe ride wherein the Jesuit priest and the tribal medicine man sit glowering at one another. Both men worship the same God, but use such different languages and rituals in their spiritual practice, that each is convinced the other is demonic. The tribe's solution to this perceived evil is slaughter in the name of self-preservation, while the priest's is conversion, which in the long run amounts to the same thing. The final scene in the film shows Father LaForgue baptizing the Hurons in response to their superstitious request-not their conversion. This long journey has been both physical and spiritual for the Jesuit, as he grows in ways that he could not have foreseen when he began.

One might argue that one only grows spiritually when faced with spiritual challenges and conflicts. One might also argue that one only grows spiritually when one finally accepts the redeeming love of Christ and then sees that love shine through the face of others and is able to respond as Jesus would respond-by loving. As Father LaForgue looks at the faces of these Huron's that he doesn't yet know or love, he remembers the faces of those he does, and he is finally able to love them as Christ loves them (and us) for who they are and not for who he believes they need to become. And it is because of this love-manifested in the Spirit of Christ-that he is able to minister to them through baptism. Conversion for these Huron's may yet come, but for LaForgue it will certainly continue, not just a one-time experience, but as a neverending growing into God's grace. The film ends with the camera panning from the baptism to the cross in silhouette against the rising sun, and there is a profound sense of hope and beauty. It is cut short as harsh, black words appear on the screen proclaiming the demise of the Huron Nation within a short 15 years. I fear that as long as Christianity-or any religion-believes its way is the only way to be in relationship with God, we will more often destroy in God's name than we will love. Until we can understand conversion as an ongoing process of individual spiritual growth effected only by the Holy Spirit of God, and not as a one-time event to which we are personally obligated to compel others, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, practice an indigenous spirituality, or are walking some other spiritual path, we must all first love the one God we all share, and secondly we must love each other as God teaches us all to love. Only then will we be truly on the path to conversion.

The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

Who washes your dirty laundry?

[9 April 2004]

Warning: Possible Spoilers

The Catholic Church has taken a beating in recent years because of its proclivity to hide its abuses, and when found out to deny or even justify what has been hidden. Peter Mullan's disturbing film The Magdalene Sisters, met with just such a response when it opened at The Venice Film Festival in September of 2002. Publicly and resoundingly condemned by the Vatican, the newspaper headlines were a clear denial-"Liar, Liar, Liar!" By the time the film opened in Ireland a few months later, the Church was silent, and yet a few months after that the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland encouraged every Catholic to see it. In an interview, Mullan vacillates between their motives; are they finally admitting their culpability or is this just a PR move to stem the controversy? Controversial it is, and although admittedly a work of fiction, the film is based on the very real experiences of several young women who were forced to live and work in the Church run Magdalene Laundry Asylums in 1960's Ireland. Inspired by the documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate, Mullan discovered that these institutions were not part of some medieval church history as one might expect, but survived well into the present. By the time the last laundry closed in 1996, over 30,000 women had been virtually imprisoned by the Catholic Church in the name of salvation. Forced to work off their sins by symbolically washing dirty laundry, the unwilling penitents labored 15 hours a day, 364 days a year under brutal conditions, which included beatings, humiliation, isolation, and near starvation. Surprisingly, most of these women-young girls at the time-were sent to the laundries by someone who believed they were helping to save their eternal souls. The four main characters in the film illustrate the offenses for which they are confined.

For Rose (Dorothy Duffy) and Crispina (Eileen Walsh), the reason is clear; they have both had a child out of wedlock. Crispina has the added complication of being mentally-challenged, and is thus a potential sexual attraction to young men who might take advantage of her and be lead astray. Paradoxically, the concern seems more for the young men and not for Crispina. Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) has been raped by her cousin and hidden away by her family because in this particular culture at this particular time, the whisper of scandal is to be avoided at all costs, and in a theocratic and patriarchal society, the culpability is hers. Bernadette's (Nora-Jane Noone) only crime is being too pretty. A bit flirty, she is a temptation for young Catholic boys and although she proclaims her innocence to the head nun she is met with a response she cannot refute: Bernadette: I'm just wondering why I'm here. I've not committed any crimes. I've never been with any lads ever. It's God's honest truth. Sr. Bridget: But you'd like to, wouldn't you? Sex outside of wedlock-or even the perception of such-was considered a mortal sin in the century and a half that the Magdalene Asylums prospered in Ireland, and because of this no penance was deemed too great. The Catholic Church has yet to apologize to the women whose lives were lost and whose spirits were broken under the pretext of salvation. Most of them are dead now, but their families and the children many of them were forced to give up for adoption are not. This film is Mullan's way to create a public forum for such a confrontation.

Confrontational to be sure, the Magdalene Sisters is also simplistic. The nuns who were so cruel and the priests who took sexual advantage of the penitents played only one part in this horrifying portrait. The larger Church condoned it by allowing it to happen, and the civil authorities turned more than a blind eye; they returned the few girls who managed to escape to their captives without investigation. But the responsibility ultimately lies with the people of God-good Christians like you and me-who live our lives in silence and in uninformed ignorance and allow such atrocities to happen. The families of these girls knew and accepted a God of fear as taught by the Catholic Church and lived their lives accordingly. They hid away in silence and in darkness what they dared not confront, whether that was their wayward daughters or their own sexuality. Many walked by these asylums daily without ever questioning what went on inside. Many more sent their dirty laundry-literally and metaphorically-to the nuns, never knowing that it was the tears of innocents and not holy water that washed their clothes. How many of us live our lives in the same kind of self-imposed ignorance? What walls do we walk by without asking what goes on behind them? What injustices do we perpetuate by our silence? Great films raise profound questions that have the potential to elicit change in the lives of the people who watch them. The Magdalene Sisters is a great film.

Heaven (I) (2002)

God's getaway car

[2 April 2004]

Warning: Spoilers

Pure intent sometimes triggers consequences that result in evil. Jesus teaches that it is not necessarily the deed itself, but the evil that is in a person's heart provoking the deed that leads one to immorality. Often, it is as difficult to separate the means from the end as it is the deed from the doer, but Krzysztof Kieslowski's Heaven, directed by Tom Tykwer, makes the effort. Heaven is a film that conveys the duality that is sometimes inherent in moral ambiguity and that exists within us individually and within society: good and evil, innocence and guilt, purity and corruption, atonement and freedom. Even the construct of the film reflects the dualism of its co-creators, Tykwer and Kieslowski. The first half is tight and intense with an opening sequence that is reminiscent of the action found in Tykwer's first successful film, Run Lola, Run, while the second half is slower, almost meandering, as if together they draw a parallel to life and afterlife. It may have been intentional since Kieslowski died before he could complete this film and Tykwer stepped in to finish it.

Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British schoolteacher living in Italy. She has witnessed her students being lured into drug use by the same source that killed her husband. Although she has repeatedly tried to inform the Carbinieris of his guilt, she has been ignored. Believing she has no moral alternative but to stop him herself, and completely willing to pay the consequences, she leaves a bomb in a wastebasket in his office. Fate intervenes, and even as she is making the phone call admitting to her crime, we watch as the elevator carrying the bomb and four innocent victims (two of them children) rises, and we hear it explode off the side of the building. After her arrest, Philippa learns of her blunder, and Tykwer's close-up lens allows us to watch her transformation from righteous anger to heart rendering remorse. Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi), the young carabiniere who is acting as her translator, is as transfixed as the audience and falls in love with her instantly and completely, as perhaps only the young and innocent are able to do. He concocts an elaborate plan to engineer her escape and they begin their journey toward oneness.

It is no coincidence that their names are the same, although that is the only resemblance we find in the beginning. It is only after they complete the mission she has already begun that they begin to fully unite. As they shave their heads and strip down to jeans and white t-shirts, it's hard to tell male from female, or older from younger. They sleep spooned into one other, inhaling each others breath as if that is all that keeps them alive. Perhaps it is.

The film deliberately slows its pace as the train upon which they ride passes through a tunnel from life through death to beyond and arrives in what could pass for heaven in anyone's imagination. Tykwer shoots the verdant landscape from above as if we were watching from the perspective of God. I half expected a tear to drop as it did in Gibson's The Passion of Christ, but this isn't a film where God weeps. It is instead a film where God provides the getaway car and that is its shortfall for many.

I must admit, the romantic in me loved it-symbolism and all. Their eventual union (at the highest point in the countryside) clearly invoked the spirit of Adam and Eve alone in the garden coming together under The Tree Of Life. Upon reflection it may have more aptly symbolized The Tree of Knowledge, for they chose their fate with their eyes wide open. Philippa was, in spite of her pure intent, responsible for the deaths of five people. Filippo, in spite of his pure love for Philippa, was responsible for the death of one. As childlike as they had grown to be in appearance, their innocence was lost forever. There were only two possible endings. One was to go out in a Bonnie and Clyde hail of bullets, and the other was to accept God's get-away car. When the film ended I had a big grin on my idealistic face.

Bruce Almighty (2003)

Talking to God

[26 February 2004]

Warning: Possible spoilers.

It's either three strikes - you're out, or the third time's the charm; one signifies failure, the other success, and each happens often enough in life to be a cliché. Bruce Almighty, the 2004 People's Choice Award for Favorite Comedy Motion Picture, is undeniably a charm for Jim Carrey and Tom Shadyac, whose first collaboration in 1994, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective launched Carrey's career and whose second effort produced Liar Liar, one of the biggest hits of 1997 and solidified Shadyac's role as a comedic director. A self-proclaimed born-again-Christian, Shadyac compares Bruce Almighty to a modern day parable, and although it is not his intent to impose a specifically Christian message, he does hope to plant some seeds that will provide fodder upon which he hopes the audience will chew. Most of us have times in our lives when we rail against God and ask why. Why are you doing this to me, God? What do you want from me? Why can't I have that job, that house, or that life-partner? Why aren't you helping me to get, do, or be what I want? Why don't you answer my prayer? Bruce Nolan (Carrey) asks some of these same questions himself, albeit in a much less soul-searching and much more self-serving way than did Jerry Landers (John Denver) in 1977's Oh, God! upon which Bruce Almighty heavily draws. Unlike Jerry, the honest, humble boy-next-door, Bruce does not portray the innocent everyman, but conversely, an arrogant, greedy, self-important television reporter who believes he deserves a promotion to anchor, and will do just about anything to get it-and does. Most of what he does is unashamedly sophomoric, which is exactly how Carrey's rubber-faced shtick plays best. In a nutshell, Bruce has a bad day and blames God, and in effect, challenges God to a duel. Responding to Bruce's invitation to "Smite me, oh mighty Smiter," God (Morgan Freeman) instead invites him to slip into his very own water-walkers to see if he can do better. Thus, Bruce Almighty is born, or should I say, born again. Unfortunately, Bruce reincarnated is as bad as the original. Given the power to perform miracles, Bruce enlarges his girlfriend's (Jennifer Aniston) breasts, lassos the moon for a romantic evening, and teaches his dog how to use the toilet. Moving beyond these harmless pranks, Bruce ups the ante to even some scores. The first is for die-hard Carrey fans only, and involves a monkey and the nethermost part of a smart-alecky punk. The second provided the best laugh in the picture. Bruce conducts his arch-rival's (Steve Carroll) speech causing him to sputter unintelligible nonsense for several long minutes. Some of his self-serving miracles have far-reaching consequences. Bruce causes a disturbance that not only provides him with a breaking news story, but also triggers a tidal wave on the other side of the world. He ceases the din of prayers in his head by answering yes to them all. When it backfires and he explains to God that he was only giving people what they want God replies, "Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?" Finally, having been forewarned that he can't mess with free will, Grace finally sees him for the self absorbed idiot that he is and leaves him. Too late, he realizes what he has lost, and when he shares the pain of his inability to make people (Grace) love him God replies, "Welcome to my world son." Losing Grace. Now that's a theological conundrum. But no worries, Grace never really leaves Bruce, just as God's grace never leaves us. Realizing that Grace is the most important part of his life he offers a selfless prayer and Grace is restored. This film may not provoke deep theological discussion, but then it wasn't meant to. It was meant to show a relationship with a God that is as involved in our lives as God needs to be and yet who empowers us to "be the miracle" in this world ourselves. Shadyac said in an early interview that he wanted to make a movie that would cause us to think about our relationship with God and about what we do or do not believe. He wants to "touch our hearts and remind us of how precious and patient God is in His love and mercy for all of us." It didn't work for me, but perhaps it works for those who might not have gotten there any other way than a Bruce Carrey movie. God does work in mysterious ways.

The Third Miracle (1999)

What is the third miracle, anyway?

[26 February 2004]

Warning: possible spoilers.

Faith, doubt and miracles are the subjects tackled in The Third Miracle written by John Romano and based on the novel by Richard Vetere. Directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring two-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris, this 2003 film opens in a flophouse in the late 1970's. Father Frank Shore (Harris), a priest who is faltering in his faith and who has stepped away from the church, eats his meals in soup kitchens, and does what he can to help those less fortunate with whom he lives. A professional postulator ( a person who investigates claims of sainthood) Father Frank is being summoned back to authenticate the miracles of a recently deceased immigrant woman named Helen O'Regan (Barbara Sukowa) who spent her last years living in a convent as a layperson. Loved by all, she is credited with healing a young girl, and every November (the month she died) the statue weeps blood. Known as "the miracle killer" it was just such an assignment that "destroyed the faith of an entire community," and has caused his own crisis of faith. Doubt may be healthy for a layperson, but in a priest it is a certain sign of apostasy according to Archbishop Werner (Armin Muellar-Stahl) who is sent by Rome to undermine his findings in front of a church tribunal. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not well portrayed in this film. The Archbishop's rigid determination that no saint could possibly came out of America, especially one as "ordinary" as wife and mother Helen O'Regan, counterbalances the Bishop who talks politics over golf, spends long afternoons being massaged and mud-packed, and invites colleagues to high-profile gatherings based solely on their ability to converse wittily over cocktails. Even the poor Chicago parish where the possible-saint-to-be lived is tarnished, as the local priest proudly displays rows of scarlet electric pushbutton candles for parishioners to light when they offer a prayer. Doubt and cynicism live side-by-side in Father Frank, and neither this, nor his meeting with O'Regan's feisty, atheist daughter Roxanna (Anne Heche) surprises him. Angry that the mother who abandoned her for the church is even being considered for sainthood, Roxanna invites the priest to dance on her mother's grave in an odd, yet surprisingly sexual scene. Chemistry notwithstanding, the priest is saved from further faltering by a rainy night miracle to which he is a firsthand witness. Reclaiming his collar along with his faith, he returns to the church and argues his case before the tribunal. Several other twists and turns add to the courtroom-like suspense-some we see coming and others we do not-and contribute to an enjoyable two hours. The only question that remains is: What exactly is the third miracle to which the title points? Two are arguably attributed to the candidate for sainthood, but what of the third? On the face of it, it may simply be Father Frank's return to faith, but I would argue that the miracle is ours. Rather than calling us to believe the miracles of this "saint of the people who live in the ordinary world," I suggest it calls us to look for the miracles in our own ordinary lives. In the last scene of the movie we see the first two miracles: the restoration of Father Frank Shore and the joyous motherhood of Roxanna. The third miracle is not named because it can't be named; it is different for us all. It exists in the ordinariness of our lives, and it is up to us to find it.