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Reviews
Smultronstället (1957)
A Magnificent Film
There are moments in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries where you become so enthralled by an image that you want to dwell on it, until you realize that there are so many such moments that to do so would be to stop at practically every scene in the film. The sheer technical and visual skill that Bergman shows here is unsurprising, insofar as we ought to expect this from him, but it is dazzling, even when it is displayed in a film that, on the surface, has a rather tame premise. An old man, Professor Isak Borg (played to perfection by Victor Sjöström), is driving to Lund, where he is to be honoured. His son's wife, and three spirited young people, two men and a woman, accompany him. They also pick up an utterly depressed couple along the way, only to drop them off when they begin to fight. Interspersed with the present actions are the old man's dreams, and flashbacks to his youth.
Out of this material, Bergman crafts a wonderful and touching film about redemption. There is always a tendency to marvel at how an atheist like Bergman can be so deeply involved with religious issues, but many atheists, of course, are atheists precisely as a result of such deep involvement. I don't know enough about Bergman's views on religion to comment on his attitude towards God and religion beyond the basics. What is important, at any rate, is that this film is one in which an old man is redeemed from a miserably lonely and empty existence through contact with others. This is a deeply humanistic view of redemption, and one which is firmly grounded in reality.
The film begins with the professor telling us that he has distanced himself from others, because he has shunned human relationships. This has left him feeling empty and alone. The man we see seems nice enough, until we learn from his son's wife, who speaks frankly to him, how this self-imposed exilic state has rendered him selfish and aloof. Through flashbacks and the dream sequences, we learn enough about his life to chart his progress: when young, the girl he loved, Sara, chose his brother over him. The professor married, but the marriage was a bad one; his wife cheated on him, but it apparently did nothing for him. To her, as she states in one of the dream sequences, he was " cold as ice". The professor, therefore, is old, lonely, and has an empty existence.
How does one find oneself out of that miserable situation? There are three means through which the old man is redeemed. Firstly, the dream sequences serve to warn him of death, which, considering that the man is 78, could come any day. The dream sequences also point out to him just how detached he is from other human beings. In a fantastic scene, he is given a test, which he fails. The point is clear enough: he might be a professor and doctor, but that is nothing if he does not have an understanding of human beings, their emotions and feelings. Secondly, the flashbacks serve to remind him of a time when he was connected with others, as well as of times when he was disconnected from his wife and others. The beautiful scenes of his childhood are marvelously retold, with everyone well dressed in white, and the entire family engaging with each other. Only he is absent, standing in the dark at the threshold, an old man staring at the happy ghosts of the past mingling before him. Lastly, the three young people the professor meets, especially the wonderful Sonia, connect with him on a deeply emotional and innocent level. The girl looks like, and has the same name as, the Sonia who rejected the professor in favour of his brother when he was young. You can interpret this in any way you like, but I think it's obvious that we see here a kind of second chance. In the car, the professor asks Sonia which of the two young men she likes the most. She does not answer firmly. At the end of the film, as the three bid him goodbye, she tells the professor that she loves him the most of all. He brushes it off, but once he gets in bed, there is a great smile on his face. The smile no doubt is a reaction to the whole day's events, but I'm certain that one big reason for his happiness at the end is that Sonia finally chose him, after having rejected him so long ago.
What is the overall message of this film? As with all great films, there is no one right answer. What is certain, however, is that Bergman gives us a view of the world that is neither wholly pessimistic nor wholly optimistic, because it is so painfully real. The characters in this film have been bruised. They are broken, and seek a way out of their situation. There is no indication in the film that Bergman suggests that a solution will solve all the problems. Rather, any change for the better can only come once we engage with the past. Through an understanding of our past and our self, we can add a new sense of our self to what the past given. If we can achieve that, through whatever means necessary, then we can be redeemed. In fact, that understanding of ourselves is itself a kind of redemption. Bergman's world is one in which hope is always possible. It can happen to an unsuspecting 78 year old man, and it can happen to us. It is never too late. Every day in our life is a new chance to make something better of ourselves.
A+
GATTACA (1997)
One of the Greatest Science Fiction Films
Human aspirations take on two forms: the desire for the physical (that which we can perceive with our senses), and the desire for the spiritual (dreams, hope, love, faith).Science has always been forced to fight to make sure that it does not entirely dispense with the spiritual, and art has strained to incorporate the material as part of itself. At the extreme of each, we get stunning failures. We have art that is meaningless because it does not speak to us in any meaningful way, music and cinema that has no grounding in reality and cannot be understood by us because there is nothing about it worth understanding. And we get science at the service of ideas that dehumanize us, that disregard our spirit and dreams.
Gattaca gives us an example of something that has already happened many times before: the desire for the perfect physical entity, whose existence is preferred to that of the 'normal' human being. The interesting thing about such ideas is that they start off with a concept of a perfect human being, which is nonsense, and apply this concept to reality, which cannot accommodate such an idea. Moreover, the idea of perfection is a dream. Science, when it aims for perfection without considering the imperfect subject, is dangerously removed from reality and too reliant on its own dreams.
The only difference between the film and reality is that, in the film, that dream of science appears to come closer to reality. But of course it's not. Hawke's character, citing Jerome's accident, states that you cannot control fate. Precisely. Reality will not accommodate any dreams wholly, and will always provide proof of their invalidity. When you meddle with genes, you are not creating a new society; you are creating the appearance of a new society. When, before, segregation and prejudice occurred along racial or ethnic lines, in Gattaca, it is along genetic lines. Hawke's character states that prejudice has been made a science. Exactly: science has given into a false dream, and has decided to operate within that parameter. And within that context, it is not a matter of serving humanity, but of bending humanity to serve science's own dream. If that can only happen in a few cases, then prejudice in favour of those who come closest to the dream is legitimate.
At its core, Gattaca looks back to the racialist science of 18th and 19th century Europe and America, which insisted on classifying human beings along racial lines, with the white man at the top, and everyone else progressively below him. Above all, we have the crimes of the Nazis as an example of how science can be bent to conform to fundamentally prejudice notions about humanity. The black doctor in Gattaca smiles when he reads that the couple wants a "fair-skinned" boy. As hard as the film tries to show us all the different races, given humanity's racist past and present, it is safe to assume that in a world such as Gattaca's, within a few generations, the majority of humanity would probably be white, and majority male.
Vincent, Hawke's character, demolishes the entire scientific structure of his society by possessing a dream. Given that Gattaca's society is based on a scientific dream, the presence of another dream becomes a threat to its hegemony, and indeed, is essentially a "why". Why can't someone travel to space if they want to, and if they have the wits about them? Vincent displays a great deal of cunning and wit in making his way through life to achieve his goal; his success is as legitimate as anyone else's, and in fact, much more praiseworthy, because he ran against the odds. This should not make us think that he is weak: he is absolutely not weak. This is not an underdog winning the big fight. From his society's perspective, he is weak, but that's only because his society emphasizes the material and physical. But that's only part of being human; as human beings, we have our hopes and fears, dreams and loves and faiths. Those things are at least as powerful, and in significant ways, more so, than the material and the physical. That does not mean that the physical and the material are not important, but they are important in a different way. We need both to function as full human beings. Consider a painting: the artist needs to be aware of the physical environment that he or she is drawing, as well as of the physical apparatus he or she needs to draw with (the paints, the canvas, the brush, his or her own eyes and fingers). But the artist cannot free the physical object from its physical constraints and imbue it with something more unless he or she uses his or her imagination. Most of the people in Gattaca look at their world as it is, and accept it. Vincent (the name means 'victor' or 'conqueror') triumphs because he combines the world he sees around him with the world of his imagination, and in doing so, brings about the creation of a new world, namely, one in which someone like him can travel to space. Jerome is lifted up by Vincent's dream because it realizes his dream as well, namely, that of reaching his potential. In a significant way, Jerome becomes fully Jerome through Vincent, because their dreams are made to become the same. Irene (Thurman's character) is also lifted up by Vincent, because in him, she has an example of someone who, like her, is weak, but who has triumphed in spite of the limitations imposed upon him. And on a broader level, we are all lifted up by his dream, because in making his dream real, he makes real that which we all aspire to: the actualization of our dreams and the triumph of our hopes over despair.
This is one of the best science-fiction films I have ever seen.
Superman Returns (2006)
Not a Very Good Movie
A few brief comments: -Singer is enthralled by images, but he ignores character and language. The dialogue is quite bad, and cheesy at the end, and the film has way, WAY too many religious undertones (the father becomes the son, the son the father? Huh? That's blatantly Jesus, who as God is both Father and Son, urgh) -Singer relies too much on viewers' previous acquaintance with the characters, and the film does a bad job in convincing us that the lead characters have unique personalities. Bosworth and Routh do the best they can with what they've got, but they haven't got much to work with. The other characters have even less. The kid is an irritating idiot.
-Routh is a hunk, an extremely handsome man. Now here's the thing: that shouldn't be something we're really paying attention to. Maybe it's just me, but we should be concerned more about what the superhero is doing, rather than how good he looks doing it. How can you do that when the camera keeps dwelling on this guy, with grand music in the back, the light perfectly framing his body, his entire torso being almost thrown before us to, what?, marvel at? It was so overdone, it became absolutely irritating.
-Here's something for Singer to make note of: the audience is not automatically as enthralled by Superman as you are. Give us a reason why we should worship him, don't force it on us. The attitude of the film towards Superman inevitably reeks of arrogance. It's really amazing how enraptured Singer is with the character; it's as if we're seeing a young God (which is, in a way, the idea anyways) -Superman as a character cannot mean as much to us as human beings as Batman or Spider-Man, who start out as humans and retain their humanity. Superman is not human, and never will be. He is fundamentally separate from us. It is by choice that he remains among human beings. With Batman and Spider-Man, even if they left, they could never leave humanity behind, because they are part of it by their very nature.
- If Superman is not human, how did he impregnate Lois? Why exactly should everyone except Lois be so immediately taken with a guy who abandoned Earth for five years without giving any reasons for his absence, after taking it on himself to save humanity, thereby winning everyone's gratitude? You make a promise, you can't just renege on it and leave. And if you do, you can't just say "sorry" and have things move along right thereafter. There are so many serious issues that the film flatly refuses to consider. It's typical of the film's utter blandness and hero-worship that it refuses to question the greatness of Superman.
-Lois is an even more sex-driven bimbo than Mary Jane is. The hunky, totally doable Superman, that one she's slept with. The kind Clarke Kent she literally pushes aside as if he was a nobody. And it's amazing how she can be so unconvincing in her emotional distress over her torn loyalties to Superman and to her loverboy.
And did anyone else find it bloody disturbing that she completely forgot Clark Kent in those five years? No emotional reunion, no nothing. It's as if he went away for five years. And for the love of God! You've slept with the guy, you hear his voice, he's been away for five years, exactly like Superman, he is of the same height, same eye colour, same hair colour- you moron! -The reason for Luthor's destruction of America is idiotic to the utmost: in order to create the new island, he is destroying more real estate than he is creating. From the map, and area at least twice the size of the new island will be destroyed in the process. The difference is that, whereas much of the US is flat terrain that can be built on easily, the new island is wholly, fully rugged, impossible to habitate with current technology. If Luthor has the knowledge of thousands of years of foreign science at his disposal, why 1) is he so stupid as to plan the destruction of more land than he would create? 2) does he not find some way of colonizing other planets in other galaxies? Marlon Brando tells us that ther eare 28 or so galaxies they know of, and obviously those guys know how to transport humans from one place to another, since they transported Superman. Why not use that knowledge? Cause it's fun to see Gotham destroyed!
The New World (2005)
An Old Dream Made New Again
John Smith is an outcast in an from his society. That much is clear. He does not fit into the confines of his culture, and for his mutinous behaviour, is physically confined. It is hardly surprising that he should be the one reaching over to the natives. The young girl, on the other hand, seems in tune with her own culture and people. So why is she the one who replies? I think it's because of her connection with Mother. Mother, of course, is Nature, both in the physical and spiritual sense, and including both the general and the human sense. It is that universal quality which connects us to the outside world, to our inner self, and to our fellow human beings. The young girl, being connected to that source, thus becomes a being fit to connect with the foreign party. She understands this, and so does Smith. She is faithful to it, Smith betrays this belief, and her with it.
I think that Mallick is trying to show, in Smith, the acknowledged allure of the 'New World', and the fact that this 'New World' was destroyed by the explorers and colonizers. It's consistently emphasized throughout the film, and forms one of the central arguments therein (the contrast between the natives and the starving Englishmen and boys is stark,disturbing, and obvious).
Much more pronounced is the young girl's transformation. It must be emphasized that she does not have a name until she is baptized. We have come to call her Pocahontas, but that is our designation, not hers. When she is named Rebecca, it forms the culminating act in the murder of the young girl that effectively began the moment that contact was established. It is almost inevitable; the moment that you come into contact with the other party, life will never be the same. What is so extraordinary is what an extreme form the young girl's transformation takes. I don't mean just in terms of clothing, language, and other external features. More important is the (apparent) death of her spirit. Did you notice how little she smiles? The most fascinating moment at the beginning of the film was was when the colonizers met with the natives in the field, both eyeing each other curiously and threateningly, until the camera fixed on this wonderful girl who was playing with her friend, and who gave us this wonderful smile! And what happened when that smiled disappeared? To me, what it signalled was that the young girl, now young woman, had lost her connection with Mother.
She finds it in the end, in a scene that is rather abrupt for a film that knows how to take its time. I think that her meaning is clear enough: her son is the manifestation of the universal link between all human beings. This is not only true on a spiritual or idealistic level, but is rooted in biological fact: what connects all human beings is that they are one species, and that is only true so long as they can copulate and produce offspring. Once that connection is confirmed, the young woman (whose 'real' self remains unnamed in the film) can return to her home. But that, alas, is not possible. The moment that contact was established, her 'home' was destroyed. So, what other solution is there? Death, of course. And that's precisely what happens.
The ending, from this perspective, seems quite conclusive. But I find there to be an undercurrent which is quite disturbing. So why is it that it is not portrayed? The reason, I think, is simple and has been hinted at above: this film, like the actors in it, and like the audience watching it, are the product of the post-contact period. We are all part of that age which is founded in large part on the colonization of the Americas. And that being so, we are all denied access to what had existed before then. Why so? Because once the different civilizations met each other, inevitably, they collapsed into a new, and comprehensive entity, which had Europe, certainly, as the standard, but which nonetheless liberally took whatever it needed from the native cultures. Maize and tobacco are just two of the more famous examples. The entire American double-continent is an even better one.
Knowing this, I found myself profoundly saddened by the film. What it gives us, or tries to give us, is a glimpse into a world that does not exist anymore. Perhaps it never existed at all. But the idea of it does. And to think of that idea as something that is not realized, and perhaps never was realized, is profoundly saddening. Let me put it this way: none of us will ever know what it felt like to be like that young girl and to correspond directly with Mother. None of us will be able to go back to that world the way that she does at the end when the dances in the garden in England (even if that return is momentary).
If we can never access this world, how is it that the film was made at all? I think the answer is stated in the film, but in a contradictory fashion. John Smith states, twice, that what he felt when he was with the young girl was reality, and everything else a dream, an illusion. The opposite is true: what he felt was a dream. The rest, and that is everything, is reality. This is not meant to be a criticism. On the contrary, the existence of this dream is very consoling. That is because the idea of the New World was and is a wonderful dream. The reality was and is a nightmare. This is the story of one woman who is treated rather well by the Europeans. There are 22 million dead people whose stories did not turn out so well. They tell the real story. Malick gives us the dream.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
A Very Powerful Film
Throughout the film, I felt that there was something which was keeping it from being a masterpiece. It's certainly not the look or direction of the film, which are great. The film is one of the most gorgeous-looking I have ever seen; the beauty of the Teutons in Wyoming really comes through. I think the problem is that the film, although it seems sparse, tries to do too much by covering twenty years in the lives of the two men in a chronological fashion.
I think the film would have been better if it had either concentrated on the Brokeback Mountain episodes, cutting the rest, or, and I think this would be better, if they started with the end and had the beginning of the film as a kind of flashback, a device which has been successfully done before.
By expanding the story, we become acquainted with characters whose relationships are at least as interesting, and often more interesting, than the central one. For example, I would love to have seen more of Ennis' daughter, who is given just enough time to inform us that she has her own thoughts and feelings. Similarly, Alma is such a powerful presence that her relationship with Ennis completely trumps that of Ennis' with Jack's. What does it feel like for a girl? We get a sense of it, but it's sadly just a side-story.
The worst consequence of this expansion, however, is that it takes away so much sympathy from the two characters and allocates it to the women. I didn't really feel anything but pity for the two men; I felt pity and compassion for the women. When Anna Faris' character is introduced, it's like a cup of water during a long drought. Then, we are instantly shown her husband soliciting Jack. So this sprightly, lively character is being betrayed for...what? I'm absolutely not convinced that the trade-off is a good one at all.
Of course, I understand that it's about the two men being placed in an impossible position, etc. What I'm saying is that this film does not do as good a job at getting that across as it could have. It's the best one yet, because it's more or less the only one yet. It's thus more difficult to say how it will fare in comparison with future releases as opposed to a 'straight romance', but it's possible, in the name of universal love, to compare it with other films about lovers placed in difficult positions. There, the most effective films are the ones which are firmly fixated on the central love affair, because it's absolutely necessary to make sure that the audience feels for them more than it does for those around them. That is necessitated by the fact, often enough, that the relationship is one which society frowns upon. The films are thus going up against incredible social pressures. In this case, I think that is extremely true. And yet, in this very film, we have too many relationships compromising the central one.
Having said that, there is too much that is done well in this film for it to be ranked below the A-level. In addition to the direction and superb cinematography, the acting is fantastic. The editing is a bit irritating, and the pacing is off in some parts (which is necessary in order to evoke the idea of boredom and mundanity), but when the film gets it right, it's dead on. The ending is very well-crafted, and the last two sequences are masterpieces in their own right. The scene with Ennis and Jack's parents is utterly devastating. The mother's eye do more to make this film tragic than any other thing in this film. What a story they tell! What pain they give an expression to! In contrast, the scene with Ennis and his daughter is bittersweet. Sweet, because there are two successful love relationships we witness (between the daughter and her soon-to-be husband, and between Ennis and his daughter). And it's bitter, because a third love relationship, between Ennis and Jack, was one which never could have brought either of the lovers the kind of happiness that the daughter excludes when she gives us that wonderful smile that acknowledges her happiness. The shirt and the picture tell us that once, it did bring them happiness. And Ennis' pain tells us that it was ephemeral. The last shot with the window tells us something else: Ennis is inside looking out. Ennis has always been inside looking out. Jack was on the threshold, desiring to get out. That difference in perspective is the central difference between the two men, and one of the main reasons behind the tragedy in the film.
Rope (1948)
An outstanding film
There are three crucial figures who are mentioned in the film who are, I believe, crucial to understanding the film. We hear of Freud, then of Nietzsche (misrepresented via the Nazis; Nietzsche wasn't vindicated before at least the 1950s), and, by way of reference to Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky. Those three correspond to the three ways in which the film can be understood.
First, and most obviously, the reference to Nietzsche and the idea of a race of supermen is presented to us as the theoretical backbone of Brandon's and (perhaps) Phillip's actions: there are some people who are beyond the normal bounds of good and evil, and thus can create their own morality. This is obviously a crucial element of Nazism, and of course the film, made in 1948, would force the connection. As expected, the theory is soundly shot down at the end, by Rupert, in a speech that seems too forced by now but is always refreshing to hear (and would have been, I'm sure, deeply appreciated by an audience that just three years earlier had seen pictures of the Holocaust for the very first time). I think this point is so obvious that the film speaks for itself on this count. (Could the name of the victim, David, be another reference to the Holocaust? I think so; the wounds of WW2 were too fresh in 1948 for at least some not have noticed).
Secondly, regarding Dostoevksy, although Crime and Punishment is about the exact same thing (the film, and the play it is based on, cannot but have been deeply inspired by the novel), I think we can use it to approach the film from a different perspective, not ideologically, but psychologically. Most of Crime and Punishment deals with the punishment of Raskolnikov, and that punishment is mainly psychological. Thus with Crime and Punishment, and so too with Rope. We see two representations of the response to murder. In Brandon, we see someone who is able to cope with it. In Phillip, we see someone who breaks down under the pressure. Even the reference to the chicken is a throwback to Crime and Punishment; following the murder, Raskolnikov dreams of a horse he saw as a youth that was being brutally beaten. Sensitivity to the past event indicates sensitive to the current situation. When Brandon begins to exert control over Phillip, and finally expresses this by an act of violence (by slapping Phillip), it shows the self-consuming effects of murder. When Rupert tells them that they will die, it shows just how far this goes: they too will be killed, just as they killed David.
Lastly, regarding Freud, there is obviously a sexual undercurrent prevalent throughout the film, and it is obvious, I think, that Hitchcock hints (vaguely) at a homosexual relationship between the two murderers as a means of further emphasizing something that they have committed that is socially not right. At one point, Brandon says something along the lines of the people not knowing what they (Brandon and Phillip) have been doing. We think of the murder first, of course. We also think broadly of an act they have engaged in that must be kept hidden because it is immoral and wrong. This last point is perhaps more obvious to us now than it is to the first audiences (though plenty of people would have gotten it with ease). I don't think it's an accidental by product of Hitchcock's masterful creation of suspense and mystery, though.
Added note: another sexual relationship exists between David, his girlfriend, and her former boyfriend. There might be a third: why did Brandon invite Rupert? He says at one point that Rupert is one of them (Brandon and Phillip). The fact that he proves not to be is what destroys the two men. From a sexual perspective, are we to read this as Brandon's attraction to Rupert being thwarted? I'm not exactly sure Hitchcock would want to have this overemphasized, but I have little doubt that the generally sexual undercurrent might extend to their relationship (or lack thereof) as well.
This is to my mind clearly an outstanding film, and yet another confirmation of Hitchcock's status as one of the greatest artists in cinema.
P.S.: Notice Hitchcock's adherence to the three unities (of time, space, and action). The neoclassical dramatists and critics would have lauded him for it. Racine would have been appreciative :)