In Bruges

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell enjoying the medieval splendors of Bruges.

Today is Colin Farrell's 36th birthday, and the lad has certainly packed a lot of living and a lot of movies into his life so far. In honor of the occasion, i urge you to watch In Bruges, one of my very favorite movies! This movie truly has everything: guns, drugs, redemption, a beautiful medieval setting, and a bargeload of bad language, political incorrectness, and the darkest comedy you could ask for. If that's not enough, there's also a grandly psychopathic performance by Ralph Fiennes, as well as Colin Farrell and his magical Irish eyebrows.

The trailer, which you can view here, is an awe-inspiring exercise in f-bomb bleepery.

The Immigrant Tales of Ramin Bahrani, Pt. 1: Man Push Cart (2005)

A Pakistani immigrant strains to pull a heavy snack cart through the predawn Manhattan streets, a young Dominican boy supports himself by drumming up business for a Queens chop shop, a garrulous Senegalese cabdriver befriends a taciturn old man. Each of Ramin Bahrani's three feature-length films is about the immigrant experience in America, but while there are similarities in tone and theme, what makes his movies among my favorites is the way that they insist on looking at characters not as interchangeable types, but as individuals each trying in his own way to make a place for himself in America. 

Man Push Cart, Photo by Jon Higgins

Anyone who knows anything about my relationship with the movies knows how much i love Italian Neorealism, not just for the films that are a direct part of that tradition (though many are among my favorites), but also for the movement's influence on later independent and developing-world filmmakers. The Neorealists rejected the glamor and high budgets of the Hollywood and prewar Italian film industries and instead attempted to tell the stories of real people living in the real world. Their aesthetic rejected finely crafted sets, elaborate lighting, and big stars, in favor of the grit and compelling humanity of city streets and nonprofessional actors. Ramin Bahrani's films show that the Neorealist tradition is alive and well and still has the power to tell compelling and powerful stories.


Inspired by Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, Man Push Cart (2005) tells the story of Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), who makes his living selling coffee and bagels from one of those ubiquitous aluminum carts that line the streets of Manhattan and other major American cities. He is one of the invisible people whose lives often go unremarked by those in need of that quick jolt of caffeine on the way to the office. In the opening scene, we see him struggling to pull the cart by hand to his spot on the street. It is a moving and moody scene, contrasting the bluesy beauty of that moment before the city comes to life with the physical struggle of one man whose day begins too early. He continues on his way as the sun rises and the traffic increases in volume, and the peril and hardship of his life becomes tangible. The cart is designed to be towed by a vehicle, not pulled by hand, and so instead of being part of the increasing flow of traffic, Ahmad is in danger of being hit by a truck at any moment. 


There's a sadness about Ahmad, the causes of which are revealed only slowly and never completely. By the end of the film we know a little more about this man, but are still left wondering about many of the details that led him to his current situation. Ahmad has a son, but the child lives with his maternal grandparents. He had a wife, but she died some time after their arrival in America; we never learn the details of her death, but her family holds Ahmad responsible and seems to be punishing him by keeping his son from him. When he is befriended by one of his customers, a fellow Pakistani and apparently wealthy businessman, we learn that Ahmad was a successful rock musician in his native Lahore. His is the reverse image of the rags-to-riches immigrant tale; he's a guy who seems to have had it all and lost it when he came to America. 


Although the production values in the film are not what you would find in a well-financed studio film, the use of locations contributes a raw visual power to the film. Often the action is obscured by the darkness of the setting, but then the brilliance of Manhattan, with its glittering shop displays and holiday lights, dazzles the eye, reminding us of those obscured lives playing out in the shadow of the metropolis (Bahrani explores this visual rhetoric even more effectively in the contrast between the seedy streets of Willets Point, Queens and the bright lights of Shea Stadium in his second film, Chop Shop). Like Antonio Ricci, the central character in de Sica's Neorealist masterwork, Bicycle Thieves, Ahmad is struggling to make a living on the economic fringes of the city; and like Antonio, he gets no Hollywood ending. But what we as viewers get is a touching and powerful reminder of the depth, complexity, precariousness, and dignity of the lives of those who too often go unnoticed. 


Theatrical trailer.


For more information on the films of Ramin Bahrani, click here.   

Méliès Redux

Georges Méliès

I had the great good fortune to see the newly restored, full-color print of A Trip to the Moon (1902) tonight, along with Le Voyage Extraordinaire (2011), a documentary that looks at both the film career of Georges Méliès and the recent restoration of his best known film. My earlier post on Hugo talks at some length about Méliès and the remarkable discovery of an existing (though badly deteriorated) color print of A Trip to the Moon found in an archive in Spain. When i wrote that post, i never expected to see the film itself (although i hoped that eventually a DVD might be released), so when i learned that it would be playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago this week, i nearly needed to be sedated. I have seen A Trip to the Moon at least a dozen times and never tire of it. I love the playfulness of it: the chorus line of sexy female Marines in their short shorts and sailor hats, the magic tricks that make the acrobatic Selenites (moon creatures) disappear in a puff of smoke, the iconic image of the rocket poking the man in the moon right in the eye; i even wryly roll my eyes and forgive its undercurrent of colonialist aggression against those poor moon critters. But what i didn't realize until tonight was that i had never actually seen a good, clear print of it projected on the large screen. It was so beautiful and so full of the most minute and charming details that i had never noticed before! There is no narration with this restoration, which instead has a surprisingly effective electronic soundtrack from the French band Air.

The accompanying documentary was also a revelation, containing clips from several of Méliès' other films, a fascinating account of the hand coloring process, and a close look at the tremendous and potentially disastrous job of restoring a canister of volatile, 100 year old celluloid. The documentary also includes interviews with leading directors like Costa-Gavras (Z), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie), Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), who all speak of Méliès' contributions to film with great admiration and affection. The restoration of A Trip to the Moon was clearly a labor of love, and what could be more appropriate? For if there is one thing i feel comfortable in speculating about Georges Méliès, it is that he must have completely and utterly loved making movies. The sheer joy that he displayed in bringing his magic to the brand new medium of film is testament to that, as is, sadly, the symbolic equivalent of self-immolation he performed when his career began to crash down around him, throwing all his films and all his props onto a bonfire. You can only be hurt that badly by a very great love indeed. 


If you are in Chicago, A Trip to the Moon and Le Voyage Extraordinaire are playing Gene Siskel Film Center until Thursday.

My Left Foot Revisited

Watching My Left Foot (1989) for the first time in a couple of decades, i could not help but reflect on how powerfully our own experiences of the world play into our relationship with film. As anyone who knows me at all will attest, i tend to be a wee bit political, and i couldn't escape that even while watching this very uplifting biopic. Most often, when people talk about this film, what they talk about is Daniel Day-Lewis's tour de force performance as the inspiring Christy Brown, a Dubliner born with cerebral palsy who forces the world to see him as something more than his disability. Indeed, that was very much my reaction the first time i saw the film.


This time, however, i found myself constantly returning to the figure of his mother, a role for which Brenda Fricker won an Academy Award. The sainted Irish mother is a familiar trope, especially in Irish Catholic circles, and indeed, at least as her character is presented in the film, Mrs. Brown appears to have been a good mother, one who refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis or the opinion of her neighbors and husband that her son was intellectually impaired and would never move beyond the developmental level of a small child; nor did she keep him behind closed doors in shame as was sadly too often the case under similar circumstances. Instead, she made every effort to see that young Christy was included in the activities of his many siblings and that he got whatever opportunities she could provide to encourage him and help him improve his ability to communicate.


But it's those many siblings that stopped me in my tracks while watching the film this time. Poor Mrs. Brown is hugely pregnant through most of the film, and in one very dramatic scene she even collapses and falls down the stairs when she goes into labor shortly after carrying young Christy (who appears to be about nine years old at this point) up to his bed. As is briefly mentioned late in the film, Bridget Brown raised thirteen children, and lost another nine in childbirth. The math is simple: the woman gave birth to twenty-two babies. I'm not certain if there were any twins in the Brown family, but even assuming that there were, poor Mrs. Brown would have spent over fifteen years of her life pregnant. Imagine that! Fifteen full years of morning sickness, backaches, and swollen ankles, followed by two-hour feedings, colic, and sadly, in the case of Mrs. Brown and countless other women in similar circumstances, terrible loss. I must admit at this point that giving birth is something i've never done or had much desire to do, but i've been around my share of pregnant women and newborn babies. And as much as i love the sweet little cherubs, carrying and caring for that many of them over that long a span of time seems to me more onerous than serving a similarly long stretch in prison for committing one of your more elaborate felonies.


The Browns were poor, surviving on the ill-tempered Mr. Brown's meager salary as a bricklayer. The film adds a sort of nostalgic charm to the challenges of raising such a huge family on such meager resources. As one example, in a few scenes the boys are shown humorously arranged four to a bed in an alternating head-foot-head-foot pattern; in another, the boys grumble as their mother serves them an especially unappetizing mess of porridge for their supper, because it is all she can afford to put on the table (Note that it is the boys whose situation and reactions seem to be the ones that matter. The girls are presumably sleeping in similarly cramped conditions and dining on the same unappetizing slop, but they are uncomplaining saints-in-the-making, preparing for lives of self-sacrifice and never-ending pregnancy, just like Mam). All of this is done, of course, in a way intended to arouse the sympathies of the audience and thus evoke even greater admiration for both Mrs. Brown and young Christy for overcoming their many obstacles and adversities. Fine. Be nostalgic for the good old days of huge families and porridge for supper, if that makes you feel better about the human race. But nostalgia is one of those things best left safely compartmentalized right next to fairy tales. Would you want to live like Mrs. Brown? Would you wish her life on your wife, sister, daughter, or niece? Even in Ireland, which routinely has the highest fertility rates in Europe *, the double-digit family is largely a thing of the past. Meanwhile, here in the US, i thought we'd settled the debate over women's reproductive rights decades ago. Yet in the year 2012, we are inexplicably returning to the oppressive rhetoric of restricting access to reproductive health care for American women. We have political campaigns and reality TV shows that focus on the barefoot-and-pregnant version of "family values." And so the overtly simple tugging on the heart-strings of even a very compelling, well-crafted, and well-acted movie like My Left Foot is tainted for me at least for the time being. A film that i've loved in the past, today just pisses me off, and that in itself pisses me off even more. 

Prologue to My Irish Film Fest and a Brief Plea to Save the Portage Theater

Because i don't drink, i'm always left with the dilemma of finding some new and interesting way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day that involves as little contact with the rowdy hordes of revelers as possible. Some years this can be as simple as staying home and baking Irish soda bread, but this year i decided to hold my own private movie marathon of films that either are filmed in or are about Ireland and the Irish. This did involve one daring foray into the outside world, a harrowing ride on the L and walk through Lincoln Park to the Chicago Public Library to find what is apparently the last existing copy of The Commitments (1991) in existence. It wasn't easy, but a true quest never is; so i braved the roving packs of pie-eyed twenty-somethings in their green teeshirts and Mardi Gras beads (When did that become a St. Patrick's Day tradition?), dug through racks of DVDs at the library, and finally made it back to my safe and sober domicile with my prize. The other films in my marathon (all of which i will write about at greater length in the coming days) were The Field (1990), My Left Foot (1989), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), and Ondine (2009). All were more readily available, either because i have them in my collection or could get them streaming online. But The Commitments was the prize of the day: the movie i went to the most effort to get because i couldn't imagine my idiosyncratic film fest without it. 


The difficulty i had in finding a copy of The Commitments really took me by surprise and made me think about how much we take for granted in this marvelous digital age of ours. I'm old enough to remember having to scour bookstores, thrift shops, and libraries for some obscure book, or having to wait literally years for a favorite film to play at one of those wonderful little art house movie theaters in obscure corners of the city. I could here burst into a song of praise for the TLA and long-departed Bandbox in Philadelphia, where i fell in love with Cocteau, Buñuel, and Herzog, and forever changed my relationship to film, but i'll save that for another day. I could sing a similar paean to those classic art houses that still survive like the Music Box in Chicago, where i've spent many an evening. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, better than watching a classic film in a classic theater. The Portage in Chicago is one such theater that is currently in the greatest danger of not only closing, but having its lovingly restored architectural features eradicated. The owner of the building that houses the theater has put it up for sale. A church group, the Chicago Tabernacle, hopes to purchase the theater and turn it into a place of worship, eliminating or destroying key elements of this wonderful vintage theater, which was built in 1920. The local alderman, John Arena of the 45th Ward, is trying to block the zoning change, while making it very clear that the church itself is very welcome in the community at a more appropriate site. Please take a moment to read about the current threat to the Portage and then send an email to Alderman Arena expressing your support of his opposition to the destruction of this gem of Chicago's cultural scene. 
Click here for an article about the Portage Theater in the Chicago Tribune. 
Click here for the Portage Theater's website.
Click here for Alderman Arena's website.

2011 Academy Awards

Let me start by acknowledging that i am tragically lacking in cynicism every year at Oscar time. Sure, some of my favorite movies of the past year weren't nominated. Scroll through my older posts and you'll find effusive praise for Road to Nowhere, Melancholia, and The Interrupters. None of them got even a nod. Still, predictable as the Oscars can be, and disappointed as i usually am in the outcome,  i can't help but get caught up in the glitz and hoopla every year. I'm better prepared this year than i've been in the past few years: i've seen quite a few of the films that are nominated. And despite all the grumbling about the quality of movies this year, i found plenty to love. 
I have no intention of predicting who will win; what's the point of that, beyond a sorry mix of bragging rights and disappointment? But here are my thoughts on the nominees for best picture:


The Tree of Life--If i ruled the world, or at least the Academy, this would win best picture. It is vast and daring, and yes, frustrating, as art should be. I am thrilled that it actually got three nominations! I don't expect that it will win. Well, maybe Emmanuel Lubezki will get the award for cinematography. Say what you like about my personal deity, Terrence Malick, the man has an extraordinary sense of visual aesthetics. 

The Artist--Completely charming! If there were an award for Best Eyes Belonging to an Actress in a Supporting Role, Bérénice Bejo would win it in a heartbeat!


The Descendants--I liked this movie, but not enough to give it an Oscar.


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--Didn't see it, but i enjoyed David Denby's scathing and child-loathing review in The New Yorker.


The Help--Haven't seen it yet.


Hugo--I really enjoyed this movie and loved the homage to the wonderful Georges Méliès. 


Midnight in Paris--What a delightful movie! It reminded me why i used to never miss anything by Woody Allen. Who hasn't indulged in a few fantasies of stepping into a time machine and being transported to Paris in the 'twenties? Which reminds me, why wasn't Kathy Bates nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gertrude Stein? 


Moneyball--Haven't seen it yet.


War Horse--Haven't seen it, and don't have much interest in it.


In the acting categories:
I haven't seen enough of the performances to make any informed comparisons, but here are a few that i thought were very good:


Best Actor in a Leading Role: 
Gary Oldman should probably win in that way the Academy has of giving Oscars to actors who should have gotten them a long time ago. I found Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy kind of boring, but since Oldman should have gotten an Oscar for Sid and Nancy, i will understand perfectly if they give him one now.

I have to confess that i was a bit underwhelmed by The Descendants. As i said earlier, i liked it, but that's about it. Clooney was good. I won't throw things at the TV if he wins.

Jean Dujardin--I confess to a case of pencil-thin mustache fever. The man was delicious in The Artist.

I still need to see Moneyball and A Better Life.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: 

Michelle Williams is absolutely luminous as Marilyn Monroe. Just give her the Oscar, for goodness sake!

I also thought Rooney Mara was very good in Dragon Tattoo. 

I haven't seen The Help or Albert Nobbs yet. I have no intention of watching The Iron Lady at any time in the near future; I'm sure Meryl Streep is brilliant in it, but that does not change the fact that it's a movie about Margaret Flippin' Thatcher.

Supporting Actor:

Christopher Plummer was wonderful in Beginners. End of story.

Supporting Actress:

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. Can we please reward someone for doing comedy well?

OR

Bérénice Bejo in The Artist, for that lovely scene with the jacket...and those eyes!

A few other categories:
Best Documentary: 
Pina: This movie was in my top five films of the year. I thought it was breathtaking for its use of setting and music, and was touched by the poignant circumstances of its making. German choreographer Pina Bausch,  the subject of the film and friend of director Wim Wenders, passed away shortly before filming was scheduled to begin. Wenders went ahead with the film, now transformed into a touching elegy for a visionary of modern dance.


But let me repeat my complaint: Why wasn't The Interrupters nominated?


Best Screenplay:
All i can say is, "Are you kidding me?" Where is My Week with Marilyn? The dialogue in that movie was so delicious that people were scribbling lines in the dark so they wouldn't forget them. 


Midnight in Paris was a very good original screenplay. 


The Artist? Really? Is that a joke?


Best Foreign Language Film:
Confession, the only one I've seen yet is A Separation. It's an excellent film. 


Cinematography: The Tree of Life. Amen.

My Flight (of Fancy) Has Been Diverted from Hawaii to Paris

I finally went to see The Descendants yesterday. I enjoyed it and thought George Clooney's performance was good, but what i liked most about it was that the voiceover narration in the beginning reminded me of another film where Alexander Payne uses this device: the segment on the 14e arrondissement in Paris, je t'aime (2006). A collection of eighteen short films by different directors, each set in a different Paris neighborhood, Paris, je t'aime is a montage of impressions of the City of Lights from different perspectives, using different stylistic approaches. Some segments made a stronger impression on me than others, but the one directed by Payne remains a sentimental favorite. In it, Margo Martindale plays Carol, an American postal worker from Denver fulfilling her lifelong dream of visiting Paris.

Carol (Margo Martindale) strolls the streets of Paris.

The film is organized as Carol's account of her trip, delivered in tone-deaf French to her continuing ed class. The voiceover narration reveals her struggles with the language while the visuals show her making her way through her final day in Paris. The film touches on all the stereotypes of American tourists in Paris: Carol is middle-aged, overweight, and badly dressed; she even sports a fanny pack. The trip seems to have been something of a disappointment up to this point. After five days she is still feeling tired and jetlagged; as she comments that the food did not live up to expectations, the camera reveals the remnants of a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke. Dutifully following her guidebook, she visits the Cimetière de Montparnasse, pausing at the graves of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In explaining the importance of the grave to the class, she confuses Beauvoir with Simón Bolívar.


In other hands, this slight story might have easily lapsed into mean-spiritedness.  But the combination of Payne's gentle humor and obvious affection for the character turn it into something very charming, a true love song to Paris. Martindale's face is wonderfully expressive and beautifully balances her deadpan delivery. At the end of the segment, Carol sits quietly on a park bench, no more museums to visit, no more need to consult her guidebook, and in that quiet moment, Paris and she finally find each other.


You can watch the entire segment on YouTube:
Margo Martindale in Paris je t'aime.