* * * * *
Indigenous myth telling can be complicated to western minds that have blurred Finding Nemo with Joanah (or was that Pinnochio) and the Whale, but this expertly told story lends itself well to both myth and entertainment. After languishing in “development-hell” for nearly a decade, the last rewrite of Witi Ihimaera’s novel, The Whale Rider was finished by Niki Caro. She then directed this, her second film, to become New Zealand’s biggest screen hit ever.
Filmed in Whangara, there’s not much of the fabled New Zealand scenery to be had in this film, but from the vista of our seats the panorama of feelings that play on the fine featured face of Keisha Castle-Hughes were enough to make truck drivers weep. Between this young actress and her grandfather, played by Rawiri Parantene, lies the story of a conflict that makes you forget you’re watching a movie. Suddenly you’re transported to your own family, your own childhood, your own conflict with tradition and growing up in a world that is changing around you.
New Zealand has a long history of woman’s rights being the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote (1893) and this story plunges, with great cultural sensitivity, into the coming-of-age, coming-to-power of a young Maori girl. The pre-teen Pai has been raised by her grandparents in a cultural setting that might be compared to “the Res with water” for Maori’s. Early in the story, when she chides the older Maori women for smoking, you know immediately that this youngster is a leader. Sadly, in the patriarchal mind-set of Paka, her grandfather and the tribal leader, she is a woman and not worthy to be consider as the one to lead their people. Throughout, the youngster pushes the lines of tradition and with each insurgence she pushes her grandfather’s love further and further from her. At a time when most children are busy testing authority, Pai tests Maori tradition with a vigor and an unrelenting wisdom that becomes a battle, one she knows intuitively she will win.
No car chases here, no shootings, no plot-points that immerse us in blood, Whale Rider is driven by hard-core acting and a display of changing tradition that is rarely revealed with such care. Oh yes ... there is also whale riding.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Wages of Fear
* * * *
DVD Review - Classic Adventure - Foreign
We all know that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but what about The Wages of Fear? This 143 minute masterpiece, co-written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, expresses the results of fear in a variety of hues that render this black-and-white classic, dazzling.
First released in 1953, The Wages of Fear opened two years later and 20 percent shorter in New York. The winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes, Clouzot’s film has been hailed as a singular film achievement rivaling the Master of Suspense; Hitchcock.
This existential adventure opens in the grungy village of Las Piedras, a Latin American community controlled by the only major employer; American owned Southern Oil. This dilapidated backwater is the habitat of a colorful crowd of unemployed European drifters and indigenous peoples who hang around swatting flies, playing cards and drinking their time away. Even in their lighthearted conversations and lifestyle there is an overwhelming sense of abandonment to a hopeless situation and unspoken fears.
Faced with a disastrous oil well-fire, Southern Oil decides to hire four non-union drivers from the community. The mission: drive two beat-up trucks three hundred miles over a rarely utilized road, into the mountains, through impenetrable jungle, across scorching desert, transporting barrels of hair-trigger nitroglycerin to extinguish the fire. There is no shortage of volunteers for this perilous mission, and while the first hour of the tale establishes the antiheroes and their desperate lives, the remainder of the story is reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The hand-picked drivers include a swaggering young Frenchman (Yves Montand), an old Parisian con artist (Charles Vanel), an Italian with lung disease (Folco Lulli) and a steely German pilot (Peter van Eyck).
It’s hard to imagine, in this day of the monster fast-action film, that seventy minutes of two trucks driving five miles an hour could be entertaining, but Clouzot lays masterful track to accomplish just this. The first hour of the film is spent in the village setting, where I became nearly as despondent as the occupants and began to wonder how I was going to escape the dreadful dead end environment. Then the opportunity arrived, and along with the chosen four I departed, feeling that at five miles an hour I was being jettisoned away from Las Piedras at the speed of light.
At the time of its release, the controversial elements of capitalism, global economy, and exploitation of Third World countries by the First World countries were glossed over or not spoken of at all. That and the hint of homosexuality were enough to have this film clipped by the censors. But, The Wages of Fear was re-released in New York in 1992 and can be seen in its full-length version today. The film is mostly sub-titled, except where the Americans are speaking, and there are moments of archaic melodrama, but this is a classic masterpiece for a reason.
DVD Review - Classic Adventure - Foreign
We all know that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but what about The Wages of Fear? This 143 minute masterpiece, co-written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, expresses the results of fear in a variety of hues that render this black-and-white classic, dazzling.
First released in 1953, The Wages of Fear opened two years later and 20 percent shorter in New York. The winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes, Clouzot’s film has been hailed as a singular film achievement rivaling the Master of Suspense; Hitchcock.
This existential adventure opens in the grungy village of Las Piedras, a Latin American community controlled by the only major employer; American owned Southern Oil. This dilapidated backwater is the habitat of a colorful crowd of unemployed European drifters and indigenous peoples who hang around swatting flies, playing cards and drinking their time away. Even in their lighthearted conversations and lifestyle there is an overwhelming sense of abandonment to a hopeless situation and unspoken fears.
Faced with a disastrous oil well-fire, Southern Oil decides to hire four non-union drivers from the community. The mission: drive two beat-up trucks three hundred miles over a rarely utilized road, into the mountains, through impenetrable jungle, across scorching desert, transporting barrels of hair-trigger nitroglycerin to extinguish the fire. There is no shortage of volunteers for this perilous mission, and while the first hour of the tale establishes the antiheroes and their desperate lives, the remainder of the story is reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The hand-picked drivers include a swaggering young Frenchman (Yves Montand), an old Parisian con artist (Charles Vanel), an Italian with lung disease (Folco Lulli) and a steely German pilot (Peter van Eyck).
It’s hard to imagine, in this day of the monster fast-action film, that seventy minutes of two trucks driving five miles an hour could be entertaining, but Clouzot lays masterful track to accomplish just this. The first hour of the film is spent in the village setting, where I became nearly as despondent as the occupants and began to wonder how I was going to escape the dreadful dead end environment. Then the opportunity arrived, and along with the chosen four I departed, feeling that at five miles an hour I was being jettisoned away from Las Piedras at the speed of light.
At the time of its release, the controversial elements of capitalism, global economy, and exploitation of Third World countries by the First World countries were glossed over or not spoken of at all. That and the hint of homosexuality were enough to have this film clipped by the censors. But, The Wages of Fear was re-released in New York in 1992 and can be seen in its full-length version today. The film is mostly sub-titled, except where the Americans are speaking, and there are moments of archaic melodrama, but this is a classic masterpiece for a reason.
The Trilogy
* * * *
Movies offer visual feasts that are unlike the cognitive acrobatics required when reading a novel. Because movies play out visually what’s lost to the audience is all of the pre-story, back-story, in-between story. In a novel, even in a well written short piece, much of this information can be related, but movies are limited to strict time-frames. The Trilogy, written and directed by Lucas Belvaux, is a cinematic answer to that problem. Three films, shot simultaneously, describe not only different stories, but each in a different genre. With this, Belvaux gives us film as literature.
All three stories, On the Run, An Amazing Couple, and After the Life are placed in present day Grenoble. The films follow a number of different people, all within a two-week period in their lives. Much like Kurosawa’s Rashamon, these three story’s are all told from different perspectives with major characters from one film playing minor characters in another. These concentric circles draw the audience in deeply, and by the third film perception begins to take on the feeling of a fun-room mirror at the circus. Belvaux’s intent is that we experience the three genres of thriller, comedy, melodrama while dwelling within the same narration, and he does this very well.
1. On the Run
Bruno Le Roux (Lucas Belvaux) escapes from prison, but he cannot escape reality. On the lam, Bruno returns to Grenoble, where he plans to take care of unfinished business. Primary on his list is to kill the man he believes is responsible for his capture and life-sentence. Secondary, is his belief that the Marxist cause still lives, and that the masses will rise up once he has renewed the terrorist activities that caused his incarceration. But, much has changed in twenty years, and the flame of rebellion is no longer available for his fanatical approach to change. This thriller follows Bruno along a path of killing and hiding. Finally, he is forced to realize that the world has passed him by, yet in true fashion he remains a rebel to the end. While he could simply be smuggled into another country and live his life in freedom he chooses another path, more suited to his style. This movie has one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen.
2. An Amazing Couple
Cecile Costes (Ornella Muti) and Alain Costes (Francois Morel) are a happily married couple until a stream of poorly communicated events threatens to tip their life into disaster. Cecile is a high-school teacher, and Alain is a successful attorney who loves his wife so much that he decides to hide an upcoming surgery from her so that she won’t worry. What ensues is a scene by scene revelation of two people who are so paranoid and suspicious that one communication error leads to another with both feeling that the other has something to hide. Cecile believes that Alain is having an affair, while he begins to believe that she is plotting to have him killed. She has him followed, tracks his moment by moment activities and goes through everything in his office. He convinces his secretary that Cecile is trying to do away with him, and the two of them work to overturn the fantasized plot. This comedy is sometimes darkly illustrated but it has tremendously funny moments.
3. After the Life
This is the most riveting performance of the three films. Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) is a cop whose daily involvement in the grimier side of Grenoble life is only a side-show event to his personal life. Agnes Manise (Dominique Blanc), his wife, is addicted to morphine, and the central conflict arises from the fact that he has become her supplier in order to keep her love. When events from the other movies interfere it becomes impossible for him to supply her habit, and their once stable relationship begins to unravel. Dark from the start, this film tells us a story about a man we thought we knew, but in the end a totally different opinion is formed about the character of Pascal.
There are many surprising moments in these three films. I would love to tell you more but take the time to go to Madstone and see all three. This is, I predict, one of the better film events of the year.
Movies offer visual feasts that are unlike the cognitive acrobatics required when reading a novel. Because movies play out visually what’s lost to the audience is all of the pre-story, back-story, in-between story. In a novel, even in a well written short piece, much of this information can be related, but movies are limited to strict time-frames. The Trilogy, written and directed by Lucas Belvaux, is a cinematic answer to that problem. Three films, shot simultaneously, describe not only different stories, but each in a different genre. With this, Belvaux gives us film as literature.
All three stories, On the Run, An Amazing Couple, and After the Life are placed in present day Grenoble. The films follow a number of different people, all within a two-week period in their lives. Much like Kurosawa’s Rashamon, these three story’s are all told from different perspectives with major characters from one film playing minor characters in another. These concentric circles draw the audience in deeply, and by the third film perception begins to take on the feeling of a fun-room mirror at the circus. Belvaux’s intent is that we experience the three genres of thriller, comedy, melodrama while dwelling within the same narration, and he does this very well.
1. On the Run
Bruno Le Roux (Lucas Belvaux) escapes from prison, but he cannot escape reality. On the lam, Bruno returns to Grenoble, where he plans to take care of unfinished business. Primary on his list is to kill the man he believes is responsible for his capture and life-sentence. Secondary, is his belief that the Marxist cause still lives, and that the masses will rise up once he has renewed the terrorist activities that caused his incarceration. But, much has changed in twenty years, and the flame of rebellion is no longer available for his fanatical approach to change. This thriller follows Bruno along a path of killing and hiding. Finally, he is forced to realize that the world has passed him by, yet in true fashion he remains a rebel to the end. While he could simply be smuggled into another country and live his life in freedom he chooses another path, more suited to his style. This movie has one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen.
2. An Amazing Couple
Cecile Costes (Ornella Muti) and Alain Costes (Francois Morel) are a happily married couple until a stream of poorly communicated events threatens to tip their life into disaster. Cecile is a high-school teacher, and Alain is a successful attorney who loves his wife so much that he decides to hide an upcoming surgery from her so that she won’t worry. What ensues is a scene by scene revelation of two people who are so paranoid and suspicious that one communication error leads to another with both feeling that the other has something to hide. Cecile believes that Alain is having an affair, while he begins to believe that she is plotting to have him killed. She has him followed, tracks his moment by moment activities and goes through everything in his office. He convinces his secretary that Cecile is trying to do away with him, and the two of them work to overturn the fantasized plot. This comedy is sometimes darkly illustrated but it has tremendously funny moments.
3. After the Life
This is the most riveting performance of the three films. Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) is a cop whose daily involvement in the grimier side of Grenoble life is only a side-show event to his personal life. Agnes Manise (Dominique Blanc), his wife, is addicted to morphine, and the central conflict arises from the fact that he has become her supplier in order to keep her love. When events from the other movies interfere it becomes impossible for him to supply her habit, and their once stable relationship begins to unravel. Dark from the start, this film tells us a story about a man we thought we knew, but in the end a totally different opinion is formed about the character of Pascal.
There are many surprising moments in these three films. I would love to tell you more but take the time to go to Madstone and see all three. This is, I predict, one of the better film events of the year.
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