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Reviews
Star Trek: The Way to Eden (1969)
A missed opportunity for insight into an era
I agree with other reviewers that this is a poor example of original Star Trek, but for different reasons. It's quite clear that the scriptwriters or producers were hostile to the youth culture movement of the day. The ridiculous way the space hippie tribe is depicted make them little more than a caricature. Worse, they are shown exhibiting all the behaviour of cult members. This is hardly what the hippie movement was about. Most were just looking for a way to reconnect with the planet. Here they are shown as delusional and even dangerous, which of course is the way authorities saw them in the '60s.
Fortunately the scriptwriters make Spock an excellent foil to this all-out hostility toward anyone who questions authority. (Was that Roddenberry's contribution?) If there's a redeeming quality to this episode, it's Nimoy's performance. That the most logical mind in the universe could fully understand the urge to find a way to create a better society proves it's hardly a delusional concept. How else does the human species progress, but by striving for better? Ignore the snarls of the social Darwinists. They just want excuses for their bad behaviour.
In reality there were many complex social factors that created the ferment that was the 1960s —a protracted, bloody war; a suddenly booming economy; higher education for the masses for the first time in history; an incredible explosion of creative genius in most of the arts; racial tensions; emerging gender equality, etc. etc. etc. To oversimplify the stated aims or visions of such a generation is to do them a grave injustice. To depict them as foolish, deluded children is just plain ignorant.
After all, Roddenberry pushed the envelope from the very start of Star Trek. That was hardly establishment thinking. In his own modest way he was as much a part of the social changes sweeping society as any of the other change agents. For a start, he showed women as capable, professional, highly competent and intelligent—besides being sexy. Just look at what else was being made in television and film at the same time and see how many shows you can say that about. I mean, besides Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone.
So as songwriter Nick Lowe once said, "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?" Is it attainable? Who knows? Probably not. Does that mean we stop trying? "A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for," the poet Browning reminds us. Which is precisely what Roddenberry's Star Trek was all about. Reaching further. Either Roddenberry stumbled on this one, or Heineman had a bad hair day. Or the producers just didn't get it.
The 4400 (2004)
Abductees return from the future with special abilities to save or damn Earth.
Some viewers are right to complain that the plot lines in The 4400 have some jagged edges. But this is not to be mistaken for bad writing. These writers clearly know how to put a compulsive pulse to the story. The cliff-hanger is a bit formulaic and over-used but the plot twists are compelling and interesting enough in their implications to make you want to continue. We are at least talking about ideas here instead of passing off glossy action movies as sci-fi. Remember ideas? Oops! We were supposed to forget those. Long live Ray Bradbury... Rod Serling... Isaac Asimov... Art of the Impossible Made Possible.
The whole messiah complex as an ongoing theme is both compelling and disturbing. As my Darling Clementine asked one night while watching The 4400: "What are the filmmakers' intentions here? What are their values?" Her confusion is understandable. One episode Jordan Collier seems like the next Mahatma Gandhi, the next he's closer to the Big Red Guy.
Given that I don't particularly look up to authority figures like NTAC agents, I found it hard at first to adjust to seeing them as 'heroes.' And the implied 'War on Terror' gets a little bit grating at times. Fortunately actors Gretsch and McKenzie and the cast are good enough to make us care about their characters as we go along. And the moral complexities they face in the nature of carrying out duties for an authoritarian state are straight from hell. That's what I mean. Ideas.
If there's an idea that makes me uncomfortable in The 4400, it's that the producers might have had a Christian agenda to making this series. Though once again, the writing is subtle enough to always leave you wondering. The Jordan Collier thing (JC) and the book of the White Light cult is an obvious allegory for early Christianity. That Collier's 4400 feel they must hide in the wilderness calls to mind Christianity when Rome still held power and had no intention yet of leaving its gods.
The ridiculous lengths Kyle will go to in order to make the holy book's prophecy come true make it obvious the problem with prophecy in the first place. Written in the right language, it can be interpreted as being "fulfilled" in almost ANY historical age. His intensity to see it fulfilled ensures that he will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Ah, yes. The age-old problem with fundamentalist interpretations of religious texts.
So are the show's producers pro, anti or neutral JC? Because I really hate sneaky preaching. On the other hand, with writers as clever as these ones, maybe they just wanted it left ambiguous, like life really is anyway. By now we surely understand how the mechanism of religion works on the human psyche. The predictable results and tragedies. At times on The 4400 I wonder if I'm watching a parody of religion.
As entertainment, The 4400 is captivating, engaging, AND thought-provoking. Not three terms you see together much these days in movies. Even many European films of late have lost their narrative edge. But the writers to this series made us think about complex questions we might otherwise not have pondered: What would YOU do if you suddenly came back from nowhere with a completely new ability? Would you use it to make yourself richer, more powerful? Or more spiritually evolved?
Fratello sole, sorella luna (1972)
St. Francis of Assisi returns from battle to have an epiphany that leads him to establish the ascetic order that would bear his name.
Where do I begin? This film plays like a clumsy morality play, not a first-run film. The acting and direction is so ham-fisted, he even has Donovan singing what should be obvious about the story's message from watching the movie.
It takes little account of church politics, only tipping the director's hand to this reality in the final scene that seems to so irritate lovers of this film. The fact is, Pope Innocent III would have to have been an idiot to miss the opportunity to absorb St. Francis' movement. Making a martyr of him would only have made things worse for the Church. (In real life the Pope was reluctant to sanction the Order but relented when he had a dream of St. Francis supporting the church. Which only proves my point.)
Zefirelli plays into the Myth of the Righteous Poor, the 'dignity' of poverty and labour. In that sense the Franciscan Order truly is a godsend to the church hierarchy. They can sanction it as a kind of penitence for their own opulent lifestyle as a means of pointing to the actual message of Christ. And it keeps people enslaved to the existing economic-religious order, asking nor expecting nothing and certainly no threat to Catholic authority.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon thus becomes little more than a propaganda piece for Christian theology and misses the most interesting aspects of St. Francis' life and message. For instance there is little acknowledgement of his attachment to Nature and animals. I would have preferred an honest story that told of the obstacles, struggles, pain and suffering the Franciscan Order would have to have undergone, and how they coped as a community. There are inevitable questions and difficulties arising from such a break with society, worthy a goal as it may be. How are these met? Brother Sun and Sister Moon never goes deeper than surface level. Instead we get dogma.
The film is as some reviewers have noted, a product of its time, when many intentional communities ('communes') were breaking away from mainstream Western society to live a more Nature-centred, less materialistic way of life. But even this message is subsumed in the movie to the doctrinaire aspects of Christian theology.
The only reason I give this 3 out of 10 is because the production values are first-rate, the costumes incredible, the locations magnificent. Thoroughly professional but ultimately, a misfire. Read a biography of St. Francis instead.
Le voyage du ballon rouge (2007)
Beautiful but pointless
'Beautiful But Pointless' is actually a book about current American poetry by critic David Orr but to me it perfectly describes both 'Flight of the Red Balloon' as well as much of current European cinema. Whether it's Lars Triers' 'Melancholia' or another Juliette Binoche vehicle, 'Certified Copy,' these directors seem to have lost touch with basic elements of storytelling. There is an emphasis on the banal that becomes stupefying as these films progress. One is constantly distracted by the thought: where is all this leading? During 'Flight of the Red Balloon' I kept looking at my watch. Not the effect a director is hoping for, I'm guessing.
True, there are some beautiful images of Paris, such as the shot of the boy Simon playing pinball with a typical Parisian block of flats reflected in the window glass in front of his face. But the camera seems to be allowed to indulge too many long, long pointless shots that add nothing to the story and barely anything to the ambiance.
The only thing that approaches any semblance of metaphorical significance is of course the red balloon. We see in the museum tour that it obviously is a reference to an important work of art. In addition, as if it were a kind of guiding spirit, an actual red balloon seems to follow Simon around the streets and trams of Paris. But the director seems to lack the vision to add any depth to the image's potential for meaning. Is it trying to tease Simon into playing with it, or chasing it? Is it a symbol of the only consistent thread in his otherwise chaotic family life? Or is it symbolic of childhood itself? We get no clues. Ambiguity is certainly a useful tool in art but this stretches it beyond opaque.
For me the only thing that saves this film at all is Simon himself. He is such a sweet, adorable boy that you begin to care about him the moment you first see him on screen. He's still at that magical age when trust in the world and in people is as natural as breathing. In that sense alone, this film succeeds. Otherwise, 'Flight of the Red Balloon' never really gets off the ground.
One has to wonder, given some of Binoche's recent script choices, whether it's her judgment that's off or a sheer lack of scriptwriting talent in Europe these days. Where are the Wim Wenders, the Kieslowski's, the Truffault's of 21st century European cinema? Or has the fracturing of attention span from the daily media assault on the senses finally taken its toll there as much as in North America? Sad.
Copie conforme (2010)
Fascinating subject, clumsily handled
I can't profess familiarity with Kiarostami's work as a filmmaker, but whether this person is a first-time director or a veteran, they have handled this one badly. As a North American I am fully aware of the differences in pacing and theme between European and American or Canadian filmmaking—appreciative of them in fact. I love the fact that Europeans aren't afraid to devote an entire film to existential discussion. The idea of copy versus original and how perception shapes the value is absolutely fascinating. But what one expects from an intellectual discussion is a white heat of ideas exchanging, a mental energy that sustains itself through sheer passion. Instead the director veers off on this unexplained faux relationship on the rocks theme. Worse than that, the basics of storytelling are ignored: are they married or aren't they? Keeping us in the mystery is all very well if as the story unravels it becomes apparent what the reality is. Otherwise, you're just messing with peoples' heads and therefore the emotional arguments become false, something we can't believe in because part of us knows this is a charade. I saw another French film recently that was so awful I had to turn it off halfway through and can't even remember its name. There again the director seemed to have no grasp on pacing or storyline. What is happening to contemporary French cinema? From such a great tradition, a sad fall.
Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (1960)
A corporate secretary uses a false identity in order to wreak vengeance on his father's killers and expose corporate corruption.
Once again we must bow at the feet of the master. Kurosawa's postwar Hamlet is rife with irony in its skillful, profound handling of the perennial 'question of evil.' The protagonist Nishi finds himself gradually becoming as corrupt and brutal in his own way as the degraded men he seeks to expose. Fallen corporate executive Wada and Nishi's wife, the daughter of the corrupt Public Corporation's CEO Iwabuchi, remain just about the only truly innocent characters. Even her brother is motivated by homicidal revenge.
Then there's the irony of Nishi using underground ruins from a World War II bombing to hide his captive in. Kurosawa thus emphasizes the 'descent to hell' in a striking visual metaphor near the end of the film when Nishi's clever gamesmanship has resulted in him having to commit serious crimes in order to carry out his scheme for revenge. The setting may also double as an ironic commentary on the after-effects of the war on Japanese society in general.
This so far is the most American Kurosawa film I've seen: the cars, clothes, the men's hair and some of the characters' mannerisms—even the executive Iwabuchi lives in a Western- style home. Is Kurosawa saying that American ways have corrupted Japanese society? That would have been shockingly bold when the film was made in 1960, with American money still pouring into the rebuilding of Japan.
In many ways The Bad Sleep Well is also Kurosawa's tribute to the American film noir genre. Take away the Japanese dialogue and the urban Japanese setting and imagine it in Chicago or New York or LA, and even esthetically the look is noir. Kurosawa wastes no opportunity to depict the antihero Nishi casting a heavy shadow on the wall. In a less overt way, Nishi's naive bride is the classic noir femme fatale, in the sense that it's her who is fooled by her corrupt father into revealing her husband's hiding place. Just as in classic American noir, the men may be tough guys but when it comes to sacrificing their vision of virginal womanhood, they crumble.
My favourite line in the film—and the one that probably sums up Kurosawa's theme in a single sentence: "You can't bring evil to justice by using the law." But if you're a brilliant film director, you can torture corrupt characters in cinematic hell for their crimes. The long opening sequence with the reporters observing the marriage of Iwabuchi's daughter to Nishi is positively delicious. As uncomfortable revelations are made by the public prosecutor, with the hungry press scooping every dirty detail, we get to watch the executives squirm. The entire stiff pantomime of the marriage ceremony (though with the Western wedding march) becomes both a satire of traditional ritual and a living purgatory for the guilty. Very much as it was for Hamlet's shattered family in the wake of a covered-up murder. Meanwhile the phalanx of reporters in The Bad Sleep Well becomes a kind of Greek chorus, providing the subtext to the unfolding event.
Judging by Nishi's fate, Kurosawa also seems to be saying, "You can't bring evil to justice by using lawlessness." Which leaves one wondering: is there any solution to the problem of evil? If that's the message, then the film comes to an ultimately pessimistic conclusion about human nature, just as many noir classics do.
An amazing achievement in film art.
Tôkyô monogatari (1953)
An elderly couple visit their children and grandchildren in Tokyo and find that they are not as welcome as they hoped.
There are different reasons films become classics. Some because their imagery is burned into the memory's eye indelibly, others because the characters are unforgettable, still others because they blazed a new trail in the art form. Tokyo Story claims its distinction among lovers of world cinema largely due to its quietly revolutionary social material, as well as some indelible images: the view of the hill with the little figures of the grandmother and her grandson playing for example, like an animated version of one of those classic tiny bamboo sculptures encased in glass. To name only one beautifully framed shot.
At the time it was made, 1953, to depict wilful and disrespectful behaviour by the grandchildren as shown here would have been shocking to traditional viewers. Likewise, the indifference bordering on disrespect shown by the old couple's children. Ever so gradually the carefully cultivated mask of social ritual is stripped away to reveal that even the dutiful daughter-in-law admits to being more selfish than she appears. The intense difficulty of family members having any real connection at all with each other is deeply driven home. And the irony that a non-blood relative is actually the one who cares most for the old folks. This, combined with the choice of a storyline that deliberately avoided heroic or mythic overtones as might have been expected in Japanese cinema at the time, accounts for the social impact this film would have made in 1953. (Keep in mind that Kirosawa's early masterpiece The Seven Samurai was released just the next year, sustaining the mythic-heroic tradition of Japanese literature on film.)
The breakneck speed at which films are now made provides a glaring contrast to this nearly 60-year-old film, whose rhythm is placidly riverine. Yet even to someone like myself with an appreciation for foreign films, the pace occasionally drags. If anything, Tokyo Story is an anti- heroic film. Still, it's a reminder that current film entertainment—with the exception of films like Terence Malick's Tree of Life—allows the viewer no time whatsoever to meditate on deeper themes. Tokyo Story reminds us that films can be long prayers rather than a constant concussion of thunderclaps. It confronts the most basic issues that confront us all: family and mortality.