Arti – Page 32 – Ripple Effects

Irrational Man (2015): A Teaser for Sartre

Can a director who churns out a movie every year continuously over the past four decades bring us anything new at age 79?

Yes, and no. But here’s the thing with Woody Allen’s annual offering, a summer treat in recent years, the answer is… does it matter?

Before you read on, be warned that the following discussion contains, no, implies, Spoilers.

Unlike his recent films – Magic In the Moonlight, Blue Jasmine, To Rome With Love, and Midnight In Paris – Irrational Man is not a comedy. It is a semi-serious drama carrying some signature WA thematic materials. Those familiar with his Match Point (2005) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) will find Irrational Man a variation on the same theme, but this time with a twist. So there you go, the old has become new.

Here again, the writer/director is toying with Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s idea of getting away with crime for those who are superior. What if one commits a crime out of a superior motive, purely altruistic and benevolent? If a crime is committed with the full intention to rescue someone from a miserable predicament, shouldn’t the criminal be thanked rather than punished?

Interesting premise, and when the idea is embodied in Joaquin Phoenix, the character actor who is beyond categorization, here’s the attraction. First time in a WA film, Phoenix has prepared well with the right physique – an obvious paunch – to show his method immersion. He plays a listless philosophy professor Abe, who has no life purpose, no drive even when starting a new position or finish writing his book, but just passing his summer teaching hours with easy chats on Kant, Kierkegaard, and Sartre, while still attracting students and colleagues alike.

One day in a coffee shop, upon overhearing a woman talk to her friends about her desperate child custody case, Abe is overcome with empathy. (Photo above: a pivotal scene.) He is ready to live out an existential choice: by taking actions in his owns hands in committing a crime to help the woman, he in turn discovers the purpose for his own existence. Did I say this is not a comedy? Well, let me qualify that. There’s no laughter in the theatre. However, Phoenix’s character and action is inherently an ironic jest; the story we see on screen works like an object lesson on the freedom of choice, and a teaser for Sartre.

I look forward to these annual WA productions, even when I hear dialogues that sound like I’ve heard them before. Why? Where else would one find nowadays philosophical chitchats on screen for our entertainment? Philosophical chitchats, the term itself is an oxymoron; here lies the fun of a WA film. Allen doesn’t take his characters seriously, so we have light characters engaged in serious talks.

The psuedo-intellectual screen talks are humour in themselves. Just because we can’t spot a Marshall McLuhan in a theatre line-up anymore to clarify his own ideas as in Annie Hall, let alone get Sartre to referee the on-screen discourses, so we can sit back leisurely and be amused at Allen’s characters delving in philosophical problems, while their life and fate collide in twists and turns.

The is Emma Stone’s second WA movie back-to-back with her Magic in the Moonlight in 2014. As a college student falling for her philosophy prof sounds more convincing a role for Stone than as a young medium with telepathic ability to contact the dead. What’s interesting about these annual WA productions are the interesting combinations of A-listers being cast in some wacky roles. Something new, something old… thought you’ve seen it before? Just wait till the end.

To kick off your Philosophy 101 class, Irrational Man could be a lively visual aid to hold your students’ interest. Breezy, entertaining, lines to discuss and dispel, with an ending that long-time WA watchers could well interpret as the director redeeming himself from creating those in Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors in his younger days. Turning 80 the end of this year, maybe Allen has finally decided to lean towards the side that says, yes, there’s poetic justice after all.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

Other Related Ripple Reviews:

Magic In The Moonlight (2014)

Blue Jasmine (2013)

To Rome With Love (2012)

Midnight In Paris (2011)

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Go Set A Watchman: Sequel or Prequel?

Background

Go Set A Watchman is Harper Lee’s first draft of a novel (See links at the end of the post). In 1957, Lee’s agent submitted it to Tay Hohoff, an editor at the now defunct publishing house J. B. Lippincott. Hohoff did not see it adequate to be published; however, she did see promising elements in it, “the spark of the true writer flashed in every line,” she later recounted.

The draft’s protagonist, 26 year-old Jean Louise Finch, Scout, now a New Yorker, goes back to visit her childhood home in fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and finds discrepancies about her father Atticus now from the man she thought she had known all the years growing up. To her alarm and disillusionment, Atticus, while a good father and a good man to all the rest in Maycomb, holds racist views and is firmly a segregationist.

Hohoff advised Lee to rewrite the draft but this time, instead of writing Jean Louise Finch as an adult, focus on her reminiscence of her childhood growing up in Maycomb with her brother Jem, living under the roof of her father Atticus, and summer days spent with a boy next door called Dill. After more than two years of editing and rewriting, To Kill A Mockingbird was born. And the rest is history.

So here’s the query I have: If your novel, after two years of editing and re-inventing, had developed into a final form and published in 1960, some 50 plus years ago, had gained high acclaims, won the Pulitzer, become a beloved American classic, been adapted into an Oscar winning movie, and achieved international recognition, why would you want your very first draft as a novice be published to the world now?

At 89 years old, Harper Lee now lives in a nursing home, a stroke survivor who has lost most of her hearing and eyesight, and just months after her sister Alice Lee – guardian of her privacy and legal advisor – had passed, and suddenly a ‘newly discovered’ Harper Lee novel appeared.

In a recent New York Times Op Ed article entitled “The Harper Lee ‘Go Set A Watchman’ Fraud”, columnist Joe Nocera vehemently argues that the Rupert Murdoch-owned HarperCollins had “manufactured a phoney literary event.” The publishing house had sold more than 1.1 million copies of the book in a week, the ‘fastest-selling book in company history’ according to the publisher, to which Nocera decries “Go Set A Watchman constitutes one of the epic money grabs in the modern history of American publishing.”

The above is the major challenge surrounding this phenomenal ‘literary event’. So how should one read the book? Controversy aside, what can we reap from reading Go Set A Watchman?

Definitely not as a sequel and not a prequel either, but take it as it is: A first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Only when comparing the two books as a ‘Before and After’ transformation can we see how the writing process had taken place. By reading Watchman as a first draft, we come to appreciate how a seasoned editor had helped a novice and an aspiring writer to achieve her goal to become a respectable, published author. And this we know Hohoff had done most successfully.

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Reading Go Set A Watchman

First off, to all readers, a major reminder: Harper Lee is a real person, and Atticus Finch is a fictional character. In Lee’s first draft, Go Set A Watchman, Atticus is a good father, but a racist. Yes, he had successfully defended Tom Robinson and gained him an acquittal, that was a court appointed case. This is anecdotally mentioned in Watchman. But Atticus is a self-professed Jeffersonian Democrat, one who subscribes to Jefferson’s view that: “A man couldn’t vote simply because he was a man… He had to be a responsible man.”

Lee spends a climatic chapter towards the end describing the arguments between father and daughter on the issue of race. While both are polar extremes, and I don’t want to quote the words from Atticus pouring forth his arguments about how “white is white and black’s black”, I must point out that it is Scout who loses her cool during the debate. She is the one who blows right out, foul-mouthed and accusing her father with hurtful, derogatory terms. Throughout the verbal confrontation, Atticus remains a gentleman. “I’m seventy-two years old, but I’m still open to suggestions.”

And I’m quite impressed by the next episode, and that’s when Scout cools down and goes back to her father, seeking reconciliation. It’s not just a simple case of ‘agree to disagree’, but somewhat laying out a more complex relationship with the ambivalent stance of ‘I can’t beat you, I can’t join you,’ but love can still triumph over all. That is the spark of an inspiring writer I can see in the conclusion of Lee’s Watchman. As Scout apologizes for her foul-mouthed diatribe aimed at her father the day before, this line from Atticus will remain with me: “I can take anything anybody calls me as long as it’s not true.”

Hohoff might just have seen this character trait in Atticus that she advised Lee to expand on in her rewrite. I see this admirable element as I read. Let the fictional character Atticus be created as an ideal type of a man, open to others’ opinions, upholding his ground with firmness but with no malicious hostility. And yes, we can all appreciate this change of heart in Lee’s rewriting in Mockingbird. Let Atticus be the ideal father and friend, a deserving, honourable man.

Further, in Watchman, the racist turn in Atticus has not been well accounted for. Since Jean Louise has come back to Maycomb annually to see her father, why the sudden discovery of his racist stance? And why had she not known about his views considering her close relationship with her father all her growing years and only in recent years in her adult life had she moved to NYC. But most important point of all Lee had not explained in Watchman, why had Atticus changed his view? These could be flaws in the plot line that Hohoff had Lee re-think.

As recounted, Lee based her Atticus character on her own father, the lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee who had actually defended two black men but failed to have them acquitted. According to reports, the elder Lee had been a segregationist but later changed his views to support integration. The real life parallel is obvious. The details we could only speculate, was it the man that had influenced the change in the book, or maybe vice versa?

In the rewriting process, there is the elimination of two significant characters in Watchman, Hank, Jean Louise’s suitor, and Uncle Jack, holder of family secrets. Once a clear storyline is established, with the equally moving minor plot of Boo Radley, a parallel Mockingbird theme with Tom Robinson as both being vulnerable victims, Hank and Uncle Jack would not be needed to uphold the story lines. So, no matter how much a writer had invested in a character, cuts and alterations could be the outcome, quite like the deleted scenes we see on DVDs, the rational choices we have to make in the long creative process. On the other hand, a character that exists only in memory, Jem, who had died in Watchman, is revived to his lively self, and we are all grateful for that revision.

One of the main reasons Hohoff had rejected the first draft was that it was episodic, lacking a unified story arc as a novel. Readers of Watchman will find this so, especially when Jean Louise switches back and forth from the present to the past. As I read, the past holds much more attractions as Scout describes her growing up days in Maycomb. We see the children in a different perspective, something like a ‘behind the scene’, a ‘making-of’ featurette. Thanks to Hohoff, such episodes are restrung into the gem of a book called To Kill A Mockingbird. Indeed, Hohoff had grasped the social psyche well, there was a need for a noble, heroic character in her time then, and maybe even more so in our time now.

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LA Times (With video)

The Telegraph

New Republic

The New York Times (Jonathan Mahler)

The New York Times (Serge F. Kovaleski and Alexandra Alter)

The Wall Street Journal

The Washington Post

The Washington Free Beacon

Wikipedia

Saturday Snapshot August 1: A Summer Wood

Colours growing wild.

I can easily imagine a lavender field in Provence.

Ripening Saskatoon berries, food for everyone.

The tiny Yellow Warbler never ceases to fascinate me.

… here practising her trapeze skill.

Or the American Goldfinch… common for the Americans, but always a golden moment for me when I capture one in picture.

A delight even just to see the common Robin basking in the the setting sun, redder than ever.

The ordinary in a different frame.

Common sight, common light, common grace.

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Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. CLICK HERE to see what others have posted.

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Clouds of Sils Maria Movie Review

Clouds of Sils Maria is an intricately conceived rumination on the passage of time, ageing, being female, being famous, and for that matter, being gradually becoming obsolete. The newest film from the prominent, Paris born, French director Olivier Assayas, it was nominated for numerous awards at film festivals, including the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. I watched it at TIFF last September, and gladly again at the indie theatre when the film came to our city a few months ago.

A middle-aged celebrated screen and stage actress Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is on a train to Zurich with her personal assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) to attend a tribute to the playwright Wilhelm Melchior, who had cast her in her breakout role in one of his plays Maloja Snake some twenty years ago. At that time, Maria played a manipulative young office girl Sigrid who had an emotive relationship with her older office boss Helena, driving her to commit suicide.

While on the train to Zurich, Maria gets the news that Melchior has died, an apparent suicide due to a terminal illness. When arriving Switzerland, Melchior’s widow Rosa (Angela Winkler) lets Maria and Valentine stay in her idyllic house in the Swiss Alps, in the Sils Maria locale, while she tries to get away from the sad memories of her late husband. In that serene natural setting, Valentine helps Maria practice her lines for a revival of the play Maloja Snake, re-mounted as a tribute to the late playwright. But this time, Maria is to play the older character Helena, while a wildly popular, scandalous young star Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz, the rising star in real life) is to play Sigrid.

If you have the patience to read up to here, you likely can see the parallels: Maria and Valentine – Helena and Sigrid, as well you probably can guess the feelings Maria goes through in this role reversal, for now she is twenty plus years older, and the loss of Melchior could well be the foreshadow of an imminent path everyone has to trod, famous or not. The film is an intricately woven, multi-layered construct, with thought-provoking dialogues and incisive subtexts; the mirroring effect is brilliant especially the scenes when Valentine helps Maria practice her lines and accept the role reversal, from the young to the older.

If you appreciate the characterization and the superb performance of the actresses, you would not only bear with but savour the complexity of the dialogues and scenes. Instead of a litmus test for the viewer’s patience, the complications and layered meaning are a testament of some fine screenwriting and directing. Assayas’ signature realism and naturalistic style works marvellously well; in some scenes towards the end, the honesty is harsh and biting.

Juliette Binoche always delivers. Here she is an ageing celebrity and star, her outward coolness masks tumultuous insecurities. She is totally natural in her role. Viewers may even feel she’s not acting at all.

But my highest praise has to go to Kristen Stewart. I admit I’m probably one of the few who have not watched, or read, any of the Twilight movies or books. So this is my first Stewart film, and I’m most impressed. She lives and breathes her character Valentine, assistant to Maria Enders. From juggling several smart phones while balancing herself on a moving train, to helping Maria practice her lines adjusting to the older role, Stewart has shown she has mastered the needed nuance, intelligence and sensitivity for her character. She has portrayed convincingly a complex female who, despite her efficiency and strength at her job as assistant to a famous but fast fading star, is herself vulnerable as a female with deep, inner yearnings and conflicts muffled only by her outward sensibility.

With her role as Valentine, Stewart went on to win the 2015 César Award for Best Supporting Actress this February in Paris, the first American actress to win the prestigious French acting award which is equivalent to the Oscar here.

Chloë Grace Moretz aptly plays the youthful, and bratty, rising star Jo-Ann Ellis. She embodies the young and famous, a celeb whom Valentine admires, but whom Maria can never understand as to how the young measures talent or shoots to the peak of popularity despite (or maybe because) of scandals. I’m sure what’s mind boggling to her could well be the thoughts in many a mind of the, alas, fading bunch of old school, superbly trained actors and iconic performers of our days.

The Largo from George Frideric Handel’s opera Serse is poignant, a solemn and grand diction of existential angst as Maria confronts the loss of her beloved and respected artistic mentor, and her own fading glory. Interestingly, the music reminds me of Kon Ichikawa’s The Makioka Sisters (1983), wherein this piece of music also appears, bringing out the poignancy of the passage of time, the erosion of the familiar, the end of an era, of traditions, and of treasured values.

This brings us to the very title of the film. The clouds of the Sils Maria mountain range in the Swiss Alps is famous for their sudden appearance like a snake curling and weaving around the mountains. Many have climbed the peaks only to be disappointed as the clouds may not appear while they are there. In the scene towards the end, just as Maria turns and walks away, the clouds come into view for us audience but not her, indeed, like a snake slithers silently in and in a few seconds, moves out of sight again. Ah… the ephemeral of it all. The ultimate mirroring of nature and life.

Probably the best film I’ve seen so far this year. A film that deserves – and requires – multiple viewings.

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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This is my last entry to Paris in July 2015 blogging event hosted by Tamara of Thyme for Tea.

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Other Related Ripple Effects Posts:

Conversation with Juliette Binoche

Summer Hours by Olivier Assayas

My Old Lady

Suite Française: From Book to Film

Flight of the Red Balloon

Suite Française Movie Adaptation

The film is the long anticipated adaptation of Irène Némirovsky’s final work in progress before her death in 1942. Born in Ukraine, Némirovsky had moved to live in France since 1919. Before the Nazi occupation, she was a prominent literary figure in her adopted country, having published nine novels and a biography of Chekhov. The Nazi takeover sent her fleeing Paris. She was writing Suite Française in the village of Issy-l’Evêque where she was living with her husband and two young daughters when the French police arrested her for her Jewish descent and sent her to her demise in Auschwitz.

Suite Française was intended to be a literary composition in musical terms. Like a musical suite, the author had planned to write five pieces, but had only finished the first draft of two upon her death. The whole set when completed could have been an impressive eyewitness paralleled fiction, a historic testament reflecting the larger picture from the microlevel, a family, or, a woman and a man from different sides of the war falling in love.

Such is the story of “Dolce”, the second novella in her Suite on which the movie is based. Lucile Angellia (Michelle Williams) falls in love with a German officer staying in her house where she lives with her widowed mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas), the most elegant estate in the village. Lucile’s own husband has been missing in war and now a likely prisoner. That makes falling in love with the enemy right in your own home even more conflicting. However, Williams fails to bring out such internal battles or even ambivalence; Schoenaerts fares better in expressing the conflicts.

The opening of the film captures vividly what Némirovsky described as the ‘German artillery thunders… its wailings fill the sky’. As viewers we see people carrying suitcases and personal belongings scurry or simply dive for cover and we hear the sudden, roaring thunders of bomb blasting the country road on which refugees from Paris flee like rats – and as the camera zooms away – insects. It’s this kind of cinematic moments that make films powerful. We read about the air raids in the book, we see and hear the actual effects in the theatre. With that regard, the voiceover narrative by Michelle Williams is redundant. Or, maybe it’s just a lazy way of storytelling.

With that dynamic start, the film falters in not sustaining such power, albeit it still has many beautiful shots; romance in its period setting, the movie is visually appealing. But the attractions between Lucile and the handsome German official, Lieutenant Bruno von Falk, played by the ubiquitous Matthias Schoenaerts, soon becomes the centrepiece.

Like his role as Gabriel Oak in Far From the Madding Crowd, here Schoenaerts portrays another man of few words. Compare the two roles, he is more convincing here with his German officer look, and yes, sitting at the piano, mesmerizing Lucile with his soft touch. No words needed when music lures.

If not interrupted by her feisty mother-in-law, Lucile would have dived into the pool of passion immediately. Thanks to Kristin Scott Thomas, who adds some realistic sparks into the dreamy world of wartime romance with the ‘wrong man’. Such episodes could make interesting exploration, but the film is overwhelmingly mellowdramatic and seems not intended to be deep or psychological.

When a farmer, Benoit Labarie (Sam Reily), kills a German officer, the plot thickens. And as a viewer, I’m thankful for that turn in the otherwise relatively uneventful story. Benoit’s wife Madeleine (Ruth Wilson) urged Lucile to help him out. And that she did, risking everyone in her household and ultimately leading to the moral dilemma of both herself and her enemy lover.

The prolific film composer Alexandre Desplat (The King’s Speech, 2010, among many other works) wrote the signature piece “Bruno’s Theme”. While romantic in its overall styling, it is punctuated with discords, could well be a reflection of Bruno’s inner state. The ending of the film shows us his resolve. When love and duty is in conflict, there can’t be any favourable resolve. But then again, the film does not go further into that.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays a pivotal role in balancing sense and passion in her household, and bringing out some worthwhile and lively performance for the production. My major objection regarding this talented veteran of cinema and the stage is that nearly all her movie roles in recent years present her in character twenty years older than she really is. Here, the first shot we see Madam Angellier is her white painted, over-made-up face as an old widow. That is one reason why her other work in 2014 My Old Lady is so refreshing, for we get to see her in a suitable age where she can still find love.

Regarding WWII Holocaust movies, it is unfortunate that films of this genre in recent years based on popular fiction or chronicling significant historical events are mere passable works, like The Monuments Men, or The Book Thief, Sarah’s Key, or the related film Woman in Gold. Seems like the epic war movie genre with its affective power to move has not re-emerged in the past decade, iconic films such as Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997), and Polanski’s The Pianist (2002) have all but remain distant memories.

As for Suite Française the movie, it should not be seen as the adaptation of Némirovsky’s book called Suite Française, however unfinished. The movie is best taken as a rendition of a storyline in one of its pieces, and true to the title ‘Dolce’, sweetly laced with soft touches. Overall, despite its flaws, it is still a watchable film.

~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

This is my second entry to the Paris In July blogging event hosted by Tamara of Thyme for Tea.

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Other Related Reviews on Ripple Effects:

Sarah’s Key (2010): From Book into Movie

The Book Thief (2013): From Book to Film

Far From the Madding Crowd (2015)

My Old Lady (2014)

Woman In Gold: Then and Now (2015)

The King’s Speech (2010)

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My Old Lady (2014) Movie Review

Among the dozen films I’d watched at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, two are apt selections for the annual Paris In July blogging event hosted by Tamara in Thyme for Tea, now in its sixth year. Recently I have re-watched both, one at an indie theatre, the other on Blu-ray. Here’s my first entry to Paris In July 2015.

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My Old Lady (2014)

Just when voices had been raised in recent months from female stars against the sexist domination in Hollywood, and lamenting the lack of significant female leading roles, another issue pops up. Well, the problem has been there all along, but who would speak for those who are…. getting old? The peril of Agism in the movie industry. And, if you’re female and aging, confronting Hollywood is a losing battle.

I’m glad there are filmmakers who consider film as an art form, and in its essence, conveys the meaningful and universal that make us human. Kudos to all who attempt to break the barrier. Here we have a directorial debut from 75 year-old Isaac Horowitz. As he had noted, which first-time film director would talk about his five grandchildren?

Horowitz is an author of more than 50 produced plays. Several of his works have been translated and performed in as many as 30 languages worldwide. This is his first time directing a film, adapting his own play onto the big screen. My Old Lady is a delightful debut. I’ve watched it three times, so far, and liked it more each time.

In an after screen talk, Horowitz shared that he had heeded one advice from the iconic director Sydney Lumet: “Cast the best actors in the world and then get out of their way.” In his debut movie, his cast is first-rate, and allow me to show their age when they made this movie, just to prove a point: Maggie Smith, 80, Kristin Scott Thomas, 54, and Kevin Kline, 67. How much the director had left them to their own I don’t know, but sure looks easy for these veteran actors to take on this one. Such natural ease comes from decades of experience, expertise honed as innate skills.

That’s the advantage of ageing. Let’s drink to that.

Kevin Kline plays Mathias Gold, a down-and-out, thrice divorced, alcohol dependent, penniless middle-aged American who is relieved to inherit from his late father an apartment in the Marais district of Paris. Going there to claim his rightful ownership and aiming at a quick sale, he learns a French lesson in property transfers instead: En Viager. When his father purchased the apartment 43 years ago – now worth over 10 million Euros – he was under the contracted stipulation of a Viager.

This is the issue Mathias faces: Instead of a lump sum payment made for a clear purchase, his father, the buyer, had contracted to put down a cheap amount and then pay the rest as viager, a monthly fee of 2,400 Euro to the vendor and occupant of the apartment, Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith), until she dies. Now at 90, Mathilde is in good health, thanks to her daily sustenance of red wine and precise meal times. Not only that, Mathilde has a daughter living with her, headstrong and vocal to defend their property against any potential profit-driven redevelopment plans.

That’s the story. It is not hard to predict the ending, with Kline and Scott Thomas together, albeit fiery and combative to start with. But what is harder to foresee is the story within the story at the outset. Everyone has a past. This is one of the best performance I’ve seen with Kline, for he carries the whole film and delivers with just the right touch of humour and pathos. The first time the two were co-stars was in Life As A House (2001), interestingly, another story based on a domicile. Life as a house indeed.

Scott Thomas as always is a pleasure to watch. No matter what role she takes up, her communication is crisp and clear even without having had to say a word. The last scene is a prime example. But of course, you don’t have to wait till the last. As for Maggie Smith, at 80, she is as strong as ever, even when she is playing one who is ten years older.

When it comes to plays turned into films, one should expect the prolific dialogues. Not a perfect fit all the time, there are moments where I as a movie viewer expect better lines, and more than stage-like scenes. But overall, the three characters are a delight to watch.

The few external Parisian street scenes with their fine matching music score instil longing. Yes, this is the kind of films that work best to lure you to Paris, not to the hot tourist sites, but to the streets where Parisians actually live. Subliminal seduction registering in my mind that next time I must go to those districts which are less trodden by tourists but equally representative of the historic city. Maybe a B&B right there in the Marais instead of a boutique hotel.

My Old Lady is a light comedy with a heart, bringing out an issue that, alas, could not be fully resolved, for what’s done cannot be undone. Offsprings inherit from their parents not only the physical properties but often the emotional baggages and their consequences. As a dramedy, Horowitz has brought us not only the drama but the happy ending, the best case scenario that can come out of human failings. That could well be a reason why we go see movies.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

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Related Posts on Ripple Effects:

The Second, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Tuffing It Out At TIFF14

For a list of Paris in July Posts from previous years, CLICK HERE.

Saturday Snapshot June 27: The Busy Beaver

It is on the face of our 5-cent coin, an emblem of Canada. And thanks to conservation and the lack of demand in the pelt hat, the Beaver – at one time endangered – is now safe in numbers.

However, we seldom see one, definitely not an everyday sighting. As for me, I’ve never seen one on land like the image on the coin, busy with its chore. But they are around; surely we can see the aftermath they leave behind. Here are evidences of their presence:

That’s why we have these:

I’ve had the chance of seeing a beaver recently at a pond, taking a break from its busy schedule:

Sure looks like a bear is swimming towards you:

A closer look and you can see its long and robust body:

Beaver

yet agile, diving in and speeds away underwater:

But what I find interesting are the ripples it makes. Look back at the above photos and below:

Or is it just me, watching out for ripples everywhere?

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Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. CLICK HERE to see what others have posted.

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Like Father, Like Son (2013)

In honour of Father’s Day tomorrow, I’m re-posting my review of the acclaimed Japanese film Like Father, Like Son. (Update: Director Hirokazu Koreeda’s most recent work Our Little Sister is a Palme d’Or nominee at Cannes 2015.)

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I had wanted to see this Japanese film since it came out last year. Missed it at TIFF13 last September, its North American premiere after winning the Cannes Film Festival’s Jury Prize in May. Glad it has finally arrived on Netflix, reaching a much wider audience than just festival goers, deservedly.

Director Hirokazu Koreeda wrote the screenplay based on a disturbing premise: what if after six years of raising your son, the hospital where he was born contacted you and told you that your child was switched at birth, and of course, they sent their apology.

The hospital officials do not take this lightly. DNA tests are done to confirm. They have a lawyer with them, arrange to have you meet the other parents, mediate and ease the proposed switch back, which they recommend with a six-month preparation period, preferably before the boys start grade one in school. They even find out who the nurse is that made the error; due to her own frustrations at the time she knowingly made the switch. Of course, she is deeply sorry for what she had done and duly prosecuted. Monetary compensations are arranged.

But all the above have absolutely nothing to do with easing the shock and alleviating the trauma afflicted upon the families. Formality and legality do not soothe the pain; apologies and money cannot compensate for the abrupt termination of relationships.

Director Kore-eda has treated the subject matter with much tenderness and charm. The cinematography is stylish, the children and adults are all captured in a realistic manner with splashes of endearing humour.

The two families come from very different social strata, and the two boys have been raised in opposite parenting styles. Interestingly, only one of the families seems to take this news much harder. Ryota Nonomiya (Masaharu Fukuyama) is a successful professional who spends most of his time in the glass towers of Tokyo busy at work. His son Keita (Keita Nonomiya), an only child, is raised in a protective environment. Mother Midori (Machiko Ono) is loving but also ambivalent about a husband who puts his career over his family.

The other family is a shop owner in a rural part of the country, their son Ryusei (Shôgen Hwang) is the eldest of three children. Father Yudai Saiki (Rirî Furankî) is every child’s dream. He spends his days playing with his children, fixes their toys, and exerts no rules, albeit Mom Yukari (Yoko Maki) might wish he could have spent more time working.

What makes a father? What makes a son? Fatherhood and bloodline tend to supersede all other factors in a patriarchal society like Japan. But the film reflects the point of view that not all families necessarily embrace such a value. Further, apparently there are different parenting styles even in a homogeneous Japanese society.

If there is ever a Japanese version of the movie Boyhood as we have seen from Richard Linklater, Hirokazu Kore-eda would be the ideal person to direct it. Like Father Like Son follows his previous work I Wish (2011) in its sensitive and incisive depiction of a boy’s heart and yearning. He can tear apart the facade of societal formality – but in a most tender way – and lay bare the hopes and needs, the essence of parents child relationships.

I must give credits to Johann Sebastian Bach, and the late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. The beginning of Bach’s Goldberg Variations had been used in numerous films, but every time the soulful slow moving piano melody comes on, I am moved, no matter how many times I’ve heard it, and in so many different genres of films. Just from memory, I can think of The English Patient (1996), Hannibal (2001), Shame (2011)… It is so effective in augmenting cinematic moments without becoming clichéd.

Here, the Aria is well placed as director Kore-eda uses it as a motif to spur us into deeper thoughts. What makes a father; what makes a son? What is more important, blood or relationships? What is the role of a wife and mother in a patriarchal society? What is the purpose of giving birth and bringing up a child? What is fulfilling and meaningful to us as human beings? Indeed, a motif that can strike a universal chord of resonance that transcends cultures.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Saturday Snapshot June 13: Birdspeak

Note: Click on the photo to enlarge for a better view.

Evening. Outside the home of the Starlings.

Junior doesn’t look very happy. I’m hungryyyy!

Now where is she? What’s taking her so long?

Here you are… fresh worms:

Now eat up, chomp, chomp, chomp:

What? You want more?! This is my third trip already.

After some time, Mom Starling finally comes back with more.

Ok, here you are, fresh worms! Now where did the monkey go?

You want me to bring it to your room?!

Get off the computer!

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Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. CLICK HERE to see what others have posted.

ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BY ARTI OF RIPPLE EFFECTS

DO NO COPY OR REBLOG

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Ex Machina (2015)

I mentioned in a previous post that movies aiming for awards are usually released in the last few months of the year. I should also stress that some movies released earlier in the year could be award contenders too, albeit much fewer. Last year’s The Grand Budapest Hotel is one fine example. And this year, Ex Machina could be another one.

The title would instantly lead one to think of the literary device ‘deus ex machina‘ (Latin, direct translation: God out of a machine). Originated in Greek theatre, when the imminent disastrous ending is suddenly intervened by a god extended by mechanical means, saving the day. Without the word ‘deus‘ for God, what we have left is Ex Machina, out of a machine, and in this science fiction/suspense thriller, it’s the robotic Artificial Intelligence (AI). Leaving out the word ‘deus’ only intrigues us more: who is God now, the human creator, or the AI?

I’m not a huge fan of science fiction, neither a CGI or special effects aficionado. But I’m always drawn to those movies that, despite their genre, carry a meaningful thematic element. Ex Machina, Alex Garland’s directorial debut is one such production. Garland’s previous adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go into screenplay had drawn my attention for the same reason. It’s the substance that makes it worthwhile.

In Ex Machina, viewers are gratified not only by the content, but the form as well. The set design is minimal but stylish, the music is ponderous and inviting, just like the natural environs we find the ‘research facility’ in the movie, home of Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), the software genius and reclusive founder of the world’s most powerful search engine Bluebook. Nathan conducts a competition in his own company, and the winner is a young coder named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson). The prize is to spend a week in Nathan’s estate nestled in a pristine, natural setting. Just imagine a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home like Fallingwater with a futuristic touch.

After being dropped off by helicopter onto the grounds of Nathan’s remote, well-hidden facility, Caleb soon finds out the purpose of his mission – if he’s willing to accept it and sign a non-disclosure agreement – to conduct a Turing Test on Nathan’s latest invention, an AI called Ava, hauntingly played by Alicia Vikander, the highly sought after Swedish actress today. To complete his task, Caleb has to test if Ava is on a par with human in terms of her intellectual, language, and emotional competence. The thematic element unfolds like that of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. To avoid spoilers, I’ll just leave it at that.

Another gratifying element is the cerebral components of the film. Here are some examples. Nathan got the name Bluebook from Wittgenstein’s Blue Notebook, which contains the philosopher’s rumination on language and thinking. Even the Jackson Pollock on the wall carries a deeper meaning. How is art made? By the rational mind or automatic impulses? Ultimately, the key questions are: What is the essence of being human? And what will become of the human race if we continue down the unchecked trajectory with our technology?

But the story is not just one-sided with man creates machine, man tests machine. It is utterly intriguing to see the interplay among the threesome. The psychological wrangling between Nathan, Caleb, and Ava is mind-boggling. The twists and turns are the juicy bits in the plot line as we try to figure out actually who is out-smarting who. The suspense engages even more than a Hitchcock movie. The visual designs and effects of the AI is haunting as an existential horror because it is right here on earth and not lightyears away in space; we can relate how possible a similar scenario could be reality one day. A cautionary tale, if you will, and a brilliant one.

A successful debut for first-time director Garland, albeit he is no novice in writing. Garland has been a prolific novelist and screenwriter; his crafting of Ex Machina is highly nuanced and intelligent, at the same time, very human. I will not go into the twists and turns, and definitely not the denouement; the viewer must experience it first-hand.

What I can say is the engrossing performance from all three actors. Oscar Isaac, who from his minor role in Drive to his Oscar nominated Inside Llewyn Davis, to last year with Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year, has shown time and again his versatility as an actor. Very convincing as the mastermind Nathan, the chilling genius and yet a mysterious, macho figure, Isaac portrays quite a fusion of seemingly incompatible characteristics. He could get another chance for an awards nod.

Domhnall Gleeson had his breakout role in Harry Potter, but has grown into an actor suitable for a myriad of roles that is congruent with his innocent, boyish look. His character here in Ex Machina develops a mutual relationship with the AI Ava, a scenario similar to Her (2013), wherein Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his OS Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.

Why do Gleeson and Vikander, the innocent coder and the robot have such unlikely on-screen chemistry? Maybe because they had worked together in another film as a loving couple. Remember Anna Karenina (2012), Joe Wright directing Tom Stoppard’s adaptation? Well, these two had much interaction there as Levin and Kitty. And watch for Vikander in two upcoming book to movie adaptations: Testament of Youth and The Light Between Oceans, and Gleeson in Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn.

Ex Machina is a film that fits all aspects of a well-crafted production, in its writing, directing, thematic elements, set designs, visual effects, choice of music, and overall gratification as a sic-fi suspense thriller. Hopefully by the time Awards Season comes at the end of the year, it will not be forgotten.

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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Update January 14:

Oscar Nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Visual Effects

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Other related Review posts on Ripple Effects:

Never Let Me Go: From Book to Movie

Inside Llewyn Davis: A Serious Man in Greenwich Village

Anna Karenina (2012)

About Time: The Use and Abuse of Super Power

Notes From The Dark

This post is a little different from my usual Saturday Snapshot.

I’ve been asked how I remember so many details from a movie after just watching it once. Well, of course I can Google for some of the info, but to jot down lines and scenes that I don’t want to forget, I take notes.

How do you take notes inside a dark theatre? I used to bring along a small note book, fold the corner of the page to start with, and just use my pen to write whatever I could on the small pages… usually just a few words a page, for I didn’t want to overlap my writing. When I went home, I often had a hard time deciphering what I’d written.

But recently I found a perfect way. Instead of a small notebook, I take with me into the movie a copy of Cineplex magazine, lots of those in the stands at the theatre. Before the movie starts, I fold down the corner of the pages that have some blank or lighter space, take out a permanent black Sharpie marker pen, and I’m all set for note taking in the dark.

I don’t take my eyes off the screen when I write. So you can say it’s blind writing in the dark. Here are some of the pages of notes I’d taken recently. For interest’s sake, I’ve included the movie I was watching when making these notes. They make fun, altered book pages, don’t you think? And the effects of words on the page are all serendipitous too. And oh, if you suddenly remember some errands you forgot to do, you can jot that down too.

A View from the Bridge, National Theatre Live. I’ve a little drawing of the stage and seating here:

Here are the pages from watching the movie Ex Machina (Review coming):

When memory fails, mnemonic devices save the day all the time. Just need to channel a little creativity.

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Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. CLICK HERE to see what others have posted.

National Theatre Live

National Theatre Live launched in June, 2009. Cameras are placed in strategic locations in the theatre to capture the stage performance live and broadcast to various venues the world over. According to the NTL website, over 3.5 million people have experienced this remote viewing of plays from London stages, with over 1,100 venues around the world, 550 in the UK alone. For the price of a movie ticket, I can be transported to the front row of these performances.

I ‘discovered’ this treasure too late, well, too late to see Skylight, with two of my faves Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy. Skylight received 7 nominations for the Tony Awards coming this Sunday, June 7, including acting noms for Mulligan and Nighy, direction for Stephen Daldry, and overall Best Revival of a Play.

NTL’s Skylight had been shown in our Cineplex already, and I missed it. But, all is not lost. In the past two months since I knew about this treasure, I’ve watched three plays and have bought ticket to the October debut of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch. Looking forward to that.

Here are the three shows I’d watched in the past few weeks. Click on the link to the NTL website for full descriptions. The following is just a summary of my thoughts.

The Hard Problem by Tom Stoppard

My full admiration to Tom Stoppard for writing a play to explore this hard problem, one that’s not very popular nowadays when science and technology reign supreme, when Dawkins speaks like the indisputable authority: Is evolutionary biology the all-encompassing codebook answering every human question? Hillary, a psychology research fellow at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science prays to God every night, simply madness to her fellow researcher. Her concerns: Can neuroscience explain consciousness, or beauty, or morality, faith, longings? And, sometimes one does need a miracle or two when dealing with personal regrets. The play is an intellectual odyssey with lively and energetic exchanges of amusing dialogues, humour that teases me with lines reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

This is Stoppard’s new play in nine years. Mentored by Samuel Beckett, friend of Harold Pinter, writing for both stage and screen, Stoppard, at 77, remains one of my most respected writers. I’d loved Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but his works on screen have been equally impressive with the Oscar winning Shakespeare In Love (1998), Parade’s End (2012, one of my fave TV mini-series), the Oscar nominated Anna Karenina (2012), and Empire of the Sun (1987, a unique and haunting chronicle of childhood).

And for this play, nobody is preaching anything here, there’s no need to, just raising the hard problem, that’s all. We hear that line in Hamlet ring out loud and clear: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

The View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller

Mark Strong is explosive as Eddie Carbone, the longshoreman who accommodates in his home two of his wife’s cousins, brothers and illegal immigrants just arrived from Sicily. Eddie’s possessive care and love for his niece Catherine who has been living with him all the years, turns to malicious jealousy as she falls for the younger of the brothers. Miller’s play is about the American Dream gone sour.

What an eye-opener of a stage play. Mounted at London’s Young Vic Theatre, the stage design is stylishly minimal. With audience viewing from three sides, it lays bare the human soul and its inexplicable and unbridled emotions. I have not seen anything like it. First off, can you imagine two men taking a shower on stage at the beginning of the play… with real water, and towards the end, that water turns into blood showering down, covering all the characters for the stunning, tragic ending.

Man and Superman by Bernard Shaw

This one, I must say hats off to Ralph Fiennes for his extraordinary energy. Playing Jack Tanner, a radical thinker of his days, and the reluctant guardian and later romantic resolve for a beautiful heiress, Fiennes leads us on a wild ride from reality to fantasy, from earth to hell and back again. Well, no superhero in our CGI saturated movies nowadays can rival. Blurting out lines after lines non-stop for over three hours, in one take, dialogues covering all the brilliance of Shaw’s philosophical, social, and political views, with spot-on timing and great fun. Which comedian can beat that? And of course, what he and Shaw had shown us is that words and the intellect can be more powerful and entertaining than on screen action sequences and technical wizardry.

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~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples to all of the above