entertainment – Page 18 – Ripple Effects

October’s Abundant Harvest

October is harvesting month for me. The first week I was still cruising on some small country roads in Northeast U.S. gathering visual delights. As soon as I came back home, I sent off a travel article to an online newspaper. Visitors to my pond at Ripple Effects get the details in ten blog posts beginning here.

Funny thing is, In my almost two weeks’ road trip, I’d rarely seen birds and have not watched one single movie. So as soon as I got back home, I quickly sought to quench the dry spell. Sad to say, my avian friends have migrated without saying goodbye. But there are always movies.

Here are the movies I’ve watched in October after coming home. Most are current releases, a few catch-ups. I’m a detailed list-maker of unnecessary facts, so the titles are in chronological order of my viewing:

The Intern with Robert De Niro as the overqualified senior (in age) intern

A new genre has evolved in recent years to capture the baby-boomer cinema goers – A Walk In The Woods, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Quartet, My Old Lady – just to name a few. The Intern is pleasant enough, with an interesting proposal: make the best use of the resources seniors can offer in a business, here a startup created and operated by Jules (Ann Hathaway). The hipster way of running a company is explicitly, time and again, contrasted with the De Niro old school of management, etiquette and people skills, like Ben Stiller and Adam Driver in While We Were Young. But The Intern lacks a dramatic story arc to hold viewers’ (well, mine at least) interest and attention. I’ve been waiting for a twist somewhere but it never came, and Anders Holm who plays Jules’ husband Matt could well be a miscast. ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch as the brooding Prince of Denmark

I bought the ticket to this National Theatre Live one-night screening months ago and am excited to report that I was one of 250,000 viewers worldwide to watch it. The date to remember: 10/15/15. It was a record for NTL for one single showing of a broadcast; Shakespeare would be ecstatic. I was squished in the last row corner seat in a full Cineplex auditorium, awestruck by the enthusiasm Benedict Cumberbatch had raised. There were young people in droves streaming into the theatre instead of the usually grey-haired audience at most NTL screenings.

Basically two things I’d like to say about this production at the Barbican in London via NTL’s camera work. First, the sound and lighting need to improve so we don’t have to strain our ears to hear that most famous soliloquy of all time delivered by Benedict Cumberbatch. Second, the performance was a bit uneven. While Cumberbatch had put on an energetic and affective act, and Ciaran Hinds as Claudius was very convincing and appealing even, there were roles that need to be pumped up to match.
~ ~ ~ Ripples

The Martian with Matt Damon as the best botanist on the Planet Mars

Well, science seems to be the saviour bringing Matt Damon back to Earth from Mars but director Ridley Scott knows the underlying secret. An evacuation of his teammates after a dust storm has left astronaut Mark Watney all alone on the Red Planet. To survive, he has to science his way out. Director Ridley Scott knows too well that he is working with flesh and blood, and science without the human touch will best be a fine documentary but won’t capture hearts and can’t triumph at the box office. Thanks to all his teammates in the space capsule coming back for him and all the smart people in NASA and elsewhere calculating to the dot of how this could take place, we get a captivating and entertaining human interest story. Look at the cast, it’s not rocket science that the film has fine materials to build on: Other than Damon, there’s Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean…

A blogging success, Andy Weir first published his story as blog posts, followed by eBook, sold movie rights, movie production, and now the phenom. But what was I most impressed? That the film doesn’t use CGI to imitate the Red Planet but was shot on location in the magnificent Wadi Rum, southern Jordan. Previous films with Mars as setting had used the location as it’s probably one of the most Mars-like places on Earth. I had the experience of getting to about seventy miles north of Wadi Rum in Petra many years ago, beholding the city carved out of the red mountains. It was indeed out of this world. ~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples
(Update Jan. 14, 2016: 7 Oscar Nominations including Best Picture)

Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks as the reluctant hero

Steven Spielberg knows what audience wants too, and that the formula of the “hero’s journey” works. Not to say this film is formulaic but it is predictable even when I didn’t know anything about our reluctant hero, insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who later turned master negotiator. Bridge of Spies is set in the Cold War era, Donovan is asked to do the nasty task of defending an arrested Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). As a result, Donovan has suddenly become public enemy no. 1 together with his defendant. As the real life events begin to take their course, Donovan is pulled into the journey with real gusto. He saves Abel from a certain death sentence, keeping him for more useful ends, you know, some sort of like insurance for the future. And rainy days finally come.

This is a highly watchable film, despite the fact that many might have known about this part of American history, the character Donovan and his ultimate endeavour to exchange Abel for American U2 pilot Gary Powers shot down from Soviet airspace. As with Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Spielberg knows it’s not the dry, actual negotiations that will interest the audience, but the added suspense and the human bond between Donovan and Abel that would appeal more. And so he threw in those elements; Spielberg is good at that. It’s the humanity behind his characters that capture his audience. And what’s more, shot like a Cold War era film, we get some thrilling noir type of camera work and the reminiscence of the denser and tenser spy films of the 60’s, like Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. But of course, in this day, audience would welcome more Spielberg’s offer of lighter entertainment. ~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples
(Update Jan. 14, 2016: 6 Oscar Nominations including Best Picture)

Jafar Panahi’s TAXI where the banned Iranian director creates video selfies

Banned from making films for twenty years for his outspoken stance against the government, Iranian director Jafar Panaji uses creative and bold ways to make his ‘non-films’. Here he is in the driver’s seat in a yellow cab, picking up his fares on the streets of Tehran with a camera mounted on his dashboard. We get a slice of what it’s like to live under an authoritarian power. Rather than a gloomy view, this 2015 Berlin International Film Festival winner brings us a light-hearted, human display of life in Tehran, however limited the crack is opened for us to look in from the outside. My full review here. ~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

This is Not A Film where banned director searches for new ways to speak out

This is Jafar Panahi’s 2011 work after he was given a 20-year ban by the Iranian court from filmmaking, screenwriting, giving interviews, and leaving the country. This is not a film, but a video selfie made in his home by friend and documentary filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb who was later arrested. We see a somber, stoic, but at times frustrated Panahi up and about in his home with his daily chores, and ‘telling’ a banned screenplay. He is also shown using his own iPhone to record a young man coming to his door to collect garbage, a film student helping his sister out for that night. The depth of human interest and the desires and aspirations of people in constraints depicted in this ‘non-film’ is poignant. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Remember where Christopher Plummer is a 90 year-old revenger with dementia

So what if the plot is implausible as long as we have a talented director (Atom Egoyan) conducting a fine orchestrated production with the riveting performance of Christopher Plummer. I mean, there are lots of implausible storylines in our movies nowadays, think Gone Girl, Before I Go to Sleep, ok, throw in The Martian even. The charismatic performance here in Remember by Plummer makes it believable and absorbing. Why, he has grasped and portrayed a dementia patient to the dot, forgetting who you are, where you are, and the essential why for your actions. A Holocaust survivor seeking revenge on the German officer responsible for his family’s death in Auschwitz is the premise. But Canadian director Atom Egoyan had led us into a thrilling story of suspense and unfolding. No, this is not ‘another Holocaust movie’ but a riveting thriller. Plummer has effectively led us to see the fragility of our mind and the nature of the memories we hold. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Meet The Patels where Ravi Patel shows us the Indian version of Meet the Parents

But with one major difference: This is a lively documentary. That makes it all the more fun and realistic. The Indian parents of their American born, and almost 30 year-old son Ravi Patel lend a helping hand to find him a wife by distributing his ‘bio dates’ resumé to friends and family and practically to the whole Patel clan. This is not incest but expanding the target market of about 50 miles radius of where the Patels come from in India. Ravi himself had gone through the ‘biodating system’, online matrimonial websites, and Patel Matrimonial Convention. But before all these, he’d had an American girlfriend whom he had kept as a secret from his parents and with whom he had just broken up. Ahh, that adds to the complication in this vividly told multi-visual doc. Most gratifying is the conclusion… regardless of culture and traditions, loving parents just want their children to be happy. I can’t agree more. ~ ~ ~ Ripples My full review here.

The Past where Director Asghar Farhadi elicited some amazing performance

My third film from Iranian directors in just two weeks. Asghar Farhadi’s first French language film shot in Paris. I was much impressed by his previous work A Separation, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012. The Past came a year later. So this is a catch-up for me; I’d long wanted to see it. Saw it on BluRay just a few days ago and again I must say, don’t let them just stream movies online, for the special features are just as good. Here we have Farhadi sharing with us the creative process in the making of The Past at a Directors Guild interview. This is too good a film to just write a couple of paragraphs on. A full review coming. But I can tell you, it’s going to be ~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples.

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September Wrap

Here’s a post of lists, movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read or listened to, all in September, a list that hopefully can tide you over till my next post, which will be after a long-planned hiatus. You’re welcome to throw in your thoughts on any title on this list, or ripple out to other shores.

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MOVIES At Theatres:

Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Who are they kidding? Might as well just put in this disclaimer: Title taken at random. This is not the Man from U.N.C.L.E. with David McCallum (yeah) as Illya Kuryakin and Robert Vaughn (boo) as Napoleon Solo during my childhood days. I knew what the acronym stood for even as a grade schooler, and was mesmerized by a world wide net of spies and intrigues, despite watching a B/W TV set. This 2015 U.N.C.L.E. feature movie is just like any other lesser spy flicks, feels like haphazardly done, dated spywares that fail to send any positive nostalgic vibes, and featuring an accidental duo just happen to have the same names as those in the 60’s TV series. The third person, Alicia Vikander, makes it a bit more watchable. ~ ~ Ripples

Mistress America

A bit disappointed considering how much I’d enjoyed Frances Ha and the works of Noah Baumbach. Greta Gerwig is a mystery to me. In all her roles she looks ultra cheerful, even in difficult circumstances, but is that overacting or is that what her character is supposed to convey, optimism as fuel for life? Anyway, I wanted to give Mistress America a second chance. But as I checked the showtimes a couple of weeks later, it wasn’t there anymore. ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

A Walk in the Woods

A pleasant surprise! Is there life after 50, 60 … 70? Robert Redford and Nick Nolte is an odd pair to answer that from the jagged edge of a cliff. All the cliché shots of two old men hiking the Appalachian Trail are in the movie trailer; the film has more to offer. Emma Thompson is a welcome addition as the forbearing wife hoping for the best. I’ve seen several of this genre in recent years: Wild, Tracks, The Way, to name a few, with A Walk in the Woods being the lightest but still quite relevant. Lesson learned? Forget about your age, and, giving up doesn’t make you a failure. It has been a long while since I read Bill Bryson’s book on which the film is based. Watching the adaptation brings laughs which I remember were absent while reading. An easy 2 hours of relaxation without taking one single step. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

Learning to Drive

Just the opposite, I was not enthused about the trailer and my hesitations about the film were confirmed as I watched. Based on a non-fiction piece from Katha Pollitt’s Learning to Drive and other Life Stories, the movie turns political by changing the Filipino driving instructor into a Sikh, played by Ben Kingsley. No matter, he has that poise and dignity no matter what costume he puts on. It’s not surprising to see Patricia Clarkson’s Wendy character – a woman in her fifties learning to drive for the first time in her life – get some bonus lessons on cultural awareness on top of parallel parking. ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

The End of the Tour

One of the best films I’ve seen this year, and maybe for some time. Nothing looks ‘performed’, yes, even the nervous Jesse Eisenberg as writer David Lipsky is his natural self, unsure of himself and of his subject David Foster Wallace, as he follows his Infinite Jest book tour to write an article for the Rolling Stone Magazine. Based on Lipsky’s book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace, the film belongs to Jason Segel. A surprising cast and Segel has delivered with poignancy as Wallace. Framed in a sympathetic tone, the film is a moving tribute to and a revelation of an author whom some may choose to misread.
~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Pawn Sacrifice

The title says it all. A pawn is sacrificed in the heat of the cold war. Based on the true events that rocked the chess world and quickly inflamed the political landscape, American Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) captured the world championship in 1972, taking the title away from Soviet Grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). While the film in all its earnest intentions effectively brings out the intensity of the rivalry, the main issue I feel is the casting. Liev Schreiber is too famous a face to be Boris Spassky, even speaking in Russian doesn’t make him any more convincing; Maguire is even more famous a face to be Fischer. And may I go into this? They both need to slim down a bit to fit the profile of the cold war chess rivals, especially Schreiber. My choice for Fischer? Nicholas Hoult. Spassky? Andrew Garfield. ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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MOVIES on DVD’s:

The Jungle Book

It has been a long, long while since I watched it and now a refresher to prepare for the star-studded voicing in the remake. This 1967 Disney animation just shows how much has changed in animations then and now. Hand-drawn, slower paced, and nuanced facial expressions from the animal characters, albeit a bit flat when compared to the hyperactive animations we see today. The new version of The Jungle Book is coming out in 2016, utilizing ‘up to the minute technology’, and fusing a real life Mowgli with CGI generated animals and jungle environs all in 3D. As for the 1967 version, the music and the songs will stay as original as ever.

This is Where I Leave You

Another August: Osage County, which is influencing which, for these two are so alike? Or, maybe just speaks to the fact that the dysfunctional family is the norm. Under the direction of their mother, five estranged siblings have to come back home to sit shiva as their father passed. Staying under the same roof for seven days is an ordeal with the Altman family, for everyone carries baggage they’d rather bury together with the dead. Not as bad a film as critics say. Jane Fonda is a less overbearing mother as Meryle Streep is in Osage County, so not to overshadow the rest of the cast. Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Corey Stoll may not be the best of siblings, they make one good cast. Don’t you just love the title?

Greenberg

From the dysfunctional family to the dysfunctional individual. Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) comes back to LA from NYC to housesit for his brother as the family takes a vacation. As one who had received treatment in a mental hospital, Roger has many personal issues to deal with, and it’s a little heart-wrenching to see him struggle to relate, albeit at times he comes through more as annoying than deserving kindness; but maybe that’s the point. Greta Gerwig plays Florence, dog walker for the family. Stiller is in his usual mode, lost to himself and others; Gerwig is her usual self too, pleasant despite all. So it’s not hard to predict the outcome but the process makes one interesting take. The first time Gerwig in director Noah Baumbach’s work. Here began a beautiful and rewarding partnership.

Panic Room

Re-watch after learning this is the breakout film for Kristen Stewart, age 12. Didn’t realize she played Jodie Foster’s daughter there when I first saw the movie years back, and now seeing it again I find the two do have some resemblance, in appearance and demeanour. Locked in a panic room in a fancy NYC apartment they just moved in, mother and daughter try to stay safe as a gang of burglars break in. Although not thoroughly plausible, especially how Foster answers the door as two policeman come to check on them, which then leads to some even more implausible outcomes at the end. But, overall, a riveting, edge-of-your-seat kind of viewing. And when you think of it, of course, it’s David Fincher.

Olive Kitteridge

Binge-watched this HBO 4-hour mini-series after it won 7 Prime Time Emmys last Sunday. Writing, acting, editing, camera work, the whole production is captivating, and at times, very funny, no, not the Bill Murray section – he’s actually serious here. Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are deserving winners. In her acceptance speech for the Best Mini Series, McDormand emphasized that it all came from a book. Yay for books, the wellspring of inspiration. Olive Kitteridge is author Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize winning work; writer Jane Anderson wins her Emmy for the adapted screenplay. However marvelous the visualization, it all started with words on a page.

A Touch of Sin

In preparation for Jia Zhangke’s 2015 festival film Mountains May Depart. A Touch of Sin was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2013 and won Jia a Best Screenplay award. Jia’s camera frames a perspective that’s bold and true in his home country China, a nation obsessed with modernization, economic growth, and wealth accumulation. The film reveals the human costs for such enterprises. Unfortunately, his countrymen didn’t have a chance to watch this one as it was banned. But with Mountains May Depart, officials had said they would allow it. I’m afraid it just might be much tamer and easier for the palate.

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BOOKS

Summer by Edith Wharton

After The Age of Innocence, I continue to explore the writings of The Gilded Age, to prepare for my New England trip and yes, Julian Fellowes’ new American TV series.

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Not as chilling as the title sounds, heartwarming memoir of a son chronicling the extraordinary life of his mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe, albeit she would have likely said, “O, mine is just another life. There are many more deserving ones.” While accompanying his mother at her chemo therapy sessions in the hospital, son and mother share books and reading. The two-persons book club is therapeutic for both.

Circling The Sun by Paula McLain (Audiobook read by Katharine McEwan)

Not sure how much is true in this fact-based fiction about Beryle Markham, the award winning race horse trainer in Kenya and in 1936, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Markham flew from England to NYC, but crash landed in Nova Scotia after a 21 hour harrowing flight head-on against the prevailing winds. (I later learned that Amelia Earhart’s 1932 flight was from west to east, a much ‘easier’ feat with the tailwind, landed in Ireland after only 15 hours in flight.) McLain’s book tells many more stories, and gossips, than just this monumental event. Beryl had known the Out of Africa author Karen Blixen in the small social circle in Kenya. Why, Beryl is the other woman in Deny’s life, according to McLain. Not too sure about the book, but I was much impressed by the voice of the narrator Katharine McEwan.

Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

The only 2015 Booker Prize shortlisted book I’ve read, so far, and it’s brilliant. The book presents a most interesting story of a ‘corporate anthropologist’ collecting field data for an ethnographic study of the human society in this digital age. The ‘Great Report’ is needed to be written, same as this book: what have we become at this juncture of human history and civilization? Maybe we do need anthropologists to offer a narrative of our contemporary society, or even better, we should all be trained as anthropologists to see ourselves better.

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

I’ve enjoyed McCarthy’s style of postmodern incisions. Remainder is his debut work and soon to be made into a movie. Walking down the street our unnamed (of course) protagonist was hit by a falling object. After coming out of a coma, he needs to re-enact his past to regain memories, and to reconstruct an authentic existence. Who is he, what is he? With the huge sum of monetary compensations, he steps out to do exactly that. Still reading, a fascinating premise.

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Books to Films at TIFF15

September kicks off Film Festival Season, a prequel to all the movie nominations coming up at the end of the year. First there’s Venice, Telluride, and Sept. 10 begins the 10-day celebration of films from over 70 countries at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The following are several of the premieres at TIFF15 that are adaptations from literary sources. Just to throw some more reading ideas out in case you’re not already overwhelmed with book suggestions.

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The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham

Australian author Rosalie Ham’s debut novel (2000) is divided into four sections named after four different kinds of fabric: gingham, shantung, felt and brocade. The historical, gothic novel has received several nominations and shortlisted for the Book of the Year Award (2001) by the Australian Booksellers Association. The film adaptation stars Kate Winslet as the dressmaker Tilly Dunnage who returns to her hometown seeking revenge on her being expelled years before, with a sewing machine as her accomplice. Sounds interesting? What more, she is a Titanic survivor (of course she is) and the plot thickens with a hearing on the doomed maiden voyage. Australian director Jocelyn Moorhouse wrote the screenplay and shot the film in Victoria. Liam Hemsworth and Judy Davis also star.

High-Rise by J. G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard’s most well-known novel probably is Empire of the Sun (1984) thanks to Steven Spielberg’s movie adaptation. That is a semi-autobiographical account of Ballard’s childhood years in a Shanghai internment camp during the Japanese invasion of China. The production is one of the better WWII, Pacific War movies, splashed with some surreal styling. Now High-Rise (1975) looks like a totally imaginative work. An ultra-modern high-rise apartment (hopefully with some updated renos from its inception in 1975) with all its conveniences and amenities only lead to the isolation of its tenants, dividing them into different classes and eventually, to rivalry and extreme violence. The high-rise is a self-contained microcosm of our civilized society, perhaps Lord of the Flies of the concrete jungle. An acerbic satire of our human condition, the film is directed by Ben Wheatley and stars Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons.

Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

This is Hegland’s debut novel (1996), and had been translated into eleven languages. Set in Northern California in the near future when a massive continental power outage causes the total shutdown of technology, subsequently, the total collapse of human society. The apocalyptic scenario unfolds as two teenaged sisters – at first living in an idyllic, remote forest – now have to fend for themselves, find food at the brink of starvation, secure safety in the wild, and in the process, grow in their relationship with each other and learn more about their world. A coming-of-age story as well as an allegory of our technologically dependent society. The film is shot in British Columbia where, yes, there are beautiful forests. Canadian director Patricia Rozema writes the screenplay and helms the production. Rozema is the one who brought us Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park the movie in 1999. Popular Canadian actress Ellen Page joins hands with Evan Rachel Wood to play the roles of the sisters.

The Lady In the Van by Alan Bennett

Thanks to the film adaptation, or I wouldn’t have known about this amazing story. Acclaimed English playwright Alan Bennett’s play is not fiction but a memoir. Bennett saw a transient woman living in a van on the street. Trying to help her out, he let her park on his own driveway for three weeks so she could sort things out and move on. Well, Miss Shepherd stayed for 15 years. Not surprisingly, she and the playwright form an unlikely bond of friendship. This ‘mostly true’, incredulous story needs to be told for its unique human scenario. From play to film is probably the best route to reach many more viewers. Who else other than Maggie Smith best fit the role as Miss Shepherd? And so she did, with Alex Jennings as Alan Bennett. Supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent, Dominic Cooper, and James Cordon. The is the third film wherein director Nicholas Hytner and playwright Alan Bennett team up. Their previous collaborations are The History Boys (2006) and The Madness of King George (1994).

The Martian by Andy Weir

Here’s a Cinderella story that all bloggers can cheer for. In 2009, Andy Weir started posting on his personal blog as a post-by-post serial his well-researched sic-fi story about an astronaut stranded on Mars. Chapter by chapter he attracted numerous readers who, after the story was finished, suggested he publish it as an eBook so people could read it online as a whole. Weir did that and his eBook soon hit the top of Amazon’s best selling sic-fi list. Not long after, Random House stepped in and took it from there, from e to reality. Four days later, “Hollywood called for the movie rights,” Weir recalled. As I type, on this second week of September, Weir’s book is number one on the New York Times Best Sellers Trade Paperback Fiction list. And the movie? The legendary Ridley Scott takes the helm, with NASA consulting, Matt Damon stars, and an A-list supporting cast includes Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Jeff Daniels. World premiere at TIFF before a general release later in October. And it all started with a blog post.

Room by Emma Donoghue

The 2010 Booker-prize shortlisted novel by Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue reads like you’d want to see it visualized. Indeed, hearing constantly the voice of a 5 year-old could have that effect on you. So here we are. A movie adaptation. Locked in a room and made captive by a psychotic abuser, a young mother gives birth and for the next five years raises her child Jack in a shed. At 5, Jack has known no other worlds, but now begins to ask questions. Ma cannot contain the make-believe anymore so she tells Jack there’s a world out there, and starts to prepare him for a possible escape. The multiple-award winning novel is written from the child’s perspective. It depicts the power of love and the indomitable spirit of resilience and hope, but maybe not for the claustrophobic. The movie trailer is impressive; the 1.5 minute clip is powerful, consuming, and very moving. The film premiered at Telluride International Film Festival in early September and stunned the audience, drawing multiple standing ovations. Donoghue wrote the screenplay herself, that could well be a definite asset. Lenny Abrahamsson directs, with Brie Larson as Ma, Jacob Tremblay as Jack, Joan Allen and William H. Macy supporting.

UPDATE Sept. 20, 2015: ROOM has just won the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at TIFF15 tonight. FYI, a few of TIFF’s previous winners had gone on to win the Oscar Best Picture including 12 Years A Slave (2013), The King’s Speech (2010), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), American Beauty (1999).

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Testament of Youth

Premiered at the London Film Festival in October, 2014, Testament of Youth finally arrived to our city here in Western Canada in late August, and only for a week or so. It came quietly to our age-old indie theatre, nearly slipped by without my noticing it; if so, that would have been a loss for me.

I admit I haven’t read Vera Brittain’s acclaimed, 600 plus page memoir. I admit too that before watching Downton Abbey Seasons 1 and 2, the subject of WWI, its direct hits and collateral damages, had not piqued my interest that much. Now, even saying ‘piqued my interest’ trivializes the devastation – as this film has so poignantly shown us – the tragic loss of a generation of youth.

The beginning of the film, which is elegantly shot, shows us succinctly Vera Brittain’s (Alicia Vikander) well-to-do family. Vera and her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) are endearingly close. While their intention is good, their parents (Dominic West, Emily Watson) are protective and traditional: Edward has the chance to go to Oxford, Vera is meant for marriage. On this issue, Vera protests and argues with her father; eventually, her determination and intellectual vigour win through. A dream comes true when Vera enters the women’s Somerville College Oxford to study English Literature.

From her brother, Vera gets to know a few good Oxford men: Victor Richardson (Colin Morgan), Geoffrey Thurlow (Jonathan Bailey), and Roland Leighton (Kit Harington). Roland subsequently wins her heart with his sensitive, poetic inclination; the two soon are engaged. The winds of war blow callous and indiscriminate. As Britain is drawn into the fight, all these young men heed the call to enlist. Vera too decides to forsake her hard-earned Oxford education to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse.

The saddest and most ironic notion about WWI is perhaps that it was first thought to be a fast and triumphal war. Surely, Britain came out a victor, but not before ringing up a horrific number of casualties and sending back home – for those fortunate enough – a permanently damaged generation. As the military struggle wained through four long years, Vera would ultimately lose all who are dearest to her: her brother Edward, her fiancé Roland, and their two close friends Victor and Geoffrey. After the war, Vera goes back to Oxford. Later, a disillusioned Vera becomes a vocal pacifist and an advocate of women’s rights.

This is British director James Kent’s full feature debut after years of helming TV productions. His effort is conscientious and serious, and for that, I’d much appreciated. The film is beautifully shot and carefully crafted. The camera work, while giving us a traditional look, is agile and stylish; the editing succinct. I have not read the memoir so cannot offer comparison, but judging the film on its own, the screenplay is well written and the overall production, a captivating execution.

Kent has an excellent cast to work with, and that adds to the quality of the production. Vera Brittain is well portrayed by the nowadays ubiquitous, Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. She is in some very diverse roles, from Kitty in Anna Karenina (2012) to an AI robot in Ex Mechina (2015), to the witty British agent Gaby in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), and in several highly anticipated upcoming films.

Vikander is versatile, and her best quality is probably the intelligent and unsentimental mastery of her character. Here, she is a living testament to the devastation of war. For a witness to testify effectively, the most important element has to be clarity and not be overcome by emotions. She has delivered her message poignantly.

Other actors are just as competent in their roles, and a pleasure to watch, despite all their tragic end. Aaron Egerton as Edward, what a change from the street punk under Colin Firth’s mentoring in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). Kit Harington’s (Game of Throne fame) performance is effective, particularly in a scene where he comes home the first time from the trenches, a changed man. Veteran actors Dominic West and Emily Watson are excellent supports, especially West as the father torn by grief and ambivalence.

I have seen several WWI and II films in recent years: Sarah’s Key, The Book Thief, The Monuments Men, Suite Française, I have to place Testament of Youth above all of them. Visceral but not sentimental, the film communicates with painful clarity the devastation of war, the traumatic experiences in the trenches, and the cold, hard fact of a testimonial: the loss of a generation.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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Other related Ripple Reviews:

Suite Française

The Book Thief

Sarah’s Key

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Ex Machina

Anna Karenina

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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

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.

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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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: