Jean-Dominique Bauby would have been the envy of many. In his early 40’s, he was the chief editor of the fashion magazine Elle, living the high life in Paris. His kids lived with their mother in the country, and he embodied the “fast cars and fast women” lifestyle in the city with a vengeance. The world was indeed his oyster.
Then came December 8, 1995. At the age of 42, he experienced a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, what the professionals call “locked-in syndrome. “ Left only with the use of his eyes, he was quickly further restricted when his right eye had to be sewn shut. Now, he was confined to a hospital bed, dependent on full-time care for his every need, with the use of only one eye. All of this, while his mind was completely intact.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly begins as Bauby opens his eyes for the first time, waking up from a 3-week coma. He learns what happens to him, and we learn of the great dissonance as we hear his thoughts but realize he cannot communicate them. Literally trapped by his body, his therapist comes to his rescue as she teaches him how to communicate through blinking. It is a slow cumbersome process, but is the only way he is able to communicate.
Before his accident, Bauby had negotiated a book contract. As he learns his communication style, his therapist contacts his publisher and announces the surprise that he intends to keep his contract. Over the course of the next 18 months, he works with an assistant to write his book. As he puts it, “I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.”
The history of this story is profound enough that it would seem the film could add very little. But the great success of this as a film is the way it invites us to experience Bauby’s world, the thought life that was his means of keeping his sanity in the midst of this extraordinary challenge. The director makes wise us of his camera, spending the bulk of the film looking at the world through Bauby’s eyes. We are invited to experience his entrapment. Through this great struggle the former playboy has to wrestle with the meaning of his existence, his misplaced values, and the sense of regret over the ways in which he failed in life. At one point, he reflects that his life has been a series of missed opportunities, and only now in this trapped existence can he see how he might have lived.
One Christian reviewer I respect put this film on his “10 Most Redemptive Films of 2007”, and indeed there is much here to chew on from a spiritual perspective. In the Christian world, much is being written about the need to see the reality of the “Kingdom of God” in the present world, a calling to Christians to engage in social action, and in transformative activity at every level of culture. The challenge to have a “realized eschatology” is a Biblical one, but the history of the Christian church is to fall into two extremes. The first is an “underrealized eschatology,” where Christians show no concern for the problems of this world, and withdraw to wait for their reward “in the sweet by and by.” The other is an “overrealized eschatology” where Christians so look for the reality of the kingdom of God in the present that they equate the gospel of Christ itself with social and political activity and with “good works.” Both extremes distort the Christian message in fundamental ways. Both are extremes that Christians in general and evangelicals in particular have shown affinities to run to.
The Diving Bell is an exceptional reminder of the tension that Christians must live in. On the one hand, we witness people engage Bauby as a human being with real value, and work to allow him to express himself. Through this redemptive work, he does more of a service for humanity than any would have thought possible in his condition. It is a celebration of the value of life that speaks with power to the “quality of life” discussions that go on in medical circles.
At the same time, we see in this film the limits of our redemptive work in this life. Bauby’s imagination, his “butterfly”, helps him keep his sanity, and gives him a sense of purpose. But it is a “butterfly” that allows him to escape his “diving bell,” his body that has failed him so deeply. Even as people expose him to their own faiths, his agnosticism fails to keep him from searching for deeper meanings. He wants something more, and as he is left with only his imagination and his memory, he recognizes that it is not enough. His body has failed. This world has failed to deliver the deepest needs of his soul.
The film leaves us with a certain ambivalence because this challenge remained unresolved in Bauby’s life. Even as we seek to recognize the redemptive reality of God’s kingdom in this world, The Diving Bell is a powerful reminder that the gospel points to something deeper still. At its best, the ways in which God’s kingdom is seen in this world are but a pale reflection of the world that is to come, where the limitations that we feel, and which this film vividly calls us to experience, will be gone, and “real life” can be truly experienced. Even as Christians yearn to see the gospel made manifest now, we should never leave behind the deeper yearning for the “far country,” the true home that we are heading to.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Darjeeling Limited: A Review
There aren’t many directors active today that inspire stronger emotions than Wes Anderson. In a true auteur-styled career, with writer-director credits for 5 feature-length films in 12 years, he has fashioned a unique visual and story-telling style. Some love it, some hate it. I’m one of the few that often finds myself somewhere in between, wanting to like it, but realizing that my own mood swings may keep me from doing so.
In The Darjeeling Limited, Wes extends this style but also themes that have been explored in his previous film, mainly his interest in the theme of family. In this venture, we begin with a fascinating opening shot, showing Bill Murray and Adrien Brody running to catch up with a train. Murray is one of Anderson’s favorite actors, and so fans of his films almost expect Murray to board the train. But he doesn’t, and as Brody hops aboard, it’s as if we leave behind Murray’s character and his presumably fascinating story to follow Brody’s character.
But I get ahead of myself. The film has a prologue, The Hotel Chevalier, that sets the stage in a unique way. There, we are introduced to Jason Schwartzman’s character Jack, who is spending time in a hotel in Paris when his girlfriend from America, played by Natalie Portman, shows up for a rendezvous. In a short few minutes, we see his emotional barrenness, his inability to communicate, and even his cruel way of mistreating her. While it’s played with Anderson’s quirky sense of comedy, we realize that something is wrong with this guy.
Darjeeling explains to us what is wrong. Jack, Peter (Brody), and Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), are brothers who haven’t seen each other in a year. Some time ago, their mother left their father and moved to India. She didn’t even return last year when their father died unexpectedly, the last time the brothers have seen each other. Now, Francis has brought them together to travel through India as a way of rediscovering themselves and, unbeknown to them, reunite them with their mother.
So begins their spiritual quest. What becomes clear is that each of them bears the scars of a youth that remains in the background. Francis is a control freak, Jack seems incapable of expressing emotion, and Peter displays a weird process of mourning his father’s death. Each of the quirks becomes occasion for odd comedy in the Anderson universe, but each emerges with a common narcissism as a way of dealing with their past. This kind of self-involvement quickly shows each of them as an unlikely candidate for a spiritual quest of any sort, and the journey quickly becomes a farce as a result.
While they set out to find themselves along the road, they slowly come to recognize the inadequacy of this kind of search. Their answer will not be found in a mystical encounter, something that each of them is grossly unsuited for. Nonetheless, their journey is not without hope.
In the course of this journey, there is occasion to explore their relationships, and in that exploration lies the strength of the piece. Along with a unique visual and writing style, Anderson is cultivating a unique commentary on family, letting Darjeeling build on Life Aquatic and The Royal Tennenbuams in particular. He seems to see in family a safe place within which to express our eccentricities and to find healing for the challenges of the past. In his creative expressions, here as in the other films, he invites us to consider the complexity and the diverse ways of expressing this healing. In that light, the metaphor of journey, seen through the train of Darjeeling and the boat of Life Aquatic, seems to support his vision of healing.
Darjeeling seems to embrace the tension of family life, that there are equal parts acceptance and change as we learn to live with one another. The characters that emerge at the end are pretty much the characters that we meet at the beginning, though perhaps a little wiser, a little more sympathetic to each other, and a little more capable of handling the challenges that they face in each of their lives. I like that idea, as it invites us to consider family as healing place in a life of incremental change. In a fast food world, where we are bombarded with false promises of instant life change, I embrace the reminder that change, whether that is overcoming the failures of the past, mourning for loss, or the emotional hiccups of our lives, does not come quickly, and that one of the most powerful salves we can hope for is family to walk with us along the way.
In The Darjeeling Limited, Wes extends this style but also themes that have been explored in his previous film, mainly his interest in the theme of family. In this venture, we begin with a fascinating opening shot, showing Bill Murray and Adrien Brody running to catch up with a train. Murray is one of Anderson’s favorite actors, and so fans of his films almost expect Murray to board the train. But he doesn’t, and as Brody hops aboard, it’s as if we leave behind Murray’s character and his presumably fascinating story to follow Brody’s character.
But I get ahead of myself. The film has a prologue, The Hotel Chevalier, that sets the stage in a unique way. There, we are introduced to Jason Schwartzman’s character Jack, who is spending time in a hotel in Paris when his girlfriend from America, played by Natalie Portman, shows up for a rendezvous. In a short few minutes, we see his emotional barrenness, his inability to communicate, and even his cruel way of mistreating her. While it’s played with Anderson’s quirky sense of comedy, we realize that something is wrong with this guy.
Darjeeling explains to us what is wrong. Jack, Peter (Brody), and Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), are brothers who haven’t seen each other in a year. Some time ago, their mother left their father and moved to India. She didn’t even return last year when their father died unexpectedly, the last time the brothers have seen each other. Now, Francis has brought them together to travel through India as a way of rediscovering themselves and, unbeknown to them, reunite them with their mother.
So begins their spiritual quest. What becomes clear is that each of them bears the scars of a youth that remains in the background. Francis is a control freak, Jack seems incapable of expressing emotion, and Peter displays a weird process of mourning his father’s death. Each of the quirks becomes occasion for odd comedy in the Anderson universe, but each emerges with a common narcissism as a way of dealing with their past. This kind of self-involvement quickly shows each of them as an unlikely candidate for a spiritual quest of any sort, and the journey quickly becomes a farce as a result.
While they set out to find themselves along the road, they slowly come to recognize the inadequacy of this kind of search. Their answer will not be found in a mystical encounter, something that each of them is grossly unsuited for. Nonetheless, their journey is not without hope.
In the course of this journey, there is occasion to explore their relationships, and in that exploration lies the strength of the piece. Along with a unique visual and writing style, Anderson is cultivating a unique commentary on family, letting Darjeeling build on Life Aquatic and The Royal Tennenbuams in particular. He seems to see in family a safe place within which to express our eccentricities and to find healing for the challenges of the past. In his creative expressions, here as in the other films, he invites us to consider the complexity and the diverse ways of expressing this healing. In that light, the metaphor of journey, seen through the train of Darjeeling and the boat of Life Aquatic, seems to support his vision of healing.
Darjeeling seems to embrace the tension of family life, that there are equal parts acceptance and change as we learn to live with one another. The characters that emerge at the end are pretty much the characters that we meet at the beginning, though perhaps a little wiser, a little more sympathetic to each other, and a little more capable of handling the challenges that they face in each of their lives. I like that idea, as it invites us to consider family as healing place in a life of incremental change. In a fast food world, where we are bombarded with false promises of instant life change, I embrace the reminder that change, whether that is overcoming the failures of the past, mourning for loss, or the emotional hiccups of our lives, does not come quickly, and that one of the most powerful salves we can hope for is family to walk with us along the way.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: A Review
Fatalism runs throughout The Assassination of Jesse James. The title reveals the direction the movie’s heading, and most everything in the movie, from the lighting, the camera work, the music, even the characters themselves seem to have that sense of doomed destiny.
Not that the essential story is so invested. As the movie unfolds, Jesse James met Robert Ford as a 19-year old who was meeting his boyhood hero. Enamored with the mystique of Jesse and his fame and notoriety, he and Ford’s brother eventually convince him to let him join the gang and to become part of his inner circle of trust. In a matter of months, James would die at the Ford’s hand, shot in the back in his own home. In terms of history, it is not a death that was invited or expected. At least, not on the surface.
The film depicts the final months of James’ life. This is a time when he is already an iconic figure, with years of robberies behind him. But he is also seeing an unwinding of his work, as most of his original gang is now dead or in prison. In the opening moments of the film, we see them pull off a train robbery, after which even his brother Frank leaves Missouri and heads back east. It’s as if we are joining the film at the end of Jesse’s story, celebrating what should be his last hurrah and his final sendoff.
What follows then is a kind of working through of the aftermath of Jesse’s career, even though nobody acknowledges or knows it as such. Even as Jesse talks about pulling off other crimes, mostly he seems to wander from gang member to gang member, some of whom are feeling the pressure of the law. In the midst of this is Bob. When we first meet him, Bob, remarkably played by Casey Affleck, comes across as awkward, even a bit slow, and definitely playing over his head. His hero, Jesse, starts out as a relaxed and winsome person, but over time his personality changes provokes Bob to change his view. What begins as hero worship becomes increasing jealousy at his success, his fame and notoriety. Couple that with an increasing fear of Jesse, and the groundwork is laid for Bob’s betrayal.
The place where the film invites the most discussion is on the portrayal of Jesse James by Brad Pitt. When we see his early charms, it seems a natural place for us to connect with a character played by a Hollywood megastar. But over time we see his explosive violence, his erratic depression, and his looming sense of despair. What becomes increasingly apparent throughout the story is Jesse’s foreknowledge that his death is coming quick, and at times a seeming acceptance, even invitation, for that relief.
Where the film takes off for me is in its final 25 minutes. After Jesse’s death, the film considers the aftermath of the assassination for Bob. In a sense, he achieves his dreams, as he becomes a household name throughout the country. In that single act, the film posits, he achieves as much fame as Jesse did in his entire career. But it’s a success that charges an enormous price. When he killed Jesse, he thought he’d be appointed a hero. The film’s title reminds us that neither history nor his contemporary audience were so kind. Instead, as he retells the story on stage, something the film claims he did over 800 times in the years following Jesse’s death, he deals with the increasing knowledge that he is seen as a coward. It’s a sense of failure that shapes his life and leaves him, like Jesse, seeming to long for death as his release.
The film provoked my thinking on at least a couple of topics. Jesse’s foreboding sense of doom seems to stem from a kind of saddling of sin. Weighed down by years of guilt, he seems here to long for escape. We don’t see him enjoying his fame or the fruits of his crimes. Instead, the only moments he seems somewhat happy is when he hides in his private life, living with his wife and kids under an assumed name. Having chosen his lot, he seems full of regret, but not knowing any way to escape.
Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, the film offers interesting commentary on our contemporary celebrity culture. Historically, it is a reminder that our celebrity culture may not be as new as we think, as we witness the appointment of legendary status to an outlaw. More importantly, though, the film invites us to consider the stories of fruitless pursuits. Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, their pursuit of wealth and fame winds up hollow, though for different reasons. For Jesse, he seems to glimpse happiness in the mundane life of a family man, but it is a life that eludes him because of a lifetime of sinful choices.
For Robert, his ambition gets the best of him. Admiration turns to jealousy, and so he achieves his dreams in the form of wealth and fame. But the price is heavy indeed, costing him friends and family, and dumping on him an isolation that must be lived out in the public eye.
While the film invites us to be careful about what we seek, it’s interesting that it sees no redemption for these choices. It only lets the characters live out the consequences of what they pursued.
Lord, save me from myself, my ambitions, and my pursuits.
Not that the essential story is so invested. As the movie unfolds, Jesse James met Robert Ford as a 19-year old who was meeting his boyhood hero. Enamored with the mystique of Jesse and his fame and notoriety, he and Ford’s brother eventually convince him to let him join the gang and to become part of his inner circle of trust. In a matter of months, James would die at the Ford’s hand, shot in the back in his own home. In terms of history, it is not a death that was invited or expected. At least, not on the surface.
The film depicts the final months of James’ life. This is a time when he is already an iconic figure, with years of robberies behind him. But he is also seeing an unwinding of his work, as most of his original gang is now dead or in prison. In the opening moments of the film, we see them pull off a train robbery, after which even his brother Frank leaves Missouri and heads back east. It’s as if we are joining the film at the end of Jesse’s story, celebrating what should be his last hurrah and his final sendoff.
What follows then is a kind of working through of the aftermath of Jesse’s career, even though nobody acknowledges or knows it as such. Even as Jesse talks about pulling off other crimes, mostly he seems to wander from gang member to gang member, some of whom are feeling the pressure of the law. In the midst of this is Bob. When we first meet him, Bob, remarkably played by Casey Affleck, comes across as awkward, even a bit slow, and definitely playing over his head. His hero, Jesse, starts out as a relaxed and winsome person, but over time his personality changes provokes Bob to change his view. What begins as hero worship becomes increasing jealousy at his success, his fame and notoriety. Couple that with an increasing fear of Jesse, and the groundwork is laid for Bob’s betrayal.
The place where the film invites the most discussion is on the portrayal of Jesse James by Brad Pitt. When we see his early charms, it seems a natural place for us to connect with a character played by a Hollywood megastar. But over time we see his explosive violence, his erratic depression, and his looming sense of despair. What becomes increasingly apparent throughout the story is Jesse’s foreknowledge that his death is coming quick, and at times a seeming acceptance, even invitation, for that relief.
Where the film takes off for me is in its final 25 minutes. After Jesse’s death, the film considers the aftermath of the assassination for Bob. In a sense, he achieves his dreams, as he becomes a household name throughout the country. In that single act, the film posits, he achieves as much fame as Jesse did in his entire career. But it’s a success that charges an enormous price. When he killed Jesse, he thought he’d be appointed a hero. The film’s title reminds us that neither history nor his contemporary audience were so kind. Instead, as he retells the story on stage, something the film claims he did over 800 times in the years following Jesse’s death, he deals with the increasing knowledge that he is seen as a coward. It’s a sense of failure that shapes his life and leaves him, like Jesse, seeming to long for death as his release.
The film provoked my thinking on at least a couple of topics. Jesse’s foreboding sense of doom seems to stem from a kind of saddling of sin. Weighed down by years of guilt, he seems here to long for escape. We don’t see him enjoying his fame or the fruits of his crimes. Instead, the only moments he seems somewhat happy is when he hides in his private life, living with his wife and kids under an assumed name. Having chosen his lot, he seems full of regret, but not knowing any way to escape.
Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, the film offers interesting commentary on our contemporary celebrity culture. Historically, it is a reminder that our celebrity culture may not be as new as we think, as we witness the appointment of legendary status to an outlaw. More importantly, though, the film invites us to consider the stories of fruitless pursuits. Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, their pursuit of wealth and fame winds up hollow, though for different reasons. For Jesse, he seems to glimpse happiness in the mundane life of a family man, but it is a life that eludes him because of a lifetime of sinful choices.
For Robert, his ambition gets the best of him. Admiration turns to jealousy, and so he achieves his dreams in the form of wealth and fame. But the price is heavy indeed, costing him friends and family, and dumping on him an isolation that must be lived out in the public eye.
While the film invites us to be careful about what we seek, it’s interesting that it sees no redemption for these choices. It only lets the characters live out the consequences of what they pursued.
Lord, save me from myself, my ambitions, and my pursuits.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Horton Hears a Who!: A Review
My daughter has learned to crawl over the last few weeks. Among the many changes that this brings to her parents’ world, I find myself musing about how she sees our home, the people in her life, and the world that we are now both mobile in. After all, when I need to get by her, I can just step over her without any trouble, and when she’s crawling around, we literally tower over her. Her perspective is no doubt different because of her small size, and it amuses me to consider how big our world must seem to her, turning a modest bedroom into a grand playground and a walk around the neighborhood into a trip into the great yonder.
It was with those thoughts swirling around in my head that I saw Horton Hears a Who!, the latest and most successful attempt to adapt Dr. Seuss to the big screen. The story centers on Horton, a gentle spirited elephant making his way through his home jungle. He is a self-appointed teacher, telling his friends about the world around him. His efforts to teach are turned on their head one day when he hears a tiny voice. He figures out that the voice is coming from a tiny speck that has come to rest on a small dandelion. The voice is that of the Mayor of Whoville, a delightful place where life is celebration and bad things never happen. In an amusing connection to the end of Men in Black, Whoville’s residents are entirely oblivious to the reality that their world is but a speck in an entire universe. The connection between the two worlds has never been made until now.
Whoville has a problem. Their life on the dandelion is uncertain, and for all of their spirit of celebration, they need Horton to bring their dandelion to a safe place where their world will be protected from the dangers of Horton’s world. Trying to do this for them, Horton encounters one obstacle after another, driven mainly by the fact that nobody in his world believes him. He’s the only one who can hear the Whos, and as his nemesis the Kangaroo reminds all of them: "If you can't hear, see or feel something, it does not exist.” Skepticism abounds, and it runs the risk of destroying the people Horton is trying to protect.
As Horton fights for the Whos, the mayor encounters similar problems. For a world that has never known things to go wrong, he must convince them that something is quite wrong, and that they need the help of a big voice that none of them can hear. In pursuing their best ends, he must endanger his relationship with his family, his friends, and the grand tradition of his office.
For a movie directed at children, Horton raises fascinating questions that are worth wrestling with at various levels. The film reflects on the need for imagination and wonder, a gift that can lie instinctively within children but that can be lost as we grow older. The Kangaroo, offering a great summary of a secularist perspective, is herself filled with jealousy and envy, and mostly joylessness. It is Horton and those who can live lives of imagination and wonder who experience the richness that life has to offer, especially the richness to see an entire dimension to his world that nobody had ever experienced before. The film is a celebration of imagination, and succeeds in inviting us to join them in their sense of wonder.
Alongside this is Seuss’ signature phrase: “a person's a person, no matter how small,” the tagline for the film that invites reflection through its deceptively simple message. It intrigues me to think about this line, written in the early 50’s, and its easy later co-opting by the pro-life movement. Of course, that kind of political commentary is far beyond Seuss’ intent, but it’s interesting to see the line come back in a 2008 film release, where the political implications would seem to be obvious.
While I expect that this kind of political jockeying is well beyond the filmmakers’ intent, I celebrate the idea and like its connection with Horton’s call to imagination. Just as our need for imagination is a celebration of life, so is our calling to protect the smallest voices. We embrace a life-giving message when we reach for those who can’t speak for themselves, who find their voices drowned out by the loud arguments of politicians or the deceptive ends of agenda-setters. Seuss’ twin values, very much alive here in the film adaptation, are as pressing and present for us today as it was when he first wrote the words.
Horton is not a perfect movie, but I was pleased to see a Seuss adaptation that could sustain the simple and complex nature of his messages without losing itself in the gimmicks that come with converting his books to feature-length films. Whether it’s the nieces that I saw the picture with, or the daughter that I step over to get where I’m going, I realize that Seuss’ messages are worth them knowing about, mostly for the deeper truths that they will point them to as they live in a world that loves to steal imagination and step on the innocent.
It was with those thoughts swirling around in my head that I saw Horton Hears a Who!, the latest and most successful attempt to adapt Dr. Seuss to the big screen. The story centers on Horton, a gentle spirited elephant making his way through his home jungle. He is a self-appointed teacher, telling his friends about the world around him. His efforts to teach are turned on their head one day when he hears a tiny voice. He figures out that the voice is coming from a tiny speck that has come to rest on a small dandelion. The voice is that of the Mayor of Whoville, a delightful place where life is celebration and bad things never happen. In an amusing connection to the end of Men in Black, Whoville’s residents are entirely oblivious to the reality that their world is but a speck in an entire universe. The connection between the two worlds has never been made until now.
Whoville has a problem. Their life on the dandelion is uncertain, and for all of their spirit of celebration, they need Horton to bring their dandelion to a safe place where their world will be protected from the dangers of Horton’s world. Trying to do this for them, Horton encounters one obstacle after another, driven mainly by the fact that nobody in his world believes him. He’s the only one who can hear the Whos, and as his nemesis the Kangaroo reminds all of them: "If you can't hear, see or feel something, it does not exist.” Skepticism abounds, and it runs the risk of destroying the people Horton is trying to protect.
As Horton fights for the Whos, the mayor encounters similar problems. For a world that has never known things to go wrong, he must convince them that something is quite wrong, and that they need the help of a big voice that none of them can hear. In pursuing their best ends, he must endanger his relationship with his family, his friends, and the grand tradition of his office.
For a movie directed at children, Horton raises fascinating questions that are worth wrestling with at various levels. The film reflects on the need for imagination and wonder, a gift that can lie instinctively within children but that can be lost as we grow older. The Kangaroo, offering a great summary of a secularist perspective, is herself filled with jealousy and envy, and mostly joylessness. It is Horton and those who can live lives of imagination and wonder who experience the richness that life has to offer, especially the richness to see an entire dimension to his world that nobody had ever experienced before. The film is a celebration of imagination, and succeeds in inviting us to join them in their sense of wonder.
Alongside this is Seuss’ signature phrase: “a person's a person, no matter how small,” the tagline for the film that invites reflection through its deceptively simple message. It intrigues me to think about this line, written in the early 50’s, and its easy later co-opting by the pro-life movement. Of course, that kind of political commentary is far beyond Seuss’ intent, but it’s interesting to see the line come back in a 2008 film release, where the political implications would seem to be obvious.
While I expect that this kind of political jockeying is well beyond the filmmakers’ intent, I celebrate the idea and like its connection with Horton’s call to imagination. Just as our need for imagination is a celebration of life, so is our calling to protect the smallest voices. We embrace a life-giving message when we reach for those who can’t speak for themselves, who find their voices drowned out by the loud arguments of politicians or the deceptive ends of agenda-setters. Seuss’ twin values, very much alive here in the film adaptation, are as pressing and present for us today as it was when he first wrote the words.
Horton is not a perfect movie, but I was pleased to see a Seuss adaptation that could sustain the simple and complex nature of his messages without losing itself in the gimmicks that come with converting his books to feature-length films. Whether it’s the nieces that I saw the picture with, or the daughter that I step over to get where I’m going, I realize that Seuss’ messages are worth them knowing about, mostly for the deeper truths that they will point them to as they live in a world that loves to steal imagination and step on the innocent.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Be Kind, Rewind: A Review
Be Kind, Rewind has a quirky concept that I expect will leave some cold, but I found worth a chuckle. Mos Def stars as Mike, an employee of an aging video rental store owned by Danny Glover’s Elroy Fletcher. It’s an aging store, hanging onto VHS against the DVD revolution, in an aging section of a decrepit New Jersey town, fighting to hang onto its life in the face of “urban renewal.” Trying to figure out how to keep the business going, Fletcher heads out of town and leaves the business in Mike’s hands. Struggling to prove himself, Mike tries to keep it all together, including trying to enforce the one clear rule: “Keep Jerry Out.”
Jerry, played by Jack Black, is Mike’s odd friend with lots of odd notions. Quickly after Fletcher takes off, Jerry gets the idea for he and Mike to sabotage the nearby electric power plant, trying to get them back for causing his headaches. After Mike bails, Jerry somehow is able to get himself magnetized, something that they slowly discover over the next few days as complaining customers bring Mike to realize that his friend has inadvertently demagnetized every single one of his tapes.
Panicked at the destruction of the business, Mike and Jerry concoct their grand act of desperation (and the grand suspension of disbelief for the film) to save the business: instead of buying new tapes, they pull out a camcorder and decide to film their own versions of the films. The film takes the most time with their filming of Ghostbuster’s, which was pretty hilarious. Everything is done uber-cheap and uber-fast, making for a great recreation of this and other films. They’re dependent on their memory of these films, which is sometimes less than perfect, adding greatly to the comedy.
The second act of the film shows their budding success. The real comedy is not that they pull off these films, but that increasingly people find out about their work and demand more. They become local celebrities, and their efforts, now dubbed “Sweding,” morphs to involve incorporating the customers into the films.
Running underneath the comedy are some fascinating social commentaries. The film is itself a celebration of film and its ability to bring people together in community. Despite the individual nature of watching a film at a theater, the film delights in showing the ways in which popular film becomes the lingua franca of a community. One discussion about The Lion King engages strangers who are decades apart, but share in their delight in particular aspects of the film.
The “Sweding” process reflects on our desire to be participants in the elements of our pop culture. While film unites, it also isolates, as it can keep us from creatively participating in our culture. This process reminds us of our own desire to participate. Whether it’s the internet boon and its interaction with the celebrity culture, the You Tube generation, or the rise of “fandom” for all aspects of pop culture, the entertainment industry itself is acutely aware of the power of encouraging this kind of participation, and the film seems to understand the power that participation brings.
Still, the film takes a significant plot turn as the studios find about Mike and Jerry’s creative efforts. Showing up with injunctions and damage awards, Mike and Jerry are quickly faced with the challenge of saving the business again, as well as saving the community itself. Without walking too much into the third act, they decide to make their own film, this one focusing on their own town’s history. As much as “Sweding” has brought their town together, so will their film unite people around their own community.
It is here that Be Kind, Rewind offers the most intriguing commentary, and one that I think extends far beyond the films boundaries. As they pour themselves into their town history, they encounter the reality that legends have built up that just aren’t historical. Rather than seeking to find the truth, or to describe legend as legend, they, and the participants in the story, just decide to make up their town’s history as they go along. Truth takes a backseat to this celebration of community.
It is a fascinating example of a postmodern treatment of history. Community is celebrated, and the experience of telling history, even fabricated history, is unifying and thus good. Within the context of the film, it works. We’re rooting for these people and their struggling town, and aren’t too worried about the veracity of their story. We just want them to find some pride in their town and enjoy the experience of working together for a better community.
Even as their story comes together, though, I could only wonder about the places in life where this kind of story would ultimately be destructive. Within the contemporary American church, there are a number of voices who offer a version of the church’s history that show about as much fabrication or simplistic misinterpretation as Be Kind’s storytellers. There is a spirit among many that echoes the film’s values and shows less concern about the veracity of our telling of history than of the emotive power that our telling has for our present community. We don’t care about whether the story is true, only that the story has emotional power for us.
It is in this place that Be Kind offers an interesting caution. For a community trying to save itself from dreadful poverty, I expect there’s not much harm in a little homegrown story about a community legend that isn’t grounded much in fact. But the story of the church is rooted in the Story itself, and the Story’s only meaning is found in the historical reality that it actually happened. The testimony of the Christian church is that it finds its strength when it tells its story well, and that includes that it tells the story how it really happened.
The ultimate value of Be Kind, Rewind is in elevating community over truth. The church has the same temptation today, but the testimony of the past, indeed the testimony of Scripture, is that those two values aren’t in opposition to each other, and in fact depend on each other for their real meaning.
Jerry, played by Jack Black, is Mike’s odd friend with lots of odd notions. Quickly after Fletcher takes off, Jerry gets the idea for he and Mike to sabotage the nearby electric power plant, trying to get them back for causing his headaches. After Mike bails, Jerry somehow is able to get himself magnetized, something that they slowly discover over the next few days as complaining customers bring Mike to realize that his friend has inadvertently demagnetized every single one of his tapes.
Panicked at the destruction of the business, Mike and Jerry concoct their grand act of desperation (and the grand suspension of disbelief for the film) to save the business: instead of buying new tapes, they pull out a camcorder and decide to film their own versions of the films. The film takes the most time with their filming of Ghostbuster’s, which was pretty hilarious. Everything is done uber-cheap and uber-fast, making for a great recreation of this and other films. They’re dependent on their memory of these films, which is sometimes less than perfect, adding greatly to the comedy.
The second act of the film shows their budding success. The real comedy is not that they pull off these films, but that increasingly people find out about their work and demand more. They become local celebrities, and their efforts, now dubbed “Sweding,” morphs to involve incorporating the customers into the films.
Running underneath the comedy are some fascinating social commentaries. The film is itself a celebration of film and its ability to bring people together in community. Despite the individual nature of watching a film at a theater, the film delights in showing the ways in which popular film becomes the lingua franca of a community. One discussion about The Lion King engages strangers who are decades apart, but share in their delight in particular aspects of the film.
The “Sweding” process reflects on our desire to be participants in the elements of our pop culture. While film unites, it also isolates, as it can keep us from creatively participating in our culture. This process reminds us of our own desire to participate. Whether it’s the internet boon and its interaction with the celebrity culture, the You Tube generation, or the rise of “fandom” for all aspects of pop culture, the entertainment industry itself is acutely aware of the power of encouraging this kind of participation, and the film seems to understand the power that participation brings.
Still, the film takes a significant plot turn as the studios find about Mike and Jerry’s creative efforts. Showing up with injunctions and damage awards, Mike and Jerry are quickly faced with the challenge of saving the business again, as well as saving the community itself. Without walking too much into the third act, they decide to make their own film, this one focusing on their own town’s history. As much as “Sweding” has brought their town together, so will their film unite people around their own community.
It is here that Be Kind, Rewind offers the most intriguing commentary, and one that I think extends far beyond the films boundaries. As they pour themselves into their town history, they encounter the reality that legends have built up that just aren’t historical. Rather than seeking to find the truth, or to describe legend as legend, they, and the participants in the story, just decide to make up their town’s history as they go along. Truth takes a backseat to this celebration of community.
It is a fascinating example of a postmodern treatment of history. Community is celebrated, and the experience of telling history, even fabricated history, is unifying and thus good. Within the context of the film, it works. We’re rooting for these people and their struggling town, and aren’t too worried about the veracity of their story. We just want them to find some pride in their town and enjoy the experience of working together for a better community.
Even as their story comes together, though, I could only wonder about the places in life where this kind of story would ultimately be destructive. Within the contemporary American church, there are a number of voices who offer a version of the church’s history that show about as much fabrication or simplistic misinterpretation as Be Kind’s storytellers. There is a spirit among many that echoes the film’s values and shows less concern about the veracity of our telling of history than of the emotive power that our telling has for our present community. We don’t care about whether the story is true, only that the story has emotional power for us.
It is in this place that Be Kind offers an interesting caution. For a community trying to save itself from dreadful poverty, I expect there’s not much harm in a little homegrown story about a community legend that isn’t grounded much in fact. But the story of the church is rooted in the Story itself, and the Story’s only meaning is found in the historical reality that it actually happened. The testimony of the Christian church is that it finds its strength when it tells its story well, and that includes that it tells the story how it really happened.
The ultimate value of Be Kind, Rewind is in elevating community over truth. The church has the same temptation today, but the testimony of the past, indeed the testimony of Scripture, is that those two values aren’t in opposition to each other, and in fact depend on each other for their real meaning.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Once: A Review
One of my favorite music moments was about 13 years ago. Spending some time in Britain, I traveled up one weekend to St. Andrews to visit a friend who was spending a year studying there. We had forged a friendship first through our shared love of the guitar, and after we spent some time touring this great town, we found ourselves holed up in his room passing his guitar back and forth. We shared songs we knew, songs we were working on, and in the course of conversation, spent some time writing a couple of tunes. We certainly weren’t masters (well, I wasn’t, he was actually quite talented) but in the rich moments of sharing music and poetry, the quality faded to the background as we drank deeply from the beautiful bonds of music.
It’s this kind of experience that drives Once, the fascinating ultra-low budget “modern-day musical” that just took home an Oscar for Best Song. It stars Glen Hansard, who plays “Guy,” a true starving musician who makes his living playing guitar on the streets of Dublin. One night, “Girl”, played by Marketa Irglova, listens to him singing some of his original work, songs that he tends to only play during the slow hours. She is impressed, and over the next few days they get to know each other a little bit. She herself is a keyboardist, and as they start to share their lives, they start to share their songs.
The film could quickly turn into a traditional romantic comedy, but it avoids the pitfalls. It is a love story, though, it’s just a love story about the music. She connects him with a friend that runs a studio and persuades him to take a weekend and record some of his stuff. They gather some musicians together, and thus begins a rich weekend of musical creation.
“Guy” is an amazing talent, and in the course of the weekend we get to witness the process of musical creation. The style of the film dominates, and I expect that one’s enjoyment of the movie hinges greatly on one’s ability to enjoy its documentary/reality style and the Irish folk/pop style of the music. I enjoyed the first, and was captivated by the second. As the music unfolds, their conversation becomes the occasion to talk about the hurts of their past, their hopes for the future, and the anxieties they carry in the present. In all, the healing salve for both of them will be found in the music.
I love the sense of restraint in Once. It’s hard to watch these two interact and not root for some kind of relationship to emerge. But that isn’t what this is about. As one reviewer put it, this movie is “a little ditty about a girl he once knew.” But in that restraint is the film’s strength. It believes in its own message about the power of music to connect, to process our past, and to heal.
As I’ve thought about the movie, I’ve thought about musical moments with friends like the one I opened with. I’ve had a lot of enjoyable musical moments, and a few especially powerful ones. Many of these people aren’t still in my life, but I’m grateful for the healing power the shared moments we had provided and the meaning they had for me along the way. It’s a picture of grace for the moment, the grace that comes into our lives and provides us what we need when we need it. It doesn’t solve everything, but it doesn’t have to. It just helps us keep on moving.
I’m glad to see this movie get some attention, because it offers an intimate picture of relationship and healing that’s worth talking about. It certainly made me pull out my guitar and sing a few songs from my own past, enjoying singing a few stories about life along the road.
It’s this kind of experience that drives Once, the fascinating ultra-low budget “modern-day musical” that just took home an Oscar for Best Song. It stars Glen Hansard, who plays “Guy,” a true starving musician who makes his living playing guitar on the streets of Dublin. One night, “Girl”, played by Marketa Irglova, listens to him singing some of his original work, songs that he tends to only play during the slow hours. She is impressed, and over the next few days they get to know each other a little bit. She herself is a keyboardist, and as they start to share their lives, they start to share their songs.
The film could quickly turn into a traditional romantic comedy, but it avoids the pitfalls. It is a love story, though, it’s just a love story about the music. She connects him with a friend that runs a studio and persuades him to take a weekend and record some of his stuff. They gather some musicians together, and thus begins a rich weekend of musical creation.
“Guy” is an amazing talent, and in the course of the weekend we get to witness the process of musical creation. The style of the film dominates, and I expect that one’s enjoyment of the movie hinges greatly on one’s ability to enjoy its documentary/reality style and the Irish folk/pop style of the music. I enjoyed the first, and was captivated by the second. As the music unfolds, their conversation becomes the occasion to talk about the hurts of their past, their hopes for the future, and the anxieties they carry in the present. In all, the healing salve for both of them will be found in the music.
I love the sense of restraint in Once. It’s hard to watch these two interact and not root for some kind of relationship to emerge. But that isn’t what this is about. As one reviewer put it, this movie is “a little ditty about a girl he once knew.” But in that restraint is the film’s strength. It believes in its own message about the power of music to connect, to process our past, and to heal.
As I’ve thought about the movie, I’ve thought about musical moments with friends like the one I opened with. I’ve had a lot of enjoyable musical moments, and a few especially powerful ones. Many of these people aren’t still in my life, but I’m grateful for the healing power the shared moments we had provided and the meaning they had for me along the way. It’s a picture of grace for the moment, the grace that comes into our lives and provides us what we need when we need it. It doesn’t solve everything, but it doesn’t have to. It just helps us keep on moving.
I’m glad to see this movie get some attention, because it offers an intimate picture of relationship and healing that’s worth talking about. It certainly made me pull out my guitar and sing a few songs from my own past, enjoying singing a few stories about life along the road.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Atonement: A Review
Arguably, the scene in Atonement that does the most to take us out of the story’s emotional journey may invite us directly to its thematic center. Towards the middle of the film, we join Robbie Turner, played by the remarkable James McAvoy, as a soldier making his way through the beach of Dunkirk, in the midst of the British Army’s miraculous retreat across the sea. Over the course of a 5 minute tracking shot, we walk with him through the madness, seeing the sense of panic, injury, organization and madness in this strange scene. Yet, for all of its madness, we stay on Turner, as he somehow tries to climb through the madness, much of it beyond him and most of it out of his control, as he seeks to find the most basic of needs, in this case food, sleep and first aid. Without a word, we see in the madness that somehow even these basic needs may elude him.
Atonement should be a pretty straightforward period love story. In 1935, Robbie Turner is the son of the housekeeper for a aristocratic British family. Due to their long tenure, the family sent him to Cambridge, and so even as he works around the elaborate gardens of the family estate, we quickly realize he is an intelligent man with ambitions to rise above his station. He is friends with Kiera Knightley’s Cecilia Tallis, the oldest daughter of the hosting family. As she lounges with friends and plays arrogant with Robbie, one sees the romantic tension underneath. This is a relationship-in-waiting, searching for the right moment for their youthful passions to come together.
But then there’s Briony, Cee’s 13-year old daughter. She clearly has a crush on Robbie, and we quickly realize that this is the kind of thing that should make us nervous. An aspiring writer, we see her in early scenes trying to convince her playmates to act out her play, and in her failure we see her desire to control, her deep imagination, and her unintuitive interaction with other people.
It is a formula for disaster, as a series of events unfolds that puts her misunderstandings at center stage. Catching Cee and Robbie by themselves, she misinterprets their actions and comes to falsely accuse Robbie of other crimes. It is this fateful moment that changes the lives of all three of them.
The first act of 1935 sets the stage for the flash forward to the early days of World War 2. Given the opportunity to get out of prison, Robbie is fighting in France. Cee and Briony have both become a nurse, though Cee has no interaction with her family since the false accusation. Each are searching to rebuild a life destroyed by that one night. Robbie longs for a relationship with Cee, Cee longs for Robbie to return safely, and Briony somehow wants to find a way to make peace with both of them. At every turn, the world seems to orchestrate to keep them from achieving any of their ends.
The title is of course intentional, and it invites us to consider the nature of “atonement.” What can we do to make up for the mistakes of our past? The bleak perspective of the film is that sometimes there is nothing. Sometimes the mistakes we make, even the innocent ones or those that are most understandable, yield consequences far beyond our imaginations. From the film’s perspective, Briony’s act set in motion events that would unwind their lives, and nothing she can do can put that back together.
It’s not a message we want to hear, but it may be a message that we need to hear. Searching for justice, reconciliation, or harmony is at times an impossible or unreachable goal when left to human efforts. The inability to find this peace can be the very thing that drives us to the Divine. We cannot achieve “atonement” by our own power, and must contend with the consequences of our actions. Our hope is not that we will make it all right, but that He will work redemptively to make things right, both here and now and, ultimately, in the age to come.
At a number of points in Atonement, we find characters looking back on their life, wishing moments could be redone or that their choices could be undone. But of course they can’t. And so we come back to that tracking shot. In the midst of this bleak picture of war, the shot comes upon a group singing a hymn, and leaves them behind singing the simple refrain, “the still small voice of God,” words that are echoed again at the end of the shot. In the midst of madness, as we deal with choices we make, the choices others make, and the seemingly random events of our lives that at times drive us towards messy ends, we have the single hope, the promise even, that God is at work, if quietly, and is directing all things to His own good purposes. It is that faith that can sustain us when everything else around us seems bleak. It is that faith that points to the real atonement that we can hope for.
Atonement should be a pretty straightforward period love story. In 1935, Robbie Turner is the son of the housekeeper for a aristocratic British family. Due to their long tenure, the family sent him to Cambridge, and so even as he works around the elaborate gardens of the family estate, we quickly realize he is an intelligent man with ambitions to rise above his station. He is friends with Kiera Knightley’s Cecilia Tallis, the oldest daughter of the hosting family. As she lounges with friends and plays arrogant with Robbie, one sees the romantic tension underneath. This is a relationship-in-waiting, searching for the right moment for their youthful passions to come together.
But then there’s Briony, Cee’s 13-year old daughter. She clearly has a crush on Robbie, and we quickly realize that this is the kind of thing that should make us nervous. An aspiring writer, we see her in early scenes trying to convince her playmates to act out her play, and in her failure we see her desire to control, her deep imagination, and her unintuitive interaction with other people.
It is a formula for disaster, as a series of events unfolds that puts her misunderstandings at center stage. Catching Cee and Robbie by themselves, she misinterprets their actions and comes to falsely accuse Robbie of other crimes. It is this fateful moment that changes the lives of all three of them.
The first act of 1935 sets the stage for the flash forward to the early days of World War 2. Given the opportunity to get out of prison, Robbie is fighting in France. Cee and Briony have both become a nurse, though Cee has no interaction with her family since the false accusation. Each are searching to rebuild a life destroyed by that one night. Robbie longs for a relationship with Cee, Cee longs for Robbie to return safely, and Briony somehow wants to find a way to make peace with both of them. At every turn, the world seems to orchestrate to keep them from achieving any of their ends.
The title is of course intentional, and it invites us to consider the nature of “atonement.” What can we do to make up for the mistakes of our past? The bleak perspective of the film is that sometimes there is nothing. Sometimes the mistakes we make, even the innocent ones or those that are most understandable, yield consequences far beyond our imaginations. From the film’s perspective, Briony’s act set in motion events that would unwind their lives, and nothing she can do can put that back together.
It’s not a message we want to hear, but it may be a message that we need to hear. Searching for justice, reconciliation, or harmony is at times an impossible or unreachable goal when left to human efforts. The inability to find this peace can be the very thing that drives us to the Divine. We cannot achieve “atonement” by our own power, and must contend with the consequences of our actions. Our hope is not that we will make it all right, but that He will work redemptively to make things right, both here and now and, ultimately, in the age to come.
At a number of points in Atonement, we find characters looking back on their life, wishing moments could be redone or that their choices could be undone. But of course they can’t. And so we come back to that tracking shot. In the midst of this bleak picture of war, the shot comes upon a group singing a hymn, and leaves them behind singing the simple refrain, “the still small voice of God,” words that are echoed again at the end of the shot. In the midst of madness, as we deal with choices we make, the choices others make, and the seemingly random events of our lives that at times drive us towards messy ends, we have the single hope, the promise even, that God is at work, if quietly, and is directing all things to His own good purposes. It is that faith that can sustain us when everything else around us seems bleak. It is that faith that points to the real atonement that we can hope for.
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