Ashes and Diamonds (orig. Popioł i Diament) [1958]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)   Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*
Culture.pl listing

Official Website of Polish director Andrzej Wajda
Culture.pl article on the directing career of Andrzej Wajda
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]

Ashes and Diamonds (orig. Popioł i Diament) [1958] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] (directed and screenplay by Andrzej Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip]] [pl.wikip]* based on the novel (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) by Jerzi Andrzejewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) opened recently a remarkable film series entitled "Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema" currently touring the United States and organized the famed American director Martin Scorsese [IMDb].  (In Chicago, the series is playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in downtown).

The film definitely deserves its billing as certainly one of the greatest films of Polish Cinema and as Martin Scorsese [IMDb] himself claims "one of the greatest films of all time."

Why would it deserve such praise?  American viewers would recognize the film as "A Polish Casablanca [1942]" (much of the film takes place at a hotel in a random provincial town somewhere in Poland in the closing days of World War II with much, much intrigue, indeed the fate of post-war Poland -- the West-leaning Polish Home Army (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) vs Soviet backed Polish Communist forces (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) -- playing out) with the young lead character Maciej played by an ever smiling, ever sun-glass wearing Zbigniew Cybulski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* who (thanks to performances like his in this film) came to known as "The Polish James Dean [IMDb] [en.wikip]" ;-).

This characterization of the film -- A Polish Casablanca starring a Polish James Dean -- itself would have made the film remarkable.  BUT THEN ADD TO THIS THE TIME / PLACE IT PORTRAYS (Poland at exactly the end of World War II) AT THE TIME / PLACE IN WHICH IT WAS FILMED (Communist Poland in 1957 - one year after the unrest in Poland had finally put a somewhat more moderate Communist (by the standards of the time) Gomułka (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) in power in Poland, and one year after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary).  This, like director Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*'s film of the year before Kanal [1957] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* about the 1944 Polish Home Army-led Warsaw Uprising (en.wikip / pl.wikip*), the first Polish film of its kind following the War, MADE MORE THAN A DECADE AFTER THAT WAR, was a film that needed to be made BUT COULD ONLY BE MADE AFTER 1956 AND THEN STILL WITH MORE OR LESS OBVIOUS (OUT OF HAND) CONCESSIONS TO THE DEMANDS COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY (AND CENSORS...) OF THE TIME (otherwise neither film would have been made). 

Then finally, even after taking into account the political dance that Wajda, et al, had to go through to make a movie like this in Poland at the time (the Polish Home Army had to portrayed as "bad" while the Communists supported by the Soviet Army as "heroic / good"...), PUTTING ASIDE THIS HEAVY HANDED POLITICAL BURDEN IMPOSED "FROM ABOVE" (AND THEN "FROM THE EAST"), the very HUMAN STORY and ITS VERY HUMAN MESSAGE is ALL THE MORE REMARKABLE:

Young (late teen / early 20s) sunglassed / smiling Maciej (though he lost all his family in the war) comes to town (along with two others) with the "dark/nefarious" mission assigned to them by the (in Communist eyes of the time) "evil" Polish Home Army to assassinate a newly arrived "brave/heroic" Polish Communist official (played by Wacław Zastrzeżyński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), finds when he arrives at the hotel in the random Polish town where all this intrigue was about to play out, that he'd really just like to chat-up the bar-maid Krystyna (played magnificently in the film by Ewa Krzyżewska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) ;-).  AND WHY NOT?  POOR MACIEJ, perhaps he was a true Polish A Rebel Without a Cause [1955] but both OBJECTIVELY AND MORE HUMANLY he was a "Rebel without a Family" WHO _NEVER HAD A CHILDHOOD_ and up to that point PROBABLY HADN'T HAD MUCH OF A YOUNG ADULTHOOD (much less one that would inspire much confidence IN A FUTURE).  Why shouldn't he WISH FOR SOMETHING MORE than "just another mission?"

So there they were Maciej and Krystyna, WHO DO (mild spoiler alert HOOK UP) and then walk down the street at night -- as SOVIET T-34 TANKS roll down the street in one direction or another, as do troops in formation, generally wearing Soviet styled uniforms (though some of the soldiers are Polish and others are Russian) with an occasional "white and red" ribbon-wearing presumably former (Home Army?) partisan seen as well -- ENDING UP IN A BOMBED-OUT CHURCH with Christ still hanging on the Cross, but, with arms blown off, head and torso now truly hanging, drooped, LIFELESSLY upside-down (YES, IT'S A SPECTACULAR SHOT) where THERE'S NO ONE LEFT TO CONFESS TO (except perhaps to each other) OR TO MARRY THEM, BUT AT LEAST THEY CAN TELL EACH OTHER THE TRUTH.    And the question is asked: CAN THESE "ASHES" (ALL AROUND THEM) be turned one day INTO "DIAMONDS"?   And one just wants to cry ...

Do they end up together?  What do you think?  He's "Home Army" in the eyes of the Regime (coming into being at the time of the story being played-out, and IN POWER / WATCHING WHEN THE FILM WAS MADE TWELVE YEARS LATER) an "assassin" (terrorist), objectively with "blood on his hands."  BUT ... at least we (the viewers) are allowed "to understand."  And yes, if circumstances were different (at minimum, NO PREVIOUS WAR ... and, though necessarily left unspoken,  _no new intrigue_ of "Communist" and "non") THEY COULD HAVE "LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER."

But I do believe that the message, certainly for young Poles of that time (and perhaps for young people in ANY TIME / CIRCUMSTANCE), was MORE THAN JUST THAT: Maciej, was perhaps a tragic figure, doomed perhaps by fate for being born in the wrong place and at the wrong time.  Yet Wajda's film IMHO seemed to be giving the young people of Poland of 1957 PERMISSION TO LIVE ... to forget (in as much as possible) about either "Home Army" or "Communist" AND TO JUST GO FOR THE GIRL.

Yes, ideally one does _not_ have to "forget about history" ... but one has a right to have a childhood, to have a young adulthood and, yes, to be happy.  Maciej and Krystyna lost much of that in the War.  But the possibility seemed to be offered to the young people of 1957 that PERHAPS one could find happiness IN THEIR PRESENT.


This concern (about finding some happiness) EVEN IN NON-IDEAL (OPPRESSIVE) TIMES was _not_ an idle question TO MY OWN FAMILY that comes mostly from the Czech Republic and had to find answers to similar questions regarding during its experience of Communism as well.  About 1/2 my family stayed in Czechoslovakia during the Communist Era, about 1/2 left. Those who stayed, stayed for various reasons.  And those who left, left for various reasons. 

Among those who stayed were one or two early Communist members (who became Communists during the War or even before it).  Others found that they could adapt, found some things in the imposed system that were positive (universal access to higher education that was arguably more merit based than perhaps before - though Party members could famously "cut in line...") and found the rest (the intrusive and arguably paranoid ideology) at least bearable.  There were still others who were "born into the system" and chose to be(come) proud of it - Americans also choose to be proud of a system that also has its flaws (Ask simply someone of color ... or someone who's had a family member with a "pre-existing condition" or even a birth defect about what it was like getting health insurance, or fearing its loss, before Obama Care...).  Finally, there were others like my uncle after whom I am named (my name in Czech is Zdeněk) who even after he being jailed as a student in the 1950s by the Communists for a number of years refused to leave, despite having good prospects in the West if he did (he was talented, educated and multilingual).  I remember in the 1980s, a number of us, nephews of his (who were largely born and grew up in the West) asking him: "Why don't you just leave?"  And he answered: "Why should I abandon my country to THEM? (the Communists).  Someone has to stay or else they'll truly win."

Then among those in my family who left, there were some who everyone in the family agreed, simply could not find happiness unless they felt free.  I'd count my dad (who left in the 1950s, through Berlin before the Wall) as well as a cousin of mine (who left in the early-1980s, after staying-on in the West, ditching her tour group after a state-sponsored trip to some where in Western Europe) in this group.  It's simply true that some people simply cannot feel happy unless they also feel free.  Finally there were cases like that of my mom's family and specifically my mom's father (my grandfather) who was ethnic Russian and had already fled Soviet Russia once.  Like other ethnic Russians who had already fled the Soviet Union once, as the Soviet Army approached Prague at the end of the War, he realized that he faced three possibilities when they did: (1) a bullet in the head, (2) "expedited suicide" at the hands of accomodating Soviet NKVD agents who'd happily come to kick down the door and throw him out the window one early morning, and (3) and this would have been "the best option," a one way ticket to Siberia for an extended "re-education."  So my mother's family _had to_ flee.  I had other relatives on my dad's side, who also faced similar prospects after the Communists took-over Czechoslovakia in 1948 and brooked no further opposition or independent organizations.  (I remember meeting a Czech immigrant when I was a kid who had spent some 15 years of hard labor in a uranium mine -- Jáchymov (en.wikip / cz.wikip*) for having been a junior officer in the pre-Communist Czechslovakian Boy Scout movement). 


Now Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* himself (as did plenty of Czech and Slovak film-makers of the time as well) made a journey in his films over the decades: Most who see this film, will quite quickly recognize the ideological constraints in which he was operating: The Communists were to be portrayed as "Good," the pro-Western Polish Home Army as "Bad," but individual Home Army members could be portrayed as "tragic figures," misguided and naive (and that was actually a "better" / "more open" climate than that which existed prior to 1956...).  But Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* filmography shows that as opportunities arose, he seemed always at the edge of what was permissible.  So in 1980, he found himself this time in the right place and the right time to make the film Man of Iron [1981] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*(also to be shown in Scorsese's Film Series: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema) that ended up documenting the birth of the Solidarity Movement (en.wikip / pl.wikip*).  And since the Iron Curtain collapsed, Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]*'s been able to make films like the Oscar nominated Katyń [2007] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* about the Katyń massacre (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) where the Soviet NKVD murdered thousands of Polish army officers captured after the Soviet Union had invaded Poland ON THE SIDE OF NAZI GERMANY and took more than 1/2 the country (Wayda's own father was murdered in the massacre at Katyń).  And last year, Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* made a film about Solidarity founder Lech Wałesa (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) entitled Walesa: Man of Hope (orig. Wałęsa. Człowiek z nadziei) [2013] a film that portrayed Wałesa (en.wikip / pl.wikip*) as having a very similarly hewn skill-set of knowing more-or-less exactly how far he could push the limits of what was possible under the Communist regime. 

Asked why he made films like this one (or Kanal [1957] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) in the 1950s, which on one hand were very brave (especially Kanal [1957] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) and on the other hand clearly had to toe an ideological line, Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip]] [pl.wikip]* has answered quite forcefully: "Would it have been better to have spent my life doing nothing at all?  And indeed, these people, who did nothing, have a ready excuse.  But what did we want? We only wanted to expand a little the limits of freedom, the limits of censorship, so that films such as "Popiol i diament" could be made. We never hoped to live to see the fall of the Soviet Union, to see Poland as a free country. We thought that all we could do was to expand this limit, so that the party wouldn't rule by itself but would have to admit the voice of the society it was ruling. If you want to participate in a reality created by an alien power, enforced by a historical situation, then you always risk taking part in some ambiguous game..." 

So this film is really a masterwork and leaves one with much, much, much to think about and discuss.

One final question, no doubt on the minds of many readers: How to get this film?  In the United States many of the films being shown as part of Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema can be rented through the mail-rental service offered by Facets Multimedia in Chicago.  (There are perhaps other services, but that's the one that I know). I've also found this film, Ashes and Diamonds (orig. Popioł i Diament) [1958], available on DVD IN NORTH-AMERICAN FORMAT through Amazon.com.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Belle [2013]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB () ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  AARP (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
AARP.org (M. Grant) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Belle [2013] (directed by Amma Asante, screenplay by Misan Sagay), inspired by a truly intriguing painting (c. 1778) of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804) and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray (1760-1825) commissioned by William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, their great-uncle, in whose household the two had been raised, gives a Jane Austen / Downton Abbeyesque [2010+] [IMDb] telling of the early / young adult years of the two women's lives, with special focus given, of course, on Belle.

Why would the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (played as a child by Lauren Julian Box and later as a young adult by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) be so intriguing?  Well, while Dido's father was a British naval officer, the Admiral Sir John Lindsey (played in the film by Matthew Goode), her mother had been an African slave.  At the beginning of the film, the then Captain Sir John Lindsey brings his daughter to his uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (played in the film by Tom Wilkinson), asking that he raise her "as our own flesh and blood, for indeed she is." Her mother had died and he, out at sea most of the time, would not be able to raise her on his own. 

The "surprise" / "challenge" in Sir Lindsey's request was, of course, that Elizabeth Belle's mother had been an African slave and that she was, therefore, bi-racial.  

Yet Sir Lindsey did seem to know whom to ask as Lord Mansfield along with his wife Lady Mansfield (played in the film by Emily Watson) while themselves childless where already charged with raising another grand-niece of theirs, Elizabeth Murray (played as a child by Cara Jenkins and later as a young adult by Sarah Gadon), who was almost exactly Dido's age and later famously pictured in the painting along with her.  Further, Lord Mansfield, was certainly considered an honest, upright man _of his time_ as he was serving as the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.  Indeed, a good part of the film's intrigue regarded the possible influence that the experience of raising Dido Elizabeth Belle at his home (the "Kenwood House" in Hampstead then just outside of London) had on his decisions regarding the slavery and the slave trade during his time serving as Lord Chief Justice. 

Here though, as elsewhere, one has to admit that the film did conflate/simplify facts and events even if IMHO the film's spirit remains largely true. 

For instance, it is absolutely true that in 1772, therefore when Dido would have been 11, in his verdict on the Somerset v Stewart Case, Lord Mansfield did declare slavery to be "so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law [statute passed by Parliament or other competent authority]."  Since no such statute in England and Wales existed, slavery was thus rendered illegal in England and Wales.  HOWEVER, the film conflated his verdict in that case with his handing of a subsequent (and truly odious) "insurance claims" case today referred to as the case of the Zong Massacre. 

In the Zong case, the Liverpool based owners of the slave ship Zong had sued a similarly Liverpool based insurance consortium for compensation of losses after the crew of the Zong "out of necessity" had thrown overboard (drowned/murdered) 42 male slaves being transported for fear that they did not have enough provisions of water for its "entire cargo."  In the Zong Case, Mansfield wrote that "though it shocks one very much" (to the Jury in the original trial) "the Case of Slaves was the same as if Horses were thrown over board... The Question was, whether there was not an Absolute Necessity of for throwing them over board to save the rest..." and he preferred to look for evidence (which he found) that there wasn't an Absolute Necessity to throw the Slaves (cargo) overboard.  (The Zong case subsequently did serve to energize the Abolishionist movement in England, though it was still a decades long slog before the Slave Trade was Abolished (1833) and slaves were emancipated in the British Empire (1834)).

Similarly, IMHO for reasons of plot interest (and subsequent discussion), the film makers chose to make the bi-racial Dido an heiress (in the film she inherits her father's wealth following his death) while her white cousin Elizabeth is left in a lurch by her unthoughtful father.  In reality it was exactly the reverse.  Elizabeth had been well provided for by her father, while Dido received nothing from hers after his death.  In fact, it was Lord Mansfield himself who stepped-in and provided a dowry and income for Dido. 

Finally, the film presents Dido's love interest John Davinier (played in the film by Sam Reid) as the law student son of a Anglican clergyman, when in reality he was an immigrant from France (perhaps a refugee of the French Revolution).

Yet these historical corrections to the film's plot IMHO actually serve to support the impact that the presence of Dido Elizabeth Belle in Lord Mansfield's life (she is self-evidently "the star" and amusingly so in the painting of his two grandnieces that he had commissioned) and how world history may have been changed as a result of it (his court decision did make slavery illegal in England and even when "positive law" did still retain British participation in the slave trade overseas, he did make it clear that he found the institution both "shocking" and "odious" and helped set-up the Parliamentary environment which eventually made it illegal as well). 

It's honestly fascinating to me what interest (and reflection) a single painting can inspire!  So good job folks, good job!  And the film is certainly worth the viewing by young women everywhere, as it makes for a fascinating point of discussion regarding all three of the classifications that have often divided us: race, gender and class.  Again, overall an excellent and thought provoking film.


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Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return [2013]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (1 Star)  AVClub (D)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Moore) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (K. MacFarland) review

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return [2013] (directed by Will Finn and Dan St. Pierre, screenplay by Adam Balsam and Randi Barnes, based on the Oz inspired children's book "Dorothy of Oz" (2010) by Roger S. Baum [IMDb] the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum [IMDb], the original author of the "Oz" children's book series) will probably disappoint a lot of parents and on a number of levels.

First of all let's face it, the "bar" for a film seeking to ride on the magic of The Wizard of Oz [1939], one of the most beloved American children's films of all times is necessary HIGH.

Second, while the original Oz books actually were "political" dealing with some (in our day) rather esoteric arguments about whether or not the nation's money should be backed by a silver standard in addition to the (then current) gold standard (The "yellow brick road" just took Dorothy deeper into magical/unreal world of "Oz" while her "silver ruby slippers" brought her home...), the more or less obvious "Red-state" / "anti-government" message of the current film (though Kansas today would be in the "Red State" camp) will irritate more than a few parents.  Part of what made the 1939 film so successful was that the original politics of the story was already lost on most viewers even in the 1930s to say nothing of the decades since.  In contrast, Dorothy (voiced quite well actually by Lea Michele) is re-imagined in this film as a Dallas Cowboy boot wearing contemporary "country girl" / Miley Cyrus [IMBb] look-alike who saves her town from an unscrupulous huckster (voiced by Martin Short) who arrived as a "government licensed appraiser" (but one who apparently wanted to buy out the whole town on the cheap) after the town got hit by a tornado...

Meanwhile back in Oz, Martin Short also voices that world's analogous villain named "The Jester" (evil brother of the original Wizard of Oz's "Wicked Witch of the West") who wants to take over the whole of Oz and turn all the characters from the first movie -- Glinda the Good Witch (voiced by Bernadette Peters), The Scarecrow (voiced by Dan Aykroyd), The Tin Man (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) and The Lion (voiced by Jim Belushi) -- into his literally his "puppets." 

Before being taken captive by the Jester's flying monkey minions, the Scarecrow (now with a brain) operating a contraption that produces a rainbow wormhole, sends said wormhole to Dorothy to bring her back to Oz.  Mid-flight, the Scarecrow along with his two other friends, the Tin Man and the Lion, are captured by the flying monkeys.  So Dorothy in said rainbow wormhole (along with her trusted dog Toto) crash somewhere in the Land of Oz, but far from the Emerald City.  So she has to walk there ... again ... and along the way pick-up a new set of companions including: a "chatty," rather than particularly wise Owl named Wiser (voiced by Oliver Platt), a "mushy" soldier named Marshall Mellow (voiced by Hugh Dancy), a rather "haughty/rigid/fragile China Princess (voiced by Megan Hilty) and a rather depressed "searching for another purpose" dying/older tree who Dorothy names Tugg (voiced by Patrick Stewart).   All these are also threatened the puppeteer wannabe "Jester" ... and it's up to Dorothy then to save them all as well.

While some of these new characters have disappointed various critics, IMHO in themselves, I did not find them that badly drawn.  It's just the megalomaniacal "Jester" (and remember he's a "government licensed adjuster" back home) who wants to turn everyone else into his "puppet" is just a ridiculous right-wing overreach.  Would it be better if FEMA didn't come in TO MANAGE ASSISTANCE to tornado victims after such local disasters?


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Neighbors [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

What to say on this blog about Neighbors [2014] (directed by Nicholas Stoller, screenplay by Amdrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien)?  After all at minimum, the film is at least in part a celebration (if largely nostalgically) of young adult / juvenile excess.  And yet (read on ...) there is actually more going on.  The film is actually _mostly_ about "growing up."

Mac and Kelly Radner (played by Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne) a young married couple still adjusting to the entry of their first child Stella (played by Elise and Zoey Vargas) into their lives has been trying really, really hard to make the transition from being "young and carefree" to "being responsible" without "selling out" (forgetting completely about how it was to be "young and carefree").  Mac's got some sort of an accounting job "downtown."  Even though Kelly and Mac met in college and so Kelly presumably has a college degree of her own, she/they've decided to have her be a "stay at home mom" if perhaps only for a while (and it's clear that she doesn't particularly like it ...).  They've bought a house in a relatively nice, still "kinda happening," residential section of town (if the film were in Chicago they'd be living in perhaps "Wrigleyville" or "Bucktown").

They're also dealing with (and again truth be told rather unhappy with) their best (and somewhat more irresponsible) friends presumably "from college days" Jimmy and Paula (played by Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo respectively) having decided that marriage was not for them and filing for divorce.  Indeed, Mac and Kelly are discovering how much divorce sucks "for the friends" of the divorcing couple as they've liked both Jimmy and Paula (and Mac even still works with Jimmy).  Yet now Jimmy and Paula don't want to do things together anymore ... forcing Mac and Kelly to constantly "choose between them."  Sigh ...

Well these very human adjustments (the arrival of baby daughter Stella) and frustrations/disappointments (having to deal with the divorce of their best friends) quickly get compounded in a far starker way when to their surprise, then shock, then horror the house next door gets purchased not by a "gay couple" (which presumably would have _helped_ increase the value of their home) but rather _by a College Fraternity_ from a nearby university, college students being notoriously penniless and Frats notoriously loud.  (Indeed, at one point when Mac and Kelly consider just getting-out and selling their home, this after "putting all that they had" into improving it before the Frat moved in, they're told by their real estate agent that the Frat's presence has HALVED the value of their home.  "You mean after all that we've put into our home, we lost HALF ITS VALUE because of that Frat?" they ask.  "Well, that's the bad news," the real estate agent responds. "The good news in, at least you still retain at least half its original value in this crazy time in this business."  Welcome to post 2008 financial crisis realities ...

But the Frat involves a far bigger challenge to Mac and Kelly than "merely money" (though losing HALF the value of one's house because of a Frat moving in next door is losing some serious money).  The Frat becomes a daily (and NIGHTLY) reminder to Mac and Kelly that they're "no longer young anymore."

Not that Frats necessarily represent "the Best of being Young" however.  Drugs, alcohol, utterly irresponsible sex all maim and kill.  The whole lifestyle REQUIRES _literally_ dehumanizing unwanted children produced through utterly-un-thought-through sexual activity labeling these children "fetuses" and thus allowing them to _become_ "abortable" that is _disposable_ ("Out of sight, out of mind ...").

 And yet the film, while not being that blunt about it, certainly points out the shallowness and _temporariness_ of the lifestyle:

At one point still early in the story, Kelly explains to some Sorority girls hanging out at a Frat Party that she and Mac were attending (both they and the Frat brothers were still trying to size each other up) how she and Mac met in college, fell in love, got married, moved to this neighborhood, had first child and so forth.  And the Sorority girls are all impressed: "Oooh, how sweet!" they respond with approval.  When Kelly asks one of the sorority girls how she met her boyfriend, she answered; "Well he came up to me at a party one night, told me that I was Hot ... and we've been Together ever since."  Not exactly the kind of "romance" that inspires Sonnets or Love Songs ...

Then poor, poor, ever tan and well-chiseled Teddy (played perfectly by Zac Efron), the Frat's president.  Utterly, utterly sincere, he's the only one who believes in the ritual (and party) life of the Frat.  And by the end of the film, it's clear-as-day that he's absolutely terrified of what's gonna happen after College is done.  His best friend, Frat V.P. Pete (played again to a tee by Dave Franco) is loyal, indeed as best a friend as one could have in one's young adult years.  BUT he also knows that "all this must end" and has been preparing (notably ... STUDYING) so that he could get a good job afterwards.

So for all the often very funny (if often very, very juvenile/irresponsible) antics that go-on throughout the film, the film is ultimately about Mac and Teddy on opposite sides of the transition to adulthood.  Mac (and at times also his wife Kelly) is looking back "to how it used to be" (and wishing he could still be there).  Teddy's looking toward the future ... with ever increasing fear.

But one way or another ... we all make that transition.  Hopefully, we have some good memories of "how it was."  But also hopefully we haven't "left a lot of wreckage ..."

So there it is.  Like a lot of reviewers, I'm left with the conclusion that "this film is actually better than it should be" ;-).  And I have a feeling that's what those associated with this film were aiming for ;-).

Just please honestly don't "hook-up" with people that you wouldn't have ANY idea of what you'd do with if you produced a child with them.  EVERYONE, including the child ... and God (our and the child's creator) ... deserves better than that.


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Locke [2013]

MPAA (Unrated would be R)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Drive) review

Locke [2013] (written and directed by Steven Knight) is a remarkable in some sense truly "bare-bones minimalist" film that would be both a true film enthusiast's and A MORALIST'S delight. 

The film begins with a middle-aged construction engineer, Ivan Locke (played by Tom Hardy) at some kind of a construction site, coming to the end of day's work, coming to his car, a BMW (signalling early that he's no ordinary construction engineer but probably some sort of a project manager).  We see the sun setting to the West, but as this is somewhere in presumably Northern England, it's also starting to rain.

He enters the car, docks his cell phone to whatever "hands-free apparatus" his car would have.  We hear an automated voice referring to some sort of a "Bluetooth" (wireless) handshake/docking commencing as he starts his car.  And soon he's on his way.

Now where is he going?  Neither West (toward the Sunset) nor East (presumably toward a Rainbow as both the sun remains out if setting and it is raining).  Instead, he appears to be heading South.  Where?  Toward London, which we learn is about an hour and a half away.  Why?  Well that's what we begin to learn as we listen-in on the cell phone calls that he begins to make as he gets on some intercity expressway heading South from his place of work toward London.

We soon find out that he's heading to London, and not home to his wife and two teenage boys, because just before work's end, he had received a phone-call from a London woman, about his age, with whom he had a one-night affair some 7 months before, telling him that "her water broke" and asking him, since she was all alone, if he could come down to London to be with her for the birth of _their_ child.

Now it turns out, through hearing-in on subsequent conversations as Ivan drives toward London, that she, a rather lonely and generally depressed old sort, was pregnant with his child a few months earlier and Ivan had wanted to tell his wife about this (with all its attendant ramifications...) ever since then, but that he had "never found the right time" to do so.  And he did actually still think that he had "some time" (after all, she was only in her 7th month ...).  But now, she had called him just before this day's work with this news, and he decided that he's going to have to do this favor (of going down to be with this woman as she gives birth to his and her child) for the sake of both of them.

What to tell his wife?  What would _you_ tell your wife if you found yourself in this situation?  THIS IS A GOOD PART OF WHAT MAKES THIS FILM SO, SO FASCINATING. 

AS A CATHOLIC PRIEST counseling someone ASKING ME what to do, I'd PROBABLY TELL THAT PERSON to PERHAPS NOT LIE (though a SMALL _TEMPORARY_ LIE IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE FOR THE SAKE OF, IN GOOD PART, THE WIFE'S OWN PEACE, I'd find completely understandable) but to FIND SOME PLAUSIBLE EXCUSE for not coming home ("Honey, the Project that I'm working on, requires me to remain here late tonight and I may not be able to come home until tomorrow.  BUT I WILL EXPLAIN TOMORROW."

Instead, _perhaps because he no longer trusted himself_ (He's had two months to break this news to his wife and HASN'T) Ivan decides that he's had enough of procrastinating and ON THE PHONE, WHILE DRIVING, WHILE IT'S RAINING, DOWN A RANDOM AND NOW DARK INTERCITY EXPRESSWAY WITH MODERATE TRAFFIC BUT SOME CONSTRUCTION tells his wife in a calm voice THAT HE'S NOT COMING HOME THAT NIGHT AND ... WHY HE ISN'T DO SO ... because he made this one mistake in 15 years of marriage 7 months ago and now he owes it to this woman, who is otherwise alone, and her and indeed his, child to be there when this child enters the world.

It's a remarkable conversation and AGAIN HONESTLY, GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I ACTUALLY WOULD HAVE COUNSELED AGAINST IT.  This conversation, as painful as it was, deserved to be done FACE TO FACE at home.

But ... ;-/ ... that's _not the only thing_ that's going on.  HE'S A PROJECT ENGINEER ... INDEED, THE LEAD PROJECT ENGINEER for the construction of a new skyscraper being built somewhere in the northern England.  THE NEXT DAY, EARLY IN THE MORNING, THE SKYSCRAPER'S FOUNDATION WAS GOING TO BE POURED ... a complex concrete pour that we find out the local papers had reported was going to be "the biggest non-military concrete pour in Europe since the end of the Cold War."  AND HE HAS TO CALL HIS BOSS TO TELL HIM THAT HE'S NOT GOING TO BE THERE FOR IT EITHER (It was scheduled to begin early the next morning, with a tight synchronization of all sorts of cement trucks, local road closures, etc, etc).

What would you tell your boss?  He again tells him in a calm, straight forward voice, WHILE DRIVING IN THE RAIN (windshield wipers rhythmically moving to-and-fro clearing the water from the wind shield so that he could see) AT NIGHT (the glare of headlight beams and various other lights regularly appearing/disappearing on said wet-windshield) IN MODERATE TRAFFIC (the outlines and tail lights of cars as well as various traffic signs and occasional construction barriers appearing in front of him and at his sides), the same story that he told his wife: That he has to go down to London that night to be there for the birth of a child of his by a woman who was not his wife, that he did not even particularly know, but who needed and requested his presence at this very important event for her, for him and their child.

The Boss, incredulous, angry and in something of a panic, responds "Why couldn't you have just told me THAT YOU WERE SICK?" and tells him that he's going to have to report this up the line to the architectural firm "in Chicago" and that they're almost certainly going to "want his head" for this.  Ivan responds, that he knows, but that he preferred to just tell the truth at this point (even if it wasn't necessarily any of his boss' / the firm's business to know other than that he wasn't going to at the construction site that next day).

In the meantime, first the woman and then the hospital call that there are "complications with the delivery."  Again, calmly, while driving at night, in the rain, in moderate traffic down an intercity expressway with moderate construction on it, he deals with issues pertaining to the health and perhaps even future of both a woman he hardly knows and a child that he's found recently that he's having with her all because of his one-time moral failing seven months before.

Further, in the meanting, his wife is needless to say UPSET.  One of his teenage sons calls in the middle of all this happening wondering why he's not home yet 'because the game is on' and tells him how 'the game's going ...' ;-).  Then, even though Ivan's not going to be at the construction site the next day, the day of this GREAT AND VERY IMPORTANT "POUR" he has to instruct at least his SUBORDINATES "what to do" ... all while driving, while it's raining, at night, in moderate traffic on a random intercity expressway between somewhere in Northern England and London, on a road that's also having some moderate construction going on.

WHAT A MOVIE ;-) ;-)

How does it end?  GO, FIND AND WATCH IT ;-)

Honestly, what a remarkable discussion piece.

I would also add that the film makers make it RATHER CLEAR that Ivan is someone of _no faith_.  He's both fallen and has been trying to rectify things IN A MORAL FASHION not because he believes in God but because _he believes that this is the right thing to do_.  HONESTLY, VERY GOOD.  Yet for a believer or non ... I still think that this is A GREAT FILM THAT LEAVES VIEWERS WITH MUCH TO REFLECT ON and TALK ABOUT.

Outstanding, simply outstanding!


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Here's the Deal (orig. Somos Gente Honrada) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)   Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Sensacine.com listing*

Here's the Deal (orig. Somos Gente Honrada) [2013] [IMDb] [SC]* (directed and cowritten by Alejandro Marzoa [IMDb] [SC]* along with Miguel Ángel Blanca [IMDb] [SC]* and Juan Cruz [IMDb] [SC]*) is a bitter-sweet comedy from Spain that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Set in contemporary Spain (Galicia), it's about two friends, middle-aged -- Manolo (played by Miguel de Lira [IMDb] [SC]*) and Suso (played by Paco Tous [IMDb] [SC]*) -- who both seem to have been dumped at the side of the road by the economic dislocations of our times.  Manolo once had a construction business building vacation condos until the real estate boom dried-up thanks to the 2008 world-wide financial crisis.  Suso used to run a newspaper kiosk until the internet boom rendered his quaint little neighborhood store obsolete.

So what do the two do?  They meet each afternoon by the river flowing through their seaside town to go fishing.  Well one evening instead reeling-in "a big fish," they reel-in a plastic-covered package that turns out to contain 10 kilos of cocaine.  Wow.  What to do?  Both know that to do anything with the package (other than turn it over to the police) would be illegal and almost certainly dangerous BUT THEY FOUND 10 KILOS OF COCAINE and the street value would make A LOT of their current financial problems go away: Manolo's business had completely collapsed with the only people calling him being creditors threatening legal action, while Suso's been reduced to depending on his father-in-law to keep his family afloat with his father-in-law making it absolutely clear that he thought of him as a "complete loser of a man" and his daughter's "biggest mistake."  On the other side of the coin, Manolo's 20-something daughter is dating a cop and Suso has a college age son.  Could they bring themselves to basically sell drugs to "their kids" or at least "their kids' friends" (their kids' generation)?

So this then is their dilemma: Is economic survival / reestablishing a certain level of financial dignity (even if it's based on a lie, indeed, crime) worth the cost of not being able to look one's own kids in the eye?  (Spanish title of the film is "We're Honorable People" after all). 

The rest of the movie flows from there.  Since this is "a comedy" after all ;-), I can assure readers here that there is a "happy ending." ;-)

But wow, what a story with a lot of heartache ... yet ever told with a gentle smile. 


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Where the Sun is Born (orig. Releb'al Q'ij / Dónde Nace el Sol) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Official Website

Yepan.cl review*

Where the Sun is Born (orig. Releb'al Q'ij / Dónde Nace el Sol) [2013] (directed by Elías Jiménez, screenplay by Edgar Sajcabún) is a remarkable Guatemalan film that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  It holds the distinction of being the first feature length film to be made almost entirely in the native Quiche (Mayan) language (available with English / Spanish subtitles).

Leaning on both the symbolism of the Mayan Popol Vuh as well as the now famous literary/artistic tradition of Latin American Magical Realism, it tells the story of "Maya" (played by various actresses) in four segments across five centuries from the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s to the Present day.

In the opening segment, Maya is told by her Grandmother that their World is held together by two intertwining Serpents representing Time and Space.  However, when the Spanish Conquistadors come, they burn the Tapestry of those two intertwining Snakes that the Grandmother had been making for her Granddaughter, sending Maya's world into Chaos.  Before dieing, the Grandmother tells Maya that in order to restore the previous order, she must find her way to "The Land where the Sun is Born."

However in the second segment where Maya and as well as other Mayan refugees soon find themselves is The Land "Where the Sun Dies."  Yet there is hope.  In the midst of desert and darkness she finds that she finds a "friend."  Brave, he tries to resist the Conquistadors who continue to pursue the remainder of her people.  And before he's killed he turns himself into a "humming bird" serving her from then on as a recurring animal/spiritual companion for the rest of her journey.

But the Trek from "The Land where the Sun has Died" to "The Land where the Sun is Born" is long and soon she finds herself on a Raft floating seemingly timelessly down a River (from the time of the Conquest to the Present Day) to "The Land where the Waters End."  And during this seemingly endless journey she's tormented by another kind of bird (a Parrot) who spends his time changing back and forth between his Bird form and that of the Conquistador and continually mocks her.

Finally, she ends in "The Land where the Air Comes From" somewhere in the Jungle.  There she finds both the stone monuments of her previous culture AND new helicopter born / M-16 carrying Conquistadors who seem to want to both shoot the remainder of her people and burn the jungle down.  However, in the midst of the burning forests, the Conquistadors themselves choke (for lack of clean air).

And so the Conquistadors seem to finally dissipate into the air and Maya and her remaining Mayan companions find themselves by the stone monuments (Pyramids) of their previous culture where they seek to watch the sun rise to begin a New Day and then to reconstruct that Tapestry of the Intertwining Serpants of both Space and Time.

It's really a remarkable fable, well shot and well acted by indigenous Mayan actors. The film's director Elías Jiménez, present at the screening, promised that this film along with others made (with Norwegian and Cuban support) by the indigenous Mayan Casa Comal collective will become available FOR FREE on their community's website / youtube (or vimeo) channel.  For those who are interested in indigenous cultures this film will be well worth looking up.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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The Railway Man [2013]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  AARP (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
AARP.org (M. Grant) review
RE.com (C. Levine) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

The Railway Man [2013] (directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, based on the memoir of Eric Lomax [IMDb]) tells the remarkable story of Eric Lomax (played as a young British signals officer soon POW after the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese during WW II by Jeremy Irvine and 35 years later as an older still wounded WW II veteran by Colin Firth).

The ignominious defeat of the British by the Japanese in Singapore has been largely blamed on Brits'  simultaneously arrogant and incompetent Imperial commanders who had convinced themselves that the Japanese would "never be able to reach Singapore" much less by land via Malaysia (Well they did ...) and when Japanese arrived they proved unable to organize a coherent defense against them.  The Commanders' failures, of course, were then horribly paid-for by both Singapore's heavily Chinese citizenry as well as the rank-and-file British/Colonial troops who they handed-over _largely without a fight_ to the Japanese.  The Imperial Japanese WHO NEVER HAD MUCH RESPECT FOR P.O.W.s considered the British troops so _unceremoniously_ handed-over to them by their generally gutless brandy drinking commanders as "men without honor."  The rest of the story unspooled from there...

Young Lomax along with the other members of his signals (radio) officers were transported from Singapore down to Malaysia and across to Thailand to help build the infamous Siam-Burma Railway about which the famous post-WW II film Bridge Over The River Kwai [1957] was made.  The British POWs were horribly mistreated.  Asked at one point why they were being so inhumanly treated, a Japanese guard tells them: "You are men without honor.  You (simply) surrendered."  To which Lomax and his compatriots respond, "WE didn't."  But they had, or at least were surrendered (by gutless commanders) and now were being worked to death under unbearable sweltering conditions by their Japanese captors who considered them unworthy of concern.

What to do?  Well these were former signals officers.  So with commandeered parts (and a couple of key vacuum tubes still secreted away with them from their radio sets back in Singapore -- and hidden from their Japanese captors) they build a radio set TO SIMPLY CATCH NEWS ABOUT THE WAR (Here the wartime BBC is shown serving its truly legendary inspiring role during the worst days of WW II).  Inevitably the radio war discovered.  Lomax in particular was tortured for having assembled it.  But at least they were resisting rather than simply following orders.

Eventually, of course, the Japanese lost the war and the British POWs in Thailand were freed.  What now?  How do these scarred, beaten men get fixed?

Well as in the U.S., these vets now back in Britain would meet, talk (and not talk...) about past events, but mainly just remain together as an understandably rather closed group, understanding that truthfully almost no one "outside" could possibly understand.

But life does go on ... and so in 1980 (!) Lomax (now played by Colin Firth) finds by chance on a train a woman named Patti (played by Nicole Kidman) who he soon falls in love with and they marry.  Yet, though finding himself in a position to (finally) be happy ... what's today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sets in.  He starts having terrible nightmares recalling the worst moments of his captivity building the railroad in Thailand.  But Patti happens to be a former nurse and she both decides and proves to have the skills to help.  There's also a friend and fellow vet/POW Filnay (played when young during the War/Captivity by Sam Reid and later in 1980 by Stellan Skarsgård).  Finally, they all find (and are appalled) that apparently one of the former Japanese officers, named Takeshi Nagase (played when young by Tanroh Ishida and as an older man by Hiroyuki Sanada), who had served as an interpreter during their torture and interrogations during the War, had apparently opened "a Museum" (!) on the Siam-Burma line (to help explain how it was built).  This offers an opportunity for Lomax, Finley, et al, to finally confront their horrific past AND BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

The rest of the story, which IMHO is truly remarkable, unspools from there ... and certainly offers much to reflect on and to talk about afterwards.


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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

AUSTRALIA: urbancinefile.com.au (L.Keller / A.L. Urban) review
BRAZIL: fohla.uol.br (T. DeMenses) review*
CZECH REP.: lidovky.cz (A.A. Pokropová) review*
GERMANY: actionfreunde.de review*
GERMANY: critik.de (N. Klingler) review*
INDIA: indiatimes.com (R.G. Rasquinha) review
ITALY: CineFile.biz (A. Cassani) review*
JAPAN: japantimes.co.jp (K. Shoji) review
RUSSIA: kinonews.ru reader-reviews*

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [2014] directed by Marc Webb, screenplay and story by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner continuing the screen-story by James Vanderbilt based on Marvel comics' Spider-Man [Wiki] created by Stan Lee [IMDb] and Steve Ditko [IMDb]) is part 2 of the current reboot of the Marvel Comics based Spider Man trilogy of 2002-2007.  If perhaps long -- the current film goes on for nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes and perhaps needlessly involves three separate villains -- the portrayal of the ever chaste if also ever angst-driven / tortured, on-again / off-again relationship between the story's principal teenage protagonists Peter Parker/Spiderman [IMDb] (played in the current series by Andrew Garfield) and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy [IMDb] (played in the current series by Emma Stone) will probably be worth the trouble for most viewers.  Teens will relate and many/most adults will reminisce:

Yes, to many/most teenagers, life is _largely_ "drama."  And so whether Peter Parker [IMDb] and Gwen [IMDb] are breaking-up or making-up, or whether Peter Parker/Spiderman [IMDb] is facing off against a crazed psychopathic "Russian Mobster" named Alexei Sytsevich [IMDb] (played by Paul Giamatti at his wild-eyed best) driving a giant iron-clad "Rhino" suit or against a, thanks to an experiment-gone-awry involving "lots of Volts" (and electric eels), previously mild-mannered, indeed _powerless_ but now terrifying Tesla-ray spewing "human capacitor" named Maxwell Dillon / Electro [IMDb] (played by Jamie Foxx), it's "all the same."  To a teenager, a make-up or break-up or a "crisis at home" or among friends _can_ and feel like "the whole world is collapsing" with "buildings crashing," "bolts of electricity shooting all over the place" and lots and lots of "glass breaking."

And so one's enjoyment of this movie -- IMHO much better than the first of the current reboot -- will depend if one can "get into the zone."  Teens will probably already "be there." Their parents?  They may have to work at it a bit.  However, the film _could_ be a fun stroll down "memory lane" ... when _everything_, every smile, gesture or frown, "made a difference."

Finally, it's emerging Hollywood/American "dogma" that these "superhero" films are _loved_ across the world.  So I made an effort (above) to check what critics / audiences around the world had to say about the film, which was actually released internationally BEFORE it was released here in the United States.  My sense is that teens/young people around the world, like teens in the U.S. "can relate," while "older critics" (like in the U.S. as well) remain somewhat befuddled, wondering "Why do our kids seem to like these kind of films?" 

In any case, the key remains: Think back to when you were young... And if one can do that, one will "get" Marvel's genius and indeed the genius of the Spiderman story-line.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity listing*
Official Website

LaNacion [Costa Rica] coverage*
LaNacion [Costa Rica] (Y. La Cruz) review*
DeleFoco (Y. Oviedo) review*

Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013] (directed and cowritten by Laura Astorga Carrera [IMDb] along with Daniela Goggi) is a Costa Rican film that played recently at the Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Set in the 1980s, the film tells the story of 10 year old Claudia (played by Valeria Conejo [IMDb]) and her younger sister Antonia (played by Aura Dinarte [IMDb]) who as daughters of Costa Rican leftist parents Flipe (played by Fernando Bolaños [IMDb] [DF]*) and Magda (played by Carol Sanabria) had spent much of their early lives growing-up in neighboring Sandinista dominated Nicaragua following the pro-Communist Revolution there (which had ousted the hated Samoza dictatorship) and during the subsequent "Contra War" (against U.S. backed post-Samoza anti-Communist forces).

At the beginning of the film, Claudia and Antonia's parents had decided (and received permission from their Sandinista commanders/allies...) to move their family from Managua, Nicaragua back to San José, Costa Rica.  Why?  Well that's a very good question and a good part of the task given to the audience as it watches the film is to try to come-up with a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it seems that Managua had become a relatively dangerous place to live as the Contra War ground on.  And yes, Felipe and Magda were NOT Nicaraguan (but rather Costa Rican sympathizers to the Sandinista cause).  Perhaps they had enough of a war that ultimately was "not theirs."

However, it was also clear at least at the beginning of the story that they were not simply leaving Nicaragua to "run away."  Instead, as soon as they returned to San José, Felipe and Magda settled into a document forging operation in support of the Sandinista regime.  (The film's director Laura Astorga Carrera present for Q&A after the film -- and who explained that the film was based on her own childhood experiences -- she would have been the 10 year old Claudia in the story -- explained that the kind of "support operation" that Claudia / Antonia's parents would have been involved in would have been done by Costa Ricans sympathizing with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and NOT by Sandinista Nicaraguans themselves because "Nicaraguans would have 'stood out' in Costa Rica at the time").

Yet it was ALSO clear that Magda's family (very, very regular middle class) in particular was quite happy to see their (perhaps "wayward") daughter and _her_ two young daughters (along with a husband who, while they weren't necessarily openly hostile to him, had after all, "married into the family" ...) finally "back home from Nicaragua" and presumably "out of harms way..."

After Felipe and Magda along with their girls arrived in San José, Magda's family quickly put the two girls in a nice Catholic grade school.

This is when we, the audience, first begin to appreciate just how "different" (from Western norms) Claudia and Antonia's upbringing had been up to that point: They had been growing-up in a quite "Spartan" milieu of fervent Sandinista regime (basically Communists) back in Managua.  Hence they didn't have (or even think to have) a lot of "stuff" and what they did have -- Claudia's prize possession was a box of various Communist pins from all over the Eastern Bloc.  So there were Soviet ones, Cuban ones, various East European ones, perhaps even a Libyan or Angolan / Mozambican one -- didn't make a lot of sense in their transplanted Costa Rican (and now back to more traditional Catholic) surroundings.

On their first day at their new school, the principal asked them if they knew their prayers and ... of course they didn't.  On the other hand, Antonia asked her older sister "where the Pioneers are" (the Communist equivalent of the Scouts) because she had apparently always wanted to be one (as Claudia apparently already had been).  Claudia answered, that the school apparently didn't have a Pioneer group yet and for a good part of the rest of the film, poor Claudia spends a fair amount of time, putting together a guidebook (from memory ... and remember that Claudia was a 10 year old) for a Pioneer group that she was going to start for her little sister and their friends.

Now since this story is being told primarily from the perspective of the 10 year old Claudia, the school scenes become absolutely priceless:  This is the story of two little previously Communist girls adapting to live in a renewed Catholic environment where (this is Central America in the 1980s after all) there were now ALSO Protestants.  So as the real drama "begin to happen" in the story (below) Claudia's Catholic friend always suggests "well let's pray an Our Father" or a "Hail Mary" about it (and patiently teaches Claudia how to pray these prayers), while another friend of both girls -- of "Communist Claudia" and her Catholic friend -- who's a daughter of a Protestant Minister always prays for Claudia and Antonia "from the heart" with these absolutely heartfelt/delightful renditions (again, she's also just 10 years old) of the more Pentacostalist prayer style that she knows from her home (with eyes closed yet gazing heavenward, "Oh Heavenly Father ...").  So if nothing else, these little previously "Communist girls" were loved by their believing (Catholic AND also Protestant) friends.  And they appreciated the heartfelt concern of these new friends, all 10 year olds, as well.

So what dramas start "happening" at Claudia / Antonia's home after they return after some years from Sandinista Managua?  Well ... a fairly short time after returning, Magda, their mother SUDDENLY and (not getting into details) WITH HELP FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY DITCHES THE FAMILY AND APPARENTLY RESURFACES A FEW DAYS LATER IN MIAMI (Florida, the United States).  What the heck happened?  Felipe (Claudia and Antonia's father, and Magda's husband) doesn't know what hit him and Claudia / Antonia don't understand really either.  Claudia feels sorry for her father.  Magda's family, on the other hand seems to understand totally.

Now obviously a lot still needs to be resolved as Magda's family appears, after all, to have been more or less traditionally Catholic and so having their daughter just dump and leave her daughters with her husband that she'd be presumably leaving, wouldn't make a lot of sense.  And yet to leave everybody and everything that she previously stood for -- La Revolución! after-all -- for the "Gringo-Imperialist" citadel of Miami seems so shocking to begin with.  So why would she do it?

The director, who was present at the screening, again freely told the audience that the story was based on her own early years with a couple of key differences -- in her actual story not just her mother but also the whole the family ALL took the opportunity once they got back to Costa Rica from Nicaragua to "ditch the Revolution" and flee to Miami.  She explained that to be fervent members of a revolutionary group like the Sandinistas became LIKE BEING IN A CULT: The only way to "get out" was to "get out" COMPLETELY.

The director added the twist in this fictionalized story of Magda, the mother of Claudia and Antonia coming to the conclusion that she "wanted out" without telling her husband Felipe.  (Or perhaps she simply/primarily OUT OF THE MARRIAGE).  IN ANY CASE, "to get out" meant FLEEING EVERYTHING not just "The Cause" but also (at least temporarily?) her husband and family.

It all makes for a very interesting / compelling story.  And while I don't necessarily expect this film to play on "HBO Latino" anytime soon (to say nothing of HBO, period), I do honestly hope that the director/film makers make the film available SOMEHOW for purchase or streaming.

Being a Catholic priest of Czech descent (hence with relatives who ALSO lived in the Communist Bloc) as well as having devoted most of my years as a Catholic priest in Hispanic Ministry, I found pretty much every single character in this story both believable and often _extremely well drawn_.

The couple, the kids, the family, the kids' friends they were ALL remarkably well crafted.  This was truly a remarkably well told story about human ties in a family in a time and place that was very complicated.  And it's a story that won't necessarily be told "in the mainstream."  GOOD JOB!


ADDENDUM:

Two films that I've reviewed previously on this blog that would be interesting to consider as one viewed/reviewed this film would be (1) the African American film For the Cause [2013] that played last year at the Black Harvest Film Festival (sponsored annually by the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago) that was about an estranged African American family (mother, father and grown daughter) struggling with secrets left-over from the mother's/father's days in the Black Panther movement and (2) Marthy Marcy Mae Marlene [2011] staring John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen about a young woman who was trying to get herself out of a cult (and her sympathetic but "out of her depth" older sister trying to help her do so).


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Walking with the Enemy [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Historia y Cine (J.L. Urraca Casal) review*
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review

Background Materials:
     ShalomMagazine.com (M. Michelson) article about Hungarian WW II era Jewish Resistance Hero Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum
     NYTimes (A. Gates) review of documentary Unlikely Heroes [2003] which included the story of Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum and was narrated by Ben Kingsley
     JewishStandard.com (J. Friedman) article about a stage play entitled "Unlikely Hero" about Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum
     Wikipedia entry about post-WW I / WW II era Hungarian Head of State (Regent) Miklós Horthy
     Wikipedia entry about Swiss Vice-Consul to Hungary Carl Lutz credited for saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews

My Review:
While in truth the final verdict on the film Walking with the Enemy [2013] (directed by Mark Schmidt, screenplay by Kenny Golde with additions by Richard Lasser) will need to come from both the Jewish/Israeli and Hungarian press as well as Jewish/Israeli and Hungarian public opinion (in both Hungary/Israel and abroad), IMHO the key to appreciating this film is that, set in WW II era Hungary during the closing year of the war, the film actually tells the stories of a number of people, both Hungarian and non, including Hungary's WW II era leader the Regent Miklós Horthy, trying to navigate their way through the horror/mess of the War "In the East," that is, seeking a way to "walk in the midst of enemies" on many sides. 

The primary protagonist of the film, fictionalized (for reasons unclear to me), is Alec Cohen (played by James Armstrong) who is based on the actual Hungarian WW II era Jewish resistance hero named Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum (article about, review of 2003 documentary in part about, review of stage play about).  After escaping a Hungarian forced-labor-camp for young able-bodied men of Jewish ancestry and discovering that the rest of his family had been deported from their home village, he went back to Budapest where he became involved in the Jewish underground there.  Since he had "Aryan features" (looked German ...) and like many educated Central Europeans at the time he spoke German fluently, he came to _impersonate_ a German SS officer in late-1944 Nazi occupied Budapest (Obviously he had to get a hold of an SS officer's uniform to do so).  Then together with several others Jewish resistance members (also dressed in captured SS uniforms) playing as if they were under his command, he would interdict attempts by the Hungarian National Socialist Arrow Cross units to round-up and capture Budapest's Jews, sending them instead to safe-houses throughout the city and giving them forged Swiss citizenship and travel documents obtained from the offices of Swiss Vice-Consul to Hungary Carl Lutz (played in the film by William Hope).  Of course, together they were but a tiny squad of impersonators in the midst of Hungary's capital city under Nazi occupation and as time went on, increasingly under siege by the approaching Soviet army.  So the number of people that they could actually save was necessarily "small" (though the number approached thousands to even tens of thousands) and of course involved enormous risk (capture meant torture and followed by summary execution).  Still, a remarkable number of episodes recalled in the background materials about the historical Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum cited above are dramatized in the film.

Then Hungary's story during World War II was about as complex as they come.  The World War II era Kingdom of Hungary was led by a conservative (former admiral) Regent Miklós Horthy (played in the film by Ben Kingsley) since the chaos following the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, a chaos that had included a brief period when Hungary had been under Communist rule.  Hence Regent Miklós Horthy was very wary of the Communist Soviet Union even as he mistrusted the mass movements of Fascism as well.  As "Regent" that is a "stand-in" (if for several decades ...) for the "vacant" throne of Hungary, he was, if nothing else, a rather "old school" Aristocrat, or at least espousing the values of that old Aristocracy.  As such, the "mass movements" of the time, especially those espousing thuggery (like both the Communists and the Fascists) were ever suspect by him.  Yet, post WW I Hungary was a small country between two regional powers -- Soviet Russia on one side and later Nazi Germany on the other.  So Miklós Horthy is portrayed in the film (and the wikipedia article about him seems to agree) as one who navigate Hungary between these two powers.  Yes, for much of the War, he did consider Nazi Germany as "the lesser of the two Evils," but so long as Hungary remained not outright occupied, he did the minimum to cooperate with the Nazis.  Notably, while Hungary remained unoccupied he refused to allow Hungary's Jews to be deported.  In late 1941, under pressure from Nazi Germany, he did come to expel (to Nazi occupied Ukraine, and hence to their deaths ...) Jewish refugees who had fled to Hungary (non-Hungarian citizens).

History seems to bear-out his resistance to Nazi pressure as he was NOT tried as a War Criminal after the War).  It was when Miklós Horthy tried to negotiate an Armistice with the Soviet Union that the Nazis stormed in to occupy Hungary and the persecutions / deportations of Hungary's Jews to the death camps of Nazi occupied Poland began.

Anyway, the story of Miklós Horthy's (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to "walk between Hungary's enemies" is also portrayed in this film.

It all makes for a complicated story, but one that many of Central European ancestry would certainly appreciate.  I, of Czech parents, have an aunt who has always quite adamantly maintained that if Austria-Hungary had been able to survive as a "Central European Federation" respecting the rights of all its constituent ethnicities then neither the Nazis nor the Communists would have been able to come to dominate Central Europe and perhaps WW II would have been able to have been prevented.  The splintering of Central Europe into many tiny nation states (including post-WW I Czechoslovakia) resulted in none of these little countries being able to stand-up to either the resurgent Nazi Germany or the post-WW II Soviet Russian juggernaut.

Again final word on the accuracy of the portrayal of WW II era Hungary in this film should be left to both Hungary's (and Israel's) press and public opinion (both in Hungary/Israel and abroad).  But I do appreciate the attempt.  Also Catholics (as well as Protestants) would appreciate that the film-makers tried to underline that many attempts, often successful, by both Catholic / Protestant institutions as well as clergy and laypeople to provide safe-havens to Hungary's many (hundreds of thousands) of Jews.  The Nazi and Hungarian Fascist Arrow-Cross jackboots often carried the day.  However despite brutal occupation, tens of thousands perhaps upwards to several hundred thousand Hungary's Jews across the country were saved.  And that is something to note (and honor) as well.

So over all, pretty good job folks, pretty good job!  This was _not_ a simple story to tell and you did IMHO quite well!  Congratulations!


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