Divergent [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (K. McFarland) review

At times, Hollywood has been called a "dream machine" both reflective and a trend-setter with regards to the happenings in (American) society.  I go back to this image of "Hollywood as dream machine" to help me understand the "why?" of current film, Divergent [2014] (directed by Neil Burger, screenplay by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, based on the first installment of a trilogy of novels by Veronica Roth [IMDb]) the latest book-to-movie entry of the currently popular (to the point becoming formulaic) YA (teen)-oriented "girl-hero-based" Post-Apocalypic genre.

Now please don't get me wrong.  That a story has become "formulaic" does not make it necessarily "cheap" or "shallow." Instead, if anything, it means that the story has "struck a chord," and somehow speaks to a society (or a portion of a society) in a way that other, less successful stories have not.

English author J.K. Rowling's enormously popular Harry Potter series of YA (teen)-oriented books (eventually made, of course, into an enormously popular series of movies, the last two installments reviewed here [1] [2]) opened the door to a renaissance in (and mainstreaming of) YA (teen)-oriented magical / fantasy literature not seen since J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy of the 1930s-40s.  And, of course, riding this "Harry Potter" wave of renewed interest in YA (teen)-oriented magical / fantasy literature, Tolkien's LOTR was made into an enormously successful trilogy of epic films, with Hollywood perhaps "over reaching" in trying to milk the magic once more, indeed, three more times, with the current attempt to turn even Tolkien's much smaller, earlier, indeed, arguably "pilot" novel The Hobbit into a trilogy of epic films as well (the first two installments [1] [2] reviewed here as well).

Then American author Stephanie Meyer's wildly popular Twilight Saga of YA (teen) oriented (and here specifically TEENAGE GIRL ORIENTED) books built on J.K. Rowling's success with two crucial changes (1) she introduced the "teenage girl heroine" to the genre and (2) she moved the story's setting to the United States.

First, by making a "once average teenage girl" Bella (played in the subsequent wildly successful films by Kristen Stewart) the heroine of her story, Meyer filled an enormous hole previously existing in that genre: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series at least had Hermione (played in the films by Emma Watson), but TOLKEIN'S LOTR and The Hobbit were, if typical of their time, SUPREMELY EMBARRASSING TODAY in being ALMOST ENTIRELY DEVOID OF SIGNIFICANT FEMALE CHARACTERS, this despite (I suspect) a far larger number of teenage girl readers (and potential buyers of books...) than teenage boys. (I would suspect that today, teenage girls would be far more likely to "listen to their parents and stay home and read" than teenage boys, who'd prefer "playing video games" or otherwise "doing something").

Second, by moving the story to the United States (in the case of her Twilight Saga to the "foggy" often "forgotten hinterlands" of the American Pacific Northwest), Meyer both tapped into our national narcissism (the term American Exceptionalism doesn't exist for nothing...) but also, frankly, made it easier for other American writers (and then Hollywood) to crank-out variations on Harry Potter's and the Twilight Saga's characters and themes.

And boy did our nation's largely East Coast based publishing machine and West Coast based Hollywood JUMP on that American "collective unconscious" gravy train:

Hunger Games [IMDb] (the first two movie installments reviewed [1] [2] here), set in a post-Apocalyptic U.S. (75-years after a brutal civil war), though largely in "Appalachia," the once average heroine being Katniss Everdeen (played in the film series by Jennifer Lawrence)

Beautiful Creatures [IMDb], set in a small town near Charleston, South Carolina (involving a society of "light and dark" though not-race-based witches), the once average girl heroine being Lena Duchaness (played in the film by Alice Englert)

The Host [IMDb] (the movie reviewed here) set in a post-Apocalytic U.S. (following an alien invasion) but mostly around the state of Texas, the once average heroine being Melanie (played in the film Saoirse Ronan).
   
Mortal Instruments [IMDb] (the first movie installment reviewed here) set in a rainy Harry Potteresque New York City (involving a parallel shadow/spiritual battle between forces of light and darkness), the once average girl heroine being Clary (played by Lily Collins).

Add to this the most "Harry Potteresque" series, that of Percy Jackson [IMDb] (the latest installment reviewed here), set in New York (rather than London) and involving Greco-Roman mythology rather than the world of pre-Christian Celtic based witchcraft, in which the lead character is the Harry Potter-like (male) Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) with a Hermonine-like friend named Annabeth (played by Alexandra Daddario).

To this rather impressive list we now add the current film Divergent [IMDb] set in a post-Apocalyptic U.S.A. though largely in Chicago, Illinois (100 years after a devastating war plus attendant environmental catastrophe), the once average heroine being Beatrice / Tris (played by Shailene Woodley).

Further, neither did these stories simply share a "magical" or otherwise "fantastic" setting and basically the same "once average" hero or heroine.  ALL these YA (teen) oriented series included other common characters (archetypes) and themes:

For instance, in almost all the cases, the parents "didn't have a clue."  They weren't necessarily "bad" just largely outside the picture feeding again another kind of narcissism... that "nothing really existed before our time..." or, in the post-Apocalyptic variations of the story "the Past" was simply (and conveniently...)  "destroyed." 

Second, in every one of the teenage-girl oriented stories, there was a "dreamy" (often "shirtless" sometimes tattooed) slightly older (but appropriately so), _more experienced_ male heartthrob -- basically Jacob (played by Taylor Lautner) of the Twilight Series.   In the current film, Divergent [2014], the requisite slightly older, "more experienced" heart-throb Four (played by Theo James) keeps his shirt on through most of the film, but (MILD SPOILER ALERT) when he does take it off, he reveals ... one heck of a tattoo ;-). 

Now one could "lament" the potential "exploitative" nature of these films with (1) the authors / film-makers of these stories presuming to take-over the role of parents by marginalizing the parents of the fictional heroes of their stories and (2) more or less obviously (if somewhat "turn-about" amusingly ;-) pandering to the "lesser" (er ... "more lustful") "angels" of the predominantly teen-age girl audience that they are targeting.

BUT LETS ALSO BE FAIR: If these YA (teen)-oriented stories seem to target teenage girl readers (presumably because they read more than teenage boys) the YA (teen)-oriented stories targeted to boys are often based on comic books and video games and often involve heroines (where dressed) dressed head-to-toe in spandex/leather and toting machine guns spraying all sorts of "bad guys" with lead.   I've written about this as well, describing this black-leather clad heroine with a REALLY BIG GUN as basically "the Jungian Anima let out to play" (Sucker Punch [2011], Underworld Awakening [2012], Resident Evil: Retribution [2012], The Avengers [2012]).

ALL THIS IS TO SAY is to say that when a PARTICULAR CHARACTER TYPE or STORY-LINE starts APPEARING OVER AND OVER AGAIN that character type or story-line seems to have "STRUCK A CHORD" with the society's "Collective Unconscious" and it's going to remain there until the society gets tired of it.  So when does the society get tired of it?  Well, a good indication will be when it will cease to be to publish books / make movies ESSENTIALLY REPEATING THE SAME STORY (with minor variations).

MY SENSE IS THAT WE'RE NOWHERE NEAR THE END of the popularity of this "previously average young girl asked/forced by circumstance to do great things" story line BECAUSE ... HONESTLY ... RESTATED IN THOSE TERMS, THE STORY-LINE becomes almost a modern day "cinematic apparition of Mary" the humble handmaid of the Lord (Lk 1:38) who exclaims in the Magnificat:

     "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
     For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness,
     and behold, from now on all generations will call me Blessed.
     The Mighty One has done great things for me
     And Holy is is name..."
             -- Lk 1:46-49

In other words, "we've seen this before."  Indeed, in the horror / slasher movies of my youth, it was always "the Good Girl" (we used to honestly call her THE VIRGIN) who remains to defeat the monster.  How?  Often by "crushing his head" with? "her heel" (c.f. Gen 3:15, honestly look at the closing sequence of The Terminator [1984] ...)

FURTHER, if we RESTATE the STORY-LINE in this imagery EVEN THE HUNKY ("DREAMY") SHIRTLESS MENTOR FIGURE BEGINS TO GET INTERESTING ;-) -- He becomes AN "ANGELIC" PROTECTOR FIGURE.  Indeed, often times the heroine's relationship with this "angelic protector figure" becomes "complicated": In the Twilight series, though Jacob protects Bella (and then her daughter) she ends up with Edward.  The other "protector" figures are similar.  It's never an easy thing for there to be a relationship between the "Good Girl heroine" and her slightly more experienced "Protector."

SO THEN, AFTER ALL THIS, how does "the Good Girl who ... comes to do great things" fare in this variation?

Well first, "The Good Girl" (played by Shailene Woodley)'s given name is Beatrice (an evocative name as Beatrice was the name of Dante's inspiration in his Divine Comedy...).  Then in a post-Apocalyptic society that divides itself into five castes (called "Factions" in the story), these being -- The Erudites (the intellectuals, scientists), The Amities (the amiable, hippie-like "granola people" who do the farming for the society), the Candors (who are honest to the point of argumentative, hence the lawyers and judges of the society), the Dauntless (the "courageous" people of the society, hence their soldiers and police officers) and Abnegations (the self-less ... who give of up to the service of the rest) -- she's born into an Abnegation household.

We're told that at least originally, or up until the beginning of the story, the Abnegation caste was given charge of the government of the society.  (As they were deemed "self-less" they were seen as the ideal people to be in charge of making sure that the government / society was run right.

Interestingly, the Abnegations' self-lessness makes them makes them the most Priestly / religious-like of the factions (something noted also by the J. McAleer of the CNS/USCCB in his review of the film).

Well Beatrice (like the Biblical Mary...) is born into this governing / "priestly" caste (The Biblical Mary's uncle was Zechariah, a Priest at the Temple in Jerusalem)

But there are two plot points that have to be added here.

(1) The teenage Beatrice kinda finds the Abnegations' self-lessness "boring."  So when she comes to her "choosing ceremony" (basically the society's "rite of passage to adulthood" not altogether dissimilar _in effect_ to the Jewish Bar Mitzvah or the Catholic understanding of Confirmation ... after celebrating this Rite / Sacrament the person is considered "a full adult" in their respective (religious) societies) she _chooses_ another Caste (Faction) ... the far _cooler_ Dauntless faction.  It's kinda like "serving sandwiches at a parish soup kitchen" could seem to be "far more boring" to a teenager than "jumping out of a helicopter with the 82nd Airborne somewhere in Afghanistan ..."  The "service aspect" is "still there" but it seems so much "cooler" to "serve" with bravado ...

and (2) all other Factions AND IN PARTICULAR, THE ERUDITES (the intellectuals).are kinda resentful of the Abnegations  The other Factions don't really trust them, they don't really believe that the Abnegations are as "self-less" as they've claimed to be.  (Hmmm.... sounds familiar ... ;-).  Added to this is the Erudites' suspicion that the Abnegations are _breaking the rules_ by coddling and even _sheltering_ "the Factionless" (also called "Divergent" ... those who don't really fit into any particular Faction well).

Now it actually makes sense that the Abnegations, the "nice people," would have compassion toward, literally, the "misfits."  But the Erudites, who've come up with this Five Faction system of societal control are irritated.  And so, one of the esteemed professorial heads of the Erudite faction (played by Kate Winslet) tries to stage a coup against the "soft" Abnegations to keep the society "ideologically pure."  How to do that?  Well, Erudites are the society's scientists/intellectuals, not its soldiers.  HOWEVER, being 'the smart people' they can perhaps find means of manipulating the soldiers to do their bidding ...

So this inter-Factional friction is in the air throughout the whole of the story.  But this "big picture conflict" isn't all that's going on.  On the far smaller scale there's what's going on with Beatrice and her family.

Beatrice (played again by Shailene Woodley) takes her test a few days prior to her Choosing Ceremony and finds that unlike what she's been previously (that everyone is simply born/destined to become a member of one or another of the five Factions), SHE actually has aptitudes to fit into SEVERAL OF THEM (to some extent, SHE'S SPECIAL ... on the other hand, arguably, she's also VERY NORMAL as most of us have varied interests and abilities).  Now, in our society, Beatrice's versatility would not be seen as a problem, BUT IN HER SOCIETY IT WAS.  What to do?  The medical technician applying "The Test" to her, simply suggests that she CHOOSE "Abnegation" (she was born in that group) and "no one would know."  But ... it's clear that Beatrice would also "like to be more" than "just self-less"

So ... when she comes to her CHOOSING CEREMONY, Beatrice, SURPRISES MANY (and POSSIBLY disappoints her parents, good, again, basically self-less folk played by Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwin) when she CHOOSES to become a "Dauntless" (part of the "brave" warrior caste).

So after the Choosing Ceremony, she goes off with the crazy / "cool" Dauntless folk and her subsequent training ensues.  BUT ... Does she really fit there?  Again, her test showed that she could have fit into several of the Factions, including Dauntless but also Erudite (she was also quite bright) and, of course, Abnegation.  Since she could have been "many things," she wasn't necessarily "the best" or even "top caliber" in any of them.  What to do?  Well this is where her hunky, somewhat more experienced, (I'm suggesting) "angelic protector" Four (played by Theo James).  He's one of the Dauntless' training instructors (hence by definition "more experienced") and he helps her to "get by" / "make it through."

Okay ... she's more or less able to "make it through" as a Dauntless.  What happens now?

Go see the movie ;-)

Again, it's a very interesting story, and only Part 1 of 3 about a "young girl from humble beginnings ... called to do Great Things" ;-)


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Independent of Reality: The Films of Jan Němec

Recently Facets Multimedia here in Chicago hosted the retrospective Independent of Reality: The Films of Jan Němec currently touring North America.  Note that both Miloš Štehlík owner of  Facets Multimedia and I are of Czech descent.  I have fond memories of Facets Multimedia because my dad would drag our family there several times a year to see, one or another, often Czech but otherwise generally foreign film when I was young ;-). 
 
Jan Němec [IMDb] [CSFD]* was a key (then) young director in the "Czechoslovak New Wave" of the 1960s.  The movement, which grew out of the same creative foment that eventually produced the short-lived Prague Spring of 1968, gained international acclaim.  Over four straight years two Czechoslovak films won Best Foreign Language Picture awards at the Oscars -- Jan Kádár [IMDb] [CSFD]* and Elmar Klos' [IMDb] [CSFD]*  The Shop on Main Street (orig. Obchod na Korse) [1964] [IMDb] [CSFD]* and Jiří Menzel's [IMDb] [CSFD]* Closely Watched Trains (orig. Ostře Sledovaný Vlaky) [1966] [IMDb] [CSFD]*-- and two others were among the five nominated  for the award -- Miloš Forman's [IMDb] [CSFD]* Loves of a Blonde (orig. Lásky Jedné Plavovlásky) [1965] [IMDb] [CSFD]* and Fireman's Ball (orig. Hoří Má Panenko) [1967] [IMDb] [CSFD]*.   The movement was largely shattered with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.  The unabashedly brooding artistic (surrealistic in style) Jan Němec [IMDb] [CSFD]* and the still biting but more accessible (and subsequently commercially successful) Miloš Forman [IMDb] [CSFD]* ended up leaving the country while the others who remained faced renewed, often heavy handed censorship until the fall of the Communist regime in 1989.

So this then was a retrospective of Jan Němec's [IMDb] [CSFD]* work and if one likes art especially surrealistic art than this would be for you.  Indeed, I found that it took watching several of his films to "get into the groove" but once there ...

Of the films of shown in the retrospective, I saw the following:

          Pearls of the Deep (orig. Perličky na dně) [1966] [IMDb] [CSFD]* the title of which probably would be better translated as "Pearls from the Bottom" or "Pearls from the Muck."  The film is actually a composite of five vignettes, each directed by a different (then) young Czech director of the time.  Jan Němec [IMDb] [CSFD]* directed the second vignette entitled "Cheaters" or "BS-ers" (Podvodníci) about two elderly men in a nursing home trying to impress each other about how important they used to be.  The other vignettes are similar: about a motocross race that ends in a crash, about an insurance salesman trying to sell insurance to a simple villager who really doesn't care, about a somewhat sly young Gypsy woman trying to take advantage of a rather simple Czech young lad ... (yes, the last one is rather racist).  Uniting all the vignettes was their more or less obvious ugliness.  The film seemed to be both a response to both unabashedly sentimental films of similar structure like the lovely Italian film The Gold of Naples (orig. L'Oro di Napoli) [1954] and a challenge to the Communist regime which on one hand espoused a cinematic ideology of "socialist realism" and on the other hand insisted on portraying life in "liberated" Communist lands as being idyllic.  Hence "Pearls from the Muck" ...

          Oratorio for Prague [1968] where Jan Němec [IMDb] [CSFD]* already surrealistic in artistic direction finds himself LIVING HIS ART.  He started this DOCUMENTARY PROJECT documenting the PALPABLE JOY of his people FINALLY FEELING MORE-OR-LESS FREE (after DECADES of oppression) in the weeks BEFORE THE SOVIET INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA.  Then waking-up on August 21, 1968 to SOVIET TANKS IN THE STREETS, he ended up DOCUMENTING THE CRUSHING OF THOSE HOPES AND DREAMS.  The English voice-over (his?) in the documentary is PRICELESS because it is SO, SO SAD: "Look how happy these people were ... They had NO IDEA AT ALL that ALL OF THIS was going to DIE in a few weeks time ..."

          Martyrs of Love (orig. Mučedníci Lásky) [1967] [IMDb] [CSFD]* - If the ideology of "Socialist Realism" was about showing strong "empowered" young working class types "building things" and "achieving stuff," this film in three vignettes was about soft introspective artistic types dressed in anachronistic period garb too shy/awkward to "achieve" much of anything.  While baroque/surrealist in style, by the time one gets into the second vignette -- about "The Wall Flower" (Nástěnka) -- one should begin to "understand."

          A Report on the Party and the Guests (orig. O slavnosti a hostech) [1966] [IMDb] [CSFD]* - Probably Jan Němec's [IMDb] [CSFD]* most famous film as it had stunningly amusing distinction that it was BANNED THREE TIMES in COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA -- the first time in 1966 when it was made, the second time soon after the Soviet Invasion in 1968 (after a brief period earlier in the year when it was allowed to be shown).  The LAST TIME was just piling on.  Apparently in 1973 it was one of only four films that a Czechoslovak Communist commission empaneled for this task "BANNED FOREVER."  :-)

What the heck was the movie about that it drove the Communists so crazy?  Well it was surrealist story (again that term ...) about a group of eight picnickers who were having a nice quiet picnic in the countryside when they spotted a Wedding Procession.  What was it doing there?  Who knows... Anyway, they get up, change clothes, and decide to go to the Wedding Banquet.

Well, when they were still a long way off, they're in effect detained by the Son of the Banquet-holder and in various ways mistreated by him.  This mistreatment goes on for so long, that they begin to wonder if they'll ever make it to the Banquet.   At some point the Father comes up from the Banquet to see what's detaining his Son and sees that he's mistreating these Guests.  The Father apologizes to the Guests, Reprimands the Son and the proceeds to lead the Guests down to the Banquet.

'Cept that the Banquet is still actually quite far away and the Path is not exactly easy. Indeed it seems ridiculously far way, down a steep slope and just doesn't seem worth the trouble.  Still, being polite, the small group now dressed in Wedding Garb (women in heals ...) decide to descend to this Feast anyway.

They arrive.  It is Nice.  'Cept one of these eight guests, with apparently a "depressive personality," can't seem to get over the previous abuse that he had received at the hands of the Son above.  So tells his wife: "I want to go home."  His wife responds: "Don't be silly, we're finally here."  "But I really want to go home."  "Please don't embarrass me in front of my friends and all these other guests."  Still the socially awkward husband, still nursing that grudge against the Son, decides to leave.

For a while, all goes well, until either the Father or the Son discover that the ONE GUEST is missing (!)  And the Party comes to a halt.  "After ALL THAT WE'VE DONE FOR YOU, THIS IS WHAT WE GET?"  (Done what? Did we ask for "all this"? Etc)  So things get frozen for a while.  The guests try to convince the Father that the rest of them ARE GRATEFUL, and it kinda works for a while.

 Eventually, however, the Father just can't get past the reality that ONE of his guests CHOSE TO LEAVE  and this begins to bother the other guests as well.  EVENTUALLY they set out to FIND THE GUEST WHO HAD THE AUDACITY TO LEAVE and EVENTUALLY they decide to utilize the services of a BIG GERMAN SHEPHERD to try to "sniff him out."

Now WHY would THIS PARABLE (which actually is MORE OF A CHALLENGE TO TRADITIONAL CHRISTIANITY THAN COMMUNISM) drive the Communists so crazy?  Well, the actor playing "The Father" looked a lot like Lenin ;-).

But the PARABLE is actually a fascinating one, and I honestly found the movie on Amazon.com and bought it subsequently.

I find the film fascinating because IN ITS SURREALISTIC WAY it expresses well the argument that Carl Jung made decades before regarding the Christian Trinity (!)  In a celebrated article on A Psychological Approach to the Christian Trinity, Carl Jung argued that the Trinity is not complete.  In his article, Jung proposed two figures that would complete it: (1) Mary (a woman, human, material as opposed to the Trinity which has been traditionally understood as being Male, necessarily Divine and Spiritual) and (2) the Devil (the one who _chooses_ not to "belong").

Until I saw this film, I never really understood Jung's argument about "incorporating the Devil into the Trinity." ;-)  I THINK I DO NOW: Christianity (and really all ideologies) WILL NOT BE AT PEACE until they MAKE PEACE with those who (for whatever reason ... in the film it was simply a question of _temperament_) "don't want to belong."  If Christianity (or again ANY IDEOLOGY -- Communism, Islam, etc) would be able to make Peace with those who "just want to be left alone," then it (they) would finally have the ability to be at Peace with pretty much EVERYTHING (All That Is).

Putting it in Christian terms (and yes, this _hurts_ to some extent) -- The "Prodigal Son" will no longer have to "come home."  The Father could still love him (and PROBABLY DID, SINCE HE IS GOD) EVEN WHEN THE PRODIGAL SON IS "AWAY."

Fascinating that a "brooding Czech surrealist" could make such a sublime argument, but then Salvador Dalí's works were often clearly religious [1] [2] [3] ;-)

          Toyen [2005] [IMDb] [CSFD]* - a beautiful film made again in a surrealist style about Czech surrealist painter Marie Čermínová (a.k.a. Toyen) who sheltered her friend and fellow artist Jindřich Heisler, Jewish, IN HER FLAT in the (bohemian) Žižkov section of Prague DURING THE WHOLE OF THE NAZI OCCUPATION (an Anne Frank-like story THAT ACTUALLY TURNED OUT "SORT OF WELL") and then FLED WITH HIM TO PARIS when they had the "good luck" to sense that "the Curtain" was about to come down again.  Truth be told, Surrealism becomes a remarkably GOOD WAY to understand the Nazi Occupation / Communist Eras.  As Toyen apparently wrote in her journal, both were _shattering_ experiences... 

          Late Night Talks With Mother (orig. Noční Hovory s Matkou) [2001] [IMDb] [CSFD]* - Jan Němec's [IMDb] [CSFD] homage to fellow Praguer (if of a slightly earlier era) Franz Kafka as he wrote a work entitled "Letter to My Father."

All in all, I was honestly surprised at the depth of this "brooding surrealist's" work and I am grateful to the curators of this Retrospective for putting it together as well as to Miloš Štehlík's Facets Multimedia which continues to offer truly stunning cinematic programs to this fair city and to the world.


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Tricked (orig. Steekspel) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Cinema.nl (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
KinoZeit.de listing*

cinema.nl (R. de Gier) review*
Slant (N. McCarthy ) review

Tricked (orig. Steekspel) [2012] (directed and cowritten by Paul Verhoeven [IMDb], along with Kim van Kooten, Robert Alberdingk Thijm, story by Kim van Kooten along with the input of hundreds of Dutch contributors) is a fun "user generated" / "crowd-sourced" Dutch language (English subtitled) film that comes from the Netherlands that played recently at the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

The concept was this:  After announcing the project on Dutch TV, Paul Verhoeven, et al, placed the script, written by Kim van Kooten for first four minutes of what he promised would be a "user generated" / "crowd-sourced" film on a Dutch website called EntertainmentExperience.nl and ASKED VIEWERS to submit script suggestions for the next four minutes.  These script suggestions would be processed and harmonized to produce the script for the next four minute installment, which would be then filmed and played on Dutch TV / placed on the website again, with VIEWERS asked to submit script suggestions for the next four minutes.  A total of 8 iterations of this process would be performed.

According to the 30 minute documentary segment about the making of the film that preceded the 55 minute final product, Paul Verhoeven, et al, noted that they averaged over 700+ full 5 page script suggestions for each installment plus multitudes of additional comments / suggestions, concurrent video enactments (by other troupes) of the script thus far.  And turn-around between segments was kept to about one month.

The somewhat eyes-rolling review by Nick McCarthy of Slant Magazine noted that Paul Verhoeven, et al simply "reinvented" the creative process that already effectively (if not explicitly) goes into making of any number of contemporary television series.  Nevertheless the project received in 2013 an International Emmy Award (for digital non-fiction) presumably for its originality.

Conceding that the concept was kinda gimmicky, I nevertheless FOUND IT FUN.

Okay, so what was the setup to the story?

The film begins at the home of Remco (played by Peter Blok) the head of some Dutch architectural firm on his 50th birthday.  We're introduced to his 40-something somewhat suspicious/somewhat resentful but 'script playing' corporate wife Ineke (played by Ricky Koole), their two college aged / young adult children Leike (played by Carolien Spoor) who's kind of a lush (she's introduced to us sitting at the breakfast table kinda hung-over) and camera toting Tobias (played by Robert de Hoog) who's later imagined to be something of a perv.

Remco goes to work where we're introduced to two of his junior partners Wim (played by Jochum ten Haaf) and Fred (played by Peter Tiddens).  We hear about a project that their firm is involved-in in Dubai.  As Remco leaves the office later that afternoon he salutes the two "see you at the party."

Remco's birthday party takes place at his house.  It's what one would expect a Party like this to be.  It's part for "family and friends" and part "for show"/"business" and as would be typical of a party like this, it's not necessarily easy to separate the two groups.  So Remco's family is there but so are his business associates.  However, two guests prove somewhat surprising:

First, Leike's BFF Merel (played by Gaite Jansen) shows up.  Leike, already holding a bottle of ... whatever (white wine or champagne) ... opens the door: "Merel?" "I'm here for the party!" Leike (eyes rolling), "But it's for my dad...," Merel (bouncy and smiling), "It's a party!"

Second, a former junior associate, mid-late 20 something Nadya (played  by Sallie Harmsen), that no one has seen for the last 6 months but everybody (including somewhat suspicious, at times resentful but knows the game 'corporate wife' Ineke) had assumed that Remco had been previously <...>, shows-up and looking 8 months pregnant.

Okay, where to we go?  The rest of the movie follows ... ;-)

Given that a project like this would attract the young ... it should not be surprising that a fair portion of the user-generated plot that follows is kinda seamy.  Yup, Leike's a lush, her best friend Merel is kinda a (somewhat gold-digging?) slut, camera toting Tobias' kinda a perv and dad Remco needs to keep his zipper-up.

BUT ... PRODUCTION CONSTRAINTS -- each of the segments out of which the film is assembled is ONLY 4 MINUTES LONG -- actually require that these personal peccadillos be more signaled than dwelt upon.  The result is a rather efficient / fast moving and often very funny film.

Yes, this film is not Gone with the Wind [1939] or Citizen Kane [1941] but it isn't Beevis and Butthead [1993] or even one or another "reality shows" (e.g. Survivor [2000]) either.  Instead there is user-generated plot and humor in the film that I don't think would come simply from "a talented group of 5-6 writers" ANY "5-6 writers."

So while the film was not exactly "high browed," perhaps most resembling a "user generated" Dutch Gossip Girl [2007-2012], credit needs to be given where credit is due: This was certainly a fun project that actually produced a pretty good / funny young adult-oriented (R-rated) film.


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The Single Moms Club [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (D+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
TheSource (K. Lee) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Bentley) review
RE.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

BET coverage
Ebony coverage
Essence coverage
TheSource coverage

I want to give writer/director/actor Tyler Perry a hug.  Since beginning my blog, I have not only enjoyed but found positive value (often overwhelming positive value) in every film of his that I've reviewed here.   The current film, The Single Moms Club [2014] (written and directed by Tyler Perry) is IMHO signature Perry material.

Yes, the film is somewhat formulaic -- five single mothers from very diverse backgrounds are brought together to work on a project for their kids' school -- but if it is so, that's more a reflection of the distance that we still have to go as a society in coming to respect one another regardless of our background, than the fault of the writer/director's here.  Perry is showing us what would be possible, if we would _let go_ of a social pecking order that requires us to look down on others for reasons of race, class, luck ... so that we could "feel better" about ourselves.  And Perry ALSO shows us HOW DESPERATE AND LONELY WE ARE when we _choose_ to live our lives on such a slope, with people below us (and people above us...) with us trying "to keep our balance" or even "with our fingers clawing into the slope" in dire fear that we might be slipping down.

Indeed, at least 4 out of 5 women in this story appear terrified at the beginning of the story of _falling_ to a lower social class.

The film with Hillary (played by Amy Smart) a bewildered lawyer's ex, not yet realizing that her vindictive former husband is going to make her (and their daughter ...) pay for her having the audacity to challenge him (on what? we're really never told).  A year before she was "a lawyer's wife" living with a big house and with a maid ... Now she's going to be an lawyer's ex-wife living as small an alimony check as the law would allow.

Her long time (since at least college days)  friend Jan (played by Wendi McLendon) has long seen men as the enemy.  So she has purposefully sought to structure her life to be as "man free" as possible, to the point that she had a child (a girl ...) through artificial insemination some twelve years ago.  But it's not a man free world, and without a husband or at least a father of her child, she ironically finds herself at even a bigger disadvantage career-wise (in which she's really put all her aspirations) than if she had at least a lout of an ex.  At the beginning of the film, after 17 years at a publishing firm, she's FINALLY "up for partner" BUT her 12 year old (approaching her teenage years...) "has decided" to start acting-up ... IF THERE WAS A SECOND PARENT TO SHARE THIS "RITE OF PASSAGE" / BURDEN WITH, IT'D BE EASIER ... BUT THERE ISN'T ONE ...

Jan's desire to be "a success" DESPITE MEN, causes her to be brutally harsh to writers coming to the publishing firm in hopes of getting their manuscripts published, writers like African American single mom May (played by Nia Long) who works for "a local community paper" but like so many other such writers, despite responsibilities at work and at home (her ex, we find later, has a drug problem and together with him they have a 12 year-old boy) she dreams of perhaps "one day getting a book published."  But May's dream continues to depend today, at least in part, _on the mood_ of publishing AGENTS like Jan.  And interestingly IT'S THE AGENTS LIKE JAN (male or female) who in a "dog eat dog (publishing) world" CAN'T FAIL.  Jan _looks at May_ (and perhaps at her work...) and decides "this is too much of a risk (for ME)."

So Jan sends May off from her office packing, and BOTH have "appointments at school" (with regard to something that their kids have done) ... and to BOTH'S surprise ... THEY HAVE APPOINTMENTS AT THE SAME SCHOOL, AT THE SAME TIME (along with the other three (single) moms) over "bad behavior" that their kids have become involved with ... Two of the kids were caught "tagging" (spray painting with graffiti) a wall outside of school while three others were caught smoking.

The Principal tells the five assembled mothers: "Our policy is when the kids get in trouble, we try to get the parents involved.  There's a school dance coming up in 6 weeks ... Guess who we've decided is going to be the Committee to set-up the dance?"

"But we don't know each other?"  "Good.  You'll get to know each other now."

And thus we have the set-up of what becomes "The Single Moms Club" of the movie.

Now who are the other two moms?

Well there's Esperanza (played by Zulay Henau) whose husband, a upper-scale car salesman, left her "for a younger model."  To be sure, Esperanza, has found a new boyfriend too, BUT he's bartender in a restaurant (owned by his parents) a decent enough place (kind of "chain Mexican restaurant") but IT WOULD BE A STEP-DOWN economically from being _at least_ the ex-wife of a BMW salesman.

Finally, there's Lytia (played by Cocoa Brown) who has five kids.  The oldest two (as well as their father) are in jail.  The youngest two are in day-care and the middle one, 12-year-old Hakim (played by DeVion Harris) is in the (private) school with the others and Lytia is working as a waitress so that with whatever scholarships she can get for her son, her son can stay in that school.  And yes, there are neighbors who laugh at her, including the one who Lytia pays day-care to to take care of her two daughters: "You make less as a waitress than you could make being on welfare.  Why the heck do you do it?  Do you think you're better than us?"  (No ... she's doing this because she doesn't want her youngest son to end up in jail like his father and two older brothers ...)

So there, those are the five single moms of the story.  Yes, they are "from different backgrounds."  But thanks to being forced to work together by that Principal, as they start talking they realize that they have a lot in common.  Above all, THEY'RE ALL TERRIFIED ... THEY ALL FEEL that they are NOT "in control" of their lives.  And until they come together, they honestly don't know what would happen to them IF ... (fill in the blank...).

And interestingly enough, it's not like they hate men (not even Jan completely hates them ...).  BUT THEY ARE SCARED ... And part of the rest of the film is about getting them "less scared."

What helps them to become "less scared" is the _community_ that begins to form among them, and then A POSITIVE (WORTHWHILE) MAN coming among them.  Tyler Perry writes himself that role.  And it's not that his T.K. is rich (he's not).  But he has an honest job (he has "a lighting business" for stage productions) and he's _willing to wait_ for his interest (May) to "come to feel safe" around him.

Honestly, my hat off to the guy.  There would be / is some criticism (see above) that these women would "need men" at all.  But we _share_ this planet with each other.  So unless there is good reason to keep distance from someone (and not really knowing a person is a good reason ... for a while) the default position ought to be to _eventually_ let THE OTHER "in" (again, within reason / appropriately).

And this is because THE ALTERNATIVE would be to REMAIN FOREVER AFRAID and ALONE.  And honestly, I think Tyler Perry's often fundamentally religious message would be: God did not make us that way.


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The Fourth Partition / Czwarta Dzielnica [2013]

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

IMDb listing

The Fourth Partition / Czwarta Dzielnica [2013] (directed and cowritten by Adrian Prawica along with Rafał Muskała) is a locally made documentary that played to packed audiences at the recent 25th Annual Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago where it won a Discovering Eye Award for Emerging Artists.

The documentary is about the Polish American community in the United States, and above all, in Chicago at the turn of the 20th Century and then its contribution to the creation of the modern state of Poland.  Recently, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting the "South Side Premier" of the film here at Annunciata Parish on Chicago's South East Side to an audience of about 200 people.  Most of them were parishioners, the vast majority were from or descended from the Polish American community of Chicago's South Chicago Neighborhood (bordering the Steel Works nearby) that figured so prominently in the film.

The film makes the point that by the early part of the 20th Century, there were four million Polish immigrants living in the United States, a good portion of them settling in Chicago (which even today is home to more people of Polish descent than the Polish capital city of Warsaw).  These Polish immigrants settled in three key neighborhoods in Chicago: the "Polish Downtown" of Chicago's near North-Side anchored by the two churches St. Stanislaus Kostka (to this day the "Mother Church" of the Polish Community in Chicago) and Holy Trinity, and then The Back of the (Stock) Yards neighborhood on Chicago's South-West Side and tthe South Chicago neighborhood by the Steel mills of Chicago's Far South-East Side.  Both the The Back of the Yards and South Chicago neighborhoods had their key Polish Churches as well, in South Chicago they would have been St. Michael's, Immaculate Conception (both pictured in the film) as well as St. Bronislawa (which was not).

One of the outstanding features of this film was that its makers truly went to the right people to discuss each of these three neighborhoods.  In each case, they leaned-on historians who besides being of Polish American ancestry actually grew-up in the neighborhoods that they were asked to discuss: Victoria Granacki with regard to the old Polish Downtown, Dominic Pacyga of Columbia College with regard to The Back of the Yards and Rod Sellers of the S.E. Side Historical Society in regards to South Chicago.  Each explained what it was like to live in these neighborhoods in their heyday, Victoria Granacki talked about the rivalry that existed between the two anchor "Polish" churches of her neighborhood -- St. Stanislaus Kostka being the more religiously oriented parish, Holy Trinity being more nationalistic.  Dominic Pacyga talked about the smell associated with living quite literally "down wind" from the largest stockyards / meat processing facilities in the country at the time, Rod Sellers of flames and soot that hung-over South Chicago when the Steel mills were still rolling.  They talked of the taverns (and of the funeral parlors) that fought to place themselves as close as possible to the Steel Mills' / Stockyards' gates.  And they all talked of the generosity of those Polish immigrants both with regards to building those enormous Catholic Churches in their neighborhoods, and then supporting both with money and finally even with blood the independence aspirations of their countrymen that they left back home in Poland.  There were Polish American units in the U.S. Army during World War I that later transferred over to Poland after it gained independence (and had to defend that independence) in the years after that war.

The film-makers ultimate argument, encapsulated already in the title of the film, was that with so many Polish immigrants living in the United States at the time of Polish independence (already 4 million) this community could be called  Poland's "Fourth Partition," Poland having been (in)famously carved-up (partitioned) by Prussia, Russia and Austria over the course of the previous two hundred years.

The larger, more implicit point made by the film would be that EVEN TODAY IT SHOULD BE DIFFICULT to talk of Poland, especially in a cultural context (and perhaps even in a political context), without taking into account THE HUGE EXPATRIATE COMMUNITY and THE DESCENDANTS OF THOSE FIRST IMMIGRANTS / EXPATRIATES (as many as 22 million) living outside of its borders, AND THAT A SIMILAR POINT COULD BE MADE WITH REGARDS TO ALL KINDS OF OTHER EXPATRIATE/IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES AS WELL.  To my smiling Czech-descended ears, the Czech and Slovak communities of Chicago are explicitly mentioned in particular in the film.  However, the same argument could be made with regards to the Lithuanian community in the United States, THE IRISH, and even the Mexican, Puerto Rican, Filipino and Vietnamese communities with large presences in the States.  In recent weeks THE UKRAINIAN COMMUNITY in the United States, and again especially in Chicago, has been in the news... in regards to all the news that's been recently coming out of their home country).  On the flip side, truth be told, there's a large U.S. expatriate population now living all around the globe.  It all makes for an interesting argument in a world that is becoming more globalized by the year.

Needless to say, the film was very well received even immediately beloved here at my Parish.  There are technical issues that could be improved.  Some of the captions are of a font that was hard to read.  The names of the some of the historians interviewed in the film are only given at the end the film, rather than given when they first appear. 

But these are relatively small matters when compared to the larger triumph of this work.  We had the entire Polish American portion of our parish here ENORMOUSLY GRATEFUL that two local film makers proved interested in beginning to tell their story.  And many had suggestions for future projects:  What about the Polish American Community in Chicago during World War II and during the Solidarność Era?   What about simply life at the Steel Mills here?  I added that with all house blessings that we've done here over the years, that perhaps a good horror film of sorts could made out of those stories.  In good part I'm kidding of course, but there are certainly some very good stories here from among the parishioners of all ethnicities of our parish.

Since beginning this blog, I've always been a fan of "smaller works" and a booster of all things local.  The annual Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago is jewel here (as are the European Union Film Festival and the Black Harvest Festival organized annually by the Gene Siskel Center and Chicago's Latino Film Festival which is again one of the largest of its kind in the United States and organized annually by the Int'l Latino Cultural Center here).  None of this is an accident.  Centrally located on our continent, Chicago has been a cross-roads and a destination for immigrants, be they from Europe or from the South (Mexico or even Mississippi / Louisiana), for those looking for a better life.   So good job folks, good job.  I wish you well and certainly a film about Chicago's Polish Community during World War II and the Solidarity Era would be worth the view.


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Clownwise (orig. Klauni) [2013]

MPAA (NR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD listing*
FDB.cz listing*

Clownwise (orig. Klauni) [2013] [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed by Viktor Tauš [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*, screenplay by Petr Jarchovský [IMDb] [CSFD]*, story by Boris Hybner [IMDb] [FDB]*) is a bittersweet comedy coming from the Czech Republic (with collaboration of Finland, Slovakia and Luxemburg) that played recently at the 17th Annual European Union Film Festival held at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center.

The film's about a trio of  clown-actors -- Max (played by Oldřich Kaiser [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*), Viktor (played by Jiří Lábus [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and Edgar (played by Dedier Flamand [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*)  -- who "back in the day" (25 years ago) had a very successful act going by the name Busters before, for various reasons, parting ways.  In 1985, four years before the fall of the fall of Communism in Central Europe, Edgar had ditched the group as it was touring in Western Europe, settling down eventually in Paris, eventually finding himself a new, larger troupe Les Orphelins, and ... a new wife, Fabienne (played by Julie Ferrier [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*). The other two on returning back to Prague eventually parted ways as well. Viktor shacked-up with another clown-performer named Sylvie (played by Kati Outinen [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who had clearly become the love of his life and the two came to teach together at a performing arts school in Prague.  Max continued quite successfully with a solo career, eventually getting married as well to Marketa (played by Eva Jeníčková [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) some 20-25 years younger than he.  Together they've since had two small children, say 8-12 years old.  

Things would have continued in this way, with each of the three going on with their separate lives if not, after 25 years, Edgar and his wife Fabienne didn't decide to take their pantomime group to Prague.  And it made good business sense to plug that Edgar had been, "back in the day," perhaps "back in the cold days of Totalitarianism" a member of that successful trio called "Busters" which gave the people something to smile about.  'Cept ... of course there are a lot of loose ends.

For one it's been 25 years, and there TOTALLY DIFFERENT press now in Prague no longer concerned about toeing "Party lines" but, above all, "looking for dirt."  So after arriving in Prague with his troupe of French clown-performers, Edgar finds himself, all miked-up, in a very glitzy studio about to be interviewed for some "Entertainment Tonight" radio or television show ... by a 25 maybe 30 year-old "young whipper-snapper" of a reporter, who BEGINS his interview with Edgar with the question: "Well, when you left back in 1985, rather 'late in the game' in that (Totalitarian) Era, don't you think?"
          Edgar would no doubt like to reduce this pip-squeak to ashes: "IF YOU WEREN'T IN YOUR DIAPERS STILL IN 1985, YOU'D KNOW THAT THE 1980s right up to very days before those demonstrations in Wenceslas Square that brought about the Velvet Revolution in (November) 1989 were NOT exactly 'good years' in Communist Czechoslovakia."  INSTEAD, he responds, "Well you know it was complicated, there wasn't a lot of freedom, you never knew when you'd be allowed to travel outside the country again, etc ..."
          But the reporter persists: "Okay, but you were at the top of your career, okay perhaps plateaued, perhaps already in something of a decline.  But in the West, in FRANCE you were a NOBODY.  To be starting over at 45.  That must have been very difficult."
          "Well you know, that's a thing about us mimes, we speak each other's language." Good job Edgar, a zinger right back ... ;-).  "You can see it turned out okay."
          "Well, turning to your former colleagues from Busters.  Have you been in contact with them? Will we perhaps be seeing a re-uinon of you three on stage during one or another of Les Orphalins performances here in Prague?"
          "No, as a matter of fact, I haven't been in contact with my former colleagues here, but I imagine that they do keep-up with the news and know that I'm here now.  I do hope to see them during our tour here."
           "One final question, when you left in 1985, you left a wife and daughter here.  How's it been with them?  Do you plan to see them while you're out here?"
           "Okay, I'm done ..." Edgar slams his clip-on mike on the table and leaves the interview.

I told you that there were A LOT OF LOOSE ENDS...

Yes, Edgar has a former wife Anna (played by Taťjana Medvecká [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and a 30 year-old daughter Natalie (played by Ivana Uhlířová [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who hate him.  Natalie also has an 8 year old girl (Edgar's grand-daughter) who he's barely seen.  On the other side, he has his lovely and loving French wife Fabienne who he married since leaving Czechoslovakia, who honestly seemed to be good for him, seemed to understand him, and was all-but-born-to-play "a sad clown."

Then with regards to Edgar's former colleagues, their "parting" in 1985 was not good.  Indeed, given the nature of it, even if others might have sensed that Edgar was going to STAY (defect) in Western Europe at the end of their tour in 1985 (and perhaps even talked about it), when it actually came to pass it probably was improvised with the others standing in front of the hotel or at the train station asking each other: "Where's Edgar?" and later on their way home "What now?"

But both of Edgar's former colleagues are now also 25 years older, and other things are going on in their lives as well:

Max who married a woman 25 years younger than him, and now at, approaching 70 with two kids 8 and 12 years old, finds that he's come down with colon cancer requiring chemotherapy and eventually a colostomy ... Yes, he has a 45 year old wife, still managed to have two lovely kids, but now medically he may "no longer be able to get it up" and he's facing the reality that he's going to have to go around wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.

Then Victor, who shacked-up with (and possibly married ...) the clear love of his life, Silvie, and the two have been _happily_ teaching together for the better part of two decades in some performing art school in Prague is finding himself having to face the reality that Silvie, the love of his life, is no longer who she was before.  What's happened to Silvie?  To tell you would be an unfair SPOILER but ... it will break your heart as it is Victor's...

So these are three aging "Clowns" facing some really difficult times in the twilight, sunset years of their lives.  What to do?  If you can, see the movie.

I am of Czech descent, so I am biased ... but what a film!

ADDENDUM:

There is _one_ scene in the film that seemed "out of place," unnecessary, perhaps even a little offensive.   On the other hand, knowing something of Czech films, it may have been put purposefully there to provoke (discussion).

In the scene the two young children of Max (the one who's approaching 70 and has been diagnosed of having colon cancer) find themselves in a Church and they walk around.  The little girl says: "Wow look at this guy all shot up by arrows."
            Her brother answers: "He's Saint Sebastian, that's how he died, shot up by arrows."
            "But by whom?  A bunch of Indians?"
            "I'm not sure, maybe."
            "Hey, since we're here, shouldn't we say a prayer for our dad?"
            "Why?  Look at how all these Saints ended up..."

Kids it's precisely because we all eventually have to die that it's a nice thing to pray to God about our needs.  Because our destiny is NOT here on this earth.  We will all eventually leave it.  Our destiny is actually with God, our Creator, who made us in the first place.  We're here only to learn ... and mostly perhaps to just learn this: to love God and then hopefully each other.


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

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The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

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

The single biggest problem with The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] (directed and cowritten by Wes Anderson along with screenplay by Hugo Guinness, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig [IMDb]) for someone like me (of Czech extraction, hence from exactly the part of the world where this film was to have taken place) IS THE FILM'S TIMELINE:

And while I suppose I should thank Wes Anderson, et al that they didn't go "the full Borat [2006]" route, the very setup of the film betrays an obvious and continued (and I do suspect at least partly willful) Western "disinterest" in that (my family's ...) part of the world.  And it actually would not have taken much to get it right ...

So what the heck am I complaining about?

Well as the title suggests, the films about the former "going-ons" in the inter-war years (1918-1939) at the "Grand Budapest Hotel" (Budapest being the capital of Central Europe's Hungary) set somewhere in the "Sudeten Alps" (the Sudeten Mountains making the border of the Czechlands/Bohemia with Austria and Germany, the Alps crossing over much of Austria and sloping down into Slovenia) in a fictitious "Republic of Zubrowka" (a Polish sounding name) with a nascent Fascist leaning government (again could be Poland, Hungary, Romania, perhaps Croatia) and whose soldiers/police officers were still wearing basically pre-WW-I Hapsburg-era Austria-Hungarian uniforms.  UP UNTIL THIS POINT, I HAVE TO SAY THE SETUP IS BRILLIANT.  If one's going to invent a country FROM THAT BETWEEN WARS ERA IN THAT PART OF THE WORLD, THIS IS HOW ONE WOULD DO IT.

What I object to is what follows.  The story is being told to an English traveler/writer (played by Jude Law) who visits the since declined hotel in 1968 (!) and again in 1985 (!) by the (by 1985...) aging PROPRIETOR of the hotel, Zero Moustava (played as an old man by F. Murray Abraham) who (mild SPOILER ALERT) in the hotel's 1930s "heyday" had been one of the hotel's lowest ranking staff members, the concierge M. Gustave's (played BRILLIANTLY by Ralph Fiennes) "lobby boy" (played by Toni Revolori).

My question is: WHERE in Eastern/Central Europe could this Hotel have been when in 1968 or 1985 Zero Moustava would have still been able TO OWN IT?   The ONLY conceivable place where Moustava could have continued TO OWN that hotel would have been in Austria (It's the ONLY of the above mentioned countries that WASN'T COMMUNIST at the time) and then it's almost certain that the Hotel WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CALLED THEN "GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL" ...

Now there would have been SIMPLE WORK-AROUNDS to resolve this rather KEY HISTORICAL PROBLEM:

(1) The English writer could have met the older Zero Moustava IN EXILE, perhaps as a proprietor of a small hotel on Italy's Adriatic coast, or perhaps an owner a nice central European restaurant be it in a "Grand City" like London, Paris or New York, or more likely in a smaller more ethnic one like in New Jersey, Ohio or yes EVEN IN CHICAGO (lots of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, even ... Ukrainians here ...)

or (2) The English writer COULD HAVE ENCOUNTERED the older Zero Moustava STILL WORKING AT THE DECLINED "Grand Hotel Budapest" run in 1968 / 1985 by some State controlled "workers' collective" AS PLACES LIKE THIS WERE ACTUALLY RUN (and MANY would say RUN BADLY, RUN INTO THE GROUND...) DURING THE COMMUNIST ERA IN ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED COUNTRIES.

In both cases, the 30s-era story still would have worked, but the rest of the film would have been MUCH MORE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE.

There are actually at least two films that use that second option to tell their stories.  The first is Bernardo Bertulucci's The Last Emperor [1987], about the last emperor of China who was born to be emperor but (in the film) ended up living-out the closing years of his life (during the Communist Era) as part of the grounds-keeping staff of Beijing's "Forbidden Palace" where he had once lived.  The second is a Czech dramedy entitled I Served the King of England [2006] that both made its rounds in the West a number of years ago and traverses much of the same ground as Wes Anderson's current film, but remembers that all these "grand places" were confiscated by the Communists when they took power in these countries.

And I make this criticism as an otherwise fan of this film and of Wes Anderson's other works like The Royal Tannenbaums [2001] and Moonrise Kingdom [2012] all dead-pan comedies with great ensemble casts.

So after this rather extended criticism on what to many Americans/Westerners would certainly seem "a rather small matter" (but to us, who're originally from there ...) what then is this film about?

It's about "a lost era" -- between the wars Central Europe -- and about this grand concierge M. Gustave (played again EXQUISITELY by Ralph Fiennes) who in the aging Zero Moustava's (played again by F. Murray Abraham) estimation helped make that era "Great" and worthy of being lamented now that it is gone.

So what make M. Gustave, grand concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel so great?  Well by the time he arrived at the level of being the grand concierge for the hotel, he had been perfectly groomed for the job.  He knew the hotel, he knew the clients, he (as he explains to new his "lobby boy" in training ... Zero Mustava as very young man) anticipated his clients' wishes EVEN BEFORE THEY WERE ABLE TO ARTICULATE THEM.  Hence the Grand Budapest Hotel, though nestled in the mountains, ran like the smoothest of ships where EVERYTHING RAN PERFECTLY and absolutely EVERYONE from the richest, most pedigreed of clients _to the lowest of the staff_ was happy and indeed PROUD to be there. 

Well, to make so many people, especially the clients so happy, M. Gustave had to schmooze the ladies, especially the older ladies, which it turns out, he did quite gladly, and from which the rest of the story unspools:

One of the rich old ladies, a certain Madame D. (played by a remarkably "age-ified" Tilda Swinton) who he had been schmoozing and, it turns out, sleeping with -- "But she was 84!" exclaims the young, neophyte "lobby boy" Zero.  "Oh, I've had older," responds the nonchalant, this is the way the world works M. Gustave -- dies and leaves him an odd but surprisingly valuable painting ("Boy with Apple") in her Will.

Well, Mde D.'s oldest son and principal heir Dimitri (played by Adrien Brody) is not amused and the rest of the story involving still 30s-era police inspectors (one played here by Jeff Goldbloom), private eyes (one played here by William DeFoe), other grand concierges from other Grand Hotels (one played here by Bill Murray) plays out.  There's even a young "humble but pure" love interest for the young "lobby boy" Zero named Agatha (played by Saouirse Ronan).  With this set of characters and others, both large and small, much indeed can / does happen.

It all makes for a grand and worthy-to-tell tale.  I just wish that they got that little (if IMHO significant to KEY) above mentioned point of history right.  Otherwise, we really _can't_ understand _why_ places like these did "decline."


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