I Wish (orig. Kiseki) [2011]

MPAA (PG)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650453/
Roger Ebet's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120530/REVIEWS/120539998/1023

I Wish (orig. Kiseki) written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda is a lovely, gentle Japanese film (subtitled into English) about two young brothers, separated, each living with one parent, as their parents divorce.  Twelve year-old Koichi (played by Koki Maeda) now lives with their mother Nozomi (played by Nene Ohtsuka) who returned to her parents (played by Isao Hashizume and Kirin Kiki respectively) to the smaller, more provincial town that she was from, while the younger brother Ryonosuke (played by Ohshirô Maeda) stayed with their father Kenji (played by Jô Odagiri) in a bigger city.

Both boys have adjusting to do, but the older brother (perhaps because he had to move, perhaps because he was simply older and knew better what was going on) has had a harder time of it.  The two talk occasionally by phone as they do with their parents.

The two boys finally decide to meet at a uniquely modern "auspicious time:" A new bullet train line was going to be inaugurated that was going reach for the first time the provincial town that Koichi and their mother had returned to and this was a real big deal for that town.  (Presumably the larger city where Ryuonosuke was living in with their father was already connected to the web of Japan's bullet-train lines).  The two brothers decide to meet somewhere along the line between their two towns to watch the bullet trains pass by.  Between them and their friends they came up with a story that if they spotted two of these bullet trains pass by each other, they would approach each other with such speed that ... anything could happen and therefore any wish that they could wish for ... would come true.

The rest of the movie becomes planning with each others' friends how they would meet to watch those bullet trains go by.  To an American like me, it seems fascinating that Japan would appear so safe that the parents of a dozen or so 10-12 year olds would allow them to travel by themselves to a midpoint between these two towns and even spend the night there (okay at one of the 10-12 year old's grandparents -- but at least one group of those kids wouldn't have even known the grandparents) to watch these two bullet trains pass-by.  But, well, that appears to be Japan...

When they do see the two trains pass-by, the kids do wish for all kinds of things that one could imagine a 10-12 year old to wish for.  Koichi publicly wishes that a nearby just volcano would blow-up and force him and his mother to move back to the larger city where his father and younger brother live.  Privately he'd settle for his parents to getting back together.  Well do they?  What do you think?  How would you end a movie like this?  How do you think writer/director Hirokazu Koreeda does?  Guess ;-)

Walking too Fast (orig. Pouta) [2009]

Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD.cz listing - [Cz orig / Eng Trans]

Walking too fast (orig. Pouta) directed by Radim Spaček [CSFD, Eng-trans] screenplay by Ondřej Štindl played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of the 2012 New Czech Films Tour organized by the Czech Film Center and the Czech Consulates in Chicago and New York.  (The tour promises to visit 8 major cities in the United States including New York, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Washington D.C. and Seattle).

Note to readers: As many of you would know from previous reviews, I am of Czech descent.  However, it's in good part on account of the legacy of Czechoslovakian film-making, notably that of the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s (that arguably helped bring about the Prague Spring in 1968 and the subsequent Soviet invasion to crush it) that I grew-up in a family that enjoyed and talked about movies.  Further since the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989 in the Velvet Revolution (led in large part by artists), Prague has become not just home to a native film industry but a favored location for Hollywood film-making.  Tours like this, no doubt, are promotional attempts by the Czech government / film-industry to keep things this way.  Still, Czech-American though I am, I do believe that the Czech and Slovak film industries objectively do have a legacy worth indulging and so ... on with the review here ;-)

Walking too fast (orig. Pouta), a winner of three Czech Lions [CZ, Eng-Trans] (the Czech equivalent of the Academy Awards) is set in Czechoslovakia during the later part of the Communist era.  The film is a study of the effect of power on even the individual police officers tasked with maintaining an authoritarian regime _and_ the limits of power in any case.

Antonín (played by Ondřej Malý [CSFD, Eng-trans]) an ethnic Czech, who nonetheless had been born in the countryside prior to moving to the city (presumably Prague) is a member of the State Security Service, the StB [CZ, Eng-Trans].  Along with his Slovakian partner Martin (played by Lukaš Latinák [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) who thus was also presumably not from Prague but grew-up in the more rural eastern, Slovakian part of the country, are tasked with watching Tomáš (played by Martin Finger [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) a not particularly important dissident writer.

It's rather boring work.  Yet both Antonin and Martin certainly believe in the value/importance of what they are doing.  They've been told by their higher-ups that they are doing this for the good of the working class / nation and they believe it.

Indeed, both Antonin and Martin resent Tomáš.  After all, they both came from the countryside, both had "honest jobs" in their minds (and in the ideology that they were sworn to defend) defending other "honest working people" from hippie/elitist purposefully unemployed "parasites" like him. For Tomáš is unemployed because as a dissident -- one opposing the regime -- he can't hold a job in his declared profession, writing (The Regime won't publish his writings, because he's choosing to write things opposed to the Regime).  But he's not working anywhere else, instead choosing to take the lowest possible state-mandated dole.  (In American terms, he's "on welfare.")  In one of the scenes in the movie, the two pick-up Tomáš and drive him to a quarry at the outskirts of the city and briefly dump him outside of it telling him: "Why don't you take a real job among those who work here?"  But as a dissident, he's arguably "striking," holding-out for the right to write (and have published) what he pleases.  So there's the battle ...

Note here: Actually most dissidents did work, usually doing the most menial jobs in society.  The future Cardinal Miloslav Vlk [CZ, Eng-Trans], for instance, worked as a window washer for years during the Communist dictatorship.  The future President of the Republic, playwright Václav Havel, stoked furnaces.  Other dissidents washed toilets of the Prague subway systems.  This was not by choice, but rather pretty much the only jobs that they were allowed to do.  (And yet, they had to work somewhere, so as _not_ to be labeled "parasites").  So it might be an exaggeration that Tomáš would have done nothing or have chosen to do nothing.   However, from the point of view of the enforcers / "believers" of the Communist system, dissidents were basically spoiled "ingrates" who refused to appreciate "all that the Socialist paradise was giving them.")

However, what really sets Antonin off is that this (again, in his mind) lazy, no good, elitist parasite, Tomáš, finds himself a girlfriend, a young rather attractive Slovakian transplant (again presumably from the countryside) named Klára (played by Kristína Farkašová [CSFD, Eng-trans] who's working in a factory in town.  What does she see in him?  Besides, that low-life purposefully unemployed elitist writer already has a strikingly beautiful and doting wife while he chooses to "play dissident!"  And it's true, Silvia (played by Barbora Milotová [CSFB, Eng Trans]) is holding the family together, working (if I remember correctly in a school as either a teacher or a nurse), and taking care of their kids, while the unemployed Tomáš "plays dissident" and now even cavorts with a cute red-headed Slovakian factory-worker who has to be 10-15-20 years younger than he is.  How could that be?  Why should that be?  Yet such have been artists, writers and musicians across all the ages -- often penniless, difficult to live with and to a _lot of people_ seemingly unbearably lazy.  Yet across the ages, they've _always_ been ... attractive.  How is _that_ fair? ;-)

So Antonin decides that he's not going to let this stand.  After all, he may be a short, balding, 40+ year old and actually also with a kind, soft-spoken, lovely and doting wife (played by Monika Fingerová).  But Antonin's comparing himself to the "lowlife" Tomáš.  It's HE, Antonin, who has an "honest job" and "a badge."  And yes, his particular kind of badge (he works for State Security) gives him an awful lot of clout.  No one, and I mean, NO ONE in his/her right mind would challenge his authority when he's carrying _that kind of a badge_ (for fear of getting themselves needlessly in trouble with "State Security"...)  But then is that kind of power _enough_ to "get the girl"?  And once he starts using his power for personal ends ... what happens to whatever "honesty" was in his work?  Welcome to the rest of the movie...

It all makes for a fascinating movie, and to be honest, as I've written this review, I've probably gotten more "into the head" of Antonin than I'm particularly comfortable with.   And truthfully, the film does not portray the moral life of the dissidents particularly well either.  On the other hand, that's the beauty of freedom.  In freedom, the hope is that one can truly tell a story that's truly painted in shades of grey.


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Prometheus [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  Roger Ebert (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/
CNS/USCCB's review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv066.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120606/REVIEWS/120609989

Prometheus (directed by Ridley Scott, written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof) is certainly a grand (at times grandiose) film that follows very much the style/conventions of both high science fiction and Scott's own films.

With regard to following long-standing the conventions of Sci-Fi film-making, Prometheus pays obvious homages to preceding films, notably to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] and then to Ridley Scott's [IMDb] own Alien [1979, 1986, 1992, 1997] as well as Blade Runner [1982] films.

The opening sequence of the Prometheus featuring a large gray (though very muscular) humanoid alien treading on an apparently still lifeless but already well watered planet harkens back to the opening sequence of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddysey of a group of excited apes apparently encountering some alien presence.  Further, the presence in Prometheus of a not altogether friendly (robotic) android named David (played masterfully by Michael Fassbender) who accompanies and (as programmed) nominally if _resentfully_ "helps" the human crew on the space-ship/expedition named Prometheus is a further more or less obvious homage to 2001's HAL [IMDb].  David could further be compared/contrasted with StarTrek: The Next Generation's [IMDb] android character named Data IMDb] who seemed far better adjusted in his relations with humans than David appears.  (But then the StarTrek franchise has generally had a far more positive outlook with regard to the future than the far more dystopian visions portrayed in many sci-fi films, those of Ridley Scott being perhaps emblematic sci-fi's cinematic "dark side.")

Then two thematic concerns in Ridley Scott's [IMDb] previous sci-fi films -- life's "will to survive"/"propagate" portrayed in the Alien series and "search for one's maker" present in Blade Runner -- are present here.   While over the years, the Alien series' treatment of reproduction, presented as almost monstrous (the Alien monsters in the series of films follow a truly bewildering number of pathways to reproduce and all at the expense of other lifeforms), should probably give the Catholic pause, the CNS/USCCB's review focuses on (and IMHO rather unthinkingly condemns) the current film's suggestion that life on earth could have come (perhaps by means of Aliens) from somewhere else in the universe.  This rather reflexive condemnation of the possibility of life coming to earth from elsewhere (and even perhaps, but _not_ necessarily guided by intelligent essentially good (angelic) and/or essentially bad (demonic) Aliens rather than directly by God, Creator of All) seems _to me_ to carry the same flaws in thinking as the knee-jerk condemnations by many literalist American Protestant denominations of Evolution.

Is the Catholic Church, which has famously _refused_ to condemn Evolution, heading in a direction in which we'll soon be stuck in the same "God had to create the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th because the Bible tells me so" (never mind that the poetic imagery of the six day creation story of Genesis 1 may have only sought to express that God created the world/us in a planned purposeful way) coul de sac that our least educated "Solo Scriptura" Protestant brothers and sisters have chosen to place themselves in?   Honestly with all the educated minds in the Catholic Church, both now and across the centuries (we were the ones who built Europe's first Universities, the Jesuits (as well as the nuns) in particular maintain a world-wide network of state-of-the-art universities across the globe, and folks from Copernicus, to Mendel, to Tielhard de Chardin, to Karl Rahner to heck, even Martin Luther, were _all_ Catholic religious), are we honestly going to turn back from asking tough questions (and respecting the answers) now?   There was ONE TIME and only ONE TIME when the Catholic Church chose to impose its will on Truth in defiance of the results of scientific inquiry.  That was in the case of Galileo at the dawn of the use of the scientific method (which Galileo arguably invented, hence wasn't even widely known let alone accepted at the time) and the Catholic Church has been apologizing for its ONE OVER-REACH in such matters ever since.

Returning to the story ... ;-) ... Prometheus is about an expedition, set 100 years into the future, in search of our possible Creators.  Near the beginning of the film, some previously unknown cave drawings were found somewhere in Scotland a few years before the expedition is assembled.  (According to the story) the cave drawings prove to be more explicit than anything found previously as to the location from where supposedly such Creator beings (called in the film, "The Engineers") had come.  A rich, but sick/elderly industrialist named Peter Weyland (played by Guy Pierce) organizes an expedition to an earth-sized moon orbiting a planet belonging to the star system depicted in the cave drawings.  He does so in part because of the quest and in part hoping that if these beings created us, they could perhaps fix him.

The expedition, traveling by means of a scientific vessel called the Prometheus after the Greek God who helped humanity by giving it fire, arrives at said earth-sized moon only to be disappointed.  Though with an earth-like atmosphere, the planet appears totally uninhabited.  Soon, however, they find an pyramid-like structure, which they then descend to the surface to investigate.  Much, of course, ensues ...

Even as all this is "ensuing," as in the case of many other Sci-fi films, the actual action isn't as important as the various characters' motivations and interactions in what was unfolding.  Peter Weyland motivations though somewhat conflicted are rather easy to grasp.  He was being simultaneously altruistic and selfserving -- financing this trip in part out the sheer coolness of the mission (seeking reach the folks who may have made us) and in hopes that our would be creators could perhaps help him.  The chief scientist on board, Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace) explicitly a Christian believer sincerely hopes to meet God or at least those who would have created us on behalf of God.  Her more skeptical boyfriend Charlie Hollaway (played by Logan Marshall-Green) as well as David the Android (played by Michael Fassbender) make fun of her faith throughout the film BUT SHE MORE THAN HOLDS HER OWN.   The rest of the crew, including ship's icy captain Meribeth Vickers (played by Charlize Theron) and her more amiable helmsman Janek (played by Idris Elba) as well as some of the other lesser experts/engineers on the expedition are less than enthusiastic or ambivalent about the mission, fearing honestly for their lives (not unlike apparently the crews on Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Americas).

David the the Android, indeed, is a fascinating character in all this because unlike the humans on this ship, HE KNOWS HIS "MAKER" (humanity, us ...) and he's both unimpressed (he's smarter, far more capable than any of us) and resentful (despite that he's programmed to serve us anyway).  So he doesn't particularly understand why people like Peter Weyland or Elizabeth Shaw would be so keen on finding their makers, and more or less openly snickers (as much as an android could snicker) when the "Engineers" (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS) who may have been responsible for our Creation turn out to be something other than we would have hoped/expected.

Be all this as it may ... when the human expedition reaches the largely desolate earth-sized moon and the apparent pyramid artifact built there, it begins to explore the region around and within the pyramid.  To their dismay, they find that "the Engineer" race that they had been looking for appeared to be (largely?) extinct.  And to their horror, they find some rather vicious and slimy octopus/snakelike creatures there.  What were these strange, apparently unintelligent but certainly driven/vicious creatures?  What happened to "the Engineer" race?   As is often the case with regards to Voyages of Discovery (remember Columbus again...) the expedition/viewers are soon left with more questions than when they had when they arrived.

This film has been billed as a prequel to the Alien series, by the end of the film, some of this becomes to be clear.  However, it is obvious that there is room for several more films to both tie-up the connection between Prometheus and the first Alien movie and to develop the direction that Ridley Scott's [IMDb] and the other makers of the film wish to take the audiences with regard to humanity's possible origins and how these origins could fit together with regard to our previous belief systems.

So perhaps here the CNS/USCCB's warning (though condemnation??) is somewhat appropriate -- Ridley Scott's [IMDb] and the script writers are "playing jazz" (exploring the implications) here with regard to a couple of strands of popular thought -- Intelligent Design as explanation for human/the world's/universe's origins and Ancient Alien Theory.  It should go without saying that these _very difficult_ to prove musings should be approached with large grains of salt.

Still, I've long appreciated that one of the possibilities with regards to Intelligent Design at least with regard to the origins of life on earth / humanity's origins is that God need not have _directly_ created either life on earth or humanity.  Life created/coming to existence elsewhere _could_ have arrived to earth by means of bacteria/spore carrying meteorites.  And yes, life growing on earth _could have been manipulated_ by intelligent aliens who would have been clearly "less than God" but perhaps acting in some way according to God's plan (as the film's character Elizabeth Shaw understood as well).  If today we can make a glow-in-the-dark rabbit by adding genes of jellyfish to the egg of a rabbit, there is no reason why a postulated intelligent alien race could have conducted similar manipulations with us or otherwise earthly life a "long long time ago ..."  Again, these are now _scientifically possible_ musings if presently all but _unprovable_ ones.

Finally, a note to parents.  While I think that some of the horror scenes in this film are probably simply too intense, slimy and, yes "gross" for young children, I do believe it okay for most teenagers.  There may be some questions of bad language (I often have a tin ear for this, but I live and work on the South East side of Chicago ...).  The main couple in the film Elizabeth Shaw and her boyfriend Charlie apparently sleep together in the film (not shown, but something which becomes important as the film plays out ...).  Keeping these language and implied sexuality concerns in mind, I nonetheless would think that a teen/young adult would find the film's musings and their implications very, very interesting.  All in all, with parental consent, I'd recommend the film to high school teens and above.

ADDENDUM -- I would remind readers here, that I've been very impressed over the past several years with the Science Channel's television series Through the Worm Hole with Morgan Freeman.  Like any as yet incomplete television series, that series could "go off the deep end" sometime in the future.  However, some of the questions explored in this film have been discussed in a more sober way there.  It would behoove Catholics especially our younger ones to "take a look."  Otherwise, honestly we are going to find ourselves _needlessly_ being left in the dust.  Over 100 years ago, the Vatican, which could have chosen to put its head in the sand and "fear for the the best," instead chose to be brave and created the Pontifical Biblical Commission.  Today, Catholic Biblical scholarship is second to none and we don't fear Evolution or the developments in Historical-Literary Criticism as a threat to our faith.  PLEASE LETS NOT CHOOSE TO PUT OUR HEADS IN THE SAND NOW.


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Moonrise Kingdom [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748122/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv079.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120530/REVIEWS/120539997/1023

Moonrise Kingdom (directed and cowritten by Wes Anderson along with Roman Koppola) is a gentle, stylized nostalgia piece set largely around a scout camp in the early 1960s on a small island (one imagines) somewhere just off the coast of Maine (or otherwise in the North Eastern United States).  The dialogue/performances are very earnest/deadpan even if as a result they often become very funny.   There's a star studded cast which includes Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand. Willis in particular shines (softly) in a surprising role (for him) of playing a soft-spoken widowed policeman tasked with patrolling the island, and even if on an island that's "at the edge of the world" he's largely unnecessary, keeping it safe.

The story that plays out is largely driven by two twelve year olds: Sam Shanowski (played by Jared Gilman) an orphan in foster care, who's on the island for an extended summer camp and Suzy Bishop (played by Kara Hayward) who lives on the island with her parents Walt and Laura Bishop (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand respectively) and brood of rather annoying younger brothers in a nice but rather isolated two story house.  The house stands next to the island's light house presumably far from everybody else living on the island.  Though living in this house at the edge of an island already at the edge of civilization, both of the elder Bishops were apparently lawyers.  So when they talked to each other, they tended to talk to each other in legalese.

There's clearly a lot of symbolism present in all this.  Consider that while Shanowski is presumably on the island for "summer camp," the filming is intentionally taking place in October (there's explicit mention of the time of year in the film and the leaves on the trees are all turning color and falling down) long after summer should have been over.  Then Suzi's parents were vested in three or even four layers of Authority -- first as Parents, then as parents of a family carrying the last name of Bishop, then presumably tending to the operation of the island's Light House (whose job is to shed Light on matters that would otherwise be hidden in Darkness) and finally both being Lawyers -- even as these super-authority figures have chosen to live out at the edge of nowhere and thus being authorities over no one except perhaps over their children... Indeed, both of these authority figures have issues of their own.  Walt drinks and Laura flirts with the island's policeman, the widowed Capt. Sharp (played by Bruce Willis).

Laura, seeing this dysfunction, even at 12 wants out.  Shanowski, with issues of his own (from losing his parents to having apparently a rather bad situation back in foster care during the rest of the year) wants out as well.  So after having briefly met the year before (the last time Shanowski was on the island) also for "camp", they apparently corresponded with each over the course of the year that followed, and given the chance now ... at the end of the summer a year later ... they decide to "fly the coop," (as Shanowski's kindly if rigid / somewhat "out of his depth" scout master Ward (played by Edward Norton) called it).  Much ensues ...

From the above explanation of the setup to the movie, it should be clear that while this movie is largely about two 12-year olds, it's really intended far more for adults rather than kids.  It gives adults, especially those who did spend a few summers at "camp,"  a chance to reminisce about both "simpler times" (as I kid I spent parts of three summers in scout camp, so it was nice to be given the opportunity to reminisce about those times again) and perhaps about times that weren't really so "simple."  Still, I would imagine that if I were a 12-year old watching this movie, I would be bored.  So keep this in mind while you decide whether you'd like to see this film.  However, if you are an adult and had spent a part of a summer or two in a scout camp (or perhaps even if you grew-up in the North East) then you might really enjoy this film.


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Small Beautiful Moving Parts [2011]

MPAA (Unrated)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb Listing -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1746242/

Roger Ebert's Review -

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120530/REVIEWS/120539994/1023

The first thing to know about the small, independent film Small Beautiful Moving Parts (written and directed by Annie Howell and Lisa Robinson) playing at Chicago's Facets Multimedia Theater between June 1-7, 2012 is that it is actually a feature-length film born of a remarkably creative web-tv series called Sparks.  The film and series follow the life of Sarah Sparks (played in both the web-series and in the film by Anna Margaret Hollyman) a late-twenty something turning thirty something woman living in New York City with her boyfriend Leon (played again in both the web-series and in the film by Andre Holland).

What makes Sarah's character fresh/interesting is that she describes herself as having a gift of "relating well to technology" even as she admits (and the viewer soon sees) that she probably relates better to technology than to people.  Thus she makes for an interesting character as many/most of us would know a person or two who would seem similarly gifted/challenged.  Perhaps what makes her even more interesting is that Sarah is a young woman rather than a more stereotyped "male geek."  So more can perhaps be done with her character than with a male one.

The purpose of the feature-length film after the release at least six episodes in the web-series appeared to present a bit of Sarah's back-story.  How did she become the person that she's become?  Well, a good place to start would be with her family.

Finding herself pregnant, she finds herself characteristically quite ambivalent about it.  When her pregnancy test comes out positive, she seems more interested in the font of the digital display declaring her "pregnant" than in the fact that indeed she's expecting ("That's a remarkably nice font for a throwaway" she muses).  Later at the doctor's, she appears more interested in the technology behind the ultrasound producing the image of her daughter developing in her womb than in (her) daughter herself.  (Sarah's boyfriend appears far more happy/excited about the development).  Perhaps to try to sort herself out while she still can, Sarah by then 6 months pregnant, decides fly back to California and reconnect with sister and (divorced) parents.   Much (in terms of an indie style character study) ensues ...

Sarah's sister Angie (played by Sarah Rafferty) along with her husband already have a small daughter and are all into organics and various other novel/trendy parenting theories even as Angie throws a baby-shower for Sarah.

Dad, Henry (played by Richard Hoag), who appears to be a retired engineer living out Santa Barbara-way, and who clearly first turned Sarah on to technology believes himself to be in an internet/Skype relationship with a woman more-or-less his age in Brazil (to her he's "Henrique..." ;-).  Sarah helps fix his Skype connection but sort-of rolls her eyes as he tries to impress her with the Portuguese that he's learned over the past ... well has it been only weeks or has it been months? It's not clear ... but dad does seem to be happy as does the Brazilian woman who we soon see on his on his screen.

The most problematic appears to have been Ma', named Margorie (played by Mary Beth Peil), who had apparently left dad and her daughters to ... one guesses ... "to find herself"/"follow her bliss."  Where is she now?  Apparently "off the grid" somewhere in Arizona.  Sarah's, who's gone this far, armed with a GPS decides to seek her out ... only to find that her GPS will fail her and right outside of Vegas, where now disoriented she has to crash at Leon's sister Towie's (played by Susan Kelechi Watson) for the night.  Afterwards, Sarah has to face Arizona's hinterlands armed only with a map and her own voice to occasionally ask for directions.

How did the at long last meeting with ma' turn out?  Well, I've probably written more than enough...  So, I'd just say that this is a movie of our time.  We still prefer movies that end happily, but happy endings that strain credibility are no longer allowed...

Anyway, I found the movie to be refreshing.  Yes, that Sarah and Leon are not married is something that has to irritate a Catholic film-critic like myself, especially one like me, who is a priest.  Yet at the same time I do appreciate and applaud the freshness of Sarah's character and of the series that has been built around her.  And even though "mom" wasn't exactly represented well in this picture, as a representative of a hopefully still "Good Mother Church" I do hope that Sarah and Leon do eventually get married.  In the meantime, I do sincerely applaud the originality of this project and wish its creators the best in their endeavors.

Why?  Because I continue to believe in the opening words of the Second Vatican Council's closing document, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) that: "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the [people] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of [people]. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for [everyone]. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with [humanity] and its history by the deepest of bonds."   So much about this little film/series is "about our times."  If we don't acknowledge films/series like this, seek to talk about them, seek to dialogue with them, then where are we and where are we heading?


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For Greater Glory (Cristiada) [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review
La Opinion-Los Angeles, CA's review - [ESP-original, ENG-Trans]
Hoy-Chicago's review - [ESP-original, ENG-Trans]

Those who have followed my blog over the past year and a half would note that I've repeatedly tried to search out opinion and provide links from other lands regarding films that touched on issues that crossed borders.  I believe that this film, For Greater Glory (Cristiada) directed by Dean Wright, screenplay by Michael Love proves the wisdom to taking this approach.

I write this because one could easily approach this movie very cynically.  This film about the Cristero Rebellion in Mexico of 1926-29 [ESP, ENG-trans] (which one of my many Mexican Servite friends and one who I deeply respect called with pride "the true final phase" of the Mexican Revolution [ESP, ENG-trans] which began in 1910) WAS NOT WRITTEN by Mexicans but by two Gringos and financed by Gringo money, in part by right-wing Catholic Gringo money.  Also the film is being released at exactly the time when the U.S. Catholic Hierarchy has been ramping-up for a suspiciously timed pre-election campaign on behalf of "Religious Liberty," the fight for religious liberty being precisely the overwhelming theme of the film.  I'm not saying that Catholic bishops finance movies, they don't.  But Catholic groups with some money, like Opus Dei which helped bankroll the movie (actually quite good) There Be Dragons [2011] last year about its founder, and the Knights of Columbus in part financing the current film, do.  But to be fully clear as well, the Knights funded this movie in good part because they had quite a few of their own Martyrs in Mexico during the Cristero Rebellion at the hands of the rabidly anti-clerical Mexican government of the time.  Still, honestly (from an American point of view) why this particular film and why now?

Then to an "non-Mexican outsider" like me (but due to my East European ancestry having some experience with sensing propaganda films), the film feels at first (and even second, third) glance ... unblushingly propagandistic.  Whether Andy Garcia (of Cuban descent) who plays the Mexican Cristero General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde [ESP] in the film realized it or not, his performance all but mimicked the portrayals by Mikaheil Gelovani [IMDb] of "great leader" Stalin [IMDb] in the Soviet films of his era.  Like Gelovani's Stalin, Garcia's Enrique Gorostieta was wise, measured, protected kids, and a fervent exponent of [fill-in the ideology] being espoused by the backers of the film, the ideology being espoused having little/no relation to the "great leader" archetype being played.  In the case of Stalin, the ideology being espoused (and utterly disconnected from his "great leader" persona) was radical egalitarianism through collectivization.  In the case of this film, the ideology espoused was  in the script's own words that of _absolute_ religious liberty, something that neither the Catholic Church nor the United States court system have ever actually defended. Otherwise child marriage/polygamy (Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, and certain African Animist religions), ritual drug use (certain Native American religions and the Rastafarian religion) and even ritual prostitution (Isis/Ishtar/Aphrodite based religion) would have to be permitted.  However absolute religious liberty has become a cutting-edge slogan in some circles of the United States body-politic today.

Then the device of having a 10-12 year old kid named here "Jose" (played by Mauricio Kuri) first joining the cause and then bravely dieing for it, again mimics countless Soviet-era propaganda films where "little Sasha" either bravely "saved the Revolution" or bravely "died for it" (it didn't really matter which course of events occurred in any particular film because both versions of the device played out _repeatedly_ in Soviet era cinema).  Honestly, all that felt missing in the current film was a dog...

Further, the film-critics for both of Chicago's best known English language papers, Roger Ebert and Roger Moore, have also questioned the veracity of the battles portrayed, recalling perhaps that German Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in 1944 had diverted something like 100,000 sorely needed German soldiers to assist in the filming of the Nazi-era epic named "Kolberg" about a surprising Prussian victory against an invading Russian army during the era of Fredrick the Great.  By the time the film was released in the spring of 1945, the actual town of Kolberg had fallen to the Soviet Army in its inexorable march toward Berlin.  But no matter to Goebbels apparently: if the Nazis could not win the actual Second World War, they could win it metaphorically on the silver screen through this film.  (Goebbels killed himself a few months later along with his family in Hitler's bunker as the Soviets approached).

I mention Goebbel's "Kolberg" because one of the devices again used in For Greater Glory was a more or less obviously intended reversal of symbolism.  In the official and honestly _also_ propagandistic iconography of the Mexican Revolution [ESP, ENG-trans] (though at least chosen/enforced by Mexicans rather than Gringos ...) it was always the Sombrero wearing peasants led by Pancho Villa [ESP] or Emiliano Zapata [ESP] fighting the hated uniform-wearing "Federales" of the hated/despicable dictator Porfirio Diaz [ESP].  In this film, it was Enrique Gorostieta leading Sombrero wearing peasants fighting the hated uniformed "Federales" of the equally hated/despicable anti-clerical post-Mexican Revolution President Plutarco Elias Calles [ESP].

Added to the mix was the otherwise seemingly "throwaway line" in the film that General Gorostieta had "fought and defeated Zapata" and this being portrayed in the film as being some sort of a positive. In reality, Emiliano Zapata has been generally lionized in Mexico since the Revolution as an authentic hero and even a martyr to it, this to the point that in the 1990s an uprising in indigenous peasants in the Mexican state of Chiapas was led by a group calling itself the Zapatistas [ESP] harkening back to the legacy of Emiliano Zapata, the new/emerging "Zapatistas" being well received by the Mexican public.

Wonderful.  Films in general cost money and epic films with star-studded casts (Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Peter O'Toole, etc) cost even more.  So one could say that this film as intended for Anglo-American audiences was probably intended to be a gigantic and heavy-handed right-wing propaganda piece.

BUT ... How then has this film been taken in Mexico and by its people?   Here is where the emerging legacy of this film becomes FAR MORE INTERESTING: The film, which ACTUALLY OPENED IN MEXICO (before opening in the United States) has become something of a sensation there.  It has been critically well received in both the press in Mexico [1-ESP], [2 -ESP, ENG-Trans], [3-ESP, ENG-Trans] and in the Spanish language press in the United States [La Opinion-Los Angeles, ENG-Trans][Hoy-Chicago, ENG-Trans].

This is because, as both the Catholic Church in Mexico [ESP, ENG-Trans] and the Spanish language press in the United States [La Opinion-Los Angeles, ENG-Trans] have noted, though having been lived by presumably the vast majority of Mexico's population of the time, the Cristero Rebellion [ESP, ENG-trans] had been generally an "off limits" subject in Mexico until Pope John Paul II started beatifying some of the Martyrs of the Cristero Period (including Jose Sanchez del Rio on whom the child "Jose" of the film was based). 

So what may seem to a North American as a heavy-handed propaganda piece with suspicious motives, to Mexican audiences has become an opportunity for a Mexican "Glasnost" [ESP] or "Truth and Reconciliation."  I witnessed this myself in the theater where I saw the movie.  The audience was mostly Hispanic and presumably mostly Mexican.  At the end of the film, many of the audience members called out spontaneously and _quite sincerely_ "Viva Cristo Rey!"  Why would they do that?  Well, this was a story that they had heard from their parents and grandparents, really for generations, and it was _finally_ put on screen and shown to be largely true.

So whatever the motivations for the making of this film in the United States _at this time_ may have been (and I honestly do have my suspicions), when the film crosses cultures from an "Anglo" culture in the United States that (if one is honest) actually still largely _hates_ Mexico/Mexicans to a more Mexican / more Hispanic one, the film becomes a blessing and one that is making a lot of Mexican (and again more generally Hispanic) Catholics proud of their faith.

And as a Catholic priest who's worked for pretty much my whole ministerial priesthood in heavily Hispanic communities, how can I not be honestly happy for them?

ADDENDA:

In his  2012 pilgrimage to Mexico, Pope Benedict VI visited the giant Christ the King [ESP] memorial built in Guanajuato [Pictures on Flikr].  Scheduling a visit to relatives in Mexico to coincide with the Pope's visit, one of the women working at my current parish (Annunciata in Chicago) went to the Mass that he celebrated there.

While never visiting the memorial myself (it is high on top of a mountain top in Guanajuato a fair distance from the main highway), I passed it twice during various trips to the Servites in Mexico and I remember it to be quite impressive, visible for many miles in every direction.  And the passing of the monument always produced fascinating discussions with the Mexican Servites about life in the Cristero states like Michoacan, Zacatecas and Guanajuato during the Cristero era.

Additionally, Graham Greene wrote a famous novel, The Power and the Glory [1940] (which was made into a movie in 1961 starring Lawrence Olivier) set during the Cristero era.  The novel had its own problems -- the priest portrayed in the story wasn't a particularly morally upstanding one.  Still the story offered a classically Graham Greene-style reflection on Courage and God's mercy in face terrible persecution and up until the release of this current film, Greene's novel was probably the most famous English language portrayal of that era.

Finally, as long as I can remember (decades really) the Knights of Columbus have been keeping the memory of the Cristero martyrs alive.  The release of this film will certainly immortalize them.


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Snow White and the Huntsman [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735898/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv065.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120530/REVIEWS/120539992
Int'l Reviews - Germany/Deutschland (Orig, ENG-Trans), Cz. Rep (Orig, ENG-Trans), France (Orig, ENG-Trans), Ital (Orig, Eng-Trans), India (Times of India), Japan (Orig [1] [2], ENG-Trans [1] [2])

Snow White and the Huntsman (directed by Rupert Sanders, screen story and screenplay by Evan Dougherty along with John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini) is a post-Lord or the Rings Film Trilogy [2001-2003] presentation of the classic/beloved European fairytale of Snow White.

I call Huntsman a post-Lord or the Rings [2001-2003] film because while much has been made in the United States of Twilight series [2008-2012] star Kristen Stewart's playing the role of Snow White [IMDb], the feel of this film's imagery is far closer to that of the Lord of the Rings films (or otherwise "Dungeon and Dragons" inspired fantasy role-playing video games like Neverwinter Nights, etc) than to the Twilight series.   And actually the recent remake of fairy tale Red Riding Hood [2011] had much more of a Twilight series feel than Snow White and the Huntsman does.

I also use the phrase "classic/beloved European fairytale" because while in the English-speaking world Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is often remembered as a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the Grimm version is neither the only nor the "original" version of the fairy tale.  This fairy tale is really part of the cultural patrimony of all the peoples of Central Europe (hence why I made it a point of offering links above to how this film was being reviewed not just in Germany but also in the Czech Republic, France and Italy -- and one could easily add the many other countries of Central Europe as well).

Finally, taking a page from the recent remakes of Mia Wasikoska's Alice in Wonderland [2010], Mandy Moore's Repunzel in Tangled [2010] and possibly Amanda Seyfried's Red Riding Hood [2011] mentioned above, the Snow White played by Kristen Stewart is different/somewhat updated from that of the classic/original story.  Kristen Stewart's Snow White is something of the classic Snow White [IMDb] crossed with Joan of Arc [IMDb].

Similarly, there's some development the evil Queen/step-mother in the film named Ravenna and played by Charlize Theron.  The Evil Queen wishes to preserve her youth by consuming the hearts of innocent young women who are still growing up.  More fundamentally, she seems consumed by being/remaining in Control hence her desire to become Queen, eliminate the King -- who might still prove too meddlesome -- and then to remain the sole Monarch (Queen) even to the point of consuming the hearts of those young maidens.  To the film's credit, it even seems to provide some of the back-story as to why she would have become so driven.  Go see the film if you wish to explore further that aspect of the film...

So what then is the basic trajectory of the tale presented here?  A King Magnus (played by Noah Huntley) and Queen Eleanor (played by Liberty Ross) wisely reign over a happy and prosperous kingdom.  And they have a daughter, Snow White.  However, Queen Eleanor dies young.  King Magnus, initially mourning the loss of his wife/queen nevertheless succumbs to the charms of a young woman, named Ravenna, of mysterious background who quite suddenly appears on the scene, and marries her.  Ravenna soon disposes of her new husband the King.  More to the point since Snow White remains too young to rule, she takes over the realm as Regent but de facto sole Monarch (how's that for a hostile takeover?) locking-up Snow White in a tower "until she grows up."  The only two adviors that Ravenna trusts is her swarmy, hideously evil looking brother named Finn (played by Sam Spruel) and, of course, her Magic Mirror (voiced by Christopher Obi).

Snow White (played then as she approaches adulthood by Kristen Stewart) grows-up locked-up and more importantly kept ignorant in the Royal Castle's Tower.  When by chance she is able at least briefly to talk to a young maiden who was being locked-up in the cell next to hers (prior to this young maiden having her heart sacrificed to the Evil Queen), Snow White puts two-and-two together and when an opportunity presents itself, makes a run-for-it to freedom.   How she manages to escape after years of having been locked-up in what appeared to be de facto solitary confinement requires a good deal of suspension of disbelief.  Perhaps some scenes from Snow's teenage years (after her father had died) that could have given more plausibility to her escape ended-up on the editor's cutting room floor awaiting a "director's cut" of the film.   However, be that as it may, realizing finally what the Queen had in store for her, Snow takes advantage of a rare opportunity to escape, one which involves a harrowing dive from an obscure ledge from the castle into a cold raging sea in what appears to be winter and swimming for a long distance to a Dark Wood some distance from the Royal Castle.  That would seem to be one heck of a feat for a girl who had spent the better part of her older childhood locked-up in the Castle's Tower.

When the Evil Queen's brother proves unable to find Snow White in said Dark Wood, he hires (that is  coerces) a Huntsman from the Village named Eric (played by Chris Hemsworth) to find her.  But Eric has no great love the Queen or her Brother.  Eventually in that Dark Wood or even in a wood beyond it, both Snow and the Huntsman run into the Dwarves played by Bob Hoskins (Muir), Ian McShane (Beith), Johnny Harris (Quert), Toby Jones (Coll), Eddie Marsan (Duir), Ray WInstone (Gort) Nick Frost (Nion) and Brian Gleeson (Gus).   Much ensues ...

Among that which ensues, of course, is the Evil Queen finally decides that, since her henchman Brother was proving hopelessly incapable (incompetent?) in tracking-down Snow White, to look for her herself.   In perhaps the greatest feat of CGI in the film (shown already in the movie's trailer), the Queen, versed in various forms of dark magic, is shown to be able to convert herself into a flock of ravens, fly to a distant location and then materialize back into her human form upon touching ground.

In the meantime, Snow, who is royalty after all, convinces the villager Huntsman and the Dwarves (none of them particularly fond of  "titled people" ...) to help her link-up with her childhood friend William (played by Sam Claflin) and his father, her father's old friend, the Duke Hammond (played by Vincent Regan).   When they do finally link-up, this allows for a climactic Lord of the Rings [IMDb] meets Joan of Arc [IMDb] sort of an ending...

Thus most of the basic outline of the traditional Snow White story is kept.  However, Snow also proves adept in leading an army, charging on a horse and in hand-to-hand combat with a Dagger and Sword.  So this damsel proves to be able to defend herself ;-) ... as if we are honest, we'd probably want the young women in our lives to be able to do as well.

Now for something of a surprise: Christian and Catholic viewers will perhaps be surprised that in a film that otherwise updates/rewrites much of common traditional fairy tale, the film also chooses to preserve, even repeatedly bring in, various Catholic/Christian elements into the story:  Men unambiguously dressed as Bishops with Miters are shown to be present officiating at King Magnus' ill-fated marriage to (the Evil) Queen Ravenna.  The Bishops return in positions of officiating at Snow White's Coronation at the end.  In her cell, Snow White is heard praying the Catholic version of the Our Father.  Hmmm... perhaps these are simply to be taken as "flourishes" in a story, which was shown as taking place in a European Medieval setting after all.  Even if this were all that was to it, I;d have to say that I do not mind :-).

I would add, however, that these flourishes were added in a way that were in no way challenging to what one would call "traditional Catholicism/Christianity."  That is, the Bishops shown were all men, and when Snow prayed the Lord's Prayer she was shown praying Our Father (not Our Mother-Father, or Our Creator).  Yet also the film-makers clearly had no problem with Snow being Queen (Sole Monarch) at the end of the film.  All this is to say that the film-makers appeared to have no problem leaving ceremonial-religious roles to men, while similarly having no problem with having temporal (actual?) Power being wielded by women (and then wielded by women throughout most of the film!) -- be it the troubled/Evil Queen Ravenna throughout the large middle section of the film or the presumably kinder, Good Queen Snow at its end.  Hmm... what's going on? / much to think about ... ;-)

Finally a note to Parents: I believe this film to be rightly rated as PG-13.  There is nothing in the film that would be inappropriate to older minors, while the some of the battle scenes in this film along with some of the creepy magical scenes mostly in the Dark Wood would be a bit too much for preteens.

All in all I have to say that I liked this updated version of Snow White surprising and leaving viewers with much actually to think about afterwards.


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