The Internship [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J.P. McCarthy) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub.com (A.A. Dowd) review

The Internship [2013] (directed by Shawn Levy, screenplay by Jered Stern and Vince Vaugn, story by Vince Vaugn) is a nice, fast talking, feel good, screwball comedy about the value of perseverance and good humor in the face of hard economic times.  My guess is that Abbott and Costello [IMDb] would approve ;-).  In fairness, the film hasn't gotten best of critical receptions, getting a mere 33% on rottentomato.com's tomatometer from the critics (though as often is the case, a much more favorable audience score).

I found myself, to my surprise, liking the film, and indeed surprised how much I liked it.  After all, various critics were writing that the film was "just a gigantic product placement ad for Google," that it was needlessly crude (Note to parents, I get why the film is rated PG-13 as if it were rated R it'd be a relatively "mild one."  Still, having seen the film a second time, I would agree that there are scenes in the film that are needlessly crude) and that a fair amount of the scenes in the film were "stupid."   Hello, this is a fast-talking screwball comedy, of course there are scenes that are going to be over the top "stupid."  If there weren't, I'd want my money back.

Indeed, I found the heartfelt "I got nothin', but I'm gonna try anyway" attitude of the film's lead characters Billy McMahon (played by Vince Vaugn) and Nick Campbell (played by Owen Wilson) two long-time salesmen, partners, approaching 50 who suddenly find themselves unemployed positively inspiring.

We meet the two just before reality hits them like a 2x4 right between the eyes.  They're sales reps for a -- okay they should have seen this coming -- always probably kinda shifty "luxury watch distributor."  They're trying to schmooze one of their biggest clients at at an expensive restaurant, only to be told by the client himself, that their own company, the watch distributor, had gone out of business.  Why?  Well, as their former boss (owner) of the now defunct "luxury watch distribution business" (played by John Goodman) who ran his business out of a trailer in an industrial park located somewhere, okay let's say "Encino, CA" in Southern California broke the news to them: "Who buys a watch anymore?"  "Lots of people."  "Who?  Everybody uses their smartphone for that now."  "Okay, maybe some young hotshots use cellphones for that now, but most people still use watches."  "Edna, my 70 year old secretary, what time is it?"  Edna, pulling an iPhone out of her purse, responding, "It's 10:35."  Point made...

So now our two approaching 50 something heroes are out of work.  After spending the night "googling" for jobs on the internet, even at one point running a search for "Jobs for people with no skills" ... Billy hits upon the crazy, "out of the box" idea: "Why not try to get a job working for Google itself?" ;-).

And once Billy gets that brainstorm, sure enough, he's up and running again.  With a few keystrokes, he finds out that there's a internship program (unpaid to be sure) ... but an interview proved not too hard to arrange.  The only thing is that the interview would be done "online."  He doesn't have a webcam.  No problem, he arranges it so that he and his former partner Nick do the interview AT A LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY chasing away 4th graders from the computer as they do it ... with some bemused but intrigued 20-something interviewers from Google.   If nothing else, Billy and Nick prove to be folks who "think outside the box..." ;-).  Indeed, their age and their _obvious lack of computer programming skills_ actually prove to be pluses to the recruiters at Google because they represent "a new kind of diversity" ;-).  And let's face it, since the gig's _unpaid_ Google risks nothing by inviting them into their internship program.

Much, of course, ensues ... and honestly, I found myself repeatedly in awe, at the gentleness and positiveness of the film's message.  Initially Billy and Nick seem to be "pastel colored fish completely out of water" on bright primary colored campus filled with other interns and even Google supervisors everyone of whom could have been one their kids.  What could these two late 40-something, pushing-on-50 salesmen who've been hustling all their entire lives for their keep offer these young supremely competent techies?  Well it's actually obvious: life experience, optimism and yes, thinking on one's feet and never ever giving-up.  Finally, Billy and Nick were "real world people," reminding everyone by their mere presence that "an app is only good if people want to / can... use it."  So they proved surprisingly good "team members" to techies who knew how to code but could use help elsewhere.

Is the film rather unrealistic?  Is it, indeed, kinda corny?  YES.  But it is also, IMHO, honestly very very funny.  And in as much as Google and the other top tech companies actually do try to think "outside the box" in this way (like taking  taking a chance two recently unemployed middle-aged salesmen with no computer programing experience and include them in their "internship program") I can see why they'd be at the top of the game.  Interns cost Google, et al, little and if they prove that they can produce something intangible previously missed by the organization, from Google/et al's  perspective, why not?  And it offers those trying to enter the job market as well as those sidelined by unemployment a chance to prove themselves (or prove themselves again). 

And yes, there are plenty of dangers in the shifting of the economy in the direction of leaning more and more on the labor of essentially unpaid interns.  The Nick character in this film is actually rather correct when he initially calls internship program presented in the film essentially a "techie Hunger Games [2012]."

Still with a youth unemployment rate stuck in the twenty percentiles and large amount of long-term unemployed among those in their 40s and 50s, from the perspective of the unemployed/underemployed taking chances, thinking outside the box and remaining optimistic in face of much evidence to the contrary is honestly pretty solid advice.

And in hard times, a good laugh doesn't hurt either.  Again Abbott and Costello [IMDb] would understand ;-).

Finally, I've focused above on the story and the performances of Vince Vaugn and Owen Wilson.  However, a performances of the younger "googlers" (those already working for google) and "nooglers" (the interns ;-) were also very, very funny including the performances of: 

Aasif Mandvi playing Chetti (the one responsible for the internship program and chooses to run it with all the intensity and often laugh-out-loud "straight man" humorlessness of the "drill sergeant" of the Officer and a Gentleman [1982]) vein;

Rose Byrne playing Dana (the attractive and super-competent 30-something google manager who becomes the love interest for Nick (Owen Wilson's character). She's great at her job but at the cost of a lot of life experience.  At first, she doesn't give Nick the time of day but he catches her attention when he promises her "10 years of bad date experience in just one evening" ;-) -- and then effortlessly (and always with a smile) delivers ;-).  Honestly, the dinner is one of the funniest scenes in the film: Nick, flirts with with the waitress (asking and getting her phone number ;-), admonishes Dana on "her weight" (weight? she could be a supermodel ;-) taking the opportunity to steal both her desert and her wine (telling her then, "They're divine..." ;-), and finally hands Dana the check.  "Wow, that must be at least 5 years of bad dates right there!"  "Hey, I'm just getting started" ;-);

Josh Brener playing Lyle (the also ever optimistic but really nerdy google manager who comes to be responsible for the team of misfits that Vince Vaugn's and Owen Wilson's characters inevitably get placed on as none of the other, much younger interns wanted to be placed on a team "with two dinosaurs;" 

And finally Billy and Nick's team misfit team members themselves: Stewart (played by Dylan O'Brien) who spends the first half of the movie surfing on his smart-phone convinced that everything is going to end up badly anyway; Yo-yo Santos (played by Tobit Raphael) a home schooled computer prodigy whose mother played a way more important role in his life than she ever should have ("Were you beaten up a lot in school?"  "I was home schooled by my mother," "Were you beaten up a lot by your mother in home school?" ;-) and punished himself by plucking at his eyebrows when he was bad; and the ever cheerful, in theory "worldly" Neha (played by Tiya Sircar), but also one who thus far spent a lot more time looking at what was playing on a computer screen than what was playing/going-on in the real world.  It becomes obvious then, how Billy and Nick could come to contribute "to the team" and how a team like this could (despite initial reservations) actually come together and even succeed.

So all in all, a pretty good film ;-)


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

The Purge [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review

The Purge [2013] (written and directed by James DeMonaco) is a "SciFi-ish" and certainly dystopian film about a United States of the "near future" (of the 2020s), which has decided that it has so many problems with violence and perhaps even providing social services for those in need that it has decided to allow for an annual 12-hour "Purge" in which crime in any and all its forms is "decriminalized" and all emergency services are suspended.  This allows for essentially an annual 12-hour "human hunting season" that its proponents say "allows people to vent their naturally violent instincts" and more practically "culls the herd" a bit, allowing for a more easily manageable remaining 364.5 days of the year.

Yes, the premise of the film is appalling, but that is, of course, the point: Can humanity as a whole or human beings as individuals indulge in truly "anything goes" for a short almost "medically prescribed" period and then somehow "return to normal" again after that?  The film then offers a "thought experiment" in which this 12-hour Purge scenario is allowed to play out.

The focus of the film is on one upper-middle class nuclear family living in a nice, ahem... "gated community" and is made up of Ma, Pa, and two teenage kids (played by Lena Headey, Ethan Hawke, Adelaide Kane and Max Burkholder respectively).  Living in said, eminently secure environment, the family is rather unaffected by the way American society has changed from even today to the film's "early 2020s."  The family's successfully "adapted" to the demands of the times.  Indeed, arguably through a purely pragmatic reading of the "Signs of the Times," the family has arguably "made a killing" ;-).  While never actually partaking the "annual hunt," Pa's become a very successful salesman of, you guessed it, "home security equipment."

However, "success" in such a utterly Darwinistic world carries with it its own dangers.  We're given a rather obvious hint of this as Ma, returning from the store (to make sure that the family has all that it needs at home for the coming 12-hours of annual mayhem) talks to a neighbor (played by Arija Bareikis) and is reminded by said neighbor that she and the other neighbors in their lovely/tranquil gated community "could not help but notice the LARGE / beautiful addition" that they've been able to make to their home "after selling the rest of us all that security equipment."  So in the world of the film, even "success" can carry with it new dangers.

Much of course ensues.  There is, of course, much to dislike in this film (which again, is, of course, its point). Some viewers will perhaps notice that the film plays out actually much like a "Zombie film" only there is no physical virus or otherwise medical excuse to blame a large part of the population to have turned, if "only for 12 hours," into murderous monsters.  At the film's base is actually a rather emphatic (and arguably anti-Freudian) statement: Civilization depends on restraining our baser, animalistic instincts rather than indulging them.

Finally a note to Parents: I do believe that the film is appropriately R-rated.  While the film is basically a "zombie invasion movie" without any zombifying virus offered as its cause (any hence not any worse / more violent than other such "zombie" movies), nevertheless the film has some fairly violent scenes of mayhem that parents ought to consider before deciding whether they'd want their teens to see such a film.  The PG-13 rating doesn't require parental consent, R does ... And I do think that the violent scenes in the film are such that parental discussion with their teens prior to giving them permission to see the movie (or denying permission as the parent may wish) is appropriate.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013]

MPAA (R)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013] (directed by Alex Gibney) is a somewhat uneven, though given the circumstances IMHO a rather admirable documentary about perhaps the most controversial website to have thusfar existed - wikileaks.org.

I confess that I've had a lifelong preference for openness.  Back in 1989, I was one of the primary instigators in the creation of the USENET newsgroup "soc.rights.human" which had a similar mission in the pre-World-Wide-Web days: Anyone from anywhere who wanted to post anything about a possible human rights violation could do so there.

The idea wasn't completely original.  I had been inspired to propose the creation of this USENET newsgroup after following what was being posted by Chinese students in the U.S. and Western Europe on the already existing USENET newsgroup soc.culture.china.  Being a son of Czech immigrants and named after an uncle who had been jailed by the Communists in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, I proposed to the USENET community (then basically computer programmers and computer sci majors working at universities and other research institution across the western world) that a generalized USENET newsgroup entitled soc.rights.human be created so that all people concerned about human rights in various parts of the world would have a place to news about human rights abuses.  And so it was, after following the USENET procedures for creating a newsgroup (there had to be at least 100 people on the USENET in favor of creating the group and, in fact, there needed to be 100 people more in favor of creating the group than there were opposed to it).  After making the appropriate appeals over a couple of months, tabulating the votes and followed by a couple of days of embarrassed inaction by the good people at CERN who were back then responsible for creating such groups for the USENET ... voila' soc.rights.human (or s.r.h. for short) came online about October, 1989 -- just before the Fall of the Berlin Wall ;-) 

The one thing that s.r.h. could not offer was absolute anonymity (though there were various nominally anonymous posting services available at the time ... and back then it seemed easier to create a more or less random/anonymous e-mail address).  On the other hand, soc.rights.human was truly "open source."  There were no "gatekeepers" (no moderators in USENET-speak) hence no problematic figures like wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Today, soc.rights.human is buried among thousands upon thousands of other USENET newsgroups and conspiracy theorists of all stripes have more or less taken the group over.  So today the signal to noise ratio is very, very low indeed.  (Though having checked the group just now, there are serious postings about human rights controversies in Burma and Nepal/Tibet as well as Israel/Palestine on soc.rights.human. as well.  It's not all "scientology," "the feds are brainwashing us via radiowaves" etc... That there are still a fair amount legitimate postings about human rights issues being made onto the group is kinda nice to see ;-)

However, the truly heady time for s.r.h. was in the months and years immediately after its founding, between the Fall of 1989 (when the Berlin Wall came down) and the Summer of 1991 (when the last-ditch Soviet Coup occurred).  One of the proudest moments of my life (again, I was one of the original founders of s.r.h.) was when in the midst of the Soviet Coup, while I was still a grad student at U.S.C. in Los Angeles, I telephoned the L.A. office of Amnesty International to ask them if they knew about all that was being posted on s.r.h. at the time (computer programmers from all over Soviet Union had figured out how to post on s.r.h. and were posting more or less real-time news about what was happening all over the Soviet Union on the group).  The person on the phone responded, "Oh sure we know about s.r.h.  We're reading the same posts right here in our office."

Since then I've more or less assumed that s.r.h. has outlived its purpose (though I mention above, perhaps not ;-).  In any case, I would recommend to anyone reading this article who's concerned about human rights issues or has information about human rights abuses to try to report human rights violations directly to Amnesty International (amnesty.org or even send them along (on an appropriately secure/anonymous cell phone....) on twitter with the appropriate #, like #Syria ...).  Still if s.r.h. remains useful to you (and it may honestly be!), please use that means as well.

Given that quite reputable organizations like Amnesty International exist and they are now generally computer savvy, I don't necessarily understand the need today for a separate organization called "wikileaks."  Yes, wikileaks promised to be a more generalized site for "whistle blowers" and did promise absolute anonymity.  However, to be honest, even at its best, wikileaks could offer no more than what a reputable organization (like Amnesty International) or a reputable investigative periodical could offer (like The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel on which wikileaks ended up depending anyway...).  And at its "less than best," wikileaks became the inevitable target of the Goliaths of this world, who IMHO have just eaten Assange's tiny organization for lunch.

So then the current documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013], while also generally sympathetic, chronicles the rise and the inevitable demise of wikileaks (or at least wikileaks1.0) And honestly folks, if there is to be a wikileaks 2.0, then please "reach out" to an organization like Amnesty International.  This is because the "universal whistle-blower" cause that wikileaks has tried to embark on doesn't really need hackers (except perhaps as actual whistle-blowers).  Instead, the cause needs LAWYERS (to protect the whistle-blowers) and that's what Amnesty International (which was FOUNDED BY concerned/activist LAWYERS) can provide.

Okay, what then about the rise and demise of wikileaks?  Well, the documentary presents wikileaks founder Julain Assange as an activist computer hacker from Australia.  The beginning of the documentary suggests that he (or a group affiliated with him) may have put a computer worm into the American Space Shuttle's computers to protest the highly controversial launch of the plutonium powered Galileo space probe.  The launch went fine and the Galileo space probe subsequently flew on to orbit and study Jupiter.  However, the concern was that if the launch itself went badly (and remember the Space Shuttle Challenger did explode and disintegrate on launch) then a fair amount of Florida and even the eastern seaboard of the United States could have been contaminated by "plutonium raining down from the sky" as a result of the disintegration of the Galileo space probe as well.

It was out of this hacker-activist background then that Julian Assange arose to found wikileaks, promising absolute anonymity to whistle-blowers of all kinds.  The documentary then points out that wikileaks did have initial success, exposing corruption and bad dealings within Iceland's banking system after Iceland's banks had suddenly collapsed near the beginning of the 2008 world-wide financial crisis.  It was at this time that Assange was becoming something of an international "rock star" and especially in Scandinavia for his site's success in exposing that corruption existing in Iceland.

This, of course, became "small potatoes" to what perhaps inevitably came next: A troubled American PFC named Bradley Manning, who somehow managed to get through basic training but was then deemed unfit to serve in a combat unit and so was assigned as an "intelligence analyst" at an utterly non-descript base outside of Baghdad began to freak-out as he was reading U.S. intelligence cables that he had access to.  Having been something of a "computer geek" in High School back in Oklahoma, Manning gravitated to the hacker-created wikileaks whistle-blowing site.  Eventually, he passed a staggering number of classified files (over 700,000 of them including some 200,000 U.S. State Department cables) on a stick-drive or two, to wikileaks.

It would seem that even Assange was staggered by the sheer number of files that were handed to his fledgling organization by Manning.  As a result, he did act with some responsibility.  He reached-out to The Guardian, NY Times and Der Spiegel).  The documentary claims that he even reached out to the U.S. Defense Department asking for help to try to clean the documents of sensitive names, etc, prior to their publication on wikileaks.  The U.S. Defense Department chose (perhaps understandably ... after all the whole episode was enormously embarrassing to the institution) to refuse.   What did happen with each of several "file dumps" onto wikileaks (after assistance of the three mentioned periodicals) was a coordinated media counter assault by the U.S. government on the person/reputation of Julian Assange.  He was portrayed as as an unhinged and rather scary freak.  (The documentary notes that the NY Times, et al were easily as complicit as Assange and wikileaks in releasing the various documents.  However, the U.S. government appeared to choose to target Assange)

It turns out that Assange had some skeletons in his closet, notably accusations by two women in Sweden of sexual impropriety from back in the days of his almost "rock-star-like" popularity in Scandinavia.  Ball-players and Rock-stars get into this kind of trouble all the time (no doubt in good part due to the corrosive effects on good judgement of the adulation they find themselves receiving - treated like "Gods" they start to think that they _are_ "Gods").   However, whereas ball-players and rock-stars making poor decisions generally pay for them monetarily and occasionally with jail time, Assange has found himself in a whole different level of trouble.   There are some really pissed off folks at the U.S. State and Defense Departments ...

So Assange perhaps finds himself correct in becoming "paranoid."  He's currently hold-up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Ecuador's government, often corrupt itself, having given him asylum in this way.  The coup de grace in his paranoia appears to have been that he tried to force the other volunteers and employees at wikileaks to sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement ;-).  Gee, if the founder of wikileaks, found good reason to require his employees and volunteers to sign "non-disclosure agreements" perhaps the good folks at the U.S. State Department and Armed Forces would have good reason sanction "leaking" classified information as well ...

 This then appears to be the fundamental thesis of the documentary: Assange, cocky-idealist though he may have been and Bradley Manning, troubled as he appears to have been, were simply and utterly "out of their league," when suddenly faced with a file dump of 700,000+ of classified American documents.

As the documentary's best interviewee, Gen. Michael Hayden, former head of both the CIA and NSA noted: diplomacy is impossible without some concessions made for secrecy.  How much?  That becomes debatable.  But at least some secrecy in diplomatic communications, for instance, is absolutely necessary.  With regard to Manning, he noted that in the 200 year history of the U.S. military there have been "some really stupid PFCs."  It just happened to be that Manning found himself with post-9/11era access to millions of classified documents that previously would not have been available to him.  "Prior to 9/11 access to classified documents was made on a 'need to know' basis.  After 9/11 [in hopes of fostering better communications between intelligence agencies allowing them to better 'connect the dots'] virtually all documents of a given classification level were available to all intelligence personel with that classification level ..."  And with regards to Assange, Gen Hayden maintained that he's no more or less guilty (or only marginally more guilty) in this matter than the editor of the New York Times.

And so there it is: a tiny organization of anarchist leaning computer hackers found itself wildly "out of its depth" when faced with that enormous dump of 700,000+ classified American documents.  And even the U.S. government has found itself wildly embarrassed by a not-altogether-thought-through post-9/11 decision regarding classified material ...

We live in "interesting" indeed sometimes quite scary times ...


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Before Midnight [2013]

MPAA (R)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
RE.com (P. Villaça) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Before Midnight [2013] (directed and cowritten by Richard Linklater along with the film's costars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpi, characters by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan) is the third installment (once every nine years) of a lovely (though also honest) romance/soap that allows viewers to follow the lives of two people, one an American named Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) the other a French woman (at least in part of Hungarian ancestry) named Celine (played by Julie Delpi).

In the first installment named Before Sunrise [1995], the two met as young 20-somethings (as college students / recent graduates) on the train between Budapest and Vienna during the summer of presumably 1994 or 95.  Jesse was flying back to the States out of Vienna the next day, Celine was heading back to her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris after having visited her grandmother in Hungary.  Having made acquaintance in the train and then chatted away together quite happily in the meal-car for a good portion of the trip, when they arrive at the train station in Vienna Jesse takes a chance (young guys reading this take note, life rewards the brave ... ;-) and asking Celine if she'd like to get off the train and spend the evening walking around Vienna with him.  Since her passage to Paris was valid on any train and since their conversation had been fun, she agrees and they have truly a magical evening together, walking around, eating, drinking, and yes ... having sex together (outdoors in a park after finishing bottle of red wine, now lying at their side) at the end.  The next morning, saying goodbye on a platform at the Vienna train station, they choose not to exchange addresses/e-mails etc (because that would be "boring" and lead to eventual dissipation of magic of their time together) but promise that they'd meet six months hence (in December) on the same day and same time at the same spot at the Vienna train station to continue their time together.  And if it doesn't work out, well ... at least they had shared that previous night.

The second installment named Before Sunset [2004] takes place nine years later, in Paris.  Jesse's become a writer since and is on a book tour peddling his book about ... you guessed it, the magical night that the book's protagonist had spent with a young Parisian woman who he had met on a train traveling between Budapest and Vienna nine years before, with the two ending their night together with the promise of meeting at the same place at the same time six months hence.  And guess who shows up at the book signing ... Celine.  They strike-up a conversation and since Jesse had a couple of hours before he had to head to the airport to fly back to New York, they spend the afternoon chatting as they walk through the streets and cafes of Paris.

But it's been nine years.  So that's a lot of water under the Danube, Seine or Hudson.  Jesse's now a writer, Celine an activist of some sort working for a Paris-based NGO.  More to the point, the two didn't meet back in Vienna six months after their encounter in the summer of '94.  It turns out that Jesse had actually borrowed money from his dad and flown out there but Celine was actually at the funeral of her Hungarian grandmother (in Budapest, nearby but obviously not near enough...) on that very day at that very time.  Sigh ... This then sets up the rest of the story.  Let's face it, it's been 9 years.  So Jesse's married, with a 5 year old kid.  His wife is his old college girlfriend, with whom he went out, broke-up with, went out again, eventually got her pregnant ... and they got married. (Yes, this is something of a plot device to make the rest of this chapter of the story possible).  Celine for her part, has had several boyfriends, but nothing ever really stuck.  Her current boyfriend, a photojournalist, is attractive in good part because he's generally away (He provides her with the opportunity of telling others that she has a boyfriend without him actually being around).  But here they are, nine years after that magical night together Vienna, both having remembered that night quite fondly, he in a "second choice" marriage (but a marriage _with a kid_ nonetheless), she having had a number of blaise' relationships with nothing really sticking... and they're IN PARIS ...

So they walk around.  He keeps pushing back the time that he really needs to start heading to the airport.  They stop at her apartment.  He asks her to play "one of the stupid songs" that she's says she's written for the guitar.  She does.  It's lovely.  But then she says, "You know who I really like is an American jazz singer who sings out here in Paris..."  She proceeds to do a nice, sultry imitation of the American jazz singer's voice ... and finally, looking at the enraptured Jesse staring at her, brings this second chapter of their story to its end saying, "I have a feeling, you're not going to get on that plane ..."

Chapter three is the current film, Before Midnight [2013].  It's again nine years later and to film-makers/actors credit, the film begins squarely acknowledging the consequences resulting from the way the previous film had ended: This third film begins at an airport in Greece.  Jesse is putting his 14 year old son by his first wife, Hank (played by Seamus Davey Fitzpatrick), on the plane to fly back home to his mother in Chicago.  Hank had been able to spend two weeks with Jesse, Celine and their twin nine year old daughters Ella and Nina (played by Jennifer and Charlotte Prior respectively) on their vacation in Greece, but then had to go back.  For the sake of his kid (and perhaps out of respect for the pain that he had caused his wife by leaving her for Celine), Jesse's being kind in his words about his ex to his son.  But the son who is also being both kind and matter-of-fact as a fourteen year old from a broken marriage who nevertheless loves both of his parents would be ... reminds Jesse in the conversation that they have in front of the security check-point prior to Hank having to go to the gate to depart for Chicago of the obvious ... Jesse's ex-wife just hates him (to this day) for what he did to her and their son.

We're later reminded (and actually repeatedly...) by Celine of what she thought of Jesse's first wife and the hell that she had put them through during and after the divorce.  Apparently, Jesse's ex-wife had really taken him to the cleaners (well he did dump her for Celine...) and even if they had stayed in the States, which they did not, Jesse would have gotten only twice a month visitation rights (and two weeks in the summer) with Hank.  Then Celine got pregnant with the twins and wanted to go back to France to be near her mother through the pregnancy.  So the twins were born there and, voila' that's where they stayed afterwards.

So after dropping Hank off at the airport (and knowing that the 14-year-old was going to have to make at least one connection somewhere before getting on a flight that would take him the rest of the way back to Chicago), on the drive back to the nice vacation villa that Jesse-Celine, et al were sharing with friends on the Grecian coast, Jesse articulates partly (but partly not so partly...) in a rhetorical sense a desire to find some way to see more of his son again: "He's 14, he's just starting high school.  In four years he'll be done and that whole part of his life will be over.  And you don't get those years back..."

But Celine, who's been working all these years in various NGOs and had just been offered a non-inconsequential managerial job in a French governmental relief organization, makes it clear that she's about to give that opportunity up to go to ... "Chicago" ;-).

[Folks I write out of Chicago, and while Chicago isn't America's Paris, one could think of Chicago as America's Prague.  It is a beautiful city, the architectural capital of the United States.  It is a significant player in the art community.  Until recently largest annual art expo in the United States and even the Western hemisphere (with hundreds of galleries from all over the world represented) was held here (and may again return).  When it comes to performing arts, the two most significant film critics in the United States (Siskel and Ebert) wrote out Chicago, this is where Broadway tests its theatrical productions prior to putting them on in New York, and generations now of SNL comedians began here at Chicago's Second City Comedy Club.  Finally, while I do understand that it was "Rio de Janeiro's time" for the Olympics, by dissing Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics, the Prada/Christian Dior wearing both titled and entitled Mafia that runs the IOC (it's kinda amusing for Americans to realize that Chicago's Mayor Daley may have been too much of a "boy scout" when it came with his dealings with the IOC.  Even the Mormons of Salt Lake City knew better who they were dealing with ;-) did the world's tourists a huge disfavor by dissing us.  Our beaches along Lake Michigan (an inland FRESHWATER SEA) alone are an experience to behold: No icky salt to stick to your designer bikinis here folks.  And the water, in summer never as cold as the Pacific Ocean off the coast of LA, by August is ... just divine ;-)  Anyway, Celine you could do much worse than Chicago ... and who exactly do those NGO's that you've been working for seek to "help?" And do the people you "help" realize that you think of them as living in "hell holes?"]

Be all this as it may, Celine really doesn't want to go back to the "Chicago" of her imagination.  And so there it is.  And Celine even warns Jesse near the beginning of the film after he expressed his sighing desire that he'd like to find some way to spend more time with his son during the next few years, telling him: "This is how couples begin to break up.  Grudging compromises are made, resentments build ..."

And so the rest of the movie revolves around the question: "Can this relationship last?"  It began magically, was consummated (for real) rather scandalously and not without consequences.  Now can it last?  The dialogue often quite pained / angry is again, like in the previous two films, excellent.  It all makes for one heck of a film for folks in their forties...

How does it turn out?  Well go see the film ... ;-)


As a final note, what then would "The Church" say about this story?  After all, there are several more or less obvious "transgressions" in the couple's now three part story, some rather "gleefully" made...

Well anyone who's been in Pastoral ministry for any length of time would know that most, if not all couples, young and old, "have their stories."  And part of those stories are all kinds of disappointments and betrayals.  The question becomes, what do we do with them?  Do we dwell on the pain?

I also admit here that I find myself sympathizing more with Jesse more than Celine in this film.  Yes, it's probably partly because "I'm a man," perhaps even in part because I'm "a functionary with 'some power' in a Patriarchical Institution that clothes itself in the Blessing/Power of God."

But I have to admit that Celine's repeated comments about 'Chicago' (see above) kinda pissed me off ... and may reflect a kind of expectation of entitlement -- "I'm a Parisian.  Granted I'm the daughter of at least one Hungarian immigrant [Note that I who write this review am the Chicago-born child of two Czech immigrants and also had a beloved grandmother living in Prague who we used to visit as well as other relatives in the C.R. who we continue to be in relationship with ... and yes, thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Central Europe's subsequent economic rise, sometimes our Czech relatives come here now, yes even to 'Chicago,' even as we continue to go there to Prague as we can...] but I (Celine) grew-up in 'Paris' and therefore I deserve to live in the elitist aura of said Paris even as I insist on striving for and holding important positions in organizations, both governmental and non, seeking to help poor sops living in 'Third World hell holes...'" -- That in my experience is both unrealistic and arguably misguided.  I personally would not want to be "helped" by people who did not respect me ... But honestly, as I write this, Celine's "arrogance" can also be seen as simply "part of the script ..." (In the other films, she's IMHO a far more sympathetic character).

Anyway, with or without God (and I continue to be convinced that life is much easier _with_ God than _without_ ...) all couples and indeed all people have to sort our their priorities.  And one would imagine that a couple with the means that Jesse and Celine clearly had could find a solution to their problem: "Chicago" or "Celine's dream job."  Off the top of my head ... Jesse a writer who traveled on book tours no doubt would be traveling from Paris to publishers in New York with some frequency (and Chicago is $250 and 2 hours by air from New York ...).  Further as a metropolis of 8-10 million, the third largest in the U.S. behind only New York and Los Angeles, as elsewhere largely college educated, there are actually "a book store or two" in Chicago to visit (on said book tours) and even a University or two (U of Chicago [!], Northwestern, even UIC as well as the Catholic universities of De Paul and Loyola at Chicago) as well.  So Jesse could probably find a way to "drop by" to visit his son a few times a year, even as Celine and their daughters lived on happily in Paris completely free (if they insisted...)  from the possibility that they could _also_ become fans of "da Bears" and "da Bulls" by virtue of having a half-brother/step-son living in the States... ;-) Where there's good will, a lot can be done, where there is not, all becomes really, really painful and hard ...

In any case though, even if at times this film is hard to watch due to the arguing ... the issues are real and certainly thought provoking that most couples by the time they reach their 30s or 40s would understand.  Good if at times painful job! ;-)


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Now You See Me [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
RoberEbert.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review
AVClub.com (A.A. Dowd) review

Now You See Me [2013] (directed by Louis Letterier, screenplay by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, story by Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt) is a rather enjoyable summer caper about 4 young street level or otherwise "b-string" magicians: J. Daniel Atlas (played by Jesse Eisenberg) a self-assured card trick/misdirection expert, Henley Reeves (played by Isla Fisher) his former onstage assistant now escape artist in her own right, Merritt McKinney (played by Woody Harrelson) a "mentalist" specializing in hypnosis and "reading people's minds" and Jack Wilder (played by Dave Franco) a simple con artist who actually plays-up being a lousy "street magician" even as he pick-pockets those who "see through" his "poorly executed magic tricks" ;-).  Each receive intriguing invitations (on personalized Tarot Cards) to participate in what amounts to a series of very public on stage Robin Hood-like heists (stealing from the rich to give to the poor).

The first of these heists involves "robbing a bank," in Paris, from a stage in Las Vegas.  Impossible?  Well at the end of the trick, actual Euro notes of various denominations are raining down from the vents on applauding crowd in Vegas while a carrel-full of nice freshly printed Euro notes really is missing from a previously assumed to be secure vault at one of the main banks in Paris ;-).  What the heck happened? :-)  Well both the FBI and French authorities want to know.  And soon Las Vegas bureau FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (played by Mark Fuffalo) and Alma Dray (played by Mélanie Laurent) sent to the States by Interpol are on the case.

Besides the four previously "no-name," "b-string" or even "washed-up" magicians, now with the attention of the world upon them and calling themselves "The Four Horsemen," two other, older figures, begin to play prominent roles in the story.  The first is an African-American showman named Thaddeus Braddley (played by Morgan Freeman) who had previously been a relatively successful on-stage magician before figuring out that he could make more money producing a syndicated online and perhaps cable-tv show "debunking" other magicians by explaining to viewers how seemingly "impossible tricks" are done.  The second is Arthur Tressler (played by Michael Caine) a rich white man with more money than he knows what to do with who's enjoyed being promoter of high gloss stage productions.  He doesn't know or particularly care to know how magic tricks work as long as they entertain.  And after that Las Vegas stunt, the "Four Horsemen," have, well, certainly caught his attention ... ;-).

Much of course then ensues and it would kinda ruin the experience of the viewer to say much more except that good ole Thaddeus Braddley keeps reminding Agent Rhodes, who always seems to be more than a few steps behind the "Four Horsemen" in their tricks that "the closer you get, the less actually you see..."

Does it all work?  Well you be the judges.  But IMHO it's a fun story and it's clearly designed to allow for sequels if the "stars align" again in the future ... ;-)


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

After Earth [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
Chicago SunTimes (R. Roeper) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

After Earth [2013] (directed and cowritten by M. Night Shyamalan along with Gary Whitta, story by Will Smith) is a very nice father/young teenage son sci-fi drama (starring the actual father/son team of Will Smith and his14 year-old son Jaden) that I believe that any military/vet/cop family would probably understand.

The film begins far in the future on a planet far far from Earth (as Earth had become so polluted that humanity had to abandon it 1000 years ago) and it centers on the relationship between General Cypher Raige (played by Will Smith) a decorated indeed almost legendary special forces military officer and his 14-year old son Kitai (played by Jaden Smith) who, often missing his dad (because he's so often away on various, always distand and always dangerous missions) desperately wants to become "just like his dad." Again, ANY military family or one with a hero could probably relate to this situation.

There are women in this family too, of course.  There's Faia Raige (played by Sophie Okonedo) Gen. Cypher/Kitai's loving wife/mother and then there was Senshi Raige (played by Zoe Isabella Kravitz), Kitai's older sister, and who had clearly been otherwise hard-nosed/cold Gen. Cypher Raige's "apple of his eye." 

Senshi had died when Kitai was only 5-6 years old protecting him (Kitai) from a horrible monster-like animal living on the planet where the Raiges and other humans now live, an animal species that literally "smells fear."  If Cypher had always been quite cold/distant (indeed trained to "mask his fear") in the past, he had become even more so, emotionally and otherwise, after Senshi's death.  Beyond grieving the loss of his favorite daughter "in his own way" by perhaps volunteering to go off on those always distant, always dangerous missions, it becomes clear that he partly blamed his son (even though he could not have been more than 5-6 at the time) for the loss of Senshi.  For his part, Kitai, racked by guilt that his older sister had died saving his life (and sensing the devastating effect that her death had on his father) Kitai was trying all the more to prove himself to his father ... who was almost never around (and who as noted above at least on some, if irrational, level blamed him for her death).

This then is the emotional set-up for the film.  Things come to a head, when Gen. Cypher, having come home from one of his missions is asked by his wife to take their 14-year-old son, Kitai (who's now "a cadet" after all, trying so hard to become a special forces Ranger "just like his dad") with him on his next mission.  After all, it was supposed to be "just a training mission," with cadets not unlike Kitai though a few years older than him anyway.   Gen. Cypher, reluctantly agrees.  But when they set-off on the "routine (training) mission," he asks his son to basically just strap himself into his seat in the interplanetary transport that they are traveling in with his gas mask on -- basically to out of the way -- while all goes according to plan ... until, of course, it does not.

The transport finds itself running-into a freak meteor-shower and is so damaged that it needs to crash land on the nearest hospitable planet available -- which turns out to be Earth, abandoned and quarantined by humanity some 1000 years previous (for reasons mentioned above).  The crash landing results in killing everybody on the ship except for the always heroic Gen. Cypher Raige (though he suffers two broken legs) and his 14-year-old son Kitai, who though a Ranger cadet, had been ordered by his heroic father to just sit in strapped in his seat with his gas mask on, had as both a "good cadet" and a "good boy" (if somewhat disappointedly/resentfully) ... "followed orders." ;-) 

Now decorated Gen. Cypher is forced to entrust his 14 year old son Kitai, cadet though he was, to traverse 100 km of uncharted wilderness (again, Earth had been abandoned by humanity for 1000 years) to retrieve a distress beacon that was located on the other end of their ship that had broken apart in pieces as it entered Earth's atmosphere, so that a rescue ship could be summoned to save them.  Much ensues ...

A fair amount of the critics reviewing the film complain about the stiffness of the performances of Gen. Cypher and his son.  Yet, I return to my belief that, while perhaps the stiffness is exaggerated a bit (for effect), any military family would understand.  This is to say that the IMHO stiffness in the performances of the two Smiths playing their roles was INTENTIONAL.  To support this view, I'd point out that, in contrast to Gen. Cypher who almost never smiles in the film (except in flashbacks involving his beloved and deceased older daughter Senchi) and Kitai, who's so much of a basket-case (if a heart-rending one) throughout most of the film, first trying to prove himself to his father and then plunged into a mission that was for real on which both his and his father's survival depended, that he had no time to smile, THE KEY WOMEN in the film, both wife/mother Faia and daughter/sister Senchi are portrayed as nothing but ever smiling/nurturing LOVE.

There are things that I would wonder about in the plot construction of the film.   I'm not sure why Earth had to be "abandoned" a 1000 years before the story was to have taken place with the father's/son's craft then crashing back on this "abandoned Earth."  Perhaps any "Earth-like planet" would have sufficed. 

Then the hideous monsters who "smelled our fear" who both existed on humanity's new home planet and then Kitai had to confront on Earth anyway (as it was part of the "cargo" being carried on the transport that carried father/son and the other Ranger trainees on their otherwise "routine mission") were certainly "over the top."  (Why do all of Hollywood's space aliens these days seem to look like hideous monsters bent on destroying us?)

Still I suppose, poor 14-year-old Kitai finds himself on a mission requiring him to confront truly "the sum of all (his) fears" -- (1) new fears - he has to traverse 100 km of, to him, utterly unknown terrain to save both him and his father, (2) old fears - he has to eventually confront a hideous monster (again somewhat inexplicably carried on the ship that crashed then with him and his father on Earth) of the same species that killed his older sister back on his home planet (a monster that could literally "smell" his fear), and (3) even more ancient fears - he finds himself on a planet that may be utterly new to him but that's filled with the consequences of mistakes made by his ancestors 1000+ years before.  So it all makes for one heck of a parable if at times a rather crowded one.  And it's one that I'd recommend to families with fathers who have been military heroes / otherwise "heroes on the force" and children trying really, really hard to become just like them.



<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Pietà [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R) Chicago SunTimes (3 stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (B. Stamets) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Pietà [2012] (written and directed by South Korean director Ki-Duk Kim) is an often brutal (definitely hard-R) yet not without its point, award winning film that IMHO probably appropriately (certainly it was worthy) though somewhat amusingly won both "The Golden Mouse" (for the best "small film") and "The Golden Lion" (for best film, period) at the Venice International Film Festival last year (2012).  It played recently at Chicago's Facets Multimedia and is available at Amazon Instant Video.

Set in a grimy oil, pipe and rust covered section of an ultra-industrialized, scant tree to be found, South Korean town where an entire neghborhood of tiny "mom and pop" machine shop businesses are stacked one next to another all presumably competing with each other to survive, the setting has an intentional "post-Apocalyptic" (but emphatically "post-Apocalyptic NOW") feel to it.  Overcast, less rainy but certainly colder, imagine the setting as Ridley Scott's Bladerunner [1982] but covered in snow and set in South Korea today rather than in some near or more distant future.  This is the second such "post-Apocalypse NOW" film that I've seen in the last couple of years, the other being an arguably "lighter" film named Viva Riva! [2010] by Congolese director Djo Munga in which that film's hero "Riva" enters Congo's capital of Kinshasa with a truck full of stolen petrol (gasoline) and is greeted by the local inhabitants from the mob to the local bishop ;-) as a hero torn out of a Madmax [1979] / Road Warrior [1981] story. 

Both this current film, Pietà [2012] and Viva Riva! [2010] along with Filipino film Graceland [2012] that played here and I reviewed recently serve as reminders to me (and which I share with readers here now) of the oft expressed view of a lot of the Asian and Latin American friars of my (Servite) Order with whom I studied at my Order's international college in Rome that Americans (and really Westerners in general...) simply don't have a clue about the struggles of life in the poorer countries of the world today, again "not in some distant Apocalyptic time in the future" but today.

Trying to appreciate this in earlier years, I led several groups of Americans from Servite apostolates in the United States to places like the Servite Mission in the Acre/Amazon region of Brazil and another Servite Mission in the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico.  But I also tried to explain to both our guys on the ground there and others who we met through them in both places that the vast majority of Americans really couldn't afford to go on trips like this either.

Indeed, a good part of my reasoning in creating my blog (and then choosing to operate it in the way that I have -- lets face it, there are _a lot_ more reviews of "small international films" reviewed on this blog than one would probably initially expect to see on movie blog from the States -- was to offer Catholics (both American and non) as well as other readers of the blog an opportunity to "visit" other countries / realities otherwise beyond their/our reach at least through the movies (and then where possible through movies made by people from the places where they are set).  Most American Catholics can not afford to spend $1500-2000 to visit the Servites in the Philippines (or to visit the Servite Sisters in South Korea).  But for $7-8 they can at least download a film recently reviewed here from each of these places through Amazon Instant Video and perhaps better understand the "joys and sorrows" of our brothers and sisters living there ;-).

But to return then to the current film ... Pietà [2012] is set in this rundown district of an industrial city somewhere in South Korea today where the families owning these little "mom and pop" machine shops, one stacked on top of another, are all trying to eek out a means to survive.  In this environment when times get hard, people go into debt.  So the story focuses on Gang-Do (played by Joeng-jin Lee) a 20-something enforcer for a loan-shark/mob operation.

The scam that the local mob had set-up was the following:  They would loan the owners of these tiny metal shop operations who had fallen into hard times $3000 to pay off their debts but they also insist that they sign a disability insurance policy worth $30,000 to get the loan.  Then, if they couldn't pay back the $3,000 loan IN ONE MONTH'S TIME, the amount that they would owe would jump to $30,000 and an enforcer like Gang-Do would come by to MUTILATE the owner (cut off his arm, crush his leg, what-have-you...) so that the mob could collect the $30,000 on the insurance.

The beginning sequence of the film shows Gang-Do stringing up and torturing the owner of one of these small machine shops who was already in a wheel chair (apparently someone who had already been mutilated once for failing to pay back a previous loan ...).  Satisfied that he's performed enough damage on the owner of that machine shop so that his bosses could collect their insurance money, he returns then to his home, a dingy all metal and plastic apartment.  Inside the apartment, there's a metal stove, a metal table, a couple of chairs, a small not particularly algae filled fish-tank and a tiny one person bed.  Oh yes, and on the wall over the table is a single (on wood) painting of a nameless and topless young woman.  When he comes home, he takes off his coat.  Takes out his dagger, throws it at the wooden painting, PIERCING HER HEART ... and then he crashes on the bed.  The next scene shows him masturbating (under the covers) still half asleep as his cell-phone vibrates a few times, apparently sending him a few more names and addresses of shop owners to shakedown and mutilate.

Such then is Gang-Do's life -- and the viewer gets to "see" (or at least hear...) a few more times what becomes a sad, sad variously desperate symphony (if not a cacophony) of differing reactions of the owners (and often their loved ones...) when he as a veritable "Angel of Death" comes by to collect "his Master's due."

Yet one day, an older 40-something woman shows up (played by Min-soo Jo).  She starts following Gang-Do from a distance and she follows him all the way home.  Who is she?  She introduces herself with a pleading apology, "I am your mother, who made you into who you are, because I abandoned you when you were born."  "Yeah, right."  He enters his dingy apartment, leaving her outside (in the snow), throws his dagger into the heart of the topless young woman's picture hanging on the wall again, and goes to bed.

The next morning ... she's still outside.  He brushes her aside and continues in his work.  She follows him ... if at a distance.  When one of the shop-owners that Gang-Do is shaking down, spits on him, she enters the shop and SLAPS THE SHOP-OWNER and says: "How dare you talk to my son that way!  If you want to spit on someone then spit on me.  I'm the one who made him this way..."  Gang-Do proceeds then to throw the shopowner off of some balcony or something (high enough to severely injure him, but not enough to kill him ...) but at this point the woman has Gang-Do's attention.

At the end of the day, he takes her home.  Still not convinced who she is, even though she's protesting that she's his mother, he proceeds to do what would certainly be the most depraved act in the whole film.  Yes, he violates her.  Note that this as well as the other scenes in the film are shot with some discretion.  The camera always turns away or otherwise the viewer is shielded from what happens, but the viewer is also left with no doubt whatsoever about had  happened.

Yet this scene becomes a turning-point.  Her sobbing (rather than anger) afterwards do seem to convince him (finally) of the truth of what she was telling him.  Having violated her and witnessing her reaction to this, he (finally) opens up his life to her.

What now?  Well this is just the set-up for the second half of the movie... ;-)

Throughout the rest of the film, the viewer is left to wonder about the identity of this woman.  Is she really his mother?  If she is, then it becomes clear that she's more than just that.

Alternatively is she supposed to be MARY?  Well if she is supposed to be Mary, then BESIDES Gang-Do HAVING VIOLATED HER (even though he was an utterly inhuman thug at the time...) she'd be certainly MORE THAN JUST HIS MOTHER.  SHE'D ALSO BE THE MOTHER OF HIS VICTIMS.

Yet, once she has his confidence, the woman (finally) begins to increasingly aggressively reprove Gang-Do for his previous crimes AND (finally) show obvious concern for his victims.  Indeed, the question arises: In the traumatized, certainly fallen, arguably hellish setting of this film, was she actually one of the mothers of one of his victims, who insinuated herself into Gang-Do's life (even at such a great cost to her) so that she could then avenge the death her (other) child?

But returning to the question of whether she was supposed to be a Marian figure in this film:  Mary would have to be the Mother of both the Oppressor and the Oppressed.  How would that play out?  And how could both Justice and Reconciliation be accomplished?

The scenario presented in this film is clearly an extreme one.  The viewer may not even like the way the writer-director resolves the situation in the film.  Yet the film does raise interesting questions to the viewer.  If Mary would be "The Mother of All Her Children" (again of both the Oppressor and the Oppressed) and people at times do truly awful things to each other, what would a reconciliation between her estranged children look like?  And if some of those children were already dead, would such reconciliation even be possible in this world?  Do we really still live "in Exile" in a "Valley of Tears?"

As a final note, South Korea is actually one of the most Christian / Catholic countries in East Asia (18.3% Protestant, 10.8% Catholic in 2005 according to S. Korean gov't statistics cited in wikipedia).  Additionally, the Catholic Church in Korea has had a storied 250 year indigenous history complete with martyrs.  I make note of this to remind readers that writer-director Ki-Duk Kim was not approaching this film "randomly."  The imagery is obviously very, very strong but it's also obviously informed:  In one of the more amusing scenes in the film, after Gang-Do finally starts believing the woman who was claiming to be his mother and lets her stay in his home, one morning while he's still sleeping, she takes the Dagger that he keeps throwing into the Heart of the picture of the topless (abused) Young Woman that he has hanging on his wall, then pulls-out Gang-Do's pet eel (a "small serpent" after all) from his fish-tank, chops it up (against his previous objections) and serves it to him later for breakfast ;-).   Only an informed Catholic could come up with a scene like that ;-)


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>