Obvious Child [2014] / Think Like a Man Too [2014]

As part of my contribution in our parish's participation in the Archdiocese of Chicago's Campaign "To Teach Who Christ Is," I've decided to forgo seeing (and therefore reviewing here) one or two movies a weekend and instead contribute the money I would have spent to the campaign.

I'm trying to be strategic about this, picking movies that would "hurt somewhat" to miss, that is, films that are not "so bad" that I wouldn't see them anyway nor movies that I really would need to see/review or else my blogging effort would cease to be worthwhile.

As per my custom, I will try to provide links to usual line-up of reviews that I also consider as I write my own.

This week I chose to not see:

Obvious Child [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2  Stars)  AVClub (B)

Think Like a Man Too [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (D+)

To be honest, both were kinda no brainers.

Obvious Child [2014] is a "comedy" about a young woman deciding to have an abortion, basically a "pro-abortion rights" response to the far more positive (and more pro-Life) films like Juno [2007] and Knocked Up [2007] where young women, finding themselves pregnant nonetheless decided to give their children a chance at life.  Obvious Child [2014] is a film about a woman, who, finding herself unexpectedly pregnant, decides to tear her developing child up and (in pieces) out, as she goes on with her own (apparently "more important") developing life.  Ha ha ...

Think Like a Man Too [2014], sequel to Think Like a Man [2012], continues to invite women to act as stupidly as (some) men (sometimes) do.  Bridesmaids [2012] falls into this genre as well.  Borrowing terminology from my seminary days, these films assume an "anthropology" that is fundamentally "disordered."  Are men really like those portrayed in the Hangover [2009, 2011, 2013] series?  Of course not.  But the very basis of Think Like a Man (and other "women's oriented" stories like it) is that this is the way "men" "are" / should be.  Again, ha ha ... but behind the laughs is a really depressing assumption and certainly not a Catholic / Christian one.

Jersey Boys [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Jersey Boys [2014] (directed by Clint Eastwood, screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elise based on their previous stage musical / book) is a film that will probably disappoint stage-musical goers, whose opinions in this matter, to be honest, I don't care tremendously about here, as stage musical productions are generally ridiculously expensive (and hence out of reach of those who are not either very rich, or very interested).  More interstingly to me, however, is the possibility that the film will also disappoint many New Jerseyans as the single most devastating charge that I read about the film comes from the CNS/USCCB reviewer J. McCarthy who noted that almost none of the movie was filmed in New Jersey but rather at the Warner Brothers Studio Lot in Los Angeles.

It seems clear to me that director Clint Eastwood intended to make this film _honestly_ (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of the AVClub noted that at the beginning of the story _three of the four of the members_ of the future Four Seasons made more money doing petty jobs for the local mob than with their singing.  And later, even after they achieved their success -- and even had the local mobsters _rooting for them_ -- they were never really able to break out of that past).  So it would seem to me that the better move would have been for Eastwood to have stepped back, if on account of his age his health was not up to filming the movie in New Jersey, take a more back-seat role as co-producer or co-executive producer, and find a "Jersey Boy" (Rogerebert.com's Olie Henderson suggested Jersey born Brian De Palma) to make the film.

That said, the film could actually have cross-cultural appeal and even be inspiring to young people growing-up in poorer/working class, often similarly mobbed-up, neighborhoods across the world -- from Moscow/Omsk/Kiev, to Bogota/Rio de Janeiro, to Bangkok/Manila.  

So what's the film about?  It's about the story of the above mentioned Four Seasons pop-group that attained tremendous popularity in the United States in the years immediately preceding the arrival of The Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion of the mid-1960s.  Three of the four members of the Four Seasons -- Frankie Valli [IMDb] (played in the film by John Lloyd Young), Tommy deVito [IMDb] (played by Vincent Piazza) and Nick Massi [IMDb] (played in the film by Michael Lomenda) -- grew-up in Belleville, New Jersey just outside of Newark, NJ.  Playing in a band calling themselves The Four Lovers, the fourth band member being Tommy's brother Nick DeVito (played by Johnny Cannizarro), they spent a number of years spinning their wheels, with them finding themselves often in trouble with the law (and the DeVito brothers, one or the other, in jail) for doing various small jobs often for the local mob, headed by (in the film) a Gyp DeCarlo (played by Christopher Walken), possibly the most sympathetic "family guy" mobster ever portrayed in American film (but "hey, in Jersey, if one stuck together with one's friends, the ones who 'looked after the neighborhood' EVERYONE was 'family'." That was basically The Code...)

Frankie, Tommy and Nick's break came, when one of them working in a bowling alley, ran into a young Joe Pesci (played in the film by Joseph Russo), yes THE FUTURE ACTOR Joe Pesci [IMDb] working (in the back, setting up the pins) in the same said bowling alley who also "worked" as a part-time talent scout.  It was _this_ "Joey" who put the Three/Four Lovers together with the fourth member of the future Four Seasons, keyboardist and songwriter Bob Gaudio [IMDb] (played in the film by Erich Bergen). 

Hearing Frankie Valli's striking falsetto voice for the first-time, Bob became convinced that this was the guy he needed to write songs for.  Bob also came with some connections in New York, notably a quite-openly-gay record producer named Bob Crewe (played by Mike Doyle).  After some lingering struggles with the group's name (the "Four Lovers" weren't going _anywhere_), they finally and quite amusingly changed it to The Four Seasons after the bowling alley where "it all kinda came together" (However, film's dialogue notes that the name ALSO actually evokes Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which makes some sense as well, as all four, even if "from Jersey," were also of ITALIAN descent and arguably even Frankie "Valli's" name itself evoked Vivaldi...).  Then they got their big hit Sherry followed by Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like a Man, etc.

However, even as their fame skyrocketed as they played gigs like American Bandstand and even the Ed Sullivan Show, they couldn't escape and then largely choose not to abandon their past.  Tommy gets into trouble with debts to loan sharks, Frankie out of loyalty to his friend decides to help him.  At this point, Nick Massi, "breaking the 4th wall of the theater" explains to the audience (To US the viewers) "If you don't understand why Frankie would do this, well, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND JERSEY."

The rest of the story is something of a spiral downward.  Not only is Tommy in trouble, but Frankie finds himself with serious family issues at home (largely of his own doing -- he's never at home and he takes on the added burden of a mistress...).  The other two, Nick and Bob, for different reasons find themselves tired of the band.

But before it all collapses, Bob and Frankie do collaborate on one last, now almost haunting hit: Can't Take My Eyes off of You.

It's really quite a good, bittersweet, and even (above mentioned) haunting story about friends, family, neighborhood and precariousness of "fame."

Again, perhaps it would have been better if the movie had been filmed in New Jersey, but overall, it honestly remains a pretty good job!


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22 Jump Street [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)

As part of my contribution in our parish's participation in the Archdiocese of Chicago's Campaign "To Teach Who Christ Is," I've decided to forgo seeing (and therefore reviewing here) one or two movies a weekend and instead contribute the money I would have spent to the campaign.

I'm trying to be strategic about this, picking movies that would "hurt somewhat" to miss, that is, films that are not "so bad" that I wouldn't see them anyway nor movies that I really would need to see/review or else my blogging effort would cease to be worthwhile.

As per my custom, I will try to provide links to usual line-up of reviews that I also consider as I write my own.

This week I chose to not see 22 Jump Street [2014]  giving what I would have spent on seeing the movie to the campaign.

To be honest, I don't think giving this film up was a particularly large sacrifice.  I had to give up something and there were IMHO better, more interesting / more challenging films to see.   Apparently, a number of the critics (above) found some value in the film's mockery of the "sequel formula."  It would seem however, that the film is, above all, what I expected it to be ... a long list of very stupid / tasteless "gross out" jokes, that well ... to pay $8-10 to see? 

How to Train Your Dragon 2 [2014]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (1/2 Star with Expl)

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


How to Train Your Dragon 2 [2014] (directed and screenplay by Dean Deblois based on the children's book series by Cressida Cowell) is ... sigh ... for me a tragedy. 

Sigh ... it is certainly a visual wonder.  As has been my policy, I made it a point to see the film in 2D rather than 3, and still was impressed.  But if nothing else were going on, I could also see that spending the extra $4 (per ticket ...) to see the film in 3D could actually be worth it this time.  The dragons in their variety and color portrayed are truly a chaotic wonder to behold and the flight sequences among the clouds, among the crags, forests and cliffs of the fjords that the Vikings of old called home are often spectacular.  All this is certainly CGI film-making / animation at its best.

The story?  That honestly is another matter.

First of all, part of the depth / charm of the first film lay in the father-son relationship between the burly heart of gold single-dad Stoick (voiced by Gerard Butler) and his destined-not-to-win-any-homecoming-games son Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel).  We were told then that Stoick's wife/Hiccup's mother had died when Hiccup was young.  The decision to bring her, Valka (voiced by Kate Blanchett) back (we're told in this movie she didn't die, but left Stoick/Hiccup when Hiccup was young) while perhaps making "good marketing sense," I don't think is helpful either to the integrity of the story or to kids. 

While there is no doubt that kids would generally prefer to have their parents happy and together, the story-line here strains credibility.  (SPOILER ALERT: viewers are asked to believe that 20 years after Valka had apparently decided to leave Stoick - over his then intransigent attitude towards dragons - they'd BOTH be interested in _romantically_ "starting where they left off" upon seeing each other again for the first time after those many years).  PERHAPS, indeed ONE WOULD HOPE, that the renewed relationship between the two will be clarified in a subsequent film.  An honest a reconciliation would certainly be salutary / laudable.  THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS ALL ABOUT RECONCILIATION -- but to pretend that they would return to being "husband and wife" again, as if nothing happened, simply does not make sense.  Friends, YES.  Husband and wife in all that it implies, come on.  AND THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I'D BE ADVOCATING "FINDING ANOTHER."  I am saying that at some point the "romantic boat" does sail AND THAT _THIS_ IS OKAY.  Yes, let the two be friends anew.  But "renewed romance" ... come on.  Only an ideology that insists on frenetic sexual activity "up until death" would demand that. 


THE SECOND MATTER, AND ONE THAT HONESTLY CONCERNS ME MORE, is at least one "model of leadership" promoted in the story as well as THE FILM'S VIEW OF RACE.  Hiccup's father, Stoick, after all is the village's chief.  When their village gets threatened BY A DARK-SKINNED HUMAN IN DREADLOCKS NAMED "DRAGO" (voiced by Djimon Hounsou) who's learned to use dragons but in an Evil way, Stoick explains to Hiccup that "A leader protects his own."  Honestly, could there be a more succinct statement of "National Socialism" than that: "Der Führer defende sein Volk." (Add to this of course, that this story plays out among a village of VIKINGS (read: Aryans) and as at least one reviewer above noted that THE ONLY IRREDEEMABLE VILLAIN IN THE STORY WAS DARK-SKINNED DREADLOCK WEARING "DRAGO").

Sigh, and I had liked this story ...

I would note though, that the story does prefer Hiccup's (and his new-found mother's) approach to the crisis by seeking to talk to Drago (even if it turns that dark, black, Evil "Drago" proves unwilling to talk / negotiate with him). 

All things considered, this is actually one of the better Hollywood-made contemporary children's films.  But as I've written on this Blog before (notably with Despicable Me 2 [2013]), I'd wish that our story-tellers in Hollywood come to better appreciate that (1) OUR NATION'S CHILDREN are far more racially diverse than the white investors / studio heads giving the go-aheads for these films, and (2) Hollywood, in any case, speaks to the world.  How could a film like this play in say Jamaica or West Africa when the villain is so obviously BLACK.


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Innocent Sorcerers (orig. Niewinni czarodzieje) [1960]

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

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article

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

Innocent Sorcerers (orig. Niewinni czarodzieje) [1960] (directed by Andrzej Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip]] [pl.wikip]*, screenplay by Jerzy Skolimowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* and Jerzy Andrzejewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) is a simply OUTSTANDING ROMANTIC COMEDY OF ITS TIME (early 1960s).  The film played recently at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

I do believe that continues the film's director Wajda's[IMDb] [FW.pl]* thematic, IMHO already present, if perhaps less openly, in his far more famous work of a few years previous Ashes and Diamonds (orig. Popioł i Diament) [1958] (reviewed here earlier).  That is, Wajda [IMDb] [FW.pl]* was giving permission young Poles of his time (after all that THEY and THEIR NATION had gone through in the years / decades previous) to just "be silly," "flirt a little," "fall in love."  And while THIS "OKAY" being given by Wajda in his film to the young Poles of his time MAY SEEM UTTERLY TRIVIAL to an American / Western (or even Polish...) viewer of today, Wajda's[IMDb] [FW.pl]* little film did apparently cause him trouble with the Communist censors of his time (he apparently had to change the film's ending to make it "more serious", perhaps less famously "petite bourgeoisie").

BUT TO BE FAIR, this film would have had objections coming from more religious based censors (read Catholic, read the Hollywood Production code) of the time as well.  Indeed, American viewers will _certainly_ note the "Production Code Era" feel of the film ... So, employing the universally successful censor bending strategy of  "Do you really want to object to a film about young people who actually are shown toeing all the 'powers that be' / censor imposed lines and still find a way to be happy?  That is to say, do you really want to be against people finding a way to be happy in our system and in our land?" -- with apparently a few tweaks, the film got made ;-).

So what is this subversive little film about?  Two Polish young people -- Bazili (played by Tadeusz Łomnicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) a young, easy on the eyes Warsaw medical doctor with his own place, and smart, ever smiling, eye-lash batting Pelagia (played magnificently by Krystyna Stypułkowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), a country girl with a big heart (but also nobody's fool) from a village at the outskirts of town -- finding a way to spend the night together in Warsaw circa 1960 ;-).

They're brought together at a club one night by Bazili's friend (Americans would recognize his role here as "wing man") named Edmund (played wonderfully by the famous actor Zbigniew Cybulski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) even if Bazili wasn't particularly interested initially as he was somewhat down on women at the time as a result of an ex-flame named Mirka (played by Wanda Koczeska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who'd turned into kind of a stalker.  And truth be told, Pelagia comes to the club "with another" as well.  Yet Edmund pulls it off and at the end of the evening there's Bazili and Pelagia alone together in Warsaw, Pelagia having missed the last train back to her town for the evening... 

Again, this is a movie of the early 1960s, so that which ensues is all very, very _innocent_ ... and yet, is it also so very, very charming!  Hence the lovely name for the film ... and honestly WHAT A GREAT STORY!


 This film is currently available _without English subtitles_ on YouTube by the Polish studio KADR (the studio that made the original film).  It's also available for purchase at a reasonable price on  amazon.com.

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

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Jump (orig. Salto) [1965]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


Jump (orig. Salto) [1965] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] (written and directed by Tadeusz Konwicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [pl.wikip]*) is IMHO a truly excellent allegorical, psychological, bordering on horror film that would remind American/Western viewers of the Twilight Zone [1959-1964] [IMDb] [en.wikip] television series, Stephen King's / Stanley Kubrick's The Shining [1980] and especially the less successful/lesser known Jim Carrey film The Majestic [2001].  The film played recently at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

Given Poland's enormous suffering / traumatization during World War II (per capita, no country in Europe suffered more during the Second World War and most of the most ghastly aspects of that War including the Nazi Death Camps took place on its soil), I find a film like this having been made in Poland all but inevitable and perhaps even psychologically cathartic.  (Honestly, _anyone_ who wishes to understand Poland in the years after the War ought to see this film along with Ashes and Diamonds (orig. Popioł i Diament)[1958] (also shown as part of Martin Scorcese's series on Polish Cinema) to which the current film serves as arguably a sequel).  
 
So ... set in rural Poland on "the exact day after the war's end," the current film begins with a young man dressed in black, with a black leather coat and dark-shaded sunglasses (played exquisitely throughout by Zbigniew Cybulski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, Poland's "James Dean" and the same actor who played the tragic / tortured protagonist of Ashes and Diamonds [1958], a character that arguably _died_ at the end of that film) traveling on a train passing through the Polish countryside.  Is there _anybody else_ on that train?  We don't know.  The camera's focus is solely on him.   What is clear is that this mysterious figure seems agitated and appears to be running (running from what?  running from whom? we don't know).  At some point, standing by the door of the train compartment in which he is in, he spots a not-awful-but-not-particularly-good-place to jump from the train (there's a slope that would probably break his fall, but there are also all sorts of trees there), crosses himself and ... jumps. 

Surviving apparently uninjured this jump from the train, he brushes himself off from any dirt, wipes clean his glasses, and proceeds then to walk again a not-altogether-simple-journey to a small, seemingly random Polish village.  I write "not altogether simple" because when he comes to a stream, a not particularly large stream but a reasonably deep one (up to the hips) and a fast moving one, the previous small bridge that had been standing there seems to have been knocked out.  No matter, he simply fords the stream, apparently unconcerned that he was going to be soaked now up to his hips. 

As he crosses the stream he spots a couple of young women bathing, naked, someways upstream.  They also notice him, giggle (or scream slightly) in surprise and run off up-the-riverbank and away from him out-of-sight.

He comes to the village at night fall.  It appears that no one in particular is expecting him.  As he walks through the village he (and we, the viewers) are given glimpses through the windows of some of the houses, of what's going on in the random village that evening:  There's one who later we come to understand as the village's local heartthrob / playboy (played by Zdzislaw Maklakiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) having a shot of vodka with some new conquest  There's an old man (played by Jerzy Block [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who seems to be sharpening his razor (but one gets the sense that he's _not_ sharpening it to give himself a shave but rather to try to kill himself).  And down the street he spots younger/middle aged woman who turns out to be the town's "card reader" / "fortune teller" (played by Irena Laskowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) in her window busy "setting out the cards" to discern the answer to some question.

He arrives at his destination, knocks on the door of the house.  There doesn't seem to be an answer ... Again no one seems to be expecting him.  Finally, the (current?) owner of the house (played by Gustav Hloubek [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) comes to the door.  "Who's there?" "You don't recognize me?"  "I'm sorry, I don't." "But I used to live here.  CERTAINLY you recognize me."  "I'm sorry I don't"  "I was Malinowski or perhaps Kowalski to you when I was here."  "Oh, perhaps I remember you."  "I need a place to stay."  "I really don't have anything for you."  "I used to stay in a room upstairs."  "I keep a lot of junk up there now.  It'd be a mess."  "That's okay, it'd serve for the night."  The owner of the house reluctantly agrees.

There is a small bed in the room along with said assortment of junk (bicycle parts, etc ... it's a storage closet now).  In the middle of the night, this mysterious figure Kowalski or Malinowski is awakened by a nightmare -- soldiers of some kind at the door.  He screams so loudly that the host is awakened and comes to the door "Is everything okay?"  "Yes, I thought there were soldiers at the door."  "Well there're not  Go back to sleep."

The next day, the mysterious man asks the host for a shovel, telling him that he'll bring it back afterwards but that he has to dig up something just outside of town.  The host reluctantly gives him said shovel, assured by the man that he'll bring it back okay. 

As this mysterious man Kowalski or Malinowski leaves the premises he runs into the host's daughter Helena (played by Marta Lipińska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  He recognizes her as "Maria."  She doesn't recognize him by sight and tells him that she's Maria's daughter, now grown, (It's been a while apparently since Kowalski / Malinowski's been in town).  She does indicate though that she knows something of him perhaps from her now (deceased?) mother.

As he passes through town to the field where he's going to dig (for something ...) the mysterious man Kowalski or Malinowski _does_ run into a man who recognizes him.  The man introduces himself as Blumenfeld (played exquisitely by Włodzimierz Boruński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) a _Jewish_ actor from Warsaw from pre-War days.  He tells Kowalski or Malinowski that they met somewhere during the war.  Kowalski or Malinowski tells him that sorry he does not remember him.  The man tells him that's okay because he's spent the years hiding and hiding, changing his identity seven times (!) and that he himself is confused at times about who he really is.  But he is, in fact, "the famous pre-war actor" Blumenfeld (the name, of course, meaning of course "Field of Flowers").  Kowalski or Malinowski is not altogether convinced (perhaps he's some poor soul who having changed his identity so many times, believes himself to be Blumenfeld ...) but shrugs and takes his word for it.

Blumenfeld is the first to invite Kowalski or Malinowski to "an anniversary celebration" that the town's having sometime that evening ...

Kowalski or Malinowski comes to a field outside of town and starts to dig, for something.  As he digs, we hear industrial sounds of some kind of other digging, coming from somewhere, apparently from just over the horizon.  As he digs, the owner of the house (or perhaps current/new owner of the house) where he was staying comes up to him (apparently he had been following him) and asks him: "Are you digging for the Treasure?  They say that there's some sort of treasure here outside of this town.  They say that this is why the Nazis left our town alone during the War and didn't destroy it.  It's supposed to be valuable, life changing.  Tell us if you find it."  In the meantime, Kowalski / Malinowski seems annoyed by the incessant and vaguely foreboding industrial banging coming from over the distant horizon.  The (current?) owner of the house in which Kowalski / Malinowski had spent the night explains: "Oh, that's coming from a uranium mine that they've started digging some time ago.  They say it will eventually extend to here ..."

The (current?) owner of the house in which Kowalski / Malinowski had spent the night then proceeds to invite him to the "anniversary" celebration that's going to take place in the town later that night as well.

What's the "anniversary" of?  We don't know.  Who the heck is Kowalski / Malinowski?  Who is the (current?) owner of the house in which he stayed?  Who is the man introducing himself as the famous pre-war actor "Blumenfeld?" Who is Helena the daughter of the (current?) owner of the house where Kowalski / Malinowski had spent the night who Kowalski/Malinowski had initially believed to be her mother "Maria?"  Who were ANY of these people (as well as others) from this village seemingly untouched by the War seemingly "blessed" by some Treasure buried in the ground outside of it but now also vaguely condemned to be destroyed by a uranium mine approaching it from just past the horizon? 

The Anniversary party DOESN'T offer any real answers either.  Indeed the obvious question that a viewer ought to be asking (and a reader here ought to be asking) is ARE THEY ALL DEAD?   Is the town itself simply a remnant/figments of someone's (WHOSE???) memory or imagination?

The film ends with the mysterious black leather-jacketed, dark sun-glass wearing figure named Kowalski or Malinowski leaving the town the morning after the "Anniversary" celebration, crossing the same fields, fording the same stream by the broken bridge, spotting the same two naked giggling young women, who on spotting him run off into the same woods, arriving at the same point where he had jumped off the train, just in time to meet the dark rumbling, perhaps _empty passenger_ train arriving at the same point again.  As the train approaches, he starts running to get up to its speed ... and jumps ... on to the train, which then heads off into the horizon, presumably to another town, where the same chain of events repeats itself....

GREAT FILM!

This film is currently available _without English subtitles_ on YouTube by the Polish studio KADR (the studio that made the original film). It's also available for rental-by-mail _with English subtitles_ in the United States at facets.org, and presumably for purchase on amazon.com.

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

<< 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! :-) >>

Words and Pictures [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (B. Scharkey) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassanger) review

Words and Pictures [2013] (directed by Fred Schepisi, screenplay by Gerald Di Pago) is a film that perhaps was doomed from the start.  After all, what's a film but an interplay of "words" and "pictures."  So from the get-go, the makers of this film were inviting every artist, writer, film-lover and critic to their show, all of whom arriving with fairly "high expectations."

On the plus side, the film-makers got the right setting: a random upscale prep-school somewhere in Maine (evoking cultural shared memories of the Robin Williams classic Dead Poets Society [1989]).  IMHO, the film-makers  also assembled the right cast, from the leads Clive Owen (as the once and still trying to be passionate/engaging but becoming increasingly bored/troubled/lonely "honors lit" teacher Jack Marcus who's finding himself leaning-more-and-more on his vodka ...) and Juliette Binoche (as the perhaps always somewhat aloof, more introverted/brooding artist / "honors art teacher" Dina Delsanto but becoming more so as her body slowly fails her as a result of rheumatoid arthritis), to some of the actors playing a number of the key student roles including Valerie Tian playing a quite talented student in both art and lit named Emily but honestly not knowing what to do with an increasingly annoying classmate/suitor named Swint (played also quite well as a teen locked in a seeming "death spiral" toward significant-consequence-resulting a-holehood by Adam DiMarco).

The above description of some of the key characters and setting would indicate that there was a clear dynamism present in the story's setup allowing for "many things" to happen in the story as it progressed.  So why then did the film ultimately fail for so many viewers (read the other critics view above) in "meeting expectations?"  Tragically, IMHO on account of both its "words" and "pictures."

To be sure, the dialogue does have its moments.  For instance, there's a scene where Marcus quite convincingly argues to his class (and to viewers of the film) that Words CAN inspire in a way that no other form of expression can: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [human beings] are created equal, and endowed with their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them including, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness..."  And there's another one where after having his class express by manner of grunt/gesture, attraction, hunger, anger, drowsiness, etc, Marcus asks his class to express: "Okay, let's meet after dinner to discuss tomorrow's hunt." (At some point language -- words -- had to be invented to convey even such relatively "simple" complex messages).  However, there are other times in film that the dialogue falls tragically flat.  Perhaps a co-writer could have been invited to improve some of the more "mundane" sections of the film. 

Similarly, the art in the film _ended-up_ being disappointingly flat:

Now much of the work shown in the film was actually made by Juliette Binoche made both before the film (when not acting, Binoche does apparently enjoy making quite serious works of contemporary art) and then during / for the film.  And truth be told, I found _some_ her work quite evocative/good. BUT then _the key painting_ that she then submits for school's battle between Art and Literature (that Marcus organizes in part to inspire the students, and in part to keep his job / not sink completely into boredom/despair) seemed UTTERLY RANDOM to me.

Other works of Binoche's (all generally "abstract expressionist" in style) seemed for more evocative.  Yet the students / audience are asked by the film to be somehow "impressed" in this all but random painting at the end.  Why?  When a _random painting_ with random color / markings is presented to us WITHOUT EXPLANATION or serious context.  Again, some of the other works at least appeared to use more evocative colors and the lines, 'splotches" (for lack of a better word), etc seemed more evocative of emotion. 

Further, there was a self-portrait being made by the student, Emily, that Delsanto keeps pushing her to improve that frankly remains "hanging" (We're _not_ told what happens to the picture).  And that's a shame because in the last (still "unfinished") version that we do see, it seems already to be quite evocative of SOMETHING: unsuredness (which would have been _perfect_ for the character).  However, one's left to guess that "something must have happened to that painting" that the film-makers decided to not make _it_ the center of the film's climax at the end.

So the film comes across to me as a GREAT IDEA ... and one that, even now, certainly could provide plenty of fodder for discussion after the film.  But the film's execution came across to me as flat.  And that's a shame.  The film could have become more -- a classic -- than IMHO it did.


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