Beyond the Lights [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (R. Moore) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (K. Ulrich) review  

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Like many films of its type, the teen (teen) / "young adult" (early/mid 20-something) oriented film Beyond the Lights [2014] (screenplay written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood) tries really hard to be "hip", even to the point of resorting to the hyper-sexualized imagery that the film actually seeks to criticize.  In any case, it is absolutely clear that the _intention_ of the filmmaker is to invite the audience to SEE "Beyond the Lights" even as those lights are, well, quite DISTRACTING and OFTEN VERY, VERY BRIGHT.  Still, if one can get "beyond" the "Bright Lights" then there are actually a surprising number of themes in this film that young people could certainly relate to.

The story is about mixed-race, part African-descended singer named Noni (played briefly as a girl by India Jean-Jacques and then, for most of the film, as a 20-something-young-adult by Gugu Mbatha-Raw).  And she has a perhaps loving but certainly insecure "helicopter mother" named Macy Jean (played by Minnie Driver). 

The film begins with 10 year old Noni winning second place in some neighborhood talent contest in some random city somewhere in England, with mom Macy Jean telling her afterwards to throw away her second place trophy asking her: "Do you want to be a runner-up all your life or do you want to become a winner?"  That's kind of a tough lesson to teach a 10 year old who's probably holding the first trophy that she's won in her life ...

Well, Noni grows-up to be "a winner" !!  Does she ever!   She becomes a hyper-commercialized HIP-HOP SENSATION.  Strategically positioned suspenders or, even more tellingly, GOLD SHACKLES AND CHAINS often serve as her "top."  HER RACE becomes all but UNKNOWABLE, her skin being "kinda tan," her hair a straight, purple-died weave, her voice remaining somewhat "british-y" in accent.  She also has a made-to-order white head-to-toe tattoo-covered bad-boy rap-star (keep 'em talkin' about you...) celebrity "boyfriend."

Well how much "makeup" can one possibly bear?  So ... after _winning_ some random music award at some random glitzy Los Angeles music awards show, Noni takes a few swigs of some kind of champagne, she comes back to her hotel room, asks the guard, an off-duty LAPD cop named Kaz (played by Nate Parker) to "let no one pass" and ... (actually) if not for her pushy mom, not letting officer/security guard Kaz "keep her out of her daughter's room" ... nearly throws herself-off the balcony ... A "cry for help"??   Ya think?

In truth, while ma' forced Kaz to let her in to her daughter's room, allowing both her and Officer Kaz to see Noni there on the balcony, it was actually Kaz who was able to save her.  (Ma' just froze).

Now what the heck to do?  Kaz (looking from the outside) immediately understands Noni to be one troubled young woman.  Ma' who's been super-involved in Noni's life (to the point that she was her "manager") honestly doesn't see.  Perhaps she's just "too close," perhaps like the manager husband of the (falling) "Country superstar" in Country Strong [2010] she's just too invested in her loved one's "success" to see clearly, perhaps she just doesn't have a clue.  In any case, a few hours after Officer Kaz literally pulled Noni, dangling, off the balcony, a preemptive "press conference" is called (in case "anybody saw" what actually happened) where Noni "confesses" to the incident, blames it on "a few too many celebratory drinks," thanks Kaz for pulling her to safety ... and ... well, did you know that we're coming new, super hot album, that'll be in stores in a couple of weeks ... (business as usual)."

But business is, of course, not as usual.

In the midst of a life of so much glitz and nobody, nobody, nobody being honest ... Kaz, becomes the first "normal" person that entered (okay, randomly...) into Noni's life in a long time.  And Noni, virtual demi-Goddess that she is, decides that she's going to look him up and bring him into her life.  That's probably the smartest (early) thing that Noni does in the story.  But, in truth, she's actually pretty lucky.  It turns out that Kaz is available to come into Noni's life (this could have become a far more tragic story if Kaz had been quite married with two kids living "in the valley").

Even so,Kaz has his own story/issues.  It turns out that he has a "helicopter parent" of his own.  His dad, LAPD as well (played by Danny Glover) had some ambitions for his son as well.  He wanted him to eventually become a politician.  As such, Kaz' life has been quite scripted as well -- science degree apparently in college, then instead of going into industry, "deciding" to "go into service" as a police officer "on the beat in LA," then after some years of that "gig" find some political office to run for.  Dad sees "strung out Hip-hop star with issues" Noni as not exactly "First Lady potential..." AND CERTAINLY NOT THE KIND OF GIRLFRIEND THAT WOULD ENGENDER CONFIDENCE FROM THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASTORS whose support Kaz was going need if he'd ever really enter Politics.  (But does Kaz really want to be a politician? ... Or is this just dad's dream ...?)

What to do?  Well ... eventually THE TWO RUN AWAY (TOGETHER).

This (not altogether surprising) "plot twist" becomes (more or less correctly) the primary criticism of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' office's review of the film: Why show (once again...) a young couple (more or less obviously) sleeping together first before getting married?  This a not-at-all-surprising (and again more-or-less clearly correct) criticism of the film by a major and quite authorative voice of the Faith community.

I would suggest the following, however: Yes, probably the two probably would have slept together, BUT GIVEN their emotional states at the time PROBABLY NOT ALL THAT MUCH.  Noni, in particular, was a total mess.  Is there anything particularly revelatory or beautiful about sex (1) when one's a total mess, or (2) one's having sex with someone who's a total mess?  In the first instance, sex comes akin to desperately getting bombed on alcohol or stoned on some other drug.  In the second, it's akin to knocking-out and date-raping somebody.  In either case, there's not much particularly "beautiful" about it.  Perhaps there's another option, (3) "celebratory sex" after "drying out."  But that's then akin to "going to the tavern to celebrate two weeks of 'sobriety.'" 

So regardless of what the film implies, I just don't believe that there'd actually be a whole lot of sex going on between the two when they run off to Mexico.  Nani simply had too many issues to sort through, and even Kaz had to make some decisions and sort through some issues as well (including how involved would he have wanted to become with a young woman who really did need some time to figure things out). 

So I'm not surprised that they would have run off together.  But I don't think that there'd really be all that much (sexually) going-on until they did "sober up" and when they did ... then the real questions would begin: Do I even like you?  Do I want to have children, spend the rest of my life with you?  The answers could be yes.  But ... it'd be slower than perhaps the film'd imply.

So the film does tell an interesting and current story.  But the Bishops' office here is right.  The imagery is perhaps needlessly sexualized and that makes it hard, even for the viewer, to get "Beyond the Lights."

Still as a 20-something discussion piece, at a distance, the film might not be bad.


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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1 [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

The Hunger Games Mockingjay -- Part 1 [2014] (directed by Francis Lawrence, screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong based on the novel by Suzanne Collins [IMDb]) is the third cinematic installment of Collins' Hunger Games [wikip] [Amzn] trilogy.  The first two installments The Hunger Games [2012], and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013] were reviewed on this blog earlier.  As with the previous cinematic adaptations of the Harry Potter and Twilight book series, the film-makers here have decided to split the final book in the series into two parts, making the cinematic adaptation of Collins' original trilogy comprise ... four films. 

Yes, one's tempted to "roll one's eyes" and inevitably images of money / Hollywood enter one's mind ... But truth be told, as I wrote in my review of the first of the recent Hobbit movies (all based on and reasonably faithfully following Tolkien's relatively tiny 100 page book that Hollywood's stretched-out into a series of three two-hour-plus movies) if one finds the worlds created in these stories to be compelling, then one probably won't mind spending a little more time in them as a result of an extra film (or two...).

And so it is then with the world, or the post-Apocalyptic North America called "Panem" of the Hunger Games.   By this third installment, one is pretty much "accustomed" to the place and to the conflict playing out  (Panem being dominated by a radically imperialistic/exploitative central Capitol extracting resources from and holding sway over thirteen outlying/subordinate Districts).

To the story ...

This third installment begins with the story's teenage heroine Katniss Everdeen (played with ever increasing familiarity and ease by Jennifer Lawrence) arriving a bunker carved deep into a mountain somewhere in previously thought to be disastrously "unlucky" District 13.  (At the end of the second installment, she was "rescued" / "taken away" by a seemingly ad hoc group of rebels seeking to finally organize a (new) Rebellion against the oppressive power of Panem's central Capital).   Previously, even Katniss believed that District 13 had been obliterated by the reigning Capitol's forces at the end of the last Rebellion against it.  Indeed, the annual "The Hunger Games" in which Katniss participated (twice) were organized by "The Capitol" each year to "celebrate" that "final victory" of the Central "Capitol" over its previously rebellious Provinces.

So it was indeed something of a shock for Katniss, who certainly had no love for the Capitol, to arrive at said bunker in District 13 and to discover that not only was it _not_ dead, but instead was a "beehive of life/activity." Yes, perhaps it was "burrowed deep underground" but it was ready now, indeed itching now, to start a new fight against the Capitol's forces to gain its dignity and independence.

And indeed (almost) everybody seemed to believe that Katniss (!) as a result of her defiance at those two Hunger Games would be the perfect "Poster Child" ("Face") for the New Rebellion.  But was she?  And if so, HOW, would she be(come) "The Face" of the New Rebellion of the Districts against the Capitol? 

These questions become the fodder for this third installment of the story.  And IMHO, this installment becomes the most interesting (and most current) of the installments to the story thus far.  I believe this because the central question being asked is "What makes for a Rebellion?" or even more simply "What makes for a Campaign of any sort?"     

District 13's no-nonsense President Alma Coin (played by Julianne Moore) has been organizing her residents in a very Spartan-like martial manner, waiting for a moment when they could finally "leave the hive" to strike at the Capitol.  She honestly doesn't understand the non-District 13's rebel commanders, including various defectors from the Capitol's, fascination with Katniss.  How can a "pretty" or even pretty DETERMINED "face" CARRY a Revolution??  She seems to ask. 

But the previously Capitol-spin-guru now defector-to-the-Rebel-side Plutarch Heavensbee (played by Phillip Seymour Hofmann) along with a cadre of idealistic "film school people" (again defectors from The Capitol) seems convinced that a Cause (ANY CAUSE) NEEDS a "Face" indeed a multipronged "media campaign" complete with slogans, and symbols, and songs, and finally even short-pithy-30 second "propaganda-info-mercials." 

Like the no-nonsense, healthy-and-fit President Coin of District 13, the down-to-earth (and often drunk...) Haymitch Abernathy (played again, wonderfully, by Woody Harrelson) of Katniss' own (blue-collar / Appalachia-like) District 8 is unconvinced by the Capitol-defectors' insistence on "media glitz," counseling instead that "What makes Catniss, Catniss is her AUTHENTICITY."  Yes, he believes that Catniss could "RALLY the Revolution" but only because she is "one of the people" / "one of the oppressed."  Put too much make-up on her, make her "talking points" too stilted ... and SHE'D LOSE _THE PEOPLE_, he tells the well-meaning, mic and camera toting, makeup carrying, Capitol-defector "media" people.

Add to that a cyber/technology wiz or two, personified here by another defector from the Capitol, named Beetee (played by Jeffrey Wright)... and this third installment of The Hunger Games series BECOMES A GREAT "POLY-SCI" DISCUSSION PIECE for high schoolers and college kids: How would you organize a campaign for something that you would believe in?

In truth, perhaps there are TOO MANY key players in the story who come "from the Capitol" ("from the Elite") to my liking.  But this installment certainly does offer much to think about as one tries to figure out how one would plan a rebellion against a force as oppressive (and as initially dominant) as the Capitol in the Hunger Game series.

So then, having set-up the story ... much ensues ... ;-) ... and I now eagerly await the fourth and final installment!   Good job folks, good job!


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The Immigrant [2013]

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

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (D. Callahan) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Immigrant [2013] (directed and screenplay cowritten by James Gray along with Ric Menello) is a visually striking, critically acclaimed / award winning "New York in the 1920s" immigrant "period piece" / "Melodrama" [TM] that made the festival rounds last year (including the 2013 Chicago International Film Festival).  Since it's main protagonist was a recently arrived 20-something Polish immigrant woman named Ewa Cybulska (played magnificently throughout by Marion Cotillard), the film played again recently at the 2014 Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago.

The film begins with Ewa and her sister Magda (played by Angela Sarafyan), tired but smiling, just having arrived on Americn shores, standing in the "inspection line" at Ellis Island.  Very quickly it goes bad.  Magda, looking more tired and sweaty than Ewa, coughs a few times.  Unfortunately, that's _exactly_ what the inspectors are looking for.  So she is quite rapidly removed from the line to be quarantined in case she has tuberculosis (which, let's face it, she probably has ...). 

That leaves Ewa, and it quickly goes downhill for her as well.  Above all, with Magda having been taken away, she's arriving now to the States "unaccompanied" (with nobody).  She has an address of an uncle and aunt in New York.  But the custom's official, without looking particularly hard at the paper with their address, declares the address invalid.  How would he know that so quickly?  Perhaps he was jaded (anybody could come with simply a paper saying anything), perhaps he didn't care, perhaps he didn't particularly like immigrants (after all, they were coming from some "new/strange part of Europe again," and American residents have never particularly liked "newcomers" anyway), perhaps, he even could have been bribed to give Ewa, a young woman arriving INCREASINGLY DESPERATE and ALONE, a hard time.  In any case, he tells her "The United States does not accept 'unaccompanied women' to our shores."  He further questions her moral character based on some random "report" of something that (could have) happened on the ship on which she and her sister were arriving.  So he summarily puts her into a line AWAITING DEPORTATION.

While waiting in this line ... IT JUST HAPPENS that a "nice man" (or perhaps/almost certainly not a particularly "nice man") named Bruno Weiss (played again remarkably well in superbly "complex" / "conflicted" fashion by Joaquin Phoenix) comes by the line of young women awaiting deportation and ... since Ewa is young, fairly attractive and actually speaks some English ... "helps her."  In any case, he gets her "off the island."  How?  Guess ...

Now obviously this "nice" or "not particularly nice" or frankly "quite evil" if perhaps "conflicted about it" man named Bruno ... has an agenda.  And perhaps not particularly surprisingly, Ewa is soon groomed into prostituting herself to both "pay for his care (of her)" and with the vague hope that HE might actually help her sister (afflicted with tuberculosis ... or not...) eventually get off of Ellis Island as well.

Sigh ... so what does Ewa do?  Well the rest of the story, more-or-less obviously quite melodramatic, but certainly WELL PLAYED, plays out.  Yes, she does find herself in a kind of sexual slavery (Seriously though playing out in the early 1920s, this film touches on SO MANY ISSUES of today).  But she is not without her inner resources -- both her pride AND HER FAITH -- and she's soon not without friends, including a 1920s era "Magician" (played again WONDERFULLY, attuned to the time of the story, by Jeremy Renner) who to varying degrees are able to "kinda help."

Does she find her way out of this horrible mess?  Well, find the film when it eventually comes out on DVD to find out ;-).  Honestly, this is a very well made film that though quite melodramatic has some very well drawn, and often quite nuanced characters (including the troubled, conflicted, Bruno).  In any case, the film reminds us that EVERYBODY has a story.

So good job folks, good job!


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The Theory of Everything [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Theory of Everything [2014] (directed by James Marsh, screenplay by Anthony McCarten based on the memoirs of Jane Wilde-Hawking) is by most critical accounts (see above) a rather sanitized portrayal, IMHO honestly probably appropriately even necessarily, of the 25 year marriage of world famous theoretical physicist Steven Hawking (played in the film by Eddie Redmayne), debilitated for most of that time with advanced ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease), and his first wife Jane Wilde-Hawking (played in the movie Felicity Jones).

I write that the portrayal was "appropriately even necessarily sanitized" because there are plenty of hints in the film to those who have eyes, ears and brains (to say nothing of hearts) suggesting that the Hawkings' situation was NOT an easy one.  And yet, most, including emphatically myself (!), would probably agree that the story (and even specifically OF THEIR MARRIAGE) deserved to be told.

Why?  Well, let's begin by noting that Steven Hawking is probably the single most famous / historically significant disabled/physically challenged person in our time or perhaps in all time.  79-80 years ago, eugenicists across the "civilized world" (including certainly at Hawking's own Cambridge University) would have advocated EUTHANIZING severely challenged people like him.  And the Nazis GASSED the severely disabled.  Yet there are few doubts in anybody's minds THAT THE WORLD IS A BETTER MORE ENLIGHTENED PLACE FOR HAVING STEVEN HAWKING LIVING AMONG US DESPITE HIS ENORMOUS PHYSICAL SUFFERING AND LIMITATIONS.

Then despite his great intellectual gifts as well as his great physical suffering, Hawking is _also_ portrayed in the film, at times, as being somewhat of an ingrate / jerk.

For one, interestingly, throughout the film, he's portrayed as a rather aggressive atheist.  In his case, to be honest, I could actually go either way on this: On one hand, one could definitely feel angry (at God) for having one found oneself suffering from such an awful disease.  On the other hand, in my own work/ministry (as a Catholic Priest) I do have to say that EVERYONE WHO I'VE EVER KNOWN (there have been several) who's come down with ALS really did die in the 2-3-4 year window that was given Hawking when he was first diagnosed BACK IN 1963 (OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO).  That would seem to be something to be grateful for... to have _so spectacularly_ beaten the odds.  HOWEVER, back to the first hand, it's been one heck of a difficult life FOR THOSE FIFTY YEARS as well... So faith can be something of "a wash" in these situations even if I still do think that it's be EASIER to live with such difficulties believing that God is still somehow present to us / at our sides through it all.  (Interestingly also, Jane, first his girlfriend and then his wife is portrayed as being both an intellectual herself (she also got a PhD, in Romance languages) AND a believing and except for a couple of years in the middle there, A PRACTICING ANGLICAN).  Anyway, despite his suffering, I do honestly think that on balance Hawking did come across as something of an ingrate toward God because UNLIKE so many other people who have come down with AND DIED RATHER QUICKLY OF HIS ILLNESS, he's been able to live for 50 years further AND EVEN HAVE THREE KIDS WITH JANE.  Really, it's remarkable ... and yet ... also ... so painful.

Second, putting aside God, arguably what broke-up his and Jane's marriage was the entrance of his nurse Elaine Mason (played by Maxine Peake) into the picture.  She became his day-to-day caregiver after many years of illness (after he already even lost his normal speech).  Yet, this was ALSO after he had become a world famous physicist (for his contribution to the theory of the Big Bang).  One does wonder if Hawking would have been "a catch" if he was simply a random ALS sufferer with no fame to his name. AND YET ... Diana DID TAKE CARE OF HIM, and DID HAVE MORE ENERGY WITH REGARDS TO THIS THAN JANE (worn down by 2 1/2 DECADES of taking care of him...).  Still, the film made it quite clear that it was Steven who "walked out" of the marriage and not Jane (even if there was "an Anglican choir director/widower" (played by Charlie Cox) and Jane's future second husband ALSO hovering in the background).

So this is the story about a "mess", about a _very challenging marriage_, yes somewhat sanitized here, and yet still honest enough (no need to get into "Jerry Springer" territory...).

Yes, after 25 years, their marriage did collapse.  They both remarried, she, obviously, in the (Anglican) Church once more.  But honestly, what a story!  And it does appear that this story, written up in Jane's second memoir _was a collaboration with Steve_.

So good job folks, good job!  And honestly, as Pope Francis has already said famously in another context, in this most difficult case here, "Who can judge?" except ... perhaps God ;-) ... who'd of course love them both, _as us all_ ;-).

So IMHO in the final analysis, this is an excellent and _very human_ / thought provoking film about someone who can teach us more (and perhaps even through some of his own mistakes) than just about the stars.


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Stones for the Rampart (orig. Kamienie na szaniec) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)   WP.pl (8/10)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmWeb.pl listing*

Film.onet.pl (M. Steciak) review*
Histmag.org (A. Łysakowska) review*
Kultura.newsweek.pl (M. Wachnicki) review*
WP.pl (J. Dudkiewicz) review*
Wyborza.pl (T. Sobolewski) review*

Stones for the Rampart (orig. Kamienie na szaniec) [2014] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* (directed by Robert Gliński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*, screenplay by Dominik W. Rettinger [IMDb] [FW.pl]* and Wojciech Pałys [IMDb] [FW.pl]* based on the Polish war-time novel [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [WCat-Eng ed.] [GR-Pol. Ed] [WCat-Pol Ed.] by Polish scout leader [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* and during WW II Polish resistance leader Aleksander Kamiński [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is a very tough and, at times, honestly (though INTENTIONALLY) painful-to-watch film about a group of Polish boy scouts, hence TEENAGERS, who participated in the "Szare Szeregi" (lit. Grey Ranks) [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* "youth arm" of the Polish Home Army (partisan) resistance [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* to Nazi occupation.

The film played recently at the 26th Annual (2014) Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago.

The bravery of these Polish teens (and their families) is undeniable and puts to shame various Hollywood highly fictionalized "Y/A" depictions of "youth defending their homeland" (one thinks not only of the, in comparison, utterly ridiculous Red Dawn [1984] [2012] films, but even the better but still necessarily invented Hunger Games [2012] [2013] [2014] [2015] series of current popularity).  

Still, Gliński's [IMDb] [FW.pl]* film did cause something of a stir in Poland, because unlike Kamiński's [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* original novel, which written and published UNDERGROUND during the War was INTENDED TO BE PATRIOTIC AND ENCOURAGE POLES, YOUNG AND OLD, TO KEEP-UP THE RESISTANCE TO THE HATED / VICIOUS NAZI OCCUPIERS, the current film CAN NOT BUT RAISE QUESTIONS, among them, the most key: WAS IT WORTH IT?  (Honestly, it is worth here to read through some of the POLISH reviews of this film LISTED ABOVE -- If one reads these reviews using the Chrome browser, one can get a pretty good English translation of them by simply clicking the appropriate button).

I write this because THE CAUSE WAS UNDOUBTEDLY JUST, and these YOUNG SCOUTS (and their families) were UNDOUBTABLY BRAVE ... BUT THE COST ... WAS SO, SO HIGH.

To the film ...

After setting-up the story, introducing the group of scouts in a random Polish city during the Nazi occupation, the film centers on a particular action that this scout unit undergoes:  One of the unit's leaders, Rudy (played by Tomasz Ziętek [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) is captured by the Nazi authorities and held, and more to the point TORTURED, at the local Gestapo headquarters.  What to do?

The Scouts, led by Rudy's BEST FRIEND Tadeusz nicknamed "Zośka" (played magnificently by Marcel Sabat [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) WANT TO RESCUE HIM.  Insane?  NOT REALLY.  No they weren't planning to simply storm the police station BUT they had the place staked out.  They even had people, neighbors, WORKING in that police station -- Who was typing out all the police reports coming out of that place?  CERTAINLY NOT GERMANS ... but rather POLISH SECRETARIES (where did they live?  IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.  Hence they'd be FRIENDS / NEIGHBORS of the Scouts and even of Rudy's own family).  So the plan was to AMBUSH the truck that would EVENTUALLY take Rudy off to some Concentration Camp.

BUT ... TO DO SO would require "Home Army" permission.  After all, these young Scouts are constantly reminded by "the higher ups" that they "can't just do whatever they wanted."  They are supposed to be PART OF AN ARMY.

AND THERE WERE SELF-EVIDENT RISKS.  SO they HAD TO WAIT.  But "DAMN IT, HOW LONG?"  Until (local Underground, deep-cover hidden) Major Jan Kiwerski (played by Andrzej Chyra [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) gets permission from even "Higher Up."  WHY?  Well, ANY SUCH OPERATION WAS INEVITABLY GOING TO RESULT IN NAZI COUNTER-ACTIONS and EVEN REPRISALS.  A unit sets out to "save one person" and the Nazis go berserk and the Home Army ends up LOSING the ENTIRE ORGANIZATION in that part of Poland.  SO ... the "higher ups" really needed to think this thing through.  PLUS, the "mission" was being "planned by mere kids" here ...

ON THE OTHER HAND, this film portrayed REMARKABLY WELL, the "UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL" NATURE of a partisan resistance: 

While "waiting for the go-ahead," Zośka has to deal with Rudy's family.  They live a few houses "down the street."  Then there's Rudy's girlfriend Hala (played magnificently by Sandra Staniszewska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  At one point, she comes to Zośka's family's apartment WITH A REVOLVER threatening to go down to the Gestapo HQ herself, and shoot her way in.  "Sure I'll almost certainly be killed, but AT LEAST I WILL HAVE DONE SOMETHING.  HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF, WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND OVER THERE, BEING TORTURED AND ALL YOU'RE DOING STANDING AROUND WAITING HERE?  WAITING FOR WHAT?  UNTIL HE DIES?"  (Honestly, PERHAPS that was EXACTLY what the Home Army higher ups were waiting for ... because this situation COULDN'T POSSIBLY END WELL ...).

Anyway, word does come that Rudy is going to be moved.  The Scout detachment gets the go-ahead to launch the ambush from "the higher ups."  ... Do they succeed in freeing him?  (MILD SPOILER ALERT) They do.  

But does it matter?  Of course not.  Why?  (I'm not going to tell you ... but think of the time, think of the nature of the Nazi occupation of the Slavic lands, and come to your own conclusion).  

BUT HONESTLY, IF YOU WERE THERE WHAT WOULD YOU DO?  OR PERHAPS WHAT WOULD YOU _HOPE TO DO_?

This is often simultaneously a ghastly and a great film, IMHO near perfectly capturing the central dilemma of the Polish Resistance of the time.  What the heck to do when no matter what one did, the consequences would be all but unbearable.

Sigh ... what a film and what a story.


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

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One Way Ticket to the Moon (orig. Bilet na Księżyc) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*

Dziennik.pl [P. Czerkawski] review*
Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*
Film.org.pl (K. Połaski) review*
Film.wp.pl (K. Kasperska) review*
KulisyKultury.pl (K. Łukaszewicz) review*

Hollywood Reporter [N. Young] review

It's 1969 and the "Summer of Love" in One Way Ticket to the Moon (orig. Bilet na Księżyc) [2013] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* (written and directed by Jacek Bromski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) in this often hilarious and inevitably poignant/sad take on Poland's "Summer of '69," seeking to apply a couple of America's counter-cultural classics, Hair [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] and Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb], to Polish Communist-era realities of the time. (The film played recently at the 26th Annual (2014) Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago).

And indeed much is "going on."  The Communist Regime has the whole, then NOTORIOUSLY DULL GRAY COUNTRY all decked out in the ALMOST IMPOSSIBLY CHEERFUL "RED AND WHITE" of Poland's national colors, earnestly trying to "generate excitement" about celebrating the upcoming "25th Anniversary of the Founding of the Polish People's Republic," even as every one of its news items on State (Controlled) radio seems to undermine the earnest, studied, faux/forced optimistic Party Line: Early in the film, we hear "State Radio" LEADING its "morning news" with an item announcing that the "Minister of Agriculture" had visited a "cord factory" and "proudly proclaimed" that "there will certainly be enough rope to bind this year's harvest."   Ring the bells folks!  The Party assures us that at least this _ridiculously_ basic need is something that we don't have to worry about (or should we actually?  Why would something so absurdly basic be mentioned on the news at all...?)

Indeed, the Regime faces a real challenge in 'generating excitement' about "25 years of drabness and disappointment" -- Everyone in the story is painfully aware of Poland's painfully embarrassing bad economic story.   "Okay, we lag behind the East Germans, that's 'no surprise,' but why is it that even the Czechoslovaks and the Hungarians are beating our ...?" asks one of character.  Another responds, "Well you know, we Poles have become a nation of schemers.  An East German foreman tells one of his East German workers to come over and tighten a screw.  And he does, come over, and ... tightens the screw.  A Polish foreman tells one of his Polish workers to come over and tighten a screw.  And he comes over and spends a half an hour looking-over the screw, from all angles, scheming to find a way to appear to tighten it without actually doing so.  So EVERYTHING takes a long time, and ... at the end of the day, NOTHING gets done anyway."  (Readers note simply here that this Communist Era Polish reputation for "scheming" was HONESTLY, AN ARTIFACT OF THAT UNNATURAL TIME.  Poland was NOT free but rather a captive "satellite" of the Soviet Union.  In contrast, outside of Poland, both here in the United States and across all of Western Europe, Poles have had a near UNIVERSAL REPUTATION of both HARD WORK and PRIDE IN THAT WORK.  It's honestly hard to imagine the Catholic Church in the United States without the legacy of the extreme generosity of both Polish labor and Polish money, often contributed first by _dirt poor_ immigrants and later by their descendants).

But beyond that, the Regime's Party spin doctors have another problem on their hands:  The whole world, including Poland, seems to be focused on the seminal event about to occur ... America's soon to be launched Apollo 11 and its promised landing on the moon.  The Regime is stuck trying to explain(away) why it's the Americans who are going to be walking on the moon first, and not the Regime's Soviet Communist "big brothers."  Play on that summer's primary focus -- the Apollo ii moon landing -- inspires, of course, this film's title.

But all these "grand" concerns aside -- the upcoming celebration of  Communist Poland's "25 years of mediocrity and failure" or the Apollo moon landings -- 1969 was the summer in which the film's central protagonist Adam Sikora (played by Filip Pławiak [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), having graduated that spring from high school, was ... drafted into the military.

And so the film begins with Adam, having finished his early morning milk deliveries rushing off to the local draft board, where, in its "infinite wisdom" it assigns him, who's lived all his life in a little hamlet in the mountains of the southeastern Poland ... TO THE NAVY and to report "two weeks hence" to a Polish naval base in the northwestern (Baltic Coast) corner of the country.

How long's the assignment? ... three years.  Well that's gonna ... SUCK, given that he has his first, sort-of, girlfriend, Danusia (played with perfectly-calibrated 15-to-16-year-old earnestness by Kaja Walden [IMBb] [FW.pl]*) in his home village, in said SOUTH EASTERN CORNER OF THE COUNTRY.  So he goes over to the shop where she's working that summer to break the news.  He then asks her: "Will you wait for me?"  In perfectly calibrated SHOCK of a 15-to-16-year-old BEING ASKED THIS QUESTION FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, she answers: "NO!"  Crestfallen, 18-year-old Adam asks "Why?"  "I'm 15-going-on-16 years old, I can't even imagine THREE YEARS FROM NOW." And so it is, shell-shocked Adam realizes that he's probably being dumped for the very first time...

Adam's lack-of-experience / naivete comes to concern his older, thinking of himself as "more worldly" brother Antoni (played again wonderfully by Mateusz Kościukiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), 22 or 23, who had just finished his three year term of service in the Polish Navy (Apparently, in its infinite wisdom, the Polish People's Army had determined that the nation's "best mariners" come from the mountains of the South Eastern part of the country ;-).  So Antoni decides to accompany his younger brother to his induction in the Polish Navy, hoping to "impart his wisdom" (all the "wisdom" of a 22 or 23 year old...) on his younger brother along the way.

Thus begins an "epic" Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb]-like "road trip" from the mountains of Southeastern Poland to the Poland's Northwestern Baltic coast ... 'CEPT ... THIS IS POLAND OF 1969: Neither Antoni nor Adam have "motor-bikes" to say nothing of a car.  This "road trip" was going to take place "the Soviet-era Socialist way" ... by train, bus and occasionally hitchhiking a ride from a farmer pulling a hay-covered cart with a tractor ;-)

But let's also admit here that no matter where one is, WHEN ONE IS YOUNG, ANY TRIP LIKE THIS ... is going to be EPIC (!)  And so it is ... ;-)

The people that the two meet along the way (and their conversations with them) in this meandering trip that actually takes them longer than Apollo 11's trip to the moon (though in fairness, they did make stops along the way) are ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS.  These include: (1) their encounter/conversation with two young girls their age (coming home from a 3 month training course in "food service") that they meet on the train to Krakow; (2) a barbeque with an "old" (again 22-24 years old ...) "former Navy buddy" of Antoni's now living in the (still) southern mining town of Katowice; and (3) a priceless conversation with a thoroughly corrupt "little man" of a conductor on a "night train" to the coast (this last encounter being certainly a play-on, indeed a "send-up of" the famous Communist-era film Night Train (orig. Pociąg) [1959] that played recently again in the United States as part of the American director Martin Scrocese's Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl] series).

The "little man" pettily corrupt conductor tells Antoni who to talk-to / look-up to get themselves "set-up" (with both a hotel and some Communist Era hookers) when they "get to the coast."  (Again folks, think Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb]).

And let's admit it, what kind of "wisdom" would a 22-year-old "older brother" have to impart on his "more naive" younger brother, other than, well, trying to "get him laid..."?  After an aborted "first attempt," Adam, on his own, manages "to score" with an amiable, a few years older, Polish exotic dancer named Halina/Roxana (played by Anna Przybylska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) IN A SCENE THAT HONESTLY IS VERY, VERY FUNNY: There's Adam, losing his virginity, even as we hear Neil Armstrong on the TV, stepping down from his craft and announcing TO THE WHOLE WORLD: "One small step for (a) man ...." ;-)

Yet if all this SEEMS INCREDIBLY STUPID, ADOLESCENT, SOPHOMORIC, indeed HAIR [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb]-like in nature, JUST LIKE IN THE SUDDEN CLOSING SEQUENCE of the FILM VERSION OF HAIR [1979], the current film TAKES A SUDDEN and far more serious turn:

Adam's lying there in Halina's bed, basking in the "momentous glory" of "having gone where..." even as Neil Armstrong was first stepping onto the moon, when a drunk local police officer comes "visiting upon" Halina as well.

Adam steps-up to defend Halina's honor, and since the police officer was piss-drunk, even disarms him.  The drunk local police officer lifts up his hands, and even laughs: "Okay boy, easy, even keep the gun...  But know that tomorrow, I'm coming back for you WITH THE WHOLE LOCAL POLICE FORCE and you're a dead man."

Again, if up to this point the movie, LIKE most of the 1960s era HAIR [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] was above all, just a STUPID SOPHOMORIC ROMP, SUDDENLY ADAM really _has to_ "grow up."   Indeed, he has to flee.  BUT TO WHERE???  HOW???

He does find a solution, the closing credits suggest that the story presented was actually based on a true one. Well, yes, and no.  There were Cold War cases in which Poles (as well as other Central/East Europeans from the Soviet Satellite countries) took similarly drastic measures to get across to the West.  However, the closing credits identifies Adam Sikora as the Polish born father of the German footballer "on the national team" Feliks (or Felix) Sikora.  And this is, as far as I can see, (Google, Wikipedia), this is not true.  But then let's also remember that Milos Forman's film version of Hair [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] ended in a super poignant if grossly manipulative fiction as well.

What then to make of the film?  I did like it.

I had contact with and indeed visited my relatives in Communist era Czechoslovakia throughout the 1970s and 80s.  The first time I heard Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was on my oldest cousin's stereo in Prague.  He had found a way to buy the record, black iconic "prism cover" and all, on his own over there.  On the flip-side my parents, sister and I, enjoyed the summer of the "Prague Spring" (1968) largely on the beach in Union Pier outside of Chicago largely listening to lovely Czech language covers of the Beatles, Mamas and Papas, etc.  The film version of Milan Kindera's Unbearable Lightness of Being [1988] features (a little anachronistically) Marta Kubišová's Czech language cover of Hey Jude.

So to those who would complain that this film "can not possibly portray a realistic vision of Poland in 1969," having pictures of bell-bottom jeans wearing (admittedly Czech) cousins of mine from the same time, I beg to disagree. 

Then those who'd on the other hand argue that the film unfairly lampoons Communist Era news programming, my sister, various American born cousins of mine and I (all still Czech speaking) can "rolls our eyes" almost completely around in our eye-sockets thanks to the UNBELIEVABLE STUPIDITY OF WHAT PASSED AS NEWS REPORTING COMMUNIST LANDS DURING THAT ERA.   The segment in this film about the "Agricultural Minister visiting the cord factory" (mentioned above) is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS.  'Cause that's EXACTLY (!) how it was.

I do wish that the director did not play with the truth as much as he did at the end of the film.  But even attempts like Adam's to get across to the West were part of the historical record of the time.  There were desperate people who did have to flee places like Poland during that era.  And how could one do that, again FROM POLAND, when one was SURROUNDED by "Fraternal Brother" States?

Anyway, this film is NEITHER Citizen Kane [1941] nor Ashes and Diamonds [1958].   But it does kinda play like a Polish Easy Rider [1969] or [Hair [1979].

And so in that sense, it did a "pretty good job!"  So "rock on" director Jacek Bromski [IMDb] [FW.pl], "rock on" ;-)


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

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Jack Strong [2014]

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

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*
KinoTeatr.ru listing*

Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*
Film.org.pl (K. Połaski) review*
Newsweek.pl (H. Orzechowski) review*
Polityka.pl (Z. Pietrasik) review*
Polska Times (K. Dobroszek) review*

 
Jack Strong [2014] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [FT.ru]* (screenplay and directed by Władysław Pasikowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) tells the TRUE STORY of  Ryszard Kukliński [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*(played in the film by Marcin Dorociński [IMDb] [FW.pl]* ) who, working as a trusted aide for the Polish Army General Staff, became perhaps the single most important spy for NATO during the Cold War.  Passing secrets to the CIA between 1972 and 1981, Kukliński, under the code name "Jack Strong" (hence the film's name) became so important an asset that U.S. Carter Administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (played in the film by Krzysztof Pieczyński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) came to call him "The First Polish Officer in NATO" ;-).  The film played recently at the 26th Annual (2014) Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago.

So how did an officer, obviously trusted within the Polish and by extension even by the Warsaw Pact (read Soviet) military establishment (1) come to be so trusted by the said military establishment? and then (2) how did he come to be so disenchanted with said military establishment that he chose to spy (and so effectively) for "the other side"?

Well, regarding the first question, the film makes prominent note of two assignments Kukliński had early in his CV: (1) He served as a (Polish) military attache in Vietnam where, with apparently some frequency, he encountered (and back then, still competed with) the American CIA, and (2) HE APPARENTLY HELPED PLAN THE WARSAW PACT INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA IN 1968 (something that is rather difficult for my Czech-descended ears to hear.  I was a 4 year old (though already born/living in Chicago) when the Soviets/Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia.  But I remember the news of the invasion _all too well_ ... as it happened on my mother's birthday ... One does not easily forget the faces of one's parents as they realized on that day that they were probably never going to be "going home.")

So then, what made him "change sides?"  Apparently, fear (and fascinatingly, not just by him, but apparently also by a significant number of the other members of the Polish General Staff) that then existent Soviet-Chinese tensions were leading the Soviet Union to plan a preemptive invasion of Western Europe, which would almost certainly result in the "Hiroshima-ization" of Poland.

So how to make contact with the West.  Well apparently Kukliński was _something of a yachtsman_, and so he and _another member_ of the Polish General Staff _sailed a yacht_ from Szczecin to a random port / hamlet on the West German coast from where he sent letters to several U.S. diplomatic missions in Germany requesting contact be made with him back in Poland.  The letters were received and contact was duly established with him at a decided-upon location (by a random "country bus-stop" somewhere outside of Warsaw).

The initial meeting included some missteps on the part of both parties:   Though they had agreed that the CIA officers meeting him would be "identifiable" because one of them "would be holding a newspaper," Kukliński noted to them that (having some experience with encountering American spies like them during his time in Vietnam) that they were so obvious that he could identify them 50-100 meters away ;-).  But the two CIA officials soon dressed him down as well: When Kukliński began his conversation with them by suggesting that he was "part of a group" of a fair number of officers at the Polish General Staff, who had been wanting to make contact with them, the CIA officials' quick response was: "We're NOT interested in making contact with a (presumably amorphous) 'group of officers.'  We're ONLY interested in making contact WITH YOU (who we see here in front of us, and who we expect will then be working with us and be then at least partly accountable to us)."  However, when the conversation eventually/inevitably turned to some sort of "compensation" for his services, the CIA officials were impressed Kukliński told them that he wanted _nothing_ from them, no money for him, NOTHING, zero, nada.  He was not motivated in this way ...

Thus began a fascinating 10 year relationship between him and the CIA (his principal "handler" played by Patrick Wilson [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  Among the most significant documents that he passed to his handlers were _the exact locations_ of all three of the Warsaw Pact's principal command bunkers in case of war (one outside of Moscow, one in Poland and one in Bulgaria) so that NATO could destroy them "within minutes" of the beginning of hostilities between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.  (Interestingly, the only way that this information could have a deterrent effect to Moscow / Warsaw Pact would be if the Moscow / the Warsaw Pact came to know _that NATO knew_ the locations of these bunkers... ;-).  Then during the Solidarity Era [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, he was able to _regularly leak_ various Soviet / Warsaw Pact plans of invasion of Poland should Moscow have chosen to "go it alone" rather than have "Poland itself" "take care matters at hand."

Obviously, this caused enormous frustration to the Soviet military command personified in the film by General Victor Kulikov (played in the film by Oleg Maslennikov [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[KT.ru]*) who was in fact the Commander in Chief of the Warsaw Pact  from 1977-1989.  Kulikov came to know that there was a spy within the general staffs of the Warsaw Pact, and eventually that the spy was _probably_ Polish.  But who?  (Interestingly, the film portrays Poland's General Staff as having, certainly, its "internationalist"/Communist loyalists to the mission of the Warsaw Pact, BUT BY AND LARGE, the Polish General Staff was _not_ particularly cooperative in helping the Soviets figure-out who was the spy in their midst.  On the other side of the coin,  Kukliński quickly settled into the truth that he couldn't trust anybody on the Polish General Staff either.  He was truly on his own.

Perhaps the poignant part of the story was the portrayal of Kukliński's "loneliness" in his own family.  His wife Hanna (played by Maja Ostaszewska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) came to be convinced that he was cheating on her, while his sons (played by Józef Pawłowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* and Piotr Nerlewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) , particularly during the Solidarity Era [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* spent much of their young adulthood largely dismissing him as a "collaborator" with the nation's hated enemy (the Soviet Union).

Of course, the Soviets and the Communist loyalists within the Polish General Staff were not stupid.  So it would seem, that it would be inevitable that they would close the ring on the "American Spy" in their midst.  Do they?  Well, that's the rest of the movie ;-)

This is one heck of a Cold War story, and except for some inevitable conflations / dramatic flourishes IT IS TRUE.  So it's one heck of a film!  Good job folks!  Good job!


* 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! :-) >>