Kandukonden Kandukonden

Charles Taylor is a well-informed if sometimes cranky film critic for Salon.com (his colleague there is my favorite reviewer of movies today, Stephanie Zacharek -- but more on that later, when I finally get around to posting my “Critics to Read, Critics to Believe” essay), and he strongly recommended this film over Bride and Prejudice to show what Bollywood in general and star Aishwarya Rai are capable of. Well, it was well worth watching, even on an Indian dvd whose subtitles were not only translated into hilarious pidgen English but out of synch with the dialogue (apparently Kino has redone subtitles on a U.S. theatrical release not yet on dvd.) Luckily the story was based on Sense and Sensibility, so I could follow the action if not the speech, and the 158 minute running time breezed by. There wasn’t quite as much singing and dancing as I expected, but the numbers were lavish and delightful. We’re a long way from the India of film immortal Satyajit Ray, but this is an entertaining way to tour this stirring giant of a country. There is local color up the wazoo (an ancient Sanskrit word, I believe), though the main romantic duos are filmed respectively around the Sphinx and Pyramids and what appears to be an ancient Scottish castle. Safe to call this whole production enchanting, even without understanding the words. The other Bollywood film Taylor recommended over Gurinder Chadha’s adaptation is Devdas, which as it happens will be showing at Images Cinema on Monday, May 9th, at 9:00 pm, under the auspices of Cinephiles of Williams College. See you there. (2000, dvd, n.) *NR*

Nobody Knows

Rich with documentary observation and patient attention to detail, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film is ultimately a fairy tale of abandonment, based on a real story set in modern Tokyo. Four children are left alone for months on end by a mother who is barely more than a child herself. The elder boy is 12 and takes responsibility for keeping his siblings together, though each has a different but equally useless father. The children’s gradual descent into a near-feral state is meticulously, intimately, and unblinkingly delineated, and would be unbearable to watch if the boys and girls were not so incredibly beautiful and the presentation was not so chaste. There are unreal elements and unanswered questions to the story, but it has a searching yet unforced quality, with a wide-eyed child-like persistence, that makes its running time of well over two hours not seem prolonged at all. Still, this is not most people’s idea of entertainment, and it was bold of Images to schedule it. (2004, Images, n.) *7* (MC-88, RT-95.)

Hero

Visually voluptuous but dramatically inert, this seems to be Zhang Yimou’s attempt to return to the good graces of the Chinese government, with its celebration of the establishment of the first “Our Land” empire of China more than two thousand years ago. Thin on story and characterization and thick with martial arts choreography, what makes this film hard to resist is the sheer scale and scope of the spectacle, from remote desert or mountain lake settings, to huge palaces and massive armies, phalanxes of archers and swordsman, mounted soldiers with banners flying. Sometimes the swordfights take place in a swirl of autumn leaves, or skimming over still waters, so the film is inventive in the same way comic book movies may be in this country, but we certainly ought to expect more from one of the world’s great filmmakers, a far cry from Ju Dou or To Live or The Road Home or others where the spectacle is balanced by an attentive realism. (2002, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-84, RT-94.)

Where the Heart Is

. . . or Isn’t, as the case may be. Usually reliable John Boorman goes a little soft in the head while working with a script from his daughter, about dad Dabney Coleman, a demolition tycoon who kicks his kids out of the nest and into a quirky old Dutch house in Brooklyn, which he’s stuck with when landmark status blocks his plan to build an office tower. Uma Thurman is one of the kids but this was clearly before she learned how to act, and the others are siblings mainly in vapidity. Joanna Cassidy and Christopher Plummer are insultingly wasted in embarrassing roles. Meant as a socially-conscious farce about communal creativity vs. capitalist disfunction, this is more irksome than quirky, though it has its moments visually. (1990, dvd, n.) *5-*

Everybody's All-American

Ray raised my interest in Taylor Hackford’s back catalogue, so I caught up with this other decades-spanning story of an American cultural hero from the South -- and I’m glad I did. Adapted from Frank Deford’s intelligent football novel, the film follows the “The Grey Ghost” from his national championship glory as an LSU Tiger in 1956, through his afterthought pro career, into his dotage as an alcoholic, semi-employed ex-jock, up to the 25th reunion of his magic moment. Dennis Quaid (ooh) fills the role in every respect, Jessica Lange (yum) is his Magnolia Queen wife, and Timothy Hutton is the professorial kissin’ cousin and longtime celebrant of the golden couple. The movie tries to pack a lot into its sprawling canvas -- especially with a parallel story of a black athlete blocked by the color line who finds an alternative outlet for his competitiveness and heroism -- but paints the panorama with a brisk competence. (1988, dvd, n.) *7-*

Thelma and Louise

Wow, I really loved this on second sight, in full widescreen glory! I was tickled pink (or lavender) at the way it perfectly rounded out the Cinematic Landscapes film series, if I do say so myself. Talk about plunging into the landscape, making it a dangerous, beautiful metaphor for freedom and spirit! From the Leone to the Bogdanovich to the Ridley Scott, we went from horse opera to country & western to rock’n’roll roadtrip, from a summation of the 19th century Romantic mythos of the West, to a modernist midcentury vision of alienation and lust on the barren, windswept plains of Texas, to a pre-millenial post-modernist overturning of genre and gender -- this time we give the guns to the girls, travel through Monument Valley at night, complicate the celebration of sisters in arms. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis make magic together, as they bust out of domesticity into the Wild West. There’s a certain amount of feminist payback in their exploits, but at a distance from the uproar around its original release, it’s easy to see that the male leads (Harvey Keitel, Brad Pitt, Michael Madsen) are all complex characters, though some of the bit players are caricatures of male shortcomings. Callie Khouri deserved her Oscar for her literate and witty script, and either woman would have been a worthy Best Actress (though winner Jodie Foster was too.) Scott’s direction has both sweep and detail, the interiors meticulously set up the escape to exteriors, and the whole moral argument of the film is played out in the shadow and light falling across the faces of both men and women. Great music too. You laugh, you cry, you exult in sensation, you are forced to think. How much more can a movie do? (1991, dvd@cai, r.) *9*

Off the Map (et al.)

I was pulling for this former Williamstown Film Festival feature, with another strong performance from Joan Allen, a script by Berkshire playwrite Joan Ackerman, and direction by Campbell Scott, but it’s really not very good, decidedly less than the sum of its parts. The screenplay wobbles between the portentous and the inconsequential., falling with a muffled thud between magic and realism. The New Mexico high country is impressive, the precocious girl narrator is kinda cute, the direction has moments of both sweep and intimacy, but tone and pace are inconsistent and the whole is dragged down by the slow accumulation of implausibilities and indirections. I don’t want to beat up on this honest fledgling effort, but it does serve as a demonstration of how sincerity can go wrong. (2005, Images, n.) *5+* (MC-68, RT-65.)

Stealing Beauty is another film I can’t bring myself to critique fully, definitely not up to usual Bertolucci standard, but notable for the beauty of the Tuscan countryside and the debut of Liv Tyler. I re-watched it for the former, in anticipation of a trip this summer.

I TiVo’d the TCM broadcast of Becky Sharp for comparison to the Nair/Witherspoon Vanity Fair. Miriam Hopkins is certainly a sharper Becky, and Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935 production is notable as the first Technicolor feature, but I watched it in bits and pieces over several days so my impressions are fragmented. A bit too loud, in voice as well as color, but still vivid and smart.

Another film I can’t bring myself to review in any depth is The Outsiders. All I can say of Francis Coppola’s 1983 film is that it’s a long way down from The Godfather. S.E. Hinton’s YA fave seems written by the 16-year-old she was. But it’s a kick to see the likes of Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Diane Lane as teenagers again.

Baseball is back and my beloved Tribe has preempted my movie-viewing with a succession of excruciating one-run games, so I need a really good film to recover my attention. I’m looking forward to Thelma and Louise today as the conclusion of my “Hop-Skip-and-Jump Across America: In Search of the Cinematic Landscape” film series at the Clark. And also to Images Cinema’s presentation beginning tonight of the critically-acclaimed Japanese film, Nobody Knows.

Intimate Strangers

Patrice Leconte returns to his favorite theme of odd romantic obsession (from Monsieur Hire to Girl on the Bridge and beyond), picks it up and revolves it in his hands for an hour and a half, then sets it down again without any overt statement. Luckily he has two extremely cunning and resourceful actors to embroider a web of humor and suspense around the peculiar and unresolved non-plot, in Sandrine Bonnaire (always mysterious and opaquely attractive, from Vagabond to Joan the Maid and various Chabrol films) and Fabrice Luchini (always different and memorable, from Perceval to Colonel Chabert.) She is a distressed wife on the way to an appointment with a psychiatrist, but goes to the wrong office. He is a tax lawyer who is not quick to set her straight when she starts to detail the sexual conflicts of her marriage. By the time the truth comes out, transference and counter-transference are rampant, so they continue their mutually therapeutic meetings. Her husband adds a little creepiness, and there are teasing hints of Hitchcockian enmeshment, but the end comes mildly and quietly, with a sweet ordinariness. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-71, RT-86.)

Spider-man 2

About as good as a movie about a comic book superhero can get. Sam Raimi is obviously a filmmaker of style and wit, if not an auteur of the sort who interests me. The Spidey/Peter duality makes for a richer backstory mythos than most such, and Tobey Maguire embodies it well. Kirsten Dunst is a believable object of desire, and of course the effects are cool. Rosemary Harris and others add gracenotes. The film itself has the swooping kinetics of its protagonist, and I would be a fuddy-duddy to deny that it is a fun ride. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-83, RT-93.)

You Can't Take It With You

You’ve got to be kidding -- Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director?? The third nod in five years for Frank Capra, who did almost nothing to cinematize the Pulitzer-winning play by Kaufman and Hart. Much of the wackiness is strained, and so is the sentiment, the action is stage-bound, too long and too slow, but nearly all the characters have their moments (except for the jaw-dropping portrayal of the Negro domestics) and there are some screwball laughs scattered throughout the enterprise. Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart are winning as a couple from different sorts of families, she’s the sane one among the crackpots and he’s the dreamer in a line of aggresively proper bankers. Lionel Barrymore beams as the grandpa of the anarchic clan and Edward Arnold growls as the power-grabbing stuffed shirt. Other familiar faces frolic through, to no great purpose. (1938, dvd, n.) *6-*

Born into Brothels

Thanks to Sandra Thomas and the crew at Images Cinema for bringing to Williamstown this year’s Oscar winner for best documentary, just another instance of the well-judged programming they do year round. If you read about some offbeat new film that’s getting a lot of review attention, chances are amazingly good that it will be coming to Images, here in our remote NW corner of Massachusetts. This visually-sophisticated and socially-conscious film takes us far afield, to the red light district of Calcutta, where we become friends with a mixed group of children of prostitutes, with whom filmmaker Zana Briski establishes a connection through the medium of photography, giving them cameras to document the teeming streets and cramped backstairs of their milieu. The kids are all spirited creatures not yet crushed by their environment. Auntie Zana also connects them to the outside world, through field trips and then public exhibitions of their photographs, designed to raise funds for them to attend boarding school and rise above “the line.” Though Briski herself becomes a focus of the film (co-made with Ross Kauffman), it doesn’t become self-serving, but rather just shows what a terrific effort it takes to help just one or two out of a select group manage to escape a dismal homelife. Any uplift the film has comes not from self-congratulatory rescue, but from the liveliness and engagement of the children themselves, which is of course the ultimate source of sadness as well. Not just random victims, these kids become dancing points of light in grave danger of being snuffed out. (2004, Images, n.) *7+* (MC-78, RT-96.)

Fever Pitch

First off I’m a huge fan of Nick Hornby and I’ve been pleased with each movie made from his books, from High Fidelity to About a Boy to the earlier Fever Pitch, which starred Colin Firth and was about the real obsession of the book, for the English football team Arsenal, rather than baseball’s Red Sox as in this remake. I remember the book most fondly for making me weep with laughter over pages on which half the words had no meaning to me at all, since I know nothing about soccer. But I recognized it immediately as an eloquent and spirited addition to the literature of fanship (cf. A Fan’s Notes, Shoeless Joe, and The Celebrant.) Now the Farrelly brothers have brought their slack but genial brand of filmmaking to the theme, with some authentic credentials as Red Sox fans, only to find themselves in the middle of a too-strange-for-fiction story. Now I’m no Sox fan, so for me the best thing about last season’s miracle is that it will shut up, for once and all, the whining of New England sports fans, who will be forced to acknowledge that the most pitiable fans of all come from Cleveland, like yours truly. Nonetheless I am attuned enough to the terrible mythos of the Green Monster to relish this loving retrospect, on a place in the sun in a season to remember. Oh yeah, the romantic comedy thing works pretty well too, with both Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon proving to be appealing performers worth rooting for. Some of the local Boston color comes through, but I’ve seen documentaries that got much closer to the heart of Red Sox mania. So this is fantasy from start to finish, with the odd and piquant part being that the fantasy comes true. (2005, Regal, n.) *7* (MC-57, RT-59.)

Once Upon a Time in the West

This movie wasn’t the transfixing surprise it was to me on first viewing, but this time I really appreciated the craft of it. The story is more dependent on dozens of other movies than it is on any semblance of reality, but it is executed with masterful style. Everyone refers to the film as operatic, and Sergio Leone is il maestro to be sure, but what’s surprising is how little music there actually is. There are some exceptionally loud silences, along with the creaking of a windmill or the drone of insects, and a brief theme attached to each character, but in fact the music is as much in the visual as the aural. Though I was showing this film in a series of “Cinematic Landscapes,” its extreme close-ups are the most imposing feature -- Henry Fonda’s blue, blue eyes haloed by the blackest of black hats, the narrowed slits in the weatherbeaten face of Charles Bronson, the grizzled basilisk stare of Jason Robards, the wide dark eyes and pillowy lips of Claudia Cardinale. This is filmmaking at its most pictorial and its most mythic, of intense portraits and sweeping tableaus with swooping camera moves, but leavened by a sardonic wit that yields as many chuckles as oh-wows. It’s no wonder that most of the Westerns that followed this apotheosis had to take a counter-mythic tack (think McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Little Big Man.) (1968, dvd@cai, r.) *8+*

A Room With a View

Quibble as you may, Merchant and Ivory (plus Jhabvala) definitely have a way with the E.M. Forster and Henry James adaptations. Major eye candy in every respect, this time in Florence and Fiesole, as well as the English countryside. The storytelling is brisk, the wit is fresh, and the tone is just so. In retrospect, it’s a kick to see Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day-Lewis near the start of their careers. And old reliables like Maggie Smith, Judy Dench, and Denholm Elliot ply their familiar but always engaging stock in trade. It’s a long while since I spent a semester reading all of Forster’s novels, but this film captures the genial satire and earnest plea for passion and communion that I remember. Helena is so young and so beautiful and so ripe for the moment, Daniel is such a perfect prig as her fiance, and Julian Sands is winning as the Romantic young Mr. Emerson, Thoreau-weaned, Italy-awakened, and fated to have her hand. (1986, dvd, r.) *8+*

Mean Creek

Another minority report, since I can’t get on the bandwagon for this indie fave. Maybe I’m not the target audience, and for those forced to watch typical teen fare this may seem markedly real and nuanced. To me Jacob Estes’s first feature seems obvious and deriviative -- out of Lord of the Flies, River’s Edge, Stand by Me, and Bully for starters -- but with some sophistication of mood and character, and a believable manner with young actors. A group of Oregon teens invite a fat, loathsome (but funny and sensitive inside!) bully on a boat trip, to set up a retaliatory prank. Some have second thoughts when they get to know him a little, but of course things go horribly wrong and the assorted youths have to deal with the consequences. I was on board with the mood-setting and establishment of the characters, but when the plot gears began to grind, I went over the side and eventually my interest went under. Glug, glug. (2004, dvd, n.) *5+* (MC-74, RT-89.)

Under the Tuscan Sun

Oh jeez, here we go again, indulging a geezer’s fantasies. I mean -- Diane Lane -- that is one hot babe, even if she does have a few miles on the odometer. Plus, she can act, and thereby imbues this pretty little bit of wish fulfillment with all the truth it can handle. Tuscany is pretty, the villa is pretty, the food is pretty, the people are pretty (or failing that, cute.) So here’s another American transplanted to a land of grapes and olives, having amusing encounters with the natives, learning some Old World truths of the heart. It’s all pretty well done (and pretty!), but nothing you couldn’t see any night on Oh! or WE, just a big chocolate bonbon of a movie. Audrey Wells gives Frances Mayes’ book an extra spoonful of sugar, but not enough to make me gag. May have to watch Summertime again to see Kate Hepburn in the great-aunt of this woman-of-a-certain-age-goes-to-Italy-and-finds-you-know-what genre. (2003, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-52, RT-63.)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban

I can’t compare this to the two previous movies, or to the books for that matter, since this is exactly the sort of franchised entertainment that I would usually avoid, except that it is directed by Alfonso Cuaron, another one of my “10 Under 50.” This film does nothing to shake my faith in him as a young (or young-ish) director to watch. Damn scary in places, witty in others, visually stiking and emotionally believable, with a top-notch cast of adults and decent teens too, this stands on its own as a worthwhile movie quite apart from the mass appeal of the J.K. Rowling franchise. That Hippogriff was cool, and when it comes to shape shifting, catching Harry and Hermione on the cusp of adolescence makes me interested to see them another year older in the series’ next entry. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-81, RT-89.)