Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Little Red Flowers (2006)
Should you see it? It is hard for to me believe this film would have a wide appeal beyond those interested in kindergarten or Chinese culture.
This is a film the Seattle International Film Fest is made for. A brilliantly made film that is rich simultaneous in subtle cultural commentary and idiosyncratic entertainment. It is a film that reveals layers of meaning the more you consider it. It is a sort of Animal Farm, only instead of animals standing in for political and cultural figures, in Little Red Flowers kindergartners and their teachers are used to make subversive political and cultural insights.
First, on its most superficial level this is the most adorable film I have ever seen. It is populated with the cutest 4 and 5 year olds you have ever seen. The brilliance of the story telling is Zhang's choice to make the children's perspective the point of view of the narrative. It is simultaneously an anthropological and psychological study of 'kindergarten culture’ expressed as a narrative seen through the subjects’ eyes. It is extraordinary how fully Zhang gives you an experience of what life would feel like to a small child alone at a boarding school.
The narrative, set in the 1940s?, follows a little boy whose father drops him off at a state run boarding kindergarten designed to indoctrinate the children into communist china’s society. Those who are good at following the rules get little red flowers on a big chart, and there are rules and time tables for everything, from the games they play to the need to set your body to school’s clock of simultaneous bathroom breaks. Those with the most flowers are the ones who can mimic the teacher most adeptly and keep the strict, mechanical schedule most accurately. Our protagonist is the boy sticking out his tongue in the crystal palace. We watch his rebellion grow more and more sever as he refuses to do what is expected until he leads a mini-rebellion. He imaginatively convinces his fellow kindergartners the head teacher is a witch and they swarm her in the middle of the night to tie her up. He is found to be the ring leader and is punished with time in kindy-solitary-confinement. (The film does a great job balancing the adorable and humorous with the sad and serious.) Irrepressible, he ultimately curses out the head teacher and runs from the school.
Then we get to the most abrupt ending in film history. In fact it feels as if 1.this is a working-edit of the film and they have yet to finish or 2. the crew ran out of film and said: 'well, I guess that’s it.' Here’s what happens: After escaping the boy sees a military parade with the soldiers stepping mechanically in unison. They are wearing big red flowers on their uniform. The boy lays down on a rock and the film ends. Now the message is clear, if he is going to rebel against being a cog it is not going to end with kindergarten. The whole of his life will be one of necessary conformity to oppressive rules. The audience is left to reflect on the injustice being done to textensiontention the injustice being waged against the whole of communist Chinese society.
But why the abruptness of the ending, why leave us with the startling arbitrary feeling? Perhaps this is the way the director could get his message out. The point against conformity is clear with some reflection on the film, but in the immediate ending of the film you are just confused and think, this is a bad ending. Perhaps Zhang had only the choice between a bad ending or an obviously subversive ending and be needed to make the bad ending to fool the censors. I don’t know, but the rest of the film is so good you have to believe the poor ending was a necessary choice.
Monday, June 19, 2006
The Groomsmen (2006)
Should you see it? If you liked Edward Burns’ other films you’ll like this one.
First on a personal note: If our CBA group never left Lincroft, bought houses near each other and started families, this film would be our lives. The Groomsmen is the most New Jersey film I’ve seen since Garden State, and Clerks before that, (even though it is set in Staten Island).
The drama is basically about 5 tough-guy male friend trying to adjust to the feel of their new relationship dynamic now that their central member, Paulie, is about to have a child and is therefore getting married. It is about how each character reflects on his own life as they take another step forward together deeper into adulthood and further away from their adolescences. Burns depicts wonderfully how when they are together these characters’ adolescence is never far in the past - even as they have one foot in their adulthood with wives and children, their high school lives reemerge as they drink beer with the guys with whom they have always drank beer. (And again, I know exactly what Burns is trying to portray because I live it myself, albeit for 3 weeks a year rather than year round. And Burns portrays it well.)
The film follows a few central tensions caused by Paulie’s impending wedding.
1. The contentious return of a high school buddy who inexplicedly left town and never communicated with any one for eight years. (It turns out he’s gay and his father couldn’t handle it.)
2. Paulie’s older brother is over the edge, deep into a weeks long drinking binge in which he is neglecting his wife and is over the line criticizing his brother’s marriage. It turns out he discovered he cannot have kids and feels less a man, especially since his younger brother has a kid on the way, and he is fearful his wife will leave him when she knows. Instead of expressing any vulnerability he has become a drunk.
3. And of course there is Paulie’s internal struggle with his impending marriage and family. He temporarily regresses into high-school-like hanging out and drinking with the buddies before coming around to his new adulthood.
I am surprised how much I like Burns’ films, especially the ones like The Groomsmen that are so overtly masculine and tough guy centric. I attribute this success to his dealing mainly in character and his being able to depict the complexity of relationships between guys who would never use the word relationship to describe their bond.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Texas (2005)
Should you see it? No, run away!
This SIFF film may be the worst film I have ever seen. This film is so bad I cannot waste another character
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926) & Au Bonheur Des Dames (1930)
Director: Julien Duvivier
All of my National Board work is behind me, the SIFF is in full swing and I’m back on the blog!
Should You See It? See them together and compare.
The first film (of 8) I have seen at SIFF is Au Bonheur Des Dames, and it is remarkably similar to a film starring Harry Langdon I saw at the Northwest film forum two weeks ago called Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. Both are silent films (and both had really great live film scores accompanying them). Au Bonher Des Dames is French released in 1930 while Tramp, Tramp, Tramp is Hollywood released in 1926.
The Plots: The title Au Bonheur Des Dames (The Ladies’ Paradise) refers to the name of the behemoth department store that is ruthlessly and purposefully crushing all the family run boutiques in Paris. Our heroine is trying to help her aging uncle (with the dying daughter) save his business. While in the Hollywood counterpart Langdon, our protagonist, is trying to save his father’s shoe making business from the behemoth industrial shoe company trying to run all the mom and pop shoe-makers out of business. (It is basically the current Walmart story in perhaps its initial inception? It would be interesting to see how far back the ruthless behemoth vs. the mom and pop saga goes back in time.)
The solutions: The niece goes to work as a model at the Au Bonheur Des Dames to bring in some extra cash. Langdon enters a cross country race to win the $10,000 prize and save his father’s business. The catch? The race is put on by the rival shoe giant and he must wear the rivals shoes in the stunt designed to advertise the product that is putting his dad out of business.
The outcomes: The girl’s uncle goes nuts (when his daughter dies and he sees the manger of Au Bonheur Des Dames) and goes on a shooting spree through Au Bonheur Des Dames until he is shot and killed himself. (How old is the shooting spree as a way to express supreme alienation?) While back in the good ole USA Langdon wins the race, the money and saves dad.
The romance: Both also fall in love with the rival. The niece is loved by and eventually loves the manger of Au Bonheur Des Dames. Langdon loves first the image (in the ads) and then the real daughter of the rival shoe company who loves him back.
The message: In the French version the niece comes to see the behemoth conquering the mom and pop as progress and her family as wrong to fight progress. She happily concedes her uncle’s building to be torn down and turned into another giant palace for luxury of goods. It is quite a startling and unexpected social and political message – get out of the way old people with your old businesses, here comes something new, better and unstoppable – ruthless laise-a-faire capitalism. Meanwhile back in Hollywood Capra is asserting the triumphant of the little guy over the behemoth. Langdon shows us how with a little old fashioned pluck, hard work, sacrifice and innocent faith the most humble of men can take on and win against the most powerful. (And there is a straight-line for Capra from Tramp, Tramp, Tramp to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to It’s a Wonderful Life.)
