These Movies Matter
DVDS Worth Watching, Dec 16, 2006
How to Get the Films We Recommend:
Sources for the movie titles we recommend can be found by clicking the "read full review" link at the end of each critique below.
Editorial: As in previous years, this will be the last Newsletter until after the New Year. Very little is released over this period and anything worthwhile that is will be folded into our January 12, 2007 Newsletter. We wish all our Subscribers a wonderful holiday season and a happy and prosperous New Year! Angela Pressburger Editor-in-Chief
Featured Title(s)
LOOK BOTH WAYS, 2005, 100 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Sarah Watt
Buy Now
What It's About: An exploration of how our emotions colour our perceptions packaged as an entertaining story of star-crossed love. Nick, a photo-journalist, and Meryl, a painter of seascapes for sympathy cards, meet at the scene of Australia’s most terrible train accident shortly after he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she has buried her beloved father. Despite the seemingly inauspicious timing, they are drawn into a relationship in which they quickly find their concepts of how things “ought” to proceed challenged. Their experience is augmented by several sub-plots, which are artfully interwoven in the manner of Crash or Magnolia.
What to Look For: Sarah Watt has inadvertently made a quintessentially Buddhist movie: a film about death that is also entertaining. She never shies from the reality that death is everywhere and can come without warning – but she also suggests that this should not stop us from living. It’s a film about how to live in the “bardo”, the in-between place that separates one story-line from another -- it could be actual death or, as is the case here, thinking your life is ending because you’ve been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and then discovering you can still fall in love and think about a beginning. This is an intelligent and perceptive film that is part of an emerging trend for filmmakers seeking ways to add psychological and spiritual dimensions to the traditional plot-line. Festival audiences seem to be appreciating these efforts and we think you will too.
Why It Matters: Note the director’s skilful use of animation and montages of the characters’ pasts to show us the intermingling of inner and outer, people and events, hopes and fears. Like all of us, the characters are at once confused, uncertain, lonely, scared and yearning for better things, a situation which is highlighted by the film’s focus on the many dimensions of death. Appreciate how the film presents the little things that make all the difference when people are struggling with mysteries beyond their control or comprehension. And finally, enjoy how the generally taboo subject of death is skilfully blended with the filmmaker’s own brand of wry Australian humour.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Recommended Titles
AMARGOSA, 2000, 93 min., Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Todd RobinsonBuy Now
What It's About: Soon after a psychic tells her she will give up her dancing career and move to a remote town that starts with the letter “A” the film’s subject, Marta Becket, and her husband Tom find themselves stranded, due to car trouble, in a once-prosperous California mining town: Death Valley Junction, population 10. When Marta discovers that the town used to be named Amargosa – the home of bitter waters – she just knows that she has found her destiny. She and Tom move out to the desert and buy the old Amargosa Opera House. Marta is 43. She wants to dance, but there’s no audience, so she hand-paints one on the walls. Fed up with the murals’ time-consuming creation, Tom leaves her for another woman. But Marta perseveres. People hear about her and start to visit, and soon her performances are packed and she’s become a phenomenon. At the time the film is shot, Marta is 76 and about to welcome a tour bus of many of her old New York City dance friends. When they arrive and see her dance, they are stunned by what she has accomplished and how alive she is compared to their own geriatric existence. For Marta has followed her dreams.
What to Look For: The courage necessary to follow one’s dreams has rarely been more passionately explored than in this documentary. Throughout, Marta remains true to her muse to live a life whose art is itself the overcoming of obstacles. Although her disdainful father may have been critically correct about the level of her talents, that is completely beside the point.
This is a film about living life from the inside out, of letting one’s worldly manifestation be guided by the spiritual; of coming to the end and feeling that one’s life has been well-spent. Was she a “kook” in the desert, or "the spirit of the individual, of creativity" described in the film by admirer science fiction author Ray Bradbury. We recommend you watch it and decide for yourself.
Why It Matters: The film begins with some stunning photography of Death Valley, followed by Marta dancing for a full house in the Amargosa. What follows is a fascinating cinematic collage of interviews, still photographs and performance videos that recount her story. The most visually stunning part of the film are the murals with which Marta covered the Amargosa Opera House walls so that there would be someone there to enjoy her dancing in the days before anyone came – inspired by the Spanish baroque and created in a folk-art style, the paintings include lords, ladies, young lovers, whores and angels. Note the story of her past, which feels as though it took place on another planet, and the way that throughout her life she doesn’t let anyone stop her from following and fulfilling her dreams – not her unsupportive, yet opportunistic parents, who were against her dance career; her mundane New York career as a professional dancer and model; and the six years of trials and tribulations of painting the murals; even the heat of a Death Valley summer and the arrival old age and infirmity can’t dim her flame. And finally, meet Tom Willet, the ex-clown who happens by and joins her act, while bringing a very welcome sense of lightness and humour to her later years.
Notes: This film ran on the Sundance Channel in March 2002, after a very successful run at festivals in the US and Canada, and then seemed to disappear. We're very pleased that it has been resurrected.
Available for rent or purchase in the US from www.scarecrow.com and for rental only from www.netflix.com
In Canada, available for nationwide rental from www.videomatica.ca
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THE GIANT BUDDHAS, 2005, 95 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: December 2006 (US Only)
Director(s): Christian FreiBuy Now
What It's About: A sprawling documentary that takes the Giant Buddhas of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan as its focus. The narration, begins as a personal communication between the director and Toronto-based Afghani writer and actress Nelofer Pazira (Kandahar), then opens out into a wide-ranging journey, loosely structured around the Journey to the Western Regions, by the Chinese monk Xuanzang who traveled along the Silk Road in the seventh-century in search of Buddhist teachings and texts.
What to Look For: For the plot-driven, this is a rambling documentary with interesting tid-bits, but if you can relax into the currents of change and impermanence, you will discover some interesting things about history and fixation. The Giant Buddhas are gone, and no reconstructions – from the simple to the sophisticated – can bring them back; nonetheless, societies fixate and cling, producing a wide variety of responses and anomalies – from the Western uproar to the sad statement of the former cave-dweller that “the Taliban couldn’t comprehend how he could be Muslim and still be proud of the works of the Buddhist ancestors.”
Why It Matters: This film will give you an idea of the currents – both past and present – that swirl around the fabled statues. There is the French archaeologist who continues to look for the third “sleeping” Giant Buddha described by Xuanzang as being 300 meters long and reported by local farmers to be under one of the valley’s fields. There is the theme park in Leshan, China, that has replicas of the world’s most famous Buddha statues; and there are the earnest efforts at reconstruction by a UNESCO Word Heritage team. There are interviews with the Al-Jazeera reporter who covered the statues’ demolition; and a visit to a lab in Strasbourg, which is digitizing fifty-year-old photos to build an accurate three-dimensional model. Most touching is the tale of the local family relocated from the cliff caves behind the statues to a grim concrete block on a windy plateau where they are far from water and always cold. The stories and the stunning scenery is further enhanced by a wonderful score from Philip Glass, Jan Garbarek and Steven Kuhn
Notes: You might also be interested in the beautifully restored Shaw Brothers’ classic, Journey To The West, 1966, Hong Kong. All four parts, (Monkey Goes West, Princess Iron Fan, Cave of the Silken Web, and The Land of Many Perfumes) are currently available on VCD, in a 13-disc set from YesAsia’s Clearance section: www.yesasia.com
VCDs are similar to DVD but of lesser quality – although this is unlikely to be apparent on a TV screen – and the quality is considerably better than a VHS. Most modern DVD players also play VCD as this is the more popular format in Asia; and it’s quite a bit cheaper than DVD.
The first part, Monkey Goes West, is also available on DVD from www.hkflix.com
US exclusive from www.netflix.com
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THE HOUSE OF SAND (Casa de Areia), 2006, 115 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Andrucha WaddingtonBuy Now
What It's About: In 1910, a caravan of men, women, and animals struggle across the windy arid landscape of the Maranhão desert in Northeast Brazil to start a farm. They are following landowner, Vasco de Sá, with the hope of building a new life. Accompanying de Sá is his young wife, Áurea and her elderly mother, Maria, both of whom are sad to leave the comforts of civilization. Vasco has big dreams, Aurea is pregnant and Maria is fearful of the desert environment. However, it turns out to be de Sá who cannot cope with the extreme conditions and who dies shortly after their arrival. The remaining settlers are attacked by some runaway slaves who eke out a living on the edge of the desert, and Aurea and her mother are left alone and seemingly defenceless. However, they manage to walk to the slave village, by the water, where they encounter Massu, a former slave, who teaches them how to trade objects for food so that they can live and take care of little Maria when she is born.
Years pass, during which Aurea never looses her obsession with escaping the desert for civilization. Her mother is too old to walk back and the various schemes she explores all come to nothing: Chico, the salt salesman dies; then Lieutenant Luiz, the guide for a team of scientists come to study a total solar eclipse, promises to take them back to the city with him, but when she returns home to pack Aurea discovers that her mother is dead and she never makes the rendezvous. So she lets go of her dream and stays; Massu becomes someone between a servant and a husband; and little Maria grows up to be a wild and passionate young woman who longs to explore the world beyond the shifting sands of the desert. This epic story plays out through Aurea’s making it possible for her daughter Maria to leave the “house of sand”.
What to Look For: We see this film as a story of the relationship between enduring and letting go – what most critics have referred to as the human capacity for survival – told from a female point-of view. For these women, the desert is an active agent in their destinies. At first, it is the object of their loathing and their fear, but they are stuck there and must endure; when the landscape has taught them to let go, it becomes the focus of their love. The film has the clarity of a fable and the sentimental enchantment of a magical-realist novel. The initial stark tale of survival, blossoms into a surprisingly lush and colourful tapestry set against the bleak and gorgeous desert setting.
Why It Matters: As strong as another character in the film, Brazil's Maranhão desert, stretches out before you – the endless sand is relieved only by sparse strips of vegetation and an occasional glimpse of the nearby ocean. This desert is magnificent – at once actively hostile to human habitation and sublime in its barren beauty. Note the director’s eye for visual composition within this palette, which produces an effect similar to Women of the Dunes.
This is a film that is as much a family affair off-screen as on. Fernanda Torres, the director’s wife, takes on the roles of both Aurea and later her grown-up daughter, Maria. Torres’s real-life mother, Fernanda Montenegro, plays Aurea’s mother, the elder Maria, at the beginning of the film, then switches to become the older Aurea when Torres becomes the young Maria. It’s a series of truly remarkable performances.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Classics
1900 (NOVECENTO), 1976, 315 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor)Buy Now
A sprawling epic covering seventy years of Italian political and social history (1900 – 1970) as seen through the eyes of rich Alfredo and poor Olmo who become friends as young boys growing up on the Berlinghieri family estate. Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert de Niro), is born on Verdi’s birthday, in 1900, to a family of wealthy landowners who have little regard for their tenants, servants, or land; while Olmo (Gerard Depardieu) is the son of the Dalco peasant family who work on the estate. Alfredo’s father Leo Berlinghieri (Burt Lancaster) and Olmo Dalco (Sterling Hayden) have nothing in common except their sons born o the same day. Alfredo grows up to be a weak-willed dilletante who marries a gorgeous French wife (Dominique Sanda) whose greatest attribute is her ability to wear clothes with magnificent style, until she starts to drink. Olmo turns out to be a passionate Marxist union organizer. Mussolini is on the rise, and Alfredo falls under the spell of Attila, the fascist black-shirt estate foreman (Donald Sutherland), while Olmo organizes the peasants on the estate to resist, in their own way, by supporting communism.
Politics divides Alfredo and Olmo – as it does their country – and they grow apart. The film then follows their separate paths through the hardships of the German occupation, the euphoria of liberation and into the golden years of old age. The early part of the film is a moving story about relationships, while the second, focussing on politics, does not work so well. However, the visual effect of the film is always dazzling, in true Bertolucci style – even if the narrative becomes confused. If you find yourself languishing at home with a mid-winter cold, an epic such as this might be just the thing.
Notes: This film is in two parts on 2 discs.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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HOLIDAY, 1938, 95 min., BW
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): George CukorBuy Now
The snobbish Setons are trying to turn the free-thinking Johnny Case (a young Cary Grant), into a suitable establishment husband for their older daughter,Julia. They are terrified Johnny will turn out like their own son and heir, Ned, who is bit of a wastrel. During his courtship with the somewhat silly Julia, Johnny meets her younger sister Linda(Katherine Hepburn), who is the family black-sheep, and much more his style. He decides that she would be the better "soul-mate" with whom to spend a life on "holiday". Made in part to repair Katherine Hepburn's reputation as "box office poison" the film was a huge success and audiences swarmed to the cinema to see it. Barry's high style comedic satire on the egotism and selfishness of the American upper class provides just the right vehicle for Hepburn's particular brand of sparkiness. This is a delightful, old-time romantic comedy with which to curl up on a cold winter's evening.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Worth a Mention
MOZART AND THE WHALE, 2005, 94 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Petter NaessBuy Now
The reaction at the end of the screening to about two hundred peers, parents and professionals from the american autism community, was worth the nine year wait. They loved the movie as I did.
Jerry Newport on whose life story the film is based.
Loosely based on the real-life story of Jerry Newport and Mary Meinel who fell in love and married despite the fact that both suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, a severe form of autism. In 1995, the director saw a Los Angeles Times front-page feature on Jerry, Mary, and their local support group, which inspired him to make this film.
Sufferers of Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) tend to be very bright and to particularly like patterns and routines. In the film, the real-life Jerry, has become Donald, a good-natured taxi driver with a love of birds and a superhuman knack for numbers, and Mary becomes Isabelle, a beautiful, and outspoken young woman with a barking laugh. One day, Isabelle joins the AS support group Donald leads after work, and he is immediately smitten – much to the fascination of the group, whose members’ display a wide range of the behavioural oddities, intelligence and humour common to AS. Isabelle immediately takes the initiative with the adorably shy Donald, and soon real tenderness blossoms between them, despite the ways their disability sabotages their relationship.
The title of the film refers to the Halloween costumes Isabelle and Donald wear on one of their first dates. Jerry always loved whales – as a child he thought they were big enough to not have to worry about being out of step with the “norm” and would not be ridiculed as he was. “ Mozart” refers to Mary’s extraordinary ability to compose music and paint complex art with two hands at the same time. And, Hallowe’en is a night on which these socially challenged individuals can find a measure of belonging because the rest of the world is acting weird, too. This is a small film that is both entertaining and inspiring. It also breaks some new ground in the range of autism “styles” and experiences it presents.
Notes: For more on the film and links to additional information on Asperger’s Syndrome: www.mozartandthewhale.org
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Better Mainstream
Mentioned but not reviewed – these popular titles don’t really need us to publicize them, but we want you to know they’re now available on DVD.
THE BEALES OF GREY GARDENS, 2006, 90 min., Color
Genre: TV mini-series
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Albert and David MayslesBuy Now
Notes: A Criterion Edition high quality DVD that revisits the original TV series of the same name with a sequel of sorts, culled from hours of never-before-seen footage recently found in the filmmakers' vaults.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, 2006, 109 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): David FrankelBuy Now
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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WORLD TRADE CENTER, 2006, 129 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Oliver StoneBuy Now
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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Our Boxed Set Pick(s)
ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND RICHARD BURTON FILM COLLECTION, 2006, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): VariousBuy Now
Notes: 5 discs featuring: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (2-Disc Special Edition) em>The Comedians, The Sandpiper and The V.I.P.s
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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JAMES BOND ULTIMATE EDITION - VOL 3, Various, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): VariousBuy Now
Notes: 10 discs featuring: Goldeneye, Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia With Love, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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JAMES BOND ULTIMATE EDITION - VOL 4, 2006, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): VariousBuy Now
Notes: 10 discs featuring: Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, Octopussy, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Moonraker
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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THE PREMIERE FRANK CAPRA COLLECTION, 2006, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: December 2006
Director(s): Frank CapraBuy Now
Notes: 6 discs featuring: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It Happened One Night, You Can't Take It with You, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, American Madness, and Frank Capra's American Dream
Available on DVD through our listed on-line sources
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