Cecil says: Ah, the Swedes and Danes sure know how to do a feel-bad movie. This gripping story has a sense of foreboding mingled with grief and dysfunction from the word go, and only lets you free right at the end.
Two 12 year old boys are the focus of this film, with the setting jumping between Denmark and somewhere in Africa, where one of the boys' (Elias) father is working as a doctor in refugee camps. Oh, and just to make sure things aren't too rosy, the other 12 year old (Christian) just lost his Mum to cancer.
Of course, it may be my own life experience that made me feel that unease in my stomach from early on. I shared some of Elias's experiences of being bullied in my middle school years; I had Christian's anger and sense of injustice, without Christian's determination to act on those feelings. And there was something troubling about the school yard pecking order, making me more inclined to keeo my head down when others were being bullied rather than riding to their rescue as Christian does.
I have also experienced that Swedish approach to violence, which is total non-violence. I can well remember as an adult being told off during a weekend away once for encouraging this shy little 7-year-old to play fight with me: "That's why the English are so violent," the mother said to me, "You encourage violence"...The thing is, and this is what happens to Anton, the Swedish father of Elias in the film, you may prove your own moral values and backbone through a non-violent approach to life, but you don't actually change those who are violent or the kids who are caught up in a playground fight for status in the pecking order...
Probably being a Swede in a Danish school as a 12 year old is about as hard as it was being the only black kid in my own Yorkshire comprehensive. Difference leads to scapegoating and isolation; it's a tough old world out there for pre-pubescent boys, wherever you are in the world.
And things are even worse for the young teenage girls in Africa who are being treated by Anton after being mutilated once pregnant. Anton maintains his moral code by treating the mutilator as well as the victims, much to the displeasure of the other refugees. But even his principles are tested too far as the film progresses.
This is a gripping tale, but not one to watch if you need cheering up. But unsettling and for me just emphasised the lack of answers in how to deal with violence and aggression in this world. You can't walk on by, but equally not advisable to jump in and add violence to violence. Probably the best option is just to steer clear wherever possible. And with only five of us in the cinema, I guess most of the people of New Haven, Connecticut were doing just that.
**.5
Bea says:
I am not sure what I can add to Cecil's review above. This is, unusually, a thoughtful film about the lives and experiences of teenage boys, and if any readers have teenage sons or nephews, might be a good film choice for seeing together and talking about later.
Whilst I certainly wouldn't describe it as a "feel-good" film, I did not find it quite as disturbing as Cecil, probably because the experience it depicted was once removed from my own - as a female I certainly can relate schoolyard bullying and pecking orders but when I was young, girls were rarely physically violent towards each other.
I liked the fact that the film tried to get inside the world of teenage boys, and I felt it did this quite well. I was also interested in the relationship and grief issues of the adults. In fact, largely this film was about grief for me, as Christian and his father tried to cope with their loss, and Anton, Elias and Marianne with the impending divorce in their family. The film tries to resolve and move on from grief, and is partially successful in this attempt, but still left me with lingering doubts about the resolution - perhaps reflecting real life, when grief can return on and off as life takes its twists and turns.
I felt the time spent in watching this film was well-spent, as it gave me a lot to think about, and Cecil and I a lot to discuss, but it was hard going and not necessarily an enjoyable experience; in fact it cast rather a shadow over what had been up til then a good day. The sort of film to curl up with a hot cup of cocoa afterwards...
***
Monday, 25 April 2011
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
The Adjustment Bureau
Bea says: This was my choice at the end of an odd day in Florida, a day where things hadn't really gone according to plan. The cinema was in a soulless out-of-town shopping mall, and before it we ate at the mall's food court - something we never do, but it was quite good actually.
As a fan of the Philip K Dick stories made into films (Blade Runner etc) I had been wanting to catch this, and luckily it was on at the mall at the right time. Other than the fact it was a Dick story I didn't know much about it, so in fact seeing it at the end of our strange day was eerily apt.
I liked the story's focus on explaining the phenomenon of coincidences, like unexpected meetings, and annoying little events, like losing keys or missing buses, as part of a bigger picture. I am quite interested in the idea of fate, so the story's questioning of how much of our fate is in our hands was thought-provoking.
In fact, Cecil and I had a conversation exactly like this earlier in the day - the only time in the USA we have ever come across a cash machine that wouldn't take our cards was in this small town in Florida, and that simple annoyance meant we had to change all of our afternoon plans, which were in turn disrupted by closures and moves of premises of things we were trying to find. I had accepted all this fatalistically; Cecil, like the story's protagonist, had wanted to fight this fate.
The film had some big names and fine actors - Matt Damon, Terence Stamp, and Emily Blunt plays the love interest. It was pacey and well put together, making for an enjoyable experience, probably even for those (Cecil would probably be among them) that aren't big fans of the "sci-fi thriller" genre. The story had dated well - except for the detail of the hats; when Dick was writing, most men probably wore hats everyday, meaning hat wearing men would blend in to the background. In the film's current setting, the hat wearing staff of the Adjustment Bureau stick out like a sore thumb in modern New York.
***
Cecil says: Once I'd got over the shock of being told by an automaton cinema usher that we could not bring water bottles into the auditorium, and if I had an issue with that I could speak to the manager, I managed to settle down and quite enjoyed this film.
Yes, it was one of those days where our life could have been a film setting, as Bea says; nothing quite going right. And she's right that I am in the Matt Damon mould of trying to challenge any pre-determined course my life should take. Funnily enough, though, it was only in talking about the film afterwards that I realised the similarity; during the film itself, I didn't particularly relate to the Damon character.
But, even without identifying with any of the characters, I did enjoy this movie as an observation on life's paths.
I kind of enjoyed Emily Blunt, though her character had a bit of a dream-like aspect to her, which made her come across more as a male fantasy than a real person. Strangely enough, only the week before I had seen her playing a very similar character in another new film, this time with Bill Nighy (but Bea and I don't review films we see on planes, so I'll have to come back to that one once it's hit the big screen). Makes me wonder if she is not becoming a kind female version of Hugh Grant in the 90s; playing the same person over and over. Kind of attractive; but kind of samey.
The best characters in this film were the Wings of Desire-style angels, except that unlike in Wenders' classic, their role was specifically to make sure people kept to the path predetermined for them. I preferred Wenders' take on angels, and liked the Berlin setting over the New York background for this film.
But having said all that, it was an enjoyable story and a pleasant enough way to spend the evening in small-town Florida.
***
As a fan of the Philip K Dick stories made into films (Blade Runner etc) I had been wanting to catch this, and luckily it was on at the mall at the right time. Other than the fact it was a Dick story I didn't know much about it, so in fact seeing it at the end of our strange day was eerily apt.
I liked the story's focus on explaining the phenomenon of coincidences, like unexpected meetings, and annoying little events, like losing keys or missing buses, as part of a bigger picture. I am quite interested in the idea of fate, so the story's questioning of how much of our fate is in our hands was thought-provoking.
In fact, Cecil and I had a conversation exactly like this earlier in the day - the only time in the USA we have ever come across a cash machine that wouldn't take our cards was in this small town in Florida, and that simple annoyance meant we had to change all of our afternoon plans, which were in turn disrupted by closures and moves of premises of things we were trying to find. I had accepted all this fatalistically; Cecil, like the story's protagonist, had wanted to fight this fate.
The film had some big names and fine actors - Matt Damon, Terence Stamp, and Emily Blunt plays the love interest. It was pacey and well put together, making for an enjoyable experience, probably even for those (Cecil would probably be among them) that aren't big fans of the "sci-fi thriller" genre. The story had dated well - except for the detail of the hats; when Dick was writing, most men probably wore hats everyday, meaning hat wearing men would blend in to the background. In the film's current setting, the hat wearing staff of the Adjustment Bureau stick out like a sore thumb in modern New York.
***
Cecil says: Once I'd got over the shock of being told by an automaton cinema usher that we could not bring water bottles into the auditorium, and if I had an issue with that I could speak to the manager, I managed to settle down and quite enjoyed this film.
Yes, it was one of those days where our life could have been a film setting, as Bea says; nothing quite going right. And she's right that I am in the Matt Damon mould of trying to challenge any pre-determined course my life should take. Funnily enough, though, it was only in talking about the film afterwards that I realised the similarity; during the film itself, I didn't particularly relate to the Damon character.
But, even without identifying with any of the characters, I did enjoy this movie as an observation on life's paths.
I kind of enjoyed Emily Blunt, though her character had a bit of a dream-like aspect to her, which made her come across more as a male fantasy than a real person. Strangely enough, only the week before I had seen her playing a very similar character in another new film, this time with Bill Nighy (but Bea and I don't review films we see on planes, so I'll have to come back to that one once it's hit the big screen). Makes me wonder if she is not becoming a kind female version of Hugh Grant in the 90s; playing the same person over and over. Kind of attractive; but kind of samey.
The best characters in this film were the Wings of Desire-style angels, except that unlike in Wenders' classic, their role was specifically to make sure people kept to the path predetermined for them. I preferred Wenders' take on angels, and liked the Berlin setting over the New York background for this film.
But having said all that, it was an enjoyable story and a pleasant enough way to spend the evening in small-town Florida.
***
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Desert Flower (Wuestenblume)
Bea says: Cecil suggested this film on a whim, and I knew nothing about it save what he told me - that it was about an African model's rise to fame.
It is actually a much darker story than that - the autobiographical story of Waris, it follows her traditional, nomadic childhood in Somalia, her flight across the desert to Mogadishu to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man, and her subsequent arrival in London to work as a maid to the diplomat's family occupying the Somalian embassy. Following the recall of embassy staff due to war in Somalia, Waris ends up living on the streets in London, and befriends Marion, a Topshop employee, ultimately becoming her room mate. Marion helps her get work, and she is "spotted" by a famous photographer while working in a burger joint, and, once she gets through a mine of immigration issues, her career is launched.
However, the film's real subject is female genital mutilation, which happened to Waris when she was 3 years old, and Waris's activitism on the subject during her modelling career.
The film was in some ways a very nostalgic watch for me - the parts set in 1990s London felt very familiar to my own younger life there, living in hostels, going to clubs etc etc. I remembered the fashion of the times, and I remembered, as I watched, iconic shoots of Waris in glossy magazines of the times. I also remembered, very well, the late 1990s issue of Marie Claire on female genital mutilation, which Waris was behind, asking to be interviewed on that subject rather than just on her extraordinary life.
I was not overly keen on the film's ending, which seemed to attempt to tie up too neatly the different threads - life isn't really like that, unfortunately, so it didn't quite ring true, and there were times I really wanted to get under the surface of the story and hear Waris's opinion on the different worlds she occupied during periods covered by the film; the narrative didn't quite go deep enough for me.
However this is a very powerful film, and although the subject matter is difficult to contemplate and watch, the reality is that this practice continues. Near us in the cinema a young headscarved woman sobbed throughout the film, leaving us to wonder - had this happened to her?
***
Cecil says: The audience intrigued me first up: I don't think we'd sat among such a diverse set of people since we arrived in this country. There were Latinos next to us; groups of black women; a gay couple in front of us; and then this girl who walked in alone wearing a Muslim headscarf, which she took off for the duration of the film. She did look as though she came from Somalia or Ethiopia and, as Bea says, she was in tears through the majority of the film - it made the film all the more moving.
Beautiful filming (actually in Djibouti - bit dangerous these days in Somalia, I guess) - great opening scenes of the sheep and goats in the arid, rocky mountains.
And wonderful acting from the actress playing Waris: Liya Kedebe. There were also key roles for Timothy Spall (really good as the photographer), Juliet Stephenson (enjoying over-acting her role as the model's agent) ; Sally Hawkins (though she was basically playing the same character as she had in Happy-Go-Lucky), and Meera Syal (who I normally don't like, but who played the landlady very well).
Horrendously powerful scenes of the actual mutilation of this poor 3 year old girl. But then the film became something of a lecture on the subject, ending even with Waris's speech at the UN, which was portrayed as if it was a revelation for the people present. There was something inaccurate about that: I was involved in campaigns against FGM as early as 1995, so a UN audience in 1997 would have been moved, but not actually having their eyes opened in the way the film wanted to portray.
There were other slightly awkward contextual issues: where in London in 1997 would you have found prostitutes hanging out in the street in stockings and suspenders and little else? Punks gathered on street corners with colourful mohawk haircuts were a thing of the past at least 10 years earlier. Makes you wonder whose job it is to point these things out?
Overall, though, a really good film and actually one that I would see again, despite its horrendous subject matter.
***
It is actually a much darker story than that - the autobiographical story of Waris, it follows her traditional, nomadic childhood in Somalia, her flight across the desert to Mogadishu to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man, and her subsequent arrival in London to work as a maid to the diplomat's family occupying the Somalian embassy. Following the recall of embassy staff due to war in Somalia, Waris ends up living on the streets in London, and befriends Marion, a Topshop employee, ultimately becoming her room mate. Marion helps her get work, and she is "spotted" by a famous photographer while working in a burger joint, and, once she gets through a mine of immigration issues, her career is launched.
However, the film's real subject is female genital mutilation, which happened to Waris when she was 3 years old, and Waris's activitism on the subject during her modelling career.
The film was in some ways a very nostalgic watch for me - the parts set in 1990s London felt very familiar to my own younger life there, living in hostels, going to clubs etc etc. I remembered the fashion of the times, and I remembered, as I watched, iconic shoots of Waris in glossy magazines of the times. I also remembered, very well, the late 1990s issue of Marie Claire on female genital mutilation, which Waris was behind, asking to be interviewed on that subject rather than just on her extraordinary life.
I was not overly keen on the film's ending, which seemed to attempt to tie up too neatly the different threads - life isn't really like that, unfortunately, so it didn't quite ring true, and there were times I really wanted to get under the surface of the story and hear Waris's opinion on the different worlds she occupied during periods covered by the film; the narrative didn't quite go deep enough for me.
However this is a very powerful film, and although the subject matter is difficult to contemplate and watch, the reality is that this practice continues. Near us in the cinema a young headscarved woman sobbed throughout the film, leaving us to wonder - had this happened to her?
***
Cecil says: The audience intrigued me first up: I don't think we'd sat among such a diverse set of people since we arrived in this country. There were Latinos next to us; groups of black women; a gay couple in front of us; and then this girl who walked in alone wearing a Muslim headscarf, which she took off for the duration of the film. She did look as though she came from Somalia or Ethiopia and, as Bea says, she was in tears through the majority of the film - it made the film all the more moving.
Beautiful filming (actually in Djibouti - bit dangerous these days in Somalia, I guess) - great opening scenes of the sheep and goats in the arid, rocky mountains.
And wonderful acting from the actress playing Waris: Liya Kedebe. There were also key roles for Timothy Spall (really good as the photographer), Juliet Stephenson (enjoying over-acting her role as the model's agent) ; Sally Hawkins (though she was basically playing the same character as she had in Happy-Go-Lucky), and Meera Syal (who I normally don't like, but who played the landlady very well).
Horrendously powerful scenes of the actual mutilation of this poor 3 year old girl. But then the film became something of a lecture on the subject, ending even with Waris's speech at the UN, which was portrayed as if it was a revelation for the people present. There was something inaccurate about that: I was involved in campaigns against FGM as early as 1995, so a UN audience in 1997 would have been moved, but not actually having their eyes opened in the way the film wanted to portray.
There were other slightly awkward contextual issues: where in London in 1997 would you have found prostitutes hanging out in the street in stockings and suspenders and little else? Punks gathered on street corners with colourful mohawk haircuts were a thing of the past at least 10 years earlier. Makes you wonder whose job it is to point these things out?
Overall, though, a really good film and actually one that I would see again, despite its horrendous subject matter.
***
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