Hidden Figures

Seen at Roxy Cinema in Nowra, NSW

Cecil says:  At last an uplifting film, after we had unwittingly been to a whole series of gloomy or depressing films so far this year. Everyone knows the plot by now, I’m sure: brainy black women get jobs at Nasa in the early 1960s, as the US tries to catch up with the Soviets in the space race.

But Nasa in 1961 is still very male and very white, making for tough day-to-day life for our three heroines. There’s the ten minute dash to the nearest ‘colored women’ toilets; there’s the coffee pot for ‘coloreds’; there’s the supervisor role without supervisor pay.

But Hidden Figures follows in the footsteps of Dead Poets Society or Good Will Hunting (except that it is now the brilliant minds of black women that have to be nurtured and recognised rather than white males, privileged or not). And then it suddenly becomes a little bit Hollywood formulaic…

It got me and Bea discussing on the way home, not about civil rights and opportunity (we’ve discussed that at length before) but about potential and whether you need actually to fulfil your potential to be happy in life. All these films are about the downtrodden or suppressed coming to life and being true to themselves and blossoming.

But what if you have all that knowledge and ability, but actually don’t wish to use it; or have some experience of using and decide enough is enough? Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of these genius characters one day decided that after a few years of being a genius and getting recognition, they could also tap into other skills or other aspects of their character.

Are they wrong to abandon a road so clearly marked out, where their skills are being used to the full? Or are they in fact just rounding their personality and experiencing everything that life has to offer, even if that means abandoning an apparently successful career.

I basically did that five years ago and am much happier. Though when I watch films like Hidden Figures, it does make me wonder if I am using my skills to the best of my abilities.

Bea is also approaching a similar crossroads in life. So, strangely enough this film was a good launchpoint for a very contemporary dilemma and questioning of life direction for both of us. Even though it was a half fiction, half true story of discrimination in the 1960s. Sometimes, you have to let the subject take you where it needs to.

I wonder if any other couple had such a thought-provoking talk about their own lives after seeing Hidden Figures?

Bea says: I very much enjoyed this film (and its fantastic costumes!).  I am an avid Woman’s Hour listener, so had some background into the licence taken with the plot and event timeline in the film, but that kind of thing doesn’t really worry me as I am quite happy with slightly fictionalised accounts of true to life events.

It was a great film about civil and women’s rights together (I consider myself well up on these issues but had not known of the important role black women had played at NASA in the late 1950s/early 1960s at all), and again a good film for our times.

Not much to pick on here; Kevin Costner breaking down the “no coloreds” sign to the women’s toilet was perhaps a bit contrived (one area where licence was taken with the plot, apparently).  Like Cecil, the most interesting thing for us was our conversation afterwards about using/not using talent…

Highly recommended – and feel-good!

***1/2

Alone in Berlin

Seen at the Roxy Cinema in Nowra NSW

Cecil says: There was something terribly depressing about Alone in Berlin. That probably isn’t the film’s fault, actually. It probably has more to do with the current political situation around the world, and the realisation that in some ways we are closer now in 2017 to a rise of fascistic-style behaviour and morals than we have been at any time since 1945.

OK, so the plot here is: Berlin couple (superbly played by Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson) lose their only son at the front in France in 1940 (the opening scene of the film), so while the rest of the country celebrates, they are in mourning. And when Otto (Gleeson) gets criticised at work for not doing more for the cause and the country, he responds gruffly by saying ‘no man can give anything more valuable than his own son’, or words to that effect.

There then follows a lonely campaign to drop hand-written postcards in doorways, staircases, in hallways or entrances all over Berlin, with one-liners criticising Hitler and Nazism.

This is a rare portrait of Germany at war seen from Germany, or at least seen from the point of view of a dissident in the middle of the German capital.

The savagery of the Gestapo is somehow all the more horrific as it is carried out against their own people. We start to sympathise with the poor detective assigned to track down the mystery postcard-writer, and we witness his moment of realisation when he too gets a beating from the Gestapo because he has not managed quickly to find him out.

There have been criticisms of the accents of the lead actors. And it’s true it does ring a bit false to have English native speakers trying to act in a pseudo-German accent. But after a while you get used to it and the main parts are extremely well played.

I didn’t know until the credits that the film is based on a novel by Hans Fallada (“Jeder stirbt fuer sich allein”), and its grey depressing tone reminded me totally of my own A level years when Fallada was again on our reading syllabus (“Kleiner Mann, was nun?” – about a simple guy trying to get through the Depression – yes he did joyous themes, that Fallada).

The film left both of us in a sombre mood, though I’m sure when they started filming it, we had no idea there would be all the political upheaval of Brexit and Trump. But somehow, the mood of the time does feel as dangerous as Germany in the 1930s, and – God forbid – some of us may indeed have to be discreetly placing postcards on doorsteps in years to come, if things carry on the way they seem to have done for the last 12 months.

So, well acted; good story; but a bit grim for me, this film.

***.5

Bea says: Whilst not a feel-good experience, this sobering film was beautifully filmed, directed and acted.  I always like Emma Thompson (Anna), and she was certainly showing her versatility here, although the performances that stayed with me were those of Otto (Brendan Gleeson, also showing his versatility), and interestingly enough the performance of the actor who is (wrongly) about to be arrested by the Gestapo for the Quangel’s crime; as I don’t recall his name I can’t find him in the cast list.

It was not a feel-good experience, but it was a very interesting exploration of grief, and how there can be a purpose after dreadful loss.  This purpose also held the long married couple together after the death of their son; perhaps bringing them closer than they had been in some time, and the final scenes reinforced that.  So it was not all darkness.

Cecil has said it better than me above, but in our times – sobering.

***1/2