Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Handmaid's Tale (1990)

Film adaptation of Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel of the same name. The story is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic military dictatorship that has arisen out of a recently collapsed United States. Our protagonist Kate (Natasha Richardson) is a former librarian who is captured by Gilead forces when she attempts to flee the country to Canada along with her husband and child. Because increased environmental pollution has greatly reduced the number of women capable of bearing children and Kate has proven herself fertile via the existence of her young daughter, she is taken by the government to serve as a "handmaiden", a position apparently derived from  the Biblical story of Sarah giving her handmaiden Hagar to Abraham in order to conceive a child. Kate is assigned to be a handmaiden for an important military leader (Robert Duvall) and his rather bitter wife (Faye Dunaway).

Atwood's original novel is basically a long monologue by its protagonist and deals mostly with very internal subject matter via a stream of consciousness narrative that goes back and forth through time as intruding memories interrupt Kate's rendering of her time as a handmaid. This structure presents difficulty when it comes to adapting the story as a film, and this movie can in no way convey the full power and subtitley of Atwood's excellent novel, however it does succeed as a dramatic work in its own right.

The cast is high caliber, the writing strong, the aesthetics intriguing. It is a tale of life under an American Taliban, a subject matter surely more resonate now post 9/11 then it was on original release. Nothing is explicitly spelled out for us in much detail relating to how the world of the film came to be, or even really how it works, or doesn't as the case may be. I actually like that in a work like this, especially given how much of this has to work on a metaphorical level. Gilead is not a likely society to consume the US, though doubtless there is a sizable minority who would like to see something like it put in place. However a policy change here and a new law there and some societal pressure in between can move a nation in a given direction, and here in a story born of an outsiders perspective of an increasing religious right influence on Regan era America, a worst case scenario is put forward, to scare us back a little. This movie, and more so the book it was based on do this, and they make it interesting. ***

The Spy in Black (1939)

The Spy in Black aka U-Boat 29

British "quota quickie" based on the WWI espionage novel of the same title by Scottish author J. Storer Clouston. This movie is most notable as the first teaming of director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger, the duo would go on to have a successful multi-decade movie making partnership and become collectively known as "The Archers" or just "P & P". Having now seen this film, which I'd long been curious about, my first instinct is to assure you that the duos work gets better with subsequent films. That is not to say that The Spy in Black is a bad film, it was pretty well received in its time and today should be regarded as fair in quality.

The story is perhaps a little complicated and has to deal with German efforts to get British navel plans from a disgruntled officer. This scheme requires kidnapping a young women on her way to the Isle of Hoy to serve as a new school teacher and replacing her with a German agent, it also requires secreting a German U-boat Captain onto the same island to met with the treasonous English officer. Like later Archers films with their strong evocations of a particular British setting, like I Know Where I'm Going with the Isle of Mull or  A Canterbury Tale with, well Canterbury, The Spy in Black evokes its isolated location in the Orkney Islands, a small chain north of Scotland that due to its out of the way  location was an important safe staging point for British vessels during both World Wars.

The story does have one pretty good twist that I honestly didn't see coming, but is talkie without being much involving (something that is not an issue in later P&P films), and the action sequences not particularly thrilling. The movie does however show signs of the structural innovation that would become a P&P hallmark, and the teams instance on bringing depth to German characters who might otherwise just be throw away villains. **

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Dogville (2003)

This film was first introduced to me ten years ago on Ebert & Roper as being something of an anti-American film. Now given that its director Lars von Trier is a self righteous European type and seemingly famous for being anti-most things, its perhaps not surprising that he would make a film that is widely perceived to be anti-American in nature. But it is in the context of the time in which the film was produced, the lead up too and early stages of the second American lead war against Iraq, that the film is perhaps best understood. The film is a parable, the meaning of which is don't trust Americans, they may appear to be largely harmless though notability low brow folks at first glance, but given the right circumstances they become pretty repugnant monsters.

The staging of the film is interesting, its like a minimalist stage play. There is one set, seemingly a warehouse environment with the various houses and buildings of the town of Dogville (a mythic every town USA said to be located in the Rocky Mountains of a Great Depression era United States), drawn in chalk with minimal prop and set accompaniments. The narrative structure is divided into 9 chapters and a prolog and there is a regular narration by John Hurt that is descriptive enough that the audio track of the film could easily be released as a book on tape. These production elements that harken to the stage or literature are counterpointed by the all star international cast of the piece that includes the diverse likes of Nicolle Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Chloe Sevigny, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard, Ben Gazzara and Patricia Clarkson.

The plot concerns Grace Margaret Mulligan (Kidman) the runaway grown up daughter of a big time gangster (James Caan) who is fleeing her father for a place where she can live with her moral principles. An aspiring young writer/philosopher Tom Edison Jr. (Bettany) who lives in Dogville with his retired doctor father (Philip Baker Hall) befriends Grace and convinces her to let him call a town meeting (Dogville has a population of about 25) on weather or not to grant her asylum as her mob background potentially threats the towns folks safety. Tom Jr. convinces the locals to give Grace a two week trial period to decide weather or they want to continue to shelter her from searching gangsters and local authorities. At Bettany's urging Grace offers to do odd jobs for free for the local towns people to try and endear herself to them, at first this is not received well as the locals are too proud to take that kind of charity, but when the people are convinces to start thinking of Grace's efforts not as doing things they need to be done, but rather things that they would like to be done, well things go much better.

After two weeks the people of Dogville unanimously vote to grant Grace asylum, they even start to pay her some for her efforts, and convert an old building from the towns former mining days into a permanent residence for her. Things go really well for a while, until the towns peoples baser natures start to show through. Hank (Stellan Skarsgard) raps her, and a ten year old boy Grace has been tutoring (Miles Purinton) begins to blackmail her into giving him spanking that he sedo masochistically enjoys. Things get increasingly worse until Grace is literally kept as a slave by the people of Dogville, chained to a heavy weight and used to satisfy the sexual appetites of all the men in town except for Tom Jr. who really loves her, but in time himself will turn against her. The townsfolk blame Grace for her troubles, insisting she brought them upon herself, that they are really being quite generous to her, and refusing to acknowledge among themselves the horrible things they have done to her. The meaning I suppose is that Americans are full of themselves and can never acknowledge the evil that they do, that they heedlessly inflict destruction thinking they are doing good. That Iraq really has weapons of mass destruction and they are freeing the people from a ruthless dictator, never mind the death and civil war they leave in their wake.

You can take or leave this interpretation of the film, but I found it an effective examination of the problem of evil even if you completely disregard the then contemporary political overtones. Self righteous and judgmental at times to be sure, what morality play isn't, but also probing and forces the viewer to confront head on the evil that people (not just Americans) do. Perhaps this even one of von Triers more watchable films. ***

We Have A Pope (2011)

We Have A Pope aka Habemus Papam

Italian film billed as a reluctant pontiff comedy has some dramatic heft and ultimately doesn't go in quite the direction I thought it would. The most common description of the film (the one you find on its IMDb page) goes as follows: "A story centered on the relationship between the newly elected Pope and his therapist." Now based on this description alone I can write a pretty standard endearing comedy in my head, but the fact of the matter is that the two central characters, Cardinal come Pope designate Melville (French actor Michel Piccoli) and the atheist psychologist brought in by the Vatican when the new Pope refuses to appear in public (Nanni Moretti, also the films director) spend very little screen time together. Early on Melville escapes from his Vatican handlers and strikes out by himself in Rome, needing some time to reflect on the awesome responsibility of the new position he's been asked to hold, while the never named psychologist is forced to stay cooped up in the Vatican as the Conclave never officially closed and no one is suppose to leave, in part to prevent leaks to the media.

Melville ends up in the company of a group of actors and we learn that being an  actor is what the old man had originally wanted to do with his life, but his sister rather then he was the one admitted to an acting school. Moretti, hold up with a bunch of aging cardinals, tries to practices his wears on them for a while, but mostly ends up playing cards with them, and eventually organizes a round robin volleyball competition among the various colleges of cardinals, which is the films comedic high point. Despite his longing to be an actor, and a perfect set up to allow him to appear on stage as one (the troops lead actor has something of a psychic breakdown and Melville knows his lines) the film choses not to take the obvious route, nor does atheist Moretti ever achieves a spiritual epiphany among the cardinals, nor are they much influenced by him. In fact the ending was a surprising downer, but not an inconsistent one given what comes before. On the whole a clever bit of somewhat insightful film making. ***