The human face of evil

We are inundated by news of the atrocities of ISIS and other jihadist groups, and many Americans live in an often misguided fear of Muslims. We tend to view these Islamic militants as monsters.

Abderrahmane Sissako’s outstanding film Timbuktu paints a different portrait by showing the complex humanity of his characters.

 

 

This French-Mauritanian film, which originally came out in 2014 but only came to the United States this year, takes its name from the cosmopolitan city in Mali that draws people from many places and where many languages are spoken. It takes place during an occupation of the city by Islamists bearing a jihadist black flag.

The film opens with a group of jihadists chasing a small antelope across the desert in a land rover, shooting their guns to scare it into submission. This becomes one of many symbols for the reality many people find themselves in.

Soon, in the village, we witness people’s quiet resistance to these thugs, who use a loudspeaker to announce silly laws: Women must wear socks. No music is allowed. Most of the resistance comes from women. A woman selling fish in the marketplace refuses to wear gloves, pointing out how ridiculous such a rule is. “Go ahead, cut off my hands now,” she tells them. They back away.

Another woman, who has moved to Timbuktu from Haiti after she lost everything in 2010, walks boldly through the village without socks and laughs at the soldiers. They get out of her way.

The local imam explains to several jihadists that his own jihad (the word means “struggle”) is with himself, to better himself in service to Allah.

Three of the soldiers argue with each other about who is the best soccer player in the world, even though sports are not permitted. They take a soccer ball from a local boy. Later we see a group of boys playing soccer without a ball, illustrating the power of imagination. When the jihadists show up, they stop playing and pretend to do exercises.

The film feels comedic at this point, but soon we witness the stoning to death of a couple charged with adultery. This scene is based on an actual event, a 2012 public stoning of an unmarried couple in Aguelhok. Another woman receives 40 lashes for singing and 40 lashes for being in the same room as a man not of her family.

Another story line involves a family that lives in a tent outside the city. Kidane is a cattle herder who loves his 12-year-old daughter, Toya. He gets into a fight with a fisherman who killed one of Kidane’s cows for damaging his fishing net. Kidane accidentally shoots him. The Islamists arrest Kidane and, per sharia law, demand a blood money payment of 40 cattle to the fisherman’s family. Since he only has seven cattle, he is sentenced to death.

Sissako’s film is a poetic tribute to people living in a difficult situation. It is beautifully shot and shows the quiet faith of some of the people. It also portrays the jihadists as humans who are misguided and more interested in power than in religion.

Timbuktu is that rare film that is both disturbing and inspiring. While it depicts some characters’ resignation to fate, it also shows the power of free will in resisting the evil of oppression by the jihadists.

The film is rated PG-13 and is available on DVD.

The human face of evil

We are inundated by news of the atrocities of ISIS and other jihadist groups, and many Americans live in an often misguided fear of Muslims. We tend to view these Islamic militants as monsters.

Abderrahmane Sissako’s outstanding film Timbuktu paints a different portrait by showing the complex humanity of his characters.

 

 

This French-Mauritanian film, which originally came out in 2014 but only came to the United States this year, takes its name from the cosmopolitan city in Mali that draws people from many places and where many languages are spoken. It takes place during an occupation of the city by Islamists bearing a jihadist black flag.

The film opens with a group of jihadists chasing a small antelope across the desert in a land rover, shooting their guns to scare it into submission. This becomes one of many symbols for the reality many people find themselves in.

Soon, in the village, we witness people’s quiet resistance to these thugs, who use a loudspeaker to announce silly laws: Women must wear socks. No music is allowed. Most of the resistance comes from women. A woman selling fish in the marketplace refuses to wear gloves, pointing out how ridiculous such a rule is. “Go ahead, cut off my hands now,” she tells them. They back away.

Another woman, who has moved to Timbuktu from Haiti after she lost everything in 2010, walks boldly through the village without socks and laughs at the soldiers. They get out of her way.

The local imam explains to several jihadists that his own jihad (the word means “struggle”) is with himself, to better himself in service to Allah.

Three of the soldiers argue with each other about who is the best soccer player in the world, even though sports are not permitted. They take a soccer ball from a local boy. Later we see a group of boys playing soccer without a ball, illustrating the power of imagination. When the jihadists show up, they stop playing and pretend to do exercises.

The film feels comedic at this point, but soon we witness the stoning to death of a couple charged with adultery. This scene is based on an actual event, a 2012 public stoning of an unmarried couple in Aguelhok. Another woman receives 40 lashes for singing and 40 lashes for being in the same room as a man not of her family.

Another story line involves a family that lives in a tent outside the city. Kidane is a cattle herder who loves his 12-year-old daughter, Toya. He gets into a fight with a fisherman who killed one of Kidane’s cows for damaging his fishing net. Kidane accidentally shoots him. The Islamists arrest Kidane and, per sharia law, demand a blood money payment of 40 cattle to the fisherman’s family. Since he only has seven cattle, he is sentenced to death.

Sissako’s film is a poetic tribute to people living in a difficult situation. It is beautifully shot and shows the quiet faith of some of the people. It also portrays the jihadists as humans who are misguided and more interested in power than in religion.

Timbuktu is that rare film that is both disturbing and inspiring. While it depicts some characters’ resignation to fate, it also shows the power of free will in resisting the evil of oppression by the jihadists.

The film is rated PG-13 and is available on DVD.

The anxiety of aging

Noah Baumbach’s new film, While We’re Young, is his most mature (no pun intended) and funny film to date. Each of his films (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding, Greenberg and Frances Ha) combine funny dialogue with the painful drama of relationships.

 

While We’re Young opens with a middle-age couple, Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts), watching over their friends’ baby, trying to calm it by telling fairy tales they can’t remember. Soon we’re awash in dialogue that pokes satirical fun at people’s anxieties and obsessions with parenting, career and where their lives are heading. Serious subjects, but Baumbach handles them with such a light touch that we find ourselves laughing at these characters before we realize how much we may resemble them.

After two miscarriages, Josh and Cornelia have given up having children, and they feel alienated from many of their friends, who are first-time parents. Josh is a documentary filmmaker who has 100 hours of footage recording an old professor lecturing in his home on the meaning of power, though the old man interrupts the filming with calls to his wife or trips to the bathroom. Cornelia is a producer, and her father is a well-known filmmaker. He and Josh don’t get along.

After a lecture Josh gives at a college in New York City, where they live, he meets a young couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Jamie gushes about Josh’s film work and about Cornelia’s father. The two couples go out to eat, and Josh and Cornelia are struck by how carefree the young couple is. Josh especially is attracted to Jamie’s in-the-moment approach to life. Soon they’re spending more and more time with this young couple and ignoring their older friends.

Jamie, who is a budding filmmaker, pitches a film idea to Josh and soon lures him into helping him with it. The film appears to be based on a serendipitous meeting with one of Josh’s high school classmates. Josh, meanwhile, can’t procure funding for his film, while Jamie gets support for his.

Later, Josh discovers that the subject of Jamie’s film is actually Darby’s classmate, and the whole thing was staged. When Josh confronts Jamie about it, Jamie admits it was fabricated but says it’s still a good story. The satirical jabs at filmmaking is one more layer to the story.

While We’re Young performs a delicate balance between satire and drama. In today’s world, where irony reigns, it’s difficult to portray the emotions of a relationship or the anxieties of aging, as when Josh has a bike accident, then learns from the doctor that he has arthritis in his knee. Josh and Cornelia’s relationship is the emotional center of the film, and these two actors carry it off well, again combining laugh-out-loud humor with pathos.

Baumbach’s milieu is usually New York, and his characters are frustrated intellectuals whose skill at relationships is limited. Many of us who watch the film may not fit that profile, yet we will connect with the humanity of the characters and the anxieties they face.

While We’re Young is rated R for language.

A portrait of spiritual and psychological struggle

Director John Gray channels Dostoevsky’s ghost in his film The Immigrant. While the plot is relatively simple, the film is a portrayal of spiritual and psychological struggle. 

It’s 1921, and two sisters arrive at Ellis Island from Poland. Ewa (Marion Cotillard) is distraught when her sister Magda is quarantined because her lungs are bad. Threatened with being deported, she is rescued by Bruno (Joachin Phoenix), who takes her to his apartment and introduces her to his “girls.”

'Low morals': Ewa suspects that he is not to be trusted, but she is desperate to get her sister out of quarantine and recognizes that Bruno is likely her only chance, especially when she sneaks off one night and walks to her aunt and uncle’s house, only to be turned away because she did something on the voyage over that showed she was of “low morals.” (We learn later that what she did was get raped.)

Bruno is a pimp, and Ewa becomes a prostitute in order to make enough money to gain her sister’s freedom. Bruno, meanwhile, is in love with her and doesn’t want to part from her.

Passion: The performances of Cotillard, one of our best actresses, and Phoenix, are outstanding. Cotillard shows Ewa’s ferocious will and dignity, while Phoenix portrays Bruno’s calm demeanor exploding at various times into anger and passion.

The cinematography uses a sepia wash to give the film the feel of a lost age, and the sets depict the crowded, grimy and gloomy streets of the Lower East Side of 1921. Several scenes reference older films, and the entire piece feels like an old Hollywood film.

The story plays with clichés, like that of the innocent prostitute, but Cotillard’s performance and the screenplay mostly avoid this, so that the characters feel real.

Religious themes: More than most films, it includes religious themes that are handled well, skirting, for example, the mean priest. (Ewa is harder on herself than he is on her.) And, like The Railway Man, which I reviewed her recently, The Immigrant is a powerful film about forgiveness.

Dostoevsky often portrayed men who do evil but are torn by love to do good. He also portrayed the innocent fool, who believes in the goodness of humanity in spite of great suffering. Gray is not of the caliber of the great Russian novelist (few if any are), but it’s nice to see a well-made film that explores these themes.

Her

Spike Jones’ sci-fi-romantic-comedy-drama (there’s a mouthful) Her is a captivating film set in Los Angeles in the near future. Despite, or maybe because of, its quirky premise of a man falling in love with his operating system, it raises profound philosophical questions about relationships and technology, about reality, love and death.  

The film opens with Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) in front of a computer screen writing personal love letters for people with difficulties expressing their feelings. This is ironic because Theodore (never Ted) is a lonely, introverted man who has trouble identifying and talking about his feelings. He is depressed because he is postponing a divorce from his childhood sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara).

He decides to purchase a new operating system (OS) that’s designed to meet his every need. He chooses a female identity for it, and she calls herself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Soon he and Samantha are having philosophical discussions about love and life, and she develops psychologically, while lamenting that she is not embodied in the world.

Theodore also talks with his good friend Amy (Amy Adams) and learns that her husband has left her. She says she also has an OS friend and affirms Theodore’s relationship with Samantha.

There are many humorous moments. Digital communication is spoken and involves earpieces. When he goes out, Theodore always carries his flip screen in his pocket with a large paper clip attached so that the aperture is visible and Samantha can see what he sees.

The look of the film is also funny and apt. The men wear high-waisted pants and pastel-colored shirts, while the women’s clothes are fairly plain. This technological future reflects a masculine perspective, with its games and toys, as well as its loneliness, a major theme of the film. Yet it also includes strong female characters and explores human relationships.

All the philosophical discussion in the film can make it sound cerebral, and it’s certainly intelligent, but this is a very emotional film. We soon accept that a man can have this kind of relationship with an OS, despite how foreign that sounds. What helps us accept this is the amazing performance of Johansson. She portrays powerful emotion through her voice alone. And Phoenix’s performance is equally great.

Her is sweet, funny, smart and moving, a wonderful film about technology and relationship, which should be attractive to men and women.

It’s rated R and includes explicit sexual language.

The African-American male as a human being

In the early hours of Jan. 1, 2009, Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African-American man, was shot in the back while being held by police at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, Calif. He later died. In the days and weeks following, Grant was alternately labeled a saint or a villain, a loving father or a drug dealer. Ryan Coogler’s extraordinary debut film shows that he was actually a complicated human being. 

What makes the film Fruitvale Station important is that it avoids the polarizing, simplistic notion that a person is only either a saint or a villain. Coogler shows Grant’s humanity: He is a loving father and a convicted felon; he loves his girlfriend but cheated on her; he loves his mother but lies to her.

The film opens with a cellphone video taken by a bystander of the actual Oscar Grant being shot. Then we switch to Dec. 31, 2008, the last day of his life, and watch Michael B. Jordan’s remarkable portrayal of Grant.

On the verge of a new year and only three months out of prison, Oscar is looking to change his life, to begin anew. He tells his girlfriend, Sophina (Melonie Diaz), that he is committed to her and their daughter, Tatiana (Ariana Neal).

After dropping off Tatiana at preschool and Sophina at work, he goes to a grocery to try to get his job back. He’s been fired for showing up late, though he hasn’t told Sophina or his mother (Octavia Spencer) this. He says to his former boss, “You want me to sell drugs?”

Oscar has an easygoing nature, and Coogler uses the device of showing his cellphone texts to portray his quick navigation of relationships as he moves from one difficulty to another. We witness his struggle to be a better person in the face of systemic forces that try to hold him back. Finding legal work to support him and his family poses a huge problem.

All the while, as he seeks to change, as he expresses his delight in Tatiana and his affection for Sophina, our gut wrenches because we know what’s coming.

Oscar and his friends are on the train after celebrating the New Year, when a white thug he encountered while in prison baits him into a fight. Later, the police are called and hold Oscar and several of his friends on the platform, and a white officer, struggling to handcuff Oscar, shoots him. (He later claimed he thought he was grabbing his taser instead of his gun, and he served 11 months in prison.)

Coogler has created not only an important film but an excellent film. He shows the complicated humanity behind the stereotype of the young African-American male. The film’s pace, editing, acting and writing are superb, and we come away sad and angry about one more wasted life because we’ve come to know this man—his aspirations, his struggles, his potential.

That the film was released around the time of the Trayvon Martin trial was unintentional yet raises many parallels. A young African-American male, killed by someone overreacting with a gun. Still, Coogler steers clear of racial polarizing. Oscar has several positive interactions with whites.

Fruitvale Station succeeds in portraying a specific human in his realistic complexity, and that story resonates with us viewers who see Oscar’s tragic death as something that affects us all.

An old antiwar film from Japan

We tend to pay attention to recent films, but it’s good to recognize that many good films have been made over the years that offer much to enrich our perspectives. Netflix is one source for viewing older films, and I regularly venture into these past treasures to explore what they offer.

This week I watched a Japanese film from 1956, The Burmese Harp, directed by Kon Ichikawa. It won several prizes and was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. While any film from another country and another period of history offers particular insights into other worlds and other lives, The Burmese Harp is especially moving in its antiwar themes.

One way the film startles American viewers is that it is told from the perspective of Japanese soldiers stationed in Burma at the end of World War II. These soldiers are not the inhuman monsters American propaganda portrayed them as. In fact, this group of soldiers is led by a captain who is trained in choral singing and has his soldiers sing to raise their morale. One soldier, Mizushima, is designated to play the harp for the group.

The war ends, but one group of soldiers continues to fight. Mizushima volunteers to go to them to deliver news that the war is over and Japan has surrendered. A British captain gives Mizushima 30 minutes to convince these soldiers to surrender before he orders them shelled. The soldiers refuse to surrender, and all of them are killed in the ensuing shelling. Mizushima, however, survives and is nursed back to health by a Buddhist monk.

He dresses in a monk’s robes and wanders the countryside, begging for food. He returns to where the soldiers were killed and goes about burying them.

His own company, meanwhile, believe he is dead, until one day they see a monk on a bridge who looks like Mizushima. But the monk says nothing to them. The film portrays these men’s care for one another and strong desire for Mizushima to rejoin them when they eventually receive permission to return to Japan.

However, he stays in Burma to live as a monk, but he sends them a letter that includes this beautiful sentence: “Our work is simply to ease the great suffering of the world, to have the courage to face suffering, senselessness and irrationality without fear, to find the strength to create peace by one’s own example.”

The film is shot in black and white and includes some stunning shots. It shows the horrors of war without overdoing it, as in today’s films. But it also shows the humanity of the Japanese soldiers. Clint Eastwood’s film Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) does this as well.

There are many excellent antiwar films, such as Grand Illusion (1937) and Paths of Glory (1957), that are worth watching. The Burmese Harp is one more to add to that esteemed list.

Humility and pretension

Every so often we see a film that just clicks with us. We may not know why, but it may be worth exploring. Let me explore.
Last week I saw Ruby Sparks, which is a good (not great) film and has received good reviews. But I came away thinking, I loved that film. Why?

First, let me tell you a bit about it. The story is about a young writer, Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano), an introvert whose first novel was a huge success but who now, 10 years later, suffers writer's block. He lives alone with his dog and sees a therapist, Dr. Rosenthal (Elliot Gould). Meanwhile, his brother Harry (Chris Messina) tells him he just needs to get laid. Calvin dreams about a girl. When he tells Dr. Rosenthal about it, he tells Calvin to write about that. "Write something bad," he says, addressing Calvin's perfectionism.
Calvin begins writing on his manual typewriter, which sits next to his iPod (go figure). He names the woman from his dreams Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan), and the words come with a new freedom. A day later, a young woman shows up in his apartment who fits his description of Ruby. It takes him some time to realize that she is real. He tells his brother but makes him swear to secrecy.
A succession of events follow, including a visit with Calvin's whacky mother (Annette Bening) and whackier stepfather (Antonio Banderas). The young couple experience differences, which Harry had warned Calvin about. Calvin can change Ruby by simply writing something about her on his typewriter, but unforeseen consequences follow.
The tone of this postmodern fable is funny but touching. It's directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who directed Little Miss Sunshine, and written by Kazan.
As in Little Miss Sunshine, the characters here are often over the top, which adds to the humor but strains the credulity. But by the end, as in the earlier film, I was won over. I predicted the ending, but I didn't care. I wanted it. And besides, it provided a good lesson that I enjoyed learning along the way. 
What's the lesson? In a nutshell, that love cannot be controlled but must be given and received freely. That may seem obvious or trite, but it's still a good lesson, and Ruby Sparks provides a fun way to have it presented.
Why did it connect with me? I tend to like movies that explore the inner lives of writers and other artists (I loved Capote), and this one captures the mixture of humility and pretension that infects many writers. Writing is a vulnerable, humbling activity that's usually marked much more by failure than success. But it can also be pretentious. For example, who am I to think other people might be interested in the thoughts I'm writing here. I could identify with that mixture of humility and pretension, and perhaps it has a broader relevance. Maybe those two adjectives describe much of human activity.
Another reason I liked the movie is that it's shamelessly romantic, and I have a strong romantic side. And Dano and Kazan (who are a couple in real life) are a charming duo who show us that life is messier than we'd like it to be. But out of that messiness, a beautiful connection can come.
 

A break from bad news

We're surrounded by news of murders (Aurora), political polarities, economic woes, starvation, wars, you name it. Sometimes our spirits need the sweet air of good news or something to look forward to.
Here's one: the Olympics in London. The opening ceremony is tomorrow night, though some events have already begun. In talking with some people at work, I realize many people aren't as interested in the Olympics as I am. You, too, may consider them overhyped, boring, involving weird, uninteresting sports. One office co-worker said, Why don't they play football. They do, of course, but he meant American football, not what we call soccer, the most popular sport in the world.

I may not like all the Olympic sports, but I enjoy most of them, and I admire all the athletes' abilities, which far surpass mine. I also like the fact that the Olympics at least try to be international and nonpartisan.
The triple jumper Voula Papachristou was kicked off Greece's Olympic team for her comments on Twitter mocking African immigrants and expressing support for a far-right political party in Greece. One can argue free speech, but I'm glad the Olympic spirit opposes such jingoistic prejudice.
Another headline in today's paper was, "Nine Olympians suspended." I'm glad the Olympics at least tries to uphold standards of fairness and punishes doping.

I'm glad we myopic Americans obsessed with football, Nascar and golf get exposed to other sports. My favorite is track and field, but I also will try to catch table tennis, badminton, tennis, soccer and as much else as I can.

Another bit of good news: An article in the July 30 issue of Time (its Summer Olympics Special) looks at "The Undroppables," a social media campaign that plugs staying in school.

Documentary filmmaker Jason Pollock is gathering video testimonials from students who have decided to stay in school, despite difficult obstacles. Kayla Webley writes that Pollock "is trying to harness the power of social networks to keep an estimated 1.2 million students from dropping out of school each year." He points to the success of campaigns such as It Gets Better and wants this project to have as great an impact on young people's lives. The tagline for the campaign is "I am undroppable."

In June he uploaded short clips of 70 or so students who have decided to stay in school or go back to school. The bulk of the proceeds from his documentary will go to charity.

Both the stories Pollock presents and the campaign itself are good news.

As we slog through the toxic political speech of this season and the plethora of bad news in our world, let us take time to breathe the fresh air of good news. That air can give us energy to face the injustices around us with greater hope.

Maybe the Olympics don't lift your spirit as they do mine. OK. Find something that does.