The Railway Man and the Thai-Burma Railway

Last night I watched a 2013 British film, The Railway Man.  The film is the story of Eric Lomax (Colin Firth), a man who has always loved trains.  In 1980, he meets an enchanting woman on a train (Patti, played by Nicole Kidman.  They fall in love, but then Patti learns a dark secret that Eric has hidden.  As a young man, he was a in the British signal officer who was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore (the younger Lomax is played by Jeremy Irvine.  Along with other British soldiers, he is taken north through Malaysia and into Thailand where they are put to work on the Thai-Burma railroad.  At first, as an engineer, he is treated better than many of the other prisoners, but when the Japanese find a radio he and his fellow engineers have built to listen to the news of the war, he is brutally beaten.  Through it all, Nagase is a Japanese interpreter who is very brutal.  The movie depicts the suffering of those working on the railway and some of the brutality of the torture, but doesn’t linger long with it.  As the film jumps back and forth from the 40s to the 80s, it becomes apparent that Lomax is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Patti, now his wife, is determined to save her husband.  She seeks help from another former POW, who tells her Eric’s story. 

Train in Kanchanaburi before crossing the bridge

The Bridge over the River Kwai Noi 

In the end of the movie, Eric goes back to Thailand and encounters Nagase, who has become a tour guide at the site of the infamous railway over the River Kwai (the river’s actual name is Kwai Noi).  The encounter is intense, but eventually the two are able to make peace with their past.

I enjoyed the movie (but then it stars Nicole Kidman).   I especially enjoyed the views of him returning to Thailand and taking the train that runs on the Thai-Burma line.  That line no longer runs to Burma, stopping about 10 km from the border, but from what I’ve read (now that things have stabilized in Burma), there is plans to reconnect Thailand to Burma by railroad.  This was a unique feat, not just the bridge but how they attached a causeway to a rock mountainside running above the river, and then how they dug (without dynamite) through rock.  Lomax returns to ride this train which I got to enjoy when I was in Thailand in 2011.  For more insight into the movie and the real Eric Lomax (who was a POW), check out this review in the Guardian.  

Looking at railway between rock and river

At the site of the bridge, there is a museum about the Japanese POW camps.  I found the museum to be lacking and tacky.  Throughout it, was the quote, “The phenomenon of war brings adverse effects on society, as if to justify what happened to thousands of Dutch, British, Indian and Malay soldiers during the building of the railway.  They did show some of the brutality, but it was limited.  They mentioned the Japanese forcing POWs to march out onto the bridge during air attacks, where many were killed by “friendly fire” as the British and American armies kept destroying the bridge as a way to limit supplies going to the Japanese army in Burma.  The museum also downplayed Thailand’s role in the war.  Although they tried to say they were neutral, they allowed the Japanese free reign with the country, including the landing of soldiers who were used in the Malay campaign and the building of a railway with POW labor.  There was a display in the museum that said Thailand women didn’t have anything to fear from the Japanese soldiers.  It also acknowledged that the Japanese had women from Korea and Manchuria, but conveniently left out the enslavement of these “comfort women.”  In this area, there are a number of large cemeteries with of 10,000s of POWs from the British Empire and the Netherlands (who came from the surrender of Indonesia) who died as a prisoners.   The photos are of my 2011 overland trip from Singapore to Europe.

Cemetery with British, Canadian and Dutch POWs

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods  (2015, 1 hour and 44 minutes)

With the storms we've been having, I decided to go to the movies on Labor Day.  Even though I haven’t heard too many good things about it, I decided on “A Walk in the Woods.”  After all, I’ve hiked the trail and read and laughed through the book.  Although I enjoyed the book, I always thought it was a shame that I received 200 bucks for an article about my experiences of hiking 2000 plus miles and Bill Bryson sold a ton of books for having only hiked a little over 800 miles of the trail.  But he’s a talented writer who can make most any mundane thing funny.  In the book and in the movie, Bryson decides to hike the trail after moving back to the United States from Great Britain.  In the book, if I remember correctly, he and his English wife decides to move back in other to allow their children a chance to experience both countries.  Bryson was in his 40s at the time.  In the movie, a much older Bryson (played by Redford at 79) has older children and grandchildren.  In both the book and the movie, he has a hard time finding a hiking partner.  In the movie, he calls a former acquaintance whom he discovers is dead.  His wife reminded him that his wife had shared that news in their Christmas card, which allows Redford the line that went something like: “I guess that’s why she seem miffed when I called him.”  Much of the humor in the movie were similar one-liners.

Sage on the trail

Bryson finds a partner in Katz (played by Nick Notle), whom he had traveled in Europe after high school.  He hadn’t seen Katz since and when he gets off the plane, Bryson can’t believe his eyes.  Katz is not only out-of-shape, but looks half-dead.  Katz is a gloomy but likeable character who tells Bryson's family some less than favorable stories about their dad, implying that he picked up a STD while they were traveling in Europe.  There is a sad scene while Katz is staying at Bryson’s home before they begin the hike.  Alone, Katz reviews all the various certificates and awards that his friend has received in his life.  It's evidence of a life-well lived, which stands in contrast to Katz's life of booze and drugs and women.  Later, on the trail, Katz seems surprised the Bryson has been faithfully married for forty years and then jokes that he’s been with more married women than Bryson.

On the trail, which seems like a freeway, the two of them are constantly passed by younger hikers who all seem in shape (and way too clean to be backpacking).  And then there is Mary Ellen, a bubbly woman who has an answer for everything and drives the two of them crazy.  I remember such characters on the trail and ways we tried to dump them by either hiking fast or taking a short day and allowing them to get ahead.  There were also the “gear Nazis” who scrutinized packs, boots and other equipment.   Bryson and Katz experiences a snow storm but no other inclement weather (they hiked the whole time with long pants and flannel shirts, which even in the month of May would have been too much clothing on most days for even then it can get hot in the Southern Appalachians).  There were no rain and thunder (and no sweating on hot days).  I remember hiking in thunderstorms and, when with other hikers, we'd spread out so that if one of us was struck, the other could to attempt to resuscitate.   It would have been nice to have had a thunderstorm on the screen, for about half way through the movie, I could hear the rumble of thunder from outside and for a few minutes the rain poured down so loud so that I heard it inside the theater.  I was reminded I was better off at the movies than on the water.

Sage on Mt. Katahdin
at the end of the trail...

The movie is rated R which is mostly for language which the two of them use frequently as a way to express frustration at their troubles.  The one bear scene was weird (there were many more bear stories in the book).   The movie picked up some of the hikers routines such as relieving oneself in the woods (which the book dealt with, too) and doing laundry in town (yes, I have done laundry wearing only rain gear).  At the laundromat, Katz encounters a flirty and very over-weight married woman, which necessitates the two of them slipping out of town before an angry husband kills Katz.  As Katz asks Bryson, “What is the chance that the only two people in the world who would go to bed with that woman be in the same town at the same time?” 

Although Katz is seen as a womanizer (a trait that seems to be in conflict with his looks), we learn that he has given up alcohol.  He admits how much he enjoys drinking (the smell, the taste, how it makes you feel) but that he knows if he takes a drink, it will be all over.  After a rough life, he is now living alone eating TV dinners.

The movie ends with the two of them deciding to give up their quest and go back home.  They realize they don’t have to walk the entire trail for they have nothing to prove to anyone.   I agree with most of the critics that the movie doesn’t do justice to Bill Bryson’s book.  However, there is a value in the movie version.  We see the rewards of Bryson’s faithfulness and well-lived life.  Also, even though we understand that Katz’s wasted much of his life, we can cheer him on that he’s finally gotten it somewhat together (at least the alcohol, he still can't help hitting on any woman who happens by).   The two help each other (Bryson, at one point, decides not to have a drink in front of Katz as not to tempt him).  The two lives create a classic “morality-play” showing the value of virtue. 

I’ve written a lot about my experiences on the Appalachian Trail in this blog.  To get started in reading my experiences, click here.

January 31 (tennis and The Last Station)

It’s the last day of January.  I took off work while it’s still daylight.  I should have had enough time for a couple of miles of cross-country skiing; after all I am living in Michigan.  But what did I do?  I hit tennis balls with my daughter.  And I’m not talking about making the familiar 30 mile drive to a big city where she takes tennis lessons in an inside tennis center, but at the courts at the local high school.  Yep, that’s right, it was 52 degrees  (11 degrees Celsius for my non-USA friends).  I played in shorts and a long sleeve sweatshirt.  Of course, we didn’t have a net (the nets have been removed for winter) but we did have the courts to ourselves.  After dark, I took the pooch for a walk around town.  When I came back home, I watched for the second time The Last Station.

If you haven’t seen the The Last Station I recommend it.  The movie is based on the final year of Tolstoy life as seen through his last secretary, Valentin Bulgakov.  Valentin goes to live at Tolstoy’s family home, where he witnesses the struggle between Chekhov to Tolstoy’s wife Sophia’s battle over the rights to Tolstoy’s work.  He also sees the bitterness and the love between Tolstoy and his wife.  At one point, the author is frustrated with his wife’s complaining and says, “You don’t need a husband, you need a Greek chorus.”  Chekhov, who dislikes Sophia, tells Tolstoy’s wife, “If I had a wife like you, I would have blown my brains out…  or gone to America.”  Even though there is tension, you do get the sense that Tolstoy and his wife are in love even if they can’t live together peacefully and the elderly man finally decides he has flee.  Tolstoy leaves on a train until his health fails and he is taken into by the station master at a remote station and given a place to die.  The small town in inundated with reporters wanting to know what’s happening to the world famous author.  During this time, Chekhov and one of Tolstoy’s daughters conspire to keep Sophia away from her husband.  They are successful until the very end when the daughter relents and allows her mother to see him one final time. 

In addition to the drama around Tolstoy, Valentin also has some drama of his own.  As a Tolstoian, he is trying to live the ideal life based on the ascetic principals of his boss, yet he finds himself having an affair with Masha, a young Tolstorian.   In a way, you get the sense that what Valentin and Masha are experiencing in their love mirrored the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife when they were younger.

The movie deals with how we create idols out of our heroes.  Around Tolstoy are a group of disciples trying to live as he has taught.  At best, Tolstoy is amused by this and his wife is repulsed by it.  Tolstoy takes a liking to his new secretary, confiding in him that he’s not a very good Tolstorian himself.  In another scene, one in which Chekhov is present along with a lot of reporters, Tolstoy kills a mosquito.  Chekhov denounces this, saying that it doesn’t look good for him to kill anything.  Tolstoy counters, telling Masha that Chekhov is a better Tolstorian than he is.  At the end of the movie, Valentin confronts Chekhov, charging that he is creating an icon out of Tolstoy and that the image is going to look more like Chekhov than Tolstoy. 

The scenery in the movie is lovely.  The birch forest reminded me of being in Russia this summer (even though much of the movie was filmed in Germany).  Of course, the train scenes were also pleasing to my eyes!  This is a good movie that shows how the perceived lives of our heroes often differ from the reality.  It also shows how people attempt to control others for their own gain.  This is a good movie.  It’s romantic, but with a twist.   

Indochine (A Movie Review)

It's been a while since I've done a movie post and rainy day and river flooding posts would get old...

Indochine (1992, French with English subtitles)




I made an exception to my “avoid all things French” rule and watched this film. I’m glad I did. I fell in love with Catherine Deneuve. What a beautiful woman! In the movie she plays Elaine, a wealthy French woman living in Vietnam in the 1930s. Unmarried, but with suitors and lovers, Elaine raises a Vietnamese girl (Camille) after her parents are killed. A marriage at birth has been arranged for Camille and Tanh, a Vietnamese boy who is sent to France to study. Thrust into this mix is a young French Naval Officer in Vietnam, Jean-Baptiste. He is one of Elaine’s lovers and later, after coming to her aide, becomes a lover of Camille. Elaine arranges it that Jean-Baptiste is sent to a forsaken naval outpost in the north. Camille, with Tanh’s blessings, goes north after him. Camille is tricked into being sold as an indentured servant to plantation owners in the south and then sees the brutality of the French control. She is also reunited with Jean-Baptiste and kills another French officer (who was responsible for the death of Camille’s friends). She and Jean-Baptiste run away and become a legend amongst those in the Vietnamese communist party. The country is on the edge of a revolution. They travel with a theater group and almost make it to China when French soldiers catch up with Jean-Baptiste and his son (Camille gets away). Jean-Baptiste gives the boy to Elaine, but before he’s taken back to France for trial, he’s given 24 hours of freedom to get his affairs in order. After keeping his son for the evening, Elaine finds him the next morning with a bullet in his head while the son is in the bed beside him. Although she knows better, his death is ruled a “suicide.” The movie ends with Elaine and her son back in France. Its 1954 and Camille is a leader in the Vietnamese Communist Party and is in Geneva to work out the peace accord with France. Camille takes her grandson to meet his mother. He goes into the hotel and then comes out and says that she is his mother.



The setting for this movie is beautiful. The scenes of the workers, wearing headlamps, going into the rubber tree forest on foggy nights to re-slash the trees in order for them to produce more sap is mystical. The mountain scenes and the views of Ha Long Bay are breath-taking. I could watch the movie many times just to enjoy the scenery, which stands in contrast to the conflict that is rising (and will eventually lead to the French defeat and later to the American involvement in Vietnam). The brutality of the French rule is exposed. Although I enjoyed the movie, the story line is like that of a soap-opera. Also, the film seemed to have some jagged edges as it jumped around (from Elaine telling her grandson about his past to actually being in the past).



Overall, I recommend this movie, but only for the scenery. It makes me even more interested in going to Vietnam.

Restrepo (A movie review and catching up on my apparent absence)

Restrepo: One Platoon, One Valley, One Year Directed, Produced and Cinematography by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington (July 2010), 93 minutes.

This past week has been a whirlwind, but it’s been a good whirlwind as a project that has been in the works for over 5 years has come to completion. Things are good! Yet, the craziness of work means I haven’t been around much in blogland. However, my busyness didn’t keep me from seeing a movie this weekend. Restrepo is very moving (and a little disturbing). It’s a documentary by Sebastian Junger, a journalist (and author of The Perfect Storm) who was embedded in an airborne platoon’s deployment into the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It was a dangerous assignment as this platoon was called to establish a small base in the center of a Taliban stronghold. They named the outpost Restrepo, for the platoon’s medic who was killed early in their deployment.

This documentary was filmed with handheld recorders. If you recall the opening scenes in the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” in which the landing on Normandy was filmed on handheld recorders, it creates jumpy images and gives the viewer a sense of the chaos of battle. Unlike “Saving Private Ryan,” this documentary was real, the bullets coming in were live and dangerous and there were casualties.

The movie shows how the platoon changed during the course of their deployment. At the beginning, everyone was in uniform, but as the months wore on they became more lax. Uniforms were not always worn. The body armor was left off as the soldiers spent more time in the sun without shirts. In one of the later firefights at the outpost, the soldiers quickly jumped to their guns, firing while wearing flip flops and slippers (the one with slippers found himself in a bad situation when a hot shell casing fell into his shoe and he quickly had to get it out.

This was a personal movie for those of us who attended it. I was with a group of friends which included one of the soldiers from this platoon, who was wounded about five months into their tour. If you remember, back in October 2007, I solicited your prayers for Carl, a soldier I knew and whose parents are good friends. Sitting with Carl and his parents and other friends, I found it haunting when, in the firefight in which he was wounded, other soldiers were calling out his last name and expressing the fear that he was “bleeding out.” After the movie, we were all stunned and quiet.

Carl had seen the movie before, but his parents hadn’t. I could only imagine what they were feeling. Carl was airlifted out of the valley and into a field hospital where he had the first of many operations. Within 24 hours, he was in Germany, where his parents were able to be by his side. Today, Carl is a college student. There are visible signs of his wound on his left arm. He was honorably discharged with a 50% disability. But he’s strong and, after working with many physical and occupational therapists, he is working to join their ranks.

This movie is being shown primarily at art-type theaters. In November, it will debut on Cable TV (I think the National Geographic Channel) and will also come out on DVD. It may be hard for some to handle, but it reminds us of the sacrifices those in uniform often make. I recommend it.

The Road Home: A Movie Review

The Road Home, Zhang Yimou, director, 2000, 1 hour 29 minutes, Chinese with English subscripts

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, yet continue to ponder it’s meaning. The film begins in black and white. A son has been called back to his childhood village upon his father’s death and is driven across the snowy fields of northern China (interestingly, I’m pretty sure they’re driving a 4 wheel drive American Jeep). Upon arriving home, he learns his mother wants to do things the traditional way. His father was in the city when he died and she wants him to be carried by to the village by men, not by a car or even by a tractor. In this way, his spirit will remember the road. The widow also insists on making the funeral cloth on her old loom. Her son offers to buy the fabric, but she insists on doing it herself. The son then begins to think about his parents life, their forty years of love and happiness. As he recalls the familiar story (everyone in the village knows it), the film changes to color.

His mother, Zhao Di, is 18 years old. The village has a new school teacher, their first,
Lou Changyu. He is from the city, but comes to the rural town and helps the men build a school. Zhao Di and Lou Changyu notice each other, but their courtship consist primarily of glances as Zhao Di prepares meals for the workers on the school and walks further just to draws water out of the well above the school. She also weaves a fabric banner to hang from the rafters of the new school. Soon after the two meet and express their interest in the other, the authorities haul the teacher away for questioning. The next two years are unsettled times as the teacher is kept away from the village, but finally the teacher is allowed to return to the school where he spends his life teaching. His final task was to raise money for a modern school building, a task he was working on when he had a heart attack.

Much of the movie is about his parents courtship. When the film returns to the present, it’s again in black and white. The son has arranged the funeral procession for his father. Although the village didn’t think they had enough men to do the procession, hundreds of the teacher’s former students come back and take turns caring the casket back to the village. The teacher is buried in a grave, next to the now unused well (the town now has running water), a site that looks over the school. After the funeral, his widow gives her savings to the mayor for the new school and everyone is committed to the project. As a last gesture to his mother (and also father), the son volunteers to teach a day at the old school. He leads the class in recitations: “Know the present, know the past; In everything there is a purpose; Respect your elders,” etc.

The movie is beautifully filmed. The change of time is shown by the changes of the seasons. In the fall, when the aspen-like trees that dot the landscape are in full color, its beautiful. The road that connects the village to the city is also important, as the young Zhao Di waited patients by it for her lover to return, her brilliant red jacket standing in contrast to the white snowy landscape. The road is finally traveled one last time, when he is brought home. The love between the widow and her husband is vivid. It’s also an interesting political film, as we learn that at one point the young teacher must have been in trouble with the Communist party, although the trouble was never explained. His recitations (which his son continued to use when he teaches at the school) is steeped in Confucius thought and at odds with much of what Maoist China was about.

Zhou Yu's Train

Zhou Yu’s Train (China, 2002, 92 minutes long), PG-13.

I’m a sucker for trains. It’s my favorite form of transportation. I enjoy reading about train travel and even enjoy watching train movies. So, a few months ago, I was watching a Korean film (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring), and caught the previews of a Chinese film titled “Zhou Yu’s Train.” The preview made it look like there were lots of train scenes in the movie, so it went into my Netflix queue. Now I really feel like a sucker. Although the movie does have lots of train scenes, it’s essentially a Chinese chic-flick, but one partially redeemed by employing lots of poetry.

Truthfully, I had a hard time figuring out this movie. The star (the beautiful Gong Li) keeps showing up as two characters. In one, she’s Zhou Yu, a carefree woman with shoulder length hair, a painter of porcelain, who is torn between her love of a poet in a distant city and a veterinarian. The train is her connection to Ching Chen, her poet in Chongyang. Gong Li is also Xiu, a silent woman with short hair who keeps appearing throughout the movie. After Ching Chen is assigned to a school in Tibet, Xiu shows us at the school and Zhou Yu is killed in a bus crash (the train only ran twice a week, she should have waited instead of taking the bus!). Are Zhou Yu and Xiu the same? Or is this all a dream, some kind of mirror image (as the poetry suggests). I don’t know. The movie was confusing as it kept jumping back and forth between the poet and the vet, with Zhou Yu riding the fast moving train back and forth between lovers.

I don’t think I’d watched the whole movie, had it not been for the train. The wail of the whistle and the clicking of the rails was the glue that held the movie together and kept me watching. The photography is wonderful. The sight of the train snaking through tunnels and racing along viaducts was enchanting. The movie is in Mandarin. Despite having eaten scores of cans of such oranges, I still can’t make heads or tails out of the language. But there are English subtitles and since the dialogue is sparse, it’s easy to follow along. Thankfully, the sound of the train is universal.

For more book and movie reviews by Sage, click here.

Preparing dinner, watching "Loney Are the Brave" & complaining about foreign birds

I’ve been busy the past few days, preparing for a dinner of 40 some folks last night. It turned out great and everyone had a good time. I just wish I’d taken the time to buy the beer. We had Leinenkugel's, which ar from an old brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. They generally makes a pretty good beer, and their wheat beers were good, but I could do without the Summer Shandy (think "wine cooler" with beer and lemonade) and Berry Weiss (think Grape Nehi). Either one of those drinks are enough to make me want to take the temperance pledge.

I began on Thursday night, preparing the meat, chopping vegetables and making a half-dozen banana puddings. Turning on the TV while doing this work, I was pleasantly surprised to discover TMC playing “Lonely Are the Brave.” This 1962 black and white film is one of my favorite and is based upon one of Edward Abbey’s early novels, The Brave Cowboy. The film had an all star cast. Kirk Douglas plays Jack Burns, a cowpoke who just can’t fit into the modern world. He comes down off the mountain to check in on Paul, a friend sent to prison for helping illegal Mexican aliens get work (Interesting topic for the time!). Jack gets in a bar fight and ends up in jail, where he’s reunited with Paul and tries to talk him into breaking out with him. His friend refuses and Jack leaves, heading to the mountains on his house. The movie then involves a modern chase scene that involves jeeps and a helicopter with Jack and his horse (he’d left he horse with his friend’s wife). Jack gets away, makes it over the ridge of the mountain and tells his horse that he’s got a pine carpeted trail all the way to Old Mexico. But then, with one last highway to cross (in the pouring rain), Jack and his horse are hit by a tractor/trailer hauling privies to Mexico, driven by Carroll O’Conner.

The movie has great symbolism. At the beginning of the movie, Jack comes into civilization by crossing a busy highway and having trouble with his horse being spooked by the cars. The movie ends in the same manner, with him crossing a highway (only he doesn’t make it). Jack cuts barbwire and complains about it. He tries to avoid the bar fight and even in his escape, refuses to do more harm than necessary to protect himself. He shoots the back rooter of the helicopter to “let down easy,” and when he encounters a cruel deputy who had knocked a tooth out of his mouth when he was in prison, he returns the favor and throws his weapons off a cliff, but doesn’t kill him even though he has a chance. He considers himself a true individual. Paul won’t break jail for he doesn’t want another five years tacked on to his two year term. Paul has a wife and son to consider. Jack, without a family or any other ties, is free. The Sherriff, played by Walter Matthau, seems to sympathize with Jack’s plight, but others like the cruel deputy played by George Kennedy are willing to do anything to get the “cowboy.” What a great movie to watch while slicing bananas and peeling potatoes.

Speaking of illegal aliens and at the risk of sounding like Lou Dobbs, I’m in my own fight against aliens. Those “blankety-blanket” European Starlings are back. They’re ugly and chase away my favorite birds from the feeders.

The Burmese Harp: A Movie Review

Ironically, as we are now learning about the horrors of the typhoon in Myanmar, this past weekend I watched a film set in that country (formerly known as Burma), during a time of another disaster there—World War Two. Interestingly, this Japanese film came out at approximately the same time as the western World War Two film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, which is also set in Burma.
The Burmese Harp, Directed by Kon Ichikawa, 1957, B&W, Japanese with English subtitles.

The war is almost over and a Japanese unit is on the run in the hills of Burma. Captain Inouye (Rentaro Mikuni), a former music teacher, has instilled a love of music into his troops. When feeling down, they lift their spirits in song, accompanied by a harp played by Mizushima (Shoji Yasui). At the war’s end, they sing with the British troops to whom they’ve surrendered. Mizushima is a special soldier. He looks Burmese and without his uniform, is able to pass as a native. The unit uses this for its advantage, as Mizushima is sent out ahead as a scout. As a POW, Mizushima is asked to go into the mountains to encourage another Japanese unit dug in there to surrender. His captain tells him not to let anyone die needlessly and he takes his orders seriously, but the troops refuse to surrender. He begs them to save themselves and to surrender so they can help rebuild Japan, but they vote to continue to fight and abuse Mizushima, calling him a coward. The British shell and mortar their position, killing and wounding all the soldiers. Only Mizushima survives. He begins his walk back to Mudon, where his unit is being held. Along the way, he sees the horrors of war, bodies decomposed and being eaten by birds. Taking the dress of a Buddhist monk, he takes time to bury the dead, always honoring them with a salute. Mizushima under goes a transformation and decides to stay in Burma as a monk, for there are too many Japanese bodies that need to be buried. His unit, at first thinks he’s dead. Then they recognize him as a local monk, but they are unable to talk him into returning to Japan. On the ship back to Japan, the Captain reads Mizushima’s letter to the unit, where he writes fondly of his comrades and vows to wander through Burma honoring the dead.

-

The soldiers in this film are portrayed as sensitive and caring. They long to go home and rebuild Japan and look forward seeing their families, to taking a nap on the veranda and even to listen to the machines in a factory. This is an antiwar film; it shows the unity of comrades who are presented, not as killers, but as additional victims of war. It’s interesting seeing such a film from the perspective of the defeated. Unlike The Human Condition, a trilogy of Japanese War films that deal with atrocities committed by the military and one man’s fight against the system, The Burmese Harp focuses on bond between the men. In this way, the movie reminds me of the German film, “Das Boot,” which centers on the experiences a U-boat crew during the Second World War, without getting into the larger political issues of whether their fight was right or wrong.

-
Although filmed in Black and White, the film shows the beauty of Burma, the land of the many Buddhas. In the interview with the film maker on the DVD, he pointed out that the shots of Mizushima wandering Burma were filmed on location. They could take one actor to Burma, but not the whole crew. The rest of the film was shot in Japan where he had the challenge of making his homeland look tropical. I enjoyed this film and recommend it.

Fire: A Movie Review

Fire, Deepa Mehta director, 1996 (mostly English, a few subtitles)

Fire is the first movie in a trilogy by Deepa Mehta, a Canadian/Indian film maker. Yet, this is the last of the three movies for me to watch. It’s been well over a year since I reviewed the other two films, Earth and Water. I suppose I’m just enough of a redneck that it took an effort for me to sit down (actually I stood and ironed) and watch a film reported to be about lesbianism in India—a "Kashmir Brokeback Mountain.” Finally Fire rose to the top of my Netflix queue. Last week, with a large load of shirts needing to be pressed, I watched this movie and began to wonder why I was so reluctant and had kept bumping it from the top of my queue. I’m glad I finally saw it. I don’t think it’s correct to call this a “lesbian” film. Although two women do get together, it’s only after they’ve been denied by their husbands whom they both seem to desire. Their loneliness brings them together. This is really a film about culture changes and the impact this is having on families in India. On a global scale, it’s a film about desire.

-

There are two Indian legends that Mehta draws upon for her movie. The first is about Sita (not only is this the name of one of the characters, but Sita is a Hindu goddess and the wife of Ram). She is captured by Ram’s rival and held prisoner for a year. When she is released, Ram questions her fidelity. She maintains that she has been faithful to him in thought and deed and is willing to be tried by fire. If she is pure, the flames will not burn her. A fire is build and she walks through flames and comes out unscathed, but she is still sent into exile. The other legend is about a king that was so good-looking that even the gods were impressed. He had a beautiful and devoted wife. But he became proud and the gods felt his arrogance couldn’t go unpunished. So they inflicted his body with thousands of pins. His wife carefully removed each of the pins, but when had all but two removed, a holy man called on her and demanded to see her that minute. When she went to see the holy man, her servant took out the two pins and the king embraced her and made her queen and demoted his wife to a servant. The holy man told the former queen that she’d need to fast from food and water for her husband. She did and he then recognized her devotion and accepted her back as queen. This legend, according to the movie, tells why Indian women fast for their husbands.

-

The movie begins with Sita as a child with her parents on a picnic in the hills of India. She has never seen the sea, but is told that it is possible, for her to close her eyes and to look… Then, we see Sita as a newlywed. She and her husband, Jatin, are on their honeymoon and are visiting the Taj Mahal. A guide tells them the legends of the building. The tomb was commissioned by an emperor for his favorite wife. He wanted it to be the most beautiful building in the world and when it was done, had the hands of the architect cut off to keep him from building anything anymore beautiful. This legend, the tenderness of the emperor toward his favorite wife and his brutality toward others, foreshadow what will happen to Sita and Jatin.
-

After their honeymoon, Sita and Jatin move into his family home. Head of the family is Ashok, Jatin’s older brother, who oversees the family’s business. They have a restaurant and a video store that is operated by Mundu, who also lives with the family. Also living with the family is the mother of Jatin and Ashok, along with Ashok’s wife Radha. The mother is old and feeble and unable to speak. When she has a need, she rings a bell and everyone in the home tends to her.

As the film continues, we learn more about each of the men in the family. Ashok and Radha were not able to have children. Ashok believes the only reason to have sex is to have children. When this becomes an impossibility, he attempts to purify himself by taking a vow of celibacy. He uses his wife only to test his purity (talk about a no-win situation, she has to try to seduce him, but if she succeeds, he would fail). Ashok devotes much of his life to a swami, an old man who teaches him to shun desires. Ashok himself proclaims that desire is the root of all evil.
-

Jatin, the other brother, is just the opposite. He’s been forced into an arranged marriage with Sita and Ashok is looking forward to their children. But Jatin is really devoted to a Chinese refugee living in India. He loves her and spends much of his time with her and her family. Sita, having been shunned by her husband, finds comfort in her growing friendship with Radha. Eventually, they begin to sleep together. Nothing is really shown of their sexual relationship with the exception of them lying in bed and an occasional kiss. Actually, considering the adult subject matter, the film mostly hints at what’s going on. The most risqué scene is a silhouette of a bare breast, but that’s as far as the film goes.
-

Mundu, the third man in the house and a paid servant, finds his sexual fulfillment watching erotic movies while everyone is away. While supposedly carrying for the ailing mother, he pops in a video and masturbates in front of the TV (thankfully, you don’t actually see the act, but you get the idea of what he’s doing). The old woman is unable to stop this and doesn’t like staying with Mundu, but no one knows of the reason until Radha comes into the house and finds Mundu in the deed with her mother-in-law on the couch behind him. She tells Mundu to leave, but he refuses, telling her that he knows her secret love for Sita… Later, Mundu apologies to the family and to the grandmother, which leads Jatin to admit his affair (but he says he’s not going to stop it) and offers Sita a way out. Things are spiraling out of control. Then Mundu tells Ashok about his wife and he then catches Sita and Radha together. Sita leaves the home and Radha hopes to follow but stays long enough to confront Ashok. In their confrontation, she tells him that “without desire there is no point in living.” He tells her that she should be glad that he’s a non-violent man. As they argue, her sari catches fire on the stove and she whirls around burning as Ashok saves his mother from the flames.

-
Although this film doesn’t contain the beauty of Water, or the intense drama of Earth, this is still a great movie and one I recommend (for adults). The film shows how both the man trying to be so pure and the playboy caused pain to others. The film is about desire. Radha is right when she proclaims that life without desire isn’t worth living. But it’s not that simple. In Jatin’s life, we see that unrestrained desire is also destructive.

Spring’s Arrival and a movie review of “The General”

Spring is now here. Every morning I wake up to a chorus of birds. Some of the early trees are budding out as my sinuses have informed me. The weather is warmer and at most I find myself wearing a light jacket in the mornings or evenings. Today, I went out in short-sleeves. Life continues to be busy. On Wednesday, I had an evening meeting with architects and building folks that went way late. I’d walked back to the office for the meeting (not quite a mile) and it was nearly ten o’clock when I got home. I was dead and decided I needed to do something mind-numbing, so I flipped on the TV and watched “The General” on TCM. Although I’d heard of the movie (get the joke?), and I seen clips from it, I’d never watched the whole thing. I’m glad I did; it’s a hoot.

“The General” is a classic Buster Keaton film, back from his silent movie days. The film is based loosely on the well known train chase that occurred north of Atlanta during the Civil War. In the film, as in the real incident, Union spies came into Georgia with the plan to steal a locomotive and to burn the bridges north of Atlanta in order to keep the South from supplying goods to the their western army. When the train takes a dinner stop in Marietta (this was long before dining cars), the spies steal the train and head north. I don’t remember all the details of what happened in the real event, except that another train chased the spies and they were eventually caught and didn’t do much damage.

In the movie version, Johnny Gray (played by Buster Keaton), who was rejected by the Southern army because they needed train engineers, chases the union spies on foot, on a gaudy-dancer, then in another locomotive. Keaton, who is known for his very flexible and humorous movements, dances all over the train as it runs down the track. He single-handedly thwarts the spies’ plans, taking his train behind enemy lines and into the house where the Union officers are housed. Hiding under a dining room table (a very funny scene, especially when the Union general burns Keaton with his cigar that he keeps holding under the table), Johnny “hears” of the Union plans. He also finds that Annabelle, his true love (played by Marion Lee), was on the union train and is now held in the house. He sets out to save her and to win her hand along with saving the southern army and his engine, all in one swoop. They steal away during a thunderstorm (it’s worth watching the movie to see the lightning special effects; cinematography has come a long ways in 80 years). Then there is another train chase as Johnny Gray and Annabelle rush back through the lines and warn the confederate general, who at the end of the battle commissions Johnny Gray as an officer. The movie ends with him kissing Annabelle.

The real joy of the film is watching Keaton’s chiropractic-loving moves. Without sound (the video has music in the background), Keaton has to depend on facial expressions and movement to create comedy. It was just what I needed after a long day. In looking for more information on the movie, I discovered that it’s in public domain and you can watch it all online—so if you don’t have anything else to do, click here and ENJOY! (I tried to embed this, but couldn't get the movie to start).

Fitzcarraldo: A Movie Review

Fitzcarraldo, Directed by Werner Herzog (German with English Subtitles), 1982

Fitzcarraldo is a comic opera set in the upper reaches of the Amazon in Peru during the early years of the 20th Century. Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski) is a crazy Irishman whose idea of a trans-Andes railroad had failed. His prized possession is a phonograph and his collection of opera recordings. He is consumed with a desire to build an opera house in Iquitios. He enlists the help of his girlfriend (or wife?) the beautiful Molly (Claudia Cardinale), who runs the local brothel. Needing money to build, they decide to go into the rubber business. With her money, they buy a steamship with the idea of that Fitzcarraldo will claim a remote territory for its rubber. The idea is to take the ship upstream on one river, pull it across a small height of land into another river where they can go upstream and establish rubber plantations. Since that area they hope to claim wasn’t on a river navigable to the Amazon, they would bring the rubber to the isthmus, cross over the path which they’d hauled the ship to the other river, and then have another ship bring the rubber back to Inquitios.

The plan develops many problems. First, most of the crew deserts. Fitzcarraldo is left with just his mechanic, captain and cook. Then there are hostile tribes, who show up right after the crew has left. In a scene that recalls Col. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now” (1979), where the leader of the Air Calvary plays Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as his helicopters fly into battle, Fitzcarraldo mounts his phonograph on the top of the ship and plays opera for them. Fitzcarraldo’s Caruso is much tamer than Kilgore’s Wagner. In time, he befriends a tribe of natives who help them move the 300 ton ship overland, from one river to another. Unbeknownst to Fritz and his crew, the natives help because they want to sacrifice the great white ship to the rapid gods and after a night when Fitzcarraldo and crew drank heavily while celebrating their feat, the natives cut the moorings and the ship floats down into the rapids. Listing badly, the ship makes it through the rapids and limps back into Iquitios where the original owner decides to buy it back and repair it. Fitzcarraldo gets two weeks use of the ship and uses that time to bring an opera company to Iquitios. Their performance is done on the top deck of the ship with Fitzcarraldo sitting off to the side in a red velvet chair, smoking a super-sized cigar. Although ruined, he enjoys his moment in the spotlight.

Although I wouldn’t say this was a great movie (there is something about listening to the German language in a Spanish land), I still enjoyed it. The filming is superior to the other Herzog movie I’ve reviewed, Aquirre: the Wrath of God and I’ve always been fascinated with the Amazon jungle (see my review of Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition to the region, the River of Doubt). Kinski plays the lead in both movies. In both, he’s less than a likeable guy (or maybe I just don’t like his Einstein-inspired hairstyles). But as much as I found myself disliking his character, I found myself wanting him to achieve his dream for which he has such passion. His character is like many of us today, throwing ourselves into work so we can pursue our passions when we’re on off-duty, on vacation or after we retire…

Now let's see if my embedded trailer from YouTube works:

Health Update and Movie Review

This is my 494th Post! (What should I do for my 500th?)

I’m back. My temperature was normal this morning and after being secluded for most of the past few days, I’m re-entering the world. I don’t exactly feel like I’ve experienced a resurrection (I always had an image of Lazarus dancing a jig after his recall from the grave, but my legs are so tired it feels like I did a double work out with heavier than normal weights). But I’m back. I haven’t slept this much in a long while. With a fever of 102.2, I went to bed on Sunday at 1 PM, and stayed there till Monday at 3 PM (only getting up because there was a meeting I felt I had to be present in order to bless people with my germs—my office was Lysoled before and after). I went back to bed at 7 PM on Monday and slept till mid-morning on Tuesday and then mostly hung out, working on a puzzle and watching a movie (see below) before going in to the office for two late afternoon meetings… I’m glad this was going to be an easy week, but so much for me being able to catch up on things… Thanks for the well wishes.

Off the Map, 2003, 110 minutes, PG-13

Thanks you to who ever recommended this film! I’ve had it for a month (I haven’t been watching many movies lately), and wasn’t very excited about watching it, but it was the only movie I had. From the moment it started and I saw that high desert landscape of Northern New Mexico, like William Gibbs in the film, I was enchanted. This is a quirky movie, somewhat of a fairytale, but I loved it.

It’s the early 70s and the eleventh summer for Bo Groden (Valentina d”Angelis), a daughter of parents who have escaped to the wilds where they live on her father’s VA disability check and what little they make from selling crafts and junk. Her father Charlie Groden (Sam Elliott) believes in working for no one but himself. He’s a master handyman who can fix anything and has a dream of being self-sufficient. He’s also going through a deep depression and speaks very little during the first half of the movie and only gradually comes out of it as the movie unfolds. Her mother, Arlene (Joan Allen), holds the movie together with her grace. A strong woman, she struggles to keep the family together while dealing with her husband’s depression. Arlene, who is part Hopi, connects to nature in a way that appears to come from her Native American ancestry. The story is told through Bo’s eyes. She is a Tom Sawyer-type character, hunting squirrels with a rifle and a bow and arrow, giving thanks to each animal for the nourishment they’ll provide her family before she hangs them on her belt. She dreams of living a normal life and having a MasterCharge Card. She writes companies complaining about defective products, a scam that results in her regularly receiving token products and samples in the mail.

There are two other main characters in the film. George is Sam’s best friend. Arlene mentions at one point in the movie that he had saved Charlie in Korea, giving a hint of where his depression came. The other character is William Gibbs, an IRS agent who comes to investigate the family’s lack of tax filings. He’s spent four days trying to locate the family and after abandoning his car, walks up to the family compound, only to find Arlene nude in garden. He’s stung by a bee and has a reaction and is ill for several days. When he awakes, his car has been stripped and he’s in love with Arlene. He asks to stay for a few days and moves in. He takes up watercolors and does a 41 foot long painting of the horizon over the ocean for Bo—the two of them place the painting around her walls so she can lay in bed and see the horizon regardless of the way she’s facing. The movie ends with Charlie coming out of a depression. Bo has managed to get herself a MasterCharge Card and purchased him a sailboat. The boat is delivered in one of the funniest scenes in the movie—a boat being pulled through the desert. Although Arlene is horrified at the thought of having to repay the bill, the gift is enough to snap Charlie out of his funk as he laughs at his daughter having brought him a sailboat… Everything quickly comes together as Gibbs becomes a famous painter and all is well on the Groden homestead.

First of all, I would have watched this movie just for the scenery. It made me homesick for sagebrush and the high desert and the way the light paints the land. But I also loved the view of the world from an eleven year old and the way the movie dealt with depression (both Charlie and Gibbs suffer from it). It was also wonderful to see how father/daughter relationships. I love it that Bo knows something seriously wrong with her dad because he no longer takes her to the dump to shoot bottles. Although they are not a very traditional family, all the adults showed concern for Bo’s well-being. And even though Gibbs fell in love with Arlene, there was no hint of the relationship going any further as he becomes entranced with the landscape and focuses his creativity in his artwork.

Ikiru: A Movie Review

I watched this movie from my laptop, while waiting in the Cleveland Airport for a flight west on Wednesday. My blogging will be erratic for the next week. I'll try to get up some pictures of the Utah mountains.

Ikiru, directed by Akira Kurosawa, Japan 1952 (B&W, Japanese with English subtitles)

Watanabe is the public affair’s section chief for the Tokyo bureaucracy. He's dying of stomach cancer. Knowing death is imminent, he strives to find what life is all about. Much of the movie is dark, as we see the inefficiency of a bureaucracy that exists only for itself. Watanabe’s days are spent stamping papers and referring request to other departments within the government. Early in the film, a group of women come to the Watanabe, asking for help in cleaning up a cesspool. Watanabe says they have to go elsewhere, and every department gives them the run around. Nothing gets done.

Feeling sorry for himself, and thinking that his son is only interested in his money, Watanabe goes out for a night on the town. When I rented this film from Netflix, I mistakenly thought it might be a Japanese version of “Leaving Las Vegas.” Someone who is dying (although Nicholas Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas” didn’t have a terminal illness) goes out on a binge. I was wrong. Yes, Watanabe does go out for a night on the town, but he finds there’s much to live for. He meets a author who, upon learning about his cancer, shows him the nightlife of Tokyo. They go to a cabaret and a strip club. The next day he meets Toyo, a young woman who works in his section. She’s decided to quit working for the government. They spend several days together, not as lovers as his son thinks, but with Toyo helping Watanabe get in touch with his desire to live. Watanabe has an epiphany. Having come to the conclusion that he’s wasted his life doing nothing, he goes back to the office and pulls out the petition from the women who had complained about the cesspool in their neighborhood. He sets out to clean it up and to create a new park in a poor section of the city, a task that forces him to go against customs and to challenge his superiors.

The movie then shifts to Watanabe’s funeral. His son and wife, along with his co-workers and even the deputy mayor gathered in front of a shrine set up for Watanabe. As they drink sake, people come to pay their respect. Slowly, Watanabe’s role in creating the new park comes out. You learn from a policeman visiting the shrine that Watanabe had died in the park, on a swing where he’d been singing an old love song (Life is Short) during a snowstorm. As the sake takes over, Watanabe’s co-workers pledge themselves to reform the government. The movie then ends with two short scenes, Watanabe’s co-workers going back to old habits and with children playing in the park.

This movie is a Japanese adaptation of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It’s pace is at times slow, but Karosawa tells a compelling story: the hopelessness of many people caught within the bureaucracy as well as the difference Watanabe made once he had a vision. Ikiru means “to live,” and the film is about finding meaning for life. After this movie, Karosawa went on to direct one of the most famous Japanese films, the “Seven Samurai.”

For more of Sage's book and movie reviews, click here.

Aguirre, The Wrath of God (A Movie Review)

Aguirre The Wrath of God, Directed by Werner Herzog (German, 1972, filmed in Peru)

I can’t remember who suggested this movie to me. It may have been V. Anyway, it finally came to the top of my Netflix’s queue and I watched earlier this week. The film is set in South America during the 16th Century. An army of conquistadors set out to find El Dorado. They traverse the Andes Mountains. The ruggedness of the peaks and the fog creates a mystical element in their journey. Upon coming to a river, and with rations running out, they split up. One group is sent down the river to search for the city of gold. The other will wait, and if they hear no word from the first group after seven days, they plan to cross back over the mountains. The film then follows the group as they travel down the river in four rafts. There’s a combination of conquistadors and native Indians and a member of the Spanish royalty, two women (Aguirre's daughter and the mistress to the trip's leader), and a priest. The story is told from the priest’s journal.

The journey downriver is laden with disasters. One raft is trapped in an whirlpool. Unable to free themselves before a rescue party can be arranged, they are all mysteriously killed. Darts and arrows fly out of the jungle with deadly accuracy, taking out a member here and there, creating uncertainty among the group. When they finally make contact with a friendly native, the gold nugget around his neck seems to prove the existence of El Dorado, encouraging them to continue the search. When they get to the point that they must turn back to reunite with the other party, Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), the second in command and military officer, leads a mutiny. He then offers up Don Fernando de Guzman, a lazy member of the group but from Spanish royalty, as king for their new country of El Dorado. From then on, the movie becomes almost comic. The king feasts while the rest of the crew starves, until he too is killed by an arrow while in the “outhouse” (a thatched hut on the raft). In the end, it’s only Aguirre. In a delusional state, he continues to proclaim the new country he’s going to establish as the raft slowly floats downstream.

I have mixed feelings about the movie. On the one hand I enjoyed it, but then I’d enjoy a homemade Super-8 movie shot in that lush setting. In some ways, this movie wasn’t much different from a home movie as it was primarily shot with one camera and on a very limited budget. However, the dialogue in the movie is limited. The story is mostly told by a narrator reading from the dead priest’s journals. Furthermore, the cast almost makes the movie a comedy. Aguirre, with this piercing blue eyes and stringy blond hair, looks more like a Germanic or Viking warrior than a Spanish Conquistador. The idea of the actors speaking German instead of Spanish is also quite funny. (Werner Hertzog, the director is German). The sight of conquistadors with their heavy armor, standing on a raft in a raging river, is quite a sight. Aguirre and the rest of the company certainly suffered from an epidemic of gold fever that causes them to abandon caution. I almost wondered if Aguirre was a Hitler like figure when he, at the end, proclaims his goal to take his daughter as his wife and establish a pure race. Certainly Hitler wanted to a “pure race” and in the end like Aguirre, he brought everyone down with him as he self-destructed.

I recommend the move for its scenery and as a parable about how our desires can consume us.

Click here for more of Sage's book and movie reviews.

Tuesday morning ramblings

Spring along the Thornapple, photo by Sage

Tropical weather has come to the upper mid-west. Since Friday, we’ve been getting up into the high 70s and low 80s. Trees are beginning to bud out. Dogwoods are beginning to unfurl their flowers and in a few days, the highways will be lined with white flowers. The populous, having suffered from a lack of sun for the past six months, are now noticeably more cheerful. Instead of reading by the fireplace, I now sit on the swing on the back porch, the cracking flame being replaced with the chirping of birds and the singing of insects. Thanks to nasal spray, life is okay. I won’t say it’s as great as all the giddy people around me think it is, for I miss winter and the snow, but it’s okay. After all, trout season opens this weekend. The negative side is that the great Michigan miniature air show is about to begin as zillions of mosquitoes take the sky with the sole purpose to make life miserable. Then, all these happy people will be longing for winter.

I started this weekend by taking my daughter on a date to her school’s “movie night,” which is sponsored by the PTA. (It was a cheap date!) I think I was the only one in the crowd who had not seen Disney’s “High School Musical.” The kids and many of the parents sang and recited lines as they whipped around glow-light sticks. Obviously, this event is a training exercise for the day they’re old enough to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and really cut loose. I came away with mixed feelings about the movie. On the right hand, it encourages kids not to bow to peer pressure and to reach for their dreams. On the left hand, it encourages kids to take things into their own hands as the students in the film hacked into the school’s computer system, causing a power failure, which allows the star athlete miss enough of the game and the school’s brain to miss enough of the academic Olympics so that together they auditioned for the school musical. I’m sure the film will help create among our children self-confident adults who are also budding anarchists.

Saturday morning, my daughter, the dog and I took the canoe out for the first time of the season. With no foliage, we had an interesting look into the woods and swamps. We also got a first hand look at a Canadian goose sitting on her nest out in a high marshy area surrounded by water. The bird sat still as we paddled within 10 feet of her and her nest. I’d thought this was early in the season for sitting on the nest, but I must be wrong.

Sunday night I watched the 1955 Humphrey Bogart film, “We’re No Angels.” It was a real treat. Three cons escape from prison and plan to rob a family who they discover are about to lose everything. With great comedy, instead of robbing the family, they help them out. It’s Christmas after all! There are some great lines in the film, such as when they decide to go back to prison, with Bogart quipping, “there’s a better class of people there.”

Yesterday was so busy I didn’t get time to do any “Monday Morning Ramblings.” It’s a good thing I’ve received a reprieve from jury duty this week—I still have to check in next week and see if they need me. So here’s my Monday ramblings—a day late and a dollar short…

Intimate Stories: A Movie Review

Intimate Stories (Historias Minimas) 2002, 1 hour 34 minute

I love the title of this Argentinean film. It conjures up images of steamy bedrooms, illicit affairs, and backroad motels. It sounds like the title of a magazine normally kept behind the counter. But if that’s what you expect, you’re going to be disappointed. What was the American distributor was thinking by translating the Spanish “Historias Minimas” (Small Stories) into the English “Intimate Stories”? Maybe they thought the hint of sex would sell the movie. However, there are no such scenes in this movie.

Although not a great movie, Intimate Stories is a good and beautiful movie. The director, Carlos Sorin, weaves together the stories of three individuals from a small town of Fitz Roy. Although quite different, all three are desperate as individually they travel across Patagonia to San Julian. In their journeys, there’s disappointment, but also generosity that ultimately leads to hope. Maria (Javiere Bravo) is a young mother who has been selected to appear on a cheesy TV game show. She is hoping to win a multiprocessor, but comes with a make-up kit. However, just being on television brings a smile to her face. Roberto (Javier Lombardo), a traveling salesman who spends his time studying sales techniques, hopes to win the hearts of a young widow in San Julian. Knowing her son’s (or is it a daughter, he's not so sure) birthday is near, he purchases a cake and has it decorated as a soccer ball. His compulsive drive to have the perfect cake is humorous. Yet Roberto ends up disappointed. When he stops to deliver the cake, he sees the young widow and her son with another man. Heartbroken, he eats the cake alone in a hotel room, only to discover the next day that the man was her brother. The third character is Don Justo (Antonio Benedictti) an old grocer who has heard that his dog Badface has been spotted in the city. Along the highway, Julia (Julia Solomnoff), a government biologist with an engaging smile, offers him a ride. The way she graciously deals with the eccentric old man leaves you with a sense that she’s an angel. The same is true with a rough highway worker who later takes care of him and reunites him with “Badface”. Both are compassionate. Although we learn along the way that Don Justo had run over his dog in his car, he comes home with a dog that he thinks is Badface.

The pace of the movie is slow. It takes a while to get into it, but you’ll be glad you stuck with it. The scenery of the high desert of Patagonia, often filmed in the morning or evening light, is enough reason to watch the film and to stir a desire in my soul to travel there. The film is also uplifting. Each character experiences gracefulness in their travels. The dialogue is sparse, making this an easy movie to read the subscripts or to practice listening to Spanish.

Secondhand Lions: A Movie Review

Cover from IMDb

I haven’t reviewed an American movie lately. Last night I watched “Secondhand Lions,” a fun movie. I’m not sure how I missed this when it came out. I enjoyed the even though it is part fairy tale, part soap opera. Regardless, how can you go wrong with Michael Caine and Robert Duvall?

The story is about Garth and Hub, two eccentric wealthy bachelor brothers, who spend their days drinking ice tea in front porch of their rundown home, shooting shotguns over the head of traveling salesmen who happen by. Everyone is hoping to help themselves to some of their money. The uncle’s lives are shook up when Mae drops off Walter. She tells Garth and Hub she needs someone to watch her son for the summer so she can go back to school, but has prepared Walter to find out where the money is hid. Slowly Garth and Hub take to the boy, especially when they find him an unusual ally in keeping away other relatives trying to get into the fortune they supposedly have. Piece by piece, Walter learns about his uncle’s grand adventures in Africa at the beginning of the First World War and on into the Second. He’s enchanted by Jasmine, Hub’s exotic wife from the Sahara, who he later learns had died in childbirth, a woman that Hub hasn’t forgotten. The stories of Hub’s bravery, mostly told by Garth, are mythic in nature. Are they true? When he asks Hub, he doesn’t get a direct answer. Instead, he receives part of his uncle’s “growing up” speech.

Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.

Yeah, I want to believe in those things. I recommend the movie.

Rudolph reconsidered

The other evening I watched part of the movie, “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer” with my daughter. It brought back memories. I saw it when it first came out, way back in 1964. It was an event back then, for it was in color. We didn’t have a color TV back then. Most of my friends didn’t have a color TV. But there was one family in the neighborhood that had a color TV and they invited the whole block over. A hoard of us kids crowed into their living room, sitting on the floor in front of the television, rooting for the misfit reindeer as he fought with rejection and battled the evil abominable snowman. To a kid, it was scary. I have to smile the other night as I watched the terrifying parts. It doesn’t seem nearly as scary or nearly as real it did back then.

I’ve been cynical when I’ve thought about this show. After all, Rudolph was created for a 1939 advertising campaign for Montgomery Wards. It looks like the character might stick around longer the institution that created it. I know there are some who think there’s a major onslaught against Christmas in our culture and in some ways, they should use the character of Rudolph and this movie in particular as an example. After all, there’s nothing in the movie about the birth of a Savior. But watching a part of the show again, as a middle-aged adult, I’ve reconsidered my position and realize that I may have been a bit harsh. Yes, it is true that the movie takes the focus off Christ and places it in the North Pole. But Christ-like values are seen throughout the film. The misfits find a place to fit in. You have an elf that wants to be a dentist, a reindeer with a bright red nose, toys that are exiled on an island as misfits. In the movie, they all find a place. The dentist elf pulls the teeth of the feared abominable snowman. Rudolph’s nose allows Santa to fly in inclement weather. The misfit toys find homes. And even the feared abominable snowman becomes tame and is able to help out, decorating Santa’s large tree without a ladder. There’s a place for everyone. Yeah,, it’s a kid’s movie, but it’s also a movie about redemption which is at the heart of the Christian message.

Roja: A Movie Review (along with a personal tale)

A personal confession of bumbling around… Twice in my life I set out to watch a movie and ended up with the wrong flick. This once happened in a movie theater. I was working night shift in the bakery back then. We’d discussed two movies and I thought we’d settled on which movie we were going to see, I no longer remember what its name. Zombie like, for I’d been up the night before, I staggered in following others and we began watching what I thought was a long preview for some basketball movie. After about ten minutes, I whispered, “this is the longest preview I’ve seen.” I don’t remember the name of the movie we watched, but that was 25 years ago and I slept through part of it.
I had a similar experience recently. Having enjoyed Deepa Mehta’s movie, “Water,” I ordered from Netflix another movie within her trilogy, “Earth.” I sat aside an evening to watch it. I’d read the cover and knew that “Earth” was about the horrors along the Indian/Pakistan border during the late 40s, as seen through the eyes of a young girl. I put the DVD into the player, skipped all the trailers as I set up the ironing board, got out the spray starch, gathered hangers and hauled the recently washed shirts over to the couch. By the time I was ready to iron, the movie was on the opening page and I hit play. The film began with a skirmish in the woods; I assumed they were Muslim and Hindu partisans. It seemed like a natural beginning. Then the scene changed to that of beautiful scenery with a teenage girl singing. Was I watching an Indian “Sound of Music?” A musical about a serious subject? I didn’t think the movie was a musical and beside, the girl singing seemed older than the one the movie was suppose to be about. I kept watching and ironing. By the time I was on my second shirt, a car drove into this Indian village. It wasn’t a 1940 vintage. For a second I tried to rationalize, thinking that maybe the director was now in the present and would flash back into the past. But that only lasted for a second or two. I then accepted the fact that this wasn’t the movie I thought I was watching. I stopped the DVD, pulled out the disk, and checked. Sure enough, I was watching Roja, not Earth. Someone had placed the wrong disk into the slipcase. Since I had the time, I went ahead and watch it and am glad I did.

MY REVIEW: “Roja” is kind of hokey. I was shocked to later learn that it is based on a true story. The plot lines are predictable (except for when you are trying to make it fit into a movie about the ‘40s as seen through the eyes of a little girl). As often the case with Bollywood (and Hollywood), some of the acting is overdone (bodies doing back flips and people tumbling down the side of a glaciers). It’s also nationalistic, reminding me of some of Hollywood’s movies from World War Two. And it’s a love story. The movie suffers from too many different plots and themes, but I’m still glad I watched it. After all, I was intrigued by the concept of an Indian Nationalistic love story. Also making the movie worthwhile was incredible scenery and beautiful music (although one needs to brush up on their Tamil to fully enjoy the lyrics).

The first part of the movie is the story of Roja (Madhoo), a devout Hindu. She prays for her sister’s marriage as Rishi Kumar (Avind Swamy), a computer engineer from the city, comes to the village to be married to her sister. But her sister doesn’t want to marry him (she wants to marry her childhood friend who is the son of her father’s enemy). She persuades him to reject her. It is worked out that Roja sister will marry her lover while Rishi will marry Roja. Roja goes along with it, but isn’t taken with Rishi for she feels that he insulted her sister. Only after she learns the truth does she fall for him as she pledges to “treat him as a god.” (I fell in love with Roja at this point!)

In the second part of the movie, Rishi is sent to Kashmir to work on deciphering codes for the Indian military. Roja travels with him. They find conditions tense as terrorists wanting an independent Kashmir are active. Rishi is taken hostage and Roja does everything in her power to free him. There are a couple surreal scenes where Rishi tries to talk rationally to his captures, even appealing to their Allah, questioning if this is what their religion is all about. “Wipe away the tears of people,” he tells them, “instead of making them cry.” As with all good fairytales, Rishi eventually escapes and is reunited with his wife. The movie ends with a nationalistic song.

I recommend this movie for its wonderful scenery and music, and for its look at another nation’s nationality. By examining another national rhetoric, we may better understand how our own national ideology is seen by the rest of the world.