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Wadjda (2012)
A Happy Ending packaged for a Western Audience
The PR surrounding this movie and the music playing during the trailer are definitely geared towards a Western audience. This is not an underground film dealing with ideas that needed to be hidden from censorship review boards. When watching WADJDA, I didn't feel like a Westerner looking in on a society that I didn't understand.
All the work was done for us. The movie was packaged, marketed and stamped with a big house American cinema feel. Watching this film as audience members, we leave with a happy feeling because our heroine overcame her odds. We simply consume and walk away with the movie's message loud and clear: women do not have to buy into the repressive system that has been forced upon them for centuries. They can choose to make their own way, just as the director, Haifaa Al Mansour, has done by making this movie.
This message somewhat mirrors the non-violent protests Saudi women have enacted by driving cars despite women being banned from doing so.
Without much depth, the film simplified a complex social system based on centuries of baggage. And it failed to offer any new ideas or cinematic language on how to break free of the system. It was simply a peek into the daily life of a young girl growing up in Saudi Arabia and learning what is expected of her.
Perhaps this is all Haifaa Al Mansour set out to do. I'm sure I don't understand the complexities behind shooting a film that is a symbol of hope and representative of her home country, a country where many do not approve of her venturing to do such a task.
Some positive notes
I enjoyed seeing the Saudi landscape, storefronts, and home décor in the movie. I appreciated that this movie did not highlight a war-torn country or portray Saudi Arabia as housing terrorist starter cells around every corner, which is probably the impression that I had before this film. And, I liked that the "bad guys" in the movie were women; women who bought into and perpetuated the system that oppressed them. And, of course, ending with a message of hope is not so bad.
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Sweetie (1989)
Who's afraid of her Family Tree?
The film is bizarre. We're introduced to our main character through fragmented shots of her from her knees down, then of her face off-center, and of her feet while walking on cracked pavement. We also see her walking the sidewalk past manicured bushes and trees, a shot that is repeated throughout the movie.
While the opening credits are playing, we hear soulful music. Then, the music stops and contrasts with the stark bleakness of shots that immediately make us feel off-center. Like something isn't right. As an audience, we don't see the whole picture. We are at the mercy of the cinematographer just as much as the narrator, waiting for them to divulge the story, a story for which we somehow know there is much to come.
Immediately after the opening credits we are told by Kay, our narrator and protagonist, of her fear of trees. In particular, the tree in the backyard of her parents' home where her sister was "princess;" she feared the roots of the tree would reach the house. This tree is to serve as a metaphor for the entire film.
The first few scenes lead us to believe this film is about romance and destiny as Kay visits a psychic who tells her about the man with a question mark on his forehead. She finds the man and they begin their romance on the concrete floor of a parking garage.
Tree Oblivious to Kay's fear of trees, the ever-innocent boyfriend plants a sapling in their backyard to commemorate their 13 month (I think) anniversary. As an audience, we didn't get to experience any of this first year with them, but we are aware that something has changed. Their backyard, a barren ground full of cracks, is a reflection of Kay's soul. She has kept herself unattached from others; the coworkers at work who mock her, her family and, after this tree incident, her boyfriend. But this tree is an infestation on Kay's life.
The sapling is a foreshadowing of Kay's loss of control as her sister, Sweetie, enters her home. As soon as we meet Sweetie, she consumes the attention of all the characters. The life and roots of the tree represent the evils of attention-seeking Sweetie and of Kay's broken childhood coming back to haunt her.
Let's not give any more attention to Sweetie.
There is something truly unique and charismatic about this film. I didn't leave the film feeling as if the makers tried too hard; they didn't experiment for the sake of feeling like an art film. The cinematic choices made were deliberate and effective. They moved the story forward in ways that a simple plot unfolding could not have. The broken pavement, assumingly from roots beneath, the trees, the escape from civilization. It all worked.
More at aMovieaCountryaJourney.com.
Rebelle (2012)
The Danger of the Single Story & the Beauty of War Witch
When we think of African countries, many Westerners think of countries in the midst of bloody civil wars involving child soldiers, senseless violence, AIDs, etc. Our impression of African countries is one that we've learned from movies like Blood Diamond and from images presented by charities and documentaries with major press coverage like Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 campaign. The unintended consequence of these shocking images, presented for the heartfelt purpose of raising awareness, is this: the single story. We have a few images serving as one generic story representing an entire continent of countries and cultures.
The complexities, variations, and even just the common middle-class, everyday lives that exist in African countries are reduced to this single story: of starving, war-torn people waiting for the rest of the world to save them by donating a few dollars, or by buying a "buy one give one" pair of Toms shoes.
War Witch embodies the single story that many Westerners think of the "country of Africa" because we simply meld all African countries together into one homogeneous war-torn state. In fact, War Witch doesn't even differentiate which country or war the story represents. The setting is simply "Africa." The Beauty of War Witch As I watched the first few scenes of the film, the tragedy of the child soldier story quickly become apparent as the movie's story. I was initially disappointed as it is a story with which I'm already familiar. Luckily, the beauty of this film's simplicity also became apparent. Without much dialogue, we as an audience were able to suspend our disbelief and appreciate the supernatural aspects of the story as a child's attempt to cope with the tragedies she faces. We watch as she deals with death, separation, and heartbreak while she is haunted by ghosts of her parents. The ghosts aren't cheesy nor are they scary, they are simply haunting reminders that the soul of the main character is not at rest.
While the child conveys strength through each atrocity she faces, we as an audience are reminded by the white ghosts that she is not at ease. Title slides appear at different moments throughout the film and denote our young protagonist's ages throughout the film: 12, 13 and 14 years old. Displaying her age, rather than a date and time, reminds us of the innocence robbed as we travel with the main character through her struggles as she "forces tears back into her eyes." Were it not for these displays of her age, we would forget that the strength shown by the young woman is actually shown by a child. Nguyen excels at reminding the audience of this, in portraying the child's coping mechanisms through supernatural visions, and at having us witness tragedy without astoundingly gory scenes that, while they may be more accurate, would distract from our journey with the child.
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W.R. - Misterije organizma (1971)
What if Karl Marx were in love?
First, in a documentary type format, the movie has us listen to the writings of a radical free thinker, Wilhelm Reich (WR), and his followers who believed in his teachings that sexual liberation and the power of the orgasm can release healing properties and a higher consciousness. We watch odd experiments with psychology patients and listen to interviews with psychologists. We later learn how WR was imprisoned for his ideas and died in prison. His writings were banned and burned by the American legal system.
We also watch a plot-based storyline highlighting two characters in Yugoslavia. One, a sexy brunette whom we meet in the midst of a long intercourse session with a "comrade." She may have a couple of lines, but basically her role is as the roommate who is very sexually active. The other lead is redheaded Milena who proclaims loudly that all should be liberated from sexual repression. She has an image of Reich hanging in her apartment as well as one of his "orgone machines" which we've learned unleashes sexual energy for health reasons. (I swear I saw one of these machines in a Woody Allen movie, but I can't place it.) We can assume that Milena is a follower of Reich's teachings, and the storyline allows us to witness her attempt at raising awareness to sexually liberate those around her. Did I mention that Reich wrote a book on how fascism is a symptom of sexual repression? Ironically, Milena does not have much sex in the movie. She is more the idealist. She does, however, attempt to love a Russian skater who calls himself "The People's Artist." He is in costumed regalia when we meet him and seems oblivious to Milena's advances. Eventually she wins him and he is so shocked by his feelings that he cuts off her head with his skate. He then laments with a song. Not to worry though because Milena lives on as a talking head.
Interspersed between the documentary and storyline are images of Stalin in all his glory with troops and flags, videos of water-boarding and electric shock experiments on patients, interviews with an artist who makes casts of erect penises, and interviews and video clips of a transvestite walking the streets, among others. My favorite are clips of a man (Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs) who dresses himself in flamboyant soldier garb and walks populated streets in the U.S. Other clips and their references are lost on me. Rosenbaum delineates some of them in his essay, including some references to songs, bands and artists.
The Russian skater is alienated from his true self, that of a human capable of loving and procreating. This unnatural state, which Milena is trying to make him aware of, is like the repression of the working class, which political systems, such as Stalinism, attempted to force awareness on the people.
Exposing the mechanisms perpetuating a system of repression does not lead to rebellion, it leads to death. We witness the idealism of Reich result in his persecution; the advances of Milena to liberate the Russian skater from sexual repression result in her beheading; the grandeur of Stalin resulting in painfully hideous and difficult to watch experiments on the people (and, as we know, the deaths of millions.)
It's as if our denial of the system cannot be told to us – it must manifest naturally. The rebellion against the class system must be done intrinsically, of one's own realization and doing. Preached ideals rarely result in overwhelming rebellion from the bottom up. Most choose the blissful ignorance of the blue pill, leaving men to patrol the streets from, what? (cue scenes of Tuli Kupferberg walking populated US streets in full soldier garb, with weapon, as people either ignore him or are mildly amused. The Fugs' "Kill for Peace" is playing and the scene ends with Tuli stroking his weapon.)
Perhaps my conclusion is tainted, being that I am looking back on this movie decades later, knowing the results of the 60s sexual revolution, Stalinism and the cold war. I do believe that one leaves this movie a bit disheartened. Some visuals leave lasting impressions such as Reich's works being incinerated, or our heroine, Milena's, decapitated head after attempting to free the Russian skater from a loveless life. Her voice lives through a talking head, as do Reich's in the footage shown, but what of those who accept their plight, unaware of their need for liberation? Will the rebellion ever manifest? Will love and the power of the orgasm uproot the underlying mechanisms that Marx claims requires an uprising? What have we learned since then?
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