Reviews

Tell someone a story and your life will never be the same! This beautiful and touching Tarsem Singh's film begins with the stunt actor Roy (Lee Pace) in a hospital bed, much more severely injured by the fact that his girlfriend left him than by his deliberate fall in the river with his horse. In fact, in his deep depression, Roy cannot see anymore a reason to be living, and the only "solution" he now thinks about is the suicide.

In his attempts to accomplish this plan, Roy manages to attract to his bedside – promising to tell her a story – a clever 5-year old girl, Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), also a patient in that hospital. Unable to leave his bed, Roy finds in that girl the only possible way to have access to the pills he needs to kill himself.

At first his plan seems to works, since the story he creates about the Blue Bandit against Governor Odious really excites little Alexandria, who keeps visiting him and brings him the pills. Nevertheless, Roy's trials to kill himself fortunately do not succeed.

What Roy was not taking into account, however, is that, in the process of inventing and telling the story, he becomes more and more aware that he is telling the girl a metaphorical narrative of his own life; meanwhile, on her side, Alexandria puts everything she listens under the perspective of her own life, a short, but also a very traumatic one.

In the development of his film, director Tarsem Singh shows us, finally, that a story – and perhaps even more a fantastic and surreal story like the one Roy tells Alexandria – may be, for both the story teller and the listener, first of all, a way to rescue and more acceptably rephrase the distressful events they had in their lives. Secondly, the story also operates as a way to emotionally integrate teller and listener with one another, even considering they are very different human beings, each one with a troubled soul already wounded by miseries, losses and unfulfilled needs. And, last but not least, after some time of contact between teller and listener, a story may have become an incredible way to transform each of them in someone really significant for the other. In short this is what happens between Roy and Alexandria.

The lesson we learn from this film is that no one will really capture someone else's full attention with a story, without putting his/her own being in it; otherwise, no one will truly put his own self in such a story, without the consequence of leaving the process really converted into a better human being.

"Doubt" is a great movie, in which two talented actors (Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman) reward the spectator with outstanding performances. It is impossible not to spend a lot of time thinking about what happens in this story after having seen the film.

Someone put me an interesting question about what would really be happening there: Could Father Flynn be mainly seen as a disturbing outsider trying to change a rather stable culture? May we see the story as the confrontation of an established social system by someone who persistently doesn't agree to follow its rules? In my opinion such a description is not the best one – and I have a very simple conjecture to put in making my point: should Sister Aloysius leave her position as the school's principal (instead of Father Flynn leaving his, as a priest in that parish), and soon the school's internal social climate would radically change. In other words, in Sister Aloysius' absence, the behaviors of fearful caution and secrecy that nuns and pupils have been showing will very quickly fade out, to everyone's relief. The strong impression that such a change would effectively happen is enough to show that we are not at the presence of a main cultural trait in a social system, but only of a pattern of response from everyone in the organization to the principal's attitudes: typically, her sick rigidity and obstinate righteousness. So, what we have here is just a terrible social climate created by a leadership style marked by a rather pathological severity.

Therefore, he who eventually decides to use this film as an educational resource in a workshop about organizational behavior will probably not teach much about corporate culture, but will certainly teach a lot about leadership styles: Aloysius is an exceptional example of autocratic and coercive leadership, marked by rigidity and prejudice and eliciting in everybody deep feelings of fear and reserve. In her tortuous mind, she sees licentiousness where there is love, perversion where there is joy, and anarchy where there is pleasure. She represents an archaic and vicious kind of leadership that the Holy Church experimented for many and many years in the past, grounded on the punishing God of the Old Testament much more than on the Gospel's loving God.

After many, many years I saw again this beautiful love story, thinking about how would I, half a century after, react to a film which made so many girls cry and sigh at that time, when I was just an male adolescent trying to understand women's behaviors, in a small city in Brazil.

This time, however, what caught my attention in the film was something very different, namely the insistence with which the physician Dr. Han Suyin (Jennifer Jones) makes clear to the journalist Mark Elliott (William Holden) her special ethically condition as an Eurasian. In fact, she is constantly putting emphasis on this point in their relationship, repeating she is willing to assume her love for him and carry it on in a "occidental way", provided that, by doing so, she is not betraying her Chinese side. Its seems to the spectator that Suyin is eagerly making efforts to establish a very subtle conciliation between those two unstable and opposite aspects of her culture, for they will immediately engage in overt conflict in her mind at a minimum failure in her attempts to control them.

Therefore, Suyin's attitudes always leave poor Elliott – a determined, brave and extremely practical man – anxious and perplexed, without knowing how much importance to give to her words. For him, whose love for her is plain and simple, the situation is totally clear: if we love each other, let us make a couple and begin immediately a life together. "Not so fast", is what she seems, verbally and non-verbally, to answer him all the time.

In fact, Suyin's Chinese portion would never allow her such a level of pragmatism. And, as she goes on and on reinforcing this much aimed equilibrium between those two worlds inside herself, she also frequently signals to him that also a very peculiar trait of Chinese culture is deeply rooted in her mind, namely the constant "raids" on the real world by invisible beings from an spiritual or non-physical world. For Suyin is always alerting Elliott about how dangerous is life, not because of any objective and concrete threat (as would be the perpetuation of the English colonialism or the eminence of a Japanese invasion), but due to the threats of plenty of cruel and harmful gods and other mystical and mythical beings over the poor, fearful and vulnerable human beings.

In fact, it looks like a whole bunch of Chinese deities are permanently on the watch to make people's life totally miserable. Because of that, mothers must dress their precious male babies in girls clothes, so that they are not taken away by jealous gods; everyone should always be ready to make loud noises to send the clouds away, in order to avoid their covering the sight of the moon; peasants are advised that they should shout loudly "The rice is bad! The rice is bad!" to protect their crops from being stolen by deities; and, in a funeral, it is recommended that the dead's family be isolated from the other people by curtains, so that the gods don't take advantage of their sorrow and fragility.

In other words, Suyin introduces us to a culture in which the supernatural has a real existence, as if a rather disturbing pantheon of malign and sadistic gods are always on the verge of negatively interfering with the most banal acts in anyone's daily life.

As the story takes place in Hong Kong in 1949, it should be clear that China really was, at that time, almost a semi-feudal society, while the country from which Elliott had come from was not yet dominated by the fierce capitalism that, launched by the USA after the first oil shock in 1973, took charge of the whole world. Therefore, at least in one aspect, both sides of Suyin's Eurasian personality were still much more innocent than they would be today.

A lot of History came into being since those old days. As to China, the main fact is that, after several phases of a communist regime, the country finally reached, in the last two decades, the condition of a very aggressive economy much more properly described as State capitalism. And, what happened to that old spirituality that so much enthralled Suyin in Hong Kong, in 1949, and with which she used to impress so much an impassioned Elliott, under that tree on the hill behind the hospital? It is gone, completely gone! In brief, if that story took place today, Elliott would not find it necessary to go to China to propose to Suyin in the presence of the Third Uncle and her entire family. In fact, both men would now be incomparably closer to one another, in their huge pragmatism, talking business as usual!

This film shows two people who were cowardly cheated by their spouses, who they respectively loved very much until they discovered the treachery; and, frustrated and enraged, they react planning and executing such a cruel vengeance. About this situation a first question catches our mind: Can love turn into hate? Would someone be able to submit to such an enormous distress someone who had been, until a few moments ago, his or her most significant love partner?

The relation between love and hate is a fertile area for debate, and a subject we can approach by more than one way. One of these is philosophy. For example, about this point we may refer to a Renaissance philosopher, Domenico Campanella (1568-1639), for whom power, knowledge and love may be very easily confounded with their contraries: power may turn into impotence; knowledge, into ignorance; and love, into hate.

Much more recently, French philosopher André Compte-Sponville, in his "A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues", also reveals his belief that love and hate are feelings that communicate with each other. Quoting him: "Eros is a jealous god. He who loves wants to possess his beloved and keep her for himself alone. If she is happy with someone else, you would rather see her dead! If he is happy with someone else, you would rather have him unhappy with you."

And, of course, we may also make use of poetry to reflect about this subject. Bengali poet Sri Chinmoy, for example, made theses verses: "Hate is a disguised form of love. / You can only hate someone that you have the capacity to love because if you are really indifferent, / you cannot even get up enough energy to hate him."

On the other hand, in her book "Walls of Corn and Other Poems", the American poet Ellen P. Allerton (1835-1893) included this "Love Hate Poem": "Although a thousand leagues two hearts divide, / That love has joined, the gulf is not so great / As that twixt two, who, dwelling side by side / Behold between, the black abyss of Hate."

A second question evoked by this film refers to the great difficulty people have to completely forgive someone for having inflicted him or her any kind of suffering. As to this question, we may reflect on the words of a Croatian theologian, also a professor in Yale University, Miroslav Volf: "Forgiveness is a gift", he says, "and if it is given, it is given freely. Forgiveness is the opposite of retaliation, but not the opposite of punishment." And he concludes: "Of course forgiving also means to let down the feeling of resentment towards the evil-doer."

The film ends before we can check if in each couple, Abby & Neil and Tom & Judy, the spouses actually reconcile or split apart from each other. However, taking into account Volf's words above, we may reasonably presume that in both cases reconciliation would be almost impossible: Abby will have to forgive Neil, and Tom, to forgive Judy before a reconciliation may happen, and in both marriages both sides have a lot of reasons to be resented with his/her spouse's attitude. Forgiveness is quite improbable in this context, because it would have to be a two-way forgiveness: if forgiveness and retaliation are opposites, as Volf says, it is easy to foresee that the fierce mortification Abby and Tom inflicted to Neil and Judy will nurture, from now on, nothing more than pure resentment, in Abby and Tom towards Neil and Judy, as well as vice-versa, ruining any chance of forgiveness in both couples.

A third and last question calls our attention in "Butterfly on a Wheel": it refers to the absolute coldness and the enviable competence with which Tom and Abby performed their devilish plan. Although very complex and rather dangerous, the whole operation they decided to implement was brilliantly executed all along, ending in a total success.

And, although their aim was deliberately hurt their spouses, to whom each of them, Abby and Tom, had been emotionally tied for many years, both were able, nevertheless, to put their feelings totally aside during the act, fulfilling an impeccable dramatic performance, which hit perfectly the target. Sincerely, only mafia members or psychos are really able to show such a high level of proficiency in the circumstances!

This film deals with the question of celebrity, more specifically the incapacity of talented people who come from lower level classes to really grasp an unique opportunity to ascend to an upper social and economic class, although having acknowledged this chance and desired very much to realize it. Rudo and Cursi demonstrate, in fact, their incredible blindness as to the many dangers they would eventually meet in their way to popularity and affluence. Being so terribly incapable, socially and psychologically, of recognizing those threats, they are easily entangled in them, finally sinking again into the poverty and the mediocrity they had come from.

As in Mexico, also in Brazil and most of Latin American countries, soccer is one of few routes a boy who comes from the lower classes has, in order to improve his and his family's life conditions. And if he is a talented player as well as intelligent, determined and has the right contacts, we can imagine that he will really amplify his chances of success.

However, this happy end is nothing more than an exception: the recurrent story we witness in all of these countries is that, without a minimum psychological structure and proper guidance, these youngsters – like Rudo and Cursi – are hardly able to take advantage of such an opportunity, and will almost inevitably become preys of those vultures – pseudo-friends, self-seeking lovers, dishonest coaches, drug dealers, clumsy or incompetent relatives, swindling partners and intolerant and sadistic fans – who tirelessly and possessively hover all the time around their victims.

A short sequence in the film that, in my opinion, synthesizes a paradoxical point in the relationship between celebrities and their fans. The sequence has no more than one minute, and occurs at 1 hour and 11 minutes of the beginning: in front of a hotel, the soccer player Cursi is approached by two fans. Although they ask him an autograph, these men paradoxically also threaten the player's physical integrity, unless he succeeds in scoring against the opponent team, Nepaleros, in the decisive game, the next day! What is quite interesting in this scene is the fact that, being a famous soccer player in a country in which this sport is so popular, Cursi is inevitably surrounded by many of these frightening hooligans, who may be able to declare their total love to the player provided he never fails, but may also be implacable with him at the slightest fault.

My theory is that we can recognize nowadays in the world of soccer not one, but two somewhat different categories of hooligans – although both are characterized by an irrational violence against their opponents. The first and most common category of hooligan is the "traditional" one, in which the individual is a proud member of an "army" formed around the soccer team he worships, aimed to systematically fight the adversary teams. These delinquent fans basically imagine themselves as "warriors" invested by their beloved organization with the mission of destroying Evil, represented by the other team. "Hooligans", a film made by Lexi Alexander in 2005 with Elijah Wood in the main role clearly exemplifies this category of criminal.

A "second level" of hooliganism exists, however; and, although it may be less frequent, it is somewhat more complex: an additional psychological component may be present in his profile, besides the mentioned proneness to perform collective acts of violence. What I mean is that there is a special type of soccer fan who is so fanatically involved with fighting his team's enemies that the slightest possibility of failure in this mission is simply unbearable to him.

My guess is that this particular kind of hooligan is mainly found in poor and emergent countries. Raised up in the local society's lowest socio-economic levels, many of these individuals had experienced poverty, abandonment, lack of values, violence and even abuse for the most part of their lives, in the miserable slums in which they grew up. It shouldn't, therefore, be a surprise to anyone that they come to show an abnormally great necessity of something – for instance, his belonging to such a group of "warriors" – to be strongly tied to.

Add to this frame an permanent (and understandable) feeling of frustration, an intimately restrained rage and some not so conscious believes such as: "The world is evil", "I deserve more", "Nobody is reliable" and/or "The enemy is everywhere", and the scenario is ready for a violent reaction of such a fan against an insubordinate idol who eventually fail to correspond to this fan's paranoid expectations.

Having written this, it is almost impossible for me not to remember the tragic murder of Andrés Escobar, central back of Colombia at the World Football Cup of 1994, who scored against his own team, leading to the opponent's – the USA – victory. Some time after that game, when leaving a nightclub in his own country, Escobar was shot eleven times by four men. Perhaps, in "Rudo y Cursi", poor Cursi was aware of this episode, when he eagerly tried to please those two fans who asked him an autograph!

"Good" is a film made in 2008 by the Brazilian director Vicente Amorim, with Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs in the main roles. The film tells us the story of John Halder (Mortensen), a literature professor, honest and devoted to his duties, who leads, however, in Nazi Germany, a lousy life, in the company of a sick mother, a neurotic wife, demanding children and the pressures on him by a obsessed father-in-law who wants to see her daughter's husband as a member of the Nazy Party.

A romance with a young and beautiful pupil in the university, who seems to love him above all, apparently rescues him from this miserable life, but the worst is still to come: having written a novel centered on the polemic theme of euthanasia, professor Halder is demanded by the authorities of the Nazi Party to write reports on the subject, in order to support the barbarian eugenics experiments perpetrated by the Nazi ideologists against non-Arian people, mission that professor Halder accepts, more because of his fear to displease the man in power than by personal conviction.

The situation evolves in such a proportion that Halder can't control it any longer, making him a famous and influent intellectual, not for the reasons he would believe to be appropriate, but, for his grief, because he is now recognized as an important academic support for the filthy medical manipulations the regime executes, with which he now collaborates.

Halder suffers terribly with that, of course, but he also keeps totally incapable of doing anything about. And when he finally decides to make a courageous act about this situation, and tries to save his best friend from death, Maurice, a Jew, Halder discovers that even the woman he loves doesn't have the noble heart he expected from her, but is nothing more than a cold follower of the Nazi ideology that he, although passively accepting it, in fact, despises.

At the end, the movie arrives to an emblematic scene, in which the story seems to show that John Halder, incapable of slipping away, simply gives in to the barbarism in which that place, in that time, is profoundly sunk: we, then, see a Halder overwhelmed by a psychotic outbreak, revealed by his total lethargy in front of the tragedy he personally and socially lives.

My wife and I found this film certainly well made, but also profoundly sad; and, for that reason, not very easy to see, for one who was looking for an agreeable amusement in a cold Sunday afternoon, during which the best thing to do is to stay home, see a TV show under a blanket and drink wine. Since its beginning, this film totally discarded this possibility, imposing to us the need to think seriously about it.

However, thinking about what? For me, "Good" describes terrible times we are living nowadays, when, surrounded by violence, ignorance, corruption, insensitivity and cupidity, we don't have even the chance of thinking, let alone practicing the opposite of those social flaws: gentleness, wisdom, honesty, sensitivity, and generosity. As a Nazi-dominated society prevented poor Halder of showing those qualities he had deeply inside, our own society currently pushes us to a rather cynical identity, against which any human being reasonably conscious of himself will have to fight continuously and restlessly to avoid his humanity falling into pieces. How difficult it is to be good, the director of this film seems to show us! By the way, it was a surprise for me to see a movie like this directed by a Brazilian director, whose personal identification with the Holocaust or the Nazi Germany I totally ignore, except by the fact that he was born in Austria (circumstance that may be easily explained by the fact that he is the son of a diplomat – his father is the present Foreign Minister of Brazil).

I started asking myself, then, why would he have chosen, specially for the first movie he fully directs, so far, a theme from the current Brazilian real life: in the connection, would the interpretation I gave above to this movie be a proper one, in comparison with the director's intention? None of the other comments I read in IMDb's site speaks of this issue, but prefer to concentrate on the main actor, Viggo Mortensen, or on the recurrent treatment of Nazism as a theme, by cinema, in the most recent years.

I thought my uneasiness with this could perhaps be solved by trying to know something about the original story. It was written by a British play writer, Cecil P. Taylor (1929-1981), on whom the journalist Alan Plater, from "The Guardian", wrote in 2004 an intelligent article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2004/nov/06/theatre.stage). Plater comments Taylor's production of more than 70 plays and, in this article, we become aware that "Good" was one of the best plays Taylor ever made, and was produced in 1981, the year of the play writer's decease, by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Plater says also that this play resumes a very known Bertolt Brecht's dictum, according to which, "for evil to prosper, good men must do nothing". This important reflection (which I was able to read only after having emitted my opinion on the film, some paragraphs above), by itself gives me the impression that what I thought about the message passed along by Amorim's film is anything but illogical or absurd.