#22: October Country
This documentary chronicles the life of four generations of a working class family in Mohawk Valley of upstate New York. It is a family that seems trapped in economic insecurity, serial attachments to abusive men, unintended pregnancies, and relationships that force the viewer to ask what is the meaning of masculinity and femininity is a world that looks like an endless wrap party for the Steve Wilkos Show only without any yelling or crying.
The recurring theme that brings together the film, which follows the family from one Halloween to the next, is the persistence of ghosts. Between the patriarch's sister, a self proclaimed witch who hobbles around the local cemetery asking to communicate with the ghosts who presumably live there, to the whole array of family dysfunction that infiltrates the lives of the people in the film, each generation is haunted by the bad decisions of the generation before. The people look clear-eyed at these decisions, even as they replicate them, seemingly unable to break the pattern. The effect is not so much learned helplessness as daytime TV confessional and a disturbing disconnect between how they describe their conditions and how they respond to them. It seems to occur to none of them before the fact that they have options. It is tempting to say that they don't but that is clearly not true. Granted, their options may be unconscionably limited but they are options.
The emotional center of the family is the mother, the director's own mother, for whom family is the most important thing and who provides unconditional love from the middle of the chaos that surrounds her. Offering level-headed, if sometimes seemingly callous, advice to her daughter and granddaughters she seems to know what the future holds but, like them, is powerless to alter it in any meaningful way. She exhibits no sentimentality about the state of her family but also withholds no support or love, even for the foster child who spends his days stoned in the basement and is ultimately incarcerated for stealing from her. When he gets out, she is there to take him to Wal-Mart to buy new clothes and to admire the authenticity his Halloween costume, an abused woman, complete with black eye.
The trajectory is relentlessly down.
Each woman in this film has made disastrous choices in men, men who molest their daughters, beat them, dominate them. For what it is worth, most of these men are themselves family ghosts--long gone or at least absent. The men who are around seem to be grasping for a sense of their own identity as men in stereotypical notions of breadwinning and control, neither of which they can manage given the circumstances of their lives. This seems to be the primary inheritance passed between generations of women.
The only potential exception to this rule is the second daughter of the second generation, eleven year old Desi, who sees her way out. She's spunky, smart, and perceptive but her vision is distressingly narrow. Her plan to break the cycle of abuse and neglect is to graduate from high school.
These people talk like people who have been exposed to a lot of Dr. Phil and the family has all of the marks of the beaten down blue collar scrim: obesity, lots of plastic tchotchkes functioning as decor, Mt. Dew for breakfast. The POV is not judgmental--these folks spend plenty of time judging themselves--and it is not overtly critical. What it is is resigned.
In the end, the director's off-camera voice asks each person if he or she believes in ghosts. The father, a Vietnam veteran who carries around a lot of resentment about being sent away before he could grow up, answers that they are all in your head but that "a lot of times what's in your head is physical." But his wife, given the circumstances of her life, has the most perceptive answer. "I'm more afraid of the living than the dead."
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Who the Hell is the Big Bad Wolf?
#19--21: The Red Riding Trilogy
Made for broadcast TV in Britain, these films are fictionalizations of a string of real murders in working class Yorkshire--dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper" cases at three separate moments: 1974, 1980, and 1983. The films present a story of murder, mystery, police corruption, strange and creepy clergy, and a sketchy land deal to build an American-style mall all set against a rather desperate and bleak backdrop of northern England. So bleak, in fact, that in the 1974 episode the protagonist tries to convince the mother of a missing girl to run away with him to London, where the sun shines. It is enough to say that the plot line is convoluted.
The mysteries in the three episodes are tangentially connected but the attempts to wind them up in the final episode is only partially successful. Because I watched all three films end to end, I really felt the films they could have benefited from a good, brutal, edit. The films lack discipline and pacing. This might be less problematic on TV (when you are blogging, eating, and watching a film all at once a little lethargy in the pacing is easy to miss), but in the theater the scenes tend to drag on and on.
That aside, the mystery is compelling. Each piece has a different director (1980 is directed by James Marsh--the Oscar winning director of Man On Wire) and marginally different atmospheres, although the reviews that suggest dramatic differences in style are overstated. In the end, the differences are more like differences between TV dramas filmed on fading 1970's film stock rather that individualistic stylistic choices.
The most interesting part of the triptych, in my opinion, is the Red Riding Hood thread. At various points, the comparison is quite broad. For example, in the 1983 story the man who may have been falsely convicted of the 1974 crimes refers to the murderer as "the wolf" and Red Riding is clearly a reference to the blood-stained East Riding of Yorkshire where the film takes place. These moments are disappointing. The real question here is what is the wolf? Is it the crooked cops? The greedy and entitled developers? The inner demons that haunt even the most prim among us? The monster that lurks around the schools? In the end, it is the desperation of the people, trapped in their poverty and their isolation, amidst the rubble of civil society in post-industrial England that makes space for the wolf in the first place.
I'm not sure these films are worth the time, unless one is a fan of the books on which they are based. My favorite was the last but, frankly, it is the least free-standing of the three. In the end, these were probably compelling TV and moderately engaging movie fare.
Made for broadcast TV in Britain, these films are fictionalizations of a string of real murders in working class Yorkshire--dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper" cases at three separate moments: 1974, 1980, and 1983. The films present a story of murder, mystery, police corruption, strange and creepy clergy, and a sketchy land deal to build an American-style mall all set against a rather desperate and bleak backdrop of northern England. So bleak, in fact, that in the 1974 episode the protagonist tries to convince the mother of a missing girl to run away with him to London, where the sun shines. It is enough to say that the plot line is convoluted.
The mysteries in the three episodes are tangentially connected but the attempts to wind them up in the final episode is only partially successful. Because I watched all three films end to end, I really felt the films they could have benefited from a good, brutal, edit. The films lack discipline and pacing. This might be less problematic on TV (when you are blogging, eating, and watching a film all at once a little lethargy in the pacing is easy to miss), but in the theater the scenes tend to drag on and on.
That aside, the mystery is compelling. Each piece has a different director (1980 is directed by James Marsh--the Oscar winning director of Man On Wire) and marginally different atmospheres, although the reviews that suggest dramatic differences in style are overstated. In the end, the differences are more like differences between TV dramas filmed on fading 1970's film stock rather that individualistic stylistic choices.
The most interesting part of the triptych, in my opinion, is the Red Riding Hood thread. At various points, the comparison is quite broad. For example, in the 1983 story the man who may have been falsely convicted of the 1974 crimes refers to the murderer as "the wolf" and Red Riding is clearly a reference to the blood-stained East Riding of Yorkshire where the film takes place. These moments are disappointing. The real question here is what is the wolf? Is it the crooked cops? The greedy and entitled developers? The inner demons that haunt even the most prim among us? The monster that lurks around the schools? In the end, it is the desperation of the people, trapped in their poverty and their isolation, amidst the rubble of civil society in post-industrial England that makes space for the wolf in the first place.
I'm not sure these films are worth the time, unless one is a fan of the books on which they are based. My favorite was the last but, frankly, it is the least free-standing of the three. In the end, these were probably compelling TV and moderately engaging movie fare.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
What is it about Thanksgiving?
#18: The Vicious Kind
Thanksgiving is apparently the American holiday that captures the zeitgeist of damaged families better than any other. Perhaps it is because it is so brief, there are no twelve days of Thanksgiving. Maybe because it ushers in the season of mandatory nostalgia and memories of holidays gone sideways. For whatever reason, just invoking the Thursday in November serves up images of concentrated family dysfunction. In The Vicious Kind the family consists of a father and his two grown (or nearly grown) sons. This Thanksgiving the younger son, Peter, is bringing his sorority-goth girlfriend home from college to meet his marginally lecherous father, played by J.K. Simmons.
The center of the film is the older brother Caleb, played by a very charming Adam Scott. Chain smoking and an aficionado of classic diners, Caleb picks up his brother and begins to try to convince him that his new girlfriend is a very bad idea. One gets the sense that, to Caleb, all women are a very bad idea. His anti-social behavior does not improve once the girlfriend has joined them in the front seat of Caleb's pickup wherein he sets out to prove that all women are sluts. Oh, and for some reason Caleb can't be seen near his fathers house.
This movie is part mystery, part comedy, as we set about figuring out slowly what is wrong with this family. Of course the good girl/bad girl/good girl girlfriend recognizes that boring but safe Peter is no match for unpredictable and sleepless Caleb and Caleb, trying to protect his little brother from the inevitable heartbreak of his first love, becomes obsessed with the girl himself. But the sex triangle is really secondary to the larger story of how one broken family got that way and how redemption is available but not guaranteed. This film is light on exposition and the mystery unravels slowly but its resolution is organic and fulfilling.
The best part of this film is the misanthropic and misogynistic Caleb and brutal take on life. His monologues are snappy and his performance is a pitch-perfect mix of arrogance and bewilderment; he thinks he has women figured out only to discover that he has no control over his emotions just the same. This conflict is told mostly through subtle shifts in tone and posture that doesn't quite comport with the words coming out of his mouth. This role is a high wire act. In the wrong hands Caleb is just an asshole. As handled by Scott he's one of those charming assholes.
Thanksgiving is apparently the American holiday that captures the zeitgeist of damaged families better than any other. Perhaps it is because it is so brief, there are no twelve days of Thanksgiving. Maybe because it ushers in the season of mandatory nostalgia and memories of holidays gone sideways. For whatever reason, just invoking the Thursday in November serves up images of concentrated family dysfunction. In The Vicious Kind the family consists of a father and his two grown (or nearly grown) sons. This Thanksgiving the younger son, Peter, is bringing his sorority-goth girlfriend home from college to meet his marginally lecherous father, played by J.K. Simmons.
The center of the film is the older brother Caleb, played by a very charming Adam Scott. Chain smoking and an aficionado of classic diners, Caleb picks up his brother and begins to try to convince him that his new girlfriend is a very bad idea. One gets the sense that, to Caleb, all women are a very bad idea. His anti-social behavior does not improve once the girlfriend has joined them in the front seat of Caleb's pickup wherein he sets out to prove that all women are sluts. Oh, and for some reason Caleb can't be seen near his fathers house.
This movie is part mystery, part comedy, as we set about figuring out slowly what is wrong with this family. Of course the good girl/bad girl/good girl girlfriend recognizes that boring but safe Peter is no match for unpredictable and sleepless Caleb and Caleb, trying to protect his little brother from the inevitable heartbreak of his first love, becomes obsessed with the girl himself. But the sex triangle is really secondary to the larger story of how one broken family got that way and how redemption is available but not guaranteed. This film is light on exposition and the mystery unravels slowly but its resolution is organic and fulfilling.
The best part of this film is the misanthropic and misogynistic Caleb and brutal take on life. His monologues are snappy and his performance is a pitch-perfect mix of arrogance and bewilderment; he thinks he has women figured out only to discover that he has no control over his emotions just the same. This conflict is told mostly through subtle shifts in tone and posture that doesn't quite comport with the words coming out of his mouth. This role is a high wire act. In the wrong hands Caleb is just an asshole. As handled by Scott he's one of those charming assholes.
Fair is Fair!
#17: The Legend of Billie Jean
This 1985 teen rebellion drama stars Helen Slater (of Supergirl infamy) as a trailer park idealist who finds herself defending her brother (a very blond Christian Slater in his first film role) in a conflict with the local petit bourgeois bully cum Romeo over a scooter. Billie confronts the bully and his father to collect the money to repair the scooter, after the local police decline to get involved, and is rewarded for her efforts with an attempted rape. One accidental shooting later and Billie Jean, her brother and two friends from the similarly wrong side of the tracks are on the run.
All of this ends, predictably for a 1980's anthem film, in the spontaneous generation of a cult-like following of teenagers across Texas, all of whom are willing to abet the "Billie Jean Gang" in its quest for justice for all people, no matter what their socio-economic status. Part road movie, part class struggle, part commentary on the power of television to create celebrity, and all Helen Slater in high 80's fashion this film has it all. Plus a smokin' Pat Benatar theme song.
I actually found this film a little difficult to watch. Helen Slater is better than one might expect if all you have seen her in is Supergirl. Having said that, directer Matthew Robbins seems unaware of the potential of the story he has to tell. Appropriate to the man who also directed Corvette Summer, all of the problematic issues presented in the script (class divisions, 80's feminist resistance, even the nascent seeds of reality celebrity--think the OJ slow-speed chase by way of Marshall McLuhan) are treated as fodder for a maddeningly routine teen flick. Billie Jean is a trailer park feminist (just think about how that cuts across major cultural cleavages!) but is still subjected to a chemistry-free romance with a wholly awkward teen heartthrob. As part of their celebrity the Billie Jean Gang finds itself literally a target for adult aggression but the potentially explosive question of the use of violence to discipline transgressive behavior is really just a set-up for an ill timed menstruation joke. And so it goes, on and on, for what feels like hours.
Even Billie Jean's messianic turn, inspired by a glimpse of the movie Joan of Arc, is really just an excuse to work in a rad haircut.
I know it is a bit much to expect powerful social commentary from a summer teen movie intended primarily as a vehicle to launch Slater's career. Nevertheless. As an aside, I'm beginning to wonder about Keith the Programmer's agenda here. I fully understand that The Watching Hour is just an opportunity for him to scratch his own movie itch but, still. Streets of Fire and now this? It is only a matter of time until he screens Fire with Fire.
Monday, March 8, 2010
I'm Seven Movies Behind!
#16: Food, Inc.
Directed by Rob Kenner, this is a preaching to-the-converted, Academy Award™
This film does have the advantage of providing a nice visual canvas to draw together the disparate threads of food politics. Reading about industrial chicken sheds is one thing but to see footage of the farmer picking the dead chickens out of an empty barn, preparing for the next shipment of Tyson chicks is something else. Considering the implications of proprietary, patented, seeds on corn monoculture takes on a different feel when the filmmakers follow a man who makes a living by cleaning seed corn being hounded by Monsanto lawyers to turn in his clients and neighbors for violating the seed saving restriction of their contracts.
Most interestingly, this film connects the dots between US industrial agricultural policy, the NAFTA-induced flood of corn into the Mexican market, the destruction of agriculture in Mexico, and the influx of illegal migrants into the US made up largely of former agricultural workers driven to work in US agribusiness. It is a chain of consequences that reaches beyond the partisan political debate and has the capacity to unite granola-munching hippies and Minutemen around a common cause. But there were no Minutemen in my audience. My audience was made up of equal parts back-yard survivalists and soft-hearted animal lovers who sneer at fat poor people trying to feed their families but gasp when the Tyson chicks are chipped for identification before shipping.
This film fails in exactly the same way that most of these sincere and pedantic films fail. People who will go to this film will leave feeling smug, superior, and well informed. Those who elect wallow in the worst of the American food system will not go to this film and will deflect the disturbing information with some variation on the John Travolta line from Pulp Fiction (but pork chops taste gooood). Those who don't have many choices will have their interests sacrificed to the Cargills of our world.
BTW, I also learned that Colorado has a criminal statute making illegal any statement that has the effect of disparaging the quality of perishable food intended for human consumption. So in my home state it may be a criminal offense to suggest that feces-infused hamburger, treated with sulfur dioxide to maintain its rosy blood-red hue well past is sell-by date, and compiled from hundreds of different animals is unfit for human consumption.
Directed by Rob Kenner, this is a preaching to-the-converted, Academy Award™
This film does have the advantage of providing a nice visual canvas to draw together the disparate threads of food politics. Reading about industrial chicken sheds is one thing but to see footage of the farmer picking the dead chickens out of an empty barn, preparing for the next shipment of Tyson chicks is something else. Considering the implications of proprietary, patented, seeds on corn monoculture takes on a different feel when the filmmakers follow a man who makes a living by cleaning seed corn being hounded by Monsanto lawyers to turn in his clients and neighbors for violating the seed saving restriction of their contracts.
Most interestingly, this film connects the dots between US industrial agricultural policy, the NAFTA-induced flood of corn into the Mexican market, the destruction of agriculture in Mexico, and the influx of illegal migrants into the US made up largely of former agricultural workers driven to work in US agribusiness. It is a chain of consequences that reaches beyond the partisan political debate and has the capacity to unite granola-munching hippies and Minutemen around a common cause. But there were no Minutemen in my audience. My audience was made up of equal parts back-yard survivalists and soft-hearted animal lovers who sneer at fat poor people trying to feed their families but gasp when the Tyson chicks are chipped for identification before shipping.
This film fails in exactly the same way that most of these sincere and pedantic films fail. People who will go to this film will leave feeling smug, superior, and well informed. Those who elect wallow in the worst of the American food system will not go to this film and will deflect the disturbing information with some variation on the John Travolta line from Pulp Fiction (but pork chops taste gooood). Those who don't have many choices will have their interests sacrificed to the Cargills of our world.
BTW, I also learned that Colorado has a criminal statute making illegal any statement that has the effect of disparaging the quality of perishable food intended for human consumption. So in my home state it may be a criminal offense to suggest that feces-infused hamburger, treated with sulfur dioxide to maintain its rosy blood-red hue well past is sell-by date, and compiled from hundreds of different animals is unfit for human consumption.
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