Can anything new be said, in writing or on the screen, about Michelangelo Buonarroti? Unlike many other unlucky genius or valued artists, the sculptor, painter, architect, Renaissance man born in Tuscany in 1475 was recognized during his life as a genius, enjoyed celebrity and fame, at least two consistent biographies where written during his life, and countless books in the half a millennium that has elapsed since he lived his earthly life can be added. Part of his eternity is also the novel written by Irving Stone and the film that shows his struggle with art and the world around, a memorable film – “The Agony and the Ecstasy” with Charlton Heston in the lead role. I do not know if the documentary ‘Michelangelo: Love and Death‘ gives a clear answer to this question. I do not know if it says something very new that experts and biographers will not have already written. The documentary directed by David Bickerstaff is in any case a beautiful and interesting presentation of his life and art, a pleasure for the eyes and for the mind.
Although not far from the format used in museums for documentaries about artists and their works, the film directed by Bickerstaff who has authored in the last few years several similar films about artists like Goya, Bosch, van Gogh, Canaletto has the advantage of the large screen format and of the long feature film duration. These allow him to visually reproduce the works of the sculptor and the exceptional painter who was Michelangelo as a whole and in detail, from angles that are unknown and sometimes inaccessible to museums or churches visitors. We have access to all the great museums, Vatican churches and libraries where the treasures created by the genius artist can be found today. In the 90 minutes of the film we follow an itinerary in time of the artist’s life and a geographical route of the places where his most representative creations are located. The comments of some of the most renowned experts in art history, specialists in the recovery of old works of art, and contemporary artists complete the experience with a wealth of interesting information.
The film is part of a series called ‘Exhibition on Screen’ that can be watched by those lucky enough to find it, in cinemas as well. The local cinematheque seems to be starting to bring these films in the city where I live. I will follow them with great interest.
The Wim Wenders retrospective at the local cinematheque provided us this week the opportunity to see the most famous film in the series of the ‘road movies’ made by the German director more than four decades ago. ‘Kings of the Road‘ (the original title in German is ‘Im Lauf der Zeit’ which would mean ‘Over the Time’) is, in my opinion, one of the masterpieces of the genre, a reference film, a film whose beauty has not diminished over time, but on the contrary, seems to have been accentuated and amplified, gaining new meanings from the perspective of time.
The comparison with Dennis Hopper’s ‘Easy Rider‘ is inevitable. I’m sure that Wenders knew well and loved this movie. His heroes depicted on screen by Rüdiger Vogler and Hanns Zischler are not necessarily marginals such as those played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, but same as the ones in the American movie, they cannot care less about social conventions, and choose the roads as a way of life. Roads mean running away and discovering. Self-discovery before anything else. Roads mean taking life as it is, meeting other people, trying to communicate, to connect one loneliness with another. From ‘Easy Rider’ and ‘Kings of the Road’ we learn and understand more about the America of the late 1960s or about Germany in the mid-1970s than from dozens of other books or movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zq-EBhErEI
Wenders’ film has a second theme parallel to the one of roads – it’s the decaying cinema houses. One of the film’s heroes lives out of maintaining the projection equipment of the old cinemas in the small rural German villages. A job that becomes increasingly useless. Wenders anticipates Giuseppe Tornatore‘s “Cinema Paradiso” for over a decade. 30 years after the end of the Second World War, the ruined Germany was disappearing, taking with it signs and symbols of a way of life that had not only negative aspects. The two characters of the film, apparently lost in a world dominated by order, are actually the symbols of a lost freedom.
‘Kings of the Road’ lasts three hours, three hours spent by the two characters in a truck, on country roads along the temporary border between the two Germanies, between one cinema already in ruins to another, or to one that still functions without spectators. Not much seems to happen in the movie. And yet the three hours pass quickly, like in a spell, because every minute is full of artistic substance, full of life.
I’m a big fan of John le Carré. He is one of my favorite writers in one of my favorite literary genres – spy thrillers. His books are very “cinematic” in the structure, and it is no surprise that they have all been adapted to big screens or television series. The characters in the books and the films inspired by John de Carre’s novels are revealing themselves gradually, as the action advances, but never completely, thus the readers or the viewers always remain with the impression that some details are being kept in the shadows even after the last page of the novel or after the credits at the end of the movie. Like many other espionage writers, as well as like the secret services described in his novels, John le Carre had to look for new enemies after the break-up of the Iron Curtain and the fall of communism. In his novels after 1990, the role of the ‘bad guys’ began to be played by global terrorists or mafias in former communist countries. But the last decade has also meant the return of Russia on the global scene and the threat of a new Cold War. ‘Our Kind of Traitor‘ published in 2011 is John le Carre’s first novel in which the signs of the new Cold War appear. The 2016 movie directed by Susanna White is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel.
Two categories of typical le Carre heroes appear in this film. Perry (Ewan McGregor ) is an idealist intellectual who is ready to sacrifice the his peaceful life to help a friend or serve a good cause when confronted with limit situations. Hector (Damian Lewis) is an MI6 agent who faces the eternal problem of corruption and duplicity of his bosses and has to resort to unconventional methods to bring the truth to light. The two will meet when Perry is chosen by a financier of the Russian mafia named Dima (the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård ) to facilitate his passage to the English side with his whole family. It is not the most complex and interesting of the novels written by John le Carre, but the story has enough material for an exciting action thriller.
Susanna White has little experience with feature films, being especially known for directing episodes in TV series. Her lack of experience or inspiration is visible in this adaptation, correct but lacking in emotion. There were some exciting action threads that could have been exploited – such as the dilemmas of the British agent confronted with the corruption of politicians and the bosses’ complicity, the relationship between Perry and his wife faced with the dilemma of personal sacrifice in order to help a dubious friend that he had just known, or the terror of the family of the Russian bankerwho had decided to change allegiances. None of these topics is approached more than at a superficial level, to the extent that they serve the action. The only interesting acting is by Stellan Skarsgård . ‘Our Kind of Traitor‘ is an acceptable action movie, but the impression I was left with was that it could have been more than that.
Successful revolutions and liberation movements that succeed often suffer from an interesting syndrome. Several weeks, months, years after the events, there are more and more “heroes” claiming deeds of bravery. In Romanian, the proverb that characterizes this syndrome is ‘Many heroes show up after the war’ with the updated humorous version ‘There were a few, but many more have remained’. France is a country where the phenomenon has been widespread after World War II. Post factum heroes who claimed that they were enrolled in the Resistance appeared not only amog those who stood on the fences, such as the hero of Jacques Audiard‘s film “Un héros très discret” (the English title is ‘A Self-Made Hero‘), but also from the ranks of collaborators trying to escape responsibility and harsh, sometimes capital punishments, dictated by the rapid justice of the winners in the years immediately after the war.
Albert Dehousse (Mathieu Kassovitz ), the hero of the movie, is raised by his mother having never know his father, a fallen soldier in WWI. As lone child of a widow he is spared the front, as a fresh married son-in-law he succeeds to avoid also being sent to forced work in Germany. He is a hesitant and not very self-confident young man, but has some qualities – a rich imagination, a good memory, a capacity to understand what to say and how to act in order to please other people. Inventing a past that is not his own seems to be the way to survive and succeed in the troubled times at the end of WWII. He has some good background in the family (he discovers that his father was not the hero his mother claimed him to be to get a pension) and he meets a couple of people who teach him the art of masquerading used by them for better causes. Quite soon, he acquires a hero’s past, advances on the social scale, gets an officer position, and is sent as a commander in occupied Germany. All that was possible for ex-Resistants in France immediately after the war. Maybe he succeeds better than expected, as troubles come soon together with the success.
Jacques Audiard was in 1996 only at his second feature film as a director, and it is obvious in “Un héros très discret” that he is testing his directorial skills. The film is conceived as a kind of investigation that uses the testimonies of the hero (played at the older age by Jean-Louis Trintignant – anytime a pleasure to see him again) and of other characters (former fighters in the Resistance, historians) in a sort of documentary reconstruction alternating with the action in the years 40s. Up to one point this works OK. However, I did not understand the logic of inserting in addition to these some musical sequences and short pantomime clips. The result is too complicated, and does not leave enough screen time to the main thread of the action. It is a shame, because this seemed to me the most successful of all the forms of storytelling attempted by the director. The atmosphere of the epoch is well-rendered, the main character manages to create empathy in spite of the lies and frauds, and the good acting of the team of actors, especially Mathieu Kassovitz, contributes to this. The message of the film is that France eventually has accepted the post-war confusion, and moreover, has forgiven, rehabilitated and even promoted its impostors. This is a sharp critical message that could have been better artistically supported if the beginner (then) director Jacques Audiard had not tried too many experiments. Anyway, “Un héros très discret” is an interesting movie to watch even today.
‘LoveTrue‘, the second (only) documentary by Alma Har’el (after ‘Bombay Beach‘ in 2011) confirms that we are dealing with a film-maker with an original style and voice, who has something to say about the realities and the people around us, without bothering too much about categories and genres.
‘LoveTrue‘ tells in parallel three love stories that take place in three different locations in the United States. The first happens in Alaska, where we witness the relationship between two unusual young people – an unconventional girl who works in a strip club and a boy affected by a disease that affects the structure of the bones, making it fragile to any physical contact. The scene of the second story is Hawaii, telling about a man whose marriage breaks down just to find out that the two-year-old boy he adores and who is the center of his universe is not his natural child. Finally, the third segment describes another family in the crisis, this time a family of musicians from the New York City jungle, where the mother leaves the children, letting them face a charismatic but abusive and manipulative father. The common denominator of these stories, in which the relationships between the heroes and the hidden aspects of their characters are gradually revealed to us, is love – but in no case is it a conventional love. The quote in the Bible that serves as the preface of the film seems to say that the ways of love are multiple, diverse, and sometimes hidden.
The cinematic technique of Alma Har’el is original and interesting. The stories are interleaved, the characters and the action in each segment progress progressively, and we have the final picture only towards the end. Surprises and overturns are present, as in pure fiction films. The author combines documentary segments that she filmed herself. with filmed sequences from the personal archives of heroes’ families, and complements these with fictional scenes, sometimes with a tent of fantastic, played by actors or real characters in combination with the actors. It is clear that the conception phase of each of the three episodes lasted for a long time, maybe years, and that some of the events and stories happened after the beginning of the film. It is an invitation to an interesting discussion about the relationship between documentary and fiction, but also about the role the filmmaker has had in events. Would it have been different if the camera was not nearby? Each of the three ‘LoveTrue‘ stories is quite complex and exciting to be the subject of a separate film, but as it is, the 80-minute film by Alma Har’el is interesting enough to capture the interest and attention of viewers .
Genul
science-fiction este copleșit de viziuni pesimiste. Și în literatură și în
film. Îmi amintesc de ‘Colecția de povestiri științifico-fantastice’ care mi-a
luminat copilăria și adolescența. Apărută între 1955 și 1974 cu o periodicitate
bi-lunară, aceasta a reprezentat un fenomen unic în Europa Răsăriteană, modelat
după publicațiile ‘fanzine’ ale genului care apăreau în acea perioada în
Occident și mai ales în Statele Unite. ‘Colecția’ a promovat în special
literatură originală românească combinată cu traduceri, la început mai ales ale
maeștrilor sovietici ai genului cum erau Arkadi și Boris Strugatski.
Caracteristica aproape generală a tuturor povestirilor și a majorității
romanelor epocii era un optimism molipsitor în ceea ce privește viitorul
omenirii, capacitatea științei de a lărgi permanent frontierele cunoașterii și
de a îmbunătăți societatea. Era desigur încorporat în acest optimism și o doză
de propagandă, căci și socialismul biruitor era pe vremea aceea o știință, nu-i
așa? Și totuși, peisajul nu era radical diferit nici în literatura occidentală
a genului. Atunci când scriitori de talia lui Isaac Asimov sau Ray Bradbury au
publicat primele romane și povestiri în care dădeau semnale de alarmă legate de
impactul social al progreselor tehnologice, sau descriind alternative pesimiste
ale viitorului omenirii, ei se aflau la mijlocul secolului trecut în netă
minoritate. Serialul de televiziune ‘Star Trek’ de exemplu, probabil cel mai
popular din istoria genului a promovat o viziune net optimistă. Astăzi însă,
situația pare a se fi schimbat radical. Nu am la îndemână statistici exacte,
dar cred că peste 90% din cărțile și filmele de science-fiction propun o
viziune întunecată asupra viitorului mai apropiat sau mai îndepărtat al Terrei
și al speciei umane. Sub-genul post-apocaliptic a proliferat copios cu
descrieri ale infinitelor variante ale vicisitudinilor și luptelor sângeroase
pentru supraviețuire după catastrofa ecologică sau războiul distrugător care
vor distruge viața pe Pământ și societatea umană așa cum le cunoaștem astăzi.
Și chiar dacă nu se întâmplă un cataclism, perpectivele descrise de autorii de
cărți și scenarii de science-fiction par în majoritate sumbre. Science-fiction
a devenit în ultima vreme sinonim cu distopia.
Din când în când apare însă și câte un film care
contrazice această tendință. Este cazul lui ‘Tomorrowland’, un film american
ieșit pe ecrane în 2015, regizat de Brad Bird și avându-l pe generic pe George
Clooney. Pe Clooney probabil că îl cunoașteți bine, este un actor extrem de
popular, lansat în serialul de televiziune ‘ER’ și devenit una dintre vedetele
cele mai cunoscute (și mai scumpe) ale Hollywood-ului, cu două premii Oscar în
palmares (unul ca autor, celălalt ca producător). În ultima vreme exploră direcții artistice
noi, riscă mai mult în alegerea rolurilor și a temelor filmelor, își încearcă
puterile ca producător și regizor. Chiar și ‘Tomorrowland’ este un exemplu al
acestei schimbări de ton și direcție. Regizorul Brad Bird (născut în 1957) este
cunoscut mai ales pentru filme de desene animate, cel mai faimos dintre ele
fiind deliciosul ‘Ratatouille’ (2007). ‘Tomorrowland’ este doar al doilea film
de lung metraj cu actori al său, cel precedent aparținând nesfârșitei serii
‘Mission Impossible’ al cărei erou principal este întruchipat de Tom Cruise.
Nu
ar trebui probabil să ne mirăm că productorii acestui film sunt compania
Disney. Campioană a industriei de ‘entertainment’ de familie, ea afișează un
optimism declarat, care a luminat copilăriile multor generații. Venerabila
instituție fondată de Walt Disney se aproprie de centenar pe care îl va celebra
în 2023. Specializată la începutul istoriei sale în filme de desene animate, a
realizat primul lung metraj de gen (‘Albă că Zăpada și cei șapte pitici’) între
1934 și 1937. Primul lung metraj cu actori a fost ‘Insula comorii’ regizat de
Byron Haskin, al cărui premieră a avut loc în 1950. Aveau să treacă însă mai mult de trei
decenii, până când, în anii ’80 ai secolului trecut, compania de film cu marca
Disney a devenit una dintre forțele cele mai semnificative ale industriei
cinematografice, sub conducerea unor manageri și producători ca Michael Eisner
și Jeffrey Katzenberg. De atunci încoace suntem martorii unei expansiuni
continue, marcată de achizițiile unor competitori ca Pixar (care revolutionase
tehnica animației), Marvel (creatoare și proprietară a numeroase personaje și
teme de comics) și Lucasfilm (compania lui George Lucas, creatorul lui Star
Wars). În 2017-2018, studiourile Disney au anunțat și au început execuția
unirii cu un alt gigant de la Hollywood, 21st Century Fox (urmaș al lui 20th
Century Fox). Prin acest proces, două dintre cele șase mari companii de la
Hollywood (‘The Big Six’) își unesc eforturile comerciale și artistice.
Optimismul
filmelor produse de casa Disney este în parte programatic și în parte
comercial. Publicul țintă este compus în principal din familiile cu copii și
adolescenți bine supravegheați. Filmele trebuie să aibă teme și un mod de
prezentare a acestora adaptate la vizionarea la orice oră a zilei de către
copii de orice vârste, în săli de cinema, sau pe canalele de distribuire Disney
sau afiliate cu Disney, la televiziuni sau pe Internet. Există încă o
componentă semnificativă – este vorba despre legătura dintre studiouri și
gigantica industrie internațională a parcurilor Disney. Între acestea se află
și parcurile ‘Tomorrowland’ de unde filmul regizat de Brad Bird își moștenește
numele. Aceste parcuri tematice prezintă vizitatorilor (în majoritate tot
familii cu copii, sau adolescenți de vârste diferite) viziuni optimiste ale
viitorului. ‘Tomorrowland’ se află astăzi la a treia generație. Primul parc cu
acest nume s-a deschis în iulie 1955, la Disneyland în Anaheim, California. O
istorie a acestor parcuri reprezintă și o istorie a viitorului așa cum este
perceput de cultura populară. Generația cea mai nouă este dominată de atracții
inspirate de tema ‘Star Wars’.
De
la unul dintre parcurile ‘Tormorrowland’ din prima generație pleacă și acțiunea
filmului. Un băiețel pe nume Frank Walker vizitează parcul pentru a-și promova
invenția, o mașină individuală de zburat. Anii ’60 sunt, după cum știm, cam
devreme, pentru ca invenția lui Frank să funcționeze, dar cu această ocazie
face cunoștiință cu o intrigantă fetiță numită Athena, care îi dezvăluie faptul
că parcul este doar o poartă spre o lume alternativă, poate chiar una ideală, a
viitorului. Un salt înainte, spre contemporaneitatea mileniului trei, ne
prilejuiește cunoștiință cu o altă eroină, adolescenta Casey Newton, fiica unui
tehnician de la NASA. Și ea descoperă o portiță spre lumea viitorului, dar
această versiune alternativă este in pericol de extincție, la fel ca întreagă
omenire. Când cei doi eroi, Casey și Frank (acum matur și semănând uluitor cu George
Clooney) se vor întâlni, vor pune la cale planul de a călători din nou spre
Tomorrowland și de a salva lumea de la alternativa auto-distrugerii.
Filmul
lui Brad Bird nu este o capodoperă. Respectă regulile lui Disney și poate fi
vizionat la orice oră și împreună cu copii de orice vârste. Îl puteți găsi
probabil și în avioane, și dacă alegeți să-l vedeți, nu va fi cea mai proastă
alegere. Pe lângă George Clooney am mai remarcat jocul adolescentei Raffey
Cassidy (Athena) care cu puțină șansă și inspirație în alegerea rolurilor va
deveni o actrița deosebită, și a băiețelului Pierce Gagnon pe care l-am
remarcat deja în serialul ‘Extant’. Filmul are câteva idei interesante care
merită discutate. Una dintre ele este cea a unei lumi a viitorului în care
oamenii de știință ar putea crea fără directive și constrângeri politice. Să nu
va mirați, căci ideea este a lui Gustave Eiffel, Thomas Edison, Jules Verne și
Nikola Tesla. Cealaltă este a posibilității omenirii de a-și influența propriul
viitor. În film, eroii se lupta cu o mașină care poate duce la distrugerea unei
omeniri care refuză sau a renunțat să lupte pentru viitorul ei, fie că este
vorba despre soluționarea problemelor ecologice, sau despre evitarea unui
război apocaliptic. Nu poate însă această mașină fi privită ca o metaforă a
atitudinii de astăzi a omenirii față de viitorul său? Nu riscă oare viziunile
pesimiste și distopiile care ne inundă să devină o profeție care se va realiza
in final din cauza că nu am fost capabili, ca specie, să imaginăm și să
acționăm pentru un altfel de viitor?
Nu voi dezvălui mai mult, căci nu vreau să răpesc plăcerea celor care nu au văzut încă filmul și vor dori să-l vadă, poate împreună cu copiii. Cât despre răsunetul său, una dintre temele principale ale discuțiilor dintre fanii Disney era dacă și când o atracție legată de lumea vizuală (excepțională, este o altă parte tare a filmului) din ‘Tomorrowland’ își va găsi locul în parcurile Disney.
(Articolul a aparut iniţial in revista culturală ‘Literatura de Azi’ – http://literaturadeazi.ro/)
Revolutions are rare in England’s history, but when they happen, they shake off the system and have repercussions not only on the Island but also around the world. More than three hundred years after Cromwell’s revolution and 150 years after the Industrial Revolution, the pop culture revolution made in the 1960s of London last century one of the two cultural capitals of the world and the avant-garde model of a reversal values and styles of scale. This is the subject of the documentary ‘My Generation‘, whose director David Batty has been known over the last decade, especially for his films about … the history of Christianity.
Michael Caine is the producer, the presenter, and receives a lot of screen time in this documentary. It’s an interesting choice, but it comes with its problems. Of course, for Caine’s fans among which you can always count me, it’s always a pleasure to see the clever and articulate actor at the age of 84, sharing his memories and experiences from these times. On the other hand, I felt that Caine is pushing himself too far in front of the stage and he is “gonflating” his role as a cultural hero at the expense of other personalities, the real and significant heroes of the youth of the period.
The film starts from an interesting thesis and develops it convincingly: the pop revolution of the 1960s was not only a cultural revolution but also a social revolution in art. For the first time the younger generations and the classes considered “inferior” in the British system have found a broad stage to express themselves and have conquered the front of the artistic scenes of the world in different fields (music, film, fashion) . However, cultural references are rather limited when it comes to other fields than pop music. I believe, for example, that Pinter and Stoppard’s theater would have deserves to be mentioned. Even when talking about cinema, big names are missing – for example those of Losey or Kubrick.
Another cultural dimension is missing. England and London played a central role in the pop culture revolution of the 1960s, but not an exclusive role. There is no mention of the influence of the pop and hippie movement in the United States, the Flower Power phenomenon, the festivals and protests that had the epicenter in the United States rather than in England. It can be said that it was a bi-cephalic phenomenon that had two capitals – London and San Francisco, and the film only deals with one.
In spite of all these observations, it is an interesting film that includes many significant testimonies about what happened in those years on the London artistic scene. The three “chapters” of the film feature the three stages of the birth of the phenomenon, the conquest of the artistic scene, and the appearance of the premises of its decadence. For those like me who lived those years on the alien planet that was Eastern Europe, there is a lot of invaluable information, images that generate nostalgia, places we were dreaming about then without being sure we’ll ever get to see them. ‘My Genration’ is a documentary that generates nostalgia, but not the ultimate documentary about that period.
Time does not always work in favor of movies. The second film I saw in Wim Wenders‘ retrospective at the local cinematheque was’ Wrong Move‘ (the original title in German is’ Falsche Bewegung’), which belongs to the cycle of three ‘road movies’ created by the director at the beginning of his career in the 1970s. It’s one of those cases where as a film lover you can recognize many of the cultural ideas and landmarks on which the film is based and you can identify signs of the director’s subsequent evolution. However, there is a lack of vibration and even of a great deal of interest, since the problems of post-war Germany are largely out of date and the style of dialogues combining existentialism with Goethe’s writing experiences does not resonate in any way for the viewers of today.
Those who read Goethe know that Wilhelm Meister is the hero one of his novels in which the hero, a young writer in the making, crosses the future of Germany from north to south on a journey of intellectual initiation and self-discovery, trying to find the literary and emotional resources necessary for his profession. The action is shifted to the Germany of the 1970s when young Wilhelm Meister receives as a present a similar journey from his mother. He gets on his way and meets some bizarre and especially alienated characters typical of a society that had not completely exited the post-war trauma. The accumulation of information and emotion is rendered in the film through a combination of slow action, dialogues that are actually more monologues, and off-screen text probably extracted from Goethe’s book. It is a combination that may have worked and may have been really interesting in the movies of the ’60s or ’70s (used intensely by Antonioni for example) but which in this film has a dormant effect.
Yet, there are a few good reasons why this film deserves to be seen. First of all for the two formidable actresses that appear in the cast. For Nastassja Kinski , still at teenage age and before getting the name under which she became famous, it was the debut film. For Hanna Schygulla, at the peak of her beauty, it was probably the first important role. Both play splendidly in roles that fit them perfectly. The problem is that each of the actors seems to play their roles separately. There is a story in the film that includes an ambiguous romantic triangle, but it lacks any vibration, perhaps because of the wooden acting of the actor in the lead role (Rüdiger Vogler). The existentialist type of the characters has real motives in the history of Germany at that time, but for today’s spectators, especially if they are not familiar with that history, their behavior is difficult to understand. The feeling of verbosity at certain moments is accentuated by the slow pace of action in the intermediate scenes. In the absence of many obsolete cultural and historical landmarks, ‘Wrong Move’ does not say much to the contemporary film viewers.
What happens to the two families in director Hirokazu Koreeda‘s film ‘Like Father, Like Son‘ (the original Japanese title is ‘Soshite chichi ni naru’) is one of the nightmares of any couple of parents. Six years after the birth of their sons they get a phone call from the maternity which tells them it is suspected that the new-born babies were swapped between the two families immediately after birth. DNA tests soon confirm the incident. They learn (and so do the spectators) that most of the couples involved in such a mismatch decide to swap back the kids in order for each family to grow their ‘line of blood’ children rather than the kids they surrounded with parental love since birth until now. The sooner the better as later swaps can be more traumatic for the children. Does this really work? As you would suspect it is not easy. It’s a great topic however for a family drama. Or melodrama. Or both.
There is no parent or future parent in the cinema hall, I believe, that does not ask in his or her mind the question ‘how would I react as parent?’. ‘Is blood relationship or the bonding built in the first six years of the boys’ lives more important?’. ‘Is this a decision of the heart or a decision of the brain?’. ‘How would my marriage cope with such a situation?’. It seems to me that film director Hirokazu Koreeda relied on this while carefully constructing the story and describing the process by which the phases of incredibility, rationalization, acceptance, decision are stepped through one after the other by the two families. While both couples and the two kids get all substance and enough screen time for their characters to develop beautifully, the story focuses on Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama), one of the two fathers, who is a busy architect, confident and successful in his profession, but who had somehow neglected the relationship with his son.
It’s very easy for such a topic to fall into melodrama, and I do not believe that ‘Like Father, Like Son‘ completely avoids this trap. There is however a lot of true emotion that crosses the screen, due to the carefully constructed script which balances the different threads: blood line vs. existing parental relations, class gaps, the role of the wives in the decision process (not an easy topic in Japanese life and movies). Acting is very good, the whole team succeeds to make us part of the families and share their concerns and emotions as the story progresses. It’s a tough combination of topics which is eventually solved in a balanced and elegant manner. I just hope that the big American studios will not try a remake of this film too soon.
Pawel Pawlikowski continues a tradition of remarkable film directors that left their mark in the history of cinema in the second half of the 20th century and made of the Polish film school one of the best in Eastern Europe, competing in value and number of remarkable movies only with the Soviet school of cinema. Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and young Roman Polanski made wonderful films despite Communist censorship, fighting and tricking the censors and using cinema as a mean of social and political protest using the tools of art. 30 years passed since the fall of the Communist regimes in Poland and the rest of Europe, but film makers from that part of the world continue to get back obsessively to those times. They do it now with a different perspective, and free of political constraints. Did time heal the wounds? Maybe, at least in part, but there are lessons to be learned, traumas carried over generations and realities that perpetuate in mentality that invite to thought and debate.
‘Cold War‘ (the original title is ‘Zimna wojna’) tells a non-conventional love story that takes place in troubled times. Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is a musician and co-founder of a musical institution for talented young people trying to promote authentic Polish folklore – music and dance – in the conditions of increased ideological pressures. Zula (Joanna Kulig) is one of his pupils, a young and beautiful girl, just out of a troubled childhood. Their relationship goes against all the conventions because of age gap, social status, cultural level, puritan rules of morality. Poland is hardly a place were their relationship can blossom .Aspiring for freedom they will cross the Iron Curtain on both directions, but hardly find happiness or accomplishment in the Paris of the 1950s either. The impossibility of their love – is it caused by the hardship of time, or by personal incompatibility? I did not get a clear answer even after the last frame of the film.
What I liked. The whole cinematographic concept – black and wide, narrow screen format – fits well the story and makes a reverence also to the cinema of the period when the action takes place. The music is fabulous. It starts with real folklore songs, continues with the processed folklore mixed with the hymns to Stalin which was promoted in the Communist countries at that time, switches to jazz and French chansons for the time spent by the heroes in Paris, and returns to the ‘light music’ of the early 60s in Poland. Music tells as much about the period as the story itself. The settings and the atmosphere are carefully designed, from the muddy desolated landscape of Poland in 1949, passing through the Berlin of 1952 still bearing the scars of war, the Paris of the 1950s undergoing the Americanized healing, and back to the Poland of the late 50s and 60s, with its own version of the Gulag but also with the false shining of life ‘normalized’ under Communist control. All these are realistic and credible.
What I liked less. Although both Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot are fine actors and their individual performance are good, their relationship does not look at any moment too credible on screen. Hard to tell if their lack of chemistry is intentional or not, but they never seem to fit one with the other, and their love story looks as cold as the war which gives the title to the movie. This surprising lack of vibration lessens the final impression about a movie with many qualities and certainly worth watching.
