When an older man puts on his wife’s vest, her pearl necklace and her skirt under his jacket; just to show her Tokyo after she died – it’s poetry. When a man ties his handkerchief to a pole to keep him from getting lost – it’s poetry. Kirschblüten Hanami is packed with little stories, that sometimes stretch just one scene. And I am a sucker for poetic imagery.

This is the Story: Trudi finds out her husband won’t live very long. She decides not to tell him, but instead take him to his children in Berlin and do the things they never did, but really should have done (it turns out Trudi has more things she should have done). Trudi dies. Rudi is left heartbroken and unable to ‘find’ his wife. He leaves for Tokyo to show his departed wife mount Fuji, but more, to find her.

Rudi is motivated by a sense of loneliness and perhaps guilt. Trudi gave up a part of herself to be with Rudi. She wanted to be a Butoh dancer, she wanted to see Tokyo. But being with Rudi and his strong wish that tomorrow be like today but maybe a little different, she gave up on those wishes.

When Rudi is left alone, that is what remains: ‘she gave herself for his life’. Rudi’s quest to find her, incorporates the question ‘did I know her?’. The life shared is more than just a dream that passed. The quest to find Trudi at the foot of mount Fiji is a pilgrimage to love, and to remembering. As Rudi finds his inner Butoh dancer, he learns that it is a dance with shadows, with death. Where the shadow on the ground is as real as the flesh casting it. In the final scenes mount Fuji’s reflection in the lake echos this insight. The reflection, the shadow, the past, the unfulfilled, they can be just as real as their counterpart.

Rudi and Trudi are reconnected as Rudi dances in his wife’s kimono and dances in front of Mount Fuji. His hands touch hers. And the he too dies.

The title Hanami refers to the Japanese tradition of enjoying the blossoming cherry trees (since that only lasts for about two weeks). The delicate and sophisticated tradition has evolved in Hanami parties that are more about getting drunk than enjoying the blossoms. So close we are to eternity, we chose the profane to fulfill our lives.

Bas

official site

It’s not easy, ‘happiness’. Sometimes it feels like almost drowning, having your head smashed by wave upon wave, feeling the dark currents underneath trying to pull you down. It’s not the struggle, but the realisation that despite everything, you are still in the water. Happy-go-lucky hands you life and the bliss of living it in all the struggle, madness and sadness.

These are a couple of weeks of Poppies life (portrayed in a master-performance of Sally Hawkins). She’s an elementary teacher in her thirties. She’s single and lives with her life long friend Zoe. Poppy rides her bike as the movie opens. Within minutes, the bicycle is stolen. Without even ‘a chance to say good-bye’. The event triggers Pollies decision to get her drivers license – but moreover it shows how Polly keeps on moving, no matter what.

Now Polly could be irritating. She keeps on jabbing, filling every slice of air with conversation. And her optimist perspective could come across as a shallow way to ignore the lesser facts of life. It all is not the case. Polly is an intelligent woman, not ignorant to the problems that define everyday life. She is no happy escapist who paints the world in pink and sings the troubles away. Polly sings with her troubles. She acts, when a boy is bullying, when a situation with her pregnant sister tends to get out of hand.

The movie gets it’s rhythm from Pollies driving lessons. Her instructor (an intense performance of Eddie Marsan) is a bitter man who blames society (coloured society) for all his missed chances. He works on Polly like a red flag. Her spontaneous outbursts get edgy, her tongue in cheek provocative nature turns crispy as they drive the streets of London.
More than anything, Polly cares. And maybe that is her real happiness. She cares about the people she meets, despite everything. No matter if you are a bully, or an angry bitter man, Polly will care about you.
Mike Leigh’s proof of tenderness and intelligent filming is how he balances – because every aspect could easily go wrong. He could have exploited Polly’s care, making her saint-like. But he doesn´t; Polly does all she can, but she has a life of her own and things to do. He could have made her an escapist. He could have made her ignorant. But he and Sally Hawkins just give you a right amount of every possible character flaw to build a loveable, admirable Polly.

Bas

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 93%

imbd

He just, he just stands there. His hands close to his legs. His head slightly tilted. He just stands there. The woman he loves leaves back to her home country, Syria. She follows her son who is deported. And he stands. The airport is just a place painted in grey, as is the sky, and the sound. Everything except his faint attempt of a smile somewhere deep inside there. He just stands.

He is Walter Vale (portrayed by Richard Jenkins), and economics professor in Connecticut and widower. This is the tale: Walter needs to go to New York to give a presentation. As he enters his old New York apartment (from his happier days of marriage) he finds Tarek and Zainab – two illegal immigrants. Walter befriends Tarek who gives him djembe lessons. Tarek is caught and held in a detention center. Tarek’s mother Mousa comes to support him. She and Walter end up caring for each other deeply. One day, Tarek is been deported. Mousa follows. Walter is alone again.

That’s it. It’s politically edgy, it is though provoking on moral and social issues.And it is a charming portrait of human care. But there is more. And it’s all about Walter. And the way he just stands there.

Richard Jenkins is amazing in his performance; charismatic, intelligent and elegant. The movie appears to follow the somewhat corny story-line of the grumpy old man who rediscovers life and ends up happy. It appears that way. And the movie would have been characterless and predictable (which it is to some extend – predictable that is). But this is not the story. Because Walter Vale is not empty in the beginning. He is not grumpy. He is lost. And. He has so much love.

Walter Vale has so much love to give. But his wife died and with her the focus of his care and overwhelming tenderness and love. It is a very important difference with the other reading of the script. The piano lessons he takes; a sure sign of his struggle with the mind and moreover a way of trying to reach his former spouse (who was a professional piano player). The djembe as a rhythm of his heart. Mousa. But it is not filling him. They are a channel for his love not the roots of it. The roots are within Walter. And we learn not how, or why. But we understand. Because we know Walter. Almost without explanation, Walter gave himself.

How an actor can almost play the concept of love is a mystery to me. But I am thankful I saw Jenkins do it. He gives magic back to acting. Not method. Not theory. Magic.

Bas

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 31%

imbd

I will show many pictures. Film is just a way to tell a story. It has its own way to build a tale, it has its own language. And, just as in theatre, it needs characters doing stuff to keep the story going (in contrast to for instance a novel, that can take place entirely in a person’s mind)*. The characters must be shown (duh). But how they are shown is a voice in the tale. And in Angel A it’s a dominant voice.

The story is easy forgotten (and I think I did) – a loosely plotted screwball comedy rapid dialogue bang bang run complain fight script. The tale is this. Jamel Debbouze plays André who wants to commit suicide in Paris (by jumping in the Seine). Rie Rasmussen plays Angela, an angel that is sent to save André (and it will be her last trip to earth). In the hurly-burly dialogued story they become a better person and angel and (et cetera). Because it doesn´t matter.

Thus, all the honours go to Luc Besson’s regular cinematographer Thierry Arbogast who composed an impressive story-line in images. The black and white is breathtaking, the clarity of each shot is perfect and the composition within the frame is elegant and sophisticated. Like a set of original black and white photos. Something for a fashion brand, a perfume label. So yes, this is what it ends up to be, a silly story dressed up as a fragrance.

Thus the beauty becomes awkward. As if each picture is the advertisement of a movie. I just keep thinking ‘hopefully it is not advertising this movie’. But it is. And you realise while you watch, that something is wrong here. The images keep on tumbling in their own little perfect universe. And then they drop on your eyes one by one without their disguise, thick self-indulgent clichés.

Strange right? Just look at the pictures. Beautiful. Perfect. At least, that’s what I think. Then why? Why do I end up describing them as clichés, as clean yet uninspired little advertisement in a movie that really is about nothing at all. It took me a while. And then I remembered this:

Recognise it? Of course you do! It must have been in every girls room in the eighties and nineties of the previous century. It’s Robert Doisneau, the famous French photographer. And it is especially this photo (a stunning photo) that to me evolved in a cliché easily used by advertising to sell fashion or fragrances.

So. Am I visually challenged? Poisoned with thirty-some years of visually amputated imagination? Or was Angel A stunning in craftsmanship and perfect in its visual execution, but not all that good in the story and the comedy? In that case, maybe the visual style is indeed just a cover up. A case of introvert propaganda, seduction, advertisement. Nothing wrong with that. But the marketing does not suit the product. It’s selling some funny accessories (a goofy hat and a jolly pair of gloves with the fingers cut off) with the air of a Big French Fashion Show.

And that is just silly.

Bas

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 43%

imbd

It is not over. It is never over. Half Nelson urges its viewers to remain opinionated, to keep analysing the society you live in. To keep challenging the ethics and morals that submerge silently in any society. Or. In other words. To keep struggling.

Because it is never over. And it is fairly easy to become intellectually apathetic. And it is fairly easy to drift off into criminality. But you’re in a half nelson. You could get out. So try.

There is beauty in a struggle. The movie Half Nelson is beautiful. At its core I find two people, so opposite that they become the same. To me, they connected because they are both innocent. Each in their own way unguarded and inexperienced. Ryan Gossling suffers in one of his most beautiful performances as high school teacher Dan Dunne. He’s educated, opinionated, an idealist an a drug addict. His life becomes connected to that of Drey (played by Shareeka Epps). Drey is a little girl that tries to find her way in the crime-packed community she is brought up in.

He’s a white educated male in his thirties. She’s a black teenager. And they recognise each other. I know, a whole lot more happens in Half Nelson, but this is the essence in a human perspective. There are racial issues, political, social; but when Dan and Drey without words hook their lives together they teach how to make sense. Half Nelson is written with a dialectical pulse. The main characters are not only opposite in skin-colour, sex and age; she is introvert (the face you see in the picture above is one of three faces Drey has: this one, a smiling one and the one she wants nobody to see) he is extravert, screaming in every detail of his being. And then there are the similarities; both naive to the world (one for youth, one for drugs), both wanting things to change, both trying not to give in to the alternative (do drugs, deal drugs).

Dan’s drug addiction is a secret to the school (obviously). Drey finds him using. And because of her introvert facade, I kept guessing, up until the end of the movie what it is she wants from Dan. She acts like his mother and daughter. Like she’s in love with him – the kind of love you have for a wounded animal at the side of the road. And he? What does he want? Is it guilt, fear, hope? Or do they recognise a kindred spirit? Do they both wish the other to succeed to prove to themselves that it is possible; that the half nelson is a tight grip, but you can break out.
The film takes the two and brings them to an absolute low. His addiction gets worse, he gets exposed, he almost rapes his girlfriend; she falls into the sweet attraction of criminality. At this low, they meet. The second real confrontation of their lives, opposite (she the dealer now, he the addict) again and so very much the same. He’s in a motel with some whores, co-addicts and a sad package of being high. She’s out on the streets supplying home delivery drugs. The moment is spectacular. A silent explosion. This moment of highest tension, of ultimate grip. One look. And it all breaks. As if they confronted each other with their own demons. As if they needed to look in the mirror they had become to each other. All it took was that one look.

Well, it’s not flowers and fountains from there. But there is a little more than just hope. There’s hope and possibility.

Bas

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 91%

imbd

So. Remember when you were young, that when you walked out of a movie you felt you were the main character? You walked back out into the night and just felt like flying off, after seeing Superman? Or running back home to check if You Got Mail? Remember?

You don’t remember. Or. What? You do remember not doing that?

Well, I did. I emphasised (and emphasise) to a level that might be considered dangerous to self and others. I even had to take some time putting the Donald Duck away to not think I actually were a hyperactive duck. I mimic(mimicked) faces on screen; my family had many entertaining hour watching my facial echoes of Daktari and The A-Team. Yesterday I walked out of the cinema and thought I could feel adrenaline heightening my senses.

I walked out after having seen Wanted, a shoot ‘em up starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy. I had good fun, a little trouble breathing because various walls of sound pushed the air to the back of my lungs, leaving it scared and determined not to go out again. The story was silly (secret fraternity reading destiny from the errors in a broken weaving machine), the special effect camera tricks were impressive but not very original and I still have trouble believing all that cool stuff about bending bullets and sword-fighting with guns by firing bullet to bullet (but, if I could mentally maintain Gun Kata, why nag about this?).

So let’s not talk about the moviethingies – it not interesting. Let’s talk about me. It was a long time since I copied (although for just a few minutes) certain aspects of the main character. Let me capture those minutes for you. Wesley (main character) looked at us and said ‘what have you done lately? Then – titles. We (my movie- and life-consort) look at each other, ritually exchange popcorn cups and (not so) empty water bottles. We get up with the others (including children, lots of sixteen olds and some people who escaped their lunch-break at the near by supermarket). We head for the exit.

On your way to the exit you pass a garbage container – for the empty popcorn cups. I feel my vision enhanced. Is that my blood I feel pumping through my veins? I sense the persons behind me. I am ready to act, ready to should. I calculate the distance to the wall – I can run and jump flip, firing falling faced down, land throw myself at my beloved to evade bullets whistling through the air ánd in one gracious movement get the cups in the garbage can. We walk and I throw them in – they nearly miss.

We walk down the stairs. My heightened senses elope with reality. I feel the air curving my fingertips. ‘We need to get some groceries’ – I nod acutely aware of the surroundings, trying to hear what happens a mile away on our way to the Chedraui supermarket. I must control myself not to acrobate amidst the watermelons and mangoes. I breathe and focus all my supernatural powers to the grocery list: this will be one memorably fast shopping moment. When we reach the cashier, I can show my powers by putting our bought goods in the plastic bags with unnatural precision and speed.

On our way to the car, we get Burger King. My beloved orders. My heightened senses see she bought two extra hamburgers for the guards (at our place). I again feel my blood thumping. Is that a bullet I hear? I calculate how to push the shopping cart and flip flop to the other side of the venue. ‘For the guards.’ I look at my girl. ‘For the guards?’ ‘We always buy them for the guards. You know. Why are you looking at me so weird?’ My heightened senses drop like an acme bomb bought by Wily E. Coyote. I smile.

Empathy, mimicry, imitation. It is the way babies learn. I guess it is a way movies can give ways to learn to cope with serious topics that (hopefully) don’t happen too often in a lifetime. By mimicking emotions, copying and practising ways to deal with life. Just like Aristotle would have wanted me to do. The only thing is that I end up learning how it feels like to curve a bullet and shoot an opponents bullet out of the air. Oh well, maybe it will come in handy one day…

Movies, books and stories: paths to understanding life. And quaking like an animated duck.

Bas

P.S. please check out this list of fictional martial arts, the mind can go strange places…

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 73%

imbd

Lars and the Real Girl jumped into my lap like a kitten. She put her nails onto my shirt, right on the muscles that case my heart and started pulling and tickling. Every now and then she purred. Every now and then she hissed. When I paid no attention she caught a bird and presented it, rubbing her face to my ankles.

After the final title roll I decided to keep the kitten. I have not named her Lars.

When music makes me cry, I fight it. There is this voice reaching inside like a fist. It pulls something out: tears. I fight, but it is useless, the power that grabs me is just to strong. I am left in wonder. How did this happen?

I am not the only one wondering. Music does something no other art can do as inescapable. Arts tried to imitate the apparent mechanisms like rhythm and melody. But without the desired effect (to me at least). Then Lars and the Real Girl enters the stage. And even now, weeks after watching, tears well up in my eyes, when I think of Lars and Bianca in the car. In silence. In a wide shot. In a landscape. With the echo of his hand in the woollen gloves. The colour of his cabin. The snow. Why?

Of course, part of it is born from narrative and empathy and the charm of the story, the grace with which it is told. But part of it isn’t. It is the part of the solitude is poetry, where the director surpasses the writer and gives an idea of peace in that landscape. Where loneliness is an choice not chosen.

Is it the experience of essential loneliness? I think not. For one, I am not lonely at all, and second, this solitude is a feast. It is exuberant, like confetti thrown into the air at kids-parties. And the more isolated the images, the more desperate the story, the more joyful everything appears to become.

I am genuinely moved by Lars and the Real Girl. To the point where analyses and deconstruction leave the dramaturg in me speechless. I like that feeling. Thus, I cherish and thank the makers for giving me this kittenish kitten (it is truly a gift). I will keep her, she will give me unexpected surprises in the years to come. Thank you.

Bas

official site

ny times

rotten tomatoes = 81%

imbd