Staff Picks: Movies
Staff-recommended viewing from the KPL catalog.
The animated film Waltz With Bashir is a magnificent film that reminded me of the recently adapted graphic novel Persepolis, especially the way in which memoir, history and social turmoil are woven together not only as a compelling narrative form but also because in both works, the primary characters struggle for certainty, meaning and peace in a world of war, conflict and confusion.
The main plot takes place in contemporary Israel, where a man who was an Israeli soldier during the Lebanon/Israel War of the early 1980's sets out on a journey to rediscover his lost memories of the war and to determine what role, if any, he played in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. The film's director and protagonist Ari Folman depicts the war as a horrorific act against humanity, where neither side was innocent of committing atrocities. Winner of many awards in 2008 and nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award, Waltz With Bashir is a haunting and visually rich meditation on memory, war and healing.
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Movie
Waltz with Bashir [videorecording]
COL28993D
I love films that often appear at first glance to be very simple in form or plot yet possess a profound range of emotional depth and suggestive weight that when perfectly pitched with gorgeous cinematography and credible acting, lays bare the lyricism of the human condition even as characters struggle with loss and grief. In short, the film Cherry Blossoms conjures such a description. One of the best films I’ve seen all year.
What happens when a wife discovers that her husband is dying of a terminal illness but who then dies herself before telling him or their family? Subtle and yet packing an emotional punch, this film is a modern day love story that is heartbreaking yet poetic in its life affirming tone.
Movie
Cherry blossoms - Hanami [videorecording]
STN28112D
For weeks after watching The Cave of the Yellow Dog, my daughter and I would play “Cave of the Yellow Dog”, our own make-believe game based on the movie. She would pretend to be Nansal, the plucky young protagonist of the Mongolian/German film who, against her father’s wishes, really wants to keep a stray puppy. “But Papa,” she would say, “I really want to keep the dog. “Sorry Nansal,” I would play along. “Where there are dogs, there are wolves. Wolves will eat the sheep.”
This quietly beautiful film by Byambasuren Davaa portrays daily life for Nansal, her younger siblings, and their parents - also a family in real life. Nansal finds a black and white dog in a cave and names it Zochor (Spot). Her father forbids Nansal from keeping the dog, warning that wolves may follow and attack the family’s livestock. In an effort to find Zochor after he has run away, Nansal becomes lost and takes refuge with an old woman who tells her the story of the Cave of the Yellow Dog.
Many elements of this film on the edge of documentary work together to make it special. There is the realistic representation of kids being kids. Real life siblings Nansal, Nansalmaa, and Babbayar Batchuluun and their parents are shown, well, being a normal family. Then there's the sheer pluck of Nansal who, accompanied only by her dog Zochor, heads off on horseback to graze the sheep. Yet when Zochor runs off and Nansal herself becomes lost trying to find the dog, the movie never loses its calm feel. Finally, a subtle yet important theme of the film is contemporary Mongolia's creep towards consumer culture. Davaa explores this theme more overtly in The Story of the Weeping Camel.
Set under blue skies with a backdrop of mountains and windblown steppes, The Cave of the Yellow Dog is captivating for adults and children. The dialogue is Mongolian with a variety of languages available as subtitles if you and your kids don’t understand Mongolian. The great thing about foreign language films with subtitles is that they allow you - force you, really - to read the movie aloud to your pre-reading children when you choose to watch with them. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids under two years old not watch any TV and that those older than two watch no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming. This programming would be a great choice. I think reading the film aloud to my own pre-reading daughter may be what opened the movie up for make-believe games long after viewing.
Movie
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
UMVTV2029D
The documentary film Bergman Island is an intimate portrait of one of the most influential, post-war film directors. Swedish auteur, Ingmar Bergman, known for his revolutionary work in cinema, television and theater created some of cinema’s most recognizable and enduring images over a long career, ending with his death in 2007. Known as a reclusive, solitary figure (he lived alone on an island off the coast of Sweden for many years) who rarely spoke about his life or the details of his creative achievements, Bergman Island explores the enigmatic director’s relationship with his parents and those he collaborated with on films, raises questions about his turbulent personal life and bares new insights about the muses, themes and inspirations behind his work. Bergman is best known for his films and television programs, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly, Persona, Fanny and Alexander, and Saraband.
Movie
Bergman Island
ICRCC1817D
Ingmar Bergman’s classic Wild Strawberries is an affectionately drawn portrait of nostalgic pining as the regrets of an aged doctor are exorcised through stark flashbacks and ominous dreams that force the film’s protagonist to rethink his life. Dr. Isak Borg sets out to trek across pastoral Sweden for the city of Lund, where he is to accept an honorary degree for his longtime commitment to medicine. Along the way, the doctor mines the psychic territory of his past by visiting seminal scenes of his life, many of which are painful recollections of regret and missed opportunity. By the end of the trip, Dr. Borg rediscovers a more meaningful sense of who he is as his inevitable death approaches. He will learn that the complicated paths of life are wrought with both beauty and disappointment. The final scene is art house cinema at its finest. Bergman’s other notable films are The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander, and one of his most enigmatic films, Persona.
Movie
Essential art house. Wild strawberries [videorecording]
ICRWIL160D
Over the weekend I watched Slumdog Millionaire, English director Danny Boyle’s movie about a poor boy in Mumbai who wins millions on a game show but who is accused of cheating. The movie was the darling of 2009, garnering a boatload of awards, including nine Oscars, five Critics’ Choice, four Golden Globes and seven awards from the British Academy Film Awards. I liked Slumdog Millionaire. It isn’t Danny Boyle’s best work, but it may be his most ambitious. Nor is it the best movie for demonstrating child poverty in Mumbai. A better one is the heart-rending work from 1988 Salaam Bombay.
Danny Boyle creates atmosphere well. Slumdog’s gritty scenes of poverty and desperation reminded of his earlier and perhaps best film, Trainspotting, which follows the gritty, heroin-laced lives of five disaffected boys in Edinburgh.
I also couldn’t help but be reminded of Charles Dickens. I’ve been enjoying Masterpiece Theatre presentations of Dickens’ works over these last few months — David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, and The Old Curiosity Shop. Slumdog Millionaire is a story that Dickens could have written. The brother Salim in Slumdog Millionaire is a chip off the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist. Both lead gangs of child criminals, both answer to dangerous men who manipulate and motivate the boys through their desire for material possessions.
Charles Dickens’ books offered strong commentary on social class and cast light on the awful state of child poverty. His books ultimately caused the enactment of child labor laws. While Slumdog Millionaire is a story that Dickens might have enjoyed, I also think it is one that would have made him sad and frustrated to see the plight of children in today’s world.
Movie
Slumdog Millionaire
TWT2257441D
If you have yet to discover our collection of movies that have been shown by the Kalamazoo Film Society you should go and check out the list. Recently I watched The Band's Visit, a short film about an Egyptian Police Band who travels to Israel to play at an Arab Cultural Center opening. The language barrier results in the band taking the wrong bus and they end up in a remote Israeli village with no hotel and no hope of a return bus ride until the next day. What results is an interesting and hilarious night when the tensions between Egyptian and Israeli slip away in favor of semi-romantic dates, roller skating and birthday parties. Both parties not only learn something about the other's country, but also themselves. It was not hard to believe that this film has won over 35 international film awards because it is a lesson in cross-cultural differences.
Movie
The Band's Visit
COL23873D
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the French memoir Scaphandre et le papillon, is a poetically filmed story that forces the audience to see life through the one-eyed lens of its protagonist, a fashion magazine editor who has been paralyzed by a stroke and left with only the use of one eye and without the ability to speak. For example, early in the film, the cinematographer situates the viewer behind the main character’s eye as a doctor sews the eye shut so that infection does not set in. One sees the actual stitching as it is woven through the flesh around the eyelid. Friends and family speak into the camera as though they are bending down to converse with the main character as he sits in his wheelchair, evoking a feeling within the viewer that his physical limitations are their own. The viewer begins to quickly sympathize with his constrained life as he battles to remain positive and live life under these new conditions. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a lush work of lyric beauty that touchingly grapples with the torturous predicament of a man “locked in” by his injuries. The painter Julian Schnabel directed the film, adding to his already strong body of work that includes Before Night Falls and Basquiat.
Book
The diving bell and the butterfly
0375401156
Kolya is an affecting, feel-good drama set in pre-Velvet Revolution Prague. The winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1996, this Czech film introduces us to a talented but emotionally disconnected musician who has no interest in monogamy or family, whose primary vehicle for employment is playing dirges at funerals, and who has a scam-artist friend that suggests that he marry a Soviet woman for money. What our protagonist doesn’t know is that after he becomes involved in the fake marriage scheme is that he will be saddled with the responsibility of raising his Russian wife’s child without her. From committed bachelor to doting “dad”, Kolya is the kind of film that tugs at the heart strings but never crosses over into shameless Hollywood sentimentality.
Movie
Kolya
THV27129D
Persepolis is a beautifully crafted black and white film about the coming of age story of an Iranian girl named Marji. Marji's life is stock full of conflict, both as a young woman growing up within an Iranian society that she finds to be overwhelmingly oppressive and as a cultural outsider navigating the complexities of cultural identification while living in Europe. This is a stunning film from a visual standpoint, a pithy yet telling history of Iranian society and a tenderly wrought memoir adapted from the original graphic novel. The dialogue is in French. Highly recommended.
Movie
Persepolis
COL25612B