Film

Waking Life (2001)

I watched this again recently, and the more I see it, the more I see in it. Though having said that, while the film continues to hold together better and better on repeated viewings, there is still something dreamlike and fuzzy about my thoughts on it. In an effort to articulate a couple of those thoughts, I thought I’d write a bit. Of course, this will be grossly simplified, but hopefully can be the beginning of me sketching out some concrete things about this movie I have enjoyed and been puzzled by every time I’ve seen it.It seems that Linklater is, at least in part, using the dream imagery in contrast to reality to bring out a couple of points. First, we should not be sleepwalking, or dreaming, through life. The idea here is that too many people just sort of stumble through their existence, without giving it much reflection or thought. One good example here is near the end of the film, when Wiley runs into the girl in the stairwell, and she then starts up a conversation between them. One of the first things she tells him is that she doesn’t want to be an ant. She doesn’t want to just go through life doing her job and going from here to there. She expresses the need for connection, for something real and vibrant. Also on this point I think about the scene in the middle of the film, in the room with three men. The third man Wiley talks to (also the first time Wiley talks to anyone outside of the phone) says this: “It seems everyone’s either sleepwalking through their waking state or wake-walking through their dreams.” He says this as a caution to Wiley, essentially saying that he needs to learn to control his dreams.

The second point in this “dreams versus reality” contrast can also be connected to Wiley’s time in that room. In his conversation with the Uke player, Wiley receives some important advice. He needs to combine his waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of his dreams. This is built off of the previous point, and is sort of the “how-to” of the film. Part of what the film is doing, is to show us the odd connections and one might even say randomness of the dream world – to show us these infinite possibilities. This is really the essence of a waking life. However, the genius of the film is that the more you watch it, the more the paradox between this randomness with the growing sense that this is all connected somehow. And what I love is that this connection is not drawn out for us in some all-explaining closing scene. The sense of connectedness is there, but the mystery of how it actually connects remains.

One final point: the final scene of dialogue, which is given by Linklater himself, is a striking way to close the film. The necessity that is borne out of that scene, and its connection to God’s imminence is quite effective. And Linklater’s use of the Bible reminds us of all the places within its pages that speak of the end being near – not in any kind of predictive sense, but as a way to encourage people to live and believe well. We have less time than we think. Thus, as Linklater says in that scene, God is making an offer, an offer that we come to accept through life. If only we will just wake up.

A Man Escaped (1956)

Robert Bresson’s minimalist style is in full force for A Man Escaped. However, even as I throw that term “minimalist” around, I wonder if it isn’t somewhat misleading. Without a doubt, A Man Escaped is one of the more exciting and arresting films out there. What Bresson is doing though is clear: by keeping the action confined to the perspective of the prisoner Fontaine, he in many ways shuts out the world beyond. It is through the absence of any knowledge of the outside world, the absence of any kind of context, the absence even of the faces of most of the German officers, that the confinement of Fontaine encroaches upon us as viewers.Yet the tension slowly builds. Bresson uses the sound and music to his advantage here. We get the soft sounds of the passing trolley train. We get the loud scraping as he jostles his door. We get the crunching of glass, the scraping of iron, and the tapping of neighbors, all of which serve to break the deafening silence. However, this becomes most apparent just as the escape begins. Fontaine and Jost have just ascended to the roof, and the use of the whistle and the moving train in this sequence make the tension nearly unbearable.

Bresson’s most ingenious move may be with his use of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor. The music seems to always break in either during or right around periods of movement for Fontaine – going to and from his cell, in the courtyard, etc. There is a freedom associated with music, something about it that is untamed, that cannot be contained. It works well when it shows up.

There are also a number of theological ideas running through the film, though on this viewing I was less attuned to those bits of dialogue and was rather focused on the rhythms of the film, the music, and the sound. This being my second viewing, I was definitely more emotionally engaged than before, when I admired but did not feel strongly about the film. The second viewing was a great improvement, as I expected it would be. No doubt a third will continue that trend.

The Mirror (1975)

It’s difficult to know where to start with this film. It contains only the loosest of narrative frameworks, and it seems as if the narrative is not the point. Instead what we are presented with is a series of loosely connected images, with faces that become familiar as the film goes along, but we are often uncertain both of the relationships between characters within scenes and of the scenes to each other. In this way, the film then strikes me more as a poem, with tons of loosely connected images that together form something unique, puzzling, and beautiful.The thing I was struck by most strongly initially was the fluidity and assurance of Tarkovsky’s camera. There was a very safe kind of feeling in this, because I instinctively knew that I was in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing, the kind of confidence one gives to their doctor or dentist. The shots themselves are often complicated, with movement up and down, left and right, forward and backward, zooming in or zooming out. I think here of the final shot, which stays with the mother and boys across the field, onto the road, and as they walk, the camera retreats back through the trees as they fade from our vision. It was as if we had joined them on their journey for a time. We are with them, and then we are not.

Time seems significant in the film as it darts back and forth, from the past to the present and vice versa. Memories become jumbled up. Certain images from the present meld themselves back into the memory of the past. I think here of the off camera speaker who tells his (ex?) wife that he pictures her as his mother whenever he thinks of the past. I wonder also if other characters experience this same transformation, though not explicitly stated. But this darting back and forth, this melding of past and present seems to indicate something about the nature of our lives in this world. It seems that wherever we are and whatever we find ourselves doing, the past is always with us. The past is always informing who we are. Or maybe I should say our memory of the past is doing the informing. Of course, all this talk about the past has me thinking of that line from Magnolia, “We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”

I am also reminded of what struck me as one of the stranger scenes in the film…the first scene of the television program. No doubt this has significance in the film, but it is more disconnected with the events and characters of the film than pretty much anything else (even if this is a program Ignat is watching). Basically, it involves a young man who has a stuttering problem, and the healing he receives from a doctor or nurse of some sort. As I think about it now, the healing was strangely reminiscent of some of the odd things Jesus does when he heals people, such as covering the eyes of the blind man with mud. She touches his head, makes him lose his balance a couple of times, and makes him hold his hands steady. And then, somehow, he is healed of his problem.

Two things seem important about this scene: First, it is unexplainable. There doesn’t appear to be any kind of scientific method she uses. It is coming through some sort of hypnosis or other tradition used to cure such ills. Or maybe something supernatural is going on. Whatever the case, it isn’t him taking some pills or going through some kind of speech therapy. And this seems to parallel a bit the situation near the end of the film when the man is in the hospital, and there isn’t certainty about what is wrong with him. Second, the emphasis at the end of the scene is definitely on speech, on being able to speak clearly and strongly. I was struck by it, but am not sure how it might inform other elements of the film.

In the end, the image of a mirror is at least in part a means for us humans to look at ourselves, both in a personal and a collective sense. Each of us viewing the film see ourselves in mirrors everyday, but are we really looking? But we also, through the film, have the opportunity to see others, as the camera dwells on many mirrors throughout. Sometimes those mirrors contain people or objects, sometimes not. Part of what it seems Tarkovsky is doing here is offering an opportunity to look at humanity in general, and ourselves more specifically. So as I leave this film, I am left with questions, and not many answers, on these issues. Who am I? Who was I? Who are we collectively? How do those things that have touched us, taught us, and scarred us, make us who we are today?

Grand Illusion (1937)

Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir’s 1937 pre-war classic, has certain thematic, though not narrative similarities with his later The Rules of the Game. In both films, the dividing lines between people and groups, between class and race, serve as the backdrop for substantial portions of the story. In Grand Illusion, Lt. Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) are shot down in German territory by a German officer, Capt. von Rauffenstein (Eric von Stroheim). After a brief meeting and lunch with von Rauffenstein, the prisoners are carted off to a prison camp for officers. There they narrowly miss out on an escape attempt before being moved, and through the use of montage and some well-placed dialogue, we learn they made other unsuccessful attempts at escape. That takes them to a special camp for those officers with a history of escape attempts, where they again meet up with von Rauffenstein, who now is in charge of this camp.

One could read that description and begin to think this a run of the mill prison escape film. It is nothing of the sort. As noted above, it is interested in things that divide people. It is interested in class, racial, linguistic, and national distinctions. The somewhat comic aspect of it all is that one wonders one good such distinctions are in prison. In these prison scenes, I was reminded of The Bridge on the River Kwai, where such distinctions are of immense importance to the British. The same is true here as well, though we are only shown the officer side of things here. Note that none of the characters has a first name, but they are all known by their formal title, like Lt. Maréchal, Capt. de Boeldieu, Lt. Rosenthal, and even the German guard, Lt. Arthur. There is a sort of officer’s code that stretches across lines of nationality, even as two nations war against the other. This is set up almost immediately, as the first scene in France takes place in a bar that has music playing. This is where Maréchal and de Boeldieu meet up before their ill-fated journey to Germany. The film then cuts immediately to Germany, after the plane crash, and Capt. von Rauffenstein entering a bar and ordering very similar music to be played. The men are on opposite sides of the battle, but they have something in common that transcends the ongoing war.

Racial distinctions are similarly noted. While the prison camp contains officers, and there is much respect between them all, they still divide themselves according to race, with a separate barracks for distinct nationalities such as Russian and French. And yet even within the French quarters, we learn that one of the men is Jewish, and there is a sense in which he is both above and below the other officers in his room. His supplying them with good food definitely endears him to the group, but there seems to be an underlying tension that comes out of long-standing prejudice against Jews in general.

That the class and race distinctions are placed next to one another make this film quite an interesting piece. Where there is commonality because of class, there is distinction because of race or nationality. However, lest we think that if class and race are the same it provides two people with an immediate camaraderie, we have the example of our main characters, Maréchal and de Boeldieu, neither of whom ever seems to really enjoy the other’s company. Because even though both are officers, de Boldieu is of higher rank, and so it is almost as if he must lower himself to be in the presence of Maréchal. There is always a sense that de Boeldieu is uncomfortable with the rest of the Frenchmen, though extremely comfortable with von Rauffenstein.

Thus, the film does not simply moralize and suggest that if one finds someone of their own class and race, they will find camaraderie. In fact, just the opposite. When the film is set in the prison, camaraderie and friendship seem impossible because of the constant attention to distinctions and differences. However, the film’s final 30 minutes provide hope that such distinctions as race, language, and class can be overcome. One can, in fact, find companionship with someone outside of the limited boundaries with which he is presented by society. One need not be controlled by such things. And as the two men struggle up a snowy hill in the final shot, it becomes clear what a difficult and arduous journey it is out of such a society. What a challenging and fascinating film! I expect it that I have only but scratched the surface here, and that it will yield even greater truths upon repeated viewings.

At Five in the Afternoon (2003)

In life, there are some people one just clicks with. The chemistry is palpable from the get go, and it begins a friendship that lasts a lifetime. With others, it takes longer to develop the relationship. And still others, things start well but burn out quickly. The same, it seems, is true of filmmakers, and I am not sure whether the director of At Five in the Afternoon, then 23-year old Samira Makhmalbaf will fall into the first category or the last. My hope is of course, the first, and I’ll assume that until I know differently.

The film roped me in almost immediately, and it was during a particular scene in the first 10 minutes of the film. Young Nogreh (Agheleh Rezaie) is on her way to town, riding on the back of her father’s cart. We see her open a large book, no doubt the Koran, and begin to sing from it. After a few bars, her voice is overtaken by a man’s that is seemingly part of the soundtrack, as opposed to being someone there on the street. Therefore, the voice hovers above, dominating the shot and everything in it. As this transition takes place, the camera pans up from our close shot on Nogreh to a wide shot of the street, with the many carts and people and shops all along it. After he sings a few bars, we then hear a group of children (and probably women) singing, overtaking the man’s voice. The camera then focuses back in on the cart and Nogreh walking into a school of sorts, filled with women and girls in burkhas, all singing from the Koran. This sequence was seamless, giving us one of the main themes of the film – that Allah, the object of worship for all these people, is the same. They all lift their voices to him in the same way. They all read from the same book. There is an inherent commonality and equality in this sequence, so simple, yet where the form reaches out to the viewer and shows itself to be not just random images and sounds, but actually content.

The film centers its narrative on Nogreh, who we find out early on has aspirations to be the president of Afghanistan. She and other girls at her school have this dream, which they feel is justified in a country that has just been liberated from the Taliban. However, that liberation has not made everything rosy. She still has to sneak to school, behind her father’s back. If he knew, he would no doubt punish her. She is still forced to wear a burkha, again by her father. Nogreh’s life is so restrictive, that changing her shoes becomes a significant political statement.

Makhmalbaf’s success in this film (already her third at such a young age!) is in bringing us into Nogreh’s world so completely that we find ourselves surprised when she begins to experience resistance to her dreams. And the slow, creeping way in which her dreams are challenged certainly adds to this surprise. It seems that all of a sudden, the challenges come. Yet if we are honest, we can look back and see those elements there all along. We, like Nogreh, convince ourselves that her rise to the presidency is not only possible, but also probable!

One final note on Makhmalbaf’s portrayal of the West: The beautiful scene with the Frenchman is nicely handled, and the soldier is shown to be a kind man who is genuinely interested in serving the Afghan people. What ultimately we see though coming out of that interaction, along with a couple of nicely placed flyovers by planes and helicopters, is that while the country has been “liberated”, much more needs to happen before real change occurs. For all its good intentions, the West has very little say in changing the minds of people. The Taliban may have been ousted from power, but the Taliban is still alive and well in the minds of many people. Samira Makhmalbaf has made a powerful, heartfelt film that gives a look not only into the contemporary scene in Afghanistan, but also into the human experience that we all face.

Pieces of April (2003)

Just a few words here about this recent and touching little film. Katie Holmes plays April, a young lady, out on her own, with a doting boyfriend, and apparently suffering from some pretty deep depression. It is Thanksgiving Day, and she has, for some reason she can’t seem to figure out now, offered to prepare the big meal for her family. April’s parents, Jim (Oliver Platt) and Joy (Patricia Clarkson), are traveling with their two other children and April’s grandmother into NYC for the meal, and it’s obvious that they are dreading the reunion. April has had a falling out with her family, and nerves abound as the prospect of seeing one another looms large.

The film covers the hours leading up to the meal, as April prepares it and her family makes the journey. The trepidation is palpable. Both sides are working to put their best foot forward, but as the time for reunion draws near, old wounds resurface. One begins to wonder if they ever actually are going to get together, and if they do, how it could be anything other than a disaster.

The camera draws us into these people’s worlds immediately. Most everything is shot in close-up, often with a handheld camera. We cannot escape these moments of deep emotion, pain, and fear as this family journeys to reunite with their daughter. Lest we are tempted to look away, to divert our attention to something more neutral, this stylistic choice by director Peter Hedges (writer of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?) prevents us from doing so. The editing is abrupt from April’s apartment to the family in the car and back to the apartment again. These people are closer to one another than they think, and that sharp knot in the stomach that’s clearly in all these characters solidifies that opinion.

The ending is sublime, beginning with the sound of a camera shutter against a black screen. Then, a series of photographs track across the screen, one at a time. One is reminded of our own memories, of times when family has been together, of times when pain has created distance, and of times when old wounds were healed. Pieces of April is a gentle and touching film full of grace, mercy, fear, and forgiveness.

High Noon (1952)

Westerns are a genre that I find it difficult to click with. I mean, as a genre, it has its patterns – heroic figure stands up in the face of overwhelming odds to defend himself or bring justice to those who can’t help themselves. After much hand wringing, wrangling, and a climactic chase on horseback or a gunfight on a deserted and dirty road, our great hero comes out on top, usually killing the bad guys. What bothers me though is not so much the constraints of the genre, but the simplicity of the conflict that’s often inherent to these films. Sometimes the simple conflict done well is something I’m looking for (think Alan Ladd as Shane).Which brings me to High Noon. The reason this film stands out for me from the rest in its genre is that it takes the basic form of the genre (the lone hero who sacrifices himself to save the day, a romantic connection, a menacing gang of evildoers, and a town in need of help fighting off the criminals) and it turns it on its head. This is a kind of subversive filmmaking. For while everything looks the part of the traditional Western, this is anything but.

Gary Cooper stars as Will Kane, the soon-to-be former Marshall of Hadleyville. In the film’s first few moments, the basic tension is set up: Kane is getting married to Amy Fowler (the luminous Grace Kelly), a pacifist. He plans to turn in his badge, and move to another city where he will set up a store. However, just as their wedding ceremony is concluding, Kane gets a message that a dangerous criminal he put away some five years before, Frank Miller, has been pardoned and all signs point to he and his friends heading for town on the noon train. This compels the now former Marshall to ignore his new wife’s protestations, retake his badge, and prepare to defend the town against these criminals.

Thus far, all the basic elements are there for the traditional Western picture. However, even at this early stage, there have already been things to give us pause, to make us think this film might be doing something differently. For instance, at Kane’s wedding, he is clearly a reserved man, not wanting to kiss his new bride in front of everyone. This doesn’t fit the pattern of the big and brash hero that’s coming to save the day. Also, he seems to have a pained look on his face, even in these early scenes. That look only continues to get more grim and pained throughout. This conflicted hero has a wife who strongly tells warns him against such action, even to the point of preparing to leave him if he goes through with it. No one in the town comes to his aid in fighting these men. Kane admits that he is afraid, and we see him agonize over the impending gunfight that is quickly approaching.

And what of that gunfight? After all the buildup, it plays out pretty quickly. However, Kane ends up not doing it all himself – a woman (Amy) comes to his aid. And on top of that, not only does she kill a man, but we see her terribly pained reaction to this. She is frozen after the act, so much so that she allows herself to be taken easily by the remaining criminal. When Kane finally does away with Miller, this finale is palpably subdued. There is no celebration. The townsfolk, who had been standing by and watching, quickly come out and circle the body. Kane and his wife get on their rig and head out, not to cheers, but to silence in the streets. This is no celebration because there is nothing to celebrate. What should we celebrate that Kane went against his promise to his new wife, and involved himself in a gunfight? Or maybe we should celebrate the townspeople, none of whom saw fit to help Kane in his greatest hour of need?

Kane was a man who wanted, in a very real sense, to do things differently. He wasn’t interested in being the lone hero that stands up to the oncoming gang and take them out alone. No, he wanted to enlist his community to come to his aid, and he failed. Or maybe they failed him. Either way, while Miller is dead at the film’s conclusion, the end is something of a tragedy. It is the failure of a community to be communal. It is the sad portrayal of a man who is forced to stand up alone in the face of evil. The working men of the town weren’t of help to him. His friends weren’t of help to him. And maybe most damning of all, the church was of no help to him. Oh, they all had great reasons, or so they say. The question we are left to ponder in the subdued moments of the film’s conclusion is a version of what poor old Herb (the only man willing enough to come to the Marshall’s office) says to Kane just before the gunfight: Is it too much to ask a person to give their life in defense of others, even in the face of overwhelming odds? Or maybe to ask it in another way: Is it too much to ask to be completely devoted to one’s community, throwing all of one’s energies and efforts behind it in an effort to help it to be a successful and thriving place?

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Director Ingmar Bergman makes quite a splash with his self-proclaimed final theatrical film in Fanny and Alexander. Of course, having said that, I saw the longer, 5-hour version, and not the theatrical film that won four Oscars, including Best Foreign Film. I cannot for the life of me figure out what could have been cut from this fascinating and sprawling production.

The story centers around the Ekdahl family, overseen by grandmother Helena Ekdahl (Gunn Wållgren). She looks on knowingly, and at times helplessly, as her three sons and their respective wives and children go through the ebb and flow of life. She is the picture of the devoted mother and grandmother. Her mind regularly turns to her family, even, and maybe especially in her quiet moments.

However, much of the story is seen through the eyes of two of her grandchildren, Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) and Alexander (Bertil Guve), especially the latter. Alexander has a vivid imagination, but he is also fraught by fear. He is afraid of that which is unseen, those things he senses but is never sure are there. These qualities are revealed in the opening scene of the film, as he hides under a table in broad daylight staring in fear and wonder at a statue moving in the corner. Alexander is in a sense rescued in this moment by his grandmother, who sees him and offers him a game of cards. There is a remarkable similarity with this scene at the opening of the film and one of the final scenes, as Alexander is again gripped by fear – this time of the ghost of his dead stepfather. Having been knocked to the ground by this apparition, Alexander eventually finds the courage to leave his place and seek out the comforting embrace of his grandmother. Alexander finds solace with this woman, solace from the fear that continues to plague him beyond the scope of the film.

In between these two opening scenes is a film that moves into and out of a number of relationships and emotions. With Alexander as a central character to all of this, he becomes in many ways, the most sympathetic character for us. As he makes the move from the home of his childhood to the home of his new stepfather, we ache with him at the stark difference between that old world and the coming new one. There is something terrifying and foreboding about this move that is communicated so well through the use of color alone – lush and vibrant colors in the Ekdahl home, with dull grays and browns in the new residence. The look of that home is eerily similar to the inside of the church in Winter Light, a place where Pastor Tomas is finding it difficult to find or hear from God. In the same way, we feel that too, as does Alexander, who begins to talk more about his views on God during and after his time in this home. This, of course, while in the home of a pastor, which should conceivably be the foremost place one would go and see God at work there.

All the while, Alexander never loses his love of theater, as evidenced by the stories he makes up, and for which he is often punished. His stepfather never sees this as an active imagination or as a way to see into the mind of Alexander, but only as a threat to his own reputation. And as Alexander never loses this love of theater, neither does he lose the terrible fear that grips him. That vivid imagination of his kicks into high gear at the worst of times, it seems. Thus it seems Bergman is telling us something about the imaginative mind, something quite important. The imagination can be is both a beautiful and a terrible creation. It carries with it some baggage, namely that one is keenly aware of things going on that may be unseen to others. Alexander is attuned to this world of the unseen through his imagination. This causes him obvious bouts of fear at several points, but it also provides him insight – insight into who people are and what is driving them. Alexander’s stories, while often untrue, serve the purpose of communicating those hidden feelings and drives that exist in the people around him. In telling the lie about his mother selling him to the circus, we see in Alexander both a desire to be a performer, but also the perception that his mother is abandoning him for someone else. His story, in that sense, is true. So the imagination is a double-edged sword, as we see with Alexander. At times it brings terrible fear, at times it brings profound insight. And that thought seems to me an appropriate way to talk about the films of Bergman – walking this fine line between profound fear of the unknown and great insight into things unseen with human eyes.

All or Nothing (2002)

Suffering comes to us all. For some it seems to be greater than others. This is especially true, it seems, when speaking about the poor, who have less means to bathe themselves in comfort and hide from the harsh realities of life. Mike Leigh’s All or Nothing is populated entirely with poor and suffering people. Three families in an apartment complex are at the center of the story. Everyone in them is struggling to get by, and each has their own sets of problems. There is a harshness to their realities that is palpable, both in dialogue and setting. Words are not minced with these people. They tear each other down with just about everything that comes out of their mouths. Yet none of them seems to have any idea of the effects they might be having on others.In this oppressive climate are the three families: Maureen and her daughter Donna; Ron, Carol, and their daughter Samantha; and Phil, Penny, and their two kids Rachel and Rory. Many shots throughout most of the film isolate the characters from one another – tons of close-ups with very few two-shots. Even at times when there are two-shots, such as in Phil’s cab, they are non-traditional, with characters that aren’t even looking at one another. The people in this film are isolated from any real human relations, even from those with whom they should be most at ease.

The three families end up providing us with different responses to those periods of suffering we find ourselves in at times. Once Donna turns up pregnant, the already shaky relationship with her mother could go either way. In large part, it depends on her mom’s response to the situation. Will it be delicate or harsh or somewhere in between? In the home of Ron and Carol, their daughter Samantha is screaming for attention, going anywhere for it – whether it is to the oddball Jason or the abusive Craig. Whenever she approaches her parents though, they seem to be caught up in their own world of drinking and self-absorption. However, the film finally settles in on Phil and Penny, and as they go through tragedy, we see old wounds raised to the surface. The emotions are raw, the hurt is strong, and the tears flow.

Each of these situations presents in its own way, a response to the unideal situations in our lives. In some ways, they are cautionary tales, helping us to see so easily the kinds of things these people do to hurt each other, often unintentionally. Ultimately the film honors selflessness and humility, as characters are humbled before one another in light of changed circumstances and new information. Phil’s comments near the film’s conclusion illustrate this beautifully. He could easily take a hard line after all the hurt and sort of make this a farewell to his old life. In the same way, Penny could be so overwhelmed with hurt by his words that she not hear where he’s really come from and throw him out. However, both of these characters humble themselves before one another.

And on that final sequence of scenes: The scene immediately preceding the big blow-up was so heart wrenching, as Phil reaches to put his arm around Penny and she pushes him away. And that scene is filmed so perfectly, because he’s allowed to hold it there for a moment, making the viewer hope beyond hope that resolution will come. And just as that thought really begins to take hold, wham, it’s cut off. But that leads to a conversation that is so rich, so real, and such a great payoff after the harsh and largely ambiguous presentation up to that point. I found myself yearning for these two to connect with each other, and in contrast to the many isolated close-ups throughout the film, this scene culminates in two people as close as possible to one another, face to face, heads touching, looking into each other’s eyes. There is real connection there.

It’s a beautifully acted, beautifully executed film that deserves attention and reflection. The dialogue is just right. The characters are real, flesh and blood, human beings. I have had arguments like some of these, not with the words or the topics necessarily, but with the rhythms of language and emotion. This being my third Mike Leigh film (Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy), I guess its time I give him a bit more attention than I have to this point.

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

In Crimes and Misdemeanors, we have a story about morality, guilt, and the human condition. It tells the story of Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), an accomplished ophthalmologist and community leader. He runs in the same circles with the rich, and sometimes even the famous. He is widely respected, adored by his wife and children, having seemingly anything a man could want. This is, of course, the perfect set-up for his downfall. For, in fact, everything is not well. He has been unfaithful for going on two years now. And having just ended the relationship, his old flame Dolores (Anjelica Huston) now wants to get even. She wants to tell his wife. She wants to blackmail him to leave his wife for her. She is quite emotional, and takes to disrupting his “regular” life more and more often. To what lengths will he go to keep her quiet? What will a man do to protect his reputation and the comfortable life he has been living? If he goes too far, does that old life even exist for him any longer?These are the questions that plague Judah’s experience throughout the film. As the film moves along, and things progress, that final question grows in importance. Finally, when he has Dolores killed, we see the significant consequences this has on his life, his conscience, and what it will have on his family. Surely, now, he will confess. But he doesn’t, and time passes, and feelings dull, and we see the rationalization take place that we all know too well. We know it because we do it. Maybe it’s not for a murder, but it takes place in our lives every day in the smallest of ways. This film is pinpoint accurate in its depiction of the human condition. If left to our impulses, we will make every effort to save ourselves regardless of the claims of justice on our lives. How do we live with ourselves? We forget.

Writer/director Woody Allen is focused in this effort. He does not allow his character (Cliff) to dominate the proceedings with his self-absorbed, self-loathing introspection. But he does this great thing with his character of Cliff at the end of the film. As he sits there, contradicting Judah’s story and arguing for the happy ending that leads to justice, writer and director Allen is telling us just the opposite – that no, injustice takes place all the time. Rationalization takes place all the time. We humans just can’t see straight. Even those of us with the power to help people see clearly can’t see clearly ourselves. It’s significant that the touchstone in this film is the blind rabbi. He does not rely on his earthly sight to get through life. He has something deeper, more significant, and more reliable than that. He has faith – which is just the thing that Judah lacks.

This is such a well-written, well-acted piece that is filled with truth. Go see it now.