2007 – Michael Clayton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Clayton – 2007

This was a good movie, but it wasn’t as good as it thinks it was.  What I mean by that is that it was a suspense thriller that tried to portray itself as a deep and hard-hitting drama.  But really, it was just an average suspense thriller.  It was alright, but I didn’t see what put it above any other movie of its genre.  What was it about Michael Clayton that got it nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards when other films like 1993’s The Firm or The Pelican Brief, also from 1993, were not?  In my mind there was nothing about this film that warranted the nomination.

But that’s not to say it was a bad movie.  It was just an average example of a corporate drama.  There was no real suspense, no daring plot twists, no dangerous action, and no bold emotional content.  The acting was competent, but the story just wasn’t very deep or intense.

George Clooney played the title character of Michael Clayton.  He is a corporate janitor, a man who does what he has to in order to keep the clients of a prestigious law firm happy and out of trouble.  When an idiot client jeopardizes a case by breaking the law or hitting someone with his car, Michael swoops in and uses his extensive knowledge of how the criminal justice system works to keep the client out of jail.  Right near the beginning of the film, we see him counseling such a client.  As he leaves, he is visibly upset.  Then, he stops the car and gets out to look at some grazing horses.  As he is looking at the animals, his car blows up.

Cut to four months earlier.  Clayton is called for a case.  Apparently, one of his co-workers went off the deep end.  Arthur Edens, played by Tom Wilkinson, lost his marbles during a deposition with U-North, an agricultural products conglomerate.  For some reason, Arthur stripped naked during the deposition and ran through the streets.  Michael bails him out of jail and does his best to find out what is going on.

You see, Arthur knows that U-North makes a product that is extremely toxic, causing major, and sometimes lethal health problems in customers.  Arthur has been giving legal aid to U-North for six years, and has proof of the product’s poisonous nature.  Arthur begins to make plans to go public with what he knows.  But the U-North General Council, Karen Crowder, played by Tilda Swinton, is an evil woman.  To protect U-North, she hires hitmen to murder Arthur, and eventually Michael Clayton as he begins to learn why Arthur had his episode.

Add to that the fact that the character of Michael Clayton is established as having a history of gambling addiction, and is currently in debt to a loan-shark for eighty thousand dollars.  However, the debt is not because of gambling, but because of a legitimate business deal turned bad because of his brother’s drug problem.

And that’s it.  As usual, Wilkinson did a good job.  I also liked Swinton in her role as the bad guy.  Clooney was also competent.  The whole cast did just fine, but something was lacking.  I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly what is was, but for me, there just wasn’t enough intensity.  Maybe it was the script, the dialogue, or the directing.  I’m not exactly sure.

And the ending felt a little unbelievable.  So Clayton, having survived the hit, surprises Karen Crowder as she is about to agreeably settle the class action law suit that the murdered Arthur was attempting to derail.  He has the incriminating report that says that she and U-North knew all about the lethally toxic nature of their product.  He confronts Crowder outside the meeting room and threatens to expose her, also letting her know that he is aware of the part she played in Arthur’s death and the attempt on his own life.  He badgers her into offering him $10 million for his silence.  But he turns the tables on her and pulls a live cell phone out of his coat pocket.  Police suddenly arrive to arrest her.

Maybe I don’t know much about how the criminal justice system works, but unless the conversation was recorded through the cell phone, couldn’t the conversation be denied?  And even if it was recorded, is that the kind of evidence that would hold up in a court of law?  And is the fact that Crowder allowed herself to be pressured into paying the $10 million as good as an admission of her guilt?  Maybe it was all realistic, but it didn’t feel like it.  I just don’t know.

Now, all that being said, I liked that even though the first half of the film was a little confusing, by the end, all the pieces seemed to fit into place.  There was an intelligence about the drama that was also appealing.  All in all, Michael Clayton was a good enough movie.  I just don’t understand why everyone seems to think it was better than I do.

2007 – Juno

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juno – 2007

This was a strange little movie.  It was an independent movie, having no backing or support from any major film studio, and it felt like it.  It was a film that had honesty without pretension, heart without melodrama, and brains without smugness.  The casting was good, the pacing was engaging, and the music was interesting.  The characters were real and likeable.

In fact, I think that was one of the things I liked about the movie.  There were no really unlikeable characters.  There were no bad guys, no villains.  Theey were just simple, real, and understandable.  The movie is about Juno, played by Ellen Page, a sixteen year-old girl who makes a conscious decision to have sex with her friend Paulie, played by Michael Cera.

Juno gets pregnant, but takes full responsibility for her situation.  She doesn’t blame Paulie.  She doesn’t get mad at the world in a fit of teenage angst.  She makes the decision to have the baby and give it up for adoption, fully realizing that she isn’t ready to keep and care for a child.  She bravely holds her head up to face the stigma, and of course the stares, of being pregnant in high school.  And best of all, she doesn’t change her mind and want to keep the baby when it is born.

And the character of Paulie is interesting as well.  He is a likeable little nerd who loves Juno, even though it is clear that she only thinks of him as a friend.  When she tells him of her pregnancy, he doesn’t get defensive and he doesn’t run away.  He is fully willing to accept responsibility for his part in the situation.  Juno first tells him that she wants an abortion, and he supports her.  Then she changes her mind and decides on adoption, and Paulie continues to support her.

Juno’s father, Mac, played by J. K. Simmons, and her step-mother, Bren, played by Allison Janney, while not happy about the situation, don’t blow up at her, they don’t yell at her, and they don’t disown her.  They don’t even shame her.  Instead, they recognize that she is doing her best to take responsibility for the unplanned pregnancy, and do what they can to help her through it.

Now, all that being said, if the movie had any flaw, I would call it a minor one.  Everything seemed too easy.  It almost made unplanned teen pregnancy seem like something that was safe and even fun.  I get the feeling it downplayed the seriousness of reality.  They don’t show her going through morning sickness.  They don’t show her being ostracized by her friends.  And they don’t show her as receiving anything but loving and caring support from her family.  Nice to watch, but maybe a little unrealistic.

The final characters in the film are the prospective adoptive parents, Vanessa and Mark Loring, played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.  She is an anal retentive woman whose deepest desire is to become a mother, though she cannot have a child of her own.  Mark is a man who is unsure about his decision to adopt a baby and who feels smothered in his marriage.

Juno just wants to get through the pregnancy and give the child away so she can get back to her life.  But when Mark’s insecurities cause him to leave his wife, Juno’s simple plan begins to fall apart.  In the end, after shedding a few tears, she gives the child to Vanessa who becomes a single adoptive mother.  It was appropriate.  And while I’m on the subject, I liked how the movie didn’t turn the baby obsessed Vanessa into the bad guy.  Her desire to be a mother was genuine, and was greater than her need to stay married to Mark.  And Mark wasn’t portrayed as a bad guy either.  Just a nice guy who was in the wrong relationship.

As far as the cast went, Page was the clear stand-out, but I also liked Simmons.  He did a good job as the caring father.  And you can never go wrong with Allison Janney, who is always good.  Even Juno’s cheerleader friend, Leah, played by Olivia Thirby, was easy to watch.  Cera was almost adorable, playing the timid young man in love with Juno, and Bateman’s performance was easy and honest.

Like many movies do, Juno was addressing a social issue in an entertaining way.  Maybe it took the subject matter a little lightly, but what do you expect?  The movie was a romantic comedy.  Throughout the movie the idea that Juno is an unconventional girl is repeated several times.  And in the end, we see just how much.  Most people fall in love and have a baby.  But she did it backwards.  She had a baby, and in the process, learned that she actually loved Paulie in return.  See?  Everybody ends up happy.  No harm, no foul.  Right?  Except… I’m guessing reality is generally more complicated than that.

2007 – Atonement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atonement – 2007

This was a good movie.  It was a tragic romance, but you don’t know it until the last few minutes of the film.  I mean, it was a romance, but you don’t get the tragedy until the end.  It starred James McAvoy and Keira Knightly as the star-crossed lovers, Robbie Turner, and Cecilia Tallis.  She was a high-born girl in England in 1935.  He was the well-educated son of her family’s housekeeper.  But in reality neither of them is the film’s main protagonist.

That role is filled by Cecilia’s 13 year-old sister, Briony, wonderfully played by Saoirse Ronan.  She is a precocious young girl with dreams of becoming a famous author.  She is secretly in love with Robbie.  But everything goes awry when Robbie writes Cecilia an erotic letter which Briony reads.  She also catches Robbie and Cecilia making love, and believes him to be a sex maniac.  The situation goes from bad to worse when Briony also catches a man raping her fifteen year-old cousin Lola, played by Juno Temple.  In an act of childish petulance, she tells the police that Robbie is the rapist, even though she knows it was a friend of the family, Paul Marshall, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The innocent Robbie is taken to jail where he is incarcerated for four years.  He is only released on the condition that he joins the army to fight in WWII.  Cecilia, having never believed in his guilt, is only able to see him for a few minutes before he must leave for France.  Before he goes, the two declare their love for each other and promise to marry after the war is over.  Robbie is physically and emotionally traumatized by the war.  But he survives and makes it to the beaches of Dunkirk where he waits to be evacuated.

Meanwhile, Briony, now 18 and played by Romola Garai, has been wracked with guilt over her lie which ruined not only Robbie’s life but her sister’s chance at love and happiness.  She becomes a nurse in London in an attempt to contribute to society in a positive way.  Her efforts to get in touch with Cecilia are all refused.  Eventually, she seeks out her sister and finds her in a tiny apartment where, to Briony’s surprise, she finds Robbie as well.  Robbie yells at her and makes her promise to tell both the Tallis family and the police the truth, and then leave him and Cecilia alone forever.  Briony tearfully agrees to do as he demands.

Then we cut to Briony as an old lady, played by Vanessa Redgrave.  She has achieved her goal of being a famous novelist and is giving an interview for her latest book which is called Atonement.  It is an autobiography which tells the story of her sister and her lover, and of her own involvement in their tragedy.  Tragedy?  Well, in the interview, Briony reveals that their happy ending was the books only falsehood.  In reality, Robbie died at Dunkirk of septicemia, and Cecilia was drowned in the Balham tube station bombing during The Blitz.  They were only ever reunited in the fictional ending to Briony’s novel.

The movie’s ending was so well crafted that I was completely taken in by the twist.  But it was easy to be fooled.  Throughout the entire narrative of the film, especially in the first half of the movie which took place when Briony was thirteen, events were shown out of sequence and from different perspectives.

The performances were all good, but I have to give special props to the three women who played Briony.  Ronan and Garai were both stand-outs, and you can rarely go wrong with Vanessa Redgrave.  The fictional scene in which she apologizes to the lovers was touching and Garai did a great job.  The three women all worked with the same vocal coach to be convincing as the same girl.

Now, I have to mention a specific sequence that was very impressive to watch.  It was Robbie’s arrival at Dunkirk.  It was a single shot that lasted over five minutes.  It was an incredibly emotional scene where Robbie and his two mates, Tommy and Frank, played by Daniel Mays and Nonso Anozie, wander around the beach in a surrealistic nightmare.  It seemed like there were hundreds of extras scattered over the beach, many with terrible wounds, many in stupors of shock and dismay.  This is where the beautiful score by Dario Marianelli was really given a chance to shine.

And speaking of the music, it is important to note that Marianelli took home the film’s only Oscar for his efforts.  Throughout the movie I was impressed with something he did that I have never seen done before.  He used sounds from the story and blended them into his score in an amazing way.  For example when Robbie was being taken away to jail, his mother began pounding on the hood of the police car.  The sound of that pounding was incorporated into the music.  Really, it was a stroke of genius and a wonderful little way to help tell the story.

2006 – The Queen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Queen – 2006

I liked this movie.  I’ve never been a huge follower of the British Royal Family, but I know who most of them are.  And I know that Helen Mirren’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II was sheer perfection.  She was perfectly cast and absolutely did the role justice.  I’m not in the least surprised that she took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.  She was just phenomenal.

The movie was not about the life of the Queen, but about how she and the Royal Family reacted to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, or to put it more accurately, the death of Diana Spencer.  You see, the film made a good point in that Diana and Prince Charles were divorced when she died.  She was no longer a member of the Royal Family.  According to people who know the Queen, the film was pretty accurate.  When Diana died, Queen Elizabeth did not think it was appropriate to give her a royal funeral.  And therein lay the drama of the film.

The problem was that the Queen was old fashioned in her way of thinking.  She thought she knew the hearts of the British people.  She thought that a private funeral handled by the Spencer family would be more appropriate than a public funeral.  But she grossly underestimated Diana’s popularity, not just with the British people, but with the world.  But in steps newly elected Prime Minister, Tony Blair, played by Michael Sheen.  He understands that the monarchy will be severely damaged if Queen Elizabeth refuses to acknowledge Diana as royalty.  Blair tries to to convince Elizabeth to address the people and give them the funeral they wanted.

And Elizabeth received no support from either her husband, Prince Philip, played by James Cromwell, or the Queen Mother, played by Sylvia Syms.  They continually advised her to ignore the grieving crowds, never understanding that even though the Royal Family didn’t particularly like Diana for all her wild behavior, the people loved her all the more for it.  The Queen’s personal secretary, Robin Janvrin, played by Roger Allam, did his best to remain a loyal servant of the Monarchy, but even he began to side with Blair.  And then there was Prince Charles, played by Alex Jennings.  He seemed to be portrayed as self-serving and slightly paranoid, making him an almost unlikeable character.

In all, the movie had some good, if slow, drama.  And it had a very satisfying ending.  Eventually, after seeing notes from her subjects that seemed to shame her for not publicly praising the brazen Diana, she began to understand that Blair was right when he called Diana a Princess of the People.  She began to see just how popular she had been and how much the British citizenry loved her.  And she gave in.  She did everything that Blair advised her to do.  It hurt her pride, but she did her duty.  In the end, she lets Blair know that bowing to his advice helped his popularity and damaged hers, but that it was the right thing to do.  She knows that the role of the British Monarchy is no longer what it used to be, and that she and her family needed to be able to change with the times.

I also have to give special notice to Michael Sheen as Tony Blair.  He seemed to have an eagerness about him that was infectious, an enthusiasm that made him very likeable.  He portrayed the youth and earnest nature of the politician perfectly. I liked him from the start, and when everyone around him, including his top aid, Alistair Campbell, played by Mark Bazeley, and his wife, Cherie Blair, played by Helen McCrory, had nothing be negative things to say about the Queen, I loved how he righteously defended her, her unpopular attitudes, and the Monarchy as a whole.

This movie was a bit of an education for me as well.  I was unaware of the controversy surrounding the Royal Family and Diana’s death.  And I was given a little bit of insight into the daily lives of the British Royal Family.  Because the Queen is, after all, just a woman.  She had duties and responsibilities, but she also has days where she is free from those demands.  She drives by herself, she watches television, she goes for walks, she argues with her husband, and she takes care of her family.  But she is also a very private woman who does, doing her best to remain out of the spotlight unless it is necessary.

And as a final thought, I have to mention the film’s innate emotional content.  Yes, the movie was about Queen Elizabeth II, but watching the scene which depicted Diana’s death tugged at my heart.  Many people who lived through 1963 can answer the question, where were you when you learned that JFK had been shot?  For my generation, I can answer the similar question, where were you when you learned that Diana had died? I was in shock.  It was almost surreal.  And now I wonder, how much more surreal must it all have been for the British people, the Royal Family, and the Queen?

2006 – Little Miss Sunshine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Miss Sunshine – 2006

This was a hilarious black comedy that was very well executed, well-acted, and marvelously scripted.  It was perfectly cast, and expertly directed.  But it had the feel of a small independent film.  There were no special effects, no A-list names, and a pretty small budget.  It tells the story of a dysfunctional family that is on the verge of imploding.  But the dream of the young daughter acts as a catalyst to bring them all together in a way that none of them expect.

Wikipedia sums up the main characters perfectly, saying, “Sheryl Hoover, played by Toni Collette, is an overworked mother of two living in Albuquerque.  Her brother, Frank, played by Steve Carell, who is gay and a scholar of Proust, is temporarily living at home with the family after having attempted suicide. Sheryl’s husband Richard, played by Greg Kinnear, is a Type-A personality striving to build a career as a motivational speaker and life-coach. Dwayne, played by Paul Dano, Sheryl’s son from a previous marriage, is a Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a test pilot.  Richard’s foulmouthed father, Edwin, played by Alan Arkin, recently evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin, lives with the family. Olive, played by Abigale Breslin, the daughter of Richard and Sheryl and the youngest of the Hoover family, is an aspiring beauty queen who is coached by Edwin.”

So there’s the set-up.  Each character was well-developed and real.  The main thrust of the plot begins when Olive learns that she has qualified for a child beauty pageant being held in Redondo Beach, California.  The family has two days in which to get her there.  Each character goes through major changes along the journey so that by the time they are ready to return to Albuquerque, nobody is quite the same as when they started.  In fact, Edwin dies and never actually goes back home.

Now, as a comedy, there were a number of laugh-out-loud moments in the film and a climax was a study in awkward hilarity.  Remember, Edwin, the dirty old man, was the one coaching Olive in her dance routine for the beauty pageant.  So neither Sheryl nor Richard knew what kind of dance their six-year-old daughter would be doing.  Apparently it was an adult-style strip-tease, choreographed to the song Super Freak by Rick James.  Kind of sick and incredibly inappropriate, right?

Which naturally brings me to the subject of child beauty pageants.  They are sick and incredibly inappropriate, and Little Miss Sunshine lampoons them wonderfully, showing how ridiculous they can be!  Yes, Olive’s routine was over the top and ludicrous, but the other eleven contestants were just as obscene and nauseating, maybe even more so, because they represented a true depiction of reality.  The way young girls are dressed up as living dolls in real child beauty pageants, slathered in makeup, and displayed as sexy children is profoundly disturbing.  If you see a 7 year old girl in a bikini with the big hair and heavy makeup of an adult sex goddess, something is very, very wrong.  OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Anyway, for me, the stand-outs among the cast were Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.  Carrell was known for his comedic participation in Comedy Central’s Daily Show with John Stewart, but not for his acting.  But as the gay, suicidal Frank, he really showed audiences a serious side that nobody was expecting.  And then as he grew closer to the family and learned to become a part of it, he had a real kind of gravitas that made me appreciate his contribution to that family.  Richard started out as a real jerk who was so obsessed with being a winner that I just wanted to reach into the screen and punch him.  But as his entire self-empowering belief system broke down and destroyed his self-confidence, he found a strength in letting go of himself and supporting his daughter.  Kinnear played it all perfectly.

Another wonderfully emotional scene is the one in which Dwayne discovers that he is color blind and thus ineligible to pursue his dream and become a test pilot.  His teenage meltdown was almost frightening to watch, and Dano played it well.  It vaguely reminded me of some of the hormonally messed up emotions I felt during that awkward time in my own life, though maybe mine were not quite so intense.

I feel like a lot of the film can be summed up in a quote delivered by Alan Arkin as he is speaking to Olive who is afraid of being a loser in her father’s eyes.  He says, “You know what a loser is?  A real loser is somebody that’s so afraid of not winning they don’t even try.”  Now how true is that?  And while I’m talking about that scene, I have to say that Breslin was fantastic.  A few tears, but not too many.  Real emotion doesn’t have to be exaggerated, and she did a great job.

In fact, Breslin was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, though she did not win.  However, Little Miss Sunshine did win two other awards.  It took home an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and Arkin took one home for Best Supporting Actor.  Not bad for the directorial debut of husband and wife team, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.  Well done, everyone!

2006 – Letters from Iwo Jima

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letters from Iwo Jima – 2006

This was a really good movie.  It was a war film about the battle for the Japanese Island of Iwo Jima during WWII.  But what I loved about it was that the entire movie was told from a Japanese perspective.  Nearly all the dialogue was in Japanese with English subtitles.  The cast was made up of Japanese actors.  Never-mind that it was directed by a famous American director, Clint Eastwood.  It was filmed just after Eastwood’s companion piece, Flags of Our Fathers, which told the story of the same battle from the American point of view.  Now I want to see that movie, even though it wasn’t nominated for the Best Picture award.

This war movie was unique in the way in which it was told.  By that, I mean that I’ve never before seen a war film that begins its tale long before the fighting ever starts.  The Japanese soldiers are seen digging trenches on an untouched beach, but think about it.  Whenever you see a war movie, you see a bunch of soldiers in bunkers or caves in the cliff-side.  But who dug out those caves and trenches?  What was the feeling in the company as they were preparing the island for the impending enemy assault?  Who were the lowly laborers who did all the work to make the island ready for battle?  Who were the officers who decided where bunkers needed to be build and where the soldiers and weaponry would be positioned?  Why were they there?  Where had they come from?  Who were they?

The first half of the movie introduces us to some of these men.  The film seemed to be an ensemble piece, but one man stood out as a bit of a lead.  Private First Class Saigo, played by Kanzunari Ninomiya, was a baker who had been drafted into the military.  Much of the story is told from his perspective, and he is pretty much the only soldier to survive the entire film.  It is he who is responsible for saving the letters which are the driving force behind the entire movie, though this is not revealed until the last few seconds of the film.

But nearly as important was Ken Watanabe playing Saigo’s newly arrived commanding officer, General Tadamichi Kuribayachi.  He is a career military man who had spent time living in California, and whose ideas about how the island should be defended are in direct contrast with several of the men under his command.  He has a gentler and more compassionate style of command, which makes him popular with the low-level troops, but unpopular with the mid-level officers who believe in strict and unwavering loyalty to the Imperial Empire, putting honor and sacrifice before personal safety, and enforcing discipline through harsh words and beatings.  The only officer who supports him is his friend Colonel Baron Nishi, played by Ryo Kase.

We follow the two men, and are regularly treated to voice-overs as they write letters to their loved ones, Saigo to his wife, and Kuribayachi to his.  As the film’s title suggests, it is these letters that propel the film.  You see, the narrative is bookended by a modern team of Japanese researchers as they explore the old caves and find a buried package.  We then cut to Saigo and his friends, Private Kashiwara, played by Takashi Yamaguchi, and Private Nozaki, played by Yuki Matsuzaki, both of whom die before the end of the film.  Kishiwara dies of dysentery while Nozaki, at the command of Captain Tanida, played by Takumi Bando, is driven to ritual suicide along with the last survivors of his company, by pulling the pins on grenades and waiting for them to explode.

During the final sequence of the film, after the few remaining soldiers have all gone through an unbelievable hell of blood and death, Kuribayachi orders Saigo to stay behind to destroy all of his documents and letters.  But Saigo takes the General’s letters and buries them in the cave.  After Kuribayachi‘s death, Saigo is eventually captured as a prisoner of war.  And of course, it is these letters that we see the modern researchers unearthing right before the end credits begin to roll.

When I think of Clint Eastwood, my mind usually leaps directly to the hard boiled tough guy persona that made him famous, playing characters like Blondi from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or Harry Callahan from the Dirty Harry franchise.  He just seems to perfectly personify that really iconic tough guy look.  But it is easy to forget that he also directed other great chick-flicks like The Bridges of Madison County.  He has a softer and more emotional side that he really knows how to use.

And he really did a fantastic job with Letters from Iwo Jima.  He was able to create real characters that I cared about, even though I knew that most of them were doomed to die.  I cared enough to be annoyed with the end of the film, when a single question was left unanswered.  Was Saigo ever reunited with his wife?  Personally, I’d like to think he was.

2006 – Babel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Babel – 2006

This was one strange little movie.  I knew nothing about it before watching it except what I was shown in the trailer, which made it seem like a thrilling political, international espionage, and terrorism movie.  In reality, it had nothing to do with terrorism, nothing to do with international spies, and nothing to do with politics.  It was a movie in which a series of random events turn into a lot of pain and drama for a really unfortunate family.  The movie is really made up of four different stories, all being told at the same time, though not necessarily in sequential order, all of which are connected with a thin thread of plot connection.

The first story is about Abdullah, played by Mustapha Rachidi and his two sons, Yussef and Ahmed, played by Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani.  They are goat herders in the Moroccan desert.  Abdullah buys a rifle from his neighbor to defend his herd from jackals.  He gives it to his sons and as Yussef is playing with the new toy, he fires the weapon at a far-away bus full of tourists.

The second story is about Richard and Susan Jones, played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, who vacationing in Morocco. While riding through the desert on a tour bus, a bullet smashes through the vehicle’s window and hits Susan in the neck.  She begins bleeding everywhere.  The bus driver takes them to a poor and dirty village where locals do what they can to save her life.

The third story is about Debbie and Mike, played by child actors Ellie Fanning and Nathan Gamble, who are at home in San Diego.  Their Mexican nanny, Amelia, played by Adriana Barraza, gets a call from her employer, saying that the children’s mother has been injured, and neither she nor their father can return home.  Not wanting to miss her son’s wedding, Amelia takes the children to Mexico.  Amelia’s nephew Santiago, played by Gael Garcia Bernal, is to be their ride home.  But he gets stopped by the border patrol, panics because he is drunk, and flees the police.  He drives far out into the middle of the desert and demands that Amelia and the kids get out of the car.  He says that he will lead the police pursuit away from them and then return to pick them up.  Unfortunately, he never returns, and the children and their nanny are stranded in the deadly desert with no food or water.

The fourth story is the strangest of all and makes the least sense.  Chieko Wataya, played by Rinko Kikuchi, is a teenage deaf mute living in Japan.  She is rebellious, angry, and sexually frustrated because of her mother’s suicide.  When police come to her apartment asking for her father, she does her best to seduce one of them by removing all her clothes and throwing herself at him.  But Detective Kenji Mamiya, played by Satoshi Nikaido, rejects her advances and tells her that the reason he wanted to question her father is because a rifle used in a possible terrorist attack on American tourists in Morocco is registered to her father.

So you can see how the stories are all interconnected, and yet are separate.  I’m still having trouble figuring out the Japanese story line.  I mean, the rifle, yes, but that almost seemed like a minor subplot in the segment.  It is revealed that Chieko’s father Yasujiro, played by Koji Yakusho, had gifted the weapon to his Moroccan guide on a hunting trip.  But the real focus was on Chieko as she desperately tries to seduce several young boys, her dentist, and a young police detective into having sex with her.  She takes ecstasy and goes to a rave with her friends.  None of that has anything to do with the film’s overall plot with the rifle, and the Jones family.  It seems like a complete non-sequitur.

One of the things that I actually liked about the movie was the use of language, giving real meaning to the film’s title.  English was only spoken in about a third of the film.  The rest was in Moroccan, Japanese, Sign Language, and Spanish, all using subtitles.  This went a long way to add to the realism of the movie.  Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu must have had a very difficult time heading the project.  But that was part of the film’s overall theme, the characters’ inability to communicate because of language differences and emotional barriers.

Babel had some pretty good performances.  As usual, I liked Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.  Even though most of Blanchett’s performance was her lying on her back trying not to die, she brought her usual intensity to the part and really made me feel for her.  Also, surprisingly enough, Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani, the two Moroccan boys, did a pretty good job as well.

Babel painted a large tapestry with a compelling story, except for most of the Japanese story which could have been cut because it seemed to contribute nothing to the larger plot.  Instead, maybe they could have told the tale of Yasujiro’s hunting trip in which he gave the rifle to his tour guide.  It would have made more sense, enhancing the bigger picture instead of detracting from it.  But despite this, it was still an enjoyable film to watch, having the feel of an intellectual epic.

2005 – Munich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Munich – 2005

The title Munich refers to the Olympic Games in Munich Germany in 1972, during which eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists calling themselves Black September.  This film, directed by Stephen Spielberg, is about the Israeli response.  According to the movie, a five man counter strike force was assembled, assigned with the massive task of hunting down and murdering the members of Black September, no matter how long it took, no matter what the cost.

The leader of this assassination squad was Avner Kauffman, played by Eric Bana.  He resigns from Mossad and leaves his pregnant wife, Daphna, played by Ayelet Zurer.  With him are South African driver, Steve, played by Daniel Craig, Belgian explosives expert, Robert, played by Mathieu Kassovitz, Danish document forger, Hans, played by Hanns Zischler, and Former Israeli soldier and “cleaner”, Carl, played by Ciaran Hinds.  They are given a list of eleven names, one for each Olympic athlete killed, men involved with Black September, and are ordered to locate and kill each of them.  This assignment was called Operation Wrath of God.

Among the Israeli generals and politicians hiring the team are the Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, played by Lynn Cohen, and Avner’s case contact Ephraim, played by Geoffrey Rush.  And the last two players in this little drama are Avner’s hired informants who located the targets, charging steep prices for each name on the list.  They are Louis and his father, called Papa, played by Mathieu Amalric, and Michael Lonsdale.  They belong to an unscrupulous family willing to sell any information to the highest bidder.

And there’s the set-up.  The film follows the assassination squad as they travel all over Europe, taking out one target after another with varying results and degrees of success.  They do their best to avoid civilian casualties, though as Operation Wrath of God unfolds, more and more innocent people are hurt or even killed, and the members of the team develop feelings of unrest and guilt.  Eventually, with around seven of the targets neutralized, Louis and Papa are hired by the remaining members of Black September to locate Avner and his team.

As the members of the assassination squad begin to get killed, Avner returns to Israel, to let Ephriam know that he has been compromised and the assignment is over.  But now he has PTSD and paranoia.  He believes that he and his family are in danger of Palestinian retaliation.  Ephriam, asks Avner to return to Israel and Mossad, though he refuses.

As with all movies based on real events, I did my reading.  The movie was mostly true, but with one significant difference, though I completely understand why the change was made.  In the film, there was a five man squad who was tasked with assassinating all eleven names on the list.  In reality, there were multiple teams.  But in a movie, they didn’t want to have to introduce a new team of characters for each new target.  As an audience, we would be quickly confused.  Just stick with the five assassins and get to know them a little so that when Carl, Robert, and Hans are killed, we know them a little, and care that they are dead.

But one of the complaints I found in my research, otherwise known as reading Wikipedia articles, was a strange one.  In the second assassination attempt, they planted plastic explosives in a man’s telephone.  The complaint was that in reality, the bomb was hidden in the table on which the phone was sitting.  Come on!  That’s what you want to complain about?

Spielberg did a good job directing, as usual.  And as usual, he got his good friend John Williams to provide a great score.  In fact, Williams was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, though he did not win.  His score was perfect in that it did its job.  It enhanced the story without distracting from it.  Williams is really a master of his craft and over his long career, he has been nominated for over fifty Academy awards, most of which are for Scores, though some are for Best Original Song, or Best Score Adaptation.  So, really, I have no complaints there.

Munich was really a pretty good movie.  It was not what I was expecting, and had some really thrilling moments that kept me on the edge of my seat.  Spielberg is always a very good storyteller.  I liked the intensity that was inherent in the assassinations, which we are supposed to see as righteous acts.  In fact, there were a number of scenes in which Avner broods over what must have happened when the hostages were taken and eventually murdered.  We are treated to a little footage of the event itself, which caught the world by surprise.  Avner and his team are clearly supposed to be the good guys.  But really, how good are they when they become ambivalent about the innocent people injured and killed because of their mission?  When do they stop being good guys, and become just another band of terrorists?  Where does the violence end?