Just a few miscellaneous films for May. Politics!
Beanpole (2019), directed by Kantemir Balagov. This film chronicles the effects of war, and these effects are not pretty. Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) is a nurse working in a Leningrad hospital that is filled with wounded soldiers. Iya is also unusually tall – hence the name Beanpole. She has a friend, Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), who has just returned from war duty. Iya has been caring for Masha’s son, Pashka (Timofey Glazkov), but in one of her strange catatonic fits, a result of post-stress, Iya smothers Pashka. Masha takes the news without obvious emotion. Masha has a deep desire for a child, but she learns because of a war wound that she is infertile. She wants Iya to have a baby for her. Such is the plot. The film moves along slowly with a palette that is dour with red and green and a sickly yellow. The setting seems closed in, effectively strengthening the sense of the PTSD that most of the characters experience. What the film offers is a stark and unsettling view of trauma caused by war. The two women are a study in contrast, Masha being outgoing and domineering, and Iya being introverted and shy, trying to make herself less visible than she is. Moments in the film come close to the grotesque. Clearly, war has altered the lives of these people in ways that shatter any possibility of normalcy. This film resonates with our times, sadly.
Official Secrets (2019), directed by Gavin Hood. This is a political thriller that recounts the story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a government employee who in 2003 leaked an email from the U.S. government that encourages other countries, the U.K. for example, to assist in coercing several countries to vote in the United Nations for war against Iraq. These were the Bush/Blair years, the time of Colin Powell’s unfortunate speech at the U.N. concerning “weapons of mass destruction.” The film is a procedural that follows Katharine Gun’s decision to leak the document, her home life and eventual arrest, the reporters for the Observer newspaper who track the story (played by Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, and Matt Smith), and the civil rights lawyers who defend Katharine (played by Ralph Fiennes, Indira Varma, and John Heffernan). Hood manages to keep all the storylines moving briskly and effectively. The duplicity of governments is nicely set out and reverberates with contemporary politics, as well as with past events such as the Watergate events of some thirty years earlier. This is a tense and timely film.
Le Havre (2011), directed by Aki Kaurismaki. Anything by Kaurismaki is worth seeing, and Le Havre is among his best. This is a film about illegal immigrants and community and marriage and friendship and goodness. Aside from the story, the look of the film is attractive. Kaurismaki and his crew make the down and out parts of Le Havre look inviting. The colour scheme is distinctly Kaurismaki with its muted blue and grey and yellow. This is a film about life among the humble. The protagonist is the shoeshine man, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), who lives with his wife and canine friend in a run-down part of town. He shines shoes here and there in the city, sometimes with a Vietnamese friend. His wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) is not well, and she goes to hospital where the doctor says she has a terminal illness. Meanwhile, Marcel meets Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an illegal immigrant from Gabon who is on the run from the authorities. Idrissa is on his way to London to find his mother. He is a boy in a strange and frightening place. Kindly neighbours help Marcel protect the boy, although one neighbour is less than kindly, calling the police more than once and ratting on the boy’s whereabouts. Marcel’s last name is no accident, and we have here a comment on policing, community, borders, freedom of movement, and kindness. The people we meet live on a shoestring, as it were, and they are all the better for this. Finally, I note that sometimes miracles do happen! This film is sure to win your hearts. Oh, I nearly forgot Little Bob whose appearance reminds us of Leningrad Cowboys!
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019), directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji. “Gross national happiness,” the motto of Bhutan, informs this film. Taking place in the remotest village in Himalayan Bhutan, the film lets us know that fulfillment (“happiness”) is possible without money or material goods or modernity. Happiness comes in a connection with nature and with song. Singing is important here as a way of honouring local deities and connecting with others, including animals, especially the yaks that provide food and fuel for the local people. Moving at a lyrical pace, the film celebrates community, connection, and education. The story of a fish out of water is familiar and, I suppose, even predictable, but here the location of the shooting, the actors, especially local unprofessional child actor Pem Zam, have charm and charisma. The film does not break new ground, but it does introduce us to a place where contentment, health, and satisfaction are possible, far away from the crowded and loud streets of the city, far away from modern conveniences, and far away from the self-absorbed urbanites we see frequenting bars looking for the happiness they think is available in a glass.
Sharper (2023), directed by Benjamin Caron. Here is a film for our time, a film about compulsive liars, grifters, con artists, empty people interested only in spondulicks. The plot has twists and turns galore (some predictable) and the film moves from chapter to chapter, each chapter following a specific character, until the connection between all the characters becomes clear. The film is stylish and devilish with the actors – Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Justice Smith, Brianna Middleton, and Sebastian Stan – turning in sly performances, as people who go through life acting slyly. The film begins in a bookstore, and this nice touch might just let us know that we should not judge a book by its cover or a book-buyer by his or her choices. Everything moves along smoothy, if coolly, until an end that spills into absurdity.
1000 Rupee Note (2014), directed by Shrihari Sathe. Budhi (Usha Naik) is an elderly widow whose son has committed suicide because he could not pay back a large debt. She lives alone in a rickety shack that also houses the family of the shepherd, Sudama (Sandeep Pathak). Budhi talks with this family through the flimsy wall that separates their two places. She also has a close friendship with Sadama. The first third of the film is quite lovely; Budhi has little or no money, but she gives whatever she has, tea, fluffy bred, a half rupee, to others, cheerfully and willingly. Her life is simple, and she manages to eke a living by cleaning the houses of the wealthy people who live nearby. Then the local politician, Uttamrao Jadhav (Ganesh Yadav), comes to the village to give a speech. He doles out money to the locals, including a few 1000 rupee notes to the poor widow, Budhi. In other words, he buys votes. The corruption here is a sign of things to come. Budhi and Sadama go to the nearby town or city to spend some of Budhi’s newfound wealth at the market. This is where things go awry, and Sadama and Budhi end up in jail. It turns out winning the lottery, so to speak, is not necessarily a good thing. Of course, Sadama and Budhi manage to be released from incarceration and find the money to return home. On the way back, Budhi takes the 1000 rupee note that the police captain had given her when he released her and tosses it out the window and into the river, a gift to the river gods. This is a quietly effective film, short and very sweet.
