Commonweal on "Into Great Silence"
The new issue of Commonweal includes one columnist's thoughts on Philip Gröning's Into Great Silence and the Viriginia Tech massacre. The writer (I can't find his name on the page) says,
The film has been a huge hit, not only in New York but also in allegedly secular Europe. Its success reminds me of the rave reviews given to Marilynne Robinson’s wonderful, quiet, and unabashedly Christian novel Gilead. There is a spiritual hunger that goes deep. Some of its expressions can be shallow, but the need is heartfelt and real. Many churches may not meet it, but some places and ways of life (monasteries and monasticism, for example) attract people because they offer the hope that there is an answer to an eternal, deeply felt need.
Not everyone is so enchanted by the film. Susan Dunne (Baltimore Sun) complains,
... [T]ry as I might, I could not love it, because as a piece of cinema, Into Great Silence would try the patience of a saint. ... It is clear that Groning is using this structure to get viewers into the same simple, contemplative frame of mind in which the monks live day to day. But the fact is that men enter ascetic monasteries because they are that sort of person already, and in that they are uncommon. Expecting filmgoers to be that sort of person, for 164 minutes no less, is asking too much.
Her conclusion:
...this is a monastery; there aren't 164 minutes worth of things to see.
Well, not unless you're looking closely.
I'm sorry that the film proved so frustrating for Susan, but I'm also surprised that, as a film critic, she found it so taxing. Maybe she'll prefer the nearly three hours of action in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, where there's more stuff to look at in the first ten minutes than Into Great Silence can find in three hours. But will Pirates serve up even a fraction of the food for thought offered by Silence?
Gröning's film isn't about what we see, but rather... how we see it.
I don't think Gröning "expects" anything. He invites. Those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see... let them hear and see. Those who have patience... let them be blessed. Those who don't, let them miss out.
In fact, I think it would be interesting to read Susan's comments again, and then read all of the quotes collected and arranged so perfectly last Thursday at Opus, right here.
Am I being too harsh?
"The Tale of Despereaux": Promising Signs
One of my favorite children's books... no, scratch that. One of my favorite books is being adapted into an animated feature.
And I'm very nervous. Can the filmmakers do the story justice? The Tale of Despereaux is such a delicate, exquisite story. It'll be as tough to capture as the tone of Winnie the Pooh. And... like the best children's books... it holds just as much treasure, or more, for grownups as it does for kids.Read more
Did Your Teachers Show Movies in Class?
Today, Seattle Pacific University instructor Christine Chaney is sitting down to discuss Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue with her English class. Bravo.
I love it when literature professors expand the territory of their classroom exploration, encouraging students to apply interpretive skills to film. All too often, movies are treated as something we just do "for fun," on the weekends, with popcorn and soda... as amusement rather than art. (And let's face it, because we treat cinema that way, we get the cinema we deserve.)Read more
Looking Closer's Film Forum: "Away from Her"
I'm eager to see Sarah Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her, because it is reported to include a brilliant performance by Julie Christie. But most of all, I want to see it for its subject. How often do filmmakers give moviegoers the privilege of deeply and carefully considering the lives and challenges of characters older than 40?
Pshaw!! say the moviegoers, rushing out to keep Disturbia and Delta Farce in the top five at the box office.
Oh well... Sarah Polley has never been one to pander to childish audiences. Polley, who charmed me when she was just a kid in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, is giving us an opportunity to examine experiences rarely portrayed on the big screen... experiences that many of us will eventually share, either in our own lives or the lives of those close to us.
J.R. Jones (The Chicago Reader) writes:
The movie is the feature writing and directing debut of accomplished Canadian actress Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter, Don't Come Knocking, Dawn of the Dead), who, at only 28, proves remarkably attuned to the texture of a relationship that's weathered decades.
And David Denby in The New Yorker raves,
Polley’s feature début ... is a small-scale triumph that could herald a great career. In general, she works close to her actors, and is confident enough to let scenes remain ambiguous—the meanings build slowly, by accretion. But she also demonstrates an impressive feeling for the spiritual meaning of landscape, as when Fiona, on skis, finds herself isolated in the snow and, looking around at the open fields, experiences the terror of a life without signposts.
Lisa Ann Cockrel (Christianity Today) says,
Away From Her makes some missteps. The narrative jumps back and forth in time in a way that isn't helpful. And there was a political statement about war that seemed almost comically out of place. But in the main, this movie is a moving meditation on what love looks like after it's had more than 40 years to grow. It's a love with deep scars, but roots that go deeper still.
Harry Forbes (CNS) calls it
...an exceptionally poignant tale about the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's disease that should resonate deeply not only with anyone who has gone through that terrible disease -- or indeed been in any kind of caregiver situation -- with a loved one.
...
Polley's uncompromising film may bring up painful memories for some, but others will find it a well-crafted love story as much about the nature of memory as about Alzheimer's per se, and there's a heart-tugging conclusion.
GreenCine Daily has a stack of more reviews from impressed critics that are increasing my curiosity.
UPDATED 5/22:
Christian Hamaker (Crosswalk) says,
Away from Her, despite some disappointing choices by its characters, is a treasure—a film that shows mature individuals grappling with the twilight of lifelong relationships built on mutual understanding, trust and forgiveness. It’s a complex, lived-in drama about fractured lives.
Looking Closer's Film Forum: "28 Weeks Later"
Is 28 Weeks Later just another sequel designed to cash in on the success of its predecessor, 28 Days Later?
Is is just a bunch of bloody action, or is there something meaningful going on here?
As a big fan of the first film -- an extremely violent film by Danny Boyle (director of Millions) that was thought-provoking and haunting -- I'm eager to see if this sets the bar even higher for zombie movies, or if it's just recklessly indulgent.
I'm encouraged by the review at Crosswalk. Christian Hamaker (Crosswalk) writes:
... [B]y giving us a compromised father figure who pays for the abandonment of his wife in her time of greatest need, then subsequently lies about it to his children and is found out, 28 Weeks Later suggests that some form of justice is inescapable. The Old Testament reminds us, 'Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out' (Numbers 32:23).
Wow. He took it very seriously. And he's not done yet:
Although God is not part of the characters’ consciousness in 28 Weeks Later, the unusual picture of a broken family trying to reconcile makes this terrifying film much more than just the latest cinematic scare-fest. It wants us to recognize how families are threatened by outside forces, as well as by personal betrayals. ... Its broken-family tragedy and lack of jingoistic militarism make 28 Weeks Later a more cerebral experience than the typical summer sequel.
According to Nick Curtis, the movie's every bit as good as its predecessor.
Peter Suderman is also totally stoked, because of the reviews he's sharing at his blog.
But it's not a sure thing. I can usually trust reviews written by Adam Walter, and he comes out of the movie far less than stoked.
It’s really just your typical zombie bloodbath without anything terribly unusual about it. Ho hum.
And Kurt Jensen (CNS) says:
Despite some decent special effects and cinematography, director and co-writer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has mostly served up 101 minutes of mind-numbing, nearly plotless butchery. ... There's little in the way of logic, and no attempt to even explain why the virus acts the way it does. The preview audience could only yell at the screen in disbelief.
Don't go into Bob Hoose's Focus on the Family review looking for anything like Christian Hamaker's interpretation. Hoose dismisses it as a waste:
28 Weeks Later starts bloody, runs bloody and ends bloody. ... What was the scariest moment for me? It was during the closing credits when I realized that the weak, open-ended finish probably meant there'd be another sequel.
Darren Hughes at The San Francisco International Film Festival
Your chances of finding a great film at the multiplex are probably much slimmer than your chances of finding one at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Darren Hughes was there, and here are his summations of a few films he saw there. I'll be adding several of these to my must-see, or must-rent, list.
Comparing Robert Bresson and Flannery O'Connor
The new issue of Senses of Cinema sounds is a feast of thought-provoking essays.
Not only does it have a feature on the long, slow emergence of Blade Runner as a classic, but it features four essays on Robert Bresson... including one that asks us to consider the correlation of Bresson's filmmaking and Flannery O'Connor's writing.
They express their faith through images and characters and styles that only seem faithless and without reverence. Initially, in O’Connor especially, this comes off as almost blasphemous, most famously, perhaps, with the murdered family in “A Good Man”. What kind of Christianity accommodates such slaughter? The action is an exercise or a test of recognition, a test we all often fail – the recognition, through others, of humanity’s connectedness or wholeness, no matter the character of the person. Bresson’s supposed lack of reverence occupies a similar place. Many of his films include apparently hopeless actions: Mouchette waving to the oblivious man on the tractor, and her subsequent suicide; Balthazar kicked, beaten and shot; Yvon’s murders. Yet what is being expressed is not spiritual cynicism so much as a play of resistance and surrender – spiritual conflict. In this, something like the suicides of Mouchette or the gentle woman become merely the sum figure arrived at through the dire mathematics of human suffering. What initially appears faithless is soon recognized and experienced as profoundly uncompromised belief. Characters suffer cruel indignities (Yvon’s Job-like trials, Hulga’s humiliation) not only that they may deserve redemption, but that they are toughened up enough – one might say, humanized enough – to receive it.
Fantastic.
Thanks to GreenCine Daily for the links!
Hal Hartley Hearts Terrence Malick
As a huge fan of Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, and Henry Fool, I can't wait to see his Henry Fool sequel, Fay Grim. Here he is talking about it with to Choire Sicha in a special for The LA Times:
Sicha: It's a crucial component to "Fay Grim" that Fay goes off and becomes involved with the drama of Europe.
Hartley: I wanted Fay to be the representative American of a certain type: well-intentioned but ill-informed. This is a story of her getting tossed into the wider world, and hearing and learning about all the complexity at a political level. And she's sort of being a stand-in for people like me — as hard as I try to understand everything, I never trust that I have a real good grip on it.
Sicha: What movies are you looking at?
Hartley: I've been re-watching Terrence Malick films — "The New World" and "The Thin Red Line" — a lot recently. I'm very moved by those.
Sicha: With Malick, it's amazing how he has no one speak — but that's very, very different from you, even as your interest in verbal comedy has changed.
Hartley: His last four features over the last 40 years have been like that. He can think that way. He makes the images and language as two separate strands. "The New World" was a real masterpiece. The kind of scenes I make now — I might not even be the best person to detail what the changes are. I do remember in the earlier films, I really built everything on dialogue. It was dialogue as action. Everything had to do with the words, misunderstandings, and inspired by a wide range of things — the plays of Molière, which were very helpful to me in my early years. Then Preston Sturges movies, or Howard Hawks. Then as the years went on, I wanted to outgrow that approach.
Your Deepest Impulse
Opus is meditating on a profound passage from The Screwtape Letters. And you can meditate with him, free of charge. I recommend it.
Darrel Manson reads "Through a Screen Darkly"
Full disclosure: Darrel Manson, who writes for HollywoodJesus.com, is a friend as well as a colleague.
But I'm glad he's read Through a Screen Darkly, and he's posted some thoughts about that here.