Lassie (2006)
This review was originally published at Christianity Today.
A popular bumper sticker reads, "I want to be the man my dog thinks I am."
It happens all the time—a dog waits outside the café or the grocery store, straining at his leash, or shoving his nose against the car window, waiting in dutiful vigilance until his master emerges. And then, barking! Tail wagging! And a good deal of scampering about! It's as if this reunion merits some kind of celebration. It doesn't matter if you're grumpy or irritable—your dog is happy to see you. That kind of unconditional love can melt even the toughest heart.
And it's that kind of unconditional love that has made Lassie the world's most famous and beloved dog. Well, that, her colorful coat, and her tenderness toward the boy she loves.
If you think I'm referring to Jeff or Timmy, then you must be thinking of the boys on the Lassie television series that ran between 1954–74. No, I'm talking about the nine-year-old boy named Joe Carraclough, who is Lassie's precious friend in the latest big screen adaptation.
Director Charles Sturridge has brought Lassie back to the screen, and it's likely that many moviegoers are rolling their eyes, writing it off as just another disposable kid-flick about wisecracking critters.
But think again. Lassie isn't just better than the other films currently being marketed for all ages. It's a rare work of substance, simplicity, and grace that deserves to be mentioned among the best features crafted for younger viewers in the last twenty years, including Mike Newell's Into the West, John Sayles' The Secret of Roan Inish, Alfonso Cuarón's A Little Princess, Agnieszka Holland's The Secret Garden, Carroll Ballard's Duma, and Andrew Davis's Holes. Some critics are using the word "classic" even though it's only just arrived.
Sticking to the basic plot of Eric Wright's 1940 novel Lassie Come Home, this film returns Lassie to the context of the original novel, where her adventure leads her from the home of the Carraclough family in a Yorkshire mining town to a vast estate in Scotland.
Sam (John Lynch of The Secret of Roan Inish) and his wife Sarah (Samantha Morton of In America and Minority Report) are raising their son, little button-eyed Joe (Jonathan Mason), with what meager funds Sam earns at coal mining. But when the mine closes, they face grim realities. How can they afford to keep a collie around when they can't pay their bills?
You can see where this is going. Cilla (Hester Odgers), granddaughter of the cantankerous Duke of Rudling, discovers Lassie on the street. The Duke (Peter O'Toole, in a grand performance of wit and dignity) immediately praises her "good eye" and declares that he wants the dog to join his collection. His offer is irresistible to the Carracloughs, who need money so they can keep food on the table.
No sooner has Lassie been penned into her new home on the Duke's palatial property than she breaks free and starts running back to the Carracloughs. And it happens several times. Lassie's devotion to Joe is indefatigable. She'll find a way to get home no matter how hard the Duke's fumbling, bumbling dog keeper Hynes (Steve Pemberton) works to keep her confined.
The film opens with Lassie's smart disruption of a fox hunt, helping the poor frightened prey escape disgruntled hunters. This sets up the central conflict of the film: dedicated, virtuous working-class people struggling to cope with the presumptuous and insensitive rich.
But Sturridge is too thoughtful to settle for caricatures. The Duke is a volatile, complicated personality who knows and feels more than he lets on. Likewise, the Carracloughs accept their place in the world, and the movie does not incline us toward hating people with wealth. It only observes that riches tend to inspire pride and self-absorption in those who lack a generous spirit. O'Toole, Lynch, and Morton give intuitive, subtle performances as if acting in an Oscar-caliber drama. How rare that a film designed for children portrays grownups as intelligent people worthy of respect!
Colorful supporting characters give the film depth and humor. The radiant Kelly Macdonald (The Girl in the Café, Gosford Park) makes a brief appearance as the romantic and big-hearted Jeannie. And I'd like to see a whole movie about Rowlie, the itinerant puppeteer played by Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent), who recognizes Lassie's potential while she staggers, weathered and weary, down the long road home.
Howard Atherton's lush, extravagant cinematography celebrates Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, soaring over the green swaths, rocky ridges, and foggy woods—and over a certain legendary loch—much as Peter Jackson's adaptations carried us through the riches of New Zealand.
Even as it scores with technical excellence, Lassie skillfully dodges many of pitfalls common to movies about animals. Sturridge knows better than to give Lassie a celebrity voice, thank goodness. Lassie's strength is in her silent faithfulness and determination. She remains, in fact, a dog—not a cartoonish creature with a human personality.
And even better—she's not animated. She's real. The Lassie movies have always used dogs directly descended from the original Lassie, who starred in the original film back in 1943. And they're beautiful dogs. No matter how impressive CGI becomes, there is a particular awe that viewers feel when they're looking at a living, breathing animal, and the bundle of collies who take turns playing Joe's best friend earn our affection without any animated advantage.
Lassie is also enhanced by Adrian Johnston's delicate soundtrack, which lets important scenes play out quietly. This lets us respond with our own personal and spontaneous emotions; we're not reacting to belligerent musical cues.
Further, Lassie succeeds because the filmmakers don't sugar-coat their characters' lives. Bad things happen, and death is a real possibility. More than one animal is beaten. Lassie's ordeal is long and painful. The filmmakers developed her character with such care that I found her "passion" more convincing and moving than that of the animated Aslan in Andrew Adamson's Narnia movie (which abbreviated character development to make extra time for bloated battle scenes).
Finally—and perhaps most importantly—this film refuses to insult the intelligence of its young viewers. It flatters them with honest depictions of mature grownups, intelligent children, and real hardships.
And the story is strong enough to keep the grownups engaged too; it doesn't try to buy their attention with innuendoes and pop-culture references (as if that's what adults really want). While it does have scenes of outrageous whimsy—Lassie's adventure in a courtroom, her spectacular escape from the pound—it remains grounded in a specific time and place, giving us some sense of life in Scotland during the build-up to World War II.
In fact, the film's only dissonant element is its one-note bad guy, who seems drawn from the box of stock Disney villains, right down to the trousers that fall down around his ankles.
All in all, Lassie is a small wonder, providing a classy conclusion to a relatively disappointing summer movie season. It might just inspire some of us to become as respectful as our dogs think we are—and it might even challenge us to prove that dogs aren't the only creatures God made capable of steadfast, longsuffering, and unconditional love.
Babel (2006)
[This review was originally published at Christianity Today in October 2006.]
It's bullet time at the movies. Martin Scorsese's cops and crooks are clashing are unleashing storms of bullets, and Clint Eastwood's Marines are firing more shots than anyone could hope to count. But in Alejandro González Iñárritu's new film Babel, a single gunshot causes an international crisis. It's a shot heard around the world, and one you won't forget anytime soon.
Who is to blame for that shattering blast? The adolescent shooter? His father, who entrusted him with the rifle? The man who sold them the gun?
In the world according to Iñárritu, we must look past that shot to understand the root cause of the crisis. Like a surgeon exposing tumors, this talented director reveals the fundamental flaw common to everyone involved in calamity. It's a disease that knows no borders. And it runs deeper than any bullet wound.
Babel takes its title from the Genesis tale in which God punishes and scatters an arrogant people by confusing their languages. The film clearly demonstrates that the separation continues. Fault lines run between nations and traditions, but they also splinter to divide communities, families, and marriages. A simple dispute between brothers can tear a rift in history, and a gesture of grace between strangers can make a difference too.
To demonstrate this division, Iñárritu and his screenwriter, Guillermo Arriago, weave plots through Babel's 142 minutes, continuing a trend of complicated big-screen tapestries. Many will compare it to Crash, Magnolia, Syriana, and Traffic. But it's also worthwhile to compare it to Iñárritu's first two films, which were similarly convoluted — the critically acclaimed Amores Perros and his first American effort, 21 Grams.
Babel is the most ambitious of the three, taking us into four strikingly different cultural contexts. In its intricate web of narratives, it is more accomplished and affecting than the Oscar-winningCrash. But it's not likely to be as popular. Audiences found it easy to applaud Crash, because who could possibly argue with its premise? Prejudice is bad, love is good. Babel's revelations are more painful to watch, more discomforting, and ultimately humbling. We're likely to see our own limitations mirrored back to us in uncomfortable ways—flaws that know no borders. (Americans especially could learn from its portrait of tourists becoming impatient with the limitations of other, less-privileged cultures.)
Babel begins in the rugged hills of North Africa, where two boys—Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid)—are protecting their herd of goats with the help of their father's new long-range rifle. Boys and guns are never a good combination, and sure enough, one of them makes a huge mistake that will divide the family and test the wits of local authorities.
The second chapter of the film involves an American couple, Richard and Susan Jones (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), on vacation in Morocco. Nursing the wounds of a recent tragedy, they have left their children back home with the nanny, hoping that an escape will bring them solace. But there's no easy fix for their damaged relationship. And the desert tends to rub tempers raw, especially for those who aren't used to it.
Things go from bad to worse when the Jones are drawn out from behind the safety glass of their tour bus and forced to endure a terrifying ordeal that tests the mettle of their marriage. In the sudden shock of their suffering, we may wonder how we would respond in similar circumstances. Surrounded by people who don't speak English, far from modern conveniences like toilets and medical aid, Richard reminds us how easy it is to take luxury for granted. And through his eyes, we discover that the people of poorer cultures know a few things that we don't.
At the same time, the U.S. government faces a challenge that mirrors Richard's personal dilemma. Recently wounded by violence, America is quick to see terrorism where it may not be. Will such fear result in even more misguided violence?
Meanwhile, back home, Robert and Susan's children have stumbled into a different sort of trouble. Amelia (Adriana Barraza), an illegal immigrant working as their nanny, needs to get back to Mexico for her son's wedding. When Richard calls and demands that she stay with his children, she faces a tough choice. Obey? Abandon them to someone else's care? Or take them south of the border for a while?
"Mom says that Mexico is really dangerous," says the boy. And sure enough, they find themselves in a life-threatening debacle, thanks to the reckless foolishness of a self-absorbed young man (The Science of Sleep's Gael Garcia Bernal).
But wait—there's yet another story to tell, one with a mysterious connection to that gunshot.
Taking us to Tokyo, Iñárritu tells the story of a deaf-mute teenager, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi). Catching the glances of boys their own age, Chieko and her disabled friends commiserate: "They look at us like we're monsters."
Chieko's desperate loneliness becomes the film's most powerful picture of the human condition. Broken and desperate for a meaningful relationship, she resorts to dangerous games. And it's hard to blame her. She's embracing a pop culture lie—that exploiting her own sexuality is the best way to get attention. The result is heartbreaking to behold.
Where is God in all of this? The question doesn't even occur to most of these characters. While we glimpse some Christian symbols on the edges of these stories, these seem to be little more than cultural decorations. When a Muslim man bows to pray, the Westerner looking on seems bewildered, as if surprised to find that people in this world still sometimes pray.
Iñárritu's film is not the first movie about alienation to use this metaphor. Michael Haneke's masterful international drama Code Unknown opened and closed with scenes in which deaf children struggle to interpret each other's gestures in a game of charades. Similarly challenging, Haneke's film was more subtle and artful. Iñárritu gives a team of Oscar-caliber talent—cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Brigitte Broch, editor Stephen Mirrione, and composer Gustavo Santolalla—room to shine. And yet, by comparison, his film seems heavy-handed.
Babel's biggest problem is that when Iñárritu and Arriaga collaborate, the results are almost always dispiritingly morbid. Babel is Arriaga's finest script yet (he also wrote Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada). But, like Amores Perros and 21 Grams, the film feels like a 21-car pile-up of catastrophes.
Iñárritu's depiction of Chieko's disintegration is the film's second dismaying misstep. Chieko, starved for intimacy, strips naked to get attention. But Arriaga should have employed the camera more creatively to preserve the actress's dignity. These scenes are not pornographic — Chieko's nakedness is meant to emphasize her desperation and vulnerability. But they are likely to disrupt our suspension of disbelief with questions about the audacity of the actress and filmmakers. I'm open to hearing an argument on this point, but the graphic nature of these images feels gratuitous and sensationalistic. Still, Iñárritu and Arriaga wisely give the film's poignant closing moments to Chieko, as we watch two characters reach a silent understanding.
If Americans do make Babel a success, that's probably due to the participation of its A-list stars, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Films about foreign cultures are normally neglected by American moviegoers, and rarely register at the box office. Thus, the best movies of the year often pass unnoticed due to their lack of celebrity glamour. (How many have bought a ticket for (or rented) L'Enfant or Sophie Scholl: The Final Days — two of this year's most riveting and unforgettable films — this year?) Perhaps the participation of Pitt and Blanchett will help Babel open up a wider world of fantastic filmmaking for moviegoers.
Fortunately, both celebrities are in top form, reminding us that, in spite of their fame and fortune, they are among the most talented actors working today. Blanchett is impressive as usual, but you've never seen a performance like this from Brad Pitt. Looking like he's aged twenty-five years since Ocean's Twelve, he disappears into a character whose sufferings will haunt you for a long time to come.
In short, Babel shows us that history has not taught us how to overcome the separation so eloquently represented in that Old Testament story of towering hubris and calamitous confusion. While it is easy for those of us who enjoy some measure of wealth and privilege to forget, we are united—east and west, young and old, rich and poor—in the loneliness of sin's consequences. Iñárritu encourages us to remember that we share "the same spiritual spine."
He could have added that famous U2 song to play over the end credits—"We're one, but we're not the same / We get to carry each other."
Nicolosi Slays "Giants"
Buckle up.
Barbara Nicolosi is a little late to the game with her views on Facing the Giants, but her new blog entry was worth the wait.Read more
The "If Jesus Came Back..." Award-Winner: Stephen Baldwin!
Reading this article in Salon, I'm inspired to hand out the first "If Jesus Came Back" award.
What's that about?
It's the award given in honor of that famous line spoken by Max Von Sydow in Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters: "If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."
The award goes to... yes... Stephen Baldwin!
Here's a few choice excerpts:Read more
Don't Do Anything: The New Sam Phillips Album, Coming in 2007
Not much to report here except that an amusing new branch of Sam Phillips's web site -- "Time Travels with Sam Phillips" -- now includes an interesting new photograph and caption that appears to reveal the title and release date of her next record....
"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."
"Let them eat cake." That's a quote commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, but a quick Google search will teach you that this isn't really the truth. We're not sure who said it.Read more
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
[A severely abridged version of this review was previously published at Christianity Today, and it did not end up representing the perspective I presented in my original draft. Here is the original, unabridged review.]
•
In Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, Keanu Reeves plays “Agent Fred,” an undercover officer in America’s war on drugs. He’s so deeply undercover that he’s become a drug addict himself, losing touch with reality. So the irony is painful when Agent Fred is ordered to focus his investigation on one junkie in particular … himself.
Sound a bit familiar? Like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly is based on the science fiction of Philip K. Dick. All three introduce us to law enforcement officers who begin by tracking criminals and end up running from the law, dismayed at what they’re learning about themselves.
But where Blade Runner and Minority Report borrowed the main ideas and added all kinds of violence and thrills, Linklater’s movie is actually faithful to Dick’s novel. A Scanner Darkly is true to Dick’s disillusioned, drug-addled, deadbeat characters. It’s a much more thoughtful film — challenging, meditative, and sad, just the way Dick intended it.
Scanner focuses on the small Anaheim community in which Agent Fred pretends to be a dealer. His “friends” are mopey slackers, tormented by the distortions brought on by a cruel, enslaving drug called “Substance D.” (The “D” may stand for death, disintegration, or despair.) “You’re either on it,” says addict James Barris, “or you haven’t tried it.”
As his brain reels with foolish fantasies, Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) lectures others on things he knows nothing about — guns, the chemistry of narcotics, and government conspiracies. He has a captive audience. Wide-eyed and paranoid, Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson) is a typical southern California stoner, prone to freaking out. But Luckman is stable compared to Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane). Freck is a wreck who resembles The Lord of the Rings’ Gollum in his fits of twitching and terror. In the opening scene, he obsessively scrubs himself and his dog, convinced that they’re both besieged by giant aphids.
The guys are attracted to Donna Hawthorne, the sexy girlfriend of their house-mate Bob Arctor. But Donna (Winona Ryder, in a welcome return to intelligent moviemaking) responds to Substance D by loathing the thought of physical intimacy. This drives Bob crazy. Unable to consummate his relationship with Donna, he uses drugs to buy sex with someone else, which leads to even nastier surprises.
What the group doesn’t know is that their friend Bob is actually Agent Fred. Behind their backs, Fred is documenting their crimes with elaborate surveillance equipment.
But the drugs are tearing Fred’s endeavors apart. The two hemispheres of his brain are fighting with each other, troubling his sense of identity. Is he really a cop pretending to be a dealer? Or is he a dealer who excuses his habit by posing as a cop?
To give audiences a palpable sense of Fred’s delusion, Linklater uses the same style of animation that made his earlier film Waking Life so hypnotic. Animators “paint” over footage of the actors’ performances, using an innovative computer process called “rotoscoping.” In this way, these cartoon characters become hauntingly lifelike, preserving real movements, gestures, expressions, even scenery. Their outlines are unstable, and so is their environment, keeping us caught in a constant state of questioning the film’s “reality,” just as its characters do. It’s like living in a Kafka nightmare — a person chatting in your living room might suddenly transform into a cockroach.
The animators’ greatest accomplishment is the realization of the “scramble suits” — the agent’s full-body disguises. Made from an electrical fabric, conglomerations of human features mix and match on their surface, disguising the wearer with a random collage of races, ages, hairstyles, and outfits. This gives the agents anonymity at the office, protecting their operations. The scramble suits made Dick’s novel unfilmable for decades. Through Linklater’s technique, they’re astonishing.
And they’re more than just a special effect. The suits make us think about ways in which people are pressured to meet society’s shifting expectations, or how they lose their individuality by conforming to “the system.” And they suggest that any agent of authority may conceal secret agendas within the “costume” of duty.
Truly scrambled, Agent Fred becomes increasingly suspicious of his employers. Could it be that the government actually benefits from this epidemic of addiction? After all, it’s easy to manipulate a nation of apathetic zombies.
Published in 1977, reflecting the drug culture of his day, Dick’s book is remarkably relevant to current events. He imagined a futuristic 1994, and many of his predictions were close to the mark. Newspapers report that governments are using powers of surveillance to monitor their own people. And drugs — prescription medication and illegal imports — continue to wreak havoc on young minds. Media, the Internet, and a proliferation of technological distractions are cultivating generations of naïve, isolated, self-indulgent, and easily manipulated individuals. And it’s increasingly difficult to sort out which politicians, leaders, and news sources can be trusted. Meanwhile, we’re bombarded by those who compete to sell us the latest salve for our frustrations.
Thus, Scanner works as a relevant and timely parable.
And yet, it’s rather difficult to sit through. As in the novel, Barris, Luckman, Freck, Hawthorne, and Arctor’s meandering conversations occasionally amuse. One hilarious sequence involves an argument over whether a bicycle has eight or twelve speeds. Viewers may find themselves growing weary of these verbose, dysfunctional fools.
As a result, this reviewer ended up “double-minded” about Linklater’s film:
Voice 1: “Nobody makes better movies about slackers and the search for meaning.”
Voice 2: “Well, yes, Linklater’s a fine director when he has an engaging subject, like a romance between charismatic characters (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset), or a hilarious comedy (The School of Rock, Dazed and Confused). But Scanner’s characters are somnambulistic and maddening. It’s a bore.”
Voice 1: “But the animation is fantastic! And this is Keanu Reeves’ best role since, well, the first time he played a delusional stoner — Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
Voice 2: “Still, the story just isn’t suspenseful. Stories about cops don't have to be action-adventure, but I feel like a good premise gets squandered here. ”
Voice 1: “Scanner isn't supposed to be a thriller. It’s a eulogy for Dick’s despairing generation. It’s a desperate search for mercy and hope.”
Voice 2: “Sure, it meant a lot to him. But to us? These guys are miserable company!”
As I argued with myself, I realized that my frustrations were not entirely the fault of the film. In part, I was hoping to be dazzled by summertime thrills. Thus, I became impatient with such a truthful portrayal of human frailty and folly.
Linklater admirably honors Dick’s convictions, giving us a sense of the author’s broken heart. Dick struggled with drugs himself. He knew his own weakness, and thus he had a deep sympathy for his friends who were worse off. This is a movie that may help despairing people see themselves in the mirror, and draw back from the abyss. It may caution people about the dangers of drugs. And it may sensitize others to the suffering and emptiness that turns lost souls into junkies.
And if I’m honest, I must admit that I can relate to these characters. I’ve never experimented with drugs, I know what it’s like to become frustrated with the world and with myself. I’ve been a double-minded man. I’ve done my share of blaming society for my own mistakes. It’s much easier to drown my woes in shallow distractions than it is show discipline and dedicate myself to making a difference.
Gradually, Agent Fred sees the limitations of government surveillance. And he fears that no human being can see things clearly enough to save them from themselves, much less save the world.
“What does a scanner see?" he asks. “Does a scanner see into me — into us — clearly or darkly? I hope it [sees clearly] … because I can't any longer these days see into myself.” And he concludes, “If the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed … and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too."
These lines contain a deliberate and revealing reference to 1 Corinthians 13:12: We currently see “through a glass darkly,” and our own faulty understanding fails us. Our hopes lie not in our capacity to solve these mysteries, thank God, but in the grace of the Maker who sees all things clearly, who loves even drug addicts unconditionally, and who promises to raise us up out of our ruined state.
Specials: FoxFaith, Leibowitz, and Bono
NEWMAN ON FOXFAITH
Marc T. Newman challenges Christian filmmakers to seize the day.
A SCI-FI CLASSIC
Thomas Hibbs at The National Review celebrates one of my favorite sci-fi novels: A Canticle for Leibowitz.
SOAKING IN VERSES FROM MATTHEW
Jesus supercharges one man's zeal to help the poor, and once again, he does this through the ministry of Bono.
"Bono doesn't have a lot of respect for the church, but he has a lot of respect for Christ," Jewett said, adding later, "I want people to be moved by Jesus's words, not by the institutional church."