Say "Yes" to The Ragbirds - "Yes Nearby"
The most engaging new band I’ve heard this year is The Ragbirds, led by erin Zindle. It’s not a typo. Small “e”, big “Z.”
It’s an unconventional name for an unconventional sound. Zindle and her cohorts stir up a style-shifting row on their debut, Yes Nearby, with such enthusiasm, confidence, sincerity, and skill that it’s not hard to imagine them growing up to be one of those beloved bands of spirit and substance like Over the Rhine and The Innocence Mission. Attention, dispirited fans of the now-defunct Sixpence None the Richer: You can stop crying now.
But there’s a sort of playfulness in the music too that none of those bands exhibit. Songs dash along with blitzes of lickety-split banjo-and-bluegrass, then morph into tricky hand-clap rhythms and bum-bum-ba-dum singalongs, and suddenly darken and twist into eastern drones with the lyrics of echoing prayers. At first listen, it can take a while for the songs to sink their hooks in; but listen to it twice, and then a third time... turn it up... and you’ll find that the ambitious, complex, multi-layered rhythms become irresistible. Yes Nearby has an endearingly homemade quality to it, but if the Ragbirds get the attention of the right producer—Calling T-Bone Burnett!—their next album could be a major breakthrough.
Zindle’s voice strikes a sort of happy medium between the triangular points of Karin Bergquist’s blow-out-the-back-wall power and Amy Grant’s smooth pop sincerity. What she lacks in vocal distinction she makes up for with the force of her personality and perspective, which is clearly the driving force of the album. She’s front and center from beginning to end, only occasionally accented with backing vocals (most memorably in “Adoration,” where she swaps verses with seven-year-old Darby Horne). And in some songs, such a “Picture,” she’s also responsible for the mandolin, violin, dunun, and percussion.
She has good help too, from guitarist Adam Lambeaux. Multi-instrumentalist Randall Moore lends international flavors with performances on darbukka, djembe, dunun, talking drum, congas, and other varying percussion.
“Low Flying” is a prodigal’s lament, in which she croons over the restless fiddles, “Delirious with weariness and confusion / I fly a hundred miles from home with no conclusions.” In “Love’s Great Joke,” she further affirms her own insufficiencies: “My word is worth a mouthful of ashes and smoke.” And in the reggae pulse of “Narcissick,” she’s so blue that everything in the world seems like it’s her fault, including “wild fires in the west, wild storms in the east.”
All of these songs circle the suffering Christ who supports, who eludes our feeble definitions, who remains the only satisfying source of help. In “Picture,” Zindle sings, “I drew a picture / You were a thousand warriors defending my city / Then I saw a picture / You were a horse, a beast of burden / And we were the weight on your shoulders.” The groovy singalong “Tipi Baya” finds her shopping for solutions at the market, the courthouse, and the church, only to be disappointed by merchants of false hope.
Like the traveler in Pilgrim’s Progress, she’s clearly fed up with Vanity Fair. “Door in the Wall” is one of the album’s peaks—a pop powerhouse with so much soul it should be immediately covered by Joan Osborne. Punctuated by smart backing vocals, she sings about the nature of American pop culture to lull our sensibilities to sleep until we’re too numb to be moved by artists or truth. And in “Totem Pole,” she begs to be reminded of her “salvaged soul”: “You found me there, alive in the ashes.”
This leads to the album’s most inspiring flourishes: The soaring, echoing prayer of “Adoration” (“I am bursting with confessions/ Open up your ear to me/ Have mercy,” which leads to the loop-laced vow, “Now that I have seen the face of my Friend / I will not confuse or misplace my worship again.”
The album accelerates into a euphoric spirit-lifting anthem called “Believe It,” where she testifies, “I’d like to fly south, but I’m a Yankee bird/ Born in blankets of snow in Buffalo/ I’ve made a little nest in Michigan/ Where there’s plenty of hope for me/ To start again.” And in a piano meditation that recalls Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood,” she draws straight from scripture: “Have we understood that God is love/ And everywhere his lips confess his strategies?” Zindle brings back the festive combination of mandolin, violin, tin whistles, and bells to end with a surge of hope and celebration: “I see you’ve found your voice/ And are singing again/ I see you’ve found your pulse/ And are breathing again.” Both singer and listeners have found rejuvenation. And patient, attentive listeners have a feast that will last them for many months to come.
(Many thanks to Thom Jurek and Josh Hurst for bringing this band to my attention!)
Home at Last. What a week.
Anne and I have come crashing through the front door of our home, leaving behind us a memorable weekend in Colorado Springs, where we met Don Pape, the literary agent that's changing our lives.
Don gave us a tour of Alive Communications, his place of work. It's an agency that has represented such admirable writers as Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz), Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, and Philip Yancey. We met a whole corridor full of warm and welcoming people. Then Don treated us to a fantastic meal at a well-concealed but excellent restaurant where we were the only customers, and talked for hours about Auralia's Colors and its sequel, about our lives as writers and readers, about married life, and about other stories I intend to publish someday (if the Lord's willing).Read more
Film Forum is Up... Thanks to Chattaway
Still basking in the greatness of the Glen Workshop. Just had tearful goodbyes with several of the fiction writers with whom I formed strong bonds this week. Things are wrapping up in a hurry now. Sigh. I could live with this community, and it would bear many resemblances to my idea of heaven.Read more
Hiatus Report #2: Over the Rhine Rocks the Glen
Just a quick post, and then I'm off to do homework for tomorrow's workshop.
Last night, I had the overwhelming thrill of introducing Over the Rhine before their concert at the Glen Workshop. I barely got the words out around the lump in my throat, but it went well. The concert was, of course, sublime. It was just Linford and Karin this time, but they did a fair number of songs from "Drunkard's Prayer" and the best peformance of "Jesus in New Orleans" I've seen them do.
Highlight: In my introduction, I mentioned my love for "Good Dog Bad Dog." Later, while Linford was singing "Jack's Valentine" from that album, Karin was doing her usual, jazzy scat in the background. At one point, she said, "Y'all can join in with me. Jeffrey, come up here. I *KNOW* you'd like to join me." I suspect I turned a deep shade of purple, and declined in order to keep from spoiling the show.
Later, Anne's poetry provided the big finale of the writers' Open Mike event. (Pretty cool, considering poet Luci Shaw got things off to a great start.)
We're having a marvelous week hanging out with those two and with so many new friends. My biggest "It's a Small World" moment--Joel Pinson, who used to be part of the music group at my church, is here at the festival. I haven't seen him since we went out to lunch about four years ago. He's becoming an Anglican priest. Amazing.
Several of the writers I've met here are going to be big deals. Watch out for Sara Zarr, who just scored a two-book deal with Little-Brown. Michael Harris-Stone has a talent comparable to Guy Gavriel Kay. Great stuff.
We've also had the pleasure of meeting poet B.H. Fairchild (leading Anne's poetry workshop) and artist Barry Moser. Novelist Robert Clarke is also here; he read from a ne non-fiction work yesterday. I missed Paula Huston's reading and Laura Lasworth's art show... doggone it.
This morning, Anne and I took writers Erin McGraw (novelist) and Andrew Hudgins (Pulitzer-Prize-shortlisted poet) out to breakfast and had a stimulating chat. Tonight we're hosting a read-aloud party at our apartment that will probably run late into the night.
Oh... and another thing... The producers of a popular prime-time television series are showing interest in buying the rights to "Auralia's Colors."
Speaking of colors, the rain interrupted the relentless heat today, and we had a spectacular stack of rainbows here on the hills. I'll post a photo... in fact, a whole world of photos... over at Zero Zero Zero when I return.
It's been a very interesting week. Greg Wolfe and Company have developed a truly marvelous event here.
Many thanks to Josh Hurst and Peter T. Chattaway for covering for me at Christianity Today Movies.
More soon.
Hiatus Report #1
Ha!
I found an available computer at the library at St. John's College in Santa Fe, so I'll just give you these juicy tidbits about my week so far.
- I'm in a week-long fiction workshop with Erin McGraw, an author I hadn't yet discovered, but now you can call me a fan. She read from an upcoming work tonight, and it was extraordinary. She's married to the poet Andrew Hudgins, and Anne and I had the pleasure of enoying a meal with these two. They're amazing. Read their stuff.
- Speaking of meals. Last night, Anne and I stole away for a dinner with two folks with the initials L.D. and K.B., late, in downtown Santa Fe. If you know who I'm talking about, you know how indescribably happy Anne and I were to have such a blessing... how happy we still are.
- The first chapter of the sequel to my novel "Auralia's Colors" was well-received by the fiction workshop... very encouraging as I dive into the deep end of bringing this book to fruition and then into your hands.
- Anne is reveling in her poetry workshop with the brilliant B.H. Fairchild.
- Santa Fe is as gorgeous as ever. Every evening is a sky gallery of work painted by Georgia O'Keeffe... Yes, she's getting better and better in the afterlife.
- Wednesday night: Over the Rhine, live. I have the privilege of introducing them. Good grief, how do I keep my introduction from running longer than the show?
All of this to say: See what can happen at the Glen Workshop? Tell me you're signing up for next year's event as soon as possible!
Oh... Arts and Faith board folks... TCTRUFFIN is here too. I've met another A&F'er!
More to come, in greater detail, upon my return to my desk at home. This is a library computer, and there are folks waiting, so....
T.T.F.N.
Bewitched (2005)
[This review was originally published at Christianity Today.]
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It goes without saying that Bewitched owes a lot to the 1960s sitcom that inspired it. Fans of the show can rest easy—Nicole Kidman proves perfectly capable of the magical nose-twitching that made Elizabeth Montgomery everyone's favorite televised witch.
In recent years, we've seen far too many episodic television shows pumped up to forgettable, feature-length versions. Writer/director Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail) deserves kudos for her smart game plan. She might have re-contextualized characters like Samantha the witch, her bumbling husband Darrin, and her imperious mother Endora, in contemporary surroundings (The Honeymooners). Or, she could have "spiced up" the old mix with today's too-dirty-for-prime-time humor (Starsky and Hutch). Instead, she conjures a premise that captures the spirit of the original while developing a new and engaging scenario.
Thus, Bewitched is just as likely to remind viewers of other popular big screen comedies, and it borrows ideas from several. Like the hero of Groundhog Day, Isabel the witch (Kidman) has the capability of reliving situations and correcting her mistakes. And, taking a note from Bruce Almighty, Isabel manipulates her circumstances with godlike powers—even scrambling the speech of her love interest, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) when he doesn't cooperate—until she learns that that human limitations might be a good thing after all.
But there's another film that Bewitched resembles in surprising ways: Wim Wenders's Cannes-award-winning masterpiece Wings of Desire. Like that film's central character, an angel named Damiel, Isabel walks amongst troubled human beings, mystified by their limitations, trying to imagine how it would feel to be one of them. One question in particular becomes an obsession: What would it be like to fall in love?
Isabel, a magical flibbertigibbet, is seeking romance in the kingdom of artificiality—Beverly Hills. She's determined to win love honestly, unlike her philandering father Nigel (Michael Caine), a suave spellcaster who deceives women with enchantments and trickery. Nigel thinks Isabel isa-bonkers; after all, he seems satisfied with his self-gratifying love affairs. (Caine, who played the original Alfie, is once again perfectly cast as an insufferable seducer who learns lessons the hard way.) But Isabel wants to be done with potions and power plays. She wants human experience and all of its complications. She wants to be loved for who she is, to be needed instead of merely desired. In the aisles of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, she watches a husband and wife argue about home improvements, and enviously declares, "I want to argue about paint!"
Eventually, like Wenders's curious angel, Isabel takes the plunge, and awkwardly attempts to pass herself off as a typical human being. Soon, she's hanging out on movie sets, just as Damiel did, and falling for a show business personality whose career needs a jump-start, just as Damiel did.
That show business personality is Jack Wyatt (Ferrell). Jack's been trying to salvage his unstable career, hoping to avoid becoming "the lower right square on Hollywood Squares." Cast as Darrin in a new Bewitched television series, he's seeking a new Samantha—someone who'll ensure that the spotlight remains fixed on Darrin. Thrilled by his discovery of Isabel, Jack brings her to the set, where she charms the discouraged filmmakers. (Yes, we're served another example of that tired cliché—the montage of bad auditions—and it's surprisingly unfunny.)
Even though Nigel objects, saying that Bewitched is "an insult to our way of life," Isabel's willing to play along, hoping it'll earn her a chance at true love. She's a natural at playing a witch—go figure—and that makes it difficult to repress her control-freak tendencies. Like a smoker trying to quit, Isabel repeatedly declares, "That was my last thing as a witch!" Before long, Jack's storming about in a supernaturally amorous frenzy, not unlike the recent, reckless, lovestruck exhibitions of Tom Cruise. Meanwhile, Nigel becomes distracted by Iris (Shirley McLaine in feather boas, vamping up a storm), the silver screen diva playing Samantha's mother Endora.
Ultimately, Isabel will learn not only the challenges of true love, but also that she is not the first to make "the big switcheroo"—just as Damiel discovered in Wings of Desire.
But that's where the similarities with the German art-film masterpiece stop. Wenders's film was a ponderous journey, an ocean of spiritual inquiry, and by comparison, Bewitched is more like a puddle. But puddles can be fun for splashing around in. If you're looking for a movie that will turn your brain off instead of on, you could do far worse. Captured colorfully by cinematographer John Lindley, production designer Neil Spisak, and costume designer Mary Zophres, Bewitched is an old-fashioned, relatively inoffensive comedy. Even though Ephron surrenders her inquiry into human experience and settles for screwball situational comedy and Hollywood sentimentality, her cast provides pleasant amusement for about 60 of their 98 minutes. Is that enough bang for your summertime moviegoing buck? You decide.
Most of the highlights belong to Kidman and Ferrell, who invest this mediocre material with inspiration and energy. Kidman is rarely given permission to turn loose her inner Loony Toons, but here she fulfills the potential for comedy that she demonstrated during the zanier stretches of Moulin Rouge and the outrageous Saturday Night Live skits she performed with Mike Meyers back in 1993.
Jack Wyatt is a character designed to give Ferrell room to do all of the things he does best: the goofy cheerleader jump, the audacious nakedness, the absurd attempts at melodrama—there's even a nod to his notorious impression of James Lipton. The role was reportedly intended for Jim Carrey, but Ferrell's shtick is as inspired as some of Steve Martin's classic performances. (As for that "audacious nakedness," Jack appears as a guest on a late-night talk show, and Isabel zaps him so his clothes disappear, leaving him leaping around in embarrassment. His vital parts are blurred out in the scene.)
In fact, Jack is unfortunately too crazy and erratic to be taken seriously as Isabel's romantic ideal—and that's the film's biggest problem. We sympathize with Isabel's yearning for a real relationship. (After her first real fight, she declares, "It was very hard, but secretly quite thrilling!") And thus, it's disappointing that the film doesn't find her a more promising match than this self-centered oaf. In a better movie, Isabel would have realized that she doesn't need to a man's adoration in order to be fulfilled.
But alas, in that last act, it's suddenly obvious that the brains behind this brouhaha belong to the woman who wrote the cliché-ridden favorites Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. Spirited, anarchic comedy gives way to such familiar devices as the last-minute change of heart, the nicely packaged lessons (like learning to say "I'm sorry"), and the race to catch the girl before she leaves for good. In Ephron's world (she co-wrote this movie with her sister Delia), the only "happily ever after" vehicle is a two-seater.
Even the soundtrack turns obvious and unimaginative. The hit parade of witch-oriented pop songs culminates with the Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." Frantic to inspire some kind of feeling in the audience, they even dust off R.E.M.'s emotional anthem "Everybody Hurts."
To make matters worse, Isabel and Jack are surrounded by forgettable characters, played by actors who deserve better. Jason Schwartzman and Kristin Chenoweth waste our time in half-cooked roles. (Interestingly, Chenoweth, playing a mortal here, once earned a Tony nomination as the Good Witch Glinda in a Broadway production of Wicked. A regular on TV's The West Wing, the versatile Chenoweth also recently released a Christian album, As I Am.) Shirley MacLaine's vainglorious Iris is a feeble echo of Dianne Wiest's Bullets Over Broadway diva. Poor Steve Carrell, who became Hollywood's hottest laugh-getter when he stole the show in Ferrell's Anchorman, looks desperate in a doomed last-act appearance.
Ferrell and Kidman deliver the necessary fireworks when the inevitable, climactic confrontation arrives, and Ferrell gets what will become the film's most quoted punchline. But afterward, all that's left to do is tie the loose ends into standard fairy-tale knots. Isabel's search for true love ends up looking like another rash Beverly Hills romance, ticking like a time bomb, and the movie becomes something as frivolous and disposable as, well, an episode of Bewitched.
Today's Specials: Overstreet on Hiatus! And More...
I've been away for a couple of days, preparing for my presentation at Seattle Pacific University University's UR (University Relations) Staff Retreat.
The retreat was yesterday, and I had the incredible privilege of talking to about 75 SPU staff members about my history as a moviegoer, the development of Looking Closer; the changing dialogue within Christian communities on the subject of film, Christian liberty, and conscience; the different ways in which we watch and should watch movies; the different ways in which film manipulates our feelings about characters and ideas; the severe neglect in America of foreign and art films; how to watch an art film; etc.
We watched clips from various films, and then enjoyed Kryzysztof Kieslowski's Bleu in its entirety. The discussion afterward was revelatory. It was the most encouraging event I've had the privilege to participate in. The group was attentive and really engaged with the clips and the movie. What a difference from 10 years ago, where talking to a similar group of Christians about movies was like starting a bar brawl.
And now, folks, I need a break from the Internet.
And, it just so happens that Anne and I will be participating in a week-long writer's workshop next week, as well as enjoying visits with family members and meeting up with my agent and the publishers who have determined to change our lives. So it'll be a week full of activity and creativity.
I'll dive back into blogging during the second week of August. And, I may discover an opportunity here or there during the workshop to post an update, but I'm not sure that'll be possible.
Until then, here are today's specials (most of them coming from Coming Soon):
- Check out this very fine article identifying the problem with today's "Christian fiction."
- The trailer for Julianne Moore's next film. (Once again, she's a period-piece housewife. This stereotyping makes me very, very sad. Moore's so talented and so versatile. Remember Lebowski? And this trailer gives me the creeps, with the way it toes the line of belittling the dignity of housewives. I'm worried about what this film is going to try to "say.")
- What's down the hatch? Lost is coming back!
- For those of you still sticking with ABC's Alias, Sidney Bristow is pregnant! What bothers me about this report is the idea that, since Bristow's pregnant, she needs a sexy new apprentice in order to keep the show "sexy." What... just because Bristow's pregnant immediately disqualifies her from the category of "attractive"? Jeeez.
Specials: Leary on Dynamite; Brothers Quay + Gilliam; V for Vendetta; The Island
Today's specials:
- Twitch scoops an intriguing collaboration between The Brothers Quay and Terry Gilliam. Wow. Sounds promising indeed. Go here for news and stills.
- The trailer for Natalie Portman's new film with the makers of The Matrix: V for Vendetta.
- What did I say about The Island being built out of parts stolen from other movies?
Too Bad a Tsunami Didn't Destroy "The Island"
"We're about to fall 70 stories!" "Don't worry. We'll walk away from it."I would use the word "obscene" to describe Michael Bay's The Island...
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for the way that its story is made up almost entirely of ideas stolen from other, far better science fiction movies;
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for the way that it operates in a hysterical, high-speed, senses-battering mode in order to hold your attention and distract you from the astonishingly huge gaps in logic;
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for the head-spinning coincidences;
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for the way it insults our intelligence by labeling almost every piece of furniture in this futuristic film with LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS so that we know exactly what it is (like "CONTAMINATION DOOR"), and so we know exactly what kind of destruction will take place if someone pushes the wrong button or messes with it (which is pretty much a guarantee that someone WILL mess with it);
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for the way the characters speak to each other in a language of the PAINFULLY OBVIOUS so that we don't for a moment have to think for ourselves;
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for the way it wastes the time and talent of so many great actors (Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johannson, Sean Bean, Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi);
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for the variety of ways in which it sensationalizes and entertains us with various forms of torture, maiming, injuring, poisoning, and desecrating live human characters;
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for its portrayal of authority -- ANY authority, from cops to the cafeteria lady -- as evil and oppressive and disposable; and for how it identifies the heroes as people who will lie, cheat, and steal in order to rebel against any authority but themselves (thus, it's a movie aimed to appeal to the sympathies of a six-year old);
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and most of all, for the amount of money that must have been spent in order to mount such an outrageously empty, derivative, ridiculous film. (Think of how many smaller, meaningful, worthwhile movies could have been made with just the amount of money the various sponsors contributed in order to have their logos onscreen... logos that have curiously remained EXACTLY THE SAME even though this is supposed to happen in the distant future: MSN, Johnny Rockets, Calvin Klein, Nokia...)
Yes, I would call the film obscene if it weren't so inadvertently funny.
My friends Danny, Wayne, and I laughed like we haven't laughed in a long time.
We especially laughed when, to escape the police, Ewan McGregor AND Scarlett Johansson jump on a flying motorcycle (the kind the bad guys use to chase down escapees, but that the cops never seem to have handy--they're still using present-day BlackHawk helicopters). It's clear that McGregor has never used this kind of cycle before, but he operates it like a pro, weaving in and out of various levels of airborne traffic, at high speed, dodging bad guy blasts, and then he SMASHES IT THROUGH ONE SIDE OF A SKYSCRAPER, DOWN A CORRIDOR WHERE HE HITS NO ONE, AND THEN OUT THE WINDOW ON THE OTHER SIDE... and somehow Scarlett Johansson doesn't let go. (Apparently, we're back to the days when smashing an aircraft through a skyscraper is good old-fashioned fun again instead of a troubling reminder of real terror.) THEN they end up stranded on a giant company logo, at the 70th floor level, on the outside of the tower. The logo is a big letter "R", so they have a nice space to cower in as the bad guys fly around and SHOOT THE LOGO OFF OF THE BUILDING (it's fastened there with cables, you see; easily separated from the building). Then the logo FALLS OFF THE BUILDING with them still holding onto it. Fortunately for them, the falling logo HITS THE BLACK HAWK HELICOPTER on the way down, destroying it (and, I can only assume, all of the officers inside), and then falling 70 stories to the ground.
Do McGregor and Johansson survive the fall? What do you think?
Are they able to go back to their existence without a big media row?
That's just five minutes of this relentlessly ridiculous film.
To make matters worse, the movie THINKS it has a serious story, and that it's dealing with serious issues.
These issues have been dealt with far, far better in the movies that The Island has pillaged: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), Gattaca, Minority Report, A Clockwork Orange, and many more, above all ... THX 1138.
In the end, the movie has nothing more to offer than Soylent Green. We discover, early on, that McGregor and Johansson are just clones, "insurance policies" waiting to have their organs harvested for the benefit of their "originals." The originals believe they've invested millions into the development of tissue that is not part of a sentient creature; and thus they see no ethical problem. But the clone-making company learns that the organs just don't work unless they're developed within living, breathing human beings, so they create a covert society in the middle of a desert where the clones can obliviously grow these "resources" until the day they're told they've won a lottery, and they're carried away into the depths of this evil corporate fortress and euthanized so their organs can be extracted. The movie then runs on the impression that we will find this truly horrifying. In truth, you'll just sit their imagining Charlton Heston running around in a panic, shouting, "Your insurance policies are PEOPLE!!!"
There's a fleeting bit of fun to be had watching Ewan McGregor meet his "original" and fight himself. But that doesn't make up for the excruciating pain of watching this abominable waste of Scarlett Johansson, whose natural beauty is lost in these relentless, grotesque, Maxim-style glamour shots served up for the salivating neanderthals in the crowd.
Steve Buscemi and Johansson have worked together before, in a wonderful little movie called Ghost Wo
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d. They'll be more famous now, thanks to this, but they're sacrificing their integrity in the process.
Oh, did I mention the glass? Whenever anybody in the movie falls or runs or drives at a high speed, you can expect their path to be blocked by all manner of glass objects. One of them falls from a great height in the middle of a train station, and somehow lands behind a bar, crashing through a huge shelf-system made of glass and loaded with bottles of alcohol. So not only do we watch this character shot, but also falling, and then smashing through enough glass to put windows in a skyscraper.
I walked out of the theater feeling as if I'd just paid seven dollars to have someone shove my head through plate glass windows for two hours, except for the fact that I'd been laughing the whole time.
That can't be healthy.
Expect Michael Bay to be rewarded with a huge box office weekend.
J. Robert Parks Raves about "The World"
J. Robert Parks says he's found one of the best films of the year.
A few days ago, my friend Garth asked what I was reviewing this week, and I replied "The World." He was confused at first, and I hastened to add "The World" was the film's name. "That's a pretty broad title," Garth joked. It is, and yet I'm not sure I could think of a better one.
The movie stars Zhao Tao as a young woman named Tao who works at the World Theme Park. The park is an actual (and bizarre) tourist attraction in Beijing that advertises, "See the world without leaving Beijing." What visitors see are half- and quarter-scale replications of famous landmarks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Moscow's Red Square, and even the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The fictional Tao is a dancer in the numerous cultural productions the park puts on, as well as a stand-in at various exhibits (she plays a flight attendant on a replica of a plane, at one point).
Tao is dating Taisheng, a young man who's migrated from a rural province and who works as a security guard. Their acquaintances include other young people who work at the park (dancers and security guards mostly). The film follows them over the course of several months, as they meet new people, fall in love, try to switch jobs, and come to terms with what their lives are going to be like.
One of the many great aspects of the movie is how writer and director Zia Jhangke captures that restless feeling of being in your twenties: not married but dating, striving but not a success, working at jobs you plan on leaving, hanging out with friends but not sure they'll be there for you next year. Tao's story, with its struggles and joys, can be found on the streets of Chicago, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, and any city where young people come to find their lives and reach their dreams. That The World reveals the details in that tale as well as the larger themes and lessons is testimony to the richness of the characters and their interactions.
The World is different from almost every movie, though, in its use of visual motifs and stunning cinematography. If you've ever wondered what film critics are talking about when they mention "film space," The World is a perfect example. Zia often contrasts what's happening in the foreground with what's occurring in the background. A peasant with a bag full of pop bottles walks in front of the park's replica of the Eiffel Tower. Tao and a migrant worker talk on a construction site while a plane takes off behind them. The movie takes advantage of its widescreen framing, often filming a conversation while also allowing us to see how other people are acting and reacting. But the film also shrinks that distance in an amazing sequence when a young couple, using video technology, take a magic carpet ride over the Paris landscape.
Zia also highlights foreground and background through powerful diagonal shots. One conversation in the park takes place while a group of tourists watch a dancing troupe in front of the Taj Mahal. The mix of banal and strange is amplified by cinematographer Yu Likwai's amazing composition. And I can't leave out the movie's opening scene--an incredible Steadicam long-take through the subterranean hallways of the dancers' dressing rooms.
World Park is a spectacular setting for a movie, but Zia Jhangke does so much more than just use it for visual flourish and ironic counterpoint. He integrates the theme of travel and culture into his characters' lives. Taisheng and a number of his friends have migrated from the rural province of Shanxi to Beijing (just as Zia did) looking for work, and their contrast with the more sophisticated urban residents highlights one of China's primary conflicts. As Tao and Taisheng struggle in their relationship, Taisheng meets a woman whose husband has left for France, and Tao strikes up a friendship with Anna, a Russian woman who's come to dance at the park. Though they can't speak each other's language, they still communicate through hand gestures, facial expressions, and, in one moving scene, song.
There's also a provocative scene when Tao's ex-boyfriend comes to visit her. He has a passport to go to Mongolia, and Tao and Taisheng are envious, and so they take him to the train station, which functions as a metaphorical crossroads. Western audiences who use Mongolia as a stand-in for the last place on earth they'd like to visit will find that amusing, but it's also a reminder that simple geography goes a long way toward determining how we see the world. When the average Chinese doesn't have a passport and the government still attempts to control the flow of information, the park functions as a locus of longing to see and understand the outside world.
Yet, what do these characters and the others who come to the park learn from their experience? They take pictures in front of the scaled-down monuments, and they see lavish productions. Even those, though, are fuzzy facsimiles at best. At one point, Tao is assigned to play the "African" dancer, not because of any racial distinction but because there is no one darker than she. And how is the U.S. portrayed? America is a "green country," a taped message at the park states. "They are not cultural snobs. They know how to create a show business culture." Guilty as charged, but I can't imagine any American who'd be happy with such a basic characterization. Of course, the average American's view of the world is probably even less sophisticated. When MSNBC claims, without irony, to bring us up-to-date in 15 minutes and FOX News gives its tour of world events in 90 seconds and CNN's entertainment coverage lasts longer than any foreign news that doesn't involve bombs, is it no surprise that Americans still can't pick out Iraq and Afghanistan on a globe? The fact that we don't have our own world theme park is due only to the fact that we have Las Vegas instead.
In that sense The World is more than just one of the best movies of the year. It is, like all great foreign films, an absolutely necessary window onto a part of the world that we know little about and a timely reminder of why we must broaden our horizons. That it ends up showing us how much we have in common is icing on the cake.
Four 1/2 stars out of five.