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.
Is it really Paul Thomas Anderson directing "Prairie Home Companion"?
Robert Altman is, officially, the director of the big screen version of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.
But reports from the set, according to MNSpeak, suggest otherwise. Apparently, Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch-drunk Love, Magnolia) is shouldering a good deal of responsibility.
MNSpeak says, "the producers of the film probably insisted that Altman commit to a "backup" director because of his age ... and some say [Anderson is] basically running daily production of the film. [...] Between cuts, Robert belts directions over a mic while PT runs up to stage and speaks with the actors directly."
Very cool.
Anderson and Altman have similar styles, and they're both on my short list of favorite directors. My interest in the project just doubled.
I've Got a Golden Ticket to Narnia!
Woo hoo!!! I've just been informed that I have the enormous privilege of covering The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for Christianity Today.
And since I'm enormously skeptical about the whole affair, rather than a blindly loyal "Narniac" who's already calling the film a "classic" before seeing it, I hope I will give it a fair shake for all of you.
The season of the witch can't come soon enough....
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
"There is no place I know to compare with pure imagination." Gene Wilder sang that dreamy refrain when he played Willy Wonka, the candy-making madman in the beloved but creepy 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, based on Roald Dahl's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
That famous song would fit in beautifully with director Tim Burton's "take two" of Dahl's whimsical adventure. Burton turns the story into an explosion of "pure imagination." In fact, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is so alive with visual invention that some critics are saying there's too much imagination on screen. It's becoming more and more clear that Burton, despite his fetish for the phantasmagoric, is not so much a storyteller as a stylist. And Charlie gives him a big, bold framework across which he can drape his latest outrageous decorations.
It's a challenge to take a story about people who do little more than tour a building and turn it into something consistently entertaining. But Burton's done it, and better than it was done in 1971. It has some moments that teeter on the edge of tedium, as Wonka guides his admiring guests around and explains his whimsical inventions to them. But the effects are a hoot.
The casting ranges from good to brilliant... especially David Kelly as Grandpa Joe and Freddie Highmore as Charlie. Deep Roy deserves some kind of award for what must have been a trying role, performing all of the necessary Oompa Loompa tasks. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that the film is as good when Depp leaves the screen as it is when he's on it. In fact, the opening scenes in Charlie's ramshackle home are fantastic.
And Johnny Depp, while a far cry from Dahl's version of Wonka, creates another entirely unique character. His version of Wonka struck me as just as a man who never matured past the point of the fractured child he was when he ran away from home. Given the new back-story Burton's invented for him, that makes sense.
Personally, I've never been convinced that Dahl gave us enough story to fill out the frame of a fully satisfying feature film. Thus, I don't mind Burton's embellishments on the life of young Willy Wonka so much.
I think Burton makes it pretty clear, right up front, that this is a sort of thematic sequel to Edward Scissorhands — the first time we see Depp turn and face the camera, he's wielding a pair of scissors. Like Edward, Wonka lives in a castle on a hill. But unlike Edward, Wonka's doesn't have a benevolent bone in his body. He's the American dreamer... self-indulgent, pursuing only his own appetites, like the beastly children who abuse his generous offer of a tour. He finds, in the end, that even though he never had a loving family of his own, his only route to happiness is to find one... and to deal gracefully and forgivingly with the unfortunate damage that's been done to him.
Sure, this is a whole new lesson for the Wonka story, but it's not a bad one at all. In fact, it's a revision of the lesson of Burton's last film, Big Fish. That film ended by justifying the self-indulgence of its central character, saying it's alright to escape into irresponsible fantasies, even if you hurt those around you, because fantasy will earn you immortality. Burton's Chocolate Factory suggests that sometimes our fantasies can turn us into selfish fools; sometimes its better to make room for some reality; sometimes we should pursue not what we want, but what we need.
I feel compelled to add that I'm pleased with the film's emphasis on the link between parental irresponsibility and damaged child psyches. No, the movie is in no way subtle about this point, but that's forgivable considering the cartoonish nature of this adaptation, in which everything is exaggerated. To exaggerate a phrase from Flannery O'Connor: Sometimes a deaf culture needs to have its head stuffed into a megaphone while someone shouts the truth through it.
"ET 2, Barrymore?
Peter Chattaway somehow came across some Google news stories about Drew Barrymore and Steven Spielberg discussing a sequel to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial that would focus on a grown-up Gertie.
I'll be shocked if it happens, and disappointed. E.T. is a perfectly complete story. It doesn't need a sequel. Spielberg's a much different person now, and I'm not sure he can write a story that takes place in that world anymore.
I'm guessing this merely represents Barrymore trying to find something to give her failing career momentum a boost.
Let's not forget what happened last time Spielberg decided to make a sequel... The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. And since it seems we're doomed to see another Indiana Jones film, it would be a shame if Spielberg continued to revisit past ideas instead of exploring new ones. (I can't wait to see his film about the terrorism of the 1972 Munich Olympics.)
"Secular, Sacred ... or both?"
Kate Bowman has me cheering for her new commentary at Christianity Today: "Secular, Sacred ... or Both?"
Great stuff.Read more
The Onion AV Guide Asks Sufjan Stevens About Faith
O: Have you been surprised by how much attention has been paid to the fact that you're a Christian?
SS: Um... Yeah, I think it's a little disconcerting. It can be a little frustrating. I think that certain terms that we use to describe a culture or religion are in some ways our way of isolating people, and I think sometimes these terms bring up all sorts of prejudices and misunderstandings and misconceptions. And I feel a little frustrated and guilty about being a part of that banter. And in some ways, I feel like this is something that is really important and sacred. Maybe it really shouldn't be a part of public discussion, because, you know, it really is about personal relationships.
O: Also, you're Episcopalian, and growing up Episcopalian is not really the same thing as growing up, say, Southern Baptist.
SS: I wasn't actually raised Episcopalian. I go to a kind of Anglo-Catholic church now that I've been going to for the last three years, but I haven't really been raised that way. I'm definitely entrenched in the tradition now. I kind of admire it for being so traditional and sort of unchanging and unwavering in a lot of its doctrine, but also very sort of open and broad in its understanding of human nature. I like that it's kind of open to the discussion about the tensions between those two things.
Thanks to opuszine for the link!
Specials: See Sufjan! Costello/Harris tour. Arcade Fire buys a church. Terry Teachout goes to a movie alone. More.
Today's specials:
- Now you can watch Sufjan Stevens play Morning Becomes Eclectic. He plays music from 2005's best album thus far... Illinois.
- First, The Arcade Fire release the best album by a rock band in the last two years. Then, they buy a church.
- R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe reflects on the last ten months of touring. Hopefully his enthusiasm will help him record a better album than Around the Sun next time...
- Any upcoming movie with a cast like this--Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, and Mickey Rourke--deserves notice.
- Terry Teachout goes to see Me You and Everyone We Know, and then he writes:
"What to do? I treated myself to a good dinner, then went looking for a movie I hadn't seen, which turned out to be Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know. On my way to the theater, I tried to think of the last time I'd spent an evening watching a movie by myself in a city other than New York. When I go out of town, it's usually to visit a friend or cover a performance, so I tend not to be faced with the problem of what to do after dinner. At length I recalled that I'd seen Audrey Wells' Guinevere in Washington's Dupont Circle six years ago. I liked it very much, and I liked Me and You and Everyone We Know even more, but a few minutes into the film, it struck me that (A) I was watching a sad little comedy about the loneliness of postmodern urban life and (B) nobody in the world knew where I was."
Anybody out there like to go to movies alone? I find that when I see a movie solo, it's a wholly separate experience. When I watch movies with others, I'm very aware of their response to the screen--whether they're absorbed, thrilled, intrigued, discouraged, or bored. It affects my own experience significantly. Because I care, I start to get mad at the film for failing them... or I feel like telling my company what it is that they're missing... or I feel bad about the fact that what they think is funny leaves me completely unaffected. On my own, I'm not self-aware or conscious of my neighbors (unless they're obnoxious). I'm free to be drawn in, or disappointed, entirely based on what the film does to me. Now that I think about it, I don't go to movies by myself often enough.
- Expect to see THIS TOY showing up in blogs everywhere.
Whit Stillman returns!
Thanks to Adam Walter for discovering news about the next project from Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco)... Jane Austen's Winchester Races!
Walter also links to The Wall Street Journal's review of the new novel by Mark Helprin.
Because of these fine discoveries, I'll show mercy to Mr. Walter and skip mentioning that I ever saw him carrying a stack of the Left Behind novels around.
(Okay, he works at a bookstore. He was just shelving them.)