The Brave One

The Brave One; drama, USA, 1956, D: Irving Rapper, S: Michel Ray, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr., Elsa Cardenas, Carlos Navarro, Joi Lansing  

Leonardo (11) lives in a poor Mexican family, his father Rafael not even owning the farm that they work on. Their cow dies, but gives birth to a calf, which Leonardo lovingly nurtures and calls it Gitano. The land owner Alejandro writes a letter confirming that the bull belongs to Rafael. However, Alejandro dies during a race track in Europe, and the letter cannot be found, so his manager takes Gitano and intends to use him for bullfighting in an arena, where bulls are killed. Leonardo goes to Mexico City to beg the President to release Gitano, but the latter can only give him a recommendation for the owner to do so. Leonardo is too late, Gitano is sent to the arena and stabbed with the spears by the matador, but the audience cheers to pardon the bull for its resilience. Leonardo entere the ring and walks away with Gitano through the gates of the arena.  

“The Brave One” is a gentle, remarkably honest and innocent little film about a friendship between a little boy (the role of a lifetime for Michel Ray, who later quit acting) and a bull, using it as a sad allegory about loss which already hits people during their childhood. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo is a step below his finest work “Roman Holiday”, lacking more finesse or cinematic knitting, settling for only a bull version of “Lassie”, yet its uncynical and humanist perspective is hard to brush off. In the opening, it is implied that Leonardo’s family is attending a funeral of his mother, and later during the stormy night, he saves a calf, whom he names Gitano, after his cow mother died, symbolically linking their two fates. The father says two sophisticated lines in two scenes to Leonardo that sum up its themes: “One’s whole life is a loss” and “It is in the nature of things that when one loves too much one loses much”. The rest of the story is good, but standard, and a little bit overstretched in the last third, dragging the pace too much with Leonardo running through the streets of Mexico City in search for the President. However, the viewers just simply have to let one’s guard down in face of such love between Leonardo and the bull, as the kid watches Gitano being forced to fight in the arena, and you would have to have a heart of stone to not shed at least a tear at the ending.  

Grade:++

Mary

Mary; psychological drama, Italy / France / USA, 2005, D: Abel Ferrara, S: Forest Whitaker, Matthew Modine, Juliette Binoche, Heather Graham, Marion Cotillard  

The director Tony Childress completed the filming his Jesus Christ movie “This is My Blood”, but his actress playing Mary Magdalene, Marie Palesi, suddenly refuses to go back to New York and instead decides to go to Jerusalem to explore her faith. In New York, Ted is a host of a TV show focusing on topics about Jesus. Ted cheats on his pregnant wife Elizabeth, but regrets it when she undergoes an early labor, leaving both her and her child in critical condition in a hospital. Ted prays to God for their healing, even though he is an atheist. Ted also hosts Tony to talk about his film, but the screening is interrupted when religious fanatics attack the cinema theater.  

Abel Ferrara directed this strange, skewed drama about religion which never connects as a whole to reach some specific point. It goes from subplot to subplot, yet cannot settle on what it wants to say. In the first story, the actress playing Mary Magdalene, Maria (Juliette Binoche), quits her New York high class lifestyle and decides to live in Jerusalem to explore her faith. What exactly is she searching? What is her goal? What is she doing there, save for two sequences where she is shown praying in a church or having a dinner with a family before a terrorist attack outside interrupts them? It is unclear, and thus the viewers cannot engage with Maria, who just “disappears” from the film. The second story follows the boastful director Tony who promotes his Jesus film “This is My Blood”, which attracts protests and anger. Why is the movie controversial? It is unclear. There are references to the similar hate campaign aimed against Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”, and are combined with images of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to contemplate about the dark side of religions, fundamentalism. In the third story, atheist Ted appeals to God in his prayers to save his sick wife and child, giving a meditation on his psychological crucifiction in the modern era, presenting the parallel of Jesus as an archetype of plight and suffering in the world through generations. Does Ted change? It is unclear. Ultimately, these unclear contemplations do not amount to a conclusion or a better articulated film, equipped with a vague open ending, and thus these underdeveloped subplots feel more confused than enlightened.   

Grade:+

His Dark Materials (Season 2)

His Dark Materials; fantasy mystery series, UK / USA, 2020, D: Jamie Childs, Leanne Welham, S: Dafne Keen, Amir Wilson, Ruth Wilson, Ariyon Bakare, Will Keen, Lin-Manuel Miranda, James McAvoy

Lyra and her daemon Pan cross the portal and land in a transit-dimensions city called Cittagazze, where she meets the teenage boy Will from Earth. The city only hosts children, since whenever someone grows up, their souls are consumed by the strange ghostly spectres. Lyra and Will go to a tower where Giacomo gives them the Subtle Knife that is able both to cut any material and to cut portals through to other dimensions. They go to Earth, to Oxford, to inquire about the Dust, aka the Dark Mater, by scholar Mary. In the meantime, the Magisterium finds out from the witches that Lyra is the second Eve that will cause another fall, so they want to kill her once they find her. However, her mother, Mrs. Coulter, poisons Carlo from the Magisterium, and hides Lyra away.

The second season that corresponds with the second book from Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy of novels is again well made, and yet it suffers from the same flaws of such high-level TV productions: formally it did everything right, and yet its high production values dwell into such obsessive planning and micromanaging that the whole story becomes mechanical, lifeless and grey, without some spontaneous energy that would make it more human and charming. The whole story just seems so caged in at times that one wishes it would break the mold more often. Its biggest asset is again its daring, unflinching approach towards the dark themes of its source material, including critical thinking and requestioning of an ideology, which were not softened, and thus feels remarkably independent despite its big budget. The Magisterium panicking while trying to suppress people finding out about parallel worlds is an allegory for the 17th century Church trying to censor Copernicus and Galilei dismantling the geocentric system. A good example is episode 4, in the portal city of Cittagazze, where Will battles a punk who tried to steal the magical “Subtle knife”—even though Will wins, at one point the punk swings the knife and cuts two fingers away from Will’s hand. And surprisingly, the owner of the knife, the old Giacomo, reveals to Will that he himself has the exact same two cut fingers on his right hand, identical as Will. There is also a fascinating little episode including Oxford scholar Mary, a woman who abandoned being a nun since she lost her faith, but who finds a way to communicate with the Dark mater, and gets a response from it on her computer, telling her they are angels: a super chilly ending to an episode. Sadly, the rest of the season is unable to repeat that level, due to several omissions, such as the character of Scoresby who has no purpose—if his only role was to find Parry, couldn’t they have just simply made it that Parry appears all by himself? An intricate, complicated web of a storyline which still needs to be connected, and has its moments. 

Grade:++

His Dark Materials (Season 1)

His Dark Materials; fantasy mystery series, UK / USA, 2019, D: Tom Hooper, Dawn Shadforth, Otto Bathurst, Euros Lyn, S: Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Anne-Marie Duff, James Cosmo, James McAvoy, Lewin Lloyd, Amir Wilson  

In an alternate reality, people’s souls are manifasted into animals that talk, “daemons”, who cannot be distanced too far away humans without hurting them. The world is governed by Magisterium, an institution that punishes any critical thinking. Lyra is a 13-year old orphaned girl with a weasel-like daemon Pan, and she grew up with her friend Roger, but the latter is kidnapped by the Gobblers, a group that performs experiments on children by seperating them from the daemons. When her uncle Asriel returns from the North Pole and presents photos of “The Dust”, thought as the origin of “sins”, he is accused of blasphemy, and Lyra saves him from drinking a poisoned drink. Asriel flees in a Zeppelin to continue his research. Lyra is given an alethiometer, a compass-like device that tells the truth, and meets Mrs Coulter who educates her at her apartment, but who works for the Gobblers. Lyra flees with the Gyptians, a group led by Farder that wants to stop the Gobblers, so they travel to the North Pole and are joined by a Polar bear with armor, Iorek. Mrs Coulter thinks that by severing daemons from kids, the group will prevent the onset of “sins” in adolescence. Asriel severs Rogers from daemon, killing him, which opens a portal to another dimension which Asriel enters.  

This TV series adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book trilogy “His Dark Materials”—which stands as a UFO of sorts among the preteen fantasy fiction—is kind of a rare wonder: the original storyline included such uncompromising themes as atheism; critical thinking; questioning of any kind of totalitarian one-party ideology as absolute; and child kidnappings that any kind of mainstream Hollywood film adaptation would have to a priori be a compromise, and thus unworthy, without courage. Sure enough, Weitz’s film adaptation “The Golden Compass” was a disappointingly “cleansed”, rump version of the first novel, dictated by the producers who chickened out when faced with the too controversial subplots, and the comparison with the TV series is even more staggering. The first 30 minutes of the TV series are already better than the entire said film. The story is more detailed, and thus feels more complete, whereas it intruiges as the viewers follow Lyra (a very good Dafne Keen) as she tries to solve the mystery, find as many pieces as possible and connect the dots. This alternate fantasy world is surprisingly dark and bitter (when someone crushes the animal soul of the people, their daemon, the person dies as well, and the other way around: when a man jumps into death, his daemon, a hawk, dissolves into dust). However, while the 1st season of the series is faithful to the source material, the said source material is not flawlessly written: while the themes are thought provoking, and defy the idealistic escapism of the genre, they are written rather standardly, too dry at times, especially during the monotone dialogues, and thus, after an initial wonder of curiosity in the first episodes, the whole narrative starts to drag from episode 4 onwards. A little more finesse, wit and ingenuity would have made for a broader spectrum of a viewing experience. While too grey at times, and serving more as a long introduction, the 1st season has surprises (one character routinely goes through a portal to visit modern Oxford for his own agenda), and thus the anticipation of the next season is essential.   

Grade:++

Ruby Sparks

Ruby Sparks; fantasy romantic comedy, USA, 2012, D: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, S: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Steve Coogan, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Elliott Gould, Toni Trucks  

Calvin (29) wrote a famous teenage novel ten years ago, but could not repeat his success in the meantime, and now lives alone with his dog in a mansion, listening to his brother Harry taunting him for being single. Calvin decides to start writing a novel about his fictional dream woman, Ruby Sparks, but is shocked when one morning she comes to life and appears in his kitchen. Though bewildered at first, Calvin starts a relationship with her and enjoys his life. They meet his parents. However, when Ruby gets bored and moves out for a couple of days, Calvin uses his typewriter to writer that she returns to him infatuated, and Ruby complies. Calvin does not want to manipulate her, and sets her free with his typewriter. He completes the novel, and later meets a woman who looks exactly like Ruby, who wants to meet him.  

In the somewhat similar ‘91 fantasy comedy “Delirious”, writer J. Candy finds himself inside his own TV show, and realizes he can control everything and everyone with his typewriter—a parallel can be drawn with this gentle romantic fantasy comedy “Ruby Sparks”, except that the concept narrows it down to the writer using his typewriter to control only one character, the title heroine who came alive from his novel and traversed into the real world. Though, ironically, in reality the person pulling the strings is actually the main actress Zoe Kazan, who wrote the script. For this film, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris brought back their “Little Miss Sunshine” star Paul Dano as the geeky, hapless writer Calvin, and used the story to contemplate about some more bitter realizations in life: from free will; the relationship between the creator and his creation; slavery; loneliness in modern times; using power to compensate for incompetence; up to the creeping routine that causes disenchantment in the incredible subplot where even Calvin’s dream creation becomes bored with him and moves out for a few days, so Calvin resorts to his typewriter to write that she comes back to him. The storyline was not that well developed (all the sequences involving the parents seem as if they were hastily improvised on the spot) and feels as if it lacks that inspiration and magic when one watches its great movie poster. Likewise, one false note bothers, the misguided gore sequence of the couple watching bloody scenes at a Zombie film festival. Sadly, Kazan and Dano have insufficient charm or charisma to truly carry the romantic comedy aspect of the film, but are otherwise good actors. “Ruby Sparks” is just good enough to recommend, but did not get the most of its imaginative potentials.   

Grade:++

Sailor Moon Eternal

Sailor Moon Eternal; animated fantasy, Japan, 2021, D: Chiaki Kon, S: Kotono Mitsuishi, Kenji Nojima, Misato Fukuen, Hisako Kanemoto, Rina Sato, Ami Koshimizu, Shizuka Ito, Nanao Arai 

Nehelenia wants to conquer the world, and her henchmen the Amazoness Quartet attack the Sailor Senshi by trying to trap them in a nightmare, but Sailor Moon and Chibiusa outfox them and join forces with Pegasus from the dream and defeat Nehelenia.  

This two-part anime movie was based on the best season from the original “Sailor Moon” manga, SuperS, and yet it still was not able to reach the level of the 90s anime version of it. Nominally, the movie did everything right: the relationship between Pegasus and Chibiusa is better explained; the story is more compact; there are no fillers; the Outer Senshi were included in it—and yet, it simply lacks that magic and pure, untrammelled ingenuity of the 90s SuperS anime. It is just so lifeless, mechanical and porcelain, as if it is too scared too be anything more than formal. For instance, what is the motive of the villain? The whole sequence that gives a background to Nehelenia’s grudge against Queen Serenity unravels something like this: the former came uninvited to the latter’s party, they spoke vaguely back and forth until the Queen sentenced her to a neverending banishment, and Nehelenia cursed her dynasty—this whole moment is just so muddled, underdeveloped and haphazard that the viewers cannot accept it as a valid argument for all of her evil. One of the better aspects is that the story explores the theme of clashing, rival dreams: the five girls all confess their private dreams (from running a shrine to becoming a doctor), but being a superheroine Sailor Senshi gets in their way. Therefore, at the beginning, they all secretly realize they cannot transform anymore, as if their passion for being a superheroine has redirected to their other dream.   

The way they undergo this crisis and get to a resolution, namely that being a superheroine is their true identity, and more important than their dream, is a well earned lesson. There is also a fascinating excursion to Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna living in a retirement of sorts, raising Hotaru in a desolate house, as if it is from a different movie. The much talked about sequence of an 8-year old Hotaru touching the mirror and seeing a taller, teenage version of herself as Sailor Saturn also touching her hand really is mysterious, and could be interpreted in a way that the Sailor Senshi are the ultimate, fullfiled version of themselves, their psychological shadow or their collective past heritage that is always a part of them. Unfortunately, out of five individual stories that follow the inner Senshi, only two are interesting: Minako and Rei. Sadly, all the rest are uninteresting. It is as if their irresistible personalities were removed from their bodies. In Rei’s segment, Rei complains that hiring a worker in her shrine is expensive, so Minako jokingly suggests she should marry and thus get a worker for free. In another humorous moment, a little Usagi complains that she had a nightmare of a beast that eats crybabies. In the said two rare moments, they had them—they recaptured that 90s frequency of the personalities of these great characters. Unfortunately, they immediately lost them after that, and thus returned to good, but underwhelming, bland personalities. Rei in this entire edition is simply never as alive of a character as Rei in the 90s anime who wipes her out with just one move in episode 159, where she takes a sip of coffee, but then just opens her mouth after shocking news and the coffee just spills out of her jaw back into her cup. The same goes for the 90s Minako, who tries to seduce a teacher in episode 154 by offering to have as much children with him to fill a football team. And these versatile sequences abound in the original. “Sailor Moon Crystal” is Salieri, while the 90s “Sailor Moon” is Mozart.  

Grade:++

Tender Mercies

Tender Mercies; drama, USA, 1983, D: Bruce Beresford, S: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Allan Hubbard, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin  

Texas. Mac Sledge is a forgotten country singer and an alcoholic, but waking up one day in a motel after a fight, he decides to change and asks the motel owner, the widow Rose and her little kid Sonny, if he can repay his debt by working on her gas station. Mac marries Rose. Rumors of him living there attracts attention of the locals, and Mac writes a new song. He meets his ex-wife Dixie, also a country singer, whom he beat while an alcoholic, and finally meets his daughter Sue Anne (18) again. However, Sue Anne dies in a car crash. Mac returns to Rose and Sonny.  

“Tender Mercies” is a movie so gentle, so honest and so humane that you feel pity that it sets out to achieve only a correct impression, instead of also reaching out towards something more—it did nothing bad, but also nothing great, either—save for one inspired monologue towards the end. Everything here is done in a subtle, understated manner, since the director Bruce Beresford tries to cultivate delicate characters and their interactions, and he gets solid support from his cast, especially in the good performance by Robert Duvall as ex-country singer Mac, who changes from an alcoholic to a noble, calm person. Even the countryside seems to tell something metaphorically, since wide shots show a desolate house in the middle of nowhere, congruent to Mac’s state of isolation from others as an alcoholic. However, the story never amounts to some outstanding moments, whereas certain parts in it seem underdeveloped: when Mac and Rose are gardening, and he proposes to her, without any previous hint at their love interest, already 13 minutes into the film, the whole thing feels unearned, almost like kind of a cheat towards the audience. Likewise, Mac’s revival as a country singer is hinted at, but also leads to a dead end, almost as a misleading subplot. Little things happen, but a sudden death in a car crash feels like it came from a soap opera. “Tender Mercies” is an honorable movie—and yet an unmemorable one. However, one line near the end surpasses the rest of the film to reach greatness, the only aspect of the entire film to do so, when Mac stops gardening and talks to Rosa: “I don’t know why I wondered out to this part of Texas drunk, and you took me in, married me. Why did that happen? Is there a reason that happened? And Sonny’s daddy died in the war, my daughter killed in an automobile accident. Why? See, I don’t trust happiness. I never did.”  

Grade:++