by Bruce E. Parry

The first time I saw Seven Beauties, I was appalled. I thought the protagonist (Pasqualino Seven-Beauties is his “nickname”) was the most narcissistic, depraved, amoral, cowardly, male supremacist, criminal character I had ever encountered. And I’m being polite.

The film is set in World War II. It begins with a series of horrific scenes of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, German and Italian fascist assemblies, bombings, aircraft crashes, combat, and bodies from the war. The music softens the impact of these scenes. A voiceover softens them further, reciting a litany of skepticisms, each ending with “Oh, yeah!” While showing a picture of Mussolini, the narrator intones, “The ones who say ‘Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail…so to speak.’ Oh, yeah!” 

The montage ends with a cut from a bombing scene to a train being bombed and we see Pasqualino escape into the woods in Germany. He links up with Francesco, another escapee. From this point on, the movie tells his pre-war story in flashback, while he is attempting to evade the Nazi forces.

His real name is Pasqualino Frafuso and he has seven sisters who are not beauties, hence the nickname. In brief, he murders, is caught and confesses, pleads insanity, and is sent to a mental institution where he rapes a woman. Nevertheless, he is released into the army since his problems are only “behavioral” and the army faces manpower shortages. The movie implies that he was on his way to Stalingrad when the train was bombed and he escaped. Eventually he is captured by the Nazis and—in an effort to survive—seduces the murdering, dominatrix, sociopathic—and also not beautiful—female camp commandant. The scene where he is having sex with her was labeled by Roger Ebert as the least erotic sex scene ever portrayed in film. I have to agree.

This review is really whitewashed for brevity. The film is disgusting in its portrayal of his cowardice, the murder, his plea of insanity, the rape, his treatment of his sisters and much, much more. It is meant to offend and succeeds. It is a disturbing film. In many ways I think the film is talking to the viewer, not with the viewer. It is an intellectual film, not one that emotionally pulls you in with empathy toward any character. In fact the characters—and all are minor compared to Pasqualino—are not empathetic at all. And he’s a jerk.

On the other hand, the camera work and overall cinematography are superb. An entire study of the film could be made by analyzing the closeups throughout the film, particularly the study of eyes. Much of the camera work is with hand-held cameras, and it gives a really gritty feeling of being there.

But I am no longer appalled by it all. I watched the movie three times on my own and a fourth with my movie group and—I think—came to an understanding of what the movie is trying to do. When I began seeing Pasqualino as a representative of something else, I calmed down. I have come to see several levels in the film and I’m sure there are more that can be discussed. I should note that someone liked the film: it was nominated  for four Academy Awards. The Director, Lina Wertmüller, was the first woman ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. I am beginning to see why.

The level that has most gripped me is that Pasqulino represents Italy and the whole movie is actually a metaphor (or is that a simile?) for the relationship between Italy and Germany before and during World War II. If it is, Wertmüller has a pretty dismal view of Italy in that period. Pasqualino is a fool and in one scene the only socialist portrayed in the film declares, “Italians are fools!” By implication, Wertmüller is portraying that admonition.

Let me note here that Wertmüller was seen as a Marxist in the 1970s. Her best-known film, Swept Away (1974), was a success and established her reputation in the United States. At the time, I remember thinking, “What kind of a Marxist?” but back then, anything that even vaguely supported the left was lauded as a step forward. I should note that at least one source noted that she was “influenced by Marx,” a substantial difference from being a Marxist. I don’t know if she considered herself a Marxist, but I do know that nearly 40 years later when I watched Seven Beauties for the first time, I had this Marxist orientation in mind and was enthusiastically anticipating the film.

I think that’s why I was so appalled. How could a Marxist portray such depravity and socially backward behavior without resolving it during the film? The answer is that there was no resolution for Italy within the period covered.

If this is a valid view of Wertmüller’s intent, she certainly has a dismal view of Italy. Pasqualino is a narcissistic, male supremacist who sees himself as the world’s greatest gift to women. All women adore him, he believes. From childhood, from his mother’s side, he believes he learns about women, what they want and how to love them. His sisters support him; he has no obvious source of income at all. They—and his mother—work in a mattress factory for money.

He has a perverted, macho sense that the most important thing in life is honor, which he defines as fear and respect stemming from the fact that he carries a gun. Later in the film, he is shown to be a coward. When confronted with the pimp who has led his eldest sister into prostitution, he shows the gun, but cannot use it and is beaten up. He then goes to kill the pimp. He wakes him from his sleep, but is so nervous, waving the pistol about, that he accidentally shoots and kills him. Then he’s really scared. He hacks up the body, packs it in suitcases and ships it to three different cities.

The portrayal of Pasqualino, his sister, the mafioso who is “advising” Pasqualino and the women around him, all portray Italy in the pre-war period as a shallow, self-absorbed, frightened and very individualistic society, with Mussolini as absolute ruler. Nowhere is there portrayed the class struggle that took place in Italy from the post-World War I period to the end of World War II. The only sense of the class struggle comes from a prisoner who got over 28 years for being a socialist. Pasqualino only got 14 for being an axe murderer.

The scenes when he is captured by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp, represent the relationship between Germany and Italy. The Germans openly refer to the Italians as subhuman. It is clear who the real murderers are and it’s not the Italians. 

At the end of the film, Pasqualino returns home. Everyone is, of course, amazed that he has survived. He finds a young woman who loves him and proposes to marry her with the aim of having lots of kids as what he sees a defensive measure to protect himself and his family in the future. And that’s the only change. It’s as if Italy returns to its old self and old ways, but without any real sense of social change. I will return to this later.

This emphasizes another important level the film: that of the need to survive. It is clear that the sense of the film is that no matter what, one must survive. The transformation in Pasqualino is from a man who ostensibly puts honor first to one who puts survival first. His attorney in Italian jail (before he goes in the army) puts it starkly: “Its your honor or your life.” Even then, he chooses life, although the decision is much less stark than it becomes in the German concentration camp.

The question of honor and survival is raised in a number of ways throughout the film. Besides the incident in the jail I alluded to, there is a scene in the woods early in the film where people in clean clothes are lining up to be murdered by their Nazi guards. Pasqualino and Francesco observe this and then run away, as any sane person would do. Francesco feels bad that they didn’t stand up to the Germans, but Pasqualino points out it just would have been suicide. Later, some characters decide to die rather than put up with more of the degradation of the German concentration camp. Finally, it is Pasqualino’s ultimate decision to seduce the commandant in order to live that brings on the final degradation: he is forced by the commandant to kill his Italian comrades. In the end, he is even made to kill his friend Francesco. It is a Sophie’s Choice (1982) kind of situation where he is damned if you do and dead (along with a lot of other people) if you don’t.

This point is also made in the 1951 book, Sparticus, by Howard Fast. The role of the slave is to stay alive, no matter what. I think this is a central theme of this film as well. Are there times when it is preferable to die than to endure? Obviously Pasqualino makes the decision for life over honor. Does Wertmüller mean that to be a portrayal of Italy as well? When Pasqualino returns home, the woman who loves him and who he will marry has also become a whore, but that no longer concerns him. She, too, has chosen life over honor. Has Italy opted for life over honor?

The problem I have with both the film as metaphor for Italy and as posing the question of honor vs. life is that it is posed in an individualistic way. There is no class struggle, there is no solidarity among workers. There is no attempt to forge a solution to their plight in the concentration camp where the prisoners work in unity to escape or otherwise thwart the Germans. since I expected Wertmüller to be at least influenced by Marx, I expected there to be some sense of social action. The only attempts to portray that option were the presentation of the aforementioned socialist and an anarchist in the prison. Otherwise, the solutions proffered—and the impossible situation Pasqualino is put in—are singularly individualistic.

Compare this to The Great Escape (1963) where the prisoners in a German camp plan an execute an escape by tunneling out of the camp. There is no question that some—perhaps many—will die or be recaptured, but there is always the chance that some—perhaps many—will escape. That idea is absent from this film, although it seems to be raised by its obvious absence. Why, when they outnumber the Germans do people line up to be killed in the woods? Why do the prisoners not try to come up with a plan to resist their concentration camp masters? The oppression and divisions the Germans foster among the prisoners are obvious, and it is exactly by putting Pasqualino in that position that he is forced to kill his comrades in order that he and other Italians may live.

And, as I said above, the film also historically ignores the brave struggle of he resistance during the Mussolini period that resulted in a strong Communist Party emerging after the war. That didn’t happen by default. It happened because the Communists were the core of the resistance to fascism and people flocked to them, building a party that was a major political force in the post-war period.

The film chose to portray what it did in a specific way. When the questions addressed by the film are posed in such a way, they lead to the conclusion that there is no honor, only survival. In fact the real presentation of honor in the film is infantile. Where is the honor of resistance that the Italian people displayed gallantly? In the film, there is no trace of that honor at all.

So by the time I had watched the film with the movie group, I no longer hated Pasqualino. I recognized him as a character laid out and played out by Lina Wertmüller, the writer and director. I see why it was award-worthy in the eyes of the Academy. I must say that it provoked deep discussion in the movie group. I, however, await the film that has a social viewpoint and message: there is honor in life and both life and honor are worth struggling for.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

https://bruceeparry.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/seven-beauties-1975/

by Bruce E. Parry

I liked this film the best of the three films in the (so far) trilogy (Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) are its predecessors). In this film, Jesse has divorced his wife in the U.S. and is living with Celine in Paris with their twin girls. It has been nine years since they linked up at the end of the last film and 18 years since they first met in the first film.

The first thing I liked about it is that it involves a lot more characters at the beginning of the film, so the interaction is more complex, very nuanced and quite interesting. The characters come from different age groups and present different views of marriage and relationships that I found quite interesting. And, of course, the points of view are presented by both men and women. Jesse and Celine are part of the mix and play off the others in their dialog. It is the kind of dialog that made both of the first two films interesting.

As with all films, the beginning sets up the conflicts that play out through the rest of the film. We meet Jesse’s son, Hank, who is departing for the U.S. after having “the best summer of his life.” We see Jesse and Celine’s twins and Celine announces a new job opportunity. They discuss the  contradictions inherent in these situations constructively and seem—along with the other couples they interact with—to be the happy duo.

It’s their last night, so one of the other couples has given them a gift: a night in the local swanky hotel. They walk to the hotel and the discussion begins. As with the other films, their discussion is done in a very long single-shot take that is quite noticeable and adds depth to their marital discourse. 

When they get to the hotel, the discussion devolves into what I can only call a destructive argument. Jesse feels the need to move back to the U.S. to be near his son during his formative high school years. This is in direct conflict with Celine’s new job opportunity, which it turns out, she sees more like the opportunity of a lifetime than she had let on. She feels Jesse is suppressing her for his own, selfish needs and the whole thing gets really ugly.

I won’t get into the rest of it, but I really felt like this was marriage. A friend of mine once said that his marriage (of many years) was a process of him and his wife falling in and out of love with each other. Another friend, also in a marriage of long standing, said he was still married because he and his wife never wanted to get divorced at the same time. In my experience. that’s the way marriage is. You get in arguments, you go through difficulties, you experience real antagonism and, if it is to last, you stick with it. Part of the deal with the movie is that they are only about 40 years old. At that age some of this hasn’t fully sunk in yet. It takes more life experience than that—at least it has in my case—before we integrate these feelings and lessons.

And I think that’s the key to the three films. They feel like real life. The first feels like unrequited young love. The second feels like a searching for something that was lost. The third feels like a real marriage. In short, I can identify with all three from my personal experience and that is essential to appreciating a film.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

https://bruceeparry.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/before-midnight-2013/

by Bruce E. Parry

I really appreciated 12 Years A Slave because it exposed me to the horrors of slavery and captivity in a way that I could identify with. Its strength and weakness are the same: the movie is about Mr. Solomon Northrup, a freeman who is kidnapped into slavery in the period before the Civil War. The movie is based on his book, published in 1853. The ability to identify is there because I could relate to having my freedom stolen from me. At the same time, that was the weakness of the film, because it could not fully depict the horror of there being no chance of release from slavery. That, of course, was the condition of 4 million Americans prior to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1864.

The movie was graphic in its depiction of the horrors of slavery. From the regular whippings and beatings wrought on the slaves, including Plat (they stole Solomon Northrup’s name and renamed him Plat), to the murders and hangings, to the theft of children and destruction of families, to the personal degradations at the whim of any white person. It’s all there. The graphic portrayal of the wounds suffered in the beatings, the pain and the tenderness shown by others is there. There is the  enforced indifference of slaves to another slave being hung before them: if they show concern, it will be visited upon them as well. The film transported me to that time and the impossibility of escape from the entire institution of slavery. Hope was dashed time after time, betrayal after betrayal.

It occurs to me that by its very nature, a film—including this one—cannot really portray the horror of what we are seeing on the screen. I am reminded of a review of Philadelphia (1993). The film was instrumental in changing the American public’s perception and concern about the AIDS epidemic. The review, however, chastised the film for failing to be as brutally honest as it could be.

However, film making is the art of story telling and story telling requires a nuanced understanding of the audience as well as the story. What is the audience ready to hear or see? What can they comprehend. Philadelphia changed millions of minds. A more brutal rendition would not have reached the audiences Philadelphia did and therefore wouldn’t have had the impact the film did. Hence, I defended Philadelphia as appropriate for that moment.

12 Years A Slave is—for me—in the same category. What it portrays is an understanding of the brutality of slavery as an institution that can be accepted by a broad audience and—I believe—will have an important impact. I think the film is a brilliant example of story telling of a story that needs to be told and retold to each generation. It is beyond what has been done before and I am sure it will not go as far as its future successors. But it is right for the moment.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

https://bruceeparry.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/12-years-a-slave-2013/

by Bruce E. Parry

Ethan (Hawke, playing Jesse) and Julie (Delpy, playing Celine) meet again in Paris nine years after their initial night of romance and love in Vienna in Before Sunrise (1995). They hadn’t met in six months as planned. They hadn’t exchanged addresses or phone numbers, so they were unable to find each other in the interim. Jesse is now an author whose book is a recap of that one night. He’s at a Paris bookstore and Celine comes to see him. Thus begins the second film of the trilogy.

I’ll tell you right now—its brought up in the film—that Ethan Hawke has obviously aged (especially if you see the films back to back as I did—and Julie Delpy seems not to have aged. That was somewhat disconcerting, particularly since the dialog doesn’t really affirm the reality.

The film leaves me with the same feeling I had after seeing Before Sunrise, but this time, the feeling seems appropriate. They connect. They are still in love. But he is married and she’s had any number of relationships, and most of the film is them catching up. They are unable to recapture what they had, but they try. At the end of the film, it seems to imply that they have succeeded. Nevertheless, it is a circuitous route.

The film is basically talking heads. They talk in a cafe, in the park, on the boat on the Seine, in the car and in her apartment, but the film—written by Director Richard Linklater and Hawke and Delpy themselves—is essentially dialog. This could be a real shortcoming, but it was all right in this instance. I guess that’s what getting back together after nine years is like. You talk, you reconstruct, you try to fill in gaps that will never be filled in. As with Before Sunrise, I have had this experience and it feels a lot like the film: unsettled.

One comment on the dialog. As with the first film, there is a lot of philosophizing and conjecturing about relationships, people, men and women. In this film, one section of the dialog is especially focused on discussing what women are like and what they do. I enjoyed it, but always feel awkward about such generalizations. I watched the film alone, so I don’t know how women watching the film might feel.

The cinematography makes up for anything that might have been missing. The long takes are mesmerizing. There is one of the two walking and talking in a park that is unmissable. It is absorbing and actually pulls the viewer into the conversation in just the way that the characters are absorbed. Again, the film is beautiful, this time having been shot in Paris. It fortunately leaves out most of the tourist attractions and shows the Paris that Parisians see, because our characters are not tourists.

After Before Sunrise, I conjectured on how the writers might approach the sequel. Once they chose the theme, in many ways, the rest of the film is set. The characters talk about relationships, about men and women, about their lives and their dreams. At first, they beat around the bush and approach each other with reservations. But as the story unfolds, they become more honest and more real. In the end, it turns out, inevitably, that they are miserable in their lives. They realize—and they each reveal to the other—that they are still in love.

In a lot of ways, this is a set up for the third film, Before Midnight (2013) which, like the first two, was made with a nine year gap between films. I will watch it soon and blog on it, but it seems to me to be set up already and I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t develop the themes set out in this film. I am still interested and looking forward to see how they bring this to a conclusion. Or will there be a fourth? 

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

Two young people (twenties) in Europe meet on a train, hit it off and spend just one magical night together. I have experienced that (not literally) and it is a most important aspect of growing up and falling in love. The essence for me here is not the particular story, but the feeling of complete freedom to be yourself. (It occurs to me that it is also the complete freedom to be someone you’re not, to act, but that would—it seems to me—negate the experience altogether). Two people, without commitment, get to be with each other and to experience each other without “baggage” and without expectation.

Of course, they fall in love. Knowing before hand that this is the first film of a trilogy, I cannot help but wonder what transpires in the second two episodes. But the film stands on its own. The film is beautiful—as it must be to work—being filmed in Vienna. The closing shots are revealing of both their relationship and the magical city itself: it is the morning of the next day and everything that was magical before, everything that was mystical, transcendent, beautiful and unique, is now shut down and just a regular city (block, park, cemetery, sidewalk).  The magic is between the two lovers.

The idea of the film is so beautiful and meaningful to me that I almost hate to shovel it into the ditch of analysis. But I will. The story was there. I knew how it would unfold because it could only unfold one way. But I could not get into their relationship. It was portrayed. I could tell it was there. I remember the feelings I had in the same kind of situation, but I could not feel their love. Whether it was my age and being too jaded, whether it was my mood, or whatever, I didn’t feel it. And I wanted to. That was the tragedy. I understood what the film was doing, where it was going and how it would conclude, but I couldn’t feel it.

I could feel her (Celine, played by Julie Delpy) and react to her, but I couldn’t feel Ethan Hawke (Jesse). First, I thought of him as Ethan Hawke the entire film, not Jesse. Not so with Celine, perhaps because I was unfamiliar with her as an actress. Second, I couldn’t identify with what he said or how he said it. It was—generational or experiential gap?—different than the way I would have reacted, different from what I would have said, different from how I would have reacted to what Celine said, and different from the way I view the world. Not so different that I couldn’t see what was happening; just different enough that it was jarring for me.

I am a sucker for schmaltz. All kinds of films have been able to engage my heart. I am not sure why this one didn’t, particularly since its theme—and writing—was beyond schmaltz. It seemed to be the real thing. That’s why I’m disappointed.

Yet, I still want to see how it unfolds as a trilogy. I am intrigued. I have been pulled in enough to want to continue on with the project. I think that there are so many ways it could go from that first magical evening. I wonder which path will be chosen.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

This is my final review of Primer, after having seen it with my Movie Group and reflecting my changed perceptions after sharing with my friends and hearing their input. I pretty much stand by my last review, but have a deepened understanding of the technical aspects, including the camera work, the story, and the appeal of the film.

I really underestimated the camera work. I have referred to it in both previous reviews, but didn’t appreciate its subtlety until going over it with the group. In the group, the Blair Witch Project(1999) came up again (from Patrick) as another film where the feeling of the camera work is that you, the viewer, are in the film and part of the action. In the Blair Witch Project this was accomplished by using the hand held camera extensively. While there are some hand held camera shots in Primer, here it is accomplished more by using intimate shots of the details of what the characters are going through, using a graininess in many of the shots, and many of the shots—to my mind—having the feel of an amateur cameraman showing us the unfolding drama.

That said, the camera work is anything but amateur; it is of the highest order. The shots are composed beautifully. Many shots are extremely creative. We had extensive discussion about the shot from above Abe’s apartment, looking down on Aaron and Abe at Aaron’s truck. Half the shot is illuminated concrete that is very bright, very soft and reminiscent of the shot of Abe looking down on Aaron, used twice elsewhere in the film. The truck shot has the truck exactly parallel to the concrete. The overall effect is amazing. It is followed a moment later by an opposite shot, also down on the truck, but from a rear angle, with a section of the scene entirely in black. The second shot lasts only a split second, but creates a mesmerizing, balancing effect.

Throughout the film, the camera reflects either the content of the film, or, in some cases, the opposite reality of what appears to be happening. Some of the circling shots, where the camera actually circles 360 degrees around Aaron, for instance, reflect he hyperbolic nature of the time travel that is being discussed. That circular theme is repeated with the basketball that Aaron is playing with as well and in other aspects of the scene.

There are some scenes that are ambiguous. We had a significant discussion about whether the film is completely understandable in the final analysis. I think not, but others (David) suspected that with more viewing, it is. There is a scene where Abe puts a gas mask—we assume from the previous dialog that it is nitrous oxide—over another incarnation of Abe. The only way I knew they were both Abe was from the Director’s commentary and that was the only story aspect revealed in that commentary. But what was he doing? Nitrous oxide just puts the other Abe to sleep. Then the first Abe comes out looking like he killed him (himself, his other self). The scene is totally ambiguous to me.

There is also the aspect of the timelines. The voiceover throughout the film is Aaron, but it seems to take on different voices or points of view at different times in the film. At the beginning, it is clearly a phone call. Later it appears to be a god-like commentary. Still later, it is clearly an Aaron who has full knowledge of the events that have taken place due to time travel. Is it Aaron number one or Aaron number two or who? 

I believe that we could do a detailed analysis of the film based solely on what the characters are wearing. The ties that are ubiquitous throughout the film may show which Abe and Aaron we are dealing with at any particular time. Later they are shown without ties, in sweaters, in underwear, etc. There seems to be continuity (and discontinuity) in their clothes, but it is extremely hard to follow. The ear pieces give important hints as well.

All this brings us back to understanding the story and whether that is important or not. I think that one of the most attractive aspects of the film is trying to figure out the story line and whether it is fully comprehensible or not. As mentioned, one of our group thought it might be; I am not convinced. But trying to understand it (as predicted) is a huge part of our discussion and the overall attractiveness of Primer. While I think that the relationships—particularly the deteriorating relationship between Abe and Aaron—are the key to the success of the film, understanding the story line to some degree is part and parcel of unravelling the interactions among the characters. 

One of the things that came out in group was that a driving force in Aaron is his need to become a hero. He actually goes back in time to reconstruct what happens at the party so that the guy with the shotgun is apprehended and jailed after the party. But the question remains open as to what the guy with the shotgun actually did at the party. There is no indication that he shot anyone, especially Rachel. Furthermore, Aaron—who goes back to reconstruct all this—wasn’t even at the original party. However, if the danger to the partygoers—Rachel—wasn’t great, then why did Tom Granger go back in time as well? And what happened to him anyway? That is never resolved in the film. 

The hero aspect of the Aaron character seems to be what drives the conflict between Abe and Aaron and what leads to the culmination of the film. Abe is concerned more with the safety of Aaron’s wife and kids than Aaron is. That, too, is part of the final conflict when Aaron leaves. Finally, an important aspect of Aaron going back are his control issues. He reconstructs the party, but after all is said and done, he is building an even larger box. After all that has happened, I have to ask, why would he do that? What does he want to do with it? What does he expect to happen? He’s had to leave (leaving behind other Aarons) after what’s already happened. What will his continued interference with time and causality do in the future?

I think this is the appeal of the film. As I said in the last review (more generally), it is the unresolved nature of life, the conflict and confusion that we experience, that is reflected in the action of the film, that makes it attractive. At the same time, the beauty of the camera work and technical aspects of the film, coupled with the intriguing complexity of the story keep us absorbed in the film and have lad to this becoming a cult classic. I think that the film bears (demands?) multiple watchings and that it grows with each one, just like the storyline itself.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

This is my second review of Primer, done after I’ve seen the film four or five times, including listening to the Director’s Commentary. I want to do this review before the Movie Group, so that I can do a third review after the Movie Group, focusing on what changed for me as a result of the group.

First, let me say that my first review was really quite wrong. After actually watching the film more closely and listening to the commentary, I realize there are not a lot of hand-held camera shots. It is the grainy and unconventional nature of the shots that make them seem to be done by an amateur cameraman in a way that makes you feel like you are in the film. That was correct; the technique I quoted for achieving it was wrong in the first review.

Second, the Director’s Commentary was all about how they made the film. At first I thought that the Producer/Director/Writer/Star, Shane Carruth, was just preoccupied with the details of making the film. Then it hit me: he doesn’t want to talk about the story; the film stands on its own and doesn’t need further explanation. That’s why most commentaries are that way. I have to decipher the story for myself.

And that, I think, is the key to the attraction of this movie. It seems to occupy us with trying to figure out the details of what’s happening in what order. Does it make sense? Does everything come together in the end? I believe that my tendency is to think that the directors and writers of films make movies that make sense and when I don’t understand them, I need to go back, rewatch the film and make sense of it.

Wrong! I don’t think that this film tracks. In Pulp Fiction (1994), the film is purposely cut out of chronological oder. I figured out what order things had to go in to make sense and when I did, everything made sense. But Primer deals with time travel and paradoxes and I don’t think there was ever an intent to make the film totally coherent. In fact, I think that is a large part of its charm. Nevertheless, it makes enough sense to keep us locked in and coming back for more. That said, I’ll bet that the majority of conversations about the movie, including in my upcoming Movie Group, are about making sense of the time travel and logic of the film.

I think the real attraction of the film lies in the developing conflict between Aaron and Abe, the confusion that results and the incomprehensibility of time travel. The characters are as confused as people in real life. Real life is difficult. It is impossible to know what all the factors, all the parts of any problem or situation are. The movie is the same way. Time travel presents indeterminate dilemmas that are only resolved in practice buy the “last iteration” of the event. And then the players don’t know what happened before. Just like life. This creates—between the two key time travelers—a growing conflict that is never really resolved. They separate, but that doesn’t “solve” anything, just like life. 

Life is confusion, incomplete knowledge and conflict and those are the themes of the film. Life is also comprehension, insight and love, and the movie has those, too. They come in the development of the time machine, in understanding its looping process, in seeing how it can be used (for better and for worse) and in trusting each other in the process of invention and use. The loss of control through the replication of Aaron, Abe, Thomas Granger, and ultimately the machine itself, creates the ultimate clash.

After watching the film all these times, I have to ask, “How many Aaron’s are there? How many Abe’s?” It seems that every time they go through the machine, another double is created. When Aaron is trying to resolve the issue of the shotgun at the party, they ask whether he might not have gone through 20 times. If he had, wouldn’t there be 20 Aaron’s running around? That would create conflict no matter what happened or who was involved. Talk about multiple personality disorder!

I am beginning to see why this is a “cult classic.” It took a while, but the movie is a real reflection of life and its ups and downs. I guess all good movies are, but this one snuck up on me. I liked it, but it took a while to put my finger on what was attractive about it. I’ll write a short blog on what I learned and felt at Movie Group (unless, of course, I need to write a long one). I’m fascinated to see what others have seen in this film.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

I saw The Fifth Estate the other day because I consider Julian Assange a hero for creating WikiLeaks, exposing the secrets that our government is keeping and for generally fighting for an open and transparent society. The movie is a docu-drama. It contains a lot of actual footage of events, but the characters are played by actors and the story unfolds through a script. As such, it is part of a growing genre that will basically—if left unchallenged—present as factual our history for the children of today and future generations.

As the Julian Assange character says at the very end of the film, “No one can tell you the truth. They only tell you the truth from their perspective. If you want the truth, you have to go out and find it.” (I paraphrase). And therein lies the problem I have with the film. While it is never made explicit, the film is told from Daniel Berg’s point of view. He was the assistant (albeit a very integral part of the operation for some time) who broke with Assange and—according to the film—actually tried to shut down the WikiLeaks site. Berg wrote a book on the subject in 2011 and its seems to me it was a major source for the film.

As a film, I thought it very entertaining. There is a lot of character development and interaction. In fact it is a psychological thriller as much as anything else. It goes into detail about the relationship between Berg and Assange and between Berg and his girlfriend, Brigitta. The taut interaction is, in itself, a tale of complexity and nuance. Much of the technical aspect is treated with film analogy. For instance, the crashing of the site is shown in the film as a burned out wasteland. This technique can be both distracting and clarifying. There is little  doubt what is meant, but it certainly comes across as jarring in comparison to other parts of the film.

The key to the film is the treatment of Assange. Assange comes across as driven, unfeeling, a survivor of complex childhood abuse and nearly sociopathic. I, of course, have no idea whether that is an accurate assessment of him or not. But, even assuming it is, he is also the one who put together WikiLeaks and kept it going. He is the one, in the final analysis, that released the documents unedited so the entire world could see behind the curtain of the governments of the major powers of the world, particularly that of the U.S. It was Assange, not Berg, who was able to stay the course and do what needed to be done. The movie presents Assange as having gone “too far” and Berg as being more balanced. I have no doubt Berg may be more balanced, but he wasn’t the heroic force behind WikiLeaks, no matter how much work he put in. Assange was and is.

My experience is that there are a lot of real leaders, people who emerge by the brilliance of their original ideas who are really eccentric. Steve Jobs appears to have been one, to pick a recent example. Assange appears to be one as well. His personal quirks are at the root of both his creativity—that he would dream up the idea in the first place—and the commitment that makes him maniacal about carrying out his mission. Assange says in the film that there are lots of ideas, it is commitment people lack to carry them out. Assange has that commitment, and if it is over the top, so are both the mission he is committed to and the forces arrayed against him.

The film rightly points out that the real danger to the world is the real violence—the real murder—committed by these governments that is exposed by the documents; it is not the hypothetical danger created by the release of the documents. In the film, Berg doesn’t seem to be able to handle that fact. He isn’t able to carry the mission through to its logical conclusion.

The film does not present that perspective and that is my major critique of it. Its strength is that if one is looking for that perspective, you can pry it from what the film does present. I think that everyone interested in and committed to real social change will find the film fascinating and well worth seeing. I did.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

So tonight I took my son to the movies. It’s a school night, but his mom has a regular Monday night commitment and Savaun had his homework done and he really wanted to see this movie (which I’ve been hearing about for weeks), so I decided to take him. By the way, I did not see Insidious (2010), so I don’t know what the relation of the films is to each other.

I’m never ready to like the horror movies he picks out for several reasons. One, I don’t like horror movies any more. I used to when I was younger, but I either outgrew them or just got over them. Whatever, they aren’t my favorite genre and I wouldn’t see them at all, but Sharon dislikes them even more and refuses to take him. So Savaun would never get to see his favorite movies if it wasn’t for me. Two, I’m really not into the supernatural, which kind of negates the purpose of the films. Three, of the ones I’ve seen, they aren’t the most engrossing movies on the market. Most don’t seem to me to be very well made. The special effects are good, but even the scary parts often aren’t very scary or even startling. Many of them are predictable to a boring degree.

So Insidious 2 was a pleasant surprise. It starts off with some really stiff (non-)acting and disagreeable editing or directing in the first scenes. I was thinking, “Oh, no!” But the movie unfolds well and both the acting and the directing feel more natural as the film progresses. What attracted me most was that there is a real story behind it. It isn’t just that some scary other-world beings are haunting the family (well, it is about that), but rather a well-put together script where everything comes together by the end of the film. Yes, there are other-worldly beings trying to haunt the family, but there is actually a reason for that and it allows the whole thing to come together. I even like the fact that doors and noises that seem random (ghosts are always doing things like that) turn out to have real causes. I thought the writing in the film was quite gripping.

The scary scenes are scary, which is really important in this genre. They are startling in many cases and, of course, there are an infinite number of scenes where you’re yelling, “Don’t go in there!” But they always do. Sometimes to good effect, sometimes not. But overall, the bad demons are bad and the good guys aren’t always so good, so the whole thing works out. The tension builds well in the film. As is standard in this genre, the film goes from pretty mild haunting to more and more scary scenarios. They carry you to parallel worlds and you, the viewer, get to see how those worlds interact with the “real” world.

The special effects work, too, and they aren’t overpowering. I never had the feeling that the movie was doing something just to show off. The special effects are not cutting edge (which is good) and are used to advance the plot and the general tension of the film.

There are a couple of times I went “Huh?” in the film. There are a couple of short scenes where the police are involved over the death of one of the characters, but nothing ever comes of that and I’m left wondering why it’s even in there. In the first such scene, I expected the cops were going to get drawn in, but they never do. We hear from them once again, but it’s just to give the viewer some information.

Overall, I liked the film better than most I get to see in this genre. It was pleasantly scary without being grossly bloody, violent or profane. It was well put together and quite entertaining. Savaun is already looking forward toInsidious 3, which has been announced. The closing scene in this film, Insidious 2, is a shameless set up forInsidious 3, but by the time it comes I was forgiving, particularly since it was so obvious.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry

by Bruce E. Parry

This one I saw in a theater with my son, Savaun. He liked it. I did not. I was really absorbed by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs(2009) #1. I found it humorous and charming. It was aimed at both adults and children with a subtlety that made it worth seeing. I was hoping for more of the same from #2. I didn’t find it.

Savaun liked it because the film is populated with food that is alive and their names are particularly clever. If you go to the website, they run down all the foodimals. They include, but are not limited to, the Tacodile Supreme, the Apple Pie-thon, the Bananostich, the Cantelope (a given), the Double Bacon Cheespider and the Hippotatomus. There are a bunch of others, but you get the idea.

While these names are cute and the characters funny, they are one-liners running throughout the movie. Also, the jokes are clearer on the website than in the movie itself for many of the less important foodimals.

The movie begins with a review of the first movie and what happened, leaving us with protagonist/hero Flint Lockwood trying to impress his childhood hero Chester V, who it turns out, is a villain! (Have you seen Upwhere the same plot devise is used to better effect?) The rest of the film is the conflict between his loyalty to Chester V or his responsiveness to his fiancé, his father and his other friends and comrades from the first movie.

Maybe the charm of the first film just overwhelmed me, but I did not even care the for the animation in this film. I assume the animation teams and style wee about the same and by the same people. The foodimals looked forced to me, not the kind of anthropomorphic (giving human form to the non-human) characterization I would expect. In short, they looked cobbled together, not integral.

I also guess that the character development was supposed to carry over from the first film. You know that Sam is strong and moral. That Flint is a dweeb. That his father, Tim, is hard-nosed, etc. The only character in this film I found interesting was Tim, who actually develops rather nicely during the film and is transformed by the experience. The other characters don’t seem to be.

Overall, the film was a disappointment and not really worth seeing. Sorry, Cloudy, but this sequel was about the money it could make and not about the film.

Copyright Bruce E. Parry