THREE COLORS: BLUE (1993)

A.K.A.: Trois Couleurs: Bleu

Country: France / Poland / Switzerland

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Cast: Juliette Binoche / Benoit Regent / Charlotte Very

Plot

A woman tries to start a new life after losing her husband and daughter in a car accident.

What I Liked

The previous movie I reviewed here, “Now, Voyager,” was a drama built around the intensity of human passion and pain, a high quality melodrama.  “Three Colors: Blue” deals with similar themes, but in a way that is much more personal.  Juliette Binoche is nothing short of devastating in her portrayal of a widow of a famous composer, seeking to escape all memories of her past and build a new life for herself as though the previous never existed.  The success of the movie’s plot and meaning rests almost entirely on Binoche’s shoulders and she carries that weight with aplomb.  The strength of her performance is in her silence, her looks, gestures, and silent tears.  Her character does not moan and sob like those in “Now, Voyager,” but rather shows her pain through her efforts to ignore the hurt.  It is a performance deftly crafted out of subtlety, empathy, and self-assurance.

Binoche’s performance is exactly what is needed for “Three Colors: Blue,” a perfect fit for the puzzle that is the overall film.  Director Krysztof Kieslowski gives poetic meaning to the minutiae of everyday existence that would normally be dismissed as most trivial.  Moments like a droplet of coffee sitting on a saucer or a close-up of an eyeball moving about in its socket are interlaced between moments of recognizable tragedy and anguish within the narrative of the plot.  Binoche and Kieslowski show us that the tragic beauty (and sometimes even the heroism) of being human can be found in every fleeting instant of our lives.

What I Didn’t Like

This movie does exactly what it clearly set out to do, all of which I’ve gone over above.  In terms of accomplishing its goals, “Three Colors: Blue” is flawless.  However, there will be those, who will not appreciate those goals.  It could certainly be argued that watching the movie is too much of an intellectual enterprise than an emotional experience.  It is possible to spend too much of the film trying to recognize all that the filmmakers are trying to convey through their art, as opposed to sitting back and enjoying a moving film.  For me, though, I found the film a perfect balance, the intellectual strengths coming from Kieslowski’s eye for detail and the emotional catharsis from Binoche’s performance.

Most Memorable Scene

In case we miss the point of the film’s more subtle moments, there is particularly fascinating moment about half way through the film where Binoche’s character is sitting on a park bench and closes her eyes.  Doing so, she misses the sight of a decrepit, bent-backed, old woman hobbling down the sidewalk from who knows how far away to come to a recycle container.  The hole in which she is to insert her glass bottle is at least three feet over the woman’s head, yet somehow she manages to wrench, stretch, and contort herself over an agonizing period of just a few seconds just to get that bottle where it needs to go.  By the time Binoche opens her eyes, the old woman has hobbled out of view and our main character has missed a truly remarkable moment in her own life.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

NOW, VOYAGER (1942)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama / Romance

Director: Irving Rapper

Cast: Bette Davis / Paul Henreid / Gladys Cooper

Plot

Following an emotional breakdown, spinster Charlotte Vale goes on a cruise and falls in love with an unhappily married businessman.  Transformed into a stylish and confident woman, she returns home to confront her domineering mother and pursue personal happiness, yet is unable to escape the memory of her past affair.

What I Liked

“Now, Voyager” would never be made today, at least not in anywhere near the form that it was made in 1942.  It represents the pinnacle of Hollywood melodrama, a genre of operatic histrionics that has long since fallen out of vogue with American film audiences.  As such, this movie is a sort of time capsule of public tastes, particularly among women, in the 1940s and 1950s.  In short, melodramas (sometimes called “women’s pictures”) were essentially the chick flicks of their day, and “Now, Voyager” is perhaps the most popular and highly regarded of them all.

For me, lead Bette Davis is the strength of the film.  True to the genre, the script is full of overemotional and over-romantic dialogue, threatening to make the film feel dreadfully dated.  Yet Davis handles her character with a subtlety and confidence that overcomes the limitations of her script by downplaying Charlotte’s emotions.  Davis gives her character as much depth through subtle gesture, posture, walk, and expression as possible, rather than through melodramatic clichés like swooning, moaning, and weeping.  Women, as embodied by Davis, are complex and intelligent, not simply love-sick crybabies.  It is Davis who transforms not only the character from wallflower to lady-about-town, but also he movie from mindless schlock into a rare (for the period) character study.

What I Didn’t Like

Despite Davis’ accomplished acting, there is never any doubt that “Now, Voyager” is the quintessential, almost definitive, melodrama, a style that is admittedly not among my favorites.  The strings-saturated soundtrack (which apparently won an Oscar?) doesn’t quit, just as the script has all of the central characters incessantly putting “Oh” in front of each other’s names.  It’s “Oh, Jerry” this and “Oh, mother” that for two hours on end.  Oh, stop.

I’m glad this kind of movie died out, though its legacy lives on through television in the form of the soap opera.

Most Memorable Scene

Apparently the closing scene of the film features the first time in motion pictures that a man put two cigarettes in his mouth to light both and hand one to his lover, a suggestive gesture that caused quite a stir among the female audiences of the day but has since become a cliché.  This is as good of a scene as any to pick for it’s being a definitive moment in romantic cinema, but also because no moment really struck me as exceedingly memorable.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

ANIMAL FARM (1954)

Country: U.K.

Genre(s): Animated / Fantasy

Director: Joy Batchelor / John Halas

Cast: Maurice Denham / Gordon Heath

Plot

In this adaptation of the famous George Orwell novel, farm animals overthrow their human master to run the farm themselves.  The lawful society they set up for themselves, based on equality, soon falls prey to corruption.

What I Liked

I’m giving a *spoiler alert!* here not because I give away specific spoilers here, but because some of what I write below can be inferred to give away many important aspects of the drama.

I read the novel “Animal Farm” back in middle school (so we’re talking over 20 years ago), and while I remember a few details and the main gist, I cannot recall the novel well enough to judge this film’s accuracy to the text.  From research, I gather that it is mostly faithful, except for the conclusion.  Like the source material, the movie is a not-so-subtle allegory for the Soviet Revolution and the subsequent betrayal of the Communist ideals for which the Revolution had supposedly been fought.  There are obvious stand-ins for Czar Nicholas (the human Jones), Lenin (the pig Snowball), and Stalin (the pig Napoleon), while the rest of the people and animals are analogous to specific portions of the populace at large.  However, one of the great things about both the novel and the film are that in truth the story is applicable to the history of most any government or civilization.  Read the stories of most of the human societies of the present or past, big or small, and you’ll likely find that they formed out of a combination of both necessity and idealism, rejecting the dangers and abuses of the past; that rejection is followed by a period of chaos, which, for successful nations is eventually replaced by the establishment of order through consensus, law, and cooperation.  However, someone among the new leadership always finds a way to corrupt the system to suit their own needs, leading to yet more abuse or chaos.  “Animal Farm” follows this common theme, following the details of the U.S.S.R. specifically, but I think most who watch it will conclude that the same basic themes could be applied to the U.S.A.

Interestingly, the audio includes only two human voices, those of narrator Gordon Heath and Maurice Denham, who takes care of every other voice, human or animal, in the story.  It is a credit to Denham that his being solely responsible for the voices of pigs, ducks, donkeys, and the rest goes unnoticed if you aren’t already aware of it prior to watching.  One would easily believe different actors are sharing the load.  The soundtrack is also peppered with some authentic records of real farm animals, but Denham handles a hefty responsibility very successfully.

What I Didn’t Like

This was the first privately-produced, full-length animated feature made in the U.K., which means it can’t help but be compared with its contemporaries from the U.S. powerhouse in animated features, Disney.  In terms of animation, there is really no comparison warranted, Disney films of even the 1930s are far superior to even the best visuals from “Animal Farm,” made a full two decades earlier.  But truthfully, the comparison isn’t fair.  First of all, the makers of the British film didn’t have the American company’s budget.  Second, the animators of “Animal Farm” still manage to add some eye-catching moments of both style and action, never once failing to entertain the eye.  Third, “Animal Farm” covers ground thematically on which Disney would never consider treading.  Unlike “Snow White” or “Pinocchio,” this is a film which only adults can truly appreciate, even if it is wrapped in a fairy tale’s trappings and was marketed toward children on initial release.

Most Memorable Scene

For the most visual and emotional impact, the scene that strikes the hardest is the tragic death of Boxer, the powerful and industrious horse who becomes a symbol of everything that is good about community, institutionalized or not.  The scene of his death features some of the most thrilling animation of the film, but also represents the complete loss of the ideals for which the Revolution had been fought.  In fact, 20 years later, Boxer’s fate was the only specific event of the novel which I could still remember well.  Twenty years from now, even if I never watch this movie again, I’m sure this will also be the part of the film I recall the most vividly. 

My Rating: 4 out of 5

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama / Romance / Western

Director: Ang Lee

Cast: Heath Ledger / Jake Gyllenhaal / Michelle Williams

Plot

After meeting while on a job corralling sheep, two men fall in love.  Separating at the end of the job, each spends the ensuing years desperately lonely, hiding within a heterosexual marriage.  A reunion and the love it rekindles causes a great deal of emotional turmoil for the men and their families.

What I Liked

“Brokeback Mountain” features some spectacular cinematography, most notably of the title location and other nature scenes, but director Ang Lee and crew also make terrific use of the camera for scenes shot in town or even indoors.  The scope of the film wavers between expansive freedom and oppressive claustrophobia, and all of this is accentuated marvelously by the cameras.

It is a great credit to the actors, then, that they outshine the marvelous visuals, even the otherwise overpowering panoramas of gorgeous mountains, expansive lakes, and lush forests.  Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway all turn in convincing, sympathetic performances.   Ledger’s death has made it so that praising his acting when commenting on any film in which he appeared has become an unspoken requisite.  That makes me want to find a reason to criticize him, but the fact is he the best of the entire talented cast, damn near perfection as repressed, conflicted cowboy Ennis Del Mar.  Ledger’s performance is a clear reference to the “strong, silent type” of cowboy which has been portrayed by everyone from Gary Cooper to Clint Eastwood in the classic American Westerns.  Yet his portrayal questions that archetype’s strength and highlights the cost of that silence, finding a tragic subtext in a macho ideal.  Michelle Williams is also an excellent study in the damage of repression as Ennis’s wife Alma.  Despite their characters not being as interesting as Ennis and Alma, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway are equally capable in their more reserved roles.

What I Didn’t Like

It’s a good thing that the film had excellent cinematography, characterization, and acting to fall back on.  Because otherwise the movie was overly long and disappointingly dull.  As the relationship of the two men played out over a period of twenty years, I kept wondering when something interesting was going to happen.  All of the conflict is character-driven and, as well rendered as the characters are, it would have been nice to have some sort of event worth watching happen.  I’m not asking for James Bond here, but some sort of external conflict would have been nice.  Were it not for the amazing scenery, this would have been a story better fitted for a novel than a motion picture.

Most Memorable Scene

The last line and moment in the final scene drops all of the weight of all of love, nostalgia, loss, and regret right onto the viewer’s chest.  I was holding back some serious tears.

Incidentally, for all those people who stayed away from this film because it was a “gay movie,” or because it represented some liberal media conspiracy, you might be surprised at how tame the gay sex scenes were.  Not that this would (or should) be a reason for you to see past your own hang-ups and actually give the movie a chance.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

BRINGING UP BABY (1938)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy / Romance

Director: Howard Hawks

Cast: Katharine Hepburn / Cary Grant / May Robson

Plot

Nerdy paleontologist David can’t seem to get rid of kooky heiress Susan, who is determined to win his love.  The fact that Susan has a pet leopard named Baby only makes things more unbearable for the high-strung scientist.

What I Liked

I saw this movie once before as a kid, when my dad was watching it on AMC.  Back then I loved the hijinks involving Baby, the leopard that enters the plot about twenty minutes in as a pet of Katharine Hepburn’s character.  The reactions of everyone else to the big cat made me laugh, and I never forgot this movie because of that unique gimmick.

On a second viewing, this time as an adult, I was much more amused by the screwball banter between Hepburn and co-star Cary Grant.  Grant’s over-polite David and Hepburn’s obnoxious Susan make for a terrific comedic match as the pair constantly bicker with, interrupt, and confuse one another.  With Grant in straight-man mode, Hepburn’s gets the very best lines (many of them improvised), prattling away with befuddled logic that leaves Grant (and the audience) confused as to whether she’s impossibly idiotic or supremely witty.  The fun in Grant’s performance originates from his facial expressions and tone of voice, essentially his exasperated reactions to Hepburn and Baby.

In fact, Baby is almost as good of an on-screen partner for Grant as Hepburn.  I wasn’t surprised to learn that Grant was in fact genuinely terrified of the animal.  He is constantly watching the prowling cat out of the corner of his eye and making sure to jump out of its way.  His terror is natural, making these scenes all the more funny.  Ironically, it was not he, but Hepburn who the feline actor did in fact come after, only to be subdued by a trainer.

What I Didn’t Like

There’s plenty of slapstick comedy to be had as well.  However, for adults, most of the pratfalls and bumped-heads prove anti-climactic when compared with the character-driven laughs.

Also, an insufferable little dog shows up about half-way through and doesn’t stop barking for the rest of the picture, proving quite an annoying distraction.

Most Memorable Scene

Ironically, the film’s funniest moments occur before Baby ever shows up.  The first three encounters between David and Susan, on the golf-course, in the parking lot, and in a restaurant are all terrific blends of the different kinds of comedy to be found through the remainder of the movie: situation, slapstick, screwball, sexual, etc.  The different kinds of funny to be found here mean pretty much anyone can find something to laugh about in at least one of these scenes.  I certainly giggled more than once.  Since these three encounters all run consecutively, I’ve chosen to pick them all as one scene, the best one.

My Rating: 4 out of 5