A Rave Film Review

For Christmas, my sister (who blogs at MissionIncomplete) gifted me the movie The Lives of Others (henceforth referred to as LoO, because I’m lazy at typing and LoO is a funny-looking acronym.).

Based on what came up when I googled it, it’s a fairly popular movie in the U.S., for a foreign film. It’s German make, directed by Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck, and came out in 2007.

Though it came out in 2007, this feels like an old movie, and I mean that in the most complimentary manner possible. I don’t mean the acting was cheesy and the set chintzy. It felt quiet, and if films had souls, this one’s soul would be old.

Though I’ve only ever seen five foreign films in my life (at most), this one followed the pattern of the ones I’ve seen. Foreign films seem to be, in general, quieter than American productions, probably because, as we learned in film class last year, while here film is primarily entertainment, in Europe it’s more of an art form. The soundtracks especially seem to be less dramatic and overbearing, and the colors are often subdued. I think, for certain stories, such as A River Runs Through It (Robert Redford, 1992) and October Sky (Joe Johnston, 1999), it conveys the message better with a quieter tone. Some messages require a light hand to deliver them. Some hands, such as the one that made The Lives of Others, are so light, I don’t really know what the message even is yet.

Though I don’t know what this movie is rightly saying, I can praise it no less highly. Forgive me for taking until the fifth paragraph to give you the synopsis. It is about East Berlin, before the Wall fell, and follows a playwright and a member of the Stasi (secret police), who watches him. It gets extensively into how the Stasi monitors people, and captures the oppression of that quite well. Initially, the playwright is above suspicion, but a corrupt government official falls for the playwright’s girlfriend, and so orders his house watched, so that maybe they’ll find something incriminating and can jail the playwright, and thus the official can have the playwright’s girlfriend. Additionally, the playwright is a bit of a political liability, thought he hadn’t been watched before. That’s the plot. It’s a pretty straightforward intrigue (cue the polite laughing), until you bring the watcher into play. He is initially keen to incriminate the playwright and move up a bit in the world, but eventually is taken over to the playwright’s side. It is really amazing to watch the watcher (named Wiesler) waver on the edge, and eventually make the point of no return. There is a huge parade of recurring images, motifs, and nuanced scenes that really make the movie profound, though I still couldn’t tell you what it means.

The colorlessness of the background (especially Wiesler’s life) brings out the vibrant color in the playwright’s circle of artist friends. It made me think of Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all in Paris in the 1920’s; and of Siegfried Sassoon and Ivor Gurney and Julian Grenfell all in the trenches of Europe during the Great War. It made me think of Thoreau and Emerson in the Transcendentalist Club of Massachusetts, and of the Inklings of Oxford, U. K.. The strange and passionate and altogether unreasonable camaraderie that artists have with each other was painted in beautiful, soft watercolor.

There is an “ish” amount of nudity and sex in the film (which is rated “R” for “some sexuality/nudity,” though the actual amount can only be determined by your own personal taste. I say there’s a lot; my sister says not so much), which is the only downside, and the only reason why I might hesitate to recommend this film to someone, and why I will likely not watch it again for a very long time myself. I won’t venture to say whether the movie would be made better or worse if some of that hadn’t been there. I’ll only say that for my sometimes Puritanical viewing pleasure, I wish the amount of steaminess had been somewhat reduced.

Through all this, I still can’t quite decide what it all means. It’s not a cautionary tale about the effects of monitoring people. It’s not really a tale of revolution and civil disobedience. I don’t even think it’s about relying on your own estimations (as opposed to those dictated by the State) of right and wrong. Is it the story of a lonely man living vicariously through the people he listens to?  Or is it about how real poetry and real art can truly and actually touch a person deep in their soul and cause them to change?

Whatever it is, it is well worth watching.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

Before you read any further, know that I am assuming that you have seen the movie, and as such, there will be spoilers. This is not a “I’m deciding if I want to go see it,” review. This is a “I’ve seen it and am deciding what I think about it,” review.

I’m not going to make a judgement on special effects or style. I’m not really a film critic, I just have opinions.

Let’s tackle the easier problem first. The Twins. I was very disappointed with their development. I kind of equate them with Black Widow and Hawkeye, except that Widow and Hawkeye have each been in several movies, so that even though they still lack their own, we know them almost as well as the Avengers who all have their own movies. The Twins however, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, have only the short at the end of Captain America: the Winter Soldier, and their time in Ultron, during which Quicksilver dies, never to be seen again, and neither of them say very much. It was rather disappointing. You could tell they were great characters, and that there’s a ton in the comic books, but it simply wasn’t shown in the movie, and for those of us who don’t read the comic books, it could be rather confusing and shallow feeling. I feel like there should have been more there. It certainly would’ve made Quicksilver’s death more tragic.

However, I also realize that to really have the depth I’d like, it’d be a four hour, probably very drawn out movie.

I was glad, though, that Scarlet Witch’s manipulation of the Avengers, before she turns good, gave us a little insight to their backgrounds. That was nice. I enjoyed the introduction to Clint’s (Hawkeye’s) family, and it lent a little more meaning to Quicksilver’s death. I’m still forming my opinion of the Hulk/Black Widow romance.

My biggest problem with this movie was Vision. He seemed extremely underdeveloped and left a lot of questions unanswered. It bothered me because Ultron was created to protect humanity, and, like Vikki in iRobot, the Will Smith movie, decided that the best way to protect humanity was to destroy it. But then, Tony Stark turns around and pretty much does the EXACT SAME THING that he did to create Ultron, to create Vision, again without knowledge or blessing from the other Avengers. That bothered me a lot. He had exactly the same starting point and came up with a different result. That’s not very scientific. And if your answer is that they made sure to inject some morality into Vision that they neglected in Ultron, the question then is “whose morality?” Because Ultron obviously thought he himself was THE moral compass and that humanity itself was immoral. See how that turned out?

One thing I found extremely interesting was how Ultron quoted a lot of scripture, and sang children’s songs. I’m going to have to think about that one for a while, but that was one thing the movie got absolutely right: the warped, creepy sense of right and wrong that Ultron had.

Several of my friends say they liked it better than the first Avengers, and others say they thought it was worse. I think I have to hold with the second group, with the reservation that if Joss Whedon had given the characters a little more depth, I’d be in the first camp.

Daily Nugget–May 17

I realized that come this Friday, I will have posted every day for a whole month. Hurray!

Today my family and I marathon-ed several Star Wars films. We watched The Empire Strikes Back last night, and today, my brother was sick so we watched Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I love Star Wars, and Obi Wan’s line from Revenge of the Sith, “WELL THEN YOU ARE LOST,” as they’re fighting on Mustafar has always been my favorite. He says it with such conviction, and it’s so much fun to kind of yell it at my siblings when they (or I) say something rather stupid.

But I realized today as we were watching that it has relevance to yesterday’s post. I’m not quoting these lines exactly, but they’re bashing at each other with their lightsabers, and Obi Wan says something like, “But the Chancellor,” (or the Sith, or someone) “is evil!” Anakin shoots back, “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil,” which is really him mimicking Palpatine’s earlier line about good and bad being a point of view.

This really makes the point about postmodernism, and the idea that truth, or right and wrong don’t really exist, is complete, for lack of a better word, crap.

I’m really trying hard not to make this blog into a ranting platform, so I’ll stop there, but I’d never really noticed that about Star Wars before, and it makes me like that line even more. I’m really going to enjoy yelling ” WELL, THEN YOU ARE LOST!” at people even more now.

Fury Review

I love movies, y’all. Like, a lot.  My friends also are movie people, and we all went to go see Fury (directed by David Ayer, 2014) a while ago, because none of us had seen it, and we wanted to watch something for the first time together. Aren’t we adorable?

I was the one who suggested Fury, and I was a little afraid of it just being a lot of senseless violence and f-bombing, with little real plot, but it did have some meat to it, if you were looking for it. Which, we were. Neither me or these particular friends really watch movies without hashing it over afterward to identify the worldview, and whether or not we agree with said worldview. What else could you expect from a blog called The Casual Philosopher?

It stars Brad Pitt, but also had several other familiar faces for me: Shia LeBoeuf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena (sorry, I couldn’t get my ancient laptop to make the accented “n”), and Jon Bernthal. It’s about a tank crew on the western front in 1945, and the basic story line is the breaking-in of the new gunner (Lerman).

Cinematically speaking, it was superb. Special effects, acting, cinematography, I thought all were great. I lack the expertise to make a call on historical accuracy, but it matched up with what little I know.

Now for the fun stuff! So, I was kind of afraid I’d just invited my friends to blow $10 on watching a violent, ludicrously obscene film. But overall, there are things to be gleaned. Yes, it was violent. But it’s a war movie. What’d you expect? So, for a war movie, I thought the level of violence was very acceptable, and not excessive. Language was another thing entirely. I was expecting some language, but not an f-bomb every other line. I understand that it was an intense situation, and I would never criticize a veteran for spewing language, because I have no idea what the charming chap has been through. But for the purposes of movie-making, it was quite unnecessary. I’d have been ok with an F— here and there, but it was ALL OVER the movie. Seemed like every sentence had at least two. I’d like to read the script and count how many exactly. And even if you thought toning down the language would take away from the intensity of the film, there are other words than just  f—-.  It was really just obnoxious.

Despite that, it was still good. The movie’s main redeeming feature was how well it showed the duality of wartime choices.  For instance, breaking in the new guy. Lerman is a tender new recruit at the beginning of the movie. He’s a pretty decent human being, and in being so, he was going to get his fellow-crew-members killed real quick if he didn’t toughen up fast. But in the process of toughening up (and thus saving everyone’s life), he becomes less than he was before. It shows innocent child soldiers, and cunning, duplicitous child soldiers. It shows Germans hanging their own people who refused to fight, and bombing a German house to get at the Americans inside. But it also shows New Guy being forced to shoot an unarmed German officer who is begging for his life, in order to toughen him up. Then, at the end, a young German recruit, who is at the point New Guy was in the beginning of the movie, gives New Guy mercy, and…….that’s the end of the movie, so I won’t spoil it for you. I’ve not seen Saving Private Ryan, but one of the friends I went with has, and (this is strictly second hand, mind. I may not get it right) said there’s a parallel scene in Private Ryan, where the Americans want to shoot a begging German, and are told ‘no,’ by their commanding officer. So then we talked about how much society has changed between 1998 and 2014, and how movies and culture influence each other, but which influences the other more? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

So, overall, it was a good movie. I just wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who can’t handle violence, a ludicrous amount of cussing, and witnessing very hard choices. However, if you can, knock yourself out.