Honest ImpressionsThoughts on Contemporary Cinema
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After seeing "Brooklyn," I had the opportunity to interview Saoirse Ronan in a college conference phone call. Here are the highlights from the conversation.
Moderator: Okay, there they go. First we have Jasmine Kantor with College Time. Saoirse: Hi, Jasmine. Jasmine: How are you? I was just wondering, how emotionally invested do you think you were in the character of Eilis since you and her both come from New York and Ireland? Saoirse: I mean initially that was the real personal connection for me was the fact that my mom and dad had made that trip over from Ireland to New York and had gotten married in City Hall just like Eilis and Tony did, and I was born there. Yes, these two places really very much made up who I am, but by the time we actually made the film which was maybe a year or so after I had signed on. I had moved away from home and was living in London and was going through home sickness myself and still trying to figure out where I stood in the grownup world. It’s a very daunting feeling I think, and I was right in the middle of that while we were making the film, so it meant that every kind of stage that we see Eilis reaching and overcoming, I was going through myself. It was very scary because of that, because there was sort of nowhere to hide, but by the same token, once you actually get through something like that there’s nothing more gratifying. Kate: This is your first role or one of your first roles playing an adult woman in a coming of age story where she’s adapting to a new country, could you speak about the role and the character, and how you feel about moving beyond juvenile roles? Saoirse: I mean it’s interesting because even when I was a kid, I never was involved in children’s films apart from maybe one or two. They were always quite grown up, and so when I got to the age of about 18 and 19, I was really ready to play someone older, and certainly by the time I reached 20. It’s a tricky time because there’s a lot of execs and writers and studios and all the rest that can’t really pinpoint exactly what a journey would be for a young woman between the ages of 18 and 21, so it’s a tricky time to get the role that is interesting and still kind of matches your maturity and where you’re at in your own life. When Brooklyn came along, it was perfect, and it was like a bloody guardian angel or something coming down and kind of going, “Okay, you’re ready now.” I think just going through that experience, I felt quite changed afterwards, but I was very much ready to take that step. Moderator: Next is Kelly Wells with Emerson College. Kelly: …my question is, when people go to see this movie what do you want them to take away from it? Saoirse: I think honestly, I mean John has put it really well whenever anyone’s asked, just to be kind to people. I think the real—if there’s any message with this film, apart from the personal connections that everyone has seemed to have to us in one way or another, the heart of this movie is that she gets on well in life and she grows, and she grows into this amazing young woman because the people around her have been kind to her and they’ve helped her and they’ve shared advice and wisdom and their experience. And because of that, she has been able to, as I said, ultimately stand up and announce who she is and realize that she needs to make a choice. She wouldn’t have been able to do that at the start of the film, she wasn’t there yet. It’s really—it’s the people around her that helped her to come out of herself in order for her to get the confidence and have that security in who she is. Moderator: Next up we’ll go to Gabrielle Ulubay with Northeastern University. Me: Hello! I’d like to start by thanking you so much for taking the time out to talk with us today, I really do appreciate it. My question is that Eilis arguably undergoes both a physical and an emotional transformation in this movie because she becomes confident, she becomes older, she’s more comfortable, she’s stronger because of what she’s been through, and you do a really great job in the movie of manifesting this physically. So I was wondering what preparation you took in preparing for this role and manifesting her physicality? Also, does it differ from the preparation you’ve taken before other roles? Saoirse: When I did a film called Atonement a few years ago when I was about 12, the director on that, one of the first things that we worked on apart from the accent, was the way a character would walk. And so that’s always been quite important for me, and I think from that it naturally meant that a character’s emotional face really reflected and fed into their physicality as well, and it kind of naturally starts to happen. Yes, I guess it was just one of those things that sort of naturally, as you say, manifested through the course of the script, but the more confident emotionally the character was, I guess I just kind of naturally stood in a different way. I think when a character has purpose as well, when a young woman has purpose and she knows where she’s going, your walk is going to always reflect that. And so I think it was just one of those things that really kind of happened naturally. I could feel that like when we brought Eilis back home to Ireland in the second half of the film, she was more in control of herself. She, as you said, has been through quite a life experience since she’s been away, has gone through fear and grief and love, and has taken on so much responsibility for herself. And so, just like it would in real life, that just kind of naturally reflects or feeds into the way you hold yourself, I guess. Me: Thank you so much! Saoirse: Thank you!
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No amount of background research could have prepared me to watch Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders. This portrait of a beekeeping family in the Tuscan countryside is quite realistic, immersing you in the rough natural world of the film. There isn’t an entirely discernable plot, but that doesn’t seem to be Rohrwacher’s priority.
Music is used sparingly in the movie—only during scenes in which music is actually playing in the characters’ world, or when these rural farmers are dealing with the modern world. A lack of music may be unappealing for some, but in The Wonders, it only made it that much more noticeable and meaningful when music was playing. White noise is used extensively, but it would be wrong to say that the movie is at all silent. The bees, the wind, and other diagetic sounds create an auditory combination that’s a soundtrack in its own right. The buzzing of bees is so frequent and loud that it creates a sense of anxiety and stays with the viewer after the film is over. It’s also interesting to notice how calm the characters are around the bees, and how mundane these potentially dangerous scenes seem to them. It’s a testament to the acting and the directing that scenes so boring to the characters can generate such discomfort and suspense in the audience. The plot is the trickiest concept in this film. In other words, there’s rather little of it. The movie doesn’t so much have a main conflict as it has several important conflicts that culminate in stressful, uncomfortable emotional states for the characters. Therefore, this lack of a main idea can’t really be a weakness in and of itself because it accomplishes exactly what Rohrwacher’s intention seems to have been: to create a portrait of a specific family in a certain time and place. This quality does, however, make the movie feel long and directionless towards the end. The Wonders is stunning to watch and to listen to, and worth it to any movie-goer who enjoys realism, or just an aesthetically well-made European film. Stay away if you’re in the mood for a tightly wound plot and satisfying resolution, or if you want something fast-paced. This is more of a rainy day movie. Grade: B- I had high expectations for this Davis Guggenheim documentary about Malala Yousafzai, the young girl who was attacked by the Taliban for advocating on behalf of women’s education in Pakistan. You might recognize Guggenheim’s name from his other popular liberal documentaries, including An Inconvenient Truth (2006) and Waiting for Superman (2010). He’s a well-known director with such a good reputation that he was personally asked to do this film, but his work here was disappointing.
The documentary was a disorganized series of seemingly unrelated scenes. It jumped between random events spanning from the time before the attack to Malala’s current life in England. At one time, her parents’ relationship history was also discussed, as was Malala’s social life. All of this information is interesting and could still have been included, but it looked like it was put together at random. I understand the need to change the mood of the documentary so that it does not feel like a depressing melodrama with a forced happy ending, and do not claim that the film needed to be done chronologically. But the way that Guggenheim jumped around was frustrating. The issue in the film is neither Malala nor her family. On the contrary, the Yousafzai family was eloquent, poised, intelligent, and genuine. They were serious on the obviously more solemn issues in this film, yet affectionate and good-humored enough for the movie to be fun to watch. Each person was also fascinating in his or her own right. Also, the illustrations used to tell the story of Malala’s namesake and to relay more violent parts of the subject were masterful. They kept the piece from being too bloody, which would have desensitized and turned off the audience altogether. Other than the Yousafzai family, these illustrations were the best part of the film. The footage collected was quite good, and could have been better appreciated in a different order. While the documentary was still enjoyable, on a technical level this subject deserved more than what the project ultimately became. Rating: C After a screening of the film at Kendall Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA, director Davis Guggenheim along with Dr. Ali Asani and Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard University participated in a talk-back hosted by Globe Docs and the Harvard Pluralism Project at Kendall Square Theatre. The interview was conducted by Boston Globe staff member Janice Page. Below are some of the highlights from their discussion:
Question: “This is a common subject. What did you think you could contribute to it?” Guggenheim: “They [the studio] wanted actors at first, but I met her and realized no one can really play her. They asked me to do the film and I said I needed a few days to think about it, and then I agreed…I really connected to the father-daughter story—I have daughters of my own, and I don’t quite understand them [laughs]…I’m interested in the invisible forces, even in the United States, pulling at girls going to school. I want Malala to be remembered as more than a girl who was shot by Taliban.” Question: “Did you originally have a different direction for the documentary?” Guggenheim: “I found Malala has such forgiveness and lack of bitterness through faith, and then the project took on a life of its own.” Question: “What is it about the idea of the educated girl that seems so frightening?” Asani: “Because she is able to assert critically and make observations. This is a matter of how to educate human beings.There is a Western misperception that most common in the Arab world is Islam as an actor, as a thing, but it’s really just a concept that people use as reason. Unfortunately, the Taliban uses it for violence. Also, there is the misperception that is Islam is all the same: It is not.” Guggenheim: “Violent actors are a small part of the Muslim world and our understanding must be deeper than we think. We can blame thins news, such as 60 Seconds, but what are we doing? We consume a negative diet of information.” Question: “In the making of the movie, did you struggle with how to show gore? Or how to avoid being exploitative?” Guggenheim: “The shooting is a moment, but I didn’t want it to be the moment. Before filming anything, I sat, just me and Malala, in her office. I had no agenda, no premise, no camera crews. I didn’t want to be exploitative, I wanted to show her as a girl. The animations came from this. I also wanted to show what a 14-year-old girl would imagine while she’s laying in bed at night, wondering at how she got her name. I wanted to invite people into this narrative, because pure violence is scary.” Dr. Cesari: “The goal is to humanize narrative, not just to think of Islam through political terms. Politics has a way of dehumanizing, while art humanizes issues. The aesthetics of those forms transforms narratives and connects people on the level of the human experience. Particular contexts, in art, can be universalized because of an element…Here, silence is finding a voice.” Despite what some of its press has claimed, Black Mass is not your average gangster movie. Crime-dramas are normally rife with dynamic soundtracks, romance, and glittering montages of beautiful men swimming in blood money with their beautiful wives—yet Black Mass avoids these stereotypes. The movie incorporates an alarmingly realistic amount of white noise and everyday sounds of the city. Director Scott Cooper and cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi capture an unsettling version of Boston punctuated with views of its local landmarks that remind modern Bostonians how very real and recent the movie’s events were. Cooper doesn’t try to make Whitey’s life look appealing—in fact, he emphasizes what a miserable existence this kind of life is.
As far as Johnny Depp is concerned, I agree that this may be his big comeback role. He’s gotten a lot of bad press in the past few years, accused of doing sub-par films and emulating Keith Richards in every role. Here, he has impeccably captured the character of a troubled, ruthless crime boss. But I would be remiss to leave out that Joel Edgerton positively shone in this movie as FBI agent and childhood friend of Whitey, John Connolly. Edgerton was so captivating that I looked forward to his every appearance on the screen. The film is mainly about corruption, and Edgerton personifies it. His facial expressions, tone of voice, and outbursts are enough to keep the audience interested despite having so many main characters made to appear unlikeable. Wait around for the end credits, when they show real photos and footage of the Winter Hill gang and Agent Connolly—you’ll see that even Edgerton’s mannerisms and appearance are spot-on. The film isn’t completely historically accurate (of course), and by necessity leaves out parts of Whitey Bulger’s life that would (a) make him too unlikeable and (b) extend a movie that already lasts two hours, but it’s a valuable and entertaining look at one of the most notorious American criminals of all time. If you want straight facts, watch a documentary. If you want a crime-drama with a jazzy soundtrack that makes you feel like the mob is the high-life, re-watch Goodfellas. But this film is well worth the time of any movie fan, and might just transform the way we look at gangster movies. Grade: A- Sing Street is a coming-of-age, musical movie that defies clichés. It's directed by John Carney, creator of Once and Begin Again fame, and focuses on a young boy named Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) growing up Dublin during the 1980s. When Conor's parents transfer him from an expensive private school to a rough inner-city high school, he becomes infatuated with the mysterious girl (Lucy Boynton) who lives across the street. Conor tries to impress her by lying that he is in a band, and consequently finds he must form one.
This story line sounds familiar: Boy meets girl, boy tries to impress girl, boy and girl fall in love with comedic and/or touching hiccups along the way, right? But this is where Sing Street exceeds expectations. Romance is an important aspect of the film and contributes to Conor's motivations, but the movie takes unexpected directions and is ultimately more meaningful than its romantic parts. Sing Street is first and foremost about how important music can be during the difficult years of early adolescence. 80s music by likes of Depeche Mode, the Cure, and Duran Duran punctuate the film and help Conor digest increasingly tense relationships with his parents and his school's sadistic principal. He uses music to find himself, both artistically and aesthetically, and often with comedic results. Sing Street's characters clearly deal with adolescent internal crises yet remain funny, tough, and realistic enough to save the film from banality. Each character has a level of depth unusual for teenage movies, their difficult realities only focused upon long enough to make them realistic and instill sympathy in audiences. Backstories were explored, but never to an emotionally exhausting degree. It was especially refreshing to watch the relationship between Conor and his brother, Brendan (Jack Reynor). Brendan is a moody, perpetually stoned college dropout with limited screen-time, yet Reynor excels in this role to such a degree that Brendan is one of the most likable characters in the film. The way he communicates with Conor is attentive and compassionate, and Reynor manifests this verbally and nonverbally. Facial expressions and body language communicate his inner conflicts, even when he is trying to hide them. Brendan's less-than-glamorous qualities could easily have made him irritating, but instead he was relatable and emotionally affecting. He is especially gripping in the final scene, when he expresses both regret over his own life's direction and excitement for his brother's future. The bond between the brothers is strong and far from simple, and was the most touching relationship in the film. Symmetrical cinematography, match-on-action shots, blunt dialogue, and precocious young characters remind audiences of Wes Anderson films, but with a gritty touch. Here, John Carney has managed to make a movie that is at once tough, funny, nostalgic, and heart-warming. I encourage everyone to see Sing Street: there is something here for everyone. Grade: A+ |
Gabrielle UlubayWriter, artist, filmmaker. Archives
August 2017
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