Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews

2012: Time for Change advocates "evolve to solve" strategies

Evolve to solve. Daniel Pinchbeck investigates how to survive and thrive during changing times in the wide-ranging documentary 2012: Time for Change.

Thoughtful and visionary, director Joao Amorim’s film transcends apocalypse hype by advocating action. It’s now screening nationwide and streaming via Netflix.

Pinchbeck walks his talk as he shares common sense ways to live consciously so that all can thrive on earth. The founder of the Evolver social movement and editorial director of Reality Sandwich interviews scholars and leaders around the world.

Animation is also used to investigate spiritual practices, sacred activism and new technologies to help us survive change with grace and ease.

Functional design, habitat restoration, ecological detoxification, intentional community, aquaponic agriculture, wind power, open source currency and diverse currency tools are among the ideas examined. The film is similar to the documentary Thrive and surpasses Armageddon dramas like Battle Los Angeles.

“Apocalypse” means “uncovering,” and doesn’t necessarily signal doom, according to Pinchbeck. “Focusing on what will happen in 2012 may just be the wrong question,” Pinchbeck told a meeting of the Left Forum in New York City. “We should just be really asking . . . . ‘What type of change can we bring about?’ It’s going to be up to individuals and then communities to make a profound shift.”

Archival footage of the “Leonardo da Vinci of the 20^th century,” design scientist R. Buckminster Fuller, is shown. Groundbreaking technologies for sustainable energy, health and farming have already been developed, says Pinchbeck. These advances have been suppressed by powerful special interests time and again, he maintains.

Futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard cites Fuller. “We now have the resources, technology and knowhow to make the world a 100% physical success for everyone without taking it away or destroying our environment,” she says.

Many cultural creatives have planted “seed ideas” to help humanity, Hubbard says. These are quietly growing and taking root. “The only way to get to the future [Fuller] was seeing was about completely transforming your consciousness, loving one another as yourself,” she says.

Hot button issues like water scarcity and depleted soil are reviewed. Michael Dorsey, Ph.D. of Dartmouth College notes that current economic and social systems do not deliver justice, environmental protection and human rights. “The system is broken,” he believes.

 “Water’s the next oil,” warns Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor on Water Issues to the United Nations. “Water scarcity has already reached a dire limit for two billion people in the world,” she says.

“As water becomes more corporately controlled, as water becomes more expensive because it’s controlled for profit, it’s going to be denied to people who can’t afford it. It’s already happening now in communities in the global south where water metering is going on,” according to Barlow.

The “Green Revolution” has led us to “an incredible amount of dependency on corporations to supply seed, to supply chemicals,” says Penny Livingstone-Stark, a permaculture designer. Monoculture farming, she says, serves to “disconnect people from their land, pollute water systems, deforest the earth.” Livingstone-Stark explains how using soil biology sustainably perpetuates living systems and increases crop yields.

Reclaiming our lost connection to nature is the key to healing individuals, societies and the planet, Pinchbeck concludes.

Policarpo Chaj, activist and executive director of Maya Vision, explains how past and future are cyclical in Mayan thought. The 2012 prophecy of earth changes and economic downturns is already happening, Chaj and other scholars say.

Filmmaker David Lynch, who has practiced Transcendental Meditation for almost 35 years, tells Pinchbeck that he overcame anger shortly after he began meditating. Looking within helped him “find infinite intelligence, creativity, bliss, energy, love, power,” he adds.

A weak link here is Pinchbeck’s use of a psychoactive root bark to jump start his self-discovery. Using a drug for self-empowerment seems counterintuitive and harmful.

British rock singer Sting, who co-founded the Rainforest Foundation and practiced Ashtanga yoga, notes that he also took the drug. Fasting and meditation are just as effective ways to connect with the Divine, Sting adds.

Pinchbeck sees an empowered “global tribe” replacing poor, suffering masses. His essay collection Notes from the Edge Times has just been published.   (4.5 out of 5 stars)

If you like 2012: Time for Change, you might enjoy:  I Am; Happy; Waste Land; 2012; Thrive.

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2012: Time for Change    2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 40 min

Cast Overview:  Mitch Horowitz, Michael Dorsey, Ph.D., Gaspar P. Gonzalez, Penny Livingston, Maude Barlow, Bernard Lietaer, Joel Kovel, Michael D. Coe, Ph.D., Policarpo Chaj, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Terence McKena, Steven Colbert, Sting, Dennis McKenna, Barbara Marx Hubbard, R. Buckminster Fuller

Director:  Joao Amorim

Genre:  Documentary, Spirituality, Science & Nature, Current Affairs, Animation

Take Shelter: Michael Shannon digs deep to save family - 5 stars

Take Shelter is a fever dream of a thriller. It plunges you into anxiety and hope, victory and defeat. With humanity in trouble, sensitive everyman Curtis LaForche (brilliantly played by Michael Shannon) is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares.

Director Jeff Nichols lets you decide what this film is about. In an age of uncertainty, Curtis’ dark night of the soul feels universal.

Suspenseful and exciting from start to finish, Take Shelter portends the end. Depending on how you see, it will sweep you away with dread or faith. References to “the economy” and “fresh motor oil” lend timely foreboding.

A construction foreman in northern Ohio, tormented Curtis hides his condition from his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain). He seeks help from a doctor and a counselor, trying to quash his visions.

Shannon (Revolutionary Road; Bug) surrenders onscreen. Gangly, enigmatic and tortured, he remains a loving husband and devoted father to a hearing impaired child Hannah (Tova Stewart, sweetly perceptive).

Curtis wants to save his family at any cost. After visiting his mother (Kathy Baker), who’s institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia, the quiet man understands that his curse is a gift.

March in step, Curtis’ best friend Dewart (Shea Whigham) and his brother Kyle (Ray McKinnon) tell him. Instead, he secures a home improvement loan to build an elaborate storm shelter. Curtis risks everything – home, family, and the health insurance needed for Hannah’s cochlear implant surgery.

Samantha (Jessica Chastain) takes refuge in family, friends and community. Love grounds and guides her. She sells her embroidery at tag sales to finance the family’s annual vacation.

Prolific Chastain (The Debt; The Tree of Life; The Help) creates yet another excellent character here in a spree of recent big screen roles. Samantha struggles to understand and stay with Curtis.

Natural disaster never looked so breathtaking. Adam Stone uses widescreen photography to see beauty in menace. Flocks of starlings, clouds and twin tornadoes loom. Real and impending catastrophes are colored by mystery and mental illness.

Nichols (Shotgun Stories) captures inner and outer worlds with authority and immediacy. His work is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s, but with more ambiguity. It’s impressive that this is only Nichols’ second feature.

Tight, flawless editing by Parke Gregg enhances drama. David Wingo contrasts darkness and normalcy with his music.

End or beginning? The perspective of nature as a benevolent force ready to help humanity is missing here. It’s a worthy premise for another film.

If you like Take Shelter, you might enjoy:  The Tree of Life; Insidious; The Debt.

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Take Shelter    2011  /  R  /  2 hours

Cast Overview: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, Ray McKinnon, LisaGay Hamilton, Rogert Longstreet, Kathy Baker, Tova Stewart

Director:  Jeff Nichols

Genre:  Drama, Thriller, Suspense, Horror

 

The Way: Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez heal heartbreak - 5 stars

Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez heal a father’s heart and find wholeness in the sensitive drama The Way. Set along the Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago) from France to Spain, the film is directed by Sheen’s son Estevez, who appears as a ghostly muse.

The most powerful movie is sometimes the simplest. Sheen’s deep, rousing performance and Estevez’s minimalist, mood-centered direction fill The Way with meaning. Cinematographer Juanmi Azpiroz captures action along the breathtaking pilgrimage route.

Daniel (Estevez) has died in a freak accident in the Pyrenees, known for unpredictable weather. He was nearly 40 when he decided to postpone doctoral studies and walk the 500-mile-long trek.

Tom Avery (Sheen) just lost his wife a year ago, so losing his son is devastating. The conservative ophthalmologist travels from Ventura, California to identify Daniel and have him cremated.

The Way is the best father-son drama I've seen in years. It's nothing less than a healing for the male heart.

With Daniel’s backpack and provisions, Tom decides to complete his son’s journey. He will walk to the cathedral where the Apostle James is said to be buried. Local police warn him about the dangers. Tom is stoic. He has nothing to lose.

Sheen’s intensity and talent are mesmerizing. A winner of Emmy and Golden Globe awards, he’s played presidents and generals, fathers and coaches. Sheen evokes manhood with strength and sensitivity.

Tom scatters Daniel’s ashes at especially beautiful vistas. He remembers how his son pissed him off. “You don’t choose a life, Dad. You live one,” Daniel once told him. Tom speaks little, but you can feel his brokenness.

Tom sees Daniel wherever he goes. The son becomes father to the man. Tom appreciates the wordless visits. Still peace eludes him.

Empty but determined, Tom surrenders. Three travelers gravitate around the angry American. Numbness gives way to fury for the grieving dad.

Deborah Kara Unger plays Sarah, a sharp-tongued Canadian who wants to quit smoking. Yorick von Wageningen plays Joost, a friendly Dutchman who’s desperate to lose weight but loves regional cuisine. James Nesbitt is engaging as Jack, a bombastic Irishman with writer’s block who begins to chronicle Tom’s story.

His companions irk him, but Tom discovers himself by being around the others. Each traveler has wounds to heal. Finally Tom empathizes. He begins to understand why the journey was so important to Daniel.

Each must resolve personal issues and find truth. Gently insistent spiritual undertones never become overbearing. An encounter with a young gypsy thief (Omar Munoz) and his father (Antonio Gil) is especially moving.

A sense of community grows among the four and extends to others who walk. With references to cell phones, The Way also meditates on how disconnected we have become in the information age.

The Way allowed Sheen and Estevez to explore their Spanish culture and Catholic religion together. Charlie Sheen, the star’s other son, battled publicly with drug addiction as this film was made. The mystical bond between fathers and sons is tempered by real life frustration in this vision quest. 

Estevez has directed a dozen television shows and films. He starred in The Breakfast Club and Young Guns. Estevez and Sheen have made other movies together, including The War at Home and Bobby. 

The Way is a memorable exploration of manhood, heart and healing. Nature’s fearsome beauty unleashes a majestic resolution.

If you like The Way, you might enjoy:  The Music Never Stopped; In a Better World; Beginners; Thor.

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The Way    2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 55 min

Cast Overview: Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wageningen, James Nesbitt

Director:  Emilio Estevez

Genre:  Drama, Independent

The Robber: Bourne-like drama chases thoughtful thrills - 4.5 stars

 
 
A record-breaking marathon runner (Andreas Lust) chases his endorphin rush to extremes in The Robber, Benjamin Heisenberg’s real-life drama with Jason Bourne's heart. It's now streaming online.

The rush of marathon competition and victory would thrill most of us. Quiet, intense Johann Rettenberger (Lust) robs banks. He’s hooked on the thrill of a double life. Winning championships seems like his day job. Daring heists are his true passion.

This is a chase film and cinematic exploration of movement, darkness and light. The runner hones his crimes as carefully as his cardio training. Like Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley in Heat, Rettenberger is compelled to pull off big heists. Like McCauley, he vows never to return to prison.

More myth than character, Rettenberger lives on the edge, fully alive. He has little use for the money. Wearing a Ronald Reagan mask, the real crook (Johann Kastenberger) robbed up to three banks a day, earning the nickname Pumpgun Ronnie.

The Robber is based on Martin Prinz’s novel On the Run, which tells how the marathoner terrorized Austrian banks in the 1980s. Prinz co-wrote the screenplay with Heisenberg.

Rettenberger loves solitude. He has no family ties or real friendships. This is his fatal flaw and his fascination.

The love of Erika (Franziska Weisz) entices Johann. In spite of herself, she is mesmerized by criminal life. The two see a crime movie on their first date. Erika gushes over a shootout scene. Johann smiles knowingly to himself.

Erika and Johann knew each other in childhood. Even then he was stealing treats from her mother. She offers Johann in an extra room in her flat. One day she finds a cache of bills stuffed under his bed. Johann discovers Erika sitting on the carpet in his room, wearing the bank robber’s mask, her eyes teary.

 
 

Lust (Revanche) fascinates even in a spare story with little dialogue. Cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider evokes chase and race scenes with Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner fascination. The low-budget film achieves great suspense. In one scene, Rettenberger leaps out of a window at police headquarters and flees.

The characters shape shift as Vorschneider films dark scenes with tremendous depth, color and visual interest. As Johann and Erika make love, the two come alive with the tentative commitment of those on the run.

Exquisite images abound. There’s a surge of runners before dawn, headlamps bobbing. Later, police flashlights close in as Rettenberger takes refuge in a dark forest.

Dialogue is another great treat in The Robber. “Jealous?” Erika asks Johann. “For a second,” he answers. “That’s nice,” she replies.

In a plot twist, Johann veers into violence. The runner’s face and whole body congeal when his parole officer (Markus Schleinzer) dogs him after a championship. This sets off the trophy-bearing Rettenberger.

Carefully crafted and executed, The Robber is a fine film that could have benefited from deeper character development. At least Heisenberg has given us more food for thought than the famous Bourne films.

The Social Network's Andrew Garfield is set to star in an American remake of The Robber, according to Filmofilia.

Clutching desperately to love and freedom, the anti-hero fascinated me until the film’s end under gray skies on the autobahn. Sony has purchased the rights for an American remake.

If you like The Robber, you might enjoy: The Tree of Life; Missing Pieces; The Debt.

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The Robber     2010  /  NR (violence, sex)  /  1 hour, 28 mins

Cast Overview:  Andreas Lust, Franziska Weisz, Florian Wotruba, Johann Bednar, Markus Schleinzer, Peter Vilnai, Max Edelbacher

Director:  Benjamin Heisenberg

Genre:  Drama, Crime, Sports, Biopic

Languages:  German with English subtitles

 

 

The Tree of Life *****

 

A family drama interpreted spiritually and artistically, The Tree of Life is a sweeping tale from the beginning to the end of time. Terrence Malick’s epic masterpiece won the Palme d’Or, top prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery. To fully appreciate Malick’s fifth feature, we must experience it with the heart.

A mother asks why her son is dead, who God is, and why we are here at all. Set in 1950's Texas, the film is all yearning, exploring, imploring. It’s a stark contrast to the loud, violent fare filling modern multiplexes.

After Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) receives news of her 19-year-old son’s death, Malick returns us to our cosmic origins. Galaxies form. Earth develops. A couple meets. A child is born. Hundreds of beautifully composed images shape a quiet, elegant whole. Upheavals, universal and personal, take on a stately grace. The soundscape is lyrical. Even protozoa and dinosaurs demonstrate gentle intelligence.

Malick's sparse dialogue and interior monologues accompany these scenes like poetry. Lush cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and the orchestral score by Alexandre Desplat are a revelation.

 

Mrs. O’Brien teaches her sons two ways through life. The way of grace accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked, insulted or injured. The way of nature (i.e., the way of the ego) dominates others, pleases itself and dwells in unhappiness. “Love is smiling through all things,” she says.

The Tree of Life shows the relationship of young Jack (Hunter McCracken in a stirring debut) and his strict, sometimes unhinged father (Brad Pitt in an Oscar-worthy dramatic performance). 

Pitt reveals a complex go-getter in the aerospace industry, a stern father who is an avid fan of Brahms. Yet O’Brien can’t reconcile the strains of a concerto with his family assembled around the dinner table. His sons never show him enough respect or measure up to his machismo.

Young Jack has begun breaking windows, stealing and tormenting small animals. “I’m as bad as you are,” Jack tells his father. Grace touches him one day and he experiences a change of heart. Jack apologizes to the brother (Laramie Eppler) he has hurt. He is kind to a neighborhood boy scarred in a house fire.

“The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by.” As Jack’s mother, Chastain is grace personified. She evokes a woman so gentle that a butterfly lands on her outstretched hand. When she disinfects a child’s cut and blows on it, we can feel her cool breath.  

 

Childhood innocence is gradually worn by the rules of society. “It takes fierce will to get ahead in this world,” Jack’s father tells him. The boy is forbidden to cross the invisible property line of a neighbor’s yard.

Sean Penn plays Jack as an angry, disillusioned man still grappling with his difficult father. Every year he lights a candle to commemorate his “true, kind” brother. Best Actor Penn delivers strong supporting work as he looks to the celestial skyscrapers of Houston for solace. They are a kind of postmodern church for Jack.

An asteroid strikes, causing massive tsunamis. Jack wanders a beach afterwards, filled with awe and wonder. It is a new beginning.

If we are open to it, The Tree of Life imparts a direct, mystical encounter between God and humans. Malick uses Christian references as the family attends church in Waco, Texas. The tree of life is an ancient symbol of heaven and earth in many religions.

The director continues his fascination with nature and the manmade world. The fields and forests of Jack’s childhood are a respite from searing inner conflicts. A universal perspective helps Jack heal years later. 

Douglas Trumbull’s special effects are natural and imaginative, resonant with the film’s ordered harmony. Superb editing is accomplished by Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber and Mark Yoshikawa. 

Malick makes films with great care and thought. After studying philosophy at Harvard, he directed four films over four decades, The New World, The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven and Badlands.

"He is working within a Hollywood system, but in a unique and personal way, much the same as Kubrick did," according to Hannah Patterson, author of The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America. "There is that level of mystery that comes from not doing interviews and not being in the public eye,” she said. Malick allows his films to speak for themselves.

Three years in the making, The Tree of Life is the director’s most epic and spiritual film to date. It reveals civilization as an experiment, a tiny shard of all that is.

Malick’s newest project stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem and Rachel Weisz. It is scheduled for release in 2012.

 If you like The Tree of Life, you might enjoy: Of Gods and Men; I Am; 127 Hours.

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The Tree of Life     2011  /  PG-13  /  2 hours, 18 min

Cast Overview:  Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Fiona Shaw, Irene Bedard, Jessica Fuselier, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Tye Sheridan 

Director:  Terrence Malick

Genre:  Drama, Indie, Period Piece

 
 

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives ****

 

A dying man recalls his other lives in the mystical reflection Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The Thai fantasy won top prize, the Palme d’Or, at the Cannes Film Festival 2010.

More experience than movie, this film doesn’t offer much plot or character development. It requires surrender to a very slow pace and the play of alternate realities. Suffering from kidney disease, Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar, who is not a professional actor) has moved to an isolated home in the jungle where he runs a tamarind orchard.

Boonmee knows death is near because he is able to see his other lives clearly. His deceased wife Huay (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk) appears at the dinner table one night, sensing that he will make his transition soon.

What’s striking is that Boonmee’s elderly sister-in-law Jen (Jenjira Pongpas) and his nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee) can see and talk with the ghost too.  There is an acceptance of mystery as magic, spirituality and everyday reality coexist. Huay tells Boonmee, “Heaven is overrated. There is nothing there.” Existence is a journey with many wanderers.

Boonmee’s son Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong) arrives next to explain his disappearance years ago. Following a ghost monkey with his camera, he was transfixed by the silent, black, Big Foot-like creature with glowing red eyes. When he mated with one he became a ghost monkey himself. The group is alarmed by Boonsong’s appearance at first, but gradually accepts him. Boonmee is grateful to reconnect with his family.

Very slow and meditative, the film unfolds scenes from Boonmee’s animal lives. Each is a folk tale in itself. When an aging princess sees her youthful reflection in a forest pool, a catfish (Boonmee), who she calls The Lord of Water, assures her of her worth and beauty. Their sexual encounter is extraordinary, a mystical union of nature and humanity.

Gifted director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who asks Western interviewers to call him “Joe,” conveys a reflective and mischievous, Buddhist-inspired vision where all life is sacred and transitory. "Cinema is a man's way to create an alternate universe," he says. His signature blend of surreal and ordinary mark his art house features Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Weerasethakul said that meditation for him is “like taking a shower for my mind. I had notes for Uncle Boonmee for years, but I couldn’t complete it. I went to a temple near my home for 10 days straight and did nothing but meditate. When I finished, my mind was clear, and I sat down and wrote the script.”

Boonmee regrets that he killed so many insects in this lifetime. During a walk in the forest, he shows Jen how to eat honey out of a hive. He offers to leave her his home and land. Jen refuses, dwelling on her distrust of the immigrant workers Boonmee employs.

Progress is measured over centuries, like stalactites on cave ceilings. A visit to a cave with ghosts past and present reminds Boonmee of the safety of a womb. Glittering bits of mica shimmer on a cave wall. Slowly the scene transforms into a night sky.

 

Uncle Boonmee is both simultaneous and linear. Weerasethakul often films in dim light, creating a semi-mournful, plodding mood. Cinematographers Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Yukontorn Mingmongkon and Charin Pengpanich render seamless stylistic shifts amidst the gorgeous jungles of northeastern Thailand. Lush soundscapes of birdsong and crickets provide uplift.

A brief depiction of young Thai soldiers killing a communist seems to reflect Boonmee’s anxiety that he broke with his belief in non-violence during a lifetime in the Sixties.

What is the nature of life? Uncle Boonmee ends in meditative paradox. Jen is transfixed by images on a black and white television screen. She doesn’t want to go out, she tells Tong (who is now a monk with a cell phone). Other Jens who dance and sing are alive too. Love life, the director suggests.

If you like Uncle Boonmee, you might enjoy: Biutiful; Nora’s Will; Letters to Father Jacob.

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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives  2010  /  NR  /  1 hour, 53 min

Cast Overview:  Thanapat Saisaymar, Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda kaewbuadee, Natthakarn Aphaiwonk, Geerasak Kulhong, Kanokporn Thongaram, Samud Kugasang, Wallapa Mongkolprasert, Sumit Suebsee, Vien Pimdee

Director:  Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Genre:  Drama, Fantasy

Language: Thai with English subtitles

Letters to Father Jacob *****

 

 

Mysteriously pardoned after serving part of a life sentence, Leila (Kaarina Hazard) is angry. She was perfectly content. Who has dared interrupt her punishment?

With nowhere else to go, Leila is corralled into a job as a personal assistant to a blind priest who lives alone at a rundown parish, Father Jacob (Heikki Nousiainen).

Jacob greets Leila wholeheartedly, pouring tea and inviting her to dine with him on hearty bread.  He seems to know her.  She’s not planning to stay long, she tells him. She won’t do any menial labor.

Jacob reassures the rotund, frowning woman.  He only needs her help to read his letters. Requests for prayer arrive each day, delivered by a jovial postman (Jukka Keinonen). The letter carrier has heard all about Leila’s crime. Privately he warns her: she had better not harm the saintly cleric.

Contemptuous Leila suspects that Father Jacob engineered her release. Still she can’t help respect him. Clearly Jacob has a gift. He knows who is writing even if Leila doesn’t share the sender’s name.  People from all over are sick or troubled. Students struggle at school.

Seeing into the heart of each request, Jacob directs Leila to look up Bible passages (most of which he knows by heart). He prays. He asks her to write brief replies. The letters are then hoarded under his bed with a thousand others.

Beautifully acted and engaging from start to finish, Letters to Father Jacob asks us to consider why we do what we do. Klaus Haro (Mother of Mine) directs this deeply felt inquiry into ego, faith and transformative love. Tuomo Hutri’s cinematography adds to its quiet power, as does the unassuming script by Jaana Makkonen.

When the letters stop arriving, Jacob tortures himself. How selfless has his service been? He no longer feels needed or important.

Jacob and Leila each drop into a world of pain and doubt. Finally Leila asks for forgiveness. Grace imparts quiet miracles, unearned and unexpected. 

If you like Letters to Father Jacob, you might enjoy:  Of Gods and Men; Winter in Wartime; Win Win.

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Letters to Father Jacob     2009  /  NR  /  1 hour, 14 min

Cast Overview:  Kaarina Hazard, Jukka Keinonen, Heikki Nousiainen, Esko Roine

Director:  Klaus Haro

Genre:  Drama, Foreign

Language: Finnish with English subtitles

Of Gods and Men *****

 
 

Seven French monks face death as civil war sweeps through a mountain village in Of Gods and Men.

Xavier Beauvois directs the true life drama which won Best Film at the Cesar Awards (France’s Oscars) and the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2010.

The Trappist monks offer compassionate service in the rural Algerian highlands. They raise crops and sell honey. Elderly Brother Luc (Cesar winner Michael Lonsdale) gives medical care to the poor.  When a child’s shoes are worn, he provides a new pair.

Extremists slit the throats of Croatian highway workers one day. Villagers run to tell the brothers. Tensions rise between Islamist insurgents and a corrupt government. France’s colonization of Algeria, years after the country regained independence, still rankles. Foreigners are not trusted.  

In this can’t-look-away film, Beauvois focuses on the inner and outer lives of the monks, who were kidnapped during the 1996 civil war and later executed.  No group admitted to the slayings.

Love and devotion are genuine. Cinematographer Caroline Champetier (also a Cesar winner) captures the monks’ emotion, movement and conversation close up in the beautiful, meditative mountains. The film was made in Morocco.

As violence spreads, the government orders the monks to leave the country. The men debate their fate. They have long accepted their Islamic brothers and sisters.

The monks are radicals too, believing that reconciliation is possible. Daily service, prayer and devotion fill their days. The community’s prior Christian (Lambert Wilson) reads both the Koran and the Bible.

Ego is almost completely subdued among the brothers.  Chatter doesn’t fill their dinner hour. Instead, they listen to scripture readings as they eat in silence.

Wilson told The New York Times that the actors went on retreat in the French Alps to prepare for their roles. "We spent a few days observing the monks, eating in silence with the other people who were going on the retreat, and then we started singing. And that was really the best preparation. We learned Gregorian chanting. We learned liturgical singing as a group. This is really what got this group of French actors together."

Known for his performances in the Matrix trilogy, Wilson usually plays romantic and lighthearted characters.

After a terse showdown with Christian on Christmas evening, a terrorist leader designates the abbey as protected. To Beauvois’ credit he transcends stereotypes.

When a wounded jihadist is brought in, Luc treats him as he would anyone else.  The act of charity must be kept secret or the group risks government retaliation.  

Each monk must decide whether to stay or leave.  Christophe (Olivier Rabourdin) struggles with fear and anger more than the rest. 

The men don’t want to be martyrs, they decide. But where else will they go when they are so needed here?  “It is mad to stay, like it is mad to become a monk,” says Christian.

 

 

In one of the best scenes, the group stands during morning prayer and sings loudly as a military helicopter hovers overhead, filling the monastery with a terrifying racket.

Towards the end, Luc breaks out two bottles of wine for dinner.  Wordlessly, he plays a tape of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.  The monks smile, tears glistening. The music swells as does their passion to follow Christ in selfless service.

Of Gods and Men is worth seeing twice for its nuance.  It is the best movie exploration yet of silent devotion in a complex world. Beauvois, who co-wrote the script, captures simple sanctity and dramatic tension. Films covering similar territory include Silent Light, Into Great Silence and Hadewijch.

The film is loosely based on The Monks of Tibhirine by John Kiser.

If you like Of Gods and Men, you might enjoy:  Get Low; 127 Hours; The King’s Speech.

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Of Gods and Men   2010  /  PG-13  /  2 hours

Cast:  Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Jacques Herlin, Loic Pichon, Jean-Marie Laudenbach

Director:  Xavier Beauvois

Genre:  Drama, Historical Drama, Foreign Film, True Stories, Movie Based on the Book

Languages:  French and Arabic with English subtitles

 

 

The Wind Journeys *****

 

Ignacio searched for his wife Ana for 10 years. The devil, he believes, took her away. Now he wants to return his accordion to teacher Master Guerra, who won it in a duel with the demon.

Marciano Martinez stars as heartbroken Ignacio Carrillo in The Wind Journeys, an adventure tale from Colombia. Ciro Guerra writes and directs this moving but unsentimental epic, a follow up to his debut feature The Wandering Shadows (2004).

Fermin (Yull Nunez) follows Ignacio - who might be his father - to become his apprentice. Ignacio wants nothing to do with the boy. He doesn't want Fermin to be doomed as he is to wander forever, a lonely troubadour. His spirit finally breaks. He declares that he never wants to play again.

The Wind Journeys is an homage to the Caribbean region of Colombia and its rich musical traditions. This is a vision quest set to music, a search for truth. The reflective, deliberate nature of the northern Colombians emerges, set to their famed accordion melodies.

Filmed stunningly in 80 locations, the mountains, forests, fields and sands often reduce the two travelers to specks.

Ignacio teaches Fermin by example. He regrets past exploits where he unknowingly fathered many children. The determined Fermin looks forward to his future. He wants to master music and return to his fiancée back home.

Ignacio comes to life during an accordion duel in Becerril. Since the front runner uses sorcery, Ignacio rises to the challenge. It's a duel of riffs and sung retorts. Ignacio's playing captivates the audience. He becomes a medium who manifests the passion and soul of a people.

Ignacio defeats the longtime champion, but then his accordion is stabbed by an angry bystander.

The only man who can repair the accordion is Nine, Ignacio's brother who lives on a mountaintop. Miraculously, Nine restores the instrument. Ignacio shows no enjoyment though when he plays at the next contest. He disappoints the audience with a melancholy Vallenato for a son he abandoned.

Ignacio later submits to a gang leader who insists that he accompany a machete fight. Impassive, with no joy or malice, Ignacio plays at the macabre scene. The music continues as a kind of dirge when it is over.

Fermin finally gains self-respect when he jams for voodoo drummers. With sheer will he drums a frenzied solo, and is baptized with lizard's blood.

Still receiving no acknowledgment from his teacher, Fermin proves himself again when he wins back Ignacio's accordion after it is stolen.

The Wind Journeys is a film that grows on the viewer. It was named Best Colombian Film at the Cartagena Film Festival.  Director Ciro Guerra won an Award of the City of Rome at Cannes.

If you like The Wind Journeys, you might enjoy: 127 Hours; Man Push Cart; Welcome.

The Wind Journeys 2009 / NR / 1 hr, 57 min

Cast Overview: Marciano Martínez, Yull Núñez

Director: Ciro Guerra

Genres: Foreign, Foreign Drama, Music, Ethno-Musical

127 Hours *****

 
 

There’s a moment in the must-see drama 127 Hours where Aron Ralston (James Franco) straddles a spectacular rock formation in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. As the sun rises, the meaning of a man’s life is captured, along with the thrill of encountering the Absolute. It compels Ralston to plunge into the wilderness of his own being even as he daredevils over rocks and ravines. It’s a peak experience that flings him directly at life, death and eternity.

Accolades are piling high for Danny Boyle’s thriller based on Ralston’s memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The film was nominated for six Oscars and three Golden Globes. 

Franco won a Spirit Award for Best Male Lead, and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe Award.

Franco becomes a force of nature on equal footing with wind, sun, earth and water. Convincingly he plays a cocky 27-year-old who doesn’t tell anyone where he’s biking and climbing that weekend, a lover of metal music and speed, a ladies’ man who is truly at home by himself in the elements.

What Ralston seeks (and Franco so eloquently portrays) is sabi, which can be understood as a longing for the Divine. It is that moment of grace, that discovery of beauty in the strange and mysterious.

Boyle’s film is unique as it focuses so well on both the extreme sports action and inner life of Ralston. The psychological suspense of this true-life adventure is intense even when we know how the story ends.

Franco canyoneers, meditates and hallucinates, recalling his almost fatal mistake of leaving behind a Swiss Army Knife. While trapped, he speaks with Source via his camcorder. It’s here that he dictates his bodily functions, regrets and dreams to his human family past, present and future.

What Franco learns is a core principle of sabi. It’s vital to maintain a healthy connection with those around us. It is in relationship where love can be found, where Source touches us tangibly and grounds us. The thrill of solitary spiritual experience, like anything else, can turn into a lair of self-importance, an addiction to danger.

 
At just over 90 minutes, the length of 127 Hours is just right. It’s a survival tale with more punch than Cast Away (2000) and Touching the Void (2003). This personal tale turns mythic alongside the petroglyphs and pictographs of the canyon. Most harrowing is the amputation scene where Ralston decides to save his own life.

Kudos go to Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for dynamic screenplay, and to Glenn Freemantle for sound design. Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak achieve alluring nature and special effects cinematography. Vast wilderness encompasses intricate detail. Over a hundred camera angles build momentum, intertwined with A.R. Rahman’s stirring music. Boyle assembled much of his Slumdog Millionaire team for this project.

Franco was nominated for Best Actor for this role. His death defying bravado and snarkiness is enhanced by the performances of Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn, two attractive hikers who join him briefly as he guides them and shows off.

In a recent interview on Inside the Actor's Studio, Franco spoke about desire to become a director. Franco is enrolled in graduate literature studies at Yale and is the author of a collection of short stories, Palo Alto.

Ralston’s book is worth reading for filmgoers who want to delve deeper into this gem of action and self-discovery. It’s reminiscent of Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, a lively addition to the nature adventure/inner journey genre. Ralston appears at the conclusion of the film.

If you like 127 Hours, you might enjoy: Winter's Bone; The American; Rabbit Hole.

127 Hours 2010 / R / 1 hour, 34 min

Cast Overview: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara, Treat Williams, John Lawrence, Kate Burton

Director: Danny Boyle

Genres: Adventure, Biopic, Drama, Drama Based on the Book