Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris"

It's quarter to midnight and I just got back from seeing "Minuit à Paris"—not at Cannes, unfortunately, but in Paris, which is never unfortunate. Not only is the movie opening at Cannes, but nearly every theater in Paris is running it, and maybe, if Edith Piaf is watching down on us from Heaven, then maybe, just for tonight, it will have been better attended than "Fast & Furious 5" or "Thor." In fact, I think it was.

Last July, as I was attempting to get a photo of a dog near a park behind Notre Dame cathedral (long story), I saw Woody Allen in that fisherman's hat he always wears, waiting for the light to be just right so he could shoot a scene that, come to think of it, probably is on the cutting room floor. In any case, it felt serendipitous to be here for the opening. Better still, I saw it in Montparnasse, our old neighborhood for a year when I was teaching in Versailles. Not a lot of tourists bother going to Montparnasse on their whirlwind tours, but in the 1920s, you could find Hemingway, Dali, Fitzgerald, Man Ray, Cole Porter, Modigliani, Gertrude Stein—you name 'em—wandering around the neighborhood ironically named after the seat of the Greek muses (long before the ugly Montparnasse tower was built, a mound of dirt and stone formed a central eyesore). Now, Woody Allen has taken the entire Pantheon of the roaring '20s, added a few Belle Epoque legends, and a just a dash of Versailles and has made a nostalgic love letter to that Paris we all hope to find.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a screenwriter who has penned enough successful Hollywood flicks to have earned him a beautiful fiancée—a one-note caricature of a spoiled American who hopes his earnings will mitigate the fact that his politics and ambition do not meet her parents' right-wing ideals. Gil is a bewildered and befuddled dreamer with just the right amount of neuroses to make you realize that he is really an idealized version of Allen himself—a version that could believably have Rachel McAdams as a fiancée and Marion Cotillard as a love interest.

One night, Gil loses his way back to his hotel. Just after the clock chimes midnight, people in an old car invite Gil to hop in, and the next thing you know, he's partying with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc. etc. He takes advantage of his new connections to get advice on his novel (which opens in "a nostalgia shop") from the likes of Gertrude Stein (played by Kathy Bates). When the first magical night ends, Gil turns around to find that the Polidor cafe is now a laundromat. He was Cinderella at the ball and now he must return to...his materialistic fiancée at the 5 star hotel. Poor little rich boy.

Never fear. Night after night, he returns, gets pointers on his work, and learns that—surprise—people in his version of the golden age were nostalgic too. Cotillard's character longs to return to the Belle Epoque—the start of a nostalgic mise-en-abyme. It all sounds trite, but the movie transcends its own lack of depth through earnestness. The cynical Parisian public was enchanted, and so was I.

As cliché-ridden and trite as the plot may sound and as one-dimensional as the characters may be, the honesty of the heart-felt nostalgia hits home. Everyone in that theater, American or French, would love to hold on to that magic. But we if we have to go back nearly 100 years to find it, then we're left with Paris as the world's largest museum. If, on the other hand, we realize that our age might become a golden age to some future generation (Lord have mercy), then we have to find the Hemingways of today. We have to go from the Polidor to that laundromat and find beauty in that transformation. But we don't. Woody Allen doesn't know how to love Paris today. Either do most Parisians.

The ending I kept expecting to see (in parallel to the opening shots of the kind of postcard perfect vacant city that only a very expensive filming permit can buy you) was a montage of Paris today, with its mixed races and cultures, its angry youth, its clever graffiti, its DJs, etc. But even when we are brought into the present we are stuck in the past (a pretty young woman who works at a flea market).

I exited the theater, camera bag on my shoulder (as it always is in Paris), ready to snap a couple of shots of what Paris actually looked like. And here is what I saw:

 and this:

and this:

It was just as enchanting as the film. The same cafés that were there in the '20s are still there tonight. The stagecoach didn't turn back into a pumpkin when I walked out of the theater. The café didn't turn into a laundromat. Neither did the Polidor, for that matter. And in some ways, that is more frightening. The Paris we like to see in films is caught in the past—a beautiful, seductive past that we might never want to leave. And if we ever do, well, it had better be to form a relationship with an equally beautiful present—preferably one with a deep appreciation for antiques.

Certified Copy: An Iranian's Case for Gay Marriage

For all those people (and I'm including most of the critics I read) who find this movie too difficult to understand, and to all the other people who want to watch a movie that will really make you think, you need to read this review.

Let me start by introducing you to the characters of the story. The movie starts out with a book signing. A British author, James Miller, has written a book titled Certified Copy in which he argues that a copy of art is just as aesthetically satisfying as the original. He is late to his book signing despite the fact that he is staying upstairs. The woman in the story, named Elle (Juliette Binoche) arrives a few minutes after James with her son who is deeply engrossed in a handheld video game. Elle and her son leave, and then there is are a few scense between the son and his mother. Later James arrives to meet Elle, and they take a trip out of the city. The rest of the movie is Elle and James meandering about this nearby city and talking about relationships, philosophy, and life.

Now the secret: The movie starts out making you think that Elle and James are meeting for the first time, but it becomes clear throughout the movie that they have known each other for 15 years, and the boy with Elle is their son. The opening sequence suggests that they had been together before the book signing. She sat in a reserved seat without any complaint. She had previously read his book and didn't like it but yet bought several copies. She is nervous when her son asks a lot of questions about all the books and she makes up excuses. When they meet at her shop, it is clear they haven't seen each other in a while because he asks a lot of questions to get more acquainted with her. There are many people who mistake them for being married, which Elle admits is not true, but doesn't correct those who make that assumption . The son does not recognize his father, either because he has never been told much about him, or because he was very young the last time his parents were together. Perhaps he is already married back in England. He does take frequent calls even in the middle of a book signing. Whether he is or not is really immaterial. Elle wants him to take responsibility for their child, and wants him to come and live with her. He is selfish, easily frustrated, and clearly smitten with Elle.

The ideas they explore are very deep: pleasure vs responsibility, male vs female, authenticity vs mimicry. The movie's strongest point is however that a copy is never as good as the original, and the illustration of this is marriage. This movie captures exactly what the gay community has been trying to tell everyone: civil unions and domestic partnerships are not marriage. Marriage is authentic. James believes that he has his life and his family (i.e. Elle and her son) have theirs. He views personal happiness to be the ultimate aim in life, but discounts that he plays a role in the happiness of others. Elle is trapped in a fantasy of her and James as a married couple. She just wants a man's shoulder to rest on; someone who she can help share her burdens. This relationship shows the detachment and struggle of a couple who have deep feelings for each other, but do not solemnize those feelings. Ultimately, there is no commitment.

These ideas alone personified would make this movie a success. But Kiarostami also gives us some amazing cinematography, and Juliette Binoche (the every woman) who is brilliant in delving into Elle's frustration, and infatuation with James. A genuine masterpiece.

The Object: On the Religious Fringe

Sometimes I ask myself, am I sane? Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves this question more often. Todd has asked himself this question after finding what he believes to be a Urim and Thummim in a Goodwill Store and comes up with the answer: yes. He peers into this object and seems to see visions of people (in side profile) when the light shines into it just right. As a matter of fact, he builds a light focusing device so that he doesn't have to rely on the unpredictable natural light.

Even he will say that this sounds crazy. However, throughout the movie he challenges all sorts of people to look into the object and see for themselves. Somehow everyone he shows it to also see something in the object, albeit sometimes diametrically opposed things. Some actually see themselves being chased by a demonic force. Todd even takes the object to what he considers the most prestigious university in the south: Vanderbilt. Here he finds a Jew, a Mormon, and an Archeologist and asks each of them to consider his story. They are very respectful. Some challenge him, "Why does this have to be the urim and thummim and not just a sacred cup?" asks the Mormon scholar. The jewish scholar seems to be the most encouraging saying, if you think it's scared and it has a positive force in your life than you go with it.

I have to ask myself, why would I want to believe that an object has special powers. If my life really sucked because I were poor and struggling, I'd want to believe that something magical would save me from my predicament. If I felt like an outcast and that nobody cared about me, I'd want to believe that God had chosen me for a special purpose, even if that purpose were to guard a goodwill cup.

In short, if we as a human race weren't such assholes to each other, we might not have to rely on notions of magic and God-ordained authority. If people had some self-esteem because they could provide for their families and live comfortably I think we'd have a lot more self-actualization replacing religious fervor. But that's just me.

The Object: All that and a bag of chips

The documentary film The Object is pretty remarkable. The film provides a first person account by Todd Walker telling his story of finding “the object” in a Nashville Goodwill store. He believes the object to be the Urim and Thummim from the Old Testament. Todd also believes he has been called by God to be the modern day protector of the object and that he is to witness to the world of its divinity and of its power to connect people to the divine if they have enough faith. At one point in the film Todd describes the object as “All that and a bag of chips” and that’s exactly what I think of this documentary.

Members of the Mormon faith will likely find Todd’s story exceptionally fascinating yet also somewhat uncomfortable. Todd’s discovery and experience with the object has striking parallels to the Joseph Smith story and translation of the Book of Mormon. Todd even has designated 3 special witnesses for his Urim and Thummim just as the Book of Mormon has its own 3 witnesses. I was fascinated with this film from beginning to end and also found it unintentionally hilarious at times. Though I laughed plenty, I can’t mock Todd’s sincerity. He truly and deeply believes in the divine authenticity of the object and that he has been called by God to protect it and to witness to the world of its power as an instrument of God to communicate to the modern world.

The Object was the feature of our monthly film group and the discussion following the film was one of the most interesting we’ve had. We all share a Mormon heritage. Our reactions to the film prompted a discussion of our personal beliefs – past and present – and of our own reconciliations and/or faith in the story of the founding of the LDS Church.

Thank you to Ed for a great night and for finding this film. Since the film is not readily available I’m grateful for his insomnia and his $5 purchase. If you’re curious but don’t want to buy a copy of the movie for yourself, check out the clip below from YouTube of Todd Walker sharing his witness and testimony.

Don Hertzfeldt and the Existential Life of a Stick Figure

I don’t know much about animation other than I grew up watching Warner Brother’s cartoons and Disney movies. And I’ve followed animation’s trend away from hand drawn animation toward computer rendered animation largely by watching the Pixar films. Like most people, at least most Americans, I have considered animation to be synonymous with “children’s films”. I hadn’t considered the idea of animation being used to tell anything other than a family-friendly story. I think my first exposure to animated filmmaking that didn’t tell a distinctly juvenile story was when I saw Princess Mononoke by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Princess Mononoke and Miyazaki’s other films tell stories that can appeal to children but his audience is not so narrowly defined. His films also have some darker moments, philosophical underpinnings, and adult themes. However, unlike the rest of the world, I am not a huge Miyazaki fan. He is considered a genius by most. Maybe I lack the imagination required to truly appreciate his filmmaking. However, I am indebted to his films for giving me my first glimpse into animation being used to tell a different type of story.

In 2001 I saw the animated short Rejected by Don Hertzfeldt. At the time I really hadn’t seen anything like it before. I saw it completely by chance at the Sundance Film Festival where it was programmed as an introductory short playing before one of the films in the U.S. Dramatic Film Competition. I immediately loved it and thought it was one of the funniest films I had ever seen. This screening began my infatuation with Hertzfeldt and Bitterfilms – the name of his production company.

Hertzfeldt’s films are summed-up nicely by the title of an article that I saw on the Sundance website a couple of years ago: “The Existential Life of a Stick Figure”. Hertzfeldt’s hand drawn animation is primitive. They are stick figures. All of the artifice is stripped down to reveal nothing but pure idea. And those ideas are bleak and violent, but damnit if they aren’t also hilarious. Some critics have pointed out that there is a common thread in his films of innocent creatures suffering. His films combine dark humor with silliness and violence.

He made his first film, Ah, L’Amour, in 1995 when he was still a freshman at UC Santa Barbara.



The film takes on the battle between the sexes. It depicts the battle in terms of physical violence rather than emotional. In the film, a man is shot, stabbed, chainsawed, and even beheaded by the women that reject him. It has no audio dialog and the characters speak through voice bubbles. The film operates like a comic strip.

Lily and Jim is a 13-minute short Hertzfeldt made in 1997.



It is a film about a bad and very awkward dinner date. This film introduced audio dialog and it also displayed Hertzfeldt’s natural comic timing. The film is a restaurant dinner filled with painful small talk between a couple on a date. The awkwardness of the scene is not achieved as much through dialog as it is through the use of pauses or silence. The negative space in the conversation creates the pain and the comedy.

Hertzfeldt went to Cannes in 1998 with Billy’s Balloon. At 22, he was the youngest director in competition. There is no dialog in this film, and he focuses purely on action. This short is about a vengeful toy balloon. Some reviewers compared it to Hitchcock’s The Birds and to Kubrick’s 2001. Some responded less favorably and were grossed out by the violence that the balloon inflicts on the innocent baby. Joe Baltake for the Sacramento Bee wrote, “Some things are not funny, and child-abuse is one of them.” As for me, it reminds me of a twisted version of the French classic The Red Balloon ………..and I love it.



Hertzfeldt was making a name for himself and corporate offers started to come his way but he snubbed them all. He is fiercely independent. The idea for his next film, Rejected, grew from one of the offers for commercial work that he received and turned down.

The story goes like this: Hertzfeldt received a request from a TV network to create some animated program IDs. He joked that it would be fun to accept the work and create ridiculous spots that had nothing to do with the network and then see if they would actually run them. This idea led him to Rejected.

Rejected tells the story of an animator, also named Don Hertzfeldt, who’s approached by the fictitious Family Learning Channel to make some promotional spots only to find that none of his ideas make the cut. The film splices together one spot after another and we soon understand why the spots were rejected. As the film goes on he is asked to design more commercials and the animator begins to lose his mind under the pressures of commercialism. The spots he makes get stranger and stranger – bizarre ads for Kelp Dip and Bean Lard Mulch. The cartoons begin to literally fall apart, clouds dropping from cartoon skies. The real-life Hertzfeldt calls Rejected “a collision between art, commercial culture and madness.” Rejected went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short.



If this blog has piqued your curiosity to the work of Don Hertzfeldt, then I encourage you to explore it further on your own. There is The Meaning of Life which traces the evolution of the human race. Then there is the Everything Will Be OK film cycle. This is conceived as a trilogy and tells the story of Bill and his rather dull life. The humorous story turns dark as you begin to question whether he is suffering from a possibly fatal mental disorder. The second film in the trilogy is I am so proud of you and was released in 2008. The third and final chapter in the story has not yet been released.

You can find most of his films on YouTube but his website is a great source for all things Hertzfeldt – www.bitterfilms.com . I will leave you with one more link……….this one to his most recent film Wisdom Teeth. Enjoy!



UPDATE
I'm kind of embarrassed that I didn't include his film "Genre" in my original post. It perfectly addresses the idea that animation can be used to tell literally any type of story. It's pretty hilarious.

My take on "Animal Kingdom"

I just finished watching the Oscars, but I feel absolutely now desire to write about who deserved what award or who wore what. Why? Well, because 1. virtually no one outside of my movie group is reading this anyway (so far) 2. We're not trying to be Entertainment Weekly or Access Hollywood or whatever and 3. I still haven't posted on the movie that Craig and Nick showed in February: Animal Kingdom.

Anyone who has read the other posts will already know that we all loved the film, so let me digress and flash back to some 19th century French lit for a moment. After I watched "Animal Kingdom," I couldn't help thinking imagining how much Emile Zola would have liked it. Let me give a quick and unpolished translation of something Zola wrote in the preface of his 1867 novel, Thérèse Raquin:

"...my goal has been above all a scientific one. When my two characters, Thérèse and Laurent were created, it pleased me to ask and answer certain problems: thus, I tried to explain the strange union that can come about between two different temperaments, I showed the profound conflict of a sanguine nature put into contact with a nervous nature. If you read the novel with care, you will see that each chapter is the study of a serious physiological case. In a word, I had but one desire: [...] to look for the beast in them, to see nothing but the beast, to throw them into a violent drama, and scrupulously note the sensations of these beings. I simply did on two living beings the kind of autopsy that surgeons do on a corpse."

 Indulge me with one more quote:

"The loves of my two heroes are the satisfaction of a need; the murder they commit is a consequence of their adultery, a consequence that they accept in the same way that wolves accept the assassination of sheep; finally, what I was obligated to call their regrets, consists of a simply organic disorder, a rebellion of a nervous system on the brink. The soul is perfectly absent, I readily admit, since that was exactly what I intended."

 One of the early shots in David Michôt's "Animal Kingdom" is a clip from "Deal or No Deal" in which a gleeful contestant crosses her arms and shouts "NO DEAL!" while the crowd cheers as if a gladiator had just killed his opponent. "Deal or No Deal" is possibly to most minimalistic game show ever created in that it strips away nearly all intellect. Jeopardy has its trivia, Wheel of Fortune has you solve word puzzles, The Price is Right requires you to test your retail pricing skills, but Deal or No Deal boils it all down to two basic choices.

If "Animal Kingdom" reminds me of naturalism, it is because Michôt strips down human conflict to its core. Watching young Joshua navigate the politics of his corrupt family and the equally corrupt criminal justice system is like watching Ken Jennings trapped in the wrong game show. His choice is literally "deal or no deal" and we keep wanting poor Joshua to say "I'll take "Married with Children" for $800."  We hope there are other choices. If nothing better, then perhaps "Deal and No Deal." But the most disturbing thing is that you don't get the luxury of a deus ex machina ending in a piece of naturalist fiction. It really has to be one or the other, and the crowd cheering "no deal" doesn't necessarily have your best interest at heart. In the end, you realize that the other characters, however powerful, have no more power to change the rules than does Joshua. The only freedom in "Animal Kingdom" is the freedom to choose a side.

Another Year: A Lesson in Compassion

I have to confess a history of prejudice on my part against the work of Mike Leigh. I was in my early twenties when I watched my first Leigh film, Secrets and Lies. Watching that film was like fingernails on a chalkboard – particularly the persistent crying and whining of Brenda Blethyn’s character. I was determined to not let that particular film turn me off to the work of such a respected director. So I watched his previous film, Naked, and I had a similar negative response. But I still didn’t give up and watched his next film, Career Girls, which also left me feeling very underwhelmed. I just simply couldn’t find the value of his cinematic voice. All I could see and hear were loud, miserable and desperate people living rather hopeless lives. I skipped his next couple of films but decided to give Leigh another shot to win me over with Vera Drake – and he kind of succeeded. I liked the film quite a bit but considered it an anomaly. It wasn’t until my partner Nick wanted to discover for himself the films of Mike Leigh, and I got dragged along for the ride, that I started to appreciate Leigh’s work. His unique style of social-realist filmmaking struck a chord with me. I’m not sure why my response to his films changed but it did. Maybe I simply had been too immature and had not experienced enough of the world to be able to empathize with his characters. I see the world through different glasses now.

Another Year is Leigh’s most recent work. The film is character driven and there is an absence of any sort of traditional story. The activity centers on Tom and Gerri, a very happily married middle-aged couple. They are content with their lives and fulfilled by their careers as geologist and counselor. They enjoy working together in their community garden and have a grown son who actual loves them. As a result of the contentment they feel, they have become a magnet for lost and damaged souls. The film has four acts – Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. It ambles pleasurably through the four seasons of their joint life with a natural rhythm. These seasonal acts provide a thematic structure. In the film Tom and Gerri are seen busy planting, tending, and harvesting their garden through the course of a single year. They are also tending and nurturing the broken and lonely souls that are drawn to them. Tom and Gerri are not saints. At times their patience wears understandably thin, but they remain a constant force in the lives of their friends. They are unable to fix problems, but some problems can’t be fixed. However, Tom and Gerri are a sustainable constant for their friends just as they are for their garden. Even though not always completely warm and inviting, their friendship is steadfast. They always provide at least a minimal refuge which means everything for people who are so lonely and in such deep pain.

Leslie Manville plays Mary, a secretary in Gerri’s office, and her character is the gear that keeps the film moving. Manville’s interpretation of Mary is hands-down one of the best performances of the past year. Mary is not an easy character to watch yet I was drawn to her with fascination in every scene. She is a person who is terribly unhappy but is trying any way she can to break free – whether buying a car or looking for love by flirting with a younger man. There is a constant quiver in her voice. Even her nervous laughter seems to be a cry for help. She is filled with self-hatred and self-delusion but rather than feeling scorn for her, I actually felt some recognition. I have known people like Mary, and in fact, I recognized some of her insecurities as my own. There is a scene near the end of the film where Mary finds herself alone in Gerri and Tom’s house with Tom’s non-communicative brother. Within minutes, even within seconds, her face unravels into hope and hopelessness, despair and defeat, humility and gratitude. Manville’s performance is perfection.

Another Year is a film full of keen observations drawn from characters that are all too real. These characters are familiar to me. I could identify with them, love them and be appalled by them all at once. In their lives as in my own, I was reminded that some problems can’t be solved and that some emotional pain can’t be alleviated, but only managed. I felt genuine empathy for these people. This is a quiet, powerful, and compassionate film.