ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Darrel Manson

God of the Piano – An Ambitious Tale

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Is ambition a good thing or a setting for disaster? Certainly it can challenge people to great things, but it also may lead to our downfalls. In the Israeli film God of the Piano, directed by Itay Tal, we see the darker side of ambition as it plays out in the life of a woman and her child.

Anat (Naama Preis) is a concert pianist (part of a very musically inclined family). The film opens with her at the piano in a concert hall. Her water breaks. When she delivers the child, it is discovered he is born deaf. How will such a child ever become the great musician Anat is planning on him becoming? After switching bracelets with another baby, she takes home a hearing child. In no time at all he son Idan (Andi Levi) is becoming an excellent pianist, and moving into composing. At 12 years old, he is seeking to be accepted into a prestigious music program.

Anat has become the musical version of a pushy stage mother. She has abandoned her own career to make sure that Idan has every advantage. And she will stop at nothing to advance his possibilities. Idan seems to go along with this, but he also wants some of the other things in life that 12 year olds enjoy. What will happen to Anat’s dreams if Idan just isn’t quite good enough? Does that bring new guilt to the act in the hospital when she swapped babies?

One of the comments made during the film is that there are composers and musicians, and then there are technicians. There are those who can achieve greatness. Others may have great skill, but lack the little bit that will make them artists. When Anat’s father tells her this, he adds, “You know who he inherited it from.”

That last line hints at issues of nature versus nurture. Is musical ability something in the genes or is it learned? Both perspectives could be seen as an inheritance. For Anat, those words certainly trigger guilt. Her actual child would never have had the abilities Idan had. (We never see just what abilities he might have, although in the end, Anat is becoming curious.) And the abilities she has nurtured in Idan may not be enough either. Her father’s comment cuts at her from both directions.

Anat’s life has been centered in ambition. Her talent was adequate, but not exceptional. Probably even before the birth of her son, she had plans for what his life in music would be like. That the gods of fate had stepped in to dash those dreams at the very beginning, did not stop her. But even then, she is still in danger of having the goals of her life blocked. Her ambitions have become the cause of her unhappiness. It seems very like a Greek tragedy.

What makes this even more tragic is that it is so centered in music—something that brings joy to most of us. Often we feed our souls with music. We use it as an act of celebration. Yet for Anat, and others in this story, music is only a tool to be mastered and used for self. So music, and the ambition it drives in these characters, is not something of joy, but of pain. Perhaps it would be better to be deaf.

God of the Piano is available on Virtual Cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

A Chef’s Journey – Cooking with Cooperation

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Food and restaurants have become popular reality TV subjects, with at least one channel dedicated to such shows. Rémi Anfosso’s A Chef’s Journey may seem like something you would find on the Food Network, but it really doesn’t follow the template of those reality shows.

The film follows Chef David Kinch of Manresa, a Los Gatos, California, restaurant with 3 Michelin stars, as he takes his staff on a trip to France for a series of “four hands” dinners at other esteemed restaurants. They will go to other 2 and 3 star restaurants in Provence, Paris, and Marseille. Most of his staff is young; many have never been abroad. The idea is that the events will serve as a kind of cross-pollination for the staffs of the restaurants involved.

If this were a Food Network show, we would be expecting near disasters (or total disasters), but that is not the way Anfosso presents this story. Kinch and his staff worry about getting the ingredients they will need (such as abalone and sauces that take several days to prepare, so they are taking them frozen) to the places they will be cooking. The staffs will be working together and may have little ability to even speak a common language. Chefs in general have a reputation for being a bit imperial and not wanting to share. But as we watch the trip unfold, everything seems to work out well. The biggest problem is that the various members of staffs are all trying not to offend their counterparts and not really getting to know each other or what they do.

Also different from the way the Food Network would approach this is that the food itself stays in the background. We see some of the dishes being prepared (and this is all small plates of very beautiful and artistic food), but the only eating we see happening is when the staff gets to taste the foods the others have made. We hear some of the foods described, but some we never know just what we are seeing.

Each of the stops on this journey provide a different setting, country, city, and Mediterranean coast, that affect the way the chefs in those places approach cuisine. In Provence, the emphasis in on the freshness of the herbs and vegetables. In Paris, the restaurant sees itself as the height of French cooking. In Marseille, it is all built around what the sea can deliver that day. It is the chef in Marseille, Gérald Passedat, who provides the clearest view of his philosophy of cuisine.

While it is refreshing that the film doesn’t generate conflict the way a Food Network show would for dramatic purposes, it would have been good to see what problems they did encounter and how that was resolved. It also would have given us a chance to see some of the cross-pollination that I’m sure must have happened.

The film is meant to be a celebration of cross-cultural cooperation. It serves that function, but not as deeply as it might.

A Chef’s Journey is available on Virtual Cinema through local arthouses and on Vimeo.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things – And Thinking and Thinking

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How best to describe I’m Thinking of Ending Things? The easy answer is that it’s a Charlie Kaufman film. (He both writes and directs.) His scripts (cf. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Synecdoche, New York) are always mind games (not only for the audience, but for the characters as well). He leads us through a twisted perception of reality. He challenges us to think about what identity means. He challenges us to think about what reality means. He challenges us to think about what life means. I would categorize him as an existentialist, but one who might befuddle Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jessie Buckley as Young Woman, Jesse Plemons as Jake in Im Thinking Of Ending Things. Cr. Mary Cybulski/NETFLIX © 2020

The story centers on a young woman (Jessie Buckley) and her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) on a road trip to his childhood home to introduce her to his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). The young woman (in voice over) speaks of a thought in her mind of ending things—specifically, her relationship with Jake, which she thinks is going nowhere. As they drive through the snow, they talk about many things, sometimes in great depth.

Jesse Plemons as Jake, Jessie Buckley as Young Woman, Toni Collette as Mother, David Thewlis as Father in Im Thinking Of Ending Things. Cr. Mary Cybulski/NETFLIX © 2020

Perhaps you’ve noticed I haven’t told you the young woman’s name. It keeps changing. At various times she is called Lucy, Louisa, Lucia, and possible Amy. Her clothes change from time to time as well. And she is studying painting, quantum psychics (or physics), neurology, and/or genealogy. The disjointedness of her identity is just one part of the intentional confusion of the film. The young woman also sees the characters at different times of their lives. There is a bit of a dream/nightmare quality to what the young woman is experiencing.

As all of this plays out on the road, at the house, and on the road again going home, the discussions touch on poetry, musical theater, physics, cinematic history and criticism, and David Foster Wallace. People deliver very long quotations from a wide range of sources. And finally, we arrive at an empty school in the midst of a blizzard where we see a pas-de-deux based on Oklahoma in the hallways while the janitor (is it an old age Jake?) cleans the floors.

Guy Boyd as Janitor in I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Cr. Mary Cybulski/NETFLIX © 2020

Yes, that is a lot of input for a film. There are lots of moving parts in this invention. If I were to try to look at this film in depth, it would require a dozen or so viewings, plus various trips to the library to search out some of the quotations and people who are mentioned or alluded to. It would end up a term paper (or maybe a dissertation) with several chapters. But of course, most of us won’t be going down that rabbit hole. Instead we can just enjoy the rabbit hole that is this film.

Jessie Buckley as Young Woman in Im Thinking Of Ending Things. Cr. Mary Cybulski/NETFLIX © 2020

Like I said, it’s a Charlie Kaufman film. We know going in that things will get strange—that we may not know what is really happening. And what we experiencing and how we interpret what is happening is really what Kaufman is trying to get at. Our reactions are the real point of watching a film such as this. Our perceptions, our feelings, our sense of self are really what this film is ultimately about.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is available on Netflix.

I Am Woman – Raising Her Voice

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♫ “I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman.” ♫

Those words were part of what became the anthem of the Second Wave Women’s Movement in the 1970s. Unjoo Moon makes it the cornerstone of her Helen Reddy biopic, I Am Woman. The film is in part a celebration of her music set within her story amidst the background of the Women’s Movement.

Helen Reddy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) arrives with her daughter in New York in 1966 thinking she has won a record contract. It turns out the label has no plans for her. She sings in a lounge trying to make ends meet, but it is a struggle. She is befriended by fellow Aussie Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald). At a party, she also meets Jeff Wald (Evan Peters) who is seeking a way into the management business. Jeff and Helen hit it off romantically. They move to Los Angeles where Jeff gets his foot in the door of the industry, but Helen is languishing in the role of housewife. She nags him into doing for her what he does for other clients, eventually getting her a chance to record some covers. That gets her started on her career.

Throughout the first half of the film, the demeaning nature of the male dominated entertainment industry (and culture as a whole) is obvious. She is pigeon-holed in a certain genre of music. Her husband is in many ways just as bad as everyone else in his view of the place of women, but he knows how to help Helen find success. It becomes obvious when she writes “I Am Woman” and wants to include it on her album. The men react to it, thinking it sounds “angry” and “man-hating”. But Jeff convinces them to bury it in the last half of the album because no one listens to that part anyway. But Jeff promotes that song in ways that make it a hit. Helen is one her way.

This is a by-the-numbers biopic. Intro. Struggle. Love interest. Success. Marital problems. Finding a new personal fulfillment. That motif is frequently used to tell stories that are designed to inspire. I Am Woman is a story of a woman who has to overcome both the struggle to find success, and the effects of attaining it.

Playing in the background is the society-wide struggle that women faced during that period. We see bits of the Women’s Movement and the battle for the Equal Rights Amendment. In some ways, Helen Reddy’s story reflects that period. She faces being talked down to because she is a woman. But she also becomes a symbol of a successful woman, with her own TV show, and worldwide fame. But there is also a downside to the life she has tried so hard at achieve. And in the end, like the ERA, perhaps all the success is just for show and there needs to be more done.

I Am Woman is playing in theaters and on VOD.

Black Boys – The Two-edged Sword

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“The bottom line for why things haven’t changed is there is no love for black boys.”

Sonia Lowman’s documentary Black Boys opens with former NFLer Greg Scruggs reading The Little Engine that Could to his toddler son. It transitions to a middle school age boy taking Richard Wrights Black Boy from a shelf and reading it. That dichotomy of idealism and reality is the driving force of the film. Or as activist/rapper Malcolm Little puts it, “You’re talking a double-edged sword to be a black boy in America, because you have to tell yourself that you are magnificent and that you are free and beautiful, while simultaneously acknowledging that the world is not built for you. It’s not built for your success. It’s not built for you to survive.”

The film is designed in four sections entitled Body, Mind, Voice, and Heart. In each of those we get a touch of what it means for young black men as they grow into the world. Sports dominates the Body section. Sports may seem like a way out of the difficulties blacks face, but is it? Or is it just another exploitation of black bodies? Education becomes the main topic of the Mind section. Again, this is an area of great hope, but we also know that as early as kindergarten, black children are often getting less attention and are sold lower expectations. The Voice and Heart sections really focus more on the hopeful side of the film’s core contrast to let us hear what the experience has done to the people interviewed and how the future has an opportunity for change, but that is by no means a certainty.

I consider myself woke (at least for an old white guy), so there isn’t much in this film that is new to me. But it is a very powerful presentation of not just facts and figures, but of the emotional reality of the lives of the people we visit. This is in no small part because of the excellent work Lowman has done in interviewing her subjects to evoke their reflections. Whether the subjects are athletes, educators, activists, or young people looking at their future, the insights provided are always challenging without being overly judgmental. As a white person watching the film I didn’t feel as though I was being called on to feel guilty, but to be engaged with the issues of social justice that are brought forth.

One piece of archival footage that spoke to me, personally, was a press conference held by Philadelphia Eagle player Malcolm Jenkins in which he never spoke, only held up prepared signs. Several of the signs repeated the sentence, “You aren’t listening”. To me that is a reminder that the first (but not the last) thing I need to do when faced with the cries for social justice, is to listen. I may have heard these things before. I still need to listen again.

Black Boys is an invitation for all of us to listen. Some of us need to hear the facts and figures we may have missed. Some of us may need to hear the pain some people have lived through. Some of us may need to hear of the inequalities we never knew about. Some of us may need to hear the visions of hope that continue to be dreamed—and realized. Listen.

Black Boys is available on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.

The Social Dilemma – You’re Being Manipulated

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“So we’ve created an entire global generation of people who were raised within a context where the very meaning of communication, the very meaning of culture, is manipulation.”

Hopefully you “like” Screenfish’s Facebook page and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. But keep in mind that each of those actions tells the world a little bit about you. And those various platforms will use that (and all the other info they’ve collected about you) to allow others to try to manipulate you. In The Social Dilemma, documentarian Jeff Orlowski takes us on a tour of how those social media platforms shape and manipulate us as individuals, and as a society.

The film is filled with commentators who have stepped away from important positions in social media companies, many for ethical reasons.  They have first hand knowledge of the hows and whys of social media. One, a former Twitter executive, tells us: “What I want people to know is that everything they’re doing on line is being watched, is being tracked, is being measured. Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded. Exactly what image you look at, and for how long you look at it. Yeah, seriously, for how long you look at it.” These people go on to explain how all that information is monetized (one of the people we hear from is the former director of monetization at Facebook), and how others can use that information to target you with ideas (not limited to ads) that may shape your life in many ways.

The film isn’t a completely dark picture of the internet. Those who worked in the industry early on got into the work with visions of the good that could come from it. As one points out, it has allowed families to be reunited, organ donors have been found. It has literally saved lives. But that comes with a price. As one of the commentators tells us, social media are both utopian and dystopian simultaneously.

Many people may worry about the extent to which social media have filled the world—especially when parents think about how much screen time they should allow their children. Some think the way we connect with social media has destroyed the personal connections we had when it was face to face. That has become a problem for many. Even those who speak in this film note their own struggles with online addictions that they have had to deal with—and they invented some of these things.

That tendency to be tied to our screens is only an aspect of the real problem, which is how that opens us up to manipulation by business, political, and perhaps even immoral actors. They can tailor what they say or show to whom. It makes it very easy to spread disinformation and fake news more rapidly than real information can be shared. At the heart of the problem are questions about truth—including if there can be any real truth in this “information age”. (What an irony that the more information we have available, the harder it is to find the truth.) I like a reference in the film to the Peter Weir film, The Truman Show. Each of us is unaware of the people watching us and shaping what we think is reality.

While all the commentators are interesting, the one who got my attention was Tristan Harris, who worked as the Google Design Ethicist (who knew such a thing existed) before starting a non-profit to deal with the ethics of this “attention economy”. In a presentation he gives during the film, he offers this warning: “We’re all looking out for the moment when technology will overwhelm human strength and intelligence. When is it going to cross the singularity, replace our jobs, be smarter than humans? But there is a much earlier moment when the technology exceeds and overwhelms human weaknesses. This point being crossed is at the root of addiction, polarization, radicalization, outrage-ification, vanity-ification, the entire thing. This is overpowering human nature, and this is checkmate for humanity.”

That really takes this examination of the role of social media into the realm of the spiritual (although that is not the kind of language these people use). One of the big spiritual questions they don’t quite ask (but would be of great importance) is the role of free will and determinism in this process. Do we have choice in this, or does the manipulation of social media have control of us?

Another question of import is whether the genie can be put back in the bottle. That is a question that these people struggle with a bit at the end. Some may doubt it can be done without real regulation, which is difficult to bring about after the fact. The film’s message is not to focus on the “can it be done” question, but to make the point that we must regain that control.

The Social Dilemma shows on Netflix. For more information go to Netflix.com/TheSocialDilemma.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

Gather – More than Something to Eat

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“The Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing or a sick world, a world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separation, a world longing for light again.” (Crazy Horse)

Food is more than just physical sustenance; it is often an important part of a community’s identity and life. Gather, from director Sanjay Rawal, enters into the relationship between Native American’s and their traditional food sources. We learn not only about the food, but also what those foods meant—and still mean—in those cultures.

The film notes early on that seventy percent of all foods consumed around the world were developed by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These include tomatoes, potatoes, corn, zucchini, and chocolate. There was a great diversity among the various nations that populated North America before European colonization. The film focuses on three very different sets of Native Americans as they seek to reconnect with the food sources of their ancestors.

Among those we meet are Chef Nephi Craig of the White Mountain Apache Nation and Twila Cassadore of the San Carlos Apache Nation. Craig is working to build a restaurant that will serve the traditional foods. Cassadore is a forager who knows the kinds of foods that the people lived off of through the years. We also meet Samuel Gensaw of the Yurok Nation. He and others have fought for native fishing rights in Northern California. Elsie Dubray of the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation comes from a family that raises bison. She has done science fair projects dealing with bison meat and with the high levels of diabetes in Native Americans.

Each of these very different perspectives create a mosaic how food continues to be an important part of the Native American culture. However, often that connection to traditional foods has been lost. Gensaw describes the area he lives in as a “food desert”. There are no stores for miles around. For many it means shopping at the gas station. But by seeking to restore the people’s connection to the river, with its salmon and eels, there can be better food available.

Throughout the film, we see ways that food is different from just meeting our physical needs. There is a certain spirituality about food and the way we relate to the environment and to one another. These people all find connection between who they are in their communities and the foods they work with and share with others.

The film also makes the point that often food was a part of the genocide against Native Americans. One of the ways Europeans sought to destroy the indigenous peoples was through cutting off their food sources. It led to starvation, dependency, and ultimately being separated from the land that had sustained them. This history leads people in the film to talk about food sovereignty. Their rights to traditional foods are not just about connecting to the past, it is a sign of their independence and separateness form the broader culture.

We often overlook the many ways food is part of our lives. Even when we offer a prayer of thanksgiving over our meals, it may be more of a routine than an actual acknowledgement of meals as part of our spiritual lives. By seeing the many ways food has import in the lives of these Native Americans, we may also want to consider the many ways our body, minds, and spirit are fed by our own eating habits.

Gather is available on iTunes and Amazon.

Photos courtesy of Illumine.

First One In – Grown Up Mean Girls

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In press notes for First One In, writer/director Gina Obrien talks about the “millions of women who gather to hit balls at each other” on tennis courts each day. They may not be very good. But they share this bond. First One In bats that concept around with just about as much power as those mediocre players.

Madi Cooke (Kat Foster) has had her life ruined. She has been branded an eco-terrorist for killing a cute, near-extinct animal while on a Survivor-like reality show. People protest outside her home. She loses her job because of the publicity. She can’t even get an Uber if she’s recognized. After a new hairdo, she applies to work as a real estate agent for Bobbi Mason (Georgia King). Georgia is obsessed with tennis. She only hires Barbie-doll looking agents who play tennis and help her win the club team championship every year.

Madi begins brushing up her game (she hasn’t played since high school) at a local tennis clinic with a group of rather frumpy and definitely non-competitive women. When their coach enters them into the tournament, Madi is torn between her new job and her new friends. Eventually the teams will face off, with not just a trophy at stake, but Madi’s future.

The film seeks to show that women can forge bonds and how that can help them overcome their barriers. But I have issues with the portrayal of women in this film. Bobbi and her team are vain, vapid, superficial, and just plain mean. Think of a group of middle school mean girls who are now grown up. Madi is stuck in being a victim through most of the film. Her cohort at the tennis center all seem to be aimless and incapable of really accomplishing anything. The only character who seems to be grounded and confident, Madi’s high school friend Ollie (Alana O’Brien) becomes a catalyst for Madi’s new found strength, but she is always too much in the background of the story to develop her effect on Madi.

The story becomes a battle between meanness and victimhood. The final resolution doesn’t really grow out of the growth and strength of the characters. It has more to do with Bobbi’s ultimate failure of being able to boss and intimidate others. Any growth Madi manages in the story is a biproduct of her success, not the other way around.

First One In is available on Amazon Prime Video

The Argument – Elusive Truth

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“I don’t want to argue either, Honey, as long as you can admit that I’m right.”

Couples argue. Maybe about little things, maybe important things. But it’s just natural that two people each think they’re right, and expect the other to admit defeat.

Yeah, right.

The Argument, from Robert Schwartzman, revolves around (and around) such a conflict. Jack (Dan Folger) has planned a little cocktail party to celebrate the end of his girlfriend Lisa’s (Emma Bell) first professional acting job. He has invited his agent, Brett (Danny Pudi) and his wife Sarah (Maggie Q) to come by after the show. Lisa has also invited her co-star Paul (Tyler James Williams), who brings his girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman), although Jack is unaware that they are coming. Jack has an agenda for the night, which will culminate in asking Lisa to marry him. Instead, little things go wrong, feelings get hurt, things get said, and Jack and Lisa end up in a terrible argument that brings the party to a close.

That night, as they go to bed, both are still convinced that the other is a fault. One after the other they say, “I just wish we could redo this whole night so we could see how wrong you are.” Then the idea strikes them. They will invite everyone back again and relive the party to see just what went wrong. But the other couples are less enthused about this process. As the night goes on, new and different conflicts crop up. So they try again the next night. This time Jack is writing a script to get everything down verbatim. And again. And again.

As the events replay over and over, each person’s mistakes and flaws become magnified, letting each see themselves as others are seeing them. Eventually it culminates in an evening when instead of them reliving it all again, Jack has brought in actors for a script reading. The script obviously reflects his slant on everyone involved, and the actors add new dynamics to the situation. By this point, no one knows what any of the original conflicts were about.

The real question in The Argument is not what is the truth, but can we ever really know the truth, even when we are a part of what happened? Here are six people who are not just witnesses to what happened, but participants. Yet, the events can never be accurately recreated because everyone now has new perspectives and opinions that keep affecting their own ideas and those of others.

It’s not unimportant that the play Lisa and Paul were in was called Wolfgang (and seems to parallel Amadeus). The play was about the mixture of love and jealousy the defined the relationship of Mozart and Antonio Salieri. These are all people who yearn for greatness, but have not shown the world (or themselves) anything other than mediocrity.

While the story deals with the dynamics of relationships, it is really a look at how our self-centeredness undermines the foundations of relationships. Our own desires—including our desire to be right in an argument—often get in the way of the fulfillment we can find with people we love. Perhaps winning an argument isn’t as important as recognizing the joy we share.

The Argument is playing in theaters and is available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.

Centigrade – Cold Days in Hell

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Brendan Walsh’s film Centigrade takes place almost entirely within the confines of an SUV. As a young couple battles for survival, they must deal as much with their personal dynamics as with the problems they face.

Naomi (Genesis Rodriguez) and Matt (Vincent Piazza) are an American couple traveling in Norway. While on an isolated road, they pull over during a blizzard. When they wake up, the car is completely covered and surrounded by layers of snow and ice. What is the best plan? Should they try to dig themselves out? What will they find outside in a world where the temperature can get to be -30C? Should they wait inside the car, hoping they will be found? And to complicate things, Naomi is eight months pregnant.

The couple faces times of panic, of depression, of desperation, and even triumph. They often come into conflict when they disagree on how they should proceed. The time they spend so close together with no escape begins to wear on their relationship. Secrets and hidden feelings come out. But it is also very clear that they each have to rely on the other in order to survive.

They are not survivalists. They are people very much like us. And I have to admit that in their frustrations I sometimes heard my own voice. Although being somewhat isolated as we all have been during the pandemic is not as dire a situation as is shown in this film, the same kind of feelings probably are affecting our relationships with loved ones. Words that cause pain may come out and not be able to be taken back easily. But the bonds that hold us together can also be strengthened by our trials.

I find it interesting that this film is being released in drive-ins. Viewers will have an excellent sense of the confinement the characters must deal with. (Although, to truly appreciate it, you would have to not make any trips to the snack bar and restroom.)

Centigrade is playing at drive-in theaters and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of IFC Midnight.