ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

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The Midwife – Life’s Transitions

Life is a series of transitions, bookended by the two great transitions of birth and death. But along the way there are many more shifts in our lives?some trivial, others more profound. The Midwife is a story of the transitions of life that are–like life itself–a mixture of humor and poignancy.

Claire (Catherine Frot) is a French midwife who has settled into her life. She gets a call from B?atrice (Catherine Deneuve), asking to meet. B?atrice is the former mistress of Claire?s father. She abandoned them when Claire was a teenager, contributing to her father?s suicide. Claire is understandably cool with B?atrice. Even when B?atrice reveals that she is dying, Claire is slow to welcome her back into her life. But B?atrice really has no one else in all the world. She has lived ?the life I wanted?, which has been totally self-centered.

Claire and B?atrice are both people who long for control in their lives, but have found that control by very different methods. Claire has tightly constructed her life. She leads a quiet existence without extremes. B?atrice, on the other hand, seeks to be in control by living free from societal constraints. Yet they both wish that the other could have been the mother-figure or daughter that has been missing in their lives.

While B?atrice deals with her mortality, Claire continues her work as a midwife, bringing new life into the world. (The film includes real-life birth sequences.) But even though those existential events provide for a contrast, the kinds of everyday transitions are what really drive the film. The clinic where Claire has worked for years is about to be closed. She can?t bring herself to work at the new regional birthing center (she calls it a ?baby factory?) where even the term midwife is being replaced by ?birth technician?. Her son is dropping out of medical school and is about to become a father (making Claire a grandmother). Although she?s not sought out a romantic relationship, one develops with the truck driving son of the neighbor at her garden. But the real transitions grow out of the interaction between Claire and B?atrice as they slowly come to understand and appreciate each other.

Both women must struggle with the loss of control as the lives they have constructed for themselves under go changes. Yet even though their worlds are turning upside down, the changes they meet bring them a something they have been missing. For B?atrice there is a sense of belonging to another that empowers her at the end of life. For Claire, it is an opening of new possibilities in her life.

We all experience transitions in our lives. Some are painful, others quite pleasurable. At times, we may seek ways of controlling all these changes. But through it all, we discover that our lives are constantly leading us to someplace new.

Photos Courtesy of Music Box Films

The Hollars – The Comedy of Crises

?You won?t know until you get there that you?re okay.?

Can a comically dysfunctional family deal with a looming crisis? That is the setup for The Hollars, but there?s more here than bumbling through the situation. It also provides a bit of insight into what it means to be family even in the most difficult times.

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John Hollar (John Krasinski) is a struggling artist trying to make it in New York City. He?s soon to become a parent along with his girlfriend Rebecca (Anna Kendrick). When John gets a call about his mother?s (Margo Martindale) serious health issue, he must go back to the small Ohio town he?s from and deal with his father (Richard Jenkins) and brother (Sharlto Copley) who are all pretty tied up in their own issues. All of the foibles are exaggerated for comic purposes, sometimes to the detriment of the story.

This film brings together end of life issues and the beginning of life issues. There are always fears around both. Some of those fears are about ourselves (what will become of us) and some are focused on others (who will take care of loved ones). These fears are treated with humor, but also with a good dose of pathos. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when John volunteers to shave his mother?s head before surgery. For the nurse to have done it would have just been too cold and clinical. But as John does it, we sense an intimacy and love that could help his mother through something that is very difficult.

When birth and death are so near in a film, we should expect that we are being asked to reflect not just on mortality, but on the meaning of all that lies between those two bookends of life. John is standing in both worlds?one that is full of possibility, excitement, and joy, and one that brings grief and sorrow. We mark our lives with such events, but life is really not about either as much as it is about all that fills in between. That is what John is beginning to learn as he worries about his mother?s health and also worries about what it will mean to be a father, responsible for another?s well bring. Life is what we find between birth and death?not just ours, but the many points of transition that fill our years.

Photos courtesy of Sony Picture Classics