ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

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Fear – When I was a stranger…

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“We are hospitable people—but Bulgaria belongs to Bulgarians.”

What does it mean to welcome the stranger? It seems to be a lost value in the world today. Ivaylo Hristov’s Fear shows that xenophobia is present in Bulgaria, but we know this is not something that is limited to that nation. Fear was Bulgaria’s official submission for Best Foreign Feature consideration.

Svetla has been widowed and alone for several years. She lives in a village near the Turkish border. She has just lost her job as a teacher because her town doesn’t have enough children. One day, while hunting rabbits, she comes across Bamba, a refugee from Mali, who is trying to get to Germany. When she takes him to the police, they don’t care because they have their hands full with a recent group of Afghan refugees. Svelta brings him home until she can find something to do with him.

These two people don’t even have a common language. (Bamba only speaks English.) This creates some interesting, disjointed conversations as each responds to what they think the other is saying. Bamba, who is also alone, having lost his family, finds sanctuary in Svetla’s house. Svetla finds a companion that fills the emptiness in her life.

The community is less accepting of Bamba’s presence. They write graffiti on Svetla’s house. The sign a petition. They break windows. They kill her dog. No one wants this person who is so different around. But for Svetla, this is a time to take a stand. All her life, she has feared being different or not accepted. She will not stand it any longer.

The film’s title can be read many ways. It is certainly about the fear of the stranger. But it also can be seen in the fear the community tries to create in Bamba and Svetla. It also comes into play when Svetla talks about the fear she has lived with.

In a world that is filled with refugees, the idea of welcoming the stranger is not a theoretical issue. Many countries in Europe are struggling to come to terms with those coming from Africa and from the Middle East. And sadly, in the last week, a great migration from Ukraine. In the US, we struggle with dealing with those coming from Latin America. The influx of people can create difficulties for the countries involved. How do we provide for those in need? How will they affect our economy? What will they take from us? What will they give to us?

There is an interesting comparison in the film between Bamba’s situation and that of the group of Afghans captured by the police. Prior to arresting them, the police had a TV crew looking for something newsworthy in it. The police chief downplayed the danger from the refugees. They didn’t bring drugs. They weren’t violent. They weren’t sick. The main concern after the capture was finding housing for them until they could be taken elsewhere. But the locals just see them as “gypsies”.

We don’t get to know any of this group. No one seems to care about them except in the abstract. But we do get to know Bamba. We know what he could contribute to the community if allowed. But the others only see as far as his skin and language. And the skin seems to be a barrier that the others are not willing to overlook.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the Judgment as dividing sheep and goats, one of the criteria is “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (or not). In this he is reinforcing the teaching of the Torah: “You shall also love the stranger” [as God does]. This is not just an issue of national policy or communities. It is about how we each react to the strangers in our midst. Xenophobia can involve race, religion, sexual orientation, language, disabilities, and many other ways that people are different from us. Will we fear those differences, or welcome the strangers we meet each day?

Fear is available on Virtual Cinema and VOD.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

The Tragedy of Macbeth – What’s done cannot be undone

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“Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.”

Shakespeare may seem daunting to many. The language and vocabulary are strange to our ears. We may have been force fed bits of it in high school, and we resent it. Don’t let that be a deterrent to seeing The Tragedy of Macbeth. This new adaptation and vision of the play was written for the screen and directed by Joel Coen. It is a way of experiencing one of the Bard’s better known plays in a richly satisfying production.

To briefly state the plot (for those who haven’t seen Macbeth), after winning a major battle Macbeth (Denzel Washington) is returning with his comrade Banquo (Bertie Carvel) when they encounter a trio of witches (Katheryn Hunter as all three Weird Sisters). The witches tell Macbeth that he is to be the next king of Scotland. Banquo, it is said, is to be the father of a line of kings, although not king himself. Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand) supports this ambition and they plot the assassination of the king. The blood begins to run even more freely as Macbeth must shore up his power against the king’s son who has fled to England. The ambition leads to paranoia and tyranny, which will, in time, lead to destruction.

This is an exceptionally moody production, in part because of the black and white cinematography and its use of shadows and fog, but also because of some wonderfully blocked shots that heighten the sense of a crescendo of madness in Macbeth and his wife.

The performances are all extraordinary. First among them is Hunter as the Weird Sisters, but also Washington and McDormand shine as the original power couple. They allow the characters to evolve along with their ambitions and madness. They are people who have set aside their morality to chase after a vision they have of destiny. And we watch as these characters become darker and darker as the story progresses. I especially liked the scene in which Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to take away her feminine nature and fill her with cruelty.

There is a reason Shakespeare continues to be taught centuries after his death. It’s not the iambic pentameter or what we now think of as flowery language (or amusing insults). It is because the things he wrote about are at the very core of our experience. Macbeth is one of the best examples of that. Today’s world continues to be filled with those who grasp for power without regard for right. There have been bloodbaths in every corner of the world to gain or maintain control of nations and peoples. This story also demonstrates the way such ambition without morality can eventually corrode the souls and the very humanity of those who act in such ways. We often think that the guilt of their actions drove Macbeth and his wife to madness. Perhaps those deeds were the true madness that was their undoing.

The Tragedy of Macbeth in in theaters and comes to Apple TV+ on January 14th, 2022.

Photos courtesy of Apple Original Films.

Two Gods – Who Will You Follow?

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“Surely we belong to God and to Him we shall return.”

In Zeshawn Ali’s Two Gods we see the struggles of people dealing with violence in their lives and neighborhoods. The documentary set mostly in Newark, New Jersey, focuses on Hanif, a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer. Hanif knows the dangers of the streets. He ended up in prison at one point. He seems to have found meaning in his work. He approaches it with respect for the dead.

Hanif has taken two young men under his wing to try to mentor them into adulthood. Furquan is twelve years old, and comes from a violent home. Naz is seventeen and getting involved with dangerous activity, which eventually results in his arrest on very serious charges.

The back and white cinematography creates a stark world where violence is a constant presence. From time to time we encounter not only funerals, but the community workers who are trying to end the large number of violent deaths among young people. It is this that Hanif is trying to protect Naz and Furquan from.

It is important to note that Hanif is a religious man. He is frequently wearing t-shirts that say “Pray”. We see him in the mosque praying. And his approach to the bodies he prepares for burial is a form of religious observance. He feels blessed to be able to care for these bodies. Naz speak a bit about religion, but it doesn’t seem to be important to him. Furquan in time finds himself in his aunt’s home in North Carolina and being part of a Christian church there.

The filmmaker’s view is that all three of these men are struggling between the worship of God and of the streets. That is a fair description of what many people deal with each day. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean choosing God or violence. It can be about anything that draws us away from God. It could be money, sex, fame, drugs, success, or power. Those things can be a part of life, but when they dominate, they can become a different god to us.

Ali wants to show American Muslims as a part of our societal fabric. He does not make a case that Muslims are better than others or that Islam is superior, but he does want us to understand that we all share a common humanity. Indeed, he seems just as happy for Furquan finding a place in a Christian community as he with Hanif in his practice of Islam.

Two Gods is available in theaters and virtual cinema. It is coming soon to PBS’s “Independent Lens” series.

Photos by Zeshawn Ali.

Last Call – Dylan Thomas Rages

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“You think your self-destruction is grand theater…. You’re just a performer in your own pathetic vaudeville show.”

Legend has it that on November 3, 1953, famed Welsh poet Dylan Thomas spent the day at The White Horse Tavern in New York. When he got back to his hotel, he claimed to have had 18 double whiskeys, which he considered a record. Soon he collapsed into a coma from which he did not recover. Last Call is a dark, yet poetic fictive version of that last day (and via flashbacks his family life and the weeks leading up to that fateful day). It should be noted that this is not meant as a biographical film in any factual sense. This is much more about trying to capture “the truth of the person” rather than events.

Thomas (Rhys Ifans), one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, is in the US for a lecture tour. At various colleges he is worshipped by the crowds (mostly young women). Yet, he is far from happy. He is a mixture of insecurity, narcissism, and alcoholism. On the day in question, he goes to the White Horse at 9:00 am and orders a double. When it comes he begins to tell the bartender Carlos (Rodrigo Santoro) and others at the bar that drinks need to have names to be more than just a drink. So with each of the 18 double shots that Carlos pours for him through the day and night, he christens it with some aspect of life. Drink number one is innocence, number two is enthusiasm, and he continues hitting on hope, faith, disappointment, death, resurrection, success, disappointment, and many other bits of wisdom. As he names each drink, he pontificates to those present about each aspect of life—and especially about how his life is playing out as a tragedy.

Between these various scenes in the bar, we flashback (and occasionally forward) to episodes either on the tour or with his wife in Wales. (One of the affectations of the film is that everything in the US is in black and white, everything in Wales is in color. That leads to a few interesting hybrid scenes when he hallucinates his wife, who is still in Wales, speaking to him in the bar.) In those scenes various supporting characters show us much of the failure in Thomas’s life.

Writer/director Steven Bernstein say the film is “a kind of long poem”. Other than when Thomas is reading his poems on the tour, the words all come from Bernstein, but they are written with the same kind of free verse cadence as we might expect from Dylan Thomas. We first note the poetic aspect of the film when in the first scene we hear Dr. Felton (John Malkovich) tell his friend “I’m not one for poetry.” Yet as he explains why he doesn’t care for poems, he is being very poetic. Bernstein fills the film with such poetic language.

There is also a bit of visual poetry, most noticeable in scenes where Carlos dances (once with a mop in the background as Thomas speechifies and later a bit of a tango with a young fan of Thomas’s) or during a scene where Dr. Felton performs an autopsy on Thomas as various onlookers pass out.

The use of color scenes amidst all the black and white scenes is also a kind of visual poetry. Those color scenes, all set in Wales, reflect Thomas’s concept of home and love. Yet, it is something he struggles to accept and to give. Those scenes include times of intimacy with his wife, but also of distance, such as his wife’s letters to him begging him to send money for the family.

While the film shows us a variety of relationships that Thomas has, for me the most interesting side character is Carlos. He serves not just as the one who keeps filling Thomas’s glass, but as a foil to his ideas. Thomas obviously thinks of him as an uneducated servant. But it turns out he is very well educated, quoting Shakespeare and Aquinas freely. While others look at Thomas with awe, Carlos sees him as a fraud. He tells Thomas that for all his words, there’s nothing there. For all his fame and success as a writer, he is a failure as a human being.

There is a certain irony of watching Thomas seemingly drink himself to death. One of his most famous poems is “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, which speaks of fighting against impending death. (We hear the poem being read on the lecture tour.) Yet the man we see in this film seems to be challenging death to take him. In one scene with Dr. Felton, the doctor asks him “Do you want to die?” over and over. It is a question Thomas fails to answer. Unlike the words of Dylan Thomas in the poem, the character in this film is far from raging “against the dying of the light”. He rages, but seemingly at life itself.

Last Call is showing in select theaters.

Photos courtesy of K Street Pictures.

Frantz – Is It Ever Right to Lie?

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“Don’t be afraid to make us happy.”

François Ozon’s Frantz is set in the aftermath of the First World War. It is a wonderfully visual film. (It won a César Award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for Best Cinematography. That may surprise some since most of the film is in black and white (but some of the best looking black and white you may see), with portions of the film shifting to color. There is a sense in which this reflects the moods of the film. The heavier black and white reflecting the post-war gloom, and the scenes with color representing a bit of a return to life and joy.

In a village in Germany, Anna (Paula Beer) mourns her fiancé Frantz who died in the trenches. She still lives with his parents who are also in deep mourning. One day she sees a man named Adrien (Pierre Niney) at Frantz’s grave. She discovers that he is French. He tells her that he was Frantz’s friend from before the war. They spent time together in Paris where Frantz studied.

Adrien faces opposition from the townsfolk who are still hurting from having lost the war. As one local put it, “Every Frenchman is my son’s murderer.” But the stories that Adrian shares with Anna and Frantz’s parents begin to bring joy into their lives yet again. It is almost as if Adrien is a substitute for their lost loved one. Perhaps Anna may even find a chance for love again.

The foundation of the story is the devastation that war brings. Everyone in this story suffers from the war. Anna and Frantz’s parents (and many of the townspeople) grieve the loss of the young men killed in the war. (This is a loss felt in France as well when the story moves there.) For the Germans in general, the loss of the war was a terrible blow to their national pride. Adrien has his own sense of pain that comes from the war that eats at his sense of self even though he was on the victorious side.

But at the half way point of the film there is an important revelation that puts everything into a new light. From that point on we begin to think of the lies that have been told, and the new lies yet to be told. In a world in which “alternate facts” seem to be acceptable to some, we may wonder if there might be a place for lies in the world or if only truth is to be considered valuable. When the truth comes out, it then becomes a question of if that truth should be shared or if the lies should be continued—perhaps even built upon—for the happiness of those who have found comfort in those lies.

Can happiness and peace be built upon a lie? Even Frantz’s grave, we learn, is a bit of a lie. His body is actually in a mass grave somewhere. But for his family, this little plot in the cemetery gives them a focus for their grief and a way to honor him.

When Anna discovers the truth about Adrien, she must decide whether to share that truth with Frantz’s parents. The “alternate” truth that Adrien represents has brought joy into Frantz’s family. Anna is placed in the position of knowing the truth, but knowing the consequences if that truth is known. Should she, for the sake of her family, withhold that truth and let the lie that has been spun continue. Should she make that lie even more elaborate in order to bring even more happiness to those who had found peace in the lie? And what is the burden  on Anna of carrying the truth and the lie as she seeks to move on in her own life? It is easy to say that truth always is better than a lie. But is it?

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films

Bleak Street – And Is It Ever

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The black and white cinematography of Bleak Street sets the mood. There is no brightness or cheer in the Mexico City neighborhood in which it is set. This is a world in which gray is the dominant color. The characters live in desperation and on the fringes of the fringe. There is little or no hope for those who live here—only the possibility (or perhaps the curse) of surviving another day.

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The story revolves around a pair of aging prostitutes, Dora and Adela, who are no longer sent to the busier corners where they could get work. Both have issues going on at home that make their life even more miserable. There is also a focus on a pair of midget lucha libre wrestlers, Little Death and Little AK. They are twins who serve as “shadows” for a pair of full size wrestlers. Little Death and Little AK wear their masks at all time. These two story lines eventually intersect with tragic consequences. Through it all there is a sense of destiny being played out. The characters have lives that seem to have been fated to bring them to this point. From time to time one of them will talk about how whatever happens is what is meant to happen.

I can understand why a filmmaker would be attracted to this story. It is a film that plumbs the depth of human sorrow. It is not about depravity, but rather about the desperation that fills the world in the kinds of settings these characters find themselves. Each has his or her own burdens that have brought them to this point. And the idea of the way destiny has shaped them and continues to do so is a concept that can be fruitful to explore.

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I wonder more about the audience for the film. Certainly those who frequent art houses are used to dark, depressing films without happy endings. But there are not a lot of people who really want to see just how dark the world can be. To be sure, this film has its qualities: the visual use of light and shadows fits perfectly with the story; the treatment of the characters as frail and broken rather than as flawed or sinful. There is an artfulness to this film that many will appreciate. Some will appreciate the humanity of the characters and mourn their fate. Some will ponder the role destiny plays in the tragedies of life. But all who brave this film (and some will see the value in doing so) will journey through darkness that may feel overwhelming.

Photos courtesy of Leisure Time Features

In the Shadow of Women

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“Don’t blame me for being a man.”

What is the cost of infidelity within a marriage? Should it just be assumed that a man will wander? What about a woman? In the Shadow of Women takes a look at such questions in the lives of a young couple. Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and Manon (Clotilde Mourau) are a pair of documentary filmmakers. They are very much in love. Manon serves in the background as Pierre advances his career. In reality, Pierre is a bit of a slug and in many ways it is Manon who is far more involved in their work.

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One day, Pierre meets a young intern and begins an affair. He likes the idea of having a mistress, but also wants to maintain his marriage. But when his mistress discovers that Manon has an affair of her own, the situation becomes much more volatile.

In a world where many people claim self-actualization as a motive of doing things that may be hurtful to others (or themselves), this film shows the consequences of such an approach to life. The film is not really interested in looking for fault or for villains in the story. It merely shows us what happens and where that ends up leading for all those involved.

It is of note that the documentary Pierre and Manon are working on is about an aging man who was a part of the French Resistance during World War II. That story serves, in the end, for a way of us to see the meaning or deception within relationships—and perhaps may even point out that it is only by moving through deception and betrayal that we can find a sense of comfort that allows us to lead a life of happiness, even if it is built upon the mistakes of the past.

Aferim! – When Everyone Knew Their Place

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“We live as we can, not as we want.”

Aferim! is set in 1835 in the Balkans. It is a time in which the structures of society were clearly stratified. Everybody had their place—and nearly all groups looked down on other groups. For filmmaker Radu Jude, this is an attempt to better understand modern day Romanian society by bringing into focus the history that people often overlook or even try to suppress.

It is a bit of a road trip film in which a constable, Constandin, has been dispatched by the local aristocrat to find and return a runaway Gypsy slave. As Constandin and his son travel to various areas, they have a series of encounters with different people: Christians and Jews, Russians and Turks, Romanians and Hungarians. Each group says terrible things about those not like them. A Christian priest is by far the most prejudiced against Gypsies and also heavily anti-Semitic. Even after the slave is found and brought back, we see the strictures of society continuing to play out in very unjust ways. Jude portrays all these various prejudices with humor through overstating them, but it is clear he expects his viewers to see and hear what is still being said more subtly today.

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Constandin is a man in the middle of competing worldviews. On the one hand, he has been charged with maintaining the order of society. The slave (in more than just running away) has broken that order, and Constandin must bring him back to face the consequences despite the fact that, when he hears the slave’s story, he knows that it will not be justice. All along the way, as he and his son encounter so many people and ideas, it shows that change is in process, but he has been tasked with obstructing any change. He is at times somewhat philosophical about it all, but only on the level of aphorisms that often contradict each other.

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While the near feudal aspects of that society may seem very different than our own past, it should be noted that, in the United States at that time, slavery was still in force. The Antebellum South was in some ways just as rigidly stratified as the culture we see in Aferim! And just as Jude looks back at where his society was nearly two centuries ago to get insight into where they are as a people today, we also sometimes look back at Western or Civil War epics to reflect beliefs and situations that continue on our time. It is important to understand that many of the issues that exist today are the results of ideas and actions from many years ago that continue to influence us for good or ill. It is only by such recognition that we can begin to bring the kinds of change that may be required to make a better world.

Photos courtesy Big World Pictures