ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

coming-of-age

Hatching – Nurturing an evil twin

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In the Finnish film Hatching, from director Hanna Bergholm, a girl from a seemingly perfect home looks for love in an unusual source, but it leads into a very dark and destructive place. It’s part horror film, part coming-of-age story, and part magical realism.

Twelve year old Tinja lives in what appears to be a perfect family: Father, mother, Tinja, and her younger brother. Her mother is an influencer with a vlog titled “Lovely Everyday Life”. Their home is tastefully curated with nothing out of place. Tinja is an aspiring gymnast, who can’t quite achieve the perfection her mother expects (and needs to fulfill the image of her vlog).

When Tinja finds an egg in the woods, she brings it home and secretly nurtures it in her room. There it grows and grows until it eventually hatches with a monstrous being. Tinja names it Alli. Tinja tries to keep Alli hidden, but as time passes, Alli looks more and more like Tinja.

The egg is not the only secret in the film. Tinja’s mother, that influencer of the perfect life, is really having an affair with a handyman, Tero. As perfect as Tinja’s family’s house is, Tero’s is completely the opposite. Tero is restoring a very derelict place. It is as chaotic and alive as Tinja’s home is neat and sterile. Her mother expects Tinja to keep all this secret from her father.

Meanwhile, as Alli grows we see evolution taking place as she becomes more like Tinja, as Tinja becomes more of a mother. There is even a sense in which Tinja’s eating disorder mirrors a bird’s feeding of its young.

The more Alli becomes physically like Tinja, we see an important difference: Alli has become something of an evil twin. Tinja is meek, but Alli is vengeful and violent. Tinja has been starved for love by her demanding mother; Alli has no love except for Tinja. When Alli begins to feel threatened or feels that Tinja is threatened, she acts quickly.

Adolescence is a time when it may seem that a child is evolving, not so much into an adult, but into a doppleganger. In the case of Alli, it is an actual person, not just a different personality within Tinja. But the film also works on the level of what Tinja is going through and how Alli is the answer to Tinja’s passivity in the face of a self-centered, deceitful, superficial, and unloving mother. The film leaves the conflict or integration of the two young girls unresolved, but to be sure, the troubles are far from over.

Hatching is showing in select theaters and will be on VOD beginning May 17.

Photos courtesy of IFC Midnight.

Coast – Teen ennui

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“Even rebels need a place to come home to.”

Because the teenage years are a bridge between childhood and adulthood, they have attracted storytellers. Coast, from directors Jessica Hester and Derek Schweickart, is the most recent coming-of-age story, this one with a decidedly female perspective.

Sixteen year old Abby (Fatima Patcek) is bored with life in her small coastal town in Central California. Her mother is worn out from working as a nurse and the stress of going through a divorce. Abby and her cohort of friends are looking for more from life than they think their town offers. When a band gets stuck in town, Abby and one of the band members are immediately attracted. Abby is invited to join them when their bus is fixed. It would mean a way out of town, away from the school she sees as unimportant, and the emptiness she feels.

The coming-of-age genre has often focused on rebellion and generational conflicts. Those play key roles in this story as well. Abby doesn’t have the angst of Jim Start in Rebel Without a Cause, but that’s probably an unfair comparison. Rather she is filled with ennui. That is epitomized by a class assignment she has been dragging her feet over: a hometown history paper. Her other friends are just as dismissive about the assignment, but in doing it find value in their family stories that have brought them to this place. They may even find that the lives of their parents are not as bad as they have thought.

A part of the rebellion of adolescence is the breaking of rules. Cutting class and drinking are the rules that Abby and her friends break. But we are reminded that all generations have broken rules and made unwise choices as they grew up. As Abby’s mother talks to a patient in the hospital, they relate some of those choices that changed their lives—for good or ill.

For Abby this is not just about the boredom of small town life; it is about trying to find who she is. Is she to be defined by her hometown history, by the choices she makes now, by how other people see her? We see her grow through her response to the same comment at two points in the film. When her boyfriend says, “You’re amazing” when they first meet, she responds “Me?” But later when she has determined what course she will take, he says that again and she responds, “Yeah, I know.”

Coast is in select theaters and available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Cinedigm.

The Worst Person in the World – Elusive happiness

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“I’m standing on the sideline of my own life.”

Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World is Norway’s submission for Best International Feature and has been shortlisted for Oscar consideration. Renate Reinsva was honored at Cannes as Best Actress. Trier, in comments before the Sundance screening, called this a Scandinavian take on romantic comedy, noting that this is the land of Ingmar Bergman. It certainly has the elements of romcom, but it also has existential darkness.

The film follows Julie (Reinsva) over a four year period arranged in 12 chapters (plus prologue and epilogue). In the prologue we hear her wonder when her life was supposed to start. Each section of the film shows us a bit more of her search for what her life should be. We see her fall in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), who is ten years her senior. She moves in with him and all is well, until she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), who is married. Their relationship begins with a sensual, flirtatious game of defining what constitutes cheating (a game that by its nature is cheating).

In a key chapter, as Julie marks her 30th birthday, she considers what her mother was doing when she was thirty—and her mother—and her mother…. While the role of women has changed over all those years, we can’t help but notice that Julie really has nothing permanent in her life. She may seem free, but without really committing to a man or career or much of anything, she continues to be rudderless.

While the romcom vibe is very real, this is much more a thirties coming-of-age tale. Julie is so engaging and vibrant (because of Reinsva’s performance) we like her and want her to find happiness and fulfilment. Yet we watch helplessly as she goes from one relationship to the next without finding anything that brings real happiness or meaning to her. It’s not so much that she can’t find what she wants; it’s more a case that she may not even know what she wants in life, work, or relationships.

It is also an exploration of the interplay between freedom and commitment. Julie constantly acts to be free from the restraints of commitment, yet she seems to long to have more to her life than she can have on her own. For all the sybaritic joy that fills her life, there is a sense that she is lost in a world that values connections with others.

The Worst Person in the World returns to theaters February 4.

The Whaler Boy – Looking for love

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Perhaps the grass is always greener on the other side of the Bering Sea. That seems to be the basis for Phillipp Yuryev’s premier feature film The Whaler Boy.

Teenaged Leshka lives in a remote whaling village on the edge of the Bering Straits. He and the other men go out to kill whales, that they use to feed the whole village. This is a village without girls. His friend Kolyan invites him to come with him to the next village to find some girls, but their motorbike breaks down on the way. The only chance he has to even see a girl is an erotic chatroom online. He becomes infatuated with an American girl, HollySweet_999.

Leshka spends a lot of time watching HollySweet_999, trying to talk to her through the computer screen. Even trying to learn English. He becomes jealous of others who pay attention to her. After he gets into a fight with Kolyan over her, Leshka decides to take a boat and cross the straits into the US and begins walking until he gets to her, where he’s sure he’ll win her heart.

This is a hazardous crossing, not only the sea, but he must also deal with poachers and ICE. Even after all that, he doggedly sets off across the tundra on his way to Detroit. Yeah, he doesn’t seem to understand geography in the least.

The film has some very interesting visual aspects, especially when he comes to what seems to be a whale graveyard in the midst of the tundra. The storyline, however, never quite comes together. Leshka’s naivete is endearing, but is not enough to keep the film consistently engrossing. But the film does at least end with a revelation for him. The grass may be greenest where there are people you know and love. For that you don’t need to brave the ocean and another continent.

The Whaler Boy is in select theaters, on virtual cinema, and available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

The Tender Bar – Learning “the male sciences”

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“Grandpa’s house was a revolving door of cousins and aunts, with a full complement of laughter and tears, with an occasional nervous breakdown. But above all, it’s where Uncle Charlie lived.”

The Tender Bar, directed by George Clooney and based on a memoir by J.R. Moehringer, can be characterized as a coming-of-age story, but it veers a bit into the philosophy of masculinity. While the film is very male-oriented, its story is appealing enough that women should find it enjoyable as well.

LILY RABE and DANIEL RANIERI star in TENDER BAR Photo: CLAIRE FOLGER © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

It begins in 1973 when nine year old, J.R. Maquire (Daniel Ranieri, later Tye Sheridan) moves with his mother (Lily Rabe) into her father’s house, an event she views as a sign of failure, but J.R. finds exciting. His father abandoned them long ago. He is a semi-nomadic radio DJ who J.R. refers to as The Voice—after all, that is about all J.R. knows of him. Grandpa (Christopher Lloyd) is a curmudgeon who seems to resent having his adult children back in his house. (But at least he is willing to help support them.)

J.R. finds an important role model in his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck). Charlie is a bar tender at a local dive, The Dickens. It is there that Charlie (and some of the barflies that are always there) teach J.R. what Charlie refers to as the “male sciences”, simple rules of how to live and especially how to treat women. (The prime directive in these sciences is “You don’t hit a woman, ever, up to and including if she has stabbed you with scissors.”) Charlie is something of an autodidact philosopher. He seems to have read everything, and makes sure that J.R., who wants to be a writer, reads it as well.

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD and DANIEL RANIERI star in TENDER BAR Photo: CLAIRE FOLGER © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

J.R.’s mother is laser-focused on him going to an Ivy League school, even though there’s no way she could afford it. In time he is accepted to Yale on scholarship, and the film explores his life there, and continues to build on Charlie’s life training. At Yale he falls in love with a beautiful and bright young woman (Briana Middleton). The relationship with her is something that teaches J.R. about trials that he cannot control.

J.R., with the help of family (which includes the patrons of The Dickens) and friends, slowly negotiates life without his father, life at Yale where he feels out of place, and entering adulthood with confidence—enough to face his father and to assert himself.

BEN AFFLECK and TYE SHERIDAN star in TENDER BAR Photo: CLAIRE FOLGER © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

For all the “male science” aspect of Charlie’s mentorship of J.R., the philosophy that he teaches is applicable to all people. It can be summed up is a few important concepts: kindness, honesty, and honor. I don’t think Charlie ever uses those words, but through the instructions he gives J.R.—and through his actions—those ideas are clear. Such a view of life is certainly in line with Paul’s comment: “…Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8 NRSV)

The Tender Bar is in theaters and is streaming on Prime Video

Photos courtesy of Amazon Content Services.

The Pit – Assumptions and secrets

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How often do we try to judge based on assumptions that may not be true? In The Pit, Latvia’s submission for Best International Feature consideration, there are many assumptions that lead the characters to make judgements that may or may not be justified.

Markuss, a ten year old boy who’s been sent to live with his grandmother after his father’s death, is quiet and sullen. He doesn’t want to be here. He’d rather draw than be with people. As the film opens, he’s left a playmate in a pit. She isn’t found until later that night. This immediately turns the community against Markuss and his grandmother. The girl’s mother is pushing for the boy to be deemed dangerous, based on the pictures he draws. Much of the community’s ideas are based on what they know about Markuss’s father, although we don’t really know much backstory until later—including the backstory of the girl being left in the pit.

In avoiding the judgement of the community (and trying to avoid a beat down from the girl’s brother), Markuss discovers the reclusive Sailor, who lives a bit out of town. Sailor was a friend of Markuss’s grandmother in their youth. It turns out that Sailor makes stained glass windows—or at least is working on one. Markuss’s father was Sailor’s assistant at one point, so Markuss feels a connection, and is soon learning about stained glass. But then Markuss is shocked to discover Sailor’s secret.

Various other secrets are revealed as the story works its way to an ending that may be redemptive for Markuss and the community. Each secret reveals the dark sides of the community that is struggling with its vision of itself in the wake of Markuss’s actions.

The film is a combination of three stories by Latvian author Jana Egles. While we may easily separate out the three stories, the combination of the three create a broader picture of the life of this community. The darkness that seems to define the town is not really based in Markuss, but he seems to be carrying the blame for it. Rather, we learn that Markuss may be the one character who will bring something good to the community.

The Pit is available on Film Movement Plus.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

Audible – Teen Angst in Silence

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The teen years can be a challenge. It is a time when people struggle with their identity and their place in the world. Even for the most “normal” of teens, these years can be a struggle. Add to that having to deal with a disability. In Matthew Ogens’s documentary short Audible, we meet a young football player at a school for the deaf as he struggles with teen angst, deafness, and the loss of a friend.

Amaree McKenstry-Hall plays for football for the Maryland School for the Deaf. At the beginning of the film we see the team losing its first game against a deaf school in sixteen years. It also breaks the 42-game winning streak against all teams. For regular high school athletes, this would be a difficult time. We watch as Amaree and his schoolmates deal not only with the defeat, but with the struggles of facing a world as a deaf person. When school is over Amaree and his classmates will face discrimination and isolation.

As we get to know Amaree, we learn that his father left when he became deaf, and the two are working on rebuilding a relationship. His father, a onetime drug dealer, is a minister in a local church. He also is a bit unsure of his relationship with a girlfriend. Amaree’s biggest emotional challenge is dealing with the suicide of a classmate.

All of these are issues that many teens face. As such this is very much a look at coming-of-age in America. But when you include the challenges of getting ready to move into living fully in a hearing world, it all becomes multiplied.

Because it is a short (running time:39 minutes), it doesn’t have a chance to go very deep into Amaree’s stuggles, but we do see enough to understand that like all teens, he has many pressures. But we also see that he has qualities that may be helpful as he moves on in life.

AUDIBLE/NETFLIX © 2021

Audible streams on Netflix.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

Spring Blossom – Young Love

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One of the rites of passage in the teenage years is to fall in love. In Spring Blossom we watch a young woman who doesn’t feel at ease with her peers begin an infatuation with an older man, who has his own issues about fitting in. Together they enter into a relationship that we know is doomed in the long run, but we marvel at the tenderness of it.

Suzanne (Suzanne Lindon, who also wrote and directed the film) is sixteen years old and something of a wallflower. Even when she goes to a teen party (which is rarely) she finds it all boring. School is much the same. One day walking between home and school, she notices a man at the small theatre. Each time she sees him she is a bit more interested, and in time he notices her as well.

Raphaël (Arnaud Valois) is part of a small acting company. He is becoming bored with the repetition of doing the same play night after night. When he notices Suzanne’s attention, it serves as a break in the monotony. At 35 we know he’s much too old for Suzanne, but she feeds something in his ego, and their combined boredom becomes the basis of their relationship.

As the relationship develops, we may expect Raphaël to take advantage of the young naïve girl, but throughout he acts with tenderness. The growing intimacy we see between them is shown through a series of dances. The first is a solo dance by Suzanne that exemplifies the joy of the first flush of young love. Then there are three dances involving the two of them: first sitting at a table at a café and moving in unison to music, then a brief pas de deux, and finally a slow dance in a club. Those dances serve almost as pseudo sex scenes, which tempers our fears about the age difference.

The film’s superb sense of reality is based in the fact that Lindon began writing the screenplay when she was fifteen. (She’s now 21.)  This is a time in life when one often falls in love with the idea of being in love more than actually falling in love.  That is captured very well in this film.

Spring Blossom is playing in select theaters and on virtual cinema.

Photos courtesy of KimStim.

Days of the Bagnold Summer – Nothing Important, Just Life

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For most of us life isn’t like the movies. We seem to go day by day without a great deal of drama. And yet those days that seem so ordinary are what life is made of. Days of the Bagnold Summer, directed by Simon Bird, is that kind of movie. The drama and the comedy are just the kinds of things that may not seem like much at the time, but they are bricks of life.

Sue Bagnold (Monica Dolan) is a single mom raising her 15 year old son Daniel (Earl Cave) in the English suburbs. Daniel is your typical metalhead wannabe. He dreams of being in a band, but he’d have to be the front man since he doesn’t play an instrument. He’s scheduled to visit his father and his pregnant young wife in Florida that summer, but when his dad decides it’s not a good time, Daniel is left with an open summer. Daniel, the personification of ennui, is set to sleep the summer away, but Sue isn’t having it. She sends Daniel out to apply for jobs (which he does in a manner that is doomed to failure). And she tries to do things with him to rekindle the fun they had together when he was younger. Daniel just wants to listen to Metallica.

Sullen teenagers just don’t want to have fun, though do they? Daniel is at an age where he hasn’t really discovered who he is or even who he wants to be. That metalhead persona is really just a form of holding pattern. And so the summer goes, through “early days”, “salad days” and “dod days”. Along the way Sue gets asked out on a date by Daniel’s former teacher, which only complicates things for both of them. But basically, the two struggle to find a way to coexist in the new world teen nihilism.

It’s interesting the way Bird has found to show the distance between the two visually, like the clothesline with black on one side and pink on the other, or Daniel in the foreground eating and Sue in the background a room away eating separately). But as the summer moves forward, they come together more often, even though each is also finding a new understanding of themselves in the process.

There is not big event or blowup that summarizes the summer. And yet, we seem to understand that this summer is in its own way an important time in their lives. As such, this is a movie that captures the kind of lives most of us live. Little by little all these days add up into a life.

Days of Bagnold Summer is available on virtual cinema through local theaters and on digital platforms.

Photos courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.

1982 – Love and War

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Oualid Mouaness’s 1982 is a story about fear and courage, love and war, innocence and maturity. The film is Lebanon’s official submission for Best International Film consideration.

For fifth grade student Wissam (Mohamad Dalli) the end of year exams aren’t a problem; he’s a top student. What he is worried about is if he will be able to tell classmate Joanna that he loves her. He doesn’t understand the import of what is going on in the world—that Israel has invaded his country.

His teacher, Yasmine (Nadine Labaki) is fully aware of the dangerous times. Her brother is going south to fight with the Christian militia. She has an ailing father. She is in the middle of the political conflict that is represented by her brother on one side and her fellow teacher and boyfriend on the other. As the school day goes on, the contrails and sound of planes are a constant reminder of what’s happening. In time the sound of explosions rumble in the distance, then nearer. Plumes of smoke rise out of Beirut where the students live. Dogfights happen in the sky above.

The story moves back and forth between Wassim’s attempts to get the courage to talk to Joanna and the adults in the story trying to deal with their own worries and at the same time keep calm in the classrooms. It makes for a useful contrast between the innocence of childhood and the dangers and troubles of the adult world. But in time, the film wants us to understand that relationships—and love—are a key to being resilient in the times of trouble.

The childhood storyline is really the more compelling one. As he talks with his friend about his desire to make himself known to Joanna, and Joanna talks to her friend about who could have left the anonymous note in her locker, the sense of the power of childhood love is very clear. It is at once both scary and something we crave. It is a reminder that even in the midst of terrible and fearful events love has the power to transform us. It has the power to save us. For Wassim, we see that power come forth in the end with a bit of magical realism to save not just his love for Joanna, but his city.

The film triggers in me a touch of a contrast between scriptures. The Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, and I reasoned as a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” That thought fits well with the adults in this story as they must deal with the realities of the war drawing close. But there is also the story, “[Jesus] called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  1982 captures both of those perspectives. And it calls us live in the light of both.

1982 is available on VOD and via virtual cinema through local arthouses.

Photos courtesy of Utopia.