ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Elle Fanning

Remote Watch: TEEN SPIRIT

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Teen Spirit (2018) - IMDb

Teen Spirit (directed by Max Minghella) was on my watch list for quite some time and I can’t believe I waited this long to catch it. Not only was I excited to witness Minghella’s directorial debut, but I was very intrigued by Elle Fanning’s singing. Neither one disappointed. Minghella’s vision was beautifully portrayed on screen.

Teen Spirit is an amalgamation of a modern Cinderella story, teen angst, and perhaps a touch of film noir with Violet’s moody pessimism and Mighella’s use of light, dark and shadow. All of that, mixed with Fanning’s voice, and my intrigue continued throughout the whole film. Her voice is so unique and soulful. It’s a voice that I didn’t know I needed until I heard it. 

We immediately get a sense that the shy, introspective, and jaded Violet (Elle Fanning) is not impressed with her mundane life. Keeping busy with work on her family farm, a part time job and school, Violet is just going through the motions to earn money for her and her mother (Agnieszka Grochowska) to live. There is a clear lack of joy in her life. We come to learn of a past trauma and how that continues to affect her and the way she lives in the present day. She bottles her feelings.

Teen Spirit starring Agnieszka Grochowska debuts in Poland – The ...

Violet doesn’t seem to have any real human connection. We feel significant distance with her mother, as well as the lack of a father figure. She also doesn’t appear to have any true friends. She even goes so far as to say “I don’t believe in love. Love’s not real.” Violet only finds solace with her horse. This is, of course, until she stumbles across Vlad (Zlatko Buric), an unsuspecting hero of sorts. Over time, he almost becomes some kind of father figure to Violet.

Teen Spirit movie review & film summary (2019) | Roger Ebert

Violet has a yearning to sing. It is her one and only passion and so much so that we don’t really see her smile until she actually starts doing what she loves. When she finally starts doing what she loves, we slowly begin to see her come to life, improving relationships and expressing herself more.

The incredible upbeat pop music of the soundtrack is a departure from the overall tone of the film, but was clearly expertly hand-picked. Songs such as “Dancing On My Own” and “Don’t Kill My Vibe” and lyrics like “Mama I feel so low; Mama where do I go?” are very telling as to how Violet felt in those moments.  

Movie Review: Teen Spirit (2018) | Speak Now Storyteller

No spoilers, but I thought it was very smart of Minghella to put the results of the competition in the end credits. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter who won because Teen Spirit was about Violet’s journey and her coming of age all along.

teenFish#9 – Looking in ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES

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Welcome to teenFish, a podcast series that lets teenagers speak about media that matters to them in their own voice. Hosted by Daniel Collins (Infinity Warm-Up), teenFish airs every month and invites local youth to engage the truth and lies of the shows and films that excite them.

After meeting each other in an unconventional way, Violet and Theodore struggle with the emotional and physical scars of their past. As they come together through a school project, the two begin to  discover that even the smallest moments can mean something. This month, Daniel, Mackenzie and Jacob delve into struggles with mental health, losing a loved one and putting people into boxes.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), or Spotify! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Teen Spirit: The Price of Stardom

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TTeen Spirit tells the story of Violet, a shy teenager who lives in a quiet European village. Struggling with her dismal environments and broken family life, the incredibly Violet dreams of pop stardom as a way to break free from her world. When auditions are held nearby for the Teen Spirit reality show, Violet finally believes she’s found her way out. With the help of her unlikely mentor Vlad, Violet auditions for the show but soon discovers that the competition will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.

The first directorial effort by Max Minghella, Teen Spiritis a beautiful film that speaks to our obsession with fame. Skillfully shot and directed, Minghella’s use of lighting and sound highlight the dichotomy of the world of fame and Violet’s everyday life. While at home, Violet’s world is exemplified through flat, bleached colours that point to the bland existence of life on the farm. However, as Violet is gradually drawn into the realm of fame, Minghella’s tone slowly transitions to a pulsating neon that bleeds off the screen. Lens flares. Pounding bass lines. This is the life that Violet has dreamed of and, with every flash, we experience its dazzling fury. Fanning, currently one of our finest young talents, plays Violet with a quiet innocence that suits her hometown upbringing. Despite her ambition, she has been untouched by the sort of visceral pride and selfishness that exemplifies the world of fame. While it could also be argued that Fanning underplays Violet at times, there is a purity to her character that remains endearing.

Most interesting about Violet, however, is the tension within her relationship to her home life. In conflict with her mom about her way of life, she sees the Teen Spirit opportunity as a way to become more. However, while singing is something she’s passionate about, it soon becomes clear that much of her desire to succeed stems from a desire to escape. Raised in poverty on a small-town farm, Violet views fame as the ‘way out’. However, as she builds a relationship of trust with her manager, failed opera singer Vlad (Zlatko Buric, who frequently steals scenes), Violet begins to struggle between the two worlds. For Violet, Vlad becomes a mentor, father-figure and even somewhat of a moral compass, challenging her along the way. (“You’ve only been here two days and look at what you’re becoming!” he warns.) Despite his own brokenness, Vlad’s care for Violet proves to offer a stability that she so desperately needs at such a turbulent, high-pressure time in her life. As a result, although she wants to break free, she also begins to recognize that home also has its value as well. Does fame require cutting ties with everything that came before? Or is there a way to honour the past while moving forward into the future? 

At its heart, there is a sweetness to Teen Spirit, despite its emphasis on the glamour of pop culture stardom. The relationship between Violet and Vlad provides an anchor in the midst of the chaotic but enticing world of celebrity culture. As his first feature, Minghella creates a surprisingly intimate film which balances the bright chaos of fame with the personal nature of relationships.

Teen Spirittours in theatres beginning April 19th, 2019.   

Leap! – Why Do You Dance (or Whatever)?

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“Why do you dance?”

Leap! is a story of dreams and heart, of overcoming failure, of finding the answers to the questions that matter most. It’s not unlike any number of films (I’ll refer to a few of them later), yet sometimes hearing a familiar story in a new setting can bring us joy.

Félicie (voiced by Elle Fanning) and Victor (Nat Wolff) live in a French orphanage, but the both have dreams of escape and fulfillment. For Félicie that means becoming a ballet dancer. The only thing she has from her mother is a music box with a tiny ballerina. It means the world to her. Victor pictures himself as a great inventor. He tinkers. He constantly keeps Félicie’s music box in repair. His main focus is on something that will allow them to fly. One night, the two sneak out and use Victor’s “chicken wings” to get away. They find their way to Paris, where Victor’s clumsiness leads to them being separated.

Félicie wanders the streets until she finds the Paris Opera, home of a great ballet school. A guard grabs her, but she is rescued by Odette (Carly Rae Jepsen), the cleaning woman. Félicie follows Odette to her other job and eventually convinces her that she can be of help. There she meets Camille (Maddie Ziegler), who is waiting for news that she has been accepted into the ballet school. When the letter arrives, Félicie takes it to the school and assumes Camille’s identity. Félicie has no training and so is far behind the other dancers technically, but she wants to improve, and Odette (who is a former dancer) tutors her.

Meanwhile Victor has become something of an errand boy at the construction site for the Eiffel Tower. He sees this as having Gustav Eiffel as his mentor. Victor and Félicie continue to find each other in the evenings and their relationship has ups and downs.

Of course in time it will come down to Camille and Félicie as to who will win an important part in The Nutcracker. When Camille wins the role, Félicie’s spirit is broken and she is taken back to the orphanage. But in time she comes to believe in herself and she returns to confront Camille.

Watching the film, you can spot influences of the other ways this story has been told. One night when Victor takes Félicie out, she dances without abandon on the tables as in Fame. How could a redhaired orphan not remind us of Annie? Félicie’s training with Odette is reminiscent of Daniel and Miyagi in The Karate Kid. When we see the difference in training methods between Félicie and Camille it is not unlike Rocky. And the ultimate contest between Félicie and Camille is a dance version of the guitar contest between Eugene and Scratch from Crossroads. In the end, what gives the winner the advantage is the answer to the question, “Why do you dance?” the different answers from Camille and Félicie tell the whole story.

Why do you…? That of course is the question that we often struggle with in our lives. Do we do things to please others or ourselves? Do we have a passion or a duty? Are we resigned to our fate or will we break down the barriers that are holding us back?

I wonder how Christians answer such questions. Why do you …? Some would say, the Bible says this is how we must act. Others, this is what Jesus did. Let me venture an answer that I think would please God most: Because God’s love has awakened me to live in a way that shares that love with others. I don’t know if we ever quite attain that point, but it may be a great thing to practice for.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company

The Beguiled – No Serpent Needed in This Garden

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“You’re our most unwelcome visitor, and we do not propose to entertain you.”

What is it that corrupts our lives? In The Beguiled, Sofia Coppola’s Southern Gothic film set in the Civil War, there seems to be a world that is pure and innocent. But is it really? Is this a fall from grace, or was there a state of grace to begin with?

The film opens as a young girl goes through the Virginia woods picking mushrooms. She is startled to find a wounded Union soldier, barely conscious. She helps him to Miss Martha’s Seminary for Young Women, a school with a handful of young women who have nowhere else to go. Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) agrees to take Corporal McBurney (Colin Farrell) in and nurse him to health before turning him over to the Confederate troops as a prisoner. (It is, after all, Christian charity.) But his presence in the school is the opportunity for lust and jealous to grow, particularly among Miss Martha, the school’s other teacher Miss Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), and the oldest student, Miss Alicia (Elle Fanning).

As McBurney regains his strength, he manages to endear himself to the women, perhaps playing them against one another. But things will not go smoothly. In time, the tensions will lead to an accident that will complicate the story even further and lead to a very dark conclusion. By the end of the story, all innocence has been stripped away from these young women.

Coppola makes great use of nature throughout the film. We often hear birds and insects that make us think this is a very pristine world. But even then we hear the far off sounds of warfare. We are reminded that this is already a fallen world. The very fact that McBurney is a soldier tells us that pain and suffering already exist. The fact that the women see him as an enemy shows that they participate in this reality, even as they use the language of Christian duty to justify their actions.

As I began to think about the film, my first thought was that McBurney was a serpent that brought corruption to this Eden. But I soon realized that all the seeds of sinfulness were already present and growing in Miss Martha’s Seminary. McBurney merely sped the growth. Of course it’s also possible to read Genesis in the same way. The Serpent didn’t bring evil into the Garden. That potential already existed within the Man and Woman that God had placed there. The Serpent simply brought out what was already within them. The depth to which all the characters descend in this story is not the work of an outside source of evil. It is the fruition of a darkness that already inhabited them.

3 Generations – Changing Lives

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“My whole life I searched my body for scars because I knew something was missing.”

It can be hard enough being a teenager, but for Ray it is complicated by being transgendered. At the beginning of the film he tells us his birthday wish each year is always the same: to have a boy’s body. 3 Generations is a sympathetic look at the obstacles that can be faced by transgendered people, even in very supportive families.

At 16, Ray (Elle Fanning) is anxious to begin receiving testosterone to being transitioning his body into the male he knows himself to be. He has been raised by his single mother Maggie (Naomi Watts), his lesbian grandmother Dolly (Susan Sarandon), and her longtime partner Frances (Linda Emond). When the time comes to sign the papers for the hormone therapy, Maggie, who has been supportive, begins to stall. They must also get the signature of her absent father (Tate Donovan) who doesn’t even know of Ray’s gender issues (and who now has another family).

Each of the characters has their own issues to deal with. Ray struggles to be accepted as a male. Even in his own family, Dolly wonders why he wouldn’t be just as happy as a lesbian (as she is). His mother’s reticence may be caused by her grief at the daughter she is losing. When his father comes into play, old issues and dynamics come to the surface.

The film is a look at some of the various forms of family that are playing out in society: single mother, same sex couple, multi-generational family in one house, traditional nuclear family. As Ray is seeking to transition his body, he must also try to understand his relationship in each of these settings and how that will also change as his body changes. So too, when we encounter all these various forms of family, we also find new ways that we understand ourselves vis à vis such family settings.

The house they live in is full of winding staircases. It is as if to tell us that there is not a straight line to be found. The twists and turns of life play out in this situation. In order to move to a solution to everyone’s issues will involve lots of changes in direction along the way. I think this is certainly true of the ways that society has been trying to deal with issues such as this. Even as we become more accepting of gays and lesbians (few would be offended by Dolly), transgender issues are something that are still much harder for many people to understand and accept. 3 Generations seeks to offer us a chance to encounter what it can mean for someone and their family to face the kind of life changing transition involved in moving from one gender to another, and in that encounter we may find ways to better understand the needs of those who face such changes.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company