ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

rape

Nina Wu – The Dark Side of Success

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“I really can’t take it anymore. You’re not only destroying my body, but my soul.”

An actress gets the roll of a lifetime in the Taiwanese film Nana Wu, directed by Midi Z. But while it may be a dream come true, it creates nightmares that she must try to figure out. What she discovers will put her career into a completely different light.

The title character (played by Wu Ke-Xi, who co-wrote the script) has spent eight years eking out a career doing bit roles. She is offered a leading role, but is a bit unsure because it involves nudity and a sex scene. Her agent tells her that she’s free to turn it down. But he also notes that this is an excellent role—the kind that can make a career.

We watch as the film is made, seeing occasional abusive behavior by the director. When the film is finished everyone thinks a new star has been found. Meanwhile Nina returns to her small hometown where she is reunited with her former lover who is still acting in a production of The Little Prince done for school children. When she returns for pre-opening publicity, she is pressed about the sex scenes of the film. She responds by stating she is a professional actress.

While on the trip, she begins to have nightmares—usually featuring the color red and frequently involving hallways (which also play a role in the film she was starring in). As we watch these nightmares (and some daytime events that may or may not be real) we sense that there is something from her past that is trying to find its way into Nina’s consciousness. Little by little, Nina begins to piece together the memories that reveal the true nature of her experience.

It is of interest that the quote I open the review with is a line from the film within a film. We hear Nina practicing the line before auditions. We also see her deliver the line in what is obviously a key scene of the film she is making. That line serves to help us understand not just the character Nina is portraying, but the feeling that is within her that is struggling to make its way to the surface.

In press notes, Wu Ke-Xi references stories involving the Asian film industry and the abuse of actresses. These stories were coming to light around the same time that the #MeToo movement began to raise similar issues in Hollywood. These stories highlight emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This film is a reminder of the scars that such abuse can leave.

Nina Wu is opened in limited virtual cinema locations, expanding to more and to VOD on April 2.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

Rose Plays Julie – The Real Me?

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“I can’t help thinking that somehow if you’d managed to hold on to me, I’d be living a different life right now. I’d be a different person—perhaps the person I was really meant to be—the real me.”

The psychological drama Rose Plays Julie, directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawler, is the story of a young woman who longs to know about her birth parents, but what she discovers is nowhere near satisfying. The dreams she had about happy reunions turn into a nightmare.

The film opens with Rose (Ann Skelly) on a bleak Irish seawall, thinking about her birth mother and what it would be like to meet—the good memories they would form. We then move to college, where Rose is studying to be a veterinarian. The first lecture we see is about the ethics of euthanizing healthy animals. From time to time, scenes involving animal euthanasia come into the story.

Rose has been searching to connect with her biological mother, but all she has is the name Ellen Wise (Orla Brady) and a London phone number. When she calls, Ellen is silent, but obviously disturbed to hear from Rose. Rose then becomes a bit of a stalker, finding a way into Ellen’s home, where the two finally meet. Here Rose discovers the secret that Ellen has kept buried for over twenty years as she has built a successful life. That secret is that Rose is the product of a rape.

Rose convinces Ellen to tell her who the rapist is. Peter (Aiden Gillen) is an archaeologist. Rose volunteers to help on his latest dig. She seeks to get close to him, but for what purpose? She no longer has any hope of having her dreamed about happy family with her birth parents.

Identity is one of the themes that keeps popping up throughout the film. It starts with Rose pondering what her life would have been like if her mother had kept her. She would be Julie. She would have the different life from the quotation above. She later plays as Julie to stalk her biological parents. Ellen is an actress, who makes her living playing different people. Peter is a respected man in his field, but we see that he has a different persona as well.

The unfortunate thing about this film is that it devolves into a story of revenge. It is important to remember that revenge is not justice. As the film moves inexorably down that road, we lose any real chance for the characters to find a solution to their pain. There seems to be no new identities that these characters are able to assume that will find chances of redemption or wholeness. In the end, they are all more broken than when the film began.

Rose Plays Julie is available on virtual cinema and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

The Price for Silence – Pain More Than Healing

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The emotional ghosts of the past are the driving force of the melodramatic The Price for Silence. Our first images of protagonist Kira Flynn (Lynn Mancinelli) make it clear that she is suffering PTSD centered in the emotional wounds of rape. It is not just her recurring dreams about the rape, but also her behavior, which includes detachment from nearly everyone, even while being very sexually active.

When she returns home for her father’s funeral, the dynamics between her and her mother (Kristin Carey) show years of animosity. Kira and her brother Lucas (Emrhys Cooper) seem to have a good relationship, but she continues to act out her pains in many inappropriate and self-destructive ways. When, at her mother’s request, her father’s friend, Richard Davenport (Richard Thomas), is asked to say a few words at the wake, Kira obviously is upset by his presence.

As the film plays out, the Flynn family must struggle with all the emotions that have grown out of long held secrets. Those emotions overwhelm the grief that the family is going through and is expressed in a variety of scenes built around passive-aggressive as well as openly aggressive actions. This is a family that has been unhappy for many years. It is not clear that they will ever be able to heal the rifts between them.

By the end of the film I felt like I’d watched a two-hour soap opera. It was a story based in bad behavior among one-dimensional characters who were never really fleshed out. By the time the story gets to its denouement, it has nowhere to go but to violence that feels too much like revenge to be justified. That motif is heightened by the final scene that makes reference to a very minor plot point that has not been resolved, but we see the possibility of yet another damaging interaction.

The theme of the film about the festering emotional wounds that people carry has potential for exploration, but The Price for Peace doesn’t deal so much with the possibility of healing as it does with the suffering itself.

Beauty and the Dogs – Persisting in a #MeToo World

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“And yet she persisted” is a political statement in the US. It speaks to women seeking a voice to speak to power. But a woman’s persistence takes on a much deeper importance in the Tunisian film Beauty and the Dogs.

University student Miriam (Miriam Al Ferjani) goes to a party where she meets Youssef (Ghanem Zrelli). They go off for a walk. Next, we see her running, with him behind her. In time we see he is trying to comfort her and help her. While they were walking, policemen drove up, took Miriam and raped her.  Moving between clinic, hospital, and police stations, Miriam and Youssef try to document what happened to file a complaint. The night turns into an ever-greater nightmare as Miriam must face bureaucratic hurdles and hostility from those who we think should be her protectors.

The first third of the movie reminded me a bit of the Romanian film The Death of Mr. Lasarescu.  Like the character in that film, Mariam wants help, but faces proper procedures that override simple compassion. First, she is told she can’t be treated because she has no identification (her purse was taken by the rapists), then that there is no one who can examine her, then when the proper doctor is found, she’s told she must first go to the police to report the rape (which, of course, she is afraid to do.)

Her encounters with the police take this into even darker territory. There she is met with disbelief, indifference, hostility, and eventually physical and emotional threats. The first reaction of the police to an accusation against other officers is to circle the wagons. But when the police involved in the rape find her at the station, it becomes even more dangerous for both Miriam and Youssef. The police do everything they can to prevent her from moving forward with this complaint. As the night wears on, Miriam faces exhaustion along with the trauma of rape. Yet, she is not willing to let the police put this aside. She is determined to demand justice for what she has been through.

This story, based on actual events, but with significant artistic license, is a reminder that victims of rape often face all the trials that Miriam faces here. We also know that this is a story that is not limited to far away places. We live in a #MeToo world. For many women justice has been delayed or denied for terrible things they have had to face. It is only now that women are banding together to persist, as Miriam does here, to demand that their voices be heard, their pain acknowledged, and justice be done.

Photos courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories

3.20 Listening to 13 REASONS WHY…

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In a very special episode of the show, Steve sits down with teens Savannah Roach, Daniel Collins, Brea Bowden and Mitch Macgowan to talk about Netflix’s controversial series, 13 REASONS WHY.  In an eye-opening conversation, they talk about their views on the show’s backlash, teen culture, parents, and ‘helping their Hannah’.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.20 13 Reasons Why

Thanks so much to Mitch, Brea, Savannah and Daniel for joining the conversation this week!

Sunday at NBFF

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You’ll note I never give you a preview of what I’ll see the next day when I make my report each day. That is because one never knows what will be sold out leading me to figure out a plan B (or plans B throughout the day). But then that is part of the charm of film festivals—not knowing where the plot will take you, like in a good movie.

Yesterday started with the documentary The Resilient Heart, which follows the work of cardiologist Dr. Valentan Fuster, who seeks to prevent heart disease through public health advocacy around the world. He has projects in Columbia, Spain, Grenada, Kenya, and Harlem which seek to teach children and communities about healthy lifestyles. His is an ambitious task. The film, however, really doesn’t serve to educate about heart disease itself or about the lifestyle changes that people can and should make.

Another doc from yesterday was City of Joy. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been a place of war and violence for two decades—much of it led by militias funded by multi-national corporations that seek to control the mining of materials used in our smartphones and computers. Some of the most affected victims of all this violence are women, because rape and sexual violence is used as a weapon of the war. In Bukavu, a city now filled with refugees, is a compound known as the City of Joy where women are given refuge and training to return to the world. The program was started by Dr. Denis Mukwege, who has served these violated and often mutilated women; woman’s rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver, and playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. The film includes accounts of horrendous rapes and violence. It also shows the growth that can take place as these women heal and find hope and a voice.

The narrative film I saw is Heaven’s Floor. Based on a true story, it recounts the story of Julia, a photographer in L.A., who goes on a trek across Baffin Island in the Canadian arctic for which she is totally unprepared. When she finds herself alone on the ice, she is rescued by a young Inuit girl, Malaya. Malaya is orphaned and being raised by her grandmother. She seeks a mother. Julia is convinced to bring her to L.A., but her husband wants nothing to do with it. I found the film a bit on the passive side. Julia, especially, seem to let things happen rather that being actively involved. The conflicts that arise never quite give rise to the kinds of moral issues that really should be addressed.

Elle – Obsessions and Revenge

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“It’s twisted.”

That brief line of dialogue defines Paul Verhoeven’s Elle in more ways than one. The plot certainly has very interesting turns along the way, but the convolutions of the personalities are what really make this entertaining and interesting. This is an intense psychological thriller, with the accent on psychological.

Michèle (Isabelle Huppert) is a strong, domineering woman. She runs a video game company in a no-nonsense style. She brings that into her personal life as well. The first hint we have of her past is when she is in a café and another customer walks by and dumps food in her lap muttering about “you and your father.” Michèle’s mother is keeping a much younger man—something Michèle finds somewhat pathetic. We learn her father is in prison with a parole hearing approaching. But things really heat up when Michèle is attacked and raped in her home. She seems to go on like nothing happened, but she fantasizes about killing the attacker. When she learns who did it a tense and very perverse game begins to unfold.

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But this is more than just a revenge film. In fact, we may not even see it as such because we’re never quite sure if that is really what is driving Michèle. Perhaps for all the terror of the attack, she may find it perversely stimulating. Perhaps it provides a balance for the sense of control she manifests in the other aspects of her life. Perhaps, as we learn more about her past, we might wonder if she is emotionally disturbed. Likewise her attacker is also something of an enigma. Between the two of them the tension grows both sexually and emotionally to levels we know can only lead to disaster.

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The film is essentially about obsessions. Certainly sexual and violent fantasies often play out together (compare the video game Michèle’s company is working on). Such obsessions are central to the developments between Michèle and her attacker. For Michèle’s mother it is an obsession with youth. Michèle’s history tells of strange issues her father dealt with that had lasting effects on her and of people’s perception of her. Obsessions such as these take control of lives. So all the emotional protection that Michèle has built around herself comes falling down when the attack brings chaos into her life. That struggle between chaos and control creates a dangerous atmosphere that threatens to undo her and twist her life even more than it has been.

Yes, It is all very twisted (especially all the characters). Delightfully so.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

The Innocents – Faith and Doubt in War’s Aftermath

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“Faith is twenty-four hours of doubt and one minute of hope.”

The Innocents is one of my favorites from the Newport Beach Film Festival. Set in late 1945 Poland, Mathilde (Lou de Laage), a young French woman doctor, is summoned to a Benedictine convent to aid in the birth of a child. She discovers that there are several pregnant nuns there, the results of rape by first German and later Soviet soldiers. The Abbess (Agata Kulesza) is adamant that this not be reported—it would mean shame and the closing of the convent—but she agrees to allow Mathilde to return and care for the nuns.

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Films in recent years have often treated nuns as something of a dark force within the church. The Innocents treats them with respect, even in times when they may do things that we would deem as inappropriate or even sinful. The film gives us a chance to consider what life within a cloister is like. It shows us the daily rhythms built around prayer. We get insight into what it means to take a vow of chastity and maintain that vow even in extreme circumstances. For example, some of the pregnant nuns do not want Mathilda to touch them even to examine them or deliver the baby because it may go counter to their vows. Even the greatest sin that we observe, we are not asked to judge harshly because we know that there is a reason (although we may question that reason) for such action, and also because of the guilt that weighs so heavily on the one who does it.

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The setting for the film in the aftermath of World War II, shows us a world that is still very broken and in need of healing. There are orphans running uncared for in the streets—even playing atop a coffin sitting in the road. The convent was not spared the horrors of war. Even as the story plays out, the presence of Soviet troops continues to be a threat to the convent—and to Mathilde. The war, although technically over, continues to play out in the lives both inside and outside the walls of the convent.

Mathilde is very much an outsider in both worlds. Within her Red Cross mission, because she is a woman, she doesn’t have the same prestige as a male doctor would have. She is relegated to being an assistant. Within the cloister, where she doesn’t speak the language or understand the religious life, she is very off-balance, but soon learns to adapt.

Much of the film involves a contrast between the sisters and Mathilde, an unbeliever. Mathilde has many conversations with Sister Maria (Agata Buzek) who serves as her translator with the nuns. Mathilde discovers that these nuns, some old, some young, all have a devotion to God, even as they struggle with doubts, especially in the face of the evil that has been visited upon them. Some have lost faith, others hold to it strongly. Mathilde seems fascinated by the faith they hold which is so different from her own approach to the world. Yet she also sees that they may well be happier with their lives than she is with hers.

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The film touches on the question of how God can allow such evil to exist, but without dwelling on it or trying to answer such and unanswerable question. Rather it focuses on how one moves on in the aftermath of such devastation—whether personal or societal. Mathilde struggles within her non-religious worldview just as the nuns struggle with their faith. Yet both must strive to find ways to move forward and to heal the deep wounds within themselves and the world.

Photos courtesy of Music Box Films.