Viewing Volver

Dara writes:

I finally saw Almodovar's latest film Volver yesterday, and while I liked it and am glad I saw it, I didn't find it one of his best or as good as his three most recent films, such as Talk to Her and All About My Mother. As visually stunning as those films, Volver didn't hit me on a gut level as even Bad Education did. The story, of a group of women whose difficult and tragic lives are intertwined, and who, in the absence of men or presence of bad ones, help one another survive, struck me as a very idealized view of women that felt contrived.

The story begins with an extremely campy view of women cleaning tombstones in a graveyard. Our heroine, Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), worries about her elderly aunt, who has become senile. Raimunda's sister, Sole (Lola Duenas), fears a ghost lives with Tia Paula. When the sisters leave the small Spanish town to return to their homes, Sole in Madrid and Raimunda outside Madrid, the aunt's troubles fade into the background as Raimunda has much larger fish to fry: the death of her husband. Raimunda tackles all the obstacles in her path in charming get-ups of red skirts and cleavage-bearing purple sweaters. Almodovar very lovingly photographs Cruz. We linger on the gold religious medallions hanging between her breasts, on her breasts, her eyeliner, her perfect profile, her tousled hair. I have never seen such a beautiful actress. Sofia Loren times ten. The friend with whom I saw the movie complained that Cruz did not find her acting rhythm until thirty minutes into the film. I was so focused on her gorgeousness I did not even notice.

As usual, Almodovar's visual world stunned me, and I was happy to be a part of it, as no one does color better than he does. But the movie bored me by the end, and several elements did not add up. One of the coterie of women is Raimunda's opposite: shaved head where she has luscious black locks, no makeup where Raimunda's eyes are kohl-rimmed, cardigans versus bustiers. But I could not figure out what this foil was supposed to represent.

I saw Bad Education in the Floridablanca theater in Barcelona before I spoke Spanish. Without subtitles, I could not grasp the whole plot. Still, because Almodovar's language is visceral and visual, I got it. It moved me. Strangely, Volver, though I could comprehend it all, stirred me less.

Movies: Letters from Iwo Jima

Dara writes:

Clint Eastwood's new film "Letters from Iwo Jima" is not a date movie. James proposed it as such. I should qualify by saying he and I are both interested in traveling to Japan, which interest provided extra motivation for shelling out the $11, especially when we primarily Netflix films nowadays.

"Letters" is the flip side of Eastwood's recent film "Flags of Our Fathers." Both movies depict the battle on the island of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. While "Flags" shows the American story behind the iconic image of our men raising the flag on the top of Mount Suribachi, "Letters" shows the hell the Japanese soldiers endured while they fought to their deaths.

The movie reveals what the roughly 20,000 Japanese soldiers do to prepare for the Americans to arrive on Iwo Jima, and then what happens when the Marines land. The island is inhospitable, and the General leading the troops learns quickly that no reinforcements will be sent. His soldiers know the cause is lost but must follow their military tradition of dying honorably, either at the enemy's or their own hands. This result is extremely punishing. Bombing takes up much of the movie. Many soldiers take their own lives, which is devastating. I left the movie down and pained.

Mr. Eastwood's film succeeds on several levels. He develops his characters quite well, so that we feel for them. Ken Watanabe plays General Kuribayashi. He is dignified and innovative, but many soldiers suspect his modern methods. The ancillary characters shine. The scrappy kid who doesn't want to be there, Saigo, is our hero. Shimizu, whom Saigo suspects of being a spy, is in fact, as we learn through flashbacks that round out the lives of several characters, completely honorably. And Nishi, a former Olympian, is tragically handsome. Daring and gorgeous, he is the most vulnerable of the men; he cries when his horse dies and befriends a wounded Marine, with whom he can speak of American film stars.

The deaths of many of these characters moved me to tears. The look of the movie is stupefying. Much of the action takes place in the caves the soldiers dug into Mount Suribachi to avoid attack. As a result the light is dim and gloomy. Mr. Eastwood allows us to feel as never before for the Japanese side; even though I kept saying to myself, "they sided with Hitler!," I could not help but feel for these men. (Of course, a similar movie about the hidden lives of the SS could never be staged, for obvious reasons. I wonder what certain Chinese viewers, against whose ancestors the Japanese committed atrocities, might think of this film.)

Mr. Eastwood's film falters, too. It is too long by a bit. One only needs to see so much bombing to get the point. In many scenes, nothing happens. I suppose the filmmaker captures the amount of waiting that war entails, but must the audience wait, too? Maybe. No war film, I suppose, completely escapes sentimentality. In one scene, when the soldier whom Nishi has befriended dies, Nishi reads a letter clutched in the dead soldier's hand. The soldier's mother has penned the note, and for some reason, when Nishi reads it, all the Japanese men surrounding him stand, as if to attention. The note ends, "Do what is right, because it is right." Nishi then sends his men to battle with those last thoughts as their rallying cry. This feels contrived, but the sentiment strains further when Saigo says to Shimizu (I'm paraphrasing), "I thought all Americans were savages, but that soldier's mother's words, they could have come from my own mother." Oh, really, Mr. Eastwood? Is that similarity between sides what you want us to feel?

I questioned seeing the movie when I left. I felt dogged and drained. I thought about our current world and how Mr. Eastwood might have been making a point about jingoism. General Kuribayashi and his men, almost all 20,000 of them, fight to death even though they know they have lost. Such nationalistic blindness has been ingrained. I hope we do not have such blinders on.

Postscript: "Letters" brings to four the number of movies I have seen in the theater this year. The others being "Borat," "The Devil Wears Prada," and "Sophie Scholl," about a young woman who resisted the Nazis. I am not sure if "Thank You for Smoking" counts, since I walked out of it. I actually didn't think it was so terrible, but James and I saw it squeezed in next to my parents in a tiny theater in Connecticut. We were about to get married and I think more than a satiric film we needed strong cocktails.

Movies: Blood Diamond

Dara writes:

I have not yet seen the new Ed Zwick movie Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but I am always intrigued when reviewers I regularly read espouse opposite reactions to a film. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times hated the film; David Denby of The New Yorker liked it. I was particularly struck that the same aspects of the movie both enraged and thrilled the reviewers. David Denby referred to the film as "enjoyable" and called it Ed Zwick's best. He thought the film well-made and not sensationalized. Manohla Dargis, in contrast, writes:

"If films were judged solely by their good intentions, this one would be best in show. Instead, gilded in money and dripping with sanctimony, confused and mindlessly contradictory, the film is a textbook example of how easily commercialism can trump do-goodism, particularly in Hollywood."

Both writers agree DiCaprio is great. But about his co-star Jennifer Connelly, they diverge sharply. Mr. Denby attests, "Connelly suddenly seems like a movie star, not a warm-eyed soul mate." Ms Dargis avers that Connelly's performance is "woeful."

Hmmm. What accounts for the differences? My guess is that Denby, ever the turgid conservative, overlooks the self-righteousness of the film in favor of its cinematic slickness. Then again, even if the film is commercial, it is still bringing much-needed attention to an important topic. I rarely agree with Denby, but then again, I don't necessarily share Dargis's taste. She recently mooned over David Lynch's "masterpiece" Mulholland Drive. Perhaps if I share her sentiment on that film, I will feel more on her side in the Denby-Dargis match.