Sep

“Higher Ground,” from Vera Farmiga, shows us a different, personal struggle toward Christ

Each of us searches for personal meaning in life, a purpose. Some use a holy book in that search. “Higher Ground” tells a story of a woman, Corinne’s, walk with her faith, from elementary age into middle age. Hers is a stuck in coming-of-faith story. When you finally feel a firm grip on how life works, your place in the world and how you’ll work that, that’s one definition of coming-of-age. Coming-of-faith is when you feel that with your faith. To be stuck in coming-of-faith is when you’ve not yet found a firm ground or steady conviction when it comes to your faith or god.

A young, critically thoughtful Corinne (Courtesy: Sony Classics)

This interesting, profound drama, adapted from the memoir, “This Dark World,” by Carolyn S. Briggs, opens at the Edina Cinema on September 9th.

“Higher Ground” is a feature-length film, directed by and starring Vera Farmiga, about how a girl, raised in a verbally abusive household, sticks with a choice after having committed herself to a conviction, Christ, without being convicted. She’s hungry for a church to guide her; maybe jumping the gun will be the catalyst?

Corinne wants to write fiction and live immersed in a world of art and critical thought. A man and a moment of sexual hunger overtake that: she clicks with Ethan (Joshua Leonard), a like-minded, sensitive musician, concedes her virginity, clings to and finally marries him, in time for her pregnancy to show. He’s provincial, with a level of curiosity that leaves him content with family and without questions that challenge or test him.

Another sign and symbol of their disconnection: shortly after marrying, they commiserate about opportunities lost in having a child: he wants to perform with a band. She, a resolute, practical dreamer admits that she’d love to write novels, but hasn’t the time. And kisses her baby with adoration.

Ethan flails in one last gesture of rebellion. He takes his band, and Corinne and their daughter on a music gig – ill-fated. His band mates are sophomoric, and want neither Corinne nor a baby sharing the band bus. Straining to be a diplomat, and good sport, she’s at her wit’s end. Their daughter needs a play or nap space in this Animal House setting. Ethan screams for her to use a cooler! Soon after stowing the baby, Ethan is distracted and crashes their bus. They all bolt from the bus, Ethan dragging Corinne along with him. She alone remembers that their daughter’s in the cooler – on the bus! Once safe, Ethan declares “God saved her.” A hasty conclusion?

A happy young marriage? (Courtesy: Sony Classics)

Corinne poses questions, which no one around her is ready for, or leave them comfortable. As her children grow, Corinne becomes increasingly chafed by her husband, Ethan, and the church’s disinterest in her questions and spurning of her obstinacy. Neither of them considers pursuing an examined life, as Aristotle extolled, and which she wants. This clashes with who she wants to be, but at the same time, she tries to focus on what God wants from her. She still wonders: how to submit to God when vital, incisive questions nag her?

“Higher Ground” is a quiet, patient story about a girl-come-young-woman’s spiritual search and yearning. It resembles a chronic, persistent chafe similar to many of those in Martin Scorsese’s stories. “The Last Temptation of Christ” is the obvious one. There Jesus is offered the option to simply live a human, mortal life, with a family, instead of living with the sacrifice and selfless service. Corrine has already sacrificed her idea of a happy life in order to appease her church. And she’s losing herself.

At the end of a scene Ethan sees, written on the wall, how far she has drifted from him, and how impotent he is in the face of that. He finally sees a chasm between them. He just doesn’t get her. While talking about their children, and a petty complaint about her, she runs to their station wagon and away from him.

A man, different from Ethan, makes her glow? (Courtesy: Sony Classics)

She’s fed up with him, or how far he has drifted from her. She locks the driver’s side door. He takes the seat behind her, and tries to convince her to stay docile, to be Godly, but doesn’t know how to fight that without hitting her – he seizes her throat from behind, and squeezes, more to vent than to hurt her. But that’s it!

She needs to try life independent of Ethan, and maybe find God again that way.

Later, after leaving Ethan, she has just testified to her church about not yet having found home within God, after more than 20 years. The final shot is potent and subtle: Corrine looks back at the congregation with hope and uncertainty.

Religious movies can be difficult when they paint outside of the lines, whether those are bound by belief, outright doubt or vice. The zealous Christian probably wants a movie that’ll affirm their convictions and submission to God’s will. Those on the other, secular, side want something that’ll confirm theirs; they’re tired of hearing dramatic, dogma of their imminent damnation.

“Higher Ground” is a good film. If you demand a fast-paced, metropolitan take on religious life, this might refresh you. If you sympathize or are comfortable with tough questions left dangling for Corrine or with the way she pursues her faith, then this’ll suit you. If not, still try it. Thoughtful, even-handed stories about religious or spiritual life are rare.

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"Higher Ground"/"This Dark World"/film criticism/independent film/movie critic reviews/movie criticism/strong perseverant female/Vera Farmiga

Aug

“Life Above All” is a simple, but potent story about coming-of-age in the face of a taboo plague

In South Africa we have the story of a girl, Chanda (Khomotso Mankaya), who has to confront stigmas that hurt her small one-parent family, which is led by her mother, Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane). It’s “Life, Above All,” by Oliver Schmitz.

We start when Chanda runs an errand to take care of her youngest sister, Sarah’s, funeral. She died from a plague that no one discusses. Above all, in dealing with life, theirs is a story about survival: how they pay their bills, deal with shameful rumors and the sneers from their neighbors are open questions.

Mom and daughter keep hope tight between them (courtesy Sony Classics)

This simple story, about a complicated fight to survive disease and ignorance, both willful and desperate, will show at the Lagoon Cinema starting on August 5th. This story is interesting, beginning too slowly, and getting and giving us its bearings about half-way through.

Chanda, headstrong and critically thoughtful, lives in a provincial, barely educated culture that’s more invested in religion and superstition than in education. She succeeded in school until her family’s burdens, especially Sarah’s death, began to weigh on her. She stands-up for her mom’s health, and stands up to the rumors, deadbeat dad and her traditional family’s scorn, and superstitious neighbors who disdain her.

The plague finally takes the steam out of Chanda’s mom, who is moved away, out of view of gossip mongers. After what seems like weeks without parents, Chanda tracks down her mom, having to ignore some neighbors’ misdirection on the way. Chanda’s smart enough to understand that some questions and topics are beyond herself; she needs her mom.

It's hard for an 11 year-old to lead a family (courtesy Sony Classics)

This simple, but gripping coming-of-age story is worth watching.

As with Ree Dolly, from 2010′s splendid “Winter’s Bone,” Chanda must grow-up too early and too quickly, around people for whom education is simply an extra. For her it promises an array of freedoms. She faces a short, but hard journey as she tracks down her mom and needs to suck comfort from that.

Ms. Mankaya’s performance as Chanda is potent; her talent is either natural or her craft so formidable that her nuances and touches make Chanda live, be real. Just as with Jennifer Lawrence’s extraordinary, under-appreciated performance in “Winter’s Bone,” Mankaya her character a similar subtlety.

Broader takeaways: “Life, Above All” is a decent film about a simple family, who must deal with a merciless, taboo disease and neighbors who won’t picture themselves beyond superstitions. These people’s lives are basic. They’re prepared for no questions more ambitious than “how do I feed myself and children?”

One reason to watch Chanda’s and her family story: she is prepared for those ambitions. That’s a different kind of hunger.

May

“Incendies” is story of family history, forgiveness and one mom’s daunting, final request

With their enigmatic mom, Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal), dead, her astonishing last will & testament sends her fraternal twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon Marwan (Maxim Guadette), who are Canadian, on an odyssey in the Middle East.

This is just the edge of the flame that is “Incendies,” from director Denis Villeneuve. Upon her death, Nawal’s will sends them to pursue another brother and a father – utter mysteries to them both.

Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Guadette consider mom's will in "Incendies" (courtesy Sony Classics)

“Incendies,” which is fire or flames in French, is a daring tale of family history & forgiveness that describes what ruins Nawal has left behind for Jeanne and Simon to walk through. It tells one mom’s life story while hinting at how her daughter might reconsider hers. This, while the pessmistic son, who feels none of the guilt, which he’s sure Jeanne does, just ignores Nawal’s final request.

Minneapolis’ Uptown Theatre shows this for a week starting on May 13th.

The twins’ journey will upturn their lives and themselves. It might or might not reveal truths, which’ll hurt them, and change how they know themselves and their mom.

The film introduces Nawal as a young lover, pregnant and unmarried. In these circumstances, she shames her family and is shunned, and then is sent to a madrassa to be educated. After she goes through to college, and writes for the school newspaper, her political zeal leads her to an agonizing descent: she commits an act of political violence, and lands in prison.

The dusky light within Nawal becomes dark when she’s sent to jail for several years, languishing. Her agonies are so intense and profound that she hasn’t dared to confide to anyone. Upon her death, Jeanne and Simon grew up with the image of her a long-time secretary, no more no worse.

Nawal seizes her view to a kill in "Incendies" (courtesy Sony Classics)

Armchair soldiers often talk, with puffed-out chests, about the “glorious” realities & ravages of war. Her story reeks of those imprints – they mark her body, her life and herself. Those harrowing scars might just rival Sophie Zawistowska’s in 1982′s “Sophie’s Choice.” Nawal’s story, which only Jeanne takes on in full, shows the grimiest and grimmest of her life’s shadows. Nawal couldn’t bare herself enough to share these with her children.

One hint: the three dots on one boy’s or man’s heel tell 1,000s of words about Nawal’s twisted, unbelievable life.

One problem: Mesdames Azabal and Désormeaux-Poulin, and the geographic landmarks, resemble each other too much, so it can be hard to tell the difference between the scenes where mom walks her life or her daughter retracing those steps. We might not know what or how to feel.

“Incendies” is a witty and difficult film to watch; while some plot elements might sicken you, this story and its message are valuable.

Apr

“The Princess of Montpensier” reminds us that wars have been fought over women

“The Princess of Montpensier” is a costume romantic drama, from Bertrand Tavernier, and set in the 1500s. The fight over the princess’ favors reminds us of what much of classical poetry and literature has observed: “wars have been fought over the favors of a woman.”

This is an era that damns the men, even the kingdom and dooms her. Marie (Mélanie Thierry) is torn between two men, two cousins’ love (unrelated to her). One she wants, Henri de Guise (Gaspard Ulliel). The other, who she doesn’t, Prince de Montpensier, (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) but her father does – for politics and property. He coerces her into marrying the prince, but the prince is too young and too immature to be a good match for his newly arranged wife.

poster (courtesy Flickr/Creative Commons)

This will be showing at Landmark Theatres’ Edina Theater for a week from Aprill 22nd.

This princess’ life and the story become more fraught when we see that all the men who spend a lot of time around the princess are enchanted by her, succombing to her assets. The prince’s mentor and tutor, the Comte de Chabannes (Lambert Wilson) a gentleman, warrior and scholar – a rarity. And the prince’s commander, Duc d’Anjou (Raphael Personnaz), also vies for Marie. While the Comte is deliberate about this, showing his maturity, the Duc is younger, impulsive and urgent (or just lusty) about it.

This is one of those “if only” stories, where you notice that, if not for one road taken, there’d be none of this trouble – but also this intricate story, this romantic and political tumult and suspense wouldn’t interest us.

An exchange tells a lot about the princess’ and the prince’s bond: on their way into his castle…

He asks “When will you love me?”

She says, “When you order me to?”

–If only she didn’t cave in to her dad.

–If only women hadn’t been considered chattel and beasts of burden then. And head-strong women were such oddities as to be thought mad.

The most interesting subplot belongs to the best-drawn supporting character, the Comte de Chabannes; he’s a warrior turned pacifist. He laid down his long sword after having killed a very vulnerable woman by accident, but in the heat of a fight.

The romantic and political intrigues are complex to a Shakespearian level. More than a few shades of truths and lies push Marie, her husband, her tutor and the Comte away from one another – but mostly her.

The beautiful colors used in the costumes and photography overall draw our attention, but the plot, the performances and the plotting over love and lust command that attention. Those scenic colors are incidental to the great characters and the ways in which their stories clash with one anothers’.

See this film!

The big problem: the more than two hour sitting might make you antsy, even though the story’s great. Also, if you want sword fights, serious ones from this, you might find the few in this to be pale and shallow.

Nov

Anurag Kashyap’s odyssey “That Girl in Yellow Boots” stirs with potency

Minnesota Film Arts’ In Search of Asia festival opened on Wednesday November 3rd with “That Girl in Yellow Boots,” a drama by Anurag Kashyap. At that hour, this was the film’s one showing.

Twenty-year old Ruth [Kalki Koechlin] is a mixed Indian-British girl amid a minor odyssey toward…whom else…her long since light-footed father, for which she finds perverse closure (naw, it ain’t that!) in the end. Ms. Keochlin also co-wrote this story. On a student VISA, she makes her way as a masseuse, and actually does a few legit jobs sans “happy ending” – or handshake as she calls it.

It asks questions of love, which are as interesting as they are awkward, and taboo ones about sexual boundaries.

When she isn’t working as a soft-core hooker, she spars with and then spurns an Indian hustler boyfriend, who seems to only want same as her clients, but authentic intimacy. Essentially she’s an illegal, white British sex worker, whose odyssey – outside from an exploitive and world-widening sojourn in Mumbai – is to pursue the Indian father, whose own figure and face is a mystery to her – and who abandoned family after older sister’s mysterious death. That want for a dad wreaks a cornerstone of Ruth’s morose, exotic reality and lifestyle.

From Indian cinema we expect three-hour plus fantastical musicals where the color palette is often as boisterous as the music. “That Girl in Yellow Boots” is a radical detour from that set of expectations. While Ruth’s story is about love, it’s more about how she protects herself, cordoning herself from intimacy and keeps her control within her own clutches.

Late in her story, after her boyfriend writhes through his self-installed detox, he asks why she does massage; she blurts confiding “because I need somebody..!” She does splendid and remarkable if also typical work of avoiding opportunities for that intimacy (or is it a reckoning) for which she’s hungry.

Her dad, Arjun Patel (which may or may not even be his name), for whose attention she yearns, married Ruth’s mother for perverse reasons different from love: those we know are awkward, those we learn of make our skin crawl, our jaws gape. Her dad is the key to twisting the scimitar, which his abandonment had already shoved into her gut, into a hemorrhaging emotional gouge.

Ruth is in a toxic emotional situation, but she’s no Dorothy visiting Oz; she’s an impressionable youth, but also deftly politic and cunning: She’s solidifying her Hindi in order that no one exploit her. She also knows how and when to offer bribes so that she can work via her student VISA so she can work and avoid jail. Snarky people ward men off from women who have “daddy issues” because enormous messes lay in those women’s wakes. Chris Rock said that a father’s main job: “keep my daughter off the pole.” Ruth’s mindfuck is at least as bad as that reality.

It’s difficult to name comparisons to this story. For the scope of the taboos, which “That Girl in Yellow Boots” picks at hint at “Priest”, from 1994, the self-righteous polemic against Catholicism’s suite of shortcomings, for the rough, incendiary potency. When it comes to director Kashyap’s twist in the final act, consider the ending to Adrian Lyne’s “Jacob’s Ladder,” from 1990, about “a traumatized Vietnam war veteran finds out that his post-war life isn’t what he believes it to be…” per imdb; that messed with your mind and messed you up! That last jerk or twist of emotional perversion in the end here…is at least as profound as what we get from Jacob’s bodybag being zipped up.

Imdb and wikipedia provide some peculiarities and head-shaking confusions in regards to this drama: each describes Ruth’s story as a thriller. I disagree: this is a drama that has brief segment of suspense, in the last act. This falls well short of flirting with an Alfred Hitchcock sensibility.

If we were to rate this story: 4 – 4.5 out of 5.

Aug

A splendid, vital “Wo Ai Ni, Mommy” (Chinese for “I love you, mommy”) from PBS

On August 31, PBS’ POV series presents Wo Ai Ni, Mommy (Chinese for “I love you, Mommy”). It’s a compelling, candid, and very satisfying story of transracial adoption, made by Stephanie Wang-Breal. A Jewish family, Donna and Jeff Sadowsky, in Long Island, New York, have already adopted a Chinese girl, Darah, from Guangzhou, China. They want to do it again, so their littlest will have a playmate. This time, an 8 year-old, Fang Sui Yong.

Donna and Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky embracing

The way Ms. Sadowsky describes her children, it sounds like they are all adopted, but since their non-Chinese children don’t stand out in a family photo, it makes you scratch your head.

According to the film, China opened itself to foreign adoptions in 1992; It’s been 18 years. And Wo Ai Ni, Mommy looks at the first 18 months of one adoption. Those months span from Sui Yong’s departure from China through her culture shock and conformity to America. We count down the 10 days in China to meet Fang Sui Yong and bring her to her new home, and then the days in America, which become weeks, and months. 18 months. This story is complex and intimate. It comes down to questions of “what is identity?,” “what makes a family?,” and many other often taboo ones about assimilation and “race.”

From the start, Faith slams into her first emotional cement wall: she’s really leaving, saying goodbye to her known world, to everything, and everyone she has know. She has a new name. She shows raw fear, discomfort, and bewilderment. There’s coaxing and gentle coercion that makes this ordeal, which everyone else is trying to celebrate, seem like a gentle kind of kidnapping. It’s an intense, lengthy, and wrought-up scene.

Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky holds the stars and stripes

Donna says that Faith’s full name will be Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky. She thinks it’s right, respecting her Chineseness – but that’s soon forgotten or just doesn’t come up. Maybe we don’t hear her full name because most scenes take place at home, and there isn’t a dramatic enough scene for either Donna or Jeff to blurt, “Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky!”

In the final act of her story, on video, Faith tells her dad that she feels more American than Chinese. After having striven to learn English and conform to America, her Chinese has faded. She no longer feels comfortable with it, especially among people who still use it. We sense that she has turned a page; she’s wary of her next American chapter. It’s implicit, but clear.

In-turn, her sense of twoness, her dual Chineseness and Americanness, has also changed. To some people, this often connotes a destructive portion of American culture. It often also helps someone who is, and still isn’t yet, accepted to feel connected to a mental and cultural anchor. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’ “The Souls of Black Folks,” addressed this, a century ago:

“One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

When you replace Negro with Chinese, within the concept of social duality, the experiences are companions. In Wo Ai Ni, Mommy Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky’s “dogged strength” has changed in important ways.

Controversies, rhetorical and emotional, about transracial adoption abound. Faith will live, be loved, nurtured, and probably succeed in life. That’s twice as much as many children get.

Wo Ai Ni, Mommy is one excellent telling of a transracial adoptee’s special experience.

If we were to rate this, 4 1/2 out of 5.

Jun

“Winter’s Bone” A brave detective story with a tough, teen girl lead

Story:

“Winter’s Bone” is the refreshing story of a tough 17-year-old broad in the Ozarks, Ree Dolly, played by Jennifer Lawrence. I could describe her in more polite or delicate language, but I doubt that she would. Her story amounts to an odyssey as she locks horns with her rural, often criminal neighbors and family. Her dad, Jessup, put their house up as collateral for his bond when he was put in jail on drug charges for making meth. With his court date imminent and himself missing, Ree, hearty and hardened beyond her years, is saddled with fixing this.


Ree runs

Her mom can’t; she’s ill, seems catatonic. Her brother and sister are too young. In pleading for her neighbors’ cooperation, even empathy, she says, “they’re too young to even feed themselves yet.” You might call this film is a petty detective story is worth your time is because of Ree’s fight against the dire consequences for the family. This young broad’s story exemplifies a relentless love and commitment to her family, her siblings.

“Winter’s Bone” had its premiere, at least its Minnesotan one, on June 2nd at the Walker Art Center, where director Debra Granik introduced it and answered questions afterward.

Ree has to track down and deliver her father, even if it’s just evidence of his death, in order to keep her home. She doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but those are the least of her concerns. She must feel like Harry Truman, a 20-century Missourian. After President Roosevelt died he said, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.” So, she’s willing to be denied, lied to, yelled at, bullied, and gang-beaten. She won’t take “no.” As long as her brother, sister, and mother are at-risk.

Location and culture as character:

Neither Ree, nor her family of sometime foes, are the only memorable characters. South Missouri and its poor, and often criminal subculture, are characters as much as “Winter’s Bone’s” characters are. The traditions dictate how people live their lives and treat one another.

In the introductory scenes, Granik, uses the sparse, poor kitchen where Ree prepares the breakfast to illustrate their poverty. The local morning radio show plays in the background. It plainly announces the community’s goings-on. This illustrates the work-a-day attitude of the area where the criminals and innocents alike make their ways. Soon enough we see the trailers and the shanty-like structures that the residents claim.

Ree comforts her brother while she has so little to spare

This ambiance reminds me of rural Nebraska, where a 1990s independent film,”Boys Don’t Cry,” takes place. So few TV or film stories, or at least good ones, about poor, rural peoples’ lives have been done; it’s very hard to spotlight useful comparisons. That’s why this film is refreshing and thankfully it’s potent story and well-developed characters make it stand out.

During the Walker Art Center’s Q&A, Ms. Granik said that “there are enough ‘ands’” that none of the details or characters should come off as stereotypes or digs at Hillbilly’s. By “ands” she describes social and moral contradictions; those people who are both tender and brutal, or aloof or cooperative, depending on the circumstance, or just how far down the wrong road their passions or uninterest have careened.

“Winter’s Bone” is memorable, maybe indelible. But there’s a caveat: The most memorable scenes are also the hardest to take. This is a world where the women’s strength must never rival a man’s. Her neighbors and family would just as soon punish her, in a way straight out of a Yakuza movie, if she won’t take their gruff, plain-spoken, yet subtle hints to back off. This is a world where contemporary gender equality is a foreign concept.

Ms. Granik describes the story and source of “Winter’s Bone” on the Sundance Film Festival’s “Meet the Artist”

Early on, when she presses her uncle, Teardrop, to stop being cryptic, but be straight with her, he grabs her up by her throat, as he might to discipline a hound, to deliver his insistent point. Basically: “Shut up and suck it up!” He sets the community’s tone and attitude toward her straights. Finally after an elder’s convinced that she’s pushed too far, his wife – who had already abundantly established that neither of them is to be troubled – leads a small gang of women to beat Teardrop’s point home to her – barbarically. It’s bloody.

And Ree pushes on. Warily.

The film’s only flaw is a dream montage that stands out so much from the whole story’s style that it distracts you. It’s very brief. But I don’t know why it was there either.

It comes out in wide release on June 11 and an even wider on June 26, depending on where you are.

Why bother?

We have a strong, perseverant female lead character
It’s a refreshing, but simple, even innovative, detective story
The narrative and characters are thoroughly developed, as adapted from the novel
We are introduced to, or reminded of, a very different way of life, in South Missouri

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Will Wright. Digital Journalist. Reporter.

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