It was another good viewing weekend at the Bloggerboy homestead. We watched the following films on Saturday evening and Sunday morning:
Quiet Chaos (2009). When one reads the reviews of Quiet Chaos, one has the impression that the film is about mourning, or the inability to mourn. I think that if this is the perspective you take into the film, you might be disappointed. The film has more to do with standing still (quiet) while the hectic world keeps on moving (chaos).
We first see the main character, Pietro Paladini, played by Nanni Moretti in this film directed by Antonello Grimaldi, as he and his brother save two drowning women at the beach. When he arrives home later in the day, his own wife has died suddenly in front of their house, leaving Paladini and their young daughter to fend for themselves.
Pietro has the luxury of having a position of high responsibility at a time when his company is in the process of merging with another company. He is outside the main decision-making group, and he takes time off to accompany his daughter to school. He promises to wait for her outside the school. He ends up spending every day outside the school until his daughter finally asks him to stop. The grieving is never really shown on film, except for one brief powerful scene when Paladini is alone in his car at night. We catch glimpses of Paladini slipping up or daydreaming. We see Paladini’s repression of and, finally, coming to terms with his grief in small and subtle sequences free of melodrama.
Instead of watching Paladini grieve, we watch what happens when he stops running and sits on a park bench or at the nearby café all day. Paladini is a master of not saying too much. He rivals Chance the Gardener in his ability to draw people’s sympathy without fully revealing what he thinks. He is always being hugged by someone, even his bosses from work. People come to visit him on his park bench. The dialogue, even though we watched a dubbed German version, was really good. Moretti is convincing as an executive type who is a survivor but who maintains a certain honesty and decency about himself. We get to know numerous characters and their quirks during the course of the film. There are no self-indulgent scenes with Moretti hamming it up. The other acting also is quite good, including a cameo appearance by Roman Polanski at the end.
The film shows the intricate web of relationships that come to the foreground when Paladini stops moving, the richness and depth that they provide his life. Paladini appears to have secured a top position in the post-merger firm, but at the end of the film, he also appears to have a problem with the character played by Polanski as the American taking over the firm. At the end of the film Paladini walks away from his former boss, leaving open the possibility that he will leave the firm. Paladini does not care. He has come through his mourning process and knows what his priorities are. Watching the scenes of Paladini with his daughter, I was reminded of the crisp dialogue between adults and children in J.D. Salinger’s works, some of which I reread this week after hearing of his death. Quiet Chaos is a quiet gem of a film. Somehow, the director manages to put the audience in the position of caring about what is going to happen to Paladini while Paladini doesn’t give a damn.
The Visitor (2007). The Visitor is a film directed by Thomas McCarthy about one of the dark sides of the American Dream in a Post 9-11 world. It also is a film about mourning and what happens to people who are not able to mourn properly. You have to look long and hard for a happy end, but it is there for the professor, who manages to regain vitality in his life through his encounter with a group of illegal immigrants. The actor who plays the professor reminds me of someone I studied with, so dry and academinc that you would have a hard time thinking of him as a man with passions. He likes red wine and classical music and that's about it. His life has dried up, presumably since the untimely death of his wife. He has tenure, so he is freeloading on the system, but he is not healing and not living. Absent the events that are the film’s subject, he would spend the rest of his years making his students and colleagues miserable. Aside from one slightly melodramatic scene in the immigration office, when the professor lectures a prison guards in a private detention center, the film is perfectly-tuned and contains a powerful message about the incredible vitality and diversity the immigrants bring to America and about what we as Americans would rob ourselves of if we closed our doors to immigrants. The message is so subtle, so unobtrusive, that we forgive the brief second of the raised finger. For anyone who has admired the Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass in films such as Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride, her role in The Visitor alone is worth the price of admission. Hers is a face that contains all the warmth, sunshine, and sadness of the Middle East. It is too bad that she reached US fame at such a late stage in her career. She is about my age. I look forward to growing old with her.
The Visitor (2007). The Visitor is a film directed by Thomas McCarthy about one of the dark sides of the American Dream in a Post 9-11 world. It also is a film about mourning and what happens to people who are not able to mourn properly. You have to look long and hard for a happy end, but it is there for the professor, who manages to regain vitality in his life through his encounter with a group of illegal immigrants. The actor who plays the professor reminds me of someone I studied with, so dry and academinc that you would have a hard time thinking of him as a man with passions. He likes red wine and classical music and that's about it. His life has dried up, presumably since the untimely death of his wife. He has tenure, so he is freeloading on the system, but he is not healing and not living. Absent the events that are the film’s subject, he would spend the rest of his years making his students and colleagues miserable. Aside from one slightly melodramatic scene in the immigration office, when the professor lectures a prison guards in a private detention center, the film is perfectly-tuned and contains a powerful message about the incredible vitality and diversity the immigrants bring to America and about what we as Americans would rob ourselves of if we closed our doors to immigrants. The message is so subtle, so unobtrusive, that we forgive the brief second of the raised finger. For anyone who has admired the Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass in films such as Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride, her role in The Visitor alone is worth the price of admission. Hers is a face that contains all the warmth, sunshine, and sadness of the Middle East. It is too bad that she reached US fame at such a late stage in her career. She is about my age. I look forward to growing old with her.
Finally, Small Crime (2008) is, as the title indicates, a small film. It is a lighthearted crime story/love story/comedy set in a backwater Greek island that doesn’t get many tourists, just a few backpackers and nude sunbathers. The island doesn't have sand beaches. A young police officer longing for a transfer to Athens suspects that the town drunk has been murdered by the village’s insiders. I recommend the film with no reservations. You could spend a fine Friday evening with friends, some good snacks and drinks, and Small Crime. It is not a long film, so make sure to rent another one just in case. It is heartening to see so many independent directors and producers master the art of story-telling on film. A film does not have to be a masterpiece to deserve critical acclaim if the makers just learn how to control the typical excesses of many independent films. Small Crime avoided all of the typical traps and caused me to chuckle frequently. As an added treat, Vicky Papadopoulou, the female lead shown below, certainly gave the scenery a run for its money, and the scenery is pretty good.
Postscript: This was the first time we were able to put the new DVD player with its HDMI cable to the test with recent films, and it worked out wonderfully. I don't think we're getting full HD on these films, but it is very good digital quality. It still can't beat sitting in a decent theater, but what an improvement over our prior home viewing!
