Reviews

I first saw Spirited Away somewhat 'in media res'; it was on HBO, and the first 10 minutes or so had already passed by. I had not seen any Miyazaki films previous to that, and didn't no quite what to expect as I saw a young Japanese girl wandering through a seeming ghost town. Now, most of the time I start viewing a film like this - missing, in this case, the initial exposition of Chihiro's journey with her parents from Japan to the spirit world - it takes a bit of time to reorient myself into the film's world, especially in a fantasy film.

It is to Spirited Away's credit that there was, in fact, no alienating feel - the environment, while somewhat abstract (little of the spirit world as a whole, or spirit world/real world relation is ever explained), is somehow familiar. Chihiro's journey is not complicated, nor overly sentimental, but endearingly earnest. Like Dorothy, she's just trying to get home, save her parents. The stakes are surprisingly small, yet for a girl of Chihiro's innocence, more compelling than contemporary Disney cartoons like Mulan and Hercules. Sure, the nation or universe isn't hanging on Chihiro's utterly personal quest, but to her - and I credit Miyazaki's subtle, uncomplicated animation of her character for this effect - it is everything.

Of course, Miyazaki's visual imagination knows no bounds, and Spirited Away is one of his most effective manifestation of encapsulating wonder. But it is not only the pleasingly sculpted yet somehow threatening spirits, or the way the character float through, not walk on, their world that give Spirited Away its texture; Other films, indeed, have more effectively conveyed a world in pictures, but Spirited Away has a pace that exposes the viewer incrementally to the festival, the baths, the spirits and the enduring myth more memorable than anything Disney has yet produced.

I am 21 years old, yet I felt like I was 6 when watching this film, as if the story was being read to me by my parents before bed. I was carried away by the pace of Chihiro as she travels along, and as she becomes ever more involved with this world - as the concerns of the parallel universe take over from Chihiro's single-minded objective - so did I. Why did this film have such an effect? Many reasons - the animation and the pacing, as I mentioned, as well as the strength of the voice acting (I unapolagetically recommend the dubbed version for an initial viewing; it is very compelling, and subtitles will distract you from the soft beauty of Miyazaki's vision), well-conceived non-human characters (Many of whom say nothing or almost nothing, but express themselves through incredibly well-directed mime) and a mythic realm worthy of novels.

Of course, the magic is probably only maintained because this is not a novel-like TV series, where every last corner of a universe is explored. Instead, Miyazaki gives us a bit of the world, just whetting our appetites enough without bombarding us with too much nonsense. But the effect isn't an oft-cited "leaves you begging for more", but a sense of fullness, completeness, in that this story neatly brings itself from beginning to middle to end, into then back out of again a world that is more peaceful, adventurous, entrancing, and lovely than the one in which we live - but, of course, ultimately where we do not belong.

El Bruto is, quite simply, a melodrama in the literal sense; romantic music cues the romantic scenes, action music cues the violent scenes, etc. Moreover, the characters are introduced as stock archetypes and are mostly undeveloped; Don Andres the cruel capitalist, Meche the unassuming maid, Paloma the adulterous wife (Katy Juardo, in a performance that, looking back, boarders on misogynist in its hypocritical implications of female sexual aggression), and of course, Pedro, the beast turned from his wicked ways because of a good (looking?) woman.

The film follows an uninspired tale of eviction of tenants by Don Andres, and El Brudo - Pedro - is hired to rough em up, and stop those "revolutionaries" from stirring up trouble. Perhaps Bunuel was making a commentary about Franco's Spain with such references, but any analogy is lost in the mire of an all-too-predictable plot. The details are not really worth mentioning, on account of their banality.

What, then, saves this film from registering a 3 or worse on my scale? Well, while the film seems at first aggravatingly conventional, there are enough subversive digressions from the genre (beast-mollified-by-virtuous-beauty) that makes you rethink the point of the entire film. First of all, there's the matter of perspective - we are all used to seeing Film Noir heavies take the protagonist/troublemaker aside with a little "message" from the boss. This time, though, we are asked to sympathize with the heavy's side. Sure, it's been done elsewhere (The Godfather trilogy comes to mind), but not with, as in Armendariz's performance as Pedro, intensity reminiscent of Marlon Brando as Tennessee Williams' Stanley Kowalski.

Otherwise, a lingering question of motive remains. It is not a simple, beast-man changes his ways and saves the day story, because Pedro's motivation for change seems to be attraction to Meche, not benevolence towards the lowly tenants. Does that make him a selfish, animal man? Or does it actually reveal his humanity, above that of the loveless Don Andres and Paloma? In the end, Pedro doesn't change his nature, but a certain part of his nature - that of attraction - gets the better of him.

The final image of the film is also deliciously enigmatic: Paloma gazing - fearfully? anxiously? - at a dark hen that defies interpretation. Perhaps I missed a plot detail about that hen - was it the same one that was a gift from Pedro to Meche? then perhaps she is jealous - but more likely, it is a statement of rebellion against Paloma's otherwise static character type. She seems to be have been involved with some potent set pieces earlier (the flowers to be cut, representing tenants; the meat to be cut, representing the subtlety of seduction).

We are not meant to leave fully knowing or understanding either Paloma or Pedro (sadly, Meche remains 1-dimensional), and enough scenes are introduced that challenge our preconceptions about type characters that makes the story surprisingly compelling.

The Beautiful Country is a drama ostensibly concerned with consequences of the Vietnam War, but I would argue its content makes that conflict almost incidental. The story is, rather, a more general parable about migration, assimilation, identity and family - an unabashedly humanist film.

We begin with a young Vietnamese man, Binh, whose father was an American G.I. There are a few brief scenes which outline the discrimination he faces, and his abrupt departure from rural Vietnam to seek his mother seems, like much of the film's plot, somewhat contrived. Why now? What specifically drove him? He faced such discrimination all his life.

His journey to Saigon (oddly, not referred to as Ho Chi Minh City in the subtitle) and his mother then grows into a larger quest to find his father in America. It is only at this point that Binh's motivation becomes fleshed out, and the idea of the immigrant identity comes to the foreground.

The main impetus for a harrowing journey halfway across the world is twofold. One, Binh seeks a better life for himself and his young half-brother. Two, he seeks to know his father, perhaps to better understand himself. America is referred to, early on, as "the beautiful country", but that enigmatic phrase will haunt the film's realism.

The plight of illegal immigrants is something we all are aware of - dangerous transportation into the country and degrading treatment inside the country. These sequences, I think, undermine the film's more powerful message, because we might be tempted to see the film as a general rallying cry for immigration reform in general, instead of an exploration of one immigrant's journey.

The film succeeds best when it pauses from the harsh realities to focus on Binh's inward journey. If the world outside him, and its hardships, are overstated, then he is likewise understated in expressing his own troubles.

The journey, and his perseverance, then becomes a metaphor for Binh's exploration of what, exactly, the beautiful country is. At one point, one character even refers to Vietnam as the beautiful country - a seemingly confusing idea, since Binh traveled so far to get away from the country which would not accept him.

What is beautiful to Binh, then, is relative; he seeks acceptance, and comfort. He is, really, looking for a place which would be reasonably called home. Perhaps most immigration is more practical than this, but the idea that there is a place where one belongs is, indeed, compelling, and I think it's what drives most of our lives.

The Beautiful Country, then, speaks to everyone's desire to fit in and shows how identity is formed not by complacency, but by active search.

'War movie' is a Hollywood genre that has been done and redone so many times that clichéd dialogue, rehashed plot and over-the-top action sequences seem unavoidable for any conflict dealing with large-scale combat. Once in a while, however, a war movie comes along that goes against the grain and brings a truly original and compelling story to life on the silver screen. The Civil War-era "Cold Mountain," starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger is such a film.

Then again, calling Cold Mountain" a war movie is not entirely accurate. True enough, the film opens with a (quite literally) quick-and-dirty battle sequence that puts "Glory" director Edward Zwick shame. However, "Cold Mountain" is not so much about the Civil War itself as it is about the period and the people of the times. The story centers around disgruntled Confederate soldier Inman, played by Jude Law, who becomes disgusted with the gruesome war and homesick for the beautiful hamlet of Cold Mountain, North Carolina and the equally beautiful southern belle he left behind, Ada Monroe, played by Nicole Kidman. At first glance, this setup appears formulaic as the romantic interest back home gives the audience enough sympathy to root for the reluctant soldier's tribulations on the battlefield. Indeed, the earlier segments of the film are relatively unimpressive and even somewhat contrived.

"Cold Mountain" soon takes a drastic turn, though, as the intrepid hero Inman turns out to be a deserter (incidentally saving the audience from the potentially confusing scenario of wanting to root for the Confederates) and begins a long odyssey homeward. Meanwhile, back at the farm, Ada's cultured ways prove of little use in the fields; soon she is transformed into something of a wilderbeast. Coming to Ada's rescue is the course, tough-as-nails Ruby Thewes, played by Renée Zellweger, who helps Ada put the farm back together and, perhaps more importantly, cope with the loneliness and isolation the war seems to have brought upon Ada.

Within these two settings, a vivid, compelling and, at times, very disturbing portrait of the war-torn South unfolds. The characters with whom Inman and Ada interact are surprisingly complex, enhanced by wonderful performances of Brendan Gleeson as Ruby's deadbeat father, Ray Winstone as an unrepentant southern "lawman," and Natalie Portman as a deeply troubled and isolated young mother. All have been greatly affected and changed by "the war of Northern aggression," mostly for the worse. The dark, pervading anti-war message, accented by an effective, haunting score and chillingly beautiful shots of Virginia and North Carolina, is communicated to the audience not so much by gruesome battle scenes as by the scarred land and traumatized people for which the war was fought. Though the weapons and tactics of war itself have changed much in the past century, it's hellish effect on the land is timelessly relevant.

Director Anthony Minghella manages to maintain this gloomy mood for most of the film, but the atmosphere is unfortunately denigrated by a rather tepid climax that does little justice to the wonderfully formed characters. The love story between Inman and Ada is awkwardly tacked onto the beginning and end of the film, though the inherently distant, abstracted and even absurd nature of their relationship in a way fits the dismal nature of the rest of the plot.

Make no mistake, "Cold Mountain" has neither the traits of a feel-good romance nor an inspiring war drama. It is a unique vision of an era that is sure not only to entertain but also to truly absorb the audience into the lives of a people torn apart by a war and entirely desperate to be rid of its terrible repercussions altogether.