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Faraway Eyes (2020)
satire on the rom com universe
I just watched the whole film. It's actually a good film, if you like dark satire. At first glance, it looks like a rom com with, as commenters point out, a stupid, illogical premise, but it is actually a rather clever piss-take on Rom-Coms. It's the (il)logical conclusion to the rom com-universe.
After having just been dumped, The hero dies horribly in a car crash. Then he finds out only paired 'One True Loves' can ascend to the afterlife to spend eternity together (oh joy). So he desperately hits on any female soul he can find like a dude just let out of prison. But most of the unattached souls don't seem to care- they are happy to simply cease to exist, spending their remaining time drinking heavily in bars. Hard liquor is the only thing the souls can consume- a definite clue that the whole thing is satire (soul-spirit). A supporting character tells our hero its all a crock. He spends his remaining time being cynical, reading, drinking and watching the living in their most intimate moments. Then HE finds his 'OneTrue Love', but he has left it too late and ceases to be before he and his OTL can ascend. Dark! Sadly we don't get to meet his OTL who just happened to hanging out in the womens' showers while the support character was there perving. "Not a lesbian though" we are informed.
Meanwhile our hero has fallen in love with a living girl, who can only see him because SHE is destined to die soon. And die horribly. Has he left it too late? Will her stalker kill her in time? We can only hope so.
The Young Savages (1961)
The white middle-class male fights back to prove his moral superiority.
This is quite an entertaining film, and quite slickly done. The opening scene follows three youths that you just know are up to no good. They pull out knives and attack a blind Puerto Rican boy innocently playing a harmonica on his front porch with his sister. A clear case of premeditated murder. The assistant DA is going after the death penalty until he does some digging. It turns out the blind boy is a general in a Puerto Rican gang, and regularly pimps out his 16yo sister for $.
This revelation seems to change the mind of the ADA, apparently the blind boy wasn't so innocent after all. Why was this important? It did not change the fact that the 3 went to his house with the specific intention of killing him. If anything it provides motivation. Somehow the blind boy's involvement in gangs meant his life was less valuable. While he has the boy's sister on the witness stand the ADA asks her how she earns money, reminding her she is under oath. The admits she is a hooker. "A prostitute?" the ADA wants clarification."Yes, a prostitute..." The defense attorney objects, but the ADA says he is leading somewhere. But he doesn't- he just lets the jury know she has been a prostitute since the age of 14. The jury is shown wide-eyed. Somehow this is relevant? He asks her if she was coerced into it by an older man. Apparently not, they needed money when her mother got sick. He asked what her mother thought about her being a prostitute, she said the mother wished she had died. Remember this is a witness for the prosecution. This pure 'slut-shaming' at it's best. Moral condemnation.
He then goes on to show one of the 3 attackers is mentally challenged, another didn't actually stab the boy, and the third tries to dominate out of fear. essentially he does the defense attorneys job for him. The reasoning given in the film is he wanted to expose THE TRUTH. That truth being that what seems a simple case of good vs evil is more complex- this is all well and good, but there is an underlying message in the film.
Initially the three white kids are presented as thoroughly evil bad 'uns. We learn they are complex and disturbed- more deserving of pity than anger. The Puerto Ricans at first seen as innocent victims are finally portrayed as morally corrupt, inferior in every way to the White Man.
The blind boy's mother wants justice for her son in the middle of the film, and the ADA promises her she will get it. After he has scuppered his own case, she asks him where is the punishment promised for those that killed he son. He tells her a lot of people killed her son. He implies it was his own fault, her fault, the gang's fault, his own people's fault. He walks away proudly, a job well done.
The 3 attackers avoid the death penalty- the mentally challenged one gets sent to a mental hospital, the non-stabber gets a year in juvi, (he's a good kid at heart) and the third gets life in priz. The sentence was probably a good one for the three killers. They were sent to kill the boy by the head of their gang, so although premeditated, they were pawns. There was no mention of pursuing the guy that organised the killing- the Thunderbirds gang leader.
The two gangs go back to the status quo, the white middle class ADA, jury, cops and the audience are reassured minorities have no morals and white kids only err through environmental stress.
The Good Lie (2014)
a very moving film with an important message.
This film did not have a theatre release here in my country, it came out on DVD today. I had seen the trailer and was looking forward to it. I had read several comments criticising the film for being about white people heroically and selflessly saving the black people. Even the IMDb web page says "their encounter with an employment agency counsellor forever changes all of their lives." Reese Witherspoon is the star attraction so people will notice the film, but she is not the main character of the story, her's is a supporting role, which she does well. If anything the encounter with the Sudanese refugees changes her character's life forever.
On an emotional level the film is deeply affecting. The employment agency agent or the charity representative would have had more depth and connection if one or the other was played by an American woman of African descent. There is a tribal link between white Americans and Sudanese people but it is so far back as to be far beyond the longest oral tradition. I guess it was contrast rather than convergence the film maker wanted- their choice.
The brutality of the war in Sudan is not graphically portrayed as violence often is in modern films. Graphic violence has a tendency to shut down the viewers empathy- a defensive measure I suppose. Without plastic guts and synthetic gore to be shocked at and to immunise us from the pain of others, the viewer starts to care about the family and their ordeal. I started seriously leaking water at one point, and kept springing leaks at numerous points thereafter. As a male, I do this very very rarely, and watching films, at most brim a bit, I never ever suffer rivulets down cheeks until now. I needed tissues. Tissues!
The fish out of water comedy was gentle and the characters were not made out as ignorant or gullible, but eager and quick to learn. What they have to learn from first world culture is superficial however, just like the culture. More important is what they have to teach us first worlders. But to learn first you have to acknowledge there is something you can learn from uneducated poor people from a third world country. I think the film makers did just that.
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
What it's like to not be a white straight male.
This film is about a young woman who wants to do a film project but can't think of anything worthwhile, until a character in an old film takes her interest. She decides to make the actress, listed in the film's credits as 'the watermelon woman', the subject of her project. In the scenes that follow, she discovers the the actress's life mirrors certain elements of her own. It is a gentle story about love, disillusionment, race and time- how we don't have much of it. The acting is spontaneous and fresh, with well developed characters- no one is presented as perfect, or evil. It is not a template film- no car chases, no rom-com clichés (or clever twists on them). Like all good thoughtful films it makes us look within. For some people this is uncomfortable. I am none of the things the main character is, but for a short while she has communicated a little bit of what it feels like to be her.
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)
Furthering the cause of paternalism one fairytale at a time.
The princess wants adventure, but is very much a pawn in the film. Constantly being rescued from bullies, the rain, the cooking pot, the beanstalk, the giant, and then her controlling father. Every film doesn't have to be feminist, but I mean, is she nothing more than 'the prize'? I know it was just fairytale fun but each little bit helps to further the myth that women need male protection. Especially protection provided by a clod like Jack.
Jack, though very brave was more than a little dim, in this version he went to market to sell a perfectly good horse and a cart for some thatch to mend the leaky roof. Thatch. Jack is a farmer. Sell the horse and cart to buy some thatch? it's like a fisherman selling his fishing boat to buy a sardine. He proved handy with his sword though, and that's all that matters in the end.