capital pictures Reviews

Little Children (2006)

Little Children is a significant film

[8/10 · 17 October 2006]

I saw "Little Children" tonight. My wife hated it. I had read that this is a film that makes you think. It did. It made me think about "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" because each one of the characters was trying to create a fantasy world that really didn't work. They didn't want to face reality, but, at the end of the fairly long film, they, fortunately for all at hand, accepted reality for whatever it was worth, and dealt with it. It was also about favoring emotional as opposed to physical relationships. It might have been about too many things, and it might have been too graphically explicit to make the film meaningful to a broad audience. But it is a significant film.

I would criticize the film for dwelling too much on the graphic sex. I had the sense that the director focused on it, and the full body shots, at least from the rear, because he could, and not because it was necessary. My problem with it is that it makes some people feel uncomfortable seeing this, particularly when they don't expect it, so it takes away from the dramatic effect of the film. On the other hand, I do believe that seeing the physical relationships here in full between the two principals does tend to cheapen their relationship somewhat so that you can contrast, or at least think about, the emotional vs. the sexual bonds.

It is difficult for me to recommend this film to anyone because I am afraid that they will hate it. But for the same reason, I would have had difficulty recommending "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf". They are different stories,and this is not so significant as the Albee play and film, but "Little Children" reminds me of it. It has something to do with accepting each other as we are and not how we, in some fantasy, hope the other pereson will be. It goes much further than that, but a film review is not the place to enter such a discussion.

Infamous (2006)

I saw Capote and I saw Infamous. Infamous captured my impression of "In Cold Blood" when I read it many, many years ago.

[10/10 · 8 October 2006]

When I saw "Capote" I was really impressed by the presentation of the story and the quality of the acting. When I saw "Infamous" today, I was caught up with the story in a way I had not been before. It was closer to the experience when I read the book many,many years ago. "In Cold Blood" is about killing human beings, and I believe that it is no more right for cold blooded murders to do it than for me do do it as a member of society that authorizes the death penalty. I believe that the film as well as the book makes people think about this issue The cast was superb, and I said the same about the earlier rendition, but this time the characters were fully developed and believable under the circumstances. I had been impressed before, but this film is different from the last--it is more emotional, more detailed in rendition of the characters, and more interested in showing not just the destruction of Truman Capote, but in sharing the ideas that he expressed in "In Cold Blood".

When I was growing up (I am 62 now) I recall that I did not like Capote when I saw him on talk shows repeatedly. I really knew nothing of gay culture or what even that meant at the time, so it had nothing to do with the sexual orientation. It had to do with the ego that was constantly expressed and realted to nothing that I really cared about.

But what was incredibly important to me then and now is that we can lose track of the fact that we are all human beings, a point that was stressed in the film. Killers may be killers, but they are us, in a way, filled with some of the same ambitions, hates, emotions that most of us can control. What separates us from them might not be very much, so why do we need to kill them as they jailed their victims? It is easy to kill, but not so easy to try to understand. This film hits an emotional level that the previous film did not. I am pleased that it ultimately was made. I am also pleased that the quality of the performances, the writing and most especially the direction, were so superb. Watch the scene where the farmer speaks only to Harper Lee and not Capote. It is an incredible monologue, but the circumstances are noted.