Do Communists Have Better Sex?

André Meier's “Do Communists Have Better Sex?” playfully examines the cold war sexual dynamics of Eastern and Western Germany. The film consists of interviews with prominent intellectuals, newscasts, theoretical observations regarding the ideological motivations promoting different sexual attitudes within the two countries, propaganda, and contrasting Christian and Trade Union viewpoints concerning birth control (with comedic cartoons interspersed throughout). The contrasts are strikingly manufactured and Meier's film doesn’t try to solve anything. Instead, it places different approaches within a light-hearted yet provocative frame that gives both sides the chance to display their motivations. In the East, there isn't as much to buy, but there's all kinds of room for the development of one's imagination.

The screening I viewed at Cinema du Parc was followed by two American educational films. In the first, an Italian who speaks English with an accent awaits the birth of his child. However, his child is born dead and his purebred American doctor (who speaks perfect English) informs him that the cause of death was syphilis (purebred Americans never get syphilis!). Fortunately for this noble savage, a cure for syphilis exists, enabling him and his wife to have more children in the future. The end of the film vilifies brothels and who is shown operating these brothels but an African American woman? Racist ethnocentric propaganda at its best cunningly indoctrinating the land of the free. No mention is made of the costs associated with the required medical treatment. Fortunately, this humble Italian-American baker was likely free to receive an additional mortgage.

The second video chronicles the sexual development of a caucasian American teenage girl. She is interested in sex but confused. Her father has no advice and quietly reads the paper while his wife cooks dinner and takes care of the family. After a disastrous encounter with a nogoodnik who is only interested in one thing, she falls for a beautiful caucasian American boy. The quarterback of their high school football team no doubt! Afterwards, their relationship flourishes because they decide to have their sexual union sanitized by the bonds of marriage, legitimizing the purity of their future. Note that they come from the same social class, revel in their popularity (in moderation), and only have jealousy confronting their happiness. No mention is made of material sexual realities because everything is perfect, and only people who have something wrong with them could possibly not know how to naturally engage in healthy sexual activity. Propagandistic drivel, straight from the puritanical pulpit, idealistically scoring another touchdown for one-dimensional conservative points of view. Came close to throwing up my popcorn. With laughter!

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore, filmmaker, social activist, practical idealist, prominent voice. For twenty years he's been crafting socially conscious films which subvert the wealthy American elite in a playful, satirical fashion, and Capitalism: A Love Story once again displays his characteristic dynamic wit. Within, he uses conservative tropes to convey his liberal message to a wider audience. He interviews progressive Catholic thinkers to reestablish the left wing religious dimension (not to say that said dimension is exclusively Catholic, Moore just happens to have been raised Catholic so he interviews Catholic priests primarily). He focuses on his home town of Flint Michigan and includes a scene shot with his dad. He seeks unionized social justice with the degree of confident bravado you'd expect from a small town Western sheriff (masked by a subdued delivery). And he clearly indicates who the American villains are, to the best of his abilities, thereby utilizing the Republican political form and revitalizing it with ethical Democratic content (while simultaneously highlighting Democratic disappointments). He uncovers Citigroup documents which indicate that 1% of the population has more wealth than 95% of the American people combined; he points out that the majority of Americans have no hope of becoming one of the lucky few and could benefit from forming labour unions; he presents codetermination worker cooperatives (California's Alvarado Street Bakery and Wisconsin's Isthmus Engineering) which actually use democratic ideals to structure their business "hierarchies" as well as Vermont's socially democratic Senator Bernie Sanders; he includes footage of how Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936) by sending in the military to protect striking workers; and he suggests that some German businesses have adopted social democratic practices which allow workers to elect members of their company's board of directors. He points out a lot of things and it's a film so the level of analysis is often terse and sentimental, quickly jumping from one scene to the next, presenting a wide variety of possibilities without offering a sincere degree of reflection. And it's also a film inasmuch as it's symphonically built with crescendoes and diminuendos, good guys and bad guys, ambiguity, and a compelling climax. Moore mentions that the one thing which frightens the plutocrats the most is that every American citizen has a vote and can theoretically elect individuals who threaten their capitalistic monopoly with progressive universal legislation. In presenting Barak Obama, Moore cleverly suggests that perhaps he is the person America's been waiting for while carefully enumerating his corporate sponsors.

Ichi

Fumihiko Sori's Ichi presents a resilient blind beautiful sword fighter (Haruka Ayase as Ichi) travelling the Japanese countryside alone in search of the sightless man who helped cultivate her skill, playing the shamisen to make ends meet. Unexpectedly along for the ride is Toma Fujihira (Takao Ôsawa), a shunned samurai warrior who has been unable to draw his sword ever since its blade accidentally took his mother's sight. The pair winds up in a small inn town where the peaceful innkeeping Shirakawa group have had enough of the ruthless, disfigured Banki (Shido Nakamura) and his gang. As they become caught up in the conflict, will Ichi help Fujihira draw his blade?, and will Fujihira melt Ichi's chilly disposition so that she can escape her volatile past?

The film's entertaining enough, with strictly drawn boundaries regarding good and evil, effective doubling, and generally strong performances (especially from Yôsuke Kubozuka as Toraji Shirakawa) (although Bandi's trademark laugh becomes tiresome). A wide variety of nefarious no-good-nicks suffer the wrath of Ichi's calm and delicate back hand slash, and Fujihira provides alarming and awkward comic relief until he comes to terms with his solidified strength. The final sword fight is a bit of a let down, short and to the point rather than extended and intricately choreographed. This is a shame insofar as three of the four main characters suffer from a disability and had the final showdown been elaborately executed, it would have formally accentuated the ways in which said disabilities had been overcome (although by leaving it short and sweet it reflects the theme that disabilities are serious liabilities in Japan, and therefore extremely difficult to overcome). In addition, Ichi seems to be championing feminist forms of political action (Ichi's cultural shackles represented by her blindness) but in the end it's the men who take care of the serious business. Nevertheless, with a fast-paced plot filled with consistent and multidimensional action, Ichi's scope is adventurous and dynamic if not bold and progressive. Part comedy, part romance, while still developing a fluctuating sense of evolving responsibility, Ichi slices and dices its way into the samurai genre, curiously examining gender and power.

Law Abiding Citizen

Taking the law into your own hands, frustrated by the deals and dilemmas necessitated by the nature of the legal system: it's pay back time. In F. Gary Gray's Law Abiding Citizen, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) refuses to accept the compromise which frees one of his wife (Brooke Mills) and daughter's (Ksenia Hulayev) killers (Christian Stolte as Clarence Darby) after only 5 years and strikes back with a full on blitzkrieg. His object of vengeance is principally lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) but his methods seek to "incarcerate" anyone associated with the original trial. His goal: teach Rice that you don't make deals with murderers. His methodology: take out anyone and everyone responsible. As a work of fiction, Law Abiding Citizen works well insofar as the ending champions an either/or legal system where the ambiguous dimension structuring day to day judicial decision making is severely criticized (and the either/or mentality is fictionalized). However, if it is stating that this either/or mentality should be adopted, then, from a more practical point of view, the ending becomes problematic. One way out of this predicament is to firmly interpret the ending as a situation where Shelton represents the subjective rogue, Rice, the objective standard. Rice can apply his objective standards generally aside from situations where he encounters the subjective rogue, situations wherein there is no compromise due to the designs of the rogue's ambitions. But if this dimension is being fictionalized then Gray supports a system where Rice can only apply his objective standards to situations where there is no compromise, thereby making the exception the universal and leading us back to the high and low imbroglio. Whether or not Shelton wanted Rice to kill him in the end is ambivalent as well: did Rice truly outsmart Shelton or was Shelton expecting Rice to outsmart him? Was he simply prepared for both options? Does this layer of ambivalence suggest that Gray is fictionalizing the ambiguous dimension of legal proceedings in order to applaud an objective either/or system which is subtly yet directly presented? Either it's an ambiguous ending or it's not, or perhaps the ending is both ambiguous and polar. You decide.

Joyeux Noël

The setting's World War I. Scottish and French troops are fighting the Germans. Heartbreak, lesions, and loss on both sides as they dig in and fight it out attrition style. But Christmas arrives and three commanders miraculously come together and order a ceasefire to give their troops time to celebrate. This unsettles their superior officers and soon enough there's hell to pay, respect for humanity be damned. What Christian Carion's Joyeux Noël points out is that superior officers who are theoretically responsible for representing and maintaining acceptable models of behaviour often take none to kindly to being outshone by their subordinates, especially when such actions resolutely salute the ideals for which each respective officer stands. A gregarious film showcasing hearty camaraderie and its humanistic complement, Joyeux Noël is a must for the annual holiday circuit inasmuch as it thoroughly embodies the spirit of the season.

Up

It's never to late to follow your dreams and you can almost accomplish anything. This message curiously permeates Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson's Up (a Disney/Pixar production) although it is examined from competing patriarchal conceptions of the aged caucasian male. The hero: Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner and Jeremy Leary) and his wife Ellie (Elie Doctor) have dreamed of following Charles Muntz's footsteps and travelling to South America's Paradise Falls since they met. But during their marriage they could never find the funds or the time to do so. After Ellie dies and Carl unfortunately assaults a construction worker, he decides it's time to live their dream and turns their house into a flying machine propelled by thousands of balloons. Accidentally along for the ride is young boy scout Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is working on his helping the elderly badge. The villain: Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) has been living in Paradise Falls for decades trying to capture a rare bird after having been accused of fabricating its existence by the scientific community. While unable to trap the bird, he has created a collar which allows dogs to speak and attached one to each of the "hounds" in his pack. After Carl and Russell reach the area surrounding Paradise Falls, the bird in question takes a liking to Russell's candy bar and begins following them to Mr. Fredricksen's chagrin. Only after Russell helps Carl to discover that Muntz will likely kill the bird after capture does he begin to snap out of his self-possessed fantasy and start fighting back against his childhood hero.

On the one hand we have the old-school conception of the traditional white patriarch, Charles Muntz, for whom nature is a resource to be sequestered and conquered. Obviously possessing an extremely gifted intellect, he cannot overcome the slander attached to his good name and rather than finding other ways to positively contribute to society lives out his days in the wilderness adhesively clutching the past. In the beginning, Carl too wishes to hold on to the past and live out the rest of his life in what he and his wife always dreamed would be paradise. However, young Russell's influence inspires him to stand up and take a side (the child being the teacher of the man) and he embraces the revolutionary environmentalist point of view, disregards his possessions, and decides that it's time the traditional patriarchal male destabilizes his historical stereotype by overtly challenging the forces of imperialism. Thus, the child helps the old man to recognize the horrific dimension of his fantasy and he is then able to develop a confident voice of his own which he uses to reinvigorate his reality. It's no coincidence that the incomprehensible chocolate loving bird is female and that Carl would have never embarked on his journey had he not callously assaulted a worker.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker's script (written by Mark Boal) skillfully brings the Iraq war to life. Somehow, it manages to calmly present snapshots of 39 days of a bomb squad's Iraq rotation. We aren't bombarded with left-wing or right-wing propaganda regarding whether or not the war is justified. Instead, we simply observe a group of soldiers as they go about their business of warring, doing their best to pacify the country. In fact, in one scene two soldiers (Jeremy Renner as SSG William James and Anthony Mackie as Sgt. JT Sanborn) discuss why they're fighting and neither of them can come up with an answer. And no direct answers are provided, although at least two collaborating viewpoints are established, one suggesting that war is a drug and participants are addicted, another, that soldiers defuse bombs to save children. Altruism or expediency?, probably a combination of both considering how psychologically complicated things must become after you've been fighting for awhile. Answers: there are no answers but there is a war and there are people fighting it. Director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) objectively displays this fact and gives us enough credit to come to personnel conclusions of our own.

The Blind Side

The Blind Side is Republican and therefore problematic. John Lee Hancock's film concerns an extremely rich caucasian Republican family who adopts a traumatized African American youth. Thus, it immediately sets itself up as another narrative where condescending white people are the only saviours of down and out black people who would have amounted to nothing had they been left to the resources of their own community. This dimension functions throughout and cannot be ignored. But at the same time, it is the true story of a remarkably generous big-C Christian family who adopted a troubled youth in order to give them a chance at a better life. The Tuohy's are incredibly hospitable, not condescending, and bend over backwards to accommodate Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron). His past is full of tragedy, his demeanour excessively aloof, and his grades are lacking credibility. But he's really good at football (yeah, I know) and if given the right opportunity might just make the big time.

It's in the bible people!

But seriously, the film's self-reflexive nature is commendable and I truly enjoyed the ways in which John Lee Hancock and Michael Lewis's script poked fun at Republican stereotypes. To make the film acceptable to hard-line Republicans, a woman is given the most prominent role: Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). This is the same device used by progressive thinkers to break down racial barriers on shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, where it might be okay for a caucasian man to kiss an African American woman, but it's not okay for a black man to kiss a white woman. Bullock gives the performance of a life time and truly shines in humanitarian splendour. Three stand out scenarios: after hiring a Democrat to tutor Michael (Kathy Bates), Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) states something like: "who'd have thought we'd have a black son before meeting a Democrat." I found this to be hilarious. It was intelligently situated, perfectly timed, and culturally disruptive, insofar as it points out that Christian Republicans who demonize Democrats without ever having met one (living their lives in isolated communities) (if such persons exist) are perhaps not living up to their open-minded Christian ideals. The Tuohy's assume Michael wants to play football at a university due to his success and support him full-heartedly. But when it occurs to them that perhaps he never wanted to play football period, they apologize and state that they will support him if he decides to pursue another career. Thirdly, the intertextual domain falls apart when Leigh Anne overtly explains the ways in which Munro Leaf's The Story of Ferdinand relates explicitly to Michael. But at the same time, the traumatic moment from Michael's past which continually resurfaces is not elucidated explicitly, an interesting twist of events where the somewhat insignificant detail is pronounced, while the more relevant motif is subdued, Hancock's subtle formal complement to his film's progressive dimension (by reversing the order of things formally, he complements his film's deconstruction of Republican normalities on a subconscious level).

It's difficult to effectively work within stereotyped traditional domains where there is a right and wrong and find ways to progressively and cross-culturally point out potential ideological shortcomings that seem as if they've been generated from within that ideology itself. This is what John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side has done, playfully pointing out the Republican blind side if you will, and for that reason, I found it to be an exceptional film.

An Education

Difficult, being a young romantically inexperienced teenaged student studying hard to be accepted by Oxford while dealing with the daily complications of social and familial life. In Lone Scherfig's An Education, we meet such a person named Jenny (Carey Mulligan), an ambitious confused high-spirited girl attending an exclusively female school in London during the 1960s. Things proceed as per usual until the free-spirited thrity-something handsome heartthrob David (Peter Sargaard) enters her life by offering her a ride. The two hit it off and both Jenny and her parents are overwhelmed by David's manners, culture, gifts, and charm. Musical performances, trips to the country, a weekend in Paris, dinner and dancing: an enticing and exciting courtship ensues. But things aren't as austere as they originally seem to be, and the bright and promising future David offers may be nothing more than dust in the wind.

An Education intelligently examines what can be thought of as future prospects from multiple angles. Each adult represents a different potential life path for Jenny and she's bewildered by the options. Should she spend her life studying dry literature in dusty educational institutions just so she can wind up teaching dry literature in dusty educational institutions? If she marries rich will her future be secure as her father (Alfred Molina) hopes? Should she emulate her mother (Cara Seymour) and wind up reserved and complacent after years of predictable middle-class married life? Or follow Helen's (Rosamund Pike) fashionably fast-paced footsteps, sacrificing knowledge for glamour in an epicurean salute to the avant-garde?

The point is, it's difficult to be young, and boring to be proper, and when exhilarating opportunities arise it's easy to let them take control. And youth and financial insecurity are sincere motivators as Jenny's father regrettably points out. If you make the "wrong" decision and follow a problematic path, you will certainly face consequences for your actions. But An Education demonstrates that such consequences are by no means absolute which is refreshing to see since so many films rely on melodramatic retributive constructs to "dramatically" tie things together.

Lorne Scherfig's Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is a really cool film too.

Up in the Air

Flying high, city to city, your life in a suitcase, firing people for a living, aware of every hotel/car rental/flight deal in the USA, trying to save up 10 million air miles, lovin' it. That just about sums up Ryan Bingham's (George Clooney) life in Jason Reitman's new film Up in the Air, a romantic comedy that probes the depths of the resolute "can't be tied down" bachelor. Bingham works for a company that flies its workhorses around the country 24/7 firing people for firms who don't have the gusto to do it themselves. But technological complications arise in the form of a lively young graduate (Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener) whose videoconferencing ambitions threaten Bingham's comfortable lifestyle. But before taking her revolutionary ideas to heart, manager Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) decides she needs to learn the ropes herself and sends her "on the road" with the veteran Bingham. During their trip, experience meets education in an age-old rivalry designed to test the limits of both their idealistic life plans. Throw Bingham's love interest Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) into the mix, along with a troublesome wedding, and you have a multi-layered quizzical examination of the platonic nature of values, thoroughly saturated with longstanding larks.

A thoughtful, entertaining, somewhat unpredictable story, Up in the Air demonstrates how things work out when they don't work out while deconstructing the concept of love. Whether or not it considers the subjective life to be ideal is up for debate insofar as its heartbroken protagonist sustains his uncommitted lifestyle by suavely spreading misery as the crow flies.

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Lee Daniel's Precious lucidly deals with difficult subject matter in a heartbreakingly blatant fashion. Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is illiterate, pregnant with her second child, overweight, and constantly abused by her vicious mother (Mo'Nique). Whenever she encounters another round of caustic verbalizations she instantly retreats into a fantasy world where she's where it's at and everything's perfect. Things are seriously hard up until she receives the chance to study at an alternative school where she meets a colourful cast of disenfranchised characters. After finally having met some people who treat her with respect, she begins to bounce back and develops a colourful personality of her own. Definitely not the easiest film to watch, Precious provides its audience with a bold taste of what it's like to suffer. While overtly displaying some of the most gruesome representatives of humanity, it also champions hope and focuses intently upon how one can escape an outrageously abusive situation, thereby saluting democratic social safety networks and the strong individuals responsible for making them work.