Sunshine

directed by István Szabó (1999)

This was a strange flick, half pretentious period drama, part weirdo tragic taboo romance, and Ralph Fiennes plays all of the characters.  I exaggerate some, it's not a Being John Malkovich experimental thang, but Fiennes does play 3 successive generations, father to son to grandson, and it's narrated by him too.  It's set in Hungary and tracks a Jewish family from the late 1800's to just after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

The generations spanning epic starts off with a bang, a couple of them actually.  The first patriarch, (who should have been played by Ralph Fiennes too,) is tavern owner who dies in a distillery accident.  His 12 year old son sets off with the secret recipe for his father's elixir, Taste of Sunshine, and eventually though it's not shown, builds  a successful business based on that drink.  The next bang is figurative, though more shocking. Ralph Fiennes is the son of the Taste of Sunshine elixir maker, and he falls in love with his cousin/sister Valerie (Jennifer Ehle) What?!!  I know! It's weird and the transgressive coupling happens so quickly - within the first 10 minutes of the film.  It's kinda cheeseball, but it does creates great tension.  Taboo love is so much more fraught.

Since it covers such a great length of time, the cyclical nature of history is established.  The new boss same as the old boss kind of thing.  The nasty repercussions of and abuses of political power are not limited to Imperialism, Fascism, Nationalism, or Communism.  The all had their secret police.  The effects of anti-semitism are illustrated well, especially along the subtler lines of assimilation and self hatred, repression of religion and identity to get ahead, identifying with the oppressor and such.  I thought this was the best part of the film.  

The romance stuff is pretty juicy, but overwrought and awful too.  The 2nd generation Ralph Fiennes, Adam, is also a taboo buster.  His sister in law Greta, (Rachel Weisz), has the hots for him and tries to seduce him in a scene with dialogue that made me literally laugh aloud.

(Fiennes/Adam just had a fight with a man)

Adam:  I nearly killed him.

Greta:   But you didn't

Adam:  No, I didn't

Greta:   Perhaps you'll kill me one day when you've had enough of me.

Adam:  Perhaps I will.

Greta:   How will you kill me?  Strangle me?

Adam:   Good idea.

Greta:   Try it. Hold my neck. Tight.

She puts his hands around her throat and leans in to kiss him.  He pushes her away.

Adam:  What are you doing!

Greta:   I can't bear not being with you.

Adam:   You're my brother's wife Greta.

Greta:    I'm not anybody's wife. I am myself.

Adam:   Ishtvan is my brother! I love him! What makes you think that I would steal his wife.

Greta:   You can't steal what's already yours.  Why don't you let yourself be loved?  You are the great love of my love Adam, not Ishtvan.

Adam:   No.  (shakes head.)  No Greta.


Another wrong love!  His mouth says no, but his body says yes.  There's nudity in this, boobs and such.  You'll see a bit of humpety bumpety.  It's definitely not the main show, but there is some R rated action, probably because you get to see Fiennes's butt and tackle too.  Man junk almost always means an R rating. 

It has a whole bunch of interesting bits, aside from the Fiennes dangler, but it's far too long (that doesn't sound right), and it was bizarre casting having Fiennes do 3 roles. He did a really good job, it's just why go that way when you could simply hire more actors?  When Fiennes would show up playing his son it was always jarring to the suspension of disbelief.  Another bit of stunt casting that actually worked was having Jennifer Ehle's mother, Rosemary Harris, play the elder version of Valerie.  I think it would have worked better as a mini series.
 
The end of the movie ties up everything with a great monologue when the final Ralph Fiennes is reading a letter from his grandfather.  It brings home the value of NOT surrendering your identity and ideals in order to get ahead.

The Five Senses

directed by Jeremy Podeswa (1999)

It took me a few days and 2 viewing sessions to get through this.  I almost quit and came real close to reading up on how it ended, because I felt played by the plot.  I'd already seen this on video, not long after it came out. I didn't realise this until I started it and since I didn't remember it well, inertia kept me watching.  Besides, the write up sounded interesting.  It's about a group of folk representing the 5 senses:  a chef who can't taste, an optometrist losing his hearing,  and so one.  It's just that all these folk are tangentially connected around the story of a missing kid. And I could not remember how that one key element of the plot played out.  Do they find her? Is she okay?  A 3 year old girl goes missing, and fuck you writer, is how I feel about that.  I get a real visceral reaction when flicks put kids at risk as a dramatic device.  It's a cheap tactic that totally works.  I feel exploited but I can't help but get sucked in.  I find it hard to believe I wasn't all that disturbed by this plot element when I first saw it, but it was before I looked after my nieces so I guess that makes some sense.  Anyhow, it was easier to go back to this more realistic drama of child endangerment, after watching the gothic kill the kids excess that was The Woman in Black.

I watched the rest of it after having my hissy fit of not wanting to feel worried about the little girl.  It was good.  I especially liked the Morrissey looking character played by Daniel McIvor.  (Check out his site and wordpress.) He's a freaky and hilarious cleaning guy with an acute sense of smell, who's doing housework for a few of the characters.  He meets up with past lovers so he can smell them, because he can tell if they still love him by their scent.  His search has not been going well when he describes his odd but charming quest to a client, "I don't like calling them lovers because they don't love me."  The client disagrees saying something like, just because they don't love you now doesn't mean they didn't once.

 

It's a Proustian flick, with some very poetic, and insightful sequences.  The ensemble cast does a great job and are totally believable in their scenes, because it's well written and good dialogue is much easier to deliver well.  While the dialogue rings true,  this movie is about more than words obviously, and the non verbal interactions and experiences are really well done too.  It left me thinking about what makes me happy and who and how, and why those questions are important.

 (This trailer is misleading, makes it seem like a romantic comedy, but it's much more melancholic)

 

Max (2002)

written/directed by Menno Meyjes (2002)

Max Rothman, (John Cusack), is a one armed art dealer who takes young Hitler under his wing and encourages him to open himself up to new ideas and branch out into abstract art.  It's based on a play and was produced by John Cusack. Whatever, I think this is a rude flick.  Hitler was a terrible man and this is an unnecessary story that does nothing to illuminate the human condition.  It's a cheap way to give a story gravitas by making it about Hitler.  It humanises Hitler some, but is that admirable?  It's all made up too, and I hate the idea of people thinking Hitler came "THIS CLOSE" to not being the 20th Century's greatest villain.  It's not like Hitler really had an art dealer taking an interest in him and amping up his Jew hatred due to the condescending manner Cusack displays towards him.  Hitler wanted to be an architect, and applied for a scholarship before he became a soldier, his artistic aspirations were behind him after The Great War.

Speilberg passed on the project because he didn't want to dishonour Holocaust survivors, but encouraged Menno Meyjes to follow through on his screenplay.  John Cusack was an associate producer and he gave up his salary to help the project along.

I enjoyed the depictions of the art scene, and Hitler's distase for the decadence within that arena was well displayed, with his bitterness and all, shining bright due to Noah Taylor's ranting spit flying oratory skills.  Seeing Hitler getting trained in the art of propaganda was a nice touch too, and a good way to show that Hitler was a man of his time.  His racist beliefs weren't of his own creation, hatred of Jews and Gypsies and "lower" classes, were commonplace and everywhere, and still are. The Nazis were simply very effective at harnessing and channelling that powerfully destructive and ugly reality.  Sexism, racism, ethnic cleansing, war, othering....it's not like we've come a long way, baby! really very much at all when we consider the big picture.

There's a great scene where Max puts on a performance piece about war - very avante garde dadaesque speechifying about propaganda against a backdrop of a giant meat grinder.  Max lost his arm in WWI, and his fake arm puppet floats into the grinder and the piece ends with him seemingly slowly sinking into the grinder, while red clay oozes out the front through the grinder holes.  Meat for the war machine.  Hitler is incensed.  Disgusting!! he shrieks and stomps out.

Best line? c'mon Hitler! I'll buy you a lemonade!

The movie pushed buttons for me.  On the one hand it's an interesting what if story, but it's about HITLER and it's all fictional bullshit!  On a metaphorical level there is some truth but I kept bumping up against the fact that really it's lies, lies, lies.   And it's so melodramatic too, with an OMG so stupid tragic ending.  Puhleez.  I did like the political machinations shown.  Even though I believe that it's inevitable that current knowledge of political realities inform interpretations of the past, what is shown is still very interesting. The movie highlights the development of propaganda in support of wedge politics, where hatred of one group is used to consolidate and leverage political power.  It's still a very valid strategy, but one that has become more nuanced and less overt.  Code words are used now and it's more based on class divisions than racial ones.  Though ethnic and cultural divisions are strong still too.  Just goes to show you , that we've still got a long way to go, baby!