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Zahira: 'la que florece' (2004)
Makes Michael Moore look objective
Here is a little known European documentary which screened at my college today. It apparently won some sort of awards and is extremely renowned among the couple thousand people worldwide who have seen it.
I am not one of those people.
The premise is interesting enough: portray the way one life was changed by the Madrid train bombing. This could've been extremely engaging and moving, but the film never finds the focus necessary to get across a solid point. There is a good reason for this; the filmmakers have no point to make! The film chaotically intercuts between footage of the injured girl Zahira, her family, various war footage, politicians, and reggae concerts. At one point in the so-called film, the Spanish prime minister pins the attacks on the Basque group ETA. There is a five minute long montage of stock footage randomly compiled from the past five years as thousands of people protest for an end to the lies. The film never adequately supports the claim that ETA was not guilty, nor did it even bother to display the evidence supporting the guilt of ETA. We're just supposed to take the director's word for it. The film is loaded with interviews and conversations, an entire microcosm of people who all feel the exact same way about politics. The only opposing viewpoints belong to the politicians who are only ever shown with the utmost contempt. Whenever Blair, Bush, or Aznar is shown defending his position, threatening music plays over while violent war footage and protests are cut in. The filmmakers refuse to even accept the possibility that an intelligent good-natured person might disagree.
Zahira is extremely likable and sympathetic, and I feel for her in real life. But we can't gauge her personal growth because never meet her before her injury. She is hardly shown. Most of the film plays out in scenes with dialog that plays as follows.
"Is she okay?" "Yes, she is very strong." "This must be hard for you." Those aren't exact quotes, but I think you get the drift. These scenes are usually followed by one of the speakers giving a musical performance in which he speaks out against the government.
Michael Moore gains a lot of criticism for being too biased, but he, at least, is very open about his bias. He knows he's making propaganda, and he does it extremely well. If you're going to argue politics with Michael Moore, you have to go with your proverbial pistols blazing. Even when I disagree with Moore, I respect him as an extremely talented director. His films are gripping, emotional, and funny.
This film makes no arguments at all. It simply says, "This is what you have to believe." It pulls itself in so many directions at once that it fails to say anything. Sadly, nowadays the formula for a renowned documentary is: foreign gory liberal - political analysis = accurate social appraisal? What is this film supposed to be about? Zahira coming to grips with her tragedy? Examination of social climate? Racism? The transcendent power of music? The last suggestion is the only one the film successfully captures, but the rest of the film is pointless in that respect. I'm reminded of a quote from an Al-Jezeera reporter in the film Control Room, "That wasn't analysis! That was hallucination!" He was referring to an American whose bias against the Iraq War was overwhelming and without reason. That was how I felt about Zahira's Peace. The film ends with two quotes. One is made by Gandhi, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." The other is from Zahira's brother. I don't remember it exactly, but it goes something like, "We have to look past the screens that show lies in order to see the truth." "For once, we agreed." - Michael Moore
Nashville (1975)
We must be doin' somthin' right. But what?
Somewhere between This Is Spinal Tap and Crash is a little movie about the American people, American politics, and the American capital of country music.
Nashville is not a film that will likely appeal to everyone. It is over two and a half hours long with over an hour of country music numbers and a cast featuring 24 LEAD roles. The film is chaotic and muffled and difficult to follow. It is also the best example of political satire since Dr. Strangelove.
It's difficult to explain just how this movie works. It's a portrait of various people (mostly musicians) in all walks of life. The anchor of the film is the primary bicentennial election. A political rally for "Replacement Party" candidate Hal Philip Walker is about to be held at Nashville's replica Parthenon. A van travels around the city blasting his speeches about what's wrong with the government. His views, for the most part, are right on the dot, but we see through his representatives and spokespersons that he is just as brutal as corrupt as any politician.
We never actually see the man, or find out much about his politics, past his views on the smells of Christmas.
Robert Altman, best known for Korean War comedy M*A*S*H, does a superb job combining Hollywood craftsmanship with an independent edge. Nashville is highly stylized while brutally honest. The music is more than just a backdrop to the plot, it is part of the plot. For example, there is a scene in which Keith Carradine performs a song called "I'm Easy" in a bar. He says he wrote it for someone who just might be here tonight. Four different girls in the audience beam with the knowledge he wrote it for her.
Keith Carradine's character is the most obvious example of a sexist in the picture, but sexism is one of the resounding motifs throughout the film. It explores the subtlety of the concept. Women in the film are appreciated for their looks or their talent but never for themselves. Such is the case during a scene when singer Barbara Jean (Ronnie Blakley) is in a hospital bed after collapsing. Half a dozen of her closest friends come in, talk to each other for about 3 minutes, then leave. Later her husband/manager tells her, "Don't tell me how to run your life." She realizes her only friends are her fans so during her next concert she compulsively makes small talk when she should be singing.
The film is basically a great opening, an astounding ending, and tons of filler in between, but that filler is some of the most interesting film-making ever seen. This film provides no clear answers because that would just be more politics. This film could've been a train crash in the hands of any other director. It's chaotic and probably over a lot of heads, but "It Don't Worry Me." PS: Someone gets assassinated, I won't say who though. ;) 4 STARS
Batman Begins (2005)
The Dark Night Returns
I've always been a fan of the Batman series. Tim Burton created films with dark undertones and flamboyant villains. After he and Keaton left, the series became extremely epic if losing some of its appeal. I was beginning to think the series would never recover.
Even in the Burton days, however, I always felt that something was missing from the series. The movies were great looking with great action, but they seemed to have a huge difficulty understanding why and how a rich orphan would be compelled to vigilante justice and dress like a flying mammal. When asked why in 1989's Batman, Wayne stated "Because no one else can." I liked the movie, but that just sounds like a bored writer taking the easy way out.
Christopher Nolan, in this latest and greatest installment, has made an entire film on the premise of that question. He provides a deeper look into Bruce Wayne, who in the previous films was shown as a bored billionaire who wants to make some halfassed contribution to society by buying gadgets and hanging junkies off rooftops. Now, he's a tortured soul who comes to the realization that before he can exorcise Gotham's demons he has to exorcise his own.
The film opens in a Tibetan prison where Wayne has confined himself so he can fight the inmates. When a hulking Asian goon informs him, "This is Hell and I am the devil," Bruce nonchalantly replies, "You're not the devil. You're practice," before unleashing his rage onto him and five other inmates. The guards lock him up for protection, but Bruce insists he needs none. "Not yours, theirs!" He is recruited by the League of Shadows and journeys into his own fears that he might turn it against the villains of Gotham. During this time, he is trained by Liam Neeson, who reveals harsh truths about his society, justice, and his past, "Your parents' death wasn't your fault...it was your father's!" Nolan delivers these philosophies as devoutly as DeMill delivered the Ten Commandments, but when Wayne's training ends, he realizes that the League is no less corrupt than the villains they fight.
He returns to Gotham having destroyed the League's headquarters, killed all its members, and been declared legally dead after an eight year absence. He returns to a city that is not only corrupt and run down, but in denial. One of the things I loved about the film was the fact that it took time to develop Gotham's history. It never fully recovered from the Depression that hit it twenty years earlier, the city's worst criminals are running the show, and a deranged psychiatrist conducts unnatural experiments at Arkham Asylum.
Bruce struggles to gain the necessary components to make Batman a reality while still maintaining a playboy persona to avoid suspicion. He slowly masses his resources while immediately plunging into war against an entire city of enemies. By the end of the film little has actually gotten better, but Gotham has a symbolic hope from their new hero. Bruce Wayne, however, has disappeared. He is a mask that Batman wears.
This film is not afraid to delve into the true nature of the basest of human emotions and conditions. It provides honesty and realism to a genre that so often lacks it. The questions are not easy, but the answers are even harder.
FOUR STARS...the best superhero film of all time