Flags of our Fathers
By 1945 the American people were becoming tired of the war
in the Pacific. The government knew that the public had to
be kept enthused about the war effort. During a fierce battle
on the tiny island of Iwo Jima, the American Flag was raised
atop the highest point. An enterprising photographer saw the
potential of the occasion, and had the marines re-stage the
event for his camera. The photo became an immediate sensation
right across the nation. Inspiring much patriotism. Some shrewd
‘spin-doctors’ in Washington also saw the potential
of the image, and quickly arranged for the three surviving
flag raisers to undertake a ‘War Bond’ tour of
the homeland. There, the three marines have to cope with their
instant celebrity ‘Hero’ status, and the ensuing
media circus that surrounds them. Legendary American actor
and director Clint Eastwood has created a powerful and masterly
piece of cinema with his movie ‘Flags of our Fathers’.
This is a film of epic proportions. Whether Eastwood is dealing
with the brutality of warfare, the pageantry of propaganda,
or the psychological impact of battle, there is a compelling
grandeur and beauty to this work. Eastwood’s staging
of the landing on the beach at Iwo Jima is the centerpiece
of the movie, occupying almost a third of the screen-time,
and it is an extraordinary piece of film-making in its verisimilitude
and realism. Other ‘big’ scenes involving political
fundraising rallies also contain an unnerving sense of manipulative
surrealism. At the same time, Eastwood conveys the personal
dramas that the lives of his three ‘Heroes’ take
after their brush with fame, plus the intimate suffering of
some of the families devastated by the loss of their loved
ones in the battle after the flag raising event occurred.
Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach star in the
movie as the three surviving flag raisers. All give excellent
performances, but, this movie is not about actors. Rather,
it is about Clint Eastwood’s astounding cinematic vision,
and his damning portrayal of the politicians and propagandists
who perpetuate war. Perhaps, now is the time for Clint Eastwood
to consider retirement, for he will never be able to top this
film. By far this is Clint Eastwood’s best work, this
is his masterpiece.
Little Miss Sunshine
Versatile Australian actress, and now Hollywood star, Toni
Collette, plays an overburdened housewife in Jonathan Dayton’s
charming ‘road’ movie, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.
Toni has a lot to cope with trying to keep her dysfunctional
family together. Her husband, Greg Kinnear, is rapidly going
bankrupt as he tries to sell his nine-step motivational program.
Her brother, Steve Carell, has just attempted suicide over
a failed ‘gay’ love affair. Her father-in-law,
Alan Arkin, is a drug addict. Her teenage son, Paul Dano,
has taken a vow of silence until he can join the Air Force
Academy and become a test pilot, and her gauche seven year
old daughter, Abigail Breslin, has fantasies of becoming a
beauty pageant queen. For the sake of family harmony everyone
piles into their dilapidated old Volkswagen panel-van, and
journey across American to attend the ‘Little Miss Sunshine’
children’s beauty pageant, in California, which Abigail
has set her heart on winning. There is basically nothing much
more to the movie. Its success rests on the wonderful rapport
of the players, and the entertaining situations in which they
find themselves during their road trip. No-one is much the
wiser once they arrive at their destination, but they have
a lot of fun getting there. The movie doesn’t tax the
brain cells too much, and it is a sheer delight to watch.
Children of Men
Working from a novel by P. D. James, director Alfonso Cuaron
creates a movie that is visually exciting with his adaptation
of ‘Children of Men’. The year is 2027 and mankind
has been infertile for the last eighteen years. England, and
the rest of the world, is in chaos. Illegal immigrants are
being systematically rounded-up and confined to concentration
camps. However, the immigrants and their British sympathizers
are fighting back. They have formed an ‘under-ground’
and are participating in terrorist activities. Clive Owen
plays a civil servant working for the Ministry of Energy.
Enticed by the ‘resistance’, he agrees to help
a young woman refugee to a remote ‘safe-haven’,
and, so, they begin a perilous journey across a war wrecked
English countryside. Director Cuaron instills just the right
amount of advanced technology and urban devastation into his
apocalyptic vision of a futuristic England. His cinema style
is chic and suave and his prophetic images of a ravaged Britain
are totally believable. Initially, the film is quite intriguing,
though, about half-way through, it dawns on you that the movie
is nothing more than a radical re-working of a very well-known
New Testament story. Once this idea takes root it is extremely
hard to shake it off. From that point on it is difficult to
take the film seriously. The movie becomes laughable. You
find yourself giggling and smirking all the way through to
its inevitable conclusion. But, then, could I be turning a
touch too cynical in my old age?
As You Like It
I hate Shakespeare. I always have. It brings back unpleasant
memories of an Australian high school where we were forced
to study his plays because they were deemed ‘cultural’.
No matter how often the subtleties of Shakespeare’s
poetic language were pointed out, I could never understand
any word of it. Later, in a bohemian phase of my checkered
career, I had the opportunity to perform as an actor in a
couple of his plays. Half the time I never had a clue what
was going on. Kenneth Branagh is the current leading British
actor and director of Shakespearian works. I have the same
old problem with his film adaptation of ‘As You Like
It’, for The Shakespeare Film Company. I really have
no idea what the plot is all about, and I have no idea what
the actors are saying, even though they enunciate beautifully
in precise theatrical English. Nor do I see the relevance
of placing this film production in an idealized late 19th
Century Japan, or, why the movie looks like an Akira Kurosawa
Ninja Epic from the 1970’s. Perhaps it is the result
of an over zealous art director who saw much potential in
the setting. Anyway, audiences who like their Shakespeare
will no doubt find this movie ‘charming’ and ‘interesting’
and ‘creative’ and ‘unusual’. I found
it to be ‘pretentious’ and awfully ‘boring’.
