The BFG, The 13th, and Tramps Capsule Reviews

I regularly contribute to Reel World Theology's Streaming Weekly column, where I offer paragraph length reviews of some of my favourite films available on streaming services. I really enjoy the craft of writing one paragraph reviews, so I thought I would include a few of these here. Head over to Reel World Theology to see the latest entires in this column. Then go watch these great movies!

The BFG

Steven Spielberg spent decades trying to make a movie out of Roald Dahl’s classic story, but when his dream was finally realized last summer the result was shrugged off by critics and largely ignored by audiences. That was to everyone’s shame because The BFG is a gem of a film. It is filled with lovingly crafted details, is gorgeous to look at, and features a simple story focused on a beautiful relationship. That friendship, between the vivacious orphan Sophie (a terrific Ruby Barnhill) and the massive giant (played by Academy Award winner Mark Rylance), is the sustaining thread of the movie and it is a friendship of trust, care, joy, and fear. Mark Rylance is astonishing as the giant. His face is the heart of the film, expressing years of kindness, open-hearted life, loneliness, and loss. Stream this film on the largest screen you can find and, if you have kids, gather them around you. Family films of this caliber are as rare as a friendly giant.

The 13th

In between 2014’s stunning Selma and next year’s highly anticipated A Wrinkle In Time, Ava DuVernay partnered with Netflix to make this paradigm-shifting documentary. 13th is an unflinching look at the devastating impact of the prison system in the African American community. If you’re like me, you will be struggling with the world of heartache and grief that this film opens up, and reckoning with its new narrative that pushes against the story of the 20th century I grew up believing.  The story of our history has consistently been a story told by the white hierarchy. In this film, we get to see that story reframed and retold by an educated and passionate black woman. Do you disagree? Fine, but in order to truly disagree you need to first listen. This documentary forces such listening by highlighting the dignity of being able to tell your own narrative and by recognizing the humanity of the people who are affected by the system. Little wonder it was nominated for an Academy Award.

Tramps 

Netflix is being criticized for its new habit of buying celebrated festival films and then burying these titles amongst its vast library. Seeking out these hidden gems gives us the chance to catch some of the best indie films of the year. One of these Netflix exclusives well worth your time is Tramps, a sure-footed crime caper that’s got heart. When the awkwardly affable Danny fumbles a shady package drop, he gets stuck in greater New York City for two days and a night with the hardened Ellie. As they desperately try to repair the mistake, their understanding and affections for each other begin to unfold. The film’s 82 minutes move nimbly and with confidence, like a welcomed summer breeze on a hot subway platform. The story regularly surprises (except for the predictable final 15 minutes), and the acting is endearing and memorable. The focus on the value of genuine human connection and its portrayal of modern New York makes this a delightful movie worth enjoying.

Godzilla (2014): A Capsule Review

This review was originally written in June 2014. The images are from the film and are not my own.

Genre films can be so boring. Superheros, bumps in the dark, cowboys pointing guns, they have become so much of a template that Hollywood can spit them out with more fanfare and twice as much sticky ooze as EasyBake cooking projects from my childhood. As result, moviegoers looking for visual creativity and thematic interest have learned to look elsewhere. 

But now and then we come across a creative visionary who takes this cookie cutter predictability and turns it into a challenge. In such a chef’s hands a genre  film, by very nature of its familiarity, can be used to say interesting things in interesting ways. Enter indie film darling Gareth Edwards. Entrusted with a Hollywood budget, we have a Godzilla to take note of.

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There is a creativity in this film that was unexpected. It contains a storyline that includes all of the major points (MONSTER FIGHTS! NUCLEAR SECRETS! CITIES DESTROYED!) but it had me guessing how he would get us there for the majority of its duration.

But even more appreciated was the way the camera introduces us to its world. There is repeated theme of windows and reflections - characters observing tragedy through a literal window, a window like frame accenting other scenes, and the window of a television used to provide a new angle on the action. But the camera is also aware of the vast space of this canvas and uses this space to full effect. A chameleon crawls on the jungle floor, a foreshadower of a much larger scaly creature. The camera pans beachgoers on vacation before it leads our eye to to the destruction in the distance hills.

These clever entries lead us directly to the “holy sh*t!” moments of scale and terror, making such moments all the more memorable. Equally impressive is the colour language at work (the Dante like scene of the paratroopers descending into the dust and ruin being a favourite).

In addition to being creatively realized, this movie also uses the familiar themes of a monster film to explore serious questions on man’s seeming power to control things. Their is a careful balance at work. Military power is shown to be necessary and important and yet futile in the face of such higher powers, much like the way such power is depicted in the Old Testament.

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The portrayal of Godzilla is of a great being to be feared, that leaves your city in tatters but, more importantly, alive, that conquers enemies at great cost to himself, leaving you humbled with the knowledge that, with such a creature alive the deep, your are never quite safe, never quite in control. It’s a biblical image that is rare to find in the blockbuster. There is a sacrifice and a brutality woven into the nature of universe.

It’s a shame that the human characters are so flat compared to such crackling brilliance. If we had something to latch onto in them this would of been a blockbuster for our generation.

The Mill and the Cross (2011): A Capsule Review

This review was originally published in April 2014. The images are from the film and are not my own.

I was introduced to this film over a year ago and knew then that I looked forward to returning. But the question was how long to wait? I didn’t want to rush it. But I also knew that this movie would be the perfect fit for Holy Week. So on Holy Saturday I turned down the lights and pressed play.

I am now more familiar with the painting this film brings to life so effortlessly, particularly its lighting. Its costumes and props are so rough and lived in that their foreign realism shocks us.

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The theological and artistic heart of the movie is the intersection of ordinary people’s lives with the cruelty of the world. We see this intersection graphically when the life of a young couple is ground to a searing halt after the man is brutally torn from his wife and lifted up to die while on their way to market. We see it subtly in the crows, ominously and repeatedly visible through the window of every house, particularly Brugal's as his young wife cares for their rowdy children.

But nowhere is the contrast more obvious then when these smaller images of the divine morph into an anachronistic representation of the ultimate intersection - the passion of our Lord. In the history of art anachronistic paintings of the crucifixion are common but we see them less in our film driven age. So in the film, when Judas betray Christ by visiting a cathedral's confession room or the condemned thieves meet with a priest before being dragged to their crosses, it’s like cold water to the face. And it reminds us that the world Christ came to save is our world; in this movie, the Flemish world.

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In the film Christ’s crucifixion is given a weightiness, most notably in the scene when the miller, representing God, “parts the clouds” by pausing the windmill and with it the scene below him. But when the gears resume their turning and the people their moving and the world its cruelty, I longed to see some glimmer of the resurrection. There lies Christ’s body in a grave, holes on his feet. There is the sun, welcomed after the darkness and violence of the night. There are the people, moving on, dancing, showing Christ in the way they care for their offspring.

There is only one difference. In the background this time there are no crows.

Of Gods and Men (2010): A Capsule Review

Post originally written in May of 2013. Images are not my own.

The village is nestled amongst mountains and forests, the monastery perched at its peak. The nine members of the monastery live a life that is centred around their lives of worship but they involve and include the Muslim community of the village they call their own. They farm their crops, worship their God with ages-old chants and hymns, cook, eat and clean. But they also study and write about their faith and the faith of the village they are in, and daily meet, counsel, and serve their local community, dispersing medicine, footwear, and advice, even joining them to celebrate their Muslim ceremonies. All the while they remain distinctly Christian. They are a true picture of a body of Christ living and serving in a secular culture.

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And yet this life is not without its darkness. There are forces in the world who hate the church and its faithful work in the world. In this picture of a film, those forces are Muslim extremists who make their way towards the village, slicing the throats of those who don’t abide by their rules. The story of this film is about this threat and how the brothers choose to respond.

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It is told with a quite, honest, and steady camera, less affectious then Terence Malick’s, simpler then Lech Majewski, in a sense perfectly matching the patient lifestyle of its subject.

There is a scene halfway into the film that is often described by its admirers. They brothers are in the midst of wrestling through the decision of whether to stay in the village and risk certain death, or to flee to their former homes, lives, and safety. They bring their thoughts before some of the village elders, confessing that that they feel helpless "like birds on a branch. We may be leaving.” After a pause, one of the villagers responds, “We are the birds. You are the branch. If you go, we will loose our footing.”

I had been enjoying this film up until that moment, but from then on it resonated on a whole new level. Just the other week, having left work for five days to attend a family funeral, a colleague and friend told me that “work feels soulless without you.” This film became a commentary on my role in living out my faith in what is my village.

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This group of brother lived their Christian walk with honesty and devotion, before each other, their fellow man, and their God. The film is an honest look at the evening of their lives, and it is one that spoke volumes into my own situation. I hope to return to it, and I hope that it becomes part of the fabric of my life.

The Great Dictator (1940)

Post originally written in April 2013. Images are not my own.

I've recently fallen in love with the artistry of Charlie Chaplin's work and am making my way through his masterpieces (all available online for free, although for some reason with Russian subtitles). The folks who are familiar with The Great Dictator likely know it for its passionate speech at the end, but apparently the film has historical significance. Filmed during the days of US neutrality, Chaplin was putting his head and his fortune on the line to make such bold statements about Hitler.

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Chaplin has said that he would not have made a comedy about the Nazis had he known what horrors were taking place. Seeing it from our side of history, many of jokes fall flat thanks to the painful sting the images bring up, images like Jews being forced to scrub sidewalks or being lead into relatively jolly concentration camps. And as this is Chaplin's first major talkie,seeing him in the new medium takes some adjusting. But the humour is still highly entertaining, especially  the fake German language that he concocted for the dictator, or the one upmenship contest between the dictator and his Italian peer, Napolioni. The humour is of all types, typical in a Chaplin film, from simple but perfect slapstick (plenty of paint thrown in faces) to a graceful and beautiful sequence of the dictator dancing with a balloon globe, gleeful at the thought of the world being his.

The plot centres around the fiery dictator, Hynkal, and his identical counterpart, a Jewish barber. Chaplin plays them both and their physical similarities drives much of the story and, for me, much of the movie's depth. Although the two look identical, initially their characteristics are foreign, one a fiery diplomat, the other a bumbling barber. But as the film progresses we start to pick up mannerisms in the dictator that bring him down to the level of the peasant (a slip or bungling social error). The barber, on the other hand, will do things like occasionally wield his sharp knife in a manner that makes you think he could do more then cut hair with it.

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It's as if Charlie Chaplin was saying "I am not as far removed from either of these two characters as I would like to think. I have what's in me to rise to utter villainy, or I could settle to be a humble fool." It's only at the end of the film when the two characters receive the predictable flip-flop of being mistaken for each other that the director merge his two personalities. The humble fool rises from his collapsing chair and becomes the passioned statesman, giving his famous speech about looking up and fighting for the bright horizon. Although I disagreed with much of the speech's conclusions, it was hard not to be stirred by another stunning Chaplin ending.

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Although the film was influential in turning the popular opinion of Hitler around, and was later used to boost war moral, it should not be considered propaganda, but a thoughtful and enjoyable piece of art to be enjoyed through many more changes of world order.