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

To the Wonder maintains the eternal significance of ordinary people depicted in Malick's previous film, The Tree of Life, but it is more anchored in the biographical details, ignoring dinosaurs and nebulas and beaches full of angels. It is a very real, honest film.

The film centers around Maria and Neil, a couple who meet in Pairs, the city of love. The passion of that city is echoed in the way they caress each other. But moving from the romance of Pairs to ordinariness of Oklahoma they have to face the equally messy details of life together. Can their relationship be sustained by their caresses and touches or is the foundation of their love stronger and deeper? Intersecting their storyline is that of Father Quintana, the priest of their local parish, who is also wrestling the foundation of the love that he is pouring out to his community.

Malick’s eye is what drew me into film and it is what kept me captivated. Pairs is easy to photograph, but when the camera turns to Oklahoma, the director’s brilliance is especially apparent. The setting is so much like the town I grew up in; endless sky and new houses with fresh carpets, oil wells and cheap motels, tall golden grasses at the edge of the never-content suburbs. So ordinary, so easily tossed aside while lived in, until the camera sees it anew and breathes it with significance. This drawing of attention to the beauty in our peripherals is what I try to do with an iPhone and Instagram every day and it was stunning to see it done by the master.

But these details are laden with biographical and spiritual weight. The story of the rise and fall two lovers whose relationship was birthed, but not sustained, by passion is contrasted by the relationship of a priest with his community and his God. Maria and Neil are shown with honesty and heartache. They know they should commit to marriage, but can’t due to a religious rule, or their own fear of failure, or both. An especially real portion of their tale comes when Maria, spurred by the advice of a friend, commits adultery in an Econo Lodge Motel. Never has a sex scene been with infused with such gravity and danger. Such an act was wrong, and Malick wants us to know it. Maria repents to her now husband and the way he wrestles with forgiveness is achingly real. Their relationship was based off passion and his trials reveal this foundation.

Quintana has his own doubts. The loneliness of his life of outpouring is reveled as he visits the dirty houses and broken bodies of destitute people, Bible in hand, speaking truth and comfort into the lives of his flock. All that giving takes its toll and the shepherd cries out to his God in a beautiful monologue. In the end his strength is shown to be found in the one he serves. “Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me” he prays as the camera shows him visiting those in locked cells. “Christ at my right, Christ at my left. Christ in the heart, thirsting, we thirst. Flood our souls with your spirit and life, so completely that our lives may only be a reflection of you.”

This is a film honest in his portal of faith and relationships. It offers warning to those who go at them lightly and comfort for those afraid of insignificance. Although at times some certainty could been used (or maybe some ice water in the face of a voiceover too enraptured with self-love.) But ultimately it is a film about the fabric of daily life and I hope becomes part of the fabric of mine.

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.

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.

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.

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.