Jane Eyre

For modern audiences this Victorian tale of romantic woe may be a little frustrating. So the guy is married to a crazy bitch? So what, Jane Eyre? Worst things have happened. Haven't you heard about the pursuit of happiness? Get a life!
In the age of Snooki and the Kardashians, we are very far from the oppressive condition of women in Charlotte Bronte's time, (just as the concept of concealed and repressed sexuality is alien to our age*), but what is eternally appealing about her fantastic yarn are the deeply archetypal, intricate layers to the story of deceptively plain Jane.

Jane Eyre's greatest tragedy is that she is an intelligent, talented woman (an artist!) trapped in a world that doesn't allow women the capacity to think. An orphan, a woman and poor, she is nobody, even if her greatest asset is her mind. In Victorian England, the social hierarchy was almost fetishistic (and a great source of wonderful literature). Love between members of different social classes was taboo (and it still is to an extent. To this day, the rich only marry the rich). Jane is a lowly servant, no matter how refined or educated. Even Mr. Rochester, her employer, has been shackled to misery by the conventions of marriage by money. So there's no chance in hell of love blooming. Taboo is of course, very sexy, so this is a very powerful hook.
Jane Eyre also is an impassioned protest against the established cruelties of the day. The everyday cruelty towards women, but also the cruelty born of the meanspirited "charity" of the clergy and the rich, both oozing contempt for the needy and the weak. 
Both Jane and Rochester are complex and difficult characters, with too much feeling and backstory underneath the straitjackets they need to bear. They are soulmates: endlessly frustrated by society's constraints, and each sporting their own horrid tale of woe. They both have fiery passions underneath which are not the solely the passions of the flesh, but more dangerously, of the spirit. And then there is the whole spooky, Gothic, haunted woman in the attic thread, which hints at the Victorian obsession with repressing the strongest instincts of the soul. What is a more obvious metaphor than madness dwelling in a hidden room in a dreary mansion? We are all vulnerable to madness. And if we lived in the Victorian era with its crazy-making rules, it could be hard to escape its clutches.

Jane Eyre is eternally hypnotic: it's a great, romantic story of love and cruelty and a passionate proto-feminist manifesto. This latest film incarnation alas, feels strangely airless. Many things are right. The mood is dark and gloomy, the costumes and decor feel authentic without calling too much attention to themselves. The music by Dario Marianelli is duly ravishing. The cinematography by Adriano Goldman is lovely. The rich and sparkling dialogues seem very faithful to the source. Everything is careful and correct. But, and I say this with great heaviness of heart, there is a lack of passion, a lack of madness, a lack of fire. Which is to say that, among other things, there is no chemistry between Jane (Mia Wasilowska) and Rochester (Michael Fassbender). Their individual characters feel too constrained, as if director Cary Fukunaga was afraid to let loose and risk going over the top.

A diabolical idea just crossed my mind. Imagine Alejandro González Iñárritu's version of Jane Eyre. He would surely err on the side of mega melodrama, and we could run the risk of getting a campy telenovela with billowing skirts, but it wouldn't lack emotion. The filmmakers of the present version seem to approach the characters and their Victorian environment as if they were looking at a rare and fragile specimen behind glass in the British Museum.
I adore this intelligent story of romantic upheaval so my heart did flutter in places and I enjoyed the movie, but I expected to be ravished. There is too much control for that in this film. Wasilowska is a perfectly good actress. Her eyes betray intelligence and feeling, but she seems too muted. After enduring a horrible childhood, she seems to bear not a hint of a subconscious grudge. Amelia Clarkson, the wondrous young actress who plays Jane as a child is far more alive and fiery. Wasilowska is very good in the scenes when she falls in love for the first time. You can almost feel her heart beating out of her corset, yet she retains her smarts (which is more than one can say about anybody in the throes of a major crush), but she is too obedient.
Rochester is not an easy role either. He is both an alpha male and deeply sensitive, imperious, and like most males, clueless about the female heart. Michael Fassbender seems a bit tentative. He's not doing anything wrong but there is something unconvincing. We all imagine our Janes and Rochesters through the prism of our own experiences. To me his Rochester lacks a tad of bitterness, of cynicism and of turmoil. And a whole lot of mystery. The rest of the cast seems to have been instructed to be as discreet as possible. And some scenes that would benefit from great dramatic flair are blunted either by good taste or lack of daring. For instance, when the existence of Bertha Mason is discovered, the camera focuses first on Jane's reaction. It would have been far more powerful for us to discover Bertha as Jane does, from her point of view.
Can't wait for the next version.

*This movie made me pine for the days when showing as much as a wrist would be considered foreplay. I'm not a prude, or maybe I am, but I do believe that what is suggested, forbidden and concealed is so much sexier than the literal and the explicit. And we live in a revoltingly explicit, vulgar age).

Review of A Movie I Haven't Seen: Jane Eyre

Readers, the time has come.
I am swooning already. 
In fact, half of me swoons and the other half frets.
The new version of Jane Eyre opens tomorrow and my heart flutters with excitement. I swoon for our new, improved, dark and stormy Mr. Rochester, played by Michael Fassbender (aka Sexiest Man on Earth as per my friend Andy, seconded by moi).
I swoon because the previews look aptly windswept, gloomy and Gothic.
I swoon because fabulous actors like Simon McBurney, Judi Dench, Jamie Bell and Sally Hawkins are in it. And because Jane (Mia Wasikowska) looks duly and convincingly plain.
(And if Rochester can fall in love with her, then he can fall in love with me).
I fret, alas, because of opening weekend agita. Usually I wait. I wait until Monday and go to a screening before 6 pm with little old ladies who have trouble hearing and their  film buddies who snore. But for this film I cannot possibly do that.
I myself am surprised at my girlish enthusiasm. I surmise it's because this film fills an enormous void: that of the truly romantic, repressed erotic film. In other words, an intelligent, high quality chick flick. Not manipulative, vulgar trash like Eat Pray Love and what passes for movies for women these days. True forbidden love. True feeling. And one of the greatest stories ever written. Again.

Now, wouldn't Fassbender be a glorious Heathcliff? 

...Swoon....

Presunto Culpable/Presumed Guilty

I just saw the harrowing Mexican documentary Presumed Guilty online.
You can watch it, and should watch it here.
If you are in Mexico, buy a ticket and see it at a theater. Bring everybody with you. Every Mexican citizen needs to see this film. And every Mexican citizen needs to demand intelligent and immediate reforms to the legal system.
By following just one case of a man falsely convicted of murder, this film shows that there is absolutely no justice or legality in Mexico. Watch this film and you will feel you are falling into a darkest rabbit hole of byzantine lies. 
Presunto Culpable reminded me of Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line. Every Mexican citizen knows that the legal system in Mexico is something to dread, but until you actually hear the story of one man, see his face, the smug faces of the judge and the prosecutor, until you see the mother, sisters, wife of the accused -- it's out of sight, out of mind. Whoever has money can buy themselves their freedom, those who can't are in jail.
Reforms are planned to introduce the novel concept of presumption of innocence in Mexico by 2016. Right now, the presumption is of guilt. The accused needs to prove his innocence; the accusers need not prove culpability. This is beyond barbaric. The trial process is worse than anything Kafka could have imagined. The prosecutor always wins the cases because the file they prepare with the police is considered incontrovertible evidence. Furthermore, physical evidence is not sought to prove culpability. Witnesses supply testimony. In a land of corrupt cops and judges, you can only imagine what this means. The movie gives some horrifying statistics: something like 95% of the accused are convicted.
One of the reasons why the system has not been scrapped may be that the police are too lazy to do their jobs. Investigating a crime and gathering evidence is hard work, but scouring the streets for people to falsely accuse is a breeze. But I suspect something deeper. Mexicans live in such a corrupt country that their default mode is suspicion and cynicism. They are not used to facts and evidence and questioning. This evil, bizarre system, which has been in place for centuries, is a manifestation of this dark side of the national psyche. Nobody believes anybody. Everybody suspects everybody. Everybody is out to get you.
Watch this film and you may be inclined to feel the same way. Mexicans know full well that they are on their own, because if anything happens to them, whether guilty or innocent, they have no legal recourse. The law is against them either way. A judge is shown beyond a doubt that evidence was fabricated and this does not change his mind. He is either saving face or in cahoots with the cops. Or, he believes in a power stronger than evidence and reason. He believes in distrust.
The movie claims that reforms are planned, but now they include a statute in which people can be held for up to 80 days without any proof of wrongdoing! This is insane.
I guess this is to give time to bad detectives to build cases and malignant bureaucrats to type the reams of capitalized, baroque verbal diarrhea they type to collect their wages. Millions of Mexicans make a living through a monstrous bureaucracy whose last interest is to stop the hundreds of thousands of tons of paperwork it produces.
Beyond the atrocious facts, no mortal can possibly fathom the antiquated, obtuse and florid legal language of the courts. The protagonist of the movie, Toño, is a smart man. At one point he asks the prosecutor (probably currently the most hated bitch in Mexico) to explain to him in language that a normal person can understand, why she considers him guilty, when all the evidence points to the contrary. I think her cynical response is: because it's my job.

Presunto Culpable is the biggest grossing documentary in Mexico (over $3.5 million dollars so far). Recently, it was pulled from theaters since the sole "witness" that testified asked a judge to ban it because he did not consent to being filmed. This is a kid with no education so I imagine someone more crafty told him to step forward and whine. An appellate court reversed the decision. This "witness", who was a minor when the police told him who to accuse, has not been charged with giving false testimony. The actual killer is presumably still at large and the judge and prosecutor who convicted on false evidence still have their jobs. What's more, the detective who planted culpability on an innocent man was promoted for his conduct.
As is usual, the contempt and disrespect of the Mexican government for its citizens is felt not only in the appalling law system, but in the realm of the day to day. There is no courtroom. There are no seats. Like every other government office in Mexico, the courts are a dump. The film claims that many convicts never even get to see their judge. In this case, after an appeal, the accused is brought in behind a narrow cage and he goes through a medieval ritual called a careo, a face off, where he is supposed to interrogate his accusers. The defense lawyer is barely allowed to ask any questions.
For years, the people who live off the maze of the penal-legal system in Mexico have inflicted their chaotic damage happily unimpeded. Nobody films them, nobody demands accountability, nobody even wants to know what goes on in there. But times have changed, and they haven't noticed that Mexican society today is evolving, while they remain mired in dangerously archaic processes and total impunity. They hide beyond massive webs of lies and brazen stubbornness, but it is clear that they are bewildered by the presence of cameras and of questioners. They have never had to explain themselves before.

Mexico should be ashamed of itself. It cannot call itself a modern country. It cannot call itself a functioning civil society as long as the legal system is not reformed. As long as this legal system is in place, it is a dump no better than Libya.
New technologies now allow people to bear witness to and produce evidence of  injustice, whether through a video camera, a cellphone, twitter or facebook. This is what hopefully will bring reform. As we have seen recently in the Arab world and in this powerful documentary, the powers that be are desperately hanging on to their archaic, corrupt systems and they try to suppress information, while citizens are using new tools to demand change. The whole world is watching.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

This is the film that won this year's Palme D'Or at Cannes.
Like all of extraordinary Thai director Apitchapong Weeraseethakul's movies, Uncle Boonmee it is a strange, transfixing melange of narratives that do not follow the traditional three-act structure that we are used to expect in movies, nor much else. The easiest thing to say about him is that his films are poetic, but that is misleading and simplistic, because their poetry is both flinty and deeply sensitive.
Api (for the sake of brevity) is concerned with the strange and sometimes surreal marriage of modernity and tradition in his country, of spirituality and materialism, and of new and ancient storytelling. He also explores human relationships with spirits, animals and hybrid beings in between. It's hard to describe exactly what he does, (learning that he comes from an experimental film background helps. He applies experimental thinking to traditional narratives, both cinematic and otherwise), but the way he does it is just beautiful, with subtlety and wit, great tenderness and sheer originality. Nothing else looks or feels like his movies. They are deeply symbolic but at the same time surprisingly matter of fact about their own strangeness: a sort of totally deadpan magical realism (I use this term with huge reservations). He is astonishingly unpretentious, given how non-linear his films are.
This is a movie about the dense texture of memory. But it is more about the feeling of it, than about the memories themselves. Uncle Boonmee, a sweet guy who lives in the forest, is dying of kidney failure. He thinks his suffering is the result of karma: he killed a lot of communists and this troubles him. He starts seeing ghosts and strange apparitions from his past. The people sitting next to him see the apparitions too. After the slightest frisson of shock, they all interact as if this was the most natural thing in the world. His dead wife shows up, and so does his long lost son, who is now a ghost monkey, and he tells his story. His creatures look slightly cheesy, but they are still powerful apparitions. For how do you represent the spiritual world on film? Api does it in surprisingly simple ways. And it works. He doesn't need millions of dollars in CGI.  He sometimes uses the same effects pioneered by Georges Meliés, equally beautifully and effectively. He can use a guy that looks like Chewbacca with a dye job and the effect is less comic than it is powerful.
In the middle of the telling of Uncle Boonmee's story, Api cuts to a different story, in another era, where a princess is traveling through the forest and is in love with one of the lackeys that carry her. She is deeply unhappy about her looks and her life, and as she gazes at her reflection in a pond, she gets into a conversation with a catfish. This is the sort of thing that just happens in his movies. You need to surrender to the new story like the woman surrenders to the catfish.
Then the movie goes back to the story of Uncle Boonmee. I hate to even tell you this, as you need to know nothing and let yourself be immersed in its rich, unsettling world and surprised by its gentle wit and wisdom.
I really liked Uncle Boonmee. However, never again shall I have pasta and wine before a dense poetic film. The scenes are long and sometimes static, but if you blink, you might miss something miraculous. As much as I liked it, Uncle Boonmee is not my favorite film of his. That would be Syndromes and a Century and also Anthem, an extraordinary short that encapsulates his style and his mastery of the craft. Apparently, in Thailand before every film screening people have to rise and sing the national anthem and blessings are bestowed on movie theaters and other public places. So he created his own version of the blessing. It's a piece that could easily belong at the video section at MoMa (and it's so much better than some of the stuff that is there already).
Born in 1970, Api is very young to be such a masterful artist. I had the opportunity to approach him, as he was so open and approachable, and told him that we are blessed by his films.

Cinema Quote of the Week

"Hedy Lamarr, the actress habitually regarded as “that most beautiful woman in Hollywood,” was a rocket scientist on the side, inventing and patenting a torpedo guidance technique she called “frequency hopping,” which thwarted efforts to jam the signals that kept the missiles on track".

From an article in the New York times about actors who actually are rocket scientists, Natalie Portman included.