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Reviews
"Invictus" Makes A Great Try
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 17 December 2009 12:32
- Written by Alan Brody
Invictus
directed by Clint Eastwood
starring Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon
If you don't know rugby, a touchdown is called a try. This movie about the great World Cup rugby game at the beginning of 
Nelson Mandela's Presidency definitely scores. It takes place when South Africa's shaky new multiracial democracy was still finding its feet after years of white rule. Mandela needed to make peace and heal the land. He saw an opportunity to create rapprochement and a national bonding experience by embracing the game beloved by his former enemy and despised by his supporters.
However, there are also some fumbles -- the other meaning if you will -- of "try".
Without doubt, Freeman gives an Oscar-worthy reincarnation of Mandela - thus putting himself firmly in the King-Poitier-Ali-Crosby-Oprah-Obama pantheon of black people who radically changed white perceptions. Damon too, gives a great aw-shucks performance as an innocent racist who understands how much he has to change.
You'll barely recognize this bulked up version of Damon and his South African accent is flawless. But, for the most part they are stock characters - you don't really know what makes Mandela tick and you can't fully grasp the transformation of Pienaar (Damon), the rugby captain, because you just don't know that much about him.
While the movie works well at the storytelling level, it also rings somewhat hollow. You see this momentous change in a terrible political situation through old newscasts but not through the cast. The black presidential security detail has to make peace with white special service cops who may once have jailed them. The white cops are now reporting to people who may once have tried to blow them up. But you see none of this in personal backstories.
The pacing is slow but it is steady and it builds. The end may be predictable but the audience still applauded. If you have no idea what rugby is you will leave the theater unenlightened and those of us who know about rugby can see the ball was somehow dropped.
Therein lies the problem: this is a movie about symbols, the kind that can bring everyone together, make peace and bind a nation. If you can't really explain the true nature of rugby, you can't really explain its significance in this story. As for the title: what is a nice Latin word like Invictus doing in an African movie? Shouldn't Mandela - just one generation away from living in a hut with a polygamous family - be reaching back to an African poem for inspiration? Wouldn't you expect something more African than classical?
In a way, it echoes the story of the kouros statue the Getty Museum once acquired. Scientists analyzed the stone and lawyers certified the paper trail. But when Thomas Hoving of the Met took one look at it, he knew it was fake because it looked "fresh" - something you don't expect in a 3,000 year old statue. In fact, it was a modern reproduction made from authentic stone from that period.
That is not to say this movie is a fake but it is obviously made - well made, mind you - by people of a different age, place and time who have fused the authentic with something that isn't quite right. The author is a British journalist who covered South Africa, the screenwriter is a non-rugby loving ex-patriate South African living in Morro Bay, California.
The supporting actors and Damon's voice coach are all authentic South Africans but the director and the two lead actors are American. As good a job as they did technically, something got lost in the mix. Instead of being too lively, this movie is, if anything, muted - even somber. You'd have to wonder what it would look like if a South African director had made it. What if, say, Gavin Wood (diector of Oscar winner Tsotsi) or an up-and-coming African director had done it, how different would it would be?
First, you would get a visceral sense of the times. People were very scared, very divided but also hopeful. The townships were bursting with exuberance. The whites experienced fear, loathing but also optimism. You see it in Invictus but you really don't feel it. The celebration of the blacks matched the viciousness of the old white regime while the crime spree justified their old fears. Houses once designed to be open - even admired - became surrounded with walls, then barbed wire, power gates and finally, electrified fences.
Yet the whites felt somehow liberated too and to understand that you'd have to see how war and rebellion-weary they had become. You never quite feel the two different cultures - an African world drenched in music, dance and excitement versus a stiff, though cordial white world where the music is at best, restrained.
Most of all though, you would understand why rugby really matters. It is not just that the white Afrikaners were the country's exclusive payers of rugby, it is that it's a territorial game. Rugby is played around the scrum, that beehive formation of men from each team pushing against each other in contention for a ball thrust in its midst at the beginning of each play. Whichever team plucks it out - usually by foot - gets to run with the ball.
The traditional advantage of the South African team is that they are one of the heaviest in the game. That is why Damon filled up on pap 'n worse for the role. The heavier the scrum the better the chance they have of pushing the other team out of the way and grabbing the ball.
The point about rugby in South Africa is not just that it is the game of the oppressors but a kind of reenactment of the way they pushed the indigenous people off the land to get at its resources. That explains why the formerly great Bokke had lost their mojo. Thanks to majority rule, they were being pushed off their land and they just couldn't pull off their old act on the rugby field any more. At least, not until they had gotten permission, marching orders and reassurance from the new black president.
The poem, Invictus, is never fully fleshed out and in truth it was an obscure 19th century poem written by a 12 year old who'd lost his leg to TB. While understandably awkward as a poem it ends with these two resounding lines:
"I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
In fact, Mandela never sent that poem to Pienaar. He had been inspired by it in jail but he actually sent the rugby captain a version of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech to inspire him.
Regardless of the actual poem, what matters is that Mandela reached out to a third place - a non-African heritage - to bring these former warring Africans of different races together. How do you explain that to Americans? They see these great aerial shots of Cape Town, the sophisticated cities contrasted with the black shantytowns (although you never go into any of these "informal" houses) and they must wonder: What Africa is this?
That is not say this isn't a very good movie. It is not Biko, Gandhi or even Chariots of Fire though it is at least at the very front of the second tier. There is an academy award nomination or two in this and Clint deserves kudos for taking on something so far afield from his usual fare: Dirty Harry reincarnated as a couple of near-saints.
As a feel-good movie it does indeed score: almost everyone wins - the whites, the blacks (he did forget the Jewish guy, Joel Stransky, a kind of South African Sandy Koufax who actually won the game with the drop kick.) The New Zealanders - ironically called the "All Blacks" on account of their uniforms - get to be the losers here even though they were a much more racially integrated team.
Not only that, but the All Blacks began each game with a fearsome Maori wardance called a Hakka which seemed to be lead by the blondest player. All the Bokke could do was glare back. But any South African knows they have their own ceremonial weapon, which is just as formidable: the Zulu War Dance. Yet no one mentions it - perhaps because Afrikaner rugby players don't dance like that - ever - and Mandela was Xhosa as were most of the ruling ANC party and they were feuding with the Zulus.
The New Zealanders even had rugby's first true superstar, Jonah Loma, a terrifying figure who could simply plough through the opposing team with legs as thick and as unstoppable as tree trunks rolling down a cliff.
Nevertheless, Mandela's support, Afrikaner determination and a little Hebrew footwork won the day and put the country on the track toward unity. In the end, this movie wins the cup but you get the idea there is more to be drunk from it along with a few more visits to the well.
© Alan Brody 2009
[Guest reviewer Alan Brody has written White Shaka Boy, a story about a New Yorker who discovers his heritage as the biracial heir to a Zulu Kingdom in South Africa. Inspired by a true story, Brody -- a journalist who first brought the story of Mandela's impending freedom from jail to New York Newsday -- created this Graphic Novel to tell the complex story of South Africa's four races, the legacy of King Shaka, the origin of Gandhi's passive resistance, feminism and the transformative possibilities of the New Africa. Its long awaited sequel will be available on Amazon, select Graphic Novel stores and on the White Shaka website: http://whiteshakaboy.com]
Pulitzer Winner Letts' Dark Comedy
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 14 December 2009 03:46
- Written by Lucy Komisar
Superior Donuts
Written by Tracy Letts
Directed by Tina Landau
Starring Michael McKean, Jon Michael Hill, Robert Maffia, Cliff Chamberlain, Kate Buddeke, Yasen Peyankov
There’s a whiff of television in Tracy Letts' dark comedy about a '60s radical coming to terms with his life and a society that continues to have an underclass. The story is intriguing if a bit formulaic. It's as if Letts said, "Well, we need a middle-aged white ex-hippie with a pony tail, a brash young black man, a couple of cops of mixed colors and genders and some bad guys to prevent the story from cloying too much." That said, there is some charm in what he came up with, even if it’s not great drama. Landau directs at an agile pace that highlights the laughs.
Arthur Przybyszewski (McKean) runs a shabby donut shop in a black section of Chicago. In the sixties, he was an activist and in 1968 was beaten by Daley’s police. That would be at the Democratic Convention when protesters marched down the lakefront Michigan Avenue and shouted "The whole world is watching." (I was there, too.) He went to Toronto to escape the draft.
His father, a Polish immigrant, died while Arthur was in Canada, and he returned home to run the shop. His life hasn’t turned out very well. His wife left him, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in years. He is a loner who lives in the past and doesn’t connect with anyone. McKean does a persuasive turn as the laid-back Arthur who still wears the T-shirts of the bands of his era.
Business in the donut shop is bad, and to add to it, when Arthur opens up that morning, the door is smashed and "pussy" is scrawled on the mirror. He hardly seems to care.
Later that day, in walks Franco Wicks (Hill), a young black man who needs a job. Hill is lively and engaging in the role. He persuades Arthur to hire him as an all-around helper and also sets about offering some good advice. Arthur is missing the evening trade, he needs to fix the place up. It’s seedy, with a Formica counter and metal stools with red plastic seats. (The set is by James Schuette.) He needs music, and "How’s about poetry reading. I’ll produce a coffee house." Arthur acknowledges the competition of a new Starbucks, and Franco quips, "They’ve got Starbucks in wheat fields."
Franco also tells him to improve his appearance: "Let me tell you who looks good in a ponytail, girls and ponies." And he suggests he pay more attention to the lady cop (Buddeke), who finds all kinds of reasons to stop by the shop.
The young man seems to be down on his luck now, but he has hopes for the future. He is writing the Great American Novel called America Will Be, after Langston Hughes’ poem. He wants Arthur to read it. Letts needs to give Arthur someone to care about, and that could be Franco.
Till now it’s pretty light stuff and could be any family TV story. It gets darker when a couple of mobsters (Maffia and Chamberlain) come around to collect on a debt. Seems Franco had been a runner for gamblers and had fallen into the vice himself. Meanwhile, Max Tarasov (Peyankov), a Russian who owns the DVD shop next door, wants to buy Arthur out. Eventually, all the pieces fit together. I could have done without the gratuitous brutality and a rather corny dénouement.
But the plot does grab your attention, as any good TV drama might, and there is some clever, funny dialogue and good acting by all, especially McKean as Arthur, Hill as Franco, Buddeke as a cop, Peyankov as the Russian store owner and Michael Garvey as his nephew, Kiril.
For tiimes and ticket details go to:http://www.broadwaysbestshows.com/shows/superiordonuts/index.php
Superior Donuts
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
New York City
212-239-6200
Opened October 1, 2009; closes January 3, 2010
For more by Lucy Komisar: TheKomisarScoop.com
Photo credit: Robert J. Saferstein
Dave Matthews Band IS "Larger Than Life in 3D"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 13 December 2009 23:39
- Written by Frank Lovece
Hannah Montana and U2, who have had their own 3-D concert films, may be hard acts to follow, but this
engaging mix of three diverse concert draws tries hard to have something for everyone. Running a one-week engagement, from December 11 to 17, 2009, the generically titled Larger Than Life in 3D weaves together acts from three recent summer concerts – New York City gypsy-punks Gogol Bordello at the All Points West Music & Arts Festival in New Jersey, California pop-fusion performer Ben Harper and his band Relentless7 at the Mile High Music Festival in Denver, Colo., and the peripatetic pop star Dave Matthews and his group at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas.
Using a trio of acts with such distinct styles and sounds but who complement each other seems a savvy way to reach a broader audience than just core fans – who bought tickets in troves for Hannah Montana, but didn't say yoo-hoo to U2.
It was also savvy to open with the high-energy Gogol Bordello, whose Eastern European-derived sound and manic show kick things off with aural and visual interest. After a quick couple of numbers – the band eventually coming back to play in a frame alongside the movie's closing credits – the tempo downshifts to singer-guitarist Harper, who displays a high, virtuoso voice reminiscent of 1970s-era Steve Winwood.
Night descends during his band's set, segueing to Matthews' seven-man ensemble, which performs over a half-dozen songs – mostly Matthews' own, including "You Might Die Trying," "Shake Like a Monkey," "Why I Am" and his closer, "Ants Marching," but also the Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House." Throughout, the camera well captures his Jim Belushi-eque, admirably Everyman aura.
Projecting 3-D is inevitably tricky, given that 3-D movies nonetheless project on a two-dimensional screen, and it's not usual for the illusion of depth to vary widely within the same movie. The opening two segments sometimes appear less three-dimensional than they do like a series of 2-D planes, like in old stereopticon postcards. This multiplane effect is less pronounced in the night scenes, where there's less contrast and backlighting, though by the same token, the cinematography in the low-light Matthews segment is less vivid and "present."
In the modern, mid-Manhattan theater where I attended a public screening, the audio came solely from front speakers – authentically enough like a real concert, as far as that goes. But in a movie theater, especially when the visuals are presented in 3-D, it's a bit disconcerting not to have the same surround-sound that anyone with even a rudimentary home-theater system would have.
There's little backstage footage and no interviews, keeping the focus squarely on the songs. Judicious editing, thankfully, avoids dead spaces between songs, and the whole package, while not really emulating a concert experience, is tight and musical and could have a solid life in the home theaters of which we spoke.
For more info got to: http://www.inconcert3d.com/
Larger Than Life in 3D
Directed by Luke Harrison and Lawrence Jordan
Produced by Action 3D and AEG Network Live
(Cinedigm Entertainment Group)
at various theaters nationwide
Bollywood Review: "Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 13 December 2009 16:14
- Written by Frank Lovece
Directed by Shimit Amin
Written by Jaideep Sahni
Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Prem Chopra, Mukesh Bhatt, D. Santosh, Gauahar Khan, Naveen Kaushik, Manish Choudhari, Shazahn Padamsee
The smiling guy offering you a business card while a paper plane glides behind him in the posters for the Bollywood import Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year seems to promise a workplace satire or a lighthearted em
ployee caper – Office Space goes Calcutta. Instead we get a sharply observed drama of an honest man trying to survive in the usual business world where kickbacks, petty politics, office cliques and tell-'em-anything lies to make a sale are all business as usual. In the exploding modern India, it's a very American story: How do you succeed in business without really trying to compromise your ethics?
That's the dilemma facing Harpreet Singh Bedi (Kapoor, the Strasberg-trained scion of the venerable filmmaking family), a Sikh fresh out of college with less than stellar grades. While his classmates head toward MBAs or law firms, H.P., as he's nicknamed, thinks he'll find his future in sales. His devout grandfather (Chopra), with whom he lives, is wary but supportive, going so far as to sink his life savings into a scooter for H.P. to use on his rounds.
Shortly after H.P. lands a trainee position at AYS, a major yet snakeoily computer sales and "service" company, over the objections of smarmy sales manager Nitin Rathore (Kaushik), he gets what could be his big break – making an in-person visit to a major client to finalize a done deal. But when that company's procurement guy seeks his usual bribe, H.P. naively files a complaint with that company's higher-ups – on AYS stationery, no less.
To call what happens next a descent would be to imply going south by degrees. H.P. immediately becomes a pariah of untouchable proportions, the butt of jokes, and given cold-call duty – having to turn over even whatever leads he can get that way. Pretty soon paper rockets – what we call paper airplanes – rain down on him mercilessly. In the entrenched social structures of even 21st-century India, where leaving a job that you're lucky to have is unheard of – much like the U.S., come to think – H.P. is effectively trapped.
A chance encounter with the veteran owner of a cheap electronics stall alerts H.P. to the realities of computer pricing – and the relatively low costs of computer assembling. He recruits AYS service technician Giri (Santosh) – who in things-are-alike-all-over mode spends most of his day ogling bikini-clad blonds on his computer – to moonlight. One thing leads to another, and he soon acquires a slew of clients who appreciate Rocket Computer's honesty and integrity – notwithstanding the fact H.P.'s running it out of AYS' offices, unbeknownst to smiling-cobra company owner Puri (Bhagyaraj). H.P. intends to reimburse AYS for the phone and the printer ink and such. But just as he and company cohorts Koena (Khan), Chotelal (Bhatt) and even Rathore are about to resign to do Rocket fulltime, Puri discovers their now not-so-little scheme.
Not all Bollywood movies are big, colorful musicals, of course, and this one offers only a couple of plot montages set against songs. But with uniformly excellent performances – particularly by Kaushik and Bhagyaraj as the conflicted and not-so-conflicted antagonists, respectively – plus a no-nonsense pace and storytelling sense by director Shimit Amin and a truly universal set of office circumstances (check out one of the most believable office set designs in recent memory, with ugly carpeting, boxes piled up alongside filing cabinets and fingerprints all over the phones), Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year is instantly accessible to any stateside audience. H.P. may be a prisoner of the system, but he can proudly say, "I am not a number. I am a free market."
For more by Frank Lovece: FrankLovece.com
