Category: Film

I’ve watched two Iranian movies over the prior two evenings. The one from yesterday, “Under the Shadow,” was a bit hokey at the end, a ghost story that devolved into some silly effects, but which certainly created an atmosphere of dread compounded of the supernatural and the all-too-real (war), an effective and novel juxtaposition. “Under the Shadow” also suffered from a horrible job of English dubbing, singsong readings layered on top of the film like bad makeup. Why would a film editor elect to do that, rather than simply adding subtitles, so that one could at least experience the real actors’ voices?

In both films, the actors live in apartments threatened with destruction by omnipresent conflict. It is this marination in a daily battle against death that gives them both a serious, essential quality completely absent from most American movies.

The one from Friday, “The Salesman,” was more skillfully made. It too dealt with dread, but of a more existential variety, the horrors happening off-camera, and the real question being, not what would befall the principal characters, but what would the course of events reveal about the characters themselves. The director, Asghar Farhadi, has apparently made at least two other movies, all of which seem well worth watching; “About Elly” in particular seems noteworthy. Two other films, “The Past,” and “A Separation” also seem worth ferreting out.

A lovely little movie from India. Of course it’s not American…. no one in our culture uses food as a trope for passion and intimacy or, indeed, would be comfortable making a movie centered on that mundane midday meal, lunch. The Lunchbox gets its beauty and effect from its everyday subject, used as a bridge between two souls, one, Ila, the ardent maker of that meal, the other, Saajan, its unintended recipient.

India’s intricate and fascinating lunch delivery system, in which housewives cook meals for their husbands, which are then ferried to them by deliverymen, provides the opportunity for the mixup at the center of the film, in which the meals cooked by Ila are accidentally delivered to a complete stranger. Over a period of days and weeks the two exchange notes via the delivery service. The topic of these exchanges, while seeming to center on the food, quickly acquires additional dimensions, and we sense that a romance may be brewing, even as Ila’s discontent with her husband increases and we see the full extent of the loneliness felt by Saajan, a widower.

The movies is ultimately inconclusive about the possibility of a connection between the two, as events conspire to bring them closer and then, in a twist worthy of O. Henry, drive them in different directions, as Saajan makes decisions based upon what he thinks he is allowed, rather than upon the choices with which he is presented.

Ultimately, it’s a film about intentionality as opposed to results (no fabricated American-movie happy ending here), and about learning when it’s best to override the head with the heart. It’s about missed appointments that speak volumes, and about messages that arrive by unconventional means. A truism repeated in the movie, “sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right destination” speaks to the futility of planning too carefully in life, and the wisdom of seizing opportunities when they arrive, no matter how unexpectedly.

Gia Coppola’s film artfully walks the line that always characterizes the choices of adolescence: between beautiful freedom and anarchic destruction and boredom.

Let’s just call this an endurance test capped off with a head-scratching ending.

What starts off as a charming tale of a retired Princeton philosophy professor (Matthew Morgan, played by Michael Caine) barely hanging on in Paris after the death of his wife, his life given new meaning by friendship with a young dance instructor (Pauline, played by Clemence Poesy), becomes much less lyrical and winning after Morgan’s grown children are introduced into the story.

The two offspring suddenly materialize after Morgan makes a feeble suicide attempt, and the caustic words exchanged by family members and their mixed motivations quickly muddy the simplicity of the original storyline. Morgan’s attempt to kill himself makes sense at the time, as a response to memories of his wife made even more raw by his new feelings for Pauline, an impossibly youthful romantic object. But, in the aftermath of the suicide attempt, the story devolves into interminable heart-to-heart discussions and family squabbles. Pauline, caught in the middle, ends up carrying too much of the weight of these family troubles and, no longer the mysterious stranger in Morgan’s life, becomes just another combatant.

Part of the beauty of the story lies in the gentle flirtation between Morgan and Pauline, which transcends their age difference, but that spell is broken when Pauline and Morgan’s son develop an attraction for one another. Morgan attempts magnanimity, wishing his son the best even when that includes having Pauline, but the two men’s hasty attempts to patch up years of differences don’t really ring true.

SPOILER ALERT: Then, in a baffling ending, Morgan apparently satisfied that he no longer has unfinished business, appears to succeed in a second suicide attempt. This time no one seems particularly upset, and Morgan’s son and Pauline walk offscreen arm in arm. Huh??

The movie is partially redeemed by the acting of Caine and Poesy, who, even when working with uneven material, are both a pleasure to watch.