No Wrench

French adaptation of the classic D.H. Lawrence novel. I never got around to reading the novel, so I can’t got into issues of how accurate to the text it was. It wasn’t assigned in high school and I picked it up on my own (though after seeing the film, I might). This film won a Cesar so I went into it with high expectations. And I came out with them mostly met. It is a gorgeous film. The cinematography and the acting are both superb. The sex scenes manage to be erotic without being pornographic (a great talent of the French. I think it has to do with them having fewer sexual hang-ups than us. Most American films manage to have sex scenes which are neither pornographic nor erotic.).

It is also a slow film. The first twenty minutes, in particular, drag on and even though after that the film is always interesting, it also is noticeably long (contrast with something like the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, which is long but doesn’t feel long when watched in the theater). At 168 minutes, the film is just too long. A slow film should not be that long because the slowness always makes it feel even longer. If this film had been 140 minutes, it would have felt right. As it was, by the end there was some strain. It was still an excellent film. In grading this film, I wish that the Tribeca system allowed for .5 scores, because I’d give it a 3.5. Having to choose between 3 and 4, I come down on the side of 4. It is just too good of a movie, despite the length, to give it a 3.

Sunday was my day of sex movies, starting with Workshop and ending with this comedy/drama about teenaged sexuality. The center of movie is a group of six smart kids who have formed their own clique, isolated from the rest of their high school. The six of them hang out together, spending their time cuddling and sleeping together. There was an article awhile back in New York magazine about a group like this at Stuyvesant High School called the “cuddle puddle.” (Although the veracity of that article has been eloquently disputed by the students who were interviewed, claiming the reporter took quotes out of context and made up whole parts of the article.)

From spending summers at camps, it is not abnormal behavior for groups of high school kids to be physically close often in pseudo-sexual ways. It is appreciated that the film doesn’t pass judgment on these kids for their behavior. The idea that teens cannot understand or appreciate their own sexuality is a farce. As Workshop showed, it is a rare person period who truly understands their own emotions especially when sex is involved. Big kudos to the writer/director for treating the teens in this movie with the respect that they deserve and never looking to pass judgment. It is rare to find a movie about teenaged sex where having unconventional arrangements is treated as anything other than a joke or a crime.

The tension in the movie comes when a new boy tries to break-up the group by asking out one the girls. The results are somewhat predictable, but still highly entertaining. The director speaking afterwards said that she tried hard to not take a moral stance and for the most part she succeeds. This results in the a film that does not have any sort of resolution at the end, which I’m okay with. But I would have preferred a more moral stand on what is right and wrong in love. It doesn’t matter if love is between six people or two people, there is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. And to me, the film should have taken more of a stand on that. But that’s a minor quibble. It is a good flick, four out of five.

Self-Documentary about a guy who goes to a self-help workshop out in California to truly find himself. The workshop itself is right out of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, with the spiritual leader preaching the need to rise above monogamy to truly be ourselves. Everyone has to disrobe to find themselves and by the end of the week, there are orgies and other assorted sexual escapades.

In the end this is a vanity documentary: Jamie Morgan made it to publicly work out his issues and make other people watch it. It would seem to me that going to a workshop in which you are supposed to shed all your illusions and discover your true self is rendered rather pointless if you spend the time trying to figure out how to best document the process. Observing the process changes the process. If it was other people making this film, using concealed cameras that the participants did not know about till after the process, then you might get something close to the truth of the experience. But as it is, this has a very reality TV feel: people on reality TV aren’t real, they are people trying to act real in front of cameras.

Considering that sexuality is probably the most challenging and diverse topic that people deal with, documentaries about it are always a good thing. But this one falls far short of dealing with any real or challenging questions. Two out of five. However, it did bring up something I want to write about. The workshop leader said that “monogamy is not normal.” That’s a thought I want to come back to in a later entry.

Genetically modified sheep running amok! Eating people! Turning them into giant sheep monsters! Biting off penises! Black Sheep follows the standard comedic horror movie formula, but really, who cares? The movie is awesome. It could have used a naked chick or two, but when you have ravening herds of sheep, you don’t need much more. Extra points for making the damn sheep look so evil. Five out of five for being just that kick ass.

It was an interesting movie. An unbelievably beautiful movie. It was shot on the Mongolian steppes and the landscapes are just incredible. The animals that move across the steppe, the sheep, the camel, and the horses are equally beautiful. Tuya is a Mongolian shepherdess who is struggling against the odds to provide for her husband, who hurt his back trying to dig them a well. Once Tuya hurts her back, she decides that she has to remarry in order to be able to provide for herself, her husband, and her child. Her only condition is that her new husband has to be willing to take care of her old husband. And so it goes. Many men come to court her. They are all flawed in their ways. The film meanders on in its beautiful way. And much like a meandering French film, very little changes by the end of the film. But it is beautiful and the acting is amazing. Four out of five.

As a New Yorker who lived through the blackout, I was impressed with how the people in the city reacted to the situation. The news reports all talked about how there were only scattered incidents of violence and looting, but on the whole it was a friendly peaceful night. Of course, you never think about what scattered incidents really mean. It means that there were some parts of the city that weren’t peaceful and friendly, where everything wasn’t all cake and flowers. And Blackout is a film about one block in Bushwick where that was true.

The film is a pressing reminder of poverty and race in a country that often tries to forget it. Scattered incidents of violence and looting means that in the poor, black parts of the city people weren’t safe. People weren’t friendly. There wasn’t a whole neighborhood standing together. There were people hurt, killed, robbed. The film stands as a testament to the unfinished business in this country of taking care of all of its people, not just some of them. Five out of five.

Alright, so the French are great at making these pointless meandering movies about people going through “things”, starting out as confused unresolved people and ending up as different confused unresolved people. It’s a genre of film that I could really probably live without. And “2 Days in Paris” is pretty much up the same alley, except . . . You take that same French formula and you stick an American male right in the center as a main character. It is not just as a source of fun, but as a true character, bringing a American viewpoint to the traditionally staid genre.

And it kinda works. It is definitely more entertaining than pointless, but in the end it still ends up being pointless. It wasn’t an unpleasant diversion, especially when considering many of the other French offerings in this genre, but it wasn’t earth-stopping either. If you’re a fan of the pointless meandering French movies then this is a cool riff on that. If not, you can probably avoid it without missing anything. Three out of five for effort.