Places (Or Why Sad is Not Unhappy)

Ewen is not paying attention to his Happiness lessons

I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think the title of the film Beginners (2011) is taken from the British theatre idiom by which the stage manager notifies the actors that the play is about the start.  In the States, the SM calls "Places," whereas in the UK and much of the Commonwealth, the call is "Beginners."  (This is, of course, further proof that the Brits do not understand and cannot use the language that they initiated but which, since the death of Shakespeare, they have managed to complete bungle and misuse.  The proper word should be, clearly, "Beginnings" not "Beginners," unless the theater management has decided to replace the cast at the last minute with rank amateurs.)

My point is that "Beginners" signals the time when one is supposed to start.  And although it's a start, it's a place you've been before, such as the last time you performed or rehearsed the play.  Nonetheless, you start over, fresh, as if you've never done it before, surprised, dismayed and enlightened all over again.  An actor in the theater must "lose it" over and over again, every night.  It is a state of ever-renewing innocence.

And this wise innocence informs the film, from its dark yellow palette, its Wes-Anderson-like narration, the heroine who threatens to go Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but is too smart for that pigeon-hole, even a very perceptive Jack Russell terrier, who acts as mute Greek chorus.  There is a beautiful, simple clarity which drives the stark production design, the jump cuts which are surely written into the script, the rapid shifts of place and time.  Although the texture is dense, each small piece of the mosaic is eminently clear and well-defined.



Arthur does his best to see Oliver through.

Most of all, writer (and director) Mike Mills writes with a simplicity that would warm the heart of E.B. White.  That may well because Mills and his melancholy but not neurotic protagonist, Oliver, played with a lack of self-pity by Ewan MacGregor, both experience mourning as a normal natural part of life, not to be pushed away, but not to be wallowed in, either.  (Mills previously wrote and directed Thumbsucker, an agreeably quirky indie, which offered little beneath the surface of its odd premise.)
If you've heard of the film and not seen it, you probably heard of because Christopher Plummer won an Academy Award for playing a man who comes out at age 75.  And he does it wonderfully and fully deserves prizes.  But do not skip this because you think it is an old gay man movie and you've seen that one.  This is not a movie about an old gay man, it is about a young sad man.  But sad is not depressed.  Sad is simply a color in the rainbow of emotions, one we must have in order for the other colors to make sense and maintain their relationship with each other.  Sad is OK.  The trick is to come through and come out the other end.

SPOILER ALERT:  He does it.  He gets through.  It doesn't end with a music montage and everyone splashing in the ocean, but happiness is possible.

This post has more outright expression of opinion than I like, but simply put, I found Beginners one of the most elegant, poetic and overlooked movies of 2011.  There is a lot more to see here than Plummer's rightly-celebrated turn, including Melanie Laurent's mountains of charm and Goran Visnjic's enchanting child-man as Plummer's lover, the compact of secret playfulness between young Oliver and his bemused mother, well-limned by Mary Page Keller -- these are all recognizable human beings, rare creatures in contemporary film.  But most of all, there is the emergence of Mike Mills as an authorial voice in film whose future work I, for one, intend to follow.

Love story

Hachi (2009) is one of those movies "they" don't make anymore. When I was a kid we had Old Yeller and Greyfriars Bobby and the Incredible Journey animals (the stark black-and-white original, not the goofy remake with movie star voiceovers). For a G-rated film like this, about loyalty and persistence, and greater values in life than the acquisition of money and status (the humans in the film are artists and teachers), it had to be a passion project.

And Lasse Hallstrom, still most famous for the immortal My Life As A Dog, was the perfect director. That film was not about a dog, but about a boy who longed to be one, or indeed to be anything than what he was, a little boy whose mother was dying. Both that film and Hachi have the knack of showing the point of view of ordinarily neglected figures--a little boy, a lost dog--who do not or cannot express themselves verbally. In Hachi, that point of view is expressed in dog-level POV shots with desaturated color (to represent a dog's color blindness, presumably). Curiously, as the film progresses, and we get to the heart of the story, the dog waiting faithfully for 9 years for a master who will never return, we lose the point-of-view shots, as if in recognition that the story's impact relies on a human perspective. After all, we don't expect humans to be loyal and persistent. It is the contrast between the dog's behavior and our expectations (and knowledge) of each other that makes the dog heroic in contrast.

Like the classic European directors we fell in love with in the 50s and 60s, Hallstrom doesn't need much story to make an engaging film. It does feel thin around the one-hour mark, but finishes strongly, walking that fine line of honest, decent sentiment without sentimentality. And yet, although I liked the film, it felt weightless. There is nothing to the relationship between man and dog but their relationship. There are no special circumstances binding them together, whether shared hazards or service or even attachment to some third party, human or otherwise.

Curiously, one of the most touching moments belongs to Joan Allen, playing Richard Gere's widow, who happens upon the dog many years into his vigil waiting for his never-to-return master. Allen's character never seems to have bonded closely with the animal, and she approaches it, perhaps hoping for some connection due to their shared loss. The animal looks at her uncomprehendingly, but does not move or shy away. Allen says, "I'll just sit with you until the next train comes, if that's alright." The dog gives its tacit permission, never veering off its focus on the door through which its master may yet arrive. There is a silent acknowledgment that, as much as it is healthy for us to move on, those who cannot may be admirable in their own way. (Take that, Lovely Bones!)

Un-shaggy dog story

I want to take a moment to praise the brilliant Frozen River which I saw last year before I began this blog. This very low-budget independent film is a riveting character study of people living at or near the edge, driven by female characters and female creators behind the camera. Add it to your Netflix queue.

I want to say this so that no one will interpret my dismissal of Wendy and Lucy (2008) as an anti-feminist or anti-indie film screed. It's just that there seem to be a lot of reviews which suggest that if you make a film about a young woman with few or no resources and a loveable dog, you should love it. Make no mistake. This film could have been an Academy Award winner for Best Short Subject. It has enough story for 35 or 40 minutes. But at 75 minutes, it is riddled with excruciating shots of nothing much happening (an extra reading a book, an empty street) during which we are supposed to think about...I don't know, what the heck?

Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.