Not knowing a lot about Buck before I walked into the theater, I sat down assuming I was about to witness the inspirational tale of a “horse whisperer.” The story of Buck Brannaman is one that lends itself to such Hollywood sensationalism, ripe for reimagining as a feel-good family flick. But this spin isn’t something I imagine Buck himself endorsing. A staid-but-pleasant stand-up guy, Buck isn’t here to make magic, and you’re not going to catch any symphonic swell when he mounts a horse. His job is to show people how they’re failing to communicate with their animals. While that may sound pragmatic enough, Buck finds a grandeur of its own in its reflections on growth, connection, and redemption. By rethinking the way we approach animal training, we are forced to confront the ways in which we, too, have been “trained”– and the choices we can still make in the wake of our conditioning.
Director Cindy Meehl and editor Toby Shimin make Buck essentially the cinematic incarnation of Brannaman himself. Spending 90 minutes in the theater with this documentary feels a whole lot like a day at the ranch, which is a novel experience indeed for the average art house moviegoer. The film can be lovely, humane, unassuming, and occasionally a bit dull– all traits of the man in question. Meehl effectively strikes a balance between the transcendent and the mundane to evoke the spirit of life in the country, and specifically life with horses. The animals are photographed beautifully: sweat shimmering on hides, muscles surging, dust kicked up amidst crisp sunlight and grasses. But most of the time we’re just following Brannaman, whether he’s dispensing revelatory advice to a crowd or logging hours in the truck between towns.
Start Something Written and Directed by Mike Mills 2011
"You don't know me. I like that." So says the She of Beginners to the He, on one of those floating walks that fill up the start of a relationship. She's teasing him, but we know it's more than a bit of banter-- it's an attitude that can easily turn into a way of life. Beginners is at once an ode to this sentiment and a critique of it, equally at home in the giggles and piggyback rides of early love and in the unbearable looks at a person you know you are supposed to understand but do not. The film takes us inside that curious rush of hope and mystery that comes with a beginning, but it follows those firsts shoots further into maturity than most romances would dare.
The title of this film makes it easy to pre-judge it: oh, look, another cute indie drama where people fumble into relationships and find out life is sad and beautiful and complicated, because, you know, we are all beginners, etc., etc. And that assessment isn't entirely off-- Beginners is indeed a stylized relationship drama that adheres to the 21st century aesthetic of quirk. But writer/director Mike Mills' strength is in his sense of arrangement, of context. He elevates what could be trite hipster sentimentality into a fully-realized human portrait by giving us a life in patchwork, sewing together sharp little bits of past and present. This is not a film about beginners as people who are "just waking up," people whose lives prior to the film's plot must have been an unimaginably dull morass (Garden State, anyone?). The beginners of Mill's film have been at the business of life for a while. The circumstances that befall them in Beginners are not earth-shattering. They simply push the characters to look at themselves and this moment within the narrative of their lives, and to say, yes, this is important, and yes, I'm going to start something.
Job in Suburbia Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen Writ. Joel and Ethan Coen 2009
“When the truth is found to be lies And all the hope inside you dies Don't you want somebody to love?…”
This strain of jangling 60’s rock from Jefferson Airplane echoes through “A Serious Man” like a witch’s prophesy, its simple rhyme rattling in the turntable, an omen of unrest and desperation. Its foil, a lonely, mellifluous Hebrew hymn, provides the sole other musical backdrop in the Coen brothers’ achingly uncomfortable ode to Jewish manhood. The one is raucous, the other meditative; together they express the alternating tantrum and resignation of a man coming face to ugly face with life.
Larry Gopnik, the “serious man” in question, is just trying to live a virtuous life. He has actively averted a midlife crisis and is about to be rewarded with tenure as a physics professor. That’s not to say his life is perfect—his children whine constantly, his brother bums in his living room, and his wife cites marriage problems—but there is nothing grave enough to upset the essential balance of his 1960’s Jewish-American middle class home. Until there is. One by one, crises rear their heads in Larry’s placid life: his student is trying to bribe him. Someone is lodging complaints against him to the tenure committee. His wife wants a ritual divorce. What begins with a simple bad Monday evolves into a bona fide series of calamities that bring Larry to the brink, forcing him finally to seek answers from the rabbis in his synagogue.
Title slides divide the film into three acts, named for each of the rabbis that Larry visits on his quest for understanding. With each visit, Larry confronts further disillusionment with the world that is unfolding before him, and diminishing resources to help him cope. Hoping to tap into a wealth of ancient wisdom, he meets with inane platitudes that do nothing to scratch his philosophical itch. “If there are no answers, then why does God give us the questions?” As the film delves deeper and deeper into a well of unanswered pain, the depiction is by turns absurdist and disturbingly realistic. It’s an ode to and apology for modern Jewish-nihilist angst, a dark comedy with strong emphasis on the adjective.
It’s not that it isn’t funny; there are brilliant (but mostly subtle) jokes, especially with regard to Sy Ableman, who is like John Cusack’s nemesis from “High Fidelity” shot through with an incredibly grating sense of shalom. But the humor is dried by the arid sun of the setting and cinematography. Hazy suburban hell is nothing new to film (Donnie Darko, American Beauty), but the Coens marry style to philosophical substance particularly well. And they’ve got more cinematic tricks than that up their sleeves. The frequent dream scenes manage accomplish several goals that evade most filmmakers: a) they evoke actual dreaming, b) they illustrate moral and psychological issues without force-feeding, and c) they genuinely trick us. The same goes for the point-of-view camerawork. While often a gimmick, the directors use shifting perspectives to get the audience inside the heads of characters that we might otherwise dismiss as simply pitiful. The murky marijuana camera filter could be annoying, but instead, it feels accurate, even necessary; we feel the same need to numb and escape as the characters do. The construction of the film, the beams that support it, are masterful and spare. The dialogue is genuine and short, distinctly Jewish without caricature, revealing without excess cleverness. Our protagonist is a kind of everyman, but Michael Stuhlbarg’s performance is quite personal, with a touch of idiosyncrasy. His face elicits immediate sympathy, dynamic and quiet at once. The characters that surround the hero are not psychologically developed, but they need not be. They are not people, per se; they are figures in the tableaus of the Coens’ amorality play, and as such, they function beautifully, each a unique cog in the undoing of Larry Gopnik. While almost like theater, at least in concept, the execution is intensely filmic, filled with mundane details of wind through trees, pencils on paper, static on a record. These moments constantly ground the film in reality, rather than indulging the tendency to see the story as a tragic fantasy.
Though the Coens would identify themselves as mere storytellers and not philosophers, the heart of the film and the hero is philosophical. In a scene in his office, Larry confronts a student whom he suspects of leaving a monetary bribe on his desk. “Actions have consequences,” he intones. The student replies, “Yes. Often.” Larry is visibly upset: “Always! Actions always have consequences!” Larry’s disgruntled reaction reflects the tragic flaw that the Coens have given him: the belief that the world operates in a just system of cause and effect. When his wife asks him for a divorce, Larry’s shock betrays his worldview: “What have I done?” His wife finds his response simplistic. “Don’t be a child. You haven’t ‘done’ anything.” The film follows Larry’s evolving perspective on righteousness, “seriousness,” and how worthwhile it is to lead a moral life.
After having seen the film and reading this review, you might be inclined to think I give it too much credit. So much of it is mundane, even grotesque, the dialogue too blunt, the story dull and bleak. But Joel and Ethan Coen have always made intentional films, and “A Serious Man” takes craft very seriously. Perhaps wanting to ensure audiences that their film is a serious one, the Coens begin the film with a dark, fantastical scene, seemingly a Russian-Jewish folk tale. The scene is never referenced again, but it casts a moody pall over what is to come. Most importantly, it tells the audience to pay attention to the spiritual themes ahead. What does death mean? Are any of the characters dead? Will any of them die? They set us up to spend the film intrigued and suspicious, on the lookout for ghosts and answers. And I hope it will not spoil the film for you to tell you that we never get assurance about either of these phenomena; Larry’s lecture about Schrödinger’s cat is a canny reminder that God, Hashem, does not give us a lot of ground on which to stand. At one point, a character shouts to Larry, “Accept mystery!” But it’s hard. And it doesn’t satisfy. “A Serious Man” is an unsettling film about a man’s sincere search for the meaning of life. As we watch, we wonder if we would be able to give Larry any better answers than his rambling rabbis. And if we can’t, God help us.Myth:
a) The quest for wisdom and knowledge, especially as received from sages, is a common folk and religious tale, especially in Eastern cultures. Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and those familiar with Greek philosophy will find this construction familiar. Humans have always sought answers from those “on the hill” who purport to have wisdom or answers. This practice is somewhat archaic compared to the postmodern sensibilities of finding the answers inside oneself, or creating one’s own meaning (existentialism). But even the moderns and postmoderns seek wisdom from the sage; they just do it on the therapist’s couch.
b) The Jewish setting of the film invokes the Hebraic tale of Job, beloved of God. God allowed Satan to test Job’s faith with innumerable trials that caused Job to cry out in despair. God answered him with a declaration of his sovereignty, his creative and administrative acts, and the fact that he need not explain or excuse himself to man. Job repents of his human conception of justice and acknowledges that God knows what he is doing. “A Serious Man” is an interesting modern response to the same situation.
Moral:
“A Serious Man” is a blatantly moral film (though certainly not moralistic). It directly addresses modern generic concepts of righteousness, and especially Jewish righteousness. It challenges the frequently uttered platitude that the meaning of life (or our best stab at it) is “helping others.” It asks why we decide to act morally, and whether it matters. I won’t expound upon all the conclusions it does or doesn’t come to.
Zeitgeist Factor:
The film, set in the 1960’s, does not make an effort to be especially edgy or contemporary; Joel and Ethan wrote it based on some of their childhood experiences. But the problem of evil doesn’t go away, and the sense of myth that pervades the film provides timelessness. The idea that the meaning of life is altruism is perhaps more prevalent than ever in the age of optimistic, activistic Generation Y, and it is rare that helping others or saving the environment is actually challenged as an ultimately meaningful pursuit.
"God, it's so weird that we're finally out of high school. We've been waiting for this our whole life." So goes one of the first lines of the film, the words full of promise but the voice low and lifeless. Ghost World travels that dry, sticky post-diploma stretch of life where the oasis of graduation is revealed as a mirage.
Our desert wanderer is Enid (the believable Thora Birch). She's the kind of person who has grown to inhabit her name, valiantly sporting combat boots, cat-eye glasses, a hoard of Velma-style mini-skirts ("an original 1977 punk rock look"), and a killer sarcastic delivery. Her best friend, Rebecca (Scarlett Johannsson), is more conservative in dress, but just as sardonic in outlook. Their pastimes include stalking hapless strangers in the local diner and discussing the tragedies of their pathetic small town's populace. Together, they brave a new world--an adult world-- that doesn't seem to be so different from the one they knew before.
The film unfolds like a modernist play, achingly slow with prosaic, slang-spiked dialogue. The plot kicks in when Enid and Rebecca decide to place a prank call in response to a desperate personal ad. Their cruel joke leads them to follow the man who placed the ad, Seymour (a perfect Steve Buscemi). While Rebecca is content to balk at his misfortune, we see a stirring in Enid's eyes, a hint of interest or compassion. So begins a minimalist odyssey of unrequited love, full of awkward silence and static camerawork. Enid's quiet, steadfast pursuit of Seymour the record collector is our primary subject for the next hour, a barely-there story thread dusted with pathos.
The character of Enid is well-written, but even better played. She is the soul of the film: sharp, offbeat, and dark, but with a nearly imperceptible spark of hope underneath. She enshrouds herself in a thick wall of quirks, from a love of 60's Indian music to her choice of art subjects (Satanists and Don Knotts). Her rapport with Rebecca is icy, but Enid can't help letting her voice thrill every now and then with a bit of interest in the world around her. Birch clearly developed the guarded inner life of her character, self-consciously odd in every respect. Buscemi's character work is also masterful. He lets us see the vulnerability and painful self-awareness that Seymour goes through. Both performances are subtle and sympathetic.
Some of the film's most gleefully satirical moments come from Enid's remedial summer-school art class. Enid watches in cold horror as her teacher accepts contrived political explanations for pieces of trash as art. She bucks the system by submitting her own piece, a horrid, racist poster from the 1920's, and receives a scholarship in result.
The film is certainly crass. It is about a crass world, one in which everything is a target, and sentimentality is dangerous. It may be off-putting, but it’s real. The art direction helps capture this mood. The town is deliciously dismal. The restaurants, the mini-mart, Seymour's record room, an abandoned bus stop: all are full of an attention to detail that gives us the sense of a lived-in and hated world.
Ghost World is an expression of frustrated meaninglessness. Characters glide in and out of the story: lonely, hilarious characters, subjects of derision. So we laugh. Why? The film offers no answers. Enid's art class shows people can be manipulated into believing there is meaning in the senseless. Enid and Rebecca's activities are restless and random, coldly criticizing others and making no excuses. There is even a small homage to "Waiting for Godot" in an understated set piece with a bus stop. But at the center of the film lies the pulse of Enid's hidden heart, willing to create, fall in love, and ultimately take life-altering risks. We don't get conclusions, but we do get to know the workings of two hurting, complex people. We get to watch them itching under an existential burden. It's a wandering journey worth taking.
