At the
Movies Charm and Excess
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
If youre tired of Hollywood
clichés and find most coming attractions to be assaults on
your ear drums, you will welcome The Cup (also listed under the title
Phörpa), the first movie to be made in the tiny Himalayan nation of
Bhutan. Dont worry about the language barrier, because director Khyentse
Norbu is able to tell its simple story by concentrating on the faces and
gestures of his Tibetan monk actors. (Yes, there are also subtitles.)
Norbu made The Cup in a Buddhist monastery, whose
residents, including the abbot (Lama Chonjor), constitute his cast, but he has
clearly aimed the movie primarily at Western audiences. Growing up in a
monastery himself, Norbu saw his first movie at 18, and then studied in England
where he became fascinated with the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Yasujiro
Ozu.
Though it lingers over Buddhist services and shows great respect
for the abbot, The Cup is primarily a wry comedy that shows its
rambunctious, orange-robed young monks passing notes to each other -- and
sometimes even falling asleep -- during the liturgy. The movie extracts much of
its gentle humor from the encounter between ancient tradition and todays
secular temptations, most notably the fascination of the monks for
soccer.
The climax comes when the cocky 14-year-old Orgyen (Jamyang Lodro)
manages to get a TV set into the monastery in time for the 1998 World Soccer
Cup final between France and Brazil. And Norbu exploits an additional
advantage: Geko, the abbots assistant, who is responsible for the
discipline of his young charges, is played by Orgyens real-life father,
Orgyen Tobgyal.
The movie takes its time, allowing viewers to get accustomed to
prayer chanting and the sound of gongs, and to discover character distinctions
among the monks. Two newcomers arrive at the monastery after a perilous escape
from Tibet, sounding a political theme reinforced by the wise and kindly abbot
when he sighs that he will probably never see his native land again.
A Coca-Cola can, used by the young monks as a soccer ball, ends up
as a candleholder in the hut of a strange soothsayer who never washes his hair.
The diminutive Orgyen wears the jersey of the Brazilian star Reynaldo under his
robes, but roots for France in the finals because he believes it is has
consistently supported the Tibetan cause. (Asked about the United States, he
says it is completely scared of China.)
When Geko catches some of the young monks returning to the
monastery late at night after watching a semifinal match in the nearby village,
severe discipline seems imminent. But the abbot, to whom soccer is a complete
novelty, can hardly believe Gekos description -- two civilized
nations fighting over a ball! -- and after determining that no sex is
involved, tells his assistant not to let the boys know he has been told about
it.
Orgyen says the reason the heads of prospective monks are shaved
is so girls will think were ugly, but by the end were
reminded of the Buddhist insight that clinging to the I has created all
the trouble. Director Norbu may someday direct his talent to making a
more profoundly Buddhist film; for now Im grateful that hes made
one capable of charming a large audience.
Liam Neeson gets a chance to do
comedy in Gun Shy, but deserves a stronger vehicle. First-time director
Eric Blakeney, who also wrote the screenplay, seems to have pieced together
bits from too many TV shows about undercover cops and strong men in
psychotherapy. The result is that its hard to follow the plot, which is
another example of Hollywoods fascination with gangsters, and one that
should make Dominican-Americans join their Italian-American cousins in protest
against being constantly presented as criminals.
Undercover agent Charlie Mayo (Neeson) was exposed during a sting
operation and shoved face down in a pile of watermelon at a wild Miami party
while awaiting instant execution. Though rescued at the last minute, he
constantly relives the scene in nightmares and understandably wants out from
his dangerous work. Pretty soon he is seeing a psychiatrist who mostly says he
has to see his other patients but recommends group therapy.
The movies notion of meeting cute is to send
Charlie to Judy Tipp (Sandra Bullock), a gastroenterologist. Although she
immediately takes on Charlies case and shows him her nice roof garden,
their relationship is neither credible nor charming. This doesnt mean
that Gun Shy doesnt have some legitimate laughs -- such as
when Charlie manages to act super-cool during tense meetings with his criminal
confederates and then races to the nearest bathroom -- but its no
competition with Analyze This or Out of Sight.
The movies violence becomes tiresome, as does the contempt
with which it looks at too many of its stereotypical characters. Why cant
writers of crime movies learn from Elmore Leonard who manages to suggest a
little humanity in all but his most ruthless killers?
Friends I trusted told me to read
David Gutersons popular 1994 novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, but I
was lazy and waited for the movie. That was a mistake. Director Scott Hicks was
apparently told that the novel was poetic, and decided to translate
its narrative into exquisite nature-photography that calls far too much
attention to itself. The result weakens an inherently strong story about the
rounding up of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and the 1950 murder
trial of Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune), a young Japanese-American accused of
killing a fisherman on his boat off the coast of an island north of Puget
Sound.
The most annoying aspect of the movie is its reliance on constant
flashbacks. The novel employed a similar structure, but time works differently
in film where constant shifts between present and past prevent viewers from
getting a clear sense of what is happening when.
Since the intention was to make the audience sympathize with the
plight of the Japanese-Americans, it was counter-productive to have the action
seen primarily through the memories of Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke), a young
American reporter covering Miyamotos trial. Amazingly, the movie never
presents the daily lives of the Japanese-Americans living on the island, though
there are entrancing shots of Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), the defendants wife,
as it recalls her teenage romance with Ishmael. Over and over it returns to
idyllic pictures of Hatsue and Ishmael running on the beach or meeting secretly
in the trunk of a cedar tree, but there is no effort to show the young woman
within her community.
Because her mother disapproves of interracial relationships,
Hatsue writes Ishmael to say that they cannot see each other any longer -- a
letter he receives while he is fighting in the Pacific during World War II. The
effect is to undermine our sense of the injustice done to Japanese-Americans;
instead, we are asked to identify with Ishmaels bittersweet memories. The
acting is good, and its photography supports the overall mood of romantic
melancholy, but Snow Falling on Cedars ultimately drowns in
sentimental excess.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
critic.
National Catholic Reporter, February 18,
2000
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