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At the
Movies Off
the Path
By JOSEPH CUNEEN
A.I. is the biggest movie of
the summer, its big advance promotion trading on the prestige of both Stanley
Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. The former worked on the project for several
years before he died, and Spielberg says he tried to make the movie the way
Kubrick would have. The director of E.T. again demonstrates his
extraordinary skill (Janusz Kaminski did the superb cinematography) in creating
strange -- sometimes quite lovely -- computerized images, but the overall
Spielberg-Kubrick collaboration has produced a wildly disjointed
movie. A.I deals with such basic emotions -- Monica Swinton
(Frances OConnor) abandons David, her robot son (Haley Joel Osment) after
programming him to love her eternally -- that many moviegoers will be deeply
moved, but this story of a doom-ridden future collapses into a mixture of
sentimentality, pretentiousness and sensory overkill.
A.I. begins in the frightening future with a solemn
voiceover by Ben Kingsley informing us that the polar ice cap has melted,
leaving New York and other cities underwater. Strict regulations on family size
protect the existing population, which depends more and more on
mecha servants, androids that look and act human. At a supposed
science seminar, Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) announces that he has developed a new
robot with the capacity to love. When an African-American woman asks how can we
be sure that humans will return this love, the answer is glib:
Didnt God create Adam so that he might love Him? The mindset
of the company that makes mechas obviously has no real interest in God, nor
does it ever question the unhealthy assumption that children exist simply to
satisfy their parents needs. David is handed over to the Swintons
--husband Henry (Sam Robards) works for Hobbys company -- since their
terminally ill son Martin (Jake Thomas) has been cryogenically frozen while a
cure is being sought.
Haley Joel Osment, even more remarkable than in The Sixth
Sense, makes this paragon robot as unsettling as he is sweet; we know
hes not a real child when he asks, Do you want me to go to bed
now? Monica has been warned that if she uses special code words to
imprint David, she will have his undying love; at that point the only
alternative would be to destroy him. Charmed by his unblinking attention, she
pronounces the code; very soon afterward, however, a medical miracle brings
Martin out of his coma and home to his strangely expanded family.
The sibling rivalry behind Martins nastiness to David is
consistent with an overall presentation of mechas as far more attractive than
humans, a theme that probably derives from Kubrick. Urged on by Martin, David
even enters the Swintons bedroom at night, frightening Monica by cutting
off a lock of her hair with large scissors. Henry tells his wife that the
robot-child is a threat she must get rid of, setting up the movies key
scene, in which Monica leaves the frightened David alone in the forest with his
super-toy teddy bear.
Since Monica had read Pinocchio to David, he sets off
in search of the Blue Fairy in order to become a real boy -- and
win back Mommy. Whereas Pinocchio lies, makes mistakes and goes through a
learning process, David, programmed for innocence, is dragged to the Flesh
Fair, at which Nazi-like humans persecute outcast robots. He and Gigolo Joe
(Jude Law), a pomaded charmer David has met along the way, are herded into
cages while Lord Johnson-Johnson (Brendan Gleeson), who presides over the fair,
calls for the destruction of artificiality in the name of a
truly human future. The contradictory emotional claims of the scene were
preceded by pathetic images of robots patiently searching for spare parts in a
junk pile. When they break out of their cages, Joe takes David to Rouge City to
consult Dr. Know (a TV image with the voice of Robin Williams) about the
whereabouts of the Blue Fairy. Directed to the end of the world, a
submerged Manhattan, David dives from the top of Radio City into the
frightening waters deep below. Since this would hardly make a successful
commercial ending, Spielberg adds a two-thousand-year-later epilogue that, if
taken seriously, would encourage discussion of Oedipus.
Spielberg forgets that, though mommies are wonderful, we ought to
learn to love people in general. My advice is to avoid this cornucopia of
technology and reread Pinocchio, a genuine work of imagination.
Divided We Fall, a Czech
treatment of life in a small town under Nazi occupation, is an Oscar-nominated
foreign film that highlights the ambiguity of moral choice. While reminding us
of the horror of Hitlers efforts to exterminate the Jews, its central
character is Josef Cizek (Bolek Polívka), a cynical, lazy husband with a
minor physical disability that allows him to lie on the living room sofa all
day and escape the attention of the German authorities. When David Wiener
(Csongor Kassai), a Jewish refugee whose family once employed Cizek, shows up
one night looking for refuge, Josef grudgingly gives him shelter in the attic,
fearing that a German patrol would trace David to the house if he left him to
wander on the street. Marie, Josefs wife, shows more instinctive
compassion and brings David an extra blanket, but Josefs sarcasm
continues unabated, directed not only at Nazi propaganda but at his wifes
desire to have a baby, which is dramatized by a large picture of the Blessed
Virgin hanging over the sofa.
Polivka makes Josefs basic decency plausible, especially in
contrast with the toadying of Horst Prohaska (Jaroslav Dusek), who keeps
dropping in, mostly to admire Marie but also to encourage Josef to join him in
working for the local German authorities. Josef goes along, fearful that Horst
will accidentally discover Davids presence in the house, and the
movies best comic moment comes when Horst tries to teach Josef the
resolutely unconcerned facial expression that the Nazis will interpret as
loyalty.
Of course, the neighbors show contempt for Josef when they see him
with Horst and the local German supervisor, and the plot turns farcical when
Horst asks him to give shelter to a Nazi sympathizer who has fallen into
disgrace because his son has become a deserter. Marie explains that this is
impossible because she is pregnant and they will need their extra room for the
baby. When he is alone with her, Josef asks Marie how she can lie so well after
receiving a strict, traditional education. Since medical tests have revealed
that Josef is impotent, there is a huge problem to solve in explaining the
situation to Horst.
Divided We Fall preserves a genuine sense of danger in
the whole situation while working toward a hopeful resolution -- aided by the
end of the war. The unwillingness to see things in terms of black and white
continues with the Russian takeover of the town, since its new masters at first
believe Josef is a collaborator. The sly Czech sense of the absurd contributes
to a sense of ultimate reconciliation, in which even Horst establishes his
basic humanity.
The movie will not satisfy those looking for a resolutely
realistic depiction of Nazi terror. It is far more interested in emphasizing
the decency of ordinary Czechs as they are forced to adopt ridiculous
strategies to deal with impossible moral dilemmas. Although director Jan
Hrebejk includes some false notes -- Maries face is suddenly superimposed
on the living room portrait of Mary -- Polivkas performance as the
likably sardonic antihero gives the movie both credibility and complexity.
Maggie Greenwalds
Songcatcher is well worth seeing for its celebration of Appalachian
mountain music in the early 1900s. The story centers on Dr. Lily Penleric
(Janet McTeer), a university musicologist who, after refusing the promotion she
deserves, goes to visit her sister Elna Penleric (Jane Adams) in western North
Carolina. Elna and Harriet Tolliver (E. Katherine Kerr) have established a
school in this desolate area, and when their teenage protegé Deladis
Slocumb (Emmy Rossum) sings songs of her childhood in a pure, clear voice, Lily
realizes that the mountain folk have preserved earlier Scotch-Irish versions of
music she has long admired.
The scenery is inspiring, and the soundtrack of Lilys
musical discoveries (performed by Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement,
Hazel Dickens and Taj Mahal) is so spirited that we begin to believe that there
are first-rate fiddlers and singers in every mountain cabin. Lily is
indefatigable in pursuing out-of-the-way leads in almost inaccessible areas,
dragging along the cumbersome recording equipment of the period, and making
singers repeat their songs until she can make manuscript transcriptions. Her
most enjoyable encounter is with a primal grandmother figure, Viney Butler (Pat
Carroll), who dispenses homespun wisdom and even enlists the help of a
frightened Lily in a bloody, pre-modern childbirth. Less successful is the more
predictable relationship between Lily and Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn),
Vineys handsome, roughhewn grandson, who mocks the professor and accuses
her of exploiting his neighbors. He is unfair, but his attack serves to
underline the central plot thread of the staid Lilys long-needed
non-academic education.
Songcatcher seems too programmatic in its presentation
of mining company representatives trying to buy up the coal-rich property of
its inhabitants. More discouraging, its laudable intention to praise the
mountain people and their culture is radically undermined by dramatizing the
savage response to the sight of Elna and Harriet embracing passionately
outdoors: both their home and the school they had founded are burned to the
ground. We can accept the fact that in such a time and place fundamentalist
preachers might fulminate against indiscreet lesbians but wince at such a
melodramatic plot device.
Even more disappointing is the resolution of the Lily-Tom romance.
The romantic comedy scene in which Lily sheds an article of clothing in the
woods every time she hears the cry of a panther is so successful that we feel
let down when they decide to go to the city to support themselves by selling
recordings of the music she has collected. In a movie ardently promoting folk
and anti-capitalist values, this seems almost as bad as if they had become
vice-presidents of the mining company.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
reviewer.
National Catholic Reporter, July 27,
2001
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