Ikiru (1952)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni
Starring Takashi Shimura

I don't think you get any more ambitious in a movie. Japan's greatest director, working with his most reliable actor in a film about the meaning of life. In fact, the title of the film Ikiru means "to live."

Kanji Watanabe, played by Takashi Shimura, is a the section chief in city hall's public affairs office. He's been doing mindless work for thirty years without missing a day, when he finds out that he has stomach cancer and has less than six months to live. It is then that the bureaucrat -- and the viewer -- are faced with the question of how one should live his life.

The film takes the form of an argument. First, Watanabe tries living hedonistically. He goes to what appears to be Japan's version of Vegas and blows 50 yen in one night (his son and his daughter-in-law talked about buying a modern house for 200 yen).

After returning from his binge, he runs into the young female employee from his office who is bored out of her mind at work and needs his authorization to resign -- apparently the office comes to a standstill when Watanabe isn't there to approve everything that happens. He decides that the meaning of life is in meaningful relationships. But although he appears content with a platonic relationship, she gets creeped out.

So finally, he looks for his purpose in the place that he feels that sucked it out of him: his work. It's an affirmation of the Protestant Work Ethic that would make even John Calvin smile. After his death, his coworkers throughout city hall wonder what a could have caused a loyal worker to decide to actually get something accomplished. Its an indictment of bureacracy that every government worker should be forced to watch.

Shimura plays Watanabe with a mix of brokenness and horror at his fate. Two years later, he would play the leader of a band of samurais hired to protect a village in Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, which for my money is the best samurai film ever made. His range was extraordinary, which is why the descendant of the warrior samurai class was so closely associated with Kurosawa.

It is also one of those films where you get the idea that every image has a deeper meaning and that Kurosawa instilled so many layers into the film that you could watch it five or six times and still notice new things. For example, it is no coincidence that as Watanabe has his epiphany, he he stumbles out of a restaurant where a girl's birthday party is happening. As he stumbles out, the girls begin singing "Happy Birthday," signifying his new life that is about to begin.

Ikiru deserves its standing as one of Japan's, and specifically Kurosawa's, most important films.

Cidade de Deus [City of God] (2002)

Since the last film I reviewed was by Fernando Meirelles, I thought I would include my review of his earlier film, City of God. It was actually the first film review I ever had published on a now-defunct, I think, web site called, Biggerboat.net. I don't think it's too bad but I also hope I've shown some improvement.

City of God is a collection of interwoven stories based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Paolo Lins that is set in a favela (slum) of Rio de Janeiro, known as the “City of God.” The biggest box office hit in Brazil’s history (and the country’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s Academy Awards), City of God portrays the gang life in a poverty-stricken favela so well, the Brazilian police actually arrested a notorious drug lord in the lobby of a theater waiting to see the film’s sneak preview.

The story begins in the 1960s, when the government relocated the city’s poor and homeless to what an area that resembled a refugee camp, in order not to spoil the city’s “postcard image.” The police rarely ventured into its streets and as a result, the so-called City of God became a breeding ground for drugs and crime, ruled by gangs of children wielding guns that are all too readily available.

Through the sprawl of its many storylines, the film centers on two main characters who each follow vastly divergent paths. The first is a boy named Li’l Dice, who hangs out with a gang of older boys called the Tender Trio. “We have to find a way out of here,” the eleven year old tells them, and he devises a plan to rob a local motel (which also functions as a brothel for rich men from other parts of the city). Because he is the youngest, the Tender Trio make him wait outside the door to look out for the police while they rob the motel’s patrons. Unhappy with his role in the heist, Li’l Dice sounds a false alarm, clearing the Tender Trio out of the motel so that he can perform a brutal act that marks the beginning of a bloody career that will make him the most powerful gang lord in the City of God.

The second character, Rocket, who also serves as the film’s narrator, is too afraid of dying to get involved in the gang culture. His older brother, a member of the Tender Trio, tells him that he has the brains of the family and, making him swear never to touch his gun, encourages him to find his legitimate way out of the favela. Rocket finds a way out when he sees a photojournalist taking pictures of the body of the Tender Trio’s leader, who had been shot to death by the police as he tried to escape the City of God. Fascinated by the camera, Rocket aspires to become a professional photographer — though it will take him another decade before his newfound ambition can provide an escape.

The anarchy and untamed violence portrayed on the streets of the favela are reminiscent of the chaos that drove last year’s Blackhawk Down. But, unlike that pro-America war microcosm, City of God gives faces to the members of the angry mobs with guns—and it manages to do so without sentimentalizing them with trite explanations for their actions. Though the film condemns society for allowing places like the City of God to exist, it never excuses the characters’ behavior.

Director Fernando Meirelles has received some criticism for employing nearly 200 nonprofessional actors from the streets of Brazil and for glorifying violence with highly stylized action sequences. These criticisms fail to look at the big picture; though Meirelles portrays life as cheap to many of the hoods, he also highlights the anguish their actions cause to innocent bystanders. Meirelles shows both Li’l Ze’s brutal murder of a man trying to protect his brother and his mother’s grief stricken reaction.

Unfortunately, the Academy snubbed City of God from this year’s Oscars. Y Tu Mama Tambien, which earned more in the box office than any other foreign film, also got snubbed from the Best Foreign Film category, but made it for Best Original Screenplay.

Though praised by Brazil’s newly elected Leftist president, Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, as necessary viewing for anyone who truly wants to understand Brazil, its portrayal of Li’l Ze’s unrestrained ambition to dominate his business can just as easily be interpreted as a critique of corporate America. Exhibiting an extraordinary talent for storytelling, Meirelles succeeds in revealing a side of Brazil (and by extension, the world itself) that many would have preferred to sweep under the rug. In a society that idealizes brutality without remorse, violence only breeds more violence and Meirelles’s city streets mete out their own brand of justice for those who take up the gun.

Nacho Libre (2006)

Directed by: Jared Hess
Written By: Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess and Mike White
Starring: Jack Black, Ana de la Reguera and Héctor Jiménez

Ignacio is a cook in a Mexican monastery who believes he can do more with his life. The monks don't even give him enough money to make fresh food for the orphans in his charge. While in town he gets the idea to raise money for the kids by working as a professional wrestler by night. The problem is that the monks see the lives of the popular wrestlers as a sinful. So the question is whether it is moral to pursue a lifestyle that the church does not approve for the sake of ultimately supporting the church.

To suggest that Nacho Libre, a film by the writers of Napoleon Dynamite and the writer of The School of Rock, answers any ethical or philosophical questions would be a vast misrepresentation. Besides its premise, the plot is weak and the characters are one-dimensional but the film is pretty damned funny.

Jack Black, who has a comedic presence the size of the central character of his previous movie King Kong, carries this film. I haven't seen School of Rock but I would venture to say that this was his best performance since his break out in High Fidelity ("Oh, I'm sorry, is your daughter in a coma?") .

I have to admit, that I did like Napoleon Dynamite better. I think Jared and Jerusha Hess loved their characters more. Even though he was the antagonist of the story, you could still feel sorry for Uncle Rico in a pathetic sort of way. There were so many good characters in that story.

In Nacho Libre there are really only three characters that get any air time Nacho (Ignacio), the beautiful nun who Nacho has a crush on, Sister Encarnación, played by Ana de la Reguera, and Nacho's malnourished tag-team partner Esqueleto, played by Héctor Jiménez.

The first few scenes set up single gags that aren't that funny. But the real comedy comes when Hess just sets the camera on Black and lets him do his thing. Whether it's his heroic affectations -- he does a lot of posing -- or his catch phrases that only work with his Mexican accent ("take it easy") or his unconvincing arguments for the advantages of a monk's life -- which are complicated by his crush on Sister Encarnación -- to the young orphans.

In the end, Nacho Libre is an earnest tale about a sincere and naïve underdog. But there really isn't much of a moral, implicit or explicit. It's just a really funny story. And isn't that enough?

The Constant Gardener (2005)

Directed by Fernando Meirelles
Written by John le Carré (novel), Jeffrey Caine (screenplay), Bráulio Mantovani (contributing writer)
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Hubert Koundé, Danny Huston, and Archie Panjabi

A thriller directed by the Brazilian filmmaker of City of God based on a novel by the writer of the The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.

When Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is murdered on an expedition in Kenya, her husband Justin (Ralph Fiennes), a loyal member of the British High Commission in Kenya, investigates the circumstances that led to her death, which involves much more than a romantic affair with her research partner Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Koundé) as is first suspected.

In the scenes that flash back to their marriage, it is amazing that they were even married. He is a civil servant that does his work without questions and she is a bleeding heart activist. In fact, they met when she heckled him during a speech and criticized British foreign policy during the run up to the Iraq War. (But of course, in the world according to Hollywood no one has to question what keeps Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. In the looks department, Fiennes and Weisz give Brad and Angelina a run for their money, at least in my book.)

But while they are stationed in Kenya, she begins investigating pharmaceutical experiments that are being conducted on the Africans. It is then that she makes dangerous enemies.

Fernando Meirelles was a wise choice to direct this project because his perspective as a Brazilian brings joy and vibrancy to scenes that a director from a developed country would perhaps only see poverty and misery.

On the DVD, John le Carré, the author of the novel of the same name on which the film was based, says that he originally planned to write a novel about the oil industry before writing about the pharmaceutical industry, which leads me to think that he set out with the intention to write a novel about how Africa is being exploited and then found a plot to justify his assumption.

But what does ring true, to me at least, is when a character explains how the pharmaceutical companies send outdated medicine to as "aid" for Africa -- while earning tax credits -- without caring much about the consequences of their actions the real reason behind is guilt.

It just reminds me of Bob Geldof, Jeffrey Sachs and the G8 that try to raise more and more aid for Africa but never consider what happens to the money after it gets there, whether it is actually accomplishing anything. But it really doesn't matter because they are clearing they guilty consciences by getting the money out of the hands of the rich. Whether or not it actually helps the poor in Africa is irrelevant.

The Constant Gardener is a love story wrapped in an effective thriller. However, I will hold my judgment on the political accusations.

Come te nessuno mai [But Forever in My Mind] (1999)

Directed by Gabriele Muccino
Written by Gabriele Muccino, Silvio Muccino, and Adele Tulli
Starring Silvio Muccino, Giuseppe Sanfelice, Giulia Steigerwalt and Giulia Carmignani

When his classmates conspire to occupy their high school, an act of social rebellion in the tradition of Europe’s generation of 1968, Silvio Ristuccia must be a part of it. Though he’s not nearly as politically active as the rest of his classmates, he’s going to the protest because there’s a distinct chance that he can score with his friend’s girlfriend.

It’s not that Silvio, who is played by Silvio Muccino is a bad guy, it’s just that he and his best friend Ponzi, played by Giuseppe Sanfelice, are eager to lose their virginity in this coming of age comedy set in Rome during the late 1990s.

If But Forever in My Mind were a drama, I would have said that the director Gabriele Muccino (Silvio’s older brother) and the film’s composer Paolo Buonvino, had no sense of irony, portraying the petty dramas of adolescence that take on momentous significance for those who experience them with earnestness and a straight face. I would have thought that Muccino underestimated his audience. But I’ve just seen that the film is listed as a comedy in IMDB, and I’ve decided that he may have overestimated his audience—or at least me.

But Forever in My Mind is really directed from a 16 year old’s perspective. Indeed, the first shot of the film is actually from a scene that happens at the end of the story, as Silvio lies on Ponzi’s doorstep wondering what he will think of himself at age 16 when he is 45. It’s funny, because I think I would have looked at this film much differently when I was 16 (although I am only 28 now).

Like he showed in his 2003 film, Ricordati di me (whose title "Remember Me My Love," seems unnecessary if his previous film really were "But Forever in My Mind") featuring, as every Italian movie should, Monica Belucci, But Forever in My Mind, Muccino has a very slick, polished directing style. I tried watching his 2001 film L'Ultimo bacio but all of the characters seemed equally immature without any redeeming characteristics, and I just couldn't get into it. I turned it off after 45 minutes and I uncharacteristically sent it back without watching the whole thing.

Besides the main element of drama in But Forever in My Mind's first act being the gossip going around about who is sleeping with whom the irony is evident in each of the students whose reasons for demonstrating are identical: “to protest privatization and standardization.” Since I would bet few of the students really understand what privatization is or realize how standard their answers are, I would suspect that Silvio’s reason for joining the protest is not that uncommon.

What these kids really want, as Silvio’s question in the first shot suggests, is to know that their lives are meaningful. Their parents protested Vietnam. They have nothing to protest but abstract ideas. But where Silvio and Ponzi are really looking for meaning is in sex. They are anxious about their first time and they want to get it right. In the last scene one character tells another (I don’t want to give which one away), “Today it was you, tomorrow will be me.” The sincerity of the statement, and the emotions the friends put in each other’s confidence, are in fact touching.