marcie_jacobsen

I don't know how objective I can be writing this review, considering the impact this film has had on my life, but I will try.

"Fly Away Home" tells the story of a 13-year-old named Amy Alden who was born in rural Ontario, Canada but was raised in New Zealand by her mother after her parents' divorce. She has barely seen her father through the years, but has to leave everything and move with him after her mother dies in a car accident. Amy's father, Thomas (based on the late Canadian artist Bill Lishman), is a sculptor, inventor and amateur ultralight aircraft pilot. The eccentric man's farmhouse is filled with artwork and unusual contraptions (Lishman's actual inventions). It is also messy and unfinished, symbolizing the Aldens' family situation. Upon arrival, Amy is fascinated by this world she doesn't remember, but is mostly mourning and would rather be in New Zealand. The sullen teenager harbors resentment toward her father for ignoring her the past ten years, and there is palpable tension between the two. Amy is wandering aimlessly around the farm one day when she stumbles upon wild goose eggs buried in debris left after local developers bulldozed a nearby wood. Amy secretly builds a makeshift incubator in the barn and anxiously awaits the hatching. When her father discovers her flock, she begs him to let her keep the goslings and he agrees, seeing his daughter happy for the first time since the accident. The geese immediately imprint on Amy and follow her everywhere she goes. Dealing with an animal control officer, the Aldens learn that domestically raised geese must be rendered flightless by having their wings clipped. To avoid this, Thomas devises a plan to teach the geese to follow an ultralight aircraft and show them a migration route in the fall. Since the geese will only follow Amy, she is also taught to fly, and the relationship between father and daughter is restored. As Thomas Alden steps up to take on his paternal role, the farmhouse is gradually cleaned, fixed and decorated to accommodate a family life.

"Fly Away Home" is a visual treat, and Oscar-nominated Caleb Deschanel's photography plays a big part in making this movie the family classic that it is. Director Carroll Ballard knows how to tell a story about children and animals without sinking into cringe sentimentality; interactions between the characters feel real, and his actors were allowed to improvise, generating a natural-sounding dialogue. Mark Isham's music effectively evokes country life, the wonder of flying and Amy's grief for her mother. The actors deliver fine performances throughout. Bill Lishman's close involvement adds the authenticity and originality needed to elevate this story above the familiar orphaned animal trope. Many scenes were filmed on his property, and Lishman himself acted as Jeff Daniels' pilot double. His actual daughter even plays one of Amy's classmates in the school scenes.

As for the personal aspect, I was the protagonist's age when I first watched this film. I grew up in southern Canada surrounded by "Fly Away Home"'s flora and fauna. My father was a quirky bearded man who often walked around the house in a bathrobe just like Thomas Alden. My uncle owned some land in Québec's Eastern Townships that resembled the Aldens' property and we'd spend Victoria Day weekend there almost every year. There was so much I could relate to. I was developing my cultural identity at that point in my life, and "Fly Away Home" instilled a patriotic feeling I had never experienced before. It made me appreciate Canada and want to get outside to enjoy nature. To this day, I draw inspiration from Amy's clothing style and the way the Alden house is decorated in my aesthetic choices. This film will always have a special place in my heart.

I first watched this as a twelve-year-old in the original French language in 1994. I'm a francophone from Montréal, Québec, where this movie is set. I remember enjoying it as much as any successful American comedy of the time; the two main characters are fun and likeable, and the nighttime atmosphere is very special. A recent re-watch convinced me to write this review since the experience was just as pleasurable as the first, but something hit different because of the ever present AI technology in our day and age.

"L'Assassin jouait du trombone" tells the story of Augustin Marleau, a failed actor who now works as a night watchman at Popcorn International movie studios. His teenage daughter Josée joins him one week-end, and the pair soon witnesses strange things when four of the studios' founders are killed, one by one. Marleau is being framed for these murders, as personal items are left on the corpses, and one body even ends up in his car. Josée, a bright budding programmer who reads detective novels, understands the killer's strategy and helps her father through this odd and often comical ordeal.

One of the story's most intriguing elements is the "totalitarian computer" system (Marleau's words) used by the studios; the computer records every phone conversation and prints it; Josée notices camera lenses above each computer station, and every hour, a Siri-like voice tells the time of day before reading an AI-generated poem. Marleau's colleague Tremblay once asks the fifth founder, the man who built Popcorn International's cutting-edge technologies, if these machines will replace us one day. It all sounded like wild science fiction when this movie was released in 1991, but the extreme and dangerous possibilities of AI are frequently discussed nowadays. I won't say more to avoid spoilers.

Every actor in this movie gives an excellent performance, including fifteen-year-old Anaïs Goulet-Robitaille who didn't pursue acting as an adult but was active in Québec's film and television industry at the time. Milan Kymlicka's music is brilliant and adds a lot to the ensemble. The funniest parts of this movie often have to do with Québec's unique use of the French language, so the best dialogue would be lost in translation in a dubbed version. I took away two stars, as some scenes and characters are very caricatural in nature, but this movie is definitely worth watching. 8/10.

I first saw this movie at thirteen, and it was my introduction to the Brontë sisters' work. I read the novel shortly after, and it soon became a favourite. I subsequently watched every adaptation in part or in whole, but Franco Zeffirelli's remains the best in my book.

Zeffirelli is a master at adapting classic stories, and his approach here is quite realistic. Every performer's act is nuanced; each makes his character credible, including the children, which is not the case for most other adaptations. Jane Eyre's friendship with Helen Burns is beautifully depicted and left me in tears. Charlotte Gainsbourg as the adult protagonist fits the character's physical description perfectly, and opposed to Elle Macpherson's model-like Blanche Ingram, we can totally buy Jane's self-loathing and despair as she longs for Rochester's love. Maria Schneider delivers the most frightening Bertha Mason performance I have seen so far, so much so that I nearly had a sleepless night after watching this as a teenager. For the first time in my life, I considered the horror of losing one's mind.

Some take issue with mild changes brought to condense the story into a two-hour movie. Most alterations are based on something mentioned in Brontë's book, including the variant in the last chapters; instead of wandering through the moors and miraculously stumbling upon her relatives' doorstep, a sick and heartbroken Jane returns to Gateshead Hall (according to the book, her cousin Eliza left it to a missionary organization), and the resident missionaries look after her. She is informed by one of her male caretakers that she inherited an important sum from the Madeira uncle who had been looking for her. This young, kind and comely fellow (named St. John Rivers, like the original character), proposes to Jane, but she refuses politely. The ending is like the book in every other way.

I own this movie and have watched it many times through the years. You can enjoy and fully understand it without having read the novel. The Victorian costumes are sumptuous, the photography, splendid, the music, evocative. The emotions build up slowly and when they reach their climax, you can truly empathize with the characters. I appreciate how the film explores Jane's love for drawing; we even see several pieces from her portfolio with Rochester commenting. This attention to detail shows the quality of film-making involved here. I highly recommend it.