csm23
Joined Apr 2002
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csm23's rating
When it comes to films about the Nazi racism, Nowhere in Africa is in a class by itself. Unlike Schindler's List and a plethora of screenplays on the subject, all of which confine the drama to the morality of good and evil, some with didactic overtones, others with pure shock value, or both, this movie illuminates, both with a spotlight, and a microscope, the social origins of racism. Here's the problem: The very institutions that teach right from wrong, that inculcate tribal loyalty, patriotism, and social identity, that teach us to pledge allegiance and follow the golden rule, have also quietly inferred, or noisily demanded, that the `other,' the `alien amongst us' in Biblical terms, is both different, and inferior. Every culture, Herodotus observed, thinks its own system of values superior to the values of others. If this is true (and I think it is), the subtext is clear: `others' are inferior. Which leads one to ask: Is it possible to have a moral, socialized populace without racism, or, at least, ethnocentrism?
Set in Kenya during World War II, the drama devolves around the struggles of an expatriate family of German Jews. Culturally, intellectually, and socially, they are Germans, not Jews, which is both fascinating, and historically accurate. Like many other Jews of their generation, the expatriate family viewed their Jewish heritage with both skepticism, and as a sentimental indulgence. Unable to come to grips with the events in Europe, reeling from and their new social status of being nobodies in the middle of nowhere, they struggle as social nomads, stuck between their privileged position as white overlords of the native Blacks, and their fallen, uncertain status as guests without rights. We watch the internal dynamics of a Jewish expatriate family through the prism of its own internalized assumptions, both as highly cultured Germans, and increasingly as Jews. And what they discover about their own hidden assumptions, their ethnocentrism and European sense of privilege and superiority, becomes as shocking to them as Hitler's Germany.
Like every other archetypal hero, being nobody in the middle of nowhere is the crucible that produces the Hero's special character, where he or she eventually returns home, in the end, bearing gifts, wisdom, and a healing balm. In the end, they emerge with real gem of a prize: they understand, both intellectually and emotionally, the comparative advantage of other cultures and societies.
What I especially loved about this film is its emotional tone. It's an emotionally evocative film, though not with the mawkish, childish paroxysms of a Disney flick. We watch adults dealing with culturally layered adult emotions, unwrapping and examining each layer as one peels an onion. Their collective emotional journey is as rich and textured and subtly presented as any I've seen.
Set in Kenya during World War II, the drama devolves around the struggles of an expatriate family of German Jews. Culturally, intellectually, and socially, they are Germans, not Jews, which is both fascinating, and historically accurate. Like many other Jews of their generation, the expatriate family viewed their Jewish heritage with both skepticism, and as a sentimental indulgence. Unable to come to grips with the events in Europe, reeling from and their new social status of being nobodies in the middle of nowhere, they struggle as social nomads, stuck between their privileged position as white overlords of the native Blacks, and their fallen, uncertain status as guests without rights. We watch the internal dynamics of a Jewish expatriate family through the prism of its own internalized assumptions, both as highly cultured Germans, and increasingly as Jews. And what they discover about their own hidden assumptions, their ethnocentrism and European sense of privilege and superiority, becomes as shocking to them as Hitler's Germany.
Like every other archetypal hero, being nobody in the middle of nowhere is the crucible that produces the Hero's special character, where he or she eventually returns home, in the end, bearing gifts, wisdom, and a healing balm. In the end, they emerge with real gem of a prize: they understand, both intellectually and emotionally, the comparative advantage of other cultures and societies.
What I especially loved about this film is its emotional tone. It's an emotionally evocative film, though not with the mawkish, childish paroxysms of a Disney flick. We watch adults dealing with culturally layered adult emotions, unwrapping and examining each layer as one peels an onion. Their collective emotional journey is as rich and textured and subtly presented as any I've seen.
Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of being forced to disagree with Ebert and Roeper, who inexplicably gave this 150 minute exercise in gum-beating prattle two thumbs up. I think this film is fatuous, bloated, constipated mawkish nonsense. If I had a dollar for every cheap cliché that fills the silver screen, I'd be a rich man. If I had been hired to play in the film, I wouldn't have been able to throw a rock without hitting someone doing a worn out caricature. If you've already seen Dead Poets Society, you've already seen it. Only this one really sucks.
Kevin Kline plays a professor of the classics (William Hundert) at an upscale prep school for the east coast elite, the rich and powerful moguls of the media, the captains of industry, and the political cognoscenti. So it's a striking irony that, as head of the schoolboys, Kline plays an archetypal schoolboy himself, a man who remains perennially confined in a schoolboy's world-view, in which dutiful, obedient children literally fear to tread off the paved paths set before them, where they memorize their lessons with the reverence of Mullah's memorizing the Koran, and where they all strive for vaulted honor of being `Mr. Caesar,' winner of a quiz-show type contest on Roman history.
What really galls me about this film is its irresponsible worship of classical history, especially the Romans. An unabashed didactic on the importance of morals and virtue, Mr. Principled Professor (Kline) is continually holding them up as exemplars. Which makes me wonder if the authors of this script ever really studied ancient history. Caesar, their archetypal man of virtue, overthrew republican Roman government in a military junta of the same ilk as Crassus, Sulla, and Pompey. Caesar loved power. What a strange lesson in civic humanism.
Kevin Kline plays a professor of the classics (William Hundert) at an upscale prep school for the east coast elite, the rich and powerful moguls of the media, the captains of industry, and the political cognoscenti. So it's a striking irony that, as head of the schoolboys, Kline plays an archetypal schoolboy himself, a man who remains perennially confined in a schoolboy's world-view, in which dutiful, obedient children literally fear to tread off the paved paths set before them, where they memorize their lessons with the reverence of Mullah's memorizing the Koran, and where they all strive for vaulted honor of being `Mr. Caesar,' winner of a quiz-show type contest on Roman history.
What really galls me about this film is its irresponsible worship of classical history, especially the Romans. An unabashed didactic on the importance of morals and virtue, Mr. Principled Professor (Kline) is continually holding them up as exemplars. Which makes me wonder if the authors of this script ever really studied ancient history. Caesar, their archetypal man of virtue, overthrew republican Roman government in a military junta of the same ilk as Crassus, Sulla, and Pompey. Caesar loved power. What a strange lesson in civic humanism.
There are two themes of The Hours that seem to oppose each other, like the constantly reversing polarity of electrical alternating current.
On the one hand, there's the admonition to `look life in the face, and know it for what it is.' It's Luther's stubborn refusal to budge in the face of adversity, the `here I stand; I can do no other.' Mrs. Dalloway, a `monster' in the eyes of some, whose monstrous deed was to have chosen life over death, exemplifies this virtue. Having abandoned her children to save herself from the despair of an inauthentic life, she exemplifies the willingness to accept life as it is.
On the other hand, there is the last refuge of the despairing soul, the knowledge that `It is possible to die.' Deeply ironical, the person who exemplifies this type of despair is the one who has lived the fully authentic life. Richard found the courage and freedom to explore the entire world, inside and out, and take from his exploration only what resonated with himself. And yet, as a social icon of sorts, Richard finds himself living for others, like Prometheus bound, except that the ravens eating his flesh are his friends and companions. Richard tells Clarissa, `I think I'm staying alive to satisfy you.' To which Clarissa replies, `That's what people do: they stay alive for each other.' Richard escapes this last falsehood of the spirit the only way he can, by choosing death.
The Hours is almost completely bereft of metaphor, analogy, or syllogism that might be construed as an attempt to point to a meaning or lesson or didactic purpose. Like really good art, it points to something ineffable, to feelings with which we can all identify, the feelings of despair we all feel when trapped, either by ourselves, or others, in a false existence.
But to choose life it to also choose death. Every beginning is an ending. And just like singing the blues, one feels strangely uplifted after dwelling on such an apparently depressing subject. One comes away from the film with the feeling that, as Richard put it, everything's in the world is all wrong, all mixed up, but that it's also possible, and necessary, to look life in the face, and to accept it for what it is.
On the one hand, there's the admonition to `look life in the face, and know it for what it is.' It's Luther's stubborn refusal to budge in the face of adversity, the `here I stand; I can do no other.' Mrs. Dalloway, a `monster' in the eyes of some, whose monstrous deed was to have chosen life over death, exemplifies this virtue. Having abandoned her children to save herself from the despair of an inauthentic life, she exemplifies the willingness to accept life as it is.
On the other hand, there is the last refuge of the despairing soul, the knowledge that `It is possible to die.' Deeply ironical, the person who exemplifies this type of despair is the one who has lived the fully authentic life. Richard found the courage and freedom to explore the entire world, inside and out, and take from his exploration only what resonated with himself. And yet, as a social icon of sorts, Richard finds himself living for others, like Prometheus bound, except that the ravens eating his flesh are his friends and companions. Richard tells Clarissa, `I think I'm staying alive to satisfy you.' To which Clarissa replies, `That's what people do: they stay alive for each other.' Richard escapes this last falsehood of the spirit the only way he can, by choosing death.
The Hours is almost completely bereft of metaphor, analogy, or syllogism that might be construed as an attempt to point to a meaning or lesson or didactic purpose. Like really good art, it points to something ineffable, to feelings with which we can all identify, the feelings of despair we all feel when trapped, either by ourselves, or others, in a false existence.
But to choose life it to also choose death. Every beginning is an ending. And just like singing the blues, one feels strangely uplifted after dwelling on such an apparently depressing subject. One comes away from the film with the feeling that, as Richard put it, everything's in the world is all wrong, all mixed up, but that it's also possible, and necessary, to look life in the face, and to accept it for what it is.