The Farewell - Review

Solemn, brazen, and deeply philosophical
February 24, 2020

I’ve seen close to seven hundred films, but I had never cried and laughed at the same exact moment until I took Lufthansa flight 426 from Frankfurt to Philadelphia. Halfway over the Atlantic, with a small screen, over the din of air whooshing over the wings and the Airbus turbines blaring, with strangers coughing out Coronavirus in my personal space, with all of that preventing emotional investment in its story, The Farewell managed to do it.

In that scene, Haibin (Jiang Yongbo) is hosting his son’s wedding in China. But the wedding is a front, a concoction to fool Haibin’s mother Nai Nai (a lively force in Zhao Shu-zhen) that her family have reunited from all over the world for some other reason than that she is dying of lung cancer with only months to live. All of the family, including Awkwafina’s sharp Billi, know this. And they’ve all willingly withheld the diagnosis from Nai Nai in order to protect her from the despair it might cause.

Haibin takes the stage to toast his son and new daughter-in-law. We know anything he says to them would be farcical. And everyone is attending in the belief that this is their last hurrah with Nai Nai. This is the moment he turns to his mother and eulogizes her. He so carefully treads to keep the truth from coming out that we can’t help but laugh, so brazenly guides the spotlight away from where it should be at a wedding that we can’t help but cringe, so deeply and solemnly bows to her that even a Westerner can’t help being moved.

Ronin - Review

A classy Euro-Japanese heist
March 19, 2020

The only reason I watched Ronin was to settle a long-smoldering beef I had with a professor at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He had besmirched the honor of my own Notre Dame professor---who mentored me in live sports commentary---by arguing that, on the whole, commentary detracts from sports broadcasts. He’d used Katarina Witt’s skating scene in Ronin to illustrate his point. Hence my interest.

Now I’ve graduated and bear no allegiance to any school. I’m a rogue film critic out for blood, laying waste to thriller and comedy alike until I have avenged my professor, at which time honor compels me to fall on my sword.

That is the Ronin mythology and plot in a nutshell. The film is a creative amalgamation of seemingly dissonant themes that end up surprisingly combining well. Robert De Niro’s heist-mates are the ronin, a Japanese term for the samurai who through treachery have lost their lords.

The events, though, take place in modern-day France. The narrow cobblestone streets, hilly city centers, pedestrian-only squares, and lakefront al-fresco cafes give Ronin a distinct European feel. Jonathan Pryce and Natascha McElhone worked hard on their Northern Irish accents, and while those are Euro they lend a different feel than the French streets do---more of a Crying Game IRA grittiness. It is a surprising place to find ice skating highlighted---Witt’s grace is offset by her stark, East German athleticism and her oligarch boyfriend’s ruthlessness.

Revival! - Review

Gospel-Soul with a rampant imagination
March 2, 2020

Fittingly, no story on stage or screen has been revived as many times as the Gospel. Whether we consider the latest version worthy of any award close to Best Revival or toss it onto the scrap heap labeled "CBS Jesus Miniseries Etc." comes down to these few things, in my opinion.

First, as Christian films traditionally underwhelm in this area, what are its production values? More important, how faithful is it, what kind of imagination does it have about its characters, and how do these two often at-odds demands play out their duel? We crave compelling motivation to fill out the original evangelists' broad strokes, but make Mary Magdalene Jesus's wife and you lose some Biblical scholar cred. Further, what does it add to our millennia-long conversation and countless portrayals of Christ? And, most important, what kind of drama does it stir---content with rote recital of the stations of the cross, or invested in dialogue and action that propels the narrative forward organically?

Revival!, now, strikes a surprising pose. It never strays from acute faithfulness to John's Gospel, yet it has a great deal of imagination. It is a Gospel-soul musical that plays freely with its ideas of setting. A woman plays a vociferous member of the Sanhedrin, whose verbal duels with Jesus usually, but not always, have depth to them. They've even arranged for Lazarus to be killed (for good this time). We have no lip-service diverse cast, but a true one. And a woman, a man, and a teenager each play Satan in one of the film's best scenes. Satan, now a teen "abandoned by my father," eschews the temple and brings Jesus atop the iconic Hollywood sign to tempt him. Cast yourself down, he says, but more creatively and with more conversational logic than we're used to. Christ might be destined to suffer and die, he responds, "but I wouldn't want to be in a hurry."