The Tiger and the Snow (La Tigre e la neve)

“The Tiger and the Snow” is a romantic comedy that is so beautifully constructed that it feels mythical. Then we watched it again and realized, that’s because it is very much like a myth, the myth of Orpheus.

This Roberto Benigni film was not well received by many reviewers who thought that the hero was too silly, the storyline too ambiguous and other criticisms which all (in our opinion) fail to grasp the spirit of this movie, the same one that runs deeply through many of Benigni’s films – his unassailable love of life and belief in love itself.

In “The Tiger and the Snow” Benigni creates a hero, Giovanni, who is very much like Benigni himself – a poet. In one scene Giovanni explains to his daughters how he came to be a poet by telling them a story about a bird which landed on his shoulder when he was a young boy. He was amazed by this encounter, but failed to communicate his delight and wonder to his mother because as a child he lacked the right words. From that point forward, he wanted to be someone who could make people feel as he was feeling through the power of his language. As the story proceeds, he also charms a bat and a camel. Orpheus, the greatest mythical poet, also has a special relationship to animals.

As the famous myth goes, Orpheus was willing to go to Hell (or Hades) to bring back his true love, Eurydice, but he lost her when he turns to see if she is following him. What if Orpheus had never looked back? Well then, he gets his life back with the girl.

This is the question (and the answer) of this 2006 film. In the myth, Orpheus braves Hades for Eurydice, but he is fairly certain that he can make it back because of the power of his lyer (his music). In the film, Benigni does the Orpheic myth one better in that Giovanni dives into deep uncertainty and danger to retrieve his true love out of a war-torn Baghdad with nothing but his wits and his love to sustain him. He will pose as a surgeon, drive buses and mopeds through the dessert, face riots, looters, American troops and imprisonment.

Giovanni has an Orpheic counterpart: Fuad the Iraqi poet who goes to the realm of the dead never to return. Their conversation prior to Fuad’s suicide is revealing. Fuad, distraught at the condition of Baghdad, loves the city at least as much as Allah does (he recites a story of how Allah so loved the view of the night sky from the city, that he would often return to earth just to see it). But Fuad lacks faith and believes that there is nothing after death. Giovanni proclaims that he believes that after death he will remember and celebrate life. If Fuad represents anyone, it is the lover who cannot bear the hell he must traverse to save his love.

That Giovanni is a fool may seem to be a contrivance. After all, Benigni needs to make jokes and certainly the character’s foolishness gives his true love, Vitoria, cause to hold him at arms length. His foolishness, however; allows him not only to tread where no one else would go but to keep absolutely focused on the essentials. So many people do not like this film because the single mindedness of Giovanni does not do justice to war-torn Iraq, but this is exactly how Giovanni succeeds where Orpheus fails.

What is Orpheus real power? His music inspires life. When Giovanni lectures on how to write poetry he captivates his students and his colleagues fall in love with him. When he pursues his love, he is hardly aware of what clothes he is wearing (if any) or where he has parked his car. He is a testament to a man who’s cup of life runs over and any who find him entrancing find themselves drinking full of life as well.
All I can say is, we love this film and speaking for myself…it makes me want to kiss my husband.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly *

Well, it’s time for an Accidental Critic pan.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Le Scaphandre et le papillon) is a French docudrama based on the real life story of Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby. Bauby suffered a stroke in 1995 that left him completely paralyzed and mute. Well, not completely paralyzed, he was able to author an autobiography which he dictated by blinking his left eye.

When the film was released in 2007 it garnered a good bit of praise. Julian Schnabel was nominated for the 2008 Best Director Oscar (and won the Golden Globe). The film has been described as “poignant”, “an ode to liberation”, a “sensitive exploration”…okay we’ll watch it already.

Hmmm…gotta say, we were not impressed. Should we have found the hero admirable or the women who loved him profound, thoughtful, or sensitive? Perhaps not. They were French, though. The situation is tragic, but is there a tragic hero? Does the hero learn to overcome his privations or does he just dwell in his memories and fantasies? Of course a docudrama doesn’t have to be only as good as the truth of its main characters and yet we couldn’t help but be disappointed by the film. As you are watching you keep waiting, thinking that something important is about to happen, and then it doesn’t.

If this is among the best that French film has to offer, it seems that the French are full of departure. With the deaths of Beaudrillard and Derrida, has the culture suffered its own neurological accident from which recovery is unlikely? Is French cinema, like the former editor of Elle, reduced to the wink?

We recently reviewed an older French film,“Diva” which upon recent viewing seemed a bit naive. But for many reasons it is still the more thoughtful film. At least there are some interesting ideas about beauty and about evil which deserve reflection.

Seen any good French movies lately?

Unmistaken Child *****

This is an enchanting documentary that definitely leaves you thinking.

“Unmistaken Child” follows the physical and spiritual journey of Tibetan Buddhist monk, Tenzin Zopa, as he seeks to identify the child who is the reincarnation of his deceased master, Lama Konchog. In the process to find his master, a “Rinpoche” or reborn, enlightened Buddhist, Tenzin relies on astrology, the ash remains of his master’s cremation, and dreams. However, Tenzin is chosen for the job of finding his master not because of his great skill at interpreting these signs, but because of his great love for his master and the close relationship that he had to him all of his life. Rinpoche literally means "precious one"

A the beginning of his journey Tenzin has mixed emotions. He is happy at the prospect of the rebirth of his master, but he is filled with trepidation about being chosen to identify this reincarnation. How will he know? And once he does find “the unmistaken” child, he must convince the parents to release the child and let him become the guardian.

Tenzin looks for signs and he finds them. The film is filled with beautiful and moving scenes. We see Tenzin’s grief at the loss of his dear master and the mixture of pride and anguish experienced by the parents who make the difficult decision to release their child in his care. Perhaps most haunting, however, are the images of the “unmistaken child”. It is truly a bit unnerving to see a toddler so poised and quite inexplicably showing a very grown up interest in, the daily watering of an apple tree (which we later learn was planted by Lama Konchog).

But are these signs really what convinces Tenzin in the end or is it something else…something intangible and only recognizable by him? The ones we love, our precious ones, are more, much more, to us than simply the sum of their parts that reads like a personal ad. Let’s face it “blonde hair, blue eyes, enjoys walks on the beach and sushi” isn’t going to cut it when you are looking for the soul inside the body of a child. So what does?

I have a picture of my husband that I keep on my nightstand. It was taken over 40 years ago (that’s before I was born). He was a student at Columbia in NY and is standing on the street looking over his shoulder and smiling. I love that picture because for whatever reason, I’m convinced when I look at it that he is smiling at me. It is the look in his eyes, that indescribable something that I have seen now a thousand times, was there before and will be there always. Would I recognize it coming out of someone else’s eyes? When I asked him “How would you find me?” he replied, “Oh, I’d know by the shine coming out of your eyes”.

Viva Zapata! *****

When I was a boy and my parents went out for the evening, I had the opportunity to stay up late and watch a movie. If I was lucky it was an old horror movie, or better something like “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein and Dracula.” If I was really lucky I could catch “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Truly miraculous, however, was to catch a movie I can’t find anywhere, “Viva Zapata.”

It is Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn in an Elia Kazan directed, Steinbeck written saga of the early 20th century revolutionary of Southern Mexico. Every time it reduced me to tears. Quinn got the Oscar for his overacting and Brando just the nomination for one of his best performances.

1952 is the McCarthy era and the real Zapata was a student of Kropotkin. This film walks a beautiful line between right and left. Steinbeck’s Zapata not only believes he should fight for the rights of peasants, he believes that power corrupts and that the peasants will never really succeed until they distrust all leaders and fight for themselves.

There are many fine moments in this film: Emiliano explaining indirectly why the peasants need to kill his brother if they are going to be free; the young firebrand Emiliano explaining that children will starve if planting is delayed by political games, only to hear as Presidente (an hour later in the film) that children will starve if planting is delayed by political games; or the moment when peasants by sheer numbers stop the police from arresting their champion Zapata, by amassing in such numbers that the federales simply cannot move along.

Steinbeck gives you Mexican peasant culture; it is a gift you can treasure forever.

The Double Life of Veronique *****

This movie is an Accidental Critic classic that has haunted us for years. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth seeing even just to experience the music which is as beautiful and haunting as anything we’ve ever heard. Music plays a fascinating role in the film and the background on that is almost as intriguing as the film itself. The director, Krzysztof Kieslowski (considered by many as the greatest director of this period (80’s-90’s)), formed a lifelong friendship and partnership with Zbigniew Preisner a Philosophy graduate student who abandoned Philosophical study and became a self-taught composer. Unlike many film/music collaborations where the music comes after the film and only serves to accentuate it, the work of Kieslowski and Preisner was a much deeper collaboration where the music informs and inspires the story as much as the story brings the music to life.

The story revolves around two women, Polish singer Weronika and French music teacher Veronique, who are as alike as identical twins. They each have an innate sense of the other’s existence, though they have never met. It is an emotional bond that leaves each with the feeling of “not being alone in the world”. That is until Weronika dies of a heart attack during a concert while singing a passage from Dante's Paradiso (Canto 2: 1-9).

This is a wonderfully enigmatic film that resists too much deconstruction, but we have recently become intrigued by the interpretations of one scholar, Sylvia McCosker, who sees in the film the deeply Christian theme of “coinherence” or souls that exist in essential relationship with one another. The theory of coinherence is the divine solidarity of humankind which (according to Charles Williams) was first a created reality that we enjoyed before “the fall” and was restored by the redemption we receive through Christ. By creation as well as by redemption none of us is alone. This may seem like a stretch interpretation of the film, but McCosker sees some good stuff. She writes…

The gospel story is alluded to at the beginning. First the child Weronika hears her mother telling her to look for the Christmas star; then the child Veronique hears her mother telling her to look at the new green leaves (which in a European context tells us it is spring, therefore Easter time). The heroine's name recalls one of the traditional Stations of the Cross. Reared in Catholic Poland, Kieslowski must have known the legend of Veronica - patron saint of photographers. St Veronica leaned from the roadside and with her veil wiped the blood and sweat from the face of Christ as he made his way toward Calvary. Afterward when she looked at her veil she saw stamped upon it the image of His face - hence her name, which means "true image".

You can read McCosker’s complete work on the film here.

The final scene is perhaps the most haunting. We see Veronique driving to her Father’s home and she stops to reach out and touch a tree, meanwhile the Father who is a furniture maker is cutting wood and suddenly stops. This has been a scene that we’ve been trying to interpret for years and we are still not satisfied, but Dr. Dan does have a theory which was helped by McCosker and speaks to the film’s treatment of art and the artist as someone who attempts to represent the divine but ends up exploiting it in the very act of praise. We would love to hear other theories on this scene if you got them.

But while all this is very interesting, the truth is that this is a film that should be experienced and “felt” like the way you have that inexplicable good feeling watching the sun rise or like the way a memory comes to you through a scent or like the way sometimes, you just deeply know…you are not alone.

The Order of Myths ****

I am a bit of a documentary junky - perhaps because I really do believe that the truth is often stranger than fiction. My husband tolerates the docs with me, but they aren’t his thing. This one, however, had us both somewhat transfixed.

“The Order of Myths” chronicles Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras celebration. Dating back to the 1700’s this Mardi Gras celebration is the oldest in America (who knew?). While the event is the focus, this documentary explores the city itself, its people, its mystical societies, its race relations and its obsession with masks and Moon Pies.

While it starts out as “quirky” there is an eeriness about the deeply rooted racial tension, the secrecy of the mystical societies and the genuine reverence for the Mardi Gras “royalty” that sneaks up on you. The film covers the Mardi Gras events of 2007, but in many ways you feel as if you have been transported back to the deep South prior to WWI. Segregation is not only alive in Mobile it is “well” and being elaborately played out in the Mardi Gras celebration events which are run by two separate associations – white and black, each of which produces its own “King and Queen” of Mardi Gras.

But this isn’t a “political” documentary nor can mere “political correctness” make sense of the rich complexity of Mobile’s myths and the way they play out in its current culture. Let’s put it this way, if Robert Graves were to have a home in the deep South, this would be it. At one point in the film the head of the “white” association exclaims “we love our trees…I mean, we’re not Druids or anything, but we love our trees…” Indeed, the trees have grown so well they have uprooted the sidewalks. Progress itself seems uprooted in Mobile, while the roots of southern tradition grow wider and deeper through the community.

While Mobile may be home to the last vestiges of segregation, there is nothing “black and white” about this engrossing and thoughtful portrayal that leaves one wondering if the masks of carnival reveal masks worn year round.