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?

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.

Departures ****

Just this way, just this once, never again

This movie borders on exquisite. No small task for a movie that not only deals with death, but with the tradition of ceremonially preparing the dead in front of mourners before their bodies are placed in the coffin.

There is always a taboo about death. People who spend time with the dead are “creepy”. It is perhaps not surprising that that those immersed in taboo are true artists in Japan. The principle of Japanese aesthetics was once summed up as follows: just this way, just this once, never again. There is nothing more mortal than we mortals. Each of us is just the way we are, just this once, never again. In Departures when the dead are prepared for cremation it is a public ceremony, wherein those present get to see the most tender treatment carried out with the utmost respect on those who have fully demonstrated their mortality.

Our hero, Daigo, departs with his wife for his childhood home after losing his job as a cellist. This departure signifies the beginning of a journey that takes him out of his comfort zone and into a pretty unusual job as a “casketer” that brings him closer to himself and ultimately culminates in the rediscovery of a Father he has lost.

In the Iliad of Homer there are a number of occasions when the warriors address a fallen ally or enemy. Even though they may have breathed their last the conversation is prolonged by the living. So it happens even now those in mourning address a corpse. In Departures the “casketers” are those who give dignity to the dead and to their mourners in the final moments…those moments when we stare into the deepest absence.