jon@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Jonathan Gingerich) (12/03/85)
a I guess I was somewhat intemperate in my panning of "Enemy Mine". I had just taken 4 friends to a test screening and left feeling ripped off for spending 2 hours watching for free. I have a suspicion it is going to arrive at Christmas with advertising and an intriguing theme which will attract a lot of people who had wished they had been forewarned. It is not that the plot is predictable but that the interesting parts are skirted and the dull parts drag on for ever. Add to that gaping plot incongruities, bad dialog, bad acting, bad sets, bad props, bad music, ... well enough, I saw a really a pro pos signature line, a quote from a French author to the effect that "By railing at idiots we risk becoming one ourselves". On to better things Someone told me that Godard had not released "Hail Mary" in Rome as a favor to the Pope. It seems to me a somewhat back handed courtesy. I mean its not going to affect him any; He has presumably seen it already or doesn't plan to. It merely inconveniences Romans and I'm not sure the Pope wants that laid at his door. They are picketing the movie here, and it ticks me off so much that I am tempted to go see it even though I ordinary wouldn't. I mean objecting to his intrepretation is one thing, but asking people not even to listen to it is a throwback to the attitudes that brought us the 30 years war. A film I saw a while ago that I strongly recommend is "The Makioka Sisters". It is a little slow, so be sure to go when you can properly enjoy it. It is based on a book by Tangazikawa(sp? not even close I'm afraid) that is approximately "Fine Snow". The film opens with the four sisters and and the seconds husband in Kyoto to view the cherry blossoms in the snow in 1938. They immediately engage in a conversation that is alien in its formal politeness combined with blunt antagonism and odd body posture about the inheritance of the younger two unmarried daughters. The money, held by the eldest, is to be given at the weddings of the youngers who are now staying with the second daughter. The family is an old and respected but finacially strained. The elder two have married buisnessmen and the quality of the suitors and the affections of the youngers are the coin which measures the rivalry of the elders. Despite the cultural shock of the opening scene, the movie is very universal in the play of emotions. The elder maiden rejects suitor after suitor, while the youngest becomes more and more independent in her life and her loves. About 2/3s the way through, I thought I was seeing the one of the finest movies I had ever seen. Then the plot turned a little syrupy for my tastes, and I felt little sympathy for the fates of the two youngers. The movie ends at the end of 1938, and the war has only be aluded to peripherally, which I found rather puzzling. I at first took these to be failings of the author, but later I realized he may be playing straight for a Nabakov-like black joke. What ever lives the two youngest have choosen for themselves, and what ever has been won or lost between the two elder will pale before the smelting and reforging of Japan in the next 6 years and the fortunes of the two youngest are hardly played out. I would like to know more about the author. I am told he is a "traditionalist" and the book was written in 1948, hardly time for any but the most exceptional to grasp the changes Japan must have gone through, yet the story often suggests contempt for the sisters, especially in their treatment of their servants and in the hollowness of the matchmaking. Actually, come to think of it, perhaps that is the triumph of the one sister, to find her happiness despite the forms, or maybe both sisters. The other aspect of the movie I must mention is the images. Absolutely exquisite. It is a wonderful movie. Go see it. There, I feel so much better saying something nice for a change!