At the
Movies Opening eyes: Films take on racism, family
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
Men of Honor promises to be a
popular action movie celebrating male courage, in this case that of Carl
Brashear, the first African-American Navy diver. Though in many ways a formula
picture, its directed with slick professionalism by George Tillman Jr.
and brought to vigorous life by Cuba Gooding Jr. as the stubbornly likable hero
and Robert DeNiro as Master Chief Billy Sunday, the hot-tempered, abrasive head
of the diver training school in the early 1950s.
The underwater diving scenes, though sometimes hard to follow,
earn a high degree of audience involvement. But the films most
instructive lesson is that the racism against which Brashear had to struggle --
all but one of the enlisted men at the Bayonne, N.J., training school refused
to share the barracks with him -- was routine less than 50 years ago.
The opening is both engaging and appropriate. As a boy coming home
from school, Carl dives into the river near his home with all his clothes on;
we see the sheer joy on his face as he swims underwater. Next we observe his
fathers quiet dignity as he urges the boy to follow his dream of a Navy
career and escape the backbreaking labor of tenant farming.
At first, racial restrictions limit Brashears naval service
to the kitchen, but greater opportunities open up after he shows his prowess as
a swimmer. Though Gooding makes Brashears patient stoicism and later
heroism credible, the plot development is too predictable. Brashear never
becomes embittered or weakens in his commitment to be a Navy diver, and Sunday
is relentless in humiliating the recruits -- especially Brashear -- until the
latters persistence and courage lead Sunday to countermand the order of
the almost pathological base commander (Hal Holbrook) not to let a Negro pass
the course. Its too bad that the Brashear/Sunday relationship wasnt
further developed to make the central conflict richer. Both men come from
sharecropper families, and Sundays alcoholism and resentment of authority
offer a dramatic contrast with the heros self-discipline.
Brashears romance with a medical student named Jo (Aaunjaune
Ellis) is presented in overly idyllic terms, and the last third of the movie,
after Brashear passes a final test to become a Navy diver, seems to drag.
Men of Honor trades on our residual patriotism, but the ending,
framed as a trial before Navy bureaucrats, seems especially contrived.
Characterization is more complex in
You Can Count on Me, winner of the top prize at this years
Sundance Festival, and set in Scottsville, a small, non-glamorous, fictional
town in upstate New York. Kenneth Lonergans script, combining a sense of
low-key comedy with a keen awareness of lifes imperfections, centers on a
brother and sister who have taken very different paths after losing their
parents when they were young.
Sammy Prescott (Laura Linney) is a single mother who works as a
loan officer in a bank and lives with her 8-year-old son Rudy (Rory Culkin) in
the house where she grew up. Linney makes Sammy both attractive and
intelligent, yet there is a buried desperation about her efforts to bring the
various threads of her life together. When her brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo)
comes for a visit, primarily to borrow money and get away from some immediate
problems, Sammy is delighted to see him but is soon dismayed at his lack of
direction. Although glad to have Terry stay for a while and pick up Rudy after
school -- Brian, the new bank manager (Matthew Broderick) resents her taking 15
minutes to do it herself during office hours -- she is shocked that he has left
a pregnant girlfriend behind in Worcester, Mass., and that he thinks of his
future only in vague terms about going West to look for a job.
However irresponsible, Terry is also shown to be good-hearted and
vulnerable, and Ruffalos performance will surely win him starring roles.
For his part, Terry, aware of Sammys own independent streak, is
disappointed that his sister has stayed in Scottsville, where nothing
ever happens. As for the boy Rudy, Culkin hardly seems to be acting,
combining cautious observation and an obvious fascination with his rebellious
uncle who takes him out at night to the local pool hall.
It is Sammys story, however, that is central. She perhaps
doesnt understand any better than the unprepared audience why she has
initiated an affair with the prissy (and married) bank manager. She goes to see
her parish priest, admitting she had been brought up to believe that adultery
was the road to hell. Although the priest seems somewhat unsure of himself, he
shows genuine concern and avoids formula condemnations. When later he drops in
on Terry, the latter is resentful at first, but the priest makes it clear he is
not out to make converts. Instead, he challenges Terry, asking him if his life
has any meaning.
What makes You Can Count on Me a superior film for
adults, apart from the remarkable work of its three main performers, is that it
doesnt tie everything up neatly. Neither Sammy nor Terry nor Rudy has
answers -- and neither does the priest.
We recall the image, near the opening of the movie, of brother and
sister clinging to each other in shock during the funeral service for their
parents. What the movie demonstrates is that, despite everything, the sibling
bond between them is strong and genuine.
The most beautiful recent movie is
Iranian, A Time for Drunken Horses, although the lives of its characters
are bleak and dangerous. First-time director Bahman Ghobadi is no mere
aesthete. Dedicating the film to his fellow Kurds, and using non-professional
actors from the mountainous area of Iran near the Iraqi border, he has found
beauty in the rugged scenery, the thin lines of trees against the snow, and
above all in the tender relationships of the five children at the center of his
story.
The children have been orphaned by a land mine, and Ayoub, a wiry,
agile boy of perhaps 11, takes on the responsibilities of a father. Ayoub is
desperate to raise money for a needed operation for his severely handicapped
brother, Madi, but the only jobs in his village are with dangerous smuggling
expeditions to Iraq.
Those who have seen recent Iranian movies like Abbas
Kiarostamis And Life Goes On, Jafar Panahis White
Balloon, and Majid Majidis Color of Paradise know what
wonders these directors can elicit from child actors. A Time for Drunken
Horses is equally marvelous and unsentimental. Ghobadis
deliberately slow-moving film is a demanding experience, but there are adequate
rewards for all its rigors: watching the children care for the fragile Madi;
the delight of Ayoubs younger sister Amaneh when he brings her an
exercise book in which to do her homework; and the reconciliation between them
after he had slapped her when he was afraid that Madi would miss getting his
injection.
The films title comes from the smugglers practice of
pouring alcohol into the water their animals drink before setting out on a
journey during freezing weather. The scene in which we observe the result, with
horses and mules losing their footing in the snow, is truly terrifying.
If movies are accepted as more than mindless entertainment,
A Time for Drunken Horses will be recognized as a rare resource, a
magnificent tribute to a people whose lives find no recognition in Western
media. It is sad that the audience for foreign films has declined at the very
time when countries that previously made few movies are producing work that
could open our eyes and minds.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie reviewer. His
e-mail address is SCunn24219@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, November 24,
2000
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