Monthly Archives: January 2014

Movie: The Band’s Visit (2007)

Posted on by
Reply

The musical group Police Orchestra—sent from Egypt for a concert to promote friendship—arrives at an Israeli airport. Although the Police Orchestra was sent to represent the country, there are only eight band members, and they look nonintimidating and somewhat like toy soldiers. There appears to be no escort or manager. By some mistake, the car also doesn’t come to pick them up, but nobody is upset even when left in Israel without knowing anyone—how come??

The band leader asks the youngest band member (in addition to being young, he has the best English skills, is a good-looking man, and immediately hits on Israeli women) to find the bus route that will take the band members to the town of the concert, but the young man pronounces their destination slightly differently—saying “p” instead of “b”—so the band members board the wrong bus and end up in the middle of the desert. The village they end up in is completely different from their intended destination, but, gentle as ever, the spirits of the band leader and members are not brought down. In the only restaurant in this village, the female owner is there as well as Man A and Man B, who are killing some time. While being treated to a meal by the owner, they learn that the last bus was the one they got off of and that this village doesn’t have a hotel. Even when the owner and these two men learn that the band members are from Egypt, they seem unfazed by this and seem to be even more carefree than the band members, with no dramatic hatred or political arguments. By the effort of the quite charming owner, it is arranged that the band leader and young band member stay in her own home, while the assistant leader and two other people stay in Man A’s home and the other three group members stay in Man B’s home for the night.

This woman in her monotonous life looks a little excited to have musicians come from the civilized country of Egypt and suggests that they drive together in a car to a fashionable place a short drive away. The woman—dolled up for the occasion—and the band leader arrive at an empty, spacious, dreary place, similar to a high school cafeteria. Is this a joke? However, because there is a wooden horse near the cafeteria—just like the ones that were on the rooftops of department stores in the old days in Japan—this place seems to be a place where people excitedly come and eat. While eating, the band leader notices that this woman, though a kind-hearted woman, has a loneliness that is not at first apparent; she spent her younger days without constructively thinking about her future and now is no longer young and realizes that there is no suitable man for her around. The band leader also carries a sad past involving his family, which he has told nobody about. Even though he can’t tell others in Egypt, somehow he is able to openly talk with this woman.

The young band member is excited as he drives to town with Man B of the same generation and his friends to play. However, the two girls that the young man brought along are not very pretty. They go to a disco in town, but the disco is not cool at all, only one-fifth of the size of a high school gymnasium. Man B, with no experience with women, doesn’t know how to be kind and escort the girl that came with them who is hurt from being ignored. The young band member can’t help but advise Man B in this situation.

In Man A’s home where the assistant leader is invited into, the man’s parents, wife, and baby are living together. None of them care that the band members are Arab!! The country of origin doesn’t upset them and they begin to matter-of-factly tell of their ordinary, everyday life. The father is quite a fashionable man and enjoys the occasion by singing a song with a band member during dinner. The father still remembers the beginning of his romance with his wife, but the mother doesn’t seem to remember much. The mother is instead more concerned with their son, Man A, who has been unemployed for a year. Man A and his wife also seemed to have married after falling in love, but their passion seems to have faded and it wouldn’t be surprising if the wife left at any time. I wonder what would happen to the baby if such a thing occurred. At the beginning, the audience is fixated on what will happen to the band members left in Israel who are like The Little Prince that flew down to Earth, but the attention of the audience naturally shifts over time to the lives of the people living in this small town in Israel.

After one night, the band members leave the town with feelings of gratitude. The members seem to have arrived safely at their destination as the movie ends with the scene of the band performing in front of a crowd. Someone may want to say that nothing happened, but this movie is in fact a surprisingly excellent work packed with a lot of content in 80 short minutes. Viewers may have different interpretations due to their experiences, knowledge, education, or interests, and each one may be correct. This movie is like a mirror reflecting each person’s heart.

I also had various thoughts when I watched this movie, but I’ll write about one—the intellectual criticism of American Hollywood movies flowing through the bottom of this movie. Hollywood movies offer romance and characters with beautiful faces that meet, fight, and have dramatic endings, but the director seems to gently say that these are not always required to make an excellent work. Some Israeli people with a connection to Hollywood make dramatic, big-budget movies about the Holocaust or Middle East conflict. But he may want to say that Israel is not just this. Even for young people living in Israel, it is hard to find a spouse they are excited to marry and, if they do, a stable life may not continue. Life is not easy even at the best of times, but it is even more difficult since there is strife with foreign countries and terrorism. People of various beliefs live in Israel, but most people understand the reality and the fact that there is no other country but Israel to live in. They do not know whether or not the methods used to found the nation of Israel were the best, but with the efforts of many people and a heavy price paid, they got their own country by expelling former inhabitants; with this past, there may be a genuine feeling of wanting to protect their country while inflicting as little harm on other groups of people as possible. Otherwise, what were the various sacrifices of the past for?

I have a close Jewish friend. She is married to a non-Jewish person, has a high-skill job, enjoys her relationships with people at the synagogue, enjoys her friendships with people of different cultures, supports the Democrat president, travels abroad every year, has saved money for retirement, and donates her extra money to support the higher education of girls in Kenya. For her, America is the only country where she can live happily and safely, but her son has a strong interest in Israel and, in the end, went to Israel to study abroad. According to her, “I didn’t intend to raise my child with the feeling of wanting to live in Israel, but I can’t stop him from wanting to go there. I tell myself that living and experiencing actual life in Israel is a necessary process for him. Half of me is worried for my son and half is proud of his determination.”

日本語→

Movie: Vincere (2009)

Posted on by
Reply

All I knew about Benito Mussolini was that he was an Italian dictator killed by Italian partisans in 1945 and his body was hung upside-down in the public square as retaliation against him for his massacre of partisans who were sometimes hung in this fashion; this movie depicts that Mussolini was in fact a bigamist, a side of him that wasn’t well-known. Ida Dalser fell in love with young Mussolini who was full of ambition, supported him as his first “wife” economically while he was a novice journalist, and bore him a son. However, the existence of this woman was completely concealed and erased by the government that Mussolini commanded and, in the end, she was sent to a mental hospital until she died; her son was also sent to mental hospital and died at the age of 26. The movie credits at the end say that there is no proof that she officially married Mussolini and it is unclear whether Ida really was married to Mussolini or only that she carried the delusion of being married to Mussolini due to a mental illness.

In 2005, journalist Marco Zeni published two books—La moglie di Mussolini and L’ultimo filò –based on his own investigation revealing the existence of Ida Dalser; a TV documentary about Ida Dalser based on these was televised and greatly shocked the people of Italy. In 2009, Italian movie maestro Marco Bellocchio directed the movie adaption about her life and this movie caused a big reaction across the whole world. In an interview, Marco Bellocchio was asked why he decided to make this movie about Ida. He answered this question with the following:

“It is because Ida wasn’t known at all. Even I learned of her by chance. I unintentionally learned by watching the documentary and reading the newspaper, but even historians didn’t really know her private life then at all and it just recently surfaced. Although I thought I knew fascism very well, I was very much intrigued and surprised that I didn’t know about her at all, and thus I made this movie.”

It seems natural that I didn’t know since this Italian with extensive knowledge did not know. Director Marco Bellocchio was not interested in depicting Mussolini as a fascist; his passion for making this movie was to focus on Ida, a strong woman who didn’t cave to authority as she attempted to gain true “victory”. He speaks of this in the following:

“My reason for wanting to make this movie about this woman is very simple. It is because Ida Dasler is a hero. I was not interested in exposing or highlighting the evils of a fascist administration. But I was very moved by this woman named Ida who refused to give in. She was completely alone for years. She—perhaps without noticing or involuntarily—made enemies of not only the Supreme Leader, but nearly all of the people of Italy. She deeply loved Mussolini for himself even when he was young and still anonymous. She loved him when nobody cared about him. She protected him when he was penniless, was criticized, and faced contempt. After that, their positions reversed. Everyone loved him when he became Supreme Leader while she was shut out and everyone turned their back on her. But she still couldn’t break out her reckless love; she didn’t notice who had the upper hand and thus made enemies of all of Italy.

“At that time, Italy supported the fascist doctrine and it was Mussolini’s world. This woman Ida—bravely opposing the Supreme Leader, refusing to compromise, and remaining a rebel until the end—reminds us of Antigone, a tragic heroine appearing in Greek mythology, and closely resembles Aida, the heroine in an Italian melodrama. This movie is a melodrama that depicts the mental strength of one anonymous Italian woman. She gives in to no power, so in this sense, it is her that truly wins. She had strength, bravery, and, in a way, foolishness to face the world. This is why her story is historically valuable to me.

“To us today, fascism is absurd and irrational and we laugh when we see it, but knowing about her life makes us remember that fascism is a cruel dictatorship, not a funny story. In order to execute this insane paradigm, anyone who obstructed it was crushed and countless innocent people were victimized for the sake of the system.”

Director Marco Bellocchio’s intention is simple, but I wonder if his intention is successfully transmitted to the audience. In this movie, it is unclear whether she is really Mussolini’s wife and the movie may make the audience think that she died insane with these delusions. Without certainty, the audience that continues to watch on and on for two hours may wonder what the point is to keep watching her insanity. If the director wants to depict Ida’s victory, I think this ambiguous way of depicting is not the best method to accomplish his intention. If contemporary Italians have the freedom of speech and behavior to the point where he could say “fascism is absurd and irrational and we laugh,” I wonder why he doesn’t show clearly, based on historical facts, how the lives of this mother and child who could have been killed were completely concealed by authorities. This movie’s cinematography is certainly charming and I can see that he was aiming for an artistic movie, as seen by the incorporation of silent and historical footage, but I feel he could have done something different to more effectively dedicate it to this anonymous heroine. After watching this movie, I can’t help but think that making a straight-forward movie that is able to clearly transmit the facts to the whole audience would be the best way to honor this anonymous heroine who was totally neglected.

日本語→

Movie: A Dangerous Method (2011)

Posted on by
Reply

Most everyone is familiar with the psychologists Freud and Jung as well as Freud’s theory of dream analysis. However, the specific details of Freud and Jung’s medical treatment are not very well-known outside the actual field of psychology. I think that the relationship between the two men and the conditions of the times in which they emerged are also not well-known. This movie depicts Freud and Jung’s friendship and eventual falling out, as well as their relationship with their student, the female psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein.

Sabina lived in the city of Rostov-on-Don in western Russia, born into a wealthy Jewish family. However, she was afflicted by mental illness, and in 1904, was admitted to a Swiss mental hospital, Burghölzli, in Zurich. Here she was treated by Jung, a young psychiatrist. Jung was the son of a Lutheran pastor, and had married a woman from a wealthy family; he was sincere, faithful in marriage, and blessed with good looks and intelligence, but also had a keen perception that was akin to a sixth sense. When they meet, Jung recognizes that Sabina also possessed this same kind of perception and exceptional intellect. Through Jung’s treatment, Sabina eventually recovers from her illness and starts medical school with the aim of becoming a psychiatrist.

Jung becomes aware that Sigmund Freud is treating a patient with similar symptoms as Sabina using psychoanalysis, a method based on the theory of the subconscious that was innovative for its time, and the two become close friends around 1907. Freud is very fond of Jung and asks him to treat Otto Gross, an apprentice of Freud who was suffering from a mental illness. In the private sessions with Otto, Jung, a conformist and one who strictly adhered to monogamy, is greatly challenged by Otto’s depraved philosophy; eventually, out of the desire to be honest with himself, Jung admits his love for Sabina, and he and Sabina begin an affair. During the time of this affair, Sabina’s brilliant mind greatly influenced Jung’s theories.

However, starting from around 1913, Jung and Freud have a falling out. Freud considers Jung’s love for the psychic ability to be occult and fears he is drifting too far away from the scholastic field of psychology; on Jung’s side, he becomes skeptical of Freud’s use of dream analysis to explain the whole nature of the subconscious. After that, the two become antagonistic within their field. At the same time, Sabina, now a fully-fledged psychologist, begins asking Jung if they could be more than lovers, and this causes Jung and Sabina’s relationship to fall apart as well. After Jung, the next person Sabina chooses as a mentor is Freud. Freud tells her that, as they are both Jewish, they’re able to understand each other well. However, after Sabina, Jung begins an affair with Toni Wolff, also Jewish. The film ends just before World War I when Jung and Freud part ways.

The fact that Freud was Jewish makes the relationship between Jung and Freud very interesting. Freud and Jung were integral in the founding of the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1911, but Jung, not Freud, became the first president, and it is said Jung was chosen because the president of the association could not be a Jew. Freud was an Ashkenazi Jew (a Jew descended from Eastern Europe). In those days, it was difficult for Ashkenazi Jews to be researchers through university positions, so Freud earned a living as a common doctor of private practice while working hard on his research.

Ashkenazi refers to Jews that reside in German-speaking areas or Eastern European countries. Sephardim refers to another group of Jews that resides in the Middle East. At first, the Ashkenazi Jews were traveling merchants that linked Islam to Europe. However, since direct trade between Europe and Islam became common practice and the long trip became dangerous for Jews because of Jewish persecution, the Ashkenazi shifted to being settled merchants and moved into the finance business, which was banned for Christians. The merchant in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is an Ashkenazi Jew. The Ashkenazi were expelled from Britain in 1290 and from France in 1394, thus immigrating to Eastern Europe. They were persecuted in the Holy Roman Empire, but since the social rights for Jews were guaranteed in the Kingdom of Poland since 1264 with the “Statute of Kalisz,” Poland was an extremely safe country for Jews to live in. The Kingdom of Poland also welcomed Jewish immigrants as skilled workers to enhance their economy. From Poland, Jewish people immigrated east to Ukraine and Russia.

When Adolf Hitler as the leader of the Nazis expelled Ashkenazi scholars from the psychiatric society in 1938, Jung, using his position as the president of this society and as a citizen of a permanently neutral country, planned to secure status for Ashkenazi doctors within Germany by accepting them into an international society. He asked Freud about his plan, but Freud rejected it by saying, “I can’t accept a favor from Jung, who is the enemy of my research.” Freud himself took refuge in London immediately after that, but the Ashkenazi doctors that were unable to take refuge lost work, and most were sent to concentration camps and murdered in gas chambers.

As for Sabina, she married Russian Jewish doctor Pavel Scheftel in 1912, and lived in Berlin. They lived in Switzerland during World War I, but after the Russian Revolution in 1923, she returned to Russia under Soviet Union control and established a kindergarten in Moscow. However, in 1942, her hometown Rostov was invaded and she was murdered by Nazis.

日本語→

Movie: The Iron Lady (2011)

Posted on by
Reply

In a few words, this movie is not worth watching except for the commendable performance by Meryl Streep as Thatcher.

Jim Broadbent who played Thatcher’s husband Dennis Thatcher said something like the following:

“When I heard that an American actress was to play Thatcher, I thought, ‘Huh, is that okay?’ I didn’t have high expectations. However, when I shared supper with Meryl after we started filming and when she casually mixed a British accent into conversations, I felt that perhaps she can play Thatcher after all.”

I don’t think he said that with mean intentions. Broadbent has co-starred with many great British actresses and has received high honors as a great actor such as an Oscar and Golden Globe Awards; Broadbent did not blindly believe the praise by Hollywood of Meryl being “the best actress in the world” and seemed to have been observing her with an attitude of, “Let’s see what you can do.”

Of course Meryl is not stupid. She talks about the resolution to play Thatcher as follows:

“Yes, it was a frightening experience as an actor to perform as Thatcher. But looking at myself as one American actress thrown in among British actors, I found some commonality with Thatcher, a woman fighting alone in the political world in those days, and I gained the courage to play her.”

Scenes of Meryl looking very much like Thatcher and giving speeches are scattered throughout the movie trailer. Since Thatcher has been both criticized and praised, I was eager to see how the producer would interpret Thatcher’s great achievements in fighting the downfall of the United Kingdom and show her essence. To my dismay, unlike the trailer implies, the movie shows very little of Thatcher as a politician and the major part of the movie depicts Thatcher suffering from dementia after her retirement.

This movie should be called “The Teacup-Washing Lady” instead of “The Iron Lady”. In her younger days, Thatcher had quipped, “I will never be one of those women…I cannot die washing up a teacup!” In the final scene, Thatcher in her old age is alone in her kitchen, silently washing a teacup. Once the most known female face in the United Kingdom, no one recognizes her when she goes shopping. In essence, this movie seems to want to mean-spiritedly say, “Look at her doing what she once said she would never do. Hahaha!” and, “Washing teacups alone every day… A fitting end for not prioritizing family and neglecting the family you had.” Why must career woman Thatcher who served the United Kingdom be judged in this way? I wonder why the left-wing party, which supports the independence of women, doesn’t complain. According to Thatcher supporters, this movie is a left-wing conspiracy to undermine Thatcher’s legacy. I see.

Clever Meryl Streep said something like the following:

“I think it’s wonderful to grow old. The reason is I suddenly discover new nuances to things I didn’t understand or had overlooked until now. For example, the act of washing a teacup can be a precious moment of life, which only the aged person can understand.”

Meryl certainly plays roles in better and better movies as she ages. There is the criticism that only young and beautiful and glamorous actresses are given roles in Hollywood, but Meryl seems to be like a publicity billboard for Hollywood that says that Hollywood isn’t so narrow-minded. Because better roles go to her one after another, actresses of the same generation, such as Diane Keaton, Sally Field, and Glenn Close—especially Glenn Close who has a similar range of acting and ambiance—have their roles snatched away and it’s a pity. However, since Meryl built her secure position in Hollywood through self-restraint, politeness towards colleagues, and extraordinary efforts, I can let it slide.

日本語→

Movie: Vals Im Bashir — Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Posted on by
Reply

Watching this movie together with Beaufort, a 2007 Israeli film, may help us understand the complicated state of affairs of the Lebanon War. Waltz with Bashir depicts the beginning of the Lebanon War while Beaufort depicts the final withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon in 2000.

In 1982, the Israeli army invaded their neighbor Lebanon. Because large-scale Palestine refugee camps in Lebanon became hiding places for anti-Israel terrorists, the strategic intention was to eradicate these terrorists. In addition, Israel intended to establish a pro-Israeli regime in Lebanon by supporting Bashir, the charismatic leader of the Christian Phalange party; at the time, the Phalange party and an Islamic group that was supported by Syria were competing for power in Lebanon. However, even though Bashir was elected in the Lebanon presidential election, he was assassinated immediately after. The Phalange party assumed this assassination to be an act by Palestinian guerillas so they carried out a massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Israel faced global criticism for a long time as the mastermind of this massive killing, but this movie reveals a new viewpoint of this incident.

This movie’s main character and director, Ari Folman, was 19 years old at the time of these events. Although he should have been in the frontline of the Israeli army when invading Lebanon, the movie begins with him realizing that he has no memories of those times. The memory gradually comes back by interviewing some of his comrades in arms and superior officers during that time and the journalists who reported the scene immediately after the massacre. He begins to understand that the loss of his own memory is because of the extreme horror of the scene he watched back then.

Director Ari Folman expresses his messages very candidly and directly. It is as if he is trying to prevent the audience from getting the wrong message that could result from ambiguity or ambivalence. I feel his passion and sense of purpose like, “I really want to tell this story and for it to be understood,” in this movie.

The first message is that the interference by Israel in Lebanon affairs via their support of Bashir was a mistake. The title of this movie is “Waltz with Bashir.” Waltz is a kind of dance, but it can carry the subtext of “conspiring with someone with an ulterior motive.” Although Israel may have intended to protect the peace of Israel by having Bashir establish a pro-Israeli nation, the failure of this interference with another country’s affairs resulted in global anti-Israeli feelings of distrust for the next 30 years and left Israel with a big burden.

The second message is that most Israel soldiers did not participate in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, nor did they know what happened. This cannot be categorically dismissed as an “Israeli excuse.” If he as an artist doesn’t let the world know the truth that he knows, the deaths of those who died in the Lebanon War—whether they are Palestinian refugees or young Israeli soldiers—will be in vain. Director Ari Folman does not talk about which side was righteous. In the movie, he even accuses an Israeli commander who knew what was happening for not quickly putting an end to it. His true intention is that, when we truly know and understand what happened in the past, we can begin to start a better future.

His third message is an anti-war conviction from the bottom of his heart. The director was drafted and sent to Lebanon when he was 19 years old. Surrounded by many fellow soldiers and confident of his safety within a tank, he was excited to go to the beautiful country of Lebanon and charming city of Beirut. However, this excited feeling was shattered the moment the war started. Nevertheless, his romanticism as a young man doesn’t yet vanish and he thinks he can get revenge by making his ex-girlfriend feel guilty for dumping him if he were to die in war. This movie transmits the bitter feelings of the director that looks back and realizes that these juvenile feelings of romanticism were foolish.

The fourth message is related to the third message, but it is that invading a foreign country is very foolish and you can’t win. The director barely returned from Lebanon alive and, even though he nearly died and many refugees were slaughtered, many young people of the same generation in his homeland Israel that didn’t go to war get drunk to rock music, dance at bars, and enjoy life with a feeling of, “War? What’s that?” There are the same feelings of estrangement and disappointment that American and Soviet Union soldiers felt after returning from the hell of Vietnam, Iran, or Afghanistan. People resist with all of their might when their home country is invaded by another country. However, people in the homeland hardly understand what their soldiers are doing in a foreign country so it is difficult to sympathize with these soldiers; regardless of the military power the army may have or how exhausted the invaded country may be, it is frightening for soldiers to invade a foreign country and nobody there welcomes invading soldiers. In the end, the invader will never win.

This movie is an animated documentary. I think there was no other option to choose to depict this theme. It would be impossible to shoot the movie in Lebanon due to the current state of affairs there and it would be impossible to try to reproduce Beirut from thirty years ago. Beirut was beautiful before this destruction and a well-known tourist city, so anyone would know immediately that it was fake if they attempted to reproduce it. Animation was also a good choice for a medium due to the horrifying events depicted in the movie. In addition, beautiful music, like a gem, effectively accents important scenes.

日本語→

Movie: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex – The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)

Posted on by
Reply

1960 through the 1970s was a time of global disturbances—the American-Soviet Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Palestine refugee problem, China’s Cultural Revolution, Algeria’s independence, the South American Dirty War, and the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.—but I wonder how many people today remember the terrorism in Europe by the Red Army Faction from Germany. Around 1970, one-third of young Germans in their twenties sympathized with the Red Army Faction, and the uprising of this youth was a great threat to the West Germany government. The youth supporting the Red Army are now in their 60s and 70s. Young Germans who had a strong sense of justice and received a higher education became involved with the left-wing movement during the 1960s, burning with idealism; in the 1970s, the movement split between non-violent and armed resistance. This movie The Baader Meinhof Complex depicts the process of radicals of the Red Army rapidly transforming into a terrorist group. It is not depicted in the movie, but the Berlin Wall collapses in the ‘80s and people eventually became aware that the socialist system was a failure.

Because this movie depicts many young people from the Red Army as well as the authorities that countered them over a 10-year period, violent acts occur one after another in the movie and the depictions of individuals are superficial. Moreover, the movie just depicts the facts with a documentary touch and the most important questions of, “Why did the German youth of the ‘60s join the armed Red Army Faction or support it? Why did the Red Army that had such strong support collapse?” are not depicted. Also, this movie is a little difficult to understand for people who don’t really know German history or don’t remember that extremists exist in developed countries like Germany. This movie assumes that the audience knows history and does not explain the details at all. I investigated some of the background to this movie.

The movie begins with the Shah of Iran visiting West Berlin in 1967. A peaceful protest demonstration led by students and Iranians who had fled because of the Shah’s dictatorship changes into a riot when a police officer shoots and kills a student. Ulrike Meinhof was a famous left-wing journalist, but she was shocked by this case and became more radical in her ideology. Her husband was also an editor at a left-wing magazine, but he opposed violent acts so the two divorced.

Gudrun Ensslin, daughter of a pastor, was a bright honors student. She was working toward her doctorate at one of Germany’s top universities—the Free University of Berlin—and hoped to posthumously publish the manuscripts of her fiancé’s father, a former Nazi. Like her own father who possessed sympathy to social problems as a pastor, she believed in moderate reform through the Congress, but her life changed when she met Andreas Baader. She abandoned her fiancé and their child and eloped with Andreas.

Andreas Baader dropped out of high school and was the kind of man who repeatedly committed every crime. He was a unique individual among the radicals, many of whom had a background of high education, but he was strongly charismatic and he and Gudrun Ensslin led the radicals to terrorism and criminal acts.

Ensslin and Baader were arrested for setting a department store on fire. Meinhof visited the imprisoned Ensslin for the news story and the two immediately had a mutual understanding. Meinhof, Ensslin, and Baader founded the Baader-Meinhof Group, which later developed into the Red Army Faction. After staying and receiving military training at the guerilla training camp of the Palestinian Liberation Organization based in Jordan in those days, they succeeded in acts of terrorism and bank robberies to fund their activity, one after another, and became a great threat to the government of West Germany. The leaders of the Red Army Faction including Meinhof, Ensslin, and Baader were arrested in 1971, but through meetings with their lawyers Klaus Croissant and Siegfried Haag, they trained Red Army soldiers while still imprisoned and brought up the second and third generations of Red Army Faction activists.

The next generations of the Red Army Faction rapidly became more radical, kidnapping and hijacking for the sake of the release of Baader and the others. Famous acts of terrorism included the kidnapping and killing of an Israeli team member from the Olympic Village of the Munich Olympics in 1972, the occupation and blowing up of the German embassy in Sweden in 1975, and the assassination of Siegfried Buback and Jürgen Ponto, the kidnapping and killing of businessman Hanns Martin, and the hijacking of Lufthansa Airlines Flight 181 in 1977. The level of violence of the Red Army reached its peak in the late 1970s; this series of terrorist acts is called the “German Autumn” and the Red Army lost the last of its support from citizens. Albrecht, a member of the Red Army, participated in the terrorist act against Dresdner Bank—the failed kidnapping and subsequent murder of the banks’ President Jürgen Ponto, who was Albrecht’s father’s friend as well as her godfather. “Black September”—a Palestinian armed group that was expelled from Jordan, moved to Lebanon, and became more violent—allied with and fought alongside the Red Army Faction.

arabian_map_smThe leader of the Lufthansa Airlines Flight 181 hijacking, a “Black September” soldier, demanded of the West Germany government that eleven Red Army Faction first generation members be released, as well as $150 million. When Palestinians had become refugees, international opinion—especially Arab countries—became sympathetic to Palestinians and their liberation movement, but these sympathies began to shift following this incident. The Palestinian Liberation Organization already lost support from Jordan and Syria. The hijacked aircraft was passed around to Larnaca (Republic of Cyprus), Bahrain, and Dubai, but after Dubai, no other airport in the Arabian Peninsula provided permission for the plane to land. After having to make an emergency stop in Aden, Yemen when the fuel was all used up, the hijacked plane eventually landed in Mogadishu, Somalia where it is apprehended by the German government. Immediately after this hijacking failure, the first generation Red Army Faction leaders in jail committed suicide.

I think the new postwar generation after World War II was trying to find a much-needed solution to the problems left behind or even created by their parents’ generation in those days, and turned to left-wing ideology to do so. However, the movement that began with idealism was gradually forced to choose between violent or non-violent methods. Resorting to violence may have looked like a quick and easy way to get a solution, but it was not a lasting solution.

The director of this movie was Uli Edel. Ulrike Meinhof was performed by Martina Gedeck who also starred in Mostly Martha (Catherine Zeta-Jones starred in the Hollywood remake No Reservations) and The Lives of Others. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but the prize that year ended up going to Japan’s Departures.

日本語→

Movie: El secreto de sus ojos – The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)

Posted on by
Reply

This well-made Argentinean movie received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009.

This movie switches between modern day Argentina (the early 2000s) and 25 years ago (the 1970s). When President Peron—who was overwhelmingly popular with the people of Argentina, particularly the working class—died suddenly due to heart disease in 1974, his wife Isabel succeeded him as President and aggressively oppressed opposing groups. She was ousted by a coup d’etat by General Videla and, when Videla became President, the oppression and massacres of opposing groups grew worse. Thus, internal turmoil called the “Dirty War” broke out in Argentina. This movie does not directly depict this situation, but it wouldn’t be possible to understand this movie without knowing this social background.

The theme that persists in this movie is something like, “The only thing that doesn’t change in a man is his passion.” Benjamín, a Buenos Aires criminal trial investigator, was assigned 25 years earlier to investigate the murder of a bank employee’s young wife; he sees a hint of dangerous passion hidden in the eyes of a young man always photographed together with the victim. The reason he noticed it is that he himself always gazed at his beautiful boss Irene with a passion hidden within his eyes. The man in the photo is the suspect, but where is he hiding? Benjamín’s assistant explains to Benjamín, “The only thing that doesn’t change in a man is his passion,” and the two successfully arrest the suspect based on this theory.

However, Benjamín and his beautiful boss Irene who believes in him are forced to release the suspect, amongst the political instability and corruption mentioned above. Danger approaches the life of Benjamín who earnestly conducted the investigation. Irene who is from an upper class family is safe, but Benjamín must leave Buenos Aires to protect himself.

25 years later, society now stabilized, a middle-aged Benjamín visits Buenos Aires to follow up on the murder case of the young wife that closed 25 years earlier and to see Irene who has been promoted to a judge. Beautiful as ever, Irene welcomes Benjamín with a warm and loving heart. Benjamín wants to know about the husband who did everything he could do to find and prosecute his wife’s murderer. How did he overcome the pain of losing his wife? And what is the murderer doing today? Is he still alive somewhere? Or did he already die? The key for solving the mystery is again the theme, “The only thing that doesn’t change in a man is his passion.” Abiding by these words, Benjamin unexpectedly discovers the lives of the bank employee husband and the murderer. And he discovers his desire for Irene that has remained in his heart.

日本語→

Movie: Indigènes – Days of Glory (2006)

Posted on by
Reply

There are a great number of war movies, but this movie offers a unique point of view unlike other movies. On the surface, this movie depicts the resistance and victory against the Nazi occupation in France during World War II, but it is not simply the victory of France–“we went, we killed, we won”; it also indirectly depicts other things sprouting at the time—the independence movement in French colonies and the injustice that followed their independence.

The original title—Indigènes—means “indigenous people.” In general, these are people who lived originally on the land, but become a minority by being pushed down by another race that comes and invades, and are put into the bottom social class. American Indians, Aboriginal Australians, and the Ainu in Japan are a few examples. There are many indigenous groups in the North Saharan Africa—the most well-known of which are the Berber people—and many races ruled over them. The Berbers were pastoral people and they were often put in the bottom social class in African society. However, since they were deeply loyal, brave, and weren’t adverse to traveling, many were used as skilled mercenaries by the ruling class. Most Berbers of Algeria and Morocco who were oppressed by Arabs in North Africa felt that France, the colonist country, treated Arabs and Berbers equally, so they thought of themselves as French, believed France was their homeland, and felt ardent patriotism for France. France organized the Free French Forces based on volunteer soldiers from North Africa to shift the balance against Germany. The Free French Forces consisted of Senegal draftees, the French Foreign Legion, Moroccans, Algerians, Tahitians, etc. This movie is the story of the Berbers who volunteered for the Free French Forces and fought bravely without fearing death.

Abdelkader is an educated man and is appointed as the head of the Berber soldiers due to his top performance on the military service examination. He had an ambition to advance in the French military by studying diligently and earning merits from battle. He mediates between soldiers from an impartial standpoint and advocates for solidarity across cultures among the troops. His efforts are completely ignored, though, and a French Algerian is promoted instead of him. Though feeling humiliated, he doesn’t lose his loyalty to the French military.

Sergeant Martinez, just because he is a French Algerian, is promoted and commands the Algerian Arab troops, but he is not very good at leading the troops rationally and easily becomes violent when he is angry. He even admits to himself that Abdelkader’s leadership was superior to his own. Although he is regarded as French, his mother is in fact Arab—something he doesn’t want others to know.

Saïd is from the poorest area among Berbers. His mother would rather stop her son from volunteering and starve to death than receive the cash bonus and pension from dispatching her son with the troops, but his mother can’t keep him from volunteering and he goes to war to protect France because of his genuine patriotic feelings. Sergeant Martinez notices Saïd’s simple-minded, loyal nature that is without ambition, and so treats Saïd favorably.

Yassir, in order to earn the money to pay for his younger brother’s marriage, enlists with his younger brother. He loves his younger brother and he preaches that a man must always be honest and do the right thing.

Messaoud is a talented marksman and is given the special duty of being a sniper by Sergeant Martinez. He dreams of excelling on the battlefield, becoming a hero for his meritorious service, falling in love with a French woman attracted to his fame, marrying her, and settling down in France when the war is over.

Their first mission is to capture a fortress from Germany in Provence in southern France. The Berber unit had to walk in front on the mountain trail, completely exposed to the enemy. While the unit is being fired at by the German army, the French soldiers hiding behind the Berbers figure out where the German soldiers are hiding and start to attack the German soldiers. The battle ends with an overwhelming victory for the French forces, but this is the first experience that makes the Berber soldiers realize that they will be given the most dangerous assignments.

As the war becomes a stalemate and there are orders for the French military to return home, the Berber soldiers are delighted, but the orders to return only apply to French men; soldiers of the Free French Forces are not allowed to return and a pessimistic feeling begins to drift into the unit.

The most difficult order given to the Free French Forces is to do as much damage to the German army as possible until the main French army and American army arrive in order to capture Colmar in Alsace under Nazi occupation. Sergeant Martinez along with another commanding officer of a small unit are assigned to this dangerous mission; the soldiers under his command—Abdelkader, Saïd, Yassir and his younger brother, and Messaoud—also participate in hopes of honor and a reward. However, most of the unit dies from a bomb placed at the entrance to the German-occupied territory and Sergeant Martinez is seriously injured. Yassir, losing his younger brother, grieves that there is no point anymore of him being here; Abdelkader leads the survivors, Saïd, Yassir, and Messaoud, to a village in Alsace and they are welcomed by the villagers. However, in an intense battle with the German army, Saïd tries to protect the seriously injured Sergeant Martinez, but both are killed by the German army; Yassir and Messaoud also die in action.

This is called the Battle at Colmar Pocket. In those days, the Alsace-Lorraine district which contained Colmar was Germany territory and was a key location that guarded the bridge over the Rhine River. After an intense battle, the French and American armies succeeded in forcing the German army to retreat. The Allies had 21,000 casualties while the German army had 38,000. The Allies succeeded in crossing the Rhine River and hereby successfully started a full-scale invasion of German territory.

Abdelkader, the lone survivor, joins the French military in Colmar, but his existence as well as those of his comrades who died are completely ignored. No one thinks about the Berber soldiers that died while the victory of the French unit who only came later is praised.

Soldiers that went to war were guaranteed lifetime pension, and this was one of the motives for volunteering. However, when the struggle for independence in Algeria intensified in 1959, the French government decided to no longer pay the pensions for soldiers from French colonies that participated in the French military. Because Algeria was to eventually become independent from France, the French military did not feel it was necessary to pay money to Algerians of a different country. This movie ends with Abdelkader, 60 years after the battle at Alsace, visiting the gravesite of the soldiers who died in action on this land.

日本語→

Movie: Moneyball (2011)

Posted on by
Reply

Moneyball is the movie adaptation of the nonfiction book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. When the movie company voiced interest about buying film rights for the book, Michael Lewis’s frank reaction was that he didn’t care, but he wondered if a movie based on a book with such statistics would be interesting. However, after watching the movie, he found that his book actually appealed to a wide audience and he was impressed that the movie accurately presented what he wanted to say.

Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for this movie, but the question of “why?” rose up from fans who had expected that Leonardo DiCaprio would seize the prize for this nomination. Leonardo shows his great acting ability in a dramatic performance as J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI for over 40 years, while Brad Pitt in Moneyball just shows his natural charm and trademark smile. Fans felt things like, “Is Brad even acting?” or “Isn’t this a little unfair?” or “Poor Leo!” However, this movie was interesting certainly largely due to Brad Pitt and this movie allows us to think about modern America in a variety of ways. I think this movie is much more relevant to our modern lives than J. Edgar.

The stage is set in 2001 on the Oakland Athletics, a poor team stationed in Oakland, California. Star athletes Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen, as free agents that can decide what team to play for, slip away from the A’s and transfer to teams that offered a larger salary. General manager Billy Beane is desperately searching for a method to win on a limited budget.

One day, during a visit to the Cleveland Indians office for trade negotiations, Beane happens to meet Peter Brand, a Yale graduate. Brand used sabermetrics that objectively evaluated players using various statistics, which is different than how other scouts evaluated players. Beane, despite opposition, immediately recruited Peter Brand for his own team and devises a strategy for victory under a low budget using radical sabermetrics.

Briefly, Beane’s strategy was to not offer huge salaries to players deemed as “star material” based on the subjective criteria generally used in those days; instead, he would use statistics including on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and batting eye, as well as look for players with smart decision-making, to determine the probability of making runs. This would be a big component in determining which players to recruit; many of these players had been ignored by the subjective evaluation and would therefore be cheap to recruit. He was not recruiting young players based on their “future prospects” based on subjective criteria and even gave players who were past the height of their professional careers a chance if there was something they could contribute. By doing so, Beane advanced the Oakland Athletics to the playoffs almost every year and the team set the record for the longest winning streak across all baseball teams in 2002, despite their total annual salary being only one third the amount of the top team, the New York Yankees. In the movie, the Athletics are shown as suddenly becoming a powerful team in 2002, but, in reality, the A’s had consistently been winning in the playoffs, although they had never won the World League. Other teams wondered where the strength of the A’s came from. Because Beane’s strategy relied on statistics, the pattern of the Athletics doing well in their season with many games and often winning their playoffs, but not necessarily winning in the short series of the World League Championships, suggests that his strategy was working.

I believe this movie is not a simple baseball movie because it depicts various important issues in modern America, but what I wish to emphasize are the following three points.

First, this movie, for better or for worse, depicts the characteristics of management of American companies very well. The structure of the baseball industry is the owner, the general manager, and then the manager. The owner offers money to recruit players, the general manager makes the team plan, while the manager runs the actual games. While the manager focuses on making a technical plan for each game, the general manager plans with a more long-term outlook and must have many skills. The general manager maintains a positive public image by making appearances on various interviews as the face of the baseball team, must command the baseball team with charisma, have a sense of management since he has bargaining power with regards to contract renewals and trades, as well as have insight to see the ability of players. The general manager is equivalent to the CEO of a corporation. As it is in top-down management, Beane had considerable power and mercilessly dismissed or traded people under him. However, on the other hand, Beane established an objective standard from statistics and asked players to meet these expectations. Therefore, when a player with a high salary was dismissed, the reason could clearly be explained and the players that were unfortunate enough to not meet the usual subjective standards of “popularity” were motivated when given an opportunity by Beane. The dictatorial power held by a CEO is very American and their power determines the quality of the company management.

Second, this movie criticizes the unfair distribution of wealth spreading across America. It is so in professional baseball, but also, in the world of movies, the price paid for different actors is extremely uneven. From the late 1980s, popular actors and actresses like Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts began to demand enormous performance fees, and other actors began to follow their example. Today, for example, Kristen Stewart, barely 21, is said to demand a performance fee of $20 million for one movie. This is probably equal to the total sum of the salaries of 50 to 100 actors, equally qualified. In other words, Hollywood would rather give a transiently popular young actress one job and take away the jobs from 100 other capable actors or actresses. Recently, Hollywood is reconsidering this inequality and it is said that statistics are used to calculate the ratio of box office performance to actor performance fees in order to evaluate actors. Matt Damon and Naomi Watts are examples of statistically good actors who don’t charge much but perform well. Even Brad Pitt declared that the time of top actors being overpaid with exorbitant amounts of money is ending. I think he worries that the movie industry will decline unless this trend of actors demanding unreasonable amounts of money whenever they become popular is suppressed.

Finally, there is the issue of personal happiness. Beane, formerly the top player in his high school, was chosen as the future star in the first round of drafts by the New York Mets. Believing the words of the scout and attracted to the high salary offered, Beane declined the student scholarship offered by the prestigious Stanford University and chose the professional route; after not much success as a player, Beane switched to being a scout and began his second career in baseball. After his success with the Athletics, the Boston Red Sox offered him $12.5 million, the highest offer for a general manager in history; however, Beane declined the offer because he decided to not make a life choice based on money. He did not want to be separated from his daughter who lived in California, and he loved the Oakland Athletics. Oakland is between San Francisco, the most refined city in America, and Berkeley, an academic center. This city has a unique culture and is extremely politically liberal for America, but a large portion of the residents are poor black people. The event of a black teenager being shot and killed by the police sometimes happens. The Oakland A’s give something for local residents to be proud of, provide casual entertainment, and lift the spirits of young people. Beane did not forsake the team for money. There are other managers who have adopted Beane’s strategy of sabermetrics. Now that he was familiar with the A’s, there was no reason to start over again.

Within the movie, there’s a scene where Beane’s daughter worries about her father being fired, but we don’t have to worry. After Beane’s continued success, his contract was extended until 2019. Billy Beane was chosen by Sports Illustrated magazine as the Top Sports Manager of the 2000s and he is recognized as the top manager throughout the baseball world today.

日本語→

Movie: Caramel (2007)

Posted on by
Reply

Caramel depicts the friendship between five women—three young women working at a beauty parlor in a poor neighborhood of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, a middle-aged starlet customer, and an elderly tailor woman—and each of their love stories. This beauty parlor friendship is reminiscent of the American film Steel Magnolias and it captures a woman’s point of view well. Why does a beauty parlor become the setting of the story of friendship between women?

First, a beauty parlor is a place just for women. With the absence of men, the women who usually exercise restraint around men can express their true feelings. Usually devoted to their parents, husband, and children, this place is where women are the center of attention as a customer. Also, a beautician is not managed by a male boss and is valued for her specialized skills. Furthermore, since the female customers of this place must expose their flaws that they normally conceal—wrinkles, blemishes, grey hairs, or thinning hair—they do not feel like they have to conceal their own private life, weaknesses, and worries anymore to the beautician who knows their flaws; perhaps they can share their true feelings and a sisterhood may develop.

While Japanese women also believe that “the hair is the life of the woman,” it seems that Middle Eastern women especially believe in this. When I started living in America, I attended an English class where there were women from different foreign countries. There was another Japanese woman—pretty, young, and with long hair—as well as some women from the Middle East—Egypt, Iran, etc. One day, when the Japanese woman began to say, “My hair care method is…” the Middle Eastern women, who until then seemed bored holding their children and uninterested in the conversation, suddenly get up from the sofa and practically cast their children aside, scooting closer to the Japanese woman to ask, “Please tell me your secret!!” In the end, her secret to beautiful hair was to eat seaweed every day, to which everyone responded, “Oh…” with a look of disappointment. Even now, I remember how the light of their eyes full of lively curiosity quickly faded.

To Japanese people, all Arab countries and the Middle East are seen as more-or-less the same and there is the image that women conceal their body and wear a veil, but Middle Eastern countries each have their own unique culture and history. Turkey and Iran certainly possess their own long-lasting traditions and refined culture, but so does Lebanon. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon trades with countries in both northern Africa and southern Europe and there have been many Christians there from ancient times; also, Lebanon was under French control in recent years so formed strong relations with southern Europe. In particular, since this movie’s protagonists are Christian, they do not have to wear a veil and display their beauty freely.

In addition, people tend to think of Lebanon as a country of war. This is historically true and there was a war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006, around the time this movie was made. However, there is no hint of war in this movie at all. The beautiful Nadine Labaki played the lead role in, wrote the screenplay for, and directed this movie. Her intention was, “I don’t want people to merely see Lebanon as a country of war. Just like other humans, we have ordinary lives with the struggles of love that anyone encounters. I want people to see us as we truly are.” Certainly in this movie, there are common worries for women such as adultery, the fear of growing old, the pressure from society to be chaste, yearning romantically for other women, the obligation of having to care for their family, and anxieties over their marriage. However, the uniqueness of the Lebanese women in this movie can be seen in the background; they fear that war may reach their streets again at any time and, as Christians living among Muslims, they are tangled between European culture and Muslim culture.

The Phoenicians were Lebanon indigenes who invented the Phoenician alphabet that became the basis for the Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic alphabets. After that, this area was conquered by Arabians from the east in the 7th century. Afterwards, this area gained autonomy from the ruling Ottoman Empire, and Christianity from the west was also influential. After Turkey was defeated in World War I, this land became a mandated territory of France due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement. France ruled over Tunisia and Algeria with considerable difficulty, but ruled easily over Christian countries like Lebanon. This mandate ended in June 8, 1941 and was followed by Lebanon’s Declaration of Independence. This independence received support from the United Kingdom and was peaceful. Afterwards, Lebanon entered international markets in areas such as financing and tourism and there was rapid economic growth; Lebanon’s capital Beirut did well as a resort and became known as the “Paris of the Middle East.”

In Lebanon, Christians and Muslims somehow managed to maintain a balance of power, but this balance collapsed when their neighbor Jordan expelled the Palestinian refugees being sheltered in Jordan, causing Palestinian refugees and PLO extremists to pour into Lebanon in great numbers. Civil war broke out in 1975, and in 1982, the Israeli army, allied with the Christians in Lebanon, invaded Lebanon. Israel, faced with resistance from Hezbollah—a radical party supported by Syria and Iran—and opposition from international public opinion, eventually withdrew from Lebanon in 2000; afterwards, though, chaos continued in Lebanon with a complicated four-way factional conflict between a pro-American faction, a pro-Syria faction, a pro-Hezbollah faction, and an anti-Hezbollah faction, and the nation became exhausted. In 2006 when this movie was made, Israel was angry with the terrorist activities of Hezbollah and attacked Lebanon, which resulted in the 2006 Lebanon War. Eventually, Israel accepted the ceasefire resolution from the United Nations Security Council and withdrew, and the strength of Syria’s control over Lebanon became stronger.

Director Nadine Labaki’s standpoint of, “I am not political,” is persistent throughout this whole movie. However, she became famous suddenly for this movie that was a big hit internationally and she was chosen as one of the top 5 women in Arabian Business magazine’s “Top 100 Most Powerful Arabs” so she is no longer able to keep the standpoint of, “I am not political.” After that, she made Where Do We Go Now? which depicts the conflict between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. I think I want to write a different entry about this movie.

日本語→