Movie: The Last Circus (2010)

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This movie mostly depicts the life-or-death struggle between a cruel clown and a tormented, sad pantomime; the story is grotesque and absurd and upon finishing the movie I angrily thought, “I could not recommend this movie to anyone.” However, when thinking of this movie after one night of sleep, the cruel and grotesque scenes entirely disappeared and I saw more clearly the things that were hidden by the absurdity. This movie was an allegory about Spain’s recent history and thus naturally contained—like every allegory—cruelty, sorrow, and a lesson.

It is 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The people in circus troupes who peacefully traveled around to rural areas to entertain people are threatened by the communist general Enrique Líster, who is supposed to be anti-fascist and fight for the people; the circus people are drafted by force and fight in the front line. In the end, the Spanish Republican Army suffers a crushing defeat; the fascists execute most of the circus troupe members and only the clown is sent to a slave labor camp. The clown’s son goes to the slave labor camp to help his father, but sees the fascist general kill his father before his own eyes; the boy crushes the general’s eye and barely escapes from the camp alive.

The story suddenly shifts to the present time in the 1970s, a time of peace under the Franco Administration. The son of the clown who died is now a crybaby pantomime full of sadness and goes to an interview to get a job at a circus. The most popular clown at the circus who conducts the interview says, “If I weren’t a clown, I would become a murderer”; to the audience’s surprise, the cowardly pantomime responds, “Me too.” For some reason the clown likes this cowardly pantomime and hires the pantomime in order to torment him. The clown is arrogant, cruel, and malicious to all the other circus people, who are afraid of him; but he is popular with children and, since spectators come to watch him, nobody including the troupe manager can complain about him and they laugh at his lame jokes, pretending the jokes are funny. The pantomime is the only one who stares blankly and frankly says he doesn’t understand the joke, offending the clown. The clown’s beautiful acrobat lover admires the attitude of the pantomime who isn’t afraid of the clown and she seduces the pantomime. The pantomime falls in love with the acrobat who, even though she is abused by the clown, cannot leave him; when the pantomime tries to rescue her from the clown, the clown explodes with anger and beats the pantomime, nearly killing him. While watching over the pantomime in his hospital room, the acrobat says she chooses the clown over the pantomime and leaves, but the pantomime gets angry and attacks the clown and ruins the clown’s face. The pantomime runs away from the police and coincidentally finds himself under the protection of the general whom he had taken the eye of. The one-eyed general treats the pantomime like a dog. The one-eyed general lives in a luxurious mansion; he invites his boss Generalísimo Franco to his home for hunting and has the pantomime offer the game in his mouth to Franco. Generalísimo Franco is depicted as a gentle and kind person within this movie, admonishing the one-eyed general with, “You mustn’t treat a human with such cruelty,” but in the next moment, the pantomime bites Franco’s hand. The pantomime destroys his own face and transforms it into a terrifying face, kills the one-eyed general, and runs away.

The clown who was once popular is now ugly, hated and feared by children. However, when the pantomime appears in front of the acrobat with unchanged love, she says to him, “You are more terrifying than the clown now.” Franco’s right-hand man Prime Minister Blanco is suddenly assassinated. In the chaos that immediately follows, the pantomime and the clown chase after the acrobat like mad men; she escapes by climbing up a ridiculously tall, skyscraper-like cross and thus the desperate struggles of these three people begin. Seeing this, a young man who was a fellow member in the circus makes up his mind to go rescue these three people. This young troupe member was shot from a cannon to a wall every day and, though people were interested and laughed for a moment, he was immediately forgotten every day. He is shot from the cannon toward the cross, but he hits the cross and really dies this time. Acrobat tells the pantomime, “I love you now,” before falling from the cross and dying.

The clown and pantomime are arrested and face each other in a paddy wagon, both of their faces now terrifying without any makeup. In the repeated life-or-death struggle, the acrobat and young troupe member died while the two men live on heartily and the movie ends with the two staring at each other and smiling as if to say, “So what happens next?”

The beautiful acrobat courted by the pantomime and the clown represents “power.” She symbolizes the target that kings, dictators, nationally elected presidents, or any person with political power desire to reach. I think the clown symbolizes fascism. He has charm to attract the hearts of the people, but is also dangerous at the same time and nobody has the power to suppress him. However, the people begin to hate the clown when he becomes ugly. The pantomime symbolizes communism or populism that becomes radicalism. Originally possessing a noble heart, existing to speak for the sorrow of other people, the pantomime gradually becomes brutal and at certain occasions is more frightening than the clown; even though the clown doesn’t get arrested for anything he does, the authorities continue to chase down the pantomime for his atrocities. The nameless circus troupe member who doesn’t attract attention from anyone and dies trying to rescue the three people may symbolize anonymous citizens. I wonder if the young troupe member represents the Spanish citizens that do their own jobs silently without drawing attention and do not know an effective method to solve the chaotic system.

In this movie, the generals of both political parties are depicted cruelly, but, curiously, Franco is depicted as a gentle and fair person. Certainly it couldn’t be that criticism of Franco is still taboo nowadays in 2010. I believe that Franco was severe with the opposing party, but as a person, was honest and seriously thought about the future of the people of Spain; the people of Spain, even those with different political standpoints, appear to appreciate and recognize him for these values. That was the impression I got from this movie.

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Movie: Monsieur Lazhar (2011)

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In an elementary school in Montreal, Canada, an Algerian immigrant, Bashir Lazhar, is hired to fill in for a female teacher who commits suicide in the classroom. He straightforwardly faces the students in the homeroom who haven’t yet recovered from the shock of their dead teacher and opens the hearts of these children. However, Lazhar carries his own sad past and secrets. Lazhar experienced the violent civil war in his home country and came to Canada as a refugee. His wife and children were killed by terrorists; he has been trying to get permanent residence in Canada as a political exile; and he didn’t actually have any qualifications as a teacher or experience teaching. When the principal finds out about Lazhar’s lack of qualifications, Lazhar is fired, but he leaves a powerful impact on the students.

This movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and it was praised highly in many countries, but I was not very impressed with this movie. First of all, it seems strained that the teacher would hang herself in the classroom. Did she choose this time and place for her suicide so that the male student involved in her problem could discover her? At one point, Lazhar wonders out loud why she would commit suicide in the classroom, but a coworker who was close to her just says, “Because she seemed to be a little bit mentally ill for some time.” Since the teacher was supposedly popular with the children, why wouldn’t any of the students or surrounding people think to question her mental condition? Also, why would Lazhar who had no teaching experience suddenly apply to fill in for the teacher who committed suicide? Furthermore, it is not very convincing that Lazhar would be hired at the school to teach without permanent residence and without the school performing a background check.

At any rate, the movie seems to focus on the students that are wounded from their teacher’s suicide, and, despite his more profound injury, Lazhar is able to heal with his cheerful attitude; the story doesn’t seem to care how he got there, or maybe the intention is to make the message more moving by having a dramatic story. When a suicide happens within the school, a school must proceed very cautiously in order to avoid inadvertently causing any more trouble. Since suicide is such a serious issue, there must be a serious buildup that leads to the suicide; however, the way the movie used the suicide as a tool to move the story along without considering the background of the suicide was not convincing. It should have been the boy who drove the teacher to commit suicide who was most wounded by the teacher’s suicide, but the movie widely incorporates the whole class and the development of the story mainly relies on the particular little girl who opens up to the protagonist Lazhar. Because of all this, the message of the movie did not reach me.

This movie’s background is that Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected as the president of Algeria in 1999 to put an end to the Algerian Civil War that had been developing over the last 10 years; he was forced to compromise with the opposing group within the country and so he acquitted the past political crimes of extremists by granting amnesties. Because Lazhar’s wife published a book that criticized this, his family was threatened by extremists and eventually his family was killed by terrorists.

Mohamed Fellag, the theatre actor and comedian that played Lazhar, also has the history of escaping from Algeria. Triggered by a bombing of his stage in 1995, he took refuge in Tunisia and, from there, France. This movie was based off of a one-man play and the play’s author—Évelyne de la Chenelière—highly recommended Mohamed Fellag for the role of Lazhar, but it is said the movie director—Philippe Falardeau—thought Fellag’s acting was too theatrical and did not immediately support the choice. However, Fellag’s training on the stage and real-life experience seemed to prove enough to persuade the director.

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Movie: The Counterfeiters — Die Fälscher (2007)

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The Japanese title is “Hitler’s Counterfeit Bills,” but the original title does not include the name “Hitler.” However, I feel that the name “Hitler” is packed with the additional meaning of “dictator” as well as “a dangerous man who could do unfathomably terrible things once he had political power.” By adding this single word to the Japanese translation, people will get a sinister feeling, appropriate for the story of this movie. This movie depicts the tragic struggle for survival by the Jews sent to concentration camps during the dark ages of the Nazis, but the way of depicting this is more than just Nazi (bad) versus Jews (good).

The protagonist is a Jew named Salomon, a masterful manufacturer of counterfeit money and documents. He is arrested for making counterfeit dollar bills and sent to a concentration camp because he is Jewish; because of his ability with drawing, he gains favorable treatment from the German soldiers. Before long, the skilled police officer who arrested this counterfeiter gets promoted to a major of the Nazi S.S. and makes contact with Salomon. The major gathers people among the prisoners sent to concentration camps who have talent with drawing, printing technique, and counterfeiting in order to forge money used by Allied nations such as Great Britain, and he becomes the project leader of the operation to destroy the economy of the Allies. The major appoints Salomon as the technical leader of the project and gives Salomon special treatment to complete the project successfully.

Salomon’s dilemma begins from here. By all means, he doesn’t want to help the Nazis he hates. However, his life as well as the lives of his fellow Jews are in danger if he does not obey the major. His fellow Jews are not united for one cause; some flatter the major, some want to believe that their lives are secure if they succeed with the project, while others are temporarily satisfied with the privileges and relatively comfortable living conditions given to them as an elite, and others still—like the printer Burger—urge for anti-Nazi rebellions. It isn’t easy to unite a team in a situation like that. During the project of counterfeiting British bonds—which are considered to be the most difficult to counterfeit in the world—a pride and passion for their work as counterfeiters gradually develop. When their imitation British bonds are completely accepted as genuine by British banks, there is a moment (just a moment) of shared feelings among the major and Jewish prisoners of, “We accomplished something really great together.” The prisoners of the project team are allowed to play ping-pong as a reward.

However, the state of the war gradually shifted unfavorably for the Nazis. Knowing this, the major plans to flee to Switzerland and has Salomon forge Swiss passports for all of his family members; he tells Salomon as he is about to leave, “These are difficult times now. Each of us must persevere to survive.” If he had lived in times of peace, the major may have been a good father, husband, and friend—family-oriented and capable in his job. However, the major brought Salomon into this difficult situation and unintentionally insults him by saying, “Ha ha, nobody can surpass a Jew when it comes to counterfeiting,” when he is excited by the success of the project team. In times of peace, these two men might not have had any reason to hate each other, but in this situation, Salomon acts in a twisted manner towards the major.

The Allies liberate this Nazi concentration camp; the emaciated Jews who were housed on the other side of the camp enter Salomon’s building, but they don’t believe that Salomon and the others are prisoners held captive by the Nazis because they were too healthy. Salomon and the others have to prove that they are fellow Jews and not Nazi soldiers in disguise. In addition, one of Salomon’s associates commits suicide immediately after the concentration camp is liberated. His only reason to live was to fight the terror of the Nazis, but now that the Nazis collapsed, he lost his will to live. Something had broken inside of him along with the collapse of the Nazis.

This movie was made based on the autobiography of the printer named Burger. The comparison of the actual lives of Burger and Salomon afterwards is interesting. Burger was arrested for forging Catholic baptism certificates to help Jews escape from the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp. After being released, he became a journalist in order to convey his personal experience to the future and continues to work to impeach fascism through publications and lectures. On the other hand, Salomon continued to make counterfeit bills after World War II and was on international wanted lists. He is said to have secretly escaped to Uruguay and some say he further escaped to Brazil and spent the rest of his life there. The full details of Salomon’s life remain a mystery.

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Movie: Shutter Island (2010)

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The story begins with two United States Marshals going to investigate the escape of a female patient from an institution on a solitary island in the middle of the sea where mentally ill criminals are sent. The scenes on the ship, which must have been made using Hollywood’s high-tech computer graphics, somehow look fake and cheap, giving off a perplexing impression from the beginning. Somehow these two people who seem to be meeting each other for the first time partake in this dangerous mission together, though the marshal with subordinate status (performed by Mark Ruffalo) casually asks his boss (Leonardo DiCaprio!!) personal questions. The only way to get to the island is with a ferry, but when the marshals arrive on the island, they must forfeit their weapons to the institution’s official guard and enter what seems like a very dangerous place without any weapons. The institution’s courtyard is beautiful, but all the patients are chained together and stare at the two marshals with somewhat strange facial expressions. The director of the institution also appears to be acting unnaturally to the two of them. Over the course of the investigation, the protagonist marshal Leonardo realizes that not only is the female patient missing, but another male patient, who is extremely violent and dangerous, is also missing; no one in the hospital, however, informs him of this. One mentally ill patient Leonardo interviews seizes the opportunity that nobody else is watching to hand Leonardo a note saying, “Run away!” in a moment of recovered sanity. The situation becomes stranger and stranger.

The next day, for some reason, the female patient who disappeared comes back, but there is no real explanation of how she disappeared or came back. However, since Leonardo and his partner have completed the mission, they intend to leave when a hurricane suddenly attacks the island, so they decide to stay one more day on the island. The next morning, rumors spread that the ward accommodating the most dangerous patients on the island was destroyed; the marshals go to the ward, but are unable to grasp what is happening on the island and become increasingly confused. Leonardo still appears to be fearless, but finally the subordinate marshal Mark says, “We both need to work to escape from here.” However, Mark also suddenly disappears. Was he kidnapped by someone? And where does the extremely dangerous, mentally ill criminal who disappeared lurk? While desperately searching for Mark, Leonardo discovers a woman hiding in a cave. This woman tells Leonardo that she is the female patient who escaped and that the director presented a different woman in her place to make it look like she returned. Even more terrifying, she was a doctor at that institution that experimented on the mentally ill patients, but when she objected to experimenting on living people, she was locked away as a mental illness patient at the institution to keep the truth from being exposed. From that cave, Leonardo sees a lighthouse he had never visited before and guard officials carrying guns. Leonardo slips into this lighthouse and learns the surprising truth.

Inside this lighthouse, there is a great plot twist and again a feeling of, “What??” When you know the conclusion and watch the movie, you see everything from a different angle and everything down to the minor details makes sense. In other words, the audience is skillfully deceived for two hours. Maybe the director felt sorry for the audience for tricking them until now, so he puts in another twist at the very end that makes the audience question whether they were truly deceived. The movie deliberately makes it ambiguous whether the actions Leonardo takes at the end when he finally realizes he is not able to escape from the island are due to insanity or a resignation to his fate. I think director Martin Scorsese ended the movie this way to intentionally confuse the audience.

According to him, “A story that’s difficult to understand? Isn’t that wonderful? Viewers will go back to the theater in order to understand, so this movie will be financially successful.”

The main character performed by Leonardo is depicted as being haunted by the scenes of Jews whom he had liberated from Nazi camps. America did not become a battleground, but it is a historical fact that many soldiers were wounded and killed. In addition, the movie depicts lobotomy, which was an accepted medical treatment to mental illness in America during those times. For example, it is said that Rosemary Kennedy of the notable Kennedy family suffered from some kind of mental disorder. Since her violent nature and mood disorder grew worse, her father Joseph had a behind-the-scenes lobotomy operation performed on her in 1941. This operation further reduced her cognitive ability, and as a result, she lived in an institution until she died in 2005. This ominous movie may not necessarily be unrealistic.

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Movie: Norwegian Wood (2010)

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There may be four attitudes regarding the movie adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood.

1) I do not know Haruki Murakami and won’t watch the movie because I’m not interested in it.
2) I won’t watch the movie because I already have a fixed vision of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.
3) I have not read Haruki Murakami’s book, so I will watch it instead of reading it.
4) I do not want to watch the movie because I have a fixed vision of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, but feel like something is not finished if I don’t watch it (sigh), so I will try to watch it.

In the end, people of 3) and 4) go to the movie theatre, but people of 3) will think, “Hmm, Murakami is way overrated…” while people of 4) will hang their heads and think, “That was as bad as I feared.” My honest impression is that highly ambitious director Tran Anh Hung wants a place in the international film world and he used Murakami’s name with this movie to be recognized by an international audience. Therefore, Naoko’s part had to be played by Japan’s best-known actress, Rinko Kikuchi, and she had to have a lot of screen time until the end.

Because ardent readers of Murakami already create an image of each character in their own mind before watching the movie, casting must be difficult. However, one reason that this movie disappointed the audience was that Rinko Kikuchi played the part of Naoko. It’s not because Rinko Kikuchi is a bad actress. To make my point clear, here is an extreme example: it would be like casting middle-aged Haruko Sugimura or Kirin Kiki to play Naoko simply because they are top actresses. Although Rinko Kikuchi is younger, it is still impossible to have Kikuchi who’s in her thirties play Naoko who’s a teenager. It’s only a little more than ten years, but this age difference is fatal in Norwegian Wood. Also, Rinko Kikuchi is a go-getter and a strong-willed person, while Naoko is as vulnerable as pure white, soft snow that melts in front of your eyes without a trace. Kikuchi and Naoko have completely different temperaments.

Secondly, Reiko’s depiction is totally incorrect. There is not a female protagonist in the original novel. (Naoko is not the protagonist). However, in the original novel, Reiko is a profound influence on the main character Watanabe and an extremely important character; among the female characters, the reader may have the most affinity towards Reiko when reading the novel. Her life is tragic in some regard, but she doesn’t forsake Naoko until the end and she is the one who warm-heartedly maintains the connection between Naoko and Watanabe; but in the movie, she is depicted in a way that makes me think, “Why is this person here?” The letter that Reiko writes Watanabe in the novel is beautiful. Completely ignoring the novel, Reiko is depicted as some incomprehensible, weird lady.

norwegianwood_enThe world of the novel Norwegian Wood to me is, in a few words, a big rectangle in a spacious field. Naoko is in the upper right corner. Midori is in the lower left corner. A long path extends from Naoko’s position, and Watanabe slowly walks on it with Reiko. A river flows parallel to this path and Hatsumi stands on the opposite bank of the path Reiko is walking on; Watanabe watches Hatsumi from a distance as he walks. Then Midori is waiting at the end of the long walk. Reiko gently pushes Watanabe’s back and gives him courage to cross the river. The flow of the river is violent, but Nagasawa lightly floats along like a waterfowl without being washed away. Then Watanabe approaches to greet Nagasawa, and Nagasawa says, “Cross the river. What are you waiting for? Take care,” as he gently floats down the river.

In a sense, this movie is a “rite of passage” story. Depending on the person, it may be called “the loss of youth” or perhaps “the coming of age.” Nagasawa has this maturity. Like the surgeon in the Czech movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Nagasawa understands the difference between love and sex in a realistic way; Nagasawa doesn’t care for those who stubbornly hold onto romantic ideals. Nagasawa has his beliefs, but does not blame others for having different opinions, and he does not make excuses or pity himself. In this movie, his true essence wasn’t depicted at all, and he was drawn simply as an arrogant man.

Midori is a girl who naturally possesses maturity within her. Her life was not easy at all, but she doesn’t pity herself and she holds herself up with two strong legs to keep on living. She never shows it off, but Watanabe picks up on it. Watanabe was taken aback by Midori’s unexpected strength and he finds himself falling in love with her. The movie does not depict this unexpectedness at all. To be honest, in the movie, Naoko repeats, “I got wet!” and Reiko abruptly says to Watanabe, “Sleep with me!” as if crazed for sex, while Midori whines, “Pretty please take me to an indecent movie.” I was really disappointed that all the important female characters were drawn with an excessive desire for sex. In the novel, sex has an important role, but it is just in the background, part of a more important story. It is not shown this way in the movie.

Reiko, like Hatsumi and Naoko, has an “obsessive” mind, but she is determined to get rid of this sense of fixation. In the movie, the actress who plays Reiko sings the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” but I was surprised by how bad it was. Regardless of the skill level of her as a singer, the issue was that there was no heart in the song.

The original Norwegian Wood is the story of Watanabe crossing the river. However, this journey was not easy. He may think he must give up this beautiful shore in order to cross the river, and it feels like he must give up himself. Also, he must abandon his “sense of responsibility” to cross the river. For Watanabe, his “sense of responsibility” is not as simple as the one in an adult society of “doing your duty and keeping promises.” His version of responsibility is what makes him himself and if he abandons it, he thinks he is abandoning what is the most important to him. However, in the end, Watanabe probably crossed the river. It is implied at the beginning of the novel. But the movie does not touch on this at all.

To say it briefly, this movie cuts all the details needed in order to present the original novel’s essence, and adds unnecessary scenes. The images were fairly beautiful, but it cannot be a good movie with this alone.

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Movie: Paradise Now (2005)

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Paradise Now—a 2005 collaborative movie between France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Palestine—depicts Palestinian problems from the point of view of Palestinians, focusing on two young Palestinian suicide bombers. Director Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian who was born in Nazareth, Israel, and immigrated to the Netherlands when he was 19 years old.

This movie takes the stance that young suicide bombers aren’t monsters at all and that they are ordinary young people. Said and Khaled, two young men given this mission, live without hope in the West Bank in Palestine and turn to terrorism, believing that they can get to paradise by participating in terrorist activity. Khaled is a loser who keeps getting fired from his jobs, and feels that the only way to become a hero is to die as a suicide bomber. His close friend Said is smart and popular with girls, but, since he has the past of his father being executed by fellow Palestinians as a “traitor” for being part of a pro-Israeli faction, he believes he must die as a hero in order to remove the dishonor on his family name.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict originated from the United Kingdom’s three-pronged diplomatic strategy that had the purpose of strengthening the UK both during and after World War I. The first prong was the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence in 1915 against the enemy Ottoman Empire; the United Kingdom promised the Arabs under Turkish control independence in exchange for armed uprising against the Ottoman Empire. The second prong was acquiring financial support for the war from the Rothschild’s, a wealthy Jewish merchant family; to do so, the United Kingdom issued a letter of support for the establishment of a Jewish nation in 1917 through their Foreign Secretary Balfour. The third prong was the Sykes-Picot Agreement; the United Kingdom covertly negotiated with their allies, France and Russia, regarding the division of the Middle East region after the Great War. In the end, the Arab and Jewish armies, together as part of the British army, fought the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and Palestine (containing current Jordan) became mandated territory of the United Kingdom.

After World War II, the United Kingdom chose to give up Palestine, a land rife with political instability, and entrust the intermediation of this problem to the United Nations. In the United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947, the UN Resolution 181 that proposed that Palestine be divided—56.5% given to a Jewish nation and 43.5% toward an Arab nation—and that Jerusalem be under international control was approved with 33 for it, 13 opposed, and 10 abstentions. However, in February 1948, the Arab League nation members voted in Cairo against the founding of an Israeli nation, and the antagonism between Jews and Arabs in this land became very serious. When the United Kingdom’s mandate over Palestine ended in May 1948, the Jews, based on the UN Resolution 181, declared their independence on May 14, and the nation of Israel was formed. Simultaneously, a large army consisting of five nations of the Arab League (Egypt, Trans-Jordon, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) invaded Palestine with the goal to prevent their independence, and the First Arab-Israeli War began. The Arab side, which was expected to be victorious, failed to wield its full power due to internal disunity. Israel, after a hard-fought battle where 1% of their population died in action, came out victorious, and 700,000 to 800,000 Arabs who lived on Palestinian land became refugees. Continuing until today, many conflicts have happened on this land including several Arab-Israeli Wars.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed with the objective of liberating Palestine from Israel’s control. In 1993, based on the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, the Palestine Authority was established. This is an autonomous government that is split into the West Bank between Jordan and Israel, and the Gaza Strip on the northeast side of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

The setting of this movie is the West Bank on the Jordan River. The future of this area is unpredictable, but currently, there are three districts in the West Bank: one district where the Palestine Authority has administrative power as well as control over the police, one where the Palestine Authority has administrative power while the Israeli army controls the police, and one where the Israeli army has administrative power as well as power over the police. Particularly in the third area, everyday life for Palestinians is highly restricted, with everything including home or school construction, well digging, and road building needing permission from the Israeli army. In all three areas, it is possible for Israel to prohibit transit for Palestinians.

It is clear that director Hany Abu-Assad, as a Palestinian, is addressing the situation Palestinians are in, but this movie is not political propaganda. His way of filming this movie is very cautious and he includes humorous scenes; his goal seems to be for the audience to know the true face of the West Bank territory. His philosophy is perhaps most like that of Suha, the fleeting love interest of the protagonist Said. She is the daughter of a hero of the independence movement, was born in Paris, raised in Morocco, and returned to the West Bank. She opposes violent conflict, and she tries to persuade Said to abandon revenge and implement peace in the Palestinian district by means of a nonviolent human rights movement, but this sentiment fails to reach Said.

At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene depicting a young Israeli soldier menacingly checking Suha’s luggage at a checkpoint on her way back to the West Bank. However, at the end of the movie, there are young Israeli soldiers, much like the one in the first scene, on the bus that Said is riding in order to suicide bomb, but the soldiers on the bus are young men with beautiful smiles and look very kind. They are really beautiful young men. However, these young men are to die soon with Said. This movie is not propaganda saying which side is right or wrong, and I feel the director’s wish for the audience to know the true face of Palestine as best as possible without prejudice.

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Movie: In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

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Angelina Jolie—Hollywood actress and ambassador for UNHCR, an agency that deals with refugees in the United Nations—directed her first movie; this movie set in Bosnia is a melodrama depicting the fates of two lovers—a commanding officer of the Serb army, and a Muslim and Bosniak woman—during the Bosnian War. I hear this movie will premier in Japan in 2013.

I personally like and admire actress Angelina Jolie because she always donates a lot of money to refugees or people suffering in natural disasters, and her contribution to the education of Middle Eastern women and promotion of foster parent organizations was courageous. However, I don’t have much admiration for this movie. I want to summarize my thoughts below.

First of all, English was used for this movie. This movie was largely distributed in America where people may find subtitles to be annoying. Although the actors in the movie all spoke English very well, I would’ve liked to hear Bosnian or Serbian spoken instead. I feel this reduces the authenticity of the movie.

This movie is after all a Hollywood movie. As is expected, the actress playing the protagonist begins by wearing a skirt and sweater, but gradually more skin is exposed and when she is in the hideout of her lover, the Serb commanding officer, she is wearing a dress that looks like something Angelina Jolie would wear on the red carpet… What? Isn’t this character a Muslim woman? From where would she have procured such a stunning, Western-style dress? This actress also resembles Angelina Jolie in her appearance. The actors in this movie are instructed in the Hollywood way of expressing emotion, such as throwing something when angry.

This movie portrays Serbs very one-dimensionally as scoundrels. The historical background setting up to the war is not described. One after another, cruel scenes are shown (such as the raping of a Bosniak by a Serb soldier, or a Serb soldier using a Bosniak woman as a human shield as he shoots at a Bosniak soldier). Bosniak soldiers are portrayed virtuously, but Serb soldiers are always portrayed as ugly and they laugh when they are killing their enemy. The Bosian War started because both the Bosniaks and the Serbs felt they were in danger, and both sides insisted that the other side started the war. However, this movie depicts the Serbs as the obvious bad guy. The cruel scenes serve as proof of this. I think the Hollywood movie method is to feed the audience a clear good guy and bad guy in a situation even though the conflict is very complicated.

Angelina Jolie visits countries all over the world as a goodwill ambassador. I think this movie was based on an impression she gained when she visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, and she wanted justice by conveying what she witnessed herself to the world. She was very shaken by the Serb army’s ethnic cleansing in the area of Bosniaks by not only murder, but systematic rape. Even though the Bosnian War was very complicated, it was very brave and difficult for her as a young foreigner to make this movie. When making this, she may have thought, “I don’t know anything about Bosnia, but because I know about love, I want to depict the Bosnian War with love as the main principal.” In short, this movie appears to be the story of a man and a woman who may have happily had a family if not for this war changing their fates.

However, is there true love between these two? Danijel, the Serb man, and Ajla, the Bosniak woman met just once before the war started and liked each other. Danijel doesn’t know what kind of person Ajla is or what she does. When the war begins, Ajla is taken with other Bosiak women by the Serb army and nearly raped, but the commanding officer of the soldiers that took the women is Danijel and he says to a soldier, “You’ve had enough fun,” and stops him from raping Ajla. Danijel is the son of the highest commanding officer of the Serb army. Danijel tells his subordinates that Ajla is his property and doesn’t let her get raped. On top of that, Danijel helps her escape. However, Ajla comes back to Danijel’s unit as a spy. She is given her own giant room and is brought food every day by Danijel. Danijel gets very angry and kills a subordinate when he discovers the soldier had raped Ajla under the orders of Danijel’s father; also, Danijel tells Ajla military secrets. When I watch Danijel, I get irritated and think, “Whatever the reason for war, why can’t you be responsible for your home country and your men?” In the end, Danijel discovers that Ajla is a spy; he then shoots her and surrenders himself to the UN troops by saying, “I am a war criminal.”

Although the Bosnian War looked like a civil war, the United Nations decided to intervene because the ongoing racial extermination was a crime against humanity. However, is it the best ending for Angelina Jolie to have Danijel declare himself a war criminal at the end? I wonder how the audience reacts to the one-sided blame on the Serbs in this movie. Not all Serbs are murderers and many were not aware of the massive killings being performed. Some short lines in the movie say not all Serbs are bad people, but this is lost among the endless images of brutality within this movie.

Also in this movie, Danijel’s father briefly tells the history of his time as a commissioned Serbian officer and the sad history of his nation, but he speaks in quite a monotone as if reading from a history textbook so his words regretfully do not stay in the audience’s heart.

The Balkan Peninsula was under Turkey’s control, but by the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire declined and in 1875, the Russo-Turkish War began over this land between Turkey and Russia. After the war, through support from Great Britain who was uneasy about Russia’s policies going south, Austria strengthened their control over Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 1908, Bosnia and Herzegovina were incorporated into Austria. However, Serbia, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, had the intention to expand as part of the Greater Serbia movement, and so opposed Austria for this land. This became the cause of World War I.

After World War I, because of Austria’s defeat, Serbia became the core of the Serb-Croat-Slav Empire in the Balkan Peninsula and absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, during World War II, Nazi Germany used Croatia as a puppet government to take over the Balkan Peninsula and Serbs were suppressed. By means of the Croatian nationalist organization Ustaše, Serbs were persecuted along with Jews and any anti-establishment groups, and were taken to concentration camps to be murdered. Faced with this, the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist organization, was formed and it stirred up an anti-Croatia movement.

After World War II, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established in the Balkan Peninsula, their charismatic leader Tito able to form alliances between many ethnicities. During this time, there was little tension between ethnicities and in urban areas, many different ethnicities lived together and marriages tied them together. Yugoslavia was different from other satellite countries of the Soviet Union; movies criticizing the regime were not banned there, and in 1984 they hosted the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. But ethnic conflict resumed after the collapse of the Soviet Union when various countries within Yugoslavia declared independence in 1990. The Bosniaks and the Croatians living within the Bosnian region wanted to be independent from Yugoslavia, which was dominated by Serbs, while the Serbs in that region wanted to remain under Yugoslavia; this was the beginning of the Bosnian War. Later, a dispute between Croatians and Bosniaks started and began a three-way war.

In 1994, there was a military intervention by the United States of America and NATO; in 1995, the war ended after the signing of the Dayton Accords, the peace agreement mediated by the United Nations. In order for this movie to be accurate, Angelina Jolie was said to have asked for the details in the movie to be reviewed by Richard Holbrooke, the Assistant Secretary of State of Clinton’s administration who worked on the Dayton Accords; she also asked other diplomats involved in these negotiation efforts and reporters who covered the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke under Obama’s administration was appointed as the special envoy in charge settling the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict, but in 2010, he became sick and died as a special envoy in office before the completion of this movie.

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Movie: Entre les murs – The Class (2008)

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Since this movie is the movie adaptation of Paris middle school teacher François Bégaudeau’s book Entre les murs (“within the classroom”) which he wrote based on his own experience, François Bégaudeau also wrote the screenplay and performed as himself in the movie. In addition to his main job as a teacher, his careers include being a rock musician, writer, and rock music critic; after winning a César Award as a scriptwriter, being awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and being nominated for an Academy Award, he has added to his resume a career in the movie industry. After his book became popular, he resigned as a teacher and now seems to be doing writing and movie-related work.

Many different races are mixed in this middle school class that is in the 20th district of Paris where immigrants from a variety of areas coexist. This movie mainly depicts the events that occur over the course of one year within François’s class. François is a French teacher that teaches authentic French to students who mostly don’t speak French as their native language. In terms of the French ability of the children, they have no problem with daily conversation, but their verb conjugation is incorrect and they do not sufficiently understand abstract vocabulary or subjunctive mood that is mainly used in writing. Many of the students are black children of immigrants, but their homelands vary—Mali and Morocco in Africa, the Caribbean, etc.—so their cultural backgrounds are diverse; we can’t simply say “immigrant children” or “black immigrant”. Small fights between these children frequently happen.

This movie received the highest accolades at distinguished film festivals and, as a movie about a school with teacher-student relations, I expected a poignant drama of an enthusiastic schoolteacher, but it was actually different when I watched it. This movie does not discuss an ideal education, does not praise either the teacher or the students, and is not a social issue drama depicting the children of immigrants. If entering with such expectations, you will leave with them unfulfilled. Various problems happen one after another and François works hard to respond to them, but he isn’t necessarily able to solve the problems well. This movie simply depicts various incidents—many arguments and conversations between students and the teacher, parents and the teacher, and among teachers—and then the school year just ends. So then some may wonder, what is good about this movie?

First, why did François Bégaudeau write his original Entre les murs? It is because of the inconsolable present conditions of his career as a teacher. A job is needed in order for anyone to survive, so he became a teacher. Since his parents were also teachers, teaching was a familiar occupation. However, a teacher in France is not very well paid, is not thanked by students and parents even when working very hard, and every day is spent responding to students who constantly talk back. He likes his students and seems to have enthusiasm for his job, but nevertheless, if I borrow his words, teaching is “the saddest occupation.” Being a middle school teacher is enormously hard work. Nobody looks down on a teacher (I hope), and everyone thinks that someone must work as a middle school teacher. However, there may not be many people who are willing to be a middle school teacher. It is a problem that, even though people recognize it is an important job, only a few people are excitedly applying for these jobs.

Then why did director Laurent Cantet want to make this book into a movie? Like François Bégaudeau, Laurent Cantet’s parents were also teachers. He had direct knowledge about school teachers and he recognized that education had a significant role in preparing a child for the real world; but he was also aware that, if the education system did not function well, many students fell through the system. For Laurent Cantet who thought about the present condition of education theoretically, François Bégaudeau’s book that concretely conveyed the viewpoint of children and the life of the classroom stimulated his creative mind and I think this was his main motive for making this movie about education. Laurent Cantet’s theme is probably something like, “Education should give children opportunities, but has it become a place that instead narrows the opportunities for children?” For example, a male student who accidentally injures a classmate is expelled for this incident since he is seen as a problem child among teachers, and a female student whose grades are suffering mutters, “I really don’t want to go to vocational school.” I am not very familiar with France’s educational system, but it seems that vocational school is a hopeless dead-end for students that are sent there because of their bad grades.

Finally, why did this undramatic, documentary-like, subdued production unanimously win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and receive overwhelming praise? This movie is not an exceptional movie, but I think it is because an important theme is depicted honestly and modestly. Any citizen watching this movie would have received some education so they are aware that education is important and that the education system is not perfect under the current conditions; but not many movies about education are made because it is not easy to make the educational problem into a dramatic movie. Occasionally, an exceptionally enthusiastic schoolteacher and their exceptional influence as a teacher may be dramatically depicted. Ordinary children and a professional teacher from poor neighborhoods in Paris were chosen from the audition to depict reality beyond the performance by actors. It was actually quite convincing.

This movie raises questions about education, and the main characters the child actors play in this movie should be problem children, but there is a hopeful twinkle in the eyes of the children appearing in this movie. Perhaps while they were involved in the making of this movie as main characters, they started to feel, “I didn’t know film making would be this fun!” or, “How joyful to become the lead role and use my own mind and heart!” Therefore, all the children playing problem children are cute. It may have been slightly unplanned by the director, but the twinkle of these children may be the reason for the refreshing feeling left after watching the movie.

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Movie: Hævnen – In a Better World (2011)

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The original title means “revenge” in Danish, but the English title is “In a Better World” and the Japanese translation is “To You Who Live in the Future”; the English and Japanese titles are not literal translations of the original title, but it is very interesting how they each seem to symbolize a different layer of the theme.

Anton is a Swedish doctor who works at a refugee camp in Africa (probably Sudan) and is separated from his wife Marianne living in Denmark. Their son Elias is bullied in school. One day, a boy named Christian transfers from London into Elias’s class. Christian’s father Claus, after his wife died, moved with his son to Denmark where Christian’s grandmother lives. Elias does not resist the bullying he faces, but Christian convinces him that the bullying will continue forever if he doesn’t fight back and beats up the leader of the bullies. The bullies notice this and stay away from Christian. Christian, having lost his mother, and Elias, possibly losing his father in a divorce, are drawn to each other and a strong friendship buds.

Christian and Elias witness Elias’s father Anton being hit one-sidedly by an unreasonable man. When the boys insist that he ought to retaliate, Anton warns them that, if you retaliate violence with violence, the violence will continue to grow. When he returns to Africa, Anton provides medical care to a young pregnant woman whose abdomen was cut open by the rebel army general, but the woman dies despite treatment. The general comes there seeking medical treatment for a wound. The camp’s medical staff refuses to provide medical treatment, but Anton treats him, feeling it is his duty as a doctor. After treatment, though, the general shows his arrogance and expresses contempt toward the dead pregnant woman, so eventually Anton’s rage peaks and he yells, “Get out of here!” Hearing Anton’s words, the refugees who had until now refrained from acting, out of respect for Anton, proceed to beat the general to death.

In Denmark, Christian decides to get revenge on the man who had hit Anton by blowing up the man’s car. Elias is skeptical of this act, but is drawn in and does it together with Christian. Just before the explosion, they see some strangers—a mother and her child—jog toward the car; Elias jumps out to rescue them and gets hit by the explosion. Christian is investigated by the police and, believing Elias had died, plans to throw himself to his death.

“Revenge” – The movie of this title depicts revenge and its consequences. Marianne could not forgive her husband Anton’s affair. Because of this, Anton goes to Africa which makes Elias feel sad; Elias finds comfort from Christian who helps him, and Elias ends up bombing the car with Christian. Christian believes his own father wished for the death of Christian’s mother suffering from terminal cancer and he can’t forgive his father for letting his mother die. With nowhere to direct his anger, Christian channels it into the revenge he seeks on the bully and the man who unreasonably hits people. Even though Anton disapproves of revenge, he can’t tolerate the rebel army general who was amused by cutting the abdomen of the young pregnant woman. The African husband of the woman who died beats the general to death. This movie expresses that people seek revenge when they are hurt, no matter how trivial or how brutal the act that hurt them is.

“In A Better World”— Perhaps this could be rephrased as “In an Ideal World” where everyone understands each other and there isn’t violence, but since this is only an ideal, this movie depicts the reality where people hurt each other. Or perhaps this title compares the irrational society of Sudan in a war to Denmark which is said to be the most calm and peaceful society among European nations; perhaps it wishes to draw attention to the violence that lurks within the peace of Denmark in various other forms. Do we fight violence with violence? Ignore it? Tolerate it? Or is there a better method? This movie ends without offering an answer.

“To You Who Live in the Future”— Adults say that violence is wrong, but perhaps this is hypocritical. Adults have their hands full dealing with their own problems. Looking at these adults, we hope that the next generation lives differently.

The strongest feeling I got from this movie was, “We don’t know what comes next in life.” There are only a few characters in this story, but at least six people nearly died. The mother and child who by chance were jogging near the car; Elias who protected them; Christian who was about to jump to his death if Anton hadn’t saved him; the bully that was punished by Christian; and Anton, having gained the animosity of the rebel army and angering the unreasonably violent man who hit him, could have been killed. Parents try very hard to raise children. However, children drift away in unexpected directions when their parents have their hands full every day with hard work and their own troubles and don’t have time to think of their children. Fortunately, these family and friends don’t die, but this movie shows how small mistakes, no matter how small, could lead to tragic consequences.

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Movie: The Band’s Visit (2007)

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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.”

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