The Promise

Posted on April 20, 2017 at 5:45 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic material including war atrocities, violence and disturbing images, and some sexuality
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and prolonged peril and violence including war and genocide, some graphic and disturbing images, characters injured and killed, suicide, execution
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 21, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	July 17, 2017
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0719XBL75

The massacre was so monumental, the attempt to wipe out an entire culture and ethnicity so savage, that a new word had to be invented to describe it. The word was “genocide,” and while it would be applied many times over the course of the 20th century, it was created to describe the murder of 1.6 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) during the first World War. It is difficult to acknowledge that “The Promise,” a love story set during this period is particularly timely, released the week of the annual observance of the annual day of remembrence and the week of a troubling referendum extending the powers of the current leader.

Writer/director Terry George, served time in prison during the time of The Troubles in Northern Ireland and has devoted his life to telling stories of courage in times of the direst periods of unrest and slaughter, including the Oscar-nominated “Hotel Rwanda” and “In the Name of the Father.” With “The Promise,” he tells an epic story of love and loss in wartime, with Oscar Isaac, channelling Yuri Azhivago as soulful Mikael Pogosian, a young Armenian medical student, Christian Bale as determined American journalist Chris Myers, and Charlotte LeBon (“The Walk”), lovely and stirring as Ana, an Armenian artist and governess and the woman they both love.

As it begins, Mikael has agreed to marry a girl in his village in exchange for a dowry that will pay for medical school in Constantinople (Istanbul), where he stays with his uncle’s family, including Ana, governance to his young cousins. In these early scenes, both in the village and the city, George immerses us in an ambiance of sophistication, culture, tolerance, and prosperity. Christians and Muslims, Turks and Armenians, mostly treat each other with respect and easy comfort, even affection.

But that changes quickly as World War I begins. The Ottoman Empire joins the Germans and begins ethnic cleansing, arresting and deporting the intellectuals, forcing able-bodied men into military service or slave labor, throwing everyone else out of their homes and sometimes outright murder. Mikael’s medical exemption from military service is revoked. He is sent to a labor camp but escapes and returns home to find everyone he knows in danger. Although he is by now very much in love with Ana, he goes through with the promised marriage. Meanwhile, Chris is trying to get the story out to the rest of the world and Ana is trying to protect and help her people. All three are swept up in the tumultuous events as people around them show cruelty they could never have imagined possible.

As devastating as the historic events of the film are, the most powerful moments for today’s audiences are the ones that evoke our current conflicts. The treatment of refugees, including an extraordinary rescue effort from France, is in sharp contrast to news footage of today’s refugees, stuck for years, even decades, in perilous limbo before they can find new home, underscored by a reference to the temporary destination for the Armenians evicted from their villages — Aleppo.

Parents should know that this film concerns war and genocide, with extended peril and violence and some graphic and disturbing images. Characters are injured and killed, including an execution, and there are very sad deaths. There is some strong language.

Family discussion: What does this story tell us about today’s treatment of refugees? About how quickly a country can shift its policies on diversity and inclusion? Is survival a form of revenge?

If you like this, try: “Nahapet,” “Ararat,” and “Map of Salvation”

The Lost City of Z

Posted on April 20, 2017 at 5:34 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, brief strong language and some nudity
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence including WWI battles and attacks by indigenous people
Diversity Issues:	Class, race, and culture issues a theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 21, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	July 10, 2017

From the early 19th to the early 20th century, the British Empire exemplified a spirit of adventure, devotion to duty, and confidence bordering on hubris that led to extraordinary achievements like the Oxford English Dictionary and the arrogant imposition of colonialism around the world. All of that is in this true story of Percy Fawcett, an officer in the British Army whose eight trips to South America in search of ancient ruins inspired characters in books by H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan-Doyle (The Lost World) (both friends of Fawcett’s) and in movies like “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Basically, if the hero wears khakis as he slashes through the jungle, he owes something to Percy Fawcett.

Writer/director James Gray based the screenplay on the book by David Gann and the letters of Fawcett and his wife, and shaped the story to make it more accessible, turning eight trips into three and reflecting a more contemporary understanding of race and gender. That is notable in Nina Fawcett’s attempt to insist that she should accompany her husband on an expedition and in the treatment of the natives, who are portrayed with dignity and agency, and treated as such by Fawcett.

He also helps us understand the pressures of the era that helped to motivate Fawcett’s journeys. The unlimited opportunities of the uncharted jungle were especially compelling. In addition to giving him the chance to earn money for his family, a major discovery would allow him to return to England in triumph and overcome the disgrace his father had brought to the family name. We first see him outracing his fellow officers, showing us his skill and determination. When he has the opportunity to go to Bolivia to map the country’s boundaries — to protect the British business interests in South America — he does not want to leave his family but he is eager to escape the restrictions of Edwardian social class. “He’s rather unfortunate in his choice of ancestors,” one character sneers.

On the mapping expedition he hears about a place where there are artifacts of a prehistoric civilization and he is determined to find it and come home in triumph. He teams up with the loyal and capable Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson, unrecognizable behind a thick beard).

On his second visit, he brings along a veteran explorer, James Murray (Angus Macfadyen), who had been with Shackleton on his expedition to Antarctica, which turns out to be a very bad decision. But it is also the final proof for Fawcett that class and reputation are not determinative. On the third trip, after Fawcett’s return to military service in WWI, he brings his once-estranged son (Spider-Man Tom Holland) and reaches a new understanding and reconciliation.

Gray ably conveys the curiosity and wonder of the journeys and the passions that impel the adventurers. Pattinson’s performance is especially thoughtful and Hunnam does well, especially in an impassioned speech to the skeptics at the Royal Geographical Society and in showing us how his journeys change his views of himself and his world, perhaps inspiring us to imagine our own.

Parents should know that this film includes extended peril and violence including wartime battle scenes, sad deaths, some graphic and disturbing images, native nudity, brief strong language.

Family discussion: Why did Percy keep returning to his search? What did he learn from his experience with Murray?

If you like this, try: “The Man Who Would be King,” “The Lost World,” “Mountains of the Moon,” and the books by H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan-Doyle inspired by Fawcett’s adventures

The Zookeeper’s Wife

Posted on March 30, 2017 at 3:47 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, violence, brief sexuality, nudity and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong and bigoted language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Wartime and holocaust violence involving humans and animals, characters injured and killed, rape of a young girl (off-camera), sexual abuse
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 30, 2017

Jessica Chastain is luminous in the real-life story of Antonina Zabinski, a Warsaw zookeeper, who, with her husband and son, saved the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. Director Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”) brings her love of the natural world and her gift for telling stories of courage and triumph over bigotry to give us a timely reminder that the direst circumstances can inspire the greatest acts of courage and generosity. It also reminds us that there are still new stories to be discovered, even in a period of history that has inspired hundreds of films and thousands of books.

The movie opens on scenes of Edenic paradise. Antonina looks lovingly at her sleeping son — and at the baby lions sleeping beside him. She leans over and holds his foot, but it is the lion cubs she nuzzles. We then see her opening the zoo for the day, riding her bicycle through the magnificent Belle Epoque zoo, with the young camel loping along behind her, lovingly greeting each of the creatures. We will later learn that she is a refugee from Russia, and her childhood hardships left her more willing to trust animals than people. Animals trust her, too. Her skill at “whispering” even the most frightened and frightening wild thing will prove essential once Germany invades Poland.

Antonina is married to Jan (the Belgian actor Johan Heldenbergh), and the zoo is in every way their home. They live on the premises, but it is more than that. There is no distinction between the rooms they live in and the rest of the zoo. Animals wander in and out of the house and Antonina feels that the animals are her treasured guests — that is the term she uses.

And then Germany invades Poland, and the zoo is destroyed. A German zookeeper, Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl of “Rush” and “Captain America: Civil War”) offers to take the best of the surviving animals to his zoo in Berlin, promising to care for them and return them after the war. Later, as an officer in the German army, he returns to shoot the animals left behind. The Jews of Warsaw are moved into the Warsaw ghetto. Antonina and Jan figure out a way to smuggle some of them out of the ghetto, and soon they are living in underground cages once used to house animals. Once again, Antonina refers to them as her guests, and each night, after the patrol has gone home, she has music and serves food on elegant trays to remind them that there is still civilization in the midst of madness and kindness and courage in the midst of brutality and terror.

It would be easy to mistake the gentleness of Caro’s approach as not sufficiently harrowing to convey the horrors of the Holocaust, especially after the Oscar-winning “Son of Saul.” But that would be wrong. Caro, who made a film about sexual predation in “North Country,” understands that an unwanted touch of a hand or coming a few millimeters too close can feel soul-destroying, especially when it is misunderstood by someone whose trust and respect mean everything. She understands that a drawing, a bunny, a chance to create, a moment of sympathy can begin to heal a ravaged heart, and she presents Antonina’s story with as much grace and humanity as Antonina showed her guests.

Parents should know that this movie takes place during WWII and the Holocaust, and there are disturbing and violent images including scenes of bombing, the Warsaw uprising, and execution of Jews. A young girl is raped (off-screen) and a woman faces a sexual predator. There is some bigoted language and human and animal characters are injured and killed.

Family discussion: How did Antonina’s love of animals help her in taking care of her “guests?” Why was it important to her to treat her “guests” to gracious entertainment in the evenings? What should she have said to her husband about Heck?

If you like this, try: the book by Diane Ackerman

The Great Wall

Posted on February 16, 2017 at 5:39 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy action violence
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive, intense, military and fantasy violence with scary monsters, spears, arrows, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters but some insensitive portrayals
Date Released to Theaters:	February 17, 2017

I get that you need a big Hollywood star to get big Hollywood money. But in “The Great Wall,” that means that Matt Damon has to save the day in ancient China, and having him share the fight with a tough female military leader (Tian Jing) who is Chinese (and very beautiful) does not reduce the quease factor.

Damon plays William, a mercenary who has fought for and against armies of several European nations, now traveling through China in search of the “black powder” they have heard is a new weapon of massive power to destroy. (Gunpowder, the first explosive, was developed by Chinese alchemists in the 9th century.) All of his group are killed except for his closest friend Tovar (Pedro Pascal) in an encounter with a mysterious beast. William kills it and keeps the claw to help find out what it was. When they are captured by an enormous army, it is the claw that keeps them from being killed. The army, a part of the Nameless Order, is stationed by the Great Wall to fight off those creatures, called Tao-Tie. They are dragon-like predators who are learning and evolving, becoming more powerful and working together to develop what can only be called strategy. The Nameless Order has to stop them before they can no longer be contained and take over China, and, after that, the world.

The six people who wrote the film include top-level screenwriters including Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (“thirtysomething,” “Nashville”), Max Brooks (“World War Z”), and Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”) were not able to add any more depth than a videogame, and Matt Damon’s talent and charisma can only take his one-dimensional character so far, but the real star here is director Yimou Zhang, whose gift for visual imagery is always a pleasure to behold. In the grand tradition of Cecil B. DeMille or Busby Berkeley, his eye for epic scale, pageantry, and battle is superb. Blue-armored female soldiers leap off ledges to fight the Tao-Tie via military-grade bungee cords. Two interlopers are suddenly surrounded by a storm of red arrows, shot to keep them at the center of a perfect circle. A soldier accused of having a bow “not to the level of your skill” demonstrates what it — and he — can do with three arrows shot at once, one to adjust the trajectory of a tossed bowl and other two to pin it to a column. The film has no dialog about trust or what it means to risk your life, whether for money or for your community, no bromantic banter, and no discovery of the surprising secret to defeating the animals that comes close to the power of the endless row of faces, resolute, honorable, and determined it to whatever it takes to fight the Tao-Tie.

NOTE: Matt Damon and co-star Andy Lau both played the same character in the American and Chinese versions of the film that in the US was called “The Departed.” The Chinese version was “Infernal Affairs” and both are excellent.

Parents should know that this film includes extended military vs. monsters violence with many characters wounded and killed and disturbing images, arrows, spears, and explosions. While it features strong, brave female soldiers and officers and tries to balance the skill and courage of the Chinese and western characters, it is still disturbing to see in 2017 a movie where the indigenous people cannot solve the problem until the European arrives. You may wish to read the director’s statement on this issue.

Family discussion: Were William and Lin Mae alike? How did they earn each other’s trust?

If you like this, try: “House of the Flying Daggers” and “Curse of the Golden Flower”

Silence

Posted on January 5, 2017 at 5:27 pm

Like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam-era adaptation, Apocalypse Now, Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” is the story of men who take a journey to find a former leader who has disappeared into the untamed natural world.

It is the mid-17th century. Two Portuguese priests, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver) go to Japan in search of their teacher and mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson). After receiving disturbing reports that he has publicly abandoned his faith, they say, “We have no choice but to save his soul.” They leave with “no luggage except our hearts.”

Ferreira had gone to Japan as a missionary and he and his colleagues had some success in converting Buddhist peasants. But Japan has now outlawed Christianity in any form, and as we see immediately, the officials have decided that the best way to eradicate it is to torture believers, forcing the priests to watch. Early efforts to fight Christianity failed because killing the priests made them martyrs, showing the strength and power of their faith when they refused to renounce it, even under torture. So the officials responsible for eradicating Christianity have had to develop a more subtle approach. Instead of torturing the priests, they torture and murder their followers, telling the priests that all they have to do to stop it is recant. It can be as simple as putting a foot on an icon of Jesus. “It’s a formality,” the Japanese official says in a soothing voice. “You don’t have to believe it.”

The priests have a choice: deny their faith in Jesus and Christianity or allow the suffering and death of innocent people. What should they do? Who has the answer?

For Martin Scorsese, who co-wrote and directed, this movie has been a passion project for three decades, since he read the award-winning novel by Shusaku Endo, inspired by the true stories of 17th century priests in Japan. Scorsese, who once thought of becoming a priest grapples here with the big questions about the letter and the spirit in the context of a time and a faith that traditionally has put a lot of emphasis on the letter as a frame and a discipline for the spirit. It is also a faith tradition that understands suffering as a part of faith practice, whether a way to appreciate the suffering of Jesus or to test one’s faith or to better understand others’ experiences, or to earn the rewards of heaven. The gorgeous visual scope and striking images are as powerful in telling the story of the clash of culture and religion as the narrative.

When it comes to performances, the film is off-balance, probably unintentionally, as the Japanese characters are more complex and completely realized than the one-dimensional priests. Garfield seems at sea as an actor, not just as a character, except in a few scenes where he has a chance to debate the “Inquisitor” (a wry, clever Issey Ogata). This movie about silence is at its best in the verbal jousting on faith, culture, truth, and power.

Translation: Extremely tense scenes of torture and brutality with some very disturbing graphic images, characters injured and killed

Recommendation: Mature teens-Adults

Family discussion: Were you surprised by the final shot? In the debate with the Inquisitor about culture and faith, who was right?

If you like this, try: “Unbroken” and “The Last Temptation of Christ”