17: Keeper of Promises (a.k.a. The Given Word; a.k.a. O Pagador de Promessas – original Portuguese title)

            Roger Ebert says that you can’t finish a review until you’ve started it – that you have to sit down and begin to write before any words will show up on the page.  He’s certainly right, but his philosophy doesn’t feel helpful when you don’t know how to begin the review.  Obviously I didn’t know how to start this one.  The more I think about Anselmo Duarte’s Keeper of Promises (1962), the more favorably I feel toward it, but I’m still not sure that I liked it…at least not in the traditional sense of the word.  I know that there were things I liked about it, but because I’m not sure exactly what its message was I can’t say that I took from it anything particularly moving.  I’m not of the opinion that all films need to be direct in their message.  That would make for boring cinema and even more boring conversations about cinema. 

However, there are some subjects that I feel can’t be addressed without being candid about what it is that you’re using cinema to say.  Obviously Keeper of Promises is a criticism of the Catholic Church and the position of power that it held in Brazil at the time of the film’s release.  I have two problems with this, neither of which stems from my own religious beliefs, but rather my beliefs about film.  First, I often feel that criticism of religion has been overdone in movies.  Luis Buñuel relied on it so heavily that it often overshadowed the better ideas that were present in his films.  Second, I feel that if you’re going to use art to criticize the church you should be specific in your criticism.  Call me a protestant (and so I am), but I think Luther got at least this right with his 95 complaints. 

Creating art that exists simply to criticize religion in general is like using Nazis or Wall Street sleaze balls as your villain.  It’s a cop out.  Who doesn’t have some issue with an aspect of organized religion?  Religion is necessary for individuals to collectively organize their faith.  It’s scary to many people because they don’t know quite where their faith fits in, but almost everyone acknowledges the need for spiritual guidance of some kind in life.  In this particular line of reasoning, religion reminds me a lot of the Internal Revenue Service.  Most of us have unfounded fears about what goes on there, but if we pay our taxes we have no reason to be afraid.  It isn’t something that we enjoy every aspect of, but as taxpayers we acknowledge its viable and necessary function.  Movies that cast religion as an immense but nonspecific evil feel like they’re taking the easy way out because no one wants to see a movie where the bad guys are the IRS.*

            I’m not advocating the unquestioned acceptance of religious principles.  On the contrary, I feel that religion serves best the person who questions why they believe.  Keeper of Promises succeeds, I believe, where other films have failed because it focuses is on a character with steadfast faith, who appears to have examined his reasons for acting as he does.  This man of faith is Zé do Burro (Leonardo Villar).  He’s walked a number of miles to Salvador, carrying with him a life-sized cross as a token of sacrifice to St. Barbara.  Along for the journey is his wife, Rosa (Glória Menezes), who is exhausted when they arrive in the hours before dawn, hoping to place the cross in the Church of the saint.  When they find the doors locked Zé is determined to wait with the cross, but Rosa is convinced by a local hustler that he will take her to a nearby hotel.  His intensions are obvious, but Rosa and Zé are naïve. 

            As the sunrise breaks over the massive flights of stairs that lead up to the church’s doors the priest arrives.  He’s impressed with Zé’s story of sacrifice until he learns that these actions were inspired by the peasant man’s belief that St. Barbara saved his donkey from certain death.  He denies him entrance to the cathedral, rebuking him for having prayed for the animal’s soul.  Incensed, Zé decides to wait out the priest, determined to keep his promise to the saint.  As the hours pass, a media circus descends on the great steps.  An atmosphere of Carnival develops that is reminiscent of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (1951)**.  Reporters form the television station arrive, and the leaders of the church are forced to meet to discuss the ramifications of the decision that must be made, all leading toward a startling and disparaging climax.  So great is this film’s cynicism regarding humanity, the 1001 text points out, that the righteous man’s only friend is his donkey.

            What’s truly interesting about the film is how good it looks.  On what I would assume was a limited budget, cinematographer H.E. Fowle, who made his name shooting documentary shorts in the 1930s and 40s, creates a vivid world using the black and white palette.  Staging and Mise en scène appear to have been taken into great consideration, particularly when it appears that much of the film was shot with natural light.  Fowle uses small architectural elements of the city to great effect as well, framing shots with intricate details of shaped rod iron and giving the impression that we a peaking around a corner to get a better look at the action.

            Much of the film’s religious symbolism is laid-on rather thick, but Keeper of Promises is still a compelling story of a man’s belief in his word.  The segments that follow Rosa’s interactions with the pimp are powerful as well, and serve nicely as a counterpart to the scene at the church.  While I can’t say that I understood the details of Duarte’s complaints against the church here, I’m willing to acknowledge that they may be contextually rooted in the religious practices of Brazil, and thus lost on me.  I can say that I don’t feel that I wasted 95 minutes on Keeper of Promises, as its images proved to be powerful.

Language: Portuguese (limited subtitles)

Runtime: 95 Minutes

              

Grade: 2 Hats Off

*although it is somewhat entertaining to internally speculate about what types of weaponry the bean counters might wield

**and the great staircase seems to be a clear reference to Battleship Potemkin (1925)  

18: Voyage in Italy (a.k.a. Voyage to Italy; a.k.a. The Divorcee of Naples; a.k.a. The Greatest Love; a.k.a. Love is the Strongest; a.k.a. The Strangers, a.k.a. The Lonely Wife – U.K. version; a.k.a. Viaggio in Italia – Original Italian title)

            Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage in Italy (1953) is a film that is utterly devoid of memorable moments.  In an attempt to further separate himself from the movement of neorealism that his 1940s films had essentially created, the director continued to move away from social issue pictures and toward cinema’s emerging emotional realism.  As a result, this film, his third collaboration with wife Ingrid Bergman, serves more as a testing ground for his talents in the latter movement rather than a solid or cohesive work.  From a narrative standpoint nothing much happens, and neither Rossellini nor Bergman are yet adept enough working within the emotional realism palette to offset this lack of plot.  

            Bergman plays Katherine Joyce, a woman who’s come to Naples with her husband, Alex (George Sanders) for a holiday and to sell the villa of a deceased uncle.  From the film’s opening they are at each others’ throats, with an uneventful car ride providing the setting for subtle jabs and twists of emotional daggers they seem to have long ago buried in one another’s backs.  They don’t scream obscenities or shout accusations.  To do so would break a code they seem to have adopted without a single necessary word of agreement.

 While the early scenes get the point across that the marriage has all but evaporated, the dialogue doesn’t escape from the performers mouths with the joy it might if the script were better.  Sanders, who could deliver an unassuming but fatal verbal blow better than almost anyone in cinematic history, is kept in his cage, his powers reduced by a screenplay that counted heavily upon the actors’ ability to improvise.  This likely sat well with Bergman, who trusted her husband’s ability to make it work and whose lines would be dubbed in post production as with most Italian films of the time, but Sanders was mortified.  There was a quality of his speech in his best performances that required him to be “in the moment,” and the ADR technique robbed him of much of his panache.

For several days the husband and wife live all but separate lives.  She’s intent on seeing the sights and he’s concerned with socializing, trying desperately to stave off the boredom brought on but what he sees as the unbearably slow pace of Italian life.  They bicker when their paths cross in the villa, with conversations about art and philosophy somehow always morphing into arguments that never quite explode into full on fights.  Rossellini tends to side with Katherine, and uses Sanders – who he had grown to dislike – to paint an unflattering picture of Alex.  By the time he picks up a prostitute in the city we’re hardly surprised, and his declaration that the girl is a “shameless, brazen hussy” seems to fit (while lewd by Hollywood standards of the day) within his standard dismissive tone.  The character of Katherine, alone for much of the film, is established in an even less subtle way, relying on monologues as she drives to and from museums and catacombs.   

(Spoilers Below)       

In these and many other aspects Voyage in Italy is heavy-handed, and as such it becomes predictable in its structure.  Most of the emotional cues, accept for the final one, can be seen from miles off, making them wholly ineffective.  And then there is the final scene.  Katherine and Alex have decided to divorce.  She can’t stand him anymore, and she lets him know it.  Their car is caught up in a religious parade.  They get out and Katherine is swept away into the crowd.  She calls for Alex.  He catches up quickly and the two glance something in the Catholic throng that causes their hatred to melt.  In fifteen seconds of screen time they fall in love again.  This didn’t work for audiences upon the film’s release and it doesn’t work now.

 I applaud Rossellini and his actors for not laying on the romanticism throughout the film, but to bottle it all up for the final shot feels more like selling out the picture’s established emotional tone rather than artistically shifting it.  Exchanges like (Katherine) “Life is so short”, (Alex) “That’s why one should make the most of it” could have been overplayed for schmaltz.  They weren’t, and the film could have stuck to its tonal guns, subtly growing toward a real confrontation or justified reconciliation.  Life is indeed too short to have an unfounded and shallow happy ending tacked on.    

Language: English

Runtime: 87 Minutes

Grade: 1.5 Hats Off

Oscar Nominations (and "F-words"): How I see it

            No I haven’t made my final picks yet, but with a full week now elapsed since the nominations were announced, I felt my thoughts starting to logjam.  Best to get them down in digital form for the sake, at least, of filing them.  I came away from reading the nod list feeling first, not that an individual or even a film had been snubbed, but that the audience had.  I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this whole “up to ten” Best Picture nominations switch, but four years in I’m surprised that this was the year to only put up nine films for the industry’s highest honor.  Most of us are smart enough to know that only about three films each year actually have a chance, and with critics in near unanimous agreement that 2012 was a good year for movies, why not fill each available spot?  Would it be a transparent ploy to get more viewers of the telecast? Yes.  Does Oscar care? No.  High moral standards don’t come around these parts often…at least not in this regard. 

            One area that they do seem to hold up in – not that this is a bad thing – leaves me a bit incredulous though.  Like everyone who writes about movies, and the Oscars in particular, I have my favorites.  This year, though I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise (probably because I want to hate Bradley Cooper, but can’t), Silver Linings Playbook tops my list of personal favorites (my #2, Prometheus, got only one nod, for visual effects, and Life of Pi seems to have that all wrapped up).  While I have a number of reasons to believe that Silver Linings’ producers won’t walk away with the gold statue, one stands out. 

It took more than 40 years from the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 for the “F word” to make its debut in mainstream American cinema, which it did with M*A*S*H in 1970. I looked over the list of Best Picture winners from 1970 on; convinced I wouldn’t remember a single instance in which a female character in any of those films uttered that four letter combination.  I was wrong, at least twice.  It’s said, nay screamed, by Annette Bening in American Beauty (1999) and yes, she’s saying it in that way.  It is also, while not totally audible in my recollection, let loose by Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech’s montage sequence.  I’m willing to believe that it’s escaped the lips of other actresses in Best Picture winners as well, but these were the two cases I remembered immediately. 

            Now consider the character of Tiffany in Silver Linings.  Played by Jennifer Lawrence (who I think will take home a statue), she says that word in a way (yes that way, again) that is fabulous, remarkable, the way I’d want to say it if I were a woman who’d gone through what Tiffany has.  And yet I have a sneaking suspicion that the Academy isn’t ready, or ready yet again, to award its highest honor to a film in which a female character uses the word to such effect.  Of the two instances I remembered, both were played for humor, the comic outburst of women who have, for their reasons, held it in and now feel liberated by it.  Tiffany says it like it’s part of her everyday lexicon.

            In the Kodak Theatre (now I think it’s called the Dolby Theatre), where the Oscar are held, the name of every Best Picture winner is chiseled into the massive stones that line the stairs.  Etched into those rocks are titles that, rightly or wrongly, have achieved movie immortality.  The voters often don’t pick the film that will last in our minds, but those stones tell a different story, and will likely last much longer than I will.  I don’t think Oscar is yet willing to put Jennifer Lawrence’s “F-word” into granite.  I can think of performances, some worthy and some questionable, that have garnered Best Actress gold which portrayed much more devious actions, as well as some words, than what we see from Lawrence’s Tiffany.  But I think that when it comes to the Best Picture category, for this year at least, the revisionist gender politics that her performance, and the way in which she uses that word, insinuate won’t help Silver Linings in Oscar’s biggest category.  David O. Russell will win the consolation prize of Best Adapted Screenplay, and the Oscars will continue their tradition of honoring only the words, controversial as they may be, of the year’s best film, and not how they were captured on screen.  (See 1941 and 1994 for eaxamples.)      

19: The Fourth Man (a.k.a. De Vierde Man – Original Dutch title)

            Paul Verhoeven’s filmography, though praised by many, hardly reads like a list of films critics have swooned over.  Indeed his Showgirls (1995) is often cited as one of the worst films of the 1990s – it is a favorite among the developing rank of trendy “bad movie” societies.  Yet he has made some culturally significant films and is often financially successful in his endeavors.  How strange then that, with his final Dutch-language work before departing for Hollywood, he choose to make a film aimed directly at his critical detractors.  He infused The Fourth Man (1983) with enough religious symbolism to make them certain that it was a legitimate work of art, and for his efforts was rewarded with a commercial disappointment.

            Many have noted that The Fourth Man plays not unlike a Hitchcock film.  It’s likely that Verhoeven knew what he was doing when he cast his frequent collaborator Renée Soutendijk and dyed her hair a vibrant blonde as his leading lady.  She plays Christine, and independently wealthy woman who owns a salon and has eyes for Gerard (Jeroen Krabbé), the bisexual author who comes to lecture at her literary society.  When he misses his train back to Amsterdam after his lecture, she offers him a night of seduction at her spacious apartment above the beauty parlor.  As they pull up, the neon sign that illuminates the building is on the blink.  It’s supposed to read “Sphinx,” (the name of the parlor) but instead spells “Spin,” the Dutch word for spider, and the viewer already knows that Gerard is being pulled into a dangerous web. 

            This is not the first time that a spider has appeared in the film.  The title sequence shows a Saint Andrews Cross variety (featuring a white cross on its back) wrapping its prey for later consumption before the camera pulls back to reveal that it’s web has been spun on a crucifix.  Gerard is himself a religious man, and he feels guilt about his sexual desires, but he nonetheless pursues them.  He and Christine make love in a scene that Verhoeven somehow infuses with just the slightest comic touch, always remembering still to flaunt his Euro-perv directing chops.  Then, the next morning, the story takes a strange turn.  Gerard, having accepted Christine’s invitation to stay several days, finds in her desk a love letter with a photo of a man he tried to approach in the train depot as he departed for the lecture.  He devises a plot to have Christine bring the man to the salon with the secret hope of seducing him himself. 

            Through a ruse he learns that the man’s name is Herman, and that he is a lover Christine discarded before she married the husband who left her a wealthy widow.  Gerard claims that he might be able to help Christine with the sexual problems she experienced in her relationship with Herman, and she agrees to bring him to the apartment.  While she travels to meet Herman, Gerard makes a discovery that may explain both Christine’s poor luck with men and the grotesque dreams that he hasn’t been able to escape since the film’s outset. 

            Most of this synopsis I’m sure sounds somewhat boring, because the film is in many ways conventional in its structure while at the same time outrageous in its imagery, which must been seen to comprehend.  For much of the first half of the film the dream sequences keep the viewer’s attention and not the story.  Then, as the strange elements of Christine’s life become more apparent to Gerard, her mystery essentially becomes the plot.  Why is she drawn to Gerard, and he to her?  Why hasn’t she remarried?  Is Gerard’s lust for her a misplaced attempt to quell his homosexual urges, or does she perhaps represent some deeper evil that he must resist?

            The film, as stated, is full of mixed religious imagery that often combines the sacred with the profane.  I’m surprised in fact that I hadn’t heard about some of its more graphic sequences in discussions of sacrilege in cinema.  Regardless, it’s still somewhat unclear exactly how Verhoeven intended many of his images.  He’s stated that he wanted to include the artistic elements to get the attention of the critical set, but whether confusion or profundity was his ultimate goal I cannot say.  What is clear is that the picture proves to be about half as interesting as it is intriguing, which isn’t a terrible ratio when considering the par.  It’s also a film that manages, in the way Verhoeven films often do, to retain a sliver of legitimate sexiness under the veneer of trashiness he so frequently applies.  I think, in a way, Hitchcock would have been proud.

Language: Dutch

Runtime: 102 Minutes

Grade: 3 Hats Off

20: Manila in the Claws of Brightness (a.k.a. The Nail of Brightness, a.k.a. Manila in the Claws of Neon, a.k.a Maynila: Sa mga kuko ng liwanag—Original Filipino title)

              I think that the most surprising element of Lino Brocka’s Manila in the Claws of Brightness (1975) is the sensibilities the film possesses for American culture, while simultaneously subtly criticizing capitalist territorialism in the city of its title.  Brocka was clearly influenced by American films and their themes, and quite possibly he influenced a few himself with this film, often regarded as the greatest of Filipino pictures.  Obviously, the labor movement movies of the 1950s as well as Midnight Cowboy (1969) are reflected here from a somewhat unfamiliar perspective.  Brocka certainly adds his own flare –notably with the film’s homosexual themes (he was openly gay) – and at times makes what might otherwise be a dingy homage into a unique, if admittedly melodramatic, picture about corruption and exploitation in the third world.

            Arriving in the city to find his lost love, Julio (Bembol Roco) is forced to seek work as a day laborer at a construction site.  The unsafe conditions and unforgiving foreman combine for a volatile environment, and Julio is shocked when he sees a man killed by falling debris.  Ordered to return to work immediately, the incident creates political stirrings amongst his fellow workers.  This subplot quickly all but disappears from the remainder of the film however when we see through brief flashbacks Julio’s memories of his beloved, Ligaya Paraiso (Hilda Koronel).  The two lived an idyllic life in a provincial fishing village, but Ligaya left for the city when promised a job and a potential education.  When she sent no word of her arrival, Julio followed to find her.

            Structurally, the film functions as both a disappearance mystery and a parable about the corruptive power of the urban landscape.  Julio is certain he’s seen Ligaya (whose full name translates to “Happy Paradise”) through the window of a trading company building, but he’s kept away by a sleazy gatekeeper.  As he fumbles through the inner-city squalor he finds himself increasingly prone to violence, and he eventually is lured into a ring of homosexual prostitutes who seem to have a connection to the inaccessible building.  He turns tricks for a time, seemingly unaffected by his plight, until by chance he sees Ligaya.  He follows her to a church, where they have a somewhat stoic reunion before going to a movie and then finding a bed in which to rekindle their relationship.

            In the film’s emotional centerpiece, a nearly ten minute dialogue between the two*, she reveals that she too has been trapped into a life of prostitution.  The young lovers make plans to flee the city, but before they can, Ligaya is killed by her pimp as a warning to other girls who might try to escape his clutches.   Enraged, Julio climbs the stairs of the whore house and murders the pimp with an ice pick.  The film concludes ambiguously as a mob surrounds the desperate young man, violently poised to make him the city’s next victim.

            The obvious comparison to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, released a year later in 1976, in the film’s final sequence leads one to wonder how much of a thematic influence Brocka’s film was on the American director and his screen writer Paul Schrader.  Obviously, Schrader’s screenplay was finished by the time of Manila’s release, but visually the films do have some striking similarities.  But Taxi Driver, for the most part, feels like a timeless film that happens to have been made in the 1970s, where Brocka’s to an extent feels stuck in that decade.  Costumes, body language, and even the small smattering of English dialogue in Manila feel dated upon first glance.  Taxi Driver, and to a lesser extent Midnight Cowboy bear the scrutiny of repeated viewings.  Likewise, the flashback sequences and melodramatic directorial tones (“Happy Paradise”…Really?) they display feel like a Ryan O’Neal vehicle rather than a gritty low-budget indy.   For a novice actor, Roco does what he can with the material he’s given, even showing some flashes of greatness, but his immaturity combined with Brocka’s unsure touch leaves something to be desired, as does the VHS quality stream that is available on Youtube.

Language: Filipino

Runtime: 125 Minutes

Available @Youtube.com (NST)

Grade: 2.5 Hats off       

*This was the scene that could have most used the missing subtitles.    

A Decision

With only twenty titles left to go, I find myself a bit exhausted.  Searching for the films has now become a real chore.  I’m still absolutely determined to try to make my June 16^th deadline, but I believe this may only be possible if I view some of the foreign language films without subtitles.  Several of them appear on the web with only their original audio, and alas I speak only English.  I will still be making every effort to see the twenty remaining titles, most of which are foreign, with subtitles if possible.  However, if I come across one that doesn’t have the translation, I’m going to go ahead and view it.  I’ve done this only once before, with Turkish Delight (1973; #88), and I don’t feel that it heavily detracted from my enjoyment of that title.  Is there potential here for skewed ratings? Yes.  However, I feel that the remaining titles may elude me forever, thus providing no opportunity for ratings, if I do not make the choice now to sacrifice the understanding of all dialogue.  I will mark any foreign language film I review, that I viewed without subtitles with an “NST”* after the availability note.

*No subtitles; I will apply this mark to the Turkish Delight entry as well.

21: Housekeeping

 

            There are times when movies serve us well by providing us with answers, but it is invariably true that they serve us even better when they provide us with questions.  This past summer, I was excited when advertising for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) suggested that the film would answer the questions posed by the Alien series.  Upon seeing the film I was resolute in my contention that it not only failed to answer the aforementioned questions, but even went so far as to pose new queries.  Then, after several weeks, it occurred to me that Scott had done something marvelous with the franchise he kicked off in 1979; giving it new life after more than a decade of spin-offs, crossovers, and retreads.  By posing more questions – this time getting at even deeper elements of human nature – he enlivened that which, like his creatures, only seemed to be defeated.  It took his unique touch, that mix of thought and action that he does so well, to truly revive, and perhaps cap the franchise.   

            Fans of Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping (1987) may be wondering by now what a 2012 big budget Sci-fi thriller has do with this relatively quiet and quirky dramedy from the Scottish director (his first North American film).  Nothing really, except that both of these films were helmed by directors that understood the power of questions to draw in an audience.  Scott’s film involves the origin of the human species, while Forsyth’s concerns the mysterious behavior of one of its members.  In a way, it too is an origin myth. 

            A narrator tells us the story of her youth, recounting the strange events that brought both her and her sister to be with their eccentric aunt, Sylvie (Christine Lahti).  At a young age they drove with their mother from Seattle to visit their grandmother.  Shortly after arriving at the geographically isolated town of Fingerbone, their mother took her own life.  When their grandmother passed away ten years later, two aged great aunts came to live with them in the house built by their grandfather.  He lost his life, we are told, years before in a train accident just outside of town that killed hundreds when the locomotive slipped off icy rails on a bridge, and then plunged to the depths of the frozen lake.  Like a congenial ghost, that bridge haunts the town, and the film.

When Sylvie arrives in Fingerbone, after years of transient existence, the girls, Ruth (Sara Walker) and Lucille (Andrea Burchill), are eager to learn more from her about the mother they barely knew.  Fingerbone has a way of making the world outside seem like an awfully exciting place, and Sylvie seems to have lived everywhere, at least for a time.  At first she seems drawn to the train station, eager to again take to the rails, but her affections for Ruth and Lucille convince her to remain as their caretaker.  Her quirks, a habit of collecting newspapers and tin cans, seem minimal at first, especially in the midst of the film’s most memorable sequence. 

Days after the geriatric aunts leave the girls in Sylvie’s care, the town floods.  The house, we’re told, is usually safe from the annual accumulation, but a late thaw leaves no option for runoff and for a time both aunt and nieces are forced to subsist in shin-deep water, donning their goulashes for each trip downstairs to the kitchen.  Initially, Sylvie’s nonchalant acceptance of these circumstances seems to be for the girls benefit, but as the water subsides it becomes clear that the state of the house is far from her mind.  The newspapers and tin cans begin to accumulate, and people in Fingerbone begin to talk.  Are these girls living in a healthy environment?  Ruth, who seems to care little for the world around her, doesn’t think anything is amiss, but as Lucille grows more concerned with her teenage social life, she begins to resent both her aunt and her sister.  Once, the two girls shared adventures together.  Now, Ruth prefers Sylvie as a traveling companion.  The two go on walks by the bridge and through the woods, crossing over mountain springs, and though they talk as they go, Sylvie remains mostly a mystery. 

Where all has she really been?  What caused her to leave?  Why did she stay away so long?  Was there a rift that tore the family apart after the train accident?  The answers to these questions are hinted at more than discussed, and Lahti has a way of making Sylvie’s reaction to questions about the past seem detached and defusing all at once.  The inquiries seem to bounce off of her and fade into the folds of the film, like the locomotive into the lake, sinking ever deeper with each subsequent attachment that glides off the rails.             

            Most people see a film that poses larger questions – something like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) – and initially recoil.  It requires more than two free hours to view and to process such a movie, and frankly we are losing our attention span as a culture.  It takes the ability to create and to reflect on critical and nuanced thoughts in order to digest such pictures.  We’ve bought into the idea that has been sold to us by Hollywood that movies exist solely for our enjoyment, and can be forgotten in the interim between the moment when we leave the theatre and the real moneymaker, the DVD release.  Housekeeping is a film of small questions rather than big, sweeping ones, but in the time I spent with it, and for some time thereafter, they were questions that mattered.  Not a masterpiece, but a wonderful look at a life different than my own, and yet similar in so many ways.

Language: English

Runtime: 117 Minutes

Available for streaming @amazon.com

Grade: 3 Hats Off