So Far from Heaven

Summer can be wearing at times. The heat, the humidity, the days that linger bright into night and, to the chagrin of a movie lover, blockbuster season at the theatres. Because movies are both art and industry, there is no season like summer for the tumultuous special effects, pounding scores and repetitive plots of blockbusters to drown out the best of the seventh art. Fortunately and almost magically we come across a film like Ida at the three-dollar-Thursday show at our small local theatre. Ida’s quiet beauty is like a fresh breath of air in the muggy summer heat, it’s a film that reminds us why we love this art form.

Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska

Ida is shot in beautiful grey, black and white by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, with two women actors, a generation apart, both Agatas by name that are simply amazing in their art. This is a movie that is both a simple and straightforward narrative, while constituting one of the most painful and comprehensive examinations of Polish history of the previous century that one can find.

The film is set in 1962 and the recreation of the time period is so wonderful in its detail, in the frames and color used, that it feels like a film made that year. It is the story of Anna, a young woman raised in a Catholic orphanage and convent who decides to take her vows. Before she does, she is told she has a living relative, an aunt, whom she is sent to meet before becoming a nun. It is thus that she meets Wanda, a high ranking member of the communist party. The two women are apparent polar opposites in every way possible, but joined by a past that they journey towards together. Anna discovers not only that she is Jewish, but she also comes into contact with basically the worst and the best the world outside the convent holds.

The movie addresses many themes. Like life, there is no one issue facing these women. Tormented by her past, Wanda a former “believer”, in her case in the religion that can be a political ideology, has drugged herself into not feeling only to be awakened by the vision of her niece who, as a young woman, resembles her lost sister. Anna, sheltered by the life in the convent and held together by her religious beliefs, also awakens to life, a family, a history and the enigmatic presence of her aunt.

Pawlikowski was born in Poland and lived there until he was 14, so he has the memories of life in communist Poland, which is something clearly reflected in this film, although since he’s lived abroad and settled in Britain. He began as a documentary filmmaker and this is probably why his style has a lot of the observer in it, while containing so much emotionality. He has won awards for his documentary films From Moscow to Pietushki about Russian writer Venedikt Erofeev,  Dostoevsky's Travels about the only living descendant of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the more successful  Serbian Epics, made at the height of the Bosnian War, among others. He has moved on to fiction and is the director of Last Resort, My Summer of Love and The Woman in the Fifth, starring Kristin Scott Thomas. Ida has already won many awards, including the Best Film Award at the London Film Festival and the International Critics Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It is certainly exciting to see a film that like poetry, says so much without speaking a lot. Like with Wes Anderson’s Film The Grand Budapest Hotel (commented on earlier in this blog, see The Amazing Wes Anderson), we find another filmmaker that creatively experiments with his frames, sets and shots; and, while with less flair than Anderson, has us glued to every image. Unlike Anderson, however, Pawlikowski fills us with the feeling of his characters, their horror, their grief, their unmitigated pain. So the artistic experience is complete. We walk out of the quietness that has filled the screen, somewhat changed by the coldness that has chilled our hearts back into the bright and hot daylight of a summer night.

Bon Appétit!

There is a delicious movie out there called Chef by the ever more vital director Jon Favreau. The movie is much more than just another comedy. It’s one of those increasingly rare movies that really has a heart to it. The plot is simple enough, a chef in search of his creative independence who, in the process of finding it, also discovers the significance of his relationships. But it is told with gusto and vitality.

Favreau is showing that he is a multi-faceted director with quite an interesting voice all his own. He is the director behind two of the Iron Man movies (in which he also plays the part of Happy Hogan), as well as the director of two younger children’s films that have quite a following: Zathura: A Space Adventure, and the delightful comedy on its way to becoming a Christmas classic Elf. His is an enticing voice, always youthful and humorous, but, as he shows in this movie more than in the previous ones he’s directed, a voice that connects with the everyday person and is capable of communicating depth of feeling very well.

Jon Favreau and Emjay Anthony in Chef

The movie, though, will probably also remain in your mind for the amazing and scrumptiously well photographed food it presents. During the movie one only wishes that instead of popcorn and a diet soda, we held a Cubano and a cerveza! Thus Chef joins some very fascinating films that make food a central character to the film, a key element of the plot and constitute a friendly reminder that food can and should be a celebration, a part of life and connections; something of an art and also something of a passion.

Two other films come to mind that fold food into the story in this way: Babette’s Feast and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. There certainly are others, including Julie and Julia, Mostly Martha (remade in the US as No Reservations), Big Night, Chocolat, Ratatouille, Like Water for Chocolate, but none as majestic and well-made as the two I want to write about.

Babette's Feast

Babette’s Feast was made in 1987 by Danish director Gabriel Axel. It is the story of a small and very austere protestant community in Denmark of the 19^th century, where Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, is taken in as a servant by two sisters that have devoted all their lives to caring for their father. Babette comes upon some good fortune and decides to prepare a dinner for members of the church, who are re-awakened to a world of pleasures, friendship and connections through food.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman

Yin shi nan nu or Eat, Drink, Man, Woman in English, comes from a vastly different culture and deals with very different time period and subject matter. This film was made in 1994 by the now very famous Taiwanese director Ang Lee, who has gone on to win many awards for his great films, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm, The Life of Pi and others. This one is a little more like Chef in that it deals with a senior chef in a famous Taiwanese restaurant, a widower who lives with his three grown daughters. It is through the elaborate Sunday dinners that he cooks for his girls that he feels he can connect to them and hopes he can hold on to them, only to have to face the changes that come with a new generation and young women at a moment when they are blossoming.

All three films are beautifully shot and the food presented in them is truly mouthwatering.  But what connects the three is that they present unambitious yet complex plots about real and profound relations (none of them romantic, really) in which food takes on the special role that it has in many cultures and families.

It is easy to forget that our relationships, like good food, take time, passion and a loving hand to cultivate, more so in this our fast-food world of social-media-deep acquaintances. Thank heavens for these beautiful, unambitious yet deliciously good films that remind us what life and living is really all about!