OH THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD DOGS YET! MEET "THE MONUMENTS MEN"

When I first saw this film I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to see it. I mean come on; it’s yet ANOTHER heist type movie where George Clooney is the ringleader of the gang. You may love George Clooney but don’t try and tell me it’s an original idea an entire “Oceans” franchise later. But then again, as you know, I love to keep a movie or two just for “take your brain out and relax” purposes so Monuments Men went onto that pile. It has, much to my surprise, thrown up a number of rather deep questions. It’s partly the film and partly my weird mind. But hang on. Let me tell you what the film is about first.

The Monuments Men. Otherwise known as Monuments Fine Arts and Archives. A division not quite like any other seemingly composed of the ones the regular army rejected. Older men, men with birth defects – heart trouble say – and their jobs as art historians, curators an architects don’t seem to prepare them for their roles in the war either. But you see, this a division not quite like any other. Their duty, should the army chose to accept it (or not) is to find the great works of art the Nazis have hidden somewhere behind enemy lines and when possible return them to their rightful owners. The war is raging on despite the fact that everyone seems to feel it’s winding down, so the Monuments Men face many real difficulties. Not least among them is the fact that they find it hard to get the Allied Forces to actually take them seriously. But the Monuments Men are deadly serious. As their superiors and the Nazis are about to find out…

I mean it is what it says on the tin. George Clooney – albeit not so much the handsome rogue but a middle aged and wise curator – leads a group of disparate (brilliant enough to make this elite force yet, naturally, sorely in need of a leader) individuals. He has a right hand man (Matt Damon) who fills the quota of the “heart throb of the film” an archetypal, Muppets style grumpy old man (Bob Balaban) and the slightly younger men who gets a kick out of teasing him (Bill Murray) forming the bickering couple (oh come on, you HAD noticed there always is a bickering couple. Yes you had.). There are the obligatory casualties (I will not be snide about this as not only does it represent real deaths but I actually welled up quite a bit while watching them). There is a moment when you think that the whole affair will be in vain. There is a chance breakthrough and, at one point a race against time. Oh and a love triangle. Yeah. Original it is not. But perfectly executed it most definitely is. Don’t expect any artistic revelations from this movie but of its kind it is a perfect example. And I mean, with a veteran like Clooney at the helm it’s pretty much a slam-dunk. If nothing else, he has been in enough of this kind of movie to be able to replicate it in his sleep. Plus he is a bit of a talent too, so yeah. Well and come on with that cast (And John Goodman AND Jean Dujardin)

But then again, I reckon the way this project got green-lighted was that it took this tried and tested frame to a touching and original story. It is not surprising at all that at 53 Clooney turns to a story that gives a band of seeming rejects a place in the lime light and in history. I mean, not that I’m for a minute implying that Clooney is headed for the scrapheap any time soon but age plays on all our minds constantly at the best of times but in ageist Hollywood it must be more in the forefront of Clooney’s mind than most. And I mean age is not the only thing that makes this group “rejects” – things like sickness plays a part also the fact that these men are not “manly men” but academics, artists, the sensitive ones, not the big “manly men”. Of course this is less of a stigma in the 21^st century but in the ‘40s this was a whole different kettle of fish. And of course the army is the army at all times in history so the Monuments Men have the added duty of proving to the people who should be on their side that what they were doing was… Well, worth doing. And I’m pretty sure that also appealed to Clooney the artist.

In closing I just want to express my surprise at the partly coincidental influx of films speaking of the efforts to hide artworks from Nazis in my life. They are not all new films, the topic has cropped up in some of the older films I have watched (I am being a very good girl and keeping up with watching my older movies as well as my new ones). I do wonder, in this age where the digital melds with the classic art forms, what our reaction would be to a similar invasion. Would we desperately be trying to secret great artworks from our enemies? I mean, would we be doing it as desperately as the films tell us were done? There’s part of me that would say no. But then again, our whole concept of art has changed a lot too. I was watching a show by the Japanese group Siro-a the other day (check them out Here if you haven’t heard of them). It’s a wonderful visual performance combining computer generated imagery with theatre and dance. I mean just by his poise and the way he held his hands I’m pretty sure at least one of the performers I watched was classically trained. Yet the whole amazing performance would not be possible without heavy digital intervention. I’m pretty sure the older generation would say “Oh that’s not art”; but is that fair? Is it even true? What would we try and hide if World War 3 broke out? And would the new Monuments Men include, in part at least, hackers? Take a minute to think about it… It’s not as crazy an idea as it seems…

THE PAST OF A NATION - AND A GREAT MAN - EXAMINED : "LINCOLN"

Ok this is another film that is going to get talked about a lot. I mean, it already is. It did quite well at the Golden Globes, it got a slew of nominations for the Oscars® and if the Golden Globes are anything to by (and it is no industry secret that they often are), Lincoln is set to do well there as well. Now, we already know that this is a Spielberg biopic, which, in itself, gives away quite a bit. But let’s get the lowdown on this three-hour long epic shall we? (By the way, what IS it with the length of films these days? Nothing under 2, 5 hours long! I mean, mostly the quality is quite high so the length is not, in itself, an issue but still, I’m curious. Films used to be a lot shorter in the past, even when technical developments allowed for much longer films. Now, when our attention spans are supposed to be getting shorter, films are getting longer and longer. There’s a thesis for a researcher or three in there somewhere…). Ok, I’ve done another one of my mile-long parenthesis. But bear with me; I’m getting to the point. In fact, this was not intentional, but it is kinda fitting that I went down a bit of detour here. Because one of the main “things” about Lincoln is that it is verbose. Very  verbose. But I’ll get to that in just a sec. Let’s briefly hear the story first.

This biography of Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis), takes up the story of the great politician’s life in 1865. Lincoln has two very important matters on his hands. The greatest without any shadow of a doubt is the Civil War. One thing is clear however, the war seems to be inexorably winding to a close. Lincoln is more than happy that the North seems to be winning. And with people dying in their thousands, peace could surely not come soon enough. The only thing is, Lincoln has a second issue on his mind that he is desperately trying to balance with peace with the south. For a while now, Lincoln’s main political aim has been to end slavery. However, he must bring the amendment to the attention of the senate and be sure to pass it before the southern states join if he is to have any hope of success. The economy of the southern states depends largely on slave labour, meaning that they would, almost to a man, block this amendment. Lincoln has a race against time on his hands if he wants to get this historic amendment through. On the one side, there is the hope of an early peace and saving thousands of lives. On the other, there is the chance to end slavery, which brings hope of much greater things in terms of ethics, lives and quality of lives. And then of course, there is the possibility of the amendment being rejected anyway, as the representatives are far from unanimous in their support of it. Lincoln deals with this crisis within his conscience with the aid of such historical figures such as William Seward (David Strathairn) and Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) with truly historical consequences…

First up, hats off to Spielberg. This is an epic of quality and grandeur to suit a great man such as Abraham Lincoln and the historical changes he wrought in American history. The cast, full to the brim as we mostly know by now with big name stars (Joseph Gordon Levitt, Sally Field and Hal Holbrook among those who I couldn’t work into the synopsis) , present us with a true feast when it comes to acting. And for those, like me, who have very limited knowledge of American history, especially this period in American history, the film is easy to follow. The explanations given by the characters are clear and easily fitted into the storyline. And to be fair, seeing that the main part of the story takes place in parliament and amongst politicians, there are plenty of opportunities to make the discussion clear, so all levels of knowledge can follow and gain something. But of course this comes at a price. This tendency, coupled with the nature of the story, as detailed just now, means there is a lot of talking. And I mean A LOT of talking. There are, as I said, detailed explanations on what is going on, and even though my levels of concentration are definitely average if not slightly above, even I had to rewind, and/or check out a few facts online from time to time. You might, thus find it a tad hard to get into the pace of the film if you are a fan of less talking and more action, as it were. But once you “get” the storyline and adapt to the pace, this film will prove a wonderful lesson in a historical event in history. And I defy you not to get excited about the whole thing at the end, even though history tells us what happened as clear as day… 

A TOUCH OF HISTORY AND ROMANCE : "KINGDOM OF HEAVEN"

I heard a lot of bad stuff about this film. The criticism ranged from the political messaging to the lack of originality. I had next to no expectations from it when I had to watch it for course purposes. I have to admit some of the criticism is true for some things but I did still enjoy it, hence I thought it only fair to write it up. Let me try and explain what I mean. Balian (Orlando Bloom – yum!) is a poor blacksmith that has grown up a bastard in a small village. He isn’t very well liked (it is the 12th century after all) and his life has grown even darker after the suicide of his beloved wife following the death of their child. Into his dark world comes a piece of good fortune Balian never expected. A rich baron comes along and reveals that he is Balian’s father. He lives in Jerusalem after the crusades and he is in a position to offer Balian a brand new life in Jerusalem, the chance to start again from scratch, with wealth and power. The problem is, however that this new world Balian is brought into is governed largely by intrigue, greed and the lust for war. Balian only aims to find forgiveness for himself and his wife (whose suicide, it is believed in those days, means she wonders around hell, headless). But will his will to do the right thing by those he is responsible for and for himself prevail over the forces around him? Ok, so you can see the whole pattern coming out already, right. It starts off kinda like Cinderella actually now I come to think of it. Our beautiful and unfortunate hero is delivered from his cruel fate by what is, for all intents and purposes a fairy godmother. Then, the moral side of the story begins. Will Balian be tempted by his position and new found wealth or will he stick to his morals and principals? You can well imagine what the answer is. The film does take an interesting tack though. It is, in my opinion, a bit of a commentary on the wars being fought in the name of religion, the wars that have in fact been fought all through history. Balian is not particularly religious, in fact it is never openly said but implied that he has lost his faith if he ever had faith in the first place. And yet, he is the truly good person in the film, the hero if you will, which I found a tad surprising. It is true that Ridley Scott puts a rather “perfect” ending on the film and Balian ends up being a little too good and moral to be believed, his one major flaw being his lack of faith (which is not even really portrayed or demonized as a flaw come to think of it). The film is good fun though, contains some good emotional moments and made for a good evening’s entertainment all in all. Just don’t expect it to rock your world…

AND FINISH OF WITH SOME WORLD HISTORY : KHODORKOVSKY

I think quite a few of us have at least heard of Mikail Khordorkovsky, once up and coming businessman in Soviet Russia, now infamous convict and buzzword for civil rights campaigners. If taken at complete and utter face value, the man’s story has nothing really original about it; some big businessman who, in the face of Russia’s budding capitalist system, thought he could get away with skimming some taxes – and failed. But German filmmaker Cyril Tuschi takes a closer look at Khodorkovsky’s life story and begins to realize that there are – or surely must be – some things in this story that are not quite as they seem. You see Mikail Khodorkovsky didn’t start life off as the perfect communist – and you would think he well may have done, growing up in Soviet Russia. However this was definitely not the case, he was a member of the youth league in university. He then switched to business. He was shrewd, a born leader and businessman and over the years became one of the richest men in the world. Then, scandal broke out. A lot of people around him were arrested, others had to flee abroad. On a trip to America Khodorkovsky was informed that if were to return to Russia, he too would be arrested. He returned as scheduled, despite this knowledge. ?? ‘s reason for filming the documentary is to try and understand why Khordakovsky did this. I mean, surely the man didn’t actually choose to go to prison… Did he?... Ok, I have to admit, this is a bit of a specialist subject. I mean, documentaries in general are supposed to involve – in popular culture at any rate – animals or feats of nature. This is a strictly economics and politics kinda deal. And it may, to some, border slightly on the side of the “conspiracy theory”. But then again, it is a well-known fact that politics and business go hand in hand in the real world – even though we like to pretend it doesn’t – and this is even more the case in post-soviet Russia. There is a lot to learn here; Khordakovsky is a straightforward account of an affair that risks being oversimplified. I must stress that you don’t need any kind of “specialist knowledge” to be able to follow the documentary; but an interest in the topic will help (I studied International Relations in my stormy youth, and it has had lasting effects on my tastes and outlook on things). In my particular case I knew categorically nothing about the man or the events surrounding his arrest, I was taken in by the blurb and the time slot in the Istanbul film festival fitted my schedule. And personally, I felt I learnt a lot. Highly recommended.