Flannel Pajamas

A man and woman meet. They hit it off and begin dating. They discover one another, first discovering one another's personality, and in time discovering each other sexually. They marry. The day to day of married life is much tougher than the glow and excitement of courtship. Just as they fell in love, they can also fall out of love.

Flannel Pajamas is the story of Stewart and Nicole as they find each other, grow together and then grow apart. The story has a gritty reality of how hard relationships can be to maintain. This is an at times painfully intimate look at real relationships. That reality comes from Writer-Director Jeff Lipsky's reminiscence of a failed marriage -- the good times and the bad.

Those who think they can survive of the romantic rush of early love will most certainly be disappointed and hurt. Love needs to continue to grow in ever new ways to survive. In Flannel Pajamas, the nurture for that growth is totally absent.

It doesn't take long to realize that this match is doomed. My first reaction to Stewart as he tries to impress Nicole on their blind date was, “This guy is full of shit.� Basically that was what he did for a living; he was a bullshit artist who spun stories about Broadway shows to get groups to buy tickets. That was how he approached everything in life -- exaggerate or just plain make things up to get what you want.

It's not that we think he's a bad guy -- on the contrary, he is extremely generous and giving in many ways. But we also discover little by little that he is controlling and can be cruel, even in his tenderness.

Nicole's flaws are not as evident, but she too is less than perfect. She's a bit of a slacker without ambition. She's willing to hide the truth when it seems convenient. She has baggage that she's not willing to part with.

These two were set up on their blind date by their therapist. Neither bothered to ask what led the other to therapy until they're having their first sexual encounter, and then they never answer the question. Both come from families built around unhappy marriages.

The little bits of insight that come up in the courtship stage are easy to put aside, but when the day to day reality of living together accentuates these issues, it becomes more than the relationship can handle, and they begin to grow apart and even to detest each other.

Although the film shows an important reality about life, it is a very cynical view of that reality. Cynicism in itself is not a bad thing. Cynics question everything -- especially the way life is to be lived. Many consider the biblical book Ecclesiastes to be the work of a cynic. But the cynicism in this film is a dark, unredeemed cynicism. It is cynicism without hope. It is cynicism without wisdom.

While a cynical look at this relationship could have been an opportunity to teach us something about how to live with another, instead it gives the impression that all such relationships are doomed. There are no good marriages in this film, only marriages that have ended, that have been built on lies, or that are going nowhere. There is no one in this film who seems to believe that marriage can be a good thing. Nicole's friend Tess, who collects ex-lovers and ex-husbands, has a brief speech in which she talks about the certainty of relationships turning sour and the need to be ready to move on to the next.

Besides its cynicism about marriage and relationships, this is a film that is very cynical about Christianity. There are various places where Christianity is portrayed in a negative light, but nowhere in a positive light. Nicole's mother tells Stewart (who is Jewish) that she believes every negative stereotype about Jews. Tess, who goes from one sexual partner to another, is always wearing a conspicuous cross. When Nicole's sister Tara finds Nicole praying, Tara tells her that religion was a crutch she gave up when she became a parent and had to be responsible.

Certainly there is ample room to be cynical about Christianity. There are Christians like all of these -- and some who are even worse. But it cannot be dismissed so easily as a way that many people find strength in difficult times or as a way to live that can be an important component of a full life.

While the film shows how easy it is to let something as precious as a loving relationship slip away because we do not nourish it daily, in the end, the cynicism overwhelms whatever wisdom we might hope to find.

Deja Vu

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away"*

Time's relentlessness cannot be overcome. A moment once past cannot be lived again. Except, of course, in science fiction, where time travel is fertile ground for imagining. Tony Scott's Deja Vu utilizes that mental playground as it tells the story of seeking to bring salvation to a doomed people.

The film is set in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday as people are preparing for the great party. But in the midst of the preparations, a terrorist act takes place, killing hundreds of innocent people. ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) begins investigating, and is soon brought into a top secret project that allows the government to look back in time four days. The plan is to watch and find who did this and bring them to justice. They focus on a woman who was found murdered, but couldn't have been a victim of the terrorist act -- she holds the key to discovering the truth. But Carlin soon discovers there is a greater potential for this technology.

On one level, this is a fun thriller filled with all the explosions and car crashes you'd expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer film. A scene in which Carlin drives in the current day, while looking at 4 days ago and trying to navigate traffic is outstanding. The level of excitement and suspense keeps the viewer alert and involved throughout the film.

Sci-fi nearly always requires that we suspend belief a bit. To be sure, the whole concept of time travel that the film relies on is impossible (at least from all we know of the universe at this point). But it is easy to let ourselves be carried away in the flow of the story. Even if it isn't possible, we certainly wish that it could be done.

At another level, time travel stories often present us with interesting philosophical and theological questions. Are things fixed -- predestined? Do the choices we make affect what is destined to take place? What happens if we change something in the past -- or can we?

There are a couple spots in the film where these questions get dealt with briefly. There is an acknowledgment that physics is not the end of all discussion. There has to be something beyond physics, and that is where spirituality comes into play. Unfortunately (or maybe it's really a good thing), the God talk (as well as the scientific talk) is always spoken very quickly so we can't really analyze it for its flaws. (Trying to explain God or science really require more attention than this film is able to give to either.)

This also allows us to look for meanings that are deeper than just a story about blowing things up. We can consider in what ways God is involved in our world.

Scott seems to like to include a Christ figure in films. He did so with Washington in Man on Fire (see Melinda Ledman's examination of the Christ figure there.) Here, trying to avoid too many spoilers, there is a saving death (which is both an individual salvation and a broad salvation), a resurrection, and new life for those who are dead. The resurrection is witnessed (or recognized) by a woman, who doesn't tell anyone (as is the case in the Gospel of Mark). And she is left with a message that cannot be believed. She asks, "What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they'd never believe you?" In some ways, this is the essence of the Christian proclamation of the Resurrection.

I love Christ figures. I probably see them where others don't. While the parallels here are obvious, I'm not sure they make for a good Christ figure. There is something missing here. In spite of the quick rattling off of some God language and talk of what is beyond physics, there is no real spiritual component to this Christ figure. That absence leaves the depiction a bit flat and lifeless.

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away" (Did I say that already?) In Deja Vu, the current swirls around some interesting questions, even if it never really answers them.

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* Hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" by Isaac Watts (altered)

Sweet Land

Sometimes you find a treasure you didn't know you were looking for. My wife and I went to the theater to see a film that we hadn't been able to fit in yet, but when we got to the theater, the showing we'd planned on was cancelled for a special event. So since we were there, we picked another film we'd heard good things about -- Sweet Land. It turned out to be one of those films that keeps me going to the art houses.

The sad news is that this film is in very limited release and many people will not get a chance to see it and appreciate it until it makes it to DVD. If it comes near you, it is an opportunity that should not be passed.

It's the story of Inge, a mail order bride who arrives in Minnesota in 1920 to marry Olaf whom she has never met. When it is discovered that she is German, suddenly everyone's opinion of her shifts. The prejudice from the recent war continues to color everyone's impression of German people. She doesn't have the proper papers to marry and no one seems to want to help. She is isolated by language, by prejudice and eventually by community moral standards. In time she finds her place in the community and with Olaf. It is not a story of love at first sight. Rather it is a story of learning to love by sharing life -- a slow dance of discovery.

Just as the film was a treasure we didn't expect to find, so too does Inge become an unexpected treasure to Olaf and the whole community.

The story is framed by the story of Inge's death and her grandson's decision about what to do with the farm. It is by remembering the story of Inge and Olaf and what the land meant to them that helps him make a difficult choice. His memories are not so much about grief as they are a celebration of the life of these people he loved.

There is a subtlety to the film that is often lacking in bigger films. Interestingly, Director Ali Selim has worked mostly with TV commercials, which are not often known for being subtle. The story relies less on dialogue than many films. The director is comfortable with silence and image to tell much of the story. At times he uses images to relate one part of the story to another. For example, a scene as Olaf and Inge walk through the field after harvest reminds us of watching their adult grandson walk through the field as he contemplates selling the land.

There are also subtle echoes in the dialogue. One of Olaf's favorite sayings is "Farming and banking don't mix." But the first real dialogue in the film is when a developer drives out to the farm and talks to the grandson after Inge's death: "I'm sorry for you loss, Lars. I can give you 2.2 million for it -- put up twelve hundred houses." The value of this land for some (bankers and developers) can be quantified. But for Olaf (and his grandson) the value is much more elusive because the land is the life that Olaf and Inge have put into it.

The film speaks to issues that we continue to struggle with in daily life, including prejudice towards immigrants, stereotypes, community, and the ways our sense of decency can become a hindrance to real morality. It is a story that shows us the way that faith in ourselves and in each other can create a treasure beyond our expectations.

The closing credits are perhaps my favorite scenes of this year. It is a perfect wordless synopsis of the whole relationship of Inge and Olaf, and of the way community comes into being in the film. Perhaps that is Selim's experience with commercials being used to its fullest to tell us the story all over again in such a simple way.

Gleanings from interviews with the talent of Flannel Pajamas

Jeff Lipsky's film Flannel Pajamas is a (sometimes painfully) realistic look at what is involved in relationship. It chronicles a couple's meeting, falling in love, growing together and then drifting apart. It is that realism that is the film's strongest feature. The topic of the realism was a central area of discussion as Lipsky and the stars met with press recently.

Julianne Nicholson, who played Nichole in the film, said of the script:

I felt like this movie was a real look at a relationship -- its ups and downs, and that to me was exciting. It's not glamorized in any way..., but it's just a very authentic look at people and how they relate to each other and all that brings -- from extended family and in-laws and everything that goes on.

Lipsky describes what he wanted the film to be:

What I sought to do was to make a provocative, thought provoking movie that audiences, both here and abroad, could identify with -- if not the characters, in these specific situations -- conversations, subjects, themes within the whole work, and something to give couples a chance to debate and a chance to talk about with each other after seeing the film, apart from saying let's go see this ninety minute movie and where are we going to go later.

I wanted to create universal situations. Most marriages that fail, it's not about infidelity; it's not about spousal abuse; it's not because of some apocalyptic melodramatic moment. It's about things that are much more common to all of us. Whether it's selfishness, whether it's the inability to be honest with each other -- small lies, small deceptions. Those are the things I wanted to explore.

That exploration came about from his reflections on his own failed marriage. He happened upon an opportunity to look back from enough distance to be able to see some of the things that went right and wrong in his own relationship. He says:

The impetus to write the screenplay was my own failed marriage…. What happened was about ten years after the divorce, I was moving and I found our photo album of our wedding pictures, and I was looking through it for the first time in years and years and years. Rather than pack it up right away, I reflected back upon what happened early on in the relationship. I said, "God, it was wonderful; it was perfect; it was a paradigm of two human beings coming together." And I started writing notes so I wouldn't forget the wonderful times -- the wonderful days we had. But as I wrote and wrote and wrote, I started -- and I was honest with myself -- I said, "Oh, my God! That happened that same day? I said that? Those things occurred?" And by the time I finished jotting down these notes and reflections, I had the outline for a script.

Whatever else may be said about Flannel Pajamas, there is indeed an honest look at failure in relationships.

The Queen

I don't think Americans really get the point of a monarch. Certainly we see the British royal family as celebrities and are curious about their lifestyle. We also seem to relish their foibles and eccentricities. The Queen gives us a behind the scenes look at Elizabeth II in the midst of a very trying period. It reveals someone who in many ways is out of touch with what most of us see as the real world, but also who carries a great deal of responsibility beyond what we might recognize.

The story begins with Tony Blair's election as Prime Minister. Technically, he isn't elected as Prime Minister, as leader of the majority party, the Queen asks him to form a government -- but it is her government. As the head of state, she is theoretically in charge of the nation. Practically, she is effectively powerless. She represents the history and institution of the nation in a line going back many centuries.

We tend to think of her as no more than a symbol. In many ways, she is, but symbols are important. Institutions are important. In a time of trouble, people look to these symbols for strength and support.

That is what causes the problem in The Queen. A few months after Blair's election, the death of Princess Diana filled the news. The relationship between Diana and the royal family was strained. Many people saw her as the victim of the royals' closed minded traditionalism. The royals saw in her a rejection of all that they had been brought up to believe. At Diana's death, the Queen and the rest of the family followed strict protocols. Since she was no longer part of the royal family (in spite of being the mother of a presumed future king), the family made no statement of any kind. The Queen (and others) thought it was better to stay out of the affair.

But the people, grieving Diana's death, understood the silence as a cold disdain. They saw in Diana a bit of themselves, since she had been a commoner prior to marriage. People took this perceived rejection personally. In only a few days, the royal family was quickly falling into disfavor.

The interaction between Blair and the royal family opens them up to help lead the people in national grief. Blair recognizes that the nation needs the symbol of the monarch. He serves his queen well in his advice, even though it is something she may not understand.

The film shows the royal family to be off in their own world without any real reference to the way most people live. Yet, there is also a sense that the Queen is acting in the way that she understands to be in the best interest of the people, in that it maintains the tradition of the nation. What she deems as appropriate decorum, others read as cold aloofness.

The real issue in the film is the relationship between tradition and change. Tradition often gets a bad rap. There were many in Blair's government who saw this as a chance to get rid of the monarchy. But Blair recognized that the institution was far more than just pomp; it reflects the soul of the nation. That is why he leads the Queen to do things that don't fit into the tradition she is trying to maintain --not for the sake of change, but to bring the institution in line with the needs of the nation at a difficult time.

The film shows a bit of the balance that needs to be maintained between tradition and institutions (and they are there for good reason) and change and modernization. Tradition without change can become stagnant. Change without tradition has no root and cannot long survive.

Americans may not understand the pomp and circumstance that attends the monarchy, but we too face the clash of tradition and change -- in politics, in church, and even within families. We scorn either at our own peril.

Borat

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan wants to give us a new way of looking at ourselves. It is British comic Sasha Baron Cohen's attempt at satire. He travels through the United States as Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev, who is trying to find what makes America the great nation it is and then help make Kazakhstan into a great nation as well. Along the way, Baron Cohen performs his fish-out-of-water foreigner shtick with the people he meets in unscripted conversations. The interaction between Borat and others allows prejudices and customs to be explored and skewered.

Along the way, he ridicules anti-Semitism, both gays and homophobes, frat boys, Pentecostal Christians, feminism and a few other politically incorrect topics. That is the attraction of this film for many -- that it takes on political correctness -- that it allows an unsophisticated foreigner to say things we don't feel we can say even if we want to. Of course as satire, that politically incorrectness is itself ridiculed.

Most of the time, Borat plays the fool, which allows those he meets to give themselves enough rope to hang themselves. We see a bit of the falsehood that lies beneath much of daily life. The value of satire is that it reflects the foibles of life in a humorous way, allowing us to discover that the very thing we laugh at is in us.

There are certainly many things in American life that cry out for satire. It's good for us from time to time to allow ourselves to be the butt of the joke. It deflates our egos a bit and may goad us into making positive changes in the way we live.

It's too bad that Borat isn't the vehicle that allows us to do so. The satire in the film is just plain too smug with itself. Most of the laughs come not from the responses Borat elicits from others but from the unsophistication of Borat himself. We laugh at the clown rather than getting a chance to laugh at the flaws that the clown shows us. So it really doesn't quite end up being the satire it sets out to be. Rather it allows the viewer to marvel at how much more advanced and erudite we are than such a small country bumpkin like Borat.

One measure of just how far the film falls short of being good satire is that although it runs a lean 84 minutes, it can't even fill that time with clever comedy. Rather it constantly relies on sophomoric sexual and scatological visuals for laughs. That may well attract a certain demographic and account for its box office appeal, but it demeans the kind of film this could have become.

Babel

The title Babel obviously refers to the story from Genesis 11 in which God confuses the languages of humankind so they cannot communicate with each other and cooperate to build a tower into heaven. Judging from the film, God probably could have let things go, because it really isn't language and culture that separate us. It is our inability to listen.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu tells stories of the ways strangers' lives cross, as he did in his earlier films Amores Perros and 21 Grams. This film tells four interconnected stories involving American, Moroccan, Mexican and Japanese families. Each story is built around life and death crisis. Each also deals with trying to communicate to others.

The central story, to which all others are tied in some way, is about an American couple on a tour in Morocco. While on the tour bus in the middle of nowhere, the wife is shot. They are hours away from any hospitals. Other stories involve the family's children and their Mexican nanny at home in California, a Japanese girl who is deaf (and whose father left his rifle in Morocco after a hunting trip) and a Moroccan family who recently bought a rifle to kill jackals. (It's not a spoiler to tell you that it is this gun that shoots the woman.)

Even though the biblical story is about the division of humankind, the film is not as pessimistic as one might expect. There are problems that involve language and culture, but they are not insurmountable. There are times when the common humanity of the people involved overcomes the barriers of language and culture. When the woman is taken to a rural village, she and her husband receive the best care those people can provide. The tour guide who is the only one around who can translate for them stays with them day and night.

It is often those who speak the same language that are most separated. The other tourists on the bus only care about getting on with the trip and eventually abandon the couple in that village. The American embassy, in a dual of wills with the Moroccan government, cancels an ambulance to send a helicopter, but the government won't allow the helicopter in its air space. The other stories also include examples of overcoming lack of communication, and the inability to act outside one's own interests.

The most touching story, to me, is the one about the deaf Japanese girl. Often during those segments there is no sound, even though the scene should be filled with sound. It emphasizes the isolation of soundlessness and reflects the deeper spiritual isolation the young woman faces and tries to deal with in all the wrong ways.

The biblical story (which is never spoken of in the film) gives an explanation of why we are divided into language and cultural groups. It is the kind of legend that explains what people can readily observe. We are indeed divided by tongues and nationalities and race and religion and any number of other barriers. But barriers can be breeched or circumnavigated if we truly want to be with those from whom we are separated. The only way we are sure to fail to communicate with others is if we only listen to ourselves and our concerns. It is the ability to listen that can best overcome the confusion of the ancient story of Babel.

Running with Scissors

The search for happiness sometimes seems like trying to navigate a maze. There are so many paths leading in every direction. The wrong path can get us lost -- and there are so many paths that lead to nowhere.

Running with Scissors is based on the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs's early teen years. His parents broke up. His father is alcoholic. His mother wants to be creative and dreams of being a famous poet. Augusten is sent to live with his mother's psychiatrist and his bizarre family. Among all these people the search for happiness shows us many trails through the maze, but will any ever get to the goal in the center?

The story takes place in the late 70s, a heyday for self-actualization and personal fulfillment. During this time women were still struggling for esteem and empowerment through Women's Liberation. New drugs for depression were coming into vogue. Gay and lesbians were just starting to come out of the closet. Sexuality was a constantly changing and challenging subject. All of these various paths to find happiness are looked at in this film. And they are all found wanting.

Whether things happened as Burroughs records (and adapted for film by Ryan Murphy) may be beside the point. Certainly the film is done in such a way to make us think there is a lot of hyperbole involved. The various characters are almost cartoonish versions of stereotypes. Augusten's mother Deirdre epitomizes the search for fulfillment. She writes poetry and longs for affirmation (in the form of publication). She speaks of letting poetry be the outlet for anger. She, in reality, is repressed and insecure. She goes to Dr. Finch trying to unblock her creative spirit. He gives her drugs.

Dr. Finch exudes an avuncular personality, but underneath it all is a true quack. He allows his family to live in squalor and do whatever they like. His wife, Agnes, spends the day watching Dark Shadows (a 70s soap opera about vampires) and munching dog kibble like popcorn. The elder daughter, Hope, is seemingly religious (but in a wacky form of Christianity) and very straight-laced. The younger daughter, Natalie, is rebellious (how can you rebel when there are no rules?) Finch is in debt to the IRS, has few patients, and dispenses the most off the wall kind of psychiatric nonsense.

Augusten spends his time going back and forth between his mother and the Finch family. Neither place is home for him. Neither place is nurturing. We watch as Deirdre becomes more and more spaced out from the drugs and slowly slides into a complete meltdown. The Finch household is in a constant state of uproar, as each person focuses only on themselves.

This is a film that's hard to categorize. In many ways it seems like a comedy, but it's way to somber. It is filled with pathos as a good tragedy should be, but it doesn't end up with destruction. Some of the most deeply disturbing scenes are also the ones that garner the most laughs. The humor and pathos of this story blend so well that it is easy to lose the serious ideas in the absurdity.

Self-actualization is an important part of a full and healthy life. Psychologist Abram Maslow put it at the top of his Hierarchy of Needs. In that hierarchy, people only advance as they have lower needs fulfilled: physiological, safety, love/belonging, and esteem. Certainly all of the paths to happiness this film goes down (psychiatry, sexuality, empowerment, etc.) can be tools to help us realize higher levels of actualization. But the people in this film (and many people) seek those higher levels before they have their other needs met. That is when the paths end up leading nowhere as they do for the characters in Running with Scissors.