Movie Reviews and Thoughts on Story

The past week has brought to my attention some of the best and worst filmmaking I have ever seen. I saw Be Kind Rewind (best) with a friend on Saturday, saw Semi-Pro (worst) on Sunday with my lovely wife, rented The Darjeeling Limited, and caught Best of the Best on TV late last night.

I want to open by declaring Semi-Pro to be the worst comedy I have ever seen. Marci and I were both appalled and left in angry moods. I was so disappointed I didn't even want to eat my Milk Duds.

A fantastic movie, on the other hand, is Be Kind Rewind. Not only is it one of the most creative movies I have seen, it is very touching in its commentary on community and friendship. It also makes beautiful statements about cultural history. This film is also quite funny, and I recommend it to all.

Darjeeling Limited: it was okay, not Wes Anderson's best. Three brothers are on a spiritual journey that is seemingly leading nowhere. They fail to find what they are looking for, but instead find hope in their brotherhood that had been trampled throughout the years.

Best of the Best is a classic, made in 1989. I remember renting this movie several times as a youngster. The US Karate team has to go to Korea to take on their national karate team. The best US fighter has to fight a man who had killed his brother in a fight fifteen years ago. In the final match, The US fighter, Tommy, is trailing by one point, and has the opportunity to finish the Korean fighter, potentially killing him. This final point would send the US into victory, but he stands motionless as his opponent stands helpless and bleeding profusely. He could have avenged his brother's death and also won the tournament for his team, but instead he offered grace. This is a very touching moment. It was a touching moment when I was seven and it was still a touching moment last night. During the medal ceremony when Korea is accepting their medals, the Korean fighter staggers to Tommy and gives him his medal. He then thanks him for his grace, and offers himself as his brother. I thought to myself, why is this such an amazing moment?

Everyone has different tastes in movies, but yet we all want the same ending. No one wants the bad guy to get away, everyone wants to see the family get back together, and everyone wants the fallen hero to get a second chance. Movies are fantastic little vignettes of a cosmic story, a reality in which we all play a part. While we might differ on how to get there, concepts like love and love, justice, redemption, and mercy are existential realities that we are looking for. We cry at the end of the a film not because we think the characters are real people that have had something good happen to them, but because the fictional characters, if only in part, have found what we are looking for.

Themes like these have been consistent throughout the history of storytelling, and it is no secret why. Mankind is part of the creation/fall/redemption story, and when I look at the Bible, I see not a story that includes the aforementioned themes, but a document that is story itself. This is our key, the legend on the map that allows to interpret the things we are feeling naturally in terms of story. Without it, the ideas of justice and love remain a mystery. What are their value?

This is not to say that all movies get it right, in fact, most of them get it wrong. We tend to want to incorporate individual wishes into our epic struggles. While we want grace we still want personal freedom and while we want justice to be done we certainly don't want it done to us. We are flawed storytellers, but there is hope that one day we will learn of an ending far better than we could have ever anticipated. In his book The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky says it best:

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for,

that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage,

like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man,

that in the world's finale,

at the moment of the eternal harmony,

something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts,

for the comforting of all resentments,

for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity,

of all the blood that they've shed;

that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.