Ruminations on Life After Life: Serious and Seriously Silly
Review by Ken Burke Monsieur Lazhar
A heartbreaking story about a teacher immigrant into Canada who provides the comfort and hope his kids need but finds little for himself on a personal or professional basis.
A heartbreaking story about a teacher immigrant into Canada who provides the comfort and hope his kids need but finds little for himself on a personal or professional basis.
Dark Shadows
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are together again with their revival of an old TV vampire soap opera which probably tells you all you need to know regarding your interest level.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are together again with their revival of an old TV vampire soap opera which probably tells you all you need to know regarding your interest level.
Given
what I’ve seen of the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film nominees—first Footnote (Joseph Cedar, Israel), now Monsieur Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau, Canada)—and
the deserving winner, A Separation (Asghar
Farhadi, Iran), if the other two—Bullhead
(Michael R. Roskam, Belgium) and In
Darkness (Agnieszka Holland, Poland)—are equally magnificent then there’s
even more argument for the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences to
retreat from their new “up to 10” nominees for overall Best Picture, returning
to their many-decades standard of just the top 5 rather than diluting the pool
for the main trophy when the contest should just be for true contenders from
the Hollywood (and Hollywood-influenced) system. (With the understanding that the Best Picture category was
expanded a couple of years ago only to provide more options for
audience-friendly moneymakers, such as the notoriously-overlooked The Dark Knight [Christopher Nolan, 2008],
rather than just critic-friendly “tasteful accomplishments” in an effort to
improve TV ratings for the awards broadcast; however, when that allows last
year’s finalists to include The Help
[Tate Taylor]—acting and adapted screenplay yes, overall film no—Midnight in Paris [Woody Allen]—original
screenplay yes, overall film no [in my Top 10, admittedly, but at #9, not
#’s1-5]—Moneyball [Bennett
Miller] adapted screenplay [anyone who could turn that statistics-laden book in a reasonably-effective dramatic movie deserves a nomination] and “Let’s go A’s” yes [for local fans like me at least], overall film
no—and War Horse [Steven
Spielberg]—cinematography, art direction, sound yes, overall film no—then I
think we should give more credence to what a true cluster of top-notch
contestants looks like, as evidenced by this year’s fine collection of films
from overseas and across the USA’s northern border.) I found Monsieur
Lazhar to be simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, demonstrating
what can come of a simple premise treated respectfully and acted superbly. That premise involves death and its
impact on everyone in the film: the students, teachers, administrators, and
parents connected to a Montréal elementary school where a teacher has horrified
everyone by hanging herself in her classroom on a winter day when the children
were at recess and new teacher Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag) appears from
nowhere as a needed refuge for the kids (sort of like Mary Poppins in a less
whimsical setting) but battling his own death demons regarding the murder of
his wife and children back in his home country of Algeria (although his grief
only comes slowly to light for both the audience and the other characters in
the story).
This
film slowly builds up to an emotional avalanche of feelings that overwhelm its
viewers regarding all concerned in the narrative, but especially Lazhar and the
two children most focused on, Simon (Émilien Néron) and Alice (Sophie Nélisse),
who are the only students to have actually seen their former teacher, Martine
Lachance, dangling from the ceiling as the other kids were whisked back out
into their snowy schoolyard. There’s
plenty of remorse from all concerned at the school over the unexpected loss of
a popular member of their community—as well as the remorse that Lazhar
constantly grapples with in regard to the loss of his own children and wife as
the result of political repression due to his wife’s defiant act of writing a
book critical of the Algerian regime—but there’s also a lot of denial, guilt,
and outright lying that isn’t helping anyone resolve their issues either. The denial comes from the school staff
and the parents who try to quickly move past the awful act of Ms. Lachance
through surface solutions such as repainting the classroom a different color
(the children have to stay in the haunted room because there’s no other option
in their crowded school) and insisting that Lazhar not try to psychoanalyze
their offspring (although his attempts to get the kids to express their buried
emotions is a more positive response than the school’s assignment of 1
counselor to assist any of the many students in the class who even try to open
up about their grief). The guilt comes
from both the principal and the other teachers who seemed to have no sense that
Lachance was (literally) on her last legs, as well as from emotionally-fragile
Simon who caused a ruckus for Lachance by resisting her attempt at a comforting
hug, in violation of the school’s rigid “no physical contact with students”
policy, leading to a reprimand for her, further trauma for Simon (who
understands that he’s perceived as “crazy” by the other kids), and constant
tensions with his on-again, off-again friend Alice who tries to goad him into
admitting his contribution to Lachance’s suicide. The lying, it turns out, comes from Lazhar himself, not to
the Immigration Service where he’s desperately trying to gain asylum as a
political refugee so that he won’t be sent back to certain death in Algeria but
instead to the school that has offered him a chance at a new life as a teacher
when that was actually his wife’s career while he ran a restaurant back home. His subterfuge doesn’t help his case
any when things go bad again at the school, but that’s not the direct reason
for his dismissal.
Instead,
he is let go after his few months of bringing balance back into the lives of
his students because he refused to follow the parents’ demands that he not
encourage their children to voice their inner turmoil over Lachance’s tragic
death (I should say “Martine” because that’s how her students refer to her—just
as they eventually call him by the more familiar “Bachir,” another indication
of how removed he is not only from his former desert environment but also from
a more formal educational system where desks are put in rows instead of a
semi-circle, dictation assignments from a writer such as Balzac and his
“ancient” French are acceptable but not for his New World Québécois students,
and a swat on the head to a smart-mouth kid is a standard form of classroom
discipline unlike the “hands off” policy he must now adapt to). In addition to allowing Alice to read
an essay in which she turns her grief into anger toward Martine, calling her
suicide a “violent” act which runs counter to school policy (Lazhar is also
chastised by another teacher one day for allowing a group of boys to play a roughhouse
round of “king of the hill” in the schoolyard), Bachir finally encourages Simon
to voice his own deeply-held inner disturbance over his connection to the suicide and his desperate need for absolution, leading to parental
complaints that result in both Lazhar’s immediate departure and the firing of
the principal, Mme. Vaillancourt (Danielle Prouix), at term’s end. Bachir pleads for one more day to bring closure to his departure unlike the sudden exit of Lachance;
this allows him to read his own version of a class assignment, a fable with a
moral.
His
simple but moving story (about a tree with a hanging chrysalis that is
destroyed when fire occurs in just a part of the tree, leaving the charred host
to tell future nesting birds about the sad loss of a life that would never
blossom into its intended manifestation) is told in prose but has a poetic
impact that seems to sum up all that’s come before in this tender, traumatic,
terrific film. Lazhar gets a
chance for a private hug from Alice before final fade-out; the other students
have come to embrace him as well (although not as literally; that “no touching”
school policy works to keep everyone’s emotions disturbingly in check, despite
its benign intentions), overcoming their initial resistance to his more
stringent ways—in a manner less restrained than the school assembly celebration
of Will Schuester as Teacher of the Year in this week’s episode of FOX TV’s
“Glee” after his New Directions show choir (i.e. the glee club) finally
triumphed at Nationals—but the acceptance of these younger children for the man
who guided them through their hour of darkness was just as heartfelt, if not
more so, because most of Schuester’s stars are headed into their newly-earned
independence of young adulthood while Lazhar’s kids must continue to cope for
the next few years with their ever-changing childhoods in the same haunted
surroundings where their greatest emotional challenge occurred. When we first meet this Algerian
refugee he explains to the principal that his names in Arabic means “bearer of
good news” and “lucky”; by the time we last see him we understand that these
attributes may apply more appropriately to the students he’s “intruded” on,
leaving them with a gift of reconciliation that their more formal school was
not equipped to offer. Whether he
will ever be able to embrace his own healing is not a part of this story: we (and he) were offered hope that some
relief might be available from friendly fellow teacher Claire (Brigitte
Poupart), but he resists to the point that even the lovely African violet that
she gives him dies when winter turns to spring, indicating that at present his
soul is just too barren to encourage life in anything except for the temporary
connection to his students. At
least the facts of his family’s deaths lead to Bachir being granted political
asylum so hopefully a stable life in Canada will eventually open up for him
before he finds himself as lost as his predecessor at the school. Fittingly, though, this film doesn’t
attempt to provide answers to such questions, nor should it. What happens next is for us to
speculate on, not know with certainty.
Monsieur Lazhar is subtle, sublime, and
softly searing in its journey into the human experience. If I have to choose between powerful
expositions of the never-ending hurdle we know as “life” I’ll still say that A Separation probes even a little
deeper, but spending time with either this Iranian gem or with Monsieur Lazhar will immeasurably enrich
your life. I sincerely hope you
can see both, at least on DVD if not on a theatre's visually-embracing screen.
Shifting
to another take on death and its aftermath brings us to Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, his latest successful
collaboration with Johnny Depp whose embrace of offbeat roles that would elude
the talents of most other actors is showcased once again as the disturbed,
displaced vampire, Barnabas Collins.
Beginning in 1750 (I think.
Anyway that’s what the official Warner Bros. website says below despite
many information sites, including what Warners provided to IMDb, stating 1752
and my screening of the movie where I wrote down 1760, further proof that the
Internet-driven world is moving too fast for me or anyone else to keep up
with), we find the Collins family with young Barnabas moving from old England
to New England to establish a fishing empire, along with a coastal town,
Collinsport, to house their enterprise and a huge 200-room mansion, Collinwood
Manor, to house the family on acres of hilltop property along with an ominously
steep cliff that plays a key role at the movie’s beginning and end. Alas for young adult Barnabas, even as
he is enamored of the fair and pure Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) he faces
the jealousy of servant girl Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) who has charmed him
with her lusty ways at times. When
Angelique is not Barnabas’ choice for a permanent mate, though, she uses charms
of the witchy variety to not only kill Barnabas’ parents and compel Josette to
hurl herself from the aforementioned cliff but also to turn Barnabas into a
vampire when he desperately jumps to what was intended as his death as
well. Despite his fury at
Angelique, for some reason Barnabas doesn’t take immediate revenge allowing her
time to turn the typical pitchfork-and-torch brigade of townsfolk against the
newly minted monster, resulting in Barnabas being chained in a coffin, then
long buried and forgotten until he’s accidently stumbled upon in 1972, freeing
the blood-hungry time-traveler only to find that his descendants have descended
into near poverty, the mansion is largely closed off for lack of servants
(resembling an abandoned Xanadu from Citizen
Kane [Orson Welles, 1941—see I told you in a previous review that I’d bring
up this film every chance I get]), the family business is nearly defunct because
of the corporate power of the newly-evolved Angel Bay Fishery, and—worst of
all—Angel Bay is run by the never-aging Angelique who simply portrays her own
imaginary ancestors, changing her name and having new portraits produced for
each generation. Is this any way
for a lonely vampire to celebrate his homecoming?
 |
| Barnabas (Depp), Angelique (Green), and director Burton |
The
one thing that Barnabas has to brighten the less-than-inspiring reunion with
his relatives is that Josette seems to be reincarnated as the new governess
for young David Collins (Gulliver McGrath), Victoria Winters (Heathcote again),
so Barnabas has another chance with Josette (or at least some version of her, as
close to the real thing as Victoria could be, beginning the film compelled to
escape NYC and find her way to Collinwood) or so he thinks until Angelique
comes roaring up in her sporty red Chevy, ready to see if Barnabas has softened
his rejection of her passion for him after his 200 years of hibernation. He does … and then he doesn’t,
determined to overlook their one howling-horndog trashing of her office (Alice
Cooper should be so good at destroying a room, but he does so later in his own
way, performing as himself at the gala event Barnabas throws for Collinsport in
an attempt to build better community relations for his forlorn,
almost-forgotten family), re-establish the pre-eminence of the Collins fishery, and reignite his romance with Josette/Victoria, all of which is helped
considerably by the stash of gold and jewels hidden in a vault beneath the main
Collinwood fireplace. From there
the plot is mostly the ongoing clash between lovelorn vampire and jealous
witch, which results in a lot of explosive action that demolishes all of the Collins
properties (although the inhabitants get out alive), sees the ultimate
demise of Angelique (thanks to the ghost of David’s mother, another victim of
the witch’s vengeful crusade), and concludes with Victoria taking the
high-cliff plunge followed by Barnabas who bites her on the way down so that
they both survive as besotted bloodsuckers who will probably wing their way to
a town with a video store so they can catch up on the Twilight series wearing Team Edward T-shirts (although the one
vampire thing that Barnabas never does is turn into a bat so they may just have
to hitch a ride with whoever made off with Angelique’s Chevy).
 |
| Depp (current film) and Frid (original TV series) |
When
the original Dark Shadows ABC TV
series was on (1966-71, with Jonathan Frid as Barnabas) I wasn’t watching weekday
afternoon horror-soap operas, being rather occupied at the time attending the
fabled University of Texas and spending my afternoons in art classes trying to
figure out what the hell I was trying to paint (abstraction can be so
confounding; if you get a chance to see a production of John Logan’s play Red, about the great Abstraction
Expressionist Mark Rothko, I encourage you to do so because this work provides
great insights into the demands and demons of the creative process), so nothing
in this movie has any baggage for me in terms of expectations (although Depp
says he was a big fan of the original so it’s a sweet victory for him to bring
Barnabas back to life). In looking
over some commentary on what I missed in those long-ago years I see that the current plot is well vested in the original, although, obviously, trying
to squeeze anything from the original 1,225 episodes into a standard 2-hour
movie requires a lot of cherry-picking.
However, picking up in time roughly where the TV series concluded, 1972,
provides a nice acknowledgement for the fervent fans of the previous
incarnation and gives Burton and company some great opportunities for ersatz
nostalgia regarding the clothes, accessories, and music of the day (with tunes
like the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” and Donovan’s “Season of the
Witch” being especially appropriate, and Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” just
great to hear again)—along with Barnabas’ constant anachronistic problems with
not understanding how much the world has changed during the two centuries he
laid buried in his coffin, even mistaking the McDonald’s arches for the gateway
to Hell, one of the least desirable product placements I’ve ever seen.
Other
delights of this movie include seeing familiar faces in some of the family and
related roles—Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the current
matriarch (just seeing her as anything is a treat for me; my wife, Nina,
doesn’t mind this time around because she gets Depp, so no dirty looks across
the armrest from either of us); Helena Bonham Carter (of course, it’s a Tim
Burton film and he doesn’t want to leave his significant other home alone, but
she’s worth casting even without nepotism) as Dr. Julia Hoffman, the Collins’
live-in psychiatrist (Huh? Don’t
ask; I didn’t bother to research that far); Chloë Grace Moretz (from Kick-Ass [Matthew Vaughn, 2010] and Hugo [Martin Scorsese, 2011]) as Elizabeth’s
rebellious teen daughter, Caroline (with reason to be anti-social, as we
eventually find out that she’s a werewolf; family reunions must be hilariously
unpredictable at Collinwood); Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach in Watchmen [Zack Snyder, 2009], Freddy Krueger
in the remade A Nightmare on Elm Street
[Samuel Bayer, 2010]) as Willie Loomis, the caretaker; and Dracula icon
Christopher Lee in the minor role of Silas Clarney, self-proclaimed “king of
the fishermen”—and not quite as familiar but still marvelously effective Eva
Green as Angelique, although she’s possibly memorable to some of you for Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005)
and the James Bond reboot Casino Royale
(Martin Campbell, 2006). Dark Shadows certainly isn’t the most
effective Burton-Depp collaboration (for me that honor would have to go to
either Ed Wood [1994] or Edward Scissorhands [1990] although
there are plenty of other choices for those with different tastes), but it’s
one that brings a lot of appreciative laughs from those of us not well versed
in the original TV show and probably a lot of pleasantly resurrected memories
for those who were fans of the source material.
Dark Shadows has
none of the gravitas of Monsieur Lazhar,
but that’s not its intention.
Anyone who’s eager to see Depp or any of the others noted above won’t
find your time wasted, even if you’re not a vampire with all the time in the
world to kill (so to speak).
If
you’d like to know more about Monsieur
Lazhar here are some suggested links:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsieur_lazhar_2011/
(this is a short clip from the film)
If
you’d like to know more about Dark
Shadows here are some suggested links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB3OeaEMml8
(a casual introduction to the characters with inset photos of the original TV
cast)
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