I saw 2 films this past weekend; one was on Netflix, the other in the theater.
The first was a charming independent Australian movie called "Danny Deckchair". Based on the true event of Australian Larry Walters, this little Australian film is exactly what it was meant to be. The little tale of a man who simply makes the best of the unfulfilled life he’s made for himself. He doesn’t complain, he works hard and cares for his girlfriend. Yet all of us need a vacation, and no one has been looking forward to it more than Danny. But when his fragile sustained world starts to crack, so does he. And like so many of us have wanted to do, he ties a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair and floats away. Secretly landing in a small rural town like an alien visiting Earth, Danny reinvents himself, charming the local residents and stealing the heart of Glenda, a beautiful traffic cop who’s more pariah than prom queen.
Like any romantic comedy, the formula is tried and true – boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl, all while learning an important life lesson. But, since they say there are really only eight stories in the world (variations of a theme), the story is not as important as how it is told. Director Jeff Balsmeyer manages to keep you interested even though you know where you’re going. But that’s ok. The humanity is what drives the film while using middle-of-the-road humor that never strays into crassness, tastelessness or overt-sexuality.
Actor Rhys Ifans presents Danny Morgan with an every-man quality that is instantly engaging. Having spent most of his career playing heavies or goofballs, he shows that it doesn’t take a Tom Cruise to be a leading man. It just takes sincerity and charm, and Rhys offers it up in spades. Playing off that charm is Miranda Otto who portrays the love interest Glenda with such down to earth vulnerability it’s hard to believe this is the same woman who as Eowyn, slayed Orcs and Nazguls in "The Lord of the Rings". She brings humor, sexuality and accessibility to her character, she has that certain golden-age quality that enthralls us all.
With a cast like this, it’s little wonder that the movie places its hopes in the hands of its characters. And the risk pays off. The image of Danny lounging on a raft in his backyard pool is a perfect metaphor for this film - relax, take it easy and go with it. That’s the real message here, one of going with the flow, but seizing opportunities as they arise. It’s a simple and wholesome message that everyone can relate to.
The little story that could is a fresh dip into giddiness during the usual movie season that is overflowing with drama, intensity and seriousness. Like Danny, we sometimes just need a vacation from it all - whether it’s tying balloons to your deckchair or leaning back and watching someone who does. Chock full of fun, this is a story that can warm your heart, tickle your funny-bone and leave you with a smile on your face.
The other movie I saw is quite the opposite; "Munich".
I’ve been struggling to find a way to describe "Munich", Steven Spielberg’s latest film and surely one of his highest achievements. It’s a powerful film, and haunting, though without the contemporary setting of "Syriana", the year’s other political treatise/mea culpa, and this works in "Munich"'s favor. Whereas Stephen Gaghan’s film is set in a woefully plausible near-future, Spielberg manages to show us the big picture by stepping back three decades. Knowing in advance how the story plays out in the history books, we can see again just how it’s affected us since then. It's often easier to see the present through the lens of the past.
The story plays out in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, where Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes, and tells of the Mossad's (Israel's version of the KGB or CIA..etc) retaliation efforts and assassination attempts on the men who supposedly planned the attack. Freed of detail, it would be an ordinary revenge story, perhaps even some kind of fatalistic neo-noir, but it's impossible to make that film. This is terrorism, and we've come so far and so little since Sept. 11, 2001, that to act as if the story is about anything less than the most important subject we face is an insult to the widows and orphans of everyone who's ever died at the hands of a terrorist. Spielberg as much as alludes to this with the film’s stark opening: a swimming sea of names of cities victimized by terrorism, among them London, Amsterdam, and Jakarta, before the name of Munich is brought into blood-red focus. The events that happened there 33 years ago were horrific, yes, but the worse truth is that those events were few among thousands.
The killings at the Olympics are dealt with immediately and rapidly, as Spielberg, working from a script by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, once again reminds us that he’s a master of pacing and storytelling. The film is a fictionalized version of true events, and the opening sequence features a dizzying blend of old newscasts with modern movie-making; everything looks real, as if it's actually happening, and simultaneously removed from reality, lending the happenings an odd weight by acknowledging that we're watching a story, and we know it. A few moments later, Avner (Eric Bana) is tapped by the Mossad to lead the retaliation effort, a decision reached in a meeting led by Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen). She utters the first of what will be the film’s many uncomfortable lines: "Forget peace for now," she says, noting the historical precedent for a society’s denial of its own moral code to pursue what it perceives to be a greater good or victory. But Spielberg isn't picking sides here; if anything, he’s just as disgusted by the Israeli response as he is the terrorism that provoked it. As one of Avner's colleagues later states: "You think the Palestinians invented bloodshed? How do you think we got the land, by being nice?" This kind of escalating retaliation is insane, pointless, and deadly, Spielberg says, but we do it anyway because we tell ourselves it needs to be done.
Avner is a loving husband with a daughter on the way and, like most of Spielberg's men, he has "daddy issues". His father is never seen, but is often praised for his fighting for Israeli independence. Avner's mother abandoned him at a kibbutz, where he was raised; as Avner’s wife puts it, he literally sees himself as Israel's son. Assigned to lead a team of four other men in an ongoing and off-the-books mission to kill those responsible for the Munich murders, Avner sets out to make contacts throughout Europe and track down the names given him by the Mossad. Shaky at first, they begin to approach their assigned killings as business transactions: build a bomb, blow it up, grab a beer, take a shower, find the next man on the list. Their coldness is matched by Spielberg's stark style. Each shot is nothing more than what it has to be, but nothing less than what it should be; like an old-school master, the director’s style is invisible at times, placing the emotion of the story above any need for self-congratulatory flair.
This is the real horror of Avner’s work: that he begins to view it as just another part of his day. Doubts begin to surface about some of their targets' actual involvement with planning Munich, but Avner and company do their jobs anyway. There’s only one true revenge killing, carried out after one of Avner’s crew is killed, and it’s horrifying in its unflinching realness. That's what makes the violence in "Munich" so upsetting. We live in an age when horror movies have become pornographically barbaric, but the killings here are hard to stomach because they’re sadder and truer, both cleaner and more terrifying than any grindhouse story at the theater. The stress of the lifestyle and the violence he's causing begin to affect Avner in a number of ways, including ongoing nightmares about the Munich killings, whose events are spelled out for the audience throughout the film in Avner's tortured dreams. He also begins to become deeply paranoid. There's one chilling scene wherein Avner, convinced that his room has been booby-trapped, dismantles his phone and TV, rips apart his mattress, and finally ends up on the floor of his closet, too weary and fearful to sleep.
Bana shines as Avner, showing some of the skill he managed to slip by Wolfgang Petersen in "Troy" and none of the clumsy trappings of "The Hulk" (You may also want to check out "Chopper"). His performance is involving and astonishing, a portrait of a strong but ultimately pitiable man, driven to murder out of self-doubt and nationalistic pride. Likewise, the men playing Avner’s team members turn in solid supporting roles, notably Daniel Craig (the new James Bond) as hotheaded Steve and Ciaran Hinds as the soft-spoken Carl. At one of the crew’s first meetings, Steve notes that it’s hard to think of himself as an assassin. "Think of yourself as something else, then," Carl advises him. It’s fascinating to see these men be so caring for their families or each other and yet approach their killings as routine jobs.
There has been complaint about the recent running-lengths of blockbuster films, such as "Munich" (164 minutes) and "King Kong" (188 minutes). I'm an advocate of the three-hour film; especially with projects as rife with content as "Munich". There's a theme that Kushner launches mid-way through the picture: Carl explains to Avner that he believes his leader to be a runner; somebody that outruns his emotions and scruples to finish the job, but also somebody who can't stand to have stillness. Later in the film, both Carl and Avner find that stillness. Kushner writes the situations as a final development to his characters' arc, requiring the film to run longer to include these last rich, bloody, and inherently difficult scenes. Without them-without the last hurrah of story-"Munich" would run ashore and dry out with dissatisfaction. The film is instead full and beautifully glorious, working in themes that go far beyond the killing of eleven Palestinian men, and questioning not only the politics of 1972, but also the politics of present. But Spielberg isn't heady with his controversy (except maybe that final shot...), instead solitarily using only the poignant story of Avner and his men to portray his point. "Munich" is another of Spielberg's masterpieces, a swift departure from "War of the Worlds", and on-par (or maybe better) than his last entry into film history's canon, "Saving Private Ryan". Like I said, "Munich" is full and beautifully glorious.
