Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Friday Movie Review (early)
Caught a free sneak preview of North Country and it was much better than I expected.
It was directed by New Zealander Niki Caro, who directed Whale Rider, a well received movie I never bothered to see. I've found it to be the case that foreign directors can often see things in the way we Americans interact that we are blind to due to sheer repetition. Ang Lee, from Taiwan, is a recent example of this (I can't stress how good Ride With the Devil is and how much it taught me about the American Civil War in the West). But while Ms. Caro can show us human relationships at a simple or basic level, she didn't appear to have any insight into what made these particular guys and girls tick. The location she raved about before the movie started was simply irrelevant. The characters were universal father and mother, universal wayward daughter, etc. I say this as a major criticism of the film.
The semi-antiseptic baring of the souls of most of the characters was as bleached out and tame as the accents of the natives. So Charlize Theron is from South Africa (but with no trace of that accent left), the director is from the smaller, dowdier, down under nation (with a broad accent) and you'd think they would be sensitive to the speech patterns of the people they are portraying and filming yet not a single guy or girl sounds like they grew up in Northern Minnesota. I mean not even Frances McDormand sounded like she was from there and we know that she can do that accent because we heard her do it in Fargo. What is the deal? I mean you just throw in some 'Oh, by gollys' and a 'don't cha know' or two or at least flatten out most of your vowels. What's so freakin hard? Of course I've never been to Northern Minnesota so maybe everyone in the movie had the accents there down cold.
Still when there were good adult actors on screen and the subject was forgiveness or standing by your kin, the movie was crackling with emotional power and it could reach out and grab you by the throat. Other times, usually with uninvolved child actors, the movie swung for the bleachers on the same subjects and missed. Big time.
Now about the subject matter of the film. We guys make fun of each other and play tricks on each other and we are heartless and cruel in the way we do it. And it is a form of male to male affection and a tie that binds men together. I don't think most women can comprehend this, just as most men cannot comprehend many of the mysteries of women (one of which is why do they have 10 pillows on the bed but remove all but one or two when they sleep there? I see I'm digressing). This movie was about the first successful class action sexual harassment (hostile environment) lawsuit in America, at a big open pit iron ore and taconite mine and adjacent mill. What they showed were boorish guys treating the girls as if they really were just one of the guys. The girls didn't get it, as I would not expect them to. What we guys have to learn is that the feminist rhetoric that women are just the same as men and want only to be treated the same as other men is a lie. We men have to take care to treat them like women at all times. They don't really want to and they don't get to play in the male reindeer games. They don't like male reindeer games. Don't get me wrong. Women should be able to work any job they can physically do (they certainly can do any mentally challenging work without any limitations), but they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking that their presence in a heretofore male dominated area of work won't change that work in a profound way.
In short, I found the hostile environment to be rather tame. Compare what happened to Charlize Theron, or any of the girls at the mill, to what happened to her in High School. Pretty tame at the mine, in that light. What really cut to your soul for these women was the lack of love and support they each had from those who should have been their main source. What were the cruelest things was what the women did to each other--mainly public humiliation. That and the male rejection of Theron's character.
It's 2 hours 3 minutes long. Has a lot of good Dylan songs on the soundtrack. There was no nudity I recall, no consensual sex, not much action. You know, I think this was a chick flick. If I were to judge this art with a school letter grade, which, of course, I would never do, I'd give it a B+.
It was directed by New Zealander Niki Caro, who directed Whale Rider, a well received movie I never bothered to see. I've found it to be the case that foreign directors can often see things in the way we Americans interact that we are blind to due to sheer repetition. Ang Lee, from Taiwan, is a recent example of this (I can't stress how good Ride With the Devil is and how much it taught me about the American Civil War in the West). But while Ms. Caro can show us human relationships at a simple or basic level, she didn't appear to have any insight into what made these particular guys and girls tick. The location she raved about before the movie started was simply irrelevant. The characters were universal father and mother, universal wayward daughter, etc. I say this as a major criticism of the film.
The semi-antiseptic baring of the souls of most of the characters was as bleached out and tame as the accents of the natives. So Charlize Theron is from South Africa (but with no trace of that accent left), the director is from the smaller, dowdier, down under nation (with a broad accent) and you'd think they would be sensitive to the speech patterns of the people they are portraying and filming yet not a single guy or girl sounds like they grew up in Northern Minnesota. I mean not even Frances McDormand sounded like she was from there and we know that she can do that accent because we heard her do it in Fargo. What is the deal? I mean you just throw in some 'Oh, by gollys' and a 'don't cha know' or two or at least flatten out most of your vowels. What's so freakin hard? Of course I've never been to Northern Minnesota so maybe everyone in the movie had the accents there down cold.
Still when there were good adult actors on screen and the subject was forgiveness or standing by your kin, the movie was crackling with emotional power and it could reach out and grab you by the throat. Other times, usually with uninvolved child actors, the movie swung for the bleachers on the same subjects and missed. Big time.
Now about the subject matter of the film. We guys make fun of each other and play tricks on each other and we are heartless and cruel in the way we do it. And it is a form of male to male affection and a tie that binds men together. I don't think most women can comprehend this, just as most men cannot comprehend many of the mysteries of women (one of which is why do they have 10 pillows on the bed but remove all but one or two when they sleep there? I see I'm digressing). This movie was about the first successful class action sexual harassment (hostile environment) lawsuit in America, at a big open pit iron ore and taconite mine and adjacent mill. What they showed were boorish guys treating the girls as if they really were just one of the guys. The girls didn't get it, as I would not expect them to. What we guys have to learn is that the feminist rhetoric that women are just the same as men and want only to be treated the same as other men is a lie. We men have to take care to treat them like women at all times. They don't really want to and they don't get to play in the male reindeer games. They don't like male reindeer games. Don't get me wrong. Women should be able to work any job they can physically do (they certainly can do any mentally challenging work without any limitations), but they shouldn't fool themselves into thinking that their presence in a heretofore male dominated area of work won't change that work in a profound way.
In short, I found the hostile environment to be rather tame. Compare what happened to Charlize Theron, or any of the girls at the mill, to what happened to her in High School. Pretty tame at the mine, in that light. What really cut to your soul for these women was the lack of love and support they each had from those who should have been their main source. What were the cruelest things was what the women did to each other--mainly public humiliation. That and the male rejection of Theron's character.
It's 2 hours 3 minutes long. Has a lot of good Dylan songs on the soundtrack. There was no nudity I recall, no consensual sex, not much action. You know, I think this was a chick flick. If I were to judge this art with a school letter grade, which, of course, I would never do, I'd give it a B+.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:01 PM 
