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My 5 favorite films
of 2004
The Movie Mystic | by Stephen Simon
ETERNAL SUNSINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
"Change
your heart, and look around you..
Change your heart, it will astound you
...everybody's gotta learn sometime..."
Your heart has been broken in a love relationship that ends. Someone offers you the
chance to literally erase that relationship -- that person -- and everything about
it and them -- from your memory forever.
Would you do it?
Should you do it?
COULD you do it?
Such is the provocative premise of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, my favorite
film of 2004. (I am avoiding the connotation of "best" because I think
that notion indicates an absolute and I believe that, as it relates to the utter
subjectivity of film, we can only speak for ourselves.)
To delve into the story too much would so much lessen the discovery of and fascination
in its intricacy that I will only say that the heart of the film takes place in the
mind of its main character Joel, played with nuance, sensitivity and endearing vulnerability
by Jim Carrey, in the first role in which he literally disappears into his character.
As Carrey remembers Clementine, the great love of his life (played with heartbreaking,
poignant, eclectic and luminescent beauty by the inestimable Kate Winslett, who also
stars in Finding Neverland, my close second choice off 2004), each memory is, at
his request, systematically erased...or...is it? Can it ever be?
The touchstone of Spiritual Cinema is the asking of questions about who we are and
why we are here. As such, Eternal Sunshine is perhaps a seminal film and one that
I passionately recommend that you see with other friends and loved ones, because
the discussions afterwards hold the promise of a very emotional catharsis. Beyond,
beneath and above the story itself lie hypnotic musings and tantalizing possibilities.
The extraordinary Japanese film After Life illuminated the intriguing dilemma of
having to choose one memory in which to spend eternity. In Eternal Sunshine, the
haunting question relates rather to the potential erasure of memories of those we
have loved and who have loved us. What happens to our experience of those memories
if the love transforms into pain, heartbreak and sadness? Do we live in the sunshine
of the love as it was when it shone most brightly or do we suffer in the darkness
of the pain of the aftermath of heartbreak and disillusionment? No matter how deeply
our pain might run, would we erase those memories if we could? Or, perhaps, can we
choose to experience both the light and the darkness, simultaneously and forever?
The choice is always ours. If we could literally erase those conscious -- and even
subconscious -- memories, would something still remain in the depth of our unconscious,
waiting to be triggered anew at a particular moment? Most importantly, what indeed
ARE those memories? When we know that time is an illusion, and that we are spiritual
beings having a human experience, what do we make real and what do we render to our
dream and other than conscious states?
Isn't this all a metaphor for our journey through our lifetimes, when we make decisions
in the world between death and life and then play out those commitments in the moments
between life and death? When, no matter what, we recognize each other without the
assistance of conscious memory. When we know we've been together before because we
have. When only the illusionary veil of the cycle of death and life separates us
from remembering who we have been to each through the centuries. When we make these
eternal commitments, we have intentions that may not ever consciously occur to our
human selves but, somehow, we find each other and play out the scenarios. On our
way home...to oneness.
Perhaps, then, at the depth and breadth of its vision, this amazing movie even presents
us with the hope that our running can finally come to an end in the Eternal Sunshine
of (our) Spotless Mind. As such, the film is nothing less than a reflection of those
extraordinary promises that we make to each other, the "knowing" that no
disappointment or heartbreak can erase from the blueprint of our soul. When entertainment
can do this, it transcends the experience of movies and touches the face of eternity.
And offers tantalizing glimpses to us of whom we may really be.
FINDING NEVERLAND
Finding Neverland is absolutely magical, emotional, touching and beautiful. The film
is set in 1903 London and is loosely based on the true story of how James Barrie
found and was inspired to write and initially stage the immortal Peter Pan. Not in
recent memory has a film been so exquisitely titled that its very name defines both
the journey of every character and also the very soul of the film's multi-leveled
essence.
Johnny Depp charmingly and lovingly plays Barrie as a man who knows that there is
a unique place in his own heart -- and in the hearts of people everywhere -- where
belief in magic is eternal. A place he calls Neverland. Depp's Barrie is a man so
deeply in touch with his own inner child that it actually threatens his relationship
with both his producer and his wife; nevertheless, Barrie presses on with his quest
to manifest a piece of literary art that would change the face of theater forever.
The stirring musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber (whose Phantom of the Opera is also
on this list) might never have seen the light of a London stage if Barrie had not
been so devoted to creating Neverland for his audience.
The exquisite Kate Winslett plays widowed mother Sylvia Davies whom Barrie encounters
in a park one day in the company of her four young boys. Sylvia herself is seeking
a way to find a sense of adventure for her young sons that will help them heal their
sorrow over the death of their father, and Barrie introduces her to his own vision
of Neverland, to which she is inexorably drawn for her own secret reasons. In turn,
Barrie is enchanted by Sylvia and her sense of love and openness, which seems so
different from the chasm that has opened between Barrie and his own wife. (Please
permit me a slight digression here to just say that I am always beyond delighted
to see Winslett on screen for many reasons. Most keenly, as a father of four young
women in an age of media-inspired eating disorders, I think Ms. Winslett is a fantastic
role model of a beautiful and talented woman who is blithely committed to NOT having
to fit into a size 0 dress!)
The boys themselves are also in their own search for Neverland as they wrestle with
their senses of abandonment and grief and it is here that the film finds the depth
of its soul. Barrie introduces the boys (the youngest of whom is named Peter) to
a world of play and imagination that not only begins to ease their mourning but also
engenders in all of them the sense of their own potential as human beings. Barrie
found his inspiration for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys with these four young men and
it is just dazzling to watch the magic unfold.
Loving, heartfelt, and lyrically beautiful, Finding Neverland is the kind of film
that "they don't make any more." Just like the audiences who have seen
Peter Pan over the last century, it allows and indeed encourages all of us to feel
better about and even deeply proud of our own humanity. When a film does that, it
touches the face of the ultimate expression of the art form itself and we are offered
a glimpse of our own estimable beauty as a species.
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
The film version
of the wildly successful musical stage version of Phantom is a melodramatic (in the
BEST sense of that word), deliriously romantic, tragic (in the best sense of THAT
word) and epic love story. In addition, it is one of the most gorgeously designed,
costumed, photographed and directed films I have seen in a very long time.
The film has both a new prologue and epilogue that were not in the play and they
contribute beautifully to the story of Christine and her tragically obsessed admirer.
The body of the movie is faithful to the play while, at the same time, it takes full
advantage of the richer and more abundant medium of film. For instance, the Phantom's
first foray with Christine into his underground hideaway grotto is a breathtakingly
beautiful and mystical visual journey, whereas, on stage, most of it had to implied.
The cast is amazingly wonderful, particularly Emmy Rossum who plays Christine with
a deep sense of compassion, innocence and gentleness. Gerard Butler's portrayal of
The Phantom is alternately powerful, menacing, tragic and fragile.
Rarely do filmed versions of successful musicals rise to the quality of their staged
counterparts; however, I must say here that I enjoyed this Phantom even more than
the two different stage versions that I have seen.
Cynics need not even THINK of watching this film as they will go shrieking into the
night after the first few scenes; however, for those of you who enjoy classic love
stories like Romeo and Juliet and, maybe The Way We Were, you are in for a wonderful
and moving two and a half hours...and a good cry.
BEFORE SUNSET
Directed
by the brilliant Richard Linklater (Waking Life), Before Sunset is a sequel to Before
Sunrise, shot nine years earlier with the same director and two-actor cast. Sunrise
was about two young people who met for one night in Paris, fell in love, made love
and promised to meet again. Sunset picks up many years later when one of the pair
(Ethan Hawke) has written a book and is back in Paris where his lost love (Julie
Delpy) comes to his book signing and they reunite to reminisce and explore what happened.
That all happens in the first five minutes ---after that, the film is a tour-de-force
plunge into love, vulnerability, lost innocence and longing. Never have I seen two
actors so completely inhabit their characters any more than Hawke and Delpy. They
both give bravura, wrenching, witty and devastatingly honest Academy Award-caliber
performances.
Before Sunset explores moments of grace in our lives in which we encounter others
who inspire, empower and stimulate us to plumb the bottomless depth of our souls.
The film is a bracing mixture of comedy, pathos, drama and brilliantly insightful
dialogue that combine to create one of those rare moments in film that will last
forever in the hearts and minds of those who are open to the resonance of its revelations
about the human condition.
See it with an open heart and I believe that you will be as enthralled and enchanted
as I was.
THE NOTEBOOK
Sometimes,
a great love...seems just fated. The minute two people lock eyes, the tumblers instantaneously
fall into place and they just know they want to be together forever. Sadly, for many
of those couples the "forever" only lasts for days or weeks or even a few
years, but it does end. For a few people, however, "forever" means exactly
that...obstacles, challenges, time and distance dissolve -- the love survives and
blazes brightly throughout their lives.
It is that fated and inevitable "forever" kind of love that breathes passion
into the core of the beautiful and poignant film version of The Notebook, based on
Nicholas Sparks' novel.
Set primarily in the 1940s, the film's love story revolves around two teenagers (Noah
and Ally) who meet and fall in love (maybe this phrase should be changed to "rise
in love"?) during one idyllic summer, only to have Ally's parents split them
apart. They both go their separate ways until....
I can't tell any more of the story without ruining some of the surprises in the film
and that I don't want to do; however, there is one aspect of the film that I do indeed
want to highlight. By doing so, I will be revealing something about the plot. Although
it is something that most of you will connect very quickly in the film anyway, I
do want to caution those of you who want NOTHING to be revealed that you SHOULD STOP
READING RIGHT HERE!...and maybe save this story until after you see the film.
OK?...for those of you still with us, there is something unique and powerfully moving
about the "bookends" of the film. James Garner and Gena Rowlands (who is
actually the mother of the director of the film) play the elderly version of the
young lovers in the film. Garner is reading the story of the two young lovers to
Ally in a rest home because Ally suffers from dementia and cannot even remember who
he is, or who her children are. Although their relationship is not revealed immediately,
it doesn't take long to figure it out and the poignancy of the situation provides
a powerful subtext to the love story.
More often than not, screen love stories focus on the "getting there" but
very rarely illuminate the "being there" and even more rarely -- the "having
been there." There seem to be a lot of people who are enamored with falling
(rising) in love but somewhat lost at the "maintaining it" part, yes? (I
hear a lot of you out there murmuring -- "a lot of people"? -- it's a damn
epidemic!)
What makes this aspect of The Notebook so notable and so laudable is that the pure
sexual chemistry between the young lovers is so fierce and overpowering for them
both that it is wonderful indeed to actually witness how that facet of their love
evolves as they enter their "twilight years." This is the rare film that
really shows a wider panoply of love, from youth through some maturity and then to
old age, and that odyssey is one of the many reasons why I recommend the film so
highly.
For those of you who are attracted to the film, I think you will have a wonderful
time.
Stephen Simon
produced such films as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come, produced and directed
INDIGO, and wrote The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our
Lives. He also co-founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle [www.spiritualcinemacircle.com]. Stephen welcomes your comments
by e-mail at Stephen@spiritualcinemacircle.com
Copyright © 2005 Stephen Simon. All rights reserved. |
| February 2005 |
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