Philosophy and novella do not mix!

Youth without youth (2007)


Quite a bizarre movie which never got much of a positive review, especially as this film was Francis Ford Coppola’s offering after a ten years hiatus.

This movie tried to marry the mysticism of philosophy, the charm of the era circa pre-WW2 Continental Europe and the lure of lost love. Unfortunately, the marriage looked unpromising from the start with the broody faced Tim Roth (of ‘Lie to Me’ TV series fame).

A 70 something professor is hit by lightning and miraculously survives his ordeal after what seems like a near 100% burn of total body surface! His body regrows his teeth and skin appendages and gives him a youthful glow of a 30year man. Before the accident, he used to be a multi-lingual seeker of knowledge and learner of languages. Amidst the sprawling Nazi troops, who are very anxious to discover the secret of his recovery in their quest for making the superior man, the professor, manages to fall in love with a lady who, after being caught in a storm, starts talking in Sanskrit, Sumerian and other ancient languages. The film becomes very abstract after that, and I lost the plot.

Symbolism of life...

Persona (Swedish, 1966)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
A highly complex film which showcases the human emotions in a rather abstract manner. Viewers of left to interpret the story in their own way.
It starts with Elizabeth, a famous theatre actress who is brought in to the psychiatric ward after she just went blank during a performance and just refused to speak afterwards. Sister Alma is assigned by the psychiatrist to get close to her and tries to get to the root of her problem. All the while, Elizabeth does not talk, refuses to talk when spoken to. She does her own things, she reads, watches TV etcetera. She is visibly shaken by violence shown on TV - self immolation of a monk in Vietnam, pictures of Auschwitz. In the meanwhile, Sr Alma seem to be talking all the time revealing a lot about herself. She is engaged to be married soon to a doctor. Secretly, in her bed, Alma is grateful with her life, apparently complete and soon to have a few kids. Within the next second, she questions herself whether that is what she really wants.
One day, Elizabeth receives a letter with the picture of her son in it. She is disturbed and tears it away.
The psychiatrist in charge suggests a beach bungalow for Elizabeth's recovery. Sister Alma accompanies her there.
Things improve there. Elizabeth becomes more chirpy, they do things together and they get close. It is only Alma who speaks all the time whilst the patient remains mute. In an evening, after too much of drinks, Alma confides in non talking Elizabeth some of her inner secrets -  her one time impulsive infidelity, her pregnancy and her clandestine termination of pregnancy. And Alma breaks down. Wait! It looks like the role had reversed; Alma the confused and Elizabeth the silent listener.
The next day, life goes on as if nothing happened. In fact, on the night previously, Elizabeth had broken her silence but Alma was too drunk to appreciate. Elizabeth passed some letters for Alma to post. Unable to resist her temptation, Alma sneaks into an unsealed letter to find a letter to her doctor telling about Alma's health condition instead. Realizing and angry that she is being psychoanalyzed, a cat and mouse game starts. Alma tries to hurt Elizabeth and abhors her silence.
Then, in the next bizarre scene (dream scene?), somebody calls for Elizabeth. It is supposed to be Elizabeth's husband and he starts talking to Alma and becomes quite passionate with her right in front of Elizabeth!
The climax of the movie is a scene which is repeated, each showing each character's facial expression as Alma delivers a monologue. In this scene, both actresses look almost alike at their faces are superimposed. Elizabeth is accused to be a renowned theatrical icon who cannot leave the limelight of the stage but the inner desire to fulfill her need to conceive. When she actually conceived, she realized that the mistake she has made- the change in body shape, size and absence from work etcetera. She tried unsuccessfully to abort the child and secretly hope the child would be a stillbirth. The child was born after a long difficult labour. The cry of the newborn was torturous to her that she left the child to be cared by relatives to continue her work in the theatre! And that is when she had that catatonic episode!
Alma behaves in a way unbecoming of a person of the medical profession. She physically abuses Elizabeth. Looks like that they had switched roles - the healer and the patient!
In the next scene, Alma leaves the retreat alone with her luggage on a bus. The camera rolls on towards the ground. We are left to wonder whether the nurse buried her patient!
This film is full of symbolism. It is supposed to show the eternal conflict that broils within an individual. It is something like the constant fight between Id, Ego and Super-Ego or the battle between the conscious and sub-conscious! Alma and Elizabeth are one and the same individual. Elizabeth is internal core of a person and Alma signifies the external appearance (persona) of a person that always changes and this film is a study of introspection of one's self!
If it sounds very complicated, you should watch it and draw your conclusion.

So you think you know everything?

In our everyday life, we see many who walk around with an aura around them exuding confidence as though they know all the answers to all of mankind's age old secret of the universe. Unfortunately, things in life are not so black or white, they always come in various shades of grey to complicate things.

If you think you have covered all angles in dealing with a problem, then you would receive a knock on the head on a yet another angle that missed your scrutiny. If you think you have to move with the times and embrace modernity, then again you will be disappointed with equally dismal outcomes. Then you would tell yourself, 'Old is Gold'!

The dichotomy of choices are driving everyone nuts. If only you could turn back time... Then you would tumble upon a new sets of hurdles to cross.

At least, the people who go with their noses and shoulders up in the air shower confidence to the masses and hopefully provide yet another path to tread upon those who are lost for direction after hitting a brick wall.

Does He not send flies to the wound He should heal?

The Tree of Life (2011)
We are left wondering what is happening a good hour into the movie. First, Brad Pitt (set it 1950s) and his wife receive news, not in words but by their expressions that one of their son (the second) has died. Then the characters go into a soul searching mode and the movie goes into a frenzy of cinematographic extragavanza of abstract cinematographic adventure with psychedelic hue of sky, clouds, erupting volcano, waterfalls, electron microscopic views of organelles in a cell, dinasours, Sean Penn in the present time in mammoth building, back to the time when Brad Pitt becomes a first time father accompanied by excellent musical background. One by one the sons are born and the movie shows them growing, learning to bond with nature and siblings, their first fall, exposure to death through death of a fish, a Christian upbringing under a strict father Brad Pitt who believes the regimental disciplinarian way of doing things...Father teaches him way of the world reminding his children to be tough, not to repeat his mistake of an unfilled ambition of becoming an accomplished musician.
In the coming of age era in his early teens, the eldest (Jack) has issues with his father whom he despises. He is trying make sense of the concept of God and why He has no control over some apparently bad happenings like when a boy drowns in a public pool.
At the height of his anger, he secretly wished that his father was dead...
Later, the father loses his job and the family moves another town. Now the father has also conflicts within himself. He could not understand why he had to go through such a predicament for he had been a good servant of God, paying tithe as due!
Then we are brought came back to the future to the adult Jack (Sean Penn) walking aimlessly, still unable to come at terms with the death of his brother, on the beach like a weary executive, in complete business suit. He meets up with the rest of family (as the were in the 1950s) and everybody seem happy with each other. They seem to be wandering in another dimension (like in heaven or something like that!).
To be honest, it is an abstractly experimental movie with mostly voice overs and its powerful messages presented by the director is his own creative way. The take home cue is left to personal interpretation.
To a sentimental dreamy person like me (not in the literary sense), it tells us that many things in life cannot be explained with simple terms. At the end of the day, our early childhood memories are the one we treasure most and our family moulds us!
Memorable quotes...
On some of God's mysterious way of doing things,

Doesn't He send files to the wound He should heal?