Vitus

Thanks, Roger Ebert!

I'd never have heard of VITUS if Ebert hadn't reviewed it. It didn't pop on CHUD, which is where I go for movie news, and it didn't pop here, which is where I go for movie conversation. If Ebert hadn't given it a few hundred words, it would have disappeared.

But he did give it a couple of hundred words, and he had me sold at "Bruno Ganz," and I'm glad I sat down for it. VITUS is a Swiss film about a kid named Vitus who is so incredibly brilliant that his parents can't even comprehend how brilliant he is. I thought it was going to be a piano-oriented rehash of SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER but, when the film went on to show my that I couldn't comprehend how brilliant this kid is, it took me in a new direction, one I thoroughly enjoyed.

The light in this kid's life is his grandfather, played by the incredible Bruno Ganz. Ganz is one of those everyman-type actors whose comforting onscreen presence belies a sharpness that gives him the ability to act in films in a variety of languages. So far, I've seen him do German (in multiple dialects), Italian, and Greek, all while sounding like a native speaker. Here, he assays Swiss German, and it's extraordinary. As the kindly grandfather and font of vitally important folk wisdom, he gives Vitus the two things he needs: unconditional love and the chance to act like a kid, or act like a grownup, or act however he needs to act. And it's wonderful.

The conflict, well, it's not a "kid against the world" kind of thing so much as it is a story about "kid finding his way in the world." It's sweet, but not overly so, and it holds some pleasant surprises. I liked VITUS enough to re-screen it for my wife. I think she's going to like it, too. I had her sold at "Bruno Ganz."

Faraway, So Close!

FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE!, the unnecessary sequel to the superlative WINGS OF DESIRE, has two special treats that make it worth the viewing: it tells us whatever happened to WINGS' Damiel and Marion, and it gives us Willem Dafoe as one of cinema's best demons. WINGS fans will be delighted to find Damiel and Marion happily married, very much in love, and the parents of an adored daughter who's developing gymnastics skills of her own. That's sweet, and I'm a sucker for sweet, but Dafoe's performance here is what really brings the goods home.

Here's the setup: Cassiel the Angel is feeling the angst. Growing tired of watching, he's ready to put his hand in the mix. When events conspire to push him into making an abrupt choice, he does the right thing and sheds his angelic nature so that he may walk among the humans. I was ready for a different take on assimilation into a foreign world, but the film's actually a little disappointing, here. Cassiel has an innocence that strikes me as ridiculous, and while his adventures culminate in an appropriate and satisfying way, I was much more interested in Dafoe's demon.

The character is never clearly identified as a demon, but he has the ability to shift between the angelic and the mundane world, which makes him neither angel nor human. I doubt that he's the Devil, though he could be, because I get the sense that Wenders' major theological antagonists are somehow more cosmic than the angels he's shown us thus far. That the character is Satanic in the Hebraic sense of the word, I have no doubt: he describes himself not as merciless, but as pitiless: a prosecutor who will pursue and aggravate every flaw; who will create temptations and then pass judgement when men succumb. And Dafoe, cinema's finest Christ, plays him just right. He's seductive, friendly, and mean. He's brutally harsh, engaged yet calculating, and he neither expects nor gives quarter.

That's why I don't understand the climax. Why does he do what he does, and what does that mean about his relationship with Cassiel and Raphaela (Cassiel's angelic friend)? And speaking of the climax, where did that minor villain come from?

I think the answers may be found on an editing room floor somewhere, but you know what? It doesn't really matter. In ten years, I'm not going to remember FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE!'s plot points. I am, however, going to remember that Dafoe performance. What an actor.

Eternity and a Day

You know what's worse than watching a terrible movie your child
adores? Watching a supposedly fabulous movie that your wife adores
and that you just don't get.

Martin Scorsese presented Theo Angelopolous with the Golden Palm for
ETERNITY AND A DAY in 1998, and a film prof introduces the movie with
a bunch of gushing praise that DB made me watch while I burped the
baby and tried to amuse the older boy, so I suppose it's pretty good.
Additionally, DB routinely stopped and rewound certain shots and
scenes, oohing and aahing over the film's craftsmanship, a move which
made me feel all the more disconnected. All I saw was a muddy print
of a film telling a story I didn't understand about characters I
couldn't keep straight. Was Bruno Ganz kissing his daughter in that
one scene, or was it his mother or his dead ex-wife? And what was he
doing on that boat? And is he alive, dead, or something in between?
And what was the story on those musicians on the bus?

I left ETERNITY AND A DAY bored, baffled, and feeling like a complete
dolt. Somebody, please, explain this movie to me and tell me why I'm
supposed to like it. Until someone does, this will be one of those
titles that'll leave me scratching my head.

Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary; Downfall

Had I seen BLIND SPOT prior to DOWNFALL, I think I may have found it fascinating. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way, and I spent 45 minutes with my finger on the "fast forward" button.

BLIND SPOT consists of two interviews with Traudl Junger, one of Hitler's secretaries and the protagonist of DOWNFALL. In the documentary, she tells the story which would be dramatized in the later picture, but she doesn't add a great deal to the dramatic version. If you dig talking heads, this might be the movie for you. Personally, I just zipped through it, reading the subtitles at double speed.

If you've seen neither picture and are interested in Junger's story, I enthusiastically recommend DOWNFALL, which was 2005's best movie. It's a harrowing experience that makes you care about people you actively want to kill. As Hitler, Bruno Ganz delivers a career - redefining performance in a film that never lets up. In this case, dramatization is better than reality.