Stroszek

Stroszek is a 1977 German tragicomedy directed by Wernor Herzog. I watched it here on TubiTV. I tried, but I just couldn't get into this one. I left it and came back to it several times but finally gave up. trailer:

 

It's listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Roger Ebert considers it a Great Movie. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics consensus score of 95%.

The Son

The Son is a 2002 Belgian/French film directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The story is of a divorced man whose discovery that his ex-wife is pregnant and is re-marrying motivates him to take the teen-aged murderer of his own son into his carpentry workshop as apprentice. Why does he do this? Even he doesn't understand it. The scene shown above is a pivotal episode between the man and the youth, as they have a bite to eat at a truck stop.

trailer:

Spirituality and Practice says, "The Son is a haunting parable filled with many moments of quiet dignity." Arts & Faith has it on their list of 100 spiritually significant films and says, "Even if the Dardennes were to insist that their characters have no religious affiliation, Olivier’s choices still add up to a passion play. This is as pure a “movie parable” as you’re likely to find." Salon has a mixed review. Slant Magazine calls it "a testament to Christian forgiveness".

Roger Ebert says,

"The Son" is complete, self-contained and final. All the critic can bring to it is his admiration. It needs no insight or explanation. It sees everything and explains all. It is as assured and flawless a telling of sadness and joy as I have ever seen....Walk out of the house today, tonight, and see it, if you are open to simplicity, depth, maturity, silence, in a film that sounds in the echo-chambers of the heart. "The Son" is a great film. If you find you cannot respond to it, that is the degree to which you have room to grow. I am not being arrogant; I grew during this film.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 88%.

Please come to the weekly T Party over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog and share a beverage-related post with us.

The Flowers of St Francis

The Flowers of St Francis is a 1950 Italian film based on the life of St, Francis of Assisi. Roberto Rossellini is the director. It's a beautiful story, filled with joy and peace as suits St. Francis' life.

via youtube:



Slant Magazine gives it 4 out of 4 stars. It's on the Arts & Faith list of Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films where they say, "The fruit of Rossellini's efforts is a beautifully simple little film that is as much a tribute to the spirit of humane curiosity in which the film itself was made as to the spiritual heritage that is its transcendent theme." The New Yorker says, "his [Rossellini's] nonjudgmental clarity reflects both the way they lived and his sense of wonder that anyone could ever have done so." It has a critics score of 100% at Rotten Tomatoes.

A Man Escaped

A Man Escaped is a 1956 Robert Bresson film based on a true story of the escape of a French Resistance fighter from a WWII prison camp. It's on the ArtsAndFaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films.

This seems to be out of print -at least, I can't find a DVD of it anywhere- but youtube has it up in segments. part 1:
part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9 [these videos have been deleted]

trailer:

The New York Times says this film is evidence that the director "is an extraordinary artist in his realm" who "makes his pictures with patience, simplicity and the uncompromising devotion of a saint." Senses of Cinema has a lengthy summary. Images Journal (also at Bright Lights Film Journal) says the film "is typical of Bresson's work in creating highly emotional effects by juxtaposing seemingly oppositional images and motifs." DecentFilms.com says it "offers newcomers to Bresson perhaps the most accessible point of entry into the work of this brilliant, challenging, God-haunted artist." Christianity Today says, "it can be a remarkably powerful experience the first time you view it, its suspense gradually building to excruciating intensity". Slant Magazine says,

The genius of the film is obvious from the start: The way Bresson breathlessly postures Devigny's autobiographical account as a modern spiritual fable and the intensely suffocating aesthetic that truly evokes the squashing of the human soul.

Dead Man Walking

Dead Man Walking is a 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It is based on a book by Sister Helen Prejean that tells the story of her involvement with the cases of 2 death row inmates. Their stories are combined into one prisoner for the film. Dead Man Walking is #21 on the artsandfaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films.

trailer:


The New York Times likes it. Roger Ebert says

It demonstrates how a movie can confront a grave and controversial issue in our society and see it fairly, from all sides, not take any shortcuts, and move the audience to a great emotional experience without unfair manipulation. What is remarkable is that the film is also all the other things a movie should be: absorbing, surprising, technically superb and worth talking about for a long time afterward.

Salon.com compares it with another film saying,

While John Schlesinger's "An Eye for an Eye" presents Hollywood's same old good vs. evil universe, Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking" triumphs by rejecting easy moral conclusions

The World of Apu

Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959) is the 3rd in the Apu Trilogy directed by Satyajit Ray. The other films are linked from here.

part 1:

part 2:

The New York Times says the director's work "demonstrates in "The World of Apu" that he is master of a complex craft and style."

Aparajito

Aparajito (1956) is the award-winning 2nd film in the Apu Trilogy and is directed by Satyajit Ray. The other films are linked from here.

part 1:

part 2:

The New York Times:

it is done with such rare feeling and skill at pictorial imagery, and with such sympathetic understanding of Indian character on the part of Mr. Ray, that it develops a sort of hypnotism for the serene and tolerant viewer who is willing to sit still for an hour and forty-eight minutes and let some stunning black-and-white pictures pass before his eyes.
...
And Mr. Ray's remarkable camera catches beauty in so many things, from the softness of a mother's sad expression to the silhouette of a distant train, that innuendos take up the slack of drama. Hindu music and expressive natural sounds complete the stimulation of the senses in this strange, sad, evocative film.

MSN has some information. 1001 Flicks has a review.

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) is the award-winning first film in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy and his first film to direct. The other films are linked from here. This is a tragic story, moving.

The Guardian says, "it still has tremendous freshness and vitality, combining a very simple style with moments of poetry" and calls it "a luminous, transcendental masterpiece".

The New York Times review says it "is one of those rare exotic items, remote in idiom from the usual Hollywood film, that should offer some subtle compensations to anyone who has the patience to sit through its almost two hours." DVDTalk says, "The movie has historical significance and is therefore something movie buffs should consider renting but to be fair, it was very dated in so many ways."

Apu Trilogy

The Apu Trilogy, not surprisingly made up of 3 films, is directed by Satyajit Ray. Today is the anniversary of his death in 1992. FilmReference.com has lists of resources and an article on his work. Bright Lights Film Journal has an interview. There is a Facebook page. Senses of Cinema has a profile of him, which concludes,

Ray makes us re-evaluate the commonplace. He has the remarkable capacity of transforming the utterly mundane into the excitement of an adventure. There is the ability to recognise the mythic in the ordinary,
...
More then any of his contemporaries in world cinema, he can create an awareness of the ordinary man, and he doesn't do it in the abstract, but by using the simplest, most common and concrete details such as a gesture or a glance.

What is also distinctive in Ray's work is that the rhythm in his films seems almost meditative. There is a contemplative quality in the magnificent flow of images and sounds that evokes an attitude of acceptance and detachment, which is profoundly Indian.

The Apu films:
Pather Panchali (1955)
Aparajito (1956)
Apur Sansar (1959)

Ravi Shankar did the musical score. The Apu trilogy is #76 on the artsandfaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films. The trilogy also has a spot on Time's list of 100 best films. Roger Ebert has the series on his "great movies" list. The Guardian seems to regret the films are seldom seen today. FilmReference.com says the films

had a profound effect on filmmaking within India and an important effect on the attention paid to Indian films outside India

A Man for All Seasons

The Husband picked this one for tonight's movie. A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 film adaptation of the Robert Bolt play that tells the story of the conflict between now-Saint Thomas More and King Henry VIII. The film is directed by Fred Zinnemann and stars Paul Scofield as Thomas More, Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Susannah York (Mrs. Cratchit from the George C. Scott Christmas Carol) as More's daughter, Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey, Wendy Hiller as More's wife, Nigel Davenport (Scrooge's father from the George C. Scott Christmas Carol) as Duke of Norfolk, and John Hurt as Richard Rich. Vanessa Redgrave has a cameo as Anne Boleyn. Leo McKern makes a perfect Cromwell. I just love Leo McKern. He has his own Facebook page. You can read a script of the movie here. Watch it online here:


Our DVD has an interesting "special feature" on the life of Thomas More.

This movie is #27 on the ArtsAndFaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films. The New York Times says it is "a picture that inspires admiration, courage and thought." DecentFilms.com says, "This is a great film. I believe it is the most profound cinematic depiction of the life of any saint." Variety has a review. FerdieOnFilm reviews it in memory of Paul Scofield during the week of his death.

The Last Temptation of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 Martin Scorsese film adaptation of the 1951 Nikos Kazantzakis novel with the same name. The Husband and I had seen this one before and were honestly confused by the rabid controversy it stirred up. The Daughter and The Younger Son saw it for the first time tonight. We watched the Criterion edition DVD but were not tempted by the special features. Some other time perhaps. Willem Dafoe plays the tortured confused Jesus figure. Barbara Hershey is Mary Magdalene (Jesus' love interest), and Harvey Keitel is Judas (betraying Jesus at Jesus' own insistence). David Bowie is Pontius Pilate. Peter Gabriel does the music, which none of us like but which Rolling Stone does like.

The Younger Son finds it the goofiest Jesus movie he's seen so far, calling it the It's a Wonderful Life version of the story. The Daughter is also not impressed. Maybe it's the talking snakes...

Veoh has it [but not as of 2/17/2010].

trailer:


Roger Ebert says it is "a serious and devout film" and closes his review by saying that "The film has offended those whose ideas about God and man it does not reflect. But then, so did Jesus." He has this to say about the furor that still rages:

The astonishing controversy that has raged around this film is primarily the work of fundamentalists who have their own view of Christ and are offended by a film that they feel questions his divinity. ... Among those who do not already have rigid views on the subject, this film is likely to inspire more serious thought on the nature of Jesus than any other ever made.

Images Journal praises it, closing their review with this:

Those who haven’t seen the movie in some time will be surprised how well it’s aged. Every scene packs a punch, and the last temptation, which spans the movie’s final forty minutes, is as devastating as ever. What a joy it is to be able to experience this movie. And to be able to own it is a real treat considering that it is still banned in certain countries (and at Blockbuster Video). Protestors aside, The Last Temptation of Christ has become a modern day classic.

DecentFilms.com calls it "deeply heretical and blasphemous" and condemns it:

my conclusion is that the religious critics who think Last Temptation a bad film are correct. Does this mean that the fans and film critics who think it a creative masterpiece are wrong? I’ve made my case for the film’s spiritual bankruptcy, but what about its value as art?
...
Poisonous morally and spiritually, it is also worthless as art or entertainment, at least on any theory of art as an object of appreciation. As an artifact of technical achievement, it may be well made; but as a film, it is devoid of redeeming merit.

The BBC reviewer says it's "a powerful film that has stood the test of time". The New York Times says it "exerts enormous power". Salon.com calls it "a lovely, measured and deeply earnest work". Criterion has an essay. It's #63 on the ArtsAndFaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films.

4/21/2009: /film reports the movie's available at hulu, [but not as of 2/17/2010].

Solaris (1972)

Solaris is a 1972 Russian science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (Stalker, Andrei Rublev). It is based on the Stanislaw Lem novel with the same name. It won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is #67 on the artsandfaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films.

I have not seen the George Clooney remake.

Available at googlevideo:


The subtitles don't seem right. They sometimes don't change when the speaker changes and sometimes they seem to indicate a change of speaker when there is none. Sometimes there are subtitles with questions being asked and answered when there is no speech going on at all in the film, while at other times folks are talking without subtitles appearing on the screen.

Criterion has a 2-disc release, and DVD Journal reviews the film and Criterion's edition here. Senses of Cinema calls it "a visually hypnotic, deeply affecting story of conscience, love, and reconciliation". The New York Times says,"It is science-fiction in the formal sense of the word; in substance, it is a parable about the nature of mankind." Moria has a review. 1000 Misspent Hours doesn't care for it. Roger Ebert says,

Tarkovsky consciously tried to create art that was great and deep. He held to a romantic view of the individual able to transform reality through his own spiritual and philosophical strength.

366 Weird Movies says that, though weird, this is Tarkovsky's most accessible film.

Stalker

Stalker is a 1979 Soviet science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris, Andrei Rublev). It is loosely based on Roadside Picnic, a Russian novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The novel can be read online in an HTML version of a PDF file.

The movie is #22 on the ArtsAndFaith.com list of 100 Most Spirituality Significant Films. It's a haunting film -bleak, with long periods of silence and little action. Thought-provoking.

It's available online, but embedding is disabled. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Slant Magazine closes its analysis with this:

Perhaps Tarkovsky summed it up best when he wrote about Stalker, "In the end, everything can be reduced to the one simple element which is all a person can count upon in his existence: the capacity to love."

DVDJournal describes it as

Ostensibly a science fiction film, like Solaris it is mostly a movie of ideas, with even fewer of the trappings of the conventional sci-fi movie.

and quotes the director as saying,

"People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolizes, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I'm reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn't symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films; the zone is a zone, it's life, and as he makes his way across it a man may break down or he may come through. Whether he comes through or not deepens on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish between what matters and what is merely passing."

The review at DVDTalk.com praises the film saying,

This film is a work of art, yet many people won't like it. It is a slow moving film, there are no action sequences or fight scenes, and the most suspenseful segment has a man slowly walking through a tunnel. It is terribly engrossing nonetheless. The movie runs two and a half hours but is never dull or boring.

DVDTimes says,

Much like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stalker very much has its own pace and rhythm, and how one responds to it depends largely on one’s engagement with the film in general. I’ve always found it so hypnotic that I barely notice the running time
...
Personally, I think it’s not only Tarkovsky’s masterpiece but one of an infinitesimally tiny number of films that really does make you look at the world in a different way after you’ve seen it

8/20/2009: 366 Weird Movies covers this film, saying "step into Tarkovsky’s strange world and be prepared to glimpse miracles. If you are at the proper wavelength, Tarkovsky will cast a hypnotic spell on you like no other director."

100 Most Spiritually Significant Films

I'm giving the the ArtsAndFaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films it's own post so I can more easily keep track of my progress towards watching the movies. Ones I've seen are in bold print. The list:

1 Ordet
2 Le Fils
3 The Miracle Maker
4 The Gospel According to Matthew
5 The Diary of a Country Priest
6 The Passion of Joan of Arc
7 The Decalogue
8 Babette's Feast
9 A Man Escaped
10 Andrei Rublev
11 Au Hasard Balthazar
12 The Seventh Seal
13 Ikiru
14 Winter Light
15 The Mission
16 The Apostle
17 Three Colors Trilogy
18 Jesus of Nazareth
19 Jesus of Montreal
20 The Flowers of St. Francis
21 Dead Man Walking
22 Stalker
23 Magnolia
24 La Promesse
25 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
26 Tender Mercies
27 A Man for All Seasons
28 Wings of Desire
29 Day of Wrath
30 Yi Yi
31 The Hiding Place
32 Wild Strawberries
33 Rosetta
34 After Life
35 The Sacrifice
36 To End All Wars
37 Chariots of Fire
38 Shadowlands
39 The Big Kahuna
40 Not of This World
41 Schindler's List
42 Millions
43 The Straight Story
44 A Taste of Cherry
45 The Passion Of The Christ
46 Becket (1964)
47 Wit
48 Open City
49 Nazarin
50 Secrets & Lies
51 Romero
52 Places in the Heart
53 It's A Wonderful Life
54 Ponette
55 Les Misérables
56 Luther
57 Tokyo Story
58 Hell House
59 Breaking The Waves
60 Crimes And Misdemeanors
61 To Kill a Mockingbird
62 The Mirror
63 The Last Temptation Of Christ
64 The Gospel of John
65 Hotel Rwanda
66 Fearless
67 Solaris (1972)
68 The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
69 Cries and Whispers
70 Stromboli
71 Stevie
72 Dogville
73 My Night at Maud's
74 Black Robe
75 Close-Up
76 The Apu Trilogy
77 Werckmeister Harmonies
78 Waking Life
79 Koyaanisqatsi aka Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance.
80 Peter and Paul
81 13 Conversations About One Thing
82 The Sweet Hereafter
83 Dersu Uzala
84 Trial of Joan of Arc
85 Summer
86 Fiddler on the Roof
87 The Bicycle Thief
88 The Year Of Living Dangerously
89 Money
90 The Elephant Man
91 Faust (1926)
92 Molokai: The Story of Father Damien
93 A Moment of Innocence
94 Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring
95 Sansho the Bailiff
96 Lilies of the Field
97 The Wind Will Carry Us aka Bad ma ra khahad bord.
98 The Addiction
99 The Song of Bernadette
100 Tales of Ugetsu

Life is Beautiful

We watched Life is Beautiful as part of the Dads in Media Blogathon being hosted at Strange Culture. I chose it because of the key role played by the dad and because it has been on the Arts & Faith list of Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films, though I don't see it on their current list. All I knew about the film was that the dad succeeded in keeping his son alive and in good spirits in a WW2 Nazi concentration camp -no mean feat. It turned out to be everything The Husband dislikes in a film, so the dad in our house wasn't overly thrilled with this choice: not only was it a foreign (Italian) film with subtitles, it had much sadness. It had much laughter, too, but sadness was preponderant in the second half.

trailer:


The BBC review points out some problems:

It may have been showered with awards (including three Oscars) and struck box-office gold around the world, but "La Vita è Bella" remains a deeply problematic contribution to the growing body of films about the Holocaust.

The Guardian's review shares the discomfort:

He's managed to make his film without offending the world. La Vita è Bella has broken Italian box-office, and been hugely acclaimed in the US. The Pope has given it at least implicit blessing by having it privately screened, and it's been given a special award by the State of Israel. But I can't help feeling we've turned a corner in the way we think about the Holocaust when a film this naively blundering can pass without question.

The Observer agrees:

Benigni's affirmation has been bought at far too high a price and has a hollow, dispiriting ring.

EW didn't approve either.

Roger Ebert had some positive words:

``Life Is Beautiful'' is not about Nazis and Fascists, but about the human spirit. It is about rescuing whatever is good and hopeful from the wreckage of dreams. About hope for the future.

As I read the reviews I remembered the complaints that Hogan's Heroes made the Germans look stupid and made it look like a lark to be in a concentration camp. But those complaints, like the complaints the reviewers shared about Life is Beautiful, miss the point, in my mind. The dad here is the hero and the focus of the film. His world is his family, and that's what's important to him: he places the well-being of his family, both their physical and emotional well-being, above everything else. I think of a quote from the Monkees movie Head about the human mind being unable to distinguish between reality and the vividly imagined experience. This dad turns a living hell into a livable experience for his son.

Murnau's Faust

This 1926 silent film was directed by F.W. Murnau. It is based on the German story of a man who makes a pact with the Devil. Faust is # 91 on the Arts and Faith list of 100 most spiritually significant films.

via Youtube:

Senses of Cinema has an article which concludes,

Through the use of light and movement, and some brilliant special effects, Murnau attempted to create a visual equivalent of Goethe's literary masterpiece. Murnau's film may not be as great an icon as Goethe's classic, but it is nonetheless a cinematic masterpiece worthy of its filmmaker.

Films de France says,

Where the film is most impressive is in its avant-garde cinematography - which by the standards of 1925, when the film was made, was way ahead of its time. Murnau’s technical competence, imagination and willingness to take a gamble and try something different all play a part in defining the film’s unique visual feel. The way in which the film uses image to convey the emotions of its protagonists and the sheer awesome power of the Devil is something which only a few other filmmakers could ever come near to matching. Time and again, the spectator is stunned by Murnau’s artistic genius - and his daring.

Roger Ebert considers it a "great movie" and says that

"Faust," with its supernatural vistas of heaven and hell, is particularly distinctive in the way it uses the whole canvas. ... Murnau treated the screen as if it offered a larger space than his contemporaries imagined;

5/20/2008 update:

Having just seen this film yesterday it came to mind when I saw the post at Finding the Balance: Woodstock for Preachers - Day 1 (I think I followed a Methoblog link, but I can't trace it back now...) where the blogger compares his preaching conference to Woodstock (I wasn't at Woodstock, so I don't know) and comments:

So, here I am at the Festival of Homiletics, which I've determined is "Woodstock for Preachers (absent the free drugs and love - I hope! Uggh - kill me now)."

The angel in the last scene of the movie (at about 1:44:30 here) protects the couple in the name of love, even though their love was inspired by carnal desire and corrupted by the Devil and condemned by society and brought them both to their deaths, and calls love

The Word that wings joyfully throughout the universe, The Word that appeases every pain and grief, The Word that expiates all human guilt, the Eternal Word...

Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

And I'm in favor of free drugs, which would surely help with our budget. Going from 80% to 50% prescription drug coverage in a one-income household was a real kicker.

10/11/2009 update: House of Mirth and Movies has a review.

F. W. Murnau

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1931 at the age of 42 of film maker F. W. Murnau. FilmReference.com has an article on him. He directed Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926), each of which can be seen online at those links.

The Last Laugh (1924):

Roger Ebert has a review of The Last Laugh here. Senses of Cinema has an article. Bloomberg has a piece on the restoration of the film. Images Journal has an article that discusses both The Last Laugh and Faust.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) is at youtube in 9 parts. It is #25 on the Arts and Faith list of 100 most spiritually significant films. The Web of Murnau has a review and links to other resources here. FilmReference.com has an article on this film. Roger Ebert's review is here.

Filmsquish reviews it here, saying:

Murnau's Sunrise makes inspirational waves, both in the way his dramatic plot takes us to extremes of emotion while still using well known devices such as irony to tell his hero's story. All to say it's no surprise that this film's made the list of the Top 250 on IMdb. This is classic storytelling, and though old, genuinely original.

part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

Tokyo Story

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1963 of Yasujiro Ozu, a noted Japanese film director. To honor his memory we watched Tokyo Story, the first film we've seen by him. This film is #57 on ArtsAndFaith.com's list of top 100 spiritually significant films. It is also on Time's list of top 100 movies. It is on the most recent top-10 list from the BFI, as well as their last list.

We have the Criterion edition of this film but did not watch any of the special features -just the film itself. Here is the Criterion trailer:

"As long as life goes on relationships between parents and children will bring boundless joy and endless grief."

Guardian Unlimited has a review. Roger Ebert's review is here. He begins his review with these spoiler-ridden words:

No story could be simpler. An old couple come to the city to visit their children and grandchildren. Their children are busy, and the old people upset their routines. In a quiet way, without anyone admitting it, the visit goes badly. The parents return home. A few days later, the grandmother dies. Now it is the turn of the children to make a journey.

From these few elements Yasujiro Ozu made one of the greatest films of all time. "Tokyo Story" (1953) lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. It doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding. It does this so well that I am near tears in the last 30 minutes. It ennobles the cinema.

And I think these words capture my emotional response to the movie. It is such a quiet, calm film and yet it has great power to move. Or at least I thought so. The Younger Son was more confused by it than moved, and he prefers Kurosawa's Ikiru, which he said he would gladly watch again with me. He passed on the opportunity to watch this one again sometime.

6/20/2008:
1001 Flicks has a review.

Ikiru

Today is Day 2 of the week-long filmsquish.com Kurosawa Blogathon. This is our 3rd film.

Ikiru is, like Rashomon and Sanshiro Sugata, available online. Like Sanshiro Sugata, it has been removed from GoogleVideo.com. Why is that?

This is a beautiful and inspiring movie, one I can completely understand earning a place on the artsandfaith.com list of 100 most spiritually significant films. The Younger Son likes this film, and I do have to admit he hasn't been thrilled with others from the list.

We find out that Watanabe is dying of stomach cancer in the first scene of the film, so no spoilers there. The film is the story of how he comes to terms with the news and how he decides "to live" (the English translation of "ikiru") the time remaining to him. Much of the second 1/2 of the movie is told in flashbacks showing Watanabe's focus in his last months. The question is, "How would you change your life if you knew you had less than a year to live?" This film is Watanabe's answer, and I found his answer an inspiration. Every time the camera looked at Watanabe's picture I smiled. He's my new hero.

We have the Criterion edition of this film and are wondering why it is full screen -if it were letter-boxed the subtitles would be easier to read. We haven't watched any of the special features yet, but I'm particularly interested in the Kurosawa interview.

Ikiru is on Time's list of top 100 films.

Roger Ebert has a review online here. He closes his comments with this:

I saw "Ikiru" first in 1960 or 1961. I went to the movie because it was playing in a campus film series and only cost a quarter. I sat enveloped in the story of Watanabe for 2 1/2 hours, and wrote about it in a class where the essay topic was Socrates' statement, "the unexamined life is not worth living."' Over the years I have seen "Ikiru" every five years or so, and each time it has moved me, and made me think. And the older I get, the less Watanabe seems like a pathetic old man, and the more he seems like every one of us.

Christianity Today has a review here. Only the Cinema reviewed the film for the blogathon.

1001 Flicks has a review.

The Apostle

Today is the last day of Strange Culture's Film + Faith Blogathon, so we watched The Apostle, #16 on the Arts and Faith list of 100 spiritually significant films.

This is the story of a deeply flawed man, a man of God who serves the Lord but who yields to sexual temptation and fits of violent anger. In an interview with The Journal of Religion and Film Robert Duvall, who wrote, directed and played the title role of Sonny, said

Sonny’s a good guy; he believed he had a calling from the time he was twelve; and he errs like most characters do, you know? He’s a kind of percentage mixture at the beginning and at the end. There’s a certain percentage chance he will do good and a percentage chance he will again err. But he knows he has erred and that he needs confession and redemption.

Sonny is weak but accomplishes great things for God; Sonny sins but maintains his faith and ministry through his punishment. He is forgiven but must accept accountability.

trailer:


I was the only one of us who liked this movie. The Husband said, "At least it didn't have subtitles." When I asked them if they liked it The Daughter just looked at me and The Younger Son said, "What was there to like?" I found a lot to like and a lot to identify with. I was touched by the always-there hope of redemption for all of us no matter how sinful we are. Let me hear an Amen!

1/16/2008:

This Distracted Globe has a review.