achenier

Watching books on film carries the danger of replacing a rich and complex experience by an overly simplified, bare-boned one.

My most recent experience was watching on tape the television series on John Adams, based on the the David McCullough biography which I had read a few years ago.

My general impression is that the two principal actors, Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney (as John Adams and his influential wife, Abigail) gave a different rendition of the personalities of the main characters from what I had imagined them to be as I read the book. They became much more one-dimensional, for example.

Their personal communication style, as rendered by the actors, became an irritant to me. Adams way of speaking made him appear as shifty, untrustworthy and visionless : an 18th Century Dick Cheney. Abigail, as a condescending know-it-all.

Now that I have seen the movie, I have find it hard to return to my previous impression of a complex man married to a very strong and intelligent woman.

A favorite past time of my wife and I is to take advantage of the great collection of foreign language feature films in our local library.

In the last two years, we have rediscovered the wonder of great cinema through films from all over the world. It is so rewarding to view cinema that has not been designed with 12-year olds in mind.

But there are exceptions to our overwhelmingly positive experience. Two nights ago, we placed the Baabul video in the DVD player and waited to be enriched and entertained. After fifteen minutes, we both decided that this film was unwatchable.

In those few minutes...

....a father meets his son in an airport. The son has been abroad studying. Amazingly,they don't recognize each other and engage into a ridiculous dialogue at the end of which they realize who they both are because they are going to the same address (or something like that). It is obvious that both characters, father and son, are computer literate. Surely they must have exchanged photographs in those years. And what son would not recognize his father after seven years? The only word to describe that kind of scriptwriting is stupid.

...father and son and family then engage in a car drag race ...in the middle of heavy traffic. Everybody is having a grand old time with much laughter and good spirit! The fact that dozens of other people's lives are endangered just make the event more exciting! Now this car chase is not brought about by events in the story i.e. it is not someone running away from bad guys etc.. It is a car chase for FAMILY FUN! This kind of film making is not only pitiful, it is also immoral in my view. Who would want to view a two-hour movie about of such imbeciles?

At this stage, we pressed on the eject button unable to believe that any film maker who produces this type of moronic material can redeem himself in the rest of the movie.

A disappointing film in many ways.

For instance,the persecution of the Jewish community is addressed, but in a way that does not makes us feel the true horror of it. It is presented as a political event that the characters in the film view more or less as a matter of fact.

Similarly, little of the chilling terror that must have accompanied the maquis in their activities comes across. And some of the scenes are so unrealistic that they break whatever spell the film had succeeded in creating to that point. For instance, how likely is it that Resistant perpetrators of a successful attack on German troops would leisurely stand around their victims lying in the middle of the street, and chat. And how likely is it that one of the Résistance higher-up would emerge from the shadows and join them in their chat ? Surely, after the grenade explosion, the Germans, or the police, would have been swarming in immediately.

The vast majority of native Frenchmen in this movie are portrayed as traitors and callous collaborators, while the Nazi barbarians are presented as gentlemen, assassinated at random, mostly for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

We must never forget that the population of France was the hostage of brutal thugs. To understand the conditions in that country, imagine if a village today was taken over by a gang of Hell's Angel who threaten everyone with death and torture if they don't do as they are told. Yes, of course villagers should refuse to obey and even go into the bikers' den and shoot everyone of them on sight. But is that really what we would all do?

Surprisingly, this film was made in France by French people. It is another example of French self-flagellation.

The film sins in another important way. The clear impression given is that the whole resistance movement was led and driven by immigrants with very little involvement of native French people. As if there was no Charles de Gaulle, no Jean Moulin, no hundred of thousands of other resistants, a great number of whom perished.

Do not get me wrong. The intention behind this film is noble. Yes, of course, we must be informed of the essential, enormous and heroic contribution of immigrants to the Résistance efforts. This contribution needs to be acknowledged and honored.

But this also needs to be done in a way that is fair to the other victims of German aggression. They are not to blame for what was done to them.

To anticipate the experience of viewing this film, imagine spending 2 hours listening to the The Chipmunks chattering away without stop. Except that the giggling creatures in the film are not the Chipmunks. They are violent and vicious, constantly clobbering each other.

To pick one example out of many : two characters appear on screen, one holding a hammer, the other a spike to be planted. The character with the hammer suddenly smacks the other character on the head with it. No reason. Just to get a 'laugh'.

To me, a most disconcerting thing was to see the Mom sitting next to me in the cinema with her two toddlers burst out laughing.

The violence in this film is not at all like what we used to see in Roadrunner cartoons. No attempt were made then to portray the Roadrunner or the Coyote as three-dimensional human beings. There was no possibility of associating the characters on screen with real people.

The attempts at humor" in this film are more like that of the Three Stooges. If you loved the Stooges, Despicable Me will leave you in stitches.

This is the most spectacular nature documentary that I have ever seen.

My wife and I walked out of the theatre so spellbound that we had difficulty expressing to each other our amazement at what we had just seen.

It is an amazing, astounding, awesome film. I have seen a great number of documentaries on the oceans, including the excellent ones from the BBC. But none of them has made me so aware of the vastness, beauty, power, and variety of the seas.

One reviewer wrote that there was much beauty but little information in the documentary. I could not disagree more. There was an immense quantity of information in that documentary. Not data, but contextual information so essential to the understanding of any topic.

But this is not a morality play (unless you strain to interpret it that way). If you are a climate change denier (God forbid), or if the environment is not a concern of yours (God forbid again), don't be 'afraid' to see this film. There are ecological references but there is no browbeating.

And don't miss it while it is still in the theatres. It is impossible for a DVD to do it justice. The oceans do not fit on a TV screen.

It does not matter how high, or deep, your current appreciation of the wonders of Life on Earth is. For a few dollars and a couple of hours of your time, it will increase tenfold.