David Brooks, Avatar and The Messiah Complex

Read David Brooks' cronic of Avatar, the James Cameron 3D fantasy.

"Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.

"This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization."

...

"Still, would it be totally annoying to point out that the whole White Messiah fable, especially as Cameron applies it, is kind of offensive?

"It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.

"It’s just escapism, obviously, but benevolent romanticism can be just as condescending as the malevolent kind — even when you surround it with pop-up ferns and floating mountains."

Oliver Stone's new Showtime documentary "Secret history of America" stirs trouble

Hitler? A scapegoat. Stalin? I can empathise. Oliver Stone stirs up history

Oliver Stone: "Hitler was a scapegoat"

"Stalin has a complete other story," Stone said. "Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good.' Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect ... People in America don't know the connection between WWI and WWII ... I've been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes to understand their point of view. We're going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions ... Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated."

Suffice it to say, he's playing with some powerful perceptions here.

Greg Gutfeld writes: "'Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,' [Stone] told reporters, managing to slip non-killer Joe McCarthy into the mix, without causing a murmur.

"But hey, he's right about Mao, Hitler and Stalin — it's just so unfair the way things work when you kill millions of innocent people. But true to his blind allegiance to relativism, Stone claims that "we can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good.' Hitler was an easy scapegoat."

"He's right: Finger-pointing is so judgmental. Case in point: Stone claims that conservative pundits will hate the show, maybe because conservative pundits hate excuses masquerading as empathy. Me? I don't care if Adolf's mommy never loved him or the maid made fun of his willy. I had similar problems and I didn't kill six million Jews — I think.

"But saying only conservatives will be upset by this, is really a slap in the face to progressives. For Stone assumes that — unlike right-wingers — the left will willingly accept his revisionist look at history's greatest killers.

"He's right: As embracers of all things relative, they are crackers to his cheese."

Police, Adj.

The new film by Corneliu Porumboiu is warmly received by the American film critics. For a list of reviews, see here. The film was awarded the Un Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes earlier in May 2009.

I'll have to put it on my list of things to see this year, when and if it hits the cinemas. The film has stormed an entire critical debate about the true merits of Cinema Verite.

Alexander Zalben of filmcritic.com writes:
"...You can take solace in the first ninety minutes, which puts [the protagonist] right in the middle of a police procedural, investigating a possible drug ring. I should maybe clarify, though. When I say police procedural, I don't mean the flashy lights, quick zooms, and punny quips of CSI and its ilk. I mean a quite literal procedural: lots of filing, filling out papers and reports, walking between offices, and lots and lots of waiting around, staking out suspects. Oh god, so much waiting around. And drinking tea. And just standing there. For minutes at a time.

This is, without a doubt, the most purposefully boring movie I've ever seen.

Then there's the second thing Porumboiu is interested in, language (the "adjective" half of the title)..."

The movie protagonist, Police Detective Cristi played by actor Dragos Bucur, is led to debate his boss Anghelache, dictionary in hand, about the merits of throwing the book at the suspect under investigation and about the meanings of words like Law and Police - as in Film Politist (Crime Thriller) and Stat Politist (Police State).

"Meticulously constructed, Police, Adjective foreshadows Cristi and Anghelache's showdown with several seemingly casual exchanges. In one, the young cop tells an older one that guys who are inept at one sport will also be bad at another. It's a "law," he says" (writes Mark Jenkins of NPR.)

And Alex O. Scott of the NY Times:

"[Cristi] deals with pushy or recalcitrant co-workers, trudges through days of surveillance work without changing his sweater and returns home for desultory conversations with his wife, Anca (Irina Saulescu), who matter-of-factly tells him that things are not working out between them and then continues as if nothing of consequence had been said.

At another point, as Anca, a teacher and something of a linguistic pedant, listens to a romantic pop song over and over on her computer, she and Cristi have a debate about images and symbols in literature. Why, he wonders, don’t people just stick with the literal meanings of words, and forget about all the fancy stuff. His position is a hyperbolically blunt statement of an impulse that drives much recent Romanian cinema, away from metaphor and toward a concrete, illusion-free reckoning with things as they are.

This can be called realism, but that sturdy old word is not quite sufficient to describe “Police, Adjective,” which is at once utterly plain, even affectless, and marvelously rich. Mr. Porumboiu’s style might be called proceduralist. Like Cristi writing his reports, Mr. Porumboiu scrupulously records details in a manner that only seems literal-minded because his technique is invisible, and his intelligence resolutely unshowy.

“Police, Adjective” tells a small story well. At the level of plot, it is consistently engaging, and the psychology of the ambivalent detective, a staple of film noir, is given a new twist in the character of Cristi. But the more closely you look, the more you see: a movie about a marriage, about a career in crisis, about a society riven by unstated class antagonisms and hobbled by ancient authoritarian habits. So much in this meticulous and moving film is between the lines, and almost nothing is by the book."

PS. The film can apparently be seen here. For a Google English translation of that page, see here.

Doubt (2008)

Director: John Patrick Shanley
Cast: Phylip Seymor Hoffman, Amy Adams, Meryl Streep

The St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Bronx and its school. Father Flynn is a revered figure in the community and among the school children. It's 1964 and the Father sermons about President Kennedy's assassination the year before. He talks about people bound together in hopelessness and despair. Imagine now you are alone in your hopelessness, he says. Nobody outside of you understands what you are going through. And, he says, now imagine someone else is alone in their despair. Can you find love and understanding in your heart for that someone else?

Sister Aloysius, the school Principal, however, is an acute judge of character. And she will not let herself be fooled by Father Flynn. She has seen him innocently touch a boy's hand. She suspects he has an affinity for young boys.

Father Flynn instructs the boys in basketball, how to keep the feet steady for a good shot. He loves the kids, and the kids feel great around him. A school girl confides to him she's in love with a class mate. Has she told him yet? No, she's too shy. What are you waiting for, he asks? Father Flynn is chiding a young boy for his dirty nails. Look at my nails, he says. Aren't they well trimmed? A boy asks him, what do you do when all the girls you've invited to dance have refused? Father Flynn responds: That's when you become a priest.

Sister James is a young teacher. Her eight graders learn addition for fractions, and common denominators. They learn history as well. What did President Roosevelt mean when he said "All we have to fear is fear itself"? And what did Patrick Henry famously say in the Continental Congress?

The young teacher lovingly gives it all in her class. But sometimes she has trouble keeping the class in check. Kids sometimes run around behind her back, and don't always listen to her. Sister Aloysius drops by to check if all things are in order. The kids are not supposed to use ball point pens, it ruins their hand writing. And kids should be immediately sent to her Principal office if they make trouble. That's what the office is for.

Sister Aloysius is concerned kids are falling behind academically. She demands to have the Pope's picture hanging in the front of class. "But it's the wrong Pope", the teacher says. No matter. If you look in the Pope's picture hanging on the wall, the Sister Aloysius responds, you can see in the reflection what kids are doing behind your back in class. It's a good tip for the teacher.

But Sister Aloysius is not that strict. The nuns are in convent for dinner. Sister Veronica is 80 years old, and is almost going blind. Sister Aloysius is quite concerned the priests will find out the old nun's eyes are failing, and will force her out to a retirement home, where she can't be helped anymore.

The phone rings in the middle of Sister James' class. Father Flynn asks to have his altar boy, Donald, excused from class, to join him in the Sacristy. When Donald later returns, he is visibly upset. What happened in the Sacristy?

The teacher is concerned, and has her suspicions. She's also seen Father Flynn return a jacket to Donald's locker. She voices her concern to the Principal, Sister Aloysius. It's the confirmation of Sister Aloysius's fears. She may have no proof, just a suspicion, but it's her duty to confront Father Flynn. She will not back down on this.

*

That is a nice setup, as far as it goes. From there on, the movie stops being as subtle. That's too bad. A chance missed. It's not that Father Flynn may have had an improper relationship with his altar boy. Or may not have had. It's not that Sister Aloysius has a duty to put to rest her suspicions, and should face the reality that she may never find out what really happened. If something happened. It's not that Catholic priests are stereotyped as molesters. And it's not that 1960's era Catholic Schools are stereotyped as medieval institutions, bent on forcing poor kids to learn pesky math and history.

Maybe the movie lays it out how it happened. If it happened. The Doubt is there, if it did. So I won't tell you how the story meets its end. Make your own end, if you will. And make it so that Father Flynn is in the end promoted to a larger church and school.