Schindler's List

Oskar Schindler, as portrayed by Liam Neeson. | Google Images

Any Holocaust film is dense and heart-wrenching. Then came Steven Spielberg with Schindler's List: a Holocaust story that revolves around a German businessman and a member of the Nazi Party.

The film is a war story with only one side holding guns. It was shot in black and white with Spielberg saying how it was a metaphor that all Holocaust stories are void of life, and that color represents life. His first visualized approach was to make the story a documentary of the Schindler Jews, thus, the black and white theme added the element of a documentary film (also to note the epilogue where the surviving Schindler Jews visited his grave and offered stones).

The film is heavy. Most scenes are unbearable to watch but how it was presented made an artistic impression that the truth is naked and this was what happened. It presented a Holocaust story with rich symbolism and representations.

The girl in red coat

The girl in red coat appearing in some scenes all throughout the film. | Google Images

One of the well-known feats of the film was the girl in red coat, with critics debating as to what she symbolizes and how was she significant to the story. Spielberg posits that the girl represents the obvious state of the Jews (red in black and white) and that the neighboring countries, especially the United States, didn't do anything at that time to help them.

The girl's presence, for me, was an approach I rarely see in other films. Its rich symbolism was a vital element to the overall appeal of the film. At first I thought that she symbolized innocence, or hope in the least.

A rare story

The film is on the top of my must-watch list since it provided sense to a war void of it. The tale of Oskar Schindler and his epiphany is a rare story, almost fictional, that one could conclude that the world isn't as ugly as many see it. Imagine how would a well-provided German Nazi member sacrifice all his wealth to save a thousand Jews and gain nothing in return?

Although many would say that the film is a classic representation of the fight between absolute good and absolute evil, I think otherwise. It is a battle of circumstance, and that circumstance is war. The film projects a good German, the suffering Jews, and how a story of salvation occurred amid the chaos of overlapping power. There is no absolute good and no absolute evil present in the film. There is imperfection. It is imperfection in the form of Schindler, of Goeth, of Itzhak Stern, of Pfefferberg, of the girl in red coat.

Itzhak Stern and Oskar Schindler. | Google Images

You've noticed by now that the mood of this post is somewhat heavy and serious. This is what this movie did to me. I'll give it a 10/10.

Babel

Poster for Babel. | Google Images

Four stories from around the world all linked into a movie of high artistic calibre. Babel is a multi-narrative film, plot-oriented, greatly influenced by the complexity of time, which showcases communication (miscommunication) from four different stories in a global scale. We all know of the story of the Tower of Babel and the humanity’s attempt to reach God but failed and were scattered all over the earths with different languages. The film retold the story by means of a more personal multi-narrative involving four races of humanity.

It all began with the rifle. Somehow, in time complex, these four stories were connected. USA, Mexico, Morocco, and Japan; a rifle was shot, a woman was hit, and they are interconnected. The construction of such connection is a feat itself. It wasn’t mind-boggling as it should have been but the feature of a multi-narrative resulted into a smooth and clear connection which other films would translate into audience’s confusion. Babel used the characters as agents to explain the connection among the four stories. The result was a concise and clear shift of setting from Chieko to Amelia to the Moroccan kids to the Americans. It avoided the general effect of “what is going on?” when a film uses a multi-narrative approach. The interconnected stories were the stronghold of Babel.

Time became a major catalyst in the progress of the film, to point on how the plot was presented. The viewers had a sense of following. The story happened for a span of five hours and each setting would have been chaotic if not for the element of time which was distinctive in many scenes. The film implanted a sensation that every setting happened at the same time (with variations on specific hours). The plot, however, does not coincide with the exact sequence of the events of the film. One such variation was visible when Richard Jones (Brad Pitt), after taking his wife to the hospital, called his kids at home where Amelia was working and gave us the conclusion that the Mexican set happened after all the other settings.

There are also representations that explain to the audience why such things occur. We can have the hunting portrait as an example. In there were Hassan Ibrahim (the seller of the rifle) and Chieko’s father (the original owner of the rifle). The relation of such portrait made us conclude of the connection of the Japan setting to the Moroccan setting.

The four stories show victims of pure circumstance richly presented by scenes that tell us what is going on and how it relates to the other. Babel is a gem of the multi-narrative and creative storytelling.

The Royal Tenenbaums

Wes Anderson is the guy. Symmetry is his best friend.

The Royal Tenenbaums is about a father who died tragically rescuing his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship. Well, not exactly. That italicized line is Royal’s epitaph (proofread by Etheline Tenenbaum, as he requested). But in a sense that is the gist of the movie where alienated Royal Tenenbaum tries to save his family, his marriage, and ultimately his personal dilemmas by pulling the best game plan he could think of, which is death. He got six weeks left (which is not true) and tells the family, especially Etheline, that he wants to catch up. A fake sickness, a fake upcoming death, a fake doctor, the same Royal with his cheeseburger—everything is set.

"This is my daughter, Margot, adopted."

The bad father catches up

You see, Royal is not a good father (not with Richie). He only has to attend Margot’s birthday party to prove it. He only has to say “This is Margot, adopted.” He only has to steal Chas’ savings when he was fourteen. The movie shows a patriarchal society with bad fathers. Etheline was left to raise the children and she did well in doing so.

Royal represents every bad father in every family; the typical guy who prioritizes his personal pursuits over the well-being of his family; the typical insensitive male human; the typical you-only-live-once-to-spend-time-with-family. His own son filed a legal suit against him and he lost (to his own son; imagine the hate of that son to push through these means).

Family of geniuses

He meets with his children; prodigies of their early years that lost their respective genius over a decade of adulthood, not recognizing that they are growing up.

Chas Tenenbaum (the son we’re talking about earlier) has been an expert on international finance stock exchange since he was a kid. Aside from being so good at money and business, he is an over-protective father. He became obsessed about his children’s safety after his wife’s death (we’re talking about waking up the kids at two in the morning shouting “Fire! Fire!” with a timer). He hated his father with the weight of a decade or more. Chas represents a child deprived of fatherly presence. This deprivation can be reflected on how he treats his own kids.

Margot Tenenbaum (the ‘adopted’) is the sophisticated, unattached, unemotional woman of class. She has been secretive over the years and was successful in hiding her smoking addiction for seventeen years. She also hid the fact that she was married to a random guy and had affairs with many other random guys, including Eli Cash, Richie’s best friend. And she’s a successful playwright.

Richie Tenenbaum is a tennis prodigy and an artist (who painted only Margot’s portraits and failed to develop this artistic attempt). He is in love with Margot and had a nervous breakdown during a tennis championship after hearing the news of Margot’s engagement with Raleigh St. Claire. Royal often brought him to dog fights excluding the other two Tenenbaums.

Representations

Men are portrayed as the traditional patriarchal. The masculine presence in the movie is overwhelming, shadowing the femininity of the other characters (Margot and Etheline). The portrayal of Royal as a father is true to many family cases. Etheline’s character as a mother is true in many ways, too. Mothers put priority on their children. Etheline had the appeal of a caring mother all throughout the film but was somehow redirected to her romantic interest with Henry Sherman (her accountant, and the reason why Royal has to put up such a plan to salvage their marriage).

"Is it dark?"

The Royal Tenenbaums is a dramedy of ironic humor and dry laughs. Many would find Anderson’s style as eccentric and unconventional but how it added the overall appeal in the movie is a plus.