Yeah,
we’ve seen it before: single, self-centered, career-minded woman acquires,
through generally wacky means, somebody else’s sassy kid. Adult and child
initially butt heads, but eventually help each other grow emotionally. When
this premise is done with no thought, you get something like Bogus with Whoopi Goldberg and Haley
Joel Osment. When it’s done right, you’re treated to Mostly Martha (opening
Friday, September 27, at the Little), a terrific German import that invigorates
the tired, aforementioned concept with the hunger-inducing food preparation scenes
of films like Big Night, Babette’s Feast, and Like Water For Chocolate (but,
thankfully, not Woman On Top).
When Martha opens, we hear a woman describing an intricately prepared
meal, and we assume the conversation is taking place in a restaurant, possibly
as a waitress runs down the evening’s specials to her customers. In reality,
the conversation occurs in a shrink’s office, as Martha (Martina Gedeck)
illustrates how she would prepare fresh pigeon, while her doctor (August
Zirner) clutches his stomach in an attempt to conceal the growling. Martha is
the head chef at Lido, a haute Hamburg eatery whose owner, Frida (Sibylle
Canonica), forces Martha to see the therapist because she’s a little
confrontational with diners who have a problem with her dishes.
Martha is a rigid, thirtysomething
woman who allows nothing into her life other than cooking. Overly controlling,
with hair locked in an unforgiving bun, Martha doesn’t cook because she loves
to do it or enjoys tasting her creations. She does it because she’s extremely
good at it. She approaches food with the affection of a chemist combining
unlovable chemicals. And, of course, Martha’s heart has been on ice for a long
time.
One tragic event threatens to derail
Martha’s carefully constructed, but seemingly joyless, life — the death of
her sister. When Martha becomes the ward of her young niece, Lina (Maxime
Foerste), her work begins to suffer. So boss Frida, without consulting Martha,
hires an Italian chef named Mario (Sergio Castellitto) to help out in Lido’s
kitchen. Needless to say, Martha doesn’t cotton to the Puccini-humming Mario,
but he eventually grows on her, especially after he slyly convinces the
withdrawn Lina to eat her first post-tragedy meal.
The way writer-director Sandra
Nettelbeck handled the subplot involving Lina’s refusal to eat was one of the
things that made Martha work. In
addition to being the catalyst for the inevitable relationship between Martha
and Mario, it also helps establish just how out of touch Martha really is. A kid
whose mother has just died needs comfort food, but Martha tries to feed Lina
her nouveau cuisine. “I wish I had a recipe for you,” a desperate and
concerned Martha says to a withering Lina, as if recipes are the cure-all for
life’s problems.
Nettlebeck carefully prepares her
story, though it’s very formulaic and predictable. The gorgeous scenes
involving Martha’s food preparation would be enough to separate Martha from other films of this ilk, but
Nettlebeck is also blessed with a score of great performances, especially from
Foerste and Gedeck, the latter of whom won Germany’s equivalent of an Oscar.
If I make it
to 93,
my greatest wish is that I’ll still maintain control over my bladder and
sphincter. Concern over whether I have command over my craft will be as far
from my mind as memories of eating solid food. For Manoel de Oliveira, the
four-time Cannes-winning nonagenarian from Portugal, age is more of an
inspiration than an obstacle. He’s been making films before they became
“talkies,” and in 1985, he received a special lifetime achievement
award from the Venice Film Festival, an honor generally bestowed upon people
with one foot in the grave. Oliveira has won three more awards from Venice
since then.
Much like last year’s Faithless — in which an Ingmar Bergman
script was brought to life by an actor (Erland Josephson) who’s played
Bergman’s screen alter-ego a number of times — Oliveira’s I’m
Going Home (also opening September 27 at the Little) features a lead
performance by Michel Piccoli, who has appeared in a handful of the
writer-director’s films playing roles we can only assume are loosely based on
Oliveira. Here, Piccoli plays Gilbert Valence, a very popular but rapidly aging
star of the stage in end-of-the-millennium Paris. When Home opens, he’s performing in Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King as the titular ruler who
is going absolutely insane over the end of his reign. It’s not exactly subtle,
and the fact that the first 15 minutes of Home is basically a filmed version of the play comes off a bit weird and clunky
(especially in a 90-minute film — if you’re one of those dipshits who can’t
get to the theater on time, you might think you walked into the wrong one).
The instant Valence leaves the stage
after his performance, he learns his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been
killed in a car accident. Flash to “some years later,” where Valence
has only a young grandson (Jean Koeltgen) to call family, and roles are
becoming increasingly difficult to find. His agent (Antoine Chappey) tries to
push a high-paying television part, but Valence wants nothing to do with that
medium. After briefly appearing as Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Valence is given a big
opportunity. American director John Crawford (John Malkovich, in his second
straight role as a director following Shadow
of the Vampire) is about to begin filming James Joyce’s Ulysses. The actor who was to play Buck
Mulligan has backed out, and Crawford wants to replace him with Valence, who
would have only three days to master the film’s difficult English dialogue.
There are three scenes that really
stand out in Home. The first shows a
pair of young fans approaching Valence to ask him for his autograph while he’s
window-shopping. This exquisite scene is shot through a storefront window,
which frees it from unneeded dialogue. The second scene, a much more
interesting metaphor, depicts the usually reflective Valence deciding to buy a
pair of shoes. “I’m constantly in someone else’s shoes,” he says,
referring to his career portraying other people. The third remarkable scene is Home‘s final shot, which I won’t reveal
here. It’ll break your heart.
Stupid people
like to make the argument that there just aren’t any good roles for
older women. I don’t necessarily believe that’s true, but the pandering,
annoying, and completely artificial The Banger Sisters definitely makes
a strong case for the stupid people. How much lower can you get than a film
with two extremely unlikable female leads preaching a message about the
empowerment women receive when they let famous guys have sex with them? In that
regard, Sisters is one step above a
snuff film.
The film is about a pair of women
who used to be “famous” groupies back in the heyday of the Hollywood
rock ‘n’ roll scene. Set two decades after their last hurrah, the opening scene
depicts completely broke current groupie Suzette (Goldie Hawn) deciding to
drive to Phoenix to hit up former sidekick Vinny (Susan Sarandon) for a quick
loan so she can get back on her feet. Vinny, we’re told, married into money and
should be flush with cash to spare for an old friend. What follows should be
found in the dictionary next to the word “predictable.”
Interested
in more movie ramblings from Jon? Visit his website, Planet Sick-Boy, at
www.sick-boy.com, or listen to him on WBER’s Friday Morning Show.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2002.
