“You’re
not bad — you’re innocent. Innocent people are just… uh… dangerous.”
These
words are spoken about 16-year-old Rose Slavin (a lovely Camilla Belle), but
they could also apply to her father Jack (mmmmm… Daniel Day-Lewis). The year is
1986 when The Ballad of Jack and Rose opens, and our title characters are
the sole inhabitants of a former commune on an island off the East Coast. Over
the course of the film, however, the outside world will invade the Slavins’
seemingly idyllic sanctuary, and that innocence will be lost.
There’s
something vaguely creepy about this father-daughter relationship, but it most
likely stems from the fact that Rose is clinging to Jack with everything she
has. Jack suffers from a terminal illness that has left him a bag of bones and
his daughter ill-equipped for life without him — so much so that she plans to
exit when he does. Jack’s solution is to invite his sometime-girlfriend
Kathleen (a weary-looking Catherine Keener) and her two teenage sons to live
with them and ostensibly watch over Rose once he’s gone.
Rose
reacts to these perceived trespassers with outright hostility and tragic
manipulation. She puts the obviously outclassed Kathleen through the wringer,
and the young men are putty in the hands of this brown-eyed Daddy’s girl. Jack,
meanwhile, is waging a war of his own with a real estate developer building on
the island. He fights his battles from his high horse and is as oblivious to
the consequences of his actions as his beloved daughter is hers.
The
third movie written and directed by Rebecca Miller, The Ballad of Jack and Rose is a frustrating piece of film. It’s
beautifully shot by Ellen Kuras (Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and features a riveting performance by
Day-Lewis, but the eleventh-hour epiphanies of Miller’s characters do little to
redeem their behavior or rope the viewer into caring. And a deflowering scene
juxtaposed against the escape of a copperhead into a little nook is right out
of Symbolism for Dummies. I adored
Miller’s last film, Personal Velocity,
and this feels like a step backwards.
The Ballad of
Jack and Rose could best be compared to a cake that didn’t turn out quite
right. It contains the finest ingredients and was made by a talented baker, but
something went amiss during the process and left us with something that only
looks delicious.
“Well, they’re
not really wild if you’re taking care of them.”
Mark
Bittner fields these comments with the good humor of a 21st-century flower
child. He’s called the St. Francis of San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill because
he’s taken it upon himself to look after the wild parrots that often roost
there. The people strolling through the area stop to admire and ask him
questions about the flock, but there’s a skeptical jerk around every corner.
The
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a charming documentary by Judy
Irving, focuses the lens on Bittner and his close relationship with a group of
cherry-headed conures that have made their home in the trees of the City by the
Bay. Bittner, a ponytailed and smart 40-something slacker, has no visible means
of support and enjoys rent-free lodgings while he interacts with and observes
his subjects.
Bittner
has names for the parrots and occasionally invents elaborate back stories about
them as well. We get to know Mingus, who has a bum leg and loves music; Picasso
and Sophie, a longtime couple; and Connor, a blue-crowned conure who is quiet
and somewhat of an outcast because of the color of his head. Bittner speaks
about these birds as if they were his feather-covered children, and as we begin
to get as attached as he is, reality sets in. The demolition of his free
accommodations is imminent, and Mother Nature reminds us about the survival of
the fittest.
The
camerawork, though not as accomplished as that found in bar-raising
documentaries like Winged Migration or Microcosmos, perfectly captures
the parrots in their habitat and illustrates the personalities to which Bittner
lovingly refers. Too bad about the musical score, though — in the late ’80s
it probably would have been considered New Age, but now it’s just plain boring.
I’ve
often watched documentaries and wondered how the presumably black-hearted
filmmaker was able to disassociate from the (very) moving images and keep from
getting involved. Most satisfyingly, The
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is not one of those films.
“This is how I
tried to become a real Japanese.”
Adapted
from an autobiographical novel by Amelie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling is
about a young Belgian woman’s desire to make a go of it in Japan. Amelie
(Sylvie Testud) was born in the Land of the Rising Sun and has fond memories of
her early years, so she accepts a year-long contract to be an interpreter at
the Yumimoto Corporation. The next 365 days consist of a number of unwitting
faux pas on her part and increasingly cruel repercussions from her superiors
which ultimately find Amelie in the role of restroom attendant, but the
stubborn woman finds a kind of masochistic peace in not quitting.
I
love that leading ladies outside of the United States don’t need to be gorgeous
sex bombs, only good actresses. Sylvie Testud (probably best known here for The Chateau) won the Cesar for this
performance and has a goofy, Everywoman look that helps the viewer relate to
her.
Fear and
Trembling has a Secretary bent to it, with its
dark humor and sadism in the workplace, but it’s the culture clash angle that
kept my attention, leaving the Japanese notion of honor open to new
interpretation.
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2005.
