The Killing Fields (1984)

 

The Killing Fields

This took a long time to get through. Not because it is bad but because it is devastating to watch. “The Killing Fields” pulls no punches and leaves you an emotional wreck. It also makes you loose hope in humankind.

Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) is a New York Times journalist working in Cambodia together with photographer Al Rockoff (John Malkovich) and interpreter Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor). It is 1973 and Cambodia is a mess. We see them cover what looks like a US airstrike and being somewhat at odds with the American presence in the country. Fast forward to 1975, the Khmer Rouge is taking the capital and Pran gets his family evacuated while the trio stays to cover events. Pran saves the two Americans from being killed by the Khmer Rouge, but when the city, including the French embassy where all westerners are interred, is emptied of Cambodians, they fail to protect Pran who is taken away to a work camp.

Back in the America Scharnberg drives a campaign to find and rescue Pran but to little avail. He also takes care of Pran’s family. Meanwhile, Pran is experiencing life under Khmer Rouge from the inside. He witnesses the destruction of society, the corruption of children and mass slaughter of civilians. In the agrarian-maoist system of the Khmer Rouge, anybody with a hint of education is suspect and Pran survives by pretending to be a very simple person.

“The Killing Fields” tells two stories. The apparent story of Scharnberg and Pran is the human interest story that the plot is hung up on. It is compelling because of the nightmare Pran goes through, but the quest of Scharnberg to pin the misfortunes of the Cambodians on the US government is rather unconvincing. Or, rather, Scharnberg himself is convincing in his almost religious zeal, but compared to the US fumbling in Vietnam, the actions in Cambodia seems trivial. If anything, it would be the inaction that is the problem here.

The second story is the tragedy of Cambodia itself. The complete meltdown and destruction is described both in poignant detail and confused context, leaving the viewer in bewildered horror of the sheer brutality of what happened. It is to my mind one of very few movies to describe this tragedy and that is just way too little. Yet, “The Killing Fields” makes up for this lack up public attention by driving the point all the way in. We see it in the small with casual executions and the complete disregard for the value of human life and in the massive scale of mass murder. When Pran walks through a swamp littered with the rotting remains of thousands of people we start to grasp the scale of this insanity and it forces you to really look while all you want is to look away. This is mass graves where not even the grave is offered. We also see it in the faces of children, the dehumanization that on a mass scale turn children into monsters. This is heartbreak in the extreme and I would have to press stop and wait another day to continue.

We see it all, mutilated bodies, executions, maimed children, despair and suffering. This is documentary, but shows us details documentaries would balk at. It is soul-numbing and yet you feel every punch. It manages to tell us that each of these millions of dead is a heartbreaking tragedy, yet is disposed of as casually as if it was a videogame by the Khmer Rouge.

I am hopelessly uninformed about the Cambodian tragedy. I tried to read up on it for this movie, but I cannot say I understand much of the politics involved. Something about that the Khmer Rouge was backed by China, who also backed Northern Vietnam, yet the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge were fighting it out between them. But all this matters little and even less for the movie. What matters is the complete corruption of humanity and the devastating tragedy.

Haing S. Ngor was a doctor in Cambodia before the civil war and spent four years in captivity. In his role as Pran, he was in a sense reliving the nightmare of his life and I cannot help thinking that this is why he is so convincing, and I wonder how it felt to him to go through all that again.

I am also very impressed with how real and authentic all this looks. In an age before CGI, we see details that you can only think of as being real, yet it cannot be, can it? Impressive and scary.

“The Killing Fields” won 3 Academy awards, including an acting award for Haing S Ngor, and was nominated for another 4. All very deserved.

It will take some time to get over this. Not for the faint hearted.

     

Stranger than Paradise (1984)

 

Stranger Than Paradise

“Stranger Than Paradise” is a movie that challenges the concepts of what a movie can and should do. While Hollywood has not entirely (some would say not at all) shed the classic story arch and format, by the mid-eighties, this format was even more entrenched. Sure, David Lynch had pushed the boundaries, and a number of arthouse directors did whatever they wanted, but it is my impression that “Stranger Than Paradise” came as a surprise for many viewers. Despite being completely different, it works and very well indeed.

The story unfolds in three acts. In the first, Eva (Eszter Balint) arrives in New York from Hungary. She is supposed to go live with an elderly woman in Cleveland, known as Aunt Lotte (Cecillia Stark), possibly her mother (?), but as she is in hospital, she must stay for ten days with her cousin Willie (John Lurie) in New York.

Willie is a small time hustler or sees himself as one. He lives in a little one-room apartment and does practically nothing. When he finally does something, it is gambling at the races or cheating in poker with his friend Eddie (Richard Edson), an equally vacant type. He has no idea how to deal with Eva and together they just sit in his little apartment and smoke vast amounts of cigarettes. Eventually Eva leaves for Cleveland.

In the second act Willie and Eddie muster enough initiative to borrow a car to drive to Cleveland to visit Eva. Once there, the activity level drops to zero again and they are just sitting playing cards with Aunt Lotte. Eva has a lousy job vending hot dogs and a maybe-boyfriend, but is also bored.

For the third act, Eddie and Willie get the spontaneous idea of taking Eva to Florida, only to check into a motel there... and get bored. Eddie and Willie go gambling at the races and Eva stumbles on some money and heads to the airport to find a flight home.

In a sense, this is a movie where nothing happens. Or more precisely, about people who has petrified into eventless lives. Willie and Eddie think they are cool and have something going but it is comically clear that they are two losers with zero going for them. Their bland, uneventful lives are well represented by the slightly grainy, black and white cinematography and the cold, dark and hazy winter weather. Even Florida has never looked so bleak. I love the scene where Wille and Eddie are sharing a beer in Willie’s apartment, saying absolutely nothing, because they have nothing to say.

Eva is the outsider who likely has a hope of a new an exciting life in the States, but all three places she goes, it is the same bleak bucket of nothing. Even the music she plays is quickly turned off. Her frustration is felt very clearly, sitting on the bed, left to do nothing. She is the only one who takes a job, listens to music, does something, but it changes nothing.

This all sounds bleak and depressing but it is actually funny in that underplayed absurd way that makes you smile and shake your head, but not laugh out loud. The characters are perfectly relatable but also ridiculous in the way we ourselves are sometimes ridiculous and I am certain that we are amused and touched by something we recognize in ourselves.

I suspect that the overall theme is the disappointment that the fabled American dream does not somehow materialize all by itself and that reality is really, really disappointing. Then, again, maybe it does in a weird turn at the end of the movie. I would not say it is a criticism of this American Dream, but a mockery of what people think it is. It is never actually mentioned but the disparity between self-perception and hopes on one side and the actual effort and skill put into it on the other is what makes this movie interesting.

As mentioned in the opening, all this is told without anything like a traditional Hollywood story arch. There is not really a beginning or end, not a mid-crisis or resolution. It is just a state these people move around in. It is a movie that leaves you with a sentiment, not a story, with characters, not character development. And this it does very well.

I watched “Stranger than Paradise” first time years ago and I usually like Jim Jarmusch’ movies. This is no exception, and it is still amusing and thought provoking. Highly recommended.

 

A Passage to India (1984)

 

A Passage to India

“A Passage to India” is David Lean’s last movie. He has been with us for a long time and has several memorable entries on the List. “A Passage to India” may not be his strongest movie, but it is a worthy representative of his career and a suitable swan song.

The story is an adaption of a novel (by E.M. Forster) and clearly a condensation of what is likely a very detailed and complex book. This is evident in the way Lean tries to juggle several themes and narratives, which or may not tie together. I have identified at least four.

Lean loved big cinema. Vistas, colours, busy scenery and outlandish culture. India provides all that and the chance to showcase this appears to have been a big motivation for David Lean. This is a beautiful movie and the setup rivals that of “Lawrence of Arabia”. Even if I did not care about anything else, just to enjoy the pictures would be reason enough to watch the movie.

Secondly, there is a theme about sexual frustration or at least some pent-up psychological issues. Adela Quested (Judy Davis) is a new arrival in India to meet her fiancé, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), the magistrate of Chandrapore. While eager to meet the “real” India, she is soon overwhelmed by the impressions. Sexual statues, aggressive moneys, echoes in caves and the underwhelming reception by the groom to be. This climaxes when she imagines herself raped. This is clearly an important element of the movie and, I think, is supposed to be key to the story, yet, I do not think it comes across very clearly. A British girls lost in India falls a bit short as a subtext.

Thirdly there is the criminal story. Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee) is an Indian doctor who randomly meets and befriends Miss Quested’s companion, the elderly Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft). When Miss. Quested asks the school principal, Richard Fielding (James Fox) to meet some Indians, Aziz is suggested. Aziz is very excitable and servile and all too pleased to be of service to the British. He sets up a picnic to the Marabar caves which he can hardly afford and while out there, alone with Miss Quested she suddenly disappear, claiming to have bee raped. The British colonial masters are ready to lynch Dr. Aziz in a kangaroo court with Fielding as his only support among the British, when Adele Quested suddenly realizes that she was not raped at all. This is more a story of judicial murder than a criminal case, really, but it is set up as a court drama.

Finally, the court case becomes a proxy for the much larger (and almost unrelated) struggle between the colonial lords and the colonials. India versus Britain. The old world order versus the new and a criticism of the curious western idea of the white mans burden (the obligation of westerners to “help” the ignorant developing world to do the right thing). The British are exceptionally arrogant and the Indians really takes to this case to demonstrate their disgust with the British Raj. It is reflected in Aziz who turns from friendly to disgusted by the British.

My problem with “A Passage to India” is that these four themes individually are very interesting but tie together here a bit oddly, as if the film media is too small for this combo. And despite this overload, the movie seems strangely thin on story. There is plenty of ambience and build-up, but it fizzles out in the end in something not quite satisfying.

This does not change that it is a movie I did enjoy watching (with emphasis on “watching”) and it does demonstrate the craftmanship of David Lean. It is also very much a product of its time, with the post-colonial sweep of the seventies and eighties, the revisionist view of western behaviour and misbehaviour in the rest of the world. I do not want to apologize for these horrific British overlords, but I do think “Ghandi” struck a better balance there and felt a tad more realistic.

A fair recommendation from me.       

Gremlins (1984)

 

Off-List: Gremlins

When I think of horror comedies, the first movie that always comes to mind is “Gremlins”. It was not the first by a long shot, but it managed to hit the balance exactly right. It is horrific enough to keep us in suspense throughout, and, at least as important, it is hilariously funny in that dark, gruesome way horror comedies are meant to be funny. On top of this, we get excellent production value by any standard. This is a movie that age very well indeed.

Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligans) is a young man who lives at home and works at the local bank in small town Kingston Falls. Billy’s father, Randall (Hoyt Axton), is an inventor of the more ridiculous kind as his technical marvels inevitably backfires. As a recurring feature of the movie, it is a constant source of comedy. While away on a business trip, Randall finds a strange but cute little creature, a mogwai, in a Chinese shop. Thinking this is the perfect Christmas gift, he brings it home to Billy.

The mogwai is super cute, but comes with three important rules: Keep it away from sunlight, do not get it wet and do not feed it after midnight. Such rules are of course meant to be broken...

Soon, the little mogwai has multiplied into a horde of not so cute gremlins. The gremlins look like gargoyles without wings and are like evil fairies. They are like mischievous, cunning cats or children and completely without scruples. The way they get a kick out of terrorizing people is both absolutely horrendous and hilariously funny. The stunt they pull on the (awful) Ms. Deagle (Polly Holliday) is typical: They (somehow) know she hates Christmas carols, so they line up a choir in front of her door, mutilating a Christmas song, while one of them sneaks inside to mess with her elevator. The double effect is freaking her out and sending her rocketing through her upper window.

Billy’s mother, Lynn (Frances Lee McCain) fights off the monster invasion in her home like an imitation of Ripley in “Alien” with spectacular kills, such as microwaving and blending gremlins. Still, the most amazing and crazy display is the party the gremlins are having in the bar where Billy’s girlfriend, Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates), is forced to wait on them. It is both ridiculous, full of logical holes and immensely funny. The gremlins are going all out on all the vices we, as civilized beings, are supposed to refrain from and they are having immense fun doing it.

Billy and Kate have to fight off the invasion and that is of course fraught with danger and suspense, but throughout the highlights both in terms of horror and comedy belongs to the gremlins. They steal every scene they are in. It does not matter that they defy logic in everything they do because of the way they press that combination of fun and terror, timed exactly right. Think too much about it and the story collapses, this is a movie to enjoy for what it is.

“Gremlins” is a Halloween movie relocated to Christmas and as such works for both holidays. In our home, we watch it almost every Christmas as a season staple and we can quote most of the movie. I have a feeling we are not the only ones, and I would go so far as to consider “Gremlins” a true classic. That of course begs the question why this movie is not on the List? I have no other answer than the editors thought they had filled up their quota of blockbusters and comedies for 1984 already. It is also clear that critics at the time was not exactly won over by “Gremlins”, which is just their loss.

“Gremlins” is one of the best movies in an already amazing year and I cannot recommend it enough.