Two quick reactions, one very effusive.
A couple weeks ago I saw Away From Her, the directoral debut of Sarah Polley, adapting a short story by Alice Munro about a woman drifting into Alzheimer’s, grappling with the loss, while her husband does, too. Julie Christie gives an amazing, subtle central performance, as does Gordon Pinsent. It’s got a careful, slow rhythm, is edited with a non-linear precision that echoes the confusions of this disease, and is so utterly, perfectly crafted that it felt (alas) like a room impeccably designed and then hermetically sealed. Nary an emotion crept into my viewing.
I’m being rough–and I hadn’t posted on it to avoid this kind of easy slam. ‘Cause it is a good film, a “good” film, a good for you film, and all that. But tonight I watched a film with similar ambitions–written with a delicate precision, acted with great intensity–yet this film in large part succeeded, often quite astonishingly. The Secret Life of Words stars Sarah Polley, playing a woman with a vague Eastern European accent (rarely used, as she rarely speaks) and a vague dark past, who ends up on an oil rig caring for a burn victim (Tim Robbins) who also has a past, and we do–yes–find out something serious about those pasts. And they do–yes–find a way to connect.
But the film is so utterly perfect in so many ways despite this overdetermined short-storyish precision. Every minor character has a deep history that we see emerge from the depths in a brief burst that reveals something but hints at so much complexity and life just behind what we did manage to glimpse; many scenes are small, casual–not precisely tuned toward the forward motion of purpose and plot but lovingly attuned to the lived experience. I had forgotten that Robbins can really act–he’s funny, subtle, underplayed. But Polley floors me; she is so astonishingly good that I can’t believe people aren’t in the streets about this performance.
I wish the film had ended 10 minutes before it did; I could have handled a bit more irresolution, more ambiguity. But the film is beautifully shot, moving… it’s just damn good. And I almost avoided it, having heard so little and (from the plot synopsis) having worried that it would be another exercise in refined artistry that would leave me cold. Don’t. Joe Bob says check it out.
I highly recommend Words, and admit that Away is very well done.
I also saw Chan-wook Park’s I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK but I haven’t a clue how to talk about it except to say a) it’s not really very good but it is probably worth seeing and b) it should be discussed under a different thread called “Directors directing,” which I’ll start later.
Mike, you mentioned a while back that you had DVD copies of Cyborg, Exiled and Election. Any chance I can borrow them? I’m starved of To and Park (which sounds filthier than I intended).
Yes–done with Exiled and Cyborg. I’ll watch Election by the end of this weekend and send the package on. Now Arnab will come on and complain, so–either I’ll send directly to Chris first or will pass on to Arnab, who’ll send it to Chris. The Park was disappointing, but so lovely to look at that (as said) I was glad to get a chance to see for myself.
mike, i’ve been here for 2 months now and we are yet to meet–you spurn all my invitations, and send my roses back unsniffed. what matter if i don’t get your illegal movies first either? or fifth.
The roses were a mistake. Mike loves petunias. You’d know that if you read my secret gardening blog: http://www.backyardgardening.net/article/petunias/
Dear Arnab — everyone knows what gardening requires, right?
A little love.
[SPOILER]
re: the secret life of words
any thoughts about the little girl’s voice? an early abortion? and about the title? just precious?
the next to last scene should not have been there, but the very last scene throws some good shadows on the pat conclusion, no?
in any case, i loved this film, too, so thanks for recommending it mike. i loved the way the characters are all comfortable on the oil rig, how the place seems to fit their fragile rapport with the world, how it is its own last frontier, or maybe a last refuge, soon to be lost to the advances of the global market and the running out of oil. it is a charming, cozy haven, a relic of a lost world. funny to see an oil rig in this light. it’s also very nice that many scenes are cut as if in the middle, and that, until the end, the film is in no hurry to go anywhere. it’s about people doing their own thing, but also opening to others who are also doing their own thing, sharing a little bit of life on this desert island of sorts.
Voiceover: yeah, I thought abortion… or maybe even just imagined child, maybe even the character’s own inner child? Frankly, that stuff–and the title sequence, as the credits roll other words (Silence, Power) popping up–was… well, overdetermined in ways exactly counter to what the film does so very very well, which you note in your last para. It seems alive–whereas the voiceover, the titles, and that penultimate reconciliation scene–seemed too carefully crafted as ‘art with a moral purpose’ to move me. But I really loved the film; those details struck me as minimal concerns.