Not what you think

Doubt
Rated PG-13. Director: John Patrick Shanley. Miramax Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 44 min.

Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), left, confers with Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in Doubt.John Patrick Shanley studies first impressions in this adaptation of the prize-winning play, which he both adapted and directed. It is 1964, a time of turbulent change in the world and in the church. President Kennedy is dead, and the new teachings of Vatican II are just being introduced into the Catholic Church. This film follows the struggle of two strong-willed people, one who resists and one who embraces change.

Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the new priest at St. Nicholas in the Bronx, wants to more humanize the parish school, but he is opposed by the strict disciplinarian principal, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep). She is so change-resistant that her pet peeve is the ballpoint pen and what it is doing to penmanship. A young nun, Sister James (Amy Adams), is caught between them when she reports that the priest is paying more than usual attention to a new student, Donald Muller, the first black student to be admitted.

The boy’s mother has a surprising response to Sister Aloysius’ discussion of the matter. It turns out that young Donald has a far greater, even dangerous, problem than the color of his skin, and his desperate mother is willing to go to extreme lengths to insure his safety. Amidst an excellent cast — including Streep in a dragon-lady role similar to the one she played in The Devil Wears Prada — in one brief scene Viola Davis as Mrs. Muller positions herself for best supporting actress honors.

The themes of faith, doubt, certainty, intolerance and love make this an important film for Christians to see and discuss — especially if they have seen Bill Maher's Religulous. Thinking this film through, viewers might join me in reversing their original assumptions about the characters’ true natures. That old adage that you cannot tell a book by its cover is still true.

A down-under western

Australia
Rated PG-13 . Director: Baz Luhrmann. 20th Century Fox. Running Time: 2 hours 45 min.
 

Sarah (Nicole Kidman) bonds with Nulah (Brandon Walters), an enchanting young orphan in Australia. (Photo by James Fisher)Baz Luhrmann combines sweeping romance, war adventure and concern for social justice in his new film. Set in Australia just before and during the early stage of World War II, the story concerns haughty English aristocrat Sarah Ashley’s (Nicole Kidman) transformation when she treks to Australia to find out why her philandering husband has not sold their expansive cattle ranch.

When the husband turns up dead with a spear in his back — and the evil neighbor wants to buy the place dirt-cheap — Ashley joins forces with the man she hates, known only as the drover (Hugh Jackman), and a rag-tag band for an epic cattle drive to far-off Darwin, where the army badly needs the beef. She must deliver the cattle before her rival can do so, and he, of course goes all out to prevent this.

Those who enjoy such Westerns as Red River will love these scenes of the large cattle herd, dusty trails, glowing vistas of plains and mountains, and talk around campfires. For guys there is Kidman in her trim riding outfit, and for gals there’s Jackman’s great physique when he strips to the waist to wash.

The film is enhanced by the presence of Aborigines, one of whom, a young boy named Nullah, also serves as narrator. This appealing boy brings out the best in both of the adults — a previously non-existant maternal instinct in Ashley (after Nullah's mother dies while trying to hide him from the police), and a rising impatience with racism in the case of the drover. Both adults rise to their full maturity when the Japanese attack on Darwin threatens to tear the three of them apart.

Those who appreciate Australia’s racial justice theme will also want to see Rabbit Proof Fence, a film that focuses entirely on Australia’s former policy of seizing mixed-blood children from their mothers and educating them to become servants and agricultural workers. Both films display great respect for Aboriginal culture.

An updated classic

Touch of Evil
Directed by Orson Welles. Not rated. Universal Pictures. Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes (restored version)

Mexican agent Mike Vargas (Charleton Heston, right) suspects that Capt. Quinlin (Orson Welles, left) has planted evidence implicating a young man (center) in a murder plot. Photo © 1958 Universal Pictures.Universal's lavish 50th anniversary edition of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil would make a great present for a cinema-loving friend or family member. A film noir set in the seedy Mexican-American border town of Los Robles, it was the troubled director's last studio film. Touch of Evil capped a 17-year Hollywood career that saw Welles constantly embroiled in controversy with "the suits" who ran the studios.

After shooting his final scenes, Welles made the mistake of leaving a rough cut of the film while he went off to Mexico to raise money for his long-desired make of Don Quixote. While he was away the studio executives, upset by his unorthodox version, hired another director to shoot some additional scenes, as well as to cut and rearrange those that Welles had directed. The resulting film confused audiences. Released as the bottom of a two-feature program, it sank out of sight for a few years.

The film begins with a much heralded 3-minute-and-20-second tracking shot, in which a man places a bomb in the back of a car, after which the owner and his girlfriend get in and drive through the crowded streets. Suspense grows as each second passes, especially when the car stops for custom officials, and the girl says that she hears a ticking sound. (Much of the suspense was diluted in the studio version, because they ran the opening credits over this sequence, thus dividing the attention of the audience.)

The bomb explodes, and police captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and his assistant, Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia), are soon on the scene. When a Mexican young man is arrested and charged, Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston), a top Mexican narcotics agent, enters the case. In making the arrest, Quinlan has acted on a hunch, just as he has in a long series of murder cases in which he netted the perpetrators and saw them executed. However, when Vargas sees that incriminating evidence has been planted, he starts off on an investigation of Quinlin's past cases. He uncovers more than just a touch of evil, and immerses his wife, Susan (Janet Leigh), in a peril more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

The film is brilliantly directed, with touches that anyone familiar with Citizen Kane will recognize as Welles' trademarks: deep-focus photography; low-angle shots, so that we can see the ceiling of the sets; and the effective use of black and white, with menacing shadows and faces often obscured in darkness. As usual Welles assembles a brilliant cast of actors eager to work with the master: Akim Tamiroff, Joseph Cotton, Marlene Dietrich, Mercedes McCambridge, and even Dennis Weaver (then enjoying a long run on TV's "Gunsmoke"), who had to be convinced by Heston to accept the minor role of motel clerk.

The film serves as a good study in the corruption of power and the disillusionment of those who trust in those who hold power. We learn that 30 years earlier Quinlin's wife was murdered, and the killer escaped justice. His planted evidence in a long series of cases insures that this will never happen again. As Quinlin boasts, “That was the last killer that ever got out of my hands.'' Pete Menzies has served Quinlin faithfully because his superior once took a bullet meant for him. But when Vargas shows him the evidence of Quinlin's long manipulation of the law, the troubled cop makes the fateful decision to help the Mexican officer catch his friend. The film’s conclusion adds to the “touch of evil” a touch of irony, with Marlene Dietrich’s character given the last word in summing up the fate of the cop who had once been her lover.

—Ed McNulty

More questions for ‘progressive’ Christians

Living the Questions 2.0: An Introduction to Progressive Christianity
(Living the Questions, 2007; $295 for the set of 3 DVDs
 
Expanding on the success of the first Living the Questions, this new set of 3 DVDs is sure to evoke lively dialogue among church members. There are 21 “chapters” in the set, with subjects ranging from evil and suffering to social justice to intimate prayer with God. Many churches have used this resource as a group study and find its greatest strength is that it doesn’t offer answers, but encourages discussion. Most viewers end up having more questions than they began with, which is exactly the point. There are no “set in stone” answers, but the videos and the discussions afterward help viewers develop ways of living with the questions in a Christian context. 

Some small churches have used this resource to replace the sermon while the pastor is on sabbatical. It could also be used during a retreat — for example, to help a congregation reflect on its purpose and develop a mission statement. The dialogue can be surprising. Participants will develop a deeper understanding of what others believe, and learn to stretch their beliefs and become more welcoming to diverse viewpoints.  The list of speakers featured on the DVDs sounds like a “who’s who” of contemporary theologians: Marcus Borg, Minerva Carcaño, John Dominic Crossan, Tex Sample, John Shelby Spong and Sister Helen Prejean.

—Katie-Murphy O’Brien, Calvin Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, Calif.

A lesson of hope

Wall-E

Rated G. Director-writer Andrew Stanton. Pixar Animation/Walt Disney. Running time: 1 hour 43 min.

One of the film's great moments of joy is EVE and Wall-E cavorting together in space. © 2008 Pixar Animation/Walt DisneyPerhaps the best film of the year thus far, this funny yet heart-felt animated science fiction film delivers lessons on ecology, love, and hope for young and old.

The setting is planet Earth some 700 years in the future. All humans have abandoned the polluted planet, leaving a small robot as cute as E.T. behind. His name Wall-E is short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class.

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For seven centuries the little robot has been gathering the junk and garbage left behind, compacting it into cubes, and stacking them in high piles that resemble city skyscrapers. Like so many of the other of the film's “lessons,” the film filmmakers do not press this, but simply let us viewers ponder that despite the incredible length of time that Wall-E has been working, there still seems to be no end to the amount of junk yet to be collected.

Wall-E is alone except for a tough little cockroach that follows him about. One of the human qualities Wall-E possesses is the collecting of a few items such as a light bulb, a Rubik’s Cube and an old video player on which he plays again and again Hello Dolly, his favorite song being the hand-holding “It Only Takes a Moment.”

One day a large spaceship lands, and a sleek reconnaissance robot is sent out to see if the planet is inhabitable. After nearly being blasted away by the defensive scout, Wall-E manages to communicate with her, discovering that her name is EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). It is love at first sight for Wall-E. There is even a charming homage to Woody Allen's Manhattan as the two robots sit together and watch the sunset. When Wall-E shows EVE the small plant he has been nurturing, she takes it, as she has been programmed to do, and returns to the spaceship. The smitten Wall-E follows. The reconnaissance ship then rejoins the huge mother ship, Axiom that has become humanity's ark.

The conglomerate When Buy N Large, which once had dominated Earth, now controls Axiom, which it has turned into a huge version of a combination Shop America Mall and Caribbean cruise ship. Robots wait hand and foot on the humans, who have become fat and immobile. They never walk, floating instead on flying couches as they sip their meals through straws and live to shop.

The return of EVE with the green plant, and Wall-E tagging along, upsets the scheme of things. But with the robots and the mechanized system in control, supposedly watching out for the best interests of humanity, will the obese ship’s captain be up to the challenge of trying to return to Earth?

Filled with scenes referencing other films (Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey, as well as the already mentioned Woody Allen film), Wall-E will thrill adults as much as children. The animators have made Wall-E, twin video cameras atop his head serving as his eyes, a creature as cute as Bambi.

The first half hour, like the great silent classics of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, relies almost entirely on visuals. There is no attempt to explain certain actions, the filmmakers giving their audience credit for the intelligence to figure out what is transpiring. At the screening I attended the large audience, mostly children, was silent and attentive — no stirring whatsoever.

—Ed McNulty

Befriending the stranger

The Visitor

Directed by Tom McCarthy. Overture Films. Rated PG-13. Running time: 1 hour, 48 min.

The once reclusive Walter joins Tarek and a drum circle in Washington Square. © 2007 Overture Films.Summer blockbusters attract the most attention and largest crowds, but this small film by writer/director Tom McCarthy ought not to be missed. If it is no longer playing in theaters in your area, look for it when it comes out on DVD. The Visitor has more heart and soul than a hundred Indiana Jones films, and it puts a human face on a hot-button issue — immigration.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale misses his deceased wife so much that he has withdrawn into himself, paying little heed to the economics classes he teaches at a small Connecticut college. It has been months since he has visited the apartment that he and his wife kept in Manhattan as a base for their once-frequent visits to the city, where she performed as a concert pianist. Thus, when he is forced to go to a conference in New York to present a paper he and a colleague have written, he is surprised to discover that the apartment is occupied by a man and a woman.

Tarek is from Syria, and his girlfriend, Zainab, is from Senegal. Victims of a scam, they explain that they paid a broker for their sublease. Walter initially sends them away, but quickly changing his mind, runs after them to let them know they can stay, at least for a while. Thus begins a friendship that brings much joy, and eventually pain, into his numbed existence.

Zainab ekes out a living selling at a flea market the beautiful jewelry she makes. Tarek, a professional musician, plays an African drum with jazz and ethnic bands at nightspots. As the two men warm to each other (Zainab remains wary), Tarek begins teaching Walter to play the drum. Both the music and his newfound friendship touch something deep within Walter’s soul, lifting him out of his sorrow. The professor often goes to the club where his teacher plays, and eventually joins him in a lively drum circle in Washington Square.

Thus far the film is about resurrection or rebirth. But when Tarek is picked up by the Immigration Service, the celebratory mood changes to a darker one — though it does bring Mouna, Tarek’s mother, who has been living in Michigan, into Walter’s life. Providing lodging and support, he joins her in the effort to disentangle Tarek from his legal predicament. (Zainab cannot visit her lover in jail because she too is an illegal immigrant.)

The filmmakers avoid taking a political stance, focusing instead upon human relationships. The acting is as superb as the script, making this a memorable film experience. The restrained, bittersweet conclusion leaves us thoughtful and with a deep appreciation of what a good film can offer. It also may leave viewers meditating on the biblical injunction to welcome and befriend the sojourner.

—Ed McNulty