Yesterday, in the course of my work, I stopped to think about why the olive branch is a symbol of peace. Fortunately, at least for workplace efficiency, Wikipedia is at hand to respond to idle thoughts like this and it came up with the following; “In Western culture, derived from the customs of Ancient Greece, it (the olive branch) symbolizes peace or goodwill. The original link between olive branches and peace is unknown. Some explanations center on that olive trees take a very long time to bear fruit. Thus the cultivation of olives is something that is generally impossible in time of war.” So there. Not known. And then I thought a bit about Lemon Tree, a film that I saw last week.
The film, made by Israeli director Eran Riklis, explores what happens when the Israeli Minister of Defense and his wife move to a new housing development which is right next to an old grove of lemon trees owned by a Palestinian woman who has inherited the block from her father. The issue becomes one of security – how can a government minister be safe when it is so easy for terrorists to sneak through the grove and lob a grenade into his property? The lemon trees must go. So it’s about property, boundaries, rights, history, fences, large imposing fences, safety and also what happens to the little people in this large historical struggle. Riklis said somewhere that one of his inspirations for making the film was hearing the stories of Palestinian people who had taken their legal issues to the Israeli High Court. The article I read said that he thought that was a tribute to the Israeli justice system. Anyone watching the film will have their own views about that.
The film starts with the domestic. Widowed Salma, played by Hiam Abbass, is making preserved lemons. The camera pans in close as she chops the lemons and adds chilli and liquid. It’s a beautiful, intimate scene. Outside there is the clanking of furniture as two men deliver the furniture belonging to the Minister of Defence, confusingly named Israel, into their new house, overseen by his wife, Mira. By morning, a watchtower has been built, overlooking Salma’s grove and soon after, she receives a letter telling her that the trees must be cut down.
The plot around the receipt of the letter is particularly poignant. The letter is in Hebrew so she can’t read it. She must go to a Palestinian café to have it translated and we see her entering the all-male café, the resultant hush in the room, the offhand treatment from the Palestinian men who are drinking coffee, who let her know that she will lose her trees and also, that she must not accept the compensation offered by Israeli authorities – “We don’t accept their money.” Salma is alone.
Hiam Abbass’ portrayal of this woman is one of the most interesting things about the film. Abbass has a very beautiful strong face and it’s just wonderful seeing an older woman in a really strong role. She conveys strength, hurt, resilience and yearning so so well. I loved watching her. Riklis said that one of the reasons he made this film was his desire to find a good role for this actress – may she be in many more films. Terrible things happen to Abbass but I never felt emotionally manipulated by the film-maker. I felt for her without thinking of her as a victim because she does fight back against the order to lose her lemon grove.
At one stage, in court, she says ”I am a real person” and this is possibly the crux of the larger message; that for too long, people on both sides of this debate have demonised each other. The film also explores the experiences of Mira, the wife of the Minister. Both women are lonely; both have children in the United States and have seemingly little in their lives apart from their respective work. We sympathise with both women who have little power or input in the larger politics of this world.
The ending is particularly dramatic so I won’t give it away. It’s really powerful as a metaphor for what is happening in Israel at present. Maybe it’s naff to think about that Seekers song – “the fruit of the poor lemon – it’s impossible to eat” but somehow that fits with the ending. The fruit of this particular conflict does no one any favours. And is not likely to in the immediate future.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Forget after watching?
I went to see the latest Coen brothers film, Burn After Reading, with my 16 year old niece. I find it impossible to resist the Coens even after No Country for Old Men which I hated. And had I written this review that Friday night immediately after watching the film, my comments would be a little different.
The film sets up 2 inept employees of a gymnasium, who seek to blackmail an ex-CIA man, John Malkovich, who is having marital problems. It is a kind of black comedy farce with Brad Pitt playing, with a lot of skill, one of the hopeless blackmailers and Frances McDormand, the other. Pitt is really funny; I liked him far more in this film than in anything else I’ve seen him in. And on the surface, that is what it is; a comedy filled with mostly unlikeable characters with the regular sprinkling of surprising violence. The Coens always do good dialogue, like Tarantino, and there are scenes in the film which are very funny.
George Clooney features as a philandering diversion and creator of the most bizarre sex aid I’ve seen in any movie (porn included – in fact it’s the 15 year old boy part of the Coen brothers on display here. They obviously couldn’t help themselves). The Coens said that idiocy was a major central theme of Burn After Reading; Joel Coen said he and his brother have "a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters" and described Clooney and Pitt's characters as "dueling idiots". Pitt said of his role, "After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted". He also said when he was shown the script, he told the Coens he did not know how to play the part because the character was such an idiot: "There was a pause and then Joel goes...'You'll be fine.'"
Tilda Swinton, who plays the wife of the Malkovich character, described Burn After Reading as a kind of monster caper movie, and said of the characters, "All of us are monsters – like, true monsters. It’s ridiculous." She also said, "I think there is something random at the heart of this one. On the one hand, it really is bleak and scary. On the other, it is really funny. ... It's the whatever-ness of it. You feel that at any minute of any day in any town, this could happen."
I laughed a bit but found the violence abrupt and unexpected. It also took out the only characters with any pretensions to likeability in the film. But I was entertained. And also entertained by the idea of calling the review ‘Forget after watching…”
And then I heard Julie Rigg and others talking about the film on “Australia Talks Movies”. Several callers made points that I wish I’d thought of. “John from Brisbane” provided the most interesting perspective of the conversation. He said that he felt it was a Coen Brother classic, that it was a very serious film. The central character, McDormand, has superficial obsessions about her appearance which ultimately have really horrible consequences for the characters around her. He said that he felt that the film is warning us about what society is coming to, that our feelings of emptiness or uneasiness at the end of the film are because of the self-centredness of the characters, the moral emptiness of their decisions and the fact that no one can find love in the film. We are reminded of this on several occasions in the film as the camera returns to the location in a park where people wait to meet their Internet dates, strung out on park benches as other people wander along wondering if that man on that bench will be the person of their dreams.
"John from Brisbane" went on to talk about how the CIA is positioned; an organisation usually associated with menace seems out of its depth, on the back foot. Ruth Hessey, another contributor to the Radio National program, spoke about the film reflecting “the paranoia of the modern world” that may mean it ages well. In fact, we live in a society where people are more and more accessible - the film opens with a great zooming shot as Google Earth pans down from on high into CIA headquarters, but increasingly people are less and less connected and more fragmented. It suggests that we have lost touch with what is important but hang on desperately to the magic wand of things like cosmetic surgery to change our lives and bring us joy.
I began to see the film differently - the Radio National comments have made it less forgettable and I am grateful for this.
The film sets up 2 inept employees of a gymnasium, who seek to blackmail an ex-CIA man, John Malkovich, who is having marital problems. It is a kind of black comedy farce with Brad Pitt playing, with a lot of skill, one of the hopeless blackmailers and Frances McDormand, the other. Pitt is really funny; I liked him far more in this film than in anything else I’ve seen him in. And on the surface, that is what it is; a comedy filled with mostly unlikeable characters with the regular sprinkling of surprising violence. The Coens always do good dialogue, like Tarantino, and there are scenes in the film which are very funny.
George Clooney features as a philandering diversion and creator of the most bizarre sex aid I’ve seen in any movie (porn included – in fact it’s the 15 year old boy part of the Coen brothers on display here. They obviously couldn’t help themselves). The Coens said that idiocy was a major central theme of Burn After Reading; Joel Coen said he and his brother have "a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters" and described Clooney and Pitt's characters as "dueling idiots". Pitt said of his role, "After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted". He also said when he was shown the script, he told the Coens he did not know how to play the part because the character was such an idiot: "There was a pause and then Joel goes...'You'll be fine.'"
Tilda Swinton, who plays the wife of the Malkovich character, described Burn After Reading as a kind of monster caper movie, and said of the characters, "All of us are monsters – like, true monsters. It’s ridiculous." She also said, "I think there is something random at the heart of this one. On the one hand, it really is bleak and scary. On the other, it is really funny. ... It's the whatever-ness of it. You feel that at any minute of any day in any town, this could happen."
I laughed a bit but found the violence abrupt and unexpected. It also took out the only characters with any pretensions to likeability in the film. But I was entertained. And also entertained by the idea of calling the review ‘Forget after watching…”
And then I heard Julie Rigg and others talking about the film on “Australia Talks Movies”. Several callers made points that I wish I’d thought of. “John from Brisbane” provided the most interesting perspective of the conversation. He said that he felt it was a Coen Brother classic, that it was a very serious film. The central character, McDormand, has superficial obsessions about her appearance which ultimately have really horrible consequences for the characters around her. He said that he felt that the film is warning us about what society is coming to, that our feelings of emptiness or uneasiness at the end of the film are because of the self-centredness of the characters, the moral emptiness of their decisions and the fact that no one can find love in the film. We are reminded of this on several occasions in the film as the camera returns to the location in a park where people wait to meet their Internet dates, strung out on park benches as other people wander along wondering if that man on that bench will be the person of their dreams.
"John from Brisbane" went on to talk about how the CIA is positioned; an organisation usually associated with menace seems out of its depth, on the back foot. Ruth Hessey, another contributor to the Radio National program, spoke about the film reflecting “the paranoia of the modern world” that may mean it ages well. In fact, we live in a society where people are more and more accessible - the film opens with a great zooming shot as Google Earth pans down from on high into CIA headquarters, but increasingly people are less and less connected and more fragmented. It suggests that we have lost touch with what is important but hang on desperately to the magic wand of things like cosmetic surgery to change our lives and bring us joy.
I began to see the film differently - the Radio National comments have made it less forgettable and I am grateful for this.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Rabbit, Run
What comes to mind when you think about the characteristics of a rabbit? For me the quality of timidity is uppermost so when John Updike talks about using the rabbit as a metaphor for his young protagonist in Rabbit Run, it’s not quite what I expected.
Rabbit, AKA Harry Angstrom, is 26. He feels like his life has already peaked. As Updike puts it; “You get the feeling you’re in your coffin before they’ve taken your blood out.” At school Rabbit was a basketball star but now he is a has-been, earning a living demonstrating a kitchen appliance, married to a girl who he feels little for and father of a child who figures little in his thinking.
It’s a brave book because the main protagonist is so rarely likable and we develop sympathy for, but no strong liking for most of the rest of the cast of characters. It’s a book written by a young man, about the life of a young man who is filled with impulse and a yearning for something that he can’t even articulate but it’s something like “Life’s gotta be better than this.”
The first part of the novel is a road movie. It feels like a movie, the camera sliding all over the place under a big starry sky and Rabbit ventures further out beyond his comfort zone although it is clear that the “comfort zone” of the town of Brewer is now a discomfit zone for him. I was scared reading it; I so wanted Harry to go home. He was so adrift in the universe and consequently ungrounded and vulnerable. Eventually he returns to Brewer but not to his wife and child. He hooks up with the first woman he meets, Ruth. He is hapless rather than opportunist but frustrating. I waited for him to begin to miss his little boy but 100 pages go by without a moment’s reflection about his son. John Updike said that he wrote Rabbit, Run in response to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and tried to depict "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road – the people left behind get hurt.”
The novel is also brave, for the time period, in the way it depicts the character Ruth, who, of course, is the character I most responded to. She struggles to identify what is good for her and to stand up for herself; Updike depicts her internal battles really well even though she gets only a limited amount of time in the book. Harry is dangerous and even though she is pregnant, she does not readily let him back into her life. I found myself desperately wanting them to get together but this would be such a bad deal for Ruth. Harry is a very bad bargain. Why did I want this “happy ending”? The following sentence says it all – Ruth has told Harry that she is pregnant to him and that she thinks he would be bad news back in her life and yet there seems to be a slim opening – and all he can think about is food; “He nervously felt her watching him for some sign of resolution inspired by her speech. In fact he has hardly listened; it is too complicated and, compared to the vision of a sandwich, unreal.”
Updike's novel is noted as being one of several well regarded, early usages of the present tense. Updike stated that "in Rabbit, Run, I liked writing in the present tense. You can move between minds, between thoughts and objects and events with a curious ease not available to the past tense. I don't know if it is clear to the reader as it is to the person writing, but there are kinds of poetry, kinds of music you can strike off in the present tense." He also writes “At one point Rabbit is literally lost, and tears up a map he cannot read; but the present tense, to me as I began to write it, felt not so much ominous as exhilaratingly speedy and free – free of the grammatical bonds of the traditional past tense and of the subtly dead, muffling hand it lays on every action. To write “he says” instead of “he said" rebellious and liberating in 1959.”
I very much like Updike’s prose as well as his exploration of the domestic. American society is undergoing a quiet revolution but Rabbit, Run is preoccupied with the struggle with domesticity, with the familiar, the unsexy, the predictable, the honest, the true, the respectable. And maybe that’s what the larger changes in US society are about too but they don’t impinge on this novel except that we can see, from the contrast in generations, from the aging Springers and Angstroms, from Coach Tothero, that the next generation is yearning for something different.
His prose? Here is another example ”He comes onto the porch to find the boy between his grandmother’s legs, his face buried in her belly. In worming against her warmth he has pulled her dress up from her knees and their repulsive breadth and pallor, laid bare defensively, superimposed upon the tiny gamely gritted teeth the boy exposed for him, this old whiteness strained through this fine mesh, make a milk that feels to Eccles like his own blood.” (p136) David Boroff, in a review written in 1960, described it as “a tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst.” Updike is perhaps a little soft on Rabbit but he was young too when he wrote it.
Rabbit, AKA Harry Angstrom, is 26. He feels like his life has already peaked. As Updike puts it; “You get the feeling you’re in your coffin before they’ve taken your blood out.” At school Rabbit was a basketball star but now he is a has-been, earning a living demonstrating a kitchen appliance, married to a girl who he feels little for and father of a child who figures little in his thinking.
It’s a brave book because the main protagonist is so rarely likable and we develop sympathy for, but no strong liking for most of the rest of the cast of characters. It’s a book written by a young man, about the life of a young man who is filled with impulse and a yearning for something that he can’t even articulate but it’s something like “Life’s gotta be better than this.”
The first part of the novel is a road movie. It feels like a movie, the camera sliding all over the place under a big starry sky and Rabbit ventures further out beyond his comfort zone although it is clear that the “comfort zone” of the town of Brewer is now a discomfit zone for him. I was scared reading it; I so wanted Harry to go home. He was so adrift in the universe and consequently ungrounded and vulnerable. Eventually he returns to Brewer but not to his wife and child. He hooks up with the first woman he meets, Ruth. He is hapless rather than opportunist but frustrating. I waited for him to begin to miss his little boy but 100 pages go by without a moment’s reflection about his son. John Updike said that he wrote Rabbit, Run in response to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and tried to depict "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road – the people left behind get hurt.”
The novel is also brave, for the time period, in the way it depicts the character Ruth, who, of course, is the character I most responded to. She struggles to identify what is good for her and to stand up for herself; Updike depicts her internal battles really well even though she gets only a limited amount of time in the book. Harry is dangerous and even though she is pregnant, she does not readily let him back into her life. I found myself desperately wanting them to get together but this would be such a bad deal for Ruth. Harry is a very bad bargain. Why did I want this “happy ending”? The following sentence says it all – Ruth has told Harry that she is pregnant to him and that she thinks he would be bad news back in her life and yet there seems to be a slim opening – and all he can think about is food; “He nervously felt her watching him for some sign of resolution inspired by her speech. In fact he has hardly listened; it is too complicated and, compared to the vision of a sandwich, unreal.”
Updike's novel is noted as being one of several well regarded, early usages of the present tense. Updike stated that "in Rabbit, Run, I liked writing in the present tense. You can move between minds, between thoughts and objects and events with a curious ease not available to the past tense. I don't know if it is clear to the reader as it is to the person writing, but there are kinds of poetry, kinds of music you can strike off in the present tense." He also writes “At one point Rabbit is literally lost, and tears up a map he cannot read; but the present tense, to me as I began to write it, felt not so much ominous as exhilaratingly speedy and free – free of the grammatical bonds of the traditional past tense and of the subtly dead, muffling hand it lays on every action. To write “he says” instead of “he said" rebellious and liberating in 1959.”
I very much like Updike’s prose as well as his exploration of the domestic. American society is undergoing a quiet revolution but Rabbit, Run is preoccupied with the struggle with domesticity, with the familiar, the unsexy, the predictable, the honest, the true, the respectable. And maybe that’s what the larger changes in US society are about too but they don’t impinge on this novel except that we can see, from the contrast in generations, from the aging Springers and Angstroms, from Coach Tothero, that the next generation is yearning for something different.
His prose? Here is another example ”He comes onto the porch to find the boy between his grandmother’s legs, his face buried in her belly. In worming against her warmth he has pulled her dress up from her knees and their repulsive breadth and pallor, laid bare defensively, superimposed upon the tiny gamely gritted teeth the boy exposed for him, this old whiteness strained through this fine mesh, make a milk that feels to Eccles like his own blood.” (p136) David Boroff, in a review written in 1960, described it as “a tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst.” Updike is perhaps a little soft on Rabbit but he was young too when he wrote it.
I read a lot of the "Rabbit" books in my early 20's and it's a great pleasure coming back to them: I am hungry for the next one.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Is 'Towelhead' a wet dream?
Just lately teenage sexuality has been in the news. Art and teenage sexuality. And it was impossible for me to watch the film Towelhead without being constantly reminded of Bill Henson’s controversial image of a pubescent girl. Both the film-maker and the photographer produced similar images of their respective young girls; backlit with a halo of light framing long dark hair, the face gazing uncertainly and indirectly, the mouth slightly open and moistened in the archetypal porn shot. (I have always thought that people who don’t close their mouths as a matter of course look a little half-witted but idiocy is possibly vaguely erotic for some people too). Henson says that he is interested in examining the awkwardness and awareness of change on the part of adolescents. Film director Alan Ball is interested in the same territory.
It’s difficult territory to negotiate without tripping into the voyeuristic or exploitative zone. There’s a kind of undefined fine line. I love a lot of Henson’s work but the photo which caused all the controversy triggered a memory for me of being invited, along with my father, to visit the house of a man we met at a BBQ. He wanted us to go there to see his paintings; which were of semi-nude women painted on black velvet. They were trashy rather than exploitative but the situation was weird and sleazy and our combined good manners (Dad’s and mine) had trapped us in this social situation which we both knew, in advance, was going to be sleazy and weird. I was angry with Dad that he didn‘t find a way of avoiding it and protecting me from what was an embarrassing but non-traumatic social encounter; I was about 16 at the time. So I think there are times when Henson crosses the line. And so does Towelhead.
I came to this film with a bit of a bias; I am part of the 2 % of the population who did not love American Beauty which was also written, but not directed by Alan Ball. His new film, Towelhead, aims to explore what happens to Jasira, a Lebanese-American teenager, in the first weeks of her stay with her father. I liked this description of it, by Roger Ebert:
"It tells the story of Jasira (Summer Bishil), a 13-year-old Lebanese-American girl with an obsession about her emerging sexuality. Well, all 13-year-olds feel such things. That's why so many of them stop talking to us. They don't know how to feel about themselves."
I thought part of Towelhead was brave. I can’t remember seeing a bloody tampon on screen before. Menstruation, and the embarrassments associated with menstruation, get a fair work-out. We experience this through the main character Jasira, a 13 year old girl, who, in the opening of the film, is sent to live with her father because her mother’s boyfriend is way too interested in her. The other brave part of the film is the scenes of Jasira maturbating. We are much more likely to see teenage boys jerking off than acknowledge the private sexual activity of teenage girls.
This is also the film’s downside because this is the extent of what we discover about Jasira and the other teenagers in the film; they are sexual creatures. I think the problem for the film is two-fold; the range of the actress (Summer Bishil) is quite limited and the script is solidly focussed on sex in a range of permutations. Even when she makes friend with a girl, the plot centres around them playing sexy dress-ups for a photographer. “Enough already!” I wanted to scream. I get it! We are surrounded by soft porn and so are our kids. During the Henson debate, I thought mostly about the large soft porn posters which adorn the DFO outlet in Spencer St; enormous images of young semi-clad girls lounging in poses as if they might just be about to give head. Advertising jeans or shoes. I hate them and hate the idea that my nieces might think that this is how women should be. I get it! Why are we banging on about Henson rather than these horrible advertisements?
However, if Jasira is objectified by the men in the film, I think that she is also objectified by the film maker. She never becomes more than a one dimensional character. We never really get to know what she is like. The film does not engage with her personality (and this is what I think it has in common with American Beauty - the women are one-dimensional). Terrible things happen to Jasira and we are no closer to knowing what she is like except that she is not a victim. Alan Ball describes the sexual assault as “A profound moment in two lives devoid of profound moments”. Calling it profound is just the wrong word and indicates something about his view of women and sex that is astray, even if I agree with his assertion that it’s “so important to see that it was a complicated issue, that as a character, Jasira was curious, that she was experiencing some sensations that were pleasurable, that she was getting the kind of attention where she was feeling intimate with somebody which was sorely lacking in the rest of her life.”
And is it interesting that both artists interested in the exploring the implications of the emerging sexuality of young girls are men? Possibly. Henson photographs pre-pubescent and teenage boys and girls. American Beauty and Towelhead both left me feeling uncomfortable. What would a woman film director make of the theme of emerging adolescent sexuality? I can’t think of any films in this category - some suggestions would be good.
It’s difficult territory to negotiate without tripping into the voyeuristic or exploitative zone. There’s a kind of undefined fine line. I love a lot of Henson’s work but the photo which caused all the controversy triggered a memory for me of being invited, along with my father, to visit the house of a man we met at a BBQ. He wanted us to go there to see his paintings; which were of semi-nude women painted on black velvet. They were trashy rather than exploitative but the situation was weird and sleazy and our combined good manners (Dad’s and mine) had trapped us in this social situation which we both knew, in advance, was going to be sleazy and weird. I was angry with Dad that he didn‘t find a way of avoiding it and protecting me from what was an embarrassing but non-traumatic social encounter; I was about 16 at the time. So I think there are times when Henson crosses the line. And so does Towelhead.
I came to this film with a bit of a bias; I am part of the 2 % of the population who did not love American Beauty which was also written, but not directed by Alan Ball. His new film, Towelhead, aims to explore what happens to Jasira, a Lebanese-American teenager, in the first weeks of her stay with her father. I liked this description of it, by Roger Ebert:
"It tells the story of Jasira (Summer Bishil), a 13-year-old Lebanese-American girl with an obsession about her emerging sexuality. Well, all 13-year-olds feel such things. That's why so many of them stop talking to us. They don't know how to feel about themselves."
I thought part of Towelhead was brave. I can’t remember seeing a bloody tampon on screen before. Menstruation, and the embarrassments associated with menstruation, get a fair work-out. We experience this through the main character Jasira, a 13 year old girl, who, in the opening of the film, is sent to live with her father because her mother’s boyfriend is way too interested in her. The other brave part of the film is the scenes of Jasira maturbating. We are much more likely to see teenage boys jerking off than acknowledge the private sexual activity of teenage girls.
This is also the film’s downside because this is the extent of what we discover about Jasira and the other teenagers in the film; they are sexual creatures. I think the problem for the film is two-fold; the range of the actress (Summer Bishil) is quite limited and the script is solidly focussed on sex in a range of permutations. Even when she makes friend with a girl, the plot centres around them playing sexy dress-ups for a photographer. “Enough already!” I wanted to scream. I get it! We are surrounded by soft porn and so are our kids. During the Henson debate, I thought mostly about the large soft porn posters which adorn the DFO outlet in Spencer St; enormous images of young semi-clad girls lounging in poses as if they might just be about to give head. Advertising jeans or shoes. I hate them and hate the idea that my nieces might think that this is how women should be. I get it! Why are we banging on about Henson rather than these horrible advertisements?
However, if Jasira is objectified by the men in the film, I think that she is also objectified by the film maker. She never becomes more than a one dimensional character. We never really get to know what she is like. The film does not engage with her personality (and this is what I think it has in common with American Beauty - the women are one-dimensional). Terrible things happen to Jasira and we are no closer to knowing what she is like except that she is not a victim. Alan Ball describes the sexual assault as “A profound moment in two lives devoid of profound moments”. Calling it profound is just the wrong word and indicates something about his view of women and sex that is astray, even if I agree with his assertion that it’s “so important to see that it was a complicated issue, that as a character, Jasira was curious, that she was experiencing some sensations that were pleasurable, that she was getting the kind of attention where she was feeling intimate with somebody which was sorely lacking in the rest of her life.”
And is it interesting that both artists interested in the exploring the implications of the emerging sexuality of young girls are men? Possibly. Henson photographs pre-pubescent and teenage boys and girls. American Beauty and Towelhead both left me feeling uncomfortable. What would a woman film director make of the theme of emerging adolescent sexuality? I can’t think of any films in this category - some suggestions would be good.
Not everyone agrees with me - this opinion from Paul Byrnes in the SMH is interesting, but I think he misses the limited chracter devlopment of Jasira:
Alan Ball is careful to film the sexual sequences for maximum dramatic effect and minimal exposure of the actress's body - but that isn't going to save him from the stockade. One of his big crimes here is to show Jasira as active, rather than a victim. I suspect her progress towards self-awareness is part of what attracted the likes of Collette to the cast. Jasira becomes stronger through her ordeal; it doesn't destroy her, as it might in a movie-of-the-week. As confronting as the movie is, I saw it as hopeful and a caution, but I admit I'm biased towards freedom of expression.
And finally, plumbing. In a film where a lot of the action seems unconvincing, two parts of the plot hinge on bad plumbing in two houses. It might be a new housing estate but come on!
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