The Debt (2011): Untruth and Consequences

In 1966, three young Mossad operatives tracked down a notorious Nazi war criminal in East Berlin and brought him to bay. The three agents, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington) were hailed as national heroes back home. In 1997, Rachel’s daughter, Sarah, is about to publish a new book about the adventure to great fanfare. But, Rachel, Stephan and David (their older selves played by Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds) have been harboring a terrible secret about what really happened in East Berlin, and, it seems that the real story is about to be revealed. Can they do anything about it? Should they? How does it feel, as a moral person, to have lived with a lie all of your adult life? Can one undo such a thing 30 years on? And in public life, what's more important, the perception of a thing or the truth about that thing? 

The Debt, an English-language adaptation of a 2007 Israeli film by the same name (Ha-Hov in Hebrew), gives us an interesting story, part thriller and part morality drama, and it raises interesting questions. In the hands of director John Madden, it's pretty well told, too. The opening scene is a preface to the narrative: we see the three young heroes about to deplane in Tel Aviv to photographers flashbulbs and an excited press corps. Flash forward to 1997, and the publication party celebrating Sarah’s book. Rachel (Mirren) should be happy, but she’s troubled; and when David (Wilkinson) arrives we quickly understand that she’s not the only one. At Sarah’s request, Mirren reads an excerpt from the book to the guests, and we’re off into a thrilling flashback showing us the official version of the heroic story.


The rest of the film moves back and forth between 1997 and 1966. We learn what really happened, why that story was not made public, and the terrible toll that the secret has exacted on the three protagonists. 

We also meet the most vivid character in the story, Dr. Bernhardt (Jesper Christensen), the "Butcher of Treblinka", a Josef Mengele-like villain, who committed horrible crimes against humanity in the name of Nazi science, during the war. What is fascinating about Bernhardt is partly the humanization of evil, i.e. how putting a face and a personality to such a monster inevitably allows us to almost sympathize with him ; and partly Bernhardt’s shrewd attempts to manipulate and get under the skin of the Mossad agents who capture him. The psychological dance that results is intriguing and creepy.

But the main character in this picture is Rachel. Jessica Chastain nails the role of this young, tough, committed, and yet vulnerable young woman. Much of the suspense - and the real thrills of the story - are embodied in young Rachel’s experiences, and Chastain carries all of this off with aplomb. Mirren, playing fifty-something Rachel, struggling with the fallout years later, is always fun to watch. It is not a happy role she plays – dealing with death, complicity in the big lie (knowing that she has not only lied to her daughter, but that this may undermine Sarah’s success), and understanding that she now must undertake the distasteful and dangerous task of "fixing" a festering situation that her younger self helped create. Conveniently, the two actresses look enough alike to make the transition between the 1960’s character and her 1990’s self plausible. 

The same cannot be said about her two cohorts. Tsorkas and Wilkinson, as Stephan, young and old, look nothing alike; nor do Worthington and Hinds as David. In fact, Hinds looks a lot more like Tsorkas, and Wilkinson looks a lot more like Worthington. A Bronx cheer to the casting director! Worthington, whom I last saw as the disabled Marine in Avatar, has a couple of terrific moments; and Hinds, one of my favorite English actors, is touching as the sorrowful, older David. Wilkinson handles his limited role as the older Stephan capably.

The finale is an action sequence involving Mirren which, though implausible, is exciting to watch. It’s nice to see old folks get some ‘action’. Harrison Ford still does it; Liam Neeson, too, in Unknown; so why not Mirren?

The movie does pose some interesting questions about Truth. The Mossad agents original mission was to bring Bernhardt back to Israel to stand trial, so the Truth would be known and his evil would not be forgotten. Instead, the legacy of their mission was a lie. David argued at the time that no one would be harmed by changing the story, and in fact it would be for the greater good. But the propagators suffered for it.

The director, John Madden has never been associated with action or suspense flicks, but the best thing about The Debt are the action/suspense scenes of the young protagonists. Several of his films have been thoughtful or thought provoking, particularly Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) and Proof (2005). Clearly, The Debt is aiming for the same territory. It succeeds to dome degree, but as I left, the theater, I couldn’t help thinking it could have been better still. A little too much exposition, too few loose ends. Somehow, the package is a little too neat...

In current release.

The Taste of Others (2000): Small is Beautiful

A motion picture does not have to be a star-studded blockbuster to make your heart sing, to provoke thought or to inspire your imagination. Certainly, some of our most cherished movies have been independent, relatively low-budget affairs, films such as Before Sunrise (1995), The StationAgent (2003), After the Wedding (2006), The Last Station (2009), and even last year's Academy Award winner, The King's Speech (2010). One might even argue that the big- budget movie is far less likely to touch us, to provoke us, or to engender new insights than the "small" film. But perhaps, this is just matter of taste.

The Taste of Others (Le Goût des Autres) is a little gem. It was nominated for an Academy award in 2001 in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Among other things, the film is about how taste -  intellectual, cultural and social - affects our perception of others and of our selves, and also about how, sometimes, a little taste of someone else's very different life, their style or ideas, can be the seed of change and growth. A useful means for exposure to the taste of others, of course, is romantic love, and this lovely movie follows that course in developing its themes.

The Taste of Others is the first directorial effort by Agnes Jaoui, who cowrote the screenplay with her longtime collaborator Jean-Pierre Bacri (who also happens to be her husband), and both star in the film as well.  It is a finely plotted story of intersecting lives. At the core is Castella (Bacri), a wealthy industrialist in Rouen, who is on the verge of concluding a major deal with the Iranians. But Castella is bored with his business and his life.  He doesn't want to take a meeting with the Iranians. He doesn't want to go through with the English lessons his assistant has arranged for him. Castella is stuck emotionally and stylistically; if he can be said to have any taste at all, it might be called plodding or pedestrian, symbolized by his funky, out of date mustache.

His wife, Angelique (Christiane Millet), a narcissistic interior designer with amusingly atrocious taste, and a preference for animals over people, pretty much runs Castella's home life. One day she drags him to a local production of Racine’s Bérénice, because his niece has a bit part; and much to his surprise, Castella finds himself moved to tears by the dramatic performance of the lead actress – whom he recognizes as his seemingly mousy English instructor, Clara (Anne Avaro). He goes back to the theater the next night, sans sa femme, to soak up the experience, falls in love with the actress, and throughout the rest of the film tries to ingratiate himself with Clara and her artistic and intellectual friends, buying them drinks, buying their art, etc.. Clara’s crowd, of course, believes they are superior to this boorish, unschooled, capitalist lout. But Castella is changing; his association with these people, their galleries, their conversations awakens in him a desire for something finer in his own life. And as he changes, the lives of others around him will also change.

There is a parallel story involving Manie (Jaoui), the barmaid - and sometimes marijuana/hashish dealer - at a tavern near the theater, where Clara and her friends hang out.  Manie is a friend and confidant of Clara. She also hooks up, briefly, with Castella’s chauffeur, Bruno (Alain Chabat),  and, more seriously, with Franck (Gerard Lanvin), Castella's temporary bodyguard. Manie is an independent woman, who’s tired of having affairs and wants a serious relationship, but is unwilling to be subservient to a man. Franck brags of having slept with hundreds of women over the years, but  perhaps there’s something different about this one?

We initially perceive each of these folks as defined by their ascribed roles - barmaid, businessman, bodyguard, artiste - but along the way, we get to see far more: the nuances of their personalities, emotional needs and longings. We come to care about them as real people, and we remember them.   Jaoui has created beautifully etched and astutely observed  characters, whose every move and every utterance seems right and true. It’s a remarkable achievement, aided by fine performances from the entire ensemble of actors, herself included.

One of my companions suggested that this was a film only the French could make, certainly not Americans. In that the arc of the film is propelled almost entirely by dialogue, rather than action, I would agree that this is a quintessentially French product. And I would like to see more character driven, relationship oriented movies from these shores. We do come up with a few lovely little pictures about real people now and then, like the aforementioned Before Sunrise and The Station Agent, and some of the recent Woody Allen movies, for example.

Anyway, I highly recommend this flick. Between the subtitles (which are quite well done) and the initial slow pace of the story, I also encourage you to come at it with some degree of alertness and at least partial sobriety. If you snooze, you lose. (This comes from personal experience: I started my viewing of The Taste of Others after 9 PM, following a hearty meal and several glasses of wine. I drifted in and out of the first half, not really connecting the dots; although when full consciousness returned, and I got my second wind, I was able to enjoy the second half of the film. The next day, fully awake,  I went back, re-watched the first part, and filled in quite a lot of gaps!)

Jaoui has written directed a couple of other films in, I’m told, a similar style:  Look At Me (Comme une Image) (2004) and Let It Rain (Parlez-moi de la Pluie) (2008). I can’t wait.

Available on DVD from Netflix

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): Render Unto Caesar

The story of a brilliant, but impetuous scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), who has developed a drug to cure Alzheimers, and, while testing this on lab apes, discovers that it improves their intelligence. Vastly! To the point that the critters are a match for their human counterparts; so much so that they resent being treated like lab animals, and eventually decide to do something about it. It’s an old story. So old that it’s actually  a prequel to the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes (which starred Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Linda Harrison ). The original film was a big hit and spawned three or four sequels. The prequel (perhaps “re-launch” is more apt) is pretty good, too.

To be honest, while Franco’s character starts out as the protagonist of this story, he ends up being a supporting player to an ape (more precisely, a chimpanzee). The first lab primate to show remarkable intelligence was a female known as Bright Eyes (an homage to the nickname given to Heston in the 1968 film). Her offspring, an adorable baby chimp, is rescued by Franco and named Caesar. Caesar is raised like a member of the family by Franco, his dad (John Lithgow), and his veterinarian girlfriend, Freida Pinto).  Caesar is at least as bright as his mom, and has the advantage of being raised  much like a human child, and as he grows and matures, our attention and our sympathies shift to him.

Caesar is largely a creature of CGI (computer generated imagery), the process that, in the past several years has brought us such believable cinema creatures  as  the Na’vi  (Avatar – 2009) and Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003). Those were terrific, but Caesar is the state of the art CGI creation: a fully realized character, visually and emotionally, who winds up carrying the film.  He is “played” by Andy Serkis, who previously performed the same function as Gollum, and then as Kong, in Peter Jackson’s 2006 version of King Kong. I’m not sure how, exactly, they do this, but this CGI thing is becoming an art form. The rendition of Caesar and his hairy cohort is far superior to the special effects costumes used in the days of yore; and this may be reason enough to go out and see this picture.  

The cinematography, by the great Andrew  Lesnie  [The Lord of the Rings, King Kong (2005), I Am Legend (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009)] is remarkable as well, especially a beautiful scene late in the movie,  in which we experience the movement of a simian horde across an urban arboreal canopy by a soft, rustling sound and then a cascade of falling leaves onto the startled street below.

The story itself is good enough, if you don’t probe the logic or the meaning too deeply. There is a Spartacus theme to it – the slave (ape) uprising, and all that – which certainly holds our interest. An underlying theme about the immorality of animal experiments and the evils of greedy, corporate Big Pharma is trite but (thankfully) underdeveloped. There are specific villains to root against – most particularly a sadistic keeper (TomFelton, better known as Draco Malfoy). And then there’s a satisfying, if emotionally disorienting, climactic battle, in which we find ourselves rooting against the humans (much as we did in Avatar – what does this trend portend?) and cheering on the apes.

Freida Pinto, as the love interest for Franco, has little to do here, but she remains attractive. Franco holds his own as the good-guy human, a reasonable man (sort of), trying to make things right in an impossible situation.

This film benefits from the big screen experience, so I’d encourage you to see it at the cineplex, rather than on the home TV, if you’re interested at all.

In general release.