Holocaust as a farcical game

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (LA VITA E BELLA) (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1997)

Roberto Benigni is the modern-day Chaplin - quixotic, energetic and clownish. He's always surrounded by societal misfits and higher-ups who want no part of him, yet Benigni always finds a way to immerse himself in their company and conform to society's expectations, all the while still remaining buffoonish. "Life is Beautiful" is his latest film as writer-director, but this time he's confronted by a deeper reality - the Holocaust.

Benigni stars as Guido, a Jewish-Italian buffoon who continually runs into a pretty schoolteacher (Nicoletta Braschi), whom he desperately longs for. The first time, he confronts her at a farm where he makes off with some eggs. Then he makes a merry trip to one of the picturesque villages of Tuscany, seeking employment as a waiter and living with his uncle. Of course, he keeps running into the schoolteacher, who admires his persistence. In one incredibly riotous scene, Guido impersonates an official who is to lecture a class on races. Guido makes such a spectacle of himself by undressing in front of the class and making observations about racism that it practically had me falling out of my seat laughing. Guido finally wins the teacher's heart and they get married, have a son, and run their own bookstore. During the last hour of the film, Guido and his son are captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. It is here where Guido tries to convince his son that it is all a game, a contest played by military-style officials where the grand prize is a real tank!

The first hour of "Life is Beautiful" is sweet and comical, among Benigni's finest moments on screen. It is on par with the rampant silliness of "Johnny Stecchino." The second half is not as ingenious, and I think mainly because Benigni chose a subject that is difficult to take on any comic level. The notion is that Guido tries to shelter his son from the horrors of the Nazi death camps by accentuating that it is all a game, a farce that can be reckoned with. In doing so, Benigni has removed all the inhumanity and horror from the Holocaust - he turns it into another one of Guido's comical pranks. Some of it is successful - I like the scene where Guido serves as translator for a German commandant who explains what the duties of the prisoners are in the camps. There is also a brief moment where Guido sees a mountainous hill of corpses, all photographed as if they were a glass painting. By the end of the film, though, the theme of survival and sacrifice is lost when we don't really see what was lost or gained from the experience. It doesn't help that the camps and their surroundings are photographed in the same colorful, picturesque quality as the Tuscan village scenes.

"Life is Beautiful" is a paradox in theory - it presents the Holocaust as a fairy tale, and expects us to laugh along with Guido. If we had seen it from Guido's son's point-of-view, the comical scenes would have worked better. His son surely would have had his own wild-eyed view of one of the 20th century's greatest atrocities. And the last scene of the American tank arriving at the camps reeks of Spielbergian sentiment.

In general, "Life is Beautiful" does so many things right, and is often wonderful and touching. Benigni is one of the few uncommonly pleasurable actors in the movies today, and he has agreeable chemistry with his real-life wife Braschi ("Down By Law"). It was a mistake, though, to transcend the meaning of the Holocaust by turning it into a farce. The movie doesn't have the atmosphere or the sardonic pull of the similar Lina Wertmuller classic, "Seven Beauties," which accepted the reality of the war and had the superb comic actor Giancarlo Giannini at its center, saving his own life by sleeping with the commandant. Sure, we all make sacrifices, but sometimes we need to see what we're making them for.

Pamela, the ship has sailed

SAVING MR. BANKS (2013)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I expected a maudlin and overly sentimental film from Disney while watching "Saving Mr. Banks." Instead, I witnessed a very moving, almost poetic film about a stern, rigid, cynical woman who is slowly coming out of her own shell.

Emma Thompson, an actress of exemplary simplicity, is Pamela Travers, the stiff-lipped British writer of "Mary Poppins" stories who is facing some financial hardships (she can't afford a maid yet keeps hiring and firing them). The ever cheerful Walt Disney (Tom Hanks, perfectly cast) wants to make a film adaptation of "Mary Poppins" (a 20-year-struggle) but the ever cynical Travers, who despises Disney's movies, will not sell the rights to her stories unless she has absolute control of the production. Her stipulations are harsh: no use of the color red, no animation, and complete line-for-line approval of the script among other requests. If her stipulations are not adhered to, she will quit and take her novels with her thus, no movie (in reality, Disney had already secured the rights to the novels despite the fact that Travers still had script approval).

The pre-production of "Mary Poppins" turns into a nightmare of unseen proportions with Travers disapproving of the silly songs, the lack of authenticity in the script, the dilution of the characters from her books, the sole animated sequence and much more. There is reason behind this - "Mary Poppins" is a very personal work for Travers, extrapolating stories from her own personal background that includes a rough childhood in the Australian outback. Her alcoholic father, a banker who gets himself fired frequently (exceedingly well-played by Colin Farrell), is shown in various flashbacks as well as her mother - one scene involving her mother in a lake is gripping and somber in ways that we don't expect to find in a Disney film. Farrell's drunk episodes will make you cringe - they are conveyed with extreme honesty. The memories are too painful and that is the insight we gather from her objections to "Mary Poppins" - it is not so much a cutesy film about a flying nanny as it is a deeply personal work about her inner demons. You'll slowly understand why Travers objects to various script elements and especially the use of the color red.

"Saving Mr. Banks" is not a flight of fancy biographical tale with a warm rinse and rose-colored glasses, nor does it trivialize the arduous creative process of a Disney production. It is much more of a somber and involving film about a woman's scorn for diluting personal experiences for the sake of an entertainment. 

D.O.A. Bernie and the laughs

WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The problem with stiffs in a comedy is that once a character is dead and lugged around from one place to another, you can only milk the gag so far before it runs dry. Sensing the occasional chuckle in an otherwise resolutely gag-free "Weekend at Bernie's" for a second time proves that with age, some movies suck the air out of the room. Maybe in 1989, the movie seemed funny to me but it is just an elongated, one-note premise, and nothing comes of it.

Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman play two friends who work for an insurance company who discover a fraudulent account. The dashing, suave Bernie is their boss (played with unabashed charm and stiff-like grace by Terry Kiser) and applauds their efforts by inviting them to his beach house in Hampton Island, NY (a fictitious island, by the way). However, there is more than meets the eye since the fraud is Bernie's doing (a mob connection), and he wants the two ambitious kids whacked. Problem is the mob knows Bernie is sleeping with the head honcho's mistress so Bernie will be whacked instead. So we eventually arrive at Hampton Island, Bernie is whacked and the boys, once they discover this, hesitate to call the police, then they try to call, hesitate, etc. They hope that Bernie's party guests will notice he is nothing but a corpse but no - the guests on this island are all drug-addicted, alcoholic idiots who want to borrow the dead man's prized possessions and nothing more. Naturally, the mistress comes around and she and Bernie are engaged in an act together that is the most inspired note in the whole film.

I did leave out that Silverman's character has a thing for a fellow co-worker (a wasted Catherine Mary Stewart merely existing as a pawn - she is better than that) whom he profusely lies to! This subplot belongs in another movie (especially the awry romantic scene at his parents' house). Mostly, we get a dead Bernie whom the boys hoist onto boats repeatedly or shake his body in front of the guests to feign the appearance of someone alive...but very little of it is funny and comes across as crass and unbelievable. Being a stiff is not automatically funny...nor is seeing one buried in the sand twice any more comical. And using two highly unlikable and soulless idiotic chums as the protagonists makes this comedy D.O.A.

House of Diluted Horrors

THE FUNHOUSE (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Out of all of the early 80's slasher flicks, "The Funhouse" is slightly above most of them but there's not much more to say. Coming from Tobe Hooper who scared the bejesus out of me with his frighteningly intense and nightmarish "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I expected a whole lot more. After all the Hoop made the sensational TV movie "Salem's Lot" and directed most of "Poltergeist."

Elizabeth Berridge (who some of you might know as Constance Mozart in "Amadeus") is Amy, the virgin who goes on a date with a hot guy! The guy is Buzz (Cooper Hucklebee) and they are on a double date with Amy's friend, Liz (Largo Woodruff), and her very nerdy boyfriend, Richie (Miles Chapin). They are off to the funhouse, a traveling carnival in town that has been plagued with trouble in other locations. Amy doesn't want to go since she would rather see a movie but Buzz convinces her. Once they are at the funhouse and see attractions like a two-headed cow and various goblins and skeletons and other spooky contraptions, the double daters decide to stay overnight. Big mistake when you consider the occupants of this funhouse including a foul-mouthed fortune teller (hilarious wickedness from Sylvia Miles), a possibly deformed male wearing a Frankenstein get-up, and the demented master of ceremonies (Kevin Conway, a sort of poor man's Oliver Reed). A murder ensues witnessed by the pot-smoking, sex-starved teens that leads to an inescapable dilemma.

I would almost recommend "The Funhouse" had it been more devilishly fun and made better use of its ominous sets. There are good set-ups, especially involving Amy's brother, Joey (Shawn Carson), who sneaks out of the house and checks out the funhouse. Why? Maybe because he fears for his sister's safety or because he has an affection for Karloff's Frankenstein monster (which he keeps a poster of in his house) or due to the strange Frankenstein-costumed carnival worker he sees. Hmmm. There are a few scenes where Joey gingerly tries to avoid getting seen after the carnival is closed but nothing comes of them. When one of the workers calls his parents and they pick him up, you kind of wished this whole subplot was eliminated altogether.

Little hints of something more foreboding are sprinkled throughout the misguided screenplay. The scene where the carnival worker wipes Joey's face while his parents look on is far more tense and scary than anything else in the movie. I also like Berridge's scene in the car with Buzz before they go to the funhouse where Buzz merely tries to manipulate her and she sees through it, though she retains her naivete (she also finds his jokes unfunny). It is such a good damn scene, so perfectly written and acted, that it deserves better than what follows. And whatever hope there is, and it is suggested, of seeing the glint of sadness in Kevin Conway's character is immediately eradicated by the usual shocks and "who goes there?" cliches.

I am not totally dismissive of Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse" and I do see that he might have been trying for a more character-oriented slasher film, dependent more on mood and atmosphere than bloody mayhem. Unfortunately, there are one too many missed opportunities, not to mention a silly looking monster, homages to "Halloween" and "Psycho" and not much else. Elizabeth Berridge and the film's sense of atmosphere almost make up for it, but this carnival could've had more fright value.

What's Happening in this Day of the Stiffs?

THE HAPPENING (2008)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

M. Night Shyamalan is a master at setting the audience up - he knows how to fuel the buildup so we sit there wondering what will happen next. "Lady in the Water" was a stranger, ambitious film in his oeuvre, a convoluted mermaid fairy-tale that never quite found its pulse. "The Happening," however, is an eager attempt to re-establish what he does best: a slow, uneasy uncovering of something mysterious that will keep you guessing. His best films ("The Sixth Sense," "The Village") kept the mystery alive because he showed compassion for his characters until the inevitable surprise ending. "The Happening" contains a remarkable sense of dread and foreboding in the first fifteen minutes, and it goes severely downhill afterwards with perfunctory characters.

Something is happening in the city of Philadelphia. Pedestrians on the streets stop dead in their tracks, look as stone faced as Medusa, and suddenly kill themselves. Constructions workers fall to their deaths, some stab themselves on the neck, cops shoot themselves and there is general hysteria here. Mark Walhberg is a high-school science teacher who runs for the hills along with his nearly listless wife (Zooey Deschanel), his fellow teacher friend (John Leguizamo) and his own daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez), heading to a presumably safe haven, unaware of what is causing all this mass suicide. They take the trusted SEPTA train only to be stuck in some small town, outside of Philadelphia, and they cavort in the countryside hoping that what seems like a terrorist attack will end soon. Well, it is not terrorists spreading deadly nerve gases but rather plants and trees. If the weather gets overcast and the wind starts to rustle the foliage, watch out, run, and don't stay in groups of more than four!

Unfortunately, there is not a heck of a lot more to say about "The Happening." There are some unintended laughs along the high mortality rate but nothing to latch onto - no real basic story other than a dangling premise that would be hardly meaty enough for a "Twilight Zone" episode. Even the rules established by Wahlberg are not followed since a small group of people can still invoke suicidal tendencies, although how do the trees and bushes know or care how many people to attack and instill with such violence is beyond my understanding. This not exactly "Day of the Triffids" - it is more like "Day of the Stiffs." The actors, including a very wasted Zooey Deschanel (in more ways than one), seem forced in their reactions to this madness and clearly misdirected. My favorite scene, full of unintended laughs, has Wahlberg trying to convince a house plant that he just wants to use the bathroom. It turns out the plant is plastic. Do yourself a favor: watch TV's classic "What's Happening" instead.

Can't turn away from sadism

QUILLS (2000)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2000)

When I think of the Marquis De Sade, I think of sadism, pure and simple (heck, the word comes from his name). Others may see him as a pornographer, a brutally harsh man, bestial, etc. It is a surprise therefore to see that director Philip Kaufman ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being") has sanitized the grand old Marquis somewhat, making him less the dangerously lecherous man and more the swooning, almost sympathetic writer dying to write his devilishly seductive prose with his needful quills.

Geoffrey Rush is De Sade, shown living in a dank stone cell in a mental institution known as Charenton. De Sade delights in writing and in speaking in gentle, arousing tones, embellishing and enunciating each and every syllable as if the English language were his own. Though he is imprisoned, he continues to write his novels, particularly the controversial "Justine," with the help of a chambermaid (Kate Winslet), a secret courier who delivers his work to the nearest town to be published anonymously. Of course, most of the townspeople know it is De Sade's work, only he could publish such scandalous writings.

Naturally such published works cause controversy and so the institution sends Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a brutish, callous man to cure De Sade of his fiendish talent by way of torture. De Sade's work gets so out of hand and causes such scandals everywhere, including one involving Collard's own youthful wife, a former nun who reads De Sade's work with relish, that the writer is stripped of his talents, physically and emotionally. His quills are taken away, as are his clothes. You can't censor a good writer for too long since he uses any available means of writing his prose, including his own blood (by pricking his fingers) and his feces. This lunatic cannot live without writing, and never before have I seen such a slowly developed emotional catharsis for an artist intent on making his work come to fruition in any way possible.

"Quills" is quite prescient in its look at censorship, and how the writer of what some have described as pornography can be used as a scapegoat for the ills of society - certainly such lascivious prose would not cause women to act lustful now would it? And what about the other patients in the institution who act out his plays regularly - are they capable of misinterpreting his work and using it as an excuse to commit violent acts?

The centerpiece of the film is the naive young priest (Joaquin Phoenix), who believes that De Sade's work is immoral yet still admires the man for his tenacity. Still, the priest does manage to read some of the man's work and it may be possible that it causes him to develop feelings for the beautiful, buxom chambermaid.

"Quills" works mainly because of Geoffrey Rush's magnificent, fully alive performance - he wretches, he cavorts, he has a devilish laugh and smile, and basically he is irresistible. I think the real De Sade must have been too, and his work shone with equal engagement. The chambermaid may find De Sade too intensely passionate for her blood, but she is nevertheless intrigued by him and sexually connected to him. De Sade turns out to bring out the best and worst in everybody close to him, including his long-suffering wife and, in a couple of startling scenes, the hypocritical Dr. Royer-Collard.

Exquisitely acted and often hauntingly beautiful in its bleached, murky look, "Quills" is about a madman who writes such erotic, violent words that it causes trouble not only for him, but for everyone around him. We can't stand to bear his pain or his enclosed surroundings yet we are unable to turn away and that, in the end, was the beauty of De Sade's art.

Boobs in Fantasy Land

BABES IN TOYLAND (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When a fantasy movie is so third rate that it is devoid of magic, a sense of wonder or anything approaching a sense of fun, I get irritated. "Babes in Toyland" is threadbare Clive Donner crap (a director who has done far superior work, including 1984's invigorating "A Christmas Carol" with George C. Scott) that is unlikely to move an impatient toddler.

Drew Barrymore is Lisa Piper, a Cincinnati 11-year-old girl who cares for her family and apparently does all the cooking. Her older sibling, Mary (Jill Schoelen), works at a toy store and is forced to push sales of teddy bears by a demanding boss (the wonderful Richard Mulligan). Keanu Reeves plays Mary's boyfriend who also works at the toy store. When Lisa gets wind that her mother (Eileen Brennan) will not be in time for dinner due to a severe snowstorm while the TV antenna's signal is cut, little Lisa runs to the toy store and asks for her sister's help. They all drive merrily home while singing "C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I" until there is a car wreck! Guess what happens! Lisa is transported to Toyland where her sister Mary, now Mary Contrary, is getting married to the dastardly, wicked Barnaby (Mulligan, again) who lives in a giant bowling ball! The marriage is intervened and we also get a roster of talented stars such as Eileen Brennan (again) as Mother Goose; Pat Morita as a Toymaker who turns out to be (SPOILER ALERT!) Kris Kringle himself, and a host of pale-green-faced creatures and actors wearing immobile animal costumes including teddy bears who serve as crossing guards! I think I also spotted Humpty-Dumpty with a movable, wandering eye. "Wizard of Oz," it is decidedly not (The stage musical of "Oz" served as the inspiration for the operetta of "Babes in Toyland" back in 1903).

The Cincinnati opener is actually decent and sort of fun, while it lasts. Jill Schoelen and Drew Barrymore work so well together that you wish they had more screen time as sisters before embarking on the Toyland adventure. Once we enter the colorful Toyland, it disappointingly looks like an amusement park, not a lived-in fantasy land. Worse yet, despite a game cast, the movie is insufferably dull and practically unwatchable. There is no flair or sense of magic in this land - it is dreary and artificial at best despite the brightly colored art-direction. Mother Goose's Shoe House and those Go-Carts are fun for a while (I like Brennan's line: "I will not allow such radical thinking in my shoe!"), and it is somewhat interesting that it is always daylight in Toyland but the whole setting resembles a western that just happens to have odd creatures. Other than that, the movie sinks fast with unmemorable songs and a climax with the toy soldiers that is so shoddily staged (witness Drew pelting monsters with tomatoes and a wooden soldier shedding a tear) that it is hard to believe anyone like director Donner would've shaped it. Everything about this movie is wooden, both in design and staging and performance (Pat Morita and Eileen Brennan bring some measure of intermittent sweetness but lovely Drew is misdirected as if she was a rotten actor who couldn't emote beyond a sunny smile). If you are a babysitter and wish to put the kids to sleep, show them this movie.