(Incidentally, if you haven't seen any of these films, then (a) the rest of this blog may prove a tad abstruse and (b) there is, to be honest, no real reason to see them either - though I'm probably going to catch all sorts of karate hell for writing that.)
'Rachel getting Married' is a sort of 110 minute long ad for United Colors of Benetton with some imposed moments of personal tragedy to rough out the otherwise smooth edges. The director, Jonathan Demme, in a sense can't help himself - he did, after all, win an Oscar for managing to humanize a serial killer - so a liberal love-in where a successful, big golden labrador owning, Mercedes driving, WASP family marries into what seems to be most of the artists from the Blue Note Label, shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. But, ultimately this paean for cosmopolitan liberalism doesn't work because Demme can't contain help himself and pushes his advocacy for multiculturalism too far into an exercise in samba dancing wish fulfillment. In short the movie becomes a dream rather than a form of reality it needs to ground itself in.
Now, if this is (a) a tad pretentious; and (b) a tad unfair on Demme, then I hold up my hand on both accounts. However, watching this I couldn't but make comparisons with 'Winter's Bone' (which, by the way, is also not a romantic comedy, but I think the title may have tipped you off to that fact), a film I had seen back in December. The comparisons were not necessarily of the relative merits of both films as pieces of film making, but rather the type of America they detailed. Whereas 'Rachel getting married' was rich, north eastern liberalism at its best/worst, 'Winter's Bone' was dirt-poor southern gothic (at one stage we see a squirrel being skinned in preparation for dinner). Trying to reconcile these two versions of America made me wonder if they ever could be reconciled. Much is made the US as the land of possibility, but it is also a land of shocking disparity, particularly when you are looking at it from Japan (which it isn't to say that such disparity doesn't exist here - it does, and it is increasing, but relatively speaking, Japan is still a considerably more meritocratic country).
And I'm rambling.
Anyway, there is a brutal honesty to 'Winter's Bone' which, for all its characters' emotional breakdowns and tearful confessions, 'Rachel getting married' never allows itself to descend to. Its ingrained optimism won't permit it. This is not to say its a bad film. I enjoyed both. Though perhaps 'enjoy' is too favourable word. Rather, more precisely, both films made stayed with me as good films should.
Nowadays though, very few do (though this could well be due to (a) the limited number of films I actually watch; and (b) having just cleared 41, I am beginning to slide into early senility). Back in December I threatened you with a list of my best films from 2010, though again 'best' is way too subjective a term. These are the films that stayed with me and which I would rewatch (though, given their content, probably not in the company of my wife):
'The Messenger'
'The Other Guys'
'Million Dollar Baby'
'Winter's Bone'
So there you have it. A grand total of four, and two of them weren't even made last year, but as I said, these were the most impressive movies I watched last year. And yes, I do like a good, "Christ. Isn't life shit" movie, but that's just me. I will return to these at a future date - probably sometime in 2012 - but does anybody out there (though this begs the question: 'Is there anybody out there?') want to share their belated best of 2010 with me/us?
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