Category: Sarah Polley

WOMEN TALKING

By Marc S. Sanders

In the year 2010, a sect of women must hold congress in the upper level of a barn to debate whether to leave their colony or stand and fight against the oppressive men who rape, beat, and brainwash them into believing they will be denied entry into the kingdom of heaven should they never offer forgiveness and tolerance for the abuse they suffer.  That is the story of Women Talking, written and directed by Sarah Polley, from the novel by Miriam Towes.

From IMDB, Towes based her novel on a true story of vicious serial rapes in an insular, ultraconservative Mennonite community in Bolivia. From 2005 to 2009, nine men in the Manitoba Colony, using livestock tranquilizers, drugged female victims ranging in age from three to sixty and violently raped them at night. When the girls and women awoke bruised and covered in blood, the men of the colony dismissed their reports as “wild female imagination”–even when they became pregnant from the assaults–or punishments from God or by demons for their supposed sins.

Sarah Polley’s film works like a stage play.  She shoots with deliberately dim cinematography as if to have you feel the cold, helpless isolation the women of this fictional community endure.  These women are smart but uneducated in reading or writing.  When they vote for what do, pictures are drawn to display their options.  Two figures with dueling swords are drawn for stay and fight.  A horse is sketched for the choice to leave.  The women cast their ballots by drawing an X under the picture they opt to follow. 

To know that this piece of fiction is inspired by true events is very chilling, and when the film finishes there’s much to ponder and talk about.  It stays with you.  A young educated man named August (Ben Whishaw, in a beautifully reserved performance) from a university is recruited to keep the minutes of the meetings.  Topics of debate include if they should leave with a mass exodus of all the women, do they also take the young boys; most of them products of the numerous rapes they suffered through.  At what age are these boys incapable of trusting they will not be as monstrous as their bastard and abusive fathers?  What about August?  He is harmless and sympathetic to the ladies’ victimizations.  Shouldn’t he be allowed to go too, or because he is a man, is he excluded?  Frances McDormand’s character, whose appearance lives up to the name Scarface Janz, insists upon doing nothing.  She’s convinced they will be denied entrance into heaven by their almighty God.  To not forgive their attackers is a sin.  Is doing nothing an option?    If they stay and fight, how exactly will that be done?  Violence is an unforgivable sin, as described in doctrine.  How else do you fight against the constant attacks of violence, though?

Women Talking deserves an audience.  It’s a very good film because it draws attention to a modern day hardship.  When there are communities like this in the world that most of us are unaware of, how are the members accounted for?  Are they being nourished and educated and living comfortably?  Is everyone safe and protected?  If they are not, then how are they getting the justice they are entitled to, and do they have a chance of survival?  I appreciate when movies can open my eyes to a reality for which I have yet to carry any regard or awareness.  I feel taught having watched a movie like Women Talking. 

When the movie began, before knowing anything of what the story was about, my first presumption was that maybe this is an Amish or Quaker community based on the farm country setting and the simple wardrobes of the characters.  The time frame was uncertain to me as well.  Horse and buggies are shown, but no automobiles.  So, is this the early twentieth century, perhaps?  Only after the first ten minutes of exposition, did I realize this was something else taking place within a more recent time period.  It is astounding how far we’ve come globally with the rights of women, minorities and the overall oppressed.  Yet, there are those who regrettably remain overlooked.

Polley’s script is rhythmic with strong dialogue, and the cast of actresses (Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley) are quick with their retorts when one makes one statement after the other.  There are lots of fascinating arguments at play here, reminiscent of Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men.  Again, this is gripping material ready for live stage work. 

I did have a problem with the picture, however. The trajectory of the film works on its dialogue of debates.  The actors deliver lines from Polley’s script perfectly.  This is a smart collection of actors.  Still, it is challenging to keep track of what platform each woman stands upon.  When one gets swayed from one argument over to other side, it is also a little tricky to realize when that has occurred.  Who is staunch in their beliefs is also difficult to keep track of.  The dark photography that Polley layers the film with is meant to be morose.  It works.  It places you in the helpless mood of these afflicted women.  When you consider the practicality of the piece though, it makes it hard to identify who is who and what perspective they have.  Often, the characters don’t stand apart from one another.  It might sound trivial.  I may risk putting a stain on the filmmaker’s art.  Nonetheless, but it got in the way of the movie I was watching.

It is a blessing that Women Talking has received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and for Sarah Polley’s screenplay.  Had it not, the film would likely go unnoticed, and it cannot afford to be.  Sarah Polley’s film deserves attention.  Any one of us may never come upon these very private, hidden, and isolated communities that function under an unfair governance.  However, the film demonstrates the vicious dominance that one sex can have over another which still remains all to common.  No matter how much wiser we have become as a people, there are some who still have never gotten the message.

GO

By Marc S. Sanders

Character perspective is so vital to a story.  It becomes even more important when you are telling multiple tales.  When you have a collection of five or six characters in your screenplay and they each have a circumstance that overlaps with one another, a smart way to narrate one reckless evening is by chopping up the time period into multiple plotlines.  Numerous stories offer several perspectives and then you may appreciate what director Doug Liman accomplishes with one of his earliest career films, Go.

Go focuses on an assortment of early twenty-somethings scrounging for money while also taking in the nightlife during an evening close to Christmas.  Two supermarket cashiers, Ronna and Simon (Sarah Polley, Desmond Askew) have different things on their mind.  Ronna, who is exhausted having worked double shifts, is on the verge of getting evicted from her apartment because she has no money to pay the rent.  Simon just wants to go with his buddies for a good time in Las Vegas, but he’s got to work.  So, the two swap shifts. 

The script follows the Ronna avenue first where she meets up with some acquaintances of Simon’s looking to score some ecstasy.  Ronna thinks of a get rich quick scheme to meet with Simon’s drug supplier, Todd (Timothy Olyphant), and then sell to Simon’s buddies directly.  Naturally, it doesn’t work out so neatly.

The second act of the film focuses on Simon with three buddies (Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer and James Duval).  Because Simon is written as happy go lucky, but also careless, he’ll get into his own kind of adventures and mischief.  It can only happen in Vegas.

The third act turns the viewpoint over to those acquaintances that approached Ronna, two soap opera actors named Zach and Adam (Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf).  These guys weren’t just looking to score some drugs.  They’re up to something else entirely.

I’ve never been one to take to movies where the characters are intoxicated or high through most of the film.  I can only handle so much of Seth Rogen’s drug episode schtick like with Pineapple Express, released years after Go.  What’s most appealing about Liman’s film, however, is that you are moving along one path, and then suddenly you are reversed and driving down the other side of the fork in the road.  This routine occurs again for a third time. 

Much like Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, you can argue that the writer/director could simply take the straight route from beginning to end.  Yet is that really interesting?  Would Pulp Fiction have worked as well or better than its final composition?  Don’t we usually see that approach in everything else out there?  As well, these characters are not following a storyline that contains gripping material with symbolism or intense dialogue and circumstances.  So, how exactly do you heighten a kid buying drugs off another kid while keeping the viewers’ attention span?  You stir the pot.  (No pun intended.)

Following a rage dance club effect of opening credits, Liman does a close up of Katie Holmes as Claire, Ronna’s friend.  She’s talking to someone, who we can’t see, about how fun the surprises are with opening Christmas presents.  Go works from beginning to end because it turns in surprise encounters that you would never expect.  Call it a butterfly effect.  A flap of the wings leads to this encounter which leads to that encounter and so on.  If you are taken with the film, you just might smirk with pleasant surprise when you uncover who Claire is actually speaking to.

Early on in the film, we will see a one-sided conversation on the phone.  Later we will see the other side of that same call and I get a kick out seeing a story running parallel to another story I just got done seeing. (Forgive the redundancy of that sentence, but that’s the point!)

Another moment will have a character draw a gun on another character, only a hit and run with a car disrupts the moment.  Thankfully, we’ll meet the personalities behind that car later on.  As the picture becomes more and more clear, you might cheer “Bravo!” at the invention of Go.

As noted before, Doug Liman’s movie has been compared to the drive behind Pulp Fiction.  I understand the temptation to make that association.  However, this movie stands on its own.  Where Tarantino will show perspective of different characters, he will branch off into forward thinking with new events.  Go steers its focus to parallel plot points.  We see what’s occurring in Los Angeles right now with Ronna.  Later, we will see what’s happening in Las Vegas at that very same time with Simon.  Tarantino picks up where we left off.  Liman documents what’s happening elsewhere.  While these two characters are going along their own paths simultaneously in different parts of the universe, what happens to one of them will bear on what happens to the other as the trajectories continue. 

I might be making this out to be fancier than it ever needed to be, but it’s a kick ass good time, nonetheless.  The soundtrack is absolutely fun.  You get absorbed in the settings, almost wanting to be in the Christmas night club party with strobe lights and neon colors, or the Vegas casinos and strip joints.  The personalities and dialogue are super smart and witty with hilarious comebacks.  “If you were any more white, you’d be clear!”

At the time Go was released in 1999, from a marketing perspective, it did not appear all that attractive.  Lots of club music and symphonics surround the picture.  The most marquee name in the film, probably still, is Katie Holmes who is not exactly on the same level as an Angelina Jolie or even a Jennifer Lawrence of today.  Yes.  Nearly twenty-five years later many of these young actors are more recognizable.  I dare you to come up with their names though as soon as you see them in the picture.  However, because I’m not watching Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, I have no expectations of how any of these various storylines are going to turn out.  When the film leaves the Ronna storyline, are we going to get to see what happens to her next?  Will Simon get back from Vegas?  Lots of questions abound as the film moves on.

While Go is reveling in its debauchery, it’s performing as a smart machine that hits all the right notes where it will lay the groundwork for comedy, but then segue into serious material where the protagonists find themselves in a situation they might not be able to escape.  Go is a movie that keeps you alert, even if you’re high, during one sleepless and irresponsible night.