Junto Boys

ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

I recently watched two interesting films, each of which was set in Europe and portrayed the indigenous culture being affected by American policy.

BARCELONA (1994) is the second film from Whit Stillman, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his debut in 1990. Stillman seems the erudite type of upper middle class upbringing. His films are dialogue-driven and prove most interesting. This film is set in the '80's, toward the end of the Cold War. There is a swell of anti-NATO sentiment in Spain, leading Navy Officer, Fred, to ask, "They are against NATO? What are they for - the Red Army marching through Europe, eating croissants?" It's not a great line, but it captures well the astonishment of someone willing to die for a cause, who cannot comprehend the mentality of a group of civilized people who idly support the antithesis, which is peace through enslavement.

The other main character, Ted, an intellectual salesman, gives a good analogy for American foreign policy, describing a mound of black ants that have been taken over by ferocious red ants who then subjugate the black ants. "It is America's stated foreign policy to assist the black ants" says Ted, to which the Spaniard replies "people are not ants." Either he completely missed the analogy, or the analogy itself is endemic of an American attitude that we don't recognize as offensive. The conversations are enlightening, and Stillman has a good way of making conservative Americans sound like smart people.

There is more than simply politics at play here. Ted has resolved to never again let the pursuit of unattatinable beauty interfere with the possibility of finding his soul mate, so he vows to only date plain or slightly homely women. He immerses himself in Carnegie and Drucker on his mission of self-improvement, and he has even begun sneaking readings of the New Testament. He is an American stranger in a strange land.

Another great observation of culture clash borne of mutual misunderstanding is Ted's observation that people think American's are idiots because they identify us with our love of the hamburger, yet the only opportunity to eat an Amercian-style hamburger people get in other countries is the cheap dumbed-down fast food version, leaving them to surmise that we Americans must have no taste at all. Well said, and applicable to music as well. Ted enjoys listening to jazz, which is an American artistic invention just as is the dumbed-down rock and roll for which we are closely identified. BARCELONA is not a great film, but it is a very, very good one. It feels like a European film in English, and the Americans are not idiots as in a true European film.

Last night, I watched Bernardo Bertolucci's THE DREAMERS, which, though interesting, was not as good a film as BARCELONA, despite Ebert's four- to three-star edge. Michael Pitt, who looks enough like Leornardo DiCaprio to make him a lower priced alternative, is an American 19-yr-old living in Paris in 1968 as a means to avoid serving in Vietnam. He spends his days at the famous Cinemateque, where Henri Langlois was showing the greatest films he could get his hands on. Of course, many of these films are American, which is enough to anger the Minister of Culture to have Langlois terminated and the Cinemateque closed. Just as Americans were protesting their government, trying to avoid an involuntary draft, the French students used Langlois' ouster as impetus to stage their own protest. All of this info is culled from the informative documentary on the DVD.

So far as the story goes, Matthew, the quiet American, spends his days at the Cinemateque. Upon its closing, he falls in with a pair of fellow cinemaphiles, who are the children of a famous French writer. When the bohemian parents leave for the summer, the twin brother/sister invite Matthew to live with them off the money left by the parents. With no movies to go to, the trio insulate themselves inside the flat, getting to know one another intimately while outside, there are increasingly violent clashes between the state police and the French youth, who have adopted Chairman Mao as a hero.

Although we come dangerously close, there is no incest nor homosexuality to follow. There is however constant sex between Matthew and Isabelle and intimacy amongst all three. If you are an enthusiast of the female form, then the amount of screen time alloted Isabelle's sumptuous naked body is reason enough to watch this film. Her breasts defy gravity in a way that Newton could not explain. Isabelle and Theo are twins and feel psychically linked, as if they are one person sharing two bodies. They are delighted to have found a third to indoctrinate into this world they have fashioned.

The trio could go on forever in that apartment, loving one another and dreaming of cinema, but ultimately the real world intervenes. First they run out of money, and are forced to raid a nearby dumpster for sustenance, then their commune is discovered by the returning parents, and finally the rioting comes to their street, and they are forced to choose wheter to act or simply dream. The American knows enough to avoid this violent skirmish. Violence is not for dreamers, and neither is the Cultural Revolution. Matthew equates the Revolution to a movie where everyone onscreen is an extra, all marching in lockstep, reading the same book, and singing the same songs. The French, much like the Spanish of BARCELONA, wish for the Utopian world free from conflict and are ready to submit to any ideology that promises comfort in exchange of submission.

Bertolucci in the documentary discusses the events of '68 as a revolution that never really happened. The cineasts were the impetus for social change, just as the writers, fashionistas, and artists of earlier ages had all found a home in Paris. Once Langlois was silenced, the New Wave artists, such as Truffaut and Godard took to the streets as well to support the students. There is a famous image of a bloodied Truffaut who had been clocked on the head with a nightstick. The de Gaulle government began to realize that it was no longer fully in charge of the populace since its own police where beating up people's kids and favorite movie directors. De Gaulle was soon out, and the unions got some concessions for the working class, then the relovution pretty much died, and is now rarely spoken of in polite society. Once the kids grew up, I think they realized that dreaming is not an adequate economic model for a society. Look at the characters in this film: they end up eating out of dumpsters and joining a cause that is not in their own best interest just for the sake of rebellion. The twins abhor their father, whom they see as a sellout, but they are completely dependent on his money for their basic survival. Dreaming is romantic, but it don't pay the bills. It's okay to have dreams so long as you grow up and join the real world.