 MAY, 2001 |
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From the author of Reel Spirit: A Guide to Movies That Inspire, Explore and Empower.
FINDING FORRESTER
THE FANTASTICKS
THE MEXICAN
FINDING FORRESTER
(2000, 133 minutes, PG-13)
The empowering message of director Gus Van Sant's 1997 film Good Will Hunting is that we don't have to remain victims of our past experiences ... we can move beyond them. The empowering message of Van Sant's newest film, Finding Forrester, is that our environment and birth conditions don't have to hold us back -- we can move beyond them.
Both films -- especially valuable for teenagers -- show that it is possible to overcome emotional and situational barriers, and to make our dreams and desires come true. Both films give us young people who discover that their own will and perseverance, coupled with caring mentors and counselors, can lead them to new horizons.
Often the catalyst for personal transformation comes from the encouragement of someone who cares and understands. In Good Will Hunting, Will (Matt Damon) has his counselor, Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), to teach him that what others did or didn't do to him is "not your fault." Likewise, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown), a black teenager in the Bronx, finds reclusive writer William Forrester (Sean Connery) to encourage him to show any doubters "what you can do."
Like Will, Jamal is brilliant, although he knows that his basketball prowess rather than his intelligence garners him acceptance among peers. What Jamal, a talented writer himself, lacks is confidence and direction, and that's what his friendship with Forrester, a successful one-time novelist, brings to him.
Forrester assists Jamal in understanding the head and heart connection in writing -- and in life. "You write your first draft with your heart, but you rewrite with your head," Forrester tells Jamal. In matters of general living, that's good advice. We are to act first with our heart, our spiritual intuition, and then use our sense and learning to bring more good into the world. To start Jamal writing, Forrester gives him a manuscript to type and says, "When you begin to feel your own words, start typing them." Again, that's good general advice. We begin by studying and learning what others have done, and we advance to making our own contributions and letting our own talents and light shine.
Though he's something of a cantankerous artiste, Forrester has a strong sense of right and wrong, and thus is a role model of integrity for the young Jamal. The two teach each other about the value of friendship and also about the true nature of family -- that our real family isn't a matter of blood or race, but a matter of spiritual oneness with all. Forrester speaks of "the family that can become our blood."
Finding Forrester is a little of Good Will Hunting, a bit of Dead Poet's Society, a touch of Scent of a Woman, a whiff of Smoke, and a dash of Slam. Ultimately, however, Finding Forrester is its own excellent creation that mirrors some of the challenges most of us go through, perhaps especially as teenagers, to find confidence in ourselves and to know our own self-worth.
THE FANTASTICKS
(2000, 87 minutes, PG for "some bawdy carnival humor")
The Fantasticks is in many ways the story of life, and the play -- the longest-running show in the history of the American theater and the longest-running musical in the world -- has been a part of my life for more than thirty years.
My wife and I have been Fantasticks groupies since we first saw the play in New York City in 1970 at the Sullivan Theater, the play's Off-Broadway home since its premiere in 1960. We've seen dozens of productions, including high school, college, community theatre and professional theatre versions. Written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, The Fantasticks is a terse story of young love (there is this boy, there is this girl . . .) traditionally told with an eight-person cast and a spare set in a small theater. The musical score -- lovely, joyous and sentimental, including "Try to Remember" and "Soon It's Gonna Rain" -- captures the essence of existence. We've been anxious for a movie version for years, and it has finally arrived -- on video, after being filmed in 1995, shelved by the studio because of doubts about marketing a musical, and released to a few theaters last year.
Directed by Michael Ritchie, who has his own love affair with the story, the movie is not the play exactly transferred to film; it is its own creation, but the screenplay was written by Jones and Schmidt, and the final result fantastically retains the integrity and intention of the play.
In short, now I'm a Fantasticks movie groupie too. From a Reel Spirit perspective, there is much to appreciate in The Fantasticks. The story reflects humankind's archetypal, timeless efforts to "try to remember" the spirit of love within and all around us and to cultivate an awareness and appreciation of that love everywhere present. It is a deceptively simple story that explores the "sweet mysteries" and illusions of love and life, innocence and experience.
Love and innocence are perfectly portrayed in the characters of the girl, Luisa (Jean Louisa Kelly), who longs "to do the things I've dreamed about but never done before" and "much more," and the boy, Matt (Joe McIntyre), who thinks of Luisa as "love better far than a metaphor could ever, ever be." In love-sick song to the background of a silent movie of Romeo and Juliet, the young lovers sing of love conquering all and of being each other's "mystery of love."
Luisa and Matt are the personification of pure love, the sort of love that we can imagine exists beyond the physical, beyond the earthly challenges, and a stage of love that we know can be achieved in relationships when we let go of human limitations and the ego. Perhaps we come into this world from and in pure love and innocence -- "trailing clouds of glory," as Wordsworth wrote -- and then we must test that love or exercise that love within the human framework until we understand that it is love that truly matters after all.
The struggles, conflicts and contentions of life give us lessons to learn about the love we really are. The two fathers in The Fantasticks and El Gallo are agents who help present the necessary lessons to Luisa and Matt. Luisa's father (Joel Grey) and Matt's father (Brad Sullivan) are neighbors feigning a feud in order to bring their children together (illustrating a paradox of life that people tend to want to do what they are told not to do). They hire El Gallo, a "Master of Illusions" who is the leader of a traveling carnival, to stage an abduction in which Matt can play the hero and thus secure his bond with Luisa.
This deception, the behind-the-scenes manipulation of events unknown to the young lovers, and the surreal setting (the Midwest in the 1920s) and staging suggest the illusions of control with which we all play our human parts. The pure love that Luisa and Matt feel for each other becomes confused and complicated by the world, and their predicament suggests the efforts we are to make to rediscover the truth -- again, to "try to remember" -- the love that we are.
The young lovers learn that few things in life are as they really seem to them. But the world is full of many lessons, which can be helpful if we are open to them. El Gallo tells the fathers, "Many paths lead to the summit," to that knowledge of our spiritual selves that is the goal of life. The story pits innocent expectations against realities of perceptions. "You have to be my hero," Luisa tells Matt, who has gargled with salt water to kill any germs before he kisses Luisa. Luisa's expectations of love and life don't include gargling and germs. She and Matt have a lot to learn about the world and its ways, and El Gallo leads them through the scenic and cynic pathways of life and helps them learn how to correctly interpret experiences.
In a physical fight with Matt, El Gallo says, "You have grace and enthusiasm, but as in all things, experience counts for everything." That experience usually involves necessary pain and difficulty, El Gallo recognizes. He sings in "Try to Remember" that "without a hurt, the heart is hollow." In other words, it seems that hurts are necessary in life because we learn and grow emotionally, psychologically and spiritually through them. From such a viewpoint, hurts and challenges have a natural, needed function in our lives.
To their credit, both Luisa and Matt are in the consciousness to learn. Matt, through the song "I Can See It," acknowledges that he is ready to learn. Matt knows that he needs the experience of the world's reality and the skills to love in a world of illusions. "Bright lights somewhere invite me to come there and learn," Matt sings. Luisa, reprising "Much More," also realizes that she needs experience to love in a world of illusions. As Matt is learning about the world's "bright lights," El Gallo shows Luisa that "life is a colorful carousel, reckless and gay." People get caught up in their own perceptions and expectations, El Gallo knows. Luisa tells him that all of her young life, she has "waited for something magical to happen."
El Gallo replies, "What if it's all illusion, sleight of hand?" Life is full of tricks and illusions, he knows, "and when you're dealing with tricks, what you see isn't always what you get. I'm warning you to be careful."
Himself a mystery man who orchestrates and creates magic and who seems both awed and saddened by life's ways, El Gallo asks, "Who understands . . . why we must all die a bit before we grow again?"
A master of paradoxes as well as illusions, El Gallo gets to the heart of love and life with the understanding that it is necessary to die to (or let go of) attachments to physical life and experiences before we can remember or get back to our spiritual self or true love. When we can see who and what we really are, one with infinite Love, then we can see all experiences as a part of that Love and know that we can never be separated from that Love. Throughout all the illusions and tricks of life, Love is there, in everything and everyone to which we extend our love, "better far than a metaphor could ever, ever be." When such Truth dawns to us, El Gallo indicates, then we are to "follow, follow."
THE MEXICAN
(2001, 124 minutes, R for violence and language)
The Mexican is trendy for more than the two obvious reasons -- Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. Or even the almost-as-obvious reasons -- gangsters crisscrossing North America and The Sopranos star James Gandolfini scoring as a likeable hoodlum.
It's trendy for a more enlightened reason, too -- for being one of those quirky, off-beat movies that is both entertaining and insightful. Interviewers and readers are frequently surprised by the great variety of movies included in my book Reel Spirit: A Guide to Movies That Inspire, Explore and Empower, and by the equally varied new movies that I review. It's my contention that inspirational messages are contained in all types of movies -- we just have to be open to them.
The two movies in the book about which I'm most asked are both comedies -- Monty Python's irreverent spoof, Life of Brian, and the zany National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
My response? Come on, viewers, lighten up. Enjoy the movies -- and life -- and let yourself be aware of the meanings presented to us, often quite blatantly.
Life of Brian, for example, has valuable lessons about thinking for ourselves in matters of religion and faith, and Christmas Vacation gives an example of true Christmas zeal and love.
Embedded in the quirkiest, most off-beat movies, we can find characters that champion the human spirit and situations that explore the fullness and meaning of life. In many movies where we don't expect to find much meaning, we find wisdom that can help us live more satisfying, spiritually connected lives.
The Mexican is such a movie, and it joins a respectable group of recent quirky, off-beat films with messages. That we're seeing so many of these movies now is a trend that surely says something about the world's perspective. To me, it seems like a healthy trend that we can view life's many challenges with a bit of humor combined with spiritual awareness.
Recent examples of such movies include: Chocolat, a delicious fairy tale with themes of tolerance and forgiveness; Shanghai Noon, a western-martial arts yarn with messages of trust and loyalty; O Brother, Where Art Thou?, an updated Homeric search for life's meaning; The Straight Story, based on a true story about a man who rides a tractor-type lawn mower on a slow journey of forgiveness; Chicken Run, a claymation creation with examples of faith and positive outlooks.
Onto this playing field comes The Mexican, which should not be dismissed merely as an action or adventure film or just a quirky vehicle for its stars. Beyond the engaging, even magical, story about efforts to recover a stolen antique gun, the movie fires off a most valuable and revealing insight about that most important of Spirit-filled emotions, love. In The Mexican, the central idea about true love is initially presented from an unexpected source - Gandolfini's character, who has abducted Sam (Roberts). Sam and her boyfriend, Jerry (Pitt), are in therapy to help their stormy relationship. Sam and her abductor form an interesting bond based on their need to give and receive love; they help each other more clearly understand love, what it means, and what they want out of a relationship.
Sam's abductor asks her this question: When you really love someone but things don't seem to be working out, when do you know enough is enough? Characteristically, Sam responds with a lot of psychiatric mumbo-jumbo that makes little sense other than to reveal her own self-centeredness. The abductor's reply to the question -- If you really love someone, when is enough enough? -- is "Never."
The response obviously brings Sam up short. Later she asks Jerry the same question. And his answer gives Sam pause for considerable thought again -- as it should all who hear it -- and is a defining moment in the couple's relationship.
Why? Because they realize with the question and answer what is the nature of true, unselfish, unconditional love. With unconditional love, which is love at its spiritual purity, there is no end to understanding, patience, support, and forgiveness. True love also, as another character points out, involves an openness to realize that people can change and therefore should not be perceived solely by their pasts. Yes, The Mexican is enjoyably quirky, but director Gore Verbinski's film also is wise in the matters of true love.
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