Blog From The Bench

A few months ago I had a pretty deep conversation with a friend and fellow Judge George Hatch about homosexuality and religion, and he pointed me to a highly personal review he had written about the film LATTER DAYS for this site. I had remembered seeing the previews for the film upon its release, but had written it off as one of the gay-themed fluff films that blow through San Diego theatres on occasion. According to his review, however, LATTER DAYS didn't fit into this category, but was in reality a very honest and probing look at hypocrisy and guilt within the confines of organized religion. It turns out he was right on the money.

LATTER DAYS is basically a story about Aaron (Steve Sandvoss), a young Mormon guy who leaves his native Idaho for LA to start his two year missionary requirement (of which I am well acquainted- I currently have several cousins in various parts of the world doing the same thing). While there, his gay neighbor Christian (Wes Ramsey) exposes the deep, dark secret he has been trying to suppress and ignore his whole life: his homosexual tendencies. When the two are caught sharing a kiss in a moment of crisis Aaron is immediately sent back home, with the excommunication and "curing" process immediately begun.

I was very interested in the topic of this film, for even though I am not Mormon (thank god), I come from a very conservative religious background (as I alude to in my bio), and as I have gotten older I have really had to question these moral and religious values, especially as my political and social beliefs seem to be increasingly at odds with what are supposed to be my religious values. For that reason LATTER DAYS very much appealed to me, as I'm always interested in looking at religion from perspectives that are not exactly my own but that contain some similarities.

What ultimately elevates this film far above other treatments of this type of material is the overall fairness extended to both sides of the issue. The story behind the creation of LATTER DAYS is that writer/director C. Jay Cox is a gay man that was born and raised in the Mormon Church, and he wondered what an earlier version of himself (embodied in Aaron) would do if he came into contact with the later (and current) version of himself (seen in Christian, which is a very interesting name choice). This means that Cox has experience on both sides of the fence, and the film is greatly enhanced because of it. It would have been extremely easy for Cox to vilify the Mormon Church in this situation, but overall he refrains from doing so. Though he refuses to shy away from the despicable behavior directed towards the character of Aaron, particularly in a horrific montage depicting the "curing process" and in the emotional isolation Aaron must endure from his ashamed parents, he overall presents these people as being so wrapped up and blinded in their religious beliefs that they are to be pitied more than hated.

It needs to be stated that LATTER DAYS is also quite accomplished in a technical sense and is in no way a Z-grade film, as seems to be the general case with many gay-themed films. The acting is overall excellent, filled with interesting and provocative supporting characters (played with particular skill from the likes of Jacqueline Bisset (still a fox after all these years), Mary Kay Place and Rebekah Johnson). But, of course, it is the two leads that ultimately sell the film, and both are at their best during the big sex scene, which turns a very deep and soul-searching sequence instead of just an opportunity to display a lot of chisled male flesh to the target audience. The production values and soundtrack is also quite good (the theme song "Windmills" by Toad the Wet Sprocket is terrific, by the way). By making sure LATTER DAYS is a quality production Cox & Co. have made it possible for LATTER DAYS to appeal to a much larger audience than just the LGBT community, which, in my opinion, is the way it should be.

So thanks George for recommending this film to me. I don't know if you thought I would actually bother to check it out, but I'm extremely glad I did.

Simone de Beauvoir is a genius.

That is all.

... Douglas Sirk's THE TARNISHED ANGELS (1958) on TCM... and it reminded me that this terrific film needs a DVD release. Soon.

Criterion did a bang up job with WRITTEN ON THE WIND and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, and there's a pretty good release of IMITATION OF LIFE out there... but I prefer TARNISHED ANGELS to all of these, and it's only available on a horrible pan-and-scan VHS version that cuts off half the picture!

Such is the injustices in this world...

A friend of mine died last week. No, not a friend, not exactly. More of a presence, a presence in my life that I didn't really take much note of while it was there. But now that it's not there, I realize how important it really was.

I learned of his death four days ago, and since then, I've wanted to watch THE HOURS. I can think of no other film that deals with that thin, fragile line separating life and death in a more beautiful or graceful or heartbreaking way. By telling three variations of the basic story found in Virginia Woolf's magnificent novel "Mrs. Dalloway" (one of my very favorite pieces of literature) writer Michael Cunningham, like Woolf before him, is able to explore the pulses of daily life and find the subtle moments in everyday life that express the meaning of what it is to live, and sometimes, the meaning of what it is to die.

In THE HOURS director Stephan Daldry seamlessly interweaves these three stories, finding the similarities that connect these three individual stories that occur over the course of eighty years. Through some beautiful editing, particularly in the opening minutes of the film, Daldry collapses the time barrier and giving the impression that these stories are occurring simultaneously despite the supposed decades that separate them. I've always liked that idea- that time is cyclical, and that human experience is some kind of shared experience and common bond that links humanity despite the barriers of language, location, and even time.

I noticed during this viewing that flowers are a motif that runs through the entire film. Opening (like Woolf's novel) with the acquirement of bouquets of flowers, flowers are ever-present in this movie, as both decorative items for a part and as subtle symbols of life and renewal. Flowers have meant more to me the last few days than they have in the past. Yesterday morning, in my British Writers class, my professor brought in a bunch of yellow roses and set them on the seat in front of me. If he had been there, it was the seat he would have sat in, just as he had every other Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning since early January. My professor cried through most of class, reading some poetry and sharing a few thoughts. We wrote a few things down on blank cards if we wanted to. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off of those yellow roses. Those flowers, supposed symbols of regrowth and the ever-renewing cycle of nature, was standing in for a life that was no longer existed. It was a bizarre juxtaposition that crushed me.

Suicide, death or the threat of death are also themes that run throughout the entire film, touching all of the characters in each individual plotline. Death is certainly something that is inevitable and unavoidable any time life in involved, and THE HOURS is one of the best films I can think of that carefully examines the fragile balance of life and death, and how it affects the thoughts and perception of those who must carry and live after it occurs. As Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman, in an Oscar winning performance) ruminates as she gives life to perhaps her most brilliant novel (well... it's hard to say that, both "To the Lighthouse" and "Orlando" are just as good), there's very little that separates these two entities. She sates simply, in a moment of ephiphany, that somebody must die. Somebody must die, so that the others might live. "Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more."

Life has a funny way of working things out sometimes. In my previously mentioned British Writers class we will be starting "Mrs. Dalloway" in two weeks time. I don't know if he had ever read it, but I know he won't be reading it with us. I've been looking forward to the opportunity to reread the book all semester, but it's going to have a rather different meaning this time around. A deeper, more profound one. Suicide won't just be an abstract concept in a book anymore.

It'll be... real. And painful. And maybe, hopefully, it'll illuminate. Because those of us left behind must figure out some way to make sense of things and carry on.

... yesterday on an airplane I sat next to the actor who played the Japanese general in PEARL HARBOR (which would be either Mako or John Fujioka, I can't tell).

A few years ago that would have really impressed me. But yesterday is just made me realize how stupid our concept of fame really is. You're just anybody else if nobody recognizes you. Fame is an illusion that depends on validation from a third party if it is going to exist at all, making it one of the most fragile things I could possibly fathom. And yet, a multi-billion dollar industry is based around it.

How very stupid indeed.

A review for BEFORE SUNSET. Especially considering it's just about my all-time favorite film. I wrote this review/reaction in a fit of emotion.

"Just in Time"

There's no other film that affects me the same way BEFORE SUNSET does. As eighty quick minutes flash by I sit in a state of rapture, a goofy lopsided grin on my face, or my heart breaking as deeply emotional revelations spill forth from the backseat of a Peugeot van... no other film I've ever experienced envelopes me--- my mind, my thoughts, my emotions-- in the same way BEFORE SUNSET does.

BEFORE SUNSET is an emotional experience for me. I saw it for the first time at the Haymarket Odeon Theatre at the end of my second week in London. It was a new experience for me- I was just embarking on a several month stay in Britain's capital city, and while I wasn't exactly nervous, I was experiencing emotions I'd never felt before, and felt a vulnerability, both physical and emotional, that was entirely new to me. But somehow, in the dark and dingy little Screen Two down in the basement, I connected. Not just connected to the movie (which I absolutely did), but connected to London, to its inhabitants (the small audience, like me, clearly adored the film and didn't want it to end either), and oddly, to myself. Already, just two weeks into my semester, I could feel small changes happening inside of me- and for the first time I felt like I was able to recognize that person, and realized I indeed wanted to become him.

BEFORE SUNSET, like BEFORE SUNRISE that preceded it, is set in a European city. Like Ethan Hawk's character, I was an American who felt slightly out of place. And obviously, Hawk's character's name is Jesse- just like me. That parallels were obvious, and it clicked. I recognized, even at that early point in time, that Jesse and Celine's environment, first Vienna and then Paris, subtly effected them the same way my new environment was affecting me. In BEFORE SUNSET Paris is like the third character, the quiet and ever-watchful entity that both manages to watch from a distance and actively interact with them both. I had no Celine, but I had London- the sights and sounds of a city pulsing with life, and like Jesse and Celine's constant attempts to probe into each other's personality, memories, and past, I was trying to unlock the mystery of this city, and figure out how it was connected to me, and if there was indeed a chance for a future together, if only (in the grand scheme of things) for just a brief moment in time.

Linklater's film is about isolation and connection, and how the two are often intimately intertwined. I could relate- I was alone, completely alone and anonymous, in the heart of a city I hardly knew. And yet, even though I was isolated and alone physically, I was connected, somehow, and to something, for the first time. I emerged from the Haymarket into the biting cold of the London night, a light precipitation stinging my eyes the moment I passed the gold doors of the theatre and into the black night. My first reaction was to get to the nearest tube stop, and I headed that way. But something made me stop, and I spun around and headed in the opposite direction. I walked down ancient streets with stone buildings that trapping me from all sides, and emerged onto Trafalgar Square. Because of the rain it was largely deserted- and it struck me I had London all to myself. I still remember that moment distinctly, for it hit me all at once. The twinkling lights reflecting off the slightly damp stone and cement, the chilled air, the encapsulating silence that muted the city noise, my watering eyes... it was a moment where my whole being was breathlessly attuned, as if for the very first time, with the beauty that surrounded me. I was alone, but part of something much bigger than myself.

Throughout BEFORE SUNSET emotions are slowly peeled away like the paper-thin layers of an onion, revealing increasingly vivid and pungent sensations lurking beneath. As Jesse and Celine interact they allow their jaded and confident exteriors to be slowly stripped away, allowing thoughts and emotions previously submerged to become suddenly exposed in front of the other person, naked and jagged and sometimes quite ugly. I could feel myself being stripped too, emotionally and spiritually, and I could literally feel my thoughts, feelings and fears melt away into the clear night, as if I was being detoxed from everything I had ever known or felt. Additionally, something breathlessly new and exciting was spreading across my newly exposed being that reassured me and dared me to continue my way down the empty sidewalk running down Whitehall.

BEFORE SUNSET is a movie about memories, and how they actively affect the present by coloring the past and shaping the future. As Jesse and Celine slowly reveal information about their present they also keep going back to that one single moment in their past, unwittingly or not allowing it to shape how the perceive each other and the reality of their present situation. As I watch BEFORE SUNSET it seems a floodgate in my memory is opened up, and memories drench me as I watch the film unfold. BEFORE SUNSET, which now shares an intimate relationship with me and plays an integral part in who I am, is one of the very few films that I feel I actively interact with as I watch it. Though I never feel anything less than completely connected to what is happening on the screen, another part of my mind is working on a completely different plane as I relate and connect Jesse and Celine's experiences with my own. Words, phrases, and little details in the background set off memories and connections like fireworks. The Peugeot emblem on the front of Philippe's black van instantly reminds me of the cheesy Peugeot adds I saw before each of my three London viewings of BEFORE SUNSET. Café Rouge reminds me of the hours and hours I spent in Caffé Nero reading, typing, thinking, and watching. The long shots of Jesse and Celine meandering through the ancient streets of Paris reminds me of my endless walking through the maze-like streets of London. The walk along the Seine reminds me of the time I spent walking along the Thames on my way to Amano or the Tate Modern. Fleeting details: coffee cups, bookshops, signs, historical buildings, clinging vines on ancient stone- they all instantly transport me to a place that I used to be and I often wish I still was. In many ways I feel like I relive my memories through Jesse and Celine, because in essence, our experiences are the same.

Ultimately, I can't think of a better emotional effect a film can have, especially one that centers around the idea of a second chance. BEFORE SUNSET shows Jesse and Celine reconnecting and experiencing their past in a whole new ways. I feel like I have done the same with my beloved London after spending eighty minutes with BEFORE SUNSET. Just like both characters, a chance meeting with an old friend allows for the past to come rushing back with a new clarity and depth, and reminds once again how very special that one moment in time truly was.

“Just in time. You found me, just in time.”