Sophie Scholl & recommended upcomings
Mar. 9th, 2006 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicJust got back from seeing "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days [Die letzten Tage]" at Cinema Arts Centre. It is part of the reason why I am in a sleepy-thoughtful, languid mood, though far calmer than I was the rest of the day.
Not that anyone really cares, but this might have been the first movie I saw in the theater by myself. It was odd to realize this, since I've watched countless movies alone at home and have done many other things without company, including going to live theater performances. But there you have it, for what it's worth. It was the last night "Sophie Scholl" was showing. I was the youngest in the mostly-empty theater by about 10 years.
Before the movie came the usual bunch of previews, some of which I've now seen two and three times in the last week or so (tonight, plus before "Tristram Shandy" and/or "Transamerica"). I don't know if it's an outstanding season or if once you start going to the indie and foreign film house you keep coming back, but the string of must-sees continues, including a few more Foreign Film Oscar nominees and winner. "Joyeux Noël" looks promising, similar to "A Midnight Clear" but with a few more countries' soldiers. (Coincidentally, on Monday my sister and I recognized a French-speaking Daniel Brühl in the preview, he who co-starred in "The Edukators" with Julia Jentsch, a.k.a. Sophie Scholl.) "Tsotsi" starts tomorrow. And there's this film with Bjork by an experimental artist called Matthew Barney, "Drawing Restraint 9," that looks like a f*cked-up head trip full of strange, disturbing imagery, ineffable symbolism and trance-inducing music like some sort of Japanese version of David Lynch set to Radiohead (or, you know, Bjork) -- a ship among icebergs, whale fat and false eyebrows, a woman spitting pearls and a girl throwing up a bucket full of something in a bunk. I don't think it's going to make any sense at all, and I want to see it.
So, a few scattered thoughts about "Sophie Scholl" I jotted on a sticky note in the parking lot.
Message: The Germans were victims, too.
Message: Standing up for what is right is a noble cause, even if it means certain death.
Message: Words can be weapons even a powerful government fears.
The scenario is as appropriate here and now as it was then and there, to beware the development of a government that so completely and harshly restricts freedom of peaceful protest during a war.
I cried a little. I find it difficult to cry, and so I usually take note when it happens and examine what caused it, a hopelessly introverted exercise which I have found really interesting within the past couple of years because the things I cry for are changing. Tonight it was for several things: for courage -- a young woman, alone, acting out for what she believes is right and standing by her principles despite overwhelming fear; for people who love and support one another (in all of Sophie's and Hans' smoldering [fraternal] glances, but especially in the end when the three doomed convicts share a cigarette and an embrace); for parents who are proud of their condemned children; for young people who are stronger than the adults around them; for the helpless frustration of facing an impenetrable mass of people who will not hear reason (or any opinion other than their own), or, worse, who do hear you but stand silent and let an obtuse leader make decisions for them that they know are wrong.
I loved how Sophie held her own against her interrogator no matter what he threw at her to try to trip her up. And then how, once she signed her confession, she was free to fully debate politics with him and gradually earned his respect and sympathy to the point where he pleaded for her to lie so he could try to get her a lighter sentence.
The movie wasn't perfect. Some of it wasn't the filmmakers' fault: the sound quality was sketchy in the beginning, which may have been our theater, and the bold white subtitles got lost in the background sometimes, including some crucial moments (like when they announced the verdict!). The window/sunlight symbolism could have been cut back. Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) didn't do much; he got a few lines in, but was mostly relegated to Deep Gazing. But it wasn't his movie. The writing and the acting were, of course, phenomenal, including both leads, the interrogator and the histrionic judge. The music was good too, dramatic but stopping just short (I thought) of melodramatic. And the direction and cinematography were merciless, keeping close to faces throughout the film.
In short, bravo, and go see it if you haven't already. It, or rather she, really is inspiring, without being cheesy.
Not that anyone really cares, but this might have been the first movie I saw in the theater by myself. It was odd to realize this, since I've watched countless movies alone at home and have done many other things without company, including going to live theater performances. But there you have it, for what it's worth. It was the last night "Sophie Scholl" was showing. I was the youngest in the mostly-empty theater by about 10 years.
Before the movie came the usual bunch of previews, some of which I've now seen two and three times in the last week or so (tonight, plus before "Tristram Shandy" and/or "Transamerica"). I don't know if it's an outstanding season or if once you start going to the indie and foreign film house you keep coming back, but the string of must-sees continues, including a few more Foreign Film Oscar nominees and winner. "Joyeux Noël" looks promising, similar to "A Midnight Clear" but with a few more countries' soldiers. (Coincidentally, on Monday my sister and I recognized a French-speaking Daniel Brühl in the preview, he who co-starred in "The Edukators" with Julia Jentsch, a.k.a. Sophie Scholl.) "Tsotsi" starts tomorrow. And there's this film with Bjork by an experimental artist called Matthew Barney, "Drawing Restraint 9," that looks like a f*cked-up head trip full of strange, disturbing imagery, ineffable symbolism and trance-inducing music like some sort of Japanese version of David Lynch set to Radiohead (or, you know, Bjork) -- a ship among icebergs, whale fat and false eyebrows, a woman spitting pearls and a girl throwing up a bucket full of something in a bunk. I don't think it's going to make any sense at all, and I want to see it.
So, a few scattered thoughts about "Sophie Scholl" I jotted on a sticky note in the parking lot.
Message: The Germans were victims, too.
Message: Standing up for what is right is a noble cause, even if it means certain death.
Message: Words can be weapons even a powerful government fears.
The scenario is as appropriate here and now as it was then and there, to beware the development of a government that so completely and harshly restricts freedom of peaceful protest during a war.
I cried a little. I find it difficult to cry, and so I usually take note when it happens and examine what caused it, a hopelessly introverted exercise which I have found really interesting within the past couple of years because the things I cry for are changing. Tonight it was for several things: for courage -- a young woman, alone, acting out for what she believes is right and standing by her principles despite overwhelming fear; for people who love and support one another (in all of Sophie's and Hans' smoldering [fraternal] glances, but especially in the end when the three doomed convicts share a cigarette and an embrace); for parents who are proud of their condemned children; for young people who are stronger than the adults around them; for the helpless frustration of facing an impenetrable mass of people who will not hear reason (or any opinion other than their own), or, worse, who do hear you but stand silent and let an obtuse leader make decisions for them that they know are wrong.
I loved how Sophie held her own against her interrogator no matter what he threw at her to try to trip her up. And then how, once she signed her confession, she was free to fully debate politics with him and gradually earned his respect and sympathy to the point where he pleaded for her to lie so he could try to get her a lighter sentence.
The movie wasn't perfect. Some of it wasn't the filmmakers' fault: the sound quality was sketchy in the beginning, which may have been our theater, and the bold white subtitles got lost in the background sometimes, including some crucial moments (like when they announced the verdict!). The window/sunlight symbolism could have been cut back. Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) didn't do much; he got a few lines in, but was mostly relegated to Deep Gazing. But it wasn't his movie. The writing and the acting were, of course, phenomenal, including both leads, the interrogator and the histrionic judge. The music was good too, dramatic but stopping just short (I thought) of melodramatic. And the direction and cinematography were merciless, keeping close to faces throughout the film.
In short, bravo, and go see it if you haven't already. It, or rather she, really is inspiring, without being cheesy.
