Movie Review: Resistance (2020)

Now Available

Although his grandmother survived the Holocaust and four of his relatives were saved from the Nazis by Oskar Schindler, four hundred members of writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz's family were killed during the second world war. To Jakubowicz, World War II movies are more than just a genre, they're also incredibly personal.

Repulsed by the rise of antisemitism in Venezuela with the election of Hugo Chavez, Jakubowicz journeyed to the United States in 2006 where he continued his work as a filmmaker. Soon however, he started seeing the same wave of hate — the kind that had always been there just under the surface — begin to make its way around the globe. Citing an increase in hate crimes as well as openly antisemitic speech from political figures whom he described as using Jews like a football, Jakubowicz knew the time was right to document the response to the atrocities of World War II by what would become the French Resistance in order to inspire us all . . . before history repeats itself again.

A handsomely crafted labor of love, Resistance is a World War II movie that chronicles the plight of members of the French Resistance who risked everything to transport hundreds of Jewish children orphaned by the war from Nazi controlled France to neutral Switzerland. The fact that the man at the film's center is none other than the struggling theater performer Marcel Mangel (Jesse Eisenberg) who would go on to become the world's most famous mime (and "master of silence") Marcel Marceau is beside the point.

Remarkably brought to life by Jesse Eisenberg — who, regrettably, is the main reason to watch the otherwise narratively by-the-numbers Resistance — the decision to paint Marcel as an artistically gifted yet everyday Joe both helps and hurts Jakubowicz's film. Based on years of research on the resistance, the Vichy government, France under Nazi control, and Marcel Marceau (all of which sounds far more fascinating than Jakubowicz's script overall) despite his best intentions, Resistance falls prey to the trappings and cliches of war flicks and biopics.

Often salvaged by its superb cast, including the always compelling Clémence Poésy who, much like Eisenberg, who never fails to dazzle, Édgar Ramírez's gentle presence elevates the film's emotional yet prosaic opening sequence where a child asks why the Nazis hate us just minutes before —  as if on cue — they show up at the door. Likewise, it's unnecessarily bookended by a flag-waving speech from General Patton (Ed Harris) at Nuremberg in an overused technique that we've seen in countless biopics over the years, including Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody.

The formulaic film only livens up once Marcel puts his mime skills to use to ease the anxiety of a newly arrived group of war orphans. Like vibrant rays of sunshine peeking through after days of gray skies and rain, when Eisenberg goes into performance mode to the delight of everyone in sight and lets himself be imaginatively blown across the room like candles on a cake, we find ourselves immediately captivated. Sadly, however, the feeling is short-lived. Sharing his tools as an actor with the kids so that they can learn not only how to blend into the scenery and hide but also (more importantly) to survive during wartime, the film should be far more engrossing than it actually is.

Augmented by the score of Jakubowicz's frequent composer Angelo Milli and the crisp cinematography by M.I. Littin-Menz, who also lensed the moving Machuca, the film's rich technical specs keep us invested in the goings-on when the storyline falls flat. Co-edited, produced, as well as written and directed by Jakubowicz, although this is clearly a passion project for the Hands of Stone helmer, Resistance gives us the impression that the filmmaker was either much too close to this project or wore one too many hats on it overall.

Of special interest to film fans and history buffs as it introduces us to the little known backstory of the legendary Marcel Marceau (whose wartime lifesaving accomplishments will always outweigh any cinematic accolades), in the end, it's an average yet still intriguing work on par with a movie made for HBO. And while I can't fully recommend the film — fueled by great ideas and correctly driven by the need to show the world that compassion and love will always trump hate — Jakubowicz's message remains as timely in 2020 as it was in 1938.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Film Movement DVD Review: In Syria (2017) & Le Pain (2001)

Now Available

“Syrians seeking refuge in Europe right now have no choice but to abandon their homes and country. They all come from places for which we lack images,” In Syria director Philippe Van Leeuw explained in an interview, sharing that, with the Berlin Film Festival Audience Award Winner, he hoped to “shine a light on the dignity of civilian populations.”

Inspired by a real story a friend told him in 2012 about her father being trapped inside his apartment in Aleppo for three weeks as his neighborhood suddenly turned into a war zone, in the film, Van Leeuw ensures we feel the danger even before we see a single image by filling the soundtrack with explosions and gunfire that play over Syria's dark opening credits.

Set over the course of twenty-four frantic hours, in this neorealist docudrama, Van Leeuw pays homage to the man whose experience sparked the idea for the picture with bookended shots of a paternal character trapped inside his daughter-in-law's Damascus apartment getting up every morning for his ritual smoke.

Turning her one-family apartment into a barricaded shelter, with her husband away, Oum Yazan (Hiam Abbass) vows to protect her three children, neighbors, family, and friends at all costs.

Pinned down by snipers and jeopardized by bandits going from floor to floor, after Oum's house cleaner sees one of their temporary residents get shot at the start of the day, it's the first bad omen of more misfortune to come. With each resident knowing that if they get caught, they could risk everyone else, the group strives to get through their most dangerous day yet, hoping for either a chance to escape or ever illusive help to come.

Anchored by the always excellent Abbass (currently making her American small screen debut on HBO's smash hit Succession) and The Insult's Diamand Bou Abboud, Van Leeuw rounds out his cast with actual Syrian refugees.

Timelier than ever given not only the ongoing war and refugee crisis but especially because it coincides by the Trump administration's barbaric treatment of immigrants, without wasting a single frame, In Syria remains heart-stoppingly intense for its entire eighty-six minute running time.

Careful not to venture into exploitative territory during one especially harrowing scene, although Van Leeuw remains entirely focused on faces and actions rather than fill the entire frame with assault, the horrific extended sequence is sure to stay with viewers long after the film is over.

Under-reported in the states, Van Leeuw's powerful docudrama gives viewers a stark look at life during hellish wartime, all the while applauding the courage of everyday citizens to do whatever it takes to fight back and stay strong.

Rounding out the disc with Le Pain, a well-made roughly twenty minute short directed by and starring Hiam Abbass, while this pairing of feature and short from Film Movement is the opposite of uplifting, together they paint a wonderful portrait of the underappreciated strength of mothers who routinely put the needs of everyone else – especially children and men – before their own.

Centering on a tragedy that befalls a family after they move to the French countryside, as the first of four short films made by the star, Le Pain is a consummate work from 2001.

Intriguing and character driven, Le Pain, could very well have served as the first act of a feature in its own right that I would loved to have seen. And while it isn't likely to be picked up again now seventeen years later, I certainly hope its reemergence on this new Film Movement DVD will give Abbass more opportunities to tell the stories she wants on both sides of the lens.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: The Yellow Birds (2017)

Now Available

Striving to do justice to Iraq veteran Kevin Powers' eponymous 2012 award-winning novel, Blue Caprice director Alexandre Moors anchors his adaptation of The Yellow Birds with lyrical Thin Red Line style voice-over narration and scenes that – like a river – sway back and forth in time.

A solidly made if ultimately underwhelming war picture, although it's elevated by an impressive ensemble of actors, Birds fails to connect us in any real way to a majority of the young soldiers we follow from boot camp into Iraq over the course of the film.

The Achilles Heel of the genre, while at least we get a better sense of the characters than we did in Black Hawk Down –thanks largely in part due to the decision to bring the mothers of our two leads (played by Jennifer Aniston and Toni Collette) into the narrative – just when we begin to bond with the main characters in The Yellow Birds, we unexpectedly move on.

And while these segues provide a very real, stylistic link to the unpredictability of life during wartime, when you combine the narrative shortcomings with the film's mere ninety-five minute running time, it's easy to wonder how much material was left on the cutting room floor or not shot at all due to budget and/or time constraints.

Originally developed by Pete's Dragon writer/director David Lowery who was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts, when he first climbed aboard Birds as a replacement director, Moors found himself working not only from a novel but also the script and vision of someone else.

Hoping to remedy that, he hired his Blue Caprice writer R.F.I. Porto to revise Yellow's script, which led to more delays and cast changes. And while as a experienced writer, director, and editor in his own right, Moors was able to find his groove, certain scenes in the film feel muddled enough that you get the impression that they might have worked better in – if not a different movie altogether – than at least a different version of the script or final cut.

Repeatedly moving from past to present throughout to find the soldiers pre-war, in war, and post-war, the film follows the experiences of eighteen year old Daniel Murphy and twenty year old John Bartle (played by Tye Sheridan and Alden Ehrenreich) who become fast friends in boot camp before they're quickly deployed overseas.

And although we know what happens to one of the two characters due to an ill-advised opening narration that must've worked much better in Kevin Powers' novel than it does here, more than just filmic CliffsNotes, The Yellow Birds is still a beautifully rendered and haunting portrait of the way that war changes the men and women who answer the call.

Not nearly as impactful or as cohesive as it wants to be however, unfortunately aside from Murphy, Bartle, and their mothers, the other characters are shortchanged throughout.

At its best when it opts for an understated approach as opposed to a late-introduced, heavy handed baptismal motif that immediately pulls you out of the movie, Birds is nonetheless average overall.

Breaking our heart in two memorable sequences, particularly by way of a bittersweet dance scene which bookends the work, although it doesn't soar for very long, just like real birds, Moors' Yellow Birds dazzles more in the quiet moments than it does during war.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: King of Hearts (1966)

Now Available 

Fresh out of film school and stuck making military documentary shorts, director Philippe de Broca discovered that not only had he had enough of war but he only wanted to make movies that would lift people up from that moment on.

Honing his skills even further as an assistant director on Chabrol's Le Beau Serge and Truffaut's The 400 Blows, de Broca's earliest successes revealed he had less in common with those filmmakers than he did with Tati and Demy given his affection for the cinematic showmanship of action vs. dialogue (best expressed in well choreographed over-the-top stunts) alongside ultra-bright colors and song.

Drawing on a number of genres from action to comedy to espionage in such influential international hits as That Man From Rio and Up to His Ears (both of which I reviewed earlier in another glorious Cohen Media Blu-ray release), de Broca proved that “laughter is the best defense against upsets in life.”

But try as he might to put war behind him, when his frequent collaborator, actor, and screenwriter Daniel Boulanger turned in a script for the daring antiwar comedy, King of Hearts (based on an idea by Maurice Bessy), de Broca took advantage of the opportunity to look back at the past with satirical glasses.

A bona fide cult hit made all the more significant given the war in Vietnam, Hearts experienced greater success in the United States than in de Broca's home country of France to the point that it played for five consecutive years in a Boston arthouse in the mid 1970s once it finally made its way across the pond.

Set during the final days of World War I, in this surrealist cross between Catch 22 and Alice in Wonderland, Scottish soldier Private Plumpick (Alan Bates) is given the plum awful assignment of traveling to a picturesque village in the French northern countryside that the Germans have wired to blow sky high. His mission? To locate and disarm the bomb, of course.

But while most of the occupants have abandoned the village, in a humdinger of a twist, the residents of a nearby psychiatric asylum wander out of their now unlocked surroundings to take their place. Replacing the sterility of shared white rooms with homes and businesses that had been left behind, the patients eagerly welcome the bewildered Plumpick upon his arrival.

Although it takes a good twenty minutes or so for viewers to get acclimated to King's unusual rhythm and storyline or lack thereof, de Broca's intriguing allegory isn't lost on us at all as he skillfully uses the absurdity of the situation to ask the viewer (as well as Plumpick) whether any of the film's characters are more or less sane than war.

Largely plotless save for the soldier's main mission to find and dispose of the bomb as well as a late developing romantic subplot involving the lovely Genevieve Bujold, Hearts gives de Broca the freedom to continue build upon his favored recipe of contemporary French absurdist humor and ‘20s era Hollywood slapstick, which he'd employed earlier in Rio and Ears.

The son of a production designer, de Broca’s attention to detail is spectacular here and everything about Hearts gives off a big screen Technicolor wonderland carnival vibe from Bujold’s main sunshine bright yet cotton candy light costume to composer Georges Delerue’s pitch perfect, merry-go-round ready score.

Overwhelmed by the idea of any anything goes free-for-all, while de Broca’s house of cards starts to topple during its second act, scripter Boulanger wisely shuffles in greater stakes – reminding us that although its residents might be blissfully unaware – war lingers on either end of the street.

An obvious cinematic impact on M*A*S*H* and No Man’s Land among others, while de Broca’s decision to make an experimental, near silent comedy excels overall, it prevents us from getting as close to his characters as we’d like as we find we're only able to identity them by their royal and/or playing card names.

And although it keeps the players at an arm's length for a majority of the picture, ironically this set up makes the war vs. peace impact of Hearts all the more meaningful by the time we reach the picture's moving conclusion, which is sure to stay with viewers more than any mind-boggling, comedic stunt.

Given a meticulous Technicolor restoration in time for its fiftieth anniversary and theatrical re-release back in 2016, Hearts has at last been transferred to stellar Blu-ray and DVD format complete with a few terrific bonus interviews and features, thanks to the Cohen Film Collection.

Requiring more patience than de Broca's more universally revered adventurous fare, although it's admittedly not for everyone, King of the Hearts remains one of de Broca’s most daring, ambitious, and surprisingly personal works.

A war movie where true to de Broca form, laughter provides the best defense against the madness of mass violence, although topical in the ‘60s, more than fifty years later, King of Hearts proves it still has something to say.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

TV on DVD Review: China Beach - Season 1 & 2

Now Available to Own   
 
  Photo Slideshow 

“Reflections of the way life used to be…” may have been the pitch-perfect Supremes tune that led viewers back into the world of Vietnam via TV’s China Beach from 1988 to 1992 but upon watching the series today on DVD, I realized these reflections have inherited a second meaning with time.

More precisely, for this viewer who was just seven years old when the show began (but distinctly remembers watching with her parents anyway), taking in China Beach today from the point of view of an adult offered up “Reflections of the way” television used to be.

Simply put, in an era of Full House and Knight Rider, when you look back on China Beach, you realize that – much like Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks – it’s a miracle that it ever found its way onto the air.

While basic and premium cable are the exception, even in today’s TV Renaissance dubbed the Golden Age of Television, you still have to wonder if network executives would still make the same decision to order a series run given their overreliance on singing competitions and police procedurals.

Needless to say the fact that it was on network air over twenty-five years ago is proof that this Golden Age Renaissance television hyperbole is nothing new. Exceptional television series come around once in a blue moon but in the era of China Beach we were in the midst of a creative high that was all the more admirable because (unlike the otherwise brilliant Northern and Peaks) China Beach was steeped in truth as the wounds of Vietnam hadn’t yet healed and probably never would to the fullest degree but certainly not a mere decade after the remaining troops were brought back home.

Honestly, the most daring thing about China Beach wasn’t that it focused on Vietnam as in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Hollywood had given us countless cinematic narratives about the war from Coming Home to Platoon and in fact just one year earlier, CBS had kicked off their own visceral, emotionally charged Vietnam based series Tour of Duty in 1987.

But instead of cashing in the recent Best Picture winner Platoon with a male dominated combat plotline, China Beach gave us something we had yet to see thoroughly explored onscreen about any war. Namely co-creators John Sacret Young and William Broyles Jr. served up a series which primarily focused on the role of women during wartime with the action set at an Evacuation Hospital on Da Nang’s My Khe beach that was nicknamed China Beach in Vietnam.

While women had definitely played a part in earlier battles, the fact that Vietnam coincided with Women’s Lib made this all the riper for exploration in a democratic yet largely female-centric narrative that brought some previously unknown points-of-view and realities of the war to American living rooms like never before.

Centered around a conflicted, hard-working Army nurse named Colleen McMurphy (Dana Delany) who spent her days and nights dodging mortar attacks and patching up wounded soldiers, civilians and locals, China Beach is steeped in authenticity.

Stemming from the real-life remembrance of Broyles Jr. who recalled the calm professionalism of the brave angelic nurse he remembered swiftly going about her job (that would go onto help inspire the beautiful, brainy McMurphy along with a nurse’s eye-opening autobiography of her service), everything about China Beach feels right.

Likewise, as music played such an important role in the war – whether it was in helping vets get through the day, offering them the words they can’t come up with on their own or as just a welcome distraction from the sound of gunfire, China Beach is filled with wall-to-wall music.

Released as a complete series collection in the fall of 2013 and in individual seasonal sets starting with the first two complete seasons kicking off the 2014 new release calendar in the first week of January, StarVista Entertainment and Time Life’s China Beach discs offer multiple special features including cast interviews, episode commentary, behind-the-scenes footage and featurettes and more.

And thankfully by transferring the same memorable musical cuts that elevated some of the show’s most epic scenes, StarVista and Time Life helped preserve the magical quality of the series in its long-awaited DVD release decades later to bring Beach to life once again.

But more than just the music, it’s the people who have stayed with us thanks to an incredible cast that embodied their fully realized, human portrayals of individuals enduring highs and lows go along with their life during wartime.

And once again, whether it was in setting events during the highly publicized Tet Offensive of '68 or when a race riot almost escalates into a mini war following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. that the show really flourished by rooting the action in as much reality as possible to keep it grounded even when the events depicted are anything but.

This attention to detail was chronicled in an unprecedented way when in the powerful season two episode “Vets,” the editors intercut series footage with the onscreen recollections of the women and men who were there.

While sharing their stories, we realize that some of Beach’s most unforgettable moments were based in fact including the pilot episode’s heartbreaking, against-all-odds coincidence where a bomb-blinded victim tells the woman holding his hand about the beautiful USO singer whose photo he keeps in his pocket, not realizing the two individuals are one and the same.

Yet far from just heartbreaking, the richly layered China Beach defied its genre and subject matter multiple times per episode with some unexpectedly funny moments. Celebrating the gift of friendship, China Beach's other main interest was in applauding the ingenuity of those in 'Nam who had to think fast on their feet.

A main through-line of the series centers of creative, quick-thinking solutions that are employed to counter the unlikeliest problems from building a Virginia Woolfian “Room of One’s Own” for the women to just hang out alone without being ogled or bothered to creating a prom night in honor of so many troops that had missed their own.

Not only about the hospital, the show (which matured and grew into its own in Beach’s masterful second season), developed a signature style of laughter with tears and shocking moments melded with something bittersweet that would become the show’s trademark of an ever-changing tone that series scribe John Wells would eventually springboard off of once again when he created ER a half-decade later.

Although it was anchored by Delany’s wondrous turn, the show is augmented by a gifted ensemble of talented actors that can still be seen on television today in everything from The Good Wife to Sons of Anarchy.

Robert Picardo is an undeniable standout as the boyishly funny, sardonic drafted OB-GYN Dr. Dick Richard whose full name sums up his maturity level in the first season until the husband and father back in the United States grows up and becomes a surrogate father and “work husband” overseas.

Looking after McMurphy when she’d rather work a full week without sleep to avoid thinking about her missing pilot boyfriend whose disappearance nearly sends her to the brink of insanity, we see Dr. Richard’s priorities shift from golf and good times to fighting for his patients (including those not even wearing a uniform) and as his character deepens, so does the show.

Marg Helgenberger’s enterprising hooker/businesswoman whose tough façade covers up a painful past remains one of the show’s most enigmatic creations and her ever-changing dynamic with the rest of the characters sums up a truism about  both life in wartime (and life for an expatriate far away from home), which is that you find yourself becoming bonded to people you’d probably have nothing to do with back in the states.

Constantly challenged and constantly judged, K.C. is just one of many China Beach outsiders and one who learns that loyal friendships shouldn’t be dependent upon what someone can do for you after the sudden, devastating loss of one of Beach’s sweetest first season characters shortly into the second season.

While it takes awhile to adapt to a few of the newer cast members including Megan Gallagher’s annoyingly energetic politician’s daughter and Saigon weathergirl turned ambitious journalist Wayloo Marie Holmes and Nancy Giles’s Army DJ Frankie Bunsen, the expansion of female points-of-view from the first season is important as the amount of plot potential for season one’s aspiring singer Laurette (the amazing Chloe Webb) was minimal at best.

Still far from just centering on women including World War II no-nonsense veteran Lila Garreau (Concetta Tomei) and Elizabeth Lindsay’s hardworking Vietnamese beauty Mai, Beach is a war show after all and never lets us forget how many men served in Vietnam.

While this is best exemplified in the haunting stare of Dodger, Jeff Kober’s diehard soldier who’s been out in the bush staring death in the face one too many times to ever go home again physically or psychologically, we also see through the easygoing, practical joking façade of the likable Boonie (Brian Wimmer) who uses his smile to cover up anything he doesn’t want to talk about.

But perhaps Beach's most fascinating or at least the most certainly unsettling, memorable male character is in the form of Michael Boatman’s death registrar Beckett, who takes care of and inventories the patients that can’t be saved by Dr. Dick Richard and Colleen McMurphy.

The son of a preacher man, Beckett has let his Christian devotion take over his life and provide him with meaning in the madness. As such, he not only talks to the men who temporarily reside in his facility as though they are his buddies alive and having a Happy Hour drink in Boonie’s bar but also plays cards, asks their advice and does his best to show respect and ensure they have not died in vain.

Just one in a long line of coping mechanisms evident on the show that the vets use to try and prevent themselves from giving into the insanity of war that surrounds them, China Beach is one of the most thoroughly engrossing, ever-changing network series on broadcast television.

So arresting that in this – my first viewing of the show on its long-awaited, newly available DVD release since I originally saw it broadcast in my childhood, I was amazed by how much I was still able to remember more than twenty-five years later from memorable musical juxtapositions to character revelations.

Though the visuals are indeed dated as warned by StarVista via an onscreen notation revealing that the age of the materials might explain the flaws (and I only hope someone takes the time to restore it down the road in 1080p high definition), the impact of the series more than makes up for any photographic issue bar none.

Obviously, it goes without saying that I can’t possibly fathom what it was like for Vietnam veterans who’d been so poorly treated on their arrival home to now find their sacrifices and experiences honored on two television series on the small screen at the same time.

However as revealed in the first season DVD booklet essays, the fact that Delany was sent a soldier’s purple heart in thanks for her fiercely moving portrayal goes a long way towards summing up what having this series on the air meant to them.

In fact, the release of this monumental series to DVD at the very time that once again far too many young people are losing life and limb in faraway lands overseas during wartime makes China Beach’s debut on DVD timelier than ever, with its tales of bravery serving as a living testament to those who’ve served our country in the past and continue to do so today.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Film Movement DVD Review: Under the Bombs (2007)

Now Available on DVD

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





Zeina’s son is lost and that’s the only thing that matters-- not war-torn Lebanon, not the wake of rubble, collapsed buildings and homes, dead bodies or the endless amount of soldiers that stand in her way during the 2006 cease-fire in the Lebanon-Israel conflict.

No, none of this matters because nothing is more important to a mother than the welfare of her child. Her young son is missing, possibly dead, possibly wandering alone, or possibly having been—as some strangers reveal—taken under the wing of French journalists who wanted to protect him.

And even though Zeina knows that the journey is perilous, the odds are great, and she has an entire region to search-- it makes no difference since a boy is lost and his mother is coming to get him.



Arriving in Beirut from Dubai with the bare minimum of luggage wherein everything seems to be inconsequential other than means of payment and a cell phone-- Zeina (a phenomenal Nadu Abou Farhat in her award-winning role) begs all nearby taxi drivers to take her into the still unstable south region.



Although she’s warned it’s far too dangerous and that no one on Earth would take her there, she does find a ride in the form of Tony (George Khabbaz), who lowers a lofty fee for the risk because of her pretty eyes. However, the compliment bounces off the preoccupied, single-minded and fiercely determined Zeina instantly and the two begin traveling right into the heart of darkness of the war.



While the aftermath of the Lebanon-Israel conflict is never far from mind as the two character begin to bond tentatively despite their difference in religion and background (as Zeina is a Shiite and Tony a Christian) and they encounter numerous refugees, journalists, soldiers, and passersby—at its heart and much to director Philippe Aractingi’s credit, it’s never an outright war movie. No, in the place of that genre, he's made subtle humanistic and moral work with the thesis that any war that leaves so much human devastation on both sides can never be referred to as something that has been won or lost.

In the words of the Beirut-born and raised Franco-Lebanese filmmaker Philippe Aractingi, the film—which began as his “reaction to the war,” by refusing to succumb “to despair” and instead sublimate his “hatred and anger into something creative,” soon began to evolve into a work that was “no longer about the war itself, but it’s impact on the lives of ordinary people.”



Hiring only two professional leads in the form of Farhat and Khabbaz, Michel Leviant’s scripted work soon incorporated a great deal of improvising as the cast and crew—filming right underneath the bombs during the ceasefire itself—became firsthand witnesses “to the war” by staring deeply into the eyes of real human beings “who were dying and those whose lives were being changed,” in its decision “to focus on those who suffer so directly from the war.”

The result is an emotionally charged docudrama as well as a vital historical document of a specific time and place which became the recipient of six awards including ones at the Venice and Jerusalem Film Festival as well as becoming an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.



Shot on high-definition that blends together scenes of extraordinary beauty of the landscape juxtaposed next to the most horrific of tragedies seemingly to illustrate the side-by-side before and after of the conflict—the work which was a French, Lebanese, and UK co-production—has just been released to own here as a Region 1 DVD for American audiences with its 16x9 aspect ratio and English subtitles to translate the Arabaic dialogue intact.

Emotionally draining but extremely potent and highly recommended, Under the Bombs is one of the strongest purely dramatic releases from the Film Movement catalog and an urgent reminder of the true human collateral damage of war in not just the bodies left behind dead but the ones alive, whether they’re lost, found, or in the form of a mother arriving from another country desperate to find her son no matter what it takes.

DVD Review: Simon Schama's The American Future: A History (2008) -- 2-Disc Set

Own It On DVD

More From Simon Schama

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page



As soon as you're presented with Columbia University professor and noted historian Simon Schama-- a rather humble looking British man who launches into a mini-lecture of the history of America's power of reinvention-- admittedly, those unfamiliar with the individual will find their minds wandering.

A British expert on American history? What gives?

Yet before it starts to register, Schama answers the question. He does so in his witty yet slightly defensive special introduction which is included in this recent Warner Brothers BBC joint 2-disc release as a new update following the election of President Barack Obama to help lead into the original four episode miniseries that had initially aired across the pond.

Having lived nearly half his life in America, Schama has developed both an affinity and critical interest in what makes America tick and why he believes that its history affects every other single country around the globe. To this end, he purports to address why American history matters and why it always did by journeying into where we've been in the past to where we are today and how that should and will influence our country's power or rather it's "genius of... reinvention" for the future. He breaks it all down in the partly fascinating yet overly dry miniseries that fixates on four distinct topics including: "American Plenty," "American War," "American Fervour," and "What is an American?"

Tackling everything from our founding fathers to our imminent global warming crisis to the many wars we've fought to the religious nature of an overwhelming number of Americans to the fight over immigration-- our host and narrator does indeed at times offer us a "historical illuminations" as promised. However, and quite troublesomely despite what seemed to be his earnest hope to do the opposite-- more often than not and in stark contrast to his role as a historian or researcher, Schama's narrative and coverage seems as though it always had a road-map even before he began hitting the books (and indeed he did write a book).

For, within just precious seconds of each episode, you'll know precisely the conclusion he hopes to make in a way that even-- as a proud "die hard left-wing liberal"-- I found a bit irritating as the coverage is uneven, diving in with a "shame on you, Yanks" finger pointing subtext that rears its ugly head a bit too often for my taste. And although he tries to show how to turn things around despite defects in our past, it's the defects he relishes in with a Phillip Glass style score on the "war" episode etc. that makes the documentary seem a bit superfluous to countless projects out there already.

Moreover, often it almost appeared as though he's intending to simply provoke rather than inform or inspire in the same way his seemingly idolized President Barack Obama (who appears so often throughout the series it's as if Schama knew he'd be elected) does. And instead-- by jumping around in chronology and pulling facts together in a haphazard way-- he fixates solely on all the problems of both sides of an issue (immigration, for example) that he results in making us feel things are too desperate to resolve.

Ironically, although Michael Moore is a far more polarizing figure-- the one thing one can't accuse that documentarian of is making you feel hopeless but rather hopeful in that reminding us that change is in our hands. As, although this is a similar idea throughout Schama's work (or he wants it to be), it gets contradicted often enough that his good intentions are unfortunately lost.

While in roughly 240 minutes-- of course, he can't exactly give subjects perhaps the time and consideration he probably should in introducing a broad scope of ideas and important issues. Yet, despite this, he does hold our attention in discussing the reality that the scarcity of water is an even greater threat to America's future than oil and some fascinating information about the intellectual battle of brawn verses brains between Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain to sharing the little known history of the oldest synagogue in America.

Much like a good professor-- overall, he inspires us to want to seek out more information for ourselves on some of the gems he drops in our lap and he does manage to clue us in on some historical facts of which many of us were definitely unaware. Yet still there's something about the entire documentary's tone and Schama's constant reminder to us that we need to become "born again" (by showing how necessity has driven us in the past to find water, fight for land etc.) that seems less inquisitive and earnest than it should.

For, in lieu of the goal to promote change, it's often presented at times-- as a bit of fervent condescension as Schama grasps at facts spanning hundreds of years apart to string them together in a way which he feels provides the reason we're in as much trouble as we are and then throwing out a one-sentence "here's what you must do" before fixating once again on our "downfall."

Yes, American history matters and it has always mattered and especially now in these troubling times, change is a necessity but possibly it's because of our contemporary political and economic landscape that Schama's miniseries seems a bit like throwing salt into an open wound. And, although it may have played better at a different date-- the simpler solution would most likely have been if he'd truly stuck to his thesis and focused on the idea of inspiring change (a la the series' frequent inclusion of President Obama clips) rather than focusing on disaster.