Another Harvest Moon

I was alerted to this film in the comments section of a recent post. 

And I just have to say, it's about freakin' time someone made a movie about life in a retirement home/assisted-living facility. 

Also, it looks like the movie deals with quality-of-life issues, withholding treatment, and the right to die. I'm very curious to see it, and I hope others go to the movie and have lots of conversation afterwards. 

Departures

Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of watching the film Departures at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Departures won this year's Academy Award for best foreign film. From Japan, the film tells the story of Masahiro, a young cellist with a Tokyo-based orchestra. When the orchestra is dissolved, he reluctantly gives up his dream of being a professional musician and returns to the small town in which he was raised. There, he stumbles into a job ceremonial preparing dead bodies for funerals. Masahiro finds he has a gift for the work and that he takes a comfort in being able to guide people peacefully and properly through their most difficult times. 

The film is at times hysterical, at times gut-wrenching, but it is always full of so much life and love and beauty. The set-up allows for several scenes in which we are given a window into people's lives at their darkest hours. And the director reminds us that some of us handle grief and sorrow by sinking to our lowest behavior, some of us handle it by rising to our best, and a rare special few among us, like Masahiro, are able to take those who are lost and aimless in the midst of grief and bring them back to themselves. 

I can't recommend this film enough. Even though its subject is death, it is as full of life as any film I have seen. It's a prime example of the strange dichotomy that sometimes the greatest beauty lies in the darkest corners of our existence. 

Solace

Much of our communication is nonverbal.

I'm not going to throw out any percents here ... but I don't think anyone would argue that a lot of times, the way we get a message from Point A to Point B has nothing to do with language.

This film, which was forwarded to me by filmmaker Bill Kersey, is a poignant example of just how powerful silence can be.

The film's official description: " The story of a man, his grief and his guitar is told through music and a lyrical montage of still images."

Both sweet and moving, it's only three minutes long, and definitely worth your time.

Heath Ledger Nominated for Golden Globe

Batman: The Dark Knight, which made huge sales at the box office, is once again making huge sales in DVD. And today, Heath Ledger has been nominated for a posthumous Golden Globe award for his portrayal of the Joker.

Ledger gave a tremendous performance as Joker. It was externally loud and outward, but at the same time, he portrayed a character with an intense, seething inner life. He showed a man whose psyche was rotting away to such a degree that he had lost all sense of right/wrong and societal norms. Yes, it was a comic book character, but you bought how this being could have been born out of a real-life scenario.

Now, I do have to admit, there is extra value added because it's the last great role Heath Ledger will ever put down on screen. The finality of it all is enticing. I think he might have one more film left in post-production? But for the most part, Ledger's work is over, and that casts a haunting resonance this piece. How do we separate that from evaluating the work?

I don't think we can. And maybe it shouldn't matter.

As I said when he died and people were flocking to see the film in the theaters, there's a sense of public grieving that comes from appreciating this role. And I'm a huge fan of public grieving. It's cathartic and healing and doesn't happen often enough. There's no doubt it's a quality performance, and I don't see anything wrong with Ledger getting every possible recognition for his performance as Joker, even if part of the reason is the fact of his death.