45 Years
Review by: John L. Ng
Nov, 2016
The seasonal setting for the film 45 Years, directed by Andrew Haigh, is autumn when the landscape is dreary with drab hues. Under a grey sky, trees and shrubs become bare. A passing gust of wind blows cold and ruffles all that is living. The autumn scenery is analogous of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff's (Tom Courtenay) 45-year marriage. Romantic notions of emotive bliss that once were have morphed into cognitive resignations of the other's idiosyncratic bent. In a momentary playful mood, Geoff gibes, "I suppose a cuddle is out of the question?" Kate’s quietude ignores his senseless gist.
After these many years of life together, whatever emotive love they still share is waning. In marital senescence, things seem to slow down, and the present lingers longer. They go about their day with private thoughts and quiet acceptance of what is and what is not. They fondly reminisce their past with vague memories. Kate wishes they have taken more photographs but not sure of what. They still sing and dance to 60's pop songs when their whim strikes. But the remains of their day are where private thoughts are nurtured, and hidden secrets are kept. Kate spends much time by herself. She goes shopping alone and takes long walks alone. She may lunch with old friends now and then but always returns to her alone self for tea and reading. Geoff bumbles around the house, tinkers with failed plumbing, and goes about drinking with his friends.
One day, while preparing for their 45th wedding anniversary party, Geoff receives a letter from the Swiss authorities. The body of a Katya was recovered in the Swiss Alps. Apparently, before his marriage to Kate, Geoff and Katya were mountain hiking when she fell into the glaciers. Her body was never recovered until now. Since Geoff reported the incident, the authorities notify him as her next of kin. Just as suddenly, Geoff falls into his listless precipice. Memories of his awakened former love consume him. He chain smokes again and in the middle of the night rummages in the attic for memories of Katya. Confused and ashamed, his latent feelings for "my Katya" slowly seeps out. “I like to tell you everything I’m thinking, everything I know, but I can’t,” Geoff confesses to Kate.
With disquiet turbulence, Kate slips into invidious jealousy. Her husband's longings for another time with another woman threaten not her marriage as much as her sense of being – who is she to her husband and what is his feelings for her, then and now. “Song of Songs” speaks to the validation of our love’s commitment for the object of our love: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.
What Kate and Geoff have is a good and kind marriage. They enjoy a contentment without exuberant happiness. And they share a calm confidence that demands little demonstrative affections. Their enduring marriage measures few unrealistic expectations. But like many marriages, theirs is as fragile as their precarious assumption in what they think they have; like many marriages, theirs is as strong as the strength of their quiet acceptance of what they know they do not have. But when Geoff’s bathos threatens their assumptive love, the goodness, and kindness they tacitly share cannot assuage any latent insecurities. At the anniversary party, their friends are happy for them, but they are not. Geoff's endearing words about his affection for Kate thinly veil his truer feelings, for Kate and Katya. Kate's faint smile betrays her inner anguish as they dance to “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”
45 Years is an elegant elegy of marriage. A marriage can be as enduring as the glaciers, and yet it is as fragile as snow in mid-air. And winter is coming.
Nov, 2016
The seasonal setting for the film 45 Years, directed by Andrew Haigh, is autumn when the landscape is dreary with drab hues. Under a grey sky, trees and shrubs become bare. A passing gust of wind blows cold and ruffles all that is living. The autumn scenery is analogous of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff's (Tom Courtenay) 45-year marriage. Romantic notions of emotive bliss that once were have morphed into cognitive resignations of the other's idiosyncratic bent. In a momentary playful mood, Geoff gibes, "I suppose a cuddle is out of the question?" Kate’s quietude ignores his senseless gist.
After these many years of life together, whatever emotive love they still share is waning. In marital senescence, things seem to slow down, and the present lingers longer. They go about their day with private thoughts and quiet acceptance of what is and what is not. They fondly reminisce their past with vague memories. Kate wishes they have taken more photographs but not sure of what. They still sing and dance to 60's pop songs when their whim strikes. But the remains of their day are where private thoughts are nurtured, and hidden secrets are kept. Kate spends much time by herself. She goes shopping alone and takes long walks alone. She may lunch with old friends now and then but always returns to her alone self for tea and reading. Geoff bumbles around the house, tinkers with failed plumbing, and goes about drinking with his friends.
One day, while preparing for their 45th wedding anniversary party, Geoff receives a letter from the Swiss authorities. The body of a Katya was recovered in the Swiss Alps. Apparently, before his marriage to Kate, Geoff and Katya were mountain hiking when she fell into the glaciers. Her body was never recovered until now. Since Geoff reported the incident, the authorities notify him as her next of kin. Just as suddenly, Geoff falls into his listless precipice. Memories of his awakened former love consume him. He chain smokes again and in the middle of the night rummages in the attic for memories of Katya. Confused and ashamed, his latent feelings for "my Katya" slowly seeps out. “I like to tell you everything I’m thinking, everything I know, but I can’t,” Geoff confesses to Kate.
With disquiet turbulence, Kate slips into invidious jealousy. Her husband's longings for another time with another woman threaten not her marriage as much as her sense of being – who is she to her husband and what is his feelings for her, then and now. “Song of Songs” speaks to the validation of our love’s commitment for the object of our love: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.
What Kate and Geoff have is a good and kind marriage. They enjoy a contentment without exuberant happiness. And they share a calm confidence that demands little demonstrative affections. Their enduring marriage measures few unrealistic expectations. But like many marriages, theirs is as fragile as their precarious assumption in what they think they have; like many marriages, theirs is as strong as the strength of their quiet acceptance of what they know they do not have. But when Geoff’s bathos threatens their assumptive love, the goodness, and kindness they tacitly share cannot assuage any latent insecurities. At the anniversary party, their friends are happy for them, but they are not. Geoff's endearing words about his affection for Kate thinly veil his truer feelings, for Kate and Katya. Kate's faint smile betrays her inner anguish as they dance to “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”
45 Years is an elegant elegy of marriage. A marriage can be as enduring as the glaciers, and yet it is as fragile as snow in mid-air. And winter is coming.
Son of Saul
Review by John L. Ng
Sep, 2016
The Holocaust (in Hebrew as the Shoah) befell on humanity more than seventy years ago. Since, the corpus of films and movies on the Holocaust has made it a cinematic genre. When Hungarian director Laszlo Newes’ first feature, “Son of Saul,” first appeared, my visceral response was paucity. Then a friend alerted me another look. I am glad that I did.
The story follows Saul Auslander who is an Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner and part of the Sonderkonnando, a forced labor group abetting the Nazis in the extermination of fellow prisoners. While working in the crematoriums, Saul recovers the body of a boy among the deaths. Embracing the dead boy as his ‘son,’ he determines to save the body from the flames and give it a proper Jewish burial. In the midst of his hideous chores, he searches for a willing rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish (ritual prayer). While the other Sonderkonnandos plot a camp rebellion, Saul risks everything, including exposure of the scheme, to fulfill his altruism.
Much of the screen stays narrow shots of Saul’s face and back. When the few scenes span to wider angles, the images are blurred. We hear the gruesome sounds of suffering and dying but do not see what Saul endures. As if Mr. Newes mercifully spares us of the unbearable cruelties of human evil. Saul, portrayed by a non-professional actor Geza Rohrig, stares into the darkness and through others with sad, hollowed eyes. His facial expressions, drained by emotive detachment, are void of existential meaning and smothered by invidious hopelessness. We sense his horrific darkness without the multi-sensory.
Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish philosopher, reporting Adolf Eichmann’s trial for war crimes sagaciously called the Nazi atrocities a “banality of evil.” She surmises that individuals who perpetrate systemic evils are not resolved fanatics but are ordinary people going about their evil deeds mindlessly, as if of a seared conscious. Saul’s participation in Auschwitz-Birkenau seemingly is a kind of banality. With disturbing opacity, he herds victims into the gas chambers and rifles through their belongings for valuables. Then he drags the bodies into flaming furnaces and shovels coals to fuel the fire. Afterward, he carries the ashes in a wheel-barrel and disposes of them in the river. He returns to scrub the crematorium floor in preparation for the next victims.
Why would someone of common conscious endure such ghastly animus to stay alive a little longer? Is our human urge to survive a justifiable reason for inhumanities? Without being there, we will never know answers to those questions. And who are we to judge. Given the opportune circumstances and inclinations, we are capable of anything, good or evil. “Son of Saul” meditates this notion of being human, even when engulfed in inhumanities. Saul’s surreptitious endeavor to complete a singular act of righteousness for a dead boy at once offers him existential significance. At great risks to himself and fellow prisoners, Saul threatens, disobeys, begs and hastens to find a personal signification.
Other prisoners rebuke Saul – what difference does it make, the boy is dead! Saul’s simple act of reciting a prayer for the dead may also seem banal. And yet, it gives Saul existential meaning. Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s Holocaust survival led him to embrace the importance of finding meaning in all human existence, including brutalities, to continue being human. Saul Auslander finds his humanity in doing something righteous for a dead boy.
Sep, 2016
The Holocaust (in Hebrew as the Shoah) befell on humanity more than seventy years ago. Since, the corpus of films and movies on the Holocaust has made it a cinematic genre. When Hungarian director Laszlo Newes’ first feature, “Son of Saul,” first appeared, my visceral response was paucity. Then a friend alerted me another look. I am glad that I did.
The story follows Saul Auslander who is an Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner and part of the Sonderkonnando, a forced labor group abetting the Nazis in the extermination of fellow prisoners. While working in the crematoriums, Saul recovers the body of a boy among the deaths. Embracing the dead boy as his ‘son,’ he determines to save the body from the flames and give it a proper Jewish burial. In the midst of his hideous chores, he searches for a willing rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish (ritual prayer). While the other Sonderkonnandos plot a camp rebellion, Saul risks everything, including exposure of the scheme, to fulfill his altruism.
Much of the screen stays narrow shots of Saul’s face and back. When the few scenes span to wider angles, the images are blurred. We hear the gruesome sounds of suffering and dying but do not see what Saul endures. As if Mr. Newes mercifully spares us of the unbearable cruelties of human evil. Saul, portrayed by a non-professional actor Geza Rohrig, stares into the darkness and through others with sad, hollowed eyes. His facial expressions, drained by emotive detachment, are void of existential meaning and smothered by invidious hopelessness. We sense his horrific darkness without the multi-sensory.
Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish philosopher, reporting Adolf Eichmann’s trial for war crimes sagaciously called the Nazi atrocities a “banality of evil.” She surmises that individuals who perpetrate systemic evils are not resolved fanatics but are ordinary people going about their evil deeds mindlessly, as if of a seared conscious. Saul’s participation in Auschwitz-Birkenau seemingly is a kind of banality. With disturbing opacity, he herds victims into the gas chambers and rifles through their belongings for valuables. Then he drags the bodies into flaming furnaces and shovels coals to fuel the fire. Afterward, he carries the ashes in a wheel-barrel and disposes of them in the river. He returns to scrub the crematorium floor in preparation for the next victims.
Why would someone of common conscious endure such ghastly animus to stay alive a little longer? Is our human urge to survive a justifiable reason for inhumanities? Without being there, we will never know answers to those questions. And who are we to judge. Given the opportune circumstances and inclinations, we are capable of anything, good or evil. “Son of Saul” meditates this notion of being human, even when engulfed in inhumanities. Saul’s surreptitious endeavor to complete a singular act of righteousness for a dead boy at once offers him existential significance. At great risks to himself and fellow prisoners, Saul threatens, disobeys, begs and hastens to find a personal signification.
Other prisoners rebuke Saul – what difference does it make, the boy is dead! Saul’s simple act of reciting a prayer for the dead may also seem banal. And yet, it gives Saul existential meaning. Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s Holocaust survival led him to embrace the importance of finding meaning in all human existence, including brutalities, to continue being human. Saul Auslander finds his humanity in doing something righteous for a dead boy.
TV Series Review: The Night Of
Review by John L. Ng
Jul, 2016
HBO’s “The Night Of” is an eight-episode murder mystery based on the 2008 British “Criminal Justice” series. Even though it is an adaptation, this American version is fresh with original changes. Nasir “Naz” Khan (Riz Ahmed) is a Pakistani-American college student son of immigrant parents. He demonstratively adheres to his family’s traditional etiquettes that include deference to his elders. Terribly insecure, inexperienced and lonely, he longs for the active social scene where he can meet girls.
One night, without his father’s permission, Naz drives his father’s taxi cab from Jackson Heights to a party in Manhattan. While he stops to check his bearings, a sad-eye attractive girl, mistaken him for a cabbie, slides into the backseat. Soon the diffident Naz is in her west village apartment, drinking Tequila, snorting Cocaine and toying with knives. In the middle of the night, he wakes up dazed and addled to find the girl dead, soaked in blood on her bed.
Through a sequence of bad circumstances, bad timings, and bad decisions, Naz falls into the black hole of New York City’s criminal justice labyrinth. He becomes the sole suspect in the girl’s murder. Detective Dennis Box (Bill Camp), a hard-core, hard-nose cop with a soft heart, is the arresting officer. The preliminary evidence point to Naz, but in unsettled silence, Box has doubts. Along comes John Stone (John Turturro), a night crawler trolling the precincts looking for legal work. He intervenes Naz in the waiting cell and offers to be his attorney.
The series is created by Steven Zaillian, “Schindler’s List” and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, and Richard Price, “Clockers” and several urban crime novels. Both are experienced and skilled hands at spinning crime dramas. Each episode is gripping with detailed nuances and lingering particulars. What is most compelling is their studies of our human conditions and judicial justice. It is a study of our notions of crime and punishment, law and order, justice and fairness. Under the long, dark shadow of New York’s September 11 tragedy, the mere fact that Naz (in the British series, the suspect is Anglo-Saxon) is a Muslim from a working class family can only forced-feed our animus Islamophobia.
New York City is a universal urban center, with more than 150 languages spoken. One would think that our diversities ought to make us more tolerant and accepting of the otherness of others. Yet as the story unfolds, we find the tapestry of New York’s urbanization is frayed with coarse strands of racism, class struggles, social inequalities, cultural ignorance, religious indifferences, social prejudices and political injustices. Every character, including the “good” guys, is draped with racial hang-ups, ethnic stereotypical assumptions, and bumptious subjectivities. His attorney, his arresting detective, his fellow prisoners, the judicial officers, and even his parents are rumpled lifers in this disorientation. All are isolated in their jaded and cynical distrust of one another. Yet their lives are inter-twined. A personal choice, critical or innocuous, overlaps the whole urban tribe. Only Naz’s naïveté is impervious to the many frays. But not for long.
“The Night Of” is a gritty crime drama with thought provoking sub-textual layers. Catch it and catch up – it is worth watching. It may tell you a thing or two about what it means to be broken while living in post-modern, urban place like New York City that is likewise broken.
Jul, 2016
HBO’s “The Night Of” is an eight-episode murder mystery based on the 2008 British “Criminal Justice” series. Even though it is an adaptation, this American version is fresh with original changes. Nasir “Naz” Khan (Riz Ahmed) is a Pakistani-American college student son of immigrant parents. He demonstratively adheres to his family’s traditional etiquettes that include deference to his elders. Terribly insecure, inexperienced and lonely, he longs for the active social scene where he can meet girls.
One night, without his father’s permission, Naz drives his father’s taxi cab from Jackson Heights to a party in Manhattan. While he stops to check his bearings, a sad-eye attractive girl, mistaken him for a cabbie, slides into the backseat. Soon the diffident Naz is in her west village apartment, drinking Tequila, snorting Cocaine and toying with knives. In the middle of the night, he wakes up dazed and addled to find the girl dead, soaked in blood on her bed.
Through a sequence of bad circumstances, bad timings, and bad decisions, Naz falls into the black hole of New York City’s criminal justice labyrinth. He becomes the sole suspect in the girl’s murder. Detective Dennis Box (Bill Camp), a hard-core, hard-nose cop with a soft heart, is the arresting officer. The preliminary evidence point to Naz, but in unsettled silence, Box has doubts. Along comes John Stone (John Turturro), a night crawler trolling the precincts looking for legal work. He intervenes Naz in the waiting cell and offers to be his attorney.
The series is created by Steven Zaillian, “Schindler’s List” and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, and Richard Price, “Clockers” and several urban crime novels. Both are experienced and skilled hands at spinning crime dramas. Each episode is gripping with detailed nuances and lingering particulars. What is most compelling is their studies of our human conditions and judicial justice. It is a study of our notions of crime and punishment, law and order, justice and fairness. Under the long, dark shadow of New York’s September 11 tragedy, the mere fact that Naz (in the British series, the suspect is Anglo-Saxon) is a Muslim from a working class family can only forced-feed our animus Islamophobia.
New York City is a universal urban center, with more than 150 languages spoken. One would think that our diversities ought to make us more tolerant and accepting of the otherness of others. Yet as the story unfolds, we find the tapestry of New York’s urbanization is frayed with coarse strands of racism, class struggles, social inequalities, cultural ignorance, religious indifferences, social prejudices and political injustices. Every character, including the “good” guys, is draped with racial hang-ups, ethnic stereotypical assumptions, and bumptious subjectivities. His attorney, his arresting detective, his fellow prisoners, the judicial officers, and even his parents are rumpled lifers in this disorientation. All are isolated in their jaded and cynical distrust of one another. Yet their lives are inter-twined. A personal choice, critical or innocuous, overlaps the whole urban tribe. Only Naz’s naïveté is impervious to the many frays. But not for long.
“The Night Of” is a gritty crime drama with thought provoking sub-textual layers. Catch it and catch up – it is worth watching. It may tell you a thing or two about what it means to be broken while living in post-modern, urban place like New York City that is likewise broken.
Spotlight
Review by John L. Ng
May, 2016
Before director and co-writer Tom McCarthy made the movie Spotlight, he sought out his devout Catholic parents. Like many, they were angrily affected by the pedophilic scandal in the Catholic church. His parents’ affirmation attested McCarthy’s endeavor to translate this egregious story into a film. Spotlight, based on events that spanned more than a quartercentury, is not an expose of the Catholic church but a studied narrative of human depravity. Whether institutions – the Boston diocese and the Boston Globe or individuals – abusive priests, Cardinal Bernard F. Law and Globe’s Walter Robinson, the movie indicts them all as our surrogates for depraved complicity in the face of evil. When evil in any form is perpetrated, who is ultimately responsible? The perpetrators or those with an opportunity to do something but choose to do little as well.
In 2001, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), Boston Globe’s new editor encourages Walter (Robby) Robinson (Michael Keaton) and “Spotlight”, his small band of investigative reporters, to look into the role of the Catholic church in it priests’ sexual abuses. Both Robinson and his team resisted. Being Catholics, devout, lapsed or otherwise, not one wants to dig for dirt in the church. Each has personal reasons not to pursue the story. Besides, a majority of Globe’s readership is Catholics and who cares to ruffle their fealty. In time, Baron, who is Jewish, convinces “Spotlight” to take up the scandal.
Looking back when the news first surfaced, Robinson wonders out loud, “Why didn’t I do more” then? He has his personal reasons. At the end of the day, he often rubs elbows with church officials over drinks and in weekends he chases golf balls with the church’s top lawyer. In time, the team (Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy James) is deep in an expanding investigative story. As the number of priests and victim grows, it is apparent that there is a systemic cover-up by the church.
Spotlight is a good movie, morally and artistically. Morally speaking, the Christian doctrine of human depravity is the subtext of this gripping detective story. Depraved indifference to evil threads through every scene. Mea Culpa applies to the church hierarchy as well as to those at the Globe. Artistic wise, without exploitation or sentimentality, it is good a story well told. It refuses to demonize the church nor exalt the Boston Globe. Rather than broad brushing the players in black and white, each is smudged with shades of human gray.
The movie is also a validation of vocation. “What took you so long?” ask several victims again and again. But at the end, the reporters’ procrastination is atoned by their professionalism. With characteristic competence, the reporters, with a deep sense of calling, follow every lead doggedly. And yet they are not heroes the way society trivializes heroism. In earnest the team confesses that they are only doing their job. Implicit in vocation – when something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
Spotlight is not a feel good movie in that good wins at the end. It is a good movie with sobering studies of human complicity and human calling. When given an opportunity for good, we may choose to do nothing or we may respond to our calling to do something and find validation. It may not be a feel-good movie, and yet I feel better after watching it.
May, 2016
Before director and co-writer Tom McCarthy made the movie Spotlight, he sought out his devout Catholic parents. Like many, they were angrily affected by the pedophilic scandal in the Catholic church. His parents’ affirmation attested McCarthy’s endeavor to translate this egregious story into a film. Spotlight, based on events that spanned more than a quartercentury, is not an expose of the Catholic church but a studied narrative of human depravity. Whether institutions – the Boston diocese and the Boston Globe or individuals – abusive priests, Cardinal Bernard F. Law and Globe’s Walter Robinson, the movie indicts them all as our surrogates for depraved complicity in the face of evil. When evil in any form is perpetrated, who is ultimately responsible? The perpetrators or those with an opportunity to do something but choose to do little as well.
In 2001, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), Boston Globe’s new editor encourages Walter (Robby) Robinson (Michael Keaton) and “Spotlight”, his small band of investigative reporters, to look into the role of the Catholic church in it priests’ sexual abuses. Both Robinson and his team resisted. Being Catholics, devout, lapsed or otherwise, not one wants to dig for dirt in the church. Each has personal reasons not to pursue the story. Besides, a majority of Globe’s readership is Catholics and who cares to ruffle their fealty. In time, Baron, who is Jewish, convinces “Spotlight” to take up the scandal.
Looking back when the news first surfaced, Robinson wonders out loud, “Why didn’t I do more” then? He has his personal reasons. At the end of the day, he often rubs elbows with church officials over drinks and in weekends he chases golf balls with the church’s top lawyer. In time, the team (Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy James) is deep in an expanding investigative story. As the number of priests and victim grows, it is apparent that there is a systemic cover-up by the church.
Spotlight is a good movie, morally and artistically. Morally speaking, the Christian doctrine of human depravity is the subtext of this gripping detective story. Depraved indifference to evil threads through every scene. Mea Culpa applies to the church hierarchy as well as to those at the Globe. Artistic wise, without exploitation or sentimentality, it is good a story well told. It refuses to demonize the church nor exalt the Boston Globe. Rather than broad brushing the players in black and white, each is smudged with shades of human gray.
The movie is also a validation of vocation. “What took you so long?” ask several victims again and again. But at the end, the reporters’ procrastination is atoned by their professionalism. With characteristic competence, the reporters, with a deep sense of calling, follow every lead doggedly. And yet they are not heroes the way society trivializes heroism. In earnest the team confesses that they are only doing their job. Implicit in vocation – when something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
Spotlight is not a feel good movie in that good wins at the end. It is a good movie with sobering studies of human complicity and human calling. When given an opportunity for good, we may choose to do nothing or we may respond to our calling to do something and find validation. It may not be a feel-good movie, and yet I feel better after watching it.
The Americans
Review by John L. Ng
March, 2016
Paige (Holly Taylor) after learning that her parents, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) are Soviet spies guised as Americans, gullibly asks, "Is it dangerous?" Elizabeth reassures her, "No. It's more about getting people to trust you." In many ways, this FX series "The Americans" explores the nuances of trust. Trust is our emotive reliance on the integrity and capability of another in a relationship. We invest ourselves and our interests to another, confident that the s/he will mind what concerns us. In every encounter, our trust in another insistently seeks validation. Another's integration between his convictions and behaviors verifies our trust. Another's capability to act out her integrated convictions vindicates our trust.
And yet, to get people's trust, everything Elizabeth and Philip do perpetrates a lie. During the chill of the cold war in the 1980's, in a feign marriage, they are embedded by the KGB in Virginia to spy on Washington. Living in a middle-class house with two biological children, Paige and Henry, they run a travel agency as a facade. By day, they build a frontage business, by evening, they build a pretend family, and by night, they build a spy operation. Here is the rub. To masquerade all three convincingly, they cultivate trust with others by perpetuating more lies.
As cold war spies, they are cold-blooded in their fraudulency. To spy on a FBI office, Philip woos and marries Martha, its administrative assistant. To spy on a high government official, Philip seduces his naive teenager daughter to invade his home. To rendezvous with fellow operatives in the dark of night, Elizabeth fakes her whereabouts with Paige. To penetrate his office, they feign friendship with Stan, a neighbor and a FBI agent. When threatened by poor decisions from Moscow, they fabricate reports to their handlers; to protect their individual cover, Elizabeth and Philip even guise the whole truth to each other.
But Elizabeth and Philip are also warm humans. And being humans as they are, they are vulnerable to human feelings that shape their trust of others. Like all human feelings, theirs feed their sense of well-being. Although in a mock marriage, both are nurturing genuine affections for the other. Elizabeth is jealous when Philip spends a night with Martha. Philip is anxious for Paige when she becomes a Christian and gets too close to her pastor. Both cradle animosity towards their supervisor when he refuses to let Elizabeth visit her dying mother in Russia.
Without spoiling the narrative, I can offer that this fourth season deals with how trust affects a family. In last season's final episode, Paige has revealed to her pastor that her parents are Russian spies. Now that their lie is exposed, how will their family, as they want it, be threatened. And how much can they trust others to protect their family. Increasingly disillusioned, Philip longs for a better future for himself and his children in America. Elizabeth, more resolved with the communist cause, struggles with what she wants for Paige. In moments of ambivalence, she questions her worldview in light of Paige's new found faith in Christianity.
"The Americans" is a metaphor of raising a family in a dangerous world. The brick and mortar that builds a family is trust. Without trust, our family's future is unpredictable. With trust, our familial relationships are more reliable. Yet trust, in its nuances, can only ride securely on the truth. Like all of us in afamily, Elizabeth and Philip wrestle with truth telling - what is the truth, tell it to whom, when to tell it and how much when we tell it. Here Paige's faith in Christ exemplifies all that is trustworthy. Ultimately truth telling validates our trustworthiness.
March, 2016
Paige (Holly Taylor) after learning that her parents, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) are Soviet spies guised as Americans, gullibly asks, "Is it dangerous?" Elizabeth reassures her, "No. It's more about getting people to trust you." In many ways, this FX series "The Americans" explores the nuances of trust. Trust is our emotive reliance on the integrity and capability of another in a relationship. We invest ourselves and our interests to another, confident that the s/he will mind what concerns us. In every encounter, our trust in another insistently seeks validation. Another's integration between his convictions and behaviors verifies our trust. Another's capability to act out her integrated convictions vindicates our trust.
And yet, to get people's trust, everything Elizabeth and Philip do perpetrates a lie. During the chill of the cold war in the 1980's, in a feign marriage, they are embedded by the KGB in Virginia to spy on Washington. Living in a middle-class house with two biological children, Paige and Henry, they run a travel agency as a facade. By day, they build a frontage business, by evening, they build a pretend family, and by night, they build a spy operation. Here is the rub. To masquerade all three convincingly, they cultivate trust with others by perpetuating more lies.
As cold war spies, they are cold-blooded in their fraudulency. To spy on a FBI office, Philip woos and marries Martha, its administrative assistant. To spy on a high government official, Philip seduces his naive teenager daughter to invade his home. To rendezvous with fellow operatives in the dark of night, Elizabeth fakes her whereabouts with Paige. To penetrate his office, they feign friendship with Stan, a neighbor and a FBI agent. When threatened by poor decisions from Moscow, they fabricate reports to their handlers; to protect their individual cover, Elizabeth and Philip even guise the whole truth to each other.
But Elizabeth and Philip are also warm humans. And being humans as they are, they are vulnerable to human feelings that shape their trust of others. Like all human feelings, theirs feed their sense of well-being. Although in a mock marriage, both are nurturing genuine affections for the other. Elizabeth is jealous when Philip spends a night with Martha. Philip is anxious for Paige when she becomes a Christian and gets too close to her pastor. Both cradle animosity towards their supervisor when he refuses to let Elizabeth visit her dying mother in Russia.
Without spoiling the narrative, I can offer that this fourth season deals with how trust affects a family. In last season's final episode, Paige has revealed to her pastor that her parents are Russian spies. Now that their lie is exposed, how will their family, as they want it, be threatened. And how much can they trust others to protect their family. Increasingly disillusioned, Philip longs for a better future for himself and his children in America. Elizabeth, more resolved with the communist cause, struggles with what she wants for Paige. In moments of ambivalence, she questions her worldview in light of Paige's new found faith in Christianity.
"The Americans" is a metaphor of raising a family in a dangerous world. The brick and mortar that builds a family is trust. Without trust, our family's future is unpredictable. With trust, our familial relationships are more reliable. Yet trust, in its nuances, can only ride securely on the truth. Like all of us in afamily, Elizabeth and Philip wrestle with truth telling - what is the truth, tell it to whom, when to tell it and how much when we tell it. Here Paige's faith in Christ exemplifies all that is trustworthy. Ultimately truth telling validates our trustworthiness.
Ex-Machina
Review by John L. Ng
January, 2016
Artificial intelligence in recent films has showed incredible machines becoming more human: A.I., 2001, I, Robot, 2004, The Machine, 2013, Her, 2013, Interstellar, 2014. Ex Machina, directed and written by Alex Garland, is the latest of this genre. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a software geek who has won a lottery to spend a week with his employer, an eccentric inventor. Shortly after he arrives at Nathan’s (Oscar Isaac) remote retreat, Caleb learns that he has been selected to be part of an experiment to determine the conscious capabilities of Ava (Alicia Vikander), an artificial intelligent robot encased in an alluring female body.
During their sessions, Caleb and Ava chitchat, banter and even flirt with each other. Soon it becomes obvious that Ava is far more self- and environmental- aware than Nathan or Caleb can imagine. Caleb is captivated by Ava's cognitive and emotive capacities. That visceral fascination soon morphs into sexual attraction. In their debriefings, Nathan probes Eva and Caleb's feelings for the other. His erotic urges for Ava begs to ask: what is being human with a sensory body?
Ex Machina, from Latin's deus ex machina, translates as god from the machine. In ancient Greece, a god is often introduced unexpectedly into a stage drama to contrive a solution for an otherwise insoluble problem. The initial intimation is that a mere man, as ingenious as Nathan is, has dangerously played a creator-god. Ava suggests a composite name from Adam and Eve. And his haven is Eden-like. By creating a sentient life form in Ava, Nathan has inadvertently implicated, without awareness or intent, her ontological consequences. In effect, the movie as a creation narrative explores the meanings, possibilities and implications of being human.
The Judeo-Christian traditions embrace the Biblical teaching that "God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1.27) Theologians and Philosophers have parsed without agreement the meaning of divine image in humans. One tenet is clear, humanity is created to have self and relational consciousness. Nathan offers that a human possesses a unique consciousness that has at least five facets. Ava has imagination (for example, she is able to envision what freedom is like outside her confine); sexuality (she has a body with sexual awareness, urges, impulses and needs); self awareness (she is aware of her presence with Caleb); manipulation (she seeks to influence others and effect their choices); empathy (she is capable of perceiving, interpreting and sharing other's feelings).
When Caleb confesses that Ava is fond of him, Nathan suggests three possibilities. As an pseudo-human, she actually has feelings for him, or she doesn't really like him but pretends that she does, or she fakes fondness to manipulates him. That is, beyond programmed responses, she actually has conscious capacity to relate to Caleb emotively as well as cognitively. Being human then, Ava is capable of intergrading what she has learned. With this knowledge, she realizes that she does not know certain things, that there are reasons why she loves or hates, that her body can enjoy sexual pleasure, that she wants something she may not have, that she may need to lie to protect herself or to control someone else. And she is capable of rebelling against the one who has made her.
Hmm. Ex-Machina provides an entertaining metaphor of the Genesis accounts of the creation of humankind and its latent possibility to rebel against its Creator. While entertaining us, the film explores the notion of being human: what does it mean to be human in mind and body, and what are the potentials and pitfalls of having a human consciousness
January, 2016
Artificial intelligence in recent films has showed incredible machines becoming more human: A.I., 2001, I, Robot, 2004, The Machine, 2013, Her, 2013, Interstellar, 2014. Ex Machina, directed and written by Alex Garland, is the latest of this genre. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a software geek who has won a lottery to spend a week with his employer, an eccentric inventor. Shortly after he arrives at Nathan’s (Oscar Isaac) remote retreat, Caleb learns that he has been selected to be part of an experiment to determine the conscious capabilities of Ava (Alicia Vikander), an artificial intelligent robot encased in an alluring female body.
During their sessions, Caleb and Ava chitchat, banter and even flirt with each other. Soon it becomes obvious that Ava is far more self- and environmental- aware than Nathan or Caleb can imagine. Caleb is captivated by Ava's cognitive and emotive capacities. That visceral fascination soon morphs into sexual attraction. In their debriefings, Nathan probes Eva and Caleb's feelings for the other. His erotic urges for Ava begs to ask: what is being human with a sensory body?
Ex Machina, from Latin's deus ex machina, translates as god from the machine. In ancient Greece, a god is often introduced unexpectedly into a stage drama to contrive a solution for an otherwise insoluble problem. The initial intimation is that a mere man, as ingenious as Nathan is, has dangerously played a creator-god. Ava suggests a composite name from Adam and Eve. And his haven is Eden-like. By creating a sentient life form in Ava, Nathan has inadvertently implicated, without awareness or intent, her ontological consequences. In effect, the movie as a creation narrative explores the meanings, possibilities and implications of being human.
The Judeo-Christian traditions embrace the Biblical teaching that "God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1.27) Theologians and Philosophers have parsed without agreement the meaning of divine image in humans. One tenet is clear, humanity is created to have self and relational consciousness. Nathan offers that a human possesses a unique consciousness that has at least five facets. Ava has imagination (for example, she is able to envision what freedom is like outside her confine); sexuality (she has a body with sexual awareness, urges, impulses and needs); self awareness (she is aware of her presence with Caleb); manipulation (she seeks to influence others and effect their choices); empathy (she is capable of perceiving, interpreting and sharing other's feelings).
When Caleb confesses that Ava is fond of him, Nathan suggests three possibilities. As an pseudo-human, she actually has feelings for him, or she doesn't really like him but pretends that she does, or she fakes fondness to manipulates him. That is, beyond programmed responses, she actually has conscious capacity to relate to Caleb emotively as well as cognitively. Being human then, Ava is capable of intergrading what she has learned. With this knowledge, she realizes that she does not know certain things, that there are reasons why she loves or hates, that her body can enjoy sexual pleasure, that she wants something she may not have, that she may need to lie to protect herself or to control someone else. And she is capable of rebelling against the one who has made her.
Hmm. Ex-Machina provides an entertaining metaphor of the Genesis accounts of the creation of humankind and its latent possibility to rebel against its Creator. While entertaining us, the film explores the notion of being human: what does it mean to be human in mind and body, and what are the potentials and pitfalls of having a human consciousness