Into the Abyss

I have been so busy during the Master's program at USC that I hardly find time to write on this blog anymore except about films that really move me in some way. Perhaps it is a sign of how good Werner Herzog's new documentary "Into the Abyss" is that I am inspired to post a review even though I have not done so in so long. But the feeling I left with after this film is one that I would like others to experience, so I am encouraging you to go and see it.

To say it is a film about the death penalty is, I think, to miss some of the point of the film. It is about so much more. It is about an inmate on death row, and the circumstances surrounding how he got there--a senseless crime, families affected, the general nature of the death penalty in the state of Texas. However, one of the things I admire so much about this film is Herzog's respect for his subjects within the film, and the lack of pontification the film shows. Herzog does have a point of view, and in the style that is uniquely his, it comes across strongly through the film. So many documentarians seem to hide behind "facts", or let the facts tell the story because they think it will make their film less biased, or more interesting or something. However, anyone who thinks that any film can be made without a point of view is simply wrong. There is no way to divorce film maker from film entirely, and trying to remove yourself as a documentarian to prove the validity of the film only seems to me to make it weaker a lot of the time. Herzog does not give easy answers to the questions he poses. The perpetrator on death row is obviously guilty. However, Herzog refuses cheap tricks of vilification. We do not need emphasis on their villainy to feel for the victims' families, or understand the senseless nature of the heinous crime. However, the refusal to see the perpetrators as other than human adds layers of meaning, depth and truth to the film. One of the wonderful things about "Into the Abyss" is Herzog's presence within the film. Not quite a narrator, he still gives us a center from which to view what he is showing us, and shows the care that he has for filmmaking and the interest he has in this subject.

In what for me was a very great treat, Herzog was present to answer questions after the screening of the film at USC, and one of the points that came up was the revelation of truth vs. the spewing of facts. Because facts are not truth--I suppose in cases they can help lead you to it. However, truth is deeper, less tangible and more engrossing than mere facts. It is here that the power of Herzog's latest documentary lies. He does not seek facts, but truth--raw, emotional reality beyond questions of blame and guilt, beyond the espousal of political ideologies or the support of issues. "Into the Abyss" feels balanced in this sense, and does not feel that it must beat its audience over the head with its message. It (and Herzog) trusts the audience to bring themselves to the film, and draw what they will from it. While this is not to say that Herzog does not have an agenda with this film, for the point of view he takes comes across through his construction of the film, I think the respect Herzog shows with his subjects he extends to his audience. If they are coming to see the film, he respects them (and his own film-making) enough to let the story unfold visually, and cinematically without the need to beat an ideological standpoint into the ground.

This is not to say that that type of film-making does not have its place as well--however I find the story of "Into the Abyss" far more compelling and truthful than these films. The film is raw and real, and seeks out truth instead of seeking blame or guilt. The authorial presence lends a humanism to the film, and even in surprising moments a touch of the humor that Herzog often infuses into his films. I went into the movie expecting it to be depressing--how could a movie about the death penalty not be? While the movie is desperately sad, and deals with many of the worst events imaginable, Herzog deals with the subject so skillfully that I did not leave the theater feeling the impossible weight of the world bearing down on me as I have from documentaries about much less serious topics. Herzog weaves in small stories of hope, stories of heroism, and stories of love that are beautiful to behold. See especially, the story of a young man in a bar fight, stabbed with a long screwdriver, who didn't pick up a knife tossed at him to retaliate because he wanted to be able to go home and see his children that night. Look at the man who worked strapping down inmates to receive lethal injections, and after 125 could not justify a belief that anyone should be able to take a life any longer. And in the end, it seems to me that while the story is about death, it is also about life, and the importance of life. And this is what is inspiring about it even in its darkest, most abysmal moments.

Fish in the Toilet of Love

Look out for spoilers! (Also, title is nothing but a reference to the brilliant British show Coupling, however I think it is apt for this post).

Well, after seeing Jane Eyre, spring break turned into a Fassbender fest for me, and I watched everything I could get my hands on with him in it that I hadn’t already seen. While watched last year’s Fish Tank, I was struck by its similarities to 2009’s An Education. Similarities abound--disaffected youth, instability of a family unit, affair with an older, married man. It was quite surprising how similar they are in ways. However, Fish Tank is a far superior film, and far less pretentious about being so.


Carey Mulligan was called the next Audrey Hepburn by someone after her role in An Education, and she is quite stunning in the movie. The film is well written, well acted and keeps you involved. It takes place in 1960s England, and takes great care to let you know how cool it is (she likes French New Wave cinema, and all the ‘cool’ trappings that go with that supposedly ‘anti-bourgeois’ art crowd. However, of course, An Education itself is not concerned with questions of class or race at all. Some mention of financial hardship is present (oh dear, how shall we ever afford Oxford?), however the characters lead a comfortable lives. Peter Sarsgaard is wealthier than her family, but the differences are not that pronounced, except that he can afford to take her on a trip to Paris. At the end, I couldn’t help rolling my eyes a bit as the main character says how she looks like everyone at Oxford, yet is so different on the inside. Okay, I get it, she was affected by this older man she slept with and her youthful dreams of a perfect marriage were forever shattered. However, she was able to pick herself up by her shoelaces and get back her scholarship to freaking Oxford. Boo hoo.


Fish Tank tells the story of Mia, a 15 year old girl who lives with her incredibly young mother and little sister--all of whom appear to hate each other, and are constantly yelling and cussing each other out. They are incredibly poor (“those track suits cost 20 quid”), and Mia is about to get sent to a referral school because her behavior is so out of control. Mia’s mother brings home a new boyfriend, Connor (Fassbender!), and from the start, a great amount of sexual tension dances between them. The film is wonderfully shot and has an incredible soundtrack that amps this all up, until the inevitable happens. The difference, and more believable/miserable reality of this film is that Mia has nowhere to go; it exposes the fallacy of class mobility (sure, it happens once in a blue moon I suppose, but not nearly so much as we would like to think). She tries to get ahead through the one thing she loves, dancing, however her opportunity here too turns out to be a cruel joke by the universe. Similarly, the class struggle of the film is heightened by the fact that Connor(spoiler) really belongs to the middle class, even though you don’t know this for most of the film and read him as part of the working class, like them. There are uncomfortable connotations of his “slumming” with Mia’s family, and her reactions to this knowledge are uncontrollable and frightening. While not a film about race and class, the racial aspect of class is not ignored such as it kind of is in An Education, and presents itself through Mia’s choice of music and dance styles, which have linked black and working class populations in Britain for decades (see Dick Hebdige’s work on subcultures for greater analysis of this). While the end of the film does resolve her struggles with her mother and sister, and she escapes the building she’s in, she doesn’t get to escape to one of the world’s finest educational institutions, but to Wales. Her’s isn’t a vertical track, it’s horizontal. You can’t help getting the feeling too, that her sister will end up trapped just like she is in the end.


Katie Jarvis is absolutely wonderful as the prickly, aggressive and defensive Mia, who is angry at the world that ignores and doesn’t care about her. Michael Fassbender is wonderful as Connor, who doesn’t seem so bad, is wildly charismatic, but turns out to be scum. While I enjoyed An Education, Fish Tank is unquestionably the better and more meaningful film, that feels like it’s about actual people, vs. that film that you know you’re supposed to like, but it can’t quite escape the feeling of staged-ness, or the feeling that it really should be a book (which it is).

My favorite movie for the Oscars!

Any movie that uses Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major automatically goes into my category of excellent films. I thought that I would take a moment to discuss a movie that I just saw, and is likely to be up for best picture at the Oscars. It has already been nominated for a Golden Globe, and I must say, it is one of my favorites of the year as well.

"The King's Speech" stars Colin Firth as King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his elocution and speech 'teacher' Lionel Logue. Like all movies I end up loving, it took some forcing myself to go see it. I was much more excited about the tense, anxiety inducing thriller "Black Swan"...which I also loved. However, Colin Firth in particular (but also Geoffrey Rush, who I don't think has ever given a bad performance) is so incredible, I found myself mesmerized by a person I have never had any interest in whatsoever. In the film (and perhaps in real life? I confess to not being familiar with much about this era of British history), King George ("Bertie") talks funny--and I don't mean the stammer (perhaps some of you are familiar with the distinct manners of elocution around that time...several Hollywood personalities talked in a similar manner). He has a temper, cowers at times in the face of his brother and father, and is like much royalty, reticent about his emotions, past, and much about himself.

It is a testament to Colin Firth's extraordinary performance then, as well as the direction of Tom Hooper and screenplay by David Seidler, that these elements do not come across to make us dislike the character. We are rather more endeared to him because of these traits, and the film manages to build Firth's and Rush's, characters with very little exposition (always the mark of a fine film). If anyone has ever had to speak in public, it is quite a nerve-wracking experience. For a person with a speech impediment, it must be ten times worse. The film brings this anxiety out-not with pity or derision, but simply as a hurdle this man must face to perform his job (being king...). Still, at the climactic moment (cue Beethoven!), the gravity of the situation and the importance of the struggles of the king are executed beautifully as he makes a solemn speech to his subjects on the entrance of England into WWII, linking his personal story with the overarching history to which royalty especially is invariably intertwined.

It is a movie that deals wonderfully with the subject of royalty as well, and the manner that Albert and Elizabeth (Helena Bonham-Carter) fulfill their duties while others are not perhaps up to the challenge. Also, the manner in which commoners interact and do(not) necessarily comprehend what it still means to be the king (or queen...). "Black Swan" was wonderful for its excess, the story (even though it's not the most original idea...), and of course, Natalie Portman was wonderful. And I'm a sucker for a movie about dancing. However, "The King's Speech, with its understatement, and masterful performances, is exquisite. It deserves to win, and while it may lose out to the larger box office of films such as "Black Swan" or "Social Network", "The King's Speech" is my personal pick. At least, for now.

Master of Suspense

Well, I'm finally settled here in Los Angeles, working on my Master's Degree! I realize that the consistency of my posts is shaky at best, but I thought I would just keep plugging away, and try to keep up. At least you know that the movies that I do talk about are the ones that truly inspire me to write about them. That being said, let's get down to it!

I am working for the University of Southern California at the moment, in the capacity of a 'reader' for a class taught by Dr. Drew Casper on the subject of Alfred Hitchcock. Basically, I sit in on the class, do the readings, and then I grade the papers of the undergraduates assigned to me. The class has met 3 times now, I believe. We have worked our way through Hitchcock's silet films and British sound films, and next week, we'll move on to his Hollywood career.

I wanted to take a moment though, and recognize two films that I was particularly impressed with, seeing that not many people give as much thought to his British films as his Hollywood ones. While his Hollywood classics such as Vertigo, Spellbound, The Birds, and of course Psycho remain his most popular and widely viewed work, it is the films that he made during his time in Britain that helped raise him to the level of master.

In particular, the two films that speak to me are "The 39 Steps"(1935) and "The Lady Vanishes" (1938). Hitchcock has darker films, and films that mix light and dark, and the element of slapstick that goes into these two films is perhaps what draws me, personally, to them more than his other films (which have, arguably, greater technical merit). Hitchcock was a master at blending genres, and these two films, while very different, are similar in that they are a combination of suspense, action, adventure, mystery, thriller, and romantic comedy.

We'll start chronologically, with "The 39 Steps". Starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, this film centers around a man who gets dragged into a game of espionage and intrigue involving national secrets that are about to be smuggled out of the country. After assisting an agent, who then gets murdered in his apartment, he is on the flee from the bad guys, the government-everyone basically, until he can clear his name. One of the points that is continually brought up in class is how Hitchcock's stories rely on character-it is how he successfully builds suspense, and why his stories are so gripping. He often takes flat, morally ambiguous characters at the beginning and takes them on a journey towards greater humanism and personality. This film is no different, which the character of Richard Hannay (Donat) taking on multiple character roles as masks as he makes his journey through the film. Madeleine Carroll takes the role of the 'cool blond', who starts out hindering Hannay as much as the rest, but also goes through a transformation of character and greater depth as the film goes on. The best scene, in my opinion, occurs after these two have been handcuffed together, and find themselves looking for a way out of their predicament while trapped in an inn in the Highlands of Scotland. This scene is also quite risque, and extraordinary for its blatant sexuality that was quite uncommon at that time (they even appear in a bed together!).


This film is particularly remarkable in my opinion because the acting is spot on. The secondary characters are particularly well rounded and interesting, despite having very little time on screen. Donat himself is probably one of the mroe charismatic British actors of that time period. Hitchcock perhaps would disagree with the importance placed on the actors, and perhaps it is just their ability to effortlessly carry off his (and screenwriter Charles Bennett's) masterpiece. The pacing of the story carries the audience along so quickly, you barely have time to catch your breath before the next sequence occurs. I would give this movie 5 stars, and heartily recommend it, especially if you are not familiar with Hitchcock's British, or black and white work.

The next film I want to overview is "The Lady Vanishes", which actually reminded me a lot of Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express' when I first heard about it (even though they have very little to do with one another, except for taking place on a train). This film centers on a young woman who befriends an elderly woman aboard a train while she is heading back home to be married (for $!). When the lady vanishes suddenly, everyone else on the train claims not to have seen her, even though the protagonist swears she was there. Helped by a slightly roguish man (who records folk songs to write about), she searches the train and tries to unearth the conspiracy surrounding the old lady. My personal favorite scene is a rather farcical fight in the baggage compartment.

Once again, this film is chock full of wonderful secondary characters, most interesting among them is a homosexual couple whose only interest throughout the film is cricket, and getting back to England in time for a penultimate match. Claustrophobic (the whole set was something like 70 feet), this film defines how to tell a story in an extremely limited space-indeed, one of the main pleasures of the film is where the devil could they be hiding a little old lady on this train? Once again, the characters begin as morally ambiguous, but slowly grow in our estimation through their actions and worries. It is his first politically allegorical film (taking issues with Britain's lack of a stance against an increasingly fascist rising power in Europe at the time). Also chock full of engaging and charismatic performances by Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, this has perhaps bumped out The Birds as my favorite Hitchcock. (Also, the first of Hitchcock;s films with a recapitulation scene) Obviously, this film also gets 5 stars.



So, if you are looking for a more light-hearted side to Hitchcock, these two films are both wonderful. Perhaps they lack some of the mastery of later classics (Notorious just popped into my head...that's a wonderful movie). But these movies are full of incredible characters, amazing writing, and wonderfully paces plots with the right amount of suspense, humor and adventure mixed in to make one heck of a good time.

(At this moment, they are both available on at IMDB.com, as well as Netflix Instant Play).

Catching Up

There is a saying that classics are what everyone wants to have read, but no one actually wants to read. I feel like sometimes I get that way with films also. If I know that I should see a movie because it is a classic, but perhaps I am not feeling particularly interested at the time, or there is some commercial blockbuster coming out I'm looking forward to, I will put off the classic film for as long as possible. Until somehow I am forced to see it, I push it to the bottom of my Netflix account, or check it out and return it without watching it.

Such was the case with Ingmar Bergman's classic film "The Seventh Seal". It was briefly discussed in my film history class, and I decided that I had to see it. Two years later, I still hadn't gotten around to it. Finally, last November I couldn't put it off anymore, and I moved it to the front of my list. It is the first Bergman film that I have seen, but will not be the last. IMDB's summary: "A man seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague". A pretty accurate description, however it cannot capture the nature of the film, and the reason that it should be required viewing for anyone who calls themselves a fan of film.

I have never seen a film that captures more of the dismay and hopelessness of the outbreak of the black plague. Recent films try to shock audiences with scenes of violent illnesses, or grotesque, wasting diseases. Fair enough, I'm sure they're not inaccurate. However, the Seventh Seal captures a sense of abandonment and foreboding despair that feels so real that it is easier to understand the horror of this particular event in history than some vague historical description of it. Characters in the film turn to religion (often times, disturbingly, to methods such as self-flagellation), turn away from religion, and try to cope with life and death in various ways. There are characters for different sets of belief, making the Seventh Seal a sort of allegorical film. Of course, this also appears through one of the more interesting characters of the film, Death. He and the knight, Antonius Block, play a game of chess in which the outcome is life and death. Death is also in my opinion, morbidly comical at points of the film, as he suddenly appears behind a man hiding in a tree trying to escape him and produces a large saw to cut the tree down.

Even in the darkness of the film however, there is a young family, Jof(Joseph), Mia (Mary) and their young son. As a representation of the holy family, the make it through the turbulent and dangerous times and provide hope in the midst of all the darkness and death surrounding them.

Anyway, trying to keep this post a bit shorter, I highly recommend this film. It is the most interesting rumination on death and the "mortal coil" that all humans face. A masterpiece of film, excellent cinematography and superb acting. It is the only film I have ever seen where I immediately wanted to watch it again with the commentary track on. If you want to see a film that will actually make you think, and you can tell a lot of though went into, this is the one for you.

A New Dawn for Vampires-With Lots Less Angst

It has been difficult for me to find time to post recently because I was working on graduate school applications, and more recently, I have just been working to make money for graduate school. There have been several films I have wanted to post about including "The Invention of Lying" and "The Seventh Seal", both of which I saw a while ago, but I just couldn't get past the basic mapping out of points that I wanted to discuss. Maybe I'll come back to them later.

This post however, I wish to devote to a movie that I just saw yesterday at the Art Theater in Champaign (previously Boardman's Art Theatre, but now under new ownership). I spent several hours there yesterday, as me and my friend went and saw the animated shorts that are up for Oscars, as well as the late night film "Daybreakers".

I want to spend a quick paragraph on the animated features up for the Oscars this year which include "French Roast" from France, "Wallace and Grommit: A Matter of Loaf and Death" from the UK, "La Dama Y La Muerte" from Spain, "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" from Ireland, and "Logorama" also from France. They were all wonderful, but I have to say, I'm rooting for "Logorama". While "La Dama Y La Muerte" was my favorite in terms of style and story, "Logorama" was one of the more thoughtful, critical and innovative animated shorts that I have ever seen. It contains over 2,000 images and logos from businesses and commercialized society in general, and while the story is nothing new, the fantastic way in which they have categorized and used the logos makes it this year's best animated short. Sadly, while I love Wallace and Grommit, and realize clay-mation is an incredibly intricate and time consuming art form, it is about third or fourth on my list of shorts that
deserve the Oscar.

But on to the main event!! At 10 PM, I sat down to the new release "Daybreakers", the most current film to come out in theaters about that most popular of subjects these days, vampires. Now, I'm not a huge fan of horror films in general, or of vampire movies specifically. I have been trying to rectify this with classics such as "Suspiria", so we'll see how that goes. However, I am not one of the best sources for information on vampire lore, besides what everyone knows. However, it seems to me that since Anne Rice has started writing, and really as cinematic history continues, vampirism has gotten poncy (see: Interview With a Vampire), and something that is supposed to be aspired to (see: Twilight series, any of the new vampire books, etc.). There are very few bastions left where the true horror of vampires--they feed off people people!--is left ( I have heard 30 Days of Night is a good film for this). Too often now, the fear of being an unstoppable, life-sucking force is taken out of the story ("No Edward, I want to be a vampire, because you're 'vegetarian', and we can make swoony eyes at each other forever!). Not that I'm saying teenage angst and romance doesn't have it's place, but the horror genre is not it.

Now "Daybreakers" is a film that treats vampires in an interesting, and relatively new way. The premise is that in a world where if you are bitten by a vampire you either a)die or b)turn into a vampire, the human population is dwindling. As a hi-tech company races to find a blood substitute, several of the remaining humans turn to Edward Dalton (played by the appropriately somber Ethan Hawke), a leading vampire blood scientist, a reluctant vampire (along the lines of Brad Pitt in Interview...). He doesn't drink human blood. However, in a world where the food supply is dwindling, there is the appropriate amount of terror within the vampire community as they start feeding off each other, and themselves (with horrific results).

Once Willem Dafoe shows up, it turns out that he has figured out a cure for vampirism. He used to be one himself. One aspect that I like about the direction the story takes is that it is not desirable to be a vampire, because it involves taking human life, and Edward Dalton would never bite the girl that he starts forming an attachment too (and she wouldn't ask!). There's nothing romantic about it in this film. What they can become as they slowly starve to death is grotesque.

The plot is another aspect of the film that I love, because it fuses the horror genre with science fiction. There have been many movies about the end of civilization as we know it--this film just takes a different point of view on it. The characters are suitably complex, but not so much that it requires extensive back story. There are no long expository sequences about the past, how they got this way, why they have to go back, etc. Things are the way they are, but there is a slim chance to change things for the better.

I like this film. The cinematography is very nicely done, beautiful blue filters make the night that the vampires live in as cold and lifeless as their undead hearts. The warm yellow filters of the daytime make you feel the relative safety the sun brings to humans (unlike a certain series of sparkly beings, these vampires burst spectacularly into flames in the sunlight). Some of the shots are incredibly structured also, and the inevitable presence of red in horror films always adds a wonderful color to a scene. It is gruesome and gory, however not too realistically so as go flying around, and the vampires explode in a shower of flame and sparks as they get staked through the heart.

Somehow, the actors don't take themselves too seriously, but manage to be perfectly believable in their roles. I have heard that in a movie, you can tell one big lie, and the audience will accept it. Here the one big lie is that vampires are real and they constitute the majority of society. Everything beyond that lies within the realms of believability for this one stretch of reality. At the Art Theater, the owner came out and introduced the film (which I really thought was a nice touch) and he said it was one of the more "realistic" horror films that he had seen in awhile, and I have to say, I agree with him. I give this film two thumbs up, an A, 4 stars, however you want to rate it, and I think that with its combination of horror and sci-fi, and the heavyweight actors in it (including Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe) this movie is a must see.



As a side note, anyone in the Champaign-Urbana I would encourage to go out and support the newly reopened Art Theater in downtown Champaign. The new owner seems very nice, and you can tell he really likes the movies that he's showing. The prices are reasonable, and I am so glad that we still have an independent, locally owned theater in the area. I highly recommend this theater, it's the best in town! Plus, you don't have to sit through half an hour of commercials before you get to the actual movie.

How to Love Love Stories

So I will be the first to admit that I am not as discerning as I should be when it comes to romantic movies. Call me a sap, but if there's a semblance of romance, you can usually get me to watch a movie. However, for some reason I am still extraordinarily reluctant to watch independent stories about relationships. Perhaps it's because so may independent movies seem to end up unhappily, or deal with unhappy people who meet unhappy ends, and never will be happy...ever. They try to deal with reality so much, that sometimes they miss it. Of course on the other hand, you have movies like Twilight. Enough said.

In the days where Hollywood caters to teen angst and middle-aged romantic depression by inventing grand epics of selfish people (or vampires) acting selfishly, it is hard to find romances that mean anything, or have any relation to actual experiences anymore. I am always wary of independent movies about relationships-often they make me never want to be in a relationship ever. Therefore, I was kind of hesitant to see the film "Broken English" by Zoe Cassavetes. Of course, with the talent in her family, I should have foreseen that her film would be amazing. However, this movie, starring Parker Posey, turned into a rainy day movie--one that I would watch when I didn't feel like anything else, or had extra time.

Well, as it turns out, tonight was the perfect time for a rainy day movie. Even during the credits, I was apprehensive. The music, along with visuals of Nora (Posey) getting ready for a big night had me certain that this was all a trick--that she was really getting ready to off herself because she couldn't find a boyfriend, or something silly. However, the movie progressed, and we get a pretty clear picture of her life. Boring, but not horrible. The days go by, with not much to mark the difference. I am sure that we have all been there in life. She goes through several unsuccessful dates, and finally, decides to go to a party that she doesn't really want to. This is where she meets Julian--a young Frenchman in town for a brief time. While she is nervous about forming an attachment, they are soon getting hot and heavy, and the movie progresses, slowly still, as real life would.

I don't want to give away too much about the movie, because I think that it is wonderful. Suffice it to say, it reminded me of real life very much. Even pitted against other movies that seem realistic, this movie feels like real life. The pacing of it is brilliant. The people that she meets, the men she dates, all seem like people who you have met before. There is a truth about the European characters even, that is often lacking in other films. They are not all knowing, wise-cracking people who laugh at silly tourists, or know everything about them. Having lived with a French guy for a year, I found the French people portrayed in the film, especially the main character, very life-like, instead of caricatures that usually make their way into films. You never know quite what Julian (played beautifully by Melvil Poupaud) is thinking. You're not sure how into Nora he is, what his intentions are--especially after the film gives you examples of men with problems earlier. The long silences as the camera holds on him as Nora and he are together, and she is talking, are almost unreadable. It felt very much like a date or two that I have been on. It is only infrequently that the audience gets glimpses into his own psyche and insecurities, and these moments are almost as much of a revelation to us as to Nora.

Parker Posey plays Nora beautifully as a woman who feels like she's aging, and perhaps her life is passing her by. She's not miserable, but neither is she happy. She just is existing (also a frame of mind I think some of us can relate to)--wanting something special to happen to her love life. There is a great point in the movie about wanting to be with someone so you won't be alone, and wanting to be with someone because you want something special, and I thought that this moment was also brilliantly done. It helps that there is also a contrast in her friend, who seems to be the other type of person, the one who doesn't want to be alone, and that is the only reason that she is married.

This movie is so good because it is so normal. It is slow paced, and has moments of disappointment for Nora, but what I like most about it is that there is a sense of hope about it that is essential in life if you are to have any sort of happiness. Hope for Nora, and hope for the audience. Because really, the reason why those independent downers fail in my eyes, is that there is no hope for a brighter future. And if you don't have hope, then what's the point? "Broken English" was a beautiful change, and a movie that is well worth watching, and I recommend that you see it right now.