Category: Favorite Films

Favorite Films: Moral Inspiration

“Compassion is the basis of morality.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher

In contrast to my previous post on the growing amorality enveloping society and that of my prolonged discourse — for which I ask forgiveness — here are some films I’d like to recommend that offset the tide. These cinematic pieces remind us of the power that kindness, truth, and goodness holds, and that art — when thoughtfully and morally attended to — can be used to inspire us all towards greater clarity, compassion and empathy.

Sweet Bean (Directed by Naomi Kawase)

In the hands of another director I suspect Sweet Bean might have come across as excessively sentimental. But here, director Naomi Kawase constructs a simple tale with such thoughtfulness and care that its characters and situation feel not only believable but genuine. Centralizing on only three characters, Sweet Bean follows the personal trials of a vendor named Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagase) who struggles running his little dessert shop which makes dorayaki, a sweet bean paste-filled pancake popular in Japan. His most regular customer is a lonely, seemingly disconnected young high school girl (Kyara Uchida) who considers dropping out and leaving home. Sentaro gives her the “rejects” that don’t sell. But Sentaro’s own life is also lonely and disconnected. And although we’re not told the details, we get the sense he’s doing this job only because he has to, for financial reasons and also as a repayment for a debt that goes beyond money. But one day, his life changes when an elderly woman named Toke (Kirin Kiki) comes applying for a job. But despite offering her services for incredibly low pay, Sentaro kindly turns her down seeing that she’s old and appears slightly disabled. Still, she leaves him a gift in gratitude for his consideration — her own homemade sweet bean paste that tastes so amazing that it changes his mind. Working together they make new Dorayakis that become a huge hit with the public but soon trouble comes. And in that trouble we reveal that beneath the veneer of politeness, people of this little town carry as much prejudice and pettiness as anywhere else. In the challenges that face the characters, both physically and psychologically, we begin to learn the meaning of trust, kindness and the devotion to one’s passion. I do not wish too give much away in what is a very simple story but I must say that the actors in Sweet Bean bring such sincere emotion to the scenes that it shakes you. When watching films, I’m rarely reminded of the power of attentiveness being able to change lives like it does in this one. Here, there is such a guileless display of love; love of craft, love of one another, love of life.

Babe (Directed by Chris Noonan)

Babe is magnificent. Both surprisingly dark and incredibly uplifting, it’s a triumph of goodness and a morality tale superior to any other children’s film ever made (perhaps only the original 1940 Pinocchio comes close). The film’s central character and hero is a pig named Babe, a little runt picked from a litter of hogs to serve as a lottery “Ham” prize at the local country fair. Yet out of that comes the beginning of a journey, one of a humble creature destined for greatness. Babe is so pure, so innocent that he defies the common selfishness and violence that permeates society including animal farm life; the little pig truly has a heart of gold. But how do you make a character so good and honest interesting enough to follow or believe in? Well, in the hands of producer/creator George Miller and director Chris Noonan, we have a film so magical and surprising, it’s beautiful to witness. The sets, compositions and sly storytelling give the film a children’s book feel, unraveling one small chapter of its mystery at a time. And despite clever humour and playful sequences Babe carries with it an ominous tone, where real danger or death lurks at almost every turn, for such is the life of a little pig on a farm. Using animatronics, trained animals and limited CG mouth/facial manipulations, the creators have managed to breathe great life and soul into these seemingly simple barnyard animals who take turns being critics, friends, mothers and guardians. With an excellent voice cast and supported by an Oscar-nominated performance by the ageless James Cromwell as farmer Hoggett, we have just the right amount of realism and fantasy that has you smiling and rooting for this wonderful and courageous sheep-pig.

Dances with Wolves (Directed by Kevin Costner)

There has never been a film like Dances with Wolves and there likely never will be again. Directed with nuance and respect, Costner’s film pays beautiful homage to the land and original indigenous peoples of North America. Shot on location in South Dakota along the great plains of the continent, Dances with Wolves has an epic feel to it and a timelessness that makes one ponder both our history and our future. The story begins with John Dunbar, a Civil War soldier wounded and about to have his leg amputated, making a desperate act to end his life during a standoff between two war parties. Not only does his suicide act not get him killed but results in him being decorated and his leg saved. He requests as his reward for his perceived heroics the opportunity to serve in the great open plains — in Indian country — “before it’s gone” as Dunbar remarks. As such, his real story begins. After arriving in the abandoned military outpost, he befriends a band of Lakota Indians, discovering firsthand that the natives are nothing like what he has been told. Here, he learns their way of life and slowly begins to find himself, not only as a soldier but as a man. He adopts a new name — Dances with Wolves — given to him by the natives due to his unique interactions with a lone wolf who visits him periodically at his post. Of course, conflict arrives just as he begins to find peace as Dunbar’s honour gets tested in battle with enemies both foreign and familiar, including his own people, the American soldiers. Dances with Wolves is a triumph of the human spirit; it is an exploration of self-discovery, of nature and our place in it. It shows the great wisdom that can come to us if we observe and listen, and when we choose to live without prejudice or expectations.

The Shawshank Redemption (Directed by Frank Dabaront)

Frank Dabaront’s trio of films The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Majestic are all films that inspire self-reflection, truth, and hope. Of the three, Shawshank is the most magnificently made. Wrongfully accused of murdering his wife, banking executive Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is sent to serve a life in prison. There, he befriends con-man and convicted murderer Ellis Redding (Morgan Freeman) and becomes part of a charming gang of convicts who share humour and tribulations together as part of life behind walls. As it turns out his wittiness and intelligence actually trap him; he becomes not only a confidant to his newfound friends, but also that of the warden, a cruel duplicitous man who uses Andy’s financial expertise to launder the river of dirty money that runs through the prison. Featuring a great screenplay, excellent directing and superb acting, it’s a film that’s so enjoyable that you don’t even realize the depth and beauty of its message — one not simply of redemption but of freedom, and not freedom restricted by any concrete walls but freedom from the prisons we make inside our heads. It’s tale is about breaking away from our conditioning which is the most difficult thing in the world to do. Both Dufresne and Redding face this dilemma and until they each act with the courage to meet that challenge they will remain imprisoned. Finding out how they face their challenges keeps us glued to the screen. If it weren’t for the terrible title, I suspect many more people would’ve seen this movie. It did so poorly that it didn’t even recover the cost of making it. Today, it’s easily regarded as one of the greatest films ever made on hope and human dignity.

Ikiru (Directed by Akira Kurosawa)

What a film Ikiru is. Some feel this is the great Japanese director’s most powerful and humane film. It’s hard to argue with that. Starring seasoned actor and Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura, the film begins with a man’s discovery that he has terminal cancer. Having lived an existence of alarming mundaneness and limited awareness, the diagnosis compels Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat, to find some sort of meaning in the final days of his life. The problem is he doesn’t know where to begin; he doesn’t know how to have fun nor how to connect or share with other people. Neither has he made any contributions to society through craft or charity. His life has been nothing but paperwork being shuffled back and forth between desks. That is the limited achievement of his life after nearly 30 years of work. And so begins the journey of a man — near the end — to find the beginning. He has to look back and around in what seems like for the first time, an overdue examination of his entire life. Played with tremendous depth and poignancy, Shimura’s rich performance as the sorrowful Watanabe both shocks and grips you; you can’t help but feel immense empathy throughout the film, and yet at the end of it, inherit real hope and inspiration. In Japanese, Ikiru means “to live.” And here, we’re given the opportunity to discover what that really means.

To see more Favorite Films go here.

Favorite Films: Fun Films

These days, both life and art seem far too serious. And worst of all, it’s serious in all the wrong places. In our society, all our attention is on rushed accumulation (money, information, social approval) and not on living attentively and joyfully each day. In the art of movies, both live action and animated, we’re overburdened with excessively plot driven arrangements — stories that never let one breathe in the atmosphere or allow one to feel for its characters. It’s as if the industry knows and feels that the audience is also in a hurry to be impressed or entertained. Perhaps art does reflect life? But, regardless, I think we’re all getting pretty tired of the endless exposition and cheaply written non-sensical dialogue to make up for weak story construction. Add to that the kind of frenetic camera work and editing that’s near impossible to follow, what we’re witnessing is nothing less than a trite mess that no amount technical eye candy is gonna save.

So in this selection of favorite films, I’ve specifically chosen ones whose topics, though they may still hit home in the heart and mind, don’t take themselves so seriously either in plot or technical wizardry. They are simply films, funny ones that let you enjoy what’s happening on screen. The art of filmmaking is designed to make people forget about themselves by inviting us to live and feel along with the characters no matter how fantastical or ridiculous the set up. Films don’t always have to be to high art, groundbreaking, or even original but they must be visual and interesting. They are ideas and experiences to be expressed and felt by the viewer. These comedies prove that we can be serious about our art without taking ourselves too seriously.

“As a filmmaker, you have to tell a story to the audience, and in so doing you have to translate it into an image, which means you direct the eye and the heart to look in a certain way, the way you want it to be, the way you want them to see it.” — Martin Scorcese, Filmmaker

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (directed by John Hughes)

What an incredibly funny film Planes, Trains and Automobiles is. It’s remarkably simple (and silly!) Really, it’s just a road movie about two guys trying to find their way home for Thanksgiving holiday. But here, Neil Page (Steve Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) are a perfect match of comedy misfits that are somehow forced to work together, their traveling fate sealed the moment Del accidentally steals Neil’s taxicab in New York City. You see, Neil Page is a bit of a stuffy, privileged white collar executive, while Del is your regular joe, happy-go-lucky shower curtain ring salesman who’s so kind and charming but also irritating at the same time. Nothing goes right for them as they make their way around the cold country in all kinds of transportation, as the title suggests. The two get on at each other’s nerves throughout their adventure, leading to creative conflict and bountiful good fun. As the film moves — and it keeps moving, visually and physically — we learn more and more about the characters. There’s so much brilliant visual humour, and it never seems to end, until it necessarily does with a surprising yet meaningful ending. Few films let you have this much fun and still give you a wonderful payoff. Both my belly and heart are always satisfied when I watch this film and that makes it a perennial favorite. As a friend of mind said after watching it, “it’s so sad they don’t make films like this anymore.”

My Cousin Vinny (directed by Jonathan Lynn)

I absolutely love My Cousin Vinny. If I need to laugh and smile, this unbelievably low key film does it every time. The magic between the two stars is fantastic, even if seemingly unlikely given the visual disparity. A court case comedy, Vinny (Joe Pesci) is an inexperienced lawyer from New York, who, along with his fiancée Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) comes down to Alabama to defend his cousin William Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and his buddy Stan (Mitchel Whitfield). All four characters are like oil in water, being big city folk now congregating in the old South. William and Stan are mistaken for murder but the evidence is heavily against their favour, and this being a backwater town, the paranoia and prejudice run wild and funny. This film shouldn’t be so hilarious, but it is. The characters are wonderfully rendered visual caricatures, with great performances all over and the way the story unfolds, it surprisingly holds you in suspense. For me, it’s the acting that make it so incredibly charming and so visually interesting. Morisa Tomei is so beautiful, funny and sexy here, she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress while Pesci is at his comic best with the kind of wit only he can deliver. There’s no car chases, no naked bodies nor any fisticuffs (although there is a redneck who’s dying to beat up Vinny if he were to ever get the chance). Unexpectedly funny, My Cousin Vinny has literally zero special effects and doesn’t need them.

Big (directed by Penny Marshall)

Big was the big feature break that Tom Hanks needed to showcase his wonderful talent to the world. Here, in director Penny Marshall’s wonderfully sweet and original comedy, Hanks plays 12 year-old Joshua, who, after making a wish to become “big” at an amusement park, wakes up transformed into a fully-fledged adult overnight. The story, again, is simple; a boy turns into a man who must find his way to return to being a boy while adjusting to becoming a man and in so doing learns the value of friendship, childhood and family. However, the way the story plays out is fresh, and playful, allowing the charm of its star to really shine. Hanks plays a young boy in an adult body better than anyone I’ve seen with a believable innocence and silliness that’s hard to doubt. Visual acting, and comedy especially, is the hardest kind of acting to pull off. Here, we witness a great physical performance that allows us to forget ourselves, and empathize fully with the character and those who love him, namely his best friend, his mother, and even his newfound girlfriend Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) who is overtaken by his strange yet sweet nature. I trust, for those who might see Big for the first time, realize why film making (and film acting) makes its greatest impressions on us when it’s visually interesting.

The God of Cookery (directed by Stephen Chow)

I love watching Stephen Chow’s comedies. They’re ridiculous and often repetitive in its themes and visual tricks, but Chow, both as an actor and writer/director, always finds a way to make people laugh. I believe he succeeds here (and in his other global hits The King of Comedy (my co-favorite), Shaolin Soccer, and the bigger budget and more graphically refined Kung Fu Hustle) because at the heart of his films, it’s all about humanity; the ridiculousness of our daily obsessions, cultures, and overall behaviour are worth dissection and parody. In The God of Cookery, Chow plays an arrogant celebrity chef who gets tossed from his throne and into the slum-ridden street food markets of Hong Kong where he tries to re-work his way back to the top. And of course, throughout the journey, there’s the usual display of unrequited love, a share of the grotesque that caricatures the mannerisms of both the business elite and the impoverished working class, and of course, his love of Kung Fu. It all makes for a fantastical display of colourful characters and comedic action that guarantees laughter. The film is far funnier if one understands the spoken language of Cantonese because Chow manipulates the colloquialisms of the Chinese language in a very unique fashion, but even in subtitled form, the story and humour read loud and clear due to the visuals. Stephen Chow’s artistry is particularly distinct in that he has a tremendous respect for physical comedy and knows how to use the camera to express it effectively. He might also might be one of the best at making us laugh at humanity’s own silly obsession with superficial beauty and success.

Office Space (directed by Mike Judge)

It’s hard to not like Office Space, Mike Judge’s satire of office life and politics. Without the use of any big name stars (unless you consider a still relatively young Jennifer Aniston a star), Judge is able to build a story about characters who can’t stand their place at work. Personally, I can relate heavily to this film, as I, too, once worked in the confines of a corporate office environment, compiling, checking and matching numbers on papers and computers — the kind of work that makes so little sense in the big scheme of things that it’s hard to believe a sane man would actually get up in the morning to do this everyday of his life. In Office Space, that man happens to be Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) who is so depressed with his job that he actually agrees to go visit a shrink about it. During the visit, he goes into self-hypnosis but the psychologist actually has a heart attack during the session leaving Peter feeling accidentally yet completely refreshed and no longer burdened by his concerns about his career or even his life. He returns to the job but doesn’t quit, perplexing both his two equally disgruntled office buddies. In fact, his “I don’t give a crap attitude” actually gets him a promotion during an internal company audit while his two pals get the pink slip. He even dumps his mean old girlfriend for the new girl at the restaurant nearby. But of course, things don’t all go smooth. Still bitter about the kind of life and work he and others do at his company, he comes up with a scheme to pilfer, bit by bit, money from them. And there lies his journey to find that there is no way out of the mundaneness of work, and that sacrificing one’s ethics, even if just a bit, has its price. Office Space is truly silly, and yet at the same time completely right about the stupidity of our daily work lives — namely, that we all make too much of it. I used to get stressed out about numbers and such, but like the oft-mentioned TPS report, they’re all just symbols of absolute meaninglessness.

For more film recommendations, check out the Favorite Films Category.