Films of the year 2009

In no particular order, my favourites are

Changeling and Milk, two ‘true(ish) stories well told with superbly well acted leads by Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn. I thought that Changeling is much better than Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood’s other directorial offering this year.

Two films posed moral dilemmas, again with outstanding leads, from Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, and Kate Winslet and David Kross in The Reader. Doubt left us in absolute uncertainty about the guilt or innocence of the priest accused of child abuse, a most uncomfortable state of mind, but one we have to face sometimes. The Reader was also about abuse, but this issue was so morally over-shadowed by the film’s Holocaust background that the abusive nature of its central relationship was seldom remarked on.

Four films chosen for their Directorial qualities are; Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle, Inglorious Basterds, by Quentin Tarantino, The Hurt Locker by Kate Bigelow and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. by Terry Gilliam. The last three showed a return to form by their idiosyncratic, inconsistent but sometimes wonderful Directors, with Gilliam’s film being completed by the hasty additions to the cast of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, as a fitting tribute to their friend Heath Ledger.

I don’t usually like Vampire movies, yet two figure this year; Let the Right One In was directed by the Swede Tomas Alfreson from John Ajvide’s script of his own novel. This is a tender pre-adolescent love story, set in modern Sweden, recognising and gently subverting the genre’s traditions. I was really moved by it. Thirst is very different, from the leading Korean director Park Chan-wook, previously known for the Vengeance trilogy and I’m a Cyborg But that’s OK. This could be called I’m a vampire but it’s not OK! as we follow the transformation of a Catholic priest who inadvertently becomes infected with vampirism. Song Kang-ho is persuasive and sympathetic as the tormented priest, and Kim Ok-bin outstanding as the young woman who becomes his lover. This is a complex moral and theological tale, told with bravura and style but certainly not for the squeamish. Like most vampire tales it is about sex and death and blood, love and (eventual) redemption. But the sacramental aspects of blood supping, the dark side of desire and the yearning to be with those we love, for ever, are taken very seriously, in this very black tragi-comedy.

Last year the best animation film for me was Walle -E; this year it’s Up! Both are from Pixar, of course. Both address adult and younger audiences. Up! is beautifully realised, very moving in its early sequences, later on very funny and it makes good use of 3D, not as a gimmick but as a real tool to enhance the effect of the story. (I am told that Coraline does the same , but I only saw that on a plane).

Where The Wild Things Are is not a children’s film. It is a movie about the world of childhood; chaotic, mercurial, confusing, where adults say things we don’t understand and make jokes we don’t understand. Where people have feelings we feel impacted by, but we do not understand what they are feeling or why we are reacting the way we are. Where alliances can shift with bewildering and frightening swiftness. We want to be wild, and we need to be loved. This is a place where a howl can speak a thousand words. Don’t be tempted to view this film through the tunnel of expectations, or be distracted by irrelevant questions. Just go for the ride; feel what it invites you feel, and think about it afterwards. WTWTA has a groundbreaking script by Dave Eggars, inventive direction from Spike Jonze, Maurice Sendak’s whole-hearted approval, and a wonderful cast.

District 9 is a political science fiction film from South Africa, with a most unexpectedly heroic protagonist. Moon, made by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones, is virtually a two hander, with Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey, made for pennies, original and moving. Star Trek, the best of the franchise, bursts with fun and excitement and invention.

My two near misses were Watchmen, a great comic strip very well translated to the big-screen, but 20 years too late, and Paranormal Activity, made for even less than Moon, and a very clever home-movie, but one that did not get the hairs on the back of neck standing up the way it was meant too. Maybe I’m just jaded.

My two Turnkeys were definitely The Day the Earth Stood Still and X Men Origins: Wolverine.

My favourite DVD releases this year were Red Sorghum, The Ashes of Time (redux) and Chungking Express, all from China; I’ve loved you so Long from France, but starring the divine Kirstin Scot Thomas; and classic British films The Spy Who Came in From The Cold, (surely Richard Burton’s best performance); Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Orlando. The 1987 TV series Tutti Frutti with Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thomson has at last been released.

Caught between Doubt and Conviction

Caught between ‘Doubt’ and Conviction.

John Patrick Shanley’s drama opens with the Roman Catholic priest Father Flynn asking his congregation “What do you do when you’re not sure?” We are in America in the year after the assassination of J K Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the United States, and some of his parishioners may be asking themselves ‘if such a thing as this can happen to such a man as this is there a God in heaven?’ But to live with doubt is not to live alone, Father Flynn assures them.

This is an unashamedly didactic drama. It explores the tension between the comforting assurance of a man’s innocence and the driving conviction of his guilt. Sister Aloysius, Principal of the parish school, has encountered a child-abusing priest before and her suspicions that Father Flynn is grooming, if not abusing, one of her boy pupils soon hardens into certainty. Young Sister James on the other hand is eager to accept his explanations as proof of innocence.

What is the evidence? The boy, Donald Miller, is the only black pupil in the school, and we are told he has not made friends. There is some low-key bullying, but Father Flynn is his protector. He shows him a ‘special regard.’ Is this compassion or is he grooming the boy?

The boy has been called to the Rectory to see Father Flynn alone and returned upset. There was alcohol on his breath. An explanation is given – and verified - but are lies being told by the priest and the boy? Then there is the mystery of the vest; is the priest’s explanation sufficient?

Why does Father Flynn get so angry when Sister Aloysius says she has spoken to a nun in his former parish? Why does he insist that she should have only spoken to the new pastor there. Are the priests in league, covering each other? Is his anger a genuine response to her breach of protocol, or is he guilty?

Are Father Flynn’s appeals to Sister James that he is living out the love of Jesus genuine? Many abusers claim they are acting ‘ in love’.

At every point in the film the evidence is questionable, the responses ambiguous. We should all be left in doubt. There is no answer. I know of one couple who saw the original play, and were convinced of the priest’s guilt. Then the saw the film and were convinced of his innocence. In the film he is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor with great charisma, but abusers often have great charisma. And when Sister Aloysius confesses at the end that she has ‘such doubt’ we do not know if this is about the priests guilt, or more profound. Is she asking ‘if such a man as this, ordained by God, can do such things as these, is there a God in heaven?’

This is expertly constructed drama, adapted and directed by Shanley from his original play. It is well acted with Oscar nominated performances by Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, and – for just one scene – by Viola Davis as the boy’s mother.

As a Child Protection trainer I would use it as a case study. What I would not do is make a judgement about guilt or innocence, and that is the film’s great value. It is comfortable to presume guilt or innocence, but often we need to live with doubt. As we wrote in one of the first Anglican Child Protection Guidelines ‘to suspect is not to judge’. Father Flynn asks, “What do you do when you’re not sure?” and the answer has to be ‘follow good child protection guidelines”. (The next training session on such guidelines will be on October 4th, 10 - 12.30 at St. Mary's, Bournespring Trust, Holdenhurst Rd, Bournemouth, open to all churches and secular groups working with children, youths or vulnerable adults.