The best film of the week by a distance was The Lady which I will leave to the end. The film is of political, social and historical significance and I debated whether to include with the rest of rubbish recently experienced or cover in the writing on political and economic matters of the moment. The other films are so bad that I concluded I had leave the Lady to save this writing from the shredder.
The first film therefore is Immortals the 20011 mythical story. The setting is a war between Immortals in which those who subsequently calls themselves Gods and those defeated, the Titans are imprisoned within a mountain.
The baddie is played by Mickey Rourke as Hyperion who has learned of the existence of a magic bow which can release the Titans from their imprisonment and help him take control of the known human world. He sets off to capture the virgin oracle Phaedra so she can help find the bow as part of her knowledge of his future.
Meanwhile in a village located on a mountainous cliff overlooking the sea, a peasant boy/young man, Theseus, with a single parent mother has been trained as a warrior by an old man played by the actor John Hurt who if I have understood directly is also the top God Zeus who is training the young man to become the saviour of human kind against the wicked Hyperion. There is a conflict between this involvement of Zeus and his stricture on pain of death to other Gods including his daughter, Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, that they should not intervene to help human kind against Hyperion because he believes that if he has the will Theseus will overcome Hyperion.
The problem arises when Athenian soldiers arrive to move the villagers away from the forces of Hyperion but leave the peasants to make their own way after the others have left with escort. Theseus protests and attacks one of the soldiers, Lysander for being offensive towards his mother and the other peasants. This soldier is demoted and told to help with escorting the rest of the village but rebels, escapes and goes to join Hyperion telling him about the villages and its remaining people. Hyperion attacks the village, the mother of Theseus is skilled and Theses shows such valour that he is not killed but taken prisoner to work in the Salt Mines. On his journey he meets up with party bring the virgin Oracle and her three assistants to Hyperion after their capture. All four ladies pretend to be the Oracle. With the help of the three others the Oracle escapes with Theseus and other prisoners including a thief called Stavros who proves his valour later. The problem is that the Oracle has a vision which shows Theseus bring the magical bow to Hyperion and swearing his allegiance.
It is the Oracle who persuades Theseus who like Hyperion has no belief in the Gods or his mother’s religion that he should return to the village to give her a religious burial. This he does but is attacked by the Minotaur a henchman of Hyperion who wears a metal mask of a bull. There are two development of significance in this part of the film. First Theseus discovers the Magical Bow which help him to destroy the forces of Hyperion sent to capture the Oracle as much as him after it is discovered that she is not among the three women captured. They are tortured, abused and killed imprisoned inside the metal cast of a bull. Secondly Poseidon helps Theseus and the Oracle escape and make use of a boat to get to Mount Tartarus and the Kingdom of the Hellenics to warn their monarch of what Hyperion is planning as seen by the Oracle.
Meanwhile the Oracle has given her virginity to Theseus and conceives his son when they return to her temple so he can recover from the wounds from his battle with the Minotaur. The couple are then lured into an ambush where in the fight he loses the magical bow which is taken to Hyperion massed with his forces outside the citadel stronghold of the Hellenics. It is at this point that Ares the God of War supported by Athena intervenes to ensure that Theseus and the Oracle survives.
The penultimate sections of the film involve two battles of good against evil. First Hyperion uses the bow to release the Titans who have been held within Mount Tartarus but Zeus and the other Gods have been prepared to do battle as had before. However Zeus has kept his word and destroy Ares for intervening which is a big mistake
The King of Hellenics believes that it is possible to negotiate peace Hyperion as this results in only Zeus and his daughter who he appears to have forgiven and who appears to be immortally wounded at one point to escape as they bring the mountain down.
Hyperion has also used the bow to destroy he one entrance tunnel through the mountain which leads to the Hellenic City. The King believe that he can negotiate a peace with Hyperion believing that the conflict is between the Hyperion and the Athenians and disregards the warnings of Theseus and the Oracle. Fortunately Hyperion is aware of foresight of the Oracle and demands that Theseus should represent the King at the negotiation. He offers Theseus place at his side as together they would be able to conquer the world but Theseus rejects the offer and when the entrance to the citadel falls it is he who rallies the panicking troops to defend the city despite the great difference in the sizes of the forces. The King is killed but Theseus and Hyperion fight to their respective deaths. Just when it looks as the might of Hyperion’s forces will overcome the city forces, Zeus and Athena depart the collapsing mountain, together with the souls of Theseus to the heavens. The mountain engulfs the advancing enemy killing many and causing the remainder to flee. The city and human kind is saved through sacrifice of Theseus. He is honoured and the film ends as his son Acamus is being tutored by Zeus again as the old man that one day like his father he too will need to fight to save humanity and the sky is filled with the Gods and the Titans fighting again suggesting a sequel!
I suspected Deck the Halls was not made for the cinema as it proved to be even worse than most cinema B film in the days when two features films were shown, plus the newsreel and a cartoon. I decided to watch because this is the time of the year when dedicated Christmas film channels appear together with seasonal films being added to the main Sky channels as well as being shown on other channels including the BBC and ITV. The film is about the kidnapping of a philanthropist whose main business is a funeral home together with an assistant and where his police detective daughter is joined by a Miss Marple like writer who has the support of an attractive young male detective. The kidnappers wear father Christmas uniforms and the event occurs a few days before Christmas allowing considerable product placement for large decorated Christmas trees.
I guessed who was behind the kidnapping and also identified the red herrings. The ending was predicable as well as the two families celebrating Christmas together and he Police detective daughter commencing a relationship with the Police leader of the investigation of the kidnapping.
Deck the Halls was not as bad as The Secret Agents Club film, a vehicle for Hulk Hogan in 1996 who had gained fame as professional Wrestling participant at a time when children persuaded their parents to see the entertainment, An excruciatingly bad group of young people hang out in the garden nuclear shelter of a toy store owner who has an Asian assistant, the significance of which only emerges when his young son arrives as the same time and the gang of children in search of the father and discover the assistant badly injured and the store wrecked. The parental home has also been wrecked. The Asian boy joins the gang while his father recovers and the boy is quickly able to show his Kung Fo fighting skills.
In this instance the kidnap is to try find a new Ray Gun which the father has created/ secured in his role as the leading member of a government secret organisation to protect the USA nation. The son has an uneasy relationship with his father because of the long absences from home and which he believes contributed to the premature death of his mother. Father leaves a message to say the boy can trust someone who the boy has not previously met so when someone who appears nice and normal comes to their rescue they are persuaded to enter his van to find themselves eventually captured having knocked out and tied up the man who came to save them and who is a secret agent colleague of the father. The main villain is a female who appears to have based her role on Joan Collins at her worst and is assisted by a Nazi style doctor who wants to drill into the brain the kidnapped father and a strong arm who wears a large metal boot.
The children determine to rescue the father after learning his location breaking into the fortified HQ defended by a force of 200 armed mercenaries with machine gun vehicles and other military support. The children use toys. The film ends with the arrival of the USA colleagues of the father and they escape after a massive explosion destroys he complex and the villains. What amazed me is the film was made in 1996 when it had the hallmarks of the films I viewed as a child at the Saturday morning club at the Odeon Cinema in Wallington in the later 1940’s.
I am torn between which film merits being covered before the Lady and which I should report. The two films Resistance 2011 an Independent film from the Welsh Film Industry and You’ve Got Mail the 1996 Hollywood Romantic film with some serious aspects and which is mislabelled a comedy.
I have settled for You’ve Got Mail because it is intended as entertainment and not be regarded as saying anything fundamental about the human experience and yet I felt it was a closer portrayal of reality than Resistance.
Meg Ryan operates a local community book store for children previously owned and managed by her mother, now departed. She treats her two assistants as friends and confide ads as she does her older bookkeeper. She has a long relationship with an intellectual writer for a New York paper and one day they notice that a local premises is being adapted as the latest of the chain of Fox Book stores who in addition to providing a large and comprehensive range of books tempt the customers in with a coffee and lounge seating inducing the ability to look at the books at leisure before making a purchase.
Fox Books is run by two brothers each married several times to much young women so that the son of one. Tom Hanks has an aunt who is a female child around 10-12 and a male brother who is around five years. five. Tom is a ruthless single minded business man who has no conscience about the local shop and any other competitor out of business. He also has a long term partner with whom he lives and is the book publishing. Meg and Tom find their relationships lack what they believe a relationship should and find they have more in common emotionally and in attitudes with each other when they communicate via a chatline from which they commence to communicate by emails using anonymous mailbox addresses on AOL. While they share intimate thoughts and feelings they agree at the outset not say anything which identifies who they are or what they do.
The two meet for the first time without appreciating they are having the communication when Hanks is asked to look after his young aunt and brother for the day which he spends at their request as local event which is rounded off by going into the store for a scheduled story read session after which there is a purchase of books and exchange of names with Meg giving her full name but Hanks only his Christian.
When she finds out that he is part of the Fox empire she is tongue tied unable to say what she thinks but on line he warns about the reaction after speaking the mind without giving thought to the repercussions. I cannot remember the order in which the two separate from their partners and they agree to meet after she seeks advice about what do as her business is under threat of closure. He stands her up when he realises who she is. She and her partner have an amazing amicable breakup when she realises she is in love with on line stranger and her partner that he is attracted to a TV interviewer after he has written about the fight to save the book shop. Less clear is reason for the break up between himself and the publisher, although she expressed the wish to offer Meg a job after meeting her previously.
Tom moves onto his father’s moored Yacht where he is joined by his father for a few weeks after the break up of his latest marriage. Meg closes the book shop and is impressed by the Children’s section in the new store. Hanks then visits with her favourite flowers on earning she had a bad cold and they become friends and she is torn between this new relationships and her continued good feelings for the on line stranger. They agree to meet and of course she is pleased when the stranger turns out to be Hanks. The reality aspect is that the book store shop[ closed and by down the Book store chain may have gone down the Swanee because of the extent to which people are using on line bookshop buying.
I am still not sure what to make of Resistance the 2011 film made with the help of the Film Agency for Wales together with other interests. I have watched the film twice in an effort to understand aspects of the story. The film is set in a quiet farming valley in Wales as the UK has been invaded by Germany after the failure of the D Day landings. A small unit sets up in a farm on a special mission by the German High Command. They have information that hidden is a special Artefact but when the officer in charge discovers it in a cave he keeps this to himself.
The film opens as the men in the valley leave home without telling their families in order to join the partisans. I could not I understand why none of the men disclosed their intentions or tried to get message back to their women folk. One young man in the nearest town to the valley is appointed as some kind of contact/postman with the underground movement by someone who then leaves and is also ordered to take action against anyone who collaborated with the enemy when it arrives. There is also a scene in which the unit is involved in killing some men although its not clear what the men have done and who they are. The unit also appears to have been involved in close fought battles on their way to Wales.
Because the discovery of the artefact is not disclosed the unit spend the Winter in the Valley during which time they get to know and help the women to survive on the farms and as the Winter becomes Spring and the uniforms of the men wear out the make use of the civilian clothing used by the men folk of the community for every day use.
It becomes clear from talk between the unit leader and one of the young wives that he does not intend to return to Germany once the war is over and hopes to settle in the community with her. He destroys letters sent home by unit members as well as letters sent to them. The young man left in the town kills the new foal owned by a woman on one of the farms because she is being helped by of the German soldiers after she goes into the town for necessary supplies for the community. There she learns that her husband has been killed as a partisan having said to a woman she knows that he was back home working hard. She dies what appears shortly afterwards from the loss of foal and the news about her husband which she keeps to herself not to upset the other waiting women. Following the death the young wife burns the artefact she has been shown by the unit leader and it appears she too is going off to join the partisans despite the expectation that the war will shortly be over although what happens to her and unit is left unsettled.
There have been other incidents before this which occur but are not explained. It appears one of the men returns and greets a man work on his farm only to realise too late the man is a soldier and he is captured and then executed on the orders of the unit leader, and for some reason that the man appears to have been tortured by the Gestapo is a factor in the decision.
I failed to work out the point of the film. That an enemy is no different from those who fight is one issue. That without their men some women will establish relationships with men who they come into contact whether allies from other countries or other men home on leave or working in the UK. Perhaps a prisoner of war allocated to work on the land in the or as we know women who fraternised with the occupying forces in Western Europe during World War II.
Another incident is when a member of the unit reports that orders were given to execute those on their own side who became wounded so that the people back home would not be demoralised if the men were allowed to be returned home for treatment, perhaps it is the nature of the regime they are furthering and what they are ordered to do as well as the length of the conflict which leads the unit leader to want to disappear and merge into this isolated community. Is the film entertaining ? No .It remains unclear to me what the purpose of the film is?
And so I come to the one film of significance, based on fact and the story of one of the most remarkable women of our time entitled The Lady.
Aung San Suu Kyi was born on June 19th 1945 when her father who had created the Burmese Army was instrumental in negotiating independence from the British for his country and which was achieved in January 1948 with the intention of establishing a British style democracy. He was assassinated by others from the army beforehand and who then established an authoritarian military dictatorship, which has consistently beat, tortured, raped, imprisoned and killed anyone who challenged their power and control. In addition there has been child labour, sexual and work slavery and all forms of human trafficking allegedly to this day centred on the army and its interests.
The population of the country is similar to the UK having doubled in thirty years and has a huge geographical area of over two hundred and fifty thousand square miles bordering with India, Bangladesh, China, Thailand and Laos.
Following the assassination of her father and several of his government colleagues she was brought up by her mother with her two brothers in the family home by a lake. One of her brothers drowned when he was only eight years of age and the other brother is now a USA citizen, Aung San Suu Kyi travelled with her mother India when the widow became Ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960 where she continued her education graduating with a degree in politics in 1964. She also studied at Oxford with a degree in Politics Economics and Philosophy in 1969 and then worked for the United Nations in the USA for the years. In 1971 she married Dr Michael Aris whose subject was Tibetan culture and they had two sons together with a family home in Oxford. It is important to appreciate that despite her academic education she was not active in political matters until after her return to Burma in 1989 when her mother became sick and then died. While there two events occurred which was to change her life, the relationship with her husband and children. The military head of state stood down and this led to significant demonstrations for democracy and she was approached by interests as the one person who could unite the state because of the legacy of her father and mother.
The non violent calls for democracy were violently put down by members of military Junta. Without previous experience of public speaking she address a huge crowd with estimates between half and one million people reported. She went on an extended tour of the country although at one point she non violently faced down a local military commanded who threatened to shoot her if she proceeded to where she was to speak. The regime was aware of her power in the country, the danger that with her death she would become and even great force as a martyr and they hoped by isolation she would be forgotten.
Although her husband and sons were with her during 1988 and 1989 he was then ordered out of the country and he only saw her five times after that, the last at Christmas 1995 and permission was refused when arrangements were made for him to travel to Burma with private medical and nursing assistance for his last months before his death from prostate cancer in March 1999 at the age of 53. She has only had open contact with her sons since 2011 and who had remained in Britain cared for relatives and friends of her husband.
Although she wished to be with him he was insistent that if she left she would not be allowed back. She has been under House arrest for most of her time in Burma, In 1990 soon after her return, the political party which she led was allowed to contest the first free election for 30 years and her Party won 392 of the 489 seats against the Military Party. The Military Junta refused to accept the decision or lift martial law and her house detention continued until 1995 when she was released as a consequence of external pressure and the wish of the Junta to become members of the Organisation of South East Asia States where China had a significant interest. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 organised by her husband whoa accepted the award on her behalf with one of her sons making the acceptance speech which according to the film she was able to hear on a battery radio after the regime turned off electricity to the house. She received other major awards particularly the Nehru Award in 1993.
In 1995 she was allowed to address the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. She was placed back in House arrests in 2000 despite various interventions around the world including by the UN General Secretary and in many way her circumstances got worse and she has required hospital treatment for ill health,
There had been several notable incidents widely reported around the world. In 2007 the Buddhist monks took to the streets calling for her release and for democracy and their protest was violently attacked. She was able to see them at the Gates of her home when a large party assembled and she gave them her blessing.
In 2008 Burma was devastated by a cyclone with an estimated massive loss of life which increased because of the failure of the government to allow the help from International Agencies. The cyclone destroyed the roof of her home and the loss of electricity was not remedied by the authorities.
In 2009 an American swam the Lake to her house alleging that he wanted to warn her of an attempt to assassinate. She was arrested because she had allowed the man to stay at her house exhausted from the swim. She and her maids were arrested and imprisonment with charges which could have led to a long term of imprisonment. She was sentenced to three years with hard Labour which was then commuted by the Junta to further House arrest although under International Law and Burmese Law she period of permitted House arrest was being exceeded. It was also seen as an attempt to prevent participation in the first General Election for 20 years in 2010, the second in fifty. However it was agreed that her home could be repaired and she was then released from House arrest on 13 November 2010 at which point the film ends.
He son Kim Aris was allowed to visit and accompany her on trips in July and August of last year and she met with representatives of the government on several occasions. About a tenth of the political prisoners have been released as a consequence of her new involvement.
After speaking with President Obama a visit of Hilary Clinton was arranged last year. She has also been allowed to meet with the Prime Minister of Thailand and in 2012 she met with William Hague and the Burmese Foreign Minister. She was invited to address the Swiss Parliament and to collect her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. Allowed to campaign for a seat in the Lower House in March of this year her speech calling for reform of the constitution, removal of restrictive laws, establishment of democratic rights and Independent judiciary was televised nationally. After successful election she made the Opposition leader of the Party in the lower House. She attended the Parliament for the first time in July of this year.
In September she made a coast to coast tour of the United States, accepting the Congressional Medal of Honour and meeting with President Obama at the White House and which she described as one of the most moving experiences of her life. It has to be recorded while it is hoped her story will go on, she has suggested from ill health over recent years. It is also not clear if the generals who have remained effectively in power since the End of World War II and British Independence intend to voluntary accept subordination to a civilian government. The position of China in this respect remains significant as does that of Aung San Suu Kyi.
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