War Horse (2011)

At tender age he was taken from his mother’s company and sent to work on the fields, harvesting potatoes. Shortly after that he was forcibly enlisted to fight alongside the Brits at the great war, then captured by the Germans, put on excruciating forced labour, pulling heavy artillery pieces until he was able to escape, and, on crossing “no man’s land”, got injured by the barbed wire, and, finally, was reunited with his former master. No, this is no human slave of any sort, neither any subject of the British Empire. Actually, the character is a horse, as this movie depicts its wonderings through Europe during the war. One of Steven Spielberg’s greatest virtues, as a director, is his capability to humanize everything he wants, ranging from animals even to extraterrestrials.

Right from the beginning of the movie the horse displays emotions that are common to ourselves, thus creating that bond with the viewer I usually refer to. Curious as it may seem, the animal’s fate is the main element of the story, and the humans are portrayed in a kind of incidental way. Even the leading human role, played by the young actor Jeremy Irvine, does not stand as a usual main character. He is almost absent  during the entire middle term of the film, and his grievances are shown only to the point when it matters to his relation with the horse. But Steven Spielberg is such a great story teller that his argument works well and, on seeing “War Horse”, we actually think about ourselves, about our own path on the wretched world we live in.

War Horse is not a war movie. Here the belligerence serves as a painful background on which the story is told. So the war could be replaced with a separation, an illness, a famine or some misfortune of the sort. What is of real importance here are the constant changes we are submitted during our lives, and how diminute sometimes is our grip over our own destiny. Future, as this movie asserts, can occasionally play tricks on us, for better or for worse.  The outright conclusion is that usual, but often forgotten, realization to responsibly enjoy good times as they happen…

Who's the main character?

The movie went alright till almost it’s very end. Here Spielberg committed a fault that is comprehensible, but difficult to forgive. Human experience has for long acquired the notion that life moves forward. For instance, it’s natural that everyone, from a certain point onwards, begins to earn its own living. Being this simple notion applicable to almost anything else regarding our lives, we perceive Mr. Spielberg inverted that order. When the young Irvine accomplishes the trials leading to his adulthood (he survives the trenches), and is expected to get on with his life, he somewhat does the opposite way: he gets back to his mommy’s arms.  As stated, it’s understandable, because the director’s desire was to end the movie with a definite sense of safety, of shelter from the unpredictable. But life is unforeseeable, and keeps moving on. Therefore, it would have been a more according finish if the young man had followed the french bidder, taking the animal to the girl, thus binding the loose links established over the movie, and just 'moving on' from that point. It would have been uncertain, but more feasible. On the other hand stands Robert Zemeckis’s “Cast Away” (2000), presenting us a much more credible finale, as Tom Hanks does not return to his sweetheart (although she more than hints she would accept), choosing to take the unknown path of knocking on a stranger’s door.

“War Horse” is great entertainment.

@jpvbm

The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Age of Innocence is centered within the crème de la crème of New York’s society during the second half of the nineteenth century. There is absolutely no scarcity of means for its dwellers. They lunch, dine and amuse themselves almost like royalty. The meals are divided in many courses, they are always wearing tuxedos and ball dresses, the gentlemen change their pair of gloves for each lady they waltz with. But there seems to be a price for such an exquisite way of living.

The uneasiness of the story begins when Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis), already groomed to the fresh young, loving May Welland (Winona Ryder), begins to tilt his attraction for Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) who has just arrived from Europe, after splitting with her husband. The matter is that Mrs Olenska, although having lived in New York before marring, never really got used to its usages. Also, her possible divorce seems to hang over the entire society as a true scandal. For his part, Newland accepts her misfortune and understands it as a challenge to the solid old conventions they all endure. Thus, the natural, slight, almost unperceivable, retraction everybody seems have towards the Countess is nonexistent within Newland. This boundless relation between them allows him to envisage her as an escape from a living he soon describes as the taste of “cinders in his mouth”.

Will they resist each other?

The Age of Innocence is about incarceration without bars, at least for the protagonist. He lives on a society where people have “no character, no colour, no variety”, where they cannot truly speak their minds. When Newland realizes he is in love for the Countess, and starts to act like it, all this society moves discreetly and almost imperceptibly to prevent him from reaching his goal. In spite of this general effort, Archer is not prevented solely by his peers, but ultimately due his and the Countess’s countenance. Chance also plays a part on this decorum prevention, as it happens on the beautiful lighthouse scene.

Some things are worth fighting for

This movie is also, and mostly, about choices, and the right ones. Much later, when the whole stillborn romance is over for all, we are somehow struck with the summing up of Archer’s life, and the positive outcome that he kept the respect for his wife, family and even for himself, by refusing to be subdued to what could have been the great love of his life, and, simultaneously, the rejection of his entire self as how he lived it. In the end we are granted with the notion that life doesn’t resume only to passionate love above all else. The inevitable association is with that scene on “Closer” when Natalie Portman’s character, on knowing Jude Law’s betrayal, says to him: “There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it"”. Closer’s protagonist gave in, Newland Archer did not.  

Another obligatory comparison is with “The Bridges of Madison County”. On this movie Maryl Streep’s character, married for many years, is bound in a few days long romance. Much later, when she dies and her already grown up daughter searches through her mother’s closed-for-decades trunk, the most precious things to be found are the letters exchanged by the deceased and her mistress. “The Bridges of Madison County” presents upside-down, implausible, ethics, as the woman keep on being married, sharing a whole life together with her husband, but, alas, the altar of her existence rests on a weekend affair.  Therefore, on “The Age of Innocence” the protagonist follows an entirely different path, much more credible by all means, as his lustful aspirations are sublimated throughout his marriage, full of its typical nuances, hardships and achievements that keeps binding the two of them together.

This is what coming of age really is about!