FILM REVIEW: REACHING FOR THE MOON

Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) and Lota de Macedo Soares (Gloria Pires) in Reaching for the Moon.

Lunacy and love

By Ed Rampell

I really liked this movie, mainly because of its unusual characters based on actual historical figures. Directed by Brazilian Bruno Barreto, Reaching for the Moon is a biopic about the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto). The film focuses on the long lasting affair between Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares (Gloria Pires). As breakthroughs in same sex marriage continue to make headlines, this tale of a lesbian romance that began back in 1951 is especially timely.

The script by Matthew Chapman, Julie Sayres and Carolino Kotscho, inspired by Carmen Oliveira’s novel, Rare and Commonplace Flowers, has what this critic considers to be a hallmark of good writing: Lots of twists and turns the viewer doesn’t see coming. Succeeding sequences serve to explain previous scenes. The film opens at Central Park, but soon Bishop is on the road to Rio de Janeiro, where events conspire to keep her there for decades as she encounters Soares.

No frail lotus blossom, Soares is arguably the biopic’s most interesting, original character, and throughout this two-hour feature your mystified reviewer continued to change his evolving opinion of her as Soares' character developed. On the one hand, Soares' is an out of the closet lesbian in the Catholic, Portuguese-influenced, patriarchal Brazil of the 1950s. On the other, she is a charter member of the ruling class, so despite her sexual preference she is used to getting her way. After all, if wealth is our international language, then money talks -- regardless of one’s sexual preference.

It’s interesting that Soares' lesbianism is not made much of in Brazil, nor is her ensuing affair with the far more repressed, secretive Bishop. This seems true both when they are at Soares' modernist refuge in the Amazon jungle or staying at her posh penthouse in Rio. There is lush, sumptuous cinematography by Mauro Pinheiro Jr. of the tropics, Copacabana Beach, Sugarloaf, etc., and the  degree of acceptance of the screen couple’s Sapphic sexuality and same sex relationship from the 1950s through the 1960s is indeed eye opening, especially considering how they most likely would have been treated in the staid U.S.A.

It’s interesting to note that currently another great American writer -- Glenn Greenwald, that fierce champion of civil liberties who brought Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA über-snooping to the world’s attention -- is an expat who has left America to live in Brazil with his male Brazilian lover. Perhaps Brazil is ahead of the supposedly “advanced” United States?

This critic has no idea how historically accurate this biopic is, but according to the movie Bishop chafes under the rule of the military junta that overthrows the democratically elected Brazilian government in 1964. As a charter member of the land owning elite Soares' position is different, and it’s interesting to see how political events shape the lovers’ lives.

Director Barreto helmed 1997’s fact-based Four Days in September, which starred Alan Arkin as a U.S. diplomat kidnapped by the MR-8 “terrorist” group, which supported armed resistance to Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship (which, BTW, tortured Brazil’s current President, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla, who is currently fighting against the NSA surveillance of her, which Snowden revealed). Barreto also directed the popular 1976 erotic ghost comedy, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, and along with Otto attended the private screening for Reaching for the Moon. His pithy introductory remarks put his finger on Moon’s message, saying: “This is a love story.”

Indeed, straight, gay, trans or whutevah, love is what inspires the poet in all of us -- whether or not we’ve won Pulitzers -- and makes the world and moon go round. Reaching for the Moon is an absorbing, insightful psychological drama with political overtones which won an OutFest Audience Award and is one of the year’s best movies about the love.

 

FILM REVIEW: AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY

Terence Nance in An Oversimplification of Her Beauty.

Some scenes the reflex does

By Don Simpson

There is nothing overly simple about Terence Nance's visualization of love and beauty; rather, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is a complex form of poetry that requires images and music to complete it. Using the rhythmic repetition of narration and dialogue, Nance lulls the audience into a deep meditative state. The hope, of course, is that the film will have the same transcendental effect on Nance's love interest, Namik Minter.

While a film about a filmmaker making a film to convince a woman of their love for each other is not necessarily new territory, Nance's cerebral take on the genre is quite unique. Cleverly utilizing a second-person perspective of narration, Nance places "you" in his situation; then replays key events over and over again, continuously deconstructing and reconstructing them, until "you" have most of the pertinent details.

A meta-narrative in the most heady sense of the term, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty deals with the collection of memories and perspectives in an effort to ascertain the truth. By omnipotently manipulating the editing and structure of the film, Nance transports "you" into his headspace and convinces "you" to believe his version of the truth. Nance instantly becomes "your" overly emotional best friend who gushes incessantly about the woman he loves. As cute and energetic as a puppy, Nance sees precisely which toy he wants to play with, but he cannot understand why the answer is always "no." I doubt he will listen to "your" reasoning right now, so it is best to just sit back and let him ramble on.

Other than allowing Minter to have a voice via intertwined footage of her unfinished short film, Subtext, "you" never quite get to know Minter's side of the story. "You" can only guess that Nance is a bit too overbearing or overanxious (like that aforementioned puppy) for her tastes. Guess is the operative word there, since that is all "you" can do -- because as much as Nance replays the footage, the answer is not anywhere to be found.

"You" have probably replayed "your" past relationships over and over again, like fading home movies in "your" head, doing a scene-by-scene analysis to determine the precise reason for the eventual break-up. That is what An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is -- Nance's attempt to discover the real reason that Minter is not interested in him. Of course "you" must realize that the footage in An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is not real. It has all been reconstructed for "your" viewing pleasure. It may not even be based upon real events. "You" may assume that it is, because Nance seems so honest and forthcoming, but maybe that is all just part of the magnificent poetry of this story.

FILM REVIEW: LOUDER THAN BOMBS

Nova Venerable in Louder than Bombs.

Words and images

By Don Simpson

Call me naïve, but I knew nothing of the existence of poetry slams until 2004, thanks in no small part to a co-worker at the time -- the now 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry award winner, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, who appears in Louder Than a Bomb as an emcee. As it turns out, the first poetry slam dates back to November 1984, when Marc Smith organized a poetry slam event at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago. Poetry slams have since spread like wildfire around the world, resurrecting the art of poetry from its ashes and fostering a new generation of poets.

Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel’s (the late film reviewer Gene Siskel's nephew) documentary Louder Than a Bomb is about the 2008 Chicago-area poetry slam competition of the same name. Louder Than a Bomb is the nation's largest poetry slam competition with teams and soloists from approximately 60 high schools competing. Jacobs and Sickel opt to hone in on four teams: Steinmetz, Oak Park/River Forest High School, Whitney Young Magnet High School and Northside College Prep. Steinmetz is a troubled inner city school that won first place in their first ever foray into the world of slam poetry at the 2007 Bomb, so the self-proclaimed “Steinmenauts” (Lamar Jordan, Kevin Harris, Jésus Lark, Charles Smith and She'Kira McKnight) are an obvious choice for Jacobs and Sickel to follow in 2008. The other three teams are presumably chosen because of their gifted solo talents: Nova Venerable (Oak Park/River Forest High School), Nate Marshall (Whitney Young Magnet High School) and Adam Gottlieb (Northside College Prep).

Almost half of this 100-minute documentary takes place during the 2008 Louder Than a Bomb competition. The crowded environment seems to handcuff Jacobs and Siskel’s ability to capture the content in any kind of aesthetically pleasing manner, but the amazing performances that they capture on tape is sure to distract most audiences from the shoddy cinematography. Before we arrive at the Louder Than a Bomb competition, however, we are told the riveting back stories of the Steinmenauts, Venerable, Marshall and Gottlieb -- a clever, yet often used, directorial tactic to get the audience to be more emotionally invested into the outcome of the competition.

The Louder Than a Bomb competition stresses that “the point is not the points, it’s the poetry”while Louder Than a Bomb, the documentary, serves as a means of questioning the legitimacy of judging creativity and talent. Will the most deserving team and soloist win? Better yet, how do you define “most deserving”?

Louder Than A Bomb also showcases the importance of broadening the social circles of adolescents, while also nurturing their creative impulses and intellectual exploration. Poetry may not provide these kids with the financial support that they will need to survive in the big bad world, but it does appear to provide them with everything else they need – especially companionship, love and happiness.

Louder Than A Bomb bears an uncanny resemblance to Spellbound, Wordplay, and even Hoop Dreams – but I suspect Jacobs and Siskel will be just fine being lumped in with that family. The “competition” -- whether it be athletic, intellectual or creative -- as a sub-genre of documentary cinema seems to be a favorite of audiences nowadays, and I suspect this is because of the tension and emotional drama that is inherent within the subject matter. Of course the key to this form of documentary filmmaking is the initial choice of who the director decides to follow during the course of the competition. I do not know how they came upon their subjects, but Jacobs and Siskel made a remarkably sound decision when they chose to follow the Steinmenauts, Venerable, Marshall and Gottlieb.