Wednesday, June 14, 2023
The Believer
- Commentary: Leave it to me. The day after I rummage around until I find a very reasonably priced copy of an old, mostly forgotten movie, I am inspired to conduct yet another rummage for yet another old, mostly forgotten movie and manage to find a new copy of it at a disconcertingly expensive price. Yes, Virginia, I ordered it. I'm not saying I can't afford it. I can. I was just, well, unpleasantly surprised. I'm asking, why isn't this movie more easily and cheaply available (it is in Europe but that's a region 2 area and I don't have an all-area DVD player)? Especially since it is about anti-semitism and fascism in the United States? Is this the reason why it is so expensive in the U.S., right now? Is the current political climate guaranteeing the enrichment of those who are bordering on fascism and anti-semitism?
So, why am I adding this movie to my collection? Well, during a conversation earlier today with MFS, we talked about how we were both looking forward to the upcoming Barbie movie in which Ryan Gosling plays Ken. We reminisced about my younger sisters' Barbie & Ken days, then slid into a conversation of some of the other movies of the two prominent stars. That's how I was reminded of this movie. We didn't discuss this movie because I couldn't remember the title or much of the content, but, after we disconnected I couldn't get it out of my head.
In isolation, memories of this movie flooded back. When I saw it (on a streaming service) some years ago it had a profound effect on me, and, by the way, my mother, who was alive at the time. We were riveted by the story and discussed the themes long after the movie ended. This didn't come as a surprise to me because my mother was a military veteran of WWII and I was raised on an island that, at the time I was there, was going through the beginning of a decade's long questioning of whether "Americans" should even be on the island, let alone own close to a half of it. Never mind that it had previously been held by the Japanese, previous to that the Spanish, previous to that the Portuguese. My dad used to joke, when we lived there, that the Australians would probably take over the island next. At the time I lived there, no one remembered the island ever having been other than under the uber-jurisdiction of some foreign country. This still holds true, today.
My mother and I both related to this movie as citizens and watchers of a world of humans seemingly terminally at war with one another. This movie encapsulates that war within the mind and soul of one person. It is based on a real life lived in real anguish in the long, seemingly never ending wake of WWII and the even longer, probably actually never ending wake of being human. I think the reason the only unused copy of it I could find was so expensive that it qualifies as the most expensive single disk I've ever bought is because that wake is being agitated, yet again, and people are wondering, yet again, why we are having such a hard time living together in peace. It's not about anti-semitism, really, nor is it about fascism, or anti-fascism. It's about the troubled and troubling spirit with which humans seem to have been born and can't seem to dispel. This movie looks at this perplexing situation from one particular perspective, but, as I remembered it, I realized it's really about a bedrock human condition, or perhaps, when I think about it, a bedrock creature condition: the ability/curse of being able to believe. So, I purchased it. It won't be arriving for about half a month. I'll write more, then, once I've watched it and considered it, again.
Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Actor Role Ryan Gosling Danny Balint Jacob Green Young Danny Billy Zane Curtis Zampf Theresa Russell Lina Moebius Summer Phoenix Carla Moebius Ronald Guttman Mr. Balint Glenn Fitzgerald Drake Garret Dillahunt Billings Heather Goldenhersh Linda Henry Bean Ilio Manzetti Joshua Harto Kyle Elizabeth Reaser Miriam Judah Lazarus Avi Sascha Knopf Cindy Pomerantz Tovah Feldshuh Woman In Shul Roberto Gari Ancient Jew
Update 06/17/23: This movie arrived today, long before I was led to expect it. A very pleasant surprise! I just watched it, and the two special features that contained elaborations of the film. Extraordinary production! It is mind boggling to think that this movie, which is 22 years old this year, is presently pertinent. I am amazed that, being ensconsed in a virulent subset of U.S. culture that has existed for so long, the film remains topical, today, here, now. Ryan Gosling's performance is, of course, spot on, and, and, he is surrounded by astonishing actors, many of whom have earned top drawer status today, just as he has. Realizing this is disturbing, too. It is as though, at the heart of most of U.S. culture, we could have been fighting WWII on the side of the Nazis and, in fact, have been agitating to do this ever since. What is it about this culture?!? Why do we have a history, and present, of flirting with fascism and one of its offshoots, Nazism?!? This movie plays itself out on an undercurrent of answers, but doesn't settle on one in particular, except for this: in the end Daniel Balint (in the movie, Daniel Burros in real life) commits suicide in order to quell his own turbulence. Is that where the U.S., as a once robust empire, now a quarrelsome, fading tyranny, is, finally, headed? There are many cultural and political critics who believe this. Are you a believer? Am I? If so, what do you, or I, actually believe?
Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
Release Date: 2001
Directed by Henry Bean.
Labels: biography3, political5, reflective, spiritual2
