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michaeljcarroll
Reviews
Carol & The End of the World (2023)
A Quiet, Hypnotic Tale for Our Times
Imagine that you know that the world will end at a certain time in the near future. Really near. Like six months from now.
How would you spend your time?
Hedonism? Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die.
Despair? Why me, oh Lord, why me?!
Searching for an answer or asking for a miracle? The clock is ticking and there must be something I can do. Something somebody can do.
In Carol's universe (which may well be ours), the world IS coming to an end. And Carol is doing none of the above.
This lovely gem of a morality tale is the story of what Carol does do. It begins with hilarity and pathos, scenes that will make you laugh or cringe but which seem to have little to do with the question that started this review. I wouldn't be surprised if you stop watching by or before the end of the first episode.
Please don't do that.
Each episode will draw you further in, move you closer to the final episode, and the answer it offers.
It isn't flawless: the penultimate episode seems disjointed from the rest of the series. It isn't clear connected it is to the reality of the other episodes. Are we watching a dream or a back-story? It could work either way or even some other way. Don't let it bother you. Interpret it was you will - it still works dramatically.
And many of you will have fallen in love with Carol by the end of the series. As well you should.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
The Emperor's Old Clothes
At least once a year, a movie is released that is so awful that the viewer thinks "there must be something wrong with me that I don't see it. What is everyone else gets it right and I lose my status."
The situation is nothing more than a real life updating of that old classic "The Emperor's New Clothes".
There will be those who praise the acting, the camera work, the directing, the production values, and heaven knows what else.
But the heart of an interaction between artiste and audience is communication. The story. What is the story being told? What is the artist telling me? Telling you?
If you want to read a story that reflects one possible way Beau is Afraid might (might!) have been written, track down L. Ron Hubbard's "Fear". That story is the psychological equivalent of "Beau is Afraid" ... with one significant difference: That twisted tale has an ending, a powerful, logical mind-bending resolution.
"Beau is Afraid" begins to become predictable about half-an-hour into the story, leaving this viewer wondering just how the remaining two-and-a-half hours would be fleshed out. So the played hopscotch up to the last quarter hour expecting that there would be a resolution powerful enough to drive me back to the film and see how the dots are connected.
I couldn't tell the difference. Nightmares (and that is the unstated core of "Beau is Afraid") have no rational life that guides one from here to there. Nightmares may be open to interpretation, and I have already seen that many reviewers have done just that, creating their own story and then reviewing that story; but what makes a nightmare a nightmare is the alienating dislogic. Some nightmares are so bad a psychotherapist is required to recover from them.
Fortunately this particular nightmare requires only a fast forward.
When We Were Bullies (2021)
The Final Act of Bullying
A coincidence leads the film-maker into an exploration of the psychology and sociology of an act of bullying he committed back in elementary/middle school and the complicity of his classmates both during the event and afterwards.
More than anything else, this film seems an attempt to turn the lemony bitterness still lingering in his head into a kind of lemonade of redemption through confession and a profitable movie.
But the attempt is unconvincing, at least in terms of self-exoneration. At the end, when it is clear that everyone still alive who was involved got a chance to either vindicate or excuse their choices, but without the participation of the still living victim, it is glaringly obvious that this is coup-de-grace, a final act of bullying against a voiceless victim.
Merlin (2008)
Starts Strong; Goes Nowhere
This show is typical of so many shows that don't really have a coherent arc. I could accept this episodic drama were it not undermined by an infantile Merlin who refuses to use his powers when it really matters, but instead saves them for the last 5 minutes of the episode, by which time all sorts of harm has happened that he could have averted without revealing his abilities. Just another superhero-in-disguise series, this one set in King Arthur's court.
Neverwas (2005)
A challenging movie that rewards the thoughtful viewer
There is absolutely no way to discuss this movie without revealing some aspects of it. On the other hand, this is not a movie that relies on the ending, but one illuminated by it. Like "Sixth Sense", this is a movie that means more on the second viewing.
So, I will give away part of the basic structure of the movie. If you already plan on seeing the movie, there is no reason to continue. If not, you might as well read ahead; it might change your mind.
SPOILER WARNING! For us the viewers, the story starts in the middle. Zach, son of a the famous author of the children's book "Neverwas" quits a position as a psychiatrist at a prominent college to go to a nobody's-heard-of-it institution in the community where he grew up. Zach (we learn quickly) is tormented by the suicide of this father. Like most suicide relatives, he both blames his father and himself. He has divorced himself from the fantastical world of his father's book, from all fantasy at all, from all remuneration from his father's highly successful book. For Zachary, reality is survival.
He meets a delusional paranoid schizophrenic named Gabriel. What we don't get told about Gabriel until the end of the movie is his nightmarish existence as a little boy: being locked up, abused. Gabriel survived this by creating a world of his own, Neverwas. Neverwas is a world of hope and peace, a world inhabited by fairies and in which Gabriel is the benign king.
Gabriel and Zach's father meet in the mental institution. Gabriel is there for his delusions, Zach's father for his bipolar-ism. The father and Gabriel become friends. Zach's father offers his belief in Neverwas. In fact, he takes Gabriel's world and turns it into his story. As each go in and out of institutions, they maintain a correspond of affection and support.
Gabriel's Neverwas is on land that ultimately Zach's father purchases for him. Unfortunately, the father is not able to care for Gabriel or provide him long term security. His depressions win out and he commits suicide.
The conflict/question the movie initially presents - right up until the final revelations - is what is real. The viewer is led to believe there might actually be a Neverwas. This is necessary because we need to see the world from Gabriel's eyes; and to do this we must accept him with condescension. Were we to simply see him as schizophrenic, we might feel sympathy for him, but we would never empathize with him or truly understand his needs.
Unfortunately, this will lead many viewers to think this is another fantasy come true; and they will be disappointed by the "truth." However, the truths that do come out are beautiful and moving; and there is certainly the fantasy of a "happy ending", more than one has a right to expect from reality.
The true story here is how people change: How Zach comes to see the need for fantasy, to forgive his father and himself; how Gabriel out of desperation has his one moment of cold reality in which he can articulate his need for Neverwas.
And the movie has its moments of humor and insight and romance.
For anyone willing to think and be moved, I recommend this movie highly.