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Bambi (1942)
Seasons of Change
Disney's Bambi is an ode to seasons, but not just in the literal sense. All things in the film go through seasons of change, from harmony to disharmony and back.
The forest goes through stillness and fire.
The song of love that initially announces itself as the film's theme is later mocked by the Old Owl, because hardness and love both form the spine of life.
The film's narrative rests on the seasons that succeed themselves in the life of a family: close motherly care calmly and responsibly extends a blanket of security in the young years of exploration, while distant fatherhood, which has herd and territory to attend to, lends a different type of helping hand to Bambi, demanding that he finds his footing to face the looming danger when it encroaches on the family's stable ground, and calling on the son's strength and impetus.
And last but not least, seasons of emotion that go through the characters' faces in a matter of moments are painted by the animators exceptionally well. Frustration morphs into playfulness, contentment into shock, excitement into defeat, joy into sorrow, tentativeness into resolve. A reminder from the less self-conscious animal kingdom that nobody needs to keep a single straight face while learning - and the state of learning is without a doubt a lifelong one.
The Beach Bum (2019)
A highly problematic work
The Beach Bum depicts a way of living life which, we all know, would never quite work as hoped or imagined here for its protagonist, named Moondog.
But let's be clear about something: any hint of such knowledge or any doubt or unease that we might have as viewers about this imagined vision of life comes from our own awareness and experiences elsewhere. The Beach Bum is, by design, simpler than that.
What would it feel like to inhabit a world of no consequence? Can it simply be joie de vivre? Can it work? The film's premise is to explore the fantasy of unproblematically affirmative answers to these questions. But there are no winks of irony contained "within" this advertisement. Crafting such an ad is a deliberate and conscious exercise, we can all entirely agree on that, but the exercise is precisely to make an ad that in itself is as uncomplicated, as stripped of nuance as possible, played as straight as can be.
It would be tempting to point to a certain scene in the movie to counter my point: a moment when an elderly woman on a wheelchair is pushed by Moondog and left to crash against a wall for random fun. One review saw this moment as Harmony Korine being admirably honest about careless hurt and "showing it how it really is." The truth is that while my description of the scene is a little graphic, Korine's camera clearly turns away from any damage. The sound mix has absolutely no trace of any harm or pain from the crash and the closeups are of Moondog getting on with things. Yes, we know it's harmful and painful, we've seen it in real life, but the movie is not interested in taking a step back from Moondog's high at this point, or indeed at any point. It tells us in plain words that those poor suckers "up north on the mainland" who are not having fun are only needlessly serious. It says it with infectious imagery, poetry and language: They're "racing to the red line". They're "stuck in their ways". There are no shots of them as this voiceover plays (contrarily to what Martin Scorsese did at the end of The Wolf of Wallstreet when he showed the defeated detective commuting). Here, those other people are not only wrong, they're nothing. What instead is is the nice joie de vivre that would be everyone's if they would just abandon needless worry and get on board with Moondog's way of life.
I would say it's as far away from the reality of that life "how it really is" as moving pictures and sound on a screen can get. As for being a fantasy, it entirely fails to convince that it has any value.
Mistérios de Lisboa (2011)
The themes of Mysteries of Lisbon
In the face of fate, a difficult situation, a heavy blow, a lack of identity, or an identity at the mercy of revelations coming to light at fatalistic moments... the characters of Mysteries of Lisbon constantly seek to assert themselves, reinvent themselves, forge an identity. Padre Denis's father goes to priesthood after his loved one dies in childbirth. She had gone on the run with him in light of being an uncared-for wife. Padre Denis, being a bastard child, assumes a number of personas through the years. Joao, similarly, seeks an identity, at first by looking for his parents, then as a young adult by declaring himself the protector of the girl he falls in love with. The latter declares that sad events in her past have made her the nasty person that she is (which Joao, in his crush, cannot see). Joao's mother Angela goes from an unhappy marriage... to her son but in poverty... to the convent. Knife-Eater goes from a man with a heavy conscience to a noble nouveau-riche.
In the end, Joao, confused by being a pawn in fate's and other people's dictates tries to leave without a trace, to either check out of life in a way or to reinvent himself somewhere far away. But his benefactors know how to find him. And he cannot turn his back on the past completely; he writes his story, not forgetting where he comes from. A fitting conclusion to a film also in part about storytelling. After hours of listening to people telling their stories, he finally decides to tell his.