As a continuation of our analysis of interesting movies, we’ll look at a selection of films about FAMILY. We’re not talking about “family films” (which commonly refer to the category of safe and saccharine films for small children) but movies that deal with the issues that arise within the family structure and ultimately its relationship to the society which it nests. This area of filmmaking is often ignored in Hollywood despite its obvious importance and day-to-day relatability. Sure, there’s the odd family theme or moment, but it’s more often than not an afterthought, or worse, a contrived element designed to make you “feel good” at the end. The Godfather is actually a family film even if it’s not an obvious one. It might be set inside the world of organized crime but the story is about a family’s trials and tribulations. That’s what makes it convincing AND what makes it so good.
For artists, writers and filmmakers, I can’t think of a topic more rich and diverse than stories about the family unit. In fact, their significance plays a direct part to understanding humanity; we all have a mother and a father and we’re all born with no choice but to deal with both social union and conflict. From Homer to Shakespeare, all stories begin and end with family in mind. And thus, for the creative to visually express, write about or act out human behavior, he needs to acquire a deep understanding of not just human physiology but human psychology. Good films enable us to empathize with our fellow human beings.
The following films tackle directly both the common and uniquely-specific issues people have to deal with, all within the structure of the home and family. Some of these will inspire, while others will challenge you. Viewer beware.
The Royal Tenenbaums (directed by Wes Anderson)
Perhaps my favorite Wes Anderson film, The Royal Tenenbaums is a delightfully strange story about a talented yet totally dysfunctional family. Starring the diverse and hugely engaging Gene Hackman as Royal Tennabaum, the father who’s almost entirely responsible for his family’s psychosis, we witness the unusual circumstances that plague his three children, each one a former child prodigy but all now living disconnected lives and are entirely miserable. The story begins when Royal has run out of funds to live on and becomes homeless. His further discovery that an accountant (Danny Glover) has formally asked for the hand of his former wife (the always magnificent Angela Houston) then triggers an outlandish plot (he pretends to have cancer) to sneak himself back into the family household — literally. Suddenly, all the children find themselves back under the same roof, but this time as adults, all with issues to deal with among themselves and the colorful characters that surround them, including an old neighbor Eli (Owen Wilson) who’s a Tenenbaum wannabe and Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) the daughter’s husband.
Funny at every turn, the characters are rich, ridiculous and impossible not to empathize with. That’s the power of Anderson; his characters, despite their almost cartoon mannerisms, are always so marvelously honest — we could only wish that people in the real world would be this true to themselves as they are here. The Royal Tenenbaums boasts a fantastic cast including Ben Stiller (the business genius), Luke Wilson (the tennis star), and Gwyneth Paltrow (the playwright) who play the three adult children respectively while Alec Baldwin lends his fabulous voice in narration. It’s a gem of a film — visually beautiful, insanely funny and surprisingly profound.
Tokyo Sonata (directed by Kiyoshi Kurasawa)
In Tokyo Sonata, we follow a man whose fortunes change as Japan’s economy gets hit by the 2009 global financial crisis. A manager at his company, Ryuhei (Teruyuki Tegawa) is fired from his job and is too prideful (or too fearful) to tell anyone about it, including his wife and children. So each day he pretends to go to work, in the meanwhile lining up at the employment office, both looking for jobs that’s he qualified for (not many) and making himself busy so that he doesn’t come home too early so as to avoid any uncomfortable questions and adding to his growing bucket of lies. His wife Megumi is a stay-at-home housewife and mother to their two children, the older Takashi (also unemployable) who’s frustrated with his lack of direction and hope for the future and the younger Kenji, who’s struggling at school and is also miserable. Appearances being big in Japanese culture, it’s funny how all the politeness and friendly gestures do such poor jobs of masking the character’s inner feelings.
As Ryuhei continues to bring home the monthly checks to his wife (drawing from his limited severance benefits and unemployment insurance) he discovers a fellow unemployed friend who shows him the tricks to covering his tracks, for he, too, is doing the same, hiding the horrible truth from his family. Of course, all this is for not, as both him and his friend have been failing all along in their deception because everyone knows, including the children — one who wants to join the US army reserves and the other who wants to play piano. The father’s deception and unreasonably harsh disapproval of their desires further estranges him from his children. Meanwhile his wife falls into despair, her life has been on autopilot but now aware of the truth, sees little point in going on. But just as the film’s tragedy and humor (yes, it’s strangely funny!) seem to foreshadow an obvious conclusion, the movie takes an usual turn. Kurasawa’s directing enables you to get inside the character’s plight but also engages your curiosity about your own. What would you do in the same situation? How do you find meaning when crisis hits and reveals that you’ve been lost all along? Here, in Tokyo Sonata, a family’s cultural structure gets broken down in order for it to be rebuilt. I loved this movie.
Yi Yi (directed by Edward Yang)
Whenever I watch Edward Yang’s films I’m always surprised; he has a way of bringing your attention to things you wouldn’t normally look at. His use of camera and visual narrative give the moments in his story weight and substance. In Yi Yi (translated “A One and A Two”) Yang’s magic is spun around the lives of a modern day Taiwanese family. Beginning with a marriage and ending with a funeral, the story follows the life of NJ and his family. A good and principled man of little words, he’s forced to deal with problems that beset him both at home and at work. To make things even more complicated he’s presented with the opportunity to relive the past with a former lover, as he ponders the game of “what if” — would his life be happier had he chosen a different path? The family members, too, have their own issues and are completely unaware of each other’s problems. The wife is suffering from a depression. Grandma’s in a coma. NJ’s lonely teenage daughter is caught up in a love triangle as she experiences her first romance. But perhaps the most interesting actions follow that of NJ’s quiet eight year-old boy Yang Yang who’s being bullied at school by a bunch of girls. The film makes you ponder all the joys and ambitions of life as well as its sufferings and regrets. It probes the life that’s so busy that we forget to live and forget also that other people are involved. Edward Yang is an auteur of meaningful cinema and this film might be his best. Brimming with sadness, humor and beauty, Yi Yi completes itself with an absolutely perfect ending.
Kramer vs Kramer (directed by Robert Benton)
Robert Benton’s 1979 film Kramer vs Kramer is a slick-moving yet deeply touching film. Set in New York City, we follow the sudden break up of a marriage. Caught in midst of a major proposal at work, Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) has been unaware of his wife’s misery and is caught completely flat-footed. Atypical of most divorces, we have the wife and mother leaving the child behind. Before he knows it, he’s stuck with what he feels is a shocking betrayal and has to both raise his boy and keep up with the demands of his already challenging job. Much difficulty arises for Kramer but he begins to make inroads on becoming a better father. But then comes the hard part; just as things begin to look good, his former wife (Meryl Streep) returns to demand custody of the child. Having sacrificed his good standing at work, he’s now forced into financial and emotional chaos as the case heads to court. Both Hoffman and Streep (who both captured Oscars here) are amazing as we witness two individuals who live, breathe, struggle and change. Director Robert Benton takes no sides in Kramer vs Kramer; we get no sense that either husband or wife is wrong here. This is just something that happens to families.
Harmonium (directed by Koji Fukada)
As a follow up to Hospitalité, his disturbing yet playful exploration into the family affair, Koji Fukada’s Harmonium is an imposing film that quietly grabs you by the neck and pulls you along with it. The story begins when a strange man (played by the ever-captivating Tadanobu Asano) comes by the family workshop of Toshio (played by Kanji Furutachi) a quite albeit devoted patriarch of a family of three which include his wife Akie (Mariko Sutsui) and his young daughter Hotaru. The home is both vocation and sanctuary; the father’s workshop occupies most of the bottom floor of their two-story flat. The peaceful set up is interrupted suddenly when Kanji not only invites the stranger to stay with them but also employs him at his workshop, all without consulting his wife. In Japan, the homes are small, so there’s little privacy and this new situation brings both suspicion and discomfort to Akie. As time passes, her attitude towards him changes; the visitor is quiet, polite and well-mannered and she’s moved by his gestures to help their daughter with the harmonium, an organ-like instrument which she’s been learning.
All this time, the father has been silent but knowingly uneasy. He doesn’t say anything at first, but soon, it’s clear this “old friend” is here for a reason. The mood slides from that of tranquility to foreboding as we’re compelled to follow the plot. In Harmonium, we’re challenged to ask how we look at families, for things are never what they seem. What’s really going on in the minds of people as they go about their daily business? Do we truly know the family members that make up most of our social interactions? What are the consequences of adding another member to the family structure? And does it take the arrival of an outsider or a crisis to force us to look at such truths, like those that dwell in the past but affect the present? Kurada’s film is not for the faint of heart, but if you let it, it will make you think about these things long after it’s over.
The Descendants (directed by Alexander Payne)
Besides Clint Eastwood, there are few directors that have probed as deeply into the fabric of American life as Alexander Payne. Whether it be a satirical take on high school politics (Election), an exploration into the emptiness of old age and retirement (About Schmidt), a magnification of the greyness of life in middle America (Nebraska) or a piercing tour of friendship as two buddies travel through wine country (Sideways), his films allow the characters to truly breathe and interact; they trip and fall clumsily uninhibited by casual scripting. The Descendants (2011) takes place in Hawaii, where “people are just as screwed up as anywhere else in America” according to our hero Matt King (George Clooney). Matt is a lawyer, and a busy one who, like many breadwinners of their families, is preoccupied with work. That is, until his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) ends up in a coma from a boating accident and the doctors will be pulling the plug and soon.
He’s now suddenly stuck with having to tell his children the bad news and becoming a single parent, a role he’s been almost completely absent. He doesn’t know his children. The older Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is in college while the younger Scottie (Amara Miller) is still in Elementary School; both are potty-mouthed, snarky and have “no respect for authority.” To make matters worse, he’s also the steward of the family estate, a plot of land representing hundreds of acres of prime Hawaiian real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars that now needs to be dispersed amongst the extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins — all whom want and need the money from the proceeds aside from a few noble, protect-the-land holdouts. Oh, on top of all that he discovers that Elizabeth has been unfaithful. Family crap doesn’t get more complex than this. Along the ride to discover the truth of the affair, we meet other characters — Elizabeth’s father (Robert Forster), his daughter’s best friend Sid (Nick Krause) and cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges) who together bring wonderful tension and humor to the plot and character interactions. The film is comedic, yet digs deep into moral concerns. Great directors can do this — play with paradoxes while getting you completely vested in the characters.
Tokyo Story (directed by Yasujiro Ozu)
I can hardly talk about family films without bringing up Ozu. Known internationally for making slow, yet deeply profound films about the Japanese household in industrialized, post-war Japan, Director Yasujiro Ozu has made what some might call one of the greatest films ever. Tokyo Story, like his other films, mostly take place within the home. Here, we arrive at the story of an old couple who find themselves dismayed by the reaction (or lack of reaction) of their children and grandchildren when they (the couple) come to visit. After they leave, the elderly couple find that the experience continues to circle their minds and weigh heavily in their hearts. Disappointment, lack of respect and unrequited love brew in the air as we watch the characters mostly sit, talk and go about their daily routines slowly. What’s revealed is deep feelings members of a household have while they struggle with bottling it up inside. Ozu rarely moves the camera, yet his films are beautiful and poignant. Each composition, focal point and action are carefully thought out. There are no gimmicks or contrivances here to trigger emotion. And the acting is subtle and nuanced. The result is a movie that’s direct and deeply heartfelt while being completely unsentimental. Ozu’s consistent themes about the destruction of the family unit due to modernization and the endless busyness of work couldn’t be more applicable to our situation here in the 21st century. This is must-see cinema that is relevant as long as humans are still around. Ozu is a great teacher of life.
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