Movie #14 - The Last Mimzy

I actually watched The Last Mimzy last Friday, but things kept happening - so here we are, a week later...  This is another on loan from Sam, and I wasn't really geared up to watch it.  I was told it was kind of a kids' movie, but not really, and science fiction.  All of those things are true - the main characters are kids, but there is some slightly scary stuff that I wouldn't necessarily show to young people.  That said, probably kids in late primary school and up would cope.  Young people today seem to do better with scary things. 

Sometimes, when I watch a movie, life just throws it all at me at once.  The essence I gleaned from this movie was that the world is a wondrous place, but older people are far less adept at seeing this.  Well, that was the main point.  The second, equally important, point, was that younger people can only find the wonder in the world if they can experience the world. 

When the kids are at home, the older boy is a typical older brother.  He is in middle school, about 13, and is bursting the bubbles of his little sister (the burger you're eating used to be a cow, that sort of thing).  He spends a lot of time playing with electronic devices and only a little time communicating with people, and is not doing very well at school.  As soon as they are away at the beach, he turns into the sort of older brother that girls with no brothers imagine are the norm:  he wades into freezing water to investigate things, he does all the scary stuff, he protects his little sister, and is a comrade instead of a competitor.  And he starts looking more closely at things, as his sister does all the time because she is still very much a child.  And these children, with the aid of these found objects (from the future), start to see and experience the world and all its wonder.  Not only that, but when they return from the beach, that wonder and insight remains (which leads to the FBI thinking they're terrorists... I won't go into that here...).  Moreover, because the boy has taken the time to investigate the minute workings of his surroundings, he does a fabulous science project.

So, 2 things. 1 - This term I've started teaching a few new kids, 2 of whom are in grade 2.  Both of them are delightful.  Bright sparks, enthusiastic, and interested in the world.  One of them was fairly silent in the first lesson but since then has talked and asked questions almost non-stop.  As we were going back to class on Thursday we were walking up steps with the sun behind us, so we could see our shadows in front of us.  She was so excited!  Not only could we see ourselves on the ground, but we could see ourselves moving and changing shape as we walked up the steps.  I won't give you all the examples of the wonder with which these girls see the world, but it makes my heart smile. 

2 - This is, again, Idiocracy.  Without children seeing the wonder in the world, how will they ever be captured by anything in the world?  And if they're never captured by anything in the world, how will they ever learn about anything in the world?  And if they never learn anything about the world, what will stop them thinking it's a good idea to water crops with Gatorade?  When they are told that this is how things are... well.  If they are told without finding out for themselves, then where's the interest?  Remembering stuff is different from finding out stuff.  You might be told that spiders respond to different frequencies, but if you actually watch a spider building its web (which is fascinating in itself), and then manipulate it by producing different frequencies, then that's something else entirely.  (This is, incidentally, the basis of Kodaly music teaching - letting the students discover new elements themselves). 

All this reminds me of brains.  There is some talk of this in the movie, too - how our brains change and develop as we grow.  (Again, this was touched upon at summer school).  The very young have brains with no clear roads, but as we grow and learn, we wear roads into the wiring of our brains.  Some of this is a good thing, like how to feed yourself without pushing a fork through your eye.  Or, plants need water to grow.  Some of this is limiting though, like thinking that when you draw, the sky must always be blue.  Like the message proclaimed by Beethoven (in Copying Beethoven) when we follow the rules life stays the same.  But to grow, and to create, and to experience, we do better to forget the rules, forget the wiring of our brains.  Pretend we are astronauts, or that parallel 5ths are acceptable when writing 4-part harmony.  This whole brain thing is yet another reason to keep learning things as we get older.  So often I meet another adult, who asks what I do, then responds with "I always wanted to learn the violin".  It's never too late.  I've even taught an 84-yr-old arthritis sufferer.  When I start something new my brain loves me.  My most recent new learning thing is Spanish, and not only can I feel my brain enjoying learning new pathways, the learning of new things is expanding the old knowledge (mostly because the romance languages are essentially different dialects of the same language, but still!). 

One other thing about this movie.  One of the lines near the end (when the future world has been saved by the young girl's tears - pure and innocent) - "our precious quality of humanity had been switched off" - really struck me.  So often, this is all too apparent.  Our society is turning far more introverted, looking to the self instead of to the community, and it's costing us.  This is not our natural state of being.  Communication and caring for others, and learning new things, and being open to the wonder of the world are all vital parts of being human.  I will no longer apologise for behaving like a kid.

Movie #3

I had actually borrowed Copying Beethoven a couple of times before, and returned it without watching.  I think I even copped a late fine for it on occasion.  Last Tuesday I thought, It's Time.  Friday evening, along with my dad and brother, we watched it.

I'm glad I only paid a dollar.  Yes, Diane Kruger is beautiful.  The music was good - although at times predictable (oh look, he's in a forest - and the Pastoral Symphony is playing!).  After a few hours of grumbling, I realised the point of the movie - that to create, you have to 'build a bridge to the future' which will probably alienate you from everything happening in the Now, because Now is familiar and comfortable.  But if you just do what is familiar and comfortable, you'll stay in the same place.  Now that I've written that, I can see that this is a little like a metaphor for my life right now... Only it was said really badly.

I don't often say a movie was terrible.  I very rarely fast forward through a movie I haven't seen before.  I am actually annoyed that I spent about 100 minutes of my life watching this.  (Playing time is 104 minutes, I watched all the credits for the music, but I don't know how long the fast forward was). 

It could be that a non-musician would love this, Beethoven revealed as a human.  And the contrast of the great composer, who talks of building a bridge to the future with his visceral music to which no-one will listen, smashing the futuristic bridge design.  But: American accents for Viennese, American language jokes (mooning, the Moonlight Sonata... really?!).  So much talk of an angel sent from heaven, and the closest they could really get to a sex scene (a 23-yr-old girl giving a 53-yr-old man a sponge bath) was just...No.  Shudder.  Fast forward.

At the start, the movie is geared towards the premiere of the 9th symphony.  As it was being played I thought, well actually if it's this short that's a mercy.  Except that was only the middle of the movie.  Someone decided to keep going for another 40 minutes and include the Grosse Fugue as well.  As a string player, I loved hearing the Takacs Quartet playing this, but it didn't work well as a plot.  Maybe if it was 2 parts of a series, or if they'd even referenced the quartet before the symphony was performed, but they didn't.  Even the back of the DVD cover ends with the performance of the 9th symphony. 

Meanwhile, the actual performance of the symphony was an epic cringe.  Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) has been the copyist, at the last minute, and is brought in to help in the conducting.  She crouches in the middle of the violins and conducts so that Beethoven (played by Ed Harris) can mimic her.  Normally, a conductor needs to preempt whatever is about to happen - show an accent a beat early etc.  So if the conductor is taking his cues from someone else, that someone needs to be even further ahead.  She was there, apparently, to show him where the beat would be, but was so engrossed in the music that she lolls around with her eyes closed for most of the time and appears to be behind the beat.  And as Beethoven also closes his eyes, the whole "Let's keep in time" thing seems to be pointless.  The end of the performance was the most effective part of the whole movie though:  the sound was cut except for very muffled thuds and scrapes, ostensibly as Beethoven would have heard the applause at that time.  It is only when someone turns him around to face the audience that he can see they appreciate it, and him.

Phyllida Law has the best line in the whole movie.  She plays Anna's aunt, the Mother Superior of a convent, but she came to Vienna to study with Salieri.  "So you understand", says Anna.  "Oh no, dear.  I never even met Salieri.  They sent me to one of his students.  I was 17.  He was French...".