Beginnings and endings

A while back, I told my friends, Larissa and Jaime, that I'd be regularly writing up reviews of different films that we'd seen together. We're all members of the Michigan Theater (and State Theater) in Ann Arbor, which is a regular host for documentaries and smaller releases, in addition to the standard explosive Marvel output. I've fallen down on that obligation, only talking about a few films that really piqued my interest and/or irritated me to the point that I'd start writing as soon as I got home (see: Tarantino's latest effort, for example.) But, in an effort to get a little more exposure, I'm going to try to redress that failing and attempt to talk about everything we see, fascinating or not. (On that note: if you're reading and interested, can you take a moment to link people to what you like? Tweets, Facebook, archaic email, whathaveyou. More readers is better readers, yo.)

In the past couple weeks, we've seen two films that were really well done, largely because both of them worked well on an emotional level: The Farewell and Maiden.

The Farewell is, as noted in the opening credits, "based on an actual lie", wherein writer/director Lulu Wang gives us a story about a family whose matriarch in China has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and her family decides to hold a reunion so that everyone can say their goodbyes but without actually putting her through the emotional trauma of telling her that she only has a short time to live. That leads to as many emotional and humorous moments as you might expect, all of which are depicted in a very natural and familiar manner, which is the heart of the film's appeal. There are no dramatic pauses or orchestral crashes. It's all quite mundane, but easily conveyed as quite traumatic for the family as they dwell on their hidden knowledge and bicker with each other about whether they're doing the right thing.

Foremost in the ethical discussion is Billi (Awkwafina), the only granddaughter, whom everyone else suspects won't be able to contain herself and will spoil things for everyone, especially Nai Nai (Mandarin for "grandma".) Billi, properly, questions whether everyone else's cosseted nobility is serving Nai Nai's interests, or merely their own, so that they won't have to fully deal with the trauma. Her father's past troubles with alcoholism and her uncle's issues with gambling emerge as stones to be slung by the others when they begin to lose control of themselves in their grief (while Billi remains relatively stoic, in contrast.) But what it also does is make all of these characters, even the minor ones, very human and easily understandable in this, the moment of greatest crisis for the family unit as a whole since the patriarch (referred to by Nai Nai in a gravesite memorial scene as "Old Timer") passed on.

It was kind of fascinating to see many of the common issues of family relationships and identity struggles through the lens of another culture, but without the usually ominous aspects of drama. For example, Billi's mother, Jian (Diana Lin), is the practical one and is already cooking for the whole group when Billi surprisingly arrives in China after being deliberately excluded from the trip by her parents for her supposed inability to control herself. That confrontation between emotion and duty which is part of the backdrop of the whole story manifests between mother and daughter when hearkening back to their decision to leave China for the US while Billi was young, but old enough to remember Nai Nai and the rest of the family. You feel badly for Billi, but also sympathize with Jian's attempt to make everything go off smoothly; helped along by Billi's self-awareness that she probably would spoil the plan, albeit semi-unconcerned since she doesn't agree with the plan in the first place.

Similarly, Billi's cousin, Hao Hao (Chen Han), who is getting married as the convenient excuse for this family gathering, is derided as "sensitive" and whom is consequently also suspected of giving away the facade; "sensitive" being a euphemism for "emotional" or "weak" in American culture, the similar chauvinism of which is fully on display by both men and women in this look into Chinese culture, as well. I think Wang did a great job of keeping the story simple, but giving even minor characters like Hao Hao obvious depth as they struggle with the pain of losing their grandmother/mother, the uncertainty of seeing the whole family together again after so many years, and the simple joy that manifests from that uncertainty when they realize that their family bonds should be a positive thing in their lives and, in the end, still are.

Next up was Maiden; a documentary about the running of the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, a yachting regatta that begins and ends in Southampton, England after circling the globe, largely in the southern seas. What made this one unusual was that skipper Tracy Edwards entered a boat with an all-female crew, a first for the race and extremely rare in sailing, in general (of the 200+ crew among the boats of the previous running of the Whitbread, four had been women.)

The film is set up in classic documentary style, using on- and off-boat footage of the race where they could get it, alongside wonderfully blunt interviews with Edwards, her crew, the skippers of other boats in the race, and journalists who covered it. In the typically chauvinistic world of sailing, it was kind of remarkable to see how many of the male interviewees' attitudes really hadn't changed about the Maiden's crew or circumstances, in general, over the past 30 years. It was also fascinating to see a film on a topic that I knew next-to-nothing about, having no knowledge that the race even existed or how much work it would take to refit a boat of that size, not to mention sail it around the world. I did know enough to understand that when Edwards said she was sailing the "most southerly route possible" on the leg from Uruguay to Australia, she was taking an incredible risk. Read enough history about explorers trying to find their way past Cape Horn, dealing with the subzero temperatures and mountainous waves, and you get the gist of just how dangerous it can be, especially when you're in nothing larger than a 50-foot boat.

I think what really sells the film, however, is Tracy. Thirty years later, you can tell that she's still the same extremely determined woman who was desperate to prove that she (and, by inference, all women) could accomplish this monumental task just as well as any man or anyone. Watching her and their struggles on the screen and the obvious anguish she felt (and still feels) from both setbacks and triumphs, it was hard not to be blinking away some reaction of my own at the disappointment, the tension, and the elation that permeated everything that was happening. Tracy's childhood went from idyllic to traumatic and it shaped her in ways that she still struggles with (as her mother noted after meeting her following one successful leg of the race: "I can't believe that this little horror did this!"; spoken quite endearingly.) It colored her relationships throughout the stress of searching for funding, refitting the boat, and guiding it around the globe. One could see that her crew were being as evenhanded as they could about those times (outside of the thrill of what they were doing) and one can easily see the regret that Tracy carries about the way she handled herself, alongside the realization that the huge crowds that eventually gathered at their ports of call just wanted to be there to share in what Maiden and its crew were saying about gender, about emotional, mental, and physical strength, and simply about sailing and the joy that comes with the open ocean and the possibilities that it promises.

So, there it is. I'm hoping to catch Them That Follow next Tuesday, but we'll see what shakes out.