Broken Wings
by
Howard Schumann
The trauma that accompanies the sudden loss of a beloved family
member is being repeated all over the Middle East today. Behind the
headlines are the stories we never read about. One of these is told
metaphorically in Nir Bergman's brilliant first effort Broken
Wings. It is not an overtly political film, but the implications
are clear. Set in the Israeli port city of Haifa, it depicts the effect
of the loss of a patriarch on each member of his family, perhaps suggesting
the emotional state of Israel since the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. The
83-minute film won accolades at the Berlin International Film Festival
and has been a huge critical and commercial success in Israel, winning
nine Israeli Academy Awards in 2003.
The
beautifully expressive Maya Maron, in her first major role, plays an
Israeli teenage singer-songwriter (also named Maya) who dreams of becoming
a rock star, and wears wings when she sings in her local band. As the
film opens, Maya is singing a song she wrote in memory of her father
who died suddenly nine months earlier, for reasons not disclosed until
the end of the film. Her song is interrupted when her mother Dafna (stage
actress Orly Zilberschatz Banai), a nurse, phones and tells her that
she has been called to work on the night shift at the local hospital
and needs Maya home to take care of her brother Ido and sister Bahr.
Maya emphatically refuses, then relents, but the tension between mother
and daughter is palpable.
The young woman, who was with her father when he died,
does not fully grasp the guilt behind her bottled-up rage, and takes
out her anger on her mother, who is both sympathetic and irritating
as she labors wearily to keep the family from a collision course. We
learn that each family member is suffering the father's loss in his
or her own way. 
Dafna
stayed in bed for three months, leaving the children to do the parenting,
and the results are reflected in their erratic behavior. Six-year old
Bahr wets her bed and Ido carries out a strange ritual of filming himself
while jumping into an empty pool. The oldest brother Yair (Nitai Gaviratz),
also a teenager, has been suspended from school, and hands out leaflets
on commuter trains dressed in a mouse costume while expressing a nihilistic
philosophy to anyone who will listen. His inability to respond to the
words father, fear, and anger during a word association
test prompts his school counselor to deny him re-admittance until he
receives treatment, but he does not help his cause when he tells the
counselor "Your words are meaningless. This conversation does not exist
and you don't exist."
Yair
tells Maya that "things could be worse," and they do get worse before
they get better. Broken Wings may sound depressing, but in Bergman's
skillful hands, its sadness is balanced with humor and the strength
and dignity of its characters. The film doesn't break any new ground,
but displays the kind of insight that allows us to learn something new
about ourselves. Though rooted in reality, Broken Wings has a
heart that leaps and a soul that soars, and it's a film that I truly
loved.
Seducing
Doctor Lewis, a film by first-time director Jean-François
Pouliot, is the biggest Québec success story of 2003, achieving higher
box-office receipts than The Lord of the Rings, Matrix Reloaded,
and The
Barbarian Invasions. As the film opens, St. Marie-le-Mauderne,
a fictional village of 150 people in rural Québec, has fallen on hard
times. The inhabitants, once proud fisherman, have been reduced to living
off welfare, lining up one by one at the post office to collect their
monthly checks. When a multinational plastics company using a federal
tax incentive agrees to open a factory in St. Marie, the tiny hamlet
is compelled to seek a full time resident doctor to serve for five years
to fulfill the company's insurance obligations. After repeated attempts,
a doctor is found when a policeman (a former Mayor), discovers an illegal
substance in a car he's pulled over and sentences the driver Christopher
Lewis (David Boutin), a Montreal plastic surgeon, to do rural service
in St. Marie for one year.
Local villager Germain Lesage (Raymond Bouchard) heads
a campaign to persuade Dr. Lewis to live in the village for five years,
by cooking up one elaborate ruse after another, which the doctor falls
for hook, line, and sinker. The villagers pretend to be enthusiastic
about cricket (of which they actually know next to nothing) and admirers
of fusion jazz, serve him his favorite dish at the local restaurant,
and leave $5 bills in a local lawn ornament each day to convince him
of the town's magic. 
Unfortunately,
they go to lengths of dubious morality to win him over, illegally and
unethically tapping his phone to listen to his conversations to find
out how they can please him, but all they learn is that he likes women's
feet and beef stroganoff. They even force the bank manager to approve
a loan of $50,000 to bribe the company manager. While Seducing Doctor
Lewis has its charms and will put a smile on your face, it pushes
all the formulaic buttons and lacks the imagination of the superior
comedies such as Local Hero on which it is modeled.
And on DVD:
John
Duigan's The Year My Voice Broke (1987), gorgeously photographed
in Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia, avoids the usual "rites of
passage" cliches and makes real the heartbreak of awakening sexuality
and feeling alone.
In 1962, Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) is a sensitive, scrawny
15-year old who is obsessed with his childhood friend, 16-year old Freya
Olson (Leona Carmen). He writes poetry and tries to emulate rock stars
to win her over, but his voice is always breaking when he tries to sing.
Freya, orphaned as a baby and now something of a wild spirit, shares
her secrets with Danny in their private place on the nearby rocky crags.
Both teens feel isolated, Danny from the macho attitudes of his schoolmates
and Freya because of the truth she senses about her mother.
Freya
is increasingly attracted to Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), a rugby player
who is given to petty crime. Though the mood grows dark, Duigan uses
humor to lighten things up when Danny attempts to hypnotize Freya into
loving him, and when the boy tries mental telepathy to prevent Freya
from kissing Trevor. Danny's loneliness is painfully evident when he
tags along with Freya and Trevor on a date and has to endure the agony
of watching them make love at a "haunted house." This house plays a
significant part in Danny, Freya, and Trevor's relationship and in the
film's dramatic climax. Duigan ties his story to a dark secret of the
town, the discovery of which will change the lives of the characters
forever, and leave the viewer reflecting on the pain of growing up.
The Year My Voice Broke stands out from other coming of age films
because of its simple honesty and natural performances.
©2004 Howard Schumann
CineScene
