Everybody Hurts
by Howard Schumann

We talk a lot about love in our society, but often love is only acceptable to us if it fits our pictures. For example, the love of an older person for a younger, love between members of the same sex or between disabled individuals may make us uncomfortable and rejecting. Winner of five awards at the 2002 Venice Film Festival, Oasis, a film by Korean director Lee Chang-dong, stretches our comfort zone to the limit with a boldly unconventional portrait of the love of a mentally disturbed young man for a woman suffering with cerebral palsy. The film is both emotionally honest and powerfully realized, and will keep you pondering its implications for a long time.

As Oasis opens, Jong-du (Sol Kyung-gu) has just been released from prison and is freezing in his short sleeve shirt in the middle of winter. Jong-du is a sociopath who flouts society's rules, unaware of or unconcerned with the consequences of his actions. Unable to hold a job and always on the edge, he has been in jail three times: for attempted rape, causing an accident while drunk (he took the rap for his elder brother), and armed robbery. On the spur of the moment, he decides to visit the family of the man killed by his brother and apologize. When he arrives, he finds a husband and wife moving out of their apartment, leaving the husband's seriously disabled sister, Han Gong-ju (Moon So-ri) for the neighbors to look after.

Jong-du is attracted to the disabled woman, who seems barely in control of her own body. He returns for another visit, but it sadly ends in a disturbing sequence that is very difficult to watch. Surprisingly, Gong-ju invites him back once more, and the two slowly begin a friendship based on their mutual feelings of isolation. He provides her with the closeness she desperately needs and she finds someone to care for, maybe for the first time in her life. As their relationship becomes known, both families are scandalized and, aided by the prejudices of society, transform the innocence of their love into something sick and twisted.

Moon So-ri's performance as Gong-ju is nothing short of astonishing. She goes through contortions to make us aware of the agony of her illness, but is never inappropriate or over-the-top. Her movements are spasmodic and uncoordinated, and she appears to be in constant pain, but there is a kindness in her face that allows us to see the person behind the pain.

Oasis is a thought provoking film that doesn't stack the deck towards one point of view. It depicts the joy that the relationship brings to the lovers, but also shows the understandable unease of the families about the fitness of a man who has demonstrated his emotional instability. The film shows the thin line between the desires of the individual and the needs of society, and forces us to look at the disparity between the reality we see and that seen by others. While his ultimate message may be ambiguous, Lee makes us brutally aware that for many people, life is a party to which they haven't been invited. Out of his willingness to have his characters confront the truth of a world that will be forever hostile, he offers a compelling vision of what love truly means, and allows us to experience the oneness that defies reason and logic.

Following the path traveled by Ken Kesey in his Merry Pranksters trek in the 60s, Go Further, a Canadian documentary by activist Ron Mann, follows actor Woody Harrelson and a group of his friends as they travel from Seattle to Los Angeles on a "Simple Organic Living" tour, using a bio-fueled touring bus. The tour stops at college campuses along the way to speak about alternatives to environmentally damaging practices and the need for conversion to organic food consumption. The group of travelers includes a yoga teacher, a raw food chef, a college student, and a production assistant on the television show Will and Grace. The assistant, Steve Clark, begins the journey as a junk food addict but, assisted by a hastily devised love interest, converts to an organic diet by the end of the trip.

Accompanied by a splendid soundtrack that features eco-minded musicians such as Bob Weir, Michael Franti, Nathalie Merchant, String Cheese Incident, and Dave Matthews, Harrelson pays homage to the sixties, stopping off to meet Ken Kesey shortly before the author's death in 2001. Along the way, the tour encounters some hostility, especially in logging towns, but they also meet like-minded people who are doing their part to protect the environment. For example, we meet a man who runs a paper company that doesn't require cutting down trees, an organic farmer who regards nature as his partner, and a lecturer who urges his students to use humor as a strategy for confrontation.

While I support the idea of curbing environmental abuse, and wholeheartedly endorse the notion that each individual can make a difference, Go Further falls far short of making a convincing case. Ideas are thrown out in sound bites that are never challenged or fully explored, and the film speaks only to the already converted. Woody rails against Bovine Growth Hormone and claims that there is blood and pus in the milk we drink, but ignores the fact that BGH is banned in Canada because of suspected links to cancer, diabetes, and immune system problems. The film is well-intentioned and funny in parts, but is basically a superficial sideshow, a sitting duck for ridicule from those opposed to its ideas. While there is definitely a need for a hard-hitting investigative documentary into environmentally unsound policies, Go Further, unfortunately, is not it.

Lindsay Anderson's The Whales of August (1987) stars silent film legend Lillian Gish, then in her 95th year, and Hollywood favorite Bette Davis, 79, as widowed sisters, one warm and supportive, the other cold and cantankerous, who have been coming to a small cottage on the Maine seacoast for sixty years. Every August, they watch the journey of the whales passing in the nearby waters together, but the sense is that this may be their last summer together. Knowing that their time is limited, the siblings attempt to resolve long-standing differences, but face many obstacles. The Whales of August takes place during the course of a single day, and the camera stays mostly inside the house, except to follow the sisters on occasional walks to the ocean. It all sounds static, but there is a great deal of emotion churning beneath the surface.

Libby (Davis) is nearly blind and very difficult to live with, always talking about how her life is over. Her sister Sarah (Gish), on the other hand, is the polar opposite. She is sweet in her sisterly devotion to taking care of Libby and avoiding getting sucked into her moods (she always calls her dear). She brushes her hair, fixes breakfast for her, gets her clothes together and tends to the garden. "Busy, busy, busy" is how Libby talks about her. Ms. Davis looks gaunt but her face shows a strength that is as craggy as the seacoast rocks. The film features Vincent Price as a down-on-his-luck but charming Russian refugee who Libby suspects is trying to worm his way in with them, and Harry Carey, Jr. as a handyman who is forever making a racket in the house.

Also on hand is Ann Sothern as Trish, a friend and neighbor who is close to convincing Sarah to leave Libby's care to her daughter, until she remembers how Libby supported her when her own husband died.

Gish draws every ounce of emotion from a lovely scene in which Sarah celebrates her 46th wedding anniversary by having an imaginary conversation with Philip, her long deceased husband. "Forty-six years, Phillip," she tells him. "Forty-six red roses; forty-six white. White for truth--red for passion. That's what you always said -- passion and truth; that's all we need. I wish you were here, Phillip." Another moving sequence is when Libby brushes her face with a lock of her husband's hair while sitting alone in her bedroom.

I had heard that The Whales of August was little more than a vehicle for two aging stars to sing their swan song. However, I found the screenplay by David Berry to gracefully complement the performances with an emotional honesty that captures the truth of the characters. It is a gentle and civilized character study that lets us know it is never too late to bury long-standing grievances and open a picture window to possibility. It may be old fashioned in its style, but it has a grace and beauty that is timeless.

©2004 Howard Schumann
CineScene