Movie Review: "Lion"

"Lion": B.  British actor Dev Patel made his silver screen debut for US audiences in the surprise hit Slumdog Millionaire (pre-blog rating of B+).  Released here in 2009, the film won the Academy Award Oscar for Best Picture.  Patel, who was only seventeen when that movie was shot, portrayed the title character, a product of the slums of Mumbai.  In Lion, which was one of nine films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award three months ago, Patel's character again plays an adult whose history has been shaped by a previous life in Indian slums, this time Calcutta's.  Although Lion fell short in the latest Oscar competition, it was a worthy entry whose chances for the ultimate prize were probably hurt by a downshifting in tempo at approximately the two-thirds point in the story.

The film covers a twenty-five year span, beginning in 1986, when five year old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) and his older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) are being raised by their illiterate mother in a hut off a dirt road in Khandwa.  Guddu teaches Saroo the risky practice of hopping freight trains and stealing coal from the gondola cars, then trading their booty for food staples.  Their mother, who also has an infant daughter, instructs her young sons to look after the baby, but the adventure-seeking boys can't resist the thrills of running into the city.  One of those adventures turns into a misadventure when the brothers get separated and a panicked Saroo finds himself trapped alone on a train bound for Calcutta, sixteen hundred kilometers from home.

Saroo quickly learns that his native Hindi is not understood by the Bengali-speaking populace of Calcutta, thus making his plight even more dire.  He has a few narrow escapes from those who would do him grave harm, eventually ending up in an orphanage.  There he learns English, thus setting himself up for adoption by an Australian couple, Susan (Nicole Kidman) and John (David Wenham) Brierly, who live in Tasmania.
 

Screen writer Luke Davies and director Garth Davis quickly leapfrog twenty years, which is when Patel makes his appearance as the young adult Saroo.  The pathetic life Saroo led in India is far behind him.  In Tasmania, the loving Brierlys have raised him like their own offspring, along with another Indian boy, the troubled Mantosh (Divian Ladwa), whom they adopted a few years after Saroo.  Saroo is now a college student in Melbourne, taking up hotel management.  He and his American girlfriend, Lucy (Rooney Mara), hang out with a diverse group of other college kids, some of whom are Indian.  Saroo misses the Brierlys, but it isn't until he spots jalebi in the kitchen at a house party that recollections of his biological family tug at his heart.  Jalebi is an Indian pastry loved by Saroo and Guddu when they were boys.

Deeply affected by memories of his difficult childhood, thoughts of returning to India fill Saroo's mind.  He tells Lucy that he's sure his family is still searching for him all these years later.  He feels guilty for having lived a privileged life in Australia while the family he left behind barely survives in squalor.

Saroo is faced with one major obstacle: Ever since that fateful long train ride as a five year old, he has never been able to recall the name of his family's town.  Will he return to India, and if so, will he ever reconnect with his Indian family?  How will Lucy and the Brierlys take this new development?

Although Patel gets top billing as the adult protagonist, a performance which earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination, it is little Sunny Pawar who steals the show as the adorable youngster Saroo.  Pawar is on the screen for about half the film.  I just wanted to give him a big hug and buy him a juicy steak with a jumbo platter of jalebi for dessert.
 

There was an article recently in the Star Tribune which explained how the local authorities were forming a task force to be on the alert for signs of human trafficking in the Twin Cities during the Super Bowl festivities early next year.  Many of the minors who are victims of that repulsive crime originate from India and other countries of southeastern Asia.  In Lion, some of the scenes of young, homeless Saroo, sleeping with other kids on cardboard mats in dirty Calcutta subway stations, are scary.  The difference between narrow escape and ending up in a kidnapper's clutches can be only a matter of inches.  I will be thinking of those scenes as the Super Bowl approaches.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXVII

Although I have been going to movies for over sixty years, there have only been three films which I once labeled my favorite movie of all time.  I saw two of them again on television during the last quarter.  The third one, which I haven't re-watched in a while, I'll save for a future post.

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1956 Alfred Hitchcock thriller which begins in Morocco.  Jimmy Stewart plays an American doctor who is on vacation with his wife, an internationally famous singer (Doris Day), and their young son.  In Marrakesh they meet an English speaking man on a crowded bus and an English speaking couple in a restaurant, all of whom come into play.  Doris suspects that their new acquaintance from the bus is hiding secrets, but Jimmy practically tells her she's being paranoid.  A marketplace murder in broad daylight followed by a kidnapping confirms Doris' suspicions and leads them back to where they had started their vacation, London.

 

When I first saw the film in the mid-fifties, I immediately announced (not that anybody cared) that it was the best film I'd ever seen.  Even after watching more critically acclaimed subsequent Hitchcock films such as 1958's Vertigo and 1959's North By Northwest, I still thought The Man Who Knew Too Much was superior.  Now I must recant.  The movie has not aged as well as I might have hoped.  Although Doris may have been a very good singer back in the day, the same can't be said about her acting.  The decisions Jimmy makes seem stupid for a guy smart enough to be a physician.  You can tell how the story will end well ahead of time.  It is still decent entertainment; after all, it is Hitch.  The film has memorable scenes -- the Marrakesh market, Ambrose Chapel and Albert Hall -- but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

 

I kept The Man Who Knew Too Much on my First Place pedestal for about four or five years until I saw the biblical epic Ben-Hur, released in late 1959.  It is the story of a wealthy Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), whose homeland, Judea, has been taken over by the great Roman army.  There is quiet resentment among the natives but they are powerless against the mighty Boys From The Boot.  Who should be leading the invading army but Judah's childhood friend, Messala (Stephen Boyd).  Messala expects Judah to renounce his beliefs and face the reality that the Romans are in charge.  Messala can't believe Judah's obstinate refusal to do so.
 

Within a few scenes, Judah takes the blame for an accident caused by his sister.  She inadvertently causes a loose tile to fall off the roof of their balcony, almost striking Messala's commanding officer on horseback.  Messala finds proof that the near catastrophe was accidental, but his standing and reputation in the eyes of Caesar is more important to him.  He levels a charge tantamount to attempted assassination, and condemns Judah to slavery in the rowing galley of a Roman war ship.  The prisoners there are chained to their posts.  If their ship sinks they'll go down with it.

 

The story spans many years, following Judah as he struggles to survive, is the beneficiary of some good luck, and seeks to find answers regarding the fate of his mother and sister.  All this time, he never lets the thought of revenge against Messala stray from his consciousness for too long.

 

Charlton Heston was known for taking on larger than life roles in epic films.  Here is a sampler: Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956); the title character in El Cid (1961); John The Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); and Michelangelo in The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965).  Other than possibly Richard Burton or Burt Lancaster, Heston was the only actor of that era who possessed the stature, physique and charisma to play Judah.  His bravura performance is one for the ages.

 

The film lasts over three and a half hours, but my most recent viewing confirms that there are very few wasted moments; that is, if you don't count the ten minute opening overture.  This is a huge epic story, written by a retired Union general from the Civil War, Lew Wallace, therefore requiring a long run time to tell.  (There is an intermission.)

 

As a teenager, I loved the film so much that I read the book.  One thing I remember about the book which is not included in the movie is a strange request Judah makes to the guard inside the galley.  He asks for permission to row from the starboard and port sides of the warship on alternating days, so that his musculature will be evenly developed.  The Roman guards grant this favor, even though it seems strange coming from a condemned man.

 

The most famous scene in the movie is, of course, the chariot race in the Roman Circus.  The race lasts eleven minutes of real time, but took five weeks to shoot.  Director William Wyler, in an interesting act of delegation, decided to have the race sequence directed by his second unit director, Andrew Marton.  In a movie with so many unforgettable gems, the chariot race is a standout.  A trivia tidbit:  The coordinator of the many stunts, Yakima Kanutt, used his son, Joe, to stand-in for Heston in most of the dangerous moments.

 

Ben-Hur won eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Heston).  In the eighty-eight year history of the Oscars, only two other films (1997's Titanic and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King from 2003) have also won eleven Oscars, but none has won more.  It remained my favorite film of all time for roughly fifteen years.

 

After watching Ben-Hur last month, I was thankful that it had not slipped, as had The Man Who Knew Too Much, in my estimation.  Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz called Ben-Hur "a master work of filmmaking technique and execution."  Ben is more eloquent than I, so I'll just add, "Ditto."

 

Here are the movies I've seen in the comfort of the Quentin Estates during the first three months of 2017.

 

1. The Accountant (2016 drama; Ben Affleck, a forensic accountant who includes mafia families among his clients, is pursued by US Treasury Department analyst Cynthia Addai-Robinson and its director, J.K. Simmons.) B

2. Ben-Hur (1959 biblical drama; Charlton Heston is a wealthy Judean Jew whose life is changed for the worse when his former friend Stephen Boyd, a power hungry Roman tribune, knowingly condemns him for a crime he didn't commit.) A

3. 8-1/2 (1963 comedy; Marcello Mastrianni is a famous film director who, while dealing with marital discord with wife Anouk Aimee, tries the patience of his producers and actors with his inability to settle on a final theme or script for his movie.) B-

4. Jackie (2016 biopic; Natalie Portman is Jackie Kennedy, recounting for a Life Magazine reporter the events immediately following the assassination of her husband.)  C+

5. A Little Romance (1979 rom-com; Laurence Olivier suggests that young teens Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard head to the Bridge Of Sighs in Venice at sunset, then helps them get there from Paris.) A-

6. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 drama; Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day unwittingly get involved as witnesses in a plot to assassinate a foreign minister inside the Royal Albert Hall.) B

7. Rebel Without A Cause (1955 drama; James Dean is a high schooler who can't stand his wimpy father, is targeted by his hoodlum classmates, befriends loner Sal Mineo, and is loved by bad girl Natalie Wood.) C

8. Saturday Night Fever (1977 musical; John Travolta prances, dances, knife fights and romances, all to the disco tunes of the Bee Gees and other music artists.)  B