THE COURIER: THE ANSWER TO STING’S QUESTION

SHORT TAKE:

Breathtaking look at the true story of two ordinary men on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain who risked everything to save our world from mutual nuclear annihilation in the 1960’s.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Not appropriate for younger children because of the brutal look at Communist treatment of political prisoners, but should be an eye-opening experience, and educationally required, from high school age up.

LONG TAKE:

1985, before the Berlin Wall came down, before Reagan finally broke the will of the Communist Politburo, and when the possibility of nuclear war was still a reality, Sting released a song called “Russians”. It’s Slavic melody and haunting lyrics evoked the almost-prayerful lament:

Mister Khushchev said, “We will bury you.
I don’t subscribe to this point of view.
It’d be such an ignorant thing to do —
If the Russians love their children too.”

The music video is here: Russians.

The height of the Cold War was the terrifying and infamous Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. Russia’s imperialistic, trigger-happy, Communist leader Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles on our doorstep, in their political satellite and lackey, Castro’s Cuba. This event precipitated our then President, JFK, to threaten the necessary military response. The Cold War did NOT get hot and The Courier, directed by Dominic Cooke (The Hollow Crown series), recounts how that came about and about to whom we should be thankful.

In the 1980’s, even into my 20’s, I remember having nightmares wherein I would hear bombs whistling towards me KNOWING I was about to die and praying the most intense Hail Marys of my life only to wake, thankful that “IT” had not happened — yet.

The Cold War was eventually won, the Berlin Wall came down and the idea of an imminent nuclear exchange with Russia became a historical footnote and warning. The defeat of Communist Russia came about due to a felicitous combination of events, especially: President Reagan’s hard line stance against the Communists and outspending the Russians in the war effort, (see the “Strategic Defense Initiative” also known as the “Star Wars Program”, a plan Reagan initiated to prevent what he saw as an insane “suicide pact” between America and Russia), and Reagan’s cultivating good relations with Russia’s Gorbachev.

BUT that happy outcome might never have had an opportunity to come to fruition, may have been lost in the radioactive ashes of our lost civilizations, had it not been for the efforts of two men, one on either side of the Iron Curtain, Greville Wynne and Oleg Penkovsky, who formed an unlikely friendship and laid the groundwork for that eventual permanent detente.

In 1960, Greville, an ordinary businessman who frequently traveled and made deals in the Slavic areas, was recruited by MI6 to pose as Penkovsky’s Western business connection and retrieve information from him.

The film, in a script written by Tom O’Connor, whose most notable writing effort to date was the very watchable comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, (my review here) evokes, accurately, the grim spectre of nuclear war which hung over everyone for decades.

The Courier features: Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange, Smaug in The Hobbit, Khan in Star Trek into Darkness, Sherlock, Hamlet) as Wynne; Irish-born Jessie Buckley as Wynne’s wife, Sheila; Merab Ninidze (Bridge of Spies and Homeland) as Penkovsky; Rachel Brosnahan (Blacklist) as the CIA operative, whose Emily Donovan is a composite of people, including the wife of a British Visa officer; and Angus Wright (Father Brown series, Iron Lady, The Crown series), who plays Sir Dickie Franks, Donovan’s British MI6 counterpart and the man who, in the movie, recruits Greville, (but who, in fact, claims not to have had anything to do with Greville’s recruitment).

The acting is excellent. Often, as appropriate in a spy thriller, what is NOT said can speak more volumes than what IS said. Both Ninidze and Cumberbatch do this masterfully, wherein: a facial twitch, a break in eye contact, body language, all inform their characters’ personalities as well as express both what they are saying and what they are trying NOT to say.

The soundtrack by Abel Korzeniowski is symphonic, masterfully reflecting the characters’ interactions. The string section functions like a musical telepathic connection, placing you in the center of the characters’ emotions: deep bass cellos underline the depression engendered by grim Russia, light violin phrases dance staccato in imitation of frantic typewriters or quickly ticking clocks to heighten stress. Another passage is reminiscent of waves on an ocean as dangerous options are tossed back and forth between the players. An almost whimsical and comical circus tune is background for the scene in which Greville is informed by his friend that, not only is he a spy, but wishes to recruit Greville, underlining the gob-smacked way Greville must have felt.

The cinematography by Sean Bobbitt is excellent – dark and foreboding throughout but never obscuring even the smallest visual detail of the story. Bobbit successfully accomplishes what the cinematographer Chung-Hoon Chung failed to accomplish in, coincidentally, another Cumberbatch movie – Current Wars (my review here). Wherein, Chung’s lighting techniques attempted to be period but effectively were simply so DARK they prevented the audience from seeing what was happening, Bobbitt’s style, in The Courier, manages brilliantly to both paint in dark political pallet colors of the 1960’s and, simultaneously, makes every scene crystal clear.

As the story is written, the catalyst for Penkovsky’s decision to release massive amounts of information  to the United States was a desire, yes, for his children to live in freedom and not under the crushing thumb of Communism, but more immediately, for his children to simply SURVIVE, to NOT have to face the prospect of death by radioactive fallout or nuclear incineration.

While it’s, obviously, no spoiler to tell you their efforts were successful in preventing the Cuban Missile Crisis from precipitating a nuclear holocaust, how they did it is a fascinating journey. We should know our history or be doomed to repeat it. And tribute should be made to the men who offered everything they had and were to pave the way for this instead of this — for the love of their children.

May God bless and rest their souls.

ALITA – BATTLE ANGEL – A WELL TOLD, BUT ADULT, TALE OF A CYBORG HERO IN A DYSTOPIAN FUTURE SOCIETY

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION OF ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL REVIEW

SHORT TAKE:

Fascinating animation/real action mix story based on a long-running Japanese manga series,  about a cyborg girl reconstructed and “adopted” by a human and the dystopian society they both must navigate to survive.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Older teens/young adults minimum for language, and extreme violence.

LONG TAKE:

BEYOND HERE BE OCCASIONAL SPOILERS

This first heads up is more of a warning than a spoiler. Alita: Battle Angel is nowhere near a completed story. James Cameron takes a page from Peter Jackson’s playbook – giving us great character introductions, wonderful interpersonal relationships, interesting and fearsome enemies, exciting battle scenes …. and an abrupt unfinished ending. OK – technically the titular director is Robert Rodriguez but with James Cameron as the scriptwriter you know many of the decisions in the filming of this movie were done as a collaborative effort.

A musical analogy would liken it to ending a symphony on a dominant chord instead of the tonic chord, meaning a note that does not feel complete. Another way to look at it would be to begin the phrase ” shave and a haircut…”

Anyone who has seen the brilliant three-part Lord of the Rings series or the bloated Hobbit trilogy knows that Mr. Jackson likes to end his first story not exactly with a cliffhanger but with a temporary break in the action, taking Donald O’Conner’s advice to: “Always leave your audience wanting more,” to heart. Jackson ends his movies at about the place where one might choose to hit the pause button in the middle of the movie after one has had too many sodas.

And Mr. Cameron and Robert Rodriguez have done exactly the same thing with Alita – starting with an involving, well told story which then drops off a cliff. To be fair, this is on purpose.

HOWEVER, this is not surprising as Alita: Battle Angel is based, in whole and in part, on the first four of a NINE VOLUME manga series written between 1990-1995 by Yukito Kishiro called Gunnm (translated literally as “Gun Dream”). Alita: Battle Angel, the movie, like the manga series before it, is about a cyborg girl rescued from a dumpster and reconstructed by a cybernetics physician in a dystopian society set about 500 years from now.

The CGI was astonishing. James Cameron, who has been enamored of this manga series for about 10 years, said that he was waiting for the technology to become advanced enough to meet the demands of how he saw the film should be made. And he does not disappoint.

Rosa Salazar who plays the eponymous character is quoted to have said: “I’m a walking piece of technology, so that made it actually quite easy to fall into the physicality of a cyborg.” Photos of her show her dressed literally from head to foot in motion capture, including the unusual addition of two cameras on her face. Watching the behind-the-scenes was amusing as the actress would have to subtly duck and weave around the other actor’s head when coming close to avoid clobbering them with the extra headgear (which technology was, of course, CGIed out in post production). But the slight dance goes smoothly in the final product due to Ms. Salazar’s skillful body language and the technical prowess of the computer geniuses who brought Alita to life.

It’s interesting to see Christoph Waltz as a good guy. Usually he plays very rough, sometimes cold blooded or downright evil characters – such as being the most recent incarnation of James Bond’s antagonist Blofeld in Spectre, or the chilling psycho-Nazi Landa in Inglourious Basterds (sic), or the abusive plagiarizing husband in Big Eyes – the list goes on. But in Alita, Waltz is a nurturing protective creator/father-figure, his normally scary edge giving believability to his “side job”.

Jennifer Connelly, whose pedigree dates all the way back to David Bowie’s 1986 fantasy, Labyrinth, is Ido’s estranged wife and, therefore, Alita’s “mother”.

Mahershala Ali (Green Book – see my post on that brilliant movie) is the lead baddie’s main henchman.

Keean Johnson does a delightful job of charming Alita as the shady boyfriend, Hugo, in a mixed motivational character with shifting alliances that Clark Gable might have played way back when. And I MUST note that Mr. Johnson is a HOMESCHOOLED KID!!! Check out his bio here on us.imdb.com.

There are also some VERY fun cameos, which are designed for Mr. Cameron’s hoped for sequel. Jai Courtney (Terminator Genisys – and don’t laugh at me, I REALLY LIKED that movie – see my post on it here) plays Jashugan, a champion in Motorball, the gladiatorial game played in Alita. Edward Norton (he is to Hulk as Tobey Maguire was to Spiderman – close but no cigar, also in Collateral Beauty – see post here, Fight Club, and American History X), appears in a couple of  – don’t blink or you’ll miss it – moments as Nova the ULTIMATE controller of the sky city of Zalem, who becomes Alita’s nemesis and the target of her future goals to storm said city. Both have uncredited parts. Mr. Cameron explained that even if they never make the sequel, that those characters were must-haves in the story and essential to show. And, he said, if they did make a sequel that they wanted heavy hitters for those roles. Both men, Courtney and Norton, are friends and work colleagues of Cameron’s, so were more than willing to participate even in these tiny roles to help further the prospect of a sequel.

The soundtrack, written by Antonius B. Holkenborg, who goes by Junkie XL, is gorgeous and positively symphonic, creating a delightful variety of emotions from Alita’s sweetly, almost fairy-like awakening in Dr. Ido’s home to Terminator-feel violent reflections of her experiences in the Motorball battles against homicidal cyborgs during the Rollerball-level lethal game.

For anyone who is not old enough or geeky enough to remember the 1975 movie Rollerball, starring James Caan (whose credits date from the iconic tear-jerker sports game Brian’s Song, to the ill-fated Corleone son in The Godfather, to the voice of the tech-befuddled Dad in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), it is worth taking note.  Motorball, as presented in Alita is a DUPLICATE of the murderous gladiatorial eponymous game played in the movieRollerball,   set in another dystopian ultra-violent society. It is obvious Mr. Kishiro is familiar with this story.

There has been some controversy over the use of oversized eyes in Alita. Some say they are disturbing and off-putting. I strongly disagree with the naysayers. Alita’s unusually large orbs perform a multiplicity of plot functions. For one, it highlights Alita AS a cyborg. There is no mistaking her for a natural born full human. For another, if windows are the eyes to the soul, then Alita wears hers not just on her sleeve right next to her heart but right there on her face for all the world to see. Between the fine acting and the quality CGI every subtlety of Alita’s growing and changing emotions and character are there for the audience to relate. Large,  disproportionate eyes are also a feature of small young creatures, including humans. It is one of the designations which mark an inchoate being, not just inspiring protective feelings of those around them but signaling their fundamental innocence. While Alita does do some horrific things it is from her training in her previous life and only done for the protection of others – Ido, her human friend Hugo, even a stray dog.

Alita has a couple of obstacles to hurdle to gain the attention and affection of a Western audience. The first and most obvious is, of course, the manga origin, which is a subset of an already limited demographic of comic book sales. The second is her identity as a warrior cyborg, which could have been an automatic bias against her given the Terminator series. I think her preternaturally large eyes help create an almost instant connection to this character, helping break down those barriers. I thought the device clever, without being (IF you will excuse the VERY deliberate pun) “in your face” and quite effective.

While animated AND based on a comic book character, Alita is NOT for children. There is EXTREME violence, which includes dismemberment, crushed heads, and death. It is likely the movie might have been saddled with an R rating had Cameron and Rodriguez not had the simple foresight to make cyborg “blood” obviously manufactured blue instead of gory red. There is at least one gratuitous “F” bomb uttered by Alita, herself. And they even violate one of MY personal taboos – they KILL A DOG! Though this happens, admittedly, out of sight, Alita smears the dog’s red blood under her eyes like war paint before beginning her quest to defeat the tyrannical forces which have been unleashed against her and her ersatz family.

As a result this is not a movie either for the young nor the faint of heart.  For a more mature audience, however, it is a spectacular and creatively told outing. It is interesting to almost “feel” the Japanese manga origins in the way the characters react in more restrained, almost “Vulcan” ways than an America audience might be used to.

In addition, the plot moves along quickly and efficiently. It does not dawdle on relatively trivial points on which many similar genre American movies might languish. For example, there is a bit of tension created from Ido not telling Alita initially that the name he chose for her was that of his murdered daughter. (In the original manga series it was Ido’s cat, but Cameron’s script, wisely, I thought, decided on a more emotionally compelling attachment). Honestly, in an America movie this omission might have been held on to for a prolonged period then left as a mid-first act or even mid-second act “reveal”. Instead, Alita establishes this “secret” only long enough for the audience to find out, then has Ido explain it to Alita fairly expeditiously.  To avoid spoilers I won’t give any more examples, but suffice to say this style is adapted throughout the movie. Such choices clear the way for a more intelligent plot.

I do recommend Alita but only for an older audience of late teens/young adults and up. It is refreshingly different and well written. It features excellent acting, especially considering the massive amounts of green screen in the landscape and motion capture equipment on the people with which the actors must contend. The music is worth listening to all by itself. But DO keep in mind the ending is VERY unsatisfying – albeit contrived purposefully so – as a build up for the next installment.