UNTAMED HEART 

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return

Bear with me for a minute: This isn’t Louis Malle, yet Untamed Heart touches at the same core, provided that you are familiar with feelings of passion and not too much of an intellectual to dismiss this film on the grounds that it looks like your typical Hollywood romantic drama recipe with a more or less predictable twist. No. Untamed Heart is in many ways flawed, in many ways naïve, in many ways inconsistent, but the real enchantment it contains easily throws away all these flaws, and removes any type of prejudice if only we let ourselves be enchanted.

Untamed heart is a modern fairy-tale about Love, Passion and Sincerity (all written with capital letters) that takes place in a working class setting in Minneapolis.

The film begins by showing us an event that occurred in the past at an orphanage. Adam is a small boy who lives at the orphanage. He has a serious heart condition that makes him faint and puts his life at risk, so much so that he needs heart surgery. A nun tells him a fairy-tale-like story about him having the heart of a baboon, possibly in view of encouraging him to feel stronger, more confident and less fearful of his faith.

The story moves to the present time, and now in his mid 20’s, Adam, (played by Christian Slater), is shy and mysterious, he never speaks to anyone, works as a dishwasher in a diner and lives alone with his dog.

Caroline, (played by Marisa Tomei), works at the same diner as a waitress. One night Adam saves Caroline from an attempted rape on her way home after work. Caroline is grateful and curious, and Adam slowly breaks his self-imposed silence and distance. Caroline is the first person he truly opens up to. Slowly, they find themselves inevitably drawn to each other.  

There is a wonderful sense of chemistry between them, and Christian Slater plays Adam with the right measure of mystery and innocence. Until the day he met her, all he had was his records and particularly a beautiful haunting theme he refers to as “magic”, Roger Williams version of nature boy, which I feel compelled to share here:

Untamed heart reminds us all that it’s Love that creates princes and princesses and not the other way around. The film is simply moving, and will make sense to anyone with a heart.

Untamed heart ends with the classic Nat King Cole rendering, and these hauntingly beautiful lyrics:

There was a boy

A very strange enchanted boy.

They say he wandered very far, very far,

Over land and sea.

A little shy

And sad of eye,

But very wise, very wise was he...

Until one day,

One lucky day he passed my way,

And while we talked of many things

Fools and kings,

This he said to me:

"The greatest thing

You’ll ever learn

Is just to love

And be loved

In return."

What I love about Untamed Heart is that it doesn’t try to aim higher than it actually gets. It doesn’t try to be an epic and shattering love drama. It’s just there, quietly and innocently illustrating how simple and how beautiful life can be if only we believe in enchantment. 

Well deserving of a solid 3,5 stars rating. Watch it.

RELEASED: February 1993

Director: Tony Bill

Running Time: 102 mn

Cast: Christian Slater, Marisa Tomei

Rating: 3,5 stars

EQUUS 

“At least I galloped - when did you?”

Peter Shaffer was traveling through the English countryside when he happened to come across a local news story of a young man who had blinded 6 horses. Shaffer wondered about what could have triggered such a violent act, and based on these premises, he wrote the play “Equus”

Equus is one possible explanation for this strange event, brilliantly directed by Sidney Lumet, based on Shaffer’s screenplay and with Shaffer himself on-set during filming.

 The story:

When 17 year old Alan Strang (played by Peter Firth), blinds six horses with a metal spike, he is referred by the magistrates to the care of psychiatrist Dr. Martin Dysart (played by Richard Burton). Dysart first tries to engage Alan in conversation by asking basic questions, but Alan is detached, uncooperative and defiant. He does not answer any questions but resorts instead to singing meaningless television jingles. 

In order to unlock the truth about what led Alan to blind six horses, Dysart opts for a series of sessions that include suggestion and hypnosis. 
In the meantime Dysart digs deeper into Alan’s life, visiting Alan’s parents, as well as Alan’s employer at the stable where Alan worked. However, as we slowly unearth pieces of the puzzle, a veil of opacity and confusion sets in. Contradicting stories and hidden secrets start to emerge.

As Dysart methodically unveils layer after layer in his search for the truth, he comes face to face with his particular predicament and starts questioning himself and his own moral authority. Slowly it is not only Alan who is under analysis, but Dysart himself, and with this, an entire set of values and beliefs we all take for granted.

Thoughts on Equus:

The story is presented in a slow but captivating manner, alternating fantastically well written narrative with flashbacks. Shaffer’s adaptation works so well, that I cannot imagine any stage version being better than this.

The opening scene is a close-up on an intricate dagger adorned with a skull, reminiscent of ancient Celtic mysticism. This is followed by a scene that feels like the setting for a Velázquez painting, in which Alan stands naked next to a white horse, in a deserted field at night. From this scene, Dysart embarks on a striking monologue that only becomes clearer in retrospective, when we later understand the extremity of the facts and all their implications.

Through his own analysis of Alan, Dr. Dysart comes to realize that something fundamental has passed him by, something Alan himself has embraced with a fury only paralleled in Greek tragedy, and something Dysart only ever admired from afar: The staggering depths of passion. Unbridled passion and worship, free of any vestiges of restraint, is really the essence of what is at stake here. The notion of Love with a capital “L” pales by comparison.

In Equus, Alan creates a God figure, a pagan God that grants him his ultimate escape. Through hypnosis and suggestion induced by Dr. Dysart, Alan recounts how every three weeks or so he takes out at night one of the horses from the stable he works at and rides him naked, shouting words of praise and love, becoming "one" with the horse.. His own sexual awakening and abandonment becomes the ultimate vehicle of worship.  

This bizarre yet profoundly unique act that seems to emanate from the fringes of madness, is in fact an expression of passion in its purest state, and ultimately, an act of defiance towards our human condition. Much alike Sisyphus defiance of death, Alan creates his own Eden and discards his “ball and chain” in ceremonial fits of passion.

But Equus “the almighty” is both a savior and a judge, a guide and a guard, looking at Alan’s each and every move. “I am yours and you are mine”. In mimicking his God Alan becomes chained. In Passion he unchains himself and finds bliss.

And so we have the setting for one fundamental question about life, when for example Dysart claims “I can’t see it because my educated average head is being held at the wrong angle”, “normality” and everything we take for granted is questioned. Society molds people and education removes the ability to feel deeply. Though Alan’s actions are demented, it is ironically only through demented actions that we can be reminded of passion and the ultimate real search for this sort of spiritualism generally lacking in our lives.

To quote Dysart again:  “Life is only comprehensible through a thousand local gods... spirits of certain trees, of certain curves of brick walls, of certain fish and chip shops if you like. And slate roofs, and frowns in people, and slouches... I'd say to them, "Worship all you can see, and more will appear...” 




This clearly tells us to observe better and longer. To not draw immediate conclusions, to not buy into ready-made philosophies but rather have a free unbiased mind, be critical, be attentive, and fearless..

Normality is our ultimate downfall.. “The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills like a God. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal”

To go through life and call it yours - your life - you first have to get your own pain. Pain that's unique to you. You can't just dip into the common bin and say 'That's enough!'...

Richard Burton gives one of his great performances, if not his best, and Peter Firth is clearly born to play this role, which he played more than 1000 times before on stage.

As far as the plot goes, one could argue that a trained psychiatrist would not dwell on such questions, but this is really beyond the point.

The point is: Does anyone really ask these questions, deeply, sincerely and without fear?

Equus is a film that asks no easy questions and offers no easy moral judgments. It is a mature, articulate and intelligent study of the human psyche that demands to be seen. It touches at the core of essential questions that are often hard to ask and remain almost always unanswered.

Very few people could have directed this film. Apart from Sidney Lumet perhaps only Ingmar Bergman could have approached it in such perfection as Lumet did.

Highly recommended and currently in my all time top 3.

RELEASED: October 1977

Director: Sidney Lumet

Running Time: 137 mn

Cast: Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter

Rating: 5 stars MASTERPIECE

GALLIPOLI- (GELIBOLU) The front line experience

I do not command you to fight, I command you to die. 
In the time it will take us to die we can be replenished by new forces.
Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk)

GELIBOLU is the Turkish documentary on Gallipoli, by director Tolga Örnek.

Having seen several times Peter Weir’s film “Gallipoli”, I was interested in watching the Turkish counterpart, especially knowing that it is almost entirely based on surviving diaries, letters and photographs from both sides of the war.

Gelibolu surpassed all my expectations. It is an objective account of what happened at Gallipoli, in which director Tolga Örnek presents war itself as the sole enemy in an absolute unbiased and profoundly humane and heartfelt portrayal of events.

The film recounts the events as they unfolded chronologically, always coming back to the actual diaries and letters of two British, three New Zealand, three Australian and two Turkish soldiers, beautifully read by Jeremy irons and Sam Neil.

Against the backdrop of the war, we witness the path of these soldiers on both sides of the war, their thoughts, their wishes, their fears, their innocence laid bare though their letters, existing photographs and even films of the actual training camps in Egypt as well as battle scene locations and re-enactments.

There are also interviews with several experts, newspaper headlines and areal maps, all of it thoughtfully and meticulously assembled. Tolga Örnek’s documentary actually pierces through the story with a fierce realism that is perhaps only equaled by Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.

There is, aside from the realism of the portrayal, a splendid and unique sense of intimacy in hearing these letters that make up the texture of the film. We feel that we know these men. Their words echo with tremendous accuracy the realities of war. The music of Demir Demirkan is simply beyond words. 

The pictures that follow are all taken from the film and portray real soldiers in the field and with their families.

On an inscription overlooking Anzac cove (Where the allied troops landed), one can read the following quote from Mustafa Kemal (Who went on to lead Turkey out of the Ottoman era as Atatürk):

Those heroes that shed their blood 

and lost their lives… 

You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. 

Therefore rest in peace. 

There is no difference between the Johnnies

and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side 

here in this country of ours… 

You, the mothers, 

who sent their sons from faraway countries 

wipe away your tears; 

your sons are now lying in our bosom 

and are in peace, 

after having lost their lives on this land they have 

become our sons as well.

From Wikipedia:

Mustafa Kemal exceeding his authority and contravening orders in so doing. His speech "I do not command you to fight, I command you to die. In the time it will take us to die we can be replenished by new forces" ( Turkish: "Ben size taaruzu değil, ölmeyi emrediyorum. Biz ölünceye kadar geçecek zaman zarfında yerimize başka kuvvetler ve kumandanlar geçebilir") has entered history.

The 57th Regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel Huseyin Avni, fulfilled the order precisely. 

The entire regiment fell in battle.

Total Allied deaths were 43,000 British, 15,000 French, 8,700 Australians, 2,700 New Zealanders and 1,370 Indians. Total Turkish deaths were around 60,000. New Zealanders suffered the highest percentage of Allied deaths when compared with population size, but the percentage of Turkish deaths was almost twice theirs.

2015 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.

The documentary ends with the narration of the longest Turkish letter to survive the battle, written by a young Turkish captain on May the 31^st 1915:

Monday, may 31 1915

Ariburnu

To my beloved father and mother,

Dear father, beloved mother,

During the first terrible battle I fought at Ariburnu, a bullet grazed my right side and passed through my trousers. God be praised. I was spared, but, I do not hope to survive future battles in which I will fight.

I am writing these lines so you have something to remember me by.

I thank God that he enabled me to become a soldier and reach this rank. You, as my parents, did all you could to raise me and make it possible for me to serve my country and my people. You are my heart, you are my soul and you are the inspiration to my life. 
I am eternally grateful to God and to you.

Beloved father, dearest mother, I entrust my beloved wife, and my dear son, first to God and then to your protection. Please do for them whatever is possible. Please help my wife in raising my son and providing him with the necessary education.  I know that we are not wealthy or people of means. So I know I cannot ask for anything more than what is possible. 
To ask would be quite in vain.

Please give the enclosed letter addressed to my wife into her own hands.  
She will be devastated. So please do what you can to console her grief. 
She will weep and mourn, please comfort her…

Dear relatives, beloved friends and comrades, farewell to you all.

All of you please bid me farewell and pray for my soul. I will pray for yours.

Beloved father and mother, I eternally entrust you to God.

Farewell

Your son Mehmet Tevfik

Mehmet Tevfik was killed 2 weeks later.

The film: Turkish original version)

RELEASED: November 2005

Director: Tolga Örnek

Running Time: 90 mn

Cast: (Narrated by): Sam Neil, Jeremy Irons

Rating: 4,5 stars

GALLIPOLI

"Wilfred... was last seen running forward like a schoolboy in a foot-race, with all the speed he could compass."

(Taken  from C.E.W. Bean's Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 describing Private Wilfred Harper of the 10th Light Horse during the attack at the Nek)

Gallipoli is the setting of Australia’s and New Zealand’s dramatic involvement in the first world war, when allied forces tried (and failed) to reach Constantinople in order to knock Turkey out of the war and secure a sea route to Russia. With fierce battle and heavy losses on both sides, Gallipoli was one of the bloodiest battles of the first world war.

The film follows the journey of two friends from rural Australia, Archy Hamilton (played by Mark lee) and Frank Dunne (played by Mel Gibson), both runners, who cross the desert to join the 10th Light Horse Regiment in Perth. Archy sees a purpose in joining. The war appears to him as something meaningful and larger than life. Frank who is penniless joins with no real purpose in mind. After successfully enlisting in Perth, they are sent to Egypt to an Australian training camp before leaving to Gallipoli.

The opening scene of the film shows us Archy training at dusk in the Australian outback, under the strong supervision of his uncle. He is one of the fastest runners in Australia and may very well become a champion, but Archy has other aspirations, that of joining the great war and doing something meaningful.

The two friends cross the desert to reach Perth. They get lost and are literally saved by an old man who happened to cross their path and gives them water and food. The old man has never heard of the European war and finds it intriguing that these two young lads wish to participate in such a remote war.

Later on, at the Egypt camp we see them playing rugby with other troops between the sphinx and the pyramids. We see them climbing a pyramid and engraving their names on a stone for posterity.

One of the most memorable moments I have seen in cinema, is the transition that happens between the farewell ball where you see them dancing a Strauss Waltz, to the landing at night on the Turkish peninsula, with Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor in the background. The moment is shattering and feels like a scene from Dante’s inferno.

Another majestic use of music in the film is Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene” juxtaposed to the running and desert scenes, the “solar” moments of the film. It contrasts sharply with the classical music and acts swiftly as a lifeline, a pulsating beat, a driving force.

What is extraordinary about the story is the way it is told, almost like a tribute to life itself and loss of innocence. In one of the opening scenes we see uncle Jack reading from the Jungle book, a scene where Mowgli has reached manhood and must now leave the family of wolves that raised him. Throughout the film we are subtly reminded of the frailty of our human condition. The pyramids, the vastness of the desert, and ultimately the brutal reality of war. The use of George Bizet’s  “Pearl fishers”  in light of all this is simply magical. You can hear the general listening to this precise passage alone in his tent at night:

In Gallipoli we have a film of heightened beauty and human values.

One of Peter Weir’s masterpieces.

If you should chose only 5 or 10 films to watch in your life, this should be one of them.

RELEASED: August 1981

Director: Peter Weir

Running Time: 110 mn

Cast: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee

Rating: 4,5 stars

Brief Encounter

Adapted from Noel Coward’s play “Still Life”, directed by Alan Bridges and produced by Carlo Ponti, the 1974 film “Brief Encounter” is a small masterpiece, easily brushed under the carpet by all those who tend to believe that love stories should reflect glamour and heroism. On the contrary, this is a tale of uncomfortable passions and unspoken words.

Two strangers, both married, meet accidentally at a railway station, Burton who is a doctor, removes a particle of grid from Sophia Loren’s eye. They meet again by chance and become infatuated with each other. We sense on Burton’s side that he is taken by a passion that is beyond him, especially in the moment when Sophia Loren visibly falls for him and notices that he looks just like a little boy. In this moment she touches his heart unwillingly, most likely in a way that no-one has ever done before. She is in contemplation, in a much different state than he is, almost in a dream-like hypnotic state of mind. Through their short-lived encounters and conversations, they are taken to places they had forgotten about, places where dreams co-exist with reality.  Richard Burton is tempestuous in his passion (A trait he embodies gracefully as he did in “The Medusa Touch”) whereas Loren is frail, eerie, detached, almost as someone who stepped aside long ago, to become a mere observer of her own life. Burton acts as an inevitable trigger of her awakening, but on their first escapade together, there are irrefutable signs that this acquaintance under the sign of deceit is doomed to fail.  A road accident they witness on the countryside leaves a gloomy and bitter taste in the air.

Burton makes arrangements to meet in a friend’s apartment (They have nowhere else to go), but what happens there is nightmarish for both of them.  Burton’s friend, Steven, arrives home earlier than planned and we learn that Burton had not told Steven he would be bringing a friend over. Steven who is inebriated, comments on this, (not without a touch of sarcasm) and suspects that this is all just a fling with a nurse.  Loren sneaks out, humiliated, exposed, degraded, leaving behind her jacket and purse. Burton runs after her and finds her at the train station cafeteria, but now all that remains is an overwhelming feeling of shame, humiliation and sacrilege. The ultimate violation of a temple never conquered. Loren comments “It all seemed so innocent.. it was like a dream of love”

The final scenes are heartbreaking. Again a train rages through the station and acts as a powerful metaphor to all that is fleeting in our world and the very brief moments we have to make decisions that impact that rest of our lives.

RELEASED: November 1974

Director: Alan Bridges

Running Time: 74 mn

Cast: Sophia Loren, Richard Burton

Rating: 4 stars