BLUE JASMINE

BLUE JASMINE 

Without a dream in my heart

Tonight, a glorious and warm Spring-like Saturday night, I decided to confine myself at home with a thin crispy French baguette with crab spread followed by some prime Belgian chocolate and coffee, while watching Woody Allen’s latest film: Blue Jasmine. 

I didn’t expect much, especially after hearing from various sources that the high point of the film is Cate Blanchet’s performance. That, in itself, suggests that the film may be at best “enjoyable”.

This is indeed the impression one has at the beginning, especially with the constant alternate flashbacks (Something I never enjoyed in story-telling), until, quite unexpectedly but firmly so, we start getting more and more involved and drawn in to the story.  Obviously, this is a film directed by Woody Allen, which amounts to unusual levels of intelligence for Hollywood Standards, coupled with a deep understanding of human psychology and an uncanny talent for story-telling, and when these ingredients come together and the story works, the result is always a step higher than the best around.

Cate Blanchet plays Jasmine French (What a delightfully chosen name for her character), a delusional Park Avenue socialite married to successful multi-business owner and millionaire Hal, played by Alec Baldwin.  

When Hal is arrested on serious tax evasion and fraud charges, all assets are frozen and Jasmine, left with nothing, travels to San Francisco to be with her sister Sally, who has two hyperactive kids, and gets by with a simple supermarket job. Sally’s boyfriend Chili (played by Bobby Cannavale) and in fact her whole world represent the antithesis of Jasmine’s vanished privileged world.  In this set of circumstances, Jasmine struggles to find herself again, by making herself believe that she can craft a new reality, working and getting up the ladder from ground zero, but instead she quickly falls prey to her own delusions of grandeur, from which there is no escape.

The film is clever in that it shows life and human beings as they are, as they think and as they act in our modern western society.   I am often positively surprised with Woody Allen’s insight into human psychology and how easy he makes it for us to relate to the characters portrayed.  Cate Blanchet is indeed fantastic in her role but it’s the screenplay and directing genius that put it all in place for her. The dialogues are pure Allen and the tone of the film is neither that of a drama nor that of a comedy, it doesn’t rely on the usual emotion triggers we are used to, it handles serious emotions all the same with some naturally subtle comic scenes, something very few directors are able to pull off, especially these days..

Jasmine is the portrait of a woman who lived by an acquired idea of herself, in a world where not only fortunes are volatile, but also a whole set of circumstances and ultimately identity.  

In all Woody Allen films I can think of, characters are plagued with flaws from which they cannot escape, much like characters in Dostoyevsky’s tales. Flaws that determine behavior, ascension and fall. Flaws that are characteristic of our own human nature. Some of us accept these flaws and opt for forgiveness and acceptance, whereas others choose to mask and manipulate, which, as in all good Greek Tragedies, (another ever present element of Allen’s stories) always ends up in self-demise.   
Jasmine’s story is that of a downfall and the song “blue moon” to which she clings to the very end, is extremely well chosen as a song that seems to tempt and escape us at the same time.

Blue Jasmine is an intricate, intelligent film, delivered with an ease that characterizes one of our best contemporary directors. Highly enjoyable and highly recommended. 

Trailer:

RELEASED: August 2013

Director: Woody Allen

Running Time: 98 mn

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin

Rating: 3,5 stars

SOMEWHERE IN TIME

SOMEWHERE IN TIME 

“Time travel IS possible”

THE PLOT:

Richard Collier is a successful playwright who lives in Chicago and seems to have everything going for him except for the fact that he never found the “right one”. The film starts with an odd moment when, during a reception, an old woman approaches Collier and gives him an old and beautiful pocket watch. She whispers “come back to me” and then turns and walks away.

Eight years later, faced with writer’s block, Collier spontaneously decides to take a weekend trip. He drives aimlessly and eventually winds up on Mackinac Island, in Michigan, where he enters the sumptuous Victorian-era Grand Hotel.

While waiting for the dining room to open, he wanders into the Hall of History, a room where some artifacts from the hotels past are exhibited. There, and in a scene of rare beauty, he is captivated by an old photograph of a beautiful woman. 

After some enquiries he finds out that her name is Elise MacKinnon, a turn-of the century famous actress who once appeared in a play in the hotel’s theater. 

Collier becomes obsessed with her and soon discovers that an old caretaker of Elise still lives nearby. He visits her and that’s how he understands that the old woman who handed him the pocket watch, (on what would turn out to be the night she died), was in fact Elise, the same one as in the photograph that mesmerized him.

While there, Collier notices a book on time travel written by an old colleague professor of his, a book that according to Elise's caretaker, she had read over and over again.

Upon meeting the professor and discussing the possibility of time travel, Collier decides to try a self induced hypnosis in order to travel back in time and meet Elyse. He succeeds and travels back to the year 1912, the day prior to Elise’s performance at the grand hotel. 

Thoughts on Somewhere in time:

I sometimes wonder to which degree my own perception of events defines and may alter these same events. It does sound offbeat I grant you this, but something in me seems to sense that we only truly live in the world we are able to see and perceive, and somehow, in an intricate and elaborate plan, this world only truly exists through our own perception of it. There probably isn’t a definite objectivity we can ever grasp, and if there is one, it’s most certainly always out of our reach. Character, personality and perception seem to be the forging force at the setting of our own circumstances. The primordial utensil we rely on, is at the same time that from which we must naturally escape in search of a true essence of being (or non-being).The world we envision is there only to the extent of our desire..

Richard Collier wanted so much, and so passionately, to meet Elise, that he did in fact travel to a reality where they both could co-exist. How he did it defies logic, but then again logic is a process of thought within a limited system computed to our own limited understanding of things. It doesn’t quite matter to understand how this was possible in practical terms, and I praise the scriptwriter for giving us as little insight as possible on this matter, because what actually prevails in this story, is the overwhelming genuine essence of passion, which enables the impossible to happen.

Those who will question the why’s and how’s of the story, will miss the point entirely. The first step to enjoy this film, is quite simply to believe in it, become Collier..  Once we take this step, and if there is an inkling of passion in us, we will, as Collier, wish to never wake up again. “Somewhere in time” is a story of passion and dreams, a story of defying logic, if only for a brief moment. It’s this “leap of faith” often talked about and rarely taken, it embodies long forgotten dreams most commonly found in early childhood memories. “Somewhere in time” is devoid of the artistry of Erice or Tarkovsky, yet it reaches the same plateau in that it claims a life of its own once you allow its magic to unfold.

Trailer:

RELEASED: October 1980

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Running Time: 103 mn

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour

Rating: 4 stars