Efter brylluppet (After the Wedding) -- riches and relationships

Director: Susanne Bier, 2006 (R)

Jacob Pederson (Mad Mikkelsen, Adam’s Apple) is living an altruistic life in Bombay, India, helping to run an orphanage and school, enjoying the vibrant colors and bustle of a swarming city, even if most are poor. In reality, he is hiding from his past. But his past catches up with him.

The first act shows us Jacob’s life, and especially his relationship with a 7 year-old orphan. Jacob spends all day serving others and has little time for self-reflection on his own life. But the orphanage is close to bankruptcy. When a wealthy Danish philanthropist makes an offer of funding, it seems too good to be true. But there is a catch: Jacob must return to his home-town of Copenhagen to discuss the offer and sign the contract in person. Leaving, he promises the young boy he will return within a week to be at his 8^th birthday celebration.

The second and third acts play out in Denmark. Director Bier juxtaposes the pulsating effervescence of Bombay with its hundreds of hues with the cool and almost monochromatic Danish cityscape. Even the upscale hotel room Jacob is given is subdued in its Scandinavian furnishings. This is a different world. It is a world of hidden emotion and business dealings. Jacob seems uncomfortable in both.

When Jacob finally meets the self-made tycoon Jorgen Hannson (Rolf Lassgard), Jorgen seems uninterested, even bored. His mind is on the upcoming wedding of his daughter Anna. He decides to leave the discussions until the after the wedding, and tenders an invitation to Jacob to attend the wedding. Trying to refuse, he really cannot without offending his host and risking losing the charitable donation. But when he meets Jorgen’s wife Helene, Jacob’s past catches up with the present.

We all have some skeletons in our closets, secrets we wish to remain hidden, sins we are ashamed of. Even if we have confessed them and received forgiveness (1 Jn. 1:9), there are often future consequences that we may be unprepared for. We may think we have escaped scot-free (or Dane-free in this case), but sometimes these consequences have a habit of surfacing when we least expect them. Such is what happens to Jacob.

Bier has pulled a strong cast together. Most actors will be unfamiliar to a US audience except perhaps Mikkelsen. He is best known here as the Bond villain who wept blood in the remake of Casino Royale. He delivers a strong performance, but is matched by the other key actors. What could have become melodramatic ennui becomes dramatic intrigue from a personal perspective.

As the film progresses other secrets emerge that demonstrate manipulation. And despite the Christian wedding, the characters seem Christ-less and without hope. In one powerful scene, one character falls down in grief fearing death.

Although death is unwelcome and the usual response is “why me, why now”, yet it is a part of life, something to be faced. The apostle Paul contrasted worldly and Christian grief in his first letter to the Thessalonians. He said he did not want Christians to “grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). Those without Christ have nothing to look forward to. On the other hand, Christians have the hope of resurrection (1 Cor.15) and the hope that Jesus will return bringing with him those who have died in the Christian faith (1 Thess. 4:14-17). Jesus offers hope for this life and for the one to come.

Another important scene occurs at a large dinner party. When the host stands up to offer a toast, with death once more on his mind, he says: “Time is precious . . .  Every acquaintance, every friend, every person who has a place in your heart . . . it is the time with them that really means something, nothing else matters.” Here is the key message from the film, and one that drives a stake through Jacob’s heart.

Relationships matter. We can accrue great wealth, but if we live a barren life without friends, it counts for little. And it satisfies not. Jesus told a parable of a rich fool in Luke 12. The man had so much he planned to build bigger barns to store his treasures. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Lk. 12:20). In another place Jesus said, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (Lk. 9:25) Relationships trump riches. It would be nice to have both, but given the choice, the value of relationships surmount the value of riches. The Indian kids in poverty would rather enjoy the friendships in their crowded city than riches in a cold and friendless country.

After the Wedding helps us to reflect on the sins and errors of our past while thinking about the value of our relationships in the present and future. One may impact the other. But while we cannot change the past, we can focus on enjoying the present. And with faith in Christ, we can look confidently forward with hope to the future.

Copyright ©2013, Martin Baggs 

Thor -- wisdom and humility contrasted with recklessness and arrogance

Director: Kenneth Branagh, 2011 (PG-13)

What do you get when you cross a classic actor-turned director with a classic comic book hero? You get a Shakespearian version of a graphic novel. Or, turning it around, you get a Norse take on Shakespeare’s “Henry V”,which is how Kenneth Branagh, that fine actor who directed Hamlet, conceptualized this motion picture adaptation of Marvel’s Thor.

The movie opens in the dead of night on the New Mexico desert. Three astrophysicists, led by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace) are chasing some electromagnetic disturbance monitored from their RV. When they get caught up in the swirling dust raised by an intergalactic portal, they abruptly bump into a strange man: Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

After this rapid prologue, Branagh takes us to Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, as he establishes the mythology in the extended first act. We meet Odin (Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs), the king and old “all-father”, Thor, god of thunder, and his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), along with Thor’s band of brothers.

The themes of the story become evident from this first act: the father’s wisdom contrasted with the son’s recklessness. The former will be stable and constant, while the latter will force personal growth through Thor’s character arc.

The wisdom comes across first when Thor is young. Odin tells him, “A wise king never seeks out war, but he must always be ready for it.” Odin clearly symbolizes the patriarch in a pantheon of gods. He reminds us of the Almighty God, sovereign ruler, worshiped in the Christian faith. God is the fountain of wisdom -- “wisdom and power are his” (Dan. 2:20) – and the source or giver of wisdom – “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (Jas. 1:5). Like Odin, he desires not to go to war, but when forced to do so, he is willing to pick up the mantle. Satan forced his hand at creation and God has been involved in a spiritual battle ever since, with the victory likely to be secured in the climactic battle at Armageddon (Rev. 19).

Act one concludes when Thor in a fit of supreme recklessness takes his friends to fight against the sworn enemy, the Frost Giants, via the portal. Despite defying his father’s commands, he brings these two nations on different worlds to war. Odin, enraged, declares, “You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!” With that, he strips Thor of his hammer, his amulets, and his power and banishes him to the realm of earth, where he is merely a ripped and cut hunk, not a superhero.

Odin’s wife Frigga (Rene Russo) comments further on Odin’s wisdom to Loki: “There’s always a purpose to everything your father does.” This is as true of his exile of Thor as his selection of Loki not to be king.

Once again, this is reminiscent of God the Father. He always has a plan. As the prophet Jeremiah declares, God has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11) His eternal plans encompass everything from creation to culmination, including personal development for those who follow Jesus: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 3And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Rom. 8:29-30) He certainly does nothing without a reason and a purpose.

The second and third acts take place mostly on earth and comprise Thor coming to terms with his arrogance and recklessness. It takes a woman to help: Jane. While the fish-out-of-water aspects are touched on briefly, especially in a café scene, they are not developed. Instead, we see Thor resign himself to his fate when he finds he can no longer pick up his own hammer. This pivotal scene sets him on his knees and becomes the turning point in his growth.

Kenneth Branagh has a wonderful cast of actors, but they don’t have a lot to work with. Hopkins seems to be having a blast as Odin, the supreme king. He blusters and rages, all-powerfully. Hemsworth, in a star-making role, certainly looks the part as Thor, even if he speaks campy, mock heroic dialogue in a somewhat stiff manner. Stellan Skarsgard is more or less wasted as Erik Solvig, Jane’s mentor and friend. And Portman is a most unlikely astrophysicist. Yet, despite the superficiality and the staginess of some of the action sequences, this film is fun. And it does show a hero’s development.

The Thor of act one is arrogant and reckless, caring less for his wise father and more for adventure with his friends. He worries not what consequences he may cause for others; he simply wants to have fun by drinking and daring, feasting and fighting. He is a spitting example of the proverb: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). His fall is literal as well figurative, mythological as well as metaphorical.

The third act of Thor culminates in his growth and exemplifies another proverb: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom” (Prov. 11:2). Thor learns humility; he learns the value of life; he learns the significance of relationship. In one scene, he even adopts a Christ-like mantle of sacrifice. Although his growth is abrupt, it drives to heart of the movie and instills it with spirit and makes it fun.

As the old song goes, “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land.” Well, when Thor had a hammer, he was an immature brat. Without his hammer, he learns humility and teaches us that lesson with a does of humor.

Copyright ©2013, Martin Baggs 

Before Midnight -- permanence of relationships

Director: Richard Linklater, 2013 (R)

Nine years on from BeforeSunset, Richard Linklater’s latest film picks up the story of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) again. Here, this couple is more mature, less naïve, struggling to make their love survive the wear and tear of real life.

This third chapter is the best of the trilogy, a feat rare in cinematic history. And if you haven’t seen the first two chapters, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, you’d best stop reading here and go feast on those two before coming back to read this. There are spoilers that relate to those films implicit in this review.

This film starts in an airport in Greece. Jesse is putting his son, Hank, on a plane back to his mother, Jesse’s ex-wife, in Chicago.  He worries like an old woman about his boy’s travels, while his son takes it in stride. But when he emerges from airport and enters a mini-van, we see Celine there with beautiful twin girls. The ambiguous ending from the second film is answered without words.

On their way back to the villa where they are staying, the ancient Greek ruins that pass by outside juxtapose against their own relationship, which is now 18 years old. When Jesse starts fretting that he is an absent father, missing Hank’s pivotal transition from junior high to high school, Celine senses he wants to have them move to Chicago from their Paris home. With this intuition, she comments, “this is how it ends,” seeing their relationship beginning to fall into ruins like the stones in the fields. And herein is one of the key themes of this movie: the impermanence of love.

Like the previous two films, Before Midnight is replete with sharp, intelligent writing. Again the script was written by Linklater, Hawke and Delpy working together. It is humorous one minute, biting the next, with a subtext that is so real that mid-life married couples will recognize themselves in some of these conversations. Once more, Linklater makes use of long takes of these two people in conversation set against the beauty of a European location. But this time he brings in some additional characters to  give depth and perspective to the themes.

Jesse and Celine are staying with Patrick (Walter Lassally), an elderly writer who has opened up his villa to several couples ranging in age from early twenties (a similar age to Jesse and Celine in the first film), to mid-years, to old age.  In a group conversation over dinner, they discuss sex, love and relationships. The youngest couple declare, “We know thar we are going to break up eventually.” Nothing is permanent. Their relationship is built on a foundation of romantic love that has a cynical side impregnated already.  Even Jesse and Celine seem destined to part.

Romantic love is not a sure foundation for permanency. Such idealism will surely flounder with time, as it has for our star-crossed lovers. But if the relationship is founded in Jesus, there is both hope for the present and the future. Certainly, time will likely wear away the unbridled passion of youth. But with the years comes a blessed maturity of walking together in Christ.

Marriage is supposed to be permanent. The two people usually covenant together with vows that end with something like “I promise to stay with you, for all the days of my life”.  Two millennia ago, before crucifixion, Jesus commented on marriage, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matt. 19:6) But when two people decide not to enter into a marriage covenant they are already preparing for a future splintering. And this will be exacerbated by the stresses of middle life and teenage children.

Here is the contrast between Jesse and Celine’s relationship and one centered in God. They are not married and have not made a covenant commitment to one another. Although there is a love connection, it is not rooted deeply enough. Even though Jesse shouts out, “I am giving you my whole life. I’ve got nothing larger to give,” he is still holding something back. His answers to Celine’s questions are masked in a certain hypocrisy.

After two decades this couple is showing signs of age; the wear and tear of real life has worked its damage. They are no longer dreaming about the future; now they are discussing the past and its impacts on the present. Their earlier choices have come back to haunt them, and regret has settled in.  Jobs and kids become central, each putting strain on their relationship and threatening to pull it apart. Indeed, though they have been talking to each other for years, they have really only been comparing schedules and agendas. They have settled into a comfort-zone where they know each other’s hot buttons and subtle messages, and can turn a simple word into the beginnings of a battle.

This is the second theme: the difficulty of relationships. While Before Sunset introduced this, transitioning from the perspectives on love from Before Sunrise, here it is highlighted in parenthood, especially that which involves custody battles. Certainly, life does get hard and relationships are difficult. But in a Christ-centered marriage relationship we learn to depend on the other and on Jesus, so when stresses conspire to pull a couple apart, they look to Jesus to help draw them back together. The storms of life can then bind them together in even greater unity.

There are two clear references back to Before Sunrise. In that film, Jesse and Celine met for the first time as they were disgusted by a middle-aged married couple arguing loudly on a train. Here, they themselves have become this middle-aged married couple, now arguing loudly in a hotel room.

In the second half of the film, after the lengthy dinner conversation, Jesse and Celine find themselves in a hotel away from their kids for a romantic and sexy night alone. But in a thirty minute scene that is just the two of them talking, they move from conversational foreplay to drawing battle lines in a knock-down, drag-out fight. One word, it seems, can spark a fire that burns a relationship out (Jas. 3: 5-6). Such is the undercurrent of smoldering resentment that can remain dormant in a relationship until unleashed by the subtext of a trivial comment.

The second reference is more subtle. In Before Sunrise, there was a scene early in their time together when they were sitting alone in a music booth listening to a vinyl album. They cast awkward glances at one another, wondering what the other was thinking and perhaps whether they should kiss. Here, there is a scene toward the end where they sit at an outdoor café table. Once again, they cast awkward glances at one another, wondering what the other is thinking. This time they are not wondering whether they should kiss. They are wondering if their relationship will last even beyond midnight. And Linklater leaves us, once more, with an ambiguous ending, causing us to wonder if this relationship will end here in Greece. Perhaps we will have to wait another decade for a fourth installment. It would be worth the wait if this excellent trilogy were to be continued.

This beautiful third movie in the series leaves us realizing that love takes work. Any relationship, especially a marriage, requires mutual sacrifice (Eph. 5:21). It is conceived by a single decision, but it is sustained only by a daily decision to remain committed to being together for the rest of life. Sacrificial love and lifelong commitment are two key ingredients for a successful (marriage) relationship.

Copyright ©2013, Martin Baggs