Everywhere
Happily, in the realm of cinema, there is no shortage of great movies that romance the environment we so urgently need to protect. Water features prominently in film as the single element that can sustain us or wipe us out – whether a film portrays a man dying of thirst in the desert, or thousands of passengers going down with the ship.
Dive a little deeper, and you discover that water serves as a potent metaphor for purity, tranquility and escape from our hectic, land-locked lives. Water can even signify the purity of true love.
Case in point: Jean Vigo’s “L’Atalante”(1934). A sublime melding of the real and surreal, the deceptively simple plot concerns Jean, captain of a barge on the Seine, who marries innocent Juliette, and takes her to live on his boat. Soon Juliette feels stifled by life on the water. At one point, when the barge is moored, she sneaks off to explore Paris. Jean discovers her missing, and frantically searches for her, making us feel the couple’s very survival is at stake. Life on water is Eden, life on land, temptation. We the audience instinctively want the sanctity of their love upheld. An acknowledged masterpiece, “L’Atalante” still floats gracefully, with actor Michel Simon stealing the show as Pere Jules, the barge’s eccentric, cantankerous first-mate.
Sixteen years later, Jean Renoir would transfer his intense fascination with India onto celluloid in “The River.” Near the Bengal River, Captain John, a disabled war veteran, enters the lives of three young women. Their tentative interactions with John form a stunning, sensitive coming-of-age story, contrasting temporal issues of love and healing with the eternal, cyclical flow of the mighty Bengal. Quite simply, one of the most beautiful films ever made.
Lest we forget, water also makes things grow. Claude Berri directed two magnificent films centering on the bounty we owe to water: “Jean de Florette” (1986) and “Manon of The Spring” (1987), comprising two parts of one rich story.
In “Jean,” set in 1920’s Provence, we meet crafty farmer Cesar (Yves Montand) and his dim-bulb nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil). They both covet the adjoining land, which holds a spring capable of sustaining a lucrative flower growing business. Unfortunately, on the death of their old neighbor, one Jean Cadoret (Gerard Depardieu) inherits the acreage, and decides to farm it himself. In an act of treachery, Cesar and his nephew block up the spring, and watch impassively as Jean struggles with his wife and young daughter Manon to find water for his crops. Jean becomes an unwitting victim of Cesar’s innate greed, but the tale is only half told.
In “Manon,” Jean’s daughter has grown into a lovely young woman who tends sheep in the hills. Spying the elusive shepherdess one day, Ugolin falls helplessly in love, and Uncle Cesar encourages him to court her. Yet Manon is piecing together what really happened to her father’s farm several years before. She not only rejects Ugolin, but plots revenge for his and Cesar’s past deeds. “Jean” and “Manon” make an ideal double feature for a rainy day, but be sure to watch “Jean” first. Depardieu and Montand are superb.
Under-exposed and underrated, Bob Rafelson’s majestic “Mountains of The Moon” (1990) recounts the mid-nineteenth century adventures of explorer Sir Richard Burton (Patrick Bergin), as he joins with Lieutenant John Speke (Iain Glen) to penetrate the heart of Africa and discover the source of the Nile. Gripping and visually breathtaking, the human drama is equally strong, as Burton and Speke first bond on their arduous journey, then (for reasons I won’t disclose) become estranged once back in England. Speke is from a solid, old English family, perfectly suited in the eyes of influential Londoners to take credit for the expedition, while Burton, an Irishman, is rough-hewn and out-of-place, a “modern” stuck in Victorian England. This fascinating, richly detailed film is a must for modern-day explorers at heart, with Bergin suitably rugged in the lead.
I close with John Sayle’s winning fable, “The Secret of Roan Inish” (1994). Set on the West Coast of Ireland in the late 1940s, the film revolves around Fiona, a plucky young girl who goes to live with her grandparents when her mother dies. They live right across from their prior island home, Roan Inish, which the family abandoned a few years earlier, when, at high-tide, Fiona’s baby brother Jamie drifted out to sea in his wooden cradle. Soon Fiona is hearing tales about “selkies”— seals that turn into humans — and rumors that Roan Inish is still occupied. Could little Jamie still be alive? Fiona goes on to uncover a mystery that sheds light on her family’s history and the fate of her little brother. An intimate, deliberately paced film, the fable casts its spell gradually, but leaves you feeling warm and satisfied. “Inish” also benefits from lush cinematography by Haskell Wexler, and first-rate turns from Jeni Courtney as Fiona and Mick Lally as kindly grandfather Hugh. If you love the water and believe in magic, watch this small gem of a movie.
For more timeless movies on DVD, visit www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com.
Bill Abranowicz