FILM REVIEW: ONE CUT, ONE LIFE

Ed Pincus in One Cut, One Life.

The camera, the cancer, and the camaraderie

By John Esther

After the notable documentarian Ed Pincus was diagnosed with a terminal illness, compounded by other illnesses, he reunited with collaborator Lucia Small (The Axe in the Attic) to create a final first-person nonfiction film, One Cut, One Life.

Told by two different, but not too different, points of view, along with the sporadic disapproval of Ed's wife, Jane, One Cut, One Life offers a grand finale to one of cinema's most important filmmakers and the wife, friend and filmmaker he left behind.

Shot in nine parts, labeled by a season, plus an epilogue, One Cut, One Life, starts with the diagnoses of Ed and his subsequent medical treatments. As the seasons roll on and the loss of life seems more inevitable, the filmmaking begins to take a toll on everyone involved. Like two intellectuals from different backgrounds, education, gender and geographical cultures, Ed and Small, again, differ on what direction the film should take. Meanwhile, Jane finds the cinematic endeavor an intrusion into the life she has lived with a man for over 50 years.

Ultimately, the narrative of life wins over any objections one of the collaborators may have had, but One Cut, One Life assures us that the deceased collaborator probably could not have wanted it a different way. At any rate, he had no choice. Ultimately, he had to trust his friend and fellow filmmaker.

A bittersweet testimony to documentary filmmaking, collaboration and camaraderie, that trust was not betrayed.

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SXSW 2015: A WOMAN LIKE ME

A scene from A Woman Like Me.

Alternative reality

By Miranda Inganni

In 2011 director Alex Sichel (All Over Me) was informed she had a terminal disease. As a way of facing her fears and processing the information, she, along with A Woman Like Me co-director Elizabeth Giamatti, decided to make a film about a woman who is given the same prognosis. She also decided to direct a documentary about her life post-diagnosis, including the making of the movie. It’s not exactly a movie-within-a-movie, or a movie about a movie, but rather a hybrid thereof.

As Sichel described it when she got her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, she felt like she was watching a movie about a woman with cancer. And so she set about making that movie with (the fantastic) Lili Taylor playing the lead role of Anna Seashell in hopes that Anna’s reactions would be more optimistic that Sichel’s real life ones. The movie gives Sichel the chance to control the outcome: direct the disease or redo “scenes” that she thought she should have performed differently in real life. Sichel practices her reactions to the grim news (even her own death scene) and gets a chance to recreate chapters from her life via Anna. But both the fictionalized character’s life and the life Sichel presents in the documentary are manipulated by Sichel and at times A Woman Like Me feels selfish. But it also feels tender.  (I cannot imagine making a movie, let alone while undergoing cancer treatments and reconciling one’s own end of life.

Sichel’s life in A Woman Like Me is hectic with her family. Erich, her husband, and Anastasia, her daughter, are both featured heavily, as are other family members. She undergoes holistic treatments and explores non-Western ways of dealing with the disease, exploring a “Buddhist experience of cancer.”  She coaches Taylor through scenes and rehearsals. Faced with a death that she knows will come too soon, Sichel often presents a surprisingly upbeat persona in A Woman Like Me, her legacy.

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FILM REVIEW: WILD

Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) in Wild.

Strayed on the path

By John Esther

Things are tough for Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon).  A smart, well-read and married person, Strayed falls into a spiral of heroin use and random sexual encounters after her mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern), dies of cancer at the age of 45.

Knowing, accepting somewhere in the back of her mind and the front of books that this behavior is no good, Strayed decides to clean up her act, find herself, challenger her being, etc., by walking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

Stretching over 1,100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to British Columbia, Canada, making the journey is no small feat. But Strayed decided to do it solo. While she did not exactly walk the entire distance, Strayed made it from one end to the other, on her own without a man to guide her -- although Strayed does meet a few nice men (as well as a few menacing ones) along the way.

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) and written by Nick Hornsby (About a Boy), Wild is surprisingly a very entertaining film. Filled with drama, some good jokes -- including a very funny conversation about hobos -- and strong performances by Witherspoon (who seems to be on a small role this year) and Dern, Wild is an unabashedly feminist film. Some people say Strayed was crazy walking in the woods alone as a woman, suggesting she belonged at home in the city. As if home and the city are necessarily safe havens for women.

The film does have have two noticeable flaws.  One is the CGI Fox who seems to meet up with Strayed at certain points. It looks very fake (and we already have one fake Fox in America -- Bu dump chhh). The other shortcoming, though maybe less apparent, is the casting insofar as the genetic makeup of the actor playing Strayed (Witherspoon) could hardly come from the actors playing her mother (Dern) and father (Jason Newell). In other words, if this mother and father had a girl it would not resemble this daughter.

Oh, the film does have its share of blatantly obvious product placements, too. But I guess you have to raise the money for a film about an independent woman somewhere.

Also worth mentioning is the varied soundtrack. Clearly the highlight -- at least in terms of smarts -- is First Aid Kit's cover of R.E.M.'s "Walk Unafraid." Somebody did his or her research. The soundtrack also includes Portishead, and select, albeit unoriginal, Leonard Cohen songs. The rest of the soundtrack is pretty, softcore aural junk.

But those are minor quibbles. Wild runs a little under a brisk two hours, offering some beautiful elements of the California trail along with one woman's inspiring DIY courage, redemption and salvation.

You may want to go hiking afterward.

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FILM REVIEW: A WILL FOR THE WOODS

Clark Wang in A Will for the Woods. 

Back to nature

By John Esther

Faced with a terminal illness, Clark Wang decides to eschew America's typical burial methods and take the green way out and under. 

At most a slight deviation from the way most humans have been buried since time memorial, and continue to do so in much of the world, a green burial is the eco-friendly, formalized ritual where the deceased is laid to rest in a natural setting using biodegradable materials. There is no embalming or concrete involved. Often a simple stone is used as the marking spot. 

Not only does this ritual allow one to "return to the earth" in an environmentally responsible way, it also allows natural land to remain free from development since the land is now a burial site. 

While the "green burial movement" does play a notable role in A Will for the Woods, the documentary's other strength is how it captures Clark and his partner, Jane Ezzard, coming to grips with his impending death. Clark may not be very old, but this psychiatrist, musician, dancer, and overall very nice guy has been very sick for many years. We are here to witness Clark's last days

Credited with four film directors -- Amy Browne, Jeremy Kaplan, Tony Hale and Brian Wilson -- A Will for the Woods offers a unique and unflinching examination of how Clark lost the ultimate battle (as we all will) yet in the process won over many hearts and minds of those who came to know him both off and on screen (as only some will). Writing of which, A Will for the Woods is a worthy companion to Life Itself, Steve James' recent documentary on the late film writer, Roger Ebert. 

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PSIFF 2013: CAUGHT IN THE WEB

Ye Lanqiu (Yuanyaun Gao) in Caught in the Web.

Spinning yarns

By Miranda Inganni

Caught in the Web tells the tale of a terminally ill woman’s online character assassination in director Chen Kaige’s (Farewell My Concubine) latest film.

One day, budding news reporter Yang Jiaqi (Luodan Wang) secretly records on her phone a seemingly rude and selfish woman on a bus. Through Jiaqi’s cousin’s girlfriend (and Jiaqi’s housemate), Chen Ruoxi (Chen Yao) -- a young woman establishing herself as a reporter -- the video goes viral and becomes the topic of the day. Unbeknown to them, the video’s subject, Ye Lanqiu (Yuanyuan Gao), has just learned that she has advanced lymphatic cancer.

Lanqiu becomes an Internet villain overnight. Known simply as “Sunglasses Girl,” until her jealous colleague identifies her online, the scandal sends Lanqiu into hiding, but not until Jiaqi and her cousin, Yang Shoucheng (Mark Chao) film Lanqiu’s sincere apology for the ordeal.

In the meantime, Lanqiu has asked her boss, company president Shen Liushu (Xuegi Wang) for a loan and time off from her executive assistant position. Unfortunately for all involved, Mr. Shen’s wife (Chen Hong) interrupts the tearful moment and misreads the situation.

Lanqiu ends up hiring Shoucheng to ostensibly protect her from herself and to experience as much as possible out of the time that she has left.

And that’s only the first part of this China's most recent Oscar submission for Best Film in a Foreign Language. Whew!

With more plot twists and turns than any historic (or histrionic) romance, Caught in the Web is entertaining and intriguing. Mrs. Shen finds herself in a loveless marriage to a husband who relishes his power more than his wife or wealth. Mr. Shen enjoys manipulating the lives of those who he believes have caused him some harm, including his wife. Ruoxi will stop at nothing to establish her career in the industry while Jiaqi merely wants to play ball in the big league. Shoucheng wants to be a loyal boyfriend to Ruoxi, but finds himself falling for Lanqiu. Lanqiu on the other hand, as the only one who knows that her time is limited, doesn’t want to allow herself to get too close to anyone, even at the cost of her own reputation.

The performances throughout this drama/comedy are equally as excellent as the levels of intrigue. The human capacity for a knee-jerk response to even perceived gossip is an overwhelming theme to Caught in the Web, as is the point that anyone at any time can be destroyed by the power of the inter-webs.

 

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THEATER REVIEW: HOLDING ON - LETTING GO

Bobby (Barry Wiggins) and Lee (Iona Morris) in Holding On - Letting Go.

End zones

By Ed Rampell

Plenty of plays die, but few focus on dying. In our culture, death is the ultimate taboo, on and offstage. But Bryan Harnetiaux is not afraid. Holding On – Letting Go is the third in his end-of-life cycle of plays -- along with Vesta and Dusk. In Holding On – Letting Go the playwright not only explores the death process, which is a universal fixture of the human condition, but also in particular how it affects those involved in a realm where peak physical condition and health are especially important: Athletics.

Bobby (the towering Barry Wiggins) and his wife, Lee (the formidable Iona Morris), are former athletes now in their fifties. Past their sporting prime, both have become NCAA basketball coaches, but as the play opens, Bobby has already been struck by cancer and walks with the help of a cane.

Produced and performed at the Fremont Center Theatre in South Pasadena, the play follows the couple as they grapple with the disease that not only consumes and ravages Bobby, but threatens to do the same to their longtime union. Wiggins does a convincing job playing a man as he physically declines and must come to grips with fatal illness, death and with a wife who must be convinced her suffering husband is not “a quitter.”

Morris -- who directed, under extremely tough circumstances, Still Standing, the musical I wrote the book for and which was produced in Switzerland -- brings the steely determination I remember to bear on her character. Imbued with the spirit of the competitive world of sports, Lee is determined to win and beat the Big C. She views Bobby’s attitude as “quitting”; to him, it’s simply “realism.” For Lee, losing is simply not an option, and when conventional Western medicine fails, she insists on playing with another team via alternative healing, and embarks on a mission impossible.

Morris delivers a nuanced, bravura performance. Underneath the iron-willed persona beats a vulnerable heart, terrified at the finality of separation from her lifelong mate. Having finally met her match – the Grim Reaper -- the fearless competitor turns from defiance to denial. I’m sure Morris' father, actor Greg Morris, would be proud of his daughter’s sterling performance, which, Iona says, was crafted in part by watching hours of NCAA championship games.

In addition to Morris and Wiggens, the ensemble is deftly directed by James Reynolds. The rest of this two act drama’s cast is also up to par. As May, Amentha Dymally is poignant as Bobby’s doting mom, who comes to terms not only with her son’s demise, but with the daughter-in-law she has underestimated. As the devoted nurse Virginia, whom we’d all wish to have care for our loved ones in moments of need, Jill Remez (The Green Hornet, Lorca) excels. In addition to confronting the declining Bobby’s plague, she has to deal with the possessiveness, if not outright jealousy, of Lee, who, after years of marriage, is forced to allow another female tend to her husband’s bodily needs.

As the social worker Gabe and pastor Roger, Lamar Hughes and the appropriately named Christian Malmin round out the sympathetically drawn cast members who form Bobby’s support squad as he heads for that final round with the great scorekeeper in the sky.

Interestingly, the Fremont Center Theatre is actually a former mortuary, and I had reservations about seeing a play that revolved around the topic of death. But instead of feeling morbid, Harnetiaux’s drama is actually an enlightening, realistic look at the one fact of life none of us will ever escape, as well as at home and hospice care. The audience in the sold-out house applauded after each scene and gave a standing ovation at the end of the play, which on the night I attended was followed by a discussion with the cast and Vitas representatives. I ended up being glad I experienced this enlightening piece of live theatre, which you have a last chance to see before it fades to black next weekend. 

Holding On – Letting Go runs through June 3 at Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave. (at El Centro), South Pasadena, CA 91030. For reservations and information: (866)811-4111; www.fremontcentretheatre.com.

 

 

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