[Frederica-l] CTMovies: The Air I Breathe

[Frederica at aol.com]

here's a review of a film that looks like it will only open in a few big 
cities -- LA and NYC today -- though perhaps it will be in some arthouses as well. 
The format at Christianity Today Movies requires some discussion questions at 
the end, advice to parents and so forth, which I'm including.
 
I spent some time thinking abt this genre of movie, which I arbitrarily call 
"drawstring", and how all the examples I could think of were post 1970's. If 
you can think of others (before or after that time), send em in. My theory is 
that this kind of plot couldn't be coherently presented on stage, and it took 
awhile for filmmakers to think of it. What I can think of from earlier movies 
is the opposite, stories that throw together a random group of people at the 
start and let the story go from there. 
 
Another example of a movie genre that has only become common in recent 
decades is the kind that scrambles time sequence. That could go back to Godard or 
Resnais, the 50's, I guess, but the flood of movies like Memento and Run Lola 
Run seems to have come in the last decade. And what about time-travel stories 
(eg Back to the Future); how long have those been around? I guess there's The 
Time Machine, but can't think of other examples. It's another story that would 
be hard to produce on stage. What do you think? 
 
******************
 
 
Title: The Air I Breathe            
Deck:  The lives of four strangers in crisis gradually draw together, with 
powerful effects on each.  
Stars:  2 
Rated:  R 
Genre: Drama 
Date Released, Studio: January 25, 2008 by ThinkFilm 
Runtime: 1 hour 37 min 
Cast: Kevin Bacon (Love), Forest Whitaker (Happiness), Brendan Fraser 
(Pleasure), Sara Michelle Gellar (Sorrow), Andy Garcia (Fingers) 
The Air I Breathe    
By Frederica Mathewes-Green 
I love movies like this. But, sad to say, I didn't love this movie. I hoped I 
would, but one clunker after another kept accumulating-a hackneyed character 
here, a stupid line of dialogue there-until it was sounding like a sneaker in 
a dryer.  
That's too bad, because this format has been the foundation of some terrific, 
thought-provoking films. You take a sizeable number of characters, most of 
whom have never met, and set their stories in motion. As the multiple plots 
unfold, each character is being drawn closer to the center, where a resolution 
awaits that, in the best of these films, can be simultaneously unexpected and 
inevitable. Let's coin a term and call them "drawstring" movies, a subset of the 
genre known as "ensemble" films. Among the best examples are Robert Altman's 
"Nashville" (1976) and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (1999), but even those 
that fall shorter, like "Love Actually" (2003), or "Grand Canyon" (1991), can 
still tantalize and endear, because the format itself provides such rich 
possibilities.  
(I puzzled about why I couldn't think of earlier examples, though there are 
many, like "Stagecoach" or "Bus Stop," that start at the other end: they begin 
by throwing together a crowd of disparate types in a fixed setting. My hunch 
is that drawstring stories really couldn't have been presented on stage, and it 
took awhile for the idea to occur to filmmakers.)  
Some drawstring films have truly sprawling casts-in "Nashville" there are 24 
main characters-but "The Air I Breathe" proposes something more tidy. There 
are four main characters, and they bear the names Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, 
and Love. These represent what is termed a "Chinese proverb," that these are 
the basic four emotions of life. (Seems a bit truncated for a proverb, doesn't 
it? I'd call it a list.) (Interestingly, a contributor to a discussion on 
IMDB.com says that he is Chinese, and the filmmakers got it wrong: should be 
Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Anger.)  
As each character is introduced the emotion he or she represents appears 
onscreen, though what we're looking at may seem contradictory. For example, the 
film begins with a shot of Forest Whitaker slumped against a wall, sobbing, 
holding a gun; then the word "Happiness" flashes onscreen. He tells us in 
voiceover that in childhood he knew "the secret to a happy life:" obey the rules and 
work hard. "And if you work hard in school, your reward is-more school." At 
this point there's a nifty sequence: the camera glides continuously to the right 
and reveals him, first, as a child writing at his desk in an elementary-school 
classroom, then as an adolescent in a middle-school classroom, and then as a 
young adult in a college classroom. "And after more school," his voice goes 
on, "you are given the best that life has to offer" - the camera comes to rest 
to reveal him seated in the middle of a huge desk-farm of an office. He's not 
happy.  
Let's continue with this Happiness sequence, because it illustrates what is 
both faulty and impressive about this film. It won't spoil much, since the 
segment comes at the beginning and takes only fifteen minutes, but if you want to 
preserve every bit of suspense you'd better stop reading here.  
In the plus column, we can note that Whitaker is terrific in the role; his 
"Happiness" is a timid, gentle, habit-bound creature, and quickly wins our 
sympathy. He happens to be in the bathroom one day when some co-workers duck in to 
discuss a fixed horse-race. (They glance under the doors but he has pulled his 
feet up onto the toilet seat.) He decides that he has to take a risk if he's 
going to achieve happiness, and bets on "Butterfly"-in fact, bets more than he 
can pay. But the horse stumbles, the race is lost, and Happiness winds up in 
a shadowy den being threatened by a mob boss. Why did he bet on "Butterfly"? 
Trembling, he explains: "Because I heard my co-workers...and," voice dropping, 
"I like butterflies."  
There's a lot to admire in the "Happiness" story, and if you stick with the 
movie you'll continue to get rewards along that line, although in a diminishing 
train. So what's crummy? The basic of thesis of this sequence, for example, 
that this shy character would arrive at true happiness by robbing a bank and 
being shot down by cops. It's just not true that taking a risk brings happiness 
even if you lose, and it would seem the character had already learned this, 
when the mob boss, Fingers, was shoving him around.  
Yep, he's named "Fingers," just one of many elements that might have been 
generated by a screenwriting-for-dummies software program. Here's some more: a 
patient climbs the stairs to a hospital roof trailing a 30-foot drape of sheer, 
flowing white fabric. Where did she get it? Why is she toting it? Why is it 
suddenly a lot shorter when she gets there? There's no reasonable explanation, 
but if you guessed that you'll see it floating gently and photogenically 
through the air later on, you'd be right. One character accidentally killed his 
brother in childhood, and another saw her dad accidentally killed in childhood; 
this kind of material is strong and must be used sparingly, because doubling it 
like this destroys its power. A character steps off a roof, and another 
character trying to rescue her slips off the roof as well, and both end up dangling 
from his grasp of a bent metal pole. Next scene, both are safe inside. I don't 
believe that kind of thing outside Road Runner cartoons. A character will die 
unless she gets a transfusion of an extremely rare blood type; another 
character just happens to have that blood type, and mentions it on a TV show that a 
doctor just happens to overhear. That deus should get back in the machina and 
stay there.  
In short, many of the artistic elements in "The Air I Breathe" are excellent, 
but too much of the basic framework--the plot, dialogue, and action--is 
shallow and unconvincing. Unless you are a diehard fan of these actors, you can 
save your breath. There are better drawstring movies out there.  
Talk About It:  
1. Pleasure looks like he takes little pleasure in anything. We come to 
understand that this is because he can see the future in a brief, fragmented way, 
but can't do anything to change it. Because of this, he says, "I never let 
myself want anything." When he's severely beaten he shows true pleasure for the 
first time, because he didn't see it coming. He feels liberated, because now he 
can believe that his actions can actually have consequences. He says, "I can 
change someone's life, make it worse or better." Do you think that it would be 
oppressive to foresee an unchangeable future? Would it be better to not have 
that knowledge, and believe that your actions can direct it? How does this 
affect the way we think about God's foreknowledge? 
2. Sorrow is waiting for her TV interview to begin, and the jovial host 
assures her that he asks questions no one else does. For once, it's true-despite 
his bouncy demeanor, his questions are tough and make her face the artificiality 
of her situation. How do you think other celebrities would respond to 
questions like these? How might such treatment change the way we view celebrities?  
3. The line occurs twice that "Scars are the roadmap to the soul." Is this 
true? What might be a better "roadmap"--wrinkles, perhaps? Why?  
Family Corner: Episodes of violence are lengthy and lavish, though the impact 
is lessened by quick cutting that makes it hard to tell exactly what's 
happening. There is a shadowy, "tasteful" sex scene, and some female nudity in a 
strip bar. Rough language throughout. 
 
********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com



**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.     
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ctcnet.net/pipermail/frederica-l/attachments/20080125/7e82031c/attachment.htm