Finding Neverland

A Movie Review by Zinta Aistars



# Starring: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet
# Director: Marc Forster
# Format: Color, Closed-captioned
# Rated: PG
# Studio: Miramax
# DVD Release Date: March 22, 2005
# $29.99

Movies are just one means of enjoying flights into fancy, escaping from the everyday into a world of fantasy, where all things are possible. Imagination rules the day, and with imagination, there are no rules.

The on-screen story of J. M. Barrie (played by Johnny Depp) as the author/playwright of Peter Pan is a delightful flight into another world, if not always one that is removed from the pains and bruisings of reality. Inspired by (if on occasion departing from) true events, the story about the writing of the story shows the evolving friendship between Barrie and the widow Davies (played by Kate Winslet) and her four young sons.

Barrie meets the family while sitting on a park bench writing ideas for a play. I was charmed from the moment Depp seamlessly left his creative work to give in to a moment of play with the boy curled up below the park bench. While in reality I have watched such attempts from adults to come down to the level of children in relating to them as playmates appear a mix of patronizing at worst, clumsy at best, Depp, as Barrie, suffers no such stumbling. Surely, neither did Barrie, or he would not have created such a work of playfulness, even inspiring a psychological term of "the Peter Pan syndrome" to refer to adult men who refuse to grow up.

But there is a child in all of us, isn't there? There should be. Just as there is the wisdom of the ancients, and perhaps the two go hand in hand, as playmates. Barrie soon spends his days, when he is not writing, playing with the four boys. Games of cowboys and Indians, heroes and villains, pirates and kings. Play unlocks Barrie's creativity to eventually become the groundbreaking play, Peter Pan (with Dustin Hoffman as curmudgeonly theatre producer who goes along with a begrudging trust in Barrie's talent, even while spouting doubt after doubt). Somewhat in the background to all of this play is the widow Davies, and one never quite understands whether there is a romantic bond forming or simply one of deeply felt friendship. We never see the relationship between the two adults develop beyond the latter, although love is evident. Barrie already has a wife, and we see her pain, too, as she loses her husband to the widow's family and her own marriage unravels. Neglected, she finds another companion, and the Barrie marriage is over.

These are the pangs of reality. They, too, show up in Peter Pan on the stage. There is death, there is loss, there is grief. But there is also the magic of taking flight, "real" and of the spirit. The on stage story parallels the story off stage.

We know already that the play, Peter Pan, becomes a classic, and rightfully so. But I found myself often watching the story behind the story unfold with the bittersweetness of nostalgia and longing. I watched the magic of creativity, of art. I saw the human connections made and unmade, fragile and tender, between adult and adult, adult and child. I saw a world, real and imaginary, that has so often become lost to us, as we increasingly replace imagination with a crass and ugly reality, or, perhaps more accurately referred to as--indulgence.

Depp is exquisite. I've come to expect that from this actor. Winslet is convincing, offering not too much, not too little, with excellent timing. The four boys, especially young Peter, are wonderful. Were there more such children today! Were there more such adults who knew how to play.

Recommended.

American History X

A Movie Review by Zinta Aistars



# Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong
# Director: Tony Kaye
# Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, NTSC
# Rated: R
# Studio: New Line Home Entertainment
# Video Release Date: September 2, 2003


On the recommendations of several friends combined with Edward Norton being in the lead role for "American History X", I settled in for what I suspected would be a disturbing if quality movie for the evening. It was -- both quality and disturbing. I have never seen Norton anything but excellent in any role, my expectations of him were high, and he fully met and surpassed those expectations. Indeed, this is one of his best, and I can understand why he was nominated for an Oscar based on his performance in AHX.

"American History X" portrays a young man turned into a neo-Nazi when his father, a man he unquestioningly idolizes as so many young sons do their fathers, is murdered. His father, a racist police officer, plants a seed of racism in his son's mind shortly before his death, and with the bloody fertilization of a brutal murder, the seed produces a young man filled with hatred and rage, seeking to spill blame on those different than himself. What makes Norton's character of Derek Vinyard so horrifying and plausible is his intelligence. This is not a person who swallows a prejudice whole. He turns it into a philosophy of life, and it is only when his rage flames out of control that we can see how dangerous his views are, how far reaching the hatred. Culminating in two murders that chill to the bone, Derek Vinyard is imprisoned. Outside of those prison walls, his younger brother, played also with exceptional skill by Edward Furlong, yet another boy who idolizes his older sibling, continues on the path Derek has blazed. Inside the prison walls, Derek Vinyard undergoes a harsh lesson of humility coupled with the kindness of an expected enemy that he finally realizes has saved him. Few things teach better than pain. Most lessons in life are learned best when we hit bottom. Derek Vinyard hits bottom hard, but it is the kindness of those he had seen as enemies that provides now the balm of human compassion that helps him complete his inner growth. He emerges from prison a changed man. Life is not so neat, however, and the seeds of hatred he has sown in prior years must yet travel their full course.

To change a man's heart is a difficult feat. To transform hatred and rage into wisdom and compassion happens rarely, too rarely. But Norton makes this transformation of a man's heart ring true. The movie stands as a powerful statement of the possibilities of changing evil into good, of waking a spirit seemingly lost to hatred to the grace of love in what becomes a true hero: the man who was once fallen, who grows through his pain, and becomes a man able to stand up for what takes true courage - doing the right thing.

The only flat performance in AHX is by Stacy Keach, who plays the guru of the Nazi movement. He is unable to pop out of his one dimensional character. But all other performances in this movie, notably also Beverly D'Angelo's potrayal of Derek's mother, are first class. However uncomfortable some of the graphic scenes in this movie, it is a must see.

Wolves by Candace Savage

A Book Review by Zinta Aistars



# Hardcover: 159 pages
# Publisher: Random House, Inc., 1989
# ISBN: 0871566893
# $29.95


Few creatures have been so misunderstood, so shrouded in myth... and such inaccurate myth... as canis lupus, the wolf. Wild and beautiful, in my mind the most beautiful of all creatures still walking our earth today (although in painfully diminishing and harrassed numbers), the wolf inspires fear in many. But then, ignorance often inspires fear. We need books such as this one - with text and photographic selection by Candace Savage, foreword by L. David Mech - to banish such ignorance and reveal to us something of this wild and wonderful animal. For not only is he beautiful, but he is also highly intelligent, and, yes, highly "civilized" in his ways.

Henry Thoreau, author of another of my favorite books, "Walden", said: "In wildness is the preservation of the world." I believe this with all the healthy wildness in my heart. On a journey some years ago to Alaska, I brought along little luggage, but many books... and many of these were about wolves. I realized how little I knew about this incredible animal. Like so many, I knew more the myth reaching back to my own childhood... the nasty child-eating beast of Red Riding Hood, the ravaging monster harrassing three little pigs.... and, later, Jack London's Call of the Wild. I saw movies that portrayed the wolf as a fearsome monster who freely stalked and killed human beings. I visited museums where the taxidermist had so positioned the wolf as to fully expose bloodied fangs in a nightmarish snarl, dear little bunnies lying gutted in the red snow before him. The wolf kills, as all animals must to survive and eat and feed their young, but the more I read and researched this animal, the more I was impressed with his intelligence and integrity. The first myth to go was the one that wolves will hunt down and attack a human being. That is simply false. They are intelligent enough to avoid if at all possible every encounter with man, but will defend themselves and their young with respectable ferocity. Rarely have I known of any species that has such a strong sense of family as does the wolf. If only we cared and nurtured our young as does a pack of wolves... Faithful for life to his mate, the wolf not only provides nourishment for his young, but fosters a sense of family that we can only envy in our society of broken families and latch-key children.

This book provides not only fascinating information about wolves, but is filled with a breathtaking selection of photography that allows the reader a glimpse into the lives of these magnificent animals. I would follow this book up with an evening in a log cabin, fireplace roaring, wolves on the snowy horizon singing, with my favorite movie, "Never Cry Wolf," based on Farley Mowfat's book by the same name.