A Royal Affair

A splendid Danish drama directed by Nikolaj Arcel, A Royal Affair (2012) is set in the 18th century and is based on the true story of a love affair between the English Queen of Denmark and a small-town doctor from Germany, who became the confidant to the mentally challenged Danish King.

It’s the age of reason and enlightenment, with philosophers such as Voltaire, Spinoza and Locke challenging old traditional ways of thinking about the universe and man’s place in it, while advocating scientific research and equality for all mankind. But in many European countries it was still considered a crime to question society’s entrenched faith based notions.

Forced into an arranged marriage to her mentally unstable cousin, King Christian VII of Denmark, the youngest daughter of the Prince of Wales, Caroline Matilda, played by Alicia Vikander, recently seen in Anna Karenina (2012), The Fifth Estate (2013) and Hotell (2013), is devastated when she discovers his odd childish behavior and habit of visiting brothels and bringing prostitutes to his bed chambers.

After the birth of their son and heir, the two royals can’t stand to be near one another, so the King goes on a tour of Europe, during which his condition seems to worsen until he meets a German doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee, who is able to connect with the King like no one else can by appealing to his playful childish nature. 

When the newly appointed physician, played by the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt), saves the young Prince and heir to the throne from an outbreak of smallpox using new medical advances, he becomes a trusted figure in the royal court and quickly catches the eye of the frustrated Queen.

The good doctor and the Queen, finding they have a mutual passion for improving people’s lives, want to use the latest medical techniques to help everyone who suffers from the smallpox epidemic. But the royal court, controlled by religious fundamentalists, refuses to invest any time or money on the country’s poor. 

If you thought that the dystopian future vision depicted in Elysium (2013), of a divided world where the wealthy 1% control and arbitrarily manipulate government policy and regulation to suit their own purposes, while oppressing the majority 99% of humanity, was an unrealistic exaggeration, look no further than our own recent history of 18th century royal courts and aristocratic abuses and neglect of the common working people.

Due to censorship laws which prohibit enlightened free thinking, Denmark’s citizens lived in extremely dire and cruel conditions. Working together and using their influence over the King to challenge the religious leaders, the queen and the German physician were able to make many humanitarian and socially beneficial reforms that were ahead of their time and an inspiration to the rest of Europe.

When the Queen and the doctor are discovered having a romantic love affair, the aristocracy quickly uses the indiscretion to take back control of the country, sentencing the two lovers to a tragic fate. 

Danish cinema has undergone a resurgence in recent years that we haven’t seen since the 1980s with classics like Babette’s Feast (1988) and Pelle the Conqueror (1987). Recent award winning films In a Better World (2011), Melancholia (2011), A Royal Affair (2012), The Hunt (2012) and A Hijacking (2013) have put Denmark back on the cinematic map as a country that’s producing some noteworthy talent with extraordinary directors like Lars von Trier, Nicolas Winding Refn, Thomas Vinterberg and Nikolaj Arcel.

Nominated for best foreign film Oscar, A Royal Affair is authentically portrayed and shot in actual locations in Czech Republic, and is visually sumptuous and genuinely enlightening for the history it reveals. It’s a stunningly photographed gem not to be missed.

JP

Wadjda

You can’t help but fall in love with Wadjda, the adorable savvy little 10 year old, sneaker wearing rebel, who won’t take no for an answer as she uses her spunky creativity and imagination to overcome obstacles, stopping at nothing to get what she wants. 

This charming coming of age tale takes place in a barren sand swept suburb of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where women are treated as property for no other reason than to allow men to stay in power and confine women to the home. 

While we follow the fun-loving Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), on her quest as she devises clever ways to save up enough money to purchase a bicycle so she can ride together on equal terms with her best friend Abdullah, the film highlights the daily discrimination faced by women in an oppressive male dominated society.  

As religious fundamentalism is used to keep women from performing even the most basic of activities like driving a car, riding a bicycle, opening a bank account or just being in the presence of a man without completely covering their faces and bodies, women are prevented from achieving any semblance of a normal life.

Wadjda is a blissfully innocent girl going to school, who just wants to play alongside the rest of the boys.  But everywhere she goes she discovers that in this highly segregated society she lives in, girls are prohibited from doing many things that boys take for granted.

Much like Circumstance (2011), which was also directed by a woman and recounted the experiences of a girl living in Tehran under an oppressive authoritarian Islamic society, Wadjda (2012) is also directed by a woman and recounts the plight of women living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under strict Islamic rule.

You get the feeling that in this inhospitable society, things are eventually going to turn out badly for Wadjda. That she will lose her innocence when she is forced to face the harsh limitations placed on her, but she remains optimistic and persistent, managing to accommodate her conflicting aspirations.

We are given a glimpse into a veiled, little known area of the world, where deep rooted tribal ways and traditions are still followed. Wadjda’s mother hasn’t been able to produce a son for her husband and according to tradition he can therefore exercise his right to pursue a new bride, in effect abandoning his wife and daughter.

Saudi Arabia’s first female film director Haifaa Al-Mansour, in her first feature film, made at great personal risk, has created a sensitive, intimate portrayal of life in Riyadh as seen from the perspective of not only Wadjda, but all women and girls in general. However, this is the kind of film that may provoke serious discussions among western audiences as the cultural, religious and physical restrictions placed on women can be quite disturbing. 

Still, the film, like Wadjda herself, holds out hope for the plight of women in the Middle East. By exposing the injustices they suffer, the next generation of boys and girls may take on the many challenges of the future to improve life for everyone.

The following films are also noteworthy entries of social and culturally relevant films where young women must face the injustices of their strict tribal and religious societies; The White Balloon (1995), The Circle (2000), Baran (2001), Maya (2001), Ten (2003), At Five in the Afternoon (2003), Osama (2004), Offside (2007), Circumstance (2011).

JP

Gravity

Being shipwrecked in space is every astronaut’s nightmare, and watching Gravity on an IMAX screen gives one as close a sense of being adrift in space as any of us are likely to experience without leaving the ground.

Four and a half years in the making, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón’s new film Gravity (2013), stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as Space Shuttle astronauts Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski on a routine mission to make repairs to satellite equipment from outside the shuttle, when a chain reaction of events quickly escalates into a worst-case scenario.

This terrifyingly suspenseful thriller mixes the authentic procedural disaster drama of Apollo 13 (1995), with the horror of one woman’s survival while stranded in space fighting against insurmountable odds as Ripley did in Alien (1979). 

This, however, is not a science fiction film, rather as we see familiar landmarks on the surface of the earth passing below, the film looks and sounds very much like the space exploration documentaries seen on IMAX screens like Blue Planet (1990) and Space Station (2002), making it feel like the events are actually happening right now 372 miles above the earth.

The film is shown completely from the astronaut’s weightless viewpoint. There are no cuts to Houston control rooms or family members anxiously waiting on the ground or any news reports being broadcast on TV sets. There’s virtually no connection with Earth, giving a claustrophobic feeling and total immersion into the free floating fear and vulnerability experienced by the astronauts.

The authentic look of the film, down to the smallest details, makes it difficult not to believe that what we are seeing is absolutely real or could be real. Realistic space disaster films with astronauts in jeopardy are not new, but Alfonso Cuarón, who also directed Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and Children of Men (2006), has created a whole new visual vocabulary that helps to make the genre so much more tangible and immediate.

The absolute silence of space makes the threat of an approaching debris field and inevitable devastation, so much more unnerving, as we never know who or what will get hit or what the cascading consequences will be. Getting hit by even the smallest piece of shrapnel traveling at the speed of a bullet could be fatal in space where one’s survival depends entirely on an intact functioning space suit.

While Sci-fi and Star Trek fans will certainly love the technical aspects of this brilliantly created zero G space adventure, Sandra Bullock’s emotionally captivating performance as a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, is the central focus of Gravity, making it accessible to a much broader audience.

The astronauts are completely helpless while they watch as flying debris orbiting the earth obliterates and tears through their ship and suits. As more satellites are destroyed and communication is eliminated, the surviving astronauts must rely on their own resources and draw on every ounce of courage to come up with a plan that will get them back to earth in one piece.

By the end of the film you will be as exhausted as the people that are experiencing this extraordinary and harrowing tale. Gravity is one hell of an exhilarating ride you won’t soon forget.

JP