These are the first film reviews I have provided on this blog, and I'm offering them up because of their interesting relevance to my earlier speculation about neuroplasticity, mirror neurons, and synchronized flow.
Lars and The Real Girl
I wanted to recommend this film because some people might assume that it's just a gag from its synopsis alone. The protagonist Lars, in a nervous breakdown, buys an inflatable woman, and proceeds to carry her around his small town, introducing her to everyone. If this were a Farrelly Brothers movie, I wouldn't have bothered. I gave it a chance because I had nothing to expect from Craig Gillespie, who with this film establishes himself as one of the most interesting new directors to emerge in a long time.
Following a stern exhortation from the family doctor, the brother and sister-in-law go along with the delusion, and convince the whole town to join along in their conspiracy. The sensitive and nuanced portrayal of the various characters and their relationships with one-another was rivetting. The movie cements Emily Mortimer in my mind as one of the most sensitive and intelligent actresses of her generation. Don't miss her performances in 2 Brothers & a Bride or Dear Frankie.
What connection does the movie have to the neuroscience of synchronized flow? The film is a mirror image of of life. In life, groups of people will often delude themselves, and only an outsider without an iron in the fire will be able to see clearly. But the deluded group hardly ever listens to the outsider, and instead the outsider often gets sucked into the delusion.
The Legend of 1900
If you don't already know of Giuseppe Tornatore, then I say, "Get thee to a film'ry." He is a lover of people and a lover of film to a degree unmatched by any director I have seen. Like Kubrick, he is in love with the medium, and lavishes every frame with significant detail. But unlike Kubrick, he has a profound compassion for the characters he portrays, which oozes off the screen. See Cinema Paradiso if you haven't already. It surpasses the Legend of 1900 in some ways. They're very different stories though, and both are worth seeing.
The protagonist in The Legend of 1900 is a man ("1900") who is born and lives out his entire life on a ship. As a boy, he discovers a gift and passion for the piano. In this way, the movie poses the question, "How would a life lived entirely through music look?" The movie succeeds because it is able to demonstrate that such a life might not, in fact, be as narrow as one might naively imagine. If anything, the story stumbles at the end when the writer and director concede to the audience that such a life is limited in important ways. It would have been a more interesting movie if they had simply taken the idea all the way through to its logical conclusion.
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