05/08/2002 Entry:
"The Woman In The Window - Fritz Lang (1944)
Promises - Carlos Bolado, B.Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro (2001)"

The Music Box's matinee series Film Noir Defined continued with Fritz Lang's The Woman In The Window. I've enjoyed this series quite a bit, seeing things that I might not have otherwise seen or gotten to. Music Box is killing me in coming weeks, so many things to see - Kiss Of Death, The Big Heat, In A Lonely Place, ABC Africa, all the Jacques Demy films. Of course the Demy film I'm most interested in, Bay Of Angels, is only playing on a weekday.

I enjoyed The Woman In The Window a great deal, there were a lot of cool things done with the shooting to get points across - especially a scene like having Edward G Robinson sitting in a chair, looking up at his friend who is explaining exactly how he's going to be caught. I felt a couple of the setup shots, like the big zoom into the tire tracks with the orchestra blast, were a little too on the nose. The ending also confused me a bit, it seemed out of character, then I discovered it was added on later to satisfy film code regulations, which made more sense.

I was looking forward to Promises, and early on I was worried it was going to be a little obvious. Look here's kids being kids, and they're so young but they've been indoctrinated to believe such and such by the people around them. I mean, tell me something I don't know. However knowing it is taught in school and seeing it taught in school are two different things. This is also the same feeling when you see how easy it is for Jews to move around Israel, and how difficult it is for Palestinians. You know this is happening, but to see it is something else.

As the film went on, it became more and more affecting. The later scenes, where some of the kids meet and talk about the effects of their meeting were quite moving, and even though it seemed a little over the top and orchestrated, it was difficult not to feel like if these kids could get it together then everyone else can, which is of course the point (or one of them.) Even the religious Jew, who said he would have no interest in talking to or meeting any Palestinian kids, couldn't help goofing and hamming it up with one on camera, which was in a way much more affecting than the later tear-jerking scenes.

One aspect of the whole situation in Israel I had no idea about is the divide between religious and secular Jews, and how the secular Jews feel very separate and fearful about the religious ones. Seeing the scenes where the two twins go to the western wall were quite enlightening.

Also, since as a product of the American school system I have little idea about world geogrpahy, this film really help educate me just about where people are and the georgaphy of the situation. This really helped provide some context to me. Reading news stories about places and checkpoints and stuff is one thing, but when you can visualize those places its means much more. For this reason alone, I would hope that the film gets viewed widely, since I'm sure there are many more people out there who are in the same situation as I am. Given its Oscar nomination and the amountof press it has received, I would hope that it draws large enough crowds that either Music Box holds it over for a while or it moves to Landmark.

From a filmmaking standpoint, I always enjoy seeing a film shot on digital with a small crew. I can't argue that it looks as nice, since it plainly doesn't. However it gives so much more freedom which I'm sure helped out tons in this situation. You can't get a 10-man 35mm crew into a crowded one room apartment and expect everyone to feel comfortable and speak freely. I think that concept, the lack of intimidation when confronted with a small video camera, is really the most important for a documentary feature like this. Plus you save money and shoot for an hour at a time, but thats just gravy. If your subjects aren't open, none of the other stuff matters. Also, seeing that these films are getting distribution and recognition is great. The more small scale digital films get distributed, the greater the format will be accepted, which just gives independent filmmakers that much more freedom and leeway.