Maybe it's a Cloudbust

Ignatius of Antioch - Bishop & Martyr (107)

Last week -- after a very long wait -- we screened Cloudburst, a 2011 film of which Netflix apparently has one copy.

In my book, this film had three things going for it: Olympia Dukakis (playing gay, no less), Nova Scotia (playing itself), and a hot guy (Ryan Doucette).  How can you go wrong?

(from left) Olympia Dukakis, Ryan Doucette, Brenda Fricker

I wanted to see it at the Montclair Film Festival (especially because Dukakis was present for the screening) and wasn't able to get a ticket (probably because Dukakis was present at the screening).  She is a heroine in the town where she once lived and operated the Blooming Grove Theater Company.

The premise is as follows:  Stella (Dukakis) and her partner Dot (Brenda Fricker) have lived together for decades, but are being separated by Dot's granddaughter Molly (Kristin Booth) who is convinced that Dot's failing eyesight means Stella is incapable of caring for her, and she resorts to trickery and the fact that her husband is a cop (maybe the only cop in their small town) to get Dot away from Stella and into the rural Maine version of Shady Pines.

Emboldened by tequila, Stella hatches a plan to spring Dot, and they head off to Canada, with the idea of getting married.  Along the way, they pick up a hitch-hiker with the unlikely name of Prentice (Doucette).  Prentice is, inexplicably, almost always half-naked.  I have been to Maine and Nova Scotia:  It is not that hot, even in the summer. 

Prentice's story is that he left his dancing (modern, not exotic!) gig in NYC when he heard his mother was dying.  He's hitching his way back to Lower Economy (not be confused with Upper Economy) to see her.  He's a little nervous about exposing his parents to a lesbian couple, particularly since Stella has no filters and is regularly mistaken for a man.

When they arrive, Stella is sequestered in the truck, but Dot needs the rest room. Prentice gets her in the door and then apparently forgets about her as he sits eating cereal and talking to his mother (who -- other than a hacking cough -- seems well enough, and offers no explanation as to why Prentice was summoned home).  They quickly agree that he can't stay there (apparently they just had extra Cheerios they needed to finish). Dot gets herself into a bit of trouble I will not describe, which hastens their departure and leads to possibly the strangest scene in the movie.  Sufficient to say, we see more of the native twigs and berries than was really necessary.

Having given up his job to see his mother for ten minutes, Prentice seems remarkably calm about being homeless, unemployed, and having no plan for the future.  He agrees to accompany Dot and Stella into Canada and witness their wedding, perhaps in part for lack of anything better to do, but (I like to think) also out of a genuine desire to help them. He reveals a level of intelligence and complexity behind his initial trashy opportunism over the course of the film, as the couple's situation sparks some innate compassion and perhaps a sense of belonging he hasn't felt at home in a long time.

Of course things do not go entirely as planned.  They make it across the border with Prentice's dignity being about the only casualty, but cold feet lead to the seemingly counterproductive summoning of Molly, who tries once again to assert her will to keep the women apart.  The skirmish that follows leads to Dot finally getting to the root of what is driving Molly's behavior.  I will not spoil the ending, but it's not exactly happily-ever-after.

This quirky film kept me engaged, but the characters' seemingly self-defeating behavior both endeared them to me and made me want to understand their motives better than the film allowed.

Closer and Closer All the Time

Feast of the Holy Cross

Last night, a small group of us gathered in the social hall at St. John's to watch a favorite movie from my childhood, Lerner & Loewe's musical adaption of the classic Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  novella The Little Prince. 

The story recounts the literal and metaphorical journey of a pilot (portrayed by Richard Kiley the Man of La Mancha) who meets a sweet but strange little boy (Steven Warner) after being forced to land his plane in the midst of the Sahara Desert.  

The pilot, who had turned to the skies a cynical loner after his early human engagements proved unsatisfying, is at first impatient with the quixotic child's questions and demands ("please draw me a sheep!") that distract him from his frantic attempts to repair the plane before meager supplies of food and water run out. However, the prince's sketchy details of his own circumstances compel the child inside the adult to unravel this mystery.  His own early artistic attempts having been stifled by the adults around him, the pilot, finally with an appreciative audience, concedes to produce picture after picture, his skill improving along the way, as a means of drawing out the Prince's story. 

We move through the drawings into a combination of early 1970s camera tricks and animation to recollect the Prince's travels from his own small planet (with three knee-high volcanoes, please clean daily) and a single, self-absorbed rose (Donna McKechnie) in an attempt to understand, what else, the meaning of life.  Along the way his encounters with "the grown ups" prove just as frustrating as the pilot's had been.  He finally alights on Earth, and his first interaction -- with a snake, amusingly portrayed by choreographer Bob Fosse -- leads him to speculate that all earthlings might be snakes.  When he recounts this aloud, the pilot says nothing, but his expression speaks volumes.  The older man is concerned by the prince's vocal contemplation of an offer the snake made of a "quick trip" home again, by nature of a sting.

It is the Prince's next encounter, with a fox (Gene Wilder is brilliantly cast) that teaches him what he needs to know. Shy and wary at first, but desperate for companionship, the fox explains (and acts out) what they will need to do in order to build trust of one another.  By this act of "taming" one another, we become "unique in all the world" because we matter to and are responsible for another person.  

The prince, thinking guiltily of his rose, whom he had been disappointed to learn was not as extraordinary as she had claimed, is drawn inexorably back to the snake and his promise of a means to return to his little planet.  The pilot, having become quite "tamed" himself by this maddening but beguiling little boy, races after him in a panic, but is too late.  In a reversal of roles, the Prince becomes the calm teacher and comforts his grieving friend with the advice that -- because he won't know which star is the Prince's --  he should associate them all with him, to always feel his presence.

There is much going on here.  Saint-Exupéry was himself a pilot, and I wonder how much of the portrayal of the narrator is autobiographical.  I know I could go look that up, right now, but I am content to wonder.  I hadn't seen this movie in decades, and watching it again was like discovering a forgotten photo album, because as each conversation or musical number unfolded, I remember us watching it as kids and romping around the living room to the lively soundtrack.  

It was interesting to share the experience with a room of mostly strangers (besides the Archwarden, I was delighted when a high school friend unexpectedly turned up after seeing the event on Facebook) in a church setting.  Other than a passing reference to "the Lord" by Fosse, there is no overt scriptural context, but it is easy to draw parallels to another young man who baffled and infuriated "the grown-ups" during his brief sojourn on Earth, and left us forever changed when he accepted his fate with surprising resolve, and departed with a similar promise that he is always with us.