SENIORS IN THE MOVIES
Written by Dolores Luber
THE OLD MAN & THE GUN
2018
Robert Redford (age 83) plays Forrest, a real person, like a figure out of an old ballad. Forrest doesn’t talk much, or display much emotion, but he has a touch of poetry to him, and an old-fashioned courtliness. This may be Redford’s last movie, watch it! It is probably his best. Available on Crave and at Black Dog Video, 3451 Cambie St.
TEA WITH THE DAMES
2018
Friends and colleagues Eileen Atkins (age 85), Judi Dench (age 84), Joan Plowright (88) and Maggie Smith (84) are actors both legendary and still active. They dish on acting and love. Fans of British theater and these Grand Dames will soak up every minute. The setting is the garden of a rural cottage that Plowright built with her late husband, Lord Laurence Olivier, the legendary actor. I relished every bit of gossip and innuendo. Available at Black Dog Video.
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
2018
Fred Rogers is the subject of Morgan Neville’s surprisingly moving documentary. Mister Rogers was a warm, kind man with an aura of gentle formality. From 1968 to 2001, Mr. Rogers kept millions of little ones out of their parents’ hair by offering a half hour program designed to counter the cartoon violence and frenetic pacing of practically every other kids’ show on the air. The film will make you miss Mister Rogers. On Netflix.ca.
AT ETERNITY’S GATE
2018
Willem Dafoe (age 63) portrays Vincent van Gogh toward the end of his life. Director Julian Schnabel is interested in this difficult, mercurial man and attentive to his hardships. Dafoe is superb. After Van Gogh meets Gauguin, he goes to the South of France, where he finds his light and enters a period of feverish creation. A brilliant and beautiful film. Available at Black Dog Video.
FOREIGN FILMS
SHOPLIFTERS
2018
This Japanese movie is a beautifully-felt family drama existing on the ragged edge of society. The mother and father work, and they steal—food, toiletries, whatever—thieving to live but also as a way of life. There is no moralizing. We experience the poverty and desperation as well as their imperfections, it is a perfect story about being human. In Japanese with English subtitles. On Netflix.ca.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
2018
Saoirse Ronan rules over this political drama. She is Mary Queen of Scots, returned to Scotland from France, clashing with Queen Elizabeth who, childless, must name an heir. Mary’s Catholicism is instantly divisive. She insists on being that heir to the English throne. The historic truth is shocking enough to propel the plot to its final scene. Historical fiction at its best. On Crave and at Black Dog Video.
ISRAELI AND LEBANESE MOVIES
SCAFFOLDING
2017
In this gripping realistic drama, a remedial student struggles with his matriculation exams, anger management issues and the expectation of his working-class father, even as his literature teacher opens his narrow worldview to other possibilities. A tense and moving experience. In Hebrew with English subtitles. At Black Dog Video.
CAPERNAUM
2018
The movie is a heartbreaking and defiant look at a boy’s life in Beirut. The title “Capernaum” signifies “chaos” and the director, Nadine Labaki, captures Beirut as a teeming inferno, a place without peace, mercy or order. Zain, the young boy, takes his parents to court, charging them with bringing him into the world and failing to care for him or their other children. This is social criticism at its best, a howl of protest and an anthem of resistance. In Arabic with English subtitles.
On Netflix.ca.
THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT
2019
The Israeli Mossad’s scheme to smuggle Ethiopian Jews out of a Sudanese refugee camp would seem like sheer fantasy, but, it actually happened! Set in the 1980s, a group of “trained assassins” pretend to be scuba diving experts, each one assigned a different identity and language. It is the perfect cover, tourists arrive by day, and refugees are hustled out in the dead of night. At the end, we see footage of the real-life figures involved in the outlandish (but true) events. Fun and uplifting. Director Gideon Raff chose to make the movie in English.
On Netflix.ca.
WWII/HOLOCAUST
OPERATION FINALE
2018
This film is about finding Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi and one of the architects of the Final Solution. Mossad operatives hunt him down and struggle to extract him from South America. There are personality conflicts among the Mossad operatives. The period atmosphere is beautifully rendered, vintage cars, endless cigarettes and pleated wool trousers. On Netflix.ca.
SPECIAL MENTION
COLUMBUS
2017
Columbus, Indiana’s claim to fame is that it is an unlikely haven for modernist architecture. Two young people meet, they debate heady ideas such as the healing power of buildings, modernism’s relationship to religion and whether architecture means something to them. Exquisitely filmed, superbly directed—a cultural and intellectual feast for the viewer. On Netlix.ca.
ON THE BASIS OF SEX
2018
This is history in the making. In the early 1970s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings the first sex-discrimination case to a Federal Court. She establishes a legal strategy to challenge injustices so deeply ingrained at the time as to seem perfectly natural. The movie heralds the heroine’s courage and brilliance in challenging tradition and convention. I am in awe of her achievements and have benefitted from her ground-breaking work. On Crave and at Black Dog Video.
