![]() The directors said that many of the nine boys that appear in the film were actually working already on the jermal that the filmmakers inhabited for 30 days. What we see in the beautifully filmed Jermal is a high level of realism that extends to the actors-or rather, non-actors. Bharwani and Rayya Makarim has ever thought to shoot a drama on one of them. It’s an absolutely unique, vicarious experience that almost dwarfs the coming-of-age / father-son themes that shape the plot-or rather, situation, since this is a character- and situation-driven film.įishing platforms or “jermals” may be common in Indonesia and Malaysia, but no one before directors Ravi L. You haven’t seen another film in the world like Jermal, a 2008 Indonesian production with English subtitles about a group of young teenage boys who live and work on an isolated fishing platform in the middle of the Malacca Straits off North Sumatra. Not rated (would be R for brief nudity and language, alcohol use, and smoking)įeatured audio: Indonesian Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with English subtitles No film school, no mentor-just the spark that came from seeing Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, which Singh says really touched him, enough to where he kept at it and finally created his first full-length feature at age 43. This Indian film debuted in 2021 at Sundance, but for director Ajitpal Singh it was the culmination of many years of work to become a self-taught filmmaker. You could even make it a themed affair, with movie snacks or food from the culture.įire in the Mountains is a film in Hindi that offers plenty of possibilities for discussion, starting with the film’s background, which children can research on the Internet. ![]() So I’m going to suggest, as I have in the past, that families with children old enough to manage subtitles should agree to watch a foreign film once a month, then hopefully talk about it afterwards. Consider this: if all you and your family watch on your home theater are Hollywood-made formulaic action films and comedies, you’re “reading” just a few pages of the human experience. If you can’t travel, film is the next best thing. It increases your understanding, gives you perspective, and, if you’re able to see the world through the emotions of people whose lives are incredibly different from yours, travel also develops your sense of empathy. Augustine wrote way back in the 4 th century. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page,” St. There’s no escaping them-even if you try to live off the grid. Society’s problems are everyone’s problem. But it doesn’t take long for this paradise to be lost, and that’s the whole point of the film. Presumably because of the mother’s previous income from her pre-marriage career as a popular singer, they were able to build a house in the country’s last unspoiled place, an idyllic hillside home that even has the luxury of a small in-ground swimming pool. Now they live in the mountains with Walid’s aged mother and the couple’s two daughters: a teenager eager for more than the sheltered life her parents provide, and a precocious adolescent. Saleh Bakri and Nadine Labaki star as Walid and Soraya, a couple who eight years earlier decided to leave their Beirut home because of the poor air quality, pollution, and corrupt politics that made life there untenable. Visitors to Egypt’s pyramids, for example, must first drive past mounds of trash pushed to the sides of roads and freeways. Except that in some countries it’s not all that impending. ![]() A cautionary tale set in the near future, it has an engaging cast and some powerful moments as it tries to sound the alarm to alert people to an impending crisis of waste management. Does anyone wonder if there will ever come a time when all the refuse becomes too much for the government to handle?Ĭosta Brava, Lebanon (2021)is an environmentalist fable in Arabic (English subtitles) from Mounia Akl and the Lebanese entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Same with the mountains of trash that Americans produce on a daily basis. And if the price of gas isn’t too crazy, no one gives a second thought as to whether the oil will run out some day, or whether the polluting side-effects of petroleum consumption will one day become intolerable. A 2019 Northwestern Mutual poll found that 15 percent of Americans age 40 and older haven’t even put aside a single dollar toward their retirement years. ![]() Americans have never been good at thinking about the future. ![]()
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