A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

A CINEPHILE'S RECOMMENDATIONS : FILMS FEATURING NATALIE PORTMAN

One image of Lily Rose in particular, with the period specific machinery attached to her for mapping her mind in the institution, is evocative of METROPOLIS' humanoid protagonist. That said, the production design( Katia Wyszkop) , cinematography (George Lechaptois), music (Robin Coudert) and costume design (Karin Charpentier and Anais Romand) are appropriate to the era and deserve applause.

PLANETARIUM centers on an idea of career advancement and the rootedness in kindred is ably demonstrated by a strong sisterly bond. The uncertainty of success within annals of cinema, a fledgling one at that, and craving for fame in front of the camera wrap themselves around the sombre point of this tale's concluding minutes. Give this your time and an open mind. Yes the morbidity of death on the part of one of the sisters slows things down to a standstill but the unraveling of Salinger simultaneously paints an interiority of fickle human allegiances. The screenplay suggests more than it shows in these complex areas and I find that admirable. PLANETARIUM is much more than what meets the eye, a rendering of a passage of time where life is grasped in the chances collected by youth and how fleeting it all is, the trappings of fortune and gentrified society.

*****

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (2008)

Based on Philippa Gregory's 2001 novel, written by Peter Morgan of THE CROWN fame and directed by Justin Chadwick, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL left me stunned by the kind of backlog of our collective past that went unquestioned and has continued to negatively define our gender discourses.

Here, women are bartered, mothers and fathers make clean sweeps on the premise of societal upliftment and the men plunder their dignity and supplant them with easily endowed privileges at their disposal including facile marital unions. If you look at it the manipulations rallied across the board, on the part of the females as well, is a direct relative of this toxic sexism dividing tenets of normalcy. You wonder if there was nothing to everyday dealings back in the day than the histrionics of scoring matrimonial alliances and fielding nubile girls to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, that's the real state of affairs. Forbidden decrees are exercised way too readily in the name of empires and kingdoms. The women hence become spoils of war, even those raised to be above a common stature, within the aristocracy.

The court intrigue regarding the pronouncement of fates for the BOLEYN sisters( in this film), Anne (Natalie) and Mary(Scarlet Johannson), who became a part of a lecherous Henry the 8th's(Eric Bana) revolving doors of conquests - a harem, really - is a telescoping of the degradation human motives are able to conjure. History is not merely a vantage point but a beast of burden.

From the trailers viewed years ago, the sisters were painted as black and white and Anne was seemingly the victim. The picture shifts on the two when one views the film. I don't know about historical accuracy but it's presented well here.

The human vices are a continuum of the Tudor era, bleeding into the Me too epoch where men in power continue to exploit women at the very top echelon. You can expect the pathetic trickle down effect then. We are unnerved but the performances keep us riveted to the self destructive tendencies of a populace and foundations of a society that is skewed beyond repair.