Beautiful Feet

I have seen several pieces on screen lately that deal with using our heads. However, each discussed the head in conjunction with other factors.     Brit TV series, River , lives up to its acclaim. A one-off mini-series of six episodes, it managed to grip me immediately in its treatment of how grief not only affects the heart but also the head. Stellan Skarsgård and Nicola Walker are police officers in this crime drama but in the name of spoilers, I won’t say much more. Other sympathetic performances come from actors like Lesley Manville, but I didn’t really buy Georgina Rich as a police psychologist, at least in the way she chose to/the director asked her to act it. Anyway, the takeaway is that you can’t always use your head in exclusion of the contributions of the heart, either personally or sometimes even professionally. Encouraging symbiosis between the two can facilitate redemption, serenity or at least a sense of acceptance.           ...

This week I saw two films of similar structure, although it was quite coincidental. One was Finnish, The River (Joki; Jarmo Lampela, 2001) about 6 people's lives one Saturday morning. The other was Nine Lives (Rodrigo Garcia, 2005), a collection of vignettes about 9 women and a particular moment in their lives. The former was interesting in that, like Crash and Magnolia , it revolved around one interconnecting event; the latter, while less intentionally connected, was outstanding on two levels: the performances were completely riveting, and the narratives were totally accessible and hardhitting. The last one, entitled "Maggie" with Glenn Close, just about killed me (I won't go into detail for fear of creating a spoiler). It's going to be one of those films I don't forget. Having gone through some of the experiences portrayed myself, the stories were that much more poignant. While it might be labeled a chick flick or feminist by some, see it for the actors...