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Rating: Every generation of Americans has its own war.
And the film industry is grateful.
Four years after Life of Pi, Ang Lee returns to the big screen. Transforming into images the cult novel of the same name, acclaimed by critics, by Ben Fountain. Further enriching the already abundant filmography regarding, one way or another, the Iraq conflict from the Bush Jr era. But rather than the "internal" perspective of authors like Eastwood or Linklater (by the way: I loved his Last Flag Flying, from which I took inspiration for the review’s opening), it was particularly interesting to see the perspective of an artist like Lee; Taiwanese, American by adoption before he even became a director: always, in fact, between two worlds. Taiwan and the USA - province, metropolis -, original culture and American cinema - independent, Hollywood. Ang has truly traversed all possibilities and territories over the course of an exemplary career. And now, in front of the most American themes: war, sacrifice, patriotism, celebration - sometimes real, instrumental, constructed - of the hero through media.
On the most loved/hated/dreamed/hypocritical/contradictory soil of the Western world like the American one, where everything is business, media, spectacle, consumption, it is not - and not even paradoxically - more natural for extremes to meet along the same path. War and the Superbowl. Bombs, explosions, bullets, and deaths on that side of the trench; cheerleaders, (swaggering) dancers, choreographies, giant screens, fireworks, Beyoncé on this side once they return home. Just enough time for a small tour, culminating in a parade for the football crowd’s consumption. And then, the celebratory movie. This time for the consumption of the Oscar night audience.
And it doesn’t matter that little in the film is left to the imagination about this typically star-spangled saga.
Lee's film is an impeccable product, as always (or almost) concerning the works of the director twice Golden Lion winner (in the '00s) and two-time Golden Bear winner (in the '90s). The style, the editing, and the perfect use of flashbacks make the non-linear narrative (but without Nolan-esque masturbation), of a subject not simple despite being treated many other times, extremely fluid and never heavy; so the ultimate dilemmas of a protagonist catapulted into the Middle Eastern reality, like many of his peers, by chance, more than by congenital love of the nation and the sense of patriotic duty (as it was for a Chris Kyle, just to not make examples), or post 9/11 shock, are the dilemmas of a normal boy who doesn’t know whether to stay with his sister (a Krysten Stewart whom I love more and more) or leave immediately and not abandon his comrades. Whether to return to take a bullet "already been fired" or aspire to have a romantic life and some healthy and satisfying flings with the big-eyed cheerleader.
But the film is also, if not especially, among other things, a reflection on this same film industry (mentioned above) that creates, buys, sells, and consumes myths at the speed of light. The mirror of a culture where when the legend becomes reality, the legend wins. Like in the iconic and definitive Fordian maxim. Like in the case of the battle of Alamo and the "heroic Texan boys"
A people of eternal boys, ready to lose their innocence at any moment. Meanwhile, curious about those who fight and kill but never grasping the true sense of reality until they live through it firsthand.
Perhaps received too lukewarmly (but recently redeemed by being placed in the year's top 10 by Cahiers), Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, although with some didactic moments, and despite possibly not being among his best works (we are, after all, talking about the author of Brokeback Mountain, The Wedding Banquet, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is yet another work of great substance from a great director, which Lee is and continues to be. And if even Vin Diesel carves out a role once different from his classic standards...
Truth be told, it must be acknowledged that the experience, if not experienced in 3D (as in my case) loses completeness, being the film meant and made in three dimensions (a technology now dear to Lee), but despite this, the emotion still reached me.
After all... (it’s) Just another normal day in America, Billy.
Just another normal day in America.
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