CineM Review: The Station Agent (2003)

Quiet, Real

Back in 2003, I was trudging through a dreary final year of my graduation; that same year however, Hollywood twirled, weaved and waltzed to give us two brilliant films on unlikely friendship and quietly-born intimacy. Both Sofia Coppola's ‘Lost in Translation’ and Thomas McCarthy’s ‘The Station Agent’ are understated and yet sparkling gems, unobtrusively exploring characters disparate in all respects but possessing a common intangible sense of loss or unfulfillment, and the uncommon friendship which evolves out of nothing more than a shared existence; in LIT’s case, of staying in the same hotel and in TSA’s case, of living in the same town.

It would be easy to reduce this movie’s story to one of the unlikely coming together of first a dwarf, second an energiser bunny who may be considered a festival of unaffected gregariousness, and third a single woman grappling with twin losses – that of a dead child and an approaching divorce. The slightly more challenging task is to see beyond the stereotypes which such characters usually attract, and take a peek into what makes them behave the way they do. Real-life ‘short person’ Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Finbar McBride, Bobby Cannavale as the hugely enthusiastic Joe Oramas operating a coffee-shop-on-wheels and always-perfect Patricia Clarkson as the hesitant Olivia Harris, are the people around whom the story revolves. Michelle Williams as the unsure but well-meaning local librarian (Emily) and cute Raven Goodwin as the sedate school-girl Cleo complete the delectable ensemble.

Intensely reclusive Fin moves from the city to a quiet town called Newfoundland in New Jersey (his lawyer helpfully informs him that “there’s nothing out there…nothing”), to take over a recent inheritance which is actually an abandoned train depot; what follows immediately his arrival is a portrait of quiet but rich mirth. Fin who must have inwardly rejoiced at the lawyer’s dismissive view of placid Newfoundland is met with an acutely polar reality. Picture Fin’s first day in Newfoundland – he goes over to Joe's mobile coffee-shop just outside his depot where he is treated to a morning cuppa accompanied by a relentless flow of friendly questions, and while on his way to the local convenience store, he is nearly run over by a distracted Olivia who apologises profusely and drives off, but nevertheless manages to narrowly avoid crushing Fin a second time while he’s on his way back. Fin’s lengthening stay in the depot is punctuated with all-too-familiar interactions with the indefatigable Joe who persists in plugging away at his reserve and the much quieter interactions with a naturally good-natured Olivia. Fin lets in the other two slowly into his quiet world of the train depot and trainspotting, and we are treated to an unhurried but very revealing slice of how the characters behave, and their motivations.

Writer-director Thomas McCarthy who is deeply interested it seems, in developing stories of unlikely friendships (in ‘The Visitor’, ‘Win Win’, ‘UP’) draws out such minute details of the characters (Fin walks mostly with his hands deep in his pockets and his head perennially held down) with a delicate touch. He builds the characters with a sure-footed intensity, and complements the tumult in the lives of his main characters with the flustered and needy inflections of the librarian Emily and directness of the only character in the cast un-afflicted with any inner struggles – that of Cleo, the young girl with frank questions and an open mind. I felt a clear identification with the characters; their completely real lives and the blossoming of a friendship which is honest and filled with actual warmth.

In a movie which is actually well-acted with just the right amount of expression and reserve, Bobby Canavale’s turn as the unflappable, ‘doesnt-take-no-for-an-answer’ blaze of energy is the real showstopper.  He actually bludgeons both Fin and Olivia with absolute open, warm human connect and wriggles his way into the lives of two very introverted people. Peter Dinklage brings out a real character tethered to his own sense of self and the perceptions so easily expressed, by others; in a life of either ridicule or absolute isolation, the way he has trained himself to be defensively reserved and the manner in which he is drawn out of his solitude by the gutsy friendliness and obvious interest of Joe and the similarly troubled and calling-for-help aura of Olivia, is slowly but clearly tapped into. The surprise in the package for me is Michelle Williams who even in that limited space gave ample proof of the quiet strength which she inherently brings to the characters she plays (like ‘Wendy and Lucy’, ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ among others).

This is one of those movies so sparsely-populated with characters and so thin on a plot, but very riveted on showcasing not ‘what is to happen’ but ‘what exists’. The 3 main characters so perfectly act out a lifetime of feelings in their performances, and convey so many little truths about grief, solitude, compassion and simple pleasures. By the time Fin, Joe and Olivia take their quiet leisurely stroll down the rail tracks in picturesque New Jersey, I very much wanted to be there on that walk with them too.

CineM’s Verdict:

CineM Review: Ikiru (1952)

To Create Is Beautiful

When Akira Kurosawa began filming ‘Ikiru’, the commercial and critical success of ‘Rashomon’ (it won the highest award ‘The Golden Lion’ in the Venice Film Festival 1951 and collected an unheard-of amount for a Japanese film in the US) was fresh behind him. He must have felt very confident about his story-telling abilities. And that shows amply in ‘Ikiru’ – a film examining the struggles in the life of a bureaucrat who is fated to die of cancer shortly; the story itself an inspiration from Tolstoy’s short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".

Ikiru means “to live” and strangely (but perhaps not so strange after all), the protagonist starts leading a life true to himself only when he is compelled to stare straight ahead at the grim prospect of death. Kurosawa teamed up with Shinobu Hashimoto (who had earlier written the sparkling script of ‘Rashomon’) and Hideo Oguni to write the screenplay, and the nuances that they bring into a seeming-conventional story are very insightful. The story outline is simple enough – a long-serving, tired and thoroughly insipid bureaucrat is diagnosed with stomach cancer but given a misleading medical prognosis; he gathers though that he does not have long to live and surrounded by a stifling work-place environment and an equally unloving atmosphere at home with his son and daughter-in-law, our protagonist examines his past life, and comes to an epiphany about what he should do in his remaining days. This is a theme which has been widely explored both in literature and films – the onset of a fast-approaching death coupled with memories of a life made up of words left unsaid and work left undone, the ritual breakdown of mind and body, all culminating in a deeply-felt realisation about life (or death). This much-travelled niche is where Ikiru breaks the mould - through performances so sincere, a screenplay so sensitive, and a camera so faithful and alert to what it seeks to capture and what it desires to leave out.

Ikiru’s opening shot with a voice-over narration introduces the protagonist’s death even before we have had a glimpse of the protagonist, in a form of a X-ray film showing the cancerous growth in the stomach. The story then progresses along as the versatile Japanese actor Takashi Shimura in the role of the bureaucrat as Kanji Watanabe, sits through a cold, unsettling (and as proved, ultimately devious) medical diagnosis, stumbles back home to his dark bedroom which is sparsely adorned with certificates of appreciation for a long (but hollow) career in service, ultimately rebelling against his own deep-set frugal nature to seek out a night of pleasures and thrills. This is the definitive point where the film veers away from convention to present us with a truly masterful narrative.

That single night of debauchery has been shot in a marvelous sequence where Watanabe accompanied by a kindred spirit, a writer of cheap novels but possessor of an altruistic sensibility, taste the pleasures of a night that Tokyo has to offer. Stumbling in and out of dubious alleys, in and out of bars, both men end up in a lounge. This lounge is the setting for the scene which strikes me the most; Watanabe requests a song (‘The Gondola Song’) which the lounge pianist starts playing, the young and beautiful people of the night congregate to dance, but stop in mid-step when Watanabe starts singing the lonesome strains. The camera which initially lingers behind a swaying bead screen as the young couples start to dance, glides onto Watanabe as he sings, panning upwards to his face with the glass ceiling in the background reflecting the frozen figures of the other revelers. The sad lyrics of the song which call upon the young to come fall in love before their youth fades away, are sung in a low, so soft voice with the lips scarcely moving and tears silently welling up in Watanabe’s eyes, have stayed with me. This sequence is further embellished with interesting use of reflections of the people on glass surfaces presenting us with allegorical shots of how life holds different views for different people. In a sense, we see the characters both as they really are as well as how they appear to be.

That night is followed by a curious and unlikely relationship that develops between Watanabe and a much- younger female colleague. This bond which Watanabe feels is not easily understandable until the cathartic last dinner in the restaurant when Watanabe reveals haltingly and with characteristic reserve, and later more urgently what he seeks from the girl – the silent and somewhat raw cry of him who is going to his grave for an attempt at redeeming the life which is now past him. Kurosawa directs this part of the story with a stark camera’s eye which lays bare the utter helplessness in Watanabe’s soul – there is a wonderful shot where the side profile of Watanabe’s face frames the picture while the younger, happier, more open face of the girl lingers in the background – a contrast between the two.

Moments in Ikiru are not poetic; scenes are sometimes jagged, insistent, urgent, often giving us close shots of Watanabe’s face as he’s trying to work out his thoughts, perhaps attempting to capture the conflicts in the mind. The most dominant feature on the screen is Watanabe’s drooping figure; the camera follows him ruthlessly around, in one shot capturing his sorry bent figure on knees, frozen in a dark staircase – in a futile attempt to reach out to his son.

As the character of Watanabe approaches and meets its inevitable end, we are presented with a penetrating study into life and human nature, as his family and colleagues attempt to deconstruct his later days and ultimate death, while sipping sake in his wake. Unlike ‘Rashomon’ which captures truth as it undergoes a beguiling and self-mutating cycle of discovery, Ikiru is more concerned with examining the truth as it appears from one incrementally-developing perspective. We, the audience possess the privilege of knowing the unalloyed truth of both Watanabe’s life and death; however as the story’s characters (unsure and some of them, over-zealous) try to understand the motivations for Watanabe’s change from a bored bureaucrat to a tenacious civil servant, we are treated to the scattered and small ways in which the truth and eventually the meaning of life itself, make themselves apparent.

The masterstrokes in this film are too numerous to list them all; however I will make special mention of the scene where Watanabe’s rushes off after that fateful last dinner with the girl, while a bunch of happy party-people gather around the stair-head. They enthusiastically sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for someone who is as yet unseen but coming up the stairs, as Watanabe hurries down below them, his hands clutching his new symbol of hope, with a new flame in his eyes as he understands the way to live. We revel in his re-birth.

CineM’s Verdict: