i-heart-art Blog

So I just got back from seeing Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette...against my better judgement. Don't get me wrong - I have loved Sofia's other 2 films (just check my ratings) and I even like Kirsten Dunst, but I cannot stand period films with anachronistic soundtracks. Worse still, this particular soundtrack happens to be full of some of my favorite bands and songs (as Sofia's films always are, but that's usually a good thing...). Anyway, the only reason that I saw this film today is because a friend of mine invited me and we tend to have similar tastes in films. We did go into this one knowing that I was less excited about it than she and I let her know my reasons, however, she is in her early 20s and I am in my early 30s, so the very thing that was a major detractor for me (the soundtrack) was an attractor for her - it's supposed to work that way, I get it...I ultimately consented to go to the film because I realized that I had a ticket for free admission to one of the better theaters in our area showing this film (I had previously planned to just wait for this to go to a second-run theater or DVD).

It's hard for me to separate my feelings for the film from my feelings about the soundtrack because, let's face it - the soundtracks are always an integral part of Sofia's films, but my young-but-wise friend summed it up nicely after the film when she said, "this film out of all of [Sofia Coppola's] films had the least [developed] story even though it merits the most". I would also like to add that I need to believe that it was Robert Smith's requirement to only allow a few bars of an instrumental intro to one of his songs to be played during the film and to only consent to having a song with his vocals to be played during the closing credits so that I can sleep at night (FYI, I do know which Cure songs these were, but I try really hard not to divulge any spoilers in my blogs).

It is pretty impossible for me to rate this one because I certainly don't feel neutral about it and I never lost interest - I launched an extensive internet search about the subject of this documentary, Tommy Tranchin, after I learned that he committed suicide 2-3 years ago, at the age of 15. This documentary is about the struggle between 2 parents to decide on how to best educate their deaf son (they also have a hearing son). The wife feels very strongly that he should be taught to learn to speak without any knowledge or use of any type of sign system and the husband, who is actually the one that filmed the documentary as he travelled the country visiting different schools with different methods of teaching deaf children as well as spending time with the parents of some of those children and interviewing them on their choices and experiences, seems more open to allowing Tommy to learn sign language (which means that the family would also have to learn sign language). Most people who are not learning sign language or closely related (or in a friendship with) a Deaf person have little reason to know about the history of Deaf culture (or why I sometimes spell deaf with a capital "D" and sometimes not), including the ongoing conflicts and controversies over the best methods for educating deaf children...but the bottom line is that it is generally easier for a child that is born deaf to learn sign language first, then to learn English as a second language. Anyway, Thomas's mother's reasons for not wanting her son to learn sign language were so infuriating and then to learn that he committed suicide about 10 years after this documentary (whether or not it was due to any conflicts with his mother - rather than place blame on a parent, I can say that it would be easy to conceive that he was having a hard existence, struggling to understand and be understood after not being given a proper language and educational foundation) was just heartbreaking.

I am sure that it is because I didn't see this movie until last year, while studying ASL, and because we read the play before watching the film for class, but I strongly disliked this film - it completely misses the point of the play from which it is adapted. Furthermore, it is still quite controversial within the Deaf community that Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for portraying a Deaf woman that was fiercely proud of her deafness and did not want to be taught oralism (speaking and reading lips), then proceeded to voice her entire Oscar acceptance speech - she used no sign language. Both the film adaptation of this movie and the sadly ironic Oscar moment were slaps in the face to the Deaf community that I have come to care deeply for and with whom I sympathise. On the other hand, ignorance is bliss and I suppose that it could be an enjoyable film if one did not have knowledge of the Deaf community or the politcs therein.