Movie: The Dead (John Huston, 1987)
Similarly to Toni Erdmann and The Farewell, this is a film that should speak to Eastern European immigrants (and their loved ones that remain behind), despite not being remotely about them. It's about a Dublin gathering of family and friends taking place on 6 January. In Christian-Orthodox cultures that is Christmas Eve, in Ireland it is Epiphany, which is ostensibly what this crowd here is celebrating. But The Dead doesn't present this as a celebration of a cultural religious holiday, but as a celebration of a family tradition, not unlike the namedays that are quite popular in Eastern Europe, which are essentially family gatherings that celebrate their own existence. They are attended by blood relatives and others who are close to the family, and there is always somoene there whose presence and connection to everyone else is a bit inexplicable, especially to the younger generations. One of my favourite things about The Dead is that you are not always very sure how everone is related to one another and why they belong to the party. Yet Huston also makes clear that everyone is beloved by all, takes care of all, and genuinely enjoys each other's company, without necessarily having the time of their lives. The conversation may not always be enthralling, but that's part of the point. The party is about showing love, respect and courtesy to people who matter, have mattered of could matter to you, in ways you may not even always directly grasp.
The hosts of the party are Kate and Julia (two sisters, one in her late middle-ages, the other much older) and their niece Mary Jane. They are all accomplished veteran musicians, respected in the musical and theater circles of Ireland. Most people at the party are similarly cultured and knowledgeable; before dinner the guests dance waltzes, only to be interrupted by a guest's musical performance or literary recitation. During dinner, they discuss the latest play in the theater and the lost glory of the Irish opera scene, remembering all the great soprano's that used to come to Dublin and now mostly go to Vienna and Milan. The scene is not played at all for comedy; I got a laugh out of it. Every person from former Yugoslavia probably has been at a family gathering where the elderly have wistfully reminisced about the lost cultural glory days of Belgrade or Sarajevo, in pretty much the exact tone and words used here. It's quite interesting too that the most respected man at the party, aside from the hosts, the one who gives the big speech during dinner, is Gabriel (Donal McCann), a man who despite having been brought up with the ideals of this family's culture of 'sophisticated 19th Century Irishness' (the film takes place in 1904), is not much of a purveyor of them. Sure, he has (and shows) great respect for all of it, but is a journalist writing for the English Daily Express who would rather go on holiday to Germany or Belgium than to Galway. One of the guests at the party derisively jokes that Gabriel is not an Irishman, but a 'West-Briton'.
John Huston famously made this film (almost literally) on his deathbed. It explains why the film doesn't have much of a plot, but it is more about capturing the sense of loss of cultures, people and memories. He most succesfully does that in a montage (much slower than what you are used to in regular 80's movies) during a musical performance by the most elderly sister. While she sings, he cuts between various spaces (an empty staircase, the room where all the coats are held) in the house and objects relevant to the family's history. Notable too is the great gentleness with which he filme everyone, but especially scenes involving the elderly, always making sure to show the care with which they are being approached and emphasising the attention being paid to make sure that even the most fragile people can feel included at the party.
There is also a shot of Anjelica Huston, playing Gabriel's wife, standing in front of stained glass listening enraptured to a beautiful musical performance, while her husband silently looks at her, that reminds the audience that even a fragile John Huston had not lost his sense of showmanship. It's the shot that leads to the final 20 minutes of the film, that literalise everything that had come before and use great dramatic gestures to bluntly reflect on life, love and death. I can see why Huston (and James Joyce, the film is adapted from one of his short stories) included these scenes, but they turn the personal, vulnerable and gentle reflection on loss from before into statements of a more generalised grand universality. That's absolutely not needed here.
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