_The Miracle_

[septimus_...@q.com]

[septimus_...@q.com]

While in Chicago* I picked up my first ever physical copy
of the Chicago Reader. (Most of the reviews are online but
I haven't followed the weekly for a while.) The Jonathan
Rosenbaum review for _Au Revoir, Les Enfants_ was reprinted,
and it attacked director Louis Malle for turning the Jewish
boy into an "art object," a denigrating stereotype only
slightly better than typecasting them as victims. Rosenbaum
suggested that making a film about ordinary kids would have
been betterr.

I was stunned. I thought art was about the exemplary; if
you like to see "ordinary kids" why not just take a walk
in the mall? I personally can't stand films about teenagers.
The handful of exceptions are those where they are not
ordinary, but self-consciously turn themselves into objects
of art. The recent _Heartbeat_ by Xavier Dolan is a good
example.

_The Miracle_ s among the greatest of the exceptions. Two
extraordinary teenagers and best friends Jimmy and Rose live
in an Irish seaside town. During the summer vacation they
walk around, making up stories about nuns and visitors. They
are smart, inspired, curious, imaginative, literary. Jimmy
is a talented saxophone and piano player as well; he plays
with his alcoholic father's band in a bar and then strikes
out on his own with the local circus. But they are very
much kids at heart, and this summer they will write their
own, very real, coming-of-age stories. Jimmy takes to a
mysterious, mature woman who seems strangely responsive to
his advances, while the jealous Rose plots to lose her
virginity, in the process "humanizing" brash young animal
trainer working for the circus.

Director Neil Jordan started off as a writer of novellas,
and this screenplay is as perfect a cinematic short story as
any. (The middle of the film, featuring the hurt, sulking
Jimmy, drags a little, but it is redeemed by the exhilirating,
"miraculous" ending.) But visually the film is excellent as
well. The campy seaside town mileau, with its loud colors,
low-rent bars and circuses, and even the garish play-within-a-
film ("Destry Rides Again") set in nearby Dublin, is ultimately
transformed into something magical, becomes all of one piece
with the saturated, almost flourescent colors of the night sky
and the neon-litbeach front. Elegant composition and
stately dolly shots are often interrupted by emphatic, arching
camera motion, as if Jordan is swerving to confront the
protagonists head on, better to meet the swell of their emotions
and inspirations. The stage-play is exceptionally well-filmed,
with the camera weaving between backstage and front. The use
of classic showtunes like "Stardust" lends the film timeless
glamour and flair.

What makes the film Neil Jordan's best film is ultimately the
two teenagers and the chemistry between them. Despite being the
smartest and coolest kids in town, they are also the most
sincere, completely open to their each other's flaws. They wear
desire, longing, hopes, and dreams on their sleeves. Jimmy's
special relationship with his ineffectual father is just
unforgettable (he kicks the anti-authority figure in the groin
after beingbeaten first time in his life, and then dreams
a guilty dream about fishing the father's carcass out of the
sea). His ardent pursuit of the mysterious, older American
(Beverly d'Angelo) is as believable as those of any infatuated
teenager, while Rose's cerebral entrapment of the circus brute
seduces the literary-minded in all us. _The Miracle_ should
have gotten the Criterion treatment long ago, like _Mona Lisa_
and _The Crying Game_; instead, it is only available on mediocre
region 4 VHS transfer, and I may have bought the last surviving
DVD.

I saw the _Miracle_ half a life time ago in Berkeley, in what
was then the premier art-house theater "Act 1&2," where I also
saw _The Double Life of Veronique and countless other masterpieces
of the early 90s. Last week I happened to drive through the area
after a business trip. The Act theaters had turned into an
up-scale Vietname resturant long ago, of course; the UC repertory
theater across the street is still vacant after going out of
business 10+ years ago. I did get take-out from my once favorite
resturant, "Sun Hong Kong," at its new, seedier location; it used
to be next door to Image Video, home to rare international VHS
tapes, also having vanished years ago. Berkeley used to be such
a great movie town. It is not that anymore, even if the Pacific
Film Archive remains (I would have seen _My Night at Maud's_ there
if I could stay for Friday night). It was Berkeley which made
me spend a disproportionate part of my life following cinema.
Often I've wondered if it was worth it. Watching _The Miracle_
again, I realized that, if I never quite lived up to the legacy of
the great humanists of the 90s (Kieslowski, Jordan, Techine),
never turned into the person I was inspired to become by their
films, I was at least no longer the same brute of those years.
So my salute to Jordan and his peers. You have indeed humanized us.



*Chicago is truly a great movie city. Barbara Sukowa was
there to promote _Hannah Arendt_ (I just missed the event
in March), and a eurozone film festival was on going, with
one of the highlights being Sally Potter's _Ginger and Rosa_.
Unfortunately I picked the worst film in the slate.