what good is all of that love doing on paper?
I finally saw Everything Is Illuminated today.
Having missed it in the cinema, and then having received Foer's novel as a gift (thank you again, Kimma ♥), I'd decided to wait until I'd read the book first. Well, I finished that a few weeks ago.
Even before the film had been made, I'd read reviews touting the novel's innovation and unique, challenging style. I have to say, I didn't find it that challenging or innovative. Jeanette Winterson has been telling nonlinear tales blending myth with the ordinary and intertwining narrative voices for at least a full decade before Foer's debut (in fact, initially, I felt the book was watered-down Winterson, but discarded that idea before the end). And I'm sure their are others to predate her. Never the less, I still enjoyed it very much.
But I think I enjoyed the film more. The deviations from the text were innumerable, but for every piece that Liev Schreiber shed for the adaptation, he retained and thus revealed the heart and the spirit. And those are the most important things. Besides, what I missed most from the text were the imagined/embellished stories of Trachimbrod as told by Jonathan, and those perhaps work best in writing. To have included them in the film would have not only extended the film's length by at least 50%, but would have resulted in a confusing, muddied mess. Furthermore, a film needs to stand on its own, be its own creature. And, thanks to Schreiber's adept cutting and pasting and refashioning, this is. Beautifully so.
One element that truly shone through in the film was the humor. Present in the book, but better realized on the screen. IMO. This really aided the character of Jonathan for me. In the book, he felt somewhat alien and distant, perhaps for the simple fact that very little of the story is told from his point of view. It's simple: Alex speaks directly to us, while Jonathan comes through in translation (literally and figuratively).
Leave it to Elijah. He captured the cold, distanced quality of Jonathan, a man living to keep others' pasts alive. Yet he brought Jonathan alive too, connecting his family's past with his own, like there was a line of string leading from his grandfather's hand to his chest, tugging and pulling and driving him. Plus, he's funnier here, which warms anyone up immediately.
But yeesh, those eyes! With those glasses, Lij turned into an owl! ;)
Eugene Hutz tore Alex directly from the page, and yet made him richer than the character originally seemed, which I didn't think was possible. Alex has a brilliant arc, moving from broad comic caricature to complex protagonist... and Eugene revealed the layers in such tight, short unravelings in a sort of "less is more" approach. Somehow he managed to be both larger than life and extremely subtle at the same time. I was just captivated by him. My only complaint is that he still seemed a bit of a sidekick here, when his significance is equal to (if not greater than) Jonathan's by the end of the book.
I loved the dog! And I especially loved the deleted scene with the Jonathan/Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior 1970s carwash fantasy. Hilarious. And Jonathan cuddling and kissing the dog by the end made me go all squishy. I don't believe that was in the book, but it worked for me. SUCH a cute dog. :)
Alex's grandfather and Lista (or the woman who was not Augustine).... They both broke my heart in the book, but they broke it a thousand times over here. It's all so sad and tragic and horrible. And yet beautiful, uplifting. It's a conflict of emotions, as real as anything.
I don't recall the grandfather being Jewish in the book. See, there are so many differences, I'm now questioning my memory about what I read! Or maybe it was implied and I densely missed that. Whatever the case, it worked, it made sense, and drew the circle tighter, linking these different people over culture and time.
Besides that, there's the cinematography, which blew my mind. Simple yet fantastic. Each second on screen could have been a quality photograph in itself. Something you'd want to frame. Does anyone know if it was truly filmed in the Ukraine? I felt a large pang at both the urban and rural scenes (though especially the rural scenes), trying to imagine if it was like what my great-grandparents might have seen, where they might have lived... although they were from the Kiev area.
The soundtrack augmented the sense of nostalgia mixed with humor mixed with longing. So perfect.
The extras disappointed me though. Gah, I'm so spoiled by commentaries and featurettes on dvds! All you get on this one is the trailer and deleted scenes. I want more. * is greedy*
Anyway, I loved it, and think I need to own it on dvd as soon as I can. :)
Having missed it in the cinema, and then having received Foer's novel as a gift (thank you again, Kimma ♥), I'd decided to wait until I'd read the book first. Well, I finished that a few weeks ago.
Even before the film had been made, I'd read reviews touting the novel's innovation and unique, challenging style. I have to say, I didn't find it that challenging or innovative. Jeanette Winterson has been telling nonlinear tales blending myth with the ordinary and intertwining narrative voices for at least a full decade before Foer's debut (in fact, initially, I felt the book was watered-down Winterson, but discarded that idea before the end). And I'm sure their are others to predate her. Never the less, I still enjoyed it very much.
But I think I enjoyed the film more. The deviations from the text were innumerable, but for every piece that Liev Schreiber shed for the adaptation, he retained and thus revealed the heart and the spirit. And those are the most important things. Besides, what I missed most from the text were the imagined/embellished stories of Trachimbrod as told by Jonathan, and those perhaps work best in writing. To have included them in the film would have not only extended the film's length by at least 50%, but would have resulted in a confusing, muddied mess. Furthermore, a film needs to stand on its own, be its own creature. And, thanks to Schreiber's adept cutting and pasting and refashioning, this is. Beautifully so.
One element that truly shone through in the film was the humor. Present in the book, but better realized on the screen. IMO. This really aided the character of Jonathan for me. In the book, he felt somewhat alien and distant, perhaps for the simple fact that very little of the story is told from his point of view. It's simple: Alex speaks directly to us, while Jonathan comes through in translation (literally and figuratively).
Leave it to Elijah. He captured the cold, distanced quality of Jonathan, a man living to keep others' pasts alive. Yet he brought Jonathan alive too, connecting his family's past with his own, like there was a line of string leading from his grandfather's hand to his chest, tugging and pulling and driving him. Plus, he's funnier here, which warms anyone up immediately.
But yeesh, those eyes! With those glasses, Lij turned into an owl! ;)
Eugene Hutz tore Alex directly from the page, and yet made him richer than the character originally seemed, which I didn't think was possible. Alex has a brilliant arc, moving from broad comic caricature to complex protagonist... and Eugene revealed the layers in such tight, short unravelings in a sort of "less is more" approach. Somehow he managed to be both larger than life and extremely subtle at the same time. I was just captivated by him. My only complaint is that he still seemed a bit of a sidekick here, when his significance is equal to (if not greater than) Jonathan's by the end of the book.
I loved the dog! And I especially loved the deleted scene with the Jonathan/Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior 1970s carwash fantasy. Hilarious. And Jonathan cuddling and kissing the dog by the end made me go all squishy. I don't believe that was in the book, but it worked for me. SUCH a cute dog. :)
Alex's grandfather and Lista (or the woman who was not Augustine).... They both broke my heart in the book, but they broke it a thousand times over here. It's all so sad and tragic and horrible. And yet beautiful, uplifting. It's a conflict of emotions, as real as anything.
I don't recall the grandfather being Jewish in the book. See, there are so many differences, I'm now questioning my memory about what I read! Or maybe it was implied and I densely missed that. Whatever the case, it worked, it made sense, and drew the circle tighter, linking these different people over culture and time.
Besides that, there's the cinematography, which blew my mind. Simple yet fantastic. Each second on screen could have been a quality photograph in itself. Something you'd want to frame. Does anyone know if it was truly filmed in the Ukraine? I felt a large pang at both the urban and rural scenes (though especially the rural scenes), trying to imagine if it was like what my great-grandparents might have seen, where they might have lived... although they were from the Kiev area.
The soundtrack augmented the sense of nostalgia mixed with humor mixed with longing. So perfect.
The extras disappointed me though. Gah, I'm so spoiled by commentaries and featurettes on dvds! All you get on this one is the trailer and deleted scenes. I want more. * is greedy*
Anyway, I loved it, and think I need to own it on dvd as soon as I can. :)