Circus life turns out to be less fun than the myth has it, David Manning discovers at the movies in Nelson this week.
The metaphorical elephant in the room – cruelty to animals – in the circus melodrama Water for Elephants is ironically and literally an elephant.
This movie spurs romantic nostalgia for the circuses of yesteryear – those exotic travelling entertainment extravaganzas which offered a possible refuge for runaways.
Circuses arrived in town, by trains or trucks, to provoke wonder and delight, laughs and thrills. Overnight, they were gone, leaving fond memories of their star performers, clowns and animals.
Ah, the animals. Often there were big cats, horses, dogs and, if audiences were lucky, an elephant.
Animal rights groups have increasingly campaigned in the past 70 years to make people aware of the potential plight of circus animals. A trained elephant standing on its hind legs or striking a funny pose was once an amusement or an impressive trick, but worries about how animals were trained and treated in such travelling shows sullied the circus experience.
In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, there was a greater likelihood for circus animals to be exploited – and that's the setting for Water for Elephants.
Based on Sara Gruen's 2007 best-selling novel, the movie, set in 1931, focuses on the Benzini Brothers Circus, run by its volatile, ruthless and cruel owner and ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz). Desperate for his circus to survive, he resorts to murderous ends to get rid of roustabout workers who are no longer wanted. His abusive personality extends to his wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) and his star attraction, an elephant named Rosie.
Scenes of circus trains steaming through the night, the big top going up and happy faces in the audience arouse the nostalgia that often cloaks the distant past – but when August takes a bull hook to Rosie, the circus fun becomes hard to watch.
Eventually pitted against August is Polish student Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), who joins the circus as a vet shortly after personal tragedy has left him homeless.
Not only will Jacob come into conflict with August over his treatment of Rosie, but his budding love for Marlena will ignite a dangerous jealousy in August.
It's predictable melodrama – August's fate is easy to foresee, for instance – which benefits from a setup that has an elderly Jacob (Hal Holbrook) telling a circus owner about a famous circus tragedy and how he was in the midst of it.
Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (The Horse Whisperer, The Bridges of Madison County) and director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) provide a gritty feel for the hard times of circus life while hoping that the love triangle, the mystery about what tragedy will occur and the star performances will provide story momentum and maintain moviegoers' interest.
However, minor characters fail to generate much interest and always feel expendable, an obligatory love scene between Jacob and the older Marlena lacks passion (the romantic relationship between them is never convincing), the story is often sluggish and, when the big climax comes, it's rushed and all too quickly over to have the necessary impact.
As for the cast, Pattinson, the heartthrob from the Twilight movies, in which he plays melancholy vampire Edward, and Witherspoon are adequate but are overshadowed by two other performances.
It's Waltz who gives the movie its menace, just as he did in Inglourious Basterds. His August is greedy, sadistic and possessive, often smiling as he intimidates or threatens – or feels bad after an abusive incident but also tries to justify what he did. When he's on screen, the movie's intensity noticeably ratchets up.
The other star performer is Tai, the elephant who plays Rosie, the pachyderm who never forgets.
The movie's producers have offered assurances that no animals were harmed in the making of the film. Indeed, the movie makes such treatment contemptuous in the context of its story and has received the American Humane Association's seal of approval.
However, Animal Defenders International alleges that Tai was abused in 2005 when he was taught tricks he would later perform in this movie.
It's likely that most Water for Elephants moviegoers will share with patrons of circuses decades ago a desire to believe that performing animals aren't maltreated in any way to do what they do.
Nevertheless, some moviegoers might still find it hard to become involved in a movie in which a key part is cruelty towards an elephant – and any doubts about Tai's treatment in relation to his performance could make some scenes unbearable to watch, perhaps even reason enough not to see the movie.
Areme-007
No comments:
Post a Comment