Cinema Culture Gap

    One can learn a lot from watching foreign films. They can say so much more about the culture and character of a people than a tourism marketing video. How do they view their life? Their environment? What is their reaction to the good and evil that comes their way? And do they really wear those funky costumes we see in publicity stills?  Truth is, no matter how many Danish films one sees, the true Dane will always be beyond one's grasp if films are the only measuring stick. Sure you can follow the storyline and laugh at the obvious jokes while scowling at the identifiable villains. But there will be smaller cues, reasons for behavior, significance of art or set pieces, specific clothing worn and other markers that will lost if you are not in sync with the culture already.  Read: you were raised there or lived there for significant time.
    This is why I get nervous when some U.S. films make it overseas. I know that the story will not be truly understood as told.  People like to think that because they have watched Dallas, Dynasty, Dukes of Hazzard, Days of Our Lives and visited Disneyland they completely understand the American psyche. They are convinced they can watch an American product and not measure what they see against their own cultural yardstick.  As I watched the Oscar award winning 12 Years A Slave  in a media screening, I knew this film would be misinterpreted from opening to closing credits. This film does not ask the question, "Is slavery wrong?" Of course it is, that is a given up front.  This film does not assert that all slave owners were cruel, evil wretches--some weren't (Benedict Cumberbatch's character, for instance) but everyone was mindful of the cheap labor it provided as an economic necessity. (Cheap labor being a topic of business concern to this day.)  At its core, this is a story of a man's painful journey from freedom to slavery and back again.
     Movie reviewers here in Australia, whether on TV shows, magazines, large daily papers or small community weeklies, all seemed to view 12 Years A Slave in the same way.  Let me share one example that reflects most reviews.  This excerpt was written by  West Australian (newspaper) movie reviewer Mark Naglazas.

           "This adaptation of freed slave Solomon Northup's memoir...has been described as the Schindler's List of the country's original sin--and rightly so. 12 Years A Slave tells an enthralling individual story..., the appalling treatment of blacks by whites in the founding years of a nation that we hold as the symbol of democracy. (Director Steve) McQueen keeps his distance, giving us the full force of the horror but forcing us to reflect on white man's inhumanity to black man."

     I won't nitpick on his poor history (this movie's era is almost a century after the "founding years of a nation") but I am astonished that modern day Americans are being taken to task for an institution abolished by the U.S. Federal government 150 years ago. [The sins of thy father's father's father's father's father.] I am absolutely gobsmacked by the hubris of Australians who dare to claim a higher, enlightened path when talking about "white man's inhumanity to black man" when the Australian Federal government waited until  1967 --over 100 years later-- until fully recognizing Aborigines as human beings with full citizenship! [Throw away those dog-tags, 'black fellas'.] So intent on looking for the splinter in someone else's eye that they fail to notice the log in their own. Unbelievable.
    But the culture gap flows in all directions.  I really like the movie, Saving Mr Banks. But I found myself startled by the depiction of the protagonist's father Travers Gibb, played by Colin Farrell.  Travers Gibb is portrayed as a hard-drinking, reality-avoiding, Peter Pan wannabe.  Ninety years later, this is exactly how Australian men were described to me by a friend after I announced I was marrying an Aussie.  Contemporary Australians may disagree with the description but image beyond its borders remain.
    I enjoy watching foreign flicks every now and again but I'm a little wiser in their interpretation now.