Coluna Claquete – November 21, 2016 – Movie of the Week: “Captain Fantastic”
Newton Ramalho
colunaclaquete@gmail.com – www.colunaclaquete.blogspot.com– @colunaclaquete
Movie of the Week: “Captain Fantastic”
One of the hardest things in life is certainly how to properly educate our children. The truth is that each individual is unique, the conditions that permeate us also are, and everyone try to do what is right based on their own convictions. This is the implicit theme in the interesting movie “Captain Fantastic”, from director and screenwriter Matt Ross.
Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) had made his choice.He lived with six children in a mountainous region of the state of Washington, in the forests of the American Northwest, near Canada.There they lived a spartan life, hunting, doing intense physical training, climbing, practicing self-defense, and a lot of studies in various areas of knowledge, foreign languages, philosophy, politics and more.
Amid this intense life, one thing was missing to the family, the mother, Leslie (Trin Miller), absent for health treatment. But when searching for news abaout the woman, Ben was surprised by the information that she had committed suicide.When contacting the father, Jack (Frank Langella), Ben was threatened by the menace of being arrested if he showed up at the funeral.
Still sad for the loss of the woman, Ben discovered that the last wish of his wife was to be cremated, which, after some indecision, led him to take the children in a long trip to New Mexico, to satisfy her desire.
The trip was a great novelty for the kids who only knew the small village close to their refuge. The sight of thousands of cars cluttering the roads, huge supermarkets and other capitalist icons surprised the children, always with a critical view of Ben about this world.
The first clash between these worlds was in the house of Ben’s sister, Harper (Kathryn Hahn). Harper, with her husband Dave (Steve Zahn) and two teenage children, formed the typical American family, alienated and consumerist. While Harper and Dave made a thousand detours to explain the death of Leslie, Ben went straight to the point, explaining clearly what had happened to her.
But the expected scandal happened in Leslie’s funeral, an elegant ceremony in a traditional church with dozens of guests. Even if Ben tried to show that he was trying to fulfill the last wish of Leslie, her father was inflexible and threatened to arrest him if he continued insisting it.
This clash of worlds affected everyone, including children. Bo (George Mackay), the eldest son, had applied to the best universities in the country, being accepted by several of them. Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton) wanted to stay with his grandparents. Ben itself began to question whether their choices were correct or not.
Matt Ross film brings fierce criticism of the American way of life, and their alienated way to educate children. Although Ben waldenistic way of life was also out of reality, there is no doubt about what the director considers the most correct way.
Some of the funniest scenes in the movie take place when the children question Ben about sex, situations that are usually embarrassing for parents, especially in a conservative society like the American. But the lesson of the film is: do not leave any question unanswered.
One point that generates controversy among viewers is how religion is portrayed in the film. Leslie considered herself a Buddhist, more for the philosophy than the religious organization.But what strikes most is when Ben replaces Christmas by Noam Chomsky’s Day, considering a humanist more important than “a fictional magical elf”.
The great message of the film is not to say what is right or not, but rather, to raise discussions on education and family relationships, questioning the alienated way of life of the society that we live, in a increasingly consumerist world.
The film, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, is technically very well done, and besides the beautiful children of the cast, brings exceptional performance of Viggo Mortensen and veteran Frank Langella. I recommend it to everyone, If only to find out where Leslie wanted her ashes to be deposited.
Original title: “Captain Fantastic”