"Empire of Light" - NO SPOILERS movie review

I saw "Empire of Light" last night, and I absolutely loved it.  It spoke to me as a huge movie geek and a film studies student.  It's pretty meta to watch a movie about the power and effect of movies in a movie theatre, and it absolutely works.  Even though we make fun of the AMC Nicole Kidman clip, she's right.  Well, whomever wrote those lines for her is right.  There is something about the dark room and the beam of light that so many of us find mesmerizing.  Stories that are familiar to us, stories that are alien to us because they involve cultures and situations that we don't know about, stories that are alien to us because they're set on other worlds and times.

It's a very quiet movie but don't take that to mean that it's boring.  It's very contemplative in its quiet moments, and it gives us a chance to meet and get to know everyone in the film.

Not surprisingly, the leads, Olivia Coleman and Micheal Ward, are outstanding.  But the film is also an ensemble piece, and the supporting cast is absolutely at the same level of being vital to the success of the film.  In particular, I think there are two supporting parts that add so much more heart to the film, but I won't name them so that you can discover them for yourself.

One of the things this film reminded me of is someone I used to know that I met when I was in college.  Among other things, he was the projectionist at the movie theatre on campus, and we became friends.  Sometimes, I'd hang out in the booth with him during a movie.  Occasionally, it was to watch bits of a movie, but oftentimes, it was just to hang out with him, to chat with him for the periodic minutes of free time that he had in between reels.  Back then, like in this film, there were big cannisters of reels of film, and he would show them to me, and he would have to inspect them.  Those old projectors were massive, and the sound of them as they were running was a thing like no other.  Through a peculiarity of circumstance, I had learned to see the dot on the upper right hand corner to signal a reel change, and back then, it was a manual reel change, so he and I laughed about the fact that I knew all that, and I got to watch him do it.

In more modern machines, the reel change was no longer done manually but had become automated, so projectionists no longer had to push switches to change to the next reel.  In current times, of course, with digital projection, there are no reels.  That also means they likely have one projectionist who monitors multiple screens, but that means there isn't someone always watching to make sure nothing goes wrong.  BTW, are they even still called projectionists?  Because of digital projection, are they now called techs or something else?  I would love to learn more and even have the chance to visit what a modern projection booth is like and the process of showing films.

The other thing that "Empire of Light" makes me appreciate are old-school movie houses, like the one in the film.  Multiplexes are great to provide a wider variety of films to watch, but I love the grandeur and beautiful decor of places like El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood and the Paramount Theatre and Grand Lake Theatre, both located in Oakland.

There are so many other subjects that are brought up in the film, but I can't talk about them without providing spoilers.  There are many moments that are a joy to watch, but there are also some that are incredibly difficult to watch.  In any case, I highly recommend this movie.

"Andor" - spoiler thoughts about the Empire and the Rebellion through episode 11

One aspect of the Disney+ television show "Andor" that I've found intriguing is the re-positioning of how we view the Empire. They've been deadly (blowing up an entire planet will show that), but oftentimes, they're seen as bumbling more than anything else - case in point would be how stormtroopers are portrayed.

But in "Andor", they're terrifying. We know the feeling of dread when we see a Star Destroyer or a Death Star. But how often has a lone TIE fighter been terrifying? That one fighter in the hills over Aldhani that buzzes our intrepid strike team was a terrifying sight, and the sound of it was deafening. You (and they) realize how vulnerable they are and how much danger they could be in from that one ship.

We witnessed the destruction of Alderaan but we mostly felt it because of Leia's reaction and Obi-Wan's reaction. But because of circumstances, both sweep aside what they feel. In "Andor" we learn that the Empire murdered an entire species because they DARED to object to having their planet taken over to build an Empire production factory. And to make matters worse, they inadvertently discovered that the death cries of the species had a particularly disturbing quality, moreso when it came from the children of the species, and they decided that those sounds would be useful, once manipulated, as a torture device when interrogating people and trying to get information out of them. We don't need to hear the sounds, but the description is bad enough, and then coupled with Bix's cries of horror as she is forced to listen to them. Monstrous action heaped upon monstrous action.

We see what could pass as a mundane meeting of supervisors, but what they're discussing so matter-of-factly is how they're going to kill the rebel pilot they've captured so that they can best be used to set a trap.

And then there's Narkina 5, where men are brutalized repeatedly as slave labor, and then we, and the prisoners, find out that regardless of how long someone's prison sentence is, they're never allowed to be released. And when a mistake is made, they don't think twice about murdering 100 men to try to cover up that mistake.

Whereas previously, we mostly saw the top-level evil inflicted by the Empire, "Andor" shows us the individual cruelties that have even more impact on us when Cassian Andor, someone we're already sympathetic to, is swept up in the widely-cast net in the Empire's attempt to maintain control.

What I've found additionally interesting is that we're getting a similar view of what it's like to be a part of the fledgling Rebellion. The face of the Rebellion was previously Leia Organa, a spunky and defiant but caring leader. She mourns the loss of the people fighting with her, but she's held up as a beacon of virtue, an example of the heroism associated with the Rebellion.

One of the things I loved about "Rogue One" was the line of "Rebellions are built on hope." That became a rallying cry not just in the movie but in many areas of real life too. Hope is what gives people the energy to keep going, motivation to fight in the face of opposition and oppression and overwhelming odds. But "Andor" shows us there's a different side of the Rebellion during its infancy, embodied by Luthen. He fights hard to fan flames to get the Rebellion to grow, but it's not always by means that we normally associate with heroes. When Lonni tells him about the ambush that Anto Kreegyr is going to be walking into in Spellhaus, we expect that Luthen is going to pass along that information to avoid the ambush. But he decides that it's worth the sacrifice of those men to not alert the Empire of a spy in their midst, and to keep the Rebellion's progress on track.

And then there's Luthen's riveting soliloquy about what he's sacrificed in service to the Rebellion. His admission that he's had to use the tactics of his enemies to gain ground. How he's tarnished his own soul in furtherance of helping the Rebellion. Hope is not a luxury that Luthen can afford. He has to sell his soul, and sacrifice the lives of others, so that hope can be planted and grow in people who would be willing to continue the fight for the Rebellion.

Presumably with Luthen's approval, Kleya instructs Vel to kill Cassian after Cassian bails on Vel after the raid on Aldanhi, because they think Cassian poses a threat to Luthen and the "cause". It's a jarring scene to watch because those are not the instructions we're used to seeing from someone who's part of the Rebellion. It's been a very different version of the people involved in the Rebellion than we've seen before.

The Empire and the Rebellion were pretty clearly drawn as good guys and bad guys. But "Andor" has shown us that the components of the Empire are even more evil than we knew, and we see that the Rebellion doesn't just have "good guys" but more people in shades of gray, and the sacrifices in the name of the Rebellion aren't as simple and heroic as we'd like them to be.