*** (out of ****)
Starring Tom Hanks, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chi McBride, and Diego Luna
Directed by Steven Spielberg & written by Andrew Niccol, Sacha Gervasi, and Jeff Nathanson
2004
124 min PG13
We all knew Steven Spielberg liked Kubrick (see “Artificial Intelligence”), but who duh thunk he liked Kafka and Mr. Bean? “The Terminal” isn’t really about airports or Balkan coups. No, it’s a comedy—if you can believe that—that seems loosely inspired by that Kafka story where the guy spends his entire life waiting outside the gates of the law. Orson Welles reads it at the beginning of “The Trial.” In the case of “The Terminal,” an Eastern European is trapped in JFK airport for months because he has neither the papers to go home nor the papers to go into the city. Kafka was a tireless critic of humongous, faceless, endlessly logical yet endlessly insane bureaucracies. One could also think of “The Castle,” in which Kafka’s nearly-nameless K. lays nonviolent siege to a pedantically unresponsive village just to find out what his job is.
Likewise, one of Kubrick’s recurrent themes is what happens when perfect reasoning machines and hyper-rational intellectuals are trapped in deadly logic problems. In “2001,” when HAL 9000 is told to fulfill his mission to the best of his abilities, he kills his human crew. In “Dr. Strangelove,” the doomsday device intended to prevent war obliterates human civilization. In “A Clockwork Orange,” the desire to lower crime and live comfortably overrides the need for free will. In “Paths of Glory,” soldiers ordered to attack a bunker they know is indestructible retreat after suffering insane losses, and are then tried as cowards. And of course the protagonist of “Lolita” is unreasonably bound to his desires, even if they drag him beyond the law.
Spielberg’s players are trapped by their own inflexible interpretation of the rules, or simply a commitment to sticking to a plan or rationale long after it has stopped serving any purpose. The result is, yes, a comedy in the style of “Mr. Bean,” not in a slapstick way, but in the way Mr. Bean is ingenuous within his very particular boundaries. Viktor, our Slavic hero (Tom Hanks), is endlessly determined and resourceful in devising ways to stay fed and comfortable inside the airport, yet it doesn’t even occur to him to use an ounce of that ingenuity to simply sneak out of the airport. Similarly, his nemesis in the control room is diabolical in sticking to his guns, but can’t doctor a few forms. The airport is the perfect location for their contest of stubbornness because it is a completely artificial and tightly-controlled microcosm of the industrialized world. In its brightly-lit, seasonless cleanliness, it is also, one could say, a city-sized version of the spaceship “Discovery.” (The airport is, incidentally, not an airport at all, but a tremendous set.)
The most telling scene in “The Terminal” occurs within the first third, when Dixon (Stanley Tucci), the master of the airport, actually informs Viktor that there will be a brief period when a gate will be unguarded and he can slip outside. But Viktor balks at the notion, much to Dixon’s dismay.
Hyper-rational bureaucracies, according to “The Terminal,” are not part of an alien force pushed down from above, but the most natural thing for humans to do. When we finally find out why Viktor is visiting America, yes it’s sweet, but there’s also something inane about the promise he has made to his father. Viktor’s love interest is a stewardess (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who has spent seven years waiting for the same man to leave his wife, and even after meeting Viktor and being told, in movie diction, that he’s perfect for her, she refuses to abandon her course. When Viktor’s quest is complete, we see the lightbulb flickering above his head, as he weighs and values what his mindless devotion has gained him. While the other characters catch a glimpse of what lays beyond their quagmires, only Dixon, in the film’s closing scenes, seems to have really learned something.
“The Terminal” has a lot of fun—although not quite as much as it thinks it’s having—with Viktor’s attempts to survive in the airport. He finds a gate under construction and creates a makeshift home. Using illogical logic that might make your head spin, he even acquires a job. Spielberg, who more or less defines what is mainstream filmmaking, cannot resist a few maudlin movie conventions. Although “The Terminal” has been described as influenced by the films of Jacques Tati (“Playtime”), who made large canvas comedies in which his frames were overflowing with action in all directions, Spielberg, for the most part, keeps everything important within the safe foreground. Our eyes need not notice much to which they are not instantly drawn. He also vilifies Dixon in the last act—because all mainstream movies need a villain—when Dixon is more interesting as Viktor’s alter-ego. If Viktor must always obey the rules, Dixon must always enforce the rules, and it is the refusal on either of their parts to budge that causes their conflict, not mean-spiritedness or greed.
Tom Hanks got the part, my wife pointed out, because of its similarities to “Castaway.” In both films he says little and his motivations are often a mystery. Everything we learn about him is a result of what he’s doing in the moment, not his plans or his past. For a movie with no real action, it is a physical performance of bowed legs, full-body flinches, and headlong eagerness.
With “The Terminal” and “Catch Me If You Can,” Spielberg, once thought of only in terms of action and effects, has found an unexpected niche excelling at fluffy human comedies. I liked his “Minority Report” and probably should have gone a half-star higher in rating it, but it was somehow too perfect, too pat, which is how I expect his forthcoming “War of the Worlds” will be. “The Terminal” and “Catch Me” are freer, more human. Spielberg seems to be enjoying this newer terrain, and so am I.
Finished Tuesday, June 7, 2005
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