Love and War

Here are some movies you can use to prod your family into a sense of historical consciousness, maybe even awareness, perhaps saving them from the fate of this week’s film heroes.

Each of the men in The Remains of the Day, The English Patient, and Hotel Rwanda excels at his job and ignores what is happening around him until he has to face the consequences of his blindness.

The Remains of the Day, a film version of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize novel, was made by one of the world’s most respected directors, James Ivory, with producer Ishmael Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Ivory, born in Berkeley, California, graduated from the University of Oregon in 1951 and has donated his personal papers to its library.

Remains’ title refers to the last gasp of the British aristocracy’s estate-style life and political dominance during the 1930s, just before the onset of World War II. The main figure in the story is a head butler, Stevens (Anthony Hopkins), who works for Lord Darlington (James Fox). Steven’s “could-be-love” is the estate housekeeper, Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), whose affection he throws away.

Darlington, like real-life Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, believes that the Germans have been badly treated by the Allies since World War I. He invites Nazi representatives to estate conferences, the content of which Stevens steadfastly ignores. Stevens believes that his employer knows best because “my lord has studied these issues.”

One night an aristocratic guest asks Stevens repeated political questions. To each query Stevens says he regrets that he cannot be of help in these matters. The “gentleman” then uses the butler’s ignorance to condemn ordinary people’s right to vote.

Political ignorance is not Stevens’ only problem. He is so attached to being the perfect butler that he kills his opportunity for happiness with Miss Kenton. Only after World War II and Lord Darlington’s fall as a Nazi collaborator does he realize his political folly. He never comes to terms with his emotional emptiness.

Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient (1996) is based on another Booker Prize novel, this time by Michael Ondaatje. It begins in the late 1930s in Egypt and continues through World War II. The main character is the Hungarian Count Almasy (Ralph Fiennes) who is totally absorbed by his interest in North African archeology.

Almasy is ripped by reality when he falls for Katherine, a married woman (Kristin Scott Thomas), who meets her fate largely because of his intentional ignorance of the war.

The nurse who tends Almasy as the war ends is a Canadian commoner who loves a Sikh soldier. They are the post-World War II survivors, ordinary-but-internationalized people, as is the non-aristocratic American Congressman (Christopher Reeves) who buys Darlington’s estate in Remains.

Both films offer intriguing topics to discuss with teenagers: the relation of jobs to other aspects of life, the way wars envelop everyone, class struggle during the early Twentieth Century, and World War II history and geography.

Hotel Rwanda, a 2004 film recently released for home viewing, is a film that you and your teenagers should not miss.

Also about love in the midst of war, Hotel provides an additional point of comparison, the manner in which the story is told. Unlike Remains and English, which provide suspense artificially by constructing complex, non-linear stories, Hotel proceeds in a straightforward, hugely suspenseful, and utterly shattering manner.

I did not breathe during this film.

Hotel is not a “romance” but it is the most moving love story I have seen. The hero, a real person named Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), deeply loves his family and people. He, like the butler Stevens, has made a life out of serving the Belgian owners and Western guests of the hotel he manages. Like Stevens and Almasy he largely ignores the warning signs of impending trouble until it is impossible to escape. But then, unlike the other two characters, he takes charge and, through his small but monumentally consequential actions, saves the lives of 1,200 people who belong to both sides of the war.

Hotel was written (with Keir Pearson, who lives in Portland) and directed by Terry George. Use Hotel Rwanda to discuss love, honor, and inhumanity with your older children. They won’t forget this film.