To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Date: Tue, 09 May 2006 18:02:44 GMT
Subject: [Puptcrit] Fw: WAH-WAH,


Richard Grant's new film includes toy puppets.


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cook
Sent: Tue, 9 May 2006 10:39:49 -0700
To: kismet-AT-bigpond.net.au
Subject: WAH-WAH, new movie about an English boy growing up in Swaziland, Africa

Last night I went to a screening of WAH-WAH in West Los Angeles near UCLA (University of California Los Angeles).

Script and Direction by Richard E. Grant. The story is a condensed version of Grant's own childhood, and for legal reason s descibed as "semiautobiographical"---but the fictionalization is also part of the editing process. Not unlike when a small cast does Shakespear and 2 characters are merged into one, so important dialogue gets delivered.

The young boy discovers his mother's adultery with his dad's best friend, the family is split apart, dad becomes an abusive drunk, remarries (an American played by Emily Watson with right-on accent---Richard Grant's wife is a dialect coach, which helped).

The boy has a puppet show. First a model theater with stick puppets, then eventually a collection of Pelham and Czech toy marionettes which appear in the film---they are from the author's collection from his youth (part of the autobiography part).

Few plays, novels, movies are about functional families---there are few functional families, period. The dysfunctional ones are a motherlode for stories of survival. "Wah-Wah" is babytalk (I figured it was either that or a tribal word) and the colonial settlements of the British Empire were hothouses of immature, bored adults behaving hypocritically and pretentiously--ie: a bunch of big babies. All very confusing to an intelligent young boy trying to make sense of grownups.

Around age 40, Richard Grant entered psychotherapy sessions (it takes a long time to make sense of things), then he wrote up his young life and found catharsis and compassion in the process.
Viewers of the film can benefit from the life lessons of the film.

The film is honest, candid, and strives to be fair. And it is remarkably compassionate.

Some in the screening audience thought it "heavy", but perhaps they have not lived much or paid attention to what goes on EVERYWHERE. Life IS heavy much of the time. It is rare that a film like this one gets made, it has much to say about life, and I think Richard Grant is a fine writer, director, actor because he paid attention, was lucky to have a great step-mother, and had puppets in his life. 

It opens in Los Angeles and New York the end of the week, and in England and Australia in another month or two.

I have not seen any previews (the English ones leave out stuff seen in the American preview version according to an audience member last night).

I hope puppeteers will go, and will enjoy it as I did.

ALAN COOK


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