Man of steel is part Moses part immigrant

The great thing about comic books is that they not only appeal to children, but when franchised out into the adult world for mass-entertainment, they also speak to adults.

And when adults look at them, they see things that children don't.

In her review of the Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel, the latest version of the adventures of Superman, movie critic Manohla Dargis sees the flick as a multilayered story. In the manner of William Empson's classic, The Seven Types of Ambiguity, Dargis unearths the myth of a technology- apocalypse, Moses-in-Superman, and Superman as industrial laborer/immigrant saga, among a host of other "ambiguities."

Krypton is facing destruction because it's technologically too advanced. The architecture of the city is sleek and steely reminding us of the sleek and steely structures designed by Zaha Hadid in some of the biggest metropolises of the world. Michael Shannon, the guy who built an underground shelter to protect his family against an impending storm in Take Shelter, plays the destructive villain who would destroy Krypton and earth with all his ill-gotten tech smarts. 

Superman is sent off into the earth in a Moses-type basket. He has Jewish origins as is revealed by his original name. The Moses reference is reinforced when Superman is shown as a burning body on the rooftop of a factory that is set on fire. He escapes unscathed. 

The trailer above shows him as an immigrant, the old-fashioned outsider who comes to these shores and labors away in the old-fashioned industrial-worker role. Zor-El broadcasts to the earthlings, "he looks like you, but he is not one of you." (Now that sounds a bit like Superman is Edward Snowden!)

Superwoman on the horizon

I absolutely love this video-celebration of what movie critic A.O. Scott calls "Hollywood's Year of Heroine Worship."

Movies with quirky plots

The New York Film Forum is well-known for selecting interesting movies.

But the stories of two particular films stand out for me for being quantum-quirky:

Silent Chrysanthemum, a 1958 Japanese flick directed by Mitsudo Tanaka tells the story of Yukio, a sensitive girl from a small mountain village. She spends her time gazing out from the terrace, dreaming that her father will someday allow her into the living room. While harvesting mud for a dinner party, Yukio meets a stranger who gifts her with an enchanted form-fitted kimono that transforms her into the most beautiful woman in the world--although he warns her not to sit down, lest she cut off circulation to her brain. Hearing of her beauty Samurai come from far and wide to ogle at her. They also make obscene gestures at her with the handles of their swords. Distraught, Yukio renounces love and flees to Hokkaido, where she embarks on a successful career as a bamboo room divider.

I was left imagining as to why Yukio wasn't allowed into her father's living room. The rest I could understand, including the bit about a tight dress that can cut off circulation if stretched to the limit.

A Frolic in the Hay, is a 1956 Swedish film directed by Sven Ingersoll. The film abounds in existential questions like "How is it that the god who created love also created dandruff?" The hero is one banker, Victor Flynderhorst, who is struggling to reconcile his fear of death with his fondness for open mine shafts. He takes his three grown children in a barn, where they become so engrossed with philosophical questions that they fail to appreciate what is right in front of them--specifically, the fact that the barn is on fire. Unable to cope with the contradictions of ontology, Victor goes mad, and he spends the remainder of the film vainly chasing the English subtitles with a butterfly net.

I really like the question posed above--sears the fact of god's ability to create both the abstractedly beautiful and the tangibly common--in an eloquent sentence!

Haven't seen any of these films, so if you ask me how I came to know of the stories, the answer lies here.