Gran Torino

Excuse this site turning temporarily into Space Poet's Film Flex blog, but this evening after another seriously hot, long day struggling to get anthology stuff sorted out within at least a decent lapse of the end-of-June deadline, there was nothing for it but earlyish supper and another movie. This time Gran Torino, the 2008 Clint Eastwood acted and directed film which has Eastwood as main character Walt Kowalski, 78 yrs old tough widower, gradually humanised by, and able to connect with and pass on his own humanity to his Hmong neighbours, fifty years after his brutal experiences (and actions) in the Korean War. Sounds a bit schmaltzy but Eastwood's acting was superb, down to his disgruntled guttural sighs that sounded as though they came from an old wounded lion, which of course, metaphorically, they did.

Hints of the 'Rebirth' Plot here - if we're going by Christopher Booker's seven basic plots. The rebirth plot involves the gradual awakening to humanity of a closed-off character by interaction with another. Often the other is an unwitting agent of this awakening. Scrooge, Silas Marner, have similar 'rebirth' stories, discovering their love and compassion through the innocence and open heartedness of a young 'other'. At the same time they are able to help this impoverished or otherwise disadvantaged other, and so each 'partner' in the dynamic is brought to a fuller expression and experience of life.

But there are complications here too. That Eastwood's character is the most verbally offensive, emotionally barbed expression of a lonely but wise old man isn't necessarily one of them; nor the fact that his version of masculinity is throughout the main run of the film a traditionally unsubtle one. The verbally unchallenged casual racism of Kowalski's character seems strong at first, perhaps difficult to see past. All part of his brusque character? The film is careful to show that such superficial mutterings are just that, borne of past experiences and just a hint of having been displaced in contemporary multiracial America, which nevertheless still has its ethnic ghettos. Perhaps this is a little too pat - wishful thinking, and too neat a resolution to his wartime trauma. In any case, the gang coercion and violence which runs throughout the film and forces its climax are shown to be beyond racial or ethnic division.

More powerful a twist is Kowalski's actions at the end of the film and (sorry, this is a spoiler) his life. Dreadful things have happened to members of the family he has been befriended by and been able to offer some protection to. It looks like violence and gunfire will be part of a climactic and probably homicidal revenge on Kowalski's part. Even the young, ‘27-year old virgin’ of a Catholic priest (definitely not a 'man' then?) who encourages Kowalski to make his confession throughout the movie, tries to avert what he sees as certain bloodshed. But instead of firing his guns Western-style, Kowalski takes no weapon and deliberately becomes a Christ-like sacrifice himself. The cycle of violence is resolved and his killers are sent to jail.

He makes a bloodless type of confession to the young priest but a far more powerful ad hoc one to Tao, whom he locks in his cellar prior to his ‘final act’. The grille in the cellar echoes the grille of the confessional. The former location is where he confesses how horrible it is to have killed a man. The implication is that, far from absenting himself from masculinity, Kowalski both confounds and fulfils it. An interesting closing (final?) gesture in the Eastwood film career.

It might have been more interesting gender-wise if Kowalski had adopted and mentored Tao’s sister Sue instead of focusing only on the heritage of 'manning' Tao up, passing on knowledge (and the 'vehicle' of masculinity, the gran torino itself) as from father to son. But I couldn’t help but be moved by this film – more so than Million Dollar Baby, which I suppose did explore a female character inheriting the boxing wisdom and skill of Eastwood’s mentor (though alas Maggie Fitzgerald rather than Frankie Dunn had to die in that one).

By chance I’d watched a bit of Amando Iannucci’s BBC poetry season program on Milton earlier in the afternoon. Iannucci confessed here that he briefly thought about becoming a Catholic priest himself but found no one could satisfactorily answer the question of why Christ had to die in order to save humanity. Iannucci said he was, and still is, inundated with inadequate suggested answers to this question from well-meaning people. Perhaps someone recommended he sees this film – I’m not sure the answer is really in there, although for a fleeting few moments I wondered if somewhere it was.