Zarafa

Zarafa is an animated feature about a young boy who is kidnapped from his home and adopted by a giraffe family. The boy makes a promise to protect his "brother" giraffe (Zarafa). This leads him on an adventure that addresses themes such as international politics, racism, travel, slavery, hope, love, family and the levity of a promise. the animation is 2D with detailed settings. Pathe productions took a few pages from the Disney vault for it's animation style. At times I wondered if Disney was not a silent partner. The story grows further into a fantasy as the story goes on, but is charming and light-hearted. Pathe productions and France 3 Cinema present a film written by Alexander Abela and Remi Bezancon, directed by Remi Bezancon and Jean-Christophe Lie, Run Time: 78 minutes

Detachment

Remember back in high school we had to deal with cliques, popularity, learning to accept yourself, class work as well as home life? Some people describe those locker filled hallways as a specific kind of hell. High school teachers live in this hell for more than just 4 years. Director, Tony Kaye, takes a classic story of the hardships of high school and flips the table around to show us not the students struggles, but the teachers' instead. In this film, a particular high school is one of the worst schools in the county, despite it's award winning principal. We are introduced to this institution through Henry Barth, the narrator and substitute teacher, played by Adrian Brody. He is going to be a substitute teacher at the school for one month. We follow his life as well as what he does for his job. The audience sees his co-workers and how they are verbally abused by other teachers, students, and parents. Detachment calls attention to more than just the school aspect of teachers work. It humanizes them by showcasing their home lives as well as the emotional toll their unforgiving jobs take on them. I found this narrative interesting because I have been a student majority of my life and have recently escaped the clutches of high school. Seeing what most teachers are (probably) experiencing sheds a new light on the tribulations high school brings to everyone, not just the pubescent teens flooding the classrooms and hallways. Detachment is shot like a documentary. This can be off putting since it is a drama. Major actors such as Adrian Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu and more, play administrators, teachers and officials such as guidance counselors. I find the style to be interesting, but occasionally disconcerting. Instead of feeling for a guidance counselor who struggles to keep composure while facing rude, hopeless children, all I see is Lucy Liu from the Charlie's Angels remake. This is not to say that she did not play her role well, but that the cinema graphic style and the cast of notable actors did not have the desired affect. Most of the time I was able to sympathize with the teachers and feel for the story, but on occasion I could not suspend my belief for the film. The cinematography and pacing were high quality and executed well. Both were able to hep describe the story in a very stylized, yet relatable and tangible way. The style of the film mainly used cool color filters and simplistic, almost empty settings outside and inside the school. This helped reinforce the theme of loss of hope. Almost every characters' story encompasses loss. Some of the teachers and students exhibit loss of hope by quitting and giving up. In the film, Henry is nice to a student named Meredith, played by Betty Kaye, who is verbally abused by her family and classmates alike. She has the most in common with the faculty, which is why she attaches herself to Mr. Barthes. Hope is stripped from her when another teacher accuses Mr. Barthes' comforting as harassment, exactly what he was trying to avoid. Both Meredith and Henry snap. Henry cuts his ties to anything committal and stable, while Meredith takes more extreme measures. Other faculty members show that they have lost respect from the state, their coworkers, as well as from their students. One teacher feels so lost he just goes through life defeated, hoping someone, anyone would recognize that he is still alive. Students are constantly insulting and threatening the faculty. This lack of respect starts to wear on their own self respect. Most of all there is the theme pertaining to loss of control. Henry Barthes struggles with loss of control in his life in many different ways. The audience follows Henry Barth as he is introduced to the school and follows him home to his life troubles. Soon the audience finds out that he has a grandfather that suffers from Alzheimer's. Neither Henry nor his grandfather can control his grandfather's lucidity or declining health, much to their dismay. He commits to nothing so that he can control everything in the moment. Eventually he does try to commit to a "real" life, but not without hesitation. The substitute teacher helps out the teenage prostitute. Both of their occupations are taken day by day. They try to help each other create some sort of stability and home in their nomadic lives. The girl is quick to settle in, but his fear of commitment and reliability prohibit them from becoming a functional adoptive family, at least right away. Although Henry realizes his actions can in fact affect people, it is bittersweet because it is Meredith's extreme actions that cause this realization. Detachment is a well written stylistic film that takes a fresh look on the concepts of acceptance and loss within the setting of high school. Paper Street Films and Kingsgate Films present a film written by Carl Lund and directed by Tony Kaye. Run Time: 97 minutes, Not Rated With: Adrian Brody, Marcia Gay Harden, James Caan, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Liu, Sami Gayle, & Betty Kaye