379 - Time Bandits, United Kingdom, 1981. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Kevin's father and mother sit on plastic-covered living room furniture. She, on a couch. He, in a chair. They each hold an open magazine. Hers, spread open. His, folded back. He looks down at his magazine, vaguely aware that other people inhabit the room. He is dressed in a sweat suit, with his collared shirt showing beneath it. As if he came home and changed into his comfortable, casual evening wear without first removing his work shirt.
She sits in a hot pink knee-length dress and pink house slippers, as if she almost got dressed to go out for the day but never did.
She watches the television intently.
The television plays a commercial. The Moderna Wonder Major All-Automatic Convenience Centerette. New technology. Convenience. Something to keep up with. It "gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do."
She fingers her necklace and plays with the back of her hair. A sadness permeates her expression. A dullness. If only they had a kitchen like that. If only they had all the time in the world to do the things they really wanted to do.
Why does she feel this way? Because the commercial has told her to. Conditioned her. Thousands of hours of conditioning over many years.
"An infrared freezer/oven complex that can make you a meal from packet to plate in fifteen and a half seconds."
She responds as if in defense. "The Morrisons have got one that can do that in eight seconds."
Kevin's father looks up. "Oh?" He has heard someone say something. Comparisons with others. Envy. She explains it. "Block of ice to beef bourguignon in eight seconds."
The ridiculousness of the statement--the fact that it is not merely the speed but also the transmogrification of chemical elements, from ice to meat--takes us out of the moment and reminds us we are watching an over-the-top parody. It diminishes its power. The director compromises his message for the sake of being silly.
The power of the message lies in the irony of time.
The commercial promises that the product gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do.
But Kevin's parents are already in possession of all the time in the world. They are not lacking in time. They have nothing but time. They may already do the things they really want to do. They simply have not chosen to use their time. They have not exercised their will power to overcome inertia and do the things they really want do.
Or,
They might actually be doing exactly what they want to do. Sitting like zombies mindlessly wasting their lives. They have nothing to do. They are empty and bored. And at the end of the day, this is a choice they have made.
No one is present with one another. No one sees or hears the other. They are all together alone.
Kevin sits on a bar stool reading history. The Big Book of Greek Heroes. He is engaged.
"Dad, did you know The Ancient Greek warriors had to learn 44 different ways of unarmed combat?"
Kevin's father joins his mother in covetous defensiveness.
"Well, at least we've got a two-speed hedge cutter."
Kevin expounds with enthusiasm.
"They were trying to kill people 26 different ways with their bare hands, Dad."
Kevin's father's watch starts beeping. An alarm. This is 1981. It is an obvious display of front-line technology.
"Bedtime for you, Kevin. It's nine o'clock."
Yet Kevin continues, engrossed in his reading.
"And this king Agamemnon, he once fought . . ."
So his mother reinforces his father's instructions.
"Go on, Dear. Your father said."
Kevin relents as if this is routine. "Oh, all right."
A missed opportunity to connect with one's father. A father who is too distracted to notice his son. One of the greatest achings in the human soul.
Kevin goes to bed, where his imagination will thrive with his reading while his parents extend their vapid evening.
One could argue that Kevin's parents are not really different from him. All three of them are lost in their own worlds and unengaged with the environment around them. The parents are caught up in their own imaginations--Kevin's Mother with her TV shows, Kevin's father with his magazine--but there is a difference. The parents are passive, lifeless, stuck. Their choices are dulling their minds. Kevin is active, alive, and engaged with what he is doing. His choice is making his mind sharper. He is also reaching out beyond himself, to his father, and trying to have a relationship with him. To share. Kevin's father seems content to sit alone.
We first saw this scene a little over a year ago, near the beginning of our Film Blog, when we watched the Jacques Tati film, Mon Oncle (1958), another film that addresses this condition, and one made 23 years earlier.
Take a moment to click on this link and read that blog. It is worth your time.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/01/008-mon-oncle-1958-france-dir-jacques.html
In his bedroom, Kevin reads.
His father shouts from the other room. Turn that light off. Kevin lies. It is off. But he obeys. He puts the book away and turns off the light.
Then the movie begins.
A knight on a horse bursts into the room. It comes out of the armoire. Or what those British folks call a "wardrobe." C. S. Lewis fleshed out this idea with his novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Lucy leads the other children into the wardrobe and into the magical land of Narnia.
But Kevin's imagination is so overflowing with excitement that he does not need to enter the armoire. The magical world explodes out of it and comes to him.
The knight on the horse rides into the room. Brandishing his sword. He turns and kicks and stirs up dust. And breaks the light fixture. Then he leaps Kevin's bed and breaks out of the wall. He gallops down a tree-lined wood. Outside Kevin's room is now a medieval land. Kevin gets up and checks his other wall. Pin-ups of pictures and drawings. One of them is a drawing of the scene Kevin just witness outside his wall. The tree-lined wood with the knight and horse.
The next evening Kevin begs his parents to let him go to bed early. He cannot wait to see what happens next! But since parents just don't understand, they make him stay up and allow time for his food to go down. They watched the next night's episode of Your Money or Your Life, which gets more cynically gruesome, as Kevin sneaks off to bed with a flashlight hidden under his jacket.
He lies in bed and looks around the dark room with his flashlight. What might it be this night? One of the drawings on the wall? One of the toys on the floor? His toy robot moves. Shuffles. Makes noises. Blinks.
Kevin is not disappointed. Suddenly from out of the armoire emerges a group of six dwarves. (Yes, I have thought about that plural. Tolkien, 1937, dwarves. Disney, 1938, dwarfs. The latter proper. The former trending. I chose the future.) They are about to take Kevin on an incredible journey through history.
One of them is Kenny Baker. The other is Jack Purvis. They had been working together since the 1960s and had a comedy musical act called The Minitones. They both appeared in the Star Wars franchise, as well as Lionel Jeffries' Wombling Free (1978), Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (1986), and Ron Howard's Willow (1988).
The dwarves take Kevin with them, and off they go on their adventures through time and locations.
Using their map.
Changing history.
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