Rocket Gibraltar
1988 US
Dir: Daniel Petrie
Str: Burt Lancaster, Bill Pullman, Kevin Spacey
Rocket Gibraltar's poetic atmosphere is excellent.
This movie's rather poetic atmosphere is excellent. Considering the subject,
the story has every element that the film could have become a very mawkish one. Because it depicts relationships
between a grandfather (played by Burt Lancaster) and grandchildren (one of them is played by Macaulay Culkin),
and eventually the grandfather dies. But the film carefully avoids becoming a total tearjerker by emphasizing a
poetic epic tale aspect. Especially, the last scene where the grandchildren hold a funeral of their grandfather
by laying his body in a Viking-like boat and launching it to the vast ocean that is considered to cleanse his body
and soul while shooting fire arrows into it from the beach in order to burn his body completely so that nothing
of his trace will be left in this mundane world, which has long been the grandfather's desire and occasionally
talked to the grandchildren, succeeds in evoking rather poetic emotion in audience's mind than maudlin one. This
approach is felt fresh compared to the sentimetal ploys they usually like to employ in this kind of movies. Even
though it is true that this movie is mainly meant for rather younger audience who usually don't appreciate sentimental
stories so much (after all, this video is included in family collection series), and, by this reason, has succeeded
in excluding too much sentimentality that sometimes ruins the integrity of some movies, I can strongly recommend
this movie to the audience of all ages.
The relationship between a father and his sons/daughters
are regulated by communal restrictions. But the one between a
grandfather and his grandchildren is not.
But, there is another aspect I would like to talk about this movie. I consider
the movie explicates the issue of the difference of generations quite well. In this film, there appear three generations.
First one is grandfather generation whose sole member is Burt Lancaster (hereafter called the first generation),
second one is his sons/daughters generation that includes Bill Pullman and Kevin Spacey (heareafter called the
second generation), final one is grandchildren generation (hereafter called the third generation). As is often
the case with real life families, Burt Lancaster becomes emotionally involved more deeply with his grandchildren
than with the second generation. Therefore, the grandchildren come to know their grandfather's real thinking and
desire very well through such direct and intimate communication as is not allowed to form between him and the second
generation. The reason why it is not allowed to between these generations is because the relationships between
the first generation and the sencond one have always communal connotations. So the statements that have an element
jeopardizing the stability of community (in this movie's case, family) must be carefully avoided between them.
The Viking-like funeral is such a one. As a proof of this, I can mention the fact that the members of the second
generation are considering whoever the person in that family must be buried in a family plot after his/her death.
So they never understand the grandfather (i.e, their father)'s real wish, though, anyway, they have never been
told it by the grandfather. On the other hand, the relationships between the first generation and the third one
are free from such communal restrictions, or rather it might even work complementarily to first-second relationships.
Therefore, regarding the matters concerning the first generation, there are the things that the third generation
could know, but the second one couldn't. And one of such things is the grandfather's craving for Viking-like funeral.
Also the beautiful movie "On Golden Pond" handles this issue
quite
well.
For an further example, here I am going to refer to another famous movie describing
the issue of generations. The movie is On Golden Pond that is a very beautiful movie in itself made in early
1980s and I think is the last movie Henry Fonda appeared who got the Oscar by this one along with marvelous Katharine
Hepburn. In this movie, Jane Fonda plays a daughter of Henry Fonda (Of course, they are father and daughter in
real life, which makes the movie all the more curious), and she is always worried about the fact that she cannot
get along with her father who seems to have long been very conservative and stubborn. But her future husband's
son Billy manages to get along with this intractable father, even though firstly also he feels difficulties with
him. So she utters such question like how her son could befriend him when she saw them fishing together joyfully.
I think this question can be easily answered. Because Billy belongs to the third generation to Henry Fonda, which
means they are allowed to be friends, being immune from communal restrictions. On the other hand, for Jane Fonda
who belongs to the second generation to him, situation is not so simple as Billy's case, for their relationship
is regulated by the rules of community both consciously and subconsciously. Thus, the difficulties arises beyond
personal likes and dislikes, which makes the matter very complex. Whereas, in Billy's case, once he overcomes his
personal dislikes toward Henry Fonda, he will rather easily befriend him without any presence of communal manacles.
This communal restrictions might be derived from the nature of
human beings insofar as they form society.
Anyway, this issue seems to be universal one, though I had assumed, in English
spoken countries, the issue was not so complex as in Japan before I watched these movies. The reason why I was
thinking so is somewhat related to the nature of Japanese language that forces its speakers to make careful usage
of personal pronouns. Do you know how many words the Japanese has, which correspond to the English words "I"
and "you"? Even I cannot fully enumerate those words here. In Japan, according to the situation where
one is in, or the person whom one is talking to, an appropriate word must be carefully chosen among those vast
amount of selection list items of personal pronouns. I guess this language system in Japan has fostered such tendency
that Japanese are tied down by communal regulations more tightly than other countries' cases. Nevertheless, by
watching these movies, I have well noticed the fact that the situation is not so different in English spoken countries
too, where I believe individualism is supposed to be more fully disseminated compared to a country like Japan where
traditional collective thinkings still somewhat outweigh individualism. Probably, it might be true that social
structures couldn't be so different country to country, whose corollary certainly is that these elements are basic
natures intrinsic to human beings as long as they form society.
Don't worry. This movie is not so dreary as you might think by the
subject.
I don't think this is an issue everybody wants to discuss willingly, for there
might be an element that one could detect also in his own life, and has been ashamed of. So some scenes in this
kind of movies might be embarrasing for certain audience. But, in the case of Rochet Gibraltar, its main
focus resides in positive aspects in the relationship between a grandfather and his grandchildren. Therefore, in
spite of the subject, this movie is not dreary, and you can even appreciate the flavor of the aforementioned poetic
elements.