Educating Rita

1983 UK
Dir: Lewis Gilbert
Str: Michael Caine, Julie Walters, Michael Williams

Please don't be mad if what I am ging to say seems to be totally
improper in your country.
Firstly, I must make a clarification about what I am going to say in this review. Educating Rita, as the title suggests, handles the issue of education, though, of course, there are other aspects too. So, more or less, my review will concern this aspect, and then, my remarks will be solely based upon the educational circumstances in Japan. And, even in Japan, some part might be only true to the time when I was a student. I think the status of education is somewhat different country to country, and time to time. So, if you think what I am going to say is totally improper in your country, please keep in mind it might be so because the educational system or convention in Japan is quite different to the one of your country's.
Educating Rita teach us what actually self-enlightment means.
The heroine of this movie Rita (played by Julie Walters) is a hair dresser, who has come to want to find her real identity, and, hence she has resolved to attend some university program for after-graduates the always-drunken professor Frank Bryant (played by Michael Caine) is teaching. Therefore, self-enlightenment would be the key word for this movie. As I think the word "self-enlightenment" has been used for any matters whenever it seems to be convenient for sermonizing a little ethics, the word seems to have lost real impact (at least in Japan). Therefore, honestly saying, I don't want to use it here. But, anyway, as I couldn't remember any other suitable word, tentatively here I use it. As the heroine Rita mentions in a later scene, self-enlightenment is for widening the possibility of the selection you can choose in your life. In short, the movie is suggesting that the real purpose of self-enlightenment is to diversify the meaning of your life, which I think is definitely true.
I don't like such movies which are blatantly showing the intention of
delivering an anti-school message or two.
By the way, when I watch movies that are handling school lives or education, I sometimes come to notice they seem to be intended for expressing anti-school messages. Unlike such movies, Educating Rita seems to be devoid of such ones, and succeed in excluding overly strained artificial feelings, the fact I appreciate very much. I don't like such movies that are blatantly expressing anti-school messages. For example, relatively recently there was a movie titled Dead Poets Society (1989). In the last scene of the movie, every student but a few climbs and stands up on a school desk and pay homage to Robin Williams, who has tried to reform the inflexible systems of the school he belongs to and has been expelled from the school because of his aggressive style, and, by so doing, protests the school that is obviously represented by the stomped desks. This scene is very powerful. Nevertheless, I don't like the movie. By saying so, I don't mean to say students ought to obey the rules schools impose even if tkey are quite inappropriate. That is simply not the point I would like to say. I am just saying we must be very careful about cunning deception mechanism sneaking into our brain from a back door while we are unaware. I think, in aforementioned scene, what they are stomping is just a symbol of a school. I am not saying no one should stomp the sacred property of a school, but saying they are protesting just within the range of the territory the school has provided in the first place, and, therefore obviously limited by the presence of the school.
There are very cunning tricks going on behind the scenes of those
movies that are expressing anti-school messages.
In this regard, we should well consider the fact that the authorities are always providing deceitful mechanisms in advance, through which they are to be seen as if they were being protested, and, by giving such a misguiding impression to protesters, meanwhile they are trying to conceal their real intentions and retain their own stability. This is a very cunning and remarkably astute trick, and movies that outwardly denounce the authority of schools seems to be, of themselves, beautifully trapped in this trick. Though I who say such a thing might be too much an incredulous person, whenever I watch this kind of movies, I cannot help feeling something fishy is going on behind the scenes. Anyway, I don't think the movie makers including writers, directors, and producers had an intention of depicting such a mechanism itself. Hence they themselves might have been already trapped in this trick, which might be suggesting the deepness of the impact such a trick is creating.
By the excellent performance of Julie Walters, you will surely feel
Rita's natural characteristics guided by her spontaneity. But
watch out. The word "spontaneity" is very dangerous if used
improperly.
Compared to these movies, Educating Rita looks more natural. Because Julie Walters' acting is so natural as to make the audience easily feel Rita's spontaneity for striving to absorb the knowledge by whose power she rightly thinks she can change her life style. Here I feel I should talk a little about the word "spontaneity". Because this kind of words can easily become dangerous when directly addressed to the persons who are supposed to be so. If, on the other hand, addressed to teachers in order for them to guide students in the way the words suggest, there will be no problem. But, once used directly for the students who are expected to be so, they might create very dangerous situations even if the real motive is a good one. Because obviously they might cause double bind situations in students' mind, for if they obeyed the words, say, to be spontaneous, it certainly means they wouldn't be spontaneous at all. You shouldn't laugh at what I said as just a joke, and dispose of the idea so easily. The persons who are susceptible to this kind of circumstantial discrepancies might be quite sensitive persons, but children are usually more sensitive than grow-ups because children haven't completed a very sophisticated mechanism through which usually grow-ups are retaining their stability by filtering undesirable stimulus, by means of which to make them sail through hazardous everyday lives. In understanding this point, the works of psychologist Gregory Bateson (probably spelling is wrong, I will check it) will be very helpful.
By watching this movie, you will certainly feel the sheer pleasure of
acquiring knowledge you don't have. Educating Rita has this power.
As I think I've strayed too much, I am going to return at this point to the movie itself. What I want to say is, through the superb acting of Julie Walters, the movie seems to have succeeded in conveying the feel that the heroine Rita is spontaneously (in real meaning of this word) striving to acquire the knowledge necessary for creating her new identity. And, at the same time, you will certainly be able to feel from her acting the sheer pleasure of acquiring the knowledge you don't have. However there is one point I can't understand in this movie; that is, the scene where Michael Caine says to Rita her singing tune has become shrill and harrow after she has accumulated quite amount of knowledge. although it could be said that this movie doesn't even forget warning us that wrongly shaped knowledge might narrow the possibility in adverse way by showing this scene. To tell the truth, I can't even understand why they inserted this scene. No matter how many times I watch this movie, I can't grasp the real intention of the scene. Is this supposed to be depicting the problem on her part or rather Michael Caine's? I can't tell.
Along with many other qualities, this movie is truely excellent.
Finally, I want to say one another thing. Probably, the movie is also intended for a love romance. But, the two lead characters, Michael Caine who plays a drunken university professor (Is it a joke he is hiding a whisky bottle behind the book titled The Lost Weekend which I presume many persons know through the movie shot by Billy Wilder is depicting serious case of an alcoholic?) and Julie Walters who plays Rita never says such a phrase like "I love you", much less make any physical contact except the very last scene (even then, just an embrace). This aspect intrigues me. Because expressing emotions in this way seems to be well fitted to Japanese traditional scheme compared to more blatant one. Anyway, Educating Rita has many interesting aspects at least for me (it has even romantic comedy elements), and the scenary entirely shot in Ireland is very simple and beautiful, and also the scores in the movie are superb and succeeding in enhancing the atomosphere considerably. I am even thinking why the movie has been so minor in spite of having so many good points. I would be able to unabashedly declare here Educating Rita is a must for those who are craving for comedy and/or romantic and/or enlightening and/or simply beautiful movies.