And then, towards the tail end of the weekend, I headed back to the Angelika[1] to watch another movie chock full of subtitles, JCVD. So there’s this guy, Jean-Claude Van Damme, right? Martial arts movie star from the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s but who has been somewhat less popular of late. And he has kind of a sad life; sure, the Belgians back home all adore him, but he’s losing custody of his daughter and his attempts to revive his career are frustrated at every turn, most recently by Steven Seagal’s willingness to ditch his ponytail in pursuit of a role.

And then, on a perfectly normal day, J.C.[2] runs into the post office on an errand and finds himself locked into a twisted hostage crisis whose events are told several times in parallel, with a little bit more information about the truth of the matter revealed each time. What action there is follows the gritty cop drama formula more closely than the fantasy action you’d expect out of one of his movies, and there’s a substantial amount of comedy along the way. But underneath all that lies a serious examination of celebrity and the many ways that people interact with it that would never have happened if it had been a different man trapped in the post office with the rest of the hostages and criminals. The police and negotiators, the hostages, the criminals, the witnesses to events immediately preceding the crisis, the crowd outside, each brings a spin, and in each case only because they recognize that guy from some movies they saw a few years ago.

Which is kind of the point. Not to judge any particular reaction, but to make us aware of how profoundly differently we do react to our celebrities. Hell, it even happened to me. Knowing full well what point the movie was making, I was still frustrated once or twice that Van Damme didn’t take one of the opportunities to fight back against the armed men, take control of the situation when he was one on one. Intellectually, who cares how good he is at karate? He’s still a middle-aged man with a gun being held on him, and he’s allowed to be scared and not want to be any more involved than he must. But I was still rolling my eyes at him because of my own expectations abut his abilities. All of which to say, it’s cool when something can make you laugh and think both. Plus, there really aren’t enough films in the tragicomic category, and it’s always nice to see one more.

[1] In both cases, there was only this one theater showing each movie within at least thirty, and probably more like hundreds of, miles.
[2] This is probably the only movie I can think of where the lead character having these initials is not a sly reference to a messiah; and then again, the case could be made…