Big changes, human tidal waves, are often ignited by horrible deeds inflicted on famous people: the John Kennedy assassination, the Malcolm X assassination, the Martin Luther King assassination, kids battling with the cops in the streets of Chicago, the Robert Kennedy assassination. Lasting change, however, tends to sneak by in the dark, as previously anonymous citizens begin to claim rights and freedoms they hadn't known they needed. In Spanish director David Trueba's sweetwise road comedy Living is Easy with Eyes Closed, three normal souls �" a bald, chubby English teacher, Antonio (I'm So Excited 's Javier Camara); a spirited young girl, Belen (Natalia de Molina); and a shaggy-haired boy running away from a tight-assed dad, Juanjo (rising Spanish star Francesc Colomer) �" discover the change they need by madly pursuing a disgruntled poet/singer, the "more famous than Jesus," soon-to-be ex-Beatle John Lennon.
Trueba gives us this charming trio, looking to shed their bland old identities by tuning into the lyrics of the restless superstar Lennon. Bored to death while appearing in a much-ballyhooed but tiny cameo in Richard Lester's How I Won the War, Lennon was already plotting his escape, starting with what would become his trademark granny glasses and leading to his big, Yoko Ono-accompanied "Give Peace a Chance" song and political manifesto. Director Trueba makes the classic low-budget film gamble: embed us with appealing anybodies, and we'll gradually forget the famous somebody whom we never get to see. A hint that Trueba will win his bet is buried in the second stanza of Lennon's (composed in Spain) lyrics for "Strawberry Fields Forever," where he jumpcuts into a hopeful future by drawing on an image from his Liverpool childhood: "Living is easy with eyes closed,/Misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out,/It doesn't matter much to me./Let me take you down, cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields./Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about./Strawberry Fields forever."
A half-century later, the simple, revolutionary brilliance of Lennon's vision is sometimes lost in stale debates over free love and drug laws. Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed slams us back into the moment when it was all fresh, terribly urgent and lifesaving. It's a movie that may give you a hint at what "the 60s" were all about before cops and blood in the streets caused the timid to pull back before a life-affirming leap of faith. (Opens Friday.)
Futuro Beach Brazilian writer/director Karim Ainouz opens his slow-paced philosophical inquiry in the turbulent waters of Fortaleza, his own hometown. A lifeguard, the slim, muscular Donato (Wagner Moura), tries and fails to save the life of a German tourist, whose lover will come to dominate his future, in a chilly Berlin where one can metaphorically drown miles from any ocean breeze.
Ainouz, appreciated by queer audiences for the riveting cross-dressing slice of history Madame Sata, here takes even bolder liberties, paradoxically by slowing the action down so completely that some may wonder if their local theater is unspooling this one at the wrong speed. Using non-stop sex with the gay widower Konrad (Clemens Schick) almost as a means to cleanse the palate between jarring, irrevocable life changes, Donato gradually adjusts to being a Berliner. The sharp change in landscape between golden-beach Brazil and landlocked Berlin is greatly enhanced by cinematographer Ali Olcay Gozkaya.
Futuro Beach is for all of us who have left important people behind in our rush towards liberation, changes needed to create the adult we feel we need to be. Here the sudden reappearance of a younger brother (Jesuita Barbosa) forces Donato to re-examine everything. The kid notes that loved ones (especially family) are not merely emotional baggage to be dropped on the way to one's own personal nirvana. But this movie will appeal to queer filmgoers who crave hot sex, slim bodies and fast motorcycles, served up in an emotionally adult setting. (Now playing.)