Italian for Beginners (2000)

by Lone Scherfig

An Analysis

Italian for Beginners, the earliest U.S.-available feature film from Danish director/writer Lone Scherfig, is an endearing ensemble piece following the lives of six villagers in Denmark, most of whom enroll in an Italian language class. While Scherfig follows the avant-garde Dogme 95 manifesto's ten rules for stripped-down film-making, her audience soon ceases thinking of Italian for Beginners as an experimental film and becomes immersed in the film, caring for its characters.

Interim Danish-Lutheran pastor Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) has arrived in town to spell Pastor Wredmann (Bent Mejding), a man prone to throwing organists from balconies. Four months removed from his wife's death, soft-spoken Andreas drives an unseen-to-the-audience Mazerati to compensate. Aside from a possible life insurance payout, Andreas' source of wealth, like the car, remains concealed.  

In the town Andreas meets, Helvfin (Lars Kaalund), the hotel's loud-mouthed, misanthropic restaurant manager--a sort of humorless Basil Fawlty; Helvfin's loyal friend Jørgen Mortensen (Peter Gantzler), a woman-shy hotel clerk; Olympia (Anette Støvelbæk), a helplessly clumsy donut shop clerk who lives with and cares for her elderly father Leif; Giulia (Sara Indrio Jensen), an Italian immigrant waitress at Helvfin's hotel restaurant; and a sensuous hairdresser (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen)who cares for her ill mother.

Before pursuing this analysis, we must be familiar with the ten principles of Dogme 95 Manifesto as well as its coda:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the image or vice-versa.
3. The camera must be handheld. Any movement or mobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable.
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action.
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden.
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste. I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a 'work', as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations.

One's initial reaction might be "what a load of pretentious crap!" Italian for Beginners, the twelfth Dogme 95 film and the first from a woman, is here to surprise the skeptical.

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Jorgen (left) with Andreas 

The film can be divided into two halves. Showing or telling of half a dozen deaths, surprising perhaps for a movement whose superficial action clause disallows most if not all portrayals of murder, the first half is about introducing characters to each other and setting up the unexpected plot twist.  Due to the number of deaths, many viewers will not predict the coming twist, normally so common, predictable, and unsatisfying: that Karen/Carmen (the hairdresser) and Olympia are sisters. Prior to that, we think maybe this film will be about the challenges facing pastor Andreas in counseling the loved ones of the deceased.  

Karen and Helvfin

Giulia

After the plot twist, ~40 minutes of film remains. Unlike the later The Other Man (2008), filming a plot twist was not the sole purpose of Italian for Beginners. The characters grow closer. Relationships are built, wrecked, and reformed. Curiously, the romantic relationships do not make a lick of sense. Helvfin grievously insults Karen's sister and then her mother. Karen ignores the first insult and rewards him with desktop classroom sex. For the second offense he is punished, but not for long, and is soon rewarded with Venetian alley sex. Andreas, a sweet man, slowly pursues the clumsy and well-meaning Olympia, whose penmanship rivals the finest kindergartner. Last, the 40-something, boring, and kind Jorgen, who speaks limited Italian, successfully proposes to the gorgeous, 20-something, Roman Catholic Italian Giulia who understands but speaks limited Danish. Giulia, possibly because of her language barrier, or possibly because the filmmaker saw her as "the immigrant woman" is by far the least developed of the six main characters.  None of these couples ought to be together, particularly Helvfin and Karen, but with death swirling about, they need each other. We as viewers do not much care that the couples don't seem to fit. The sweet emotions that Italian for Beginners elicits overrides most logical objections to the odd couplings.

Karen and Helvfin open a rollaway mattress

Using each setting as-is (as Dogme 95 requires), with its on-site props, lends this film healthy tones of verisimilitude. When Karen is tossed about on the precarious classroom desk, we understand how real that moment feels. When we see an actual, working bakery with all its accouterments, stains, and evidence of use, we notice that realism arrives more effectively only with a documentary film that uses real employees instead of actors. When Karen and Helvfin open a rollaway mattress in said Venetian alleyway, we smile with satisfaction, knowing that bed was found there when cast and crew arrived.

Aside from the Dogme 95 requirements of a 35mm color film handheld camera, the director does have the freedom of lens type (zoom, fixed, wide-angle, fisheye, etc.) In the spirit of Dogme 95, Scherfig eschews anything but a fixed, typical lens or lenses--anything that would add a drop of "artistry." Once arriving in Venice, Scherfig seems to cautiously select properly-lit, cinema-friendly settings, including the lovely restaurant dining room which has a handsome look and remarkably acceptable ambient sound. Scherfig seems to wait for the most attractive levels of sunlight to film certain exterior scenes, especially a pre-dinner twilight scene that glows indigo. 

Scherfig bends the spirit of the rules for setting. She amuses us by using classroom doors that, in the real world, almost certainly lead to closets, but, within the film, serve as classroom entrances.  

Scherfig, comforming to self-imposed Dogme 95 creative limitations, is still an artist--one who has crafted a lovely, touching film.

Lone Scherfig

Celebrating Cinema will next examine the work of Danish film director Lone Scherfig, a prominent member of Denmark's Dogme 95 movement.

Lone Scherfig

Celebrating Cinema will present writings on the following available films:

• Italian for Beginners (2000)
• Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002)
• Just Like Home (2007)
• An Education (2009)

Her latest film, One Day (2011), is due for its American release August 19, 2011. For purposes of auteur context, Celebrating Cinema recommends seeing her previous films before seeing One Day. Of course, please do not let a lack of exposure to Scherfig's catalog prevent you seeing One Day.

U.S. trailer for One Day

Black Swan (2010)

by Darren Aronofsky

An Analysis

"I had the craziest dream last night." Black Swan expresses and examines the physical, psychological, familial, and sexual pressures on a ballerina, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who has been chosen as a prestigious New York City ballet company's featured performer in this season's re-imagined production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. To become the Swan Queen, Nina must exude the delicate purity of the White Swan then ascend as the Black Swan by corralling and evincing her dormant aggression and libido. In his fifth film, Darren Aronofsky's directs his second consecutive Best Acting nominated performance (Natalie Portman, Mickey Rourke). Black Swan follows Aronofsky's Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), and The Wrestler (2008).

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Aronofsky-as-Auteur

Clint Mansell

Aronofsky welcomes several of his regulars to his fifth film, including good luck charm, actor Mark Margolis (albeit as a scene-cut extra, he's in his 5th film with Aronofsky), director of photography Matthew Libatique (4th film), producer Scott Franklin (4th), actor Stanley Herman (3rd, who amusingly reprises his role as subway weirdo "Uncle Hank"), and parents Abraham and Charlotte Aronofsky (5th and 3rd, respectively).  Perhaps most important is Clint Mansell, who scores his fifth Aronofsky film. Though Mansell maintains some chords and progressions heard in Requiem, he re-writes Tchaikovsky in a new, dark mood.  

After a respite in The Wrestler, Aronofsky revisits his method of fusing real, in-film action with one character's fantasies, dreams, and paranoid delusions--in this film, they belong to Nina. Viewers cognizant of Pi will be prepared to handle another experiencing of this technique, and will be better able to perceive Nina's feelings and demons. None of his films are so terribly confusing as The Fountain, but newcomers to Aronofsky need a bit of prior warning or post-viewing guidance for Black Swan.

Requiem (above), Black Swan (below)

Though there is great stress between Nina and her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), Aronofsky chose not use the same techniques that portrayed the Requiem relationship between Sara and Harry. No split screens, and no 180-degree camera swings.   


Nina's grapefruit breakfast reminds us of Sara Goldfarb's eggs-and-grapefruit diet in Requiem. We know what price Sara paid for such food controls. The fall-out of Nina's stricter diet is tempered by Nina's greater purpose, physical activity, and a hope for something achievable and earned, as opposed to Sara's TV appearance wish, which can only be bestowed.

Aronofsky's camera techniques create much of the film's mood. Aronofsky rightly uses the camera to present a very unsettled, confidence-lacking, on-the-brink-of-breakdown, paranoid Nina. Aronofsky also uses a steadicam that revolves around Nina when dancing, creating a visual maelstrom. 

The Camera "Following" Nina

Aronofsky continues his "following" technique he developed in The Wrestler. As we experienced Ram's point of view, most interestingly navigating the backstage corridors of boisterous arenas, we get a remarkably similar experience with Nina's navigating Lincoln Center's cinder-block underbelly.


One of Aronofsky's smartest habits is teaching us about worlds unfamiliar to most of us. He has taken us behind the scenes of professional wrestling, shown us mathematics, and taught us specifics of heroin addiction. In Black Swan he shows us the the little things that all dancers know but the rest of us do not. For instance, he shows us three scenes of Nina preparing ballet shoes--the first a montage of breaking down, scoring, and re-sewing them, the second a scene of Nina and Erica scorching ballet shoe ribbons, and the third a shot of Nina grinding her ballet shoes into a sand/glass mixture. These little teaching moments make us feel a part of Nina's world, and help us connect to Nina.

Last Aronofsky returns to his fade-to-white technique used in Pi and Requiem. Upon Nina's ascendancy as the unfettered Black Swan, Aronofsky ends the film with a fade to white to indicate, not a blinded-by-the-sun moment, but a more transcendent, triumphant moment. She has overcome adversity and demons, and has unlocked long-repressed personal and sexual strengths. She, like the Swan Queen, may have also killed herself.

Nina's Adversity

Erica, Feeding Her Daughter Icing

From the film's beginning, Nina's timidity seems incongruent with both her talent and success. She has thrived as a delicate, waif-like ballerina whose skills and prominence are only surpassed by an about-to-be-retired 40-something, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder). Like Beth, Nina in her new, headlining role soon feels the All About Eve (1950) footsteps of her nearest challenger, Lily (Mila Kunis). Nina also faces the physical pain of being a featured ballerina:  bleeding feet, split toenails, joints relieved by the painful pulling of a physical therapist. Nina still lives with her controlling, daughter-focused, helicopter mother, Erica, an unaccomplished dancer who retired at 28 to birth and raise Nina. Erica now makes paintings of Nina, sleeps in a chair in Nina's room, runs Nina's schedule, calls Nina several times a day, and, perhaps most controlling, undresses Nina to her panties. Erica has kept Nina from having friends. Maddeningly, to celebrate Nina's landing of the Swan Queen role, Erica forces cake on Nina, something very much out of Nina's Erica-monitored nutrition regimen. Last, and perhaps most important, though Nina has landed the role, she fails to convince the director, and herself, of her ability to succeed in the Black Swan half of the role.


The story's construction provides much of the film's brilliance. Early, Nina's primary source of conflict is with her mother. Next we see her start down a path to loosen up, to become independent and an adult. Both conflicts obscure her underlying psychiatric disorder(s). The delay and ambiguity in revealing the disorder(s) probably creates a great deal of strife for viewers who are impatient, new to Aronofsky, or new to any sort of avant-garde cinema. I do not suggest that Aronofsky not stick to his creative guns. Films like this create the opportunity in new audiences for reflection, multiple viewings, and exploration into a director's catalog.   

We desperately want Nina to succeed, to break away from her mother, and to become a sexy, confident woman and dancer. Tragically they converge alongside her peaking psychosis.


Not being a mental health professional, nor a dancing expert, nor familiar with Swan Lake, I shall mostly leave alone those realms in this analysis.


Thomas

Thomas and Nina

Thomas, the French director of Nina's ballet company, is a womanizing, smug, ass who produces great performances. A swan skeleton decorates his office while vaginally-themed art dominates his flat. When we first meet Thomas, he appears silently, standing in the rehearsal space's stadium seating. The dancers immediately disrobe, to a certain extent. We now know his power, and what he expects of dancers, both on and away from the dance floor. He quickly, though incredulously, pegs Nina as a virgin. Both Thomas and Lily, multiple times, tell Nina to loosen up. Thomas instructs Nina, "Go home and touch yourself." Nina allows herself such pleasure when she wakes in the morning in her bedroom, that is, until she notices her mother in the bedroom chair. When Nina eventually succeeds, Thomas transfers his paternalistic nickname for Beth onto Nina, "My Little Princess."


Nina's Hallucinations


Within the context of Black Swan, Nina's hallucinations demand attention and explanation. Two hallucinations deserve the most focus because they confuse, and because understanding them is essential to understanding reality within the film. When Nina and Lily are first introduced, Lily foreshadows, "Are you freaking out? I've been losing my mind."

Nina Hallucinating a Night with Lily

Nina's night out with Lily happened pretty much as shown... until, when Nina's is walking out of the club, Lily sticks her head out the exit door and calls after her. Lily calling after Nina outside the club is the first moment shown that night that never happened. The cab ride seduction never happened because Lily was never in the cab--it was Nina's fantasy. Lily spent that night with Tom, the dolt she met at the club; therefore, she could not have been in the cab. A second viewing of the club dancing scene shows not just Nina's physical comfort with Lily, but it also shows them eventually becoming virtually indistinguishable from one another on the dance floor, a bit of visual foreshadowing that helps us explain Nina's hallucination. Lily's actions in the apartment, particularly the mouthing of Nina's words as Nina speaks them (see Fight Club (1999)), reinforce that Lily was never inside the apartment. Through the hallucination, Nina progresses toward becoming more sexual and more independent, but, sadly, her psychosis is becoming more manifest.


Second is the broken mirror episode during the opening night performance. We see Nina attack Lily, stabbing her with a mirror shard. But, like all the previous times when Nina thought Lily was there yet saw a flash of herself (Nina's self) in Lily's place, we know that Lily once again is not really there. Nina of course has stabbed herself instead, and I believe it to be the work of her psychosis. 

Nina's Psychosis

There are other hallucinations one can misunderstand without compromising one's understanding of the film. Nina's cuticle mangling of course never happened--Aronofsky was kind enough to show us the reality, to let us in early on her penchant for hallucination. The woman who appears twice, once over Nina's bathtub and once in a corner of Nina's apartment... I have no idea who that is. My best guess is that she is Nina's mother, Erica, at the age when Erica retired to give birth to Nina. Nina seeing Lily and Thomas having sex off-stage was Nina's paranoid delusion. Nina's several mirror hallucinations suggests that Nina probably has some sort of dissociative or schizophrenic disorder. Last, and remarkably unimportant, is the final scene involving Beth and Nina. Though we see Beth self-mutilate, we also see Nina drop the bloody weapon as she flees into the hospital's elevator. It seems odd that Nina would not be tracked down by police before the end of the opening night performance, but I am willing to allow that such investigations take more time. More important, not only do I believe Nina stabbed Beth, it is also at this point in the film that I first suspected that Nina pushed Beth into traffic, causing her hospitalization in the first place. That last tantalizing question may be unanswerable, but it is worthy of a good smoke.   


Leitmotifs


Though not in the strict musical sense, Aronofsky's mise-en-scène uses leitmotifs of color to convey Nina's descent into psychosis, into sexuality, into the Black Swan. One is tempted to cry "cliché!" if not "racism!" with the white equals good, black equals bad formula, but Aronofsky can be excused easily, for the color palette set forth by Tchaikovsky's ballet is rather unavoidable. The embodiment of sexual confidence, Lily is always shown in black.  Nina is mostly in white or other light colors (including a very light-colored pink overcoat). Nina's first appearance in grey happens in Nina's first rehearsal in which she makes an attempt to liberate her sexuality, resulting in Thomas's funny in-joke, asking Natalie Portman's husband, "Would you fuck this girl?" 

Nina first dresses in black at the dance club, appropriately in a naughty little number supplied by Lily, which, along with similar hair, allows them to become indistinguishable on the dance floor. Indeed, during the club dancing scene we get a flash of Nina in her Black Swan makeup--her transformation has begun. Later, in the cab ride hallucination, we also notice Nina's black pants, perfect for her first sexual touching by someone else. We ultimately see her in her fully-clad black glory in opening night's second act as the Black Swan.

Lily, Hair Down

Hair also plays an important role in shaping our understanding of what Nina is feeling. We first notice a difference in hair when Nina sees Lily rehearsing with her hair down, something atypical among dancers thus far in the film. The night that Lily comes to take Nina out partying, we see Nina with her hair down already. She is ready to go. As mentioned above, the hair, along with the matching black outfits, allow Nina and Lily to become indistinguishable on the club's dance floor--Nina has absorbed Lily's level of sexuality. The symbolism of literally letting one's hair down may be too obvious, but it bloody works. Who among us was not immediately drawn to the hair-down dancing of Lily in that rehearsal?


Conclusion

Nina, Perfect

Nina's triumph is the peaking of her talent, her sexuality, and of her psychosis. Thomas asks as she lies bleeding, "What did you do?!" Nina responds, mostly to herself, "I felt it. I was perfect." I do not remember a film with so tragic a triumph. Even The Wrestler's Randy "The Ram" Robinson was tragic, but ended without triumph. Denouements with the simultaneous feelings of regret and success tend to be found in war movies. I welcome suggestions of films with similar endings.


Aronofsky continues to make challenging, brilliant films.  Here is to hoping his productivity moves toward Woody Allen's and away from Terrence Malick's (or at least the Malick of old), while continuing with the same level of innovation and creativity he has always given his grateful audiences.

Trailer to Black Swan (2010)

The Wrestler (2008)

by Darren Aronofsky

A Critique

Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke)

Twenty years on from his biggest professional wrestling match, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) pulls on the tights every weekend in school gymnasiums and fraternal lodges for purses a fraction of what they once were.  His only relationships are with Adam, a trailer park boy (John D'Leo); his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), who he's abandoned much of her life; Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), his favorite stripper, as he is perhaps her favorite club regular; and the wrestling life itself. Former Onion editor-in-chief, Robert Siegel has written his first non-Onion film, a dark, dramatic, introspective piece.  Darren Aronofsky's fourth film leaves behind the storytelling and cinematic styles developed in his first three films in favor of slow-burning, emotional portrayal of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, The Wrestler.

The Actors

Cassidy (Marissa Tomei)

Rourke and Tomei each committed their bodies to this film. Rourke, 55 or 56 during filming, exercised a year and a half to display the muscled body of a pro wrestler that age. Rourke trained in pro wrestling maeuvers, doing many of the stunts himself. Forty-four-years-old Marissa Tomei displayed her remarkable, lithe body, which no doubt dropped jaws across theaters everywhere. More than than just their bodies, each actor was nominated for an Academy Award for The Wrestler.

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Aronofsky-as-Auteur

Aronofsky abandons many of his patterns, but retains a few aspects of his previous films while developing new techniques that could serve him well on future projects.

Cassidy and Ram at Cheeques

Aronofsky shuns any explicit representation of fantasy--concepts integral to his three previous films--favoring an intense infusion of realism. Paradoxically, the realism within the professional wrestling world transports wrestling's most ardent fans into their own worlds of fantasy.  Ram has fantasies about "making an honest woman" of Cassidy, but Aronofsky never shows us the fantasy. Ram, as an aging wrestler, and Cassidy, as an aging stripper, have also created their own tenuous delusions about the time left in their respective stations. They try desperately to hang onto their delusions while simultaneously trying to figure out "what next?"


Many personnel return to Aronofsky's team. Mark Margolis celebrates his fourth Aronofsky film, this time as Randy's landlord, Lenny. And after missing The Fountain (2006), Ajay Naidu and Scott Franklin return for their third go-round with Aronofsky, this time as a medic and producer, respectively. In a briefer role, Clint Mansell creates a quiet, lonely score in his fourth Aronofsky film.  Worth noting, Maryse Alberiti fills in for Matthew Libatique as Aronofsky's director of photography (cinematographer). Her background in filming documentaries lends a mighty talent to Aronofsky's documentary, vérité feel for The Wrestler.


As in Pi (1998) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), drugs are necessary for Ram to function. They play a less prominent on-screen role this time, but are no less important. The steroids and painkillers allow Ram to function comfortably to, similar to Pi's Max Cohen and Requiem's Harry Goldfarb.


The crowds' chants, particularly in the extreme match, sound remarkably similar to Tappy Tibbons' infomercial to which Sara Goldfarb is addicted in Requiem. The chanting again demonstrates a mob mindlessly ecstatic about something, be it wrestling or Tappy Tibbons.

The Opening Scene

Aronofsky leaves behind quick-cutting, camera wearing, and fades-to-white, using only one special technique throughout. The camera spends much of the film following Ram, when we only see his back and the back of his head. The film opens powerfully and quietly with a long shots of Ram's back to the camera--he's alone in an elementary school classroom after a remarkably small wrestling event. As he leaves the school, drives home, finds his landlord has "booted" his trailer park home like a car with overdue parking tickets. The camera follows him through the maze within a grocery store, backstage before events, and into Cheeques (Cassidy's strip club.) 

Ram, from the back

At Their Happiest, Ram & Stephanie

Why does Aronofsky use this "following" technique?  Coupled with many handheld camera shots, this following-from-behind technique gives a realistic, documentary feel. Given that we learn much about pro wrestling and its combatants' experiences, adding documentary-like camera techniques enhance the film's realism. Aronofsky also uses the camera technique so that, later in the film, he can draw a crowd-roar-enhanced parallel between Ram's wrestling life and his new life as a deli counter clerk. The "following" technique allows later for a counterpoint to Ram's loneliness. Aronofsky places the camera in front of Ram and Stephanie when they at their closest emotionally, in the abandoned building. It is the only time we see Ram directly facing the camera, and it is stirring.


Aronofsky also uses long shots a few time to demonstrate Ram's loneliness. In the first two long shots, we see Ram's loneliness, but he does not. The film opens with a long shot of Ram alone, clearly in an elementary classroom. In the next shot the camera pulls back to show just the pathetic size of the night's venue, an elementary gym. We don't see the long shot again until Ram leaves the hospital following his heart attack. Though we have seen his loneliness since the opening shot, this shot begins Ram's realization of his loneliness.  

Stephanie and Ram

Last, Aronofsky repeats a few similar locations, mostly from Requiem. The shot of Ram waking in the hospital reminds us of Sara Goldfarb in the hospital. Ram's Asbury Park, NJ boardwalk stroll with his daughter Stephanie and, particularly, the shot of them sitting in a glass-less picture window overlooking the ocean, remind us not only of Requiem's Coney Island setting, but of Marion at boardwalk's end. The boardwalk's end represents the ideal of Harry and Marion's relationship in Requiem, while the picture window shot represents the peak of Ram and Stephanie's relationship.


The Characters

Ram

Ram, and to a lesser extent Cassidy, are stuck in the past. Eighties hairband music, most frequently Quiet Riot's "Metal Health," provides the pop music soundtrack for Ram. Stephanie, by contrast, has posters of the modern band Vampire Weekend. Cassidy and Ram visit a vintage store. Like most parents, Ram reminds Stephanie of how adorable her child self was. Ram has his 1980s action figure, and the original 1980s Nintendo Entertainment Center with its Wrestle Jam '88 video game that featured his wrestling character.

Pam

Both Ram and Cassidy are living fantasy lives.  Neither uses his/her real name. Ram hides behind two sets of fake names. At the most fantastic he is The Ram, then Randy Robinson, then, his birth name, Robin Ramzinski. "Cassidy" is her stripper name; she is Pam. Though Ram and Cassidy are both in show business, Pam has created a separation between home and "customers" whereas Ram's professional and personal identities are blurred. After Ram jams his thumb into the meat slicer, he says "Robin" one last time, leaving Robin behind forever. When Cassidy flees Cheeques to stop Ram performing, she reclaims her Pam identity.

Ram with the Trailer Park Kids

Ram and "The Ayatollah"

Ram's character arc is relatively simple, yet gripping. After Ram's heart attack, he feels alone, and lonely. He seeks loves from his only family, daughter Stephanie. After initial rejection, he pursues a extra-club relationship with Cassidy. He has moderate success with Cassidy, but she somewhat rejects him too. Ram then has great success with Stephanie, but is rejected harshly by Cassidy. Distracted by the rejection, he has a night of whiskey, sex, and cocaine, loses track of time, and missed his dinner with Stephanie. Stephanie rejects him once and for all. Feeling he's lost all his interpersonal relationships, including the one with the trailer park children, against doctor's orders, he returns to wrestling because it is the only thing he knows. It is the only relationship he thinks never lets him down. Cassidy, after the dim lighting no longer hides her age, which drives her from the stage, becomes Pam and attends Ram's match in attempts to stop him wrestling. Pam is too late. Robin is gone. Only Ram remains, and he has moved on. Near the match's end, so has she. He wrestles his Iron Sheik-like nemesis The Ayatollah of 20 years ago, ending the match with a leaping-from-the-top-rope Ram-Jam, his signature move. Screen fades to black, credits role. We are left to speculate what happens next. Given his heart-problems throughout the last match, most audience members will leave assuming Ram died during that one, last Ram-Jam.  He died the way he wanted, in the arms of the only relationship he was ever good at, wrestling.

trailer