DVD Up the Sandbox
Though not as successful as What's Up, Doc? or The Way We Were, Up the Sandbox springs from the early 1970s, when Barbra Streisand's career was in full stride. Streisand stars as Margaret, a stay-at-home mom in the middle of New York who's feeling the strain of her narrow life. Frustrated by her self-involved husband and the emotionally rewarding but mentally unstimulating tasks of motherhood, she escapes into fantasies--such as being hit on by a cross-gendered Fidel Castro, bombing the Statue of Liberty with black militants, and having a furious catfight with her overbearing mother. The movie's strength lies in these fantasies' slippery nature; some are over the top, but others are so subtle you're not always sure where they start and stop, making the portrait of Margaret's psyche intriguingly complex. Streisand fans should check out this sleeper. --Bret Fetzer |
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Review(s): DVD Up the Sandbox | |
Margaret Reynolds has an overactive imagination. She imagines confronting her husband's female coworker; her mother. Margaret imagines blowing up the Statue of Liberty with a dream radical-black-boyfriend. She imagines discovering an African Tribe's secret for painless childbirth. And she imagines speaking out for all women at a press conference, and then discovering Fidel Castro's feminine secret!Margaret Reynolds is not crazy. She's just pregnant again - her third child. And she's very uncertain about this moment in her life and who she has become and what society values from her. So her brain tends to take some flights of fancy.
That is the setup for UP THE SANDBOX, a 1972 film that is directed by Irvin Kershner (LOVING and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) and written by the late Paul Zindel. The film is obviously meant to address the women's movement that was burgeoning at that time. Although some of its themes don't translate well 31 years later, most of the film is still relative and challenging today. Barbra Streisand's performance as Margaret is incredible. It's one of her best film roles. Barbra strips down, and plays it very natural here. There are only traces of fast-talking-Brooklyn-Barbra; only one or two FUNNY GIRL line readings. The rest is a different Barbra than we've seen. It makes one wonder what other sort of small film roles she could have done -- she's that remarkable in SANDBOX. SANDBOX won't be for everyone's tastes. When I first saw it in the 1980's I didn't like it. I was confused. The fantasy sequences are not obvious. There are no clichéd Hollywood transitions - no WAYNE'S WORLD "dream sequence" dissolves! The dreams can be confusing. However, if you're a fan of smaller, non-Hollywood or foreign films, one can appreciate UP THE SANDBOX for its subtle accomplishments. In fact, Kershner achieves a dangerous atmosphere by keeping the line between reality and fantasy so close. The audience is disoriented sometimes. Think what it must be like to be Margaret, though!
Gordon Willis' cinematography contributes to the realistic and documentary feel of UP THE SANDBOX. Willis, by using natural lighting and subtle shading, creates a warm but realistic image. Streisand (in her commentary) points out several scenes where Willis' cinematography impresses. "The Moviemakers" documentary is a welcomed addition to the DVD. Streisand fans can see some additional footage shot for the African sequence, as well as a lot of behind the scenes shots. Streisand's commentary is enlightening, as is Irvin Kershner's. Kershner, so far, is the one director Barbra speaks the most about in all of the DVD commentary she's provided for this Warner Brother's set. Barbra makes sure to point out son Jason Gould's cameo appearance in the film. It's also interesting to hear Barbra's recollection of her own mother's unannounced visits, which mirrors the scene in the film. I've grown close to several new mothers in my life recently. I don't have children myself, but I have watched and learned about parenthood from them. I couldn't help but think about this while watching UP THE SANDBOX last night. Have things really changed that much in thirty years? Don't women, when pregnant, still question whether to work, how much to work, when to go back to work? And as a woman's life becomes centered around her children and husband, she is still confused about what to do with her own life. Even exercising and eating become difficult when the little ones need her attention. Toward SANDBOX's end, Kershner films a wonderfully surreal fantasy sequence where Margaret considers an abortion after contemplating all of the issues just mentioned. Kershner, Zindel, and Streisand present us with Margaret's decision. UP THE SANDBOX tells us that women don't need to become more like men ... they need to become more like themselves. More info on Barbra Streisand can be found at my fan website "The Barbra Archives".
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This is the first film Barbra Streisand's production company produced for herself, aother change of pace role after she did 3 musical Broadway translations, The Owl and the Pussycat, and What's Up Doc? Having lost her Doc tan and wearing her long hair in a dirty brown shade, Barbra is lovingly photographed by DOP Gordon Willis and delicately directed by Irvin Kershner. What is troubling and what finally makes the film thematically unsatisfying is the attempt to present Streisand's fantasies - as originally found in the Anne Richardson Roiphe novel - as feminist challenges to her identity, which is plain silly. The point Roiphe was making in her book was that the character may have a daydream life, but that doesn't mean that she is any way dissatisfield with her real one. It's indicative of a male screenwriter, the playwright Paul Zindel, that he tries to turn her into a revolutionary who must abandon her family to pursue violent behaviour like blowing up the Statue of Liberty. What rings truer are her imagined concern over a colleague of her husband's having an affair, or the small scale revenge on her overbearing mother. This latter scene, filmed with a home movie camera (an idea Streisand contributed after experiencing the same thing in her life) is hilarious in the way Kershner has captured the hell that is inlaws. Zindel's treatment makes the Streisand character angry in frustration, moments which Kershner has trouble redeeming. Even the Castro setpiece where she delivers a speech has inappropriate elements of Barbra the singer, with people yelling "We didn't come here to listen to you" and her attempt to protect herself from cameras evidence of Streisand's dislike of the media invasion of her privacy. She probably comes off best in her quiet scenes - where she chases a cockroach, the lovely image of her sitting with her black lover before the Statue of Liberty, alone in the abortion hospital room, and the slow motion shot of her sitting up on a guerney that has run wild, her hair flowing behind her. I also like the way Kershner parallels the nurses at the abortion hospital with the African tribeswomen, one of Zindel lines "I love spending 3 hours watching liverwurst turn brown", and the music of Billy Goldenberg.
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| "Mothers have no special privileges here!" |
After the uproarious zaniness of WHAT'S UP, DOC?, Streisand's follow-up picture, the decidedly bizarre UP THE SANDBOX, confused much of the film-going public and the film became the star's first flop at the box office. However, this poor reputation has only added luster to the film's appeal today, and UP THE SANDBOX has become a film that is very special to Streisand's many fans. The film's new-found appreciation is largely due to Streisand's beautifully restrained performance, which is full of warmth and nuanced believability. When she's taking on the routine banalities that were typical of the seventies' housewife, Streisand never fails to make the mundane appear so radiant and lovely. Director Irvin Kershner (best known for directing THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) gives the film an eerily abstract, European-like feel that lends UP THE SANDBOX an usual art house-style vibe. This is not a perfect film, however. The pace is almost rigidly slow and, even for a film with a 98 minute runtime, there are scenes that feel endless. Also, several of the fantasy sequences do not parallel the central storyline as well as they were intended to, which throws the film a bit off-balance and making it feel more uneven than it should. Finally, many of the issues the film raises, which were somewhat quaint even in '72, have dated badly when viewed today. But I still praise the film for it's uniqueness, and it's terrific lead performance. In the end, UP THE SANDBOX works as a vehicle for Streisand, and it allows the actress to showcase the quieter side of her brilliance. About the DVD: The picture quality is very good (light years ahead of the hazy VHS copies), and the mono sound is also fine. The trailer and vintage featurette are entertaining, but the biggest feature is Streisand's terrific full-length commentary track (which more than makes up for the disappointedly skimpy track that she contributed to the WHAT'S UP, DOC DVD). Director Kershner is featured on a separate track, which is also very much worth listening to.
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