The Fablemans is the Most Important Film of the Year.

Hey guys!

It's been a while. But every so often, one sees a film that is so brilliant, so new, that one feels compelled to revive one's blog that has remained dormant for the past few months. I recently watched such a film; as you gauged from the title, it is Steven Spielberg's The Fablemans. The latest outing from the Schindler's List filmmaker is quite different from his usual work. Rather than being a huge blockbuster, the seventy-five-year-old filmmaker takes a step back and reflects upon his life. You may argue that it is not his best work (and I may be persuaded to agree), but I'd argue that it's his most important.

The Fablemans tells the story of young Sami Fableman, who is actually a self-insert for Spielberg.  One night, young Sami is taken to the theatre by his parents to be shown the classic film, The Greatest Show on Earth. Obsessed by the ending, young Sami picks up the camera and tries to recreate the ending, finding that he loves being behind the camera. What follows is a complex coming-of-age film that provides a complex understanding of love, parents, art, and family.

Well, given that the film is a personal outlook on the nature of cinema, it seems only fitting that I begin the review with my own personal anecdote. The first film I watched in the cinema was Lage Raho Munna Bhai and while that experience wasn't nearly as transformative as it was for young Sami, I did know that I liked watching movies. Some of my favourite memories are about renting DVDs from my local store with my dad and watching them on the box TV we had. I remember watching Om Shanti Om in the theatre and being so traumatized by the fire scene that I developed a fear of the cinema (quite ironic now if you ask me). I also loved watching and rewatching The Dark Knight and Spider-Man (2001) with my cousins when I visited them for my summer break. But my favourite memory, the one to where we can trace my obsession with cinema-going, the one where I had my Sami Fableman moment of realisation happened when I was ten. 

It was a Thursday night and I had just got home from my karate class. My brother was not home and I was informed by my parents that we were going out and that I was to get dressed. I was just happy being out of the house past my bedtime, unaware that I was going to be watching a movie. The movie in question here is an early screening of the 2012 James Bond film, Skyfall. From the moment the horns blared and the silhouette of Daniel Craig walked into the frame, I knew something was different. I was hooked. I spent the next years of my life imitating James Bond's charisma. It was my fondest movie-going experience, one that I cherish to this day. In many ways, it is one that I've been trying to replicate ever since.  

So what was the point of that long-winded anecdote? It was to say that The Fablemans get that feeling. It captures the wonder and awe we feel as kids, watching our first really transformative movie. All of us have had that experience, and if we had not, we wouldn't watch movies, much less shape so much of our lives around them. It reminds you of what it feels like to be a child in the dark theatre, witnessing a story for the first time, and submitting it to the filmmaker. In an age where OTTs dominate the movie-watching experience, it reminds you that a theatre is a special place for a reason.

It is not just about the love of Hollywood though. Unlike self-congratulatory prestige films from the past ten years (like La La Land, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and more recently Empire of Light, and Babylon), The Fablemans is not your surface-level substanceless 'love letter to cinema'. Instead, the bulk of the film revolves around Sami's mother and her complicated relationship with her husband and his best friend. Meanwhile, Sami struggles with antisemitism, bullying, and the realisation that his parents' marriage isn't as happy as he previously thought, all the while struggling to find his voice as an artist.

The Fablemans comes off Spielberg's West Side Story, which was a major box office flop. The reasons for this are plentiful (mainly a crappy release schedule with Disney deciding to release it near the god-awful nigh unwatchable Spiderman: No Way Home). Despite being a technically marvelous film, West Side Story was fated to fail. It seems sort of sadly ironic that Spielberg, who birthed the first real blockbuster film with Jaws, is now being hurt by the very thing he created. Thus, it only makes sense for the maestro to take a step back and reevaluate his roots. It is Spielberg being tender and emotional, looking back upon his parents' complex relationship, and giving aspiring artists invaluable reflections on the relationship between art and family. It is one of the most beautiful heart-touching films to come out in the past few years. 

While this is not a conventional review, I deeply encourage everyone to watch The Fablemans. It is a moving, heartbreaking, emotional, and touching reflection by an artist who finds himself rejected by the very industry he helped build. It will remind you why you love movies, and why they are not just entertainment. Spielberg, you genius.