Two Films With Heart: One About Little League Baseball and the Other About Fencing

THE PERFECT GAME

OK, I'm not a huge fan of films featuring child actors (The Little Rascals being an exception) so I wasn't sure what to expect when I took out The Perfect Game from the library two weeks ago. But I loved baseball when I was a kid and right from the start I was so glad I went for it. It stirred up many memories, both from my Little League experiences and our year at an orphanage in Monterrey. In fact, I even got a little weepy toward the end. Yeah, the film won my heart.

The movie is based on a true story about a Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico that became the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series.  There are some aspects of the story which are a stretch the way it is portrayed here, but if you go with it it's an enjoyable film. You can roll your eyes later. 

The film opens with a brief scene in which Cesar Faz (Clifton Collins, Jr.) is let go by the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though he never played with the Cardinals -- he washed their clothes and cleaned the locker room -- there was a mystique after he returned to Mexico about his having "been in the Majors." 

A few neighborhood kids in Monterrey persuade him to teach them what he knows about baseball, and he knows more than they do, even if he never played professionally. He had seen the game up close. One thing leads to another, and despite their seeming unreadiness and the coach's reluctance to lead them, the boys end up going North to see what competitive baseball is all about.

There's a love interest, and there's a religious aspect as their little Catholic church supports the team with prayers and cheers. (Cheech Marin, of Cheech and Chong fame, is Padre Esteban.) And then, there's baseball. 

There is a cute scene in which the boys are all kneeling before the padre who, instead of sprinkling them with oil, squirts oil into their open baseball mitts. As any serious ballplayer will tell you, rubbing oil into your mitt and taking care of the leather is an important part of the game.

The story takes place in 1957 where Jim Crow laws are still in effect. In various ways we see how the injustices of that period played out. Nevertheless, the team pressed on. 

As an aside, my mother's favorite baseball player back in the 1950s was from Mexico--Bobby Avila of the Cleveland Indians. When Susie and I were in Monterrey in 1981, we unexpectedly discovered Mexico's version of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, the Salon de la Fama. There we saw the uniform, and other Bobby Avila memorabilia.  

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THE FENCER

This is a similar story in which a "coach" trains a ragtag group of kids and transforms them into champions. The setting in this instance is Estonia after World War II, which was under Soviet rule during the Stalin era. And like The Perfect Game it is also based on a true story.

An understanding about the history of that period is useful though not necessarily essential to appreciating the story. Nevertheless, I will give a quick sketch of the backstory.

In 1940 the Soviet Union invaded Estonia and the Baltic States of Latvia and Lithuania. Stalin was fighting the winter war with Finland and they essentially abducted the young men of these countries for the Red Army or to work in the mines on behalf of the war effort that was coming. In 1942, the Germans liberated the Baltic States so that for two years these three countries were "free" from KGB night raids and abductions. 

In 1944, the Red Army began its million man march on Berlin. To give you an idea how much the Soviets under Stalin were feared, 10% of the Estonian population fled West in a single day. (My screenplay and unpublished novel Uprooted is about that period of Estonian history.)

The Fencer involves an Estonian named Endil Nelis who has lived his life on the run. Any Estonian who had anything to do with the German army was a marked man. They would be sent away to Siberia for betrayal. On the other hand, anyone who had been in Estonia from 1942-44 would have had no choice but to be drafted. Those who did not flee when the Red Army came West ran off into hiding. 

Endil Nelis, an award-winning fencer, survived after the war by living a life on the run. Early in the film his friend urges him not to come to Leningrad but to stay in a remote town outside the view of the authorities. He does so, and gains employment back in Estonia as a phys ed teacher. One thing leads to another and the children all want to learn fencing, which they essentially know nothing about.

He proceeds to teach, and he himself is a master, but he has no real ambition for the kids other than to give them an opportunity to learn. One of the children finds an advertisement for a tournament, which brings Nelis to a decision point. If he brings the children to Leningrad for the tournament he risks being identified and sent away.

Knowing Estonia's background is useful for understanding the complicated decision he must make. Many, if not most, of these children have no fathers. He has become a father figure for them. To avoid the tournament would be a massive disappointment. On the other hand, he has grown weary of living life in the shadows and ever fearful of discovery.

Little does he know that the Secret Police have already been making inquiries, so he is a trapped rabbit either way.

Märt Avandi, who plays Nellis, does a superb job of showing how complicated life is when you know what is going on but can't be transparent about it. He is burdened by the secrets he carries, but does not want to burden his students with this. 

The Fencer is a foreign language film with English subtitles that was nominated in 2016 for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Some would criticize it's formulaic standard fare rags-to-riches, David & Goliath arc. For me, that was not a distraction, just a backdrop. The film says much about freedom and repression without saying it in a cliche manner. 

The story moved me and I recommend it.