[yasr_overall_rating]
A troubled, young history professor tries to escape his past by taking a job at a new university, where he struggles with an entrenched and equally-troubled department chair, rampant student apathy, and new relationships that complicate and challenge his world-view.
From the opening visual of a hauntingly relevant and timely quote from Thucydides (philosopher, general and, of course, historian), to the attention demanding cuts throughout the film, “The Historian” demands that audiences truly stop to take it all in. Perhaps this is due to an awareness of the young adult audience’s similarities to the majority of seemingly apathetic and inattentive, although not always uninterested, young students of today; embodied perfectly in the character Stephen, a student of Ben Rhodes, “The Historian’s” protagonist portrayed by Miles Doleac.
“The Historian” does of wonderful job of telling several stories and addressing real life issues through giving us a glimpse into the lives of multiple academics. It does this without farce or satire.
Doleac, who is the writer and director of the film as well as one of its stars, is a real life historian. Focusing academically on Greco-Roman antiquity; his appreciation and familiarity with the subject, as well as his experience based knowledge of the modern problems and semi-taboo realities of the academic world seem apparent in the effortless realism of the “The Historian.” The film is dialogue heavy and has all the marks of the sort of classic indie film that probably would look a lot darker and grainier if filmed about a decade ago, before high pixel counts or even high definition was discussed so commonly amongst the everyday consumer.
A line about history’s tendency to repeat itself in the previously mentioned opening quote becomes a running theme throughout the film. A surface level common tie, interest in Rome, is revealed in different ways for an assortment of the cast early on. One professor wears a Rome t-shirt, the other has a wall lined with books on the fall of Rome, and much later, Anna, a graduate student on her way to becoming one of the historians played by Jillian Taylor, reveals that her love for history comes from both the influence of a lost loved one and a teacher who opened her eyes to the diversity of history and the foundation of now through teachings on the ancient Greeks and Romans.
There is also the father of Rhodes’ colleague and adversary Professor Hadley (William Sadler), who, through his suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, repeats both his own personal history and the histories experienced by both his father and son throughout each day as he grasps the fleeting capability to remember who and where he is in the present.
Separate elements in the life of Professor Rhodes can be interpreted as elements meant to symbolize the repetition of personal history, such as the interest in and attraction for red headed Anna after the painful separation from his scarlet haired wife. The notion of a professor getting together with a grad student, and the seemingly inevitable failure of that relationship, although it is later revealed that both Anna and Ben have something unique and important to gain from being in each others’ lives, is not exactly an original one.
In using multiple and separate scenes and interactions to make a statement on accountability, the film does tread what can be seen as dangerous waters. An assault unreported, followed by a monologue on the consequences and necessity attached to letting the incident go officially unreported and “officially” unpunished can be analyzed as a follow up to a discussion on a lack of extreme consequence. As a concrete representation of an abstract idea of a part of you that must be given in the pursuit of education; the piece of the soul given up in pursuit of a symbolic document. It can also be dismissed as irrelevant because of the potentially harmful message that this particularly important element of the story being told in the film carries. Either view has its validity.
The potential for offense aside, because what doesn’t have a little of that in this day and age, the film is realistic and needed. With only the mention of a textbook costing $18 and change taking audiences, particularly audiences who have attended college recently, out of the realism and into feeling like they’re watching people say words that were written for them. This happen only once more, due to Woody Allen-like jazzy background music during an emotionally bracing scene that illustrates the way that history can and so often does repeat itself in our minds.
A firm decision by Rhodes not to repeat the history of a man who could very well go on to be, and by Hadley to repeat the unrepeatable as best he can, both end and open the story; putting a perfect final touch on a singular story of the circular nature of life and time.
Available on DVD now
