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"Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes." --James Arthur Baldwin

David Mamet's newest film "Redbelt" pits Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mike Terry, a mixed-martial arts trainer who is broke.  Oh, and he's also in search of himself--more in the manner of reassuring his values.  As with any Mamet movie, "Redbelt" isn't so much about martial arts as it is about the revealing of personal themes; in this case it's a code of honor, honesty and being true to oneself.  All aspects to a particular identity. 

Through the discourse of the film, Mike Terry faces old enemies in the form of a brother-in-law, new friends in the form of Tim Allen's superstar alter ego, and individuals like Emily Mortimer's depressed lawyer who has a tendency to shoot business windows and then win over the heart of our protagonist.

In the end, the film is only minor Mamet.  It's no "Spartan" or "Glengarry Glen Ross."  Still though, Mamet's central theme of identity, which is chiseled at with every addition to his filmography, is--excuse the pun--at the center of "Redbelt's" ring.

So Mike (Ejiofor) by the end of the film does change.  Or maybe change is the wrong word to use; he more or less makes a discovery about his own identity (a philosophical one) and his singular place in the world.  A colleague of mine by the name of Rory Jobst said it best when it came to Mike's role in the film: "A martial artist who has to find his place in the world." 

But what about when you live in a world that finds your place for you?  Such ideas and implications are brought up in Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's "Jellyfish" (its translated title from "Meduzot"), which won the Camera D'Or prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. 

The exquisitely beautiful Sarah Adler leads an ensemble as Batia, a wedding party waitress who recently was deserted by her boyfriend.  With a nagging promo-hungry & fundraising-happy mother constantly blasting through her answering machine or telephone, Batia is a lost soul adrift an ocean of lost souls.  We meet others: a newly married couple living the honeymoon from hell in a noisy hotel building and a slanky, tall aspiring actress with mommy-doesn't-love-me issues.  For me, the strongest character comes from Joy (played by Ma-Nenita De Latorre) a Philippine social worker who coincidentally comes to nurse the aspiring actress' ailing mother.

Joy is the least flawed character in the film.  Her qualities are ultimately redeeming and her subplot of working to earn enough to reconnect with her son, who lives in her home country, is the most accessible of all the rest.  Batia, as the film shows, comes across a personified angel or jellyfish even, in a wet, mute young girl (Nikol Leidman), who only wears an underwear and a floating tube.  The married couple faces the possibility of infidelity back at the hotel.  And our aspiring actress underperforms in a silly, semi-musical version of Hamlet.

The last five minutes of the film unfurl in an exciting and often brilliant execution of gorgeous underwater cinematography and surprising plot developments.  Water is everywhere in this movie.  Whether it's the desire to view the ocean from a hotel suite, a leaky ceiling or the mural on the side of a moving background truck (the opening shot)--water is there.  The ocean can be a scary, unpredictable environment and the filmmakers propose the idea of identity being completely controlled by the elements.  Batia's parents are wealthy but she somehow lives in a stinker of an aparment.  Joy's only way to be with her son, is to work as a surrogate daughter to a sickly elderly woman.

Is that much of life really out of our hands?  Maybe.  But the scary implications behind "Jellyfish" can't be ignored.  Do we make our own identity, like Mike does in the final scene of "Redbelt"?  Or is it useless since our environment will ultimately make us who we are like in "Jellyfish"?

Geffen and Keret's film may be superior to "Redbelt" but I like to side myself with Mamet's ideology of making one's own identity independently.  And more importantly, in one's own control.