September 22, 2011

A SEPARATION
Directed by Asghar Farhadi
2011

On first glance referring to the separation between the two leading characters, the title of Asghar Farhadi's fifth film covers much more than that. With subjects ranging from the divide between a secular middle class and an orthodox lower class, to the changing relations between men and women as a result of growing emancipation, and the separation of justice and religion, the film is not afraid to tackle hot-button topics, but it handles them apolitically and with nuance. And it niftily packages this inside view of Iranian society in an apparently simple whodunit with constantly changing perspectives, always one step ahead of the viewer.

Simin and Nader are on the verge of divorce. With the visa to travel abroad about to expire, Simin would like nothing more than to leave the country with her husband and their teenage daughter Termeh, to build a life elsewhere. Nader, however, wants to stay in Tehran to take care of his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The courts reject Simin's application for divorce, leading her to leave her family and move in with her parents.

Having a full-time job, Nader hires a young woman, Razieh, to take care of his father. The deeply religious Razieh has taken the job for financial reasons, but has failed to consult her husband Hodjat. This leaves her as a married woman working for, in all practicality, a single man. Her second day on the job, something happens between Razieh and the old man that initiates an escalating series of accusations, culminating in Nader and Simin coming face to face with Hodjat and Razieh in court. New facts are revealed as the case moves on, not only between the feuding parties, but also in Simin and Nader's marriage, and slowly but surely the story of what really happened between Razieh and Nader's father unfolds.

At the end, the film returns to the original separation, that of Nader and Simin. Throughout the course of the film, even though they live in separation, when the legal trouble starts Simin stands by her man, even if her chief concern in the matter is probably her daughter. At several points, the chasm between husband and wife is shown in poignant shots in their own apartment. They share the home, but they look at each other through glass windows, symbolic of how they are at once separated yet still bound. The final scene of the film is devastating, as it goes against what we expect to happen.

Part of the film's strength is that Farhadi forces the viewer to take sides, but makes it difficult to do so because of the nuanced treatment of his main characters. This constant push for the viewer to judge the characters starts quite literally in the opening scene, when Simin and Nader argue the former's divorce application in front of a judge. Both actors break the fourth wall, putting the viewer in place of the judge. As the story unfolds, and perspectives shift, so does the viewer's position regarding the characters. Since the story follows the template of a whodunit (other reviews have rightfully compared it to Hitchcock), the characters' motives become clear bit by bit, swinging the viewer back and forth between them. Farhadi has woven an intricate web around a tight central story, but it's the effect of life's larger themes (especially Iranian life) on the story which makes the impression here so profound. The arc of the women in particular is devastating.

The divorce application is the catalyst for the story, and the courtroom scene immediately shows one part of the intimate relationships between men and women in Iran, as Simin feistily argues her case. Divorce is on the rise in Iran, and women are becoming more vocal and securing more rights, an aspect of current Iranian society that is underreported. The contrast to this is seen in the marriage of Razieh and Hodjat, which is much less equal, and probably more in line with how people in the West see the position of women in Iran and the Middle East. The differences between Simin and Razieh are shown not only in their actions, but in their dress. Both wear the obligatory headdress, but compared to Razieh's black chador, Simin's colourful and loosely wrapped scarves and modern clothes are almost a sign of defiance. This difference comes from both their position in society, Simin belonging to an upwardly mobile middle-class Tehranian family as opposed to Razieh's working-class suburban origins, and from their adherence to their religion.

Religion in itself is shown to have a large influence in Iranian society (not surprising in a theocracy), and most notably in its relationship to and separation from justice. Iranian law does not follow the rules of sharia, but that does not mean that justice and religion are completely separate, especially not for those who are subject to it. Tellingly, characters seem to have no problem lying before the court, yet are reluctant to swear to their statements upon the Qur'an. After going through the legal system, the conflict is settled by a mullah out of official court (at least, until another twist in the story throws a wrench into that plan).

The acting is stellar across the board. Berlin got it right when they gave their acting awards to the male and female cast of this film. Even when emotions run high from time to time, the acting remains naturalistic, and much is conveyed subtly in a look or in body language. In fact, A Separation probably has better acting during the end credits than a lot of films during their entire running time. The often handheld cinematography complements the naturalistic acting, sometimes giving the film a feel of cinéma vérité. Direction by Farhadi is self-assured, and the editing pitch perfect, creating a pace that makes it feel shorter than its two-plus hour running time. On top of that, the screenplay even allows for a few laugh-out-loud moments in a film that deals with so many serious subjects. Given its win at the Berlinale, and now as Iran's entry in the Foreign Language category for the Academy Awards, one can only hope this film reaches as broad an audience as possible. Even if it's set in a nation that is always viewed with a bit of suspicion (at least in the West), its themes are universal.- Marc van de Klashorst

August 24, 2011

SENNA
Directed by Asif Kapadia
2010

Note: this review will take a look at both the theatrical and the extended version of this documentary, as there are notable differences between the two that change the tone of the film. The extended version is currently only available on the Italian DVD, although this will probably (hopefully) be available on other releases as well.

Ayrton Senna. Just mentioning his name will light up the eyes of racing fans across the world. His untimely death in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix proved him a mere mortal, but in his native country, Brazil, he is revered as a god. The fatal crash cut short a career, yet he is still regarded as the greatest racing driver ever. What made him so special? It is this question that director Asif Kapadia's documentary tries to answer, and while it doesn't quite succeed at that, it is still a riveting inside view into the world of Formula 1 racing, seen through the eyes of a perhaps naive man, whose idea of racing was simply to go as fast as you can.

The documentary spans Senna's Formula 1 career, from his start with the small Toleman team in 1984 to his funeral in 1994, but the main focus is on his years with the McLaren team, and in particular his bitter rivalry with French driver and teammate Alain Prost (a 4-time World Champion, and a legend in his own right) between 1988 and 1990. A dramatic and championship-deciding collision between the two in the penultimate race of the 1989 season confronted Senna with the politics involved in Formula 1 racing, even though the documentary shows this was not his first run-in with officials. While Senna was a pure and competitive racing driver, only interested in driving fast and winning races, Prost was a calculating driver and much more proficient in the politics of the sport. With the help of FIA president and fellow Frenchman Jean-Marie Balestre, he managed to make the chips fall in his favor. The latter is especially shown in a negative light, as we see Senna clash with Balestre on several occasions over safety regulations and other issues. The irony is that Senna's constant hammering on safety led to changes which have prevented any other driver being fatally injured since Senna's own deadly crash. An almost identical collision in the last race of the 1990 season, that time giving Senna the championship, was also the result of a controversial decision by Balestre. Senna later admitted that he hit Prost intentionally.

After a short overview of the 1991 to 1993 seasons (in which Senna won a third title, after 1988 and 1990), the focus shifts to the disastrous Grand Prix at Imola on May 1st, 1994. Smart use of footage and music by director Kapadia boosts the drama of the event to cinematic levels. Seeing Prost at the funeral, and finding out he is a trustee of the Senna foundation, puts their rivalry in a different light and makes the documentary's portrayal of Prost up until that point ring slightly false.

And this is where the interesting difference between the theatrical version and the extended version of the documentary lies. The theatrical version is made up completely of archive footage, some of it never before seen, and it is completely devoid of the 'talking heads' that usually are prevalent in this kind of portrait. By doing this, Kapadia creates a life story with a dramatic arc, which plays very cinematically and makes for a powerful portrait. In this version, Prost and Balestre are the villains that the hero Senna has to contend with. In contrast, the extended version does make use of 'talking heads', and one of them is Alain Prost himself. Interviewed extensively for the documentary, Prost seems to have mellowed somewhat over their feuds, and even gets emotional over a gesture Senna made a few days before his death. At times he may sound like a politician with selective and convenient memory gaps, but this version paints a much more nuanced picture of the Frenchman. Competitive, self-confident, but not too unlike Senna.

The other people interviewed also change the tone of the documentary, and it is The Guardian's Richard Williams and ESPN's John Bisignano who are most affecting. Williams, ponderous and all British reserve, manages to explain what was so good about Aytron Senna's driving, and his influence on the sport as a whole. Flamboyant Bisignano brings the drama, as he remembers fan reactions to both Senna's victory at his home circuit of Interlagos and his funeral in his hometown of Sao Paolo. Both men are a joy to listen to, and manage to inject a humanity into the story that is mostly lacking in the theatrical version. The theatrical version is more cinematic (thus ably validating why it is the theatrical cut), but the extended version is the better one, because it paints a fuller picture. It gives more sense of the accomplishments of Senna, and how the man touched lives. From the perspective of a racing fan in general and a Senna fan in particular, it is difficult to judge how interesting this documentary would be for casual viewers, but many should find it a thrilling tale, especially the theatrical version.

The documentary in both versions does focus mainly on the racing and on Senna's compulsion and competitiveness. Some fragments of Senna's private life are highlighted, among them his charity work for underprivileged kids. These parts feel brushed over, although his influence on the spirit of Brazil as a nation is conveyed pretty well. The portrait is actually very positive as a whole, with very little room for criticsm. A 1993 incident in which Senna punched rookie driver Eddie Jordan in the nose is not mentioned, for instance, and Senna's intentions in the 1990 incident with Prost are downplayed. To be fair, the film also skips some of his more heroic deeds, on- or off-track, such as saving the life of fellow driver Érik Comas at Spa-Francorchamps during qualifying in 1992. Senna is an exhilarating portrait of a competitive driver, an activist for fair and safe driving, and a very generous man. With his charming, almost boyish smile and appearance, it is easy to see why he was loved. It is a shame that the documentary fails to fully explain why he was such an exceptional driver though, especially for non-racing fans. It mentions how good he was in wet conditions (rain separates the men from the boys in racing, and none was ever better than Ayrton Senna), and how he managed to win in Interlagos with only a 6th gear for the last part of the race. But what truly makes him the greatest is that he raced against four of the top champions in the sport (Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, and Nigel Mansell), and managed to give them all a run for their money. However, this is a minor criticism of an otherwise splendid (and splendidly told) film. - Marc van de Klashorst

August 17, 2011

ANOTHER EARTH
Directed by Mike Cahill
2011

Like an ominous orb or omniscient object, a fresh planet can be seen dominating the sky, boldly, beautifully, in nearly every exterior shot of the grandly intelligent indie drama Another Earth. It is the second Earth of the title and its presence is never explained. It simply arrived one day and our Earth's citizens have been wondering what it's doing up there for the past four years. It's a mystery, an eerie, eccentric enigma that lays the foundation for a truly gripping science fiction concept. And it's only the catalyst for something much larger at work in this profoundly plotted narrative that touches upon such weighty themes as forgiveness and redemption.

Co-writers Mike Cahill (doubling as director) and Brit Marling focus their story on tortured soul Rhoda (Marling, apparently as sharp an actor as she is a writer), who ruined her life and that of another family when she drove drunk and smashed into another vehicle. That was around the same time that the other Earth showed up, a paralleling detail that connects these two events in an embrace of the epic and the intimate. Years later, Rhoda is trying to pick up the shattered pieces of her life, but she can't shake the guilt and she finds that her only way of coping with the pain is to punish herself.

She chooses a job that allows her to suppress her talents and she finds herself slipping further into a pit of despair from which there cannot possibly be any return. Or can there? All the while, Rhoda stares into the sky and wonders what exactly is going on up there on Earth 2. Scientists theorize that the planet operates like a mirror and that the inhabitants up there are actually reflections of ourselves. Or perhaps they are our doppelgangers, identical but separate. These notions open Rhoda's mind to the possibilities. Is there a version of her out there who didn't commit such an atrocity? Can she escape her past by reliving it? Is there hope for her yet?

It's a spellbinding situation that successfully combines the sci-fi concept with Rhoda's dramatic character arc. The science excites, while the fiction fascinates. As Rhoda begins to latch on to some sense of distant hope, Another Earth finds new ways to explore Rhoda's obsession with running from her past. Imaginative insight illuminates Rhoda's seemingly inescapable need to avoid the pain by dreaming of some magical reset button that will erase her troubles. At the same time, she attempts to make amends with the lone survivor of the wreck she caused by befriending heartbroken John (William Mapother, delivering a dark portrait of grief).

But even then, Rhoda can't quite own up to her mistakes. It is here that Another Earth expands the emotional reach of the conflict and adds additional layers of meaning to the theme of avoidance. As hard as Rhoda tries to outrun her past, she never seems to get too far ahead. It keeps threatening to catch up, breathing down her neck and forcing her to feel the fear of a world that may not be ready to forgive her. Rhoda is languishing in a very harrowing place and Marling makes us feel every pang of rigorous regret and every sting of personal punishment.

The stunning science fiction concept that hangs over Another Earth provides ample opportunities for Cahill and Marling to dissect the main themes and then use them, impressively and effectively, to communicate the depth of Rhoda's internal conflict. The narrative is consistently strengthened by the carefully thematic employment of symbolism, which transforms even an innocent video game session into a compassionate commentary on subtextual violence.

The introduction of Earth 2 provides the narrative with a lot of avenues to explore and numerous questions to pose. This unique conceit provides room for Cahill and Marling to weave the main themes through Rhoda's journey in a manner that doesn't feel heavy-handed or overbearing. There are many great moments throughout Another Earth and the movie's insistence on staying with Rhoda the whole time ensures that these great moments rely heavily on her arc and on Marling's performance.

Any weaknesses on display here are quite minor. The genre-melding musical score is a bit obnoxious at times, striving for too eclectic an electronic beat or too sentimental a piano note. And perhaps the movie stumbles from scene to scene on rare occasions. But even these complaints are very small, as the music remains a welcome identifier of the movie's indie identity and the editing is very successful overall.

Rhoda's story takes us to some emotionally potent spots that are forever tied to the existence of Earth 2. And what is perhaps most impressive about Another Earth is how that connection between Rhoda and the new planet remains tightly linked all the way until the end. In a pitch-perfect conclusion, these two narrative elements collide with exquisite precision. The ending brings Rhoda's arc to a close at just the right point where the themes come full circle and yet the questions still remain. I couldn't ask for a more satisfying end to this story.

If you could meet yourself, what would you say? If you could relive your past, what would you do? The stunning, startling sight of Earth 2 in the sky inspires so many questions, but Another Earth isn't really about the answers so much as it is about the journey one must embark on to find them. Cahill and Marling strike a dire tone early on and don't shy away from the darkness that is brewing at the narrative's core. But they also aren't afraid to seek hope in the midst of such horror and they locate a rather astonishing path to get their story to the point where optimism is attainable. This marriage of sensational sci-fi concept and moving character study is so impressive it's almost otherworldly. But even with such an alien conceit nestled in the narrative, this movie is always so endearingly human. Is it too late for Rhoda? Or is redemption still within her grasp? All it takes is a trip to Another Earth to find out. - Aaron Leggo

June 11, 2011

SUPER 8
Directed by J.J. Abrams
2011

What kid doesn't dream of having adventures? That one day, while out walking or riding your bike, or hanging out with your friends, you're going to stumble on something incredible, something extraordinary? Of course, we outgrow that. But the nostalgia for that specific time of childhood never quite goes away. It's the awe and terror of the unknown – the possibility that the remarkable is still out there.

No filmmaker is more famous for documenting the intersection between normal life and the unknown than Steven Spielberg. Between those he directed (Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T.) and those he merely produced (The Goonies, Poltergeist), a Spielberg production is one where the characters are balanced precariously on the edge of reality, waiting for something extraordinary to appear in the night sky. And thus, it was inevitable that Steven Spielberg's chosen protege, J.J. Abrams, would turn back to document that period of time which Spielberg immortalized.

Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is a boy beset by tragedy. Something terrible has happened to his family, and now he and his father Jackson (the great Kyle Chandler) are bereft of their normal support system, forced to deal with each other on more uncertain terms. Neither is exactly up to the challenge. And so each retreats – as Jackson suggests that his son attend a baseball camp for the summer, Joe sneaks out at night to help film his friend Charles' (Riley Griffiths as a budding suburban Orson Welles) zombie masterpiece, "The Case." More intriguingly, Charles has talked their older classmate Alice (Elle Fanning) into playing a role. As Joe finds himself drawn to Alice, he discovers hints that her father (Ron Eldard) may or may not have something to do with the tragedy that opens the film.

But then, into this small drama careens a runaway train, one Joe and his friends have the misfortune to witness. Soon mysterious portents descend on the town – every dog in town flees, power flickers wildly, car engines are stolen, and the Air Force (led by Noah Emmerich) arrives – but, as they say, everything is under control. Or is it? And through it all, Joe and his friends keep filming, inspired by what Charles calls "Production values!" But as their film and the strangeness in the town keep intersecting, it's increasingly clear that something is lurking out there...something extraordinary.

Let's get the bad out of the way first: Abrams is not as good as Spielberg at maintaining a balance between the personal and the extraordinary. There's nothing as transcendent as the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Quint's Indianapolis speech here. There's some awkward late-in-the-game exposition about what's going on that doesn't really feel necessary. And some of the payoffs (in particular, the relationship between the two fathers) don't quite work (that being said, the LAST payoff of the film, which occurs during the credits, is MORE than worth it. Seriously, stay for the credits: you won't regret it). Because of those issues, it never achieves the depth and power of Spielberg's finest works.

But goddamn, what a ride Super 8 is! Even if he's not Spielberg, Abrams is a truly talented director. He and cinematographer Larry Fong shoot the hell out of Super 8, and it looks amazing. Believe me, if you think that teaser from last year is what the train crash is like, you're wrong. They shoot it entirely from the kids' point of view (like the vast majority of the film), and it's just a tremendously thrilling, breathtaking sequence. Most of the...incidents involving whatever escaped are also well-shot. Unlike most filmmakers today, Abrams definitely learned from Jaws – that what you hint is far more suspenseful than what you show – and it works like gangbusters here. The film is paced brilliantly – it really is a roller coaster of a movie in the absolute best sense, and it just gets wilder as it goes along. He's also aided by constant collaborator Michael Giacchino, who turns in a terrific John Williams-y score. If Super 8 turns into a big word-of-mouth hit, don't be surprised if Giacchino snags a nomination.

But as he proved with Star Trek, Abrams' best quality is that he's a fine director of actors. And he demonstrates that here in spades. Down the line, the kids are all fantastic. Fanning easily outdoes her sister Dakota's turn in War of the Worlds with a sweetly nuanced performance as Alice, and Joel Courtney is a sympathetic lead as Joe. Even the more stereotypical kids, like special effects expert/potential pyromaniac Cary, are well-cast, and Abrams nails the group dynamics. I honestly don't think there's a false note in the group interactions and how the kids react to everything. It's a huge accomplishment on all their parts. As for the adults, only Chandler, Eldard, and Emmerich have sizable roles. Chandler, as always, is wonderful, and his relationship with Courtney always feels honest. I wish that Chandler had more screen time, but that might've taken away from the kids. Eldard is solid and Emmerich makes a nasty villain, but there's not all that much depth to them.

Ultimately, while it doesn't scale the heights of the Spielberg filmography (mostly due to some weak resolutions, and that it never quite reaches the thematic profundity of Spielberg's best works), Super 8 is still a fantastically entertaining, well-crafted ride. It's got terrific acting, it's funny, it's exciting, and it eats cookie-cutter franchise films like Thor or Pirates of the Caribbean 4 for breakfast. What more do you want in a summer film? - Christopher Dole

April 5, 2011

MYSTERIES OF LISBON
Directed by Raúl Ruiz
2010

Like Dreyer’s Gertrud or Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn, Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries of Lisbon seems to have been created by an artist absolutely drowned in his own world and alien to trends and fashions around him. A film whose only master is what the director likes and wants to tell, a film focused on the director’s obsession and, in this case, focused on Ruiz’s obsession with storytelling.

Mysteries of Lisbon seems to tell the story of the world, and if it has an end, that is the only imposition Ruiz accepted from the market: given that movies are shown in a way that requires a beginning and an end, he consents to put a stop to his narration, while making us know that if we listened, he would be telling more and more about these characters, to a point where he would end up telling the stories of every person on the face of the Earth (and, in fact, there are more stories to be found in the TV version of this film, prepared to be shown as a series).

Even though the stories we are presented with have a myriad of themes of their own, the main theme of Mysteries of Lisbon as a whole is storytelling itself: it’s a movie that speaks about our need to tell and listen to stories, and about their vital importance. Telling a story, telling our story, may be the only way of making sense of it, getting rid of it; and this liberates many of the characters in the film from burdens they had carried for years. But at the same time, the listener is unavoidably affected by the story too, the weight is translated to he who has listened, and his life will be altered by the new knowledge, sometimes to a point that he now must keep telling these stories. In one scene, a character (Joana de Verona) even explicitly insists that she doesn’t want to listen to another character’s story, for she feels the knowledge will alter their relationship forever. For it becomes clear that our story, each one’s story, is also the story of everyone else, that everyone is finally linked by the stories we share.

The nature of the 19th century serialised novel (of which Castelo Branco’s novel adapted by Ruiz is one of Portugal’s most famous examples) fits Ruiz’s main theme like a hand in a glove, for in these novels part of the charm was to discover the secret and surprising ways in which characters ended up relating to one another. In a sort of “six degrees of separation” game, Ruiz toys with these conventions and plays them up, underlining the improbability of it all (including a self-referential joke in which the narrator speaks about how one coincidence couldn’t be expected even in the most outlandish serialised novel, when the whole movie is a serialised novel and these coincidences are what the film is made of), but at the same time suggesting that actually, we are all that closely related, and coincidences of this kind happen all the time, especially in milieus as elitist as Lisbon’s 19th century high society.

And of course, a movie about storytelling is not just about what we tell, but also about how we tell it, about the ways in which we present our stories to others, about the way in which we represent them.

April 3, 2011

SOURCE CODE
Directed by Duncan Jones
2011

A little past the halfway point of Source Code, around the fifth or sixth time our hero Colter (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been thrown back into the final 8 minutes of a terrorism victim's life, I began to get a slightly unfortunate feeling. It’s a feeling I get a lot at genre films like this, where the film has a pretty brilliant idea that could go down plenty of exciting paths, but it ultimately picks a path that, while not bad, is less adventurous and not as enthralling as its early journey had promised.

It is the second feature from Duncan Jones, after his 2009 debut Moon, a film that shares just enough resemblance with this effort to indicate, not self-plagiarism, but an auteur’s interest in very specific ideas and stories. Both films center on protagonists that we are barely introduced to, and as both films progress we come to learn they don't know much about themselves either (and not in some coming-of-age self-discovery way); powerful outside forces are also heavily involved in the fabrication of this life. Though I didn't love Moon as much as many people I know, I prefer the execution of that film's sci-fi premise to this, mostly because it was working on a much smaller scale – here Jones has a bigger canvas, but he doesn't do the best job of filling it out.

The film's opening sequence is perhaps the best fulfillment of this story's potential. Though starting a story with a confused, blank-memory protagonist has been done many times before, Ben Ripley's screenplay and Jones' direction hit all the right beats. It’s nothing revolutionary or mind-blowing, but it puts us right into Colter’s shoes as he tries to figure out bit by bit why he's on a Chicago-bound train in another man's body just before it gets blown to smithereens. It also helps to have the right actor in the role, and though he continues to be more of a star by name recognition than actual audience appeal, Gyllenhaal is a likeable and talented leading man, and brings the needed weight and charisma to guide us through what is going to be a very confusing journey.

After this sequence (and another properly disorienting sequence introducing us to the second reality of the film), we get the necessary exposition from Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright, as a sympathetic military officer and a stern scientist, respectively. These two talented actors do about as much as they can with these roles, which are not particularly rewarding (especially Wright, playing a stereotypically empathy-free scientist), though Farmiga gives her character enough humanity to let you roll with some far-fetched decisions near the end.

They explain just enough to keep the audience going right into Colter's next reliving of the attack (called the Source Code, hence the title), and then let a little more information out following the next few relivings. Here the film begins to show that it's less about finding the bomber and more about finding out what's going on with our hero. This development is more hit than miss, but it comes close. By devoting so much time to Colter's personal journey through entering the Source Code, I feel like the film skimps on a couple of possible areas of interest, especially just how traumatizing it must become to relive, over and over, death by bombing. One would imagine that by the third or fourth time he would have serious problems with KNOWING that the bomb is coming, and intense fear over re-entering and facing the possibility of blowing up once more.

The film instead focuses on the emotional connection that develops between Colter and Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), a friend of the man he has inhabited. As with Farmiga and Wright’s characters, there isn't much to the role, but Monaghan and Gyllenhaal develop enough chemistry together that you're willing to go with the idea that Colter would become motivated less to stop the bomber and more to save her. The film also opts for a half-baked daddy-issue subplot that's supposed to be significant to our protagonist, but is barely worth mentioning here.

As for that bomber plot, the film's way of dealing with it leaves a lot to be desired. The pacing is incredibly inconsistent, as we seem to be initially following a gradual piece-by-piece discovery of who the bomber might be through each re-entrance into the Source Code, before the focus turns to Colter. Then in the final section, when Colter is forced to figure out the mystery, the plot is wrapped up too quickly and conveniently. The bomber’s identity may not be the main point by now, but it's still a major one, and the reveal is mishandled, as is the actual character. (I'm pretty sure Ripley just copy/pasted his obligatory "THIS IS MY MOTIVATION" monologue from pieces of three or four other terrorist monologues.)

With that being said, this offhand approach to the terrorist plot makes for an unusual (by Hollywood standards) but satisfactory ending. Whereas most genre films, even the smaller, more character-focused ones, feel obligated to throw in an action-heavy conclusion, Jones and Ripley opt for a quieter, more gradual winding down that respects the characters we've come to know and watched go through hell for the last 80 minutes. It's a respectful ending, making me feel that even though the filmmakers didn't meet my personal expectations of this plot, they did pretty darn well with the path they started down. - Jonathan Boehle

January 6, 2011

THE ILLUSIONIST
Directed by Sylvain Chomet
2010

Sylvain Chomet probably never thought, when he used a quick clip of Jacques Tati's first film (Jour de fête, 1949) in his Oscar-nominated The Triplets of Belleville, that he'd be enshrined with the incredible task of bringing to life an unproduced screenplay from Tati himself. With the express permission from Tati's only living daughter, Chomet set forth on animating 'The Illusionist,' a tale set in France and Scotland in 1959 about a late in life magician finding himself in a changing world of entertainment.

The Illusionist Tatischeff (Tati's original last name before he shortened it), an ungainly and maladroit fellow, is finding it hard to fill a house for his simple ‘rabbit out of the hat’ magicianry. Emerging rock stars are taking his place and he must take more and more odd and odder jobs and venues. On a gig on a small isle off Scotland he meets a young girl named Alice whom he takes a shine to, and she to him. She scrubs the floors and has worn-out shoes. Lonely, The Illusionist finds comfort in being able to provide small trinkets of affection through the guise of magic, at which she marvels and is thankful. So appreciative of her enthusiasm, he continues to provide her with more and more lavish gifts and she, although seemingly unintentionally, becomes more and more demanding. Not wanting to break the illusion for her, he takes secret jobs in the middle of the night (including a rather funny rendezvous at a car mechanic where he is again met with a very modern change of world pace via a Chevy Bel Air) to keep himself from going into ruin.

There is such a wonderful sense of both melancholy and whimsy in this film. It’s amusing to see The Illusionist appear for the Scottish folk in bright magenta while the rest of the color palette extends to four shades of brown. The classic 2D animation style is warm and comfortable and evokes the Golden Age of Disney classics like One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The combination of muted backgrounds and loving details is so familiar it’s impossible not to be enchanted. It’s also a much more subdued film than Triplets (thankfully) and its almost total lack of dialogue (save a few words in English and some easy French phrases) lets the visuals tell the story in a delicate yet dramatically narrative way. Yet the film again still finds room for a wonderfully cheeky moment in which The Illusionist, hiding from Alice, ducks into a movie theater showing Tati’s own Mon Oncle. They have a brief moment where they are practically mirroring each other’s behavior and it’s a delight.

As Alice continues to get older, it’s clear her fascination with The Illusionist’s magic is wearing off. She longs for more than a father-daughter relationship and finds that in a handsome neighbor. Even The Illusionist’s relationship with his chubby, feisty rabbit is in its twilight (that realization and outcome is gorgeously felt and represented) and it becomes very clear that even late in life he has grown. A brief exchange with a little girl on a train provides volumes of information on remorse, estrangement and learning to let go. - Erik Anderson

October 24, 2010

RABBIT HOLE
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
2010

Becca and Howie (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, respectively) are an upper-middle-class couple still raw after the death of their infant son eight months prior. With their son’s room intact and remnants of him throughout the house, the couple walks around as if merely bumping into each other will cause them to shatter. Their emotional state is that volatile and that fragile. Adapted by David Lindsay-Abaire from his own play, the film manages to escape the trappings of a stage play while still giving us the impression of the couple being constrained by their emotional paralysis.

A neighbor visits Becca while she is gardening to invite her and Howie over for dinner. She accidentally steps on a newly planted flower, crushing it, and in doing so brings metaphorical clarity to Becca of a young bud being snuffed out before it has time to bloom. With this grave insult her invitation is swiftly and coldly rebuffed. A visit to a grief counseling group sees Becca squirming as she hears stories of other couples’ losses, and instead of lending an empathetic ear, she lashes out at them in a scene that is uncomfortable yet humorous.

Becca’s cruelty also extends to her mother Nat (a wonderful Dianne Wiest), still mourning the death of her own son and comparing it to Becca’s loss. Her intention is honorable and compassionate but Becca sees it as a vicious and unfair comparison (her brother died of a drug overdose at age 30) and shoots verbal daggers at her. She also looks down on her younger sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) who, when not having to be bailed out of jail for bar fights, is getting pregnant by her musician boyfriend. Becca’s feeling of Izzy’s undeserved motherhood, especially in the light of hers being robbed, is given prime real estate in their conversations.

Howie is constantly trying to move forward with Becca without losing the past. His attempts at intimacy or the mention of having another child are met with frustration and anger. Becca’s sudden decision to remove their son’s toys and refrigerator art is seen as an act of violence by Howie. As the couple grows increasingly apart and unable to talk to each other, they both find people outside of their marriage for comfort, Howie in pot-smoking Gaby (Sandra Oh) from group therapy and Becca with a mysterious boy (a brilliant debut from newcomer Miles Teller) she follows, almost obsessively. The nature of this relationship is kept back from the viewer (although it isn’t terribly difficult to figure out) and is a great example of the restraint and assurance Mitchell shows as a director here.

Eckhart does very good work, running the gamut from subtle to (sometimes a bit too) explosive. Wiest is gentle here, offering sage advice in the face of her daughter’s nastiness. I was reminded of her character in Edward Scissorhands, a bit hopeful, a bit naïve but always with good intentions. The film really belongs to Kidman though, as she is so fearless in this role. She is icy and steely but appropriately so, as she hasn’t figured out how to manage her grief. We almost always manage to be on her side even at her most vicious, giving her the empathy that she sometimes can’t muster. It’s her best performance since Birth and worthy of Oscar consideration. My only reservation, and I know this will cause groans and rolled eyes, is that sometimes her face appears overworked and it belies her suburban housewife role. It’s a relatively small distraction though.

An incredibly subdued piece in comparison to his two previous films, Rabbit Hole is more Ordinary People than Antichrist in the pantheon of couples with children lost, a confident mainstream effort proving Mitchell is not just a fringe director. It’s not a great film, but a very good one, showing that Mitchell doesn’t need the bells and whistles of musical numbers or graphic sex (not that there's anything wrong with that), but has the strength to work with conventional material and still put his stamp on it. - Erik Anderson

October 16, 2010

THE ICE STORM
Directed by Ang Lee
1997

 

In-depth analysis of the bourgeois American family has been an established subgenre of Hollywood filmmaking ever since social issues and tensions became a vital part of film in that recklessly innovative time known as the Sixties, and, thinking about James Dean kicking and screaming in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause, one could argue that such a thematic started even before marital issues and teen angst were brought to our attention by the sexual and social revolution of 1968.

Over four decades of dysfunctional characters have lifted the thin veil of hypocrisy that lay on the celebrated symbol of the American Dream like dust on an old family picture, and entire generations of directors have been able to portray the truth behind the façade. And yet, strange as it may seem, all those years of endlessly “looking closer” (Sam Mendes be with us) have somehow lessened the efforts of directors and screenwriters to find some kind of universal meaning in the whole issue – what are the cultural motivations behind a family that falls to pieces, how that kind of human behavior can be read in a bigger picture that includes a rational, unemotional analysis of the social and political events of the last century – in short, how to make a film about a dysfunctional family without sinking into too much melodrama, and to understand how it really works, what makes the wheels spin.

The answer, obviously, couldn’t come from an American filmmaker, too busy creating complex family interactions and spitting out his or her own cultural frustrations to actually stand back and watch. So it took Ang Lee from Taiwan to teach us how to really look. Not necessarily look closer, because that means losing an essential acritical perspective; just look, observe from afar and see how it goes. In short, less Mary Tyler Moore cast against type and gently flying paper bags, and more raw edges.

Because The Ice Storm is not only the storm that freezes over Connecticut one cold 1973 night, it’s something much more dangerous and fascinating to watch. It’s the crystallization of a situation, of conflicts, and of an era that inevitably changed all the cards on the table, and all the players as well. It is not much different from the trees and flowers that we see in the film, perfect and pure and still, ready to be studied as a crystal-clear product of nature. And we look, as through a magnifying glass, at all those frozen details that should have warned the world that something was being altered for good. Somehow, we truly see them for the first time, as all the pieces of this complex, icy puzzle fit together.

Without one hint of an overly emotional approach, Lee’s camera and Schamus’ writing avoid any superficial development of the characters, who are left bare sketches of real people. Instead they try to dissect the reality we can see from the outside, through a particular use of stillness and cold clarity that arise from both the minimalist and sometimes caustic dialogue and from a few key scenes. Scenes that, image-wise, have the perceptible pureness of a snowy day (the long bicycle rides, the Thanksgiving dinners, the rainy nights of confessions, the games in the glassy ice).

In the cyclic structure of the movie, each character, though not explored through his or her personal motivations or backstory, is perfectly formed as an empty vessel that can be filled with the insecurities and fears of a changing era. Each character is defined through a lack of connection to those changes, being either too old or too young to have fully lived the focal point of rebellion – the great divides of 1968 and of the ongoing Vietnam war, maybe an even greater source of change for the U.S. than the youth revolts that burned down Europe. And each character lives through those changes in different ways, always in a self-destructive manner, but never truly grasping the meaning of the changes themselves. Sexual liberation is seen either as a way to avoid boredom and the void of a shallow life (Sigourney Weaver), or as some sort of obligation (Christina Ricci). Some characters try to show the world their acceptance of the new lifestyle, while still truly uncomfortable with everything that implies (Kevin Kline); others are afraid to admit that they’re ready to break through into the new, fast-spinning world (Joan Allen); still others find a safety net in intellectual and/or political awareness (Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood, Ricci again) which still prevents them from actually feeling alive.

While everybody is frozen in this state of uncertainty – and although we now see with newfound clarity the connection between dysfunction and the unavoidable evolution of human interactions, finally free from any emotive implications – the film leaves one shady and undefined spot in which all these characters, for a fleeting moment (interrupted by the sudden cut to black of the ending) find themselves again as human beings. We have crystallized them, analyzed them, used them as guinea pigs, but in the moment of profound grief humanity is found again, and the cycle of the film (and of life itself) is completed. These examples of dysfunctionality come together to that place of human association called family. And yet not family in the way we think and in the way the film wanted us to believe. We have seen the same family in the same situation at the beginning and at the end of the film, but now we know what to look for as they are waiting in that train station. We still don’t know exactly who they are, but we know where the connection lies, between them as human beings and our common past. This is a family that has been on the brink of extinction, that couldn’t run as fast as the world was running, that was and still is risking destruction. But in that act of genuine human communion, two men separated by such intricate social barriers who lift, together, the body of an innocent, and in that last liberating breakdown of a father crying for a lost child who was not even his own, there may be an ultimate truth: we don’t necessarily need to look closer to discover what is ugly in the world, it is often so obvious, but neither do we need to look closer to see what connects us as human beings. - Ciro Di Lella

September 21, 2010

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER
Directed by Woody Allen
2010

 

I should have seen it coming with the release of Whatever Works: that after Woody Allen’s fascinating career renaissance with Match Point (2005), Cassandra’s Dream (2007), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and to a lesser extent Scoop (2006), Allen would fall back on his most tired clichés and stale characters once again.  Despite a really eclectic cast who seem mostly game, YWMATDS (I refuse to write that out each time) doesn’t even live up to Allen’s worst films but feels like a Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer creation called “Woody Allen Movie.”

Most of Allen’s recent films have really broken out of the New York City mold and embraced Europe in a way he never did before.  They had an air, of the exotic or the mysterious or the aristocracy, that mined new material for him and did so with vivid characters and locales. YWMATDS is auto-pilot; it reduces its London location to windows and streets that could be anywhere and offer very little sense of place.

The interwoven stories here involve two couples at the fray of their marriages: Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) and Helena (Gemma Jones) as well as their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) and her husband Roy (Josh Brolin).  Great cast, right?  Sure, if they had anything interesting to do other than suffer a case of male-pattern horniness (both Hopkins and Brolin, falling for the much younger Lucy Punch and Freida Pinto, respectively), Helena losing her marbles and enlisting the advice of a swindling psychic and Sally falling for a gallery owner (a miscast Antonio Banderas) who’s completely uninterested in her.  There is so much potential with this cast, so much international flair and natural comic talent (especially in Jones and Punch, who come out the least scathed) that it would seem easy to mine humor from them.  But instead the actors are saddled with flat Allen shtick and gags that aren’t classic as much as they are overworn (Brolin’s failed writing career takes a positive turn when the manuscript of a dead friend falls into his hands) and beneath the actors' (and Allen’s) ability.

We’ve seen all of these characters done much better by Allen (and even by his protégés).  A massive disappointment and hopefully not the career turn for Allen it appears to be. -Erik Anderson

September 9, 2010

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF PHIL SPECTOR
Directed by Vikram Jayanti
2009

 

Jayanti uses the catalog of Spector’s records to essentially narrate the story of his life and the process of the 2007 trial, sometimes with subtlety and heart and other times with an iron fist and terrible irony. When the film opens with “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” we know we’re in for something rather audacious.

With courtroom video, Spector songs and text from music journalist Mick Brown all interleaved, the film is given a Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" treatment with layer upon layer. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. Even though it’s clear that Jayanti wants to revel in the greatness of Spector’s work more than examine the trial itself, since the trial is the backdrop and impetus for the film it might have been interesting to hear more of it.

The question does arise – what is the connection between the genius of artists and the propensity for less than admirable behavior? Is it the feeling of being untouchable? That even though they’ve achieved greatness in some form the memory of a troubled youth simply overshadows their art? Both? Spector, while not addressing the likes of O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake (to whom his career prologue is more akin), instead likens himself to Woody Allen (and by extension, Roman Polanski) in terms of media and social perception of actions versus reality.

At one point, Spector compares himself directly to Michelangelo, Galileo and Da Vinci. Not a terribly egregious claim to make: Spector was arguably the greatest producer the music industry has ever seen. His mark on music is indelible, whether it’s “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (which Spector calls the greatest recording ever made) or his work with The Beatles, both as a group and with individual members. He doesn’t compare himself to Jesus, but since The Beatles had already cheekily made that claim, one can see that allusion was probably there.

Jayanti doesn’t try to sway the viewer for or against Spector in terms of trial coverage. What is presented is a good deal of forensic evidence in Spector’s favor, against a history of guns and violence against women. The judge in the 2007 case against Spector calls for a mistrial and Spector is tried again, in 2009, and this time sentenced to 19 years. His new wall of sound is probably not as sweet anymore, a cold epilogue to a monumental career. - Erik Anderson

September 7, 2010

BRAN NUE DAE
Directed by Rachel Perkins
2009

 

In the summer of 1969, young Willie (newcomer Rocky McKenzie) lives a lackadaisical life in the small coastal town of Broome in North Western Australia. It’s a beautiful and simple life and Willie just wants to hang out with his friends and build up the courage to date Rosie (popular Australian Idol singer Jessica Mauboy). She is an aspiring but shy singer in the film and gains the attention and affection of a slimy, Elvis-ish bar singer. Willie's mother (Ningali Lawford-Wolf), a deeply religious woman, has different plans for him: to attend a religious mission school in Perth headed by a slightly nefarious German priest named Father Benedictus (Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush in a rather funny performance).

Once at the school, after some prodding from the other students, Willie breaks into Father Benedictus’s refrigerator, a sacred and sovereign nation unto itself. From it they partake of candy bars and ice cold Coca-Cola. The next day Father Benedictus threatens an innocent boy with punishment unless the real thief identifies himself. Reluctantly Willie comes forward, only to break into song (the infectious “Nothing I Would Rather Be (Than To Be An Aborigine)”). It’s a high-energy number and sends Willie on his way to the road trip part of the story. He is too ashamed to go back home and face his mother so he embarks on a bit of a soul-searching tour.

On his trip he encounters Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo, who originated the role on stage), his mother’s brother-in-law and family scourge. Tadpole is strikingly reminiscent of Uncle Remus from Disney’s Song of the South, complete with a bearded, cherubic face, bowler hat and happy disposition in his scruffy homelessness. They meet up with a young hippie couple, an Australian girl (singer and first-time actor Missy Higgins) and her German boyfriend Slippery (Tom Budge), who is on a mission of his own to meet up with his father. Gee, I wonder who that might be. 

There is not a single surprise on this musical excursion (save for the absolutely hilarious cameo from Magda Szubanski as a boobalicious truckstop waitress), even when we get to the end, where virtually everyone from the cast shows up to confess secret after secret and where even the bad guy(s) gets a happy ending. But the songs are delightful and catchy, Rush is very funny and the movie's charm is impossible to resist. -Erik Anderson

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR
Directed by Robert Bresson
1966

Au hasard Balthazar is in fact a motto spoken by the nobles of Baux who claimed to be heirs of Magus Balthazar.  It means "haphazard Balthazar" and Bresson saw this as fitting perfectly with the subject of the film as it invokes the idea of chance.

Born in the French countryside in the 1960s, Balthazar is a donkey, dragged away whilst suckling his mother, torn from his peaceful and rightful life by young children who demand of their father that they must have him.  From here he is adopted into a provincial farm life and indeed literally baptized "Balthazar."  Bresson’s idea was to present Balthazar’s life as a metaphor for man’s path in life, at the same time that Balthazar’s various owners represent vices in men.

The opening scene shows a young donkey on a hillside, suckling at his mother.  This is a striking and peaceful picture of a living creature that is fundamentally innocent.  Within seconds we hear the cry of children off-screen, pleading with their father to "keep it."  From here the donkey is stripped from his mother and taken as the possession of a young family.  He is baptized, water and all.  After the death of their daughter, the family that adopted Balthazar move away and both he and the property are left to a local science teacher, his wife and daughter Marie, as caretakers.  This unites the two main protagonists (if I dare declare Balthazar a protagonist) as their lives and tribulations run parallel.  Balthazar falls into the hands of many owners, mostly cruel, and we see his slow deterioration, torture and quiet death.

Balthazar becomes a type of protagonist but also acts as a living and breathing spiritual test: how do people react in the face of a living creature that embodies utter humility and purity and delivers perfect servitude?  This film is woven with encounters and situations that appear to be by chance, married to decisions steered by free will – and it explores how both influence one’s ability to find peace and resolution, or one's idea of happiness, however flawed.

Susan Sontag said of Bresson that his films are greatly influenced by Jansenism and the idea of predestination, but I think in Au hasard Balthazar, Bresson offers a degree of hope and pulls away from strict Jansenism.  He invites us to look inside ourselves at the idea of a type of compatabilism: the interaction between God’s sovereignty and the outcome or cause of our desires.

To paraphrase Bresson, Balthazar is at once representative of the life path of man starting from happy childhood, going out to work, to a sense of genius later on, and a state of mysticism before death.  At the same time he represents purity, goodness, and how society, in the guises of his various owners, react to this and make their desired choices.  But in terms of representing life’s path, I find this a little too simplistic if we are to take it literally, and I'm not entirely sure if that is the point of the exercise.  Countless members of the audience can look at that and dispute, for example, the tranquillity of childhood, but I think the bigger point and certainly what worked for me is that Bresson shows the broad stages in life and how transient and brief it can seem for all of us.

In Balthazar’s journey we see the beginning of his life in the field with the family where he is the centre of affection and love. He is then put to work by adults who see him as a commodity and a means to an end.  He is pushed and prodded beyond what he can physically bear without complaint.  He meets danger and fear, and his natural instincts for survival lead him to new surroundings and yet another owner.  At one point he even finds himself part of the circus where he is cheered and displays a level of so-called "genius."  Towards the end of his life he is driven back into the hands of a local teenager, Gérard, who places Balthazar in even greater danger and subjects him to new levels of abuse – before finally finding his path back to the field reminiscent of the film's beginning.  Interestingly, as is the case with Marie, the escalation of abuse drives Balthazar away from his home, estranged from a place that once felt safe.  Balthazar’s journey is driven by chance and demonstrates the fleeting nature of critical stages in our life.

In the end Bresson shows how Balthazar has surrendered to the sovereignty and predetermined will of God.  He is at peace; he can stop moving and rest, almost with a sense of being back home.  Yet even whilst it seems Balthazar has no choice, his final act of surrender feels like a choice of sorts.

Marie’s path is one of innocence and devotion to her father, a form of love for her childhood sweetheart Jacques, and a sweet devotion to Balthazar. There are shades to Marie’s character that start to open up; when Balthazar is first attacked by Gérard she does nothing, does not even react.  Gérard starts to pursue her, fascinated by her purity.  This awakens in her the feeling that she is controlled by Gérard.  The scene where Gérard appears in her car seems to be by chance.  She resists at first and then surrenders to him, tearful and confused.  Gérard merely sets out to ruin her, to shape her into a figure that does not challenge his own humanity as he seems to do with Balthazar.  This chance encounter with and deep controlling love for Gérard effectively brings Marie’s destruction; she must bear a final humiliation and degradation at the hands of Gérard which leave her incapable of returning to her once idyllic existence.  Bresson tests us, as it is hard to believe Marie does not have some degree of personal desire or will, that she cannot make any decision about Gérard’s influence over her.

And this is where the mystery lies.  At what point do free will and our moral code take over, and what is predetermined?  Why choose actions that lead down a destructive path, as opposed to saving oneself?  When comparing Balthazar’s existence, which seems to lack choice and control, it is hard to feel for these characters who wilfully seek destruction and pain.  I think Bresson deliberately poses these questions in Au hasard Balthazar.  He dares to touch on, as Sontag once described it, a person’s own "heaviness" or "gravity" that drives them.

Ordinarily we find in stories a sense of aesthetic emotion that helps us rationalise human reactions, but Bresson leaves a vacuum here for us to fill.  This results in Balthazar’s encounters with the various owners feeling somewhat disjointed.  Activity and scenes revolve around Balthazar, move from him and towards him – this means that we sometimes get only hints or glimpses of the human relationships; we see actions and reactions by Gérard, Marie, the drunk, the miser and Marie’s father, and not so much the agenda or reasoning behind it, but this serves its purpose by inviting us into their mystery.  Bresson's desire is to show the effect of things on life, whilst the cause remains a mystery, hinting at the counterpoint ideas of free will working with predestination.

Balthazar, the embodiment of goodness and purity, is either abandoned or used and abused by these characters.  Bresson dares to ask: why are those choices made?  Why, in our life journey, would we not choose something better for ourselves?  Again, this makes the audience see the characters as they struggle against their own "heaviness" and "gravity."

Bresson also effectively builds pressure with these characters.  The film's rhythm gives us a sense of the spiral of their deterioration, whilst the continued human test of facing purity and goodness reveals their flaws.

Bresson was unapologetic about God’s existence in his films.  By interlocking the two symbolic meanings of Balthazar’s life, Bresson is saying our fate is all the same and the rejection of God’s sovereignty leads to a breakdown of the spirit, but that breakdown can, through choices, lead to a state of grace.  I think this is especially so of Balthazar.  One of the truly redeeming moments comes when finally a human, Marie’s mother, sees his beauty and begs for Gérard’s mercy, declaring Balthazar a "saint."

I love the symbolic use of hands in this film.  Often we see medium shots of hands reaching out and connecting.  This beautifully conveys the interconnectedness that permeates the film, and how this possible connection might affect future decisions or shape one’s values or desires.  The isolated images of hands wandering and reaching emphasise the idea of being driven by something we cannot see.  Bresson’s famous use of models instead of actors and their style of automatic speech skilfully aids this goal.

The composition of many shots also shows the interaction between two players, again to emphasise what is passed between people in relationships and chance encounters.

I found Au hasard Balthazar incredibly moving, and my journey with this film has thrown up many questions for me as well. -Kylie Little

BELLE DE JOUR
Directed by Luis Buñuel
1967

I love Love LOVE LOVE Belle de Jour! I know it is viewed by many as minor Buñuel, but this film actually erased or clarified my previous qualms about his signature symbolism and surrealism. Belle de Jour worked for me. And it worked perfectly.

Buñuel is in full command of the medium here. Whereas I could not gloss over his usual conceits in Viridiana, for example, I think they suit Belle de Jour perfectly. He moves the film forward and he does it with panache. Catherine Deneuve is immaculate in her role as the lonely wife-turned-prostitute Séverine, who harbours masochistic and humiliation fantasies. Critics may argue that this is a misogynistic treatment of her character. But I never felt that way. Indeed, I felt the opposite. Because she is trapped in her ennui, in the all-too-familiar banality of her bourgeois existence, she seeks her own liberation (sexual and personal) by being in control of her life.

Prostitution is less of a point and more of a metaphor. It is this control that she has that allows her to blossom. Even in small scenes where Séverine is just playing or chatting with the other working girls, one can see the palpable joy in her eyes. She is free and she has company. Indeed, life is not merely about possessions (she has lots based on scenes filmed in her home), it is about the people around us and how we interact with them. Even her encounters with the various customers, however bizarre, have more "life" than her life at home. Buñuel indeed films these scenes with such compassion and honesty but also with such audacity and bluntness; no wonder this film made waves during the Venice Film Festival that year (winning the Golden Lion).

It is just too tragic that in this film, the rest of the world could not keep up. This is symbolized by all her fantasies featuring the men wearing Victorian-era costumes. There is her husband Pierre (Jean Sorel), who is blind to her demands and also to her needs. There is her gangster lover Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), whose naivete costs everyone dearly. He might be hot, but his stupidity is astounding (Buñuel does a perfect joke on our fantasies of love with this character). And there are lots of inside jokes (or parodies) poked at Godard, especially Breathless. There is the announcement from a seller shouting, "New York Herald Tribune!" And the street shooting purely channels Jean-Paul Belmondo's final scene. I think only Michel Piccoli's character, Henri, understands Séverine's plight, but even he is ultimately constrained by the prevailing social conventions.

Belle de Jour comes full circle at the end. Reality and fantasy collide in a heartbreaking sequence. With her husband paralyzed, Séverine creates one last fantasy – that of a happy relationship with her husband – this time stripped of sexual tones. This scene is so pure and sincere, I got overwhelmed. I cried during this part. I had been completely sold on the film early on, but the perfect denouement nailed it for me. In this film, Buñuel successfully weaves the "real" and the "dream" into one lucid filmic existence. Just as Juliet of the Spirits (which has lots of parallels with Belle de Jour, I might add) completely sold me on Fellini after my initial indifference to 8½ (I have since reassessed it), Belle de Jour is my own epiphany on the endearing genius of this other surrealist master. - Christopher David

August 16, 2010

ANIMAL KINGDOM
Directed by David Michôd
2010

 

The underbelly of the Cody crime family in Melbourne is the focus of writer David Michôd’s directorial debut. There is nary a lick of originality in this story and enough cliché to choke a horse’s head in a bed. Michôd has clearly never met a gangster movie meme he didn’t like, as nearly all of them are here.

Our protagonist Josh (or "J," as he’s referred to) sits on the couch watching "Deal or No Deal" in his Melbourne apartment, a woman seemingly asleep next to him. Suddenly the paramedics show up and he explains that she is his mother and has OD’d on heroin. He delivers this information (and the ensuing call to his grandmother to deliver the news) with the same emotion one would expect from someone asking you to pass the salt at the dinner table. As played by newcomer James Frecheville, J is a blank slate, an expressionless face aboard an oafish, man-child of a body. At one point J says, about an automatic hand dryer, “I’m invisible to these things, no one notices me.” It’s meant to be a metaphor for J’s progression in this story but it’s more ironic than anything; he barely registers to the viewer as a character.

J’s mother’s death is his reintroduction to the Cody clan and, by the same token, ours. The gamut of types are all represented in J’s uncles: Darren (Luke Ford), the youngest (only a few years older than J himself), the timid one, Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), all coked out and crazy (and channeling and looking like early Russell Crowe, pre-Hollywood days), and Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), the oldest, the most evil and currently on the lam, with police daily stalking the Cody house (led by Guy Pearce, apparently the only noble cop in the city) in hopes of apprehending him. Then there’s J’s diminutive grandmother Janine (also called "Smurf" and played by Jacki Weaver), the malevolent matriarch of mayhem, a sort of sinister Brigette Bardot from down under. She is the film’s (near) saving grace; hers is a stunning, scary and savage performance that is unveiled slowly and with the utmost of ominous underpinnings.

Close family friend Barry “Baz” Brown wants out of the business. He’s been using his earnings from the criminal enterprise to do well in the stock market (this is the 80s, when the gettin’ was still good). He’s also been the de facto father figure to J, offering him sage advice like “wash your hands if you touch your cock or ass.” Since we’ve seen every gangster film ever, we know this means Baz isn’t long for this world. While it comes as no surprise that he meets an early end, the nature of his dispatch is unexpected. Not in an "a-ha!" way but more in a "wtf" way.

Slowly but surely, J is drawn into the family’s lifestyle in a series of tests, each escalating his compliance and participation. We never actually get an idea of the breadth of the Cody clan or their place in Melbourne as a crime syndicate. Theirs is such an insular life and Michôd doesn’t give us much more than feeble exposition to putter us along. What we do get is a continuing one-upmanship between the Codys and the police that ramps up the violence and severity. When officer Leckie (Pearce) offers J immunity and witness protection against his family, the situation intensifies as everyone scrambles for safety and for J’s allegiance. This would all be suspenseful and engrossing drama if it weren’t for the poor lead up and pretentious symbolism (there is actually a scene of a slow motion pan to Air Supply’s “All Out of Love,” yikes) and the utter disengagement of Frecheville’s J. When J begins to take his future and the future of his family into his own hands it’s too late to sympathize or empathize with a realization that’s come too late and a resolution that is actually counterproductive.

There is a great story in here somewhere. As it is, it’s a disconnected series of events that don’t cohere and don’t offer anything new to the genre. Still, Weaver’s performance (and character) are among the best of the year.  - Erik Anderson

August 7, 2010

APPLAUSE
Directed by Martin Zandvliet
2009

Martin Zandvliet's debut film Applause is a strange experience, both frustrating and exhilarating. On one hand, it is not strange at all. With muted melancholy, the story unfolds in a straightforward way and, as such, is not a difficult sit. On the other hand, the tediousness of the script is caught completely off guard by the intensity of Paprika Steen's performance. The frustration one might have with the mediocre script vanishes as one gives in to the masterful art of an actress who carefully orchestrates her presence – a presence blessedly free from taking the blandness of the story into consideration.

Steen plays an actress, Thea, who celebrates great success on stage as Martha in Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virgnia Woolf?" Privately, she has recently checked out of a rehab clinic after a life-threatening abuse of alcohol that led to divorce and alienation from her husband (Michael Falch) and two sons. As she tries to get on her feet again, she struggles to get back into the lives of her sons, and to find ways to manage herself around her ex-husband's new wife and the colleagues at the theatre.

There is nothing in the story indicating that we might be witnessing one of the great European actresses of our time giving a masterclass performance. The wonder is that Steen's fascinating portrayal of Thea completely elevates the film and, as such, Applause is one of the rare films that truly are made watchable by the performers. And the director Zandvliet seems well aware of this. He puts Steen center stage: the camera never loses her from its sight, always investigating her stubborn insecurity and wounded dignity, her tantrums of diva proportions and her sad moments of gentle grief over the consequences she must pay for the loss of self control. Steen knows her character disturbingly well and is quite frightfully good.

One might wonder why this review seems to consist of nothing but a fanboy's gushing over something as prosaic as an actress's performance, but so it is. The title of the film, Applause, is in itself a spotlight, carefully investigating the stage, highlighting the performers in front more than anything. Needless to say, the title is a fitting description for this film. -Thomas Frovin

BLOODY SUNDAY
Directed by Paul Greengrass
2002

What is it about a bright, clear day that invites tragedy?  The real Ivan Cooper (played by James Nesbitt) remembered the morning of the civil rights march as being a beautiful day with no hint of the hell unleashed later on.

Directed and written by Paul Greengrass, Bloody Sunday is just a freaking great movie.  Based on the novel  Eyewitness Bloody Sunday by Don Mullan, this film recreates the events of the Bloody Sunday massacre on 30 January 1972 in the town of Derry. Greengrass utilises cinéma verite style of filmmaking and with a cast of extras who were in Derry on that fateful day, the utter sense of reality is remarkable.

Bookended by press conferences, the film introduces us to the opposing perspectives that shaped that day.  Firstly by the British Government, and secondly by the civil rights group led by local MP Ivan Cooper, a Protestant entrusted with leading the march against internment by a mostly Catholic Derry.  Wounds inflicted by life can happen in a moment, in half an hour, and you see this ingrained in Nesbitt’s face in the press conference of the final scenes.

What Greengrass does so well, and always seems to excel at, is thrusting the audience in the whirlwind of the chaos and anarchy of that day.  It is really quite astonishing.

The film starts during the 24 hours leading up to the march.  We get snapshots of the citizens of Derry in their everyday lives but nothing overly sentimental; Greengrass just gives a taste of their lives as ordinary people and not as plotting members of the Provisional IRA, as the British Paramilitary claimed.

You sense the presence of the British building in the area and a buzz of excitement around the upcoming march.  People who were there at the time have described it as like going to a football final.  There was a sense of community and camaraderie, nothing sinister or illegal.  The people of Derry break into song with ‘We Shall Overcome’ which seems to be a universal tenet of hope.

I think what Greengrass also touches on quite beautifully is the importance of politics and debate.  We eternally bemoan, whine and criticise our politicians but what is unique and indeed pleasing about this film is it shows a passionate, hard-working politician in the heart of his Derry constituents trying to peacefully change their lives for the better.  It emphasises that this process is much better than the blunt tool of violence.  This film emphasises the importance of the political process, serving as a reminder that politicians, our representatives, play such an important part and many work tirelessly for change.  We see this encapsulated repeatedly in scenes where Nesbitt (who is absolutely outstanding) is constantly juggling time with the press, police, fellow party members, personal life in the atmosphere of sectarianism.  At one point we see Ivan walk past a cinema with the film Sunday Bloody Sunday playing.  This wasn’t a glitch as Ebert said; the film was actually playing in Derry on that day.

There is a great scene where Ivan Cooper is marching through the streets and tries to negotiate for more elbow room from both the British Paras at one end and the Provos at the other.  This symbolic centre wonderfully encapsulates what the civil rights movement were trying to achieve and the environment they were wrestling with.  It also, frustratingly, reminds us of the centre that the Troubles have finally returned to after 25 years of horrific violence.

This action around Ivan is cross-cut with the British paramilitaries getting into position and various barricades in preparation for the march.  Their purpose is to round up 300-400 of the so-called Derry Young hooligans to teach the community a lesson and show who is boss.  They have suffered loss of life in their own ranks and now they would inflict their harsh and devastating power.  For them this is war and they are psyched up to the point that the word ‘ceasefire’ means nothing.

The DVD commentary by Greengrass is excellent – he highlights how the rules of engagement changed mid-game on this day.  The marchers of Derry and other areas in Northern Ireland knew the rules from precedent – they were used to throwing stones at the British and the British would respond with rubber bullets.  Only if the marchers produced nail bombs or guns would the British respond in kind.  This changed on Bloody Sunday.  Rubber bullets were replaced by live rounds, and 13 unarmed civilians were gunned down.  These were mostly young men but also many peaceful citizens like Barney McGuigan, who whilst brandishing a white handkerchief was shot in the back of the head.  Many of these devastating images scar the people of Derry to this day.

In the aftermath of the fatal shootings that took place in the space of half an hour, we see the British paras go through the process of the cover-up.  Nail bombs were even planted on the body of a young dead man, Gerry Donaghy.  The superb editing by Clare Douglas absolutely grips the audience as it takes you into the immediate axis of the confusion.  Just like the marchers, you have no sense of where you are or where you should go, but more potently you have no sense of where the British Paras are and it’s terrifying.  The editing also creates an agonising pressure cooker of escalation from ordinary exchange of stones and rubber bullets, to gas, to interjections from the RUC, to increasing numbers of people, then a few shots of fire from members of the Provos and so on.  It’s just such a heady dizzying tailspin that spectacularly visualises the randomness and acceleration of violence.

Many would see this as purely from the perspective of the marchers, but Greengrass was earnestly trying to recreate that day's reality, for which Mullan’s book and the subsequent, albeit bloated Saville Inquiry have shed light on this atrocity.  The significance of this day was that it effectively stopped the civil rights movement dead in its tracks.  There is a chilling scene in the aftermath of the massacre, where in an anonymous dilapidated building in the dark of night, groups of young men queue up to join the IRA.  The massacre proved to be a recruiting bonanza for the IRA.  Greengrass is able to show the challenge of the path of non-violence.  What he also seizes is the mood and climate of the times that inspired young men to seek justice by any means.  What is shocking, as you watch this queue of faceless young men, is that there is a part of you that completely understands their anger.

When I was doing my journalism degree (before I abandoned it to study law), I had to do a feature story.  I decided to do a piece around the announcement by the Oglaigh na hEireann to commit to putting arms beyond reach in 2005.  I eventually decided to focus on the events of Bloody Sunday and I had the privilege of interviewing a gentleman by the name of John Kelly, whose brother Michael was killed on that day.  Remembering that the British Paras defended their actions by saying these young men were a front for the Provisional IRA and were throwing nail bombs at them, John told me that Michael was non-political and his only interests were his work, his girlfriend and the 12 pigeons he reared with the help of his mother.  That he was just joining the march with friends like so many young men do.  This is the first time I’ve seen Bloody Sunday since that exchange with John and it hit me quite hard.  He also highlighted that very little support has been given to the families and they have had to support each other.  It just highlighted for me the very personal and anonymous victims and what Greengrass and Don Mullan were trying to achieve, to give the citizens of Derry a voice and allow them to heal.

Many are sceptical about the power of art, but what I love about the achievement of this film is its healing property.  In the final scene, one of Ivan’s offsiders warns the British press they will not rest until they get justice.  The Saville Inquiry continues to this day with a report expected in 2010; but as even Ivan Cooper has said, this film was able to initiate the healing. -Kylie Little

LES CHANSONS D'AMOUR
Directed by Christophe Honoré
2007

And if all of that was true for Dans Paris and Ma mère, it is probably even more apparent and joyful to watch in Les chansons d'amour. As Louis Garrel effortlessly walks along the streets of Paris as a new Jean-Pierre Léaud (the resemblance is quite impressive), both careless and pensive at the same time, owning the world and yet fearful of being part of it, Les chansons d'amour tells a story that is almost irritating in its simplicity and captivating in its fluidity. Love, and by that I don't necessarily mean romantic love, is taken for granted and then put at risk; it's ridiculed and then elevated to something lyrical; it is lost forever and then found again unexpectedly. And it has the infinite and burlesque joy of nouvelle vague as three French kids walk around in the rain calling each other names at the sound of music; it has the deliciously spicy and sensual boldness of nouvelle vague as a ménage-a-trois is the starting point from which everything else takes form; it has the sorrowful passion of nouvelle vague as a woman remembers her dead sister and mourns her in song; it has the levity of nouvelle vague as a new love starts shaping up to a song that is sung through cellphones and accompanied by a graceful ballet that just happens, unplanned and gone in a moment. And it also has the sense of life of nouvelle vague, as ghosts are put aside and the living must learn how to get going, with our mournful hero abruptly interrupting the last song (and thus making it endless, beyond the ending credits) to finally accept that he is alive, mumbling his newfound command to his newfound lover: "Love me less, but love me for a long time."

Mixing Godard's images (the credits) and emotive realities (the complexity of male/female interaction) with everything that Jacques Demy did in his musicals, from the bright colors of some costumes to the famous "floating characters" who move fluently through the streets of a grey Paris, to the, again, fluent going back and forth between songs and dialogue, Honoré's film is a love song (no pun intended) to nouvelle vague and, probably, to something deeper and more complex to explain. It is a love song to the political and artistic and moral truths and beliefs that nouvelle vague stood for. It is a song about love and the difficulty of communication, about the endless ways of caring for someone and the moral dilemmas that everyone, especially young people, face everyday. It is a song about loss and mourning and the incompatibility between people who apparently share everything, and a song about the fleeting quality of life itself and the impossibility to live it to its fullest and the sorrow that that brings, a song about living and loving and dreading what might happen, caring about it one moment and forgetting all about it the next, finding peace in mundane things and trying to forget, forgive and go on, or, on the contrary, trying to create bonds that may or may not hurt and may or may not bring happiness. It is, ultimately, existentialism in music. A song about possibilities, here one moment and gone the next, so that one has to be always ready to start anew while remembering the past, to accept the changes or face loss and loneliness. Which is, in my opinion, what nouvelle vague really tried to say. And how is that stale as a message? -Ciro Di Lella

ELEPHANT
Directed by Gus Van Sant
2003

Because the noughts have come and gone, I am trying to revisit all the Palme d'Or winners of the past decade. I started with my favourite Cannes winner of them all, Gus Van Sant's Elephant, the middle film of his Death trilogy. Elephant, which is a fictionalized reimagination of the Columbine Massacre, follows the lives of ordinary students in a fictional high school as it builds to a disturbing and devastating conclusion.

This film is extraordinary because it successfully evokes a simultaneous feeling of sympathy and helplessness for the characters as they go about their regular affairs minutes before the shooting. Elephant thus gives a human face to all students who die in school shootings. Viewers can finally realize that these dead students are not just statistics to be forgotten, but are people who have touched lives and whose lives have been touched.

The characters are richly developed by following the mundane nature of everyday high school life, a life that is soon to be rocked to its core by the disturbing resolution. A different perspective is used for each character. One scene will follow one character. Another scene will follow someone else. There are scenes where characters meet but these are revisited several times from different points of view. All in all, the direction and cinematography are majestic as Van Sant goes all Bela Tarr on us by using long uninterrupted tracking shots to evoke realism. The film's use of bright autumn colors, with yellow the most prominent, is a sort of antidote to the blackening poison that is its denouement. However, the ubiquity of long haunting corridors brings a constant reminder of its darker theme.

Because I know the premise of the film, there is a sense of foreboding, of terrible things to come. In a way, this sense of fatalistic doom is actually the hook of the film. Still, there is something in me that tries temporarily to forget the tragedy that will eventually happen. This is like trying to ignore the “elephant in the room,” the idiom that is the pervading theme of Elephant. It is a metaphor for the gun problem in America – which has caused so many deaths but is still just being brushed off by politicians and ordinary citizens alike.

Overall, Elephant is a marvelous pièce de résistance for Gus Van Sant. What he explored superficially in some of his inferior films, like interconnectivity and lack of communication, he explores more deeply in this film. Elephant may produce polarizing reactions from the viewers, but these come from the same place – its lasting impact. -Christopher David

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT
Directed by Nicholas Ray
1949

Nicholas Ray has, in many ways, invented modern American filmmaking. From film noir on, everything changed, and many different routes were taken: while the Italians experimented with the gritty realism of film noir, the French brought the stylization of black and white to its extremes. And Nicholas Ray? Nicholas Ray simply reinvented the way one can hold a camera filming people acting out a script.

It all shows here, in his directorial debut. There was everything in They Live By Night that would make American filmmaking what it is today. And the funny thing is, it was so ahead of its time that all the innovations brought by Ray were never quite understood until the revolution of the '60s. From aerial shots to extreme close-ups, Ray's camera moves effortlessly to capture the heart of whatever scene it is filming – the fast-paced, dangerous rhythm of an action scene, or the languid intimacy of a love scene. Everything is studied to get the audience into the picture, sometimes rather violently, with the ferocious desire of a filmmaker who wants to entangle the audience in his web of intricate emotional connections.

While stylistically Ray is able to construct the most elaborate and technically impressive images with ease, he also conveys his themes in an equally effortless way, themes and situations that will continue to be present for the rest of his career. Saying that Ray single-handedly reinvented the way to look at youth in films is perhaps too easy, but not far from the truth. Casting two actors who were actually in their early twenties to play characters of that same age was not something as obvious as it may seem today, and fleshing out complex characters out of such young people was even more provocative. It was the age of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland happily singing their joy to America, carefree teenagers oblivious to the tragedy that was devastating the world. With Ray, teenagers and young adults become for the first time fully accomplished characters with issues and feelings, sorrowful lost souls delicately balancing between childhood and adulthood. Rebel Without a Cause would be the film to have a stronger impact in that sense, but there's all of James Dean's angst and sense of inadequacy also in Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell, playing two kids swept away by their violent environment.

Bowie and Keechie are described as basically two children playing with something much bigger than they are. They Live By Night's mix of action thriller and the blossoming of young love is enchanting and tragic at the same time, with the characters going back and forth between the tension of two criminals on the run and the sweet, sugary courtship of kids falling in love (a memorable sequence includes Farley Granger asking Cathy O'Donnell if she's "got a fella" while they're both listening carefully for sounds of police cars approaching).

Fully realizing that sense of impending doom that is the dark heart of any true film noir, the characters finally become adults only when they're able to see that there's no happy ending for their fleeting romance. No matter what they have dreamed, no matter what they have hoped for (with Mexico being, once again, the dreamland on the horizon where everything can be alright – and that was decades before Brokeback Mountain), they're brought back to bitter reality with the brutal realization that there's no place for the two of them ("You're saying that there's no place for me and her?" "I don't know of any, son"). Society has made them what they are and now society kicks them out.

And finally, in what might seem a side note but is actually essential to the understanding of Ray's oeuvre, the film is saturated with low-key but still incredibly risky sensuality that sets Ray apart from any major American director working at the time. In one sequence, Cathy O'Donnell massages Farley Granger's shirtless back in what is probably one of the most risqué scenes from the '40s – a scene filled with sweetness and youthful awkwardness, yet still able to deliver the latent sensuality of a demure country girl who is facing love and desire for the first time. Love and desire that so obviously explode off screen, when we see Bowie and Keechie lying on the floor close to each other, and unseen lovemaking under the blinking lights of the Christmas tree is strongly hinted at. Part of the film's sensuality also comes from Ray's use of the camera as a means to express the obvious love and passion he feels for his actors – it is something that only Hitchcock with his blondes and maybe Almodóvar were able to accomplish after Ray. The director uses the camera to explore the bodies and movements of his actors in a way that is truly carnal, and the objectively handsome Farley Granger becomes the focus of the picture, thus making the relationship with the female lead even stronger – we're forced to look at Granger in the same way Cathy O'Donnell looks at him in her growing affection for him. An affection that is even more eloquent when, after reaching such high levels of erotic tension, Ray delivers the denouement of the two characters' love story in little details – a playful ride in the car, with Bowie and Keechie joking around and looking at each other with tenderness, each grateful for those brief moments of true happiness, and with tragedy waiting around the corner. -Ciro Di Lella