Film Review: A Serious Man [A-]

Film / Review

A Serious Man [InRO]
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Year: 2009

In comparison to just about every other film Joel and Ethan Coen have directed in the last fifteen years or so, "A Serious Man" seems at first glance to be small and maybe even minor. It follows on the heels of the two biggest films the Minnesotan brothers have helmed thus far—which happen to be two of the most different films the same two people could possibly make. First, 2007's austere Texan serial killer saga "No Country for Old Men" became their biggest critical hit since 1996's "Fargo," even surpassing that film in the eyes of many by clinching the Best Picture win at the Academy Awards. It topped so many critics' lists and dominated the Oscars so thoroughly (in addition to Best Picture it also took Best Director, Adapted Screenplay and a Supporting Actor trophy for Javier Bardem and his terrifying haircut), that for some the parade of praise became a little boring, and though 'No Country' has endured my repeated viewings and intensive scrutiny, its slavish perfection can also be a bit distancing, and its frigid efficiency is easier to admire than to love. While the brothers' "Fargo" has the jovial Frances McDormand to provide some relief from the nihilism, the morally-steadfast but far more stoical Tommy Lee Jones can't quite do the same for 'No Country.' And in a banner year for American films, more messy, ambitious works like Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," and even David Fincher's "Zodiac," remain, to me at least, slightly preferable.

Then the Coens turned the expressiveness dial far in the opposite direction for their looney, cartoon follow-up, last year's "Burn After Reading," a farcical FBI romp that stacks the deck with characters just as removed from our own emotional plane as those in 'No Country,' but ones who are also frequently unpleasant and only sporadically funny. The star-studded ensemble cast—which includes two of the three "Ocean's 11" remake headliners—ensured the film a hefty box office intake, but I think most were surprised and even disheartened to see it become the brothers' highest grossing film to date. (Not to mention disappointed by the fact that because of this, and for a long time to come, 'Burn's' title will sit alongside 'No Country's' and the words "from the makers of" on all promotional material for upcoming Coen films.) Few will deny that the brothers' comedies are more divisive than their dramas. Their special brand of hyperactive humor can jive with the project they apply it to ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), or the resulting film could be reasonably compared to a Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn romp on crack cocaine ("Intolerable Cruelty"). 'Burn' unfortunately registers as closer to the latter extreme than the former, and on repeated viewings it only seems more bombastic and tiresome.

Now, "A Serious Man," a film I've already seen twice and one my opinion of hasn't changed. It's not an adaptation of a major literary work by a respected American novelist and it's not a flashy, over-the-top star showcase. Its actors are largely unknown to big screen audiences, with lead Michael Stuhlbarg more recognizable for his work in the theater, and many of the supporting players either making their professional acting debut or primarily known for bit parts on various television shows—and yet all are uniformly excellent. The Coens are working from one of their original screenplays, and though that didn't serve them very well with "Burn After Reading," the material they've written here is decidedly more personal. The story is set in 1967 and involves a Jewish family living in a Minnesota suburb—around the same time of the Coens own Jewish, Minneapolis upbringing. It centers on Larry Gopnick (Stuhlbarg), a devoted family man and professor of physics at a local university, who seems contended enough until he suddenly finds himself beset with "tsuris," a litany of troubles that test his faith and his general resolve as a serious man.

This particular series of unfortunate events begins when Larry fails to notice a slyly placed envelope of bribe money from his frazzled Korean student (David King) after refusing to alter his pupil's failing grade. The inadvertent transaction serves as the catalyst of Larry's misfortunes—whether that be coincidence or fate is entirely up to you to decide—and when he returns home that evening, he's confronted by his wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), who suggests they get a divorce. Soon, more bad news: Larry learns someone's been sending dissuasive letters to the school board, urging them not to grant his tenure; Judith informs him of her intention to remarry family friend and widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed); Larry gets angry phone calls requesting payment for a monthly record club he didn't join; his young son (Aaron Wolf) almost botches his Bar Mitzvah by smoking pot beforehand; and his brother (Richard Kind) finds himself in trouble with the police for unlawful gambling. Angry and increasingly inquisitive over the meaning of his existence, Larry seeks council from a hierarchy of three rabbis (young, old, and the heavily guarded, ancient Rabbi Marshak), in the process becoming mired in legalities and overwhelmed by guileless lawyers.

The Coens have faced almost as many accusations of misanthropy as Lars von Trier for putting their characters through the ringer, but detractors should put away the knives this time around—"A Serious Man" is different in a crucial way. There's something of a realization that at least I had watching the film, when your sympathies for earnest, answer-seeking Larry shift, and you begin to understand the perspective of the rabbis, who urge him, basically, not to ask so many questions. "Receive everything with simplicity that happens to you," the film's seemingly aloof opening mantra reads, but if your experience watching "A Serious Man" is anything like mine, that advice takes on a quietly powerful resonance, as it's put into action in at least two crucial scenes.

The first is the film's bizarre, entirely in Yiddish, opening anecdote, a prologue set in a European shtetl as geographically removed from the film's main action as it is temporally. Thematically, however, there's correlation: A Bear of a man arrives home to his frumpy wife and regales her with a story about meeting their elderly neighbor on the road and inviting him for supper. When he tells his thus-far-disinterested wife the man's name, she turns sheet-white and explains that the man her husband speaks of has been dead for three years. Soon, a knock on the door announces the arrival of their guest, who the wife promptly deems a "dybbuk"—which Wikipedia defines as "a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person." The segment ends with one of the Coens' characteristically abrupt acts of violence, as the wife plunges an ice pick into her guest's chest, to which he responds by chuckling warmly and wandering off into the thick of a snowstorm. ("A man knows when he's not welcome," he concludes.) The Coens neither confirm that this visitor was indeed a dybbuk, as the wife seemed so certain he was, nor do they suggest that the woman has committed a grave error and killed an innocent man. The unspoken punch line: Who cares? And it's that exact line that we hear later from the Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), in response to Larry's inquiry about the outcome of his equally bizarre story—involving hebrew text found inscribed on the back of a goy's teeth.

What works extraordinarily well in this deftly plotted and impeccably paced film is the Coens' fusion of their considerable comedic and dramatic powers, maybe the most satisfying blend of the two they've yet concocted. The dialogue takes on an almost rhythmic poetry—no other filmmakers could use the line, "He's a fucker," to establish the tempo of a scene—as suggested in the brilliant trailer's comical repetitions. For maybe the first time, the Coens manage to duck both the oppressive seriousness of 'No Country' and their noir "The Man Who Wasn't There," while also avoiding the dreaded Coen-screwball impulse, which has manifested itself in films as disparate and equally unsuccessful as the aforementioned "Burn After Reading," the misfire rom-rom "Intolerable Cruelty," and the somewhat appropriately screwball, but no less disastrous, "The Hudsucker Proxy." On the contrary, "A Serious Man" is understated without being drab, and it's smart-funny without being intellectually distancing—as I often find, say, Charlie Kaufman screenplays. It's a relatively simple, straightforward parable, but the philosophical implications are as rich as those some read into 'No Country.' Personally, I read "A Serious Man" as the Coens' attempt to navigate the tricky contradictions of a Jewish man's devout spirituality and need to comprehend things on a logical, tangible level.

But the Coens are storytellers, not philosophers, and though their films grapple with some big ideas, they'll probably be the first to tell you, 'Don't look to us for the answers.' The ending of "Burning After Reading" anti-climaxes with the line, "What did we learn?" The ending of 'No Country' finds its thoughtful sherif resigned if not defeated by the horrors he's seen. And the end of "A Serious Man," well, it's even more open ended than any of their previous conclusions (and, side note, its impending maelstrom establishes a weird similarity with Robert Altman’s underrated “Dr. T. & the Women”). But even if one of my favorite endings this year doesn’t work for you, there’s so much else in “A Serious Man” that should, from Stuhlbarg’s kite-in-the-wind performance to the canny use of Jefferson Airplane songs, and the big pay-off they provide. If you find your head filled with even more questions by the end of the film than you had at the start, that’s kind of the point. Just remember what the dormouse said.

Film Review: Antichrist [B-]

Film / Review

Antichrist [InRO]
Director: Lars von Trier
Year: 2009



"Antichrist" is an exorcism of the foulness and unmitigated hatred stewing inside notorious provocateur Lars von Trier. Its production follows a crippling depression which stifled the Danish master's output for two years, following completion of what could be described as his only conventional film, 2006's office comedy "The Boss of it All." This new work finds von Trier coming out the other side of the woods and leading us in: "Antichrist" is set in the heart of a spooky forest ironically referred to as "Eden." The film's proverbial Adam and Eve (the cast lists them as "He" and "She") are played by the willowy Charlotte Gainsbourg and previous von Trier collaborator (in 2005's "Manderlay") Willem Dafoe. The couple recently lost their only son (a tragedy depicted while they have uninhibited sex in the film's heavily-stylized black and white prologue), and the wife has been stricken with inconsolable grief. Her husband (also her therapist, who arrogantly decides to treat her) attempts to console and rehabilitate his spouse, repelling her sexual advances and embracing her firmly each time she awakes from vivid nightmares. But after the doc's usual tricks prove largely ineffective (he instructs, "make a list of what scares you," and, "exhale on the count of five," but the woman's violent episodes persist), it's decided that the couple must pursue a more severe approach and face these terrors head-on. He leads his wilting wife to a cabin in the woods—into the forest of Eden, the place She claims she fears more than any other.

Unsurprisingly, what the couple find in their foliage-ensconced retreat is nothing less than hell on Earth; a fiercely primal series of brutal acts which She inflicts upon Him in some kind of possessed fury and misguided vengeance. Lars isn't fooling around: within the first five minutes, brief penetration is shown on screen (goodbye R-rating), and later on, one character is forced to ejaculate blood and another takes a pair of shears to their genitals (hello NC-17). All this ultra-violence is given some context through Gainsbourg's pained whisper of a warning: "Nature is Satan's church." Sentiments like these are more than appropriate considering that von Trier has dedicated "Antichrist" to Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky, whose films were often heavily influenced by their natural environments. Acts of carnality and physical abuse are suggested to be provoked by the influence of Eden's foreboding landscape, which complements the film's primal urgency (especially in regard to the un-sexy and desperate sexual encounters, of which there are many). It's frustrating than that von Trier introduces a more academic motive for the wife's horrific behaviors: we learn that She was working on her Masters Thesis, regarding the mistreatment of 18th century woman, which suggests that all this mayhem may be the result of some kind of demonic possession (and/or just some good ol' misogynistic statement on Lars’ part).

And then there's the Three Beggars, a trio of recurring woodland creatures (a deer, a fox and a crow) who pop up in horrific succession during the film. Their implication here is riotous: a fox actually talks at one point (the only point; "Chaos reigns!" he groans, covered in blood from eating himself alive), which understandably has been met with ample parodying. This is a consistent failing of "Antichrist": the more serious and provocative moments are too ridiculous to be taken as such, and thus often come off as comical, and we have to assume that's not what von Trier was aiming for (though who knows with this guy). Yet however dubious the usually on-point von Trier's symbolic implications may be in this equally dubious return to the horror genre (isn't he past this phase of his career?), his craft is still undeniably accomplished. Both the opening and closing sequences of "Antichrist" have an elevating quality to them that could easily excuse whatever comes between, but von Trier further stuns with his impressionistic therapy sessions, which find the husband instructing the wife to visit the forest in her mind and let it absorb her body—a sort of catharsis before the storm. And when a tempest of brutal, unrelenting violence does hit (like a brick to the dick, literally) its depiction is just as arresting as the more tame sequences. It's a nasty bit of business for sure, frankly depicted without an ounce of irony, and sure to be the cause of many a sleepless night and heated debates between cinephiles and casual moviegoers alike. But the fact is, this is moving cinema; whether you're moved to love it, moved to hate it, or it just churns your stomach with wretched bile, "Antichrist" will undoubtedly inspire a passionate reaction. So even if Lars von Trier isn't the "best film director in the world," as he so boldly and, I would assume, tongue-in-cheekily proclaimed at his Cannes press conference, he's still unquestionably the boss of it all—a unique artistic force who plays by his own rules and answers to no one.

Film Review: 35 Shots of Rum [A]

Film / Review

35 Shots of Rum [InRO]
Director: Claire Denis
Year: 2009



The work of Parisian auteur Claire Denis has been cause célébre for many film critics over the last two decades. Her adoring supporters do backflips with the arrival of each one of her films, while detractors bemoan her frequent tendency to favor oblique narratives and veiled expressions (read: emotional and thematic complexity). Now, Denis is 61 years old, and with each new film she gravitates away from the "provocateur" tag slung at her years ago, a label which never really fit her in the first place. Of her nine films thus far, only one (the bloody, vampire-erotica cautionary tale "Trouble Every Day") could really offend anyone, and it's also her worst film: a mixed attempt at moody euro-horror, though one that deserves more than the angry decries of exploitation its been charged with. It explores some certifiably provocative ideas (the thin line between sex and violence) and features an orchestral-jazz score by Tindersticks' Stuart Staples, as well as the sumptuous, rosy lensing of Denis' trusted cinematographer, Agnes Godard. The auteur calls on both names again to add mood and texture to her new film, the delicate family drama "35 Shots of Rum." And to hopefully no one's surprise, one of modern cinema's great trifectas doesn't disappoint, augmenting what might be Denis' most mature and measured work with their own brand of movie-magic.

It's obvious from the opening scene that this is the work of a uniquely great filmmaker: trains rush past each other, down deserted tracks and through tunnels. A man (Alex Descas, visibly older than he was in "Trouble Every Day") looks on in earnest, finishing a cigarette and then sticking around as Staples' harmonic score hums about him. Evening turns to night in this quaint locale somewhere on the outskirts of Paris, and still the man – and Denis with him – lingers. It would be a credit sequence, if there were actually credits during it. It would be an establishing shot, if it did serve to establish a specific location (no Eiffel Tower in sight, so we could really be anywhere). Instead, a sequence like this is meant as a mood-setter, indicating the tone of "35 Shots of Rum" as being calm and a little melancholy. In Denis' 2005 epic "The Intruder," a similar, wordless passage at the beginning served to create a sense of confusion, unrest and mystique; in 2003's liberating sexual reverie "Friday Night," the first shots of a city-wide traffic jam echo the protagonist's sense of claustrophobia. Each Denis film is a very different animal, but it’s sequences of Pure Cinema like these that get at why none could be made by any other filmmaker.

The term "pure cinema" has always been a bit hard to pin down, but applying it to Denis' films I think complements her incredible sense of emotional clarity through complete aesthetic control. "The Intruder," for instance, is all heady existentialism and abstract collage, but Denis grounds the film with identifiable images and associations that give a distinct sense as to where her head's at. In this way, "35 Shots of Rum" may be her purest film yet. Most of Denis' work tends to straddle the line between narrative obligation and artistic indulgence – certainly the case with "Trouble Every Day," its impeccable rhythms frayed by a sometimes clunky plot – and though she rarely fails to find that compromise, not since her career-defining masterwork "Beau Travail" has she gotten it all so right: she lingers on a face or figure only as long as she has to; she cuts just when it feels necessary for her to do so; and, excluding the handheld takes, she moves her camera ever so slightly, and always with purpose. Denis is truly at the height of her powers, and '35 Shots,' coming nine years after "Beau Travail," completes a decade in her career that I can only assume will be looked at in retrospect as her absolute artistic peak. And as the films which mark the beginning and end of that period, these two could hardly be anymore different.

"Beau Travail" finds Denis liberally adapting Herman Melville's "Billy Budd." She relocates the story of jealousy and mistrust to a French Legionnaire camp in Djibouti, and in the film's long, imposing takes of the soldiers synchronized exercise routines – their bodies caked in the dry dirt of a parched African landscape – Denis unearths the homoerotic undertones of her source text. Simultaneously, she renders the muscular male form with austere authority, a kind not seen since Michelangelo put chisel to stone. In contrast, "35 Shots of Rum" is a film of a much quieter strength, as Denis chooses understatement over broad gestures, and winds up with the most affecting film she's ever made. Yet it's the spectrum covered by the two that's most impressive, blanketing everything Denis has done in the interim: fetishization of skin ("Trouble Every Day"); dreamlike mirages ("The Intruder"); intoxicating sexual and romantic longing ("Friday Night"). Her cinema has always been about the senses, so it's not surprising that "35 Shots of Rum," the auteur's culminating work of the decade, is a masterpiece of sensory cinema.

Descas plays Lionel, a train operator living in a modest Parisian apartment with his shy, virginal daughter, Jo (Mati Diop). Lionel begins to worry he may have sheltered his daughter too much as she, already in college, seems unwilling to strike out on her own. But when he urges her to "just feel free," he later has difficulty accepting that freedom as she tries to exercise it. It's a relationship as real and unsentimental as any depicted on the screen, and recalls the father-daughter bond of Yasujiro Ozu's classic "Late Spring," if only because "35 Shots of Rum" is in fact meant as an homage to the Japanese master. Which is fitting since Denis, like Ozu, is intent on taking her time, letting the scenes between Lionel and Jo play out with graceful precision; she pays extra attention to the way one's hand strokes the other's, and gives a charge of empathy to a father's long gaze at his daughter. And if you're wired right, in Denis' unhurried rhythms you'll find a reflection of life effortlessly captured, a mastery exemplified in the extended centerpiece at the heart of "35 Shots of Rum."

The occasion of a concert brings together Lionel, Jo, Tall French and Oily neighbor Noé (Grégoire Colin, the hypnotic center of "Beau Travail"), and their landlord Gabby (Nicole Dogue). Noé's advances toward Jo have been received with trepidation thus far, and Gabby's heart-on-her-sleeve affections for Lionel, whose also her old fame, have faired just as poorly, but their night together will bring all these emotions to a boil. It starts when the car breaks down on the way to the concert in the middle of a torrential rain. Through the window they spy the vibrant red curtain of a small café, almost magically suggesting a warm paradise away from the misfortunes of their night. Inside, a radiant hostess offers them towels to dry their bodies, which glisten in the café's hot yellow light. "Siboney" creeps through the jukebox as Lionel dances playfully with Gabby, and then affectionately with his daughter. Lionel eyes the beautiful hostess and she notices him back. Then, just as The Commodores' soulful and seductive "Night Shift" wafts in, the whole mood of the room changes. Noé cuts in on Lionel to dance with Jo and the two kiss. Lionel looks on disapprovingly, then takes the hand of the hostess and they dance together slowly. Gabby, from her seat at the bar, looks crushed. But if it sounds like a melancholy scene, it isn't; there's too much love in this room for bad vibes to drag it down, and as a lyric from the indelible "Night Shift confirms, "It's gonna be alright."

A stretch toward the end of "35 Shots of Rum" is almost as good. Jo drives to Germany with her father to visit her mother's grave, and a flow of naturally beautiful images passes across the screen: Jo and Lionel adorn the grave with flowers; they camp out under the stars in a patch of tall grass, as Jo suggests, "We could live like this forever"; and finally, a parade of children with glowing red lanterns march over a hill set against a sunset-orange sky. The film heads back to Paris for its equally stunning coda, and it all ends on a note of uncertainty about the future, as any film which hopes to capture real life probably should. Where Denis chooses to take her career from here feels just as uncertain; '35 Shots' seems like the end of an era for the auteur. Her prior films found characters unable to directly express how they feel, hindered by race or class distinction, stubbornness, jealousy, or an unfortunate disorder (the sexual-desire-cum-violent-impulse of "Trouble Every Day"). "35 Shots of Rum" then feels like the point at which her characters stop groping around for the right gesture – at least comparatively – and find a way to express how they feel. And since Denis has spent more than two decades studying and parsing that obscure object of desire, a little openness is something she’s thoroughly earned.

Film Review: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind [B+]

Film / Review

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind [InRO]
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Year: 1984
Part of: Hayao Miyazaki: The Art of Optimism



On some level, it's personally satisfying for me to review one of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's films. I rarely discuss it anymore, but there was a time when I was something of an "anime" enthusiast, drawn to the challenging visual and thematic territory the medium often explores. This led to my appreciation of cinema on an aesthetic level, and years spent watching anime the way it was intended to be watched – in Japanese, with english subtitles – made crossing over and exploring the depths of foreign language cinema that much more of a natural extension. Before all that, however, I consumed more than I would like to admit. Some of it in retrospect is particularly embarrassing, while a few series I still remember fondly (taking in all 26-or-so episodes of "Cowboy Bebop" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" had to be more stimulating than half of what played in local theaters). Of course, that time in my life is behind me at this point, and aside from sporadic viewings with friends who still harbor love for the stuff, I usually find it hard to appreciate the medium as I once did. Still, there are some names whose work hasn't lost any of its cache with me. Satoshi Kon is one, his "Millennium Actress" being arguably the pinnacle of animation this decade, along with Studio Ghibli auteurs Isao Takahata (director of the 1988 masterpiece "Grave of the Flies") and Hayao Miyazaki. Of that group, Miyazaki is king; he's pumped out far more films than the notoriously slow Takahata, and has amassed a good deal more work than Kon as well. He's given us at least one incontestable classic (2002's career-summing "Spirited Away") and only a single misfire (2005's "Howl's Moving Castle," which he did not write). Even Pixar, that other standard-setting studio of animation excellence, acknowledges Miyazaki's supremacy, as even their impressive canon (specifically 2007's screwball Marx Brothers riff "Ratatouille" and the twin 'Toy Story' films of the 90s) can't match that of the master.

So it's with some disappointment that revisiting Miyazaki's second feature, 1984's "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind," seemed to yield diminishing returns. This was the first (unofficial) production of Studio Ghibli, the first film to unite Miyazaki with Takahata (here serving as producer) and the first to time the director worked with his indispensable music collaborator Joe Hisaishi. Still, watching the film for the first time in many years, there's little doubt that 'Nausicaä' represents Miyazaki's aesthetic in chrysalis. The filmmaker embeds the same environmentally-concious themes which have earned him legions of ardent fans, and exercises his already impeccable animation chops and impressive attention to detail. But it's hard not to recognize the conflict between the ever-expanding forest (here dubbed "The Sea of Decay") and the people living at its fringes and not think of the far more robust treatment a similar plot received in Miyazaki's 1998 feudal epic "Princess Mononoke." Just as it's hard to not see the titular Nausicaä, a strong-willed girl with a powerful hold over nature, as similar to a half dozen other Miyazaki protagonists, each progressively more complex and memorable, leading up to his perfecting of the character with Chihiro in "Spirited Away." The same could be said in regard to Miyazaki's always meticulous craft, here applied to every roughly drawn line characterizing his legion of insect creatures, but later animating his human characters and lending them seemingly insignificant but cumulatively meaningful behavioral traits, which in part make Chihiro such a fully realized character.

At the start of his film, Miyazaki quickly establishes narrative context through on-screen writing, which explains the setting as being "100 years after the collapse of industrial civilization." To me, this has always been a novel idea – envisioning a future that's actually less advanced technologically than our own present – and it can be seen as one of many sign posts throughout Miyazaki's body of work pointing to his fear of modernization. He follows this move with an even more potent storytelling technique, presenting a collage of cave drawings for the camera to pan over slowly, accompanied by Hisaishi's symphonic and resonant score, which loses none of its grandeur despite twinges of dated 80s cheese. This could be considered a form of that age-old cinematic device known as "doubling." Miyazaki presents us with information in one way, and then another, using a different medium. The effect is not one of redundancy, but of immersion; during the opening credit sequence we already feel like a part of this world Miyazaki has created, and understand it to be a variation on our own. All this confirms the man's faith in the capacity for pictures – drawings – to tell a story without words, and his faith in his younger viewers' ability to comprehend that story. Miyazaki has never talked down to children in his films, and that's always been one of his greatest strengths, as well as an attribute few if any filmmakers share.

The film proper begins with a peaceful image of clouds drifting through a clear blue sky. Nausicaä comes sailing through on her jet-powered, one-person glider, and Miyazaki tracks her until she lands gracefully on the ground, confronting a dense, Dr. Seuss-esque jungle of purple plumed palms. Nausicaä unsheathes a rifle from the wing of her glider and presses on. It's clear immediately that this is not a Disney princess or any damsel in distress – Nausicaä, like Miyazaki himself, is an adventurer, and the filmmaker wants you to be aware of this from the first frame. He furthers this female empowerment by setting up a situation in which Nausicaä rescues a drifter from a giant bug/crustacean crossbreed. She swoops in and stuns the attacker, using a special whistle to lull it out of its rage – noticeable by glowing red eyes that fade to blue – and driving it into the jungle from whence it came. The creature is later revealed to be one of the planet's most feared: an "Ohmu," guardians of the Sea of Decay, said to stampede the cities of those who attempt to destroy their territory. This becomes central to the film's plot, as the man Nausicaä saved turns out to be the girl's old friend and teacher Lord Yupa, who brings news to Nausicaä's village, the titular Valley of the Wind, that the pervasiveness of the Sea of Decay has led to the destruction of whole kingdoms at an increasingly rapid rate.

The Valley of the Wind is one of few bastions of peace and prosperity left in a world plagued by war and pollution. The deadly spores which populate the Sea of Decay emit a toxicity that makes the land inhospitable, and as it spreads, the human race's extinction becomes all the more imminent. In the Valley, the people live modest, earthy lives. They're ruled by a bed-ridden king, Nausicaä's father, and their robes and castles instantly recall medieval-era Europe, but as is so often the case with these too-good-to-be-true utopias, tranquility is fleeting. When a neighboring empire's advanced airship crashes into the rocks outside the village, it brings with it burdens previously unfamiliar to Nausicaä and her countrymen. Yupa, however, being a nomad on a never ending quest to discover the secret truths of our world, is all too aware what this accident means, and is able to identify the disturbing cargo the crashed ship carries – as well as its apocalyptic implications. He knows that Nausicaä, who possesses both a mysterious gift which allows her to communicate with nature and, as a princess, the power to unite a people, is humanity's last hope for survival, and likely "the one" he's been looking for to fulfill a certain prophecy.

Admittedly, 'Nausicaä's' plot is its least interesting aspect; largely because the friction between various human tribes is more complex, and the encroaching presence of nature more richly employed both thematically and visually in "Princess Mononoke," which also features a warrior princess as the determining factor in humanity's future. But 'Nausicaä' is more interesting when considered in the context of that later work, and it should not be looked upon as a first draft but as a more idealistic film from a younger filmmaker. In "Princess Mononoke," all the characters look older and more battle-worn. The violence is unsparing, more pronounced than in any other Miyazaki film. The tone is darker, and compared to the pastel shades of 'Nausicaä,' so are the colors. The warrior princess is fierce and animalistic in 'Mononoke,' possessing none of the personable qualities of Nausicaä and certainly not the latter's altruism. It's not altogether unfounded to assume that Miyazaki was, at the time of 'Mononoke's' production, less optimistic about the future of our planet than he was when he made 'Nausicaä.' And comparing the two films yields much of interest: Whereas 'Nausicaä's conclusion is largely one of peaceful compromise brought about by an individual's martyrdom, 'Mononoke' ends on a note of uncertainty, with the push-pull dynamic of nature and humanity's coexistence sure to be tested again. Likewise Miyazaki is less idealistic about the romance in 'Mononoke,' a different-sides-of-the-tracks relationship met with resistance on both sides. In 'Nausicaä,' the bond the protagonist shares with a gunship pilot from another country seems almost an afterthought, and their union comes with no sacrifice.

But somehow all this is OK; there's enough of Miyazaki's unmatched and boundless imagination on display in both the rendering of colorful creatures and expansive landscapes, as well as the carefully designed airships and vehicles which bear the filmmaker's distinctive mark. Miyazaki emerged out of the gate a great animator, and as early as in this film and even in his debut, 1979's 'Lupin III' installment "The Castle of Cagliostro," he's displayed a gift for visual invention matched only in the live action medium by perhaps Guillermo Del Toro. There may be no scene here quite as jaw-dropping and memorable as the sight of the Forest God's celestial patterned body decaying all over the land in "Princess Mononoke," or that of "Spirited Away's" gluttonous No Face digesting all manner of food and frogs, but 'Nausicaä's' most striking moment, in which a "Giant Warrior" fights to obey his human master's command as he decomposes on a hillside (due to the folly of said human's impatience), is nearly as meticulously drawn (by, of all people, 'Evangelion' creator Hideaki Ano) as anything Miyazaki's overseen, and coneys the same quintessential Miyazaki ideal. Neither nature nor humanity is infallible. Each relies on the other and hopes for a state of symbiosis not easily achieved. More than anything though, you have to appreciate Miyazaki's unwavering commitment to this specific project; it's based on a manga book series which he wrote and drew, serialized over the course of 13 years; and only the first quarter was finished by the time of the film's production. Every Miyazaki film feels like a labor of love, but perhaps none more than 'Nausicaä,' which in effect breathed life into Studio Ghibli and brought significant awareness to the career of one of today's most valued cinematic artists.

FIlm Review: District 9 [D+]

Film / Review

District 9 [InRO]
Director: Neil Blomkamp
Year: 2009



The summer movie blockbuster with half a brain, or the one that suggests its audience actually has one, is often revered like the one-eyed man in the valley of the blind. Especially by critics. The latest "Star Trek" reboot is a good example of this, as a film that doesn't do much of anything new – in fact it cops a good portion of its plot from the first two original "Star Wars" movies – but one that supplies audiences with the standard summer-movie thrills minus the typical deadening thud of stupidity we critics would look bad championing. I'm never explicitly on the lookout for "that film" – the one blockbuster to laud for its comparative superiority – I just look at summer as my least favorite time at the movies, as I'm part of an increasingly small minority who don't get overly excited about the meal-sized serving of superhero pictures trotted out by the studios week after week for a three month period. Generally speaking, the special-effects-heavy popcorn sequels (and prequels and reboots) don't give me the charge they do so many other people. There are, of course, exceptions. Some films, like those of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, muster a genuine grandiosity that's hard to ignore, while others manage to straddle the line separating escapist and intelligent filmmaking in surprisingly successful ways.

But for every surprise, like Tony Scott's "Vertigo" riff "Deja Vu" and the Watchowski brothers' spirited "Speed Racer" adaptation, there are countless productions that serve as mere fuel for the action junkie, bereft of both style and substance, and when those two things are lacking, it's hard for me to care. You can call me pretentious, but I think in order for me to fit that description I would have to be more dismissive towards others' enjoyment of this fare. "Star Trek" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" may not be tailor-made to my specific interests, but I don't necessarily consider either to be a bad film. Just as I certainly wouldn't suggest I'm some how superior to the numerous action fans out there who do get a rush from these movies. That would be pretentious. There has to be something far worse than a lack of imagination in a film for me to really get out the red pen. And this is where "District 9" comes into the conversation.

Neill Blomkamp's high-concept sci-fi is a film I'm not as apathetic towards. It aims to be the summer's one-eyed man; a film of supposed intelligence to the weary film critics, who've been bruised and beaten by the 'Transformers' and 'Terminators' of the cineplex all summer long. However, "District 9" amounts to little more than a messy hodgepodge of contradictory ideologies, genre cliches and inconsistent style. The director obviously has ambition, as evidenced in his film's initial premise, and this premise does, admittedly, intrigue: Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson (a long way away from the elves and hobbits of his 'Lord of the Rings' series) imagine an alternate history defined by an event that took place in 1981 involving an alien mothership that broke down above the city of Johannesburg. For reasons left comically unexplained, the ship just floats there in mid air, even after the alien race that resided inside (bug-like humanoids we dub "Prawns") are extracted. Enter the titular District 9, the zone the aliens are confined to which, several years into their stay, begins to look like a colorful slum akin to the Rio de Janeiro of Fernando Meirelles' "City of God." An apartheid soon follows, as the human citizens of Johannesburg call for the removal of these "foreigners."

All this information is presented to us in a film-within-a-film conceit, as a pseudo-documentary begins to take shape in the first 30 minutes, intercut with fake newsreel footage and incredibly unsubtle talking heads interviewed about the alien crisis. One of these subjects explains, "Now to everyone's surprise the ship didn't come to a stop over Manhattan or Washington or Chicago, but instead coasted to a halt directly over the city of Johannesburg," and with this statement Blomkamp heavy handedly announces the correlation between "District 9" and vaguely similar events that took place in Cape Town during the 1970s, when an apartheid regime forced 60,000 residents to relocate to "District Six." Likewise, in Blomkamp's film the Prawns are ordered by the government to pick up and move to a new area, later revealed to be little more than a glorified concentration camp, and at least at first we're led to believe the film might center around this politically-charged event.

During this time, we're introduced to pencil pusher Wilkus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), our unwitting "hero," who's assigned by his company, Multi-National United (MNU), to single-handedly take on the task of serving the Prawns their "eviction" notices. Seriously. And if any Prawn refuses to sign the paperwork? Wilkus is backed by a battalion of soldiers with heavy artillery to help be persuasive. It's around this point that Blomkamp abandons the documentary film-within-a-film approach of his first act in favor of shaky handheld camerawork, and employs a more narrative driven approach revolving around Wilkus. Blomkamp's new visual aesthetic suggests a first-person perspective realism, but this contradicts the film's soon established scope – there are plenty of scenes that could not possibly be witnessed by a documenter, most notably those involving the aliens, alone in their homes – and nothing here resembles reality.

Wilkus, while performing his task as delivery boy, investigates one Prawn's home, and makes a discovery that changes both the trajectory of "District 9's" plot and the stability of our protagonist's otherwise average life. For those poor souls that still want to go see this thing, I won't spoil what happens; instead, I'll just make it clear that this particular development shifts the film thematically, steering it away from its vague promise as a social commentary toward a more traditional and largely derivative action movie framework. Its director does, however, stay committed to sci-fi tropes, referencing a half dozen of the genre's true classics ("The Fly," primarily, and there's a nod to "E.T." as well), but never managing to carve out a unique identity of his own. Those claiming "District 9" to be a classic itself are either just desperate for a work of quality from this genre or they're missing the insulting and conflicting nature of the values presented here. Blomkamp feeds us a finger-wagging do-un-to-others lecture and then hopes we eat up his on-screen violence just thirty minutes later. In trying to present both a critique of the injustice with which we treat those different from us (the proverbial "other"), and at the same time trying to satisfy the frothing bloodlust of American audiences with nihilistic brutality meant as entertainment, Blomkamp discredits his film under the banners of both intelligent cinema and escapist popcorn fluff.

"District 9" is more manipulative in its construction than almost any film this year, aiming for liberal sympathy with force in its opening, then catering to the gore hounds for the majority of its runtime with sickening gratuity, and finally working hard to pull the heart-strings with a ludicrous development of inter-species camaraderie in the third act, a relationship that feels not only entirely unearned, but explicit in its bid to overshadow the aforementioned nihilism of the picture. By measure of critical and audience approval, this tact worked. But let's say I give Blomkamp the benefit of the doubt and just assume his vision is muddled, not calculated; he still crafts scenes that display flagrant indecency without purposeful commentary, and whether this was intended or not means little. It's particularly telling that in a movie all about racial acceptance this director stoops to creating ethnic caricatures. There's something of a subplot in "District 9" involving Nigerians bartering with the Prawns, trading cans of cat food (again, seriously) for advanced alien weaponry. And like so many depictions of Africa's people, the Nigerians here are rendered to be the equivalent of comic-book villains, grinning and evil practitioners of voodoo and other ooga-booga barbary, complete with eyes abulge. Like the recurring central villain of the film – a tough-talking military general who kills for fun – the natives are cartoonishly one-dimensional, another sign of Blomkamp's inept perception of social commentary.

Most distressing is the cruelty with which Blomkamp treats his protagonist, subjecting him to a series of sadistic psychological tortures. Wilkus is experimented on by government scientists who don't even bother to give him a sedative as they talk casually about selling his body parts to different countries; and to further the shock and exploitation, the sequence is shot largely with close-ups of Wilkus' terrified face, in effort to absorb every moment of horror in much the same way Eli Roth and James Wa choose to shoot their torture victims in the equally vile installments of the "Hostel" and "Saw" franchises, (ir)respectively.

The employment of the close-up here should be seen as an aesthetic crutch, excusing Blomkamp from the hassle of composing a scene in any sort of artful way. This approach isn't new; the 'shaky-cam' style saw application in mainstream cinema as early as 1999, in Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez's landmark pseudo-found-footage film “The Blair Witch Project,” and was used to great effect in last year's similar and very underrated J.J. Abrams produced monster movie “Cloverfield,” directed by Matt Reeves. The difference is that many filmmakers, including Abrams and Reeves and also John Erick Dowdle with his horror remake "Quarantine," commit to their style, limiting the scope of their films in effort to experience the story from the perspective of an individual. It's a gimmick, sure, but its application can create a visceral and unique experience that validates the relative disregard for traditional cinematic form. Every woozy sway and skewed angle in "Cloverfield" serves to create tension, the filmmakers' jerky movement acting as a form of choreography and in effect substituting for traditional composition. In contrast, Blomkamp neither commits to his stylistic device nor uses it for any particular reason. His narrative is otherwise totally conventional, and the pacing of the film doesn't differ from the typical Hollywood formula.

"Cloverfield" is a good film to compare "District 9" to because it's just as analogous – though many people, bafflingly, don't seem to catch the meaning of Abrams and Reeves' film. It should be impossible for any American to watch "Cloverfield" (shot at the eye-level perspective of a man on the ground, through his digital video camera) and see people running terrified through the streets of New York City from an enveloping cloud of debris, without thinking of 9/11. We've all seen that footage, and the filmmakers (refreshingly) trusted their audience to detect the link between the chaos created in their film and that during the Twin Towers' collapse. Abrams and Reeves largely succeeded at capturing a sense of overwhelming panic. and more specifically, at constructing a disaster in which the overriding feeling is very familiar: NYC is being attacked by something it doesn't understand. The connection between "Cloverfield" and 9/11 is never explicitly announced within the film, but it's there for anyone with enough imagination to connect the dots between a monster attacking the city and people we've come to dub as "monsters" who attacked the same city. And it's both the perspective and chosen cinematic form in "Cloverfield" that make the film's connection between its fantasy and its historical context all the more prevalent. Blomkamp, on the other-hand, says nothing in "District 9" through the use of his hand-held camera, and instead chooses to communicate his ideology through that extended opening sequence; a collage of synthetic news footage which begins to seem like less the film's innovative strength and more its cross to bear: leaden exposition establishing a level of political and social relevance the film seems fully incapable of living up to, and eventually contradicts. And that's really "District 9's" big problem: it passes a hint of righteous ambition off as intelligent execution, and most of you seem to have bought it.

Film Review: Tony Manero [B+]

Film / Review

Tony Manero [InRO]
Director: Tony Scott
Year: 2009

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's darkly compelling second film, "Tony Manero," is a sadistic character study set in 1978 Santiago. It's unrelenting and often unpleasant to sit through; in a sense the more solemn cousin of another film from this year, Jodi Hill's "Observe and Report." Both bear the unmistakable echoes of 1976's "Taxi Driver," by examining the behaviors of mentally disturbed and compulsively violent individuals. The central characters in both films are prone to erupt in bouts of rage, but, while the violence in Hill's film is usually caused by his character's short temper, these outbursts in "Tony Manero" are both dispassionate and mechanical, triggered less by emotion than by necessity. Hill chose the template of a comedy in which to conduct his stinging social critique; Larrain’s is a stark realistic drama, closer tonally to Martin Scorses's classic and pervaded by a gloominess befitting its time and location. This establishes "Tony Manero" as a political commentary, capturing a totalitarian Chile strangled by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, while its people yearn for escape and act with the innate desperation of a cat clawing its way out of a paper bag.

The protagonist in "Tony Manero" is this idea taken to its extreme ends. We cringe at the sight of him beating the life out of his unsuspecting victims, often with his bare hands, but through this depravity Larrain clearly says something: he comments on the influence of an environment fraught with poverty, corruption and moral decay. The man is Raul, weathered, middle-aged and of average build. He's played by Alfredo Castro, who delivers one of the year's best and most haunted performances, communicating a cavernous emptiness through gaping blue eyes and muted expression. His lover diagnoses him as "dead inside," and this is mostly true, excepting when he sits in front of the silver screen, basking in the mirrorballs and bellbottoms of John Badham's 1977 disco-era classic, "Saturday Night Fever"; he lights up even more when he takes to the dance floor, emulating the choreography of John Travolta's Tony Manero with obsessive precision. "Saturday Night Fever," and specifically the glamorous life of its star (the very embodiment of masculine energy and authority), offers escapist entertainment for some, but for a man of Raul's obvious mental instability and discontentedness, the fantasy is too desirable to accept its unreality.

Raul's life is filled with filth; he shares a tiny one-bedroom apartment above a seedy bar with his girlfriend, her temptingly coy daughter, and the daughter's political activist boyfriend, thus forming something of a pseudo family. Together, they all dance on the bar's rotting stage, and Raul scolds anyone who deviates from his idol's specific routines. He adopts every element of Tony Manero's persona as his own, practicing not only his dancing but mimicking his posture, mood and the exact dialogue from the film. Seeing "Saturday Night Fever" on the big screen (or, as he calls it, "Le Fever") becomes almost a religious experience – a concept Larrain alludes to by showing us one sequence from Badham's film in which John Travolta, bare chested and from a low angle, ritualistically slips on his golden crucifix. Raul weeps. This is all done in preparation for a television competition; we see Raul auditioning – on the wrong day – in the film's opening sequence. The competition seeks to find the "Chilean Tony Manero," and because of it Raul becomes obsessed with his impersonation. To those who stand in the way of this determined and irrational man: watch out.

Larrain pulls no punches in depicting his lurid character throughout "Tony Manero." Raul kills an elderly woman in her home in order to steal a color TV, bashes a man's head in who offers him less than the TV is worth and defecates on a competitor's white suit. Larrain launches a political critique via this provocative character study and suggests an animalistic compulsion awakened within Raul as nearly every obstacle he faces is overcome with remorseless brutal violence. The film is meant to be volatile and void of redemption, but Larrain does perhaps take things too far at times; the scene in which Raul smears feces all over his rival's clothing is less psychologically revealing and more shocking for the sake of it – not to mention plain nauseating. Other scenes are equally repellent, the more so because the film is so devoid of feeling.

In this sense, "Tony Manero" can be compared to Carlos Reygades' divisive 2006 Cannes entry "Battle in Heaven," which similarly targets its country's – in this case Mexico – political institutions, deteriorating moral values, religious complacency, and class tensions, alluding to these hot button issues through an overweight man's sexual and, in-turn, social inadequacy. The difference is that Reygades employs a rigorous formalist aesthetic and deliberate narrative structure – the film begins and ends with audacious sequences of oral sex. Larrain, in contrast, crafts a film less stylized and more realistic, with gritty hand-held camera work. Larrain does, however, allow for one aesthetic manipulation; his camera's focus fades in and out almost erratically, but conveying Raul's hazy state of consciousness and his blurred moral judgment. The filmmaker also employs one surrealistic flourish: the film's real-time pace is briefly interrupted by a visualization of Raul's internal emptiness, as he stares vacantly at the screen. This technique's singular application makes it all the more devastating.

By an incremental difference, Reygades' approach seems more successful than Larrain's, if only because the emotional distance Reygades instigates in 'Battle' is more excusable, since focus is always on the craft, and since his hand is deliberately noticeable throughout. In contrast, Larrain's decision to hew closely to realism is slightly undermined by his disallowing any measurable emotional response from his character – especially during Raul's more violent episodes. It's perhaps too extreme to suggest that a man can commit such heinous acts without any visible remorse, and Larrain toes that line a bit too often. Raul may be numb to his world, but he's not comfortably numb, and yet there's never any discernible sign of his unrest. This could have stifled Castro's performance, but the actor is so good that he often transcends the stoical nature of his character and communicates far more than what's on the page. In any case, Larrain should be praised for conducting a political critique in so bold and provocative a way. "Tony Manero" is challenging, if not exactly redeeming, and it illuminates through provocation, functioning on a variety of levels: as a character study; as an examination of a society's relationship with celebrity; and as confident, assured cinema.

Film Review: Au Hasard Balthazar [A]

Film / Review

Au Hasard Balthazar [InRO]
Director: Robert Bresson
Year: 1966
Part of: Robert Bresson & the Anti-Film

No film says more in as economic a runtime or can be read in as many different ways as Robert Bresson’s 1966 masterpiece “Au Hasard Balthazar.” Jean-Luc Godard claimed that "in 90 or 100 minutes, we see the world." As Bresson saw it, this was a world defined by both cruelty and salvation. As is established early on, his protagonist in the film, the Biblically named donkey Balthazar, is destined to suffer for our sins, and despite Bresson's dismissal of traditional Christian practices in his own book, "Notes on the Cinematographer," it's impossible to deny the presence of religion in "Au Hasard Balthazar." From the opening imagery of Balthazar's baptism by a group of children, to the final shot of his death amidst a sea of white sheep, set to the sound of clanging bells and Franz Schubert's elegiac "Piano Sonata No. 20," to the namesake of the virginal Marie, the film's second central character – Catholic mythos looms large here, and though densely allegorical, these elements weave seamlessly with a modest story about a young girl and a donkey, tempted and teased by a world gone wrong.

Bresson was a master of his intentionally artless and thus paradoxically artful craft, and here he tells a complex and symbolic story through minimalism, his intense control of both the aesthetic and more organic elements of this picture creating an overwhelmingly powerful cinema. Bresson's visual grammar establishes an intimate bond between his audience and Balthazar through close-ups of the animal's face, specifically his glassy eye, while distancing us from the relentlessly cruel and hopeless Gerard, a leather-clad, motor-bike riding, chain wielding bully often shot at torso level. Sound, too, informs our perception of these characters, whether the loaded silences, the relief of the Schubert or the cracking of twigs and branches snapping under the weight of Gerard's boots as he sneaks up on Marie, his grubby hand reaching from the shadows toward hers, which lays innocently on a bench. Also integral to Bresson’s execution is the reaction of the "models" (his word to describe actors, not mine), or, in this case, the lack of reaction, as impassive gazes reflect the characters' passionless nature.

The film opens with the animal Balthazar, his braying disrupting the lilting repetition of the Schubert piece which plays over the credit sequence as he’s being bought by a young girl and her school teacher father. The girl is Marie, and as a child her attention is divided between Balthazar and a boy named Jacques who she promises to marry, and whose name she carves into a wooden bench – the same bench where she will later be confronted by a darker and more sinful desire. The film soon cuts to Balthazar as an adult, being worked relentlessly by a stubborn owner. He's whipped and beaten and strapped to a cart. He eventually escapes and finds his way back to the home of Marie and her family. Marie is now a young adult, played by Anne Wiazemsky, whose immaculate features and porcelain face suggest fragility to be tested. Marie still plans to wed Jacques, but false accusations concerning her proud-but-timid father's unlawful dealings ultimately complicate her life and lead her astray. Weak and impressionable, Marie falls for Gerard (Francois Lafarge), whose strong will and rejection of authority appeal to her.

As Marie becomes increasingly obedient to Gerard – telling her concerned mother in one scene that, "If he asked me to, I'd kill myself for him" – her father falls into a deep depression, and disobedience and persistent lying bring the woman who cares for Gerard to tears. Balthazar, all the while, is passed from owner to owner, and Marie usually soon follows. When Marie neglects him, he's handed over to Gerard, who only then successfully seduces Marie; later, Balthazar finds himself in the hands of a cruel, greedy attorney, with Marie having just left Gerard soon arriving at the curmudgeon's estate; and when Balthazar is passed to alcoholic nomad Arnold (Jean-Claude Guillbert), Marie and Balthazar meet once again at a chaotic party orchestrated by Gerard. The meanings to be deciphered in "Au Hasard Balthazar" may be endless, but the world within the film feels inescapably small, with the same dreary scenery repeated and the same characters often involuntarily finding themselves face to face with each other. The party scene in particular beautifully communicates a feeling of congestion, as a hoard of faceless teens dance in sync with each other, none flinching as Gerard busts a mirror with a liquor bottle and destroys the bar. The others neither show disgust nor join in; and this eerie remove recalls and perhaps informs a similar dancing sequence at the opening of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," while also complementing the automatism of Bresson's craft.

Bresson made many film's that economically present stories rich with meaning and impeccable in presentation, but none feels so vast and all-encompassing in its scope and vision of, as Godard put it, "life." "Pickpocket" and “Mouchette” are more focused and precise; "L'Argent" comes close to the same universality; but the allegory and mysteriousness inherent in "Au Hasard Balthazar’s" animal protagonist make it uniquely great. It's a film that may not endorse Catholicism (its Virgin Marie/y is corruptible, its Christ-like figure is only deemed a saint bitterly just before death, and a priest reads from a Bible dispassionately and in fragments as a man lays dying), but, as film scholar Donald Richie puts it, it's a film aware of "the idea of religion.” Still, it works just as effectively as a simple tale about a girl and her donkey; or about a society struggling to maintain any kind of purity in the midst of financial obligation and material obsession; and as transcendent cinema of Bresson's own unique brand, where the craft is so prevalent and integral to the film's success, but yet also impeccably measured as to never be intrusive. "Au Hasard Balthazar" is all that's great about the cinema in just under 100 minutes.

Film Review: Pickpocket [A]

Film / Review

Pickpocket [InRO]
Director: Robert Bresson
Year: 1959
Part of: Robert Bresson & the Anti-Film

In Marc Webb's recent lovers' romp, "500 Days of Summer," Joseph Gordon-Levitt's hopeless romantic refers to himself as "adequately handsome." To me, there's no better way to describe the physical appearance of Martin LaSalle, who plays the central character in Robert Bresson's 1959 classic, "Pickpocket." He's not too skinny or too fat. His features are proportionate, though his face is perhaps a bit more narrow than ideal. In fact, everything about Michel seems adequate; his posture, his demeanor, his intelligence. He is not in any way extraordinary, and if he were, Bresson would likely have no interest in him, as this is a filmmaker usually interested in characters with some kind of strain on their life, or with some sort of vice. "Pickpocket" covers both bases, and it's the most Rohmer-esque of the Bresson films I've seen; a pointed morality tale about the persuasive power of commerce, the greed and especially the pride that comes with the pursuit of wealth. In Michel's case, earning money the traditional way has proven ineffective, and so he turns to a life of crime, to the life of a street pickpocket. It's this simple catalyst that allows for Bresson's most carefully choreographed film, imitated often (just this year, and rather convincingly, in Johnny To's "Sparrow"), but never executed with the same grace and precision as shown here: close-ups of hands acrobatically twist and strain around the hem of a jacket like Olympic athletes vaulting over a beam. Much of "Pickpocket's" 74-minute runtime is taken up by these suspenseful sequences, as our daring protagonist is always a thimble's depth away from alerting his targets and spending his life in jail. Of course, there's a story here, and it's a simple yet powerful one, built on three key elements: Michel develops his craft over time, learns from his peers, digs himself a deeper grave (crime); struggles to avoid the ever-watchful eye of a particularly suspicious police chief (punishment); and earns the attention of a pretty but "naive" girl (redemption). The plot is minimalist but strong and complements what I've always felt to be the most compelling element of Bresson's craft: the economy of the filmmaking. In the 95 minutes comprising Bresson's best film, "Au Hasard Balthazar," the director gets as close to the essence of life as any film ever has, but with "Pickpocket,” Bresson zeros in on the life of one individual, and crafts a devastating parable that is arguably the director's most focused and accessible film, one as worthy of classic status as any he's made.

Film Review: The Hurt Locker [B+]

Film / Review

The Hurt Locker [InRO]
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Year: 2009

Three American soldiers pace cautiously around a cluster of bombs in an Iraqi village as children from balconies and storekeepers from street-level doorways follow their every move. Tension builds throughout the opening scene of Kathryn Bigelow's gut punch of a war film, "The Hurt Locker," stemming here from both the impending detonation and from the threat the many villagers pose, each possibly concealing a detonator and just waiting for the Americans to get close enough to set it off. There are certainly more subtle ways to establish suspense than by introducing a bomb in the first sequence of a film, but, as evidenced from the subsequent explosion and brilliant visual collage of rust scraped from a car's body and sand blowing sky high like a geyser, Bigelow means to heat things up quickly and shake you.

The abrasiveness of the “Point Break” auteur’s latest may be its legacy, but there's still a lot more depth here than in one of Michael Bay's CGI'd-to-hell, soul-sucking demolition derbies. In 'Hurt Locker,' we’re shown a humanity representative of American-bred competition and easily agitated tempers, of loyalty to ones brothers and their country, and of fear, the kind spurred by living in a nightmare conflict like Iraq. It's the open-wound vulnerability of Bigelow's characterizations, seeping through layers of macho posturing and bulging muscle, that gives her film its beating heart, but it's both the filmmaker's willingness to avoid sentimental manipulation and the control she wields over her brawny aesthetic – the brutal poetry of her image sequencing and complementing intensity of her intricate sound design – that gives "The Hurt Locker" its quickening pulse.

Anthony Mackie (who stole the show in 2006's otherwise overrated "Half Nelson") and Brian Geraghty play soldiers in a three-man unit tasked with disarming bombs daily under increasingly hostile and dangerous circumstances (one of the film's most searing visuals: a soldier tugging the cord on one bomb and unearthing about a dozen more, forming a circle around him). Both actors excel in their respective roles as level-headed, methodical Sergeant Sanborn (Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Geraghty), the latter so psychologically damaged by his experience in Iraq that he’s resigned to the inevitability of his own death. Three more big actors have brief, somewhat distracting cameos: Guy Pearce as the unit's initial leader; David Morse as a stupidly grinning, broadly mounted jab at American war-hawk generals; and Ralph Fiennes as a British military officer the unit comes across in the middle of the desert. But 'Hurt Locker' is essentially a character study, and its predominant subject is Staff Sergeant William James, a man who seemingly derives pleasure and thrills from his unfathomably dangerous job.

Rising star Jeremy Renner plays James, delivering his most potent performance in a career that's built up momentum over the past decade, with the actor standing out in popcorn fare ("28 Weeks Later"), more dramatic roles (Michael Cuesta's "12 and Holding") and sharing the screen with the likes of Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell as the tragic renegade in 2007's sprawling revisionist-western, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." But in 'Hurt Locker,' Renner delivers his most mature performance to date, wringing psychological complexity and emotional depth out of a role that could have been just another riff on rebel-without-a-cause contrarianism, and one that hinges on our understanding his particular mindset. Likewise, Mark Boal's sharp screenplay lets Renner act rangy and impatient, even mean and unfeeling, but gives us a glimpse of his private, more reflective side, establishing a believable inner conflict without being obvious or forced.

An unspoken parallel here would be with Sam Fuller's great Korean War picture, 1951's "The Steel Helmet," where a Sergeant James-type loner (Gene Evans, in one of his earliest roles) is softened by the warmth of a South Korean child. In 'Hurt Locker,' it's a young Iraqi boy, selling DVDs and all manner of bootleg entertainment to American soldiers, who's much more self-serving and sly (such are the times), but who enjoys playing soccer with James as the soldier slips him money and gives advice. It's a different kind of bond than that in Fuller's film, but serves as the same gesture: a cultural union formed in the midst of a warring time through mutual appreciation and respect. In fact, Bigelow is a filmmaker who has a lot in common with Fuller, in regard to both her willingness to toe sentimental waters and her ability to side-step manipulative gestures, rarely if ever lessening the impact of her guttural and gritty action films.

Considering all that Bigelow gets right with "The Hurt Locker," working within the already tired Iraq War genre and coming out the almost inarguable victor (with competition the likes of Kimberly Pierce's shrill "Stop-Loss" and Irwin Winkler's weepy and pathetic "Home of the Brave," few should contest this), it's easy to overlook the director's few missteps, most taking place in the film's somewhat jumbled third act. 'Hurt Locker' is 106 minutes long, and since the film has no real plot and is mostly made up of episodic bomb-disarmings, the last one or two of these sequences could probably have been scrapped. More noticeable, however, are the two rushed plot tangents the film follows immediately after its incredible climax, both of which relate to irrational and forced decisions made by the brash Sergeant James. But Bigelow quickly rebounds with her fittingly stunning finale, a conclusion which to some may seem too hopeless, but one that feels like the only logical end for the character Bigelow and her team have given us. It's "The Hurt Locker's" defining moment, and one that reveals Bigelow's ambition with this project. In this critic's opinion: mission accomplished.

Film Review: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 [C]

Film / Review

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 [InRO]
Director: Tony Scott
Year: 2009



Despite my general indifference toward Tony Scott's taut, but largely uninspired remake of the 1974 thriller “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” I'll be one of the first to stand up and defend the director, and to champion some of his most critically reviled offerings. In fact, I'll anger the naysayers one better: Tony Scott is an artist who brings more verve, originality and overall quality to his medium than his overrated older brother, Ridley. The younger Scott has been continually criticized for his hectic visual aesthetic; speed manipulations, whip-quick editing and breathless camera hurtling are his bread-and butter. But his films are among the few pumped out by the Hollywood machine that earn and are even strengthened by their hyperactive pacing and stylistic choices. A consummate auteur, Scott is nearly always in control of his own special-FX maelstroms. See 2005's “Domino,” a flawed and convoluted, densely plotted actioner-on-steroids that succeeds by the sheer force of stylistic fervor it musters; it's fueled by a myriad of aesthetic modulations and a striking use of color that directly correlates to the emotions of its characters. And take 2006’s “Deja Vu” (a film I myself underestimated when reviewing it on its release), which relies on ghostly sci-fi visualizations to fuel its emotional conflict in ways that far best brother Ridley's own psychological sci-fi favorite “Blade Runner.”

“Deja Vu” is a particularly relevant point of reference when discussing Scott's latest, which alters the original's title slightly; now “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” Both are elevated by the considerable talents of Denzel Washinton in their respective leading roles, an actor who possesses stoic humility and quiet strength that well-compliment the modest means of Scott's storytelling and classically drawn characters. And, like “Deja Vu,” ‘Pelham’ revels in technological advancements with a focus on surveillance – a theme that pervaded both the former, essentially an exercise in voyeurism, and “Domino” in its Reality TV show commentaries – that informs the aesthetic choices Scott makes. Take, for example, the claustrophobic and humiliating nature of its central character's desk job, emphasized via a massive glowing billboard symbolic of looming responsibility. It's an intentional aesthetic choice that many will write off as mere flashy distraction.

Washington plays the soft-spoken Walter Garber, an NYC subway dispatcher who becomes inescapably entangled with a bombastic hijacker calling himself Ryder (John Travolta, tattooed on the neck with eyes and veins abulge), tasked with negotiating a hostage situation. The set-up again speaks to “Deja Vu,” where Washington's detective developed a relationship with the object of his investigation through a futuristic screen, allowing him to peer into her past life. The communication between Ryder and Garber is also limited, this time by the auditory connection between the subway's radio and the dispatcher's microphone. It's a noteworthy emphasis on the distorting or even damning effects of communication through technology. The near entirety of ‘Pelham’ keeps this focus: the film is largely comprised of the ongoing dialogues between its two principals, their faces shot in intense close-ups (an annoying visual motif Scott would do well to ditch). Through their conversations, we learn that Garber was once an MTA big shot who was demoted after accepting a bribe. Even though Washington doesn't leave his cubicle for at least two thirds of the film, he ably conveys Garber's internal struggle as he wrestles with moral responsibilities. And each time his character plaintively insists, "I'm just a guy," his every-man statement could be read as thesis for the film's dramatic pulse.

In addition to criticisms over his stylistic choices, Scott is also often accused of "cliched" depictions of modest characters undertaking heroic acts for the sake of their own atonement. However, it's evident in Scott's filmography that there is a very spiritual undercurrent to his work. In this sense, “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” can be seen as the conclusion of a trilogy that began with 2004's “Man on Fire” and continued with “Deja Vu.” In each film, Washington takes on the role of Scott's morally conflicted characters, haunted by prior sins or transgressions, and in need of redemption. There's a very Christian ideology present: the need to redeem the spirit through selfless, righteous action. ‘Pelham’ takes its religious convictions one step further than the prior two films; where Washington struggled against largely faceless evils before, here Scott introduces a struggle of faith between both his two principles. (This is evident in Ryder's observation that his cramped, commandeered subway car "reminds me of a confessional.") Unfortunately, this provocative thematic implication never really ignites or goes anywhere; instead, we're left with Travolta's frustratingly one-dimensional and shrill "villain." Ryder is a cartoon, he practices a dubious code of conduct and lectures about stock trades and corporate corruption – relevant economic commentaries only name-checked here.

Further perplexing is Scott's comparatively staid visual style in this film, at least in regard to all that takes place between its amped-up opening credits (a characteristically bonkers assault of aesthetic tweakery) and a last act so frenetically assembled that it's difficult to determine what exactly is going on (not unlike many other Scott productions). The majority of ‘Pelham’ though is not driven by special-FX at all; instead, Scott favors a succession of talking heads deliberating over the various conflicts of this procedural's plot. Tension is maintained throughout (a byproduct of those claustrophobic close-ups mentioned earlier), but it's tough not to compare ‘Pelham’ to Spike Lee's hostage-negotiate-er “Inside Man,” which bests Scott's film both stylistically and in the inventiveness of its plotting. But the most egregious of missteps here manifest in noticeably forced action scenes – on the way to deliver the requested sum of 10 million dollars to Ryder, there are not one, not two, but three police car crashes. And in a dubious approach to violence, as Scott undercuts his own morally-conscious ideals. (One scene of ludicrous brutality witnesses two of Ryder's cronies being shot to pieces in super slow-motion.) Again though, this is the norm in a Tony Scott movie: over-the-top displays of action making for sometimes uncomfortable bedfellows with earnest sociopolitical commentaries (a formula paramount to this filmmaker since at least 1998's “Enemy of the State”).

Under less scrutiny, “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” succeeds as a tense thriller, ratcheting up suspense and keeping the stakes high as it barrels toward its appropriate finale, and is further admirable for placing emphasis on the struggle of its every-man protagonist over the clipped rhythms of its plot (a headache-inducing complexity which, if one really considers Ryder's motivations, is pretty silly). It's a well-made film mostly of a consistent and agreeable style, and it rarely suffers from pacing problems. But it's derivative (it is a remake after all) and lacks the jolt of energy and enthusiasm that invigorates Scott's best films (1993's “True Romance,” as well as the aforementioned Washington-Scott collabs “Deja Vu” and “Man on Fire”). But those who dislike Tony Scott's prior films may find his latest more digestible; it is, after all, the least characteristic film from this divisive auteur in quite some time.

REVIEW: "Goobye Solo" [3/4]

Film / Review

Goodbye Solo [The Playlist]

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Year: 2009

Ramin Bahrani's first two films, 2006's "Man Push Cart" and 2008's "Chop Shop," wear the Iranian-American director's neorealist influences proudly, and their release marked the arrival of a significant talent. However, those films' tendency to shy away from any real form of tension or narrative momentum can seem forced, and the filmmaking skill on display isn't quite enough to elevate either above the designation of a modest achievement. Thankfully, "Goodbye Solo" steps up his craft, his storytelling ability and his characterizations, without compromising his dedication to realistic cinema, so rare to American independent filmmaking.

Bahrani's last film, "Chop Shop," is clearly indebted to classics such as Vittorio de Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" and Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows." In it, an impoverished young boy and his sister struggle to carve out a decent life for themselves amidst the garbage and rubble of a ghetto just outside Queens, New York. "Goodbye Solo," in contrast, is a film of prevailing and pervading hope, which finds its inspiration from a work of Bahrani's own heritage. Its basic plot is lifted from native Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami's "Taste of Cherry," but 'Solo' is considerably more engaging, favoring depiction of a strong and inspiring human connection between two unlikely friends, as opposed to the lonely wanderer at the heart of Kiarostami's film. Both are essentially about a man who seeks to end his life, but where Kiarostami found the grim subject matter to be a jumping off point for stoic meditation, Bahrani sees it as a catalyst for hope and renewal. It's that quality which makes 'Solo' both Bahrani's most compelling work, and his most optimistic.

The opening sequence here is jarring in its immediacy: We feel as if we've been dropped right into the middle of something that started before we got there. A garrulous Senegalese cabbie attempts to chip away at the frigid resolve encasing his grizzled patron. The affable cab driver is Solo, played by newcomer Souleymane Sy Savane (in one of this year's most striking debuts), and his passenger is William, a curmudgeon who has no interest in chit-chat. Vaguely recognizable character actor Red West inhabits the latter role, with a no bullshit attitude that's appropriate, considering West was once a member of Elvis Presley's "Memphis Mafia." William, who has no use for any kind of friendship, offers Solo a hefty sum of cash to drive him far outside the city limits, and his driver's reluctance to do so frustrates him.

Our introduction to Solo and William is their introduction to each other, and the unexpected relationship that develops between them sparks the kind of emotional connection that few films achieve. Much of that investment is owed to the actors, whose interactions have the sort of awkward chemistry that often occurs between two very different individuals. It's Savane who we're attracted to the most, but West ably tempers his screen partner's exuberance, and their presence as a duo ignites our interest in ways Kiarostami's solitary character study doesn't. Admittedly, Bahrani is not the visual artist the Iranian director is, and gritty photography of Winston-Salem, North Carolina doesn't approach the majesty of Kiarostami's poetic, sand-blasted terrains. Bahrani's cinematographer (Michael Simmonds) finds lush beauty in an early morning sunrise and texture in shots of Solo's nighttime cruises in his battered cab, yet the film's major visual coup arrives during its coda: a rapturous communion with nature that has a quiet intensity and lyrical quality on par with anything Kiarostami's done, and that seems earned in a film of straight-forward, character-based dialogues.

At a lean 91 minutes, the pacing of Bahrani's film is refreshingly disciplined: We're given enough insight into Solo's life at home with his pregnant wife and stepdaughter, without the film ever feeling aimless or stalling, as "Chop Shop" occasionally did. Solo "adopts" William and, once he learns of his suicide plans, he tirelessly attempts to invigorate the old man's life. Solo's intentions may be honorable and even noble, but his forwardness occasionally borders on obnoxious, and his meddling threatens to be destructive. His desire to help William stems not from a saintly perspective, but from that of someone who desperately wants a down-to-earth friend. His subtle, but noticeable confusion when he thinks he's not getting back from the relationship what he's putting in can only be described as human.

Pivotal moments such as the reading of a discovered diary, the opening of a letter and, most significantly, a wordless gaze between two men, are presented without intrusive musical accompaniment or any type of embellishment. Bahrani trusts the strength of his material and the tensions it naturally creates. So, in a sense, "Goodbye Solo" is every bit the stripped down and fluid narrative film as Bahrani's other two works, but this one has a propulsive momentum and purpose that the others lack. Bahrani may have always wanted to make films with a commitment to capturing real life, but "Goodbye Solo" feels like the first film of the director's career that, by its minimalist aesthetic, is emboldened rather than stifled.