February 2008: 15 Mini Reviews
February 13, 2008
The last fifteen films I’ve seen.
Sunshine (’07): Five years after reinventing the horror genre with “28 Days Later”, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland re-team to do the same for Science-Fiction, to lesser results, with this visually stunning but clichéd tale about an international assembly of astronauts and scientists tasked to restart the dying sun with a nuclear bomb. The eclectic cast of international actors, including Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Michelle Yeoh makes the inevitable psychological dysfunctions of the people-in-space-travel plot seem more compelling than it really is (we’ve seen this in everything from “Alien” and “Solaris” to lesser fare like “Event Horizon”), while the science of the mission, and the ramifications of deep space exploration echo, smartly, the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. For that I can’t fault the film, Boyle and Garland are smart enough to borrow from the masters of the genre, and the special-effects fit properly into the genre’s notions of intergalactic space ships, both inside and out, but for all that’s good about the film, the weak characterizations and familiar trappings of the plot, including a bizarre and abrupt ending, make it pale in comparison to the best the genre has to offer. For Sci-Fi buffs it’s definitely a must see, if just to compare to the classics, but for casual film watchers, prepare to be baffled and a bit bored.
Oliver Twist (’05): Roman Polanski and his talented team behind “The Pianist” construct an impressive 19th century London set for this adaptation of one of Charles Dickens’ most oft produced novels, about an orphan boy who faces pickpockets and murderers on his way to a certain kind of urchin happiness. There isn’t much that can be new about an adaptation of “Oliver Twist”, and nothing quite compares to David Lean’s 1948 classic, which is arguably the best Dickens adap of all time, but Polanski’s childhood as a war orphan was obviously on his mind when he chose this particular project, making Oliver, and even Fagin (Ben Kingsley, gloriously hamming it up in ghoulish make-up), to an extent, sympathetic products of a corrupt environment.
The Golden Door (’07): A poetic realist drama about the immigrant experience told in three distinct chapters; in the Old World getting ready for the passage, the lengthy, cramped trans-Atlantic ship passage, and the often humiliating and frustrating “testing” at New York’s Ellis Island upon arrival. Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s meticulously crafted film is keen to focus on one family’s experience, led by farmer Vincenzo Amato, who falls for a poor Englishwoman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) during the second act, toting his reluctant mother and two teenage sons to the New World, keeping the story intimate and appropriately emotional, while scenes with great numbers of extras (on the boat, at Ellis Island) still lend the film an epic status. Think of the opening scenes of “The Godfather Part II”, young Vito arriving at Ellis Island, with more importance on the rituals of the Old World vs. the authoritative nature of the New World, minus the key iconography and any glory shot of the Statue of Liberty, and you’ll be well prepared for this classy recreation of an important slice of modern history.
A Japanese Tragedy (’53): A destitute hostess/prostitute (Yuko Mochizuki) is treated badly by her beloved grown children, who she raised alone, poor, during the war, in this devastating, politically charged melodrama from Keisuke Kinoshita, one of Shochiku’s top directors of the time. Kinoshita’s style, blending rapid cutting to the past with lengthy long takes of the present, is similar to one of his more famous contemporaries, Kenji Mizoguchi, though his political stance on Japanese society and the difficulties of the immediate post-war era, a time when everyone was championing an economic “miracle”, makes him a presage of the Japanese New Wave to come. Of the very few of his films available to an American audience, through badly transferred and subtitled Asian import DVD’s, this is arguably his most accessible melodrama, but a proper discovery by the Criterion Collection, along with some badly needed critical appreciation, would put Kinoshita properly in his place, as one of Japan’s most prolific, aesthetically proficient masters.
They Were Expendable (’45): Fresh off of his tour as the Navy’s chief filmmaker during the war, John Ford stuck to his roots with this masterful MGM adventure yarn about a misfit PT boat troupe during the Pacific campaign, led by real life commander Robert Montgomery and Ford regular John Wayne, in one of his best non western performances. Numerous scenes come to mind when describing that inimitable Ford touch, a mixture of toughness and overwhelming sentimentality, including an old man’s (“The Grapes of Wrath’s” Russell Simpson) last stand as Japanese bombers target his beloved boat, and a sweet dinner scene as six seamen fawn over a gorgeous nurse, played by Donna Reed, but my favorite is Wayne’s eulogy of two dead comrades over their flag draped coffins, a scene of tremendous emotional power showcasing Wayne’s often underused sensitivity. In a way the film served as both a tribute and a farewell to the Navy for Ford, for after four years of service, numerous famed documentaries, and this rousing action-adventure, his next project would be “My Darling Clemetine”, back to his home at Fox, to the westerns that made his name, and would further enhance his already considerable legend.
Help! (’65): The Beatles and director Richard Lester followed up their highly successful, and artistically mesmerizing, debut “A Hard Day’s Night” with this goofy musical spoof of James Bond, in full color, globetrotting around the world to the Swiss Alps and the Bahamas, amongst other places, as a tribe of fanatics chase Ringo for a sacred ring that’s stuck on his finger. Thanks to a spiffy new print, the 2-disk DVD truly showcases how revolutionary Lester’s musical segments were, especially the mountain escapades of “Ticket to Ride” and the battlefield chaos of “The Night Before”, and with the new subtitles you can finally make out the lines the boys mumbled through, as John Lennon put it, influenced by a “haze of marijuana”. I can’t say the film holds up today as a great work, the plot is silly and the Beatles aren’t really good actors, but for the music sequences alone, and lets not forget the true genius of the music, “Help!”, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, and George’s haunting “I Need You” being three of my all time favorites, it remains a pop culture essential, capturing the most famous band of all time in a transition that would ultimately lead to the greatest three record span in the history of music, “Rubber Soul”, “Revolver”, and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.
Four Sons (’28): Made on some of the same sets, using much of the same lighting and visual techniques, of F.W. Murnau’s “Sunrise” (’27), John Ford fashioned this classic silent war weeper, about an Austrian mother who loses all her sons to WWI, except one who emigrates to America, with an expressionistic tone influenced by the great German directors of the Weimar period. With moody set designs, striking shafts of light, and a deliberate transitional editing style, Ford brings out the symbolism of the nominal story with his mise-en-scene, the height of his silent filmmaking powers at the onset of the talkies, suggesting that even in a surreal landscape of shadows and fog, the horrors of death, war, abandonment, and loneliness have no place to hide. Don’t let the triumphant ending fool you, this is a melodrama of devastating sadness, perfectly complemented by Ford’s dreamlike visual style.
Punch-Drunk Love (’02): Paul Thomas Anderson’s fourth film, a surrealist romance between a strange smalltime businessman and his sister’s workmate, finds the perfect use for Adam Sandler’s heretofore ill exploited pent up comic rage. As Barry Egan, a loser in a blue suit who sells toilet plungers and dreams of a plot to scheme a health food company out of frequent flier miles, Sandler sheds the crudeness of his lame comedies, showing a frustration and sensitivity rarely seen in his films before (or for that matter, since), and as his love interest, Emily Watson brings a cautious vulnerability to the pairing, knowing how difficult it is to meet a compatible partner. Anderson’s film is quirky and strange, with a bizarre soundtrack and color interludes that scream a certain kind of arty pretentiousness, but his framing is skilled as usual, and though this may be a lesser work, it’s worth it alone just to see how a hack actor like Adam Sandler, in the hands of a master, can deliver a performance of such depth.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (’07): Seth Gordon’s documentary about the obsessive nature of competitive gaming, in this case, chasing the record of the classic arcade game Donkey Kong, is so unusual that it could only be true fiction, for who but the most ardent gamer could write this stuff? Steve Wiebe is a family man from Washington state who, despite numerous setbacks in his professional life, sets out to break the DK world record, held by cocksure gaming master Billy Mitchell, whose flamboyant attitude contrasts with Wiebe’s guy next door personality gives the film its central focus. Add in Zen gaming referee and expert Walter Day, who plays a kind of buffer between the two men in their verbal sparring as the record goes back and forth, and countless scenes of the men at work, in pure concentration playing one of the cruelest of all early video games, and you’ve got a film about a specific subject that is universal in its themes of competition, aspirations, and the natural human want to be the best.
The Naked Prey (’66): Cornel Wilde directs and stars in a film about ultimate survival, as the lone survivor of a hunting expedition is chased through the jungle, naked, for sport by a murderous tribe of natives looking for revenge in early 19th century Africa. Comparisons with “The Most Dangerous Game” aren’t necessary, for where that was more of a horror story, Wilde directs this more like a nature documentary, inter-cutting his fictional chase, which at times is bloody and violent, with footage of animals fending off predators; survival of the fittest indeed.
Miss Julie (’51): August Stringberg’s famous stage play seemingly doesn’t lend itself to the cinematic form, given its limited number of characters and settings, but it’s been oft filmed nonetheless, most impressively in 1951 by Swedish director Alf Sjoberg, a visual master who was often eclipsed in the limelight by the international emergence of Ingmar Bergman in 1953, but held prominence in the Swedish film and theater industry for decades. “Miss Julie” is arguably Sjoberg’s best, and most known film - though his association with Bergman for 1944’s “Torment” is well documented – a beautiful looking black and white adaptation that literally opens up Strindberg’s kitchen set sexual drama, about a flighty lady-of-the-house (Anita Bjork, sexy and commanding) and her affair with her footman (Ulf Palme), by employing a fluid camera style and narrative device that seamlessly blends the past and present, often in a single unbroken shot. Praise goes out yet again to the Criterion Collection for presenting a well-known international classic with a much needed re-release, including in the package a television documentary on the history of Strindberg’s play, and a brilliant video essay by historian Peter Cowie paying tribute to Sjoberg and his masterpiece.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (’07): Jesse James is the most famous outlaw in America, but his glory days are behind him; he’s dissolved his fruitful partnership with his older brother, grown increasingly erratic and paranoid, and when he takes up with the Ford brothers, two misfits from the Missouri boondocks, for a planned bank robbery, it’s the beginning of the end. Director Andrew Dominik’s gorgeously shot western, photographed by Oscar nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins, who remarkably shot “No Country for Old Men” and “In the Valley of Elah” the same year, uses cold open spaces and an often distorted frame to suggest the increasing paranoia in James’ fractured, tightening inner circle, where even his biggest admirer, the kid Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), could potentially be his downfall. As James, Brad Pitt is perfectly cast, blending a confident swagger of a dime-store celebrity with the mood swings of an insomniac who believes everyone is out to get him, and as the young Ford, Affleck, in an Oscar nominated performance, plays up the kid’s need to fit in with his idol while becoming increasingly aware of James’ dangerous delusions. The James story has been told before; it’s one of the most famous of all western legends, but by focusing on the dissolving psyche of the killer, and the almost taunting relationship he procured with his biggest admirer, and eventual murderer, Dominik has fashioned an unusual western, light on action, but heavy on psychological warfare.
Nirvana: Unplugged in New York (’93): Five months before his suicide, Kurt Cobain and his band-mates gave one of the great rock performances of all time for MTV’s Unplugged series, filled not with one radio hit after another, but choice album cuts and obscure covers that proved the band’s talents beyond the grunge format they launched. The DVD features the original MTV broadcast, which cuts a few songs, a number of rehearsals, and a 15-minute retrospective with producers and audience members, but most importantly, the 60-minute full taping without edits, giving a glimpse of the band between songs, smoking cigarette butts and bantering mindlessly, obviously nervous and uncomfortable in front of the cameras and the intimate crowd setting. Cobain’s death would make Nirvana something of a mythic legend, but at the time of this taping they were already well on their way to that lofty status, and the haunting brilliance of “The Man Who Sold the World”, “Pennyroyal Tea”, and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, would only procure it in total.
Freaks (’32): A major controversy at the time, MGM and silent film master Tod Browning’s unusual horror film, about deformed circus sideshow attractions who plot revenge against a scheming acrobat, has become a cult classic, and with a new critical appreciation that tries to deem it more sympathetic than exploitative, garners in some circles a title as lofty as uncompromising masterpiece. I find the acting too crude, and the unfortunate studio and production code enforced editing too sloppy to go that far, but I’ve always been a fan of Browning’s dark visions, especially the rain soaked climax, which finds the titular freaks crawling through mud with knives in their mouths to secure their ultimate, horrific revenge. Seen today the controversy, which amounted to critics deriding Hollywood for exploiting these poor beings for nothing more than box office receipts, seems unfair, considering that Browning’s intentions were pure and artistic minded, but the film is sensational in its use of the abnormal characters, and for a country ill prepared to see such real and hideous sights for their entertainment dollar, it remains an appropriate, unfortunate reaction, effectively derailing Browning’s heretofore powerful career.
Eternity and a Day (’98): Winner of the 1998 Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, Theo Angelopoulos’ Greek odyssey, about a dying poet who spends his last day reminiscing about his wife and the unfinished business of his life, while helping a young refugee find his way back home, is a dreamy landscape of regret and eventual acceptance. Angelopoulos uses a deliberate style to tell his film, filled with a tediously slow moving camera that follows the poet from the present to the past, usually in one extremely long, complicated unbroken take, which makes one feel less like their watching a movie but more like their watching an incomplete dream, where the past can be revisited with painful regret, leaving only hope for the uncertain future. If you’ve never seen a film by Angelopoulos, Greece’s unquestioned film master, than this is a good place to start, along with 1988’s “Landscape in the Mist”, it may lull you into a sleepy trance, but for the patient, and attentive viewer, his style is truly mesmerizing.
by Adam Suraf