Review: This Is Not a Film (2012, Panahi & Mirtahmasb)
13 May 2012 2 Comments
in 2012, CriterionCast, Film Review Tags: 2012, Iran, Jafar Panahi, Review
Posted on CriterionCast May 13th, 2012
I am unreservedly ashamed to admit I have never seen a Jafar Panahi film. The seminal Iranian filmmaker, whose work which includes Crimson Gold, The Circle and Offside, is familiar to me in name only. But you do not have to have seen anything by Panahi to feel the staggering act of defiance that this non-film represents.
It also serves as a treatise on the stifling state of Iranian cinema where talent is certainly in abundance (case in point; A Separation, the first Iranian film to win the Foreign Language Oscar). The Culture Ministry’s recent decision to disband the House of Cinema, the only domestic independent film organization, has been a critical obstruction to the already censorship-ridden national cinema. Painstakingly constructed subversiveness is no longer an option for Jafar Panahi. The 51-year old Iranian filmmaker has been handed a 6-year jail sentence and a 20-year ban on filmmaking, leaving the country or giving press interviews of any kind.
This Is Not a Film, shot by Panahi’s documentarian friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, seemingly takes place over one day, although it was shot and edited over ten days. Panahi and Mirtahmasb clearly have some idea of what they wanted to be contained within, although how much of that was discussed we do not know.
The finished self-described ‘effort’ shows Mirtahmasb coming over to film Panahi, who is under house arrest and has been waiting for the verdict from the court appeal of his sentence. Mirtahmasb expresses how important it is to document Panahi’s struggle. Mirtahmasb’s presence slyly exonerates Panahi from formally directing. If he is merely in front of the camera, in his natural state, he is breaking none of the bans placed on him.
There is a structure to This Is Not a Film. We start with Panahi and the camera, which Mirtahmasb left with him and told him to keep on. He eats his breakfast seeming somewhat awkwardly aware of the camera’s presence. He speaks with his lawyer on the phone. Then Mirtahmasb comes over. Neither knows what the end goal of this ban-dodging experiment is or should be. This uncertainty is what lends the non-film its structure.
Panahi’s thought-process launches an intellectual and emotional journey beset with rumination. He spends much of the film working through his recent rejected screenplay, trying his best, with descriptive mise-en-scene and masking tape, to paint any semblance of the picture he meant to one day create. To see this is to see an artist at work; it is heartbreaking to witness the man’s crystal-clear filmic map merely described, and his and our simultaneous understanding that it will never come to life.
Describing the story and its blocking does bring it to a sort of half-life in this film, and its seemingly meek half-existence is a courageous statement within the larger courageous statement that is this ‘film’. Panahi eventually stops, overcome by the apparent pointlessness of trying to create something in an unnatural fashion. He goes through clips of a couple of his previous films, frustrated by what actual production brings and what he no longer can do through paltry reenactments. He wistfully speaks of the unpredictable nature of working with actors, how the act of filming captures something that cannot be planned, blocked or staged. Showing clips from his previous films incorporate his works into a new artistic context, and is another way Panahi exercises as much control as he can over a situation he has no control of.
We see Panahi taking pictures and videos with his iPhone (because surely he can make use of the phone’s video features), on the day of Fireworks Wednesday, signifying the Persian New Year’s. He ponders aloud, goes online where most websites are restricted, watches the news, and looks outside. A neighbor comes by and asks him to temporarily watch her yelping dog Micky. His companion throughout is his pet iguana Igi who languidly slurps around.
There is constant fascination by the film’s very existence and its contents. At times it became surreal that I was actually sitting in a theater and seeing this complete with trailers and ads. Hell, there was even a spot for the new ABC Family show “Bunheads” before the film started. That this made its way into a theater that was accessible to me and everyone in the surrounding area goes beyond words.
Throughout, the sense of restlessness that we can only imagine he experiences minute-by-minute is forced upon us. There is also a simultaneous transmission of suffocation. We cannot imagine what he is going through, but this effort gives us a sad and bitter taste of his claustrophobic experience. Is it a coincidence that Buried, the story of a man helplessly and powerlessly encased in the ground, is the most visible DVD on display?
The immediate affinity that we feel for Panahi somehow heightens this already heartbreaking human rights issue. He comes off as kind, mild, realistic and emotionally beaten down by his circumstances (though this work’s existence proves him as anything but). We immediately care for him, beyond the empathy inherent in the situation.
The spontaneous final scene and image is something to behold. I will let you discover it on your own.
There is so much to think about and unpack in This Is Not a Film, and hopefully these initial thoughts do some basic pondering. This may be the last participating effort from a director whose voice has been irrevocably muffled. It represents the concrete fact of creative expression being snuffed out. To say this film should be seen is an understatement; it must be seen. This statement has been made many times in relation to this film but I make it again; if you care about cinema, about the right we have to tell stories and why we tell them, and about human rights, you must seek out This Is Not a Film.
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Review: Cabin in the Woods (2012, Goddard)
15 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, Film Review, Short Review Tags: 2012, Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard, Film, Horror, Joss Whedon, Meta, movies, Review, Slasher
IMDB Summary: Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon clearly have a love-hate relationship with horror. In Cabin in the Woods, affection for clichés and tropes linger even as it lambasts every last one of said formulas. They get that when characters make bad decisions, it never feels organic. The genre forcefully places stupidity and bad judgment onto placeholder characters that are trapped in an unoriginal scenario that never derails off-course.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the slasher film, the most repetitive of horror subgenres. In recent years, a push towards meta-horror has already outstayed its welcome, despite several worthy entries. This is mainly because meta-horror rarely goes beyond exclamations of ‘hey we’re being self-referential, get it? Wink wink!’ Cabin in the Woods takes things into uncharted territory.
But to simply label Cabin in the Woods as meta is reductive. The film works on several different levels, fully committing to its ideas with an admirable audacity. It carries a fondness for its underdeveloped characters; an immediate deviation from the norm. It refuses to conform; every time you think it has, director/writer Goddard and producer/writer Whedon have another trick up their sleeves. Every cliché it takes on serves the film’s larger purpose. It places an additional layer of onlookers/stakeholders who are central to the story (Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, and the incomparable Amy Acker) between us and the victims, forcing the audience to dissect how we interact with horror films and what we really get out of them. It does all of this without the false sense of superiority Michael Haneke insists on seeping into every frame of Funny Games (love the director though I do). Goddard and Whedon fully implicate themselves into the genuine curiosities the film ponders.
Is it self-congratulatory? Of course it is. Is it scary? Not really. However, neither of these minor quibbles can detract from the whole. It is almost mind-boggling to think what Cabin in the Woods accomplishes in a tightly-packaged 95 minutes. Goddard and Whedon are freakishly on-point every step of the way.
Cabin in the Woods sounds like a fictionalized essay; but it manages to deconstruct an entire genre while being one of the funniest, entertaining and genuinely involving films to come around in quite some time. And it manages to go into surprisingly off-the-wall directions to boot. It is surreal to have finally seen this after years of anticipation stemming from the three-year gap between filming and release. I am happy to say that Cabin in the Woods was worth the wait.
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Review: King of Devil’s Island (2011, Holst)
02 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in 2011, CriterionCast, Film Review Tags: Film, film review, King of Devil's Island, Kongen av Bastøy, Marius Holst, movies, Norway, Prison film, Review, Stellan Skarsgård, Uprising
Originally posted on Criterion Cast April 1st, 2012
There are a considerable number of films featuring adolescents driven to the far reaches of suffering in reform schools, correctional facilities, institutional homes or rigid private schools. At this point, many stock characters have been established; the newcomer who shakes things up, the stern and unwavering headmaster, the martyr and of course the ultra-evil authority figure. All of these and more can be found in King of Devil’s Island, director Marius Holst’s bleak as bleak can be tale of what happens when power goes awry.
Like several others in a similar vein (such as The Magdalene Sisters to name a more recent one), King of Devil’s Island is based on a true story. It depicts Bastøy Island in 1915 Norway, a reformatory secluded from the rest of the world where it housed wayward boys from the ages of eleven to eighteen. The environment is hopelessly desolate and frigid. One can feel the sharp stinging chill of the air while watching. There is no escape. It is frighteningly simple to get shipped to Bastøy; one character is sent for stealing out of a church donation box. Once there, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain release, taking many years. The workload is dire and labor-intensive and they are underfed. The punishment and abuse are dealt out at a moment’s notice and retain the status quo of cruelty expected in films of its kind.
In short, you would not want to find yourself here. But inmate newcomers Erling (Benjamin Helstad) and Ivar (Magnus Langlete) sadly do. Erling, a harpooner who is rumored to have killed, immediately starts plotting an escape plan. Ivar, who is much younger, experiences the worst possible form of welcome by unwittingly attracting the attention of house father Bråthen (Kristoffer Joner). The admission procedures strip them of their clothes and name. They emerge naked in front of their fellow students, part of the nomenclature with their new identities C-16 and C-5.
Bestyreren (Stellen Skarsgard), the school’s governor, is far too resolute in his misguided sense of reform to consider how damaging his methods are. Finally, there is student leader Olav (Trond Nilssen), who emerges as the heart of the film. He is inches away from being released after six arduous years. But as tensions rise, he must question whether or not securing his release is more important than standing up for the injustice he witnesses.
Stories of justified adolescent uprisings are always going to be engaging, to me at least. Marius Holst’s paint-by-numbers film is entirely predictable yet still manages to be a justly moving experience. Holst moves beyond the empathy implicit in the basic storyline, emphasizing the stark environment and the human elements buried deep within the struggle. Almost every frame is entrenched in hollow blues and grays. This may seem an obvious aesthetic choice but, again, Holst moves beyond the obvious with his execution. It is a rich film to look at, but the environment is never glamorized. This is a truly miserable place, and the visuals all support this.
Unfortunately, there is not much room for the actors to wiggle around in their archetypes. Unsurprisingly, Skarsgard manages quite a bit with a character that is so deeply mired in stern self-denial, that the film does not allow him even an honest moment with himself.
It is the child actors though who come through strongest. The governor says early on that at Bastøy “the past and future don’t exist. There is only present”. The film follows this proclamation relatively closely, focusing on the youths roles in the here and now of their predicament. Even without learning much about him, Helstad always makes sure we see Erling’s motivations come from immediate and tacitly sensed injustice.
Trond Nilssen’s Olav lends the film its most humanistic element. He has spent six years adapting to life at Bastøy. He has obeyed and proven a faithful inmate. There is a sort of reliance he has on the way things work at the school. Sure it is brutal and harsh, but if something were truly aghast, appropriate action would be taken; right? Surely he can expect his word, after six loyal years, to be worth something. From the moment we set our sights on Olav, we know where his arc is headed. Nilssen cancels out any negative effects of our awareness; the arc is all in his eyes and he is heartbreaking in the film’s successful through-line.
The strength of Helstad and Nilssen also force the friendship between Olav and Erling into the forefront of the film’s memorable aspects. The final ten minutes are inescapably emotional.
Filled with somber strings and heavy-handed and repetitious symbolism to drive home this grim tale of rebellion, King of Devil’s Island never feels substantial but is never less than entirely involving. When the uprising arrives it is shown as desperate and humanized rage. These kids do not turn into monsters and Holst smartly never allows that to come across. Holst is less interested in what happens when the breaking point is reached and more interested in the journey to that moment. The King of Devil’s Island is about unmonitored hierarchies of power and the disturbing results that can yield from a sharp schism between those in control and the unlucky defenseless.
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Review: 21 Jump Street (2012, Lord and Miller)
18 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, Film Review Tags: 2012, 2012 film, 21 Jump Street, action, action-comedy, Adapted from a TV Series, Channing Tatum, Comedy, Film, film review, Jonah Hill, movies, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, Reboot, Review
IMDB Summary: A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring.
“21 Jump Street” is a gaping hole in my pop-culture knowledge. I knew of its existence and that it had something to do with cops. I knew it launched Johnny Depp’s career and that it featured Richard Grieco who remained a stagnant fixture in the 80’s. But that is it. I have never seen an episode and was unfamiliar of even its basic concept. When the news of its reboot came about, my reaction was likely that of many: yet another shrug-and-eyeroll combo with a reiteration of the oh-so-original thought that Hollywood has run out of ideas. From my limited understanding, not even the basic genre, tone or characters are kept here. It is a reboot mostly in name only.
Yet, lo and behold; 21 Jump Street is a mostly fantastic film. Save for a third act that comparatively falls apart at the seams, this is an engagingly uproarious and surprisingly sincere comedy that is taken to the next level by the pairing of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.
The first half is almost shockingly good. The pacing is razor-sharp and it clicks along with an at-times remarkable speed. Take the first five minutes which manage to accomplish what some films fail to do in their entire runtime. It establishes Jenko (Tatum) and Schmidt (Hill) in their respective high-school personas. Schmidt was a 2005 unpopular Eminem wannabe whereas Jenko was your typical douchebag jock. This sets up a really refreshing role-reversal that will take place later on when they return to high school as undercover cops. Years later, they encounter each other when they train at the academy. Jenko is dim and needs help with the exams while Schmidt cannot power through the physical training. They begin to help each other out; through montage we see the roots of a clearly meaningful friendship which has a genuine immediacy that carries throughout. All of this resonates within the first five minutes, making everything that comes after all the more absorbing.
21 Jump Street contains a manic energy akin to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (screenwriter Michael Bacall had a hand in both screenplays) without the kinetic comic-book visuals. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller of the perplexingly well-received Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, quickly establish a gleeful fluid mania that permeates through everything. Early on they show how they will use the camera and music to present something in a more subjective fashion, only to pull back and show the amusing reality. It works every time.
Two sequences that do this perfectly are arguably the films two funniest sequences. The first is the pair’s first attempted arrest. The second is the pair’s drug-addled excursion during school hours. The latter switches back and forth from a first-person perspective, showing how they experience the various effects of the drug (whose supplier they have been assigned to track down), to a third-person perspective which displays just how ridiculous they really look. I can honestly say I do not know the last time I laughed this hard as this played out.
There is something about the experience of high school that is captured here, inducting it into the pantheon of memorable high school films. It helps that Jenko and Schmidt graduated high school in 2005, the same year as me, giving it an added dose of personal resonance. It presents high school as a toxic environment where peer approval not only reigns above all, but legitimately defines you as a person. Going back to high school terrifies Schmidt whereas Jenko is thrilled with the assignment. But the tables have turned. The high school experience has changed enough in seven years allowing Jenko to be unpopular and allowing Schmidt a place in the school’s top clique.
High school is its own universe and 21 Jump Street gets this. It capitalizes on the idea that going back after a number of years would be somewhat surreal. It is surprising just how much we feel when Schmidt, in his newly acquired popularity, distances himself from Jenko, who is looked down on by the popular crowd for his low intelligence level. This role-reversal allows for both the story and performances to go in some nicely unexpected directions.
As far as the two lead performances go, the brilliance of the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum, pairing cannot be overstated. In the end, they make this film the success it is. They raise the bar for onscreen comedic pairings in our modern times. These are no exaggerations. Together that not only possess perfect comedic timing, but their ‘bromance’ (hate the term, but if it applies anywhere, it applies here) feels completely authentic and is respectfully played straight. When Tatum says he would take a bullet for Hill, it isn’t played for laughs.
To think of Hill in Moneyball and then in 21 Jump Street is a bit jarring. It is evident at this point that he can filter himself into a variety of different characters. Here, his character is equal parts insecure and misguided; but he’s also very intelligent. He isn’t really playing a ‘type’ here; Schmidt is a well-rounded character navigating through the confusing times of high school for the second time. It is very easy to overlook Hill’s considerable talents, but we shouldn’t. And here is hoping we do not start taking him for granted any time soon. He
As far as Channing Tatum goes, his work here has single-handedly made me a fan. Saying he is revelatory may be an overstatement, and yet to simply say he shines would be an understatement. There is no straight man between the Hill/Tatum pairing. Not only does Tatum go for broke with the comedy, but the majority of the humanistic elements fall on him. The vulnerability on display is flat-out moving and he sells the hell out of all the facets of his character. This role represents a turning point in his career.
The last third of the film does not destroy everything that came before, but it certainly threatens to. There are still laughs and earnest storytelling to be had, but an unskillfully apparent chaos comes into play. The controlled tightness unravels and an unappealing messiness takes over.
The action scenes are somewhat incoherent. In concept there is a lot of potential, but the execution fails to translate what could have been exciting and vibrant set pieces. It does not help that distractingly subpar post-production work both in effects and sound somewhat take away from the experience. And while the crisp editing works in non-action scenes, it weakens the majority of the chase and fight scenes. This is a great comedy that also happens to be a weak action film.
21 Jump Street remains self-aware throughout, acknowledging its own lack of originality. But it never allows that one-joke gimmick to define the film; far from it. This is a mostly great comedy (and how few comedies can even be defined as ‘mostly great’ these days?) that thrives on being hilarious and sincere in equal measure. The rocky road the central friendship takes is clearly just as important to the filmmakers and actors as the laughs. Only time will tell, but I predict that Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum will go down as one of the best onscreen pairings of our time. Yep. I said it.
Review: Gerhard Richter Painting (2012, Belz)
16 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012, Film Review Tags: 2012, 2012 film, Corinna Belz, Documentary, Female Director, Gerhard Richter, Gerhard Richter Painting, Germany, Review
Originally posted on Criterion Cast February 19th, 2012
Watching Gerhard Richter paint is an experience damn near revelatory. I went into this film knowing nothing about modern art, and admittedly, having my own baggage of hesitancy towards its more extreme sides of abstraction. I was also shamefully unaware of just who Gerhard Richter is, and why he is such a long-standing and significant figure. This outstandingly insightful observational documentary is not just about Richter, but about all aspects of the creative process, an artist’s relationship to their own art, other art, and to the outside world.
Corinna Belz’s ponderous pace equably matches her subject. Gerhard Richter is thoughtful and articulate but very internal. He easily retreats into himself and seems more comfortable doing so. But the film is less about the man and more about his methods and artistry. Filmed over the course of several years, we see gallery openings, archival footage, and Richter being questioned by historians, the press and Belz herself. Yet the film always comes back to its most central element, which could not be made any more explicit by the title, and that is Gerhard Richter painting.
Through an intermittent series of tracking shots that follow miniature exhibition models of Richter’s works, the sense of his seemingly infinite breadth of styles and phases is immediate. It effectively displays, without needing to be said, just how much ground Richter has covered throughout the decades. When he paints in Belz’s film, he is captured indulging in his current favored modes and styles of creation. These include abstract pieces that start with sweeping brush strokes and are continually modified with a giant squeegee that takes all one’s strength to manipulate.
Richter never truly knows what the final product of his creations will be. As he describes, he does not start with a concept. The canvas guides and speaks to him just as much as he to it, and he creates with a kind of semi-calculated intuition. After a time, he stops and steps back, inquisitive from various angles and reflects on what he has done. Richter painting is an indeterminate series of revisions and reflections. When he feels it is done, it is done.
Watching Richter, a man who knows his craft like the back of his hand, is a singular experience for several reasons. The abstract and somewhat improvisatory nature of his paintings instills a sequentially organic development, almost as if following a narrative’s progression, not knowing where it may end. Even the creator himself does not know when his piece will be finished or what it will look like, aligning Richter the artist, we the consumer, and Belz the filmmaker.
Sometimes he assesses in his head, other times he lets Belz know what he is thinking. His pieces go through many revisions and tweaks before he decides they are complete. At any stage of creation, Richter’s pieces could potentially be done. The difference between what looks like a finished abstract painting to the audience, and what feels unfinished for the artist is something Belz makes a point to distinguish. Belz allows us the freedom to observe and respond to Richter’s canvases as we would in a museum. The difference here is that the artist simultaneously takes part in the assessment, and the audience’s observations are of partially done works. Seeing and taking part in all of this, even as a bystander after the fact, is startlingly involving. Periodically, Belz will show the evolution of paintings using a series of dissolves, to illustrate the markedly transformative changes Richter, and artists in general, make to their creations over time.
Gerhard Richter Painting is also about the subject’s struggle with cameras, the media and the public. Being forced to elucidate on his work with explanatory expectations and the application of artistic theory and movements is daunting for him. Richter is articulate, but at the same time is unable to really express his process. In his eyes, painting cannot be described with words. So we see him deal with stress and frustration when asked to contextualize his own process and work in the same ways those who analyze and contextualize do.
Richter’s discomfort with the camera’s presence brings up a lot of stimulating broader questions about the documentary form. The fly-on-the-wall approach becomes compromised amidst the distraction that the camera brings for the subject. Belz is trying to create at the same time as Richter, and the collision of attempted creation across two mediums proves to be understandably difficult for Richter. He is always aware that he is being watched, and it halts his ability to paint with the internal mindset and somewhat spiritual sense of intuition needed to exert a satisfying creative output.
The compromise does not reflect a negative outcome here. It cakes on an additional layer with its inherent questions about observational filmmaking. It makes clear that capturing a naturalistic reality is on some level impossible when cameras enter a room. The acknowledgment and time spent (by Richter speaking of it, and Belz’s purposeful inclusion of the footage) on said interference makes it yet another thought-provoking element of Gerhard Richter Painting, instead of it being unintentionally implicit, and thus problematic.
Gerhard Richter Painting explores the universality of creation and the individualistic relationships between artists and their visions, process and products. It confirms that these individualistic relationships belong only to the artist. As gratifying as the insight that Belz gets and gives us is, neither a witnessing camera, nor words from the creator himself can truly represent the process of creating. What Belz and her marvelous film assert is that it makes being a bystander to the process is no less meaningful, and that our own individual relationships and responses to any work of art are no less essential.
Review: Shame (2011, McQueen)
11 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in 2011, Film Review Tags: 2011, Carey Mulligan, Film, film review, Hunger, Michael Fassbender, movies, NC-17, Review, Sex Addiction, Shame, Steve McQueen
This review contains an open discussion of the film; spoilers follow.
Summary taken from IMDB: In New York City, Brandon’s carefully cultivated private life — which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction — is disrupted when his sister Cissy arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay.
There is a shot in director Steve McQueen’s second feature film that rivals any other from this year. A long montage depicting a ménage à trois weaves through many a suffocating flesh-filled close-up, eventually landing on our protagonist’s face. Michael Fassbender looks transformed here; his face is hauntingly gaunt and primal. There is no pleasure to be found in his expression; all we see is someone making a desperate life-or-death climb to the finish line. The shot took me to another place entirely; it showed me who this man is and the result gutted me.
There are undeniably only so many layers to Shame, which depicts the life of an affluent sex addict living in New York City. But with a subject matter that has rarely been explored with any degree of seriousness, not much in this case is more than enough. Those basic points are made with the degree of lucidity that McQueen provides. Along with the two performances by Fassbender and Mulligan, it is hard to argue against its somewhat rudimentary vision.
Brandon’s fixes and the likely meaningless chunks of time in-between are experienced with an equal perfunctory indifference. His sexual encounters feel more like a rush to get his satisfaction as opposed to something he entirely revels in. Brandon’s sexual exploits come at him in a multitude of ways, and he has established a routine methodical means that include but are not limited to hookers, web cam models, print and online pornography, a “filthy hard drive” at work and casual hookups. The Internet age allows him a bevy of backup options.
There are a lot of scenes that establish expected territory. Brandon does not comprehend the idea of marriage. Climaxing with the one woman he may have feelings for becomes impossible once intimacy rears its ugly head. His boss, whom Brandon tolerates, spends all night trying to hook up with a woman, only for Brandon to be the one that scores. He does not have one sustainable human connection, and that seems to suit him as long as he has the temporary and empty connections that provide his fix.
Shame really starts to resonate when Brandon’s life begins to unravel due to the presence of his clinging dependent waif of a little sister. Sissy (Carey Mulligan in an unhinged and unpredictable performance that ignites the screen) is an unwelcome presence in his life, but after ignoring her calls only to find her showering in his apartment one night, it is clear she plans on staying a while.
A lot can be said about Brandon and Sissy based on the way they share physical space and interact with one another. Brandon’s desired dismissal of her goes beyond the energy it takes to care for her; the past, whatever that may be, looms over the two in every scene. Sissy wants to make due on the connection they have as siblings who have weathered through a lot together, but Brandon wants none of it. The two are damaged and evidently defined by their likely tumultuous past. Sissy seeks consolation, but Brandon seeks the opposite from her. Having Sissy in his life is unquestionably too hard for him.
Some are taking issue with the film’s lack of backstory, but the film supplies so much rich substance in the scenes between the two, that it never becomes a question to feel cheated by its lack of explanation. In fact, the pivotal line as said by Sissy, “We’re not bad people; we just come from a bad place” provides all the confirmation and backstory people are finding absent. It is an explicit statement of past trauma that discards any purported hesitation we have towards throwing the word abuse around when discussing the source of their behavior. Whatever else that piece of dialogue is, it is far from ambiguous. It provides an orthodox cause-and-effect answer, and I am still trying to decide if I feel the line should have been in the film. Because it is not just the line; its placement and Sissy’s emotional state in that moment of audio provide the climax (no pun intended) of the film. It says a lot that the line is heard on top of Brandon’s unsettling self-destructive excursion; perhaps too much.
Sissy’s arrival does two things; first, it takes Brandon’s mind back to a place in time he does not want to be. Secondly, it takes away his privacy and thus, his ability to get off in the comfort of his own home. The combination of the two is the catalyst for Brandon coming apart at the seams in the film’s latter half. Shame’s purpose as a character study lies in Brandon’s eventual realization of how badly he needs sex once it is gradually deprived of him.
Brandon’s journey is bookended by two segments that set his exploits to moody tormented cello complete with the tick-tock passage of time. The first sequence opens the film and introduces Brandon as a walking calamity. His routine of traveling from high to high has been long established by the time we meet him. All that self-loathing is there but its familiarity allows it to barely register as the score hovers around unbeknownst to him.
By the time the second sequence of orchestral gloom comes along, Brandon has a heightened awareness of how desperate he has become. He cannot masturbate or interact with his laptop at home because of Sissy’s presence. Her being in his apartment is problematic for any number of reasons. He is indirectly called out on his hard drive stash by his boss. He is impotent with Marianne (Nicole Beharie), a woman he is legitimately drawn towards, throwing his sense of self into disarray. The routine that masked his crippling addiction has fallen out from under him; those strings are ringing louder and louder in his ear. Thus begins his bender where the hunt for release becomes fraught with increasingly disconcerting encounters. The notes follow him as he almost gleefully walks into a confrontation with the boyfriend of a woman he tries to pick up using graphically descriptive means, not to mention his hands. His lack of options leads him into an underground gay nightclub; his search for an outlet wrenchingly complete.
Watching Michael Fassbender dissolve right in front of us is quite the spectacle. This has been the year of Fassbender and we are all the better for it. He and Steve McQueen have established a working collaborative relationship, producing results that heighten the material through their partnership. Brandon is gritting through life, only out for his own base needs. The people he interacts with are meaningless, especially including the ones he sleeps with. Fassbender is an explosive force to be reckoned with as he completely gives himself over to the camera for observational purposes.
Mulligan is no less impressive introducing unbridled frenzy as Sissy who is much farther along the path to futility than Brandon is, or rather, is farther along the path precisely because she is aware of it. She deserves as much praise as her costar, hurtling off the screen with abandon. She takes a character that is mainly a plot device (the only similarity to her turn in Drive), but makes so much more of this role than the former because her character in Shame moves beyond her functional purpose. Props must go to Nicole Beharie as well for her lovely supporting turn; I cared about her immediately and was frustrated by my inability to tell her to abandon ship.
Steve McQueen has the confidence of a veteran; his vision is clear and he presents it with poise. Between this and Hunger, it is obvious that long takes are his strong suit. One more film from him and they will be a fully-fledged trademark. He risks distracting the audience but he does not; his lengthy observations make us more attentive, more aware of the physical space and of body language. They allow us to get a fuller sense of the performances and they enhance the notion of the audience observing Brandon through the glass-plate walls; he is a test subject. McQueen distances us with the sterile environment and cagey glass. He puts us up close when it counts, and when it becomes important to unsettle the audience. His methods set the methodical pace of a representative case study.
McQueen and cowriter Abi Morgan use Brandon as a representative for sex addiction, which may be disappointing to some and it is understandable. The decision forces Brandon into a broadly stroked corner. But McQueen knows what he wants to do and he does it with aplomb using Fassbender as his riveting translator. The director balances Brandon as cornerstone example with a sibling dynamic ripe for rich exploration. Brandon’s surprisingly conventional, but no less powerful, arc towards disintegration is tinted with more hope than one would expect. Shame is arresting cinema that loyally follows its self-loathing protagonist wherever he may go.
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Review: Le Quattro Volte (2011, Frammartino)
09 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in 2011, CriterionCast, Film Review Tags: 2011, Film, Italy, Le Quattro Volte, Michelangelo Frammartino, Review
Originally posted on CriterionCast on December 8th 2011
Ancient Greek mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras theorized that all souls transmigrate into man, animal, vegetable and mineral. It is on this tenet that Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte is based. Part minimalist observations, part docudrama; it is a trancelike rumination that shows everything and tells nothing, allowing us to drift in and out of our own ponderous observations. Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray release amply captures this meditative wonder.
The first half is occupied by an elderly goat herder (Giuseppe Fuda) in an Italian village. He spends his time going about his daily routines. His tasks are revisited using the same camera placements, capturing the repetition in routine. Eventually, the goat herder passes on, beginning a cycle of passage that transfers to the life of a goat, a fir tree and charcoal. Each segment monitors how the subject encounters its daily life and its routines. We follow interactions with the surroundings and how other beings interact with the subject whether it be creation, destruction or a mere encounter.
Le Quattro Volte contains no dialogue, no music, no narration and almost no camera movement. Frammartino emphasizes observation at all times; it is necessary that everything we see must feel like something the camera just happens to be catching. Nothing can feel artificially placed. Nothing can feel staged. It all must flow with a precise stoicism, showing us the matter-of-factness of the life cycle, but capturing the miracle of it through its normality.
The theory of transmigration adds a level of spiritualism to the proceedings. This further shines a light on this idea of the simplicity of existence, lending itself to a greater recognition of the phenomenon of it all that we take for granted. Thankfully, the film never tells us we take this for granted; it is just an understanding that comes through the film implicitly. Didacticism is nowhere to be found, and Le Quattro Volte is all the better for it.
This basic level of existence is emphasized through the film’s depiction of nature. This rural village is surrounded by hilly landscape. Once the goat herder passes, gradual steps are made towards the unfettered natural world. The baby goat still encounters herders and is contained within the village but ends its story abandoned under a tree after losing the herd. The third segment starts out as entrenched in nature as it gets; a fir tree sturdy in its expected territory. The tree is then chopped down; nature is infiltrated and by the end of the film, which depicts how charcoal is made, we are brought full circle.
All things are connected in Le Quattro Volte, but this is no hippie-dippie piece of filmmaking. The film shifts from object to object with a respectful and appropriate fade-out; a visual passing of the baton. The director makes sure never to come off as imposing, placing crucial importance on what we see and how we see it. Most of the film takes on a static fly-on-the-wall position.
What will surprise many is how amusing the film can be. In one of the single best, not to mention funniest, scenes of the year, the birds-eye view camera observes an Easter processional that takes place down a long road. The goats are fenced in on the left, a truck is parked on a hill on the right and a sheepdog nags at the villagers as they continue their ritualistic reenactment. All of the elements are set into place for the events that will unfold before us. The way the camera slowly pans and tracks how it all happens is an example of the type of experience only this film can give. The film constantly surprises with the minute details it catches and how often it can make us smile.
The hushed spatiality of Le Quattro Volte allows us inordinate room to think about the images we see at our leisure. Each person will be drawn to different details or segments. I admit that the first half of the film containing the goat herder did not mesmerize me much. This is entirely preferential and not a knock on the film at all. Rather, it was the goat, the tree and the charcoal that had me entirely within the film’s grip. These segments entranced me and had me floating above the subjects along with the camera, often times not thinking at all but just soaking in the environment. You are free to move in and out of Le Quattro Volte; to engage and not engage and to simply take it all in. It puts all of its stock in this one conceit of transmigration and beautifully observes rather than trying to tell us anything; and by that, it tells us everything.
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Short Review: The Muppets (2011, Bobin)
03 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in 2011, Film Review, Short Review Tags: 2011, Family film, Film, Jason Segel, Jim Henson, Kermit the Frog, movies, Muppets, Review, The Muppets
The Muppets proves that Jim Henson’s zany bunch of felt-skinned characters will indeed live on. With “The Muppet Show”, Henson brought a welcome off-kilter perspective to humor complete with star hosts. With The Muppet Movie and future films, Henson used that humor as a gateway to showcase tangible heart with its potent messages of friendship, camaraderie and the ability to achieve one’s dreams. Led by actor/writer Jason Segel, this revival reminds us why we love the Muppets so much in a story laced with regretful longing and time past. Its more serious themes follow through on the conviction that these characters mean something to people. Jason Segel’s assemblage is from start to finish a tangible labor of love that the audience can immediately feel and relate to. The highlights come from the songs by music supervisor Bret McKenzie, which contains no throwaways, and infectiously lingers with you for days after. “Man or Muppet” in particular is superb.
Admittedly, there is a struggle to maintain a balance between the wackiness and poignancy. Some of the jokes work splendidly, but a sizable chunk of them either don’t or fall somewhat short, throwing the axis of tone in favor of sentiment which threatens to take over the picture. Overall, it is steeped in Muppet tradition, and thus the film scores more hits than misses. Its heart is in the right place and that makes up for it not being quite the consistent work it could have been. Between the love and care radiating off of Segel, the music, and the invaluable presence of the Muppets themselves, who remain irreplaceably special creations, The Muppets serves as a much needed reminder of the world Jim Henson built.
Afterthought: There is a film in the Muppet franchise that I consider one of my ten favorite films. It is not the one you think. It’s a work I would defend to the death. Like so many, The Muppets mean quite a lot to me; four of the films I have seen countless times (we’re talking numbers in the hundreds) and the show remains a favorite. I am one of those saps that will, without fail, be brought to tears the second Kermit starts to sing. Something that felt really gratifying leading up to this film’s release was the excitement coming from the blogosphere. Granted, the film’s relentless and wildly achieved marketing helped with this, but a communal sense of appreciation for Henson’s work was felt across the board from everyone involved in making the film to the people anticipating it. And that aspect of it was just as wonderful to see as the finished product.
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Review: Retreat (2011, Tibbets)
12 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in 2011, Film Review Tags: 2011, Carl Tibbets, Chamber-piece, Cillian Murphy, Film, Jamie Bell, Retreat, Review, Thandie Newton, Thriller
IMDB summary: Kate (Thandie Newton) and Martin (Cillian Murphy) escape from personal tragedy to an Island Retreat. Cut off from the outside world, their attempts to recover are shattered when a Man (Jamie Bell) is washed ashore, with news of airborne killer disease that is sweeping through Europe.
An unexceptional chamber-piece thriller that never firmly realizes its inspired concept, Retreat falls short of its promise. In the too little, too late department, it takes a smart curve in its last twenty minutes that hooks with its dire connotations.
The actors here each bring their talent to the table, although I admit that this would have been much more engaging with older thespians Jason Issacs and David Tennant in the male leads, as was originally intended. Sadly, the three actors are servicing a screenplay that cheats the potential of its conceit, but they do a lot with flimsy conflicts and underwritten roles.
Most of the film hinges on the question of whether or not Jamie Bell’s character Jack is telling the truth; is there a virus wiping out the population? Must they border themselves up in their isolated former dream cottage, entirely shut out from communicating and confirming the information given to them from this sketchy lone source? Using the perspective of Murphy and Newton, their ignorance persuasively causes their all-too conscious confinement by their cottage construct that previously gave them comfort in the early days of their marriage. That’s a lot of C’s. They are being held in by a place where the cut off location was once considered a winning factor.
But getting back to the matter-at-hand, the question of whether or not Bell is telling the truth never becomes a question for us. Even if one hasn’t seen the trailer, it is immediately clear that Bell is steeped in deception. Retreat would be much more varied and potent had Jack been first presented with less menace and more affable but desperate victim. Then, his threatening nature would show itself as the film progresses before shifting into the finale, which presents information that very much changes how we view Jack and his actions up until that point. This way, there would have been three different modes and functions for Bell’s character. Instead, his immediate menace cements itself into a tired dynamic between the three characters, too redundant to take us anywhere interesting. Would it have duped the audience into believing Jack is telling the truth? Probably not, but Retreat, and all films, need to be able to make the ride interesting despite what the audience may or may not know from a basic plot synopsis or trailer.
Martin and Kate’s marriage is, you guessed it, on-the-rocks, in a flat-out weak subplot that is meant to intermittently mesh with the primary conflict. It takes appropriate time to establish their interplay, which chugs along with internal domestic strife. It plays like a first-draft set-up by screenwriters Janice Hallett and Carl Tibbets, done out of first-act obligation. Do we care? No. Does it matter? No. Desperately keeping the couple’s turmoil afloat, Jack throws out insinuations that question Martin’s manhood and dominance within his marriage. This is Straw Dogs-lite kind of stuff; a tired manhood-ridden retread that goes nowhere and helps throw Newton’s character and performance into a cycle of implore, complain, attempt action and cry. Rinse and repeat.
Retreat is competently made by first-time director Tibbets and assuredly shot, taking advantage of the gorgeous Wales setting. It garners strong work from Bell and Murphy who do more than many actors would be able to with these roles, reminding us they are dependable sources of quality work. This is an example of a film I would want to be remade in twenty or thirty years. This could be a spellbinder one day if someone can extract and refine the ideas that are there. For now, we will have to settle for this average outing.
Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011, Durkin)
30 Sep 2011 7 Comments
in 2011, Film Review Tags: 2011, 2011 film, Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Movie Review, Review, Sean Durkin
Seen through Cinecache’s Free Preview Screening at Brattle Theatre on September 27, 2011
Originally posted on Criterion Cast September 29th, 2011
How far will people delude themselves in order to fulfill a desired sense of worth? Whatever leads Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) to believe that joining a cult in the Catskills is the best option for her, it is clear what keeps her there through the moment she decides to flee is the feeling of belonging somewhere. It is a misguided justification from a very confused and lost young woman, drawn in by a seemingly wholesome communal setting and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the wrongdoings she has surrounded herself with. That is, until her breaking point arrives and she realizes she has to get out.
Sean Durkin’s first film, surely one of the best debut features out there, explores Martha’s time in said cult, led by dangerous patriarchal figure Patrick (John Hawkes), and what happens after she flees. The film begins with her escape. She makes a call to estranged older sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) who picks her up. From there, Martha cannot acknowledge the ever-present societal disconnect she faces because she is lost inside her own head. She is unable to definitively distinguish past from present or past trauma from present safety. This inability materializes through Martha’s increasing paranoia and erratic behavior which becomes more and more worrying to Lucy and husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). They have been in the dark about Martha’s whereabouts for two years. Martha does not tell them about the cult, making her behavior even more perplexing to the couple.
The film moves back and forth between Martha’s life during and after her time in the cult (where she is renamed Marcy May by Patrick). Both sections of the film have a centered location where almost all of the scenes take place. In the Catskills, there is a farmhouse everyone lives in together complete with communal duties and shared space. Compare this to Sarah and Ted’s affluent Connecticut lake house getaway. The two parts signify wildly differing environmental parallels. They also highlight her struggle to belong in either. By the time she gets to Lucy’s house, her past experiences in the life she fled are so embedded within; her ability to function with a sense of normality is compromised.
While the two lifestyles contrast each other greatly to the audience, Durkin forces Martha’s jumbled perspective at us through the disorienting fluidity between time periods. Martha’s mental state is a mess, and we experience her jumbled perception of time where all experience and trauma coexist. Thus, the camera focuses close on Martha enough for it to take time for the audience to discern which time we are in. This structure proves how much can come of fiddling with narrative. Everything we see means that much more through parallel storytelling. Martha’s inner psyche is transferred to the audience and there is an even more layered characterization through the juxtaposition and how segments are thematically paired together.
In case it is not clear by now; I loved this film. It is unsentimental and harrowing. It is a sin to have gone on this long without mentioning Elizabeth Olsen who carries this film into another realm. In her cult scenes she plays a woman eager to be a part of something, so much so that she discards common sense and allows herself to take part in some truly unsettling activities. Olsen shows layers of conviction, susceptibility and hesitancy through an additional heavy layer of necessary ambiguity. Post-cult Olsen displays societal disconnect beautifully with her bluntness, immaturity and more importantly her train wreck of a mental state. We are inside of her head and yet she remains distant from the audience. We feel her paranoia but cannot break through. It is a performance that has been rightly hailed across the board; simply put, she nails it.
In a reliably impressive supporting turn, John Hawkes is menacing; we are taken in by him even though at the outset it is clear he is dangerous. He convinces as someone who presents his ideology as persuasive common sense. He manipulates on the basis that the people around him get their sense of self-worth from him. And we buy that Hawkes as a figure with this kind of power.
The film is first and foremost a character study and a hell of a lot can be said about Martha. As the title clearly states, this is someone going through a serious identity crisis. In addition to her incapability to reconcile her past experience, she has no idea who she is in any way, shape or form. Her identity is in its infancy. This is really nicely shone through lingering ideology the cult’s influence has on her. There are several lines of dialogue by other characters that get reiterated by Martha on later occasions; it is clear she is incredibly naïve and cannot as of yet think for herself. The excessive flurry of near-delusional paranoia that takes her over is partly because she has too little assuredness as a human being to battle her increasingly unstable mental state.
There is something refreshing that Durkin does with his script, possibly even more so than the overall structure. An unchallenging film would have Martha begin attempts to abandon the cult after it is clear things are not as wholesome as she first thought. The film passes that point quite early on. We witness a disturbing event in the first third of the film and then watch Martha actively put the experience behind her. She allows herself to fall deep into a web of abuse, manipulation and subservience. As a character study, it says much about how alone and desperate she must be to belong if she accepts this situation upfront. As a script, it shows how unafraid Durkin is to distance the audience from relating to his main character in order to give us a much more compelling story. As a storytelling device, the groundwork for suspense exists through the thought; ‘If that won’t get her to leave, what will?” And so we bite our nails waiting for what is to come.
Martha Marcy May Marlene wisely uses elements of psychological thriller to function as overtones rather than letting it suffocate the character work, which in this case it likely would have. While the film wants us to question whether or not the looming danger Martha imagines post-cult has any backbone in reality, I never truly felt she was in danger. It becomes almost even more impressive that despite this, I was still on the edge of my seat because Martha’s paranoia becomes the audience’s paranoia. As we learn more about Martha’s experiences as Marcy May, her scenes at Sarah’s lake house fill up with more and more dread. By the end of the film, we are as tense as she is.
The characterizations outside of Martha tend to be on the broader side, particularly when it comes to Lucy and Ted. The parallels inherent in the juxtaposition say a lot. Yet Lucy’s characterization is hammered home a bit too overtly at times to allow us to see her as a human being, even though she is the only other character Durkin gives individual perspective to. The other character that takes the audience into explicit ‘okay we get it’ territory is fellow cult member Zoe (Louisa Krause). There are a couple of scenes that go too far with dialogue in showing the cult members’ universally skewed mindset. That mindset is inherent in the actions and there are a few statements that Zoe makes that are a bit much and are not needed.
Sean Durkin is one to watch out for. How many debut features are this refined? He uses all of the aspects of filmmaking to the utmost. In the post-cult scenes, Martha is often shot from behind reflecting her unyielding elusiveness with Lucy. One scene in particular, Lucy asks about a bruise on her ear. The conversation is presented mainly through audio, while the camera only lets us see the side of Martha’s face. The score is used for ever-present dread. In one scene where Martha has a troublesome outburst, the music swells in a chaotic wall of free-form noise representing her overwhelming inner chaos in that moment.
The cinematography by Afterschool’s Jody Lee Lipes is superb; quite possibly the most impressive of the year and at the very least my personal favorite. It is shot with a sullen ashen hue that evokes 1970’s cinema, hinting at sandy grain. There are so many ways a film could look visually and what Lipes comes up with here is something special.
Martha Marcy May Marlene disturbingly displays the susceptible nature of the mind and what mankind is capable of subverting through mutual groupthink. It is a complicated character study about a young woman unable to assimilate herself in any environment, and is left with heaps of traumas, sadly stubborn lingering ideologies and zero sense of self. She is a nearly broken being. Sean Durkin wrote and executed this story with staggering maturity. The complex characterization headlined by Olsen and the tension that instills the audience makes for a fearless film from a debut filmmaker.
