tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84067000826815766252024-02-21T14:07:53.596+11:00Daisy Chain RearrangedReflections on film, music, storytelling and more.MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-17782842663633679632015-01-05T09:51:00.002+11:002015-03-20T10:49:03.762+11:00... And Everything Nice: Part Six<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Say something nice, or nothing at all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the sixth instalment in a review of 2014 releases begun <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice.html" target="_blank">here</a> (the concept of 'everything nice' is explained), and continued <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-two.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-three.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-four.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/and-everything-nice-part-five.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Spoilers abound, large and small. I also clearly don’t apply too strict a notion of what “2014” is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mostly these review articles haven’t split the content along
genre lines, but as a few of the below were written, their common science
fiction background was apparent, so I gathered together any other releases from
the year from that broad church. Obviously a few have flitted by in earlier
articles – </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Snowpiercer, Mockingjay, Edge
of Tomorrow, X-Men, The Infinite Man, The Rover, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">even </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Under the Skin </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(closer to fairy tale or horror for me, but not far
off the tone of some literary sci-fi). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It’s interesting to see how this genre,
even more than superhero, is the basis of so much filmmaking modern filmmaking, and how similar the insecurities are. Technology will go too far, it will
make the individual null, remove free will, supersede, enslave. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Or it will fail, after the point where we have
become dependent on it. (Even </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Noah</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
was getting at this.) I can think of only one unambiguously positive vision of
technology among the below: Christopher Nolan’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interstellar. </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Even there, anti-technology concerns feature in the
plot (those early school-based scenes in particular), and the response to them
seems to be a kind modernist optimism that itself feels like a throwback.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Dawn of the Planet of the Apes</i></b><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Matt Reeves) – </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Rise of the
Planet of the Apes </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">followed in the spirit of Mary Shelley’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Frankenstein</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, ruminating on the dangers
of playing God in biochemistry, projecting them into a franchise that has
always proved a good carrier for insecurities. </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dawn </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">jumps the story ahead, and despite its sci-fi cloak, it’s the
nearest thing you’ll see to a western these days. (Genres tend not to die, but
when they do, they forward their concerns to others.) It’s a settlers-in-the-wilderness
western, with a weakened ragtag of humanity in place of the usual
colonists/settlers, and the flourishing ape culture in place of the indigenous
other. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There’s a nice inversion in that the colonists are striking
out from the West Coast rather than the East Coast, and they’re perilously
weak. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">War hasn’t begun yet, but it seems inevitable. Competing influences
within each culture are convinced of the necessity of war or peace between men
and apes. The story aspires to the tragic revelation even the best doves will
struggle to achieve a first-best world while hawks abide. Both hawks and doves
are more simplistic than they need to be here, but nonetheless I was moved by
the relationship between Jason Clarke’s character and Andy Serkis’s Caesar.
(There’s a beat of eye contact between the two towards the end of the film that
is a testament to the naturalism of modern special effects.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There’s a lot that works about this reinvigorated series,
and the aesthetics have moved even further in the right direction. The taste of
</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cloverfield </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">that comes mid-battle as
a tank is torn apart is a good example of the right camera angle raising the
stakes.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>These Final Hours</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Zak Hilditch) – More millennial fever than
sci-fi. It may not be intentional, but Lars von Trier’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Melancholia</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> felt like it might have been an inspiration,
particularly for the ending. (Although I guess there’s a broader tradition of
things like </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Road, On the Beach </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Last Night</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.) The team have done well
for their budget to give a sense of the end. The child actor, Angourie Rice, is
well directed. The choice of dilemma and the hero it was handed to seem to have
worked for audiences, going on IMDB comments. My thoughts were mostly with the
other side of the story: Zoe’s (Jessica de Gouw). That character needs
sufficient magnetic pull to bring the story back to her, so it’s no surprise her desire leaves
a stronger impression than that of the film’s protagonist. Australian cinema’s
commitment to the emotionally reticent male is strong, but I’m not sure his was
the right desire line to follow this time.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (James Gunn) – The year’s space opera,
and highly aware of it. It’s a team-formation drama as well – much like the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mission Impossible </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">films or most
forensic investigation TV. The fresh ingredients here are the characters, a blend
of loquacious, child comics (Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper) with humourless ‘straightmen’
(Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, and Vin Diesel). Diesel’s Groot character, reduced
to asserting his name at every line reading, is used well. There’s a nice
recurring idea that everyone in this universe, even the villains, want to be
taken more seriously, which works well for comedy, as there’s no shortage of
situations where self-images can be deflated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The film and its success reveal more than Disney’s
marketing prowess. Firstly, the most satisfying conflicts in a team drama are
amongst the team. Maybe the film needed Lee Pace’s character as a
McGuffin to test the team, but most of the appeal is in the friction – in
goals, personalities, and even diction – between the team members themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Secondly, the film is about as self conscious as they come. Brad
Bird’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Incredibles </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">came to mind
more than once. The script calls for an inspiring speech at the ‘lowest point’ to
stir team spirits where you wouldn’t be surprised if Chris Pratt’s character
said ‘if I can turn your attention to p75 of Blake Snyder’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Save the Cat</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">’. By the time Benicio Del
Toro’s camp middleman shows up (not a million miles from Michael Sheen’s equally
fey figure in </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tron Legacy</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">), we’re a
long way from the stony-faced approach to comic lore that often used to explain
the appeal of Christopher Nolan’s Batman saga (contrasted with Joel
Schumacker’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Batman and Robin</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">). But the
relatively rare commodity becomes valuable, and of late in this genre it has
been humour. Doubtless Warner-DC is hoping steely gravitas will be in demand
again before long, and if too many imitators chase the tail of </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Guardians</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> success, it will be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thirdly, one of the most distinctive elements of the film is
its use of 70s pop. There is a bit of Wagnerian heave-hoing in the underscore, but it’s the songs that seem to have made the stronger impression.
(Especially Redbone’s ‘Come and Get Your Love’.) They obviously support the
film’s self-conscious humour (particularly when they contradict what’s going
on), but Gunn goes beyond using it as mere adornment. Why this music is in this
story, and why it matters so much to Star Lord, is planted from the opening
scene, and (if I’m not mistaken) not resolved til the last. It’s the film’s
most personal arc, and perhaps it makes up a little for the fact that of all
the films in this article, this one has the least on its mind besides the
mystery that any of us get along with each other at all.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Upside Down</i></b><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Juan
Diego Solanas) – A more traditional ‘freedom from slavery’ sci-fi epic, with
class exploitation largely on its mind, and as earnest as </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Guardians </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">is cheeky. The aspect of this that most lingered with me
was the visualisation of the two worlds meeting, sometimes in the macro scenes,
but in particular in the close quarter encounters. An office, where a row of
desks with upside down workers on the roof match those on the floor. The images
never fail to be counterintuitive. If ever Christopher Priest’s </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Inverted World </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">is put to images,
instincts will prove a good starting point.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Interstellar</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Christopher Nolan) – We can probably thank this
film for endeavouring to ensure that a few more minds out there can relate to
relativity theory. Dylan Thomas’ estate probably appreciates the attention too.
There’s a coming cohort of quantum physicists inspired by this film that’ll
have at least one line of poetry to muse on as they spend millennia
transcribing the quantum data of their broken watches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are some interesting things going on in this film. I
can’t recall seeing a film of its sort intercutting scenes of unrelated
energies and events before, and I’d be interested to see if that pattern of
scene alternation (which really starts with Jessica Chastain’s first
appearance) is there in the screenplay or is, as it feels, an experiment that
began in the editing room to balance narrative momentum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The grain of the
imagery, particularly in the spaceship, also has a unique feel to it (quite unlike </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Gravity </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Prometheus</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">) – could that be the elusive look of film?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The emphasis Nolan gives to music in his filmmaking is also
heartening to see in an era where that tool is often employed timidly or
haphazardly.</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The second striking work
of Hans Zimmer’s team this year (after </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Spider-man
2</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">) is a potent brew of glistening electronics, Straussian violin melodies,
organ arpeggios and col legno strings. The fresh ingredients distinguish the work from the Zimmer
tricks that make so many films indistinguishable. If not his
most interesting musical smorgasbord since </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Thin Red Line, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">it’s at least his strongest since </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Inception. </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">F</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or the album alone, I’m grateful for the film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The music’s relationship to the imagery is as striking as
its character. Few scores play through action as relentlessly as they do here. At moments, the serene parallelism of </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2001</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">’s indifferent music is within reach. (How striking the moment
when a tiny ship floats through space to piano chords made equally small by
reverb.) At other times it’s the more heated melodrama of Pino Donaggio in a
Brian DePalma setpiece – more the driver of story than the accompaniment, and
not all of these avoid haphazardness. (McConaughey’s departure sequence, or the
build-up to Matt Damon’s betrayal, are about as close to running the show that
a film score can get short of turning off the pictures altogether.) I’m not
sure I can quite trumpet the choice to position some dialogue on the knife-edge
of audibility. There’s more than one reason why nobody objects to that choice
in </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2001</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, and few of them apply here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The strongest musical ideas for me are the simplest. The
ticking of col legno strings renders the tense moments unique among recent
spectacles. The build-up to the complete break of sound in ‘Imperfect Lock’ was
the film’s most memorable moment for me, as is the swelling organ chord in the
following sequence (‘No Time for Caution’). And the simple organ melody, first
present in ‘Cornfield Chase’ and later central to ‘Stay’ and ‘Quantifiable
Connection’, lend the film’s closing scenes an emotional heft for me that would
not have been there in their absence. Ironically these are the most
conventional moments of scoring within the film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is gratifying as well to see an attempt to weave a scientific
idea (or even the smattering of one) through a story, something that seems –
going on recent results – to be among the hardest dramatic feats in Western
filmmaking. And I’m not talking about the film’s solution to the theory of
everything, rather the setpieces and plot developments that communicate ideas
about space-time relativity and higher order dimensions. It visualises black
holes, neutron stars, wormholes, singularities and tesseracts. I wish the film
offered more than a smattering of thought, that the film’s form didn’t
continually work against its themes, that ideas were shown at least as often as
they were told, and above all, that the drama was as emotional for me as it
seemed to be to the frequently-teary characters. But I did appreciate that the film
set-up an explanation for Rust Cohl’s cosmic epiphany in the finale of </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">True Detective. </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It’s a rare film that
not only explains not only all of its own mysteries, but those of others too.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Transcendence</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Wally Pfister) – Sometimes you miss the memo on
what makes a film so bad, and so I felt when I finally saw this film. I can
actually see why Nolan himself eyed this as a project – in some ways it’s more
suited to his sensibilities than </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Interstellar
</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(which has a few strong legacies of Spielberg’s involvement)</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It’s true there’s a lot that doesn’t
quite work here. What I think works about it is that it’s a love story at
heart, with shades of Orpheus (Rebecca Hall) and Eurydice (Johnny Depp).
Rebecca Hall’s character wilfully commits the error of denying death its prize
(or does she fall for the impression of life?), and because of it, much more
will be lost. She’s also Mina Harker by the end, joining her lover in both
death and what might lie beyond it. Paul Bettany makes a good Jonathan Harker,
although I can’t say the same for Morgan Freeman as Van Helsing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In between, the scenes of Hall in the love nests built by
Caster’s digital avatar (Johnny Depp) have a beautiful ambivalence about them.
(It says everything about this film that it spends more time dramatizing her
bedtime manner than it does showing the FBI’s late film machinations.) Perhaps
I’m the rare romantic soul that can survive the high concept conditions and
find something to like here. For everyone else, perhaps the year’s other
singularity romance – </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Her </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">– is more
your cup of tea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Working the death of Alexander Litvinenko into the scenario
was a nice touch. It’s probably the closest we’ll see to the Michael Mann
project on that assassination that Depp was intended to star in. (Although
possession of polonium bullets renders the film’s neo-Luddite terrorists even
more incongruous.) The position of the FBI by the end is interesting dramatic
territory – shades of the Waco siege – although the filmmakers play the
authorities as more heroic than makes sense. By the end of the film the whole
scenario feels more like a war of religious factions, also an interesting
choice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On the decorative side, the screenplay (as edited) seemed to
get the balance right between verbal and visual exposition, and for most of its
length, moved quickly past places I expected it to settle into others. The plot
unfolds with visual economy, and a strong sense of what an image can say. Fades
to white, planar layers, and strong vanishing points within imagery repeatedly
feature in its arsenal. I can't entirely disapprove of a film so committed to montage editing (consider the climactic choice of Depp's character). And I like the circularity brought about by the
prologue – I doubt the closing images would be as resonant without it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By no means am I suggesting the film was without flaw, and
I’m probably projecting more into it than was there (a common weakness for sci-fi
viewers), but this is ‘everything nice’ after all.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Next time around</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">,
we conclude the science fiction tour with </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Her,
Predestination, The One I Love </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">and </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Enemy.</i></div>
MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-45786704791280679702015-01-02T10:12:00.002+11:002015-01-05T09:52:55.151+11:00... And Everything Nice: Part Five<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Say something nice, or nothing at all. This is the fifth instalment in a review of 2014 releases begun <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice.html" target="_blank">here</a> (and here the concept is explained), and continued <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-two.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-three.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-four.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Spoilers abound, large and small. I also clearly don’t apply too strict a notion of what “2014” is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Ida</i></b> (Pawel Pawlikowski) – Few films in the last year require as
much active leaning forward on the viewer’s part. And the more knowledge you
can bring to fill in the many ellipses of the story, the better. Some basics on
the shifting positions of Jews, the Church and socialism in twentieth century
Poland won’t go astray. A bit of background in the films of Bresson and Dreyer
wouldn’t hurt either – this film will stoke the untended fires of their fans in
much the way Sorrentino’s <i>The Great
Beauty </i>could be called sustenance for malnourished Fellini fans. (Which is
not to speak ill of either film.) By the time art film’s favourite Bach
selection – BVW 177 – is needle-dropped, as ever a superb formal signal that a
film is coming to a close, cinephiles of the right generation should be amply
wooed. With time, everything becomes fashionable again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The aesthetic journey is unique amongst recent films. Stoic
use of the Academy ratio with ample ceiling room is a reminder of how rarely
filmmakers reach outside received wisdom of classical visual language. (We
might argue about what that open-top framing is about, but its ubiquity makes
it an essential, and beautiful, part of the package.) The central performances
of Agata Trzebuchowska (Ida) and Agata Kulesza (Wanda) place two different
acting approaches alongside eachother, and the effects can be felt in how we
attach to the characters. Ida is the Bressonian model <i>par excellence</i>, a Kuleshov face hungry for an image either side of
it, and even then we wonder what’s on that mind. Wanda is more complete in her
detailing and sense of inner life. It's no coincidence that viewers tend to consider this character, not Ida, as the film's richest. The discrepancy of depth in the two is well suited
to where this film wants to take both. (Perhaps there's something about the mentor-antagonist figure in coming-of-age stories in that.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If there is such a thing as visual storytelling, it’s
probably at its purest here. The sequences where Ida tries on her aunt’s shoes,
or her mid-film return to the convent, are exemplars of this. The soundtrack is
minimalist to say the least (and I don’t just mean the absence of music). Dialogue
is scant, and increasingly as the film progressed we’re asked to deduce what
must have happened, rather than witness it happen. This extends to what might
be considered the most important aspect of any narrative film – the evidence of
whether the world or characters have changed as events come to a close. There’ve
been some strong coming-of-age / personal growth narratives in European art
film these last two years – <i>Beyond the
Hills </i>and <i>Blue is the Warmest Color </i>among
them<i> </i>– but of those I’ve seen, Ida’s
growth is the most inscrutable. Has she been changed by what has happened
around her, or not? If you believe that the best surrogate is a palimpsest, Ida
is the girl for you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Night Train to Lisbon</i></b> (Bille August) – The anti-<i>Ida</i>? Merchant Ivory <i>Ida</i>? (These could be both positives and negatives depending on your
tastes.) If <i>Ida </i>is committed to
inferring events with the barest of dialogue, and edits that teach us to search
for what is left out, this adaptation of Pascal Mercier’s novel is more
committed to revealing its secrets through dialogue setpieces. But unlike <i>Ida</i>, this film will verbally fill in any
historical gaps you might have about post-war Portuguese history, so you can
lean back in your chair a bit more. And it’s a strong cast, reminiscent of
Euro-pudding glory days. Irons makes much of a role that could have been played
like Ida – an inscrutable listener – but which probably would have harmed this
film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the strongest ingredients is Annette Focks’s score, a
classical epic score appropriate to our bombast-shy era. (Maurice Jarre by way
of Rachel Portman, you could say.) She gives melodic presence to the ghosts and
secrets that the film slowly unveils, and when the truth is set free, you can
feel it in her arrangement of the main theme. The ‘piano scene’ (viewers will
know it when they see it) is a nice example of how easily score and diegetic
music can – at a moment’s notice – switch places and serve as the other.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>The Edge of Tomorrow</i></b> (Doug Liman) – A coward dies a thousand
deaths. While this original sci-fi property has an interesting collection of
symbols (World War II feels like the last significant war that happened), it
offers something few of Cruise’s starring vehicles have offered: using that
stunning smile as the shield of a coward. Somehow Cruise as snaky coward is
more believable than Cruise the Innocent (his last sci-fi dabble, <i>Oblivion</i>), Cruise the Deadbeat (<i>War of the Worlds</i>) or Cruise the Griefstricken
(<i>Minority Report</i>).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Perhaps the only shame here is that more isn’t made of the
personality clash that should exist between a marketer in soldier’s clothing
and Emily Blunt’s Joan of Arc figure, particularly the comic possibilities. The
thousand deaths are inventively mapped, but was he a coward for enough of them?
By the time he makes a good woman of Joan of Arc, the terrain has regularised
into something a bit blander than what it could have been. (But I forget
myself. This isn’t entirely nice.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A lot of what works and doesn’t work here is useful for
anyone writing a replay structure to study (e.g. <i>Run Lola Run</i>) - something that will become more importance as more films emerge from video games and those that play them. It’s less repetitive than you’d think, given the
premise, and in part that’s a function of the amount of story ground it needs
to cover. The film also has a ton of exposition to convey about its world, and
the opening faux news montage does an impressive amount of heavylifting.
(Although a later verbal exposition dump flew a little more over my head.) And
there’s got to be something said about getting the most out of your shots. Has
any film this year more frequently referred to one of its images than the way
this film returns to Emily Blunt, transitioning in slow motion out of a plank
position into a cobra stretch?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Tracks</i></b> (John Curran) – The filmmakers’ commitment to rendering
ethereal the journey of Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) across some of
Australia’s most punishing terrain cannot be doubted. (I’ve experienced
Australia’s inner challenges only in the lightest possible sense, and it’s a
truly transformative art that can make those conditions ethereal.) I was struck
by the clear direction of the film’s soundtrack’s composition – both in the use
of Garth Stevenson’s New Age compositions and the delicate sound design
arranged around them. If the film consistently moves away from gritty immersion
towards a different sense of time and place, it’s in that soundtrack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You don’t watch this film for the drama, nor for stoicism.
Its handsome aesthetic journey is almost reason enough to take the trek. The
shift of colours from red to orange to brown to white and finally blue, as Davidson
disappears into a frame of aqua, is carefully plotted and achieved. Our
surrogates are amenable enough that human interest isn’t forsaken either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There is a scene that has always made it into a class of
mine. The opening montage distils the essentials of the narrative, planting the
idea that Davidson’s famous journey began with a pivotal parting in her
childhood. We tilt up from a passing child’s feet to see, far away, the shape
of a growth woman running into a desert heat shimmer, her footsteps coagulating
into the shunting of a train. And then, in one of the loveliest cuts of 2014,
we find ourselves in the now, looking at the face of a dog, sitting on a train.
And then we meet our protagonist, asleep on a train, still facing in the
direction she was running. That’s what film can do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Mood Indigo</i></b> (Michel Gondry) – I’m told I’ve seen the shorter
version of this film. Even then, it’s a film that will try your patience by the
end, but that’s by no means a reason not to see it. There’s a madcap,
uncontainable visual energy to Gondry. True, it rarely sees you through a whole
film, but if it means 40 minutes of excellence before diminishing returns set
in, there’s no shortage of nice trinkets to meditate on. The whirlwind romance
section is giddy and inspiring, even if the slide to despair is too linear and
emphatic to work. Almost every scene is alive with visual trickery that
suggests another path cinema might have taken if we hadn’t gotten so hung up on
making special effects integrate naturalistically with other narrative
elements. The cocktail of Etienne Charry’s score and Duke Ellington selections
helps with both the giddy magic (the former) and the sense that beneath the
hullaballoo, something real is in contention (the latter).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Under the Skin</i></b> (Jonathan Glazer) – Did I say Ida was the most
inscrutable character of 2014? Allow me to politely withdraw that statement.
(Just kidding, I think Scarlet Johansson’s arc is more apparent here. ;) )
Despite all the talk of this film’s opacity, it seemed to me if you just looked
at what was happening, it was fairly apparent. Because we’re held at an
emotional remove for some time from the main character, the film relies on
negative capability more than most. <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">I found its twist on fairy
tale motifs thought provoking, and the fate of the main character enough of a
payoff to the journey.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The fusion of filmmaking styles – observational, almost
candid camera sequences alternating with the most abstract of effects-augmented
imagery – is fascinating. <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">Nobody makes movies this way, and that can't
help but affect the way it comes across. While master craftsmen shoot HBO
coverage in IMAX, this filmmaker is searching for a new way to look at a story.
Highlights include the opening sequence (sort of a modern of <i>Persona</i>) and the layering of
observational footage over itself mid-film to form Johansson’s spectral
likeness.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #262626;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #262626;">Mica Levi’s compositions come from another place
to most film scores. They’re not an instrument of empathy, or not at first anyway.</span><i style="color: #262626;"> </i><span style="color: #262626;">They rumble away orthogonally to the
film, as strident as Johnny Greenwood’s </span><i style="color: #262626;">There
Will Be Blood</i><span style="color: #262626;">, but even more resistant to familiar forms and emotions.
We’re well past the halfway mark by the time the music lets us in, and it’s not
until Scarlet herself has begun to thaw. The fusion of the composition ‘Love’
with its accompanying sequence works largely because of the distance we’ve been
held at for so long, feeling cathartic in comparison.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I like to think of the film as a fairy tale told from the point of view of
a character that would normally be the ‘nameless other’ that we fear. <span style="color: #262626;">It’s telling that it takes a ‘monster’ amongst humans to
draw her out of her predatory pattern. And once capable of empathy,
she weakens. The pitiable image of seeing her suffering a medieval fate –
practically tarred and burned at the stake, like so many women before her –
ultimately moved me.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #262626;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #262626;">Part 6 follows <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/and-everything-nice-part-six.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span><br />
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MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-79934658623178237472014-12-31T20:30:00.000+11:002015-01-02T10:14:17.035+11:00... And Everything Nice: Part Four<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Say something nice, or nothing at all. This piece continues the review of 2014 releases begun <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and continued <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-two.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-three.html" target="_blank">over here</a>. Spoilers abound, large and small. I also clearly don’t apply too strict a notion of what “2014” is.</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Place Beyond the Pines</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Derek Cianfrance) – Generational sagas come few and far between, so it’s refreshing to see one ably pulled off within a
manageable length. See this one to witness how to pass the protagonist baton
not just once but twice within the same film. The first handoff in particular stands
out, as the film’s two top-billed actors share a beat of eye contact
moments before one exits the narrative for good. Also worth noting is the use
of the forest location to gather in the sprawling timeframe. Seemingly
incidental at first, the woods gather force as the years roll on, witness to a
history the characters themselves are often unaware of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prisoners</i></b> (Dennis Villeneuve) – If transcendent horror
pushes beyond fear of a monster and finds the monster within the fearful, Hugh Jackman’s
arc in particular fits the bill ably. Johannes Johannssen’s score – taking Arvo
Part as its starting point – is a model of how to raise the stakes of a film to
the highest possible concerns, rising beyond the bumps and stings of a thriller
to strengthen the film’s emphasis on the spiritual. The union of his music with
Roger Deakins’ golden light in the candlelit vigil makes that sequence and the
chase that follows one of the strongest in 2014 cinema. The closing beat of the
film similarly leaves an impression. What a beautiful sound idea that whistle
in the dark proves to be, ending the film on the cusp of a moment that – as
much as we want to see, we’re better left anticipating, fearful that it might not have come to fruition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Room 237</i></b> (Rodney Ascher) – It’s said that the paranoid are
rewarded for their faith with evidence that the world is as bad as they believe. If
nothing else this film proves (via extremes) how two-sided the film-audience
dialogue is. No film’s meaning is independent of the viewer, or at least not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shining</i> in any case. Much could be
said of the fine line between evidence furnishing and parody that this film’s
editing straddles. It allows us to entertain the possibility that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shining</i> essayists are actually onto
something, while leaving the door wide open for us to laugh at the
ridiculousness of their theses. (Why not have a cake <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> eat it?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A personal anecdote that proved the film’s point.
Interrupted late film by a phone call, I found myself explaining Heisenberg’s
‘uncertainty principle’ over the phone in response to something my interlocutor brought up. I returned
to the film only to have the film conclude with an explanation of the same idea as its concluding thought. Coincidence? Surely not. Doors in the
house were double-bolted that night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Amazing Spiderman 2: The Rise of Electro</i></b> (Marc Webb) – Many
criticised this film as lacking a coherent narrative centre for its charming
romance to orbit. I saw a charming romantic centre around which a few marginally-coherent villains orbited. To me this was a nice change from the villain-antagonist
emphasis of the superhero form, and a sensible response to the perceived
strengths of its predecessor (romance strong; villain arc weak), even if it was
the unintentional outcome of a haphazard process. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not that the villains are a complete waste of time. The
visualisation of Electro is truly beautiful, and his first clash with Spiderman in Times Square a reminder that there is very little that can’t be rendered in today's visuals. The film
is also blessed with a rare traditional superhero score by Hans Zimmer’s team,
including a Vangelis-style theme for Spiderman and a bold (if not quite
revolutionary – don’t tell Hans) use of vocals for Jamie Foxx’s Electro. Between
this and </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Interstellar</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, Zimmer’s had a
striking presence in film this year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The film also contains one of my favourite associative edits
of late – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucy</i>’s animals
notwithstanding. The climactic struggle is situated amongst an abstract
cathedral of clocks, which collapse dramatically in slow motion around the
action. As a beloved character falls to their death, the stop of their falling
body is echoed with the collapse of a giant clock’s minute hand. Subtle it’s
not. Visual storytelling it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Saving Mr Banks</i></b> (John Lee Hancock) – Another film people were
dying to hate, and to be fair, portraying PL Travers (Emma Thompson) as
The-Grinch-who-wants-to-keep-you-from-the-Poppins-you-love isn’t likely to tilt
the audience towards the author. But biopics always play fast and loose with
the facts, and this isn’t so much about Travers as about the idea that artworks
inspire responses that often bemuse the artist. Fight as you might, once it’s
out there, it will be what people make of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Two beats stood out for me. When the Grinch arrives in
California, like all characters heading for a comic reduction, she’s full of opinions
about what she can’t stand about Americans, film producers and cloying,
animated musicals. Her first encounter with her antagonist, the Little Lord of
Magic (Hanks’ Walt Disney) thrusts her into everything she hates, and it’s hard
to suppress a smile at her suffering. The second beat is
stranger, and more sympathetic to Travers. As Disney’s Elves (the Sherman
Brothers) present Travers with their satirical song ‘Fidelity Fiduciary Bank’,
she recalls her shame at one of her father’s (Colin Farrell) drunken outbursts.
The intercutting of the song’s inception with Farrell’s public shaming is
eye-catching, tying the film’s two narratives together with striking energy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Part Five follows <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/and-everything-nice-part-five.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-41238023869506002732014-12-30T22:16:00.001+11:002015-01-02T10:36:15.340+11:00... And Everything Nice: Part Three<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Say something nice, or nothing at all. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This piece continues the review of 2014 releases begun </span><a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and continued </span><a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-two.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. The films covered here include some of the finer films of the year</span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and this may be a reach, but all of them place strong emphasis on unveiling narrative 'ghosts' (those backstory elements that surface as central to the story).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Notes: Spoilers abound, large and small. (Accordingly, some references border on cryptic.) I clearly don’t apply too strict a notion of what “2014” is. Even to other Antipodeans, several of the below will look like 2013 and 2012 releases. Finally, the positivity constraint need not apply to any who comment on this article.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Snowpiercer</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Bong Joon-Ho) – Truly if there’s an ‘uncanny
valley’ in 2014 cinema, it has to be this fusion of graphic novel aesthetics,
Marxist politics, environmental dystopia and setpiece-driven suicide mission. I
understand the disconnect more sensible minds experienced when they encountered
this, but after a week juggling fever and wine tastings (in Adelaide of all
places), the sweet notes outweighed the jarring chords. Cockroach protein bars;
sniffable narcotic fuel crystals; the ‘cutting of the fish’ as prelude to
slaughter; the circumnavigation salute; the </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">danse macabre</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> violin waltz as eggs are
circulated to one and all and bullets re-enter the narrative; the impossible glance
and firefight between the cars of a train arcing around a corner; Marco
Beltrami’s carrying of the Jerry Goldsmith flame. A
memorable ensemble too: great to see Song Kang-Ho (the beating heart of Bong’s </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Host</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">) used so well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All of these are decorative, and perhaps secondary to the
broader dramatic arc we go on with Chris Evans’ protagonist. The film takes
advantage of the assumptions we place on heroes like this, and this
blond-haired blue-eyed revolutionary has a monologue at the three quarter mark
that bloods the stereotype memorably. Revolution is not uncomplicated in this
world (even if the same can’t be said for what it’s attacking). Another
highlight is the ‘sound of the engine’ beat – I don’t know if the moment quite
worked (the metaphor is not so much mixed as naked), but I have to admire a
film that puts that idea at its climax. Such a film is more than a dumb action
movie.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Passe</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Asghar Farhadi) – There’s an older </span><a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/01/unlikely-detectives-le-passe-spoilers.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">post</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> on this blog
(lamentably incomplete) on how effectively Farhadi’s script utilises the
framework and beats of the detective genre. (Quite likely without any intention
of doing so, in much the same way his </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Separation </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ups-the-ante on the courtroom battle stories.) This was pitch
perfect filmmaking on every level. If we went into every thing it did right,
we’d be here all day. Some things to watch for: deep focus compositions that
allow the cast to breathe; realism without shakey-cam; an opening that
beautifully flags the issues ahead without the symbols showing too clearly; a discrete colour arc; the
metaphorical setting (a house mid-paintjob); great performances at all ages.
The most graceful touch of all: a style shift to formalism worthy of Bresson as
we finally meet the ghost whose unhappy wake we’ve witnessed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Farhadi already showed in </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Separation </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">that he doesn’t need bad guys to generate dramatic
conflict, and that instinct shows in his crafting of the characters. The
film consistently turns left when other films would turn right. (Take the
unease we naturally feel when Ahmad – Ali Mosaffa – is left in the care of
children not his own, and how it’s subverted by what a natural Ahmad is with
the kids.)</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Perhaps the ablest hattrick
is the passing of the ball between protagonists over the course of the film.
Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) is the right perspective to bring us into this world, and
when others take over the torch to lead us to the self-revelation, most viewers
will never notice that it’s happened.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gone Girl</i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (David Fincher) – Whoever said ‘a couple is a
conspiracy in search of a crime’ might have been thinking about a story like
this. Many films blend genres together effectively. Few pass the ball
entirely from one form to another, and seeing it done well is reason enough to see this. Here the genre baton is
passed from the most poe-faced of forms, thriller/crime, to the least sincere,
social satire, both well suited to the feeling of emotional detachment
Fincher’s films often convey. Many staples of satire appear in memorable forms
– the preacher whose teachings leave us outraged (Anna Ratajkowski); the
innocent who exits the stage screaming at the insanity of the system on our behalf (Carrie
Coon); the sardonic trickster who knows better than to expect sane results
(Terry Perry).</span></div>
<div style="color: black; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Perhaps the characterisation most native to satire is
that of Amy (Rosamund Pike). We can lament that the film tilts sympathetically
towards Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) – Amy’s psychotic status nullifying most of
her criticisms of him – or we can relish the film’s awe of this impressive
antagonist. When she wanders up that garden path, drenched in blood, and her
husband insists on a naked shower with her for his own safety, I could only
smile, and it took a while before I stopped. You have more to fear than the
safety of your bunnies with this partner in crime.</span></div>
<div style="color: black; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I’m not sure the film tears marriage apart. Rather it seems to be saying that even under absurd circumstances, it's necessary for survival. That theme is written all over that ending, but perhaps the strongest hint is in
that mid-film encounter Amy has with trailer park America. It takes two to take
on the world, and when she gets that math wrong, even this superwoman is vulnerable.</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Homesman </i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(Tommy Lee Jones) – SPOILERS (worse than usual) -
I don’t know that I really appreciated what Alfred Hitchcock pulled off in </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psycho</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, ripping out the protagonist
without killing the film, until I saw this adaptation of Glendon Swarthout’s
novel. True, this is a double journey (between Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee
Jones), so the loss of a key character is mitigated somewhat, but it’s the more
important character that we lose, and I had no hint that it was coming. The way
the film carries on despite that loss perhaps is not so surprising – from early
on some truly disturbing images are laid out in so casual a manner that we see
these moments for what they are, rather than the melodramatic value they’d
normally bring to a story. The time jumps are handled similarly, the kinks are
somehow abrupt, yet not – perhaps influenced by Jones’ collaboration with
Guillermo Arriaga (</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Burials</i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There are deep ironies in this material. That the same behaviours
exhibited by women and men will be seen as madness in the former and strength
in the latter. That figures of strength might fall to depression more readily
than more obviously fragile cases. And as far as prize-worthy final images go,
this film has a beauty. A drunken man tries to lose himself in revels and gunplay as he drifts across a river into darkness. It caps off a strangely ambiguous final scene that seems to be saying that the redemptions so many films offer us are not possible here. (What makes it an ambiguous scene is that we don't have a character revelation to experience this through. Normally films use empathy with a character's learning as a way to tell us what they're trying to say. Our point of view is separate to anyone else's in the scene. Truly perhaps this is what is meant by 'letting the audience discover something for themselves', although the risk is that discovery is less assured.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Marco Beltrami does lovely work in a folk-hymnal idiom, connecting to the time and mourning the disappointment of its ideals.</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Rover </i></b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">(David Michod) – I suspect one’s enjoyment of this
film depends on foreknowledge of the destination. If you know where it’s going,
as I did, the title becomes an apt pun, and more importantly, the protagonist’s
desire line becomes a lot less opaque. Brooding silences take on a clear
subtext, someone’s motivation becomes clear, and seemingly unrelated
environmental details – the way dogs bark in the background as Guy Peace’s
anger comes to the fore, or a brief glimpse of a dog shelter – point towards
the film’s unstated ‘ghost’. Without that knowledge, you’d assume more was
going on than is, the coda would be a letdown, and the film would have to stand
on its decorative merits. (Which are considerable, starting with that seamless
shift from metal-popping opening underscore to the sound atmosphere of the
opening scene.) Fortunately that experience wasn’t mine, and I appreciated
Michod’s slow but limited unveiling of this dystopian society.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Part 4 follows </span><a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-four.html" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-46826690252558264262014-12-22T05:15:00.001+11:002014-12-31T17:42:22.353+11:00... And Everything Nice: Part Two<div class="MsoNormal">
Say something nice, or nothing at all. This piece continues
the review of 2014 releases begun <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com/2014/12/and-everything-nice.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The films covered here include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mockingjay, </i>Cannes favourite <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Force Majeure, </i>and the duelling Oscar
bait biopics, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Imitation Game </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Theory of Everything.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Notes: Spoilers abound, large and small. (Accordingly, some
references border on cryptic.) I clearly don’t apply too strict a notion of
what “2014” is. Even to other Antipodeans, several of the below will look like
2013 and 2012 releases. Finally, the positivity constraint need not apply to
any who comment on this article. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Best Offer</i></b> (Giuseppe Tornatore) – It’s a strange
alternative universe of wealth, classical elegance, and ubiquitous art that
Tornatore and his collaborators build as the setting for this modern noir
thriller. Another of 2014’s great <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acousmetre</i>s
lies at the heart of the film’s mystery, and unlike the other two (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Her, The Lunchbox</i>), the unveiling of the source of the voice of Claire Ibbetson (Sylvia Hoeks) is critical to the story. From a voice on the
phone, to one on the other side of a door, to a visual presence whose lips
finally speak, few character introductions were as carefully attenuated in
recent film as this one.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many relate how moved they were by Tornatore’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cinema Paradiso</i>. (A film I saw for the
first time within a week of seeing this one.) For me this tale of a proud man's humbling was far more moving. Largely this comes down to the role as
written and the work of Geoffrey Rush, but the performance has sway in part
because of the strength of the audio-visual work around it. A brief example. There’s
a scene early on where Virgil (Geoffrey Rush) luxuriates in a hidden vault with his life's work – portraits of women by many artists, in many styles, gathered illegitimately by virtue of his position as a valuer. As Tornatore’s camera takes in the wall
of beauties, Ennio Morricone’s score offers us not so much a piece of music as
a space where female soli of different styles float through, carrying parts of
a long line melody. Virgil’s blindspot in relation to women, and his need for genuine
contact in this regard, have been unmistakeably communicated by the scene’s end,
without a word uttered. (The subsequent cut to the many young men who staff his
office serves to underline the point.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Hijacking</i></b> (Tobias Lindholm) – Much as I appreciate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Captain Phillips, </i>this film succeeds by
being everything <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Phillips </i>was not. If
the Greengrass film is about the timeframe of crisis that mobilises all
players, this is about the slower war of attrition that is likely involved when
the United States doesn’t take an active interest. There is no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pax Americana</i> to force a climax.
Corporate executives, consultants and a translator (employed by pirates) trade
gesture and counter-gesture without direct communication. There is no pulse-racing
ship-seizing setpiece. The inciting incident of piracy happens offscreen. The
effortless crosscutting that instantly communicates scene geography and stakes in Greengrass's film is gone. Instead, we’re often stuck on one side of a phone call, deprived of a
clear sense of the circumstances of what is happening in the other story branch. Violence is
rare, and comes without tense foreplay or catharsis. But the realist feel
Lindholm cultivates is much stricter than Greengrass’s more classical approach,
so when the violence does come, its implications are more keenly felt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Force Majeure</i></b> (Ruben Ostlund) – While few would describe the
film as a comedy, the chuckles of embarrassment that circulated my cinema spoke
to the way people identified with Tomas’s reduced stature as cowardly father. The rift that forms between Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) and his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli)
and children over a failure of valour lowers the man to a moment of emotional honesty
so embarrassing one can only laugh. The satire is broader than the role of the
father – few figures escape unscathed, and it's not exactly gentle ribbing at that.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The film is immaculate in its
direction. Ostlund crafts some truly uncomfortable frames for his characters to
squirm in. He applies a clear visual strategy that speaks to the story - from their first grinning moments in posed family portraits,
the family is pushed apart to separate focal planes and separate frames. (Only
Tomas’ meltdown brings them together again.) Much like the daily cycle suffered
by Roy Scheider in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All that Jazz</i>, the
repeated instrusions of avalanche guns and snatches of Vivaldi each new day
brings add a dash of malicious humour. And I love the landing where Tomas and
Ebba argue in their pyjamas, in plain sight of hotel cleaners – effective
use of place. What possibly elevates the film as a dissection of marriage over <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gone Girl </i>is the added pressure brought
by the presence of children, the absence of pulpy signifiers, and most
important of all, Ebba is a human being, rather than a psychopath.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her</i></b> (Ned Benson) – The
idea, of splitting a drama between two films, is certainly interesting. (Not
having seen them both, I can’t say whether the whole makes more sense than this
half.) One thing you can say for this film is its invested in its
characters and milieu (university town America), to the point where the
characters find the time to talk about the minutiae of life. Jessica Chastain
is the heart of this one as the title suggests, McEvoy a more tangential
presence. The supporting players are nothing if not distinguished (Isabelle
Huppert, William Hurt, Viola Davis, among others).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">12 Years a Slave</i></b> (Steve McQueen) – It will seem a small thing,
but the transitional rhythms of this film lingered in my memory. One in
particular: the sermon of a slave owner (Benedict Cumberpatch) interwoven
visually and aurally with the abuses of his farm manager (Paul Dano) and the
percussion of seed sowing. It’s a passage that’s indicative of the film. The
vision is not without its adornments. For all the praise of realism (and the
long, unfolding wide shots certainly bring that neutral observer feel during some
key abuses), I couldn’t help but feel the extent to which McQueen and his team
nudged the material towards dark fairy tale, or even horror story. You could be
taken in the night, have your identity stolen and toil ceaselessly as a slave
without hope of escape. That cacophonously percussive steamboat is a passageway
to another world. (The frequency with which reviews emphasized its metaphorical
import is telling.) The long shot on Solomon’s face as he leaves the plantation
is a nice stylistic answer to that earlier scene. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(What’s also interesting is
how forward the filmmakers were about the structural shift in the editing
process from linear-chronological to a loose flashback/storyteller structure.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Infinite Man</i></b> (Hugh Sullivan) – Not the first film this year to
fuse science fiction and love (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Her, I
Origins</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The One I Love</i> also
come to mind). The opening montage is full of potential, hinting at threads and
motifs both perplexing and inviting. The location – an abandoned hotel in a
desert, near an ocean – is appropriately cast for a romantic-comedic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last Year at Marienbad</i>. The premise (a
man, through science, tries to recreate the perfect weekend), and the first
narrative reset (of many), are thought-provoking.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Imitation Game</i></b> (Morten Tyldum) – Like many biopics, this
one utilises a detective structure (and even a detective) to find its way into
the life of Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberpatch). He’s an enigma, but fear not,
the film will decode him in time. The condensed arena in which that decoding is
achieved is worth noting – we don’t even meet the parents that are normally a
staple of this genre. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Two recurring features of this screenplay (as filmed) I
appreciated. Despite the stakes, and the sense of tragedy they want to build by
the end, scene after scene are advanced through comic beats. Turing, written
and played as Asperghers, is a machine comic, always under-emoting or fixating
to humourous effect.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The second feature is the layering of the film’s theme of
coded communication through all the story branches and relationships. A
code like Enigma could fall to Turing, but he forever struggles with the social
codes those are around him are fluent in. The theme extends to include both the
power and powerlessness that come with understanding a code. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A few more decorative observations. The time period switches
aren’t signposted, yet always apprent. At times I wish they’d allowed some
other aspects of the material (such as the all important birth of the computer,
or one particular oft-repeated line of dialogue) to speak for themselves. (But
I forget myself – that wasn’t entirely nice.) And Alexandre Desplat is incisive
as ever, his delicately orchestrated reserved arpeggios and ostinati seemingly
made for terrain like this. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theory of Everything</i></b> (James Marsh) – A tribute to filmmaking’s
ongoing commitment to the Noah’s Ark principle (two of everything, even biopics
of pivotal British intellectuals), this is a more sentimentally uplifting experience
than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imitation Game. </i>If that film was
a detective story, this is a love story, following the gravitational pull two
bodies (Steven and Jane Hawking, played by Edie Redmayne and Felicity Jones
respectively) continue to have on each other many years after first flirting
with each other’s orbits. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The theme of the awkward, essential marriage is never far
away in this film, whether it be the marriage of Steven (ever the teaser, ever
flexible in his assumptions) and Jane (sensitive and constant), of science and
faith, or quantum mechanics and relativity (those peas and potatoes). The
filmmakers should be commended for slipping in more than a few references to
Hawking’s area of expertise. Was the intercutting of the camping trip with the
opera melodramatic hokum, or an ingenious demonstration of the ‘spin’
proposition of quantum mechanics on a level more easily understood? I also
appreciated the closing nod to Hawking’s oft-employed thought experiment of
reversing time, applied here to the narrative universe. (Appropriate to
Hawking’s theory, the endpoint is not the inciting incident, but the point of
no return, since his Big Bang was preceded by a Big Crunch.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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More decorative thoughts. Redmayne’s gormless smile is hard
to resist, as is Jones’ patience and vulnerability. Johan Johannson’s score
finds ways to fall in empathetically behind the characters – in particular
during the croquet game, and the melodrama of their third child’s christening. The
imagery of Steven and Jane struggling with domestic life has a more real air
than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Imitation Game</i>’s mise-en-scene
(and I’m not just talking about the faux home video material that bridges
narrative movements), although perhaps that’s quibbling over shades of
classicism. (The film softens the experience of Lou Gehrig’s disease if only by
cutting out the boring bits.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1</i></b> (Francis Lawrence) – It
was brave of the filmmakers to retain the highly subjective point of view of
the book. (It must have been tempting to violate it.) This series also shines
over all other comers in its genre in the strength of its casting, with
Julianne Moore a worthy addition here. Many have concentrated on the fact that
the source material shouldn’t have been cut in half, and the film doesn’t entirely
prove them wrong, but the filmmakers have done a nice job of creating a new
climax through intercutting of the commando assault with the dialogue between
Snow (Donald Sutherland) and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence). After so singular a
narrative point of view, the parallel cutting here instantly introduces
tension. Lawrence has a good sense of shaping an image system to a film – note
the realignment towards symmetrical framing in the final shots as gesture of
completion. (The same tactic closed the equally unresolved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catching Fire</i>.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many of the tale’s commendable features come from the
underlying novel, but they’ve made it to the screen well. The rebellion of
District 13 is more complicated than the usual jingoistic freedom movements
that pop up in these tales (e.g. everything from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Total Recall</i> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Braveheart</i>).
This is closer to Borges’ ‘Theme of the Traitor and the Hero’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the seemingly superficial terrain of
celebrity culture continues to be the proving ground for success, now that
Katniss is not only far from the Games, but removed from the authority of
Panem, is supremely ironic. Few films foreground the ironies of acting and
performance credibility as much as this series, best summed up in a scene where
a number of deconstruct Katniss’s performance in studio-based propaganda
videos. It’s nice to see ‘The Hanging Tree’ musical number made it. It’s one of
the film’s highlights.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I Live Now</i></b> (Kevin McDonald) – The title is the last line of
the film’s voiceover. It marks the end of what proves to be a momentous character
journey. There are shades of Peter Watkins’ scenario in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The War Game </i>here<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> war
positioned in the wings of a young American’s coming of age narrative. (Cate
Shortland’s film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lore </i>comes to mind
also.) As played by Saoirse Ronan, Daisy’s indignant, insistent, self-loathing
and fearful, qualities that have all convincingly been softened by tale’s end.<br />
<br />
I
appreciated the symmetry between the first act and the closing movement. We
start with a young woman, with all the confusions the beauty and health
industries can impact, coaxed out of prickly reticence by the eldest of her
cousins. We end with position reversal, she now the coaxer, trying to draw a
shellshocked young man back to life. It’s a moving transition, and while Daisy
is a world away from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hunger Games’ </i>Katniss
in personality, it will be interesting to see how many register the similarity
of destination when that film series comes to a rest in 2015. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s a nice arc in use of the voices in the soundtrack:
from the cacophonic voices of admonition at the opening that keep her from
participating in the pastoral life of her more expansive cousins, to the
mature, reflective internal voiceover with which she closes the film. The
midsection – in particular that strange dinner scene – is genuinely surreal,
and speaks to the believable universe the film constructs.<br />
<br />
Part 3 of ‘Everything Nice’ follows <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-three.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-31971823924015865132014-12-19T17:42:00.001+11:002015-01-05T09:53:39.275+11:00... And Everything Nice<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s often said: if you can’t say something nice, say
nothing at all. This constraint would halt many a film pen, and probably my own,
perhaps because the analytical temperament tends to be more incisive about
acute flaws than general strengths. My enthusiasm is rarely unguarded, and my
derision rarely allows room for a saving grace. If a film is good, it would
have been better if only for ‘x’; if a film is bad, there was nothing good
about it. (And occasionally, if a film is great, we’ll not hear a bad word said
about it.)<br />
<br />
But film is a form of many levers, many moments. It
shouldn’t be too hard to find something nice to say about even the least of
them. Perhaps the constraint – ‘speak well, or not at all’ – will free us up to
emphasize the elements that do work. It could be as simple as a shot, a music
cue, an edit, a line of dialogue, a dramatic situation or a theme. It would be
an unworthy film indeed that taught us nothing at all about the form, or contained no single positive demonstration of why film continues to capture our imaginations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
We’ll start with a handful of the titles I saw in 2014. (Yes,
there are more of these to come.) Notes: Spoilers abound, large and small. (Accordingly,
some references border on cryptic.) I clearly don’t apply too strict a notion
of what “2014” is. Even to fellow Antipodeans, several of the below will look
like 2013 and 2012 releases. Finally, the positivity constraint need not apply
to comments on this article. Say anything – it need not be nice, merely
on topic.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>Beyond the Hills </i></b>(Cristian
Mungiu) – A social horror story, a tragedy of people and systems, and a
convincing portrait of character change, as the nervous Voichita takes on
Alina’s fearlessness. That change in character aspect is evident in much of the
film’s form, not least the journey from the fretful handheld overshoulder shot
that opens the film to the controlled slow zoom that closes it. The film’s
realism is key to the accumulating sense of foreboding, and it’s very different
to the kind of realism we’ve. And it’s an elegant realism – showcasing
restricted point of view, open frames, long takes and precise deep focus
staging that belies its unchoreographed feel. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>The Lunchbox</b> </i>(Ritesh
Batra) – A true city film: loneliness is the only constant, intimacy is only
possible with strangers, and what little solace can be had is transient. As
strong as it all is, the pleasure is in the detail. The gentle humour of
manners (‘the food was too salty today’). The mental image of a man standing in
his grave. The food. And 2014’s nicest use of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">acousmetre</i> character in Ila’s unseen ‘aunty’ (apologies to
Spike Jonze). In the spirit of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the
Mood for Love </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brief Encounter, </i>sharing
their affinity for social texture.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>The Immigrant</b></i>
(James Gray) – It’s nice to see Todd Haynes isn’t the only modern American filmmaker interested in bringing back the melodrama. As monstrous
antagonists go, Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix) is a fascinating, broken human. The final
frame, of diverging character paths, is worthy of a mise-en-scene class.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>X-Men: Days of Future
Past</b></i> (Bryan Singer) – A great reworking of the graphic novel into blockbuster form, using Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as the fish out of water. More than any of its series so far, this film
tapdanced in showing off the mutant powers of its characters. One of these
moments was a lovely theatre moment, as a crisis allows the powers of Quicksilver
(Evan Peters) to come to the fore. The appreciative noises that ripple around a
cinema when an audience knows what is about to happen (yet still manage to be
surprised) are great to hear. The demonstration is so effective, the film
had to shuffle the character offscreen shortly after, lest his gifts circumvent
all other remaining crises. Most of the other set pieces are less soloistic, each written to take optimal advantage of the impressive ensemble cast. (The opening battle, the Pentagon heist and the Paris Peace conference all come to mind.) The 'lowest point' moment, when Young Charles (James McEvoy) finds consolation in his future self (Patrick Stewart), is surprisingly moving, as is the outcome of Wolverine's quest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Begin Again</b></i> (John
Carney) – A nice twist on showing the same scene twice from different points of
view, managing to illustrate the difference between how most of us hear a
musician, and how a music producer might. The first performance of ‘Lost
Stars’, travelling through a video camera to the past, is moving. The same song, when it
emerges in a new incarnation for the finale, becomes the marker of story
change. Some would begrudge Carney shifting away from the realism of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Once, </i>but there’s something to be said for trying something he hadn't done before. (Arguably this film's romantic streak was anticipated in <i>Once</i>'s nighttime walking song number.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Non-Stop</b> </i>(Jaume
Collet-Serra) – The premise – ‘a plane passenger will die every 20 minutes or
else’ – is set up with the kind of skill that these films can’t live without.
When, at the twenty-minute mark, the first passenger does die, after a close quarter
fight in a toilet cubicle, it’s a surprisingly lean-forward moment. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Inside Llewyn Davis</b> </i>(Joel
+ Ethan Coen) – A film wrapped around a ghost, represented by the song ‘Fare
thee Well’. The shift in character of that song from first to final appearance
tells you most of what you need to know, but which the Coens are expecting you
to find for yourself. As with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Serious
Man, </i>interesting things are happening with structure here. (Another nice
twist on showing the same scene twice from different points of view.) The time
loop adds a sense closure to an episodic narrative, a sense of inevitability to
Llewyn’s final state, and generate empathy with one of recent cinema’s
pricklier protagonists. Kudos for the ‘Kuleshov cat’ subway scene.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Godzilla</b> </i>(Gareth
Evans) – The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are Dead </i>of monster films? While the monsters settle ancient accounts,
mankind cowers confusedly in the wings. The angle is a nice idea, done well.
Some of the details are striking too – the association between the ribbing of
Godzilla’s spine and the shape of the film’s mushroom clouds; the allegro of
the opening credits; the strangely serene climactic moment. (The latter two
enormously aided by Alexandre Desplat.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Lucy</b> </i>(Luc Besson) –
Scarlet Johannson has played the goddess more than once lately (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Her, Under the Skin</i>). Of the lot, Lucy
has the most visibly-apparent outward arc. But even the commitment she brings
to the film pales next to the film’s real pleasure: 2014’s greatest associative
edits. There’s not a lot of common ground between Nicholas Roeg and Luc
Besson, but intercutting predatory cheetahs with Lucy’s foyer scene
might have done it. I only wish the film had kept it up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><b>Grand Budapest Hotel</b></i>
(Wes Anderson) – If you find Andersonland amenable rather than irritating,
you’re never short on gestures to relish. Gustave and Zero, both the characters
and the characterisations (Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori and F Murray Abraham).
Boy with Apple. The concerto for footsteps that ends in four severed fingers.
The Society of the Crossed Keys – for which Desplat must be partly credited.
Lessons in comic framing in three aspect ratios, reminding us that frame shape
is more of a choice than most filmmakers make it. Lessons in instantly
communicating storyframe through style choices. The conclusion’s deft closure
of three of the film’s storytelling frames in half a minute is a feat of
punctuation. The film’s dramatic side is just as strong. Gustave’s rage and
subsequent shame after the prison break. More impressive: the elegiac endnote
the filmmakers find their way to after so much tomfoolery. In this picture-book
alternative Mitteleuropa, the heavy-hearted history of Europe is barely seen,
but not unfelt.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Parts 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this series follow <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-two.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-three.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/and-everything-nice-part-four.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/and-everything-nice-part-five.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://daisychainrearranged.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/and-everything-nice-part-six.html" target="_blank">here</a> respectively.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-43163497904170293542014-01-19T22:06:00.001+11:002014-01-19T22:10:58.731+11:00Unlikely Detectives: Le Passe (spoilers), Part 1<i>I suspect Le Passe is a film that would play well whether you knew its secrets in advance or not. But don't take the risk that it might not be. Farhadi's screenplay handles its chain of reveals beautifully, and shouldn't be spoiled. If you haven't seen it, don't read this.</i><br />
<br />
To require the services of a detective, there must be a crime, or at least a mystery that points to the likelihood of one. Something has usually happened, the story starting <i>in media res, </i>and only a detective can discern the truth of it. Many films are haunted by backstory, but few are as enslaved by the past as detective stories. And so it is appropriate that one of the most elegantly-written detective stories in some time is Asghar Farhadi's <i>Le Passe</i>.<br />
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Early on in the film, two key characters back out of a parking spot and run into something. In this story, the characters can hardly make a move without running into the past. They ignore it at their peril. Towards the end of the story, when one character declares 'I don't want to go back to the past' after all that has come to light, it's hard to see how such an attitude is possible.</div>
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Farhadi's <i>A Separation</i> won deserved acclaim for its layered presentation of a civil dispute. Others talk about making films where there are no villains, but in that film Farhadi showed what that really meant, allowing the audience to empathise with all sides of a conflict to such an extent that the desire for a resolution went away. If there are winners, then there are losers, and when you see where everyone is coming from, there's little appetite to see anyone lose.<br />
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If <i>A Separation </i>was a courtroom drama without a courtroom, <i>Le Passe </i>is a detective story without a badge or a chalk outline. This piece will step through some of the key aspects of detective stories in terms how they appear in this film: the detective, the investigation, the crime, the criminal, and the ghost. The film fuses the procedural form with a family drama to the benefit of both forms, so its variations on these genre motifs are worth contemplating.<br />
<br />
<b>The Detective</b><br />
<br />
Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa), the Iranian husband of Parisian Marie (Berenice Bejo), is the detective. At film opening, he has returned to Paris at her prompting to formalise their separation. The wordless opening shows the two communicating - muted to audience ears - through an airport's soundproof glass as Ahmad struggles to locate his baggage. The image of a man and a woman struggling to communicate would set a nice tone on its own for this film. But like many sequences where we're deprived the easy idea-train of textual speech, when we're kept at a distance like this, a curious thing often happens. We lean in, we look closer. It's a good way to train the audience's attention for a story where the small details matter.*<br />
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So if Ahmad is a detective, what is he investigating? The details of his arrival - the lack of a hotel booking, the absence of a clear reason for the divorce at this time - stoke his curiosity. The house he finds himself staying in has more children than the one he left, and those children are struggling to get over something. It's not long before he's asking questions. There's even a client: Marie. She asks him to find out what's bothering Lucie (Pauline Burlet), the eldest daughter of her disastrous first marriage.<br />
<br />
Farhadi's chosen well in Ahmad as the surrogate for the audience's inquisitiveness. Of all the characters involved in this house, he has the most to learn about the cause of its present mood. He's also good in his role - he gets answers easily, yet believably, from all involved. His ability to interact with children not his own separates him from the remainder of the adult cast. Lucie, so closed off to her mother, opens up easily to him.<br />
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Ahmad is also no saint. His darker days seem to be behind him, but his own confessional baggage weighs on him. And his reason for being in the same space as his ex-wife's new family is a source of tension in and of itself, particularly once her new partner makes an appearance.<br />
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<b>Investigation</b><br />
<br />
Unfolding via investigation is a clever plotting choice. Potentially dry family exposition about the missing years is turned into a chain of reveals of escalating significance. There is another man in the house, Samir (Tahar Rahim), a younger man of foreign origin. His paint half covers the walls, and it is his son Fouad (Elyes Aguis) that Ahmad is bunking with.<br />
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As for Lucie, Ahmad learns that she can't stand to be with either her mother, or her mother's lover. Is it fatigue with her mother's succession of husbands? Is it the discomfort of a teenager on the edge of sexuality being around a younger man? Is it seeing her mother need a younger man? All seem credible, but her true concern is darker than any of these. It takes a reveal from Marie to draw it out of her. Marie is pregnant with Samir's child, so marriage to him is inevitable.<br />
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This loosens Lucie's tongue. She holds her mother's new relationship to blame for the attempted suicide of Samir's wife Celine, an act that left the woman in a coma. Marie rejects this interpretation, insisting Celine's depression got the better of her. Lucie disappears. The tense equilibrium between the three adults - Ahmad, Marie and Samir - breaks out into verbal battles of Marie and Samir on Ahmad.<br />
<br />
<b>The Crime</b><br />
<br />
By now the ghost behind the household's disquiet has become clear: Celine's attempted suicide. Suicide is a crime whose suspect may seem obvious at first. The crime here is in what caused it. Did she attempt suicide out of pre-existing depression, or was her depression fuelled by knowledge of Samir's infidelity? Marie and Samir arrange for Lucie and Ahmad to meet Samir's shop assistant Naima (Sabrina Ouazani), who establishes that the circumstances of Celine's suicide attempt - which occurred in front of her - point more to depression stemming from her work than knowledge of infidelity.<br />
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Then comes the bombshell. Lucie confesses to Ahmad that she knows the relationship caused the suicide attempt, because she sent Celine the love emails of Marie and Samir the day prior to the attempt. She blames herself for the attempted suicide. (This is not the last time a character will outwardly deal with their guilt by blaming others in this story.) Lucie's confession becomes the new crime, as her gesture throws the guilt for Celine's act back on Marie and Samir. Marie explodes at her daughter with an aggression we haven't seen until now and throws her out of the house. The girl is soon re-admitted, but the confession changes the landscape of oppositions. Marie and Samir have worked as a block so far. The new information shifts the primary opposition in the film away from being Marie vs Ahmad to a new axis.</div>
<br />
<b>A New Detective</b><br />
<br />
With the investigation pointing back to the client, the detective is taken off the case. The divorce complete, and the ice between Lucie and Marie comprehensively shattered, Marie wants Ahmad out. Ahmad could dig deeper, stay on for the sake of the children. An old friend advises him to end his involvement now, while he still can. In many a detective story - <i>The Conversation, Chinatown, Vertigo</i> - such a warning is the prelude to calamity, as the detective ignores all warnings and insists on his ability to get to the heart of the matter. But Ahmad is a rational person, not a dramatic device, and Farhadi flips this idea on its head. At the two-thirds mark, having served as our surrogate for the story to date, Ahmad effectively exits the story.**<br />
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It is not the end of the detective story. The detective impulse remains, and migrates over to Samir. The late-film switch in detectives is risky: <i>Zodiac </i>comes to mind, <i>Margin Call </i>to a lesser extent, as well as aspects of the three protagonist <i>LA Confidential</i>. Farhadi's screenplay has layered in enough alternative perspectives throughout to make the switch from Ahmad to Samir relatively seamless.<br />
<br />
Samir is an interesting choice to take on the detective mantle. For obvious reasons, he was the character least comfortable with Ahmad's presence.*** He doesn't take on the role out of admiration, or a conscious desire to complete Ahmad's work. Ahmad has brought new information to light. Samir's one of the implicated. He wants to establish that he has done nothing wrong.<br />
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He has a lead that Ahmad would not have. A discrepancy between Lucie's account and Celine's movements prior to the suicide puts his shop assistant Naima in the crosshairs. And it seems even the servant has a reveal in store for the master. Naima passed on Celine's email address to Lucie the day before the suicide attempt, knowing the implications. Samir fires her, but she does not go quietly. Naima puts her action in context: Celine hated her, believing Naima was having an affair with Samir. She sabotaged Naima's work, and was going to compromise Naima's immigration status. Naima wanted to establish that she was not the focus of Samir's affections, and didn't intend harm to Celine. Naima doesn't even believe Celine read the emails, reminding Samir that Celine attempted suicide before her eyes, not Marie or him. Naima exits the drama, another scalp claimed by the investigation.<br />
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Like Lucie's reveal, Naima's reveal folds back on Samir and Marie's affair. Does it matter that Celine was wrong about which affair Samir was having, if it still led to her desperate act? This subtlety does not save Naima, who exits the drama, the first scapegoat for the suicide who actually can be sent away. (Lucie couldn't really be sent away, despite Marie's kneejerk reaction to her reveal, and Ahmad can be sent away but can't be blamed for more than bringing the situation to light.)<br />
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The second part of this article will look at the two other key aspects of the detective form that show up in <i>Le Passe</i>: the criminal, and the ghost, as well as rounding out on some of the general filmmaking choices.<br />
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<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* The motif of seeing a conversation without hearing it is repeated twice in the film. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">** Guy Ritchie's <i>Snatch </i>is a very different film, but I couldn't help but think of Dennis Farina's exit from that story. (Perhaps on the cutting room floor Ahmad re-enters Iranian customs with only one thing to declare: "Paris, je ne t'aime.")</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*** The awkwardness between the two men is beautifully realised in a tense frame where the two sit on opposite sides of a table for a lengthy beat. They attempt to ignore eachother. Finally Samir leaves the frame, unable to stay in the same shot as his predecessor in Marie's affections.</span>MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-52643422963257969692014-01-12T20:56:00.000+11:002014-01-12T20:56:03.705+11:00Unlikely Detectives: Z (spoilers)This article is the first of a series on recent cinematic incarnations of a powerful form: the detective story. Of all genres, detective stories most successfully align an audience's desire with the search for truth, and all of the complications of that search. For this reason, perhaps, they're a personal favourite of mine. Most of the films discussed will be recent releases. The subject of this article is the biggest exception to that rule. A recent viewing brought it to mind, so it seemed foolish to quibble on the film's release date.<br />
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<b>Overview</b><br />
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There's so many aspects to Costa-Gavras' 1969 political thriller that shine, both large and small. The fusion of <i>verite </i>techniques with the political-thriller is a winning combination, to date one of the more inspired uses of realist style in genre filmmaking. The film also marks one of the strongest examples of protest cinema using a popular form as the pill to deliver a political argument. With the political left under attack from a strong, unlikeable, opponent at the outset, our sympathy shifts towards them in the way it so often does towards the hero of a thriller. On top of the thriller element, when Z (Yves Montand) becomes the victim of an injustice that appears to go unpunished, the film uses a clever twist on the detective story to engage our desire that the truth come out. (More on this below.)<br />
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Among the smaller details, two stood out to these ears. Firstly, Z's speech prior to his death marks a brief appearance by Chion's <i><a href="http://filmsound.org/chion/metre.htm">acousmetre</a></i>. He's no Wizard of Oz, but it is precisely those moments when Z's voice travels beyond his immediate audience, echoing in the streets over the heads of battle-ready demonstrators, that the conflict of ideologies is most clearly felt. This is a man whose life will be sustained more through symbolism than physical presence as the film progresses - and even before the assassination attempt, that physical presence already has powerful cinematic properties. Secondly, during the energising montage towards the film's close where military figures of increasing seniority are called before The Judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant), Theodorakis' music steps forward in a commanding way we don't normally associate with realist style. As each military leader passes the media gauntlet, Theodorakis's bouzouki-led march gathers confidence, the snare drums surging. The powerful rat-a-tat of the snares lines up beautifully with the strokes of the typewriter documenting the damning testimonies. It's as metaphorical a use of synchresis as you'll find, and declares the colours of the filmmakers: a true Greek nationalism would see these men led to the wall rather than calling the shots.<br />
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<b>Lawyer as Detective</b><br />
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<i>Z</i> provides a few twists on the detective form. Before the detective appears in the stern form of Jean-Louis Trintignant's Judge, the crime must occur, and it comes relatively late in the film. Here comes an added twist - even before the crime occurs, we know who is behind it. Many a detective story relies on a concealed opponent, but here we're given access to that information relatively early (arguably the opening scene), before the crime occurs. It's not a given the crime will occur, or how, so the first act is not lost time. It's firstly a tense depiction of political life as an opposition in an unsympathetic regime, the tension raised by our knowing that Z's opponents are the apparent keepers of the peace. Additionally the time allows the filmmakers to acquaint us the man who will be the target of the crime (and like Mr Wu, he will be talked about before he appears), impress his character upon an audience, depict something of his inner life, so that his loss is meaningful when it comes. We will never wonder in <i>Z</i> if all of what ensues is unnecessary: this man was worth the fuss.<br />
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So when the crime occurs and an investigation begins, we are in the privileged position of knowing more than the detective. We see through the convincing alibis that disguise guilty faces. The dramatic question is not the identity of the the opponent, but how our detective will uncover it given the forces of obfuscation marshalling against him. Those forces of obfuscation are plausible enough to satisfy most of the investigators. Added to this concern: we don't really know whether our detective wants to find the truth. Disguised by his glasses, his unemotional commitment to proper process seems more of the bureaucratic professionalism that we've already seen too much of in this film's civil service.* And even if he does want to uncover the truth, we've already seen that a genuine man can be killed if the powers-that-be will it.**<br />
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But an interesting pattern forms. For every potential channel of guilt that the Judge misses, he finds others. New clues satisfy our curiosity. While we know where the chain should lead, our point of view on the assassination disguised many of the processes that came to a head that night. The workings of the opponent are mysterious, hard to discern, and compelling to discover. In the process, the Judge deflects every gesture from above to minimise the implications his findings. We begin to see the advantages of this particular detective. One of the last pieces of character backstory to emerge is his family's connection to the political right. Well before then, we've observed a conscious strategy on his part to establish an apolitical line of evidence. His disregard for politically-motivated testimony greets witnesses left, right and centre.<br />
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We begin to wonder: perhaps this is the way a crime can be punished when a power structure shields the guilty? Z may have seemed like the man Greece needed, but perhaps it's really this man?*** A man with an impartial eye, uncompromised by passion. A detective who does more than uncover guilt, he does so in a way that the guilty can be punished on their own terms. He engages the prosecutor in all of us: it's not enough to know the guilty parties, a more practical chain of evidence must be assembled. Evidence mounts, achieving a momentum in the typewriter montage that is all the more exhilarating because of windy path the investigation has taken to build to it. The investigation feels unstoppable at this point.<br />
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So when the investigation is stopped, and most of the links in the chain of evidence - including the detective - are declared the likely victims of assassination in a postscript, the tragedy is all the more palpable. The writer's strategy in making us aware of the opponent from the outset becomes clear. Our desire has been that the truth behind Z's death be uncovered, and justice be served. Like watching twins separated at birth come close to reunion in a melodrama, the closer they get to each other, the more we want it. We've been worked up to the point where we really feel the drop. To have seen the investigation come so close, and still fail, is a bitter revelation. Two models of resistance have failed - one political (Z), one apolitical (the detective). <i>Z</i> is a rare detective story that transcends the usual hunt for a villain, touching the political epic and the epic tragedy in the process.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* Gary Oldman's Smiley in the recent <i>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</i> harkens back to this figure.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">** The title character of <i>Michael Clayton</i> is another recent detective who searches for an opponent the audience is already aware of.</span></span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*** The Judge is the third model man in this film. Z is the first. A hospitalised Everyman character is the second.</span></span></b>MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-56527647431761549072014-01-01T08:29:00.006+11:002014-01-16T11:30:08.916+11:00Return to the Cutting Room: American (R)ustle (spoilers)<b>Overview</b><br />
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It feels like it should be wrapping up. A watch check reveals forty-five minutes remain. The laughter is getting quieter with each hair joke. Thirty minutes later, at the film's apparent climax, a nearby viewer - engaged at the outset - has fallen asleep. Something isn't right. Everything we need is here: performances, prestige, period details, star power, humour, rampant stupidity, twists and turns aplenty - how did it get boring?<br />
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It looks great, it's funny, it showcases a fleet of impressive performers, the true story underneath (the ABSCAM scheme) is compelling, and the themes it brings to light are - as they say - ever relevant. (In particular this: that bullish ambition bordering on criminality equally fuels law enforcement and criminal trajectories.) The film does service to its fictionalised versions of the characters: conmen - whether enforcers, politicians, mobsters, lovers, husbands, wives or even actual conmen - have never been so vulnerable, nor so pathetic, as they are here. In aid of that, the film has the best hair narrative since Natalie Portman's arc in the <i>Star Wars</i> prequel trilogy. It's almost a epic poem of wardrobe contradictions. A mid-film phonecall intercutting close-ups of Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) with Richie Dimasso (Bradley Cooper) is the apogee of that arc.<br />
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The hair narrative doesn't quite resolve. In answer to the opening indignity Dimasso inflicts on Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), it feels as if the ending should have done more than ruin Dimasso's career, and gone the extra step to ruin his hair. (Possibly the mid-film visit to Dimasso's house deflated his image as far as it could go.)<br />
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There are more substantial rhythmic issues. A mid-film encounter with mob figure Victor Tellegio (Robert DeNiro) provides the greatest 'drawn breath' moment, when Tellegio makes an impromptu shift to Arabic language. The stakes never feel as high again as they do at that table, and Tellegio's proxy in the narrative from that point, Pete, is no substitute. Whatever the true pattern of events behind this film, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Hustle_(2013_film)#Differences_from_reality">changes</a> appear to have been considerable, the Tellegio encounter in its present form possibly should not have been as far from the end of the tale as it is. (If this was a script edit: condense the plot after the Tellegio encounter. Have Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) hurl her grenade about Irving and the IRS to Pete not in a subsequent rendezvous, but during her bar binge while the Tellegio encounter takes place. The fake sheik makes it past Tellegio, but Irving is picked up by Peter the very next morning.)<br />
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This raises a question: what is the tale? The <i>Goodfellas</i>-style storytelling frame makes it the story of a love made in heaven (Irving and Sydney's). They have chemistry, and share the ambition and aptitude to fleece the unwitting. Their love is rooted in a tension, as one of the lovers (Irving) is in a relationship (with Rosalyn). The love is challenged by the entrapment of the FBI (led by Dimassi), caught out doing the very thing they do well together. The dramatic question ultimately: what will it cost them to get out of this? Their relationship? Irving's relationship with his stepson? Since Irving will ultimately end up having to sacrifice neither of these, the screenplay sets up stakes around a third idea - the reputation of Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) so that Irving's success comes at a price. Leaving aside the issue of whether the real-life basis for Carmine Polito was as innocent as the film makes out, and whether it might not have been better to have Irving being hoodwinked in his own way by a politician (society's most legitimate confidence men), it's questionable whether the love was the right thing to dramatise here. It certainly adds pathos towards Prosser, Irving and Polito that seems at odds with the satirical tone the film hits at its strongest moments.<br />
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It could be the screenplay as Truby <a href="http://truby.com/american-hustle-2013/">suggests</a>, the consequence of a focus on character over plot, an incongruous genre fusion (love, memoir and black comedy), and an awkward use of storytellers (three of them), flashing back from the wrong beat. The focus on character over plot seems telling. It accounts for the amount of 'acting porn' in the film -- scenes that feature strong performances but essentially don't take the story forward. Films that pitch their tent around schemes of deception are among the most plot-heavy there are (Mamet's <i>Heist</i> or <i>The Spanish Prisoner</i>, Nolan's <i>The Prestige</i>). This film tilts its hand on a few key reveals - some macro, some micro - undercutting the surprise each has. It does this to dramatise the point of view of several characters in a given scene, giving the audience a bit of all sides of the equation. But omniscience makes for a clumsier dance between states of concealment and revelation than was necessary, and not enough of the developments in the film's last stretch are unanticipated when they come. There's the old suspense vs surprise debate (<a href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/category/narrative-suspense/">revisited</a> recently by David Bordwell), to which there is no definitive answer. Sometimes it's better to foreshadow and engage the audience imagination. Other times it's better to blindside them. For me, and I suspect for others I saw the film with, the absence of surprise is part of the reason the film drags. (See particulars below in the list of suggested edits.)<br />
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I think the style of the film may be partly to blame as well. The film is often up close to its key players, close enough to see nuances on faces, pivoting around them in fluid movements, with a graininess of image -- a style that would be familiar to viewers of the director's previous films, <i>The Fighter</i> and <i>Silver Linings Playbook</i>. It would be interesting to see a lot of the film's scenes filmed from a locked-off point of view, wide angle, deep focus, slightly above or below character eye level. The suitcase camera motif feels underused, and in part because there'd be something embarrassing about seeing all this with a more unflinching gaze. The people would be less relatable, the satire stronger. It's a different direction than the one O Russell has chosen, but I suspect such a style choice would have better enabled him to shift the balance in favour of character over plot.<br />
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Some of these problems are not as easily approached in the editing room as they would have been in the screenplay and production phases. Had this story been filmed, or written, a different way, some of the below thoughts wouldn't be relevant, as the film would be a different beast. Nonetheless, given the chance to take <i>American Hustle</i> back to the editing room, what would we try?<br />
<br />
<b>Return to the Cutting Room (Note: Heavy Spoilers)</b><br />
<ol>
<li><i>Introduce the film in the present tense</i>. Unimaginable as it might be to unpick the <i>Goodfellas</i> knot, the potential of the tale trumps the homage. Start the film in a real moment, one that gets to the heart of genuineness vs deception, rather than making the first Polito sting the framing device. The meeting between Rosenfeld and Prosser at the party is one possible entry point. (It would be nice to have Bale apply his hairpiece at the outset, but clothing continuity forbids it, and it will be a humorous reveal when the film gets to the Polito sting for those who haven't already spotted it.)</li>
<li><i>Potentially keep the voiceover, but try to do without it. </i>Quite what role voiceover would have in this version would be felt out on a case-by-case basis - if it worked, it's worth trying out the hairpiece line from Prosser. (But then consider the effect further down the film of the moment when Dimassi rips off Rosenfeld's hairpiece if her attitude to it hasn't been flagged.) If the voiceover was essential for exposition, and there was no way around it, then retain it. (My current resistance to it comes from it mostly filling in historical detail and a source of distance from the absurdities unfolding before camera rather than a source of levity.) </li>
<li><i>Continue in the present tense</i>. From the meeting of Prosser and Rosenfeld, cut to the first scene of Rosenfeld with Rosalyn as a point of contrast, introducing both Rosalyn and the idea of the son. Then show Rosenfeld and Prosser meeting in his office, and the invention of Lady Edith Greensley. Follow with an intercutting of the affair between them and the hooking of victims with their London loan scheme. Then Dimasso enters the picture, catching out Rosenfeld and Prosser. Proceed from there. Eventually we'll get to the scene that currently opens the film.</li>
<li><i>Introduce Polito and Tellegio as entities in the film universe before they appear in the plot. </i>Since Polito will now not be established at the film's opening, the film will approach him as the subject of an investigation. To help him appear significant, and a natural target for the investigation to drift to when it does, hear him on the radio in Rosenfeld's car early on, or have him on the TV in the background of Rosenfeld's house. Make his public side part of the film texture before seeing the man in person. Tellegio is trickier, since he's not a public figure. It does feel as though he (or the mob) needs at least one reference in the film's first half, given the significance he take on in the second. The power of the "Mister Wu device" (Orson Welles) should not be overlooked.</li>
<li><i>Avoid having Prosser clearly spell out her intention to seduce Dimassi. </i>The film tries to create drama for Prosser and Rosenfeld by having Prosser give an early indication of her intention to seduce Dimassi. I'd be interested to see what happens when the audience doesn't know that Prosser might be seducing Dimassi purely to entrap him. Rosenfeld will still get jealous, except his jealousy will raise fewer questions. Prosser will still seem torn, but we'll be wondering whether it's an act as opposed to knowing that it probably is. Dimassi will still get hooked, but now when he raises the question of her sincerity, we'll wonder along with him. Sacrifice a bit of omniscience for a bit of plot. It will all come out in the 'we got to get over on these guys' conversation anyway. A smart audience will see the reveal coming that Sydney is conning Dimassi, and they'll appreciate the fact that the film gave greater room for their imagination. </li>
<li><i>Save the Polito sting for its chronological position within the plot. </i>One of my issues with the film is that the first major conning experienced after we've got up to speed with the story is the evening with Tellegio, from whence the stakes diminish. I think the experience curve might rise a bit more naturally to the Tellegio encounter if they've had another sting along the way. This is a nice double experiment that emerges from starting in 'the present'.</li>
<li><i>Delay Rosenfeld's guilt over Polito's involvement. </i>If Rosenfeld is to face a moral challenge about the scheme, then Polito is the natural focal point for those feelings given the material in the film. But as with a couple of other arcs, the idea sprouts too early. From memory, foundations are laid down around the time the dinner between the Polito and Rosenfeld couples. Better to let the guilt about Polito creep in over the film's second half, making it even more of a by-product of Rosenfeld's self-preservation. All those shots of Rosenfeld viewing Polito's apparent sincerity feed the idea. When the reckoning comes - Rosenfeld's last conversation with Polito - the audience will have had less than an hour of concrete anticipation. (Again, save ideas for the freshness they'll bring later.)</li>
<li><i>Don't announce Rosalyn as the weak point before she becomes it. </i>Immediately prior to Rosalyn's lunch with Pete (Tellegio's enforcer), Sydney and Irving effectively mark her as their Achilles heel. (The film then cuts to her, and while you'd think there'd be a laugh on that cut, there wasn't in my screening.) This primes us to expect a slip from Rosalyn in the following scene, and she fulfils the expectation. There's no real surprise to it or suspense about it. We're told something will happen. It happens. Cut out the remark from Sydney/Irving in the previous scene, and Rosalyn's slip will have the quality of surprise. (She'll also be a more active agent if her action isn't predicted by others.)</li>
<li><i>A bit more of a macro-change. </i>The suggested script edit above, of having Rosalyn give the game away due to her drunkenness during the Tellegio encounter, can't be achieved on the basis of current footage. But one could find the pairing of shots of Rosalyn and Pete in that bar that plant the seeds of Pete's suspicion. The next day, a car pulls up and Rosenfeld is forced into it. This loses some good material, but it is the part of the film where it feels the stakes should be accelerating, and that is one way to achieve it. (I'd have to see the film a second time to make another suggestion, but another thought is pretty much going straight to the Rosalyn-Pete lunch after the Tellegio encounter.)</li>
<li><i>Don't let the cat out of the bag that Sydney and Irving are going to outwit the mob and the FBI. </i>If there's a common thread to the suggestions here, it's that the film hints at its destinations too early. I personally knew that Dimassi was being played when he visited the offices of Tellegio's lawyer, because the film had told me that Sydney and Irving were going to try something, and their strategy in the scene was clear. I would have rather been in Dimassi's shoes for that scene, falling for the con. (Maybe a good deal of the audience is, but if so they'll miss nothing but accommodating the audience who got ahead of things.) How do we achieve that point of view shift? Look again at the conversation between Sydney and Irving from which Adams' best line comes: "We got to get over on these guys. That is what we have to do." That was the bit that told me they were about to pull something.</li>
<li><i>Delay the final Rosenfeld-Polito encounter until after the humiliation of Dimassi in front of Amado. </i>Here we're looking for the right way to leave the story. Rosenfeld has taken care of himself, now he will try to take care of his conscience and take the news of the reduced sentence to Polito. This saves the gravest consequence for the end, which could be tonally too heavy, but worth a try. If it was too heavy, give a bit of distance to those consequences through a potential pickup. Stay in the car with Prosser as Rosenfeld goes into Polito's house. (Maybe she can even hear Polito being interviewed on the radio about an unrelated matter.) She sees Irving angrily ejected some time later, with Polito's yelling overheard. </li>
<li><i>Don't have Rosenfeld make Polito's reduced sentence a condition for returning the money. </i><i> </i>This could undercut what we're trying to achieve with the above point, but it could add to the guilt Rosenfeld feels about Polito if he can't do anything to protect him. He is ultimately trying to save himself.</li>
<li><i>End in the present</i>. Mirroring the adjusted start, this version of the film may need to end with the right beat between Prosser and Rosenfeld, rather than the happily-ever-after montage set to voiceover. (This doesn't rule out Rosalyn's final appearance with Pete, a scene that's necessary to say what's happening to the son.)</li>
</ol>
<div>
These are all experiments in shifting dramatic pressure, changing the way the audience experiences the story. Assuming successful execution, each would have ripple effects through the film. Some elements will work better, others will probably cease to work in their present form. However given the quality of the elements that work in <i>American Hustle</i>, I'd be surprised if a little restructuring didn't result in a film that could connect with all of its audiences: those that already seem to love it, and those who fell asleep by the climactic reel.</div>
MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-64147889299447359772013-12-29T17:22:00.002+11:002014-01-16T11:29:52.526+11:00Return to the Cutting Room: The Not-So Secret Walter Mitty (spoilers)<b>Overview</b><br />
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Although his fame derives from comedy, I don't laugh easily at Ben Stiller. His face plays the fool, but an intelligent mind ticks away inside that head, and his eyes show the tension. Normally it would be a compliment to say someone wasn't convincingly dumb, but context is everything. That intelligence proves to be an asset for his character in <i>The Secret Life of Walter Mitty</i>, where the titular hero misses one opportunity after another to show off his value to the world. Partly because of the way Stiller comes across, we know Walter's worth and share his frustration at what the world is missing.<br />
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The relationship to the source material - James Thurbon's short story - makes up most of the film's first hour: Walter Mitty daydreams while Rome burns. The dreams reimagine Walter as a man of action and romance, and like a lot of high concept comic setpieces, most stop the story dead in its tracks. You quickly know you're in one of those moments and that nothing of consequence will happen until the dream is over. (Even the first clearly announces itself.) While the film raises intensity and varies the genres parodied by each to maintain interest, the fact that is the same beat over and over means they start to feel like commercial breaks within the more interesting story the film is building.<br />
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And there's a lot to be said for the story Steve Conrad has built around Thurbon's concept. The mechanics are familiar: a worthy nobody with confidence issues is forced out of his comfort zone into an adventurous quest, becoming a more confident man in the process. The specifics: Walter pines for Cheryl Melhof (Kristen Wiig), the 'girl-from-accounts' (a workplace version of the 'girl-next-door') whom he stalks online. A corporate acquisition brings forces of rationalisation to Life magazine. The next printed issue is announced as the last, and staff put on notice. When the moustache-twirling transition manager demands to know Walter's function, his answer - 'negative asset manager' - suggests the first of the long knives will fall on him. A missing photo, intended for the cover of the final issue by star photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), ultimately kicks Walter into action, following the trail of the missing photograph round the globe.<br />
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Walter's choice of occupation and the plot that emerges from it marks the film's nostalgia. His workspace is dominated by paper archives, hand calculators, an ally character that reveres those who shoot on film, and an internet that only seems accessible on the smartphones of others. While the film plays some of these markers of datedness for laughs, the halo around the 'Old School' - in particular the photography of Sean O'Connell and the contents of the photo at the heart of the plot - is about as earnest as it gets.<br />
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The fondness for passing media extends to Billy Wilder's <i>The Apartment </i>(1960), to which a few gratuitous references are made. The production design borrows a few details from the older film's office set. While elevator girls are no longer credible love interests, one key scene between Walter and Cheryl around an elevator echoes one from <i>The Apartment</i>, and Wilder's elevator girl shows up the role of Walter's mother (Shirley Maclaine). Some less superficial links can also be found. Walter's daydreams are not as gaping a weakness as Jack Lemmon's domestic bordello, but they are the life choice that allows others to walk all over him. The platonic foundations of Walter and Cheryl's relationship feels like another point of kinship. As in the earlier film, the central couple's final moments together avoid a climactic kiss, and take place in a two shot where each, now jobless, has equal weight in the frame.<br />
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Comparisons to Wilder can't help but show up a weak heel of Stiller's film - Kristen Wiig's love interest might have a richer eHarmony profile than any other character, but she remains an accessory in a fantasy about male action, without an independent point of view. To be fair, this can be said of pretty much everyone else too. A collection of props, including a piano, an action figure, a skateboard, a slice of cake, a wallet and a photo, have more presence than much of the human cast.<br />
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Clever choices about the destination leaven the film with more nuance than all this suggests. Most of the film's reveals are true to the idea that Walter's mind is elsewhere when plot-saving exposition is spoken. When Penn - in the manner of Orson Welles' Mister Wu - walks into the halo the other characters have arranged for him, there's a unexpected dash of the clumsy but well-meaning surfer about him. (No fool, but not exactly an all knowing mystic either.) Probably the greatest irony of all is that Walter's quest was unnecessary - the product of the same jumping to conclusions that fuels his daydreams. Truth to myth form, the quest was not for nothing, since Walter's journey from inner to outer was the real goal, but the sleight of hand around the accidental 'trail of clues' helps balance the potential earnestness of the final wisdom. Finally, there's a lightness to the way the film's Rosebud - the missing photograph - is unveiled, the lack of fanfare allowing greater room for the revelation it contains.<br />
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Visual direction is strongest around the flourishes. The shift from locked-off angles of Walter in schematic New York settings to the dynamic camera that glides over mountains and skateboards down highways with him is not a new way to express a shift from inaction to action, but it's well executed.<br />
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I didn't expect to enjoy this film, but there's a lot to like here. So, given the proverbial day in the editing room, what would we tinker with here?<br />
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<b>Return to the Cutting Room (Note: Heavy Spoilers)</b><br />
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<ol>
<li><i>Vary the daydream beat</i>. Cut at least a couple of the visual fantasies, probably the ones that most clearly reference other films (Spiderman, Benjamin Button). The film takes a long time to get going, and rather than each digression from reality getting longer, there's a case for increasing the economy of the beat with repetition (or not repeating it at all). One alternative: in place of the last couple of daydreams, don't venture into the fantasy with Walter, but stay outside, seeing what the world sees. We've been given enough info to imagine what's going on inside Walter by that point -- who knows, it might even give room for our investment to increase. One could even shoot it in such a way that sets up Sean Penn's pivotal photo better. Another variation worth trying - when we do daydream with him, lose more 'real time'. Rather than coming back to the conversation Walter tuned out of prior to the fantasy, come back after the other conversant has left. (This would add the effect of him missing out on more and more of life.)</li>
<li><i>Jettison the fantasy setpieces</i>. An extreme: never go with him into the fantasy sequences. Stay watching Stiller, and perhaps venture into his head with sound. Make the first fantasy take place not at the train station but in the location where the pivotal photo is taken. Why lose all this production value? Because there's a problem in this film, which is that when the quest does start, its easy to think that it's all an extension of his daydreaming habits. The skateboard antics similarly suffer from this doubt at first because everything outlandish up to that point has been a daydream. A second issue. The trip begins with its most extroverted music cue (Jose Gonzalez's 'Step Out'), and is as visually dynamic as Walter's fantasies up to that point. And that's the rub. Does the quest actually feel more exciting than all his daydreams? The more involved they are, the less like an entry into a new way of living the quest feels by comparison. So I'd try an extreme where Walter has fewer fantasies, and we don't join him for his ride when he does. This film would have to change its title, as the key tether to the short story will have been cut.</li>
<li><i>Less front-loading the backstory</i>. Clip back the early conversation with the mother about Papadinos - don't go into the mention of the father here. The film presses too hard on the father issues. It can come out later after he's been to the restaurant in the phone call from Iceland, and in fact, it does.</li>
<li><i>Detective story rules</i>. That post-modern cleverness about explaining how to construct a detective story probably wasn't necessary. But Cheryl doesn't have a lot of moments, so it's probably not the best idea to cut one of them, even if she does instruct the audience to spot the the way film's gears are turning.</li>
<li><i>Shift the 'point of no return'</i>. Shift the starting point of the adventure from New York (the race past Life magazine covers) to the appearance of 'Major Tom' in Greenland. Try a simple cut from him in his office with his co-worker, intuiting the Greenland connection, to being in a plane, then being in Greenland, choosing a car. Play it down rather than depict it as a film-changing moment. Save the sense of a pivotal moment for jumping on the helicopter, where his daydreams come to the aid of his real adventure. (I still wish the vision of Cheryl came later in the film, after a more significant obstacle than a drunk helicopter pilot -- such as after the dead-end in Iceland.)</li>
<li><i>No going back (micro). </i>In that phone call from Iceland to Cheryl, stay on Walter's side of the phone call. Make him wonder what's happening back home. This means Cheryl's physical appearances on the road are limited to her 'Major Tom' performance - which might have stronger presence if the real Cheryl was not just one cut away.</li>
<li><i>No going back (macro). </i>Don't go back to New York from Iceland. Keep going on to Afghanistan. Probably this is the one area where some minor pickups would have to be done. I can see why they've gone back. The journey/meander form of a solo traveller means the story can be episodic, with little continuity in anything other than the lead character. (Had someone travelled with him, it might have been different.) Going back gives a chance to reiterate the stakes at home, touch base with all the characters, advance the romantic subplot, and collect some more clues that would have been cumbersome to lay out prior to his initial departure. But I don't think it really does much - if any - of that. Firstly the reason to go back doesn't seem that strong at that point. Why is Sean Penn suddenly impossible to locate? (But then the film has a pattern of Mitty folding when faced with weak opposition.) Most of the scenes seem to reiterate stakes. Worse, it robs the ending of some of its power, since the newly-adventurous Walter is seen, mid-transformation, by witnesses, and his change partly validated. The valley of the journey around the world is that it means no one sees Walter until he's a new person. (Nor for that matter should he have seen New York, and discovered his job was lost, until his transformation was complete.) The skateboard could have been sent by post, an update on office affairs could've been relayed via the phone call to Cheryl (including her firing), the 'warlords' detail and the visit of Sean could have come out in a call to mum, and the third encounter with the transition manager would have been saved until Walter actually had the photo (making that a stronger beat). The return principally achieves the following: (i) the wallet ends up in the mother's bin and (ii) Walter recognises the piano. Not impossible things to manage from Iceland. Perhaps have him throw the wallet out in Papadinos in Iceland... it would make it even more remarkable when it somehow finds it way back to New York (because it had the address of Walter's mother in it, tacked to an invoice for the piano).</li>
<li><i>Add a beat</i>. Make it about Walter getting accustomed to the life of adventure. It feels like there needs to be a datapoint between mountainous Iceland and mountainous Afghanistan, particularly when both were shot in the same place. (Yemen is mentioned in passing - nice bit of contrary flavour, if still a bit rugged.)</li>
<li><i>Linger on that pivotal photo a bit more</i>. Or see the preceding 24 from Sean's roll over the credits. (As good as the credits are.) </li>
</ol>
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Who knows, perhaps at the end of the day we would have hit command+Z nine times in the hope of getting back to the film we started with. Many a day in the editing room ends that way. But I can't help but feel there's an even better film hiding in a fairly solid one here.MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406700082681576625.post-35986626260291391472013-12-26T17:57:00.000+11:002013-12-29T17:29:54.579+11:00Daisy Chains & CatenanesThe train of thought runs endlessly. For now this can serve as a destination. Many of the stations involve intersections of film and music, but
tangents may be many and the endpoints will hopefully never cease to be a surprise.MichaelMclhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01641747114551386727noreply@blogger.com0