The horror…: “[REC]”
January 10, 2015 § Leave a comment
Fear is a highly infectious thing, as virulent as the nameless contagion that decimates an entire cast of characters over the course of an hour-and-a-bit in this standard-bearing found-footage horror film. Actually, fear is far more transmissible than whatever it is that is turning the residents of a small apartment block somewhere in Spain into rabid beasts, because while the fourth wall quite effectively protects viewers from being attacked and devoured and zombified, the desperate terror and burgeoning hopelessness that gradually reduces “[REC]’s” chief protagonist to a hysterical mess radiates/permeates through whatever screen the film is being viewed on, almost unfiltered. Bearing witness to the sheer intensity of emotion (not simply fear) that overtakes this group of people – the genuine panic and confusion and aggressive survivalism that descends upon them as it slowly becomes evident they are doomed – only works to heighten the effectiveness of the film’s primary elements of horror which are (a) simple jump scares and (b) constant dread punctuated by sharps bursts of weird sorrow. It’s a very surprising feeling to watch this film and realise that a great many characters that populate as many horror films – a lot of them audience surrogates – are pretty poor communicators and expressers of fear. Yes, they scream, they moan, they raise hell and portions of purgatory as they fight to live, but if one really sits down and analyses the degree to which their emotional stress as a viewer is dependent on the emotional stress displayed by the characters on-screen, there would almost certainly be a disparity. It sometimes seems that makers of horror films focus on their characters’ fear just enough to create an illusion of verisimilitude (i.e. a person who is being attacked would most likely scream, thus character A screams when attacked by character B), but when it comes to inducing in an audience the same fear that these characters are supposedly experiencing, the focus often seems to be on the timing of scares, the ebb and flow of tension, and levels of blood and gore as opposed to the whole ‘I scream because you scream’ phenomenon; call it sympathetic fear, if you will. The genre is perhaps much better at depicting crafty and smart survivalists like Jamie Leigh-Curtis’ character in “Halloween” or individuals trying to make sense of the bizarre i.e. the Christie/Sutherland couple in “Don’t Look Now” or Mia Farrow as Rosemary. The weakest aspect of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, the element that contributes least to its potency as a horror film, is the lip-service screaming and shrieking of the Marilyn Burns character as she is being pursued by Leatherface, even though the scene itself is nail-biting, more on account of everything else: the snuff-film graininess of the visuals, the shocking speed and bloodlust of the kinda plump assailant, and the disquieting sense of isolation. What the makers of [REC] get so right is that they manage to understand that there is no point in adopting the found-footage form if the key to its horror potential is not utilised, the key being the idea that what is being witnessed actually occurred to actual people and that this should ultimately evoke a heightened degree of viewer sympathy as compared to something presented as being clearly fictional. One of the official taglines for the film was indeed ‘Experience Fear.’ Accordingly, the performances in [REC] make the movie; not the effects (which themselves are first-rate) or the visual authenticity (which is fairly spot-on), but the skilful way in which the true horror of the characters’ experience is conveyed, not just by the fact that the camera’s shakiness is an obvious expression of chaos. It’s unnerving to watch an initially lively, somewhat gutsy protagonist succumb so severely to terror.
The character of Angela Vida (embodied with bratty verve by Manuela Velasco), essentially the main protagonist of “[REC]”, is presented from scene number one as a go-getter of sorts, fearless in the way that one would assume journalists to be: unafraid of asking hard questions, keen on getting in people’s faces and demanding the truth, but more likely a scoop. She is the host of a television show called “While You’re Sleeping” which presumably provides the average TV-watching populace a peek into the lives of those who are awake, alert and at work across Barcelona while everyone else is drooling into their pillows. On this particular instalment, she and her practically unseen cameraman Pablo, whose point-of-view the viewer assumes, are attached to a pair of firefighters who are called out to an apartment block at night to free an old woman who is locked in her unit; an old woman who turns out to be rabid and cannibalistic, the cause of which becomes increasingly conspiratorial as people in hazmat suits cordon off the building and seemingly stand back so as to let nature take its course and let the darn pestilence destroy itself. For a good portion of the first half of the crisis, Angela insists that proceedings be caught on camera for the sake of justice and transparency, but it’s hard to pinpoint the moment in which all of her dedication to the fifth estate leaps out the window and her survivalist drive assumes control, reaching a frenzied pitch. For the viewer who takes emotional refuge in Angela’s gutsy, confident personality and her youthful sense of invincibility (which should be many if not most, because the character is arguably fashioned by the filmmakers as not just an audience surrogate but as some sort of audience oasis), watching the magnitude of the situation gradually establish itself in Angela’s mind is a slowly unnerving process.
Another core narrative element that drives the engine of fear on which this movie runs is its use of verite techniques and the sense of faux-reality that this creates in combination with a phenomenon whose cause is unexplained. For a large portion of the runtime of “[REC]” there is a constant and palpable uncertainty which in itself feeds into the overall atmosphere of dread. Are the characters under threat from some highly virulent pathogen i.e. is this simply rabies or a rabies-like disease, or is this something a little stranger? Do the authorities who so quickly cordon off the building, trapping the TV crew, the firemen and the residents in a cauldron of blood and death, know exactly what it is they are protecting the rest of the public from, or are they as hopelessly clueless on the outside as are the poor souls on the inside? The beauty of “[REC]”, as it exists within zombie movie canon, is that the characters within the universe of the film have no real reason to expect that they are in the presence of zombies, whatever zombies are. It is much more likely that they would fear some sort of outbreak which – as the recent Ebola mini-epidemic illustrates so well – is enough to terrify the shit out of people. So, rather than going into ‘zombie-mode’ and strapping on as many weapons as they can so as to mow down the next wave of moaning, flesh-hungry corpses, the characters in this film remain confused and fretfully instinctive in their behaviour. There is no concerted effort to calculatedly eliminate the rapidly growing population of undead within the building, only a concerted effort to stay alive enough to escape into the outside world, which once again smacks of verisimilitude. Unfortunately, the ending is marred by a suspiciously obligatory attempt at explaining what exactly might be happening in the apartment block, when this very lack of information played a large part in breeding fear up to that point. This is not helped by the fact that the tentative explanation provided is far less plausible than whatever air of implausibility the film might have initially given off.
Now, as for whether “[REC]” as a horror film has much on its mind, there is a fairly clear undercurrent of social consciousness running through it, but of the kind that is less interested in discourse and debate than it is in reinforcing awareness. As previously mentioned, a key theme of the film is transparency and the idea that those in seats of knowledge and power are responsible for ensuring that the masses are informed. “[REC]” also questions or at least ponders how dispensable the individual is in the face of the greater public interest. Both of these actually enhance the horrific nature of the scenario by tapping into a latent distrust of authority that has suffused the public consciousness – and certainly cinema – to varying degrees since Watergate at the very least. The film also alludes to the idea that crisis can expose both the best and the worst of humanity or at least the best and the worst of a particular society, and the elements of racism and classism that pepper the narrative suggest that Spanish society is somehow being examined by means of a hypothetical crisis. But for all the half-hearted intellectualisation being made here, one sure assessment is that “[REC]” is at its core an unprecedentedly successful combined revision of two heavily utilised horror tropes, one a decades-old staple and the other an increasingly tired modern fad.
Share this:
Brief impression: “L’avventura”
December 22, 2014 § 1 Comment
It’s interesting to revisit a film whose first and only viewing was so seminal a moment in the viewer’s life that it was and has been considered an unwavering favourite in the viewer’s mind for years. Interesting in that those elements which initially seduced and bewitched on an almost purely sensual and intuitive level are now approached with an invariably analytical eye. Now that the packaging has been duly admired and fawned over, it’s time to see what’s inside, which in truth would be an erroneous assumption seeing as, with this and many of Antonioni’s subsequent films, form is function. On seeing “L’avventura” for the second time, the images are appreciated for more than just their crystalline beauty but for their role in externalising the interior, in being the visual analogue of the kind of spare modernist prose that can in a few choice words paint a terse yet lucid and eerily precise impression of a character’s essence, intellectual, spiritual and otherwise. Sure, the descriptive density may be low, but the accuracy of the few afforded descriptors is high, and higher still, their suggestive and implicative capacity. Similarly, the physical expanses and edifices, photographed with a challenging degree of patience, double as both the external world in which the characters materially exist and the mindscape in which so many find themselves so hopelessly lost. It’s not enough to view the physical world in “L’avventura” as being symbolic or expressive of the psychological; it is the mind of the characters that inhabit it.
The languid pacing, while often testing, is a deeply ingenious way to induce not only a meditative disposition in the viewer, but a state of mind which mirrors that of the characters in the film, characters cursed with an excess of leisure time so great that they are wont to spiral ever deeper into a vortex of their own inner conflict and despair. Rather than providing the viewer a comfortable boxed seat high up in the stadium from which to view Claudia and Sandro struggle with their dual allegiances to tradition and (at the time) counter-conventional modernity: the concurrent desire for externally prescribed fulfilment and that which is self –determined, Antonioni the director thrusts the viewer onto the lonely emotional playing field alongside the characters he has created and demands that they, that we, play as much a role in this game of the soul as does he, as do his creations. There are probably only two ways to view this film: complete engagement or complete disengagement. As a piece of cinema, this does not suffer the passive patron. It does not give unless given to, which is to say, offered one’s patience and capacity to empathise, or at the very least analyse. What also becomes clear is the artistic shrewdness inherent in the decision of screenwriters Antonioni, Bartolini and Guerra to shoot existential turmoil through the lens of sex and romance, or at least the quest for it. There is perhaps no aspect of the human existence that highlights our perennial state of fickleness, insecurity and confusion quite as unforgivingly as that which relates to the figurative heart and the literal genitals. Contained within and symbolised by the shifting romantic fidelities and sexual scruples of “L’avventura’s” central couple, the decisions and indecision and seesawing between neediness and stubborn yet fragile independence (particularly on the part of Claudia) is – to paraphrase the title of critic Pauline Kael’s disparaging assessment of Antonioni’s follow up to “L’avventura”, “La notte” – ‘the sick soul of Europe.’ The most surprising realisation reached on second viewing, however, might simply be that this film, for all its visual and thematic intensity and brooding, has scattered throughout it instances of dry humour of the kind used by deeply sad people to throw others off their depressive scent. These moments, while able to evoke a smile, a chortle or even just a transitory levity, only serve to highlight the pain belying the pleasure.
But of all the things which stand out on repeat viewing, the film’s final gesture, that of Claudia placing a hand on the head of a seated, weeping Sandro (whom she has just discovered being unfaithful to her on a sofa with a young married starlet), is suddenly a great deal richer than it initially seemed. On first viewing this action bore the scent of forgiveness. This is not to say that she doesn’t forgive him for his infidelity, granted their relationship is itself built on infidelity and the flimsiest foundations; the hand on the head could and probably does encompass a wide range of implications, and Claudia may very well be doing it for various reasons, some perhaps unbeknownst to her. But of all the possibilities, it’s tantalising to imagine that Claudia is perhaps welcoming Sandro, welcoming him to the realm of insight that she and Anna before her have been wandering through, or at the very least the realm of acceptance of the fact that something is not quite and has never been quite right with the state of humankind and with themselves. It should not be forgotten that Claudia is herself in tears when Sandro appears on that rooftop. Her distress may be related to simple betrayal, or regret for her belief, however fleeting, that something durable may have existed between Sandro and herself. Yet when she sees that Sandro, who has hitherto displayed only the slightest bit of self-reflection, is not only contrite but is clearly in the throes of an abrupt realisation that his soul is a void which will not simply be filled by sexual approval and conquest, she is relieved for his sake, though mutedly so. If the film’s central triumvirate of Anna, Claudia and Sandro are at different points along the road to modern self-actualisation, Anna is furthest along, her deep sense of crisis at the film’s outset and her eventual demise or rebirth (whichever the viewer chooses to believe she has suffered/undergone) being the catalyst for Claudia’s own existential awakening, and Sandro’s moment of painful clarity.
So is that the crux of Antonioni’s film: to beautifully, elegantly dwell on the misery of a subset of a subset of a species, one in helpless ontological crisis? Maybe. Perhaps it is a comfort to the average viewer to see that to be simultaneously beautiful, wealthy and well-sexed does not preclude one from suffering pain of a type unique to a beautiful, wealthy and well-sexed existence, which is probably not true. The pain most likely traverses all borders: racial, social, gender, class, aesthetic. “L’avventura” clearly has no answers, no truths or revelations that will guide a person down the path of true happiness and self-fulfilment, nor does it seem in the least bit interested in providing such unequivocal nuggets of self-help gold. If there are to be found in the film, this viewer certainly missed them. But one thing seems apparent; Sandro’s tears are as much a sign of discovery and personal growth as they are of anguish. Perhaps in this moment Anna has finally been found, somehow.
Share this:
Dredged up: “Ritual, rhythm, resentment” (a piece written circa 2011)
December 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
Like a tide lapping the sand and then retreating, Claire Denis’ 1999 dusty gem of a movie “Beau Travail” – translated as “Good Work” – dips in and out of a man named Galoup’s memories of his final days as a Sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, in command of a young outfit of legionnaires stationed in Djibouti, a tiny nation wedged between Eritrea and Ethiopia and Somalia. It also documents his brewing hostility and hate for a young new cadet called Sentain of whom he is envious, which he shamelessly confides to us, the viewership.
You see, Galoup’s narration punctuates the entire picture, part reminiscence, part journal entry, part amateur poetry. Early on, the palpable bitterness he exudes is striking, not only in his words, but in his voice and later, in his actions. You hardly hear the man speak directly to any of the other characters for the film’s 90 minute duration, but it’s telling that the few times he does seem to come from a place of deep resentment and inner imprisonment. In fact, twenty minutes will pass before dialogue of any consequence or narrative importance is uttered, and one would estimate that all in all there are roughly ten/fifteen minutes of dialogue, if that. But Claire Denis has no qualms inserting shots, snippets and scenes of civilian life, seemingly unrelated to the film’s central focus if only for the sake of contrast. Denis grew up on the continent, and her camera (helmed by a masterful Angés Godard) shows a certain fondness for its people. Some local women are talking shop over some rugs and mats while another group of local women have fun watching a lanky technician hug a telephone pole, mock fantasising, it seems, about the other pole between his legs. In the background, Galoup ruminates with a mixture of disdain and devotion on the nature of routine, his, theirs, the general ubiquity of it. A local nightclub is the one place where routines unite, becoming something of a ground for mating rituals. The girls dance, the legionnaires stalk, Galoup lands himself a cute young local booty-call whom we see every so often. It’s doubtful whether he has much interest in her, but at night there he is, standing and smoking, watching her do her thing, her ritual.
Having never read Herman Melville, it’s nonetheless interesting to discover that his unfinished Billy Budd, a novella about the antagonism between a charismatic, orphaned seaman and an officer, is the basis for this movie. A handful of scenes depicting the young legionnaires engaged in what can only be described as French military Tai Chi are lent a sense of gravitas, perhaps even a camp majesty, as they play to extracts from composer Benjamin Britten’s mid-century opera titled…“Billy Budd”. The choral incantations are effective in evoking something; whatever it might be, one can’t be entirely certain. Somehow, it’s likely that this flourish forces a viewer to see things through Galoup’s eyes. As much as his service might exhaust him, it’s all that he has. He very early on declares himself to be – quote – ‘unfit for civilian life’. So to him, what might be a dusty, sweaty exercise becomes – must become – a kind of ballet, some breed of modern dance; transcendent. You can see that in these moments Galoup is where he is supposed to be, in the midst of his boys, topless, in the Djibouti sun. He has purpose. On the topic of music, there are some very – one hesitates to say “cool” – soundtrack choices in this film. Not many of them, but each quite memorable. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Oliver N’Goma, Corona – disparate styles, all underscoring their respective scenes to a perfect tee. And lest it ends up forgotten, the brooding, subterranean score by Eran Tzur adds a menacing surrealism that is difficult to shake. At first, you’d be forgiven for thinking that perhaps the wind in Djibouti smokes Marlboros and slams down whisky.
Make no mistake, a substantial chunk of this movie quietly watches Galoup and his company engage in training exercises, and believe it or not, it’s riveting stuff. Throw in the sparse coastal setting, gorgeous in its arid simplicity; add the camera, like a little girl let loose amongst men, at times coming in for curious close-ups, other times gazing from a distance during moments of lapsed attention or whimsy. Shades of azure and tan fill the screen. Rows of round shaved heads back a blue sky. And boy do the scenes have rhythm, not just the ballet grills but everything. Denis is renowned for the ebb and flow of her films, the unique pacing. “Beau Travail” is in no hurry to get anywhere, but it certainly knows where it’s going. It might take its time, but calling it slow is like calling a circling condor confused. If you allow yourself to admire its grace, you soon become transfixed by it, hypnotised. Hell, this writer’s breathing patterns fell under the spell. It’s that kind of a film. One might hesitate to call it Malickian, but anyone familiar with the works of Terrence Malick will begin drawing parallels within the first five minutes.
Sentain is the titular Billy Budd. Quiet, handsome, heroic and well-liked by his peers, he arouses Galoup’s loathing. Some would say he arouses a little more than that, hence the loathing. Much is said about the homoeroticism that simmers within and beneath “Beau Travail” and it’s hard to dispute its presence despite very little being stated or presented overtly. But, frankly, is it anything more than the homoeroticism implicit in almost every war picture? Perhaps, in the absence of actual warfare and a good deal of clothing, this aspect of military life is given license to come to the fore. And for those who depend on a tangible plotline, the ‘relationship’ between Sentain and Galoup is the closest you’ll get, but towards the end some pretty interesting shit goes down. The only other ‘main character’, Commander Bruno Forestier, is a curious one. Galoup seems to harbour a measure of fondness and respect for him, but it seems the Commander couldn’t care less. He is content to just laze about watching nothing unfold, giving the impression that his benevolence is really just resigned passivity.
“Beau Travail” is exactly the kind of movie that grows on you like an oddly pleasant after-taste. It should be experienced as opposed to simply seen. Really, it’s the work of a poet whose pen and paper are in fact a camera, a handful of actors and some choice tunes. Being this writer’s first Denis film, one who’s been dying to get into her work sooner or later, “Beau Travail” is an entrancing initiation ceremony, as entrancing as the random dancing that peppers the picture.
Share this:
The horror…: “The Seventh Victim”
November 19, 2014 § Leave a comment
It’s difficult to view and appraise – without growing resentment – a film that is considered by some prominent critical voices (Jonathan Rosenbaum being chief amongst them) to be the or at least one of the crowning achievements in renowned B-picture producer Val Lewton’s relatively small but influential filmography. Said difficulty presents itself not too long after director Mark Robson’s “The Seventh Victim” hits its stride, if one can call it that – more like a slow, anergic trudge – and morphs into a resounding disappointment by the time the literally clunky final shot rolls around. The film is frequently noted for having a bizarre plot, an odd assessment of a narrative that can be synopsised thusly: high-schooler Mary Gibson (played by a serviceable Kim Hunter) goes in search of her death-wishing older sister Jaqueline Gibson (Jean Brooks looking very much like her surnamesake Louise Brooks), a cultist who has gone into hiding after evoking the bloodlust of her brethren by seeing a psychiatrist and possibly exposing their secrets. So plot-wise, this is no “The Big Sleep.” The film has also been praised for its noirish poetry though there is not one shot or sequence worth recalling, unless perhaps the creepy scene during which Mary Gibson re-encounters Lou Lubin’s dead detective in a deserted subway car, or the admittedly haunting shot of Jacqueline Gibson sitting in a chair, surrounded by black-clad ex-fellow Satanists, debating whether or not to commit suicide on their terms or on hers. Betsy Connell’s eerie jungle sojourn in “I Walked with a Zombie” and Alice Moore’s high-heeled jogs through chillingly empty New York City streets or her night-time pool swim in the brilliant “Cat People” evoke a thrilling and protracted sense of dread matched by nothing in “The Seventh Victim.” The soundscapes in the former two pictures, both directed by the great Jacques Tourneur (for Val Lewton), are simply rich enough, detailed enough to complement the visual sparseness and simplicity that renders those films perfect for preying upon a viewer’s jumpy imagination. Conversely, “The Seventh Victim” seems somewhat deprived, as though the film begs that the viewer pretend to be terrified by the mystery of a missing woman or by the presence of the occult in Greenwich Village, rather than enticing them to give in to the terror that should already nag at them, incited by the contents of the movie itself. Where the best of the best B-grade horror productions from the forties and fifties – and all periods for that matter – circumvent their lack of funds/resources by turning want into ascetic efficiency and poetic minimalism and ensuring that silence and stillness manifest as resounding emotional disquiet, this 1943 film simply feels demoralised by its low-budget status.
“The Seventh Victim” seems to be frequently described within the same breath as being both a horror and a noir; perhaps a noirish horror or a horror noir? But where exactly does the horror reside? Assumedly, its credentials as a chiller are founded in its occult/supernatural leanings, but this picture desperately needs an injection of “Rosemary’s Baby” or even “The Wicker Man” where Satanism is concerned. The band of cultists at the centre of Jacqueline Gibson’s disappearance may be portrayed in the way that they are – refined in a callous way, bourgeoisie more than bohemian – in order to capitalise on the notion of ‘the banality of evil’; that these people are frightening precisely because they may very well be your folks’ lawyer or your aunt’s obstetrician but that they would also gladly feast on your dripping, severed neck (though they probably wouldn’t). This is exactly the case with “Rosemary’s Baby”, the only palpable dissimilarity being that there is a chasm of difference in the energy that the two respective groups of actors bring to their portrayals of ‘evil’ with an urbane face. This is not to say that every actor must dominate their scenes like Ruth Gordon does in Polanski’s 1968 masterpiece, but how can one be terrified by a tired band of tarot card enthusiasts – which is how Jacqueline Gibson’s mob come across, either this or the ‘passively’ powerful illuminati – or whatever demonic force it is that they represent, especially when their ineffectuality if confirmed in a hokey scene towards the end of the film in which the Lord’s Prayer is wielded like a paper sword against a dead adversary?
Maybe the noir angle is the most interesting element of the film, the depressive rut that Jacqueline seems to be in for the film’s entirety and which culminates in a final moment that so desperately wants to be bittersweet but which seems rather blah. It must be said that the idea of a key character who maintains a room with a noose and stool in place so as to maintain her sense of self-determination is worthy of sitting up and taking notice, and it is somewhat surprising to hear ‘suicide’ and similar terms bandied about with relative candidness in a picture from this period. One can only imagine that such a morbid outlook would have made hairs stand erect on the backs of neck and arms when the film first premiered, and that the deeply coy depictions of ‘sordid’ lifestyles and realities – lesbianism, the occult, suicidality and fatalism – would have made for a potentially potent stew of fear and dread in a then contemporary audience, but once this era-dependent effect is made redundant with time, the film must maintain its powers of terror on either an intellectual or a deeply primal level, or at the very least possess undeniable artistic merits, something that a film like “Cat People” does with such elegance and assurance.
The dismay this movie inspires is sadly not allayed by the acting. Jacqueline, when she appears, not only fails to live up to her apparently heart-stopping beauty but bears none of the eeriness of the titular character from Otto Preminger’s “Laura”, though it must be said that she is at least a moderately intriguing presence, the same of which cannot be said for anyone else in the picture, perhaps apart from down on his luck poet Jason Hoag or Dr Judd, the psychiatrist. There is an element of exhaustion to the performances, particularly after the film hits its midway point. Movies from this period, especially American studio ones, display a certain type of acting that seems very conscious of blocking (the way in which actors move and position themselves within the confines of set and the camera’s view of it). In the best pictures from this period, this very ‘staged’ approach is simply part of the artistic fabric. There is a certain theatre, a formality and structure to the dance of actors around each other and across the set that compliments and is complimented by all other elements in these films; it can be like beholding a tango or waltz, appreciating how grace and beauty can be supported, even enhanced, by such stricture and rigid technique. But when there is something lacking – be it actors with range or presence, a screenplay with narrative originality or linguistic flair, or bold, visionary images – this ‘blocking’ becomes transparent and rote and it becomes clear how little else there is.
How many things are more disheartening than sitting down to view an apparent masterpiece and walking away having seen what you’d swear was a dud? It’s enough to make one doubt what one even considers good cinema.
Share this:
The horror…: “Session 9”
October 31, 2014 § 1 Comment
How interesting it would be to conduct a study in which audience responses to 2001 low-budget horror film “Session 9” are grouped according to whether or not a viewer has previously seen “The Shining” and then compared. It’s always nice to approach a picture respectfully, appraising it on its own terms knowing full well, of course, that no movie is an island, or at least that very few are. Artworks are born these days into a complex post-modern referential lattice wherein a creation can draw upon scores of influences some of which the creator(s) may not even be aware. But this film, “Session 9”, directed by Brad Anderson and featuring not one but two alumni of the “CSI” TV series – David ‘Sunglasses and Canted Neck’ Caruso and Paul Guilfoyle – has too much in common with the 1980 Kubrick classic for the similarities to be a mere coincidence. For a start, both films run on the premise of a large, ostensibly haunted building with a tragic history having some strange parapsychological effect on one or two or all of the core characters and by turns everyone that comes in contact with them or the building. If the commonalities stopped here there may be very little need to even bring up “The Shining” at all. But in addition to the ‘haunted house as psychological battleground’ theme, there are strong whiffs of domestic violence, uxoricide and filicide in “Session 9”; the wife of the film’s iteration of Jack Torrance is called Wendy; there are elements of paranoia, psychosis and multiple personalities (think Tony) which makes sense considering the central building once housed a psychiatric unit; the line between voices of actual ghosts and voices of the subconscious is distinctly blurred; both films pay particular attention to the passage of time and use title cards and looming establishing shots accordingly; disorienting and claustrophobic depictions of a physical space are used to brew fear by way of unfamiliarity; the very last word of “Session 9” is ‘Doc.’ While some of these examples might seem a tad nit-picky, combined with each other their significance simply has to be a little more than purely happenstancial.
“Session 9” depicts several days in the professional lives of five men who comprise an asbestos elimination crew that has been handed the possibly impossible task of stripping a sprawling, long abandoned Victorian-era hospital – Danvers State Hospital, namely – of the noxious fibre in a mere week. Headed by Gordon, played by Brit actor Peter Mullan – Mullan who was so watchable in Jane Campion’s 2013 miniseries “Top of the Lake” – and managed by Caruso’s Phil, the outfit is a tense one from the get-go, partly on account of Hank (Josh Lucas) having pinched Phil’s girlfriend and partly because Gordon just seems off, and this tension plays a considerable part in creating the ominous sense that violence will almost certainly occur, if not at the hands of spectral forces then at the hands of one of these humans ruffians. Early on, as is the case with “The Shining,” the building’s unsettling history is briefly outlined – with special focus on the case of Mary Hobbs and the tragedy that befalls her – by Mike (co-scripter Stephen Gevedon), who then conveniently stumbles across material pertaining to Mary Hobbs and spends the remainder of the film diligently listening his way through nine sessions of recorded audio when he should actually be peeling asbestos from ceilings, hence the film’s title. In reality, this kind of confidential material would have been incinerated or at least gotten rid of once the hospital was shut down, but this is no realist tale and accordingly the film needn’t be judged by this. There is clearly meant to be some parallel drawn between what happened to Mary Hobbs (as per what Mike hears on the tapes) and what is slowly happening to the asbestos crew. How directly these two interact, however, is a bit of a mystery.
Now, it’s one thing for a film to reference another, either as a gesture of reverence on the parts of the filmmakers or from a more academic/canonical standpoint. Is it possible, though, for a movie to outsource its horror beats to an older, superior colleague, which is to say: for those who have seen and been affected by Kubrick’s “The Shining”, if “Session 9” turns out to be acutely scary or just chronically unsettling is it because it recalls/invokes the earlier film in a weirdly Pavlovian way? When ‘Tuesday’ appears starkly in the middle of the screen, backed by a relic of a building somehow reminiscent of the Overlook Hotel, is a unit of terror being uploaded from some store of cinematic memories and played back in a new context? How much of “Session 9” is actually scary on its own merit? Which is a silly question, silly because it is unquestionably silly to assume that someone who has never seen a horror film in their life would not be frightened watching this. Every film should be judged on its own terms, relatively speaking. Unfortunately, there is a creeping sense of mediocrity about “Session 9” which does not help dispel the idea that it is deeply indebted to another movie. This mediocrity is most evident in the last fifteen minutes during which director Anderson and his editing team show how lacking in faith they are is in the film’s powers of suggestion and inception that they feel compelled to confirm – by way of the fractured ‘brain spasm’ expository technique so common to low-budget indie thrillers – that the character who is most clearly losing his marbles throughout the film is in fact the character that ultimately loses his marbles and submits to murderous urges. What a disappointing thud it is, realising that the mystery was never really that mysterious and that the tapes that Mike so religiously listens to are narratively deceiving though thematically consistent; McGuffins really. This depends, of course, on if you consider the building to be haunted or whether you think there is simply something about the physical space that trips a switch in the susceptible character’s brain.
Perhaps, the one thing that renders “Session 9” distinct from the baroque symmetry of “The Shining” is its flat, digital look, as though it were shot partly on one of those pro-sumer cameras which it very well may have been. In some ways this only works to enhance the clanking claustrophobia of the dilapidated setting – which is a positive –, and also injects into the film the kind of verisimilitude that forces the atmosphere of dread to traverse the screen and cross over into our world, for the duration of the movie at least…also a positive. But rather than embracing the stark, stripped feel of the visuals so as to construct a certain mood – as is the case with “Primer”, “Pi” or “Following” – Anderson aims for some sort of psychological grandeur to which the film’s form simply cannot do justice, like a man stepping into a baby onesie or a baby adorning a labourer’s overalls. The low-fi look makes the film’s foray into psychotic expressionism seem like an amateurish stretch, as though it were made by students who desperately wished to prove their ambition, perhaps too soon. Alternatively, the unfulfilled narrative ambition on display might give the impression that the filmmakers either lack resources or lack the technical skill to realise their vision. The latter is much less likely seeing as the number of filmmakers capable of technical virtuosity seems to greatly outnumber those with the gifts required to elevate mere virtuosity to the level of notable art.
“Session 9” is considered by a considerable few to be one of the better if not one of the best horror films of the 2000s. Watching it, it is easy to glimpse the makings of a great film seeing as it bears elements of a certain Kubrick film that has been mentioned here ad nauseam, as well as hints of Carpenter’s “The Thing.” But it seems as though the things which could have made this film truly great are too closely tied to the reasons for its various failings. “Session 9” is like an isomeric mixture: the best parts are the worst parts and vice versa.
PS: Happy Halloween!
Share this:
The horror…: “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin”
October 26, 2014 § Leave a comment
It may not be as widely and religiously paraphrased as those two straitjacketing maxims ‘show, don’t tell’ and ‘write what you know’, but consume enough film criticism (both amateur and otherwise) and the act of cheating one’s audience will surely be decried and advised against in due time if not frequently. Of course, the idea of a filmmaker wilfully betraying the implicit trust of a film’s audience might initially appear mean and in poor faith, but if this is an absolute sin, how many passable, good or even great pictures could be considered successful simply on the back of unfair narrative practices? To use an obvious, almost blah example, could the untimely, almost cynical killing-off of Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” be called cheating? Much has been said about the general expectation – at that time in the history of cinema viewership – that Janet Leigh, being a recognisable name, a star, and the clear narrative and emotional focus of the first half hour of the film, would be expected to remain a significant narrative and emotional focus, or at least visually present, for the remainder of the film. Had she been portrayed by a no-name performer, Marion’s death would almost certainly not have been one quarter as scandalous as it turned out to be. And even with the knowledge that Janet Leigh was not quite the drawcard that an Audrey Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor would have been in that role, she was a big enough screen presence such that it would have been perfectly reasonable for an audience member to expect, even subconsciously, that she should not suddenly cease to exist, or that if she did, that she do so with a little more dignity and glamour. It’s undeniable that Hitchcock predicted the impact that the sudden screeching death of a Hollywood star would have on an audience’s psychology, an audience who – by decades of perhaps inadvertent, perhaps calculated conditioning – had come to place their entire sense of security in that of their leading ladies and leading men. Hitchcock knew this, and he exploited it, and boy did it cause a stir. And while the seismic cultural shockwaves were not always received with positivity, “Psycho” was an overall sensation, not to mention it’s being an enduringly effective thriller; it was the Master of Suspense taking his habit of audience manipulation to its logical extreme.
Running wholeheartedly with the idea that narrative deceit, that is to say, manipulation which is not a result of a viewer simply failing to heed or notice ‘hints’ and ‘clues’ present in a film, is not an absolute no-no and can in fact be a desirable theatrical experience, giallo maestro Lucio Fulci crafted, with 1971’s “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin”, a film whose cinematic form seems to flirt fitfully with the psyche of its central character Carol Hammond, played by Audrey Tatou lookalike Florinda Bolkan. The result is a pleasantly giddy murder mystery with an ending whose expository clunk might annoy whilst, at the same time, a small area in the navel flutters from the knowledge that the film has been one devious, mendacious ride. Like most of the best giallos, this film, about a young woman from money and influence whose homicidal dream about a neighbour/debauched party girl manifests itself stab-for-stab in a real killing for which she categorically denies any responsibility, feels more like a thriller than a horror picture because of its at times consummate craftsmanship to the point of sleekness and its weirdly elegant mode of genre filmmaking. From the very first image, it is clear that this picture will not adopt the apparent observational neutrality of something directed by Rohmer, opting instead to drift in and out of fantasy, misperception and blatant falsehood. In fact, it’s possible that Fulci decides to not simply drift but to wholeheartedly fashion his cinematic language in such a way that it is entirely in service of one particular character’s selective memory, scheming, hopes and dreams, and very possibly their self-delusion and even psychosis. It’s a bold move; one which, as implied earlier, could, probably did and probably still does leave many viewers feeling violated and unsatisfied.
So is “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin” a horror picture and if so, from what exactly is the horror derived? In some ways it doesn’t quite adhere to modern concepts of horror cinema which feature either the traditional supernatural entities or humans that seem to be supernaturally malicious. By its end, this particular Lucio film deviates from most giallos by way of its very tight body count and sets itself apart from most horror films by the nature of its central crime, by the very fact that it has a central, inciting act as opposed to running on the palpable threat of an unpredictable series of acts. What may very well be presented as the fairly straightforward whodunit that it very well happens to be is dragged into the realm of horror by revelling in the mindscape of someone deeply fearful, deeply anxious and prone to terrible violence as a result of it, however momentary the violence. Not to compare it unduly to what many consider the quintessential modern horror film, but “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin” in a way prefigures the manner in which filmic language is used to suggest character psychology as being the predominant narrative perspective in “The Shining.” As is the case with that movie, one can only wonder how often – if ever – Lucio Fulci presents ‘objective’ reality in “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin”, that is to say, the kind of omniscient reality that audiences are privileged with when, for example, dramatic irony is being utilised. It seems that the horror in Fulci’s picture is not really the murder with which the film commences but Carol’s experience of it, her memories, her nightmare, her realisation, her self-deception. This being said, the film has a very shaggy quality about it as do most giallos what with its seedy, pulpy tone and the use of sometimes poorly synchronised dubbing of the kind common to Italian films from that period. In addition, some of the performances feel like one-take compromises and there is a distinctly tits-and-ass feel about it, which is probably not coincidental seeing as it was distributed by American International Pictures with its unabashed dedication to motion pictures with exploitative elements. This shagginess is perhaps the one element of the film which might allow a viewer to grudgingly accept, in hindsight – or realise in the moment – that the images and the sounds that Lucio presents are questionable in their trustworthiness. By the same token, it’s probably also the reason that the formal consideration applied by Fulci to “Lizard in a Woman’s Skin” might go unnoticed by the casual viewer or disregarded by the cinephile. Not that either Fulci or the film itself seem to two shits about it.
Share this:
Brief impression: “Modern Romance”
October 16, 2014 § 1 Comment
Albert Brooks’ 1981 directorial effort might appear to be, on first viewing, about a man called Robert who can’t seem to make up his damn mind about a woman called Mary: about whether he wants to keep seeing her or whether he thinks they are just too damn incompatible to keep seeing each other. But on further analysis, that is to say ten to fifteen minutes spent thinking about the movie two to three days after having seen it for the first time, it becomes clear that Robert, embodied by writer-director Brooks, is in two minds from the very get-go, and that each one is pretty well made up, the only problem being that they are in stark opposition. In fact, the very foundation for much of the comedy in this film is Robert’s rapid oscillations between these two minds, or rather, the multiple minds he seems to be in with regards to most things in life. So fleetingly does he flit from one to the other, they might as well be simultaneous, which is precisely the crux of his state of crisis. Within single statements, single sentences, Robert repeatedly, dizzyingly contradicts and undercuts himself with an almost confessional naturalism on the part of Brooks, and the character portrait that results is one not of an individual who can’t make a decision per se, but one who can’t choose which decision to stick with, because if there’s one thing that Robert can do it’s to have an opinion or a take or multiple takes on something. It may very well be that having two contradictory minds shields him from having to pick a side and own up to any one decision, which is to say that Robert is highly insecure. This is precisely what makes him such a captivating on-screen presence, his contradictory nature that is, not necessarily his insecurity. In addition to Brooks’ expressively non-expressive face – and a pleasant one at that – the character of Robert doesn’t come across as hand-wringing and ineffectual but rather as very actively rash and self-absorbed. Unfortunately, when it comes to choosing someone to love, it may be somewhat possible to simultaneously want and not want a person, but it’s probably a little harder to have them and not have them. At some point a choice is required.
What truly makes “Modern Romance” uniquely captivating, though, is that Mary – while not as obviously neurotic and excruciatingly needy as Robert – is deeply complicit in their yo-yoing pendulum of a love affair, perhaps because she is helplessly drawn to him, or perhaps because she is just as helplessly confused and in two minds as he is. Which leads directly to a key question, the question being: is ‘Modern Romance’ mostly a film about a man and his peculiar assortment of insecurities, is it about a couple and their inherent attraction to each other despite how terrible they might very well be for one another, or – as the title would suggest – is it a film about sex, love and commitment in (at the time) contemporary USA, the key word being ‘contemporary’? The truth is that Brooks’ picture is a bit of all three, but maybe in varying doses at different points along its runtime. On the strength of Robert’s pungency and nervy charisma as the film’s key protagonist and the fact that a viewer simply cannot escape his mindscape due to the fact that the film seems to continually adopt or at least imply his point-of-view and state of mind, ‘Modern Romance’ is something of a character study, though not a particularly incisive one. If the aim of a character study is to analyse and understand the inner workings of a character, the film is not emphatically successful as one if at all. Yet the insistence on Robert’s repetitive, one-note mode of thought and his apparent lack of insight is a clear move to exploit his neuroticism for comedic effect, which implies that the objective is not necessarily to understand why he is the way he is, but how the way he is influences the choices he make, in particular those pertaining to romance. Then there is the idea of the film being a kind of peek into the romantic life of a heterosexual couple in 1980s LA. Whether or not one considers Mary and Robert as being representative of an average mid to upper-middle class white couple on an archetypal level, or as being a couple representative only of themselves and as real as any that one would meet at a party or people-watch in a park, ‘Modern Romance’ is probably digested most easily as a love story with acerbic undertones: boy dumps girl, boy fears he has made a terrible mistake, boy bulldozes his way back into girl’s life. In this mode, it is a terrific piece of entertainment with a unique enough bent to ensure that audiences inundated with one lacklustre romantic tale after another will find themselves a little shook up.
Then there is the third approach one can take with this film, which is to view it as part of a wider movement in post-50s cinema which couldn’t help but obsess over the existential crisis facing ‘modernised’ mankind, at least in the West. As was the case with European films of the late fifties and sixties that examined the psychic pain individuals are burdened with when a society adopts new mores and values without necessarily retiring older, perhaps even contradictory modes of living and thinking, a handful of pictures from the New Hollywood era similarly dealt with the relative failure of the counterculture as not just a movement but as a wider cultural sea change; not simply its inability to completely debunk and replace traditional values that it considered oppressive and non-progressive, but the way in which even those who whole-heartedly embraced “free love” and the like were unable to successfully put these values into practice without drowning in angst and jealousy. This of course makes ‘Modern Romance’ sound a great deal headier that it actually is when the truth is that it is more in keeping with the works of Paul Mazursky al-a ‘ Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,’ which is not to suggest that either film is exactly fluff.
What happens when a society decides to offer a greater degree of choice to the individual, a society which has up to that point dictated the ways in which men and women are to ordinarily relate with one another, how love and sex are to operate, and how permanent ‘permanent’ is? Where a man was once expected to find a decent woman to call his wife – and vice versa, get married, procreate and stick with her till he or she died, modernity arrived along with the slogan that ‘God is dead’ and the assertion that each individual is a sovereign, sentient entity with the right to choose and the responsibility for their own fate. For many, this is a liberating idea which it very well should be, on paper at least, but for just as many – perhaps the very same many – this new approach brings with it a burden that sees many of these many retreating, ironically, to the comfort of prescribed thoughts and lifestyles (not to say that the counterculture itself wasn’t highly prescribed, though the drugs certainly weren’t.) Why exactly Robert Cole is so insecure – as mentioned already – doesn’t appear to be the central concern of ‘Modern Romance,’ but rather, how being granted – by modern Western society – the relative freedom to choose what shape and form his love life will take causes him more pain than it does pleasure. For someone as insecure as Robert, and for that matter Mary, there is perhaps nothing as confusing and terrifying as feeling the need to commit (whether as a result of traditional inculcation, fear of loneliness or personal belief) whilst being offered the choice of being utterly non-committal in favour of ‘free love’ (which one might opt for due to indiscipline, fear of commitment, sex addiction or personal belief.) Maybe in an earlier time or in a different culture more suspicious or less tolerant of transitory romantic practices, Robert would simply be forced to marry Mary, stay married and become quietly resentful. Does ‘Modern Romance’ seem to be suggesting that some modern folk just aren’t modern enough to pursue sex and romance without guilt and/or the feeling that love isn’t real until drawn up and signed, but not traditional enough to make it last in a traditional sense? Whatever it’s suggesting, it obviously finds it funny; painfully funny.
Share this:
Brief impression: “황해” aka “Hwang hae” or “The Yellow Sea”
October 9, 2014 § Leave a comment
For someone increasingly stumped by the improbability of seeing a rushing stream of brilliant films of widely varied styles coming out of a particular country, “The Yellow Sea” comes as a very sobering reaffirmation of the likelihood that every river can in fact run dry or that every river at least has a bank, not least for the fact that this film is considered a legitimate example of the general excellence of South Korean ‘art’ or ‘auteur’ cinema, especially of the successful fusion of mainstream and arthouse sensibilities that seems to be a hallmark of sorts of the best that that national cinema has to offer. In fact, Thierry Fremaux, when announcing the inclusion of “The Yellow Sea” in the Un Certain Regard slate of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, called it a ‘beautiful film.’ But the most egregious part of Fremaux’s proclamation is not the fact that Na Hong-Jin’s follow-up to his very fine debut “The Chaser” is not categorically beautiful, but that the Cannes festival director felt it necessary to highlight the film’s beauty, whether visual or otherwise, in light of an official selection that featured films like “The Tree of Life”, “House of Tolerance”, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”, “Oslo, 31 August” and “The Kid with a Bike” to name a few – even “Melancholia” and “Drive” – all of these films whose own particular brands of beauty will be remembered long after “The Yellow Sea” is all but forgotten; modern-day masterpieces to be sure, far more exquisitely photographed and deeply assured in their artistry. Of course, the fact that he made special mention of the film in question is not necessarily proof that he holds it in any higher esteem than its festival contemporaries, but it is a striking assessment if only for the fact that “The Yellow Sea,” which starts not terribly, becomes progressively and alarmingly more mediocre as its runtime clocks along.
For anyone familiar with “The Chaser,” seeing the establishing five or ten minutes of its successor makes it clear that Na Hong-Jin is deviating from the somewhat clean, relatively steady approach he adopted with his first picture, a crime thriller/chase picture – like “The Yellow Sea” – about a pimp who realises that he may have uncovered the identity of a serial killer. The critical success of that first film – not to mention the way it ran away with the local box-office – may be due in part to Hong-Jin’s display of his ability to expertly combine the perversely offbeat sensibility that seems to dominate Korean art-house cinema with a less opaque approach to narrative and mood, not dissimilar to the mainstream-art-house balance that countryman Bong Joon-Ho achieves with utter mastery, only, “The Chaser” swings just a touch closer to the mainstream or at least does so more frequently, which is not a bad thing. The point is, where that film managed to be narratively and formally straightforward while retaining a level of unhealthy fascination with its already morbid subject matter, this new movie is not at all a nice, even mixture, like whole blood as it exists in arteries and veins, but a spun-down product with cells at the bottom and plasma floating on top after it’s been centrifuged. Of course, plasma and red blood cells are utilised individually as transfusible products, but for whole blood to be of functional value, the various components need to blend into a cohesive whole, which is sadly not the case with ‘The Yellow Sea’ (the blood analogy is apt seeing as there is so much of it splattered all over this picture.)
Perhaps it was a very conscious desire on the filmmaker’s part to create a more visceral aesthetic with his second picture, the kind that nauseates and oppresses in service of a specific overall effect. Despite “The Chaser’s” horrific content, there is a certain ‘fictional’ sheen to the visuals that would allow for a viewer to easily distance oneself, at least on a deeply emotional level. It’s very much a movie, “The Chaser.” As for “The Yellow Sea,” right from the get-go there is an acid yellow hue to the shadowy, high contrast images which are themselves shot handheld, shaking ever so slightly all the time, hovering right within characters’ personal space, perhaps in hope of baring a bit of their souls or documenting every telling wave of emotion that passes across their faces. It’s the kind of overbearing grungy “realism” that won’t rest until the viewer realises how goddam dire things are for the protagonist, the protagonist in this case being Gu-nam (played by Ha Jung-woo), a Joseonjok, or ethnic Korean living in China, and one not living very well at that, struggling to meet his growing gambling debts as a taxi driver while his wife, who has travelled to South Korean for work and has apparently forgotten him, continues to not make contact, which in turn convinces Gu-nam that she is being unfaithful to him. Luckily, Gu-nam finds himself hired to travel to Seoul in order to carry out a contract kill for a fellow Joseonjok gangster, in exchange for a decent sum of money (and the chance for Gu-nam to hunt down his wife and her presumed lover.) Now, a brilliant director like Andrea Arnold who also adopts this kind of dirty realism aesthetic and almost obnoxiously so – which is why her films can have a polarising effect – does it with commitment, and with a certain discipline. She also doesn’t pepper her rough-hewn, tough-minded films with incongruous elements like washed-out fantasised/remembered sex sequences. Why not? Because this would render her realist aesthetic disingenuous, unless she thought deep and hard about the inclusion of the aforementioned sex scenes and developed an approach which would effectively facilitate their inclusion in the final cut of the film. Hong-Jin does the former, peppering “The Yellow Sea” with images that are presumably meant to represent Gu-nam’s painful romantic nostalgia/murderous melancholy, but the director simply slips this kind of expressionistic element into a film which is not only arthouse-shaky, but will quickly become mainstream Hollywood action-shaky, without any evident awareness of the aesthetic incongruence at play. It becomes a Tony Scott film, but whereas a picture by the late director and brother of Ridley (whose greatest personal achievement – Tony’s that is – may be his executive producer role in “The Good Wife”) would whole-heartedly adopt the hyperkinetic approach, “The Yellow Sea,” or rather Hong-Jin, seems attracted to the idea of being both down, dirty and quiet and sleek, fast and loud. Hell, there’s no reason why these two aesthetics can’t somehow find a way to tango: case in point, Johnnie To’s marvellous 2013 crime flick “Drug War.” And let’s not forget Jacques Audiard’s even more brilliant “The Beat that my Heart Skipped” from a few years back. These films know how to scrap with agility and some sort of grace.
So as not to imply that ‘The Yellow Sea’ is a failure from beginning to end, the chapter of the film – yes, it is broken up into a few chapters – that depicts Gu-nam’s attempt at killing the Korean businessman he has been contracted to whack, is evidence that Na Hong-Jin has a decent store of directorial talent and that Ha Jung-woo is one hell of a performer. Spanning roughly twenty, thirty minutes, this narrative block displays mordant humour and observational patience in both the shooting and the editing, allowing Ha Jung-woo to expertly embody a man submerged in a bog of desperation and survivalist amorality. It shows in his hesitancy, but also in his jumpy, bird-like persistence. This period marks the movie’s high point but also its descent – almost without warning – into a depressingly rote gangland thriller complete with frequent, overly-terse phone calls servicing half-baked exposition, wildly photographed scenes of violent mayhem which would have been far more horrifying if approached with some restraint, and car chases cut together so frantically yet so half-heartedly that they begin to feel artless. And to top it all off? Silly little art-house flourishes every so often. At the end, what is left is a glass of unshaken orange juice which, when consumed, is at one point unsubstantially thin and at another, an unpleasant mouthful of pulp. How disappointing.
Share this:
Brief impression: “All That Heaven Allows”
September 7, 2014 § Leave a comment
For a film that is the product of a director renowned for his ‘melodramas’, Douglas Sirk’s 1955 picture “All That Heaven Allows”, the tale of a semi-scandalous love affair between a beautiful middle-aged widow and a much younger hunk of a gardener, derives much – if not all – of its dramatic momentum from its people rather than from its plot. If a melodramatic story is largely founded upon a plot device of some description, however extravagant, and the ways in which its characters react to said device as well as to each other’s reactions, “All That Heaven Allows” does not quite sink into that mould with ease. This is not to say that it is a better film for this reason, but it does beg the question: is the term ‘melodrama’ more misunderstood than it is understood? Whatever the answer, it is surely a term which has become – and unfairly so – a shorthand criticism for cinematic ham and cheese.
The most common modern iteration of the melodrama seems to be, ironically, the situation comedy, the half-hour sitcom wherein a group of characters with well-demarcated – often heightened – personalities are beset by an event or an insult or a misunderstanding of sorts in response to which they react and behave accordingly; according to their own individual natures and the natures of their fellow characters, but also according to the needs of the audiences who crave a somewhat embellished alternative to their own rather droll realities. This is the draw of soap operas, the reason for their extraordinary longevity and rabid following. Interestingly, there may be no need to introduce a plot device or an artificial source of conflict if the characters themselves are brash or heightened enough such that the interaction between them is sufficient for the brewing of melodrama. Admittedly, “All That Heaven Allows” features its share of individuals who are ripe and ready for their melodramatic duties: gossips, motor-mouths, pontificating pseudo-intellects and hubristic sons. Even Rock Hudson’s Ron Kirby, who initially comes across as earthy and flexible, turns out to be – in ways endearing and irritating – just as stuck in his way as the conservative hive-minds that decry the relationship he has with the older Cary Scott (portrayed soulfully and with charismatic sadness by pixie-faced Jane Wyman). The exception amongst all these characters – apart from Ron’s well-balanced friends – seems to be Cary herself. But even then, there is an authenticity and generosity in the way even the gossips and motor-mouths are portrayed by both actor and director which undercuts any sense of excess or superfluity, but more importantly there is a lightness of touch, a mellow undercurrent of naturalism that really balances out the more colourful aspects of the movie (and not just the lush, technicolour radiance).
Jane Wyman’s character is unique amongst her fictional peers in that she is reasonable and considerate in a way that may be considered overly conservative, even timid or submissive; perhaps anti-dramatic. Recently widowed and the mother of two cocksure young adults, Cary is longsuffering in the way that a good wife in fifties USA ought to have been. But unlike the usual characters that usually populate usual melodramas, she is rarely driven to acts of bombast or thoughtlessness simply as a means to satisfy her desires and add spice to the general proceedings. But she does have desires and, as the film progresses, she finds that her considerateness is rarely reciprocated or even appreciated and as a result she feels comfortable – perhaps for the first time in her fictional memory – pursuing pleasure and happiness purely for herself. Cary’s low-key yet powerful screen presence, in spite of her utter reasonableness, is evidence enough for an argument against one of the least palatable aspects of melodrama, that is to say, that bone-dry watering hole that bad dramatists continually return to in hope of injecting life into their narrative concoctions: irrational, rash, unconsidered behaviour; that which one may cheekily term ‘cinema logic’. Of course, the technicolour vibrancy of the film’s visual aesthetic is signature Sirk and may be one of the reasons it immediately strikes viewers as being a melodrama seeing as melodramas are heightened not just narratively but formally, is it not? I suppose the magic of this film lies in the German émigré director’s deft balancing of a heightened formal approach with a consequently noticeable and notable sprinkling of psychological realism, allowing of course for the that which an American drama from this period was likely required to provide if it was to attain any sort of theatrical longevity or at the very least satisfy the emotions expressiveness that Hollywood expected audiences to expect.
the odd employment 
Brief impression: “Force Majeure”
November 14, 2014 § Leave a comment
It’s just a ‘simple’, straightforward rear tracking shot of a seemingly archetypal upper-middle class Western European family – mother, father, daughter, son – skiing steadily down an iridescent, perfectly manicured white slope at the Les Arcs ski resort in the Alps, but it’s a moment of magic, visual, technical, thematic…all of it. One by one, the four Swedish holidayers cruise into frame in gentle swoops and dips until they, as a group, have established themselves as the focus of interest, which can’t be that hard in so bland – though prettily so – an environment. As if floating on the arm of a Steadicam attached to an operator firmly strapped to a snowmobile with the most exquisite suspension system, the camera then calmly follows them for what seems like several minutes of tracking perfection: not a jiggle, not a blur. At first there may be the slight anticipation of something dramatic happening to disrupt this very sedate picture, but it becomes clear that this won’t be the case and the eyes are suddenly drawn to the way in which the skiers weave in and out of each other’s paths, at times threatening to drift apart but always remaining comfortably in reach. There’s something hypnotic, something reassuringly monotonous about the whole thing, and one can only assume that this sense is shared by the people on screen. But at the same time there is something oppressive about the way Ebba, Tomas, Vera and Harry seem to orbit each other, or maybe disrupt each other’s trajectories, as though their adherence to a certain cultural concept of what a functional family unit looks and feels like ultimately limits each member’s individual potential. They’re like electrons circling some unseen nucleus, moving according to their own intrinsic energies but unable to escape altogether, the result being an internally discordant but externally cohesive whole. In fact, only a few minutes of film time prior to this scene, the classic foursome is being coached by a resort photographer on how to appear happily familial and natural about it. Needless to say, the results are awkward, which only works to inform the dynamic that will be suggested in the tracking shot to come.
In a wonderfully astute interview of writer-director Ruben Ӧstlund by Film Comment magazine’s Violet Lucca, the Swedish filmmaker makes mention of the mid-twentieth-century concept of the ‘nuclear family’ and how it may have been – may still be – a sad evolutionary step in Western humankind’s move towards a more individualised (narcissistic?) approach to living, and with this particular shot it’s as though director of cinematography Fredrik Wenzel has enabled Ӧstlund to craft a pretty direct visual pun with regards to the ‘nuclear family’, one which smartly and succinctly forestalls what may very well be the core concern of “Force Majeure.” But it’s the film’s showstopper scene – the one which sets the dramatic ball rolling and the one everybody simply can’t not talk about – that highlights the fact that this movie is interested in exploring the inherently unstable human tendency to try to find a harmonious sweetspot where the primal and the aspirational can meet, or at least collide under controlled conditions.
Ebba, Tomas and their two prepubescent children are on a five-day skiing trip which – Ebba explains to a fellow holidaying Swede that she meets on day one – is a rare opportunity for busy breadwinner Tomas to focus his full attention on the family for whom he apparently works his ass off to win bread. The interesting thing about this particular ski resort is that ‘controlled’ avalanches are a regular part of maintaining the generous snow cover that makes for a comfortable, gentrified skiing experience – as well as doubling as some sort of sideshow spectacle. So while lunching outside, one of these ‘controlled’ avalanches occurs and the diners and onlookers all turn to watch or raise whatever video-capable device they own, Tomas included. Something then occurs which anyone who has seen Julia Loktev’s marvellous “The Loneliest Planet” might be able to guess. The beauty of this scene – apart from its purposefully spare composition and thrillingly detached execution, proof that restless filmmaking is not the only way to preserve and present the visceral power of a moment – is that it is a near literal face-off between two examples of mankind’s desire to somehow exercise a degree of dominion over forces of nature that often prove to be more difficult to subjugate or manage than expected: instincts of self-preservation, maternal drive, the basic physics of a tumbling mass of snow, and fear, amongst others. It’s the perfect point from which to launch into what is a fairly on-point examination of a particular type of western lifestyle (heteronormative but gender-progressive, monogamous, nuclear) and how the social structure supporting this mode of living is almost a kind of containment chamber which keeps certain elemental but undesirable human tendencies in check, albeit tenuously. In a way, “Force Majeure” has a certain kinship with a novel-film duo like Lionel Shriver/Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need To Talk About Kevin” which dares to skewer, or at the very least question, the generally held expectation that all mothers embrace motherhood without there being any room for feelings of resentment, self-loss and frustration. Likewise, “Force Majeure” takes to task the expectations placed upon certain roles within a tightknit social structure and, in doing so, insidiously disassembles the illusions upon which a very pervasive mode of western living seems to be founded. Are Tomas’s actions during the avalanche unnatural or are they just undesirable within the social construct of which he has chosen to be a part? When Ebba is chatting up an acquaintance in the hotel restaurant only to learn of this acquaintance’s open marriage and consequently killer sex life, does her indignation stem from a sincere belief that marriage should be strictly monogamous, or is she desperate to defend the conventional marital approach that she has (presumably) adhered to in spite of her actual attraction to and desire for the alternative that this lady has offered up? It’s interesting to note that the tension between Tomas and Ebba only truly escalates as a result of his denial of his actions/lack thereof. Does this imply that somewhere, deep down within her, Ebba believes that her husband is simply a ‘normal selfish white alpha male’, and that she is okay with this? Or does Tomas’s shocking behaviour simply concur with her already held impression of him lacking dedication to his family? Perhaps this shattering of Tomas’s image enables Ebba to momentarily acknowledge (in her own mind) that she may in fact be tired of him sexually/emotionally, and that she craves some kind of respite even if in the shape of a Brady Corbet toy boy, which she will of course never permit herself to enjoy. Either way, it’s only after Tomas’s sadly humorous catharsis on the hotel room floor that he and Ebba decide to resuscitate the marital image that they came so close to losing. As is the case in “Gone Girl” in which Mr and Mrs Dunne – after Amy Dunne’s Machiavellian viciousness is made evident to Nick and Nick Dunne concedes his douchebaggery to Amy – conspire to continue their toxic marriage in the interest of who knows what (image? Security?!), in “Force Majeure” it’s only after Ebba bears witness to the true wretched confusion residing within her husband’s soul that she can presumably forgive him and allows him to reprise his role as Protector and Provider, the role he has to-date so poorly played, if only for the sake of their children and their enormous superegos.
With his 2011 film “Play” and this 2014 follow-up, Ruben Ӧstlund seems to be working his way towards a place amongst a select group of filmmakers who in one way or another utilise cinema as some sort of hypothetical social laboratory or model, constructing situations with specific stresses and specific parameters and then tossing in a bunch of human characters in order to observe how they behave. Accordingly, the director takes a steadily observational approach that favours longer takes, fewer cuts, spare camera moves and dialogue that oscillates between the incisive and the evasive. One filmmaker that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of cinematic social experiments is Luis Bunuel (“The Exterminating Angel”, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie ”) with Mike Leigh, Michael Haneke, Yorgos Lanthimos and maybe even Lars von Trier being more contemporary examples. This assertion, as much as it is a way of praising Ӧstlund’s directorial chops and his socially relevant approach to cinema, also brings with it the burden of disapproving audiences who are wont to decry any film that they consider cruel to its characters, mean-spirited or unsettlingly distanced. The image of a misanthropic creative intelligence needlessly and gleefully ‘torturing’ fictional humans, which has often been attached to both Haneke and von Trier (though certainly not Leigh), may not haunt Ӧstlund just yet, at least not on the basis of his filmography to date. While “Force Majeure” is all too aware of the painful hilarity of its proceedings (as evidenced – for example – by the belly-tickling use of Antonio Vivaldi’s “Summer”, a piece which would be instantly recognisable to fans of HBO’s Larry David vehicle “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and while it indulges in this very comedy for both its entertainment value as well as for its social commentary potential, it never does so inconsequentially and certainly not haphazardly. It’s all very…controlled. But if, for whatever reason, Ruben Ӧstlund’s directorial career does not take flight and soar in the way that a work as consummate as “Force Majeure” would suggest, he should consider finding work at an alpine ski resort like Les Arcs, sending snow a-tumbling down mountainsides with perfectly-timed explosions in order to terrify, thrill, and occasionally tip a nice, well-off, heteronormative family into a necessary state of crisis, the crisis that they simply need to have.
Share this: