The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Historie(s) du Cinema (1988-1998)

Friday, October 18, 2013

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Historie(s) du Cinema (1988-1998)

Histoire(s) due Cinema (1988-1998)
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.
Written by: Jean-Luc Godard.

Jean-Luc Godard has been bitter and angry for a long time about what he sees as the “failures” of cinema. The famed French director, who perhaps was the biggest name in cinema during the 1960s, has long since turned his back on narrative filmmaking, and become an avant-garde filmmaker. To be fair, had he never made those films in the early to mid-1960s – really most of his films from Breathless (1960) to Weekend (1967) – he would still be an important filmmaker in avant-garde circles. Yet, if it wasn’t for those early films, Godard would not command the respect he now does. Whenever he opens his mouth to insult a filmmaker – a favorite target of his has been Spielberg (although, most of what Godard has said about Spielberg is so outlandish and ridiculous that it masks any legitimate criticisms he may have), everyone listens. When he makes a film like Film Socialism (2010), it becomes the most talked about film at the Cannes Film Festival – where normally a film that like wouldn’t even play there (you can argue that’s either a good or bad thing). There seems to be two camps on Godard – those who think he has done very little of value since Weekend, and those who think that Godard is still a genius, still far ahead of the curve, waiting for people to catch up to him.

For the most part, I consider myself to be in the former camp. Breathless (1960), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), Pierrot Le Fou (1965) and Weekend (1967) are all legitimately great movies, and even if I didn’t think Made in U.S.A. (1966) or 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) were great (or even that good in the case of 2 or 3 Things), they was interesting and intelligent films. This period was so prolific for Godard that I still need to see some fairly major works from it –A Woman is a Woman (1961), Alphaville (1965), Masculin-Feminine (1966) – chief among them. Given how much I hated Film Socialisme (sorry, perhaps I should say I just don’t get it, but in all honesty, when I read the reviews of people who claim it to be a masterpiece, I wonder if I perhaps walked into the wrong theater, because what I saw was an incoherent mess, not some profound statement on anything) and some of his other “late period” films, I cannot imagine wanting to see them above the films he was making in the period where he made several legitimate masterpieces.

All this is a very long introduction into this piece which is about Godard’s magnum opus – Histoire(s) due Cinema, an eight part (or four part, with each part having an (a) and (b) if you want to get technical), four and a half hour epic, which he made and released slowly between 1988 and 1998. Normally, I would have rather watched one of those 1960s Godard films I still haven’t seen rather than this opus – but the film ranked in the top 50 films of all time on the 2012 Sight and Sound Critics Poll, so I bite the bullet and settled in for what I assumed would be a VERY long night.

But I was pleasantly surprised by Histoire(s) du Cinema. I’m certainly not saying that the film is for everyone – it clearly isn’t, and is more of an avant-garde art piece than anything else – but I was fascinated by the film. The film is technical marvel – a masterpiece of montage – as it brings together clips from cinema’s past, and makes startling connections, and wholly new images out of them. Yes, the film is still a long sit, and yet it was never less than fascinating – even when it enraging, which it often was as Godard’s contentions and opinions about cinema are often at complete odds with my own, or self-aggrandizing, which it is nearly constantly for parts of the movie. In Godard’s view, of course, only someone in the New Wave could tell the story of cinema history – meaning only he can – and that the French New Wave was the greatest thing that ever happened to cinema – again, meaning he was – and since then it has been a long, slow death march. He pretty much argues that cinema is already dead – but of course, only Godard is smart enough to see it.

But I can disagree with a movie, and still find it interesting – and Histoire(s) du Cinema is certainly interesting. It’s not that I didn’t know that Godard was an egomaniac when I sat down to watch Histoire(s) du Cinema, or that he wasn’t going to argue that cinema has failed – he has been arguing that for years. And Histoire(s) du Cinema is the type of film that only someone who at one point completely loved cinema could make. Godard’s movie knowledge is unquestionable, and his disappointment in cinema’s “failings” is genuine, even if I think more than a little of that disappointment stems from the fact that so few people followed him when he broke away from the mainstream.

It should be noted that this isn’t a standard issue cinema history documentary – for that, watch Martin Scorsese’s A Personal Journey Through American Film and My Voyage to Italy, both of which are excellent, both for film buffs and newcomers. No, to truly understand Godard’s film, you have to know a lot about cinema before you sit down and watch it – there were times when I was completely overwhelmed by what was being thrown on the screen. To add to the confusion, the version I saw had sparse English subtitles – but I think the important parts are subtitled (I was never very good at French in school, but I remember enough to be able to piece together much of the non-subtitled, oft-repeated phrases).

Histoire(s) du Cinema is finally a love letter to, elegy of and condemnation of cinema, from one of its sharpest minds. I may not like much of Godard’s later output, but I have never doubted that he is, on some level, still a genius – even if I think he has bought too much into his own myth (no one thinks Godard is a genius as much as Godard does). The film is never less than fascinating, even if it does begin to repeat itself after a while. At four and half hours, this is a VERY long sit – and most audiences will grow restless. I do not think this is the masterpiece that its most ardent supporters do, but for what it is, Histoire(s) du Cinema certainly deserves to be more widely seen than it has been (part of that is undoubtedly do to the rights issues of using all those old clips – this held up the DVD release for years apparently). I cannot think of too many people that I would actually recommend sitting through this film to – it requires a patient audience member, willing to indulge Godard – but if the film sounds interesting to you, than I certainly think you should see it.

Movie Review: Bastards

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Movie Review: Bastards

Bastards
Directed by: Claire Denis.
Written by: Jean-Pol Fargeau and Claire Denis.
Starring: Vincent Lindon (Marco Silvestri), Chiara Mastroianni (Raphaëlle), Julie Bataille (Sandra), Michel Subor (Edouard Laporte), Lola Créton (Justine), Alex Descas (Dr. Béthanie), Grégoire Colin (Xavier), Florence Loiret Caille (Elysée), Christophe Miossec (Guy), Yann Antoine Bizette (Joseph), Jeanne Disson (Audrey), Laurent Grévill (Jacques).

The opening frames of Claire Denis’ Bastards lets us know we are in the film noir world. A bald man, in a fancy suit looks out into the dark, raining night – looking miserable. Soon, he’ll be on the dead on the concrete – having thrown himself to his death. A beautiful young girl walks naked down the street – wearing only a pair of high heels that click as she walks slowly, a dazed look on her face. A woman blames the police and their apathy for her husband’s suicide, and the state of her daughter. A grizzled older man gets a phone call – a family emergency – which makes him go AWOL from his job at sea, and head back to land to help his family. As with many of Denis’ films, she makes no effort to explain everything from the outset – preferring instead to let events unfold, and the audience to figure them out as they go along.

The second man, we soon learn, is Marco Silvestri (Vincent Lindon). The first man was Jacques (Laurent Grevill), an old friend, and current brother-in-law, married to Marco’s sister Sandra (Julie Bataille). The naked young woman is Justine (Lola Creton), their daughter, Vincent’s niece. Jacques and Sandra run a failing shoe factory, and Sandra blames all of their problems on Edouard Laporte (Michel Subor), an exceedingly wealthy, powerful man – not only does he own most of their debt, he is also the man they have accused of abusing Justine – and when we find out just how abused she was, it is stomach churning. Marco has come back to help out – although it isn’t immediately clear just what that means. What we do know is that he is moving in upstairs from Raphaelle (Chiara Mastroianni), the younger mistress of Laporte, and her young son. He charms his way into her life – and her pants – but maybe charms is the wrong word here. He is an old fashioned type of guy, and his seduction of her is gruff, and almost wordless – she puts up little resistance to his advances.

Marco is a classic noir “hero” – a normal guy who is duped into doing things he would not normally do. He is tough and intelligent – but also almost hopelessly naïve. In classic Hollywood noir terms, he is the type of character Robert Ryan would have excelled at playing. You really cannot call Mastroianni’ Raphaelle a femme fatale – she doesn’t seduce him into doing anything for her – some will even complain that she is too passive. She doesn’t seem too interested in who he is, what he does, or why he is there. Given the sexual relationship we see between and the older Laporte, it may well be that she just wants him for sex. He tries to get under her skin, but she seems impervious to his efforts – she doesn’t judge him – doesn’t want to know why he’s living in an expensive apartment, with no furniture, and yet has pawned his watch and sold his car. Marco is drawn back in by his sister – who has a one track mind of getting even with Laporte – but he doesn’t ask her the right questions – in fact, he doesn’t really ask her anything at all. That something doesn’t quite seem right about everything she is saying seems obvious to the audience – but not to Marco, who just accepts it – and then is shocked as secrets start being revealed. The film gets darker and darker, right up until its shocking final scene – which finally explains what precisely happened in a dirty shack, littered with bloody corn cobs.

In many ways, Bastards is more straight forward than much of Denis’ recent work. Yes, there are flashbacks and forwards, and she never gives the audience all the information they want until the final scene, yet the film is more straight forward than films like White Material or The Intruder. The film’s violence – sexual and otherwise – is strong and shocking, but then given the material it pretty much needs to be. Denis is not just using the violence to shock the audience, its part of her larger narrative arc, inspired by Faulkner’s Sanctuary. It will likely offend some, as the victims in the movie seem passive – almost accepting of their victimization (they certainly do not fight back against it). A character like Lola Creton’s damaged young woman remains an enigma right until the end – a victim of just about everyone else in the movie, but one whose interior world is never explored. Raphaelle is a character who also threatens to be an enigma as well – is she just using Marco, or is there something deeper going on there – right until her final moments, when the character snaps into focus. Sandra goes from grieving widow into something much more insidious as the movie goes along. Laporte, we sense from the outset is sinister – it doesn’t help that he seems to be made to look like Robert Blake in Lost Highway – but just what his character does still surprises. Into this world, Marco comes wholly unprepared. Lindon does a marvelous job in his role – making Marco into a man’s man – the type we don’t see much of in films anymore – but one who ultimately is a lot softer than he first appears. The poor bastard has no idea what’s coming for him.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Bullet in the Head (1990)

Friday, October 11, 2013

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Bullet in the Head (1990)

Bullet in the Head (1990)
Directed by: John Woo.
Written by: Janet Chun & Patrick Leung & John Woo.
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Ah Bee), Jacky Cheung (Fai), Waise Lee (Little Wing), Simon Yam (Luke), Fennie Yuen (Jane), Yolinda Yam (Sally Yen).

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was no better action filmmaker in the world than John Woo. In films like A Better Tomorrow (1986), and it’s even better sequel A Better Tomorrow II (1987), and his two masterpieces The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992), Woo elevated gunfight choreography to its very highest level. I suppose it was inevitable that Hollywood would come calling, and after a few disappointing efforts – Hard Target (1993) and Broken Arrow (1995) – Woo made his American masterwork Face/Off (1997), arguably the most entertaining pure action movie made in America in the 1990s. Since then, his career has most been disappointing – Mission Impossible II (2000) was entertaining sure, but it doesn’t come close to Woo’s best work. The less said about Windtalkers (2002) and Paycheck (2003), the better. I did quite like his last film – Red Cliff (2008), although I’ve only ever seen the truncated American release – which cut out roughly half of Woo’s epic return to his homeland.

All of this is a fancy way of saying that I am a John Woo fan, although not as big of one as I once was. I have always meant to check out his 1990 film Bullet in the Head. I remember trying desperately to track this film down back when I was high school and not being able to, so when I came across a copy recently, I couldn’t help myself. I just had to check out what some had referred to as Woo’s best film, and Woo himself had referred to as his “Apocalypse Now” – because he drove himself as crazy as Coppola did making the film.

 

But it wasn’t Apocalypse Now I thought of when watching Bullet in the Head, but another Vietnam film – Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). Like that film, Bullet in the Head is about three friends who go off to Vietnam during the American war there. Of course, these characters are not American, but from Hong Kong, and are not going to fight a war, but to make money. A friend of theirs tells them that wherever there is war, there is money to be made – and these three guys, who fancy themselves criminals - think they can be the ones to make it. But of course, everything gets shot to shit pretty damn quickly.

Woo is a genius at action sequences, and they are the highlight of Bullet in the Head as well. There are multiple chase sequences, and gun battles, and while nothing may quite reach the heights of the opening of Hard Boiled, there is a long sequence in a nightclub when things go bad that comes pretty damn close. And unlike the other Woo movies of the period, this is also a war movie – the three “friends”, who quickly fall apart, eventually find themselves captives of the Vietcong, and like the men in The Deer Hunter, are tormented for their captor’s amusement. In The Deer Hunter, they were forced to play Russian roulette. In Bullet in the Head, they are forced to execute American soldiers, as their captors look on and laugh. But, again like in The Deer Hunter, when you give your prisoners a gun, you give them a weapon they can use against you – and this sets up another epic gun fight.

With all due respect to those who think Bullet in the Head is Woo’s masterpiece, I don’t quite get it. The opening scenes of the film – in Hong Kong (and like The Deer Hunter include a wedding) aren’t very good at all, and in fact are almost embarrassingly simplistic – especially in terms of the dialogue. When the action starts up in the second and third acts, the movie certainly gets far more entertaining – the action sequences are the reason to see the movie, and they are brilliantly staged as we have come to expect from Woo.

But the story of the movie is just far too derivative. I think I’ve mentioned The Deer Hunter about six times now, and that’s because this movie really does seem to go past the point of mere homage, and gets almost into plagiarism territory. Worse, the film makes all the characters more simple and one note than they were in Cimino’s films. Tony Leung is very good as Ah Bee (the Robert DeNiro equivalent), as he maintains his moral compass, and tries desperately to keep the group together. But Waise Lee as Little Wing (the Christopher Walken equivalent) isn’t given all that much to do – and they make him too simple minded – really bordering on mildly retarded. This, I suppose, makes Jacky Cheung’s Fai into the John Savage character, although that really isn’t fair to Savage, who doesn’t become a villain as Fai does here, just a bitter, angry cripple. Fai’s continued attempts to keep the gold he stole become increasingly ridiculous as the narrative goes along. And his final scene with Leung, back in Hong Kong, is gruesome in a way that simply feels exploitive.

I understand the urge that must have went into making Bullet in the Head for Woo. He had just had a falling out with his producing partner, Tsui Hark, who apparently was more powerful than Woo in Hong Kong cinema at the time, and this led to Woo pretty much being blacklisted – he financed much of the movie himself. And Woo wanted to make something more “serious” than the simple gangster-action movie he had been doing. Not only is he addressing the Vietnam war, but he very explicitly references the then recent Tiananmen Square incident (even all these years later, it’s impossible not to think of what happened there when watching Woo pretty much recreate the famous incident, under the guise of something else).

The problem seems to be that Woo doesn’t really have anything to say about the issues he raises – either the Vietnam War or Tiananmen Square. At least nothing anything beyond the most basic. And he lifts so much directly from The Deer Hunter that it detracts from what is great about the film. John Woo is better than most at action movies – and A Bullet in the Head proves that in the action sequences. It also proves why he has so rarely decided to tackle serious subject matter. He’s just not very good at that.

Movie Review: A Touch of Sin

Friday, October 4, 2013

Movie Review: A Touch of Sin

A Touch of Sin
Directed by: Zhangke Jia.
Written by: Zhangke Jia.
Starring: Wu Jiang (Dahai), Baoqiang Wang (Zhou San), Tao Zhao (Xiao Yu), Lanshan Luo (Xiao Hui).

Throughout his entire career, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke has been interested in documenting the changing economic landscape of China – that has been sold as a good thing that provides more freedom and opportunity for the people of China, but the reality is much more complex than the officially sanctioned version. Up until A Touch of Sin however, his films have been rather mournful, a series of sad indictments of the new system, and its failures. On the surface, A Touch of Sin seems like a major departure for Jia – this is a brutally violent, bloody film, that uses old school Wuxia films as a visual influence. Yet underneath the violent, angry surface of Jia’s film, lies the same concerns. The characters in A Touch of Sin are not all that different than the ones in Jia’s Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World or Still Life – they are just a little older, and a whole lot angrier.

A Touch of Sin takes four true life incidents – three that end in murder, one in suicide – that Jia says represents a disturbing new trend of seemingly random violence in China. The movie traverses pretty much the entire country, and in four half hour segments show four characters that have simply had enough, and eventually snap. Only one of these characters seems at ease with what he does – and endeavors to get away with it.

The first segment is about Dahai (Wu Jiang), an angry man who lives in a village who more than a decade ago sold off their mining rights to a private company. As part of that deal, 40% of the profits were supposed to be funneled back into the village itself – something that hasn’t happened. Meanwhile, the owner of the company has become rich – his latest purchase is a private jet. The village Chief won’t take Dahai’s complaint seriously – and Dahai is convinced he’s on the take. The other villagers either don’t seem to care, or else are too scared to say anything for fear of reprisals – and after what happens to Dahai when he voices his objection, it’s no wonder. The entire segment builds to a violent finale – a brutal, bloody killing spree that would make Sergio Leone (or Quentin Tarantino) proud.

The film that switches focus to Zhou San (Baoqiang Wang) – or more accurately, refocuses on him, as the movie opens with a very brief scene of him on a motorcycle being confronted by the three thugs who would have been better off to leave him alone. Zhou San seems to be a drifter, travelling the country either by motorcycle or boat, wearing his Chicago Bulls toque (the fact that Chicago has its own epidemic of gun crime is no coincidence). He comes back to his hometown on the occasion of his mother’s 70^th birthday (at New Years) – and visits briefly with his wife and son. He isn’t there long, but the portrait we get of his more “respectable” brothers makes you think they’re crooks like him – but just in a different way. Before long, he heads back onto the road – and planning and executing his latest killing and robbery. His story is not unlike the ones in the documentary Last Train Home – about workers who depending on the season, travel the country for work, only to return at New Year’s. Zhou San, like them, goes to where the work is.

Next up is the story of Xiao Yu (played by perpetual Jia muse Tao Zhao). She is a woman in love with a married man, who is getting tired of his promises to leave his wife and be with her. Yet, at the train station saying goodbye, she agrees to give him another six months to decide what he wants to do – before going back to her job as a receptionist at a “massage parlor” – where she greets the exclusively male clientele with the question “Sauna or the night?”, letting everyone know what kind of massage parlor this is. She will have two violent confrontations during her segment – first when the wife of the man she’s having an affair with confronts her – goons in tow – and second when a pair of men (who we have seen in a previous segment) demand that she be the one who gives them a “massage” – finally pushing her to the point where she snaps.

The movie ends with the saddest segment – as it tell the story of Xiao Hui (Lanshan Luo), who works at a factory when the segment begins – only to have to leave that job because of an accident. He then works as a wait at an “upscale” hotel – and falls for one of the female employees there, who has to dress in degrading outfits, and dance for the male clientele again – until they want something more for them. He again leaves that job – and another – and under pressure from home to send more money, he too, will eventually snap.

A Touch of Sin is an angry film. If the previous films made by Jia were about the downside of China’s conversion to capitalism – A Touch of Sin is still about that transition, but is about more hopeless characters – people who cannot see another way out for themselves. Jia was disturbed by the rising “random” violence in China – and that is what inspired him to make the film. But the Jia, the violence is anything but random – it comes out of people in hopeless economic situations. Social issues are at the heart of the violence, and to Jia it’s only going to get worse. The film is also a technical marvel. The title is a play on the wuxia film classic A Touch of Zen, directed by King Hu, who Jia considers an major influence on his film. Though widely seen as simple kung fu films, Jia sees in the work of Hu a social and political elements. The film has been impeccably crafted, both in the more realistic sequences, and the stylized violence.

Jia Zhnagke has long since been a favorite of film critics, even if his films have never made much of a dent at the North American box office. He was cited by different polls in magazines such as Film Comment and Cinemascope as one of the best directors of the last decade. If Jia is ever to have a breakthrough film – and I doubt he will – A Touch of Sin could, and should, be that film. Because in many ways it is a genre film, Western audiences will be more comfortable with it that his previous films, that took a more realistic (and at times surrealistic) approach to his themes. But the film is every inch a Jia Zhangke film. It’s just that over time, he – like the characters in this film – has become angrier. This is one of the year’s best films.

Movie Review: Renoir

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Movie Review: Renoir

Renoir
Directed by: Gilles Bourdos.
Written by: Gilles Bourdos & Jérôme Tonnerre  & Michel Spinosa based on the work by Jacques Renoir.
Starring: Michel Bouquet (Pierre-Auguste Renoir), Christa Theret (Andrée Heuschling), Vincent Rottiers (Jean Renoir), Thomas Doret (Coco Renoir), Romane Bohringer (Gabrielle), Michèle Gleizer (Aline Renoir), Laurent Poitrenaux (Pierre Renoir).

That Gilles Bourdos’ Renoir is a beautiful film is fairly undeniable. Bourdos used a bright color palette to suggest the same colors used by one of the movies subjects – painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir – and tries to capture the same leisurely pace and camera work of the other – his son Jean Renoir – from films like A Day in the Country (1936). This makes Renoir never less than interesting to look at. Unfortunately, that’s about all there is to the film – the narrative arc is under developed, as are the characters, and the film is so leisurely paced that the film never really gains any sort of momentum.

The film takes place over the summer of 1915. The elderly Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet) is a renowned artist – one of the leading figures in the impressionist movement – and he is basically sitting around his country estate, being waited on by his staff – who refer to him as “maestro”. Then along comes Andree (Chris Theret), who is there to pose for the master. A fiery, red headed beauty – she inspires something in Auguste, who starts painting more than he has in years. But she is not content to be simply a passive model – her presence there upsets the staff, and their routines. When Auguste’s son Jean (Vincent Rottiers) shows up – to recover from an injury suffered in WWI – things get even more complicated. Like his father, Jean is also inspired by Andree and her beauty – and he starts to show the signs of the filmmaker he would become.

The star of the movie really is the cinematrography by Mark Ping Bing Lee. The colors are bright and bold, and the camera glides along effortlessly, taking in the sights of this family and all their problems – and in one startling scene, shows some of the ugliness of the outside world at war. If there is a reason to see the film, it’s to see just how gorgeous it is.

Dramatically though, Renoir doesn’t really go anywhere. On the surface, the conflict between father and son, who share their obsession with Andree – who becomes the last muse of Auguste’s career as a painter, and the first muse of Jean as a filmmaker (she starred in his early films), sounds interesting. And yet the character of Andree is left frustratingly unknowable. The movie implies that while she may have inspired great art by both father and son, neither man really knew or understood her. That’s an interesting idea in theory – but the film itself doesn’t seem to understand her as well. Actress Christa Theret is stunningly beautiful, but her character is only skin deep – Bourdos doesn’t see her any more clearly than the artists in his movie.

Also, I never quite bought Rottiers as Jean Renoir. Of course, it is standard practice in a biopic to cast someone better looking than the real person being portrayed – as is the case here – but Rottiers never quite convinced me that he had the soul of a great artist – or that he would be the man to make films as wonderful as The Rules of the Game (1939) – or become the man we see in that movie. Bouquet fares better, perhaps because he is asked to do less – essentially playing an old man with an huge ego – which he does well.

Both Auguste Renoir and his son Jean were important artists, in two very different mediums. Both broke new barriers in their respective art forms, and remain important figures in the art world. They deserved a deeper biopic than Renoir – a film that seems more interested in painting beautiful images than in telling a story. For that matter, Andree Heuschling deserved a deeper movie as well – the film tells us that she died a few months after Jean did – but while he died one of the most famous and respected filmmakers of all time, she died in obscurity. The movie should have done a better job at showing her as a complete person – not just a gorgeous muse for two great artists.

Movie Review: In the House

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Movie Review: In the House

In the House
Directed by: François Ozon.
Written by: François Ozon based on the play by Juan Mayorga.
Starring: Fabrice Luchini (Germain), Ernst Umhauer (Claude Garcia), Kristin Scott Thomas (Jeanne Germain), Emmanuelle Seigner (Esther Artole), Denis Ménochet (Rapha Artole père), Bastien Ughetto (Rapha Artole fils).

Francois Ozon’s tricky new film In the House sneaks up on you slowly. It reminded me of a Hitchcock film, the way it subtlety enlists you to be complacent to the characters and their actions – to turn the audience into voyeurs – before slowly turning the knife and you realize just how poisoned everything has become. It is the best film Ozon has made in years – perhaps since Swimming Pool back in 2003.

The film stars Fabrice Luchini as Germain, a bored creative writing teacher at a suburban high school in France. He thinks his students are idiots – and when he gives a simple assignment to his class asking them to tell them about their weekend, and one student writes all of two lines “On Saturday, I ate pizza and watch TV. On Sunday, I was tired and did nothing)” – it’s hard to argue with him. But then one student catches his attention – Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer). His assignment is brilliant – telling of the time he spent in the house of a classmate, who seemingly has a “perfect family” – unlike Claude’s own. It’s clear Claude has contempt for the classmate, who he perceives as a dolt, for the father, who he thinks is a bore, and dismisses the wife as “smelling like the Middle Class”. He looks down on these people, but he has obvious skill – and Germain takes him under his wing. He even lets his wife, Jeanne (Kristen Scott Thomas) read the stories – and although she thinks the things she writes about this family are awful, she cannot stop reading them. One story arrives after another, and Germain and Jeanne fall under Claude’s spell. How much of what he is writing is fiction, and how much is real? The stories gradually start to focus on the mother – Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner), who Claude sees as both a surrogate mother figure and a MILF. Slowly, so slowly that Germain and the audience barely notice, Claude starts asking Germain for things that clearly cross a line – and to keep getting installments of the story, he does.

In the House is a tricky film. It doles out information on a need to know basis, so we can never quite get a handle on Claude. Is what he says about what happens in his friend’s house true? Is what he says about his own home life true? Is he a sociopath, or just a troubled kid? And why, when everyone else seems to hate Germain – even the other teachers – does he zero in on him. It’s to the credit of Ernst Umhauer’s performance that he never really lets us inside. You can never get a read on him, and that makes him fascinating. The rest of the performances are just as good. Fabrice Luchini is in top form as Germain, who seemingly for the first time in years seems actually interested in anything other than himself. His world comes crashing down around him, but he is clueless – so wrapped up in the love of this new talent, he cannot see what is happening around him. Kristen Scott Thomas is also very good – why she’s so much better when she works in French than English, I’ll never know, but she is – as she too gets drawn into Claude’s world, although at least she realizes it. She even finds a sort of kinship with Claude, in the way he’s obviously toying with Germain. And Emmanuelle Seigner is excellent in a tricky role – a role that requires her to change at times scene to scene, because she is only ever seen through the eyes of Claude – and his gaze his constantly shifting.

In the House also has some interesting things to say about the nuclear family. Most often in movies, we get the portrait of the seemingly happy suburban family, which is really built on nothing but appearances and lies – think American Beauty or about 90% of the movies that come out of Sundance in a given year. But In the House is different. The normal family – married parents, one child – may be dull, boring and none too bright, but they really are happy in their little life. Meanwhile the childless couple – Germain and Jeanne – and the child from a broken home – Claude – are all much smarter than the family, but all much more miserable. Ozon seems to have sympathy for these outsiders, even as he punishes them. But it also seems to be saying that the duller you are, the happier you are.

But overall, In the House is really about storytelling – about how a gifted storyteller can slowly suck you into his story, without you even realizing it. Claude is a natural storyteller, able to get people to buy in hook, line and sinker before they know what hit them. So is Francois Ozon.

Movie Review: Something in the Air

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Movie Review: Something in the Air

Something in the Air
Directed by: Olivier Assayas.
Written by: Olivier Assayas.
Starring: Clément Métayer (Gilles), Lola Créton (Christine), Felix Armand (Alain), Carole Combes (Laure), India Menuez (Leslie), Hugo Conzelmann (Jean-Pierre), Mathias Renou (Vincent), Léa Rougeron (Maria), Martin Loizillon (Rackam le Rouge), André Marcon (Le père de Gilles).

You can never quite figure out what Olivier Assayas is going to make next. He has made some great films – like his six hour masterpiece Carlos about one of the most infamous terrorists of all time and Summer Hours, a quiet film about a family home getting sold, and the family members losing some sort of connection as a result. He has made other films – like the highly regarded (but to me awful) demonlover about corporate politics, or the thriller Boarding Gate, which seemingly doesn’t have a beginning of an end, and just expects the audience to keep up. Or the more conventional drug addict drama Clean. Perhaps the one thing that connects them all is that while all the films are rather intimate stories, they speak to larger more political concerns. The same is true of his latest film, Something in the Air, which somehow manages to be both nostalgic, and realistic.

There is little plot in Something in the Air – the original French title was Apres Mai - After May - and in France that needs no explaining. In May 1968 the student protests and riots basically shutdown the country. This movie takes place a few years later – in 1971 – and focuses on kids who missed out on those protests, but wish they hadn’t. They have serious discussions about politics, communism, art, love and films. They smoke – a lot – and drink – a lot – and while there are a lot of parties, and a fair bit of sex, no one seems to be having too much fun. They take everything too seriously for that.

The movie focuses on Gilles (Clement Metayer), a stand-in for Assayas himself, who seems slightly less committed than many of his friends. Yes – he protests. He shows up at the demonstrations, hands out fringe newspapers, commits acts of vandalism and some things more serious than that, but from the start, I think he sees how futile most of what they are doing is. This isn’t to say he doesn’t take things seriously – he does, in fact, in some ways he takes them more seriously, because he doesn’t want to just buy in to what the left is selling hook, line and sinker, but is a more critical thinker. But as the film progresses, and many of his friends get more involved in the movement, he slowly slips away – goes to art school, starts working on mainstream films as a production assistant, and eyes a future career.

As I said, the movie is largely plotless – it drifts from one scene to the next, from one heavy conversation to another, one party to the next, one packed van to the next one, and as it does, so does Eric Gautier’s wonderful cinematography. The camera seemingly floats through the movie, right there observing everything without judgment.

How much you know about this time period will likely effect how much you like Something in the Air – with people having lived through this time period probably most likely to relate to the film. For someone like me, born in 1981, Something in the Air seems more like a piece for a time capsule – a more honest and realistic version of many of the films from the 1960s that showed the protest movement as it was going on. Assayas is obviously nostalgic for this time period – nearly all of us are in one way or another for those few years in our late teens and early twenties when seemingly everything was possible. But he also sees it far more clearly than most do. It’s possible to feel sorry for some of the people in the movie – so committed to their ideals, so incapable of seeing things clearly.

For me, Something in the Air ends up being little more than a curiosity piece. It’s well made – and has moments of greatness (like the post screening Q&A of a documentary shown on the streets), but overall, it didn’t add up to very much for me. However, if you’re closer to Assayas’ age, it’s quite possible you’ll love it.

Movie Review: In the Fog

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Movie Review: In the Fog

In the Fog
Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa.
Written by: Sergei Loznitsa based on the novel by Vasili Bykov.
Starring: Vladimir Svirskiy (Sushenya), Vladislav Abashin (Burov), Sergei Kolesov (Voitik), Nikita Peremotovs (Grisha), Yuliya Peresild (Anelya), Kirill Petrov (Koroban), Dmitrijs Kolosovs (Mishuk), Stepans Bogdanovs (Topchievsky), Dmitry Bykovskiy (Yaroshevich), Vlad Ivanov (Grossmeier), Igor Khripunov (Mirokha), Nadezhda Markina (Burov's mother).

In the Fog is a long, slow, extremely morose movie that takes place in Belarus during the Nazi occupation in WWII. It looks at three Belarusians, each of whom is presented with impossible moral dilemmas in which there is no right or wrong answer. By the time we get to the downbeat ending, you’ll probably agree that the decision the lead character makes at the end – as the fog rolls in, is the only logical thing to do.

The film opens with two partisan soldiers – Burov (Vladislav Abashin) and Voitik (Sergei Kolesov) arriving at the home of Sushenya (Vladimir Svierskiy). They are there to kill him, because they assume that Sushenya is a traitor – four men were arrested, three were hanged, and the fourth, Sushenya, was let go freely. That is all the evidence the partisans need to convict and execute him. After a long talk in Sushenya’s house, the pair take him out deep into the woods, and force him to dig his own grave. Right as Burov is about to put a bullet in Sushenya’s head, the Nazis arrive and shoot Burov, leaving him severely wounded. Instead of running off to freedom, Sushenya instead picks up Burov and tries to carry him to safety. Voitik, who has largely been silent, begrudgingly goes along with him – after all, he doesn’t want to carry Burov himself, and what else is he supposed to do.

The film is built on flashbacks – we see what the three men did that led to their execution (it isn’t really motivated by patriotism, but the desire to get rid of their boss), and what Sushenya did not do with them – and how it was they allowed him to walk free. The film also shows what led both Burov and Voitik to join the partisans, and what led them to Sushenya’s house that day – making it inarguable that of the three of them, the traitor Sushenya, is the only one who hasn’t really done anything wrong. He’s almost a Christ-like figure – dying for everyone else’s sins.

The film was written and directed by Sergei Loznitsa, based on the novel by Vasili Bykov. Loznitsa’s last film, My Joy, was highly praised (and remains unseen by me) for its innovative style and story structure. There is nothing that you would call overly innovative in this film however – it is a classically structured movie, the visual style favoring long, slow tracking shots as the men walk through the forest, and long stationary shots as the rest.

The movie, to put it mildly, is deliberately paced. There are long stretches with little, if any, dialogue and when the characters do speak, they’re in no real hurry to say anything. The dialogue is mostly perfunctory and not very enlightening or interesting. Given these limitations, the performances are about as good as can be expected. I have a feeling that the novel may have gotten over much of the slow, heavy, non-dialogue scenes by replacing them with an inner monologue – but nothing of the sort exists in the movie itself, where we simply sit back and watch these people confront their inevitability of their doom.

The movie is interesting in the why it presents both the Belarusian characters and the Nazis. We expect the Nazis to be evil – and indeed they are, in particularly the one played by Vlad Ivanov, the Romanian actor used often in roles of vile people – like in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days or Police, Adjective. What he does in the movie is cruel – but then, he’s a Nazi, what else did you expect. But if anything, Loznitsa is harder on the Belarusians themselves – for turning on each other so easily and treating death so callously. It’s my understanding people in Russia thought that My Joy was overly hard on the Russian people – something In the Fog will likely be accused of as well.

I liked part of In the Fog – it is an interesting, well made and for the most part well acted film. But god is it a slow film – a morose slog where you starting preying about an hour into the movie for the characters to just die already and put them out of their misery. It isn’t a bad film by any means – but I sure wouldn’t want to have to sit through it a second time.

Movie Review: The Grandmaster

Monday, August 26, 2013

Movie Review: The Grandmaster

The Grandmaster
Directed by: Wong Kar Wai.
Written by: Wong Kar Wai & Haofeng Xu & Jingzhi Zou.
Starring: Tony Leung (Yip Man), Zhang Ziyi (Gong Er), Song Hye-kyo (Cheung Wing-sing), Chang Chen ("The Razor" Yixiantian), Zhao Benshan (Ding Lianshan), Wang Qingxiang (Gong Yutian), Zhang Jin (Ma San), Yuen Woo-ping (Chan Wah-shun), Xiaoshenyang (Sanjiangshui), Cung Le (Tiexieqi), Shang Tielong (Jiang), Lo Hoi-pang (Uncle Deng).

There is no director working today who makes more visually stunning films than Wong Kar Wai. This was even true, although to a lesser extent, of his ill-advised English language debut – My Blueberry Nights (2008). That film was dramatically hollow, and rather slow, but damn, did it look good. Wong has spent the last few years making his epic kung fu film, The Grandmaster, and once again, it is one of the most visually stunning films you will see this year. If the film isn’t up to the level of Wong’s best films, that’s because the narrative is a little scattershot – it takes multiple detours during it’s running time. In lesser hands, this would be a bigger flaw – but Wong’s detours are as entertaining and the main thrust of the story.

The movie is a biopic of legendary martial arts master Yip Man – who has already been the subject of two apparently more traditional biopics Ip Man and Ip Man 2 by Donnie Yen (that have remain unseen by me). Wong isn’t so much interested in a traditional rise and fall and rise narrative that many biopics take – tracing the man who became famous back to his roots. Instead, The Grandmaster is really an all-encompassing epic film about Chinese history from the 1930s through the 1950s, as seen through the eyes of several martial arts masters.

The Grandmaster isn’t really a kung fu film directed by Wong Kar Wai, as it is a Wong Kar Wai Kung fu film – if that makes any sense, and to me it does. Although the film is visually stunning, and contains some of the best kung fu sequences you will ever see, this film is every inch a Wong Kar Wai original – he is more interested in the philosophy and politics behind kung fu than in the kung fu itself – and of course, there is a decades long attraction between two characters who are essentially kept apart by their own sense of honor. It’s not exactly In the Mood for Love with kung fu, but that’s probably a better description than anything else I can come up with.

When we first meet Yip Man (Tony Leung), he is happy – married with kids, living off his family’s money, and a master in the Southern wing chun style of kung fu. All the kung fu masters gather at a famous brothel – although if anyone actually has sex with prostitutes its remains unseen, this is more of a social club. The old grandmaster Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang) is retiring, and as is traditional, must have one final duel before he can do so. Since his protégé Ma San (Zhang Jin) has already humiliated most of the southern masters, they choose Yip Man to represent them. The two duel, and Gong declares Yip the winner. His daughter however, Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) doesn’t like the outcome and challenges Yip Man herself – and wins. But more important than the duel itself, this sets up a decades long attraction between these two characters – one in which they never truly act on, although they are perfect for each other. The betrayal of the Gong legacy by Ma Sun, and the Japanese occupation of China, become two of the most important storylines for much of the movie – because Gong Er wants vengeance on Ma Sun, and the occupation costs Yip Man more than most – or as he says it “We went straight from the spring of my life, to the winter”. In the North American released, another subplot involving another master, known as The Razor (Chang Chen) – has been all but excised from the movie – which is a shame, because I wanted to see more of him.

The duels in the film are among the best I have ever seen in a film. Wong doesn’t go quite as far over the top with wire work than say Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Zhang Yimou in Hero, but the effects are certainly exaggerated. There are too many duels to highlight each one – but far and the best one takes place at a train station, as snow falls down around the gorgeous Zhang Ziyi, who proves herself to be the most gifted martial artist in the film. Tony Leung, a huge star and a constant Wong collaborator, isn’t a kung fu specialist, and his scenes are not quite as good as a result. Still, his years of training for the role pay off – besides, as I mentioned earlier, Wong is more concerned with the philosophy behind kung fu than its practice – and for that, Tony Leung is perfect. He may not be able to hold a candle to say Jet Li in kung fu, but his acting ability more than makes up for it.

I feel I need to see The Grandmaster a second time. This is an utterly beautiful film, and the first time I watched it, I was simply swept up in the beauty of the images. Wong films have a way of doing that to you. The storyline, especially to somewhat like myself who is not exactly an expert on Chinese history, was slightly confusing at times, and I have to admit that I don’t really feel that I got “know” Yip Man during the course of this movie. Perhaps, however, the film would have been better had it told a simpler story – especially since Wong has never been a director whose films focus too much on the narrative anyway – he much more concerned with mood, tone and emotions than a standard plot.

As the movie flashes from moment scene to the next, it does begin to feel like he’s trying to pack too much into one movie. Wong has often been accused of being a “style over substance” director – a complaint that I sometimes agree with in films such as Happy Together. When the style and substance meet perfectly – as they do in films like Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love or 2046 – there are few directors better in the world than Wong. The Grandmaster is not on their level – Wong does seem a little more concerned with how everything looks here, than with the story or the characters. However, The Grandmaster still deserves to be seen – and on the big screen if possible. It is visually stunning from start to finish, contains some excellent kung fu scenes, and another great performance by Zhang Ziyi. The Grandmaster is not up to the level of most Wong Kar Wai films – but considering how great they are, it’s perhaps unfair to expect him to be at that level each time. The Grandmaster may not be the Wong Kar Wai masterpiece I wanted it to be – but it’s a fine film just the same.

Movie Review: Post Tenebras Lux

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Movie Review: Post Tenebras Lux

Post Tenebras Lux
Directed by: Carlos Reygadas.
Written by: Carlos Reygadas.
Starring: Adolfo Jiménez Castro (Juan), Nathalia Acevedo (Natalia), Willebaldo Torres (El Siete), Eleazar Reygadas (Eleazar), Rut Reygadas (Rut).

Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux is one of those art house movies that got booed at Cannes, and still managed to win a major prize – this time the Best Director prize for Reygadas. It is easy to see why so many people hate the film (many thought it was hilarious to refer to the movie as Post Tenebras Sux – ho ho). But it’s also easy to see why so many people really do think it is a great film. This is one of those films that inspire impassioned debate. It’s not an “easy” film – it flashes back and forth in time, and sometimes into the dreams and fantasies of its characters, yet the film itself never “announces” these transitions – so for instance, you think you’re in reality at one point, and then all of a sudden a character pulls his own head off. The film is deliberately paced as well – you will know whether the film is for you after it’s extended first sequence – a little girl running through a field chasing dogs, and being awestruck by horses and donkeys – while storm clouds roll in above them. Like all the exterior scenes in Post Tenebras Lux, this scene is shot with a filter that blurs the edges of the images – which are shot in the little used aspect ratio of 1.37:1, giving the film a boxier than normal look. The story is seemingly simple and overly complex at the same time. Reading the reviews for the film it gets compared to the work of everyone from Terrence Malick to David Lynch to Stanley Kubrick to Andrei Tarkovsky. How can any serious film fan not at least want to see Post Tenebras Lux? It’s one of those films that you may love, you may hate – but you have to have an opinion on.

The basic storyline of the movie is fairly straight forward. Juan (Adolfo Jimenez Castro) has moved his upper-middle class family into a remote town in Mexico. Juan immediately stands in contrast with the villagers around him – not only because of his money - although he is clearly the richest man around, and is referred to by all as Don Juan – but because his skin is lighter. He isn’t descended from the same tribes as everyone around him. To his face, the villagers treat him with respect – but underneath it, there is a not so hidden vibe of resentment.

And it must be said that Juan isn’t a very nice guy. He treats his wife, Natalia (Nathalia Acevedo) like a doormat, and one of the first things we see him do is viciously beat a dog (an event that reoccurs in most Reygadas films) for reasons we do not understand (mercifully, we don’t really see the dog as Juan viciously beats it) – and then he is able to go right back to being a loving family man with his kids. Juan stands in contrast with Seven (Willebaldo Torres), an employee of his, who invites Juan to attend an AA meeting with him – and afterwards tells Juan even more personal secrets – which somewhat shames Juan, who believes that his internet porn addiction pales by comparison. Seven is seemingly respectful of Juan – refers to him as not only his boss, but his friend. But later things will happen, where it becomes clear Seven may well be putting on a front – much like Juan himself. Juan is clearly a man coming apart at the seams – he doesn’t fit in anywhere.

It would be tempting to say to focus on the main thrust of the story, and ignore the fantasy and dreams sequences – these are the ones most critics have a problem with. Whether it’s the bright, shining demon with a toolbox (foreshadowing of handyman Seven’s betrayal), or the extended visit to a bathhouse, where Natalia has a sexual experience that seems to border on the divine, or the British boys playing rugby (I admit – I have no clue on that one, other than Reygadas went to school in England – but he clearly thinks they are important, since he ends the film on them), or the aforementioned self-beheading. But you cannot ignore them – they are an intricate part of the movie itself.

So once again, I find myself in a position of admitting that I don’t “get” everything in a movie, and yet saying that I don’t think you really have to “get” everything in the movie to like it. This is a film that is based on dream logic more than anything else – where scenes flow from one to the next not in a linear fashion, but in thematic fashion, and where not everything we see on screen is “real” – and really, perhaps none of it is.

Post Tenebras Lux will frustrate viewers who want movies like this to be a puzzle – where in the last moment, the last piece falls into place and makes everything that preceded it perfectly clear. That doesn’t happen here. That doesn’t mean that Post Tenebras Lux is incomprehensible however. Like a dream, most of what transpires makes sense while you are in the world created by the film. It’s only later that you sit there and try and puzzle your way through it that you start to ask more and more questions.

I think Post Tenebras Lux is a film that should be seen by anyone who likes this type of movie – you know who you are – and probably not seen by people who want a more traditional storytelling approach to film. The movie doesn’t provide that. What provides instead is somewhat greater. In the end, Post Tenebras Lux is a film I admired more than I loved – I admired that Reygadas attempts what he does, and for the most part, I think he pulled it off. But the film, to me anyway, remained an intellectual exercise more than anything else. Films that deliberately take the form of dreams – everything from Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. to Altman’s Three Women to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut to Carruth’s Upstream Color – are among my favorites because they manage the trick of working on an intellectual and emotional level. Post Tenebras Lux only works on the first part. That still makes it one of the year’s must see films – even if it’s not the masterpiece some believe it to be.

Movie Review: A Hijacking

Monday, August 19, 2013

Movie Review: A Hijacking

A Hijacking
Directed by: Tobias Lindholm.
Written by: Tobias Lindholm.
Starring: Pilou Asbæk (Mikkel Hartmann), Søren Malling (Peter C. Ludvigsen), Dar Salim (Lars Vestergaard), Roland Møller (Jan Sørensen), Gary Skjoldmose Porter (Connor Julian), Abdihakin Asgar (Omar), Amalie Ihle Alstrup (Maria Hartmann), Amalie Vulff Andersen (Kamilla Hartmann), Linda Laursen (Anette Ludvigsen), Allan Arnby (Niels Giversen), Bettina Schjerlund (Jytte).

The Danish film A Hijacking is the antithesis of a Hollywood thriller. You would think a movie about Somali pirates taking over a European ship, and holding the crew hostage for months on end as they go through negotiations to let them go would give the filmmakers a chance for rapid pacing editing, and action sequences – where eventually the brave crew would overthrow their captors led by someone like Harrison Ford. Perhaps Paul Greengrass’ upcoming film Captain Phillips starring Tom Hanks will be that film. Hell, that film may end up better than A Hijacking for all I know. But I don’t think it is possible to make it more realistic than this film. This is a film not about heroics, but about tedium and the long, slow, steady progress of negotiations. What is amazing about the film is just how intense writer-director Tobias Lindholm makes it.

The film opens and we are quickly introduced to who will become the two main characters in the movie. Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) is the seemingly happy cook on board the Danish cargo ship Rozen. We first meet him calling home to his wife to tell him he’ll arrive home two days later than he initially thought he would. He’s upset by this – but not nearly as upset as she is. He wants to be home to be with his wife and daughter, but after months at sea, what’s another two days?

The other character is Peter (Søren Malling), the CEO of the company that Mikkel works for. We first meet him taking over a negotiation with a Japanese firm, where he’s able to get the deal he wants for millions less than the Japanese wanted – and then he promptly dresses down an employee who wasn’t able to do the same thing without his help. Peter is rich, smart and a master negotiator – and clearly relishes his role.

Interestingly, we are with Peter and not Mikkel when the pirates take over the Rozen, and do not actually see them storm the ship or take over. Over the course of the movie, none of the pirates will become a character – we don’t even know their names – except for Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), who gets offended during the intense negotiations via satellite phone when Peter refers to him as a pirate. He’s not one of them he says – he’s just their translator and negotiator.

The heart of the movie is made up of two types of scenes – the negotiations between Peter and Omar, and scenes of life on board the ship. For the most part, during the negotiations, we stay in the sterile boardroom with Peter and his team – including a hostage specialist they bring in – which looks like any old boring office boardroom. These scenes are remarkable intense, because they have a ring of authenticity to them – from the room itself, to the way Peter conducts the negotiations, starting out like we saw him with the Japanese, and slowly becoming more angry – to the echo of the phone itself. The negotiations take a long time – the pirates want $15 million, and Peter starts with an offer of $150,000, so you know they will.

The scenes on the boat are just as realistic as conditions slowly deteriorate. The crew starts to go stir crazy, starts to get sick as they are locked in a room together where they eat, sleep and go to the bathroom. There are few moments of joy, and although the pirates don’t physically abuse the crew, as they grow more frustrated, the crew has it harder and harder. These scenes focus on Mikkel, as he struggles to hold onto his sanity.

A Hijacking never hits a false note. Everything in the film feels authentic – from Lindholm documentary style direction, to the performances – particularly by Malling and Asbæk. Hollywood style thrillers are a dime a dozen, but a film like A Hijacking, which goes for, and achieves realism, is much harder to pull off.

Movie Review: The Attack

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Movie Review: The Attack

The Attack
Directed by:  Ziad Doueiri.
Written by: Ziad Doueiri & Joelle Touma based on the novel by Yasmina Khadra.
Starring: Ali Suliman (Amin Jaafari), Evgenia Dodena (Kim), Reymond Amsalem (Siham Jaafari), Dvir Benedek (Raveed), Uri Gavriel (Captain Moshe), Ruba Salameh (Faten), Karim Saleh (Adel), Ramzi Makdessi (Priest).

The Attack is a movie that looks at the very complex issue of Israel-Palestinian violence, and finds that there really is no right side or wrong – no guys and bad guys – just violence all the way around that leaves victims in their wake. Some have already accused the film of being an “apology for suicide bombers” – but I think that is a rather simplistic view of what the movie actually does. It does not apologize or justify suicide bombers – but it does sympathize with the reasons why some feel the need to do such a thing, but it never endorses the actions that leaves innocent people dead. It is simply saying that the issue is not as simplistic as some would like it to be. To me, that makes The Attack into a fascinating movie. Others will be offended – but perhaps it will cause some people to rethink at least some of their views on the conflict.

The movie stars Ali Suliman as Amin Jaafari, a Palestinian living in Israel and making a good living as surgeon at a large hospital. He has just been given a prestigious award – the first Arab ever to win it. He is a non-practicing Muslim, and his wife is a Christian. They live a secular, secure seemingly happy life. Amin has grown complacent in his security – and that’s the way he likes it.

He has shaken out of that complacency when a suicide bomb explodes. He spends hours trying to help the victims, before heading home. His wife is out of town, so he has a drink and goes to bed. He is woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from his friend Raveed (Dvir Benedek) – a police officer – who tells him he needs to get the hospital right away. He thinks it’s for a patient – but instead he is asked to identify the body of his wife Siham (Reymond Amsalem) – who not only was killed in the suicide bombing, but was in fact the bomber. Amin is shocked – he cannot and will not believe his wife would do such a horrible thing. He is interrogated for days on end, but he cannot tell the police anything – because he does not know anything. Eventually he is released, but now he no longer feels secure in his life. When it becomes clear, even to him, that his wife did in fact commit the bombing, he heads to his small, Palestinian home town in search of answers. Someone must have brainwashed his wife – and he’s going to find out who.

The majority of the movie takes place in this small Palestinian town – where Amin finds that his wife is seen as a hero – a martyr for the cause – which angers him even more. But his journey, which begins in anger, ends up shocking him out of his complacency. He hasn’t returned to his town in more than a decade, and it upsets him that everyone – including some members of his own family – eye him with suspicion. He thought he had a home in Israel, but after the bombing, it has become clear that they don’t really want him there anymore. And when he returns home, he finds they don’t really want him there either. They are convinced he is working with the Shin Bet – the organization that was seen recently in the excellent documentary The Gatekeepers. Try as he might, he is not able to get the answers he so desperately desires. But he also sees what the day-to-day lives of the Palestinian people is really like – the oppression and violence they live with every day. While he never gets to the point where he condones what his wife did, he does begin to understand the sense of futility and hopelessness that lead her to do it.

The movie takes a few too many twists in its third act. The film is structured like a thriller or a detective story, and it is filled with tense moments. By the time Amin finally gets at least some of the answers he is seeking – he will never get all of them, something made clear when he finally watches the videotape his wife made before she died – the film has probably twisted at least one too many times. A few of the conversations late in the film border of being preachy – but as with the rest of the movie, they are anchored by Suliman’s excellent performance. Even if the plot gets a little far-fetched at times, he keeps things real with his sensitive, subtle, often quiet yet commanding performance. He is the film’s greatest asset.

The film’s final scenes are deliberately meant to make the audience question Amin and the decision he ends up making. Is it the right decision, or the wrong one? Is he protecting a suicide bomber and their network, or does simply not want to contribute to any more deaths? But by doing nothing, is he not contributing to more deaths anyway? At the end of the film, Amin is in an impossible moral position. Some will see what he does as wrong – in strictly black and white terms, they may well agree with the dressing down one of his colleagues gives him. But as with the rest of the movie, seeing things that way would be far too simple.

The film was co-written and directed by Ziad Doueiri, and based on the bestselling novel by Yasmina Khadra. The film has been banned in Doueiri’s native country of Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world – because apparently the Arab league found its portrayal of the Israeli characters too humanizing. The film was too balanced in their view – and since it put the oppressor and the oppressed on the same level, it was actually unfair to Arabs. This is bullshit, of course. The movie presents the issues surrounding Israel and Palestine in a complex way – but mainly leaves them in the background. This is a personal story first, with large reaching political ramifications. You may disagree with The Attack – or think that it takes side too much – but it is a film that deserves to be seen and discussed. Any political film has to work as a film first, and politics second – and that is what The Attack does.

Movie Review: Drug War

Movie Review: Drug War

Drug War
Directed by: Johnnie To.
Written by: Wai Ka-Fai & Yau Nai-hoi & Ryker Chan & Yu Xi.
Starring: Louis Koo (Timmy Choi), Sun Honglei (Captain Zhang Lei), Crystal Huang (Yang Xiaobei), Wallace Chung (Guo Weijun), Gao Yunxiang (Xu Guoxiang), Li Guangjie (Chen Shixiong), Guo Tao (Senior Dumb), Li Jing (Junior Dumb), Lo Hoi-pang (Birdie), Eddie Cheung (Su), Gordon Lam (East Lee), Michelle Ye (Sal), Lam Suet (Fatso).

If Hong Kong action master Johnnie To was going to have a breakout hit in North America, it probably would have happened by now. He has been working steadily since 1980 – so he was making films when the likes of John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam were all the rage among North American film geeks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But To never quite had their success. By the time he came to the attention of international critics – after several film festivals (including Cannes and Toronto) starting programming his films in the early 2000s, film geeks had movie on to other Asian film hotspots – namely the extreme horror coming out of Japan and Korea. And that’s a shame, because To is one of the best action filmmakers in the world right now – and one of the most prolific. He has 55 directing credits according to IMDB – 23 of them since the first of his films that I saw – Fulltime Killer back in 2001. I’ve still only seen a select few of his films – and while not all of them are great – they are all usually better than the average American action film. His latest, Drug War, is no different.

Drug War is not an overly original movie. It’s plot – about a Hong Kong drug dealer arrested by police in Mainland China and forced to become an informant – has been told before. The scenes in which the main cop – Captain Zhang (Sun Honglei) has to go undercover, and the drug dealer Timmy Choi (Louis Koo) has to pretend to me something he’s not will likely remind viewers of Infernal Affairs – or it’s American remake, The Departed. It is also not really a thorough examination of drug policy – in China, being a drug dealer will get you a death sentence. The movie doesn’t question such a policy, and really stops just short of actively endorsing it. Given that this is the first time To has ventured to mainland China for financing – normally he stays in Hong Kong – and the government oversight that comes along with that, it’s probably not overly surprising. But the film still does observe the thin line between cop and criminal – and while that’s not quite as original as what To did in last year’s Life Without Principle – essentially saying bankers and gangsters are the same – it’s still an effective theme to build a good action movie around.

So in the movie, Choi gets caught after a meth lab explosion that he escapes – but he ends up driving erratically and crashing into a restaurant. Knowing he faces a death sentence, he quickly agrees to Zhang’s offer to become an informant. Choi has a contact with one drug dealer, who he is arranging a meeting with China’s premiere Drug kingpin – and can get Zhang all the details. And since these drug dealers have never met each other – Zhang ends up playing too completely opposite dealers in the span of a few minutes to set both of them up to take the fall. The film also involves some deaf brothers who cook meth – and a group of Hong Kong gangsters pulling the strings. And of course, there will be lots of shootouts to climax the movie.

The material in Drug War is fairly standard – but To wraps it up in an entertaining package. It’s amusing to see the stoic Zhang at first take on the even more stoic persona of one drug dealer, than go gleefully over the top in the next scene, taking on the persona of a drug dealer known as Haha – because he laughs at just about everything. These scenes are also tense, since we are never quite sure when violence is about to erupt.

The shootout that ends Drug War – as all Hong Kong action movies have to end in a shootout – is the best of its kind I’ve seen in a movie so far this year. While To may be from Hong Kong, his action stylistics are quite different from the “bullet ballets” preferred by a director like John Woo. To’s action sequences are cleaner and simpler than Woo’s – but much more coherent than the typical action sequence in an American movie, which deploy shaky cameras and rapid fire editing to the point of incoherence at times. With To, you always know what is going on, and he expertly stages these scenes with ease.

Drug War is not as ambitious as To’s best films – Election, Election 2 or the aforementioned Life Without Principle for example. But it is brutally effective – and contains one of the best performances in any Too film from Louis Koo as Choi – a man who will do anything to survive, so of course, we know he’s doomed.