Haywire

Haywire is an extended experiment in using Dogme-95 lighting for an action movie. This makes the movie strange to watch at times: the look of the film keeps changing as the film constantly changes location – bright sunlight for snowy, upstate New York; lamplight for a Dublin hotel room; ugly flourescence for Washington DC offices; crepuscular sunset on a beach in Veracruz. The effect is "realistic" but it makes the film feel disjointed and rather haphazard.

The plotting, too, is disjointed. For me this was due to the slow-motion, Guy-Ritchie-inspired way that the film's second sequence (the expositional "Barcelona" sequence) is edited. Again, this section of the film doesn't match up with the rest of Haywire, and it downshifted the film's speed before it even started going. Strange.

Haywire's not bad at all, really, and could actually have been kind of fun 1) if it hadn't been rated PG-13 – who on Earth wants to watch a movie about gun-violence and mixed martial arts if it's gonna be a bloodless, cartoon version of gun-violence and mixed martial arts? – and 2) if the folks at Relativity Media hadn't given away the entirety of the plot in the trailer.

As it is, I was sort of bored.

Troubled Women

This is going to be three movie reviews in one, and the films struck me as similar in some ways because of their troubled lead female characters.

I'll start with the least interesting first. Another Earth is the story of a young woman who makes a very bad decision and kills two people. She then proceeds to make many more bad decisions over the course of Another Earth's running time. Another Earth is also about this planet that is a second Earth that is somehow (this is unexplained in the film as far as I can tell) orbiting near the Earth's own orbit. The sci-fi stuff is somewhat intriguing, and also very much a retread of the grief-fantasy that forms the title of John Cameron Mitchell's film Rabbit Hole. In any case, the sci-fi stuff is not really a part of the plot hardly at all. In reality Another Earth is a two-person melodrama with the backdrop of this enormous scientific/space breakthrough that is (eventually) unrelated to the film's dramatics. There is a lot with which one could be annoyed with in this film, but I found its star Brit Marling interesting and didn't mind the movie too much.

Melancholia, Lars Von Trier's new film, also involves a planet moving toward the Earth, although this time the planet will actually crash into the Earth and (probably) destroy it. In a way, Melancholia's science fiction also takes a backseat to the film's real dramatics, but Von Trier is much, much better at personal wounds and melodrama, and Melancholia is always interesting, even when one is irritated with the film's main characters or frustrated with their private pain. One of the things I love about Melancholia is that I didn't quite understand a lot of it. I really like that. The film is deliberately obtuse at times, and there is much that feels very fleshed out for the actors and director, but which was lost on me. Fine. In a way, it seems to me that this is how sadness/grief/melancholia works, i.e. that there is much that outsiders simply cannot comprehend; there are things that don't translate, that sound trivial or stupid when put into language. (Also, I love that we are allowed to use the word melancholia here instead of the more medicalized depression.)

Melancholia also ends up being about that planet crashing into the Earth. I am not sure what all of that is supposed to mean or do, but I found it compelling. I do have a big gripe with this film, though, and that's that the soundtrack consists chiefly of the same seven-minute (or so) sequence from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Now, I don't remember the plot of T&I very well, but I don't and didn't need to know the plot to be distracted by the music, which recurs more than five times throughout. And whenever it did I was thinking What does this have to do with Tristan and Isolde? Is there going to be a suicide for love here? The film is so fundamentally not about love, that I found this music choice very confusing.

Last one, and I think I liked this one the best of the three. Martha Marcy May Marlene is about a young woman who becomes quite disturbed after living with a cult in upstate New York for two years or so. Her cult experience is disturbing, but the film also asks if what we see onscreen is real. Is this woman disturbed because of what happened to her or are we seeing what we see because she is disturbed. The film does this in a very clever way, and the storytelling here is excellent. The whole thing is interesting from the start, and Elizabeth Olsen, who plays the main character (Martha Marcy May Marlene) is superb.

Hugh Dancy and John Hawkes are also great (Hawkes is doing his usual creepy-man thing to terrific effect), but the whole ensemble is scary and very interesting. This is a psychological thriller, I guess, and it's a film that uses the (now tired) convention of questioning whether what we're watching is real in new and very smart ways. And the end of the film is perfect, asking us to rethink several other key scenes. It's a superb ending that makes this fairly good film a much better one because of its superb ending. I left the theatre a little shaken, and I have to say I've thought about this film many times since. It's stuck with me.

After the Wedding

I saw Susanne Bier's film After the Wedding (Efter Brylluppet) two months ago and I loved it, but for some reason, I didn't post anything about this intriguing melodrama from Denmark. So since my friend Karen recently saw the picture, I figured we could have a discussion about the movie and then I would post our conversation as my review of the film:

Beware of Spoilers

Karen: Wow – not at all what I expected. We just finished this and here’s my immediate impression. This is a men’s story. It’s about the way they mess up even when they are trying to do right and love the people they’re hurting. Jacob – he thought Helene would come back and so he let her slip away. He hurts the Indian boy by not keeping his promise to be there for the birthday. Jørgen – what a control freak. It doesn’t occur to him that his wife and daughter might want to share in the decisions he’s making for them after he’s gone. He tears Jacob from the life he’s created – I raised your daughter, raise my sons. The women (and children) are there, and they are loved by these men, but it’s about the men. And they’re good men who are trying to do right. Except the asshole son-in-law. Who cheats during the first week of marriage? Please. What was that about? I felt this men theme right when the film first started and Jacob was in India. He was talking to that kid and hugged him and I started thinking about how it’s different for men being around kids than it is for women. Trippy camera close-ups of eyes. I gotta go sleep.

Me: Hm. This is a very Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick point of view. I wasn't thinking about maleness so much when I was watching it. It is a really smart movie, though, I think. Jacob has sort-of adopted this boy in India, and then he finds that his place is really in Denmark with his family, but he thinks the boy will want to leave India and go live with him. But no. And I feel like Susanne Bier is on top of that sentiment. Because the West (capital W) is not necessarily better than the "East" (whatever that means). Right?
Sure, Jørgen is making decisions behind his wife's back and that's wrong, of course. But I was so struck by Rolf Lassgård's performance. He's so scared and so human and so sure that what he's decided is right. He's wrong, maybe, but he's trying so hard and he's so fucking terrified. It's an amazing, honest performance and I was incredibly moved. The movie is really a long-form melodrama, something like a Lars von Trier film, I guess. But I found it difficult and interesting and the performances were wonderful.
So I understand your notions of males exchanging females as so much capital, but for me (call me a misogynist if you need to) the film is about male notions of legacy and caretaking and how they fail and work (sometimes) and are inadequate. The men in the film come up short.

Karen: I know I tend to see things through the feminist point of view, but… I thought the “there’s people to help right at home” theme was a unifying thread rather than the main message. The performances were all wonderful and I cried – a lot. And that is the men thing – they want to fix things. To take care of everyone and fix it and make everyone happy and provide for, etc., etc. And I’m not talking about misogyny. I’m talking about men who adore their women and children anddogs and whatever.
Also I think it was the totally right thing for Jacob to do, leaving the boy in his own environment and staying with his family in Denmark, however painful it was. The boy would have been an alien his entire life. And that comment about “I thought you hated those people”– cutting. From the mouths of babes. Jacob thinking that the boy will want to go with him is another unifying thread – he thought Helene would come back to India to be with him. Rolf Lassgård was fabulous, fabulous. Did you understand what I’m trying to say about male legacy and caretaking? I’m not saying it is misogynist. It’s done out of love in this situation. But it’s such a stereotypic male response to problem solving. And in my (feminist) opinion, done with blinders on, in total disregard to what the recipients may want or need. For example, the daughter telling her Dad she needed to know he was dying. He: I didn’t want you to look at me and see a dead man and be sad before you had to. She: How about letting me spend what precious little time we have left together. And his reaction to his wife’s grief when she confronted him after the fishing trip was totally self-centered. And I understand it was his fear. Again, men afraid of expressing their emotions.
Or maybe it’s just two different points of view and I’m imposing my value judgments on it! But I’m telling you, I started getting this message very early in this film. It was shouting to me, not something I mused about and came up with later.

Me: I am a feminist. I totally agree with you. And I think what you're describing as noticing in the film is what we should be terming "misogyny." Male notions of caretaking that disregard female knowledges and input are definitionally misogynistic. I'm not trying to make the film into a feminist film either. I think you were wise to the film more than I was, to be honest. I took the whole film from Jacob's point of view (of course) and so I didn't notice quite so much what you've pointed out. I read Jørgen's behavior as significant and interesting but not as a statement about men generally or a description of typically masculine behavior. I wonder if Bier is as good as you're giving her credit for being. (I hope so.) Have you seen her film Brothers? I think that had a similar exploration of homosocial bonds with the woman in an ancillary position to the male relationships.
I think I'm understanding what you're saying about maleness and notions of caretaking and legacy. For me, all of those things are misogynist ideals: the propagation of male (homosocial) culture, notions of family purity, paternal responsibility, etc.
That scene at the end with the boy is incredible, because of course, the boy is right. As though bringing the boy, whom Jacob obviously loves, to the West is going to solve everything. Of course Jacob wants the boy to come with him, but what makes the film so smart, I think, is that Bier knows that the West isn't the solution. It has its own brand of problems and the way of living in the supposedly advanced West isn't any better necessarily than the way the boy lives at home in India.

Karen: Exactly! We’re on the same page. I do want to see some more of her films. I remember looking them up at one point, but I don’t remember if I put any in my queue.
In Woman in the Dunes there is a feminist interpretation to the film that occurred to me as I was watching it, but I rejected it in favor of larger issues. Then I was watching the essay that comes on the disc and they mentioned it. So I figured I’m not the only rabid feminist out there!

**
Thanks, Karen! I had fun. If this is fun for readers, I will recruit you to do more of these when we both have time. Or if anyone out there wants to have discussions of movies we're both watching, I am game. Comment on this entry or send me an email.

Lauren Bacall Double Feature

Now, I liked Dogville a lot. That ending really satisfied in a cool way. But Lars von Trier's follow-up to Dogville, which is entitled Manderlay is a whole other ball of wax. The film centers around a plantation in the early 1920's that is still under slavery. Grace (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard) takes over the plantation, freeing the slaves and introducing her own (obviously colonialist) régime on the slaves. It's a move that obviously echoes the United States' nation-building agenda in Iraq. The film asks all sorts of questions about race, racialization, sexual desire, democracy and hard work. The trouble is, the film is boring beyond belief. It's so dreary, in fact, I was actively wishing that it would end by the 1-hour mark. Mona Hammond gives a lovely, moving performance as the oldest of the slaves at Manderlay, but Danny Glover is boring and Lauren Bacall is in the film so little, I barely remembered her by the end of the film. Chloë Sevigny & Jeremy Davies, who (along with Bacall) were in Dogville, have a kind of cameo, but are given nothing to do. Not recommended.

This morning I woke up at 4:00a and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to watch an old movie. Luckily I had The Big Sleep on hand from Netflix (apropos, no?). I'd never seen The Big Sleep and it had been recommended by one of my TD friends here in Tally. It did not disappoint. It's a classic, obviously, but it deserves its classic status. It's directed by Howard Hawks and based on a Raymond Chandler story. Hawks makes every woman in the film a gorgeous beauty and it's filled with sparkling dialogue and excellent delivery by Bogart, Bacall and Dorothy Malone. Totally excellent. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you do.

REVIEW: The Village

The Village doesn't suck at all.  It raises, in fact, a lot of provocative questions, some of which I am still pondering.  But it's not a scary movie.  It's not built to be a scary movie like we think of scary movies, and they shouldn't have sold it as one because it isn't one.  I can't really talk about the movie without giving anything away, but it's definitely worth seeing as a genre piece and for some really good acting.

I haven't been crazy about Joaquin Phoenix since 2000 (when he made The Yards, Gladiator and Quills), but he's really great in The Village.  The discovery of the film is the hugely talented Bryce Dallas Howard, though.  She's great, and I predict an Oscar nomination come February.  It may be to early for this, but there is definitely buzz for her on this front.  She's going to be the lead in Lars Von Trier's next movie, Manderlay, too, and we all know what that means: Pain & Suffering.  So we'll see about her.  Adrien Brody is the other lead in the cast, and he is great, too, although it's an odd part for a guy with a Best Actor Oscar.  Anyway.  The rest of the cast reads great: William Hurt (who's terribly boring in this), Cherry Jones (love her), Sigourney Weaver, Celia Weston and Brendan Gleeson.  While watching the movie I realized that I hate Michael Pitt.  I can't judge him without prejudice.  And it's because I loathe and despise Tommy Gnossis.  I almost can't bear to look at his pig face.  Grrr.

I Might have enjoyed it even more if it had gone on longer.

Dogville has one HELL of a payoff.  That's all I am gonna say.  I don't know that I can really recommend it to anyone, but at the same time, I feel everyone should see this movie.  Any charges of anti-Americanism thrown at this film are way off base.  I don't think the movie is necessarily anti-American.  But it is Randian in the very best sense.  This (unlike, at least for me, Von Trier's other movies) is a film with a deep sense of justice and morality.  No more discussion of the film's content:

Nicole Kidman was okay here, but mainly not as exciting as she could have been.  I don't get excited about her the way I could about Cate Blanchett or even Naomi Watts, both of whom would have been more effective in this movie.  (Although the Roommate tells me that the part "was written for Tom Cruise's ex-wife.")  Patricia Clarkson is a standout for me in the cast of a very capable ensemble including Lauren Bacall (!), Stellan Skarsgård, James Caan, Jeremy Davies, Philip Baker Hall, and (a personal favorite) Cleo King (who played Marcie in Magnolia).  Chloë Sevigny was in it, too, and so was Ben Gazarra.  Whatever to them.  Also, Paul Bettany is officially irritating in this movie... he has been moving in that direction ever since A Beautiful Mind.  John Hurt is the narrator.  His voice is very cool.

This movie recalls Thornton Wilder, especially, and Ayn Rand.  Never thought I'd see those two names together, but they fit.

I haven't left a movie feeling this satisfied and arrogant since... well, I don't know when.  It gets a piece of me that I forget about sometimes, but that I'm reminded of when I read Atlas Shrugged.  It, perhaps, is the most precious piece of me that exists.

I had a great time with and , with whom I went to see the movie.

Whenever you guys are ready to sign up for Archangel, just let me know. ;)