Wall-E

Andrew Stanton, USA, 2008
4 out of 4 stars

It's not perfect, I have to admit. At times, I found the title character to be just a little too pathetic, and some of his behavior is frankly disturbing if you look at it a certain way, even if the director clearly tries to spin it in a later scene. I enjoyed the ending, but I'm not sure if it's justified by the film. Although it's endearing enough, one has to scratch one's head just a little bit at the imposition of entirely recognizable and familiar heterosexuality (or any sexuality, I suppose) onto robots. And I'm not sure if the two disparate halves of the film are wedded together in the most effective manner.

With that out of the way, let me make it clear that I absolutely loved this film. The message (critiquing consumerism) is delivered in a way that would be positively shocking in any film, and I believe is not significantly undermined when you "consider the source" (this actually just makes it more shocking my view). While I recognize that there is pandering going on (the ending), overall I am really impressed with how much the filmmakers decided to challenge the viewers, yet if the kid in the row behind me is any indication, effectively reach them at the same time.

There are also any number of scenes of incredible wonder, visual magnificence, and subtle humor. There are mistakes and there are conditional mistakes, but overall this is a film that reaches high and succeeds most of the time.

Source: Disney 35mm print
6 Jul, 7:20 PM

Vantage Point

Pete Travis, USA, 2008
2 out of 4 stars

After some perfunctory exposition, the president is assassinated, while introducing an anti-terror conference in Spain! Then a building is blow up! And yet, soon, we are asking, why should we care?

More precisely, we're asking what exactly we're supposed to care about, or even how. In fact, I think the spectacular terribleness of the incident was one of the only things that kept my interest in the first place.

Having shown us this tragedy, the film rewinds back to show it (and some preliminary goings-on) from another perspective, and does so again two or three more times until finally reaching a conclusion. Of course there is some repetition, although this is kept to a minimum, it still wore on my patience to see much of any material repeated in what is only a 90 minute film.

So we soon come to the problem of what character to focus on, and the answer seems to be none of them (although this answer seems to change again in the ending scene). Although many have commendable qualities (in one case, to an improbable and annoying degree), the film mostly seems to be about displaying a certain imagined cleverness as far as the "how'd it happen?" question goes. If anything, this just served to alienate me from the film. As usual, it didn't help that the most potentially interesting "twist" was spoiled in the trailers, which I saw a few months ago.

Politically, Vantage Point is all over the place, and not even in a particularly interesting manner. On the one hand, the president, when we finally meet him, seems to be some kind of liberal fantasy, showing an restraint in military matters that only the deluded could truly expect from, say, a President Obama. On the other hand, the filmmakers seem to enjoy showing the degradation of a reporter who intentionally bucks the corporate line on air and rails against censorship to her boss; what's strange is they seem to be agreeing with her at that point, so did they just fail to realize that it would seem as if they were delivering her her comeuppance afterward? It's quite hard to say.

As usual, the ending is also quite objectionable, as you don't realize until the film has concluded that the goalposts, so to speak, have been shifted in a way that raises uncomfortable questions about our nation's priorities (in contrast, once again, to the more internationalist ideology that the film sporadically promotes).

Source: United uncut pan-and-scan airplane video
30 Jun, 1:20 PM

Kung Fu Panda

Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, USA, 2008
3 out of 4 stars

The title, as well as the studio (DreamWorks) was enough to tell me that this was a must-avoid, but an invitation from friends led me to notice a surprisingly-high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so I went ahead and checked it out. The first thing that hit me, not having seen any trailers in advance, was that this film is clearly operating on a entirely different visual level from almost all previous DreamWorks efforts (if you can call them that). Colors are lush, movement is dynamic and kinetic, and backgrounds are beautiful and detailed (character designs are less impressive, perhaps, but still solid). I might even venture the slightly blasphemous opinion that Kung Fu Panda is prettier than some Pixar films!

Of course, when it comes to plot, this falls behind probably all Pixar films, but it's still surprisingly workable, if a bit rambling and, let's say, uncluttered. Although the film has its usual voice actor roster overcrowded with stars (many of them almost unrecognizable due to their marginal personalities and small roles), the film is dominated by Jack Black, who plays Po with minimal crudeness (there were for instance far less fart jokes, perhaps almost none, it's hard to recall, then you would expect for a character primarily known for his size and propensity to eat). Po is very clearly a fanboy, seemingly unsuited for a destiny as a fighter, but nonetheless intimately familiar with their history, and while this is a familiar cartoon plot, it was nonetheless endearingly done by Black. The other interesting character choice is Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Shifu, Po's reluctant, diminutive master; as far as I can tell, his vocal performance is a pastiche of the English dubbing voices used on kung fu films of the 70s.

If anything, I was tempted to overvalue this picture while watching it, but in the end it is not at all transcendent, just a surprisingly solid example of pop, mainstream filmmaking with a lot of appeal and a minimum of idiocy or nastiness. It should also be added that despite being an American film about China, there is almost nothing offensive in the picture (although I'm sure you could get some mileage out of looking at which characters actually read as "Chinese" and which don't).

Source: Paramount 35mm print
7 Jun, 3:40 PM

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuarón, UK / USA, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

Luckily, this film is just as strong on a repeat viewing, although I suppose it didn’t hurt that I had forgotten many of the major plot points (this is the upside to not watching your favorite films too often). One thing that really struck me was how directly Cuarón chose to visually quote from the Abu Gharib photos when the heroes enter the detention center. Of course, the parallel would have been obvious in any case. I tried to point this out to my students, but of course they didn’t even know what Abu Gharib was! I suppose they were around 13 years old at the time, but I still find that unacceptable. It makes me wonder if there is any real need for the pervasive propagandizing that this film portrays; even when the press openly and extensively reports on a heinous offense, the average person still remains blissfully ignorant of it.

The other interesting element is that Cuarón is combining the “terrorist detention” crisis with the “illegal immigration” crisis. Perhaps I’m being naïve to even view them as separate “issues,” but in any case, I do find the conflation of the two problems (and by problem, of course, I am referring to how the West and particularly the US has dealt with things) somewhat illuminating, as if Cuarón is sketching out for us the whole continuum of heinous treatment of the other, and perhaps reminding those of us who may be only, or more, concerned with one problem than the other, that these things can bleed into each other after a while.

Source: Universal DVD
30 May, 2:28 PM

A Mighty Heart

Michael Winterbottom, USA / UK, 2007
3.5 out of 4 stars

I was a bit surprised by some of the less-than-charitable reviews that I saw of this film after watching it, but upon further reflection, I think that the disparity of opinions can be readily explained by its somewhat-divided nature.

On the one hand, we have scenes of Marianne Pearl (Angelina Jolie) working alongside people from various agencies to find her husband, Danny, who has been kidnapped (and if you read the news, you know how this ends, but the film doesn’t inform you at the beginning if you aren’t already aware of it). Jolie pulls off a fairly competent attempt at mimicry, made a bit politically dubious in that they seem to have darkened her face ever so slightly in order to make her look more like the French-Afro-Cuban Mrs. Pearl (I also felt that, in her biggest “acting” moment near the end, Jolie embarrassed herself a bit, although I am not sure whose fault that is or if my reaction is even fair). I found Archie Panjabi and Irfan Khan to be particularly likeable, the former as a colleague and roommate (who unfortunately, due in part to the somewhat-elliptical storyline, comes off as an assistant at first), the latter as the main Pakistani investigator.

As I later learned, all these scenes involving Jolie in the Pearl house were actually shot in India for security reasons, and many of the actors playing Pakistani characters, such as Khan, are from Bollywood (Panjabi is British). And while these scenes are fairly strong, some of the most interesting stuff happens in the scenes that were actually shot in Pakistan, where the actual investigation gets underway (leaving behind the ostensible main character for large periods of time, more and more as the film continues) Because there is a bit more of a story in the conventional sense, the film was able to keep my attention a little more thoroughly than Michael Winterbottom’s earlier films that used this as a setting, namely In This World and, to a lesser extent, The Road to Guantánamo.

I only watched the first minute of the DVD’s “making of” featurette, but I was interested by Winterbottom’s explanation that he found something in Pearl’s memoir (by the same name) that resonated with his own experiences in Pakistan, making those earlier films. What he didn’t say, I imagine, was that by making use of the cachet from both the star system and the cult of the “true story” (not that this isn’t an important true story), he could try to convey what he’s seen about this area to the mainstream audience who has missed his previous work. He does so with some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen from him, using very short scenes and abrupt, yet seamless transitions in order to get plenty of information and sensation across without indulging himself or boring the viewer. I don’t know if this film is actually better than his other “political” films or if I am still just mainstream enough that I need something conventional to latch on to, but I do think that it’s an effective combination, if a little uneven when you really think about it.

Source: Paramount DVD
29 May, 9:11 PM

Raise the Red Lantern

(Da hong deng long gao gao gua)
Zhang Yimou, China / Hong Kong / Taiwan, 1991
3.5 out of 4 stars

I have become an admirer of Zhang Yimou's work (you may be noticing a pattern here, as I seem to be drifting towards some kind of partial adherence to the "auteur theory"), starting with his most successful film (at least here), Hero, and I frequently saw this film mentioned in reviews of his later work. Up until last year, however, there was no decent DVD version, meaning that I saw his less-well-regarded but more recent films first.

Having finally made it back to this one, widely regarded as a classic, I almost felt as if I had failed some kind of test, because while I certainly liked it, I think I got more out of films like Not One Less or Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, both of with are more in the neo-realist mode with the usual cast of nonactors.

This one has some of the same sense of languidness, as it follows Songlian (Gong Li) character through four seasons as the fourth wife of a polygamous nobleman in 1920s China. At least for me, it was hard to be sure of the time period until I looked it up afterwards (perhaps this would not be the case for a Chinese audience). The palace, if it can be called that, is expansive but decaying, and the outside world is never shown after Songlian arrives. This creates a very striking feeling of isolation, as you might imagine.

On top of that, the family has its own elaborate customs which seem explicitly concocted with the aim of heightening the already-inevitable tension and conflict between the four wives. Althoug she is the heroine, Songlian certainly doesn't take the high road, as she tries her best to play the game and win advantage for herself. While she seems to have an advantage due to her youth and beauty, we soon start to wonder if her late introduction is too much of a disadvantage. The maneuvering that go on are subtly depicted, and Gong does a good job of depicting the anguish that exists just below the surface of her crumbling, icy facade (to mix some metaphors). Certainly not a fun time, and the very end seems slightly half-baked or at least forced, but interesting, undoubtedly.

Source: Fox DVD
28 May, 7:38 PM

Helvetica

Gary Hustwit, UK, 2007
2 out of 4 stars

On certain occasions, I can be somewhat susceptible to persuasion when someone makes an off-the-wall film recommendation, particularly in the classroom for some reason, and this is a perfect example of it; a feature documentary on a font, for gosh sakes, that a guest lecturer in my “history of the book” seminar enthusiastically recommended.

I actually respect it as a valiant effort, but of course it turns out to be largely boring to someone who doesn’t already care about fonts or design. Helvetica consists of two kinds of scenes; talking-head interviews with designers and typographers, and series of brief shots of Helevtica use, mostly in various street signs. I’m slightly more interested in fonts than most people, and I was surprised to realize, for instance, how many major logos are all in this same font, which honestly in its large street-style is almost unrecognizable from its computer version. I found the London sequence to have some particularly interesting visual touches, but overall these sequences are quite repetitive.

As for the interviews, I felt that relatively few of the people with whom the director spoke with were either interesting or insightful (much less both). The young designers come off as pompous art-school twits with almost nothing to say, while the experts who tried to explain its historical origins nearly bored me into a stupor. A few people make some interesting points about Helvetica’s cultural and economic significance, and at times I almost felt like the film was worth it. Overall, it’s not; this could have been an interesting article but for the unconverted it cannot be an interesting film.

Source: Red Envelope DVD
19 May, 9:05 PM

Iron Man

Jon Favreau, USA, 2008
3.5 out of 4 stars

When the script and the actors suck, a superhero action movie, with minimal action and maximum buildup and exposition can be one of the most painful things to suffer through. The best recent example of this is the excreable Fantastic Four, which doesn't even feature a battle sequence until the last 15 minutes of the film, rather spending most of its running time as the lifeless cast blandly ruminates over powers that only took them a minute to obtain. Thankfully, Iron Man is more in the vein of Batman Begins, another film in which a man with no inherent superpowers accumulates both the skills and the experiences necessary to ultimately inhabit his role as superhero.

Yet although I've given them the same rating, I should be clear that Batman Begins was definitely a deeper, more complex and more thought-out film. Iron Man would probably be significantly worse without the presence of Robert Downey, Jr., who seems to be gradually making up for last time, even as he cleverly trades off of his own unfortunate public persona in his role as the dissolute-but-brilliant Tony Stark. Unlike Bruce Wayne, Tony is not traumatized, he's just in a stage of arrested development that has prevented him from considering the consequences of his actions as a weapons designer/merchant. It takes an origin story centered in Afghanistan to reorient his thinking and kick off some gradual, but worthwhile, character development.

Interestingly, the original Iron Man was born of the Vietnam War, and that story's attitude towards said war was much less complicated, to put it lightly. The comics have already updated both the setting and the politics, so I'm not sure how this stacks up to more recent incarnations (I only really started recognizing Marvel injokes during the very last scene), but I think Jon Favreau's film walks a fine line regarding the depiction of terrorists and ultimately succeeds in avoiding the main pitfalls. Overall the attitude is one of sophistication, although some things are nonetheless overlooked out of necessity.

As for the action, well, as I said there's not exactly tons of action in this film, but the story and acting are such good quality that the action feels even more earned. Watching Iron Man fly around is in itself exciting, which is somewhat surprising considering that "you'll believe a man can fly" was the original superhero movie tagline, even before I was born. Above all, it did leave me looking forward to the sequel (and I wouldn't mind if there was a bit more action that time).

By the way, if you go see it, make sure to stay until after the credits.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
16 May, 8:00 PM

Solaris

Stephen Soderbergh, USA, 2002
3 out of 4 stars

Something, not quite explained, is going wrong at the end (or at least it feels like it) of space, but despite the somewhat-goofy spacesuits, the significance of the events is much more focused on the interpersonal. Sent to investigate this phenomena (even the message apparently doesn't mean what it seems to mean), Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is soon visited by someone who could not actually be there, specifically his wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone). Flashbacks ensue (not for the last time, either) in which we get a surprising level of detail about their relationship, from beginning to end.

All this unfolds at a fairly deliberate pace, despite the short running time, and it can be quite captivating at times; there is a certain visual appeal to the shot composition (really starting to wish I had the language to describe this stuff better) and the performances are often compelling. Overall, though, I couldn't quite get involved enough in the thing, even though I felt like I cared about the characters, and was at least interested in what was going on without being too removed from it. The spaceship sets don't look particularly good on a mid-sized television (I'm gonna assume that they look much better on a movie screen), which is a bit of a problem considering how long we end up staring at them when not that much is going on. The ending is interesting, but I wish I knew what it meant, although I suspect that I'm being needlessly obtuse here (it was probably the best part of the film). I consider this a good film, overall, but I'm not sure that I would recommend it; it's just too hard to get a handle on.

Source: Fox DVD
9 May, 8:56 PM

Sólo con tu pareja

Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico, 1991
4 out of 4 stars

I have been working my way through Cuarón's filmography ever since, believe it or not, I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I was just as pleased with this film, his feature debut, as I had been with his others. It's basically an absurdist sex comedy, at times solidly in the realm of farce, while other times it verges into even stranger or darker territory. Despite the more limited resources and the seemingly less-conducive subject matter, the film looks great and has the same sense of visual inventiveness that one sees in his later films

The protagonist is the usual lothario type, who we meet in the process of fooling around with both his boss and the nurse that works for his amiable neighbor, a good bourgeois doctor who is content to live vicariously through tales of his sexual exploits (although even this leads to problems for both characters on more than one occasion). We also learn that the hero is not particularly concerned about protection, which also becomes an issue.

I definitely wouldn't try to claim that the film is entirely original; it seems fresh enough to me, but some aspects of the story are more familiar than others. What I like is that there is nonetheless a good balance of optimism and cynicism which allows the viewer to forgive some of the lapses. More importantly, the film just gets more and more hilarious, particularly the darker it gets. It's definitely worth looking into.

Source: Image DVD
3 May, 9:57 PM

No End in Sight

Charles Ferguson, USA, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

I was slowly making my way through "Bush's War", a two-part "episode" of PBS Frontline, when I got the notification that this movie would be the next to arrive in my mailbox. The redundancy seemed unfortunate, but I ultimately became so consumed with what I learned in "Bush's War" that I found myself interested in seeing and learning more, so I went ahead and watched the film. The result of all of this is that I found myself in a better position to actually judge No End in Sight on its merits as a work, rather than giving it a knee-jerk four-star rating due chiefly to the shock of what I learned from it.

Instead, I found this documentary to be a solid piece of work, but perhaps a bit undeserving of its de facto status as the flagship Iraq War documentary. Part of this is indeed because Frontline has in fact, it turns out, been doing shows on this stuff for years; "Bush's War" was something of a synthesis of earlier shows, with the focus to some extent being on the decision-making process that led us to war, whereas No End in Sight is more interested in the colossal mistakes made in the beginning of the occupation (there is apparently a Frontline on this subject as well, and director Charles Ferguson even uses a clip from it at one point!). Being that it is PBS, it is also pretty neutral on the face of it; of course, the facts line up to present a picture so damning that there is no real need to lay it on with any extraneous, overt ideological critique.

Ferguson, of course, is not a public television journalist, so he has no need to strive for objectivity; even so, he seems to have sensed that the facts speak for themselves (not something I always believe, mind you, but clearly the case here). The question is, really, whether he has made any use of film as a medium. There seems to be a very small amount of original footage (although who knows how original), but it's mostly a talking-head piece. This is compelling enough, as much of the things we learn are quite shocking, and not all of it was covered at least in the particular Frontline that I saw. The downside to Ferguson's approach and his status is that he is able to get only one unrepentant proponent of the Bush policies. With this guy, he sets up a very theatrical, indirect "confrontation" with one of his key witnesses; the narrator makes a point of informing us that these two men were interviewed again in order to reconcile contradictions between their testimonies. Although contrived, it's also satisfying in that you always wish that these things were actually "resolved" more thoroughly, and the confrontational aspect of it is something that Frontline largely eschews.

Overall, though, this is best suited for television; I really can't imagine watching it in a movie theater (although the occasional use of split screen did render some footage hard to focus on for someone with a modest-sized television). For film, I think I would be more interested in one of the docs that actually focuses on original, on-the-spot footage. Ferguson does augment the work of the PBS journalists, but he ultimately comes off as a little redundant. All that said, you're more likely to want to see this film then you are to watch three hours of "Bush's War" on streaming video, so on that basis alone I recommend it; this is stuff you need to know, and you will be better off, albeit angrier, for having seen it.

Source: Red Envelope DVD
29 April, 9:41 PM

One Nite in Mongkok

(Wong gok hak yau)
Derek Yee, Hong Kong, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

They tell you from the beginning, if you're paying attention, that this movie is about fate. Although many of the Hong Kong films dealing with cops and gangsters emphacize some form of honor or heroism, this picture very quickly sets the stage for a tale that is grittier not in the sense that it depicts unpleasant events (although there is that too), but in that it does not provide us with these comforting lenses through which to observe the action.

For one thing, it takes quite a while for the protaganist, a young man from the mainland hired to kill a gang boss, to even appear in the picture. Although his story ultimately drives the film, albeit with frequent cutaways to the police and their attempt to avert a gang war, the fact that he doens't show up until events lead to his introduction seems to show that, even though our focus is on him, he is only a part of larger events. In fact his introduction is surprising, as before we meet him the film seems heading towards more of an ensemble approach, but Daniel Wu turns in a good performance as the often-conflicted, somewhat naive and moralistic would-be killer. His costar, Cecilia Cheung, does overplay her more cliched "prostitute with a heart of gold" role (although it may just be overwritten as well), but their relationship, strange as it is, is nonetheless appealing, as they are both in Hong Kong due to similarly dire conditions in their home villages, bringing in an important social critique to the film (not something I've seen in many Hong Kong cop films).

I enjoyed this film quite a bit, in part because it is extremeley foreboding, particularly the closer you get to the end, but is not unrelenting. Rather than whip you up into some exaggerated frenzy of dread, One Nite in Mongkok (pity about the idiotic spelling in the English title) is more about the banality of coincidence (or fate, I guess) and the compromises that all the characters have made with varying degrees of deliberateness. This makes for a film that is both more interesting and more challenging than most.

Finally, although I lack the filmic vocabulary to go into detail, the film is shot with a good degree of energy and artistry. While ultimately it falls under the umbrella of mainstream film, there does seem to have been an artsy inclination on the part of the filmmakers, and in this case I'd say their ambition was well-realized.

Source: Tai Seng DVD
21 April, 8:45 PM

Modern Times

Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1936
3 out of 4 stars

Honestly, I am tempted to give the first two sequences 4 stars and the rest of the film 2 stars; as it is, I split the difference and ended up with the good-but-not-great 3 star rating.

This is actually my first Chaplin film, and as I am not a film student (but rather a "projectionist," in which capacity I saw this film), it will most likely be my last. I didn't find the conventions of the "silent" (with occasional speech near the beginning and sound effects throughout) film too difficult to get a hold of, and for the most part the humor was not incomprehensible.

If anything, the bar was perhaps set too high by the first sequence, in which Chaplin's "Little Tramp" desperately tries to make his way through a day at the factory, becoming increasingly unhinged with results that myself and most of the undergraduates found absolutely hillarious. No surpise that an English professor would assign this, as Chaplin demonstrates the "alienation of labor" concept far better than Karl Marx or any of his followers could hope to!

There are flickers of brilliance throghout (the first jail sequence is pretty solid), but the film increasingly becomes repetetive (near the end the Tramp ends up in yet another factory, even mirroring many of the earlier gags albeit in a different context. It seems that Chaplin was regrettably unable to maintain the high level of both social commentary and humor that he shows at the beginning.

Source: Warner DVD
15 April, 7:10 PM

The Host

(Gwoemul)
Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2006
3.5 out of 4 stars

This Korean mega-blockbuster came to my attention during its small but respectable American run thanks to major critical Internet hype, to the point that I watched it despite my general antipathy to "monster movies," and in this case the hype was mostly justified. The random attacks on the people of Seoul by a large mutant fish-creature serve as a very interesting vehicle for biting social commentary on Korean society (surprisingly easy to grasp despite my general ignorance about said society), and more importantly, a critique on the US' paternalistic, borderline-malevolent (at least here) relationship with the Republic of Korea.

Political themes are not that rare to horror films, I understand (not so much from watching them as from reading reviews), and the perspective on America is not unfamiliar to me from the handful of American films I've seen, dealing both with the early 21st century and the mid 20th century. Nonetheless, The Host, like all the best blockbusters (increasingly an oxymoron, at least domestically) is a terrific genre mishmash of satire, melodrama and suspense. The fact that certain scenes, such as a notably excessive display of grieving by the family around which the film revolves, leave the viewer unsure as to whether they are meant as melodrama or satire (or both) only increases the impact and appeal of the film.

The plot itself is aimless in a good way, as the twists and turns effectively convey the sense of frustration with the South Korean and American governmental and military response to the monster, as well as the struggle of the average (perhaps even below-average), regular family to fight both the monster and the monstrously uncaring systems they are at the mercy of. There are definitely flaws; the main female character is woefully undeveloped particularly in comparison to her male counterparts, and there was one glaring aspect of the film that I found to be extremely problematic (but cannot reveal for fear of spoilers), but overall this is a surprisingly effective piece. And for those who care, there is thankfully not too much gore (the most extreme scene is probably the one where the monster belches out an improbably large heap of bones).

Source: Magnolia DVD
14 April, 9:52 PM

The Battle of Algiers

(La Battaglia di Algeri)
Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy / Algeria, 1966
4 out of 4 stars

I expected this to be more of a "broccoli" film, meaning that it would be "good for me" but not particularly interesting. Yet from fairly early on (after some getting used to it), I was very impressed by how engrossing, even thrilling at times, a film about terrorism could actually be.

Calling it "terrorism" might sound wrong, considering that this is a film that very much celebrates the national liberation struggle of the Algerians against French colonialism (a situation that, while never all that far from our American experience, is more uncomfortably familiar to even the most clueless citizen than it has been for us in quite a while). Part of what makes this film great, though, is that while it does glamorize to an extent through sheer cinematic force, it also forces you to take a clear look not only at what's at stake but also at precisely who will, for instance, die in a bomb blast (children included). As such the film manages to transcend both propaganda and facile, disingenously "neutral" docudrama to create something altogether more compelling and troubling.

Finally, when I mention terrorism I am also referring to what is sometimes called state terrorism, as the second half of the film, roughly speaking, is dedicated to the French Army's response to the revolutionary upheaval. While their leader might arguably be portrayed in an overly-sympathetic manner, the main Algerian rebel is still clearly the hero, and furthermore, the fact that the colonel does have a sense of "honor" only makes his actions the more disturbing. As the press corps finally start to reflect a growing civilian unease with harsh military tactics (sound familiar?), the best moment comes when the colonel reminds just how implicated they are in the colonial project. I should also note that the Ennio Morricone score is quite awesome!

Source: WEA subtitled VHS
10 April, 6:10 PM

The Taste of Others

(Le Goût des autres)
Agnès Jaoui, France, 2000
3 out of 4 stars

Some time ago, I watched a film called Look at Me and enjoyed it enough to add director Agnès Jaoui's earlier (and first) film to my Netflix queue, but not, apparently, enough to make it any kind of priority. My conclusion is that this is a solid, entertaining effort, but that Jaoui definitely improved in her subsequent outing.

There is definitely a similar style at play here, as we have witty but often dry dialogue, frequent cuts between different sets of characters, and a somewhat sudden and jolting introduction into the plot (you figure out who is who and what relationship they have to each other about 15 minutes into the film). Although this film does juggle several storylines, most of the focus is on a bumbling, bourgeois industrial manager who becomes more interested in his English lessons (forced upon him by higher-ups so that he will be able get this international deal through) when he becomes enamored of his tutor during her performance in the theater. This plot allows for the filmmakers to provide amusing but not entirely earthshaking commentary about the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the art-intellectual caste, among other things. While some of the characters may seem simplistic at first, most ultimately become sympathetic and invovling.

That said, this film does ultimately seem a bit slight. Jaoui and her husband, co-writer Jean-Pierre Bacri (also the de facto star here) try to weave together all these characters, but some ultimately don't seem to contribute too much, concerning the plot or the overall conceptual thrust of the piece, which as I said is not eathshattering in and of itself. While Look at Me wasn't perfect, either, Jaoui and Bacri seem to have worked out some of these problems in their following film, so it's a bit disconcerting to go backwards as I ended up doing with their work. I guess on the off chance that you were to see either of these films, you should see the first one first, or only see the second one.

Source: Buena Vista DVD
1 April, 10:09 PM

Offside

Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2006
4 out of 4 stars

Iranian women, as the text at the beginning helpfully explains to American audiences, are barred from attending sporting events, which of course means that this film is about a handful of young women, who, for different reasons, try to sneak in to particularly important soccer match that will decide whether or not Iran will make it to the 2006 World Cup. It bears noting, by the way, that much of this film was actually shot in the background during the game (although you won't see much of it).

The film, then, is about gender in Iran, but it is also about class, as the often-hapless soldiers who become the reluctant guards of these seemingly privileged city women come from rural, provincial backgrounds, and its theme inherently leads to a consideration of nationalism as well. We know that there are “bad guys,” so to speak, in the Iranian system, but for the most part those figures stay offscreen; instead, we have two mostly sympathetic groups who both have legitimate grievances. The director chooses to present both of these sides rather than telling us what to think. It might be tempting to chalk all this restraint up to an aspiration to see the film screened in its own country and not just in international markets (it didn’t work), but I think that the presentation of the film is actually quite sincere and insightful, albeit very subtle (I'm sure plenty of the nuances escaped me from my vantage point).

Like all the other handful of Iranian films I’ve seen (almost all of which were banned domestically by Iranian censors), this one is filmed in a neo-realist style with long takes and a cast of mostly non-actors. Ths one, however, is undoubtedly my favorite of the ones I’ve seen, as it is the first one with an overall comic tone, which is pretty rare not just in Iranian film but in any neo-realist film. While it does start slow, the confrontations are amusing while also thought-provoking, and the characters are quite engaging, but the comic nature of the film does not mean that important questions are being dodged; although Persepolis was a good film, I felt like this one was in many ways more enlightening and entertaining. Even if you’re skeptical about this kind of film, I would recommend you give it a chance.

Source: Sony DVD
16 March, 10:17 PM

Super Size Me

Morgan Spurlock, USA, 2004
3.5 out of 4 stars

I’m gonna assume that everyone has heard about this movie, and as such, I’m not gonna spend any time describing it for you. The first thing I will say is that it probably benefited from really low expectations on my part. Intellectually, I still object to Spurlock’s methodology; it’s the film version of what a public radio panel recently referred to as “extreme sports writing,” and I think that documentaries should not, in general, be documents of stunts. Furthermore, It’s hard not to be bothered by the futility of the whole thing, and it’s also hard not to wonder what would have been the point if, say, he had managed to get himself permanent kidney damage.

My greatest critique of this film, prior to actually watching it, was that it dramatized the obvious, and therefore must not have any real purpose; in this respect, I believe myself to be proved wrong. The truth is that what is obvious to some is not obvious to others, and I found myself increasingly uneasy at the degree to which I personally felt indicted by the film. I remember feeling this way when I first read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, but the effect has not been the same upon reviewing it for my class (the film was also shown during three class periods, interspersed with some other activity), and any case, I think the visual effect is very crucial; I was disturbed simply by the sight of how gigantic the now-defunct “super size” actually was.

The real question is whether this film can cause anyone to change their behavior; Spurlock obviously would like the government and corporations to change theirs, but he explains the lobbying system (overlapping with Schlosser here, as he often does) clearly enough to show us that that’s not going to happen, so he does leave it up to us in the end. Initially, I felt irritated at being condemned without actually being enlightened (it’s not like I didn’t know that I shouldn’t eat that Western Bacon Cheeseburger, after all), but over time I feel more hopeful that I may have actually internalized some of the message. And most importantly, the film is much more entertaining than I expected, due mostly to its shock value; aside from that, the interviews in particular and such consist of a more complete package than the marketing would suggest (in fact the central stunt is largely just a marketing gimmick when it comes right down to it). My students did not react audibly as often as I did, but many of them had after all seen it before. But if I’m gonna measure this by how much impact it had on me, I should probably come back in a month and raise or lower the rating based on how concerned I am by that point!

Source: WEA DVD
5 March, 3:20 PM

Breach

Billy Ray, USA, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

The film launches with some footage of a press conference with John Ashcroft in early 2001, as he announces the capture of a mole in the FBI; a title card takes us two months back and engages us in the story of a young operative, Eric O’Neil (Ryan Philippe), tasked to play the obedient subordinate to grumpy old man Chris Cooper and dig up some dirt on him. Of course, things are not what they seem and Philippe’s character has not been told the whole truth, but the film for the most part plays out as a complicated dance between the competent young hero and the grizzled, prickly character actor. It’s not just about the guys, though, as Philippe’s real boss, gamely played by Laura Linney, shows up every now and then to act tough; the obligatory cameos by the Wife Who Doesn’t Understand are as annoying as they usually are, but you can tell the filmmakers sorta know this, and it does pay off more than you might expect.

So as the critics say, Cooper’s performance is often compelling, and Philippe does a reasonably good job at keeping up. The film can also be very tense at times, and Ray does a good job selling us on the gravity of the whole situation. Ultimately, however, I can’t help but feel like the film is not quite exciting or significant enough due to its excessive dependence on standing up to the scrutiny they felt would ensue from the “based on a true story” tagline; this impression was only strengthened after viewing the bonus features, in which you see. I do think that they made the right choice, even in an artistic sense, in not seeking to “explain” Cooper’s character anymore than they did, as this would only detract from his performance. The problem is that the filmmakers seem to have decided that just putting on a fairly compelling reenactment of a recent even is enough of a raison d’être. Honestly, how can you do a story about intelligence failure in that brief pre-9/11 Bush period without trying to say, I don’t know, something about it! And finally, the ending really underwhelms; perhaps this was unavoidable, but perhaps a director should also ask if the thrill of a “true story” necessarily justifies a plot that will eventually just sorta go flat (I’m sure they punched it up a bit here and there, but it feels like they didn’t do so enough). As entertaining as the film is, it ultimately comes off as a more mature, more polished version of America’s Most Wanted.

Source: Universal DVD
6 March, 8:42 PM

There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson, USA, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

I’m beginning to wonder if I have overly specific expectations for films about historical problems. You probably wouldn’t expect me to draw parallels with Sweeney Todd and my reception of it, but once again I found myself a little miffed, at least when the film was over and I reflected on it, that a filmmaker had almost threatened to make a film about something like the social impact of the early 20th century oil boom on a small town, but had instead decided to focus on how crazy this one guy is.

The parallels are limited, admittedly. I thought this was a much stronger film, partly because I didn’t really notice the missed opportunities until after. Just as all the critics said, Day-Lewis is a captivating presence, although there is a valid question as to whether he is believable as a fully-realized character, rather than as a human phenomenon.

And maybe I’m being too literal in my approach to the film. You see, there is a scene where the main character, Daniel Plainview, makes copious promises for economic and infrastructural development to the aforementioned small town. We are probably supposed to gather that he is lying, but you never even get enough of a glimpse of the world outside Plainview himself to really ascertain the truth of his statement. His story of demented, solitary obsession is compelling, but particularly considering the length of the film, it’s remarkable that it is depicted in isolation to such a pronounced degree. Maybe his character progression (if you can call it that) is supposed to represent the social trends, and maybe his rivalry with a young churchman played by Paul Danno is supposed to serve the same purpose, but the approach ultimately led, for me at least, to a sort of decontextualized feeling, the feeling of “what’s the point?”

I actually still did get something out of this film and you very likely will too. I don’t quite think the critics and the Oscar voters are wrong; I just think they are conditioned to value, perhaps even overvalue, certain things, and this movie is to some extent designed with those things in mind. A familiar story, of course.

Source: Paramount 35mm print
12 February, 2:50 PM