The more I think about OLDBOY, the more I like it.
I knew the movie's premise going in: a guy's imprisoned for 15 years with no explanation, no words from his captors, and no clue why such a fate has befallen him. Upon gaining his freedom, he sets out to exact his revenge. Armed with this knowledge, I expected a Korean version of the THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, only with much worse food. Initially, OLDBOY reinforces this expectation, even referencing the novel at one point. Before long, however, the film subverts both the Monte Cristo story and many of the tropes of popular narrative film, taking us to wholly unexpected places. Events pile on events, decisions on decisions, and soon we find ourselves in a story that has more in common with Aeschylus than Dumas. Gripping, provocative, and thoughtful to the end, OLDBOY succeeds on every level.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Cavite
So two guys wrote up a script, bought a digitial camera and a couple of tickets to the Philippines, and set out to make a movie. They called it CAVITE.
CAVITE has a workable premise: a man is forced to do accede to a criminal's wishes to saave his family. The twist is that the criminal is an Abu Sayyef terrorist, the man is a secular Filipino muslim, and the setting is Cavite, a city somewhere near Manila. It's a reasonably effective, though shakily shot, thriller. Its protagonist wins our sympathy, its antagonist seems brilliant and effective, and the picture goes through all the paces of the modern thriller.
Unfortunately, CAVITE isn't particularly thrilling. We can see what it's trying to do, and we can pity it for not quite succeeding. Its protagonist, while sympathetic, isn't comopelling. it antagonist, while brilliant and effective, is supernaturally so. Think of CAVITE as a particularly good student film or fun project, and you may enjoy it. Approach it with the standards you'd apply to a professional trail, and you'll probably come away disappointed.
CAVITE has a workable premise: a man is forced to do accede to a criminal's wishes to saave his family. The twist is that the criminal is an Abu Sayyef terrorist, the man is a secular Filipino muslim, and the setting is Cavite, a city somewhere near Manila. It's a reasonably effective, though shakily shot, thriller. Its protagonist wins our sympathy, its antagonist seems brilliant and effective, and the picture goes through all the paces of the modern thriller.
Unfortunately, CAVITE isn't particularly thrilling. We can see what it's trying to do, and we can pity it for not quite succeeding. Its protagonist, while sympathetic, isn't comopelling. it antagonist, while brilliant and effective, is supernaturally so. Think of CAVITE as a particularly good student film or fun project, and you may enjoy it. Approach it with the standards you'd apply to a professional trail, and you'll probably come away disappointed.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Picnic at Hanging Rock
The first and most important thing film must do is entertain. Whatever its insights, whatever its contribution to the art form, a given film must hook and hold the viewer throughout its running time. Granted, this prerequisite assumes a degree of subjectivity, as that which hooks and holds one viewer may distract and bore another. I can live with that.
Roger Ebert talked me into viewing PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. In one of his Great Movies columns, the critic paints a portrait of a mysterious, haunting, perceptive film that both hypnotizes and engages the viewer. I found it tedious and uninvolving. I simply did not care about its characters, it milieu, its insights, or much else about it. Perhaps it's the class warrior in me: why should I care about rich Victorians? Perhaps its the chronological ethnocentrist in me: why should I care about the geographically and chronologically limited ramifications of Victorian sexual and sociological norms? Perhaps it's the animal in me: I saw the movie at five in the morning, while waiting for an airplane to get fixed so I could take it flying - I didn't care much about anything other than getting another cup of coffee. And another. And another. Oh, and maybe a donut.
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK may well be a stunning masterpiece, but it didn't hook me and it definitely didn't hold me. Ah, well.
Roger Ebert talked me into viewing PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. In one of his Great Movies columns, the critic paints a portrait of a mysterious, haunting, perceptive film that both hypnotizes and engages the viewer. I found it tedious and uninvolving. I simply did not care about its characters, it milieu, its insights, or much else about it. Perhaps it's the class warrior in me: why should I care about rich Victorians? Perhaps its the chronological ethnocentrist in me: why should I care about the geographically and chronologically limited ramifications of Victorian sexual and sociological norms? Perhaps it's the animal in me: I saw the movie at five in the morning, while waiting for an airplane to get fixed so I could take it flying - I didn't care much about anything other than getting another cup of coffee. And another. And another. Oh, and maybe a donut.
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK may well be a stunning masterpiece, but it didn't hook me and it definitely didn't hold me. Ah, well.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Kontroll
KONTROLL begins with a representative from Budapest's subway system, self-consciously reading from a clipboard as he voices his belief that audiences will see the film's depiction of the subway and its denizens as allegorical, rather than literal. Additionally, he states that he was happy to have permitted the film's use of the subway, as the young writer & director, Nimrod Antal, was profoundly concerned with issues of good and evil.
I don't know if that guy is an actor or not, but what a great way to set up a movie. By announcing that it's an allegory about good and evil, the film distances us from an immediacy it might otherwise have. Why is this a good thing? Well, our rational side is willing to overlook a disjointed story, a lack of compelling characters, and the production's unremitting ugliness because it's on the lookout for allegories of good and evil. Rather than reflect that a particular sequence doesn't move the story along or provide any real insight into its participants, it's thinking, "What does this mean?"
Here's the setup: Bulscu (Sandor Csanyi) is the leader of an underdog squad of Kontrollers, ticket checkers on Budapest's honor-system subway. He's smart, attractive, likeable, and sleeps on the floors of deserted platforms in the middle of the night. He appears to have no real home, and he may be a schizophrenic killer. With a setup like that, you'd be right to expect a straight-up thriller. Antal takes his story in a different direction, however, using his premise to examine the lives of people who exist at the fringes of society. It's an interesting experiment, and the conceit gives the shoestring production a thematic justification for looking as scruffy as its characters.
Is it interesting? Yes. Does it make one forget about the passage of time? Yes. Is it good? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure out what it means.
I don't know if that guy is an actor or not, but what a great way to set up a movie. By announcing that it's an allegory about good and evil, the film distances us from an immediacy it might otherwise have. Why is this a good thing? Well, our rational side is willing to overlook a disjointed story, a lack of compelling characters, and the production's unremitting ugliness because it's on the lookout for allegories of good and evil. Rather than reflect that a particular sequence doesn't move the story along or provide any real insight into its participants, it's thinking, "What does this mean?"
Here's the setup: Bulscu (Sandor Csanyi) is the leader of an underdog squad of Kontrollers, ticket checkers on Budapest's honor-system subway. He's smart, attractive, likeable, and sleeps on the floors of deserted platforms in the middle of the night. He appears to have no real home, and he may be a schizophrenic killer. With a setup like that, you'd be right to expect a straight-up thriller. Antal takes his story in a different direction, however, using his premise to examine the lives of people who exist at the fringes of society. It's an interesting experiment, and the conceit gives the shoestring production a thematic justification for looking as scruffy as its characters.
Is it interesting? Yes. Does it make one forget about the passage of time? Yes. Is it good? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure out what it means.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Brick
I enjoyed the heck out of BRICK. The movie does so many things right, it's hard not to.
First, we have the location. It's hard to imagine a less threatening, more sterile city than San Clemente, CA. It's the kind of clean-scrubbed, utterly dull town that made me itchy to get out of California. BRICK makes San Clemente feel like the scariest city on Earth, all the more so for its surface sheen of wholesomness.
Second, we have the dialogue. It's a stylized form of speech, a noirish banter that no one would actually use, but which we wish they did. The speech could easily descend into self-parody or throw off the entire picture, but it does just the opposite: it takes us into a parallel world that's familiar enough to be relatable but just different enough to be unsettling.
Fourth, we have the performances. I didn't recognize any of the players, but knew going in that the protagonist is the kid from ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, all grown up. They were terrific, and not in the terrific-for-kids sense. The cast took to the stylized dialogue and fanciful situation and played it dead straight, giving the proceedings a tension and danger that even one wink would've have dissipated.
Fifth, we have the music. IMDB credits Nathan Johnson and Larry Seymour with the score, and they do a masterful job here. The music, like the dialogue, isn't normal. It fits its milieu, however, keeping us off-balance and tense. While it did call attention to itself, it did so in the most positive way, making me seriously consider purchasing a score for the first time in a very long time.
Rian Johnson, a first-time filmmaker, did BRICK on a shoestring and edited it with his home computer. With a debut like this, I can't wait to see what this guy can do with a little studio money behind him.
What a treat.
First, we have the location. It's hard to imagine a less threatening, more sterile city than San Clemente, CA. It's the kind of clean-scrubbed, utterly dull town that made me itchy to get out of California. BRICK makes San Clemente feel like the scariest city on Earth, all the more so for its surface sheen of wholesomness.
Second, we have the dialogue. It's a stylized form of speech, a noirish banter that no one would actually use, but which we wish they did. The speech could easily descend into self-parody or throw off the entire picture, but it does just the opposite: it takes us into a parallel world that's familiar enough to be relatable but just different enough to be unsettling.
Fourth, we have the performances. I didn't recognize any of the players, but knew going in that the protagonist is the kid from ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, all grown up. They were terrific, and not in the terrific-for-kids sense. The cast took to the stylized dialogue and fanciful situation and played it dead straight, giving the proceedings a tension and danger that even one wink would've have dissipated.
Fifth, we have the music. IMDB credits Nathan Johnson and Larry Seymour with the score, and they do a masterful job here. The music, like the dialogue, isn't normal. It fits its milieu, however, keeping us off-balance and tense. While it did call attention to itself, it did so in the most positive way, making me seriously consider purchasing a score for the first time in a very long time.
Rian Johnson, a first-time filmmaker, did BRICK on a shoestring and edited it with his home computer. With a debut like this, I can't wait to see what this guy can do with a little studio money behind him.
What a treat.
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