The Last Airbender

I approached The Last Airbender with good will and low expectations.  I’d seen and loved the three-season animated series, and I’d heard that the film was terrible.  Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a shot. 

It was fine.

The film errs in trying retell the entire first season of the animated series in an hour and a half, leaving us with a movie that feels more like a highlight reel than a self-contained narrative.  It also takes itself ever so seriously, eschewing comic relief or any sense of joy in favor of portentiousness.  Further, it tries so hard to make us believe in the tormented nature of its villain that the guy comes off as not particularly villainous at all – that’s no fun!

And yet, hey, I like these characters.  I enjoyed seeing their world presented in live action.  I’d have stuck around for the two sequels, had this film made enough money to justify them.  We don’t get enough kid-friendly action movies in the marketplace, and I was willing to enjoy The Last Airbender for trying to fill that niche.

Yes, it didn’t entirely succeed, but I still found it a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.  Really, you could do worse.

Last Year at Marienbad

How do I get you to see Last Year at Marienbad without telling you anything about it?

This film rewards ignorance.  It doesn’t want you to know its synopsis, or what someone else thought about it, or why you should see it.  It’ll put you in a place where you may feel disoriented, uncomfortable, perhaps not entirely sane.  It’s not doing this because it’s a bad movie.  Alain Resnais does not make bad movies.  It’s doing this because it knows exactly, precisely what it’s about.

It’s stunningly beautiful and demands that you see it on the silver screen, but will abide a small-screen showing if you have no choice.  Its music will haunt you.  Its performances will stay with you.  It will tease you and delight you and make you glad that you watch good films.

And that’s it.  I’m done.  If you’ve seen Last Year at Marienbad, you know what I’m talking about.  If not, queue it up immediately and thank me later.  This film is just that good.

A Woman Is a Woman

One could view A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme Est Une Femme), Jean-Luc Godard’s second film, as a bold experiment in filmmaking or so much self-important hoo-hah.  I think it’s both.

Here’s the deal:  Godard’s first film, Breathless (written off here), was a huge success, marking him as a major innovator of the French New Wave of filmmaking.  I think the experience empowered Godard and compelled to keep innovating, to keep finding new ways of telling a story.  With A Woman Is a Woman, however, his new way includes silly, distracting tricks and unflattering cinematography of ridiculous people making poor decisions.

What kind of silly, distracting tricks?  Early in the film, the lead character (Anna Karina – more on her later) passes behind a pillar and undergoes an instantaneous costume change, one on which she comments.  Thereafter, we notice every time she passes behind an obstruction, waiting a beat to learn whether she changes again.  It pulls us out of the movie.  Later, Karina and her dumber-than-rocks boyfriend have an argument with a silly gimmick: they aren’t speaking, so they pull books off their shelves and show one another words from the covers to express their feelings.  Give me a break.

What kind of unflattering cinematography?  In his later Vivre Sa Vie (appreciated here), Godard uses black and white film to make star Anna Karina an epic beauty of endless fascination.  Here, his choice of garish color accentuates Karina’s nicotine-stained teeth and makes us recoil every time she smiles.

And what kind of ridiculous people making poor decisions?  I can’t even describe the plot of this film without sounding needlessly condescending, so you’re going to have to discover that for yourself, should you feel so inclined.  Let’s just say that I couldn’t believe that any sane woman would do the things Karina does in this film, and I’m not sure whether Godard expected me to.

So why call this a bold experiment, or even anoint it as hoo-hah, when it seems so obviously a failure?  I think we can do so because Breathless indicated a filmmaker capable of crafting a coherent and well-designed film, and Vivre Sa Vie indicated a filmmaker capable of crafting a masterpiece.  I think Godard was in control of his material, and I think he was feeling sufficiently self-important to try new ways of telling a story and showcasing characters.  Sometimes, experiments fail: A Woman Is a Woman was such a time.