L' Enfer (2005)

Sabtu, 31 Maret 2007

L' Enfer (2005)

L' Enfer (Danis Tanovic, 2005)
English Title: Hell

Krzysztof Kieslowski's premature death gave us a treasure trove of great films (Decalogue (1989), Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, 1993; White, 1994; Red, 1995), The Double Life of Veronique (1991), etc.), including three unfinished screenplays (co-written with his long-time collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz) that forms a trilogy inspired by Dante Alighieri's Divine Trilogy. Heaven (2002), the first part of the trilogy, is directed by German helmer Tom Tykwer and is set in Italy, wherein a disgruntled woman accidentally kills innocent victims and later on escapes with a sympathizer and achieves a symbolic redemption in the end. The second part of the trilogy L' Enfer (Hell) is directed by Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, whose No Man's Land (2001) won him plenty of accolades worldwide, and is set in France wherein three sisters struggle with their disparate lives after a traumatic event during their childhood.

Much like what Kieslowski and Piesiewicz did with Decalogue and Three Colors Trilogy (wherein they stripped the ten commandments of their religious connotation, and the three colors of the French flag and their respective ideals of their political meanings), the three levels of the afterlife are removed of any of their Catholic dimensions, and what remains are basic human concepts that encapsulate these states in a completely human and worldly experience. In Heaven, it is redemption; a complete escape from the troubles that plague earthly life (that final scene in the film is both fantastical and yet completely understandable). L' Enfer, on the other hand, dictates a scenario of inescapable strife --- wherein strings of coincidences (or much more poetically, because of their destiny to have unfortunate lives) keep the three sisters from achieving a semblance of happiness.

It's more infernal than the typical descriptions of hell; while the French communes seem normal, actually sunny and pleasant at times, there is an unbearable sense of claustrophobia that traps these characters. The eldest sister Celine (Karin Viard) takes care of their physically incapacitated mom, suffers through a routine of taking the train from her apartment to the convalescent home (not to mention her self-imposed duty to fetch the daily papers and bread for her elderly neighbor), that when a handsome stalker Sebastian (Guillaume Canet) suddenly starts to hound through that routine, she fantasizes a romantic escape. In her masochistic sense of duty, she literally sleeps through opportunities for coincidences that might lead to her metaphorical redemption --- that same train conductor who lovingly observes her sleeping through the train ride.

Sophie (Emmanuelle Béart) gets obsessed with her husband's infidelity. She carefully follows her husband through his sexual escapades with a beautiful model; literally, consumes herself with the idea of punishing herself (and in a way, her two minor children) because of her husband's cheating. Their eventual separation connotes freedom from the inescapable repercussions of an unhappy married life; yet the reality of the matter is that, like her apartment that has been stripped off its beautiful decors and interiors, she has become empty and falsely complete.

The youngest sister Anne (Marie Gillain) is madly in love with her married professor (Jacques Perrin); she allows herself to be emotionally maltreated, be left unreciprocated with her immense romantic longings, with that fantastic idea that the professor would leave his family to be with her, taking in the idea that their getaway in Acropolis is as permanent a symbol of love as that of marriage and family. She symbolically releases herself through such longing, but in the end, that release is a mere facade, an unguaranteed repression, that will inevitably explode when the cruel tricks of fate seek to expose her true emotions.

It's a complex web of unhappy lives that Kieslowski and Piesiewicz paint; three separately told experiences that are devoid of any sense of redemption, thrown in a pit by fate and circumstance, enunciated by myth and literature as expressed through the Greek tragedy of Medea. While Heaven, the redemption may be conceived as cheaply constructed and maybe too easily realized, in L' Enfer, it's a doom that can be described as permanent and ravaging. The film dictates instances of possible escape (when the train conductor tries to announce her love by giving a gift to Celine, or the sisters' eventual reconnection), but again, fate and an unmistakable sense of human cruelty and emotional torture, get swayed in the equation that would make happiness elusive, or even impossible.

It's quite amazing how L' Enfer feels very much like a film directed by Kieslowski. The hues, the music motif, even little signature touches (the old lady trying to throw a bottle in a trach receptacle or that bee trying to escape from drowning), the overall atmosphere --- all these are Kieslowski-an in spirit. It felt like a departure for Tanovic (whose sense of satire made No Man's Land a rather involving political statement) who opens himself to be possessed by the great director's aesthetic and philosophical traits. And while the film is mostly melodramatic at times, there are quiet touches of black humor that surface throughout; the film is actually as interesting and as amusing as the bee struggling to get out of the liquid. But while the bee frees itself and flies to safety, the characters in this piece won't die and won't get freed --- they wriggle and strugglingly swim in a life-long emotional, mental, and philosophical emptiness as punishments inherited from a society rules over by an irrational god, or no god at all.

Lights in the Dusk (2006)

Jumat, 30 Maret 2007

Lights in the Dusk (2006)

Lights in the Dusk (Aki Kaurismäki, 2006)
Finnish Title: Laitakaupungin valot

It's a tired plot; similar to the stories so often told in the film noirs of the past decades. The story of a man spiraling down to his dismal fate, often contributed by his irresistible attraction to blonde beauties. Aki Kaurismäki has dabbled a similar structure more successfully with his The Man Without a Past (2002); wherein the protagonist loses his entire memory during the first few minutes and traverses the path to self-discovery and self-identity. Lights in the Dusk is a lot drearier in atmosphere. While still brimming with Kaurismäki's brand of droll humor, the film seems to have been possessed by a spirit of pessimism. From its initial shots where the protagonist wanders in his lonesome while checking up on the mall he guards at night (Kaurismäki cruelly injects the background music of an opera singing a love song in Finnish; as if to insist on his protagonist his unwavering lack of luck in life and love), there's already a hint that the film will play on tragedy and cruel twists of inevitable destiny.

There's absolutely no point in self-discovery as the protagonist in this film, lonely night guard Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen), knows his place in the world. He's the absolute loser. He dreams of grandeur (of starting up his own corporation), but has no backers and guarantors to secure his initial loan, as none trust him and all ridicule him, except for fellow loner Aila (Maria Heiskanen), proprietress of a hotdog kiosk Koistinen frequents. In one scene, after being rudely avoided by a bar girl and being mistaken as an inanimate object by the men's room, he looks straight to the camera --- the actor's eyes, his glum pout longs for attention, almost begging, always pathetic. When hot blond Mirja (Maria Järvenhelmi) suddenly asks to sit with him in a 24-hour cafe, he is infused with a sudden urge of being somebody. He tries it out by trying to save a dog that's been left by a group of muscled bullies, and quite predictably, fails and is beaten up. It's a string of bad luck of Koistinen, swelled by faux opportunities and false hopes.

The film is consistently pretty. Timo Salminen's cinematography captures an absurdist's version of Helsinki --- uncharacteristically empty, bare, and infertile for a modern capital city. The citizens who do populate the city have glass stares and dull personalities; they are as bland as the monochromatic backgrounds Kaurismäki puts his characters' faces and body unto. The city, like in The Man Without a Past, serves as an accurate barometer of the protagonist's mental and emotional status --- Sad, friendless, cold, and unusually content with such pitiful predicament.

Lights in the Dusk, while still thematically consistent with Kaurismäki's ouvre, is a tad disappointing. It's borrowed plot, only distinguished by Kaurismäki's brand visual and deadpan humor, is too convinced of itself to initiate much greater depths as explored in The Man Without a Past. The film is predictable, as well as Kaurismäki's stylistic ticks (the prolonged shots before the fade-outs, the perfectionist musical cues, the chromatic tones, the dull acting and dialogue deliveries); it feels more like a second-rate repeat of what Kaurismäki has done more successfully in the past.

Unfortunately, while filmmakers of Kaurismäki's cinematic nature like Tsai Ming-liang, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, among others are exploring worlds and universes, it seems that the Finnish director has remained content of his stagnant stature. I'm hoping Kaurismäki soon finds his light in the dusk, the same way Koistinen belatedly does in this film's nebulous conclusion.

TMNT (2007)

Rabu, 28 Maret 2007

TMNT (2007)

TMNT (Kevin Munroe, 2007)

When the fast food restaurants peddling Colonel Sander's finger lickin' good fried chicken changed their name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC, rumors figuring out why arose. The most interesting rumor is that the food corporation has mastered the dark arts of genetic mutation and food processing; that what they serve aren't really chicken, but chicken parts grown without bodies. The name change is due to ethical considerations. There's actually no chicken in the fried chicken, just mutated parts.

Now, those beloved shelled green heroes, who from being mere illustrations in a semi-popular comic book became television celebrities and soon after movie celebrities, are back. Instead of utilizing their nominal catch phrase (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) as the title of their come-back film, it was decided that the film be called TMNT --- befitting the age of acronyms, web and SMS lingo, and instantaneous gratification. Like Colonel Sander's suspicious fried chicken-like parts, the name-change feels like a product of ethical purpose because there's really not much turtles, much less mutant ninja turtles, in this flick.

First, I miss the original villains. TMNT starts off from where the last film ended (Shredder is dead, etc., seriously, I can't remember.). The foot soldiers are back, lorded over by anime-ninja chick (voiced by Zhang Ziyi). They are recruited by this wealthy corporate warlord who seeks to reunite with his military family (turned into stone, this one's explained by the opening narration), in order to collect the thirteen monsters from another world. It's the standard plot of a role playing video game (think Legend of Zelda or pre-Playstation Final Fantasy) and its not surprising coming from Kevin Munroe, whose imdb credits include a videogame. The substandard plot is pumped up by the inclusion of the ninja turtles into the mess --- desperately trying to save the city (and the world) from those baddies while easing a bit of their internal dilemmas.

Where's the fun (which was really the reason why the ninja turtles became popular, in the first place) in all this? While most easy-to-please viewers would cite the action sequences and the unusual morphing of the ninja turtles into model-type physiques (I remember them to be much more bulkier; it just goes to show that our action heroes have evolved from Arnold-type muscle men into those leaner type actors), I thought the flick's an empty-headed diversion. Although I'm not a huge fan of the stupid catch phrases like "Cowabunga" or "Dude, where's the pizza," there's a sore lack of those personality-building ticks that made these turtles such celebrities. Actually, aside from the prolonged fraternal issues between leader Leonardo (James Arnold Taylor) and hot-headed Raphael (Nolan North), the other two turtles, fun-loving Michelangelo (Mikey Kelley) and especially brainiac Donatello (Mitchell Whitfield) are barely given any celluloid personalities. The other characters like fatherly sensei Splinter (voiced by Mako, in his last performance, sigh) and lovers April (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Casey Jones (Chris Evans), are cannon fodder.

Am I being overly critical on a picture that is obviously not made for my demographic? Yes, I am. But, I used to be part of this film's demographic and like most viewers my age who would curiously sneak into the cinemas to see how our childhood heroes have evolved, I would feel a change (unfortunate or fortunate, depending on your taste). I, for one, think that the change is for the worse. The transition to CGI is a bad idea --- while the previous films were obviously bad, they had that camp factor that made them viewable through the years. I think this one would get lost in the graveyard of bad CGI-flicks; and when people get to notice that the polyester perfections are far too perfect to be cinematic (those reflective eyes and smooth epidermis have been bothering me), this one will be far too below in the dump to be remembered.

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Selasa, 27 Maret 2007

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Bridge to Terabithia (Gabor Csupo, 2007)

Gabor Csupo's first venture to live action entertainment turns out to be quite a successful gamble. Csupo, who conceived and produced most of Nickelodeon's animated programs (including Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys, and As Told By Ginger), adapts a popular children's book, Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, and retains most of the source's adolescent depth and emotion; sacrificing very little of the source's literary quality to the calls of Hollywood, an admirable miracle during these times of 'roid-raged and pumped up fantasy literary adaptations.

Many will storm out of the theaters feeling shortchanged, complaining that the trailer led them to believe that the film is The Chronicles of Narnia-redux or The Lord of the Rings-for-kids. The swarms of bee-sized airborne troops, the gigantic tree-like troll, the wolf-like mutations and other monstrosities barely get any screentime. Moreover, they are hardly part of the plot --- more like beautifying artifacts to a coming-of-age flick; similar to the imaginary kingdoms in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1995) and Hayao Miyazaki's Whisper of the Heart (1995). These fantastic places facilitate the telling of the story and add depth and child-like appreciation to these characters' transition to adulthood.

The marketing ploy is understandable; these tales aren't very comercially-viable nowadays and these film types mostly belong to Hallmark Channel (Paterson's book was already adapted into television movie in 1985) or in exoticized versions from foreign-language territories. Nowadays, tales like these earn very little attention from families and children served with brainless boob tube entertainment and are unaware of the diverse worlds literature is capable of giving. Call the trailers, the posters, the come-on's as evil deception; I really don't care, Csupo's Bridge to Terabithia is a film that deserves to be seen --- more so than the hateful crop of so-called entertainment that drives hordes of viewers from everywhere into a fanatic mob.

It's a beautiful film. It is mostly plotted exquisitely. Complaints of Csupo's unremarkable and impersonal direction are thrown as vital criticism to the film but I disagree. Watch some of Csupo's Rugrats episodes, the ones wherein the plot is controlled by the innocent understanding and point-of-view of its baby characters, or As Told By Ginger episodes, wherein the entire series exposes the realities (humorously, of course) of living elementary school-life as a nobody. It is clear that Csupo has an understanding that makes him the perfect storyteller for a tale like this. His observant and oftentimes accurate portrayal of school-life, with the hierarchy of age, the constant bullying, the insult-hurling, the student-teacher crushes, the traumatic bus-rides, may have been sourced from Paterson's narrative, but it is clear that the heart of the film lies in those moments.

It's also a very well-acted film. I am completely enthralled by the compelling performances Csupo gets from his young actors. Josh Hutcherson (as impoverished farm-boy) and AnnaSophia Robb (as the literate newcomer) carry the film with a delightful mixture of youthful charm and a desirable understanding of their respective characters' personal battles and stories. The supporting cast led by Robert Patrick (as the ambiguously stern yet caring father) and Zooey Deschanel (as the pretty and likeable music teacher) lends vital creds to the main players.

Sure, Bridge to Terabithia is no modern masterpiece, nor is it the type of film that will be remembered for a very long time. However, it is a rarity in a cinematic age obsessed with gore, violence, and erect nipples (female, or male). It is the type of adaptation I commend; it takes in the good from its source and enunciates it with filmic embellishments (CGI, directorial flourishes). It's greaseless, bloodless, and purely delightful --- which is precisely why it's very well-recommended in our sad sad world of hate and cynicism.

Forgotten Silver (1995)

Minggu, 25 Maret 2007

Forgotten Silver (1995)

Forgotten Silver (Costa Botes & Peter Jackson, 1995)

If we are to believe Costa Botes, Peter Jackson and their 1995 Forgotten Silver, many of the cinematic achievements of 1927 would've lost a bit of their luster. Colin McKenzie, the subject matter of the film, is an obscure Kiwi filmmaker whose padlocked chest (found in the shack beside his widow's house) opened a possible rewriting of film history. Cecile B. deMille's biblical epic film King of Kings would have to give way to McKenzie's own three-hour epic Salome, whose history and ambitious production would belittle probably everything made during that era.

McKenzie would also be credited for creating the first feature film, which also happens to be the film that first used synchronized sound, topping The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927) by more than a decade. Aside from these innovations, McKenzie would've invented (voluntarily or involuntarily) the tracking shot (by attaching a camera to his bicycle thus eliminating the need for the hand crank), a steam-powered projector, color film (by utilizing a chemical obtained from Tahiti; wherein his test shot included half-naked Tahitians bathing; also giving him credit for producing the first pornographic film), the close-up shot, hidden camera (and irreverent reality entertainment), among other things.

However, there is really no Colin McKenzie. McKenzie is played by a Kiwi actor Thomas Robins, who among others (like producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Sam Neill, film critic Leonard Maltin) are part of Botes and Jackson's ultimate prank. Forgotten Silver infused native New Zealanders with beaming pride of their forgotten legend's achievements and their archipelago's place in cinematic history, only to be told that everything is a well-crafted lie. It is humor at it's cruellest yet most creative. It is also the reason why I consider this film as Jackson's best (yes, even against his own Salome, The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)).

I would've loved to see the film not knowing that it's a product of Botes and Jackson's wild imagination. I would've loved to feel the emotions of being had, of witnessing history being retold with earnest and excited interest by these intrepid crew of so-called film enthusiasts and historians. Yet that's clearly impossible and the next best thing is to set myself up with a mind clear from any pre-conceived notions of what I know about film history and the film itself. I must say that while the experience cannot top those who were fooled, it was something worthwhile --- my eyes were closely nitpicking aspects of Botes and Jackson's filmmaking, their characteristic humor (Stan the Man, an invented degenerate of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, the subtle touches of fantabulous revisioning of cinematic history --- that picture of the steam-powered film projector, the home video using the bicycle-powered camera, the 20-second sequence of Tahitians bathing as McKenzie was obviously aroused from testing tropical flowers) obviously surfacing above the National Geographic-type of documentary filmmaking (with talking heads, archived footages, a supposed documented quest to search for the extravagant ruins of the Salome set).

But Forgotten Silver isn't a mere prank, it's something more --- it has that unusual heart, an engrossing story of an artist, a melodramatic twist of belated accolade. It injects jealousy, romanticism, even heroism into the made-up character of the filmmaker, and everything flows along the infused plausibility of the exercise. The made-up footage of McKenzie trying to save a soldier during an attack, his ultimate sacrifice, bares a gargantuan humanistic soul from a character that was conceived to be a practical joke. The life-long affair with the actress playing the titular Salome, his tense tie-ups with Communist Russia and Italian mobs, and that tragic effect of the ongoing madness, is quite emotionally resonant.

And the ending, starting from the premiere of McKenzie's Salome (shown in bits of pieces while the narrator describes what is happening), to the last image of McKenzie operating a camera, is nothing short of genius. It's a summation that can be best described as a heartfelt, if not humorous, contrarian play on our fetish with history, of first's and titles. Forgotten Silver was such a success because it tried to rewrite history, and it will probably be most remembered as that "mock-umentary" that almost did. However, consume the film, its characters and its stories, its mocking nature will surely fade and what's left is something touching, something more rewarding.

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This post is my contribution to goatdogblog: The 1927 Blog-A-Thon.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Sabtu, 24 Maret 2007

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1927)

1927 is the year wherein great filmmakers made landmark films: Fritz Lang released Metropolis, Buster Keaton made his masterpiece entitled The General, Cecille B. deMille finished his opulent Christ film King of Kings, Alfred Hitchcock made his third feature and the first that was clearly Hitchcockian The Lodger, Sergei Eisenstein released October, and the epic biopic Napoléon by Abel Gance was unleashed to excited audiences. 1927 also saw the release of F. W. Murnau's first American feature. Although Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans isn't Murnau's best film (Murnau is after all the director of such masterpieces like Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924) and Faust (1926)), it has a rightful place in history and deserves the reverence and level of importance that is afforded it.

The film can arguably be seen as one of the peaks of the silent film era (I decline to acknowledge it as the single peak as the other 1927 silent features were groundbreaking too); Murnau has mastered his craft and floods the film with perfected style and finesse. Just observe the film's first scene: an illustrated title fades into an accurate real version of a train (a model) about to leave in the foreground while in the background is a view of the busy city with another train rushing past in the far end. That scene is followed by other scenes using superimpositions, crane shots, and other visual techniques (all largely due to the unmeasurable talents of cinematographers Karl Struss and Charles Rosher).

Also observe this obvious example of the film's many outstanding sequences. The Man (George O'Brien) traverses into the marsh --- Murnau's camera, in probably the longest single take in a silent film, tracks down the steps of the man; changing roles from the audience's point of view to the man's point of view, the camera captures the Woman From the City (Margaret Livingston) alone being lit by the solitary light source, a perfectly circular moon. The Man and his lover meet; Murnau cuts to the Man's wife (Janet Gaynor) nursing her son, then cuts back to the man and his lover exchanging torrid kisses in sinful abandon. The Woman From the City suggests the plan of drowning the wife to free the man for their escape to the city; she tempts him with the city's lights, flash, and sounds --- all superimposed with astounding accuracy; we also get to hear sound in sync with what's happening onscreen over the delirious original musical score composed for the film.

Above the technical mastery is the syrupy sensitivity that the film unabashedly inflicts on us. It tells of a tale that is claimed to be universal, of a man lured into a murderous affair by a vacationing woman of the world only to be redeemed into marital fidelity, that will be tested by the most cinematic of deus ex machina's. It pits rural simplicity against the evils of urban sophistication, and sacramental righteousness against lustful temptation. Characters are simplified and removed of their individualistic nature, as opposed to the novel written by Hermann Sudermann where the film was based from. Straightforward and overly simple, the plot has the semblance of a parable; merely expanded to show off the sophistications of Murnau's filmmaking.

The film can be seen as a turning point in silent cinema. Along with the technical advances of Gance, the opulence of deMille, and other contributions of several filmmakers around the world, silent cinema could've pushed the envelope and evolved the medium. Murnau's Last Laugh told a story entirely without using intertitles; I believe Sunrise can also do without the intertitles (although the experimentations as to how intertitles are use not only to forward the plot but also to enunciate emotions --- the opening title, the animated 'drowning' intertitle). The innovations were piling up. Those were exciting times.

1927 had one other film that changed everything, and metaphorically stopped the evolution of silent cinema. That film is Alan Crosland's The Jazz Singer, the first sound film. Silent films became the thing of the past, as talk, sound, and prolonged dialogues were introduced into cinema. The dreamlike, smoky quality that made simplistic tales like Sunrise into cinematic masterpieces were replaced by the value of easy gratification and aural education. Imagination, exaggeration, and a certain feel of artistry were given up. In an alter-universe wherein The Jazz Singer never happened, I imagine cinema to be a lot less like ours today; more like experiences rather than events.

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This post is my contribution to goatdogblog: The 1927 Blog-A-Thon.