Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Minggu, 07 Juni 2009

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009)

The anatomical precision that recent torture-centered films like Eli Roth's Hostel (2005) or James Wan's Saw (2004) diligently indulges in has paved a way for a cinematic culture that equates realistic pain with commercial entertainment. Unlike the stylistic bodily inflictions that the crazed creative minds of renowned horror greats like Dario Argento, John Carpenter or David Cronenberg are known for, the present crop of torture porn flicks has none of the discipline, and none of the refreshing imaginative inflections that provide any semblance of dignity to the exercise in needless violence. With voyeurism and the subsequent delight of witnessing depravity inflicted on character-less human bodies as their primary concerns, the singularity of these films' reason for their existence gets redundant and obsolete.

Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, like Hostel and Saw, puts torture to the fore. The marked difference between Raimi's film and the indisputable junk that Hollywood has been and is still producing is that the recepient of the torture is a complete character with moral choices and suffers as repercussion of these choices, not the empty vessels of the recent torture flicks who only exist because of the available limbs that can be severed, blood that can be spilled, and eyeballs that can be gouched. Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), the subject of a wronged gypsy's merciless curse, is a loan officer whose professional career hinges on two things: the pleasure of his boss (David Paymer), and the defeat of her her brash competitor (Reggie Lee). In an effort to please her boss and outdo her officemate, she harshly turns down the pleas of Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), an elderly gypsy who is asking for an extension to her loan to salvage her home from foreclosure. Her decision to override charity for her selfish ends has drastic results as she becomes the subject of the gypsy's curse that grants her three days of torment and anguish before being dragged into the fiery pits of hell.

Much of Raimi's film is concerned with the suffering Christine has to go through because of the gypsy's curse. Physical pain takes the backseat. The excrutiating pain of having one's limbs slowly mutilated is more imagined than real to most of us. Christine's suffering is much more recognizable: shame, embarrassment, discomfort, and being put in absurd situations where moral pillars are conveniently forgotten in the name of survival or gaining the upper hand. In a sense, Christine's fantastic scenario is hardly unrealistic at all. It partakes of a societal must in this capitalist world we find ourselves trapped in, where Darwin's theory is an inevitable law in a setting of inhumane rules and regulations overtaking the illogical considerations of human generosity and compassion. Yet, Raimi seems disinterested with these implications. Drag Me to Hell aims to only entertain, by pouring a bucketful of misfortunes on a beautiful but not entirely innocent woman of the world.

Drag Me to Hell succeeds because Raimi himself spares Christine not a single ounce of compassion. We root for her precisely because no one else does, and when she exposes a character defect, it doesn't make her less human and less rootable. She's alone and defenseless for the most part and while his ever-enamored boyfriend (Justin Long) provides a semblance of support in her battle against the fantastical and the unbelievable, his romance-fueled assistance proves to be inutile in the long run. Raimi cushions her torture with humor. Most of the violence here is cartoonic, with the physical abuses bearing more resemblance to the harmful escapades of Tom and Jerry rather than the one-sided exploitation of Roth or Wan's torture flicks. The psychological and mental anguish Christine carries for the most part is laced with outright silliness, as in the film's frivolous dinner scene where what Christine thought of as a perfect night turns into a nightmare with eyeballs appearing out of slices of cake and flies escaping out of coughing throats. In fact, Raimi seamlessly integrates humor with horror without sacrificing the efficacy of the well-staged shocks and scares.

Unburdened by the gargantuan task of committing the beloved Spider-man into celluloid, Raimi finally made a film that is reminiscent to the senseless yet hugely enjoyable romps (The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992)) he is most famous for, at least to those who have followed his career even before his involvement with the superhero flicks. Drag Me to Hell is simply loads of fun. It is guiltless in its portrayal of the extreme lengths a woman has to go through for sheer survival. The deliberate extinction of Christine's dignity (she spills blood, gets a healthy dose of formalin on her pretty mug, receives an old gypsy's fist on her mouth, and a whole lot more), the moral tests she both fails (pleading to the demon that her boss is to blame) and passes (where she chooses from the various customers of a local diner who deserve to be dragged into hell more than her), the sight gags, the unsubtle yet largely effective internal drama (Christine's successful battle with her weight), and a whole lot more, make for one of the most engrossing abberations of the year.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Selasa, 01 Mei 2007

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi, 2007)

I believe comic book-movies have an immense inferiority complex. To compensate for that perceived slightness in their source materials, they usually hire the most savvy of visual effects artists, the most expensive of celebrities, and the most cutthroat of marketing specialists. Observe the horde of A-listers donning leather jackets, capes, and tights, brandishing those cleverly ridiculous one-liners like they were written by Shakespeare. Notice the bevy of explosions, or larger-than-life creations that merge real footage and computer-created images with unbelievable ease. And after debating whether you've just lost a huge amount of neurons over that two hour visual and pop culture extravaganza, enjoy your favorite oil-glazed fries and chemical-pumped drinks that are kept clean by containers that are embellished by those super heroes and super villains. We know it; it's a money-making scheme where an investment of 250 million dollars (a sizable chunk of the yearly budget of the Philippine government) is entirely risk-free for it will surely yield immense returns, yet despite that, we enjoy it well enough to dedicate a holiday just to watch it.

Most of these comic-book flicks are completely junk. They're either too full of themselves, convinced that there's actual artistic merit to all the larger-than-life escapades (like Zack Snyder's self-important and picturesque ponder-ama 300 (2007)); or too evasive of their source materials to mistakenly think out of the box and re-invent everything (Catwoman (Pitof, 2004), anyone?). A few got it right. Bryan Singer's adaptation of the X-Men franchise did a George Romero to the superhero genre by turning the entire mutant storyline into a metaphor to xenophobia, homophobia, and intolerance (that was until Brett Ratner ended the franchise with a disappointing dud). Sam Raimi took a different route --- there are no metaphors here, no overt re-inventions (probably just a bit of tweaking and modernization of the superhero), also no principled reverence to what's already written. Raimi's two previous Spider-Man flicks were outstanding entertainment; not because it pushed the genre to new literary or cinematic heights, but because it exactly knows what it is. The Spider-Man pictures were comic-book flicks that had no inferiority complex, whatsoever --- just a happy-go-lucky attitude that stuck with you.

Spider-Man 3 is probably the most happy-go-lucky of the three. Unlike the first two films which were held by a neatly constructed narrative, Spider-Man 3 is as porous as an undersea sponge. Raimi is generous enough to make us remember the events before by including snippets of the first two films in the opening creds; you reminisce those moments which now resurface as the much-organized plotlines of the previous films are restructured in your brain, supposedly preparing you for the succeeding events. Everything starts out happily (the intro actually feels like an intro for Preston Sturges screwball comedy, with all the inflicted glamor of the Big Apple and the breezy jollity of "everything going so well"), with Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) spending their happy and mostly successful lives together. Harry Osborn (James Franco) gets re-introduced with fleeting complacency; Raimi dedicates more time to flesh out his new villains, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) and Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) and their respective back-stories and raison d'etre's.

The narrative bogs down, surely. With all the characters and the internal dilemmas, there's an impossible task of keeping everything afloat. Raimi manages to do just that by unleashing his trademark trick --- to treat everything lightly. The film lacks the doomsday scenario of Spider-Man 2 (2004) or the passionate theatrics of Willem Dafoe in Spider-Man (2002), what it does have is genuine gusto; a convinced determination that it is a comic-book film, and should first and foremost be larger-than-life, entertaining, and escapist (the same way those comic books would make us imagine of superheroes saving the world while evading schoolwork during our childhood days). Spider-Man 3 is exactly just that; it delivers the melodramatic rigors of juvenile romanticisms, the frank yet harmless scenes of destruction of public and private property and violence upon the innocent, and the teacherly lessons of morality play (which more often than not are reflective of early comic-books, the successors of the parables of old).

Spider-Man 3 is probably the most expensive low-budget film ever. The production is clearly exquisite and expensive; but the aesthetics is distinctly Raimi. There are scenes that recall sci-fi B-movies (not merely in delivery, but also in its over-the-top mise en scene); a romantic interlude under a lovely starry night is followed by a meteorite landing that reminds you of The Blob (Irvin Yeaworth, 1958). The fight scenes, while not as eye-popping as the ones in its predecessors, are jampacked with subtle physical comedy that races alongside the hyperactive yet coherent camerawork. There are other little references to other films that surface (there's that famous scene from Boorman's Deliverance (1972) near the end, among others). And against the riproaring action, the life-and-love-threatening dramatics, the unembarrassed portrayal of basic humanity in its heroes and villains, is it's very punctual comedy, which seems to sprout out very unexpectedly, out of nowhere, yet quite justly.

Is Spider-Man 3 a good film? Yes, it is. Is it better than the first two? Probably. Is it perfect? Definitely not. Its imperfections are glaring. It is too long, sometimes a bit too self-indulgent in its ridiculosity, and spends the character and narrative investments of the first two installments with wild abandon. The first two films gave the franchise a powerful push that could keep the engine moving permanently, with its loose ends and always dissatisfied characters. The third feature is recognizably the last in the franchise (or it feels like Raimi intended that the film be the last one he'll be doing; and the rest of its future reincarnations will just feed off his legacy in the franchise); it is cleanly ended in a way Disney animated films ended (with a bright sunny day, implying a future bereft of any more problems; or at least none as apocalyptic as the previous ones) and that closing shot (which I feel belongs to a Sturges or Capra film) justifies its uncharacteristically too-happy opening, --- that the film is indeed one complete pic, and while you may wish it so, the pleas for a sequel might be unfruitful both practically and creatively.