Silent Light (dir. Carlos Reygadas, 2007)

From time to time, I'm at a complete loss to understand a film's critical appeal. Silent Light, a 2007 film by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas recently released here in the US, dazzled the international film circuit, culminating with the Jury Prize at Cannes. Martin Scorsese exclaimed "I was amazed by Silent Light – the setting, the language, the delicacy of the interactions between the people on screen, the drama of redemption. And most of all by Carlos Reygadas’s extraordinarily rich sense of cinema, evident in every frame." NY Times film critic Manohla Dargis loved it so much that she saw it three times, and her colleague A.O. Scott listed it as his second favorite film of 2008. The accolades go on and on....

Silent Light examines the effects of an extra-marital affair on a secluded German Mennonite community in the heart of Mexico. Or at least it pretends to. Johan, a blond-haired, blue-eyed farmer, husband, and father of 5, falls in love with the young, spindly, Roman-nosed Marianne, who works as a waitress at a local diner. The mix of religious fundamentalism, sinful immorality, and cultural isolation spells the ingredients for a delicious existential epic, and in the hands of, say, Bergman, we might have feasted on just that. But Reygadas proves to be a less experienced chef, and instead of a meaty tome, we're left with a bland disaster - an immature exercise that places form over content, brushes its potential for spiritual crisis in only the most tangential ways, and ends with what I can only think of as an outright ripoff of Dreyer's Ordet masquerading as homage.

In the entire film, there were only two scenes that actually worked for me: the very first, and the very last. And neither of these scenes contain any human actors, or any narrative whatsoever. These scenes are beautiful, even haunting, time-lapse single-takes of sunrise and sunset, respectively. The slow pan and steady zoom, the enveloping sounds of night, the growing (or diminishing) photographic clarity - for all their transcendent glory, neither of these scenes actually add anything to the film's "story," such as it is. They might as well have been scenes from a high-def Nat Geo nature documentary.

Between these two scenes are two and half-hours of sheer torture. Somewhere along the way, Reygadas must have forgotten that a film like this needs a script, dialogue, tension. Without this, it's an empty exercise in form - and an immature one at that. We're bounced between various photographic techniques, which on their own might make for a short, interesting study in perspective, but which together simply deny a unifying aesthetic to what little story remains.

Perhaps I simply lack the appropriate film education to appreciate Silent Light, which in J. Hoberman's words, is "distinguished by its formal rigor." But then, isn't film (or art in general) supposed to transcend technique - isn't art a creative expression of the soul? Or is it simply a formal exercise?
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Further Proof that Joaquin's rap career is a joke

If my first post didn't convince you, then check out his recent "appearance" on Letterman:


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Platform (Jia Zhangke)

"The long and empty platform,
Lonely we can only wait.
All my love is outbound,
Nothing on the inbound train..."

This trite Chinese pop song from the 1980's serves as metaphor for the artistically castrated inhabitants of Platform, Jia Zhangke's second underground film. It's a three-hour tome on the tragedy of art both under Mao's authoritarian communist regime and under the rapid capitalist transformation that followed. Mixing a meditative narrative style with disorienting time cuts, we experience the upheavals and inertia of the times through a band of young actors, musicians, and dancers.

Platform opens with a performance of "The Train to Shaoshan" by the Fenyang Peasant Culture Group. In terms of artistic quality, imagine a children's propaganda musical written by Dick Cheney and performed by Texas A&M's Young Republicans for the West Bumblefuck elementary school. What could only come to fruition here in a deranged SNL skit was an everyday reality under Mao's China. Making the performance even more surreal to these western eyes, the Peasant Culture Group's audience wasn't school children - it was a large gathering of adult male farmers.

After the performance, we get to know the young troupe of artists. Jia paints a picture of perpetual children mentally stunted by the Party's black-and-white demarcation between "mental workers" and "manual workers." Time and time again, they're miraculously, even cruelly, oblivious to the suffering and injustice surrounding them, especially in their own families; aloof and self-obsessed, they're the communist equivalent of an American trust fund brat.

As Deng Xiaoping's market reforms transformed the Chinese economy, the Peasant Culture Groups underwent privatization. But instead of finding artistic liberation, they mutated from celebrated propaganda machines into vapid pop-culture reflections: traveling sideshows of jiggling girls and monstrous cover bands. A pivotal moment for art was wasted by a lingering ideological tyranny and a brainwashed generation of artistic parodies.

Cinematographer Yu Lik-Wai films this jaded epic with commensurate photographic detachment. I'm strained to recall even one principle closeup in the film's entirety. Yu also experiments with a panning approach that matures 6 years later in Jia's Still Life . It's a technique I've come to think of as a sort of cinematic "lazy eye": the unexpected, gradual drift of the camera's frame from action to the inert.

Jia Zhangke was forced to make his first three films - Xiao Wu (1997), Platform (2000), and Unknown Pleasures (2002) - outside of the Chinese state-run film bureaucracy. Underground filmmakers in China play a risky game; there films are by definition illegal. Even if they find distribution abroad, they're still forbidden screening in China's cineplexes. To get their films in front of Chinese eyes, filmmakers pirate their DVDs on the black market. If they publicly screen their films in China, the government bans them from ever working under government approval.

Jia Zhangke is something of an exception; he successfully played the international film festival circuit against the Chinese authorities, making it hard for them to continue to deny state approval to an internationally celebrated auteur. Now that I've seen both his underground films and his "approved" films, I can honestly say that the state-seal has not blunted his commitment to "show Chinese Reality without distortion."

Check out Kevin B. Lee's slightly-out-of-date-but-still-illuminating article on Jia Zhangke's works over at Senses of Cinema.


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Milk (Gus Van Sant)

A couple of years ago I stumbled across Rob Epstein's 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk while browsing DVD titles at the 96th St. New York Public Library. I had only the vaguest recollection that Harvey had something to do with gay rights, but I checked it out anyways (the "Best Documentary Academy Award" bump may have influenced my decision).

The Times of Harvey Milk charted Harvey's path from a small business owner on the Castro to San Francisco city supervisor (and, of course, the first openly-gay elected official). It examined his unlikely relationship with local Teamsters forged during the Coors beer boycott, his modest achievements as city supervisor, and his efforts against California's infamous anti-gay "Prop 6." It also illustrated his relationship with supervisor Dan White, his assassination, and the aftermath. With honesty and frankness, Times transcended the nauseatingly formulaic "voice-of-god" documentaries of its time to weave an engrossing yarn that never exaggerated Harvey's modest (if historic) achievements for cheap dramatics. The truth, as far as Epstein was concerned, was remarkable enough.

Apparently Van Sant disagrees. His 2008 feature film Milk transforms Harvey Milk into a MLK-esque mass leader, constantly battling establishment straights and gays alike in a cheaply poetic (and embellished) tearjerker. Not only is this one of Van Sant's most straightforward films from a narrative point of view, it's also his most cinematically conventional in a decade. Though lamentably littered with an array of undeveloped supporting characters, Penn's spot-on characterization of Harvey at least helps us forget the mediocrity of his peers (I'm looking at you, James Franco).

I was most annoyed by Van Sant's "opera" gimmick. After introducing Milk's love for opera early on, Gus finds ways throughout the film to randomly remind us of this seemingly innocuous character trait. I kept wondering at these occasional distractions. They rarely integrated with the story and were too undeveloped to actually add any depth to Harvey. Was this simply a casualty of the cutting room? Or was Van Sant just padding the film?

We discover the answer (and Van Sant's penchant for poor poetry) in the film's finale: Milk's assassination. As Milk teeters on his knees after embracing several bullets, we see his final glimpse of this world reflected in the office window: the opera house, conveniently placed across the street.

Milk kept my attention, but gimmicks like this make me wonder what the hell has gotten into the Academy. Decent film? Sure. Best picture worthy? Give me a break.
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13 Oscars noms for Button?

Wow... that's a shocker. Thirteen Oscar nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Academy has reached a new low in its quest to appease the Studio titans.

How do I detest Button? Let me count the ways. How do you take a fascinating (if awkward) premise about a man who ages backward from birth, fraught with metaphysical implications and time-bending potentialities, and turn it into the dullest and most decidedly un-curious tale Hollywood has ever blown $150 million on?

You start by turning Brad Pitt's character into a slackjawed simp incapable of contemplation, only allowing him to speak in terse, one sentence obsequities - and only then in response to the most prosaic observations of the other characters. Then you take Cate Blanchett, cast her as Pitt's lifelong love interest, package her in the most formulaic "talent tragically cut short" role, and edit her screentime into something too annoying to be engaging, too constricting to be developmental.

Then, as if you haven't already created an overly dramatic story arc, you frame the entire narrative in a flash-back voice over, read outloud by Cate's daughter on Cate's deathbed. And just to squeeze in some extra tension, you puts Cate's deathbed in a New Orleans hospital in the last hours before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. Will she die before her daughter finishes the story? Will Cate, her daughter, and the diary be swept away in the hurricane? Do we care?

Hats off to the Academy. Really guys, great work.


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It's a Hoax: Joaquin Pheonix retires from acting and becomes a rapper

Tell me if you disagree, but this has to be a hoax, right? Joaquin Pheonix "retires" from acting.... so that he can become a rapper. And his brother-in-law celeb, Casey Affleck, is directing a documentary about his transition.

Consider the evidence:

#1) He gives a scoop to E! Entertainment of all places that he's retiring from the acting world and pursuing a career in music.


#2) In a follow-up interview, he affirms (in a less-than-sober manner) that he has indeed retired from acting, that there's more to his "artism" than film, and that it's, like, greener pastures.


#3) In a clearly stoned-out-his-gord performance, he hops up and down like a child, points the mic at the audience inviting them to shout the lyrics to a song he's rapping for the first time, and in the end, falls on his ass walking off the stage:



My theory: he and Casey decided to create a documentary hoax, seeing how many sheep would willingly buy into the idea that he's fallen off the wagon and become a rapper. What's even more interesting: how could all of those simps in the club actually believe that they're listening to good music (when he's clearly intentionally trying to be the worst rapper in the world).
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Another Roundup

It's that time again. Another slew of films that I haven't the time to give proper reviews, but still deserve recognition (or in some cases, warning).


Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960, USA, #32 TSPDT)

It's good... but not great. I have no reason not to like this film; it's taut, efficiently elliptical, surprising, and best of all, stabby :-) I certainly don't regret watching it, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy myself. Perhaps my expectations were simply too high. C'est la vie.


La Dolce Vita (dir. Federico Fellini, 1953, Italy, #26 TSPDT)

Far from being a Fellini evangelist, I still find myself forced to highly recommend La Dolce Vita, the film that gave the world the term "paparazzi." It may have been one of the first widely viewed pictures to break from the traditional narrative form. It's essentially a series of unrelated episodes from the main character's life in Rome, which basically chart the struggle between his dreams as a writer and the temptations of "the sweet life." The vignette with the Madonna sighting permanently etched itself into my memory.



The Brother's Grimm (dir. Terry Gilliam, 2005, USA)

It's hard to believe that this was made by the same person that gave us Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Grimm is so scattered and grotesquely edited that it's unwatchable.



The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960, USA, #55 TSPDT)

Mildly entertaining, predictably crowd-pleasing, I had a hard time understanding why this inconsequential romance ranked so highly on TSPDT's list. For me, Jack Lemmon's hilarious performance didn't make up for the film's otherwise mediocrity.



Vampyr (dir. Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1931, France/Germany, #183 TSPDT)

Although the plot is nothing to write home about it, the film's amazing special effects and Dreyer's pioneering cinematography (at times, more daring than the spatial invasions of Ordet) made the small time investiture more than worthwhile.



Belle De Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967, France, #140 TSPDT)

What I found most enticing about this erotica - about a rich young housewife who lives out her sado-masochistic fantasies by taking up an afternoon residency at a local brothel - was how decidedly unerotic it was.



Badlands (dir. Terrence Malick, 1974, USA, #140 TSPDT)

Terrence Mallick's directorial debut is perfectly pitched, from beginning to end, in one of the most bizarre dream-like killing sprees ever committed to film. A young Martin Sheen and a (very) young Sissy Spacek effortlessly match each other's disturbingly likable insanity. We also hear Mallick's signature approach to voice-over narration in its infancy.



The 400 Blows (dir. Francis Truffaut , 1959, France, #44 TSPDT)

As we watch the harsh realities of Truffaut's early life unfold on the screen, it's easy to see why he made a great writer/filmmaker. His childhood alone gave him enough raw material for several lifetimes of creation. I also realized that Woody Allen parodied this film's soundtrack in the childhood flashback's of his first film, Take the Money and Run.



The Thing (dir. John Carpenter, 1982, USA)

When I was young, my grandpa loved to take me to the local video store and let me pick out all of the films that my mother would never allow. We typically browsed the horror titles, and at a very early age, I was exposed to some of the most awesomely idiotic horror films ever made (Motel Hell and Rawhead Rex were some of the more memorable). Interspersed between those films were some occasional gems, and at some point we landed on John Carpenter's The Thing. About a remote Antarctic station's encounter with an alien, it's a rarity in sci-fi: a film that caters both to my love of science fiction and my desire for masterful filmmaking. Upon revisiting it over the winter break, I realized why the film's final shot had stayed with me all of these years. Oh, and Kurt Russell still kicks ass.

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Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke)

Independent Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke's fifth film - and his second that's passed the Chinese censors - contrasts a poetic, lyrical technique with the harsh realities of everyday life in China. Committed to showing "Chinese reality without distortion," Jia casts a despondent look at the corruption of everyday life through two parallel stories centered around the Three Gorges Dam.

The coal miner Han Sanming grew up in Fengjie, a 2000 year old town destined for submersion. He returns to his hometown to look for his wife and daughter, who left him 16 years ago, only to find that his street he grew up on is already lost beneath the rising waters. At the same time, Shen Hong searches for her husband, who left for Fengjie two years prior for lucrative contractor work, and has only spoken to her briefly over the phone since.

The beauty of Still Life stems from its ability to engage us on several levels simultaneously. For starters, it's a rigorously spare examination of the less-than-glitzy realities of Chinese life. We witness a culture filled with corruption, a startling acceptance of the amoral vicissitudes requisite for survival. Jia's actors communicate this with an emotional detachment worthy of Bresson, while Yu Lik-wai's camera work pans across his canvases with a lush mix of Tarkovian patience and Coutardian saturation (all unbelievably shot with digital video).

Instead of functionally narrative intertitles, Jia's punctuates scenes with banal and seemingly random commodities pulled from their surroundings. Combined with the camera's lack of commitment to its subjects and two very unexpected mystical non-sequitur, we're left to contemplate Jia's overall message. Is this a poetic attempt to communicate the vagaries and insignificance of his character's lives in the midst of an overpopulated nation, a vanishing culture, and an uncaring and omnipresent bureaucracy? Or is this simply a way for Jia to transmit a less-than-accepted message to the world in a way that censors might not catch? Or perhaps it's both - or neither.

Either way, from Still Life's opening shot, I was transfixed by the film's stark beauty and patient pacing. It won the Golden Lion upon its premiere at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, and its theatrical release in the US in 2008 has seen it top several critics' "best-of-08" lists. Although its art-film flavor is likely unpalatable for mass consumption, I have no doubt that it will influence serious film-makers for years to come.
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