Antichrist

 
   My goodness.  Lars von Trier is one talented director.  The inside of his head must be a frightening chamber of darkness.  After seeing Melancholia, I wanted to go back and watch his previous film Antichrist and see what all the fuss was about.  Well, fuss doesn't do this film justice - not even a little bit.  Truthfully, based on what I have heard about it for the past three years, I was expecting a film with less of a narrative structure than the one I saw.  I was expecting an onslaught of visual horror intended solely to shock and disturb.  What I got was a really compelling story and a beautifully shot film (and some psyche-altering horror that lifted me from my inner foundation). 
  Antichrist is the story of a couple whose infant son accidentally falls to his death while they are having graphically explicit sex.  Three stages of suffering follow: grief, pain and despair.  Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as the nameless husband and wife who decide to seek emotional refuge in their remote cabin in the woods.  The husband is a psychiatrist and takes his wife on as his patient as she is bearing the brunt of the trauma and guilt of losing their son.  The film takes a disturbingly von Trierian turn and left me feeling sick to my stomach - and that is intended to be a tremendous compliment to the director.  This film and his most recent work, Melancholia, contain a lot of the same signatures of von Trier: slow motion, high-resolution animation-like dream sequences; vivid use of color, especially green; graphic scenes of nudity and sex; mental illness; and people coping with tragedy.  I liked both films quite a bit, but Antichrist takes a slight edge in a comparison, simply because it is much darker and, unlike the first half of Melancholia, didn't have significant stretches where I sort of lost interest. 
  This movie -- and I know I've written this before -- will literally look like nothing you've ever seen before.  It is difficult, grotesque and scary.  It is also mesmerizing, aesthetic and oblique.  Lars von Trier will challenge you with Antichrist.

Melancholia

  This is my first look into the mind of Lars von Trier, and it did not disappoint.  Melancholia is the story of two sisters, both of whom suffer from mental illness, who are dealing with the realization that a recently discovered planet is going to collide with Earth in the near future.  There have been a lot of films about the end of days, but I guarantee you will not see any other quite like this.  Von Trier is a visual master who brings such a unique vision to this film, especially in the first eight minutes, which basically tells you what the plot of the movie will be.  Images of yarn, horses, whittlling, golf courses, lightning and dying birds drench the screen in colorful, animation-like style.  The film is broken up into two parts, one that focuses on Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and the other that centers on Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).  I enjoyed Claire's part a million times more, since it dealt more with the impending planetary collision and less on the depression of the sisters.  Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt and Stellan Skarsgard chip in to add incredible depth to the cast. 
  This film is not for fans of mainstream narrative and vanilla style.  It takes patience and assiduity ($20 word).  Von Trier pushes the envelope in many ways, and I know of at least one person who called Melancholia something like "dreadfully awful."  I loved it.   
  Next up for me is Antichrist, von Trier's previous film that turned heads three years ago.  Willem Dafoe and Gainsbourg play a couple who move to their cabin in the woods to mourn the death of their son.  I've heard a ton about this movie and am ready to see just how unbelievable it is.

Prometheus

  Never, to my memory, have I had such polar feelings for a movie as I sat and watched it.  I remember liking a movie in the theater and then disliking it several hours later - and vice versa - but this film had me flipping back and forth on my opinion of it from minute to minute.  Ridley Scott's Prometheus sent me reeling on a sine curve of opinions - well, more like a cosine curve since I liked the opening sequence quite a bit.  I found the main performances of Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender to be quite opposites as well.  Rapace, who I didn't really care for as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish versions of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo films, really impressed me here with her performance as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, the faithful leader of the intergalactic journey to discover the origin of mankind.  Fassbender, who I have loved in everything I have seen him in, didn't really do it for me here.
  At some points in this film, I was in awe of the detailed sets and effects that Scott put together and at other times, I was literally laughing at how awful it was.  And for the record, the film did not intend to attain an ounce of humor during these moments.  I found the movie's concept to be fascinating, but the execution was so inconsistent.  I was pulled out of the film by so many things, from Idris Elba's brutal southern accent to an inexplicably nonsensical abdominal extraction procedure.  I loved the landscapes that Scott created in this new and exciting world, but found the dust storm cheap and recycled.  I loved the way that they sent robotic auto-mapping probes into the dome in order to get a three dimensional sense of every nook and cranny, but wasn't frightened by things that I was supposed to be frightened by.  Even though the idea of humans going billions of miles from Earth in order to discover where they came from is interesting, the way that it played out in the final act was extremely predictable.
  Furthermore, why in the world did Ridley Scott decide to use a young man dressed up in old-man makeup to play the elderly father figure in this film?!  It looks horrible and is another example of how I was completely taken out of this film at times.  Guy Pearce, who probably mandated quite a fee, was cast as an extremely old man and certainly should have been replaced with an actor who was actually really, really old.  It would have preserved authenticity while saving quite a bit of money - money that could have been spent on a tighter, more cohesive script.
  I haven't seen a good science fiction movie in quite a long time, and that streak was not broken this evening.  I think the ratio of the minutes I spent shaking my head to the minutes I spent fully invested was probably something like 5:3, so I would have to say that this is one sci-fi film that I would wait to see on Blu-Ray or DVD.

*Note: (and a bit of a spoiler alert I guess, but not really) Prometheus is being sold as sort of a prequel to the Alien franchise and the end more than leaves open the probability of more films being made that bridge that gap.

Carnage

 
   Based on a French play by Yasmina Reza, this 80 minute film documents a conversation between four adults that takes place in one room.  Doesn't sound like much, but thankfully, three out of those four adults bring serious enough acting chops to the table to make this movie bearable.  Jodie Foster is the one who doesn't deliver.  She is absolutely blown off the screen by Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly and Kate Winslet.  Foster and Reilly play the parents of Ethan, an 11-year old boy who gets struck in the face by a stick at the hands of Zachary, the 11-year old son of Waltz and Winslet.  The incident between the two boys occurs on a New York City playground and prompts the parents to set up a meeting to discuss what to do about it.  Ethan's parents, while they obviously have a significant amount of money, are certainly the less-refined of the two couples.  Foster is a writer and Reilly sells toilet-flushing hardware.  They have a strained marriage, and we are led to believe that it is the fault of both.  Zachary's parents, both lawyers, are well-dressed and well spoken people who don't seem to have much love between them either, but are more content with it.
  Wisely, we never get to meet the two boys, which allows us to keep our judgments out of the room.  It doesn't matter whose side we take.  What matters is the journey.  It is fun to see four seemingly rational adults, with a little tension between them and a lot of alcohol, morph into their true selves right on screen.  Each character goes through a transformation that would take years under normal circumstances.  Even though it wasn't technically the case, it felt like the four of them were trapped in a locked cage and forced to deal with their problems until a resolution was agreed upon.  It is how I would imagine people would quickly dismiss their manners and truly get to know each other if trapped in an elevator for 12 hours.  Needless to say, as they transform into uncivilized animals, a resolution doesn't seem likely.  
  The film is a comedy that certainly delivers laughs.  Obviously, Reilly's character is the funniest, but Waltz and Winslet both add significant humor.  Moreover, the idea of putting four drastically different adults in one room for an entire film and showing how they deal with a schoolyard fight between their children is one that has the potential to be entirely pedestrian, but it managed to work enough to keep my interest.  The situations that occur in the apartment are funny enough on their own and when you add Reilly's inappropriate wit and Waltz's intellectual intrigue, the film becomes enjoyable.  It could have been better if Foster were replaced by someone in a similar age bracket with more talent, like Annette Bening or, more perfectly, Frances McDormand.  I've liked Jodie Foster in a lot of films, but in a room with three powerhouses at the top of their game, she gets demolished.
   Directed by Roman Polanski, Carnage is a film that I would have enjoyed more if it were cut down to 50-60 minutes.  I hope that theater companies in Philadelphia or New York pick it back up in the future because I would absolutely love to see it on stage.

Network

  The 1976 film by Sidney Lumet stars Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen, the VP of Programming at the struggling UBS broadcasting company, who takes over when a troubled news anchor loses his mind on live television.  Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, has been a respected newsman for decades and recently has been through tough times in his personal life.  He tells his viewership, which has been lacking in recent years, that he plans on committing live suicide on air in two weeks time and that everyone needs to stand up against the injustice in the world and begin to do something about it - start by yelling out your window that you're mad as hell and you're not gonna take it anymore.  This stunning broadcast causes an immediate and drastic uptick in ratings, even though Beale is dismissed from the network.  After a few meetings with the brass, Christensen convinces the head of the news department, played by Holden, to let her take the network in a new, exciting direction using Beale as the catalyst for unprecedented ratings.  With the addition of radical revolutionaries, soothsayers and freedom fighters, the network enjoys extremely high ratings with Beale at the forefront.  Naturally, the novelty wears off and Christensen is left looking like the foolish, ratings-obsessed network executive that she is.
  The film won four Oscars, including Best Actor and Actress for Finch and Dunaway, respectively.  It effectively takes aim at the television culture, and I found this satire easily transferable to the Wal-Mart culture, the internet culture, etc etc.  This is only the fifth film I've seen by Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, Before The Devil Knows You're Dead) and, based on this small sample, I must say that I find him to be amazing.  This, of course, is not shocking news, but I will say that I didn't care for Network as much as the others, particularly 12 Angry Men.  I did find it to be a fascinating look into how network television executives will literally do anything to get ratings.  This must be even more competitive in today's world with exponentially more television options for people to watch and an ever-increasing number of ways in which to watch.  For someone who watched this classic film for the first time in 2012, I found it retained much of its relevance.

*Note: Simply by chance, I watched the first episode of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama, Newsroom today and found that a lot of the themes Lumet explored in his classic film remain prevalent in today's broadcasting culture.   

Moonrise Kingdom

  For whatever reason, I hadn't heard much about Wes Anderson's new movie Moonrise Kingdom until very recently.  I have always been a fan of his work, going all the way back to Bottle Rocket, so the thought of another ensemble cast with Anderson behind the camera was of great intrigue to me.  Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, and Tilda Swinton all join forces to provide support for the film's two stars: Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, who play 12-year old star-crossed lovers desperate to elope and start their lives together.
  Sam Shakusky is an unpopular Khaki Scout who was orphaned at a young age and decides to run away from his scout troop to seek out the love of his life, Suzy, who also wants to get away from her family.  The two meet up in a secret location and hike off into the woods together, with dreams of getting off the island.  The two children are outsiders in their own worlds and seem to truly be a perfect match for one another.  Their "love" story is pretty touching, in its own pre-pubescent kind of way.  They complement each other pretty well and seem to offer one another a symbiotic catharsis that helps them deal with their troubled lives.
  Norton plays Khaki Scout Master Randy Ward, a math teacher on the side who runs a tight camp.  Once he discovers that Sam has gone missing, he assembles his well-trained scouts to go track him down.  This doesn't take long, of course, and, with the help of the local police captain (played by Willis), the two runaways are caught pretty early on in the film.
  Wes Anderson does a really good job at creating very unique worlds in his films, and Moonrise Kingdom, which takes place on a New England island in the mid 1960s, is no exception.  The landscapes, the effects and the dialogue all have his signature all over them.  His style is unmistakable, and, while some people have criticized him for turning into a parody, I think that is exactly his objective - to create films that parody himself.  He obviously possesses a ton of confidence in himself to continually produce such creatively unique material and I can only commend him for having the ability to create worlds that are so fun to live in for 100 minutes at a time.  This film has all of the typical Anderson touches that you will find familiar, and, assuming that you enjoyed some or all of his previous works, you will enjoy every bit of it.
  I do have one criticism. Before they are caught, the two young lovebirds are getting to know one another in some pretty age-inappropriate ways and I will say that seeing Sam and Suzy in their underwear was a bit uncomfortable.  Those sequences felt inappropriate and unnecessary to me.
  Gilman and Hayward are young stars in the making and, combined with Anderson's flair, a fantastic score and the impressive supporting cast, they help make Moonrise Kingdom another must-see volume in a hilarious catalog.

Days of Heaven

 
   It doesn't take long to watch all of Terrence Malick's films, and the finite quality of his career helps to make him more of a fascination to me.  How can a filmmaker of this ability only direct five movies in 40 years?  While I don't pretend to know the answer to that question, I can say that I am infinitely intrigued by Malick's enigmatic persona.  Days of Heaven is his second film, which was released in 1978 - five years after Badlands and twenty years before his third film A Thin Red Line.  Quality, not quantity.
   Days of Heaven stars Richard Gere as a young Chicago steel worker named Bill who accidentally kills a man and is forced to vacate the city and head West in search of new beginnings.  He hops a train filled with other cast-offs and ends up on a wheat farm in the Texas panhandle, somewhere near Amarillo.  The film's narrative starts around 1914 or so and follows the characters for about two or three years.  I wasn't exactly sure what the relationship was between Abby, who is Bill's girlfriend, and Linda, who may be their daughter.  Either I missed the whole connection there or Malick never really made it clear.  Regardless, they seem like a family of three, but pretend to all be siblings as they gain employment in their new surroundings.  The owner of the farm, known only as The Farmer, is a single, young man who, while obviously quite wealthy, is lonely and in need of companionship (played by a young Sam Shepard, who looks remarkably like Denis Leary).  Early on in the film, he finds out from a doctor that he is gravely ill and has at most a year to live.  Among the dozens of seasonal harvest workers, he notices the beautiful Abby and decides to try to get to know her.  The Farmer's foreman, who also goes nameless, is an old, wise man who always seems to read situations perfectly.  After a particularly fruitful harvest, the foreman tells his boss that he should get out of the business while he is ahead.  This is the first piece of sage advice that is offered.
   As the season's work is over, while most of the laborers head elsewhere to seek other employment, The Farmer asks Abby and her "siblings" to stay and work through the winter.  He promises that the work will be easier now that the harvest is complete.  She talks it over with Bill and they agree to stay on.  Eventually, The Farmer confesses to Abby that he is in love with her and wishes to marry her.  Bill and Abby both agree that this may be the best opportunity to get rich, since they are both aware of The Farmer's illness.  They marry and years pass with the four of them living under the same roof.  Again, the foreman offers a warning to his boss that he thinks Bill and Abby are con artists out to inherit his wealth after he dies.  The Farmer is hurt by this and asks the foreman to leave.  On his way out, the foreman tells Bill that he knows what he and Abby are up to.  Bill doesn't deny it.
   Days of Heaven is delicately narrated by the young girl, Linda, in typical Malickian soft-spoken style.  She is wise beyond her years and seems to know far more than the adults that surround her. "I think the devil was on that farm," she reflects.  And she is absolutely correct.  After the soothsaying foreman leaves the farm, everything spirals out of control as jealousy and anger prevail. Days of heaven quickly turn into days of hell.
  Malick gives us everything that we've seen in his other films: whispered narration, static shots of nature; close-ups of birds, bugs, plants; wind whipping through vast, beautiful landscapes.  He also has a knack for truncating scenes mid-conversation, which really gives me the feeling that the camera is merely a brief visitor in a world that is much greater than the film can capture. We are fleeting observers caught in a world that goes by quickly.  Malick moves the plot along at a much quicker pace than in his other films.  Days of Heaven, which is only 95 minutes long, doesn't require any patience at all like his more recent movies do.  If anything, I got the sense that I wanted more from each scene - I wanted to hear the end of the conversation that he left so suddenly.  But as I write this, I realize that Malick wants to give us enough information to drive the narrative but not overload us with extraneous dialogue.  It is economical and efficient.  That seemed to be the way that migrating workers lived their lives back then, working at a place for a few months, then moving on to something new.
  The style and tone of Days of Heaven are a lot like Badlands, which I wrote about a few months back.  It is a far more accessible film than, say The Thin Red Line, but its ambition and vastness are no less prevalent.
  I've read that Malick is going to grace us with an immediate follow-up to last year's unfathomably impressive spectacle The Tree of Life, which is extremely exciting.

*Days of Heaven is currently streaming on Netflix

Shame

   I've been meaning to catch up with Shame for the better part of 6 months and I must say that I wish I had seen it when I listed my favorite movies of 2011, because it would have certainly bumped one out of the top ten.  This movie was spectacular, tragic and heartbreaking.  Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan - wow.  Steve McQueen (no, not the Steve McQueen) directs Fassbender as Brandon, a man with flaws as deep as any you will ever see on screen.  He is addicted to sexual pleasure and will do anything to reach his goal of satisfaction.  He is intensely self-destructive in his endeavor and it affects his life profoundly.  We see girls come and go, some he pays for, some he doesn't.  He is like a serial killer looking for his next kill or a heroin addict trying to cop his next bag.  Once the act is complete, it leaves him feeling empty and even more depressed than ever and all that he can think of is how to get his next fix.  We see Brandon quite literally charm the pants off of women but we also see the dark side of his pursuit.  His good looks allow him to lock eyes with women for uncomfortably long periods of time, and during these takes, McQueen doesn't cut away - he allows us to see Brandon's charming smile turn into a monstrous stare.  McQueen loves to keep his camera static and allow us to watch a scene in its entirety.  He first directed Fassbender in the 2008 film Hunger, about IRA soldiers banding together in a hunger strike to fight for better conditions in British prisons in the early 1980's.  In that film, which you must see -- it is streaming on Netflix -- there is an 18 and a half minute conversation scene between Fassbender and a Catholic priest.  McQueen sits the camera a few feet from the table, and with a side view, allows us to listen to the whole dialogue from start to finish while the two men smoke an endless amount of cigarettes.  It is something to see.
   In his latest film, McQueen has several extended, single-cut scenes, although none of which rival the one in Hunger.  During one that stands out, Brandon is on a date with a girl from work who he actually might have feelings for, and it is during this scene where we get a glimpse of Brandon as awkward and uneasy.  He doesn't know how to talk to women without trying to get them into bed.  This is the only woman who causes us to see Brandon as something other than a confident predator.
   Mulligan plays Brandon's sister, Sissy, who moves in with Brandon, claiming she has nowhere else to go.  I believe her.  Her personality is all over the place.  She sings in a nightclub and, like her big brother, is quick to get into bed with a man.  Brandon hates having her in his space because she "is a weight on him" and prevents him from satisfying his urges as he would like to.  He fights with her regularly.  McQueen doesn't tell us exactly what happened in their past that caused them to be the way they are, but does allude to some tragic event that brought about great pain: "We are not bad people, we just come from a bad place."
   Sexual addiction has been under skeptical review as of late but this film makes a pretty good case that it is a real disease - one that causes great pain and suffering to those afflicted.  Brandon does not possess the ability to care for people.  His relationship with his sister is cold and distant (and strangely incestuous).  Sissy tells her brother that it is his responsibility to care for her since she has nowhere else to turn.  He resists.
  Towards the end of the film, Brandon shows signs that he truly does care about his sister, but still we get the sense that his disease will never leave his side.
  Shame is rated NC-17 for explicit male and female full-frontal nudity.  It is not, however, sexy at all.  Rather, you will find it grotesque and tragic, like you would a film about someone deeply addicted to drugs or murder.