Martin Scorsese has created a short film for Spanish winemaker Freixenet that pays homage to Hitchcock. It’s not obvious from the film itself that it’s a commercial (unless you know wine and the title “The Key to Reserva” doesn’t tip you off), until the final minute or so, where the camera pauses lovingly on a bottle of the sponsor’s bubbly. In my previous life, I worked for a wine importer, and we represented Francis Ford Coppola’s wineries. I wonder why he’s never created something so clever for his own wines?
Archive for November, 2007
Heima (Director: Dean De Blois, 2007): Ever since Bob blogged about the trailer way back in August, I’ve been desperate to see this film. Screenings have been carefully controlled, and I was fortunate to attend the first Canadian screening last night. Although the film was released on DVD a few days ago, there is really no comparison to seeing a film like this on a big screen with a decent sound system, among a group of like-minded music fans. Sigur Rós is a band from Iceland whose music is nearly indescribable. It’s orchestral and epic and spiritual and beautiful and moving. I’d seen the band perform at Massey Hall a few years ago, and I’d compared the experience to “seeing God.” The film does not disappoint.
First of all, despite the filmmakers’ stated desire to avoid the “touristy” shots of Iceland, it’s impossible to make the country look anything but breathtaking. My wife and I plan to visit in 2008, and this just got me even more excited. I liked the way the film travels with the band to different places in the country to perform free concerts for the population. And I loved that everyone came, from babies to grandparents. It reminded me of my travels in Newfoundland, where evenings at the pub were attended by almost everyone. The music was superb, and by the time I finished watching the film, it was quite possible to believe that Sigur Rós is the only band that matters. The interviews with the band members didn’t add a lot in terms of insight into the music itself, but it was nice to see them in relaxed settings speaking their quirkily-accented English.
I will say without shame that I dozed a little at certain points. That’s not an insult to the music or the imagery. It just felt like the line between waking and dreaming was so thin that was easier to cross over. It didn’t hurt/help that the screening began at 11:15pm and that I’d spent the early part of the evening drinking beer.
I’ll look forward to seeing this again and again when my DVD arrives, but I’d recommend trying to see this in a cinema if you can.
Official site for the film (US)
Official site for the film (UK)
(9/10)
Finishing the Game (Director: Justin Lin, 2007): Bruce Lee died in 1973 during the filming of his “dream project,” a film to be called “The Game of Death.” Five years later, the producers released a film under that title that contained the 12 minutes that Lee had completed. To pad the rest, they included scenes from some other Bruce Lee films, as well as footage shot with stunt doubles, and even a still photo! Needless to say, this cynical cash-in was far from the film Lee had wanted to make. Justin Lin’s film is a hilarious mockumentary that attempts to go behind the scenes as the filmmakers try to audition “the next Bruce Lee.” While based on a true story, the film is completely fictional, and therefore takes many liberties for the sake of getting a laugh. And there are lots of laughs in the film. It’s a supremely silly send-up of chop-socky flicks, studio politics and 70s culture. Some of the hopefuls include a South Asian doctor named Raja Moore, a vain Lee impersonator named Breeze Loo, and a completely white guy who claims to be half-Chinese. The film revels in the worst sort of stereotypes, not only of Asian but of black culture, with MC Hammer starring as an agent who dresses like a pimp. The art direction is gloriously ugly and the soundtrack full of pornofunk. All of it adds up to a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes. Somehow, though, I felt a little bit disappointed.
I think what bothered me is that the basis of the story was a real injustice, with Lee’s legacy subjected to the worst sort of exploitation. Though the film is billed as a satire, I found the comedy just a bit too broad for it to function that way for me. The obvious lesson is that despite the filmmakers’ belief that Lee could be replaced by any other Asian, that it just wasn’t true. For Lin to have made that point more effectively, he would have had to include at least a bit of footage of the real Lee. His absence left the film a bit hollow, I think, despite what I am sure were the best of intentions.
(7/10)
LOL (Director: Joe Swanberg, 2006): With the backlash against the so-called “mumblecore” movement already starting, I thought I’d better review this film now. I’ll admit that this is only the second film I’ve seen that falls within the bounds of the loose grouping of actors and directors that go by that moniker. The first was The Puffy Chair (review), by the Duplass brothers, which was pretty good. Not great, but good. LOL evoked the same reaction from me. Director Joe Swanberg writes and stars with his friends Kevin Bewersdorf (who also composed the music) and C. Mason Wells as three college-age guys who are so caught up in their communication “technology” that they don’t do much actual communicating, especially with the women in their lives. As a confirmed gadget lover (but, strangely, cell-phone hater), I found a lot of humour in the film, and I could relate just a bit to some of the characters’ bad behaviour. Alex (Bewersdorf) becomes so obsessed with a woman he’s seen naked online that he totally misses a chance for a relationship with a real woman (the wonderfully dorky Tipper Watson). Chris’ separation from his girlfriend for the summer leads him to try to connect with her through technology, but only on his terms. And Tim (Swanberg) can’t seem to tear himself away from his laptop or his cellphone long enough to have an actual conversation, especially with his sorely neglected girlfriend Ada (Brigid Reagan). This cast reminded me a bit of Whit Stillman’s ensemble in Metropolitan (1990), one of my favourite indie films. But the writing isn’t nearly as good, nor are the performances. Still, the situations are realistic enough, and the characters are flawed but likeable. When you realize just how young Swanberg and his pals really are (he’s 26), and how prodigious his output has been (he’s averaged a feature film a year since 2005’s Kissing On The Mouth, plus directed a series of webcasts for Nerve.com), you have to be at least a little bit impressed.
“Mumblecore” seems to have been as much a creation of the indie film press as any sort of self-conscious “school” of filmmaking. Swanberg just seems to be canny enough to use his friends as collaborators as often as possible. Unfortunately, that has its limitations. Now that he’s established that he can write and direct, I’d like to see him try working with some professional actors. Watching LOL seemed just a bit too much like watching his home movies. If the backlash has truly begun, that might be just the catalyst that Swanberg and his friends need to make some wider connections. I’m looking forward to seeing where the mumblecore gang go next.
(7/10)
P.S. For the record, I found Amy Taubin’s article in Film Comment (the “backlash” article linked above) to be incredibly mean-spirited toward Joe Swanberg. It will be interesting to see the fallout from what looks to be a personal attack.
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (Director: Jason Kohn): First-time director Jason Kohn’s film was a controversial winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this past year, and after seeing it, I can understand why. It’s a travelogue of sorts, whisking us around Brazil to talk to police, politicians, prosecutors, businessmen, victims of kidnapping, and even a kidnapper himself. The film’s tagline is “When the rich steal from the poor, the poor steal the rich” and the basic outline is that it’s a film about a culture of theft. We see all the precautions the rich are forced to take to avoid the ransom kidnappings that are now widespread in cities like Sao Paolo. They buy bulletproof cars, they take helicopters and contemplate implanting microchips under their skin. We hear from a kidnap victim who had both of her ears sliced off, a common tactic of the kidnappers to show how serious they are. Kidnapping is such a growth industry that now plastic surgeons have developed ways of creating new ears from rib cartilage. On the other hand, we’re introduced to corrupt politician Jader Barbalho, whose graft included the establishment of frog farms to launder government grant money. Recurring images of the frogs, including a memorable sequence of one frog devouring another, seem to work as a crude metaphor. With a population of 20 million, Sao Paolo’s residents are just as crammed together as the hapless frogs, and the resulting anarchy is almost inevitable.
Kohn’s film is full of startling and often beautiful imagery, and his conscious decision to shoot on film and in anamorphic widescreen tells me a lot. Along with a jaunty soundtrack of Brazilian samba, the gorgeous images look better than they have a right to. I caught myself asking whether a film about such ugliness had a right to look so pretty. And I think that’s where my problem with the film lies. It feels like a carefully-constructed object that was planned around aesthetic, rather than moral, concerns. It looks great, but I’m just not sure there’s a real heart to the film. Many of the director’s choices seem calculated to distance the viewer from the horrors he’s observing. For instance, Kohn made the decision to forego subtitles in many of the interviews, including the kidnap victim’s. Instead, we hear the dialogue in Brazilian Portuguese, and then hear the translation in English from the translator, who is also in the frame with the subject. It’s a strange effect. As well, there is no attempt at any analysis of the problems of Brazil, other than a throwaway line about how the Portuguese established Brazil simply to plunder it.
I remember hearing as a young student about how Brasilia was designed from the ground up as the new capital of Brazil, and the film does convey some of the tarnished futuristic optimism that was coming out of the country in the 60s and 70s. Kohn described the film as a kind of “non-fiction science-fiction” film, and I think he does a passable job of conveying the feeling that Sao Paolo’s sinister landscape may soon seem very familiar to the rest of us.
But I’m still convinced that this is more an exercise in style than substance.
(7/10)
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