Coraline - Trailer

Labels: coraline, gaiman, selick, trailer

Into The Wild (Sean Penn, 2007)

*SPOILERS APLENTY*

This is the first film I've seen with Sean Penn behind the camera. Even though I am dying to see his directorial debut, The Indian Runner (1991), I haven't had the opportunity of doing so as yet.

I liked Into The Wild. From the very first shot, Penn shows us that he means business. We see a vast expanse of white, peppered with the odd bare tree. At the extreme edge of the frame we see a pick-up truck, drudging slowly downwards along the width of the screen. It is almost painful to watch as the whiteness of the snow is overwhelming. But this is the entire film in one shot - the quest of one man who tries to edge his way into the vast realm of Mother Nature.

This young man's name is Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch). He is an idealist and a romantic who took one look at the world around him and opted out of it. He didn't like the ambition, the money, the drive to succeed, the alienation, the new car. He wanted to be rid of everything and everyone in order to get back in touch with the essence of his soul, that supposedly transcends the so-called trivialities that make up a normal, mundane existence. He wanted a tabula rasa and to start everything from scratch. Christopher came to the conclusion that in order for him to be able to do that he had to return back to nature. Specifically, Alaska.

The premise of the film is very hippiey and new agey, but Penn the cynic is everpresent to counterbalance the youthful naivete` of this idealistic view. He does not allow his main character to become an abstraction. McCandless, who has by now ditched his name and started calling himself Supertramp, finds refuge in an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere. Despite his intention of ditching civilisation, he still looks for solace in something manmade. He carries a gun as well, and during springtime he builds a shower. Penn shows us that human beings, just like animals, evolve according to the dictates of their environment. Therefore, an anteater will grow a long and sticky tongue whereas a person will learn a skill. The principle is the same, as is the end result - survival. There is nothing good, bad, pure, caste or sacred about it. It's just an evolutionary thing. But McCandless believes that the neighbour's grass is actually greener, and that by jumping the fence everything is going to be alright. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Mother Nature is unforgiving, cold and silent. There are no middle ways about it and if you don't have the necessary skills to survive, you just don't. It is on very rare occasions that she gives a second chance. There is absolutely nothing romantic about floods hammering you in your car, or maggoty meat, or poisonous plants. All the good will in the world won't be of much help if you're dying alone and miserable.


The bleak irony is that Christopher is actually very good with people. The uncompromising determination with which he pursues his dream is genuine and inspiring. His enthusiasm is contagious and rubs off on anyone with whom he comes into contact. On hindsight, one can view Chris as a sacrificial lamb, whose innocence is there solely for the others to enjoy.

Favourite quote: Happiness is real only when shared.

TRAILER

Labels: 2007, cinema, gay harden, hirsch, holbrook, hurt, penn, stewart

Roy Scheider

Labels: obituary, scheider

Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino, 2007)

As far as I'm concerned, Quentin Tarantino is a good director because he did Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). Although I have problems with the mall scene in the former, I find that these two films are the ones that are most representative of him at his best. There is no denying the man's talent - after all he is astoundingly gifted in writing dialogue and directing actors. However, at times I find that his obsessive drive towards iconising (if such a word exists) every single frame of his work is too self-conscious and buggeringly distracting.

This is exactly why I think that Death Proof is entertaining and well-made, but nothing more. I am not familiar with drive-in B-movies, of which Death Proof is an homage and a reworking. So I was very interested in the bits where the movie goes technically 'haywire': missing reels, scratched/torn film, crappy sound.

I also liked the fact that Tarantino once again ventured into his anachronistic mode. The film looks and feels like the 70s; nonetheless there are ipods and mobiles. The ambient and the gadgets should not go together and yet they somehow complement each other. Similar to Pulp Fiction (1994). Jules (Samuel Jackson) is so Seventies when the rest of the film is clearly not. It's a visual cut-and-paste technique that Tarantino is very good at.



But besides that, and the incredible stunts of Zoe Bell, there isn't much else to recommend. The characters are shallow and uninteresting, and any hopes of having a female reworking of The Wild Bunch (1969) (as the poster seems to suggest) are sadly unfulfilled. One might argue that lack of depth was a key characteristic of B-Movies, and this being a homage, aspires to craphood. Then again, why make a crap tribute? To celebrate crappiness? I don't think so. This movie certainly has style, but, as The Wolf had rightly pointed out:

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Best moments: the miles of leg that Tarantino photographs; Zoe Bell.

TRAILER

Labels: 2007, bell, cinema, dawson, malta film festival 2007, mcgowan, russell, tarantino

iPhone

Labels: lynch

L'Amico di Famiglia (Paolo Sorrentino, 2006)

aka The Family Friend
In fact, if I had to pick one adjective to describe this film, it would be stagnant. There is bleakness all around, and the feeling is not unlike a slow descent into quicksand. Utter hopelessness is knitted in the very texture of the story, beautifully rendered by a repetitive soaring of the camera that gives one the illusion of flight, only to return abruptly back to the ground almost immediately.

Gino (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) is Geremia's partner in crime. He is a dreamer, albeit a tired one. He embodies the American Dream's ideal of freedom. So he dresses up as a cowboy, lives in a camper in the middle of nowhere, and loves Country & Western music and line-dancing (a communal type of dancing even though Gino does not socialise). Sorrentino highlights his romantic yearning for something better by framing Gino in several poses reminiscent of the American Western.

Gino has all the ingredients to be just like Geremia, and in fact they have a lot in common. Very significant is the fishing scene where the two of them are discussing business. Geremia only manages to catch one paltry fish whereas Gino is pulling in one beauty after another. It is a beautiful scene as we have two people who are literally in the same sinking boat; however, one of them is looking at the stars (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde). Geremia's soul is a sad punchline to the joke that his life has become, whereas Gino's hopes are healthy and full of life.

This is merely the tip of the iceberg. Sorrentino's film is saturated with poetic images and imagery. At the expense of sounding repetitive, this is a beautiful, beautiful film and highly recommended.

TRAILER

Labels: 2006, bentivoglio, bindi, chiatti, cinema, malta film festival 2007, rizzo, sorrentino

Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia (Zhang Yimou, 2006)

aka Curse of the Golden Flower

I am not very familiar with Zhang Yimou's works. All I've seen are his two latest sword epics, Ying Xiong (aka Hero, 2002) and Shi Mian Mai Fu (aka House of Flying Daggers, 2004), neither of which impressed me much. I found Ying Xiong a rushed and unoriginal effort at reinterpreing the myth of the hero, with very few good moments and too far in-between. Shi Mian Mai Fu just bored me to tears.

Therefore I was justifiably sceptic of Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia, ever since I saw the trailer months ago. It looked like a rehashing of his previous two efforts. Nonetheless I wanted to give it a chance. After all, Da Hong Deng Long Gao Gao Gua (Raise the Red Lantern, 1991), a film which I have not yet seen, has been hailed by many respected critics as the best film of the Nineties. But unfortunately, Man Cheng Jin Dai Huang Jin Jia didn't disappoint me.

The film's theme is pretty straightforward: questioning, and rebelling against, the status quo. The first half is in fact a (very) long exposition of rituals that are repeated ad nauseum. Individuality is suppressed to a point where one's personality ceases to exist and a human being is defined solely by the role he or she occupies.

Incestuous intrigue provides the basic structure of the plot: Empress Phoenix (Gong Li) has a sexual relationship with her stepson. Again, this underscores the idea of a system that has become obsolete and which is now feeding upon itself in order to survive.

The cinematography is garish. Loud pinks, greens and yellows shred the retina, and the few sequences filmed elsewhere but in the labyrintine corridors of the Royal Palace, are mercifully bleak. The colours reminded me of overripe fruit whose smell is initially nice but which soon loses its appeal when it becomes overpowering. Which is really the film's motif; but still, it is tiring and overdone.

Despite the good intentions, the end result is very dissatisfying. I couldn't help but recalling Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974), a comparatively modest film that tackles similar issues in a much more powerful manner, and with a fraction of the budget. Where Bresson discusses (sometimes silently), Yimou hollers.

The greatest deficiency in The Curse of the Golden Flower is emotional. The film drudges along metronomically and at no point does it seem to aspire to take in the audience. The latter is constantly kept at a distance. The overall effect is not unlike that of watching two Grandmasters engrossed in a game of chess: you know there is much going on but watching them play is tremendously boring.


The acting doesn't help. Chow Yun-Fat has by now learnt this part by heart as he seems to be playing the same role over and over again in a number of similar films. The rest of the cast is simply not up to the unenviable task of roping in the audience against such gargantuan odds. The only actor who manages to somehow survive unscathed is Gong Li. Her portrayal of the Empress is mesmerising and thank God for that. But even this is way too little for a film and director that promised so much.

Favourite moments: Gong Li close-ups, especially when she is applying make-up or arranging her hair; the meeting of the Royal Family atop the raised structure in front of the palace door.
Most tiresome moment: The entire battle sequence.

TRAILER

Labels: 2006, cinema, curse of the golden flower, li, malta film festival 2007, yimou, yun-fat