Lives of Others - The (Das Leben der Anderen)

Synopsis: In 1984 East Berlin, a dedicated Stasi secret police surveillance expert finds his loyalties shifting as he is immersed in the lives of others, an actress and a playwright. [Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2007, Germany, Rating MA, Running time 132 minutes]

A story of one man living through the lives of others, Das Leben der Anderen is an intimate account of the fear and surveillance that controlled the German Democratic Republic prior to unification in 1989. Surveillance was the means by which the Republic was documented in meticulous detail, reducing the humanity of its population to dry notations.

9.30pm: Captain Weisler attends new play by playwright Georg Dreyman. Capt Weisler is accompanied by superior officer, Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz.

9.35pm: The Minister for Culture instructs Grubitz and Weisler to place Dreyman under surveillance.

9.45pm: Dreyman’s lover, the actress Christa-Maria is driven home. Her clothes are in disarray as she steps out of the Minister’s car. Prob. non-consensual sexual intercourse.

Weisler (Ulrich Mühe) , the surveillance expert, is a well-used tool of the State. He is small, contained, drab, loyal, inconspicuous, yet intimidatingly relentless in the interrogation cells of the Stasi secret police. But his initial, unreflective desire to monitor the possibly subversive playwright turns into something else. At the end of the long cable of his surveillance headphones, he finds himself a ghostly presence in the home of Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) . Falling in love with their lives, his loyalties to the State begin to crumble.

As Christa-Maria is drawn deeper into the unwanted affections of the odious Minister, and Dreyman is forced to question the artistic censorship of the State, subversion begins to brew in the Dreyman apartment. As Dreyman takes elaborate steps to secretly publish an expose of the regime without having it being traced back to him, Captain Weisler must face the question whether to report him – and if not, how to conceal the truth from the superiors that are beginning to distrust him. The story’s tension continues to ratchet up, only resolving well after the fall of the Berlin wall when all their lives have irrevocably changed.

The film’s Orwellian themes are so well visually and emotionally realised that the somewhat bare characterization can be overlooked. As the frighteningly farcical operations of the Republic’s secret police unfold, a silent question lingers: to what extent have the same evils of fear and secrecy invaded our modern-day ‘democratic republics’. As Dreyman wonders, how is it that such men as these lead our countries?

4 flims.

The Happening

Synopsis: A couple struggling to even communicate (Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel), and the young daughter of their friend (John Leguizamo), are plunged into a horrifying struggle for survival when something starts happening in north-east America, causing people to kill themselves. [M. Night Shyamalan, 2008, USA/India, rating M, running time: 97 minutes]

Since the phenomenal success of Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense in 1999, the writer/director’s films have grown ever more fantastic and incredible (literally). From the boy who sees dead people we progressed to an unbreakable man, signs of hydrophobic aliens, strange monsters in the village woods, a spirit lady in an apartment block’s swimming pool, and now the strange toxic ‘happening’ that is driving people to suicide.

At the same time, the director’s style is increasingly measured in its naturalism, with peculiarly restrained performances in the face of extraordinary events. Shyamalan is nothing if not courageous in his willingness to forsake earlier commercial mega-success in the development of an unusually naïve style. In taboid film criticism, where every film must surely be an amalgam of others, The Happening would be called some kind of horrifying Hartley/Hitchcock hybrid. If they knew who Hartley was.

To love such a psychological fancy requires a certain suspension of logic and disbelief and a susceptibility to find great horror in small moments. Shyamalan’s earlier films are dramatic thrillers, but The Happening goes further to really horrify. It is strongly reminiscent of The Birds, yet even more effective in taking innocent aspects of nature and making them terrifying and almost inescapable. It’s a horror that doesn’t act externally but infects a person and turns them against themselves in ever more violent ways. The visual violence is a striking new feature in comparison to the director’s earlier work, mostly mercifully brief, but pitilessly heightened by a wonderfully panic-inducing score.

With all but one of his films profitable, some massively so, Shyamalan is obviously popular. Yet his work is often stridently criticised by reviewers as some kind of arrogant whimsy. Still, there were once a lot of people who said Bob Dylan should never have gone electric. Unfortunately for the fans of The Sixth Sense, there will be no numerical sequel or prequel. The director is moving on, avoiding neatly tying up loose ends in favour of exploring open-ended interconnections in peculiarly adult fantasies. Particularly, the spiritual and emotional connections that bind together the narrative of the family, the bonds between parents and children, the divisiveness of fear, and the transformative effect of love. There is a touch of both the sentimental and experimental but beneath it remains a fair degree of subtlety, even a political message that’s worth opening your heart to.

4 flims.

Sin City

Synopsis: Sin City is infested with criminals, crooked cops and sexy dames; some searching for vengeance, some for redemption and others, both. [Robert Rodriguez/ Frank Miller, with guest director Quentin Tarantino, 2005, USA, Rating MA running time: 124 minutes]

Robert Rodriguez' oeuvre thus far is a kaleidoscope of visual effects that usually tell a simple story well. He was made for turning pulp fiction into celluloid, and his dedication to realising Frank Miller's silhouetted and polarised fantasy crime comics pays off. Images are worth a few gazillion words here - Miller was apparently convinced to unprise his fingers from the film rights by Rodriguez turning up with the opening sequence already in the digital can:

The dramatic black and white comic visuals are lovingly transferred, almost comic frame for cinema frame, to a predominantly colour-free screen. Rodriguez adds splashes of colour to pick out details or accentuate highlights. The occasionally extreme comic-violence is manageable - blood spurts luminescently, a gruesome evisceration is masked by hard-edged black and white. This is the stuff of the classic noir detective style, but with a feral edge to both the style and the content. It's lazy, and perhaps unfair to Rodriguez, to say it's Tarantinoesque; but I'm going to anyway - especially given the most feral scene was guest-directed by Mr T. Unlike Tarantino, the film is a bit of a patriarchal package - even the gun-toting dames need a manly helping hand in the end; but ultimately the genders make a partnership that loosens the black grip that crime holds over Sin City.
The cast is a huge list of names spread over the three intertwining Sin City comics stories that comprise the film. Jessica Alba is the dark city's bar-dancing angel. Mickey Rourke is transformed into a hulking, but human, vengeance machine. Benicio Del Toro won't shut up even with a slit throat. Rosario Dawson leads a pack of fearsome Amazons. Bruce Willis is the last honest cop. Clive Owens is out to play a dark hero. Elijah Wood is the freakiest character in memory. Alexis Bledel, Carla Gugino, Devon Aoki, Rutger Hauer, Michael Madsen - all play a part to bring a big story with real dimensions to the screen.

The film was shot almost exclusively against green screens, but the performances are very alive and in sync with the ultra-realistic surroundings. Unlike George Lucas' recent efforts, Rodriguez seems to have succeeded in overcoming the performance hesitancy often apparent in this kind of film-making. He shoots and cuts fast and well, capturing a palpable immediacy and tension in the performances. The staccato dialogue also transfers faithfully from page to screen.

Ultimately, two of the three stories are riveting, but one interrupts the pacing a little. Perhaps this is like Mozart being told that there were too many notes. What's being done here is very fresh meat, and well worth consuming. The imitators will, of course, be right around the corner. Hopefully Sin City 2 won't be one of them, but will add even more innovation to a very impressive beginning.

4 flims.

Note: these images were first collected and presented on another website at the time this review was written in 2005. Unfortunately, I can't remember the site name to give credit where credit is due.

Factotum

Synopsis: A visualisation of Charles Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical novel, Factotum. [Bent Hamer, 2005, USA/Norway, Rating M, Running time: 94 minutes]

is bukowski like cummings

without all the fucking wordplay

or do they both just like lower case

but bukowski liked capitals as much as the next guy

so no consistency there but never mind

so, was bukowski just some drunk

some womaniser

derelict

destitute

he wrote these books (exhibit a: factotum)

this canon of work, firing bolts of stories, poetry

words cascading over cheap notebooks (not the technological kind)

or bashed out on a typewriter – every line crashing out

with the staccato finality of the carriage return

he was born into this

the grim reality of life and art twisted up

thinking form/structure only worked on words once the spirit had been used up

so gave all his energy to covering those pages, sending them off to literary rags

so, this is Henry (Hank) Charles Bukowski becoming Hank Chanaski

and Hank becoming Matt Dillon

and Matt becoming the Factotum

the man who peforms many jobs across 70s, 80s LA

except that Henry/Hank/Matt can’t hold a single damn job

down for more than a day, a week, a month

the only thing he holds down with any regularity is a gutful of rotgut

and the broads under him who take his cock like a knife

(although Lily Taylor, Marisa Tomei do much more than this)

and the slight ember of hope that his words will finally be read.

Bukowski wrote Barfly too

But always thought Mickey Rourke was too pretty

Dillon is a big pretty guy too but got a gritty voice big enough for the poetry

(and the high contrast of the Dadafon tunes sure brings them out)

Dillon lumbering through the grimy city, grainy celluloid,

Plumbing the depths but also finding the laughs among a sea of characters,

And blowing that ember into flames for every wannabe out there.

Like me.

4 flims.

Kill Bill Volume 2

Synopsis: The Bride continues to wreak revenge on the remnants of Bill’s Assassination Squad. [Quentin Tarantino, 2004, USA, Rating MA, Running time 130 minutes]

Kill Bill: Volume One was an extravagant, indulgent assault on the senses. Volume Two begins with a deep breath to recap the story so far, and in a long exhalation completes Tarantino’s epic with a welcome dose of dialogue and story.

Violence is no longer the main order of the day. Vol. Two is about relationships – about how the Bride came to be gunned down at her wedding; the rivalries and loyalties of the Assassination Squad; the history between the Bride and Bill. The visual and sound-track style is still distinct, but this time there’s something behind it which was lacking in Vol. One.

The film’s chronology is once more sliced and diced as the story is fleshed out with love, betrayal and revenge. There are more terrific set-pieces, and the film cuts between two of the best to great effect. In one, the Bride is trapped and her fear and anger pushes you back in your seat; even though the biggest impact of the scene takes place in lengthy moments of total darkness. This is intercut with flashbacks to the Bride’s martial arts training under Pai Mei (played by venerated Kung Fu star Gordon Liu). While Vol. Two owes much to Westerns (especially those of John Ford and Sergio Leone), the scenes with Pai Mei are solid kung fu, infused with comedy and insight into the Bride’s strength of character.

Tarantino couldn’t have pulled off this risky project without the help of real power under the hood. Uma Thurman’s performance is even more spectacular as she’s given room to breath emotional character into her previously mainly physical performance. David Carradine’s Bill tracks an interesting line between the outwardly philosophical, and the apparently inwardly psychopathic. Darryl Hannah adds a crazily glamorous touch to proceedings. And Michael Madsen plays a retired sword fighter eking out an existence in slow dissolution.

Vol. Two could stand as a complete movie in itself, with Vol. One as the super-stylin’ prologue. While tge second film doesn’t have the pacing and stylistic coherence of the first, it does have the story and emotional weight that was previously missing. The two halves of Kill Bill might have connected more successfully in a tightly edited three or even four hour film; but that would undermine the points of difference. As it is, they present a great, if occasionally indulgent, joy-ride through Tarantino’s favourite kind of cinema.

4 flims.

The Hulk

Synopsis: Bruce Banner’s father (Nick Nolte) conducts genetic experiments on himself and his baby, Bruce. When these have tragic consequences, Bruce grows up as a traumatised orphan. In adulthood, he is drawn to a career in nuclear genetics. Bruce (eric Bana) is an introverted young scientist, recently broken up with his partner and colleague Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) who finds him emotionally inaccessible. After a lab accident, the experiment wrought by Bruce's father in childhood is finally activated and the Hulk is born. [Ang Lee, 2003, USA, rating: M, running time: 155 minutes]

Comic book movie adaptations often do themselves a disservice. We expect that the protagonist will acquire superhuman powers early in the piece, and then wage a one-man battle against injustice and an evil antagonist. This is thought to be kid's stuff, light entertainment, nothing to it.

Ang Lee's The Hulk turns most of that on its head. Like the comics and the television series, this is not a thoughtless saga about the incredible bulk on a demolition derby from start to finish; but the story of a man and his inner demons. When Bruce Banner finally transforms into the Hulk a good third of the way into the film, the impact of the 20-foot computer-generated behemoth continues to focus the story on Bruce's efforts to understand his own life.

The original story of the Hulk saw Bruce Banner contaminated by gamma radiation while working on a nuclear test site. The carefully crafted prologue to the movie reveals Lee's take on the beginning of the legend, establishing the film's comic book style with striking shots, colour manipulation, frames within frames, cuts and fadeaways.

The Hulk is, of course, terribly cinematic when it comes to making a mess of the place. And the scenes in which he vents his anger on the laboratory, mutant dogs, the military research centre, the tanks and helicopters are truly impressive. But not as impressive as the Hulk's ability to emotionally connect to his audience. Nearly everyone, perhaps, has a little piece of Hulk in them, waiting to come out.

The film should have ended with the final dramatic confrontation between Bruce and his past. But the final moments finish with a bit of a whimper as the inevitable sequel is set up. But this is only a small fly in the ointment of a very impressive and memorable adaptation of the legend of the incredible Hulk.

4 flims

Be Kind, Rewind

Synopsis: A man whose brain becomes magnetized unintentionally erases every tape in the video store where his friend works. They set out to remake the lost films. [Director Michel Gondry, 2007, USA, Rating PG, Running time 101 minutes]

Michel Gondry’s wonderful whimsicality is given free rein as two guileless men remake movies and find they’re helping to remake their community too. Inspired by experiences on his 2005 music documentary Dave Chapelle's Block Party, Gondry sets out to explore the possibilities of community collaboration. Be Kind, Rewind is full of innocence and rough edges, a kind of love letter to an era when movies were made on a shoestring and delighted their audiences.

Mr Fletcher (Danny Glover) runs an aging, unsuccessful video store in a condemned tenement at a time when competitors are starting to stock DVDs. His assistant Mike (Mos Def) and his friend Jerry (Jack Black) are inspired by Fletcher’s tales of Fats Waller, the jazz great, being born in the tenement. Jerry is a frustrated mechanic, building elaborate additions onto customer’s cars and fighting a growing suspicion that the nearby powerplant is a government conspiracy controlling his mind. While breaking into the plant in a failed sabotage bid, he becomes magnetized – accidentally erasing every video tape in the store while Fletcher is away.

Fletcher’s favourite customer, Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow), comes in the same day asking for Ghostbusters, and Mike and Jerry set out on what becomes a snowballing success as amateur movie remakers. Their remakes are marked by $10-$20 budgets, inventive props and a great sense of humour. The local community clamour for more remakes, which the pair describe as ‘sweding’ the originals (Sweden-ising? See examples at bekindmovie.com). Along the way, they recruit Alma from the dry-cleaners (Melonie Diaz), and the threesome eventually find themselves involving the whole neighbourhood In filming a documentary recreating a new history for Fats Waller.

Mos Def and Melonie Diaz have a lot of natural charm and that holds the story together, while Jack Black at times feels a little miscast but still creates a good manic counterpoint to his fellow low rent movie moguls. The visual inventiveness feels familiar after Gondry’s The Science of Sleep (2006). Yet while appearing (a stylistic conceit,one assumes) more amateurish than that film, it gives a great sense of freedom to the story-telling. Imagination is presented as a liberating, enlivening force; where the strictures of the movie industry are released and the opportunities are limitless. This is not the celebration of the individual auteur, but a celebration of community and passion over professionalism.

4.0 flimmeries

Charlie Wilson's War

Synopsis: The tragic-comic ‘true’ story of Democratic Texas Congressman, Charlie Wilson, who teamed up with CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to manoeuvre the US Government into covert funding of the Afghan Mujahadeen, thus defeating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. [Mike Nichols, 2007, USA, Rating M, Running time 100 minutes]

“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame.”
Charlie Wilson

Charlie Wilson’s War is one of the most astounding, definitely the most tragic-comic, films yet about America’s evolution as a bungling international ‘supercop’. Charlie Wilson’s story, so bizarre that surely they couldn’t make it up, is adapted from George Crile’s 2003 book about the extraordinary story of the largest covert operation in history.

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a Texas Democrat at first only remarkable for his interest in watching TV broadcasts of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan while hottubbing with TV producers and models. But he is distinguished by a growing aversion to communists, fueled by his friend and romantic interest, the wealthy socialite, Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts). Charlie goes on a fact-finding mission to meet the leadership of Pakistan and finds himself deeply moved by conditions in the refugee camps and outraged that the CIA’s limited funding can only provide WWI rifles to the Afghan Mujahideen for use against invading armoured Soviet gunships. On his return to the USA, Charlie meets maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and together they orchestrate an increase in covert support funding from $5 million to nearly $1 billion.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are satisfying performers but Hoffman is the scene-stealer, with a wonderfully gruff, heavily mustachioed character. His recent Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor is no surprise and the film richly deserved its Golden Globe nominations (including Best Picture).

Veteran director Mike Nichols’ latest film is a finely crafted,satirical and powerful eye-opener for those ignorant of the indulgences of American politics in the 1980s. The writer, Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, among many) cleverly interprets an epic period of confrontation through the personal stories of eccentric characters who played a pivotal role in changing American foreign policy. The invasion of Afghanistan became akin to a Vietnam for the USSR, bleeding it of resources and ultimately leading to its collapse and the end of the Cold War.

Despite this ‘glorious’ victory in Charlie Wilson’s war, the funding committee on which he played such a part ultimately rebuffed his efforts to contribute $1m to rebuilding Afghani schools after the Soviets withdrew. The compelling implication of the film’s epilogue is that this attitude missed an opportunity to build relationships with the region that could have defused the anti-American sentiment that now threatens the world.

4 flims.

Angel

Synopsis: Young Angel Deverell (Romola Garai) realizes her dreams to become one of the world’s famous writers, but finds a nightmare too. [François Ozon, 2007, UK/Belgium/France, rating: M, running time: 114 minutes]

Angel begins with a thoroughly unlikeable ‘heroine’ and an overpowering score and visual flourishes that brings to mind the worst of Disneyfication. Slowly, it reveals itself as a sharply satirical, sensual exploration of the melodrama. It’s a seductive experience, as François Ozon develops his trademarks and finds a natural place for his sometimes misplaced sense of kitsch.

The film features Ozon’s old and new muses, the impressive Charlotte Rampling in a somewhat token appearance and the enchanting Romola Garai (Amazing Grace) as Angel Deverell. As music floods the opening scenes we see Angel in her final year of high school, thoroughly conceited and domineering, convinced she is writing the greatest romance of all time. Against all odds, she does produce a series of incredibly popular works under the patient administration of her literary agent (Sam Neill) and the skeptical eye of his wife (Rampling), despite having no real experience of life or even of other writers on which to draw. As her dreams become real and she meets the love of her life Esmé (Michael Fassbender), her life begins to spiral down.

This fabulously realised story is based on British writer Elizabeth Taylor’s 1957 book of the same name. Taylor was said to be inspired by the real eccentricities of 19th century romance novelists such as Marie Corelli, Ouida or Ethel M. Dell. Like Ouida, Angel adorns herself in overstated costumes and commands influential audiences of soldiers, politicians and artists, all the while fancying herself as terribly influential. Like Corelli, Angel has an intriguing relationship with a live-in female companion (Lucy Russell as Nora) that is skilfully rendered in the film. Like Dell, Angel’s racy books are thoroughly disparaged by the critics but adored, at least for a time, by the public.

Romela Garai is an incredible performer as her character moves from alienating her audience to partially seducing them, although it is true that some will inevitably just remain alienated. She takes on the larger-than-life character of Angel effortlessly, expressively. Her face is one that romance writers imagine, but directors seldom capture, where faces can be clouded, eyes can flash or twinkle, smiles break hearts, roguish looks flitter, beauty comes and goes with a mood.

The overall result is disconcertingly evocative, with a twist, of the great American melodramas of the 30s and 40s. But it also brings to mind, at least to mine, a very French type of philosophy and I wonder whether Ozon is a fan of his countryman Baudrillard. For Baudrillard, I think, might have seen this film as an example of how the hyperreal simulacra overpowers and replaces the original. In other words, Angel is so grand, so exaggerated visually and emotionally, that memories of the ‘real’ melodramas that inspire it seem thoroughly insipid.

It’s an emotional, funny, tragic roller-coaster that confounds expectations and reminds us that this is the kind of thing cinema is all about.

4 flims