Friday 15 June 2007

Reign Over Me ( Mike Binder. 2007)


I think this just might be the first film to address 9/11 pertinently. Incidentally, that infamous date designating both time and place in our collective consciousness, is not even mentioned until half way through the film. Binder's decision to sift through the bitter remnants of grief outside of the predictable format of the disaster film, is nothing less than audacious. Of course, this is a fictional story and films like 'United 98' and 'The World Trade Centre' have traded on the kudos of realism (the former by adopting documentary techniques, the latter by purporting to include moments of 'actuality'...in the words of Alicia Silverstone in 'Clueless' - 'WHATEVER!') for their emotional (read manipulative / exploitative or downright stupid) effect. Adam Sandler is truly a revelation in this film; his demeanour, reflected through the shallow focus of the camera, is that of a somnambulist who is only half aware of his surroundings. The pain that he cannot channel is manifest in the lugubrious camera movement and the significance of the heavy rock soundtrack that accompanies him where ever he goes so as to smother his grief. The film's triumph is in its lack of condescension. Too often films dealing with mental illness are content to suggest that all bad things must be exorcised and once this is achieved, everything can return to normal. 'Reign Over Me' eviscerates such platitudes of their trite content; in fact, it is only once Sandler's character has confessed, has admitted he once had a family, that his desperate and somewhat vitriolic rage at the world becomes apparent. However, it is Sandler's performance as someone who is clearly ill but intent on 'finding his own way' which ultimately rids this film of any accusation of being emotionally spurious or manipulatively sentimental. Sandler is so delicately poised between a childlike simplicity and unbearable frustration that his performance throws into poor relief those of actors such as Russell Crowe (whose portrait of a mentally ill mathematician left me wondering if he had a particularly virulent case of the nits). There is no tidy answer to the question of how one can even speak of such sadness and Binder acknowledges this with his inchoate conclusion. This films is serious and it is affecting but I'd also like to add that it has veritable moments of humour courtesy of Sandler's character whose special manner of articulation lacks any kind of politically correct filter.

Friday 1 June 2007

Lights In The Dusk. Aki Kaurismaki. 2006


This is the second film I've seen of Kaurismaki's, the first being, 'Leningrad Cowboys Go To America'. I came upon him because of my unadulterated love of all things Jim Jarmusch who cites him as a major influence (once you've seen the two, the connection is palpable...Jarmusch even plays a dodgy car salesman in 'Leningrad'). This had all the absurdity of 'Leningrad' without any of the sweetness. The central protagonist, Koistinen is a hopeless loner and, if we're being mean, a total loser; he becomes embroiled with a group of Finnish gangsters through his infatuation with their moll, Mirja. The humour is so dry, it's like trying to eat a piece of burnt toast whilst having a severe case of laryngitis. You want to sympathise with Koistinen because he's actually done nothing wrong but he's as apathetic to everything as his environment is to him (Kaurismaki is very picky about which bits of Helsinki he shows his audience...it's not an advert for tourism); in fact, his whole demeanour suggests that trying to work his way out of the spiral of disaster he's involved in is simply too much effort. So, I've made this sound like a depressing hour and a half in the cinema. It's not. Kaurismaki sets up this cinematic world as a piece of absurdist theatre from the get-go. There's barely any camera movement and his signature narrative elipses and inclusion of dead time are all here to remind you that you're just watching a film and this is just a bit of fun. So, why not throw the central character in jail for something he hasn't done and while you're at it, kick him when he's down on his luck? After all, it's just a laugh!
I had read various reviews of this film suggesting that it isn't bleak because the central character never loses his sense of hope (some people can't take it, can they!). Frankly, I think this is rubbish. I don't think Koistinen has any hope to start with and that's precisely what makes him so great and the film so funny. He's never surprised or outraged by anything that happens to him because he doesn't view the world en rose; he is wholly accepting of the repetition, the boredom and banality of everyday life... which leads me to wonder whether Kaurismaki had seen Jarmusch's 'Broken Flowers' before he made this?

Far From The Madding Crowd. John Schlesinger. 1967


This is a really long film (2 hours 40 mins) but I actually enjoyed it immensely and I'm not even a person who is partial to Hardy's special brand of melodrama. I had heard that the acting was not so fantastic and there's certainly nothing I would describe as a tour de force here but I think the gloomy restraint rather suits it. Furthermore, seeing Julie Christie at the height of her 'it' girl fame (replete with purple, Biba-esque eyeshadow) only reinforced how this Bathsheba could capture not only the hearts but also minds (read sanity) of all the men who surround her. So, she may have only been being Julie Christie, but she does it ever so well here. Terence Stamp is truly truly slimy in this (to my mind, he looks like a tacky car salesman)...the montage scene where he demonstrates his prowess with a sword is hilarious (I think Bathsheba is supposed to be so frightened that she's turned on...personally, if some gappy toothed man was waving a sword in my face, I'd tell him he'd missed his chance and that would be the end of it). The most appealing thing about this film is the photography by the commensurate Nicholas Roeg (whose 'Don't Look Now' Julie would appear in later); I don't know where it was shot but it looks like the South Downs to me. Really gorgeous colours abound throughout: pastel springtime shades mixed with the earthy hues of autumn all conveyed through languid panning shots. I think this would be a perfect film for a Sunday afternoon when it's raining outside...there's even a happy ending (who would have thought that of Hardy!)