A one-person drama that is daring in conception and clever in execution; but in the end you feel it might work better as a play or a short story. We get a pretty good read on Tom Hardy’s character halfway through, and with no more surprises you wait for his car to arrive, which, metaphorically and physically, it doesn’t.
It was interesting to compare this to Turn!, the AMC serial about the Revolutionary War, in which the occupying British forces are automatically the bad guys, to be slaughtered without compunction. Here, the occupiers were Americans – hence, the good guys – although it was not otherwise explained why they were in Afghanistan and we were to cheer for the local inhabitants who were killed by the dozens. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Stylistically, this was a total throwback to World War II or cowboy-Indian movies, where our heroes miraculously evade round after round while picking off the enemy with almost every shot of their own. Instead of a movie of some subtlety or plot leading up to a big shoot-out, this one jumped right to the shoot-out and achieved its length only by having each of Mark Wahlberg’s platoon mates gradually picked off, one by one, leaving alive, somewhat incredibly, only the title character. [No smoking!]
This film made no sense. Absolutely none (unless, apparently, you had read the book it was based on). Much dialogue was unintelligible and the cinematography was dreary. It even managed to make an unclothed Scarlett Johansson unattractive. [Smoking -1, incidental crowd scenes]
Perhaps this was Canada’s version of Magic Realism, or perhaps it was cinema-by-collage. However it can be described, it certainly was bizarre. Start with the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal, who was convincing neither as a college history professor nor as his more financially successful doppelganger. Instead of an attempt at reality, I had the feeling I was watching an allusion to another movie – just as the opening scene, unconnected to anything, reminded me of Eyes Wide Shut, the helmeted motorcycle rider reminded me of David Cronenberg’s The Fly, the never-used key in the envelope reminded me of a Hitchcock McGuffin, and everything reminded me of David Lynch. The soundtrack score was so creepy and prominent, there was no need for the actors to convey or evoke emotions. I will say that I, like the entire Film Society audience, was riveted, in the expectation that all would be explained. Nothing was, but at least in searching for a possible explanation (of anything), we had been made to think. [Smoking – 2; early and extraneous]
The latest, and one of the best, from the modern movie Mannerist Wes Anderson – a totally stylized romp through pre-war Eastern Europe, if you can call a cross between the Marx Brothers and James Bond a style. Each shot begged you to look for little jokes in the background – like the Delta flight announcement – as much as you paid attention to the stilted dialogue. An old man tells the story of his youth to a young writer who tells it to us many years later, so a little exaggeration is to be expected. The best part of the convoluted tale is the many roles it offers to famously recognizable actors, who can mug to their heart’s content and still remain in character. (Bill Murray, alas, is wasted.) I have gone to every Wes Anderson film since the well liked Rushmore and consistently been disappointed – but not this time.
Among the things we don’t know: why Celine tried to kill herself; why Marie didn’t book a hotel for Ahmad; why Naimi lied to Lucie; why Marie is marrying Samir; why Ahmad left Marie; and, in the final shot, whether Celine is brain dead and whether Samir wants her to be. For each question, director Farhadi has provided two plausible answers. We do know the only possible reason Ahmad and Samir both hover around Marie: Berenice Bejo is beautiful – which is good for the viewer because her character is a pain. More than just pointing out that we can never be sure of someone else’s motives, the film seems to say that we can’t even be sure of them ourselves. This film, like its predecessor A Separation, is a wonderful character study; but like a Springsteen song, it took a wrong turn near the end and it just kept goin’. We thought the movie was about Ahmad and Marie, and until the end it was. Then, for some reason, it became about Samir and Celine, the least interesting people on the stage.
A fascinating look from a Japanese point of view at the engineer responsible for Japan’s World War II airplanes. The view was ambivalent: Jiro was following his dream and didn’t seem concerned about where it led. The movie was matter-of-fact, acknowledging the disaster of the war, but not judgmental. The view was also sheer artistry: I saw Yoshida and Hasui woodblock prints in every landscape; and while there was no attempt to make the animated figures lifelike, their personalities came alive, with help, in our version, of the familiar voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Werner Herzog.
This was a gritty, heart-stopping thriller, with twists and turns to the very end. It portrayed the harsh conditions Palestinians suffer under Israeli occupation, but that was the context of the movie, not its point. Whom can you trust, is all really fair in love and war, how far does friendship go – these were the more universal questions the movie raised; and if you think you have an answer you weren’t watching the same film. The coincidence that the Israeli spymaster resembled Mandy Patinkin in Homeland made the story resonate even more. [Smoking – 2]
If Nebraska was bleak, the Oklahoma of Osage County was bleaker, and hotter and the family more dysfunctional and meaner, in a deep, searing way. The film read as a play transported to the screen, not least because of the haunting echoes of the great American playwrights – O’Neill, Williams, Albee. Every line and every look had meaning, and when it came to looks Meryl Streep gave a lot of them. The pleasant surprise was that Julia Roberts stood up to Streep’s performance, with her own inherited dominating mean streak leaving her, in the end, just as alone. The rare accomplishment of Tracy Lett’s screenplay is that it not only introduced you to fully formed characters, but at movie’s end you were left to ponder, what would happen to each of them. [Smoking – 3]
1:45 was a long time to wait for Umberto Tozzi’s rendition of our favorite dance song. It was a thrilling moment to see Gloria shed her glasses and let loose to her eponymous tune, but there wasn’t much of interest that came before. She had a very pleasant smile and was good company and her character was well drawn: a bit needy, not quite able to protect herself from life’s disappointments. It’s just that her life, and the people around her, weren’t that interesting. Enough Said comes to mind as a comparison, but no one here was James Gandolfini. [Smoking – 3]
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