Hanna
It's no secret that trailers can be misleading and Hanna's are squarely in that group. Yes, it is a thriller with breakneck action sequences and psychotic hitmen. What the trailers don't reveal is the true nature of the beast, a strangely touching coming-of-age tale set against a thriller. Saoirse Ronan plays the title character with adolescent ferocity at once powerful and uncertain. I thought she had sprung from anonymity, but at 16 she's an old hand from various films and tv series.
Hanna's strength as a film comes from it's fusion of genres into a working hybrid. Contrasting tender scenes of childhood friendship with murderous skirmishes, Hanna builds a good bit of suspense as to it's ultimate direction. For a while. I had an inkling that things would founder when Cate Blanchett's character, a CIA honcho, failed to develop beyond a stylish caricature. What a waste. Likewise her mercenary killers. The writers did some creative thinking on this script, but they seemed to have drawn a blank when it came to the thriller part of the equation. That's too bad considering the potential the film hints at as it winds up. Still, I appreciate Hanna for striking out in a fresh direction.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Source Code
These sci-fi, quantum theory, parallel universe, uncertainty principle movies are speaking my language. Have Schrodinger's cat, will travel.
I rolled along nicely for the first 30 minutes. Good enough plot, good enough execution. Somewhere soon after, I started guessing and my enjoyment faded accordingly. The twists became predictable, the love story banal. The ending collapsed in a heap of romantic frippery. So, thirty three percent of a good thriller.
These sci-fi, quantum theory, parallel universe, uncertainty principle movies are speaking my language. Have Schrodinger's cat, will travel.
I rolled along nicely for the first 30 minutes. Good enough plot, good enough execution. Somewhere soon after, I started guessing and my enjoyment faded accordingly. The twists became predictable, the love story banal. The ending collapsed in a heap of romantic frippery. So, thirty three percent of a good thriller.
Dogtooth (4 subjective stars)
Happily this film requires little by way of explanation. It is a darkly surreal take on the nuclear family. The film won a prize at Cannes and was also the Greek nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Oscars. There are no stylistic winks from filmmaker to audience and therein lies much of it's stark beauty. The shooting style is formal in the sense that the camera is mostly stationary and used to frame the action. Both the camerawork and the satirical conviction of the film give it the sense of a complete work of art. Yipee!
Happily this film requires little by way of explanation. It is a darkly surreal take on the nuclear family. The film won a prize at Cannes and was also the Greek nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Oscars. There are no stylistic winks from filmmaker to audience and therein lies much of it's stark beauty. The shooting style is formal in the sense that the camera is mostly stationary and used to frame the action. Both the camerawork and the satirical conviction of the film give it the sense of a complete work of art. Yipee!
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