A Dangerous Method
A film about Jung and Freud. By David Cronenberg. Had to see that. Sadly it's a biopic instead of some Cronenbergian fantasia, but it features a great characterization of Carl Jung by Michael Fassbender. It's also interesting historically about anti-semitism, class and the birth of psychoanalysis. Keira Knightley plays the most intriguing part as Sabina Spielrein, a 'hysteric' who is Jung's first patient to be treated with Freud's 'talking cure' (psychoanalysis). Critics have complained that Knightley has insufficient depth to play this part, but I found her convincing.
The film is based on a screenplay adapted from a play by Christopher Hampton, which seems to have been a somewhat perfunctory look at the early days of psychoanalysis. One couldn't ask for juicier material - two pioneers of psychology, one of whom is involved with a patient who later becomes a substantial contributor to the field herself - but the film, like the play, fails the material. Sabina Spielrein's story alone - childhood beatings, institutionalization, medical school, original thinking appropriated by Freud and Jung and finally death at the hands of the Nazis - has the making of a mini-series.
Still, it's not a bad film as an introduction to a watershed moment in psychological history and a great jumping off point for further research.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Skin I Live In
Even when I don't love the films, I love Almodovar. You have to if you're interested in the politics/psychology of identity. Or if you love melodrama and fine (mostly female acting). The Skin I Live In is his first exercise in Body Horror, a genre whose big names include Davids Lynch and Cronenberg.
Almodovar's films are always carefully crafted and often highly stylized. This film leans heavily on it's mis-en-scene with meticulously crafted shots and sets that sometimes give you that sense of looking at a mesmerizing photograph or painting. While the beauty and sense of detachment achieved by this technique is powerful, it leaves me a bit cold. Artists often separate the esthetic from the emotional. Films that are esthetically neat are often unsatisfying and ultimately unimaginative. A strange critique of Almodovar, and especially of this film, which nicely turns sexual identity inside out.
The film offers another stunning performance by Marisa Paredes, a veteran of numerous Almodovar films. Antonio Banderas is good as the arrogant plastic surgeon, but I found myself thinking his part had been underwritten. His doctor stands in too clearly as the representative of male arrogance. Almodovar usually, if not always, sides with women in the battle of the sexes, which is natural. That doesn't excuse stacking the deck against male characters; drama depends upon balance.
All my quibbles aside, I love Almodovar and recommend this film purely on esthetics, if not on its ability to sway emotions.
Even when I don't love the films, I love Almodovar. You have to if you're interested in the politics/psychology of identity. Or if you love melodrama and fine (mostly female acting). The Skin I Live In is his first exercise in Body Horror, a genre whose big names include Davids Lynch and Cronenberg.
Almodovar's films are always carefully crafted and often highly stylized. This film leans heavily on it's mis-en-scene with meticulously crafted shots and sets that sometimes give you that sense of looking at a mesmerizing photograph or painting. While the beauty and sense of detachment achieved by this technique is powerful, it leaves me a bit cold. Artists often separate the esthetic from the emotional. Films that are esthetically neat are often unsatisfying and ultimately unimaginative. A strange critique of Almodovar, and especially of this film, which nicely turns sexual identity inside out.
The film offers another stunning performance by Marisa Paredes, a veteran of numerous Almodovar films. Antonio Banderas is good as the arrogant plastic surgeon, but I found myself thinking his part had been underwritten. His doctor stands in too clearly as the representative of male arrogance. Almodovar usually, if not always, sides with women in the battle of the sexes, which is natural. That doesn't excuse stacking the deck against male characters; drama depends upon balance.
All my quibbles aside, I love Almodovar and recommend this film purely on esthetics, if not on its ability to sway emotions.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Tree Of Life
When he's making his own films, Terence Malick always hews to his own view of narrative structure. Long takes, long silences and stream-of-consciousness voiceovers are standard. So are big themes.
The natural world, and our place in it, is one of his favorite haunts in films like The Thin Red Line, The New World, Days of Heaven and now The Tree of Life. With admirable chutzpah, Malick sets out to draw a dramatic circle around the whole of the known universe. It could work. Malick did something similar in The Thin Red Line quite successfully. In The Tree of Life the result is an amazingly literal, bloated and ham-fisted ode to existence. The photography is gorgeous, a given with Malick, but only so much awe can be sucked from watching the birth of supernovas set to a crescendo of gregorian chant.
Brad Pitt is fine as a middle class Texas patriarch and the child actors are equally good. Sean Penn is given very little to do other than mope his way through massive glassed-in high rises, a clearly more successful son of Pitt's underachiever. It's meant to read as a slice of life, with the joys and sorrows of family life echoed by the changing tide of nature. But when characters are heard asking existential questions of God while we watch majestic, and eventually tedious, images of natural splendor, it's iphone time. I didn't boo, but if I'd been in the Cannes audience I might have.
When he's making his own films, Terence Malick always hews to his own view of narrative structure. Long takes, long silences and stream-of-consciousness voiceovers are standard. So are big themes.
The natural world, and our place in it, is one of his favorite haunts in films like The Thin Red Line, The New World, Days of Heaven and now The Tree of Life. With admirable chutzpah, Malick sets out to draw a dramatic circle around the whole of the known universe. It could work. Malick did something similar in The Thin Red Line quite successfully. In The Tree of Life the result is an amazingly literal, bloated and ham-fisted ode to existence. The photography is gorgeous, a given with Malick, but only so much awe can be sucked from watching the birth of supernovas set to a crescendo of gregorian chant.
Brad Pitt is fine as a middle class Texas patriarch and the child actors are equally good. Sean Penn is given very little to do other than mope his way through massive glassed-in high rises, a clearly more successful son of Pitt's underachiever. It's meant to read as a slice of life, with the joys and sorrows of family life echoed by the changing tide of nature. But when characters are heard asking existential questions of God while we watch majestic, and eventually tedious, images of natural splendor, it's iphone time. I didn't boo, but if I'd been in the Cannes audience I might have.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Double Hour
A first film by Guiseppe Capotondi, The Double Hour belongs to the genre of dubious memory thrillers perfected in Memento. Part of the excitement of watching these films is sifting through the narrative red herrings, usual flashbacks or -forwards, that try to lead us astray. The acting is uniformly good and the story has it's good points. The tension in the film is mostly psychological and Capotondi is clever at building a sense of claustrophobic dread. As I often find, to my ongoing dismay, the film loses it's rhythm somewhere after an hour. I think the fault is in the script, which places too much of a burden on the film's romantic scheme. The pace begins to drag and I wondered if I had missed a clue that would come back in a shocking ending. No such luck. Existential film disappointment continues.
A first film by Guiseppe Capotondi, The Double Hour belongs to the genre of dubious memory thrillers perfected in Memento. Part of the excitement of watching these films is sifting through the narrative red herrings, usual flashbacks or -forwards, that try to lead us astray. The acting is uniformly good and the story has it's good points. The tension in the film is mostly psychological and Capotondi is clever at building a sense of claustrophobic dread. As I often find, to my ongoing dismay, the film loses it's rhythm somewhere after an hour. I think the fault is in the script, which places too much of a burden on the film's romantic scheme. The pace begins to drag and I wondered if I had missed a clue that would come back in a shocking ending. No such luck. Existential film disappointment continues.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
French movie & US version of The Killing
I enjoy swashbuckling, history and cleavage so I wandered out to see The Princess of Montpensier. I can report that there's a shortage of breasts and swordplay. The film has a typically French preciousness without much sense of humor. It's refined, it's about chaste love and it's oh so dull.
AMC's The Killing, a remake of a Danish mystery series, is sadly disappointing. Not having seen the original, it's hard to say what was lost in translation. The pacing is slow and the domestic and political storylines that fill time between actual sleuthing are not compelling. The show has a galling habit of dragging along and finally throwing in a twist before each ending.
That bites.
I enjoy swashbuckling, history and cleavage so I wandered out to see The Princess of Montpensier. I can report that there's a shortage of breasts and swordplay. The film has a typically French preciousness without much sense of humor. It's refined, it's about chaste love and it's oh so dull.
AMC's The Killing, a remake of a Danish mystery series, is sadly disappointing. Not having seen the original, it's hard to say what was lost in translation. The pacing is slow and the domestic and political storylines that fill time between actual sleuthing are not compelling. The show has a galling habit of dragging along and finally throwing in a twist before each ending.
That bites.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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