12/25/14 (Part Three): Missing Pieces

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86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, archival footage, autobiographical, autobiography, Best Foreign Film nominee, Cambodia, cinema, clay figures, documentary, film reviews, films, Jean Baptiste-Phou, Khmer Rouge, massacres, Movies, Pol Pot, Rithy Panh, The MIssing Picture, writer-director

The human capacity to bounce back from tragedy is, perhaps, one of our most necessary traits: while we may be initially flattened by disasters, wars, crime, disease and violent death, something about the human animal compels it to stick its chin out, put one foot before the other and continue marching forward into the face of adversity. Without this natural resilience, after all, it’s unlikely that any of us would have made it past the caveman stage, let alone the 20th century. You may push a human down but you can’t keep a human down, unless that’s where they choose to be: we’ll always find a way to come back stronger than before.

When the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975, it set the stage for one of the worst, most flagrant displays of evil in the entire history of the human animal. Over two million people became refugees, over night, and famine, death, disease and torment became rampant in the Southeast Asian country thanks to leader Pol Pot’s iron-fisted regime. At the time of the take-over, Rithy Panh was a typical 13-year-old: happy-go-lucky, obsessed with movies and close to his family. During the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign of terror, however, Panh would lose everything and go from a typical teenager to a beaten-down survivor scrabbling together his existence from whatever he could get his hands on. Over thirty years later, Panh’s remarkable tale of struggle and survival forms the basis of the immensely powerful documentary The Missing Picture (2013), a film which gives a personal voice to the millions of disenfranchised Cambodian victims of the ’70s massacre.

While Panh’s story would make a fascinating documentary regardless of the format, The Missing Picture is unique in that it mixes archival footage of pre and post-revolution Cambodia with dioramas that Panh creates using hand-crafted clay representations of his family, friends, neighbors and countrymen. At times, Panh combines both types of footage together and the results are nothing short of dizzying: there’s a remarkable degree of reality to his clay figures and he’s able to imbue their features with a startling amount of expressiveness. It may seem odd to think that immobile clay figures can have overly expressive faces but Panh works some sort of magic and, at times, I was hard-pressed not to see the whole thing as a crude, if effective, form of stop-motion animation. Subject-matter notwithstanding, it’s a really cool, fascinating effect and Panh pulls it off flawlessly.

One of the most powerful aspects of The Missing Picture ends up being the way that narrator Jean Baptiste-Phou’s calm, mannered voice relates any manner of atrocities and hardships that befell Panh. There’s something soothing about Baptiste-Phou’s voice that creates a jarring contrast with much of what we see and hear: there’s an almost mournful quality to it that really suits the film’s elegiac mood, especially once we get into the heart-breaking section where Panh watches his father starve to death, little by little.

Lest The Missing Picture seem like an unrelenting tragedy, however, Panh manages to mix in some truly joyful pre-revolution scenes, scenes which focus on the vibrant music, night-life, dancing and filmmaking of the Cambodian people. There’s one amazing moment where Panh clay avatar goes “flying” over a crowd of dancing clay people and the effect is absolutely wonderful: for the briefest of moments, we get to feel some of the joy and love that filled Panh’s life before the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot summarily destroyed it all.

Ultimately, however, The Missing Picture’s message is one of hope, not horror or defeat. The very fact that Panh could survive such trials, at such a young age, and go on to such important work is testament to that aforementioned resilience of the human spirit. Rithy Panh’s journey from starving youth to Academy Award-nominated filmmaker (he ended up losing to The Great Beauty) is an inspirational one and The Missing Picture stands as a work of no small importance.

As Panh’s words state near the end, “This missing picture, I now hand over to you.” We’ve all been given this “missing picture,” and this film, so that we may never forget the innocent victims of the Cambodian massacre. We owe the survivors nothing less than to honor their memories and continue to shine a light into the darkest corners of our collective history. As the incomparable George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Rithy Panh has done his part to ensure that we’ll never forget: it’s now time for the rest of us to do our part.

1/13/14: Two (or Three) Sides to Every Story

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abusive relationships, Amanda Seyfried, autobiography, bio-pic, blind, Blindsided, Chris Noth, Chuck Traynor, cinema, Deep Throat, direct-to-video, Film, home invasion, Lifetime Network, Linda Lovelace, Lovelace, Michael Keaton, New Year's Eve, Penthouse North, Peter Sarsgaard, porn industry, porn stars, Sharon Stone, stolen diamonds, suspense, tell-all books, thriller

Truth, as we increasingly find in this day and age, can be a very relative concept. We’re told that history is written by the winners (sad but true) and that one person’s concept of truth can dissolve in the searing heat of another person’s certainty (however misplaced). This can be especially true when one examines the traditional cinematic biopic. Any biography (or autobiography, if we’re being completely honest) comes with its own bias: that’s just par for the course. What happens, however, when a biopic attempts to show all truths simultaneously? Which truth, then, does the audience hold firm to? How do we know what to believe? Does it technically even matter if we don’t know who or what to believe? What if the unreliable narrator is the actual subject of the biopic?

Lovelace, the recent biopic about former porn star Linda Lovelace’s relationship with her husband/manager Chuck Traynor and her experiences filming the porn blockbuster Deep Throat, is a tale of two cities (almost literally). The film splits its running time evenly, beginning with the idealized, air-brushed version of he story (local girl makes good, has a blast, has lots of sex and gets into interesting adventures) before restarting the whole narrative from Lovelace’s amended account of the proceedings (physical abuse, drug use, gang rape, gun violence, familial distress and, essentially, prostitution). Ultimately, despite some very good performances (and some very bad ones), Lovelace will probably be remembered more for its Rashomonish narrative gimmicks than for the actual film, itself.

The inspiration for the first half, at least from a filmmaking perspective, definitely seems to be PT Anderson’s classic porn epic, Boogie Nights. The first 45 minutes of the film fly by in a candy-coated, neon rush of big hair, funky clothes, crazy parties and sex, sex, sex. Even the titles and font choices at the beginning had me mentally comparing this to Boogie Nights (subject notwithstanding). Around the 45 minute mark, however, the film recasts everything in a decidedly grimmer, darker light. For this portion, the inspiration definitely seems to be Star 80, Bob Fosse’s grim look at the life and untimely death of porn star Dorothy Stratten. As Chuck Traynor becomes more and more abusive, Linda’s life becomes more and more hellish. We also get to see the older, wiser Linda (in the story’s timeline, at least), which provides an interesting contrast to the wide-eyed, naive ingenue from the beginning.

There’s a lot to like about Lovelace, particularly the strong performances by Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard as Linda and Chuck. Seyfried brings a wholesome, winsome quality to her performance that feels 100% genuine: I’ve never been a big fan of hers but this is definitely some next-level work she’s doing here. Sarsgaard, likewise, is exceptional, managing to make Chuck equal parts pathetic puppy and abusive psycho. Kudos must certainly go to Sharon Stone, as Linda’s mother: she disappeared so far into the role that I didn’t even realize who she was until my wife recognized her in the final moments of the movie. Chris Noth and Hank Azaria bring some real humanity to their roles as a porn producer and director, respectively. The scene where Noth beats Sarsgaard with a belt, as retribution for his treatment of Linda, is a thing of absolute beauty.

The film has a very strong sense of time, helped by some really nice, subtle set design. The movie also found ways to connect both disparate halves in some truly sneaky machinations. My favorite example of this comes during the “happy” portion of the film, where party goers comment on the thumping and bumping “sex sounds” coming from behind the closed-door to Linda and Chucks room. The second half of the film actually takes us into the room, where we witness Chuck beating Linda. This upending of expectations was very nicely handled. To be honest, I wish they had done more of this.

Ultimately, Lovelace is a good film undone slightly by its unnerving similarities to the films mentioned previously. There’s not much that it gets wrong, although I will say that James Franco was the most ridiculous Hugh Hefner that they could possibly get. Absolutely nothing about Franco’s generic performance reminded me in any way, shape or form of the actual Hefner, which is pretty surprising considering how easy it would seem to be to mimic the iconic pornographer. Everything about the performance (mercifully short) reminded me of nothing more than another Franco performance.

The big question regarding the film, however, is more difficult to answer: is it entertaining? Yes and no. As mentioned, the first half glides along on an extremely likable cloud of rampant carnality with Lovelace as the wide-eyed country mouse newly arrived in town. It’s fun, in a fish-out-of-water, Boogie Nights kind of way. The second half, however, is the very definition of endurance match, with repeated rapes, beatings, humiliations and endless suffering bestowed upon Linda. We see how these events have beaten her into the person she becomes at the end, as invisible in her mousiness as she used to be in her naivety. Since we’re (essentially) watching the same story twice, the effect seems to be more of “do you believe A or B?” than an attempt to enlighten.

For the record, I don’t think there’s ever any doubt as to which version is the “truth”: the entertainment industry (in general) and the porn industry (in particular) are well-known for grinding up and spitting out tortured souls. I wonder, however, how much more impactful the film could have been if its creators would have had the temerity to give us the full bleak, dark story without easing us into it. It doesn’t seem that Lovelace’s autobiography pulled any punches and it’s kind of a shame that the film did.

First things first: this is one of those films that feature multiple titles. In a completely bizarre twist, however, the title that I saw appears to be the least available of the two. I streamed this modest little thriller under the name Blindsided but any and all related promotional material, including the image above, come from the other title: Penthouse North. In truth, both titles are absolutely awful but at least the original title wasn’t a groan-inducing pun. From what I can understand, Penthouse North was the original title, although it became Blindsided when sold to cable TV.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the other shoe: apparently, this film was premiered on the Lifetime Network. That’s correct: the Lifetime Network. Despite this little caveat, the film manages to slip in a couple graphic stabbings, several bloody bodies and lots of menace. It also manages to be quite silly.

Our protagonist is Sara, a photo-journalist who loses her eyesight due to a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan. The attack is vicious enough to cost her sight, yet not vicious enough to give her so much as a scratch anywhere else on her face. She’s also not big on the whole “dark shades” thing: she starts off a pair at the beginning but loses them early on so that we can focus on her eyes. Or so I’m assuming, since there seems to be no other rational explanation for her just ditching the sunglasses.

On New Year’s Eve, Sara has the misfortune of being trapped in her luxury, penthouse apartment by a pair of complete psychopaths. The psychos have killed her shiftless boyfriend (the scene where she continually and unknowingly steps over his bloody corpse in the kitchen is actually pretty brilliant, much more Hitchcockian than the rest of the film deserved) and are after a fortune in diamonds that he’s hidden somewhere in the apartment. They assume that Sara knows where the stolen diamonds are hidden: she doesn’t. Thus begins a long game of cat-and-mouse as Sara tries to maneuver around the killers, playing them off each other and attempting to prevent her untimely death. Alliances are formed, betrayals are had and much scenery is gnawed.

Blindsided (or Penthouse North) is the kind of film that flooded the DTV market in the ’90s. It features a recognizable box-office star (in this case, Michael Keaton, which was reason enough for me to watch), small-scale and scope (one location, two if you count the roof) and plenty of action. In fact, I was immediately reminded of these type of films when I saw that Dimension Films produced the movie: they’re still around? Wow…that takes me back!

As far as story goes, the film is definitely a ripoff (or homage, if you’re feeling kind) of the far better Wait Until Dark. Wait Until Dark featured Audrey Hepburn as a house-bound, recently blind woman who is menaced by three armed thugs, one played by Alan Arkin. Using the same basic formula but dropping one of the thugs definitely makes for a more economical film but it’s certainly not reinventing the wheel.

There’s certainly nothing inherently wrong with Blindsided and it does have one very big pull: Michael Keaton’s completely villainous turn as Hollander. He may look awful in the movie (I sure hope he just had a rough weekend during shooting) but he brings everything he has to the role, stopping just short of the over-the-top quality he brought to Beetlejuice. He’s genuinely scary, particularly in a nasty scene involving a cat (animal lovers, don’t fret: this has a very happy resolution), and I never doubted the lengths he would go to retrieve the diamonds. His partner, however, was a bit of a mixed bag. Barry Sloane, the actor who portrayed Chad, is a TV actor and there was quite a bit of mugging in his performance. At times, he seems lovelorn. Other times, he’s unnaturally angry. And then there’s his outburst over Hollander’s treatment of Sara’s cat. For a character that always seemed crazier and less in control than Hollander, his sudden swerve into animal lover seems completely unwarranted and more of a deux ex machine than anything.

Will Blindsided (or whatever it’s called) change your life? Absolutely not. Is it an entertaining way to kill 90 minutes? Absolutely. Let me say, however, that the final shot of the film, off the rooftop, may just be one of my favorite moments from a film in years. It’s the very definition of poetic justice and it ended the film on an extremely positive note for me. User results may vary.