8/10/15: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

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Adam Butcher, Alexander Conti, alpha males, Andre Chemetoff, Arnold Pinnock, Balmorhea, Bryan Murphy, bullies, Canadian films, cinema, co-writers, correctional officers, Dewshane Williams, Dog Pound, drama, emotional abuse, English-language debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, first-time actors, guard-prisoner relationships, hunger strike, independent films, indie dramas, inmates, Jane Wheeler, Jeff McEnery, Jeremie Delon, juvenile detention facility, juvenile offenders, K'Naan, Kim Chapiron, Lawrence Bayne, Lynne Adams, male friendships, Mateo Morales, mental abuse, Michael Morang, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple writers, Nikkfurie, non-professional actors, pecking order, physical abuse, power dynamics, power struggles, prison films, prison rape, prison riot, rape, remakes, Scum, Shane Kippel, Sheitan, Slim Twig, suicide, Taylor Poulin, Trent McMullen, William Ellis, writer-director, youth in trouble

Humans are amazingly resilient animals. We can endure any number of extreme climates, fight back against overwhelming odds and turn veritable wastelands into virtual paradises. We can ponder questions both basic and metaphysical, learn to do just about anything we set our minds to and wrestle the world at large into submission by sheer force of our nearly boundless will. Humans can do all of this (and more) with surprisingly little: all we really need is air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and a little something to keep the elements off of our heads.

While these biological necessities go without saying, humans also need something that’s a little harder to categorize, a little more difficult to study in a lab. We also need hope. Hope that bad situations can become better, hope that we can achieve our dreams by working hard, hope that we can not only survive, on a day-to-day basis, but find some measure of personal happiness and satisfaction. Humans need hope just as much as we need sustenance and oxygen: without either one, we’re just empty husks of decaying meat, carcasses too stubborn to know that we’re already dead.

There is no hope in French writer-director Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound (2010), although that’s not really surprising: after all, there was precious little hope in his shocking debut, Sheitan (2006), either. As a filmmaker, Chapiron possesses an almost supernatural ability to submerge his characters (and his audience) into such unrelentingly dark, tragic and terrible situations that the very concept of hope is both elusive and rather laughable. We know that Chapiron’s characters are all doomed from the very first frame: that they often don’t recognize this futility makes their inevitable struggles even more sad. These characters aren’t waving their arms for rescue: they’re thrashing around, frantically, as their increasingly tired bodies drift further and further from the shore, closer to their ultimate ends than they are to any new beginnings.

Essentially a remake of the grim and unrelenting British prison film, Scum (1979), Chapiron’s English-language debut (the film is Canadian but set in Montana) concerns the Enola Vale Youth Correctional Facility and the various individuals who are imprisoned there, as well as the ones doing the imprisoning. We’re quickly introduced to three inmates who will become our entry-way into this particular world: 16-year-old Ecstasy dealer/born victim, Davis (Shane Kippel); 15-year-old repeat offender/car-jacker Angel (Mateo Morales) and 17-year-old hot-head/nominal protagonist, Butch (Adam Butcher).

After being thrown into the facility (Butch has been transferred to Enola Vale after laying a ferocious beat-down on an abusive guard at his previous facility), the trio are quickly brought up to speed by Superintendent Sands (Trent McMullen) and the boys’ immediate authority figure, CO Goodyear (Lawrence Bayne). The rules are easy: do everything you’re told, behave yourself and walk the straight and narrow. The boys who manage to do that become “trustees” and earn more responsibilities, perks and freedom, along with signifying black shirts. The ones who don’t follow the rules get orange jump suits and a one-way ticket to “Special Unit” or, in extreme cases, solitary confinement.

As with any prison film (or actual prison, for that matter), day-to-day life in Dog Pound revolves around a strictly observed pecking order: the alpha dog gets to call the shots and dispense the punishment in whatever way he sees fit. In this particular case, the alpha dog is one seriously scary bully by the name of Banks (first-time actor/former prisoner Taylor Poulin, in a genuinely frightening performance), a character who takes an immediate dislike to both Davis and Butch, albeit for different reasons.

In Davis, Banks and his cronies, Looney (comedian Jeff McEnery) and Eckersley (Bryan Murphy, another first-time actor), see the quintessential weak link, the eternal victim that’s as vital to any bully as oxygen is to those aforementioned humans. They steal his new boots, envy his short sentence, submit him to constant abuse and, in a particularly devastating moment, subject him to a particularly violent sexual assault. Davis is the naive lamb, the chosen sacrifice for those too hard and jaded to feel anything besides hatred and the need to dominant. He’s the face of every petty drug offender tossed into the correctional system, the minnows that feed the sharks.

With Butch, the bullies see something altogether different: a genuine threat to their established social order. In order to maintain his position at the top, Banks must bend Butch to his will, show the pugilistic teen that he may have been able to take out a CO but he’ll never stand against Banks and his minions. While destroying Davis is “pure entertainment” for Banks and his crew, taking Butch down is something much more important: it’s a matter of survival, plain and simple.

As Davis, Butch and, to a much lesser extent, Angel (Morales ends up with the least screen-time, overall, leaving his character rather under-developed) try to negotiate these increasingly choppy waters, CO Goodyear tries to reach the youths through a combination of “tough love” and an unyielding need to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn’t the most pleasant thing. He’s not a perfect man, by any stretch of the imagination: over-worked, under-paid, given to sporadic moments of anger and too thin-stretched to ever affect much change, Goodyear, at the very least, tries. That all of his goodwill becomes undone in one tragic, accidental moment is, unfortunately, to be expected: there is no hope for anyone at Enola Vale, whether they’re behind the bars or in front of them.

This, ultimately, is both the film’s source of strength and its ultimate weakness: since there is no hope for anyone, Dog Pound is an unflinching, full-throttle descent into a literal hell on earth. The camera doesn’t cut away, we get no reprieve from anything that has happened or is about to happen. Even when the characters find some tiny measures of individual happiness, such as when Davis regales the other boys with made-up stories about outrageous sexual dalliances and becomes, if only momentarily, the closest thing he’ll get to “respected,” there’s always the notion that more misery, tragedy and gloom lies just around the corner.

In one of the film’s most subtle, if icky, moments, Butch immobilizes a wandering cockroach by spitting on it until the crawling critter is stuck fast in a globular prison of phlegm and saliva. The insect twitches and moves, compulsively, doing its best to break free, to pull itself from its sticky bonds and scurry off into the safety of the nearest dark corner. By the morning, however, the cockroach is still in the exact same position, drowned in a tiny pool of Butch’s spit. Despite what it might have thought, the roach never had a chance: it was dead the minute Butch’s spit nailed it to the floor, whether it knew it or not. In Dog Pound, the differences between the youthful offenders and the dead roach are many but the similarities? Infinite.

Despite its constantly dreary subject matter, Dog Pound is beautifully made and exquisitely acted, no small feat considering the non-professional status of a good half-dozen of its cast members (many of whom, like Poulin, are actually youth offenders, themselves). Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography captures the inherent grit and claustrophobic quality of the facility perfectly, while the subtle, moody score (featuring the work of instrumental ensemble Balmorhea, among others) counters the often sudden, stunning violence to masterful effect. As with Sheitan, it’s obvious that Chapiron is a filmmaker in full command of every aspect of his craft.

For all of this, however, Dog Pound is still pretty difficult to recommend. The reason, of course, goes back to the point I’ve been hammering this whole time: there is absolutely no hope to be found here, in any way, shape or form. This isn’t to say that every – or even any – film needs to end happily: this is to say that Dog Pound makes a particular point of pounding each and every character so deep into the ground that there’s no possible outcome but the one we get. Each and every victory is false, any and all attempts at understanding or evolution are met with the harshest possible retributions. There is no need for comic relief here, no hope of any of the protagonists coming out on top of their individual struggles. If there is any kind of message to Dog Pound, it’s as basic, cynical and bleak as possible: if you end up in this situation, you are completely, totally and irreparably fucked.

As an example of “feel-bad cinema,” Dog Pound is nearly peerless: this is the kind of film destined to ruin any good mood, turn any optimist into a card-carrying misanthrope. While the world around us can be a harsh, grim place, the world inside Enola Vale is nothing but gray: a million little variations of the shade, infecting every single person that steps behind its walls.

It’s tempting to say that Dog Pound is the kind of film that could change anyone’s opinion about the correctional system (or, at the very least, the youth correctional system) but that just isn’t true: the guards don’t shoulder an inordinate amount of the blame here any more than the inmates do. This is not a tale of power-mad authority figures trying to beat their wards into submission, nor is it a story about hard-working correctional officers dealing with the soul-killing every-day business of keeping individuals locked away from society.

At its heart, Dog Pound is a story about average people making (and continuing to make) terrible decisions, the kind of decisions that can bring nothing but pain to all around them. This is a film about wasted youth, about squandered loyalty and altruistic intent blown to pieces about the terrible reality of the human condition. This is a tragedy, in every sense of the word. This is a hopeless film about hopeless people in a hopeless place, crafted by a singularly unique, uncompromising filmmaker. If you can stomach it, Dog Pound will rip your beating heart from your chest and smash it to smithereens on the floor. There is truth to be found here, some fractured beauty and hints at what could have been, under far different circumstances.

There’s a lot to find and appreciate in Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound but hope? That, my friends, is one commodity that’s in perilously short supply.

6/21/15: Know When To Say When

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Anthony Hopkins, based on a book, based on a true story, British-Dutch films, cinema, Cor van Hout, crime thriller, Daniel Alfredson, David Dencik, drama, film reviews, films, foreign films, Fredrik Bäckar, Håkan Karlsson, Heineken, Heineken beer, held for ransom, Jemima West, Jim Sturgess, Kat Lindsay, kidnapping, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, large ransoms, Lucas Vidal, Mark van Eeuwen, Movies, Peter R. de Vries, Ryan Kwanten, Sam Worthington, set in 1980s, set in Amsterdam, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Thomas Cocquerel, Willem Holleeder, William Brookfield

On paper, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015) must have seemed like a no-brainer: throw Sam Worthington, Jim Sturgess and some fellow named Sir Anthony Hopkins into a film about the real-life kidnapping of the titular beer baron and get the guy who directed the original versions of The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2009) to helm it. Stir, cook at 350 and voila: instant thriller goodness! The resulting film, however, ends up being much less than the sum of its parts: while Kidnapping Mr. Heineken sports a fairly relentless pace, it’s also overly familiar, a little nonsensical and more than a little slight. While the principals all turn in sturdy performances, it’s unlikely that you’ll remember much of it after the credits roll.

Taking place in Amsterdam, in the early ’80s, we’re immediately introduced to our intrepid gang of wannabe kidnappers: Cor van Hout (Jim Sturgess), his best friend, Willem Holleeder (Sam Worthington), “Cat” Boellard (Ryan Kwanten), “Spikes” Meijer (Mark van Eeuwen) and “Brakes” Erkamps (Thomas Cocquerel). When we first meet them, the group is trying to secure a renovation loan for an apartment building that they collectively own, a building which has now been overrun by “squatter punks.” When the loan officer indicates that the building will need to be “cleaned out” before any money can be disbursed, the gang springs into action and goes to kick some punk ass. The point is clear: this is a bunch of dudes who takes matters into their own hands.

On the home-front, Cor and his girlfriend, Sonja (Jemima West), are expecting a baby, which has put quite the financial strain on them. Cor wants to provide for Sonja (who also happens to be Willem’s sister) but there aren’t a lot of options out there for someone who’s done time in the big house. The group comes up with a simple, if outrageous, solution: they decide to kidnap Alfred “Freddy” Heineken (Anthony Hopkins) and hold him for the largest ransom in history…$35 million.

In order to finance their scheme, the gang robs a bank in a daring, daytime heist and uses the money to buy weapons, getaway vehicles and a soundproof, hidden room to hide their abductee. After planning the crime extensively, the group executes their mission without a hitch, grabbing Heineken and his driver (David Dencik) and spiriting them away to their hiding place. Once they actually have their quarry, however, everything begins to unravel: the group begins to fall out among each other, Willem becomes increasingly violent and irrational and Heineken ends up being a canny, sly bastard who pours pretty poison in the ear of anyone he comes in contact with. As the authorities begin to close in, will Cor and the others be able to reap their “rewards” or will grabbing Heineken prove to be the stupidest (and last) thing any of them will ever do?

Technically, all of the moving parts in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken do what they’re supposed to do: the cinematography is crisp and polished (Bäckar was also a cameraman on the American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)), all of the action scenes have a relentless pace (in particular, the bank heist is a truly impressive, exhilarating setpiece) and the acting is, for the most part, as sturdy as a rock. While this won’t go down as anyone’s shining moment (Hopkins, in particular, is rather stiff), it all works just fine in service of the actual film. As a director, Daniel Alfredson handles the action setpieces just fine, even if some of the more dramatic elements feel a little short-sheeted.

The big problem, as it turns out, is that Alfredson’s film just doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from any number of similar movies: in certain ways, this comes across as a “paint-by-numbers” action film, a generic template where only the names and faces have been changed. None of the characters are really fleshed-out in any meaningful way (there’s some mention made of one of the kidnappers’ families being intrinsically tied to Heineken but that particular plot point leads nowhere), which means that we never get fully invested in them. Sturgess plays Cor like any number of “nice guy forced to do bad things” roles, while Worthington brings nothing new, whatsoever, to his portrayal of the loose cannon. Sonja is just the put-upon significant other, Heineken is just the petulant rich guy. None of the characters ever breaks out of their generic “types,” leaving us with a drama that feels no weightier than the average teen slasher flick.

Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is also one of those crime thriller/heist films where the characters act in inexplicable ways as a means of advancing the plot. They take their masks off at inopportune times, leave witnesses behind, and, in general, seem to do everything they can to get caught. Closing text informs us that no one really knows why the group originally got caught: if the real-life criminals were this sloppy and stupid, I’m pretty sure we don’t need three guesses.

In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Kidnapping Mr. Heineken isn’t what happens on-screen but, apparently, what happened to the real-life participants after the film ended. As that helpful text informs us, Cor and Willem went on to become criminal godfathers in the Netherlands, after serving their 11-year prison sentences. Cor would go on to be assassinated, with scuttlebutt pointing the finger at his own best friend, Willem. Perhaps it’s only me but that actually sounds like a much more interesting story than the by-the-book heist film that we actually get: it’s rather telling that the film never really sparked my interest until it was actually over.

Ultimately, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken isn’t a terrible film, although it is a terribly familiar one. With its slight characterizations, lapses in logic and adherence to multiplex action movie conventions, Alfredson’s film might play well in the background but it’s unlikely to earn your full, undivided attention. In other words, this beer ain’t bad but it is pretty flat.

3/18/15: The Heart, Wrung Dry, Is a Stone

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Aimee Mullins, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, Alex McGregor, black market, Christy Pankhurst, cinema, David Butler, David Clatworthy, drama, drought, dysfunctional family, dystopian future, Elle Fanning, Ernest Holm, family in crisis, farmers, father-daughter relationships, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Flem Lever, Giles Nuttgens, Jake Paltrow, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Liah O'Prey, Michael Shannon, Movies, neo-Westerns, Nicholas Hoult, Robert Hobbs, robots, sci-fi, single father, The Grapes of Wrath, There Will Be Blood, tragedy, voice-over narration, water rights, water wars, Westerns, writer-director, Young Ones

Pitched somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007) and Stanley’s Hardware (1990), writer-director Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones (2014) is a powerfully acted neo-Western that blends intense character drama with dystopic sci-fi. If the whole thing is somewhat deflated by a rather meandering ending, it does nothing to take away from the journey, which is packed with memorable characters, some rather ingenious plot developments and genuine emotional power.

We’re dumped into a world of the future, although of 20 years or 100, we’re never really told. Stylistically, it’s pure Western, as the land has been in the grip of a devastating drought for long enough to turn everything into parched desert…everything, that is, except for the lush, green areas that are served by the “state” waterworks: the “wet areas,” as they’re called. In these areas, things function much as we might expect, albeit with the extra oomph provided by futuristic robotics and technology. In the “dry” areas, however, it’s a hard-scrabble existence, punctuated by harsh living conditions, sudden death and constant water wars: the untamed West, if you will.

Our lowly protagonist, Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) is one of the farmers who’s stuck it out, along with his son, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and daughter, Mary (Elle Fanning). Mother Katherine (Aimee Mullins) is living in a care facility after suffering a crippling injury of some sort, rendering Ernest a single father, of sorts. He’s a former alcoholic who makes ends meet by delivering supplies to the very same corrupt waterworks employees who continually resist running much-needed waterlines through Ernest’s sun-baked land: talk about your nasty Catch-22s! After his only well goes dry, poor Ernest is reduced to buying his water from gas station-style pumps and praying for much-needed, long-absent rain.

It wouldn’t be a Shakespearian tale without some Shakespearian intrigue, however, and we get that in bulk with Mary’s boyfriend, the elegantly sleazy Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult). Flem is a smooth talker with a new con for every day of the week and a bone to pick with Ernest, thanks to a perceived slight involving the land that Flem’s father used to own.  As Flem exerts more influence over the increasingly rebellious Mary, he butts heads with Ernest in a million different ways. Through it all, Jerome, our constant narrator, observes it all with his slightly detached gaze: ever faithful to his father, yet caught in Flem’s thrall, nonetheless.

Trouble strikes when the Holm family mule heads to mule heaven and Ernest is forced to buy a robotic replacement (the robot auction is a real thing of beauty). This kicks off a series of unfortunate events that culminates with Flem stealing the “mule,” Ernest tracking him down and…well…”something” happening in the desolate wasteland, far away from prying eyes. What it is, exactly, we won’t know for some time but the tragedy results in Flem becoming the de facto head of the family, much to Jerome’s consternation. When the suspicious son gets the full details on what happened in the desert, however, thanks to the robot’s previously undisclosed video recording function…well, let’s just say that there’ll be hell to pay and leave it at that, eh?

Despite some occasional familiarities with other films (There Will Be Blood was never far from my mind, at any time), Young Ones is a strikingly fresh, thoroughly intriguing film. The script is quite clever and unfolds is a completely organic manner, with some surprising (yet always logical) twists. The blending of dystopic sci-fi and Westerns is seamless and quite magical, if I do say so, creating a believably immersive world, one that’s built up by a million little details and subtle touches. It’s the best kind of world-building, one that’s accomplished by layers rather than a sledge-hammer.

Young Ones is a very dialogue-heavy film, without a doubt, but Paltrow’s script and cast are more than up for the challenge. In most cases, anything this “talky” might become tedious but some of the film’s greatest pleasures come from the frank, in-depth conversations that the characters, particularly Ernest and Flem, have with other. There’s a wry lyricism to Paltrow’s lines that makes everything simultaneously grim, yet rich: it’s a quality that I associate with Cormac McCarthy and, while Paltrow isn’t quite there yet, I can easily see him getting there in the future.

Without a doubt, one of the shining stars in Young One’s crown is its phenomenal cast. Most of the time, it’s an easy best that Michael Shannon will be the best thing in whatever he’s in: there’s an honesty to him that makes it all but impossible to tear your eyes from the screen whenever he’s there and Ernest is one of his best, most complex roles in some time. In this case, however, Shannon gets a run for his money from Smit-McPhee, Hoult and the rest of the superb cast: everyone brings their A-game, making this one of the most exquisitely acted films I’ve seen in some time. To be honest, Hoult and Smit-McPhee give two of the best performances of the year, playing two of the most radically different characters possible. Only Fanning, normally great, falls short of the mark: chalk it up to the character or the performance, but Mary is a constantly petulant, unpleasant and hysterical character, never sympathetic, even during the moment’s where the film practically demands it.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the ending, which sputters into the station after the film runs out of steam some 20 minutes before the finish line. It’s the odd deflating moment in a script that normally runs like a Swiss clock, feeling like nothing less than Paltrow ran out of things to say before he ran out of film: again, only notable due to the fact that the rest of the film moved so effortlessly.

That being said, Young Ones is still a mighty impressive film and bodes quite well for Paltrow’s future. When the film really works, there’s a sad sense of poetry that says more about the death of the idealized West than a million cowboy hats ever could. Giles Nuttgens’ cinematography is often quite beautiful (the mournful shots of the robotic mule pacing across the mesa are, quite simply, stunning) and there’s a sense of austere seriousness to the proceedings that fits it all like a glove. While there’s something inherently tragic about the Holm family and their blood-spattered legacy, the only tragic thing about Jake Paltrow (and yes, in case you’re wondering, he’s Gwyneth’s brother) is that we’ll need to wait for his next film. When you’ve got something like Young Ones on your calling card, the sky, quite frankly, is the limit.

1/28/15: Murnau, Nosferatu and the Big ‘What If”

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award winner, based on a true story, Begotten, behind-the-scenes, black-and-white cinematography, Bram Stoker, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack, Chris Wyatt, cinema, Count Orlock, Dan Jones, dark comedies, Dracula, drama, E. Elias Merhige, eccentric people, Eddie Izzard, experimental filmmaker, F.W. Murnau, fantasy vs reality, film festival favorite, film reviews, filmmaking, films, Fritz Arno Wagner, Henrik Galeen, horror, horror films, insanity, John Malkovich, legend vs reality, life imitating art, Lou Bogue, Max Schreck, Movies, multiple award nominee, Nosferatu, obsession, period-piece, revisionist history, Ronan Vibert, set in the 1920s, Shadow of the Vampire, silent films, Steven Katz, stylish films, Suspect Zero, Udo Kier, vampire, vampires, Willem Dafoe

If you think about it, it’s been quite the short, strange trip for writer/director E. Elias Merhige. He first came to the public eye with the notoriously grungy, splatterific Begotten (1990), the kind of experimental art film that Kenneth Anger made his domain in the ’60s. Rather legendary among daring genre aficionados, Begotten was the kind of thing that got passed around on bad VHS tapes and posted online in various pieces: equal parts Anger, Lynch, Jodorowsky and Cronenberg, Begotten will never be anyone’s idea of a good time but it ended up being a great calling card for Merhige, since it gave him an unbeatable underground buzz. After following this up with a couple music videos for Marilyn Manson during his “Antichrist Superstar”-era, Merhige would return to the big screen for his most accomplished film, the multiple award nominee/winner Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

After Shadow of the Vampire became a hit, it seemed only natural that Merhige would capitalize on the momentum but it took him four years to follow it up: arriving in 2004, the “serial-killer-killing-serial-killers” flick Suspect Zero had an appropriately pulply, intriguing logline but the film, itself, was universally derided as being strictly by-the-numbers filmmaking. With only one short since that time, Merhige appears to have dropped off the map, leaving us with one semi-legendary experimental film, one bonafide neo-classic and a multiplex fizzle. Despite this incredibly small body of work, however, Merhige has staked out his own unique place in the history of genre filmmaking: any career that includes Shadow of the Vampire could, reasonably, be considered a roaring success.

Existing as a bit of cheeky revisionist history, Merhige’s sophomore movie takes a look at the filmmaking process behind legendary German auteur F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). In a gonzo little bit of “what if”-ism, the film posits that Murnau (John Malkovich) actually used a real vampire in the role of Count Orlock, the mysterious, ratlike and boundlessly creepy Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe). Keeping the information from his clueless cast and crew, Murnau seeks to make his vampire film the most realistic it can be, possibly in response to being denied the rights to shoot an adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker’s estate.

Murnau passes his “star” off as an eccentric master actor who completely submerses himself into his roles, to the point where he “assumes” the identities of his characters. The cast and crew are to address Schreck as “Count Orlock” and are advised to give him a wide berth when not filming: as Murnau tells them, he has little interest in their conversations, praise or questions, since he’s “chasing his own ghosts.” While this strikes Murnau’s group (consisting of producer Albin Grau (Udo Kier), writer Henrik Galeen (Aden Gillett), cinematographer Wolfgang Muller (Ronan Vibert), assistant camera-man Paul (Nicholas Elliot) and lead actor Gustav von Wangenhein (Eddie Izzard)) as odd, they’re all used to Murnau’s eccentric way of working and just think it’s all just a way to build mood, like his insistence on shooting on location, rather than on a studio set.

As plans go, however, using a real vampire in your vampire film isn’t the greatest and the iron-fisted Murnau ends up running into one set-back after another, not the least of which is the fact that cranky, old vampires make really shitty actors: as Schreck continues to ad-lib, screw up scenes, ask for motivation and complain about countless bits of minutiae, the ever-hassled director watches his project increasingly fall to bits. Under the gun from his high-strung, bottom-line-oriented producer and in constant fear of having the project taken from him, Murnau can’t deal with any more setbacks. After the vampire snacks on Wolfgang, forcing Murnau to replace him with the zany Fritz Arno Wagner (Cary Elwes), however, the exasperated director has had just about enough: after all, the selfish vampire wasn’t even considerate enough to “take the script girl,” as Murnau complains…he went right for the “essential personnel.” As the rest of the cast and crew begin to suspect something’s rotten in Denmark, Murnau and Schreck continue to feint, verbally spar and test one another’s resolves. Things may look dire but Murnau is nothing if not dedicated and he’s determined to make his movie, even if it kills everyone around him…and that this rate…it just might!

From the very beginning, Shadow of the Vampire is a fascinating, visually sumptuous and ingeniously edited film: indeed, the opening 5-minute credit sequence, consisting of various murals and drawings, is like its own mini-film, giving a brief overview of not only key events in the general Dracula mythology but also thematic and underlying elements that will inform the film, itself. I specifically mention the editing, since Chris Wyatt’s work here is some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen: the way in which black and white shots blend into color cinematography is eye-popping but just as impressive are the subtle transitions, the ways in which the still images appear to have their own sense of movement, of life. It’s one of the very few times while watching a film that I’ve actively singled out the editing but it’s so masterfully done that it becomes another aspect of the film, rather than the “invisible” part of the filmmaking machine.

The sense of invention displayed in the opening is omnipresent in the film, leading to some genuinely delightful, weird moments: Murnau’s visit to a stylish sex club/drug den is a highlight, even if the scene, itself, makes little sense and Schreck’s underground “lair” is a marvel of strange production design that appears to include either an enormous spider-web or a gigantic iris…either one would fit, even if neither one make much sense, in context. In some ways, the production design reminds of Ken Russell, in particular his Lair of the White Worm (1988) and the filmmakers make terrific use of their creepy, atmospheric castle location.

As mentioned, one of the film’s most delightful visual quirks is the pronounced separation between the “real world,” which is in vibrant color, and the “filmed world,” which is in black and white. In some case, the film transitions between the two effortlessly, as if the black and white footage is being colorized before our eyes. Other times, we go in the opposite direction, as if the life and color is being bleached from the real world: not a bad symbol for vampirism, if you think about it.

As good as the film looks, however, it’s the extraordinary cast that really takes this all the way. Shadow of the Vampire is filled with vibrant, interesting characters, from Eddie Izzard’s wonderful take on the lunk-headed Gustav to Catherine McCormack’s “flapper with attitude” Greta to the dashing, utterly ridiculous creation that is Elwes’ Fritz Arno Wagner. We get the ever dependable Udo Kier doing his usual take on fastidious distraction, while Aden Gillett does some great work as the ever patient, ever indulgent writer.

The MVPs here, however, are undoubtedly Malkovich and Dafoe, two of the most interesting actors in the history of the medium. While I initially felt as if the roles should have been switched (in my head, I definitely see Dafoe as the dictatorial director, while Malkovich seems like a lock for the creepy, eccentric vampire, although this could also be based on recent roles), there’s no doubt that each actor makes the character his own. Our first sight of Malkovich, wearing tiny black goggles and endlessly cranking his camera, is a real doozy and sets the stage for everything that follows: he’s a constant blur of mischievous energy, all nervous twitches, half-smiles and sudden, angry shouting. The bit where he coaches Gustav through a scene only to force him to cut himself with a knife, for “reality,” is superb and his performance in the finale is suitably unhinged.

While Malkovich is always “Malkovich” in the film, regardless of how awesome that might be, Dafoe is completely unrecognizable as Schreck, which ends up being a nifty hat trick for an actor with such a defined persona as his. Nonetheless, he’s superb: feral, rat-like and even a little sympathetic, at times, Schreck is a magnetic personality and it’s impossible to tear our eyes from him. While the makeup work is absolutely uncanny, it’s the subtlest things that really draw out Dafoe’s performance: in particular, he does so much with just his eyes and posture (our first sight of Schreck, stiff-armed and with talon-like fingernails, is absolutely made by Dafoe’s creepy, weird, stiff-legged gait, makeup notwithstanding) that it immediately reminds us of what a truly talented actor he is. Not surprisingly, Dafoe would go on to be nominated (and win) multiple times for his performance, including an Oscar Nomination which he ultimately lost to Benicio del Toro for Traffic (2000). There’s something completely otherworldly about Dafoe’s performance which helps sell the character of Schreck part-and-parcel.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is how explicitly humorous it is. While not, technically, a comedy, so much of the film is precipitated on some truly funny scenes (the bit where they struggle to get Schreck to deliver his lines is priceless, as is the truly great scene where Schreck complains about how “unrealistic” Dracula is) that the humor definitely becomes a noticeable part of the film. In certain ways, Shadow of the Vampire melds the behind-the-filmmaking-scenes humor of something like Living in Oblivion (1995) with a more traditional vampire narrative, resulting in a rather unique little combination. Combine this with the way the film effortlessly blurs the lines between fact and fiction (every one of the characters are actually based on real people, even if their individual actions are decidedly suspect) and Shadow of the Vampire ends up being a nicely original, individualistic piece of work.

Ultimately, Shadow of the Vampire is extremely well-made but it’s also a whole lot of fun, which may be the most important factor. While he doesn’t entirely turn his back on his debut (the black and white attack on Greta definitely feels like something from his Begotten-era), Merhige comes up with an intelligent, sassy and, at times, suitably outrageous, little bit of revisionist history that should be right up any genre fan’s alley. When the film is firing on all cylinders, it’s a real marvel. Here’s to hoping that Merhige returns from the woods, one of these days, and that he brings something like Shadow of the Vampire with him: witty, evocative and a real treat for film fans (especially fans of Murnau’s actual Nosferatu), this is one of those rare films that feels a lot older than it actually is, in all of the best possible way.

1/3/15 (Part One): Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater

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Alexa Havins, Alexia Rasmussen, cinema, co-writers, confusing, convoluted plots, drama, Erika Hoveland, Faust Checho, film reviews, films, insanity, Joe Swanberg, Kevin Donner, Kristina Klebe, lesbian relationship, lies, mental breakdown, mental illness, motherhood, Movies, Proxy, revenge, single mother, support groups, twist ending, writer-director, Zack Parker

Until it goes completely off the rails in the final third, sort of like a speeding train missing a dead-man’s curve and plummeting into a bottomless ravine, Zack Parker’s Proxy (2014) is a tricky, endlessly fascinating and constantly frustrating experience. As the film progresses, however, the numerous plot holes, leaps of faith and contrived scenarios begin to pile on fast and furious until audience members have but two choices: embrace the chaos and go down with the ship or jump overboard and swim for land as fast as possible. While I ended up going with the first option, wise readers would be well-advised to practice up on their backstroke: this is two hours you will never get back.

We begin with Esther (Alexia Rasmussen), a sad-sack, mopey single mother-to-be who’s on her way back from her gynecologist when she’s suddenly and brutally attacked by an unseen assailant: the attacker knocks her out with a brick and proceeds to bash her stomach until the unborn baby is just a memory. After she wakes up in the hospital, Esther is truly alone: she has no family, no friends, no significant other…even her pregnancy came courtesy of a sperm bank donation. As various authority figures like Detective Allen (Faust Checho) and Mary Wilkins (Erika Hoveland) hover and bustle about her, Esther keeps pulling back into her own world, even more isolated than she was before. As Mary warns her, however, Esther better get help while she’s still “in the system,” so to speak: once she leaves the hospital, no one is going to care a damn about her or offer her any help whatsoever.

Esther ends up taking the advise and finds herself in a “mothers in mourning” support group. While there, she happens to meet bubbly, blonde Melanie (Alexa Havins): still mourning the deaths of her husband and young son at the hands of a drunk driver, Melanie is, nonetheless, at least 1000% times more outgoing than Esther and the demure loner ends up hanging out with her, as the two stumble towards a tentative friendship. When Melanie begins to blow off Esther’s calls, however, the other woman begins to feel marginalized and depressed all over again. While filling out a job application at a department store, Esther happens to see Melanie, although the other woman seems way too occupied to notice her: when she spies her, Melanie is making a huge fuss about losing her son in the store, which strikes Esther as a neat trick, since the kid is, supposedly, dead.

As it turns out, Melanie’s husband and son, Patrick (Joe Swanberg) and Peyton (Xavier Parker), seem to be quite alive and quite well: when Esther confronts her friend with this information, Melanie freaks out and tells Esther to get lost. At about this time, we also meet Esther’s tough-as-nails girlfriend, Anika (Kristina Klebe): we’re introduced to her in a rather bracing scene that begins as what appears to be a rape but is later revealed to be very rough, albeit consensual, sex. Anika is both paranoid and constantly suspicious of Esther’s fidelity, neither of which make a particularly good combo with her violent temper.

Just when it appears that all of these disparate folks are headed for a violent, smash-up confrontation, ala Simon Rumley’s  Red, White & Blue (2010), Parker and co-writer Kevin Donner throw in a huge twist at the mid-point that spins the film off in a completely different direction. Unfortunately, this represents the first of many twists and turns that have the effect of jerking the film from one side to other erratically. As new plot points develop, bigger and bigger holes begin to appear in the film and, by the final 30 minutes, the whole thing has begun to disappear into a sinkhole of its own creation. By the time we get to the ending (yet another damn twist), so much of what came before has either been contradicted, forgotten or made redundant that it feels as if Proxy were actually three separate films stitched together: on their own, any of them might have been able to stay afloat. Shackled together, however, the disparate elements of Parker’s film pull the whole production down into Davy Jones’ locker.

Suffice to say, by the time it was over, my primary emotions were relief (this is an awfully long two hours, trust me), frustration and more than a little irritation: there were seeds of an intriguing idea here but nothing was developed in any satisfactory way. To this problem, add some truly erratic acting (Rasmussen is great as Esther, pretty much everyone else in the film is astoundingly awful and awkward), some painfully stilted dialogue and some enormous plot holes and contrivances…mix, bake at 350 and voila…you have one Proxy.

The hell of all this is that, at times, Parker’s film is actually pretty good. Rasmussen does a great job with a particularly tricky character (at various points, Esther earns both our sympathy AND our revulsion, which makes her a sort-of spiritual descendant to Travis Bickle, believe it or not) and definitely marks herself as someone to watch. The Newton Brothers’ moody, tense score is a mini-marvel: the duo was also responsible for Oculus’ (2014) excellent score and are handily establishing themselves as go-to guys for modern-day genre film scores. There were also some nicely realized visual flourishes and stylistic tics (my favorite being the slo-mo water dripping in the bathtub) that were definitely appreciated, even if the film’s general messiness and chaotic structure made it a little difficult to really focus on them.

Ultimately, Proxy ended up being one of the most disappointing 2014 films I saw all year: there was so much potential here, which made the results even more unfortunate. I’m not quite ready to write-off the production team, however: there were enough good ideas here to bode well for the future, provided that some measure of order is restored. As it stands, however, Proxy just isn’t very good, even though it could have been so much more.

12/30/14 (Part One): Behind the Eight-Ball

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Arthur French, Bridget Barkan, Caleb Landry Jones, Christina Hendricks, cinema, dark comedies, Domenick Lombardozzi, drama, Eddie Marsan, film reviews, films, God's Pocket, John Slattery, John Turturro, Joyce Van Patten, Molly Price, Movies, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, secrets, step-son, working-class neighborhood, workplace accident

You gotta feel for Mickey Scarpato (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the patron-saint of palookas in God’s Pocket, South Philly: he’s just pulled off a heist and been rewarded with a slab of raw beef at the exact time that his shithead, racist step-son, Leon (Caleb Landry Jones), gets himself killed in what may or may not have been a workplace accident. Mickey’s wife, Jeannie (Christina Hendricks) wants her beloved boy to have the best funeral possible but mercenary mortician Smilin’ Jack (Eddie Marsan) only takes cold, hard cash, which is in rather short supply for unlucky Mickey. He could go to his best buddy and fellow con man, Arthur (John Turturro), if only ol’ Arthur wasn’t the guy who stiffed Mickey with the beef in the first place. Arthur’s got plenty of his own debts all around town, however, and is in no mood to pony up for Leon’s coffin, although his cold-blooded aunt, Sophie (Joyce Van Patten), is just the kind of person you want on your side when the break-a-legs come calling. To put a cherry on his shit sundae, local legend/legendary drunk newspaper columnist Richard Shellburn (Richard Jenkins) is sniffing around both Leon’s workplace and his grieving mother…just the kind of trouble that Mickey needs when he’s just trying to get square with everyone. Ah, God’s Pocket…you cruel bastard, you…

There’s a lot going on in actor/first-time director John Slattery’s God’s Pocket (2014), maybe enough for a couple of films, although that seems a little odd considering the relatively short run-time. Nonetheless, Slattery, adapting Peter Dexter’s novel, crams in enough oddball characters, bleakly comic setpieces and shocking bursts of violence to ensure that we’re never bored, even if character motivations often seem as arbitrary as the whimsical hand of fate that so often flips poor Mickey the bird. God’s Pocket also bears the onus of being one of legendary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performances before his untimely death in February 2014. For this reason, alone, Slattery’s modest little noir-lite would deserve a watch: passing up any Hoffman performance is the dumbest of dumb moves. How does the actual film hold up, however, especially considering Slattery’s usually in front of the camera as Mad Men’s sleazy Roger Sterling, not behind it? Turns out, God’s Pocket isn’t perfect, by any means, but it’s just quirky enough to work, anchored by another massively impressive performance by Hoffman as a sad sack loser who just can’t quit losing, even as victory dangles so mercilessly close.

Slattery’s debut is a an actors showcase, above anything else, and there’s almost a laundry-list of great performers turning in some spirited performances. Turturro can (and does) do this kind of likable loser stuff in his sleep but there’s something particularly interesting about his Arthur, a thoroughly worthless mook who still manages to be the most loyal guy on the block, even as he repeatedly screws over Mickey. Marsan has rarely been as slimy as he is here: Smilin’ Jack has to be one of the nastiest, crassest individuals on Earth but it’s also impossible to tear your eyes off him. Caleb Landry Jones, so interesting in Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral (2012), really tears into the character of Leon: there’s nothing sympathetic or likable in his performance whatsoever…Leon is complete slime, from beginning to end, and Jones looks like he’s having a blast.

If I had any real issue with any of the performances, it would have to be with Hendricks and Jenkins. Although they both turn in some solid work here, I found them to be more than a little stagey, especially once Hendricks really lets loose in the film’s final third. I also admit that the subplot involving their relationship made no sense and served as a constant source of confusion for me: minus that inexplicable bit, I might have liked the individual performances a bit more but it always felt a bit off to me. I’ve enjoyed Hendricks in the few roles I’ve seen her in outside of Mad Men and wish that her Mad Men co-star had found a little more for her to do. To be honest, it would have been kind of cool to see Hendricks tear into the Sophie role, as it would have given her the opportunity to be more than dour and upset.

And then, of course, there’s Philip Seymour Hoffman. A tremendously varied actor, Hoffman was never relegated to just one type of performance or character: he could play everything from a nerd to a blue-collar Joe, from a saint to a sinner, and bring the same sense of lived-in verisimilitude to any and all of them. Here, he plays Mickey with a kind of roiling, seething frustration, a wide-eyed, lunkheaded refusal to accept that life is really this bad and that he really is that screwed. There are moments here, such as when Mickey finally kicks the shit out of Smilin’ Jack or the jaw-dropping meat truck crash, that easily rank with Hoffman’s best work. At his best, Hoffman was an effortless mimic and there’s nothing about his portrayal of Mickey Scarpato that feels inauthentic in the slightest. This is a perfect example of a gifted actor bringing his A-game to a smaller production, treating the proceedings like this was the only game in town.

It’s a shame that Slattery’s debut will probably be over-shadowed by Hoffman’s death, since it’s a really well-made film that deserves to be taken in on its own merits. From a production standpoint, Slattery hits all of the familiar notes but manages to imbue everything with an underlying sense of humor that really helps the grim proceedings. The script is tight and the film looks and sounds good: nothing here reinvents the wheel but it’s a pretty slick ride, nonetheless. Since this is one of Hoffman’s final performances, however, everything achieves a sort of shimmering mythology, almost as if the film is pulled from its modest perch to attain a slightly higher elevation than it might actually need. As a film, God’s Pocket is a modest, highly entertaining and exquisitely acted little character drama that throws a lot of elements at the wall, many of which stick. As a Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle, however, it’s yet one more example of he’ll be so sorely missed.

12/18/14: My Son, My Son…What Have Ye Done?

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absentee father, auteur theory, bad mustaches, based on a book, Brogan Hall, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Cold in July, conspiracies, crime thriller, Don Johnson, drama, father-son relationships, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Jim Mickle, Joe R. Lansdale, Lanny Flaherty, Michael C. Hall, Movies, Mulberry St., Nick Damici, revenge, Sam Shepard, self-defense, set in the 1980's, snuff films, Stake Land, video stores, Vinessa Shaw, We Are What We Are, writer-director-editor, Wyatt Russell

Expectations can be funny things. Before I sat down to watch writer-director Jim Mickle’s new film, Cold in July (2014), I was all but positive that it would be one of the year’s best films, hands down. After all, I’ve been a hardcore fan of Mickle and writing-partner Nick Damici ever since their exceptional debut, Mulberry St. (2006): over the course of three full-lengths, they’d yet to let me down once. In my mind, there was no way this could go wrong, even if it was the first explicitly non-horror related film for the pair. As luck would have it, however, I didn’t even really end up liking the film until roughly the midpoint and, despite a rousing finale, felt soundly disappointed by the time the end credits rolled. What, exactly, happened here? Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of it, shall we?

Cold in July, based on the novel of the same name by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, concerns itself with the aftermath of a home shooting. Specifically, nebbishy frame-store owner Richard Dane (Dexter’s Michael C. Hall) and his wife, Ann (Vinessa Shaw), are woken late one night by the sound of an intruder in their home. With his young son, Jordan (Brogan Hall) sleeping in another room, Rich springs into defense mode, even if his hands are shakier than a drunk at an open bar: he grabs his gun, heads downstairs and ends up face to face with a masked burglar. As the tense, silent stand-off stretches into minutes, the sudden shock of a clock going off blows Rich’s cool and causes him to blow a fist-sized hole in the intruder’s eye: exit one “bad guy,” enter one “reluctant hero.”

Since Rich killed the intruder in self-defense (despite the fact that the burglar was only armed with a flashlight), local sheriff Ray Price (co-writer Damici) tells him that he doesn’t have anything to worry about: just another low-life taken off the streets, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. According to the sheriff, the dead guy was a career criminal by the name of Freddy Russell: with his record, the sheriff figures Rich did the county a favor. When pressed about possible surviving relatives, the sheriff mentions that Freddy had a deadbeat father, Ben (Sam Shepard), who’s currently doing hard time in prison. Or he was, that is, until just recently: he’s been paroled. Cue the ominous music…cue Rich’s panicked eyes.

Faster than you can “trope,” Ben shows up in town with an intent that seems pretty crystal clear: he wants vengeance for the death of his only boy, even if he hadn’t seen him for at least a decade. Rich has a boy of his own, which Ben sees as a pretty fair trade for his own dead kid. When Rich goes to the sheriff, however, he’s met with the standard response: we can’t do anything until he actually does something. This, of course, isn’t quite what Rich wanted to hear: he knows that it’s only a matter of time before Ben makes his move and it’s scaring the living shit out of him.

Just when it seems as if the film is headed in a pretty obvious, revenge-based direction, ala Blue Ruin (2013), however, a huge twist throws everything on its ear and ends up resetting the various relationships. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the twist, although the film ends up treating it like a bigger mystery than it actually is (think more Hardy Boys than Chinatown (1974)). Needless to say, Rich and Ben find themselves on the same side, albeit reluctantly, as they face down what seems to be a very odd conspiracy. With the help of Ben’s old war buddy, private eye Jim Bob Luke (Don Johnson), they may just have a shot at getting to the bottom of it all…or they may just die trying.

Up until the twist that turns the film in a completely different direction, I was extremely lukewarm on Cold in July. While the film looks amazing (the blue color scheme really drives home the film’s noir elements), there’s just something distinctly off about the first half. I definitely lay part of the blame on Hall, who never seems to inhabit his character in any realistic way but comes across as particularly awkward during the first 40 minutes or so: maybe it’s the weird accent that he’s trying or that ridiculous mustache that he’s saddled with but it always seems like Hall’s trying to keep character while dealing with some sort of constant technical difficulty. I’ll admit to not being as familiar with his work as others (I’ve seen some episodes of Dexter but have never seen Six Feet Under) but I always like what I saw: here, however, he just seems uncomfortable.

The beginning of the film is also so straight-forward as to be rather dull: it hits every single beat of the standard “sinister person hanging around and waiting to cause trouble” scenario and does nothing new with it whatsoever. To make matters worse, Vinessa Shaw’s portrayal of Ann is so aggressive and angry that it really throws the film for a tonal loop: as the couple are supposed to be worrying about a possible case of retribution, Ann is fixated on getting a new sofa and yells at Rich for seeming to take too much interest in the other situation…you know, the one that involves someone trying to kill them? Suffice to say that it was pretty impossible for me to suspend disbelief for the first reel, at least, of the film.

Once that twist gets introduced, however, the film sort of morphs into a gritty, ’80s-styled action film and the pulpy thrills are pretty undeniable. Finally, at this point, we end up getting some of that trademark Mickle/Damici insanity, including a real showstopper of a scene that manages to combine The Evil Dead (1981) and Natural Born Killers (1994) into one pretty (red-tinted-package). The final 30 minutes or so of the film are pretty much one big gunfight and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thrilling as all get out. There’s also a really nice, genuinely emotional resolution to the main conflict that reminded me of classic Mickle films like Stake Land (2010): the film takes a long time to get there, mind you, but the payoff is nicely realized.

For my money, aside from the outstanding production values, there’s really only two reasons to see Cold in July: Sam Shepard and Don Johnson. Shepard is duly great as Ben, a genuinely scary individual who ends up being a lot more like Rich, by the end, than any of us could have thought possible. Shepard is so understated, yet epically powerful, that we buy him part and parcel as an unstoppable asskicker: the scene where he teaches the obnoxious local mailman (Lanny Flaherty) to be polite is a real fist-raiser, as is his transformation into a virtual Angel of Death by the finale. The real star of the show, however, is Don Johnson. Not only does he steal each and every scene he’s in but he’s one of my favorite characters in years: most of the good will the film built up with me was pretty much wholly down to Johnson’s performance. He’s funny, sweet, smart, ruthless and all-around awesome: Johnson hasn’t been this charismatic since the good old days and this should stand as proof that we need a lot more of him in the movies…let’s let the Don Johnson career resurgence start here!

Ultimately, it was hard for me to leave Cold in July without the nagging suspicion that this was all a sort of film exercise, similar to Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1998). In this case, it often felt to me as if Mickle and Damici were attempting to replicate uncompromising, hard-edged and mean ’80s action films like The Evil That Men Do (1984) and Kinjite (1989): everything from the cinematography to the Carpenter-esque synth score to the snuff porn storyline seemed to point backwards towards these kinds of films, especially once we get to the action-packed climax. This impression is also driven home by the fact that the film is set in 1989 and prominently features video stores and VHS tapes: with all of the ’80s hints, it was kind of impossible for my mind to not get stuck in that particular decade. This could, of course, only be my reading of the film but it was an impression that never left me for nearly two hours, so I have a feeling my intuition might be on to something.

For the record, lest my words seem a bit too critical, Cold in July is not a bad film: to be honest, I’m not really sure that Mickle and Damici can make a bad film. It’s extremely well-made, features great performances from Johnson and Shepard and has some truly stellar action set-pieces. It’s also, without a doubt, a much lesser film than either Stake Land or its follow-up, Mickle and Damici’s remake of We Are What We Are (2013). As someone who pretty much worships the ground the duo walk on, I couldn’t help but be let down by a film that’s better than a lot of current movies but so much emptier than what they’ve done in the past. Needless to say, however, I’ll keep watching whatever they put out as long as they keep putting it out: despite the disappointment of Cold in July, Jim Mickle and Nick Damici are one of the most formidable teams in the business. My intuition tells me the next one is gonna be legendary.

10/12/14 (Part Three): The Most Deceiving of Looks

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31 Days of Halloween, Australian films, auteur theory, Christopher Kirby, cinema, Dead Calm, Domenic Purcell, drama, Everett De Roche, father-daughter relationships, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, foreign films, hallucinations, insanity, isolation, Link, mental illness, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, ocean voyage, Ozploitation, Patrick, pirates, Radha Mitchell, Ray Barrett, Richard Franklin, Road Games, sailboats, sailing around the world, Susannah York, suspense, The Shining, Tottie Goldsmith, Visitors, voice-over narration

When it came time to put together my potential horror viewing for this year, Visitors (2003) definitely felt like it deserved a spot on the list. After all, it was directed by Richard Franklin, one of the godfathers of ’70s-’80s Ozploitation cinema, starred genre vet Radha Mitchell and had a tag that read “Fear runs deep.” The film’s logline mentions strange encounters during an ocean voyage. Hell, the cover art features more sinister screaming skulls than a teenage metalhead’s Trapper Keeper. All of the signs pointed to a nifty little ghost story, perhaps even a twisted time travel scenario like Triangle (2009) or maybe something grounded a little more in reality, ala Dead Calm (1989). The sky, as they say, was the limit.

Visitors, alas, is a decidedly more low-flying affair. While the film flirts with elements of the supernatural and sinister (there are, indeed, mysterious figures that appear during an ocean voyage), it tips its hand way too early and establishes a thoroughly mundane explanation for the occurrences: our faithful protagonist, Georgia Perry (Radha Mitchell), is off her rocker. With that knowledge firmly in pocket, it becomes impossible for the film to muster any sort of tension whatsoever. Imagine a Wizard of Oz (1939) that begins with Dorothy discussing how she’s about to have a very detailed dream and concludes with her waking, looking at the camera and declaring, “Wasn’t that a crazy dream that we just watched?” It’s one thing to be handed an “It’s only a dream” ending after the fact: it’s a cheap tactic but at least you get to enjoy the action, as is, until you realize you’ve been had. It’s another thing entirely to know, up front, that what we’re seeing is fictitious: talk about low-stakes storytelling.

There’s plenty of potential with Visitors, although much of it ends up being unduly squandered. Mitchell plays Perry, a driven young woman who’s hell-bent on setting a record for sailing around the world, solo, in 140 days. She’s a troubled young woman with a concerned husband, Luke (Domenic Purcell), a wealthy benefactor (Tottie Goldsmith) and a complicated relationship with her parents (Susannah York, Ray Barrett) that hints at some past trauma. Georgia is also one hell of a sailor, as we witness thanks to a montage that shows her easily handling the various travails of life on the open sea. With only her cat for company, Georgia seems eminently capable of taking her place in the record books.

Georgia has a habit of talking to her cat, which isn’t surprising: the eye-raising moment comes when the cat actually answers back, speaking in an urbane but distinctly human voice. Since this particular revelation occurs right at the beginning of the film, we’re handed a fairly important bit of information right off the bat: Georgia has actual conversations with her cat. Since nothing in the film has led us to expect any sort of magical realism whatsoever, we can really only draw one conclusion: Georgia is losing/has lost her ever-loving mind.

Once we know that Georgia isn’t playing with a full deck, it completely removes the tension from any of her future interactions. There’s a creepy guy wandering around the boat: could it be real or Georgia’s imagination? Take a guess. Strange, unexplained sights, such a neat scene involving a horde of supremely creepy sea spiders? Please see above. Georgia getting involved in potentially life-threatening scenarios? Are we sure? Advise from a talking cat? Yeah…why not?

Once it’s established that Georgia is cracking up, it’s a pretty clear line to see that all of her “visitations” will somehow revolve around whatever her central issue is. In other words, these “hauntings” are distinctly of the Christmas Carol variety and will serve to help make Georgia a better person and bring her closer to her dysfunctional family, yadda yadda yadda.

Personally, I’m not a fan of this kind of “twist”ending but I’ve encountered it often enough to just shrug and accept it as one of those “clever” ideas that writers always feel they came to first. In the past, however, at least there’s been some sort of attempt to make this a genuine surprise. Once Georgia’s cat lets loose with that mellifluous human voice, all bets are off: unless you’re willing to assume that this is a film about a woman and her talking cat sailing around the world, we can pretty much assume that trusting our eyes and ears will be a bit of a fool’s errand.

It’s a shame, really, because this could have been a much better film if Franklin would have just kept us dangling a little longer than 10 minutes. There’s plenty of nice atmosphere here, including lots of truly creepy fog-shrouded shots of the sailboat at night. The sea-spider scene is pretty damn great, to be honest, and stands as the highlight of the film, despite its relative brevity. Mitchell is typically sturdy as Georgia, although she takes a note from the Jack Nicholson Guide to Actin’ Crazy and starts the performance dialed almost to 11, leaving her precious little room to move around, emotion-wise. By the time the film hits its climax, Mitchell is pitched at a fever-pace, which ends up seeming decidedly silly since we know everything is just in her head.

As a genre film, Visitors tanks because there’s no actual tension but it doesn’t fare much better as the kitchen-sink, mother-daughter relationship drama that it seems to want to be, either. The central conflict between Georgia and her mother feels arbitrary, since it occurred when Georgia was so young, and ends up setting the mother up as an almost inhuman shrew. Her father comes across as one of those slightly lumpy “white knight dad” characters and there’s nothing about the family dynamic that feels particularly important or even interesting. By the time we get to the climax where Georgia’s mom chases her around the ship’s cabin and tries to get her to commit suicide, there’s been so little actual connection between the characters that they might as well be strangers instead of flesh and blood.

I’m inclined to say that this doesn’t feel much like any of Richard Franklin’s previous films (Patrick (1978), Road Games (1981), Psycho II (1983), Link (1986)) but there are actually plenty of moments that directly recall his earlier (and better) work: the aforementioned sea-spider scene, the foreboding bit where the cat calmly pokes holes in Georgia’s delusions, the creepy scene involving the mysterious figure walking about the boat…it’s not like the film can’t build a decent head of steam, it’s just impossible to maintain any consistent sense of tension when you know nothing’s real.

Ultimately, I like Franklin’s filmography enough to give Visitors a shot, even though it was clear from a pretty early stage that the film didn’t really fit my traditional October viewing bill. That being said, the film just isn’t very good, even when viewed as a generic “family in crisis” drama: it’s too often silly and self-deflating (the final line is the sassily-delivered “What’s the matter: cat got your tongue?”, which seals the film’s coffin with a resounding thud). The movie has potential, as mentioned earlier, and I still think there’s a really great story to be made about someone encountering spooky happenings during a solo ocean voyage (how amazing would a horror mash-up of All Is Lost (2013) and Humanoids From the Deep (1980) be?!). Visitors isn’t that film, however, which is kind of a pity.

10/10/14 (Part One): What a Drag It Is Not Getting Older

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31 Days of Halloween, Adam and Eve, Anton Yelchin, art films, auteur theory, Bill Laswell, Christopher Marlowe, cinema, Dead Man, Detroit, drama, ennui, eternal life, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Ghost Dog, hipsters, horror movies, husband-wife team, independent film, Jeffrey Wright, Jim Jarmusch, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Only Lovers Left Alive, romance, romantic films, Tangiers, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Vampire Code of Conduct, vampires, vampires vs humans, writer-director, youth vs old age

In certain ways, the classical notion of vampires is equitable with the current phenomena known as “hipsters”: vampires are intelligent, urbane individuals who look down on the dregs of “normal” society, take pleasure in obscure, archaic entertainments, consider themselves to be more sophisticated than those around them and lament the tawdriness of the modern age in contrast to purer, more interesting “times gone by.” Minus the blood-sucking bit and aversion to sunlight (well, perhaps not completely forgetting the aversion to sunlight bit…), that description sounds an awful lot like the current conception of hipsters. At the very least, both groups appear to share a common attribute: a completely world-weary and jaded viewpoint that makes snark and sarcasm more natural go-to responses than honest simplicity. For bored, ageless vampires, the business of “living” appears to be as much of a burden as “regular folks” are to the modern hipster. The whole thing is just so…gauche.

Auteur Jim Jarmusch’s newest film, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), takes the above parallel between vampires and hipsters to its logical extreme, positing Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as the bored, ageless vampires Adam and Eve, doomed to cast a disparaging eye on the wreck that is humanity for more centuries than they care to recall. Or, at least, that’s definitely Adam’s take on the whole mess of existence. In fact, he’s so agitated with the inanity of the “zombies” (the vamps favorite descriptor for humanity) that he’s commissioned a wooden bullet and plans to commit the ultimate act of bored defiance: if this world won’t cease its tedium, he’ll just have to cease his existing.

Eve, on the other hand, views things just a little differently. In fact, it’s probably easiest to view Eve as a Gothic variation on the whole “manic pixie girl” ideal: unlike Adam, she hasn’t lost her sense of joy at being alive. As she sees it, living for hundreds of years can get tedious and humdrum, of course, but it also allows for more experiences and wonder than any “regular” person could ever have. After all, she’s best friends with the one and only Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt)…how many “regular” people can say that?

This contrast between Adam and Eve forms the foundation of Jarmusch’s film, his rather belated follow-up to The Limits of Control (2009). As befits someone who tackles genre films in the most unconventional ways possible (Dead Man (1995) is a trippy art-film masquerading as a Western, while Ghost Dog (1999) is a treatise on Eastern philosophy filtered through a gonzo Mafia framework), Only Lovers Left Alive is a highly unconventional film. For one thing, there isn’t a whole lot of narrative thrust to be found here: much of the film’s running time is taken up with the relationship between Adam and Eve and what happens when she leaves her home in Tangiers to come see him in Detroit (despite being married for, apparently, hundreds of years, the couple live across the world from each other, which has to one of the handiest metaphors for long-distance relationships in some time). Plot points do raise their heads from time to time, of course: the couple is visited by Eve’s young, out-of-control sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), and must figure out how to replenish their exhausted blood supply. On the whole, however, Jarmusch is largely uninterested in the vagaries of a traditional plot: this is all about atmosphere and vibe, two fronts which Only Lovers Left Alive really takes to the bank.

More than anything, Jarmusch’s newest film is an art film: the emphasis is most definitely on mood, with evocative shots, exquisite slo-mo and deliberate framing taking precedence over any traditional narrative devices. To that end, events sometimes come and go with a sense of arbitrary randomness: Adam’s best friend, the human Ian (Anton Yelchin), is dispatched early on but it so much as cause a ripple in the narrative. Ava seems poised to serve as some sort of villainous character (she’s so selfish, obnoxious and derisive towards humans that she feels cut from a much more traditional “vamps vs humans” film) until she’s pretty much written out of the story without so much as a second thought. Adam appears to be a rock star, of some sort, and much is made in the film about him constantly hearing his music in surprising places (a restaurant, for example) but this ends up having no bearing on the story whatsoever. Like much in the story, these various plot ends aren’t meant to be tied up neatly: they’re used for seasoning, like salt on a steak.

Lacking any sort of driving narrative, the responsibility for the success (or failure) of the film rests solely on its considerable craft: as with anything else in his catalogue, Jarmusch is more than capable of not only making this work but making it work spectacularly well. For one thing, Only Lovers Left Alive looks fantastic: the well-lit daytime scenes may seem a little blown-out but the night-time scenes are exquisite and highly evocative. The score, all hyperbole aside, is a true thing of beauty: not only does it manage to elevate the film, as a whole, but Jarmusch’s musical choices are just a ton of fun, all on their own. The scene where Adam plays his music is pitch-perfect (apparently, vampire music sounds like droning, Eastern-tinged shoegaze, which makes complete sense), as is the truly nice moment where Adam and Eve dance to a Motown tune. The Bill Laswell instrumental that closes the credits totally rips and this was the first art film I’ve seen in sometime that practically demands I check out the soundtrack.

As with all of his films, Jarmusch assembles a first-class ensemble and puts them through some pretty excellent paces. Hiddleston and Swinton are absolutely magnificent as the ageless lovers: not only is their relationship genuinely romantic but the pair make a truly unearthly couple…they not only look but act and sound like age-old creatures living in an era not of their construction. Wasikowska turns in another great performance as the childish, casually evil Ava and is quickly proving to be one of this generation’s most capable genre actors. It’s always good to see John Hurt in a film and he tears into the character of Christopher Marlowe with gusto, although I wish he got a little more screen-time. Likewise, Yelchin and Wright turn in great supporting performances as Ian and Dr. Watson, respectively: Hiddleston’s scenes with Wright are definitely a highlight of the film.

As a huge fan of Jarmusch’s work (Dead Man is one of my all-time favorite films), I went into this expecting nothing short of greatness and, for the most part, my expectations were met. Only Lover’s Left Alive is definitely an extraordinary film, from the peerless performances to the gorgeous cinematography and back to the picaresque locations (the dilapidated, ramshackle setting of the once-might Detroit makes a pretty awesome, if obvious, metaphor for a vampire film, since the city seems as undead as the vampires). That being said, I still found myself slightly letdown by the film: there’s nothing inherently wrong with the picture – truth be told, there’s a lot about it that’s very, very right – but it still manages to feel somehow slight, at least when stacked up against his previous work. Whether this due to my perception or Jarmusch’s intention, there definitely seems to be a disconnect (at least for me), a disconnect that I rarely noticed in his earlier films.

Ultimately, however, my slight dissatisfaction ends up being a pretty moot point: Only Lovers Left Alive is a pretty great film and certainly one of the more interesting vampire films to emerge in some time. The main idea, that ageless individuals with access to all of the music, art, history and time in the world, can still manage to be bored and listless is an extremely relevant one in this day and age of the Internet: after all, humanity now has access to just about everything that Jarmusch’s vampires do and we’re not content, either. It’s an interesting notion, is this idea that having it all really means we get nothing. It’s certainly not the kind of idea that’s par for the course in most vampire films. When you’re dealing with Jarmusch, however, “usual” and “par for the course” are pretty meaningless terms: he’s been doing it his own way for over 30 years, now, and I’m imagining he won’t be stopping anytime soon.

9/22/14: Plowed Under

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alcoholism, black comedies, Canadian films, cinema, drama, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gallows' humor, independent film, indie dramas, Isabelle Nelisse, Marc Labreche, Movies, odd couple, snow plow, stranded, Thomas Haden Church, Vincent Hoss-Desmarais, voice-over narration, Whitewash, writer-director

If there’s a big takeaway from writer/director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’ exceptional debut feature, Whitewash (2013), it’s a pretty cynical one: people suck. Oh, sure: individuals may do good, selfless things but the rest of humanity will, invariably, find some way to screw it up. To wrap it up with a nice, clichéd bow: no good deed goes unpunished. The journey to this revelation is a twisted one, however, and there’s a genuine mystery at the heart of this blackly comic little wonder, albeit a small one: why, exactly, did Bruce (Thomas Haden Church) run over Paul (Marc Labreche) with a snowplow?

The event in question happens at the very onset of the film and the answer will be gradually revealed over the next 80-some minutes via a series of flashbacks. What we get at the beginning, however, has all of the linear insanity of a nightmare: we see Bruce run Paul over (via a gorgeous long shot) and then join him as he rides his snowplow off into the darkest recesses of the nearby forest, where the vehicle inevitably stalls out. From this point on, the film splits its difference between being an outdoor survival flick, ala Wrecked (2010), and being a prickly dark comedy about the subtle ways in which humans drive each other crazy.

There’s more to the film than meets the eye, however: much more. For one thing, unlike most survival dramas, Bruce doesn’t appear to be trapped. There’s no giant boulder pinning his arm, no crushed car to keep him in place. Rather, what’s trapping Bruce out in the cold hell of a brutal Quebecan winter is his own internal turmoil. As we begin to piece more of the story together, via the numerous flashbacks, we also start to put together a better picture of Bruce: a hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth type, Bruce is an easy-going fella who’s fond of eating his dessert before his entrée and thinks nothing of helping complete strangers, regardless of the inconvenience to himself. He’s a sad man, in many ways: his wife has died and the house is filled with belongings and memorabilia that makes her an omnipresent figure. There are a lot of facets to Bruce but one questions hangs heavy over everything: why would a guy like this run over someone else with a snow plow?

We do eventually get the answer but, as often happens in these situations, the journey is more important than the destination. As we learn more about Bruce and his “victim,” the mysterious and unbelievably obnoxious Paul, we begin to understand, piece by piece, what might drive a seemingly ordinary guy to snap. By the time we get to the brilliantly concise finale, we have many but not all of our answers. To paraphrase the Big, Bad Wolf: all the better to use our own minds, then.

For a modest, unassuming film, I was most impressed with Hoss-Desmarais’ debut. For one thing, the cinematography (courtesy of Andre Turpin) is absolutely astounding: with no hyperbole, the film looked like a million bucks and featured some stunningly beautiful shots. There’s one shot, where Bruce’s snowplow recedes into the background, taking all of the light with it and rendering the screen pitch-black, that’s practically a masterclass on evoking mood (besides being gorgeously framed). The film’s colors are bright and vibrant, with deep blacks, crisp whites and a truly ingenious use of shadows and negative space.

The other high point in the film, of course, is Thomas Haden Church’s commanding performance as Bruce. For the most part, the film is a one-man show and Church is more than up for the task. Even his voice, deep and reverberating, brings new layers and context to a voice-over convention that is too often misused: the voice-overs in Whitewash don’t repeat unnecessary visual information…they deliver the main character’s inner thoughts and observations in a way that enriches the overall story. If for nothing else, I must praise Hoss-Desmarais’ writing skills and entreat other screenwriters/directors to follow his lead: make the voiceover mean something or get it the hell out-of-the-way.

Awesome voice aside, Church is stone-cold perfect in the role: his dryly humorous quips and facial expressions deliver miles of character in shorthand and the actor is so charismatic that spending an entire film stuck with Bruce is something significantly less than torturous. Truth be told, I had kind of forgot about Church before this film, despite being a big fan of the TV show Wings back in the day. I’m not sure if Whitewash counts as a comeback (did he ever go anywhere or was I just not paying attention) but Church deserves more (and bigger) films in the future. Here’s to hoping this helps kick the door in.

Also impressive, for different reasons, is Marc Labreche as the odious Paul. Paul is kind of a difficult character to parse, since we start to learn about his true character over time. Nonetheless, Labreche is pretty great at hitting all of the necessary beats: his long-winded story about Mexico starts to pull back the curtain hiding the wizard (in a truly organic way), while his ridiculous bar-room dance must be seen to be believed. Most importantly, Church and Labreche make a great odd couple: the film wouldn’t be nearly as effective if their relationship didn’t seem so real.

Lest my praise seem too effusive, Whitewash is definitely not a perfect film. Despite the great script, there are a few odd plot-holes that never get resolved and the back half of the film ends up being more confusing than seems necessary. In the long run, however, none of the film’s problems ever approach the level of “deal-breaker.” The acting is extraordinary (no lie, Church deserved some kind of award for this), the script is tight and the cinematography is flat-out beautiful. Hoss-Desmarais makes particularly good use of the Canadian countryside, which almost becomes a third character in the film. The cherry on the sundae? A pitch-perfect, sardonic, dry-as-dust final shot that feels like the filmmakers decided to take a victory lap.

Nowadays, it seems that cheaply made, disposable independent films are a dime-a-dozen (hell, maybe that’s what Netflix is payin’ em these days). The good ones? Far less frequent. The great ones? Even rarer still. Whitewash, in case anyone is keeping score, is one of the great ones. Here’s to hoping this is the beginning of a long and fruitful writing/directing career for Hoss-Desmarais, who first cut his teeth as an actor in films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004). While moving behind the camera isn’t always the best move for an actor, Hoss-Desmarais proves that the best things don’t always fall neatly within the lines.