4/2/15: Uncle Scam

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9/11/01, Alexis Rodney, Anna Paquin, anti-authority, army base, bad soldiers, based on a book, betrayal, Brian Delate, British films, Buffalo Soldiers, Catch-22, cinema, Cold War, conscription, dark comedies, David Holmes, Dean Stockwell, drug dealers, Ed Harris, Elizabeth McGovern, film reviews, films, Gabriel Mann, gallows' humor, Glenn Fitzgerald, Gregor Jordan, Idris Elba, Joaquin Phoenix, Leon Robinson, M.A.S.H., Michael Pena, Movies, multiple writers, Ned Kelly, Oliver Stapleton, rivalry, Robert O'Connor, Scott Glenn, September 11 2001, set in 1980s, set in West Germany, Sheik Mahmud-Bey, The Longest Yard, war profiteers, writer-director

Sometimes, movies (like people) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take Australian writer-director Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers (2001), for example. This smart, pointed and pitch-black comedy about U.S. soldiers behaving badly in Cold War-era West Germany opened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, 2001. Two days later, of course, the United States would be faced with September 11th, an event which would make anything even vaguely “anti-American” absolutely verboten for some time afterward. A film about greedy, avaricious, drug-dealing GIs running rough-shod (literally) over a foreign country? Buffalo Soldiers had about as much chance of receiving U.S. distribution as it did sprouting wings and flying to Saturn.

Which, as it turns out, is a real shame: not only is Buffalo Soldiers the furthest thing from an anti-American screed but it’s also one of the funniest, most cutting war satires since the glory days of M.A.S.H. (1970) and Catch-22 (1970). The soldiers depicted here might be reprehensible, violent and debauched con-men but they’re also fascinating characters, brought to vivid life by an outstanding cast. The script is smart, the film is full of surprising left twists and there’s a gleeful sense of abandon to the proceedings that make it easy to get lost in the bad behavior. Had the film come out a month (or even a few weeks) earlier, it would probably be heralded as a minor classic, along the lines of Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog (1997). As it stands, however, Buffalo Soldiers is a largely unknown gem, waiting for modern audiences to give it the fair shot it never got the first time around.

The film takes place in the waning hours of the Cold War, in 1989, at Theodore Roosevelt Army Base in Stuttgart, West Germany. Our “hero” (such as he is), Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix), is a conscripted ne’er-do-well who chose a stint in the armed forces over a stiff prison sentence and has regretted it ever since. Ray may be many things (a black marketeer, a philanderer, a hopeless screw-up and a perpetual con-man) but he’s definitely not a soldier, regardless of what his uniform, rifle and salute might indicate. Lucky for him, Teddy R Army Base is a veritable Garden of Eden for screw-ups and wasteoids, with a cast of quirky characters who would all fit right in with the idiots of Police Academy (1984): Ray may not be “the best that he can be” but at least he’s got plenty of good (bad?) company.

Commanding officer Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) is a soft-headed simpleton who’s as clueless about Elwood’s criminal activities as he is about his wife, Liz’s ( Elizabeth McGovern), on-going affair with the procurement specialist. Sergeant Saad (Sheik Mahmud-Bey), the brutal leader of the base’s MPs, deals heroin on the side and eagerly patrols the grounds with his men, enthusiastically beating any white soldiers who are unlucky enough to cross the base’s invisible color-line. Meanwhile, Ellwood’s fellow soldiers, Hicks (Glenn Fitzgerald), Garcia (Michael Pena) and Stoney (Leon Robinson), are all permafried and given to reprehensible behavior like getting completely fucked up and driving their tank through the middle of a quaint German town: it’s all fun and games until they accidentally barbecue two of their own, bringing a terrible sense of literalness to the term “friendly fire.”

As with all good criminals, Elwood is really just looking for that one, big haul that will let him retire into the lap of luxury and ease. Thanks to Hicks, Garcia and Stoney’s misadventures in the tank, opportunity drops into Elwood’s greedy hands when he steals the dead soldiers’ supply trucks, which just happen to be laden with millions of dollars worth of weaponry. Elwood turns around and sells the weapons to a dubious outside source and receives a king’s ransom in uncut smack for his troubles. Working around the clock, Elwood and his crew need to turn the pure heroin into pure profit, engaging in the kind of massive drug cook that would make Walt and Jesse misty.

Things get complicated, however, when the base receives its new “top,” Sergeant Robert E. Lee (Scott Glenn). Lee is a complete hard-ass who has no time for foolishness and instantly marks Elwood as a problem to be eradicated, similar to a roach infestation. As the two men feint around each other, probing for weakness, each thinks he’s found the other’s Achilles heel: Elwood is determined to “stick it” to Sergeant Lee by (literally) sticking it to his rebellious daughter, Robyn (Anna Paquin), while Lee is determined to make Elwood’s life a living hell via a million tiny indignities, along with the occasional ass-whipping. As the mortal enemies gradually ramp up their campaigns, Lee becomes increasingly violent while Elwood, ironically, finds himself falling for Robyn, despite his most cavalier intentions.

As the conflict gets more intense, everything is brought to a head when Colonel Berman challenges a rival colonel to an exceedingly unfriendly round of “friendly” war games. With Saad, Lee and his various illicit contacts bearing down, Elwood must figure out how to keep his ill-gotten gains, his girl and his head, all while running the scam of his life. Welcome to Theodore Roosevelt Army Base, where the Commies are the least of your worries.

Based on Robert O’Connor’s well-received 1993 debut novel of the same name, Buffalo Soldiers is a quality production from top to bottom. Almost ridiculously stylish and vibrant (the early shot of the soldiers marching across the flag-painted asphalt is a real eye-popper), there’s more than a hint of magical-realism to the proceedings, which helps to play up the many inherently fantastic elements, such as the riotous tank scene. Although the screenplay is credited to three writers (director Jordan, along with Eric Weiss and Nora Maccoby), the film never feels overly cluttered or disjointed: there’s a remarkable sense of cohesion, here, that belies Buffalo Soldiers’ split-authorship and speaks volumes towards the production’s structural integrity.

When you have a cast this good, there’s always a danger of “unnecessary cameo disorder (patent pending)” but this has more the feel of a gifted ensemble than anything more calculating. Phoenix is dependably good as the roguish Ellwood, although it’s nothing we haven’t seen from him in the past. Much better (and more surprising) are Harris and Glenn as, respectively, the Colonel and the Sergeant. Usually known as the craggiest thing in whatever production he happens to be in, Harris does a complete 360, here, and gives us the closest thing to a complete bumpkin that I think he’s ever done. Berman is a complete idiot, no two ways about it, but Harris brings just enough low-level cunning and pathos to the character to prevent him from being a completely silly, stock stereotype.

Glenn, for his part, is a complete force of nature as the cheerfully dastardly Sergeant Lee: one minute, he’s all stiff, starched and by-the-book. The next, he’s gleefully extolling the bad behavior that he, himself, got up to in Vietnam, insinuating that it would make Ellwood’s “adventures” seem like schoolboy pranks. It’s a great role and a great performance: there’s never a point where Glenn ever feels any less than 1000% invested in the role and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.

The supporting cast aren’t slouches, either: Mahmud-Bey is convincingly terrifying as the casually sadistic MP, while Pena, Robinson and Fitzgerald get great mileage out of their bumbling soldiers. While the female characters don’t get quite as much to do, they’re never just background detail, either. McGovern makes the most of her screen-time by positing Liz as an avaricious, status-climber who possesses the brains (and balls) that her simpering husband doesn’t, while Paquin serves as a good foil for Phoenix: no one will mistake their courtship as “star-crossed love” but it works within the context of the story and continually pushes the plot into thorny new territories. Throw in some smaller (but no less impressive) appearances by Dean Stockwell, Idris Elba and Gabriel Mann and you’ve got a film with more than ample star-power in the tank.

Despite being unaware of the film on its first go-around, I was completely taken with it on this viewing: there’s enough energy and invention here for five films, to be honest. When Buffalo Soldiers is locked-in and firing on all cylinders, it’s practically unbeatable: the combination of coal-black humor, social commentary and detailed characterization make the film the furthest thing from “disposable” that you can get. As funny as it is, however (and it’s often incredibly funny), Buffalo Soldiers also never shies away from violence, death and grit, which really puts it into the same vaunted company as Altman’s M.A.S.H: they’re both films about the immense absurdity of the human condition and violent death is as much a part of that as breathing is.

When the film is at its horrifying best (the uproarious tank rampage that gets ugly quick…the bracing scene where a pair of higher-than-kite soldiers repeatedly stab each other, while grinning from ear to ear), it’s impossible to look away. While Jordan would go on to more successful projects like the Heath Ledger-starring Ned Kelly (2003) and Unthinkable (2010), I don’t think he’s ever quite scaled the same heights that he does here. Nearly 15 years after its initial (limited) release, I think it’s way past time for Buffalo Soldiers to get some of the attention it so richly deserves.

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11/30/14: The Last Train Out of Town

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12 Monkeys, action films, Alison Pill, auteur theory, betrayal, Blade Runner, Bong Joon-Ho, Chris Evans, cinema, class systems, class warfare, climate change, dystopian future, Ed Harris, end of the world, English-language debut, Ewen Bremner, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Hunger Games, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Ko Ah-sung, Luke Pasqualino, Movies, near future, Octavia Spencer, rich vs poor, sci-fi, Snowpiercer, Song Kang-ho, Steve Park, The Host, Tilda Swinton, trains

Nowadays, with the space between the haves and have-nots not so much a gap as a massive, bottomless chasm filled with baying hellhounds, the notion of class warfare has never been more prescient. Increasingly, it seems that the world can be neatly divided into two groups: those who can afford the basic necessities of life (food, clean water, housing, security, justice) and those who must struggle to divide up whatever dregs remain. We can argue notions of economics, supply-and-demand, consumerism, et al until the cows come home but it does nothing to change the basic facts: as it stands, our modern world is but several very slippery steps away from the feudal system that proved so “effective” during the Middle Ages. While issues of race, gender, religion and nationality will always plague humanity, anyone who doesn’t see the underlying class issues behind them is either willfully ignorant…or a part of the problem.

For his English-language debut, Snowpiercer (2014) Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho takes a good, long look at this underlying class warfare, wrapping it tight within the guise of an environmental message film before bundling everything up within a stream-lined sci-fi/action outer-shell: if you will, Joon-ho’s film is the turducken of big-budget multiplex fare, a multi-layered feast that reveals new flavors and wrinkles with each turn of the script. If the ultimate result ends up feeling somehow less revelatory than expected, it does nothing to detract from the overall quality of the film: anyone worried that making the transition to English-language films would blunt Joon-ho’s edge should check their fears at the door, since Snowpiercer is nothing if not a highly accomplished spectacle, relentlessly paced and endlessly thrilling.

From the outset, we learn that efforts to reverse global warming, involving a material known as “CW-7” have proven a little too successful: the Earth has now frozen and the vast majority of life has been wiped out. The only survivors now live on a massive “super-train” that zooms in a perpetual, never-ending loop around the frozen desolation, unable to ever step foot outside lest they instantly freeze. Aboard the train, similar to the breakdown on the Titanic, the survivors have been separated into two groups: the wealthy, powerful members of society get the front of the train and all of the perks (real food, drink, tanning beds, raves, shopping, sushi), while the poor, downtrodden masses get the tail section and live in complete squalor, subsisting on some sort of strange, black “food” substance and whatever scraps the upper berths don’t want. To make matters worse, the poor are constantly beaten and abused by the thuggish security detail and have their children constantly taken from them, spirited away to the front of the train, never to be seen again. The system is stretched to breaking and something must change…and change, it does.

Revolution enters the picture in the form of Curtis (Chris Evans), the charismatic “folk leader” of the lower classes who, along with their de facto leader, Gilliam (John Hurt), has devised a plan to wrest control of the train from the haves and return it to the have-nots. Quite simply, “whoever controls the engine, controls the world,” and Curtis knows that their only hope for change is to fight their way all the way to the front of the train. At first, the task seems all but impossible: the security detail is huge, well-armed and cold-blooded; the ruling regime, represented by the bizarrely presentational Mason (Tilda Swinton), don’t see the lower classes as anything other than fodder and free labor, so have absolutely no problem with dispatching as many of them as necessary to make their point. During the moment of truth, however, as Curtis’ rebels square off against the security team, something miraculous happens: the guards are revealed to be out of ammo, after all. Fortune, it appears, has just smiled on the brave.

Seizing the moment, Curtis and his fighters gain the upper-hand and begin their perilous trek to the front of the train, working their way towards a climatic meeting with Wilford (Ed Harris), the mysterious industrialist and engineer who not only foresaw the current environmental crisis but created the Ark as humanity’s last recourse. Along the way, the group picks up Nam (Song Kang-ho) and his daughter, Yona (Ko Ah-sung), a pair of drug addicts who may just know how to get Curtis into the engine room. As the group will find out, however, nothing on the train is quite as it seems and Curtis will soon be neck-deep in betrayal, shocking revelations and life-changing decisions. At stake? Nothing less than the fate of all humanity.

For the most part, Snowpiercer works spectacularly well on several different levels. For one thing, the film is a superb action film, showcasing several impressive set-pieces (the tunnel massacre is pretty unforgettable) and throttling forward at a breakneck pace. We’re jumped into the action from the get-go and the film never really lets up: in some ways, it almost feels as if we’re dumped into Snowpiercer in media res, although the film is streamlined enough that abject flailing about is fairly minimal. Everything is filmed in a highly stylized, kinetic fashion that will be immediately familiar to fans of Joon-ho’s back catalog (especially his iconic monster flick, The Host (2006) and the various fight scenes, full of highly evocative slo-mo and balletic movements, are consistently impressive.

Snowpiercer also succeeds as a dystopic future flick, albeit one that doesn’t add much to the lexicon: even the revelation of the icky looking protein bars (Spoiler: it’s not people) feels like part of a fairly well-established formula. That being said, the film’s look and world-building is fully immersive: this is recognizably our world but it’s tweaked enough to give a proper sense of disorientation. It reminded me of Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995), although Joon-ho’s particular vision isn’t quite as singular or unique. There are moments when the film approaches the iconic city scenes of Blade Runner (1982), especially during our introduction to the tail section of the train and the moment where our heroes first pass into the posh upper class section.

The third area where Snowpiercer excels is as a message film: while the script can, occasionally, be a little too on the nose, there are plenty of layers here and some truly interesting discussions of responsibility, personal sacrifice and the value of the individual against the many. Wilford may be the film’s de facto villain (although Swinton’s ludicrously over-the-top Mason fits that bill in a more classic manner) but his climatic meeting with Curtis raises more questions than it answers: a latter-half revelation puts his actions into a new light, making easy condemnations just a little bit harder. Wilford may be a real son of a bitch but he’s anything but arbitrary: the fact that he, technically, has a point doesn’t absolve him or his peers of responsibility for their terrible actions but it should definitely lead to some interesting post-film conversations/arguments. In many ways, Wilford represents the unwavering, coldly clinical eye of government: decisions and actions that seem unconscionable on the ground sometimes take on a different meaning from the war room.

Despite all of the pluses, however, I must freely admit that I didn’t find Snowpiercer to be the complete revelation that others have: if anything, the film is an exceptionally well-made, tightly plotted action with lots of themes and meaning but, ultimately, not much different from similarly intelligent multiplex fare. Often, I was reminded of the Hunger Games series: while Snowpiercer is a much more mature, artistic film, craft-wise, it’s really not that far removed, thematically. Unlike the uncomfortable class discussions of something like Society (1989), nothing in Snowpiercer really feels “game-changing,” as it were: we’ve seen this particular conflict many, many times over the years and, while it may be timely, it’s certainly not shocking. This is not to knock the film’s themes in any way, however: I would rather see an overly familiar discussion of class and environmentalism on the big screen than no discussion at all, thank you very much. That being said, I frequently found myself wishing that the film took a few more risks: even the double-crosses felt a bit familiar and the ending, while beautifully executed, didn’t seem to pack the punch that it could have.

Ultimately, however, my quibbles about Snowpiercer feel fairly petty: above and beyond all else, this is the kind of intelligent popcorn film that we definitely need more of in this era of the “turn your brain off and react” action film. The acting is excellent, with Captain America’s (2011) Chris Evans almost unrecognizable as the grizzled hero and Song Kang-ho serving as a more than suitable foil. If Hurt and Swinton end up turning in yet more variations on their past work (“gruff mentor” and “quirky oddball” could very well be chiseled on their gravestones, at some point in the far future), it doesn’t take away from the basic pleasure of watching either one work. Ditto for Ed Harris who’s managed to avoid disappointing me for at least a couple decades now: a film could do a lot worse than have him play a megalomanical leader with a God-complex and distinct ideas on the social contract.

Is Snowpiercer one of the best films of the year, however? To be honest, it’s kind of a difficult question to answer. The film is certainly one of the best action films of the last several years, hands down, but I just can’t help shake the feeling that it’s still slightly less than what it could have been. Despite it’s epic scope and feel, Snowpiercer, somehow, feels like a slightly lesser film than The Host. Chalk this up to to the transition from more personalized family struggles in one to more “universal” issues in the other and we begin to see where the issue may lie. While watching Snowpiercer, I kept waiting to feel the intense connection to the characters that I did with the family in The Host but it really only happened with Nam and his daughter: whenever the two of them share the screen, Snowpiercer is able to transcend its sci-fi/action trappings and become something simultaneously more intimate and more far-reaching. In a film that purports to be about the very essence of humanity, it’s only when we spend time with this disenfranchised father and daughter, so wrecked by life yet still so inherently hopeful, that the film truly seems to come alive. I’d like to say it’s enough to melt the most frozen heart but that would be kind of precious, wouldn’t it?

2/25/14: Lost in Space (Oscar Bait, Part 9)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, Alfonso Cuaron, All Is Lost, astronauts, auteur theory, Best Actress nominee, Best Cinematography winner, Best Director nominee, Best Film Editing winner, Best Original Score winner, Best Picture nominee, Best Sound Editing winner, Best Sound Mixing winner, Best Visual Effects winner, Children of Men, cinema, disaster films, Ed Harris, Emmanuel Lubezki, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, George Clooney, Gravity, lost in space, marooned, Movies, multiple Oscar winner, outer space, rescue mission, Sandra Bullock, sci-fi, space shuttle, special-effects extravaganza, thriller, trapped in space

My Oscar-prep viewing for the last week of February continued with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Of all of the nominees, I was probably (initially) most excited to see this one, since I’m a huge fan of Cuaron’s previous film, the wonderfully dystopic Children of Men. After waiting seven years for a follow-up, how would Gravity stack up? And did it really earn all ten of its Oscar nominations? Read on, gentle readers…read on.

As a boy, my twin loves (above and beyond anything else that I loved) were dinosaurs and outer space. If there was a book about the subject(s), I read it. if there was a show or movie, I watched it. I’ve always been fascinated by huge, open expanses but my inability to swim has always rendered the deep-sea about as terrifying as diving into an active volcano. Space, however, was a different story. As frightening as the notion of all of that vast emptiness was, I never ceased to be fascinated and drawn to it. As time went on and I got older, my former obsession with dinosaurs gradually faded into my childhood, although I remember being fairly agog when I first saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My obsession with space, however, has never waned. If anything, I find myself more fascinated by it now then I ever was: we truly live in a glorious time for anyone who’s ever wondered about what might be “up there,” since we seem to get word of astounding new galactic discoveries on a fairly regular basis. If there’s one thing me and my boyhood self would agree on, it’s this: outer space is pretty damn amazing.

Interestingly enough, however, my lifelong love of space hasn’t really translated into a love of sci-fi films. I’ve found many, over the years, that I really enjoy and a few that I even love: 2001; Alien; The Black Hole; Event Horizon, to name a few. For the most part, however, I’m not really drawn to the space shoot-em-ups of stuff like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. I’m much more interested in low-key, intellectual films like Moon, Europa Report, 2001 and Solaris. Part of the appeal of space, to me, has always been the inherent mystery of it: the best sci-fi films manage to preserve this sense of mystery while still giving something to thrill along to.

Gravity could certainly be said to exist in the same company as the aforementioned “intelligent” sci-fi films, but it’s not quite the same thing. There is nothing lunk-headed or especially clumsy about the film but its heart is definitely more interested in action (sometimes so non-stop as to almost seem real-time) than it is in wonder or inquiry. There’s nothing wrong with this, mind you, but it immediately puts Gravity into a slightly different category and is one of the reasons why I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed after the whole thing was over.

Story-wise, Gravity is simplicity itself: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are American astronauts on a routine spacewalk when disaster strikes. The Russians have accidentally bombed one of their own satellites, which has caused deadly space debris to travel into the Americans’ vicinity. Too late to avoid the bombardment, Stone and Kowalski find themselves adrift in space, no contact with Earth and only their connecting tether keeping them from spinning away into the vastness of forever. Using every ounce of their strength, courage and cautious optimism, the two must do everything they can to make it back home, lest the far reaches of space become their frigid tomb.

In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it: just slightly over 90 minutes of Bullock trying desperately to get back home. In many respects, Gravity and All Is Lost (Redford stuck at sea on a sinking sailboat) are kindred spirits. Both are claustrophobic, quick-paced thrill rides that feature one protagonist (it’s no spoiler to say that Bullock spends the majority of the film alone), almost no supporting characters or additional actors and minimal locations. While I heartily enjoyed Gravity, I’ll have to give the edge here to All Is Lost for one very important reason: it didn’t dilute its impact with unnecessary emotional baggage. In All Is Lost, we end up knowing as little about Redford’s character as possible: he doesn’t even get a name. This isn’t to say that there’s no character information whatsoever: through a few small, subtle scenes, we find out enough about Redford’s character (wife and kids back home, well-to-do older man) to become invested in his struggle. At no time, however, does the film wring unnecessary mileage out of the emotional beats: they’re just there to humanize the character.

In Gravity, however, Ryan’s back-story directly influences her actions in the film and, at times, is used as the sole emotional ballast. For my money, this wasn’t the best way to humanize the character and, to be honest, had a bit of the opposite effect for me. At times, I found myself questioning Ryan’s actions: she would be unthinkingly swift and decisive one moment, curled in a fetal position and looking “lost” the next. While this might be a natural reaction for any normal person caught in the situation, it still had the effect of dragging down the film and injecting a maudlin, overly emotional tone that was at odds with the film’s more clinical inclinations. It’s almost as if Cuaron was unsure if the audience would be fully invested in the actual things happening to Bullock’s character (who the hell wouldn’t find being lost in space terrifying and thrilling?!), so he decided to hedge his bets by piling on a tragic back-story for her to overcome. It’s a reductive measure and, effectively, boils down Ryan’s entire experience in space to “overcoming personal adversity.” It’s equivalent to Ripley coming at the Mother Alien with the robot suit only to end up shaking hands and hugging it out. This is particularly puzzling since, aside from the too obvious back-story and some beats with Clooney’s character, there isn’t anything obvious about the actual film. This was a pretty big disappointment for me, since it seemed like a concession to what modern audiences expect from films, not what filmmakers actually intend. I keep wondering how amazing this film would have been as a non-stop, tightly-shot, A-B-C thriller and it makes the final product even more disappointing.

But, let’s be absolutely frank here: most people going to see Gravity won’t be going for the character development, the writing or anything of that nature: they’ll be going to experience a huge, eye-popping visual smorgasbord. And on that count, Gravity absolutely does not disappoint. In fact, I daresay that I really have no appropriate words to describe how utterly, sumptuously amazing the film looks. There isn’t one frame that didn’t look meticulously composed and I still have no idea whatsoever how many of the shots were achieved. As far as I can tell, Cuaron took a small crew into deep space and filmed: that’s about the best explanation I have for a lot of the film. The SFX are seamless, the space visuals are so stunning that I got teary-eyed (really) and the sound effects put you right in the thick of everything. If there’s one part of the filmmaking I didn’t care for, however, it would definitely have to be Steven Price’s intrusive, too-obvious score. Something more minimalist and  moody would have helped the film but I felt like the score tried to be too leading: I’m not a fan of hand-holding between filmmakers and the audience and the score was definitely that. As far as the technical awards and the Best Cinematography statue, however? There was simply no other film in the running after this one: even discussing other films’ effects as being equitable is absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the day, perhaps my own unreasonable expectations led me to be disappointed by Gravity. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed most of the film as I was watching it (save for the overly emotional bits referenced above). I was even stunned at several points, especially that jaw-dropping opening. It was a fun, exquisitely crafted film with a rock-solid performance by Bullock (not Oscar worthy, IMHO, but damn close), a very Clooney-esque performance by George C and a totally awesome reference to my favorite scene in Jaws. It was also, unfortunately, a rather slight film, almost more of an effects exercise then anything else. I remember how much I found myself pondering and returning to Children of Men after I first saw it. After watching Gravity, my only thought was, “Damn: shoulda seen it in the theaters.” While Gravity was a good Cuaron film, it looks like I might have to wait another seven years for a great Cuaron film.

 

2/9/14: A Place of One’s Own

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absurdist, Alex Cox, American imperialism, anachronisms, anachronistic, auteur theory, bio-pic, biopic, cinema, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ed Harris, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Gary Oldman, historical drama, Honduras, Iran-Contra scandal, Joe Strummer, liberation, Manifest Destiny, Marlee Matlin, Movies, Nicaragua, Oliver North, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Peter Boyle, Repo Man, Richard Masur, Ronald Reagan, Rudy Wurlitzer, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, surreal, Walker, William Walker

We now finish up the Sunday double-feature with Alex Cox’s kind-of/sort-of biopic, Walker.

There are, quite possibly, as many different ways to film and present a biopic as there are people to make them about. Filmmakers can approach the subject as dry, historical fact, presenting only the information widely accepted as true. The subject can be approached from a bias, either for or against, with the entire film making a case for this particular reading. The film might even co-mingle elements of fact and fiction, using real people but playing up non-existent emotional quandaries in order to get to the psychological core of the characters. Any of these approaches are valid, depending on the overall intent of the filmmakers, but there’s usually an attempt to delineate (at least to some extent) what sort of biopic we’re watching. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter did not, for example, purport to be anything other than the goof it was: there certainly were no pretensions towards telling “the definitive” version of Lincoln’s life, as it were, just the part where he (apparently) fought vampires. All well and good, as it were.

What if, however, the overall slant of a particular biopic wasn’t quite so obvious? What if the line between real and fictional were blurred, leading the audience to wonder not only what the subject may have really been like but what actual events may have really been like? Depending on the particular director, this tactic could result in a severely disorienting experience, akin to being plagued by an internal unreliable narrator. When the director is Alex Cox, this is all but guaranteed.

Cox is the visionary behind one of the strangest films ever made (and one of my favorite films of all time), Repo Man (1984). He was also responsible for another biopic, Sid and Nancy (1986), which had the effect of unleashing Gary Oldman upon the world at large. Completing Cox’s trifecta was Straight to Hell (1987), perhaps the most bat-shit insane “Western” ever made, other than El Topo. Walker, Cox’s biopic of William Walker, was released the same year as Straight to Hell, and marks the end of Cox’s ’80s hot-streak. Falling somewhere in-between the nearly hallucinogenic insanity of Straight to Hell and the biopic stylings of Sid and Nancy, Walker is a constantly fascinating, if occasionally frustrating, experience, anchored by one massive performance by master thespian Ed Harris.

Walker purports to tell the story of William Walker (Ed Harris), an American “adventurer” who undertook several military incursions into Mexico and South America during the mid-part of the 1800’s. Walker took control of several territories in Mexico before finally being driven out by the government and arrested, tried and acquitted by the U.S. He (briefly) became Commander of the Armed Forces and, later, President, of Nicaragua before being deposed and executed by Honduran forces. These, as they say, are the basic facts. Cox and writer Randy Wurlitzer (Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid), however, have a few more tricks up their sleeve than just presenting us with a colorful historic figure. Their minds aren’t on Nicaragua’s past: they’re very much on the Nicaragua of the late ’80s, the one embroiled in that era’s Iran-Contra scandal.

More than anything, Walker is about U.S. imperialism and the dangerous effect it often has on other countries, particularly those we attempt to “liberate.” As a British expatriate remarks when Walker explains his plans to liberate the country: “How peculiar: you must be Americans.” We’ve already seen how Walker’s attempted conquest of Mexico is viewed, if not altogether favorably, as completely understandable and, in a way, desirable: his proclamation of Manifest Destiny earns him a pretty quick acquittal, after all. Walker is allowed to get as far as he does (and he gets pretty far, relatively speaking, for someone with absolutely no actual authority) because, inherently, the American system places high priority on both conquest and “liberation,” often seeing both as opposing sides of the same coin.

While the government might have been a bit “on-the-fence” regarding Walker’s activities, it becomes obvious rather quickly what side Cox takes. Practically from the jump, we’re introduced to that most subtly powerful of filmmaking tricks: the unreliable narrator. In a move that explicitly recalls the grand Michael Caine romp Pulp (1972), Harris narrates the film with an authority that can best be described as “questionable.” At one point, Walker describes how the Nicaraguan people “rejoice” when he has their President executed and takes his place: the image we actually see of the same event doesn’t resemble anything close to rejoicing, however. Rather, we see the people solemnly mourn their murdered leader, covering his body in white roses. This schism is reinforced when the local paper repeats the same sentiment as a headline: it’s pretty obvious who wrote that particular press-release.

Cox stacks the deck against Walker in a number of other, more subtle ways. There’s the oddly messianic way that Walker seems to stride through massive gunfights while obtaining nary a scratch, battles that lay waste to everyone else (friend or foe) that surrounds him, perhaps symbolic of the way in which American foreign policies often set up scenarios in which we emerge unscathed but our enemies (and allies) are obliterated. There are the ways in which none of Walker’s proclamations seem to be taken seriously: he makes a point to say that no excessive “drinking, whoring, carousing or fighting” will be tolerated from his men, even as we see all of this (plus some implied bestiality, to boot) taking place in the background. Walker can’t speak the local language, despite considering himself the leader, and, therefore, can’t actually comprehend what any of the native Nicaraguans are saying (hint: none of it’s nice). Walker spends most of the film dressed like the Tall Man from Phantasm, a get-up which constantly recalls fire-and-brimstone evangelical preachers (which Walker partakes in).

One of Cox’s greatest (and strangest) coups, however, is the subtle, almost subliminal, way that he weaves historical anachronisms into the film. It begins when you catch what appears to be the corner of a computer in one shot: a little strange, since computer’s weren’t exactly around in the 1850’s. Later on, there’s a soldier drinking from a modern (1980’s, at least) Coke bottle and someone else reading a copy of Time magazine that wouldn’t exist for about 70 more years. This all comes to a head in the film’s finale, when an ’80s-era military team, complete with helicopter, swoops in to rescue the Americans from a burning Grenada. While certainly different, the intent seems pretty clear: Cox isn’t so much telling the story of William Walker as he is setting the Iran-Contra scandal in the past. While the times may have changed, he seems to be saying, the scam remains the same.

As a film, Walker is consistently entertaining but falls short of Cox’s magnum opus (that would be Repo Man, in case you dozed off). The acting is always top-notch but I never expect less from Ed Harris. For my money, Harris is one of the most gifted, chameleonic actors in the business and is never less than a joy to watch. He seems to have a blast with the role and provides Walker with some truly interesting quirks and tics. Peter Boyle shows up as Cornelius Vanderbilt and is always larger than life: he punctuates the line “I’m entitled to do anything I want” with the single loudest cinematic fart since Blazing Saddles and nearly steals every scene he’s in. Marlee Matlin has an odd bit part as Walker’s doomed fiancée, Ellen, and Richard Masur shows up as Ephraim Squire, one of Vanderbilt’s lackeys.

Aesthetically, Walker recalls Straight to Hell more than either Repo Man or Sid & Nancy, lacking the grime of the others in favor of Hell’s more colorful palette. There isn’t much in the film that could legitimately be called “beautiful,” although the burning of Granada is conducted in a very dream-like, surreal way that features quite a few astounding images. Other than that, however, the film serves more as a showcase for Cox (and Wurlitzer’s) ideas than for David Bridges’ completely serviceable cinematography. Joe Strummer did the score which, to be honest, is less than noteworthy: I mostly recall the oddly inappropriate ’80s-era smooth sax that kept popping up everywhere more than I do any of Strummer’s contributions…unless he was actually playing the sax, at which point I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Ultimately, Walker is a fascinating, quick-paced curiosity, an attempt by a genuinely head-scratching auteur to fold, spindle and mutilate history, proving the old adage that there really is nothing new under the sun, a fact made even clearer by the closing-credit newsreel footage of then-president Ronald Reagan discussing the Iran-Contra affair. As the poster states: Before Rambo…before Oliver North…there was Walker. Cox posits a bizzaro-world scenario where all three were not only contemporaries but the same individual.