2/2/15 (Part Two): No Justice…Just Us

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Alejandra Yañez, Alejandro Fernández Almendras, Ariel Mateluna, based on a true story, bullies, Cape Fear, Chilean films, cinema, Daniel Antivilo, Daniel Candia, Death Wish, divorced parents, family, family in crisis, father-son relationships, fighting back, film reviews, films, foreign films, forest ranger, guilt, harassment, ineffectual cops, Inti Briones, Jennifer Salas, justice, masculinity, Movies, Pablo Vergara, rape, revenge, set in Chile, Straw Dogs, thugs, To Kill a Man, vigilante, vigilantism, writer-director-editor

Most of the time, cinematic evil is pretty flashy, memorable and, let’s face it, kinda cool: it’s the Bond super-villain plotting the world’s destruction from the comfort of his high-tech, fortified island estate…the suave, dastardly mustache-twirler butting heads with the hardy hero…the badass monster with acid for blood and a hankering for humans…the evil genius who’s constantly building killer robots, turning people into zombies and infecting the water supply with some sort of designer mega-virus. Take a minute to think about which characters in any Nightmare on Elm Street film are more interesting: the bland, anonymous victims or wise-crackin’, ultra-cool Freddy? Evil may be something to overcome (most of the time) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be gussied up with some sweet duds and an enviable haircut.

In the real world, however, true evil is rarely as “cool” as movies make it out to be. In fact, true evil, for the most part, is exceptionally banal: it’s the bureaucrat moving “casualties” from one column to the next…the terrorist who kills based on dogma…the egomaniacal dictator who rules by virtue of having the most guns, not the best plan…the bored thrill-seekers just looking for something to do…the bullies who indiscriminately target the weak in an effort to make someone’s, anyone’s life more miserable than their own…the fat cats who relentlessly pad their own wallets at the expense of those around them…the companies dumping pollutants into the water and air. Real evil, for the most part, is boring, beige. True evil is also all but impossible to eradicate: you may be able to send in Rambo or Jason Bourne to take care of the cinematic baddies but it doesn’t work quite like that in the real world. Most of us are in no position to eliminate the day-to-day evils of the world: evil, like good, is just a fact of life.

Alejandro Fernández Almendras’ To Kill a Man (2014), which the Chilean director also wrote and edited, takes us right into the thick of real evil, showcasing the casual cruelty, misanthropy and harassment that often leads to violence, heart-break and death. There are no heroes here, just a desperate, broken-down father who tries (and fails) to protect his family. There are no super-villains, either, no suave harbingers of cool chaos for us to vicariously live through: the evil in To Kill a Man is earth-bound, sweaty, stupid and ugly, the product of generations of degradation, not a special serum or radioactive infection. There is nothing rousing, fist-raising or “epic” about the fight between good and evil in Almendras’ film: this is real evil, in all of its slouching, misshapen glory. There are no happy endings here because, in the real world, evil is seldom vanquished: it simply returns to the soil, like so much rot, in order to spring anew elsewhere. By removing feel-good notions of cosmic justice and the supposed balance between good and evil, Almendras lifts up the rock that is our world and let the hidden things spill out into the light: in the process, he creates one of the most powerful, tense and unpleasant films of the year, a funeral dirge for our modern age.

The protagonist of our little film, Jorge (Daniel Candia), is a mild-mannered forest ranger, father of two and loving husband. He’s soft-spoken, diabetic, gets his family whatever they want at the drop of a hat and seems like a genuinely nice guy. As with Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974), however, this is not the kind of world for a meek, kind-hearted push-over: this is the jungle and the weaker animals are always prey for the stronger. In this case, the stronger animal is one Luis Alberto Alamos Alamos (Daniel Antivilo), also known as Kalule. Kalule and his gang of reprobates have recently taken over a small park in Jorge’s neighborhood and currently “rule” with an iron fist. No one is safe from their harassment, petty larceny and thuggish violence: think a meaner, stupider and crasser version of Alex’s droogs and you’ve on the right track.

One night, while passing through the park on his way home from work, Jorge happens to run afoul of Kalule and his “boys.” At first, the thugs just harass the poor guy, kicking a soccer ball at him, calling him names and cheerfully menacing him. When Jorge is forced to go back through the park later, however, in order to buy his son, Jorge (Ariel Mateluna) and his friends some beer, his second meeting with the gang isn’t quite as “pleasant.” The creeps surround Jorge, push him around and snatch his wallet, taking what they want and throwing the rest into the dirt. The scene is terrible and humiliating, with Jorge as defenseless as a small child, despite his status as patriarch of his household. To add insult to injury, Kalule refuses to take Jorge’s credit card (“I’d probably have to pay your bill,” he laughs) but does take the expensive blood tester that Jorge needs to help control his diabetes.

When Jorge gets home, he’s too devastated to even look his family in the eyes. His wife, Marta (Alejandra Yañez), and daughter, Nicole (Jennifer Salas), seem mortified and his son is pissed off and ready for action: he wants his dad to give him 5000 pesos so that he can go to the gang and, at the very least, negotiate the return of his dad’s tester. Jorge tells him to drop it which, of course, has the opposite desired effect: young Jorge sneaks out while his parents sleep and attempts to get his dad’s stuff back. When he finds out, Jorge rushes after his son, only to get to his side right after Kalule has shot him. While he watches, Kalule calmly shoots himself and then calls the police, claiming that Jorge’s son attacked him and he only shot in self-defense.

At the trial, Kalule continues to plead his innocence, even as he accepts a plea deal that would put him in prison for 1.5 years. Jorge’s family, for their part, is heartbroken: young Jorge has survived but his injuries have put an end to his schooling, dooming him to the same sort of lower-class life as his parents. Marta, meanwhile, has never stopped blaming Jorge for their son’s injury and the couple have since divorced, with the kids staying with their mother and Jorge taking up residence in a flea-bag motel. Faster than you can say “Cape Fear (1991),” however, Kalule is out of jail and looking to even the score with Jorge and his family. The thug begins a campaign of terror and harassment against the family that includes obscene phone calls, throwing rocks at their house and stalking young Nicole everywhere she goes. The police, so unhelpful during the original crime, are just as unhelpful now: regardless of how many complaints the family lodges, how many protection orders they get or how much they try to avoid Kalule and his gang, the authorities merely shrug their shoulders, leaving the family completely on their own.

As the pressure begins to wear on him, Jorge finds himself changing in subtle ways. After a confrontation with an asshole in the forest ends with Jorge chasing him off with a shotgun, however, the beleaguered father begins to feel empowered, if only ever so slightly. After Kalule and his men commit a shocking, vile and humiliating act against his daughter, however, Jorge finds himself at a crossroads: will he be able to continue taking the “high road,” hoping that the police will eventually do their job, or will he take matters into his own hands and try to make his own version of “justice?” When he finally does make a choice, Jorge’s decision will have a terrible, lasting impact on all those around him: there are no winners, here, only various shades of losers and wrecked human beings.

Lean, mean and consistently down-trodden, To Kill a Man is one of the finest examples of “feel bad” cinema I’ve seen in some time. Everything about the film is calculatedly to make the viewer feel as tense and uncomfortable as possible: the ominous score, all deep-voiced wind instruments and droning, low tones crawls under your skin and stays there…the violence, when it happens, is sudden, shocking and all-too realistic…the gang seem all-powerful and absolutely immoral, lending the film an overriding sense of futility…in every way possible, To Kill a Man is the epitome of a stacked deck.

Jorge, as portrayed by Candia, is a sympathetic, yet largely pathetic, character, a man who wants to believe in some notion of balance and justice yet keeps getting kicked in the nuts by the universe at every turn. Yañez, for her part, serves as surrogate for anyone taking the view that bullies need to be stood up to: the scene where Marta sneers at Jorge and warns him to beware of “mean kids in the park” is a real heart-breaker, since it just reinforces the notion that Jorge was too weak and not “masculine enough” to protect his family. We witness young Jorge go from the traditionally supportive son to a bitter, jaded shell of a man who holds his father in the same contempt that his mother does. And poor Nicole, so hopeful and positive, is absolutely destroyed by the violence and misogyny that swirls around her like a toxic cloud. This isn’t a family so much as three horses which, along with Kalule, are striving to pull Jorge to pieces.

While the acting is consistently strong and nicely understated, the cinematography, courtesy of Inti Briones, is a real thing of beauty. Time after time, Briones comes up with some truly gorgeous images: the shot of an automatic door slowly closing, only to stop midway, works on a number of levels, as does the awesome shot of Jorge’s truck disappearing backwards into the night, its wan headlights gradually swallowed in the same manner as Jorge’s rapidly dwindling humanity. The sense of framing is exquisite and the frequent close-ups, shot from odd angles, keep the constantly shifting power relationships as off-kilter as possible. As difficult as To Kill a Man is to sit through, content-wise, the film always looks and sounds amazing, a razor blade wrapped in a candy shell.

Ultimately, I was pretty blown away by Almendras’ film: while I’ve never been the biggest fan of what I like to call “hopeless cinema,” it’s impossible to deny the raw power of To Kill a Man. In many ways, the film is a modern successor to Death Wish, a searing, jagged examination of the destructive power of vengeance and what it means to be a “protector” in these violent times. While Jorge’s measured march to his own annihilation is painful to watch, it’s the kind of pain that any cinephile should force themselves to endure. At its core, To Kill a Man peels back humanity’s skin, revealing the coal-black heart that beats beneath. You may not necessarily “enjoy” the film but truth, like life, is often painful. Sometimes, you need that pain to appreciate everything else. Sometimes, that’s all there is.

3/10/14: Once More, with Feeling

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Ambyr Childers, auteur theory, Best of 2013, Bill Sage, cannibalism, cannibals, cinema, family, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, horror films, Jim Mickle, Jorge Michel Grau, Julia Garner, Kelly McGillis, Larry Fessenden, Michael Parks, Movies, Nick Damici, remakes, responsibilities, We Are What We Are

As far as films goes, I have very few hard-and-fast rules although I do have a few: I dislike “MTV-style-editing,” although there’s probably a better way to describe that notion nowadays…I think that character development is a must, even in a Z-grade slasher film…if the subtitled version is available, the dubbed version is persona non grata…gratuitous gore better have a purpose or it better be so over the top that I laugh…and I dislike remakes/re-imaginings/re-dos with a passion. As with anything, these rules were made to be broken but they’ve served me pretty well over the years, nonetheless. Of all of these, however (although the subtitled/dubbed rule is one I rarely violate and then only from necessity), the one that probably sticks with me the most is the one about remakes.

For the most part, I find modern remakes to be pointless, crass money-grabs that are all about the almighty dollar: modern filmmakers don’t remake films because they think they can do them better…they remake films because there’s already a built-in audience, cutting down the need for excessive advertising and (possibly) guaranteeing a big box office take, at least initially. Here’s the funny thing about modern remakes, however: they’re pretty much the ultimate in head-scratching, “who-are-they-trying-to-please?” marketing. In most cases, modern remakes don’t do much more than sub in younger, more attractive casts, polish up the production values and add elements that might appeal to modern viewers (current pop culture references, pop music, nods to current events, etc…). Let’s take the (fairly) recent Platinum Dunes remakes of the slasher chestnut Friday the 13th. If you’re a fan of the gritty, low-budget original film, are you really going to be interested in a big budget, glossy remake? Likewise, if you’re a hip modern kid, are you really going to be interested in a moldy old relic like Friday the 13th when you have everything from The Human Centipede to August Underground to feast your little peepers on? Probably not. These films seem to exist in a no-man’s-land where the only line of reasoning seems to be “This movie once existed and people watched it. If we remake it and release it again, they’ll watch it again.”

That being said…rules are made to be broken. Every great once in a while, a come upon a remake that I actually like. In the rarest of occasions, I can even find myself loving a remake: what horror/genre fan doesn’t absolutely adore John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing? Cronenberg’s The Fly? I found myself really impressed by the recent remake of Maniac and I’ve always preferred the American remake of The Ring to the original Ringu. I even find myself really enjoying Zach Snyder’s remake of Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead, which is something that approaches heresy in my belief system. Keep in mind, however: this is five films (with another possible five or so to go) out of dozens and dozens of films…possibly more than that. At this point, everything from The Toolbox Murders to Patrick to I Spit on Your Grave and Poltergeist are being remade, often with no more forethought or insight than any other direct-to-video release.

When remakes work (if at all) they work because the filmmakers actually have a vision, rather than a money-making idea. Whether trying to improve on an older, beloved film (Del Toro’s re-imagining of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark) or taking the original property in a wildly divergent direction (Cronenberg’s The Fly, which resembles the Vincent Price original in name only), successful remakes actually have something to say: they aren’t just empty calories, the cinematic equivalent of Ho-Hos. Jim Mickle’s striking, sobering remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s We Are What We Are manages to take the impressive original to amazing new heights, taking the basic story and twisting and contorting it in fascinating new directions. It’s the best way to approach remaking a film and, in this, Mickle has created one of his best, most enduring works yet.

In a rural America which may be the Ozarks, Oregon, Washington State or right around the corner from the folks in Jug Face, we meet the Parker family: mother Emma (Kassie DePaiva), father Frank (Bill Sage), young son Rory (Jack Gore) and daughters Rose (Julia Garner) and Iris (Ambyr Childers). The Parkers are friendly, if distant, and seem to subsist by renting out their large property to folks in mobile homes (including Larry Fessenden, whose turned these sort of “backwoods” roles into a kind of cottage industry). Times are hard, especially since nearly continuous rain has produced flooding which has forced many of the tenants from their lands. On top of this, Mrs. Parker suddenly grows sick and dies while grocery shopping in town. Aside from cooking, cleaning and tending to the kids, Mrs. Parker was also responsible for acquiring their “meat,” the kind which isn’t available in butcher shops. Now, Rose and Iris must step up and assume their place in a time-honored tradition, a tradition that is necessary for the continued survival of the Parkers but deadly business for anyone around them. As the local doctor (Michael Parks) and Deputy Anders (Wyatt Russell), who’s sweet on Iris, begin to piece everything together, Frank Parker becomes increasingly unstable. Will Rose and Iris be able to hold everything together or will the modern world finally wash them all to oblivion?

From the very first frame of the film, where we watch a leaf fall from a tree before continuing its journey down a river, We Are What We Are exudes a very austere, melancholy atmosphere, giving the film the veneer of a prestige picture that just happens to be about rural cannibals. Imagine a Merchant/Ivory version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and you’re in the right ballpark, although the corresponding image is way too flip to do the actual result justice. Plain and simple, We Are What We Are is a beautiful film, gorgeous to look at and filled with the kind of powerful, subtle performances that would draw raves were this any other kind of film. This is a film that deals with big issues (matriarchy vs patriarchy; the loss of traditional ways in the of modernity; the morality of a carnivorous lifestyle; family vs society; the death of a parent/spouse; the Electra complex) but manages to weave them organically into the fabric of the movie, making this the furthest thing from a “message picture,” while being one of the most thoughtful, cerebral genre films in quite some time.

In many ways, We Are What We Are is a companion piece to Alfredson’s Let the Right One In or, perhaps, the aforementioned Jug Face. These are all slow, solemn, character-heavy films that apply their drama and dread in equal measures, letting everything simmer and slow-burn before gradually amping things up to an inevitable fever pitch. We Are What We Are may begin in a quiet, pensive way but it climaxes in a fury of blood, an orgiastic feast that manages to subvert and subsume traditional notions of family all in one big gulp. That the film never loses its footing in between these polar opposites is impressive, but only if you don’t know who’s behind the wheel of this particular big-rig: Jim Mickle.

Mickle has been one of my favorite new directors and one of the shining stars on my Best New Directors list ever since I saw his debut feature, Mulberry St, back in 2006. The film, a gritty yet strangely dreamlike, claustrophobic zombie film that subs in mutant rat-men for the walking dead, was a helluva debut but the follow-up, Stake Land, was the kicker. After one viewing, Stake Land (2010) became my favorite vampire film ever and, to be honest, one of the best films I’ve (still) ever seen. After watching the film more times than I can count, my opinion still stands: Stake Land is one of those rare perfect films, the kind of impossible gem where every element is in complete synchronization. It’s hugely emotional without being manipulative (I still tear up every time I get to the end), full of jaw-dropping fight sequences and deliciously gory practical effects, features a smart, economical script and actually has new, interesting things to say about a very old genre. In short, Stake Land was going to be difficult to equal, impossible to best. While We Are What We Are isn’t better than Stake Land (honestly, I’m not sure that there’s much out there that is better, at least that I’ve seen), it is certainly the film’s equal and yet another feather in Mickle’s already impressive cap. His newest film, Cold in July, has been earning rave reviews on the festival circuit, ensuring that his star is only on the rise.

I went into We Are What We Are expecting a lot, despite the film’s status as a remake, and was not disappointed in the slightest. The film is a complete marvel, the kind of experience that patient genre fans will remember for years to come (possibly the rest of their lives). The movie is filled with what seem to be a million little bright spots, like clouds of fireflies on a summer day: Marge’s vegetarian lasagna; the flashbacks that reminded me of Ravenous (another favorite film); the subtle but strong sense of feminism that informed the film; the terrifyingly tense, almost Hitchcockian dinner scene; the flood that reveals God’s wrath in ways that no tent-revival preacher ever could; another wonderful performance by Fessenden; the revelatory performances by Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers; the ending that inspires hope and fear in equal doses…all of this and so much more.

As a remake, Mickle’s We Are What We Are does everything I want it to do (and more): it actually has a function. As a film, We Are What We Are does so much more. Like Carpenter’s The Thing and Cronenberg’s The Fly, Mickle’s film refuses to rest on the laurels of its predecessor, blazing bold new paths into the unknown. It’s an instant classic, pure and simple, but I really didn’t expect less.