1/20/14: Farewell to Your Future Self

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12 Monkeys, action films, Blade Runner, Boreno, Brick, Bruce Willis, chase films, cinema, closing the loop, Conan the Barbarian, drama, dystopian future, Farewell to the King, Film auteurs, films, grim future, headhunter tribes, historical dramas, hitmen, island paradises, Japanese fleet in the Pacific, John Milius, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, jungle combat, kings, Looper, Movies, Nick Nolte, Rian Johnson, romance, sci-fi, telekinesis, Terry Gilliam, The Big Lebowski, The Brothers Bloom, The Rainmaker, time travel, war films, World War II

After beginning the day with a couple of Oscar-nominated documentaries, I figured that I’d end it with a film where Nick Nolte becomes king of Borneo and Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt share the same face. Welcome to the world I live in, ladies and gentlemen: it’s a strange one.

First of all, take a moment (or two) to marvel at the glory that is the above poster for Farewell the King. Nolte giving his best Blue Steel…burning huts…lots of buff dudes with machine guns…that, my friends, is what we commonly call one kickass film poster. Doesn’t matter what the film is about: a peep at that one-sheet and I’d hightail it to the theater post-haste!

Now that your eyes have been bathed in badassery, let’s take a look at the fella that wrote and directed Farewell to the King: John Milius. You might know him as the guy that wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian (ie: the awesome one) and the original Red Dawn. You might also know him as the guy who wrote the screenplays for Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now, Jeremiah Johnson and A Clear and Present Danger. Or perhaps you know him as the creator of the cable show Rome. Barring that, you may know him (peripherally) as the inspiration for John Goodman’s Walter in The Big Lebowski. Now…taking a look at all of these disparate pieces that make up John Milius, can you take a wild guess at what awaits within Farewell to the King? Yes, friends and neighbors: we’re about to enter the mystical kingdom of Testosteronia.

Due to my father, I was a huge fan of Milius before I ever knew it. Growing up, the Dirty Harry series was just about the closest thing we got to the gospels: I’d already seen the entire series by the time I was a pre-teen and I pretty much had the first two, Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, memorized. I was also completely obsessed with sword-and-sorcery stuff by that point, so Excalibur and Conan the Barbarian got watched at least once a day. Add to that my equally hardcore interest in Apocalypse Now and I was, essentially, an intense Milius fan that had absolutely no idea who the dude was. Classic me, as it were.

As far as plot goes, Farewell to the King is equally as gonzo as anything in Milius’ back-catalog. A British officer and his radio operator land in Borneo, during World War II, in order to whip up local support against Japanese forces in the area. They find a friendly response from a local tribe only to wake up the next morning as captives: it seems that these natives might be the kind normally found in old jungle epics. The difference, however, is that those other tribes didn’t have Nick Nolte as their king.

You see, Nolte was an American soldier during the war, taken prisoner by the Japanese but escaped to the jungles of Borneo. Once there, he was taken captive by the local tribe of headhunters, saved from being turned over to the Japanese due to his dreamy blue eyes (no joke: the women of the village stage a revolt because they can “see the ocean” in his peepers…what a dreamboat!), became leader of the tribe after beating their chief at deadly hand-to-hand combat, fell in love and married one of the locals and managed to unite all of the smaller tribes in the area into one mega-tribe (of which he’s chief, natch). Whew! That is one busy Mystical White Man there, isn’t it!

Learoyd (Nolte) is pretty sure that he can just ignore the rest of World War II: after all, he has a pretty wife, several children, a really cool tropical paradise and the complete adoration of his people…why does he wanna stomp around the jungle and shoot Japanese soldiers? As the British officer gently explains, however, just because you choose to ignore the war doesn’t mean the war chooses to ignore you. Before long, Learoyd is thrown headfirst into the conflict, proceeding full throttle down a path that will lead to glorious victory, staggering defeat, mysterious cannibalistic Japanese ghost regiments, betrayal, mean Australians, Gen. MacArthur and, ultimately, sovereignty.

If it couldn’t be handily discerned from the above plot description, Farewell to the King is a deeply silly, if wildly entertaining, film. It operates along the same sort of wish-fulfillment scenario as Costner’s Dances with Wolves (white guy shows up and teaches the natives to be the best natives they can possibly be). It would be a much more offensive scenario if Milius’ film wasn’t so amiable and good-natured. It’s quite obvious that the natives stand head-and-shoulders above everything else (especially the Australians, who come across so loutishly as to make one wonder if this wasn’t some particular bias of Milius’). For one thing, they’re pretty much the only group that never betrays Learoyd (which can’t be said for the British). For the other, the village scenes are shot with such a sense of sun-dappled wonder that, especially as compared to the dreary jungle combat scenes, it pretty clear where the film would rather be spending its summer vacation.

Ultimately, there’s really one main reason to hunt this flick down (unless you happen to be a Milius’ completest or tropical island enthusiast): the marvelous Nick Nolte. It’s quite wonderful to witness Nolte in all of his buffed-out, leonine glory, especially when he manages to take the character to levels normally reserved for the Nic known as Cage. He strikes a terrific balance of level-headed, village elder and wild-eyed Bornean Rambo and it really works. Less successful, possibly by contrast, is the British officer, played by Nigel Havers. Havers spends most of the film looking sheepish, as if he’s constantly preparing to apologize for something. There are times when the approach works for the character but it usually has the effect of making his Capt. Fairbourne somewhat of a non-entity.

So what do you get with Farewell to the King? Well, you get some pumped-up, patriotic, Green Berets-style jungle fighting. You get Nick Nolte as the leader of a nation of headhunters in Borneo. You get some nice drama, a little character development (but not too much, mind you), plenty of action sequences and a simply gorgeous location. You get a loopy performance from John Bennett Perry (aka Matthew Perry’s dad) as Gen. MacArthur. You even get an evil, cannibalistic Japanese military unit, for good measure. In short, you get the full Milius treatment.

While it’s not my favorite genre, I’m definitely someone who enjoys a good sci-fi flick. In particular, I find myself really enjoying smaller, quirkier, more indie science fiction fare such as Primer, Timecrimes, Moon, Europa Report and Cube. I’ve got nothing, really, against the big tent-pole versions: I grew up on Star Wars and enjoyed The Matrix and Inception. There’s just something about a quieter, weirder sci-fi experience that really appeals to me. When I heard that Rian Johnson was going to be trying his hand at a sci-fi film, I knew this would be a must-see.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rian ever since Brick, a brilliant high school noir that also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He followed that up with The Brothers Bloom, a film so magical and wonderful that I had to keep checking and make sure that Terry Gilliam didn’t create it under a pseudonym. With those two films, I knew that I’d be paying a visit to whatever particular world Rian decided to create next. While sci-fi seemed a little left-field, especially after the magical realism of Brothers Bloom, I had faith, faith which was handily rewarded.

Looper posits a slightly dystopian future, a sort of Blade Runner-lite with hover bikes, drone irrigation systems, telekinesis and time travel. It’s not quite the brave new world we might’ve once imagined, however: telekinesis is pretty much handily written off as “a bunch of assholes floating quarters” and time travel is outlawed, used only by criminal organizations as a way of dumping unwanted corpses in the past. We’ve come so far, you see, but stayed so very close to home.

We meet Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), one of the hitmen known as Loopers, who are responsible for carrying out these contracts. Loopers have it pretty good, all things considered, right up until the time they outlive their welcome. Once this happens, their bosses send the Looper’s future self through the time machine, where the past Looper will, essentially, kill himself, “closing the loop.” At first glance, the mechanics of this seem rather unwieldy, leading one to wonder whether this will be a film akin to Primer (a brilliant film, mind you, but kind of like sitting through a graduate-level physics seminar while still in middle school biology). But fear not, as Joe will later say to himself: “I don’t wanna talk about time travel stuff cuz if we do, we’ll be here all day.” Johnson gives us just enough science to hang our hats on but not enough to hang us, preferring the let the central conflict do the heavy lifting.

And what a conflict. You see, one day, Joe’s future self comes through the portal. Loopers are trained to expect that day and not hesitate: it’s their version of retirement, essentially. Not killing your future self is generally frowned on, as that results in two of you running amok in the same time period. Joe, of course, hesitates just long enough on that fateful day to allow his future self (Bruce Willis) to kick the crap out of him and head for the hills. Present Joe must now track down Future Joe in order to close his own loop, all the while avoiding the shady underworld characters that employ him. Future Joe, for his part, has a mission: he needs to find and kill the mysterious crime boss, known only as The Rainmaker, who ordered his termination, an act which resulted in the death of Future Joe’s beloved wife. If he can do this, Future Joe believes, in can change the course of time and alter the outcome. Present Joe can’t let that happen, leading to a Joe vs Joe fighting extravaganza.

There’s quite a bit more to Looper than what the above indicates but uncovering the film’s many twists and turns is part of its charm. This is a film that manages to not only marry the past parts of Johnson’s short career (the noir-isms of Brick and the magical realism of Brothers Bloom) into a thoroughly cohesive whole but to include wholly new elements to the mix. Tonally, the film really reminded me of Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, especially once it began to delve into the truth behind The Rainmaker. This is certainly not an influence I could have seen in his earlier films but the parallelism(especially once we factor Willis into the mix) really works and makes me genuinely excited to see what other new tricks are up his sleeve.

As could be expected, JGL and Willis are outstanding. JGL, in particular, deserves special praise for his portrayal of young Joe. There is, obviously, some makeup used to enhance the physical resemblance between the two actors but that in no way should take focus from JGL’s performance. He becomes Willis in such a perfect way, from the way he walks to the way he holds his head and the subtle inflections in his voice, that it’s one of the most dizzying bits of screen fakery I’ve seen in ages. His first appearance took my breath away and it’s impossible for me to think that the same amount of praise and admiration currently bestowed upon Joaquin Phoenix won’t be granted twenty-fold to Gordon-Levitt. It really is an amazing performance, so full of pathos and emotion, yet so subtle, that it reminded me of something I’d kind of taken for granted: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one hell of an actor.

As is Willis, of course, channeling the same kind of wounded intensity that made his performance in the aforementioned 12 Monkeys so riveting. Cocky, self-assured Bruce Willis is a mighty kickass dude. Quiet, brooding Bruce Willis, however, often makes for a better film. His interplay with JGL is great, especially in a diner sit-down that seems to parody the inevitable “meeting of the twins” scene in like-minded films. I still buy Willis as an action hero, to a point, and Looper makes sure not to cross that point in any manner as egregious as the Expendables films. For his part, JGL convincingly pulls off the action-oriented material, leaving one to hope for more roles like this in his future.

As a whole, the film works exceptionally well. The special effects scenes, especially one involving a bonkers version of one of those “assholes floating quarters” doing a whole lot more than that, are excellent and many of the kinetic fight sequences reminded me of the fights in The Matrix, although much less flashy. There are some really deep issues explored here, issues that help make the powerful ending particularly resonant. Rather than being brazenly manipulative, the ending comes organically from the journey that Present Joe has been on, allowing it to seem more natural than mechanical.

At the end of the day, I found myself liking Looper quite a bit, maybe even more than Inception, despite the more ambitious scope of Nolan’s film. Like Brick, Looper is a tightly-plotted examination of loss, responsibility and moral obligation, a film that is not afraid to ask (or answer) some pretty big questions. It also manages to wrap science fiction into a noir cloak in a way not seen since those fabled attack ships were on fire, somewhere over by Orion.

1/16/14: Hidden in Plain Sight

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action-comedies, Akira Kurosawa, character dramas, cinema, classic movies, epic films, Film, Film auteurs, George Lucas, historical dramas, Japanese cinema, John Ford, Movies, samurai films, Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress, Toshiro Mifune

As a rule, I like to watch as many films as possible, wherever possible. If there’s even a possibility of shoehorning yet another film into the day’s viewing, then in it goes. Sometimes, however, I like to take the time to slow down and really savor a film. It doesn’t mean that I watch it in slo-mo (although I have done this, from time to time): rather, it means that I like to allow for plenty of time before and after my screening, a buffer zone that allows me to really think about a film, if I’m so inclined. Last Thursday, I decided to devote the entire evening to a film that surely deserves no less: Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. While this isn’t my favorite Kurosawa film, I’d gladly watch it every day for a week, if the mood struck.

There are few directors, from any era of film, that I respect and admire as much as Kurosawa. Like many cinephiles (although you may be different), my first exposure to Kurosawa came with the peerless Seven Samurai, followed very closely by Rashomon, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Throne of Blood and Kagemusha. Over the years, I’ve managed to see just about every film the master ever made, many multiple times. As a film fan, I like to keep moving forward yet must always have one foot firmly in the past. Kurosawa has been just such a bridge for the majority of my adult life.

What’s so special about Kurosawa? There’s a beauty and elegance to his films that’s virtually unmatched by anyone else in the business. He managed to bridge Japan’s past with its future, all the way up to his final film in 1993. He was the very definition of an auteur, a filmmaker whose vision was so powerful and singular as to practically define an entire generation of filmmaking. Any discussion of the greatest filmmakers in history would be worthless without featuring Kurosawa front and center. After all, what other foreign filmmaker has become so ensconced in the mind of the American viewer that he inspired not only The Magnificent Seven but Star Wars, as well?

Like most of Kurosawa’s samurai films, The Hidden Fortress is epic in scope but intimate in execution. In a nutshell, the film concerns the adventures/misadventures of Tahei and Matashichi, a pair of bickering, greedy, co-dependent peasants in feudal Japan. Due to a combination of bad luck, bad timing and bad attitudes, the two have found themselves on the run and penniless. They end up falling in with a mysterious, stoic swordsman and his young female charge, a couple that sound suspiciously similar to the princess and general that are currently on the run from the ruling Yamana clan. Despite their suspicions as to their true identities, the peasants agree to lead the two out of Yamana and into the (relative) safety of neighboring Hayakawa. They’ve been promised gold but they also have their eye on the reward being offered for the return of the princess. Will the princess and general make it to safety? Will the Akizuki clan ever be restored to their former glory? Will anything ever go right for Tahei and Matashichi?

As mentioned earlier, The Hidden Fortress is epic in scope (a huge, rollicking samurai adventure full of big fights, lush locations and glorious wide-shots), yet manages to hone in on a pretty specific, microscopic view of the action. At the beginning, we focus on the two peasants, despite the hustle and bustle around them. Shortly after, the swordsman (played by the always amazing Toshiro Mifune) is added and our duo becomes a trio. After that, we add Princess Yuki and our intimate trio has now become a quartet. Kurosawa paces his film in such a way that these additions are subtle: by the time we’ve become used to Tahei and Matashichi, Kurosawa has already introduced General Makabe, a pattern which will be repeated with Princess Yuki later on. This gradual introduction of characters is much more organic and natural than the usual “Ocean’s 11” approach to character building (introduce twelve characters at once and let ’em fight it out for supremacy, cage-match-style), an approach which necessitates a shotgun rather than a sniper rifle.

There’s also a truly wonderful and subversive sense of humor underlying the proceedings. Whether it’s the hang-dog bickering of the peasants or Makabe’s gleefully wry observations on life, The Hidden Fortress is no glum exercise in history-book actualization. Rather, this is a vibrant, alive and kinetic film, one that sees no danger in following up a spectacular sword-fight with a silly pratfall. In any other hands, this blending of styles would come across as a little ham-fisted (if you think you can name several good action-comedies, try naming all of the bad ones that come to mind: I bet I can tell which hand filled up faster.) Not only does Kurosawa make this work, however, he makes it work so invisibly as to be almost subliminal.

Like all Kurosawa films, there are lots of big themes running around in here: loyalty; honor; service vs personal gain; classism; the death knell of the feudal era; state vs self. More so than many of his films, The Hidden Fortress is very much indebted to the John Ford-era of the classic Hollywood Western: look at all of those wide-open vistas, check out how the hidden fortress of the title could almost be an abandoned cliff-dwelling and dig how Toshiro Mifune is just one upturned sneer away from being the perfect synthesis of Eastwood and van Cleef. Seven Samurai may be the one that always gets compared to the classic oaters but The Hidden Fortress definitely deserves to be part of that conversation.

As far as big, memorable set-pieces go, The Hidden Fortress has them and then some: General Makabe’s thrilling pursuit of Yamana soldiers right into the Yamana garrison; his spear fight with the enemy general; the prisoner revolt from the Yamana castle (one of my favorite scenes ever); Princess Yuki rebuffing the two peasants with every branch and tree limb in the forest; Tahei and Matashichi pantomiming bringing the horses to drink; Makabe’s wonderful ruse involving the Yamana and the Akizuki gold…they’re all here, along with another bakers’ dozen of equally memorable moments.

There are also some quieter, more evocative moments that are equally powerful. My two personal favorites would be the part where Princess Yuki decides to buy the Akizuki refugee and the conflict between Makabe and the enemy general. This conflict, in general, illustrates a very important aspect of Kurosawa’s filmmaking: the disparity between doing the honorable thing and doing what it is ordered. Despite being on opposite sides of the battle, the generals have nothing but respect for each other and their abilities: this marks a nice change of pace from the usual good guy/bad guy dynamic. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the Fire Festival segment, featuring one of the single most haunting songs I’ve ever heard. This part is beautiful, a bracing reminder that very few filmmakers could compose a shot and set the atmosphere in quite the way that Kurosawa could.

As an added bonus, the Criterion Edition of The Hidden Fortress features a short but worthwhile interview with George Lucas, wherein he explains the importance of Kurosawa, in general, and The Hidden Fortress, in specific, on his career. I’ve never been the biggest Lucas fan, to be honest, finding the gentleman to be somewhat of a pretentious twit. The interview is quite down-to-earth and informative, however, and I found myself warming to Lucas by the end. I still don’t really care for the guy but it’s hard to dislike someone who appears to enjoy Kurosawa films as much as I do.

And, yes, it’s true: when I squint my eyes, Tahei and Matashichi do kind of look like C-3PO and R2-D2.