10/31/14 (Part One): Better Late Than Never

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31 Days of Halloween, Asia Argento, auteur theory, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Dead Reckoning, Dennis Hopper, Diary of the Dead, dystopian future, Eugene Clark, Fiddlers' Green, Film auteurs, George Romero, horror films, horror franchises, intelligent zombies, John Leguizamo, KNB Effects, Land of the Dead, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, mercs, Night of the Living Dead, paramilitary groups, rich vs poor, Robert Joy, SImon Baker, social commentary, tanks, The Walking Dead, Tom Savini, writer-director, zombie films

As the wait continued for the follow-up to “Forefather of the Dead” George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), longtime fans of his brand of socially-conscious zombie carnage probably weren’t remiss in feeling that this particular ship had already set sail into the sunset. After all, Day of the Dead’s production was notoriously compromised due to financial constraints (Romero’s original plan to continue expanding the world that he created with Dawn of the Dead (1978) was, effectively, shot in the head and downsized to a “handful of survivors in a bunker” storyline after it all proved prohibitively expensive) and Romero appeared to have little success in attracting investors for another entry. For all intents and purposes, it looked like Romero’s zombies had finally stopped kicking, even if his filmmaking career continued to chug along with non-zombie efforts like Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1993) and Bruiser (2000).

But, to paraphrase another master of the macabre, “over time, even death may die” and Romero’s “Dead” fans finally got their long-delayed wish when Land of the Dead (2005), the official follow-up to Day of the Dead, finally roared into multiplexes. For the first time in 20 years, Romero’s shambling gut-munchers were once again duking it out for box-office dinero, hoping to infect a new generation of horror audiences. Anytime someone waits twenty years for something, however, there’s an inherent danger of irrelevance: after all, there have been twenty years of zombie films between Day and Land. Would Romero still have the goods or would this be another sad example of a master craftsman set adrift, helpless against the ever-changing zeitgeist of our modern era? The answer, as it turns out, would be a hearty “yes,” followed by a quieter, slightly more hesitant “perhaps.”

Radio broadcasts and images of zombie mayhem over the opening credits give us a shorthand version of the events leading up to the “present day,” which appears to reside in a decidedly dystopic near-future: zombies have, effectively, taken over the world, although small bands of survivors still carve out rough existences in the burned-out cities that litter the landscape of what used to be America. The living dead have continued to “evolve,” in a manner of speaking, which we witness first-hand as we see zombies attempting to play instruments, pump gas and carry on rudimentary conversations with each other. One zombie in particular, a large gas station attendant (Eugene Clark), seems to have more intelligence than the average gut-muncher and appears to serve as defacto “leader” to the zombies, organizing them into a more cohesive “army.”

Our plucky protagonist, Riley (Simon Baker), is the leader of a paramilitary group that serves as the last line defense for one of the anonymous, ruined metropoli that jut up from the landscape like scorched bones. Along with the obnoxious, conniving Cholo (John Leguizamo), best friend Charlie (Robert Joy), Mouse (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) and the rest of the hardened former soldiers, Riley answers to the ultra-slimy Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), lord of the self-sustaining, high-rise paradise known as Fiddler’s Green. Fiddler’s Green, home to the city’s most wealthy and powerful, towers above the slums of the city like an unattainable Eden for the unwashed masses. While the poor and downtrodden carve out existences in a futuristic ghetto that makes Blade Runner (1982) look like Pasadena, the rich and powerful live it up in a combination skyscraper/shopping mall/luxury apartment complex that couldn’t be a more obvious metaphor if it wore a sign saying “Future zombie snacks.” The only thing standing between the 1% and the “walkers” are Riley, his troops and one badass tank known as Dead Reckoning.

While Riley hopes for a modest little piece of land somewhere relatively zombie-free, Cholo has much bigger ambitions: he wants to move into the Green and take his place with the hoity toity elements of society. After he’s doublecrossed by the odious Kaufman, however, Cholo steals Dead Reckoning and aims it right at Paradise: if Kaufman doesn’t pay up what he owes, Cholo will happily mulch the rich and famous with their own firepower…irony, thy name art Romero. Realizing that the only one who can stop Cholo is the guy who trained him, Kaufman enlists Riley and Charlie to return the tank to homebase and deliver the “traitor,” dead or alive. With the assistance of Slack (Asia Argento), a wannabe soldier who Riley rescues from one of the city’s zombie vs human cage matches, the trio are closer than ever to realizing their dream of getting the hell out of the city. All that stands between them is a former comrade, an indestructible weapon of war and a zombie army led by an undead “messiah” named Big Daddy. The stakes? Nothing less than the future of the entire human species.

With a budget almost five times that of Day of the Dead (albeit still “modest” by modern tent-pole standards) and a much bigger scope, it’s tempting to view Land of the Dead as the “proper” follow-up to the landmark Dawn of the Dead. While one could certainly make an argument for this (at the very least, Romero’s desire to fully realize his short-changed vision must have been the genesis for the project), it’s also pretty evident that Land of the Dead presents a natural progression from Day of the Dead, especially when one considers the continued “evolution” of the zombies. Bub may have learned to use a Walkman but the zombies in Land of the Dead can communicate with each other, use basic tools and weapons, strategize (on a basic level) and seem to experience basic human emotions, such as anger, sorrow and pride.

This, of course, has always been one of my main issues with Day of the Dead: the “humanization” of the zombies may dovetail nicely with Romero’s overarching themes of societal collapse and rebirth but it also has the (presumably unintended) effect of removing much of the inherent horror from the living dead: once the zombies start acting more and more like “us,” as it were, they cease to be monsters and begin the journey towards sympathetic characters. While this is still handled rather subtly in Land of the Dead (to a point), the scales tip completely by the time of Diary of the Dead (2007) and it’s pretty obvious that the zombies are now the “victims” while the humans are the “monsters.” While Land of the Dead’s finale is certainly thought-provoking, Riley’s ruminations on the possibility of a shared “promised land” for both human and zombie-kind put us on a much different philosophical plane than the apocalyptic climaxes to either Dawn or Day of the Dead.

None of this, by the way, is to argue for “dumber” zombie films: I’ve always felt that the social politics of Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead were one of the main reasons why those films will always be such complete and undeniable classics. There’s a delicate balance to be maintained, however, a balance that Romero appears to grow increasingly uninterested in as the franchise continues: perhaps the desire to make his films more than just “zombie films” fuels this although, to be honest, this is probably just the natural progression of his earlier films, albeit taken a bit far, at least for my personal tastes.

My biggest issue with Land of the Dead, ultimately, is that it ends up being a rather mediocre horror film, despite being an above-average action film. Romero has sacrificed most of the inherent chills and shocks of his first three zombie films in favor of rather repetitious “run and gun” scenes involving Riley’s mercs and the undead: we get treated to what seems an inordinate amount of rather cheap-looking action beats rather than horror setpieces like the inquisitive Hari Krishna or the semi-trailer fiasco from Dawn of the Dead. Land of the Dead is also a much different-looking film than either Dawn or Day: the zombie effects are all handled by KNB, rather than Tom Savini, which actually makes Land of the Dead a bit of a dry-run for the smash-hit TV show The Walking Dead. This is a minor quibble, obviously, since KNB’s designs are nothing to sneeze at, although discerning viewers will still notice the difference (KNB’s zombies are much more “technical” but Savini’s zombies always felt more “real” to me, strangely enough).

The one aspect where Land of the Dead vaults head and shoulders above its immediate predecessor, however, is the caliber of the acting. Quite frankly, Day of the Dead is still one of the most unpleasantly “shouty” films I’ve ever watched: every actor in that thing is pitching to the rafters and, at times, it feels more like a wrestling match than an actual film. Land of the Dead, by contrast, features some absolutely fine performances by the likes of Baker, Argento (Dario’s daughter) and Leguizamo, who I normally find to be excruciating yet who wear the role of Cholo like a spike-knuckled glove. I’ll admit that Robert Joy’s “idiot savant” role stretches credibility just a bit (he’s innocent, like a child, but also a crackshot sniper, like a plot device). Top of the class, however, is Hopper, like always, ruling the roost like some sort of megalomaniacal rooster. He’s predictably great, tossing off lines like “Zombies, man…they creep me out” with the joie de vivre that you expect from cinema’s favorite wild man. Even if everyone else in the movie stunk to high heaven, which they don’t, Hopper is still 1000% more charismatic than every actor in Day of the Dead combined.

Ultimately, Land of the Dead is what it is: a sequel that comes just about 20 years too late. While there’s an awful lot to like here and even some stuff to love (the bits involving the zombies’ fascination with fireworks are, to be honest, quite beautiful), this ends up being a pretty big step-down from Dawn of the Dead, despite being a better film, overall, than Day of the Dead (in my opinion, at least). As mentioned before, this is more of an action film than a horror film, for the most part, but it’s never anything less than watchable and, on occasion, has plenty of that old Romero moxie. This may not be Romero firing on all cylinders (by contrast, The Dark Half is a much, much better film) but I’ll take a “pretty-good” Romero zombie film over pretty much any other horror director’s fare any day of the week. Part of me will never stop wondering what might have happened if this had come a mere 5-10 years after Day of the Dead, however, instead of 20.

 

3/2/14: Do Not Look Away (Oscar Bait, Part 13)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Adi Zulkrady, Anwar Congo, atrocities, Best Feature Documentary nominee, cinema, death squads, documentaries, documentary, Errol Morris, film reviews, films, gangsters, genocide, Herman Koto, Indonesia, Joshua Oppenheimer, junta, mass killings, military dictatorship, Movies, murder, Oscar nominee, Pancasila Youth, paramilitary groups, snubbed at the Oscars, Syamsul Arifin, The Act of Killing, Top Films of 2013, torture, Werner Herzog

Very rarely, if ever, would I call any film “required” viewing. Humanity is just too fundamentally diverse to ever see eye-to-eye on issues like housing, health care, religion, government, child care and equitable living wages, so asking everyone to agree on entertainment seems like a pretty silly pursuit. I think that Dawn of the Dead is one of the most amazing films ever created: if you don’t like horror movies, the conversation is over. Some people listen to EDM and hear the new noise of a generation: others might hear a modem connecting. There are masses of people who swear that The New Girl is funny, while I agree to respect their opinions. At the end of the day, it really is all just a matter of taste and perspective: like what you want to like, watch you want to watch. In a world where everything is essential, nothing can truly be essential.

The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar-nominated documentary about the Indonesian killing fields, is required viewing. I say this with no hyperbole whatsoever and with full acknowledgement that it completely contradicts my earlier statement. Up until now,  for one reason or another, I had never seen a film that I felt needed to be seen by everyone. I’ve seen plenty of films that I felt all film fans or film students or music fans or (insert favorite niche here) fans needed to see but never a film that all humanity needed to see. The Act of Killing, however, is that film. This should be given away to everyone (Alamo Drafthouse, the doc’s distributor, already set up ways for the film to be freely viewed and screened in Indonesia, where it’s also been banned), taught in school curriculum and made a part of international dialogue. Otherwise, there is the very real risk that the atrocities portrayed within the film will be forgotten by the world at large, something which must be prevented at all costs. There is a lesson for the whole world to learn here, a terrible lesson that very few will want to hear.

In the mid-1960’s, the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military, resulting in a brutal junta that ruled by fear, violence and the trumped-up threat of “Communism” sweeping into the area. Using local gangsters and paramilitary units, the military rounded up, tortured and murdered any and all opposition/undesirables, including  union members, farmers, intellectuals and ethnic Chinese. Within a year, these massacres had claimed the lives of over one million Indonesians. To this day, almost 50 years later, the military is still in power and the men responsible for all of the killing are still extolled as national heroes and civic leaders. Imagine a case where Hitler grew old and was allowed to retire to a quaint, rural Polish village, a village where he was routinely celebrated as not only a hero but as a kindly, grandfatherly gentleman. This, in a nutshell, is the situation in Indonesia.

When Oppenheimer and his courageous crew traveled to Indonesia, they had the great fortune to find two of the most notorious – and most celebrated – local gangsters: Anwar Congo and Herman Koto. Not only were Congo and Koto unrepentant regarding their past crimes: they were openly proud and had nothing but fond memories of the murders. Under the guise of allowing Congo and Koto to further their own propagandist notions, the filmmakers offered the two men the opportunity to film their best “activities” using the mannerisms and styles of the American films that they love so much: musicals, gangsters pics, film noir, etc. At first, the two men are overjoyed at this chance to fully portray and laud their “heroic” activities, offering future generations the chance to learn from their initiative. Along the way, however, something quite surprising happens: when presented with the never-ending tidal wave of his past atrocities, crimes which have gone not only unpunished by celebrated, Anwar Congo begins to crack. By the time the film is over, this smirking charlatan, this two-bit street thug turned defacto robber-baron, will lose the only thing that could ever truly matter to him: his own sense of self-worth.

The Act of Killing is, for lack of a better word, crushing. There are few words that can accurately describe just how powerful, how unbearably nihilistic, the film is. In one scene, Koto moves through a slum neighborhood and attempts to enlist the services of the locals to play the part of “Communists” in their staged production. The locals agree (what else could they possibly do?) and even participate somewhat enthusiastically (if rather confused) but they are still participating in the re-enactment of things that happened to them as directed by the men who originally committed the acts. It’s akin to forcing a rape victim to reenact the crime for the sole enjoyment of the perpetrator. At another point, one of Congo’s men fondly recalls how raping young girls was one of his favorite things to do: “I would always say this is going to be hell for you but heaven on earth for me.” Adi Zulkadry, one of Congo’s fellow executioners in the ’60s, happily discusses the “Crush the Chinese” campaign where he, personally, stabbed dozens of Chinese Indonesians in the street, including the father of his own Chinese girlfriend. The list of atrocities is seemingly endless, many of which Congo and his goons gleefully reenact as splashy, Golden-Age-of-Hollywood” vignettes, complete with singing, dancing, costumes and surreal sets.

Far from serving as a glorified snuff film, however, The Act of Killing has a much more subversive intent. Since the people who Oppenheimer and his crew intend to target are still very much in power and “beloved” by their countrymen, shedding light on their heinous actions isn’t quite as easy as sitting down for a traditional interview. As one of the soldiers says, regarding the Geneva Conventions definition of war crimes: “War crimes are defined by the winner and I am the winner.” When the vice-president of the country is speaking at one of your rallies, you have to assume that your group has official government support. In order to “hang” these criminals, Oppenheimer needs to give them enough rope: the result will speak to the whole world.

Since so much of the world seems to either turn a blind eye to the massacres in Indonesia or was actively supporting it (Western governments threw their support behind the cleansing under the guise of “stomping out Commies”), The Act of Killing may serve as the first real glimpse into that past history. Even more importantly, this comes directly from the mouths of those who committed the crimes: an unwitting digital confession, as it were. When Congo takes the filmmakers to the area where they conducted mass executions and describes, proudly, how he made the killing more efficient by switching from beating to a wire/strangulation technique, he’s doing something very important: documenting for the entire world his complicity in the crimes. Perhaps I’m being unduly optimistic, but if Congo and his cronies are ever actually brought to justice, it will probably be from evidence like this. Rather than relying on the eye-witness testimony of survivors, this is straight from the horses’ mouths, as it were: the killers aren’t denying the events, they’re describing them in gory detail.

The whole film is wretchedly, terribly powerful, the kind of movie that becomes instantly unforgettable, for better or worse, the moment you watch it. You will be changed by this: maybe a little, maybe a lot…but you will be changed. There’s something about seeing events this terrible, this real, that brands your soul. We’re used to seeing the face of evil, by this point in humanity’s history, but I don’t know that evil has ever looked this happy, this complacent and at peace with the world. Up until the end, viewing so much grinning depravity, so much hopeless oppression, made me lose hope: this wasn’t a story where the good guys won…where there even were good guys, to be honest. This was the story of terrible, amoral people committing heinous acts to innocent people.

But then, towards the end, something happens. Congo, whether through the constant reminder of his past or through his own portrayal of various murder victims, seems to change. He begins to grow wearier, smiles less. He seems to be troubled, instantly, as if he’s aged 30 years overnight. Could it be that he has finally come to realize the weight of his actions, that he sees the inherent evil of a massacre perpetuated because he and his young friends, in their words, “would do anything for money and wanted new clothes?” He seems to be more thoughtful but Congo is a cagey guy: could this be some sort of attempt to hedge his bets, to straddle both sides of the fence? Congo makes a statement that seems to confirm this: watching the footage has made him feel what the victims felt. He seems genuinely sorry but then the filmmakers land the killing blow: as Oppenheimer gently reminds him from off-camera, what happened to his victims was actually real, not a film. For the first time in the entire film, the light goes out of Anwar Congo’s eyes and the aging gangster/torturer/mass-murderer/statesman/grandfather seems completely speechless. This is not about Congo receiving redemption: he doesn’t deserve it. This is, however, about finally admitting (even if only to himself) that what happened was actually wrong.

The 1965-1966 massacres in Indonesia are a terrible dark stain on humanity’s blood-spattered history and have been largely over-looked and downplayed in the 50 years since. The film begins with a terrible, but true, quote from Voltaire: “All killing is prohibited and punished unless done in large number and to the sound of trumpets.” This is true and only another reason why The Act of Killing should be required viewing: it refuses to let this pass into the gauzy fog of time, obscured from the prying eyes of the world. This was a film that hit me hard, as if someone had punched me right in the gut. I’m willing to wager that it will hit you equally hard, if you give it the chance.