Angels with Dirty Faces

Michael Curtiz’s Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) is a fascinating glimpse into the nature of violence as a potentially cyclical and unshakeable pathological condition. This film, though marked as a Hollywood production, transcends its classical and genre-specific roots to become a unique experience by virtue of its impeccable script and performances.

Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connelly (Pat O’Brien) are youths who pride themselves on being petty thieves. While Jerry escapes the police during one particular raid and transforms himself into a virtuous priest, Rocky is caught and thrown into reform school. The conditions within the school, though, actually lead him to further transgressions, since he comes to understand how to mastermind and perfect a criminal’s life. When Rocky is released from prison, he returns to a life of crime by shepherding a bunch of young street thugs while simultaneously renewing his friendship with Jerry and romancing a girl. Rather than belabor the romance angle, however, Curtiz notes it and moves on, for the film is about the idea of living by example, not by leading with money. Though Sullivan is engaging and powerful, his is a persona grounded in the over-investment of male bravado and pathology. Thus, violence cannot be substituted with a more normative reaction, such as forgiving or pardoning the offender, but instead must be returned in kind. While Sullivan shepherds and disciplines the overly-posturing street thugs, his power and pull throughout the town will inevitably train them to identify that respect is gained by being the aggressor. This type of reinforcement, while perhaps true for Sullivan, will undoubtedly carry its negative repercussions far beyond Sullivan’s life. To paraphrase Rilke, he must change his life.

And somehow Curtiz and his screenwriters makes this point work, never letting it become condescending (as it does come from a corporate studio company). When Rocky is finally captured and faces his execution, Jerry comes to him and asks him to sacrifice his bravado and masculine egotism and assume the role of a redemptive, whimpering man about to be executed. The reason, of course, is that this is the only way to secure a positive example for the street thugs and show them that violence and its pathological behaviors are not the answer, and that devotion and fidelity to the law and God are.

The film is brilliant for its refusal to posit why Rocky finally sacrifices his machismo, since such a positing immediately panders to the audience. Instead, Curtiz leaves Rocky’s reasons ambiguous, since it is entirely possible that Rocky was finally overcome by fear over his impending death, just as it is possible that he feels some responsibility to shepherding his disciples to a truer path. This is a marvelous film about the repercussions of human responsibility to others, as well as an around engaging film.

Angels with Dirty Faces: 10/10

Marie Antoinette

Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) possesses the grace and elegance of those classically constructed historical films, yet injects just enough contemporary details and anachronistic moments that the film never falls into that staid and monotonous atmosphere. This is not to say that historical films can only be interesting if contemporary details are worked into them; rather, that Coppola and this film utilize those elements wonderfully, letting them add to Marie Antoinette's liberating persona.

In hopes of creating an alliance between Austria and France, Marie (Kirsten Dunst) is married off to Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), a young man more generally concerned with hunting foxes and hanging around with his men than with consummating the marriage. Faced with this ridicule and unable to transgress past it, Marie celebrates her status in material things, rewarding herself and her girlfriends with the most prized and decadent of jewelry and clothes. Yet when Louis XV (Rip Torn) passes away, Louis XVI finally must become the king of the nation and sire a son to the throne. Unfortunately, the citizens eventually rise up and send Marie "packing."

To be sure, this film is most engaging when studying the milieu of Marie's world as she is spurned and cast off by those around the throne for being unable to get Louis XVI to consummate the marriage. Coppola beautifully presents a portrait of a young girl isolated from any comfort to call her own as she constantly worries about being cast off herself if she cannot bear the throne a child. The humiliation and hurt that washes over her as another woman bears a child to the throne first is indeed a powerful moment in the film. Moreover, Coppola has several masterstrokes throughout the film, such as insinuating Antoinette's dead third child by having a portrait of her and her three children removed and replaced by an earlier portrait with just two children.

Still, the last thirty minutes of the film do start dragging as Coppola works to bring her narrative to a close, having to rely on history rather than her characters to advance the plot. Yet this whole film is a visual sumptuous delight, delivering some of the most awe-inspiring cinematography since Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, and barring the last quarter of the film, Marie Antoinette is never less than magical.

Marie Antoinette: 8.5/10

Bully

Larry Clark's Bully (2001) masquerades as a naturalistic based on a real story revenge narrative about teens who decide to murder a bully who has tormented and abused those closest to him. In terms of documenting the cyclical nature of violence, this is an interesting story. In terms of being a good film, it is not.

Billy (Nick Stahl) constantly derides and ridicules his best friend, Marty (Brad Renfro). When Marty gets a new girlfriend, Lisa (Rachel Miner), however, Billy begins to reveal his level of dominance and possession. Billy physically abuses Marty and rapes Lisa, and weeks later Marty and Lisa concoct a plan to terminate Billy's abuse. Recruiting several of their friends, they plan out the execution of Billy.

Unfortunately, that first hour, with its "naturalistic" take on getting high, screwing, and simple love was cringeworthy and mindnumbing. Characters are so uneducated and thoughtless in their decision-making here that IQs literally drop throughout the film. If the lesson to be learned is that uneducated teens cannot plan, execute, and manage life after murdering a fellow human, then the film succeeds. However, if the film is meant to portray the internalized guilt and repercussions that follow from such an act, then the film clearly fails. Lacking anything that even bears a resemblance of subtlety, Clark and his screenwriters instead pummel the audience with insipid dialogue and attempts at profundity.

As a result, Bully becomes nothing more than a misstep, and an attempt at documenting the fallout from a shared traumatic experience. The inability to achieve anything resembling depth ultimately damns this film to mediocrity, and those few strong moments in the middle of the film as the pace and intelligence of the characters picks up are revealed to be small aberrations.

Bully: 4/10

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) has all the taste of vanilla ice cream, and leaves the viewer with the same emptiness. It's a terribly bland screwball comedy wherein the deeper implications of marriage and lying are undermined by unfunny and painful revelations masked as plot advancement. This, one of Hitchcock's few times he worked as director for hire, possesses none of the magic of the best of Hitchcock's material.

Ann Smith (Carole Lombard) and David Smith (Robert Montgomery) are a couple who habitually undergo huge fights and temper tantrums, and after one of the longest periods of emotional silence (3 days), David is notified that their marriage is not legally binding, since it was conferred out of state. Unbeknownst to him, Ann is also notified, and so when David suggests a night on the town, she expects the night to end with a new marriage. However, David never propositions her with a new marriage that night, and when Ann exposes his transgression, David denies any wrongdoing. Yet lost within this entire film is David's explanation for why he didn't acknowledge a desire to remarry Ann, which is what dooms the film to mediocrity.

And so a typical bedroom farce scenario is played out, wherein Ann tortures David by tempting his best friend Jeff Custer (Gene Raymond). Yet the immorality of Jeff's decision to romance his best friend's "wife" asks for explanation and development, and this being a screwball "comedy," such exceptations are never received. Given his importance, Jeff's character should possess some morality for his friend's recent loss, rather than his opportunistic attempt at matchmaker. Even the explanation that all of Jeff's moves are done to rekindle Ann and David's love fails to resolve his moral ambiguities. Instead, what remains is a love triangle that is morally and ethically repugnant, when it wishes to be breezy. These types of inappropriate misfires lead to a conclusion that is bland and thoroughly expected, but never really earned.

There are some nice moments in the film, such as when Jeff and Ann get stuck on the ferris wheel during a thunderstorm. And Lombard has a nice screen presence, but the ideas cannot overcome the execution, which is dull and often inappropriate or not developed.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith: 5/10

Series 7: The Contenders

Daniel Minahan's Series 7: The Contenders (2001) examines how reality shows have desensitized their audience to such a state wherein murder is accepted as entertainment. With such a narrative conceit, it's obvious that Minahan's film wants to question the nature of illusion, artifice, and responsibility vis-a-vis his chief protagonists.

Eight-month pregnant Dawn Lagarto (Brooke Smith) is the worthy victor on The Contenders, Series 7, and she must face five new challengers in order to be free from the obligation of competing. However, this new season takes place in her old hometown and will reunite her with her old flame Jeff Norman (Glenn Fitzgerald), an artist and dying cancer patient who once shared a romance with Dawn in high school. Now, however, they must struggle to articulate their feelings while negotiating those who want them dead, as well as Jeff's loyal wife.

Minahan successfully avoids trangressing outside his chosen genre, maintaining an emotional fidelity to his satire, so the film never adopts a new tonal quality or transitions become reality and satire without conviction. Yet it is the script that disappoints, since characters are sometimes touchingly portrayed, and other times they come across as crass and broad caricatures. The nurse especially suffers this condition, since she goes from one who condemns Dawn's out-of-wedlock pregnancy in one contemptuous instant to one who overlooks those she murdered while taking confession in church. These sorts of ideological critiques feel a little too pat and contrived for this film, and leave the nurse as only a surface character, when her actions suggest that she should be the antagonist with better character arc and development. The same problem occurs in the young girl's comically overbearing parents, which denies the film any emotional investment since the satire is drawn too broadly.

While it is an obvious target to lambaste reality TV as uncaring about real lives, it's an effective film overall. I feel I may be too generous in handing the film my current score, but the effective scenes do overpower the weak ones overall, and the ending works quite well (where the ending is reconstructed due to "lost footage"). And the artifice of the musical cues work incredibly well. There's a great film in here; as it is, it's merely a good one.

Series 7: The Contenders: 7/10

Gilda

Charles Vidor's Gilda (1946) is a film wherein the depth of the script, performances, and film noir stylistics offset a weak and impotent ending. Yet, to be sure, the nihilism that centers much of this film cannot sustain itself at the hands of 40's Hollywood, so a weak conclusion is to be expected. Up until the final moments, Gilda is a strong example of rapid-fire dialogue and gifted characterization.

Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a gambler who has just newly arrived in Buenos Aires, and taken to streetside gambling. When he is saved from misfortune by regal Ballin Mundson (George Macready), Johnny is made Ballin's right-hand man at the illegal bourgeois casino that Ballin runs. However, complications ensue when Ballin vacations and brings back new bride Gilda (Rita Hayworth) with him. Unbeknownst to Ballin, Gilda and Johnny have a checkered past, and so Gilda channels her contemptuous anger at Johnny, becoming one of the first female provocateurs in American cinema.

In terms of subtext in this film, perhaps most noteworthy is how biting cynicism becomes the vehicle for desire. Johnny and Gilda torture each other endlessly with their contempt, yet this same contempt fuels their desire for each other. Consequently, aggression becomes their mode of operation, internalizing their desire even as they send barbs back and forth. Moreover, when Ballin "dies" and Johnny and Gilda finally marry, Johnny's idea of substituting a physical lack for any chance at consummation suggests a fascinating role reversal as perverse punishment for their thoughts of infidelity.

The finale of this film lacks the energy that the rest of the film is wrapped in, which is unfortunate, since the film plays off of gender relations and subverts them beautifully in the beginning. And the songs that Hayworth sings, while strong songs, seem to belong in another film. Yet the rest of Gilda is solid, especially the beautiful performance of Hayworth, and the film is rightly considered a classic of 40's cinema.

Gilda: 8/10

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) is perhaps silent film’s masterpiece. Together with W.F. Murnau’s Sunrise, this film exists as the most exemplary example of sophistication, pathos, and spirituality in the face of martyrdom. Utilizing the haunting yet beatific facial expressions of Maria Falconetti, coupled together with contemporary music inspired by the film (full of choirs and orchestras), Dreyer created a singular film that captures the devastation of the hours leading up to Joan of Arc’s ultimate sacrifice.

The camera angles and effects that Dreyer utilizes perfectly encompass the emotions of the film. Unlike his contemporaries in silent film, Dreyer mandated that the actors in this film not use makeup, and this nakedness on the face leads to heartbreaking emotion in Joan of Arc, and often generates a diseased, broken face in those of her condemners. Moreover, the film’s criticism of religious martyrs is still remarkably prescient, allowing for a commentary on the abuse of religious doctrine to spurn others.

There is little to comment upon in this film. Rather, the film washes over one in waves, offering brief respite but always leading to its inevitable crescendo, and the final effect is chilling in its simplicity. This is a film that should be watched by anyone interested in the role of religion in early cinema, or simply by anyone who appreciates cinema. It is probably the most spiritual film to have ever been made.

Ultimately, this is a film where a discussion of the film cannot match the beauty and haunting nature of the film itself. The music is breathtaking, the images exquisite, and Falconetti’s face unmatched in its purity of expression. Utterly amazing.

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc: 10/10

Three Times

Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Three Times (2005) is a frequently beautiful and sublimely haunting film, a formalist experiment that examines how the social and political constraints of the time period impact human desire. The three narratives take place in 1911, 1966, and 2005, and underscore the rigidity of early twentieth century, the optimism of mid-century, and the confused and disaffectedness of contemporary life.

Shu Qi plays all three of the female leads, and Chang Chen all the male leads, and their natural attraction to one another shifts concurrently with the narrative. On one hand, the first two narratives worked unbelievably well, with pitch-perfect stylistics and performances. That ending to the "A Time for Love" (1966) story is absolutely enchanting, one-upping Wong Kar Wai in its depiction of 1960's romanticism, while "A Time for Freedom" (1911) is embedded with such a sense of bitterness and melancholy. So those are both great, offering first a sublime story concerning the simplicity of affection and desire, and the second story seeming to explore the deep-seeded regret that comes with an unfilfilled love. So the link between fulfillment in liking someone and the lack of reciprocal love works formally.

But the contemporary story doesn't quite resonate on any of the same levels, as though Hou's narrative construction and formalist pacing doesn't quite translate with the same level of success to modern times. Still, it has its individual moments, it just fails to reach that transcendent moment. Here, rather than the formal piano orchestra of 1911 and the American love songs of the 1966 story, the music and melodies are achieved vis-a-vis droning rock and electronica bands, which certainly conforms to a different ontology concerning the characters than their earlier counterparts. The scenes with Shu singing in the concert venue, where Chang is more concerned with snapping pictures than listening to her words is telling, and a nice touch. It just has that Antonioni-ennui, which, while paralleling the vastness of the contemporary city, seem a little contrived. It just feels too easy to suggest that relationships today lack the intimacy and connectedness of yesteryear.

A great essay concerning Hou's aesthetic and formal choices in Three Times can be found here. It details the structural and operative modes of communication that Hou utilizes throughout the three narratives, and offers the best response to the unorderliness of contemporary life in Hou's film. Regardless of how one feels about the last narrative, though, the first narrative shown cinematically (1966) is absolute magic, and even the formal qualities of the second narrative (1911) are excellent. Judge the last narrative for yourself.

Three Times: 8.5/10

Imitation of Life

Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959) is a huge improvement over the 1934 version. Character motivations and whole back stories have been expunged entirely, such as Delilah Johnson's degrading career as a pancake cook. She is now Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a woman who has emotionally bonded with the career-minded Lora Meredith (Lana Turner), looking after Meredith's young daughter and her own daughter, Sarah Jane, who can pass as white at first glance. The scenario, as it did in the original, provides plenty of melodrama, which Sirk utilizes masterfully, but also creates a more fascinating discussion of Meredith's inadequacies as a parent who finally overcomes her self-interest.

Emotions are more developed, Lana Turner's character is revealed to be the insensitive mother that Claudette Colbert's character only hinted at, and most importantly, the central drama of the Johnson family is actually developed out with maturity and sensitivity to the plight of African-Americans. Sarah Jane's character actually has an arc, and the ending covers a span of emotional maturity, rather than a stunted commentary on the nature of passing. Indeed, while the film logically covers more of Meredith's story (given the time period, social expectations and all), it is the commentary on Sarah Jane and her mother that are given the strongest once-over.

When Sarah Jane leaves the household and starts to pass in bars and dance clubs, there is a sensitivity and depth to her contradicting feelings about her heritage and her mother that is entirely absent from the original. Moreover, these scenes demonstrate with genuine sadness the way in which she was forced to utilize her light-skinned beauty, so that her survival is dependent upon her marketing of herself as a sex object. Mostly, though, it is the ending that is redeemed in this version, allowing Sarah Jane a reconciliation and working through her past experiences that gives the character a proper depth and range of emotion.

At the end of the day, stories about racial passing and survival received little attention from classic Hollywood, so any film that tackles these issues sets itself up for critical acclaim. Only Sirk's version of Imitation of Life delivers on the depth, transcending blanket caricatures. So much better of a film.

Imitation of Life: 8/10

Pride and Prejudice

Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice (2005) captures all that is right about historical literary romances, recreating that sense of verbal sparing between the sexes, documenting the social classes that confined families to marrying off their children out of need rather than desire, but, most of all, this film celebrates the euphoric sense of romance that accompanies intellectual Lizzie Bennett discovering her fellow intellectual Mr. Darcy to be the ideal romance of her life.

Elizabeth Bennett (Keira Knightley) is the sophisticated daughter among her family, entertaining intelligence rather than simplicity. As such, she harbors natural resentment toward those who chastise her sex or demean her family, such as recent arrival Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), a man who believes Eliabeth's sister's affection for his best friend, Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods), to be out of profit and social rising, and not out of the pure love that it is actually based on. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy spend much of the film dueling and challenging one another, and only later do they realize that each means the best for their respective family and friends. Upon this realization, the two begin to be slowly drawn to each other, but, as with all great literary romance classics, society colludes against them.

While this is a romantic film, Wright includes much of Austen's social commentary, so that the Bennett family mother and two younger sisters are understood to be devotional only to marriage, good looks, and wealth, and larger issues of propriety and economic conditions escape them. Moreover, Wright analyzes the way in which beauty becomes a currency for women, marketing themselves to potential suitors with all the air of perfection itself. Contrasted against this vision, though, is Lizzie's best friend, a thoroughly ordinary woman who must resign herself to the also ordinary Mr. Collins. These issues are not glossed, but instead are handled with the care of one who knows that historical accuracy only adds to the weight of the film.

At the end of the day, there are few films as tenderly beautiful and romantic as this one, where a simple devotional kiss is repressed until the final frame. However, this is a film that is nonetheless deeply romantic, exposing the desires that we all have for another. The last ten minutes are amazing, and every emotional crescendo is earned. Simply delightful.

Pride and Prejudice: 9/10

After Life

Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (1998) is an ode to memory and the deceased, offering a sometimes wonderful rumination on what memory one would select if he/she could only take one memory with him/her into the after life. In terms of this singularity, the film links itself up with Zen's idea of contentment pretty well, and the scenes of memory's recreation and recovery are undoubtedly strong. Yet for all of this, After Life is probably Kore-eda's least interesting of his efforts that I've seen thus far (Nobody Knows and Maborosi being the other two, both of which balance on perfection).

Takashi Mochizuki (Arata) is one of four counsellors who strive to help the recently deceased settle on one memory that will stay with them throughout all of eternity. Yet while the successes of the film lie in analyzing the recently deceased and trying to localize a singular image or moment of pure reflection and contentment, the weaknesses lie in the relationships between Mochizuki and the female trainee counsellor, Shiori Satonaka (Erika Oda).

Kore-eda clearly seeks to underscore an ambivalent but desired relationship in Shiori's mind, yet he never really develops the proper dynamics into their relationship for there to be true conflict. Interestingly, the youngest counsellor Mochizuki is probably one of the oldest, since one permanently remains the aged that they were when they died, so that even though Mochizuki died from injuries suffered in World War II, he still looks young and youthful here. But whereas he is forever committed to the fiancee that he left behind, Kore-eda leaves the emotion too far understated, which forces the inevitable loss to simply not be as engaging as it could be.

Still, it's nonetheless a good film, and the stories that the deceased reveal make up for the weaknesses of the counsellor's characters. Kore-eda interviewed hundreds of people, trying to locate what desires and memories people would wish to return to, and this understanding is woven throughout the dead's stories. I just wish Kore-eda had been more emphatic in playing up the dynamics of the counsellor's relationships...

After Life: 7.5/10

The Conformist

Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970) is perhaps the quintessential espionage film, even though these genre specific qualities take a back seat to political commentary about 1930's Italy and Mussollini, conformity and fascism, and morality contrasted against amorality.

Indeed, this is a very amoral film, and centers on a spineless Italian, Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who rises through the fascist ranks of Italy by betraying his friends and family for his country. In order to further delineate his innocence and maintain a facade, though, he marries and while on his honeymoon in Rome he is ordered to reunite with a former professor who has since fled Italy and assassinate this man in the name of Mussollini. What transpires is a character study of a spineless protagonist who feels conflicted between his past loyalties to the professor and his present loyalties to his country. Moreover, the professor's wife (Dominique Sanda) has also become an impediment to Marcello's ability to murder.

Within this narrative lies a psychological basis for Marcello's actions. He was taught by a soldier in his youth to connect feelings of sex together with violence, and while some might claim that this is just pretentious connecting, the film succinctly argues that enacting violence and sexual abuse upon children leads to an amoral acceptance of violence and aggression in the child's present. As a result, though Marcello begins to question his culpability in procurring the professor's death, these thoughts are often sublimated and compartmentalized, so that blind conformity is, in the end, what he desires. This, also, is what makes the last ten minutes of the film so haunting.

More so than the narrative, this is a film that exists on the strength of its music and images, allowing Bertolucci to posit the moral incertitude of Marcello through cinematic framing and the film’s mise en scene. Thus, although the film might initially feel cold and clinically rooted to ideas of Freudian psychology, the circular editing and subtlety of the images ground the film in the organic nature of cinema. The Conformist is a film that deserves its acclaim, since it balances elements of a sexy thriller together with a more profound questioning of fascism, examining how a nation so willingly became conditioned to accept this sort of fascist rule. A masterpiece.

The Conformist: 10/10

Thank You for Smoking

Lacking any true psychological depth, Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking (2005) is a confident but never truly pentrating character study. While Aaron Eckhart owns the smarmy and despicable character Nick Naylor cold, the film struggles to match the intensity of the lead performance, and ultimately limps to an ending that is contrived even as it's satirically enjoyable. And so goes this film; it's a fun ride that goes nowhere or challenges, but instead merely entertains. On the basis of entertainment, it succeeds but any intellectual sophistication is marginal at best.

And this film possesses the chance for a good political and social commentary on the falseness of politicians and public relations policing a product not for truth, but instead only in order to neutralize truth. The Mod Squad bits are probably the best, where Naylor has dinner with alcohol lobbyist (Maria Bello) and a firearms rep (David Koechner) allowing for a degree of depth and ingenuity that the rest of Reitman's script ignores.

This film, like others before it, channels the ol' kid who's smarter than his parents syndrome, which is nauseating and a trend that should be put down before it can do any more damage. This bit of father-son bonding seems a little too prescripted and devoid of "reality," and so the ability to buy these scenes is a little too slim. The strength of this film, though, lies with Eckhart, who delivers a continuation of the masterful characterization of In the Company of Men. It's a great performance that salvages a script that is too pacifying to be savage.

As a result, though this film never sermonizes, nor does it ever truly become engaging. Instead, despite bravura acting from Eckhart, it's ultimately as slight as the pun of the title.

Thank You for Smoking: 6.5/10

Punch-Drunk Love

Few films are as infectious and pleasing as Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002), a pathological fairytale that possesses more genuine romance than all of those pre-scripted romantic comedies that plague the film industry. What makes this statement so perplexing is that on one level Anderson is himself parodying the conventions of the romantic fairytale, yet he also always grants his characters an integrity and vision that allows them to exist as fully-realized individuals and not disparate caricatures.

A small- business owner of a plumbing manufacturing company, Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a man whose blankness defines him as much as his pathological anger. His seven sisters continually deride him and verbally abuse him, and he only knows how to internalize that verbal aggression and mimic it physically when he cannot hold it in any longer. One of his sisters tries to set him up with her coworker Lena Leonard (Emily Watson, ever radiant), and the film chronicles their attempt to find happiness together even as complications, such as distance and mattress man/owner of a phone sex operation Dean Trumbell (Philip Seymour Hoffman), work to seperate them.

Despite a voice that can raise in intensity at the first insult, Sandler's face as an actor is preternaturally expressionless, so Anderson often has the camera trail him, allowing that lack of depth to be used sparingly. In its place, Anderson manipulates the film's lens flare, so that these filmic augmentations are personified through Barry Egan's viewpoint. When a flash of hope comes over him, so too does a blue lens flare. When anger colors his emotions, a red lens flare enters the frame. A great essay on these ideas can be found here.

Another aspect that deepens the film's fairytale-ish quality is the treatment of Lena Leonard. While Barry is mocked and verbally assaulted for his past tirades, it soon becomes apparent that Lena possesses these same internalizations, though she handles them in a more adult and less noticeable manner, which can be seen most effectively when Barry and Lena whisper their words of love to one another:

Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
[pause]
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.

These kinds of dynamics add depth and complexity to what is essentially a fairytale. Yet this reworking of pathology and battered psyches give the film an originality and cinematic harmony, so that Anderson allows his story to rise above conventional romance stories and gain a visual articulation of the themes that transpire rhetorically throughout the film. A magical experience.

Punch-Drunk Love: 9/10

The Departed

Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) is an American reimagining of the Hong Kong action classic Infernal Affairs (2002). It is recommended that interested parties in Scorsese's film first seek out the original, since it bears all the same strengths and weaknesses of this version, and has a better account of honor, loyalty, and justice (although these ideals remain far more implicit in IA). In contrast, Scorsese's version articulates these ideals more, but reimagines a central character in ways that differentiate the film from the original.

The idea behind the film is masterful, which is largely why Hollywood was so interested in grabbing the rights up from the HK studio. A police mole Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) has infiltrated Boston crime lord Frank Costello's (Jack Nicholson) gang. Meanwhile, Costello has placed his own mole in the police force, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). As both crime lord and police chief work to counter the other's mole, Costigan and Sullivan begin to be caught in the crossfire, questioning their loyalties to their initial boss. To discuss more takes much of the suspense away, so mum's the word on the story from here on out.

There's something operatic and grandiose about the way both IA and The Departed deal with the execution of characters. Throughout the film, we understand that Costigan either has to extricate himself from his crime life or that he will be consumed by it. Here, unlike in the original IA, Costigan falls for the psychiatrist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), the same woman that Sullivan has romanced. While it doesn't really damage the film, since this act of desire further substantiates how the two men are doubles of each other, the relationship still feels a little too obligatory and stilted.

The dynamics of the film change toward the end, when one of the assumes a different persona than the original Infernal Affairs. This change actually works quite effectively (the original characterization is probably more in tune with HK ideals of honor and justice than U.S. ideals of honor and justice). As a result, it allows the ending to puncture simpler ideas of justice, showing a man who surrenders to death rather than exhibit any signs of resistence. He has been crushed, mentally and spiritually, for he has betrayed everything true about himself.

This is a film that is certainly worth viewing; the dialogue is amazingly Mametian, the violence is splashy yet moralistic, and Scorsese shows that he can transform a genre film to high art, just as the original Infernal Affairs was high art.

The Departed: 9.5/10

Shame

Ingmar Bergman's Shame (1968) examines the internal strife that plagues love and the human spirit in times of war. The Rosenbergs are a typical Gotland, Swedish bourgeois couple, desensitized to the war and manipulated by both sides, who ultimately prey on each other when neither can weather the conflict emotionally any more. As a result, Bergman intimates that while families often heroically maintain optimism in war's beginning, eventually ignorance and the herd mentality silence that hope, so that life becomes merely a concept of survival as morality disappears.

Bergman begins by studying the psychological trauma of war in Jan Rosenberg (Max von Sydow), a musician who now lives by selling plants and vegetables. Jan is distanced, sluggish, and prone to breaking down in emotional spells. Jan’s wife, Eva (Liv Ullman), however, works to keep their marriage, and themselves, alive by continually pushing her husband and verbally berating him. She exploits him and manipulates his weakness so that they may both know continued existence. Despite their pathologies, both Jan and Eva display an interminable affection for each other, clinging to the other in their time of need.

However, late in the film, Jan's lack of strength leads Eva to seek a sexual suitor, Col. Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand), who pardons them of any political wrongdoing. When this suitor, though, is set to be shot because of conflicting stories about his finances, Jan pockets the money and permanently silences his sexual adversary, despite Eva's pleadings. This newfound vigor to survive tears asunder Jan and Eva's relationship, but they manage to distance themselves from Col. Jacobi, and escape the island.

Late in the film, Eva notes that "I feel like I'm in someone else's dream and they're going to be ashamed when they wake up," which stands as testament to Bergman's critique of war itself. Few films are as psychologically acute in a couple's pathological and immoral struggle to survive, no matter the adversity. A wonderful work.

Shame: 9.5/10

United 93

Paul Greengrass’ United 93 (2006) recreates the events that occurred in the fourth plane that terrorists hijacked and that crashed into Pennsylvania on September 11th. And this wording is important. Though the film acts as testament to the resistance and heroism that the passengers showed, the actual descent is administered, according to the film, by a terrorist crew that slowly understands they will not make their destination. Working under the confines of a docudrama, Greengrass documents the way in vital information was spread back and forth between passengers, but always haltingly, in spurts, which slows the effectiveness of a counterattack. Indeed, bureaucracy is Greengrass’ biggest target as he implicitly, and through the character of Ben Sliney (playing himself), head of FAA National Center, condemns the lack of response by the political and military administrations.

Past critiques of United 93 involved how the reviewer was upset over Greengrass’ political commentary, or in fact by the lack thereof. But these instances of political and military inadequacy do bear the mark of a critique. Additionally, Greengrass’ critics attack how the film humanizes both passengers and terrorists and so develops out a muddled message, but Greengrass humanizes for two reasons. Firstly, he wants the audience to be disturbed into an epiphany that the terrorists have the same anxieties and apprehension as the passengers. Secondly, he wants to juxtapose how prayer is used for destruction and murder in one context and, alternately, used for comfort and as an agent of salvation.

Moreover, Greengrass does attack the human weakness as flight attendants betray the flight by giving the proper knock to the cockpit and doom pilots and passengers, as well as how the Americans are willing to silence any oppositional voice (the European) in order to gain an advantage on the terrorists. This latter single-mindedness is celebrated in the film, but asks the audience to question whether or not they now celebrate that same narrow-minded focus.

Ultimately, a film like United 93 is judged on how effectively it utilizes the drama of the situation, and the last twenty minutes of the film are among the saddest and most heartrending in contemporary cinema. The passengers have no chance to wrest control of the plane in time, since the terrorists have taken the plane so low to the ground, yet the film effectively exploits the human desire to change reality.

Why does this film exist? Because it can, and that is enough. History and film will eventually offer a fuller portrait of 9/11, but this film has an immediacy that future films will almost certainly lack.

United 93: 8/10

Imitation of Life

John M. Stahl's Imitation of Life (1934) exists as testament to the fact that Hollywood films could tackle problematic and risque material by focusing on the interracial friendship between Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert) and Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), both widowed women caring for their young daughters. However, the fact that the film tackles these issues does not release it from the burden that Stahl's film does not handle them articulately or sophisticatedly.

Given that the film is a product of its time, one should not be offended that Beatrice and Delilah strike it rich by appropriating the mammy cook image for a pancake and syrup business. However, the film seldom highlights Delilah as a figure of strength and intelligence, instead, as in one scene when Beatrice and the artist for the business have Delilah pose for the slogan, Delilah remains a figure lacking agency or privilege. Instead, she is confined to the simplistic portrait of a well-meaning but vacuous caretaker for Beatrice, Beatrice's daughter, and her own daughter Peola.

The scenes with the adult Peola (Fredi Washington) belong in a better film, for Washington imbues her character with an intelligence and spark that the film paradoxically deprives her. She does not want to attend a "black college" because her skin is light enough for her to pass, and so she often adheres to implicit ideas of equality vis-a-vis her ability to pass. Unfortunately, these scenes lack sophistication, largely because the film never feels comfortable tackling these weightier issues. Instead, we get overburdening coverage of Beatrice, a budding romance with Steve Archer, and a daughter who has also become smitten with Mr. Archer.

The film returns to the weightier issues of race relations in a final tableaux during Delilah's funereal, where Peola renounces her earlier desire to pass. And so, apparently, this leads to an ending where audiences are reassured that no blacks are going to try to pass in their midst. The film scores nominal points because the ending, despite its annoying manipulation, is effective in eliciting emotion. Not always the desired emotion, but it does garner emotion, regardless.

Imitation of Life: 6/10