The Messenger

(Oren Moverman, USA, 2009)

Unfortunately, a string of well-crafted vignettes that never fully cohere. Taken separately, many of the individual pieces deserve admiration. Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are fantastic, deftly playing off each others' bravado and vulnerability. Samantha Morton is, as usual, spot-on, although her character doesn't get the same kind of care the script gives to the two male roles. It's well-shot, evenly paced, and avoids the kind of easy emotional notes that are endemic to the wounded-warrior film, in which characters are given fifty-yard stares and sudden bouts of violence, but not actual development. The Messenger manages, for the most part, to address the emotional toll of combat without reverting to cliche - mostly through its attention to the quotidian details of the protagonists' duties. Unfortunately, these elements, even when combined, don't contribute to a memorable story.

And that speaks directly to the problem - a marked lack of narrative urgency, and a setting that feels far too familiar. We've been here before, heard the stories about guns and bombs and guilt-wracked soldiers, some of whom manage to get by, and some of whom break down. Even if Moverman manages to imbue the genre with appreciated subtlety, it doesn't change the overall sense of exhaustion that an audience encounters when faced with this well-worn territory. Because as well-executed as the film is, it isn't adding up all that well. There's a feint towards an ethical dilemma, where Foster's character becomes attracted to Morton's bereaved wife, but this is treated, like the rest of the scenes, as an episodic interlude, and doesn't significantly contribute to the development of either character. Morton confesses to Foster that she's relieved her husband is gone - that he had become, in her eyes, irredeemably warped by war. But this is revealed in a lengthy monologue that feels theatrical and belabored, for all of its striving towards pathos. I'm aware that this could very well be part of the point - that the story is relating the repetitive drudgery of the death-notifiers work, and the general pointlessness of the war when confronted with the tragic toll in human life, the lack of direction, no end in sight, and all that. And it is effective at generating a sense of outrage over the state of perpetual war that we're currently in. But that's a losing proposition, from the perspective of the audience's emotional engagement. You just wind up feeling spent and bitter. There are genuinely moving moments, but they are counterbalanced by a refusal to show the kind of change of character that would generate some sustained interest.

In the end, it's a frustrating disappointment - one of those films whose heart is in the right place, but one that can't seem to see beyond the benevolence of its intentions and its own carefully-constructed sense of sympathy. It is remarkably well-constructed, but unfocused and redundant feeling. Rather than add up to a vital, multi-layered whole, it remains a series of scenes, like a high-level workshop for writing and acting; related, but not finally essential to, each other .

Taste of Cherry

(Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1997)

Another stop on the long journey through the classics that I've passed over, and an immensely satisfying one. What can I say? Kiarostami is a master, and this film only further solidifies my admiration for his work, which started with (and which may never be surpassed) the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Close-Up. Here, we see a relatively straightforward narrative of a man on a mission - he's determined to die, but he needs assistance with the burial, and on the sliver of a chance that he survives the night with a bellyful of sleeping pills, someone to help him out of the grave. Kiarostami keeps the camera set-ups simple, and the action is repetitive in a poetic way - Mr. Badii has meandering conversations with a few individuals before finding one who will help him, and there are long sequences of dialogue that take place in Badii's Land Rover, which we see wending its way through the dusty hills outside of Tehran. The pace is slow, but there's an intensity produced by the performances, which are consistently excellent. Homayoun Ershadi's Mr. Badii is a model of simmering anguish, a portrayal that projects determination, despair, exhaustion and urgency all at once, without a single instant of excess technique. His would-be accomplices, most of whom appear to be non-actors, are similarly excellent, and the movie deserves gushy accolades just for containing such top-notch and affecting performances.

Kiarostami's MO is fascinating, and seems to work through the combination of parable-like simplicity with a realist, almost documentarian taste for detail and patient observation. How he manages to get such excellent performances without making them distracting, and frame the action so simply yet so profoundly, is a delicious mystery. Amid the current international turmoil and recent focus on the pitfalls of artistic expression in contemporary Iran, its interesting to see a film that plays its political cards so close to the vest, but the effect is invigorating and further underscores Kiarostami's genius. There's a subtle commentary at work here on the economic separations between different classes in Iran, but the main focus is on the metaphysical conditions of the characters - a free-floating loneliness that they deal with in varying ways, but which seems to be a common thread in their lives.

Of course, there's the bemusing ending, which defies all the inevitable speculations on what will happen, and relieves the considerable suspense that's been generated at that point. I'm not sure I get it - my first response was that it was tacked-on, a po-mo flourish to avoid the obvious creative decisions, none of which would have been easy: does he live? Does he die? Do we get to find out one way or the other? Kiarostami opts for something like the third choice, leaving us some uncertainty but allowing a mood of redemption and a potential solution to the crisis that has befallen Mr. Badii. We may never know what he found so unbearable in life, but Kiarostami seems to be suggesting that in relating his story, and some of the apparatus used in re-creating it, there is another way to live. Art might hold the answer, or an answer, even if it isn't the one we think we are seeking.

Ghosts

(Christian Petzold, Germany, 2007)

After having seen the excellent Jerichow, I promptly added the other available Petzold films to my Netflix queue, and this was the first to arrive. Overall, it's a strong film with several good cinematic ideas, but it doesn't create a lasting emotional resonance, and its ambiguity ends up feeling a bit on the forced side.

Petzold does a number of things very well - he knows how to shoot and cut, he has a flair for using diagetic music in an immersive way, and he works exceptionally well with actors. The two female leads in Ghosts are tremendous, and the film gets a lot of mileage out of their performances. But he keeps things so hermetically tight that the story never really engages, and it ends up seeming like a squandered opportunity. Petzold's structural ideas are fascinating, but he doesn' t seem willing to fully commit to them, and the film ends up caught in a weird emotional limbo between the Dardenne brothers and Michael Haneke. This probably sounds more interesting than it really is, and winds up dwelling in the weaker areas of both of those respective styles.

It could be a mood thing. Lately, the razor-sharp construction and tonal restraint of certain European directors has been wearing thin for me. For all of their clean lines and perfectly modulated rhythm, I can't help but be irked by their misplaced sense of economy. What exactly is gained by all of the mood they forgo? It isn't some kind of new angle on realism, since there generally is a favoring of structure over depicted behavior. Usually, these films play out in semi-parable mode, relating a crisp little distillation of key events, but the set-pieces contain plenty of, as it were, negative space - mini-meditations on the characters in quiet rooms, driving, etc., which will occasionally be interrupted by some emotionally jarring moment. I can't say exactly what it's all in aid of, but I can say that it's not to my current taste, as much as I once admired it (probably for what it wasn't.)

But such meta-concerns aren't really fair critiques of Ghosts, which, like I said, contains some very cool stuff, such as the sequence where the two girls go shoplifting, and Petzold cuts from the security cameras to the hand of the wacky mother character at exactly the moment we expect to see a guard descend upon poor hapless Nina. The beginning of the two girls relationship is likewise very well-handled; it manages to be delicate and volatile at once. But elsewhere in the film - especially the travails of the older married couple, things stall out and get wearisome. It's good to know that Petzold got his act together for Jerichow, but things here aren't quite up to snuff.

Greenberg

(Noah Baumbach, US, 2010)

A relatively low-key and meandering effort from Baumbach, who uses Ben Stiller to great effect and some amount of irritation. Unlike the laser-guided nastiness exhibited by the characters in his previous film, Margot at the Wedding, here the barbs are more haphazard and even seem at times to be halfhearted, as if Stiller's Greenberg really can't bother too much with anything, even being an asshole.

The cast is strong across the board. It's the best work Stiller has done in a while, even besting his amusing turn in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. Rhy Ifans deserves special note for his marvelously low-key depiction of Greenburg's closest, and therefore most harried, friend. Greta Gerwig shows promise, but she's poorly served by the script (and the director), who reduce her character to a series of shleppy tics. Harris Savides, one of the best DPs working today, again produces exemplary work which fits the mood of the piece perfectly and yet has a subtle, stylish flair with light. Basically, all of the elements are strong to very strong, with the only notable exception being the writing. It's been said before that a director's number one job is the management of tone - the maintaining of an emotional through-line that grows organically out of the story, rather than being imposed in an arbitrary or sloppy way. This is something Baumbach does very well, even in his less successful films. It's difficult to talk about tone with great precision, but it's closely related to that mysterious extra element that makes art more than the sum of it's parts. Because it can't be reduced, it's hard to tell exactly how it's done - it's an effect produced in the aggregate, the combination of things that only appear more complex the closer you look. This isn't some kind of dodge - tone can be discussed, but when discussing the contribution of the director to this, is usually where the term "instinct" gains the most relevance.

And Baumbach has good instincts. He knows how to keep Greenberg from becoming too shrill and repulsive - understands how to keep the audience interested in this jerk, but still aware of the fact that he is, by any measure, a jerk. But of course, viewers invest because it's clear that Greenberg himself is aware of his jerkitude, even if his awareness is merely nascent. He's a rebel without a cause, or, if you like, without a clue - the protagonist in what can be interpreted as a vaguely po-mo riff on the Brando's role in movie of the same title. It's just that Greenberg knows he's not a nice guy, and it bothers him, as does his general fecklessness, even if he occasionally gets away with suppressing that knowledge. At one point, a character asks him "what are you fighting against," to which Greenberg responds "what have you got?" This little nod comes in the midst of one of the film's weaker scenes, in which Greenberg hangs out and does drugs with young college-types - basically, kids half his age, and it doesn't really do much more than remind people how much things have changed, and also how little. There are still misfits, but the major exeption seems to be that they are now of all ages, and that we seem to be living in a culture in which its possible to get older without ever growing up. This isn't all that new, society-wise, but maybe the fact that this can be seen as admirable or attractive is.

And to plenty of people, it isn't attractive. Nor should it be, necessarily. But its to Baumbach and Stiller's credit that Greenberg the character receives any sympathy from the audience, or at least our interest, however prurient. That interest varies, and it's in the variance that Baumbach's limits as a writer are evident. He's very good at writing quip-filled, psuedo-naturalistic dialogue that contains jokes and character material without being too obvious or showy, except when he isn't. Greenberg contains too many of these moments, where the characters are a little too on point, or not enough - moments like the previously mentioned post-teen party, as well as Greenberg's impulsive decision to accompany two of the party-goers to Australia. It's silly, and its unnecessary, and it makes the filmmaking seem lazy and unfocused. Because at the end of the day, Greenburg isn't really saying all that much - it's quite straightforward in its thematic concern with the weary-but-still-beating heart of the bitter hack. It has neither the entrenched satire and quiet redemption of Alexander Payne's best stuff, nor the parallel-universe impressionism of Wes Anderson. It's a clever movie, and an often entertaining one, but it seems as if Baumbach wanted it to be something more, and he didn't quite bring it there.

Mother

(Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2009)

Having seen and enjoyed The Host, I was eagerly looking forward to Bong's latest effort, and Mother didn't disappoint. Filmmakers like Bong hold a certain fascination for me because they are contemporary examples of popular artists - they bring gravity and depth to what could be considered, at a glace, to be genre exercises - and in doing so they invest the term "popular artist" with real meaning. Straddling that line, especially in cinema, has lately seemed rather difficult, with most offerings being evenly split between pretentious awards-bait and pandering, droolingly stupid spectacles. There are plenty of exceptions, and I believe Bong is one of them, but in the current firmament of world cinema they remain exceptions, and they deserve special attention when they emerge. (It should be noted that TV is one area where the aesthetically and philosophically high-minded mingle with the grit and grime of the pulp sensibility. Cinema, I believe, still has some catching up to do.)

Mother is a solid amalgamation of the potboiler and the serious art film, and it works marvelously about 90% of the time. In following the increasingly desperate misadventures of the titular character, Bong exposes the gray area between protectiveness and suffocation, between familial love and near-psychotic codependency. As a crafted story, its exemplary. Perfectly paced and visually dexterous, it shows Bong's impressive range as a filmmaker. Emotionally, too, there are moments of resonating sadness and desperation - the lead actress' performance is particularly fascinating as it alternates between evoking fear, pity, and lurid fascination.

There's a thematic undercurrent to Mother as well, and its here that Bong doesn't quite deliver all the goods. Other discussions of the film (as well as discussions of The Host) have revolved around the perceived political subtext in the film, and the extent to which Bong can be said to be offering a semi-furtive critique of South Korean society, which appears, on the evidence of his films, to be plagued with political oppression of a subtle but devastating variety. There's no doubt that that exists in Mother, but what fascinated me, and what I believe is an ambition worthy of consideration as serious art, was the near-Shakespearean tragedy of the central character. Bereft of anyone in the world to count on besides her son, she ends up creating something of a monster, and in the process of discovering the truth about his potential for brutality, realizes her own monstrosity. This is classic, heady, high-tragic stuff, but it doesn't quite all make it off the page. It may be that Boon spends just a bit too much time on the procedural aspect of the plot, in which there are various digressions and the obligatory twists of the policier (some of which serve comedic purposes), or it may be that he's not quite ready to go all the way in reducing the story down to its essence. Either way, there are moments along the way, and especially towards the end, where things became too on-the-nose for my taste. There are however many more moments of glory, and when Bong and his accomplices are in the zone, they can really make magic happen. The final moments of the film are pure examples of that magic - cinema at its emotional and philosophical best, and its for moments like those that I'll keep coming back to this filmmaker's work.

Hunger

(Steve McQueen, U.K./Ireland, 2008)

A beautiful, troubling, and entirely refreshing film. McQueen, a well-known video artist, has successfully navigated a daunting project, maintaining a perfect balance between the narrative and the poetic, the lyrical and the cerebral, and bringing conceptual rigor to a story steeped in pathos and fraught politics. As has been noted elsewhere, the film functions as a kind of triptych. Part one sets the stage, but in an elliptical (and highly methodical) fashion, immersing the audience in the physical environment of the Maze, and remarking on the way the human lives are shaped by the environment. Part two is the theoretic exegesis on the morality & effectiveness of the hunger strike as a strategy, an audacious sequence that succeeds in simultaneously revealing thematic content and character. It might be more accurate to say that this section begins as a didactic, somewhat abstract dialogue and becomes a portrait of the individuals engaged in the dialogue. And there's part three, where the film becomes most lyrical and most harrowing. The physical decay is difficult to watch, but it draws all of the disparate elements we've seen before together, and the uniting is an aesthetic accomplishment of stunning subtlety and grace. All of the film's many oppositions - Catholic and Protestant, inside and outside, cleanliness and filth, violence and tenderness, are drawn together, or maybe it would be more accurate to say they are simply erased. All that's left is the absolute inviolability of a human being, and the tragedy of its demise, whatever one may feel about the political conditions that determine the circumstances of the death. (The lack of controversy surrounding the film's release confirms this, at least in part.) McQueen manages to exhibit the palpable physicality of politics, while at the same time providing a visceral statement on the human condition, here expressed by the title, which is both literal and metaphorical. How much do we need to sustain us - in flesh and spirit - and how long can we go without the sustenance we seek?

*A corollary to this final question, and a hint at the answer, lies in the question of: how much do we get to choose about what we consume, in the way of ideas, food, emotions, experience, and what bearing does that have on how are lives are lived? I would say McQueen seems to be suggesting that a certain aspect of living a meaningful life (or dying a meaningful death) is deciding just what kind of things we "hunger" for, and under what conditions we are willing to give them up.

Last Days

(Gus Van Sant, USA, 2005)

An intermittently interesting film, but mostly a frustrating one. It's hard to tell exactly what Van Sant is after, and where he went wrong - did he aim too high and miss, or not aim high enough? I'd like to think it's the former, but that would only be giving him the benefit of the doubt. The subject matter is serious enough: it's the final film in Van Sant's informal "death trilogy" - but the film doesn't have much to say on the topic of mortality, instead offering a series of moody sketches that alternate between the staid and the vaguely comic.

Blake - the Kobain character played by Pitt - doesn't seem so much tormented as bored and even autistic; there's no interest in his character as anything other than the mythic late-century American grunge artist. He is alone, isolated, misunderstood, practically a ghost. Even when the other characters - a wispy cadre of junkie hangers-on - notice him and attempt to communicate, it's as if they're talking through him. There's plenty of room for speculation, especially on the symbolic level - is Blake's mumbling meant to suggest his inability to properly convey his pain, or the world's inability to listen? Or is it just a literal depiction of someone who's too stoned to speak up? Is he in pain at all, or just grouchy and passive, cooling his heels in solitude and casting lazily about for some transcendent kicks? Last Days winds up feeling like a pastiche of an art film, a dabbling in structuralism, with some moments of humor and irony thrown in for good measure. I don't think of Van Sant as cynical - it's a sincere picture, but it doesn't feel committed. Certain scenes and shots are very good - mostly where the mood lightens, as when the Yellow Pages salesman comes calling - but the overall effect is one of irritation. There's no lasting coherence, and the finished product feels like the work of someone who is trading on a moment of cultural infamy without anything significant to say - about the culture, the art, or the people.