nizhalkkuthu (shadow kill)

this is adoor gopalakrishnan’s most recent film. adoor is one of the most lauded figures in india’s new cinema, and, of course, all but unknown outside of the film-festival circuit outside india. as far as i can tell, this is the only one of his films that is available on dvd–as part of some global cinema initiative (see comment 8 here). i hope more of his films will become available. this partly because while this film is interesting enough, and certainly quite beautiful to look at, it isn’t close to his best. it is about a hangman in the colonial era state of travancore (the film is set in 1940) and his spiritual/physical crisis around his work. there’s some dwelling on the ritual role of the hangman in the community–he doubles as a healer (his proximity to death making him closer to the goddess kali)–and some passing references to social justice/injustice, but it just didn’t all come together for me. in a director’s statement on the dvd adoor writes that this is a film to be understood after it is seen, not during, so maybe i need to think about it more, or maybe watch it again.

i would recommend it anyway (netflix has it). i’ll also repeat my earlier recommendations of the early films of shyam benegal (which netflix also has). as far as i can tell, no one but jeff has taken these up.

Life Aquatic

So I reacquainted myself with Steve Zissou last night–Kris hadn’t seen the film. I had, and felt positive but less enthusiastic … it felt that first time through a bit scattered, familiar in tone and some of its technical and thematic peccadilloes, but somehow less cohesive than my favorite Wes Anderson films. I think it’s worth re-assessing, however. I found myself struck by the expanded range and nuance of Anderson’s style and concerns, and I was even more thunderstruck by the emotional wallop of the last scene. Continue reading Life Aquatic

Big Love

OK “The Sopranos” . . . cool, yipee, etc. BUT. I’m really enjoying “Big Love.” At first I had a hard time finding my way in (as if I want to watch a show about a man who worries about having too much sex), but this show has a strange Lynchian bite to it. In fact, it’s downright creepy in the way it makes normal and human a practice that couldn’t be any stranger and, maybe, attractive. Chloe Sevigny is, as always, remarkable. And Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Grace Zabriskie, Mary Kay Place–all turn in good work. But the writing . . . the storylines are just so damned weird and, at times, uncomfortably titilating and frightening. Is anyone else watching?

Brick

This is a pretty cool film–a too, too bright California noir set in a metropolitan SoCal high school. Imagine Dashiell Hammett writing a script for the UPN’s “Veronica Mars” with Fritz Lang directing and you get a pretty good idea of what writer/director Rian Johnson is up to. The language is dense, performatively so, and the storyline can be confusing (but no more confusing than the first time I watched The Maltese Falcon). What I liked was the audacity of the project, the verve in which the actors (particularly Joseph Gordon-Levitt–will no one on this blog watch Mysterious Skin!!!!–, Lukas Haas and Noah Fleiss) attack their roles, and the filmmakers’ keen visual sensibility. It’s not perfect (though it may be the best grad school film project ever to grace the big screen). In fact it is rough around the edges. Still, I recommend it!

The Five Obstructions (2003)

this film is credited to jorgen leth as a director, but if you watch it you’ll be hard pressed not to think it is in fact directed by lars von trier. this is, of course, on the assumption that the two men are not acting, and the documentary-like parts of the film where they are talking to each other are bone fide, unscripted recordings of their frank conversations. this is definitely how they are presented, and the aesthetic of dogma supports the belief that there shouldn’t be any manipulations there, any plays on the viewer. Continue reading The Five Obstructions (2003)

Thank You for Smoking

Funny. Well-acted. Well-directed. Aaron Eckhart is not the angry, misogynistic asshole here that he did so incredibly well in The Company of Men. He’s a guy that wants to spend more time with his kid, and play the game that is his job really well.

It doesn’t matter to me if the people he works for are evil (or more blatantly cartoonishly evil than other companies that other people work for), or if he gets the conscience pangs that will make him renounce his past and work for cancer kids. He doesn’t, by the way. I don’t think I’m giving away much to say that this doesn’t turn into a sappy “I’ve Seen the Light!” kind of movie after 90 minutes black comedy.

But it’s not really even all that black to begin with – at least I don’t consider it to be. It’s even touching from time to time. Even when Nick (Eckhart) tries to pay off a dying cigarette spokesguy to stop badmouthing the industry, it manages to avoid the pitfalls on one side of sentimentality and on the other side of pure ruthlessness. Continue reading Thank You for Smoking

Inside Man/Spike Lee

I was impressed with ‘Inside Man.’ The plot is pretty silly, and there is at least one enormous gaping plot hole (which renders much of the intrigue irrelevant), but this is a superior action movie/thriller. It is absolutely enthralling; not a moment seems wasted or dull. Denzel Washington is a joy to watch, and he plays well off all the other actors, esp. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Clive Owen (but not Jodie Foster, who is wasted), and makes them raise their game. He is so damn relaxed. The scenes where hostages are being interviewed after the heist is over are superb: funny, clever, full of little details that become relevant later (chewing gum). I am not really enough of a Spike Lee fan to say what makes this a distinctively Spike Lee Joint. Certainly the attention to race is unusual in a movie this kind, and the lighting and changing grain of the film betray some real craft. But since ‘25th Hour’ is my favorite Spike Lee film, I am not qualified to place this among his other work. Regardless, this is a highly competent movie, and a fine way to spend two hours.

One of the previews was for ‘Flight 93′ which I’m dreading because of the political/patriotic baggage that it will carry. But it is directed by Paul Greengrass, which might save the movie.

Keane

Watched Keane today, a remarkably discomforting film, written and directed by Lodge H. Kerrigan, with a central performance by Damian Lewis that defies categorization. It’s a claustrophobic exercise in eliciting viewer paranoia as it chronicles a mentally unstable man (is he manic-schizophrenic or simply a paranoid schizophrenic . . . I don’t own a copy of DSM IV so who knows) who is on the lam, off his meds, and may or may not be responsible for the abduction of a daughter the audience is not even sure ever existed. Lewis’s ability to waver from moments of lucidity to a man fighting the voices raging inside his head is downright frightening (and strangely endearing once you remind yourself the guy won’t crawl through the television), and it is this portrait of a man with whom most of us would avoid eye contact (or even cross the street to stay out of his path . . . the gritty underbelly of midtown Manhattan hasn’t looked so bleak and uninviting for a long time) that occupies the first forty-five minutes of the film. But then William connects with a young mother and her seven-year-old daughter holed up in the low-rent hotel where William lives. It is here that a more conventional plot kicks in and the relationship between Keane and this little girl is thrilling due to the film’s unwillingness to make it easy on the audience. Not for the faint of heart or the overindulgent parent; still, Keane rarely goes where you expect it to go and that makes it a truly fine piece of work.
Continue reading Keane