Fresh seems like an easy movie to dislike. It is, in fact, so easy that I would have trouble finding fault with a person who didn't like it. For one, it is written and directed by Boaz Yakin, a person who has done nothing worth note since and did almost nothing worth note before it. For another, it straddles a strange line between the lower-class America social observation of something like The Wire (clearly somewhat influenced by this movie) and a weirdo Hollywood fantasy about "The Hood." Where the fantasy element comes in is its plot and structure: young chess whiz is just trying to get by in a poor neighborhood until a horrific tragedy sparks him to take revenge; manipulates gangster thugs and the police like chess opponents.
But what differentiates it is actually part of what makes it sound awful on paper. The chess metaphor, while somewhat hackneyed and on the nose, actually functions as a higher symbol of the quote-unquote civilized life Fresh wants to escape to. And through this symbol the film implies that both worlds operate on similar levels of ruthlessness and while Fresh may have succeeded in escaping, the cost required of him to escape -- sacrificing his childhood, figuratively, and the life of a friend literally -- and the not-so-different world he is escaping raise questions about whether everything he did was worth it. The ending, which I won't discuss in much detail, is what finally separates the film from being a classic underdog formula. It somehow hits home the idea that the father figure Fresh looks up to is more deserving than he actually appeared of his isolated status and the implication early on that Fresh is not supposed to be hanging out with him. Even though the father, played by Samuel L. Jackson before he'd developed into SAMUEL L. JACKSON, makes attempts to separate himself from the drugs and gang-related affairs of their neighborhood, it's clear he is operating on a similar level of cutthroat competition and that it is only through his encouragement that Fresh becomes the kind of person that can do what he eventually ends up doing. So when we get to the end, the victory is far less sweet and far more bitter than it appears it will be. This, I guess, is what wins the movie over for me, even if I can understand how some might be put off by its occasional devolvement into what Armond White so cleverly termed "poverty porn."
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)
The most notable thing about Shaun of the Dead may be its modesty. I say this not as a slight against the movie -- to imply that modesty is all it has going for it -- but to say that in an era when genre filmmaking is at, most likely, its most hyperbolic, overextended, high-concept peak, it's gratifying and relieving to watch an unassuming horror/comedy zombie movie in which almost nothing happens.
The plot is essentially a rehash of Wright and Pegg's previous work on the TV show Spaced, in which Pegg is a loutish slacker trapped in adolescence who is eventually motivated to be a more practical approximation of an adult. Unlike the majority of my colleagues, I find Wright's stylistic flourishes towards combining this idea with horror movie tropes, notably the mirroring long-take walks to the store and back only mildly diverting. For me, the jokes about their obliviousness to the outside world's disaster, and the larger implication of our culture's retreat into an awareness-nullifying pop culture womb, go on far too long. Each one is individually okay enough, and the slight knife in the ribs to its own audience is well-appreciated, but it eventually adds up to a bit that is far too drawn out.
More successful is the eventual idea that while we may rise to adversity as it comes, we have cultivated in ourselves a natural inclination towards inaction rather than action. That we take tragedy and untimely circumstance and find a way to weave it back into our daily lives in a way that it no longer stands out or impresses us. This actually unexpectedly predicts many of the ideas Romero would address in Land of the Dead a year later, and is a cynical, but not dishonest, evaluation of the cultural landscape of 2004. Without mentioning it or even alluding to it, Shaun of the Dead seems like the flipside of Spider-Man 2's assumptions about the world post-9/11. It is mostly due to my own predilections that I find Spider-Man 2's ideas more compelling and, I hope, more accurate, but I suspect the truth is sometimes closer to Shaun's side.
The plot is essentially a rehash of Wright and Pegg's previous work on the TV show Spaced, in which Pegg is a loutish slacker trapped in adolescence who is eventually motivated to be a more practical approximation of an adult. Unlike the majority of my colleagues, I find Wright's stylistic flourishes towards combining this idea with horror movie tropes, notably the mirroring long-take walks to the store and back only mildly diverting. For me, the jokes about their obliviousness to the outside world's disaster, and the larger implication of our culture's retreat into an awareness-nullifying pop culture womb, go on far too long. Each one is individually okay enough, and the slight knife in the ribs to its own audience is well-appreciated, but it eventually adds up to a bit that is far too drawn out.
More successful is the eventual idea that while we may rise to adversity as it comes, we have cultivated in ourselves a natural inclination towards inaction rather than action. That we take tragedy and untimely circumstance and find a way to weave it back into our daily lives in a way that it no longer stands out or impresses us. This actually unexpectedly predicts many of the ideas Romero would address in Land of the Dead a year later, and is a cynical, but not dishonest, evaluation of the cultural landscape of 2004. Without mentioning it or even alluding to it, Shaun of the Dead seems like the flipside of Spider-Man 2's assumptions about the world post-9/11. It is mostly due to my own predilections that I find Spider-Man 2's ideas more compelling and, I hope, more accurate, but I suspect the truth is sometimes closer to Shaun's side.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Avant Garde Shorts Collection (2011)
The rest of the shorts I saw at the Film Festival are undeserving of their own entries, so irritatingly self-indulgent and mind-numbing were they.
Long Shadows (Josh Bonnett, 2009)
Mamori (Karl Lemieux, 2010)
These are indistinguishable in my memory almost a month after having seen them both back to back. Apparently I liked Mamori even less than Long Shadows, though I have no idea what prompted that small decision. Both are exercises in repetition of non-narrative black and white images with obnoxious musical scoring. Maybe I liked Mamori less because I seem to remember its soundtrack being played by a real, thoroughly hissy, 45 plugged into the speaker system. Either way, both were obnoxiously abrasive and seemed to serve no thematic or aesthetic purpose beyond annoyance of the audience.
April Snow (Lewis Klahr, 2010)
After 25 minutes of irritation, this almost seemed a promising respite. Opens to the delightful refrains of The Shangri-Las' "Out in the Street" -- a song so girl poppily perfect I was ready to hail this movie as a masterpiece just for having it (and following such languid torture exercises). Unfortunately, the sheen of pop luster wears off almost immediately, as the film fills itself with stop motion cut outs of mid-century kitsch and banal comments on the phoniness of this era. Also the song is only 2m49s and the video is 10 minutes, moving on to other stuff that was not nearly as enjoyable (or memorable, apparently)
Cry When It Happens (Laida Lertxundi, 2010)
Exactly what I was talking about in my earlier review of Me Broni Ba. A movie so bereft of aesthetic pleasure and thematic cohesion that it rests on its self-indulgent laurels of throwback '70s photography and inaccessibility. So mind-numbing I ended up skipping the movie I'd already paid to see afterwards, because it actually made me feel I needed a break from being in the cinema -- perhaps the only time I'd felt that way in my entire life. Thanks to you, Laida Lertxundi, I may never know if Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is an awesome movie. THANKS A LOT, JERK.
Long Shadows (Josh Bonnett, 2009)
Mamori (Karl Lemieux, 2010)
These are indistinguishable in my memory almost a month after having seen them both back to back. Apparently I liked Mamori even less than Long Shadows, though I have no idea what prompted that small decision. Both are exercises in repetition of non-narrative black and white images with obnoxious musical scoring. Maybe I liked Mamori less because I seem to remember its soundtrack being played by a real, thoroughly hissy, 45 plugged into the speaker system. Either way, both were obnoxiously abrasive and seemed to serve no thematic or aesthetic purpose beyond annoyance of the audience.
April Snow (Lewis Klahr, 2010)
After 25 minutes of irritation, this almost seemed a promising respite. Opens to the delightful refrains of The Shangri-Las' "Out in the Street" -- a song so girl poppily perfect I was ready to hail this movie as a masterpiece just for having it (and following such languid torture exercises). Unfortunately, the sheen of pop luster wears off almost immediately, as the film fills itself with stop motion cut outs of mid-century kitsch and banal comments on the phoniness of this era. Also the song is only 2m49s and the video is 10 minutes, moving on to other stuff that was not nearly as enjoyable (or memorable, apparently)
Cry When It Happens (Laida Lertxundi, 2010)
Exactly what I was talking about in my earlier review of Me Broni Ba. A movie so bereft of aesthetic pleasure and thematic cohesion that it rests on its self-indulgent laurels of throwback '70s photography and inaccessibility. So mind-numbing I ended up skipping the movie I'd already paid to see afterwards, because it actually made me feel I needed a break from being in the cinema -- perhaps the only time I'd felt that way in my entire life. Thanks to you, Laida Lertxundi, I may never know if Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is an awesome movie. THANKS A LOT, JERK.
Atlantiques (Mati Diop, 2010)
Less diluted by its existence as an "avant garde" piece than by its low production values. A group of black men sit around a camp fire at night, mourning the unlucky fate of having to choose between emigrating to Europe to look for work, or staying in Senegal where work is scarce. The stylistic choice emphasizes the actors' dark skin, as they seem to almost barely exist in the small, flickering fire light. The only problem is its status as being shot on exceptionally cheap digital, giving the night scene an ugly, pixelated and unreal quality. If the same scenes had been shot on film (or, at least, HD video) the actors would've blended more seamlessly into the background, enhancing the power of the commentary of the African plight as something invisible and unspoken among the Western (as represented by cinema) world. It's actually a pretty brilliant visual metaphor only marred by the lack of visual quality -- strange, since the reported budget was 30k Euros. What'd he spend it on?
Me Broni Ba (Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2009)
Part documentary, part non-narrative pseudo-avant garde bit of filmmaking about pressures put on African women about their hair. The problem I've found with most avant garde filmmaking I've seen is that it always feels lazy. Like the thing many of these so-called avant garde filmmakers find most compelling about it is the "freedom" from the constrictions of typical plot and narrative. But in my eyes it seems that most of what this freedom allows for is indulgence and half-formed or barely there ideas, hiding under a blanket of obtuseness and detachment in order to prevent criticism. Me Broni Ba appears to have some interesting ideas about social pressures of aesthetics as they relate to women of color (especially in Africa, obviously), but these ideas are presented in such an oblique, convoluted package as to become nearly useless due to their desire to remain "artful" and inaccessible. Occasionally offers some compelling images, and I would never exactly try to talk someone out of seeing it -- it's just disappointing given what it feels as though it could've been.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
My Tehran For Sale (Granaz Moussavi, 2009)
Is it okay to like a movie more for the conditions and context in which it was made than for the movie itself? I open with this question because I'm not actually sure of the answer. Ideally, a movie's success or failure should be judged based on its attributes as a film, with the context and conditions playing a strong role in supporting this outcome. As it is, there is so much about My Tehran For Sale that pushes negative buttons in me as a filmgoer that I am not at all convinced of its merits as a piece of cinema. It flashes forward and backward in time as a way to temper all the movie's joyous moments with a hint of "but soon it will all go terribly wrong... bet you're wondering how, right?" This is one of my largest narrative pet peeves, as it comes off as nothing but the laziest way to foreshadow some impending doom. Worse, these moments are occasionally completely baffling -- leading to an ending in which I only understood what had happened after I pieced it together on my way home. And I don't mean this in a thematic, rolling over of ideas and suppositions, or even that the movie ends on a kind of cliffhanger, simply that the plotting was so poorly executed that I had to put much of the fragmented pieces together myself. To add to this, many of the emotionally revelatory moments are more like the audience being told how to feel than something that wells up naturally from the characters. This lack of emotional resonance and clarity is surprising, considering Moussavi is apparently one of Iran's most well-regarded poets. Much of the metaphorical and poetical devices of the film are the least successful parts. And, for a movie that is such a relentless downer, it's actually the happy moments that feel the most genuine.
But after all that, I am still goint to hesitantly suggest that the ideas this movie posits are ones that bear telling. Filmed in secret and completely illegal, it is the least veiled critique of the Iranian government I've seen. In many ways it feels like a check list of ways the government's oppression hurts the people, from police crackdowns on parties and inter-sex mingling to a complete dearth of options for those unfortunate enough to be infected with sexually-transmitted diseases to suppression of underground artistic expressions to to to... But many of these things, especially the frightening way STDs can be spread without anyone ever knowing it (one of the characters discovers it only because they're trying to get a Visa to be married and immigrate out of the country) and the lack of sex-related health care once it is discovered. So, I don't know, each of these moments would seem very rote, preachy and clumsily handled in an American movie. But because it was expressing these things in a place in which they are far less talked about, it seemed somehow fresh and possibly important? I don't know, the act of writing this may have talked me out of these feelings and maybe even made me feel that I am engaging in my own form of exoticism. To be somehow surprised that many of these problems that we still don't quite know how to handle in America would exist and be even more problematic in somewhere like Iran. Yeah, I don't know, maybe the movie's not even so good as to kinda recommend it.
But after all that, I am still goint to hesitantly suggest that the ideas this movie posits are ones that bear telling. Filmed in secret and completely illegal, it is the least veiled critique of the Iranian government I've seen. In many ways it feels like a check list of ways the government's oppression hurts the people, from police crackdowns on parties and inter-sex mingling to a complete dearth of options for those unfortunate enough to be infected with sexually-transmitted diseases to suppression of underground artistic expressions to to to... But many of these things, especially the frightening way STDs can be spread without anyone ever knowing it (one of the characters discovers it only because they're trying to get a Visa to be married and immigrate out of the country) and the lack of sex-related health care once it is discovered. So, I don't know, each of these moments would seem very rote, preachy and clumsily handled in an American movie. But because it was expressing these things in a place in which they are far less talked about, it seemed somehow fresh and possibly important? I don't know, the act of writing this may have talked me out of these feelings and maybe even made me feel that I am engaging in my own form of exoticism. To be somehow surprised that many of these problems that we still don't quite know how to handle in America would exist and be even more problematic in somewhere like Iran. Yeah, I don't know, maybe the movie's not even so good as to kinda recommend it.
Flamenco, Flamenco (Carlos Suara, 2010)
As someone who has a love of dance movies and a general dislike for the plot elements of most dance movies, I am not ashamed to admit I was more excited for Flamenco, Flamenco than possibly any other film at the festival. It was, as these things tend to happen sometimes, by far the biggest disappointment. The concept is a series of flamenco performances introduced without narrative pretense or introduction, strung together into 90 minutes of performance bliss. As concepts go, it's pretty fantastic. I have long been a proponent of the idea of kinetic cinematic pleasure for its own sake, stripped of ideologies so that it may revel in beautiful motion. Unfortunately, in the process of stripping down the narrative into almost nothing, the director has also stripped away the cinema. Each performance looks as though it was shot in one take, which would be fine if they did so with an elaborately conceived filmic way to present it in mind. They did not. The camera is reduced to a useless proxy of a theatre audience member, trapped in a stilted, lethargic medium shot with occasional cuts from dancers to the musical performers often seated around them. And, while I would never call myself a musical expert, these cuts seem to belong to a rhythm I cannot in any way comprehend. Many of the best dances are undone by the lack of build-up in their execution -- it seems that just as the energy is beginning to flow and we're about to be taken somewhere awesome and inspiring the movie cuts to a singer or band player, destroying whatever momentum was being developed.
I gather that most of these performers are famous in their native Spain, so the director was attempting to pay them proper tribute and not focus solely on the dancers. But compelling cinema is not about making sure everyone feels like they got enough camera time. An easy way to fix this problem would've been to introduce the band at the beginning of the sequence, with whatever kind of introductory editing and camera movement the director felt worked best, then progress from there into the dancing. This could've been a great way to showcase the fact of dance as a natural, visual expression of music. I mean, after all, we still get to hear the songs the entire dance number. Is listening to music not the best way to appreciate it? At any rate, the dullness of the movement and editing lulled me almost to sleep periodically throughout this, and I exited as quickly as possible when it was finally over.
There were a few highlights, though, including one dance number with a group of women shrouded in sheer black veils that stretched to the floor. It had a beautiful, funereal element that mingled with the ecstatic dancing to create something that was both harrowing and joyous at the same time. Too bad that even this scene the director tries to ruin with static camerawork and baffling editing choices.
I gather that most of these performers are famous in their native Spain, so the director was attempting to pay them proper tribute and not focus solely on the dancers. But compelling cinema is not about making sure everyone feels like they got enough camera time. An easy way to fix this problem would've been to introduce the band at the beginning of the sequence, with whatever kind of introductory editing and camera movement the director felt worked best, then progress from there into the dancing. This could've been a great way to showcase the fact of dance as a natural, visual expression of music. I mean, after all, we still get to hear the songs the entire dance number. Is listening to music not the best way to appreciate it? At any rate, the dullness of the movement and editing lulled me almost to sleep periodically throughout this, and I exited as quickly as possible when it was finally over.
There were a few highlights, though, including one dance number with a group of women shrouded in sheer black veils that stretched to the floor. It had a beautiful, funereal element that mingled with the ecstatic dancing to create something that was both harrowing and joyous at the same time. Too bad that even this scene the director tries to ruin with static camerawork and baffling editing choices.
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