Shane Black's IRON MAN 3

Boring title for a movie review, huh? Yeah, I know. I should have come up with something a bit more clever, eye catching, something that pops; but instead I went the generic route. Whatever. I can't be expected to always come up with the nut grab headline, especially when I haven't written a review in over two years. And yes, in case you were wondering, I am writing this with the internal voice of a Robert Downey Jr. narration. Corny? Sure. It seems to work well enough for him, though. That rapid fire stream of consciousness style of spouting dialogue and/or monologue may actually be the very thing that got this whole Marvel juggernaut off the ground in the first place. RDJ made it happen. They owe it all to him. But we can talk about later. For now, let's get back to the whole boring title thing. 

As a lead-in to a review Iron Man 3, the newest installment in the always outrageously anticipated Marvel Studios/Disney/Avengers mega-franchise, my simple title is actually a pretty succinct way of describing this film. This is, if you are at all familiar with the films of Shane Black, but for those of you who don't know, here's the rundown. 

Shane Black is an actor/screenwriter/director who began his career in the late mid-eighties playing bit parts in low-grade action flicks and one relatively larger role as the bespectacled misogynistic joker in the Schwarzenegger classic Predator. In that same year, Black saw his first produced screenplay hit the big screen. It was a little buddy cop movie called Lethal Weapon, which went on to spawn a franchise and put Shane Black in the screenwriter stratosphere. As his career progressed, he garnered some critical acclaim as well as increasing lucrative paydays for his work which included Lethal Weapon 2, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. His notoriety, along with the fact that his films all contained very similar tropes and character dynamics, made for a very specific brand of film: the Shane Black movie. He was a writer with a distinct voice and an eye for adrenalized entertainment. The action in some of his stories was often pretty bat-shit, but he always seemed to maintain verisimilitude (a daunting task when one of your movies involves a man thwarting an assassination attempt by using a football as a projectile). But as Black gained a fan following and a few million dollars a script the end results of the films produced from his work following LW were almost entirely critical and box-office disasters. Long story short, he basically disappeared from the industry until 2005 when he was inexplicably allowed to debut as the director of an original script titled Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; a stellar action/comedy starring Corbin Bernsen, Larry Miller, and a recovering alcoholic former teen star named Robert Downey Jr. 

But as Black's luck would have it the release of KKBB was completely bungled by Warner Bros. and the film barely saw the inside of a theater. His directorial debut and hopeful return to the world of moviemaking seemed to have been another failure. Fortunately, there were enough savvy cinephiles out there to word-of-mouth this picture into the cult section of the video stores that were still open at the time. KKBB now has a loyal following, thanks in no small part to the bravado performance of RDJ as Harry Lockhart. His turn as the burglar turned amateur detective garnered him some of the mcuh needed comeback heat that both he and Black needed. For Downey, it was enough to help land him the lead in the first film of what would prove to be Hollywood's most lucrative and ambitious blockbuster endeavor: The Avengers franchise. 

Jump to 2013. Iron Man and its decidedly inferior sequel are massive hits and Marvel Studios, which has since been swallowed by Disney, has added three relatively successful films in an audacious attempt to assemble earth's most bankable heroes into the highest grossing movie of all time not made by James Cameron: Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Whedon, know mainly as a guru of cult classic genre television, was handed this elaborate project after only one feature film, Serenity, which was a box office bomb that has a strong cult following. But his talents as a screenwriter enabled him to create a cohesive, exciting, and impressively character driven action spectacle that surprised even his own faithful fans. An interesting parallel to the subject of this review.

On it's surface (meaning, through its publicity campaign) Iron Man 3 appears to be just another sticky tentacle reaching into the pockets of the brand loyal public who will unavoidably flock to the cinema for whatever superhero flick Hollywood decides to throw out there. The assumption, based on trailers and other such advertisement, is that this installment will raise the stakes by escalating the action, adding a villain or two, and possibly tossing in a complication that will have to be dealt with in the upcoming Avengers 2. Going in with these expectations, I came out of the theater surprised and confused when I realized that almost none of those characteristics had made it into the film.

So as the days went by I read some reviews, listened to an interview with Shane Black, revisted his entire oeuvre, and then rewatched IM3, I came to the happy conclusion that the reason I came out of that first screen so confused was because Iron Man was not The Avengers franchise film I was sure it would be. It was barely even an Iron Man film. It was a full tilt Shane Black film hiding in the comfortable clothes of a massive comic book film. That's not to say that there aren't any of the elements that have come to define these Iron Man/Marvel movies. There's still plenty of clanging metal, funny robot arms and just enough explosions to bleed through the walls and make the three people in the next theater watching Pain & Gain wish they were seeing a real Michael Bay movie. The thing about this Iron Man is that it never feels all that interested in the machinations of its own genre. (I'm not either, so don't expect me to critique the action or plotting of the film.) As a very obvious example of the filmmaker's lack of interest in the Iron Man image notice to what lengths they go to keep Tony Stark out of the Iron Man. He almost never wears it, and when he does, it almost immediately is removed or only minimal parts of it remain in tact. They even go so far as to introduce an army of remote controlled drone suits (political commentary?) that allow Tony to deal with his personal demons and relationship issues while the armor flies around, blowing shit up without him. It's this indifference to the standard pleasures of the increasingly banal comic book genre that is what makes this Iron Man so fresh, fun, and even socially relevant. But for movie geeks like me, the real compelling part of Iron Man 3 is its self-reflexivity. The filmmakers involved in this production are very aware of the product they have in their hands and then callously, through a signature Shane Black action trope, destroy all the familiarity of the previous IM films and replace them with the specific story elements, stylistic dialogue, and action sequences that made the Shane Black films of his heyday almost a genre unto themselves. I'll point out a few examples of Mr. Black's signature moves that made their way into IM3:

1) IM3 takes place during Christmas. (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang).

2) Tony Stark is ambushed by a coastal helicopter attack. (Lethal Weapon 1 & 2)

3) Stark and Rhodes take on the bad guys alone while engaging in witty, buddy cop banter. (Lethal Weapon 1 &2, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.)

4) Tony Stark is captured, tied to something, engages in instigative banter with his captors, and eventually escapes after cooly informing one of the baddies that he's going to kill him (Lethal Weapon 1 & 2, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang)

So, why would a studio greenlight a movie that has as many characteristics of famously unsuccessful movies as it does the familiar and market tested elements of the films that have created the one of th greatest money machines in the history of Hollywood? I propose that there are two answers to this: 

1) Robert Downey Jr. 

2) Why not?

If there has ever been a guaranteed box-office success it is Iron Man 3. Coming off the huge turnout for the previous installments of the series as well as the overwhelmingly positive reception bestowed upon the kind of still an Iron Man movie, The Avengers; the bankability of IM3 was about as sure a bet as they get. So lets just say that a few smart guys (one of whom has a great deal of sway within the Marvel Studio world) understand the certainty of yet another financial windfall and decide that with this fail-safe project they might want to have fun with it. They want to toy with audience expectations, slip in some satire, pack the movie with geeky cinema references (like Jon Favreu being dressed as Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction during the 1999 flashback). And why not? What could wrong? The only thing Disney has to worry about regarding this franchise is whether or not they can keep the man who defined their core character happy enough to stay in the iron suit. So if RDJ wants to  bring in his buddy Shane and think of ways to simultaneously delve deeper into Tony Stark's character, test the tolerance of the comic book audience, and wink at all the video store kids that used to eat up 80s action for breakfast; you let him. After all, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang was a movie that worked on every level other than at the ticket booth. Why not try it again, only this time on the shoulders of a tried and true franchise? The worst thing that could happen is that it only makes $700 million instead of a billion. 

But even now, as I'm writing this review, Iron Man 3-the oddball bastard cousin of the Marvel/Disney family-is well on its way to being the most lucrative installment of the entire franchise. A very interesting development when you consider that the two most successful movies of this entire endeavor could turn out to both be helmed by skilled and unique filmmakers who before entering the Marvel stable had only made one failed film each. The reason this is so is that these are two men who actually understand the art of cinematic storytelling and the studio decided to trust them and since it paid off, maybe we'll be seeing more of it in the years to come. 

In light of Steven Soderbergh's recent announcement that the topsy-turvy fiscal formula that controls what is made or not made in Hollywood is quickly killing cinema as we know ithttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/05/steven-soderbergh-speech-on-hollywood.html, perhaps the massive financial success of a couple of gifted storytellers like Joss Whedon and Shane Black will introduce the possibility that an intelligent approach to the craft of big budget filmmaking can also be a part of that formula. If that possibility becomes fact, we might see some of the more interesting films of the future born of a $200 million dollar budget and allowed to introduce subversive satirical ideas like in IM3 which introduces a villain who is actually just a manufactured patsy created from an amalgam of fear inducing images set up to claim resposibility for a a series of false flags or to frame the insane and sometimes ridiculous battle sequence at the conclusion of The Avengers as a 9/11 level event which results in the appointment of The Iron Patriot (Act), and yet another villain whose motivation is to corner the market on the "war on terror". Pretty prescient material for a tent pole popcorn flick. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into things and maybe am a bit too optimistic, but I think I see a somewhat positive trend forming within the world of the mega-budget blockbuster. Iron Man 3 is definitely a step in the right direction and some of the upcoming summer releases like Pacific Rim and Elysium are original properties that have the potential to be both entertaining and relevant. I'm curious how far they're going to go with The Hunger Games series, but these are all subjects for later in the year. All I'll say about those films for now is that if they are going to test the limits of cinema and maybe present a few interesting insights then I wish them all the success in the world. We need more like them.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

There are certain movies which I would classify as perfect. Now I realize that perfection isn’t actually possible in any art form, especially film, but sometimes there are those certain pictures which, when scrutinized over years of repeated viewing, prove to be bulletproof. One of the few films to fit this classification is Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is the story of the hijacking of a New York subway train by a group of mustachioed men who demand a hefty ransom in exchange for the lives of the hostages aboard. The negotiations take place between their leader Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) and the always entertaining Walter Matthau as the tough, but measured Lt. Zach Garber. Shaw--who most of you will know as the grizzled shark hunting Quint in Jaws-- is an icily authentic villain, almost robotic in his resolve. He plays perfectly against Matthau’s humanistic and humorous hero. These two characters provide sturdy bookends to a film filled with a colorful cross-section of 1974 New Yorkers. The attention given to the melting pot makeup of the cast could possibly provide some measure of social commentary to the subtext of The Taking of Pelham One Tow Three, but I’ll just leave that to you. I find this movie satisfying enough as a perfectly plotted thriller.

Adapted by Peter Stone (Charade), from John Godey’s Novel; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’s script is as airtight as an aluminum can. Every minute of this film works towards the end; whether it’s accelerating the action, crafting character, or slowly setting up the payoffs which surface in the last act. Many of these potentially mechanical moments are coupled with elements of unexpected humor or even shocking severity, which work to round out the rough edges of the plot and make the story natural and human. Beat for beat, this script is about as good as it gets.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a breeze. It’s uncontrived, entertaining, and alive.  Do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s on Netflix Instant.  

HANNA

If you’ve been reading my blog entries of late you’ve probably noticed that I have a bit of an issue with timid filmmaking. I went on about it in my review of Duncan Jones’ inauspicious and gutless sci-fi failure Source Code, and have shown a tendency toward heaping praise on risky flicks like Dogtooth and Four Lions. Of course those independent, low budget films are of a different ilk from a movie like Source Code with its sizable price tag and lofty set of box-office expectations. When it comes to crafting a massive, studio funded, action oriented, release there exists a certain pressure to come through with a widely appealing crowd pleaser likely to show some financial returns. And as we all know, this is not an approach aligned with creating a climate ideal for any artistic adventurousness. Most of these pictures end up very much the same: bland, brainless, and ball-less.   

Hanna, the newest entry from Brit director Joe Wright, is a surprising exception to this rule. An ambitious globetrotting adventure tale, Hanna is an example of a film whose makers seem unafraid of pulling out all the stops for the sake of style and service to the story. It’s a sensory feast, packed with an excess of kinetic energy attained through the utilization of all the cinematic tools at a filmmaker’s disposal. There’s crafty camera work, a kitchen sink of editing technique, and an equal parts atmospheric and energetic score form The Chemical Brothers. There’s also an abundance of underlying intelligence; an element often elusive to the action genre.

Hanna opens in the bleak landscape of northern Denmark. Hanna (Sairse Ronan) is hunting elk. She is like a phantom, appearing and disappearing among the trees at will and easily striking down her prey with a homemade bow and arrow. When the wounded elk wanders off and falls to the snowy ground, Hanna coldly aims a Luger (at the deer and at the audience) and fires. She’s a stone killer.

Soon after we meet Hanna’s father Erik (Eric Bana) who we see is more drill sergeant than daddy. Eric spars with Hanna, trains her in multilingualism, and teaches her of the “world beyond” from the pages of an encyclopedia. When the subject of music comes up Hanna, unfamiliar with the concept, asks Eric what music is; but instead of humming a few bars or drumming his hands rhythmically, he turns the page and reads her the definition. It’s a cold, closed-off world where Hanna’s from. But as one would expect, this girl wants to see what she’s missing. So she flips the switch on a locator beacon and makes her presence known to the evil, witch-like CIA operative Marissa (Cate Blanchett), and the globe-trotting chase begins.

This inciting incident is a bit contrived and unbelievable, but I feel that it speaks to the overall thematic design of this film. Hanna is a children’s story about the death of childhood. Like a traditional fairy tale, the action is painted with a broad brush. With this in mind, one can disengage their reality detectors and go along for the ride. This isn’t a story told from an adult’s point of view.  It’s to be viewed through the eyes of a nubile world watcher. One of the things that makes the story of Hanna fresh is the ability of the filmmakers to not only create a technically proficient and lively action film, but to successfully meld that tricky genre with one that is no less difficult to pull off: the coming of age story. This balancing act is reliant on the filmmaker’s success in getting the audience to invest in the characters somewhere between the shootouts and chase scenes. In this case, they got a lot of help from their cast.

Much has been said about seventeen-year-old Saoirse Ronan’s acting abilities, and for damn good reason. She’s nothing less than a revelation. Ronan carries this massive action epic as naturally as Harrison Ford in his heyday. Her graceful style is so truthful that it gives this other-worldly character the nuance needed to make us believe every scene. The fact that Hanna is a super-soldier is incidental to the fact that she’s a very sheltered teenage girl wandering the world for the first time. The wide eyed wonder Hanna possesses is beautifully accompanied by her somewhat savvier friend Sophie (Jessica Barden). It’s in the scenes shared by these two characters where the bulk of humanity lies in the rather cold and calculative world of Hanna. The two young girls forge a real relationship which is sometimes touching, often humorous, and ultimately sad in its inevitable resolution. Hanna, being who she was made to be, can have no friends, no childhood, and no life as we know it.

The heartbreaking fact of Hanna’s destiny is made evident in the visual tapestry of the latter part of the film. After finally making her way to the rendezvous her father had set out for her, we find that it is a rundown, Grimm’s fairy tale-inspired theme park where she finds a small Hansel and Gretel like cabin inhabited by an odd and aged clownish character. When I first saw Hanna I actually found this segment to be a bit much. The fairy tale theme had been so prevalent throughout the film and I felt that the literal visualization of that element was a bit on the nose. But after a second (and third) viewing I came to see this motif as a manifestation of the girl’s lost childhood. When Hanna comes across a deer during the final standoff with Marissa she makes the same realization. She stops and stares at the deer and sees that she is back where she began. After everything Hanna has gone through in order to leave the forest, go out into the world, and try to become a human being; she is really just the hunter she was made to be. And when she coldly takes aim at a wounded Marissa (and again, at the audience) we see that she has accepted her fate.  

Wright’s choice to use such a visual metaphor as the theme park set-piece is one of the many things that makes Hanna such a refreshing and audacious departure from the bulk of today’s action adventure films. In this age of relatively naturalistic action like the Bourne films or the Daniel Craig Bonds, it’s nice to see someone unafraid of going back to the wellspring of fantastical cinematic possibilities without plummeting into the abyss of the ridiculous like the Transformers movies or some other such crap. Hanna isn’t a perfect movie, but its flaws are forgivable in light of its intelligence and adventurous attitude.

Check it out if you get the chance. As of now (May, 6) it’s still in theaters.

FOUR LIONS

IDIOTS UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Terrorism is one of those words that elicit a distinct reaction in everyone who hears it. It’s a hot button if there ever was one. I would dare say that when an American reads or hears the word “terrorist” images of falling towers, grainy videos of hooded hostage holding Muslims, and a certain long bearded, recently(?) deceased, trust-fund kid come straight to mind. These images have become so pervasive within the media that they overshadow and incidentally simplify any actual discourse on the true reason for terrorism and the people are who have been dubbed terrorists. This approach to the topic of terror has convinced us all of a fiction; terrorists are not people; they’re cartoon villains.

 Ironically, the responsibility for the defictionalization of the realities of the world often falls into the purview of the creative arts, especially in the fields of fiction and film. In the case of Christopher Morris’ directorial debut Four Lions, the task of casting a human light on the concept of terrorism rests on the shoulders of a straight-up, farcical comedy.

Four Lions is the story of three young Brits of Middle-Eastern decent (and one angry Islamic white boy) who have decided to become suicide bombers for the Mujahedeen. They do all of the things one would expect a radical Jihadist to do: they travel to Pakistan to attend training camp, they make explosives, and they videotape themselves claiming responsibility for the devastating bombings they’ve yet to commit. This would be some delicate subject matter to tackle if this film didn’t stay so true to its comedic tone, but this farcical approach softens this edgy content to a point where the filmmakers are able to enter into any situation they wish. We can easily enter into the inner working of the radical Muslim world as long as the Muslims behave in a manner reminiscent of the Marx Brothers or the idiots from Dumb and Dumber.  

Watching Four Lions is an odd and oftentimes confusing experience. It is a comedy about a very serious subject, and while you will find yourself laughing at the absurdity of these characters’ behavior only to realize what you are laughing at and find yourself considering the reality of it. Some may have trouble swallowing this somewhat contradictory approach, but I do think that the result succeeds in serving a higher purpose.   Morris and his collaborators aim for the laughs first, but they use the funny to lubricate the audience and force them to consider the reasons why one might be fooled into such extreme actions as declaring Jihad and blowing oneself up in a crowd of people. Their success in this endeavor is due in part to the careful crafting of characters that are just like you, or somebody you know, or somebody you used to be before you grew up and realized that inclusion in some group is not intrinsic to your identity or destiny. These guys are not treated like sick individuals or radical idealist, but like hip-hop wannabes or football fans. They are Jihad nerds. More like gamers or Trekies than soldiers.  It’s not they who create the climate of radicalism; they are just the ones who fall for the idea and get their buddies to do the same.

Everyone is susceptible to influence in one way or another. Often, those who influence are so influential because they are able to tap into the human instinct to want to belong. Sometimes it’s something relatively harmless like a music movement or fashion. Other times it’s something more severe. The characters in Four Lions don’t seem to be into this terrorist thing because they’re overtly religious but because it’s something for them to identify with. They only speak of the deeper beliefs that fuel what we think of as the motivation for Islamic martyrdom in passing, as catch phrases or prods for peer pressure.  The intellectual Islamic elitists who feed them these lines are not the ones blowing themselves up; they’re the ones getting the brainless sheep (like these characters) to do it. It’s no accident that one of the many bumbling incidents in this film involves the explosive destruction of a man and a sheep, as well as the inability to distinguish one from the other in the bloody aftermath. Morris and Co. are saying in no uncertain terms that the act of killing yourself along with a score of innocent bystanders  can be blamed as much on the influencer as the influenced, with the influenced being as much a victim as those victimized by the act itself. We are all susceptible to this kind of sway. Maybe you and I don’t blow up buildings, but many of the things we are convinced to do on a daily basis are equally destructive in subtler ways. This train of thought is the reaction that Morris and Co. are going for with Four Lions. That and a lot of laughs.     

I’ve heard it said before that comedy is the great humanizer. I would say that with Four Lions that is certainly the intention. It’s a film that successfully takes one of the more generalized and generic characters in our modern narrative-the ‘terrorist”-and turns him back into something real. It’s this realization that may make it easier to understand one of the things that’s so wrong with the world. Four Lions is a comedy with a higher purpose; a satire that lives up to the influential potential of cinema. And it’s damn funny.

Check it out now on Netflix Instant.    

SOURCE CODE

It isn’t exactly revelatory to say that we are in a cinematic era greatly lacking in originality. That irrefutable fact is thrown in our faces with every weekend’s slate of releases. There is a seemingly constant barrage of sequels, remakes, and reboots which make it almost impossible to find anything of substance and creativity in the movies of the moment. So when an even moderately interesting, original idea comes along with the full support of a major studio and helmed by a director of artistic repute, film fanatics like me take notice. We hope that, at the very least, the filmmakers succeed in taking this all-so- rare original concept (and that ample studio budget) and craft something which creatively matches the originality of the idea itself.  Source Code, the new film from sophomore sensation Duncan Jones is a prime example of that opportunity being utterly squandered.   

The concept for Source Code is actually quite compelling. It’s about a man who is placed in the body of another in order to solve the mystery of an already successful train bombing. Due to the physical constraints of this program he only has eight minutes to gather clues. Eight minutes which he must relive over and over until he can find the man who bombed the train and prevent another more devastating attack threatened to occur later in the day.  This is a scientifically intriguing concept, structured by fantastic physical and temporal restraints which promise a tense and possibly cerebral cinematic experience.  Source Code is a great pitch. I can see how it managed to swim through the sea of sequels and comic book crap and actually get a green light. This is the kind of material that can bridge the gap between sci-fi geeks and arthouse aficionados, adding up to big box office when the dust settles. Of course, this outcome is contingent upon the filmmaker’s ability to take the idea, craft it into a tight script, and execute the shoot. In my opinion, Source Code fails on all counts.

There are multiple, very specific reasons I could cite for Source Code’s failure. This piece could run a few thousand words if I decided to drop a laundry list on my limited readership. Instead, I’ll break it down to the core culprit for most of the movie’s shortcomings: a case of acute timidity.

 In other words; this movie has no balls.

This is not an inherent trait of director Duncan Jones; at least it wasn’t apparent in his directorial debut, Moon. Unlike that excellent existential sci-fi/comedy/thriller, Source Code completely lacks any element of risk or playfulness. At no point in SC do we feel like the filmmakers are having any fun. The camera is stiff, the editing workmanlike, and the art department seems to have been half asleep. The only people who seem to be enjoying themselves on this set are the actors. Their over-the-top performances combined with the decidedly underwhelming visual style turns this film into a farce.

The script isn’t immune from this condition either. With a story so ripe for various avenues of exploration, this one ends up taking the freeway every time. Each choice is easy and safe. Political correctness is rigidly adhered to, potential surprises entirely passed over, and complexity of plot avoided. Perhaps they thought the scientific elements of the core concept were so complicated that they chose to make the action (and resolution of the action) as simple minded as possible. The fact that the climax consists of the hero effortlessly unplugging a bomb from its detonator and apprehending the bomber without so much as a whimper of protest, is pathetically anticlimactic. I think enough has been written about the character resolutions that I shouldn’t have to go on about it here. I’ll just say that Source Code has one of the worst final five minutes in recent memory.   

Bottom line, Source Code is a wasted opportunity. It’s a rare original concept, with some promise, that actually made its way to a wide release, and the filmmakers blew it. In this time in Hollywood where repetitiveness and familiarity so often win out over creativity and originality, the chance to do something that stands out should be treated like a once in a lifetime chance at greatness. But greatness is something that was never achieved by playing it safe.

My Best Picture of 2010

A Biting Satire

                                             
For those of you who checked out my ten best picture nominees a while back, I’ve returned to declare a winner. It wasn’t an easy decision considering the field. After a thorough look back at the year I would actually have to say it was a pretty good one. A lot of you may disagree, and I can understand why. The high profile U.S. releases were far from stellar, resulting in a distinct shortage of memorable films and a bland and predictable Oscars. As is true with nearly every year, it was the foreign films which proved most interesting. Only this time around it wasn’t France, Italy, Sweden, or any of the other reliable movie making nations that delivered what I found to be the finest film of 2010.

This time around it was Greece. 

Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth is a deeply disturbing, darkly hilarious film which is slowly seeping into the cynical cinephile consciousness. Thanks to its Oscar nomination for best foreign language film and a convenient release to Netflix Instant View it has become quite a conversation piece for movie bloggers like myself. And with all the endless discussion, I’ve noticed that no one seems to agree on how to read this alternately complex and straight forward film. Dogtooth is a movie so rich with seditious subtext that it could easily be deciphered from a variety of angles. Many have already written scores of contradictory critiques on this film, with equal right to claim their take. In this author’s opinion, it doesn’t really matter. 

Dogtooth is a satire. A story form that is usually ripe for philosophical and sociological survey. But here we have an exception. These filmmakers don’t seem particularly interested in being prescriptive or specific when it comes to social commentary or soul searching. They seem decidedly more concerned with manufacturing an experience meant to imbue the viewer with a certain perspective; emulative of the ambiguous way we all see the world from day to day. Lanthimos’ expert direction guides the performers and crew into creating an experiential exercise; a more immersive cinematic experience, with the writers interjecting just enough allegorical content to give us all something to chew on.

Perhaps the most effective way Lanthimos (and his DP) go about creating this filmic interactivity is through the off-putting and oddly ambiguous placement of the camera. It seems as rare as uranium for a director these days to have an eye for using the camera as a story telling device. In this case, the effectiveness of the story is reliant on the ability of the viewer to relate directly to the characters, as well as their hermetic environment. For a film based on such an outrageous premise, there is a distinct verisimilitude. Dogtooth is a film so shrewdly shot that the zombie-like performances and otherwise unbelievable circumstances are visually translated into images that feel like they’re straight out of real life. The compositions are sometimes formal, sometimes passive, and from time to time downright hard to wrap your head around. Many of these shots feel like the wandering of the eye, and some of them even feel almost peripheral. All of this is done without flare. The camera set-ups are not accentuated by excessive movement or exaggerated design elements that speak to something outside of a living breathing world. Dogtooth is a thematically complex film, but in a way it’s actually quite understated.

It’s that simplicity that creates the contradictory motif which results in its deep subtextual richness. This film is set almost exclusively within a sprawling Grecian estate deep in the country. Only a few scenes take place outside the family’s home. But the small world in which the family dwells works to create a microcosm of society which conversely creates a scope of global scale.  

The entire visual design of the film contradicts its inherent cynicism. Save for a smattering of night scenes, the set is almost always soaked in sunlight. The atrocities committed are shown in the cold light of day as if to say that they are as common as washing the car or taking a swim. Everything is exposed, from the raw and cringe-inducing violence to the casually revealed private parts of each of the principle characters. Although almost everything that happens in this film is a perversion of commonly accepted human behavior; nobody lurks in the shadows. Nothing is hidden. And no one acts as if any of it is strange. To me, it is very reminiscent of the world we live in. Horrible things happen every day and we all accept them as normal because we’re told they’re normal. Reality is manipulated for us in much the same way that it is for the children of Dogtooth. Basically all of our understanding of the ways of the world is filtered through the fine mesh of the popular media.

The eldest daughter’s unauthorized viewing of a pair of videotapes (Jaws, Rocky IV) results in one of the funniest and most poignant sequences I’ve seen in ages. It’s this occurrence that causes the cracks that will eventually put a leak in that Plato’s cave. After watching the films, the girl immediately begins acting out scenes from each. She even acts out some of the iconic dance moves from Flashdance, though I’m almost certain that she has never seen that film. I like to think that the effect the video tapes has on the girl is a nod to the transcendent, Godardian sense of the revolutionary potential of cinema. (Cinema is truth, even if it is only Spielberg and Stallone.) More than that, however, is that her viewing of the films seems to create an imaginative spirit in her which resides outside of the mangled, misinformed mentality carefully constructed by her loathsome parents. As far as we know, her experience with any media prior to these movies consisted only of wildly mistranslated Sinatra listening parties and home movies. Once she is exposed to something outside of that controlled environment, her human nature starts to emerge.  This is just one of the many allegorical aspects of Dogtooth which only scratches the surface of what this film is about.

Dogtooth is about many things: parenting, despotism, the malicious manipulation of the media, the deconstruction of language and the resultant disconnection which results, etc. But the bottom line is that Dogtooth is most effective because is submerges us into a revelatory model of the world and forces us into a subjective point-of-view. This creates an infinitely nuanced subtext, limited only by the amount of viewers. Everyone who watches this film will read it as they see it.     

My Best Pictures of 2010

In the wake of this week’s utterly unsurprising Oscars, I thought it might be interesting to post my ten best pictures of the year, to be followed next week with a critical piece on the one I consider to be the “winner”. 

So, here are the nominees…in no particular order.

Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik)

 This thriller set in the bowels of rural Missouri has been lauded time and again for its skillful sense of setting and its perfect tonality. But what I find most impressive is its understated take on the detective genre. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is like a redneck Philip Marlowe, getting to the bottom of things by getting in over her head. The difference here is the very real sense of responsibility which drives her investigation and pays off with a stark and emotionally chilling climax.

Another Year (Mike Leigh)

Another brilliant character study from this veteran auteur. Mike Leigh deftly draws a dividing line between those who are in tune with life, and those who aren’t and forces them to cohabitate. Perfectly performed and subtly crafted, Another Year is the work of a true master on top of his game.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Edgar Wright)

The most fun I had at the movies all year, SPVTW is quick witted, kinetic, and surprisingly mature for a youth romance/comic book action extravaganza. Wright offers us a visual feast with a self-reflexive flare that provides all of the elements of pleasure prevalent in pop cinema while simultaneously subverting them. That clever contradiction must have befuddled the marketing department at Universal because they completely dropped the ball. Nobody saw this thing in theaters. It’s a shame too. In a perfect world, Scott Pilgrim would’ve been the hit of the summer.  

Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)

Blue Valentine is an obvious labor of love. It’s a film so intricately crafted, with performances realized to such authenticity that you feel more like you’ve experienced it than watched it. This is about as raw and unapologetic as a movie can get.

Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, Kynodontas (as it’s called in its native Greece) is twisted, perverse, jarringly violent, and hilarious in the darkest possible way.  This one is not for the faint of heart. It is truly shocking, both in its uncompromising content and its deeply subversive subtext.  It also has one of the most amazing dance numbers ever put to film. Available on Netflix Instant.

Animal Kingdom (David Michod)

This crime thriller out of Australia is one of the most tense and well acted movies I’ve seen in years. There’s no showy, “Oscar worthy” acting in this one. The subtle performances and pitch perfect pacing create a tense, authentic atmosphere that kept me nervous throughout.  

  

The Social Network (David Fincher)

Of the ten films nominated for best picture at this year’s Oscars, this one would have been my winner. It’s smart as hell and expertly crafted in every way.  Fincher has proven once again that he is a master of visual story craft and Sorkin has shown that he is more than just a great TV writer. His feature writing simply required the right director. 

True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)

I’ve written enough on this one already. If you haven’t read my previous entry on True Grit, scroll down and you'll see it.

Mother (Joon Ho-Bong)

This Korean import could have been a run-of-the-mill detective thriller but the odd, endearing performances and dark and twisting screenplay make this one of my favorites of the last year. 

Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn)

This one wins the pure cinema award for 2010. It’s ballsy, spare, and pleasing to the eye. Valhalla Rising reminds us that a movie doesn’t have to be a complex intellectual affair. Sometimes a lot can be said by saying nothing at all.

So, there they are. Tune in next week to see which one gets the write-up.