2020 - December
Fargo (1996) 4/4
The Girl in the Fog (2017) 2.5/4
The Girl by the Lake (2007) 2.5/4
Into the Labyrinth (2019) 1.5/4
The Girl in the Fog (2017) 2.5/4
The Girl by the Lake (2007) 2.5/4
Into the Labyrinth (2019) 1.5/4
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- DirectorJoel CoenEthan CoenStarsWilliam H. MacyFrances McDormandSteve BuscemiMinnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard's inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.05-12-2020
Is there a more perfect opening shot than the one which opens "Fargo"? A tiny black dot of a car fights admirably through a seemingly impenetrable whiteness of North Dakota. For a moment it disappears behind a hill, and you wonder if it will ever re-emerge or has it been snowed under and will remain there forgotten. Then it rises up triumphantly as the music reaches a breathtaking crescendo throwing snow into the camera lense. Across the now entirely white screen, black lettering emerges - "Fargo". All the absurdity futility and struggle of a tiny man living in a vast snowy landscape is contained within this shot and it firmly establishes the car's driver, one Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) as nothing more than a speck of dust in this unforgiving wilderness, a man at the mercy of the elements, a desperate man in constant danger of losing his way and getting lost forever.
And boy does he lose his way! In the very next scene, we find out Jerry is on his way to meet two lowly gangsters, the hyperactive Carl (Steve Buscemi) and his quietly psychopathic buddy Gaer (Peter Stormare). He hands them the keys to an illegally obtained tan Ciera and offers them 40,000 USD for them to kidnap his wife. "You see, my wife's dad is real well off," he explains. "So, why don't you just ask him for the money," retorts Carl. Carl has obviously not met Jerry's wife's father, the formidable businessman Wade (Harve Presnell) who is the sort of man the timid and mousy Jerry wouldn't dare ask for a loaf of bread. In a later scene, when Jerry plucks up the courage to ask Wade for some money reasoning that it would help him, Jean (his wife), and Scotty (their son), Wade pointedly replies "Jean and Scotty never have to worry". No, Wade is not the man Jerry could turn to for help. So, instead, he turns to Carl and Gaer and soon lives to regret it as their harebrained kidnap plan starts to go awry and the snow of North Dakota starts turning red.
Far from Jerry's troubled existence are Marge (Frances McDormand) and Norm Gunderson (John Carroll Lynch). A loving small-town couple expecting a baby, they're the sort of people who'd say "WE're seven months pregnant". Their biggest worry on the day Jerry's wife is kidnapped is a painting competition in which Norm has a contender in the form of a water-colour mallard. To ease his worry, Marge gets him some nightcrawlers and he makes her an egg omelette. Such is their small-town life. But besides being an encouraging wife and a mother-to-be, Marge is also the local police chief, so when three bodies turn up in a seemingly endless snowy roadside field, she's the one called to the scene. In one of the film's funniest scenes, she methodically analyses the crime scene reconstructing the events with such logical precision that it verges on breaking the fourth wall. "Well he's got his gun on his hip there and he looks like a nice enough guy. It's a real shame." All the while she balances a coffee cup in her gloved hand, suffers from morning sickness, and patiently corrects her less sharp partner's (Bruce Bohne) mistakes. "I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred per cent on your police work, there, Lou." Possessed with a Columbo-like tenacity, laser-sharp mind, and a friendly disposition she soon becomes Jerry Lundegaard's worst nightmare. Even though they only meet twice briefly in the film, it entirely hinges on a duel between these two disparate characters. Jerry, an unwitting agent of chaos, and Marge with her angelically calming presence.
"Fargo" is, as Gene Siskel once remarked, the sort of film that makes us love the movies. It is awe-inspiringly perfect in every way. A taut clockwork menacingly clicking towards an inescapably bloody finale. However, "Fargo" is not a traditional thriller and the director/writer team of Joel and Ethan Coen wring a lot of humour from the Minnesotan local colour. A witness goes into seemingly endless detail about his visit to a local bar, the two prostitutes from a roadside motel blandly watch "The Tonight Show" with their customers, and the dialogue is liberally peppered with as many "yahs", "darn tootin's", and "oh, jeezes" as you can stomach. A large part of the film's humour is the pitch-perfect cast ably led by William H. Macy and Frances McDormand. Macy's fantastic as the toady and constantly put-upon Jerry with his stuttering tics and nervous mannerisms. Always clad in zip-up boots and a plaid hat with ear-muffs attached he is about the least likely criminal as you can imagine and yet Macy manages to convince us that this man has been so thoroughly mocked in his life and now finds himself in such a tight spot that he would be able to go through with his wildest dreams. On the other side of the story, McDormand is instantly likeable as Margie and is just as convincing as Macy portraying her character's seemingly two-fold personality. She's both bumblingly endearing and coolly competent. The rest of the cast turn in superb performances as well and are shrewdly and perfectly cast including Buscemi and Stormare as the menacingly hilarious mismatched criminals and the bit-players such as Steve Park as Margie's delusional former classmate, Bain Boehlke as a hilariously long-winded witness, and Bruce Bohne as Margie's dumb but good-natured partner. It is due to the exceptional cast that the Coen brothers are able to consistently keep the film teetering between hilariousness and tragic menace, the perfect blend for a black comedy.
"Fargo" also displays an admirable level of perfection behind the camera. The cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins is possibly his finest work which is saying a lot. In "Fargo" every frame truly is a painting including the haunting shot of a state trooper backlit by the redness of a stop-light, an overhead shot of a car in a snowy parking lot surrounded only by black flower pots, and the iconic shot of a red-clad corpse lying on a snowy-white field. Furthering the film's folksy atmosphere is a highly memorable score by Carter Burwell, a sort of blend between wistful, Scandinavian-influenced melodies and noirish orchestral stings. Finally, I also feel I should commend the work of Mary Zophres, the film's costume designer. From Jerry's ridiculous hat to Margie's oversized uniform, her work perfectly encapsulates the very natures of all the characters and makes them, if that's at all possible, seem even more hilariously out-of-place in the world of crime then they already are.
There are very few films out there that I'd feel comfortable giving the moniker of perfection. "Don't Look Now" is one of them, as is Ken Russell's masterpiece "The Devils", and the more expected choices of "Citizen Kane" and "2001". "Fargo" is another. This doesn't mean these films don't have any flaws, but rather that even those flaws contribute to the effect the film has on the viewer. Even after repeat viewings, "Fargo" still makes me laugh, cringe, gives me the chills, and makes me teary-eyed towards the end. With its witty dialogue, well-drawn characters, and occasional moments of surprising lucidity, this is indeed a film which reminds me of why I love movies.
Just as it has the perfect opening shot, "Fargo" also has the perfect ending. With seven corpses littering the Minnesotan snow, Margie muses on the meaning of it all. What was it for? "For a little bit of money? There's more to life than a little money, you know. And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well. I just don't understand it." As the music swells, tears inevitably form in my eyes and all that killing, all the blood shed and all the money lost suddenly seem utterly absurd and meaningless in the face of a beautiful white sundown.
4/4 - DirectorKurt KuenneStarsKurt KuenneAndrew BagbyDavid BagbyA filmmaker decides to memorialize a murdered friend when his friend's ex-girlfriend announces she is expecting his son.11-12-2020
- DirectorSam RaimiStarsBill PaxtonBilly Bob ThorntonBridget FondaThree blue-collar acquaintances come across millions of dollars in lost cash and make a plan to keep their find from the authorities, but it isn't long before complications and mistrust weave their way into the plan.18-12-2020
- DirectorDonato CarrisiStarsToni ServilloAlessio BoniLorenzo RichelmySpecial agent Vogel is sent to an isolated town in a remote mountain valley to investigate the case of a sixteen years old's disappearance.18-12-2020
"I was just doing my job." "And what would that be?" "Making viewers happy." That's how Detective Vogel (Toni Servillo), a wily, odious character, justifies his actions and indeed viewership does seem to be all he cares about. An obsessive self-publiciser and media freak, he claims to be using the media to help him solve crimes ("At times reporters are better than cops in digging up clues"), but it soon becomes obvious he takes a little too much pleasure in rousing up a media circus around himself. Every morning, he carefully applies make-up to his face, encases his slight body in a well-tailored double-breasted suit, and scours the morning news for any mentions of his recent exploits. He also keeps up a symbiotic relationship with a duplicitous TV journalist (Galatea Ranzi) who is just as attention-seeking as he is. Vogel is indeed a superb media manipulator. In one scene, he realises he's only been assigned a handful of local officers to solve a kidnapping, so he dresses them up in forensic gear and parades them in front of the cameras. By the next day, all national news stations are spreading rumours that Vogel's investigating a homicide and just like that he receives all the manpower he needs from Rome - and a bonus helicopter. "Let it hover over the town, I want everyone to see it." In this instance, Vogel uses his media savvy for a good cause but it soon becomes apparent that he will stop at nothing to solve the case and be seen as the hero of the hour. Including framing a potentially innocent man.
With his tweed jacket and scraggly, ill-fitting beard, Loris (Alessio Boni) is as typical a high-school teacher as you can get. He spends his days trying to get his uninterested students to read, avoiding the advances of wannabe Lolitas, and arguing with his moody teenage daughter. And then, one day, while he's out mountaineering, a local teenage girl disappears. Loris has no alibi and his car, a distinctive white jeep, was caught on video following the girl around in the days before her disappearance. With as little evidence as that, Vogel decides Loris is his man and goes in for the kill. The video is "accidentally leaked" to the press and Vogel makes vague, non-committal statements. Soon, the whole town turns on Loris and he is set upon by journalists from the whole country. Wherever he goes, he is hounded by reporters, every detail of his personal life is publically scrutinized and his relationship with his family becomes strained. Vogel, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care much about Loris' proclamations of innocence. Like a prissy version of Lt Columbo, he latches onto him and refuses to consider the possibility of being wrong even when evidence of a serial killer operating in the area turns up. With the whole investigation being conducted in front of TV cameras and his reputation constantly on the line, Vogel's own actions slowly begin to cross the line of legality.
"The Girl in the Fog" deals with some truly fascinating topics concerning the downright incestuous relationship between the police and the media, as well as the moral implications of putting people before the court of public opinion. Sadly, these genuinely interesting elements are mired in a flurry of thriller cliches and a series of increasingly ludicrous plot twists. This is the cinematic debut of writer/director Donato Carrisi who has previously achieved international fame as a bestselling author of paperback potboilers. He lacks the courage of his convictions to make "The Girl in the Fog" a truly original movie about the manipulation of the media. Instead, he continually falls back onto the most tired techniques of the thriller genre focusing less on exploring the topics at hand and more on cooking up sensational plot twists until the plot becomes such a mess that no amount of goodwill can make it all hang together. Furthermore, Carrisi is not a particularly gifted director and other than a few nicely composed shots (courtesy of cinematographer Federico Masiero) the film plods along with all the stylistic flourish of a cable TV movie. He also falls into many first-timer traps. For instance, when introducing Vogel's journalist friend, he makes sure she conveniently poses right next to a random, abandoned TV camera, even though the scene doesn't take place in a studio. Most egregiously, however, he has Loris, a high-school teacher with an unemployed wife and a teenage daughter, live in a beautiful, modern, two-storey house with a stunning mountain view and a front yard large enough to house a horde of journalist and facilitate a spectacular crane shot which ends the midpoint of the film. All this, despite the fact that Loris' supposed financial troubles are one of the most pertinent plot points in the film.
On the plus side, however, the cast is uniformly good with Toni Servillo especially fun to watch as the slimy dandy Vogel. This is by no means one of his finest performances but he brings a certain lightness and charm which make this potentially unlikeable character a joy to follow. Alessio Boni also does a good job making Loris a pitiable character whose innocence you remain unsure of until the very end. In true Italian fashion, Carrisi has also written in two cameo parts for international celebrities (if we stretch the meaning of the word somewhat). Jean Reno appears as a psychiatrist interviewing Vogel in a needless and frequently intrusive framing story and Greta Scacchi shows up as a wheelchair-bound journalist with pertinent information about a serial killer who may be the man Vogel's looking for. Neither of them has a large role and are clearly only in the film to help push it on the international market but I was still pleased to see them and Carrisi does a decent job of integrating their presence into the film's plot. Also commendable is the work of Vito Lo Re who provides the film's melodious score, enjoyable but far from groundbreaking, and cinematographer Federico Masiero who does a competent if unimaginative job.
"The Girl in the Fog" is a mixed bag. On the one hand, we have a genuinely interesting story about an attention-hungry cop manipulating the media to make himself look good. I was surprised and delighted by the complexity of the character of Vogel, far from your one-dimensional TV detective, whose media-savvy both gets results and gets innocent people in jail. What is most interesting about him is that he is a genuinely good detective but is simply too busy making sure his make-up is perfect to bother doing his job. On the other hand, however, its plot is full of illogical twists and eventually falls apart entirely under the weight of its own sensationalism. I can't enthusiastically recommend "The Girl in the Fog" but if approached in the right mindset it can be moderately amusing. It is far from compelling, original cinema but with its good cast and interesting topics does manage to raise above your standard TV fare.
2.5/4 - DirectorKiyoshi KurosawaStarsMasato HagiwaraKoji YakushoTsuyoshi UjikiA frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.19-12-2020
- DirectorDonato CarrisiStarsDustin HoffmanToni ServilloValentina BellèSamantha, a young girl who was kidnapped, resurfaces in shock after being imprisoned and hospitalized.19-12-2020
15 years ago, Samantha Andretti left home for school never to return, snatched on the streets by a mysterious man with glowing red eyes. That is until she mysteriously shows up, naked and catatonic, on a deserted forest road. Her miraculous return coincides with the lowest point in the life of a seedy private eye named Genko (Toni Servillo) whose chin was resting on a barrel of a gun just as the news of Samantha's return appeared on the TV. All those years ago, he was hired by her parents and has been haunted by the case ever since. It's only this guilt and a need to do some good in his life that push him to leave the gun aside and try to find Samantha's kidnapper. But this guy is more twisted than Genko could possibly imagine. Wearing a fluffy bunny mask with glowing red eyes, he stalks and kills all of Genko's potential witnesses, toying with the world-weary P.I., driving him to his breaking point.
All this takes place in an unnamed neo-noirish metropolis, a comic book setting influenced as much by "Blade Runner" as by "Sin City". The CGI created landscapes are dominated by towering glass constructions and murky fog. Everyone dresses in 1980s suits, lives in 1960s themed apartments and works on black and green computer screens. The only evidence of anything resembling our 2019 is the occasional glimpses of smartphones. I suppose the style is an attempt by director/writer Donato Carisi to offset the ludicrousness of the plot but it does more to harm the film then help it. The garish production design is distracting, the neo-noirish posturing from the supporting cast laughable, and the CGI looks amateurish. It also does nothing to help sell the story which still comes off as a cheap copy of a second-rate dimestore novel mixed in with some Giallo elements and a wannabe noir atmosphere. Toni Servillo is reliably good and fun to watch as Genko, creating a character far more believable and interesting than the world he inhabits. Sadly, the script lumbers him with a whole slurry of cliches. He's dying of an unnamed heart disease, he's depressed, cynical, and befriends a hooker with a heart of gold. The tough jerk cops working on the case refuse to believe him, and wherever he goes, he somehow ends up in mortal danger. The bunny-costumed killer is more original but only through the virtue of his disguise. Otherwise, he's your bog-standard Giallo serial killer slitting throats of lovely nude girls when no one's watching.
As if all this wasn't enough, periodically (approximately every 15 minutes or so) the film cuts away to an ongoing hospital room interview with Samantha (Valentina Bellè) conducted by Dr Green (Dustin Hoffman), a forensic psychologist of some undisclosed renown. Every time we cut back to them, Samantha discloses some new horror she endured while she was trapped in what she refers to as "the labyrinth", the underground lair which she was trapped in and tortured by increasingly sicker games her kidnapper forced her to play. Originality-wise, he's no Jigsaw but the principle's much the same. It is painfully obvious that these scenes, brief and dull, were shot apart from the rest of the film. First of all, unlike all the other scenes, there is no evidence of the film's neo-noir style here. The hospital room in which the interview takes place is an unimaginative white-walled set which could have easily been used in an episode of "ER". Secondly, nothing that takes place in these scenes remotely impacts the rest of the story. Finally (and most blatantly), these scenes are the only ones in the film shot in English. There is absolutely no logical reason for this besides the fact that Dustin Hoffman can't speak Italian.
With so many disparate and downright odd elements, "Into the Labyrinth" is a mess. Its plot is full of logical fallacies and questionable plot twists. It meanders wherever Genko's intuitive leaps take it and eventually ends in what is one of the most anti-climactic finales I've ever seen. The killer is not apprehended so much due to Genko's actions as due to the fact that the designated runtime ran out. The final 15 minutes of the film then go on a ludicrous tangent, unconnected to the Genko plot and not including him, the supposed protagonist of this film. They are incomprehensible. I defy anyone to explain the final scene in which a supposedly dead character meets up with a possibly imagined one to solve a crossword puzzle. What was going on through Donato Carrisi's mind when he wrote the ending to this film is beyond anyone's comprehension. "Into the Labyrinth" is an all-round embarrassment except for Toni Servillo who is always watchable and composer Vito Lo Re who delivers a melancholic and atmospheric score. It is especially sad, however, to see Dustin Hoffman slumming it in a low-rent Italo-thriller. If ever there was a man I hoped would retire with grace, it was him.
1.5/4 - DirectorAndrea MolaioliStarsToni ServilloDenis FasoloNello MasciaThe body of a young woman is found in a small and quiet town in North Italy. A detective from the nearby main city is called to solve the mystery.20-12-2020
What do we mean exactly when we refer to a movie as being "televisual"? It has become an unfairly negative epithet which can often be heard these days. I say unfairly negative mainly because television has, even in its most barren years, born out some of the bravest, most committed and original content of any 20th-century medium. The epithet, however, refers not so much, I believe, to content as to style. A certain blandness and unimaginativeness which is associated with TV movies, especially cheap cable fare from the 90s, which don't have the budget to be creative or inventive. This style is characterised by a story which is easy to follow, unprovocative, and formulaic; a straightforward narrative which rarely if ever deviates from its central plot and which is entirely devoid of metaphor or allegory; and a workmanlike direction which merely photographs the action without any pretensions at aestheticism or symbolism. In other words, a movie deemed to be "televisual" rather than "cinematic" is competent and enjoyable but not evocative, imaginative or, in any way, provocative. It passes the time. In other words, it is bland.
Watching "The Girl by the Lake", Andrea Molaioli's debut thriller, I couldn't shake that word - "televisual" - from my mind. And indeed, if there is a perfect example of a movie which lays a claim to that epithet it is "The Girl by the Lake", not because the film is bad - it's not - but because it is so utterly and completely unambitious. Let us go through the checklist. The story is indeed easy to follow. Based on a bestseller by Karin Fossum, it tells the story of a grumpy policeman (Toni Servillo) looking for the killer of a beautiful young woman whose naked corpse was found on the shore of a picturesque Alpine lake. From there on we meet your typical procession of thriller characters - the suspicious boyfriend (Denis Fasolo), grieving father (Marco Baliani), creepy lecher (Fabrizio Gifuni), local weirdo (Franco Ravera) etc. The detective team is likewise recognisable. We get the neurotic lead detective, his trusty quiet partner (Nello Mascia), and a young policeman overly eager to prove himself (Fausto Maria Sciarappa). The plot twists come slowly and logically and everyone hides some sort of a secret.
"The Girl by the Lake" thus fulfils all the obligations of the paperback potboiler formula and the screenplay by Sandro Petraglia follows the story faithfully and carefully plodding along at just the right pace that each new clue can be absorbed before the narrative moves along again. The only slight deviation from the central plot is the brief scenes of the lead detective's messy personal life which seems to be a requirement to join the police force in movies and TV. These, however, only pop up periodically and don't distract us from following the murder case.
The direction is indeed workmanlike and entirely unassuming. This is Andrea Molaioli's first feature film and he shows a firm grasp on proper film grammar. The shots are nicely composed, the camera moves slow and imperceptible, and the editing entirely practical. There are no attempts by Molaioli to introduce any stylisation into the film nor to elevate the material above its origins as a formulaic potboiler. He competently and unassumingly photographs the action from the script.
When all these facts are put together, we can see that "The Girl by the Lake" is a competently made and easy to follow thriller with no artistic pretensions or stylistic flourishes. It is fit to be shown as a pilot for a potential TV series on any major network. However, the question remains - is it fit to be shown in theatres? Well, no, not really. This is not because I think the film is bad but rather because it is so bland and unremarkable that I can't see how anyone would benefit in seeing it from anywhere but their living room sofa. It is also so predictable and unassuming that I'm sure I'll forget all about it in a few weeks. Unlike a truly cinematic film, "The Girl by the Lake" left me with no emotions, no sense of catharsis, and no questions. It told its story efficiently and clearly and then left me to enjoy the rest of my day. Nothing in it is either exceptionally good enough or exceptionally bad enough to be memorable. It is competent. It is fine. It is bland. It is "televisual". It is an excellent demo reel for its debutant director and has sold me on the idea of a Toni Servillo starring cop series, but it has done little else.
2.5/4