Change Your Image
semery56
Reviews
Carol (2015)
Art for More Than Art's Sake
Carol is an elegant creation, an honest examination of the difficulties of love, the most endearing of all human emotions. Movies about love abound, of course, but few manage to engage the subject with integrity, often resorting to absurd premises, ridiculous plot twists or more often than not, unreasonable melodrama. Carol approaches the subject with caring attention to the authentic and detailed vagaries of human emotion without resort to diversions that subtract from hard truths.
Todd Haynes's film concerns the early 1950s attraction between a middle-aged New York woman, Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), pursuing a divorce from her businessman husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler) and a younger, shy department store saleswoman, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara). Harge still loves Carol, and is dismayed by her recent affair with a third woman, Carol's friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) and by Carol's lost affections for him. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Carol and Harge have a little girl, Rindy, whom they both obviously love very much, and by the fact that Therese has strung along a young man, Richard (Jake Lacy), who loves her. Carol and Therese feel an initial attraction when Carol seeks a Christmas gift for Rindy in Therese's department. After Carol intentionally forgets her gloves on the store counter for Therese to return, the interactions between them become more frequent, leading to deeper attraction, and with that, difficulties with the men involved in the situation.
The key plot accelerator involves Carol's determination not to accompany Harge to his family's home for Christmas activities. When Harge takes Rindy to these festivities while Carol refuses to go, Carol then invites a willing Therese to drive west with her to find some freedom along the road, and to explore the depths of their feelings for one another. Events that occur on this trip drive the eventual decisions by the four individuals involved, all of which are presented honestly by Haynes and writer Phyllis Nagy, who has adapted the screenplay from Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt. The film attends respectfully to the confusion, the sense of rejection and the sadness of the key male characters - and both Chandler and Lacy express the pain with a proper balance of conflicting emotions. Their anger is evident, but restrained. However, the film never loses its primary focus; this is the story of Carol and Therese, who captivate us in every scene in which they are together.
Blanchett and Mara are terrific in developing the relationship in a suitably restrained fashion, true to their differences in age, personality and circumstances, yet also true to their hearts. Blanchett is the seemingly more confident and assured as the older woman, but conveys her insecurities and doubts in unobtrusive ways, sparing us the falseness of on-screen breakdowns. Her inner conflict between pursuing the adult love of which she feels increasingly less trepidation and the realization of a diminished relationship with her daughter is profoundly present to all viewers, but the tension is not unduly examined by either Haynes or Blanchett. Blanchett is at the top of her formidable creative powers throughout this film, consistently true and balanced and engaging. Mara is extremely convincing as the young woman who, while seemingly not entirely sure of herself, is nonetheless determined to chart her own path, whether that involves love that is true to her nature, or pursuit of her artistic and professional goals. She grows on the screen as the film progresses without losing her fundamental personality. This is not a transformation, but rather a more halting and careful self-realization and fulfillment for a woman asserting control of her existence.
The costuming and set designs are marvelous evocations of postwar New York, but unlike Haynes's Far From Heaven, the use of the brighter palette is not excessive, and the colors are not over-saturated or insistent. Ed Lachman's cinematography complements the sets and costumes beautifully, while also effectively capturing the constraints on homosexuality in early '50s America. Conversations are in tight frame, and the lighting is fittingly medium wattage but not dim. This is a respectable love, after all, conducted discretely but not in the shadows. Windows are effectively used to depict the look-but-don't-touch sexual mores of the time, and the possibility of love lost, and reflections help reveal truth of character and identity - but these symbols are not overused.
The film is well-paced, with relatively short scenes that both convey emotional weight and move the plot without being either overwrought or rushed. The score, by Carter Burwell, provides the appropriate balance between emotional gravity, social tension and the hopefulness of love.
Carol is a film that fires on all cylinders. It thoughtfully uses all the tools of classic cinema to present interesting and realistic human characters in difficult emotional situations, framed by significant social strictures. The entire cast and crew, led by director Todd Haynes, has gifted us with a film that will stand the test of time despite Oscar snubs for the movie and its director. It is as genuine and beautiful a love story as I, for one, have seen.
Il deserto rosso (1964)
Change, Perception, Adaptation - Or Lack Thereof - and Accommodation
Antonioni's Red Desert asks us to consider the accommodations and adaptations of the newly successful Italian upper middle class to the changing social, economic and environmental conditions of post-World War II industrialization. More particularly, this important film focuses on the insecurities and honest fears of the middle-aged Giuliana, absorbingly portrayed by Monica Vitti, as she struggles with her own imbalances in the face of a rather sterile marital relationship, shifting social mores and a disturbing and perhaps unhealthy industrial landscape. But the emotionally detached and borderline amoral actions of the supporting players, limited in scope by Antonioni's and Tonino Guerra's script, are also significant to the theme. It is a film that asks how we examine, perceive and choose to act in the world around us each and every day as technology and economic "progress" inexorably make life more complex and disruptive, even as the opportunities for material experiences and goods - for good or ill - increase.
Giuliana's mental instability predates the start of the film. A car accident of uncertain causation and her recovery - or lack thereof - in the ensuing hospital stay is unveiled early in the film for context. But Giuliana is clearly not well. She is rightly fearful of the daunting (but geometrically interesting and colorful) industrial structures and the horrifying waste contaminants that are despoiling the land, water and air near the home she shares with industrial manager husband Ugo (Carlo Chionetti) and son Valerio. Ugo, while concerned, appears resolved to maintaining a sort of status quo disequilibrium that he thinks may be manageable. Meanwhile, an industrial entrepreneur, Corrado Zeller (a well-dubbed Richard Harris), acquainted with Ugo, enters the scene, wanting to hire labor for a venture in Patagonia that he is pursuing with half- hearted intensity. He soon begins to shadow Giuliana - and she him - in plain sight during Ugo's workday. These scenes tend to drag a bit as Corrado's undisguised but not physically aggressive pursuit of her reveals a man of surprisingly low self-esteem and an admitted lack of understanding of life. Meanwhile, his interest in her does not assuage her desire for more security and self-awareness in a world she cannot seem to grasp. As their attentions to one another increase - but only slightly, through most of the film - Giuliana's emotional comfort does not progress apace. In fact, the scenes become more dominated by fog and the clouded movement of large, nondescript ships as her connection to a coherent universe continues to slip away. Her confusion is only increased by this strangely kind and attractive figure who, while appearing to empathize with some of her fears, ultimately offers no true solution to her discomfort. In fact, we are left believing that Corrado's actions were more facade than truth, and Antonioni subtly suggests that Giuliana's realization of that fact leads her to a more honest and healthy vision of the odd world she inhabits. One might conclude that she has struggled, and come to an adaptation that might work for her. We are left hopeful.
The minor characters in the film, and for purposes of this argument I would include Corrado and Ugo, despite moments of seeming sincerity, are depicted as shallow and accommodative. They are not adapting to the contradictions of modernity, but rather letting their moral principles weaken in the face of the acceptability of money as a standard of righteousness. Antonioni illustrates this through a brilliant scene in a waterfront party shack that is owned by one of Ugo's associates. The flimsy walls are painted in bright colors in this tiny hovel, a metaphor for the shallow excitement and weak moral base that substitutes for honest human companionship in what appears to be a tentatively-engaged bourgeois partner share. Giuliana at least realizes that adaptation to this rapidly changing, increasingly complex and difficultly realized world demands soul-searching and discomforting effort. The others have merely acquiesced to a life devoid of meaning.
Antonioni is saying that scientific, technological and most significantly material economic progress, while attractive in some ways - and allegorically represented by the cinematography of Carlo Di Palma, which brilliantly pervades this film - will inexorably present challenges to the human desire to find honest and caring companionship when relationships and a sense of place are fluid., It will push us to come to grips with and ameliorate the destructive aspects of that material progress. A rise in mental instability and addictive or morally suspect behavior may well be a nasty companion to these pressures and challenges. This film, made in 1964, presents a view of modern life that still resonates. View it more than once, and gain more appreciation on each occasion for the power of film to inform our lives.
The Martian (2015)
Hardly Out of This World
The Martian is a reasonably well-crafted survival movie about a space mission gone awry, leaving botanist/astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) behind on Mars to fend for himself. The movie focuses first on Watney's determined use of his scientific knowledge and awareness of the NASA Mars program to maintain his existence, interesting efforts that both segue into and provide time for the second area of plot development, the predictable NASA parries and thrusts to communicate with and ultimately save him. The film shows due respect for scientific method, logical problem-solving and human ingenuity, but loses momentum as we work through the rescue planning process and its travails and successes. The end is ridiculous enough to once again propel us back to the land of astro-cowboys and movie illogic of which this is hardly a cinematic first. Ridley Scott, unsurprisingly now, has created a movie that will generate an excellent revenue stream, leaving us with a comfortable notion of human goodwill and cooperation (even the Chinese government plays nice in this film) from which smiles and nods are fully expected - almost demanded - and more difficult possible realizations are left unexplored.
The film, which I streamed at home, is fine enough to look at, the digitized version of Mars invoking the feeling of dry desolation and, easily enough, the loneliness and depression that one might feel in Watney's position. Unfortunately, the short scenes and rapid changes in camera position, fitting for the energetic survival activities on which Scott focuses, never allow for a deep examination of Watney's almost-certain growing desperation. The difficulty of his situation is obvious, but we are never privy to his quiet fear, until perhaps just before the final sequence. This is a failure attributable to all aspects of the film: writing cinematography, Scott's direction of Damon, and the choices made by Damon himself, as the lead actor. We as an audience, then, are always too optimistic and/or involved in the details as the film progresses, chuckling as Damon makes multiple jokes about the musical taste of the mission commander, hardly ever feeling as though this could really end badly. The film generates identification, but not empathy.
The rest of the acting ensemble is not very effective, both due to the perfunctory script and their limited efforts to read more into it. Scott has us believe that they are true soldiers, unwilling to even mention in passing any possible concerns other than the problems at hand. There is seemingly no cinematic time for disturbing tangential insights into what all this expense and risk is worth. Why the hell are we exploring Mars anyway, in this near future universe where budgets are spoken of as a concern, but cost-benefit and human risk - and the problems right here on Earth - do not appear to be worth a few minutes of discussion? Thus, we have Jeff Daniels punching through his lines as head of NASA as if he is late for dinner, Jessica Chastain trying half-heartedly to be a macho spaceship commander and Chiwetel Ejiofor alternating between nerdy ground program commander and improv comedian. This is entertainment, after all, Scott appears to be telling us, not an examination of a difficult situation from multiple perspectives or an existential conversation about the value of space exploration.
All-in-all, this is a decent popcorn-muncher for the local Cineplex or for a night of home viewing when one does not want to be intellectually or emotionally taxed. However, one might expect more from the 78-year old Scott as he nears the end of his career. Is it too much to hope that he try - the attempt is all I ask - to craft something nearer to Blade Runner, The Duellists or the original Alien, with the huge budgets at his disposal?
Spotlight (2015)
A Graceful Presentation of Important History, and of an Important Profession
Spotlight is a model for the cinematic presentation of a story based on actual events. It is particularly effective at conveying the importance of a truly independent press, an institution whose mission must always be dedicated to the exposition of information that serves the public interest, difficult as that information is for the public to acknowledge. The film does not attempt to take any credit for the significance of the work that was done by the journalistic team whose efforts it is recreating, but rather wishes to remind us of the importance of that story while honoring those who had the courage and skills to uncover it - even as the prospect of fractured long-term relationships became more likely.
The actual Spotlight investigative team, working for the Boston Globe in the early 2000s, was well aware that the story they were investigating was worth the risk they were taking. They felt compelled to pursue the truth, even as it became possible that systemic moral corruption was endemic within an institution of the highest supposed moral authority. Spotlight is careful to demonstrate that the entire journalistic structure at the Globe, while true to its ethics in pursuing the story to its devastating conclusion, understood the potential risks involved in a massive moral indictment of the Boston Catholic hierarchy. This was not an investigation that was going to be easy to publish and due credit for calmly assessing that risk is given to editor Marty Baron (seen as a person of integrity and humility as quietly portrayed by Liev Schreiber). But they also knew that the implications of what they were uncovering was too grave for them not to pursue and present in all its horror.
The dramatic pace is finely-tuned, neither accelerating the action beyond the discussions, the doubts, the setbacks and the necessary subtext required to provide the audience with clear information more or less in real-time with the journalistic process, but also not slowing down to insert diatribes against particular members of the Boston clergy or the Catholic Church itself. Director Tom McCarthy rightly understands, at this point in time, that the facts provide more-than-sufficient dramatic weight, as they always will with regard to this devastating breakdown in moral judgment by all levels of the Catholic Church.
The acting by the ensemble is also respectful of the notion that these journalists, many raised Catholic though honestly depicted as having lapsed, were not zealots in their pursuit of damning the Church itself. Rather McCarthy and the entire acting team are quietly dedicated to the proposition that the truth-seeking work of the Fourth Estate can be - and in this case had to be - crucially important to the success of a free state. The journalists, at least as portrayed by these actors, understand - without ever preaching it - that even the most sacrosanct of institutions and respected of individuals must bear responsibility before the court of public opinion and sometimes before a court of law for the harms - emotional, spiritual, physical, financial, whatever - that they have caused.
Spotlight's camera work is also effective, plying use of close and medium shots to suitably convey the gravity of the facts being uncovered in the faces and actions of the journalists and those involved in the cover-up of the scandal, and in depicting the burdens of the journalistic process, while also providing the cozy feel of the Boston community, tied so closely in so many important ways to the Catholic Archdiocese. The cinematography is subtly effective without being obtrusive, consistent with the rest of this superbly crafted effort by Tom McCarthy.
All of this is not to say that Spotlight does not slowly build to an end that fully measures the devastation to children and families across the world and over many years that has been promulgated by a Catholic Church - all the way to its top ranks - that purports to guide the moral struggles of over 1.2 billion human beings. This film is a strongly presented reminder of that mind-boggling and head-bowing truth, but also an equally powerful salute to the importance of a free and honest press to bring that truth to the public, and by so doing, helping societies to grapple with the implications of such truths, and to demand justice and reforms from the institutions they hold most dear.
The Revenant (2015)
19th Century Frame for 21st Century Mysticism
The Revenant, Alejandro Inarritu's epic story of survival and revenge based somewhat loosely on the story of early 19th Century trappers in the American West, brings the awe- inspiring beauty and spirit-crushing physical hardship of that elemental time and place to the screen with visceral power and visual grace. By using the outline of real events surrounding trapper Hugh Glass and demanding the most of himself and his production crew - as well as by sparing no expense (creating controlled avalanches, for instance) - Inarritu has forcefully stamped the daunting and morally complex reality of 19th Century frontier existence onto the minds of 21st Century viewers. These motivations and their creative expressions are effective and mostly honorable, if sometimes overwrought and in a practical sense, unbelievable.
The problems with this film, however, are significant, and they mostly have to do with Inarritu's inability to get out of his own way. He constantly imposes his vision of a lost human oneness with nature, and with the superior moral and spiritual sensibilities of native or indigenous peoples of times and places that are not tainted by Western European and American capitalistic greed and depravity - and he does this while still trying to keep the the spark of the survivalist and revenge-oriented narrative fresh. It does not, in the end, all quite work.
The message of mammon's corruption of the raw, pristine, and yes, virtuous is not a new one, much as it is countered by Inarritu's own budget busting to provide such an impression and by the natural instinct to improve upon the challenging conditions faced by the trappers and natives that the film conveys. Moreover, the effort taken in this lengthy visual endurance contest to maintain the mystical and anti-Enlightenment vision while supporting the desire to ever-so-tangibly enforce the difficulty of survival and the driving energy of revenge becomes, sadly, dull and somewhat contrived. Inarritu is also striving to use all the techniques of cinema he has gathered from Herzog, Malick, Ozu, Ford and Eastwood (among perhaps many others) to convey his point, with endless landscape cuts, shots of swaying trees (whose trunks are strong...), beautiful low-light and even night-time images (in what is a ridiculous scene near the end), and agonizing close-ups that often result in the breath of the subject on the lens of the camera (I have Leo's face memorized). But Inarritu does not stop there: to further impose the native spirituality and perspective that we are to believe that Hugh Glass has embraced, we see images of bones piled high, back-lit scenes from the halcyon days of Glass's companionship with a Native American wife and times of restful bonding with his son. It is all just too much for the narrative to carry, beautiful as the images are, taut as the concept of survival is presented. The movie loses momentum and impact about halfway through. I found myself waiting for the plot-driven denouement, understanding pretty fully by then the theme Inarritu was trying to convey.
Another aspect of this film is disturbing, and is related to Inarritu's heavy-handed nature. He creates at least one character within the central plot to further his thematic point and to increase the force of the revenge motif. He is not true to the actual outcome of the story, for which he can be forgiven since he never actually states that he is providing a film based on fact. And he moves the settings from their true location of the Glass saga, in sections of what is now northwestern and central South Dakota in the US, to Canada, and even Argentina. The flat and visually static great plains was apparently not a good enough place to increase the survivalist drama for Inarritu, nor to allow for endless upward shots of the swaying trees. However, shooting in such a location might have given a brief economic benefit to that poor area of the United States, perhaps providing a few temporary jobs to Native Americans from local tribes. And working in the true location might also have added some authenticity to the nature of the survivalist struggle and paid a respectful tribute to the the specific indigenous peoples that populate the story (Pawnee and Arikara) and inspired the mystical ethics and spirituality to which Inarritu wants us to believe he finds affinity.