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Reviews
Solaris (2002)
Quietly electrifying
I should point out that I didn't see the whole film - I only caught the second half. But what I saw was extremely intriguing. Two things in particular struck me. First, the pace, and accompanying music; it's a film that creeps over you at an invisible pace, and the hypnotic music does a lot to keep you sitting there. As said by other users, the pace we're used to in films, particularly sci-fi - crash, bang, wallop, atomic explosion - makes Solaris a challenge until you settle into it, but the mesmerising, haunting music has a way of fixing you where you sit, while the film's essence seeps into you.
Second, the film's interesting exploration of ideas about reality: the reality of the world and people around us, and of ourselves; the part our memories play in defining and historically preserving reality and the form of our lives. It's not a theme that could have been well explored in a sensational, typically 'Hollywood' film; the effect would have been crass and not a little superficial. The pace of Solaris - what I saw of it, at least - allows one to think about the ideas present while the film slowly unfolds. A line towards the end - I don't know if it constitutes a spoiler but I'll assume it does - particularly intrigued me: "I performed all the millions of gestures that constitute life on Earth. But I was haunted by the idea that I remembered her wrong... that I was wrong about everything." It's a film that takes patience and concentration, and rewards you with moving, understated performances, a feeling of quiet unsettlement, and hours of afterthought. I'd like to see the entire thing... as well as the Russian original, and Lem's novella.
Badlands (1973)
a vastly overrated film by a genuinely talented director
I was recommended this movie by several people. i've seen natural born killers and true romance, two films allegedly based on badlands. (enjoyed TR, hated NBK.) perhaps my mistake was expecting to have a strong reaction to badlands the way i did to its narrative successors. perhaps i need to watch it again. however i'm not sure i can bring myself to.
i didn't hate badlands... i just found it increasingly flat, and by the end of it, very very boring. the first 20 minutes were textural and interesting, the next twenty minutes had me interested enough in leads kit and holly to await the development of their characters...which never came.
spacek's acting is without shape or form, and her narration is wooden and irritating; if holly is meant to see numbed to her situation, it felt more like it was spacek that was indifferent to it (much as her own commentary on the film denies it). sheen's somnambulist stroll through the movie as the sleepy james dean-esquire antihero nearly worked, as it did seem to sit well on the shoulders of his character, but i found it impossible to care about either character. the director's attempts to present their awful actions as the numb, unthought-out actions of two disaffected and naive young people were valiant, but unsuccessful; it simply left their crimes seeming insignificant and disconnected from the apparent fact that there was an enormous manhunt on their trail. by the end of the film i was barely watching, and simply didn't care what happened.
it's testament to terence malick's growth as a director that his most recent film, the thin red line, was such a masterpiece and such a full, fleshed out study of humanity; from somewhat average beginnings he's come a very long way.
Blow-Up (1966)
a beautiful, small and curious film
The person that recommended this film to me told me that very little actually happens, and that its beauty comes from its ambiguity and the way it portrays swinging London. I didn't sit down anxiously awaiting a structured plot and narrative. In the event it turned out to be much more straightforward than I imagined. Some people might interpret it as an exploration of the questions - "what is real? how do we know if it is or isn't?". Yet it's certainly not the only, or most important interpretation to be had.
There's little point in rehashing the story, as plenty of other reviews here have already saved me the trouble. The thing that caught me about it was its sense of real-time. Blow Up's been called slow-moving, but in fact the events of the film don't happen over a matter of weeks. From what I can tell, they barely span 24 hours, give or take. The transition of thought and attitude and confidence that Thomas goes through in that small space of time is artfully handled, with no clumsy epiphanies or idiotic, unrealistic moments of revelation. You share the confusion that has crept up on him and seized him before he actually realises it - HIS confusion exactly, not the confusion of an uninvolved viewer watching an arty, labyrinthine film. Antonioni injects you, Alice-In-Wonderland-like, right into his head.
Thomas is from the start magnetic but brutal; someone you wouldn't expect pity or benevolence from; a man who is aware of his own power in the world, despises everything around him and acts kindly only if it's in his own interests to do so. By the end of the film, as an imaginary ball is tossed accidentally across a park by a ghostly teenage pack of mimes, the look on his face as he retrieves it for them suggests empathy; a sense of understanding that was lacking when we first met him. The events of the film are not explosive or loudly momentous; yet we understand that they are enough to change him, and by the end of the film we understand why. The sharp little shocks of distraction throughout - in particularly his encounter with the would-be models - are startling and realistic in their unconstructed spontaneity, as such experiences often really are. It's easy to see how Blow Up came from a short story; it has the elusiveness of one, and those who didn't appreciate it as a feature film might enjoy it more if perhaps they watched it again as a detailed anecdote rather than expecting a crashing epic.
Jesus' Son (1999)
real, terrifically funny, occasionally disorganised, and all too human - as anti-Hollywood as it gets
If you're looking for a clean, linear story about someone who does drugs, sees the error of his ways and emerges, butterfly-like, as a model citizen, turn right around and walk back the way you came. Jesus' Son instead patches together anecdotal episodes of our amiably inept non-hero's life and acquaintances to give us a picture of a very human, very well-meaning but disconnected and directionless young man. Rather than eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the story, I often found myself mourning the brevity of many of the little segments, which are no less enjoyable alone than as part of a larger narrative.
This film needs to be seen for the hospital scene alone. Without spoiling anything, Alison Maclean has assembled a beautifully disjointed array of characters - kudos has and will continue to be given for the deliciously disastrous Jack Black, who both steals the show and plays off Crudup magnificently, but the part of the reception nurse (played by Yvette Mercedes) is also brief but brilliant and deserves a mention.
The acting makes this film - it's clever and human and warm, but without the necessary cast, its meandering structure may not have stood up to scrutiny. The quietly terrifying Dundun, the explosive Michelle, Denis Leary and Dennis Hopper's respective turns - all do fine credit to it.
Crudup is wonderful; in his hands, the film skirts widely around the clichéd Drugs Are Bad, Mmkay ground of too many films (for every great film of that ilk - Requiem for a Dream, Basketball Diaries - there are many awful ones), and he plays FH subtly and remarkably as a essentially optimistic and wide-eyed fella whose naivety, lack of direction and dubious associations get him into frequent trouble. The structure of his narration is great in its naturalism, starting to tell one anecdote before remembering he forgot to explain something previous - and it adds great depths to his character. One can imagine FH having been the kid at school with "Must try harder" written in red across every assignment.
Jesus' Son seems to have divided opinion across the board. It's certainly not for everyone but to my mind, it's one of the best and most unusual films of recent years. Ultimately, if you're prepared to sit and watch something real, terrifically funny, occasionally disorganised, and all too human - a film that eschews neat edges, Hollywood trimming and concise plot structures for a fantastically life-sized character study of someone many of us will recognise in ourselves - then I doubt you'll be disappointed.