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Lee Let Lust Get Away From Him

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Lust, Caution (2007)

If there is one filmmaker that can be called one of the new masters of cinema, that man would be Ang Lee. Over the course of nearly 20 years, he has given us a wide variety of films to celebrate. Like Spielberg, there might be one film of his you don’t like, but there’s at least one that you do, no matter your taste. He has paved new ground more than a few times, a couple of them most recently with his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain. And to follow up the latter, he has decided to go back to China to tell a World War II drama. How can any film nut pass that up?

The film is Lust, Caution and truer words could not explain this movie. It’s been the epicenter of debate over the NC-17 Rating given by the MPAA due to graphic sex scenes that Lee refused to edit (and for good reason). The film stars a newcomer Tang Wei as the young college student Wang Jiazhi who gets involved in a revolutionary drama group during the Japanese occupation of China during the war. They start off producing patriotic plays that stirs their audiences to their feet. But while they do believe that the pen is mightier, the sword gets more immediate results and plan the murder of a Japanese sympathizer. They decide to target Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a Hong Kong industrialist who helps get materials in for the Japanese.

Their initial plans get torn to shreds by Mr. Yee’s paranoia, he doesn’t take chances. But he does let his guard around Wang Jiazhi, who masquerades as a married woman to infiltrate his wife’s mahjong group. But before she could bait him into the perfect trap, he leaves for Shanghai with a promotion. After a few years, the major resistance movement swallows up the college radicals, and they call upon Wang Jiazhi to once again lure Mr. Yee into a death trap. But as she gets closer to her target, she realizes more about herself than she’s ready for. And Mr. Yee’s brutal nature makes her doubt her own.

And yet, all of this feels worn thin by the end. The characters are well thought-out but they lack any particular edge or sensibility. And ultimately we see that the story, like the characters, is indeed hollow. Mr. Lee makes the mistake an admirable mistake; he believed the material had meaning that didn’t exist. It wants to tackle the idea of occupation and the mindset that brings out. Wang Jiazhi is occupied by Mr. Yee in every way a man can occupy a woman. That’s why the sex had to be explicit. It’s not meant to be playful or joyous, but brutal, painful, and sad.

That’s also why I believe that the film was better suited as NC-17. It’s not in the content that I say this, but the ideas behind the film. I doubt anyone but a mature mind can see his kind of domination and understand what it means, to learn something from it that isn’t perverse. That’s not to say that I agree with the MPAA’s rulings when it comes to sex and movies. I’ve had parents email me about a film’s sexual content and my response is pretty much the same; if I have a child, I’d be more concerned about the violence my child watches than nudity and sex. But this is one of those times I would stress that ONLY adults should see this film.

I haven’t gotten to mention the great cinematography, costume and set design this film sports. Rodrigo Prieto is still in form with this visually beautiful film. In fact, I doubt there will be a better-shot film this year (although it does look like No Country For Old Men might give it a run for it’s money). Costumes and set designs are first-rate, giving this film a very classy look, style and feel that is authentic without feeling insufferable.

Acting-wise, this film goes a long way on very little. Emotions are held in, playing towards what we don’t see instead of what we do. The sex in the film is really the most external emotion that we see in the picture. But I must say that Tang Wei gives an electrifying performance as this girl who is caught up in forces that she only thinks she can control. Tony Leung is still the king of internal brooding that gives his Mr. Yee a little more pity than he deserves.

From what you’ve read, you probably think that I like this film, but I don’t. I respect the film in many ways, but I cannot like it nor can I recommend it since it’s ultimately a pretty, yet hollow film about people that do not feel entirely real. Complex, true, but not authentic.

And what really makes the film’s flaws even more noticeable comes from another film released recently; Paul Verhooven’s Black Book, which ultimately tells the same story (except that it’s told in Holland), but is much better realized with more compelling characters.

All in all, I forgive Ang Lee already since I know what he set out to do, which is admirable. The problem is that he either lost sight of his goal or realized that what he had really wasn’t there. And if I had a list of interesting failures, Lust, Caution would be on that list.

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:44 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

One Thing Is Lost, Another Is Gained

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Things We Lost in the Fire (2007)

It is said that when a good man dies, that his song will resonate to all who loved him. That certainly is the case from Steven, who died trying to keep a man from killing his wife, only to killed along with the wife in a murder/suicide. And what stems from that is the focus of Things We Lost In The Fire, the first American film from Swedish filmmaker Suzanne Bier (After The Wedding, Brothers).

Steven (David Duchovony) leaves behind a wife, Audrey (Halle Berry) and two kids. She is a hysterical mess with little to do than to go over the good times she had with her husband and try raising two children on her own. Just before the funeral, she realizes that one person doesn’t know about Steven’s death, his childhood friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro). Audrey doesn’t like Jerry too much, even with Steven was alive. A former lawyer in another life, Jerry is now a heroin junkie living for the day. When everybody turned their back on him, Steven didn’t. Audrey feels that the wrong man has died. Jerry feels the same way.

After the funeral, Audrey goes through a suspended stage of mourning, snapping at her kids for the tiniest thing, going through longer stages of insomnia. Jerry decides to try to go clean again, goes to meetings where he finds a friend in a fellow traveler (Allison Lohman). In a moment of clarity, Audrey offers a place in a renovated room to Jerry. She needs help around the place, she says. It’s easy to see that she needs another adult to be around while she copes with her loss. Jerry agrees begrudgingly. He tries to keep himself isolated, but the kids refuse to be ignored. They are intrigued by their father’s best friend, which they’ve only recently known existed at the funeral (no doubt Audrey’s doing). He strikes a friendship with them that they mistaken to be a means of replacing their father. The problem is that Audrey starts to feel that he’s starting to do just that as well. And it is when she pulls the rug out from under him that the story takes its final act to a sad yet satisfactory ending.

Things We Lost In The Fire is a good movie that stems from what could be bad stuff. That’s the trick with melodrama; finding characters that you are rooting for, hoping for, to care about and even love. Most melodrama is based on situation instead of character. When scenario dictates of how people respond, it’s rare that you’re going to find true human emotion. We feel sympathy for Jerry, Audrey, and the kids. We wonder if Steven would have been proud of them moving on as they are. When Jerry teeters closer to the edge of losing himself, we are truly afraid for him and for all of them since we know what he means to them.

And the best way to see how the film moves you is how the film is cast. I’m not a big fan of Halle Berry (whom I still say is the scrawnier, softer version of Angela Bassett), but she hits many of the right notes here. We believe that she loved her husband as much as she shows and that the loss is killing her inside. And then you put Benicio Del Toro as the broken yet recovering Jerry, and he knocks the ball out of the park. He is deadly when he underplays a character, which is exactly what he does here. We see his emotion behind the skin, in the subtle ways and tiny mannerisms. But I also want to talk about the performance of John Carroll Lynch who plays the neighbor who used to be friendly with Steven and sees in Jerry a man who could use a friend as well. Lynch has never received the recognition he deserves in his film and television work. He doesn’t steal scenes, but makes the scene work better just by playing the character out the way it should be played.

For Suzanne Bier’s first American film, she could have done worse. She plays to her strengths here, but she really needs to elevate her game if she wishes to become great. The film makes some very unusual artsy decisions, such as tons of close-ups on eyes of characters. I somewhat understand the reasoning, but it’s still very weak in context.

All in all, this is a pleasant movie that does a good job at getting into your heart without being cute about it. It shows that the heart can heal even when that’s the one thing you probably don’t want. And that the one thing that you thought was the bane of your existence turns out to be your lifeline in the time of true disaster.

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:43 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Move Over Grisham, Here Comes Clayton

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Michael Clayton (2007)

Coming out of the theater, my fellow film critic Cesar Villalta commented “It’s great to finally see a film for adults!” I thought about it for a second and realized that he had a point. Most of the films that we had seen this year were targeted towards the tweener crowd between 16 to 22. Very rarely have we seen films that actually required an adult sensibility and patience. Michael Clayton requires intelligence and sensibilities, a film that takes time to tell its story, but makes up for it by being about something.

In a Milwaukee deposition room, a great lawyer goes crazy and starts taking off his clothes. That lawyer is Arthur Eads (Tom Wilkerson), a high-class New York lawyer defending a fertilizer producer that is linked to cancer. His film calls in a fixer, Michael Clayton (George Clooney), to fix the mess made by his friend. But Arthur quickly eludes Clayton and goes rogue. Clayton thinks that Eads is up to something, considering that he’s also the film’s expert in insanity cases.

Also in this mix is the fertilizer company’s own lawyer (Tilda Swinton), an up and coming fixer who sees it as her responsibility to repair the damage that Eads has done, not to mention the damage he will do when it’s revealed that he might be changing sides. When Clayton finds that his apathy has a bitter cost, he is left to make a choice between doing the right thing and most advantageous thing.

From what you’ve just read, you would think that this film is a legal thriller amongst the best of John Grisham and Scott Turrow, but the film is better than that. The legal thriller is the disguise for it’s real intention; a character study of people caught in a moral dilemma. Eads finds out that his life’s work was for nothing and he makes a choice between doing the right thing and the wrong thing. His decision kicks off a chain of other choices made by other characters, none more important than for the characters of Clayton and (?). When we get to the end of the film, we are satisfied, though in a way we know how this is going to end.

My only real problem with the film is the finale, which I saw coming from a thousand miles away. While I do say yes, the confrontation between Clooney and Swinton might be considered classic later on, the events surrounding that scene are extremely predictable. But then again, this isn’t a real legal thriller after all. If it were, the stakes would be higher and the tension would be unbearable.

Another amazing thing about the film is the way it performs what I consider to be the perfect foreshadow. This isn’t meant as a gimmick. It allows us to see the same events, a pivotal event as it would turn out later, to be seen from a different perspective under different conditions. This kind of technique is very surprising to see in even the veteran filmmakers, not to mention first-time directors such as Tony Gilroy.

Another thing of curiousity; why is the film called Michael Clayton? It would be easy to say because that is the character we're following, but we're also following two other characters too. I think it's to put more focus on this particular character and the choices he makes in comparison to the two other stories we're following as well.

But what really demands attention is the superb acting skills on range here. From the first minute when we hear Mr. Wilkinson’s opening voiceover (which sets up the film perfectly) to the very last scene, the acting is always on task, elevating great material to an even better level. Clooney leads this cast with such exuberance, which is amazing considering that he’s very solemn. This is a man who is on his way to being a has-been who never liked what he did, but has failed in the restaurant business and looking at heavy gambling debts. Tilda Swinton also hammers her scenes with silent furiousity. Pay attention to those scenes she has at the mirror, timing her presentation, her rebuttals, and making sure that she says and does everything right, which will eventually lead to her own downfall. Even Sydney Pollack, who has a thankless role as The Exposition (the character that lets you know what the score is at that part of the film), makes his part actually seem like a living human being that doesn’t live in the office closet (but not for a lack of trying). But the real showstopper is Wilkinson who gives an Oscar-worthy performance. From the opening monologue we get a sense of this character as he rants and raves, but never going over the top (which is important since this a part of the character he plays).

Tony Gilroy has been writing screenplays since 93’s The Cutting Edge about figure skaters. He’s better known for his work on the Bourne films. For his directorial debut (which he also penned the film), he slows the action down, using long takes to set tones. There’s a lot of quiet time that the film uses to maximum efficiency. He’s playing his story close to the vest, going for the jugular with razor-sharp dialog and steadfast direction. Along with cinematographer Robert Elswitt, he creates a cold palate that is still colorful but stark at the same time. All I have to ask is when will he don the camera again?

All in all, Michael Clayton is a great film, a solid entertainment, and a pure thrill to those who are willing to not be talked down to. It treats its audience like adults; with respect and consideration. Not many films will do that, especially films that are supposed to be for adults.

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:40 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

How Can You Fight When They Make You Never Exist?

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Rendition (2007)

I was handcuffed once by a police officer who wanted to search me for something that he never made very clear. It was two in the morning, I was tired and hungry after putting a hard day’s work, and I complied. He would let me go after five minutes of searching without even so much as an apology. To him, it was perfectly fine to detain someone without even the slightest shred of just cause beside the fact that I was in the wrong place and the wrong time. Does this make him bad? I don’t think so, he’s doing a job and prudence comes along with it. But does it make what he did right, either?

That’s what I think is at the heart of Rendition, the new film by Academy-Award winner Gavin Hood. The film’s primary concern is about Extraordinary Rendition, a US law passed by former President Clinton that has been a major backbone in the foreign policy of current President Bush in his “war on terror”. It involves the detaining of people with possible links to terrorists in interrogation centers outside the US where torture or “enhanced interrogation” is legal. The film focuses on bombing in Africa that was meant to be an assassination attempt on a particular torturer. The film centers on three stories that are interconnected.

The first story involves an Egyptian businessman Omar Metwally who lives in America. He is coming home from Africa to his very pregnant wife (Resse Whitherspoon) and son when he’s detained at the airport and sent into the clutches of the nearly assassinated torturer. The CIA handler overseeing this interrogation (Jake Gyllenhaal) is actually an analyst who is stuck with the job when the usual handler is killed in the bombing. The effect of seeing what goes on drives him deeper to drink than before, guilt for seeing a possibly innocent man being mutilated for something he has no knowledge of.

The second story involves the businessman’s wife, whom after husband goes missing starts seeing discrepancies. She contacts an old boyfriend (Peter Saarsgard) who works for a powerful Congressman (Alan Arkin) to find out the truth. But they run up against a wall with the likes of Corrine Whitman (Played by Meryll Streep). She firmly believes that these actions produce the results that make these laws a vital part of protecting America This ultimately puts the Congressman in a no-win situation.

The third (and best) story involves the daughter of the torturer (Zineb Oukach) who is unknowingly involved with a young man who is involved in a terrorist cell. It doesn’t take a genius to see that he started dating her to get close to her father, but has softened in respect that he doesn’t want to hurt her. There are moments of insight in these scenes that transcend the other material on its own.

This is deeply thought-provoking film that keeps the pace nice and tight and gives you compelling characters and outrageous situations that extremely modern and calls the audience to think about what’s happening in the world around them. No doubt the film thinks that torture doesn’t bring enough results for it to be considered effective (no doubt it works some of the time, otherwise it wouldn’t be used). But it asks the question most people refuse to face: How far will you allow fear to dictate your actions before your humanity comes into question? It would be so easy to turn this review into a discussion on world affairs, which is what the film is insisting that you do. The problem is that those who really need to see the film are those who will avoid it like the plague.

The film has an impressive array of great actors, all of which do a good job. But the two that were most impressive to me were Ms. Whitherspoon who made this highly sympathetic character to feel honest and real, justified in her cause but also naive and scared. Perhaps it was a little too much that she also had to be 8 months pregnant in the film which is beating the dead horse a little bit, but when she has her breakdown scene near the end, it makes that scene even more unforgettable. And then there’s Zineb Oukach as Fatima the daughter. Not only is she incredibly beautiful, but also she brings a heart to her story as we care about her, especially being so close to someone who could use her for his own means.

Gavin Hood has made a great film as his American debut. His next film is going to be Wolverine, based on the Marvel comic book hero. It will be interesting to see what he can bring to the character, coming from geopolitical films like Tsotsi and Rendition.

All in all, this is certainly a solid film that I can recommend to everybody though I know only a few will actually give it a chance. Politics in movies, especially films that deal with current events, seem to repel people who probably need to see it. It’s sad that films that want to engage an audience such as this or Michael Clayton are only seen by a handful of people and only because a celebrity has their name in it. Or perhaps people know that once they’ve been called out on something they’ve seen, they’ll have to do something about it. Maybe seeing the film won’t change the fact that this is still happening, but maybe it will make you think hard about things when election time comes around, where you CAN change things.

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:38 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Don't Put This Baby In The Corner

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Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Something amazing happened when I left the theater from watching Gone Baby Gone, something that rarely happens; people who came out with me started to talk about it. Not just the usual compliments and complaints, but about a moral decision made at the very end. And even more unusual is the fact that not one particular side of this coin was dominant, but that’s primarily because both options laid out to one character were both righteous and wrong at the same time. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Gone Baby Gone is hardcore police drama set in South Boston starring Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as a young couple who work together as skip-tracers who are called into a kidnapping investigation by the family of the missing girl, which is outside their scope. The girl’s aunt (Amy Madigan) wants them to comb the places the police can’t touch (which translates to everywhere). This doesn’t thrill the police chief (Morgan Freeman), who has great interest in finding lost kids after his own was taken. He puts the two together with a couple of his best detectives (Ed Harris and the underrated John Ashton), and they quickly find a link between the girl’s junkie mother (Amy Ryan) and a local drug dealer. The mother seems at first to not care where her daughter is until it becomes clear that the girl could be in great danger, and as that realization starts sinking in, the more she deteriorates.

The film makes a turn that you would expect later into the film when a ransom is set up. The exchange goes terribly wrong, taking us into the second half of the film. At this point, it stops being a procedural and become a human drama as our detectives realize that more isn’t what it seems and the closer they get to the truth behind the kidnapping, the more they realize that the welfare of the child is at the center of everything. That takes us to the final decision at the end. To be honest, I couldn’t know what I would do if I were in that person’s place, as I think no one else would know either.

Moral decisions are major factor in Dennis Lehane’s novels, which include this one and Mystic River, which was made by Clint Eastwood in 2003. And I’m glad that someone is willing to wrestle with decisions that are not black and white, entirely good or bad. But what this film had over Eastwood’s film is a familiarity with Boston, even a love for it’s unusual assortment of characters bundled up together into a tight-knit community. In partial, I think it has to do with screenwriter/director Ben Affleck’s own love for his hometown. He captures the rhythms of the city without it being flashy or the center of things. He properly puts the story first, but makes sure to fill the story with characters that feel like they have a history and sometimes even a future for some.

Co-screenwriter and director Ben Affleck finds the right rhythms in his native Boston, showing both the most admirable parts with the sleaziest with the same fantastic glee. But he also is honed into the story; never giving an inch to show how great a director he is like some other actor-turned-directors do (did something go down the wrong pipe, Mr. Penn?). If there is only one thing I could get onto him for is that he has emulated many filmmakers that he has worked for from Gus Van Sant to Michael Bay and has learned those lessons well, but there’s never one shot that felt came from his own skill. That’s usually something you have to grow into, but he room for error is little to none on his next film (and I most certainly hope there’s a next in the wings)

Affleck pulls together an amazing cast of Hollywood stars and character actors. Some of his best choices include one of my favorites Amy Madigan and the incredibly ranged Amy Ryan who pulls off a character that is both worthy of sympathy and antipathy at the same time. This is a woman who should have never been allowed to breed in the first place and constantly shows irresponsibility on a Brittany Spears level, and yet she does begin to understand just how much her daughter means to her (eventually). But I want to talk about Casey Affleck, whom between this and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (say that one five times fast) has shown that he is an amazing indie leading man. I doubt he has the looks to be Clooney, but he’s got the charisma and the charm to be a Paul Giamatti.

All in all, this is a superb detective story with a great finale that will leave you talking as everyone did at the screening I went to. Ben Affleck shows that he’s capable of doing something great behind the camera. His brother shows he can do something great in front of it. And the world can sleep a little easier at night. At least until Good Will Hunting 2 is put on the slate.

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:37 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

You'd Wish You Had Missed The Train

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The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

One must wonder the kind of audience that director Wes Anderson is trying to play to. His films are too financed to be considered independent. They’re too stylized to be called raw. They are simply too square to be called cool. And yet, that doesn’t stop him from making another one. In all fairness, I not only love Rushmore, I put it in my Great Movies list. But starting from The Royal Tennenbaums (which I liked), it started to decline the lower depths with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (which I didn’t like so much). And now he has reached what I hope to be his rock bottom with The Darjeeling Limited, which pairs him again with Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, while bringing Oscar-winner Adrian Brody along for the ride to hell as well.

The title comes from a train that travels into the heart of India, on board are three brothers; the heavily bandaged Francis (Wilson), Peter (Brody), and Jack (Schwartzman). They haven’t seen each other in a year since their father had died and the strain on their brotherhood has reached a limit where they can’t trust each other. And it turns out to be a good reason: Francis is a control freak, Peter is a kleptomaniac, and Jack has a knack for controlling women in pitiful ways. Francis has gotten them together for what he calls a spiritual journey that he has planned out on laminated cards. The other two are looking for any way to get out of this.

Of course, hijinks are bound to be ensuing with each brother finding ways to make this train ride even more uncomfortable to the rest of the passengers. Between Jack trying to seduce the cart-attendant and Peter bringing an extremely poisonous snake on board, needless to be said, they are put under compartment arrest. When halfway into the journey the train loses their car, I seriously felt that it wasn’t an accident (or that I wouldn’t be tempted to do the same thing). And eventually, they are simply thrown off, which starts their real journey into self-enlightenment which brings them eventually to their mother (Angelica Huston), which it turns out is the entire goal of the trip to begin with.

I have no problem with surrealism whatsoever, and that is quite plainly what Wes Anderson is attempting here. But I do have a problem with how this film mocks its characters at the expense of truly understanding them. It assumes that it’s perfectly fine to make fun of them for being childish and trite because they do silly things. Take a scene where the brothers are swapping prescribed medications with each other while a fourth man (the incredible Kumar Pallena) must sit between the three of them and pretend not to confused and nervous about these actions. You feel sorry for the man, but the film puts him in the butt of the joke. The film skirts racism by making its white fools making a mockery of Indian beliefs and traditions. If there were a sense of respect for the traditions that are being lampooned or a punishment to be dealt to the three morons who are debasing it, then I’d laugh. But the film seems to think these traditions to be funny as well. Instead, we see anyone appalled by the brothers’ behavior as being mean.

Watching the film, I wonder what it would have been like if Ishmael Merchant and James Ivory would have taken the material and made a drama from it. I would assume it would have looked a lot like Mira Nair’s recent film The Namesake, a film that is a classic gem compared to this ugly little movie. And strangely enough, one of the stars of The Namesake, Irfan Kahn, is in this film in a thankless role that has only two lines of dialog as a grieving father. He was also in A Mighty Heart playing opposite Angelina Jolie in another groundbreaking role. It’s so sad how great talent must be made humble to such filmmakers as Anderson.

Anderson’s direction is only limited by his wanting to imitate better foreign directors. I can almost see him taking cues from Louis Malle, Francois Truffaut, and the inimitable Powell and Pressberger. The only saving grace is his cinematographer Robert Yeoman who has a great sense of color schemes and finds a lively tone and grace to what is an unsalvageable mess. Anderson makes me think of a little kid who wants to be seen as a grown up so badly but doesn’t understand the meaning. His comedy is dry and heartless, with very little to laugh about since we care nothing for his characters, the scenario that we’re given, or the environment which they show little appreciation for.

If there’s anything worse than the direction of the film, it has to be the acting. This has to be the worst ensemble this year outside of Spider-Man 3. We don’t buy any of these guys as brothers, or even as guys who have even once passed each other on the street. Wilson, Brody, and Schwartzman are all three incredibly gifted actors and comedians, but they are completely over their heads on this one. And poor Angelica Huston, who looks like she has as much interest in being in this movie as a lobster does at Long John Silver.

And yet if there’s one thing better than Yeoman’s camera in this film, it has to be the great soundtrack that mixes The Kinks with Satyajit Ray. This is a trademark for Wes Anderson films to find ways to blend obscure 60s and 70s rock with a great score. And yet, I can’t help but to feel that all of this work was wasted on a terrible movie.

All in all, the kinds of people who are likely to see this will adore everything I hate about this movie. Others will already stay away since they prefer safer fare. I don’t know exactly who might heed my warning. But someone’s got to say something when a runaway train jumps the tracks.