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Little Dieter Needs To Escape

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Rescue Dawn (2007)

Werner Herzog has to be one of the most original filmmakers of all time. He is one of the few true showmen of the movies, not only in how he handles the material he presents to the audience, but also in how he handles the audience as well. That is what makes his latest film Rescue Dawn such an enigma. There is no doubt of his brilliance, but also of his madness, and something that resembles fear as well.

It could be said that Rescue Dawn is Herzog’s most conventional film, based on his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly based on Dieter Dengler, played brilliantly by Christian Bale, who was a German boy who came to America to pursue his dreams of flying. This takes him to the Navy where they make him a pilot and put him on a top-secret mission over Laos in 1965. During his first mission, Dengler’s aircraft is hit and he goes down. He’s eventually taken prisoner by the Viet Cong and is put with other prisoners like Duane (Steve Zahn in a deadly serious performance) and Gene (from Eugene, Oregon), played by Jeremy Davies. To them, Dieter is both incredibly naive and possibly crazy. He opts to leave immediately since their bamboo prison doesn’t seem to be much of a barrier. Duane tempers him a little bit. “You won’t last two days without water. The jungle IS the prison”. Gene has been in prison the longest, about two years, and is almost as skinny as a Holocaust survivor. He’s certain that if they hold out, any day will be when the war will end and they can go home, and be damned anyone who tells him otherwise.

The film works like a prison escape movie where Dengler organizes his fellow inmates together to get out. But as the film progresses, the conditions of the camp worsen. They eventually have to eat live worms since there comes a food shortage. The guards, no happier about the situation than the prisoners, are starting to think about ways to get rid of their current duties, and none of them are letting their prisoners go. And when the time does come for escape, Dieter finds that most of his fellow inmates have differing ideas of what they should do and it comes down to Duane and him making their way south to Thailand. But the jungle isn’t so keen to let them go. They face food shortages, dysentery, and both enemy and friendly fire, not to mention sheer madness. And then, at the very end, the movie makes one of the strangest turns of events EVER, one that makes me question the whole foundation of the movie.

The ending is obvious; Dieter gets rescued (since he does have to be interviewed for Herzog’s documentary some 30 years later). But in how Herzog handles the rescue seems to contradict everything that the movie is saying. Rescue Dawn isn’t overtly political, but does have underscoring political questions for both the United States and Dieter Dengler. The film’s opening scenes show footage of an aerial bombing from the cockpit of an airplane. The movie is questioning the arrogance of the aviators whose mostly unaffected by most of the war trauma by staying above the real action, their victims mostly faceless and most of which are possibly innocent. Dengler’s story isn’t unique, but considering that it’s a story about an aviator who has to come down and suffer punishment by those, whom he seeks to bomb, seems to have a twist of irony. Dieter says early on to a Viet Cong interrogator that he had no interest in war, which all he wanted to was fly and that this was his only way to. If that’s the case, does that make Dieter’s arrogance more distinct? But then, this movie doesn’t shy away from Dieter’s flamboyantly dangerous attitude towards others. So when he’s getting the backslapping and congratulations of his buddies at the end, what does this say about the Navy, or Dieter? Or, just perhaps, is Herzog really talking about the absurdity of modern-movies where killers are welcomed with backslaps and love?

Christian Bale gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Dieter. I love how Bale plays him straight forward, but also slightly askew. He takes the situation seriously, but he also is confident in getting out. I love how he says, “That’s in the daytime, I’m going out at night!” But the unsung heroes in this movie are Jeremy Davies and especially Steve Zahn. I’ve been a big supporter of Zahn for ten years. In that time, he has shown both a comedic timing that has served him well, even in terrible movies, and a wonderful dramatic presence. In this movie, the character is mostly a dead weight around Dieter’s neck. But Zahn makes him into a fully fleshed character with real emotions and leaves us haunted from the first time we see him. Davies never gets enough recognition in his performances, especially in a turn that should have gotten him nominated in Solaris. Davies has done this performance before, but I cannot see anyone else doing this character any better (well, besides a young Dennis Hopper, perhaps).

But as with all his movies, the real star is Werner Herzog. His movies are chilling and disturbing. He is visually exciting and inventive in ways that Michael Bay only wishes he knew how. Just look at his opening shot of Aguirre, Wrath of God and say that’s not one of the best shots ever. But for Rescue Dawn, there’s a slowing in Herzog’s step. He’s still got the magic (a great example is how he shoots Dieter being dragged into camp by a boar), but he seems interested in making a movie that pleases his audience instead of challenging them to like his work. That’s my worst fear about the ending of Rescue Dawn that it’s merely meant to bring in higher box office revenue.

All in all, Rescue Dawn is a lean, mean war movie that has big ideas even if it doesn’t know to end those ideas on the right note. And considering that most war movies now have big budgets that make war out to be glorious, it’s nice to get one that doesn’t feel choreographed. And when you leave, you feel you’ve seen something of merit, if not entirely enlightening.

Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 2:48 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Dark Science Fiction Has Never Been Brighter

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Sunshine (2007)

Last year, I read this collection of Science Fiction stories that included one about a spaceship operator who finds a young stowaway on his ship, heading on a one-way trip to a distant post. The problem is that the ship’s landing systems are so finicky that it cannot support but a specific weight to land and the girl puts them over the comfort area. With only minutes to react, the captain gives the girl a chance to say her goodbye to her family waiting on the post before launching her into the vastness of space. This is not one of my favorite stories, but it left an impression on me just how forbidding the real space experience really is. That weight, speed and distance all mean life or death. Now just think about an apocalyptic situation such as, say, the sun dying.

That is what Danny Boyle was thinking about when he worked with Alex Garland on Sunshine, a science fiction story that recreates the realisms of an impossible situation, a suicide mission whose participants knowingly self dilute themselves into believing they’ll come back. But the job must be done, a devise is supposed to be dropped into a dim section of the sun to initiate a mini-Big Bang. But before they can assure the survival of mankind, they’ll have to face their own fears and inferiorities, obnoxious supercomputers and a surprise guest later on. While the movie is interested in these developments, Boyle and Garland are also pondering more deeper, mature levels of the human condition, putting their characters in more dire situations and putting the mission in such peril that there are moments you can’t see it succeeding, even when the fates of all on-board are sealed either way. This isn’t science fiction of happy endings, but then what do you expect with the likes of Danny Boyle?

The crew of the Icarus II is indeed focused on the various dangers of the mission, but they also try to grasp the coming reality of what’s going to come. By the time we meet them, they are about just about to reach radio silence. Capa, underplayed to perfection by Cillian Murphy, is the man responsible for detonating the bomb, is trying to find the right words to say in his final message back. His equal on the ship, the hotheaded Mace (Chris Evans), is constantly looking for a fight out of frustration and fear. The more contemplative members are Michelle Yeoh as a botanist who takes care of their on-board rainforest, the pilot Rose Byrne (of 28 Weeks Later and the brilliant new show Damages) who seems to keep her cool by taking up a friendship/possible romance with Capa. And then there’s the possibly crazy psychologist (Cliff Curtis) who takes up taking showers of pure sunlight (and has the tan to show it). And when things go wrong, it’s amazing seeing how these characters communicate with each other, although there is a sense that these characters wouldn’t normally be put together and that they aren’t very comfortable with each other considering that they’re supposedly been on the same ship for nearly 6 years.

But when we get to the last act, the survivors of the perils must realize that in their midst is pure anarchy in the form of twisted religion, a slight jab at our current situation with religion and global warming. The movie seems to ask a minor question seeking to know if perhaps religion gives man the scapegoat of fixing a flaw in nature, be it natural or man-made. While it would be unfair to say that there lacks more serious Science Fiction (especially with brilliant examples in Children of Men and Solaris), we can be honestly say that there seems to be more George Lucas and Tolkien (the kind of mythological realms of the genre) than there are Isaac Asimov or Kurt Vonnegut.

This isn’t the best of Boyle, primarily because this is material that’s been breached before. But he gives us characters that are capable of deep thought, understanding their sacrifices and not merely going on the autopilot of such a situation. His direction is neither flashy nor dull. There are times where you have to feel your way around the story, but as long as the characters know what they’re doing, I’m willing to follow along. My biggest problem is with the final few minutes of the film, when we leave the station and head back to earth. Do they or don’t they? But that seems beyond the point. The movie should end in the solar flares of the sun, the success of the mission a moot point in the personal acceptance of all the characters about the fates given to them. Werner Hertzog also made this same mistake in Rescue Dawn, another film I saw this weekend. In both cases, these final moments seemed only to be put in for the sake of moviegoers who require resolution.

All in all, Sunshine is not a movie for everybody. In fact, I seriously doubt that even the supposed hardcore science fiction fans would be interested in such a movie. It requires more thought than maybe it’s worth, but I found myself attracted to it like a moth to a flame, a very bright flame.

Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 1:25 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Ingmar Bergman: In Memorium

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I remember watching my first Ingmar Bergman film when I was 19 years old. It was The Seventh Seal, the quintessential Bergman film and one of two films that opened my eyes to world cinema. Since then, I've seen most of his films. Some I've loved almost as much (Shame, Scenes From A Marriage). Others I hated with a passion (The Passion of Anna). But one thing you cannot say against the Swedish art filmmaker is that he didn't make a film that didn't have something to say. He spoke candidly about Religion, Love, Hate, Sex, and Death, the latter of these the one he seemed most interested and most afraid of.

Today, one of the last lions of cinema has passed on, his legacy forever immortal in the films that he leaves behind. His passing will be mourned by those who have seen his films, felt his passion and asked the same questions that he asked his audience. Like Akira Kurisawa, Fredrico Fellini, and Robert Altman before him, Bergman's death is a sadness that can be celebrated with his films, the glorious wake that will be never-ending as long as there is images put onto a screen.

I will hold my own day of mourning for the master filmmaker with some of my personal favorites: The aforementioned Seventh Seal, Shame, Scenes from a Marriage (Theatrical Version), Saraband, The Silence, Smiles on a Summer Night, The Virgin Spring, and The Red Shoes. If you haven't seen any of these films, I cannot tell you just what you are missing. Many of these are depressing, but even in the saddest situations comes a joy in his films, an acceptance of fate and realization that life goes on, a message that I hope Bergman held onto in his last moments.

So at this time, I raise my glass to Ingmar Bergman and hope you will do the same. Farewell, Sweet Prince. And thank you for the films that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Posted Monday, July 30, 2007 12:20 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments