Bloggish review blog

Under discussion:

Fight Club  (1999)

Wit  (2001)

Last Holiday  (2005)

The Guitar  (2008)

It's hard to think of the accurate words to describe "The Guitar." "Ridiculous," "overdramatic" and "Oxygen channel after dark" are all words and phrases that spring to mind. But mostly, it's just bad.

Basically, the plot is this: Saffron Burrows is sick. She has cancer. Dr. Janeane Garofalo gives her one or two months to live. In addition to this, she gets laid off from her job and ends a relationship with a man she's apparently dating (I gathered...I wasn't entirely sure what was going on) to add up to pretty much the worst day ever. Saffron Burrows almost kills herself, but notices an ad for short-term loft apartment rentals and goes for it, completely abandoning her apartment and all the stuff in it (Saffron isn't much of one for moving her stuff with her, it turns out).

What follows is a kind of bisexual, white New York City "Last Holiday." Saffron starts spending money left and right, buying all kinds of swanky clothes and furniture for her apartment. She also buys a guitar, and a bunch of amps she doesn't really need (it looks like she's getting ready to host a rock concert in her loft) because of some childhood dream of owning a guitar that never got fulfilled. Oh! and before I forget, there's that bisexual thing: Saffron has sex with the guy who keeps delivering all her packages (Isaach De Bankole) and the gal who keeps delivering all her pizzas (Paz de la Huerta). All this without ever leaving the apartment!

Things keep getting more and more implausible, to the point of utter laughability. All the characters, including the female lead, are totally two-dimensional, barely explained, and chock-full of stereotype fulfillment. Here's an example: the pizza delivery girl is both a) Italian and b) getting married to an abusive boyfriend with mob connections. Other characters, such as Saffron's boyfriend who breaks up with her in the first ten minutes of the movie, should seem more important than they appear (and they appear very little, mostly as incidental plot devices). Finally the whole plot structure collapses and the movie just goes flat, at which point it has the good sense to end.

The thing that gets me the most about this movie isn't the terribly goofy plot, nor the more-intimate-than-necessary sex scenes. It's the message that materialism will heal you, and that an object can give you meaning and something to live for. "The Guitar" is more or less a female-empowered antithesis to "Fight Club." Where Edward Norton found emptiness and confusion in endless catalog shopping, Saffron Burrows seems to have found happiness. "The Guitar" tells us that shopping cures all ills, even, it turns out (spoiler alert) cancer.

Reccommended movies:

Fight Club: searching for meaning and masculinity in a comercially dominated culture.

Last Holiday: At least it's supposed to be funny.

Wit: A movie about cancer that's far more interesting and believable.

Under discussion:

Crimes and Misdemeanors  (1989)

Strangers on a Train  (1951)

Three Monkeys (Uc Maymun)  (2008)

Rachel Getting Married  (2008)

I find movies about secrets to be terribly interesting. Affairs, murders, accidents, humiliations and the lengths people will go to hide them generally make for pretty compelling stuff.

"Three Monkeys," the Turkish entry for the best foreign language film Oscar, is one such movie, and (I think) probably a pretty strong contender. I'm assuming the title has to do with the proverb "see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil," since the family at the center of this movie has plenty of issues that they deal with by not talking about them.

Things start off when a Servet, a campaigning politician, is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Not wanting to tarnish his reputation right before the election, Servet has his driver, Eyüp, take the fall for him in exchange for a sum of money to be given to his family. In the meantime, Eyüp's wife, Hacer, has an affair with Servet, only to have it abruptly cut off when her ne'er-do-well son discovers them. Oh, and the family is also haunted by the ghost of their dead son...there's a lot of tension going on.

Probably the best thing "Three Monkeys" has going for it is its subtlety. The film's style is very subdued, and we only see characters behaving in extreme ways when the situation absolutely calls for it. The performances are all very natural, never over-the-top. We can identify with all of the characters (except, perhaps, Servet, who's pretty much a scuzzbag). The movie is also very solid visually. It looks like it was shot on DV, which gives it a gritty, but also intimate feeling. The camera is unsparing in its portrayal of the characters. We see every flaw, every stray hair, wrinkle and stress line, all of which goes into making a better, more detailed vision of who these people are, and the effects their years of supressed emotions have had on them.

I am very, very glad I got to see "Three Monkeys." It's a well-worked, intense movie that nobody has talked about, but that everyone should be. This movie has all of the intrigue of a Hichcock film (atmospherically speaking, it feels like "Strangers on a Train," but more subdued) but most of the action happens behind closed doors. It's a really intriguing approach to a premise that could easily have been made into a preachy, hysterical melodrama.

Related movies to watch:

"Rachel Getting Married": Some of the drama, but with the added plus of joy and redemption.

"Strangers on a Train": Intrigue with more thrills

"Crimes and Misdemeanors": Affairs and examinations of the people that have them.