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LOL

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LOL (2007)

If I'm in the mood for a Western, I want horses. If I'm in the mood for explosions, I go to a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay movie. In either case, I don't want, say, Max Von Sydow playing chess with Death in some black-and-white hovel on the rocky shores of Sturnnveggloven. In the same way, if I'm in the mood to watch echo-boomer twenty-somethings filming their friends hanging out with each other in small apartments and on the urban stoop and in the homes and basements of their parents and grandparents, none of whom will ever appear onscreen, then for those of you who haven't seen one such film before, this would be mumblecore.

I mention this in case you're confronted with the movie LOL on one of those evenings when you in fact don't want an unscripted little semi-plotless handheld film, but instead crave a Hollywood-du-jour mind-destroying offering like those which are currently available at the Metroplex. No sense wasting a tasty little morsel like this one when you really want a Big Mac, to torture the metaphor.

***SPOILERS***

But no, actually, I don't think that I can spoil LOL for you just by writing about it. On the contrary, I'm guessing that the more you know about this movie before you watch it - the more prepared you are for it - the more you'll appreciate it. But if you're the type that likes to screen a movie cold, sans preconception and foreknowledge, then stop reading now and go do something else. Thank you.

Meanwhile, from Joe Swanberg the director: "LOL more than any other movie I've shot was a process of throwing things into the pot and seeing what comes out."

Out of the pot this time came three young men, Alex (Kevin Bewersdorf), Chris (C. Mason Wells), and Tim (Swanberg himself). The conceit here was meant to be that cell phones, PCs, and other electronic means of communication would interfere, ironically, with the boys' relationships with women - Alex with Walter (Tipper Newton), Chris with Greta (Greta Gerwig), and Tim with Ada (Brigid Reagan). Modest underlying plot points and arcs to the three stories are provided, but I didn't pay much attention to them, and still don't understand at least one of the climatic moments at the end of the film. In this respect, I treated the movie in the same way that I treat those complicated action flicks with convoluted plots. That is, I ignored the details and trusted that if I ever did take the trouble to pay attention, if I ever did truly make a study of the film, then all would in fact make sense to me in the end. But I didn't.

In my defense on this point, it seems ok to me to watch the movie in the same way that it was made, which is to say, incrementally. Swanberg started out working on a little two-week to one-month film. Bewersdorf was back from Germany for his sister's wedding and signed up to do the music for the film. Tipper Newton agreed to come over to Chicago for a month. Wells was going to be leaving the city but had some time before he did. So forth. Without a script or shooting schedule, Swanberg went out every day, camera in hand (Panasonic DVX 100, 24p mode, 16x9, standard definition video because this was pre-HD, but nobody at the time was shooting with this except for documentaries, because it wasn't considered a narrative camera. And at least five guys handled it, depending upon who was in the scene), to see what would develop. So that instead of visiting Beversdorf's grandmother's basement once to shoot everything that they needed, for example, they ended up going back ten times. Then Swanberg looked up one day and eight months had passed and he was scratching his head and asking himself how this had happened. Ideas, bits, plot points, and the next thing he knew, he was wrestling with a feature film. Not to say that the results aren't worthy, but as a viewer I'm ok with letting the finer points of the interior story slide by the first time while I lounge back and take in what bits of invention, inspiration, and invention I can.

I've seen the movie labeled by some a comedy, and Swanberg himself refers to hilarious scenes and the laughter of audiences at different spots in it. Although I liked the movie, I never smiled once. I know that LOL was filmed in the summer of '05, and Swanberg meant for the boys' techie behavior in the movie to be over-the-top comedic (e.g., video clips and pics transferred between phones, online stripper webcam, beatbox videos, etc.). But that's all normal behavior now.

Anyway, Swanberg planned to put the three geeky guys in motion and, as they made a mess of their personal relationships, to follow along and record the hilarity that ensued. The movie gods, however, intervened.

Alex, geeky guy number one, misses out on the girl in front of his eyes, the 19-year-old Walter, because, ironically, he is obsessed with Tessa, an online webcam suicide girl. ($5/mo. subscription)

But wait. Alex's obsession with Tessa and his hopes for meeting up with her are not believable. Not these days. Swanberg says that back in the summer of '05, such naivete was still possible. No it wasn't. The immediate effect of this weak setup is to free us from the plot and allow us to pay more attention to the Alex onscreen in front of us.

Or, no, hang on. When I was in college, I myself was obsessing over Freda, a young woman who sat 15 feet away from me in orchestra, holding a cello between her legs. I gave her a lot of thought, way too much thought, but I couldn't bring myself to actually approach her. Meanwhile, Sophie was stopping by my dormroom every couple of days to hang out and get high and talk about her boyfriend in Spain. Finally, after orchestra rehearsal one day, our conductor asked Freda and me to go out and put up some concert posters around the campus. We had just started and I was just warming up to finally ask her for a date when somebody ran by shouting that President Kennedy had just been shot. We split up to go watch the TV broadcasts from Dallas and I never did ask her out. Instead, she just kept soaking up my dating psychic energy. I now realize that Sophie and I... Well... She never did get back together with her boyfriend. And there she was, stretched out on my bed night after night smoking dope and eating Ho-Ho's. What the hell was I thinking? So maybe Alex's behavior with Tessa and Tipper isn't so unbelievable after all.

But nevertheless, as for Alex being a geeky loser: first of all, Bewersdorf wrote all the music in the movie and it's not bad. I knew that up front and for me that knowledge manufactured some serious Alex aura onscreen. Plus, secondly, he had been living and working in Germany, which for me enhanced the aura. Thirdly, he did the A/V beatbox-type montage clips that divide up the movie and they're pretty neat. Fourthly, his dog Button is present. Alex feeds Button cookies. Must love dogs. Aura builder. Fifthly, Tipper Newton is right there next to him throughout the film and she obviously likes him. Chemistry. Sixthly, he's got a little Tim Roth vibe going up there. Seventhly, yes he obsesses over the webcam stripper, but she's Kate Winterich from "Kissing On the Mouth" and I was starting to obsess over her a little myself.

(And, btw, speaking of how the movie evolved, Swanberg called Newton and described the project and invited her to Chicago to meet Bewersdorf and see what she thought about working with him. She flew out and showed up at a party where Bewersdorf was performing. Swanberg filmed her watching Bewersdorf, whom she hadn't met yet, and then her talking to him, and decided that the vibe was right, so he put that film in the movie as Alex and Walter's first meeting. If the vibe hadn't been right for him, Tipper would have gone back to school (she was 19 and in college and can be seen doing her homework onscreen in the St. Louis scenes) and the whole thread would have been dropped.)

So in the event, Alex, the supposedly hopeless geek, builds a screen presence that might not equal Brando in "On the Waterfront," but ain't too shabby, either. By the time the credits roll, he's the man in this film. The way I read it, he wises up on his way back to Chicago from St. Louis, calls Walter, and they push the reset button.

Geeky guy number two is Tim. Tim spends all of his time on his PC and cell phone. His woman fumes. He's hopeless! What a loser!

But hang on again. This Tim happens to be Joe Swanberg. Of course the dude is working on his PC. Of course he's on the phone. His woman? Hell, he hired her to be in the movie. You're telling me that he's a hopeless geek because he's acting like Joe Swanberg probably acts at home? Let's ask Swanberg's wife what she thinks of the movie. Or go ask Kevin Smith's wife about husbands online. (Actually, listen to Smodcast and she'll tell you direct.)

For example, there is a scene at the beach, with Swanberg working on his PC while his girlfriend flirts with a surfer dude. "You don't look too comfortable out there," somebody says to Swanberg on the commentary track. "Well," he says. "I hadn't been outside in three weeks."

In other words, Tim and Ada aren't right for each other. If she was right for him, he'd log off/hang up more often. No way his phone and PC take the rap for the couple's problems in the sack.

Speaking of which, I've had a Blackberry in my back pocket since March '01. Initially it was a litte thing powered by a single AA battery, with my corporate Exchange account on it and nothing else. Now it's been replaced by a PPC, a Treo, and a SmartPhone, all of them running browsers, media players, with phones, recorders, cameras, and other options I don't even know about. In bed before lights out at night, while the spousal unit reads a book, I'm surfing. And who's on the cell more during the day, my SU or me? Her. Swanberg says that he filmed the Tim/Ada relationship with the idea that the two were almost through with each other anyway, so how to blame the electronics? The two could be any everyday modern couple.

So Tim, the supposedly hapless geek who loses his girlfriend at the end? He'll find a better fit next time. Or the time after that.

You can see where I'm going with this.

Geek number three, Chris, is winding down his relationship with his girlfriend over the phone. He's in Chicago and she's in New York. Greta never actually appears live in the film. Instead, we hear her voice and see pictures of her that she sends over the phone. As the movie progresses, Chris and Greta, onscreen and in real life, spiral downward, relationship-wise. (Swanberg, because he uses non-actors and no script, frequently employs the technique of filming real-life situations.) Meanwhile, Chris gets lucky at a party. I'm not casting the first stone here about that. Chris and Greta are essentially separated. The phone is the only thing left keeping them in contact.

So yes, Chris does ask Greta for some naked pictures. Greta (the real-life Greta) was studying for finals and when Swanberg nudged her to produce, she closed her notebook, went into the college library bathroom, stripped in a stall, adopted a wide stance, took a set of photos, sent them to Swanberg on the spot, got dressed again, and went back to the books - in case you parents are wondering what your kids are doing at school this semester.

Post-movie, I see Chris, like Tim, meeting somebody new, whom he can spend time with in the flesh.

So this result in LOL - that the protagonists grow stronger in the face of Swanberg's efforts to render them helpless - reminds us that for the millennial generation, so called, as for most kids in their 20s over the years, it's the time of first experiencing true social connections and intimacy as an adult - life's greatest adventure, not to get sappy about it. In LOL, the actors and their characters are left free at the end to move on and seek out whatever and whomever comes next for them. In the meantime, if you're in the mood for it, spending 81 minutes with these young people could be a great idea. It was for me.

Posted Friday, September 21, 2007 2:05 PM by joem18b | with 0 comments

Ten Canoes

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Ten Canoes (2007)

[Ten Canoes takes place long ago. The contents of this review pertain to Aboriginal life as it was then, before any contact with non-Aboriginal peoples. I'm not an anthropologist, so the information presented here as fact may be wrong or vastly oversimplified. Take it all with a grain of salt and feel free to correct via comments.]

As I watched "10 Canoes," I was reminded of a book I first read 40 years ago, "The Tiwi of North Australia." The Tiwi live on Melville and Bathhurst Islands, 25 miles north across the water from Arnhem Land, where "10 Canoes" was filmed.

I've revisited the book from time to time over the years because of its fascinating description of Aboriginal marriage and dueling practices, both of which are on display in this movie.

Having watched "Ten Canoes," I'm ready for a few sequels. Let me explain why.

The movie begins with a narrator describing where babies come from:

"I came from a waterhole. Looking like a little fish. Then my father came near and I asked him for my mother. I wanted to be born. My father pointed out one of his wives. That's your mother, he told me. I waited till the right time and I went just like that into her vagina.

"Then my father had a dream. That dream let him know his wife had a little one inside her. That little one was me.

"When I die, I will go back to my waterhole. I'll be waiting there to be born again. Like a little fish. It's always like that for my people."

Peculiar to the Australian Aborigine is the belief that every pregnancy is caused by a spirit. The father is not physically involved (although in the explanation above, he is given some management responsibilities). For the Tiwi, a consequence of this belief in conception via spirit is that every female not only ought to be married, as in most cultures, but in fact has to be married, or betrothed, from birth to death without exception and without gaps, so that there will always be a father on hand whenever a pregnancy should occur.

Australian Aborigine tribes practice early and age-stratified marriage. With the Tiwis, all female babies are betrothed by their fathers at birth. This practice has a considerable impact on the culture of the family group, hunting band, and tribe.

A father will not betroth the newborn girl to some newborn or very young boy - that is, to someone her own age. Far from it. Fathers betroth their girls to up-and-coming twenty-somethings who will be at the height of their powers when their brides arrive, ready for marriage, at the age of fourteen or so. The girls' fathers will be growing old by then and will want to benefit from the goodwill and power of their new son-in-laws. Or, a newborn might be betrothed to a man currently powerful in the tribe, for some instant credit to her father.

The result of this system is that a man will be in his twenties before a first girl is betrothed to him, and then he will have to wait until he is almost forty to marry her. Furthermore, if he isn't an up-and-comer in the tribe, no father will ever betroth a daughter to him at all.

Because young women are married to older men, they frequently became widows. In this case they must remarry immediately. Their father typically has less say in the matter this time around, if he's still alive. The widow herself can try to exercise her own will in the matter. The brothers of her deceased husband have rights as well, as do her own sons, with regard to who will be her new husband. Bachelors in their twenties and thirties thus have a chance for a wife, albeit one usually older, perhaps much older, then they are. In one example in the literature, two twenty-somethings who are friends marry each other's widowed mother.

In a setup like this, patience becomes the order of the day for all the young men. Every woman is married or betrothed but every man does not have a wife. Some young men have several girls promised to them; others have none. But even those with promised wives must wait for years to be married to them. The young men are forced to be bachelors, presumably celibate. This in a culture where sexual activity begins at an age that would be shocking to Western sensibilities (well, until lately, at least).

In general, the older men are always on the lookout for any encroachment on their prerogatives (and wives) by the younger men. Disputes arise. The young men never attempt assignations with the young wives at night, when each band is gathered together; but during the day, when the women are out gathering and the older wives have trouble keeping track of the younger wives every moment, young men and women can get together. In the movie, we see a younger brother (not Tiwi, but my knowledge of Tiwi customs informed my reactions to the movie) repeatedly trying to "visit" one of his older brother's wives. At first, this sort of behavior results in prolonged back-and-forth arguments between campfires at night. If disputes remain unresolved and become serious enough, the young man in question may be required to leave and move to another band. Otherwise, matters can move on to a process of legal resolution. In the movie, the problem has not yet reached this stage and the older brother is keen to see that it doesn't. Encroachment by the younger men threatens the whole marriage system, so it can't be tolerated by the tribe.

Legal action, which takes the same form in all types of dispute, is also represented in the movie, where restitution by one tribe from another is demanded for an accidental killing. This action takes the following form, referred to variously as a duel, payback, or makaratta: the accused stands waiting while representatives of the offended band or tribe throw spears at him until blood is drawn. When this happens, the dispute is concluded. The accused is allowed to jump, duck, lean sideways, and otherwise dodge the spears, but his feet must remain in approximately the same place the whole time. (The North Australians hadn't invented the spear thrower or boomerang, but did elaborate the throwing spear beyond that of the southern tribes.)

In the case of a dispute between an old man and a young man about one of the old man's wives (the most common reason for legal action), the young man is faced by the old man and his spears. In baseball terms, the distance between the two men is about that from home plate to a spot halfway between the pitcher's mound and second base.

Ideally, the young man will dodge a number of spears, showing off his athletic prowess and then, to keep from embarrassing the older man, will take a spear cut on the arm or leg to end the encounter. Because we're dealing with human beings here, plenty of variation is possible with what actually happens. A badly thrown spear can bounce off the ground, come up, and break a leg. Or a proud and rebellious young man may refuse to be hit. Or he may bring a spear or throwing stick of his own, to demonstrate his anger at the old man (and use the spear or stick to block the spears thrown at him, but not ever to be thrown itself). In this case, other old men will join the first and the young man is liable to be seriously injured or killed. But the marriage system must be upheld, which means that in the end, the old man must always triumph.

In disputes between groups of men, both sides will comprise men with spears, all throwing at the other side at once. Wives are often involved, weaving in and out among the men. A woman is as likely to be hit as a man, but whomever is hit, once blood flows the matter is settled. Since most of these disputes are intratribal, there will exist a complex web of interrelationships between all the men involved, on their own side and with the men and women on the other side as well. This is because women often marry outside their clan and because young men often leave their band to follow their mothers to a new clan, or because they're forced to leave their band after some dispute.

Now add in taboos and a belief in ghosts and other spiritual activity in everyday life, and we have the materials present for an endless series of dramatic films. Once the viewer is up to speed on the basic facts of Aboriginal culture and daily life, these can be as entertaining as anything made in Hollywood.

Include a little backstory to limn relationships, some boy/girl contact (rated G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, depending upon the desired audience), a ghost or two misbehaving, and the final, essential showdown with spears, and we'll have some interesting sequels to "Ten Canoes." Perhaps the new film school in Ramingining will make them.

What we lose with a series of dramas like this is that sense of the human being as a strange and mysterious creature, which is often present when we're watching members of an unfamiliar culture in action for the first time. However, (1) when watching the unfamiliar, we tend to replace the unknown with the known anyway (e.g., in the U.S., brother lusts after other brother's wife. If she's willing to divorce and remarry, only the jilted brother's anger, and perhaps that of his extended family and the children, will cause repercussions. The whole community isn't going to rise up to prevent the new union.), and (2) the more deeply we understand a new culture, the more deeply we come to appreciate the ways in which we humans are all the same, as well as the ways we can be profoundly different from each other. The tradeoff is worth it.

A side note: Watching "Ten Canoes," I found myself looking for some hope for humanity in the future. That is, as the movie progressed, I searched for fundamental human traits in the Aborigines that Western culture might have lost on its way to destroying the world. But no. They're like us. Would probably destroy the work just like we are. I found no hope.

Posted Friday, September 07, 2007 1:31 PM by joem18b | with 2 comments