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claytonlowe
Reviews
In the Bedroom (2001)
The small town seaport of Camden, Maine rivals Peyton Place as a setting for romance and jealousy.
****Contains Spoilers**** How director Todd Field (TV series: "Once and Again") gets so much right in his first feature film, "In the Bedroom," but lets it slip away is only one of the mysteries to be solved in this slow-moving story about wife abuse and retaliatory murder.
Marisa Tomei ("What Women Want"), an estranged wife and mother of two young boys, and Nick Stahl (TV series: "Seasons of Love"), her grad school bound younger lover, get the movie off to a fast start with an energetic romp in a meadow on the outskirts of the seaside village of Camden, Maine.
Okay, it's a bit clichéd, but their sensuous roll in the grass is so joyful it's hard not to celebrate their passions with them. Seize the moment, there'll be no such joy to be found elsewhere in the film.
The cinematic portrait the director paints of New England small-town life --its piney woods, its rocky harbor, its everyday people-- is Andrew-Wyeth authentic. Plain, simple, straightforward, there's no doubt he's captured the sense of this place and has a strong feeling for its inhabitants. But like the outsiders who invade David Mamet's picture post-card town in "State and Main," the leading cast members of "In the Bedroom" never quite blend in with the scenery.
Tomei is a cashier in a convenience story, seemingly happy with her blue collar lot - except when bothered by her husband (William Mapother), who's angry about her relationship with Stahl. Stahl is a talented artist whose parents want him to go to grad school, but he's thinking of keeping on with his summer job as a lobster fisherman.
Sissy Spacek is an efficient mom, controlling wife, and leader of the girl's high school chorus. The dad (Tom Wilkinson) is the town doctor with a comfortable practice but happiest when he's out on the lobster boat with his son or playing cards with his cronies - who deliver up the movie's most genuine moments.
Only the son seems to know his mom has turned his dad into an errand boy. But when he is killed (murdered?), we miss the pensive energy he brought to the film. Just as we miss the energy of Tomei when she disappears from the script and the angry mother and grieving father become the film's central focus.
From here on out the plot becomes melodramatic, the characters overly confused, and the movie slowly collapses under its own weight.
Though Sissy Spacek has received the kind of praise originally heaped upon Mary Tyler Moore for her performance in "Ordinary People," Spacek's role in "In the Bedroom" has a Norman-Rockwell simplicity that conceals the depth of character she's truly capable of portraying.
The same could be said about the movie itself - "In the Bedroom" promises more than it delivers.
Tmavomodrý svet (2001)
"Dark Blue World's" homage to the Czech fighter pilot heroes in WWII outshines "Pearl Harbor" in every way.
They do make movies the way they used to, only it's the Czechs who are doing it.
First we had "Kolya," which won director Jan Sverak an Academy Award in 1996; now we have Jan Hrebejk's "Divided We Fall" and Sverak's newest film, "Dark Blue World."
Gloriously photographed and set in the nostalgic days of WWII -an era that's all the rage this year- "Dark Blue World" is the story of a small group of Czech fighter pilots who flee to England in the wake of Hitler's invasion of their homeland. Offering their services to the Royal Air Force, they end up, of course, being among the heroes of the Battle of Britain.
There's plenty of action in "Dark Blue World," including many dramatically staged and photographed air battles every bit as good as anything in "Pearl Harbor." There's a touching love triangle that tests the friendship of two of the flyers -who happen to be in love with the same woman. And there's skillfully integrated flash forwards in a Soviet prison camp where the pilots are sent when they return home, not as heroes but as men considered dangerous by their new invaders, the Russians.
Great photography. Touching romances. And tragic irony. "Dark Blue World" is every bit as slick, and twice as convincing, as "Pearl Harbor," but why do you suppose it will never get on the radar at the multiplexes? Because, mainstream U.S. audiences just won't go to see subtitled films, no matter how good they are.
Too bad for them, and too bad for us. The whole world sees our movies, but we don't see theirs. Perhaps it's time to include "Reading Subtitles" among the virtues taught in our public schools. Ignorance can kill you these days.
L'ultimo bacio (2001)
Gabriele Muccinio's "The Last Kiss" is a rapidly paced bedroom romp where everyone is either getting laid or just getting screwed.
"The Last Kiss" ("L'Ultimo Bacio") returns us to those glorious days of yesteryear when Sophia Loren was a household word and "Marriage, Italian Style" was the guide for how Americans thought they should behave in their bedrooms. You know those heady days when we imagined everyone Italian was getting laid, and those that weren't were getting screwed? A world where everyone was breaking the rules and Marcello Mastroianni was bedding down with every stray filly on the Via Veneto?
Alas, gone are those sporty TR-3s, the sultry Gina Lollobrigidas and the
steamy Anita Ekbergs wading thigh-deep in the fountains of Rome. Today's generations are decades hence and are the grown up children of those wild and wooly unions built on free love and do-your-own-thing. So how are these thirty-somethings holding up?
Well, "The Last Kiss" has been a box office bonanza in Italy, even though it's a sugar coated retro-look at those old bugaboos of obligation and commitment that their hippie parents thought they'd hidden away in the smoky mists of the 60s and 70s.
Today's version of love, Italian-style is a fast-moving comedy of manners that features young Francesca (Martina Stella) as a dewy eyed
eighteen-year-old blonde who falls in love with the handsome thirty-year-old Carlo (Stefano Accorsi) at a family gathering. Carlo, however, is about to be married to beautiful Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno),who is about to give birth to the child of their live-in union.
To further simmer the sauces, Guilia's mother, at the age of fifty, has decided to leave her husband of thirty years, while at the same time Carlo's three buddies are urging him to chuck it all and go sailing with them to Turkey, Africa, and points beyond.
The folk wisdom offered up at the movie's climax is that if some day you're out running (to keep yourself trim for the man who once betrayed you) and a great big hunk of a guy goes jogging by and makes a pass . . . . go for it because the audience will be with you all the way.
The true moral, however, is that commitment is the price you pay for stability, and you're more likely to have all of those goodies out there -like things and stuff- if you share your resources with a Significant Other. Throw in the sex you may sometimes have, and the kids in those strollers you can take jogging -and why wouldn't you opt for playing it safe?
But what about those buddies, with the rings in their noses, who are probably cycling across Africa by now? Screw them, they will have soon
blown their youth "searching for the home they'll never find" because, as Janis learned, they'll have nothing left to lose.
Gabriele Muccinio's "The Last Kiss" is a rapidly paced bedroom romp where everyone is either getting laid or just getting . . . . you've got it . . . screwed.
Waking Life (2001)
"Waking Life" or dreaming life? That is the question Linklater's cast asks in this clever new update of "Vivre Sa Vie" and "My Dinner With André"
Anybody remember those rotoscoped Levi jeans commercials, or did I just make it up? Anyway, that's what "Waking Life" looks like, only in this hip new movie by Richard Linklater, the chicks, dudes, and old geezers stand around talking about not being able to distinguish dreams and reality, and all that other kind of existential stuff.
Godard did it in "Vivre Sa Vie" when Anna Karina sat herself down in a bar with a real philosopher- and Louis Malle did it when Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn sat and talked all night at their table in "My Dinner With Andre." But every generation has to re-invent the past and make it their own. And why not?
The bonus this time around is that the digital rotoscoping technique (filming the actors live, then animating them) is super kool. And it's great that there's a hot new filmmaker who's interested in making movies about people who speak to each other and actually talk about ideas. It brought to mind the time when, back in the dark ages of black and white, the young son in Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly" looked at the camera and said disbelievingly, "Papa spoke with me."
Keep your eyes out for Linklater's other new offering -shot on digital video- and, appropriately, called "Tape." It stars Ethan Hawke, UmaThurman, and Robert Sean Leonard, and it too is a cinematic treat.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
When the car comes out of the darkness in Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," check out the babe in the backseat -but for god's sake don't try to figure her out.
"Mulholland Drive" is a kaleidoscopic thriller that everyone who's hip thinks they have to figure out. I guess that's what you get when you have a generation of movie goers spoiled by English teachers who made them decipher the allegories in Bergman and decode the religious symbols in Bunuel.
At the movie's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival I was sitting next to a woman who was worried because she was afraid she wasn't going to understand the last part of the film - the buzz was already out about those last twenty minutes.
When I told her I was a film critic and wasn't interested in "figuring it out," she responded with a genuinely plaintive, "But we count on you guys."
Forget it. When it comes to David Lynch, it's the experience that counts. It's the imagery. Just go ahead and fantasize about the two beautiful women whose identities keep merging into each other. Get tangled up in the twisted plot lines. Immerse yourself in the hauntingly mysterious feelings evoked by Angelo Badalamenti's music. But for god's sake, don't' try to figure it out.
If you insist on searching for meaning, it might help you to know the movie was originally a TV pilot turned into a feature film when ABC failed to pick up the option. Lynch's new distributor had him tack on forty minutes, and "Mulholland Drive" was the result. Necessity is still the mother of invention.
In his day Strindberg freaked out audiences with his "Dream Play;" Dickens blew people's minds with his surreal Scrooge and Miss Haversham; now David Lynch is amazing audiences who watch in disbelief as Naomi Watts and Laura Eleana Harring blend into each other right before our eyes.
Art critic Rudolph Arnheim had it right, film best resembles the world we dream, and no one dreams it better than David Lynch.
L'Anglaise et le duc (2001)
Erich Rohmer uses the latest in digital technology to tell the tale of a Scottish upper class lady who gets caught in Paris during the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Erich Rohmer's "L'Anglaise et le duc" makes a perfect companion piece to Peter Watkins' "La Commune (Paris 1871)." Both films -screened at this year's Toronto International Film Festival- ironically illustrate how history is shaped to by the tellers of the tale. Ironic, given the tragic events that were taking place in the U.S. during the festival.
Set in Paris during the French Revolution, the movie, based on Grace Elliott's (Lucy Russell) "Memoirs," is a first-hand account of how she survived those heady but dangerous days. She also details her relationship with The Duke of Orleans (played by Jean-Claude Dreyfus), who, in contrast to herself, is a supporter of the Revolution.
True to form, you don't know whose side of history Rohmer is going to come down on. One of the earliest of the French "New Wave" filmmakers, Rohmer has often been criticized for being too conservative. After all, in the midst of the rebelling-youth-Viet-Nam days of the late 60s and 70s, he was filming romantic little confections like "Claire's Knee." But don't sell the old boy short, folks, he's always been a student of human nature, not an ideologue, and "L'Anglaise et le duc" continues to bear this out.
Rohmer's characters are never the "bad guys" nor the "good guys'; they are first and foremost human beings who are capable of exhibiting a full range of human potentialities -and limitations. That's why his movies are always provocative, and this film is no exception.
Now for the technological nuts and bolts.
Rohmer, though making his way into his 80s, is still on the cutting-edge of cinematic innovation. The look of "L'Anglaise" is like something you've never seen before. You guessed it, the old guy -like several of the festival's directors this year- has gone digital.
All of the movie's exterior scenes look as though they are taking place in their original 1780s Parisian settings. As a matter of fact, you may get so distracted from marveling at the authenticity of the film's look you may have to go back for a second screening to catch the subtleties of the film's psychological -and yes, I'll say it- political insights.
Toronto features some of the world's edgiest young filmmakers this year, as well as some of the world's oldest. And the old masters are standing there on cinema's cutting-edges right alongside the young ones.
Long live youth. Long live old age. And long live Erich Rohmer.
Je rentre à la maison (2001)
"Je rentre a la maison" is an elegant exploration of aging and personal loss directed by 93-year-old Manoel de Oliveira.
"Je rentre a la maison" opens on the stage of a rather seedy theatre in Paris during the closing act of Ionesco's absurdist drama "Exit the King" - exit the king indeed!
Portraying the old king is Gilbert Valence (Michel Piccoli), a well known Parisian actor, who like the king is coming to the end of his career. Piccoli no sooner steps off stage than a group of somber friends deliver to him the bad news that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have just been killed in an auto accident. All that now remains of his family is his young grandson.
In this remarkably understated film Oliveira uses long takes, a rarely moving camera, and natural background sounds to emphasize what's going on in the faces of his actors. After a summer of films like "Fast and Furious," "Rat Race," and "Rush Hour 2" it is a relief to be able to slow down and indulge in the more subtle nuances of the filmic art.
One of the movie's most treasured moments occurs when Piccoli is cast in an English-language film based on James Joyce's novel, "Ulysses." Appearing in a cameo role as the director of this movie-within-a-movie is John Malkovich who takes full advantage of Oliveira's long take close-ups of him as he sadly watches Piccoli having difficulties with his lines. The last shot in the film is also a long take of the face of Piccoli's grandson as he watches his grandfather pause on the landing while making his way up the stairs to his room.
"Je rentre a la maison" is a low-key version of Scott Hicks' more thickly romantic, "Hearts in Atlantis," which has a similar theme.
La commune (Paris, 1871) (2000)
"La Commune" is a brilliant nearly 6-hour long must-see docudrama.
Peter Watkins' nearly 6-hour long docudrama, "La Commune (Paris, 1871)," is a surprisingly passionate and fast-moving lesson in history. It is also a brilliant demonstration of how history is shaped, and re-shaped, by the tellers of the tale.
Using the "You Are There" approach of earlier radio and TV days, Watkins has a male and female news team from "Commune TV" wandering through the poorest district of Paris inviting people to express their grievances against the state to the camera.
While the people bitterly suffer because of the government's inept defeat at the hands of the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War, their anger inspires solidarity for them throughout Paris, and although they briefly rise up and seize power, they are brutally put down in the end.
Ironically, during the course of their uprising, a TV monitor in the background features happy-talk "Versailles TV" news anchors, who continually vilify the Communards and rationalize the government's brutal acts of supression.
"La Commune" is a must-see for students of history, and a must-see for students of the media.
La commune (Paris, 1871) (2000)
"La Commune" is a brilliant nearly 6-hour long must-see docudrama.
Peter Watkins' nearly 6-hour long docudrama, "La Commune (Paris, 1871)," is a surprisingly passionate and fast-moving lesson in history. It is also a brilliant demonstration of how history is shaped, and re-shaped, by the tellers of the tale.
Using the "You Are There" approach of earlier radio and TV days, Watkins has a male and female news team from "Commune TV" wandering through the poorest district of Paris inviting people to express their grievances against the state to the camera.
While the people bitterly suffer because of the government's inept defeat at the hands of the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War, their anger inspires solidarity for them throughout Paris, and although they briefly rise up and seize power, they are brutally put down in the end.
Ironically, during the course of their uprising, a TV monitor in the background features happy-talk "Versailles TV" news anchors, who continually vilify the Communards and rationalize the government's brutal acts of supression.
"La Commune" is a must-see for students of history, and a must-see for students of the media.