The Spanish Prisoner

The mockumentary, I’m Still Here, is part of a hoax carried out by Joaquin Phoenix with the help of Casey Affleck. The idea was to convince people that Phoenix had quit acting in order to become a hip-hop artist. Since rumors immediately began to circulate that the whole thing was hoax, it can’t be said to have been very successful. Its main result is this film, ostensibly a documentary following Phoenix during the roughly yearlong period when he was supposedly pursuing a career in hip-hop. In it, Phoenix portrays himself as a sleazy and unpleasant character. We see him snorting cocaine, picking up prostitutes, and spewing verbal abuse at the people around him. There are moments that are clearly meant to be shocking: we see a man defecate on Phoenix’s face, and there’s an extended scene of Phoenix throwing up into a toilet. One of the jokes in the film is supposed to be that Phoenix is unaware that he’s terrible as a hip-hop artist. (The best thing in this film is the expression on Sean “Diddy” Combs’s face while he’s listening to some of Phoenix’s recordings.) There are a few funny moments, but overall I just found this movie annoying. The irony of all this is that Phoenix’s clumsy and heavy-handed parody of celebrity self-absorption and narcissism leaves one suspecting that perhaps he really is self-absorbed and narcissistic, just not in the way that’s shown in this film.

Animal Kingdom is an Australian crime film that, I’m told, is loosely based on real events. It tells the story of ‘J’ (James Frecheville), a teenager, who, when his mother dies of a heroin overdose, is forced to move in with his criminally inclined relatives. These include coke-snorting Uncle Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), creepy Uncle Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), and the family matriarch, Mama Smurf (Jacki Weaver). J tries to keep himself aloof from their criminal activities. When, however, a family friend, Baz (Joel Edgerton), is killed by a cop, Pope demands that the family take revenge, and J finds himself drawn into the family’s violence. He eventually tells everything to the police, but his family persuade a crooked cop to try to kill him. The film ends with a twisted version of the return of the prodigal son.

Like Winter’s Bone, Animal Kingdom is about the difficult choices an individual must make to survive in a corrupt world. J finds that he can’t rely on the police any more than he can rely on his family. His only hope is to play the two sides off each other.

Although the acting is all very good, Jacki Weaver steals the film as Mama Smurf. One can sense the cold-bloodedness that underlies her relentless cheeriness. Very creepy.

Highly recommended

The French director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, makes fantasies that are aimed at adults. In that sense, he’s sort of a cinematic E.T.A. Hoffmann. His latest film, Micmacs tells the story of Bazil (Dany Boon), an orphan whose father was killed by a land mine. When a shooting takes place outside the video store where Bazil works, he is struck in the head by a stray bullet. When he leaves the hospital with the bullet permanently lodged in his head, he finds that he has lost his job. He tries to support himself by working as a street performer, until he is befriended by a street vendor and former criminal, Pacard (Jean-Pierre Marielle). The latter takes him to a junkyard, where he introduces him to the Micmacs, a “family” of oddballs living in a sort of cave made out of junk. There they collect discarded items and turn them into useful objects or works of art. Bazil is welcomed into the group. One day, while out collecting scrap, he finds himself between two buildings. One is the headquarters of the company that made the mine that killed his father, the other is the company that made the bullet that is lodged in his head. Bazil then persuades the other Micmacs to help him get revenge on these two companies.

Micmacs is permeated with a uniquely French type of whimsicality, while it deals with a serious topic, the international arms market. The film’s aim is too broad to really make an effective statement. I nevertheless found it highly entertaining.

Get Low tells the story of Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), a hermit who has lived alone in the woods for forty years. He is the subject of many rumors among people in the nearby town. One day he tells the local undertaker, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) and his assistant, Buddy Robinson (Lucas Black), that he wants to have his funeral while he’s still alive. This “funeral” will actually be a party, at which people will be invited to tell whatever stories they have heard about him. Soon, however, it becomes clear that Bush’s real intention to reveal a dark secret from his past.

I mostly liked Get Low, but I had a few problems with it. For example, some of the townspeople show an extreme hostility towards Bush that really isn’t explained. Also, it turns out that Bush’s only close confidant is a Black preacher (Bill Cobbs). I found this a bit of a stretch, since the film takes place in the South during the 1930’s. And in one scene an elderly preacher says that his mother used to call gossip “the devil’s radio”. Since radios didn’t become common until the 1920’s, I found this something of an anachronism. On the other hand, I liked that there wasn’t a flashback when Bush reveals his secret. Instead, Bush relates everything in a monologue, which was more powerful than a flashback would have been. Duvall turns in a good performance, and Murray displays his usual wry charm.

As a dialectical materialist, I must guiltily confess that I’m a sucker for ghost movies. (My two favorites are The Uninvited and Dead of Night.) That’s why I went to see the Irish film, The Eclipse, even though the trailer didn’t look promising.

Michael Farr (Ciarán Hinds) is a teacher living in Cobh, Ireland. He’s been seeing his father-in-law’s ghost, which is quite disturbing, especially since his father-in-law’s not dead. Farr is a volunteer for that city’s annual literary festival. His job to chauffeur Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), who writes books about ghosts, around town. (In one scene, Morelle tells him that her belief in ghosts led her to study particle physics. Uh, yeah.) Farr confides in her about his visions. Morelle is being pursued by her ex-lover, Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn), a novelist. A sort of romantic triangle soon develops between the three.

I found The Eclipse an unsatisfying film. At the end, it’s not clear whether Farr was actually seeing ghosts or whether he was just having nightmares. The film uses sudden loud noises and things like arms suddenly reaching up out of the ground to get its scary effects. This struck me as a little trite, though I have to admit that such clichés can still be viscerally effective at times.

The American has only gotten a 61% approval rating at the Rotten Tomatoes website.(The Kids Are All Right, a contrived and dishonest film, has a 96% approval rating.) I can only assume that some people don’t like understated thrillers. The American is one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year.

Jack (George Clooney) is a professional killer who travels throughout Europe. After carrying out a bloody assignment in Sweden, he goes to Rome to meet his boss. The latter sends him to a small town in Italy, where he is to await his next assignment. Ignoring his boss’s orders to keep to himself, Jack becomes romantically involved with a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido), and he becomes friends with a priest, Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli). The latter begins to act as the conscience that Jack lacks. He tells Jack that Hell is “a world without love”, the implication being that this is the world that Jack inhabits.

Jack is an expert on firearms. He is ordered to construct a rifle for another professional killer, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). As he does so, Jack begins to suspect that he is being betrayed, but he is not sure by whom or for what reason.

I said before that The American is an understated film. The dialogue is sparse, and the tension builds slowly. The director, Anton Corbijn, is highly adept at creating emotional effects with a minimum of resources. When, for example, Jack suddenly finds himself in an empty cafe, we feel his fear that he is being set up. The scenes of Jack methodically building Mathilde’s rifle serve to draw us into his world. It’s not often you see such skillfulness in a Hollywood film nowadays. Oh, and there are breathtaking shots of the Abruzzo region of Italy.

Highly recommended.

Whenever I’m watching a biopic, what’s usually uppermost in my mind is the question of how much of what I’m watching is bullshit. In the case of Princess Kaiulani, it was clear that it was almost entirely bullshit. Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, based on a novel by Chris Greenhalgh (who also wrote the screenplay), seems to have at least some bullshit in it, though how much I’m not sure.

The film starts out promisingly, with a depiction of the disastrous premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring in 1913, at which the police had to be called in to prevent a full-scale riot. (The filmmakers recreate Nijinsky’s controversial choreography.) The film then jumps to the year 1920. Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) is introduced to Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) at a party. She invites him and his family to stay at her villa outside Paris. Stravinsky, who is living in straitened financial circumstances at the time, can’t afford to say no. Shortly after he and his family move in, he begins having an affair with Chanel. Eventually she demands that he leave his wife, Catherine (Elena Morozova). Stravinsky waffles. Finally Catherine, who has learned of the affair, decides the issue by leaving with her children. However, Chanel rejects Stravinsky at this point, apparently because she’s disenchanted with his indecisiveness. She nevertheless provides the funding for a new performance of The Rite of Spring.

The idea behind this movie apparently is that the love affair between Chanel and Stravinsky inspired them both to new levels of creativity. I didn’t really get this impression from the film, however, because Stravinsky mostly just revises The Rite of Spring. (Though Chanel does invent Chanel No. 5, which is something, at least.) I found it hard to become emotionally engaged with this film. Chanel comes across as cold and Stravinsky as self-absorbed. Perhaps they were like that in real life, but this doesn’t make for a compelling romantic film. I think I would have liked this picture better if it had shown more about the Parisian music scene of the time, instead of being so focused on the alleged romance between the title characters. Still the opening scene alone is almost worth the price of admission.

Hollywood doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to films about gays. The contrived and unconvincing Brokeback Mountain was considered a breakthrough. Now we have another contrived and unconvincing film, The Kids Are All Right, which has also been a subject of critical praise.

Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) are a lesbian couple who have each had a child from an anonymous sperm donor. Their children, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson), are now teenagers. When Joni turns eighteen, Laser persuades her to get in contact with their biological father. He turns out to be Paul (Mark Ruffalo), a charming and somewhat raffish character. Joni and Laser take an immediate liking to him. Through them he eventually meets Jules and Nic. Jules has just started a landscaping business, and Paul hires her to work on his yard. They begin to have an affair. Obviously this is a situation fraught with all sorts of possiblities, but the film veers into melodrama when Nic finds out about their relationship. In the film’s climatic scene, Nic righteously tells Paul that he is an “interloper” in their family – a silly thing to say, since it was her family that first approached Paul.

So, this film ends up being a cautionary tale about the need to defend the lesbian nuclear family against home-wreaking sperm donors. In attempting to depict a lesbian family, the film reverts to a tired Hollywood formula.

Another thing that bothered me about this film is that in one scene Jules fires an employee whom she suspects of knowing about her affair with Paul. She later justifies this by claiming that he was a drug addict. The film treats this sleazy behavior as a minor character flaw. This only makes the film’s melodrama even more distasteful.

Winter’s Bone, which was written and directed by Debra Granik, based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, is set in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri. It tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), whose father is a crystal meth maker. Because her father is not around much of the time, she has to take of her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister. The sheriff tells her that her father has put up her family’s farm as bond for an upcoming court appearance. If he fails to show, they will lose their farm. Ree sets out to find her father to make sure that he goes to court. However, her questions about her father’s whereabouts are greeted with hostility from almost everyone she meets. She gradually come to the conclusion that her father has been murdered.

There are no good guys vs. bad guys in this film. Almost everyone Ree meets is either directly or indirectly involved in the meth business. The local law enforcement proves to be corrupt. Ree shows no interest in finding justice for her father; she only wants to save her family’s farm.

Winter’s Bone is about the difficult choices individuals have to make to survive in a society that has become thoroughly corrupt. Although a bleak film, it shows a deep sympathy for its characters. I was impressed by the acting, which I found thoroughly convincing.

Highly recommended.