Movie Magic--The Artist

Now and then you go to a movie and you find yourself cheering for the hero or heroine. You fall in love with a character (a dog for instance), and you leave the theater wondering why it all happened so fast because you want to be back in the darkness--living with those characters up on the screen one more time. . . or maybe two more times or maybe even forever. Woody Allen was on to some of that when he made The Purple Rose of Cairo--that idea of being transfixed by the cinema, of somehow making the leap through the two realities from one side of the celluloid to the other. Blending the two. This is The Artist.

Reminiscent of A Star Is Born, The Artist takes place in Hollywood at the very beginning of the talkies, when a dashing silent film star is teetering on the edge of nothingness because he’s not talkie material. A French production, starring Jean Dujardin as George Valentin (name undoubtedly not a coincidence), the film also stars the lovely Berenice Bejo as Peppy Miller, the young aspiring starlet who dazzles her way into the hearts and minds of talkie audiences. The film is mostly silent, but for a wonderful score by Mark Isham. Directed by Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist is adorably funny in parts, romantic as all get out, and simply enchanting throughout. The intelligence of Dujardin’s facial expressions--whether projecting anguish or flirtation or a myriad of other human emotions, and the fluidity of Bejo’s movements and expressive eyes weave together in a dance of movie romance as palpable and exciting as any more modern-style representation (with dialogue) could possibly be.

Dialogue is not missed; in fact, it would be an intrusion. The Artist can be thought of as a love song in homage to silent film. But it is more than that. Nostalgia for a time when faces, gestures, and music told the story. You filled in the blanks and told yourself the rest. Nostalgia for movie innocence, perhaps. No digital 3D or rash of special effects. Just a delightful story about the end of an era and the beginning of another one, the spiraling down of a career while another one is ascending, where love and devotion meet conflict straight out--the stuff that movies are made of when they’re at their very best.

And there are familiar elements of those classic heroes and heroines from the silent era (as well as the talkies) --including the role of Hollywood studio boss Al Zimmer, whose raison d’etre is (predictably) knowing what sells movie tickets. John Goodman plays the role to the hilt. He personifies the bossy studio head who idolizes whoever/whatever can make him the most money and who won't think twice about ending a career if the wind blows in another direction. Peppy Miller, who could easily be a young Ann Miller bursting with energy, and of course Jack, the trusty terrier, reminiscent of Asta of Thin Man fame.

Jack, George Valentin’s constant companion and co-star, is played to perfection by three separate, but all delightful and talented Jack Russell terriers. Jack stays by his master’s side through thick and thin and is a lesson in devotion, inventiveness, and just plain adorableness. If those dogs don’t win your heart, nothing ever will.

Cameo performance by Malcom McDowell, who plays The Butler, and a well-acted supporting role by James Cromwell (of Babe fame, along several other notable performances)

As a movie, The Artist is in a category all by itself. Not only because it’s silent, but because it contains and projects something that is perhaps the reason for our collective nostalgia: a longing for a time--real or imagined--when life was simpler and easier to understand. When what made us tick--happy or sad--was more black and white.

Biutiful

(also appears on oscarfrenzy.com)

Biutiful-- beautiful, misspelled. But ‘beautiful’ barely begins to describe this breathtaking film, which will undoubtedly receive an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. It is not too much to say that within the film are all the components of life itself. The sublime and the profane, the worst and best of human behavior. . . . the hope and trust of illegal immigrants working in an airless room, the raw pornography against the pounding disco beat of a nightclub where naked women swarm like snakes in a pit, the sweet happiness in the shining eyes of a child, the fragile beauty seen in the swirling flight of starlings in the sky. The director Alejandro González Iñárritu (who also wrote the screenplay) is known for such ‘slice of life’ gritty movies as 21 Grams, Amores Perros and Babel, which he also wrote. In Biutiful, once again he shows us a segment of society that perhaps many of us would rather not see or know too much about. And yet we look, because we know we have to. It is a version of ourselves reflected. It takes us to the underworld, where getting through the day is a challenge and heaven and hell are as inexorably linked as our own reflections in the mirror are to our beings.

How to describe such a film? It’s the story of human struggle, love, and death--in all its manifestations. Javier Bardem plays Uxbal, a man caught in a downward spiral, trapped in his own hell and that of others in his sphere. Uxbal can speak to the dead and hear them as their souls leave the earth. A victim of the corruption of the world in which he lives, he seeks to escape the manacles that chain him to eternal damnation. His entire world is caving in on him. He tries to do good, but in the process causes a situation so horrific that no man could possibly survive it unscathed. Where is salvation for this man?

To say that Javier Bardem is brilliant in this role is like saying that Michelangelo did a great job with the Sistine Chapel. Words seem like nothing more than silly off-target darts being thrown at some evasive bullseye. What Bardem achieves in this role is true art. His role reveals such depth of character, such stature of soul and empathy that it is difficult to imagine he is actually able to do what he does. Cutting into himself with a ferocity, digging so deep with a determination that very few actors of his generation or any before him could achieve. The demands of the role are excruciating. There are no ‘easy’ scenes. Each one has levels and layers, often imperceptible to us until later when we remember what we saw before and understand.

There is a scene where Uxbal is talking to his father. We don’t know it’s his father, but what strikes us is the obvious love Uxbal feels for the man. How does Bardem reveal that exactly? With a look? The tone of his voice? A lingering stare? Perhaps none of these. It is the magic of Bardem’s performance. That’s all we really know. Where the character has taken over the man who plays him. As if Bardem is but an instrument manifesting what the character Uxbal tells him to do.

Poetry in the gutter. Vulgarity revered and disemboweled. This is characteristic of much of Iñárritu’s work. And it is certainly at work here. Bardem embodies this. We see him move about his world in sweat, in blood. We can almost smell the stink of his body and yet he is a force to be dealt with. He continues with the single-mindedness of a bull in the ring. He is a man with all the emotions that make up humanity. The love he feels for his wife, his children, of life itself are seen in utter magnificence, even as he moves through the corruption of his brother’s world, his own world--looking for a way out when he knows there isn’t one.

Biutiful isn’t the kind of film you leave behind in the theater. It stays with you, gnaws at you. Because of its statement of the human condition and human existence. It’s a deeply disturbing film for this reason, because we wonder why life is difficult for some, perhaps for all of us. Uxbal knows the human condition, because he speaks to the dead. He helps them pass into the afterlife. He knows many of their stories as well as his own. He is a metaphor for humanity.

Painfully demanding, almost impossible to play in parts, the role of Uxbal should earn Javier Bardem the Oscar for Best Actor. In fact, it's a pity that other actors are competing in the same category, because Bardem’s performance is in a category all its own.

Blue Valentine

(also appears on oscarfrenzy.com)

Not so much a story as a study of a relationship, Blue Valentine, directed by Derek Cianfrance (who bears a certain likeness to Ryan Gosling) excels in the powerful performances by its two stars--Michelle Williams, who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in the film, and Gosling, whose fluid, heart-wrenching performance was ignored by the Academy.

There are little pieces of magic throughout the movie--including several scenes between Dean (Gosling), and his daughter Frankie, played convincingly by seven-year-old Faith Wyladyka. (Some of their moments together seem entirely unscripted.) But it is the scenes chronicling some of the early days of the relationship between Cindy and Dean that are the most touching. Little moments shown through glances, dialogue, and touch that evoke that inimitable freshness and abandon of love in bloom, where the attraction and connection are so all-encompassing that everything around it fades into a hazy and nearly non-existent backdrop. One of these scenes is featured in the trailer for the film. Cindy and Dean are slightly drunk and cutting up by the entrance of a store--he’s playing his banjo and singing “goofy” to her, while she dances to the song. She’s giddy and happy, taking his direction as he sings his love song to her. Aptly enough, the song is “You Always Hurt the One You Love.”

Blue Valentine is mostly about the disintegration of relationship told through a collage of scenes depicting then and now. It could be called, Scenes from A Marriage, but in spite of moments that are near-perfect in their holding a mirror to reality, Blue Valentine lacks the psychological depth of Bergman’s film.

That said, many of the scenes so starkly depict the sadness and desperation of Dean and Cindy, that you wish you had the power to change things for these two people who seem to have made a wrong turn and can’t find their way back home. You find fault with one and then the other, and then neither one. Two people who evolve in ways that shouldn’t be a surprise to either of one of them, but somehow have become the sources of contention, resentment, and desperation. But as we observe their past and their present--zig-zagged before us, we also find ourselves wondering how exactly they got to where they are now and why they can’t get past it.

When Dean and Cindy spend a night in a sex motel, it becomes a metaphor for their relationship. It’s a gritty place, where they drink, they talk, and what transpires between them can as easily go in one direction as the other. Clearly at a stage when things are falling apart, we see images/scenes depicting the sweetness of what used to be crosscut with the present.

Blue Valentine is overloaded with interspersing scenes that illustrate the character’s state of mind or situation as it contrasts with an earlier one. In the “Future Room” at the sex motel. Cindy is on the floor, and Dean, urging her to give in to his sexual advances, reminds her that he’s been good to her and deserves his attention. When she continues to resist, even revealing disgust, he asks if she wants to be slapped. And she says yes. And we jump to a night where there is another kind of slapping. It’s in the early days of their relationship, when drunk and silly, they slap and make love on the sidewalk. Then we jump back again to the motel. It’s a heart-wrenching scene, where Cindy is at once disengaged and engaged, and Dean is desperately trying to bring them back to something in a “fantasy” room that feels wrong from the get-go. If anything, the fantasy room brings them to the stark reality of where they are. And the fantasy room is in the ‘blue’ realm, harking back to terms like “blue movies.”

The frequent zig-zagging in Blue Valentine between then and now is often distracting, even annoying. Especially when you want to latch onto something for continuity. And just when you get interested and want the story to go further in that direction, you’re catapulted forwards or backwards in time.

There’s something about Blue Valentine that feels unfinished, unresolved. It leaves off as if in the middle of a chord. You exit the theater wanting something more than what you got, or maybe something other than what was given. Something perhaps the characters didn’t tell you or that the director didn’t let you see, because again--it wasn’t a story, it was a study.

Blue Valentine-- not the pretty red and pink ones we associate with Valentine’s Day. It’s a sad and blue one, where memories of younger days of love and happiness are weighted down with sadness and desperation. Where yesterday’s Valentines sing the blues. . .

The King's Speech

(originally appeared on oscarfrenzy.com)

Prince Albert, Duke of York (“Bertie”, as he was called by his family) was a man of privilege to be sure, but that didn’t mean he had it particularly easy. From the time he was a child, he was plagued with a debilitating speech impediment, which made him horribly self-conscious and uneasy in public situations. He was the target of his brother’s derision growing up, an unfortunate dynamic that continued into the brothers’ adult years. And then, taken completely off-guard, Bertie is thrown into the role of King of England when his brother Edward abdicates the throne in order to marry the lady from Baltimore. So now Bertie’s speech, which is soon to become ‘the King’s speech’, is more important than ever.

It is Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth, played with elegance and sensitivity by Helen Bonham Carter, who finds the speech teacher, and who supports Bertie with unwavering devotion, patience, and love as he tries to overcome his speech impediment. A remarkable and entirely unexpected friendship evolves between Bertie, played exquisitely by Colin Firth, and his eccentric speech teacher, Lionel Logue, a struggling actor whose unorthodox methods begin to demonstrate their efficacy when during their first meeting, Bertie follows Logue's directions and speaks over music without a trace of stuttering. Meanwhile Logue, played brilliantly by Geoffrey Rush, records Bertie. And at the end of the session, Logue slips the recording into Bertie's hands. Later in the privacy of his own study, Bertie listens to the sound of his voice without the stutter--in a heartwarming moment of timid delight.

Logue is not an easy person to deal with initially. He insists that Bertie come to his residence/studio, rather than the other way around, as would be expected. This is the case even when it is pronounced that Bertie will become King George VI. Without ever losing respect for the King, Logue reaches straight for the man who wears the crown, not the crown that adorns the man. And it is this dynamic between the two of them that sets up a unique and remarkable friendship.

Director Tom Hopper, who directed the exquisite period piece made for TV, Daniel Deronda, does an exquisite job in defining the personalities of his two dominant characters in The King’s Speech - Bertie and Logue. But what is a director without his actors? Bertie and Logue play off each other like seasoned fencing champions. Through anguish, grueling effort, and perseverance--one teaches the other methods for trying to circumvent a nasty speech impediment. And in the process, it is not only the King’s speech that undergoes a change, but the King himself.

It’s a demonstration of hard love. Logue is relentless, stopping at nothing in pursuit of his student’s progress. As their relationship evolves, we watch the goings-on with amusement sometimes, such as when George follows Logue’s instruction and hurls a stream of foul language into the air, a device Logue has taught him in the hopes of preventing the stuttering. And we watch and listen with mounting tension and baited breath as King George VI delivers his most important speech of all - his address to the British Nation, immediately after declaring war on Hitler. With the enormous pressure of the moment, will the King be able to speak without the stutter? Or not?

Firth’s performance is masterful, but that is but a word. His performance reaches a state of being that is essentially a transformation. There is no actor. There is only the man, with all the miseries and doubts and other human traits that we recognize revealed in beautifully nuanced mannerisms and depth. And Rush’s dazzling performance as the irreverent and unrelenting teacher is so genuine that you are uplifted by it--the sheer generosity of it. Spoken through the eyes, his unerring attention and devotion reach far beyond the screen and into our hearts.

An Oscar contender to be sure, The King’s Speech was nominated for Golden Globe Awards in multiple categories, including Best Actor (for which Colin Firth won the award), Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay (David Seidler, The King and I), and Best Original Score (Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). It’s the kind of film that could easily sweep the Oscars. It’s a riveting story, with both heart and class. It’s a period piece. It’s motivational--demonstrating what hard work and persistence can achieve, and it’s an interesting look at the behind the scenes activity during a bit of contemporary history. Even if we don’t remember it, our parents or grandparents do. And it gives us that feel-good sensation that good ‘big’ movies can give us, where we want to stand up and cheer for the heroes, knock down the villains, laugh at the idiots, and hug those who meet obstacles head-on and deserve to win-whether they do or not.

Brothers

Enjoying a movie requires a certain amount of suspension of belief. After all, we are glimpsing into the lives of characters we've just met. And we are given only two hours or so to grasp it all. When a movie works, we are drawn into the story to such an extent that the boundaries of time become meaningless. The missing pieces fall into place and we manage to forget that what we are watching is a representation of events and human interaction, and not the actuality. For those two hours in the dark, we are “there.”

Brothers is a powerful movie that addresses many sweeping themes—loyalty, nationalism, guilt, desire, forgiveness, redemption. Tobey Maguire is Captain Sam Cahill, the prodigal son, a decorated Marine who takes his job very seriously and is devoted to the men under his command. Maguire delivers a tour de force performance, stretching into realms of human emotion he has not had the chance before to deliver. And he clearly has the talent and strength to do it. More than anyone in the movie, Maguire releases his ego to his character so completely that we easily forget we are watching an actor and not a soldier bearing the lasting damage of physical and emotional torture.

Happily married to his high school sweetheart Grace, (Natalie Portman), Sam is redeployed to Afghanistan. Shortly after, his plane is shot down and he is believed to be dead. The dreadful news is delivered to his wife. And here the dichotomy in the movie begins. We see the reality of Sam’s horrific circumstances in the hands of the Taliban. And we see Grace’s reality back home, where somehow her house is bright, her hair and clothes look great in a very ‘natural’ way, and she even begins to feel a convenient attraction to Sam’s brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), the attractive black sheep of the family, recently released from prison.

The scenes in Afghanistan are gritty and believable. We hold our breath as we are reminded that war is not simple and that untold horrors are the rule, not the exception. Many of the scenes back home lose that sense of truth. They are too Hollywood—the colors too rich, the ‘tra la la’ quality of some of the domestic scenes just fitting into place so nicely. As good and thought provoking as the overall theme of the movie is, the implausibility of these events and situations interferes with the power of the film, preventing us from being entirely drawn in. Too many scenes are cutesy, convenient, disjointed; it’s as if we’re viewing two disparate treatments of reality combined into one film. One being cinema verite, the other being melodrama. As a result, the suspension of belief we initially felt about the harsh reality of war's collateral damage on the battlefield and at home is interrupted.

Another issue is the sense of time. It isn’t clear how much time has elapsed from Sam’s departure to his plane being shot down. Nor is it clear how much time before Tommy becomes a fixture in the household and a relationship is developing between him and Grace. You would think this would take considerable time, considering that she, along with her two daughters, used to despise him.

Natalie Portman’s performance is flawed in the same way as the movie itself. She is at times too perfect and too reminiscent of the glossy star of a teen movie. She is at her best in the emotionally charged scenes where she doesn’t seem so concerned with delivering the fetching smile and alluring toss of her hair. Too often in this movie, her beauty seems to get in the way.

Directed by Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot), Brothers is likely to garner some Oscar attention—-most notably for Maguire’s powerful performance. Sam Shepard as Hank Cahill, the Vietnam vet, who carries his own set of emotional war wounds, delivers an understated and believable performance as a father who overtly favors one son over the other. And Bailee Madison, as Isabelle, one of Sam and Grace’s two daughters, is a talented young actress we are sure to see again. Brothers is based on Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's Brødre, released in Seattle in 2005.

In spite of its flaws, Brothers is a powerful statement of the extent of damage caused by war—beyond the battlefield—not only the damage to those who fight the war, but to those who wait for them and reunite with them back home. And at a time when the escalation of the war in Afghanistan is imminent, the movie reminds us that war destroys way more than the enemy.

Bright Star

Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion (The Piano), is visually lovely, but as a cinema experience it disappoints. The film is composed of a stream of pastoral scenes set in a country estate in Hampstead, England in the early 1800s—an ongoing collage of beauty. Soft breezes that come in through the window and blow wisps of hair around the heroine’s face, joyous walks on the heath, flowers in the tall grass, snow on the grounds. But all this cannot overshadow the stops and starts of the movie and the feeling that it is going nowhere. You find yourself waiting for the story to kick in and flow, but it somehow never does.

Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and her family live next to the poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his mentor, Mr. Brown (Paul Schneider). The amorous feelings that Fanny and Mr. Keats have for each other are apparent moments after the film begins. But we are to understand relatively quickly that society’s rules regarding income and station prohibit the two from being married. In spite of that, the two refuse to exist apart. And she becomes his muse. They take walks together on the grounds, gaze at each other longingly, and sometimes they speak to each other through the lines of Keats’ poems. But if the goal was to depict a longing that is full of passion and desire, Bright Star misses.

For those of us who enjoy Keats’ poetry, it’s a treat to hear the lines spoken so well against the sumptuous and romantic background of the countryside and softly lit interiors. And it’s pleasing to observe the fashions of the times—the detail in its ruffles, crocheted shawls, gauzy sleeves, and elaborate hats. But don’t be surprised to find yourself ready for the end of the movie anytime, rather than savoring each moment like you are likely to have done watching Ms. Campion’s exquisitely sensual film, The Piano.

Shot by Greig Fraser, it is indeed the visual aspect of the movie that is Bright Star’s best part. Nature is the match for Keats’ romantic verse and letters to Ms. Brawne. Mr. Whishaw is believable as a frail poet who is plagued with a sense of failure and who loves Fanny in spite of what society tells him he cannot do. Ms. Cornish is lovely in her portrayal of Fanny—crisp, pure of heart, witty and a flirt, but unflinchingly devoted to her Mr. Keats. But to compare the depth of this performance to the one she delivered as Candy in the movie of the same name, where she played a young addict opposite Heath Ledger, we see what is perhaps missing in the movie as a whole. We are not taken in. We do not go inside the characters. What should be fire is warm at best, in spite of what we know is supposed to be the passionate, though unconsummated love between the two main characters. We are too easily able to maintain a distance from them. Nothing takes hold of our emotions for the two hours we spend in the movie theater. Rather, we leave our seats easily, exit the theater and go about our business.

Fish Tank

Slice of life and riveting, Fish Tank takes you inside the grim life of a girl who lives in a rough housing project in England’s Essex. It’s a reality show—but not the kind you see on TV. This kind is the real stuff. And it’s poetry. Beautiful. Gritty. And incredibly sexy.

Not unlike a fish tank where the creatures that swim around can see out, but are trapped within, the housing project is inhabited by people with disenchanted lives—girls who swear with the same rapid-fire fluidity as their moms and dream only of performing on rock videos, young men who emulate rap stars and two-bit criminals, their parents trapped in the confines of lost dreams or continuing delusions.

Mia (Katie Jarvis) is 15, finds escape from the drab, trapped existence she leads by dancing to hip-hop tunes and drinking booze whenever she can get her hands on it. She’s angry and wants everyone to know it. She screams and squirms, greeting most of what she encounters with personal resentment. Mia is friendless, intolerant of life around her. She was kicked out of school for reasons that are not revealed in the film. But we can easily guess why—she’s a rebel with a loud mouth and fierce exterior. When her mother, Joanne, played with unflinching realism by Kierston Wareing, asks her, angrily, "What’s your problem?" Mia responds in an outpouring of hatred and frustration, “You’re my problem.”

Mia spends much of her life moving about, angrily observing life around her. Her refuge, or temporary escape from the confines of the apartment she shares with her mother and younger sister, Tyler (Rebecca Griffiths) is going to the vacant apartment upstairs. There, wearing a hoodie and sweats, she moves in sync with the beat of rap songs she listens to from her portable CD player. Her face is mostly expressionless as she looks out the window to the world outside. Her vista seems endless. As she dances, her ponytail sways back and forth, as do her large hoop earrings. Her gaze far-reaching and unsmiling, Her hopes and dreams wordless, but resonant nevertheless.

During one of her walks into an area not far from where she lives, she spots a white horse tethered by a chain and metal lock. The area is bleak, a wasteland of trailers, dry grass. Mia’s sense of justice and the kindness she feels toward the horse is somehow a metaphor for her own life. She wants to set the horse free.

Mia is a girl with a jagged edge. A problem and obvious annoyance to her mother who seems more like a skanky older sister, Mia seems to have a certain wisdom her mother doesn’t share. When Connor, the mother’s hunky boyfriend, enters the picture, the household changes. The mother curtails her incessant badgering of her daughter. Mia is visibly taken by Joanne’s boyfriend, played so well by Michael Fessbender (Inglourious Basterds). He exudes the natural charm and irresistible sexiness of the character, as well as an element of wholesome caring, so missing in the household before his appearance. But it’s clear from early on that he has more than a wholesome interest in his supposed girlfriend’s daughter.

There is a scene where Connor takes Joanne, Mia, and her younger sister on a car ride in the country. He is taking them out of the ‘fish tank’ and no one reacts to it with more enthusiasm than Mia. When Connor plays “California Dreamin’ “ performed by Bobby Womack, we see Mia in profile, the wind from the partially open car window playing with her hair. Her expression is softer than before. There is even a hint of a smile. We catch Mia ever so subtly moving her head in time with the beat of the song. She likes it. Connor catches the look in the rearview and there is a moment shared between, a faint and tantalizing glimmer of sexuality that passes between the two that we know is a promise of what is to come.

The story moves with the swiftness and ease of a gently, sometimes turbulent flowing river. The cinematography by Robbie Ryan is breathtaking at times—not only in terms of moody skies that accentuate the feeling of the moment but in the angles. One such instance is when Connor puts Mia, who has passed out on her mother’s bed, to bed in Mia’s own room. His actions in her bedroom are seen from her viewpoint through the crook of her arm. And then we see her from the reverse angle, as if from Connor’s p.o.v.

Fish Tank is a true work of art and is the latest movie from Academy Award-winning British writer and director Andrea Arnold (Red Road), who won the coveted Palme d’Or for her film this year.

It is the film debut of Rebecca Griffiths, who plays Mia’s younger sister, Tyler. Ms. Griffiths plays her character with all the ferocity and angst of a child who, while struggling to survive in the adult world she finds herself in, seems to know on some deeper level to what degree she is being robbed of her childhood.

But the film belongs to Katie Jarvis in the role of Mia. It is her first acting role. A remarkable performer, Ms. Jarvis lives and breathes the life of Mia with an intensity that makes it seem she isn’t acting at all, but rather revealing the naked truth of who she is to the camera. Like the best screen actors, she conveys everything through her eyes. The story goes that Ms. Jarvis was discovered on an Essex train platform. She was having an argument with her boyfriend.