Into the Wild, November 20, 2007

There’s a bit of stuff that I could nitpick here. I didn’t like the way that the direction used somewhat trite quotes and then enlarged the words until they filled the entire screen, to emphasize that something was VERY IMPORTANT. I also didn’t like the way some scenes were intercut like strobe lighting for effect. But, then again, this is not a particularly subtle movie. And usually I dislike things that are not subtle, but this one I could get on board with, primarily because I agreed wholeheartedly with what the movie was trying to say.

There’s a lot that I could relate to. As a young(ish) person, trying to find your own identity, with a family you can’t do much about one way or the other, it’s always hard to find a good balance. But the fact of the matter is you have to strike a balance, because you need family and friends in order to have a fulfilling life. Nobody can possibly be completely isolated, otherwise special moments, and special things, and even yourself as an individual, are meaningless. This movie shows an evolution to this realization, which unfortunately for the protagonist comes a bit too late.

In a lot of ways, Into the Wild reminded me of Grizzly Man. The main difference in character and motivation, though, is that while Timothy Treadwell was obviously delusional and insane, Christopher McCandress was extremely angry. And it took a long time for that rage to subside, but it would have, in the end, because he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t completely crazy. He didn’t give himself that chance, though. It was reiterated that he was uncompromising towards himself, and in his standards for other people. But by the time he fully learned that compromise and love are essential for a decent human life, he was stranded in Alaska with no way to escape.
He brought it upon himself, though, so in a way he deserved what he got. We can’t all be Thoreau, who walked from Walden Pond back into Concord most every day to hang out with his friends and get his mommy to do his laundry. We can’t all have the luxury of making a statement while keeping our lives fairly normal and stable. But I got the impression that this guy was so extreme and uncompromising that he wouldn’t have been able to act like Thoreau, even if he’d tried. Plus, he didn’t like mommy all that much anyway.

General comments about things I did like about the direction: gorgeous cinematography, really good music, the way items and images tied together different parts of the movie. The acting was rather indifferent, but that might have been because the screenplay wasn’t that good. But, as a whole, one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, that will probably stick with me long after I forget the details of more artsy or subtle movies.

Eastern Promises, November 3, 2007

Whatever I said about David Cronenberg after I saw Spider, forget it. At least, forget it if he keeps coming out like the shit that was Eastern Promises. Bad bad bad bad bad. Russian underworld? That could definitely make a good movie. Especially starring Aragorn. We like Aragorn. And London is good. Aragorn + London + Russian underworld. Sounds like a good plan. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, where to start, where to start.

We could begin with a pretentious voiceover reading of a diary written by a 14-year-old who came to the land of opportunity (or England. No accounting for taste.) with the promise of being a lounge singer and instead got sold into prostitution. And she got raped! And beaten! And injected with heroin so she couldn’t leave! And then she was pregnant! Did we mention she was a virgin when she got raped! And the baby’s father was the head of the Russian Mob! It might sound like I’m just being facetious here, but seriously, international sex slavery stories are pretty well known to the type of audience who would be going to see this movie, and there’s absolutely no need to preach to the choir, especially in such a dogmatic, overdramatic way.

Then there’s the Naomi Watts character. Naomi Watts annoys the hell out of me, because she plays these women who are supposed to be strong and independent individuals (e.g. 21 Grams.) But, she’s Naomi Watts. She’s about 90 pounds and blond. She crinkles up her nose and looks like an angry Miss Piggy and in this movie, she comes with a Russian motorbike and black leather. How badass is that. Strong, independent woman version 2.0, now with helmet. She’s running around with the baby that the 14-year-old died delivering, trying to find out what the 14-year-old’s diary says (if only she listened to the voiceovers, then she would know!) And, really, there’s no reason she would do that except for the movie says so. No midwife would take it upon herself to figure all that shit out; at the end of the day it would suck that the girl died during delivery but shit happens when you deliver babies for a living.

Perhaps most unforgivable about Naomi Watts is that she has no chemistry whatsoever with Viggo Mortensen’s character, whose name I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He’s just Aragorn, now and forever. To not have chemistry with Aragorn is an unpardonable sin for any woman with a healthy libido. Especially considering the fact that everyone in the cinema who sits through this movie has the pleasure of seeing Aragorn in a naked knife fight with 2 evil Chechens hired to kill him, who are covered in black leather. Aragorn is covered with tattoos. It is one of the most ridiculous fight scenes I have ever seen, what with 5 minutes of full frontal Aragorn that gets bloodier and bloodier. But, the important part is that we all know what it is that she should be having chemistry with, and the fact that she doesn’t means she is not a real woman.

On the plus side, my Russian informant tells me that the most realistic character was the scion to the Russian Mob. Or, as she called him, “Standard issue Russian douchetool.”

Uncle Vanya (November 1, 2007)

Jesus fucking Christ I wanted to shoot myself in the face after this was over. Having never seen Russian drama performed before, but aware of its reputation, I knew I was not going in for a gay romp with Adolf and Eva. But I wasn’t expecting how utterly bleak the worldview presented would be.

I wonder if Chekhov believed what he was writing, or he was using it as a platform for social commentary and discussion. I sincerely hope he was using it as a platform. Because if life sucks and you work your ass off for other people who don’t appreciate you, then they show up, still don’t appreciate you, actively try to thwart your interests while completely ignoring everything you’ve done for them, leave, and everything promises to remain exactly the same…What. The. Fuck. (Note to self: after re-reading what I have just written, there’s no way Chekhov could have believed that that was OK. There’s no way that any reasonable person can believe that that is OK.)

The thing that I found most depressing about Uncle Vanya is that there was no point in the past or in the present, and no hope given for the future, that people would be happy. Everyone had been miserable before and everyone would continue to be miserable. Except for the professor everyone was working to support, that is. He would be ensconced in his sense of superiority just fine. But for everyone else, there was not even the slightest glimmer to hint at why things stayed the same, other than arbitrary duty.

There was no reason that Vanya had to spend his life toiling on the plantation other than a sense of familial responsibility that was not reciprocated by the man he was helping support. When that support is not reciprocated, but stomped upon and spat back on Vanya’s face, Vanya tries to take a stand. But this is crushed by his mother, and her sense of duty and obligation. Vanya is stuck because he never set out on his own – but I am sure that he never thought his life would turn out to be so worthless as it ended up being. Maybe there was hope originally, when he was young. But by the time the play takes place, it is gone.

With Long Day’s Journey into Night, at least it is made clear that everyone used to be happy, that the fucked up family was once life worth living. With Uncle Vanya, that is not the case. Maybe it’s a difference in American as opposed to Russian cultural outlook. Maybe Americans fool themselves for a time before life sets in and becomes nasty, and Russians take it for granted that life will be entirely nasty. But, speaking as a self-fooling American here – why does it have to be that way? And does it?

Spider (October 30, 2007)

Before this, the only David Cronenberg film I had seen was “A History of Violence,” which I loved for many reasons. The slow creepy slope of its plotline. Aragorn’s re-descent into the carnal being we all knew he was. The awesome shootout at the end. Ed Harris getting his brains blown out. But, I had avoided seeing any of his other movies. This was largely because while living in Canada I grew very resistant to and annoyed by the way Canadians champion their countrymen who succeed internationally and emphasize that they are, in fact, Canadian. Not American. Definitely not American. Now that I’m not in Canada I’m reading Alice Munro and watching David Cronenberg, and loving them both.

I don’t want to spoil Spider for anybody who wants to see it, because it was really fucking good. A big part of it being so good was that for about the first 2/3 of the movie I had no idea what was going on – what was fantasy, what was reality, what was flashback, what was some combination therein – and then it all clicked and was amazingly poignant and sad. This is not an easy feat for a film that essentially only has 5 characters.

It’s also one of the best depictions of schizophrenia I’ve seen on film. For sixteen months, I saw schizophrenics on a nearly daily basis while going to work at the lab, which was on the grounds of a big mental hospital in Montreal. On nice days, they would be shuffling and mumbling outside, occasionally interacting with people walking by. Asking for a cigarette. Asking what time it was. Asking if it was going to rain. Simple, sad. The violence in the movie is atypical of schizophrenics, but the confusion and sadness and loneliness and disconnect that is there, that you see when you interact with schizophrenics, was extremely well done. It’s not just crazy, it’s an inability to be a normal person, for whatever reasons, much as they may try.

It’s a very slow movie, also, so maybe that’s a Cronenberg thing. I’m not sure, I’d have to see more of his films, which I am most definitely planning on doing. It felt much longer than the hour and forty minutes that had allegedly passed when I turned my phone back on as I left the cinema.

I found it strangely satisfying at the end, despite there being no reason that it should be a satisfying movie at all. Its resolution worked, was consistent, and was not sentimental. With serious mental illness, most of the time the resolution is unfortunately not happy. Since mental illness is rarely shown in such a realistic light on film, I was glad that the resolution to the story was also realistic.

Control (October 18, 2007)

I’m not really a fan of biopics, and I’m not really a fan of tortured rock groups with a cult following. I’m not sure if this enmity is merely doubled when the two are combined. It might be squared. I’ve seen far too many “Behind the Music”s to have much empathy for these artists, whose self destruction tends to be their own doing and artistic merit questionable from the start. And, without empathy for the lead character, whose choice it was to put him self in such a central, public position in the first place, the whole structure crumbles.

But, while depressing as all hell, Control steers clear of this simple formula to actual character analysis. While not exactly sympathetic, it portrays Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, as an artist tortured by things he cannot control: his epilepsy, other people, his own desires, and needs, and the responsibility that comes with all those things. He is a deeply unhappy character, and when his unhappiness resonates with others in his form of music, he cannot keep up under the accompanying pressure – even though one would assume he wanted that recognition from the start. If he didn’t, would he not have just kept his poetry to himself and led one of countless lives of quiet desperation? It all becomes too much – to a large part because he cannot say no to anybody.

After the film, my friend commented that the right thing for Ian to do, instead of killing himself, would have been to leave both his wife and girlfriend, and start anew. But so much of his soul was tied up in both of these women, that I wonder if that would have been just a delay to an almost inevitable suicide, as his epilepsy progressed, as he found more popularity, as the fame grew…

So, he couldn’t deal with the edifice he built for himself, and the accompanying pressures that mount when things become serious. When his wife has a baby. When the band gets a tour in the US. But the thing about those kinds of pressures and responsibilities is that I don’t think you EVER realize what you are getting into in situations like that. The permanence. How very long life actually can be, and how much a lot of things can suck. But just because you don’t realize it at the time doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing; I suppose it’s how you take it, and if you like your life as it changes. Or you convince yourself you like it. Either way. Change can be scary and take you out of your comfort zone, but isn’t that what it’s supposed to do? And you adjust accordingly. I suppose that assumes one is mentally stable, though.

Interesting side note: the movie was based on a book and produced by Ian Curtis’ estranged wife. I found her character in the film to be a complete twat. If this is what the woman was actually like, no wonder he regretted his marriage. But I wonder how much of the Ian Curtis character would have actually been him, and how much would have been her 25-years-post-mortem imaginations.