(February 2003 Issue)
A Quartet of Worthwhile Winter
Watching
This is my favorite time of
year, cinematically speaking. With awards season in full bloom, now
is when many of the year's most intelligent and accomplished films
are being released.
Chicago is All That Jazz and So Much
More!
Our age is the age that has epitomized the
cult of the celebrity criminal - our culture's guilty pleasure. They
appeal to us because we build them up and then we get to tear them
down.
When Kander and Ebb's dazzling musical
Chicago opened in the '70s no one was ready to believe that
celebrities had criminal potential or that in criminality lay the
power of celebrity.
When Chicago was revived on Broadway in the
mid-'90s, all of a sudden its prescient, prophetic foreshadowing from
the '70s had come to manifest itself into powerful and palpable
reality.
Now, veteran Broadway director and
choreographer Rob Marshall has made a scintillating and sexy film
that does ample justice to the musical while adding levels to the
piece that were logistically impossible on stage.
Velma Kelley (Catherine Zeta-Jones),
arrested and imprisoned for a crime of passion, is transformed into a
celebrity by her fast-talking, slick-willy of a lawyer Billy Flynn
(Richard Gere). Along comes Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) who
kills a lying, scumbag of a lover. Flynn takes on Roxie's case and
Velma is left to stew
in the possibility of the very sudden demise
of her staggering celebrity. Easy come, easy go.
But when another crime of passion by a
sultry Chicago socialite (a cameo by Lucy Liu) threatens to depose
Roxie's celebrity, she must think hard and fast to keep the spotlight
on her own shame and fame.
Chicago not only lambastes the cult of
celebrity, but also ridicules how complicit the media and the legal
system are in creating these monsters in the spotlight for our
prurient interest and entertainment.
In particular, Marshall's visualization of
"The Press Conference Rag," where Flynn completely manipulates the
media in how to write Roxie's tale of innocence and redemption is one
of the most stunning cinematic sequences in recent memory.
As the daring Velma Kelley, Catherine
Zeta-Jones is a cinematic revelation. Her singing and dancing are
energetic dynamites all the way through. She is particularly striking
in the opening number "All That Jazz."
Billy Flynn, played to perfection by Richard
Gere, reminds us precisely how charisma and manipulation don't give
the law and jurisprudence a chance in hell of triumphing towards the
betterment of our society. His rendition of the
tongue-firmly-in-cheek number "All I Care About Is Love," is alone
worth the price of admission.
But Gere's true show-stopping number, a
brilliant tap dance, comes towards the end of the film, as Flynn
works the jury like a glove-puppet in getting Roxie exonerated for
her crime. Gere's dancing and Marshall's directing are simply sublime
here.
John C. Reilly, as Roxie's doormat husband
is quietly effective as he always is. His rendition of "Mr.
Cellophane," reminiscent of an Al Jolson showstopper, is a
heartbreaker.
Queen Latifah, as the prison warden Matron
Mama Morton, displays her acting, singing and dancing chops to their
fullest. Mama Morton fills up her piggy bank with money from the
inmates in return for favors and the intimacy of their friendship.
Latifah is immensely sexy and funny when she intones all the
double-entendres in her dazzling rendition of "When You're Good To
Mama, Mama's Good To You."
But the film belongs to the stunning Renee
Zellweger who is a musical theatre revelation as she imbues Roxie
with such human strength and manipulative vulnera-bility that it is
impossible to take one's eyes off her. With no prior singing or
dancing experience, Zellweger takes center stage with such confidence
and aplomb that one can only hope to see her live on Broadway someday
soon, singing and dancing her heart out as she does here.
John Myhre's production design, Col-leen
Atwood's costumes, Martin Walsh's editing and Dion Beebe's
cinematography are all splendid. Bill Condon has created a very
imaginative screenplay for this musical, allowing the artifice of
musical theatre to work on celluloid.
Marshall's direction and choreography (in
homage to the original by Bob Fosse) are superb. Marshall, along with
Condon and Walsh, has worked to create a film in which the musical
numbers are all a part of Roxie's vivid imagination. The musical
numbers jump back and forth from lurid fantasy to exaggerated
realism, and the film works precisely because of this writing,
directing and editing conceit.
Chicago is a film that is pure cinematic
jazz. And a whole lot more! YEAH-H-H-H-H-H!
The Most Unforgettable Hours at
the Movies
Based on Michael Cunningham's
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name (published in 1998),
The Hours is an existential inquiry into the trials and
tribulations of ordinary people leading what on the surface seem
ordinary lives, when in reality they are nothing short of
extraordinary.
The Hours masterfully interweaves the lives
of three disparate yet vividly similar women living in different time
periods, whose lives are inexorably linked to the literary
masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway.
One of the women in this richly textured
story is the author of Mrs. Dalloway herself, the enigmatic and
tempestuous Virginia Woolf. Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is residing in a
London suburb in the early 1920s while trying to recuperate from deep
depressions that plagued her entire life. While in this idyllic (yet
claustrophobic to her) environment, Woolf is struggling to commence
writing Mrs. Dalloway.
Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is the second
woman in The Hours, a young wife and mother in post-World War II Los
Angeles who is just starting to read Woolf's novel. Brown is consumed
by the novel, and struggling with her own mental illness, she is
beginning to question the entire storybook existence she has chosen
to live for herself.
The third woman in this tripartite tale is
Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep), living in New York in 2001, who
seems to have become Mrs. Dalloway herself, as she is planning a
party for her friend and former lover Richard (Ed Harris), who is in
the final stages of AIDS-related mental and bodily breakdowns.
Two themes are rampant in Woolf's Mrs.
Dalloway - the idea that all lives are somehow intertwined,
literally, cosmically, karmically or in many other ways, and that
even the most seemingly ordinary lives are truly extraordinary to
those living them. These two themes are the very theses upon which
The Hours builds its existential angst and augury.
Daldry and screenplay writer David Hare have
taken Cunningham's non-linear literary masterpiece and created a
singular cinematic tapestry that is breathtaking in the subtle and
sublime ways in which it takes all the disparate threads and
cohesively and suspensefully stitches them all together.
As the film moves fluidly between the lives
of the three main women and their supporting characters, it
mesmerizingly shows us how these three lives resonate in one another
and how gestures, events and even entire lives can echo with such
bitter pain and with such sweetly profound joy.
The supporting cast is supremely matched to
the three leading ladies and as such, the entire ensemble is one of
the most accomplished and most stunning ever assembled in
contemporary cinema. Ed Harris who plays Richard, Clarissa's
ex-lover, Allison Janney who plays Clarissa's lover Sally, Jeff
Daniels who plays Richard's ex, and Claire Danes as Clarissa's
daughter all turn in strong supporting roles.
John C. Reilly and Jack Rovello, as Laura
Brown's husband and son respectively, turn in touching and stoic
performances, neither hitting a false note ever. The amazing Toni
Collette, who plays Laura's bubbly friend Kitty, who has just found
out she has cancer, epitomizes the ideal of the '50s when reality and
pain had to be stuffed away underneath a veneer of painted smiles and
pretend happiness.
Miranda Richardson, playing Vanessa Bell,
Woolf's sister, is marvelous as always. Richardson effectively
struggles with the support for her depressed sister with her
frustration over not knowing how to completely cure her talented
sibling.
While the entire supporting cast is
stunning, it is Stephen Dillane's turn as Leonard Woolf, Virginia's
stern yet supportive husband, that is a dazzling piece of acting.
Dillane's subtle displays of love coupled with his outbursts of
frustra-tion at his wife's inability to get better are heartrendingly
real. Dillane's performance here is a real revelation, and while
Harris is getting all the supporting actor nods thus far, it will be
a shame if Dillane is not recognized for his brilliant work.
And then there's the three leading ladies
themselves. Each one is supreme in her own right and to have all
three in the same film seems like a cinematic guilty-pleasure of
hedonistic proportions.
Kidman as Woolf, isn't afraid to deglamorize
herself with a prosthetic nose, wrinkled and freckled hands, and a
raspy, base voice. Kidman is simply getting better with each role,
and here she brings such depth and dignity to one of the most
recognizable feminist icons, that one is left completely in
awe.
Julianne Moore, who has already turned in
one of the year's best performances in Todd Haynes' dazzling Far From
Heaven, gets to play yet another 1950s woman, struggling with
repression and the stifling claustrophobia of suburban motherhood and
domesticity.
And then there's Streep, who with this role
should become the most Oscar nominated actor (male or female) of all
time. Her Clarissa is such a complex muse of a woman who is
struggling with the seemingly exorbitant ennui of her every-day
existence. Streep is an actress of such subtlety and depth that one
expects great-ness from her, yet one is always amazed at how much
depth and layering she is able to imbue her characters with. Philip
Glass's score is evocative and moving, though at times it seems just
a little bit too over the top, drawing undue attention to itself.
Daldry's directing is sure-footed, well-paced, and dazzlingly fluid.
He is clearly emerging as an important director of contemporary
cinema, and I for one can't wait to see what he has to offer
next.
The Hours will leave you breathless, not
only by the artistry of the entire cast and creative team, but also
by the sheer humanity that it explores with such sensitivity, humor
and soulful depth. The film's exploration of life, death and
depression is so attentively dealt with that by the end, one leaves
the cinema completely uplifted. As Woolf herself believed, sometimes
someone has to die to remind others how to live.
Virginia Woolf's voice-over ends the film
with this: "Remember the hours. Always, remember the hours." I will.
I always will. With such brilliance in every frame, how could one
not?
Nicholson and Nickleby
Delight
A big screen version of Charles
Dickens' Nicholas
Nickleby is a sumptuous adaptation,
and most of the film works well, providing plenty of pleasurable
entertainment. Dickens' novels are hard to pare down for film, yet
writer and director Douglas McGrath has done an admirable job.
This Nicholas Nickleby has assembled a
marvelous ensemble. Nathan Lane, up to his bubbly, lovable self,
plays Vincent Crummles, a theatrical director who helps out Nicholas
and Smike (Jamie Bell) in their journey to find justice and a safe
home. Lane is flowery, funny and fabulous as he fumbles around with
his amateur cast of actors in mounting a humorous production of the
Bard's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
Playing Lane's on-screen wife is Dame Edna
Everage (Barry Humphrey's alter ego). As Mrs. Crummles, Dame Edna is
a period version of her more contemporary drag persona ,and together
with Lane, she is a complete hoot.
Jim Broadbent as the one-eyed mon-strosity,
Mr. Wackford Squeers, who runs a boy's orphanage in England amidst
the chaos of the Industrial Revolution, is pure evil and brilliantly
hateful. Juliet Stevenson is equally despicable as his stern and
humorless wife. Christopher Plummer as Ralph Nickleby, the evil uncle
of the hero is in top form. He steals every scene as he struggles to
destroy his nephew and to maintain his own status, power and
wealth.
Jamie Bell, the brilliant young actor who
was prodigiously brilliant in Billy Elliot, is amazing as the
crippled Smike, once again turning in a very accomplished piece of
acting. His every glance and nuance is pitch perfect. On the other
hand, lead actor Charlie Hunnam, while handsome and physically
commanding, is unfortunately rather wooden as he struggles to find
the humanity and layers in Nicholas.
Nevertheless, Nicholas Nickleby is
definitely worth watching. The second half moves along more deftly,
and all the production values from the costumes and art direction to
the cinematography and the score are masterful ingredients of this
film.
About Schmidt is a cinematic version of Grant Wood's iconic
painting American Gothic. In that painting, a farming couple stand
still, looking the viewer directly in the eye. They epitomize hard
working and serene rural America and yet, in and behind them lurks
something deeper, perhaps even ominous.
Based on Louis Begley's novel, writers
Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor have painted a similar vision of
Midwestern Americana, where Warren G. Schmidt, an actuarial
specialist (at the symbolic Woods-men of America Insurance Company in
Omaha, Nebraska), finds that his life of serene routines and personal
mediocrity is thrown into flux: first by his retirement and then by
the sudden death of Helen, his wife of forty-two years.
Schmidt, in reexamining the meaning of life
at the ripe old age of 66, ends up on two
new journeys: first, after watching an
infomercial, he becomes a foster parent to Ndugu, a Tanzanian orphan;
and second, he piles into his Winnebago and takes an extended road
trip to Denver where his daughter Jeannie is marrying Randall, a bed
salesman with a hairdo resembling road kill.
Schmidt, in addition to the monthly check of
$22 that he sends for Ndugu, also sends the orphan personal letters
detailing the trials and tribulations of his rather humdrum
existence. These letters provide the film with a lot of humorous
fodder as two disparate worlds collide.
His road trip, like all such cinematic
ventures, leads Schmidt towards an existential examination of his
life, his marriage, and his impact on the world after he is gone. He
returns from his daughter's wedding firmly convinced that his
existence has not bettered the world one bit. But, a touching ending
proves otherwise.
As Schmidt, Payne's Midwestern Every-man,
Jack Nicholson is brilliant. He is a modern day Willy Loman, a man
caught up in the everyday ennui yet searching for something
extraordinary to do, so that his life may amount to something, if
only infinitesimally. Nicholson turns in one of his most mature and
nuanced performances of comedic genius and palpable pathos.
Hope Davis as Jeannie and Dermot Mulroney as
Randall are impeccably real as a couple on the verge of marriage and
a nervous breakdown. Kathy Bates, as Randall's mother, is
pitch-perfect as a Bohemian divorcee whose penchant for straight talk
is both disarming and downright embarrassing.
Kudos to Payne for directing a film that
hones in beautifully, not simply on the Midwestern state of mind, but
also on the existential angst of people in the twilight of their
lives. And many, many kudos to Nicholson and Bates, who are not
afraid
to show aging in all its naked truth -
literally and emotionally. They bare body and soul, not only to
challenge Hollywood's eternal obsession with physical perfection, but
also to challenge our ideas that old age is an automatic death
sentence. About Schmidt reminds us of the adage that "we don't stop
laughing when we grow old, but we grow old because we stop laughing."
[
e-mail
kaizaadkotwal@yahoo.com
(January 2003 Issue)
The Ubiquitous Towers Two: The
Uninspired Trash that is Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New
York"
It is with a most heavy heart
and with many a tear in my eyes that I announce the demise of one of
the greatest cinematic talents we have ever known. I am heartbroken
and in a deep, dark grief over the death of one of the greatest
directing talents contemporary cinema has known. I am speaking of
none other than über-talent Martin Scorsese.
Well, Marty isn't actually dead, in the
corporeal sense. But his latest debacle, Gangs of New York
proves that his talent, his vision and his cinematic spirit are both
feet at least six feet underground! Gangs of New York is, bar none,
one of the worst films in recent memory. I am fully aware that I am
flying well in the face of conventional opinions out there, but
someone has to tell the truth about this awful piece of tripe
masquerading as a great cinematic epic.
Scorsese has developed for himself such an
aura of reverence that many critics feel that slamming his work comes
across as ignorant, plebian and not with it, so to speak. They feel
that if they don't get Marty's work, they'll be exposed as cinematic
ignoramuses. After all, everything his genius touches has to be a
masterpiece. Well, Gangs of New York is anything but.
The film has been in the making for a long
time. It became one of his pet projects and has had a multitude of
difficulties with production. Even after it was produced, the film
sat in the can and on the shelves at Miramax for two years before its
December 2002 release. Scorsese has been obsessed with this project
for years and sometimes obsessions such as this can be very
detrimental for the film as a whole. Remember what happened to Oprah
Winfrey's obsession with her pet project of Beloved - a messy film at
best, an utter bore and financial quicksand at worst.
Gangs of New York tells the story of, as the
film's promotional tagline suggests, how "America Was Born On The
Streets." Set in the mid-to-late-1800s in New York, Gangs is a
potentially powerful tale about the immigration dilemma that has both
plagued and blessed America since its inception with the arrival of
the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Scorsese's self-proclaiming "epic" (read:
"we want many Oscars!") tells the tale of an area in New York City
called "The Five Points," the breeding ground of a lot of ethnic
divisions, much gang-bred violence and a healthy dose of political
corruption. In particular, Scorsese uses this historical era upon
which to build his fictional tale of an evil man called Bill the
Butcher (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) and a good lad, Amsterdam Vallon
(played by the recently ubiquitous Leonardo DiCaprio).
The Butcher belongs to the indigenous
residents of Five Points while Amsterdam belongs to the then arriving
waves of Irish immigrants. The strife between the locals and the
immigrants was enormous. The Butcher holds sway over the Five Points
area by brutally mistreating the Irish and other immigrants, by
running a ring of criminals who must give him a generous cut of the
loot, and by getting in bed with the most influential politicians,
people he happily blackmails and willfully uses to maintain and
aggrandize his power.
Amsterdam and the Butcher share a violent
past. In trying to establish who belonged in Five Points, Bill the
Butcher and Amsterdam's father, Priest Vallon, had once fought a
bloody and ferocious battle for ultimate rule. Amsterdam's gang
fiercely and swiftly vanquished Vallon's Irish hordes and the Butcher
brutally felled Priest Vallon. The young Amsterdam witnessed the gory
massacre of his father and after years in reform school, he returns
to the Five Points to figure out what it means to be a man.
When he gets back to the place where he was
orphaned, Amsterdam tries to blend in incognito. But, he is soon
recognized by his childhood friend Johnny as well as his father's
loyal compatriots. In a predictable twist of fate, he is actually
taken in by
the Butcher and mentored in the ways of
survival and manipulating the masses. Along the way, Amsterdam falls
in love with one of the Butcher's damsels, pickpocket Jenny Everdeane
(played by a gorgeous-looking Cameron Diaz).
Truth be told, all this material is the
grist for some potentially powerful storytelling and cinematic
bravery. But somehow, Scorsese seems to have no direction in his
storytelling, and the film is a brutal mishmash of plot, characters
with a befuddling blend of history and fiction.
The film is such a mess that one wonders
what happened along the way.
There were many royal battles over writers
who were hired and fired like temporary help at some fast-food
restaurant. The budget kept getting inflated like the bosom of some
silicone-crazed Hollywood starlet, and as the costs multiplied so did
the pressures to make the film more commercially viable (read:
dumbing it down and goring it up).
I am one of the most ardent Scorsese
defenders around. He is indubitably one of the finest directors ever
to have lived. He has created a healthy body of masterpieces from the
mafia gem GoodFellas to the pugilist perfection of Raging Bull. Very
often he has dared to go where most have not. With The Last
Temptation of Christ, he created an examination of faith and religion
that was more deeply spiritual and Christ-affirming than the
collective beliefs of all those who protested the film without ever
having seen it. Even with more commercial fare like the remake of
Cape Fear and the glamorous Casino, Scorsese has always managed to
create works with integrity and soul.
None of these things&endash; bravery,
integrity, soul, or aesthetic wonder &endash; are to be found in
Gangs. The film is so bad that watching it for over two-and-a-half
hours becomes a continual assault with bad acting, worse storytelling
and an abominable regard for the one's intelligence.
Daniel Day-Lewis, an astounding actor of
refined subtlety and rich intelligence, is reduced to a mere cartoon,
a silly cross between a Dr. Seuss character and some blood-thirsty,
two-bit mafioso from The Sopranos. Day-Lewis, who had retired from
film in order to study as a cobbler's apprentice in Italy, was lured
back by Scorsese to the silver screen. Day-Lewis is mostly a
laughable caricature throughout the film. He has his moments which
remind us of the dazzling work he is consistently capable of in films
like My Left Foot, My Beautiful Laundrette, and The Crucible.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Amsterdam is watchable,
but someone with more honed acting chops could have done better
service to this potentially complex and deep character. Cameron Diaz
is beautiful, the most believable of the three stars, but too often
simply a plot device in the film.
Nothing in the film is particularly
stunning. Everything is given an "epic" feel with the warped
understanding that more is more and bigger is better.
For those of you who don't want to read
about how the film ends (although it is a no-brainer) might want to
stop reading here. Actually I am not so much interested in giving
away the ending as I am interested in displaying the utter stupidity
with which this film has been made &endash; something exemplified in
the very last frame of the film.
The film ends with one of the most awful
choices of cinematic images ever. The last frame of Gangs of New York
is a digitally mastered shot of the skyline with the two World Trade
Towers, pre-Septem-ber 11. It wasn't bad enough that one had to sit
through a bad film, but then one is hit over the head with a terribly
misplaced sense of patriotism and political pandering.
Perhaps Scorsese was convinced that he had
made a terrible film and knew he had to do something to rally the
audiences behind this celluloid debacle. Perhaps the honchos at
Miramax were so concerned with the fact that the film may never
return its investment that they forced Scorsese to tack on that tacky
ending. (Gangs was completed before September 11 and sat on the shelf
for a long time.) What works better these days than tapping into
America's sense of hurt and violation and constantly referring
everything back to September 11 and those two indelible symbols of
that day of infamy?
I was so enraged by this overt pandering to
our cheapest emotions by one of America's greatest directors that I
had no words left to express my disappointment, my rage and my
disgust. The real Butcher here is Scorsese &endash; and anyone else
responsible for the utter tripe that they have managed to shrink-wrap
into cheapened patriotism and flag-waving frenzy. Scorsese has
committed a spree of cinematic crimes that make all the Butcher's
violence (and there is plenty of it) pale in comparison.
Gangs is already raking in awards and
nominations by the dozens. I am one of a minority of critics who has
hated this film with an intensity that few films have managed to
engender. I simply hope that audiences have better taste and
discernment than many of these "bandwagon" critics who believe that
genius is beyond reproach, above criticism.
Marty Scorsese is a cautionary tale with
regards to what goes wrong when genius is ignored for too long. It is
without question that Scorsese has been given the raw end of the deal
many a time by Hollywood, particularly by his peers. His past genius
has been ignored, even maligned. Apparently, Scorsese has become so
obsessed with getting that validation that he is willing to stoop to
any depths to get there. My fear (and prediction) is that gangs of
Hollywood are going to compensate Scorsese for their prior crimes and
misdemeanors by rewarding him at this year's Oscars.
The Inspired Genius of Peter
Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
At the other end of the spectrum
is the superbly crafted and immensely entertaining true epic The Lord
of the Rings: The Two Towers. Peter Jackson, who has directed the
trilogy, (and co-written the dazzling and energetic screenplay) has
proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is a visionary director
of fabulous daring and of great cinematic intelligence and
integrity.
The second installment of the trilogy is
even better and more compelling than the first, as though it were
possible. The Fellowship of the Ring was a deeply moving film with
daring special effects and compelling storytelling. Jackson ups the
ante here and once again the gamble pays of handsomely.
The Two Towers picks up where the first one
left off, and because The Fellowship of the Ring dealt with most of
Tolkien's expository needs, the second film can immerse the viewer
into the action and story from the start.
The film moves along at a brisk pace, but
Jackson and his editor, D. Michael Horton, know exactly when to allow
the audience (and their characters) breathing room. They skillfully
weave in and out of the four varying plot lines of the journey across
tormented terrains to destroy the ring that has the power to
annhilate the human race.
The mise en scène of this film, much
like in the first, is jaw-droppingly stunning! From the spectacular
sets to the enrapturing digital effects, the entire art team manages
to reach new heights with each installment. (And because all three
films were shot at once, one can only expect the same with the
release of The Return of the King later this year.)
Andrew Lesnie's cinematography (he won an
Oscar for the first one) is absolutely fabulous. From the rich
close-ups to the detailed long shots, Lesnie's camera knows precisely
how to lead the audience's eye on this convoluted and treacherous
journey.
The production design by Grant Major is
nothing short of sheer inspiration and each vista unfolds with such
creativity and depth of detail that it cannot help but take one's
breath away.
The ensemble cast here, once again, does the
material proud. The casting succeeds so beautifully because it is
hard to imagine anyone else playing these roles. Elijah Woods is
endearingly innocent as Frodo Baggins, and although his part here is
diminished by the various storylines
that demand attention, Woods never
disappoints. One can truly evince, in the subtle grimace of his face
or in the fear in his soulful eyes, the burden that is the
ring.
Sean Astin as Sam, Frodo's sidekick, is also
endearing and effective. He brings a levity and loyalty to the
relationship that is marvelous. The only complaint I have against
Astin is that his accent isn't always consistent.
Ian McKellan as Gandalf the White, and Viggo
Mortensen as Aragorn are stunning in the quiet power they bring to
their respective roles. McKellan (nominated for a supporting actor
Oscar last year) is sublime as the good wizard who tries to keep evil
at bay every step of the way.
Mortensen, it seems, was born to play
Aragorn. He is the embodiment of bravery and chivalry, yet Mortensen
is able to tinge his portrayal with enough vulnerability and
sensitivity that he becomes powerfully human and super-human all at
once.
The main four are astutely helped along by
four other skilled actors - John Rhys-Davies as Gimli, Dominic
Monaghan as Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, Miranda Otto as Eowyn, and
Orlando Bloom as Legolas Greenleaf.
There are two digital aspects of the film
that deserve special attention. The first is Gollum, the archetypal
creature in this film who embodies the struggle between good and
evil. Once a Hobbit-like creature, Gollum possessed the Ring of Power
for 500 years, just as Frodo carries it now. But the evil powers of
the Ring got to Gollum, deforming his body and warping his mind.
Created digitally, Gollum is a marvel of computer animation and a
feat of cinematic chutzpah. Gollum will enrage you and make you weep,
sometimes all at once.
The second feat of digital wizardry is the
creation of the Old Forest characters, led by Treebeard, a wise and
ancient tree. The sequences with Gimli and Merry, who are lost in
this forest and are eventually led out by Treebeard, are amazingly
beautiful and utterly spiritual. And the grand finale, where these
ancient trees join in the battle to destroy Sauron and his evil
domain is sheer cinematic genius.
Kudos to Jackson and his entire team who
have managed to create a film, with four separate storylines, and
weave them into a celluloid carpet so magical that all the high
praise and innumerable awards will be deemed insufficient.
e-mail kaizaadkotwal@yahoo.com
(October 2002 Issue)
Chronicles of an Incurable
Cinemaphile: Films That Shaped My Life: Part One
Cinema has been in my blood
since birth. My paternal grandfather was a film producer and
distributor in India during the heyday of Indian filmmaking - its
so-called Golden Age. Due to some family saga and soap opera, worthy
of a film or miniseries itself, the family business didn't pass down
to my father or myself. So I assumed that the film industry was not
where I would end up.
I did grow up with film all around me
though. My father was a cinephile, as was one of his aunts, Jer, who
used to live with us. Jer loved everything from the black-and-white
Hindi epics of yesteryear to Julie Andrews' musicals and other
flamboyant Hollywood fare. Her sweet wrinkled face would light up
like a child as she watched and re-watched her favorite films, her
beloved stars, indulging in one of her life's greatest passions. Her
eyes came aglow and a benevolent smile lit up her lips. I grew up
immersed in film, but never more than as a diversion, something to
kill the time with.
However, the older I grew, the more
meaningful cinema became in my life, the more integral it became to
my existence. Today, not only am I an incurable cinephile, but I also
teach it and am involved in it as much as I can manage, from writing
and acting, to directing and producing. If I am blessed enough, I
intend to make it my life's work someday.
We live in an age of lists. The "Best of
This," "The Top 100 of That." What follows then, is a personal list
of films that have shaped not only my aesthetic and my artistry, but
also my sense of self, my awareness of the world, and my
interpretation of life as I know it.
Although there are some films included on
this list that one could classify as masterpieces in terms of
technique and artistry, I have included them only because of their
lasting emotional and intellectual impact on me. Thus, many so-called
classics, particularly those deemed so by the cinematic elite and
academics, may be absent from my list of most-influential films. One
more thing: this list is not in any particular order of partiality,
but rather in chronological order from those that impacted my early
life to ones that I was introduced to later.
Two very early films, which had an indelible
impact on me, were Sholay and Operation Daybreak. The former, a
contemporary Indian classic from the '70s, still remains the
longest-running film in Indian cinema history. It ran in movie houses
every day, 4-5 shows a day, for five years continuously. This
groundbreaking film, which tells the story of two best friends who
set out to rid a mountainous region of a grizzly dacoit and his gang
of thugs, is both immensely entertaining and deeply moving. The
film's central friendship impacted me profoundly &endash; the sense
of love, sacrifice, and togetherness that these friends shared,
unconsciously I am sure, became a guidepost for my friendships in the
years to come.
Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in The
Kid (1921)
The film, reminiscent of many of
the John Ford westerns, is not entirely derivative. It has its own
sense of cinematic appeal and storytelling chutzpah. What I found so
amazing about Sholay was that it balanced perfectly the odd mix of
comedy, action-adventure, romance, music, dance, and
melodrama.
The film also appealed to me as a youngster
because of its strong statement against injustice, which has become a
guiding principle through much of my life. The film has strongly
melodramatic ideals of heroes and villains, and of course, the
villains win. When I saw the film at the age of seven, I had not an
ounce of cynicism in me nor a bit of the jaded critic I have become.
The film's statement about the triumph of good over evil (albeit
after a protracted struggle) hit home even at that nubile age.
Sholay is a perfect example of a film that
was constructed as a blockbuster, overflowing with pure entertainment
value. And yet, there is such intelligence, sensitivity, and social
and political awareness in the film. It was the first time I
under-stood the power of being attracted to celluloid personas as I
was mesmer-ized by the two lead heroes and the two heroines of the
film. Sholay also has marvelously constructed images, and although I
have not seen the film since the late '70s, I can vividly recall many
of its striking shots.
Operation Daybreak also has at its core a
profound friendship, an inimitable brotherhood, between two young men
attempting to topple Hitler's apple cart by assassinating one of his
leading generals in Czechoslovakia. This film once again exposed me
to life's inhumanity and injustice (one on the scale of the
Holocaust), and these issues have remained with me.
Operation Daybreak is a masterful war film,
one that is unfortunately lost to most audiences today. I recently
watched it again and found that none of its original power, none of
its inherent poignancy had faded with time, with my becoming more
worldly, more jaded. Here was another film, basically an
action-adventure set in World War II, that was intelligently and
sensitively made. The ending, faced by the two protagonists with such
love and devotion to each other and their cause, was truly
devastating.
This film also set me on a course of
becoming an early fan of war films, and while I have seen many great
ones, from Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence
Mallick's The Thin Red Line to David Lean's The Bridge Over the River
Kwai and Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, it is Operation
Daybreak that sticks with me the strongest.
With these early two films about friendship
and humanity's battles against injustice, cinema had forever found a
way into my heart.
My father was devoted to the marvelous
oeuvre of films made by the inimitable Charlie Chaplin. Many of my
fondest childhood memories include going to Sunday matinee shows,
after breakfast at some restaurant, to view a Chaplin film. Chaplin's
comedy was simply marvelous and never failed to get me rolling in the
aisles, even after having watched the same film multiple times.
And yet, underneath the slapstick of that
genius, lay the sadder visage of the Tramp's persona. That
melancholy-tinged farce and satire is some of the best cinema ever
made. In particular, three of his films that have stuck with me are
The Kid, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator.
The Kid thrilled me at every level, from the
shenanigans of the Tramp and the orphaned boy, to the tender love
story, to the social commentary made about those poor parentless
kids, those children of a lesser god. Jackie Coogan as the orphaned
kid was a revelation and matched Chaplin, step for step, every frame
of the film.
Modern Times, with its attack against the
ravages of the Industrial Revolution, was my first introduction to a
truly political film presented in the guise of rollicking comedy.
Made before the era of special effects and computer graphics, Modern
Times is a truly avant-garde film, technically ahead of its time. The
mise en scène, replete with gigantic mechanical gizmos and
clockwork-precision gadgets, is a feast for the senses. What's
amazing about a film like Modern Times (and all great art by
extension) is that it remains timeless, it continues to be prescient
in its sensibilities about the foibles of the human race, about the
continued arrogance of human nature.
The Great Dictator was most satisfying for
its truly brilliant performance by Chaplin in the dual role of the
Fuhrer and a barber who resembles the megalomaniac himself. It was a
rare genius Sholay, an Indian classic from the '70s like Chaplin, who
could take on the gravitas of the Holocaust and Hitler, milk it for
comedy and never once cheapen history or mitigate the polemics of
that grizzly era of human suffering.
I am aware that Chaplin recanted his own
film, saying that had he truly understood the horrors of the
Holocaust Chaplin's films, made in an era of solely black-and-white
movies, are gems of technical artistry. The lighting, the magnificent
spectrum of well-modulated chiaroscuro, remain to me as masterful as
the brilliant paintings of the Dutch master Rembrandt.
While making the film, he never would have
made it in the first place. I must respectfully disagree. The ancient
Greeks actually believed that comedy was a method with which to
expose humanity to its foibles, its weaknesses with the intention of
ameliorating the human condition. All of Chaplin's films, including
The Great Dictator, live up to that Hellenistic ideal.
I love the silent nature of Chaplin's films,
where so much more is left to the imagination, where so much depends
on masterful cinematic impulses and well-honed celluloid
communication. Not only is the silent film a lost art today, but I am
also saddened that many will never know the abundant joys of watching
a well-crafted silent film. Moreover, Chaplin's films, made in an era
of solely black-and-white movies, are gems of technical artistry. The
lighting, the magnificent spectrum of well-modulated chiaroscuro,
remain to me as masterful as the brilliant paintings of the Dutch
master Rembrandt.
Growing up in Bombay in the '70s and early
'80s was an experience marked by a cruel paucity of good cinema,
especially western imports. We got the James Bond films religiously,
which I truly enjoyed, and some classics from time to time. But
current Hollywood fare rarely made it to Indian cinema halls in those
days.
My parents were affiliated with several
organizations in Bombay that were off-shoots of foreign embassies,
and through these organizations, particularly the ones run by the
United States, French, German, and British, we were able to view some
amazing cinema.
It was at the United States Information
Services (USIS) that I saw Robert Redford's masterpiece directorial
debut in Ordinary People. I was completely swept away by the quiet
power of that film. I was scarcely 12 when I saw it, and I think in
some way it actually made me grow as a person in the span of its
two-hour running time. The story twisted my gut into a hard knot, and
those brave performances, particularly by Timothy Hutton and Mary
Tyler Moore, have left an indelible mark in my psyche.
It was also at the USIS that I saw a very
different, yet equally satisfying film, the musical Singing in the
Rain. The sheer joie de vivre and celebration in that film was
infectious. I was mesmerized by the scintillating tap dancing, the
memorable music, and the sheer love of filmmaking that came through
in every frame. I fell in love with Gene Kelly, and he has remained
one of my favorite film stars of all time.
Singing in the Rain is of that old school of
filmmaking where cinema could be purely entertaining and yet be
immensely successful. It showed me that not all art, not all film was
about politics or issue-oriented, but that good art could also
celebrate life with sunny exuberance and unmitigated joy.
An Officer and a Gentleman was another film
from my youth in Bombay that had a deep impact on me. Here too, I was
drawn to the spirit of friendship that is at the core of the story.
But the film, with the gorgeous Richard Gere and the sexy Debra
Winger, also came to me at the time of my own sexual and adolescent
awakenings. An Officer and a Gentleman demonstrated to me for the
first time that cinema could have a very raw sexual and sensual power
- something that scares many people even today.
It was the first film in which I saw sex and
sexuality openly, and like any hormonal teen, I felt both titillated
and bashful watching it with others around. But An Officer and a
Gentleman is about so much more than sex and sexuality. Like Ordinary
People, there is a grittiness to the film, a real politique about
everyday human beings, that touched me and that I identified with
deeply. I have watched the film numerous times since and it still
remains a favorite of mine.
Writing all this brings back a lot of
memories. It also makes me want to watch the films again! These were
the movies that shaped my cinematic upbringing during my youth and
teen years in Bombay. In the next part of this series, I will go back
down celluloid memory lane to the time when I came to the United
States as a precocious undergrad and wary immigrant. That cinematic
coming of age reflects a rather different collection of films. And
yet, many of the thematic strains from my formative years of film-
watching recur during this period as well.
Till then, I am going to run down to the
local video store and check out some of the films discussed here. For
in re-watching them, not only will I see how they might seem
different now (or the same), but more importantly, I will be able to
recognize in what ways the films have influenced me. That is, to me,
the essence of great art, of deeply personal cultural artifacts.
e-mail kaizaadkotwal@yahoo.com
Bollywood Goes To Hollywood:
- India's Lagaan woos Oscar
(From the May 2002
Issue)
Gracy Singh and Aamir Khan in
the Bollywood Musical Lagaan, an Academy Award nominee, to be
re-released by Sony Classics on May 10 Bollywood is the
official land of myth and hyperbole in the movie-making capital of
the world. India churns out more films per annum than any other
country, and the center of this entire cinematic hullabaloo is in
India's commercial capital of Bombay. Bollywood is to India what
Hollywood is to the United States, with a few striking similarities
and a few salient differences. The similarities are that both
Hollywood and Bollywood churn out a lot of trash, celluloid doo-doo
for the masses. Both favor high melodrama and a lot of over-the-top
action over films where the craft is focused on powerful
storytelling, three-dimensional characters and compelling plots.
The major difference, however, is that the
average Bollywood film still costs a paltry sum compared to Hollywood
fare. The most expensive Bollywood film ever made, Kabhi Khushi,
Kabhi Ghum, at an estimated cost of $10 million, pales in comparison
to even some of the so-called independent movies made in Hollywood.
(As an aside it must be noted that Kabhi Khushi, Kabhi Ghum, released
recently and raking it in at the box office, is such a bad piece of
cinema that to call it shit would be to insult fecal matter!)
But recently, another film from India, named
Lagaan, has been making waves all over the world, particularly
because it snagged one of the coveted five nomina-tions for Best
Foreign Film at this year's Academy Awards. This was India's third
nomination in that category, an appalling record for a country that
makes so much cinema. Incidentally, No Man's Land from Bosnia won
over Lagaan this year, beating out even the French favorite Amelie.
Lagaan has already been released in major U.S. cities with a
nationwide splash on May 10 courtesy of Sony Pictures
Classics.
Lagaan is a very interesting case, not only
in Indian cinema, but also in terms of world cinema, and merits
scrutiny here even though most Americans will not end up seeing the
film. By and large it is a film worth seeing because it is one of the
best things India has put out in years, but also because it is a
lesson on the influence of marketing and political correctness in
cinema these days.
The term "lagaan" means a land tax, and in
the film we are taken back to the days of colonial rule in India when
the British were strangling the indigenous people with their heinous
measures of taxation and looting, plundering the natural resources of
a very wealthy nation for consumption on the British Isles, a
geographical desert in terms of natural resources and raw materials.
The rains have failed, and the people of a
small Indian village in Victorian India hope that they will be
excused from paying the crippling land tax that their British rulers
have imposed. They band together and ask the ruler of their region,
the Maharajah, to intervene on their behalf and ask the British to
exempt them from the tax in light of the drought.
At first, the capricious British officer in
charge refuses such a daring plea. But when they persist, he
challenges the villagers to a game of cricket, a game totally alien
and unknown to the Indian natives. If the Indians win, they get their
wish; if they lose, however, the tax burden will be tripled and
destroy their lives. Of course, the British officer is so certain
that he and his cohorts will crush the Indians at this game that he
delights in the challenge and starts to count his chickens well
before they are hatched.
The people of the village are terrified, but
one man, Bhuvan, thinks the challenge is worth staking their entire
future on. He first has to convince the villagers to give it their
best shot because most of the villagers are certain that this
lopsided bet is sure to bring disaster rather than any sort of tax
relief. The protagonist, played to perfection by Aamir Khan, is a
shrewd organizer, a master of persuasion, and a hard-working dreamer
who insists that he and his fellow villagers deserve a better life
and can indeed have one.
The first part of the film follows the
struggle of the villagers, first as they are devastated by the
drought, and then as they decide on whether to accept this
ridiculously lop-sided challenge or not. The second half of the film
is the cricket match itself where the two sides battle it out for
both sporting victory and more importantly, nationalistic
pride.
At its core, Lagaan is a melodrama where the
forces of good and evil are so clearly marked out you'd think it was
written in committee by the 12 Apostles. The heart of the film plays
to the masses in that it identifies with the poor suffering hoards of
Indian villagers today who still live in destitute conditions and
under the thumb of landowners as cruel as or even more cruel than the
British were. The villagers are shown as honest, hard working,
genteel, genuinely good rural folk. Their exploitation by the British
is very real and very harsh in the film, and the masses today feed
right into that.
That is not to say that the film is not a
good film. Lagaan is by all means a very solid film, well made, well
acted, and brilliantly marketed. The story by Ashutosh Gowariker
(also the film's director) is solid, properly paced, and the
characters are finely delineated. Even though the films comes in at a
little under four hours (average for Bollywood fare), the length is
hardly noticeable, particularly in the second half where the cricket
match plays very effectively on screen. Gowariker's direction is
sure-footed, and he creates a compelling, suspenseful film despite
the fact that one knows the film's outcome well before it is
over.
The cinematography by Anil Mehta (formerly
an ad filmmaker) is crisp, earthy and suits the film. His shots are
fluid, concise and never draw attention to themselves, except in one
awfully self-conscious musical number. In particular, his camera work
for the cricket match is stunningly effective and never misses a
step. Overall, the performances are amazing. The cast has been very
carefully selected and they click seamlessly together. Even though
the characters are very stereotypically melodramatic arche-types, the
directing and virtuosic perfor-mances save this film from becoming
just another Bollywood hack job.
Gracie Singh, as the young village
ingénue, Gauri, is a stellar new find. She is a joy to watch
as she exudes youth and innocence, even in a time and place troubled
by hardships and evil. Her eyes seem to hold the secrets of the
universe and her smile seems to be where the sun shines from each
day. Her moments of petty jealousy, as she sees the English madam
become close to Bhuvan, the leader of the cricket team, are sweet and
filled with naughtiness.
The two British stars of the film are
fantastic as well. Paul Blackthorne (you know it's a melodrama when
the actors name is so melodramatic as well) plays Captain Andrew
Russell with a wicked glee and delight that is sickening. He makes
you want to spit on him - so evil are his glances and his frigid
deeds. Like the vicious Duke in Moulin Rouge, this Captain's defeat
at the end is only to be cheered (as almost all Indian audiences who
saw the film were wont to do.)
Rachel Shelley plays the white
ingénue of the film - Elizabeth Russell, the Captain's
virginal and decent sibling. She hates what her brother is doing to
the poor Indians and tries to help them defeat her own brother at his
evil, sneaking off from the comfort of her palace, into the heat of
the draught-ridden desert village to champion the villagers.
Elizabeth in helping Bhuvan and his dirty dozen learn the British
game of cricket, which the villagers find strange and alien, begins
to fall in love with Bhuvan. Of course the color and status issues
complicate such a love bearing any kind of fruition. Shelley's
performance is fabulous, and she too saves a potentially soppy
character from becoming caricature.
Finally, Aamir Khan as Bhuvan is simply
perfect. Khan, probably the most talented actor, barring none,
working in Indian cinema today, has proven to be a cinematic
maverick; and here he cements that reputation as a risk taker and an
actor with taste and integrity. His portrayal of Bhuvan is a
marvelous one to watch as he goes from angry subject of the British
Empire to calculating and successful victor over the darker forces of
the universe.
Khan understands perfectly when to underplay
a moment and when to play it up to the max! He uses his body like few
Indian actors do, and his range is marvelous. Khan's Bhuvan is a
cinematic hero in the vein of a Luke Skywalker. Boyish, yet one who
soon becomes a man many have to count on for their survival.
Khan is also the marketing mastermind behind
Lagaan, taking it all the way to Best Foreign Film Academy nomination
- and the hoopla still continues in India. Bollywood has been having
a drought in the foreign market and Lagaan's success has brought some
hope to a hopeless (puns generously intended) industry.
The film is definitely worth seeing, but
there are a few problems with an otherwise greatly entertaining epic.
Firstly, at almost four hours, the editor needs to look up his job
description a bit more carefully and live up to the title more
seriously. Secondly, while all the music and dance sequences are
brilliantly executed and never seem gratuitous, there is one number
that is totally ludicrous and destroys some of the credibility and
integrity of the project. In a truly tacky number, Elizabeth, Gauri
and Bhuvan sing about their feelings and unrequited loves for each
other. The film seems to have had some other director and writers for
that part. Or, they were hopelessly pandering to the masses. In that
number, a lovelorn Elizabeth swoons and struts all over the palace
like some model in heat and her dresses are completely out of period
and simply silly. She goes from Victorian garb to modern chiffons and
fifties maxis.
The two largest problems with the film have
to do with the immense political correctness and political
incorrectness that attempt to coexhist. The team that Bhuvan pulls
together is like some cross between the United Nations and the
Special Olympics. Remember, India is a secular nation that still
struggles deeply with communal disharmony. (Right around the Oscars
we were experiencing our worst communal killings in over ten
years.)
In order to send today's audiences some
great hope for the future, Bhuvan's team comprises not only just
about every communal enemy in India (Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims), but
also a cripple and an untouchable. It is nice that the filmmakers
want to send messages to the masses who lap up the film, particularly
in more rural and illiterate areas where issues of untouchability,
communal disharmony and other prejudices still waft rampant; however,
such political correctness can seem disingenuous and doesn't always
make for great cinema.
The biggest problem I have with the film is
in the character of Elizabeth. She is the one who teaches the Indians
how to play cricket and helps them to stay together as a team. It is
her sacrifices against the wishes of her evil brother that help the
Indians save the day. This sort of colonial pandering is sickening
and annoying to say the least. Indian cinema still feels obliged to
somehow give the British credit. Without the colonizer we simply
can't seem to manage to pull ourselves together. While there is the
evil colonizer strutting his stuff in full glory, the film's message
still seems to be that without the "good" colonizer, Indians couldn't
have victory on their own.
This ideology is neither very appealing nor
very modern. The post-colonial rhetoric has yet to find its way into
Indian cinema, and by extension into the Indian masses. It is the
same drivel that gave the white plantation women much of the credit
for slave emancipation, because supposedly it was these women who
taught the miserable slaves to read (from the Bible mainly), which
then gave the slaves ideas about emancipation and abolition and the
like.
I also need to remind myself that I see the
film through the lens of my Western education, from my heavily
anti-colonial politics, and from my sense of need to move beyond
pandering to the masses in art and entertainment.
Lagaan is, despite the few criticisms here,
a well-made, entertaining and accomplished piece of Bolly-wood
cinema. As to how many doors it will open for Indian cinema in
Hollywood, that is left to be seen. After all, it took a black woman
74 years to knock down a major door at the Oscars this year when
Halle Berry became the first black actress to win a major acting
award. Will it be another 74 years before a brown man or woman knocks
down some other door? Sometimes, to succeed in Hollywood as a person
of color, one has to first pay a very, very heavy lagaan!
All That Glitters: The Best in
Film For 2001
(From the Feb.
2002 issue)
It's that time of year again. When all that glitters
is gold and when all that matters glitters. It's Oscar time again
with the nominations being announced a few days from now, and the
race will begin in earnest. The past year was, for the most part, a
very mediocre year in celluloid, but there were some noteworthy
exceptions and some interesting trends. There were some knockout
performances, mostly in smaller independent films, and the musical
genre received a much needed kick in the pants with the dazzling
Moulin Rouge and the inimitable Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
It also needs to be remembered that as the
Oscar nominations come out, some will be deserving while others will
be more motivated by politics, past snubs will be re-compensated now,
and other factors having less to do with merit will affect judgment.
So before the list is announced by the Academy, I would like to
provide a nomination ballot of the most deserving of 2001, some may
coincide with the Academy's choices and others will most certainly be
snubbed by them.
In the Best Supporting Actor category, I
would nominate: Steve Buscemi for his wonderfully subtle and
revealing turn as a record collector who becomes the object of a
disaffected teenager's affections in Terry Zwigoff's poignant
Ghost World. Richard Roxburgh as the sleazy and slick Duke in
Moulin Rouge was grand in a stomach-churning, skin-tingling kind
of way.
Brian Cox was spooky as a pot-bellied
pedophile in the controversial L.I.E. where he
created a predator whom the audience could both be revolted by and
sympathize with. Ben Kingsley forever erased all connections to
Gandhi by turning in a blood-curdling job as a violent, erratic,
Cockney gangster in Sexy Beast.
Tony Shaloub turned in his best work
yet as a fast-talking, swaggering lawyer in The Man Who Wasn't There. He was the best thing in an otherwise mediocre film
from the Coen brothers. And finally, Carl Reiner, as a retired
con-artist, who returns for one last job in Steven Soderbergh's
stylish Rat-pack remake of Ocean's
Eleven, was brilliantly funny and
subtle.
Other noteworthy performances in the Best
Supporting Actor category include Jude Law as the robotic gigolo in
A.I., suave, sexy and very scintillating to watch as
always. Jim Broadbent had two praise-worthy turns this year. First as
the owner Ziegfeld of the Moulin
Rouge nightclub and second as the
faithful husband of famed novelist Iris Murdoch in Iris. I would split
this year's award among Shaloub, Kingsley, and Cox. The Academy will
likely snub Cox completely.
The competition in the Best Supporting
Actress category was full of dazzling performances: Frances O'Connor
as the conflicted mother in Steven Spielberg's A.I. was moving as
she doted on her mechanical son and chilling when she realized that
she had to abandon him in order to retain her own humanity. Marisa
Tomei, who may have been seen as a fluke winner of her previous Oscar
for My Cousin Vinny, erases all doubts with a moving turn as an abused
mother of two who has a fling with a teenaged boy in In The Bedroom.
Robert Altman's Gosford Park had
three performances that are worthy of a nomination here. Newcomer
Kelly MacDonald, as a maid to the Countess (Dame Maggie Smith) is the
grounding center of the film with her wide-eyed innocence and
youthful curiosity. Dame Maggie Smith as Constance, Countess of
Trentham is priceless with her dry wit and sharp irony. It is good to
see her back in top form and she never ever misses a beat in
Gosford Park. The third Oscar hopeful from the same film is the
ever amazing Helen Mirren who plays Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper
of Gosford Park. Her stern exterior and ultra-efficient demeanor
seem to be cloaking some very dark secrets and Mirren's journey from
the "perfect servant" to a broken woman is heartbreaking to
watch.
Some other noteworthy turns in the
Supporting Actress category include: Jane Adams as a neurotic mother
in The Anniversary
Party, a delight to watch as she
unraveled on account of her plethora of neuroses; Jennifer Connelly
as the doting wife of mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind was
engaging and real every step of the way. Angelica Houston as Etheline
Tanenbaum in the quirky comedy The
Royal Tenenbaums is both funny and
poignant as a woman trying to hold her family together and trying to
forgive her separated husband for all his royal pain-in-the-ass
shenanigans. I would give the Oscar to Dame Maggie Smith myself. But
look for Connelly to steal the award.
The Best Screenplay of the year should
include the following nominees: Christopher Nolan for the cinematic
puzzle Memento, which took mind-bending twists and turns, creating
a most unique film experience. Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley
Kubric for a daring (and yes, sometimes messy) A.I., which had the
moxie to raise potent issues and ask questions with stunning
prescience and diligent insight. Julian Fellowes for his engrossing
and multi-layered Gosford
Park which starts out as a murder
mystery and ends up as an intelligent and subtle examination of
class, gender and sexual mores of '30s England. Guillaume Laurant for
a funny and moving Amelie, and Lukas
Moodysson for a wonderfully retro and frank Together. The last
two don't have a chance. I would split the award between
Memento and Gosford
Park.
Cinematographically, the following Directors
of Photography stood out: Giles Nutgens for his metaphorical and
layered camera work in The Deep
End. Roger Deakins for the subtle
film-noir look in the black and white
The Man Who Wasn't There. Janusz
Kaminski for his multi-dimensional camera work in A.I., creating
vistas that were both fantastical and yet deeply rooted in
recognizable realties. Andrew Lesnie's lush and energetic camera work
in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is certainly some of the
best work this year. Donald McAlpine's kaleidoscopic work in
Moulin Rouge is overwhelming at first but works brilliantly for
the film overall. And finally, Andrew Dunn's fluid and beautifully
lit work in Gosford
Park. I would give the award to
Janusz Kaminski for A.I.
The Best Actors this year came from films
both large and deeply intimate in scope. John Cameron Mitchell was
dazzlingly powerful and gut-wrenchingly revealing as the transvestite
with a botched sex change operation in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Guy Pearce, underused and underrated, was simply
flawless as the man with no short-term memory on the hunt for his
wife's murder in Memento. Haley Joel
Osment deserves a nomination for his moving portrayal of a mechanical
boy in search of a human heart in A.I.
Another child actor who shone this year is
Paul Franklin Dano as the young Howie in L.I.E. Dano is
moving and powerful as a gay teenager who slowly learns how to
survive a broken family, a self-destructive best friend, and the
Machiavellian manipulations of the town's pot-bellied pedophile. Gene
Hackman was priceless as Royal, the patriarch of the quirky Tenenbaum
family. His impeccable timing and sheer enjoyment of the role are a
reminder as to why he has endured so long in Hollywood. And finally,
Tom Wilkinson, as a quiet husband and acquiescing father, who must
find his courage and spine, in In The
Bedroom, was subtle and most
convincing as an American, being a Brit himself. I would
unequivocally give this year's award to John Cameron Mitchell, but he
doesn't even have a prayer of a nomination.
Look for the Academy to nominate big stars
this year including Billy Bob Thornton, either for The Man Who Wasn't There, or for Monster's
Ball. Last year's undeserving winner
Russell Crowe should get nominated again as mathematician Robert Nash
in A Beautiful Mind. Will Smith is most certain to be acknowledged as
Muhammad Ali and Denzel Washington is a hot favorite for
Training Day, a rather bad film. Sean Penn could sneak in with
his turn as a mentally challenged father in I Am Sam. Hackman
will probably be put in the Supporting Actor category and will win
there. So look for Denzel Washington to win this year in a completely
inexplicable move by the Academy.
The Best Actress nominations, from me, also
include some veterans and some relative newcomers. Thora Birch,
brilliant in American
Beauty, is once again brilliant as a
disenchanted, disaffected, jaded and cynical teenager, who underneath
all that harsh exterior is a young girl in Ghost World. Tilda
Swinton, an actress of rare subtlety and technical grace, was
marvelous as Margaret Hall in The
Deep End. Hers is a pitch perfect
performance. She never falters in her honesty as she shows us a
mother who is trying to protect her gay son from being convicted of
murder while she is falling in love with a mysterious and enigmatic
blackmailer who threatens to destroy her son and her family.
Audrey Tatou as the introverted and
accidental patron saint of the downtrodden in Amelie deserves a
nod for a refreshingly smart, funny, and touching role. Nicole Kidman
was a sheer revelation in Moulin
Rouge as the courtesan who finds
true love in a struggling poet. And finally, Sissy Spacek as a
wronged mother, who loses control after the death of her teenaged
son, has the comeback performance of the year. Although I am very
partial to Swinton's performance. I would have to say that the award
unequivocally belongs to Kidman. The Academy will probably nominate
Halle Berry in Monster's
Ball over Tatou or even
Birch. Stockard Channning may get a nod for
The Business of Strangers.
The Best Director nominations should be
bestowed upon: Baz Luhrmann for his kaleidoscopic and psychedelic
love story musical Moulin
Rouge, Steven Spielberg for his
intelligent A.I., Christopher Nolan for the convoluted and thrilling
Memento, Robert Altman for his fluid and mesmerizing
Gosford Park, and John Cameron Mitchell for Hedwig
and the Angry
Inch. I would split the award
between Altman and Luhrmann for two very different and equally
engaging films, where the director's overall impact is what makes
these two films pure genius.
The Best Films of the year are:
Moulin Rouge for being bold, flashy, garish and unapologetic in
its sentimental romanticism and baroque aesthetic. This film also
receives kudos for reviving popular interest in the musical film
genre. Memento was a unique film experience which had both brains
and style and its puzzle-like structure was carried off deftly and
with sheer genius. A.I. was a sometimes
messy and sometimes over-indulgent film and yet it was a very brave
piece of cinema that didn't do well because it was too intelligent
for audiences expecting to see typical Spielberg fare.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch was a beautiful film at every level, from its
unusual story to its wonderful music and its brilliant performances.
But Hedwig is too alternative and too edgy for the Academy. My fifth
choice would be the epic The Lord of
the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This film is amazingly conceptualized and executed
and is one of the few big films in the last few years to actually
deserve a Best Film nomination. The film was a bit too long and some
of the violence a bit gratuitous. Nevertheless, it is a bold film and
intelligently done. And the final vote goes to Gosford Park for
taking the murder-mystery genre and turning it over on its head to
create an ingenious piece of cinema with a brilliant ensemble
cast.
Other notable films of the year include
Terry Zwigoff's wry Ghost
World, Michael Cuesta's gutsy
L.I.E., the French import Amelie, and the
animated Shrek. All four are longshots with Amelie assured a
Best Foreign Language Film nomination. Look for the Academy to give a
lot of ballyhoo to the critically acclaimed In The Bedroom which
is highly overrated, and were it not for the brave performances, the
film is a mediocre, clichéd made-for-television movie.
Ali
and A Beautiful Mind could also feature well with the Academy. And in a
time when patriotism is at an all-time high look for Black Hawk Down to
get a nomination for best film. I would split this year's best film
award between Moulin
Rouge and Gosford Park but I
don't think either has a chance at the Academy Awards.
So take out your pens, call your bookies,
and set your wagers to see who does get nominated and to see who does
indeed go home with the awards.
Synchronous Serendipity: The
Man Who Wasn't There and The Woman Who Was!
(December 2001
issue)
Love and Hopein the Fish Bowl of
Life
Love and hope are the two ingredients that
one cannot imagine life without. And they are abundantly floating
around in the mesmerizing new French film Amelie, an
intricately woven tale of fate and destiny surrounding the rather
unamazing life of an amazing young woman named Amelie.
Born into a fairly unremarkable family, this
heroine sets out to make other ordinary lives just a little bit
extraordinary. Her father, a medical man, is neurotic but not as
neurotic as her mother. Their little familial unit is so mundane and
yet so oddly eccentric that the family goldfish has attempted suicide
on a few occasions by jumping out of the fishbowl and flailing on the
floor hoping for release from this tedium. The quirkiness of the fish
suicide episode both defines the sense of humor in the film as well
as the menagerie of charac-ters introduced to us through the doleful
yet impish eyes of its heroine, Amelie.
Amelie grows up shy and introverted, after a
very freakish accident (symbolic of much of the black comedy in the
film) leaves her mother dead at the entrance to a church. She works
in a café in Paris with an odd assortment of individuals and
lives with an even more quaint collection of characters. They all
have their own neuroses, their individual quirks and tragic flaws.
What they all seem to lack is some hope, some real love. They are all
lonely, like the goldfish, searching for some meaning in the big
fishbowl of life.
Amelie, through a series of synchronous
events, discovers a time capsule of sorts under the floorboards in
her apartment. It is a small tin box with a child's memorabilia,
presumably left there when the child was still a lad. She decides to
track down the man, now middle aged, and give him back a piece of his
life. In the process, she comes to realize that doing good for
others, that performing random acts of kindness, is her calling in
life. She starts to commit other acts of kindness, all of them
anonymously, in trying to better the lot of her neighbors, her
family, her co-workers and her friends. And she begins to succeed.
When necessary, she even commits random acts of benign revenge, to
help the mean and nasty change their misanthropic ways.
In very small and large ways, her stratagems
begin to bear fruit and this brings a sense of fulfillment to her own
lonely and drab existence. Amelie begins to see herself as the savior
of the lonely, the harbinger of hope for the hopeless, and the
resuscitator of life for those breathing but not really alive!
Although she becomes the patron saint of
hope and love to those around her, she can't seem to work the same
magic in her own life. Amelie herself remains lonely, aloof and
without true love. Eventually she bumps into a man at the train
station who seems as lonely, aloof and as much of an oddball as she
is. It is destiny that they fall in love, as long as Amelie knows how
to harness that magical moment into a life's dream fulfilled.
The film is all about karma and the
screwball serendipities of life. Destiny, the film seems to be
saying, is inescapable, as long as one know how to read the tea
leaves of fate that float in on an enchanted breeze and land
gracefully in one's lap. Life, as this film depicts it, is a series
of synchronous events, which individually and collectively impact our
lives in ways both known and unbeknownst to us.
Amelie, as created by director Jean-Pierre
Jeunet, is a whimsical, inebriating and enchanted tale that is part
Alice in Wonderland, part Run Lola Run - the brilliant German film
from a few years ago about the sacred nature of serendipity - and
partly indebted to Krystof Kiezlowski's masterpiece trilogy Red,
White, and Blue.
The cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel in
Amelie is absolutely brilliant. Technically this is a very deftly
made piece of cinema that uses conventional cinematic techniques
along with newfangled digital effects to create one heck of a magic
carpet ride. The colors of the film, warm and contrasting reds,
yellows and greens, flood every vista, creating an other-worldly feel
to the piece. There is a dreamy, surreal feel to much of the movie;
and yet, the characters ground it in a vivid sense of
naturalism.
The ensemble here is extremely strong and
each actor creates a fully fleshed human being in the menagerie of
Amelie's quirky world. All the characters are part of the intricate
fabric of humanity in a little corner of Paris. From the overly
possessive lover to his hypochondriacal girlfriend, and from the man
with brittle bones who re-creates Renoir masterpieces to the
dim-witted yet affable grocer's assistant, Amelie is flooded with an
intoxicating blend of very human and very intriguing
individuals.
Mathieu Kassovitz, who plays Nino, the
object of Amelie's affections, is charmingly effective in playing a
socially inept man who has the same dreams of love and fulfillment as
Amelie. He plays Nino with an affable aura of longing and loneliness.
This very handsome yet unconfident man has an interesting hobby. He
collects discarded snapshots at one of those automatic photo booths
where people sit to have their images taken for passports or other
such mundane reasons. Nino's quirky pastime is a brilliant device for
the filmmakers to explore not only the immense wave of humanity that
flows through the train station in Paris, but it also allows the
writer and director a metaphor to illustrate the ways in which human
connections appear so random and yet so predestined, preordained by
some higher power in the universe.
Audrey Tautou plays the title role with
impish relish and a deep joie de vivre as she goes around mending
broken loves and lives that seem to have an inescapable sense of
ennui. Tautou imbues Amelie with a neurotic charm all her own and
plays a character who is complex to the core. Tautou never plays for
cheap sentiment or schmaltzy emotions. She seems to be having a whale
of a time playing this patron saint of the lonely hearts. Hopefully,
Tautou will be acknowledged with a Best Actress nomination at next
year's Oscars.
Amelie's director, writer, and
cinema-tographer should also feature well at next year's awards,
making this film a sure-fire contender in the Best Foreign Language
film category. In fact, if the Academy had real sense, they would
nominate this deeply intelligent yet human film with a Best Picture
nomination.
I have a minor quibble with this film.
Sometimes the technical wizardry calls attention to itself and
distances one from getting emotionally sucked into the story. I never
thought I'd say this, but here is a film that could have used a bit
more schmaltz, a bit more sappiness, and a bit more tugging at the
heart. A heroine like Amelie deserves that and more. Neverthe-less,
Amelie is a moving and mesmerizing film, definitely one of the best
of the year. In these times, of deep existential angst, when hope
seems fleeting and love seems imperative, Amelie offers up Extra
Biggie size servings of both.
Barber Noir: A Cut
Above the Rest
Interestingly, the Coen
Brothers' new film, The Man Who
Wasn't There, also deals with
the metaphysical inquiries of serendipity and synchronicity. Here
however, the tale is much darker and the characters' moralities much
murkier than in Amelie.
But, like the heroine Amelie, the hero (if
you can call him that) of The Man Who Wasn't There, Ed Crane, is also
a socially awkward and invisible sort of man. He simply doesn't take
up much space in life as we know it. He is the second barber in his
brother-in-law's shop, and he goes about his business without saying
much. He goes through life without doing much - until fate and
serendipity come knocking on his barber shop door.
His chatty wife, Doris, is having an affair
with her boss, Big Dave, and Ed decides to blackmail Big Dave for ten
thousand dollars. Ed wants to use the money to invest in the
new-fangled venture of dry cleaning so that he can make something
more of his life. The film, which takes place in 1949, turns these
mundane, domesticated suburban Americans into calculating, confused
con artists who get mired in the dark deceptions of murder and
familial mayhem. Like Amelie, The Man
Who Wasn't There, is about ordinary
people thrust into extraordinary situations, except that in the
former it is more joyful and in the latter it is a more bleak and
hopeless universe.
Presented as a black-and-white film noir
piece, the Coen brothers have once again created a solid product that
is compelling in its story line and characters and stylishly
seductive in its visuals and over-all mise-en-scène. The Coen
brothers are undoubtedly filmmakers who create com-plicated and
cogent pieces of cinema that regularly flirt with the thin line
between hyperreality and bold satire. In lesser hands, these two
poles could become messy, but with the Coen brothers the work is
always interesting and sometimes unforgettable.
Their amazingly brilliant Fargo was a case
in point. Since then, however, with The Big Lebowski, O Brother!
Where Art Thou? and now The Man Who Wasn't There, they come up with
compelling and interesting bits, but the whole isn't quite as
satisfying or worth remembering.
In The Man
Who Wasn't There, the story itself
is rather fresh and tightly woven around Ed and his search for some
excitement in life. The characters are intricately sketched out and
they are brilliantly played by an awesome cast. The visuals are
beautiful. And yet, at the end of the film one is left somewhat
unsatiated, somewhat disappointed and somewhat let down by the
promise of all the parts which never add up to an overwhelming
whole.
As Ed, Billy Bob Thornton has a tough job
because the role is so minimal, so quiet. He performs admirably and
lends the role its necessary gravitas, but at times his acting comes
across simply as a series of grimaces, frowns and staged looks that
are supposed to convey the internal turmoil of this invisible man.
There's a lot of buzz about an Oscar for him, but it seems highly
overrated since this is clearly not his best performance.
The incomparable Frances McDor-mand plays
Doris with a nice sense of fun and frivolity. And yet when necessary,
she lends the character a good sense of depth and seriousness.
McDormand is always good, and here she adds to an already impressive
resume. Her toughness, tinged with vulnerability is a joy to
watch.
The ubiquitous James Gandolfini plays Big
Dave with a bumbling sense of pathos and cruelty. He has a small role
but he fills the screen when he appears on it. Scarlett Johansson,
who plays a young pianist with some sort of unspoken desire for Ed is
mediocre. Johansson, who has done well in other films and who has
also become ubiquitous recently, seems to be turning disaffectedness
into an entire school of acting. Her range has become limited too
soon, using technique over emotion to her disadvantage. Through most
of the film she appears to be posturing rather than acting in any
organic sort of way. Perhaps it was the pressure to be film-noirish,
but she isn't up to the challenge here.
The man who steals the show here, and who
should get a Supporting Actor nod at next year's Oscars is Tony
Shalhoub as the fast-talking, quick-thinking, slick lawyer who comes
in to save Ed and Doris from the murders they are implicated in.
Shalhoub, one of the most underrated actors around, performs
marvelously. His comic timing is impeccable and he runs away with the
most interesting character and portrayal in the film. His energy
engulfs the screen. He is simply electric.
The script, written by Ethan and Joel Coen
is strong for the most part. The Lolita-esque subplot seems
superfluous and poorly created and makes the film drag on a bit more
than it should. However, there are moments of sheer genius in their
writing as always, particularly the Tony Shalhoub part and the role
of Big Dave's wife, who introduces the paranormal sightings of UFOs
into the storyline and their ludicrous yet plausible connection to
the murders. The films is filled with plenty of dark satire and even
slapstick humor which blends brilliantly with the film noir ambiance
of the whole piece.
The Man Who Wasn't There is an interesting film worth watching. The
philosophical ruminations on life and fate are smartly discussed and
the ending is quietly powerful. However, the film's flaws leave one
hoping for the film that could have been there!
e-mail
kaizaadkotwal@yahoo.com
Amores Perros
"Loving is a bitch ... and then
you find redemption!"
(From
the November 2001 issue)
In Hollywood, nothing would be possible
without great marketing. In fact, without the marketing machine
wrought by Hollywood, much of this country's GDP would take a nose
dive. Remember that Hollywood doesn't just market its films, it helps
sell everything from Happy Meal tchatchkas made in Taiwan to fashion
trends concocted on Madison Avenue. And, of course, when marketing
works its magic, movies make mounds of money. But the real genius of
marketing is when, while selling one film, the marketers manage to
obscure, obliterate, and obfuscate another film which may be far
better, much more compelling and more worthy of audience attention
than its well-publicized competitor.
This year, it was precisely such a
well-orchestrated marketing campaign that put two foreign films in
such a predicament. The winner of last year's Academy Award for Best
Foreign Film, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was largely
successful because of the marketing mavens that turned the American
public sweet on this magically made martial arts movie. Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an accomplished and entertaining piece of
cinema that deserved many of its kudos. But a lesser-known film from
Mexico, Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores
Perros, not marketed to the same extent, is a far more compelling
film and amazingly accomplished in its storytelling, its brilliant
ensemble performances, and its commentary about contemporary life in
the modern metropolis of Mexico City. Amores Perros should have won
the Academy Award hands down; however, as Amores Perros demonstrates,
in life there is no justice!
Amores Perros, which when translated
literally means "love's a bitch," is more closely a movie about the
fact that loving someone can be a real bitch! The film (in homage to
the non-linear styles of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and with
reference to the multiple and intersecting story lines of Robert
Altman's Short Cuts and Kevin Anderson's Magnolia) weaves together
three stories all bizarrely connected by a horrendous car crash.
In "Octavio and Susana," the first fragment
of this intricate story, Octavio, a handsome teenager who lusts after
his brother's wife Susana, is thrust into the world of brutal dog
fights in order to raise money so that they can elope. "Daniel and
Valeria" is the second segment, telling the tale of a middle-aged
businessman who sacrifices his family, his stability and his sanity,
to start life anew with a beautiful young model who is soon
disfigured in the aforementioned car crash. Finally, in "El Chivo and
Maru," a revolutionary-turned-assassin finds salvation and redemption
after witnessing the life-altering car crash.
The film is unforgettably real and
relentlessly profound, taking on classical themes and metaphysical
madness to create an original and richly textured drama. This is a
cinematic triptych, so vivid, so intricate and so audacious that it
explodes through the confines of the screen from the starting car
crash (re-created with such authenticity that it may put the fear of
driving in even the most daredevil of car racers) to the final
moments of reconciliation and redemption (so gut-wrenchingly human
that they promise to haunt one for days on end).
González Iñárritu, the
film's director, has boldly made a film that has deservedly garnered
a lot of critical attention. If only that could have been translated
into wider audiences. Speaking of the setting of the film, Mexico
City, González Iñárritu states that, "I'm one of
the twenty-one million people who live in the world's largest and
most populated city, a city with inordinately high rates of
pollution, violence and corruption. However, as incredible and
paradoxical as it may sound, Mexico City is beautiful and
fascinating. Amores Perros is a product of this contradiction, a
reflection of the baroque and the complex mosaic that is Mexico City
and, ultimately, life itself."
Thus, even though the film is distinctly
Mexican, Iñárritu's vast humanity floods every frame of
his high voltage film, making this an exceptionally relevant and
universal piece of cinema.
When the film premiered in America, much was
made about how Amores Perros was indebted to Tarantino's Pulp
Fiction, particularly for its up-front and close gore and violence.
It is true that both films have their share of very bloody, very
brutal and very disturbing violence. But that is where the comparison
between Mr. Tarantino and Mr. Iñárritu ends. The
violence in Tarantino's world is always real but also always terribly
self-aware - he depicts violence not simply as a fact of life, but as
a glorified and often gratuitous fact of life.
For Iñárritu, violence is the
hell that humans must inhabit due to class, gender, politics,
economics, sex, race, nationality and inbred human corruption, and it
is through deliberate measures or chance that humans may be able to
escape that violence-drenched nether world so that retribution and
redemption flood the soul thereafter. Iñárritu never
makes the mistake of glamorizing violence or seducing his audience
with it.
As a result, Iñárritu's film
is a deeply moral and profoundly philosophical exploration of the
human condition. Violence in Amores Perros always has a consequence,
and in that sense Iñárritu's probing of the human soul
and psyche is very classically Greek. In fact the film, intentionally
or subliminally, is deeply Biblical, acknowledging the profoundly
Catholic nature of the Mexican people.
It is estimated that there are over one
million homeless or stray dogs in Mexico City. Iñárritu
acknowledges that dogs are very integral to the landscape of that
metropolis. These canines become the central theme and metaphor in
Amores Perros, inextricably linked to the fates and follies of the
characters in the film, and yet they themselves are nothing more than
innocent victims of their human owners.
In a dog-eat-dog world,
Iñárritu seems to be saying, human beings are no better
than animals. In fact, animals, without consciousness, morality, or
the ability to make choices, have no other option than to be
animalistic. But what of humans who do have consciousness, who do
have moral awareness and do have the ability to make choices? Why
then do we continue to do the things that we do? Are we in essence
not only no better than dogs, but in fact worse than animals?
Iñárritu has said that no
other animal could have said as much about the film as dogs. In the
press materials he notes that, "We use dogs in this film because I
believe they are animals who are the closest to us in nature. Dogs
can be loyal, faithful, humble, gentle, and generous. But, at the
same time, they can kill if threatened. Actually, our animal nature
is worse than theirs because we kill for money, ambition, and power,
while dogs kill only to survive."
Iñárritu is an incredibly
intelligent and astute filmmaker. He is willing to ask tough
questions in very forthright and uncensored ways. And, of course,
Iñárritu would not have been able to make the film that
he has without the charged, cohesive and corrosive screenplay by
Guillermo Arriaga. As a writer, Arriaga infuses his script with many
issues, a plethora of questions and a host of incredibly complex and
dynamic human beings. And yet nothing in Arriaga's script feels
shallow, unsubstantial, unnecessary or gratuitous.
In the first story-line thread of this magic
carpet screenplay, Octavio, a scruffy yet beautiful teenager is
brimming with untamed lust, passion and idealism. He falls in love
with his older brother's young voluptuous wife Susana and is
determined to free her from the ill-treatment at the hands of her
husband. She is nothing more than a caretaker and baby machine and
Octavio firmly believes that he is her salvation. But like all
illicit loves, almost Orphean in its overtones, Octavio is forced to
descend into the hell of the dog-fighting world, littered by
ingrates, infidels and infamous individuals, so that he can raise
money to free himself and Susana from their urban purgatory. Cofi the
dog, docile and flabby on the exterior, has the killer instincts of
an injured shark and soon the money starts to roll in. Like all
star-crossed lovers, these two must bear the consequences of their
actions and choices.
Vanessa Bauche plays Susana with a
naturalistic flair that is amazingly authentic. She infuses the role
with subtle inner turmoil, and her journey as a woman caught between
the impossible and the even more impossible is touching and
tormented. Gael Garcia Bernal as Octavio is nothing short of
stunning. His charisma, his smoldering looks and his boldly beautiful
acting is refreshingly honest for so young a performer in a medium
where youthful looks and posturing have been sold to audiences over
real acting. He is a true find and hopefully we will be seeing much
more of his talent on screen.
The second string in this story, reminiscent
of many of the films of the late Polish director Kristof Kyszlowski,
is a parable about the transitoriness of youth and beauty. Daniel, a
well-settled, wealthy, and bored businessman le
