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The Lovely Bones
Saturday, January 16th, 2010—FilmThe Lovely Bones (USA/UK/New Zealand 2010, Drama/Fantasy/Thriller), Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson; Director: Peter Jackson
The Lovely Bones has been getting some pretty damning reviews. But to be fair, it’s based on a book (Alice Sebold’s beautiful work of the same name) that is very difficult to adapt to film.
In the novel, the story of raped and murdered 14-year-old Susie Salmon, and the impact of her death on those she leaves behind, is told from Susie’s point of view as she watches from “the in between”—a place somewhere between heaven and Earth. Sebold’s writing moves the reader gracefully from one place to another, watching over Susie’s family, her friends and even her murderer, and spending time in her imagined paradise.
I loved the book and have been waiting a long time for this movie. I was pretty excited when I read that Peter Jackson was on board to direct; he seemed like the perfect person for the job. His Heavenly Creatures showed that he could delve into the imagined lives of teenage girls, and handle dark family matters. The Lord of the Rings trilogy proved beyond any doubt that he was adept at working with CGI and creating rich fantasy worlds on an epic scale.
But somehow Jackson’s background wasn’t enough to do justice to The Lovely Bones. So much of what Susie experiences, both in her heaven and when she interacts with people still on Earth, works perfectly in the novel but is over the top when interpreted literally for the screen. It comes across as hokey. Jackson also tries to cover too much ground, and ends up giving a shallow treatment to many of the characters and subplots that truly made the novel come alive for me (e.g. Susie’s strange and otherworldly classmate, Ruth; her sister Lindsey’s journey; her mother’s struggle and desperation).
It’s been too long since I read the novel for me to say what specifically I’d have cut out. Maybe the answer to a better adaptation lies more in the treatment than in the content; a more experimental, non-narrative approach might have led to greater success. The film could have moved more fluidly between the two worlds, fading from one to the other without following logic and structure, the way dreams happen. I think it would have worked to allow for some ambiguity and confusion in the format for the sake of more clearly developed characters and glimpses into their lives (or afterlives).
In spite of some obvious and significant flaws in the film, I can’t completely write it off. The Lovely Bones has a couple moments that took me right back to the book, almost as though Jackson had crept inside my mind and brought my vision to life. There are also brilliant moments, like the beautiful scene when Susie’s father Jack (Mark Wahlberg), in a fit of rage and despair, destroys the model ships-in-a-bottle he used to build with his daughter, and the boats in Susie’s “in between” simultaneously come apart in the ocean before her.
Although some of the actors aren’t really given enough material to dig their teeth into, the film features some incredible performances. As murderer George Harvey, Stanley Tucci is fantastic and nothing like I’ve seen him before. And as Susie, young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan blows me away. Her portrayal is wonderful, and diametrically opposed to the brilliant, Oscar-nominated performance she gave in Atonement.
Watching The Lovely Bones, I was more fascinated than disappointed. It’s too hard for me to separate the movie from the novel, which I loved; from Sebold’s memoir, Lucky, which I’m reading now, and that accounts for her own experience with rape and trying to merge the seemingly contradictory notions of the world she used to know with the post-assault world she is left to inhabit; and my own fascination with criminology, and interest in understanding social deviants—how they got there, and whether they can ever return from there (my undergrad thesis explored the possible benefits of a reconciliation between sex offenders and their survivors).
Still, I can imagine that for someone who hasn’t read the book and doesn’t share my connections to the movie and its themes, the film would only be uneven, unsatisfying and maybe even a little cloying. People can’t be expected to read the novel as a complement to the film, and research the filmmakers’ histories to get a deeper appreciation for it.
This is a movie that will probably only be of value to people who read the book and are interested in seeing Jackson’s take on it. The real genius of The Lovely Bones is in Sebold’s writing and how she adapted her own experiences to create a transcendent novel, floating—like Susie—somewhere between fantasy and reality.
A Single Man & Avatar
Saturday, January 9th, 2010—FilmA Single Man (USA 2009, Drama), Writer/Director: Tom Ford
Avatar (USA/UK 2009, Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi), Writer/Director: James Cameron
“Her dreams are more real than her waking, and they fly through her mind like white birds.”
I saw Avatar a few weeks ago for the first time, and I loved it but didn’t think I had enough to say about it to warrant a post. In short, I thought the visuals were amazing, the storyline touching albeit predictable. But I saw it again and, amazingly, the second viewing seemed to go by even faster than the first. Then last night I saw A Single Man, and although it’s profoundly different from Avatar, its opening draws an immediate parallel to the animated epic and compelled me to write about both films.
Each movie explores the idea of creating, or discovering, an altered state of consciousness, greater enlightenment. They begin with the protagonists waking up. But in both films, the characters have suffered great loses and are cut off from the world, sleepwalking through life even in their waking. What is interesting is that the films go in opposite directions to resolve their characters’ disconnect and unhappiness.
A Single Man is fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut. Set in 1960s Los Angeles, it tells the story of George (Colin Firth), a man grieving the loss of his partner of 16 years, Jim (Matthew Goode), who died in a car accident some eight months prior. Waking up, George tells us, actually hurts. “My heart has been broken, and it is as if I’m sinking, drowning, and I can’t breathe.”
In the film’s opening moments, you really believe him. His pain is palpable, and as he stands frustrated at his kitchen counter, slamming a loaf of frozen bread down to break up the slices, you see how much he carries it with him. Getting used to being “George,” he says, takes time. It’s something he must prepare for each morning as he dresses to face the world. He feels as though he’s playing a part, going through the motions the world expects him to make. But he isn’t really there anymore; part of him died with Jim.
Ford’s direction is heavily stylized. George’s world is mostly shown in muted colours. When he observes others, or tries to interact, we see extreme close-ups of objects or body parts, lips that suddenly glow in full technicolour. But these forced moments of liveliness only serve to further highlight how disconnected George is from those around him. They feel just as empty as the bleak, frozen landscape George trudges through every day. They don’t feel real. It’s only when he gets to know a few strangers who start to bring him out of his grief that the shot and colour treatment takes on a lifelike, natural hue and carries an energy that feels like something alive, something you can connect to.
The problem is, A Single Man works so hard to convey George’s disconnect that I felt too detached to really be moved by it. With all of Ford’s extreme close-ups, hugging bodies, accentuating lips and torsos, he betrays his background in fashion and does himself a disservice as a filmmaker. A movie is more than just the series of shots that hold it together, and many of Ford’s choices felt too self-conscious to really engage me.
Avatar, on the other hand, does a fantastic job of drawing the viewer in. It engulfs you from the very beginning. The movie is James Cameron’s glorious return to feature filmmaking after 1997’s epic Titanic. Set in the 2100s, it follows paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to the moon Pandora where he has been assigned to take over the job his deceased twin brother began. Pandora is home to a valuable but elusive mineral called unobtanium (cute), which a wealthy corporation plans to mine for. The moon is also home to the Na’vi, a blue-skinned humanoid species that lives directly atop a massive unobtanium deposit and presents a problem to the greedy people who want to get their hands on the mineral—at any cost.
In an effort to improve relations with the Na’vi, scientists create Avatars, creatures that resemble the Na’vi but are made from both human and Na’vi DNA and can be controlled remotely by humans whose consciousness inhabit the Avatar bodies. Jake’s brother was one such Avatar operator, and because Jake shares his twin’s DNA, he alone is able to inhabit his brother’s Avatar. Jake accepts the mission and attempts to learn the Na’vi way on behalf of the corporation. But in the process, he falls in love with their lifestyle—and with the powerful Na’vi Neytiri (Zoe Saldana)—and, in the process of waking up to who he is destined to become, discovers what is really worth fighting for.
Avatar is 10 years in the making, and you could spend hours reading up on the technology behind it. A 3D marvel, Avatar was shot using an innovative motion-capture stage and dual-camera system that recorded the actors’ performances down to the minutest facial expressions, allowing their digital counterparts to appear to move in real-time. True to form, Cameron developed the technology he needed to bring his imagination to the screen.
While the technology is mind-blowing (and admittedly out of my realm of expertise after conducting only very rudimentary research), what I love most about Avatar is the Na’vi world and the concept it explores about energy—a concept that has fascinated me for years. Every action, every birth and death, every thought, involves an energy that binds us all together. The Na’vi have such a profound understanding of and respect for nature, and their exquisite world is brought to life so vividly by the animation, you can’t help but long to know that a place like that really does exist somewhere in the universe.
A Single Man and Avatar explore the danger of drifting through life without fully engaging with what’s going on around us, and introduce the empowerment and fulfillment that comes from truly waking up. Both feature men who are trapped in their current forms, by grief and—in Jake’s case—by physical barriers. It’s only when they enter a new form of consciousness that they are able to realize what they can truly become. Where A Single Man fails is by keeping the viewer at a distance and never letting you fully join George on his journey of awakening. Avatar, on the other, brings you right into Jake’s world, and hopefully opens people’s eyes to much more than just one person’s plight.
* * *
“She is waking to noises… And each of them beats in her ear like a drum as the dragons, the witches, the eagles, the mice, as the flowers and tigers and leopards and swans, as they all swim away through the rooms of her mind into darkness and seafoam and peace.”
Andrea Tomkins offers a peek into the world of Wonderpress
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009—NewsCheck out Andrea’s review of Dinostory on her awesome blog, a peek inside the fishbowl.
Where the Wild Things Are
Monday, October 19th, 2009—FilmWhere the Wild Things Are (USA 2009, Adventure/Drama/Fantasy), Writers: Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers; Director: Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, leaps onto the screen with the energy and spirit of children everywhere playing in parks, forts and snow banks. The writer/director has created a magical world on par with those places where your shadow can suddenly leave you behind and take off on wild adventures; where you can spiral down a tunnel and wind up in an alternate realm full of mysterious creatures; where nameless strangers pass by through dappled light and share whispers that change your day, your view, your life.
This is the world where the Wild Things are, and I don’t want to spoil it by saying too much. You shouldn’t really read about it, anyway; you have to experience it.
The film beautifully captures the whimsy and fancy of childhood, but also the frustration that comes when you’re young and small and feel that no one hears you no matter how loudly you scream. Young Max (Max Records) needs to escape his world because his emotions are too big for anyone to understand, including him. So he goes to a place where he can finally make sense of them—where the Wild Things are.
As someone who spent much of their childhood living in make-believe worlds where other humans didn’t exist or couldn’t see me, I very much related to Where the Wild Things Are, and very much loved it. There are so many fun, inventive characters who enliven the film with their random comments—the kind you feel could only be spoken by someone “real,” they’re so off-the-cuff.
But the film also makes room for more somber, reflective touches; both Max’s worlds, real and imagined, feature beautifully observed moments of stillness. There are two in particular shared between Max and his mother (played by the wonderful Catherine Keener) that are lovely, insightful and poignantly bittersweet—one where he tries to express himself by inventing a story about vampires, the other at the film’s conclusion.
Where the Wild Things Are is dark and colourful; sad and joyful; brilliant, powerful and hopeful. It’s a magical story, beautifully told. You should go and see it for yourself.
* * *
To my very own Wild Things, who always saw me even when I was in hiding—SM, DT, AD, JC, HS.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Monday, October 12th, 2009—FilmMcCabe and Mrs. Miller (USA 1971, Drama/Western), Writers: Robert Altman, Brian McKay; Director: Robert Altman
I’ve recommended McCabe and Mrs. Miller too many times for it not to be up on this site. It happened again last Friday night when I was out with CDC and DB, listening to their stories of how Leonard Cohen’s music has impacted them over the years. Quite simply, if you love Cohen’s music, you have to see McCabe and Mrs. Miller. His songs—like Sisters of Mercy and The Stranger Song—define the mood and tone of the piece, and help make it one of Altman’s best.
Based on Edmund Naughton’s 1959 novel McCabe, the movie tells the story of John McCabe (Warren Beatty) who arrives in the small mining town of Presbyterian Church, Washington to open a brothel. Soon after his arrival, Mrs. Miller (the luminous Julie Christie) shows up and helps him transform the business from a low-class joint to a well-run establishment that serves as a main attraction for residents and passersby. But as the town begins to prosper, a big-shot mining company takes an interest in buying McCabe out. When he resists, the company sends hired guns his way and things quickly go downhill.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller is usually described as an anti-Western because it subverts so many of the genre’s conventions. It does, in the way it tinkers with character stereotypes, and especially in the way it treats what would normally be seen as the Western’s climax—the pivotal showdown. In McCabe’s world, times are changing. It’s easy to get swept away and forgotten in a snowstorm.
But what’s most powerful to me about McCabe and Mrs. Miller isn’t the story; it’s the telling. As a writer, I can easily get caught up in the words. (Though if you’re going to do that, Leonard Cohen is definitely your man. His words make drowning everything else out worth your while.) Sometimes you need to just feel the rhythm and the beat behind the story, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller does that for me.
The first time I saw the movie, it didn’t fully register. I watched it in film school, when we saw movies constantly—in class, as homework, and even for fun because everyone there loved movies so much that no matter how many hours we spent studying them, watching another was still one of our favourite things to do. But seeing so many meant that sometimes things got lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t until our next class—when my prof kindly called on me to talk about it in front of everyone—that I realized how I really felt. For a moment, I had nothing to say. And then I recalled the feeling I’d had when watching it. I stepped back into the world Altman had created and discovered how present it still was. Because the lighting and camera work and music and performances all combined to create an incredibly powerful atmosphere that I can’t recall finding in another film.
Our prof, Derek Redmond, chose the film as an example of outstanding cinematography, and it was a fantastic choice. There are other things I love about the film—the way the characters are humanized, Julie Christie’s performance. But what I love most is the look of the film, how it completely captures the time and tone and season, and how Cohen’s music complements and completes that mood. The Stranger Song is pitch-perfect for the story, from those first rambling guitar chords… I don’t want to dissect the film’s backstory and meaning. I just want to watch it play out because I love the way it makes me feel.
I can’t think of a better time to recommend McCabe and Mrs. Miller than mid-October. It opens to autumn rain and closes to a quieting, blanketing snowstorm. This movie offers a great way to spend one of the next few weekends—listening to beautiful music, watching one of the most tangibly atmospheric films ever made, feeling winter’s first chill from somewhere warm inside.
Dirty Dancing
Sunday, September 27th, 2009—FilmDirty Dancing (USA 1987, Drama/Romance), Writer: Eleanor Bergstein; Director: Emile Ardolino
I don’t think I can really write a review of Dirty Dancing; it would be like writing a critique of my mom’s cooking. Dirty Dancing is less a movie to me and more a childhood experience. Like the summers we went to music camp, or the years we spent on a farm.
There is no other movie in my life that’s on par with Dirty Dancing. I can’t think of another film I’ve seen more than a few times, but I’ve literally lost track of the number of times I’ve seen Dirty Dancing. It’s in the dozens. For a while in grade school, my younger sister and I watched the movie on VHS every afternoon with the sisters who lived next door. It was a ritual, and much better than doing our homework.
I’m writing this non-review of Dirty Dancing now as a tribute to Patrick Swayze. I haven’t seen many of his movies, although I’m going to try to watch Road House today because my sister’s eyes light up every time someone mentions it. She loves how unabashedly hokey it is. I saw enough of the film’s opening to know it’s not a movie I’m likely to recommend to anyone else. But I’m looking forward to seeing Swayze play Dalton, the tough-as-nails bouncer with a soul, and really looking forward to watching the special features to find out how real-life bouncers answer the question, “What would Dalton do?” Family antics and inside jokes about Road House aside, the tie my sisters and I have to Patrick Swayze is through Dirty Dancing—and the television miniseries North and South which utterly swept me away; we even named our fluffy white cats Orry and George after the two main characters (Swayze was Orry).
But back to Dirty Dancing. I’m not going to review it, per se, but I will say that it’s a special movie that stands out among other films of its ilk. It’s set one summer in the 60s when Baby (Jennifer Grey) and her family stay at Kellerman’s resort in the Catskills. The movie is Baby’s coming of age story, as she falls for dance instructor Johnny Castle (Swayze), and learns to dance and to question everything she thought she knew before arriving at Kellerman’s. There’s more to the story than you’ll find in most dance movies, and, as my sister pointed out, the casting is exceptionally good. Swayze and Grey are perfect and the supporting performances are very strong (especially Jerry Orbach as Baby’s father and Cynthia Rhodes as Johnny’s dance partner).
I don’t know much about Patrick Swayze “The Person.” And I don’t want to go there. To me, he was just Johnny (when he wasn’t Orry). Lines from the movie evolved into a secret language between me and my sisters and countless friends. I spent so many nights dancing around my apartments to candlelight and music from the soundtrack, when the floors became the log or the stairs or the stage in the movie, and the doorframes became Johnny himself. (The lifts didn’t go so well.) And in those ways, Swayze is still as much alive to me as he ever was.
Several years ago, a dear family friend died of cancer. He used to work at the National Gallery of Canada and most of my memories of him are in or around that building. So, to me, he’s still alive there, striding through the hallways with his purposeful but boyish gait, his eternal smile lighting up the rooms. (I always say a quiet “Hello” when I pass by the Gallery.) In that same way, Patrick Swayze will always be alive to me. I guess that’s how it is with people who touch you greatly but aren’t part of your daily life; their impact doesn’t have to lessen with their passing. In the back of my mind, I still think I can pop into the Gallery any time I want to visit my friend. And I know I can always pop Dirty Dancing into the DVD player when I feel like catching up with Johnny.
I was genuinely sad when I read that Swayze was ill. I’ve thought about him off and on over the last year or so since he announced that he had pancreatic cancer, and was struck by a surprising amount of grief when he died on September 14. Two weeks ago tomorrow. I won’t think of him every day, and his death won’t change my life in any significant way. But it is a loss for so many people—especially those close to him—and truly sad that someone with such a life force should have it extinguished so early.
Swayze has left behind a legacy of films and television shows. From the little I know of him, he was a good actor and a great dancer, and he’ll be remembered through his work and the countless websites devoted to him. I guess this post is the virtual bouquet I’m leaving at the collective monument his fans have created. Dirty Dancing will forever be enmeshed with my childhood and adolescence. I think everyone should see it. It’s awesome. And it’s what Dalton would do.
PS, I don’t hope you rest in peace: I hope you’re still dancing your ass off.
Inglourious Basterds
Sunday, September 20th, 2009—FilmInglourious Basterds (USA/Germany 2009, Drama/War/Satire), Writer/Director: Quentin Tarantino
If you’d told me a month ago that I would be writing about Inglourious Basterds (on an absolutely glorious September day, as it happens, and by the water, basking in what is probably the farthest I could get from the movie’s frequently tense, frenzied mood), I wouldn’t have believed you. Although Tarantino fascinates me and usually puts out movies that catch my interest, I just couldn’t stomach the gruesome scalpings and beatings I knew were in his latest flick.
But then AO, a good friend who’d already seen the movie, agreed to watch it with me and sweetly warned me before most of the gore could send me into post-traumatic stress. (By the way, contrary to what everyone else assured me, you can’t see all the violence coming; some of it appears as quick cut-aways, and some of it just takes you by surprise. And also by the way, I realize how lame it is that I needed an escort to see this film. But it got me into the theatre, and I’m really glad it did. You’re about to find out why.)
So let’s dive in, because I want to get out on the water. Inglourious Basterds is set during the Second World War. It begins in 1941 Nazi occupied France, when a group of SS officers storm a farmhouse to eliminate the Jewish family that is rumoured to be hiding there. Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) murders all but one member of the Jewish family—the young Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) whom he inexplicably allows to run free.
From that all-too-real horror, we jump ahead to 1944 where Tarantino has decided to take some outlandish liberties with history and have a little fun at the expense of the Nazis. Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) has gathered a group of Jewish-American soldiers—the Basterds, as they call themselves—to do a little housekeeping in Germany. He charges each man with the duty of bringing him 100 Nazi scalps, or die trying. As the Basterds set about their work with great fervour, we meet up with Shosanna in Paris where she now runs a cinema. As the Basterds and Shosanna seek their own brands of revenge, events conspire to bring them all together at her theatre on the night of a major Nazi film premiere.
The thing I find most enticing about Quentin Tarantino’s films is that his excitement and exuberance for filmmaking practically spills off the reels. He’s so obviously in love with what he does, both with moviemaking and with the movies that he makes. When he takes a break from the narrative to give the viewer backstory, or to jump into a character’s fantasy sequence, you can almost see him giddily at work in the editing room dreaming up the titles and effects. He ends Inglourious Basterds with one of the characters saying, “This might just be my masterpiece.” The character is referring to his work on one of the Nazis, but you get the feeling that Tarantino—the writer, the director—might just be talking about his own movie.
Tarantino is a self-taught film student. He reportedly schooled himself by watching countless movies from the annals of cinematic history, and it’s clear he did his homework. Inglourious Basterds is peppered with allusions to film history, including references to Hitler’s favourite filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, and Hollywood golden age producers like David O. Selznick. I’m sure there are many more references that are increasingly likely to elude me the farther I get from my film school days. But you get the point.
Even in a film about the Holocaust, Tarantino’s trademark energy and penchant for the absurd come across. The movie is divided into chapters, and some of them are funny and playful even in their extreme violence. One of the most obvious examples of the film’s levity comes in the form of Lt. Raine. As Pitt plays him, he’s a Tennessee hillbilly who brings an unshakeable confidence but also apparent disinterest to his task. He’s fully committed to following through on murdering Nazis, yet the entire mission always comes across as something of a game or an amusement to him.
I read an interesting article in The Atlantic, in which Tarantino says that all his Jewish friends have nothing but rave reviews for the film. Still, the reporter quotes Neal Gabler (author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood) as saying that “no Jew would ever make a film like Inglourious Basterds. It’s too brazen.” That’s the impression I got from the film as well. Only an outsider could have that detachment; a Jew would be too affected by history’s power to take Tarantino’s angle on the Holocaust. Lt. Raine isn’t Jewish. He hasn’t been personally attacked; he just happens to have a bone to pick. In many ways, Lt. Raine feels a bit like the film’s narrator, approaching his mission in much the same way the director approaches the film as a whole: with detachment, humour, violence and great authority.
Still, there are other chapters and dimensions to the film, which isn’t surprising given that Tarantino himself admits to going off on genre-bending tangents when he sits down to write. In addition to the fun, frolic and carnage, the director creates some incredible drama and tension. The opening scene in the farmhouse is so exquisitely made that it’s almost painful to watch. It’s timed perfectly, and the performances are astoundingly good—from the French farmer’s daughter who never says a word (Lena Friedrich), to Col. Landa whose depiction by Waltz is nothing short of sensational. He has his character fine-tuned to the smallest details in how he holds his utensils. It’s obvious from the attention Tarantino’s camera pays Waltz that the director adores and appreciates actors.
The other truly phenomenal performance comes from Mélanie Laurent. As Shosanna, she is powerful, nuanced, understated, and so mesmerizing that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She shares a restaurant scene with Waltz later in the film, and it’s hard to decide which one to focus on. Just watch this scene and see how they each attack their food: Landa with almost violent gusto, taking exactly what he wants from the meal and thoroughly enjoying the process; Shosanna with the fierce determination and rage that has kept her alive, and the knowledge that her only defence is a strong offensive attack in front of the Nazi who massacred her family. At the end of the meal, when Landa finally takes his leave, Shosanna’s split-second breakdown is shattering. Either of these actors would make Inglourious Basterds worth seeing. Together, they pack a one-two punch that is unmissable.
So there you have it. In a lot of ways, Tarantino still shows his silly, boyish, gleeful side in Inglourious Basterds. He’s a film geek out for some self-indulgent fun at the helm. But he’s also clearly put a lot of thought into what he does—a lot; I’d guess it’s probably all-consuming for him—and he delivers some refined, sophisticated scenes that showcase a growing wisdom and maturity as a filmmaker. From what I saw (basically everything minus most of the gore), Inglourious Basterds is one fine film. It’s outrageous, but excellently crafted and definitely worth seeing. All you need is a stronger stomach than mine, or a friend as good as AO.
District 9
Monday, September 7th, 2009—FilmDistrict 9 (USA/New Zealand 2009, Action/Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller), Writers: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell; Director: Neill Blomkamp
It’s interesting (encouraging, even?) that this review comes immediately after my review of Moon. Both District 9 and Moon are daring, inventive sci-fi films that are more focused on character development and exploration, and on social commentary, than simply blowing things up. District 9 also manages to fit in some pretty impressive visual effects, and is much more action-packed than Moon. But action or not, these are both definitely the kinds of sci-fi flicks that catch my attention. Hopefully they’re indicative of a more intelligent, thought-provoking breed of the genre, and not just a summer fluke!
District 9 opens with a documentary-style backgrounder on the past 20 years, starting in 1990 when an alien mothership arrived over Johannesburg. Unable to return to their home planet because of technological difficulties with the spacecraft, the aliens are forced to make Earth their new home. The people of Johannesburg react with fear, and it isn’t long before the government has the aliens fenced off and living like third class citizens—complete with tin roof shacks and heaps of trash littering their slums, and a pejorative nickname (“prawns”) that reinforces just how unwelcome they are by human society.
Now, in present day, the government has handed over control of the aliens to a private corporation called Multi-National United (MNU) that has decided the best course of action is to move the million+ aliens 200kms outside of Johannesburg. The evictions are being handled by Afrikaner Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley, in an outstanding performance). Wikus is an ignorant and racist bureaucrat who thinks it’s funny to listen to the popping sounds the alien pods make as he burns the babies alive. He has no sympathy for prawns, as he calls them, until he is exposed to an alien substance that alters his DNA and begins to turn him into one of the dreaded creatures.
At this point, the film—which brilliantly blends documentary-style news footage, corporate interviews and traditional narrative—focuses more on conventional storytelling and delves into the relationship between Wikus and an alien who goes by the name Christopher Johnson. Christopher is evidently the most intelligent of the aliens, and has been secretly building a means to escape beneath his shanty house. The eviction means he will have to give up his plans, which were nearly complete. And so he is forced to work with Wikus so that they may both have a chance at survival.
I recently had a conversation about District 9 with my favourite film critic, TS. He says he loved the film for the exact opposite reason he hated The Dark Knight. While the Batman installment features characters whose actions range from questionable to implausible, District 9 presents a totally believable version of how humanity would react in the presence of alien creatures who have something we want (in this case, superior technology).
I agree with TS (except for the part about hating The Dark Knight), but would go further and say that, of the sci-films I’ve seen, I’ve never been more convinced that what unfolds actually could happen, and that the aliens truly could exist, than I was by District 9. Blomkamp uses aliens from outerspace to reflect how unwelcoming—and fearful—humans tend to be of all aliens. Setting District 9 in South Africa draws immediate parallels to forced relocations and discrimination that have occurred throughout history—both recent and relatively distant. The fact that the director grew up in Johannesburg brings added weight, depth and sincerity to the story.
More than just painting a powerful and convincing depiction of what can—and does—go wrong when people give in to fear and greed, Blomkamp also manages to do a beautiful job of bringing the aliens to life. When Christopher Johnson explains to his young son how many moons they have on their planet, I utterly believed that their world was real and waiting for them somewhere else. Their history and backstory somehow comes alive throughout the course of District 9. The aliens are treated with respect by the filmmakers, if not by any of the other characters.
Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, Heavenly Creatures) is one of the producers behind District 9. But the one truly visionary voice that rings throughout is Blomkamp’s. The film is an amazing feat in and of itself, but when you consider that this is the feature film debut from a 29-year-old, it’s all the more incredible. The South African born filmmaker has a background in animation, and first got noticed when he directed a series of live-action shorts promoting the video game Halo 3. (I’m not going to pretend to know anything about Halo… although I do kind of like the new Beyoncé song.) Based on the success of his shorts, Blomkamp was slated to direct the feature film version of Halo. But when it fell through, producer Jackson decided to help Blomkamp bring another of his shorts to life as a feature—the 2005 movie Alive in Joburg, on which District 9 is based.
I really liked this movie. Yes, some of the content is mildly derivative—there are echoes of The Fly, among other films. But it’s technically awesome, and is open-ended in a wonderful way that makes you question the consequences of our behaviour and wonder what’s in store for us all.
tales from our crib reviews Dinostory
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009—NewsThanks to the wonderful Jennifer Farrell for reviewing Dinostory on her blog, tales from our crib. Please click here to read the full story.
Moon
Saturday, July 25th, 2009—FilmMoon (UK 2009, Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller), Writer: Nathan Parker; Director: Duncan Jones
Moon is the thinking person’s summer sci-fi blockbuster. You won’t see crazy effects, other than the impressive soundstage that convincingly passes for the moon’s surface. You won’t get whiplash-inducing fight scenes; the film’s few scuffles are shot and edited to look real—as in clumsy and unrehearsed. What you get instead is an exploration of identity, reality and consciousness that is perfectly at home in the context of outer space.
From the first time director Duncan Jones shows us Earth from the moon’s perspective, we know we’re set to face a shift in perception and how we view existence. Things are not the way we’ve always seen them. Moon introduces us to Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a lone astronaut nearing the end of a three-year contract harvesting Helium-3 from the dark side of the moon. The gas is sent back to Earth where it provides 70% of the planet’s energy.
As Sam starts counting down the days until he goes home, his life on the moon begins to unravel. He suffers from headaches and hallucinations, and has trouble figuring out what’s real and what’s imagined.
It’s hard to say much more about Moon’s plot without spoiling its surprises. What unfolds is thoughtful and suspenseful—albeit in a slow-boil kind of way—and brings up a lot of existential questions. What makes a person unique? What is reality? Do our memories, attachments and emotions mean any less if the people they’re associated with don’t share them? Moon has me looking up Einstein’s Optical Illusion of Consciousness and probing other esoteric matters. I can’t think of a better setting for these issues than space, the universe and all we don’t know; where within that massive expanse of matter, every one of our subjective realities is an illusion.
Moon is one of the more unique films out there. Just watching the trailer sucked me in to its mood (see my Moon teaser), and the film as a whole doesn’t disappoint—the trailer’s tone is carried out well through the entire movie. That Moon succeeds so well is a tribute to Jones’ vision, and to Rockwell’s spectacular performance. For almost the entire film, Rockwell is the only actor on board. He has to carry the weight of Moon on his shoulders, and he’s more than up to it. The minutia of his life, and particularly his interactions with the computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), are very real, and touching in their simplicity. Jones’s approach reminds me a bit of Harmony Korine’s films in his willingness to let the audience just witness people being, rather than relying on tricks and gadgets with which to astound.
The score also goes a long way toward creating Moon’s tense, eerie mood. It’s a simple piano arrangement that’s been stuck in my head since I first heard it a couple months ago; in fact, it became the score to my walk back to the car after seeing the movie.
Moon is by far one of the best films I’ve seen this year. Possibly THE best. It’s up in the ring right now duking it out with The Wrestler. Tear your eyes away from the Michael Bay and McG clutter floating around out there, and lift your gaze upward. Moon is a must-see.
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This post is for TS and PS. Without TS, I may never have opened my mind to the wonders of movies, especially indie films. And there would be no crazed scattering seagulls, or bronze statues chasing after you in the night, or… Without PS, there would be no TS. I’m grateful there was.
