The Lives of Others (Germany 2006, Drama), Writer/Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

The Lives of Others has been on my “must see” list for months, ever since, in the space of 24 hours, PM and then CM recommended it to me as one of the best films of the year. I’d see pretty much anything that comes with their stamp of approval.

Set in East Germany not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the film begins in 1984 when the Stasi—the secret police that enforced socialist rule in the German Democratic Republic—was in complete control. Their goal was “To know everything,” and they met that goal by any means necessary.

The film opens with Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe in a wonderfully nuanced performance), an established Stasi surveillance expert, teaching a class on proper interrogation methods. One of these methods, it appears, is to keep the suspect awake so long that he can no longer think straight.

In this opening sequence, in which the film cuts between Wiesler teaching and Wiesler interrogating, we learn something fundamental about the man. After hearing of Wiesler’s techniques, one of his students notes that it’s inhuman to keep a person awake for so long. It doesn’t occur to the keen pupil that Wiesler himself had to stay awake at least as long. He sets aside his own needs and desires to serve the state.

It later becomes clear that Wiesler doesn’t abide by the state out of fear, but because he truly believes in what it stands for. He has an unwavering commitment to his beliefs. And when his views change, he isn’t afraid to act on them even if they aren’t in synch with the views of the governing party.

On the order of the Minister of Culture (Thomas Thieme), Wiesler is soon assigned to monitor a famous playwright named Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck), in search of any disobedient behaviour. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Minister’s motives are not pure; he is infatuated with Christa and is looking for an excuse to put Georg behind bars.

Along with most of the rest of East Germany, Christa and Georg live in fear of the state. They don’t entirely agree with the socialist regime. But they have seen what happens to their friends in the arts community who speak their minds too freely.

As Wiesler monitors the couple, listening in from an attic above their apartment, he is privy to their most intimate moments. He gets to know them and, eventually, to care deeply for them. Disillusioned by the Minister’s selfish abuse of power and enlightened by Christa and Georg’s perspectives, Wiesler starts to change his opinion about the ruling state. And he decides to do something about it.

At its heart, and as its title would suggest, The Lives of Others is more about the need for contact with others than it is about socialism in East Germany. The film is enriched by its historical context but, ultimately, the story could be told without it. Wiesler is lonely. He hasn’t allowed himself many pleasures in life, and that includes friendship or intimacy with other people. The “relationship” he forms with Christa and Georg becomes the most precious thing in his life. And, as we see in the film’s beautiful and touching ending, the feeling is mutual.

I highly recommend The Lives of Others. It’s thoughtful, thought-provoking and moving, and features gorgeous performances from its lead actors. Mühe in particular, playing the quiet and reserved Wiesler, carries the film; he relies largely on facial expressions and body language to convey his character’s repressed desires.

As an added plug, The Lives of Others won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

* * *

I just learned that Ulrich Mühe, a renowned stage actor, was himself under Stasi surveillance in the 1980s, and that his actress-wife at the time turned out to be an informant. Makes The Lives of Others all the more poignant.

Sadly, Mühe died of stomach cancer this July. He was only 54.

Code 46 (UK 2003, Drama/Romance/Sci-Fi/Thriller), Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce; Director: Michael Winterbottom

Stranger Than Fiction (USA 2006, Drama/Fantasy/Romance), Writer: Zach Helm; Dir. Marc Forster

Truly Madly Deeply (UK 1991, Drama/Fantasy/Romance), Writer/Director: Anthony Minghella

If you’re familiar with these films, they may strike you as an odd trio. But I’m combining them into one post because I happened to have rented them all this past week. And they provide an interesting contrast in the use of the camera in film. And come to think of it, they all deal with people living in altered realities.

Code 46 is set in the near future when a relatively benign Big Brother watches over people in the form of a totalitarian government known as the Sphinx. We’re told throughout the film that: “The Sphinx knows best.”

Director Michael Winterbottom employs the camera to convey the notion that the characters are under surveillance. He uses a lot of coverage as if to suggest that people are being watched from all angles. It creates a distinct style that is sometimes jarring but has an interesting effect.

In the world of Code 46, people can only travel outside of their city if they’ve been issued a papelle, a travel permit with a strictly enforced expiry date. Those whose papelles expire are not allowed to return home. Those who have been deemed unfit to reside in the cities are exiled and forced to live in the vast desert that has taken over the outside world.

The film’s title refers to one of the Sphinx’s laws that forbids people with a close, or identical, DNA match from reproducing, or even from liaising. Because of IVF, cloning and other practices that have become commonplace, there is a greater risk that citizens are unknowingly genetically related. People are tested to determine genetic compatibility. If a couple is found to have knowingly breached Code 46, it is punishable by law.

The story begins as William (Tim Robbins), a married investigator for the Sphinx, travels to Shanghai to find out who is responsible for issuing fake papelles. He discovers that the culprit is a woman named Maria (Samantha Morton). But instead of reporting her, he falls in love with her. William can only stay in Shanghai for 24 hours before his papelle expires, but he spends all of them with Maria and they end up in bed.

Not long after returning home to his wife and son in Seattle, William is ordered to return to Shanghai to finish the “unsolved” case. When he tries to find Maria to press charges regarding the fake papelles, he discovers that she has been taken to a clinic outside of Shanghai to deal with a “body problem.” Namely, that she had been pregnant with his child and that, because they are genetically incompatible, she is in breach of Code 46. The problem has been dealt with: the pregnancy terminated, her memory of William erased.

An issue I have with this film is that it tries to cover more ground than it needs to. Code 46 isn’t necessary to the story. What is necessary are: a mechanism of social control; a conflict of interest in William loving Maria; and a reason why he can’t be with her. But the papelles serve as the mechanism of control. The conflict of interest arises because William is required to report Maria for distributing fake papelles, and because they are operating on different sides of the law. And they can’t be together because he is married. It doesn’t really matter that Maria and William aren’t permitted to have children together. There are other reasons that the Sphinx would keep them apart.

And that’s without getting into the viruses people take to trigger desired responses or be able to read people’s minds. It’s a lot to pack into 90 minutes.

To me, what the film is really about is better captured in one of its taglines than in its title: “Can you miss someone you don’t remember?” It’s about the idea that Maria is tied to William even after having her memory erased, and that their connection still exists upon the second meeting (and probably would on the third, fourth, fifth if it had to).

This reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (worth seeing), and of a recent newspaper article I read about a drug that can erase certain memories to alleviate conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. It seems to me, and both Eternal Sunshine and Code 46 seem to assert, that even if you erase a specific memory, you can’t erase all the facets of the personality that were formed or affected by that memory, nor can you erase other memories that developed as a result of the specific incident or person. For that reason, erasing a memory wouldn’t facilitate recovery, but would make it even harder for a person to cope with the feelings that evolved from that memory because the individual wouldn’t understand the source of their feelings. It would be more like a repressed memory than a vanished memory.

Another slight complaint I have about Code 46 is the strength (or lack thereof) of William and Maria’s bond. The first we hear of their relationship is when Maria narrates William’s journey to Shanghai, where the couple will ultimately meet for the first time: “I think about the day we met.” We know right away that their relationship carries weight, that it will play a fundamental role in the story.

A few minutes later, as Maria continues to narrate, she says: “The thing I can’t imagine is that we hadn’t met. Hadn’t even heard of each other.” Hearing this instantly called to mind a deeply intense bond between the two. But seeing their relationship play out, I wasn’t as convinced as I was by the voiceover. Something about the pairing of Robbins and Morton, both fine actors, doesn’t quite work. Maybe their relationship could have been better developed, or maybe the actors’ chemistry just wasn’t right. But somehow, their relationship is never as powerful as what I imagined when I heard that line.

This is definitely a strong film with wonderful technical elements (cinematography, score). It has a unique tone that carries throughout the movie, and it’s what keeps bringing me back to it days after having seen it. The script is great—it’s written by Frank Cottrell Boyce who also wrote the fabulous Hilary and Jackie. I love the fact that the foreign words that are mixed into the futuristic language aren’t accompanied by subtitles—it’s a sign of respect for the viewer when a director makes that choice.

I recommend Code 46. But I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by it. TS, a friend I’ve known since high school, recommended it to me for this blog. We’ve seen countless movies together and I trust his opinion on films more than almost anyone’s. So when he told me that Code 46 is one of the best films he’s seen in years, I was expecting more. But only a little more.

I don’t know if TS has seen Stranger Than Fiction, but it reminds me a bit of him because of its perverse sense of humour. This movie is about Harold Crick (Will Ferrell in his best role yet), a socially inept IRS agent who’s so anal that he counts every brush stroke he makes with his toothbrush and every step he takes to reach his morning bus.

One day, he wakes up to hear a voice narrating his life, accurately describing his thoughts and predicting the future. When the voice announces that his death is imminent, Harold is understandably concerned. He seeks counsel from Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a literature professor who tries to help Harold determine what genre of novel he’s living in, and change the morbid ending. Along the way, Harold meets and falls for Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker and the subject of one of his audits.

I really like this film, despite the fact that the ending doesn’t live up to the rest of the script. It’s filled with great lines. Hoffman is fantastic. (He says that this script coaxed him out of early retirement.) I love the details of his character, like how he’s always slurping at coffee or spooning yogurt sloppily into his mouth. He does a wonderful job of creating subtext for Dr. Hilbert. Gyllenhaal is also excellent—as always; watch her in Secretary or Sherrybaby.

I wasn’t entirely convinced that someone as free-spirited and leftist as Ana would fall for Harold, but his attempts are so sweetly awkward that I didn’t really mind suspending my disbelief. Who wouldn’t fall for him when he brings her a box of flours?

Director Marc Forster uses the camera to full advantage. I don’t think there’s even one shot that wasn’t set up without great care. The shots feature a lot of depth, many with beautifully framed images within the frame (look for Harold watching Ana through her bakery window), and there are many interesting camera movements, including some well-choreographed tracking shots.

This is in stark contrast to the use of the camera in Truly Madly Deeply, which is by far the least filmic of the three movies. With this film, writer/director Anthony Minghella (a major talent) doesn’t make the most of the medium. In watching Truly Madly Deeply for the second time (I first saw it years ago), I found myself thinking that it would be better served on stage than on screen—that it could be more moving, and told at least as well, in terms of logistics.

Still, I love the story. It’s so simple and sweet. Nina (Juliet Stevenson) is mourning the loss of her beloved husband Jamie (Alan Rickman) who died some time ago. She can’t let go of his memory. She sees him everywhere, and imagines him accompanying her on his cello while she plays the piano. One day, he comes back to her as a ghost. She’s overcome with joy, and puts everything in her life on hold to rush back home and be with him each night. But as she starts passing up new opportunities for love, Nina realizes that she’s been idealizing the past and begins to remember some of Jamie’s irksome habits—some of which are brought home when he starts inviting his rowdy ghost friends over to talk politics and watch movies.

Minghella’s later films—The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley—are much more sophisticated. But Truly Madly Deeply has a sweet sincerity to it, a raw emotion that is portrayed beautifully by Stevenson. Look for her breakdown in the psychiatrist’s office, or the scene when Nina and Jamie reunite. It makes you believe in love again.

All three films are worth renting: Code 46 if you’re in a thinking mood; Stranger Than Fiction if you’re in the mood to laugh; and Truly Madly Deeply if you’re looking for something romantic and uplifting (but bring a few tissues for along the way).

A History of Violence (Germany/USA 2005, Crime/Drama/Thriller), Writer: Josh Olson; Director: David Cronenberg

[Spoiler Alert: I give away a few plot points here, although none that aren’t revealed in about the first half of the film.]

My love affair with Viggo Mortensen began sometime between The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and when I first saw A History of Violence. I noticed him in A Perfect Murder as Gwyneth Paltrow’s artistic, criminally inclined lover, and was impressed to learn that he’d done all of his character’s paintings for the film. I’d seen some of his other work, like GI Jane (he’s the only good thing about that movie). And it would have been impossible to miss him in the first two The Lord of the Rings movies; I can’t imagine a better Aragorn.

But I wasn’t hooked until I read an article about him in the theatre waiting to see The Return of the King. Mortensen is amazing. He’s a published poet and photographer (Perceval Press is his own publishing shingle) and speaks several languages. He has an intense work ethic that borders on obsessive, but it’s what makes him give 110% to everything he does. For years, he responded personally to every one of his fan letters. When he no longer had time for that, he had the integrity to cease and desist his fan mail account because he didn’t want someone else writing on his behalf. He wouldn’t accept the role of Aragorn without his son’s blessing because he didn’t want to be away from him for the eighteen-month shoot. He shuns Hollywood every chance he gets, and is utterly fearless about speaking his mind.

After learning that and more about Mortensen, I started renting some of his other films. Most notable among them is The Indian Runner, Sean Penn’s directorial debut, inspired by Bruce Springsteen’s song Highway Patrolman about two brothers on opposite sides of the law. Mortensen is incredible in this film. If you’re a fan of his, or of Penn’s, you should rent it today.

On top of my Viggo appreciation, I’m a David Cronenberg fan. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I first heard about A History of Violence, and it has since become one of my favourite films.

The movie is based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke. On the surface, the plot is quite simple. It tells the story of Tom Stall (Mortensen), a family man who runs the local diner in small-town Millbrook, Indiana. His life appears peaceful and “normal” until two thugs try to rob his diner at gunpoint. Tom snaps into action and violently comes to the rescue. When his heroic efforts garner the attention of mobsters from Philadelphia, his family and friends start to question who Tom really is—an upstanding man with solid values, or Joey Cusack, a former mobster and hitman.

But just beneath the simple plot lies a strong undercurrent and that for me is where the power of A History of Violence rests. It’s in the tension between what we present to the outside world and what really beats in our hearts. What Cronenberg presents to us initially, and what’s really going on.

The film’s opening shot lasts several minutes. The camera dollies along the side of a motel as Leland (Stephen McHattie) and Billy (Greg Bryk) leave the building and load up their car. Cronenberg’s decision to capture the action in one long take allows the tension to build. Everything is still. We hear crickets in the distance, the drawn out whine of electrical wires. The men amble slowly toward their car. Billy even stops to adjust a chair as he leaves the motel.

But you get the distinct impression that something isn’t right. When Leland returns from checking out, Billy asks him what took so long. “The maid gave me some trouble,” he responds. It isn’t until Leland tells Billy to go in and fill up their water bottle that we find out just what he meant. As Billy wanders into the lobby, he steps over two slain bodies to reach the water cooler.

The stillness with which Cronenberg captures the first deaths in the film is in stark contrast to the violent scenes that follow. It serves to show how easily violence comes to Leland and Billy. It’s second nature to them—or maybe even first. When Billy finds a young girl trembling in the motel doorway, he pulls out his gun, tells her “shhh,” and then, cool as a cucumber, shoots her point blank.

We cut from there to Tom’s daughter, Sarah (Heidi Hayes), waking screaming from a nightmare. The family comes running to comfort her, and Tom tells her that there’s no such thing as monsters.

But that may not be entirely true. After Tom shoots the men in his diner, you see the monster start to come to life again. You see Tom realize that it’s still inside him. He later tells his wife Edie (Maria Bello) that he spent three years in the desert killing Joey, killing the monster within. But it’s an impossible task. Violence is a part of him, just as are love and compassion.

This dichotomy is best evidenced in the film’s two sex scenes. In the first one, Edie and Tom steal away from the kids for a sweet, passionate evening that begins with Edie in her high school cheerleading outfit. They are tender, loving and intimate with one another. In the second one, Edie has recently learned about Tom’s past—about Joey. She lashes out at him, and he responds by grabbing her throat and slamming her against the wall. She tries to run up the stairs, but he pulls her back by the ankle. She struggles while he holds her down, but when he starts to back off Edie pulls him roughly back to her and they engage in hurried, violent sex on the stairs that leaves her back covered in bruises.

It’s important to note that this is not a rape scene. Edie is turned on by Joey, by her husband’s violent side. She wants him to take her on the stairs.

When it’s over, Tom and Edie lie still holding one another before she pushes him away. It’s an interesting moment. Amid all the chaos and Edie’s newfound doubts about whether she ever knew her husband, there is still love between them. The violence in Tom’s past doesn’t make him a different person; it’s simply another dimension to him.

In the DVD’s special features, Cronenberg says that the sex scenes weren’t in the original script and that he asked screenwriter Josh Olson to add them. That’s hard to imagine, because the film wouldn’t be the same without them. They are certainly two of the most memorable scenes in the movie, and are pivotal to the story. They beautifully contrast the different aspects of Tom’s personality, and make a strong point about Edie’s appreciation of, if not capacity for, violence.

Tom’s episode at the diner affects the family in other ways. Once it’s introduced, the violence starts to grow roots and spread. Tom’s son, Jack (Ashton Holmes), fights back against the high school bully and ends up putting him in the hospital. Tom tells him off: “In this family, we don’t solve our problems by hitting people.” “No,” Jack says, “in this family, we shoot them,” to which Tom responds by hitting him hard.

Unfortunately, the subplots involving the kids detract a bit from the film. The scenes with the high school students are weaker than the rest, and the two child actors (Hayes and the girl who dies in the opening sequence) aren’t as convincing as their adult counterparts, which is too bad because they play in some of the film’s pivotal moments.

But the movie’s pros far outweigh its cons. The fight scenes are extremely well-choreographed, although a little too graphic for me—I still look away during the goriest moments.

William Hurt is a fun addition. As Joey’s brother and lead mobster Richie Cusack, Hurt brings levity to the film with a hammy performance. He has one of the best lines, delivered when he and Joey finally reunite: “You always were a problem. When mom brought you home from the hospital, I tried to strangle you in your crib. I guess all kids do that.”

On the whole, A History of Violence is a powerful film that features some fine performances—from Mortensen and Bello in particular—and leaves you thinking after the credits roll. When Edie begins to realize that Tom is not who he says he is, she confronts him: “Tell me the truth. What are you?”

It’s a question for us all.

Shortbus (USA 2006, Comedy/Drama/Romance), Writer/Director: John Cameron Mitchell

This post is another special request from BD. (You’ve got great taste in films, BTW. I’ll bring you mine tonight to see what you think!)

Shortbus’ working title was The Sex Film Project, which sets the stage well for what you can expect from the movie. It follows the interconnected lives of several New Yorkers who meet at Shortbus, a salon that celebrates art, love, communion and sex. The patrons come together to talk politics, wax philosophical, and engage in various carnal acts.

Technically, the film is a great achievement. It was made on a relatively low budget of $2 million (it pains me to call that a low budget—I could make eight feature films for that amount!) and was funded by some unusual sponsors, including Moby and Canadian writer Douglas Coupland (I love his work). The film is well shot, and features creative editing that doesn’t rush but takes some liberties with chronology to make certain scenes flow better. The soundtrack includes a great mix of fun and touching music. The script is excellent and betrays as great a sense of humour as of humanity on writer/director John Cameron Mitchell’s part (I’m thinking of the gay three-way scene when one participant sings the Star-Spangled Banner into another’s ass). Mitchell developed the script using the same approach that British writer/director Mike Leigh made famous in films such as Secrets and Lies; he had the actors improvise their scenes as a means of developing and exploring their characters’ histories and motivations.

These technical components come together to allow Mitchell to explore what Shortbus is really about: sex. Sex in the film is notable not because of how graphic it is, but because it is completely desexualized. In Mitchell’s world, sex isn’t about eroticism so much as it is about people connecting, expressing, bonding and laughing. Sex is treated as a language, a way of communicating. For the people at the salon, the act is safe and trusting; they’re like children playing in a bathtub, when sexuality was still innocent and no one had told them it was wrong.

Most of the main characters in Shortbus are unable to feel or connect in some way. It’s as if there’s a physical blockage that prevents energy from flowing through them—either sexual, spiritual or emotional energy. Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee of CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera) is a sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm. Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a dominatrix who can’t connect with other people. James (Paul Dawson) can’t let anyone penetrate him, emotionally or physically. In one of the film’s most poignant scenes, he describes his depression by saying: “I see (happiness) all around me but it stops at my skin. I can never let it in.” It’s a beautiful moment and a beautiful performance from Dawson.

Throughout the film, Mitchell cuts to a gorgeous computer-generated model of New York, which serves as a metaphor for his characters’ blocked energy. As the story progresses, we see the lights in the model city go out one by one. After several brown-outs, the energy is completely cut off, culminating in a blackout near the film’s conclusion. The electricity only returns to Manhattan when Sofia finally reaches orgasm and the other characters have begun to open themselves up, releasing their own energy and letting other people’s energy flow through them.

In one of the film’s opening scenes, we learn that James and his boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy) are thinking of opening up their relationship. That sums up what all the characters want (and need)—to open up and let others in.

What touched me most about Shortbus is the complete lack of judgment with which the characters are treated. Gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, transgender… Mitchell treats each of his characters with the same love and respect they give each other. All the characters have pure intentions; there is no malevolence in any of the relationships, no desire to hurt. It’s almost the opposite dynamic from the one in Bad Education. Both films feature people who can’t connect, but Shortbus’ characters are filled with real love—the unconditional desire for another person to find what’s best for them. James’ stalker, Caleb (Peter Stickles), doesn’t want to break up James and Jamie; he wants them to be happy together. When Jamie sees James through the window and realizes he’s been with Caleb, he isn’t angry; he’s overjoyed that James is alive and safe.

It’s interesting that Douglas Coupland played in role in getting Shortbus made. Before I learned about his involvement, I’d already been thinking about how the film reminded me of a short story from one of my very favourite books, Coupland’s Life After God. Here’s an excerpt:

“I had recently begun worrying about my feelings disappearing more and more—noticing that I had seemed to simply be feeling less and less. These worries became more focused and stronger as I was driving… I tried to forget what I was thinking about and just listen to the radio… The radio stations all seemed to be talking about Jesus non-stop, and it seemed to be this crazy orgy of projection, with everyone projecting onto Jesus the antidotes to the things that had gone wrong in their own lives. He is Love. He is Forgiveness. He is Compassion. He is a Wise Career Decision. He is a Child Who Loves Me. I was feeling a sense of loss as I heard these people. I felt like Jesus was sex—or rather, I felt like I was from another world where sex did not exist and I arrived on Earth and everyone talked about how good sex felt, and showed me their pornography and built their lives around sex, and yet I was forever cut off from the true sexual experience. I did not deny that the existence of Jesus was real to these people—it was merely that I was cut off from their experience in a way that was never connectable.”

Coupland taps into the same feelings of emptiness and disconnect that Mitchell explores in his film. Shortbus is set in a post-9/11 Manhattan.* The host at Shortbus explains that young people come to New York because of the World Trade Center attacks: “It’s the only real thing that’s ever happened to them.” They arrive in the city desperate to feel something, to find something to believe in.

Coupland’s reference to sex and Jesus and forgiveness brings to mind another line in Shortbus. An elderly male patron explains that: “People come to New York to get laid… People also come to New York to be forgiven.” The characters in Shortbus come to forgive each other and, most importantly, to forgive themselves. In Mitchell’s words: “Everybody’s there. Every sexuality. Everyone’s welcome. Food. Drink. Art. Sex. Friendship. Love. They are all on the table, and there’s talent, and there’s mercy.”

I want to end with a line from another favourite novel of mine, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall On Your Knees: “Kathleen is truly and utterly and completely Kathleen in New York. That’s what the city does for you if it’s meant for you.”

* It strikes a personal chord for me because I temporarily moved to Manhattan just three days after the WTC attacks. While I was there, I started writing notes on a feature script that I finished when I returned home to Canada. The script explores some of the same themes as Life After God. What happens when people no longer have anything to believe in? I had the premise in mind before arriving in New York—it came to me in a dream, actually—but the theme of the loss of, and search for, faith came about while I was living in Manhattan.

Blindness (Brazil/Canada/Japan, In Production, Drama/Thriller), Writer: Don McKellar; Director: Fernando Meirelles

This post is premature given that the movie won’t be released until 2008, but I just found out that not only is the film adaptation of José Saramago’s Blindness finally in production, but it stars Gael García Bernal (and Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore)! I was pretty excited about David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen re-teaming for this year’s Eastern Promises, but I’m even more excited about Blindness now that I know Bernal has been cast.

Blindness is one of my favourite books. I first heard about the adaptation at the 2000 Summer Institute of Film and Television. Don McKellar—one of my favourite Canadian filmmakers—was there teaching a writing workshop, and during one of the panels he talked briefly about his process for adapting Blindness to the screen. (According to McKellar, Saramago insisted that he read all of his novels before approving the adaptation.) I’m pretty sure that at the time, McKellar said he was planning to direct the film as well as write the screenplay, so I don’t know what happened there because Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles is now attached to the project.

Anyway, that was seven years ago and I hadn’t heard about the film since then—until today. It’s funny; just this weekend, I was telling someone about the adaptation that never was, and, by coincidence, this morning I stumbled on an article about it while researching information on Sook-Yin Lee for a post about Shortbus (to come).

Blindness was written in 1995 in Saramago’s native Portuguese. It won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. Here’s the write-up on the back of the book:

“A city is hit by an epidemic of ‘white blindness’ which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man’s worst appetites and weaknesses—and man’s ultimately exhilarating spirit.”

I’m curious to see how McKellar adapted Blindness. When I heard about the project in 2000, it seemed to me that it would be a hard adaptation to write. The novel isn’t very descriptive, and Saramego seems to have an aversion to punctuation which makes the dialogue hard to discern. And I couldn’t envision how McKellar would capture the disorientation that comes from blindness without filming the entire movie with the lens cap on.

But now that I think of it, the premise lends itself really well to film. The doctor’s wife (as she is known throughout the book) is the main protagonist, and also the only character who retains her eyesight. That makes her the ideal guide not only for the characters in the story, but for the film viewer.

I can’t wait for Blindness to come out! The main casting is pretty trendy, but at least they’re all great actors. And there are some Canadians in the cast, including McKellar and Maury Chaykin (Whale Music, The Sweet Hereafter). Stay tuned for this one. It should be interesting, at the very least. In the meantime, you can pick up the book at almost any major bookstore, and probably most of the smaller ones.

Transformers (USA 2007, Action/Adventure), Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman; Director: Michael Bay

I’m surprised that I’m posting something about Transformers. I didn’t think I’d have much to say about it other than it has good special effects.

I grew up watching the show during stolen moments on the concrete floor of my elementary school cafeteria. My parents didn’t want us watching television, so that was pretty much the only time I got to see it. I spent the first half of my lunch break getting lost in Astro Boy, ThunderCats or Transformers, and the second half wandering around the playground imagining that I was part of their worlds. And probably being branded as a freak by the other kids playing in the yard, but that’s a post for another blog.

The thing about the cartoon that stayed with me most was the cool mechanical sound the robots made when they transformed. I think that would make an awesome cell phone ring tone. Not surprisingly, the sound effect was carried over to the live-action version of Transformers.

So I went into this movie under completely different circumstances than those under which I went into Away From Her. I saw a 10:30pm showing on a weeknight (and I’d been up since 5:00am that morning). I knew that Transformers was nearly two-and-a-half hours long, and had heard only bad things about it—such as that it was best described as a “geekgasm.” I was worried because what I dislike most in a film is being bored by it. I’ll choose a typical popcorn movie over a thoughtful, artistic film if I know that the popcorn flick will be more entertaining or engaging. I just don’t want to sit there feeling like I’m wasting my time and money. So I had visions of sitting there, struggling to keep my eyes open, willing the damn thing to end so I can go home and get some sleep before my meeting the next morning.

That didn’t happen. I’m not going to pretend that Transformers is a ground-breaking movie, but the filmmakers got a lot right. From the opening scene, they set an appropriately hokey tone for an adaptation of a cartoon that was an adaptation of a toy commercial. The film starts out with a narration by Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots—the “good” Transformers who are sworn to protect humans: “Before time began, there was the cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life.”

“We know not…”? Yikes. But that kind of cheese is completely at home in a movie like Transformers. If the writers had tried to make the film subtle and profound, it would have failed.

From there, we’re introduced to a group of US soldiers doing battle with an unidentified aircraft—a helicopter that turns out to be one of the Decepticons, the “bad” Transformers who are determined to destroy human life. Transformers features some of the most blatant product placement I’ve seen, and the US military is its biggest sell. I think it’s also one of the movie’s weakest points. There are too many characters in Transformers, and the film would be better off without subplots like the one about the soldier whose wife has given birth to a daughter he’s never met. It’s an unnecessary distraction and you couldn’t care less when he finally reunites with them.

It’s in these moments that Transformers veers into director Michael Bay’s traditional territory, like the corny animal cracker scene in Armageddon or the blowing sheets in Pearl Harbour’s love scene. These moments feel out of place in Transformers, a film that is otherwise quite light-hearted and often comically self-reflexive. One of the best lines comes from protagonist Sam (Shia LaBeouf) when he tells his true lust Mikaela (Megan Fox) that there’s more to her than meets the eye.

The movie would be better served if it cut the military scenes down to only the parts that are necessary to further the plot. (But then I guess Transformers wouldn’t be nearly as effective an army recruitment vehicle.) And it could stand to lose the insincere subplot about Mikaela’s convict father.

In addition to tighter story editing, the film would do well with fewer characters. The blond computer scientist, for example, could have been merged with one of the government officials or military experts. But then there would only have been one hot chick in the film. Sigh.

I have one other overarching compliant about Transformers. The movie ramps up pretty slowly—largely because it bounces between too many storylines—and takes so long to reach a climax that it winds up being a little disappointing. It’s sort of like making out all night instead of going all the way. It’s nice, but it doesn’t quite get you off.

The Transformers trickle into the film gradually. I think it’s Mikaela who notes that the mysterious government agents from Sector Seven don’t seem surprised to see the Transformers. That’s because they’ve seen them before, and maybe that’s part of the problem for the viewer. Most people in the audience have already seen the cartoon, so we can’t expect the same kind of hit we get from, say, seeing the creature in Alien for the first time. But this is the first time we’ve seen the Transformers in live action, and Bay could have built it up a bit more. The closest the movie comes to a big unveiling of the Transformers is when Sam follows Bumblebee to a tire yard and sees him in robot form for the first time. But it carries less impact than it could. Even when we first see Megatron, frozen and held captive in an underground military base, it’s anticlimactic.

Probably my favourite aspect of Transformers is the relationship between Bumblebee and Sam, which the writers clearly had a lot of fun developing. Bumblebee, the Autobot who doubles as a beat-up Camaro, communicates using songs on the radio. (It’s a cute idea. I tried writing something once using only song lyrics and it comes out sounding like really cool free verse.) Early on in the film, Bumblebee tries to help Sam hook up with Mikaela by playing The Cars’ Drive and Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing as he attempts to drive her home. There are plenty of other comic moments between Sam and Bumbleblee as they try to work through their communication problems. It turns out that Autobots can actually be very sensitive.

I don’t think you have to be a hard-core fan of the cartoon to enjoy Transformers. There’s enough comedy and fantastic special effects to keep most viewers interested. And watching the Transformers transform is so cool. I recommend watching this movie in the theatres, and sooner rather than later because seeing it in a packed house adds to the excitement.