Film Review--Severance (2007)

Severance
directed by Christopher Smith
written by James Moran and Christopher Smith
starring Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakley, Andy Nyman, Babou Ceesay, Tim McInnery, Laura Harris, Danny Dyer, David Gilliam, Juli Drajkó, Judit Viktor

Someone is out in the woods and they’ve got a nasty habit of gutting people who stumble into their lair. This film is a tale of just such butchery and it’s glorious ramifications.

As the movie opens a man and two Russian hotties are running desperately through the woods. The girls fall into a trap and the man is disemboweled. The film backs up a few days and a group of associates for Palisade, a weapons firm, are in a bus heading for a nice get-to-know-you weekend at a fancy lodge. They are stalled in the road by a tree in the roadway and their driver refuses to go on. He drives off leaving them to walk to a lodge that is far from fancy.

The film involves the picking off one by one of the workers as they attempt to improve company morale through various exercises. But, unfortunately for them they stumble into the territory of a very hostile group of thugs that wants nothing to do with their team-building games. Indeed, they rather enjoy the sport of hunting humans and quickly the group is decimated for their ill-timed adventure.

There are several theories surrounding the lodge and it’s purpose. According to various accounts it was either a mental hospital, a prison, or a “love” hospital teeming with sexy nurses satisfying the needs of tottering old fools succoring on their immaculate breasts. The film never fully explains specifically who the men are and what they want only that they are Russian, they know about Palisade, and that they are wholly demonstrative animals with a keen eye on establishing a giddily high body count out of the poor saps caught in their cross hairs. Also they are bloody efficient and fulfilling the edicts of their overall plan. The victims are easy prey having no knowledge of the area and no easy mode of transportation to take them away from their de facto prison.

The film can best be described as a black comedy for those who take delight in the niceties of butchery tempered with clever one-liners that are designed to take the edge off of the horror. To everyone else the film is incessantly brutal with graphic depictions of violence against characters to whom one has grown sympathetic. Still, there are those here whose deaths are not particularly minded, even wished for based on their behavior during the initial stages of the film.

The final third of the film features two characters in full-on survival mode. Maggie (Harris) and Steve (Dyer) become the ultimate hunted game as they desperately attempt to elude capture and imminent death. Maggie is particularly fierce and proves herself to be agile and fully capable with weapons. As is always the case an exquisite female form handling herself with shotguns is terribly sexy especially when the camera lovingly hovers over her immaculate face caked in blood.

The film possesses a tremendous amount of energy both before and during the hunting sequences where the characters are driven out of their precious comfort zones and forced to fend for their lives. Most of them prove to be easy enough to capture and it’s only the final two who put up much of a fight. The group spends a time arguing amongst themselves about the best possible action to leave the cabin and get back to civilization upon the discovery that someone has been peering through Jill’s window. There is a sense for a while that the infighting is going to cause considerable damage to the participants and sully the integrity of their mission. It takes a real catastrophe such as certain death to rid them of their pretense and force them to concentrate on the problem facing them all.

There are moments during the final sequences where the film allows its audience to question the legitimacy of the Palisade corporation. It strikes one as a sinister organization who supplies weapons to anyone who needs them ostensibly including terrorists. The company is a specter that hangs over the entire film. Harris finds boxes of records regarding Russian men who may be patients or inmates featuring the company’s logo. It becomes even more sinister when several members of the group discover a prison set up in the lower regions of the building.

We learn at the end that the two girls running through the woods are Russian escorts that Steve has hired for a bit of good, clean fun.

The performances in this film are stellar throughout. Laura Harris is clearly present and focused for the duration of the film. She establishes her character’s grim determination to survive at all costs. One gets a very real sense of Maggie’s intensity which is demonstrated early in the film before she’s forced to engage in behavior that has always been a part of her but which she has kept in reserve. Maggie is a bit cold and distant for the first half of the film and it isn’t until the chase is on that she opens up and releases a torrent of emotions. Danny Dyer’s character offers some comic relief early in the film with his slightly daft mushroom trip where he temporarily freaks out and has to be led on a rope by Maggie. Dyer is convincing as a bit of a loose canon who doesn’t take the mission all that seriously. Andy Nyman plays Gordon as centered and grounded until he loses his leg and he becomes necessarily hysterical; Steve gives him some ecstasy to help with the pain and he starts blabbering to Maggie that he loves her in classic e-speak.

Overall, this film is intoxicating from beginning to end. It deftly establishes all the characters creating the potential that the audience may actually find something in them worth caring about. For the most part the characters are entirely sympathetic although there are degrees as to which some are more worth bothering over. It’s a very funny film that deals with a horrific situation that really calls for humor. The film suggests that it’s the only way to deal with such a ghastly situation as this. The nameless and mostly faceless killers are an interesting lot considering that so little is known about them and that the film refuses to disclose any information that might help the audience make a positive identification. They remain wholly other and outside the realm of proper judgement; they are ciphers who storm in and cause considerable mayhem before slinking back into the dark night. Ultimately, this film satisfies the longing for torn flesh throughout and plays like a dark fable about avoiding strange woods where sinister creatures haunt the night.

Film Review--He's Just Not that Into You

He’s Just Not That Into You
directed by Ken Kwapis
written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein
based on the book “He’s Just Not That Into You”: The No Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Long, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore

Ah, love with the tenacious fangs of fear pressed against one’s throat. This film explores the myriad ways the beasts creeps in to devour the unwitting who necessarily succumb to its charms and derelictions.

The film follows the lives of numerous characters as they walk the tightrope between pleasure and emotional pain. Gigi (Goodwin) is a sweet girl who finds her self struggling to understand the motives and behaviors of guys. She frets that Conor (Connolly) hasn’t called her back after a single date. Desperately she consults her friends Beth (Aniston) and Janine (Connelly) and they aren’t quite able to calm her down. Out of desperation she asks bar owner Alex (Long) for advice and he informs her that if a guy doesn’t pursue a woman directly he’s not interested. This advice helps Gigi and leads her in a direction that ultimately allows her to find someone who is into her completely and effortlessly.

Beth and Neil (Affleck) have been seeing each other for seven years but Neil refuses to pop the question because he doesn’t believe in marriage. Beth takes it in stride although she repeatedly makes her feelings felt on the matter. Janine and Ben (Cooper) have been married for seven years and consider themselves happy. However, Ben meets Anna (Johansson) at a grocery store and beings a romance with her. It is revealed that the marriage isn’t exactly ideal and that Janine is upset that Ben has lied to her about not smoking. Anna is sort of dating Conor but she won’t sleep with him again and this arrangement upsets Conor who wants more. Mary promotes Conor’s real estate business but is the only character who is not pursuing nor is pursued by any potential suitors.

The film does an adequate job juggling its many narratives. There’s a naturalness about each of the characters and their plights are presented in a matter-of-fact way that is bereft of sentimentality and over-reaching. Once the dynamics are set up the film just allows the characters to follow their perspective paths until they ultimately collide in various levels. There is tremendous strain in this film as ideas about what each character wants continually shift. There is no set grounding for any of the characters as mooring is repeatedly kicked aside in a painstaking effort for release of some sort.

Gigi is the narrator and perhaps the most significant character in the film. Her hysterical reactions to feeling left out and abandoned resonate throughout the entire film. She longs for the one true love and seems to want to be rescued from herself and her neurotic tendencies. She is the image of impatience and demands that it happen to her right now. It isn’t until she realizes her folly that she is able to open herself up to love and indeed it takes the release of very harsh but revealing words to a man for the air to be cleared leaving true feelings to reveal themselves. She lambasts him and he realizes that her rings sting with truth. Up to that point he had denied his true feelings for Gigi and even pushed her off when she tried to kiss him after staying until 3 in the morning helping him clean up after a party. She is able to read his signals of desire that he is not able to recognize. It is clear upon their first meeting that they are going to hook up by film’s end. Indeed, all the relationship issues solve themselves eventually.

The film navigates through decidedly treacherous waters. There is deceit, suppressed longing and insecurities on display as each character demonstrates a not so perfect grasp on their situation. There is pain here but it is superceded by contentment. There doesn’t seem to be any unabashed demonstration of love, however. Every character lazily moves about and nothing they do seems to suggest intense and undying love. Mostly what is on display here is the belief that a person isn’t quite whole unless they have convinced another person to share entirely in their life. These characters are all fragmented and works in progress. None of them seem particularly fulfilled in their lives despite their various careers and the fact that they have found that someone who may or may not to prove themselves willing and ready for the long haul. Still, that seems to be the direction the film is heading although there is an ambiguous display of marriage.

Another idea voiced by the character Mary is that when you are married to someone and you meet someone else who you connect with on every level, are you supposed to just let that person go by? Ben is the embodiment of this predicament. Even though they were not having sex he believed, because he enjoyed the rut they were in, that things were working out. However, he meets Anna and suddenly the game changes for him and he realizes he has stumbled precisely into the same situation described by Mary. There is intense chemistry between these two characters and the obvious can not be effectively denied. He wants her but hesitates because he honestly believes he cannot betray his wife. Still, he gives in to his temptation and effectively destroys his marriage even though Janine puts on a brave face once he reveals the truth to her. She is impossibly strong after his announcement and states evenly and cooly that it’s something they can work through and doesn’t necessarily have to lead to a separation. Ben is perfectly willing to break it off perhaps because he has already in his mind decided to leave Janine and will latch on any excuse to do so.

There isn’t a whole lot of sexual chemistry in this film between any of the characters and little magic. There is only the satisfaction that these characters one has spent over two hours with have found someone who reflects themselves back to them with clarity and honesty. The film makes out this process to be trying and difficult and capable of convincing a person that the quest is not worth it and the only recourse is to get out of the game entirely. This is not an option in this film because each character is driven by the desire to justify themselves in the eyes of another person who redeems them to a certain degree. These characters all seek such redemption and seem unable to find it by any other source. There is tremendous anxiety throughout this film and significant insecurity. The characters seem unable to tackle life without the crutch of another person to lean on. There is ambition here and an effort to foster change in the lives of some of the characters. There is drive and at least a level of understanding.

The performances in this film are all infectious. Bradley Cooper is dynamic and impossibly charming throughout. He exudes an air of confidence that most likely comes from a lifetime of play. Ginnifer Goodwin is captivating in her character’s neurosis. She naturally conveys Gigi’s startling need for reassurance that she is worthy of a man’s attention and affection. Jennifer Aniston routinely presents her character’s empathic nature and comes off as entirely sympathetic. There is an earnestness about Beth that Aniston genuinely affects throughout. Scarlett Johannson is slinky and well-grounded in her sexuality. She presents a character who is tingling with a robust, expressive erotic appeal. She’s the one character who truly seems comfortable in her immaculate skin. Justin Long captures Alex’s understanding nature as well as his role as a harbinger of cold, hard truth. Jennifer Connelly is iconic and devastatingly present throughout this film. She’s got a iciness and a fortitude about her that comes across periodically. Ben Affleck is typically solid in this role. Neil is initially impenetrable and Affleck demonstrates his gradual softening and openness. Kevin Connolly is quite good at demonstrating Conor’s neediness and his cool discharge of emotions. Drew Barrymore is earthy and perpetually calm yet decisive throughout the film. Mary is not particularly neurotic and seems to know what she wants unlike most of the other characters.

Overall, this film offers an appetizing dish of anxiety and fear throughout. It’s fairly even handed between the males and females and seems relatively honest about the motivations that drive people to crash into each other all in the name of commitment and sexual satiation. These characters are all driven by aspects of their relationships with members of the opposite sex. There’s not much room in this film for personal growth save the occasional realization that one is behaving like a coward or a jerk and needs more than they are willing to admit to themselves. The performances are natural and all convey the myriad complexities that go into anyone who has difficulty nailing down what they actually want.

Film Review--Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic
directed by P. J. Hogan
written by Tracey Jackson, Tim Firth, Kayla Alpert
starring Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristen Scott Thomas, Leslie Bibb, Robert Stanton

Rebecca Bloomwood (Fisher) loves the smell of Bloomingdale’s in the morning. She loves the carpets, drapes and especially the elegance of the mannequins and the methodology inherent in the displays of shoes, scarves and perfume. To her shopping is the closest she is ever going to get to a religious experience. Unfortunately she has spent way past her limits and is facing debt collectors, particularly a very insistent one named Derek Smeath (Stanton) whose ubiquitous presence in this film is a clear warning to all of those who find themselves purchasing things they don’t need at over 18 3/4 percent.

The film does a fine job setting up Rebecca as a little girl who refuses to grow up. She’s hysterical for much of the film because the big bad wolf is threatening her at every turn and she’s desperate to escape his clutches. But there is no way one can avoid the wolf forever; eventually he will pounce and devour his tender prey. Derek Smeath is of course that wolf and he is as persistent as a would-be suitor.

There is one purchase Rebecca makes which proves to be valuable and fortuitous. She finds a green scarf that she buys after a tremendous ordeal. She wears the scarf to an interview with Successful Saving magazine where she apprehends the man named Luke Brandon (Dancy) who gave her $20 in the street so she could buy a scarf for her sick Aunt. She stashes the scarf only to have it returned to her by a secretary. Later she writes a scathing letter to Brandon, the editor of the magazine, and submits an article to Alette magazine but manages to slip each letter into the wrong envelope. Brandon reads her article breaking down the ways in which women purchase shoes and is exceedingly impressed. She signs the article with the name, “The Girl in the Green Scarf” and it becomes an international media sensation that gives the little shoppers rag a high profile.

Rebecca lives with the terrible secret about her debt situation because she is promoting herself as a paragon of frugality. She begins to attend “Shopaholics anonymous” meetings but her first visit she spends her introductory time luxuriating over the ecstasy of finding something new to buy. Rebecca struggles with her addiction and keeps backsliding although for the most part she keeps it in check. It slowly cedes in its significance in her life leaving a massive gap that needs to be filled. Previously the shopping filled up the part of her that for most people is filled with love. As she has no room to love anything that isn’t shiny, glittery and/or expensive, everything else remains outside of her. It isn’t until she completely gets to the root of the problem that she is allowed to love.

The addiction side of this story is fascinating. Rebecca creates her own set of steps to achieving her goal of becoming debt free. She recognizes her problem, she takes steps to ensure that she doesn’t lose herself again (destroying most of her credit cards), she experiences tremendous fear over the implications of what she has done, she sabotages her relationships with everyone she cares about, she takes a drastic and painful measure in order to solve her immediate problem, she ostensibly learns from her experience and doesn’t return to her wholly reckless past.

Being a rom-com, the purpose of this film is to bring the male and female leads together for one great, scintillating kiss or embrace. It’s the main reasons these films exist for their mostly female audiences; women seem to be drawn to happily-ever-afters perhaps because they provide such an intoxicating jolt of hope and possibility. They are shiny, comforting, and warm; they are drenched with longing, achievement and tense emotional connections that resonate with women. Men are for the most part hoping to laugh but otherwise checking their watch routinely and planning their escape route.

The perils of unheeded consumption play out effectively in this film. There seems to be a message here regarding the compunction toward purchasing material goods just for the sake of it and not because any of the items are actually necessary. Rebecca spends roughly a thousand dollars per month on shoes, scarves, handbags and clothes not because she needs them but because the act of shopping fulfills a need that is otherwise not met. She is addicted to the feeling that overwhelms her when she hands over her credit card and realizes that what she has purchased belongs emphatically to her and to noone else. Yet, she knows the transaction is superfluous and this realization hits her soon after she exits the store. She fills her apartment with hope for something more than the meager existence she has eked out for herself in her new life.

Rebecca’s parents, Jane (Cusack) and Graham (Goodman) have always been frugal and responsible with their money. As a little girl Rebecca dreamed of fancy clothes, accessories, and essentially anything that spoke of glamour to her. However, her parents preached practicality above all else and she was unable to fulfill her fairy land fantasies and was routinely disappointed. There is a sense that she rebelled entirely against her parent’s position by going in the extreme opposite direction. As she sits before them anticipating that they are about to announce that they are leaving her their nest egg, which they have accumulated by a lifetime of saving, she is again disappointed when the tell her they have purchased a large RV which they have dreamed about for many years. It’s a crushing blow but not one that utterly deflates Rebecca’s sense of Self. She rebounds from the shock gallantly and ultimately lands on her feet for perhaps the first time in her entire life.

When Rebecca’s friend Suze (Ritter) announces she is getting married, she provides Rebecca with a colorful, playful bridesmaid dress. At the same time the editor of Alette magazine, Alette Naylor, convinces Rebecca to purchase a dress that costs her more than a month’s salary and which she is supposed to wear on television. At the “Shopaholics Anonymous” meeting she is forced to make a choice between the two dresses. This marks the beginning of Rebecca’s true recovery from her addiction. It also puts her firmly and squarely at rock bottom where she must gather up her resources in order to violently extract herself from her overbearing and stifling situation. She makes one final decision that alters the course of her life permanently. In dramatic fashion she unburdens herself and at least temporarily sets her self free.

The performances in this film are all impressive. Isla Fisher exudes an easy charm which makes her character infinitely likable. It’s a joy to watch Rebecca stumble about, literally tripping over her own feet and causing considerable chaos on several occasions. She starts the film as a fledgling that has fallen out of the nest. She is unable to right herself and uses shopping as a survival mechanism. Fisher captures both the sincerity of the character as well as her impetuous nature. Hugh Dancy is very charming and exceedingly grounded in this film. He exudes an easy charisma that allows his character to be a touch stone for Rebecca’s manic flights of fancy. John Goodman is rock solid and Joan Cusack is effective as a woman who has denied herself for so many years. It’s enjoyable to watch as she finally reaches a place where she can finally treat herself. Krysten Ritter is dynamic as the best friend whose role is to remind Rebecca of her excesses and casually instruct her as to the nature of her ills. Kristin Scott Thomas is the embodiment of glamor and carries herself with tremendous confidence throughout the film. John Lithgow effortlessly plays the man who pulls the strings.

Overall, this film ably comments on America’s shopping addiction through the eyes of a young girl who cannot resist the feel of a new cashmere sweater simply because it exists and she doesn’t own it. There are many such stories and they are nearly all driven by the same desire. Rebecca finds herself swamped in debt and as the film opens unable to dig herself out. She doesn’t recognize the signs of sickness until she faces the truly evil debt collectors who insidiously and incessantly stalk their victims using every form of psychological torture at their disposal. It’s telling that Derek Smeath (a brilliantly slimy name) is such a nefarious presence in this film. Perhaps it’s a comment on the tactics that credit card companies use to lure the unsuspecting into a trap of debt which is exacerbated by interest and a maddening array of charges for late payments and other minor infractions. Rebecca is simply caught up in the frantic pace of modern life and she doesn’t want to be left out. She wants only to be afforded the opportunity to at least appear that she’s up to date.

Film Review--Andy Warhol's Heat

Andy Warhol’s Heat
written and directed by Paul Morrissey
starring Joe Dallesandro, Andrea Feldman, Sylvia Miles, Pat Ast, Lester Persky, Harold Childe, Bonnie Walder, Ray Vestal, Eric Emerson, John Hallowell, Gary Koznocha

A young hustler ingratiates his way into the sodden life of a washed up TV actress while trying to fend off the manic attentions of her possibly psychotic daughter.

Joey Davis (Dallesandro) was once a famed child actor who starred on a long running TV Western show. He’s slumming it momentarily at a dingy motel waiting for his agent to give him some papers to sign regarding a record deal. The motel is populated with the typical Hollywood weirdos including a two brother nightclub act who engage is sexual activities to climax their show. One of these brothers walks around in a daze and really enjoys masturbating by the pool. Apparently he’s mute and he spends most of the film in a long white cotton dress.

Joey finds his time by the pool rather enjoyable. His star power radiates throughout the motel and many of its denizens hold him in some kind of sick awe. Basically, he seems disinterested in most of anything but takes advantage of situations as they arise. One of these involves the manager of the hotel, a woman named Lydia. She convinces him to let her give him a massage and things quickly turn randy as he massages her breasts while she coos. She promises him reduced rent which she tells him he is going to have to pay every night. Again, he’s casual about the arrangement and doesn’t get too caught up in its inherent drama.

Jessica Todd (Feldman) is a high strung girl who is living at the motel with her girlfriend Bonnie (Walder) and her infant son. There’s a long gag about whether or not Jessica is truly a lesbian or not. She seems unable to convince her mother Sally (Miles) of this fact and later decides she’s not a lesbian after all upon discovering her deep seated lust for Joey.

The film is mostly dialog and it all comes across organically and indeed some of it is improvised by the actors. The set design is simple and straightforward. There are several scenes in an old rustic mansion that lend a grandiosity to the film and the actors in their roles.

The camera simply adores Joe Dallesandro who again proves himself to be an exceedingly natural performer and he eases into every scene. There are many close-ups of Joe’s face and it’s not terribly difficult to read his thoughts or intentions. Still, he’s consumed with charm that can only come from an actor who is very glad to be in his skin.

Sally comes about to give Jessica money and meets Joey with whom she starred in that TV show a few years back. Immediately its obvious that something’s going down between these two and their attraction quickly turns to sex. Sally is desperate about her looks and still maintains she’s a big star even though all she’s done is game shows for the past several years. Basically nobody remembers her and she’s clinging to this belief that she still matters in Hollywood. Unfortunately she’s dead weight and her lust after the much younger Joey comes off as rather pathetic.

Joey moves into the mansion and quickly becomes tired of Sally and bored out of his mind. He’s got things to do and all Sally does is hold him back because she’s too lonely or she can’t bear to lose him to another woman. Whatever the reason, he manages to get out but not before having to deal with Jessica’s advances. Jessica is truly unhinged which is evidenced by one scene when she bursts in on Lydia and Joey’s foreplay complaining that the cigarette burns that Bonnie has administered to her are stinging. She cries for a bit and suddenly bursts out laughing before returning to her crying jag. She’s the kind of girl who seemingly either hasn’t got enough attention in her life or too much. She doesn’t know who the father of her son is and she seems not to have had a very close relationship with either her father or step father. She’s broke, without means to support herself, and in an abusive relationship with a bull dyke who enjoys slapping her around and burning her with the aforementioned cigarettes.

Essentially, this is a tale about terribly messed up family dynamics in situations where there is a whole lot of talking but little listening. Jessica is seventeen years old and honestly shouldn’t have to slum it at a cheap motel with her son. There is absolutely no reason for this but her mother thinks she’s too crazy and clearly wants to keep her at arms length. At one point she tells Jessica that she’ll take care of the baby but that Jessica cannot come live with her. She claims she means that Jessica cannot bring Bonnie with her but her actual meaning seems clear enough. She also says that she wishes she was a lesbian because she wouldn’t have had Jessica and subsequently wouldn’t have to deal with “this mess”. Jessica for her part claims to hate her mother although this doesn’t stop her from begging for money at every turn. Joey stumbles unwittingly into the fracas and all he has to do is lay back and be magnetic.

This film is highly sexualized from start to finish and it all centers around Joey Davis. All the women in the film want to get into his shorts and none of them are at all subtle about it. He takes advantage of all comers including receiving a blow job from a dandy named Harold (Childe). His life is made easy by his physique and his low key, casual attitude. He sleeps with these women because he can but mostly because it hopes it can bring him benefits such as furthering his career. He gets clothes out of Sally but little else. She simply doesn’t have any pull anymore and all her attempts to drum up some interest in Joey fall terribly flat.

The performances in this film are uniformly excellent. Sylvia Miles commands the screen throughout the film yet she allows her fellow actors to break through and shine as appropriate. Her character is dynamic, like a whirlwind that has the capacity to destroy a whole city block. Andrea Feldman is a torch lighting an darkened abattoir. Her perormance resonates with a truthfulness that is rare in cinema. One gets the impression that her character is a real person with the ability to cause real emotional reactions to her words and deeds. Her postures, mannerisms and affectations stay with the viewer long after the film has ended. Hers is one of those characters who truly put their fangs into one’s brain and will not let go. Joe Dallesandro is, again, wholly natural and clean in this role. He’s all grown up in this role in comparison to the naif he played in 1970's “Trash”, also directed by Paul Morrissey. Pat Ast is very impressive here as Lydia the motel’s manager. She delivers all her lines with a tremendous confidence and conviction which gives them an emphatic sense of truth no matter how outrageous they might seem at the outset.

Overall, this film is a oft-brilliant depiction of the ugly side of the glamourous life. These are characters who end up living a particularly empty life at their own hand. Joey Davis is able to get what he wants at every turn because of his body and his past but he just throws it away when he gets it because he’s terminally bored with everything and can commit to nothing. Jessica is little girl gone wrong because emotionally she may have been deprived for long stretches of her life when her mother was away working for TV. Regardless, her violent mood swings and general flightiness are not characteristics one generally wants to see in a new mother. She shows no lasting indication that she even wants the baby, referring to him as “it”. There’s a very real sense that everyone in this film is in a state of arrested development. None of them act as mature persons act and they all throw fits when they don’t get what they want. Joey’s fits are subtler but he acts up when things don’t seem to be going his way. Jessica positively shakes and almost froths at the mouth when she’s agitated. Even Lydia seems unable to fully face herself and make up her mind. She’s locked in on this job managing the motel but its clear she’s just biding time until something better comes along. None of these people know much about the direction they are headed in. They just do things for immediate satisfaction and pay no mind to the consequences of their actions.

Film Review--Taken

Taken (2008)
directed by Pierre Morel
written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Arben Bajraktaraj, Holly Valance, Nicolas Giraud, Xander Berkeley, Katie Cassidy

Despite a number of rather improbable coincidences this film proves to be an exceedingly elegant story of the intensity of a father’s love for his daughter.

Brian Mills (Neeson) is an ex-CIA operative who has recently retired to spend more time with his daughter Kim (Grace). He is somewhat estranged from Kim because he hasn’t always been around due to his career and she has found parental guidance in her step-father Brian (Berkeley) who she lives with along with her mother Lanore (Janssen.

One of the central moments in this film involves Kim’s abduction at the hands of Albanians who ultimately plan on selling her to a Sheik. The camera and music create a tense situation that is fraught with danger. It is held together by Neeson’s steady, calm response to the terror that is afflicting his character’s daughter on the other end of the phone. She is in Paris with her friend Amanda (Cassidy) and the pair plan on following U2 across Europe. They meet a young man named Peter (Giraud) who shares a cab with them to Amanda’s cousin’s residence where they are to stay for the duration of their visit. Peter calls someone and quickly thereafter the girls are dragged away.

This is a story in which it is absurdly easy to get behind the central character. Neeson never lets us to forget the severity of his mission as he summons up his immense skills to track down the men responsible for capturing his daughter. Mills is relentless in his pursuit and of the mind set that it’s much better to shoot first than to wait around and see who’s holding. He is the ultimate action hero because he is fighting for something that is so personally precious to him and he is not about to suffer the guilt that would inevitably collapse his world should he fail. Indeed, failure is not an option here and so he goes about working his way up the ladder until he inevitably reaches the final pillar and must face to face with the devil himself or at least one of his representatives.

The film’s look is intoxicating throughout. The cinematography by Michel Abramowicz is clean, crisp and economical. It is tinged with an impossible sheen that is remarkably restrained. It creates a sense of glamour but nevertheless does not effectively glamorize the killings be committed at every turn.

Much of the power in this film originates through Mills’s grim, incessant determination to save his daughter from a life of sure ruin. It’s vigilante justice taken to a menacing, purposeful extreme. One is constantly reminded of the nefarious nature of the world that Mills is entering and his almost puritanical zeal for the safe return of his loved one. His tremendous capabilities for torture and combat plus his fearless mien are routinely demonstrated in swift, controlled movements that provide him with the proper inroads into solving the pressing dilemma before him.

This film introduces its central characters with a decisive lack of urgency. We meet them and immediately identify with whatever course of action they are to take. It’s a very simple approach that so many films fail to undertake. In this film it matters because the interpersonal relationships here are vital to understanding Mills’s motivation and his sense of futility in his relationship with Kim. In a few short minutes we know the dynamics and we know what is at stake for Mills. He is presented as a loving father who is trying to make up for lost time yet faces the reality of another man, a rich and genuine man, in his daughter’s life. It is clear that he has failed Kim in some sense and that this fact upsets him intensely.

There are moments in this film that seem to be improbable in their execution. Mills goes to the apartment Kim and Amanda were to stay in and removes a photo card from her camera. He investigates the images and finds one of a man he immediately suspects as being the spotter who set up the initial transaction. From that single photo he is able to track the man down and interrogate him only to lose him in the end. It is difficult to believe that he was able to accomplish all of this with nothing but a blurred photo to go on. One wonders how he knew where to go in such a massive city to find the man responsible for setting the chain in motion that inevitably leads to the Sheik.

The use in this film of the international selling of Western girls to Albanians most likely has ramifications in Albanian communities world wide. It’s an utterly corrupt depiction that presents the Albanians as wholly devious and monstrous. There is nothing whatsoever about them that is remotely likable; they come off as cruel and menacing businessmen who capitalize on the existence of a steady flow of easy prey into the cities. This is a film that expresses a very real and terrible fear that such events may occur at any given time. It presents naive and industrious girls who unwittingly stumble into traps that are set under the most innocent pretexts. They fall for the charm of a spotter who quietly ingratiates himself into their lives by playing on their trust. This film focuses on the simplicity of such an arrangement and demonstrates just how easy it is to mark certain females and wrestle them into a life devoid of hope, where they are made perpetually high, and forced to engage in activities with much older men who treat them like chattle.

The performances in this film are all dynamic and natural. Liam Neeson captivates from start to finish with a character who is fraught with complications but who is able to act in a decisive manner when the situation calls for it. He’s confident in his abilities but not so confident when it comes to the relationship he has with his daughter. It is here that Neeson demonstrates a tremendous range of emotion. During his mission he is driven and focused and tends to show little emotion. With Kim, his disposition is entirely different. He’s open, expressive, and clearly driven by a great love he knows he has almost let slip away. Maggie Grace is extraordinary in this film. She captures her character’s desire to expand and connect with a world much larger than what she has thus far experienced. One gets an immediate sense of her excitement as she makes her plans for heading to Paris. Also, she demonstrates on at least two occasions the fact that she really is barely seventeen and in many ways still a little girl who runs in to her father’s arms and clings madly to him. Famke Janssen’s character is captivating and aggressively disdainful of her ex-husband throughout much of the film. Lenore doesn’t give Mills any space in this film and holds him responsible for his lack of involvement in Kim’s life.

Overall, this is a scintillating film that creates a world of despair and destruction that its central character must fight, using his arsenal of skills, to combat. It’s the classic story of one man fighting for a just cause who must use any means necessary to achieve his aim. There is a sense of freshness in how this film approaches its subject and it never feels strained or superficial. The tension is on from the moment Kim and Amanda are abducted and it never abates straight through to the end. These ultimately are characters worth caring about and this has everything to do with the performances. They are astute at conveying the myriad complexities that haunt each of their lives and the end result is a film that is an exploration of a blistering reality that effects many young women worldwide every year.

Film Review--The Pink Panther (2006)

The Pink Panther (2006)
directed by Shawn Levy
written by Len Blum and Steve Martin
starring Steve Martin, Emily Mortimer, Jean Reno, Kevin Kline, Jason Statham, Henry Czerny, Kristin Chenoweth, Roger Rees, Beyoncé Knowles

This reboot of the famous franchise maintains much of the celebrated fervor of the original films. It is a harder, meaner extrapolation of the Edwards-Sellers-Mancini years and often feels like a tribute to those films while maintaining its own vision.

It’s impossible to compare Peter Sellers and Steve Martin with any clarity. Each brings his own take on the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau and their styles are distinct enough to warrant an appreciation for their approaches. In this film, Clouseau is even more tiresome than Seller’s version. He’s irritating in a way that is relentless as his ego is so profoundly out of touch with his sleuthing methods. Still, there is a raving intelligence to Martin’s Clouseau that is played out in a variety of scenes. He sees things but his interpretations are always incredibly off base.

The film is fairly sexy with the glamourous addition of Beyoncé Knowles who most certainly knows how to make an entrance and fill out a shimmery dress. Still, her sexiness is matched by the more understated appeal of Emily Mortimer. She’s less glam and more buttoned up but there’s a tigress within her that one wants desperately to burst from her bosom. There are hints of her desire for Clouseau which is one of the great unfinished aspects of the film. The hunger in her eyes when they almost kiss is delectable.

Jason Statham plays soccer coach Yves Gluant who is murdered by a poisoned dart while the Pink Panther diamond ring he is wearing is stolen. This kicks off the action proper as Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kline) decides to bring in the most inept police officer so he can swoop in and take all the glory for solving the crime. Despite himself Clouseau is perpetually putting himself in the right place at the right time. Specifically, he goes to a casino owned by Gluant’s business partner Raymond Larocque (Rees) to question the entrepreneur regarding Gluant’s death. He meets a highly secretive British Secret Service agent named Nigel Boswell (Clive Owen) who heroically slides down a rope ala James Bond and defeats the Gas Mask bandits who are staging a robbery while wearing Clouseau’s coat. Clouseau is credited with the takedown and is nominated for the Medal of Honor which Dreyfus is desperately seeking having lost six times previously.

In the usual fashion Clouseau botches every attempt to get closer to the killer while somehow remaining subconsciously aware of the correct path to take. Martin is more aggressively annoying that the other Clouseaus. His confidence rivals anything else in Paris as he steadfastly refuses to accept that he’s anything short of a master detective. Of course events play out that support this assessment of his abilities and it’s actually an exceedingly deft piece of investigation that leads him to the killer. Again, Clouseau spends the entire film utterly clueless but just when the odds are the most against him he comes through to save the day.

Jean Reno has the difficult task of keeping tabs on the maniacal Clouseau. He’s very funny in this as mostly a straight man who plays off of Clouseau’s absurdist antics. He manages to dull the terribly sharp edges that define Martin’s Clouseau and often garners bigger laughs.


There are elements in this film that update it to the modern age. There are cell phones, personal computers and a slick, modern feel to the scenes in New York and Paris. There is actually quite a bit of glamour on display in this film that almost feels decadent at times. There is more frank brutality specifically in the scene where suspect Bizu (William Abadie) is murdered by the same person who killed Gluant. He’s shot in the head and its filmed in such a way that it comes off as a shock.

Steve Martin is more physically aggressive in his stunts than Sellers. He possesses a reposit of energy that Sellers never accessed it. It can be argued that he didn’t need to because his ease of movement was more pronounced. He was clumsy but in an exceedingly deft way. Sellers was doing a bit more than falling down. He was dancing a particularly perverse dance with no partners. Martine’s accidents and disruptions seem a bit more forced and less graceful than the best Sellers gags. He also comes across as more immediately threatening. This is a Clouseau who could actually kill a great number of people and it’s a testament to the film’s effectiveness that they are able to walk the fine line between lunacy and outright disaster.

Kevin Kline fills the shoes of the great Herbert Lom with dexterity and tremendous charm. Kline’s Dreyfus is a bit more fastidious than Lom’s and more anal. He takes umbrage with Clouseau mainly because he is threatened by the distinct possibility that he has gravely underestimated the man. He lives in constant fear that Clouseau will actually be able to crack the case before he gets a chance to push him aside and take all the glory for himself. It’s the driving force that propels him forward and his obsession with Clouseau doesn’t move beyond this aspect. It’s not a full-on colossal loathing that Lom’s Dreyfus felt for Clouseau. It’s personal but it’s far more practical. One doesn’t suspect that this version of Dreyfus could ever be driven absolutely mad by a man such as Clouseau.

The performances in this film are uniformly excellent. Emily Mortimer has a swanlike manner that is also very much like Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. She’s got the same neck and her mannerisms are similar. She’s a bit more prudish than Ms. Hepburn, though, which nevertheless is part of her appeal. Steve Martin does everything one could ask in his performance. He’s clearly a capable physical comedian and his work here is entirely his own. He wisely sees fit not to attempt to borrow too much from his famed predecessor. Kevin Kline is remarkably grounded in this film. He plays Dreyfus with a singular sense of calm. Dreyfus in this film is not a man you would expect to see make any sudden movements unless he is attacked or otherwise compromised which he is routinely in this film.

Overall, this film satisfies the yen for another Panther film even if it doesn’t quite live up to the best of the earlier films. Still, the gags are routinely amusing and the performances are all top notch. It’s clearly created with the previous films in mind but doesn’t try to make a direct copy of anything that has come before. It is its own animal from start to finish and this is most pronounced by Steve Martin’s take on the classic character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. He makes the character work within a more modern milieu which is the only way he could have possibly taken it.

Film Review--Curse of the Pink Panther

Curse of the Pink Panther
directed by Blake Edwards
written by Blake Edwards, Geoffrey Edwards
starring David Niven, Capucine, Robert Wagner, Herbert Lom, Joanna Lumley, Robert Loggia, Harvey Korman, Burt Kwouk, Ted Wass

As the film opens, the theft of the diamond from the previous film is repeated. A mysterious man tries to sell it to Countess Chandra (Lumley) but she shoots him dead just after Clouseau appears as if he is about to foil the transaction. Chandra points the gun at Clouseau and the opening credits begin.

Clouseau is still missing and the Sûreté are looking for the world’s greatest detective to track him down. Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Lom) is less than enthusiastic over the search and devises a plan to ensure that the exact opposite of what is programmed into the computer is tabulated in locating the best man (or woman) for the job. Subsequently, another bumbling, clumsy idiot in the guise of Sergeant Clifton Sleigh (Wass) is found and put on the case.

Sergeant Sleigh in this film is entirely ineffectual as a physical presence in this film. The character, an obvious pacifier for those who deeply lament the loss of Peter Sellers and who nevertheless will settle for a substitute, lacks Sellers’s solidity and strong sense of place. Despite his buffoonish behavior Seller’s Clouseau was grounded albeit it directionless at times and anathema to any objects put in his path. Sleigh is as much of a stumblebum as the man he is attempting to find. Clearly, the film wants us to satisfy ourselves with Nutrasweet while the real stuff is tragically out of reach. Wass’s dialog is often wooden and combined with his presentation the result is a character who isn’t particularly easy to like or root for.

The mob, led by the affable and utterly winning Bruno Langois (Loggia) naturally do not want Clouseau found so they put out a number of hits on Sleigh which manage to fail in the same manner they did with Clouseau.

Sleigh meets with the luxuriating Sir Charles Lytton (Niven) and his gallant wife Lady Simone (Capucine) who remain surprised that Clouseau hasn’t turned up yet. They discuss the diamond and the disappearance of Clouseau. This scene features one of several blatant sexual references in the film. Somehow Sleigh manages to get a rubber raft in the shape of a duck attached to his bottom so that when he sits down the ducks head peaks out between his legs so it looks like wood. They play with this gag for quite a long time as every time he moves or falls down the same head keeps bobbing away.

Also, there is a scene where Sleigh has just left Professor Auguste Balls’s disguise shop with an inflatable companion that Balls has sold him for a diversion. The scene changes and Sleigh sits outside a French café with his new toy. He lights her a cigarette and the ashes burn a hole in the doll. So, Sleigh puts his head very suggestively between the doll’s legs in order to attempt to blow her up or whatever you want to call it.

Sleigh is certainly a bumbling, stumbling mess but he moves and speaks like a character from “The Forbidden Zone”. It’s amazing if you compare the film and this cop. It’s as if he stepped straight off of that set onto this one and remained the same character for both films. After a while it becomes easier to like Sleigh because one begins to feel horribly for him; one develops a feeling of pity for him. He is lowly and unfortunate throughout although he does manage to get a girl interested in him. She is named Juleta Shane as well as Julie Morgan (Leslie Ash) and she meets Sleigh at a club where she is clearly interested. They had actually seen each other at the hotel they are staying at and later when she appears in his room she is ready to go. She’s one of the more ribald and blatantly sexual female characters in this series and she is basically grinding for it.

There is a tremendous openness at Countess Chandra (Lumley)’s health spa which includes hot mud baths and other various extravagances. It’s an exceedingly clean and vital place and every time the film goes back to it, it is infused with an intense energy that comes directly from the various stations at the spa.

The clumsy antics of Sleigh are over the top to put it mildly. It’s possible that he’s even more vertically challenged than Clouseau is in the first several films. Regardless, he’s a serious wreck and cannot step two feet without stumbling over himself and putting others at serious risk. There are really none of his falls that are particularly amusing. They have the physical characteristics of Sellers’s work but none of the style or grace. They are ugly and perhaps less choreographed but in the end they come across as second rate when compared to the master. But, one can hardly blame young Wass for this. He does what he can in his role which is an attempt to capture the essence of Sellers in the body of another character. It certainly is a smarter move than taking another stab at a Clouseau replacement which lowered the impact of “Inspector Clouseau” with Alan Arkin.

The end of the film is certainly curious and it involves Roger Moore tripping over everything in sight, speaking in an exaggerated French accent, and spending most of his scenes with an ice bucket on his head. It’s clear from the beginning who this really is and it’s a whole lot of fun because Moore isn’t exactly known for slapstick and this display shows him in fine form. These scenes tie the film together and make sense of it. In a way it’s too much, too soon as prior to that the film seems to meander a ways before finally getting to the point. Still, the ending is very appealing in its way and ultimately satisfactory. Indeed, it’s the perfect ending for this part of the series. It would be ten years before another one, “Son of the Pink Panther”, was attempted and that film really has little to do with the tremendous 20 year ride between the original Panther and “Curse”.

This film combines extended gags with short riffs where Sleigh trips over his feet and destroys a piece of furniture or a display. In its way it is successful at what it is attempting to do. It creates a character who is similar enough to Clouseau to not be a shock to long term fans of the series while molding a passably entertaining story around it. It works quite well and the film maintains its directive throughout without succumbing to self-parody.

The performances in this film are all impressive. I’ve decided that Ted Wass is brilliantly playing a wooden character with no rhythm and that he is supposed to be that way. Wass has a certain affability that he exploits routinely. He’s got natural comic timing which comes in to play throughout the film. Joanna Lumley also possess a fantastic comedic touch. She and Roger Moore have excellent chemistry here and it works to the film’s advantage. Herbert Lom is, as usual, very discomforted as Dreyfus and phenomenally agitated at the prospect of Clouseau being alive. It’s a testament to the series that it manages to make Dreyfus’s neuroses regarding Clouseau fresh and novel every time they attack it. Dreyfus is really the central character in these films and Clouseau is merely the comic relief.

Overall, this film captures the spirit of the earlier films without quite managing to create their elegance or style. Tedd Wass of course isn’t as dynamic and thrilling as Sellers but that isn’t what the film is going for here. Wass is an entirely different animal even though he shares the same afflictions as Sellers in terms of his lack of balance and inability to avoid falling down. He is a repressed, buttoned-up nerd with no clue about the world, and especially women. Next to him Clouseau is Casanova. Seller’s Clouseau, despite his tendency to destroy inanimate objects, is a man of the world. He’s sophisticated in a way that Wass’s is not. The film wonderfully gives us a character who doesn’t try to be a mock-up of Clouseau and instead carries on with his own personality quirks that come in the end to define the character.

Film Review--Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
written by Justin Marks
starring Kristen Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough, Robin Shou, Moon Bloodgood, Michael Clarke Duncan, Taboo, Josie Ho, Edmund Chen

This is the story of a little girl who longed to be nothing short of a renowned classical pianist. We learn of her ambition through voice over narration by her adult Self. She is Chun-Li (Kreuk) and along with her piano studies she also undertakes extensive martial arts training with her father Xiang (Chen) who teaches her a wide variety of useful techniques that she proves to be exceedingly adept with. Unfortunately their idyll is shattered by Bison’s (McDonough) henchmen who kidnap her father and leave her mother in a crumpled heap. Chun-Li grows up to indeed by a pianist who plays extravagant concert halls and is well received. She receives a scroll written in ancient Chinese and this ultimately leads her to Bangkok where she has been instructed to meet a man named Gen (Shou). Eventually she does meet him and he instructs her while helping her get more control over her anger.

This film, adapted from the successful video game franchise, suffers as most adaptations of this sort do. It quite often feels like a video game with little character development, ludicrous dialog, and absurd fight sequences. Still, it does have its charms which mostly come through in the performances which are mostly excellent.

Kristen Kreuk has an unassuming personality as Chun-Li in this film and her tiny frame contains a fireball of martial arts skills that seem to erupt as if out of nowhere. It’s delightful to watch her launch herself into full on fighting mode and her particular fighting scenes have a ballet quality to them as well as seeming to be incredibly athletic. She manages to infuse the scenes with an erotic quality that is conspicuously missing from other such scenes in the film. She expresses a tremendous energy and possesses a strong presence throughout the course of the film.

The character of Bison is presented to be one who has basically sold his soul to the devil. Literally, in one of the more preposterous scenes which is never properly explained, he removes his unborn daughter from his wife’s stomach and transplants his conscience in her so he can be rid of it once and for all. Ostensibly this is so he can continue to fleece people without ever having to suffer the damned pangs of guilt that generally accompany such nefarious transactions. He grew up a thief and continues his activities by managing to buy out all of the waterfront slums in Bangkok and forcing all of the residents out of their homes so he can build expensive, exclusive hi-rises for the affluent. Neal McDonough plays him with fiendish glee yet he never makes the mistake of turning his character into a cartoon. In this film Bison is all too human and representative of the corrupting influence that greed and power can hold over certain individuals who do not know how to reign in their appetites.

Bison’s sinister machinations are not fully explored in this film. I wanted more evidence as to why he’s such a dangerous person and I only got a hint of what he is up to. I learn that he’s prone to extreme violence, commands an army of sycophants, kidnaps well-connected businessmen to do his bidding, and makes plans for obliterating the lifestyles of scores of people for his own profit and amusement. But, there is clearly so much more sinister goodness inside this man. His reign of terror is just too local to have much street value. I assume he is more ambitious than what he appears but perhaps he’s satisfied with his corruptive schemata.

As Chun-Li makes her way to Bison, whom she has learned is holding her father, a cop named Maya Sunee (Bloodgood) and an operative named Charlie Nash (Klein) are following a series of decapitated heads to Bison. Eventually they both intersect setting up the final showdown between the police and Bison’s military squad. It’s a typical battle sequence and nothing particularly dramatic stands out although again Chun-Li possesses a legitimate sense of grace and elegance as she administers her various assaults on her enemies.

Overall, this film manages to be fairly entertaining despite its myriad flaws regarding pacing, style, and dialog. It has the requisite amount of energy for an action film and the performances are mentioned are uniformly good. Robin Shou quietly commands the screen in every scene he’s in. His character is spiritually wise and it’s consistently enlightening to listen to him wax philosophically about various aspects of martial arts and yoga. Ultimately, it’s a film that probably should have gone straight to video as it doesn’t exactly feel very cinematic most of the time. It feels restrained, as if it were trapped in a tiny box not very unlike a gaming system or television set.

Film Review--Friday the 13th (2009)

Friday the 13th (2009)
directed by Marcus Nispel
written by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift, Mark Wheaton
based on characters created by Victor Miller
starring Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, Derek Mears, Julianna Guill, Ben Feldman

In this stellar, atmospheric reimagining of the Friday the 13th film series, the various aspects that made the earlier films in the franchise so effective are maintained and occasionally enhanced. The result is a menacing, deeply haunting telling of the mythos that surrounds the character of Jason Voorhees (Mears).

Jason is hard in this film. His movements, demeanor and cold calculations render him one of the more salient mass murderers in recent horror history. This film reworks elements from the first four films to tell the familiar story of a disgruntled homicidal manic who preys on those who stumble into his terrain. Jason is territorial here and the locals know enough not to enter into his domain. There is a quiet complicity amongst the locals who seem to accept the fact that a crazed killer routinely stalks and butchers his prey in their midst. They just want to be left alone and are not prone to asking any questions. Also, it is perhaps likely that they too view the incursions of the outsiders as troublesome and that those who suffer at Jason’s hands somehow deserve their fate for their dissolute lifestyles.

The film features two sets of killing sprees six weeks apart. In each a group of young people are out for a good time of sex, booze, and whatever other substances they can find and ingest. The first group are seeking out weed that they have learnt grows around Crystal Lake and they want to procure it in order to sell it at a huge profit. The first kill who is obsessed with GPS tracking systems but is clearly not one that the ladies favor finds the marijuana just before he is slaughtered by Jason. These kids fall relatively quickly except one girl named Whitney (Righetti) who resembles Jason’s mother when she was younger. Jason keeps her chained in his basement although there is no clear indication that he attempts to torture or sexually assault her.

Six weeks later a man named Clay (Padalecki) is looking for his sister, Whitney, who disappeared and he is traveling around knocking on doors asking if anyone has seen her. One woman says “She ain’t missin’. She’s dead” before slamming the door in his face. He gravitates to the beach house of Trent (Van Winkle) who is hosting a wild weekend for his friends. Trent and Clay do not hit it off and a clear rivalry is set up between them. The kids booze it up and some of them have sex which it has been proven is never a good idea in these films. Gradually, Jason makes his way through the group until all but Clay and Jenna (Panabaker) are left. The film focuses mainly on Clay’s continuing search for Whitney as Jason bores down on satisfying the edicts of his killing plan.

There is a definite mood set up in this film through editing and music. The killings seem brutal and more intense than the majority of recent remakes and most contemporary horror films in general. Jason is depicted as not so much a raging force out of control but as a calculating killer who has a set agenda that involves careful planning and deliberate action. Jason has evolved into more of a modern day serial killer who knows precisely what he wants to accomplish and has the tools to reach his aims. He is also a mass murderer who kills a great number of people all at once. For the first time he captures and detains a victim and also tortures a girl named Amanda (America Olivo) by stringing her up in a sleeping bag over a camp fire.

The film starts with the beheading of Jason’s mother (Nana Visitor) which took place at the end of the original film. Jason observes this act and it is this moment that is assumed to have triggered his violent course of revenge. Thirty years later the kids show up and Jason takes his pleasure at their unwitting expense. Clay is similar to a character in one of the early films in that he is also looking for his disappeared sister. The use of a sleeping bag as a death chamber is similar to a girl who was slammed against a tree in a previous film.

There is some comedic relief in the form of Chewie (Yoo) who offers up the occasionally witty remark before getting his in the shed. We actually spend quite a bit of time with Chewie which is almost unheard of in the series. We get to know his quirks as well as the contents of his one-track mind. He’s one of the only characters worth knowing in this film and his demise comes as something of a shock although we know from the outset that it’s inevitable. There are others who are more developed than is typical including Clay and Jenna who necessarily become the two who are thrust into the role of key survivors who face Jason and make concerted efforts to eliminate him.

It is possible that Jason is just defending his weed from the greedy mitts of intruders. Perhaps he’s been cultivating it all along and becomes exceedingly angry when it is disturbed. He wants it to be left alone and is bent on ensuring that it remains protected by those who would ravish it for mere profit.

The killings have a visceral quality that renders them immediate and vital. The use of sound enhances the deaths and accentuates their brutal natures.

The performances in this film are all relatively impressive for the genre. Jared Padalecki has a particularly strong presence and carries his part of the film effectively. Amanda Righetti is at ease looking terrified and her character possesses a genuine spark that is actualized near the end of the film

Overall, this is one of the most satisfying remakes of recent memory. In fact, it’s one of the most invigorating horror films of recent vintage and does everything right to jack up the series and return it back to its roots. It provides the viewer with an opportunity to revisit the elements that have made this one of the most popular franchise series in cinematic history. There are moments of legitimate terror which is brought to bear by the score and set design. Each of the main characters are well thought out and seem necessary to the story being told. Still, the majority of the characters are just fodder for Jason’s peculiar tastes and he dispatches them without fanfare. Jason himself is exceedingly swift and energetic in this film. He seems more human and therefore more terrifying than in many of the more recent additions to the film’s canon. In every way this is a successful take on these films and it seems as if they have set it up so that there will likely be a sequel.

Film Review--Freddy vs. Jason

Freddy vs. Jason
directed by Ronnie Yu
written by Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
based on characters created by Victor Miller and Wes Craven
starring Robert Englund, Ken Kerzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, Brendan Fletcher, Lochlyn Munro

From the bowels of Hell, Freddy Krueger (Englund) fears his ability to terrorize the dreams of the unwitting is fading so he turns to Jason Voorhees (Kerzinger) for help. Unfortunately, he fails to acknowledge that Jason’s fundamental purpose, that which gets him out of the bed in the morning, is to kill as many humans as possible before sundown. Jason simply cannot be shut off on a whim and kills just as naturally as another man brushes his dog’s teeth.

From the beginning, it’s not a particularly square arrangement. Freddy simply wants Jason to do all the work so he can take all the credit. He imagines that he can control Jason but this proves to be a most unfortunate miscalculation. So, Jason returns and starts killing as if he never let off. He butchers a couple of kids and a parent leaving Springwood utterly beguiled with fear and anticipation.

One of the most satisfying Jason moments takes place in this film. A group of kids all attend a rave in a cornfield and as they get plastered on whatever’s most readily available, one cannot possibly wait for what happens next. Right on cue, Jason comes a swingin’ his machete and manages to take out nearly a dozen drugged out kids before he’s done. It’s truly as glorious as it sounds and fits nicely into Jason’s fundamental moral outrage toward those damn kids and their rampant sexuality and drug taking.

But, Freddy is not pleased. His charge is threatening to usurp all his glory and this troubles him immensely. His sole purpose for tricking Jason into working for him is becoming unraveled at the seams.

The kids, led by Lori Campbell (Keena) and Will Rollins (Ritter) soon become aware of what is happening and take measures to protect themselves from Freddy’s dream land. They try to get their hands on an experimental dream-suppressant drug called Hypnocil and are attacked by Jason but not before one of them injects him with two massive syringes that temporarily knock him out. They cart him back to Crystal Lake to “send him” home but he escapes. Meanwhile Lori also in injected with the tranquilizer in order to pull Freddy out so that Jason can deal with him.

We learn through Jason’s dreams that he is indeed mortally afeared of water. He and Freddy battle to a standstill before Jason wakes up setting the stage for the final, epic battle.

Freddy has an ability to “possess” certain individuals and convince them to do his bidding. This is most readily apparent at Westin Hills Asylum where the kids travel to procure their medication. A stoner named Freeburg (Kyle Labine) finds the medication but is forced to dump it all out when taken over by Freddy. By this stage Freddy is enraged that he is losing so many kills to the unstoppable Jason. He wants nothing more than to ensure that fear will reign in the community so he can once again wreak utter havoc and satisfy his insatiable lust for blood.

There is a ward of patients in the asylum who appear to be sleeping but they are actually comatose from taking too much Hypnocil. Apparently, there is a citywide structure in place to reduce fear so Freddy doesn’t return to torment anyone else’s dreams. It’s not precisely clear why so many healthy, seemingly normal kids are being locked up at Westin Hills. It has something to do with Freddy’s appearance four years back when he went on his most recent killing spree.

The battle sequences between Freddy and Jason are all handled relatively well. They go at each other as one would expect and the tenacity of their fight is readily apparent throughout. It’s a lot of quick editing, and great lighting that changes from red (fire) to blue (water) once Jason becomes faced with his gravest fear. It feels like clash of the titans in hell which is precisely what the film makers are going for.

Lori and Will are two star crossed would-be lovers who dated when they were fourteen. When her mother was killed, he disappeared and spent the next four years at Westin Hills. He claims he was locked up because he saw Lori’s father (Butler) kill her mother. Apparently, Dr. Campbell is the man responsible for keeping all of the kids doped up on the dream suppressing drug. Again, we only get a hint about what happened four years ago. We know that Freddy was active and that the town reacted very strongly in order to eliminate the threat of his returning again. This has something to do with suppressing fear amongst the population which explains why Freddy Krueger had felt compelled to summon help in making the townsfolk terrified again.

One of the most fascinating sequences occurs when Jason and Lori are both dreaming at once. Lori is at camp Crystal Lake the day Jason drowned. She sees a group of kids taunting Jason, driving him onto the dock. Lori runs up to two counselors who are fornicating to draw their attention to what is happening at the dock. One of them morphs into Freddy and Jason is thrown into the water. Lori runs to save him but he is pushed down by Freddy who holds him underwater until Jason awakens and boy Jason disappears. It’s some well-needed back story that helps explain some of the mystery that has always existed in the series regarding Jason’s death. It creates a portrait of a child with a misshapen head who is cruelly teased without as much as an attempt at intervention. It explains his mother’s rage and much of his subsequent behavior.

Overall, this film is a consistently entertaining cross fertilization of the two franchises. It provides the best of both characters and brings to light significant aspects of both narratives. The performances are all effective for the genre and the story has a logical thrust that it maintains over its duration.

Film Review--A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street
written and directed by Wes Craven
starring John Saxon, Robert Englund, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Johnny Depp, Charles Fleischer.

We still do not know much if anything about our dreams, suggests a doctor doing research into dreams in this film. In this film, the dream scape is unleashed upon cold, waking reality and possesses the ability to kill the unwitting while they sleep.

A decade after an angry mob of parents burnt alive famed serial child murderer Fred Krueger (Englund) he has returned to haunt the dreams of their children.

Fred Krueger seems to have had a special relationship with the local children. We don’t learn specifics only that he lured and butchered a great number of them before finally being caught. Due to a technicality he was set free but was unable to enjoy his solitude for very long because the raging fury of the parents of the dead children swarmed upon him and took their anger and frustration out on him. Like all great cinematic spooks Krueger could not be put down so readily and he made it his mission to make them pay for their mistake.

The film deftly explores the relationship between the dream state and reality through several characters who encounter Krueger in their dreams and return to waking life with physical evidence of what occurred. The prospect is immensely attractive and cinema and fiction writers have been trying for centuries to fully express the implications that such possibilities inherently suggest. This film is an inspired rebuff to our hopes regarding this potentiality because with great bounty comes great sorrow. This is just one manifestation of the idea but naturally there are many more.

Fred Krueger reached a level of infamy in death that very few achieve in life. He became a fiend of such depraved magnitude that the very mention of his name was enough to chill the bones of those left to remember.

Tina Gray (Wyss) has a terrible nightmare where she is being threatened by a horrifically burnt man wearing a tattered green and red striped sweater and with razor-sharped knives extending from the fingers on his right hand. She wakes up with slash marks on her dress as proof of her experience in the dream. She learns that her friend Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) has been dreaming of the same figure.

Fred Krueger once terrorized the entire community when he stalked, captured, and murdered over twenty children. Yet he has managed to make a deal with his custodians in Hell and been allowed to enter into the dreams of anyone he chooses. It’s not so clear just where the ability to transfer dream characters and objects into real life comes from. It’s not all Krueger’s doing because Nancy is able to drag his hat back with her when she snatches it off of his head just before waking up.

Tina and her boyfried Rod Lane (Garcia) have intense sex and fall asleep. Freddy comes back for her and this time he gets her and brutally murders her while Rod watches in amazement. It’s a fairly thrilling death sequence as she is dragged up a wall and across the ceiling with blood splattered everywhere. Rod is arrested and Freddy hangs him in his cell. Nancy and her boyfriend Glen Lantz (Depp) devise a plan to defeat Freddy but Glen falls asleep and is obliterated in his bed with an impressive spew of flesh and bone spewing toward and coating the entire ceiling. This leaves Nancy alone to deal with the beast so tenaciously assaulting her in her dreams.

So, much of the film deals with Nancy’s continuous torments at the hands of Fred Krueger. In one key scene she is in the tub and the camera is placed at the end so we see her with her legs spread open as the knife-hand emerges from the water. It’s a strangely telling scene that illustrates the sexual nature of Krueger’s intent toward Nancy. It suggests that he is interested in mutilating her sexually or at least violating her in some way. Krueger tends to lay on his victims on occasion simulating a rape. He is more driven by sex than, say, Jason Voorhees, or even Michael Myers. Krueger is not repelled by sex and seems to rather enjoy it whenever he’s afforded an opportunity to get near it.

Nancy is really still a girl trying to make sense of the changes that are occurring in her body. She is not they typical oversexed female teen who has populated so many modern day horror films. She’s much more modest and self-effacing. She doesn’t use her sexuality to manipulate others mostly because she hasn’t been trained, however, subliminally, in the art of seduction. Perhaps it is this girlish quality that attracts Krueger to her. She reminds him perhaps of one of the little girls he raped and slaughtered and he’s eager to relive that experience through her.

Lucid dreaming is explored subtly in this film as Nancy on several occasions attempts to remind her dream Self that what she is experiencing is only a dream. However, awareness is not enough to combat the sinister machinations of Fred Krueger. Eventually, Nancy learns a trick and uses it to (albeit temporarily) defeat Krueger which is something she learned earlier in the film from Glen.
The film employs expert lighting techniques and sound cues to create a legitimately frightening landscape that it maintains throughout. The opening sequence sets up the tone effectively and generates a considerable amount of chills in the audience. Tina is in a boiler room where she is being taunted by Krueger. She’s wearing a sheer nightgown, taunting him with her form readily apparent beneath the fabric. She is alluring and he is terribly excited. He wants her but is most likely impotent. Did he not sexualize his child victims or was it just a matter of predator catches prey with no overt sexual content attached to the killings? These new victims are supposed to be fifteen and yet Krueger murdered children much younger than that. So, why did he wait so long for these kids to become teen-agers? If the thrill was strictly with one age group, then one would expect it to remain so through the special avenue of dreams.

Fred Kreuger possesses all of the frenetic posturings of the oversexed killer. His problems most likely stem from sexual inadequacies which explains why he would target children as they are not likely to point out and subsequently laugh about any shortcomings.

With her friends dead Nancy takes it upon herself to bring Krueger out of her dreams in order to defeat him. In a rather imaginative final battle sequence she uses her ingenuity to assist in her capture of the demonic child killer. The ending is wonderfully ambiguous as it always must be in top notch horror films. Here, it appears as if the dream state cannot be properly absolved of its complicity in creating horror for the victims on Elm Street.

The performances in this film are all effective for this genre. Heather Langenkamp captures her character’s essential naivety and stresses Nancy’s lack of full maturity into womanhood. Langenkamp allows us to follow her character through her dreams and out into waking reality. Johnny Depp, in his first feature role, is believable in a quiet role. His character’s most dramatic moment comes with his death; otherwise, he’s secondary to the true thrust of the narrative. John Saxon is quite impressive as a character that represents law and order or the perfectly rational against all of the chthonic and measureless forms that populate dreams. Robert Englund is magnetic and infinitely creepy as the butcher of children who has found himself a most eventful and delightful new hobby in Hell. Englund provides audiences with a character who is, to the minds of most folks, utterly evil, and manages to make him likable throughout.

Overall, this film does everything it needs to do in order to create a world of legitimate horror. Fred Krueger is an audacious character who nevertheless is easy to get behind. Certainly, he’s a notorious killer who has taken the lives of many children but he’s also something of a dark romantic hero. He’s a villain with a terrific bloodlust who is necessarily fascinating to observe. He goes about his business with maniacal efficiency and one can’t help but admire his fortitude and his perseverance. The characters are all well written and their stories come off as believable.
Ultimately, this film stands as one of most consistently entertaining horror films in the genre. It gets under the skin and most certainly disrupts the dreams of those who encounter it.

Film Review--Jason X

Film Review--Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Jason Goes to Hell
directed by Adam Marcus
written by Adam Marcus and Jay Huguely
starring Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Keri Keegan, Steven Williams, Steven Culp, Erin Gray, Rusty Schwimmer, Richard Gant, Andrew Bloch

In the ninth installment of the popular gore fest, Jason goes airborne and is suddenly capable of infecting others with a mangy virus and taking over their bodies in order to kill.

The film opens with a dodgy FBI operation where Jason (Hodder) is pulled into a trap with a slinky undercover agent who lures him into showing up at the cabin with her slick, sexy shower tricks. Jason is essentially obliterated and his body parts are gathered up and taken to the morgue where his crusty beating heart is eaten by the coroner (Gant). Jason enters the coroner’s body and the mayhem begins.

There is much carnage including a trio of randy kids out for some kicks at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason returns and quickly eliminates them before we hardly get their names. Still, as is always the case, it’s never a good idea to have sex anywhere near Crystal Lake because Jason abhors intimacy and must annihilate it at every turn.

The film explores new lunacy in the Jason mythos. We discover that he has a half-sister named Diane Kimble (Gray) and that he can only be killed with a magic dagger by one of his female kin. That leaves Diane, her daughter Jessica (Keegan) and Jessica’s daughter Stephanie. The film gets really wacky in the end as the great climax comes to a close. There are elements of Aliens that just don’t seem to work here. It’s comical rather than being dramatically effective.

Jason infects his targets by transferring a thick black ooze into their throats. Apparently this act replaces their hearts and he takes over operations from there. In one scene Jason actually kidnaps a policeman named Josh (Bloch) and straps him to a table before replacing his heart. From here there are many more deaths including that of Diane which is blamed on Steven (LeMay), Jessica’s former boyfriend and father of her child.

The story is fairly convoluted and includes a Crime show host named Robert (Culp) who decides to jazz his line up a bit by stealing Diane’s corpse and filming a show at the old Voorhees place. Of course he becomes the next empty shell killer when Josh does the whole ooze transfer on him. He too murders many people and naturally there are complications with Jessica.

So, this story has some interesting, if not wholly original ideas to play around with. Having Jason possess the ability to take up a new body when the old one is a bit creaky is fairly well-heeled territory. The film doesn’t do anything novel with the premise and we are actually left with a slimy black creature that comes out of Jason’s mouth looking for a way to be born. He finds a way and it’s the most interesting aspect of the film. The visual repercussions of the scene resonate long after the film is over.

Steven is the main mail protagonist in this film as he gets himself caught square up in the middle of the killing spree by merely being in he wrong place at the wrong time. He’s somewhat ineffectual but he can take and throw a punch. Still, he’s lacking in a discernible personality which drags the film down considerably whenever he’s on screen. He’s paired up with yet another charisma-lite female character who is supposed to force audiences into caring but we don’t care for her and we certainly could care less about her damn baby. I think it would have been a find idea to have Jason possess the baby and make her into a killer of other babies in playpens and such. It would be cool to have her smothering all the fat little babies in the neighborhood when their mothers come over to knit.

Jason Voorhees hardly makes an appearance here as himself. He fills the bodies of at least four men and we are given the succinct privilege of watching them hack their way to orgasmic oblivion. Admittedly, it’s just not the same as when Jason does it in his own flesh. His body, gnarled and rotten, adds a certain grittiness to his killing sprees which is completely lost in the new versions. It seems like a decent idea but the application is all wrong and the end result is essentially disappointment that this could have been something potentially more unnerving and toxic. Instead, it’s just silliness from beginning to end; once the final scenes commence you know you are in the place where interesting scenarios go to die. These ideas were not properly thought out and leave the viewer in a state of acute perplexity.

The film features a bounty hunter named Creighton Duke (Williams) who apparently is the only one who knows how to stop Jason. At the beginning of the film he offers his services to a TV station for $500,000 and they accept. All he has at his disposal is one tiny bit of information that he has culled from some source or another. That’s all he has although it does turn out to be a very valuable piece of info. It’s just not worth the money he demands from his potential client. So, he stands on the sidelines as Jessica goes about doing her business with the magic dagger. We know its magic because green light surrounds it when she picks it up. This also occurs whenever Jason transplants his heart into another body. It’s corny and turns the film into something completely outside the realm populated by the earlier films in the series.

Overall, the film isn’t as scary as it ought to be. The premise is fairly sound and there are plenty of opportunities to create a brutal, uncompromising film experience but it just never quite turns out that way. It’s comical in a way that the film makers most likely never intended although the men who are the recipients of Jason’s heart look like proper zombies with their mouths caked in blood and their frenetic killing styles. Ultimately, there is nothing in this film that requires Jason’s presence whatsoever. It could have been made with an entirely different character. It’s a Friday the 13th film without its star player and the result is entirely underwhelming.

Film Review--Andy Warhol's Trash

Trash
written and directed by Paul Morrissey
starring Joe Dallesandro, Andrea Feldman, Holly Woodlawn, Geri Miller, John Putnam, Jane Forth, Bruce Pecheur, Diane Podel

Andy Warhol presents a sleazy underground tour through decadence and rampant drug abuse featuring Paul Morrissey’s leading hunk Joe Dallesandro.

The film opens with a woman named Geri (Miller) trying to give head to burnt out lover, Joe (Dallesandro). He’s been on the junk too long and can no longer get it up. No problem, Geri decided to shake her ass a bit and jumps up on stage to do a little strip number for Joe. Still, there’s nothing happening and all poor Joe can do is complain that he hasn’t got another fix.

Joe and Holly (Woodlawn) are living together and she also complains that Joe cannot achieve an erection. They are ghastily poor and she collects garbage and brings it back to furnish her apartment. He spends much of his time whining about scoring and when he does finally get loaded he passes out and it seems as if he might actually be dead. He goes to visit a rich girl (Feldman) who chatters on for days before he finally shuts her up by nearly raping her. He finally ends up trying to break into the house owned by Bruce (Pecheur) and Jane (Forth). Jane is a buttoned-up ice queen who nevertheless tries to convince Joe to sleep with her and Bruce. Joe agrees and then they let him shoot up while ogling his gear. Naturally, Joe nods off and Bruce kicks him naked out of the house.

There is ample sex and nudity including some bits that have a kinkiness aspect to them. Holly uses a beer bottle in an exceedingly exaggerated pantomime to get off. Joe nearly has sex with Holly’s sister (Podel) who is pregnant.

This feels like a deliberate push for smut without fully exploring hard core sex. It’s fairly light fare although the sex does have a gritty, raw quality that is a step up from most sexploitation cinema. The characters seem to be begging for release; they writhe and they nearly all appear to be famished for something be it sex, drugs, fame, power.

This is a well acted film although I’m not sure how much of the dialog is improvised. Regardless, the scenes all seem natural and the characters are entirely believable. These are the sort of people one wishes they could meet and get really high with. Their trashy like the best of all the Warhol superstars were in real life. It’s not a stretch to believe that these folks are really just playing themselves although I highly doubt that Dallesandro has ever had the same problem as his character in this film.

It’s true that it’s impossible to take your eyes off of Mr. Dallesandro. He’s got a remarkable presence throughout the film and he’s a born leading man. His charisma is really subdued in this film considering how often he passes out but it works entirely too well. He’s at ease in front of the camera and possesses fine attributes that serve him well in the film.

Andrea Feldman has a voice that is absolutely original and impossible to forget once it crawls into one’s skull. It’s got a sing song quality that is truly hypnotic and its genuinely thrilling to hear her rattle on about her $800 fur coat or how much she just has to take LSD. She’s loaded and living rather low which mimics personas like Edie Sedgewick who also spent a considerable amount of time slumming. Another interesting twist is that both Edie and Andrea Feldman died rather young. Edie died at 28 of an accidental barbiturate overdose and Andrea jumped out of 14th floor apartment in New York when she was 24.

There is a vibrancy to this film that is generated practically from the first frame. Dallesandro’s dead wood quickly morphs into a tantalizing erotic dance and this carries over to the rest of the film. There isn’t a tremendous amount of action in this film and indeed most of it consists of characters sitting around talking about or doing drugs. For Joe, his entire life consists of scoring or shooting up. He doesn’t seem to have any other ambitions besides getting high and getting laid although he can’t even successfully do that any more. By the end of the film he is even more tired than usual and he and Holly create a plan for straightening out their lives and becoming more respectable. Apparently they are so low that they don’t even qualify for welfare so they concoct a scheme to procure it. It’s strange that Holly considers Welfare to be a ticket to respectability but she most definitely believes it.

Much of the film has a very open quality to it and the camera work is quite loose as quite a bit of it is done with a hand held. The camera moves about–sometimes its shaky or blurry–and the film occasionally has a documentary feel to it. Certainly the actors and the subject matter are not exactly divorced from one another and their interaction with the material has a solid ring of truth behind it.

The performances in this film are as mentioned entirely natural. There isn’t very much actual acting in this film and it works considerably well. Holly Woodlawn is simply brilliant at playing a quasi-hysterical mad woman who is absolutely afflicted with glamor that she owns completely. Joe Dallesandro doesn’t really have to say anything whatsoever in this film and he comes across like a million bucks. He’s one of the few actors that can literally melt celluloid with a look. Andrea Feldman does a dance through a field of skulls in this film and her voice is positively sublime. Jane Forth plays a plastic princess with a terribly wicked heart. Her character comes across as a bored housewife type who wants nothing more than to crawl about in the filth for a while looking for an experience that will completely ravish and terrify her.

Overall, this is a smart collision of robust sexuality and degradation stolen from the anus of fear. It’s gloriously filmed, the actors are all a smashing good time, and it actually manages to feel like not being able to procure one’s medicine and being broke. It’s got an oozing stickiness to it that is seemingly too difficult for other similarly themed films to pull off. It’s a success in that it creates an actual physical reaction to the film that is unsettling and discomforting. One wants to immediately eat a salad, run fifteen miles, and plant a tree. Ultimately, this film expresses a certain life that is both exciting and nauseating. It gives us characters who are slightly deranged and perfectly loveable for it. The story can be read as being about bored kids with nothing much to do finding their entertainment in whatever avenue is most convenient. The kids are alright in the end.

Film Reviews--L'Humanite

L’Humanité
written and directed by Bruno Dumont
starring Emmanuel Schotté, Séverine Caneele, Philippe Tullier, Ghislain Ghesquère, Ginette Allegre

Employing extended takes, a static camera, and deliberate pacing this film explores the language of horror and acute grief.

A young girl has been found dead in a field; she has been raped and bitten on the throat. Police Superintendent Pharaon De Winter (Schotté) is beginning the arduous task of gathering clues to determine who is responsible for the crime. His investigation leads him to the school bus the girl, named Nadege, rode for the last time as well as a mental hospital.

The pacing of the film is exceedingly deliberate as it allows the audience to pause and look at things for a great length of time. It focuses its attention on the faces of the characters and stays on them to allow the viewer to examine their micro-emotions to help determine their real feelings regarding whatever is troubling.

De Winter is beset with grief for pretty much the entire film. He looks worn, tired, and anguished over what he has seen. Indeed, he cannot let go of it; it haunts him wherever he turns. He seems particularly disturbed whenever he sees girls the same age as Nadege out on the street. He routinely pauses to stare at them for what amounts to an uncomfortable amount of time. Of course one cannot get inside his head but there are many possibilities as to why he lingers on the children and not all of them are decent. Still, one should not expect the worst in this case because there is no other evidence in the film to corroborate it. De Winter also has a habit of rubbing his face against the faces of other men. He does it with a man being interrogated, a doctor at the mental institution, and with the man who committed the deed. For the last one he goes further and kisses him strangely on the mouth. It doesn’t make any sense in the context of the film other than to display the pent up emotions that are welling up inside him. At one point in the film De Winter screams repeatedly after walking past the place where it happened.

Domino (Caneele) is a neighbor of De Winter’s and they are close friends. De Winter is gravely attracted to Domino and there is much tension between them from the beginning of the film although Domino shows no obvious signs of interest. Domino is dating Joseph (Tullier), a sour school bus driver with a foul mouth and surly disposition. .

Each scene features extended takes that explore the limitations of cinema with a rather documentary style. The camera is stationary for much of the film as all action is reduced to taking place within the frame. There are scenes where characters are moving from one place to another and the camera will show the entire journey from a few different angles. The film becomes a contemplation during these scenes as the viewer is allowed the opportunity to think about the nature of the film and existential queries that have developed. There are many such questions. What is the anatomy of sorrow? Is grief a sickness and is there an immediate cure? Is it possible to not sexualize the rape and murder of an eleven year old girl?

De Winter is fraught with anxiety for the entire duration of the film. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to work through his feelings regarding the girl’s murder. Indeed, his breathing is often heavy and shallow, he is testy with his mother, and he is taunted by the relationship between Domino and Joseph. He doesn’t let it show very often but he is exceedingly attracted to Domino and this upsets him deeply. During one scene Domino decides to initiate some physical contact with De Winter. She tells him that he can touch her wherever he wants and proceeds to digitally penetrate herself. De Winter appears disgusted and promptly walks out leaving Domino to contemplate the cruelty of her act.

There are several sex scenes between Domino and Joseph that seem entirely out of place in this film; they are fairly graphic and animalistic. They don’t do anything to further the narrative and seem altogether gratuitous. There are many scenes that feature female genitals. There is the close up of the young girl’s sexual organs, the three sex scenes, a close up of Domino on her back with her legs spread and finally, the insertion of the finger into the vagina. One cannot help but wonder after the motivation for such scenes. It’s impossible to come up with a justification for such moments because there isn’t one. Naughty bits in cinema only work when the are directly related to the story being told. Here they just are, by themselves, apparently shown to demonstrate that Joseph has a healthy sexual appetite. Otherwise they serve no purpose.

There are moments of sheer, unadulterated beauty throughout this film. It’s filmed in relatively flat terrain and it allows the viewer to take in the boundless, seemingly infinite horizons that seem to go on forever. This openness works very well throughout the film to articulate the impossibility to contain the death of the girl and to make much sense of it. It is scattered across the sky and one cannot fully grasp it because it defies explanation. How does one explain the horrible, brutal death of an eleven year old girl? There are no words that allow most of us to comprehend the severity of the act. Of course when one thinks about the needs and desires of the one who committed the crime, then it becomes easier to understand. One can gain insight when one can see the deed itself through his eyes and work through his mind to process it as it occurs without any moral hand wringing. As this has proven to be impossible for most persons it remains thoroughly experimental at this stage.

The film plays like a tone poem to the many facets of despair. The camera hovers agonizingly over the faces of the characters articulating a deeply felt and overbearing torment that informs the girl’s horrific death with tremendous sadness. Specifically, there are numerous shots of De Winter’s face that clearly show his fragile emotional state as he attempts to come to terms with the crime. He occasionally hides his face in his hands as if he cannot bear the burden of knowing that such a thing is possible and that it could happen to such a bubbly, lovely creature who has given no cause to be treated so barbarically.

The performances in this film are natural and believable. Emmanuel Schotté captures his character’s overarching loneliness and grief with an admirable clarity. De Winter is a wholly sympathetic character who Schotté deftly conveys with warmth and tremendous calm. Séverine Caneele possesses a quiet dignity throughout the film. Her character comes off as knowing and terribly understanding. Philippe Tullier gives us a terminally crass character who is often shown to be uncouth and slightly unhinged.


Overall, this is a devastatingly mournful film that seeps into the skin and remains there long after the film has concluded. There is a coldness about it, almost clinical, that is rooted in the sense of loss that is readily felt from the beginning. It shows how terrible things can leave a lasting impression on those whose job it is to deal with the aftermath while struggling to maintain their sense of personal order. De Winter is simply a man whose nature is such that crimes of this sort do not simply wash over him. He is the type that is haunted by such cruelties and therefore susceptible to emotional strain that plays on him routinely and keeps him menacingly by the throat.