First of all, I'd like to know what the hell happened to Mickey Rourke's face. He looks like Marv from Sin City subjected himself to a plastic surgery catastrophe from Terry Gilliam's Brazil. However, it is the intimate focus on that bizarre and uniquely expressive mug of Rourke's that helps the picture succeed. The Wrestler, the story of former professional wrestling star Randy "The Ram" Robinson, is filmed with stark, close-quarters shots, forcing the viewer to absorb every detail of the coarse, glamour-free world of its characters. Anything else, any sleekness in the direction or cinematography would have come off as dishonest and uninteresting. This is where director Darren Aronofsky deserves the most credit; he knew when to step away from his own movie and merely let the acting and the actors tell his story (though he still can't resist cramming in art film-style ambiguity to the ending). The Wrestler is beautiful that way the Badlands are beautiful; it's the stark, unadorned bareness that makes it that way, and anything else would just be a blight on the landscape.
So much has been said about Mickey Rourke's performance that it would be redundant to repeat much of it here. What does deserve special attention and what makes his acting, and the acting of the rest of the cast, so gripping is its honesty. There is very little in the way of histrionics or exploitive displays of emotion; it just feels natural and genuine. Even the casting of actual wrestlers as Randy's peers, relatively minor roles in terms of screen time, adds to the authentic feel of the characters. However, one particular (and very important) scene between Rourke and Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Randy's daughter, crosses into what seems insincere territory. Describing the circumstances would require the revealing of massive spoilers, but let me just say that this last scene between the characters is incredibly disappointing because it so contrasts the wonderfully understated and mournful nature of their previous encounters.
The wrestling scenes are particularly staggering. Aronofsky's camera focuses on every hit and every contact, making the violence, despite its obvious artificiality and predetermined outcome, far more visceral than what most viewers are used to seeing in a professional wrestling match on television or even in person. What makes them even more remarkable is the fact that, in their own way, they seem more painful, realistic, and brutal that most movie fight scenes that are supposed to depict genuine life-or-death fights. One would never call what acrobats do "fake" merely because the outcome of their act is known beforehand, and The Wrestler makes it clear that Randy's world is just as real. The difference is that these entertainers might come out bloody and in dire need of medical attention even if the performance goes exactly according to plan.
It is because of this constant physical punishment both in and out of the ring that has caused the titular character's life, both as The Ram and as Randy, to fall apart. Along with the unavoidable damage done by age, his body has betrayed him because of the punishment he has exacted upon it. This mirrors the ordeal of the subject of his infatuation, the stripper Cassidy, played with subtle sincerity by Marisa Tomei. Although the conceit that Tomei is becoming too unattractive to be a stripper is kind of ridiculous, her parallel and very personal conflict makes her relationship with Randy believable and genuine when it could have seemed forced and artificial.
As for the plot, there really isn't much of one. The Wrestler isn't about any particular story arc, it's just about Randy trying to maintain, not even repair, his life for as long as possible. The film spends most of its time following the characters around as they continue to ruin their own lives in the same way they were ruining their lives in the opening frame. As a result, there's nowhere for the film to go and scenes just sort of… happen. Since the film is a character study of stagnant characters amid a stagnant plot, there is little narrative drive and, unfortunately, those characters are less compelling. However, with the undisputable strength of the acting and the screenplay, this is the only fundamental weakness of the film. The Wrestler may not be the most inspiring sports movie ever made, but it is no doubt an affecting one. Plus, Marisa Tomei is naked a lot. So there's that.
By John Arminio: Global Cafe Asst. Editor & Writer
Danny Boyle's determination to challenge himself and dabble in different genres of film makes him one of the most interesting directors working. His latest, Slumdog Millionaire, is a modern rags-to-riches fable set in India that centers on Jamal, a boy from the slums of Mumbai who finds himself about the win millions of rupees on a game show. The story of how he survived through murderous riots, child slavery, a curious incident involving outhouses, gangsters, violence, and police corruption is told through flashbacks triggered by the questions he is asked. If that doesn't at least peak your interest, then you should probably just stop reading right now and go see Bride Wars or something.
Despite the familiar character-types and plot conventions (rags-to-riches, a damsel in distress, an evil king in his castle, etc.), the character relationships and their actions are refreshingly nuanced and believable. Brothers Jamal and Salim share a complex bond, one that is repeatedly broken and repaired by various misdeeds and attempts at redemption. The narrative of Jamal's devotion to Latika, his lifelong love, is also convincingly fleshed-out, with actor Dev Patel's every physical gesture seeming to embody his longing for the girl. These tiers of authenticity are layered on top of the fairytale plot, making what would otherwise be a predictable film become one crammed with surprises and engaging scenes. However, what is most disappointing about the character of Latika is that, as a young girl, she is shown to be brave, intelligent, and resourceful, no matter how dark or distressing her circumstances become. As an adult, she seems far more complacent about her despicable condition: being held as the mistress of a local crime lord. This state of being turns her into a stereotypical damsel in distress, rather than a nuanced one, who forces Jamal to pull her back into the story with all his might. While this might fit the structure of Slumdog Millionaire's fairytale story, it turns Latika from an active participant in the plot into a passive, and less interesting, one.
Along with the leads, supporting performances are universally strong. Anil Kapoor's slimier-than-swamp-grime game show host is a pleasure to watch/loath and functions as a perfect foil for Jamal's quiet disposition, especially as it changes from humility to self-confidence. Irrfan Khan is also impressive as the beleaguered police inspector who seems haggard and frustrated at being ordered to enforce the whims of the entertainment industry rather than investigate murderers and terrorists.
The hyper-energetic nature of some of the musical and chase sequences are, in essence, music video interludes that break up the film. However, they are superbly shot and show the grime-ridden slums of Mumbai without slowing down the film or pandering to sentimentality. Here, the filmmakers have found a way to make showing the viewer the lives of some of the world's poorest people a spectacle to shake one's ass to. It's a remarkable achievement, and special appreciation should be paid to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and composer A. R. Rahman for it. The frenetic beats and super-saturated colors create an India both mythic and realistic, both believable and stirring to the imagination.
One trivial observation: The showing of white tourists as universally ineffectual morons does provide some nice comic relief, but it also raises some questions about the filmmakers themselves. Is Danny Boyle's obvious fascination with India (he did kind of make a movie about it) much different from that of the traveling westerners whom he mocks? But hey, rich white filmmakers making rich white people look dumb in movies has been around since these moving pictures were invented, so it's probably a good idea to just enjoy the easy laugh. On the other hand, the cultural gulf between the West and India is illustrated with simple and direct clarity by the nature of the questions featured in the game show sequences. Knowing that Amitabh Bachchan starred in 1973's Zanjeer is considered such a commonly understood piece of general knowledge that the police investigating Jamal accept him being aware of the answer without hesitation. Our protagonist has a far harder time convincing them that he knows who is on the American hundred dollar bill, a fact most American kindergartners could recite.
What this film deserves the most credit for is not shying away from its fairytale nature. My greatest fear while watching it was that some needless moralizing about Jamal "not needing money to be happy" or some other nonsense would rear its cliché-ridden head. This, thankfully, does not occur and the movie retains its climactic, unabashed optimism, despite the numerous sufferings and tragedies of the characters. The gameshow's results, Jamal's victory, and the realization of the protagonists' love are obvious from the very first few seconds of the picture (i.e. "it is written" appearing on the screen). We continue to watch because Slumdog Millionaire creates that destiny in a poetic vision of bombastic light and sound. Make no mistake, this is not the masterpiece that many critics have made it out to be, nor is it the best picture of the year, but it's still an unabashedly enjoyable one.
By John Arminio: Global Cafe Asst. Editor & Writer
When presented with something fundamentally trivial and hollow that possess aesthetic beauty, the former characteristics only serve to make the latter seem unpleasant to the point of repulsion, like a malformed waxwork figure of what should be an attractive face. Director Theodoros Angelopoulos’ film The Weeping Meadow (known in Greece as Trilogia: To livadi pou dakryzei) possesses a singular and dreary splendor in appearance, but it has little to offer beyond that. As per his style, every shot looks as if it were carefully constructed, like a painting, to be a piece of art on its own. Even the set dressing and wall decorations look like the background to some Baroque oil-on-canvas. Calling this film Studies in Greek Desolation would have been appropriate. This style is inherently artificial (villagers don’t normal stand around a wagon at symmetrical distances from each other for aesthetic purposes). Still, it does make every frame visually interesting, but soon becomes tiresome and obvious.
The story, if it can be called such, begins with Greek refugees traveling from Odessa, Ukraine to an unwanted patch of coastal bog in their native Greece. Among them are the village leader Spyros, his son Nikos, and the family’s adopted daughter Eleni. The movie’s shallow nature is first revealed in the opening scenes via the use of laborious expository dialogue, as the tale of the refugees’ flight from the rise of Bolshevism in what would become the Soviet Union would have made a much more interesting movie than this one. Instead, sad-looking people talk to the camera for a minute or so.
This trend painfully continues throughout the film. Shortly after the characters are introduced, a few sentences of awkward dialogue reveal that Eleni, now a teenager, had become pregnant with twins by her brother-in-law Nikos, was whisked away by her adopted mother in an elaborate ruse to make Spyros unaware of the pregnancy, and then gave the twins away to a family friend. After about two minutes, the film then jumps ahead four years without any indication of time passing. Through more expository dialogue, the audience is told that Spyros’ wife had died for some reason (though she was seen vibrant and healthy about twenty seconds ago). After an unspecified amount of time, Eleni became betrothed to Spyros and left her father-in-law/fiancé standing at the altar to be with her brother-in-law/father of her children. While actually showing nothing of interest except well-constructed long takes of sullen faces and bad monologues, The Weeping Meadow manages to explain away three separate movies and several Jerry Springer episodes worth of plot in favor of mind-numbing intellectual “artistry.”
The characters are then left to react to these events in moments of raw emotionality and pain, but they have no context or connection to the viewer because the film is so detached from its audience. We cannot feel for a character whose life is mentioned (not even narrated) secondhand instead of seeing it. Spyros, for example, just ends up being some creepy old guy with a Woody Allen complex towards what should be his daughter, not the tragic leader who brought his people out of possible genocide and into a new life. The performances of the leads, Alexandra Aidini and Giorgos Armenis as Eleni and Nikos respectively, do not help matters. While the emotional range of Armenis is outmatched by that of, say, a dead clam, Aidini goes from a similar blank passivity to uncontrollable weeping with no transition or middle ground.
Theodoros Angelopoulos further distances the audience from his own movie by what seems like a total aversion to human faces, as he shoots even intimate conversation in wide shots. Many of these images linger far too long, seeming to force the audience to admire their beauty. Even if these long takes are on the level of paintings, it is somewhat like going into an art museum and being forced to look at only certain pieces and for pre-determined amounts of time. A film that pretends to be an honest depiction of the migrant experience cannot function in such an artificial way. The disingenuous dialogue, the confusing editing, and even the put-upon set construction make the movie feel closer to something like neo-surrealism than anything else. In fact, it would have been better if The Weeping Meadow just went for all-out weirdness or illogical nonsense rather than trying to be emotionally engaging and failing utterly. Sure, there is more symbolism here than a trashcan full of Ezra Pound* poems, but why should we care about the symbols in a movie where there’s nothing to care about?
Neat the end of the film, when, after another drastic leap forward in time, one character actually utters the phrase “so much has happened,” The Weeping Meadow has become insufferable. Nothing has happened! Instead of showing any of the momentous events that characters talk about (like World War II or cultural revolutions), the film spends endless minutes on laundry hanging on clotheslines. The movie ends with Eleni giving a mind-numbingly strained speech that summarizes the whole point Angelopoulos was trying to accomplish with this work. It’s the equivalent of when Katie Holmes, at the end of Batman Begins, tells Batman that Bruce Wayne is his real “mask,” except if that line was stretched into several minutes… by an even less interesting actress. For a solid minute.
*You know, I was worried that making an Ezra Pound reference would come off as elitist, but then I realized that I was doing a review of a pretentious Greek film and there was not much I could do to be more elitist than that.
By John Arminio: Global Cafe Asst. Editor & Writer
Failure, thy foul stench will forthwith be known as Devil Hunter (also known by the more outlandish title Sexo Canibal). Rarely has a film done so little of any value in the span of ninety minutes. One can only assume this moviequalifies as an exploitation film, if only because there is little evidence it was intended as a serious drama, comedy, or musical, though it is still difficult to detect what exactly famed purveyor of European filth, "Director" Jesus Franco, is exploiting. There is plenty of nudity, sure, but the naked girl is always surrounded by that special brand of mustachioed and shirtless European gay porn extra that populates cannibal horror films, so the nakedness can never be appreciated. There are some zoomed-in close ups of vaginas (classy!), but those come off as poorly-timed jokes rather than anything sexual. As for the violence, well, there just isn't that much of it. The cannibal devil god thing that is being hunted in the title (it's a guy with what looks like Play-Doh covering his eyes) commits some acts of maliciousness, but he's hampered by the fact that the actor who plays him spends his time tentatively wandering around the jungle because his makeup makes him blind. In fact, the only real disgusting scene of gore is a close-up of said devil god eating human flesh, but it's only disgusting because a close-up of anyone eating with his or her mouth open is gross. It would have been just as gross if it were a bagel. Other acts of violence or gore are rare, though there is the inevitable rape scene, which happens for no real reason and hardly qualifies as enjoyable.
The film actually starts out with a bit of promise as it gets down to business with a naked woman being chased through the jungle by several semi-clothed men, eventually being partially consumed by the devil god worshiped by the natives. This scene, however, is intercut with sequences of the model-in-peril before her cannibalistic predicament. She is shown picking out clothes and gallivanting on a beach while sycophantic photographers ask her questions about her taste (pun intended) in men. You know, the essential elements of exciting horror cinema. Maybe Franco is trying to tell us that we are cannibalizing our own culture or something? Whatever his intent (I find it hard to believe he had one), perhaps the only opportunity for suspense is ruined by unfortunate editing choices. As a matter of fact, the editing was probably done by the guy in the devil god makeup, as no one but a blind person could have made the cutting choices present in Devil Hunter.
Just because something awful is expected of Franco does not excuse this movie. The dubbing and acting are stupendously horrendous, which is no surprise, but it is kind of unforgivable that the audio and dialogue levels frequently peak, sounding like someone is yelling into a bullhorn. Is it really that much to expect a movie to at least equal the sound quality level of college radio? Sure, one assumes there will be exploitation of women in an exploitation film, but Devil Hunter portrays them as mentally deficient sub-human creatures that exist only to satisfy the sexual desires of bad actors. It is no shock that the dialogue is terrible, but when some guy randomly goes into a Vietnam War flashback inspired by posttraumatic stress disorder, only to cry out in agony, “the humidity!” it goes beyond merely “unwatchable” and enters the realm of unconscionable. Devil Hunter is truly a crime against humanity and no placement on the list of “video nasties” could make it worth seeing.
By John Arminio: Global Cafe Asst. Editor & Writer
Bloody Moon is the work of an insane person. That is the only explanation for its existence. It is not purposefully avant-garde or experimental, it is merely the kind of movie that makes no sense from a narrative standpoint, something that only an insane person could watch and say, "wow, that was well-constructed entertainment." While it is certainly not a "good" film, calling it a failure seems somehow inappropriate as it never aspires to be anything remotely resembling "good." Director Jesus Franco's only desire seems to be to show topless women, women getting killed, and women getting killed while topless. In this sense, the film is a success, especially considering the mind-boggling, and sometimes strangely amusing, nature of the events onscreen
What elevates Bloody Moon well above the level of unwatchable (and into the realm of hypnotizing slow-motion car crash) is how laughable many of the plot elements really are. From one character sporting a facial disfigurement resembling Salisbury steak, an illogically evil wheelchair-bound old woman randomly getting two minutes of screen time, a female murder victim being disemboweled by the killer slowly rubbing his closed fist against her stomach, to a casually introduced incest sub-plot, Bloody Moon defies conventional wisdom as boldly as it defies sense and reason. Even the title seems to celebrate incongruity, as frequent shots of the moon are entirely irrelevant to the events surrounding them, with the possible exception of it causing women to bare their breasts for no reason.
What remains most disturbing about the film, as there is nothing resembling suspense or dramatic tension within the actual plot, is Franco's pathological dismissal of women. The director portrays them as nothing more than sex-crazed morons or manipulative psychopaths. While the protagonist is a slight exception to this rule, she is still regarded as sub-humanly stupid by the male and female characters. When the main character makes repeated claims that she has witnesses a murder, everyone, including other women, tell her she is "imagining things" and that she should just calm down. I guess women routinely claim that one of their friends has been murdered because of their over-active imagination? Spain must be a weird place. Perhaps even stranger, a gaggle of supporting female characters follows a male named Antonio around, constantly blathering on about what a great lay the guy is to anyone who will listen. Meanwhile, the Latin lover in question stares blankly into space like he can't fathom what these nymphomaniacs are talking about, but it would take too much energy for him to utter a mere "huh?" to find out.
To give perspective on how low Franco's opinion of women really is, one female character meets her end thusly (this really isn't a spoiler since this character's end is more obvious that a red-shirted member of an Enterprise away team): the woman in question is shown riding in a car with an unseen man as she proclaims that she has never let a man she doesn't know pick her up. She then admires her companion's mask and comments that she has never done "it" with anyone who was wearing one (even though the man is clearly not wearing anything of the sort). The pair drive to an abandoned factory where the woman lets herself be tied to a wooden table that is conspicuously close to a giant saw, all the while babbling about how she "likes it rough" and "kinky." It should be noted that this is one of the only times a woman is shown fully clothed, which is odd since the character seemed to believe she was getting prepared for sex. Then she dies.
Even with the rampant misogyny, Bloody Moon somehow manages to include a somewhat capable actress, Olivia Pascal, for the lead role of Angela. She almost seems transported into the movie from another Universe; a logical being suddenly surrounded by polyester-clad idiots more concerned with disco dancing to public domain music (this happens a lot) than people getting killed. Despite the fact that the mechanizations of the plot, if one can call it that, have absolutely nothing to do with her, Pascal anchors the movie in a way that makes her character sympathetic and contributes mightily to making the film watchable. Whether it was intentional or not, her performance gives the lunacy surrounding her something to play off of and become occasionally hilarious. If one so chooses, one can examine the meta-dichotomy of the congruent absurdity of Pascal's presence in Bloody Moon and Angela's presence in its plot, but that would be silly. If you actually choose to watch, it's better to just sit back and let the insanity of the movie wash over you. Be careful, it might leave a sticky residue.
By John Arminio: Global Cafe Asst. Editor & Writer
REVIEW COIMG SOON
REVIEW COIMG SOON
REVIEW COIMG SOON
REVIEW COIMG SOON
