Forty Shades of Blue is one of those films that cineastes love to champion. It's all about the ineffable pain of being alive. And it communicates this by meandering around for a couple of hours while a few depressed and misunderstood characters collide with each other and screw things up. As far as that goes, this is a pretty good film. It does all that stuff better than most films of its kind.
The problem, however, is the same with this film as with all the others that are just like it (Junebug, We Don't Live Here Anymore, Keane, Broken Flowers, etc.): it's just not very interesting. And yes, you can make the argument that these films are far more indicative of what life is like for an average person than something like Reservoir Dogs. And they are. But that still doesn't make them interesting, sorry. In short, this is the type of movie that you don't need to pause to take a bathroom break. You might miss someone being sad or looking sadly at something beautiful but so what? There are ten more of those moments, dragged out equally long, up ahead.
I am not a plot supremacist. It doesn't all have to be about the What of the thing. But if you ask me, the What should at least be marginally interesting. I could relate what the What of Forty Shades of Blue is but why bother? It doesn't actually have anything to do with the point of the film. Some people might find that beautiful. I just find it boring. I'm bored because I know five minutes in that someone, a hopelessly trapped and depressed someone, will make a bad decision (in this case to sleep with her boyfriend's son but it could just as easily have been to sleep with a best friend or to quit a job or to beat up someone, whatever). Then, rather than deal with this situation and its attendant causes, the person will retreat, not talk about the problem and get pissed. Maybe this anger will come out in inappropriate ways (hateful public speeches, tirades against the kids, whatever) and then the film will end with nothing much having been resolved.
Well, congratulations, that sure does reflect the way a lot of people live their lives. But those people suck. And it's their inability to take control and communicate that makes them suck. I hate these people in real life. And I hate them in films. So again, congratulations, you've effectively rendered some fictional people I find as infuriating as real people. Bully for you.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE – john curran – 5.0 / 10
And here we have yet another indie drama about the unbearable weight of being alive that bores the shit out of people. Aren’t the lives of these people so complicated and tragic? Aren’t all our lives? Isn’t it so damned hard to live a good life and forge meaningful connections with the opposite sex? Maybe the answers to all these questions are “yes.” But I don’t think so. And honestly, even if I did, I don’t think it would interest me to see that reflected on the screen. Why does “adult drama” mean boring people doing half stupid things that I’m almost embarrassed to witness? How does that deepen my understanding of the human condition? I just don’t know what people see in these films.
Well, okay, I think I know what people see. They see what they believe to be their understanding of the world reflected in the film. I guess they can identify with these people (God help them). I don’t, personally. And maybe that’s why I have contempt for these sorts of films. Or maybe it’s because every problem a person in a film like this has could be solved by effective communication. Either way, they never get me.
That’s not to say that there isn’t the occasional moment or two that works for me. In fact, in this film, almost all of it seems to work on the level that the characters and their interactions seem believable (I’m sure there are people who behave exactly this way somewhere out there). The moment in which Mark Ruffalo’s Jack tells his mistress Edith (Naomi Watts) that their spouses are having an affair and the pain-filled sex that follows hits the perfect emotional note. The look on Watts’s face as the scene ends is particularly powerful. That being said, I’ve never had sex like that and, although I’m sure it happens, I really don’t know how well what I’m seeing reflects the reality of that situation. Basically, the film convinced me that this is what it would be like but I really don’t know.
But, for as many moments that work wonderfully, there are just as many moments that are painful and annoying. And mostly, at the end of the film, I’m left with the impression that the level of commitment of everyone involved in this project could have been put to much better use.
Well, okay, I think I know what people see. They see what they believe to be their understanding of the world reflected in the film. I guess they can identify with these people (God help them). I don’t, personally. And maybe that’s why I have contempt for these sorts of films. Or maybe it’s because every problem a person in a film like this has could be solved by effective communication. Either way, they never get me.
That’s not to say that there isn’t the occasional moment or two that works for me. In fact, in this film, almost all of it seems to work on the level that the characters and their interactions seem believable (I’m sure there are people who behave exactly this way somewhere out there). The moment in which Mark Ruffalo’s Jack tells his mistress Edith (Naomi Watts) that their spouses are having an affair and the pain-filled sex that follows hits the perfect emotional note. The look on Watts’s face as the scene ends is particularly powerful. That being said, I’ve never had sex like that and, although I’m sure it happens, I really don’t know how well what I’m seeing reflects the reality of that situation. Basically, the film convinced me that this is what it would be like but I really don’t know.
But, for as many moments that work wonderfully, there are just as many moments that are painful and annoying. And mostly, at the end of the film, I’m left with the impression that the level of commitment of everyone involved in this project could have been put to much better use.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
MUNICH - steven spielberg - 6.7 / 10
There's a moment or three in Steven Spielberg's latest film that recalls the greatness of his earlier pictures and reminds why he's the unquestioned master of the visual medium. Unfortunately, as wonderful as those moments are, they only account for fifteen or so minutes of the film's bloated three hour running time. Most of that time is padded with yet another bombing of a nondescript European house or yet another meal in which the characters discuss nothing much so that the audience may see just how different what they are doing has made these men. It's those scenes, the ones of look-at-me self-importance, that really grate. Perhaps it's that this film was rushed into production and rushed again to release so that it would qualify for the Oscars. Whatever the reason, the magic is just not in those scenes.
But it is there in the extended opening that depicts the capture and murder of the nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Told mostly through shots of televisions, reporters and people watching TV around the world, this sequence says more about the way that we perceive the world in the modern age than most films that are expressly about the subject. It's just really impressive filmmaking.
The magic's also there in a scene in which Avner's group of Jews, basically terrorists without a home state at this point in the film, share a safe house with the Palestinian terrorists they are hunting. The idea (discussed by the two groups) that these people could co-exist were it not for the mere fact that the Jews have a place on Earth to call theirs and the Palestinians do not is certainly an interesting one (and not one shared by either of the two sides in their public rhetoric). It's the only scene that really gets at the motivations behind the commitment these people have to a way of life that turns them into animals and makes them look, to the rest of the world, like savages.
Later in the scene Avner, (the Jew, duh) asks Ali (the Arab) why they are so committed to the destruction of Israel. Ali's answers are simultaneously frightening, completely illogical and totally rational. In the scene's best moment, he asks Avner how long it took the Jews to get a homeland. Avner doesn't answer but the unspoken threat here is that the Palestinians might be willing to wait ten thousand years, too.
The old Spielberg magic's also there in the ending of the film (something rare indeed to be saying about a Spielberg film) when Avner and his handler talk about what they've really accomplished with this little war of theirs. They wonder, since every terrorist they kill seems to spawn five new ones in his place, what the net effect of the whole thing was. And as they wander and talk about this in the shadow of Manhattan's skyscrapers, we get a glimpse of the Twin Towers. And finally the characters part, neither feeling too assured by the other, as the camera pans up on those now gone landmarks. It's as loaded and interesting (and, yes, even depressing) an ending as Spielberg has come up with in years and it's the only thing from this film that might really stick with me. Interesting that with this and War of the Worlds, Speilberg, that benchmark of middlebrow conservatism, is really the first mainstream artist to tackle the thorny issue of 9/11 with some amount of grace.
Of course, the film isn't without Spielberg's trademark squeamishness about sex and family issues. In the film's worst scene, Avner, after meeting a beautiful and willing woman in a bar, decides at the last minute to be faithful to his wife. On the way out of the bar, he bumps into a friend. He tells the friend to beware of the woman but sure enough, later that night, unable to sleep, Avner visits his friend, smells the woman's perfume and finds the friend murdered in his bed. The implication being that unfaithfulness gets you killed. Talk about your Hebrew School reactionary impulse towards sex. It's almost as if, when Spielberg isn't paying attention, the most wonderful things leap forth from his mind but when he's trying to make a point, all he can really say is the most reactionary and simple sort of moralistic nonsense. That's a shame really because he could be our greatest artist. Instead he's just one our most interesting.
But it is there in the extended opening that depicts the capture and murder of the nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Told mostly through shots of televisions, reporters and people watching TV around the world, this sequence says more about the way that we perceive the world in the modern age than most films that are expressly about the subject. It's just really impressive filmmaking.
The magic's also there in a scene in which Avner's group of Jews, basically terrorists without a home state at this point in the film, share a safe house with the Palestinian terrorists they are hunting. The idea (discussed by the two groups) that these people could co-exist were it not for the mere fact that the Jews have a place on Earth to call theirs and the Palestinians do not is certainly an interesting one (and not one shared by either of the two sides in their public rhetoric). It's the only scene that really gets at the motivations behind the commitment these people have to a way of life that turns them into animals and makes them look, to the rest of the world, like savages.
Later in the scene Avner, (the Jew, duh) asks Ali (the Arab) why they are so committed to the destruction of Israel. Ali's answers are simultaneously frightening, completely illogical and totally rational. In the scene's best moment, he asks Avner how long it took the Jews to get a homeland. Avner doesn't answer but the unspoken threat here is that the Palestinians might be willing to wait ten thousand years, too.
The old Spielberg magic's also there in the ending of the film (something rare indeed to be saying about a Spielberg film) when Avner and his handler talk about what they've really accomplished with this little war of theirs. They wonder, since every terrorist they kill seems to spawn five new ones in his place, what the net effect of the whole thing was. And as they wander and talk about this in the shadow of Manhattan's skyscrapers, we get a glimpse of the Twin Towers. And finally the characters part, neither feeling too assured by the other, as the camera pans up on those now gone landmarks. It's as loaded and interesting (and, yes, even depressing) an ending as Spielberg has come up with in years and it's the only thing from this film that might really stick with me. Interesting that with this and War of the Worlds, Speilberg, that benchmark of middlebrow conservatism, is really the first mainstream artist to tackle the thorny issue of 9/11 with some amount of grace.
Of course, the film isn't without Spielberg's trademark squeamishness about sex and family issues. In the film's worst scene, Avner, after meeting a beautiful and willing woman in a bar, decides at the last minute to be faithful to his wife. On the way out of the bar, he bumps into a friend. He tells the friend to beware of the woman but sure enough, later that night, unable to sleep, Avner visits his friend, smells the woman's perfume and finds the friend murdered in his bed. The implication being that unfaithfulness gets you killed. Talk about your Hebrew School reactionary impulse towards sex. It's almost as if, when Spielberg isn't paying attention, the most wonderful things leap forth from his mind but when he's trying to make a point, all he can really say is the most reactionary and simple sort of moralistic nonsense. That's a shame really because he could be our greatest artist. Instead he's just one our most interesting.
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