MONDOmagazine

Dead Silence
Directed by James Wan
Universal Studios, 2007

By David Hollands

James Wan is responsible for the cinematic abortion that was Saw. So was Mr. Leigh Whannell, the writer of Saw. Both men are also responsible for Dead Silence. Saw attempted to be an overly-serious, David Fincher-esque thriller but was so ludicrously executed it failed. Here, however, Wan and Whannell seem to want the audience to have fun with the material. The result is, surprisingly, much more of a treat to watch. The director and writer seem to realize that their premise is ridiculous, creating a funhouse experience for the audience. One in which it is actually good to laugh at the big jump scares and pseudo-terrifying moments.

The story is so simple — you could write the entire movie, with dialogue, on your palm — Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) and his wife Lisa (Laura Regan) are enjoying a pleasant evening together when a mysterious package arrives on their doorstep. Inside the package is a ventriloquist’s dummy — one that apparently brutally murders Lisa when Jamie leaves the apartment. Pursued by Det. Lipton (the manly Donnie Wahlberg), who believes the poor protagonist is responsible for the killing, Jamie returns to his old hometown of Raven’s Fair to plan his wife’s funeral and also to solve the mystery of her death — what a romantic. Many ghostly encounters and intentionally hilarious moving dummy moments follow.

There are many admirable qualities to Dead Silence. James Wan directs with a wonderful visual sense and a keen knowledge for staging the various set pieces in the film. Cinematographer John Leonetti has created a shadow-filled wonderland that works its magic on an audience member’s nerves. Charlie Clouser contributes a moody and effective musical score that is best described as 1950s style horror movie music filtered through modern synthesizers. The biggest surprise is the believable script because — as I said before — Leigh Whannell also wrote Saw. And the whole “I can easily kick the dummy away” trap is avoided by having the demonic wood carvings be a conduit for a much more destructive force. Of course the great performances of Kwaten and Wahlberg helped matters.

Dead Silence most likely won’t set your world on fire. The only substance found in a film involving a female monster that steals tongues is — at best — an unintentionally clever comment on the remaining seeds of the “women should be seen and not heard” crap that remains in our patriarchal society; especially so considering the single female victim versus the festering kill pile of macho men or men with dead or mentally unstable wives. If you’re looking for a fun and breezy time at the movies, you really can’t go wrong with Dead Silence.

Zodiac
Directed by David Fincher
Paramount Pictures, 2007

By Doug Nayler

David Fincher, you are high school to me.

Oh, I remember it so well. I was a young, idealistic, ignorant boy with a characteristically teen need to stake out my own nich, some defining quality with which to feel better than the other rabble in my grade ten science class. In desperate, self-esteemless frustration I decided that I could be the guy who was really into movies. Yeah, that kid who was so articulately insightful about film that soon I’d be suffering from acute, euphoric asphyxiation from all the smart women that would clutch me to their bosoms. And so, I went into my rural retirement town’s Blockbuster to stake my claim. And there I found you. You, who made Se7en and Fight Club. Films that were flashy and tense enough to be found at the aforementioned small-town Blockbuster, but creative and anachronistic enough to satisfy even my discerning taste. I tolled your virtues from the mountain tops, and ridiculed everyone in your name. And I knew that I’d make it out of town one day and be with you forever; our genius enfolding each other’s in mutual admiration for time immemorial.

But time moves on. We grew apart. Last I heard from you was some movie where Jodie Foster gets all worried in some sort of enclosed nook of some sort. After a few film classes I realized that maybe my “genius” wasn’t as precious and special as I assumed it was. And maybe it was a little naïve of me to think that someday you’d welcome me into your arms and stroke my hair, whispering “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Perhaps I had other things to worry about first. Like rent, for example.

But it’s not that I didn’t miss you. Every time there was a new Saw or a Hostel or any of that horror-porn shit, I’d just shake my head and remember how you did it first, better, and with an actual purpose. Once in awhile I even would sneak over to IMDB and see if you were up to anything. It was doing this one day that I found out you were working on a movie about the Zodiac Killer. The baby-faced 16-year-old fanboy inside of me was elated, screaming “It’ll be just like Se7en!!” but my older, seasoned self was more trepidatious, warning “What if it’s just like Se7en?!” Yet despite my concerns, there I was on opening night. And I was glad that I’d come.

I see that you’ve grown up some too since we last used to hang out. No more flashy little montages, no more disaffected, self-aware voiceover narration. No more anguished Brad Pitt. No more kooky Brad Pitt. Only a little bit of sensationalized violence. I’m glad though; don’t get me wrong. I mean they were fun when we were younger, but there are other things to do.

And what’ve you been up to instead? Making a layered, engrossing, tightly-knit look at the world surrounding a high-profile psychopath. A film that sucks you in by titillating your inner rubbernecker’s lust for psychotics, but slowly focuses itself more on the toll psychotic behaviour takes on those trying to make sense of it. One by one the investigators are crushed beneath the weight of conjecture and theory surrounding the case. This is a film that doesn’t count on the bells and whistles, just the crumbling psychological state of its characters. And for three hours, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Let’s see what happens when you try to watch a three-hour Saw sequel…

You’ve grown up, David, and I’m glad to see it. Otherwise, when I run into you next at the mall over Christmas break, it could be really awkward.

The Good German
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Warner Bros. Pictures, 2006

By Johanna Craig

There are two ways to bring a novel successfully to the screen. One method is to remain true to the novel, thus pleasing the fans of the book. Alternatively, filmmakers can go in a completely new direction in order to bring in new fans. The Good German, based on Joseph Kanon’s mystery novel of the same name, accomplishes neither of these goals.

Kanon’s novel is a portrait of a broken city. He portrays a place that has become a microcosm of conflict on both an individual and global scale. He grapples with the cost of survival in war, the question of accountability for the Holocaust, and the Allied powers’ imminent descent into the Cold War, by presenting the reader with characters who are struggling with each of these issues themselves. The mystery provides an intriguing storyline that gradually brings everything together and leaves the reader in a constant state of suspense. The result is an entertaining story, but more importantly, a rare perspective on the aftermath of war from the losing side.

In the film, the ageing but still studly George Clooney plays Jake Geismar, an American journalist who has come to post-WWII Berlin to report on the Potsdam Conference and to seek out Lena Brandt, his lover from before the war. Brandt, played by Cate Blanchett, had worked for Geismar and had been married to genius scientist Emil Brandt – who may or may not have had Nazi affiliations – but her husband was conveniently killed during the war (or was he?). Most likely in an effort to make her film character more interesting, and to compact the many original storylines, screenwriter Paul Attanasio melds two of the book’s characters into Blanchett’s Brandt. This completely changes the story’s ending, which would be fine if not for the fact that the screenplay still leaves the depths of the main characters largely unexplored.

One exception is Tobey Maguire’s short-lived Patrick Tully, who presents himself as a fascinating and horrifying mix between apple-cheeked all-American lad and brutal, sadistic soldier. Maguire proves to be the most interesting display of moral ambiguity in the entire movie. Overall, however, the weight of the moral and political struggles that made Kanon’s novel so intriguing is lost in translation to the big screen. Rather, these issues appear as more of an afterthought to the director’s stylistic choices.

What stylistic choices, you ask? Well, in an interesting venture, Soderbergh decided to film The Good German in the tradition of 40s style cinema, à la Casablanca. He does this to perfection, complete with an urgent score, courtesy of Thomas Newman; crescendos at every important discovery; side-wipe scene changes; and highlighting important pieces of paper to direct the audience’s attention. The colourless, shadowy atmosphere gives the movie an ominous, stereotypically historical feel (yes, World War II happened in black and white), and the sets and costumes are impeccable.

Unfortunately, all of this attention to aesthetic detail seems to have distracted the moviemakers from other, more important aspects of the film, like character development. As a result – as much as I was rooting for them – Clooney and Blanchett’s performances left me feeling utterly unmoved. The pace of the film moves too quickly to properly flesh out their roles, and when the most vital discovery about Blanchett’s character is finally revealed, the movie comes to an abrupt end.

On the bright side, The Good German makes for a good drinking game:

Every time Clooney flicks a cigarette into the street – drink once,

Every time Clooney gets the crap beaten out of him – drink twice,

Every time there’s a side wipe – drink thrice,

If someone says the ending seems like it was stolen from Casablanca (or maybe it’s an homage…?) – drink up!

Pan’s Labyrinth
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Warner Bros., 2006

Fantasy has been all over the goddamn movies the last few years.

Not that I’m surprised. The second the Hobbits swept the Oscars, I could see it coming. A bunch of useless, capitalist, soulless executives in every major motion picture studio were already adding up how much money they were going to make optioning anything that had a wizard. Or a dragon. Or a crystal-cloak-wand. You get the idea. I just settled into my seat and waited to be bombarded by bad CG fireballs being thrown at bad CG trolls, while some old, formerly respectable British actor looked on and stroked his beard-extensions. And I would just hate it.

Luckily, there’s often someone out there on the ball just enough to spin a sales trend like this in an interesting direction. And in this case, it’s Guillermo del Toro and his new film Pan’s Labyrinth. Although del Toro has had his biggest success with strange-but-mainstream horror flicks like Mimic, Blade II, and the disappointing Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth has much more in common with a smaller, darker film he released in 2001: The Devil’s Backbone. Both films are set during the Spanish Civil War. Both films are in Spanish. And both use the lives of children in violent times to draw depressing insights on humanity.

While The Devil’s Backbone drew inspiration from horror, however, Pan’s Labyrinth has more to do with tropes from fantasy and fairy tale. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother arrive at their new home in the rural hills. Ofelia’s new stepfather is Captain Vidal, who has been put in charge of eliminating the last few rebels left in the forest. No man could be better inclined to the job: he’s merciless, amoral, and brutal. Strangely, these qualities don’t really translate well into being a father/husband. Stranded in this horrible situation, Ofelia escapes into an elaborate fantasy involving a nearby labyrinth, as well as fairies, monsters, and a faun who sets her on a magical quest. Is it her fantasy, or is it all real? No, I’m actually asking you, because the movie doesn’t really clear it up.

But anyway, what’s most interesting about the film is the slow shift in tone it takes as it goes on. The light, naïve tone of Ofelia’s fantasy world becomes darker and darker as the brutality of the real world starts to infiltrate it. The audience is drawn into a world that ends up being far more disturbing to watch than they’re initially led to believe. The result is a far more compelling world that doesn’t want to leave you after the film is over.

One of the few complaints I had about the film really isn’t a complaint I can really fault the film for, since it’s such a ubiquitous practice in films today. I don’t find CG monsters, or effects, engaging at all. I’m fully aware that in reality the actor is staring at nothing. Of course, don’t listen to me, all I do is ramble. Just go watch Pan’s Labyrintha and tell me which characters are more fascinating to watch: the toad and the fairies, or the animatronic Faun and Ogre.

A Scanner Darkly
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Fox Searchlight, 2006

By Doug Nayler

It looks like The Bad News Bears and School of Rock have done the trick. 2006 marked the release of two new films from Austin’s pride Mr. Richard Linklater, both adapted from books. Fast Food Nation, a fictional story-driven adaptation of the non-fiction non-story driven book. This summer saw the release of A Scanner Darkly, a take on the Philip K. Dick novel in the animation style of Waking Life, the filmmaker’s last work. Both Fast Food Nation A Scanner Darkly stand as proof that Linklater’s previous forays into family films (which were admittedly better than most of the genre) have financed the director’s ability to go back into the weird and rambly territory he’s most acclaimed for.

A Scanner Darkly explores a world of the not too distant future where recreational drug use and government surveillance have increased significantly. A super drug called Substance D is growing in popularity, to quote one of the characters, “Either you’re addicted, or you haven’t tried it”. At the center of all this sits Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), a government intelligence agent who has a cover as a Substance D addict. He hangs out and does narcotics with his friends, and then analyzes the events later. However, Arctor soon loses track of where the cover ends and where his reality begins. The effects of the drugs result in his left and right brain hemispheres taking on separate identities that oppose one another. However, it’s long before this that the plot becomes so convoluted and abstract that it basically has to be given up on.

It is, however, encouraging to see an adaptation of Dick’s work that doesn’t cut out the author’s famous critical voice. When written in 1977 the book extrapolated the drug culture of the 1960s and the authoritarian bent of the hardly forgotten Nixon administration to their logical extremes. The most frightening thing of all is the fact that these observations seem more accurate today in the “post-9/11″ — how I hate that phrase — world than they did originally. But in his fervor to provide a faithful Dick adaptation Linklater seems to have lost track of certain things that work in print and not on film. One can assume that a film about altered perception will be disordered and disorienting. But A Scanner Darkly goes off on so many hazy tangents that all drama is lost. I figure that Reeves wooden, ambivalent performance as Bob Arctor is to blame as well. I can’t imagine someone being more apathetic to losing their mind.

I will close, however, by mentioning two things about the film which were very nicely done. The animation looks fantastic. It was achieved by shooting the film on video, editing it together, and then animating over each individual frame digitally. The process has come a long way since last used in 2001’s Waking Life. It is much more fluid and precise, thereby creating a strange visual hybrid which is not quite real but not quite animated either. It suits the tone of the film so well that there’s no question of it simply being “a gimmick.”

The best scenes of the movie can be found in the exchanges between two of the supporting characters, James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson). Downey’s frantically articulate performance steals the show and Harrelson serves as the perfect foil. And I for one am encouraged to see that Downey’s career has recovered to the point that he can now play a drug addict without it being an awkward, ironic ordeal.

Little Miss Sunshine
Directed by Richard Linklater
Warner Independent, 2006

By Doug Nayler

I get suspicious when I hear people touting a director’s skill based on the strength of a successful commercial. I can’t help it. I don’t like it. Say, “But it’s a good commercial!” to me all you like, it won’t do any good. All I hear are the words of Bill Hicks proclaiming that as soon as you do a commercial you and everything you say are suspect. I am, however, willing to admit that this cynicism is bred with no experience of the realities of surviving as a filmmaker. Perhaps my ethics would loosen if I were motivated by the imminent foreclosure of a mortgage. After all, there is something to be said for pragmatism. But for right now, hearing that the makers of Little Miss Sunshine also made some dumbshit ad for Volkswagen that had “Pink Moon” in it just makes me nervous.

Little Miss Sunshine features a family just soaked in disappointment. The father (Greg Kinnear) is an unsuccessful motivational speaker dragging his wife (Toni Collette) into bankruptcy. Their son (Paul Dano) has choked so bitterly on his self-involved teen angst he won’t even talk anymore. Not to mention the fact that her brother, the preeminent Proust scholar in the country (Steve Carell), has just failed in a suicide attempt. Oh, and his father (Alan Arkin) got kicked out of the home for snorting heroin. When their young daughter qualifies for the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant in California, the family decides to drive across the country to take her there. Zaniness ensues.

The first half runs almost like an ensemble version of About Schmidt. The family drives uselessly down highways dealing with a cruel, sadistic universe that deems them each useless in their individual way. Anything they do seems pathetic and absurd. By the end, however, there’s a shift into sentimental, life-affirming territory. “We may not have what we want, but we have each other” sort of a thing. It seems like there are two competing films wrestling for the fate of the Hoover family: it could just as easily end with a group hug or a mass suicide.

Little Miss Sunshine seems as though it will just collapse under its hip, oddball, indie comedy ad campaign. The collective weight of Napoleon Dynamite, Thumbsucker, Garden State, The Squid and the Whale, and of course the kitschy, retro-chique, well-soundtracked godfather of them all The Royal Tenenbaums seems poised to crush poor Little Miss Sunshine on sight.However, this film saves itself on the strength of the cast’s chemistry. The characters are surprisingly well drawn, and the subtleties of their relationships are what make the film worth watching. It’s here that the best laughs in the film come from, as well. The result is a film that comes off as being genuinely funny, not just trying to make jokes. Which is enough to earn my recommendation. Even if I am cynical about why the main vehicle in the movie is made by Volkswagen.

Stranger Than Fiction
Directed by Marc Forster
Columbia Pictures, 2006

By Doug Naylor

All comedians secretly want to be serious. Or, perhaps more accurately, they want to be taken seriously. What is it about comedy that breeds so much insecurity in its practitioners? Does it not get enough respect? Is it still considered to be low brow ilk? I should hope not. The argument can easily be made that just as much of the human condition can be found in The Office as in Six Feet Under. Or that the snide observations of Bill Hicks are just as valid as those of any great writer. One can really put it all to rest just by saying that life itself is filled with enough absurdity and tragedy to be observed truthfully through either lens. On the other hand, one can only be on the same shelf as American Pie Presents Band Camp and Scary Movie 4 for so long before they begin to question their worth.

Some comedians’ forays into more ‘dramatic’ fair have proven to be all the more powerful for their unexpectedness. Peter Sellars in Being There. Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Some have proven to be all the more useless for their ineptitude. I’m sorry, but I don’t care how many times you put Robin Williams in the Holocaust, or make him a sociopath, or make him investigate some tense situation where things aren’t as they seem: all I see is the goddamn genie from Aladdin. Now, it’s Will Ferrell’s turn to enter the foray.

Stranger Than Fiction tells the tale of Harold Crick, a remarkably unremarkable IRS agent who one day begins hearing a voice narrating his every move. The voice is that of Emma Thompson, a frustrated author writing a novel in which Crick is the main character, though she’s completely unaware of Crick’s existence or their connection. A literary professor (Dustin Hoffman) becomes intrigued by Crick’s affliction, and the two endeavour to sort out what is happening to Crick. Oh, and Maggie Gyllenhaal is in there too. She owns a bakery or something. To be honest, the woman is so stunning that her presence in the film requires no justification whatsoever in my books. Just as long as she’s there to be seen and heard.

The film indeed has a very eccentric and unique premise. One could see an idiosyncratic director such as Spike Jonze or Terry Gilliam do something exciting and strange with such an idea. That is not what happens here. Indeed, the film is extremely faithful to Hollywood norms. Harold Crick, adrift and incomplete, faces a series of strange events that change his life. He is seriously challenged, but his newfound zest for life and the power of love overcome the blah blah blah. With such a strange and self-aware premise, I was disappointed that the film didn’t take advantage of its own possibilities.

One thing I was surprised with, however, was how engrossing the film was despite its narrative blandness. Crick and the other characters seem to be fascinating and human almost in spite of the cookie cutter plot arc they’re stuck in. Too bad none of the characters become aware of that, and send the script off in a different direction.

Inland Empire
Directed By David Lynch
Studio Canal, 2006

By Matthew Hurwitz

“There’s no way back to film. I’m done with it… Some would say it looks bad. But [digital video] reminds me of early 35mm, that didn’t have that tight grain. When you have a poor image, there’s lots more room to dream.”
- David Lynch, Variety 2005

David Lynch has done every film student in the world a tremendous favor: a world-renowned director, famous for his cinematography, has committed the rest of his career to digital video. Every young aspiring movie-maker (the term film-maker, ideally, should no longer apply) has dreamt of finally cobbling together those funds to produce their own feature. But when push comes to shove, the final cost of 35mm film stock and development kills any chance of not losing their house in the process. Whereas Jean-Luc Goddard has similarly dabbled in the medium, Lynch’s bold declaration of purpose comes as far more of a surprise after a long history of decidedly non-verite camerawork. We are all in his debt for having pushed video that much closer towards mainstream legitimacy. On the other hand, there was never anything remotely mainstream about his films. There sure as hell isn’t anything mainstream about his first video.

Inland Empire is –– without exaggeration –– the least accessible and coherent movie he’s ever made, if only by the sheer volume of its three-hour runtime. Since only the first hour contains any semblance of linear plot, there’s no harm done in summarizing: Hollywood actress Nikki (Laura Dern) is visited by a Romanian gypsy at her home, who warns that her next film will place her life in danger. The film is a romance about an extramarital love affair, which she finds herself replicating in real life with attractive co-star Devon (Justin Theroux). Not only that, this film is actually a remake of a Romanian film never completed due to the double murder of it’s two lead actresses and Nikki’s real life husband seems prepared to kill Devon for any suspicion of adultery. The other half of the film, for lack of a more informed analysis, takes place within Nikki’s subconscious imagination. She does not know if she is really herself, or her character. Perhaps she is simply Laura Dern.

Nightmare time. What makes this video a full-bodied experience and not merely a movie-style funhouse carnival (ie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Requiem for a Dream) is that in the hands of an experienced master director, the video medium subverts your every chance to anticipate what comes next. This is a new rhythm of editing and it’s scary as hell. In an age when every summer blockbuster seems at least two hours and we have grown more and more accustomed to the gratuitously bloated lengths of massive budgeted epics, Inland devotes the bulk of it’s epic length to a first person psychological breakdown. The theater around you swallows you in darkness. The darkness on the screen is an organic, breathing monster, it’s digital blackness swirling with millions bacterial pixels. The video eye also reflects the dream qualities of white, sometimes letting the blank opacity of the sun pour in to blanket scenery and faces like freshly fallen snow, or to blaze blindingly forth like the pure rapture from heaven on high. Where the monochromatic industrialism of Lynch’s first film Eraserhead similarly uses long bouts of ominous, rumbling near-silence to help induce the dream state upon the audience, here that movie-as-shared-unconsciousness becomes something not just intoxicating but overtly hostile. I have rarely seen anything in which the characters onscreen seem so simultaneously aware and unaware of their status as characters in a movie, but more importantly and more frighteningly, they don’t care. We are their guests and their captives, accompanying Dern through seven levels of video hell.

Factotum
Directed by Bent Hamer
IFC Films, 2005

By Doug Nayler

Charles Bukowski lead an interesting and very unconventional life as an author. Living most of his life in total obscurity, his poetry and prose became recognized very late. Bukowski wrote reams and reams of observations about the world in which he existed without ever becoming isolated from it. He took the banal, dirty world of mid-century blue collar America and made it into something fragile, noble and dignified with his words. Bukowski was in the real shit, and could express what it was like with such acuity that it becomes hopelessly fascinating.

In Factotum, a surprisingly surly (and beefy, might I add) Matt Dillon plays Bukowski’s literary alter-ego, Henry Chinaski. Chinaski stumbles from job to job, and from woman to woman. The only constants in his life are that he keeps losing them, he keeps writing about them, and he drinks like a fish the entire time. And somehow he makes himself into some sort of hero because of it. While trying to get a paycheque for a half-day’s work from an ex-employer Chinaski remarks that he wants his money so that he can go and get drunk: “It may not be noble, but it’s my choice.” Nobody can tell him that he’s living his life any way other than how he wants to. He is uncompromising in a way most people could really only hope or fear to be. And he writes it all down.

However, writing is a very different medium than film. In writing one can take the simple act of drinking from a bottle and expound for pages about the significance, the history, the beauty of what it represents. On celluloid all you see is some guy taking a drink. So, what happens when you try to make a movie about a guy who thought great things about a boring, wasted life? Well, you see him living his boring, wasted life without being able to see what he thought about it. Watching someone work a minimum wage job has the same effect on me as working one. I notice some strange and interesting things along the way that I’ll probably think about later, but really I just keep checking the clock to see when I can get the hell out of there.