Day 4 of the !f Festival

After 4 days of movie going (10 films in all!), I was a little wiped out and didn't update as promptly as I should have... But a few days later, some thoughts on the last two films I saw.

Queen of Versailles
I didn't get a chance to see it over the summer and was really looking forward to it. What a fascinating film. And one that people tend to have visceral, violent reactions to. It's fun to watch with other people, because it's interesting to see how people respond; what scenes make someone gasp, groan, or laugh. The movie chronicles the life of an obscenely rich family and then what happens to them after the financial crash. Predictably, you spend the first half of the movie being somewhat appalled by them, and gradually over the second half, you come to feel sorry for them. Not that the movie sugar coats things - you see, for instance, how their wealth basically comes from exploiting others (newsflash: a time share is never a good deal), how the woman who cares for their kids has literally not laid eyes on her own children in over ten years,  how the husband sees his wife as a child and the children see their mother as a trophy wife - pretty awful stuff.
  But I don't think the movie is pure schadenfreude. I was surprised by how much I liked the woman at the center of this movie. I think it is because there was no trace of snobbishness or contempt for others in her. She did not look down on people with less money than her at all. She seemed to completely grasp how utterly arbitrary it was in many ways that she happened to end up filthy rich and hard-working people around her didn't. That didn't extend, for the most part, into a desire to help them out, but at least it also didn't involve thinking less of them and feeling entitled to what she had. Which really made all the difference, to me.
  In any case, overall it is a pretty fascinating movie, very much worth watching.

In Another Country
An oddly charming film. The framing narrative (which sort of disappears halfway into the film) is a woman writing stories, but basically, the movie is three different vignettes, all starring the same actors. In each one, a French woman (played by the mesmerizing Isabelle Huppert) arrives in a small Korean town and interacts with the locals in different ways. Certain themes recur (a search for the local lighthouse; an incredibly friendly lifeguard; a shared meal) but in slightly different ways. It is neither an example of how the same place can appear completely different, nor an example of how different people see the same thing - it falls somewhere in between. Huppert is wonderful in her three different roles - as my friend Daniel remarked, especially masterful is the way her body language changes from character to character. It's a subtle film. Not a must-see movie per se, but one I am glad to have seen.

Day 3 of the !f Festival

Berberian Sound Studio
I impulse bought a ticket to this after seeing a description of it on the program for the EU Film Fest in Chicago  (I live vicariously through my boyfriend). It's an odd film: I feel like I didn't quite understand what it was trying to do. In the movie, an Englishman arrives at a sound studio in Italy, where he is to help with the sound production on a film (in the classic old style of adding the sound after the picture has been shot). It turns out that the movie is a horror flick, and the scenes get increasingly disturbing. Our hero is more and more disturbed (there's a wonderful scene of him sadly tearing the stems off radishes, meant to represent the sound of a witch's hair being pulled out during torture), particularly, perhaps, because simultaneously, the misogyny of the film's directors is more and more manifest in their treatment of the actresses. Meanwhile, he is also receiving letters from his mother at home, which contrast oddly with the atmosphere he finds himself in. And he is trying to get reimbursed for his flight there, and getting caught up in a nightmarish bureaucracy. It's an interesting set-up for a story, but it's handled somewhat strangely in the movie. The transition here isn't gradual, but in odd lurches, where suddenly he's at a breaking point, having registered only vague discomfort before. And then, things get really weird.

Bernie
This movie stars Jack Black and Texas. And Mathew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine have supporting roles. Based on a true story - which I won't tell you about, because I knew nothing going in, and it was more interesting that way - it's about a very very nice funeral director who befriends a rather nasty old lady. The story is largely told through interviews with townspeople, and while Jack Black is delightful, they (and their use of language) are the real stars of the show. It's a real kick in the pants, lots of fun.

Iron Sky
When this movie ended, my friend Daniel turned to me and said "My god, it really was about Nazis on the moon!" Yes. Yes it was. A totally silly film about an American astronaut in a semi-dystopian future (the US president is a somewhat older looking Sarah Palin type, usually found on her elliptical machine) who stumbles upon a Nazi colony on the dark side of the moon. There are occasionally humorous moments of satire (the astronaut is black, and one of the first things the Nazis do is to make him white), but nothing especially insightful.  Campy and ridiculous, not quite as much fun as I was hoping (it's no Dead Snow, alas), but amusing enough.

Day 2 of the !f Festival

Stories We Tell
A very interesting movie. I don't want to say too much about it, because I went in blind and I think the movie is a lot more fun if you don't know the story, but basically, it's Sarah Polley exploring her own life by conducting interviews with her family. Invariably, it thereby becomes a reflection on memory and identity and family and how we make sense of our lives, but it's very well handled and actually quite engrossing.

Celeste and Jesse Forever
This is about what I expected, ie, the reviews turned out to be right: despite very lovable performances from everyone involved, and a seemingly interesting story, the movie just can't quite get off the ground. Celeste and Jesse have been separated for months, but still act like a married couple. Because the movie doesn't really explore why their relationship fell apart, we're not really sure, as an audience, how we should feel about the whole situation. Which is fine, the movie is pleasant anyhow, with funny bits of dialogue and likeable characters, so it kind of ambles along and all is well, and then there are some curveballs, so you're somewhat intrigued as to what will happen next, but the movie is just so even tempered and mellow about it all that you kind of don't worry about it too much. After all, let's be honest - you know everything is going to work out in the end anyways. Oddly enough, most of the characters are basically blanks - the film rapidly comes to focus on Rashida Jones' character, and everyone else is just background. Colleen noted that it's interesting to see a rom-com discuss divorce, to which my response was well except not really, because it's not like it actually explores it in a very substantive way, it's really just typical rom-com plot moves but in a slightly different configuration. To my mind, this stuff is all so superficial anyhow that I focus more of the surface. To me, what was innovative was the open discussion of marijuana (change is a'comin', America!) and the many references to Biz Markie (nice!). I was glad that the career woman, although typically self-absorbed, obsessed with being right, and out of touch with her own emotional life, was mostly pretty likeable rather than being an utter harridan.
But yeah, overall, meh.

Nobody Walks
I was interested in this one primarily because it was co-written by Lena Dunham, and I find her work interesting. The cast is really excellent - Olivia Thirlby is just as mesmerizing as she's supposed to be, Rosemarie DeWitt is smart and intriguing, John Krasinski is wonderfully likeable yet flawed - they absolutely carry the film. The story is off a young artist named Martine (Thirlby) who comes to stay with a family so that the husband, who does sound for movies, can help her with the sound editing of a video-art piece. She semi-inadvertently wreaks havoc as all the men around become attracted to her.
     One of the interesting things about the movie is that she does not set out to be a home-wrecker, nor is she callously sowing discord. The film remains ambivalent as to whether she bears some responsibility for the negative consequences that result (at one point she says "I'm just doing what I need to do to get my shit done!" or something like that, and it's a good point). I appreciated the ambivalence, and the subtle way that the movie gestures towards the fact that disaster seems to follow in this girl's wake, without taking a position on why. It was actually kind of thought-provoking. It's part of a broader inquiry into the nature of a young woman's sexuality, and how they are both subjects and objects, in a curious way. There's a nice parallel here with the character of the sixteen year old daughter, who is negotiating these questions herself. Particularly interesting is that she's being sleazed at by her Italian tutor (not quite preyed upon, but certainly, what's happening is not ok). Her response initially seems like a girl power! sort of moment, and then gets very scary for a second - a poignant reminder of the danger that underlies these kinds of things. Just speaking up for yourself is not a solution.
     I think the film also does a pretty good job capturing the realities of marriage, though not being married myself, I wouldn't really know. But it certainly felt like a more authentic portrayal of a relationship, where you notice that your partner is checking someone else out, but that is neither the end of the relationship nor completely unimportant.
    Another thing I really liked about the movie was that, appropriately enough for a film where two people are working on sound production, it used sound in a wonderful way. You know how sometimes you see a movie, and afterwards you are suddenly way, way more conscious of all the noises around you? This was one of those movies. I peeled an orange when I got home, and was just kind of lost in the raspy, squishy sound of it. I think that's an indicator of an effective use of sound in a film. It makes you hear things more.
  It is not a perfect movie. Actually, my first response to it was kind of lukewarm, and now I'm finding myself warming to it. I think it's because it is subtle and not overdone. There's a wonderful restraint to it - no massive, horrific consequences and hyperbolic dramas. Things happen, life goes on. It's a feature I'm appreciating more and more in movies.

Dispatches from the !f Festival

One of the unexpected delights of living in Ankara turns out to be masses of film festivals. This weekend, it's the !f festival, and so I'm looking forward to spending the next few days watching loads and loads of movies. I got off to an excellent start today with:

Frances Ha
I was hesitant, because it's a Noah Baumbach movie, and I really did not like The Squid and the Whale, but I was willing to give it a go. And I'm glad I did. It's a sweet and surprisingly restrained film about Frances, a young woman who is trying to find herself and kind of making a mess of things. Fortunately, while the movie follows her through some pretty ridiculously bad decisions, there's nothing profoundly tragic or awful. Her life isn't ruined, she's going to be ok, and the vague sense of dread you feel gradually dissipates as the film goes on. Really though, it's a movie about the love shared by this woman and her best friend, and it does a really wonderful job with that. My friend Colleen and I were talking about it afterwards and she brought up Bridesmaids, and indeed, much like that movie, one of the great things about this one is how it manages to truthfully depict the kinds of conversations women have with each other - which is just not something you see all that often. The movie isn't quite a probing inquiry into the dynamics of BFF love - it sort of dips into the problem of jealousy and friends vs lovers, and whether that kind of friendship can work between men and women, but it doesn't launch a full-on investigation. But I liked it. Next up was

Laurence Anyways
Oh man. This was such a sweeping, gorgeous movie. It clocks in at 2 1/2 hours, and yes it must be admitted, the last half hour drags and sort of can't bring itself to end, but I loved the first two hours so much that I didn't really mind. I was completely swept up into it, with it's big, loud passions and beautiful shots and dramatic music. So much FEELING. The movie follows the story of a couple that is madly in love (a slightly less wild couple than the one in this music video, which I have to admit, despite my many issues with the ways in which she chooses to present herself in media these days, I just adore), and then Laurence announces that he wants to become a woman, and things get rocky. Big time. They love each other so hard, and they struggle so hard, and it is gut-wrenching and powerful. I was right there with it, though my friends found it over the top. Perhaps partly because of the thematic similarities, but also because of the visual and auditory aesthetic, it also reminded me of this music video, which I also love.* Anyways, it's a flawed film, but a wonderful one - definitely recommended.


*And here I need to credit my friend Luis, who did this fascinating series of blogposts on straight-transgender encounters in music videos that you should totally read.

A Good Day to Die Hard

Early on in A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack McClane is involved in a commando-style mission to free a valuable Russian prisoner, when up pops his father, Bruce Willis, who nags him about what he's doing, chiding him for having failed to keep in touch, thereby jeopardizing the whole mission. It's a strange scene - John McClane as querulous aging parent who is utterly unaware that there may be more important things to think about right now? Really? Alas, it turns out to be a mere taste of what is to come: an entire movie that seems unable to realize that there's a time and a place for action, and (cliche) sentiment is only getting in the way of more things exploding.

The movie features some truly fantastic action sequences. I can not even begin to tally how many cars were crushed in the making of this film. Great balls of flame billowed across the screen. It was neato. Bruce Willis did not get quite as dirty as he does in the previous films (where he is somehow permanently encrusted with dust and grime in a strangely charming way), but he did bleed a lot. Unfortunately, for every epic action sequence, there was an equally long scene where Jack and John talked about their feelings, in scenes that were as boring as the others were exciting. And unfortunately, seem to stay in your mind a lot longer. I really don't understand why Hollywood has decided that action movies need to be leavened with trite psychology - James Bond's troubled childhood and fears of commitment, the nature of heroism, the various struggles to be a good boyfriend, or father, or son... What's wrong with just blowing things up a lot?

The frustrating thing about this film was that it had some good ideas for how it wanted to play up the father-son dynamic, and then it failed to properly follow through on any of them. Lip service was paid to the idea of Bruce Willis representing the "old school" cop and his son being a modern spy type, but the movie didn't do all that much with that premise. There was some gesturing towards playing up the quirky cliches of Russians, but they limited themselves to one surprisingly restrained taxi driver scene. Why not ham it up guys? Have a little fun with it!

Another odd aspect of this movie was that whereas Bruce Willis, in the first four movies, is barely dragging himself along by the end of the film, this time he was basically invincible. It pushed the limits of absurdity, and it made the movie a lot more bland. Of course we know he and his son aren't going to die. But come on, if you pull a 4 inch screw out of your guts, you're probably not gonna feel so hot. And you can only fall from such great heights a few times before your body just gives up and breaks. Come on now.

It was not a good day to die hard. Not a very good day at all.

The Theory Generation

I know I've been seriously neglecting this blog, and I am on the verge of resolving to be better about that (I've been too busy to resolve to yet, but I will, I will), but meanwhile, here is a really fascinating piece on contemporary writing:

http://nplusonemag.com/the-theory-generation

The author posits that there is a wave of writers of recent fiction who came up in liberal arts schools when the Theory craze was just getting off the ground (or was already entrenched) and that this is increasingly being reflected in their fiction, not on the level of form (the way it was for awhile with authors like Robbes-Grillet) but as content; characters explicitly citing Barthes' Lover's Discourse when talking about love, etc. It's definitely something I've noticed (and been alternately enthralled, bemused, and annoyed by), and I think this is a really interesting and multi-layered analysis of it, laden with insightful questions ("why such a low-stakes portrayal of what a humanities education gives you?" asks the author, making me think about the increasing devaluation of a humanities education) and
intriguing observations ("Theory, it turns out, is less intellectually powerful than emotionally useful"). Well worth a read.

Movie 43

The only way I can really make sense of the idea behind this movie is that it's part of some kind of scheme to get revenge on a lot of Hollywood stars by degrading them as much as possible. Because I honestly don't believe that Peter Farrelly, who has made plenty of genuinely funny movies, could really have thought this was worthwhile. I mean, the idea is a good one - get a bunch of celebrities and put them in a string of outrageously lewd sketches. Definitely a promising start. Except that the humor in this movie is so wooden, dull, and even predictable, that it comes across as bizarrely mundane.

There are a few great moments. Semi-spoiler alert, in that I went and saw this movie knowing nothing about it, including who was in it, which decidedly contributed to the fun, so if you don't know either and actually want to see it, stop reading now or you'll rob yourself of one of the few pleasures the film offers. But highlights include a scene with Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone, and a very funny speech by Terrence Howard. There's a semi-comical sequence of men freaking out about menstruation that almost seems insightful, but maybe that's because of how dumb the rest of the film is. The movie's most shocking scene, to me at least, was one towards the end involving a cartoon cat. It was the one moment where the movie actually felt subversive.

Because here's the thing - gross has been done before. Accidentally masturbating to your mother is just not that risqué, especially if you've seen Polyester. I mean, it is gross, and cringe-inducing, but it's not really _that_ shocking, or all that funny. Which is a problem when you're making a movie that relies heavily on shock value in order to get some laughs.

Vaguely interesting is the sense one has that this is an attempt to make a movie version of a funny Internet video. But that genre just doesn't translate well to the big screen. I mean, good movies have been made based around skits (my friend Daniel mentioned Monty Python's Meaning of Life, and Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, as successful examples). There were parts of this film that I could imagine getting a link to in my inbox from a friend. Many of the scenes might have been amusing if they'd ended about 5 minutes earlier. But overall, the film just falls flat.