Welcome, friends! What follows over the next week or so is a listing that comprises a programme of films released in the United States in 2010, in the form of a virtual “film festival” consisting of seven double features, each of which explore complementary themes, methodologies, and tastes in intriguing ways. I will keep this introduction brief – those wanting more detail on the criteria and process behind the selection of these films can visit the first essay from 2006, but suffice to restate this this is an attempt at something slightly less arbitrary and yet perhaps more open than a typical top-10 or 20-so personal favorites, at the very least an ongoing experiment at relegating personal taste to be only part of the much larger critical process, and indeed of life in general. Hopefully the notes for each cinematic pairing will make the intent of this undertaking clear, without me expounding further here, even though I really can’t stop talking about these sorts of ideas. Please give me feedback as we go along here… otherwise I end up with something half-baked like the nearly-entirely-unexamined lists of 2007 and 2008 or even more often, no “festival” at all. We don’t experience film in a vacuum, and our resultant discussions should reflect that.
PEFF 2010 begins tonight – cheers.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 1: Gridlock (THE SOCIAL NETWORK / TRON:LEGACY)
The passage of time within the Hollywood System is an ever curious entity – one moment’s hot property can become passé within the same news cycle, and yet here we have a based-on-a-true-story-but-not-really tale describing events barely a few years old, alongside a sequel to a techno-fantasy that has not been revisted directly in cinemas for over 25 years, both directed by men who made their way into film by way of commercials and music videos. This career path is not at all an uncommon behind-the-scenes trope, but like David Fincher before him in ALIEN³, Joseph Kosinski makes his debut in a genre piece that has drawn technical admiration from critics and fans at best, and smarmy remarks about production design trumping humanism at worst. Fincher, in the meantime, has found increasing approbation in the critical response to his work, culminating in a downright praise-gasm for his latest offering, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, drawing comparisons to CITIZEN KANE, and hailed by quite a few professional aesthetes as “the movie of the year.” This is the type of critical disconnect that is constant, I believe due to a failure to view such works in a shared context.
(Spoilers for both films ensue.)
Along with the shared pedigree of their helmers, THE SOCIAL NETWORK and TRON:LEGACY are also both scored by electronically-based musicians well-known outside of the film world – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the former, and Daft Punk for the latter. There is a rhythm within sequences of both movies that undeniably feel like music videos at their best, employing motifs and assured editing to lay down an infectious pace to the proceedings (e.g., in both films’ opening set pieces: the final club’s party juxtaposed with Zuckerberg’s Facemash assault on the campus networks, and Encom’s celebratory board meeting intercut with Sam Flynn’s annual break-in). But perhaps most importantly, both stories share a vision of technocratic elitism gone awry, originally by way of juvenile or idealistic intentions, that unexpectedly give way to a more interconnected world.
Writer Aaron Sorkin chooses “emotionally (read: sexually)-arrested misanthrope” as the primary archetype for his script, and garners considerable mileage in the decision – the irony that the phenomenal popularity of Facebook was masterminded by a small band of rather unlikeable boys is certainly the sort of hook that critics can stroke all the way to the Oscars. Sorkin simplifies Zuckerberg’s perceived dourness and unrelenting contempt for others into an arguably less interesting need to be one of the cool kids, to get The Girl back (however, it is quite a delicious piece of writing to have the Zuckerberg character drive away his girlfriend by doing little more than behaving like a standard Sorkin male character – “The West Wing’s” Josh Lyman has certainly given Donna Moss a much harder time while still commanding her undying devotion – the difference being that The Girl inhabits a space just outside of Sorkin-land where actual communication and empathy may have a higher value than cutesy cleverness). The Zuckerberg character goes on to create and nurture the ultimate meeting ground for cool kids, alienating his best friend (but, as depicted, inept businessman, stealing extra sympathy from his jaundiced eye towards crazy/loose Asian women, still the only kind mainstream American cinema can seem to present) Eduardo Saverin, along the way, and completing his cinematic arc while still waiting to see if The Girl has taken notice.
Real-world Zuckerberg, incidentally, wondered why, despite getting small details like clothing correct, the filmmakers couldn’t grasp that “someone might build something (simply) because they like building things.” And so, enter The Grid – a “digital frontier” embarked upon by a singular mad genius, Kevin Flynn, alongside a virtual avatar of himself, and one of his best friend, Alan Bradley. “The perfect system” as envisioned by a single father who was young and slightly disconnected, The Grid is a world where programmers (or, after a transfer of power, the lead programs) are worshipped, the “women” (even in the real world of the film, Kevin’s wife, Sam’s mother, is but an afterthought – barely, if anything, more than a plot device) are beautiful, inviting, and personable, and the games are spectacular. It is where the Zuckerberg character would love to live out his existence, free of the ignorance and impertinence of others, of the necessity of collaborators (save the odd sycophant, who isn’t real anyway), where he can party like a rockstar at the End of Line Club without the incessant muddle-minded mentorship of Sean Parker. It’s not difficult to imagine the Zuckerberg character and C.L.U. seeing eye to eye on any number of subjects, and ultimately reconciliation with The Girl/Flynn would be of little import to either of them.
Yet the spark of humanity, the very thing critics have called out as being absent from the story, is what saves Sam Flynn from being swallowed by The Grid – his inexhaustible desire to get his father out drives him to ultimately manage to further his father’s vision (which he already seemed committed to doing in the opening by keeping Encom’s software free, even in his most rebellious and unfocused state) in new ways. The Zuckerberg character remains confined inside his Grid, rebuffed for even a harmless lunch by his female lawyer who is one of the few characters who seems to understand and appreciate his brand of hostility, which she sees as a shell. But within that Grid, the Zuckerberg character can defeat the old world of entitled brats like the Winklevoss twins, while punishing Saverin for being part of that world. A world where such entitlement is extremely relative, as if the Zuckerberg character weren’t already up on high before Facebook, final club member or no.
Genre filmmaking still carries with it such baggage that two films so similar in themes and execution can garner such divergent reactions, astonishingly even amongst the fan base where the tastes have been observed to be more egalitarian towards such disparities in “prestige”. The gall to make a spectacle with digital means also bears a stink that so many are unable to get past, too often burned by blockbusters that do little more than just that – Fincher has been paring back his approach for some time now, opting for more grounded effects (even the extremes of BENJAMIN BUTTON went for character-driven CG, which critics find more palpable as long as it’s “serious drama”). Both Kosinski and Fincher’s next projects are remakes – THE BLACK HOLE, another effects-heavy sci-fi Disney flick from decades past, and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, again based on very recent material. History does indeed repeat itself, but in the world of mainstream cinema, it happens more quickly than elsewhere.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 2: In Pursuit of Perfection (KINGS OF PASTRY / BLACK SWAN)
As did the key figures of the films featured in Day 1, the leads of today’s selections also cling obsessively to the idea of perfection, but in purely expressive realms of art and creativity. In their immensely enthralling documentary KINGS OF PASTRY, directors Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker discover the intensity, suspense, and tautly enmeshed camaraderie in the pastrymaking compartment of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF), held every 4 years in France to determine the finest craftspeople in a vast number of disciplines. The collars worn by MOF’s in the kitchen are instantly recognizable – the red, white, and blue of France adorning what it has judged to be its absolute best. At one point in the film, one of the judges remarks that it’s perfectly possible to be a very excellent pastry chef indeed yet still fail to meet their standards, that such a candidate is still exceptionally skilled… just not an MOF.
The analogies to military life by critics (Damien Love of the Herald Scotland dubbed it “the culinary Hurt Locker” – http://bit.ly/e03oxP ) are apt, both in terms of the nail-biting nature in every moment of the 3-day evaluation (built up to nicely by the supremely devoted amount of preparation and rehearsal by specific candidates, along with brief but telling glimpses into their personal lives) and of the strong bonds formed among all involved. Again, from Love: “This is no competition in the ordinary sense, because everyone taking part could theoretically win, and everyone wants everyone else to win… in the end, the previously hardboiled head judge is practically in tears.” And Love is correct – if the judges are brought to that level of emotion, just imagine the heights and depths to which the candidates soar and plummet under immense pressure, with their life’s work on the line.
Perhaps the most captivating sequences in the film involve the beautifully concocted and supremely delicate sugar sculptures – marvelous pieces of handcrafted majesty that the candidates must themselves carry from the kitchen to the staging area, a terrifyingly long distance along which many a sculpture in the tradition’s history has come apart – a starkly visceral manifestation of public failure that crumbles even more than just the respective candidate’s efforts and dedication. Such disasters reverberate amongst all present, and the filmmakers capture this effect in all of its nuance and humanity – indeed, one cannot help but buy into the arbitrary standards that these chefs deign to meet; about how many skills and accomplishments in life can one truly have the opportunity to prove to be the absolute best? When such opportunities are available to the select few, how can they not base their entire lives around that kind of success -and for how long can they sustain that level of brutal focus?
Part of what enables these masters to reach for such lofty aims is the support of so many surrounding them, as surely seen in the journey of central figure of the piece, Jacquy Pfeiffer, a French expatriate in Chicago who co-founded its French Pastry School with MOF Sébastien Canonne, who is his exacting coach for the competition. In one sequence, we see Pfeiffer create a cake all the way from design on a whiteboard to finished dish, only to discard it, even anticipating the precise elements that Canonne would find deficient. On other fronts, Pfieffer is bolstered by the love of his longtime girlfriend and their daughter – their pride is palpable even in moments where the strain of the situation is really taking its toll on everyone. And of course, amongst the candidates themselves, including other protagonists Regis Lazard and Philippe Rigollot, who each also relate inspiring backstories of their history with pastrymaking and the surrounding culture, there are deep bonds forged in the grueling nature of their shared experience. The collective reaction to the more devastating and seemingly inevitable occurrences makes those felt by the individual perhaps that much more bearable – there’s real power in seeing a judge put his hand on the shoulder of a bealeagured candidate, presenting a minimal yet potent amount of encouragement that is truly earned.
(Spoilers for BLACK SWAN ensue.)
Within the world of Darren Aronofsky’s BLACK SWAN, one may find similar levels of support and encouragement for Natalie Portman’s newly crowned Swan Queen, Nina Sayers, and yet at the same time her own psychosis manages to reject most of this external assistance, allowing herself to be dominated by deeper paranoia driven by the same obsession with precision exhibited by the pastrymakers under MOF consideration. This is extremely lonely territory, and whereas Pfeiffer and friends are continually surrounded by familiar well-wishers offering their kitchens and expertise to enhance their training regimens, only Nina can immerse herself in the dark qualities of the Black Swan, as she is too embarassed and self-involved to entrust anyone to really help her in the process. In what quickly becomes a Moebius loop of inspiration and self-destruction, Nina’s paranoia erodes at all who might care about her, while creating within her the perfect Black Swan – sensually aware and manipulative, violently reactive in eradicating all perceived sources of oppression, and most importantly, strongly unafraid of simply being judged on the deepest and most personal of levels, as every artist yearns to be. This final quality is much harder to come by than any level of success, including the elusive idea of perfection, and is perhaps why even the seemingly harshest MOF judges inevitably soften – those judges know the arbitrary nature of some of their toughest standards (for example, the hard requirement of making the chefs hand-carry the sugar sculptures) and want nothing more than to see the potential of as many candidates as possible, unencumbered by fears peripheral to their considerable skills, to rise to that standard.
While the cancer of the Black Swan ultimately focuses on snuffing out the innocence and insecurities of the Swan Queen, she primarily does so by calling into question the closest relationship Nina has, that of her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey). The other key mentor figure, the company’s artistic director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), feels more like a plot device with respect to Nina’s arc – he provides the critical impetus that causes her to doubt herself even more, but other than that, he offers little in the way of true validation and confidence, just as he did with the outgoing star, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder). Erica’s motivations are presented with more ambiguity – when Nina is awarded the lead role in Swan Lake, Erica brings home a hefty cake to celebrate, and pushes enough buttons to get Nina to eat it against her will. And thus, that incident plants the seed of the idea that Mother that wants Daughter to fail, so as not to eclipse any of Mother’s limited accomplishments… or is she actually being a caring and concerned parent? For the first half of the film, Erica’s very presence often causes Nina’s sense of safety to instantly crumble – whether Mother is clippng her girl’s toenails too close, or otherwise (altruistically?) encroaching on her privacy at most inopportune moments.
By the second half, Nina has emboldened herself to respond forcefully to such perceived threats, under the influence of the free-spirited Lily (Mila Kunis), or perhaps by Nina’s own impression of what a fully independent woman would be, as projected onto Lily. Despite being most distrustful of Lily as a rival, Nina finds within Lily’s presence a sense of ease that she can no longer feel with that of her mother – indeed, it’s when she is not around Lily directly that Nina imagines Lily to be executing all manner of Machiavellian mechanisms in order to displace her in Leroy’s eyes. All around her, Nina can only detect reasons why others would want her to fail, but uses those powerfully delirious impulses to achieve the perfection that she cannot share with anyone else.
Her journey comes off as macrocosmically empty, since no one else in the film has any understanding of what has happened, and what she has truly accomplished, heightening the tragedy entwined with the general failure of human empathy and communication, even in creative fields originated to address just that. Even the failed MOF candidates connect more with their proponents, somehow finding a balance between trust and their own singular senses of purpose. Which is not to characterize BLACK SWAN as a mere cautionary tale, which would do its rich layers and enormously effective technique a disservice – but the pursuit of perfection is a dangerous path to go alone, and even with partners, the shared strain is significant. Various family members of the MOF candidates wonder aloud whether this would be something they’d be able to handle again, should their loved one fail in this attempt and be driven enough to try again in another 4 years. There are several repeat candidates in the mix this time around, and as much as anyone wishes them success, realistically, all one can hope for is a peaceful resolution for all involved, before it’s too late.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 3: Houses of Mystery (NYMPH / RED RIDING: THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1980)
Cinema contains our world in frames and windows, even when the experiences it conveys can make even less sense than the events of the world outside. By keeping such confusion microcosmic, a skilled filmmaker can still hook an audience through any number of established and novel techniques. An abstract approach is decidedly riskier, limiting mass appeal, but allows participants on both sides of the screen to explore the themes and details of the story and any related moments in their own lives in ways that transcend the the patness and safety of a traditional narrative. Alternatively, storytellers may exercise the benefits of a longform rendering, depicting character conflicts and introspection as minute instances in a much larger span – unfolding not so much in an abstract manner, but rather in one that nearly overwhelms its witnesses in the stretch of its scope relative to the onscreen events.
(Spoiler-free for both features)
Out of Thailand, director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang employs the first approach for NYMPH, in which a lovely young woman May (Wanida Termthanaporn) deals with the mysterious circumstances surrounding her husband’s disappearance while on photojournalistic assignment in the jungle. The (super)-natural forces in play are not to be trifled with, making themselves known just on the periphery, forming spooky borders of beauty that cannot help but encroach upon the safety of domesticism. The camera is quite alive throughout, whether it’s eerily gliding along the forest towards a forgetful river, or holding steady in a composition designed to crackle at all areas of the frame. From time to time, inscrutable titles flash onscreen, glyphic totems of time assertive. And throughout it all, May keeps it together, as terrified as she is firm and resilient towards the strange and unfathomable happenings of late. Her husband, Nop (Jayanama Nopachai), grows ever distant, rebuffing her physically even in the happiest of times as shown, growing ever close to losing himself to the horrific wonder of it all.
Meanwhile, a more man-made conspiracy altogether tears at the fabric of families just barely holding on in Northern England, glamourlessly yet lovingly depicted in James Marsh’s RED RIDING: THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1980. The second in an absolutely immersive crime trilogy, the film follows the findings of one Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine), an all-around put-upon detective investigating, among other events, the murders committed by the real-life Yorkshire Ripper. As Alan Moore or his patrons might phrase it, “the scalpel of fiction” cuts ever deep upon the checkered history of the region, in this standalone piece that begins to hint further at the sheer nature of evil present in the world. Independently building upon the story of the first installment that took place in 1974, screenwriter Tony Grisoni has his work especially cut out for him here, having to bridge the other episodes as well as briskly covering for the unfilmed story of 1977 from David Peace’s 4-novel cycle.
Hunter is a perfect central figure for the procedural – insightful and efficient, political yet honest, devoted but seriously flawed, particularly in terms of his strained marriage to Joan (Lesley Sharp). Like Nop, Hunter finds himself seduced by all manner of mystery, eternally reaching for escape within his work, but cursed with enough self-awareness to feel tremendous guilt over such addictive influences. The riddles of the city are intoxicating, and nymphs abound in all forms – on the streets, in the office, beneath the grave, and everywhere in between. And over it all, the spectre of police corruption and its overwhelming influence shadowing all civic and personal affairs. Secondary characters from 1974 come into deeper focus here, remarkably in constant service to Hunter’s arc, while rendering complete journeys of their own.
Life can be full of periods when it feels like humanity is all too hidden, when we are surrounded by betrayers enslaved to their baser and more selfish instincts. We package such times within the mysteries they offer and retell them on film through the veil of fiction, and hope for a little understanding, a piece of peace in the bargain. And when all is dead and buried, we have only the truth to embrace.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 4: All in the Family – Deconstruction (ANIMAL KINGDOM / LAST TRAIN HOME)
At the fringes of the First World, where economic and other more personal elements wreak havoc upon the ability of family life to offer nurturing comforts, spinning parents and children into a skewed level of normality where happiness, even togetherness, is heartbreakingly hard to come by. As in RED RIDING, where extreme levels of police complicity in the local criminal empire destroyed the families of all characters depicted and then some, David Michod’s ANIMAL KINGDOM also layers a fictional story with a discomfiting sense of danger, in which not only can no one, not even one’s own family, be fully trusted, but at any time, one or more of a number of outside forces can come crashing in to obliterate what little sense of security one has managed to cobble together.
(Spoiler-free for both features)
The law as it stands in Michod’s murky Melbourne underworld is like-minded to that of the RED RIDING’S Yorkshire constabulary – cold, dispassionately corrupt, and disturbingly efficient in its merciless execution, while the razor-thin instability of the family life matches that of the mother and daughter as much at odds as they are inseparably linked to each other in BLACK SWAN. From the tenuous perspective of J (James Frecheville in a remarkable debut), the relatively innocent yet painfully impressionable baby in a family of bank robbers, the Codys are an alpha male collision, backed into a series of sharp corners in the inevitable blowback to their latest heists. In novel fashion, Michod chooses to focus the drama solely on this fallout as opposed to adhering to the convention of centering on the spectacle of the planning and staging of the robberies themselves, producing a wholly unexpected and high-tension thriller punctuated by explosive character dynamics and the reactionary attacks of the family as a pack of rabid dogs.
At the heart of the Codys is the coarsely benign Grandma Smurf (Jacki Weaver), whose motivations are as seemingly ambiguous as they are genuine and more than a little unnerving, matching and at times surpassing those of BLACK SWAN’s Erica and THE FIGHTER’s Alice. From the way her maternal mouth-to-mouth kisses linger just a bit too long on her boys to her emotional machinations, Grandma Smurf is an amazingly complex figure in strong support of the harshnss of the story and its outcomes. This is the Macbeth couple on both a smaller (localized) and larger (encompassing a broader scope of relations) scale, and the tragedy is no less inescapable and shattering. Accompanied by a deceptively ambient score by Antony Partos and disturbingly graceful camerawork from Adam Arkapaw (even the most violent and surprising shots are framed in smoothly moving windows in ironic counterpoint), the film assertively yet palatably demonstrates the unbreakable bonds of family at their worst, not so far off from those at their best.
Cutting even more deeply is Chinese-Canadian documentarian Lixin Fan’s literally unflinching LAST TRAIN HOME, a private look at a single mainland Chinese family slowly torn asunder by the exceedingly long distance and time incurred by the necessities of migrant work. A small lifetime ago, Changhua and Sugin Zhang left their infant children in the care of grandparents back in their native rural village, having made a desperate choice to move themselves to the faraway urban realm in order to make enough money to finance their offsprings’ education back home. The family is only reunited once per annum, over the Chinese New Year holiday in which an impossible number of migrant workers all crowd the same trains, boats, and buses back to the farmlands, assuming they are lucky enough to have been able to procure the necessary tickets. Watching this system at work is an absolutely maddening but indespensible experience – it’s impossible to put politics aside as one witnesses the utter failure of those in power to do right by its most hardworking citizens on even the smallest measure. It’s bad enough that these countless families spend the bulk of their lives separated due to the ridiculously disparate distribution of wealth and resources, but to make them suffer the yearly trial of quite possibly not being able to spend ANY time together is even more unforgivable.
To say nothing of the profoundly emotional toll borne over the years by the principals depicted in the film – Changhua and Sugin’s good intentions are quite clear throughout, exhibited by dinnertime conversations in which both parents voice their hopes for their children’s better future by way of educational experiences that they themselves never had, and their unquestionably humble self-sacrifice. What they could not possibly have calculated or communicated is the rebelliousness and outright rage festering in their oldest child, daughter Qin, on the verge of dropping out and throwing away the very education they have scraped to provide for her, in favor simply following their example and becoming a migrant worker herself, attracted by the seemingly easy money and lifestyle, unencumbered by the more oblique stresses of school.
Moreover, the standard impetuousness of Qin’s young adulthood is infinitely compounded by the idea that her parents cared more about earning money, even if it was towards her schooling, than they did about spending time with her. Fan and crew, in more than a few sequences, continue to film the family members’ jaw-dropping aggression long after many other filmmakers would have stopped, if not to intervene, then at least to grant the folks a modicum of privacy in their ugliest moments. The visual and aural irony of ANIMAL KINGDOM are neither present nor remotely necessary here, yet both directorial styles undeniably make their viewers complicit in the heartbreaking betrayals that abound over their subjects.
If we cannot do better by the Codys and the Zhangs, who are by no means well-off or the healthiest of clans, yet not in the least unachievably far off from garnering enough financial and emotional security to survive with a few comforts, we are truly lost. Both of these features deftly avoid the unprofessional preachy tone that this piece is unfortunately taking, making their impact all the more unforgettable. There is evil in the world, and there is callousness, and both are infectious – the undrafted generation finds itself coming to grips with this self-awareness more than the ones that have preceded it, but the real will and sacrifice needed to address it may just elude it for some time longer.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 5: All in the Family – Reconstruction (THE TILLMAN STORY / WINTER’S BONE)
The life cycle does not end on the bleak note left by the previous entry, and thus we have the more uplifting revival of the (American) family as depicted in the following two films. THE TILLMAN STORY refers not to the life chronicles of star professional athelete turned soldier Pat Tillman, but rather to the narrative put forth by the U.S. military by way of explaining his death while promoting their rather limited view of heroism. Despite favoring a much more private lifestyle, Pat’s immediate family, including his divorced parents Dannie and Patrick, come together in a tireless quest for the truth, bringing themselves into unrelenting public scrutiny, and expressing a much richer and relevant notion of heroism in the process, in a more comprehensive and unvarnished celebration of Pat’s life, encompassing a greater deal of his complexities, virtues, and flaws. No human being would deserve any less of a tribute.
Director Amir Bar-Lev (of MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, another exploration of a mystery steeped in real-life fiction and its effects both on the central family as well as the audience they have engendered via a media focus) documents the Tillmans’ efforts to get to the truth about the events surrounding their son’s last moments, and in so doing, also enables them to publicly reconstruct the many facets of his life and personality that had been so easily overlooked in the more succinct but perhaps dehumanizing “unwavering patriot sacrifices wealth, fame, and ultimately own life for his country.” The simpler story, which highlights only Pat’s sunniest and most palatable traits, is not how his family wants him to be remembered, remarkably and inspiringly enough, and as they and Bar-Lev trace through his history over intimate conversations, old photos and videos, so does the teenage girl Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) in the drama WINTER’S BONE, trudge through her family’s connections in the backroom dealings and meth labs of the Ozark underworld in search of her missing father, piecing together his life as a whole and coming to experience the depth and severity of her relations in a whole new light entirely.
(Spoiler-free for both films)
Ree does not outwardly seek a closer connection to her father Jessup, one of the most skilled meth producers in the region, but requires his presence at his own forthcoming trial, or she will have to surrender the roof over her and her even younger siblings’ (and her somewhat infirm or otherwise helpless mother, long-since defeated by the general despair of their lot) heads to meet the financial obligation tendered by Jessup’s bail. But in journeying into the other parts of his life, she finds herself a greater part of a culture on the fringes of what most in the Audience would consider Americana, but what the film makes clear is as rooted, thriving, and in its own way, proud as any other American element. Director Debra Granik and crew are not shy about showing the intensely violent and undeniably destructive sides of this culture, but for the most part reserve any explicit judgment on the characters, depicting them as believable people full of conflicting emotions, obligations, and humanity. From the sadness in the eyes of an aging mistress (Sheryl Lee) to the brusque honor insisted upon by the matriarchal Merab (Dale Dickey), the richness and range of the human experience is drawn in all its dangerous and grotesque beauty, with the welfare of Ree and the innocents/innocence that she protects in the balance. The conflict between familial love and personal survival centers itself most palpably in the arc of Ree’s Uncle Teardrop, portrayed with a rare combination of menace and empathy by John Hawkes, and Ree’s strength and drive commands, at the very least, the attention of those who have dismissed her, or worse, for ages.
In those Ozarks, abandoned by a more prosperous society, the commonality of family ties wears at their strength, but does not at all diminish their relevance and influence. Out in California, the Tillmans form a smaller, but tightly-knit clan who value honesty above all else – in an interview where Pat lays out the poor performance of his own football team at the start of a season, stating that he would not be excited for their prospects in their current state, were he a fan on the sidelines or in front of the television, he’s not fishing for a sound bite or looking to rile the audience to either side, he’s merely speaking his mind as forthrightly as he can. Spending a couple hours with his parents, brothers, and wife over the course of the documentary, it easy to see where he got his propensity for doing so, while remaining steadfastly guarded about his personal life. Not because the details are sordid or embarassing, but because the memories, the values, the exchanges within this group are so internally special to their members that they cannot be shared with just anyone. One does not need to look far along the modern mediascape to find others who are not so protective such precious moments, and so it’s a gift to get a fuller picture of those who are, without overly compromsing their privacy. While the news may make hay out of Pat reading some political book or his intended meeting with Noam Chomsky after his tour of duty, these are only samples of the larger curiosity and passion with which Pat lived – indeed, with which most anyone, including the other soldiers in his unit who participated in this documentary, does. One such compatriot, a young man who Pat took under his wing, expresses his outrage at the ensuing cover-up, while ardently affirming his belief in American exceptionalism and his support for the Bush Administration’s objectives.
A couple hours or more at a time, we have an opportunity to lose ourselves to enclosed experiences that can illuminate the complexities of the world and all its inhabitants in ways that can be too challenging to confront or discuss in other forums. Here are two films that make the most out of such an opportunity, celebrating the resilience of the family in the face of the misunderstandings and conflicts inherent to a world all to disconnected with itself. Yesterday’s Codys and Zhangs reflected in today’s Tillmans and Dollys, all surviving at a cost, whether they are diverging from or converging on the familial peace that the luckiest of us can know.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 6: Beyond (127 HOURS / HEREAFTER)
Many years ago, I wrote in my fifth-grade journal, “Sometimes I wonder why I am Aaron Luk.” My teacher could only mark it with a modest “???” in red ink, but I suppose I could have elaborated the pseudo-philosophical underpinnings of the line a bit further for her. Hybridizing my Catholic upbringing with a propensity for science fiction and fantasy, I pictured an infinite number of souls in Heaven, consisting of every person who ever was or ever will be, arbitrarily chosen for lives in the physical world. And so I wondered how my such soul came to inhabit this body, in this family, how I was given this life… the silly little mental meanderings of a 10-year-old grasping at various metaphysical and fantastic notions.
The Internet Age is one of enormously facilitated communication, but even moreso, of constant documentation – our devices become nearly organic extensions of ourselves, and their promise pervades our processing of events, challenges, and conflicts. And small ideas that once had a lifespan of no more than a fifth-grade dismissal can find a more sustained expression given these mindsets, refining and bolstering the internal lifeforces that fuel not only our continued survival, but the expansion of our shared experiences in doing so. Despite his hubris in not pre-communicating his location to anyone before becoming trapped alone against a canyon wall, the protagonist of director Danny Boyle’s intensely soaring 127 HOURS, Aron Ralson (James Franco), did happen to bring along a video camera on his outing, and channels his remaining links to he outside world through it – his drive for documentation as a form of asynchronous communication also enabling and unleashing his indomitable will to live, as opposed to merely dying with dignity.
Documentation (along with the challenge of finding the right audience for its use in communicating personal subjects and experiences) giving way to profound connections and life-expanding revelations also thematically underpins the compelling and emotional character arcs in HEREAFTER, director Clint Eastwood’s autumnal foray into metaphysical meditations by way of French cinematic influences over a sublimely multi-structured script by Peter Morgan. Following a near-death experience, French journalist Marie Lelay (Cécile de France) begins researching similar incidents, with the ultimate intent of publishing her findings for a wide audience, utilizing her existing book deal with publishers who would rather she stuck to less questionable, or at least, more marketable topics. Marie’s personal and professional relationships inevitably begin to wither against the strain of the breakdown of the mutual inability to connect following such a divergent experience and response, and she begins to drift into a loneliness similar to that of San Franciscan George Lonegan (Matt Damon), who has all but succumbed to it.
George has retreated from a life of relative wealth and fame as a renowned psychic to a more modest existence in blue-collar labor, the strain of constantly looking into people’s souls having stolen his ability to connect naturally with any of his fellows. In an occasional effort to continue truly living, he reaches out in small steps, such as by taking a cooking course and subsequently hitting it off well with his classmate Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard), but he has all but given up on ever again finding and sustaining a meaningful and lasting relationship. Even his brother (Jay Mohr), who knows all the facts of his particular predicament, can only encourage him to use his “gift” to continue helping people and, why not, make a good deal of money in the effort, never quite understanding the toll it has taken on George’s outlook on people.
Ralston exhibits a similar insularity, but more out of a narcissistic independence rather than tragic necessity. His awareness of himself as superhuman, as shown in his first-act wantonness towards danger and enticing others towards the same, puts him on a collision course with fate in the ultimate test in not only his belief in himself, but in what lies beyond. Visions literal, remembered, imagined, and foreseen become his reality, and very enticingly drawn the audience in to his internal drama, making the deceptively static staging of a 1-man movie look all too easy. Even early on in his predicament, he knows the escape, and after enough time, introspection, and failure, all of his mental and physical facilities have found the synchronicity required to defy the despair of a lonely death.
And so as our leaders strive to “win the future”, so too does the future endeavor to save us, in the form of our children- both films discover the next generation as an intermediary to resolving the disconnects of the present. The Londonian twins Marcus and Jason of HEREAFTER complete the film’s tri-regional arc, beginning with their own exercise of independence (from social services, by guarding their alcoholic mother from judgment), and then themselves stumbling into the lonely void that Marie and George hope to flee. Emotional stymies made manifest in the immovable stone keeping Ralston from his destiny.
If life always finds a way, it is because it is worth it. The mysteries of existence need not be solved for its truth to reveal itself to any of us, so long as we keep our senses and minds open. The heroes of these two films do no more or less than abide by such simple adages, and are rewarded in reaching the next step in a series of demanding and interconnected moments. And finding their lives more here than after.
PEFF 2010 (ASL), Day 7: Within (RABBIT HOLE / INCEPTION)
Though all loves and lives must end, there are always those left behind left to tell the tale. And in that telling, in that last gasp of desperate connection, the survivors may settle upon the calm they need in order to live without. Though we cannot control the circumstances of loss, we bind ourselves to the responsibilities regardless, allowing them to erode and erode at true happiness until one of many recourses must be enacted. Despite all efforts at reconstructing what’s happened, there are some family situations that are beyond restoration, but not repair. Most families never recover or even stay together following the most untimely of losses, compounding the tragedy to unbearable proportions, unless the survivors can at long last recognize how much they still have, without neglecting the effort it takes to maintain, nor the precious rewards in doing so.
Becca and Howie Corbett (Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart) of RABBIT HOLE, director John Cameron Mitchell’s staging of David Lindsay-Abaire’s well-received play, are recovering from a loss that the story wisely keeps at bay, revealing it only through their actions and reactions to each other’s grief. In another world, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) wrestles mightily with his own guilt over the dissapation of his family life, allowing himself to be denied the free will to carry on, in Christopher Nolan’s psychological heist thriller, INCEPTION. Both films explore life’s escapes, through infinite possibilities and wishes manifest in stories and dreams – is there really any difference there after all?
A pair of remarkable character ensembles accompany the leads of the respective narratives, giving voice to the sanity and reason ever beaten down by the demons of doubt and despair. Especially resonant is the empathy that all the storytellers involved imbue into these supporting players, who are not at all unaffected by the events that unsparingly haunt the leads – from the most peripherally concerned acquaintance to those directly involved, the stories are full of folks, who, while not without their own agendas, are generously attentive and insightful towards their fellows. There are numerous pairings with which one could parallel these films on several levels – arbitrarily, let’s choose the relationships between Becca and a taciturn local boy, Jason (Miles Teller), between Howie and another woman in perpetual mourning, Gabby (Sandra Oh), along with that of Dom and his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard). More obvious combinations abound, but in exploring these in particular, the shared themes of shattered possibilities arise, along with the central choices faced by the leads.
More than just choosing between burying themselves in the past or moving forward, the novelty of the stories is in offering the heroes the option of skewing the present to avoid doing either. The literal rabbit holes of the former find figurative yet enterable realms in the latter, as respective realities become muddied in the deep-rooted desires of the mind and of the soul. But what is absolutely clear, is that these new routes come at a heavy cost, one that spurns the affection and fellowship of the aforementioned supporting characters, including what’s left of the suffering and forlorn families. The supplemental plot elements feed into this key conflict in delightfully elegant fashion – in the former, Becca’s mother (Dianne Wiest’s) own ongoing reoslution over the untimely death of a wayward offspring, and in the latter, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy)’s strained history with his industrialist father (the late, great Pete Postlethwaite). In a lovely symmetry, Corbett Sr.’s endurance assertively tries to find its way into Becca’s heart while Dom’s journey towards peace is inversely a necessary landmark in order for Fischer Jr. to find his… and vice versa in both storylines.
The disruption and recovery of the family unit have been wellsprings for compelling cinema over all time, and especially as demonstrated in many of the selections in this festival. Even with the unwavering and underappreciated support of others, our internal struggles ever threaten to get the best of us, whether they swallow our dreams or demand our complete surrender to those dreams. The discovery of the internal ability to channel the strength and resilience proferred externally is a journey that most of us experience on some scale daily, and stories that make large this conflict with measured melodrama and grounded surreality are vital in enhancing the experiences and exchanges of a life well lived, of options well considered. On the screen and beyond, we are uplifted by our propensity to dream, and ultimately affirmed by the maturity to find our way back to the best possible future.
aarspace 