Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Show-off. All these reviews at once. I’m so behind in my own writing for the site that I’m starting to feel like I’m drowning.
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. I’ve been seeing so many movies lately I haven’t had a spare moment to write about any of them. Running all month at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago is the annual European Union Film Festival, a preview of some of the major upcoming releases from Europe that will be reaches our shores over the next year or so. Here are the first batch that I saw opening weekend...
IRREVERSIBLE, France
As long as I live I will never forget IRREVERSIBLE, the French megaton bomb from writer-director Gasper Noe. If you’ve read any of the recent articles on TEARS OF THE SUN star Monica Bellucci, then you’ve probably heard about this film. This may be the first film I’ve ever reviewed that will probably make my Best of 2003 list yet I may tell many of you not to see it. IRREVERSIBLE is the cinematic equivalent of complete and utter devastation, both physical and emotional, but mostly physical. If you’re aware of this film on any level, you probably know that about halfway through the story (told in reverse segments like MEMENTO) there is a horrible, nearly impossible to watch, 9-minute rape and beating scene (done in one take). By the end of it, Bellucci’s character (Alex) is left bloody and in a coma. At nearly every screening of the film that I’ve read or heard about (including the one I attended), people walk out during this scene.
First off, there’s a opening murder scene in the movie that is even more graphic than the rape scene, but since we’re not yet emotionally invested in any of the characters at this point, it doesn’t seen quite as tragic. Also, we’re pretty sure that the murder victim did something terrible to someone we have yet to meet (turns out he didn’t, thus adding to the senseless nature of the killing). But for those who manage to stick around after the rape sequence, the real power of IRREVERSIBLE comes to light. Since the film is told in reverse, we see the murder of the suspected rapist first, then the search for the rapist, then the rape, then the hours leading to the rape. It is in these last few sequences that our hearts are crushed. We see an affectionate and tender couple (Bellucci and real-life husband Vincent Cassel) waking up after an afternoon nap. They are naked, playful, and very much in love. They are happy and carefree with no clue how their lives are about to change forever. Days this fine will more than likely never happen again. We see the couple on their way to a party and at the party with a companion (Albert Dupontel). They drink, get a little high, dance, flirt, maybe for the last time. We never find out if Alex survives her night of hell, but as a result of the film’s opening murder it may not matter.
Noe’s camera is at times a window in the depths of hell, especially in the film’s opening sequence set in a dimly lit, loud, and charged gay sex club. Other times, he keeps the camera almost perfectly still, drinking in Bellucci’s natural beauty. The sequence that begins with the couple in bed ends with Bellucci standing in front of a mirror after a shower with no makeup on, hair pulled back away from her face. At that moment, you’d be hard pressed to think of a more beautiful woman, and you’re praying that time would just stop and that she wouldn’t leave the party early and walk through that tunnel where someone is waiting for her. IRREVERSIBLE will bother and even offend many people, but anyone who sits through the entire thing will come out the other side having seen one of the most powerful movies in recent years. The film is open in many major cities right now, and is playing in Chicago at the Landmark Century Centre Cinemas.
OPEN HEARTS (ELSKER DIG FOR EVIGT), Denmark
The Danish-born minimalist film style known as Dogme has, in many ways, been made irrelevant in many ways. In the end, whether these films are any good or not has very little to do with the way the films are made or which Dogme rules they follow or break. The greatest gift that Dogme has given us is that it’s opened the eyes of the world to the largely ignored and extremely rich Danish film industry. I realize that not every Dogme film I’ve seen lately has been Danish, but most are and nearly all of them I’ve loved. A week ago I saw a stunning Dogme film called KIRA’S REASON: A LOVE STORY, the story of a mentally ill woman on the day of her release from a psychiatric hospital. The film reminded me in many ways of John Cassevetes’ A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, and starred a remarkable and relatively unknown actress named Stine Stengade. If this opens in your town, go see it. The next day I made it to a screening that was part of Chicago’s European Union Film Festival of an even better work called OPEN HEARTS, written by Dogme regular Anders Thomas Jensen (MIFUNE and THE KING IS ALIVE).
OPEN HEARTS is the story of a recently engaged couple who have the life together torn apart when the man is paralyzed from the neck down in a freak traffic accident. The fiancee falls in love with the husband of the woman who ran the man down. The husband just happens to be a doctor at the same hospital where the man is recovering. It sounds like a soap opera premise to be sure, but OPEN HEARTS is about as emotionally honest a film as you’re likely to find right now, as are many of the Dogme offerings. The Danes don’t pull any punches and their humor is about as black as it comes. But the strength of the film lies in its sincere and brave performances, none of which ring false. With all of the criss crossing of love and hate in this film, you literally have no idea where situations and peoples lives will end up. It’s such a treat when you don’t know exactly how a film is going to end. If Dogme has taught us anything, it is that these films seem to have no boundaries. No subject is taboo, no emotion is kept quiet regardless of the pain it causes. With that much honesty on the screen, I have very few complaints about Dogme or OPEN HEARTS. The film opens on March 28 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinemas.
THE BENCH, Denmark
Not a Dogme film, but still quite good. This film actually beat out DANCER IN THE DARK and ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS in most major categories at the Danish Academy Awards when it was originally released. The story follows an aging former chef who lives in a slum and drinks constantly. He loses his laborer’s job early on because he’s an mean drunk, so he spends all of his time sitting in a courtyard with his drinking buddies doing absolutely nothing. A young woman and six-year-old son rent a room in a building near his, where she is hiding from her abusive husband. But the insane man that owns the room doesn’t make things much easier for her. The old man agrees to look after the child while the woman goes to work, and male bonding begins. It turns out that the three main characters have more in common than I’m going to tell you. The guts of the film belong to Jesper Christensen as the old man. He is a poster child for self-destruction as he goes on a major binge when the woman decides to return to her husband, but ultimately the salvation of the woman and her son rest with this old dog. Far from a feel-good movie, this film still ranks as an uplifting work about redemption and healing old wounds.
THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN, The Netherlands
With more symbolism and religious references than most normal human movie goers might be able to take, this follow-up to Jeroen Krabbe’s excellent debut as a director LOST LUGGAGE, DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN is the story of a friendship between two men (Stephen Fry and Greg Wise), whom the angels in heaven literally manipulated into meeting each other and becoming great friends. Apparently in the 1960s, God had had enough of humans and wanted his words (in the form of the Ten Commandments) back, thus breaking his covenant with mankind. Only by these two men meeting could a child be produced that could accomplish the task of finding the two stone tablets containing the commandments and returning them to heaven. How do two men produce a child to perform such a chore? They both fall in love with the same woman (Flora Montgomery), make love to her within hours of each other (with the other knowing of course), and essentially raise the child as if they were both his father. Perhaps the bigger question is, with all of this great British talent, how does this film qualify as a Dutch production?
The bottom line on DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN is that it plays like a comedy while still dealing with such weighty subjects as the end of the world, finding the heavens through astronomical means, history, friendship, and hot monkey love. Krabbe (who also appears as the angel Gabriel) has fashioned a lunatic mix of the celestial and theologic and made a fairly watchable film. There are times when Fry and Wise discuss issues that make no sense, but still made me laugh and think. Other times the heavy issues felt like a college lecture. Still, I was always interested in seeing where the characters’ journey would take me and how those up above would collaborate to screw everything up. DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN is thought-provoking to be sure, but it also succeeds as great high-brow comedy, as classic love triangle, and as a wonderful apocalyptic fantasy.
Capone
Nice. That last one sounds great. I’m definitely going to keep my eyes open for it.
"Moriarty" out.
