Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I haven’t seen either one of these yet, but I’m dying to. ELEPHANT’s on my catch-up list for the next week or so, and the mixed reaction so far only makes it more intriguing to me...
Hello AICN,
finally back after an “exhausting” vacation at the Seychelles – I’ve been able to catch Italy’s latest releases. In the past I’ve reviewed 2 Horror films, the awful “Darkness” (by Jaime Balaguerò) and the hilarious “Cabin Fever” (by Eli Roth). Today it’s time for a little bit of "Art"...
I won’t waste your –and my- time reviewing DOGVILLE (a boring and pretentious movie, only partially saved by the wonderful acting – especially from the always great Nicole Kidman) and YOUNG ADAM (a mediocre film with Ewan McGregor swinging again his “fleshy-lightsaber”). But two other films deserve a particular mention: ELEPHANT (by Gus Van Sant) and THE DREAMERS (the latest Bernardo Bertolucci).
Elephant
I went to see Elephant with great expectations: not only did it win the Palme d'Or in Cannes this year, but I also fell in love with the trailer from the first time I saw it – but unfortunately, while it’s quiet good, it left me a bit underwhelmed.
Using the Columbine-Shooting as guideline, writer/director Van Sant portrays an amalgam of themes, ranging from to the failure of the American educational system, to the fascination of America with guns and violence, from the apparently insurmountable gap between parents and kids, the superficiality of relationships (between friends, lovers, teachers and pupils), to the real threat of neo-fascism in civilized countries.
He wants to show us that ELEPHANT that everybody is aware of, the one that is living in our living room and that (apparently) no one wants to see, but without focalising the attention on it – but he succeeds only partially. But more on that later...
We all know what is going to happen in the end, the key here is the telling of how we get there.
The first hour is a continuous unfolding of events from the perspective of different (real-life) students inhabiting the Portland, Oregon High School, as well as showing the preliminary plans of the two outcast youths. Each character is explored way too briefly, almost stereotypical, with Van Sant giving us only the most important and pertinent information to identify them (the cool kid, the popular jock, the girlfriend, a photographer, a group of gossiping teen girls, and the outcast girl). Most of the scenes involving these kids are also only briefly touched upon, and rather mundane, ranging from popularity to bulimia, from football to "picking on the quiet girl".
Then, in the last 20 minutes... well, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but as I said before, you know where the story is leading...
Elephant’s amazing cinematography and the perfect use of the music (Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and "Moonlight Sonata" are as effective as an eerie use of complete silence in some scenes) – are unfortunately not supported by Van Sant’s (at Cannes incredibly awarded) direction; I understand that the Handheld-“Reality-TV"-style-Camera-Work and the Tomb-Raider-Third-Person-View-Tracking-Shots (an upper bust shot of the person walking) were used to covey authenticity and immediacy to the story, but this documentary approach dilated the pacing enormously – and got boring pretty soon (and that’s not a good thing for a movie that’s only 81 min long!!!). But the thing that mostly prevented this movie from being outstanding wasn’t the missing characterisation of the protagonists, or the homosexuality issue, it was the visceral lack of courage in showing “reality” (if you decide to show “reality”, than go for it, don’t tame it!).
IN THE END - this is a visually attractive movie that raises a lot of questions without giving any answers, that plays with the elusiveness of truth and our insatiable desire to know more, and that will definitely provoke a lot of post-film discussion, but that could have been perfect if Van Sant had dared a little bit more.
7/10
The Dreamers
Paris, 1968.
Matthew (Michael Pitt - Murder by Numbers, Bully, Dawson’s Creek) is an American guy from San Diego who travelled to Paris to study French, but instead spends most of the time watching films at the “glorious” Cinematheque Française.
But one day, during the protest against the dismissal of Henri Langlois, the director of the Cinematheque, an event by many considered the beginning of the student riots of '68 in Paris, he is struck by a beautiful French girl, Isabelle (newcomer Eva Green), who has apparently chained herself to a fence, looking like one of his screen idols. For Matthew, it’s clearly love at first sight.
Before even realizing how, Matthew finds himself living in Isabelle and her twin-brother Theo’s (Louis Garrel) marvellous apartment, while their parents, George (Robin Renucci), a well known poet and Bohemian intellectual mother (Anna Chancellor, What a Girl Wants), are away on vacation.
A perverse triangle rapidly ensues which leads them to forget the political battles and they start living in a dream world, completely separated, secluded from reality, where trivia games about the history of film soon fade into the discovery of sex, of each other, and ultimately, the discovery of themselves. In fact, when they finally decide to leave, (or better, are forced to leave) the apartment, they’ve become adults, finally ready to make their own decisions.
Bertolucci has adapted Gilbert Adair’s book “The Holy Innocents” into an elegant and sensual film about the Spirit of ’68, not about the actual riots; this is a movie about emotions, not a history lesson. The riots are just the framing in which the story of Matthew, Isabelle and Theo’s initiation to life takes place.
The Dreamers is indeed fore and foremost a movie about the “power of change”, an exploration of the souls of the three young adults who decide to hermetically seal themselves in a house, exactly as we do when we decide to shut ourselves from the world in the darkness of a theatre, and who get to know each other through psychological games. While outside someone is fighting to change the world, inside the house they are fighting to change their life. And when the riots finally come inside their apartment and invade their lives, they’re ready to face them cause they’ve already changed, they’ve grown up and understood who they really are.
But The Dreamers is also a love declaration to cinema. Like Matthew, who always wants to sit in the front row of the theater, so that he can be the first one to see the images, “taste them while they’re still new, still fresh...” - every true film geek out there will surely recognize its references to Nicholas Ray’s The Jazz Singer, Scarface (Hawks), Mouchette (Bresson), Queen Cristina, Freaks, Godard’s Breathless, Jules et Jim, City Lights by Charlie Chaplin – and to Fuller, Bunuel, Bergman, Marlene Dietrich (ahem!!!) amongst others. The kids have discussions about Keaton vs. Chaplin or Hendrix vs. Clapton, they recreate their favourite scenes from old movies (surely memorable are the running through the Louvre in order to beat the 9 minute record accomplished in Godard's Bande a Part, and Isabelle’s swoon about Matthew's bedroom in tandem with Greta Garbo in Queen Christina).
The three main actors are all fascinating and fearless. Michael Pitt is perfect as the shy and innocent Matthew, Louis Garrel shows real vivacity, and Eva Green... ah, Eva Green! I too fell in love with her from the first moment she’s onscreen. She’s not only a classic beauty, she “possesses” the screen both with her on-screen charisma and her wonderful voice, and in addition, she’s naked most of the time, what more can you ask?
But the true star of the film is Jean Rabasse's production design. The fabulous layout of the Parisian apartment, where characters can gaze upon each other from rooms separated by an interior courtyard, is definitely as fabulous as its inhabitants.
ALL IN ALL – The Dreamers is a fantastic Art-Film (hence not for everybody), which I enjoyed much more the day after - than right after the screening - since, I believe, it has to linger in you for a while before you really “get” it.
8/10
QUICK SIDE NOTE – On a recent junket Bertolucci was really sad and angry announcing that the US release of The Dreamers (by Fox Searchlight) is going to be “amputated and mutilated” by the MPAA to get an R-Rating. 2 thoughts:
1. FOX SEARCHLIGHT – Since this movie won’t clearly appeal to everybody, why not market this movie as an NC-17 – “From the same director that brought you The Last Tango In Paris...” (also NC-17 in 1972) – instead of taming and cutting it to get an R. I don’t think that many more moviegoers would want to go see it.
2. MPAA – There must be really something wrong with the MPAA. What happened to the freedom of speech, etc. in the States?????
I’ve seen Ken Park in movie theatre here in Italy and it deservedly got an NC-18 – but at least it played, it wasn’t banned (as in Australia), or worse it didn’t even get distribution (as in the US). On contrary, The Dreamers (with close ups of frontal nudity, both male and female, masturbation, perverse “truth-or-dare” games, the deflowering of a virgin in the kitchen while someone else cooks eggs on the stove) came out UNCUT with a PG-14 (no one under 14 is allowed to see the movie). How a movie that is rated PG-14 in one place gets an NC-17 in another is beyond my understanding. Maybe the MPAA doesn’t get the difference between porn and “Sex-as-an-art-form”. And next up is Jane Campion’s “In the Cut” another movie which will play UNCUT in Europe and butchered in the states. If I were you I would be pissed.
Perfect Popcorn
Thanks for the reviews, man. I wish I had answers for you regarding the MPAA, but it doesn’t make any more sense to us from the inside than it does to the rest of the world from the outside. It’s a rotten organization that hurts films and filmmakers far more than it helps them, and Jack Valenti’s career can’t come to a close soon enough for my tastes.
"Moriarty" out.
