Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with yet another positively glowing review of Alejandro Amenábar's newest MAR ADENTRO. I'm dying to see this film. After all this high praise, how could I not be? This read on, read on!
MAR ADENTRO (Variously translated as THE SEA WITHIN, THE SEA INSIDE, or OUT TO SEA)
People rocketed out of their seats to give a standing ovation to Alejandro Amenábar for "Mar Adentro" at Wednesday night's screening at the Toronto Film Festival. If they could have danced on the ceiling and clapped they'd have done that too.
The film tells the true (but fictionalized) story of quadriplegic Ramón Sampedro's (Javier Bardem) fight for the right to die. After being paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident, and nearly three decades of life in this state, he finds this condition such a hollow approximation to a true "life" that he wants to end it. He challenges the state's proscription of euthanasia in the courts, but this drags on for years. Ramón has many friends and family, but no one will help him die because they can't bear to lose him.
The emotionally charged setup allows Amenábar to explore the concept of what it means to truly live. In one breathtaking scene, Ramón imagines that he gets out of his bed and soars over the sea to find his lover on the beach. The magnificent beauty of the shot heartbreakingly illuminates the gulf between Ramón's dreams and his reality. His situation automatically deserves our pity, but the character's strength and passion transform him into a man defined by respect rather than sympathy. Ramón's charisma helps him win over everyone from his lawyer to his nurses, and a book of his collected writings ("Letters From Hell") cause him to be celebrated all over Spain. With the constant outpourings of love shown to him, Ramón's life seems better than that of many able-bodied people. The fact that he is willing to die because he can't have the simple freedom that nearly all of us take for granted is perversely uplifting. To imagine a life without them reminds us of the simple joy of a kiss, of jumping in the ocean, or just taking a walk on the beach.
After I read the plot synopsis I could not imagine how this story could be told without avoiding the dual pitfalls of boredom (what could be more uncinematic than a a talking head on a bed) or excessive manipulation. The movie certainly manipulates your emotions -- at one point when the soundrack goes silent I could just hear sniffles all around the theater. But it never feels manipulative -- just naturalistic. You aren't shedding these tears because there is a musical cue or an overwrought scene -- you are sad because you feel like you've opened a window into another human being's life and let that trickle of devastation eat away at you. How miraculous is that -- a thousand people sitting in a dark room crying over some light shining through celluloid? If Amenábar is going to be the puppet-master, sign me up to be the puppet. Somehow, he does it without strings.
Javier Bardem's performance is another mystery to me. How does he deliver his lines in Spanish, with me reading subtitles, and leave me thinking that it is the best acting I've seen all year? It isn't like he can throw chairs against the wall to express his rage -- he can only move his head! Again it is done with subtlety and just old-fashioned tricking you into thinking this is a real person rather than a performance. Makeup and hair loss sell the effect -- he is playing a man 20 years older than his age of 35 -- but it is the deep warmth and wry wit that Bardem brings to the role that transforms Ramón from a well written character into an almost palpably real person.
The film festival review called "Mar Adentro" Amenábar's "first masterpiece." For a guy with "The Others" and "Open Your Eyes" under his belt, that is a strong statement. But I am in complete agreement. Those films were great, but this one is breaks through to another level. It won the Jury Grand Prix at Venice and Javier Bardem the won the best actor prize as well. He is a lock for Oscar nomination, and the film and Amenábar himself should get a nominations too. Amenábar has taken difficult story to tell and subtly, masterfully turned it into a cinematic experience that forces us to contemplate life and the terms by which we live it.
Copernicus
Now on to a look at Alexander "ELECTION" Payne's SIDEWAYS, a film that has been getting many mixed reviews over the last couple of months. I hope I love it, since I dug both ELECTION and ABOUT SCHMIDT, but I'm a little wary after these lukewarm reviews. Anyway, on with it, but beware... when the below reviewer says there are spoilers ahead, they ain't kidding!!!
Hi, Harry,
I previously sent in a short review of The Clearing. Long time fan, etc......
I hadn't seen anything on your site about Sideways yet, so I thought I would write.
I saw Sideways at the Director's Guild in LA last week. Since it was free, and I had no other plans, I went. I can't say I was excited to see this film, as I had never heard of it. We were all a little irritated to have our bags searched, as there was only one security person, and it took over an hour. We could see it if this were a highly anticipated film, but this was not. Anyway, this film is by Alexander Payne, who did About Schmidt.
The premise of the movie is this:
Jack (Thomas Hayden Church, the guy from Ned and Stacy) is an unsuccessful actor living in LA, is getting married the next week, and will join his father-in-law's business. His roommate from college, Miles (Paul Giamatti, from American Splendor) lives in San Diego, is a struggling writer, and drives up to LA to take Jack on a road trip to wine country to have a bachelor week full of golf and exquisite wine-tasting. Jack just wants to get laid before his wedding.
These two are so totally different it is hard to see why they have stayed friends so long. Miles is sensitive and depressed, and extremely (to the point of making you want to slap him) knowledgeable and snobby about wine. Jack is shallow, and wants to spend the time having as much sex with as many women as possible. He is a Neanderthal when it comes to wine, as he proves when he gets in the car at the beginning of their trip and pops open a bottle of vintage champagne even though Miles begs him not to.
Many spoilers ahead:
The first part of the film is tiresome. Miles spends what seems like hours smelling, gazing into, analyzing, and describing the wines in excruciating detail. Everywhere they go, everyone knows Miles as a wine aficionado, and everyone, even the waitresses and the bartenders are wine experts. By the time you leave this movie, you know more about wine than you ever wanted to.
A waitress named Maya (Virginia Madsen) has an affinity for Miles, which he doesn't notice, but Jack does. The next day, Jack and Miles go to a winery for a tasting where Stephanie (Sandra Oh) pours. She is sexy, and flirtatious ("I am bad, and need to be spanked") Jack picks her up, and has her get Maya for Miles. They all go out for dinner, during which they consume many bottle of wine.
Miles is depressed throughout dinner because he just found out from Jack that Miles' ex-wife got remarried. Jack tells Miles not to screw things up for him with Stephanie. They all go to Stephanie's house after dinner. Stephanie and Jack have sex, and Maya comes on to Miles with a long monologue using winemaking as a metaphor for life. Miles gets spooked, and goes back to the hotel alone. There is a funny moment where Maya says she would love to read Miles unpublished novel. He says he has a copy of the manuscript in the car. He gives her two very large armloads of manuscript to take with her.
Miles gets back to the hotel, where there are a dozen messages from Jack's fiancee He is furious with Jack for cheating on his fiancee, and for ruining his perfect golf/wine tasting plans. Jack is irritated with Miles for screwing up with Maya, and moping about his ex wife. Up to here, we were all looking at our watches every few minutes, and wondering if we could bolt without being noticed.
Luckily, at this point, things got more interesting. Jack comes back to the hotel the next morning on Stephanie's motorcycle to announce he had a great night of wild animal sex, and is thinking of skipping the wedding, and moving up there to be with Stephanie and her young daughter. Miles tries to reason with him, but Jack is out the door to spend the day with Stephanie, blowing off golf with Miles.
Later, the four of them end up on a double date for a picnic, and Miles and Maya start to fall for each other. There is a slightly disturbing scene of Stephanie's little girl walking out where the adults are smoking pot because the music woke her up, but it is brief.
There are scenes of Jack having a quickie with Stephanie in the hotel room (all you see is Jack's bare butt), and Miles at Maya's apartment after sex.
Miles decides to blow Jack's story by letting it slip to Maya that he can't stay for the entire weekend because they have to get back for Jack's rehearsal dinner. She is furious, and says she knows he waited to tell her so he could fuck her first. He tells her that she is the first woman he has been with since his divorce, and she means a lot to him, but she isn't having any of it.
Miles doesn't tell Jack that his story is blown. When Miles and Jack get back to the hotel, Stephanie is waiting with a few choice words for Jack, as she beats the hell out of him with her motorcycle helmet, breaking his nose. Miles takes him to the ER, and he comes out with a huge bandage on his mid-face and black eyes.
Miles finds out from his agent that his book will not be published, and he freaks out while at a touristy winery to which Jack has dragged him in an effort to cheer him up. He realizes he will never be anything more than a school teacher. They go out to dinner, where a fat, gross waitress recognizes Jack from a soap opera he did long ago. He decides to go home with her for one last night of hot sex.
Miles returns to the hotel room alone, and is later awakened by pounding on the door. He opens it to find Jack naked, and freezing. The husband returned home early to find him having anal sex with the waitress. He ran naked, seven miles, to the hotel. He tells Miles they have to go back to the house, as he left his wallet with the wedding rings there. Miles initially says no, but Jack cries, and begs him, saying that his fiancee special ordered the rings, they have their names engraved in Sanskrit, and that he will die if he loses his fiancee. Miles has an epiphany at this point, and believes that Jack really does love this woman on whom he has been cheerfully cheating, and he really is friends with Jack.
They return to the house, which is a crummy tract home in a sad neighborhood with a tow truck parked out front. Miles sneaks in, and hears the couple having nasty sex. ("You liked fucking him." "I am a bad, bad girl.") Miles creeps down the hallway towards the bedroom. He spots the wallet on the dresser, but has to get by the couple having sex (the husband is as fat as that waitress wife.) He runs in, grabs the wallet, and bolts for the car, with the huge naked husband flapping in pursuit.
Miles and Jack race away, and head for home. On the way, Jack says he wants to drive. He tells Miles to put on his seat belt, and drives into a tree with Miles' car. Jack explains that he needs to be able to explain the broken nose to his in-laws. They decide the car doesn't have enough damage, so they tie a cinder block to the gas pedal and crash it again.
Miles drops Jack at his fiancee's mansion, is the best man at the wedding, and sees his ex-wife with her new husband after the wedding. He is gracious about telling her he is happy for her, but when she tells him she is pregnant, he blows off the reception, goes home to San Diego, and drinks a bottle of vintage wine he has been saving with a burger and onion rings at a fast food place. We see scenes of him resigned to his teaching. Then, he gets a voice mail from Maya. She has read his book, and thinks he is brilliant and sensitive. The film ends with him going up her stairs, presumably to live happily ever after.
This movie was better than we thought it would be. At the beginning, it was too slow, and could lose 20 minutes with no story lost, and the friendship between the two men was not believable. The chemistry was great between Jack and Stephanie, but there was no reason for a babe like Maya to be attracted to a whiny, snobbish geek like Miles. By the end of the film, Miles was more sympathetic, and Jack seemed more like a harmless frat boy, kind of a human Golden retriever, out for a good time, but faithful in the end, in his own way.
Church was great as hedonistic, crude Jack. Sandra Oh has a great body, and is much better here than in Under the Tuscan Sun. She works as a raunchy, horny, tough as nails bad girl. Virginia Madsen is never really believable as a waitress, but women her age do settle for men they wouldn't have looked at 10 years earlier, so I guess it could happen with Miles.
The camera work and lighting was gorgeous, in a Merchant Ivory kind of way, with beautiful shots of the wine country, and endless wine bottles.
I can't recommend this wholeheartedly, but if you get in for free, it isn't bad.
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