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Saturday 30 January 2010

My Week in Film #2

There is a belief held by some critics that this year’s academy awards chose to adorn Sean Penn with the Oscar for best actor over the favourite (and deserving) Mickey Rourke to amend for their snubbing of Brokeback Mountain in 2006. Apparently the academy is now ready to embrace gay cinema. This is perhaps overly cynical but not beyond the realms of possibility. I have not yet seen Crash (to which Brokeback lost out to) but I would be most pleasantly surprised if it were indeed any better than Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, which is the first film I saw this week. In truth, I watched the beginning of Brokeback weeks ago, but have only finished it last Monday. As you are probably aware, the film portrays the secret relationship between two cowboys, beginning in 1963 and continuing for the next two decades. The film of course explores the unavoidable prejudices that the male couple are faced with but more importantly has plenty to say about the nature of love in general and the various conflicts and complications of a romantic and sexual relationship which are handled maturely and with the utmost respect to its subjects. The film is by turns joyful, wistful and heartbreaking to the extreme.

The film is particularly striking on two counts: firstly, in the two male leads superlative performances and secondly in Rodrigo Prieto’s stunning cinematography. If you thought Heath Ledger’s posthumous awards for his role in The Dark Knight were well deserved, then his portrayal of the stoic and tormented Ennis Del Mar will blow you away. While his version of the Joker was good though predictable (an opinion I hold that I am sure will be contested; his psychotic killer was pretty much how I expected the Joker to be in a ‘serious’ Batman film and I am certain most ‘serious’ actors would have done a similar portrayal; I also feel that the script, costume and make-up departments had as much to contribute to the character as Ledger, feel free to tell me how wrong I am) , Ledger’s Del Mar is a revelation, or rather, reveals very little and drip feeds the audience tantalising nuances of character and feeling throughout the film. While his Joker spouted amusingly deranged dialogue, here a simple look or movement of body states so much more. Admittedly, I had only seen Ledger in the flawed Brothers Grimm prior to The Dark Knight and thought the ‘loss of a major talent’ spiel that was flaunted about his death was a little over zealous. Now having seen Brokeback, I am truly saddened that we have but one opportunity to see if he equals or even betters his performance in Brokeback – roll on Dr Parnassus.

Honourable mentions should also go to the reliably solid Jake Gyllenhaal as Ennis’ lover, the less inhibited Jack Twist and Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway’s performances as the cowboy’s wives they are forced to take. Back to Prieto’s grand cinematography: though hard to go wrong with such breath-taking locales as the mountains of Wyoming, Prieto adds beautiful poetic tones to the landscapes, which are as stirring and moving as the plot. My only real criticism is that the pair’s initial passion seems to appear from nowhere, though this feels pretty much justified as the film continues.

Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 hit, Y Tu Mamá También (And Your Mother Too) also explores sexual relationships in various contexts. This Mexican film introduces Tenoch and Julio, two seventeen year old best friends who occupy themselves chiefly with cheap drugs, parties and sex with their girlfriends. Tenoch is a rich son of a politician while Julio is poor and has been raised by his single mother. When their girlfriends leave for Italy in the summer, they quickly become bored. Whilst at a wedding reception, they flirt gracelessly with the beautiful twenty-eight year old Spanish wife of Tenoch’s cousin, Luisa and invite her on a road to trip to a secluded beach they invent. To their surprise, a couple of days later she accepts their invitation and the unlikely trio find themselves on the road. Predictably, Tenoch and Julio try their utmost to impress Luisa with varying results. There are as many twists, turns and breakdowns in the plot as the characters find on the road and while some work, others feel forced and unnatural. The sex (of which there is a considerable amount) is graphic but tasteful and implemented to the functions of the story. The humour is also agreeable and the chemistry between Tenoch and Julio is undeniable.

Had the film remained as a reasonably serious take on the teen sex comedy / road movie (think Road Trip with something to say and of infinitely superior quality), it would have been an enjoyable, better than average watch. However, Y Tu Mamá También's one major flaw that annoys in two ways: a largely redundant omniscient narrator. The lesser of the two annoyances is the narrator’s habit of filling in gaps in Tenoch, Julio and Luisa’s characters, which really could have been implemented in the actual plot. Secondly, is the film’s tacked-on political posturing. The narrator makes brief references to political events and figures that feel added in simply to raise the profile of the film, perhaps the no-holds-barred sex with some intellectual dignity. The result is wholly unconvincing. A little research also reveals that the characters are named for figures from Mexico’s history in another attempt to add to the political nature of the film. This cheapens rather than deepens the film (I’m keeping that one!). To return to the Road Trip comparison: if we renamed the characters in that film Columbus, Washington and Martin Luther King and had a narrator mention every time they drove through a place where a riot or assassination took place, would it be a political, intellectual film? No, it would be lame. Likewise, this self indulgence renders Y Tu Mamá También a good film, though far from a flawless one.

Last night we had a mini movie marathon, starting with The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which stars Hugo Weaving, Terence Stamp and Guy Pearce as Australian drag queens from Sydney who are travelling through the outback en route to a residency at a venue many hundreds of miles away. Of course, there as many prejudices to be faced from small town yokels as there were in Brokeback Mountain and as many breakdowns as there were in Y Tu Mamá También, due to the unreliable nature of their bus, the eponymous Priscilla, but with a great deal more humour than either of them. As you might expect from a film starring three drag queens in the lead roles, the dialogue is charged with barbed wit and genuinely hilarious insults are thrown back and forth between the quarrelling performers. As with any road movie, there is the parallel journey of self discovery but to say much more would be to deny the film its quirk and surprise.

Hugo Weaving is another surprising performer this week, his portrayal of Tick/Mitzi providing the human performance I’ve seen of him (perhaps not surprising given his penchant for playing elves, computer programs and giant alien robots) and is a compelling anchor for the movie. The supporting cast are uniformly excellent, as well as that key supporting character, Australia itself which provides an imposing backdrop comparable to Brokeback Mountain, though much sparser (the characters provide more than enough colour though). The most admirable aspect of the film however, is director Stephan Elliot’s commendable decision to not to simply adhere to mere stereotyping of either the drag queens or, as you might not expect, of the backwater townsfolk. Uplifting stuff.


Lastly this week, I re-watched Christopher Nolan’s experimental and complex thriller Memento. Again, as you are probably aware, this film follows Guy Pearce’s Leonard Shelby in his quest to find the man who raped and killed his wife. Unfortunately, the incident left Shelby with brain damage and he no longer the ability to make new memories, meaning he forgets everything, people, places, events, minutes after they happen. To gather evidence, he uses his handy Polaroid camera and takes extensive notes in the form of sinister looking tattoos on his body. Like Shelby, you may come out of the film knowing less than you did going in, but you’re in for a great trip nonetheless.

Perhaps the most ‘Nolan-esque’ directorial trait that was absent from The Dark Knight is his warping of time-lines within a narrative (as seen in Batman Begins and The Prestige). Memento is told backwards. This is far from a gimmick, it is a narrative implemented to accurately to emerge the audience in Shelby’s condition. The result is a film that intrinsically involves the audience with the character and forces the viewer into an active role in the storytelling. It feels almost interactive and you would do well to take notes yourself during the film (don’t feel compelled to tattoo yourself though). Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano provide strong support in their portrayals of dubious characters. Unlike the other films I watched this week, Memento is claustrophobic and tight, adding to the creeping sensation of something unpleasant lurking around the corner. Personally, I think Nolan would do well to narrow his sights and retain his focus in his next directorial endeavour as Memento shows that the results could be fantastic.
Feel free to comment, question or recommend films for me to watch and write about.

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