The Hunt
(2012)
Directed
by Thomas Vinterberg
* * * ½
In spite of dealing with the fallout of a divorce, life is
going pretty well for Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) – well-respected in his community
as a kindergarten teacher, just starting a relationship with a woman, and might
be gaining custody of his teenage son. But all because of the innocent lie of a
child, Lucas’s world is about to take a turn for the worse: one of his
students, also the daughter of close friends, makes up a story of Lucas
committing lewd conduct with her in the kindergarten. It doesn’t take long for
the lie to make its way around the entire town, making Lucas Public Enemy no.
1.
Like electricity, there is both positive and negative energy
that exists within all of us. To express negative energy without justification
is deemed socially unacceptable (for good reason), so we will take a mile with
any inch of reason to hate someone/something we are given. This is one of the
reasons The Hunt is such a compelling
watch – we know right off the bat that Lucas is innocent, and in spite of how
respected he is in the community, people are eager to point fingers and blame
Lucas without evident reason. Later in the film, things start to look better
for Lucas, and even then he is still hated by everybody. Even when the young
girl admits it was a lie, her parents will not accept this, as if desperate to
get a chance to hate something.
And here is where the film gets more complicated; how can we
blame everybody else? Yes, we sympathize with Lucas, but we can still
sympathize with the rest of the town, as they have no reason to believe he is
innocent, and it is this kind of complexity, right here, that makes for the
best of drama. While The Hunt is not
one of the greatest dramatic films (it’s primary hindrance being the detached
hand-held style that is overly-prevalent in art-house cinema), it is still
nonetheless a riveting movie, complete with an exceptional lead performance
from Mikkelsen.
Isle of
Dogs (2018)
Directed
by Wes Anderson
* * * *
Though Isle of
Dogs is a new release, I am writing a
Weekly Recap micro-review instead of a full one since so much time has passed
in between its release and my seeing it – I only review new releases upon
release weekend.
Megasaki City, Japan. In the near future, all dogs are
exiled to Trash Island (exactly what it sounds like) after the outbreak of a
dog flu. The first dog to be sent to Trash Island is Spots (Live Schreiber),
who belongs to Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin). Atari refuses to live without his
beloved companion, and hijacks a small airplane and flies (well, crash-lands)
it to the island. There, he is joined by a grizzled group of self-proclaimed
alpha dogs (including the talents of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bob
Balaban, Bill Murray, and Jeff Goldblum), and the search is on. Meanwhile, back
in Megasaki, the controversy over this dog banishment mounts, leading to all
sorts of protests and conspiracy theories, particularly from foreign exchange
student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig).
I have never been a fan of Wes Anderson. Though I have great
admiration for the passion and attention to detail he employs into every single
one of this films, the indie-brand quirkiness that is so prevalent in his work
(to the point of style over substance, at times) has always been a bit too
overbearing for my taste. After seeing Isle
of Dogs, I’m beginning to think that his style works better for animated
films than live action, because I was absolutely spellbound by this film. The
animation plays no small part, with the usual (and exemplary) attention to
detail as well as some fun and adorable design choices – I particularly loved
how brawls were visualized by mounds of cotton balls with limbs poking out here
and there.
But fret not, as there is substance in Isle of Dogs. The central alpha dogs are all great characters, and
I was with them every step of the way – I dare you not to be touched as Chief’s
personal story unfolds. The array of voice actors certainly amplify this, but
how ironic that I kind of forgot I was listening to the voices of some of the
biggest name actors – I emphasize once again that I was so taken by the movie
that nothing got in my way. There’s also some interesting political satire
throughout, and I was surprised how well it was handled. And, of course, the
fact that it’s so heavy with Japanese stylization and aesthetics makes this
even more enjoyable (not to mention that the soundtrack borrows from Seven Samurai’s score), but let that not
overshadow this beautiful ode to man’s best friend.
Smithereens (1982)
Directed by Susan Seidelman
* * *
Smithereens accounts for the antics and behavior of Wren (Susan
Berman), a defiant and abrasive young woman. A runaway from New Jersey, she now
finds herself in New York and its punk rock scene. She meets Paul (Brad Rijn),
another runaway about her same age, who lives in a van in a vacant lot. He
takes quite a liking to Wren and is eager to take her out on a date with
chivalrous sincerity, but Wren aggressively declines his advances, and she has
her eyes set on a man who can help break her into punk rock – she thinks she
has found what she is looking for in punk rocker Eric (Richard Hell), who is
preparing to move to Los Angeles to form a new group. Wren is eager to join
Eric, but a web of lies and deceit unveil a naiveté in Wren’s being that maybe
she wasn’t even aware of.
Before moving on to direct Desperately Seeking Susan and a few
episodes of Sex and the City, Susan
Seidelman entered the film world with this
1982 debut. Though it does exhibit a filmmaker with some scuffs that need
ironing out, Smithereens, to my
surprise, was a striking and exceptionally confident first film. All of the
performances are quite good, but at the center of everything, of course, is
Susan Berman in the lead role, who encapsulates everything about NYC punk circa 1980s. I must say that in the first
act, the character was a little too unlikeable, and while you never grow to
like her, you observe with a certain level of sympathy.
The script also had some very
witty and memorable moments – there’s a moment where Wren declares “Everyone’s
a little weird these days. It’s normal.” This is one of the most underrated
lines in movies. I think what I was taken by most, though, was the almost
apocalyptic portrayal of New York, and it really amplified the danger of being
young and out on your own without a pot to piss in (or a window to throw it
out). In spite of this, cinematography isn’t particularly outstanding. But what
mars the film most is its lack of direction at times. Granted, the
directionless quality does work to the film’s advantage, but more times than
I’d like to count, there were times when I just wasn’t too sure of where the
film was going that I had to look at my watch. I wasn’t sure if I liked Smithereens that much when I was
finished watching it, but the more in recessed in memory, the more I warmed up
to it.
Under the Volcano (1984)
Directed by John Huston
* * ½
Dia de los Muertos, 1938.
Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney), once the former British consul, is now residing
in Mexico a shadow of his former self: unemployed, divorced, and alcoholic – I
don’t think there is a single moment of sobriety for Geoffrey in the entire
movie. Though he carries on with a jovial attitude, there is the slightest hint
of melancholy of dread in his being – he is stumbling (figuratively and
literally) toward his final days. Things become only more emotionally
complicated when his ex-wife, Yvonne (Jacqueline Bisset), suddenly shows up,
perhaps wanting to re-integrate herself into his life.
Based on the acclaimed novel
by Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano was
directed by John Huston (in one of his very last features), who gave us such
endearing classics as The Maltese Falcon and
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and
even all the way up to 1984, Huston was definitely still stuck in the ‘40s, as
far as filmmaking is concerned. Under the
Volcano is made exactly like something you’d have seen in the 1940s. Had it
been made in Huston’s heyday, it could have been a terrific portrayal of
alcoholism for its time, but that Huston couldn’t advance his technique in
anyway, it just comes off as kind of plain in 1984. The pacing didn’t help
much, either, considering that the protagonist’s ex-wife shows up very early in
the film, which leaves too much runtime, and not enough drama. When there is
drama, it is rather melodramatic.
That said, at least we have
Albert Finney in a terrific lead. Instead of overly-indulging the character in
the darkest depths of sadness, Finney’s character wanders in a drunken jolly,
tally-ho kind of demeanor which shelters all of the melancholy that the
character is overflowing with (which I mentioned earlier). Everybody else
involved is fine, but nowhere near on Finney’s level. And I must admit that I
thought that setting the film on Dia de los Muertos was brilliant. Overall, I
certainly appreciate the approach to alcoholism, and I didn’t mind watching it,
but the movie itself was just okay.
A Woman
is a Woman (1961)
Directed
by Jean-Luc Godard
* * * ½
The inimitably charming Anna Karina stars as Angela, a
striptease artist in a hole-in-the-wall cabaret, living life with the bubbly
swagger of a leading lady in a Hollywood musical. Angela’s sights are set on
bearing a child – it’s just too bad that her all-too stern boyfriend, Emile
(Jean-Claude Brialy), doesn’t see eye-to-eye on Angela’s wishes for motherhood.
And so Angela is stricken with an indecisiveness within herself, vocalizing
contempt for her boyfriend, yet internally still can’t resist her love for him.
Things only become more complicated when Emile’s best friend, Alfred (Jean-Paul
Belmondo), who rather fancies Angela, has no issue with obliging her maternal
request.
I don’t think I’ve had more mixed feelings for a filmmaker
than Jean-Luc Godard, with maybe the exception of Andrei Tarkovsky. I’m yet to
see a film by Godard that blows me away. What makes this all the more
frustrating is that I have mad respect for Godard and all of hiscontributions
to cinema, but his once-progressive style now tends to feel rather dated. At
worst, his films tend to come off as laughable and somewhat pretentious. Then
again, while I’m yet to see a truly great film from Godard, I must say that a
few of his films I actually enjoy quite a bit, and I’m happy to say that A Woman is a Woman fits into the latter
category. Yes, there’s a lot of the signature Godardian “breaking all of the
rules of moviemaking just to do it (without a purpose behind it)” stylization
going on here, but I was so enraptured by the energy this film had to it.
This is due in no small part to Anna Karina, whose presence
alone makes even the worst of Godard worth watching just to spend an hour and a
half with her (I dare anybody not to fall in love with her). A Woman is a Woman also had some rather
striking and poignant observations on the complexities of the female psyche’s
seemingly incomprehensible perspective on love. Some of the writing here, on
top of being quite thought-provoking, is also incredibly clever – I absolutely
adored a sequence where Angela and Emile call each other names by using book
titles as insults (this is without a single word being spoken). I once heard a
YouTuber (I forget the user) state that Godard “exists exclusively for film
school”, and I can see where he’s going with that – in his large filmography,
most of his films are meant to be watched, certain techniques to be studied,
then learn how to apply those techniques to a more complete movie experience. A Woman is a Woman really isn’t much
exception to this rule, but I can’t deny that I really enjoyed it.
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