Film Review: Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises

Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Stephen Knight.

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

2007.

[NOTE: I don't want to give the feeling that I'm just burning old material without adding anything new (which I am), but I like the succinct minimalism of these notes. They say everything of real pertinence that I would have mentioned. I will just add one more thing: Eastern Promises functions as a piece of genre defamiliarization, as the gangster movie without a single gun. SPOILERS ahead]


Initial dissatisfaction of reveal that Viggo had been working undercover

but with ambiguous look on his face in the ending

a real companion piece with A History of Violence

the duality of man... both good and bad sides

who is he at the end?

but reversed from A History of Violence

My Best of the Year in Film: 1956

The Year: 1956

The Film: The Searchers

Directed by John Ford. Written by Frank S. Nugent based on a book by Alan Le May.

Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood, and Henry Brandon as Scar.

When we usually think of revisionist westerns, we usually think of the darker, cynicism of New Hollywood-era (1970s) westerns or the complete deconstructionism of 1992's Unforgiven. But The Searchers is as much a revisionist western as any of those films. John Wayne, here as our "hero" Ethan Edwards, is a harsh and violent man. As just one example of his unerring cruelty and capability for evil vengeance: "By what you preach... none. But, what that Comanche believes--ain't got no eyes... can't enter the spirit land... has to wander forever between the winds. You get it, Reverend." To shoot out the eyes of a dead man to spite his beliefs, not your own, is the harshest you get with this man, this very unlikable protagonist. The Searchers has a bit of a reputation as a racist film. And it's hard to argue with that. It certainly is a product of its time. But it's also a film focused so intensely on Ethan. This is Ethan's viewpoint; Ethan is a racist; the film's narrative is focalized through Ethan. It's important to not falling into intentional fallacy by assuming we know what (sorry to assume some auteur theory with these terms) the authorial intent was. We must not assume that the apparent message is something that the filmmakers agree with. There is also cynicism and the inherent message to consider.

I'd also like to address a bit of beautiful symbolism the film uses. Now this was an era where films were transitioning to widescreen aspects, and not all films were yet using these. The Searchers uses a process called Vistavision. The film begins and end with the framing from inside the homestead. That is the doorway seen from the inside looking out effectively darkens the sides of the frame, referencing a standard fullscreen aspect ratio. As the camera leaves this homestead doorway, it opens up the frame but also metaphorically, in reverse at the end, the framing kept the bad world out. And the bad world arrives with John Wayne and at the end when again the bad world is made separate, John Wayne must remain outside the homestead. His evils will forever separate him from the civility of the new era, as the frontier, and the west come to an end.

Film Review: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Written by Rudy Wurlitzer.

Starring James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Rita Coolidge, Harry Dean Stanton, and Slim Pickens.

1973.

I don't even want to review this film; I don't know what to say.

I just know I love it.

There's something so pure and iconic about it.
The West ain't what it used to be.

Film Review: The Boxer

The Boxer.

Directed by Jim Sheridan. Written by Sheridan & Terry George.

Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Ken Stott, Gerard McSorley, and Eleanor Methven.

1997.

The Boxer is at its heart a love story. One set amidst a backdrop of Belfast immersed in the tensions of IRA conflicts, both external (with the British) and internal (among the IRA, themselves). But a love story, nonetheless.

It is more thematically strong then that suggests though as it is also a pastiche of Shakespearean tragedies. Day-Lewis and Watson are star-crossed lovers. Day-Lewis the titular boxer, ex-con and patsy for an IRA bombing and Watson his childhood sweetheart and current "prison wife" of a friend and fellow IRA patsy. The concept of "prison wives" present a strong undercurrent of the social politics of The Boxer. IRA women are expected to stand by their imprisoned husbands, at all costs. There are consequences of life and death which go with it. Where the love story sets the tone of the piece, the thrust of the plot is provided by the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth characters of McSorley and Methven who endanger the peace and ceasefire Cox as Watson's father and IRA grand poobah is trying to establish. Methven especially underplays it to perfection with her sly whispers of condescending remarks made under her breath.

As one comes to expect from the rare Daniel Day-Lewis film, he does have that one really explosive, showy scene where he really raises his voice, but I find his best scene is instead the quiet one between him and Watson stealing a moment of tenderness and honesty in her doorway in the dead of night. This is where the script really shines, giving the actors dialogue to sell the love story so their acting doesn't always have to do all the heavy-lifting (although, there acting, as in the previous beach scene, had already sold that love, but without the open honesty brought forth in this scene).

Sheridan, brings a workman-like presentation to the material, that fits the world, if not setting any auteurist theories on fire. Especially interesting is as how he presents the British laissez-faire attitude towards violence as represented when Lewis travels to London to box, and the referee won't call the fight despite the decimated, yet still-standing Nigerian fighter's bloodied countenance.

There are many fact-based IRA-set films out there; this is not one of them. But it is a great snapshot of that world. Nonetheless.

Film Review: The Notebook

The Notebook

Directed by Nick Cassavetes. Written by Jeremy Leven based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks.

Starring Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, and Gena Rowlands.

2004.

I could have done without the old people.

Film Review: Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Iris Yamashita. Story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis.

Starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, and Ryo Kase.

2006.

This film was originally titled Red Sun, Black Sand before being released as Letters from Iwo Jima. Red Sun, Black Sand is infinitely cooler sounding, but Clint Eastwood didn't make that film; he made Letters from Iwo Jima. A film needs to choose it's title, and this is the title that fits.

Letters starts and ends with a framing story that is slight and irrelevant. Flags of Our Fathers, Letters' Pacific Theater companion piece also directed by Clint Eastwood in the same year, also used a framing device to somewhat more profound effect as did producer Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Why these war films feel the need to contextualize by establishing a present day epiphany is beyond me, and it only detracts from what otherwise is a fine film as is the case here.

It's interesting watching a film from the Japanese perspective of World War II. With them as the protagonists, you cheer them on in their fight against the Americans. Besides the fact that they are reviled as the enemy (they did after all attack Pearl Harbor), how often, especially in regards to modern warfare, do you watch the heroes hold a defensive position? Where's the gung ho, ra ra ra aspect in that.

The use of flashbacks only proves to slow down the momentum. The worst moment comes when Shimizu (Kase) reiterates the beautiful simplicity of the scene where Baron Nishi (Ihara) read aloud from a letter from home taken off a dead American soldier. Yes, "his mother's words are the same as my mother's words"-- we understood it the first time with the looks on the Japanese soldiers' faces, we didn't need to be hit over the head with it. This contribution is no doubt the influence of Paul Haggis. Haggis' lack of subtlety seems to be his trademark at this point, and was a major flaw in his other Clint Eastwood collaborations as well as his own directorial efforts. The only places where it hasn't seemed problematic were his screenplay for Casino Royale and, fittingly, (snicker) Walker, Texas Ranger.

The one flashback that manages to earn its keep is General Kuribayashi's (Watanabe) remembrance of his American military hosts on what appears to be a diplomatic point in time. It manages to highlight the central themes: being patriotism versus the horror that is war. Soldiers are just good men, mostly innocent, fighting for what they've been told is right, not too blame for the machinations and politics of their leaders.

There is also a sense of conflicting thoughts of tactic. Kuribayashi finds dissent among some of the officers beneath him who would like to die an honourable death fighting. I don't know what the Japanese reaction to the film was, but I get a sense from oriental/occidental critical theory that Asian societies are supposed to be more of a collective sensibility versus Western individuality, and I get a sense of that here, somewhat. But then again, all films need to find a focus, and that means individuals. And the individual with a standout role here is Kazunari Ninomiya as the soldier of our focus, Saigo. He is a coward. He is a good soldier. He is not a soldier. He is a simple baker. He is a husband. He is all these things. And he captures them all well. Especially, considering his early scenes that present him as a somewhat bumbling, comic relief of the 'Is my commanding officer standing directly behind me as I ignorantly say unpatriotic words' variety.

Film Review: Charley Varrick

Random Film Reviews: Short Reviews of What I Happen to be Watching As I Expand My Film Knowledge

Inaugural entry:

Charley Varrick

Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Dean Riesner and/& Howard Rodman based on a book by John Reese.

Starring Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, and John Vernon.

1973.

This, Siegel's first effort following Dirty Harry two years prior, is a tight little crime caper. The crime itself, a bank robbery, occurs relatively early in the film and the remainder deals with the getaway. Getaway not from the law, but the mob, that is. Matthau and his crew of diminishing numbers have inadvertently knocked off a money laundering operation in their attempt to hit another small time bank and end up with a take of about 3/4 of a million dollars.

We watch Matthau's bank robber squirm in his tightening noose as Joe Don Baker's mob enforcer follows the leads towards Matthau and the money. But Matthau, the titular Charley Varrick, is smarter than all of us, and we're always left with these threads that don't seem to connect, until Varrick ties them together in front of our eyes.

John Vernon plays the charismatic president of the bank chain doing the laundering who tries to find Matthau before he gets accused of being in on the take. Vernon has a standout scene, a condescendathon if you will, with the investigators who won't let him in his own bank., but Baker's Mr. Molly really steals the show. There's a certain straight-laced stoicism belying the true ruthlessness of his character.

Great lines abound as well-- Mr. Molly: "I don't sleep with whores. At least not knowingly."

Not too give too little credit to the director or lead, though, because I'll certainly be looking to catch more of Siegel's films and Matthau's dramatic roles (particularly The Laughing Policeman and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three).