Reviews

Review: ARJUN - THE WARRIOR PRINCE Artfully Straddles Grownup Themes and Disney Sugar

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:30:00 -0500

It's hard not to be impressed by Arjun - The Warrior Prince. And I'm not talking about the grand sweep of its story or its breathtaking visuals -- I mean its sheer ambition in terms of "audience and purpose." Yes, the narrative itself is ambitious (we'll get to that in a moment), but what's striking is how India's UTV, in which Disney owns a controlling stake, so clearly tries to meet apparently conflicting goals: to please both regional and international moviegoers, the audiences for Western-style animation and homegrown source material, kids and adults. To be sure, some may find the film's negotiation of these various demands tiring, if not calculating, but I found it rather fascinating, especially as the synthesis of all these conflicts lends a unique tone to what is otherwise a fairly straightforward action/adventure picture. In short, although on the surface Arjun - The Warrior Prince may feel like a traditional Disney film, it's got a lot more gravitas and respect for its audience, whether old or young.

In his recent piece about the trailer, Josh Hurtado accurately described one of these central conflicts without having even seen the film: "The main obstacle I see standing in the way of Arjun's success is the fact that India lacks a domestic market for children's films. The vast majority of successful children's cinema in India is imported, and even then, most children simply go see whatever their parents are seeing." And so though I know next to nothing about UTV's previous Disney-like efforts, I am a bit familiar with how tricky it can be for animated flicks to approach, authentically, the idea of making kids and adults happy. Often they'll go the typical Hollywood route of having inside jokes and references for adults in what is basically a bland kids' movie. Or, of course, they can go the route of most theatrical anime releases, which is to veer toward the adult and older teen market, not presuming for a second that "animation = kids' fare." Arjun - The Warrior Prince doesn't really employ either of these strategies, but aims squarely at a middle ground -- although this could be my cultural bias speaking since I have no idea, really, of what a twelve-year-old Indian might find appealing. I do know that there's enough action and imagination in Arjun for my twelve-year-old American son to find it quite diverting.

What's nice is that all this entertainment value doesn't come with any glaring "Disneyfication." Let me explain that, drawing special attention to the word glaring. After all, I'm pretty certain that liberties are taken with the story elements borrowed from the Mahabharat. I can't comment on that directly as I know Arjun the character mostly from a long-ago reading of a section of that epic, the Bhagavad Gita, and he's not an adolescent there. However, I can report that, despite ample opportunities, Arjun the movie doesn't go in for the usual tropes one is likely to encounter at an American multiplex. There are no annoying, wise-cracking sidekicks to provide comic relief. The princess role is neither glammed up nor infantilized. And most importantly, the title character is complex rather being made squeaky clean. In keeping with the latter, the warrior themes are not glossed over in a juvenile way, as if one could become a real warrior without actually shedding blood... or without a movie featuring that theme actually showing this blood (the climactic battle is pretty gory).

Does this make the film less kid-friendly? Maybe -- it kind of depends on what kind of kids we're talking about. I think the sharper ones will appreciate the maturing-warrior storyline, which, granted, is hardly a new one, but is handled here with more somberness than usual (e.g., the mentor/student relationship is far more interesting than one might expect). Still, it should be noted that the film does provide a certain amount of hand-holding in the form of a framing story, wherein a young boy who imagines himself a warrior-in-training is told of Arjun's exploits as a quasi-cautionary tale. Even there, though, what initially seems like a simple, even overused, device right out of The Princess Bride is deceptively thoughtful, as the eventual merging of the frame story and the core narrative is done in a way that is both surprising and highly satisfying.

Which brings us, finally, to the sweeping ambitions of the narrative. Quite simply, Arjun tries to cover a lot of ground in its internationally-friendly runtime of 96 minutes. While I'm not sure that "condensed-feeling" or "disjointed" would be fair to apply, the plot certainly doesn't conform to the rhythms of most American or European animated features. Although for long stretches the pacing really does hit a groove, we'll then suddenly get a vast jump in time. In general this works, but I happen to like that as it gives things more of a novelistic feel. But an epic feel? Not really. I think the runtime needed to be closer to 2 hours for that. What's missing: Arjun's relationship with his brother and with his wife -- both could have been fleshed out more. Also, possibly my favorite section feels somewhat shortchanged. That occurs when Arjun undergoes additional training in "the land of the gods." There he must fend off all kinds of fantastical creatures who spew green blood and -- well, I just wanted more of it. But before you know it, he's returning to the human plane with his mighty bow, and you're left wishing that the film could have incorporated a tad more magic since it's so imaginative when it does decide to.

The animation itself is, overall, impressive to these inexpert eyes, but I will not go as far saying that it is consistently so. Going for a more old-fashioned look is not the problem, nor is the execution in that department; with only a few exceptions the action seems fluid, and the characters are decently expressive. The problem arises when more new-fangled approaches are introduced. The leaves on trees in several shots seem mass-produced from a CG template; they don't look terrible per se, just fake when contrasted with the other vegetation we see in the painterly backgrounds. Much worse is the rendering of flames. These look like they were done in the way one often encounters in low-budget DIY indies, where explosions are clumsily added in post. Mechanical-looking rather than the organic, these flames represent a real backfire (um... no pun intended). To make matters worse, a key scene involves a house fire. Still, almost as if intentionally compensating for this, all the scenes involving water are stunning, often memorably so.

Arnab Chaudhuri's direction is very solid, and in some of the set pieces it's a lot better than that. The emphasis is on scale throughout, which would be ostentatious or repetitive if it weren't pulled off so spectacularly nearly every time. A chariot race through a massive fortress, pageantry galore, and lots of landscapes dripping with detail... yes, all of this is eye candy but it rarely feels gratuitous. Even when there are outright visual clichés, Chaudhuri somehow manages to make them feel new and energizing. A good example has Arjun striking poses on a lonely mountain peak while a carousel shot captures him from every angle. We've all seen this before, but the combination of the majestic, snow-covered range in the background and the rousing music works wonders nonetheless. As a matter of fact, the score is terrific no matter what it's asked to do, whether that means turning martial arts-style sequences into something resembling dance numbers, or just being big and propulsive.

Indeed, the entire film is so determined to present its grandness that it may be easy to miss the many quiet things that take place and all its thoughtful touches. So I guess I'll have to screen Arjun again at some point -- this time, with kids in attendance.

Cannes 2012 Review: COSMOPOLIS is an Interesting, Uneven Requiem for the One Percent

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:54:09 -0500

Give David Cronenberg credit for one thing: His choice to cast Robert Pattinson was an inspired and brilliant decision. While Cosmopolis is a bit too one-note to allow any proclamations about Pattinson's range, his opaque, handsome, sometimes robot-like face compliments Cronenberg's themes and styles perfectly. In terms of what the director seems to be aiming for here, his cold performance is nearly flawless.

Set in a vague version of the near future, or perhaps an alternate version of the present, the film follows Pattinson's character, Eric Packer. He's a young billionaire, made rich early-on from some sort of start-up, whose only goal is to get across town in his limo and get a haircut. Unfortunately for him, the president is in town and causing traffic delays, anarchists are demonstrating in the street against people like him and his company has recently received numerous credible threats on his life.

It sounds like a recipe for conflict and disaster, but actually, most of these elements remain muted in the background. Packer, bored to the point of near inhumanity, never seems to worry about them, and so, neither do we. He is slightly more concerned about the investment he made in foreign currency plummeting.

So, rather than a thriller, Cosmopolis plays more like a wispy film of ideas, with conversations in the limo about society, wealth and humanity dominating most of the screen time. Almost all of these feel detached and meticulously unfocused. Characters toss around ideas or questions, which their conversation partner then promptly ignores or responds to with a non-sequitur. It's often reminiscent of work by playwright/screenwriter Harold Pinter, but never quite as fun, nor nearly as humorous as it should be.

Perhaps these exchanges hit harder on the pages of Don DeLillo's novella of the same title. I haven't read the source material, but DeLillo's other novels have a unique knack for weaving pointed commentary, cynical satire and sincere compassion together seamlessly.

Cronenberg doesn't quite get this right until the last act of the film, in which he makes a subtle shift towards humanity and emotion while still maintaining the film's disaffected tone. In fact, the film's conclusion, and in effect, the rest of the movie too, gradually becomes deeper and more hard-hitting upon reflection.

I should briefly note too, that if you have not yet seen the trailer to the movie, don't. It shows close to ninety percent of the most surprising images in the film, and in a movie that's not driven by plot, this is a big problem. I suspect I may have had more patience with the film's meandering had I been able to go into it sight unseen and take it on its own terms rather than the high-octane, balls-to-the-wall expectations that the trailer sets up.

In any case, it's the second film at Cannes to address what seem like the last days of tacky displays of wealth like limousines. Leos Carax's Holy Motors is much more fun, but Cronenberg has still made an odd, uncompromising and occasionally brilliant film of his own, one which is well worth seeing if only for the deft way the Cronenberg finds an emotional arc in such an inhuman world. Or else to see how perfectly Pattinson's performance suits the director.

Review: MOONRISE KINGDOM

Fri, 25 May 2012 01:07:01 -0500

Perhaps the chief delight of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is that it is the most quintessential Wes Anderson movie to date. That is not to say it is his best film, or his most insightful film, or even his most imaginative film but it feels as if the quirky auteur (both in style and grace) has come as close to the Platonic ideal of what his cinema is. It makes the film a pretty good entry point for the uninitiated, while simultaneously pandering to the faithful and likely further alienating those who do not like his brand of moviemaking. My overall experience added up to the most fun and pure aesthetic pleasure upon first experiencing any one of his films; and I like them all plenty good. Upon a week's worth of post viewing reflection, there is some apprehension on the possibility of this being the most shallow, character-wise and story-wise, of all of his films, but time and further viewings will tell that tale.

The year is 1965 and the setting is an idyllic New England island with few residents and no paved roads. Bob Balaban, channelling Bud Cort, lays out the geography of the island and warns of an impending storm. In the meantime, troubled twelve year-olds Sam and Suzy (a parenting manual shown at one point indicates, as deadpan a visual cue as any, "How To Cope with your VERY Troubled Child.") run off into the woods, him fleeing his Khaki Scout troop and her a dysfunctional family. This leaves the lovers on the run in the deep woods, infected with a highly mannered case of l'amour fou leavened with meticulous camping skills, while the local police (Bruce Willis), the girl's parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), children services (Tilda Swinton), a gaggle of scouts (including Edward Norton and Harvey Keitel) and maybe even the narrator all are in pursuit in one form or another to get things put into order before the hullabaloo starts (either the storm or the big Khaki Scouts fireworks show.) If you are going to have a big finale to your movie, you might as well explicitly label it the hullabaloo!

But the plot of the film, as simple as it is, is less important than the down-time in between. This lets Anderson move his camera across many minutely detailed tableaux, a meticulous diorama approach to reveal character and emotion by 2D-side-scrolling which started to be very explicit with The Royal Tenenbaums (the opening shots in particular), made a perfect kind of sense in stop-motion effort Fantastic Mr. Fox, went to hilarious extremes in some for hire commercial advertisements and here achieves a sublime virtuosity to the point where things swivel 3D-like into the frame and starts scrolling in another side-direction. It also allows for the Andersonian conceit of letting the children play at grown-up while the grown-ups engage in childish behaviour. Young Jared Gilman is convincing as Sam, the multi-talented, but parentless, boy who wants to set aside childish things and begin a life with his true love Suzy. Kara Hayward has the lolita-seriousness down and can seriously rock heavy-blue eyeshadow even if her performance and character feel like left-over traits from Margot Tenenbaum. Girls, outside of Angelica Huston performances have not been his strong suit as his wont is to slightly feminize (ok accessorize) the men. This is never more obvious than the 'high-amount-of-flair' in Edward Norton's super-scout. It is wonderful to see Norton dive headlong into character as a man who gets his living as a math teacher, but sees his profession as Khaki-Scout first and foremost. That he unwittingly competes as a father figure for Sam with Bruce Willis' sad-sack cop (his cop car is a converted hearse!) and has his own Odyssey-like journey from disgraced leader to some kind of hero is noble in its silliness. Even more of an accomplishment is the complete emasculation of one Harvey Keitel who shows up briefly as the anti-Mr. Wolf revealing all but a thin sheeps-clothing of manliness. All these Coen Brother's regulars popping up hither and yon starts to get rather weird, so it is comforting to see Jason Schwartzman show up to fete the young lovers as a rock-star scout chaplain. Hullabaloo indeed.

Any film peppered so heavily with Benjamin Britton concert-pieces and Hank Williams songs should feel disjointed and at odds in tone. Yet, as always, the musical side of the film comes together as brilliantly as all the other design elements. Stay for the closing credits, not only because of the lovely scrolling typeset, but because Alexandre Desplat's canonical score is explained in detail to show how a layered and beautiful piece of music is assembled from all the individual pieces. As apt a description of Anderson's idiom as anything else, and it allows you to linger in the Moonrise Kingdom for a few more delightful minutes.

Review: CHERNOBYL DIARIES Walks Through a Horror Minefield

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:19:09 -0500

Before it starts stepping on landmines in the third act, Bradley Parker's Chernobyl Diaries sidesteps many of the hazards that have doomed similar horror movies to failure.

Parker is an experienced visual effects artist making his directorial debut, working from a script credited to Oren Peli, Shane Van Dyke, and Carey Van Dyke. (Credits for the Van Dykes include Titanic II and Transmorphers: Fall of Man). Peli also serves as one of the producers, so perhaps he influenced or encouraged Parker to follow the pattern set by Peli's Paranormal Activity.

The film has more than a whiff of Paranormal Activity in the Former Soviet Union, from its cast of lesser-known actors to its handheld camera aesthethics. In the latter respect, Chernobyl Diaries benefits immensely from the presence of Morten Søborg as director of photographer. Søborg's credits include Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy and Valhalla Rising, as well as multiple films for Susanne Bier.

The combined effort of the talent involved results in a very solid set-up. (To be clear: It's not a found-footage movie.) On a tour of Europe, Chris (Jesse McCartney), his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), and their friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) stop in Kiev to visit Chris' older brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), who moved there some time in the past. Before the trio of visitors moves onto Moscow, Paul urges an "extreme tourist" trip to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Led by ex-military tour guide Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko) and joined at the last minute by vacationing couple Michael (Nathan Phillips) and Zoe (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), the merry group heads off in a van to the abandoned city of Pripyat, adjacent to the nuclear power plant. Turned away by military guards at the entrance, Uri sneaks in through a side road and begins the tour, a tour that will end in blood, terror, and screaming.

Always the screaming.

Chernobyl Diaries makes excellent use of silence on the soundtrack, as ominous signs emerge that visitors are not really welcome. As long as the film stays on the path that it has cleared -- 'Nature has reclaimed its own,' as Uri intones while the group stares at the eerily empty city gone to seed -- it's a good, tense ride. The characters may not have much depth to them, but they're not jerks or annoying brats. They're sufficiently likable to root for their survival, and though they occasionally act in head-shaking manner (the stuff that causes audience members to mutter "Don't do that!"), their basic decency overrides, or at least largely excuses, their missteps.

The tension builds from the atmosphere that's been created, and it's only when the movie ramps up the pace and steps off its own path that it begins to fall apart completely, almost as though the filmmakers lost confidence in the premise that they established so carefully. It's a shame, because the premise had more facets that could have been explored in a little greater depth. Instead, the film presses on in search of greater twists.

For any surprise to be effective, it needs to be grounded realistically -- or at least believably -- and Chernobyl Diaries stumbles badly as it makes a run for the exit. Still, it ends up better than might have been expected (feared?) from the premise, even if that only makes it slightly above average.

Chernobyl Diaries opens in Canada and the U.S. on Friday, May 25. Check local listings for theatres and showtimes.

Jean Rollin On Blu-ray: THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE Review

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:30:16 -0500

With the second wave of Jean Rollin Blu-ray releases from Redemption/Kino on May 29th, I get to resume this series, and that makes me smile. The first of the discs hitting store shelves next Tuesday is Rollin's debut feature, The Rape of the Vampire (Le viol du vampire). This is completely unlike anything else in his oeuvre, and yet representative of his obsessions all at the same time. The film is told in thematically interwoven short stories that, narratively, don't make a whole lot of sense. However, this film was mainly about Rollin getting his sea-legs, and it is apparent within a few minutes of the opening credits that the audience is in for something unique.

Attempting a plot synopsis for The Rape of the Vampire is a fool's errand. The film is not really about anything, it is a series of abstract images, vaguely strung together with vampiric imagery that isn't of the traditional stripe. This film is about atmosphere, more than perhaps any other film I've ever seen. It is incomparable in style and in substance, and yet feels quite at home in his filmography. The buds of Rollin's style can all be very clearly plucked from the images in The Rape of the Vampire, and they blossom into fruition in films like Lips of Blood, Fascination, and Les Demoniacs. Blood cults, vampire's revenge, and occult ceremony feature heavily in most of Rollin's most popular work, including his second feature, The Nude Vampire, which is probably the closest, tonally, to Rape, along with perhaps Lips of Blood.

As you can see from the web I've woven with the films in the above paragraph, it can be difficult to separate Rollin's films from one another at times. Jean Rollin was a filmmaker for whom his work became an extension of himself. His films are all somewhat similar because he shot what he knew and what he felt. The chaos of late '60s France made a huge impression on Rollin, and the abstract nature of The Rape of the Vampire reflects this chaos and puts it to the screen in a unique way that marries violence with eroticism in the very French tradition of the Grand Guignol.

Reviewing The Rape of the Vampire is nearly as difficult as describing it. Where does one begin? The film exists as a fragmentary dream, three short stories, none of which is fully satisfying, but nevertheless engaging. The film is evocative in it's simplicity, surely mostly due to the small budget, however, Rollin uses the sparseness of his resources to his advantage. The most memorable pieces of The Rape of the Vampire aren't its characters or its stories, but its images, many of which are unforgettable, like the vampire queen featured in the final segment and on the DVD cover, and the lonesome piers of the beach at Dieppe that haunted Rollin's waking dreams from his childhood make their first or many feature appearances in Rape.

Is The Rape of the Vampire a good film? I think that is the wrong question. To judge it in such a linear way kind of misses the point. The film is essential to fans of Rollin, European horror, erotic horror, and all stops in between, and that's all I'll. My collection felt incomplete without it, and even though I may not revisit it often, it gives me comfort to know that it's there.

The Disc:

Redemption/Kino's Blu-ray of The Rape of the Vampire might be their most overall successful disc yet. The image is not perfect, the print transferred is far from pristine, and there is quite a but of minor print damage, mostly in the form of white specks. However, the black and white imagery is quite solid aside from that, with impressive contrast and detail for a film nearing it's 45th year on this Earth. The French audio track is sufficient, though, again, not overly impressive. It supports the music and dialogue well, though, and that's what's important. Overall the A/V presentation is quite good for a film of this vintage and budget.

The reason this disc, overall, comes out on top when it comes to Rollin's Blu-rays is the extra features. In what is probably the most stacked disc yet we get a 16 page essay from Rollin expert Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog, a twenty-five minute making of featurette with interviews from many of the principals, two early short films that show Rollin's pecadillos from a young age, both a brief introduction from and a longer extended interview with Jean Rollin about the film, and a re-edit of a scene not shown in the film as screened. All of these features are fantastic, though I find myself partial to the making of, which talks a lot about the cultural atmosphere in which Rape was released, and the short films which illuminate some of Rollin's early influences.

The Rape of the Vampire on Blu-ray is a definite upgrade and an essential purchase for any fans of this unique filmmaker.

Cannes 2012 Review: HOLY MOTORS Shoots Past the Moon

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:13:50 -0500

With so many serious, dramatic and even generic (see Lawless) films in competition at Cannes, director Leos Carax's Holy Motors came as something like a 100 mph gust of fresh air. In fact, this sci-fi/comedy/I-don't-know-what-to-call-it is such a wild, weird and joyful film that I wouldn't have been surprised if fireworks started going off in the theater 3/4 of the way into the film. It's that kind of experience.

First, a bit of history about Carax: He emerged in the 80's as a poster-boy for new French cinema with the one-two combo of Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang, which both infused a romantic French New Wave style with a sense of punk rock abandon. His next film, Lovers on the Bridge took this style to its extreme, but went way over budget and schedule and ended up bankrupting several production companies, which made it much harder for Leos Carax to work. Rather than reign in his ambition, he made Pola X, a frustrating, insane and, in my opinion, totally brilliant, adaptation of the Herman Melville book that turned most critics against the author. The movie's reception wasn't any warmer, and with a few notable exceptions including Roger Ebert and director Jacques Rivette, it was panned upon release.

That was thirteen years ago. Since then, he popped in to direct the short Merde, which was by far the most memorable segment of the omnibus film Tokyo, but has been otherwise silent. As it turns out though, his imagination has been going wild, and the result is this absurd, energetic collection of sketches performed by one man with many identities.

That man is Monsieur Oscar (played by longtime Carax collaborator/alter-ego Denis Lavant), a mysterious character who rides around Paris in a limousine from dawn to midnight, disembarking in intervals for different "appointments." These appointments, which he and his driver discuss as if they were banal meetings, involve Lavant literally becoming somebody else and carrying out some sort of action or performance. As usual, Lavant is versatile, physical and hilarious, and Carax expertly exploits these qualities. Oscar becomes, among other things, a hired killer, a business man, the character he played in Merde and a father. If this doesn't make total sense, don't worry about it. Holy Motors is an absurd film through and through, and if you get bogged down with reductive questions like "What is it about?" and "What does it mean?" you're not going to have any fun.

And the film really is a lot of fun. Carax directs with his gusto and spontaneity cranked to 11 -- imagine an entire movie in the same spirit as the much-loved David Bowie dance scene in Mauvais Sang and you're part of the way there. The film also calls to mind some of Luis Buñuel's later work, but those films don't feel anywhere near as spontaneous. In addition to the style and energy, the film also deals in images that, to my knowledge, have not been put on screen before. If you don't feel an exhilarating gust of excitement during the sex scene in a motion capture room or and the impromptu accordion jam in what looks like Saint-Eustache church, you may want to check your pulse. While viewers used to mainstream, plot-driven films may be a bit baffled by the movie as a whole, it's hard to imagine anyone not having a good time.

All that said, the film is not merely a collage of what-the-fuck moments and inspired craziness. There is also a sense of sadness, wonder and angst lurking moment to moment beneath the surface of Carax's reckless joy, and while I feel like analyzing the film in any objective sense is missing the point, I will say that Holy Motors made me reflect deeply on modern life, performance, technology, regret, death, love and cinema itself... occasionally all at the same time.

As with any film with such an episodic structure, some sequences are more memorable than others, but as a whole, the film is incredibly consistent, veering from physical humor to manic energy to melancholy with a sure, light touch. Also, Carax proves again that he's a modern master at shooting Paris, finding locations that make the city feel new again even after Woody Allen turned every corner into a postcard with last year's Midnight in Paris. It lacks the epic, baroque ambition of Pola X, and, while many beg to differ, I suspect that movie will still remain closer to my heart than any of Carax's work thus far. But hell, the man seems happier this time around, or at least more interested in sharing joy with the audience, and Holy Motors is the most audacious, go-for-broke return of a major director since Seijun Suzuki's Pistol Opera. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another thirteen years for his next feature.

IMAGINE 2012: A LETTER TO MOMO review

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:04:27 -0500

(It is not "Totoro-light", although I guess it can be called "Totoro-heavy"...)

Trying to see anime in the cinema can be quite hard in The Netherlands. The last decade we've seen the latest Miyazaki films released thanks to the international success of "Spirited Away", but for anything else you have to rely on the mercy of film festivals. Thankfully, there are at least two that at least TRY to have some anime in their programming: the Camera Japan Festival Rotterdam and the Imagine Festival in Amsterdam. The International Film Festival Rotterdam used to be an anime hotspot but for the past few years has completely stopped showing these.
Japanese distributors aren't really helping either and are generally reluctant to help arrange screenings outside of Japan.

So it was with great pleasure that I saw Hiroyuki Okiura's "A Letter to Momo" included in this year's Imagine Festival. This film is a domestic family drama with some supernatural embellishments, and does not feature the apocalyptic excess which people over here generally expect from anime.
Okiura's previous film was the excellent "Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade", released way back in 1999 so his next project has been long anticipated. Niels even included Okiura in his article on missing Japanese directors (link).

Was it worth the twelve-year wait? Read on!

Review: PISTOL OPERA (Personal Favorites #32)

Thu, 24 May 2012 05:43:46 -0500

If you're into weird and you haven't seen Pistol Opera yet, just skip this review and make sure you go into the film as blank as possible. Pistol Opera is without a doubt one of the strangest cinematic experiences of the past decade, a film that defies traditional film making rules and beats you to death with its odd exterior. And the greatest things of all: it is directed by one of the sweetest looking Japanese grandpas you can imagine.

Seijun Suzuki is unmistakably the maddest ojisan in cinema. Forget Miike, forget Tsukamoto, forget Lynch and Jodorowsky, none of them are able to out-freak this little Japanese madman. Suzuki is a director that loves to challenge conventions and tries to do so in as many ways as possible. Forget logic, hell, you can even forget about inner-film logic. Pistol Opera is a film that plays by scene and leaves you stranded whenever it feels like it. For some people this will prove to be an enormous challenge, for others it will be the main selling point of the film.

Pistol Opera is set in the same universe as Suzuki's 1967 film Branded To Kill. It's not really a straight-up sequel or remake but borrows a few concepts and retells the film from the bottom up. Stray Cat is third on the ranking list of The Guild, an organization of professional hit man. These killers can rise up through the ranks by accepting targets and killing them efficiently, but lately trouble is brewing among the killers themselves. Even though the list is unknown to its members, one by one they are disappearing from the list, leaving favorable spots that others are more than happy to fill in.

To bring back peace to the organization Stray Cat gets the order to kill the number 1 on the list, One Hundred Eyes. Nobody knows who he is though and so Stray Cat starts her own private investigation. While all of this sounds quite sane and deceptively easy to follow, the reality is actually quite different. The overarching story may be simple enough to keep track of, the weirdness comes from within the individual scenes and spreads through the film like a virus.

The titular opera is reflected in the visualization of Pistol Opera. Many of the film's settings are reminiscent of theater sets (some quite literally), brightened up by strong and vibrant colors. Suzuki sends his camera around these sets in rather complex arcs, often opposing the camera movement with previous scenes to create a disconcerting effect. Suzuki went to considerable lengths to make his film look awesome, sadly the visuals are burdened by a horrible looking 4:3 format. It's a complete mystery to me why Suzuki didn't just give his shots some room to breath, and even though he uses the 4:3 to good effect in a couple of scenes the overall effect feels like missed potential.

The soundtrack is enjoyably quirky and original. Suzuki just likes to play around with whatever means he has to upset his audience. The individual tracks are fun and funky, but it's the weird, often unfitting sound effects that leave a lasting impression. Image a loud, deafening siren starting to howl, followed by a shot of an old phone. First you'll be startled (it's a genuine scare), only to be fooled by something so silly. Small things like that appear all over, making for a very cool and challenging soundtrack.

The acting is solid too but extremely theatrical. Broad gestures and strong, stylized poses pop up everywhere, highlighting the strong opera influences. Makiko Esumi is superb as Stray Cat, putting up a commendable performance and claiming each scene she's in. Esumi finds a great adversary in Sayoko Yamaguchi though, who provides the proper counter-weight for Esumi's character. Then there is a cool cameo of Masatoshi Nagase, other notable appearances include Kirin Kiki and Yoshiyuki Morishita. The acting style won't be to everyone's liking (just like the rest of the film), but it definitely gives the film an extra edge.

If you would neglect the extreme styling and take the film at face value, I'm sure you'd end up with a list of film mistakes longer than the actual script. Characters move their poses and positions in between shots, they walk past each other without seeing one another, they disappear and reappear in unrelated sets. The action sequences are so stylized they don't even count as action sequences any more. There's weirdness all over the place and right when you think Suzuki's box of tricks has dried up he comes up with a new thing to put you in your place.

Pistol Opera is not the easiest of films. You have to accept that the story is a mere hook for some cinematic fun while Suzuki takes a little run with his audience. It's a unique and special experience though, one you won't find anywhere else. The mix of theatrical coolness and playfulness is truly refreshing. Afterwards, when you snap out of Pistol Opera's daze, make sure to Google a picture of Seijun Suzuki for maximum effect. I'm certain that if they ever needed a stock image of a sweet-looking grandpa feeding the ducks with his grand children, there wouldn't be a better choice that Suzuki.

DVD Review: Stephane Gauger's SAIGON ELECTRIC, B-Boys In Vietnam

Wed, 23 May 2012 20:50:04 -0500

If someone had approached me a year ago and said, "Hey Josh, we're going to throw a film at you that involves Vietnamese B-boys dancing to save a community center and you're going to love it!", I would probably have laughed in their face. Yet, here we are. Stephane Gauger's Saigon Electric is exactly the film I described above. A competitive hip hop dance crew marches its way through numerous local dance-offs and, ultimately, an official contest in order to earn the cash to save a community center from being demolished. It sounds hokey as hell, but Gauger's got a talent for imbuing even the most formulaic of ideas with real emotion and building a solid story that will have you cheering at your screen, even though you could've seen the end coming a mile away.

The last decade or so has seen a bizarre uptick in the number of competitive dance films on the market. I suppose the trend began with You Got Served, which was a surprise hit that launched a flood of imitators, most notably the Step-Up series, which has garnered its own cult following among film fans. While no one dances AT the camera in 3D in Saigon Electric, I still think it holds up pretty damned well against these major studio pictures with a miniscule fraction of the budget.

Truth be told, there's not a lot new in Saigon Electric when it comes to the plot, the real revelation in this case is the style and panache with which the film is put together. Gauger's last feature, The Owl & the Sparrow, was a quietly charming romance that came out of nowhere and won hearts at film festivals back in 2007/2008. With that film, Gauger showed an innate ability to capture emotion on camera with a bare minimum of dialogue, having taken great advantage of the hustle and bustle of Saigon in his story about budding love in the big city. In this case, he takes well worn tropes from several different genres of teen friendly films (the country bumpkin makes her way to the big city to be a star, the couple from opposite sides of the tracks, the aforementioned community center) and mashes them together into a film that is significantly more than the sum of its parts.

What truly sets this film apart from the bigger budget versions of this story is the pacing and attention paid to character building. The two lead characters, Mai (Van Trang) and Kim (Quynh Hoa), get lots of room to breathe and create their characters on screen. We see Mai's evolution from a wide-eyed hillbilly to a street savvy, but still optimistic dancing queen. We also see Kim's transition from the standoffish tomboy to romantic lead who overcomes her own fear of happiness to lose herself in love. Beyond that, there is plenty of characterization for the supporting characters as needed, but having strong central characters who compliment each other so well is a great strength of Saigon Electric.

However, the vast majority of the audience just wants to know how the dancing is. Well, it's pretty damned impressive to me! I'm no connoisseur, but I was very happy with what I got. Gauger's up close and personal style of shooting really did the dancing justice. He didn't shoot those scenes like action sequences, he shot them like art, and that makes all the difference. Gauger's camera gets up close and personal, turning the moves into poetic motion on screen. Perhaps not as hyperactive as some of the western stuff, but certainly more visually interesting. This really isn't the type of spectacle that something like Step Up or You Got Served is designed to be, it is more personal, even in it's cliched moments, and I admire that.

As I mentioned in my Asian Film Festival of Dallas preview from last year,

"I have no interest in B-Boys, but I am very interested in what Stephane Gauger does, and I think you should be, too."

Saigon Electric was better than I thought it would be, and proved that the right filmmaker can make any subject interesting to the open-minded viewer. Definitely worth checking out.

The Disc:

I'll admit a little bit of bias in this section. Saigon Electric is being self-released by the filmmakers, with a little push from the theatrical distributors, Wave Releasing. I'm a sucker for micro labels and DIY distribution, and that gives Saigon Electric a bit of a bump when it comes to cache with me.

The disc itself is very well put together. Saigon Electric looks great on DVD, the progressive image is bright and contrasty, and features about as much detail as one can expect from a DVD these days. Gauger's visual style is very well represented, and the sort of over-saturated, intense, vibrant look of the film on DVD matches well with what I recall having seen the film theatrically. The sound is a Dolby Digital stereo mix that represents the film well. As I mentioned above, the film isn't flashy aurally, but sounds really great here.

The filmmakers have loaded this disc with bonus material in a way that probably wouldn't have happened if it had been snapped up by a bigger label. We are treated to deleted scenes, a fifteen minute making of that includes interviews with all of the principal cast and crew, three music videos for songs featured in the film, and a very nice commentary track. The commentary features director Gauger, and producers Danny Do and Anderson Le, the three are very open and know what a commentary should sound like. There's no bullshit describing what's happening on screen, they have enough anecdotes to last the full feature, and give a very good feel for what it was like on the set of Saigon Electric.

Saigon Electric was officially launched on DVD last Saturday, and is officially available from their own website at a very reasonable price. I can definitely recommend this disc, it looks and sounds great, the film is great, and the money goes to the people who made it all happen, what more could you ask for?

Blu-ray Review: The Ghost In THE WOMAN IN BLACK is Kind of a Jerk

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:40:00 -0500

If only the isolated village where James Watkins' The Woman In Black is set simply took the time to put up warnings in front of the imposing manor where the titular vengeful spirit dwells, things might have worked out better for everyone involved. Nothing too complicated, a simple "Stay away, ghost within who causes misery, kills children" would have sufficed, non-believers be damned. Unfortunately, as written by Jane Goldman's (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass) script, they're a taciturn bunch straight out of a mid-60's Hammer picture, and they'd rather give a stranger in town like grieving solicitor Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) the stinkeye than give him a clear, reasoned warning about why he needs to stay the hell away from that house.

Nevertheless, to the house Kipps goes on a last-ditch effort to salvage his legal career some four or five years after the death of his wife during childbirth. Kipps loves his young son, but you can see that it pains him to look the boy in his face (although Goldman's script goes the unnecessary extra step of having Kipps say with a hint of heartbreak that the book shares his mother's features--a look would have been enough). Arthur is to examine the contents and papers of the musty, abandoned Drablow manor.

An interesting feature of this ramshackle, unloved house: a muddy road leads up to it, but the very same road is washed flooded at dusk with the tide. This will of course be important later, as well as the death of the son of the owners of the house who seemed only to happy to give the boy just the most ghastly windup toys that nightmares can conjure. It's not too long before Arthur sees the titular ghost and tragedy strikes and children start dying in grisly ways, and gradually, The Woman in Black becomes Arthur's race against the clock to solve the mystery of the veiled ghost.

Beyond all of the clanging, banging, shrieking, and generally ramped-up effects (including some dodgy-looking fog) in The Woman In Black, there's a pretty interesting horror movie about grief and faith, but those tensions are pretty much undercut by the the action of the film. Arthur destructively wants to believe there's something beyond our world, some connection between himself and his dead wife, and during a scene on the train heading out to the village, when it seems like he considers consulting a psychic along with later confrontation between Radcliffe's character and a grieving mother who believes her dead son talks to her set up this tension, but it's pretty much undercut early on when he see supernatural manifestations plague our hero.

This is essentially a thrill ride horror movie, so don't go looking for sustained dread or terror to follow you out of the theater. The titular spirit is a spring-loaded ghost who pops out at opportune times accompanied by a loud music sting or sound effect. The motivations for the ghost don't really go far beyond, "she is angry, crazy," meaning there's no real thematic link to the rest of the story as some of the best angry ghost stories seem to have.

The Woman In Black is slickly produced as far as that goes, but don't look for this malevolent spirit to haunt your dreams after you've seen this movie.

Audio and Video

This is the second review I've written recently complaining about how loud a movie is, but yeah, The Woman In Black is an assault on the ears, served well by the 5.1 audio. There's a deep rumble to some of the action which you'll feel in your gut, the click-clack of the wind-up toys which will surround you as you watch Radcliffe enter and get lost in the house of horror.

Visually, it's a rich, just lush experience of deep blacks and at some points warm, flickering match light. This is a very pretty movie.

Special Features

You've got a feature-length commentary by the movie's director and writer along with two making of featurettes.

The Woman in Black is available on DVD and Blu-ray now from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Review: THE FLOWERS OF WAR (Yimou Zhang)

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:37:12 -0500

Yimou Zhang is back with a new film and once again he means business. The Flowers Of War is China's most expensive film yet and it's one of the first major Chinese films to prominently feature an American Hollywood star as its main character. Mr Batman himself (Christian Bale) is disguising himself as fake-priest John Miller, who takes it upon himself to protect a church full of orphans and prostitutes from the Japanese soldiers.

After releasing Curse Of The Golden Flowers Zhang retreated back to China. Between directing the opening sequence of the Olympic Games and releasing two low-key projects (at least internationally speaking, Love Of The Hawthorn Tree and The First Gun - despite the latter being a rough remake of the Coen's Blood Simple. - received very little attention) Zhang was almost invisible to us Westerners. Six years later he returns with a film that strives to match his former glory.

The Flowers Of War travels back Nanking, 1937. Japanese soldiers are invading the city and the Chinese are running for their lives. Few people are spared during this gruesome invasion. American citizen John Miller abuses the situation to make some quick money as he tries to rob a church from its prized possessions. The church is some kind of safe house and holds a group of young orphans. Miller isn't really bothered by their presence though and continues his quest for valuables.

Not much later a group of prostitutes join the orphans in the hope the Japanese won't find them in the church. The tension inside the church quickly rises and when the Japanese finally raid the place Miller unexpectedly steps up to safe the children from the cruelties of war. What follows is a struggle to escape from the clutches of the Japanese without harming any of the people present in the church.

Zhang's work is known to be insanely colorful (think Hero), so the rather grim setting of a city at war may surprise fans at first. Zhang is meticulous in his visual direction though, so it's hardly noticeable during the first couple of scenes. Until the point where we enter the church that is. Apparently Zhang found himself a stained glass window which he continuously abuses in the most magnificent of ways to inject his film with bright and emotive colors. The results are stunning, be it the light falling through the window, the glass shattering by a bullet impact or a simple scene shot from up close through the window. He even found a second excuse in the beautiful dresses worn by the prostitutes, who also bring a lot of color to the film. The visual contrast between both aspects is simply brilliant.

The soundtrack is pretty interesting too. The first couple of scenes are heavily muted, which is quite unusual for a film of such epic proportions. No loud, sentimental music or ear-shattering sound effects, but the dull thuds of war in the background. Later on the score becomes more prominent, while still finding a surprisingly good balance between Western and traditional Chinese influences. The mix is almost refreshing and suits the film very well. The score still finds itself well within the boundaries of what could be expected, but the execution is gentle and admirable.

Bale does a pretty good job here. It's always a little tricky, casting a famous actor in the lead of an Asian film, especially when he's supposed to be some kind of savior. Bad memories of Cruise's Last Samurai still haunt my nightmares, luckily Bale's character is different. He isn't just the good guy saving those poor Chinese people from their horrible fate. He actually starts out as a bona fide asshole, slowly warming up to the people that share his barren fate inside the church. The Chinese actors are mostly first-timers but do a great job too, as they provide Bale with the necessary dramatic challenges to rise above himself.

My biggest worry before seeing this film was the inclusion of Bale. I'm not a big fan of Asian films trying to be a Western film as most of them end up as half-arsed attempts that fail on both accounts. The Flowers Of War presents an interesting mix though, where Bale's presence brings a more Westerns feel while the film itself still manages to step beyond the boundaries of traditional Hollywood film making. There are Western influences found in just about every aspect of the film (cinematography, acting, soundtrack, ...), but they are always blended in such a way that they come off as refreshing, not working against the Chinese foundation of the film.

One popular critique about this film is about the black and white depiction of the Japanese soldiers. There's hardly any nuance or subtlety and they are shown as wild and savage beasts, raping and killing whoever they get their hands on. While this critique is quite factual, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Of course it's a little tricky as the film is based on a true setting, on the other hand The Flowers Of War is a film that demands a proper bad guy. Subtlety wouldn't have helped the dramatic impact of the film, it would in fact have made it a totally different film altogether. So yeah, it may not be true to life, but that's why it's a dramatized film and not a documentary. I hope most audiences will be smart enough to look past that.

The Flowers Of War borders on sentimentality and poses as a very epic endeavor. It's Zhang's magnificent direction that erases any major critiques, turning the film into a proper epic spectacle. There are moments of unsurpassed beauty, tucked away in a strong story, propelled by a cast of fallible characters. Zhang cleverly steps around a few sentimental pitfalls and delivers a film that shines from start to finish. It's a return to form for Yimou Zhang, the only real downside is that the film failed to appear in theaters over here. A simple TV setup simply doesn't do justice to the beauty of this film.

Review: MIB3 3D - an Acronymical Acrimonious Anachronistic Amusement

Tue, 22 May 2012 23:13:32 -0500

MIB3 is this big budget comic-book movie summer's sequel that nobody in particular was clamoring for.

It's almost forgotten that the first Men In Black film theatrical gross nearly sextupled its original budget fifteen years ago. It reaped financial rewards for its studio, and presaged other big budget pulpy adaptations like Raimi's 2002 release of Spider Man (rebooted this summer as Columbia's real tentpeg release).

The first MIB saw makeup genius Rick Baker win an Oscar, and garner Barry Sonnenfeld, formerly the cinematographer for the likes of the Coen Brothers, hit first blockbuster. Any other year, this would have likely been the top of the box office pile for that year. Yet that 1997 season is most remembered for another Spielberg production, The Lost World, when that sequel to Jurassic park took an enormous bite out of the Summer audience haul. And then, by the end of the year, a certain ship-that-sank film saw a generation of obsessive twelve year-old girls rewrite cinema history (not for the last time).

Still, the success of MIB bred an inevitable sequel. Even the most generous critics must admit that 2002s MIB2 (or M][B, as per the poster) was a tired retread of the original film. If you dig into the production of the first film, you'll see that a relatively complicated element of the plot was removed entirely, mandating that some of Baker's practical effects were replaced by CGI effects. MIB2 continued this trend of unabashed simplification, with a slew of CGI critters trying in vain to replicate the charm of the first film. Notable as well as that the conclusion had to be revised, removing a sequence involving the NYC World Trade Center buildings that no longer existed by the time of the film's release.

The last decade has not been kind to Sonnenfeld's output. Other than a slew of TV projects, his only real film that he served as director was the Robin Williams disastrously unfunny film RV. Will Smith too has been pretty hit and miss, the once box-office Golden Child no longer drumming up the kind of excitement that the films from his heydays in the 90s did. Tommy Lee Jones has turned to a slew of character roles of late, many of them sublime. On the set of the Coen's superlative No Country for Old Men, Lee Jones was set to chase Josh Brolin's character. Clearly Tommy's southern drawl was ripe for parody, and Brolin learned to do a mighty fine take on his costar's mannerisms.

Which brings us to the latest installment of the film that nobody really was waiting for. MIB3's biggest effect, really, is Brolin doing Lee Jones, established firmly in the trailers that the conceit this time involves time travel. The plot is convoluted enough that it becomes kind of meaningless after a while - suffice it to say, the film allows Smith to be a fish out of water in another time, soon after he struggles with a giant CGI fish literally out of water that wants to bite his head off. Metaphors, you see, come pretty blatant in a film like this.

Having not seen the other films in some time, there was a certain warm nostalgia to be back in the headquarters that I frankly wasn't expecting to feel. Production design has always been an exceptional component of these films, and this threequel is no exception. The designers particularly go to town when we're dropped into the late sixties. There always was a retro cheesiness to the industrial design shown in the films, but the time shift allows Baker and his team on the character side to delve even deeper into the quirks of that decade's aesthetic. Think Mad Men, but with aliens and spacemen walking around with fishbowl helmets.

Will Smith's charms seem even more dated than some of the sets, but occasionally there are flashes of what made him so charismatic the first time 'round. Unfortunately, most of the jokes fall with a thud, many being little more than groan worthy.

There are, however, some highlights: Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement is a heap of fun, entirely unrecognizable buried within the fantastic makeup Baker constructed. His "Boris the Animal", in all its iterations, is a nice mix of creepy-as-hell and comic-book silly. Emma Thompson takes over for Rip Torn, and does an adequate job as the new boss. Alice Eve plays the same character in the other timeline, the chemistry between her and Brolin more than adequate. Even former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (and partner of Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton) makes a brief appearance, using her talents to full effect in 3D.

Bill Hader makes an appearance as Andy Warhol, showing once again on screen his dexterous use of character voices. David Rasche, another of the Coen slate of players, makes a brief and amusing appearance, but it's A Serious Man's (and Boardwalk Empire's) Michael Stuhlbarg that really shines when he's on screen. Another actor may have made his turn obnoxious, but there's such a warmth and sweetness from his performance that it's hard to find fault. Stulhbarg is joining an elite list of character actors that make whatever they're in significantly better simply because of their inclusion.

Visually, the film is a treat. Character design is of course excellent, and Sonnenfeld's eye (along with the maven of genre cinematography Bill Pope) makes for a particularly excellent 3D presentation. Carefully composed shots and brisk action sequences allow for moments of glossy Hollywood style, and even when the in-your-face, gratuitous 3D shots take place they're well earned. Some elements, like the "Grievous bike" chase, are pretty silly, but they're quickly replaced by more banter and fine character performances. The ending sequences at Canaveral are dizzyingly spectacular on screen, all without resorting to barfy shakycam or scattershot editing.

Sonnenfeld and his crew can't help but throw in a heap of Kubrickian allusions. From the opening credits in Pablo Fero-style scrawl, nods to Dr. Strangelove abound. The most esoteric is perhaps the CRM-114 scrawled at the entrance to an underground tunnel. I'm not sure what's worse, them putting in the Easter Eggs, or me spotting them on first viewing.

The misfires at the first two thirds of the film all kind of coalesce into a decent finale. I'm sure if you think about it too much there will be a slew of plot holes, temporal irregularities and other annoyances. Maybe it's the tribute of going in with zero expectations, but it all kinda makes sense, at least superficially. Nobody's going to claim that this is the most compelling use of the tired trope of time travel, but they at least have fun with the idea, and it allows the Brolin/Lee Jones duo to work their magic.

Whatever your thoughts of the closing "twist", the last act does a pretty decent job of bookending the series. The film is a superior sequel (not so hard, given the quality of the second film), and a nice wrap-up of the series as a whole. It's a satisfying enough conclusion that any further films in the series really would be overstaying their welcome.

For some reason, with this release I had so little invested in its return, I couldn't care less about all the stories regarding cost overruns, starting without a script, meddling by the leads, and so on. In the end, I had more fun revisiting this world than I had any right to expect.

MIB3 is dumb, flashy fun, and if you simply ignore its obvious shortcomings you may in fact find that being back in the saddle with the boys in black remains an enjoyable, frivolous ride.

NYIFF 2012 Review: GATTU Flies High On Hope And Charm

Tue, 22 May 2012 22:05:11 -0500

We don't get many feel good films about impoverished orphans these days. The time when Little Orphan Annie could perk us up have gone, and we're more often left with sad bastard films that wrench tears from our bodies mercilessly, rather than the optimism that would probably be more cathartic. Thankfully, Rajan Khosa and the Children's Films Society of India have filled the void with a Gattu, a film brimming with optimism, yet without fear of reality.

Gattu is an orphaned boy around nine years old. He lives with his uncle Anees, for whom he toils tirelessly in a junkyard. Anees is kind of a jerk, and Gattu's life, my all rights, should be quite miserable. However, there is one thing that brightens his spirits, even in the toughest of times, kites. Gattu's kite flying brings him the joy that every child deserves, and yet so few manage in this world of street urchins scraping by and begging for something to eat. When he strikes up a rivalry with a particularly adept flyer, nicknamed Kali, it sends him on a journey to defeat her that ends with unexpected consequences.

Charming doesn't begin to describe Gattu, a film that wears its origins and identity on its sleeve. Director Khosa makes no attempt to romanticize the lives or ambitions of his characters, most of whom are less than model citizens in a society that ignores them at best and persecutes them at worst. Gattu, himself, has already lost his innocence and must deal with the adult world on a daily basis, but he hasn't yet lost his heart, and that's where the film shines. Far from being broken, Gattu nurses his dream of defeating Kali through thick and thin, no matter how many times he is cut down from the sky, he finds a way back up into the air. He never gives up.

One day, after he's lost another bout, some of the other kite enthusiasts mention that the highest terrace in town is at the private school, and is probably the best place to take on Kali in an even match. In an effort to become the greatest kite-flyer in his village, Gattu sneaks into the school, posing as a student, as a step toward his ultimate victory over the elusive Kali. What he gets in the school, though, it much more than victory over his enemy, and therein lays the film's strength. This is where the hope inherent in every child begins to bloom in this street urchin, for whom every day is a struggle, who nevertheless refuses to become a victim of his circumstance.

Gattu is the rare film that hits just the right notes to appeal to both young and adult audiences. The film never shies away from its reality, but at the same time, it doesn't wallow in the poverty and isolation in which Gattu and his fellow orphans live. The film is real, and while it may seem foreign to even the poorest of Americans, it never feels exploitative or as though it is mining the depths of poverty porn. Gattu is the cinematic equivalent of a hug, and deserves to live among the pantheon of feel-good films from any nation.

Gattu screens at the New York Indian Film Festival on Saturday, May 26th at noon, tickets are available at the NYIFF website linked below.

Blu-ray Review: AGNEEPATH Is Worth Your Money

Tue, 22 May 2012 21:15:23 -0500

My favorite new film of 2012 has finally secured a Blu-ray release. Agneepath blew me away when I first saw it on opening night, and a week later when I took my wife along, I was even more impressed. Indian distribution being the convoluted, unruly, and downright unreliable beast that it is, the film's home video status has been up in the air for a while. However, last week a Blu-ray release was finally made available, about a month after the DVD release. These discs are typically not available at Amazon or the other big vendors, so I wanted to give you guys the chance to pick it up through the channels that I use most frequently, and with whom I place my trust. So, here is my original review of the film, along with some brief comments about the disc and a link to a reliable vendor I use pretty frequently.

My hopes were extremely high heading into tonight's opening of Karan Malhotra's debut feature, Agneepath. After seeing the first teaser for the film last fall, it immediately shot to the very top of my Bollywood-blockbusters-to-see list. The challenge with films, and doubly so with Indian mainstream cinema, is taking that three minutes of concentrated excitement and spreading it out over the length of a feature, in this case, a seemingly unwieldy three hours. Was Malhotra and his cast able to translate that initial excitement into a full-length film worthy of my anticipation? In my own case, the answer is a resounding yes. The bar for Bollywood revenge thrillers has been set high in 2012, and Agneepath is lighting the way.

Agneepath is a remake of a 1990 feature that starred Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay Dinanth Chauhan, a man on a mission. In this film, much of the fundamental setting and several characters remain, but the story has been completely reworked. This new version jettisons some of the most popular pieces of the original, including a much beloved turn from Mithun Chakraborty as a sidekick with a romantic subplot. However, in the place of the missing pieces, Karan Malhotra and his team have dropped in even more melodrama, two truly evil villains, and an small army of hijra (transgendered women), in addition to some truly stunning set pieces. If nothing else, this film shows just how far Bollywood has come in terms of production value (and costumes) in the last twenty years.

This time around, Vijay Chauhan is played by Hrithik Roshan, one of Bollywood's greatest movie stars who can put in a good performance when given the right material. Chauhan comes from the small rural island of Mandwa, which is taken over by Kancha Cheena, a crime lord who uses his captive population to churn out cocaine and who is responsible for the death of Master Dinanth Chauhan, Vijay's father, local school headmaster, and all around saint. Vijay and his mother leave the island following the murder and head for Mumbai, where Vijay begins plotting Kancha's downfall.

Recounting the plot of this behemoth film could take up a thousand words, easily, so I'm not going to do that. The film is riveting for all but probably fifteen minutes of its run time, and even that is spread out into a few here and there. The vast bulk of Agneepath is dedicated to exploring not only the characters, but the world in which they live, as well as creating settings wherein the most magnificent of set pieces could exist. This film is a throwback to old school Hindi masala, but in a way that feels more modern, with far less hyperbolic acting, and more scope.

Hrithik plays Vijay with an intensity we don't often find in Bollywood stars, who often resort to overacting when given material designed to evoke an emotional response. Roshan's piercing green eyes convey a pain, a desire, and an adamant focus that says more than words. The film really rests on his performance, even though there are several other big names putting in solid performances, if Hrithik isn't believable, the whole thing falls apart. After seeing his performance in 2008's Jodhaa Akbar, I knew he could act, but this film really drives it home for me. He is, all at once, an imposing and comforting presence on screen. When he cries, we believe it. When he rages, we believe it. The very end of the film plays the masala card, and we end up with something of a heroic bloodshed denouement, but apart from that, Vijay is a character with an intense passion and purpose for being, and I loved it.

However good he was, Hrithik's performance didn't occur in a vacuum, and his supporting cast really stepped up to the plate and delivered. Priyanka Chopra, as his love interest, Kaali, did a wonderful job oscillating between a vain and entrepreneurial salon owner and Vijay's closest confidant. It is worth noting that she is also one of my favorite Bollywood dancers these days, especially since we've now got to bid farewell to Aishwariya Rai for a while. Vijay's hero would be nothing without some serious villainy to contest, and Rishi Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt make a great pair of truly evil bastards. Whether it is the selling off of the daughters of the local debtors to the highest bidder from Rishi's Rauf Lala, or Dutt's Kancha enslaving an entire island to feed his drug smuggling dreams, these guys are a couple of gems.

Agneepath is the rare film that delivers on its promise, which was great to begin with. The scope and spectacle of the film is occasionally awe-inspiring, and never once is it boring. Whether it is setting an assassination attempt within the religious frenzy of Ganesh Chathurti, or an army of transgendered women with machetes attacking a slave sale, they aim high, which is what I like best about Bollywood. If they are going to fail, they are going to do it spectacularly, but Agneepath most certainly does not fail. It aims high and hits its mark.

This is a film that the uninitiated Bolly-curious film fan can watch and get into. Agneepath is overwrought and melodramatic, it features several musical numbers choreographed within an inch of their lives, and lead characters who are exponentially more attractive than anyone in their immediate vicinity, but that's what makes it great. Agneepath's success is in Karan Malhotra's conscious decision to embrace the thing that makes Bollywood masala so appealing, the spectacle. It feels as though director Karan Malhotra finally got his hands on the reins for once and aimed for the stars. Well, congratulations, Karan, Agneepath is fantastic.

The Disc:

Eros Entertainment's Blu-ray release of Agneepath is pretty damned good. The image quality is remarkably solid, and the bright hues and depth that was so apparent on the big screen is well established in this home video edition. Even more impressive, in my eyes, is the DTS-HD MA audio track, which takes the massively melodramatic score to new heights and will punish your speakers in the best way possible. The song sequences sound magnificent, and look great. My only minor gripe with the image quality is the fact that the songs are intermittently marred by an Eros watermark. This is a common, though thoroughly unpopular, tact with Indian home video, where piracy is a major issue. Apart from that I have no qualms about recommending this disc.

Unfortunately, in what has become standard operating procedure for Indian Blu-ray releases, there are no special features at all provided on this disc. The DVD edition, on the other hand, includes a making of featurette, a deleted song, O Saiyyan, and the making of two songs from the film as well as deleted scenes from the film. Being the glutton I am, I will probably pick up the DVD just to make my collection complete, but this Blu-ray is so good that I may wait a little bit.

This film is fucking fantastic, and deserves more attention in the mainstream than it's gotten. Genre film fans, get behind this film!

The vendor below, Movie Time Video, is very reliable and I use them frequently. Their prices are fair and shipping costs (within the US, at least) are extremely reasonable. I definitely recommend them.

Blu-ray Review: CHINATOWN

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:40:56 -0500

"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown"

They knew they had the line down when they shot it. It's given to a secondary character, but the look on Jack/Jake's face is what sells it visually. It's a kind of mantra, when you rewatch the film it's the line that runs through your mind the entire time. Every time the characters talk of this place where nothing makes sense, where all the rules are turned upside down, where the most obscene behaviours are clouded behind a culture of obfuscation, you think of that line. Forget it, you won't understand it, you're best to just pretend that this stuff just doesn't go down, not on your watch.

It's the closing line of the film, and despite this fact it features prominently in the trailer, something sure to annoy those that feel that contemporary trailers are somehow more explicit in what they give away in terms of story. From script to screen, it was a summary of the film's metaphorical conceit, a warning, an ironic statement about something quite unforgettable.

You can't forget it. It's Chinatown.

This is the film that made Jack a star. Sure, in Easy Rider, he became celebrate, an "overnight success" after more than a decade of anonymous toil. But with Chinatown, we get the Nicholson that became simply Jack. Robert Towne was roomies with Jack, he wrote in to the very DNA of the script Jacks sardonic nature, his anger, is humour, his fears. This is one of the tightest scripts ever produced, one film students rip apart just to see how beautifully it all fits together. And this is a script that was written for Jack to be Jack.

Producer Robert Evans was at the height of his powers, able to both run his own studio and make a film a year of his choosing. Hiring Polanksi and convincing him to return to Hollywood was supposedly Jack's idea. Roman had left the US after the murder of his wife and unborn child at the hands of the Manson cult. He was to leave not long afterwards, caught up in a scandal involving photographs he took of a legally underage girl. Polanski's future was in Europe, his personal favourite film remains The Pianist based in part of the horrors he witnessed in Europe. Yet the film that most establishes his craft is Chinatown, the culmination of his previous productions, a film equaled but never surpassed.

Certainly, Roman never did a film that felt so perfectly American again, and given the reasons
for his continued exclusion from the US, it's unlikely that the still prolific filmmaker ever will (Carnage, his latest underappreciated film, comes close).

Robert Towne had written scripts before Chinatown, and he'd write afterwards. They'd never be anywhere as good, they'd never approach the breezy style and slick dialogue without it feeling force or affected.

My least enjoyable part of the film is Faye Dunaway's performance, but I think that might because it's extremely effective. Dunaway plays Evelyn with a kind of manic coldness, a discomforting feeling exudes throughout. Even moments of intimacy seem calculated and offputting. Character wise, she's exactly what was called for, a bubbling mix of hysteria and squint-eyed dismissiveness. The girl can rock a hat with the best of them. She had of course already been in one classic where she carved out an iconic, beret wearing profile while playing the grinning and diabolical Bonnie. In Chinatown, with a starker costume design, her feline features with those astonishing cheekbones make her at times seem downright alien. When she bangs her head on the steering wheel in frustration, or gets slapped into confession, it seems a bit contrived to a contemporary audience, yet this is exactly what the story needs, Evelyn providing a foil to to Jake's broken assuredness.

Frankly, without Faye's commitment and her broad swings in mood and temperament, the film would have fallen apart. It may be argued that this is the last great thing she'd ever do (Network is of course wonderful, and an argument may be made for that performance. There's no comparison however to the heights that Jack was about to achieve, and in some ways this was a precursor to her steady downfall into mediocre roles.

This is a film about flow and change, and it's also how the rape of the land can be a metaphor for the ravaging of a family. Goldsmith's score, composed in a paltry six weeks, is one of the best ever composed for film. The cinematography, a mix of gorgeously composed shots and visceral widescreen handheld moments, belay the Noir aspects of the story and craft a golden look at a lost Los Angeles. From the design of Jack's suit to the perfect selection of the location shoots, right through to that remarkable shot where the camera slices the frame and the crane gently lifts to bring the house back into focus, this is the stuff that will continue to feed filmmakers and students of cinema for generations.

The Disc

I've owned Chinatown in a number of formats, from Laserdisc to a few DVD releases, and it will come as no surprise that the disc surpasses any previous home iteration by a mile. First time viewers may take for granted just how incredible this presentation is for a film of this age. Comparing it even theatrical presentations, this is a transfer that beautifully represents that period of filmmaking, from the colour palates of the design to the textures of the costumes.

Fine details down to the weave of Jake's suit are presented, and the film doesn't suffer from being scrubbed of grain. Occasional blemishes and softness occur, almost certainly tied to the original production of the film. Rather than distract, these moments even more effectively capture the original presentation. Frankly, save for some first run prints at showcase cinemas, it's unlikely this film has ever looked better.

The sound too is top notch - there's a spruced up 5.1 Lossless track, and (a must for classic films like this!) a Lossless Mono track of the original soundtrack as well. Kudos to the team at Paramount for giving the viewer a choice between these options. The surround mix is pretty tame by contemporary standards, but opens up the film nicely, particularly with the "ooomph" of gunshots or the stereophonic sweep of the orchestral score.

Supplemental Materials

Audio Commentary
While Polanski's contemporary views would have made for a wonderful addition, this is a pretty stellar track as it is. Robert Towne is joined by uber Chinatown geek David Fincher. David's enthusiasm for the film is quite contagious, his near obsession with the film a nice foil to the laconic remembrances by Towne. Fincher speaks of searching out various LA locations, even staging scenes from Fight Club at the exact spot where Polanski chose to shoot a given scene.

The track really shines when Towne throws water on a given theoretical point that Fincher raises, or when David illustrates a thrown shadow by equipment that's trumped by the effectiveness of the performance. One of the better commentaries ever assembled, this is frankly worth the cost of the disc in and of itself.

Water & Power
This Standard Definition, three part feature length documentary is a strange, yet welcome addition to the set. We follow Towne as he heads up to the Owens valley, tracing the actual water route that feeds the taps of Los Angeles to this day.

The actual history of LA's water rights was greatly modified in the film, but the tale is almost as fascinating and cruel as the fictional one of Chinatown. It's slightly overlong, but its scope is impressive, from environmental activists to the city commisioners, through to Aboriginal representatives and long-standing residents of the Valley that stood up to the metropolis to the South. It's a more strident documentary than most fluff pieces included on disc, but it manages to provide in pretty strong detail the ongoing ramifications of LAs battles over water.

Chinatown: An Appreciation
Another SD holdover from the previous DVD set, we get a slew of filmmakers (Steven Soderbergh, Roger Deakins, Kimberly Pierce, James Newton Howard) talking about their love of the film. Fluffy stuff, especially compared to the commentary, but nice to hear from a diverse group of people about the work.

Chinatown: The Beginning and the End
Chinatown: Filming
Chinatown: The Legacy

Another three-part documentary, these are inteviews with the key personnel done for the original Laserdisc release. It's here that we get to hear from the central participants - Polanski, Nicholson, Towne, and Evans all tell tales of the production, from initial conception through to scoring the film after Roman had to depart to direct an Opera in Europe.

Jack is always a pleasure to hear from, and Evans is his usual gregarious, bigger-than-life self. Roman's involvement is obviously the most welcome given the paucity of his other involvement with the disc, and its generous and open with his assessment of the work and the quality of his contributors.

The disc also includes the Theatrical Trailer in HD, which as I've already stated includes that dastardly closing line.

In Closing

The greatest irony about Chinatown is that it's a metaphor for a place one never wants to return to, yet the film is so richly deserving of rewatching. On a disc of this caliber, you'll want to visit the steamy, seamy streets over and over again. Compelling from both a story and a production standpoint, Chinatown remains one of the greatest films ever made, a touchstone of early 70s cinema and a foundational part of the history of film, and embodies the type of release that's mandatory for any serious film library.