Fight Club. Hero. Open Water. The Fearless Vampire Hunters. Napolean Dynamite.
Fight Club
Incidentally, a strange movie to watch post 9/11
Not the subversion of 1984, not its opposite, but it’s inversion, fascism turned backwards, not to bring about a perfect order, but to create chaos; a man split between two imperfect selves, one primal, one too placate; the near girl and near boy, a portrait of dis-balance; a film obsessed with the vasectomy and lobotomy, the cures for that which ails, those necessary half suicides; I’ve been reading Palanuik lately, and the film works better if you know him, the consistency of his work. An ugly poem to mischief; an out of tune ballad to the primal; a sort of hopeless scream, a nihilistic vision in which there is no hero, in which one spins between two evils and the most comfortable of them is only so because you know it better, whichever one you know. It’s anti-social and it’s anti-anti-social; there is no better kind of revolution, no good kind.
Hero. It’s all set pieces, falling water; furrowing drapery; swirling leaves; storming arrows. The surface of the sand, the lake, the sky; the dusted trees. Magic realism or straight across super naturalism, the characters fly like witches, move like Marvels. Substorylines contrived to almost justify the attention paid to choreography; it’s a dance video, a series of images, like many of those martial arts movies where the characters fight in ways that look cool rather than in ways that suggest they want to win the fight; it’s lovely, and like a lovely thing looked at a long time, it can bore. Long lines of army, soldiers with the swords, their shields, their bows, their arrows, their banners; mounted soldiers and soldiers sitting and soldiers standing and soldiers clapping; toy soldiers, to excite the little boy in you. There is something of Kurosawa here, but corrupted, Taritinoed, a piece that does precisely what it wants to which is to be admired; it’s failure to allow me to suspend my disbelief not a complete failure, just enough on the surface to keep my eye, my ear, the frame story quite simple, and me, simple as well, wanting to know: will he kill the emperor?
Open Water, much hyped, rightfully more attention paid to the making of the film than the film, more attention paid to budget and sharwrangeling than plot and character; an off guard ending; seven tense minutes; a film that thinks it’s about the dynamics between the stranded couple, but an ineffective rendition, a un-insightful exploration of what goes on between Man and Woman; Daniel Travis completely lacking scene charisma; badly written dialogue in a James Woods impression; Blanchard Ryan, hot in her way, equally underwritten, sinking beneath the water, willing her death—nice.
The Fearless Vampire Hunters, a film that makes me nostalgic for a poor period in which the tv was on a box covered by a sheet at the foot of the bed, and a woman and I were inventing our relationship while the film unreeled; a relentlessly cold film, all blue and ice crystal; Sharon Tate a great beauty here and only here; scenes like prophecy where she lies in the sembelance of death on the floor; the way MacBeth plays as a working out of those gory memories; this film, Fearless, beautiful in its frigidty, in its relentless slapstick; an over the top yet somehow subdued, surreal romp, unlike any vampire film; unlike, in fact, any film, quite distinct, quite of itself, a singular experience.
Napolean Dynamite, a vision of Butthead, five years older, without his sidekick, a bit more sensitive and a bit more smart; that perfect combination of teenage indignation and wound; plotted around the memories of a mid twenty year old; around the exaggerated stories that make up the youth of one; played out perfectly; a film completely dependant not on script or camera angle but performance, one absolutely fitting, enthralling, even, hypnotic.
Incidentally, a strange movie to watch post 9/11
Not the subversion of 1984, not its opposite, but it’s inversion, fascism turned backwards, not to bring about a perfect order, but to create chaos; a man split between two imperfect selves, one primal, one too placate; the near girl and near boy, a portrait of dis-balance; a film obsessed with the vasectomy and lobotomy, the cures for that which ails, those necessary half suicides; I’ve been reading Palanuik lately, and the film works better if you know him, the consistency of his work. An ugly poem to mischief; an out of tune ballad to the primal; a sort of hopeless scream, a nihilistic vision in which there is no hero, in which one spins between two evils and the most comfortable of them is only so because you know it better, whichever one you know. It’s anti-social and it’s anti-anti-social; there is no better kind of revolution, no good kind.
Hero. It’s all set pieces, falling water; furrowing drapery; swirling leaves; storming arrows. The surface of the sand, the lake, the sky; the dusted trees. Magic realism or straight across super naturalism, the characters fly like witches, move like Marvels. Substorylines contrived to almost justify the attention paid to choreography; it’s a dance video, a series of images, like many of those martial arts movies where the characters fight in ways that look cool rather than in ways that suggest they want to win the fight; it’s lovely, and like a lovely thing looked at a long time, it can bore. Long lines of army, soldiers with the swords, their shields, their bows, their arrows, their banners; mounted soldiers and soldiers sitting and soldiers standing and soldiers clapping; toy soldiers, to excite the little boy in you. There is something of Kurosawa here, but corrupted, Taritinoed, a piece that does precisely what it wants to which is to be admired; it’s failure to allow me to suspend my disbelief not a complete failure, just enough on the surface to keep my eye, my ear, the frame story quite simple, and me, simple as well, wanting to know: will he kill the emperor?
Open Water, much hyped, rightfully more attention paid to the making of the film than the film, more attention paid to budget and sharwrangeling than plot and character; an off guard ending; seven tense minutes; a film that thinks it’s about the dynamics between the stranded couple, but an ineffective rendition, a un-insightful exploration of what goes on between Man and Woman; Daniel Travis completely lacking scene charisma; badly written dialogue in a James Woods impression; Blanchard Ryan, hot in her way, equally underwritten, sinking beneath the water, willing her death—nice.
The Fearless Vampire Hunters, a film that makes me nostalgic for a poor period in which the tv was on a box covered by a sheet at the foot of the bed, and a woman and I were inventing our relationship while the film unreeled; a relentlessly cold film, all blue and ice crystal; Sharon Tate a great beauty here and only here; scenes like prophecy where she lies in the sembelance of death on the floor; the way MacBeth plays as a working out of those gory memories; this film, Fearless, beautiful in its frigidty, in its relentless slapstick; an over the top yet somehow subdued, surreal romp, unlike any vampire film; unlike, in fact, any film, quite distinct, quite of itself, a singular experience.
Napolean Dynamite, a vision of Butthead, five years older, without his sidekick, a bit more sensitive and a bit more smart; that perfect combination of teenage indignation and wound; plotted around the memories of a mid twenty year old; around the exaggerated stories that make up the youth of one; played out perfectly; a film completely dependant not on script or camera angle but performance, one absolutely fitting, enthralling, even, hypnotic.
posted by jericmiller at 9:18 AM
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