New Forest Film Festival: The Brothers Bloom Review = The Critic's Cut
[Author's Note: I submitted a shorter version of this Review to the New Forest Film Festival's New Forest Film Critic of the Year 2011 Competition. It was short listed in the Senior Category (over eighteen), and then was runner up. At the awards presentation Mark Kermode described it as "really, worryingly good".
To meet the 500 word limit for the competition, I chopped about 40% out of my first draft, and it was a valuable lesson in self sub editing. The version below only restores bits that I really regretted taking out, particularly the penultimate section discussing the faux literary trend. ]
I. Prologue
Rian Johnson's new movie The Brothers Bloom seems to be answering several obtuse questions:
1. If Wes Anderson did not exist, would it be necessary to invent him?
2. Why did they stop making those new-wave inflected, insouciant caper comedies from the 1960's?
3. Is Mark Ruffalo a great actor, but with zero charisma?
4. When will Rachel Weisz requite my love for her?
5. Can you like something with vague literary pretentions, without being literally vaguely pretentious?
II. The Tale
The Brothers Bloom are conmen - their cons so exquisite that they do not merely dupe the rubes, but provide their victim with a deeply thematic cathartic experience. Con as performance art. Younger brother, Bloom (Adrien Brody) feels trapped by brother Stephen's (Mark Ruffalo) machinations, but is convinced to do one last job, tricking a wealthy recluse Penelope (Rachel Weisz).
III. The Acting
Rachel Weisz starts stilted, sporting a withdrawn, self-conscious demeanor (was she playing Gwyneth Paltrow playing a Royal Tennenbaum?). When her character comes out of her shell, joyful exuberance develops. From then on Rachel can do no wrong. You just want to make her happy, smile that smile with her oh-so-bright eyes. She even made me forget about that other conmen movie she was in. Sigh.
I once thought Mark Ruffalo was stuck in that charisma vacuum which is the epitome of Matthew McConaughey. A stand out in Fincher's Zodiac, I've warmed to him; here he does a great job as the flamboyant svengali. Adrien Brody, stuck with the Pinocchio dilemma, yearning to be real, wisely plays the turmoil under his passivity overshadowed by his brother. Rincho Kikuchi appears as a delightfully Harpo-esque explosives expert. Robbie Coltrane and Maximilian Schell are by turns eccentric and sinister Europeans.
IV. The Direction
I was impressed with Rian Johnson's debut, the high-school noir, Brick. A film which managed to make Lukas Haas seem menacing. It evoked noir through twisty plot, sleazy characters and snappy dialogue, but steered clear of pastiche.
This is a bigger challenge: A rococo concoction. juggling styles - John Irving prologue, romantic heist flicks, Mamet gamesmanship and Fellini exotica along with a breezy patina of misdirection. I found myself charmed and wowed by a series of sight gags, visual ticks, and bits of business, that liberally pepper the opening sequences. Luckily, the style calms down, leaving room for ruminations on storytelling, reflecting the conmen's ambition "to tell a story so well it becomes real".
V. A Literary Problem
In the last decade there have been a slew of films like this, that to varying degrees of implementation, success and self consciousness, use distinctly literary devices. Whether it's the chapter headings, and omniscient voice over of a Royal Tennenbaum, the annoying self pitying introspection of a Noah Baumbach or the if JD Salinger won't allow Catcher to be filmed, then someone was bound to do an Igby, not to mention those John Irving adaptations and rip offs....
Are these affectations necessary?
It’s not whether films should borrow devices from other artforms, some are just inherent to all forms of storytelling. The supposed problem with these self conscious devices is that
they point out the artifice of film, alienating the viewer
and detracting from the suspension of disbelief. This couldn't be
further from the truth. True storytelling does not rely on realism,
but engagement with the listener. No neolithic people looked at a cave
painting and thought "there's no way only five hunters could take down
that mastodon"; Homer's audience didn't dismiss one
eyed giants, sirens or gods; and Dickens plausibility is not obliterated by his
cringeworthy reliance on coincidence.
Storytelling contains a contract with its audience: in exchange for your attention and the willing
suspension of disbelief, a tale will be spun that actively entertains
you through its combination of plot and character and engaging detail.
Foreshadowing, those inbuilt intentional spoilers exist to reward the
listener by paying off details related earlier and the attention paid to
them. Titles and headings create expectations that leave suspense in how they may be met. Narrators of many ilks and styles act as mediators between the story and the told.
Perhaps the recent trend is the result of a generation of film makers which spent their formative years when rabid academia subjected all elements of our culture to deconstructive criticism. If their uber-Styles threaten to eclipse substance, it is only a result of weak storytelling as the melody does not suit the lyric (or when the metaphor changes genres mid thought). When these showy affectations aren't useful to their stories, your enjoyment may be dependent on whether your taste forgives the literary flavour of these films.
The Brothers Bloom's style is in keeping with
the elevated storytelling and artifice of the confidence tricksters.
VI. The Verdict
In the wake of other literary affected films, The Brothers Bloom might be secondary post-modern, but for me it pulls off its heady mixture of stylized reality, genuine fakery and smoky mirrors. Sure, it does seem to end a few extra times, but always to payoff earlier foreshadowing in a satisfying manner. If you find this contrived, like the chapter headings in this review, you may want to avoid, but even those who are irked by Wes Anderson will like The Brothers Bloom.
OK, sure, it's a con, but for all that, some of us enjoy being taken in.
[Author's Note: I suspected that the deleted section may have been a separate essay, but in marshalling a somewhat sloppy pile of ideas from the first draft for inclusion here, I think it merits it's present form.
I balked at making a final paean to Rachel Weisz, I'll just patiently wait for her to tire of Daniel Craig.
New Forest Film Festival: The Ghost That Never Returns
I'm in the middle of a busy week:
Postered Lymington and Lyndhurst for the lower profile screenings of the New Forest Film Festival's Love Bites shorts, and Project Nim.
Had the sadly last minute brainwave that perhaps the ecologists of the Forestry Commission, Hants and IOW Wildlife Trust and the New Forest National Park might be interested in something like Project Nim, so dashed around some of their New Forest sites waving flyers and talking up the show.
furtively fit in a search for a book in shops in Brockenhurst and Southampton
Saw The Ghost That Never Returns a silent soviet film with live musical accompaniment and projection powered by a bank of bicycles
Went to the Festival participant wrap drink at the Rose & Crown in Brockenhurst
participated in a workshop to support the establishment of a New Forest Nature Improvement Area
rebuilt a PC
installed a Netbook for the first time
shopped and packed for the trip, not sleeping for 32+ hours before travel, and perhaps having less than 16 hours shut eye in total all week.
Attempted to watch Terry Gilliam’s Tideland for the first time on no sleep
... whilst formatting a 2 terabyte hard drive
In the middle of all this, my impending trip to the states the rare chance to reconnect with my nearest and dearest though usually most distant, the need to bear gifts prompted a particularly problematic mission.
Chuck is the kind of friend who’d give you the shirt off his back even if you’re likely to wipe your ass with it. He is so generous to a fault that it hurts. At least once, when we’ve both been on our uppers we’ve battled over ownership of the bill, each insisting on paying. It’s an upmanship of niceness.
Because Chuck is even more of cinema obsessive than I am, he indulges my inner film geek like no other friend I’ve ever had. I’m not sure what he gets out of the equation.
Chuck is an able guide to genre cinema and if you need to know the best films in which computers are possessed by evil spirits, or feature flying sentient disembodied body parts, or a slasher with a particularly poignant back story (or some unearthly combination of the above), Chuck’s yer man. Chuck brought Mark Kermode’s weekly podcast to my attention. Although stateside, Chuck knew Kermode’s writing in Fangoria the horror and schlock cinema magazine. So when Mark did a signing tour for his first book I got a copy signed for Chuck, after I mentioned the Fangoria connection, Mark quoted Cronenberg “Long Live the New Flesh” with his sigil. Naturally by the time I saw Chuck, he’d already bought an imported copy, but just vanilla, unsigned. Kermode’s second book was coming out just before the festival and I’m off to the states just after, I stand a better chance of getting a freshly signed copy to Chuck before his internet browsing finger gets itchy, but the book signing tour doesn’t come to the cinema near us until I’m actually in the States. The mission : to try to hit up Mark Kermode for the signature at one of the festival events, but without being a pest or coming off as a demented fan boy.
Before the Sing A Long a Mary Poppins screening I pop into Best Sellers, the book shop in Brock, I interrupt a conversation between the shop owner and one of the forest keepers I know. They don’t have the book in yet, despite the author being local, but find a way to both talk to me at length about its absence and to discuss the festival enough that it becomes a chore to extricate myself politely so that I can get to my volunteer duties on time. Even if I happen to win the critic competition tonight, I won’t have the book for Kermode to sign. I’ll have to hope I can get it tomorrow.
Most of Sunday is taken up walking masses of dogs and feeding their masses of humans, our annual bbq and dog walk. I rise early to start on the fresh potato salad. The downpour which luckily held off during the walk nearly drowns the barbecue. We fetch out a small marquee for the garden, but everyone huddles indoors. A kind guest provides golf umbrella cover as I ferry food to and fro in the gale, I get soaked but the vittles remain dry.
I have a short window between the farewell of our last guest and tonight’s show. I pop into one of the Southampton Waterstones, hoping they’ll have the book. They do, but under a 3 for 2 offer, I want a copy for myself, so it seems stupid not to get a third book. Stella Duffy, who’d I’d seen in the flesh for the first time in a couple of years at Thursday’s Improbable symposium (a great teacher, we very occasionally Facebook banter) has her first foray into historical fiction, Theodora in paperback. It was under offer, but Waterstones don’t have it now. Pressed for time I grab Philip Pullman’s take on the gospel The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ as a present for another stateside friend and methodist minister, Mark Young, playful antagonism is an element of our friendship.
Finuala is humouring me by coming along to tonight’s screening, as she did at last year’s inaugural film festival event. Without that novelty factor she’s along to bolster me at the post fest drink up. In social situations she’s literally my better half. Since I left London my confidence has waned, particularly with any new crowd. Even amongst my oldest friends I half suspect that they prefer her to me, it's just that she's that lovely.
The film washes over me, my attention shifting lazily between watching the film and listening to the live score provided by the Dodge Brothers and Neil Brand. I’m really impressed by the scale and shooting of the prison riot scene, a beautiful textbook example of soviet montage, the cutting getting more rhythmic and faster paced as the riot reaches its climax. The live band match this nicely with a grinding theme that drives toward a sense of urgency. As the film progresses I zone out a bit. The score is quite listenable on its own. And whether it was my inatttention, or something lacking in the film, but I didn’t quite get why the hero spends most of the film trying to get home to his wife and family, only to blow them off at the last minute to lead the revolution.
The print of the film that had arrived had French intertitles, so Simon Miller had had to edit them out and edit in internet generated translations with very little time to spare. He admitted that he thought at least one came out with the opposite sense than intended. This led to some having the syntax of a technical manual written in Korea for a product manufactured in Taiwan for the Greek market. At one point in the film when the company detective is tailing the rabble rouser through a bleak landscape, he is approached by a native who warns him “It is forbidden to hunt human here.” This led to my mind pulling a Fudd/Bugs riff:
F: Wabbit Season!
B: Human Season!
F: Wabbit Season!
B: Human Season!
F: Wabbit Season!
B: Wabbit Season!
F: Human Season! (Elmer turns gun and shoots self).
It’s a shame Chuck Jones and Sergei Eisenstein never collaborated.
After the film I briefly touch base with affable botanist and former Chair of the New Forest National Park Authority Clive Chatters who I know through our work for the New Forest Association's Land Management Committee. He and his wife Catherine both work for the Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust. When he's not dealing with local ecological policy, Clive, it turns out, is a Neil Brand and silent film fan, he was also at last year's screening as well as the other New Forest Festival's fundraising screening of The Gypsy Cavalier which featured Neil Brand solo.
Then we're off to the pub, I get a chance to catch up with the other volunteers, we all seem a bit buzzed but exhausted. Finuala ends up chatting with Sarah Kelly who I hadn't shared any volunteer events with, but who I already know from her work for the National Park as their landscape architect. I spitball future festival ideas with Simon Miller, turns out he would be interested in possibly having a comedy festival as well, I trot out my obtuse connection to comedy (from my former life in impro including London Theatresports and others).
I briefly check in with Jo Cockwell who indulged my sense of humor (and my pitiful attempts at east end accents) whilst we put out viewer questionnaires for Mary Poppins. I proposed an updated cast with Ray Winstone as ... "The Sweep" and Ben Kingsley as ... "The Poppins". She was also forced, when the Sing A Long print didn't show up, to gamely manually display the lines of lyrics on an overhead projector on a bit of wall next to the screen, keeping pace as they were sung. She's lovely and approachable, and although I don't know either of them well enough to suppose so, I wonder if she's Simon's Finuala, the woman who takes the edges off the film geek.
After an aborted attempt to offer Mark Kermode some help bringing drinks back from the bar, I’m sidelined by a conversation between Finuala and another volunteer. I feel the time slipping away as my energy runs out So I awkwardly dive in, sidling up to Mark’s table and cutting straight to asking him for the favour of signing a copy of his book, explaining the circumstance of my being away for his signing tour. He almost offers me one of his copies, but I reveal the Waterstones bag, and fish them out. I’m so abashed I only get him to sign Chuck’s copy, but not mine.
I then get around to introducing myself as the guy who was the runner up in the film critic competition. I should have led with this. Mark says some nice things about what I wrote and I trot out my glad to be nominated bit. We discuss the promotion of silent film events a bit, I pitch my half baked battle of the silent film bands idea, which doesn’t fly, and we divert into alternate soundtracks and I cite the Philip Glass score for Todd Browning’s Dracula, which he’s not up on.
I mention that I had talked comedy festival with Simon, and suggest I could put together a matinée themed improvisation show. I'm so used to the queasy reaction that often greets impro, the comedy format that varies wildly from sublime tight rope walking hilarity to unfunny self indulgence, that I suddenly feel beset by real or imagined eye rolling at its mention. I probably have a pained look on my face and I catch a glance from Linda Ruth Williams, either pity or compassion, like Juliette Binoche in a Kieslowski.
A tactical mistake now, changing subject to the pieces I almost submitted for competition Mamma Mia! as directed by Michael Haneke and The
Last Picture Show as Reviewed By A Critic With an Axe To Grind Over This Gimmick of Black and White, explaining the former is not easy in a noisy pub, and the latter inadvisable, a piss take of critics who waste more time in their reviews whinging about formats than they take to discuss the films, Mark might think I was specifically targeting him.... he’s not the only one (and in good greatly respected Ebert shaped company). He kindly offers to read them, which instantly makes me feel like I’m the asshole who asked him to read my fucking script (or *). Even more excruciating, he produces his smart phone and I now realize the great inconvenience of having an impenetrably longwinded blog name as he attempts to type it into the phone. For a moment he wonders if I’ve said “The Vegas Idea” and I think it better not to ask if he knows the very obscure Martin Mull song of that name, which would point to a level of novelty music geekery which would be embarrassing if not shared. Mostly I’m wishing I hadn’t brought it up in the first place.
Luckily by now Finuala was looking at me like she was willing my head to explode. My film mania had invaded more of her weekend than normal, and while she’d enjoyed it up to a point, she wanted to get home to dogs and rest before hitting Monday work. I beat my strungout retreat.
I’m socially awkward at the best of times. I lack awareness of some of the social cues that tell how things are going, I’m kind of clueless. I don’t think it went well, which is OK. I just don’t want the organizers of my local film festival which I’d enjoy being a part of in the future thinking I’m a prat. At least not on that evidence. Hopefully they were as tired as I, and will have no or little recollection I’ve either gained a clean slate or made the stupendous error of posting this all here for any of them to review should ennui or Google guide them here.
The main thing is that I’ve got the signed book to give to Chuck, but I also risked possible humiliation and the eternal distaste of the Festival crowd to get it. Chuck was pleased enough with the gift (although he hinted it would have been cooler if I’d accepted the impromptu offer to cadge one of the author’s own copies), and turned round and gave me his brand new imported copy of the revised edition of Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies.
As a way of psyching myself up for all the volunteering and screening for this year's New Forest Film Festival, I did several playlists themed around some of the screenings, as virtual foyer music, completely for my own enjoyment. I suppose early on, I did half fancy suggesting to the organizers that they consider playing out some of this stuff as part of the ambience for some of the screenings, but a few of them are actual musicians, have their own tastes, etc., and I quickly realized that if I went so far as suggesting this sort of thing, I'd mark myself out as an annoying weirdo. I may have found other ways to do just that, unfortunately. Time will tell, and if any of them cross the street when they see me coming, I'll bravely take the hint.
But, for those of you who just enjoy lists, you might like a look at what I put together.
Musicalia
Just Go to the Movies
Cast
A Day in Hollywood, A Night in The Ukraine
As Time Goes By (complete vocal)
Max Steiner
Casablanca- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
They All Laughed
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire Sings
Broadway Ballet
Gene Kelly
Singin' In The Rain
Manic Depressive Presents Lobby Number (Parts 1&2)
Danny Kaye
The Best Of Danny Kaye
If I Were a Bell
Holly Cole Trio
Blame It On My Youth
Pennies From Heaven
Arthur Tracy
Pennies From Heaven
Comedy Tonight
Stephen Sondheim
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum [OBC]
Did You Ever See A Dream Walking
Bing Crosby
Pennies From Heaven
Make 'Em Laugh
Donald O'Connor
Singin' In The Rain-ST
Tchaikovsky And Other Russians
Danny Kaye
Entertainer Extraordinary
That's Entertainment
FAstaire NFabray JBuchanan IAdams
The Band Wagon
Too Darn Hot
Ann Miller
Kiss Me Kate Cole Porter
Doin' the Production Code
Cast
A Day in Hollywood, A Night in The Ukraine
Could I Leave You
Stephen Sondheim
Follies
I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair
Mitzi Gaynor
South Pacific - Original Film Soundtrack Rogers & Hammerstein
On the Street Where You Live
Holly Cole Trio
Blame It On My Youth
I Love a Film Cliche
Cast
A Day in Hollywood, A Night in The Ukraine
UKnowFerKids
Life Could Not Better Be
Danny Kaye
The Court Jester
Little Boy Blue
Holly Cole Trio
Temptation
I Don't Want To Grow Up
Petra Haden & Bill Frisell
Petra Haden & Bill Frisell
I Won't Grow Up
Rickie Lee Jones
Pop Pop
I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)
Los Lobos
Stay Awake, Hal Wilner's Disney Tribute
If I Were King Of The Forest
Nathan Lane
The Wizard Of Oz In Concert: Dreams Come True
Stay Awake
Innocence Mission, The
Now The Day Is Over
LiliHi Lili, Hi Lo
Leslie Caron
Lili
Super-Cali-Fragil-Istic-Expi-Ali-Docious
Supremes, The
Trust In Me
Siouxsie & the Banshees
Through The Looking Glass
The Merry Old Land Of Oz
Cast
Wizard Of Oz Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg
Stupidcarelessfictional-nonsensicalverboseness
Forbidden Broadway
Forbidden Hollywood
Selectie Mary Poppins
The Postelfonia's BmG 223
Eerste Bestelling (First Delivery)
Foreign Novelty Smash
The Credibility Gap
The Rhino Brothers Present The Worlds Worst Records Vol. 2
Siamese Cat Song
Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin
Up from the Dark
The Allosaurus Chorus
Evergreen Choir, The
Triplets
Fred Astaire w/NFabray JBuchanan
The Band Wagon Great MGM Stars
Mad Dogs And Englishmen
Danny Kaye
The Best Of Danny Kaye
Cinephile
Exit Music (For A Film)
Miranda Sex Garden
Anyone Can Play Radiohead
The Invisible Man
Elvis Costello &Attractions
Punch The Clock
I Love a Film Cliche
Cast
A Day in Hollywood, A Night in The Ukraine
Everyone's Gone to the Movies
Steely Dan
Citizen Steely Dan
If I Saw You In A Movie
Heather Nova
South
If You Were In My Movie
Suzanne Vega
Close Up-Love Songs
Movies Of Myself
Rufus Wainwright
Want One
Road Movie To Berlin
They Might Be Giants
Flood
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
John Zorn
Filmworks 1986-1990
Kung Fu
Ash
1977
Lust In The Movies
Long Blondes, The
Someone To Drive You Home
Mysteries Of Love
Antony and the Johnsons
I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy
Calling You
Holly Cole Trio
Blame It On My Youth
When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe
Divine Comedy, The
Promenade
The Man With The Golden Gun
Emiliana Torrini
Crouie d'o l
Tomorrow Never Dies
Uwe Kröger
From Broadway to Hollywood
This Is Not America
Juliette Lewis
Hollywood, Mon Amour
B Movie
Elvis Costello &Attractions
Get Happy!!
Exit Music (for a film)
Brad Mehldau
Vehicle of Horror
Drive-In Movie
Commercial Recording Corporation
The Money Maker
Weird Nightmare
Elvis Costello & Bill Frisell
Deep Dead Blue - Live At Meltdown
Exquisite Dead Guy
They Might Be Giants
Factory Showroom
I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy
Antony and the Johnsons
I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy
Friend of the Devil
Lyle Lovett
Deadicated - A Tribute to Grateful Dead
Black Christmas
Trailer
My Wife and My Dead Wife
Robyn Hitchcock (& the Egyptians)
Catalog Sampler
Unsolved Child Murder
The Auteurs
Volume 17 (Disc 2)
Bela Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus)
Nouvelle Vague
Bande A Part (UK Ltd. Edition)
Dinner With Leatherface
3D Invisibles
Jump Off the Screen
Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner
Warren Zevon
Excitable Boy
Tania
Camper Van Beethoven
Our Beloved Revolutionary Swee
6ix
Lemonheads, The
Car button cloth (all of these things sank)
Silent Night Bloody Night
Trailer
Beware of the Blob
Blob, The
The Golden Turkey Award Album-The Best Songs From The Worst Movies
The Thing That Only Eats Hippies
Dead Milkmen, The
Death Rides a Pale Cow
Silent Night Deadly Night II
Trailer
Human Fly (The Cramps)
Nouvelle Vague
Bande A Part (UK Ltd. Edition)
Death Cab For Cutie
Bonzo Dog Band
Gorilla
Down in the Ground Where the Deadmen Go
Pogues, the
Red Roses for Me
Robert E. Lee Broke His Musket on his Knee
2,000 Maniacs
The Golden Turkey Award Album- The Best Songs From The Worst Movies
The Legend of Guan Di
McCain Brothers, The
My name is Bruce ST
Where The Wild Roses Grow
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Murder Ballads
The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun
Julie Brown
Dr Demento 20th Anniversary Collection-Disc 2
Plan 9 from Outer Space
3D Invisibles
Jump Off the Screen
I hadn't done a list for the silent film screening, after all it had live musical accompaniment from the Dodge Brothers and film music genius Neil Brand (perhaps the 5th Dodge Brother). I presumed they'd play out recordings of their own stuff, or something similar. Mike Hammond of the Dodge Brothers (film historian at Southampton Uni, in his spare time), said in his intro that the film The Ghost That Never Returns was a perfect project for the Dodge Brothers as they shared the themes of Transportation and Homicide (now there's an album title, if I ever 'eard one). So, I've done this list in tribute, post facto. I may do a "Transportation" one, but every time I think of it, I never get past the excellent Laura Cantrell's EP Planes and Boats and Trains, featuring a great cover of the titular Bacharach song, along with other transportation themed tunes.
On 11th September 2011, when most attention was paid to the coincidence of the Earth's position in its orbit to that ten orbits previous, I was disproportionately pleased with another piece of news. I had been named as one of two on the shortlist for the 2011 New Forest Film Festival's Critic of the Year.
Your friends have to be kind about what you write. You can never be sure whether praise reflects quality, or supportiveness. The five festival organizers had enjoyed my work, and were supposedly busy trying to work out whether they liked mine a little more or less than the entry by some other guy.
There were a couple of ill omens. One of the judges, to whom I'd not been introduced, congratulated me on being shortlisted at the screening of Project Nim, leaving me with that residue of paranoia over, wasn't it judged "blind", and should I really be talking to someone who, allegedly, has yet to determine the fate of my entry. I also had that feeling, that as I volunteer for the festival, the organizers might strategically shy from claims of nepotism.
The other short listed piece in my category, Senior (Over 18), Meek’s Cutoff (2011) by Rob Munday is a great solid straightfoward review. On the other hand, my self-referential essay about The Brothers Bloom may be too clever for it's own good in describing a film which may be too clever (and self-referential) for it's own good. So, the judging may come down more on taste, as I admit we may have a dead heat on quality. Still, although the £50 prize would be welcome, it's a rare bump for my writing, which makes the outcome seem immaterial. Clearly my writer's ego is needier than my wallet.
The Festival website announced:
Congratulations to the finalists who will be invited a special award ceremony ahead of the film Shock Treatment at Brockenhurst College on Saturday 17th September at 7:00pm where our special guest Richard O’Brien will announce the winner in each category with a cash prize of £50.
In the end it was Mark Kermode, not Richard O'Brien who aptly announced the winners of the Critic Competition. This change in plan serving as the final bad omen, which was also the third strike in the theory that Richard O'Brien is unintentionally my nemesis. Here's the award presentation in its brief glory:
Be that as it may, I was still chuffed to bits, and perhaps it was for the best as I now have it on record that Mark Kermode, 'im off the Radio and Telly, described my film criticism as "really worryingly good." Even if that does open up left handed compliment speculation over what constitutes "worryingly good" (a tasty but cholesterol filled treat? the Neutron Bomb? sex in any position that looks ridiculous and unrepeatable when inadvertently glimpsed in a mirror?), and despite my insecurities, I can accept it in the generous spirit in which it was offered. Five complete strangers liked something I wrote and admitted it in public.
When Shock Treatment came out, I considered avoiding it on principle.
As much as I enjoyed the lopsided delights of Rocky Horror, I have had a fractious relationship with it. I spent a summer as an usher assisting janitors with the toxic post RHPS cleanup into the wee hours, and then a couple of years later permanently damaged a knee doing the Time Warp. (the whole sordid tale is here: ) As it was hyped, Shock Treatment seemed like a tacky attempt to cash in instantly on the eventual success of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I was wary that a new Rocky Horror, without a developed fan interactive script to prop up the saggy parts might be pretty tedious (try watching the last 3rd of RHPS on video -- alone).
Then a friend who actually saw it told me it was rubbish, so I left it.
Then came the New Forest Film Festival, not just the chance to see the movie, but to Q&A Richard O'Brien, the impish chrome dome creator. By now there was an air of mystery and nostalgia to the film. Would it benefit by today's lowered standards? Would it be charmingly retro? Would it just be good enough to have a half decent musical with some of the outré sensibilities of Rocky Horror?
It sounded like something that my wife might enjoy. Then I was short listed for the Festival's Critic of the Year competition, with the winners revealed at the Shock Treatment screening and awards presented by Richard O'Brien himself. Along with comp tickets for the short listees. It had become a must see.
O'Brien was a bit late, so Mark Kermode aptly presented the critics award. O'Brien makes an entrance and uses his full on lovey actorly projection to present the film competition awards. The subsequent Q&A covers the film, about which O'Brien issues a pre-emptive apologia, and some of his other mostly theatrical projects. He's really sweet, he maybe went on a bit too mea culpa about Shock Treatment. He calls it deeply flawed, he's very self-deprecating about his own performance in it, and he hints about an unhappy shoot during which familiarity had bred contempt, the director had become unapproachable and others became lost in their own ego trips. He does rate the songs which he touts as "better than Rocky Horror."
There were some enthusiastic fans of the film who came in
full mufti. An oddity to the rest of the audience, unfamiliar with the
characters, and not really geared up for their interactive script, ala
Rocky Horror. They soldiered on with their responses for a few minutes,
but abandon their attempt either through embarrassment, or kindness to
the bewildered majority as there is too much going on, the film is hard enough to tune into without the added backchat. It was hard not to feel sorry them with their sincere earnestness, but I was glad they shut up.
Shock Treatment is by any estimation, a mess. It throws you in the deep end, there's a lot to take in, a soap opera's worth of characters and plot strands, and the film doesn't really give you any time to do it. The satirical and fantastical conceit, that a small town, obsessed with fame, exists within a television studio, not in a hidden camera fake town like the Truman Show way, but literally with cameras, lights, sets, townspeople as studio audience, social luminaries and wannabe climbers as talk show celebrities way, is all done with such breathless bravura that it doesn't pause to flesh itself out in a sensible fashion. Just when it finally starts to make sense
and give you some reasons to care about the characters, it ends.
Having had my originally low expectations lowered even further, by Richard O'Brien himself, I actually enjoyed it. Despite his protestations, his performance is fine, but there's not much to his character. O'Brien had said he was proud of the score, and on only one listen, I'd say he has
every right to be.
It might have been more workable if it had something to make the "Brad" and "Janet" characters sympathetic, something more than sharing names with RHPS characters. Maybe a single number at the beginning introducing them at a happier time and showing how they end up in TV hell. As it stands it doesn't
really have clear protagonists, and the outstanding ensemble, Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young, Barry Humphries, Ruby Wax and RHPS alums Patricia Quinn and Charles Gray with minor turns by Rik Mayall and Sinitta, aren't given much more to do than to be loud and hit their marks.
To suggest that it's prescient about reality TV and today's celebrity
culture is stretching the point a bit, its satirical barbs are aimed in
that direction, but it's unclear what it wants to say about it. The scattershot verve does manage to carry it along most of the way, although it does run out of steam a couple of times. Once you forgive the lulls and other obvious flaws, it's enjoyable. and the best musical film I'm likely to see this year, this side of The Muppets.
It is drenched in visual style and striking production design. Along with the songs it's perhaps best enjoyed as a collection of vintage music videos. MTV in the '80's glory days. Nice song, Nice video, Shame about the Plot.
[For good measure here's a YouTube clip someone else made of the beginning of Mark's Q&A with Richard O'Brien:
New Forest Film Festival: The Americanization of Mary
When I first met my wife Finuala, I would describe her to friends and family stateside as Barbara Wodehouse crossed with Julie Andrews. The former is way off base, although Wodehouse was known in the States and her style of dog training has been much discredited, (and spoofed in an early Simpsons), I used it as shorthand for Finuala's devotion to her Welsh Springer Spaniels. Finuala is more mystified than offended by her comparison to the latter, which I feel is spot on. She has the fair perfect complexion, the sweet non-regional middle class accent which manages to fall the right side between both cut glass and received pronunciation. And she sparkles when she smiles. I did not know then the depth of her fondness for the film Mary Poppins, although she had boasted that she knew how to say Supercalifragilisticsexpialidocious.... backwards.
I spent as much of the film watching Finuala enjoying it. She was channelling Julie Andrews. Forget the makeshift autocue, she knew all the songs, even Mr. Banks' half-sung half Rex Harrison recitativo, declaiming the virtues of finance (well, she was an accountant). Even though many of our tastes our mutually exclusive, I love Finuala's passions even when I don't share them (gardening and dog showing for example). She doesn't share my obsession with movies, but to see her savouring a film that I love as well is some kind of double happiness.
Since my expatriation I've often come across Brits who seem baffled by my choice, more than in a self-deprecating way, to them America may be a land devoid of culture, but with a higher standard of living, bigger cheaper portions, and more space. I often wonder about the number of Brits who've only been to Orlando in the States; they've only seen America filtered through the Disney vision. Disney had a very strong aesthetic, a particular colour palette, certain clean lines in the design of anything between an American homestead, a futuristic Epcot or an European castle. There was a time when the only beards you'd find on the chinny chin chins at Disneyland/world were on the dwarves and the pirates. This Imperial American template of Disneyfied mediocrity has even found echoes in the Prince Charles helmed vision of the olde style newtown of Poundbury in Dorset.
Back when I performed comedy impro, I was fearful that I would be put on the spot and made to do a British accent. I have some theatrical friends back in the States who rather fancy they can do a British accent, and I like them can do a passable "stage" Brit for an American audience. Finuala has helped me disabuse them of the notion that they are any better than that with a cruel to be kind deadpan stare at their attempts. Living in the UK, and aware of the true plethora of accents along with regional dialects and vocabulary, I've no delusion that I'm up to the task. I've always been good at funny voices, and there are some Brits amongst these, but endowed on the fly by a fellow performer or audience member, as Yorkshireman, Cornishman, a Geordie, or a Glaswegian, I'd be truly screwed.
Except for the fact that I can thank god for Dick Van Dyke as Bert the Cockney Chimney Sweep in Mary Poppins. His fabulous distorted rendering of the lingo of the subjects of all the Pearly Kings and Queens born within the sound of Bow Bells, is laughably famous and a great go-to gag for a performer in my position. My replication of 'is over-h-emphisized dropped 'h'aitches, 'is syllable by syla-babble diction and jaundiced jauntiness, may not be luver-ly, but it's adequate. And most importantly takes the fear off the prospect, 'cause the worse you do it, the better it is.
However, bad that accent may be, there is a certain Disney intent to it. There's no need for subtitles or subtlety to sell Van Dyke's chimney sweep to the American ear. It doesn't stop at Dick Van Dyke's cockney, erm, cock-er-ney accent. Ed Wynn doesn't attempt an accent at all; as helium infused hysteric, Uncle Albert, he relies on mere eccentricity to convey that British stereotype. Julie Andrews is so upbeat and energetic, she has the resolve of a Brit, but without the stiffness to her upper lip, she is scrubbed of all notions of the class system with her understandable unspecific accent and good teeth, this makes her practically American. Even the "robin feathering his nest" from A Spoon Full of Sugar is an American Robin, a thrush that bears no resemblance to the British resident European Robin, a smaller flycatcher.
American Robin
European Robin
Perhaps it's directly in keeping with the fantastical nature of P.L. Travers creation, as amped up by Disney, that not only are linguistic conventions, but the nature of nature itself is imprinted with the stamp of American familiarity and forced pronunciation. Even David Lynch caps off his "happy ending" to Blue Velvet with an animatronic cameo of Poppins' avian duet partner.
It is telling that when Disney tried to play much the same game again in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, special effects including live action within animation, leaving more of its Britishness intact, the result was much more humdrum and less successful. And David Tomlinson was given far less to do, even if he received higher billing.
In fact it was on this viewing that I really appreciated that Tomlinson's turn is really the emotional core of the film. His Mr. Banks is the only character that has any kind of arc, his conversion from a stuffy walking bowler hat rack to devil may care kite flyer with a run of wooden leg jokes is the wind changing payoff to the whole film. He hasn't found his inner child as much as submitted to his optimistic inner-American. He is ultimately rewarded by being accepted back into the bosom of his beloved banking establishment. That this invitation to breezily irresponsible banking from the once safe as houses Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, has inevitably destroyed the soundness of the British economy, is a metaphor which I have clearly stretched beyond its breaking point.
Like Disney, I have warped reality to suit my purposes. I'm American, that's what we do.
Back-B-Log: Catch-Up: The Social Network, Worst Films 2010 etc.
I've gotten around to finishing the following articles, and, as I perversely prefer them to be posted to the dates when I more relevantly started writing them, this means they don't show up as the latest thing in the arbitrarily chronological feed.
Also, note, due to my Advent Calendar in Song project in December 2010, going back chronologically may be a bit laborious, you may want to take advantage of the "labels" feature of the blog to see "Reviews" only, for example.
New Forest Film Festival: Project Nim: Responsibility and Mind
The New Forest Film Festival's screening of the excellent documentary Project Nim featured the added value of introduction and then post viewing Q&A with Mike Colbourne, senior keeper at Dorset's Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre, mediated by Film Festival Organizer Linda Ruth Williams. Professor of Film at Southampton University. The film's story of the chimp Nim, taught to sign and used for a spurious experiment to raise him as if he were human, in the context of an extended human family, becomes a vision of a hell paved with good intentions. An absorbing thoughtful film which further elevates the pedigree of director James Marsh (Man on Wire).
There are some slightly artificial illustrative "recreations" that fill gaps in the archive footage, but these do nothing to detract from the air of verisimilitude, whilst giving us the blessed relief of a slight remove from the frankly grim material, a tragedy of errors born of arrogance and self delusion as Nim's "me generation" keepers play an increasingly harmful game of pass the parcel with the hapless animal. Indeed, even the person who comes off best in the film, to the extent that many in the audience consider him the hero of the story, is irresponsible enough to share his recreational drugs with the chimp. Monkey see, monkey dude.
Primate advocates are always eager to stress the notion that the apes are our "closest relatives" in the animal kingdom. This is meant to elicit sympathy, but it also is an own goal because it supports the delusion that we can understand them on human terms. This is a mistake repeated many times throughout the film.
A would be saviour of Nim removes him from one appalling situation, but installs him in isolation, an ordeal for a social animal. A violent incident occurs when a person from much earlier in Nim's story visits and unwisely enters Nim's enclosure. Everyone assumes the attack is based on recognition and a concomitant emotional outburst. In the post film Q&A the primate keeper ascribes it to "frustration". What happens could as easily be a reaction to an intruder on Nim's solitary territory. The problem is we can't fathom Nim's motives, and every time those in his life presume to do so, as well as us, after the fact, he is done a great disservice.
It is not unusual for us to project our own way of thinking onto the actions of animals. We do this all the time, not just with animals, but as we interact with each other, this is called the Theory of Mind (a very good article about how this applies to how we treat our dogs can be found here: slate.com Do Dogs Think?). This is always bound to cause problems as we assume the needs and values of those whose minds we imagine. Nim's story is fraught with the presumptions of his keepers, particularly the notion that just by dressing him up and "raising" him as human, he'd automatically become more like us.
The other problem that Nim encounters is that many of his "benefactors" treat him as a pet. The guest keeper does use the discussion as a platform to highlight a petition to call for a government debate on primate keeping, strengthen the legislation on the control and monitoring of primates in pet ownership (Primates as Pets Petition). Their aim is not to ban ownership, which would drive the trade underground, but to better regulate and institute a proper regime of checks of owners and animal living conditions. In old regime, anyone could own wild animals as pets. The wild animal licensing laws stopped much pet ownership except strangely, smaller primates, which have the same problems of maltreatment. Most primates are social animals, removing them to a human context isolates them and psychologically impacts on them. The fundamental disconnect occurs when owners fail to understand all of the animal's requirements.
This problem is common to owners of standard pets. As a dog owner, and infrequent breeder, whose wife does assessments for a spaniel rescue, I'm used to vetting potential pet owners. This process may seem as intense as an adoption, but it is as important to determine whether they're prepared to take on the consequences of caring, keeping and training their animal throughout its life. When acting as a breeder, the conversation provides scrutiny in both directions. We wouldn't like to place puppies with people who aren't asking the right questions about the needs of their charges.
Many have well meaning but cavalier attitude towards pets, as toys, accessories, or as automatic companions with no inherent needs. For whatever love people may profess towards animals, however deeply felt, we're humans, and we just don't think things through. That cute puppy may be encouraged to jump up, sit on furniture or play tug of war with toys and leads, but when fully grown will suddenly be expected to desist from these behaviours; that sweet chimp approaching adulthood may casually kill other pets and chew half your face off and has the strength to easily maim or kill. That the trajectory of each lifecycle is known and predictable is either wilfully ignored, confounded by irresponsible ignorance or (in the case of photographers who defang chimps for a career in cute "family" photos) managed with intentional mutilation or euthanasia.
Back in the 1980s I had a friend who had looked forward to being a research scientist, had trained for it, and had his first job in a university medical research lab. In an adjacent lab studies were being done with primates, looking into the effect of collisions on the neck and spine. For these simulations chimps and orangutans were accelerated at walls and static objects at various angles and speeds. The injured apes were then diagnosed for how their musculature and vertebrae coped with these injuries. Just being in proximity to this extremity of ethical science made my friend rethink his choice of career. He spoke to me of the flawed grant system which encouraged studies to be proposed almost purely for the sake of generating grant money. Careers constructed around innovative methods of harm with the furthering of science an almost secondary consideration.
I myself am a queasy fencesitter about animal testing, particularly as a son of a Parkinson's sufferer. Mike Colbourne in his introduction was quite honest about diabetes and other conditions that he has that require treatments that most likely were tested on primates in the past, but he pointed out what he has seen of the sharp end, the ex-lab primates that have come to his care physically and mentally distraught. That testing could be used as a last resort only for arguably vital research when other methods are exhausted, is a door that may be left open.
We must remain mindful of our responsibility to the animals, whatever use we put them to. It is responsibility thought through, responsibility acted upon and responsibility seen through, not opposable thumbs, language, abstract thinking, nor other self congratulatory virtues that may truly elevate us amongst the animals, however closely related we may be.
The Last Picture Show as Reviewed By A Critic With an Axe To Grind Over This Gimmick of Black and White
Based on Larry McMurtry's semi-autobiographical novel, and featuring a talented ensemble of both promising unknown newcomers and stalwart character actors, this movie should have been a calling card for up and comer, actor/film critic turned director Peter Bogdonovich. However, all are ill served by the incomprehensible decision to release the film in black and white. This move can only have been driven by "the business", some accountant has worked out that the film can be distributed for less by releasing it on less expensive black and white stock. The cynical studios have the young director, whose career has consisted of Drive-In fodder thus far, naively claiming that the choice was aesthetic, not financial.
Set in a mid-western town during the early 1950's, a time of the birth of rock and roll and lurid red cars with tailfins, it depicts the slow disintegration of a community which abandons its public spaces, pool halls and movie houses, to live in tract house suburbia and watch TV. This was an opportunity to show how much more real, and the style is otherwise very realistic, the lives of genuine people are in natural colour, instead the gimmick of black and white makes the film look like television.
For many years Hollywood has fought a war of attrition with TV, and the popular conceit was that by offering bigger wider screens, better sound, and vivid colour, audiences could be tempted back into theatres. This has not worked, so the suits probably thought, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Although colour TV is now available, more people own black and white than colour, making it the clear preference. The film even has a an aspect ratio half way between Cinemascope and TV. Hollywood's scientific wizards have found a way to port the black and white of television back onto film.
Having presented his television series, Hitchcock famously experimented with this technology, retrofitting Psycho into monochrome to tone down the gore of the shower scene (Michael Powell showed Hitchcock's timidity by releasing Peeping Tom, as it was meant to be, in colour). But Bogdonovich is no Hitchcock.
Bogdonovich claims that his "decision" to use grayscale was commended by his pal, himself once a wunderkind, Orson Welles. The now has-been cigar and cheap chablis shill sleeping on Bogdonovich's couch, whose own exercise in nostalgia, The Magnificent Ambersons, was taken away from him, too late to re-shoot in colour. The studio, concerned that without the period colour, fans of Booth Tarkington's blockbuster best seller, expecting another Gone With the Wind, might react with anger, and indeed the film flopped. Welles has perversely flown the flag for black and white since, and has clearly manipulated his disciple into the same artistic blind alley.
Underneath the dross of this gimmick, there may be a half decent film struggling to get out. The sad failed romance of Sam the Lion, the tragic trajectory of idiot child Billy, Sonny's coming of age reflected in his variable friendship with Duane, his longing for Jacy and his affair with Ruth, should all congeal to some kind of poignancy. But frankly I didn't notice, my eyes were struggling the whole time to try to reintegrate the colour that had been forcibly drained from the images. It is this problem, chromosthesia, that causes headaches in viewers. I may have been able to recommend this movie, if only some cinemas were brave enough to show it in its colour print.
There is a solution to this problem, you can construct your own "colourizing" spectacles. Merely purchase two pairs of sunglasses with polarizing lenses, some wire, a motorized toy car, and some sticky backed plastic. Break one of the sunglasses leaving the lenses separate. Attach the bisected toy car by the axels to the extra lenses, suspending them in front of those of the unbroken sunglasses, using the small motor to rotate them. Other viewers may object to the sound of the motor, but you can cover this up by buying more popcorn and nachos and chewing loudly with an open mouth. Granted, this will not give you true colour, you will see swirls of colour akin to Corman's The Trip, but you can enjoy these to fuller effect if you also smuggle in a cassette player with a tape of Atom Heart Mother, hitting "play" when Cybill Shepherd joins "the club". Finally, place the sticky backed plastic over your mouth to suppress any loud squeals of delight.
Despite the slight dimness caused by the reduction, up to 20%, of what I think they call footchromas, Bogdonovich is sticking to his guns, pledging to shoot Paper Moon in "genuine" monochrome, and rumour has it that Mel Brooks may follow suit with Young Frankenstein. Whatever its good intentions may be, I hope that The Last Picture Show fails to find an audience, as its success would be a prophetic death knell to the industry, making it "the Last", indeed. There is some hope on the horizon as avant garde film-maker George Lucas, who is remaking his enigmatic student film in glorious washed out colour, is considering a look at a similar period as this film, hopefully he'll put the pink Cadillacs and the yellow neon back where it belongs on our nation's screens.
Fantasy Reviews: Mamma Mia! as directed by Michael Haneke
In Mamma Mia! Michael Haneke gives us his grimmest unblinkingly bleak dissection of the human condition yet. Meryl Streep (Silkwood, Ironweed) performs her most blisteringly tragic role since Sophie's Choice, with which she creates a dramatic throughline, again playing a woman haunted by the decisions of her past, this time the mother of a character named Sophie.
Always the maverick, Haneke breaks new ground by having the characters shatter the realism of the mise en scène by expressing their thoughts suddenly in the songs of an obscure, darkly contemplative Scandinavian band, ABBA (whose name perversely describes a rhyming scheme their sinister lyrics never employ). The effect of these random bursts into song is his most shocking arresting device since the "rewind" scene from Funny Games (both the German and U.S., as well as the unreleased Japanese animé version). The inexplicable transitions into song, with often surreally sourceless musical accompaniment, form a polemic against American cinema's disempowerment of the spectator by providing more answers than questions, and upends the viewers expectations of a Haneke film by sidestepping his usual formal use of silence.
The plot concerns a young bride-to-be, Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls) trying to discover her true parentage. Haneke is playing with issues of identity, squarely honing in on the post-feminist struggle of a woman against a culture that insists she define herself in terms of men, her unknown father and her soon to be husband. The ghosts in Streep's past are Pierce Brosnan (Nomads, The Long Good Friday), Colin Firth (Trauma) and Stellan Skarsgård (Breaking the Waves), playing multiple nationalities and members of male dominated professions, they are really just portraying facets of a single male archetype, domineering and global.
There are some missteps. Haneke draws us briefly away from the grueling emotional tension to deconstruct the fall from grace of capitalism ("Money, Money, Money"), and throws in some overwrought metaphors conflating the battle of the sexes and the horrors of war ("Fernando", "Waterloo"). Dominic Cooper (From Hell), Julie Walters (G.B.H.) and Christine Baranski (Reversal of Fortune, Cruel Intentions), who round out the cast are cruelly underused, perhaps intentionally, as meaningless ciphers. Whilst Haneke's motives are semiotically unfathomable, it is possible that we are being provoked to establish a Brechtian emotional distance from the characters. These flaws do not dim this staggering achievement.
In one masterstroke, with the song "SOS", Haneke is telling us that by driving to our multiplex, buying not just tickets, but family fun pack refreshments, with extra big gulp, yard of slushee, large popcorn and plastic tray of nachos with a compartment of scalding microwaved processed jalapeño cheese food, and by sitting in designated seats, perhaps encroaching on the personal space of the seat next to us by using the arm rest reservoir for our soda pop, whilst we balance the nachos between us, by participating in this earth resource draining consumerist charade, we are implicitly culpable for the grotesque spectacle of Pierce Brosnan's singing. We are complicit and responsible for every jarring flat semiquaver as it thuds against our ear drums, as Haneke makes clear to us by rigidly keeping the sound level from dipping and by not sparing us one moment of horror, cutting away or processing it through autotune. For if we are not there to hear it, he would not need to film it in the first place. Just as Haneke used the unflinching audio of the offscreen murder in Benny's Video to harrowing effect, he reminds us that in a cold uncaring universe, our own cries of SOS will go unheeded.
It is particularly telling how Haneke uses one of the most recognizable dirges, "Knowing Me, Knowing You", played instrumentally as the couple walk down the aisle. Pitting this denunciation of the delusion of understanding between clearly unknowable minds, against the societal conventions promoting this illusory union, creates a damning reevaluation of the institution of marriage. That Haneke deftly weaves this into a tableau of skin deep glamour and taffeta, makes the viewer's inescapable realization of the shallow futility of all human interaction at once poignant and searingly painful.
Given the "emo" cult of the music, this will no doubt make the film a draw for teenagers. Here, I feel, the BBFC have criminally rated this film a liberal PG, permissively ignoring the effect of such traumatic material, clearly inducing suicidal thoughts, in that impressionable age. For youth, having the hope of life ahead of them surgically removed, as this film does coldly and clinically, there may be no other way past the pain and misery that Mamma Mia! evokes. Parents, lest that be the last cry you hear from your wounded child, ban them from this film! Just tell them to say "No Thank You to the Music".
In the end, a nearly unwatchable, though masochistically compelling, pitiless excursion into brutal nihilism.
And the tunes are catchy.
[Author's Note: This is another piece that I wrote as a potential entry for the New Forest Film Critic of the Year 2011 Competition, but which I decided was too fanciful for the competition. Also, although I was able to knock my short listed entry (Review: The Brothers Bloom: The Sum of Its Parts) down from about 900 words to the competition limit 500, the verbose pseudo-intellectualese used in this piece denied much trimming from its first draft and even grew a bit as I finished it off for inclusion here. Not being as tight, I hope it doesn't overstay its welcome.]
Rian Johnson's new movie The Brothers Bloom seems to be answering several obtuse questions:
1. If Wes Anderson did not exist, would it be necessary to invent him?
2. Why did they stop making those new-wave inflected, insouciant caper comedies from the 1960's?
3. Is Mark Ruffalo a great actor, but with zero charisma?
4. When will Rachel Weisz requite my love for her?
5. Can you like something with vague literary pretentions, without being literally vaguely pretentious?
II. The Tale
The Brothers Bloom are conmen - their cons so exquisite that they do not merely dupe the rubes, but provide their victim with a deeply thematic cathartic experience. Con as performance art. Younger brother, Bloom (Adrien Brody) feels trapped by brother Stephen's (Mark Ruffalo) machinations, but is convinced to do one last job, tricking a wealthy recluse Penelope (Rachel Weisz).
III. The Acting
Rachel Weisz starts stilted, sporting a withdrawn, self-conscious demeanor (was she playing Gwyneth Paltrow playing a Royal Tennenbaum?). When her character comes out of her shell, joyful exuberance develops. From then on Rachel can do no wrong. You just want to make her happy, smile that smile with her oh-so-bright eyes. She even made me forget about that other conmen movie she was in. Sigh.
I once thought Mark Ruffalo was stuck in that charisma vacuum which is the epitome of Matthew McConaughey. A stand out in Fincher's Zodiac, I've warmed to him; here he does a great job as the flamboyant svengali. Adrien Brody, stuck with the Pinocchio dilemma, yearning to be real, wisely plays the turmoil under his passivity overshadowed by his brother. Rincho Kikuchi appears as a delightfully Harpo-esque explosives expert.
IV. The Direction
I was impressed with Rian Johnson's debut, the high-school noir, Brick. A film which managed to make Lukas Haas seem menacing. It evoked noir through plot, characters and dialogue, but steered clear of pastiche.
This is a bigger challenge: A rococo concoction. juggling styles - John Irving prologue, comedy heist flicks, Mamet gamesmanship and Fellini exotica along with a breezy patina of misdirection. I found myself charmed and wowed by a series of sight gags, visual ticks, and bits of business, that liberally pepper the opening sequences. Luckily, the style calms down, leaving room for ruminations on storytelling, reflecting the conmen's ambition "to tell a story so well it becomes real".
V. The Verdict
In the wake of other literary affected films, The Brothers Bloom might be secondary post-modern, but for me it pulls off its heady mixture of stylized reality, genuine fakery and smoky mirrors. Sure, it does seem to end a few extra times, but always to payoff earlier foreshadowing in a satisfying manner. If you find this contrived, like the chapter headings in this review, you may want to avoid, but even those who are irked by Wes Anderson will like The Brothers Bloom.
OK, sure, it's a con, but for all that, some of us enjoy being taken in.
[Author's Note: I originally saw the film on 25/06/10 and wrote my first draft shortly after, it then gathered dust until I decided to finish it properly for the competition. At the same time I worked on two other reviews: "Mamma Mia! as directed by Michael Haneke", and "The Last Picture Show as Reviewed By A Critic With an Axe To Grind Over This Gimmick of Black and White". I decided that while these were fun bits of writing, they might be too fanciful for the competition. Competition limitations (500 word max) forced me to tighten up my writing with ruthless self sub editing, which, sadly, the rest of my output lacks, but also made me drop a section discussing the trend in films which self-consciously use literary devices. I hope to post an extended version of that here soon.]
All things to all people and nothing to everybody. A celebration of the warm and fuzzy, or perhaps the cold and indistinct. Lowered responsibilities and diminished expectations. If you haven't the vaguest..... I do! And that's all I will ever assert with certainty. I hope we're unclear about this......
Ex Pat 32 years +, conservation campaigner, film projectionist and critic, unfinished novelist, dog walker, improviser, and obscure database programmer.
