Sunday, January 25, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Reconstruction (2004)
"It is a film. Everything is constructed. Still it hurts."
So begins Reconstruction (2004), a little gem of a puzzle of a movie. Alex meets Aimee one night in a bar, and cheats on his girlfriend Simone with her. Aimee's husband August is a novelist frantically trying to finish his book. Whether and which characters may or may not be characters in the book, and how their lives intersect is the subject of the film. But the subject of the film is also the film itself, or rather, the craft of storytelling, compiling and rearranging timelines and consequences. It's a compelling movie, short and sweet, haunting and provoking.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas is sexy and enigmatic as Alex, caught between two worlds. Maria Bonnevie playing both the girlfriend and the wife, the faithful and the adulterer, is lovely, made more so by Manuel Alberto Claro's atmospheric and sultry cinematography, and lots of smoke.
I've added director Christoffer Boe's Allego to my netflix queue.
So begins Reconstruction (2004), a little gem of a puzzle of a movie. Alex meets Aimee one night in a bar, and cheats on his girlfriend Simone with her. Aimee's husband August is a novelist frantically trying to finish his book. Whether and which characters may or may not be characters in the book, and how their lives intersect is the subject of the film. But the subject of the film is also the film itself, or rather, the craft of storytelling, compiling and rearranging timelines and consequences. It's a compelling movie, short and sweet, haunting and provoking.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas is sexy and enigmatic as Alex, caught between two worlds. Maria Bonnevie playing both the girlfriend and the wife, the faithful and the adulterer, is lovely, made more so by Manuel Alberto Claro's atmospheric and sultry cinematography, and lots of smoke.
I've added director Christoffer Boe's Allego to my netflix queue.
The Duchess (2008)
The Duchess (2008) is Saul Dibb's film adaptation of Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgina Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire. I have not read the novel (although it's now on my reading list), but I have the feeling the film glossed over many of the details, and perhaps (similar to the book from what I've heard) avoids a critical view of its subject in lieu of falling in love, as do so many of the story's characters. The film's sympathies lie squarely with Georgina, whose scandalous love life and political inclinations made her beloved and reviled.
Keira Knightly plays the titular role, and, I must admit, though I've never really been super-impressed with her before, I thought she carried the film well. Her features are very delicate, and she lets a multitude of emotions cascade across them. She's wonderfully expressive and holds the film's center well even dressed in wonderfully elaborate wigs and dresses. The film itself is beautifully opulent, choosing well-drawn, well-staged visual sequences over too much exposition. I love the carriage sequences, in which groups of characters (Georgina and her friend, Bess; Georgina's daughters; the Duke of Devonshire; the dogs) are framed, boxed as they were into their rightful place and appearance.
Charlotte Rampling, as Georgina's mother, is elegant and perfect as always, and Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, add enough depth to a fairly craven and banal character to keep things surprising and interesting. Dominic Cooper, as Georgina's forbidden lover, and fellow political dreamer, is pretty dreamy himself. Saul Dibb, who also co-wrote, directs the story well, framing a static world of artifice in a beautifully kinetic way, not overly forced or inanimate. The cinematography by Gyula Pados is also well-light, capturing the beautifully excessive world of the London elite.
Keira Knightly plays the titular role, and, I must admit, though I've never really been super-impressed with her before, I thought she carried the film well. Her features are very delicate, and she lets a multitude of emotions cascade across them. She's wonderfully expressive and holds the film's center well even dressed in wonderfully elaborate wigs and dresses. The film itself is beautifully opulent, choosing well-drawn, well-staged visual sequences over too much exposition. I love the carriage sequences, in which groups of characters (Georgina and her friend, Bess; Georgina's daughters; the Duke of Devonshire; the dogs) are framed, boxed as they were into their rightful place and appearance.
Charlotte Rampling, as Georgina's mother, is elegant and perfect as always, and Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, add enough depth to a fairly craven and banal character to keep things surprising and interesting. Dominic Cooper, as Georgina's forbidden lover, and fellow political dreamer, is pretty dreamy himself. Saul Dibb, who also co-wrote, directs the story well, framing a static world of artifice in a beautifully kinetic way, not overly forced or inanimate. The cinematography by Gyula Pados is also well-light, capturing the beautifully excessive world of the London elite.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Brick (2005)
Brick (2005) is a modern film noir (a neo-noir?) and the feature-length directorial debut of Rian Johnson. The plot is very noir (girl goes missing, scorned ex-lover goes searching, secrets are uncovered, betrayals are revealed, venegance is wrought). Johnson's twist is to set the classic story in the world of a privledged California high school. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the scruffy, mumbling Phillipe Marlowe who goes looking for his missing (and, naturally, troubled and doomed) ex-girlfriend, played by Emilie de Ravin (hey, it's Claire). What he uncovers is a web of crime, corruption, and seduction, mapped cleverly to elements of the high school world: the principal's office, the drama club, the mean girl, the jock, the fight in the parking lot.
I'll admit, in the beginning, I was a little distracted by the whole conceit. These are kids playing in a very adult genre. Nora Zehetner, in particular, although gorgeous, seemed a little too young to pull off the femme fatal. But maybe that was the point. These worlds, seemingly disparate, do in fact share many similarities in their doomed and disillusioned characters, the anti-hero, the missing girl, the femme fatal, the crazed lover. The isolation and turmoil in both settings is also remarkably similar; and, as the movie twists and turns, you begin to suspend disbelief and appreciate the wry, dark humor Johnson has created in the midst of a rather realistic mystery/thriller.
Gordon Levitt pulls off the smooth-talking gumshoe role, all while staring mostly at his feet. Lukas Haas was a real treat as The Pin - the local drug lord who is "really old, like 26" and who runs his crime ring out of his parents wood-panelled basement. The Pin's mom serving juice and cookies while the two characters square off only serves to underscore the tough guy/innocuous setting dichotomy, but without any sense of irony or satire. The cast (and/or the director) crafts a perfectly straight performance that feels even darker and funnier for its sincerity. After Desmond beats up the Pin's thug, he warns him: "Tell Emily I want to see her; she knows where I eat lunch."
Next up for Johnson is The Brothers Bloom, staring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Steve Yedlin has served as DP on both of Johnson's films. The hazy, grey, muted world of the high school and town is a perfect for the shadowy world of the noir. The soundtrack is nicely atmospheric, spooky, sparse. I was particularly fond of a chase scene with the every increasing sound of shoes pounding on the sidewalk. The film hits sharply on the central notion of noir, true I suppose in high school as well: isolation, aloneness, absurdity.
I'll admit, in the beginning, I was a little distracted by the whole conceit. These are kids playing in a very adult genre. Nora Zehetner, in particular, although gorgeous, seemed a little too young to pull off the femme fatal. But maybe that was the point. These worlds, seemingly disparate, do in fact share many similarities in their doomed and disillusioned characters, the anti-hero, the missing girl, the femme fatal, the crazed lover. The isolation and turmoil in both settings is also remarkably similar; and, as the movie twists and turns, you begin to suspend disbelief and appreciate the wry, dark humor Johnson has created in the midst of a rather realistic mystery/thriller.
Gordon Levitt pulls off the smooth-talking gumshoe role, all while staring mostly at his feet. Lukas Haas was a real treat as The Pin - the local drug lord who is "really old, like 26" and who runs his crime ring out of his parents wood-panelled basement. The Pin's mom serving juice and cookies while the two characters square off only serves to underscore the tough guy/innocuous setting dichotomy, but without any sense of irony or satire. The cast (and/or the director) crafts a perfectly straight performance that feels even darker and funnier for its sincerity. After Desmond beats up the Pin's thug, he warns him: "Tell Emily I want to see her; she knows where I eat lunch."
Next up for Johnson is The Brothers Bloom, staring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Steve Yedlin has served as DP on both of Johnson's films. The hazy, grey, muted world of the high school and town is a perfect for the shadowy world of the noir. The soundtrack is nicely atmospheric, spooky, sparse. I was particularly fond of a chase scene with the every increasing sound of shoes pounding on the sidewalk. The film hits sharply on the central notion of noir, true I suppose in high school as well: isolation, aloneness, absurdity.
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