War Horse (2011)

At tender age he was taken from his mother’s company and sent to work on the fields, harvesting potatoes. Shortly after that he was forcibly enlisted to fight alongside the Brits at the great war, then captured by the Germans, put on excruciating forced labour, pulling heavy artillery pieces until he was able to escape, and, on crossing “no man’s land”, got injured by the barbed wire, and, finally, was reunited with his former master. No, this is no human slave of any sort, neither any subject of the British Empire. Actually, the character is a horse, as this movie depicts its wonderings through Europe during the war. One of Steven Spielberg’s greatest virtues, as a director, is his capability to humanize everything he wants, ranging from animals even to extraterrestrials.

Right from the beginning of the movie the horse displays emotions that are common to ourselves, thus creating that bond with the viewer I usually refer to. Curious as it may seem, the animal’s fate is the main element of the story, and the humans are portrayed in a kind of incidental way. Even the leading human role, played by the young actor Jeremy Irvine, does not stand as a usual main character. He is almost absent  during the entire middle term of the film, and his grievances are shown only to the point when it matters to his relation with the horse. But Steven Spielberg is such a great story teller that his argument works well and, on seeing “War Horse”, we actually think about ourselves, about our own path on the wretched world we live in.

War Horse is not a war movie. Here the belligerence serves as a painful background on which the story is told. So the war could be replaced with a separation, an illness, a famine or some misfortune of the sort. What is of real importance here are the constant changes we are submitted during our lives, and how diminute sometimes is our grip over our own destiny. Future, as this movie asserts, can occasionally play tricks on us, for better or for worse.  The outright conclusion is that usual, but often forgotten, realization to responsibly enjoy good times as they happen…

Who's the main character?

The movie went alright till almost it’s very end. Here Spielberg committed a fault that is comprehensible, but difficult to forgive. Human experience has for long acquired the notion that life moves forward. For instance, it’s natural that everyone, from a certain point onwards, begins to earn its own living. Being this simple notion applicable to almost anything else regarding our lives, we perceive Mr. Spielberg inverted that order. When the young Irvine accomplishes the trials leading to his adulthood (he survives the trenches), and is expected to get on with his life, he somewhat does the opposite way: he gets back to his mommy’s arms.  As stated, it’s understandable, because the director’s desire was to end the movie with a definite sense of safety, of shelter from the unpredictable. But life is unforeseeable, and keeps moving on. Therefore, it would have been a more according finish if the young man had followed the french bidder, taking the animal to the girl, thus binding the loose links established over the movie, and just 'moving on' from that point. It would have been uncertain, but more feasible. On the other hand stands Robert Zemeckis’s “Cast Away” (2000), presenting us a much more credible finale, as Tom Hanks does not return to his sweetheart (although she more than hints she would accept), choosing to take the unknown path of knocking on a stranger’s door.

“War Horse” is great entertainment.

@jpvbm

The Age of Innocence (1993)

The Age of Innocence is centered within the crème de la crème of New York’s society during the second half of the nineteenth century. There is absolutely no scarcity of means for its dwellers. They lunch, dine and amuse themselves almost like royalty. The meals are divided in many courses, they are always wearing tuxedos and ball dresses, the gentlemen change their pair of gloves for each lady they waltz with. But there seems to be a price for such an exquisite way of living.

The uneasiness of the story begins when Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis), already groomed to the fresh young, loving May Welland (Winona Ryder), begins to tilt his attraction for Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) who has just arrived from Europe, after splitting with her husband. The matter is that Mrs Olenska, although having lived in New York before marring, never really got used to its usages. Also, her possible divorce seems to hang over the entire society as a true scandal. For his part, Newland accepts her misfortune and understands it as a challenge to the solid old conventions they all endure. Thus, the natural, slight, almost unperceivable, retraction everybody seems have towards the Countess is nonexistent within Newland. This boundless relation between them allows him to envisage her as an escape from a living he soon describes as the taste of “cinders in his mouth”.

Will they resist each other?

The Age of Innocence is about incarceration without bars, at least for the protagonist. He lives on a society where people have “no character, no colour, no variety”, where they cannot truly speak their minds. When Newland realizes he is in love for the Countess, and starts to act like it, all this society moves discreetly and almost imperceptibly to prevent him from reaching his goal. In spite of this general effort, Archer is not prevented solely by his peers, but ultimately due his and the Countess’s countenance. Chance also plays a part on this decorum prevention, as it happens on the beautiful lighthouse scene.

Some things are worth fighting for

This movie is also, and mostly, about choices, and the right ones. Much later, when the whole stillborn romance is over for all, we are somehow struck with the summing up of Archer’s life, and the positive outcome that he kept the respect for his wife, family and even for himself, by refusing to be subdued to what could have been the great love of his life, and, simultaneously, the rejection of his entire self as how he lived it. In the end we are granted with the notion that life doesn’t resume only to passionate love above all else. The inevitable association is with that scene on “Closer” when Natalie Portman’s character, on knowing Jude Law’s betrayal, says to him: “There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it"”. Closer’s protagonist gave in, Newland Archer did not.  

Another obligatory comparison is with “The Bridges of Madison County”. On this movie Maryl Streep’s character, married for many years, is bound in a few days long romance. Much later, when she dies and her already grown up daughter searches through her mother’s closed-for-decades trunk, the most precious things to be found are the letters exchanged by the deceased and her mistress. “The Bridges of Madison County” presents upside-down, implausible, ethics, as the woman keep on being married, sharing a whole life together with her husband, but, alas, the altar of her existence rests on a weekend affair.  Therefore, on “The Age of Innocence” the protagonist follows an entirely different path, much more credible by all means, as his lustful aspirations are sublimated throughout his marriage, full of its typical nuances, hardships and achievements that keeps binding the two of them together.

This is what coming of age really is about!

Precious 2009

Precious

A loosen opportunity. Unfortuelly this is how Precious should be described.  For long has Hollywood stumbled on trying to shoot individual pain and suffering. Big budget American movies usually treat these matters awkwardly, while french, south american, and even Iranian movies accomplish it rather naturally.

Precious is about a teenage girl, in whom is to be found almost all the indicatives of the lowest social layer: she is almost dirty poor, is african american, is on her second pregnancy, and is almost applying to social security.  Thus, the story evolves on her relation with her mother, who is constantly torturing her psychologically, with her poverty, and, mostly, with herself.

Precious, as the main character is named, is constantly stricken with a natural urge not only to improve her life, but to live as blissfully. And that is why the movie gets lost on the narrative, never to improve. It could only be human the longing for a better existence. But, alas, the movie resorts on sort of daytime dreams, where the girl impersonates herself on happy, joyful,  and even glittering scenes. This feature draws back the characters emotional downfall, thus preventing the spectator  to feel the drama as it is.  Quite different from, for instance, the intensive rollercoaster of feelings we are subjected on Zefirelli’s The Champ.

Still, Precious has quite good acted by Paula Patton and Mariah Carey, both of them delivering very convincing teacher and social-worker performs. As for Gabourey Sidibe, she didn’t really deserve all those praises at the time, as her facial expressions doesn’t really differ from beginning to the ending. Given the fact there are actresses such as Demi Moore who are even more incapable to distinguishing, say, happiness from anxiety, Sibide’s performance is not so bad at all.

Precious lacks what The Wrestler delivers, and, for that, I don’t recommend seeing it. 

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Casablanca

Movies, as an art, are a conduit for emotions. They work on us as we feel through them. This stated, “Casablanca” is defined as a nostalgic movie. It is about what was meant to be but didn’t go as expected. Also, being this nostalgia about love can only steepen the craving feeling the viewer is left upon. Obviously, although its enormous success isn’t due solely to that particular emotional feature, this is undoubtedly the core element that drives the whole story and binds ourselves to the character’s outcome. 

Casablanca’s plot is set at the homonym Moroccan city, at the time when it was controlled by the Vichy government, during world war II. The main character, portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, is Rick Blaine, an American with a gloomy past which includes at least some arms deals.  The film starts with Rick being well established at Casablanca, running a distinctive café named after him. He is courted by the girls (not the other way around), but it’s stated right from the beginning he doesn’t attach to them. Something stirs inside him.  The story evolves as Ugarte (played by Peter Lorre) comes up with stolen letters of transit, which can guarantee safe route out of Casablanca. This leads to the appearance to a resistance leader, Victor Laslo (Paul Henreid), who wants those letters to escape Nazi persecution. The issue is that along with him comes his wife, the beautiful Ilsa (played by Ingrid Bergman), who had, in and early past, a strong relationship with Rick, and disappeared from his life without any notice. At this point the viewer learns this is the motive for Rick’s bitterness and detachment from any kind of bondage. 

As expected, the just arrived couple urges for a way out of Casablanca, but between them and those letters of transit stands Ricks forgiveness of Ilsa misconduct towards him, and the audience’s too. Thus, a powerful link emerges between the characters and the viewer, who ends in some sort of identification with either one of them. No doubt their roles are deeper than that, but, as already stated before,  this intermingled love rests as the drama’s absolute cornerstone.

will he ever get over it?

By the end of the movie my opinion is that Rick has acted less as an ideologist than as wounded lover. He gave it a big try, but couldn’t really forgive Ilsa for her lack of compromise with their love,  leading to the particular ending this film has. Coming full circle with this review, all those tears Casablanca is responsible for since its release are due mostly to audience’s inner , almost unconscious, perception that past loves are not amendable, at least to the very way they were.

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Hunger 2008

Much has been said lately about Michael Fassbender’s acting. Driven by his last work, about sex addiction on Shame (2011), some critics have even acclaimed him as the next Daniel Day Lewis. In order to acquire better knowledge on his capabilities I went on seeing his first big film, Hunger (2008), directed by the same Steve McQueen who’s responsible for Shame.

Hunger depicts the final moments of IRA’s (Irish Republican Army) activist Bobby Sands, who ultimately died on a hunger strike at the early eighties. It is well established that mainstream Hollywood presents every bit of film information already processed, so the viewer doesn’t have to think very much. But in Hungers case it can’t only be the opposite trend. Rather, it seems McQueen treated the subject almost as a scientific experiment, in a way that we are only allowed to observe the facts. He never really takes the viewer to whatever is going on inside the characters. It is known they are anxious, angry and scared, but we cannot accomplish their thoughts, what exactly are they afraid of and so on… Responsible for this is their lack of dialogues between themselves. Hunger has almost no dialogues, besides a very long one in its middle. This absence of conversations makes you wonder about those no-dialogs movies about cave man, and how, in some ways, we could then understand our ancient ancestors better than those unfortunate imprisoned Irish fellows.

The film is actually a three stage act. The first one being the imprisonment of an activist and his initiation on the prisons usual practices, such as releasing urine through underneath the door to the cells corridor, forced baths from time to time and other violent routines. Here we are presented the newbie approach, where the audience learns along with that novice what has to be known about the plot. Then comes the middle term of the movie, a long conversation between Fassbender’s character and an IRA priest, about his resolution to begin another hunger strike and its justifications. It is noticeable this was shot almost entirely on only one scene, as the director resorted to this powerful method in order to keep the audience focused, unwilling to allow any escape, even if momentary, from the unfolding drama.  Then comes the hunger strike and its sufferings, till the very end.  McQueen opted to depict the characters emaciation on a detailed level, and Fassbenders ability to lose weight adds to the final agony. 

convincing a priest is not an easy task

All this is shown in a sort of an aseptic way. Although we feel sorry for the characters fate and are stricken with his body’s degeneration, this is felt as if it was a horror movie, or a news video, as the desired intertwinement isn’t achieved for the audience to identify with his plight. The natural audience involvement accomplished on “In the Name of the Father” (1993) is the biggest difference setting these two movies apart, and the lack of it what makes “Hunger” rather like a great directing prep than a all out film.

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The Thing 1982

Made in 1982, “The Thing” is one of the many adaptations of “Who Goes There?”, a science fiction novel written by John W. Campbell Jr., including “The Thing From Another World (1951), “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” (1956), “Alien” (1978), and a modern remake of the object of this review, “The Thing” (2011).

The Thing adds many steps further on special effects for the time it was conceived.  To the knowledge of this reviewer, the movie still has the most graphic and impressive horror effects to be made, even if it dates some thirty years back. This is due mostly to the care for realism the production sought. For instance,  the studio temperature was lowered and the actors had to drink hot beverages before shooting, so the their breath should be seen on screen.  Its director, John Carpenter on his debut with Universal Pictures, has been able to stamp his particular view on the subjects of his movies.  Being a lawless, earthquake thorn, Los Angeles (Escape From L.A.) or a chinese neighborhood unraveling secrets and ancient hocus pocus (Big Trouble In Little China), most of his films display his own and inimitable signature.  

With The Thing there is no difference. The viewer is presented with a dark, sober and realistic recreation of an Antarctic American research base. Right from the very beginning the ominous story begins to unfold, as a Swedish colleague lands at the American site and starts shooting its personnel.  The threat is revealed as an alien creature that mimics life forms, including humans. From this point onwards what was meant (or imagined by the audience) to be only a horror movie turns out to be also a psychological thriller, very well explored by Carpenter, as the characters don’t know who is the alien disguised as a human.  This dual feature heightens  “The Thing” apart from other horror movies, and, thus, the cult status it is often credited nowadays.

Kurt Russell, as the helicopter pilot Mc Ready, displays possibly the best acting of the many partnerships he has made with John Carpenter. The hammy, macho-man, performance seen on “Escape From L.A.” is mostly gone, so the audience remains with a character that is still always master of its actions but not immune to the neurotic suspicion the base crew is plagued with. For the rest of the crew, Carpenter casted many unknown actors, so their roles resembles no other previous acting, in a way that provides more authenticity. For instance, Tom Hanks on “The Terminal” and on “Forrest Gump” looks remarkably the same naïve guy, being difficult not think you’re seeing different people who are alike.

“The Thing” attained a deserved cult status, on the other hand, it endured an undeserved weak theater reception. This is often explained as an E.T. effect, as the homonymous  movie was released almost simultaneously, and the audiences went on cherishing gentle, good doers, extraterrestrials, in spite of those evil, insidious, alien creatures John Carpenter presented us.

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Das Boot (The Boat)

History is written by the victors. This phrase, usually attributed to Churchill, is no less true to war movies.  Common sense amongst hollywoodian movies, germans are often shown as selfish, completely insensible, or even clumsy.  This is not a matter of taking sides on past conflicts, but about a movie which is more even tempered with facts,  which characters are capable of fear, anxiety, and, ultimately, apathy with themselves.

Wolfgangs Petersen’s masterpiece portrays a german U-Boat, its crew and its captain, on a usual mission throughout the Atlantic during World War II, at a time when the allied were already using their deadly sonars. Thus, the movie is more about survival then praying, although “wolfpack” naval tactic is more than hinted during it. The director was very successful on creating a true claustrophobic  ambience, using a hand-held Arriflex camera, as the viewer seems to be thrown into the submarine with the rest of the crew. Although shot in the early eighties, Das Boot has very convincing special effects, even if compared with modern computer generated productions. Better still, the best feature is that Das Boot imposes an authenticity right from the first scene, when the captain is being driven to a cabaret at night, prior to sailing the next day. It is as if the actual seriousness of the past events were accurately reproduced. Nothing seems to have been left behind: the binge drinking in anticipation of missions, the brief and uninspiring speech preceding sail, the daily Enigma dispatches, the elusive enemies ships under the periscope, and even the meals, taken on a tight stretch of corridor.

The film relies on the known and often used newbie approach, when someone alien to the process is put on the plot. This allows the spectator to get hold of the story, just as the novice character is being introduced to the métier. In this case the war correspondent Werner is sent to join the crew and report to the Reich about the naval campaign. What begins as an adventure unfolds into a fight against the allied cruisers, and also into psychological endurance of the harsh environment. There is not much dispute amongst egos, but Wolfgang Petersen made sure to include different colors of soldiers, ranging from the ardent nazi to rather practical and even critical officers. 
 

There are no particular lessons of grandeur.  Survival and accomplishment of duty were the only motto at times when life was a zero sum game. Possibly the best war movie ever made, and, surely, the definite war submarine film.