From Word To Word

I have been watching far too many films lately, and I have far too much that I want to write about them, so I have not been able to write anything at all, and my list only gets longer.  This post is a an attempt to catch myself up, though at the expense of doing some of these films justice.  I have written similar posts before about my reading, and I may just make a habit of posting something like this every few months, just to keep myself on top of things.

Avatar by James Cameron (2009) – The best thing that I can say about this script is that it remains mostly inconspicuous.  If I was to say more, I would be forced to call the plot cliche and the story racially stereotypical and the character development both shallow and predictable.  The acting is generally of a similar caliber:  good enough not to distract but otherwise uninspired and uninspiring, even from some of the more established names from whom something more might have been expected.

Even so,  despite all of these criticisms, I would not hesitate to list Avatar among the most impressive film experiences of my life.  Too much has been written already about the 3D and the special effects and the visual scope of the film, so I will not go over these things again, but the greatest testament to the power of these elements is probably the fact that they are able to make a mediocre script and barely passable acting into the highest grossing film of all time.

Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa (1954) – This was my second Kurosawa film, but it may as well have been my first, since I saw Yojimbo so long ago that it is only a very hazy memory for me now.  I will not make the vain attempt to describe the film or the director for those who are unfamiliar with them, but I do want to discuss two scenes that I liked particularly.  They both centre around a peasant girl and the youngest of the seven samurai who have have been hired by her village to protect it from bandits.  The two fall in love, as might be expected, but they are separated both by class and by the ambiguous relationship that the peasants have with the samurai, both relying on their strength to maintain the social order and also fearing that their strength might be used to undermined that social order, to take the peasants’ food and daughters by force.

In one scene, the two lovers are sitting in a meadow of flowers, a place that has already been visually associated with the young samurai.  The peasant girl basically offers herself to the samurai, but he hesitates, and she becomes angry, questioning his manhood and his status as a samurai.  During this scene, there is a shot of the two lovers sitting, turned toward each other, face to face, and the camera pans behind the samurai, so that the girl’s face is increasingly occluded and eventually eclipsed by his head. It is as if the girl’s beauty is being obscured by the many questions that the samurai has to consider or as if the girl herself is being eclipsed by her lover.

In a later scene, the two face each other once again, but now across a huge bonfire in the village square.  The girl is  at the door of a hut, and her invitation is clear to the samurai, but he hesitates again, and the camera alternates between their two gazes as they look at each other across the fire, the symbol both of their passion but also of the considerations that separate them.  The scene culminates with the samurai crossing to the other side of the fire to consummate their perhaps ill considered love.

These two sequences are fabulous.  They are so tightly blocked and filmed, so symbolically suggestive on various levels, that they almost stand as stories unto themselves.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans by Werner Herzog  (2009) – If I was forced to describe this film in a single sentence, I would say that it is a colossal practical joke being played by the director and the principal actor on the audience and the rest of the cast.  It is as though Herzog took the script of a completely conventional cop film and told most of the cast to take it ever so seriously.  Then, letting only Nicholas Cage and maybe Val Kilmer in on his intentions, he set about shooting the film as a systematic mockery of both the Hollywood cop flick and the culture that produces it.  There are three highlights for me.

First, there is the scene where Nicholas Cage, high on cocaine, enters the apartment where his team is staking out a suspect.  He sees two lizards on the table and asks why they are there.  Of course, nobody else sees the lizards, so Cage turns and looks out the window for what seems like two minutes, all the while, in the foreground, the two lizards are climbing over each other.  The scene closes with Cage, at long last, turning back to glance at the lizards once again.

Second, there is the scene where a car has crashed after hitting an alligator.  The shot that closes the scene is filmed from the perspective of another alligator and looks very much like handicam footage.  The shot lasts for perhaps a minute, and there are some indications that the alligator is being prodded with a stick so that it will move.

Third, there is the scene where one set of gangsters is gunned down by another.  Cage, high once again, tells a gunman to shoot one of the corpses again.  “Why?” the gunman asks.  “Because his soul’s still dancing,” Cage replies, and the camera shows the corpse’s doppelganger breakdancing in the middle of the floor until the body is indeed shot again and the soul drops awkwardly to the floor.

This film is a must see, I think, but only if you are prepared to watch it from the same ironic perspective that it was directed.

Watchmen by Zack Snyder (2009) – I did not love this film.  I did not even like it as much as the graphic novel, which I liked less than many others told me I would.  The narrative of the pirates, which is my favourite part of the book, is cut entirely from the film, though there are for obvious filmic reasons for this.  The music, which seems appropriate where it is mentioned in the book, seems often jarring and awkward when it is actually played in the film.  The narrative, which is pleasantly complex in the book, appears only hurried and shallow in the film.  I am thankful, in short, that I paid nothing to see it.

Sanjuro by Akira Kurosawa (1962) – This film is a sequel of sorts to Yojimbo, and it might be summarized by the phrase, repeated several times in the course of the story, that the best sword remains sheathed.  The hero, a grizzled samurai, is told this first by the noblewoman whom he rescues near the beginning of the film, and he repeats the phrase to himself in the final scene, but much of the film reinforces this idea less obviously, showing how most violence is unnecessary, and how it is the stupidity of some that makes violence necessary for others.

The final scene recapitulates this theme succinctly.  Sanjuro is confronted by a samurai whom he has tricked and defeated throughout the course of the film.  Sanjuru has removed his hands from his sleaves and has tucked them against his body under his kimono, and though I am not certain whether there are the cultural connotations for this stance, it is certainly a passive one, with his hands far from his sword and encumbered by his clothing.  He remains in this position even once confronted, telling his opponent that he does not want to fight, that enough blood has been spilled already.  He is, visually and symbolically, sheathed, but his opponent is persistent, as movie villains so often are, and he is forced to unsheathe himself and slay his enemy.  He is, as he says himself a moment later, a sword that cannot remain sheathed.

This blend of symbolism and reflection with what remains essentially an action film, all very beautifully shot, is what makes Kurosawa’s films so appealing.

49th Parallel by Michael Powell (1941) – As a Canadian, I find 49th Parallel often amusing, since it portrays Canada as a nation of trappers and natives and Hutterites and dillettant democrats, which most Canadians would have recognized only as a stereotype even at the time the film was made.  The propgandist elements of the film are also enetrtaining at a remove of some seventy years, sounding mostly forced and mostly unnatural.  The story, however, still remains compelling, and the pacing is superb, creating a thriller that builds in intensity without having to resort to cliche plot techniques.  The score, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is also very good.  I would recommned it very highly for a February evening with a glass of scotch.