Saturday, February 23, 2008

A Weekend Movie Marathon (of sorts)


Movies. That's what was on my mind after my return from Online NW on Friday.

3:10 to Yuma
The ongoing quality of Elmore Leonard's short story is what provided the heart of this engaging, entertaining, and, at times, thought provoking film.

Another thing this film has going for it is its pacing and the quality of the set pieces. The night fire raid on the farmer Dan Evans' (Christian Slater) place quickly draws the audience into the film with action. That is quickly counterpointed by a breath taking raid by Ben Wade (Russel Crowe) and his gang on stage coach equipped with a gattling gun. We then have Ben Wade's capture. The midsection action in the film contains another outlaw attack, An Indian ambush at night, and an ecounter with a railway constuction camp building tunnels, etc. The dialog driven scenes are tightly crafted and mostly feature the earnest principles of Evans/Bale sparring with the somewhat sociopathic criminal mind of Wade/Crowe.

I'm glad that 3:10 found audiences last Fall when it was released last fall. Like jazz, the western is a quite individual and consummate American invention. World cinema found it and enriched it and exported back to us, most notably in the form of the so-called Italian spaghetti western. One of the great features of the receipt of our nation stories twisted and reconstituted with soundtracks from Leone and other was when they featured soundtracks of Ennio Morricone. Marco Beltarmi's soundtrack for 3:10 seems to somehow create a new circle here with its martial drum beats, mariachi inflected trumpets, and plaintive string strung melodies sounding like a creation of Morricone's grandchildren. And it succeeds in adding one more layer of interest to an already entertaining return to Hollywood's love affair with 19th century western America.

Lust, Caution
What set this film apart in many ways is the setting. I don't recall wartime occupied China as a setting for thriller in recent years. We saw students get involved in the resistance in Sophie Scholl, the dangers of espionage sex in The Black Book , and so many other films in the past that deal with similar themes. But this one had the difference of not being in the familiar environs of WWII Europe. We see pre-Communist revolution efforts to assassinate a Kuomintang official in collusion with the Japanese. I love the poetic look and craft of Ang Lee's filmmaking, but as for the story, early on I asked myself if I care about these folks or their circumstances at all.

The flashback sequence of the formation of their revolutionary cell and first attempt is especially annoying. They do a play and then they go to do the revolution. There is no reason to care about this awkward group. When they return to Shanghai, for the last ninety minutes where the real story and action (and sex) takes place, we are already wiped out. It is kind of like Atonement in reverse where the act with the more significant action (and sex) happens first.

The explicit for big budget narrative film sex scenes in Lee's film have gained it most of the extraordinary notoriety that probably would not have been afforded to a routine war espionage, covert danger love relation movie. The first one could not be considered to be anything more than violent rape and a case could be made that the characters are represented by their encounters, which continue in intensity but are thankfully less violent. But by then the film has been rattling on for over two hours and the sex reminiscient of In the Realm of the Senses seems like some kind of bizarre pay off for staying with the film. I was hoping that Ang's return to Asia would be a return to the earlier kind of execution and vision he had in his early The Wedding Banquet or Eat Drink Man Woman. Lust Caution unfortunately and ultimately, ports over baggage and convention from decades of Hollywood and European resistance, attractive woman using sex as lure and means thrillers and that bogs down everything, even the attempt at trying do something significant and unique with the staging of sex scenes.

A note on the sensation that Lust, Caution has caused on the Chinese mainland. Switched, a blog that deals with technology issues reported in a post that there were warnings issued in China relating to Lust, Caution. First, there were warnings by a anti-virus computer company warning folks that pirated copies of Lust, Caution found on line had a virus that could capture passwords. Secondly were the warnings from Chinese physicians that the sex in Lust, Caution contain "abnormal body positions" that could lead to "unnecessary physical harm" if not tried only by women with "comparatively flexible bodies that have gymnastics or yoga experience." This looks like evidence of China encountering media blowback from the shock of the new.

There Will Be Blood
I have been anticipating this one. It promised to be a big, bold auteristic statement originating in the early twentieth century naturalistic fiction of Upton Sinclair. The first twenty minutes or so of the film contains no dialog and is absolutely brilliant The last half hour is almost entirely dialog and isn't as nearly, but still good strong stuff. What happens in between is filled with dreams, derricks, gushers, duplicity, and Old Testament style conflicts.

Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis are unique artists who deserve our attention. For all of the miscues of Gangs of New York, Lewis stands impressive and unforgettable. Even with past strange choices of group singalongs, showers of frogs from Magnolia or a chorus of smudgy colored lights in Punch Drunk Love, anyone who cares about filmmakers having unique and individual visions should want to pay attention to the one often abbreviated as PTA.

There is a lot that is great in There Will Be Blood, but I pull back short to say that the film is greatness. But you have to give great stock and credence for the story of two visionaries, Daniel Plainview, who follows his dream to be an independent Oil man on the level and playing field of the Standard and Union Oil and young Eli Sunday, with his zeal to toil in the fields of the lord, ostensibly for souls, not oil and riches.

There will be Blood has one of the same structural problems that George Stevens interpretation of Edna Ferber's Giant had (with another iconoclast, James Dean, as iconoclastic oil man.) Specifically, that the great visual stuff of the film takes place about the mid point of the film...gushers and fireballs are great to watch on the big screen, but then it is back to character and conflict.

Family and lineage is key to much of the conflict in There Will Be Blood. Just about any mention concerning family tends to be a huge trigger for Daniel Plainview. The brotherhood through the blood of Christ is the major concern of Eli's. And then there is Daniel's son, HW, who is haunts many scenes in the early plot portions of the film with his high intensity gaze that seemingly contain deep running waters.

The look and the sound of this film are unique. Most all of the daytime exteriors are shot under flat overcast. There are no shadows and great contrasts but it gives the lighting a kind of advantage that HD video does to depth of focus, a real lifelike arena in which to tell its story. Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead has created something that is less music as a soundtrack, but brought a kind of aural landscape, often foreboding, to compliment the California hills and mountain outcrops that provide the natural cyclorama to the oil mining activities.

There Will Be Blood is an experience that one will either buy into and admire or even love or will feel detached from. Yet regardless, and as the other PTA's films will likely give you a lot to think and talk about afterwards.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:58 PM
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