Monday, March 3, 2008
Paul Auster and an Inner Life on film
The Inner Life of Martin Frost is obviously a personal project for author (and filmmaker) Paul Auster meditating on the possibility of muse and the nature of art and inspiration. The setup: a writer alone in the refuge of a friend's house wakes up with a beautiful foreign woman who has great teeth. From the very beginning her "reality" seems a bit questionable, but Martin, of course, falls in love with her anyway.
I've read a little bit of Auster and loved Smoke and Blue in the Face a few years back. Martin Frost has a kind of simplicity and spareness with four actors but feels too far stretched for a full ninety minutes. The second half has a bunch of flashback sequences and Eeek! a montage of lots of images of blue skies and tree tops, the stuff of student filmmakers.
Auster isn't afraid of being a bit unorthodox and plays with form a bit. There is a great little voice over segment where he illustrates the structure and trajectory of stories with a line drawn animation. There is another where the manual typewriter Martin uses is suspended in space. And Martin's (David Thewlis) encounters with Claire, his muse, played by Irène Jacob, in the second half are handled with a lovely startling tone that brings the viewer to attention.
Michael Imperioli who played Christopher in the Sopranos plays Jim Fortunato, the local handyman with some of the same goofy infectiousness he gave his mobster character when pursuing his Hollywood dream. Auster's daughter Sophie, also shows up towards the end of the film and gets a chance to display her fine singing.
The world sometimes needs pleasant little movies that don't seek to change anything or get too majorly ambitious in approach. I know some folks that would hate Martin Frost and point to its awkwardness, but it is better than most alternatives to be found with a remote. I can see it popping up on IFC, Sundance and on late night premium cable networks for years to come.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:23 PM
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