Tuesday, May 31, 2011

GOING TO THE TORONTO FILM FEST IN SEPTEMBER!

cant wait!

THE TREE OF LIFE

2011 has essentially become 2010’s rival as far as movies are concerned. If you didn’t like last year’s ‘Inception’, this year we had ‘Source Code’. If you weren’t a fan of 2010’s ‘Kickass’, 2011 brought us ‘Super’. And if you couldn’t get in to ‘Enter the Void’ (which was intense and had its good moments, but could’ve been 45 minutes to an hour shorter) this year we have Terrance Mallick’s highly anticipated ‘Tree Of Life’, which apparently drew boos from the Cannes audience while still winning best picture at the same time (Mallick now joins an exclusive group of directors like David Lynch & David Cronenberg who have had their films booed and rewarded at the very same festival). After watching ‘Tree Of Life’ (for the 2nd time now) the boos & praise makes so much sense. I know that statement sounds strange but that’s how unique the film is. It’s a masterpiece and a disaster at the same time. Its closer to Mallick's recent style ('Thin Red Line' & 'The New World') so there's quite a bit of poetic surreality. Some scenes will completely blow you away even if you go in to this movie wanting to not like it, some scenes will completely floor you and stay in your head for a very long time. But at the same time, parts of this movie comes off like a parody of “Art” cinema (the loud dramatic opera music, lingering shots of the beach, endless scenes of Sean Penn wandering in the desert, etc).

On one level, you have a film about a man (Sean Penn) still struggling with the death of his brother (there's also a lot of unresolved issues with his father). His father (played by Brad Pitt) is the typical old-school American father with stern rules & tough love (a lot of folks really misunderstand this character. Even though he is tough, he also shows plenty of love as far as I'm concerned). His mother (played by Jessica Chastain) is an overly caring, somewhat spiritual sweet housewife.


On another level, you have a director (Terrance Mallick) trying to make his version of both; Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘The Mirror’. At random moments in the film there are scenes of Dinosaurs, cosmic universes and nature. Then he brings us back to modern day where Sean Penn is wandering around aimlessly contemplating life. This film is the epitome of "stream of consciousness" with its amazing (although sometimes disorienting) cinematography. The majority of ‘Tree Of Life’ takes place in \flashbacks of Penn’s childhood where Brad Pitt gives his best performance since ’12 Monkeys’. Honestly, anyone who hates on Pitt’s performance in ‘Tree Of Life’ because he’s a big “Hollywood actor” or whatever is just hating for the sake of hating. He's so good in this, and gives a convincing performance as the typical, proud, tough father. 

But there’s also a flipside. Anyone who’s a diehard Terrance Mallick fan (like me), that’s used to his signature whispery/poetic style of film making (found in his classic films like ‘The Thin Red Line’ and ‘Days Of Heaven’) HAS to admit to themselves that this movie has some serious flaws. There are so many arthouse cliché’s (like the ending which shows all of the cast members roaming around aimlessly and hugging each other on a beach), that you’ll roll your eyes more than once.

The CGI Dinosaurs from 'Tree Of Life' (In all honesty, they kind of looked like SYFY channel dinosaurs. I thought that with the technology of today, Mallick could've done a better job).

I feel Kubrick's use of prehistoric elements worked better because they were used at the beginning of the film, which transitioned a lot better in to the rest of the story which took place in the future. In 'Tree Of Life', all of the pre-historic elements and whatnot where kind of dropped in on us right in the middle of the story, which could feel a little awkward to some people.


As far as themes and symbolisms go, there’s an obvious struggle between the idea of religion (god, Christianity, spiritualism) and science within Malick. I can’t say for sure but Terrance Mallick must have been going through some serious internal issues and felt he needed to get it all out of system. There are elements of this film that are semi-autobiographical, which is why I’m certain that Tarkovsky’s ‘The Mirror’, which is also a mixture of autobiographical & surreal elements, played a major role in the development of this film (in fact there’s a quick scene in ‘Tree Of Life’ where Sean Penn’s mother randomly starts floating in the air, which is clearly a borrowed scene from ‘The Mirror’).



Various Images from 'Tree Of Life'


For those of you who have seen 'Tree Of Life' but haven't seen 'The Mirror', one of the most memorable scenes from both films involve the mother character floating in the air. Whether Mallick meant to draw inspiration from 'Tarkovsky' or not, there are still many similarities...



With all of the flaws that this film has, it’s still a must see. I've had the pleasure of seeing this in two different countries (France and America), and although the French audience was much more vocal as to how they felt about 'Tree Of Life', there were still just as many walkouts as there were people applauding or tearing up by the end.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE

When i first heard The Spirit Of The Beehive described as "Tarkovsky for kids" by the pink smoke's John Cribb i was sold. This film is the perfect example of how one can learn a little bit of history & culture from cinema without necessarily having to reading a book. So the next time someone makes an empty generic statement like; "you cant get that from a movie" or "you cant learn anything from a movie", just use The Spirit Of The Beehive as an example.
Tarkovsky isn't the only filmmaker that rubbed off on Beehive. The film shares many similarities with Terrance Malick's earlier work like Badlands & Days Of Heaven. The use of similar looking landscapes, the cinematography, the music, the lighting and the fact that all three movies (beehive, days of heaven and badlands) are all told from the perspective of a young (female) protagonist. These early films from the 70's eventually went on to influence and inspire more recent works like; Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay actually used music from Badlands in Ratcatcher) and George Washington (its a well known fact that David Gordon Green is very much inspired by Terrance Malick). When you place pictures from Bandlands or Days Of Heaven next to Spirit Of The Beehive they almost look like they come from the same film. And too take it even further - Victor Erice, Terrance Malick and even Lynne Ramsay are all pretty elusive, and don't release films as often as the average director.


Terrance Mallick's Bandlands (1973)

The Spirit Of The Beehive (1973)

Terrance Mallick's Days Of Heaven (1976)

Ratcatcher (1999)

George Washington (2000)


The Spirit Of The Beehive is a film with multiple layers. On one layer, you have a film about a young girl who becomes overly fascinated with Frankenstein after seeing it for the first time at a local cinema. Eventually, after being told a lie about the movie by her older sister, she not only becomes fascinated with Frankenstein, but with the idea of ghosts & spirits. On another level, we have a film that symbolizes the rule that Franco had over Spain (like most Spanish films at the time). The Spirit Of The Beehive is also a textbook "coming of age" tale (along with just about every other film mentioned in this blog). And what makes the coming of age aspect so profound in Beehive is that it's told from such an incredibly young perspective. Generally, coming of age films like small change and 400 blows to ratcatcher and george washington are usually told from the eyes of kids aged 8-16. But Anna in spirit of the beehive is only 6 years old. This makes the perspective fresh, untainted and pure.
One of the most iconic scenes of the film shows the two (young) sisters watch a train whiz by them as they almost zone out and stare at it pass by, almost as if they're frozen (the picture at the top of the page). Many people view this scene as a metaphor of the old Spain, ruled by Franco, passing them by leaving behind the "new" Spain or "the future" (represented by Anna and her sister).

As mentioned earlier, Ana becomes very fascinated with the film, specifically with the scene where the young girl, totally oblivious to the fact that she's standing next to an actual monster, sits down and becomes friendly with the monster (a scene what was brought up previously in my 'claire dolan' review, in which i drew comparison to the park bench scene in 'Ghost Dog')...

Frankenstein
Spirit Of The Beehive
Ghost Dog


Beehive also went on to have a major influence on Pans Labrynth as well...




As a child, Ana Torrent (whose characters in both films where actually named 'Ana') was somewhat of a symbol for arthouse/political Spanish films...

Spirit Of The Beehive
 Cria Cuervos

There's so many great things about 'The Spirit Of The Beehive'. Its one of the best executed 'coming of age' films to date. Through out the film we see Ana experience a lot of "firsts" (obviously a key elements for a coming of age films). Her first movie at the movie theater, experiencing death for the first time, realizing that she's been lied to for the first time (by her sister). There's also an interesting comment that Victor Erice makes about "family'. In 'Spirit Of The Beehive', never at any point do we see Ana, her sister, her father or her mother in same shot/frame at the same time. Lots of clever and subtle things in this film. Its not for everyone, especially people who bore easily. But i personally think its amazing.


Friday, May 27, 2011

THE CINEMA OF MICHAEL MANN TOLD THROUGH IMAGES & STILLS

You can write about Michael Mann all you want, but without pictures and stills from his films you almost don't get the full effect. He's one of the few directors i know that can totally change a persons prejudged opinions about his work just because of the unique "look" or signature style he has in all of his films. So in this blog entry we're gonna look at some nice images from Mann's films, and hopefully i can convert a few a more fans (thanks to "wilderesque" & matt parks on the mubi.com forum for the majority of these pictures)...
Much like how Stanley Kubrick has his famous "glare" shot (found in films like 'The Shining', or Vincent D'Onofrio's slow progression into insanity in 'Full Metal Jacket', the icon shots of Malcolm Mcdowell in 'A Clockwork Orange' or Tom Cruise in the back of the taxi in 'Eyes Wide Shut') or how Spike Lee has his famous tracking shot (used especially well in '25th Hour' in the scene with Phillip Seymour Hoffman or recently with Denzel Washington in 'The Inside Man'), Michael Mann has own unique way of shooting his actors' faces in key scenes of his films...

Miami Vice
Public Enemies
Ali
Manhunter
Heat

Moving on...If there was ever a book or a class on the connection between film and modern architecture, Michael Mann would definitely be one of the key figures to study. They way he not only shoots buildings & landscapes, but captures the true essence of a city (like Los Angeles or Miami ), is really awesome...

Heat
Miami Vice
Manhunter

And naturally, what would a Mann film be without shots of the beach or just water in general. Michael Mann uses water/the beach in his films, the same way that David Lynch uses fire in his ('wild at heart', 'fire walk with', 'blue velvet', etc)

Miami Vice
Heat
The Insider
Thief
Manhunter

His use of bold colors (which is somewhat reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick) is also another key element in the films of Michael Mann

Heat
Miami Vice
 Collateral
 The Insider

A few more random stills...

Ali
Public Enemies
Manhunter
Miami Vice

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