Author: John

Lorna’s Silence (2008)

Lorna’s Silence, the 2008 film from the Dardenne brothers, recently played a limited theatrical engagement here in Dallas. It’s always a pleasure to see their work on the big screen, and this film is certainly no exception to the rule. Here, as in the brothers’ four previous full-length fiction films, we find characters situated in a stifling urban milieu, a protagonist placing herself in situations that quickly spin wildly out of her control, and a resolution that resists easy categorization.

Hearkening back to their 1999 film, Rosetta, the brothers again focus their camera on a woman, this one an Albanian immigrant hoping to earn Belgian citizenship through a sham marriage to a drug addict. Lorna has to make several difficult choices along the way, but all of them, at some level, come back to money.

The film opens with the sounds of a bank while the opening credits pass in white over a black background. When the first image finally appears, we see a stack of money changing hands. Knowing the Dardennes, it’s difficult not to think of Robert Bresson’s final film L’argent at this point (their 2007 short film Dans l’Obscurité makes explicit reference to Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar). The narratives end up quite differently, but the two films share a decidedly pessimistic view of money’s role in modern society.

Finances remain the driving factor in Lorna’s Silence through most of its runtime, as people constantly grapple over money, offer money to others, buy cigarettes, get paid for marriages, and take out loans. Everything in Lorna’s life is a transaction—from prescription drugs to a marriage partner, and even to her own identity as a Belgian citizen. Indeed, Lorna’s drive to leave Albania for Belgium is explicitly never spoken about in the film, but all indications are that she came with a boyfriend that they might make a better life for themselves—better as in more economic choices available to them.

The Dardenne brothers highlight this transactional nature of Lorna’s life. People are constantly exchanging cash, a striking series of scenes when so much of modern commerce takes place without coins and bills. Money becomes for Lorna (and all of the other main characters in the film), a means to achieve her dreams—new freedoms, a new place to live, a new job, and a new identity altogether. However, what becomes clear through the film is how little of this dream she actually attains. She has indeed moved from Albania and has a job, but at the price of both freedom and an identity that’s her own. Lorna becomes an indentured servant, and finds that while her location has changed, her options remain dangerously limited.

Because of her situation, Lorna seems distant, cold, and inhuman as the film begins. She has decided to pursue life as transaction, to essentially sell herself in the hopes of a better existence. However, when she actually has to come through on her end of the bargain, she finds some shred of human feeling and conscience left in her. That flame within her stands in danger of being extinguished early in the film, but as she continues to fight the forces arrayed against her on behalf of another human being, she comes alive. Love is the evidence of life in such a world, and Lorna’s struggle reveals that such love comes only with much sacrifice.

Lorna’s life seems to ask: What does it look like to live a truly human existence in the midst of a life-sapping environment where one’s existence is dictated by transactions? Considering life in purely (or even in primarily) economic terms is no life at all, the film seems to suggest. In highlighting this reality, the Dardennes have placed the proverbial finger on the pulse of modern society. Even contemporary religious communities sometimes define themselves in primarily economic terms, using phrases like “Jesus paid our debt in full” and “count the cost” as descriptors of spiritual realities. What kind of hope can we have when those who speak about hope (religious or otherwise) do so in terms that, were they taken at face value like they are in this film, would sap the life right out of their communities?

In typical Dardenne fashion, the film concludes with more of a question mark rather than a period: How can an actual human being live and love in such an economically driven world that knows nothing of either life or love? Does such a world even allow for humanity? And finally, what does it say about us if we’re living comfortably and carefree in such a dehumanizing world?

Match Point (2005)

Woody Allen’s Match Point was hailed, on its premiere in 2005, as a return to relevance for the New York actor-writer-director. Suffering under a largely underwhelming output through the 90s and the early part of this decade, Allen relocated to London, a move that paid off in the production of this taut, suspenseful drama about a man who finds himself caught between two women—his wife and his mistress.

Allen’s film begins with bold narration laid in over a close up of a tennis net. The yellow ball travels left, right, then back to the left, over and over again as the film’s main character, Chris, speaks about the importance of luck to all of life. When the ball hits the net, the direction it falls will be determined by chance. Or so he’s come to believe. This narration, coming at the beginning of the film, serves to frame the action that follows, providing insight into how Chris views the events that transpire in his life. In fact, he even vocalizes similar views during a dinner scene later in the film, arguing for the ultimate meaninglessness of life because all things happen due to random chance. There is no power to determine one’s direction in life.

A former professional tennis player himself, one wonders if Chris’ belief in chance resulted in his lack of belief in himself. A tennis-playing friend comments to Chris later about how he always seemed to be within a bounce or two of really competing at the highest level. It seems that in the face of years of hard work, Chris could never get the bounces to go his way, so he quit and floated into another way of making a living.

Early in the film, Chris alternates between reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and a companion to Dostoevsky that offers readers a shortcut to understanding the novel. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that the narrative unfurls like Crime and Punishment in reverse. The novel portrays Raskolnikov as one who believes himself as unique, superior among human beings, and above the law. These beliefs lead him to commit a crime to prove his theory. However this crime occurs extremely early in the novel, leaving the bulk of the pages to portray Raskolnikov’s struggle with the guilt and fear that come with such heinous deeds, and the redemption that follows.

On the other hand, Match Point portrays Chris as someone who sees himself as an outsider, but who tries to fit into civilized society. The crime that Chris commits, almost a mirror image of the crime in Dostoevsky’s novel, comes at the end of the film, rather than at the beginning. Instead of emphasizing the guilt and fear that result from the crime, Allen lays the emphasis on the guilt and fear that cause the crime. Allen’s film presents us a series of events that lead up to the crime—a list of reasons for it, if you will.

This change of focus presents us a world in which rather than mourning our sins and finding redemption, we ponder the reasons for our sins and lose our connection with humanity. The heart the film, therefore, moves away from introspection, and toward victimization, not a surprising shift in light of contemporary fascination with blaming others. And when the time for fear and guilt over his sins finally arrives in the film, it’s given no more than a few of minutes of screen time.

However, either due to the brilliance of the filmmaker or in spite of him, Match Point cannot be categorized as a simple narrative that illustrates the randomness of the universe. Sure, the main character firmly believes that, even in light of the film’s stunning conclusion. But the film shows us other things as well: we see a man consistently making choices to pursue one woman, then another, even when it forces him to be dishonest or, more selfishly, puts his own living situation at great risk; we see a man who creates a plan to eliminate the conflict between the two women, a plan that will require him to commit a heinous and unthinkable crime; and most significantly, we see a man who, in the final frames of the film, stands apart from the only family he knows.

Allen shoots his final scene in an extended tracking shot, as the family all return from the hospital with a new baby. But the continuity of the shot belies the discontinuity between Chris and the rest of the family. Allen’s camera does not allow this sad reality of Chris’ new life (or is it new death?) to escape. As the family gathers for a champagne toast around the new life sitting before them, an ashen Chris walks toward the window overlooking the Thames, his face bathed in an unforgiving sunlight. The light reveals all—a man who on the outside has no troubles, yet on the inside remains troubled by his deeds; a man who lives in material comfort without, but has no spiritual or emotional comfort within.

If everything really were simply left up to chance, if life really were completely random and without any ultimate meaning, would the look on his face be so predictable? Sure, Allen’s film begins with a narration on the luck of life and includes multiple spoken scenes on the randomness of the universe. But it’s that troubled and guilty face we’re left with, a face that shows us maybe things aren’t as random as they sometimes seem.

The Last Days of Disco (1998)

I just contributed a piece over at Filmwell. Here’s a sampling:

Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco came out over a decade ago, but its directionless youth who overestimate themselves seem even more prescient today than they did in 1998. That Stillman avoids making his characters hateful or unlikable while eliciting laughter and smiles is a testament to his skill as a writer and director, and to the film’s lasting place as a witty comedy rather than a wordy drama.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

The first of Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars stars Clint Eastwood in one of his most iconic roles, a fast-drawing, occasional-talking man who seems more a force of nature than a human being. He and his gun make an immediate impression on the small town of San Miguel, which has been crippled under the strain of a war between two criminal gangs. The film, a largely faithful remake of Akira Kurosawa’s original samurai picture, Yojimbo, is different in more than just the historical setting. Where Kurosawa’s film takes a detached, though at times, darkly comic view of the violence wrought by the nameless samurai, Leone’s film dwells on the sadistic pleasure the Rojo gang finds in decimating their opponents.

Two scenes, similar in effect, stand out in this regard: an early scene where Ramon Rojo murders an entire French army unit with a single machine gun, and a later scene where Ramon and a few members of his gang light the Baxter house afire and stand outside with guns drawn, shooting down their opponents as they flee the encroaching flames. In each scene, Leone not only shows the helpless group mowed down by bullets, but he highlights the faces of the shooters in close-up as they perpetrate their crimes. The joy and excitement is strikingly evident in their faces as they fire away, believing those moments to be decisive victories in their battle for control of the criminal enterprises in the region.

Leone highlights the shooters in each scene by repeatedly cutting back and forth between their faces and the carnage left in their wake. But what is the cumulative impact of sequences like these, sequences that use brisk cutting to combine looks of pleasure with falling and flailing bodies amid the spray of bullets?

On the face of it, it seems fairly ambiguous, which is exactly the problem. We know the Rojo gang, and Ramon in particular, are a violent and terrible group of people who take advantage of others for their own gain. That fact alone may create the necessary distance between the viewer and the Rojo gang so that we can pass judgment on their actions.

However, the Rojo gang is clearly not alone in their predilection for self-serving behavior. The opposing Baxter family, the military units, and even the (anti)hero all fall into that category as well. On top of that, when Leone chooses a way of shooting (!) these two scenes that uses quick cuts to combine moments of pleasure with moments of violence, the result is a couple of adrenaline pumping scenes, scenes that work more on feeling than on narrative. In that sense, Leone’s film, unlike Kurosawa’s, doesn’t seem to give the viewer any distance from which to judge the Rojo gang. These scenes muddy the waters, giving viewers an opportunity to enter into the violent minds of killers from afar.

This formal combination of intense pleasure and visceral violence has become standard operating procedure in action films these days, but at the time of Leone’s film, the tactic was relatively new. Eastwood’s anti-hero also offers little in the way of a strong presence for goodness, rather functioning as a power greater than the Rojos, come to exact some kind of neutral, karmic justice. The film even underplays the Rojo’s interaction with the village woman, someone they presumably kidnapped for more than her abilities at cooking and cleaning.

So where the film can distance the viewer from the evil of the Rojos, or play up the goodness of Eastwood, it refuses. In fact, it seems to take pains to move all the action downward on a spectrum of good and evil. The world in the film is one of great evil, of power exercised and checked, and where little or no good exists outside of self-interest. This cloudy moral universe means the viewer ends up having little basis within the film on which to make a strong judgment against the Rojos, even or especially within those scenes that highlight their sadistic thirst for vengeance and blood.

So while the film remains an unquestionably strong entertainment more than thirty years after its release, its disturbing use of subjective and sadistic violence means Leone’s film leaves a bitter aftertaste.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Mervyn LeRoy’s stunning 1932 drama, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang stands as one of the landmarks of “social justice” filmmaking. The film follows the tragic story of James Allen (Paul Muni), a recent veteran of World War I. Before the war he worked a clerical job in a factory, but the upheaval in Europe created an upheaval in his aspirations as well. With a newfound desire to work in a career outside the regimented life of the factory or the military, he leaves his mother and brother for the road, hoping to establish himself in construction and ultimately, engineering.

However, Allen’s hopes for a life of spontaneity sputter on the long and arduous road to keeping a job. He struggles to find consistent work, and ultimately gets caught up in a robbery where the gunman forces him at gunpoint to participate. Sentenced to the chain gang for ten years, Allen bristles under the unjust punishment he’s received and comes to realize he’s found himself in a more regimented life than he ever thought possible. What he’d suffered so long to get away from he now found himself subject to for the next ten years of his life.

LeRoy’s film really takes off in the chain gang sequence as his camera expressively lingers on the heavy chains, the dirty surroundings, and the faces of the convicts. Some are murderers. Others thieves. But, the camera suggests, all are human.

However, chained to their beds for the night, chained to the trucks that carry them to the job site, and chained one foot to another, they seem more like zoo animals than people. Within weeks, Allen begins actively planning his escape. He finds his opportunity after only a few months and successfully escapes to Chicago, where he establishes himself as a hard working member of a construction company. After a few years, he’s one of the young stars in the city, giving speeches to the chamber of commerce and attending dinners at classy clubs.

However, having to live under a false name, and in a marriage to a woman who essentially blackmails him, dooms Allen to more of the same. That Allen is forced to live under another set of metaphorical chains in his newfound privileged world suggests something about the way injustice permeates all of modern society. Not even money or prestige buys freedom for the innocent. Eventually, when injustice gets the best of Allen, he turns into what the society has been trying to prevent—a criminal.

LeRoy’s film suggests that the desire to live outside the regimented standards of the world places one up against a life-sapping challenge. Allen wants little more than to contribute to society in his own way rather than the way that’s been provided for him. But I Am a Fugitive . . . has a dark, shockingly cynical perspective on life in modern society. It suggests that the world we’ve created for ourselves of our own free will seeks to stamp out all individuality. This world demands conformity, and those who do not comply will be punished.

In that sense, there’s almost an apocalyptic dread seeping through the film, one that LeRoy expresses beautifully in the film’s final shot. As Allen stands in an alley unshaven and wild-eyed, whispering in a hoarse, almost unrecognizable voice to his former fiancé, he slowly fades into the darkness. Our modern world, so full of wonderful technological marvels, crisp new clothes, and cultured people, also has a dark side, one that preaches conformity and threatens our value as individuals hoping to make unique contributions to our world. It’s funny, but LeRoy’s film seems to be required viewing more now than it was even in the chain gang era of 1932.

Public Enemies (2009)

Michael Mann’s latest film, Public Enemies, pits two serious, brooding, and exacting minds against each other—one, Melvin Purvis, a tight-lipped lawman with justice on the brain, the other, John Dillinger, a likable bank robber that consistently eludes capture. The movie delivers on its promise of genre thrills, but in typical Mann fashion, there’s much more going on here than a simple series of action set pieces or even a documentary-style depiction of Purvis’s pursuit of Dillinger.

Unfortunately, Mann’s film has taken some heat for its many changes to the original historical material—major events are out of their historical, chronological order, Purvis comes across in the film as a better lawman than he actually was, and the cinematic Dillinger lacks the flair that he so readily showed during his crime spree. But these criticisms miss the point of Mann’s film. Were he attempting to offer a journalistically accurate record of events, he might be worth criticizing on these issues.

It seems clear though that Mann’s interest lies less in an accurate record of events and more in the presentation of two human beings whose similarities far outweigh their differences. Despite his criminal lifestyle, Dillinger was known to be a kind of heroic, Robin Hood figure, loved by the common man who saw in Dillinger someone sticking it to the greedy bankers. On the other side, Purivs had his own hero reputation, one that earned him the job of leading the chase for Dillinger in the first place. Yet when Mann looks at these two men, he sees a hero in neither of them—at least they’re not heroes in the way we’ve come to expect our heroes to act. No, Mann seems to want to show us a more personal and intimate—rather than mythic—side of this historical event. The subjective camera and the mumbled dialogue stand as two of the chief formal evidences of his intentions in this regard.

Early on in the film, the standard hero-villain narrative looks to be firmly in place. The first scenes of Dillinger and Purvis reveal their successes. Dillinger calmly breaks into prison so that he can turn around and break out the members of his gang still behind bars. The plan is exquisite, and while others go too far or a man gets shot, the plan results in Dillinger with most of his old gang back. Purvis also has a vivid, early success as he tracks down and calmly kills a fleeing Pretty Boy Floyd. He never flinches, even with bullets wildly flying in his direction. Purvis takes the lead, places himself in harm’s way before the other officers, and, like Dillinger, he gets the job done.

Both of these men seem to be coming from a firm position of strength, one that solidifies their role in society. They each know their role and fulfill it accordingly—Dillinger robs banks and Purvis chases him down. Each of these men operate based on ideals outside themselves. While Dillinger dreams of days in idyllic peace far from the towns of the upper Midwest, Purvis pursues that ever-present ideal of justice on behalf of the people.

The two men also have certain rules that bind or limit their work. Dillinger plans to achieve his goal without robbing banks with strangers or in desperation, while Purvis intends to catch Dillinger through every available legal means necessary. Though these two figures seem to embody their heroic roles fully, it’s in these rules or codes of behavior that the cracks in their heroism emerge. Neither can live up to the standards they’ve set for themselves, in part because both men are limited in their powers. Mann’s film shows us clearly that these men are not superheroes or demigods. They’re unable to marshal the power necessary to achieve their desired reality.

Dillinger starts losing people from his gang, either to prison or to death. Other supporters turn their backs on him. Dillinger can do nothing about either, too busy making sure he too doesn’t fall. For his part, Purvis, despite his modern methods of investigation, cannot capture and keep Dillinger in custody. He even has to take on another agent, a man more experienced in chasing the likes of Dillinger. These realities clearly illustrate both Dillinger’s and Purvis’ limitations and force them both to break their rules—Dillinger to work with strangers under desperation, and Purvis to bend immigration law to persuade an informant to work for him.

Both of these men fail to keep their respective codes. Both also fail to attain their ultimate goals. Dillinger doesn’t escape to his idyllic hideaway. Purvis fails to kill Dillinger. Mann’s film takes the traditional hero-villain narrative, places it in a historical crime genre, and instead of amping up the thrills and chills, he shows us the tragedy of the human condition: no matter how hard we try to live up to our standards of perfection, we fail.

We might be on the side of justice or the side of crime but at the end of the day we’re all human, so we all fail. In and of themselves, neither the pursuit of justice nor the pursuit of crime gets us closer to our goals. God help us.

Two Lovers (2008)

What makes a happy man? From writer-director James Gray (who gave us the underrated 2001 film, The Yards), Two Lovers takes for its subject a single emotionally-damaged young man utterly lost in his search for happiness. Capably played by Joaquin Phoenix, Leonard begins the film by attempting to drown himself, not the first time he’s tried suicide, we’ll eventually discover. Unsuccessful, he immediately finds himself in the sights of his well-meaning, matchmaking parents.

Through them he meets Sandra, the delicate daughter of a family friend. Of Jewish heritage like Leonard, she promises a stable life approved by Leonard’s parents, though with that stability will come routine and responsibility. Sandra will also provide a constant reminder of Leonard’s former fiancée, a woman he loved deeply but whose parents broke off the engagement.

The connection between Leonard and Sandra is evident, but quickly fades when confronted with the radiant glow of Leonard’s damaged neighbor, Michelle. Leonard meets Michelle on the landing in front of his apartment as she listens to a man cuss her out from upstairs. That it might not actually be her father never occurs to Leonard, who’s too busy basking in her beauty and bowled over by her interest in talking with him. But her anything-goes attitude coupled with her status as a Gentile (outside the strict structure of his family life) offers Leonard something different, a move away from the painful past. Michelle draws him to look outside his world of family and tradition for the happiness he so desperately seeks.

The film proceeds by following Leonard’s alternating affections for Sandra and then Michelle. Meanwhile, Leonard’s emotional instability seemingly lays in wait, preparing to rear its ugly head at an inopportune moment. That Gray holds that card for so long without playing it is a testament to his skill as a writer, for it leaves the film with a palpable sense of life and death drama playing out before us. Further, Gray’s careful observation of his characters, his mobile camera, and his occasional evocative framing give the film a thoughtful air that draws the viewer into the central dilemma of the film.

In the end, Two Lovers presents Leonard with a choice between the film’s titular characters—the fun-loving, beautiful, but unstable Michelle, or the quiet, delicate, but supportive Sandra. One holds the promise of throwing off the constraints of family and expectations for the opportunity to fulfill his every desire. The other offers a simple, if unexciting life filled with hard work, children, and obligation. Unsurprisingly, Leonard ultimately chooses the former, just at the moment Michelle’s unstable situation places her out of Leonard’s reach. Leonard, jilted by the woman he believes is his true love, stands alone in a barred courtyard with only two choices before him: Sandra or death.

Gray’s deft move from the choice between two women to the choice between life and death highlights the significance of this moment for Leonard. That he ultimately chooses life seems less a sign of resignation and more an indication of a profound truth—that perseverance through suffering produces hope. In hope all things seem possible. Even finding happiness in a life that doesn’t promise to fulfill every whim and desire he might have.

Brothers (2004)

Directed by Susanne Bier, Brothers follows the trajectories of two lives in opposition, yet joined by blood. Michael is the typical favored son—his parents look on him with pride for his successful military career, his wife dotes in response to his attentiveness, and his kids laugh often in his presence. However, Jannik, the younger, seems everything his brother is not—just released from prison, gruff and overly sensitive personality, and spends more time in the company of bartenders and prostitutes than with those who care for him most.

The film takes these two men and flips them—placing one on a trajectory toward new life, while the other’s fate takes a turn for the worse toward death. Bier’s style, reminiscent of the Dogme films that have come out in the last ten years, relies on handheld cameras and natural lighting. Bier ensures that the handheld camera, which in many films detracts from the end product, contributes to the emotional immediacy of the film. This still feels a little like cheating, like Bier is taking a shortcut to a series of stirring catharses for the audience.

Though Brothers dictates some of our feeling to us, the narrative itself largely remains compelling at a fundamental level. One might quibble with an unlikely coincidence here or there, but the arc of these two young men is one played out in numerous stories and myths throughout human history—stuck in the mire, humanity always hopes for something more out of life.

Flannery O’Connor once said that “redemption is meaningless unless there is cause for it in the actual life we live.” Brothers offers cause.

These images from the film seem appropriate for this time of year—early spring, with fresh leaves sprouting on trees and, if you can imagine, the call of young sparrows in their boughs.

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