What I’ve Been Knee Deep Up To
Shee-it. I’ve been writing some long-overdue reviews for Apollo Guide, that’s what. Here are some links to the films, with a little additional commentary for those who give a rat’s ass.
Quai des Orfevres
Actually, I wrote this review about three or four months ago, but forgot to send it in. Sorry ‘bout that, Brian. Anyways, Director Georges Clouzot is almost criminally neglected by mainstream movie lovers—his canon, which includes such classics as Wages of Fear and Diabolique, is every bit as riveting, tension-dripping and borderline perverse as the best work of Hitchcock. And Quai des Orfevres just may be my favourite of the lot cuz Clouzot simply lets it all hang out. Quai just oozes sex and secretes violence, as Clouzot, with a master’s touch, indulges all his idiosyncrasies and teases many of our deepest neuroses and darkest lusts. The really great news in the midst of all this is that the folks at Criterion, who’ve done such a stellar job w/ Clouzot’s above-mentioned flicks, plan to release yet another of his fine films, Le Corbeau, sometime over the course of this calendar year. It’s a film he completed during the Nazi occupation of France, which is equally derided by conservatives and commies alike, so you know he must be up to something particularly good here. If you wanna check out the work of someone who can really push the ol’ pen against paper, go check out Bryant Frazer’s review (and bookmark his Deep Focus site NOW) of Quai des Orfevres.
I reviewed a coupla other dvd’s that are nearly as great as Quai, Vittoria de Sica’s Umberto D. and Shohei Imamura’s The Pornographer. Now, David Lynch is probably my favourite director working today, and I couldn’t help but see some parallels w/ his work in these here fine films. First up, Straight Story and Umberto D.: Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin Straight is comparable in so many ways with the title character of Umberto D. as both men are facing death while refusing to surrender basic decency and humanity. They both reflect how the best impulses within us, when being strained while facing the worst life can throw at us, are often all that will see us through to the end.
Secondly, Blue Velvet/Twin Peaks/Lost Highway and The Pornographers: for starters, we’ve got both men’s love of the surreal that is often found in the degeneratively subjective p-o-v. The fish-eyed lens work in Imamura’s film anticipates Lynch’s own twisted subjective cinematography in Lost Highway. Substance-wise, the work of these two men share a similar interest in society’s puritanical refusal to accept into the realm of normal behaviour the basic human urge to procreate we are at least partially responsible for the subsequent acts of repression that pervert and fetishize these essential impulses. While neither filmmaker absolves the individuals who commit crimes, however trite or heinous, as a response to these internal conflicts, both do seem to suggest that society has to share at least a little bit of the blame for such exhibitions of sexual deviance.
The rest of the flicks ranged from merely good to downright awful.
Boyz N the Hood—more influential than good.
Gas Food Lodging—quirky indie film that earnestly documents people earnestly trying to make sense of their earnestly-led lives.
Roman Holiday—sweet enough flan, but in what universe is this sorta fluff considered among the year’s best films?
Lord of the Flies (1990)—I had my problem with Peter Brooks’ original adaptation of the well-read Golding novel, but compared to this piece of excrement, Brooks’ 1962 film is Lawrence of Freaking Arabia.
Return from Witch Mountain—not only one of the worst sequels ever produced by a Hollywood studio, this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Christopher Lee, you’d better get down on yer knees and thank Peter Jackson that this isn’t the sorta drivel that you will be remembered for producing in your golden years.
In case you haven't guess it, you should only go read the latter two reviews if yer in a particularly sadistic frame of mind.
Wherein bon vivant Ben Livant and I (Dan Jardine) speak our minds about movies, mostly.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Best of 2003: Finishing Up
Well, before the film festival so rudely interrupted and before I decided to write some long-overdue reviews for Apollo Guide, I was counting down my favourite films of ’03. Now, where was I?
The Man Without a Past AKA Being Jim Jarmusch
This straight-faced existential comedy offered up what was without a doubt the year’s best impression of a Jim Jarmusch film. Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki’s movie is the second part of a trilogy, but trust me on this, you don’t need to see pt. 1 to understand and, more importantly, appreciate the comic brilliance at play in The Man Without a Past. Kaurismaki’s adoration for rockabilly music, his attraction to the life’s downtrodden, and his essential affection for and faith in people in the face of all sortsa evidence to the contrary shines through in just about every frame. In the central role of amnesiac "M", Markku Peltola exhibits a Buster Keaton-esque deadpan reaction to the wicked curveballs tossed his way, always managing to maintain his integrity and wit despite having no clue who he is or where he has come from. As we live in a world that seems to be increasingly apathetic and at the same time determined to wipe clean the memory slate of the past, Kaurismaki’s tale has a curious allegorical quality. Yet, Peltola’s character is not a surrogate for all that is wrong in our world, but rather for much that is right. In his determination to build a new life with no comprehension of his past one, M refuses to retreat inward, bemoan his bitter fate or cast about for clues of his past life. Instead, he faces the challenge with a straightforward embrace of the new world he finds himself in that clearly signals Kaurismaki’s own optimistic outlook. This way Salvation (Army) lies.
Lord of the Ring: Return of the King AKA Coronation Street
I’ve already written a full-length review on this one for Apollo Guide so I won’t yammer on to much more about it other than to say that, yeah, the film shows some initial signs of serial weariness in the duplication of themes and some of the early passages sag, but given the potentially crushing weight of expectations, I’d say the Jackson has acquitted himself nicely here with a film that lights up once we see the signal fires on Gondor, gains its footing in the battlefields of Minas Tirith, charges confidently to its inevitable greatness outside the gates of Mordor. Unlikely to make any new converts, but surely old fans with be sated.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 AKA One Film to Rule Them All
Another one that I’ve already covered for Apollo Guide, so again I will attempt to be brief. I did not have another moviegoing experience that approached the pure visceral thrills offered up to me by director Quentin Tarantino’s 4th film. Sure, it’s "just" a snazzy-looking b-movie that riffs on the conventions of martial arts flicks, spaghetti westerns and blaxploitation movies, but when Tarantino steals, he rips off the best, and he does so with his very own distinctive style. Much more than simply a sum of its influences, the film is a cinematic force of nature, as Tarantino grafts sound to image, and music to movement in ways that no other contemporary filmmaker can mimic or replicate. Plus, Uma Thurman rips the house down with this performance, Sonny Chiba and Lucy Lui are ab-fab in supporting performances, and the movie has at least three scenes (The Bride’s hospital escape, her dispatching of the Crazy 88s in the Inn of the Blue Leaves and her final battle with O-Ren Ishii in the Japanese Garden) that are without parallel in ’03.
Well, before the film festival so rudely interrupted and before I decided to write some long-overdue reviews for Apollo Guide, I was counting down my favourite films of ’03. Now, where was I?
The Man Without a Past AKA Being Jim Jarmusch
This straight-faced existential comedy offered up what was without a doubt the year’s best impression of a Jim Jarmusch film. Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki’s movie is the second part of a trilogy, but trust me on this, you don’t need to see pt. 1 to understand and, more importantly, appreciate the comic brilliance at play in The Man Without a Past. Kaurismaki’s adoration for rockabilly music, his attraction to the life’s downtrodden, and his essential affection for and faith in people in the face of all sortsa evidence to the contrary shines through in just about every frame. In the central role of amnesiac "M", Markku Peltola exhibits a Buster Keaton-esque deadpan reaction to the wicked curveballs tossed his way, always managing to maintain his integrity and wit despite having no clue who he is or where he has come from. As we live in a world that seems to be increasingly apathetic and at the same time determined to wipe clean the memory slate of the past, Kaurismaki’s tale has a curious allegorical quality. Yet, Peltola’s character is not a surrogate for all that is wrong in our world, but rather for much that is right. In his determination to build a new life with no comprehension of his past one, M refuses to retreat inward, bemoan his bitter fate or cast about for clues of his past life. Instead, he faces the challenge with a straightforward embrace of the new world he finds himself in that clearly signals Kaurismaki’s own optimistic outlook. This way Salvation (Army) lies.
Lord of the Ring: Return of the King AKA Coronation Street
I’ve already written a full-length review on this one for Apollo Guide so I won’t yammer on to much more about it other than to say that, yeah, the film shows some initial signs of serial weariness in the duplication of themes and some of the early passages sag, but given the potentially crushing weight of expectations, I’d say the Jackson has acquitted himself nicely here with a film that lights up once we see the signal fires on Gondor, gains its footing in the battlefields of Minas Tirith, charges confidently to its inevitable greatness outside the gates of Mordor. Unlikely to make any new converts, but surely old fans with be sated.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 AKA One Film to Rule Them All
Another one that I’ve already covered for Apollo Guide, so again I will attempt to be brief. I did not have another moviegoing experience that approached the pure visceral thrills offered up to me by director Quentin Tarantino’s 4th film. Sure, it’s "just" a snazzy-looking b-movie that riffs on the conventions of martial arts flicks, spaghetti westerns and blaxploitation movies, but when Tarantino steals, he rips off the best, and he does so with his very own distinctive style. Much more than simply a sum of its influences, the film is a cinematic force of nature, as Tarantino grafts sound to image, and music to movement in ways that no other contemporary filmmaker can mimic or replicate. Plus, Uma Thurman rips the house down with this performance, Sonny Chiba and Lucy Lui are ab-fab in supporting performances, and the movie has at least three scenes (The Bride’s hospital escape, her dispatching of the Crazy 88s in the Inn of the Blue Leaves and her final battle with O-Ren Ishii in the Japanese Garden) that are without parallel in ’03.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Catching Up
8 Mile (USA, 2003, Curtis Hanson)
AKA James Dean You Said It All So Clean
With a sleepy-eyed melancholy, Eminem (AKA Marshall Mathers) doesn’t exactly burst upon the silver screen, but rather pouts, smolders and broods like a roughed-up ghetto version of James Dean. As Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, Mathers certainly has the street cred, if not the acting chops, to pull off the comparison. Not that he gives a weak performance by any means—in fact, he’s pretty damned compelling, with the only really forced or false moment occuring when he tries to be Mr. PC (attacking the gay-bashing rapper). Director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) neither hurts nor particularly enhances his rep here; he may not feel the music or fall into the moment the way Marshall urges us all to, but Hanson does a credible job of getting urban gritty, capturing the rotting city core and conveying the desperation of these characters effectively. The film’s pov is plausibly tunnel-visioned, in that we—like the characters—never really understand why life on the seamy side of Detroit is so bleak and hopeless (Hanson has little interest in exploring the fundamental causes of this socio-economic disaster). So we know that these cats wanna escape (who wouldn’t) but we are never clear on exactly who or what’s imprisoning them.
And, well, yeah, the female characters get pretty much screwed by the script--Kim Basinger is given a cardboard character to play, and she plays it with about that much enthusiasm, nor does Brittney Murphy fare much better as the skanky girlfriend. But there’s the strong support of Mekhi Pfifer as best bud Future to offset some of these script weaknesses, plus the film does a capable job of presenting the racial tension that a trailer trash white boy might bring to a room where he seeks to find acceptance and even success in a distinctly African-American art form. Lastly, we have the film’s finale, a climactic rap battle that Rabbit wins by making a pre-emptive strike on his own shortcomings—sorta the equivalent of seeing a Ed Norton beat the hell outta himself in his boss’s office in Fight Club—is as well-choreographed as yer best boxing movie set-to’s, all of which help to kick this film over the bar. Run, Rabbit, Run.
Score: 71/100
8 Mile (USA, 2003, Curtis Hanson)
AKA James Dean You Said It All So Clean
With a sleepy-eyed melancholy, Eminem (AKA Marshall Mathers) doesn’t exactly burst upon the silver screen, but rather pouts, smolders and broods like a roughed-up ghetto version of James Dean. As Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, Mathers certainly has the street cred, if not the acting chops, to pull off the comparison. Not that he gives a weak performance by any means—in fact, he’s pretty damned compelling, with the only really forced or false moment occuring when he tries to be Mr. PC (attacking the gay-bashing rapper). Director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) neither hurts nor particularly enhances his rep here; he may not feel the music or fall into the moment the way Marshall urges us all to, but Hanson does a credible job of getting urban gritty, capturing the rotting city core and conveying the desperation of these characters effectively. The film’s pov is plausibly tunnel-visioned, in that we—like the characters—never really understand why life on the seamy side of Detroit is so bleak and hopeless (Hanson has little interest in exploring the fundamental causes of this socio-economic disaster). So we know that these cats wanna escape (who wouldn’t) but we are never clear on exactly who or what’s imprisoning them.
And, well, yeah, the female characters get pretty much screwed by the script--Kim Basinger is given a cardboard character to play, and she plays it with about that much enthusiasm, nor does Brittney Murphy fare much better as the skanky girlfriend. But there’s the strong support of Mekhi Pfifer as best bud Future to offset some of these script weaknesses, plus the film does a capable job of presenting the racial tension that a trailer trash white boy might bring to a room where he seeks to find acceptance and even success in a distinctly African-American art form. Lastly, we have the film’s finale, a climactic rap battle that Rabbit wins by making a pre-emptive strike on his own shortcomings—sorta the equivalent of seeing a Ed Norton beat the hell outta himself in his boss’s office in Fight Club—is as well-choreographed as yer best boxing movie set-to’s, all of which help to kick this film over the bar. Run, Rabbit, Run.
Score: 71/100
Monday, February 09, 2004
VIFVF: The Final Days AKA The Science of Love vs. The Love of Science
The final days of the film fest brought us a battle of films that promised to be quite the contrast. First up, we have 19 Months, a mockumentary rom-com examination of one couple’s attempts to use science and research to make their inevitable breakup as emotion-free as possible. The satirical film features a hip post-modernist meta-filmmaking approach to the subject. Next up, we have Robot Stories, a futuristic sci-fi attempt to study how we interact w/ and even love the mechanical environment we’ve created for ourselves. The film features a mostly earnest and old-fashioned attitude in the way it asks and answers questions about what makes us human and how (or if) we differ from our technology. Then lastly, we have a good old fashioned romantic comedy, by Canadian director Deepa Mehta, whose roots are deep into the Bollywood musicals of her childhood (and which formed the backdrop to her most recent feature Bollywood/Hollywood). Her film concludes that sometimes you’ve just gotta forget all the science and analysis, follow your impulses and risk being disenchanted by people if you really wanna live. While 19 Months and Robot Stories try something a little different, neither is entirely successful, while Mehta’s film, which at least on the surface is a pretty conventional flick, is interestingly enough, the only film that really hits its mark.
19 Months (Canada, 2002, Randall Cole)
What if relationships are commodities with a scientifically verifiable expiry date? Wouldn’t we prepare more sensibly for the inevitable, deploy a little more intelligence and planning in order to reduce the emotional pain that follows unavoidably from the unexpected break-up? 19 Months is the directorial debut of Randall Cole, and it has the rough-edged and tentative feel of a student film, which is not intended as a slight so much as a warning to those who like their movie experiences more polished. The male protagonist in this mockumentary on love in the 21st century is Rob (Ben Ratner) and he notes that most romantic comedies end when the couple finally hooks up, and the relationship is fueled by bliss and red hot sex. This movie, however, begins at the end, as Rob and Melanie decide, based on scientific research, that after 19 months together they’ve reached the time when all relationships achieve critical mass. It’s the period when couples become so familiar with each other that the original rush of sexual and emotional discovery has passed, and the relationship settles into something that can best be described as comfortable numbness. It is the stage that devolves into a clinging closeness that endures mostly because people are afraid to be alone, rather than because of anything they’ve built together. All of this rings true, so I settled down in hopeful anticipation that what Coles and company had to say about what happens after the passion fades would be equally honest. All begins promisingly enough, as Rob and Melanie (Angela Vint) decide it is best to end their relationship rather than to risk finding out that the scientists are wrong, and in as dispassionate and analytical fashion possible, they set about the process of breaking up. They’ve come up with a plan that will allow them to ease out of the relationship with a minimum of anger, guilt and pain. And while this mockumentary successfully pokes fun at the whole idea that relationships, both in the building and deconstruction, can be so cleanly and efficiently reduced to a scientific formula, it succeeds mostly because the idea is so obvious. I mean, what kind of fool would believe that they could slip out of a serious relationship w/o so much as a twinge of regret or jealousy? Not one I could take too seriously, that’s for sure, and thus the film suffers from a basic implausibility in its central conceit. While Ratner (who is reminiscent of a young Albert Brooks in his throttled rage delivery) and Vint (who looks a lot like Michelle Phillips circa 1968) are just fine in the central roles, it doesn’t help that the film, which appears to want to be a comedy, is not particularly funny so much as it is painfully revealing of the self-absorption of Rob, and the general basic clueless-ness of Melanie. 19 Months is not a bad film by any means, but Coles oughta focus his attention on targets that are perhaps a little less obvious, and if he commits to making a comedy, he oughta also aim to make us laugh a little more often.
Score: 62/100
Robot Stories (USA, 2002, Greg Pak)
So much for the science of love. What about the love of science? We loves our toys, donts we? And who do we have to thank for all the gadgets and gizmos that make life so much fun? Scientists, of course. Without Francis Bacon and the development of the scientific method, we’d still be ploughing the fields in thatch-roofed huts, and how much fun would that be? Now, we may associate the world of science with its commercial interests—the things that we have in our lives that makes life easier exist because we want ‘em, of course, but also because they sell like hotcakes--clearly, science has its commercial application. But I’ve always thought that the more intriguing aspect of science was its higher calling, it’s pursuit of the unknown, the infinite. Things get really interesting when scientists dream really big, when they aim to touch the face of god. I get a strange buzz when scientists go on those divine quests for the seemingly unattainable, like immortality. Greg Pak’s 4 Pack of Robot Stories is most interesting when it looks at these sorts of issues, as is the case with two of the four stories here. In Robot Fixer and Clay we get to glimpse a future where middle-aged and elderly people facing the Big Sleep react in very different, but completely understandable ways. In Robot Fixer Wai Ching Ho is a mother whose adult son is in an irreversible coma, but she refuses to let go seeking instead to reconnect with and perhaps resurrect her son by fixing the collection of robot toys that he’s held onto since he was a kid. In Clay Sab Shimono plays sculptor John Lee who re-examines his life as he faces imminent death. Rather than have his memory scanned into a giant database that would not only allow him to live forever, but also to become part and aware of everything, Lee wonders if he deserves such a reward for leading such a self-absorbed life. Both of these stories have an emotional honesty that rises above the sci-fi gimmickry of the other two tales, My Robot Baby and Machine Love (wherein Pak stars as a robot who falls in love with another robot). Both of these shorts suffer from Twilight Zone-itis, with pedantic premises and character types, and they include lessons that are telegraphed like an Aesop’s fable. Alas, the love of science proves an elusive and only intermittently alluring affair.
Score: 65/100
Republic of Love (Canada, 2003, Deepa Mehta)
See, now THIS is how to make an intelligent, appealing and adult romantic comedy, one that doesn’t cave into every convention of the genre, but actually asks us to accept that losing love and facing death are part of life. And not just ANY part, but perhaps the KEY part, the part that forces us out of complacency and out into the world. I had some fun at Deepa Mehta’s last film, Bollywood/Hollywood, which played around with the Bollywood musical formula, setting the tale in contemporary Canada with young and attractive Indo-Canadian leads, but felt the film was ultimately unable to overcome the overall rather dreadful quality of the co-star Lisa Ray’s acting. Well, this is certainly not the case with The Republic of Love, which boasts a stellar cast that includes such world class performers as Jan Rubes, Edward Fox and Claire Bloom, while also casting the charming and surprisingly vulnerable Bruce Greenwood (The Sweet Hereafter) in the key role of late night dj Tom Avery, a thrice-married love addict who falls for the more reserved museum curator Fay, played by Emilia Fox (Edward’s daughter in real life AND the film). Of the two, Greenwood has the "sexier" role as the more emotionally available, achingly sensitive character; with those soulful eyes and soothing sonorous voice, Greenwood really delivers the goods here. On the other hand, Fox has the more difficult task, but manages to make her character’s emotional distance and self-preservative instincts not only plausible but even appealing.
While we know that the story must inevitably involve this couple finding each other, The Republic of Love is in no hurry to have them meet. The first third of the film establishes them as interesting people separate from each other, living alone with complex and challenging lives of their own. Indeed, Faye’s professional interests (she’s doing a study of mermaids) and familial dynamic are key to the film’s thematic texture, as her parent’s apparently perfect marriage is set against her fears that no one will ever live up to the marital ideal they’ve established. After a series of unsuccessful relationships, both Tom and Faye fear that they’re doomed to be forever alone. But they know pretty much the moment they meet that they’re meant to be together. Indeed, the explosion of fireworks moment when they have their meet cute is a lovely piece of Bollywood excess—and Mehta’s use of Indian music throughout the film is a lovely exotic touch that reminds us of her roots in this form, and underlies the "seething sexual subtext" throughout the film-- that is nearly matched by another scene later in the movie which I dare not describe for fear of the dreaded spoiler-ism. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a film without conflict and confusion, and so the young loving couple’s happiness is endangered when Faye’s idealization of her parents is challenged, and she begins to doubt that her and Tom’s relationship can endure. It is in these moments that the film becomes something darker and deeper than your standard rom-com. Mehta uses her considerable skills as a director to embellish these themes and tailors the strong source material (the Carol Shields novel), into a confidently crafted film that refuses to pander to the audience, but trusts them to be intelligent and caring enough to go to these more thought-provoking places while planted in the middle of a genre film that doesn’t usually ask you to do such things.
Score: 81/100
The final days of the film fest brought us a battle of films that promised to be quite the contrast. First up, we have 19 Months, a mockumentary rom-com examination of one couple’s attempts to use science and research to make their inevitable breakup as emotion-free as possible. The satirical film features a hip post-modernist meta-filmmaking approach to the subject. Next up, we have Robot Stories, a futuristic sci-fi attempt to study how we interact w/ and even love the mechanical environment we’ve created for ourselves. The film features a mostly earnest and old-fashioned attitude in the way it asks and answers questions about what makes us human and how (or if) we differ from our technology. Then lastly, we have a good old fashioned romantic comedy, by Canadian director Deepa Mehta, whose roots are deep into the Bollywood musicals of her childhood (and which formed the backdrop to her most recent feature Bollywood/Hollywood). Her film concludes that sometimes you’ve just gotta forget all the science and analysis, follow your impulses and risk being disenchanted by people if you really wanna live. While 19 Months and Robot Stories try something a little different, neither is entirely successful, while Mehta’s film, which at least on the surface is a pretty conventional flick, is interestingly enough, the only film that really hits its mark.
19 Months (Canada, 2002, Randall Cole)
What if relationships are commodities with a scientifically verifiable expiry date? Wouldn’t we prepare more sensibly for the inevitable, deploy a little more intelligence and planning in order to reduce the emotional pain that follows unavoidably from the unexpected break-up? 19 Months is the directorial debut of Randall Cole, and it has the rough-edged and tentative feel of a student film, which is not intended as a slight so much as a warning to those who like their movie experiences more polished. The male protagonist in this mockumentary on love in the 21st century is Rob (Ben Ratner) and he notes that most romantic comedies end when the couple finally hooks up, and the relationship is fueled by bliss and red hot sex. This movie, however, begins at the end, as Rob and Melanie decide, based on scientific research, that after 19 months together they’ve reached the time when all relationships achieve critical mass. It’s the period when couples become so familiar with each other that the original rush of sexual and emotional discovery has passed, and the relationship settles into something that can best be described as comfortable numbness. It is the stage that devolves into a clinging closeness that endures mostly because people are afraid to be alone, rather than because of anything they’ve built together. All of this rings true, so I settled down in hopeful anticipation that what Coles and company had to say about what happens after the passion fades would be equally honest. All begins promisingly enough, as Rob and Melanie (Angela Vint) decide it is best to end their relationship rather than to risk finding out that the scientists are wrong, and in as dispassionate and analytical fashion possible, they set about the process of breaking up. They’ve come up with a plan that will allow them to ease out of the relationship with a minimum of anger, guilt and pain. And while this mockumentary successfully pokes fun at the whole idea that relationships, both in the building and deconstruction, can be so cleanly and efficiently reduced to a scientific formula, it succeeds mostly because the idea is so obvious. I mean, what kind of fool would believe that they could slip out of a serious relationship w/o so much as a twinge of regret or jealousy? Not one I could take too seriously, that’s for sure, and thus the film suffers from a basic implausibility in its central conceit. While Ratner (who is reminiscent of a young Albert Brooks in his throttled rage delivery) and Vint (who looks a lot like Michelle Phillips circa 1968) are just fine in the central roles, it doesn’t help that the film, which appears to want to be a comedy, is not particularly funny so much as it is painfully revealing of the self-absorption of Rob, and the general basic clueless-ness of Melanie. 19 Months is not a bad film by any means, but Coles oughta focus his attention on targets that are perhaps a little less obvious, and if he commits to making a comedy, he oughta also aim to make us laugh a little more often.
Score: 62/100
Robot Stories (USA, 2002, Greg Pak)
So much for the science of love. What about the love of science? We loves our toys, donts we? And who do we have to thank for all the gadgets and gizmos that make life so much fun? Scientists, of course. Without Francis Bacon and the development of the scientific method, we’d still be ploughing the fields in thatch-roofed huts, and how much fun would that be? Now, we may associate the world of science with its commercial interests—the things that we have in our lives that makes life easier exist because we want ‘em, of course, but also because they sell like hotcakes--clearly, science has its commercial application. But I’ve always thought that the more intriguing aspect of science was its higher calling, it’s pursuit of the unknown, the infinite. Things get really interesting when scientists dream really big, when they aim to touch the face of god. I get a strange buzz when scientists go on those divine quests for the seemingly unattainable, like immortality. Greg Pak’s 4 Pack of Robot Stories is most interesting when it looks at these sorts of issues, as is the case with two of the four stories here. In Robot Fixer and Clay we get to glimpse a future where middle-aged and elderly people facing the Big Sleep react in very different, but completely understandable ways. In Robot Fixer Wai Ching Ho is a mother whose adult son is in an irreversible coma, but she refuses to let go seeking instead to reconnect with and perhaps resurrect her son by fixing the collection of robot toys that he’s held onto since he was a kid. In Clay Sab Shimono plays sculptor John Lee who re-examines his life as he faces imminent death. Rather than have his memory scanned into a giant database that would not only allow him to live forever, but also to become part and aware of everything, Lee wonders if he deserves such a reward for leading such a self-absorbed life. Both of these stories have an emotional honesty that rises above the sci-fi gimmickry of the other two tales, My Robot Baby and Machine Love (wherein Pak stars as a robot who falls in love with another robot). Both of these shorts suffer from Twilight Zone-itis, with pedantic premises and character types, and they include lessons that are telegraphed like an Aesop’s fable. Alas, the love of science proves an elusive and only intermittently alluring affair.
Score: 65/100
Republic of Love (Canada, 2003, Deepa Mehta)
See, now THIS is how to make an intelligent, appealing and adult romantic comedy, one that doesn’t cave into every convention of the genre, but actually asks us to accept that losing love and facing death are part of life. And not just ANY part, but perhaps the KEY part, the part that forces us out of complacency and out into the world. I had some fun at Deepa Mehta’s last film, Bollywood/Hollywood, which played around with the Bollywood musical formula, setting the tale in contemporary Canada with young and attractive Indo-Canadian leads, but felt the film was ultimately unable to overcome the overall rather dreadful quality of the co-star Lisa Ray’s acting. Well, this is certainly not the case with The Republic of Love, which boasts a stellar cast that includes such world class performers as Jan Rubes, Edward Fox and Claire Bloom, while also casting the charming and surprisingly vulnerable Bruce Greenwood (The Sweet Hereafter) in the key role of late night dj Tom Avery, a thrice-married love addict who falls for the more reserved museum curator Fay, played by Emilia Fox (Edward’s daughter in real life AND the film). Of the two, Greenwood has the "sexier" role as the more emotionally available, achingly sensitive character; with those soulful eyes and soothing sonorous voice, Greenwood really delivers the goods here. On the other hand, Fox has the more difficult task, but manages to make her character’s emotional distance and self-preservative instincts not only plausible but even appealing.
While we know that the story must inevitably involve this couple finding each other, The Republic of Love is in no hurry to have them meet. The first third of the film establishes them as interesting people separate from each other, living alone with complex and challenging lives of their own. Indeed, Faye’s professional interests (she’s doing a study of mermaids) and familial dynamic are key to the film’s thematic texture, as her parent’s apparently perfect marriage is set against her fears that no one will ever live up to the marital ideal they’ve established. After a series of unsuccessful relationships, both Tom and Faye fear that they’re doomed to be forever alone. But they know pretty much the moment they meet that they’re meant to be together. Indeed, the explosion of fireworks moment when they have their meet cute is a lovely piece of Bollywood excess—and Mehta’s use of Indian music throughout the film is a lovely exotic touch that reminds us of her roots in this form, and underlies the "seething sexual subtext" throughout the film-- that is nearly matched by another scene later in the movie which I dare not describe for fear of the dreaded spoiler-ism. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a film without conflict and confusion, and so the young loving couple’s happiness is endangered when Faye’s idealization of her parents is challenged, and she begins to doubt that her and Tom’s relationship can endure. It is in these moments that the film becomes something darker and deeper than your standard rom-com. Mehta uses her considerable skills as a director to embellish these themes and tailors the strong source material (the Carol Shields novel), into a confidently crafted film that refuses to pander to the audience, but trusts them to be intelligent and caring enough to go to these more thought-provoking places while planted in the middle of a genre film that doesn’t usually ask you to do such things.
Score: 81/100
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