Cold. Julianne Moore is cold. Not just in the physical sense - I mean, it is pretty chilly in Toronto, but she's also cold in the more figurative sense. She's cold like the smooth white surfaces of her doctor's office, like the spotless glass walls of her house, like the frosty, uncommunicative marriage she's in. A-ha! The crux of the matter. Catherine doesn't trust her husband David (Liam Neeson), what with him being the tall, handsome, smooth-talking lecturer he is, so she hires a glamourous prostitute she's noticed to test his fidelity for good. But Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) gives Catherine more than she'd planned to pay for.
A vague plot synopsis, like the one found in the film festival's literature, makes Chloe's icy erotica seem coyly alluring. A full plot synopsis might reveal the more tawdry aspects of the film, but what delight there is within Atom Egoyan's latest may well remain within the unfolding, so I'll keep as mum as I can manage. But something doesn't feel right from the start. You can film a cold place but it takes something more to make the film cold itself - and Chloe is too heavily photographed, too close to really appropriate that at all. There's no law that says a film set in Canadian winter has to send chills down the back of your spine, but what Chloe's atmosphere is instead is just a bit vulgar and melodramatic. The music is all swelling piano dramatics, the generic atmosphere a stilted, canned laughter type of place... it's a good thing we've got some nudity to spice things up, really.
No, but Moore and Seyfried aren't bad, exactly - a shame in a way, since this has the elements to make it a fantastically bad picture, but it settles for being merely 'not very good' - and the way events play out between them is certainly the most intriguing and interesting aspect of the film. Moore has never been afraid of exploring aspects of a woman's sexuality - despite continually swearing she'll never do it again, she insisted at the press conference - and here she nicely plays the arc of a woman fighting growing older and rediscovering the sensuality that had been buried beneath routine and disconnection. Seyfried is the bigger revelation, though, with a performance that, before the film takes a strong turn for the brainless, is intriguingly coy about who this woman is and what she wants, and more than anything proves that this is a young woman with incredible charisma. The film is, in as much as its psychological aspects end up making any sense at all, about figurative visibility - Catherine feels like she's faded with age, her husband 'doesn't see her'. More interesting is Chloe - does her profession give people licence to view her as a sexual object, or a purchase?
It's a great shame that Chloe, while certainly no masterpiece before it slides into tawdry thriller territory (an aspect not present in the French film, Nathalie..., on which the film is based, and apparently something we can blame producer Ivan Reitman for), throws these promises of psychological insight down the drain. Perhaps it was inevitable - it is, potentially, Chloe's 'performance' that keeps us intrigued, wandering as she does between frankly sexual and coyly childlike, and the stripping back of all this leads to some ludicrous overdrama. Atom Egoyan can wax for as long as he wants about how this is an adult, complex psychological drama about 'human interaction' and 'mature relationships', but the truth will out - it's an erotic thriller with remnants of French intrigue that can't help overloading on inexplicable obsessive madness, blowing all subtle humanity to the wind. Or out the window. C-
I've not mentioned it here on the blog, since I'm figuring that any readers here that aren't covered by my Twitter and Facebook friend roll are likely already readers of The Film Experience, but just in case you're not, I'm covering the London Film Festival for that most wonderful of blogs for the next couple of weeks, and you can already catch a few mini-review round-ups over there. Nathaniel is kindly allowing me to post any full-length reviews on this here blog, though, which might be just as well with the drought that's preceded them. There's also, you might notice, a continually updated list of screenings at the top of that there sidebar, so you're not missing a thing.
First off, here are my extended thoughts on the ever-cited (and ever-loved) Glenn's favourite Samson and Delilah.
Samson and Delilah has just one connection to the biblical parable with which it shares it's name - the chopping off of hair. But in Warwick Thornton's stunning film, the action is not a vengeful one, but one of grief. At different points in the film, both of the titular characters hack at their long locks with a serrated knife as a mark of a death, an act filmed each time with a painfully close intensity. Frequently the film reaches emotional spikes like these, but it's the strength of the film throughout that makes them so powerful.
Samson (Rowan MacNamara) and Delilah (Marisa Gibson) live in a half-heartedly Westernized, run-down Aboriginal town, with a phone that rings but is never answered. She cares for her grandmother (Mitjili Gibson), who makes her living painting intricate dot paintings, and Nana is all too amused by the antagonistic relationship burgeoning between her grandchild and the lonely Samson, who can't get his brother to move beyond the same repetitive tune he plays all day outside their house, and so spends his time playing in a wheelchair and sniff petrol. The early sequences of the drama are tinged with humour, but also a highly authentic feel of the place, not overemphasizing the barren existance with constant shots of it, but letting sound, image and character draw out a keenly felt depiction. Gibson and MacNamara somehow forge an entirely plausible, and certainly fascinating duo as they silently squabble, observe, intrigue each other. Thornton only occasional uses cinematic tricks, like aural identification (as Samson puts his hands over his ears) or distorted edits (as his petrol addiction worsens), to emphasize our identification with these characters, so it's to the actors immense credit that they not only carry the film but involve you so deeply in the tragic unfolding, while still being detached, volatile and unpredictable.
It's to Thornton's credit, meanwhile, that the film manages to be about so much, and be so insightful about these things, while retaining a disengaged air of mystery and apathy that bespeaks the character's attitudes. Moments like Delilah being beaten by those we assume are her family (and who are otherwise absent from her and her grandmother's life) leave us wondering whether this is some vestige of Aboriginal custom, or merely a similar angry violence that Samson is prey to. The film doesn't explain the Aboriginal place in modern day Australia, merely depicts it - Delilah sees her grandmother's dot paintings selling for high prices in a city art gallery, but they won't give her's a second glance. Is it about love? What exactly does Samson want from Delilah? Their relationship grows into some form of love, but does so without seemingly betraying those aspects of their characters that have defined them to us. If Samson and Delilah is a parable, it disguises it well. This is a powerful journey, a detached yet involving story about a pair you might not understand if you dissect their depiction, but gradually do on some basic human level. A-
I am a child of Disney. Actually, wait. Change that. I am a half-child of Disney. Call me a step-child of Disney if you want, which helps with the familiar characterization (which ironically enough is of course endorsed by Disney in Cinderella) of the step-parent (which here is Disney, keep up) as an outwardly lovely but privately absolutely evil taskmaster. Anyway, I call myself a half-child of Disney because while, like all other children in the Western world, me and my siblings were raised on Disney movies- Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia remain to this day two of my all-time favourites- but we weren't, unlike almost everyone of my age I've since encountered, raised on all of them. We may have practically worn out those videotapes of Bambi and Sleeping Beauty, but I didn't see The Lion King or Aladdin until I was sixteen (at the imploring of a schoolfriend), and I have somehow managed to live thus far without ever setting my eyes on Pinocchio.
To get more sharply to my point, the other night I finally got around to filling another gaping hole in my Disney checklist, the vaunted 1989 film The Little Mermaid. Disney, as you might expect, removes all the rough edges from Hans Christian Andersen's dark fairy tale, and changes the original spiritual ending for their traditional romantic one of prince and princess living happily ever after. Still, it's a pleasant concoction, buoyed by a fantastically ripe villain in Ursula the Sea-Witch and, of course, the bizarrely (but wonderfully) Jamaican crab Sebastian, who provides the film's highlight in the sensuous 'Kiss the Girl'. Indeed, if I'd seen all this as a child, I'd most likely have fallen head over heels in love with it, have watched it countless times, and been able to recount it all to you now- as I probably could right now with Beauty and the Beast, with which all the aforementioned things did happen. As I've just turned twenty-one, things aren't quite the same. Which makes it more apparent than ever that what these Disney films rely on, deeply, is nostalgia. The youthful mind is probably unlikely to question the idea of sixteen-year-old marrying... well, simply marrying, really, or make the eyes roll at the alarming superiority shot through in Ariel's wistful song about wanting to be human. I could probably go and pick holes in Beauty and the Beast in a similar manner, but I don't want to. If I watched it now, I wouldn't question it at all. But I can't help doing it when coming fresh to The Little Mermaid. My analytical thought processes can't resist it.
It's interesting to look at Disney now. Their traditional hand-drawn animations lost their lustre when compared to Pixar's cleverer animation and conceptualizations of the various worlds they set their stories in. They left their princess stories behind- Pocahontas is probably the last one that could fit that mold- and inspiration, as well as monetary success, tailed off. So what of this December's The Princess and the Frog, the studio's first 2D-animated theatrical release in five years? The title obviously gives away that this is indeed a return to their princess mold, and the trailer promises that it will be "in the tradition of Walt Disney's most beloved classics". I could pick holes in that (the unusually arrogant nature of the prince, which must surely be changed over the narrative; the New Orleans setting, probably ripe for more caricature than ever if they're not careful), but I'm wondering who the audience for this is. Do today's kids (I'm so old...) still grow up on Disney's "beloved classics"? Or is it their parents- some of whom, though it's frightening to think it, are my age- that will be dragging their kids along, eager for a fresh burst of childhood nostalgia? Will the "tradition" of Disney's formulas be as successful today as it was back then, or have things- technically, moralistically, socially, whateverly- changed too much? Can 2D-animation measure up to Pixar, and who are Disney hoping this will appeal to? Is this project simply chasing a ghost?
It's perhaps fitting that when I eventually saw Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' final film together, The Barkleys of Broadway, it was separated from my viewings of their previous films by at least two years, since in a vague way that apes the ten-year gap there was between 1939's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and this final pairing, which occured when Judy Garland (who had already partnered Astaire in Easter Parade) had to drop out (though she apparently showed up on set repeatedly to make things difficult for Rogers). It's somehow not really a surprise that this is one of the weakest offerings from the legendary partnership- the most magical moment comes in a retread of Shall We Dance's 'They Can't Take That Away From Me', where everyone involved seems to acknowledge that Barkleys is a film clutching hopelessly to an unreachable past. There is no new ground to tread here, simply a brief reunion of faded magic.
I'm always someone who's been far more interested in actresses than actors, and even if Fred Astaire is a rather brilliant man, I'm concerned about the treatment of Ginger Rogers in these movies. The plot of The Barkleys of Broadway is, rather obviously, referencing the desire Ginger had to be a 'serious actress', which one suspects is partly what lead to the break-up of their partnership at the end of 1930s. The cycle of their movies in the 1930s sees a gradual move towards more equality in the partnership, and with that more weight, more drama in the romantic plotlines. Swing Time marked the first time their love wasn't sealed with a romantic dance- 'Waltz in Swing Time' ends with Ginger spinning off and Fred gesturing sadly after her, and the reunion is instead sealed afterwards, proving Ginger can no longer be so easily won. As the partnership wound down, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle had them already married, already stable, already equal.
Ginger doubtful; Ginger convinced
The Barkleys of Broadway, though, undoes the good work that the previous film did in sending Astaire and Rogers off in a pleasant fashion. For whatever reason, Ginger seems all too happy to mock her former serious self, and finally to accept the idea that Astaire really is her "Svengali". She is the one who has to be dragged onto the stage for the estranged pairing's reunion dance at a charity event- and is visually convinced during said dance to 'They Can't Take That Away From Me', even if she still leaves afterward. It is still Ginger who must realise her mistake and come back to Astaire, back to musical comedy, and leave her own aspirations behind, by convincing herself that those no longer are her aspirations. She cannot even be an actress without her "Svengali"- who pretends to be her French director (Jacques Francois) in order to boost her confidence and perform well.
In essence, during The Barkleys of Broadway, Ginger comes to believe that she is nothing without Fred, that it is to him she owes her career. While it's true that her post-Fred career never really took off, despite winning the Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940, is it not a bit much to say that Fred could have stood without Ginger? Who can say if he would have become the star he did without Ginger as his partner? There's no question he was the better dancer, but would their films have been as good an escape from the Great Depression if Ginger hadn't been there as a tough cookie counterpart, a twirling dervish of a dress-wearer? Astaire stayed where he knew he could succeed. But Ginger tried. Trying to be a 'serious' actress isn't necessarily better than being a dancer or a comedienne, but she stretched her legs, she ventured into the unknown, she had a go. And it's a shame she's not more celebrated for it.
I make too many announcements and not enough proper movie-related posts around here, I know. But this might be a bit of good news for you all in one way or another. I'd been thinking for a while about starting up another blog as well as this one so that my film thoughts and music thoughts can be kept separate from each other. This'll allow me to focus more, knowing that whatever audience each blog has will actually be interested in what I post, as opposed to skipping every other post. So it is with excitement and trepidation I unveil:
Yes, I know that's the name of a popular brand of footwear. But it's also a synonym for talking and a synonym for the opposite. I'm all about the double meanings, me.
I've started off gently with a review of some recently premiered singles. If you're interested, hop over there, add me to your links, etc. If you're not, I hope you'll stick with me here as I try and make a go of this movie-reviewing stuff. Look out for a post involving a 1949 film within the next week- I won't say which, since that would be telling, now wouldn't it?
I did this quite large, quite messy post last year that didn't exactly get a big response but I loved it, so I'm doing it again. Hooray, etc.
CHANTIEST CHORUS Dull Life, Yeah Yeah Yeahs Yes it is Karen, yes it bloody is. Runner-up:Pucker Up, Ciara God help me, but this is the one song on Ciara's rather lacklustre album that stuck in my head; I defy you not to sing along, both to the repeated chant of the chorus, but more to the "kiss kiss kiss me" bits. Familiar crunching beats and nonsensical lyrics (mostly involving "swag", whatever that is) surround it, but it has trapped me within its coy sexual metallic prisons. Less Chanty, More Explosive:Shark in the Water, VV Brown Where did that chorus come from? Rarely has a song blindsided me so effectively. Kudos, VV.
MOST DERISIVE SONG Yours, Dan Black Those shooting synth sounds and Black's sardonic vocals make the chorus of this marvellously brief kiss-off a casual rebuttal to whoever's been belittling the man. He don't wanna be yours no more, no thanks.
MOST EFFECTIVE SIMPLE REFRAIN Obsessions, Marina & the Diamonds What's already quite a marvellous song reaches the realms of the heavenly once the computerized "ah ah-ah, ah ah-ah ah, ah ah ah-ah-ah" middle-8 enters, an unexpected delight in the obsessions she's singing about. It's halfway between a synth and a vocal, which is possibly why it's so wonderful to me. Runner-up:Fire, Kasabian "I'm on fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire". Well, good. Honourable mention for stutter of the year:Poker Face, Lady GaGa "Mah mah mah mah mah". Or, alternatively, "P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face"
BEST EUROVISION ENTRY Carry Me In Your Dreams, Kesji Tola (Albania) A total dance anthem. The chorus explodes like a flower suddenly bursting into blossom. The young Kesji Tola's vocals might be a bit strained, but who cares when they carry such a fantastic, catchy tune- with, by the by, a wonderfully Eastern middle-8 that sounds like a visit to the kind of Egyptian streets that probably only existed in Aladdin. Runner-up:Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl), Svetlana Loboda (Ukraine) When I watched the video I was instantly reminded of Girls Aloud's Sexy! No No No..., and the song itself is definitely similar in how immensely tangled, messy and utterly wonderful it sounds. The performance on the night itself was equally lunatic; Loboda's slightly coarse vocals lord over it; it was maybe a bit too lunatic and camp for Europe (I know, what a ridiculous statement), for it came in alarmingly near the bottom of the results table.
BEST SINGLE MARKETING Anthonio, Annie (and Annie, Anthonio) Catchup and tell me that's not the most ingenious thing ever thought up by anyone.
LYRIC THAT WON'T GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD FOR WHATEVER REASON "We asked the church to save our souls / They said we were too early and to join the fold" in Be the One, Jack Penate
BEST MUSIC VIDEO Paparazzi, Lady GaGa I'm still not sure about Lady GaGa, but if she keeps using all the money being thrown at her to do something as (relatively) audacious as this she might win me over eventually. So many music videos these days are so limited in vision, so dull, so apt to settle for 'sexy' shots of people leaning against walls, that an 8 minute long, Swedish-language-featuring, crutch dance routine-including thing like this is worthy of being praised if you ask me.
Runner-up:Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), Florence and the Machine Pretty. Fits the aesthetic of the song to a tee and is filmed just right in that kind of golden hue.
SONG THAT MAKES ME WANT TO DO THE CHARLESTON/SOME OTHER 1920S DANCE He Wasn't There, Lily Allen This short and simple closer to Lily's sophomore release isn't generally cited as one of the highlights, but it's a cute gesture to her father I rather enjoy. And the scratching gramophone and gentle piano tune make me want to swing like it's 1928 ('cause we all know what happened in 1929 to stop people dancing).
MOST DERIVATIVE SONG My Life Would Suck Without You, Kelly Clarkson And of her own back catalogue, too! I've finally decided that Kelly is, basically, a waste of space. Sorry.
BEST SWEDISH ARTIST Agnes Hearing 'Release Me' was like a revelation. How had I not known about this track for the months and months it had been about? How had I missed out on adoring it on bended knee for all those days? How had I not known the brilliant 90s tinged, yet slightly timeless, dance (love) pop this woman had already released? I could've kicked myself, readers, I honestly could've. Runner-up: Le Kid Alright, so it's early days, but 'Mercy Mercy' is an utter delight, 'Telephone' is rather amazing too, and if they get the right 'break' they could be very big indeed.
MOST UNEXPECTED USE OF AN UNUSUAL INSTRUMENT Didgeridoo in Lion in a Coma, Animal Collective If you've seen any of Animal Collective's music videos, you'll already know that they're a bit... well, mad, and this song is no different. Which is something you probably could have understood from the title alone. But it opens with a solo section for Rolf Harris' enormous friend which is as bizarrely infectious as most of the album. Runner-up:Steel drums in I'm Not Your Toy and Cover My Eyes, La Roux They've kind of, well, ruined 'I'm Not Your Toy' from the superb sampler version, but oh well. The steel drums on these tracks still work well, for whatever reason they're here, and liven up the lacklustre middle section of the album a bit.
BEST B-SIDE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN A-SIDE Memory of You, Girls Aloud (on The Loving Kind 7") This was released on the vinyl. The bloody effing vinyl. It's only one of the best songs this fantastic pop group have ever recorded. And it gets relegated to the vinyl. They have the most idiotic label in the world. Runner-up:Kabul Shit, Lily Allen Not so much a travesty, since 'The Fear' is rather brilliant, but still, this may be the best thing Lily's ever recorded. (Apparently this was also on the 7" single but since you could download it too it wasn't an issue.)
BEST ELECTRONIC BREAKDOWN In Search Of, Miike Snow Bleeping bloops, crunching swipes, frenetic beeps, vocodered cries, rising wave noises, simple drum beats- you name it, this song probably has it. And then some. Melancholic electronic heaven. Runner-up:Him, Lily Allen Slightly trite (if fun) lyrics about God are lifted up by Greg Kurstin's supremely gorgeous production, which reaches a peak in the 2:24- 2:45 section, which is so indescribably beautiful I really can't describe it.
Merely scratching the surface, really, since 2009 has been host to some fantastic remixes. Fred Falke particularly has been on fire this year- also see his 'Heavy Cross' (Gossip) and 'Anthonio' (Annie) remixes.
BEST GUEST VOCAL (EXCLUDING RÖYKSOPP) Phil Oakey on Symmetry, Little Boots Boots sweet vocals are met at the explosive chorus by the rich timbre of Oakey's, providing at once a sharp counterpoint and a beautiful compliment. The symmetry here shows balance but difference, played out through Boots' lyrical contrasts and a brilliant beat. Runner-up: Tilda Swinton on Oblivion, Patrick Wolf Tilda seems to play both the chastising figure of Patrick's mother and some kind of commanding video-game voice-over in her guest spots on The Bachelor, here invading with the encouraging "Get back up. What are you so afraid of?" as if Patrick's let her down before but she bloody well won't let it happen again.
MOST UPSETTING SONG Forests and Sands, Camera Obscura Don't talk to me, I'm in a corner weeping. Such is the sense of despair and loss this song conveys to me, questioning as it does the sense of reality in a broken love affair ("Oh it feels / Like none of this is real / I pretend / That my heart and my head are well"). Runner-up: Anything on the Antony and the Johnsons album They do inescapable depression better than anyone, don't they? I can rarely bare to listen.
BEST ALBUM YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T HEARD BUT SHOULD HAVE AND IF YOU DON'T BUY IT IMMEDIATELY I'LL PERSONALLY HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU AntigoneLand, Antigone Because every song is its own package of amazingness, different moods and styles spread across 12 tracks without losing coherence, she's a brilliantly versatile vocalist and the production is superb. And the cover (<<<) basically shows you how amazing she, and thus the album, truly are. BUY IT NOW YOU IDIOT
BEST VOCALIST ON RÖYKSOPP ALBUM Anneli Drecker, Vision One, You Don't Have A Clue and True to Life Possibly the most beautiful voice I've ever heard (she may be a bit manipulated here, to marvellous effect, but check out her own albums and it remains heavenly), Drecker is the main vocalist on three of the tracks on Junior, and is instrumental in making this my favourite album of the year so far. 'Vision One' is my favourite, mixing ingenious instrumental sections with briefly powerful verses from Drecker, but her vocals are the main attraction on the divine 'You Don't Have A Clue', where she belts out the chorus in sublime desperation, and you may just think you've found the reason to exist. Runner-up: Lykke Li, Miss It So Much I did really like Lykke Li's album, but this track shows me what wasn't quite magical enough about it- the production. She needs Röyksopp on her next album pronto. Such a heavenly combination, her soft, thin vocals somehow rich among the jingling and the smooth beats and silvery synths.
Tarsem (who formerly came with a surname, Singh) proved last year with The Fall that he holds a unique flair both for truly cinematic imagery and for storytelling that folds this into narratives that reflect on the human mind, its intricacies and dazzlingly imaginative capacity. Of course, I wouldn't have been surprised by this had I already seen his 2000 debut The Cell, but I've only just now caught up with it. Though in a completely different category from The Fall- an 18 certificate to The Fall's PG- they are in fact remarkably similar, entwining 'real' and invented, unreal worlds together to demonstrate how distorted they can become.
The Cell is rather marvellous, in case you didn't know- haven't you been reading Nick Davis?- and I encourage you to seek it out if you haven't already (as long as you can handle such disturbing sights as a man with rings all over his back suspended painfully in mid-air, and a horse diagrammatically dissected into slices), but instead of harping on about it all, I've instead capped some tempting pictures of the sort of delights on offer. No, no horse insides- I'm not really a costume nut but Tarsem's costume designers really have the flamboyant, extravagent flair in their costuming that makes me sit up and open my mouth in astonishment. And how can you resist a film in which Jennifer Lopez (who's rather good by the way) dresses up like a nun? Sorta.
Cold. Julianne Moore is cold. Not just in the physical sense - I mean, it is pretty chilly in Toronto, but she's also cold in the more figurative sense. She's cold like the smooth white surfaces of her doctor's office, like the spotless glass walls of her house, like the frosty, uncommunicative marriage she's in. A-ha! The crux of the matter. Catherine doesn't trust her husband David (Liam Neeson), what with him being the tall, handsome, smooth-talking lecturer he is, so she hires a glamourous prostitute she's noticed to test his fidelity for good. But Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) gives Catherine more than she'd planned to pay for.
