USA

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

André Crous

USA
4*

Director:
George Nolfi
Screenwriter:
George Nolfi
Director of Photography: 
John Toll

Running time: 105 minutes

This film, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, is first-rate entertainment and right up there with Inception and Dark City, although it is less complicated than the former and less intelligent than the latter.

The important point about the film is that it is set in a very recognisable world and that this is the film’s primary world. Whatever takes place “upstairs”, where the agents of control and change reside, is shown in very short scenes, whose interiors are either completely empty, not unlike the prison in THX 1138, or they resemble the actual world, as in the library scenes. The fact that the setting is so close to our world obviously suggests that we interpret events as possibilities, and the story, despite our better judgment, as realistic, at least for the duration of the film.

Writer-director George Nolfi does a very good job of focusing and keeping our attention. In the very first sequence, he places David Norris, a young representative campaigning for the position of senator for New York, next to a vast array of famous and influential political figures: Madeleine Albright, Michael Bloomberg and Jesse Jackson are some of the faces we see. He seems to be a shoo-in, but then, as in the real world, mud is thrown in the death throes of the campaign, and this mud sticks: pictures of the senator in his college days with his pants down. The image communicated is one of immaturity, and Norris loses by a landslide.

Norris quickly rebounds, however, after meeting – and making out with – a total stranger, called Elise, in the men’s restrooms. They lose touch, but this fateful meeting inspires Norris to reconceptualise his concession speech by doing something very unpolitical: telling the truth. His brand is immediately revitalised, but he can’t get Elise out of his head.

We discover (and eventually, so will Norris) that this meeting between him and Elise was never supposed to take place, and her place in his life would infinitely decrease his ambitions and his stature in the American society. And this is the question he needs to answer by the end of the film: Does he choose Elise, even if this choice means that his political life would take a turn for the mediocre as a result?

A group of agents in grey suits and hats follow Norris around, trying to make sure that his relationship with Elise does not prevent him from reaching his potential, and they want to do this by “adjusting” his life in small ways that cause the fewest ripples to the lives of those around him. But, this being a film, we know that there will be significant ripples, not least because Norris is so determined to take on the people who tell him he can’t have Elise.

Elise, played by Emily Blunt, is perfectly fine, but the two characters seemed like they were pushed together by circumstance, i.e. the film’s screenplay, rather than by desire. They clearly make a connection, as is evidenced by that first kiss, but what the reason for this connection is, we can only guess. Their subsequent conversations do little to convince us of the authenticity of their love.

But then, stories of rebellion against powers greater than ourselves, or the people we fully empathise with, are exciting. I thought of Neo’s meeting with the Architect in Matrix: Reloaded and of John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate and the power of saying ‘no’.

The Adjustment Bureau is highly enjoyable. Nolfi is an excellent director and in spite of a relatively small cast, his film never feels like it is too small. Some questions are left unanswered, most important among them the possibility of changing “the plan” if the “Chairman” is supposed to be omniscient. But the film is light and engaging enough to sidestep such issues and will be remembered for its high concept and its great style.

El Norte (1983)

André Crous

USA/UK
4.5*

Director: 
Gregory Nava
Screenwriters: 
Gregory Nava
Anna Thomas
Director of Photography: 
James Glennon

Running time: 139 minutes

At the house of a Guatemalan plantation owner, a dirt-poor worker betrays his friends for a wad of bills. These friends, meeting up at an abandoned hacienda, an old manor on the plantation that has all but crumbled to the ground, are taken out by a special force of men with machine guns. One of these men who are killed is Arturo Xuncax, but before he leaves for his last meeting, he has a very meaningful conversation with his son, Enrique – a conversation that makes it impossible not to empathise with him and the other plantation workers. Arturo says to Enrique:

It’s the same everywhere. For the rich, the peasant is just a pair of arms. That’s all they think we are, arms for work. They treat their animals better than they do us. For many years, we’ve been trying to make the rich understand that poor people have hearts and souls… that they feel. We are human, all of us.

Shortly after this scene, Enrique and his sister Rosa leave their small town of San Pedro, go across the border into Mexico and head north (El Norte means “The North” and refers to their end destination: the United States of America). Of course, the journey isn’t going to be easy, especially for these two youngsters who have almost impossible fantasies of the country up north. In a very well-chosen sequence in which the chaos of Mexico is juxtaposed with the green lawns, the sprinklers and the cars of suburban USA.

The film proceeds much faster than expected, which allows every scene to count. The editing is quick at times, although the director makes the very interesting decision to shoot many scenes in which a character delivers many lines of dialogue in a single take. This shows the director has a mind for connecting images into a comprehensible whole that enables the audience to grasp the physical nature of the story while slowing down the action on a human level to make us understand their words and their feelings.

Interestingly enough, the part of the film that evokes the most danger is the second half, which takes place in the USA. There is tension built into the premise that the main characters are working illegally, and while Immigration Services haven’t been successful in discovering them, the mere presence of these government officials, in very quick scenes that remind us of their function in society, plays on our fear that Enrique and Rosa will somehow be found out or reported.

No, the USA is not as easy as the brother and sister from Guatemala had expected; one scene that is clear in this regard takes places during Rosa’s first day cleaning a big house. The lady is nice, but when she explains how the functions of the washing machine should be used, she completely disregards the fact that she is speaking to someone for whom electricity is a foreign concept and whose English is less than rudimentary.

What is remarkable about the film is that it doesn’t paint its characters as victims of an unjust American context but shows how difficult life can be for a foreigner even when most things seem to be going smoothly. There are cultural, linguistic and historical chasms to overcome, and if these are not bridged before a green card is in the mail, there could be serious consequences.

The film is staged with amazing clarity, and while the situation is simple, and some of the events are predictable, the execution of the story delivers a very engaging experience. The only point at which the film falters is during the border crossing from Mexico to the USA. After what the characters have been told, we expect a sewer scene such as the famous one from The Shawshank Redemption. What we get, in comparison, is almost light enough to be laughable, and that is why the difficulties that they do face on this journey cannot be taken very seriously; and yet, their reaction is to be frightened to the point of being paralysed. This scene, stretched beyond its limits, is the only bad chord in an otherwise brilliant piece of work.

El Norte is an excellent film, its journey aspect similar to the one in Michael Winterbottom’s In This World; both films demonstrate the difficulty of international movement, especially when you look or speak in a certain way. As director Gregory Nava’s debut film, which he co-wrote with producer Anna Thomas, the film is consistently entertaining with wonderful characters who want to realise their fantasies. Though it was made 30 years ago, its central assessment of the life of a foreigner from south of the border still seems entirely credible and heartbreaking, and it should serve as a wake-up call to all those anti-immigrant rabble-rousers.

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

André Crous

USA
2.5*

Director:
Preston Sturges
Screenwriter: 
Preston Sturges
Director of Photography: 
John Seitz

Running time: 90 minutes

This is my first Sturges film, and I like the Capra quality of the thing. There is something very warm and fuzzy about the story, even though it deals, albeit obliquely, with the idea of poverty. I also like films that deal with the film industry, and Sullivan’s Travels is a comedy about the commercial infeasibility of making films that deal with socially relevant topics rather than straightforward comedies, which almost inevitably do better at the box office. However, whereas Capra had a comedic way of presenting dramatic and important messages (Mr Smith Goes to Washington: “Stand up for what is right!”; It’s a Wonderful Life: “Don’t ever think that you haven’t made a difference!”; It Happened One Night: “Down with the walls of Jericho! We are in love!”), this film by Preston Sturges doesn’t quite rise above its comedic simplicity.

The film was made at the beginning of the Second World War and was released at the end of 1941, around the time of the Pearl Harbor attack that escalated the American military’s participation. Social issues, such as unemployment and low income, are raised in the film (this was at a time when U.S. unemployment figures, of a population still rattled by the Great Depression of the 1930s, were around 15%), but the central character regards everything from a comfortable distance. Sure, he mingles with the hoi polloi and even shares a table with them, but there is very little – if not a complete lack of – interaction between him and those he wants to represent on the big screen.

In fact, one can easily forget that Sullivan is actually a director. He doesn’t seem very awkward in his scenes with the homeless, and such moments of uneasiness as there are (at the communal dinner table, for example) have very little screen time and do not communicate much except a little comedy. Chaplin dealt comically with the life of a tramp, but even his films have emotions and insight into the life of someone who is homeless to a much deeper degree than anything in Sullivan’s Travels.

Sullivan’s Travels opens with a marvellous scene: Two men, accompanied by very loud, very enthusiastically bombastic music, are fighting on top of a train advancing at full speed through the dark night. This turns out to be the final scene of another film, screened for some producers. Such metatextuality is refreshing, considering the banal nature of most of the rest of the film.

The film contains at least one very bad scene. In prison, where there is a lot of hardship (although the only real hardship we ever see inflicted on anybody is on John Sullivan), the prisoners go to watch a movie one night: cartoons by Walt Disney. The moment the picture starts, the prisoners burst out laughing, to such a degree you might think they are having seizures. It is an absolutely ludicrous way to communicate the message (comedy works, even in hard times), and I found it thoroughly simpleminded.

Based on my experience of Sullivan’s Travels, a film that is supposed to be Preston Sturges’s masterpiece, it is very easy to come to the conclusion that he was no Frank Capra, and while there is some amusing banter between Joel McCree and Veronica Lake, in the spirit of screwball comedies, the film never seriously investigates the social milieu its main character wishes to study.

Vertigo (1958)

André Crous

VertigoUSA
3.5*

Director:
Alfred Hitchcock
Screenwriters: 
Alec Coppel
Samuel A. Taylor
Director of Photography: 
Robert Burks

Running time: 128 minutes

I’ve always considered Vertigo to be one of those acclaimed works of art that are accessible and even enjoyable from a distance, like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, but if you try to approach them from the beginning and have an immersive experience, the effect is often frustration.

I understand the film. It is about obsession. But Hitchcock doesn’t approach his material with the intention of having us share the experience of the main character, Scottie, and obsessing with him; rather, he chooses to subtly warn us of the dangers that lie ahead if Scottie stubbornly proceeds along this path. We know that things won’t end well, because the whole atmosphere of the film is indicative of this inevitability.

Now, I realise that many viewers would disapprove of my slight dissing of one of Hitchcock’s best-known films, a film that even managed to reach the No. 2 spot on the coveted Critics’ Top 10 Poll of the British film magazine, Sight and Sound, in 2002, but let me tell you why the film doesn’t work for me.

In this film about obsession and illusion, Hitchcock’s primary concern should have been the viewer’s identification with Scottie, played by Jimmy Stewart, including his point of view. Unfortunately, the issue of point of view is the film’s big flaw.

Consider the following scenes and the shots out of which they consist:

1) The famous restaurant scene, where Scottie sees Madeleine for the first time. He is seated at the bar and looks to his far right, where Madeleine is seated at a table, her back turned towards him. Hitchcock introduces Madeleine by first focusing on Scottie, then panning to her and physically tracking in onto her. This shot is intercut with a shot of Scottie at the bar, followed by his point of view – a shot that contains Madeleine, filmed from his position. Later in the scene, when Madeleine leaves the restaurant, she pauses behind Scottie, whose face is turned away from her. Her face is framed from the side, we only see the right side of her face against the red backdrop of the wall behind her, but Scottie doesn’t see anything.

2) In the moments before Madeleine’s apparent suicide, Scottie runs after her. At first, he looks up at the Mission’s bell tower and we get a shot that we perceive to be his point of view. Madeleine runs into the church, followed by Scottie. There is a chase up the staircase, but Scottie looks down and is struck by his acrophobia (vertigo). Madeleine leaves through a trapdoor at the top and we see her, through an opening in the wall, falling back down to earth, having supposedly jumped to her death.

The first scene, as I described it, is mostly from an external perspective, except for the one or two brief shots taken from Scottie’s position at the bar, which may be labelled his point-of-view shots. But in a later scene in Scottie’s car, he flips through the museum catalogue and while looking at the painting of Carlotta Valdes, there is a flash, very clearly meant to be subjective, of Madeleine’s face as she stood behind him. This shot is impossible since he could not witness this particular image, having had his face turned away when it happened.

After Scottie’s first visit to Judy, the actress who played Madeleine, Judy, has a flashback to the events at the Mission. She “sees” the same shot that we had attributed to Scottie, namely the bell tower, and there are other external shots that seem altogether inappropriate in a flashback scene that ultimately ought to be very subjective.

Hitchcock’s failure to orientate his film successfully with regard to its presentation of perspective creates fluidity that does not allow the viewer to align himself/herself with the character of Scottie. However, one scene that is successful in this respect is the scene at the cemetery, in which Hitchcock often intercuts a lateral tracking shot, meant to indicate Scottie’s trajectory, with a reverse tracking shot that frames Scottie himself moving forward, towards us.

The film’s obsession with power and death, especially towards the end of the story, becomes a bit tedious, and while Scottie’s intentions are quite clear (he wants to get the woman back whom he loved and for whose death he feels responsible – even though he’s not responsible and calling their relationship “love” is a bit grand), Judy seems masochistically determined to endure Scottie’s near-abusive behaviour when he restricts her choices in clothes, hairstyles, and so on. This aspect of the film alienates the viewer from both characters because the idea of “conditional love” is very unappealing.

I found one particular scene’s editing frustratingly bad, namely the scene in which Scottie, in his car, pursues Madeleine’s car through San Francisco. There is a very clear lack of continuity from one shot to the next and generally feels like a choppy editing job, with the car turning in one direction while the driver is clearly turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction. Jimmy Stewart has a less pathetic character than in many of his other films, but he still seems to be one step behind the viewer. Also, being a former policeman, Scottie should be able to follow someone (in the cemetery, in an art museum) without being spotted. But the only reason he didn’t seem to be spotted is that Madeleine/Judy knew he was there and pretended not to notice. Such bad tailing diminished his value as a character in my eyes.

But the film will be praised for its meticulous attention to detail, and the choice of colour (in particular, the various traces of green) the film is beyond reproach. My favourite scene, in terms of the character’s interaction with the soundtrack, is the scene with the sequoias: Bernard Herrman’s music is almost distressingly calm and quiet, even though Scottie is aggressively interrogating Madeleine. But in a film of this kind, dealing with real and illusory psychological problems, his music is at times unnecessarily loud and screeching – just consider the moment when Madeleine leaps into San Francisco Bay.

Vertigo is cold and analytical; a more immersive approach would have suited the material better, especially as a film. Kim Novak is wonderful, and the design of the film is well-chosen (the many instances of rear projection may be read as another hint at the real/illusory dichotomy of Madeleine’s character). But it is far less enjoyable than Hitchcock’s other great films, and for me, Vertigo will always be more of a cerebral joy than an engaging work of fiction.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

André Crous

Japan/USA
4.5*

Director:
Paul Schrader
Screenwriters: 
Paul Schrader
Leonard Schrader
Chieko Schrader
Director of Photography: 
John Bailey

Running time: 115 minutes

An extraordinary film about an artist’s desire for political change brought about by his art. The multidimensional way in which the tale presented to us is vibrant but by no means attempts to give a complete picture of the man.

The story is played out in three distinct parts that are woven together throughout the film: present (1970), in colour; past (pre-1970), in black and white; imaginary, in very bright colours. Of course, it is no coincidence that the present and the imaginary are both shown in colour, and by the time the film reaches its climax, the pure expression of Mishima’s ideal that art and action somehow be fused is visualised magnificently onscreen, accompanied by the music of Philip Glass, without whom this film would not have had the same energy.

The film is based on the real-life individual, Yukio Mishima, a writer, director, actor and admirer of the samurai traditions. The content of his own novels forms the backdrops for the episodes in the film. These episodes – the four chapters of the film’s title – are labelled as “Beauty”, “Art”, “Action” and “Harmony of Pen and Sword”.

The different novels on which the film draws, and whose visual representations in the film are nothing short of breathtaking, are The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko’s House and Runaway Horses. Naturally, the omission of such a novel in the final part of the film implies that the episode itself, directed by Mishima, is another kind of novel, although he seems to achieve in real life what had eluded him in his fiction: the fusion of words and action.

Director Paul Schrader’s treatment of Mishima’s sexuality does not aim for sensationalism; on the contrary, it provides one of many points of coherence between the different storylines, and the storylines do sometimes overlap, in the manner of the opening credits sequence of Stephen Daldry’s The Hours (whose soundtrack was also composed by Philip Glass).

While director Paul Schrader took great pains to portray this Japanese story with Japanese actors, performing in Japanese, he opted for an English voice-over because he felt the amount of subtitles would otherwise be unbearable for the viewer. Perhaps this is true, but his solution to the problem – an American voice-over whose speaker pretends to be Mishima – damages the film’s otherwise impeccable handling of the material.

The music, as much a contributing factor as Schrader’s direction, enthuses the viewer even when the thread of the present – and its inevitable conclusion (seppuku, or harakiri: suicide by disembowelment) – might have provoked a very different reaction. And in those closing moments, when the different stories finally culminate, the viewer will recognise that Schrader has a masterful grip on the material and that the transcendent power his main character speaks of during the film is powerfully evoked.

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

André Crous

USA
4*

Director:
Lisa Cholodenko
Screenwriters:
Lisa Cholodenko
Stuart Blumberg
Director of Photography:
Igor Jadue-Lillo

Running time: 104 minutes

The other night, I watched an episode from the fourth season of the television series Queer as Folk. The lesbian couple, Lindsey and Melanie, had been together for many years and ont he verge of having their second biological child. Unexpectedly, an arrogant but brilliant chauvinist artist arrives and philanders his way into Lindsey’s panties – Lindsey clearly enjoys the sex but doesn’t see herself as any less of a lesbian. Nonetheless, this kind of sex puts a tense question mark above her sexuality.

There is a similar dilemma at the heart of the drama in The Kids Are All Right, a film by Lisa Cholodenko, who openly self-identifies as a lesbian. I mention her sexuality, because I think I would have struggled to reconcile the events of the film with my idea of realistic character development had anyone but a lesbian director made the film. Whether the viewer is gay or straight, the problem of strict definitions regarding human sexuality is still a biggy and very often, we will be confronted with situations we have absolutely no experience with, either in real life or in the lives we see on screen.

Paul, the “other man” in this film, is no random sleazy artist – he is the two children’s biological father and has never had contact with anyone in this family until the start of the film. He is single and likes to sleep around, with his employees and with other people he meets at his restaurant. He has a rebellious streak and when his children decide to contact him, he jumps at the opportunity to see what life might have been like in some other realm of possibility.

Obviously, he never would have been a part of this family. He is the father of two children, technically a step-brother and a step-sister, whose mothers are their parents. But he tries to be a part and successfully manages to get Jules, who is losing faith that her wife Nic still loves her, into bed.

Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are delightful as the mothers of two children who simply wanted to meet their dad because they had the means to track him down. But it is Annette Bening in particular who shines as Nic, Jules’s tough-skinned but not insensitive partner, and I think this representation of an unconventional family with many problems, not unlike any other family, is necessary and convincing for the most part.

However, I take issue with the representation of lesbian fornication. Granted, I know nothing about it, but just as I do not choose to watch girl-on-girl pornography, I can’t really comprehend the thinking behind Nic and Jules’s decision to watch gay porn while having sex. Now, perhaps it problematises sexuality right from the get-go and that is probably the justification, but it becomes a plot point that their children address but neither they nor we get any satisfactory explanation for this beyond the “fluidity of sexuality” or something equally vague.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

André Crous

USA
3*

Director:
Woody Allen
Screenwriter:
Woody Allen
Director of Photography:
Vilmos Zsigmond

Running time: 98 minutes

Another year, another film from the neurotic New Yorker. The extraordinarily prolific Woody Allen is back in London, after the enjoyable but forgettable interlude that was Whatever Works. “Enjoyable but forgettable” seems to be a very appropriate way to qualify his recent films. In fact, the narrator of his most recent film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, admits that the story is all “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. And indeed it is.

As usual, the cast is a veritable smorgasbord of talent: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Gemma Jones are all delightful to watch. And Lucy Punch, representing a cross-section of the cheaper side of East London, is as fantastic as her character is grating.

Having recently separated, Alfie and Helena (Hopkins and Jones) go their own ways: Alfie ends up marrying a prostitute (Punch), while Helena blindly follows the advice of a clairvoyant who can’t see beyond Helena’s own desires and her pocketbook. Meanwhile, Sally (Watts), the daughter of Alfie and Helena, starts to work at an art gallery and gradually falls in love with her boss (Banderas), while her husband Roy (Brolin) is struggling to finish his latest novel and regularly sneaks a peek through the rear window at a young woman on the other side of the courtyard.

There are misunderstandings, no lack of lust, and a risky measure of self-delusion on the part of many of the characters, and it is good fun to watch the stew come to a boil. But the stories branch out in every direction and I’ve grown tired of Allen’s jazz soundtrack, which attracts too much attention. Also, it is perhaps a sign of Allen’s auteur sensibility that his films all look the same in spite of having different DoPs on every production, but with a cameraman like Vilmos Zsigmond at the helm, I would have expected a look that is a little more risky. No such luck.

The film is lukewarm at best and while it is a nice temperature for this relaxing 100-minute distraction, it is hardly worth remembering and will be all but forgotten by the time his next film rolls round – which should be any day now.