Less than a week ago, Scott Avett, The Avett Brothers’ resident tortured artist and unwitting hipster-chic folk icon, did an interview with RollingStone magazine, in which, characteristically frequent philosophical meditations about death, life, pain, art and self-reflection aside, he promised unconventional song structures, intensely personal lyrics and a louder, bolder sound on The Avett Brothers’ new album, The Carpenter — which is due to be released later this year. Their new Seth-led single, “Live And Die”, while boasting characteristically effortless poetry and some delectably bold melodic hooks, however, just feels like a step backwards to the naked acoustic sound and lyrical content of their more reflective tracks from The Gleam and The Second Gleam EPs.
The Avett Brothers have this special gift of being able to transform the mundane and/or obvious into something poetic and sublime even. Here, the “where do you reside/when you hide/how can I find you?” and “can you tell that I am alive?/let me prove it” laments are particularly breathtaking. Unfortunately, not all their songs (as it is with this one) have the lyrical precision of standouts like “Paranoia in B-Flat Major” or “Murder In The City”, and hit-and-miss lines here like “we bloom like roses/lead like Moses” feel particularly exploitative and aimless.
Some of The Avett Brothers’ most touching songs (“Bella Donna”, “Shame”) songs are led by Seth Avett, and they succeed mostly because their quiet acoustics and melodies are as gentle as Seth’s voice, and this allows for the natural fragility and vulnerability in his voice to pack more emotional punch. The chorus here is easily the song’s catchiest, most joyous moment, but it has too much Scott Avett-esque boldness, and as a result it just feels awkward to hear Seth sing it.
Another problem with this song is that its climactic crescendo and production values in general are too polished, too deliberate — which is exactly what made the studio version of “Laundry Room” so horrifically lackluster compared to its electrifying live renditions. Ultimately, this song feels too familiar and too impersonal to match up to the band’s best songs, but at least it doesn’t feel like a filler track, and it is pretty damn catchy.
My opinion: get rid of Rick Rubin, follow up this single with a Scott-led explosive folk ballad, and all will be forgiven.
(Naturally, Kevin returns to indie-ness with nothing less than an obscure Iranian film)
Directed By: Marzieh Meshkini
Written By: Marzieh Meshkini and Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Starring: Fatemeh Cherag Akhar as Hava, Shabnam Toloui as Ahoo and Azizeh Sedighi as Hoora
Marzieh Meshkini, primary creative force behind The Day I Became A Woman, one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time, is incidentally the wife of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the notorious Iranian filmmaker/dissident/resident-of-Paris. In an ironic exercise of the very sexual inequality that Meshkini explores here, I will, of course, compare her work (although, in my defense, I do so favorably!) to her husband’s most visible work among film connoisseurs in the West: 2001’s Kandahar. For me, the most frustrating thing about Kandahar is that it unwisely ignores the centrality of the love between Nafas and her sister (which ultimately is what should ground the film) and instead too frequently descends into an ugly, in-your-face and occasionally even awkward tirade of social injustice in Afghanistan. Again, I refer to Slumdog Millionaire, the perennially overrated Danny Boyle film in which the devastations of poverty and inequality are but sidenotes to a bigger picture (NO PUN INTENDED LOLZ) that celebrates life and beauty: ultimately, what makes the film so fiercely poignant is not its unapologetic depiction of Indian slums but its tenderness and optimism. Kandahar, on the other hand, is so very utterly depressing. Nafas is constantly offered cul-de-sacs masquerading as false illusions of help, visions of handicapped mine victims begging profusely for plastic limbs from UN medical officials and obstructed by oppressive patriarchal structures; eventually, her journey is truncated and her sister presumably dies. There is no redemption, no salvation, no characteristic poetry, no momentary happiness even. Even Nafas’ friend and the film’s only beacon of humanity, Tabib Sahid, is ironically an African-American exile who lives a life of falsity.
In The Day I Became A Woman, the female protagonists are too victims of the same devastating realities presented in Kandahar, except Meshkini makes their bitterness a tangential, if palpable, sidenote; ultimately, the stories here are about their triumphs, however small, and however insignificant — and that’s what makes this film a more powerful political statement than Kandahar can ever dream of being. We live in an age where few people are unaware of the plight of mine victims in Afghanistan and Cambodia, of emaciated, malaria-stricken babies in Africa and abused child labour in China; these are inarguably open secrets. What we are seemingly unaware of, however, is how such people deal with circumstances so inhumane. What we are unaware of, paradoxically, is the reality of the situation, because the cultural context of these plights are often so very different and so very inconceivable to us who read about them from iPhones and iPads. As such, how Meshkini humanizes and fleshes out her characters, how she maps out their reactions and symbolic protests in the face of an unyielding authority (which is best illustrated in the Ahoo segment) is, I contend, of even more importance than the elucidation-of-plight stylings of Kandahar.
But what makesthis anthology much more than an instrument of humanization is Meshkini’s towering ability to weave continuous streams of symbolism into her prose, her quietly effusive respect for the female enigma and her taste for subversive undercurrents. Her plots are deceptively sparse, her characters deceptively simple, her films deceptively static; for all her self-effacing pseudo-unremarkability, her distaste for Kandahar-esque in-your-faceness, Meshkini is in many ways just as critical and even as ambitious as her husband. Ultimately, it is this illusion of simplicity is what makes this film, like Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, a great one.
Hava, the first segment, is unquestionably the best. The title of the anthology automatically suggests plots involving puberty (specifically, menstruation), marriage (and in extension, sex, because Muslims are cultured that way), and motherhood, so it is extremely refreshing to find that Meshkini cleverly chooses to open her film with a segment that employs an unfamiliar, presumably Middle Eastern notion of womanhood (Hava is told at 9 years old that she is a ‘woman’), and that immediately erodes conventional/Western expectations of what ‘womanhood’ entails. Tellingly enough, none of the aforementioned platitudes are employed in any of the films 3 segments; Ahoo is about divorce and Hoora is about hedonism. But let’s talk about Hava, which is, first and foremost, utterly unexpected and subversive in its depiction of a nine year-old heroine who graciously accepts the realities of gender segregation despite her best friend being a boy, especially since the Makhmalbafs are notorious for their bitter protests against the oppressiveness of Middle Eastern society. Naturally, though, Meshkini doesn’t actually have Hava wholeheartedly embrace her fate, and subtly allows her the room to symbolically repudiate her new role as a ‘woman’. What was most subversive, for me, however, was not how Hava symbolically traded her chador for a rubber duck (an obvious denial of her womanhood and proof of the illusion of ‘womanhood’ as a social construct), but of the quasi-sexual exchange that she has with her best friend Hassan. He gives her money, she comes back with candy, and they suck frantically from the same lollipop as Hava has to return to her house before noon. On a deeper level, this exchange immediately mimics a pre-marital affair fervently anticipating marriage and thus wanting to squeeze in as much “candy-sucking” as possible, which speaks to a deeply hedonistic desire running contrary to Islamic traditionalism and eloquently elucidates the independence of Islamic society/culture from the Islamic people — which are often inaccurately conflated by the Western media. Meshkini here exposes the myth of difference between different peoples, and reveals the universality of needs and desires — a notion that is seemingly self-evident but that is constantly debunked by unwitting racists like Lukas Moodysson (Swedish lesbianism advocate in his career low-point Mammoth). Of course, there are many other wonderful symbols, like the symbolic prison that Hassan is forced to enter once he defies Hava’s grandmother, an ironic symbol of patriarchal authority, and (my personal favourite) the phallic shadow that represents Hava’s fast-depleting authority in her transition into a woman, but I’d like to think that this film is more than a masturbatory exercise in symbolism so I won’t get into it.
Ahoo, the second segment,is easily the least problematic, albeit simplest, one — although it is no less politically-charged or symbol-packed than its neighbours. What I love about this film is how the obvious political implications of Ahoo’s marriage/divorce and her husband’s/tribal member’s ramblings (“You broke his pride!”, “You have broken your tribe’s pride!”, “Our tribe does not tolerate divorce!”) are simply sidenotes to Ahoo’s wicked cycling chops, her ferocious sense of determination and most importantly, her glorious chador billowing magnificently, gorgeously, in the relentless wind. Her iPod-wielding male rival is one of the most fascinating symbols here, because he seems to be a representation of the technologically-advanced West who surpasses the Middle East but only because the latter is held back by a relentlessly oppressive patriarchy (represented by Ahoo’s eventual confrontation with her tribal members and thus detainment),and who passively, sadistically looks on as the Middle East continues to be rampaged by injustice and perversity. It is perhaps also pertinent to think about why Meshkini portrays the West as a black boy, a politically-charged figure that recalls marginalization and injustice and thus that suggests hypocrisy and inhumanity; again, I don’t want to get into it, but I think this is inarguably an important point to consider when critically interpreting this segment. In any case, can we just take a moment to swoon over Meshkini’s ingenuity? K.
Hoora, the third and final segment, is the funniest and, some would claim, the most Fellini-esque one. Here, an impoverished old woman, through unknown means, gains a ridiculous amount of money, goes to the city, and buys everything she’s ever wanted. It’s a gloriously wacky Bollywood-esque rags-to-riches fantasy, a gratuitous exercise in hedonistic excess, and a triumphant declaration of freedom. The story is, at first viewing, a straightforward fable that reinforces the mythic pervasiveness of Islamic traditionalism: Hoora only spends her money on domestic furniture and household gadgets, asks repetitively for random boys to be her son, and at one point acts out the role of the matriarch entertaining house guests. In truth, this film is much more subversive. Hoora doesn’t seem to even care about her purchases: when she decides on buying another teapot, she simply leaves everything on the beach as though she doesn’t care if people steal or abuse them; when she sets sail for her ship, she doesn’t bring any symbolic ‘son’ with her; when it is time for her to leave her ‘guests’, she never expresses disappointment or guilt at eschewing her matriarchal role. What this means is that while she genuinely understands the necessity of fulfilling traditional notions of womanhood, neither motherhood nor matriarchy is fulfilling to Hoora in any way. What ultimately completes Hoora’s journey to womanhood is neither her age nor her silly dreams about ‘cold water’, but the reclamation of her freedom, which is explained adroitly by incorporating Hava’s chador into the segment. Hava’s chador, a symbol of femininity and therefore, in an extension, womanhood, is used as a mast for one of Hoora’s numerous rafts, which reflects Hoora’s hedonism as a reclamation of her (long-lost) womanhood. This symbolism is perhaps the most important of all, because in Islamic culture, womanhood represents a journey to male acquisition, and Meshkini defies this by reclaiming ‘womanhood’ as, paradoxically perhaps, a journey to male independence (which is symbolized by the Hoora’s ship). Of course, one could argue that the ship is simply another patriarchal device (Meshkini, in true spirit of Kiarostami-esque ambiguity, doesn’t clarify), but then again this film, as said before, is very much about celebrating the small triumphs, the momentary freedoms, so such a reading would only heighten both the themes of patriarchal oppression and female triumph.
There are only two problems with this film, and both stem from Meshkini’s weak and, honestly, just plain unconvincing attempt to link the three segments together. The Ahoo link is exceptionally ridiculous. It also seems terribly unlikely that Moora and Hava are set remotely close to each other — Hava’s village is just too awfully run-down to be in close proximity to the modern metropolis that Hoora patrons. As such, I think I speak for everyone when I say that it would’ve been so much better if the three characters’ lives didn’t intersect at all. Besides, Meshkini’s thoughtful, culture-specific exploration of the feminist plight, her pensive simplicity, her preternatural understanding of mood and her knack for incisive, punchy dialogue already provide enough thematic and stylistic consistency to effectively connect the dots between the three segments.
Starring: Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw, Logan Marshall-Green as Charlie Holloway, Michael Fassbender as David, Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers, Idris Elba as Janek
Alien, the groundbreaking 1979 sci-fi film that launched hitherto relatively unknown and infamously “difficult” director Ridley Scott to critical darling status and inevitable worldwide recognition, is the obvious point of comparison for this film in more ways than one. Prometheus is not only an oblique prequel to the aforementioned film; it is an uninspired, uninteresting, underdeveloped rip-off that incorporates all the elements that made Alien work and turns them all to a commercialized, shapeless mass of shit while often being completely ridiculous in the process.
Elizabeth Shaw, the quasi-protagonist of Prometheus (and “quasi” is apt because Shaw is so lacking in depth and personality that Charlize Theron’s Vickers often eclipses her with the sheer power of her hard-faced badassery), is essentially an unrealistic, nonsensical variation of Ellen Ripley from Alien. What makes Ripley beautiful (OMG 1D SHOUTOUT YO VAS HAPPENIN NIALL HORAN ZAYN MALIK LIAM PAYNE HARRY STYLES AND THAT GUY YOU KNOW THE OCCASIONALLY FUNNY ONE? I LOVE YOU ALLLL) is firstly her relatability as a silenced woman and as a realistic human being and more significantly the fact that her strength is inexorably linked to her vulnerability and humanity. When she finds the Alien onboard her aircraft during the ending sequence of Alien, she doesn’t grab an axe and nonsensically style herself as a fearless heroine (as Shaw does); she visibly struggles to suppress her fear and remain calm as she finds the most practical way to escape and/or get rid of the Alien. In Aliens, she doesn’t hop onboard Dwayne Hicks’ ship just because an overwrought sense of morality compels her to prevent more deaths; she hops onboard because she is deeply haunted by the specter of her own horrific experiences from Alien and understands that confrontation is necessary for exorcism; ultimately, her heroic journey is a selfish (and therefore humane and believable) one. On top of this, she sets out with a squad of highly trained soldiers and a shitload of weapons — a smart metaphor that expounds on her thinly concealed fear. Shaw, on the other hand, hops onboard an alien ship to a hostile land at the end of Prometheus in a self-consciously heroic bid to FIND THE ANSWERS TO HUMANITY and FOR THE GREATER GOOD, with nothing but the decapitated remains of a morally nonsensical android that killed her lover and that nearly killed her. And what’s even more ridiculous is that Shaw does all this without breaking down even once and after:
1) Witnessing the death of her lover.
2) Witnessing the death of her ENTIRE CREW.
3) Enduring a caesarian section WITHOUT AN ANESTHESIA STRONG ENOUGH TO KNOCK HER OUT; after which, mind you, she simply flings herself into danger once more (because, I suppose, the movie has already claimed her as its protagonist and WE NEED TO TORTURE HER WITH EVEN MORE THINGS LIKE UM A SUPER-STRONG ALIEN-SPAWNING UBER HUMAN? SOUNDS CRAY BUT HEY IT MIGHT WORK LULZ).
4) Realizing multiple times that hostile aliens aren’t exactly welcoming of their lowly creations (one might think that trying to infect the earth with poorly designed squids would convey a similar message BUT).
Jesus fucking CHRIST. Even Ripley sleeps for 60 years (give or take a few) after all that action in Alien. A person can only take so much, no? For a movie that so fiercely (and quite ineptly) defends the superiority of the human race, it seems painfully ironic that the most human character in the movie is a sleepless, reckless eternal survivor that has the emotional capacity of …dare I say…AN ANDROID? Speaking of…
While the Android in Alien was programmed to capture and preserve the eponymous creature, the android in Prometheus, David, is programmed to be a servant with a mind of its own (when it’s not masquerading as the inexplicably vengeful surrogate son of an antiquated billionaire, of course). Now, I’m not against robot autonomy; I think robots (as seen in sci-fi films) are often more capable of doing the ‘right thing’ than humans are, and I will fight to my death their right to be unwitting deliverers of dry humor. The problem, though, is that David’s actions are never quite explained; instead of skillfully creating an air of mystery or crafting a tantalizing enigma of a character, his impenetrability just comes across as the lazy product of half-assed scriptwriting. At first, it seems as though he is an uninspired re-hash of the Ash character from Alien, in that he has some hidden agenda (his creepy “DOESN’T EVERY CHILD WANT TO KILL HIS PARENTS” line — presumably stolen from some classic film — is a giveaway, along with the fact that um…HE KILLS HOLLOWAY AND NEARLY KILLS SHAW) that places higher on his categorical priority list than the safety of his human crew. After the Engineer kills everyone, however, he suddenly has a ‘change of heart’ and devotes his remaining screentime to helping Shaw survive. The problem is, HE CAN’T POSSIBLY HAVE A ‘CHANGE OF HEART’; HE’S A “SOUL”-LESS ANDROID. Or if the point was that he actually does have a soul, then there is a major continuity error, because the androids in all 4 Alien movies, on which Prometheus depends on for meaning, DON’T. Hence, one can only presume that perhaps it was his curiosity, his undying desire to understand his creators’ creators and thus his place in the world, that fueled his actions. This kinda makes sense, except it really fucking doesn’t: why would he style himself as a villain midway through the movie when he ominously hints at his desire to kill Weyland, mocks Shaw’s ‘survivor instincts’ and hide his involvement in Holloway’s death? Even if his murder of Holloway was a by-product of his curiosities, there would be no need to hide his involvement unless there was a greater, more sinister agenda — something that provides much of the tension in the film. Instead with dealing with these logical deductions, Prometheus, like every half-baked commercial piece of shit, just stirs up the tension, stirs up the ambiguity, provides a shitload of crashes and violence, then just ends. Without explanation. Fucking A. On top of being an inconsistent and often just absurd, David also perpetuates the worn, unjustified myth of human superiority; for once, why can’t an Android be the good guy who tries to save the day, and whose moral programming actually makes him understandably ‘better’ than his human counterparts? Why can’t the beauty of humanity lie in their utter flawed-ness rather than in their STRENGTH and PERSEVERANCE and whatnot? Furthermore, in making David the antagonist-of-sorts, Scott and his writers also cement Prometheus‘ status as an Alien rip-off: Alien too has an Android, whose moral questionability ultimately causes shit to happen and whose death predictably glorifies humans as a superior kind. For once, can somebody just do something fearless, celebrate our flaws rather than our strengths, and move pass this silly ANDROIDS VS HUMAN war? It’s getting old, and in a world where there are uber-humans and metallic alien-things, doesn’t anybody else feel like the android thing is becoming a tad trivial? Well, I know I do and I’m writing this review so HAH.
Obviously, the script is extremely heavy-handed; its symbolic gestures aim too haphazardly for epicness and triumph without the philosophical depth promised by the mythology-referencing title, its twists are executed so awfully and so gracelessly that they come across as unwitting bursts of self-caricaturing, and its characters are too shallow to be even remotely relatable.
The first criticism is an obvious one; the film is primarily about THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION MANKIND HAS EVER ASKED (or so the film self-importantly claims): WHERE DOES MANKIND COME FROM? The death of the crew mirrors the price that Prometheus, the mythical Greek trickster who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to Man, paid for stepping beyond his means. Shaw’s triumph and indomitable strength is an obvious declaration of human endurance and is a twist on the original mythical tale in that Shaw overcomes the punishment of the Gods (represented by the Engineers) and instead of allowing herself to be beaten down by them, she challenges them head-on. All this is undoubtedly is very wonderful, and I’m always a fan of intertextual parallelisms; but the cardinal problem is that, absurdity and inhumanity aside, there is no exploration of the moral dilemmas and philosophical implications that the Prometheus tale has, especially in relation to contemporary science. Sure, science mirrors mankind’s attempt to harness the power of the Gods; that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? What of the relationship between the Engineers and Humans? What happens to belief? (Shaw’s reply that SOMEONE MUST’VE CREATED THEM seems rather weak) How do we reconcile HUMANS ARE SUPERIOR TO ANDROIDS with HUMANS ARE POTENTIALLY SUPERIOR THAN ENGINEERS? How do we see ourselves in relation to God with these newfound sociological epiphanies? Are we still just HUMAN BEINGZ or are we soulless like the Android humans have created in their image? There are just so many questions that are answered very sloppily, or worse still, not answered at all — presumably left to a sequel, maybe — or perhaps just left out completely. In any case, in terms of depth, this film is deeply unsatisfactory.
One of the worst twists in the film is the revelation that Vickers is Weyland’s daughter. It seems genuinely sad that so much time was wasted to expound on the NEGLECTED DAUGHTER OVERSHADOWED BY MORE CAPABLE ANDROID BROTHER complex without cleverly posing this as a possible explanation as to why the Engineers abandoned humans. It also seems like an unnecessary complication, especially when Vickers is abruptly and needlessly (maybe Charlize Theron’s asking pay is too high for the sequel? Or maybe Ridley Scott just doesn’t like South Africa. Or Monster) killed off at the end. The “FATHER” acknowledgment also seems like an unwitting, self-serious Star Wars reference, which I find particularly hilarious. I’ll skip all the David twists, all of which are equally deplorable. The ending twist in which Shaw inexplicably survives what feels like the millionth near-death experience in an endlessly sadistic exercise in torture-porn is also quite unbelievable. One can only ALMOST DIE so many times before it gets exponentially ridiculous. My opinion: She should’ve run out of luck ever since escaping the live caesarian. If Vickers had survived instead of Shaw, it would’ve been much more believable, and it also would’ve been much more interesting considering Vickers would make a much more complex character for further exploration in successive sequels. Instead, Ridley Scott and his team of subpar writers repudiate believability for THE EPICNESS OF WATCHING SHAW OVERCOME A BILLION OBSTACLES IN TRIUMPHANT PROOF OF HUMAN MAGNIFICENCE…which is, with due respect (because Ridley Scott often makes very wonderful films), vomit-inducing.
None of the characters have any personality except for Vickers. Holloway and Shaw’s relationship is obviously a marvelous opportunity to explore both the characters, but in the true spirit of commercialized superficiality, Scott eschews all stabs at depth for an extended, vacuous sequence involving a sweaty, semi-naked Logan Marshall-Green and lots of heavy breathing. I don’t remember any of the other crew members, except occasionally that black guy who somehow manages to snag Charlize Theron’s naked body with sheer charm (and a stubby variant of an accordion); they often deliver charismatic lines packed with sarcastic bite, but unlike true masters of humor like Diablo Cody, Sofia Coppola or even Joss Whedon, the humor never becomes more than just that: humor. The writers are unable to crack jokes that at once explore their characters and provide some much-needed fun, and given the relatively small screentime allocated to casual conversation (or alternatively, the extensive use of silence), the characters naturally suffer and become no more than two-dimensional puppets whose only purposes are to be occasionally funny and to frequently die to make Shaw seem like the oh-so-strong survivor.
There are only two things that make Prometheus worth watching, neither of which are truly engrossing. The first thing is Michael Fassbender’s (whose name, amidst a sea of smirks and giggles, incidentally invokes gay sex) deceptively vacant performance as David, an impenetrable puzzlebox of an android. Despite a confused script, Fassbender *smirks/giggles* delivers some great one-liners and leaps nimbly between moral ambiguity and sinister coolness without ever once threatening to seem inconsistent or uneven — although it really isn’t quite as INCREDIBLE as everyone makes it out to be. The second thing, quite characteristically, is the incredible visuals. The opening sequence is particularly stunning. Also, the cave sequences and the juxtaposition with static-filled computer screens (omg didn’t this shit grow old since Scott used it in Alien?) are quiet, dark, wonderful and brimming with tension — although admittedly these are all things that Scott had already perfected with Alien. Stylistically, it really adds nothing groundbreaking and pretty much comes across as a re-hash of what made Alien work, except it does so with more flash and less punch (the climactic scene in which two fools fuck around with the snake-alien-thing would’ve been truly remarkable if it wasn’t A BLATANT RIPOFF OF THE CHESTBURSTER/FACEHUGGER SCENES FROM ALIEN).
If you’ve never watched Alien or Aliens, or if you’ve watched them and disliked them for their SLOW PACE or just for being too damn awesome, then I definitely recommend this film. If you’ve watched the Alien film(s), though, you’d be so much better of just re-watching them. In any case, who wouldn’t want to watch Sigourney Weaver blow up an entire alien colony? Okay; Mitt Romney, maybe. But really, who wouldn’t??
KevinScale Rating: 2.2/5 (Because it’s too insulting to the Alien classics and to the world in general to pass, but at the same time it is quite entertaining sometimes haha)
Also, the aircraft here looks insultingly like the Firefly class ship from Joss Whedon’s cult classic Firefly. MORE ORIGINALITY POINTS. No? Oh.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
Joss Whedon, <<G-O-D>> among sci-fi/fantasy geeks, eternally immortalized as <<T-H-E>> primary creative force behind eternally immortal cult classic Buffy The Vampire Slayer and perennial creator of too-brilliant-not-to-be-cancelled-and-thereafter-mourned-by-small-but-almost-disturbingly-dedicated-legions-of-fans shows like Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, returns to piloting the big screen with his second full-length feature film, no less than seven years after producing some-say-the-best-sci-fi-film-of-all-time Serenity, and with no less than 5.5 times of that film’s budget (That’s USD220 million, poor pplz). And btw guyz, when I say that Joss Whedon has returned, I fucking mean that he has returned, because The Avengers is without a doubt one of the smartest, wittiest summer blockbusters in, like, the history of the galaxy. The best superhero movies (I refer to Spider Man 2 and The Incredibles) move at brisk paces, but are sensitive enough to take the time to explore their characters’ psychology. More importantly, they understand that expensive CGI shots and loud crashes don’t mean shit by themselves; they must consistently reflect the inner workings of the film’s characters and/or provide logical plot cues to avoid becoming aimless exercises in gratuitous visual flash. As with his best works, Whedon demonstrates here that he’s undeniably got this shit down. And what’s wonderful about Joss Whedon is that he would never stop with just making a good-for-a-genre-film; he is one of those rare, potentially legendary (and not just among cult classic geeks) action film directors that are at once fiercely feminist, effortlessly witty and at his best, psychologically profound and fearlessly subversive — and much of these qualities are quite palpable here. As with all of his works, however, The Avengers also suffers from glaring inconsistency issues and problematic screwball throwaways in terms of characterization.
The best characters here work because of their psychological complexity. Tony Stark is an egoistic shitball who hides his innate heroism behind smart-mouthed witticisms and fuck-the-team coolness and Natasha Romanoff is a sentimental fuzzy-wuzzy who convincingly encases herself in a jet-black shell of cold indifference and overwrought intellectualism. Even Nick Fury, who arguably has the least opportunities for character development, is shrouded by moral ambiguity. He pontificates and motivates on the grounds of morality and humanity, but at the same time is responsible for creating weapons using the very device he so claims should not be used as a weapon. Naturally, the worst characters are those that do not have a convincing backstory, and that do not have actual psychological depth.
Whedon’s use of The Hulk, for one, is particularly exploitative and contrived. When Loki suggests that he plans on unleashing The Hulk, a big ass fuss is kicked up about HOW DANGEROUS THE HULK IS and HOW UNSTABLE BANNER’S CONTROL OVER THE HULK IS. Whedon even inserts a fight between The Hulk and Thor to expound on the dangers of not keeping Banner’s temper under wraps. Yet, at the most crucial moments of the film, Banner suddenly manages to become The Hulk AT WILL, then displays remarkable team player co-operativity? Disregarding that little incident where The Hulk very nearly smashed Scarlett Johansson’s impossibly pretty face in (which btw immediately seems like a sad echo of Angel‘s “Billy”), there is only one other scene that corroborates his incoherence (the one where The Hulk beats everyone up, then nonchalantly punches Thor squarely in the face), but frustratingly enough, that scene is used purely for comic relief, and fails to expound satisfactorily on the ‘uncontrollable danger’ element that The Hulk brings, and that was so pervasive in the first half of the film. This convenient conversion of The Hulk from Loose Cannon That Could Potentially Kill Everyone to Really Strong Green Guy Who Fights For The Team Yo is an inexcusable plot hole that insults both Mark Ruffalo’s marvelous turn as a self-alienating geek, and the psychological complexity on which Whedon’s legacy is predicated on. Also, I find this inconsistency particularly baffling because Whedon handled a very similar character called River in Serenity, who was visibly unstable for much of the movie before rising too at the film’s most crucial moment to become the answer to everyone’s problems. The difference, however, is that Whedon made a solid effort in Serenity to show how River’s love for her dying brother allowed her to overcome her mental instability and harness her powers for the team; with The Hulk, Whedon just makes him smash shit up and prays that everyone is too distracted to notice.
Loki, with his superficial, uninspired daddy issues and little brother complex, makes for a very silly, flat villain. The scene where The Hulk throws him around and leaves him whimpering in Tony Stark’s office, while wildly comical, is particularly disgusting. It immediately, cruelly dismisses Loki as a joke, and decisively prevents any attempt at sympathy. The best villains (Magneto and Rogue from X-Men are particularly wonderful character studies) are those that we sympathize with for their experiences, that we identify with for their humanity, but that we disagree with for their hatred and destructiveness. I doubt Loki even understands what being human means — he’s too busy moping about not having legions of humans bowing down to him.
Captain America and Thor are both rather weak character studies too. Steve Rogers is a soldier attempting to reconnect to an unfamiliar world in the only way he knows how; by fighting. The premise undoubtedly makes for a very interesting character study, so moments like Coulson’s fangurling or when Rogers gets frustrated with Stark’s quips that Whedon could’ve used to expound on his sense of alienation and loneliness and disillusionment — but doesn’t — are particularly frustrating. Action movies are all about imbuing every possible scene with as much depth as possible, especially since the pace is so often obstructive towards character studies. Unfortunately, Whedon, probably because of creative distrust among corporate superiors demanding for more action and less talk, doesn’t manage to flesh out his supporting characters quite as well or as sensitively as he does on Serenity or Buffy. In Whedon’s defense, one must realize that I’m only super critical of this movie because I have nothing but respect and love for Joss Whedon, who at his best embodies character-driven action film at its best, and thus must be judged on an entirely different rubric.
On a related side note, Whedon’s Avengers sequel (I’m assuming he’s gonna be in charge again because the reviews for The Avengers have been almost uniformly excellent, and the box office showings have been record-breakingly good), which he proclaims will be “darker”, “more painful” and “organic”, will undoubtedly be a dramatic shift from this film’s screwball superficiality and light-humored expedience, and thus will be infinitely more satisfying in terms of character development and as an entirety. After all, Whedon works best when he repudiates convention and expectation and dives headfirst into his characters (Buffy‘s “The Body”, which eschews the show’s monster-of-the-week format for a hauntingly accurate exploration of loss and death, is one of the best TV episodes ever broadcasted). Besides, he is almost notorious for having bumpy starts (Dollhouse took an entire season to become something truly remarkable) when it comes to any of his projects, so I think it’ll be fascinating to see the direction that The Avengers goes once it really takes off; because if you think you’ve seen the best of Joss Whedon in this film, gurrrrl you ain’t seen shit.
Problems aside, this film is a loving compilation of Whedonesque conventions and a characteristically self-indulgent homage to the best moments of his TV shows. Natasha Romanoff and Maria Hill are both Whedonesque staples, in that they are both variations of Gwen Raiden from Angel and Zoe Washburn from Firefly/Serenity, both of whom are tough chick archetypes hardened by life and injustice but with instinctive warmth and compassion for people in danger. Romanoff’s sense of self-awareness and her exploitation of the myth of female emotional tractability is reminiscent of Fred from Angel, while Hill’s indomitable hardness is immediately reminiscent of Illyria from the same show. In almost every summer blockbuster, there is this stupid misogynistic desire to throw women around the room and have them all bloodied up and tortured in anticipation of a dramatic entrance by a muscly male character that inevitably does all the rescuing hero-type shit. In Whedon’s movies, things turn out very differently. When Romanoff is offered to be rescued by her male colleague while being tortured, she basically tells him to fuck off because she’s ‘busy working’. When Captain America offers to help her kill the crazy alien people, she wryly tells him that she can handle herself; and it’s not like she has superpowers or anything — she’s just that badass. Hill is pretty kickass too. In fact, nobody even bothers to offer her help. That close-up with her bloodied nose and bleeding forehead after she kills the last of Loki’s flunkies on the island-jet thing? Priceless. Tony Stark here immediately recalls Topher from Dollhouse, Wash from Firefly and Xander from Buffy, in that he visibly doubles up as Whedon’s in-movie substitute by snagging all the über-intelligent zany, epigrammatic quips and providing all the wry smart-assery in the midst of overbearing pressure and danger. Most of the breathtaking action scenes here are highly reminiscent of Whedon’s previous works too. Joss Whedon is notorious for being self-indulgently (and self-knowingly) egoistic, so I’m guessing Whedonites everywhere know what I mean when I say that there is this invisible but palpable sense of creative glee in the blatantly self-referential ego romps. When Loki destroys SHIELD’s research facility, the ground gives way and the buildings are swallowed whole, something that was done (albeit at a much smaller scale) almost nine years ago in the Buffy season finale “Chosen”. The inter-dimensional portal that opens and allows crazy alien things to enter and wreck havoc on earth is also something that made an appearance in Buffy‘s “The Gift” and Angel‘s “Not Fade Away”. It’s certainly not a coincidence that the most iconic scenes from the season finales (Buffy had two, technically speaking) of his most popular shows are featured here. What it is…is a characteristically Whedonesque exercise in masturbatory glee.
Whedon has always had a predilection for socially and politically-driven subtext, and The Avengers finds his knack for social commentary more refreshing than ever. In an age of Wikileaks when the absoluteness of corporate authority and governmental suppression can no longer be justifiably dismissed as a myth or half-baked conspiracy theory, the notion of The Avengers as a group of ‘remarkable people’ pushing for change and working towards a better world seems all the more pertinent. Corporate metaphors have been a constant leitmotif in Whedon’s past works (The Alliance in Firefly/Serenity, Wolfram & Hart in Angel, Rossum Corporation in Dollhouse), but they always feel like a representation of the greater epic struggle between Good and Evil. In light of the recent wave of political upheaval and social protests, Whedon’s obsession with corporate authority and its struggle against the ambitions and humanity of normal people finds new political depth and social relevance. I mean, if you think about it: it is no coincidence that The Avengers are led by Tony Stark and Captain America, two ordinary humans bolstered by extraordinary human inventions — metaphors for the extraordinary human capacity for greatness. Thor may be an ‘immortal’ demi-God, but while he stands comfortably (well, not so comfortably, actually) on earth casting lightning into the portal to alien worlds beyond, it is Tony Stark, egoist extraordinaire and godless sinner, that offers his life as a sacrifice and that truly saves the day. The true champions of this film are the seemingly petty humans in denial of their own heroism (Stark, Romanoff, Banner) and on the unlikely heroes ignorant of their own frailty (Coulson, and that particularly wonderful old man that stood up to Loki); do not think for a second that this is not a concealed social statement.
Oh and I almost forgot. THE MANLY HOMOEROTICISM. Joss Whedon knows a beautiful man when he sees one *the world looks pointedly at Chris Evans’ enormous pectorals* and characteristically the first thing he does is make sure that other men in his films know it too.
In an interview almost as old as time itself, Whedon once famously proclaimed that he created Buffy to kick major supernatural ass in protest of the frustrating cliché of the helpless-woman-in-the-alley who gets killed by the Big Bad. Needless to say, much of his career has been built on his predilection for turning conventions on their heads. In The Avengers, many of the characters (especially Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers) have rich backstories (that are explored, often with startling insight, in their respective comic book series) that simply beg the writer to make them into tortured souls unable to see past their own pettiness and sadness — and Joss Whedon has on numerous occasions even demonstrated his love for such characters (RE: Harmony and Angel in Angel).
But he doesn’t do that here.
Instead, he tells us all the reasons why his characters are decidedly, painfully human. He tells us all the reasons why his characters have every prerogative and every reason to act like any ordinary, petty person. Then what does he do? He tells us that in spite of all the reasons why we should be allowed to stay ordinary, sometimes the reasons don’t matter at all. Sometimes all that matters is that we are given extraordinary gifts: and if those gifts allow us to make a change, if those gifts allow us to make the world better, then that’s what we should fucking do.
Also the action sequences are totez kickass 4realz homies.
Amy Acker’s performance in Angel‘s Season 5 Episode 15 “Hole In The World” is one of the greatest performances in the history of TV, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you need to fucking reflect on how you are spending your life.
There are no words to describe the pretentiousness of this post’s title. Except ‘pretentious’ I guess. LOLZ.
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! Everybody’s holy! Everywhere is holy! Everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! The madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the HIDEOUS HUMAN ANGELS!
Contemporary rap albums (and pop albums in general, for that matter) have become little more than electronically tweaked, synth-drenched (mostly thanks to ubiquitous French trash-producer-of-choice David Guetta) and ultimately brainless exercises in self-aggrandizing braggadocio and get-yo-ass-to-the-DANCE-FLOOR superficiality. Even Nicki Minaj, who incidentally is THE obvious point of comparison for Rye Rye, and who is by far the most thrilling rapper (and I mean this strictly in terms of rapping ability, because while rappers like Drake and post-Relapse Eminem are much more interesting as a whole, they are celebrated more for their artistry and lyrical subjects rather than for their flow) in pop music today, too often descends into cringe-inducing territory where she callz out dem haterz (“Bitches ain’t shit, and they can’t tell me nothin”, she says charismatically but stupidly on “Beez In The Trap”) or where she indulges the disillusioned urban youth of the world with the illusion of escape (“LEZ GO TO DA BEACH BEACH LEZ GO GEDAWAY”, she advises on “Starships”).
On her debut LP Go! Pop! Bang!, Rye Rye too is absolutely guilty of being trashy and brainless, but like trash-pop extraordinaire Ke$ha before her, she immediately stands out from the crowd with her charismatic delivery and the breathtakingly unapologetic authenticity of her persona. While others like Nicki keep busy by calling out their haterz while unconvincingly boasting of their teenage-y irreverence, Rye Rye is too busy not giving a fuck to do shit like dat — and that’s one of the most appealing qualities of the album. Her hooks are infinitely brainless (The hook on “Dance” is “Ya’ll know what I’m SAYN SAYN SAYN SAYN SAYN SAYN so you can DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE”, and that on “Holla” is a repetitive “Let the drum rip, HOLLA HOLLAAAA”) but her sincerity, her rapid flow and her energy is so infectious you don’t even care; but while often gloriously catchy and fantastically infectious, her material is, like Ke$ha’s, just too dumb to be taken seriously. Then again, much of pop music is dumb, and if one is just looking to have a good time, Rye Rye’s album is by far one of the funnest things in music today. Also, if anyone deserves to be famous and popular, it’s Rye Rye, who is refreshingly unpretentious, unflaggingly energetic and endlessly likeable.
M.I.A., minimalist-electronica-revolutionary-turned-perennial-controversy-courter-turned-beer-bottle-designer-and-Chris-Brown-collaborator who is famously Rye Rye’s mentor, features on 4 tracks here, and perhaps it is rather unfortunate for Rye Rye that 3 of these tracks (“Better Than You”, “Bang” and “Sunshine”) are the best tracks on the album, because it perhaps suggests that Rye Rye is best as an interlude on M.I.A. tracks. “Better Than You” is the most melodic track on the album, and features a disarmingly weird but immediately endearing sample of a 1940s Broadway track, and contains a reworked verse taken from M.I.A.’s Vicki Leekx Mixtape. The problem (which, really, is more a problem for Rye Rye than for anyone else) with this track is that the M.I.A. chorus line (“Saw you in the magazine wearing my shit/you look good but I do it better/Heard you singin songs that sounds like me/you do it good but I do it better”) immediately bestows it with an appealing sense of self-awareness and relevance that eclipses Rye Rye’s trite musings on her tennis shoes, because many artists really have rip-offed M.I.A.’s fashion sense and lo-fi artistry. The blunt truthfulness in M.I.A.’s lines instantly makes Rye Rye sound embarrassingly trivial. M.I.A.’s verse is also a fantastic meditation on pop celebrity, which again bestows it with an urgency and power that shifts the spotlight to her. If Rye Rye wants to establish herself as an artist independent of M.I.A.’s huge-ass shadow, she has to collaborate with people who aren’t nearly as engaging; this is also why “Never Will Be Mine” and “Crazy Bitch”, which feature Robyn and Akon respectively, work so well — Akon and Robyn’s parts are not nearly as brilliant as M.I.A.’s on “Better Than You”. “Bang” and “Sunshine”, both of which were released a looooong time ago, still sound gloriously fresh (a testament to Rye Rye’s undeniable staying power, btw lolz) with hardcore dont-fuck-with-diz beats on the former and a lazy, effortlessly infectious hook (M.I.A.: “dumdumdumdumdumdum”) on the latter.
But judging this album on the M.I.A. features alone would hardly be accurate, because Rye Rye as a solo artist is an extremely viable prospect; on the pre-album release promo single “New Thing”, Rye Rye’s flow is particularly indelible, and on the newest single “Boom Boom”, she proves she don’t need nobodehh (k except Vengaboys lolz) to explode into “Super Bass”-esque popularity. To take this album seriously, and to really gain the respect of critics (which isn’t something that really concerns her, I suppose, but still I must pontificate or else I will die) she needs better lyrics, more M.I.A. but only on the production work, and perhaps a little less Akon and a little more….dare I say, Santigold? Yeah. A Santigold/Rye Rye collab album will literally make me shit my pants. Numerous times. In a happy kind of way (They’re currently touring together).
Regardless, if you’re going to listen to a pop album, there are few ones more fun/hip than Go! Pop! Bang!, and like I said, few deserve mainstream success like she does. Also, fuck the inevitably tepid Pitchfork review; not everyone is fucking Neutral Milk Hotel.
BEST TRACKS: Better Than You, Sunshine, Bang, New Thing, Shake It To The Ground
WORST TRACKS: Rock Off Shake Off, Hotter, Get Up, DNA, Never Will Be Mine (R3hab Remix)
So my habit of writing reviews has (again) sucked out all the joy of watching films, so I’m gonna spend an indefinite amount of time re-watching Sal Mineo and James Dean exchange oblique sexual innuendoes (“Can I keep your jacket?”) in unwitting gay classic Rebel Without A Cause. I’m in the middle of a Hitchcock marathon right now, actually. He really is quite spectacular. I still have like 4 Alain Resnais films, 2 Eric Rohmer films, a few Makhmalbaf films and like 2 more Julio Medem films left before I completely exhaust 2% of my to-watch list, so I guess my hiatus will take quite a while. But you know what, homegirl? I’MMA DO ME.
In related news, maybe Theron will start writing again? #LOLZ #fathope #seewhatididthere #theronisfat
Just an hour ago, MIA released a preview of a track entitled “Come Walk With Me” on her YouTube account, and again, it is equally a declaration of her artistic identity as it is an off-kilter club banger. It begins and ends with glitchy, trippy psychedelic instrumental breakdowns heavily reminiscent of her work on 2010’s Vicki Leekx Mixtape (a few of the beats here are lifted off of it too, but there are like 6 different beats in this 1 and a half minute preview alone), except they’re sped up and far more haphazard for extra weirdness, which is really ironic (OMG hipsters are going to freak) considering the song has a bubblegum tune that sounds almost like a Katy Perry or Ke$ha cut — which, among other things, cement MIA’s embrace of the anti-popstar identity she so defiantly reinvented herself as 2 years ago with /\/\/\Y/\.
Just for kicks, there is a self-knowing stab at self-empowerment here (“There’s nothing that can touch me now/You can’t even break me now”), which feels vaguely like a sarcastic parody of Perry’s “Part of Me”. She even deliberately, squarely subverts the recent trend of club-oriented lyrics in pop music with an ironic declaration of hipster unity (“You ain’t gotta shake it just to be with me/You ain’t gotta throw your hands in the air/Cuz tonight we ain’t actin like we don’t care”).
The “Birthday Song”-esque, poppy vibe of the song almost confirms tepid or at best lukewarm reviews from Pitchfork again, but then again Pitchfork-worshipping hipsters don’t make up much of the market; pop-lovers and music-lovers do. M.I.A. here combines the straightforward catchiness of “XXXO” with the outright weirdness of her less accessible tracks like “Meds and Feds” to produce one of the most addictive, ironic and baffling pop tracks in recent history. If this track is any indication of what to expect from her new album, be prepared for M.I.A. to take the pop charts and perhaps even the Grammys by storm. I mean, if the two are more than ready to embrace Katy Perry, why not her weirder, infinitely more talented, pop-parodying counterpart?
Starring: Gael García Bernal as Leo, Michelle Williams as Ellen, Marife Necesito as Gloria
Lukas Moodysson is one of the few Swedish directors, alongside Tomas Alfredson and some other people I can’t quite remember (lolz), that has a substantial presence in contemporary ‘world cinema’ (a term that I hate for its reductionistic tendencies and American bias but that is, unfortunately, inescapable); and I make the most of every opportunity to extol the beauty of Swedish cinema. He is also the main creative force behind the best lesbian romance film in history, the gorgeously understated Fucking Amal, and has on multiple occasions been dubbed “the new Bergman” — because American film critics’ only knowledge of great Swedish films is from their essential viewing of Bergman’s overrated classic The Seventh Seal and they have no idea who Victor Sjöström or Bo Widerberg is, and because Moodysson really is one of most interesting filmmakers Sweden has ever had to offer. Naturally, the thought of praising his work while decrying the vapidity and sheer triteness of American/mainstream cinema is incredibly tempting. However, Moodysson’s Mammoth is too much of a blithering disappointment to allow that.
For one, the soundtrack is a giant fucking annoyance. Some of the tracks here are appealingly hipster-chic, but like most other directors who aren’t Sofia Coppola and have cool music taste but a poor understanding of mood, they often feel tragically inapposite and/or painfully uncomfortable. For example, when Leo finally succumbs to fucking around with a prostitute, the post-coital scene is accompanied by a bizarrely moving electronic instrumental piece, which seems to indicate that we should appreciate the romance in it, but then the sequence continues with Leo secretly, inconsiderately leaving her while she’s asleep. I understand what Moodysson is trying to do — he wants to emphasize that the romance was just an escapist fantasy, an illusion of intimacy, but he doesn’t succeed because he doesn’t understand how soundtracks work. Non-diegetic music either tells the audience how to react, or hints at a hidden emotional state. The problem is, Leo doesn’t secretly feel that his encounter is romantic — he loves his family too much to make it out to be anything more than a temporary, regrettable but necessary behavioral anomaly in an alien world, and while Leo understandably wants it to be romantic, the film and the audience are supposed to remain ambivalent, because they, as presumably intelligent entities, must acknowledge both the essentialness and wrongness of his dalliance; they can’t and don’t have Leo’s privilege of living inside the fantasy. If the music were diegetic, it would’ve both emphasized the illusory nature of Leo’s affair while effectively disengaging the audience from the romance; if there were no music, the film would allow us the space necessary to ponder the morality and reasons for Leo’s actions. Instead, Moodysson smothers us with an inappropriately romantic song choice, emptying the scene of its depth and unconvincingly invites us to revel in its aimlessness. When Leo finally returns to his family, Cat Power’spoignant “The Greatest” plays in the background (great music taste btw lolz), and there is absolutely no attempt at addressing Leo’s lack of guilt over fucking a prostitute while being away from his wife. These haphazard, bewildering uses of music (there are so many other instances, but I don’t have the effort to list them all) also parallel the tragic self-unawareness of the screenplay, which is a point I’ll revisit later on.
In the second half of the movie, home to much of the film’s overwrought drama, there are also just too many scenes where dramatic instrumental pieces manipulatively bend us over backwards to fuck the sympathy out of us. For example, when the (sadistic) grandmother brings Salvador to a junkyard where poor children are collecting trash, sad piano music plays in the background because Moodysson too wants us to feel guilty over the fact that some children have shit lives. I mean, it’s really sad that people have to live that way, but what’s even sadder is that Moodysson thinks that this is some kind of powerful revelation deserving of a lot of screentime. Part of what makes Slumdog Millionaire so wonderful is its no-nonsense depiction of Indian slums; it shows us how disgusting the living conditions are, how unsafe and horrible that world is, but the insight is always just a sidenote. The movie, above all, is a story of triumph, of destiny and love, not of how sad the world is and how bad we should feel for owning iPhones while others don’t. The world is fucking unfair, and obviously sometimes it’s really sad. But get the fuck over it. How naive can you be? This naivete brings me to my next point: White guilt.
I think this film, above all, is an unwitting (but illuminating) insight into the dynamics of white guilt. Leo travels to Bangkok, and feels overly guilty about a pretty Thai girl being a prostitute, so he hands her a shitton of money and asks her to go home to ‘sleep’, possibly because he is stupid enough to think that his money will last her a lifetime and will effectively turn her away from lucrative nights of prostitution, but probably because he is actually condescending and self-important enough to think that he alone can change the way things are in the third world. This self-importance is suggested throughout the movie when he tells the Thai whore that she SHOULDN’T EVER THINK THAT BOYS ARE GOOD WHILE GIRLS ARE NOT and when he arbitrarily declares, in laughable sincerity, that he should think about DOING CHARITY in less fortunate places, especially since he has SO much time to spare for some occasional self-serving pseudo-goodwill. Even Ellen, his wife, immediately feels bad for unintentionally discrediting the merits of Tagalog (Philippines’ national language) and spends much of the second half of the movie attempting to make herself feel better by showing her maid, Gloria, some cheap parlour tricks involving an apple pretending to be an orange. When I first saw these scenes, I immediately thought that Moodysson was cleverly, self-knowingly pointing out the laughability of white guilt. But then I realized that he was juxtaposing them with some disgusting, cringe-inducing scenes involving Gloria’s children and their oh-so-sad lives; turns out, Moodysson, in true white ignorance, doesn’t even recognize how self-important and disgusting these sympathy ploys are. Yes, people in the USA are generally quite privileged, and yes, the people in third world nations (specifically Thailand and the Philippines here) aren’t as entitled, but so fucking what? Is Moodysson so ignorant that he doesn’t realize that there are too ghettos in the US? Does he not realize that there are too privileged people in third world nations? The Bangkok that Leo first sees looks exactly like a high-budget Hollywood set, yet Moodysson seems perfectly and tragically unaware of the implications here — because he too is an unwitting advocate of self-important white guilt and first-world condescension. Think about that. Moodysson’s underlying sentiments are truly disgusting.
The worst part of the film is the Gloria character. She is such a flat, nonsensical caricature of working mothers and maids across the globe it is almost painful and infinitely insulting. We are led to believe that Leo and Ellen’s daughter, Jackie, is a stand-in for Gloria’s sons, but Gloria seems genuinely delighted by Jackie. Gloria cries dramatically (and haphazardly) practically every night when she talks to her children, and constantly talks about her inability to be away from her children (something that has understandably been interpreted as an anti-feminist statement against working mothers), but this pain is never transferred into her job, where she magically puts her pain away and savors her time with Jackie, even praising her intelligence in front of her Filipino friends and teaching her Tagalog words. This incongruity is endlessly baffling and unconvincing. Necesito doesn’t seem to understand her character’s pain, but then again perhaps it’s Moodysson’s fault for not telling her? Her character immediately reminds me of Walter Salles’ segment in the anthology film Paris, Je Taime, in which a maid too is made to take care of her employer’s child while abandoning her own — except that film effortlessly conveyed her plight, while Mammoth remains as inarticulate as Gloria is ridiculous. Also, just to add on to Moodysson’s inherent racism, the Filipino character in his film is a maid, and the Thai character in his film is a prostitute. Right on, white people. Asians so enjoy being reduced to cultural stereotypes by the ever-wonderful white gaze. BRB, STABBING MYSELF.
This film bravely attempts to style itself as a piece of world film, but fails quite miserably. While most films tend to be in one language or at most two, Mammoth ambitiously sends its characters to 3 different parts of the globe and incorporates all 3 languages into its framework. I mean, it unwisely perpetuates the myth of difference between the three peoples, but at least there is some vague attempt to highlight the universality of disconnectedness, especially in the first half of the movie. Ellen and Leo, Gloria and her sons are both separated by distance, Ellen and Jackie by Gloria and by Ellen’s job, Leo and the Thai whore by language, Leo and Bob by lifestyle. However, instead of intelligently tackling this idea of disconnectedness and disillusionment and linking it to modernity, Moodysson bizarrely uses it to make a vapid statement about privilege, which in turn completely undermines his attempts at universality. The titular mammoth ivory pen at first too seems to be a metaphor of disconnection, in that the ivory is at once tangible and intangible, physical but of unimaginable, non-existent provenance, but it turns out to be a lame statement about Leo’s privileged life, a trite declaration of first-world/third-world imbalance.
But good filmmakers have a tendency of fitting in at least a few redeeming qualities in even their worst movies. I really enjoyed the disconnectedness in the first half of the film, and had the film been about disconnectedness in a modern world, regardless of race or country, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Of course, Moodysson’s racism would’ve remained as pervasive, but still. Also, in Moodysson’s defence, the film does have a marvelous premise — it is just executed in such a ghastly, unintelligent fashion that it is indefensibly offensive. Anyway. The two leads’ performances are absolutely spectacular. I’m a huge fan of Gael García Bernal, an ex-teen idol from Mexico turned critical darling with Alfonso Cuáron’s fantastic Y Tu Mamá También turned perennial supporting actor in an assemblage of Oscar-nominated films, and here he is absolutely spot-on in playing the awkward, guilt-ridden Leo, who is dreamily attractive but subtly awkward, child-like but tentatively assertive. It’s a gloriously strange, believable character that for once humanizes the Hot Male Lead, and it’s really, really sad that Bernal’s magnificent creation will be ignored because of Moodysson’s sub-par efforts. Michelle Williams, probably the most exciting actress today, is as always, unstoppably eclipsing and achingly humane. There is nothing she can’t do, except save this film (lolz).
Written By: Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Starring: Ethan Hawke as Jesse, Julie Delpy as Celine
So I’m not really big on romance films, but not because I don’t like sweet things. Contrary to popular belief, I do (occasionally, when it’s working) have a heart; it’s just that the writers in the genre too often and too enthusiastically throw out meaningless, obvious platitudes and predictably follow one of 3 formats:
1) Illicit lovers that look soooooooo cute together (their faces are drenched in orange light for much of the film, sensuous close-ups are generously employed, both the lead actors are ridiculously attractive, and one or both have unfairly hard lives) but are doomed to tragedy
2) The funny/adorable/awkward couple (most commonly involving a nerd and a hot girl — to satisfy the decidedly impossible fantasies of professional WoW addicts across the globe — but variations include the boss and the new employee, the outcast and the cheerleader etc.) that slowly but surely hook up. This is usually the PG13 variety so the horrifically awkward sex scenes don’t distract from the adorableness.
3) The sad, miserable couple that re-discovers their love after a tedious process of hedonistic cavorting with younger, more attractive and/or cooler people
These films, however, aren’t like any conventional romance films you’ve ever seen before. They have no plot, no contrived trials for the determined protagonists to pass. These films consist of 2 people talking. Just talking. In Before Sunrise, they talk about their hopes, their sex lives, childhoods, desires, politics, religion, feminism; in Before Sunset, they talk about their jobs, their love lives, their frustrations, age, maturity, happiness and emotions. Just talking. And these two are the best romance films I have ever seen. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have such natural, vibrant chemistry, it’s almost like they’re not even acting. Ethan Hawke, in particular, has a preternatural understanding of his character, and his self-unconscious display of Jesse’s insecurities and obnoxiousness is absolutely delicious. They occasionally have raw, startling bursts of genuine emotion, yet one must realize that this is a performance. Their dialogues are often light and meandering, yet their personalities still manage to constantly take helm. Their conversations feel spontaneous, unforced and natural, yet everything is supposedly scripted. It really is quite bewildering. As with all great films, I really don’t know what to talk about. The acting, writing (ESPECIALLY THE WRITING), directing jobs are uniformly excellent, and save for two problems, the films are perfect.
One problem in the Linklater/Krizan-penned Before Sunrise is that Celine is made much angrier, much saucier than Delpy can handle; this makes her performance occasionally forced and her execution occasionally awkward. In Before Sunrise, however, Celine is a lot less angsty (if a lot more unstable), and this change suits Delpy’s execution perfectly — probably because Delpy wisely contributed to the script to make Celine more effortless and natural a transformation for herself. Another problem is that the ending feels rather obvious in that we are naturally convinced by Hawke and Delpy’s chemistry that their characters will meet again. But at least the obvious ending led to Before Sunset, which in every way is superior to its prequel; it unravels with even more ease, it has even more focus, and its ending demands a standing ovation.
therein, Therin. 