He's always watching...

Because Santa is creepy, I give you the Santa scene from The City of Lost Children, a beautiful and brilliant film that I adore.

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I can't recall if I posted this here before. I don't think I have, but it's one of my favorite short films. It never fails to move me.

Sweeney Todd

Thank you, Tim Burton, for making such a splendid film. I'm completely smitten, and I'm craving meat pies. *grin*

Foutaises

The Fountain

On Tuesday, I saw Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Fountain, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. I’ve seen (and greatly appreciated) both Pi and Requiem for a Dream, and at the very least, I assumed that it would be challenging (and it was). I was also aware that The Fountain received enough bad reviews to place the film on the rotten scale at Rotten Tomatoes. Let this be a lesson to ignore collective criticism, because in this case, they don’t have their fingers on my pulse.

Film Synopsis at Wikipedia...because I don't think I need to rehash what's already been written (although my interpetation is slightly different than the synopsis. Perhaps, I'm just being lazy.)

Anyhow...

I hung on every word of this film, because it forced me to look in the mirror and face some very personal issues about illness and dying that I haven’t been prepared to deal with…and while it didn’t necessarily ease my current anxieties, the confrontation was gentle enough to keep me from immediately sticking my head in the sand like an Ostrich. Bonus points for that.

The visuals are beautiful, and The Fountain engages in the kind of myth-making that nests nicely within my thought patterns. It’s not dogmatic, and it doesn’t feel like proselytizing. Instead, it makes use of storytelling to ask and maybe answer questions while creating a certain sense of awe. I’m not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but in my world, stories and personal myth-making allow the days to pass with a bit more color and meaning…fairytales for the soul and all that.

The Wicker Man Remake

I just wasted precisely 102 minutes of my life watching the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man. It was painfully bad, and yet I watched it in its entirety hoping that some small shred of the original may have survived within this steaming pile of Hollywood blasphemy...but it didn't.

Probably, I should have let the film stand on its own, but comparisons are inevitable, especially since I'm extremely fond of the original film. If you haven't seen either version and you don't want spoilers, don't read any further...

Where to begin?

• One of the most compelling things about the original 1976 version of the film is the soundtrack, but the director scrapped the beautiful Scottish folk music in favor of an Angelo Badalamenti score (and an American setting). That doesn't seem like a completely awful choice given some of the previous work that Badalamenti has produced, but it was completely flavorless. Give me drums, fiddles, panpipes, and penny whistles, please. Overly produced orchestral music just doesn't provide the ambiance of an isolated pagan society, particularly during festival time.

• In the original film, the Sergeant was a solidly Christian man who arrived on an island where the locals practiced the “old religion.” The society was more accepting of sex and nudity, and they openly took part in traditional fertility rituals, most notably the dancing of the maypole and the leaping of lovers over the midsummer fires. It produced a certain amount of confusion and discomfort in the Sergeant, but it was subtle enough to allow the tension to build gradually...and it gave the film a deeper meaning that dealt with differences in viewpoints without actually manipulating the viewer into believing that one side was good and the other bad.

  The 2006 version of the film glossed over the fertility rituals almost completely, and instead of showing a society that was sexually free among both genders, it displayed an extremist matriarchal society that abused its men (which was pretty damned offensive for both genders since it was so badly skewed). Additionally, Nicholas Cage's character didn't carry the same religious strength of conviction that the Sergeant had in the original film. Instead, the conflict relied on the aforementioned gender divide which effectively destroyed the depth that was originally there. As far as creating new meaning...Remember kids...women are evil and men are stupid & cowardly.

• There was also some added (yet supremely lame) violence, and I can only deduce that it was meant to add to the “horror” of the film. What it really achieved was making the ending less effective. The Wicker Man isn't supposed to be a slashery horror film. When is Hollywood going to learn that sometimes subtlety is the key?

• There were some decent actors involved in the project (namely Ellen Burstyn and Molly Parker, whom I will continue to adore), but the script was so bad that their presence couldn't even salvage certain parts of the film, and really...Ellen Burstyn is no Christopher Lee. In that regard, I wouldn't have been pleased even if the film had been well done. Lee was the perfect choice for Lord Summerisle, and it would be next to impossible to fill his shoes.

And one more thing before I wrap this up (because I could probably complain for several more days, and I really need to move on to more interesting things)...

If you're about to be stuffed into a giant Wicker Man and set on fire, don't you think that you could come up with something better to say than: You bitches! You bitches!? I'm not sure why that worked my nerves so badly, but it did.

So there you go. I hate the new version of The Wicker Man, and I remain a solid devotee of the original. Anyone up for a nice dance around the midsummer fire?

Films I've seen recently

A couple of random observations about films that I've seen recently:

- Tideland is a great film, and now I want to read the book by Mitch Cullin. It's a southern gothic fairytale, and it's simultaneously grotesque and innocent. I watched it weeks ago, and it's still haunting my dreams.

- The Forbidden Zone is everything that I thought it would be. For years I've been hearing the soundtrack and watching frightening renditions of the film performed by friends. Thank the universe for the Elfman family.

- Silent Hill gave me nightmares. I'm not going to describe the film, because Annie does a much better job over at Joe Horror, but I will say that Alice Krige always gives me the creeps. It's in the eyes.

- I think I'm the only person (aside from my husband) who didn't think that Borat was funny. From me, it only managed to garner a blank stare.

- 300 was pretty to watch because of the way that it was filmed, but it wasn't historically accurate (which I didn't expect since it's based on a comic, and it wasn't meant to be...just saying...). What the hell was up with the nine-foot tall, pierced Xerxes? Most of the costuming was really cool, but that just struck me as being a bit silly. Oh well.

- Time Bandits inspired naughty thoughts about dwarves in goggles. I need to get out more.

L'inventaire Fantôme

Jasper Morello

My friend and fellow blogger, JRC-1138 directed me to the trailer of a short film called The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.

The story takes place in a steampunk setting, and it draws its inspiration from Victorian Adventure stories. With skies sprinkled with airships (who doesn't dream about owning their own steam-driven airship?), mad scientists, lost continents, blood-sucking beasts, and a population in the process of being decimated by a macabre plague; this is quite a lot of fun in a small package...and what's even better is that the animation is quite beautiful. It certainly deserved the academy award nomination that it received for best short film in 2005.

You can see it in its entirety on the 2005 Academy Award Short Films Collection.

The Illusionist & The Prestige

I recommend watching both of these films, but avoid a double feature. They need to be watched and appreciated individually for what they are and what they aren't.

The Illusionist
This film begins with a love story between the son of a cabinet-maker and an Austrian Duchess, Sophie von Teschen. It’s an unusual match within a class conscious society, but the boy has a talent for illusion and from the very beginning, he enchants von Teschen with his charm and skill.

Inevitably, the characters’ respective stations in life prohibit them from pursuing their relationship into full adulthood, and the young boy leaves to travel the world and become The Great Eisenheim, a master illusionist. Sophie, on the other hand, is betrothed to Prince Leopold in a political move to gain Hungarian support for the crown. This is unfortunate for Sophie, because Leopold is not an upstanding fellow.

By chance, Eisenheim returns to Vienna to perform his illusions where he unexpectedly reunites with von Teschen. Thus begins a rather clever and well-written story about…wait for it….illusion, villainy, political intrigue, and of course, love, but I haven’t given anything away that you don’t learn almost immediately. The rest of the story unravels subtly and mysteriously.

Visually, the film is soft and warm with the occasional addition of the iris effect to add historical ambiance. The illusions created by Eisenheim are lovely, and they’re also poetic in a way that only Edward Norton could present. The poetry was in the words used, but it was punctuated by Norton’s movement and specifically his strong ability to act and emote subtly with his eyes.

I was very, very pleased with this film, and I'm also thinking about picking up the soundtrack by Philip Glass.

The Prestige
Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are illusionists who become entangled within a tale of bitter rivalry and revenge. As is often the case, the story begins with the tragic death of a beautiful woman, and it moves towards a quest by Jackman to discover exactly how Bale is staging his greatest trick.

There’s a lot of eye-candy in this film particularly where Nikola Tesla is concerned. (Did I mention that I have a soft spot for Serbian-American physicists who hold a passion for electrical currents and extraterrestrial radio signals...?) Unfortunately, while the role of Tesla makes good sense at the beginning of the film…as a diversion, it later becomes a deus ex machina for Jackman’s character, and in my opinion, detracts from the truly interesting part of the film...Bale’s method.

The Prestige is worth seeing, but honestly, I feel that the Illusionist is a finer film, and I’m a bit perplexed by the incongruity in recognition (Academy Award nomination aside) between the two films. They both came out at approximately the same time, but I’ve experienced more press and praise for The Prestige than I have for The Illusionist. Perhaps, it’s because The Illusionist contains more subtlety, and many people don’t like to work for the story.

Water (2005)

Deepa Mehta was born and raised in India before emigrating to Canada in 1973. She has long been one of my favourite film directors, specificially because of her three elements trilogy.

A brief description of the first two films:

Fire, released in 1996, is a controversial exploration of marriage and traditional gender roles in India. It tells the story of two women who, for varying reasons, experience frustration within their arranged marriages and eventually turn to each other for romantic companionship. Upon its release, Hindi fundamentalists attacked the theaters where the film was being screened, and as a result of that, the film was banned in India for a period of time.

Earth, released in 1998, is based on the novel "Cracking India" by Bapsi Sidhwa. It is the story of the partition of India as viewed through the eyes of a young Parsi girl living in Lahore, which was historically a multicultural city where Parsi, Sikh, Hindi, and Muslim families made their homes. Via a story between the girl's Hindi Ayah and the competing affections of two Muslim men, Mehta effectively portrays the rising religious tension that was present during the time of partition. This is perhaps the strongest film of the three.

I'm pleased to have been able to view the final film, Water, after being unsure of whether or not it would ever be completed. I've been waiting eagerly for many years, and it was well worth the wait.

Water takes place in 1938 before the partition of India, and it is the story of a young girl who is widowed at the age of seven and sent to live in an ashram for the remainder of her life. Traditionally, it was believed that a woman was half comprised of her husband, and when he died, a part of her died as well. Her choices at the time of his death were to burn on his funeral pyre, to marry her husband's brother, or to live all of her future days without pleasure in an ashram where she would make amends for the sins of her past lives which were said to be the cause of her current husband's death.

In addition to the young girl's story, Mehta also tells the stories of the other widows in the ashram, primarily, Kalyani, a young woman who has also lived in a house of widows since she was a very young girl. Unlike the other widows, her hair has not been cut, because she has been forced into prostitution as a means of supporting the head widow's ganja habit. It is her attempt at finding happiness despite the religious politics of India that acts as the catalyst of the film.

In 2000, Water was originally scheduled to be filmed on location at Varanasi, India where there still exist houses for widows, but the day before the filming began, there were sudden difficulties in obtaining the proper permits. A day later, thousands of Hindi Fundamentalist protesters stormed the set, burning it to the ground and throwing the remains into the Ganges. Mehta also received threats against her life, and at this point, it was clear that the filming could not continue in India. Eventually, the director, was able to continue the production in Sri Lanka, but because of the length of time that had passed between permits, she was forced to recast the film with younger actors. Water was finally shown in theaters in 2005, and it was released on DVD in late August of 2006.