Hey folks, Harry here... It looks like possibly sometime in June I may be coming up to Seattle for a book signing and speechifying thing. But frankly, that won't be soon enough dagnabbit... I missed DAS EXPERIMENT! Which sounds utterly fantastic from the review below by Harold Hellman. Check it out folks...
Harold Hellman here, with more capsules from the Seattle International Film Festival on Day 2.
***
CQ
-- written and directed by Roman Coppola
One of the sharpest, funniest examinations of an artist's dilemmas in recent years, Roman Coppola's "CQ" is also a mash note to the cinema, a film by an unabashed movie lover aimed directly at other movie lovers.
While the film can easily stand on its own, it will be most rewarding for those who will notice the thick background of cinematic allusion. It's clearly inspired on several levels by Fellini's "8 1/2," from the premise -- a creatively blocked filmmaker (Jeremy Davies) working on a cheesy sci-fi flick in Italy -- to the hero's difficulty with women. The seeming non-sequitur of the title, also, can't be an accident, and some of the protagonist's adventures recall Marcello Mastroianni's wanderings in "La Dolce Vita." But beyond Fellini, there are echoes of other influences; the film-within-the-film, a sci-fi romp about a sexy spy called Dragonfly, is obviously modeled at least in part on "Barbarella" (John Phillip Law even has a role), there are several nods to Godard, Antonioni, and others, and the whole movie is hilariously drenched in late-60's style.
But "CQ" has more on its mind than a simple period spoof. The conflict between artistic integrity and commercial necessity, which lies at the heart of the film, is articulated with amazing simplicity and elegance. Note how the filmmaker says he wants to do only work that is honest, but is stymied when his girlfriend asks, "What if it's boring?" The sci-fi film's producer, a Dino de Laurentiis type wonderfully played by Giancarlo Giannini, cheerfully and forcefully offers filmmaking advice gleaned from his long career and motivated entirely by his desire to achieve a profit; he rejects out of hand the artistic intentions of the film's original director, a mad auteur played amusingly by Gerard Depardieu. And that's not all, either: The Davies character finds himself drawn to the film's leading lady, to the detriment of his relationship with his girlfriend, and Coppola is thereby able to subtly examine whether this has a positive or negative effect on his ability to draw a good performance from the ingenue.
"CQ" isn't perfect, unfortunately; the scenes with the angry girlfriend come off a bit too obvious, too facile, and there's a lengthy sequence in the middle of the film, centering on New Year's celebrations, that contains a number of suggestive echoes but that doesn't seem to add much else to the story. In general, though, the note-perfect elements used to evoke the period, particularly in the Dragonfly film, not to mention the energetic performances, carry the film past these rough patches. (Besides those previously named, Jason Schwartzman deserves praise as a swinging cinematic dilettante whose burgeoning directorial career takes a back seat to the women and parties to which his title grants him access, and Dean Stockwell, playing the protagonist's father, makes a very sweet, if brief, impression.)
Roman Coppola (yes, he's related) has a career making music videos and commercials, but based on this feature debut, he'll be able to make the transition to the big screen without struggle. "CQ" is smart, it's funny without resorting to vulgarity, it's original, and it's accessible and entertaining. In short, it's a real gem.
***
DAS EXPERIMENT
-- script by Mario Giordano, Christoph Damstaedt, and Don Bohlinger, from a novel by Mario Giordano; directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
I'm finding it difficult to find words to convey the emotional intensity and disturbing brutality of "Das Experiment." It's a truly excellent film, but by the end you feel like you've been dragged over broken glass, so it's hard to simply recommend it without extensive warnings.
The story is based on the famous Stanford experiment from the early 70's, in which ordinary people were divided into arbitrarily superior and inferior groups and their behavior observed. In this version (adapted from a novel), we observe a similar experiment in modern Germany, to wit: Twenty men are recruited for two weeks. After a battery of psychological tests, eight of the men are classified as guards, and the other twelve are their prisoners in a simulated penitentiary. According to the rules established by the scientific overseers, the guards may not use violence to control their prisoners, but otherwise anything is fair game.
It's a provocative setup, and obviously lends itself to all sorts of emotional nastiness. But "Das Experiment" goes beyond what you would expect and predict -- far beyond. It's careful to establish the volunteers and scientists as individuals (not easy, given how the uniforms iron out obvious visual differences), each with his own motives and agenda. The lead character, played by Moritz Bleibtreu (from "Run Lola Run"), goes into the experiment as a freelance reporter, making a deal with an editor to reveal the study's secrets for a high fee. The night before he goes in, he literally runs into and befriends a woman; her story on the outside initially seems extraneous, but ultimately pays off in unimaginable ways.
The cast is uniformly excellent in difficult roles, and the director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, an experienced TV helmer making his feature debut, manages the actors and story with a sure hand. Every individual step is entirely plausible; you never question the development of the plot, even as it inexorably spirals into sheer insanity. "Das Experiment" presents an extremely dark and pessimistic view of human nature, but it would be hard to point out where it's wrong.
Incidentally, it's worth mentioning that the film's German provenance came up in the post-screening Q&A with actor Bleibtreu. The echoes of Nazi superiority are inescapable as the German-speaking guards humiliate their charges, and add to the oppressive atmosphere; but Bleibtreu, while acknowleding his country's history, suggests -- correctly, I think -- that no single culture has a monopoly on the dark human impulses that give rise to the violent fascism depicted in the film. Needless to say, it's an interesting question, and the film makes its point even more powerfully by never directly acknowledging the issue.
"Das Experiment" is, unquestionably, the most harrowing film I have seen in many years. The tension of the final half hour is almost unbearable, and when the credits finally rolled, I was literally shaking. Again, I can't simply recommend you see the film, unless you know in advance what you're going to be in for. But if you think you can take it, then it's a must-see. "Das Experiment" is a rare creation: It intends to, and does, leave a scar.
***
13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING
-- written by Jill Sprecher and Karen Sprecher; directed by Jill Sprecher
The multiplot movie is tough to pull off. By this I mean those films that feature several different storylines, each with different characters who are only tangentially related and which intersect only briefly, if at all, during the course of the film; consider "Magnolia" or "Nashville." Movies like this are usually designed to examine a specific issue, and use the variety of characters and incidents to get a broad perspective on the theme.
The "one thing" in "13 Conversations About One Thing" is the biggest theme of them all, life itself. It's really an impossibly broad topic, and it's to this film's credit that it works as well as it does and isn't dragged down by a sense of its own weight. It's built around four general story threads, following the characters as they talk and think about themselves and, yes, intermittently come into contact with one another. Alan Arkin plays a weary, hard-bitten cynic who derides the rosy worldview of a lawyer he meets in a bar; this lawyer, played by Matthew McConaughey, says he dismisses luck, good or bad, and believes he's earned his good fortune. Meanwhile, a young housecleaner (Clea DuVall) has her optimism shattered when she's the victim of a hit-and-run accident, and a physics instructor (John Tuturro) copes with the meltdown of his relationship with his wife (Amy Irving). How these stories connect I will leave for you to discover.
Director and co-writer Jill Sprecher (sister Karen assisted on the script) employs a complex and shifting timeline for the film, structuring the movie's flow thematically rather than chronologically. For the most part, this is fairly clear; we get enough information to sort out which events are happening when, and to recognize the ironic reversals when somebody says or does something that we know will be contradicted by something we've already seen but that actually occurs later. The plotlines are interesting and very cleverly constructed, and the characters are all clearly drawn individuals, resulting in a solidly engrossing film.
But while it's engrossing, it falls something short of exciting. It's a very talky film, and moves at a consistently lugubrious speed for its full running time. Some variety in the pace of storytelling would have helped immensely, breaking up what by the end verges on a plodding gait. In addition, while the stories are clever, they're not much more; we appreciate the writing more as an exercise of wit than as a display of wisdom. The first six or seven minutes, in fact, come across as a sort of moralistic "Twilight Zone" vignette, with the fickleness of fate replacing Rod Serling's supernatural interventions, as the lawyer finds his glib philosophy emphatically thrown back in his face. It's a strong opening, but the fact that the rest of the movie continues along with the same energy and intent means that there's no rise to a climax, either dramatically or thematically. Not every movie has to employ this conventional structure, of course, but in this case it does require an investment of patience on the part of the viewer, and in the end we don't feel we've seen any particularly novel insights into the nature of life.
In general, though, "13 Conversations About One Thing"
is well-written, extremely well-acted, and involving
throughout. But for the lack of attention paid to the
orchestration of the whole, the flow of energy and
pace over the overall arc, not to mention the failure
to say anything especially significant about its
subject, I would be recommending the movie more
strongly than I am.
VERSUS
-- written by Ryuhei Kitamura and Yudai Yamaguchi; directed by Kitamura
Who needs a plot when you've got heavily armed gangsters fending off a forest full of zombies?
For the first forty or so minutes of "Versus," it seems like that's exactly what the movie's about. Beginning with the flimsiest of premises -- a pair of escaped prisoners are met by their arranged ride on a wooded road, only to find themselves confronted by the risen corpses of the men the yakuza have buried among the trees -- the ensuing chaotic action is pretty typical, if occasionally odd, grindhouse fare. There are a few twists: The group has conflicted loyalties of its own, and fights with itself when they're not gunning down the undead; there's an apparently extraneous female on hand, a fragile woman as horribly out of place as if she'd been kidnapped from the panel of "Iron Chef" judges; and the film displays a healthy sense of humor about itself (e.g., these zombies don't just shamble; they have guns, too). And for a while, it seems like we're watching a very energetic but essentially disposable (and bargain-basement cheap, too, given the woodsy setting) bit of action/horror trash.
But then a new character shows up, and the movie actually begins to acquire a real story. This is both good and bad: It's good, because by this point the mayhem has become a bit repetitive, and the novelty is welcome. But it's bad, because the film shifts in tone, taking itself somewhat more seriously (not a lot, but a bit) with some business about an ancient prophecy and the blood of resurrection and a lot of other nonsense that gets in the way of the good stuff. And worse, the hordes of zombies basically disappear, leaving us with the same eight or ten people chasing each other around for the rest of the flick. Some of the humor is restored when the pair of cops from whom the prisoners escaped show up, but they're not in the movie very much.
To be fair, "Versus" is mostly fun, even though it does go on half an hour too long and spends too much time explaining an overcomplicated premise. Gorehounds won't be disappointed; zombies and humans alike are dispatched in all sorts of grotesquely inspired ways (e.g., the punch through the head that leaves a glistening tunnel through the skull, complete with lower teeth in front). We get thousands of bullets, lots of slashing swordplay, and a few pretty cool martial-arts scenes, though a lot of the action is filmed in that up-close-and-blurry style that seems calculated to conceal the performers' lack of expertise.
Is "Versus" basically a dumb movie? Of course. Does it have an audience? Absolutely. Does it deliver? Well, it doesn't really hold a candle to the "Evil Dead" movies, which are the standard by which this sort of thing is judged, but the midnight audience seemed to like it fine. It's just a mindless splatterfest, after all, even if it does begin to drag well before it's over (the unexpected coda was met with groans of disbelief), and it knows what its audience wants to see.
***
More to follow!
Harold Hellman
