Director David Cronenberg is the thinking man’s horror filmmaker. From his more “conventional” early work in the 1970s and early 1980s (Rabid, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome), there has always been a subtext and overt social commentary to his work. He’s tackled literary adaptations (The Dead Zone, Naked Lunch, Crash, and his vastly underappreciated previous film Spider), remakes (The Fly), and even a famous play (M. Butterfly). While I still consider his 1988 tale of twin gynecologists, Dead Ringers, my favorite Cronenberg work, his latest, A History of Violence, is his best. It also happens to be one of the best films of the year.

Some critics may point to Violence as atypical Cronenberg, focusing more on the compelling and shocking story and less on the standard blood and guts. But Cronenberg has always been a great storyteller, and while the twisted character and visuals are mostly absent from Violence, don’t be fooled into thinking the film is lightweight. This is by far Cronenberg’s most emotionally and psychologically dense work. And there’s still plenty of blood to please the long-time fans. But the use of blood and violence not used to entertain; it’s used to shock, to transform us from casual movie viewers into active participants in this story.

Viggo Mortensen turns in the greatest performance of his career as mild-mannered diner owner Tom Stall, living with his wife lawyer Edie (Maria Bello) and two kids (Ashton Holmes and Heidi Hayes) in a small Indiana town. One night, as Tom and his employees are closing up the diner, two psychopaths come into the place with the clear intention of robbing and killing everyone inside. Completely out of character, Tom leaps into action and takes out the two men in seconds, becoming a local hero for a few days. Wanting nothing more than to return to life as normal and forget the entire incident, Tom is more than annoyed when scarred Philadelphia gangster Carl Fogaty (a truly nasty Ed Harris) walks into his place and claims that Tom’s name is really Joey Cusack, an old acquaintance from Philly. Naturally Tom denies this, but the incident sets off a series of events and confrontations that turn Tom’s life upside down and change it irreversibly.

People sometimes forget that before he gained status as a film immortal playing Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen was a character actor. He concentrated on inhabiting roles that he could sink his teeth into, even if that meant almost never being the leading man. Botched attempts such as his first post-Lord of the Rings film, Hidalgo, usually resulted from trying to force him into the Leading Man boots without playing to his strengths. A History of Violence proves that he can hold a film together with the best of them. His quiet intensity plays a double duty: in the film’s early scenes, it draws us to him; in later scenes, it makes us fear him.

As strange as it sounds, Violence isn’t just a film about killing and death. The movie spends a surprising amount of time showing Tom being affectionate with his wife (a really passionate and graphic love scene occurs early in the film) and his kids (he comforts his young daughter after she wakes from a nightmare). But Tom is a layered character, who begins to show signs of weakness (or is it strength?) when verbally disciplining his son after a fight at high school. “We don’t solve problems in the family by hitting,” Tom declares, only to slap his son for talking back to him seconds later. The message is clear.

A History of Violence plants a few land mines in the plot (from a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, adapted by Josh Olson) just to keep us on our toes, but I wouldn’t call them “plot twists.” You see certain aspects of the story coming, but Cronenberg allows them to unfold in unexpected ways. At its core, the film is about a man desperate to continue living the life he has struggled so hard to establish for himself, and Tom Stall’s journey is an explosive one. In many ways, A History of Violence reminds me of some of the gangster films of actor-writer-director Takeshi Kitano, which feature long, almost serene sequences punctuated by bursts of extreme violence. But Cronenberg’s use of bloodshed seems even more necessary and purposeful. A History of Violence is a film meant to be considered long after you leave the theatre, and there is no higher recommendation than that.

Reel Paradise

After the remarkable success of Hoop Dreams and his follow-up films Prefontaine and Stevie, documentary filmmaker Steve James again demonstrates that he is one of the crowned princes in his field with Reel Paradise, which follows the final month in a freakishly revealing year-long experiment on the island of Fiji. The film and its subjects are a massive collection of contradictions, and this may be that rare great work in which you can’t stand any of the people in it.

Reel Paradise chronicles the Pierson family, headed by indie film legend John Pierson. The New York-based Pierson gave advise, support, and financing to the early works of such filmmakers as Spike Lee, Kevin Smith, Michael Moore, and Richard Linklater. His book “Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes” is something of a staple to indie filmmakers, and his cable show “Split Screen” was one of the first program produced for the then-fledgling Independent Film Channel. On one of those early shows, John took his family to Fiji, looking for the world’s most remote movie theatre, and the trip inspired Pierson to try something a bit more ambition. He and his family moved to Fiji for a year and ran the run-down but still glorious 180 Meridian Cinema, showing free movies to the locals.

Former indie film "guru" John Pierson takes his family to Fiji for one year to run the world's most remote movie theater. Director James and his team capture the tumultuous final month, in which Pierson, his wife Janet, rebellious teenage daughter Georgia, and dutiful younger son Wyatt, live a lifetime of grief, emotion, and joy. The toughest concept to grasp in watching Pierson’s day-to-day life running the theater, dealing with local police and church officials, and interacting with the community, is whether the citizens of Fiji even want him there. Certainly people show up to the movies (most of the time), but the constant break-ins at his home, the casual attitude of his projectionists, and the insane ravings of his landlord seem to suggest that Pierson is a pesky outsider. All the more entertaining for us.

Perhaps the greatest treat for me was watching the indie guru Pierson be forced to play the most brainless mainstream comedies and action films, because those are the only ones the locals will turn out for. All of those years pioneering the offbeat have no purpose in the island. Worse still, Pierson insists on introducing each film, and it’s painfully clear that even the locals that understand what he’s talking about could care less about his informed pre-film comments. And while John attempts not to talk down to the locals, when he’s upset about something, the ugly American pokes out his head and lets his true feelings show. Janet Pierson fares much better, as she actually makes an effort to get to know and hang out with locals. Daughter Georgia is perhaps the most infuriating to watch, because he every action seems designed to garner the maximum amount of rage from her fairly liberal-minded parents. And while you never get the sense that the other Pierson family members are acting anything but honestly in front of the cameras, Georgia seemed fueled to act out by them.

What I’d assumed would be a film about bringing film to a culture that seems to have thrived without it, turned out to be a character study of the Pierson clan, and the odds of you enjoying their company (with the exception of the very sweet Wyatt) are not good. Reel Paradise puts a smudged microscope over this shaky family dynamic and shows us that not all outsiders to become insiders even if it would benefit their time there. Pierson is something of an enigma, but the parts of him we can figure out are sometimes unforgivable. The film itself is remarkable, and director James again manages to get sometimes uncomfortably close to his subjects. We’re not only witnessing their personal habits but also hearing what feel like private thoughts and buried emotions. That is the mark of a great documentarian, and Reel Paradise is another remarkable work from James. The film opens in Chicago this Friday at the Music Box Theatre.

Dear Wendy

I will go to my grave defending the works of Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. With troubling works like Dogville and The Idiots, this is sometimes difficult. But anyone who takes the risks and that Von Trier has over the years with films like Epidemic, “The Kingdom” television series, Breaking the Waves, and Dancer in the Dark, he is a writer-director who gets right in your face like a bully and won’t leave you alone until you hear what he has to say. Never has he been challenging than with his “USA-Land of Opportunity” trilogy, which is hard to believe since only the first part—Dogville—has even been released in this country. (Part 2—Manderlay—should be out later this year.) Dear Wendy boasts a screenplay by Von Trier (and is directed by fellow Dane Thomas Vinterberg) that fits in quiet nicely with the themes of his current trilogy: the ugly truth about American values.

Dear Wendy is a metaphor for America’s obsession with guns. In it, a group of young men and one woman form a club called the Dandies, whose sole purpose seems to be perfecting the use of guns with the intention of carrying them wherever they go but never using them…until of course they find a good reason to do so. The leader of the group is Dick (Billy Elliot’s Jamie Bell), who finds a small handgun in a pawnshop run by Susan (Alison Pill). Each member of the five-person Dandy group of town misfits names their gun. Dick calls his Wendy and actually forms a relationship with his weapon that seems more meaningful than any of the human connections he makes.

Much of Dear Wendy focuses on the setting of rules and the elaborate rituals the group invents to propagate their club. They show each other slides of autopsy photos of those killed by bullets in what they say is an effort to reinforce the “no shooting” policy, but their youthful excitement at the photos and the hours of target practice suggest something else.

When a childhood friend of Dick’s, an actual criminal, joins the group the group, he gives the Dandies a mission which requires them to break their weaponless, in-public behavior, and the film culminates in a unsettling hail of bullets between the Dandies and the local police, led by Sheriff Krugsby (Bill Pullman).

Even the greatest defender of Von Trier’s work much acknowledge that Dear Wendy is not his best work, but it is a fascinating window into his worldview. Vinterberg’s direction is both stark and lovely (thanks to Von Trier’s current favorite cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle). Perhaps the oddest and most appropriate choice in the film is the music. For some reason, the Dandies only listen to songs by The Zombies. I haven’t listened to The Zombies in a while, but this overdose works surprisingly well and serves to further drive home Von Trier’s message that American’s resemble the walking dead.

Dear Wendy can be a struggle. It sometimes borders on tedious and often crosses the line into being obvious and trite. The performances are hit and miss, but Bell strikes exactly the right note as a young man leading a group of outcasts who have found friendship and connection through the power of weaponry. (I’m guessing the Trench Coat Mafia might be the reference point here.) The film’s flaws don’t stop it from being memorable and disturbing. It opens this Friday in Chicago at the Landmark Century Center Cinema.

Capone

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