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Cinema
by
Leonard Heldreth
The films this month include a British fantasy, an international
children’s adventure story, a new Woody Allen film and a comedy
about the last days of two men.
Hogfather
Fans of Terry Pratchett, England’s best-selling author until
J.K. Rowling appeared, have long waited for effective films of his
novels, especially the Discworld series, but, outside of some animated
attempts, none had appeared until recently. Discworld, the subject
of nearly forty novels by Pratchett, is a world like our own except
it is flat and rests on the backs of four elephants who, in turn,
stand on the back of a great turtle, A’Turin, who is traveling
through space to a destination and for reasons known only to her.
Now, just in time for the Christmas season, comes Hogfather, a variation
on the Santa Claus story as it appears in Pratchett’s alternate
universe. The Hogfather, a man with a boar’s head and tusks,
comes on Hogswatch Night (December 31) to bring toys to children all
over Discworld, but this year, the Auditors (soulless celestial bureaucrats
roughly equivalent to subprime mortgage accountants) have hired a
member of the Assassin’s Guild to kill the red-suited fat man
(there are some parallels to Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas).
Mr. Teatime (Marc Warren) thinks he can kill the mythological figure
by breaking into the Tooth Fairy’s castle and using the collected
teeth there to destroy the belief in supernatural figures. In the
meantime, Death (Ian Richardson), himself a supernatural personification,
realizes that the Hogfather is in danger because the sands in his
hourglass, frozen for centuries, have begun to run forward again.
Further, Death realizes someone will have to deliver presents, or
belief in the Hogfather will die, and that loss will guarantee his
demise. Therefore, Death, together with his butler Alfred playing
an elf, dons the red garb, harnesses the wild boars, and sets out
to distribute the gifts. However, children sneaking downstairs for
a peek may not know quite what to make of a skeleton with pillows
stuffed into a red suit.
The main opposition to Mr. Teatime’s plan is Susan (Michelle
Dockery), Death’s granddaughter, who has, through long association
with her grandfather, acquired some of his abilities, e.g., to beat
up on boogiemen hiding under the bed, stop time, walk through walls,
and ride Death’s great pale horse, Binkie. (Just how Death acquired
a granddaughter is the subject of another novel and is simply a “given”
in the film.)
Susan’s conflict with Teatime to save the Hogfather is the main
story told here, and it’s complex enough and yet simple enough
that children and adults alike will find it interesting. Among the
highlights of this adventure are a visit to the Hogfather’s castle
of bones, which is melting, and to the Tooth Fairy’s castle where
she and the Oh-God-of-Hangovers try to help Susan. Hilarious scenes
also are set at Unseen University, where wizards receive their training,
and the new computer HEX is about to be switched on. Watching Death
learn to “Ho Ho Ho” in his Hogfather outfit is fine. The
comic peak, however, occurs when Death, dressed as Hogfather, shows
up at a department store and starts giving away all the merchandise
as gifts. “Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
he asks, to the dismay of the department store owner, who finds that
arguing with Death, as so many have found out, is futile. In the meantime,
a little girl points out that the hogs pulling his sleigh “just
wee-weed on the floor.”
Solid performances are provided by everyone. Ian Richardson is delightfully
droll and also serious as the voice of Death (who always speaks in
capital letters in the novels), Dockery has just the right combination
of exasperation and charm for Susan, as she tries to explain to her
grandfather what he doesn’t understand about these strange humans
with whom he has had a long and intimate contact. Warren is truly
frightening as a whining psychopath determined to prove he should
be promoted to the top level of the Assassin’s Guild. The supporting
parts are all nicely done, especially by David Warner as the head
of the Assassin’s Guild, and by many other actors and actresses
whose faces will be familiar.
The production is a faithful adaptation of the novel, given the time
constraints; it consists of two ninety-five-minute episodes. While
knowledge of the other Discworld books adds to the background (such
as explaining that the little skeleton running around with a scythe
is “The-Death-of-Rats,” who carries out the same function
for rats as Death does for humans), it really isn’t necessary
to enjoy the film. I’m confident that it will become a Christmas
classic, enjoyed by both adults and children. Vadim Jean, the director
whom Pratchett approved, has just completed The Colour of Magic, the
first Discworld novel, and is slated to film Going Postal, a more
recent novel in the series, in 2009. What better gifts than these
for future Hogswatch Nights? Top
The Fall
In film, the narrative and the visuals often struggle with each other.
If the story overwhelms the visuals, the film often seems anemic and
underdeveloped; if the visuals overwhelm the narrative, the story
may get lost in the gorgeous photography. The latter case is the problem
with The Fall (directed by Tarsem—he prefers the single name),
a film that operates on two or three levels of perception and requires
the viewer’s close attention, while simultaneously flooding the
screen with gorgeous shots of the desert, waterfalls, Arabian cities
and other globe-trotting locations filmed in a total of twenty-eight
countries over this four-year, director-financed project.
The time is 1915, and the location is Los Angeles, at that time a
land of orange groves and the beginning of movies. Alexandria (Catinca
Untaru), a little girl, has fallen from a ladder and broken her left
arm while working as an orange picker. In the hospital she becomes
friends with Roy (Lee Pace), a movie stuntman who has fallen while
trying to leap to a horse from a railroad trestle. Roy, paralyzed
and in pain from his accident, is deeply depressed. Alexandria asks
Roy to tell her a story, and he agrees to do so, partly to take his
mind off his own discomfort and partly to ingratiate himself with
the girl so that she will steal morphine pills from the pharmacy for
him. As he tells the story, what is shown on the screen is what Alexandria
imagines, so when he mentions an “Indian and his squaw,”
she sees a man from India and a woman dressed in a sari. The disjunction
between what he tells and what she sees (and is shown on screen) provides
some amusing moments as well as some confusing ones.
Roy tells the story of the Black Bandit, a young man (also played
by Pace) and his four henchmen (whose faces match those of people
the little girl has seen around the hospital). They oppose and have
sworn to destroy the evil Governor Odious (Daniel Caltagirone), who
has killed the Bandit’s twin brother and carried away the woman
he loves; Odious also has wronged each of the henchmen. Their adventures,
which veer wildly first in one direction and then another, depending
on what the little girl asks to hear, form one thread of the story.
The other, the “realistic” thread, concerns Roy’s attempts
to persuade the little girl to steal enough pills from the pharmacy
to let him kill himself: he is in pain, his career is ended and his
girlfriend loves the leading man in the movie for which he does the
stunts. A few additional characters, such as doctors, other patients
and people who visit the hospital, fill out this line of the narrative.
Eventually, the two narratives come together, as the little girl herself
appears as a character in the Black Bandit’s story and a resolution
is reached.
The film uses only special effects which could have been done in 1915,
the time during which the film is set, so there are no computer-generated
graphics, a fact which makes the visuals more impressive.
The film was photographed over four years in sites around the world
by Tarsem, whose previous film, The Cell (reviewed here in April 2001)
contained a similar overbalance of visuals to story. The acting is
solid, with Untaru remarkably good as the little Alexandria and Pace
believable as the injured stuntman. Somewhere between child’s
story, fantasy narrative, experimental film, travelogue and director’s
vanity project, The Fall will impress you with its dedication, its
integrated narrative, and, most of all, its visuals; it is, in the
accurate meaning of the world, unique. See it on as large a screen
as possible. Top
Cassandra's Dream
Woody Allen’s recent films seem to trigger extreme reactions
of love or hate in reviewers. Matchpoint received this response, and
Cassandra’s Dream did also—one reviewer said it was “Allen’s
worst film yet” while another cited it as “a masterpiece
the likes of which we haven't seen from Woody Allen in a long time.”
I liked Matchpoint a lot, despite some practical problems in the plot’s
mechanics (see Home Cinema, September 2006, at www.mmnow.com). However,
Cassandra’s Dream, while certainly worth watching, seems more
routine, and its ending lacked the smooth precision of Matchpoint,
while matching it for dark irony.
The plot of Allen’s most recent film is simple and straightforward.
Two brothers get in trouble from gambling and trying to impress expensive
women; they are offered a way out of their troubles in return for
committing a murder; they have difficulty dealing with the consequences
of what they have done; and the movie ends in an obvious but compressed
fashion. Unfortunately, the plot feels mechanical, and the characters’
actions are predictable. The characters also tend toward the stereotypical—the
compulsive gambler, the young man who wants a life beyond his means
and class, the vapid actress girlfriend, the dominating mother, the
beaten-down father, the deus ex machina uncle from California. Further,
the characters are not especially sympathetic, which makes it harder
to identify with them and keep interested.
The brothers, Ian and Terry Blaine (Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell),
follow a too-familiar trajectory of getting in over their heads (e.g.,
when Terry wins big at cards, it’s obvious that soon he will
lose even bigger and be in trouble). Their Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson)
offers them a way out of their troubles. If they will eliminate Martin
Burns (Philip Davis), a man who will testify against Uncle Howard
and send him to jail, the uncle will provide the funds to solve the
boys’ problems and set them up in businesses of their own. They
reluctantly agree, and the stage is set for an examination of some
of the issues Allen raised in his classic Crimes and Misdemeanors.
As the guilt becomes more than Terrry can handle, further steps must
be taken, and the ending, while not completely predictable, left this
viewer unsatisfied, partly because much of it occurs offstage and
is simply reported. After so much time devoted to how the boys get
into the mess, surprisingly little is given to how it is resolved.
The film’s title, a stated reference to the sailboat the boys
buy with Terry’s initial dog race winnings and to the name of
the winning dog, also refers to Greek mythology. Cassandra was a female
captive brought back from the Trojan War by Agamemnon; she was cursed
in that she gave true prophecies but no one believed her. The patina
of family tragedy is highlighted by lines such as Ian’s girlfriend’s
statement that, “I love the Greek tragedies, but it’s so
rare to get the chance to star in one,” and she specifically
refers to Agamemnon’s wife, who kills him in revenge for the
sacrificial murder of their daughter. Uncle Howard and the boys also
keep discussing the importance of family. As Tom shouts, “Family
is family, and blood is blood,” thunder rumbles on the soundtrack,
and rain pours down on them.
Any problems with the film are not the fault of the actors. Wilkinson,
McGregor and Farrell are all fine, with Farrell playing a guilt-ridden
character similar to the one he played in In Bruges. John Benfield
and Clare Higgins are convincing as the boys’ parents, as are
Angela Stark as Terry’s girlfriend and Philip Davis as the designated
victim. The only weak performer is Hayley Atwell, Ian’s girlfriend,
who fails to rise above being a pretty face and a body that does nude
scenes on stage.
Woody Allen has said in recent interviews that he continues to make
a movie each year at an age (seventy-two) when most men have retired,
because film-making keeps his mind off his physical decline and the
depressing thoughts of his own death. Apparently, he was scheduled
to film a light comedy, but the project was put on hold, and he quickly
wrote and filmed Cassandra’s Dream instead. To its detriment,
the film’s plot, characters and dialogue reveal these rough edges,
compared to the more polished Matchpoint. Nonetheless, a minor Woody
Allen film often is better than major films by other directors, and
given the critics’ disagreement over this one, fans of Allen
may want to see it and make up their own minds. Top
The Bucket List
Although Tarsem spent millions of his own dollars filming The Fall
on location, Rob Reiner obviously posed his characters in front of
digital images of the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids
and other well-known locations in The Bucket List. The faked locations
are paralleled by shortcuts on characterization and plot development
that Reiner takes in this film based on the “things to do before
you die” scenario that has inspired a number of best-selling
books. It is a question most people think about at some point in their
lives, but serious questioners probably would come up with answers
more complex than “kiss the most beautiful girl in the world,”
“witness something majestic” or “laugh ’til you
cry,” all of which appear on the movie’s list.
Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman)
meet while being treated for terminal cancer in a hospital owned by
Cole. He has acquired his enormous wealth from hard-nosed projects
like his hospital, where two people are assigned to each room—“No
exceptions.” He has four ex-wives, an estranged daughter and
an assistant whom he enjoys belittling, but who has learned to defend
himself in verbal warfare. Chambers, an auto mechanic, has a near-photographic
memory developed from watching “Jeopardy;” he has a wife
of many years and successful children and grandchildren who love him.
When Cole proposes they use their predicted remaining six months of
life to go off and do all the things they’ve never done, the
goal seems consistent with Cole’s lifestyle, but questionable
for someone with Chambers’ values. When Chambers accepts the
offer, it seems more like something necessary to keep the plot going
than an action growing out of his character.
Nonetheless, the plot forms the basis for a number of amusing scenes
of skydiving, autoracing and other activities supposed to be what
seventy-year-old men have wanted to do, but never got around to doing.
Throughout, Nicholson and Freeman play the same characters they have
played before. Nicholson cuts the ham pretty thick as he twitches
his eyebrows, shakes his jowls and smirks his way through the role
with little restraint. Freeman plays his usual responsible, intelligent
family man. Beverly Todd is excellent as Chambers’ wife, Virginia,
and Sean Hayes, as Cole’s assistant, holds his own in one-on-ones
with Nicholson—no small achievement. The screenplay and dialogue
are competent but not outstanding.
The Bucket List is a pleasant film with a few laughs, and it goes
down easily. Its main accomplishment, however, might be to start people
thinking about their own lists. Most of them probably would be more
original and challenging than the one in this film. Top
—Leonard G. Heldreth
Editor’s Note: All films reviewed are available on DVD or VHS
from local stores. Reviews of earlier films cited can be found at
www.mmnow.com
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