"A wilderness explorer is a friend to all, be it bird or fish or tiny mole!"
Pixar are simply leaps and bounds ahead of anybody else when it comes to animated films. Their multi-level storytelling is better than any other animation company around and visually Pixar films are bettered by none. 2009 brings us their latest effort in the form of Up and looking back through the years it has been a rarity that 'their latest effort' has failed to live up to the expectation that has been placed on their shoulders.
Up is Pixar's tenth feature length film and the first time that audiences could choose to witness it in 3D. I have just returned from viewing it and I guess the question that I needed to address beforehand was '2D or not 2D?' 3D on the face of it is a completely superfluous luxury that cinema has coped without for over one hundred years and is only being employed in recent times due to advances in technology for one but mainly due to dwindling numbers of people going to the cinema. Offering films in 3D and the chance to wear fancy glasses is meant as a temptation for film fans to enter back through the cinema doors due to the fact that illegally downloading and making pirate copies of 3D films is impossible. Personally, I don't think the extra entrance fee for 3D films is justified so I 'boringly' opted to see Up in 2D. Scandalous.
Anyway back to the film. Up centers around 78 year old grump Carl Fredriksen and his desires to fulfill his lifelong ambition of visiting Paradise Falls, South America. With Charles Muntz as his idol we initially meet Carl as a young boy as he happens to meet fellow Muntzian Ellie, a young girl whose energetic personality initially overwhelms Carl but the two bond due to their shared desire to explore. After this chance meeting what follows is the highlight of the film in which we see Carl and Ellie fall in love, marry, fail to have children and grow old together whilst still maintaining that one day they will visit Paradise Falls together. During this scene in which words are absent and the only sound comes in the form of a beautifully fitting piece of music Carl and Ellie are constantly having to spend the money they have saved up in hope of visiting Paradise after they are hit by unfortunate circumstance after unfortunate circumstance. Eventually Ellie dies and their dreams never come true leaving the now empty Carl to develop a grumpy nature and live out his life alone in a house he refuses to leave despite building work going on all around him.As a side note, it is rare that a scene from an animated film touches me so deeply. Gems like this are few and far between in films orientated towards the whole family but Pixar have created poetic brilliance here that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking and probably goes down as one of the greatest scenes in animated history.
This scene sets up the rest of the main story which reminded me a little of David Lynch's 'The Straight Story'; one man realising that he has only one more chance to undertake something he believes that he needs to do in his lifetime despite the odds of doing so being stacked heavily against him. Carl, on the verge of being placed in a home for the elderly uses his job as a balloon attendant to float his house up and away into the sky, destination Paradise Falls. Expecting to be alone on his journey Carl is surprised when the plucky Russell, an eager Junior Wilderness Explorer whom Carl had met the previous day, inadvertantly joins him.
The only negative feelings I have towards Up is in the choice of content once the duo reach Paradise Falls. It descends into stupidity, which once again sees animation studios insult the intelligence of their younger audience. The introduction of dogs who can talk through electronic voice translator devices was way over the top and their reason for being there was never fully understandable. And don't get me started on that stupid bloody bird. Are these things really necessary? No. Were they in keeping with the beginning of the film. Not at all. In all honesty the magic that was created in the first fourty minutes of the film was never truly lived up to but it's importance did remain obvious throughout the film. Despite the introduction of stupid, superfluous characters the script is witty throughout, the colours always vibrant, the visuals are always very, very, good and the house with all it's balloons remains an important reminder of Ellie. Russell and Carl despite being such different characters do work wonderfully together. Up isn't just another animated adventure. It is Pixar's most character driven piece to date. The trip feels like it means something to Carl. He displays real emotion and the purpose behind his actions seems clear. Rating: 7/10
"Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I'd tell them the truth and they still wouldn't believe me, so I prefer to lie."
French New Wave cinema is something I know virtually nothing about. It is an era of cinema which took place predominantly in the 1950's and 1960's which apparantly brought about a fresh look to the world of film. The 400 Blows, a film by Francois Truffaut one of the most famous New Wave directors to come out of France, is often said to be one of the films that defines this exciting and perhaps at the time radical new genre.
The film tells the story of Antoine Doinel a boy on the verge of entering his teenage years. At his all-boys school he has been labelled the trouble-maker and his teachers often hand out overly severe punishments to him whenever they believe him to have done wrong. This is illuminated near the beginning of the film when a 'distasteful' calendar is being passed between the boys none of whom want to be caught with it in their possession. As each of the boys quickly passes it on to the next it is the unfortunate Antoine who has it in his hand as the teacher notices what is going on. As you would expect it is he, not any of the others who receives the punishment.
At home life isn't much better. His mother and stepfather don't often refer to him by name, especially when they are talking about him without his presence. His mother seems uninterested in him except when Antoine can be viewed as a means to her own end. At times Antoine seems to have a healthy relationship with his stepfather but his short temper appears to stop this from flourishing more than it does and the pair never seem fully attached to one another. Neither parent seems to know Antoine too well and instead go off reports from others when it comes to judging him which just seems fundamentally wrong when it comes to parenthood. Perhaps it is the cramped living conditions, in which the family constantly have to squeeze past one another; the living conditions that mean Antoine's mother has to step over his bed just to get in the house when she returns from her affair with another man, that have led to the family's lack of togetherness. Or perhaps it is just the affair. Either way Antoine struggles to cope with the dullness of everyday life.
Without knowing how the story unfolds you would assume that Antoine ends up in a youth detention centre because he genuinely is a bad egg. But throughout the whole film it seems obvious that really he isn't. He is more unlucky than genuinely bad. It is the attitudes of those around him who seem responsible for his 'locking up' and not Antoine himself. The calender moment has already been noted but after this we see him punished again this time for plagurism of the famous French novelist Balzac but Antoine saw this simply as a homage not a blatant attempt to plagurise his work. Antoine is a playful and creative character but whenever he displays this side it is often met with disapproved looks and comments from those seeking to control him.
But The 400 Blows most certainly is not all doom and gloom and there are actually some moments that genuinely make you smile none more so than the rather redundant yet brilliant scene where the P.E. teacher (at least that's who I assume it is) takes the class of boys on a jog which plays out like more of a work through the streets of Paris. The scene is shot from well above the rooftops of the buildings they pass but, unbeknowst to the teacher, two by two and three by three the boys dash off into shops and alleyways slowly deminishing the trail behind the oblivous 'coach.' The score is also one of the more happier delights in the film. It has a childlike quality that seems to suit the various scenes that it suppliments.
The lead role of Antoine Doinel is played by Jean-Pierre Leaud and he plays the role in exactly the right manner. Many child actors deliver performances that just do not seem to accurately reflect how children are but here Leaud captures the essence of being a growing boy quite brilliantly. Truffaut must have seen the qualities of the young man as he stuck by him for a twenty year period in which each time Truffaut hired Leaud to play Doinel ina series of films that developed Antoine's life even more.
The film's final and most famous shot, the zoom in to freeze frame of Antoine's staring face as he stands by the sea's edge really seems to capture the period of Antoine's life that he (and we as viewers) have now reached.
As soon as I had finished watching I was unsure of my opinion. In terms of great character studies I had seen before it it is Scorcese's Taxi Driver that stands out as the greatest in which Travis Bickle is a character that literally fascinated me. But the study of character evident in The 400 Blows is a bit different and on first assessment didn't fascinate me half as much as Bickle did. Antoine's character didn't really grab me as an individual but on reflection his character did grab me in terms of the whole. Antoine represents the whole of the youth of France in the 1950's and how the methods of dealing with delinquency were unfair and unjust. It wasn't until I realised this that I felt sympathetic towards Antoine and it was only then that I felt I could label this a brilliant study of character and French society as a whole.
"I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"
In his review of The Elephant Man, Roger Ebert raises philosophical questions about the film's portrayal of John Merrick's life, questions regarding the emphasis on courage displayed by the man with the disfigured body. He asks, 'What type of courage is Merrick really displaying?' Is it courage based upon going against the easy choice and facing up to hardship or is it just the courage to deal with the cards that Mother Nature dealt you? Ebert chooses the latter and concludes that this is really nothing special.
I disagree. Sure, fate has dealt Merrick a huge inconvenience. He is heavily disfigured and upon first glance (and maybe even second, third, fourth, fifth and so on and so forth...) is a visual displeasure. But Merrick is couragous. Why? Because in the beginning he is obviously lacking an any faith in the human race. Gradually however, throughout the course of the film this faith is increased.
The first fourty minutes or so in David Lynch's emotional powerhouse of a film captures this well and is a frustratingly curious opening to the film. We never really glimpse Merrick's body in all it's glory(?). He speaks very little, even when under the care of Doctor Treves. Merrick is a sheltered man who is rarely treated like a person should be treated. We see many examples of this: he is treated like a zoo animal by the hoards of people who pay to stare at his unusual body, he is called an 'it' and his 'owner' beats him with a stick and verbally abuses him. In the beginning, Merrick's personality seems non-existent.
The courage arises in his willingness to open up and eventually he shows us that he is in fact the most human-like character in the whole film. He is intelligent, polite, kindhearted and really would just like to enjoy the finer aspects of living. Furthermore it is the most human looking people that display the least human like traits. Consider for example the drunken mob who ransack Merrick's accomodation taunting him in the process. These physically perfect examples of human beings seemed anything but so.
I can't help but think that this role of John Merrick must have been a terribly difficult role to play but John Hurt is fantastic in it. To get the walk, the talk and the emotions across of a man so unlike any other man in such a perfect way is a real credit to Hurt and it is amazing that he didn't collect an Oscar for it. In fact, it's only when you realise that Hurt was up against Robert De Niro for his brilliant performance in Raging Bull that you start to understand why he was overlooked. Nevertheless, he produces one of the most likable characters I've ever come across in film.
It's quite easy to forget that The Elephant Man is a David Lynch film. After all, I approached the films of Lynch from the surreal side. I started off with Mullholland Drive, a film I declare perfect in every sense. I moved on to the equally surreal Eraserhead, a film joyously heavy on symbolism which is also a feature of his 1986 film Blue Velvet. I rounded up my initial foray into Lynch's works with Inland Empire, an amalgamation of Lynchian ideas built up throughout his career in to a bizarre but beautiful three hour epic. But my most recent Lynch films, this and The Straight Story, really show his sensitive side. OK, The Straight Story isn't too great but The Elephant Man feels nothing like your typical Lynch film. It grabs you emotionally and doesn't let go. The creative side of Lynch, a side to him that in 1980 we had only glimpsed at in Eraserhead is for the most part none existent although there is a bizarre opening to the film in which we see Merrick's mother trampled by elephant's in a bizarre dreamlike sequence and an equally bizarre but strangely moving ending where she pops up again floating through space uttering words that really moved me. And I really didn't think I'd ever need to hold back the tears during a Lynch flick.
I guess the only question that I was left thinking about was 'Why did Merrick choose to sleep lying down at the end of the film knowing what it would do to him?' This looks like an apparant suicide and may seem to somewhat knock my defense of the negative questions raised by Ebert. Nevertheless it is a conclusion that left me metaphorically speechless and emotionally drained and further strengthened my opinion that David Lynch is one of the best director's to have ever graced this earth.
"If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It's not tragic to die doing what you love."
Looking down a list of Patrick Swayze's filmography what strikes me is how uninteresting it is. He is a household name but is somebody who has never starred in anything that comes close to being brilliant. Saying that I've only ever seen him in two films; Dirty Dancing, a performance for which he has received universal acclaim from women everywhere but it's a performance in which he excels at dancing not particularly acting. The other is Donnie Darko, but then he's not really in that much to form an opinion either. (Yes I've not seen Ghost) Perhaps then his performance in Point Break, in which he features heavily, will prove to me that he is a decent actor and I got the chance to decide after pancreatic cancer got the better of Swayze leading to a flurry of films featuring the late actor, including Point Break, appeared all over British television.
Kathryn Bigelow's 1991 surfing themed action flick stars Swayze as the charismatic Bodhi, the prominent figure amongst a group of surfers but it is Keanu Reeves character, Johnny Utah, who we meet first. Utah is a plucky FBI agent new to the California area who along with his new partner Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey) is investigating a long string of bank robberies in the area by a group calling themselves The Ex-Presidents. Donning rubber masks of former U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Lyndon B. Johnson (hence the name) the foursome seem to enjoy the thrill of robbing banks with such extravagance and effectiveness making them impossible to catch due to their policy in being in and out in ninety seconds concentrating only on the cash registers rather than the vaults. For The Ex-Presidents greed plays no part in their games.
The group appear to leave no clues behind them but one of them is insistent on mooning the securities cameras which has lead the FBI to believe that the men are surfers due to an obvious tan line on said 'mooner.' They have also acquired a strand of hair which matches chemicals that are present at a popular surfing area. The mission? Send Utah undercover with the surfers.
Utah learns the basics of surfing from Tyler Endicott (Lori Petty) which allows Bigelow to put into her film one of those shameless unnecessary love interests which adds nothing to the film at all except to bore me and send those eyes rolling. Once these basics are mastered he enters into Bodhi's surfing lifestyle as they gradually accept him as one of their own whilst he attempts to find evidence against them.
A random residential area is the scene for the films highlight. A footchase through the streets, alleyways, gardens and living rooms of California's residents is impressively shot and is one of the most realistic chases I've seen at the movies with Johnny and the Reagan masked crook stumbling their way through areas that you could totally believe they would come across in such a situation. There is something vaguely slapstick about the whole affair but it works brilliantly.
On a visual level Point Break provides some gorgeous to look at cinematography. In scenes which serve no purpose except to visually impress us we see numerous slow motion shots of surfers riding the waves of the Pacific and impress me they did.
But the high points of Point Break are sporadic whereas the negative aspects to the film are glaring. I found myself constantly questioning Utah's motives. I won't mention them all but the one that sticks out most is his decision to launch himself out of a moving plane four thousand feet in the air absolutely unequipped with anything to slow himself down except the hope that he will catch up to and cling on to Bodhi who had launched himself (who was most definitely equipped with a parachute) a few seconds previously. For sure, silly things happen in movies, but this decision was made by a perfectly normal, sane character who in the world of reality would most definitely not have decided to do such a thing with the odds so heavily stacked against survival. Ebert tells us not to spend a lot of time analyzing the motives of the characters here but I simply cannot overlook this one, sorry Roger.
Adding to the woe is Keanu himself. I started this review highlighting my desire to decide once and for all whether Patrick Swayze was a good actor. One thing I didn't have to decide was whether Keanu Reeves is a good one because the answer is simple...no he isn't. In places Point Break really works but whenever Reeves opens his mouth and words come out I couldn't help but cringe. His delivery just seems so forced and rehearsed. Perhaps it's just the sound of his voice and I guess he can't help that can he the poor soul?
However, philosophically speaking both Bodhi and Utah have their own beliefs and these bounce off each other to create obvious good and evil but, through a mutual love of surfing (Utah's develops throughout the course of the film) and a mutual acceptance of the importance of riding the ultimate wave, what is created is an interesting relationship between the pair. Utah becomes mesmerized by Bodhi. At times we get the feeling he likes him, at times we get the feeling he just wants to see him locked up and this sets the stage for a final showdown with real feeling on the coasts of Australia. A fitting end.
If it wasn't for some ludicrous motives that I simply cannot overlook, Reeves' hammy acting and rule break number one in having a totally pointless love interest Point Break would score higher marks. It's a surprisingly decent film which really has it's moments. It doesn't set the world alight but it has great chemistry between its two main male leads, some visual delights and a really remarkable chase scene. When it's good it's great but when it's bad it's terrible, a fitting phrase if ever there was one.
