Shame (2011) **1/2

Director Steve McQueen’s Shame (2011) is a taut drama about sex addiction. It rightly earned an NC-17 rating in the U.S. There is an abundance of full frontal nudity and a few pretty explicit sex scenes.  It won several film festival and critic’s awards but didn’t earn one Academy Award nomination.  Personally, I am conflicted about the film as a whole.  It goes without saying that both Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan give riveting performances, but something just didn’t click for me.  I expect this has a lot to do with my inability to connect with the characters and my complete distaste of weak people.

Brandon Sullivan (Fassbender) is a New York advertising executive who is addicted to really smarmy sex.  You know you have a problem when it takes several trash bags to clean out your porn and sex toy collection.  He is literally thinking about sex every waking minute of his life. He’s a good looking guy, so he has no problems finding women willing to sleep with him, and that suits him fine. Yet, when he attempts to start a normal relationship with a co-worker (Nicole Beharie) he can’t conduct a sexual relationship with her because it’s not based on perversion.  Simply put, Brandon needs therapy.

Psychological issues obviously run in the family because Brandon’s sister, Sissy (Mulligan), is just as screwed up as he is.  I wonder what their parents were like?  A serial suicide attempter and a straight-up slut, Sissy is a depressed lounge singer.  You need only watch her raw, emotional rendition of “New York, New York” to know something just isn’t right with her.  Plus, she and Brandon have some strange, almost incestuous relationship that is extremely volatile.  While it is never said whether something sexual has ever transpired between them, it is somehow implied—McQueen leaves it up to the viewer to decide.

While both Mulligan and Fassbender give gripping performances, the pace of the film is painfully slow.  There are several long reflective scenes in Shame that make an hour and forty minute film seem much longer than its runtime.  Still, the way McQueen introduces just how depraved Brandon’s addiction is is done quite cleverly.  In the beginning it is just hinted at, but slowly as Brandon becomes engulfed in his depravity, the scenes become slowly more graphic until he hits bottom and goes on one of the longest sex sprees in cinematic history—even porn stars take a break!

While I was annoyed by the slow pacing of Shame, what really kept me from loving it was that I couldn’t connect with either Brandon or Sissy.  They are such weak, needy people, that I couldn’t really feel any sympathy for either one of them.  I’m sure this says something about me as well, but I despise people and film characters who are weak-willed.  To me, it’s a form of self-absorption to allow oneself to be completely engulfed in anything that does harm to oneself.  I can find neither sympathy or empathy for Brandon and Sissy, and that takes a lot of the shine off Shame for me.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) **1/2

While Sweden generally does not suffer from extreme heat temperatures,  I can find no other explanation as to why so many characters in director David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) are so diabolically demented than this: Satan sleeps in Sweden.  While the film is cloaked in a rather riveting plot about a serial killer, there is no getting around the fact that that the story is filled with graphically disturbing scenes and amoral characters. 

Based on the international best-selling Swedish novel of the same name by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo asks the question: what happened to Harriet Vanger (Joely Richardson) 40 years ago? Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is asked by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate his niece, Harriet’s, disappearance and assumed murder.  Whilst combing through boxes of documents, Mikael discovers a notebook containing a list of undecipherable names and numbers, which he thinks is connected to Harriet’s disappearance. Part of his investigation requires his questioning Vanger family members about what they remember about the day Harriet disappeared. Let me tell you, the entire Vanger family is a study in emotional instability and Type A-personalities—almost all of them live on the same massive island compound in separate homes and refuse to speak to one another.  When Mikael’s investigation hits a snag he enlists the help of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a gifted computer hacker.

Lisbeth is the girl with the dragon tattoo—as well as many other tattoos and piercings.  Let’s just say it—she’s a crazy bi-sexual with anti-social tendencies who dresses like a punk obsessed with the color black.  You’d think that the most disturbing images about the hunt for a serial killer would be connected to the murders, but not here. No, we are treated to two graphic rape scenes. In one, Lisbeth is sodomized by her reprehensible state guardian Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen)—it’s the price she has to pay to get him to allow her to have her own money.  In the second, Lisbeth tasers Nils, rapes him with a giant dildo and then proceeds to tattoo “I Am a Rapist” on his chest. Mikael, of course, takes her away from this sick world and into the demented Vanger world, where first a father is a serial rapist and killer and then his son. Quite frankly, it’s one “Ick” after another—and in between “icks”, we get to see Lisbeth and Mikael have soft porn sex. 

So, after my description of the film you are probably wondering why I gave it 2-and-a-half stars if I was so repulsed by it?  Well, no matter how deplorable and unlikable most of the characters are and how graphically disturbing some of the images are, you cannot get around the fact that the story is compelling.  When Mikael and Lisbeth discover the truth about what happened to Harriet you are shocked (even though when you reflect on how screwed up the Vanger family is it does make perfectly sick sense). 

Although Mara was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, overall there were no striking performances.  The film is filled with gifted actors: Plummer, Richardson, and Stellan Skarsgård to name a few, and there is a steadiness to the film because of this.  Yet, other than the character of Lisbeth (and even she is limited), Fincher presents his characters as staid, cool Swedes. Attempting to channel Bergman was a mistake for a former music video director from Colorado. Fincher does much better making films with American sensibilities, and should leave Swedish existentialism to the master (and, on occasion, his American stalker and imitator Woody Allen).

Overall, I found The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo graphically disturbing, but found myself immersed in its overall plot. I didn’t like one single character, yet was still somewhat attached to the outcome of a few of them.  Simply put: I found the entire film disturbing—was that a good thing? Who knows…

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) **

 

I’ve never read a John le Carré spy novel; nor am I fan of the genre at all.  That doesn’t mean that I lack an appreciation for suspense or that I oppose espionage-based thrillers.  But for me, director Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) was far from thrilling and just a tad suspenseful.  As such, I don’t know why this was one of the movies I had to see before my death. 

Based on the le Carré novel of the same name, Tinker, Tailor Soldier Spy is a Cold War-era espionage film. It’s 1973 and the British Intelligence Service has a deep-cover mole at the upper echelons of power.  After a botched mission in Budapest to ascertain the mole’s identity, Control (John Hurt) and George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are pushed out of MI6 and find themselves in early retirement.  Not long after  this Control dies and allegations are made by another MI6 agent (Tom Hardy) that there is indeed a mole. The head of intelligence (Simon McBurney) then recruits Smiley to secretly investigate this claim. What he finds is that Control had narrowed the suspects down to six men: Percy  “Tinker” Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill “Tailor” Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy “Soldier” Bland (Ciaran Hinds), Toby “Poorman” Esterhase, and “Beggarman”, who happens to be Smiley himself. What follows is one of the most unexciting pursuits of truth that has ever dared called itself a spy thriller. When the mole is finally revealed there is no “Aha” moment or a sense that he was even a nefarious sort.  Instead, you shrug your shoulders and wonder how many more minutes are left.

By reading the comments above I’m sure you’ve gotten the impression that I didn’t like this film.  That would be a fair assessment, but incorrect. No, this is one of many movies in “The Book” that was tolerable to watch but far from what I consider must-see cinema. My biggest complaint about the film is how difficult to follow the story is. When Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan adapted the screenplay they should have considered the would-be viewer who hadn’t read le Carré’s book.  Daily Mirror film critic David Edwards gives an apt description of my thoughts on the movie: “The big question is whether such a hefty novel can fit comfortably into a feature-length production. Unfortunately, the plot is every bit as bewildering with an overload of spy-speak, a few too many characters to keep track of and a final act that ends with a whimper, rather than a bang."

I did, however, learn a few things from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: MI6 is known as the Circus; Treasure is the word used for good intelligence; and Lamplighters is what the surveillance department is called.  There were others, but those are the ones that stood out the most. It was also a delight to see a number of old British cars and what passed for fashion back then—though, I must say that Smiley’s suits were quite stylish for tweed (I expect the tailoring helped). 

Overall, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was an exercise in patience for me.  The plot was difficult to follow and I often found myself irked by Alfredson’s overuse of flashbacks.  Still, Oldman, Firth, and Hardy give good performances in their respective roles, and it is always a delight to spend some time pondering how stupid the Cold War really was.

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Hugo (2011) ****

Every once in awhile cinema has a stellar year: 1939, 1940, 1941, 1950, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1976, and 1994 spring to mind. I now feel confident that we can add 2011 to that esteemed list, primarily because of such films as The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Midnight in Paris, A Separation, In Darkness, and today’s entry: Hugo. Granted, some are better than others, but taken as a whole they serve to make 2011 one of the best years for film in almost two decades. It is my opinion that director Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is the standout production from this illustrious year.

Based on Brian Selznick’s 2007 novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo is about an orphaned Parisian boy (Asa Butterfield) who keeps the Paris Gare Montparnasse Railway Station’s clocks moving.  Apprenticed to his drunk, absentee uncle (Ray Winstone), Hugo is an extremely lonely boy whose only friend appears to be a broken automaton (think Metropolis) that he and his father (Jude Law) were attempting to fix before Mr. Cabret was killed in a fire. To attain parts to the automaton, Hugo steals them from the railway station’s toymaker, Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), who begrudgingly befriends the boy after witnessing his mechanical acumen. Hugo also become friends with Méliès goddaughter and ward, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), who happens to possess the key (quite literally) to fixing the automaton.  Once fixed, the automaton draws the now iconic symbol of the spaceship in the eye of the moon from A Trip to the Moon (1902).  The children set off to discover what the drawing means, and this adventure leads them to discover that the toymaker was once one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers. There’s much more to the story, but I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.

Scorsese, along with acclaimed cinematographer Robert Richardson (who won an Oscar for this film), shot Hugo is 3-D. My words can not do justice to the sheer beauty of what they put up on the screen.  Without a doubt this is Scorsese’s visual masterpiece, it is a shame that he didn’t win a Best Director Oscar, but obviously the Academy was in love with The Artist in 2011. From the shots of the interworking of the clocks to the spectacular railway shots, everything seems so much crisper and fluid than what I’ve seen in other 3-D films.  Hugo deservedly won five Academy Awards for its visual and audio mastery: cinematography, art direction, visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing. The only technical award that it didn’t win was for film editing, which went to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I haven’t seen this yet, so I can’t make a judgment on which deserved the Oscar more).

But this movie isn’t just visually stunning, it also has an engaging and endearing story.  Watching all of the plot elements come together at the end was perhaps a bit oversentimental, but still highly enjoyable.  For a film filled with so many emotionally (and in one case, physically) broken people Hugo never becomes overburdened by melancholy. I was especially pleased with the care Scorsese and Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan took in developing Méliès’s backstory. Yes, they took a few historical licenses in this depiction, but for the most part they were fairly accurate. Few directors have as much reverence for the history of film as Scorsese. By inserting clips of the most important films prior to 1931 (when this story takes place) Scorsese showcases the grandeur of early cinema.  On a side note, I must thank The 1001 Book for my ability to recognize just about every film referenced in Hugo.

In addition to outstanding visuals and a moving story, Hugo is also loaded with a number of standout performances. Both Butterfield and Moretz show great range for such young actors.  Butterfield, in particular, has what is known as screen presence (of course, that could have been an added advantage to being shot in 3-D).  Not surprisingly, Kingsley is mesmerizing as Méliès.  If you’ve seen any old photos of the famed director then you know the make-up department did a fantastic job transforming Kingsley into Méliès.  The most surprising performance came from Sacha Baron Cohen as Inspector Gustave.  Who knew that the man who created such idiotic caricatures as Borat, Ali G, Bruno, and General Aladeen, could play a complete buffoon with so much restraint? I have to admit I was completely shocked by how nice of a job he did with this role.

I could go on and on about how much I liked Hugo, but I expect you are tired of reading (if you’ve made it this far), so I’ll end by saying that it is one of the best films I’ve seen in the last ten years.  It is truly a monumental piece of cinematic vision.

 

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The Artist (2011) **1/2

When it comes to artistic achievement, director Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011) should be duly lauded. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, it took home Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score (Ludovic Bource), Costume Design (Mark Bridges), and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin). Making a silent, black and white movie in 2011 took guts, and in the end it paid off for Hazanavicius and Dujardin. Still, that doesn’t mean I have to love this film—which I obviously didn’t as indicated by my **1/2 rating. I liked Hugo (2011) far more than this and was beyond shocked that my husband Mr. Clooney’s performance in The Descendants (2011) was beat out by a man who spoke less than five words. Perhaps this sounds like sacrilege to some, but I don’t care, I just wasn’t that impressed.

Dujardin plays George Valentin, a silent-era film star on top of Hollywoodland in 1927. As handsome as John Gilbert and athletically gifted as Rudolph Valentino, Valentin is admired by his fans and valued by his studio, Kinograph. But things change dramatically for Valentin when his studio head, Al Zimmer (John Goodman), decides to scrap silent films in favor of the sound era and replaces his “old” actors with fresh, young faces like Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a woman who got her start in Tinseltown because of Valentin. By 1931, Valentin is pawning and auctioning off his belongings and is mired in alcoholism and depression. It is left up to Peppy to bring Valentin back from the brink and reinsert him in the celluloid frame.

So, what did I like about The Artist? Guillaume Schiffman’s cinematography is brilliant. He may have lost the Oscar to Robert Richardson’s work in Hugo, but coming in second to that effort is no reason to be ashamed. Schiffman shot The Artist in color and at a frame rate of 22 fps (to mimic the silent era’s standard speed). Every detail was matched to the equipment used in 1920s silent films. I have said it numerous times, but I’ll say it again: there is no more beautiful cinematography than a well-composed, pristine black and white shot movie.

The other two things that I like about The Artist are Bejo and Uggie (who plays Jack the dog). While I couldn’t help but admire Dujardin’s handsomeness, it is Bejo who stood out the most to me. Her performance adds depth to this film, and it isn’t difficult to notice that Dujardin’s best scenes are the ones in which he appears with Bejo. She has what they call in France je ne sais quoi. While Uggie might not be described quite the same way as Bejo, he is absolutely adorable. Of course, I love dogs, so he had an extra advantage.

In the end, I am not a huge admirer of The Artist. I respect it as a daring piece of art in a cinema world infested with CGI and intellectual bankruptcy, but it just wasn’t “all that” to me. Still, I think it should be respected for its artistic integrity and outstanding cinematography. But, I must say this once more: my husband, Mr. Clooney, was robbed.

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