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MOVIES, Y'ALL with Cole Hutchison
Posted by: Necci – Mar 02, 2011
The American (2010)
dir: Anton Corbijn
I was thoroughly impressed by Dutch photographer-cum-filmmaker Anton Corbijn’s appropriately stark Joy Division biopic Control (2007), so I let myself ignore the somewhat mediocre reception that most critics and audiences gave to this Italian-set slow-burner that mysteriously (and probably unnecessarily) stars George Clooney. As I am a totally cool genius, this was inevitably the right decision to make. Of course, I can completely understand why a film like this one would elicit a lukewarm reaction in most viewers, especially considering the fact that it was very briefly advertised as a “pulse-pounding” action-thriller of sorts, a description that would have a hard time distancing itself any further from the truth even if it was blessed with Hermes’s weird ankles. The plot is simple and the pacing almost laboriously deliberate, but the film is saved by a small batch of natural, understated performances, some well-timed injections of paranoid discomfort, the absolutely staggering beauty of the Italian countryside as captured by a man with an obvious talent for photography, and some really cool scenes of gun manipulation. This latter element often brings to mind certain episodes of Golgo 13, which is never a bad thing. Much like that titular Japanese hitman with a love for hookers, a talent for murder and a secret warm spot buried deep within his icy heart, this is a story more concerned with how a professional assassin must live, not so much why. Despite an irritating inability to take George Clooney all that seriously, I really enjoyed it. My girlfriend seemed pretty bored by the whole thing, but I also don’t think that she was quite as fascinated as I was by Violante Placido’s perpetually visible bush. Her loss!
Let Me In (2010)
dir: Matt Reeves
Let Me In exists within a strange and somewhat difficult triangular crisis of identity. First of all, it is an American remake of a Swedish film that predictably sacrifices a certain degree of the original’s meticulous creative and narrative nuances in service to its new audience’s national expectations. Secondly, however, it happens to be quite a good remake that redeems those original excises by introducing an idiosyncratic style all of its own. It successfully utilizes its new setting by incorporating different elements specific to that setting with a mastery and ease that belies the fact that it was made by the dingleberry responsible for Cloverfield (and very little else). Thirdly, it nearly receives a free pass simply for being a modern American horror film that doesn’t suck balls with a ravenous appetite. If you’re a fan of the original film and/or the novel that both are based on, then there’s really no reason for you to dislike this version. They are so similar that it’s basically just a situation where Let the Right One In is staring at itself in a mirror, but the mirror is kind of warped, in a way where the film’s head looks fat and its legs seem too short but maybe its nose looks better than it ever has in real life. The American version removes a few things (the pedophilia is basically nonexistent, the boy’s possibly homosexual father is never encountered, the drunken batch of older friends are here replaced by a somewhat lame couple that just reminded me of the shitty fashionable neighbors from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation), and introduces a few more (the boy’s mother is depicted as a somewhat unhinged religious fanatic, the inescapable-at-the-time American obsession with “ritualistic Satanic cults” helps to strengthen the police officer’s strange resolve, the violence is of course a tad bit more graphic). All of these changes work to create an impressively faithful yet interestingly unique take on the story. Honestly, you’ll probably just end up preferring whichever version you saw first, but there’s really no reason not to treat yourself to a good thing twice.
The Illusionist (2010)
dir: Sylvain Chomet
Pardon my (ahem) French, but Jacques Tati is the shit. Both Mon Oncle (1958) and Playtime (1967) are films that I could watch repeatedly for the better part of a day, never growing tired of them and never, ever noticing the exact same things twice. There is just so much to observe and experience within the late visionary’s madcap, insanely thought-out sequences that each individual viewing becomes its own process altogether. Not to mention that they’re all hilarious. And heartfelt. And hamburger. Hot dog. Handjob. Sorry. Obviously I was pretty excited to find out that one of Tati’s abandoned screenplays was going to be resurrected by the somewhat like-minded Sylvain Chomet, himself responsible for 2003’s equally engaging and casually confounding The Triplets of Belleville. The end result of this dream collaboration between a dead legend and a vibrant living entertainer may be a bit more downtrodden than most viewers are likely to expect. I know that I was personally taken a bit by surprise. Not to say that this film is needlessly negative in any way. Nor is its gradually revealed undercurrent of somewhat bitter resentment towards the encroaching selfish nature and immediate gratification of the modern world at all uncalled for. Tati’s best works have always teemed with a comedic yet vaguely unsettling befuddlement at the rapidly advancing world; its obsession with vast metropolises filled to the breaking point with ever more ridiculous contraptions and conveniences, the frustrating miasma of bureaucratized everything, unnatural and confusing public spaces, and the often soulless interactions amongst a population of perfect strangers. Chomet’s own animated films are similarly humorous, yet the humor almost always works to soften the blow of some seriously biting criticisms of not only specific cultures or nationalities, but humankind in general. The combination of these two minds is certainly wondrous, and an absolute cause for celebration, but it is a celebration lined with melancholy. The Illusionist is essentially a lament for a fading style of entertainment, one based upon the intoxicating possibilities of illusion and mystery, as opposed to the current domination of cheap, fast and immediate escapism. It would be a hard pill to swallow, which is only one more reason to appreciate its presentation in such a beautiful, liquid form.
By Cole Hutchison
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