Archive for January, 1999

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Winner of numerous critical accolades, including Best Director and Palme d’Or honors at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” is one of the year’s most thought-provoking movies, and also one of its most frustrating. Inspired by the 1999 Columbine school shooting (as well as taking cues from several other high profile instances of inexplicable teenage violence), “Elephant” is not the sort of cinematic experience one typically claims to enjoy watching – even though seeing it is disturbing, engrossing, and occasionally harrowing. With its cast of unknown non-actors (most of whom essentially play themselves, or rather, characters that share their real names), “Elephant” bears the mark of an experiment, and like many experiments, its results can be simultaneously exhilarating and disappointing.

Along with cinematographer Harris Savides, Van Sant uses his camera to merely observe the commonplace events that unfold daily at public and private high schools across the nation. During the entire first act of the drama, long takes (often provided by intimate, floating tracking shots that follow individuals as they traverse the grounds and hallways of the high school setting) introduce us to a series of young people. There’s John (John Robinson), an angelic, golden-haired boy who arrives late to class thanks to his irresponsible, alcoholic father (Timothy Bottoms). We meet Elias (Elias McConnell), an aspiring photographer who develops pictures in the school’s darkroom. Nerdy Michelle (Kristen Hicks) is chastised by the gym teacher for failing to wear the required uniform to class. And so on.

A dark cloud hangs over the introduction of these young people, and Van Sant intensifies the focus of the audience by doubling back and repeating several moments from different points of view. This repetition colors the details with an eerie sense that many of the faces we are seeing will be lost to the impending assault. At the end of these languid, quiet intros Van Sant shows another long tracking shot – but this one, a low-angle, from-behind look at two boys dressed in paramilitary fatigues carrying duffel bags weighed down by firearms – shatters the serenity of Van Sant’s preceding “fly on the wall” surveillance. The effect of the shot is dizzying, as it finalizes the director’s refusal to “explain” the shocking violence that will unfold in the latter sections of the movie.

Sadly, Van Sant’s strongest risks prove to be the film’s major liabilities, and the weakest aspect of “Elephant” is the offhand way in which the two killers are portrayed. While one brief scene shows Alex (Alex Frost) being humiliated by some bullies who shower him with spitballs, most of the time we spend with him is opaque: he plays the Moonlight Sonata on the piano, he eats pancakes with his friend (and fellow conspirator) Eric (Eric Deulen), he watches documentaries on Nazi Germany and Hitler, etc. Van Sant is totally correct in assuming that any attempt to account for the killers’ motivations would fall short of the intrigue provided by remaining aloof and enigmatic. Therein, however, lies the rub – “Elephant” leaves us disoriented and more than a little bit nauseous, but the detachment and disaffection instills a sense of helplessness that teeters on the edge of hopelessness.

This review was originally published in the High Plains Reader.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Along with his daughters Naomi and Kirsten, filmmaker Jim Sheridan wrote the semi-autobiographical heart-string tugger “In America,” an occasionally worthwhile family portrait burdened by odd anachronisms and too-obvious plays for audience sympathy.  “In America” follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the Sullivans, a desperate Irish clan composed of father Johnny (Pady Considine), mother Sarah (Samantha Morton), and daughters Christy and Ariel (engrossingly played by real life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger).  Missing from the portrait is little brother Frankie, who died from the complications of a brain tumor that resulted after a spill down some stairs back in Ireland.

The Sullivans arrive in the New York City of celluloid dreams: they marvel at the neon carnival of Times Square, they take up residence in a drug-infested tenement, and they make fast friends with a multicultural rainbow of fellow immigrants who, like them, came to the Big Apple filled with hopes for a better life.  In some ways, Sheridan strains to depict the city as a sweltering utopia, where neighbors throw parties for each other and even knife-wielding dope fiends apologize for their attempted assaults.  Despite its sweaty look, excellently conveyed through the lens of cinematographer Declan Quinn, “In America” dons its thematic rose-colored glasses too often to earn any credibility for authenticity.

Of course, the grim memory of Frankie’s death has followed the group to NYC, and Christy, who constantly documents her world with the family camcorder, explains how she believes Frankie can grant three wishes from the great beyond.  Sheridan takes plenty of time to demonstrate how the loss of their son has nearly destroyed Johnny and Sarah, but he tends to overstate the case – no wonder, then, that even Christy understands that her dad is going to have to find a way to move on if things are ever to return to some semblance of a happy life.  The answer appears in the chiseled form of Mateo (Djimon Hounsou), a dying painter who rages against his own looming end.

As Mateo, Hounsou turns in a strong performance, probably one of the best of his career.  The downside, however, is that Mateo is a character caught in a cinematic double-bind.  Not only is he saddled with the “scary Black man who turns out to be a gentle soul” cliché, he joins the long list of ridiculously attractive actors who only seem to become more radiant as the grim reaper closes in.  As expected, Sheridan pins the inevitable Sullivan family epiphany on the strong shoulders of Mateo, and the third act features a heavy-handed birth/death “circle of life” scene that feels like it belongs in the short story collection of a high school student.

“In America” is not without its charms.  Morton is a fantastic performer, and instinctively finds ways to make even underwritten characters sparkle with intensity.  The Bolger sisters are adorable; it’s a shame more of the story wasn’t told from their childhood perspective.  The movie seems to spend a great deal of its running time, however, creating impressionistic sketches depicting the emotional adjustments made by the Sullivans to their new life.  These scenes can be of interest, and are sometimes vivid, but they never really seem to add up to much.

This review was originally published in the High Plains Reader. 

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is as worthy a subject for a biopic as any visual artist – her incredible images, including some 200 self-portraits, defy both convention and easy description.  She crossed paths with a number of the 20th century’s most compelling cultural and political figures, including Diego Rivera (twice her husband), Josephine Baker, Nelson Rockefeller, and Leon Trotsky.  Her short life – she died at 47 – was so eventful, its no wonder that a parade of Hollywood players has queued up over the past few years attempting to bring Kahlo’s story to the silver screen.  Salma Hayek won the Frida sweepstakes, but the grand prize is something of a monkey’s paw, as any movie version of such an amazing person’s life is bound to rile many and please few.

Hayek, whose iron-will and tenacity helped her to beat out the likes of Kahlo wannabes Madonna and Jennifer Lopez for the rights to the project, is certainly the best choice among the trio, but her healthy glow and voluptuous body ironically deny the torturous realities Kahlo suffered her entire adulthood.  In 1925, at the age of 18, Kahlo nearly died in a trolley car/bus accident: when the vehicles collided, she was left with broken ribs and collarbone, a badly damaged spinal column, and a horribly fractured leg.  Worse yet, she was impaled on a handrail that entered her back and exited her genitals.  In the movie, the trauma is depicted as a kind of terrible beauty – a defining moment that will guide much of what is to follow.

“Frida” is the second feature from acclaimed stage director Julie Taymor, whose cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Titus” featured sensuous, eye-popping art direction and wonderfully nuanced performances.  As a filmmaker, Taymor was on surer ground with the Shakespeare – like so many movie biographies, “Frida” adopts the kind of plodding, chronological fidelity to important incidents that prohibits a free expression or exploration of deeper themes.  Only when she lets loose with set-pieces built around her signature design style does Taymor find a voice for her take on Kahlo: paintings come to life in vibrant color, suspended in space, and fluctuating between two and three dimensions – a very impressive effect.

Taymor also enlists the aid of the miraculous Quay Brothers, who created a stop-motion sequence with Day of the Dead-style skeletons to depict Frida’s mental anguish post-accident.  Yet another terrific montage uses a cut-out collage approach to crystallize Kahlo’s experience in NYC: she sees herself as Fay Wray and Rivera (Alfred Molina, excellent as ever, and only hampered by shortcomings in the screenplay) as King Kong.  This single moment sums up the potent pair’s relationship much better than the more predictable (and frequent) arguments over Rivera’s philandering.  The complexities of Rivera and Kahlo’s relationship never fully translate onto the screen, no matter how spirited the performances by the two leads.

Hayek and Molina fare better than the vast majority of the other players, who glide in and out of the film in nothing more than glorified cameos (Antonio Banderas as David Siqueiros, Geoffrey Rush as Trotsky, Ashley Judd as Tina Modotti, and Hayek’s real-life love – and apparent ghost re-writer – Edward Norton as Rockefeller).  Just as it samples actors, so too does “Frida” only dabble in the political life that remains central to an understanding of Kahlo – the artist’s left-wing associations with Trotskyism and her unapologetic fascination with Stalin are virtually invisible in the movie, despite the unflattering, thoroughly goofball depiction of Frida’s tryst with Rush’s pointy-bearded Trotsky.  Had “Frida” centered on ideas instead of occurrences and episodes, it might have satiated more Kahlo fanatics – but it would also have sold fewer tickets, and when it comes to moviemaking, capital trumps collectivity every time.

This review was originally published in the High Plains Reader.