25th Hour

Spike Lee has directed this 2002 movie starring Edward Norton as Montgomery Brogan, Phillip Seymore Hoffman as Jacob Elinsky, Barry Pepper as Frank,  Rosario Dawson as Naturelle and Anna Paquin as Mary.

Spike Lee’s work has certain typical characteristics. He likes to hang around New York and make the city itself a player. That means we get a lot of exterior shots, which is nice and sets the scene beautifully. He also likes to take his time in a scene which delivers dialogue between two characters, giving their body language time to develop and focusing on the interaction. There is of course the obligatory rascist rant at some point, which is calculated to upset, no matter how much in context it might be.

This movie delivers all of that.

Norton’s character Monty goes through nothing less than a moral apotheosis. He has been dealing drugs since he was in high school and gets caught. There are a couple of things going on all at once with this story from a moral perspective. His friends blame themselves for not stopping him, Monty is uncertian as to who turned him in to the police, but suspects Naturelle, the girlfriend, his father blames himself because in the early days Monty has helped him pay off his debts and because he has a drinking problem.

Still, this is all good and fine, but Monty has made his own decisions and it is a difficult quagmire to navigate from a moral point of view. Actions have consequences and that’s about all you can say about this without getting in to some very dodgy territory.

Norton plays the penitent with all the skill I’ve come to expect of him. His entire body language is different, slouchy and laid back. He often portrays morally questionable characters, to say the least, but still manages to wrangle some sympathy for them which I find fascinating. Rosario Dawson as the girlfriend, Naturelle, is the picture of drop-dead gorgeousness all around, but still has depth as well. Brian Cox plays the elder Brogan with the bar and the drinking problem and there’s a whole story right there.

The action takes place in the last twenty-four hours before Monty is due to go to prison for a seven year stretch.

The action follows Monty throughout the day as he walks down memory lane, so we get treated to flash backs and flash forwards as well.

This is where things get interesting. After having followed Monty around for an entire day while he angsts and gets patted on the shoulder the movie takes a very sharp left turn.

As his father drives him to prison Monty gets convinced to run away and recreate himself instead. The movie becomes slightly dream like and abstract at this point. And that’s where I start to feel my forehead crinkle.

Every scenario painted by Monty’s friends and busines associates tells of how a pretty white boy like Monty’s not going to make it in prison and he believes them. Instead of taking his punishment – i.e. the consequences of his actions, he goes off to start a new life. His father names it “the life he was supposed to live”.

That is certainly questionable to say the least. And very dreamlike and idyllic.

It’s well worth watching and it will probably make most viewers foreheads crinkle up like mine did.

Mule

Into the Wild

Sean Penn has directed this 2007 movie starring Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless. His parents Billie and Walt are played by Marcia Gray Harden and William Hurt.

The movie is based on the novel with the same title  written by John Krakauer. On reading the novel I never really speculated on it being made into a movie and now that I have seen the result I find myself wondering why that is. It lends itself well to the different media being set in spectacular nature scenes, filmed on location in the deserts of California, South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada and above all Alaska.

The basic premise of the story is that Chris McCandless graduates from Emory University and then decides to go into the wild. Literally. Influenced by Thoreau, no doubt, but also by other literature, music and his family situation he decides that civilised life is overrated and that there is a moral imperative in trying to decide for yourself what you find important for you in your life.

McCandless aims for Alaska. It is the most remote and wild area he can think of and he sets about this very methodically, divesting himself of his property, driving his car until it gets damaged in a flash flood, walking on foot, hiking and hitching rides he works his way across the country.

His odyssey has much to recommend it, he meets nice people along the way and seems to have the ability to woo people, making them help him even if they don’t understand what it is he wants to do. McCandless has an understandable disdain for modern life as being excessive and strange in all that it measures as important.

He is driven by a kind of fervent morality that Penn depicts in part through voice over reading of McCandless diary and through his sister Carine’s  (Jena Malone) letters and reflections. She speaks of her brother with great affection and understanding, but there is a slight recrimination there as well for his lack of concern about the people that care about him. He is on a journey of discovery and as such that is a pretty selfish exploit.

Penn has made a beautiful and thought through movie that moves towards its inevitable conclusion with ruthless determination. McCandless’ story is made all the more poignant because he walks into the wild – and does not walk out again. If you read the novel there is some uncertainty as to whether he succumbs due to lack of preparation or just from a tragic mistake. Penn seems to decide on depicting the whole thing as a tragic mistake and that colours the viewers opinion about what has happened.

Music is used sparingly and the original score is written and performed by Eddie Vedder who’s extraordinary voice suits the mode beautifully. Vedder even won a 2008 Golden Globe Award for the song “Guaranteed”.

Sean Penn is an interesting director. He seems to veer towards the philosophically complex material and manages to get solid performances from the actors. There is a level of involvement that goes beyond just showing up and hitting the marks. The Indian Runner, The Pledge and now this shows that in abundance.

As for the central theme and feel of this movie it leaves a lot to the viewer, which I think is a good thing. The casual rejection of societies nastier sides is interesting as well as the screwed up family dynamic, but it doesn’t really explain anything. And whatever insight McCandless might have made is marred by the fact that he died – so you as a viewer have to decide what that is worth. You also have to decide how much of a pilgrim he was, how much of a saint or a holy man, and how much of a fool. I won’t tell you what to think, and neihter will Mr. Penn.

And that’s the way it should be.

Mule

Danny the Dog

Director Louis Leterrier has taken a script written by Luc Besson and made a rather odd and funny gem of a movie starring Jet Li (Danny the Dog), Bob Hoskins (Bart), Morgan Freeman (Sam) and Kerry Condon (Victoria). The movie was written exclusively for Jet Li, which in and of itself is rather astounding.

Because of his Wushu background Jet Li is not one of those performers you think of as an actor first. He is much to good at what he does in the martial arts fighting film category, but as I think we all can agree there is more to even a good fight movie then just the fancy moves, which is why certain performers do better than others. This is the movie that shows that there is more to Jet Li than just the amazing speed and agility we’ve come to expect.

Danny the Dog has a basic premise the idea that you can take a young boy and train him basically to be your pitbull, which is what Bart (Hoskins) has done. He unlatches the collar around Danny’s neck and basically says “sick ‘em” and Danny doesn’t stop hitting until he gets the command to stop. He is treated like a dog, sleeps in a cellar and gets kicked around and treated like a dog. That is to say, he doesn’t get treated lovingly and with a firm hand, he is just expected to perform. At one point in  the story Bart even says “I own you”.

Bart is a criminal and has a criminals agenda. He basically uses Danny to scare people. When he gets ahead of himself a rival gangster takes revenge in a drive-by shooting and Danny is let loose in the world. Danny gravitates towards a warehouse full of pianos where he has previously encountered Sam (Freeman), a blind piano tuner. Sam takes him in. Slowly Danny becomes more of a man and less of a dog.

Bart has survived his ordeal and by accident one of his henchmen finds Danny and brings him back to the life he used to lead. This does not end well. There really is no way it could.

So what does this mean in terms of what the film offers?

Well, we get spectacular fights all engineered by marital arts choreographer Yuen Wo-ping who was also involved in Kill Bill, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger… just to mention a few. And the fights are really down and dirty. It’s definitely not spiritual high grade fighting, it’s more street fighting with an excess of brutal blunt force. Even the pit fights are really dirty. there are of course pit fights. Danny is just a pitbull after all.

You also get the exploration of why Danny is the way he is. He starts looking for his childhood memories, which have more or less been burnt out of him.

Danny is so childlike, so simple that it is actually quite funny to see his reactions to little things like experiencing vanilla ice cream for the first time. Brain freeze and all. And this is brought out even more as Sam and Victoria start building him up as a human being. It’s charming and sweet, and I have to say, quite surprising. The director makes a point of saying that for Jet Li language is the biggest barrier and it is easier for Li to convey things with his eyes than through speaking. They make the parallel with Buster Keaton, which is actually quite interesting in and of itself. And valid. Jet Li doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but he is very expressive. And it works. It really does.

The special effects are very well executed and just enough that you can have that sense of what is going on and still not get sidetracked by them. The camera work in the fight sequences is of course pivotal but there are other scenes that also rely heavily on the visual to convey what’s going on in Danny’s head.

Music plays a big part in this story, since Danny ha a affinity for the piano, Sam is a piano tuner and Victoria is a piano player and Danny’s mother was a piano player as well. So there is Mozart which is always nice.

Sam (Freeman) and Bart (Hoskins) are the two different fathers, or masters, representing two different ways to approach the role of top dog. One rules by fear, one by love. Danny responds to them differently as you would expect and this too actually works very well.

There is quite simply a lot going on in this movie. Much more than you would expect. It is a complex mixture of genres and themes, set in an undefined city at a non defined time and just outside the realm of reality. And stellar performances all around. Definitely something for those of us who like the genremix and enjoy seeing performers go outside the box. Oh, and not for the faint of heart – because the fighting is quite brutal.

Well worth seeing.

Mule

Mule goes to the movies…

I am not only an avid reader, I watch an awful lot of movies too…

I plan on sharing my thoughts and impressions here. My taste if fairly eclectic and I tend to just roam around the vast library of movies out there, so if nothing else I can at lest promise I won’t be writing about only the latest summer block busters.

Thanks for reading!

Mule