Rooney Mara has exploded onto the forefront of the Hollywood scene, her appearance in The Social Network lead to her nabbing the highly coveted role of Lisbeth Salander in the American adaption of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, beating out actresses such as Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan and Emily Watson. The images of Mara displayed a dedicated actress who had completely transformed from a young woman to a nearly anorexic-looking investigative-hacker-punk and has grabbed worldwide attention.
I applaud her acting ability. However, I recently stumbled upon an image of her and Ryan Gosling on the set of Terrance Malick’s Tree of Life follow-up Lawless in a leather jacket and jet-black hair as some sort of groupie - not too far off from Lisbeth.
So, I think there is reason to be worried. It’s great that she’s nabbing high profile roles, but is she going to stick with these social rebels and punks? One of those typecast actresses who have lost all sight of range? Will we ever see a normal Rooney Mara ever again? Or is that era of her life gone? Anorexic and goth? What happened to being the nice brunette everyone knew and loved???
God, I feel like a terrible gossip writer. I’m not even trying to do anything remotely similar to that. I just want to see Rooney Mara look like Rooney Mara.
Shane Meadow’s low budget Somers Town truly lives-up to the expectations set by his previous film This is England which reunites him with young British newcomer Thomas Turgoose.
Somer Town is a low-budget film, shot in black and white like the photographs featured in the film, and contain an overabundance of continuous scene. Regardless the characters undergo significant but subtle developments by the end.
Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a lonely Polish immigrant who lives with his father and spends his nights taking photographs on his Nikon camera, forms a relationship with Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), a teenage runaway from the Midlands with no clothes, money or shelter. Somers Town is built around the intriguing relationship between these contradictory characters; Marek speaks with an accent and cannot tell Manchester United and Arsenal apart, whereas the juvenile Tomo is foul-mouthed, drinks beer and participates in thievery. Despite the differences, Meadows is able to create a strong chemistry that drives viewers through the boys mutual love for a French waitress.
To cringe at the lighthearted actions of the two protagonists is to acknowledge the strength of this coming of age narrative. These were things that we did, and things that we dealt with. Whether it is unobtainable schoolboy crushes, stealing unfashionable clothing at the laundry or riding a wheelchair down the park, these characters continue to address the social pressures of their surrounding world in their own little way. As seen in the film, kids often have a way of coping with seemingly minute subjects that are often go by unnoticed.
Prior to meeting Marek, Tomo’s constant coat-switching is featured. In one scene he is beat-up and robbed by a group of teenagers and in other instances he changes from a victim, a polite young boy with respect for his elders, to an aggressor trying to fulfill a sense of self-worth. In due time he achieves relevance, while providing Marek with permission to act in ways he normally would not.
Perhaps the most notable relationship and spine of Somers Town is Marek’s relationship with his relaxed father, who often jokes about and discusses lewd topics openly and carries on drinking with his animated and cheeky pals. When it comes time to discuss the complex nature of adult relationships, he is composed and unable to express himself explicitly. His previous sense of ease has dissipated and for the first time, we see him as a responsible father who has found his own way of dealing with change and his own social pressures.
I was not however, fond of the epilogue which I found to be tacked on and more of a fantasy that requires a suspension of belief if only for a brief moment. Nevertheless, the characters are real enough to be worthy of such a conclusion to this arc of their lives.
City of Life and Death is a horrifying, raw depiction of what is commonly known as the “rape of Nanking,” when Japanese troops in WWII stormed into the capitol of China and killed and raped thousands of men, women, and children in the most gruesome manners unimaginable to men.
There was a time when the Nanking Massacre was feared to become extinct. It wasn’t being taught in schools, many Japanese refused to apologize or acknowledge the incident and so-forth. With the book written by Iris Chang, the memories of the event have been revitalized and many films have been released and are in production - most noticeably in my opinion Flowers of War which was previously titled The 13 Women of Nanjing by Zhang Yimou starring Christian Bale.
Yet with this revitalization in works such as John Rabe, none could be more controversial or gutsy as the decision to feature a sympathetic Japanese soldier as the chief protagonist. The very kind of person that is despised, in fact the unforgivable “bad guy” of the story. I applaud Lu Chuan’s decision to do so, as it not only provides another a rarely explored point of view on the matter, but asks questions and stirs debate to become a film that truly lives.
Lu Chuan explores a question that will not leave anybody’s mind: “How could men be driven to commit such barbaric acts?”
I have always wondered, what happens when you remove context from a human being and when you strip them of any sense of themselves. Are they inherently evil and barbaric? Through the protagonist, we understand that we are all human. Through the sequence of events Lu Chuan puts forth, he argues that the Japanese soldiers have been so desensitized and given so much freedom in such a lawless, moral-less playing field that they have allowed themselves permission to act to their very desire. Like he has said in many interviews, “To kill ruthlessly in a war, to callously violate a woman’s chastity, this, perhaps is in every man’s heart.”
The black and white photography is stunning; the contrast, the image that isn’t deteriorated by grain as well as the slow reveals by the camera and frantic situations. There are several long lens shots and focus pulls focused on individual Chinese characters that really bring out the detail in their skin and the eyes that describe these conflicting emotions that cannot be described with words. The water does not run red with blood however, which can be argued to be both beneficial and/or detrimental to the purpose of the film.
The film is honest. With that territory comes violence: severed heads hanging on wire, scenes of mass rape and thousands of soldiers being killed in mass. It holds nothing. Women are raped to death. The audience is left to be as vulnerable as it’s victims and as “curious” as the Japanese protagonist who views his comrades descent into madness.
I cannot conclude this without a brief tangent. This is what a war film should be, not some heroic Hollywood tale like Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan which immortalizes these battles as something both honorable and hideously difficult by some John Williams soundtrack. Many contemporary war films ignore one of the most important aspects of such: the human condition.
Here is a slightly modified version of some thoughts about Drive that I wrote for somebody. Not much of a review, just couple of thoughts and not exactly strong or precise ones at that. Skims the surface, some areas in the wrong ways. Here it is anyway:
I’m very fond of Danish filmmaking within the last twenty years. Although Refn’s audience has been significantly expanded as opposed to some of his cultural peers, he continues to indulge in my theory of what I call an “honest” cinema similar to John Ruskin’s idea of “truth” in architecture. Without going into too much detail I would describe it as such: unless the filmmaker has a very specific reason not to show “it,” then it must be shown.
Drive fits into this category.
It has blunt depictions of violence and is not afraid of withdrawing anything from the audience. In this particular instance it satiates their bloodlust and puts us on even playing fields with the Driver’s emotions without sacrificing the credibility of the film and it’s characters.
Not to mention that for probably the first time ever, East European arthouse has collided with Hollywood archetypes and highly stylized grindhouse-like violence into a thrilling ride. It is a suspenseful film that builds layer after layer, tests the limit of it’s audience and explodes - which is not unique to this film of course. It is patient.
One reason more “mainstream” reviews hate the film is because of it’s patience. Many people don’t realize that everything does not have to be explicitly stated. Awkward situations exist in real life and sometimes all you have to do is plop the camera in one place and guide your actors. It is a film of little words and is so effective with delivering information. It is something that they have not seen before and they shun it because it makes them uncomfortable.
It introduces a solid foundation for this “explosion” and brings back the once dominant archetypes in film - Yojimbo, Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, etc. into a modern cultural context. Unlike his predecessors, The Driver is relatable. But similar to them, I believe he is a representation of the contemporary idea of what a “man” is and aspires to be with the values he holds and why he chooses to do what he does, as well as the idea that “things” are not obtainable and value of simple things. Probably not intentionally, the film explores the idea of memory context with it’s protagonist. Like the idea that originally attracted Refn to the screenplay, “it is a about a man who drives around Los Angeles listening to pop music.”
The film bounced back and forth with me. It gave me meaning and I gave some to it.
Theatrical trailer for Cody Fitz, Canadian feature film shot on the Red One.
I spent a month in Calgary, AB Canada as director of photography. Honestly the first time doing this kind of thing and truly a great learning experience. It’s been a while so I can’t quite recall specific instances. Regardless I have a much greater idea of what to, and not to do the next time around – if there’s a next time. I greatly doubt that I will do any narrative film work ever again, but who knows.
For some reason, I was never fond of the Tumblr craze. I felt that tumblr’s format discouraged the creation of user-generated content and text, as all I’ve seen are constant reposts, funny things and what have you.
So why the switch? I ran a WordPress on my webspace for a couple of years now and generated a fair amount of what I believe to be solid content. Nobody reads it however, and frankly most of the free templates are too ambitious for my taste. I want simple. Plus the community functions on here seem pretty sweet. It’s a similar format to LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogger; none of them could gather the amount of popularity and sharing as Tumblr has managed to grab.. probably because it’s the only one of those with actual sharing features.
Plus, nobody reads anything I post on my blog, so at least here there’s some opportunity for some exposure.
It’ll kind of suck not having any of my old writing on here though. Maybe I’ll try posting something for the archive periodically but it probably wouldn’t be very relevant in current time context. I doubt it’ll happen, but I want to find a solution to this since I’m probably not going to have all five long ass installments of “Adventures in China” reposted on here. I put effort into those entries and I want people to be able to stumble upon and read those..
Yeah. I think that’s it so far. I’ll try to stay clear of the typical Tumblr going-ons and keep this going clutter-free.
Shane Meadow’s low budget Somers Town truly lives-up to the expectations set by his previous film This is England which reunites him with young British newcomer Thomas Turgoose.
City of Life and Death is a horrifying, raw depiction of what is commonly known as the “rape of Nanking,” when Japanese troops in WWII stormed into the capitol of China and killed and raped thousands of men, women, and children in the most gruesome manners unimaginable to men.
Here is a slightly modified version of some thoughts about Drive that I wrote for somebody. Not much of a review, just couple of thoughts and not exactly strong or precise ones at that. Skims the surface, some areas in the wrong ways. Here it is anyway: