For the
past seven months or so, I have been engaged in writing weekly reviews of theatrical
releases (Hollywood titles) for The Asian
Age. The film society I represent and help run, Lightcube, was approached
by the paper to help with the content for its Cultural Section and two of us
volunteered to boot up. The initial couple of weeks were difficult and we
needed to be led by-hand by the editors, since our languid, contemplative
writing style – largely cultivated by the limitless geography of an online page
that spoils us all at one time or the other – didn’t quite fit in with the
paper’s straight-shooting strategy. We have since resolved our differences, and
the assignment has remained enjoyable. Apart from the usual, natural inferences
from a proclamation of this sort: absence of editorial intervention, freedom to
develop a style, the privilege of an honest opinion – there are valuable
lessons too. Some of these, below:
- In newsprint, one must write with the certainty of a glass smashing against the wall.
- To extend the analogy, the critical voice must function with the specific brevity of a dollar-store hitman revealing his recruiter’s name right before he is thrown off the rooftop.
- Criticism in the papers is a form that must function in awareness of a history that exists entirely outside of the page it is printed on, or even, of the film which is its object. As a result, the film that concerns it must exist in its eyes, ‘after the fact’, or ‘as a consequence’: cinema’s been around for a hundred years, and ‘as a consequence’ of this, the film, too.
- This enables the critic to employ the ‘givens’ of cinema: iconographies, genres, narrative habits, tropes, clichés – to construct a lineage or even more significantly, a vocabulary he may now share with his reader, and the film to be illuminated by the light of a movie screen.
- It also helps the critic deal in shorthand, definitives, flourishes, etc.
- Since all criticism is ultimately about ideas, the real challenge of landlocked newspaper columns is not a volume of ideas, but their density.
- As a result, the process of their assimilation assumes grave significance - a critic (as I presume, a writer of any sort) must cultivate an intimacy with his toolkit (for me, a thick diary wrapped in flesh-coloured textured paper, a needle-point ball pen; material attributes that lend meaning to the ritual) and a strict routine (mostly: Friday morning show: sparse population, mostly lovers; a place to sit, the position of the diary, the tenor of typing, etc.)
My only
grouse is the presentation of the writing on the website (punctuation’s amiss;
no real paragraph breaks; italicized content always shows up roman). I suppose
this also is the perfect opportunity to mention the late Stanley Kaufmann
(discovered recently through a friend’s introduction), whose clear prose for The New Republic is an extremely useful
learning tool.
Excerpts
from a few reviews below; full versions here.
The
Vatican Tapes (Mark Neveldine, 2015)
The Vatican Tapes seems to
labour under a yearning for authentication; it is the sort of ghost story that
must validate its own stature by prefixing the central narrative with a
fabrication: ‘…this is a true story’. To this effect, it employs various tools
that do not automatically belong to an ordinary, dime-a-dozen possession drama:
snippets of television interviews with Vatican priests, video-replay monitors,
an elaborate archive of the antichrist’s activity and straight up in the
opening, an invocation of papal authority (‘Pope Francis has admitted that
there is a devil.’) While these inclusions are all well-intentioned, a horror
film works best when it remains unmindful of the implausibility of the events
contained within it – when it seeks instead to first address an entirely
presupposed criticism, it has doubled-over into the trap.
Ant-Man (Peyton Reed, 2015)
There is
still ambition in how Reed, Russell Carpenter (his cinematographer) and the
film’s VFX team imagine sequences of its super-shrunk hero negotiating different
terrains up-close: there are chase sequences inside lawn-grass, a paragliding jump from a plane, a heist that
begins inside a water-pipe, etc. As a result, there is a serious consideration
of the physical laws that govern motion inside these diverse environments;
there is also an interest in textures and surfaces, and therefore, in the level
of detail with which they are rendered or recreated. This is a useful loan from
Pixar’s animated films, which also feature miniature-sized characters moving
through various settings – but the influence of Disney (which owns both Pixar
and Marvel) writs its influence even larger on the film: in the final showdown,
the hero and the villain engage in a pint-sized duel atop a moving toy-train;
we witness the entire affair from the perspective of the only child present in
the film, Lang’s daughter, Cassie.
Pitch
Perfect 2 (Elizabeth Banks, 2015)
First-timer
Elizabeth Banks’ Pitch Perfect 2 is a
teen-drama with profound life-lessons and capital-t themes: characters learn to
let go; or fall in love; or grow up; or discover their voices, etc., but one
that is distilled through – very curiously – a late 90s, early 00s, Anna
Faris-tone of self-reflexive, absurdist parody. As a result, irony abounds,
nothing is sincere. Each scene cancels itself out, each moment of
sentimentality is summarily deflated and nothing is really meant to mean much.
Consider a brief moment in the final third of the film: Fat Amy (written as an
obviously politically incorrect stereotype; played by Rebel Wilson) has an
epiphany around nighttime campfire. She is
in love with a guy who she had turned down earlier in the film, so she
decides to act on the impulse. She gets up, declares her intention to be with
him and begins to make a symbolic, meaningless run, which is promptly cut short
when – a concealed booby trap scoops her up and leaves her suspended in
mid-air. This is a perfect metaphor for the writing in the film, which
organises a big, dramatic event only to eventually convert it into a gag.
Inside
Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
Pixar’s roster is full of films that exhibit their
interest in the rendering of diverse environments (a filmography which
therefore resembles the studio’s animators’ personal bucket-list): there is
water (Finding Nemo), the sky (Up), the space (Wall E), dusty valley (Cars)
and normal, suburban houses (Toy Story).
Traditionally, the greatness of Pixar’s animation resides in the photorealism
of their animated universes; in the manner in which these retain the physical
laws of the actual world. The reason Inside
Out is a remarkable departure is because it sets itself inside an
environment that is entirely imagined – the human mind – and then sets to
invent a governing logic completely indigenous to it. This allows Docter and
his team to create sequences of startling (and on occasion, disorienting)
imagination: one such, set inside a facility that abstracts/deconstructs
thoughts and therefore, causes our protagonists to lose their shape, become
formless and almost disappear, is a standout. But there are others: scenes set
inside Riley’s subconscious, in her imagination, atop her train of thought, or
on a studio lot where dreams are produced by a movie-crew - are excellent
examples.
Entourage
(Doug Ellin, 2015)
Television,
by nature, is a reservoir of mythologies – (successful) shows and series
usually have a considerable run, often lasting many years (or more poetically:
seasons). This allows them to cultivate an autonomous fictional universe with
indigenous logic, icons, rituals, running gags and of course, personalities. I
suspect the major audience for a film like Entourage
– the section that it is made for –
are the existing fans of the show, individuals well-versed with the rules of
this universe. As a result, the manner in which the film is constructed (and
therefore, the experience of watching it in a theatre) is identifiably tribal:
a movie for those who can finish its lines for it – and strangely ceremonial,
in that it feels like watching TV in public.
Jurassic
World (Colin Trevorrow, 2015)
This
single line isn’t the only instance – the film employs strategic imagery to
actually extend Claire’s theory: operators in the control room watch hordes of
faceless, anonymous people roam around the park’s premises en masse on multi-screen displays; or when a great white is
devoured whole by a super-gargantuan water dinosaur, the same public goes silly
with awe. The manner in which director Colin Trevorrow frames their collective
daze is interesting: they sit in front of a giant glass-screen that causes
their faces to flicker. They could very well be watching a film, much like us.
It is in moments like this, when the film is self-reflexive, nearly
confessional, that it is at its best.
The Age
of Adaline (Lee Toland Krieger, 2015)
The first
and the final ten minutes of The Age of
Adaline – a completely whack amalgamation of b-movie science and
cross-generational romance – are dense with ultra slo-mo sequences set in outer
space. These are overlaid with monotone narration that declares the premise of
the film scientifically plausible. It is a routine that belongs to the crudest
tradition of movie sci-fi: a booming, omnipresent voice that validates the
existence of the film’s universe from the outside (a technique appropriated
from the newsreel).The film’s decision to adopt this method is significant,
since it helps the title exhibit an age-old belief resident in American film:
sequences of grand cosmic occurrence and scientific advance exist ultimately to
service the littlest, most particular of human tendencies; to love, and be
loved.
Maggie (Henry Hobson, 2015)
In the lack of any
real event (but with a runtime to fill), Hobson devotes his skill instead to
genre-based iconography: overcast, dingy skies; damp-wood, lightless interiors;
extreme-close-ups of Marguerite's eyes, cheeks, fingers, toes and whispered,
deathly-sounding proclamations. These result in an ironical fetishisation of
the very genre he is trying to lament, but atleast accounts for the relentless
atmosphere of death and grief that rests heavily on the film.
Poltergeist (Gil Kenan, 2015)
Late into the final third of Poltergeist – a remake of 1982’s horror classic about real-estate
sharks and vengeful television signals – a little boy sends a drone-mounted
camera on a trek through the netherworld: a realm of lost, wronged, pissed
souls lathered in ectoplasm. The camera floats through this ‘space’, relaying
to the boy (and to the adults who surround him, and in turn, to us) what it sees on its merry jaunt through the
ghost-world. This is a sequence of remarkable imagination, particularly in how
it provides the mythical, nearly always invisible area of housing-horror
movies: the actual portion of the
house colonized by ghosts – a physical, material form. Therefore, characters
can (and do) navigate it, jog through it, touch it and film it.
Danny
Collins (Dan Fogelman, 2015)
The
biggest, even radical accomplishment of the film is in how it resolves the
crisis for its lead character. Unlike, say, The
Wrestler, which features a romantic, impractical return to the ring for the
rejected protagonist, Danny Collins
sees its rockstar make peace with his own widely circulated, saleable
brand-image, if only for the larger well-being of his family.
Playing
it Cool (Justin Reardon, 2015)
Romantic comedies
do not generally make this a point of discussion – seeing as how the old adage
of everything being fair in love goes – but Playing
it Cool displays a special accomplishment here: it features an excellent
scene where the writer’s best friend finally dismantles his convenient cover of
self-pity and helplessness to instead comment, ‘You are so self-absorbed.’
Lesser romantic films are never as truthful about their leads. They spend their
runtimes valourising those in love, but the fact of this movie’s lead
character’s profession: a writer, who falls in love for the purpose of research
– helps it examine just how selfish and self-aggrandizing being in love can be.
Furious 7
(James Wan, 2015)
A group
of characters who define themselves largely through martial nomenclature:
‘chief’, ‘captain’, ‘leader’; divide themselves into specialist positions: the
drivers, foot soldiers, spies, technicians; drop off into ‘enemy’ territories
with parachutes from choppers and finally, mutter battlefield-slogans to each
other: ‘a war is coming’, ‘I don’t have friends, I have family.
Dragon
Blade (Daniel Lee, 2015)
Jackie
Chan permeates through diverse commercial arrangements – international
co-productions, Hollywood funded brocoms, Chinese blockbusters – as some sort
of an establishment figure; an ambassador, so to say. In his most well-known
films, he plays state-figures: cops, mostly; emperor’s warrior; a fighter
trained in the shaolin-traditions – and protects national treasures
(sculptures, medallions, paintings, the ambassador’s daughter) from an overt
threat that results from an external, foreign influence. In this, Chan’s figure
recurs throughout his filmography as a political cipher – an individual that an
entire country, an economic superpower uses to distill and explain its
attitudes towards globalization.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden, 2015)
Movies these days seem increasingly tailored for a younger
audience: teenagers, young professionals – and therefore, there are various
stories of redemption, reclamation and rebirth, but this one’s not one of them.
It establishes as its central premise the terminal nature of life and the
finite nature of available time, thereby making it contingent upon its ageing,
elderly central characters to fulfill their wishes: of love, company, legacy
and dignity – before they die.
Chapplie (Neil Blomkamp, 2015)
The
film’s purpose is spelled out in through instruction-manual, didactic scenes
(Yolandie says to Chappie: ‘You are what you are inside’, Ninja compares a dead
dog and a living, eating one to illustrate how survival is difficult in the
world outside), but this isn’t a problem, because Chappie is operational only as a fantasy that pretends on the
outside to be a heavy-set, science-fiction drama. This is operative knowledge
for a film that discusses as its major themes the difference between interior
and exterior surfaces, the deceit of appearances and transhumanism (and
therefore, the futility of container-bodies).
Love,
Rosie (Christian Ditter, 2015)
Take, for
instance, the scene where Rosie, an eighteen year old holds her newborn against
her chest for the first time. There is a shallow-focus, advertising-imagery
montage of her smiling, feeling her maternal urge rise, but instead of granting
its audience the experience of witnessing the transformation of its lead
character, it places a convenient text-super: ‘five years later’. This is meant
to represent change, and evolution, but the real challenge, I suppose, is to
actually show it – to let your actor perform it, to let your story tell it.
The Boy Next Door (Rob Cohen, 2015)
It is nimble and
interesting – a tract-housing drama conducted through the most traditional,
classical event in film: people looking at each other through open windows. The
lead pair talks about The Iliad (campy dramas always aspire to
high-art; a character may be a painter, or there is a murder in the museum).
There is shared curiosity between the leads, temptation, the film gets racy –
but then relents too easily by letting its leads consummate their stillborn
relationship.
Taken 3 (Olivier Megaton, 2015)
A lot of
the film, for instance, is really about Bryan Mills (but really, Liam Neeson;
the actor-character split hardly visible, considering Mills is all physiognomy,
not performance) wading like a specter through an urban jungle - concrete
roads, parking lots, glass office buildings, high-rise penthouses, shopping
mall toilets, elevator shafts, CCTV camera images, hi-fidelity microphones –
all booby-trapped, placed to ensure his capture. Neck strained out, as if he
slept badly last night; back erect like a wooden plank; the weight of his
overly long upper body balanced by two feet straddling outwards; face in a
constant lament – much of the pleasure of the Taken series comes therefore from Neeson and how he is filmed
walking, turning around quiet, suspect wall-corners or casually slapping a
tango to get a word or two out of him.
