The Unbearable Empty-ness of Being Cute; or How to Sweep the Oscars

Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" is going to sweep the Oscars tonight (and as I am posting it, the prediction has come true). Every single award ceremony this year stands testimony to that. Indeed, if it does not, we can in all justification call it a 'revolutionary' day. And all we know revolutions do not take place in Hollywood. I also suspect all 'miracles'; they belong to the lazy and the guilty.

I condemn that. I know it is slightly stupid to condemn an Oscar favourite. (Who is being naive now, Kay?) But I still condemn because it is an issue that is not restricted to one single film. I condemn a trend.
"The Artist" is an almost silent film, and IMDB lists it as a 'romance'. It was shot in colour, and then transferred into black-&-white in the post-production stage; if you observe the light flares in certain shots closely, you will be able to deduce it. Which is a godsend, because that is the only worthwhile thing you might do during the screening.

The story of the film is abysmally simple. Once upon a time--and did I tell you I hate that beginning?--there was a great silent film star. In Hollywood mythology, great male stars are always from the silent era. The concerned star here is a combination of many such real figures, but the main reference here is obviously Douglas Fairbanks. He also has a dog (reminded me of Asta from the Thin Man series), a chauffeur, a disgruntled and cold wife (Penelope Ann Miller, wasted here), and a mansion. An ordinary girl bumps into him in front of the media glare, capitalizes it to gain a foothold in the industry, and a couple of films later, the star finds himself going through the ignominy of multiple takes so that he could dance with the girl working as an extra. In the meanwhile, sound comes. The star laughs at it. Does not think it is worth a penny. We all know what happens after that: he becomes bankrupt. But the girl's love must get him back. Does she succeed? Producers love such 'succinct' scripts; you can sell it to a stone-deaf man reading it aloud!

Then there is another film which plays through this one: Singing in the Rain. In fact, the male-female duo almost explicitly re-enact the same relation. Both the stars of the film--Jean Dujardin and Beatrice Bejo--are good dancers, and there is a bravura long take of their dancing at the end of the movie. A happy account of film history: silent era transformed itself to become the Musical!

Is there anything else in the movie? Yes, there is. None of the plot mentioned above are beyond and above the mannerism of the film. Indeed, the whole film plays like a museum slide-show of lost mannerisms and quirks of silent films. Problem is, if you have seen silent films well enough, you will find them ludicrous. And isn't it sad to find a French director equating the whole of silent cinema with Hollywood, that too a very limited perception about its complexity? What troubled me even more is the fact that the film could not decide what it wanted to be: an allegory of an ego-bound man's redemption, or a discourse about silent cinema, and stardom? But that is not a fault, or even a mistake. That is the signature of certain types of contemporary film. I call them the 'cuties'.

Hazanavicius and Dujardin, both of their previous claim-to-fame was through making nice and domestic-quality spoofs. In one sense, this is also a spoof which has lost its teeth. It does not know what to bite, it might have even forgotten that it is supposed to bite. There is a contemporary euphemism for such films: homage. But let us not bemoan the collective bad taste of our contemporaneity.

Spoof, as a genre, or even pastiche or homage, are necessarily bound to their reference, thus much more topical, contemporary and thus intentionally political than other films. You can not justify a spoof simply by saying I wanted to make one; you have to show more reasons. When spoof as a genre began to emerge as a major generic force in the Western world, it was downright subversive. When Mars Attacks! was made by Tim Burton, it not only lampooned Independence Day, it took mega-size pot-shots at American politics and mass culture. What followed next was the oft-repeated story of the domestication of a powerful cinematic weapon by the industry, and a slow dissipation of its energy into other fields and interests.

By the time "The Artist" is made, a pastiche or a homage has ended up being an euphemism for the most superficial brand of nostalgia films. In one sense, The Artist is a biopic that does not even want to go through the rigour-s of one. The psychological depth of a star's narcissism is lost in the quagmire of stylistic bravura. There is a section where Dujardin's character finds himself unable to produce sound in real life as well. Brilliant touch, but does the film follow it up? No, it does not. Is the film even knowledgeable by half about the silent film industry it refers to? No. The film resembles two things, firstly, a Disneyland trip through the supposed 'old golden age', and the crowd-pleasing antics of movie-stars doing 'numbers'. And I think that is precisely why the movie 'sells' across barriers, and is a darling for both Cannes and Academy Awards. And it is a crying shame that it is the recent bed-partner of Independent Spirit awards as well. Where is the spirit, dude, let alone the 'independent' part?

What we have in our hands is a new cinematic trend. In one sense, you can compare it to 'political correct-ness', although it is much shallower than that. It is a cinematic practice that carefully and almost pedantically sanitizes a film of all excess, depth, decision. It is the art of making a film without making one. You tell a story, but it is not 'your' story; you have a style, but not 'your' style, but always of someone else. And it is here the spoof/pastiche/homage angle comes in. This technique of talking in other's voice and accent comes from those genres. But unlike a true generic film, films like the "The Artist" has nothing to say beyond impersonation. If you take away the stylistic and other stereotypical quotations from "The Artist", you will be left with nothing. For a spoof, that is never the case. Thus, it is obviously symptomatic of a malaise that "The Artist" sweeps the awards and "Hugo" is left with technical awards, as if one is dealing with a Harry Potter franchise here. Obviously, serious engagement with history is too dangerous for the Cinema honcho-s of our time. [My friend Iman Mitra has promised me a piece on Hugo and The Artist, which I shall publish on this blog. With his erudition, I think he will delve much deeper into the comparison. I am merely extemporizing my feelings here]

Cinema is not supposed to be 'safe', and not supposed to be 'cute'. Even the most reviled populist films of Bollywood has more edge than this one. We live in an age of empty gestures, impersonations, stylistic pirouettes, technical skulduggery. As a historical period, it reminds me more of the Mannerist period of painting in Italy. We are exhausted of the creative achievements of our periods. The sterility of our imagination finds its best use in impersonation.

I think my point is buttressed by the fact that Maryl Streep winning the Best Actress statuette. She is a great actress, but in this particular film, she is left impersonating furiously with no character build-up whatsoever. It was role which went nowhere. And now, we have a candidate who won the prize simply because she could impersonate so well! Which is however better, because the Best Actor's performance consisted of being charming and showing a good set of teeth! Yes, I understand one feels nostalgic about Gene Kelly and his peers, but that does not justify valourizing a medium-quality impersonator!

If we love cinema at all, if we believe that it has the capacity of thought and expression, if we think it is more than a joyride, we need to condemn it, not just because of personal distaste, but because we are responsible as a community.

On The Politics of an Old Nation's Foreskin: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

                I had planned to begin this blog again with a review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, because, without any doubt, it is my favourite film of the year 2011. I first watched it at Prasad IMAX, Hyderabad, my most preferred venue; towards the end of the screening, a member of the audience got up and shouted, not addressing anyone in particular, “picture kisi ko samajh mein aya” (did anybody understand what happened in the movie)? I was feeling what I presume to be the opposite of what the man in the cinema hall felt, but I have to admit that going by the general vibe of the audience, many were uncomfortable about the fact that there were strands and suggestions in the movie that are not easily decipherable: it screamed for a second viewing (and when was the last time you watched a spy thriller back to back, that too in a multiplex?). I, on the other hand, was feeling what a really good film does to me: suddenly I could feel this immense surge of energy inside which I did not know how to utilize. Here was a film that has reportedly grossed $ 17 million at the American domestic box-office alone, despite clearly being a film not mashed and pulverized enough to be processed by any below-average intellect at any stage of slumber, and that itself is enough to give us a high, isn’t it? And yet, I dithered, I hesitated; now, in hindsight, it might have been a simple unwillingness to part with the object of one’s love. But I waited for one specific reason. I realized quite early on that this film is a brilliant example of an adaptation. By that, I do not want to repeat the obvious and known fact that it is a movie adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (the comma-s were taken out of the film), but that the film is literary in a very modernist sense, and if one does not appreciate that, one does not even begin to comprehend the film.

                Generally, I do not read the literary source from which films come. By principle, I like to judge a film solely on the merit of what it shows and does not. Adaptation can be a good exercise to flex one’s analytic muscles for a film scholar, but for a film critic, they often act as unwanted sources of value-judgment that can a priori determine the outcome. It is a bit like being a Harry Potter fan: any bilge down the drain that stomps around carrying the holly banner gets an ear-splitting approval! But with Tinker, Tailor… I made an exception to this rule. Which was not really an exception, as I was not reading it because I needed to supplement my appreciation for the film or because they were needed to understand it; the film itself forced me to read the book, to experience it once again, under a different skin. This is a really rare phenomenon, and the last time it happened to me was at the very beginning of my film apprenticeship, at the tender age of sixteen, and the film was The Godfather (needless to mention, the book was inferior). Hence, I read the book. Then, I read the next two parts of the trilogy on trot. By now, I think I can safely say I have at least a beginner’s understanding of the intricate Smiley-Karla world so deftly and intricately populated by Le Carre’s details. Then, I watched the film again. It was even more electrifying than the first. In the meanwhile, two weeks have flown by.

                Thus, this piece comes already two weeks late. Now, I have a problem exactly the opposite of what has been called the ‘Beginner’s Dilemma’: I have so much and so many things to say that I do not know where to stop. Still, let is try.

                First of all Tinker Tailor is one of those very rare spy thrillers that you do not just need to understand, but feel. Today’s cinema rarely likes to demand from its viewers sustained attempts  at utilizing one’s critical and emotional faculties, and at best, emotions are only aroused when they can be controlled as a conditioned reflex: once the bell stops ringing, the dog stops salivating! On the other hand, the feel of this film can be quite depressing for the viewer longing for identification, easy cues for empathy, expectation etc. This is the first characteristic that makes this film stand out: it withholds obvious narrative clues, easy emotions, flimsy moralities. If you expect film to be like Pepsi or Horlicks, this isn’t it. This is a glass of very dry Chablis, and it demands the owner of the tongue to reciprocate the same sensitivity in kind.

                Secondly, the film uses the same sensitivity in the very look it produces. In one sense, this is a film about London, and not just any London, and especially not the London of tourism brochures. It is the gloomy and brooding London of the old Imperial “Great Game”, now bereft of its colonial glory, but still strutting imprudently into the thick of Cold War. This is a London of grey, brown and beige, and Alfredson, the director, eschews the seduction of cinematographic bravura quite comprehensively. In this age of tremendously mannerist film-making, such restraint is remarkable. The director, Tomas Alfredson, is Swedish, and he brings to the film and the film’s London the signature color palette of Scandinavian graphic designs, which, since Gurinder Chaddha, has become increasingly rare in British film-making. One of the scriptwriters of the film, Peter Straughan, has given us a glimpse into the directorial method of Alfredson here; he is found telling the cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema the film should look like the “smell of wet tweed”, and he reaffirms it with the scriptwriter, whom he tells to write a script whose feel would replicate that of a “old man’s foreskin”!!  It is indeed a story of an old man’s nakedness, embarrassing in its brash posturing and petty little games of the aristocratic elites. That is really the crux of Le Carre’s novel, and it speaks volumes about Alfredson’s directorial precision that he managed to condense the whole spirit of the novel so poetically in those few words.

                Le Carre’s novel, the first installment of what is known as The Quest for Karla trilogy, painstakingly constructs the world of British Intelligence Service (mainly MI6) that has absolutely no similarities to Ian Fleming’s absurd glorification of the male chauvinist spy. Instead, it is a bureaucratic world per excellence, where all the exciting bits of detection happens in a department called “research”. In Le Carre’s world, no one glosses you about the typical code language of the bureaucracy; if you need to know what a “lamplighter” means, you need to read carefully and deduce on your own. And this ‘world’ that revolves around the headquarters called—very significantly—the “circus” and especially the fifth floor where the honchos sit (who are, by the way, called ‘owls’) is a microcosm of the British aristocracy, and the ‘great game’ is still played in the spirit of a Test Match at Lords in summer. There is a character in the novel (and in the film), Connie Sachs, who indeed calls the spies her “boys”. In the movie, Bill Haydon (played with an awesome, almost monstrous mastery by Colin Firth) and Peter Guillium (Benedict Cumberbach; yes, yes, the Sherlock Holmes guy. Don’t get your hopes too high; he is a side-kick here) come into the office on a bicycle and check out the new arrival in the office—a secretary of tender age and of the other sex—with a ceremonial pomp that is unmistakably British. And yet, all of these are happening in the festering air of cold war, and soon the happy delusion of the imperial game was to slip away forever. The head of the Circus, known only as Control—which is odd, since the only other person who is only known by a code-name is the arch-villain Karla—realizes that there is a ‘mole’, that is, a double-agent (the word ‘mole’ came into being with Le Carre’s work) inside the very top echelon of the Circus, but before he could intervene, something disastrous takes place, and there is a complete overhaul of power on the fifth floor. Control is thrown out, and so is his right-hand man George Smiley. Years later, and after Control’s death, Smiley is brought back to force the ‘mole’ out after fresh reports reach the ministry about the existence of the traitor. Without spoiling the tale and its suspense, I can tell you that by the time Smiley gets to this ‘mole’, every remaining trace of self-importance the Circus possessed was crushed. We so seldom realize that a cleansing is by rule more disastrous than an act of betrayal.

The Owls (notice the texture of the wall)

The novel was a reaction to a real event which actually forced Le Carre to give up his real-life career in espionage and become a full-time writer. Consequently, it is Le Carre’s most topical and political novel. What Le Carre really wants to demonstrate in the novel is the fact that everybody in the Circus knew somewhere deep down there who the traitor was, but refused to accept it. They refused to accept it, because to accept it would have entailed a complete and horrible demystification of the British imperial romanticism which remained the pleasant veneer under whose cover the dirty work was conducted. In other words, it is a not-very-subtle critique of British elite class; it is the closest Le Carre came to being a Marxist. However, the strength of the novel lies in the fact that it is not so clearly propagandist. In fact, the act of criticizing is the source of all the pain: the novel undermines precisely what permeates it, what is cherished by it, what creates the only lightness in this heavy material. The sentiment here was probably best expressed by Smiley’s wife Ann in the third book: “the one thing worse than change is status quo”. Only in fiction can you hold such contradiction in such a spoonful.

                The film does not try to achieve this ‘heavy-ness’ by importing large portions of texts from the book. That is Merchant-Ivory’s period pieces for you. In fact, in a film that has very little action, there is also startlingly little dialogue. The film does not try to import the novel’s contents, not even its ‘spirit’. What it does is to import its feel, its skin, so to say. Alfredson has the unfortunately rare gift of talking visually, and his does so with an understated grace that floors me every time I watch it. I suspect the script was built around a centre-piece, a monologue by George Smiley (played by the great Gary Oldman, who will most probably again lose the Best Actor Oscar to a totally undeserving candidate like Jean Dujardin) delivered to Peter Guillium. It is a monologue where Smiley looks directly at the camera, and tells the story of his only encounter with his arch-enemy, Karla. As the monologue progresses, Smiley shuttles between the role of Karla and himself to such an extent that the moral separation between the two sides of the war vanishes. If you are looking for some sort of ‘message’ in this film, that is the closest it comes to delivering one. I suspect it is not a very pleasant message for most. Every other scene is placed around this center like interlinking mosaic, but the connection between the fragments is stoically understated. And the modernist bit about the film and the book lies there. Le Carre creates a comprehensive parallel world whose realism matches that of the outer world, but this is not the world of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. You do not get an architect who will give you a convenient lecture about the nitty-gritty-s of the complexity. There is no easy psychologizing, no exposition involved here.  The master-plan is absent. You are literally thrown into this world, and you need to be as observant as Smiley to become a part of it. It is not as radical a world as that of James Joyce’s, but the impulse remains the same. And that is precisely why I feel it is extremely stupid to ask for a more ‘fleshed out’ narrative. The point of the film lies in what it does not show, and what it merely hints at.

                You must have noticed I have not uttered a word about the protagonist, George Smiley, here. I shall not, because it is the central task of the spectator in the film to find out who Smiley is. Not who is the invisible traitor, but who the visible man is. Watch his glasses; they reflect light back and hide his eyes like a spider. You will in all probability never see more vocal a pair of glasses ever in cinema. In one sense, this is a bildungsroman about Smiley, only put upside down. Notice how ironic the sudden burst of Julio Iglesias at the end of a movie that almost always refuses to use any extra-diegetic music is.

You will in all probability never see more vocal a pair of glasses ever in cinema

                However, the adaptation does make significant changes. Although a certain homo-erotic angle was already present in the book, the script punctuates it much more explicitly. The Circus is thus not merely the last vestige of a class delusion, but also teeming with men masquerading masculinity simply to survive—I presume—internal persecution. Isn’t the pain of that repression enough to turn one into a renegade? More importantly, the topicality of the original book, by now, is really redundant; hence, the film, as an adaptation, is more allegorical than topical. In one sense, the story is no longer about cold war at all, but the very world in which we live. Let that remain there, hanging in the air, to provoke your thoughts.

                Consequently, the Smiley of the film is much more brutal than the book. Some people pointed out their preference for the TV version starring Sir Alec Guinness. I personally found it to be too close to the book, and thus, too talkative. But more importantly, the Smiley of the film is a slightly different man, which might have a very different political significance to our times. Notice how he wins over the chair in the crown room of the Circus with background applause in the very last shot of the film. But his table is empty. He has cleansed it so thoroughly he is left with none. His triumphant look at the end thus attains a slightly delusional aura. This Smiley is much more disturbing than the original. And much more thought-provoking.

                It is always a pleasure to watch ensemble films with British cast; that nation, backed up by its formidable theatre traditions, produces great actors at a mass production rate. The same applies to this film also. The center-piece obviously is Gary Oldman, the greatest living actor who has not received an Oscar yet. Here, he acts stillness, one of the very difficult things to do onscreen, especially when you are there in almost 80% of the movie. But the most surprising part of the movie belongs to Mark Strong as Jim Prideaux. After his interminably long stint as comic book villains, here he finally manages to pocket and execute a role which does not have him hamming inconsolably. I hope this marks the arrival of a potentially great British actor. Colin Firth manages to empty his considerable charms enough to suggest a sickness, an anger, and an aggression covering up a hollowness inside. And then there is John Hurt, who no longer acts, but lends the absurdly aged crevices of his face to the physicality of the film.

                Tomas Alfredson is a serious contemporary auteur, and his two feature film—the other one being the awesome Let the Right One In—stands testimony to that. He does not belong to the now-antiquated art house-cinema crowd; and his auteur-ism has nothing to do with those large and apparently philosophical issues. He is more concerned with genres, and both his films signify significant contribution to their respective genres. I shall wait for his next, although he has already announced his retirement from film-making once, even before this film was conceptualized!

                Such brave films do not win Oscars. They are a little too difficult, a little too uncompromising. They have no message, nor are the favourites of some at-the-moment fashionable political group or cause. Instead, the Oscar will in all probability go to “The Artist”, the hollowest and sensationalist film to become big in a long, long time, and even if it does not win, the Best Actor will surely go to Jean Dujardin, who will be eligible for the honour for nothing but raw charm and a good set of teeth. I shall be glad if I am proven wrong, but in all probability, that will not happen. And let us be glad of such certainties. There will always be commercial films that are too dangerous for such conservatives like the Academy, and they shall remain in our memory, unaided, by their sheer excellence.

And I leave with this video of the Julio Iglesias song (what went wrong with the son, eh?). Enjoy.

Michael Clayton by Tony Gilroy (2007); Rating: 4 & 1/2 in 5

In recent decades, the film fraternity (forgive the word) has started to take the question of genre seriously. It signals good health: finally, we are out of the mist/mystery of the celluloid sheen. It means we are treating film-making as an exercise and not as a personal whimsy. Of course, our genre-awareness is a definitive product of our ever-increasing obsession with Hollywood, THE play-ground of genres and sub-genres. Very interestingly, genres came into existence almost always due to the financial “dark underbelly” of cinema as an art-form, but we will not get into that here; let us not digress. Within this area of genre, I often came across a nigglingly incommodious term: Neo-noir. Noir, as we all know, is an urban, American genre that used to rule the silver-screen during the 1940s and 50s. A perfect example of this genre would be Polanski’s “Chinatown”. Anyway. But what is “Neo-noir”? Is it a distinct genre? I never found any evidence to that. Is it a sub-genre? What exactly is “neo” about it? Deeply suspicious, I have always denied this term its existence; for me, it was always noir and that’s about it. Michael Clayton, the 2007 film made by debutant director Tony Gilroy, for the first time, has made me aware of the possibility of the existence of something called Neo-noir; -- that is my grateful indebtedness towards this film. However, I am still not flattered by the term; --- it does not signify a separate genre, or a sub-genre, it simply means that the essential requirements of the original genre, the Noir, is stripped down to the bare minimum. Out goes the detective, night chiaroscuros, femme fatales that always make the wrong choice; only the troubled masculinity, empowered (a very nasty word, but I am using it due to the lack of acceptable alternatives) women who always pay the price at the end. From that perspective, Michael Clayton is a perfectly executed Noir, and that’s no meager compliment: Noir is the mother of all “New Wave” cinema movements ever experienced by us.

Strictly speaking though, Michael Clayton is a legal/court-room thriller, a genre that has grown on John Grisham novels and Michael Douglass characters. At the centre of the narrative, there is this typical American pharmaceutical company named U-North that is facing a huge lawsuit filed by hundreds of small farmers who have been suffering from cancer due to the strongly carcinogenic content present in a certain U-North product. At the court, U-North is being represented by Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, one of the greatest law farms in the world. The case was being handled for six years by Arthur Eden (played by Tom Wilkinson), the senior-most and the most brilliant litigation lawyer and a partner of the farm. He is a manic-depressive and a close friend to Michael Clayton (played by George Clooney). Clayton is the “hidden ace” of the farm; he is the “miracle worker”. By definition, he is a janitor, but he is so great in his job, he can be compared to those too-famous-for-their-own-good heart surgeons: they all get cases with 5% survival probability! What exactly is Clayton’s job? Cleaning up the mess: a client hits a man on the road, he is there to clean it up with the police in ten minutes. He is a realist; he enjoys breaking the illusions of rich clients that they will be cooed and soothed for what they have done, they will be told they have “options”. He has ‘connections’ all over the country; he used to be an Assistant District Attorney during the eighties in Queens, New York. He has a big debt of 75,000 dollars he will have to pay within a week, and he is bust up to the wall, although he looks prosperous. Following a bad advice given by his alcoholic, druggy brother Timmy, he bought a restaurant that went up into smoke even before he could utter the word “restaurant”. He would not let it reflect on his brother though; he is determined to pay it back by himself. He has a dark side: he is a high-roller in poker played at a certain basement in Chinatown.

Arthur Eden is skipping his medication, and losing his grip on reality. During his six years of research on the case, he has gathered evidence of the tremendous crime U-North has been committing for years, the crime he is paid to protect from exposure. In his manic righteous zeal, he decides to go against U-North all by himself. While the testimony from a plaintiff was being taken, suddenly he starts to strip, offering his clothes to the plaintiff, whom he calls “perfect Anna”. U-North is horrified at this turn of event, and at the forefront of the reaction is Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton in her Oscar-winning role), the Chief Legal Advisor at U-North. In Arthur Eden’s briefcase, she finds something so incriminating that she realizes the future of the company, and with that, her own, is on the line. Thus starts the cat-&-mouse game; bodies pile up, cars get blown into pieces. Enough of the plot for now. You have to watch the film for that.

The first good news about this film: -- it is NOT a message film. I cannot describe my relief when I realized it is not so: there is absolutely nothing worse than a message movie. I would rather watch a B-movie than a message film. [Anyone with enough brains will be able to figure the reason of my repulsion out, but still, I will present a short explanation. The so-called ‘message’ is actually a ‘preferred reading’ films often force upon their viewers; it teaches us the ideology (most often and most obviously, it is “Love America”) of the ruling class, nation, or party. For example, Spielberg’s “The Terminal” ‘teaches’ us that, does not matter how much terrorism threatens and how barbaric the Americans really are, by mimicking the ‘eternal goodness’ of the Americans, everyone from the Third World can ingratiate themselves with the ‘civilization’ a.k.a America (hence, mirroring the politics of Frank Capra); his “Munich” clearly tries to revisit 9/11 (a signature American death drive/wish), while willfully obscuring the boundary between the Palestinians and the Israelis, a difference that enables him to keep his democratic position intact (and thus no becoming completely a Bush’s pet), while remaining American. Of course, all films carry, to different extents, the propagandas of the rulers; however, ‘message’ films do that without an iota of shame.] In fact, the corruption of U-North is openly shown from the very beginning; it is not a matter of revelation. The chief conflict in the film is between a powerful woman masquerading (have you seen anything more unabashedly masculine than Chanel suits?) as a masculine symbol succumbing to the dark sides of the power structure, and an equally powerful man, all too aware of the ruthless compromises, who is trying to go against the stream just this once. Femme fatale loses noir-man wins. However, as feminist critics have often pointed out, noir is a genre that exposes the weaknesses of masculinity more potently than almost any other genre. Should we read it as a film that ‘justly’ punishes the ‘wrong’ woman who tries to control masculine power; or should we read it as an exposure of the patriarchal corporate power-structure that forces a woman to ‘become’ a man and do its dirty business, and then ‘punishes’ her exactly for that? The film, clearly, can be read in both ways without using too much imagination. The responsibility of the reading will lie upon us, and not on the director; choice of the version is completely ours, and it will only expose our own hidden politics as a viewer. Those that will read it merely as a morality tale or as a thriller will do it at the peril of being exposed as a closet misogynist. The mise-en-scene is the true protagonist here: it is all about the inner ugliness of the patriarchal corporate structure.

Michael Clayton is the quintessential noir-man, sans low fedora and colts under armpits: his morality is not exactly top-notch (he does not show any qualms while covering up the road accident early in the film), he has troubled personal life, -- divorced, no girlfriend (apparently), trying hard to keep in touch with parenthood, loosing a lot of money because of a brother. He is not macho in any, even far-fetched, way; in fact, like a lots of corporate people, he is so cool that he looks and seems asexual. He is not in control of his life: his daily, expert dabbling with high-stake issues forces him to enjoy danger and risk in some small, albeit very harmful, way, by gambling away serious amounts of money. Like the noir-man, all he has is his job, the offices, leased Mercedes and Lear jets. There is one big, thwarted love in his life, a love that will finally become the crisis of his life: his friendship with the manic-depressive Arthur Eden (a hint at homosexuality? Clayton is closest and most personal with Arthur; in fact, one of his messages sound like the apology from a lover; also, eight years earlier, he had seen Arthur through his first attack of manic-depression). It is for Arthur Eden he puts everything on the line, although he does it still pretty reluctantly, only after his own life is threatened. Karen Crowder is the mirror-image here: what Clayton misses in life (being back in the litigation team), what he could have been, what he escapes from (being caught red-handed), what he truly does (play the ruthless game of percentages). As the name of the movie suggests, the film is also a character study, with no hero, or a villain.

The first big strength of the film comes from the script: it is trim, non-judgmental, terse, precise, without bravado dialogues while refusing to become drab; in short, effective. The script is written by the director himself, and he is a star scriptwriter; his scriptwriting credit includes all the three Bourne movies, Extreme Measures, Proof of Life, and Devil’s Advocate. As a director, however, it is hard to judge him by this debutante film. To his credit, he is economical, and prefers the classical slow tracking shots, understating the presence of the camera and thus heightening the tension between the characters. Working with the gifted cinematographer Robert Elswit (“Syriana”, “Magnolia”, “Good Night & Good Luck”; I specially enjoyed the last one), he managed to create brooding establishing shots (one memorable one would be where Karen Crowder is introduced. We see Tilda Swinton sitting on the commode of a claustrophobic cubicle while she discovers that her shirt is wet with sweat at the armpit), perfect ambiances, color palettes, and hues that works perfectly in this film. I found the background score pretty run-of-the-mill though; James Newton Howard provides a score that barely manages to work fine. However, these do not prove the mettle of this director; we see no sign of a style or idiosyncrasies. For now, he is a competent ‘director’ but not yet a film-maker for me. Let’s hope he will not become another Ron Howard (before going to bed, I pray to God every night, “do anything to me, I’ll not mind, but please, please, don’t make me watch another “Da Vinci Code” again. I’ll not survive the ordeal!”). It is always better to be optimistic.

The best thing about this film is its acting and casting. The quartet, around which this movie revolves, ---- George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, and late Sydney Pollack---- gives brilliant performances. Switch these four, and the film will collapse. Tom Wilkinson, the veteran character-actor, portrays the manic-depressive Arthur with a tremendous gusto and unabashed, zany, manic incoherence; his performance is like the insane force we experience while listening to Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue. He has the difficult task of delivering long and precarious voice-overs, and he passes the exam in flying colors. Tilda Swinton, although unknown to Hollywood, has done enough work in British cinema to remain forever among the great British leading ladies (she was the fetish-star for late director Derek Jarman, one of major directors belonging to the queer cinema movement, and certainly a British great). However, Hollywood is famously incestuous; only after this film, let us hope, it will start noticing this brilliant actor. There is something unnerving in the way Swinton portrays Karen Crowder. She is a tremendous physical actress; her merest body movements will tell you the story, most of them will invariably give you a slight unease. Her low-key, sugary viper-voice is mesmerizing. She manages to make her character touchingly three-dimensional within very little screen-space: she manages to remain simultaneously steely, and twitchingly nervous within every single frame. She absolutely deserves her Oscar and many things more.

I am terribly late at reviewing this film; it has already become a thing of past. However, one of my intentions behind writing this review was to pay my tribute to the great actor, director, and producer Sydney Pollack, who has just died from cancer. In this film, Pollack plays Marty Bach, the head of the law farm, under whose direct orders, Michael Clayton operates. In this character, Pollack gives a strong, assured performance that will look authentic from miles away. Pollack as a director has never been an auteur in the true sense, but he has been an excellent middle-brow director who believed in that ancient Hollywood tradition of no-frills story-telling. He showed that honest middle-brow films like his “Out of Africa” and “Tootsie” can be quite as effective as Indies. Hollywood will sorely miss him; his dedication and involvement was complete, he never preached banalities, never left ‘messages’ through his films. With this Spielberg-Lucas-influenced Ron Howard generation, the ancient Hollywood tradition ------ starting from King Vidor to the Sydney Pollack-s of our days ------- of honest middle-brow story-telling is facing extinction. We would prefer a Sydney Pollack thousand times over a Spielberg or a Howard. Directors like Alexander Payne will, let’s hope, keep this tradition alive.

And, here at last, we come to George Clooney. Clooney is one of those tragic actors: horribly typecast by the industry, and having too big a persona to be not typecast by the studios, he is still desperately struggling to find original and challenging roles. After a few initial debacles, he has resolutely avoided typecast roles with one notable exception (the Oceans franchisee), acting in films like “Solaris”, “The Good German”, “O Brother, Where are Thou?”, “Syriana” etc. As a director, he has impressed me; although “Crash” took the Oscar home, “Good Night, & Good Luck” was, by far, the second best film of that milieu, coming second only to “Brokeback Mountain”, which is undeniably a great film and an exceptionally brave love story. Unlike other male heart-throbs, George is a thorough actor: he knows how to remain within the role and not become bigger than the character. There is a scene in the movie, where Clayton, at the crack of dawn, stops the car by a hill and sees three horses standing at the top of it. He comes out of the car, and slowly makes his way towards the horses. The scenario is precarious: it runs the risk of becoming horribly mystic (which would have ruined the noir suspense), or a mere vehicle that showcases the charm and charisma of the ‘big star’. While watching the scene, I was thinking what other big, Hollywood heartthrobs would have done with this scene. Brad Pitt, he would have invariably tried to show existential angst, looking broodingly eccentric and orgasm-generating-ly dangerous, chewing his nails, and then, suddenly, flashing his million-watt smile that comes right out of “Legend of the Fall” (Brad Pitt is a good actor, but he has become ensnared by his public image). Tom Cruise would have lit up the screen with his over-enthusiastic histrionics and dental brilliance (those teeth! My god, there are the worst thing that has happened to Hollywood since Stallone’s mumbling speech and Arnie’s Biceps!); Johnny Depp, although always unpredictable, is fundamentally too mannered to be a good noir-man. In George, we have a method actor good enough to to carry out such precarious scenes; if you are a student of acting, watch the dour face of Clooney during this scene, and learn what cinematic acting is all about: under-acting (you can also watch Gabriel Byrne in Coen Brother’s “Miller’s Crossing”, another tremendous example of the noir genre). If he had done one notch more, it would have become the worst scene of movie and marred the complete effect. I sincerely hope that the teenagers and tabloids will forget him quickly and, finally, he will be able to enjoy the status of a genuinely good actor.

Now, I must rate the film. Before I rate it, I must speak a word of caution here. In this page, if a film gets a 5 and another gets a 4 & ½, it does not necessarily mean that the first one is better than the second. I judge the film within its premises, its set expectations, its details, its genre, and its predecessors. When Todd Haynes is making “I’m Not There”, he is following the monumental examples of Frederico Fellini and others; I gave him 4 & ½ while comparing the film with those unforgettable ‘prefect 5’ films such as 8 &1/2.

I will give this film a 4 & ½. It is not exactly a great film, but it works very well within its limitations.

I started this article with Neo-noir; I will end at that note too. I am still flummoxed: what is Neo-noir? It seems to me to be a supra-disciplinary exercise. For example, this film is the exercise of the barest minimum specifications of the noir genre within the broad structure of the legal/courtroom thrillers. Similarly, Coen Bother’s brilliant film “Miller’s Crossing” (1991) is the exploration of the noir principles within the broad framework of the gangster genre. But is that it? That’s all? What gives this term the legitimacy to stand alone and distinct? What is so “neo” about it? I am still deeply suspicious of the term. If any of you have any input that can help me get the idea, please send it to me. That will be really helpful.
                                                                                             BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky[2007]; Rating: 1 in 5

I said “slap me thrice and hand me over me momma” when, after watching this film, I recalled it is Austrian by birth. This is a stinkingly American film. It valorizes, eulogizes, extols, lauds, and sings “Ave Maria” to all possible clichés Americans, oh! so like about Nazi atrocities. How many films have you seen about concentration camps? From the early “Young Lions” to our veritable “Schindler’s List”, there is one and only predominant cliché about the Nazis: they were a mass of extreme psychopaths with an insatiable appetite for unexplainable cruelty. A complete society and race of Buffalo Bills and Tooth Fairies. And no one even remotely as interesting as Hannibal the “Cannibal”. Have you ever seen a movie from America that takes the pain to criticize Nazi ideology? The concept of genetico-racial superiority? Have you ever seen the broad picture? All you have seen are either psychopaths, or reluctant humans forced to go against their “conscience”, and of course, the win of the good one. Catharsis to the point of “Puking Pastille” [I thank J. K. Rowling for the phrase. It is one of her very few noble deeds]. You want to know, why is it so? I will tell you the reason: America has not yet come into terms with the reality of the Nazi era. In fact, a large and predominant part of the American society believes in some of the most fundamental Nazi ideologies: Genetico-racial superiority, belief in super-humans (if you don’t believe this, then you have not watched “Rambo”), belief in being the core of the world (have you watched their ‘World Series’?), and over all, a middle-class peasant political elitism that exhibits a violent, and self-righteous bigotry towards every other class. Hence, America cannot afford to criticize the politics of Nazis. And what else were the Nazis other than a political organization trying to make itself the society? As a result, all you see are faux-documentaries, and human tragedies that are blanker than blank. Still, I understand the American Dilemma, and kind of tolerate it. But when a director from a country physically and metaphysically abused by Nazi ideology reiterates the same void craps, it seems to be an act of abominable sacrilege. This movie tastes like a bowl of “two-minute” instant noodle. If you have seen your films seriously, you will be able to predict every forthcoming sequence without troubling your mind. It is a blatant copy of American concentration-camp films. Predictably, it won the Oscar. That has enabled me to re-discover my faith in Oscar.

The film centers on a Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon Sorowitsch (played by Karl Markovics), who is used in an operation to create lots of fake dollars and pounds by his old apprehender, Friedrich Herzog (played by Devid Striesow, and the spelling is not a mistake) at a Nazi concentration camp. The rest of the film can be guessed by anyone other than zombies: the guy Solomon becomes a copy of the character played by Sir Alec Guinness in “The Bridge on the River Kwai”; he starts to compromise with everything and tries to survive. Bluh, bluh. There were potentially good sections in the film that remained under-developed: at the beginning and the end of the movie, we see Solomon, after the war, playing extravagantly at a casino. The character of Herzog had brilliant potential: he is an opportunist who happens to wear the Nazi swastika, and believes he will be “handling humans” after the war. I am amazed they never foresaw the potential of a film where a gambler and a crafty bureaucrat meet and we discover that the gambler was the prisoner of a concentration camp, where the bureaucrat used to be the jailer. Someone like Michael Mann would have done exactly that. But we are talking about lesser humans here. Frankly speaking, I am flabbergasted with these routine “Nazi” movies. And, like salt over wound, it uses one of the most disgusting cliches of contemporary cinema: jerky hand-held cameras, as if making a faux-documentary. It seems that the film fraternity has completely forgotten the characteristics of the genre called mock-documentary. it was the last thing, as a viewer I needed. Enough was enough.

I will instead give you a bigger picture. There is this lovely little 1969 comedy called “If it’s Tuesday, This must be Belgium” [Give me that lovely early morning bedroom romantic sequence with beautiful Suzanne Pleshette (the girl from “The Bird”, remember?) anytime, any day, in film or in life, I will lap it up gladly]. In it, there is this pair of couples in the film, one American and other German. Both the husbands use to brag about “the war” absurdly. The American part is at least true. The World War II is their moment of greatest glory, the point when they reached “humanity”; it is their counter-balance to their mass-inferiority complex about not having a racial tradition. It is the war when they became the messiahs of all the free men. They need such movies to boost their egos. I am not American; I don’t want to be one too. I do nod such craps. Not anymore.

This film is disgusting not because it is made by the worst director and the worst script-writer ever, but because it makes mockery of the medium of thought called film. Film is as much a medium thought as literature is. Anyone who insults that, anyone who treats like a piece of Weekly Easy-to-make Recipe for Tomato soup, deserves to be vilified to the limit. I demand a minimum level of intelligence from a creator, especially when he is pretending to be discoursing about “serious” matters. This film does not have that quality. It will get a 1 from me.

If you want to see a good film, and if you are downloading torrents (legal, or illegal, its up to you. It has nothing to with me), then try downloading Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park”. In him, we find a great director at the peak of his creative prowess. Twenty years from now, he will be counted as a creator critical to the development of contemporary cinema; his films will become standard canon at any film studies department. So miss at your own risk. And, if you are a devotee of Western Classical music, and also like romantic films, watch “The Competition” (with Richard Dreyfuss and Miranda-ish Amy Irving) on Sony Pix. The music and the characters will get to you.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, by Tim Burton, Rating: 3 in 5

As a film, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” has all the good and bad qualities of a typical Tim Burton film. Some will enjoy the good ones; some will overemphasize the bad ones. On my part, I am rather disappointed by this film.

From the very beginning, Burton’s films have shown how the atmosphere can become the most important factor of a film. Most of his films --- “Beetlejuice”, “Edward Scissorhands”, the “Batman” films, “Sleepy Hollow” etc ---- are “atmospheric” films; their virtues lie solely in their atmosphere. On the flip side, many of these films lacked coherence in the development of their story-line, which is essential for the kind of films they are. Same things hold true for “Sweeney Todd”; although the story does not suffer from completely unnecessary intrusions of characters like Michael Keaton’s in “Beetlejuice”, the story never becomes surprising or engrossing enough to make Sweeney Todd’s anguish, or his pained humanity seem true. May be the “spectacular” nature of musicals was always a disincentive for the film’s subject. At the end of the day, this film will be remembered as the bloodiest musical ever made on film that had a stunning backdrop of 19^th century London.

The film starts with CGI blood-drops that look suspiciously like diluted tomato ketchup running down blue-tinted gables of shanty houses. The symbol holds true for the entire film: it is mostly about blood ketchup and blue-tinted 19^th century London. This film is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s stage musical of the same name [the logo at the beginning of this article is the original poster of the musical]. Benjamin Barker (played by Johnny Depp), a barber, is falsely arrested, charged and sentenced to life of hard labor in Australia by a licentious Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman), who coveted Barker's "beautiful and virtuous" wife, Lucy (played by Laura Michelle Kelly). Returning 15 years later, Barker adopts the name of Sweeney Todd and says goodbye to his friend, sailor Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), who rescued him from the sea. He then returns to his old flat above Nellie Lovett's (played by Helena Bonham Carter) pie shop on Fleet Street. She tells him that after his arrest, Turpin tried to rape his wife, and she poisoned herself out of humiliation. After receiving this news, Todd vows revenge and reopens his barber shop in the upstairs flat. His method is simple: he cuts the throats of his customers and sends the bodies down to the basement through a chute. Nellie cuts the bodies up and uses the meat to make the best meat pie in whole London.

It is highly unsettling (I presume this. I have been a gore fan for long time, so it all looked lip-smacking to me) to see serial killers with operatic music. To heighten that effect, it is filmed differently than formal musicals: you do not see groups of dancers singing choruses, or anything of that sort. There is absolutely no dialog in the film, which is again very rare. Burton, surprisingly, makes the film more quasi-realistic than a musical fantasy. The London of yesteryears looks like Hell’s Kitchen in the film; it reminded me of the ghastly details I read once in a huge book called “London: A Biography”. Following recent [and deplorable to me. I have lived in one of the most notorious cities in the world for its poverty, Kolkata, throughout my life, and never saw a slum look blue in moonlight] tradition of showcasing any bleak part of a city through clod blue filters, the production design of Dante Ferretti and cinematography of Dariusz Wolski help create a dark, frightening and eccentrically skewed vision of London. Most of the characters have a larger-than-life and over-the-top feel of a Dickensian caricature. They all have deathly blanched faces, almost blue from lack of blood. One of the good things about this film is that all the songs are sung by the actors. It makes the words of the lyrics sound more clear and important, helping the story to grow naturally. It is something Woody Allen did in his musical comedy “Everyone says I Love You”. It also avoids the over-emphatic singing style of professional singers.

I wrote “Most of the characters have a larger-than-life and over-the-top feel of a Dickensian caricature”. The problem of the film is that even the principal characters are caricatures. It would have worked if the film showcased itself as a musical fantasy, but the quasi-realistic nature of the movie leaves us with a lot of unfulfilled expectations. Also to be blamed is Johnny Depp. Criticizing someone like Johnny Depp sounds sacrilegious nowadays, but I have no qualms in saying that his acting in this film has a sad after-effect of Jack Sparrow. I detected a slight backward tilt every time he delivered a major dialog. That backward tilt, strongly reminiscent of “you-know-who”, ruined my day. And at the end of the day, the character of Sweeney Todd remains a phantasmagorical caricature; his human emotions seem shallow, his ultimate redemption seems phony. Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow deserved at least an Oscar; if there was ever a performance that can be tagged “original”, that was it. From such a great actor, I expected far better performance. I expected him to frame the character of Sweeney Todd in a different manner. His acting in this film seemed to hesitate between sincerely enjoying the act of killing and feeling deep resentment for what happened to him in past. Too shallow by my standards. On the other hand, Helena Bonham Carter is perfect in her role. She is quite an actor; it is a shame that she still remains under-estimated in Hollywood. But the best performance comes from Allan Rickman as judge Turpin. You have to watch him to realize what a truly nuanced actor from English school of acting can do to such roles. His acting will stay with me for a long time.

There is a segment in the film that shows the true capabilities of Tim Burton as a director, though. Nellie, while butchering human carcasses every day, still dreams an insane dream of marrying Sweeny and making a good thing out of it. Her dreams are painted with heart-rending softness that stirs our compassion; it makes the character of Nellie surprisingly believable and familiar. Sadly, Sweeney does not seem to have such hidden chambers; it would have been a good thing for his character. He is either a chocolaty simpleton of a husband (in flashback), or a one-dimensional monster. I have a suspicion that Tim Burton wanted to create his own “Kill Bill”, but lacked the quirky appreciation of the genre that Tarantino showed.

The songs used in the film are highly complex; it is a miracle that the actors managed to do justice to them. It bears the signature of mid-twentieth century, urban style of music. A veritable Sondheim masterpiece.

The film has received tremendous positive reviews from critics. Why, I don’t know. Despite all the hullabaloos about this film, I found it to be a noble failure, and nothing more than that. I give this film a three. It does not deserve any more.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

Eastern Promises [2007], by David Cronenberg. Rating: 3 & 1/2

Before I give my opinion about David Cronenberg’s latest Oscar-nominated film “Eastern Promises”, let me quote the remarks of two critics:

“I've said it before and hope to again: David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and consistently excellent North American director of his generation…. (the film is) directed with considerable formal intelligence and brooding power.”

--------J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“What it's really about, more than sensitivity for displaced people or social analyses, is violence — hideous, gruesome, over-the-top violence…. For Cronenberg, such cheap sensationalism is business as usual, and this far into his career, that business has slipped into artistic bankruptcy……(the film) isn't about Russian gangs so much as Cronenberg's own dark passions not just for violence but excruciating carnage, which he brandishes mercilessly…… (it is a) a stifling descent into grim shock and disturbing awe.”

---- Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle

You need not take the second critic seriously; he belongs to a recent foolish trend of film critics (read politically correct priests) who stop seeing a film as it is, but as they expect it to be. If anyone goes to watch a film about Russian mafias and expect complete non-violence, then that man must be the sorriest buffoon ever seen inside a cinema hall! But in case you do not like blood and graphic violence, this film might not be your cup of tea. This film IS violent, but never over-enthusiastic about it. It also does not adhere to the genre regulations of Italian mafia movies.

The first critic is more to the point, but something is missing there too: this film is certainly not one of Cronenberg’s best, and, most disappointingly, it had every potential to be his Magnum Opus. It had the potential to be as influential a film as The Godfather is. It had everything in it to be remembered forever, but it just missed its mark. Despite all that, this is a better movie than most of the ones we are going to see coming out of the factories in the next few months. It is an original, engrossing, deeply disturbing film about identity, violence and the constant human degradation it causes.

The film is based in London, where Anna (Ivanova) Khitrova (played by Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, witnesses a 14 year old child, Tatiana, die in childbirth, while the child, a girl, survives. She finds a diary (written in Russian, which Anna cannot read) in the dead girl’s person, and checks it to find the home address of the dead girl. She finds a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant owned by Semyon (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), who is in reality a powerful boss of a Russian mafia family, or Vory V Zakone. Anna meets Semyon and talks about the dead girl. Once Semyon learns about the diary, he immediately understands that the diary can be used against him. Here starts a very subtle, polite, but deadly cat-&-mouse game in which Anna gets more and more involved. Deeply involved in this snare is Nicolai LuZhin (played by Vigo Mortensen), Semyon’s driver and a soldier under Semyon’s son, Kiril (played by Vincent Cassel). Another big player is Kiril, a sad homosexual who must suppress his taste to survive, and expresses his masculinity by manhandling young girls and by remaining drunk most of the time. As Anna gets more and more involved, even the lives of her mother (played by Sinéad Cusack) and her melodramatic, but simple uncle Stepan (played by Jerzy Skolimowski) are in danger. There is a huge twist at the end of the film that will send you off your seat. The film is not really about how the mafia works, but about a “why”: why are they doing what they are doing? And you will not get the answer until nearly the end of the movie. The script keeps its secret very effectively, in that respect.

The film has a very authentic look and feel. No one in the film uses a gun. They use razors and curved knives which prove even more effective, and certainly gorier. Director David Cronenberg explained, “We have no guns in this movie. There were no guns in the script. The choice of those curved knives we use in the steam bath was mine. They’re not some kind of exotic Turkish knives, they’re linoleum knives. I felt that these guys could walk around in the streets with these knives, and if they were ever caught, they could say 'we’re linoleum cutters’.” Precise and logical. There is something in this film that is very rare: while watching it, you feel that there are other unseen events in these characters’ lives, you kind of anticipate how they celebrated last year’s Christmas, that girl’s marriage and this boy’s first communion. In this respect, it reminded me strongly of The Godfather. But, unfortunately, the film fails to become an epic.

The film revolves around the acting of Vigo Mortensen as Nicolai. Vigo is a tremendous actor. He seemingly has a sense of humor too; he told the press that he styled his character after Vladimir Putin!! Those who remember him as Aragorn from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy may not recognize him at all. He is so deep into the character that some of you might become disgruntled: WHAT THE HELL, MAN (!), that man is not ACTING! He internalizes the role, underplays it, making his Nicolai fascinating and scarily enigmatic. Years from now, this will be considered as one of the most memorable mafia characters ever, right there with Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. Armin Mueller-Stahl is brilliant as Semyon; he is scintillating as the apparently agreeable, grandfatherly Godfather. Vincent Cassel goes dangerously deep into his character, Kiril; if you find him a bit too abrupt in the end and a little inconsistent, or banal, it is not his fault but the script-writer’s. Naomi Watts, as always, gives a precise, economical performance. Howard Shore’s score for the film is very restrained and economical. But personally I have a feeling that a more rustic Russian, Shostakovitch sort of background music would have been more memorable. There is a knife-fight scene in this movie that is truly something never shown on the big screen. Roger Ebert commented, “Nikolai engages in a fight in this film that sets the same kind of standard that "The French Connection" set for chases. Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark.” I absolutely agree with him.

But let me come to the most important part: the shortcomings of this film. There are two distinct flows in this film, the main narrative and a voice-over of the dead girl reading from her diary. This second stream seems somewhat artificial, shallow and undercooked. Instead of becoming touchingly humane, most of the time it becomes a placard for cheap humanism. In a pivotal scene right at the end of the movie, Kiril refuses to throw the child into the Thames, crying “It’s just a child, papa!”. The whole scene looked abrupt and forced to me. I am not saying that such human angles are unnecessary. What I am saying is that the film does not allow its characters enough time to gradually build that side. It seems as if the director himself did not believe in the way he was presenting the solution. I said this before, and let me repeat it: this film had the potential to be as great an epic as The Godfather. Instead, it becomes a very well-built thriller with an abrupt and pretentious ending. The solution comes too easily at the end; the tragedy dies a pre-natal death. It should have followed the character of Nicolai a bit more; it should have traced the tragic destiny of such men.

This is a very good film, but a rather disappointing one. I cannot give it any more than three and a half points.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

No Country for Old Men, by Coen Brothers [Rating:5 in 5]

When Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” was published in the year 2005, Michiko Kakutani wrote in a review, “No Country for Old Men would easily translate to the big screen so long as Bell's tedious, long-winded monologues were left on the cutting room floor — a move that would also have made this a considerably more persuasive novel”. As it is often the case with literary critics, he was absolutely wrong. It is the monologues of sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) that holds the core of the movie “No Country for Old men”, this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner. It is, at the end of the day, a post-modern (not in the hip sense) character study that believes in leaving more loose ends than answering each and every rational and inconsequential question about details. It hints at a dislocation that would have been unperceivable in any other era than ours. AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, IT IS A MIRACLE OF A GOOD FILM!

Let us look back at the words I quoted at the very beginning of this review. Kakutani thinks the novel was not adequately persuasive because he was regarding it as a Genre novel, which it, and the film, is not. No Country, as a film, is a subversion of a genre that is all too familiar in the American cultural scene: Psychopath vs. The Force of Good; it is also not a spoof or a critique; it works through the structure of thriller and chase movies, breaks through every single loophole, and at the end, becomes something completely different. It is a movie about something a little inconceivable, something that looses its meaning once spelled clearly, something that lurks just behind the our all-too-certain understating of contemporary society. May be that’s the only way of showing what is there to show.

In the film, Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brollin), a poor man hunting antelopes at the valley of Rio Grande, discovers the remnants of a drug deal gone-all-wrong. Bullet-ridden cars stand desolate; in this scene, not only the men, but even the dogs are shown shot dead. Moss finds a huge stack of drugs, and with his habitually cunning mind of a hunter, understands what is missing: the money. He stalks the trail of a wounded man and finds a satchel full of money. He was discovered later, and a corporation hires Anton Chigurh (with Javier Bordem in his Oscar-winning role), a psychopath with a “principle”, who goes around Texas with a tank of compressed air in hand and killing people with a cattle stungun, to kill Moss. It propels a cylinder into their heads and whips it back again; it can bust locks as well. Chigurh starts stalking Moss, which forces Moss to leave his childlike wife Carla Jean (Kelly McDonald) behind. The sheriff of the town, played by Tommy Lee Jones, realizes the danger Moss and his family is in, and tries to help them. There are other characters, such as a bounty hunter who knows Chigurh well (Woody Harrelson) who is hired by a businessman (Stephen Root) to track down the money, and other nameless characters in motels, swimming pools, on the roadside. Yet, it is a curiously lonely movie, where none of the three major characters are shone together in a frame. And that brooding loneliness hints at a strange dislocation, something I was feeling continuously while watching the movie.

Take the scene early in the movie where Chigurh walks into a run-down gas station and talks to the visibly shaken elderly owner. Throughout the sequence, both the characters jostle with each other verbally with a stiff awkwardness, as if something was just not fitting in, something was just not right. It was like watching an English missionary looking at the orphan child from Blue Lagoon with a nasty feeling that he knows the language but cannot understand a word. Or something even more subtle. Subtle enough to elude the gasp of written words. Chigurh makes the man call head or tail in a toss to decide whether he should kill the man or not. The dialogs in this sequence are undoubtedly the best-written ones I have heard in a film for a long, long time. If you watch the film look very closely at this section, savor the strange tension such crafty screenplay can create [Coen brothers absolutely DESERVE their Oscar for Adopted Screenplay], and, if you can, try to feel that dislocation there. Can you feel it? There is a chance that you may not. That’s precisely the charm of such great films. Personally, I felt that the dislocation is the unspoken core of the whole narrative.

Before I went to see the film, I was apprehensive about one thing: Would the film be about nostalgia? The name of the film at least indicates that. The character of Tommy Lee Jones constantly feels outstaged by the capacity for violence of the next generation. One of his monologues sounds nostalgic too. But, to my great relief, the film turned out not to be so. We have had a bit too much of nostalgia lately, especially a sort of snobbish nostalgia about the innocent, “non-violent” days of the past. That sort of stuff makes a film stink of shit. Being a fundamental study about violence (among other things, such as, chance, self-will, unspeakable evil. Other critics have pointed those out before), No Country avoids all the cliché answers and solutions to violence (effect of consumerism, television, homosexuality and whatever-you-may-have-a-grudge-against); it only paints a cinematically sparse and austere landscape that hides hints that are only hints and not answers.

The cinematography of the film is remarkable: it refuses to be stylish (as an unfortunate after-effect of the film “Traffic”, every movie in Hollywood nowadays routinely depicts deserts through extremely grainy deep-yellow filter, dark sides of a city through blue, using the most bizarre angles a camera can possibly find. Apparently, they call it “stylish”), it gets to the core of the ambience the film uses, so much so that the landscape becomes one of the principle characters in the film. It again shows that Coen brothers are one of the greatest exponents of the dramatic capacity of a landscape; they did it before in “Fargo” (using a landscape of blindingly white snow), they have done it again. The editing of the film follows the same path: it is effective, precise, and self-effacing. Surprisingly for a Hollywood film, it uses only 16 minutes of music, which is minimalist in nature as well. It was an inspired decision. Such decisions have made this film such a great one. The actors down to the nameless woman by the swimming pool do a truly swell job; I have seldom seen such perfect casting.

In my last piece about the Oscars, I wrote “Javier Bordem as the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (for “No Country for Old Man”) was again a routine choice, Hollywood loves its psychopaths.” I do not intend to change it. Javier is a great actor and has done mesmerizing work in this film. But, like all great art, this film will be easily misunderstood by most people, I fear. Like they called “Brokeback Mountain” a “gay cowboy movie”. I suspect that after this Oscar, many will watch the film the way they watch “Silence of the Lambs”, counting “nicely” shown “cool” killings; they will come out of the hall trying to imitate Anton Chigurh’s grin. It will become the benchmark for a new-era psychopath. The film will be lost in a labyrinth of deliberate mass-censorship. We are not very good at handling our own violence, are we?

So if you watch the film, try to look in closely. Check what is scarier: the chilling acts of Chigurh, or how the scattered symbols repeat themselves in the path of both Chigurh and Moss, obscuring the line between the hunted and the hunter? Why, after all the obvious evil, can’t we make an ethical distinction between Moss and Chigurh? Why do we perceive only a forlorn sense of futility at the end of the film? Keep those questions afloat in your mind, but don’t try to seek an answer. You might see a truly great film.

Making such an astounding film is a feat that belongs to the order of a minor miracle; add to that the fact that Coen brothers have done it before with “Fargo”. If we still stop short of counting them among the first three directors in Hollywood, it will be an act of blasphemy. This film deserves a five by any standards.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI

THE DRABBEST OSCAR OF ALL TIME!

Man, it was boring! Positively, devastatingly, petrifyingly boring! Every single one of those major Oscars was a repeat of the BAFTA awards (and Golden Globe, to some extent), other than the Best Picture award, and that was an even bigger drab, because everybody knew they were going to do so! No one acted surprised really, no one did a summersault (like Roberto Benigni), no one expressed anger from past sufferings (like Halle Berry), no one cried uncontrollably. The honorary Oscar, as always, was an insult.

The whole award ceremony tasted of frozen floor-mops, to be frank! Shouldn’t we sing “Te Dium” to its amazing capacity at not surprising us?

The presenter this year, Jon Stewart, did share some pretty cheeky jokes (about Diablo Cody’s past, pay check, and her name, among others). But this guy has this Cheshire Cat smile of some thousand watts that he flashed at the audience every time he felt he made a good joke, and that, my friends, was a complete turn off for me. Well, yes, I agree, may be I am biased towards guys who do not laugh at their own jokes. But my point will still remain the same: Oscar is DULL without Billy Crystal! May be they should offer him a permanent job or something, but they should not let him go! Period. The star announcers were even worse, Martin Scorcesse appeared humorless (may be he was bored too), Danzel Washington sounded like an over-excited circus announcer. Helen Mirren kept her cool. Penelope Cruz, as always, sounded as if she was reciting an Alexandrine verse in Esperanto! How can she sound so incomprehensible after spending so many years in Hollywood (and dating hunks)! I still don’t get it. The only saving grace was the younger Coen; Ethan Coen’s first speech consisted of four and half words: “uhh…..thank you for this.”, and the next time there was no improvement at all! May be he was making a terse point, or may be he was dealing with the situation the way the brothers deal in their films: with no baggage, always understated, reserved. Hat’s off to him.

People who have not followed BAFTA and the GOLDEN GLOBE might find it surprising that Marion Cotillard won the Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar. They should then, by now, know that her acting this year has swept virtually all award ceremonies (Cesar, BAFTA, GOLDEN GLOBE). Her performance as the legendary singer Edith Piaf is a type always favored by the American critics and audience: “authentic” biopic with a lot of make-up (makes the whole thing look more heroic) and tragic ending. It belongs to the tradition of movies like “Patton”, “Laurence of Arabia”, “Monster” etc. In hindsight, no one else could have been allowed to win the small-buttock man this year. Daniel Day-Lewis’ character in There Will Be Blood belongs to what I call “The Great American Acting Tradition”. He shouts, spits, smiles mischievously to a familiar effect of raw animal force, uncontrollable will power that feels like fate. It is sad for such a great actor to depend on such over-emphasized roles to win accolade every time. Hollywood, although never openly, always felt bad about underplaying characters; the greatest of under-actors had had a problematic relationship with Hollywood (remember Marlon Brando? Remember the fact that before “Silence of The Lambs”, Anthony Hopkins’ status in Hollywood was so miserable even after a film like “The Elephant Man” that he almost decided to relocate to London?). Intellectual acting is not something Hollywood adores. Hence the low number of awards won on memorable performances in comedies (I am thinking about “Sideways”). I have enormous respect for someone like Daniel Day-Lewis, and it saddens me to see how great actors are still forced to go through one, small, narrow type.

The Oscar authorities are famed for insulting great men with “honorary” Oscars when they are past their prime, post-prime, and post-post-prime! They awarded Charles Chaplin after they had successfully kicked him out of the country, and managed to not give him a single Oscar ever. They finally gave the honor to both Satyajit Ray and Frederico Fellini when they were about to die. This year is no exception. They gave the award away to 98 year old Robert F. Boyle, a legendary art director and production designer. Can you believe it! At 98 years of age! I mean, what the heck, check out this list of his major works, all of them were made at least 20 to 30 years ago! Here is the list: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur”, “North by Northwest” [Remember that breath-taking birds-eye shot of the United Nations Building?], “The Birds”, “Marnie”, It Came from Outer Space, Cape Fear, In Cold Blood, Fiddler on the Roof, Portnoy's Complaint, Winter Kills, Mame, W.C. Fields and Me, The Shootist, Private Benjamin, Staying Alive etc. What the hell, why did they not award him in the late eighties or nineties? Does it give them toothache? The old man took it apparently in all good faith, but God knows how he might be feeling about it now.

I am happy for Tilda Swinton (Best Actress in a Supporting Role for “Michael Clayton”) though. She is an exceptional talent, a consistent rebel; she wags an extremely sharp tongue and glitters with visible intelligence. That sort of an actress is becoming rarer by the day. She showed extremely bad dress sense in both BAFTA and the Oscars (in BAFTA, she looked like a psychedelic geisha gone loony!), she called George Clooney a “tremendous bastard” (I am quoting from memory though), and appreciated that slender butt of our UNCLE OSCAR. Hers was certainly the most memorable speech this year for me. I feel bad for Kate Blanchett though. Her performance as Bob Dylan in the film “I’m Not There” was remarkable by any standards. After watching her twice, I think Marion Cotillard sounds on the verge of crying almost always, which will, almost certainly, turn some men on; she has a very sweet French disposition, and she is certainly a very good actress (although, I have a suspicion, limited in scope) in her own way. Xavier Bordem as the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (for “No Country for Old Man”) was again a routine choice, Hollywood loves its psychopaths. It might prove to be a great thing for him, and help him get out of the zone where you only get type-cast dull Latino roles. But again, we must remember that the Oscar did not help Benetio Del Toro that much.

Best Director Oscar for Coen Brothers (“No Country…”) is a justified choice, but the award comes a bit too late; they should have won it for “Fargo”. They have been one of the most original directors in Hollywood for a long time, and no accolade will be enough for the work they have put in throughout the years. It is sad that many throughout the world are just coming to know about them because of an Oscar. They are great even without the golden statue.

I have a confession to make. When I first saw Diablo Cody (Best Original Screenplay for the film “Juno”) at BAFTA, I was more attracted to her amazing bust and her beautiful skin than anything else. It was very male chauvinistic of me. Many of you might recognize her as the author of the famous blog “The Pussy Ranch”. I have not yet seen the film “Juno”, but judging by other critics’ reactions, and going by the storyline and some of the dialogs; it seems to be a very well written film. I am looking forward to watch this movie, and specially watch the work of Ellen Page (Ms Cody called her “superhuman”, Roger Ebert called her “THE actress of her generation”); and I will also wait for future works of Ms Cody. She deserves a big congratulation.

Many of you may have noticed that all the major acting Oscars have gone this year to “non-American” actors. Some might call it an accident, I call it a trend. For years now, actors of other nationalities (specially the British) have given consistent performances in the industry; as a result, in the pool of contemporary bankable actors, you will find a major number of Britons, Spaniards and others. Maybe, just may be it is time for the American acting schools and the industry itself to rethink its lines, and check out where it is going wrong. As far as I am concerned, I feel that there is certain predictability in the acting of most American actors nowadays, especially the white ones. What do you think?

N.B.—In an act of tremendous bad faith, the Oscar authority failed to pay their tribute to the memory of the great German actor Ulrich Mühe, whose memorable acting as a East German interrogator in the film “Lives of Others” [winner of last years Best Foreign Language Film Oscar] is still fresh in many of our memories. They also failed to notice the deaths of Brad Renfro, French mime artist Marcel Marceau, acclaimed Taiwanese director Edward Yang (director of “A Bright Summer Day” and “Yi Yi”). Let us not be so obnoxiously ignorant about anything non-American, and pay our homage to these remarkable men. We will miss Ulrich Mühe sorely.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI