The French Dispatch (5/5 Stars)

 

The masterpiece train keeps on rolling. That makes four in a row from Wes Anderson and the machine, an ever expanding cast of remarkable actors, production designers led by Adam Stockhausen, musicians led by Alexandre Desplat, costumes by Milena Canonero, etc etc. This time, Mr. Anderson, writer/director, spins an appetizer and three course meal of the fictional Ennui-sur-Blase, France in the form of a travelogue and three stories of the French Dispatch, a fictional satellite production of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.

This movie is delightful. I came to that conclusion about two minutes into the feature when the movie takes about a twenty seconds to film a French waiter stocking a tray with an assortment of apertifs, confections, and hors-d’oeurvres for delivery to Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (played by Bill Murray), editor of the title production. Like Wes Anderson’s best work, there is a loving attention to the detail here that most movies lack the ability to attempt.

The French Dispatch is in a newspaper but is not really news. It tells offbeat stories about curious people. It is a pleasant diversion about a small corner of the world that nobody in Kansas would likely visit. I believe that would be the whole point. There are many small things in life that lack formal importance, but as an antidote to the daily grind, are essential to living well. This idea is voiced with beautiful particularity in the third story by writer Roebuck Wright (played by Jeffrey Wright) when he is asked why he devotes so much space in his articles to the experience of dining. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would you choose? You could do much worse than a curated evening with Wes Anderson. (Actually you can choose this, but without the Wes, he curated a version of pullman dining on a British Train. https://www.belmond.com/trains/europe/uk/belmond-british-pullman/search-results. Tickets are around $600, give or take).

The danger of the Wes Anderson experience, as evident in his first fifteen years of making movies, is that his upper class tastes can come off as tone deaf or snooty. He has by and large avoided this pitfall in his last four great movies by focusing not on the rich people, but the servants, artisans, (dogs) that cater to them. It is a delicate balancing act to be sure. Since Wes Anderson is so very much rich himself (I highly suspect), to speak for the poor could easily come off as presumptuous and contrived. He avoids this by showing an unsurpassed appreciation for the artistry, whether it be a lobby boy attending to his duties in a hotel, a boy scout troupe leader searching for his charges, or a dog looking out for his master. Wes Anderson merely supposes, rightly I believe, that the people who curate his experiences care about their art in a manner that is separate and apart from the status of the ultimate consumer. Do such people like the celebrated police chef Nescaffier (played by Steve Park, yes that Steve Park from Coen Brothers’ movies like Fargo and A Serious Man), exist. They must. If they didn’t, how could there be so much beauty in the world?

To consider Wes Anderson’s movies chronologically, is to witness a writer-director become increasingly competent and confident in not only his distinct cinematic voice but the very tools of cinema. The French Dispatch is notable in its sheer amount of sets and cinematography techniques. To take one example, the first story, is a news article by J.K.L Berenson (played by Tilda Swinton) that turns into a lecture, which narrates a story of a psychotic inmate named Moses Rosenthaler (played by Benicio Del Toro) who might be a genius of modern art. The lecture is in color, but the story with Moses is in black and white, until of course, it isn’t. That is, Wes Anderson is not just using black and white because he wants to be artsy, he is doing it to make important scenes in the story “pop” with color. There are several of these moments in this movie whether it be a first glimpse of a fresco, the taste of a delicious apertif, or the blue eyes of Saorise Ronan, and the effect is undeniable. The realm of moviedom has not seen an artist with such innovative control of film, as a medium, since Oliver Stone was at the height of his creative powers in the early nineties (see JFK and Natural Born Killers). Add to this is Wes Anderson’s interesting use of foreign languages (In the second story, that concerns itself with insufferably woke university students, all the boys speak English, and the girls speak French with subtitles. To be clear, they are all speaking French, Wes is just being interesting) and his absolute refusal to shoot anything resembling a conventional action scene (a prison riot is shown in freeze frame, a car chase turns into a cartoon).

But more than anything, what is particularly impressive about The French Dispatch is the writing. The movie’s screenplay, which Wes Anderson wrote by himself, is based on four fictional articles by four fictional writers with four different styles. Each story, though all written by Wes, leaves a distinct impression of a unique artistic voice, each one a very good writer in their own regard. I ask you, could there possibly be a movie this year that is more “written” than the The French Dispatch. Have you ever seen a movie, more “literary”. Can we just give him his first Oscar ever for Best Original Screenplay right now?

If there is a criticism to be directed at this movie, it is that there is too much of it, at least in one sitting. I think this movie, or something like it, would make a very good TV show. That is, since each story could stand on its own, you could split the movie up into 30 minutes segments like say Documentary Now, thereby giving the audience a chance to catch its breath between stories. The French Dispatch is an appetizer and three entrees in a row. We need more time to comfortably digest. After all, I haven’t even mentioned Adrian Brody’s brilliant dissection of the economics of modern art, or Timothee Chalamet’s hair, or the fact that I got to see Lea Seydoux naked (worth the ticket price by itself).

Sound of Metal (5/5 Stars)

 

It may seem like an odd comparison but watching “Sound of Metal” reminded me of watching the science fiction movie “The Martian” starring Matt Damon. When I reviewed that movie, I remarked that narrative stories usually derive conflict from characters: antagonists, love triangles, class warfare or crime, kiss kiss bang bang, but that movie had no conflict between characters. The problem was scientific (Matt Damon marooned on Mars) and all the characters were aligned in helping him solve this scientific problem (how to survive for a particular amount of time before rescue). The “Sound of Metal” is like that. It stars Riz Ahmed as Ruben and Olivia Cooke as Lou. Ruben and Lou are members of a heavy metal band. She plays guitar and sings. Ruben plays the drums. They are doing well, touring the country by day and playing at night, until one day, just like that, while perusing a record store, Ruben loses his hearing. It is stunning scene, made brilliantly real by the tour de force sound design of Nicolas Becker (give him all the Oscars) which (and I looked this up) mimics what losing your hearing actually sounds like (in Ruben’s case he loses the higher frequencies first, resulting in the ominous low thrumming sounds of the lower frequencies. But after this, and throughout the rest of the movie, there is not a single character that is not united in helping Ruben with his problem. Music was his life and the basis of his most important relationships. He has lost it and with that a host of other mental and emotional problems automatically crop up, not the least of which is his history as an addict.

Of course, “The Martian” was about engineers solving engineering problems. One of Ruben’s first steps, an incredibly wise one, is to call up his AA sponsor for advice. His sponsor finds him a deaf support group. This deaf support group is run by Joe, played by Paul Raci. As an introduction, he explains that what they do there is seek a solution to this (he points to his head) and not this (he points to his ears. “The Sound of Metal” does have doctors, and those helpful and competent doctors that Ruben sees do solve medical problems. But even more than this, the “Sound of Metal” has humans solving human problems, things that go beyond mere hearing loss and enter the realm of what can be pretentiously called the problems of living, or even more pretentiously, enlightenment. The “Sound of Metal” is a great movie and it has been so long since I’ve seen a great movie as a new release. I’ve missed the feeling.

            Movies are a collaborative effort and “Sound of Metal” is such a beautiful demonstration of that reality. Riz Ahmed’s performance is brilliant, but it is made more brilliant by the sound design which so perceptibly puts the audience into the experience of his hearing, which made even more brilliant by the choices of the writer/director Darius Marder as to when to tell the story through Ruben’s experience (in which we hear what he hears) and when to tell the story from a third-person vantage point (in which we hear what he should hear). These choices are flawless as far as I can tell. Some of them, and I am thinking of a particular party in which we hear a duet on piano transform from perfect clarity to the static discordance perceived by cochlear implants, have great emotional weight to them in the context of the story and of course the performances of the actors.

 

            Previously to “Sound of Metal”, the most prominent movie to deal with deafness would have been 1986’s “Children of a Lesser God” which was heralded as important to the deaf community and resulted in the first Oscar win for a deaf actor (Marleee Matlin). It is interesting to note the differences between the movies as a measure of society’s understanding of disability. “Children of a Lesser God” was about a teacher of deaf teenagers whose main goal was to persuade his reticent pupils to speak verbally, an important part of communicating with the outside world. He has a romantic affair with a colleague (Marlee Matlin) who refuses to speak. The movie’s climax occurs when she is finally bullied into speaking and we hear her decidedly ugly voice in a loud outburs. Roger Ebert had a particularly good criticism when he noted that in a scene which was supposed to give the audience the feeling of deafness (a swim in water) the sound of silence was completely overwhelmed by the musical score. The “Sound of Metal” has a completely different mission. The deaf support group would have Ruben learn how to be deaf, as this is what is most likely to bring him emotional peace and help him avoid a relapse into addiction. The deaf community is shown as its own culture, perfectly happy people who are fine with not being completely included in the outside world (although it should be noted, that the unsung hero of this group is the church whose donations make it possible). The climax of this movie is not an audible explosion, but a moment of silence.

            Riz Ahmed has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. It feels like the Oscar this year will be granted to Chadwick Boseman, a beloved actor who should have been nominated before (I’m thinking “Get on Up”) but was not until this year and only after he shockingly died of cancer way before his time. I know it would be hard arguing against it, and a little classless too, but I would rather Riz Ahmed won. He put in the better performance and the Oscars, if they have any value, are as a guide for future cinephiles looking for recommendations for great movies to watch. “Sound of Metal” is a great movie. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is not (see “Get on Up” instead). The more awards that go to the former, the more people who will see it, and so much the better.

Quantum of Solace 11/15/08

Sometimes Hollywood makes me proud. Most of the time it's through investigative documentaries like 'The Smartest Guys in the Room' and 'Deliver Us From Evil.' Other times its from small indie films like 'City of God,' or 'Slumdog Millionaire' (which I will review shortly). But there is also that rare time when a mainstream blockbuster will make me proud. A good example of that would be Blood Diamond: A successful message movie that masquerades quite well as an action adventure story. It is truly a feat to make a movie that is important to our time and still have a huge amount of people go see it. 'Quantum of Solace' is such a film. It portrays a sinister plot that is much closer to reality than any other Bond film has ever been (Thus it is actually somewhat educational) and it managed to rake in 70 million dollars over the first weekend. That means a huge amount of people went to see a popcorn blockbuster and unknowingly left with a generalized knowledge of how real world atrocities and modern government coups are actually performed. A viewer that sees this movie might have a better understanding of what is happening right now in the Congo or Darfur. In fact, this movie's nefarious scheme is loosely based on real events that took place in Bolivia in 2000. They were called the Cochamba Water Wars. Look it up. To me, seeing a bad guy doing evil that actually happened is a little more chilling than a bad guy with a volcano hideout threatening to take over the world.
What isn't realistic is how James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, is able to take down the entire conspiracy by brute force. He's quite a fighter yes, but he really is only one man. In many ways this movie is the opposite of 'The Dark Knight.' Instead of an 'insurmountable enemy' we have a 'indestructible hero' cliche. Bond is a man that can dodge machine gun fire, win fist fights in a matter of seconds, and spend quite a long time in burning rooms without getting too hot or dying of smoke inhalation. Still on principle I will give the movie a fresh rating. One because it succeeds, like 'The Dark Knight,' on a popcorn blockbuster level. And Two because I happen to agree with its political views, (unlike 'The Dark Knight.')
In comparing this movie to Casino Royale, it is hard which is better. Both have superior and inferior sequences relative to the other. The first picture had a much better action sequence. The second suffers from 'Michael Bay' syndrome. That is to say that it is cut so fast and so close that it is hard to tell what exactly is going on. Compare the roof chase in this movie to the roof chase in 'The Bourne Ultimatum.' They are shot in roughly the same style, but the 'Bourne' chase was much more effective because every once and a while they had the camera zoom out and give us some context as to the distance between the people, where they had come from, and where they we're going. 'Casino Royale' did that (with jokes I may add). This one didn't. 
The bad guys in 'Quantum' are vastly superior to Le Chiffre in 'Casino Royale.' Mathieu Almaric plays the very sleazy Dominic Greene, the head of an organization that is using nefarious means to take control of the country's water supply. Once they have it, they will create a drought that will topple the democratic government. Through their corporation they will subsidize a renegade general to take over. In exchange for the subsidy the general will grant the corporation a legitimate monopoly over the supply and a large grant of land in which the underground reservoirs lie. Greene possesses no deformity like regular Bond villains. He doesn't have weird henchmen, or insane plans. He doesn't plan on taking over the world. He only wants the water. What makes this villain so scary is that he is the face of modern evil. People like him are not a fiction. (Another great movie about an evil water scheme based on true events: Chinatown.) 
'Casino Royale' on the other hand was funnier than this movie. Craig was not so brooding, he had some witty banter going on. In this movie he is presented with situations that aren't so funny. A woman receives a tragic death, one that tops the gilded fate of an earlier bond girl. In this movie, Bond finds her on his bed covered in oil. She had been drowned in it. 
'Quantum' has a better bond girl than 'Casino' did though. Her name is Camille and is played by Olga Kurylenko. Camille mirrors James in that she too is out for revenge. The general murdered her family in Haiti. (Quite believable. Generals have been doing that for centuries in Haiti). She has been waiting to get back at him for her entire life. Olga has a perfect delivery and timing to her lines. Her eyes burn hatred. She's beautiful but has a face of stony determination. She and James make a great pair. (I loved the little details here too. Notice the vaccination marks on Olga's arm. She truly is from a third world country.) 
Overall Quantum is a very satisfying revenge tale and a righteous antidote to 'The Dark Knight.' It is one of this year's best blockbusters and a worthy addition to the Bond canon. Truly the entire Bond series has peaked in the 21st and 22nd installment.

Munich 01/09/06

This movie is three hours long. That's a long time. I wasn't expecting it to be that long. Once I felt the two hour mark go by I was always looking for the inevitable telling signs of the conclusion. I was looking for them for about an hour. There's a real problem here and it's all about pace. Spielberg is a genius in the commercial thriller sense. If there's an action sequence, this guy can do it. But almost noone can do it for three hours straight. A movie that moves this fast has only the energy for two hours max, Otherwise simpleminded viewers like me get tired of the constant action. Which I did. 
Another thing to point out for future reference. (Again all due respect to Spielberg, great filmmaker with good intentions). Thriller and 'prayer for peace' don't exactly mesh. He moved the camera too much. This three hour movie needed a slower pace to fulfill the time requirement. Less is more they say. Here it is.
If I must say another thing. I don't really know that much about the Munich 'incident' that this film is based on. After watching the movie, I still don't know any exacting details of what happened. It's shown in brief and only for the purpose of spurring the story of vengeance exacted by Israeli secret agents. I got the feeling that Spielberg already assumed I knew everything about it. Like what happened, when it happened, how it happened, and what exactly was Black September. I have a suggestion, maybe a little brash, but here it is: It may have been a better idea not to base this story on any real events. Maybe Spielberg should have just made the whole thing up. That way he could give his message, tell it the best way he can, and wouldn't have to deal with all the critics who say he didn't get it right. I mean all the characters technically don't exist anyway right. Right, exactly my point.
As I conclude I feel I must say something about the good parts. I liked the reality of it. The way that assasinations never seem to go completely right. That the assassins make mistakes. The fact that they have to rely on those who aren't trustworthy. That once a man starts killing, he becomes overwhelmed by the fear that those harmed will seek revenge. This movie shows those realities that most movies don't show. This may not be a perfect movie, but it is honorable. It's a prayer for peace.