Pedro Almodovar’s
Bad Education
Reviewed
by Evan Sung
Pedro Almodovar’s
“Bad Education” is the centerpiece
film for this year’s New York Film Festival.
Almodovar has certainly made a lasting mark
on world cinema, and the film going audience
has seen his style and voice evolve from the
madcap comedies of “Women on the Verge
of A Nervous Breakdown” to his last two
sublime offerings, “All About My Mother”
and “Talk To Her.” “Bad Education”
continues to develop Almodovar’s maturing
voice, though never losing his absurdist comic
style.
Almodovar returns
to the cradle in “Bad Education” tracing
the story of a film director, Enrique Goded
(Fele Martinez), who is forced to confront his
traumatic childhood past when a long-lost schoolmate
shows up at his office. Enrique’s past
takes the form of Ignacio Rodriguez (Gael Garcia
Bernal) who arrives desperate for acting work
and with a movie idea based on the two boys’
troubled past at Catholic boys’ school.
The story centers on two schoolmates, Ignacio
and Enrique, and the young, forbidden love that
is interrupted and broken apart by the menacing
Father Manolo. In the story, Father Manolo is
in love with Ignacio himself, and expels Enrique
on the pretense of stopping an immoral love
between the two boys. Many years later, Ignacio
has become a struggling drag queen looking for
money to improve his body and support his drug
habit. Ignacio returns to the school where he
lost his innocence, and blackmails Father Manolo
with the story of those long-forgotten years
for the money he needs. Enrique, wary of his
past at the outset, is immediately taken after
reading the story pitch and begins immediately
working on the film adaptation. Enrique casts
Ignacio in the film and the two long-lost friends
become lovers. But Enrique has difficulty recognizing
in the needy and strangely coy Ignacio the young
schoolmate he once knew and loved. As Enrique’s
adaptation nears completion, he discovers that
all is not as it appears. The real Ignacio has
died three years earlier, leaving the identity
of this new Ignacio a mystery. On the last day
of the film’s shooting, the arrival of
the real Father Manolo promises to reveal everything…
Clearly, Almodovar
is not in search of narrative minimalism. Nor
has he ever been. If his past earlier works
owed a great deal to the melodramatic twists
and turns of Spanish soap opera, “Bad Education”
marries that tendency with the great film tradition
of Film Noir. Indeed from the opening musical
cues, the composer Alberto Iglesias pays homage
to the insinuating, noir-ish scores of Bernard
Hermann who worked famously with Alfred Hitchcock.
The imposture and themes of mistaken and assumed
identity also suggest shades of Vertigo, replacing
Kim Novak’s Madeleine Elster with the blank
figure of Ignacio Rodriguez. “Bad Education”
introduces a strain of hard-boiled fatalism
into Almodovar’s work that may surprise
some longtime followers.
But Almodovar
remains Almodovar, and expands here on the film-within-a-film
idea he used to great comic effect in “Talk
to Her”. Here Almodovar extends the idea
considerably, showing us how Enrique envisions
Ignacio’s story. All this narrative trickery
and illusion serve to illustrate everyone’s
tenuous grasp on their own memories of people,
places and events. It’s a daring cinematic
gamble which pays off in adding layers of texture
and mystery, while never going so far as to
confuse the audience. If anything, the film
is so structurally rigorous and complex that
it loses some of the vitality that Almodovar
films are so well-known for. “Talk to Her”
and “All About My Mother,” two films
no less serious than “Bad Education,”
still had the raw, roiling energy of emotion
and drama and absurd comedy – who can forget
the black and white film in “Talk to Her”
of a miniature man entering a woman’s vagina?
“Bad Education” asks us to feel moved
by the plight of its characters, indignant at
the abuse the two children suffered at the hands
of the clergy, but there is an inescapable element
of abstraction to the proceedings that perhaps
prevents it from working itself into our deepest
core.
Almodovar
has said that he has been working on this film
for 10 years, and that he made it to “get
it out of my system, before it became an obsession.”
Those expecting a roman a clef may be a bit
disappointed. He has admitted that there are
elements of autobiography in “Bad Education”
but I think that it would be a mistake to read
too much into that statement. In looking over
the past two decades of work, there is little
that Almodovar has not revealed about himself
and his life in all its shocking, colorful,
tragic, messy, comic facets. It is precisely
that impulse to self-revelation that has always
made Almodovar so compelling. Those who want
to see a world-class filmmaker who continues
to develop and innovate and challenge himself
will be impressed once again by Almodovar.
Miguel Albadalejo's
Bear Club
Reviewed By
Armistead Johnson
The story has
been told before; an unconventional person who
has no intention of ever having children, somehow
winds up with a child who changes his or her
life. Such is the story of Miguel Albadalejo's
Bear Club. But make no mistake about it; you
have not seen this movie before.
First, the child's
birth parent, Violeta (played by Elvira Lindo),
is not dead; she is just a drug addict who was
arrested on drug charges while traveling in
India and was thereupon incarcerated for an
undisclosed period of time. Her child, Bernardo
(played by David Castillo), was staying with
his uncle Pedro at the time of his mother's
arrest. So the question is: who does the child
live with - his uncle or his estranged grandmother?
The unconventional
parent is Pedro, played beautifully by Jose
Luis Garcia-Perez, the brother of the mother
in question. Pedro is a sexually active gay
man, who tends to be sympathetic to his sister's
dilemma. And as her brother, he certainly has
more sympathy for Violeta than her son Bernardo
has.
The title Bear
Club comes from Pedro and his friend's "classification"
in the gay community. Bears are big, hairy men
who, like club kids, drag queens or leather
daddies, have entire bars dedicated to them.
Bears are usually known for being loving, cuddly
and kind and have a following of boys called
(you guessed it) cubs.
The "antagonist"
in the story is the child's paternal grandmother,
Dona Teresa, who we find out has not seen her
grandson in years. She has purposely been kept
out of her grandson's life since the day her
son, the boy's father, died. The grandmother,
also played beautifully by Empar Ferrer, is
so convincing in her love for Bernardo and her
concerns are so well intended, the audience
is forced to question who, in fact, would be
a better parent for him.
There are no
easy answers provided for the audience in Bear
Club, no matter how hard the audience fights
for a "good guy" and a "bad guy."
Bear Club will make you question your own opinions
(something that seems to be forbidden in cinema
today) and helps illustrate the fact that, try
as we might to find them, sometimes there are
no easy answers when the welfare of a child
is at stake.
For more
information, visit http://www.mangafilms.es/cachorro/#
Alireza Raisian's
Deserted Station
Opens DECEMBER 3, 2004
Quad Cinema
Starring: Leila
Hatami, Nezam Manouchehri, Mehran Rajabi and
Mahmoud Pak Neeyat
Iran, 88 minutes,
35mm, Color, 2002, In Farsi with English Subtitles
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Deserted Station,
based on a concept the director(Ali Reza Raisian)
and Abbas Kiarostami developed on a photography
trip together, is a beautiful and stunningly
odd film about a day in the life of a photographer
(played by Nezam Manouchehri ) and his wife
(the beautiful Leila Hatami of "Leila"
fame), whose car breaks down in the desert of
Iran. The husband goes to a nearby village to
ask for help from the village elder/school teacher/car
mechanic. This "mechanic", unable
to repair the car with the parts he has on hand,
agrees to take the husband to a nearby village
to buy the necessary parts. The wife stays behind
in the village and while she is there, acts
as a substitute teacher for the local children.
And here the story does indeed become very strange.
Nothing much happens during the day the wife
spends in the village or station), but by watching
the events of the day, I was effectively transported
into a very different place and time. First
the desert and the village are absolutely gorgeous.
The cinematography (Mahammad Aladpoush) is beautiful
and yet, for some strange reason, everything,
including the mountains, appears sad. There
are hardly any parents in this village, just
a mismatched band of moppets running around
seemingly being "raised by Topsy."
And unlike the heroine in an American film of
this genre (accidental teacher changes the world),
the wife does not affect a drastic change in
the village, nor does it seem that she will
stay at the end of the day. She wonders through
the afternoon, a pensive observer to a life
that appears foreign even to her.
She teaches for
a while and then allows the children to run
wild. A lamb is born and dies. We find out that
the wife has not been able to have children
herself. Lunch is served and then she lets the
children go play in the train yards. Now I am
an American mother and I can assure you that
I would never allow my children to play in a
train yard. And during the afternoon play session,
there is one very strange segment involving
a handicapped child who was born with only flippers
for arms and legs and needs to be carried everywhere.
So when the children go to lunch, they carry
him/her with them. And then, when they run off
to play in the train yard, they leave him/her
in the middle of a field on a blanket calling
to be picked up for what appears to be an hour
or two. And this is not a plot point. The wife
eventually instructs the children to retrieve
their friend, but no one seems to think too
much about the fact that he/she was left behind.
Just think how that would have been handled
in an American film. Or in my household, "What
do you mean you left your friend, the one who
has no arms or legs, on a blanket in the middle
of a field? How many times have I told you,
pick him up when you go somewhere else? How
hard is it to remember a simple thing like that!
And no, you can't take him to the train yard.....
and on and on…...." Like I said, the
world of Deserted Station is indeed a
very different place.
But at the end
of the day, I could sense that they have all
been changed. Being with these children has
had a profound effect on the wife and the children
do not want to let her go. And since this is
an Iranian film, we are left with an open question
at the end of the film. She seems to leave.
It looks like she is leaving. But does she?
Quad Cinema |34 West 13th
Street, New York
Mike Bencivenga's
Happy Hour
Opens October 22nd, 2004
Reviewed by Jessica Cogan
Happy Hour begins like so many
other tales of the city - soulful music, view
of the New York skyline at night. But what ensues
in Mike Bencivegna's film is a very personal look
at deceptively stereotypical characters and what
happens when happy hour ends and real life resumes.
The story follows Tulley (Anthony
Paglia), a boozy smart ass who had once showed
great promise as a writer but has since buried
that talent under years of meaningless work as
a copy editor and about 35,000 gallons of whiskey.
Tulley is accompanied on most of his benders by
his sidekick Levine, himself a writer suffering
from lack of confidence and the inertia good times
with Tulley brings on. One night at "the
bar" Tulley meets Natalie (Caroleen Feeney),
a school teacher who doesn't like children and
seems tired out by life. The two hit it off (and
hit the sheets) and soon the trio is inseperable.
But relationships built on such
liquor-saturated ground are rarely stable, and
when Tulley learns that his years of liver abuse
have caught up with him, the dynamic of the friendships
shift. Tulley feels death's urgency in finishing
his novel - seventeen years in the works. Levine
sees in Tulley his own future if he stays his
present course. And Natalie must determine whether
love is worth the pain it can cause.
The film is very atmospheric
- great shots of the city, its (pre-Bloomberg)
smoky bars and soaring corporate fortresses. LaPaglia's
ragged voice over and the moody score round out
the gritty-city feel. And while the film is heavy
on drama, there are more than a few laugh-out-loud
lines- mostly Tulley's - that lighten the mood.
LaPaglia, Feeney and particularly Stoltz deliver
fine performances and play off one another naturally.
Despite the rather gloomy subject
matter - following an alcoholic in demise is hardly
cheery - the film is finally hopeful. You just
may not want to go out for a beer afterwards.
Chuck Parello’s
The Hillside Strangler
Opening Friday October 8th
Starring C. Thomas
Howell and Nick Turturro
Reviewed by Armistead
Johnson
Tartan Films’
“The Hillside Strangler” directed and
co-written by Chuck Parello) follows the lives
of two cousins who, after raping and murdering
(not necessarily in that order) numerous women
in California, are now known as the Hillside Stranglers.
The film opens
before the two cousins have begun their killing
spree; back in a more innocent time, a simpler
time, when a good night out on the town still
just consisted of a few drinks, a few laughs,
and some kidnapping and forced prostitution.
When the cousins’ stable of forced prostitutes
escapes after a shakedown by some rival pimps,
they find themselves broke, down on their luck
and extremely angry with women in general.
What are two sexually
frustrated, down on their luck pimps with no hookers
bringing in the money to do?
If you guessed,
“Go out on a savage, relentless killing spree?”
then… Bing! Bing! Bing!…we have a winner.
“The Hillside
Strangler” is a disturbing movie to say the
least. Not just because of the content, but because
the film seems to follow not the investigation
that brought the two cousins to justice and not
the psychological state of mind that would cause
a person to commit such atrocities, but the actual
rapes and killings themselves… in graphic
detail.
C. Thomas Howell
and Nicolas Turturo both give excellent performances
as the leads in this disturbingly perverse look
at two of the most savage serial killers of our
time.
If you liked “Monster”
(a superb film to which “The Hillside Strangler”
will undoubtedly be compared) but wish that the
rape and murder scenes had been a little more
graphic and lasted a little bit longer, then you
will absolutely love “The Hillside Strangler.”
Zhang Yimou’s
The House of Flying Daggers
Reviewed by Evan Sung
After the international
success of “Hero” Zhang Yimou returns
to his special brand of poetic kung-fu cinema
(wuxia, if you please) with his follow-up “The
House of Flying Daggers.” The film premieres
at the 42nd New York Film Festival and stars the
Ziyi Zhang (“Hero”, “Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) as Mei, a blind soldier
of the rebel outlaw army, the House of the Flying
Daggers. Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs) and Takeshi
Kaneshiro (Chungking Express) star as Leo and
Jin, two police captains of the weakening Tang
Dynasty trying to break up the House of Flying
Daggers. The two captains plot to trick Mei into
leading them to outlaws, but are soon caught up
in competition for the heart of the beautiful
outlaw, and caught in a tangled net of hidden
loyalties, plots and counter-plots.
This is supposed to be a film review, but forgive
me if it veers into shameless love-letter territory
for the amazing Ziyi Zhang. Zhang Yimou was clearly
impressed by the young Zhang, having promoted
her from a supporting part in “Hero”
to the tragic central role of this new film. “House
of Flying Daggers” is a showcase of all of
Ziyi Zhang’s many attributes. Aside from
her remarkable beauty, Ziyi Zhang’s Mei is
basically the toughest chick East of the Yangtze,
and in her combat scenes Zhang makes Terminator’s
Linda Hamilton look like a demure wilting blossom.
Though small and fragile, Zhang commits to her
battle scenes with a combination of ferocity and
elegance. We take it on faith that this blind
girl could naturally take on an army of soldiers
without breaking a sweat. But her elegance is
not only evident in battle, and an early dancing
scene in a brothel, showcases a feline sensuality
in her performance of traditional Chinese dance.
And in one scene where Mei has her robe torn off
her shoulders, the bare expanse of her porcelain-white
shoulder could well be considered one of the more
profound frames of World Cinema! Her shoulder
alone could have triggered a Trojan War. If you
haven’t gotten the point yet, the movie’s
ALL about Ziyi Zhang.
And how do we know its all about Ziyi Zhang? Because
we have two captains of the emperor driven to
betraying their own cause and their own friendship,
ultimately stabbing each other with swords on
snowy mountaintops in her name. Andy Lau and Takeshi
Kaneshiro contrast each other nicely, both believable
as friends and comrades, but utterly different
in character. Kaneshiro’s Captain Jin, is
the free-spirited, skirt-chaser who tries to seduce
Mei to get her to divulge the location of her
rebel friends. Lau’s Captain Leo is the by-the-book
and responsible, but his single-minded pursuit
of the House of Flying Daggers may not be solely
motivated by loyalty to the kingdom. In an amusing
plot-development, one can imagine Lau’s identity-conflicted
Captain Leo to be the 9th century ancestor to
Lau’s role in this year’s “Infernal
Affairs.” Lau has already proven himself
to be a very subtle actor, excellent in these
roles where motivations are multiple and unclear.
Kaneshiro clearly has fun playing drunk in the
brothel scene, flashing the Eastern equivalent
of the Tom Cruise-patented mega-watt smile. Kaneshiro
is charming but also traces the tragic arc of
his character nicely, slowly building up layers
of gravity and sadness as the film goes on.
The film is truly brilliant and to say that, as
a film, “House of Flying Daggers” may
actually excel “Hero” is no small claim,
given that “Hero” had in its favor the
phenomenal Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung
and the peerless cinematography of Christopher
Doyle. But here, Yimou takes the martial arts
to yet another level, and the effect on the viewer
is so visceral that you realize how rarely cinema
moves us in that way. The thrill of seeing people
perform acts of superhuman dexterity and power
is completely unlike the numbing effects of Hollywood’s
exploding computer-generated blockbusters.
This is not to say that the film is perfect. The
tragic lovers theme has become almost par for
the course in Asian wuxia cinema. And under the
weight of all this suppressed longing, slow-motion,
and plot twists and turns, the film itself starts
to bend like bamboo, threatening to break and
splinter. Still, the final battle is treated with
a ferocity completely unlike the balletic wire-fu
that we’ve been treated to up to that point.
The heroes pummel each other, and cry out, and
slash, and it reinjects the film with a shot of
adrenaline and emotional intensity that refocuses
everything.
This is only Zhang Yimou’s second wuxia film
but he has already created an indelible style
with two films that rely as much on story and
character as they do on kicking ass in high-style.
With a visual richness that becomes almost hallucinatory
at times, and a great sense of grand scale as
well as intimacy, Yimou sets the stage for the
stuff of legends, and fills it with great actors,
great action, and great romance. Oh, and did I
mention Ziyi Zhang is in it?
Claude Miller's
La Petite Lili
Opens NOVEMBER 12, 2004
ANGELIKA FILM CENTER
Cast: Nicole Garcia (Mado),
Ludivine Sagnier (Lili), Robinson Stévenin
(Julien), Jean-Pierre Marielle (Simon), Bernard
Giraudeau (Brice),
Julie Depardieu (Jeanne-Marie)
***Official Selection Cannes
2003***
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
La Petite Lili is a cinematic
retelling of Anton Chekov's, The Sea Gull,
and this time the setting is a beautiful country
house in France. The setting and the cinematography
are gorgeous and so is the cast. The young angst-ridden
playwright of the Seagull is now a film
maker named Julien (the utterly handsome Robinson
Stévenin). Julien is in love with a local
girl, Lili (played by the lovely Ludivine Sagnier
of nude Swimming Pool fame), who is determined
to become a film star like Julien's mother, Mado
(the divine Nicole Garcia). Also in the picture
is Jeanne-Marie (the also lovely Julie Depardieu).
Jeanne-Marie is in love with Julien, who unfortunately
only lusts for Lili.
The story begins when Julien
screens his film, an arty (but boring) DVD, for
his mother and her lover, the film maker Brice
(Bernard Giraudeau). Mado can barely conceal her
irritation and the scene explodes with recriminations.
Mado tells her son that his film is immature and
self indulgent and Julien in turn has nothing
but scornful comments for his mother's work and
the work of her boyfriend, the commercially successful
Brice.
Lili, quickly seeing on which side her bread should
now be buttered, seduces Brice and convinces him
to take her to Paris. Julien and Mado are devastated
and attempt to comfort each other, but they are
both too burdened by years of unhappiness to be
of any help to the other. There is one even scene
where Mado asks Julien to join her in bed. You
should probably not try this at home. Well, maybe
if you live in France and look like Nicole Garcia
and your son looks like Robinson Stévenin......but
even then.....
Then the film fast forwards
five years. In a departure from The Seagull,
the film maker has fashioned a happy ending. In
interviews, Mr. Miller has stated that he felt
that a young audience would never buy Julien's
suicide and actually in this reviewer's view,
suicide always did seem to be a little bit of
an overreaction to merely losing a girlfriend
and not being able to get along with your mother.
Julien has now become a film
maker and is in the process of making a film about
the summer they spent in the country as a group.
He has cast his own mother and Brice in the film.
Julien is happily married to Jeanne-Marie and
they have a lovely little girl. Lili, now a successful
film actress (but no longer with Brice), finds
out that Julien is making a film about their story
and piteously begs him to allow her to act in
it. And after extracting his revenge by first
refusing to cast her, Julien eventually relents
and casts Lili.
We then see the movie being
made. We see Julien with his family on the set,
directing Lili in the scenes he played with her
that summer. And we see him direct his mother.
And in the end, there is a suicide in the film,
but it is the actor playing Julien and it is just
a film with a film. Everyone is very sophisiticated
and worldly - Jeanne-Marie lets Lily play with
her daughter etc., etc.. After all, this is a
French film. So the story has turned inward and
Julien is now able to use his art to work out
his life. And since he is the director, he can
work things out just the way he wants them, and
like I said before, he is now directing his mother.
Alexander
Payne's
Sideways
Reviewed by Evan Sung
The 42nd New York Film
Festival closed October 17th with a screening
of Alexander Payne's wine-soaked "Sideways."
Payne, who has made his name with comic but
cutting satires of abortion ("Citizen Ruth"),
politics ("Election"), and the obsolescence
of the aging ("About Schmidt"), returns
with his most successful film so far.
Paul Giamatti plays Miles Raymond, an oenophile,
Middle school English teacher and unpublished
novelist, whose two years of divorce have slowly
turned him from plain neurotic to full-blown
neurotic sad-sack. His only consolation now
are his unopened bottle of 1961 Cheval Blanc
and his regular trips through wine country.
Miles' best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church)
is getting married in one week. As a gift to
Jack and while awaiting word from his agent
on his latest manuscript, Miles plans a week-long
tour of California wine country, for sun, golf,
and wine. Where Miles sees an opportunity for
some good old-fashioned male bonding, Jack sees
one week of getting laid as much as possible
before the slow-death of marriage.
On their way, they meet up with Maya, a regular
waitress at the Hitching Post, Miles' favorite
local restaurant, and her friend Stephanie,
to whom Jack is instantly attracted. As the
week progresses, a delicate dance unfolds between
Miles and Maya, both wine lovers, while Stephanie
and Jack share days and nights of simple carnal
pleasure. But things start to unravel for both
couples when Miles lets slip mention of Jack's
nuptials.
Wine country serves as the backdrop of this
film, and wine itself suffuses every aspect
of the film itself. In one painful scene, Miles
gets himself drunk at dinner after learning
that his ex-wife has remarried. As he staggers
to the back of the restaurant to "drink
and dial" as Jack puts it, the camera shifts
in and out of focus, perhaps the most accurate
cinematic representation of the feeling of inebriation
I have seen. Wine is a powerful metaphor for
these characters, all of them maturing, aging,
on the verge of really becoming themselves,
complicated, sometimes bitter. In one of the
more moving monologues in the film, Miles explains
to Maya his near-obsessive love for Pinot Noir.
When Miles talks to Maya about the notoriously
fickle and thin-skinned grape, we understand
of course that he could easily be talking about
himself as well. And Giamatti plays the scene
with a disarming vulnerability that hints at
the depths of Miles' terror to be with this
woman he admires as well as his quiet wish that
Maya tend to him with care and attention. Naturally
Jack is the robust Cabernet in this equation,
the jovial overgrown frat boy who goes with
the flow and thrives in any situation. But Payne
is not interested in simple dichotomies. All
the characters have tangled pasts, and are doing
what they can to survive, even if it means occasional
self-sabotage. They are human, and Payne pulls
no punches in showing us just how human they
can be.
Thomas Haden Church is a rollicking surprise
as Jack in "Sideways," considering
his sitcom-heavy resume. He is boorish and likable
and gives just enough signs of humanity so that
we understand why this Odd Couple would have
remained friends for so long. But, special attention
must be paid to the nuanced portrayal of Miles
by Paul Giamatti. Giamatti, widely acclaimed
in American Splendor, does even better work
here because he is not reined in by the rather
one-note glumness of Harvey Pekar. Giamatti
has room to move here, and gets to display all
his talents, showing us why he is one of American
cinema's most valuable character actors. When
his heart is breaking we see a torrent of emotions
ripple almost imperceptibly across his round
fleshy face. His comic talents are on show as
well, from wine-spurred flip-outs to a bizarre,
stiff-armed "girly" run, that Giamatti
confesses to be his own, and not some actor's
invention. Payne has found in Giamatti the ideal
embodiment of all the funny yet sometimes cruel
truths that all of his films have spoken about
America, our fears and foibles and doubts.
"Sideways" is a darkly sparkling gem
of a film. Add to the brilliant Paul Giamatti,
a uniformly excellent supporting cast, the beautifully
photographed landscapes of Northern California
wine country, and a jazzy score by Rolfe Kent
that keeps the action buoyant and floating along,
and you get a film of superior vintage: complex,
mature, delicious.
John Sayles's
Silver City
Theaters Nationwide
Featuring: John
Sayles (dir.), Chris Cooper, Richard Dreyfuss,
Danny O'Brien, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Zane,
Daryl Hannah, Michael Murphy and Maria Bello
Vote Early!
Vote Often!
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
John Sayles is one of my favorite
film makers. He is known for novel-like stories
that can involve an entire town. He is a master
of the art of telling a story through many voices.
Sayles has consistently championed the underdog.
And he has certainly written and cast an extremely
likable underdog in Danny O'Brien (played by the
very talented Danny Huston), the hero of Sayle's
new movie "Silver City."
Silver City is one popping film. Set in Colorado,
the film commences as a political photo-op is
ruined when the hapless villain, Dickie Pillager
(a dead ringer for George Bush, played by Chris
Cooper), hooks a dead body as he fishes in a beautiful
mountain lake. And dead things continue to pop
up in that lake, a totally appropriate metaphor
for this deeply cynical movie about political
corruption.
The plot is fairly simple, Dickie Pillager, is
running for governor of Colorado, an honor that
would have never been offered to him if he had
not been the son of Senator Judson Pillager (Michael
Murphy). He is helped in his quest by a Karl Rowe-like
character, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss). Chuck
Raven decides to hire a private detective (Danny
O'Brien) to intimidate a list of five enemies,
who he thinks might have dropped the dead body
into the lake in an attempt to embarrass his candidate,
the tongue-tied Dickie.
Danny then proceeds to use his
new assignment as an opportunity to do a little
investigative reporting of his own. Unknown to
Mr. Raven, Danny is a former reporter for a liberal
Denver newspaper. Danny lost his old job when
one of his sources chickened out on him while
he was reporting about some past political corruption.
As Danny starts his quest, he reconnects with
his former girlfriend, the beauteous Maria Bello.
He is also seduced by Dickie's whacked-out sister,
Maddy Pilager (Daryl Hannah). And during his journey
he discovers what happened to the illegal immigrant
who was fished out of the lake and in doing so,
he also discovers the underlying poison that ensures
that "things" will continue to pop up
in the lake.
Silver City is an obviously
political movie and a satirical take on the "family"
now in power in Washington. And in the times of
Fahrenheit 9/11, it can seem a bit subtle. But
in true Sayles fashion, the viewer really gets
to know his characters and by knowing them is
made to think about the correlations between the
poisonous corruption depicted in his movie and
the corruption that led our present "family"
in power to lead us into the war in Iraq. Hint
- it is always something about the money.
The actors are all amazing and
the direction is beautifully timed.
And everyone must see this movie just to see Chris
Cooper "do" George Bush. He is an absolute
riot and watching him alone is worth the price
of the ticket.
Mike Leigh’s
Vera Drake
Reviewed by Wendy R. Williams
Mike Leigh has done it again.
With his new film, “Vera Drake,” he
has created another family, the Drakes, and this
time they are “living” in the world
of 1950’s working class London. And as is
the case with all of Mr. Leigh’s others films,
if you watch this movie, you will know the Drakes
better than you know your own first cousins.
This beautiful creation showcases
the genius of Mr. Leigh, who possesses superb
casting skills, amazing talent and the dedication
to exhaustively rehearse all his productions.
According to press reports, before Mr. Leigh ever
turns on a camera, he painstakingly creates a
world, a universe and a family. He does this by
first casting the film and then having a several
month long improvisation/rehearsal process before
he writes his script. And through this process,
his stars become their characters - living breathing
people with relationships, histories and untold
stories that you can see in their eyes.
When you are watching a Mike
Leigh film, the actors are so believable it is
hard to realize that you are not watching some
kind of spy camera documentary. And so it is with
Leigh’s “Vera Drake,” a story about
a 1950’s era char woman with a heart of gold
who “helps out girls who are in trouble.”
Vera (played by the incomparable Imelda Staunton)
bustles through life helping people, dispensing
cheer, tea, advice and a douche bag filled with
soapy water.
In the first half of the story
we follow Vera with her family - we see Vera bustling
about London, calling on the sick and caring for
her invalid mother. And when leaving one apartment
she runs into a lost soul, Reg (played by Eddie
Marsan), she promptly invites him to dinner as
a possible suitor for her dumpy daughter, Ethel
(Alex Kelly). We also see Vera working as a char
in the homes of well-to-do middle class families.
At one such home she see the daughter of the family,
Sally (Sally Hawkins), who in a side story not
seen by Vera, obtains an abortion through the
method then available for women of means - visiting
a psychiatrist and getting a “doctor’s
note.” The film also shows the other house
calls Vera makes, the ones she makes to scared
young women, the house calls where Vera’s
request for a kettle of hot water does not mean
she is going to make a cup of tea.
In the second half of
the movie, one of Vera’s “patients”
becomes ill and the police come to arrest Vera.
No one in her family knew that Vera was a backstreet
abortionist and the rest of the film follows the
family’s reactions, the resulting criminal
trial and Vera’s imprisonment. Vera’s
husband, Stan (played by Phil Davis), stifles
his shock and stands by the woman he loves. Ethel’s
sad-sack suitor, Reg (Eddie Marsan), comes through
like a champ, resolutely supporting his new family-to-be.
Ethel’s son Sid (Daniel Mays), who we see
earlier trying to pick up loose women, is shocked
and dismayed that his mother is killing “little
babies,” with no realization that he himself
might have had need for such services. But in
the end, all the men of the family come around
and support Vera. Because in the end, “Vera
Drake” is a film about love, not abortion
– about the love that Vera has for her family
and for all lost souls and the love her family
has for her. Bravo!
Starring: Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadbent, Phil
Davis, Peter Wright, Adrian Scarborough, Heather
Craney, Daniel Mays, Alex Kelly, Sally Hawkins,
Eddie Marsan, Ruth Sheen, Helen Coker, Martin
Savage, Sinead Matthews, Fenella Wollgar
