Venus in Fur

Enthralling and delicious. It felt wrong watching it with anyone else in the room it was so intimate and personal. I wanted it all to myself, to enjoy it in private like a sexy secret. I imagine Roman Polanski, alone with his wife and his lookalike, directing them directing each other, his own sexy secret.

I’d never heard the term “chamber drama” before I read it referring to this film. Like chamber music, it put the focus on the players and their performances with a bare minimum of distraction and extraneous noise. But, unlike a live performance, the film has the added dimension of the lens controlling what the viewer sees and how they see it. I was very willingly seduced into my role as voyeur and enjoyed the power Polanski’s eye held as his doppelganger lost his directorial power over the seemingly desperate actrice.

I’m still trying to understand the sexist dynamic but I feel like my own latent sexism has been pointed out because I reduce female characters to romantic objects. I feel guilty for craving to watch what Thomas clearly craves to do. My cheeks are still burning from her accusations. Is it sexist to conflate sex and love? Is it sexist to sexualize a woman’s power?

8/10

Only Lovers Left Alive

What is cool? It’s easy to identify but hard to define. How does Jim Jarmusch produce it?

Cool is the only word needed to describe Only Lovers Left Alive. I’m going to use it a lot and I’m not going to bother trying to find synonyms. It’s in the opening shot, the music, the clothes, the locations, the performances. He’s managed to take tired eye roll-worthy concept and infuse new life into it without feeling like he was participating in the trend. This film is challenging to talk about, like after you’ve had a really great day but somehow it comes out as “nothing” when someone asks what you did.

The plot is encapsulated in the trailers, so no surprises there. The story genre-hops. But this somehow isn’t a bad thing. The vampire/junkie parallel is so obvious it’s practically irrelevant. The technicalities around their existence, their little secrets and anecdotes led to a few ironic moments, but it didn’t seem to be the point and sometimes felt forced.

As a relationship drama it was more effective. Ignoring the backstory of Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) being in love for centuries, their behavior toward each other, their affection and the amount of physical contact they shared over the course of the whole movie was enthralling.

Oh by the way, Jim Jarmusch is in a band and they collaborated on the moody atmospheric soundtrack. That’s pretty damn cool. I’ve started to think of it as an extended music video.

This movie even knows how cool it is, which leads me to believe Jarmusch is consciously creating cool. As soon as we start seriously considering an entirely monochromatic wardrobe, Ian (Anton Yelchin) says what we’re thinking, attempts to mimic what he’s identified as cool–which is the natural response–and the central characters have a chuckle at his and our expense. So as an audience we are positioned as the onlookers, coveters and mimickers, wishing we’d thought of it first. So what did I get out of this movie besides a desire to furnish my house like an opium den and collect stacks of records and books? I couldn’t say. It was an experience, a series of moods.

 

cool*/10

 

* cool = 7.4 ish

Micmacs

It’s movies like this, directors like this, that give me hope for the future of original film making. not a remake or an adaptation or a sequel. Everything this guy makes is brilliant.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2588476441/

Alice in Wonderland

7/10- Ok this was a tough call. I wanted so badly for Alice in Wonderland to change my life. I remember nearly passing out when I saw that this film was in production. Tim Burton and Alice in Wonderland- it’s a match made in heaven. I mean even the Disney cartoon adaptation was creepy so who better to capture that tone with the trippy visuals and whimsical scenery? I know some people are getting sick of Johnny but I’m far from it. The hatter’s character was as deep as Alice’s, only sideways. The shifting accent and changing skin and eye colors were things I’d never seen before, especially in a live action character. If I’m not just projecting my crush (on the character and the actor), and I discussed this with a friend who noticed it too though we might both be projecting, there may have been a bit of romantic tension between the hatter and Alice. It was subtle enough to go unnoticed by younger audiences but I for one got no resolution. I’ve had my eye on Mia Wasikowska for a while trying to gauge whether she was suited for the role, and it’s not that I was unimpressed by her, I was just left looking forward to seeing her in a role that flexed her acting muscles. Something more outstanding and extraordinary. I liked Burton’s decision to create more of a sequel to the events in the books, I feel like it allowed him more creative license while still remaining faithful to the audience’s ideas about the characters they know from their childhoods. I’m not sick of Helena Bonham-Carter yet either. She’s darn good at going from silly to serious roles, though usually erring on the demented side. Especially in Burton’s films. One of my favorite bits about the movie was the Cheshire Cat. I adore Stephen Fry and I forgive him for having such a horribly crooked nose because of everything else he’s been in. The cat, though (because?) it didn’t have Fry’s face, was perfect. The ragged grin contrasted wonderfully with the glowing, thick, gorgeous fur, and the way he floated, slowly rolling, disappearing, popping up to startle you, playing invisibility tricks, was spot on how a cat would float. If a cat could float. And glow. My 3D glasses nearly fell off a few times because I found myself tilting my head while he rolled over, slightly hypnotized by him. If cats were like that I would like cats more. Now that I’m thinking about it I’m realizing how utterly natural it all seemed. I don’t remember being at all put off by the computer generated world like I was a bit with Avatar, or by the fact that there were talking animals. I guess all in all it was a good movie but I wanted to be blown away, and I felt like he could have gone completely berserk with it and he didn’t. That may be for the better, as it is I’m surprised it earned a PG with all the severed heads and fighting and scary monsters and slight innuendo. Though it seems the caterpillar’s hookah was more of a factor… Anyway I think any more Tim Burton in it probably would have limited the audience to his niche, vast though it may be, he’s still working with a story and characters that are a part of more people’s lives than that. Not disappointed, just less overwhelmed than I’d have liked as a member of said niche.

p.s. TRON LEGACY TRAILER REMOVED MY FACE AND LUNGS.

The Dog Problem

I watched an interesting movie last night called The Dog Problem. It was written and directed by Scott Caan, who was in the Ocean’s trilogy and the remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds, and son of James Caan from The Godfather. It starred Giovanni Ribisi as a lonely writer who gets a tiny little dog for love therapy. I was on a romantic comedy binge which usually does more harm than good, but I wasn’t expecting this one. Ribisi was what drew me to it, and I anticipated the usual slick dialogue and unrealistic plot that makes me both love and hate romantic comedies. It ended up being awkward. Realistic awkward. It didn’t have the usual witty banter that is impossible to reproduce in real life, it was full of silences and unexpected responses and less-than-ideal reactions. Ribisi’s tired eyes and messy hair paired with the female lead’s slightly over average height and weight (especially compared to Ribisi, let alone most actresses these days) made the film endearingly imperfect. A refreshing change from the delusion of mainstream romantic comedies. 6.5/10