stickslip Reviews

Avatar (2009)

Matrix Gone Organic

[6/10 · 22 December 2009]

Nowadays, the only reason to watch movies in theaters is to see spectacle. What's the point of going to see small, domestic melodramas on the big screen? It is reserved for larger than life narratives, characters, settings--like theater for classical Greeks, who loved to see the high and mighty fall, or the arena for decadent Romans, who salivated at the smell of blood. James Cameron's "Avatar" delivers one of the most magnificent cinematic spectacle since the parting of the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments" (1956), or the otherworldliness of "Star Wars" (1977). The devil is in the details: the ecosystem of its alternate world is richly textured, the color palette pure eye-candy, the fantastic creatures rendered as expressively as Gollum. The blue-skinned Na'vi are an amalgam of postcolonial otherness--Native American Indians/Maasai warriors with panther-like visages. The avatars which allow humans to live vicariously like the Na'vi--in an organic form of "The Matrix"'s (1999) virtual reality--represent the final fantasy for the Western frontiersman, i.e., to experience the wilderness like the natives. "Avatar", however, is not "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), or, for that matter, "Another Sky" (1954). Here, alterity is quickly reduced (more like bulldozed) to the same.

It seems that Cameron invested all his creative mojo in the CGI and left the story and character development to hacks. Oh, wait, *he is the screenwriter*! No wonder the plot is titanically derivative. The concept is basically rehashed from the eco-cartoon "FernGully" (1992) (I think they should sue!), but the tree sap here is thicker with Green and anti-war platitudes. Cardboard-box villains deliver unbelievably coarse lines such as "failure of diplomacy", "we will fight terror with terror", "some sort of shock-and-awe campaign". Give me a break! Spare us the tedious liberal sanctimoniousness. If Cameron had an ear for satire the same lines could have actually been made to be funny, like in the ebullient celebration of fascism of "Starship Troopers" (1997).

With the perfection of motion-capture technology--which seems to be the (yawn) main point of the movie--perhaps Cameron can pick up a few story-telling skills from ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker" (2008)) for his next scifi war flick.

(This review also appears in stickslip.wordpress.com as "Avatar: Matrix Gone Organic")

Insiang (1976)

my favorite Lino Brocka film

[8/10 · 26 January 2009]

I found two early Lino Brocka films on Netflix: "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" (1974) and "Insiang" (1976). Both belong to the short list of Brocka's finest works from the 1970's to the early 1980's.

"Insiang", starring Hilda Koronel, Mona Lisa, and Ruel Vernal, has the reputation of the first Filipino film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival (1978). It is without reservation my favorite Brocka film. Shot in the slums of Tondo through neorealist lenses, its domestic melodrama at the same time aspires to Greek tragedy. It is Brocka's tightest, most well composed film; the character's fates play out inevitably from the opening slaughterhouse scene to the catastrophic last act. As usual, Brocka brings levity to the nastiness of poverty with cinema verité details, as when Tonya very publicly throws out a clan of in-laws living in her shanty. She demands the clothes she had given the children to be handed back; their mother, outraged, strips off the garments from the bewildered kids right there on the streets. This, for me, is the 'punctum' of the film, as Barthes would say. There is another: at the end, when Insiang visits Tonya in prison, she confesses to her mother that she deliberately provoked her jealousy in order to get back at Dado; Insiang rushes to embrace her, and there, for a split second, Tonya's expression yields to motherly tenderness, before quickly turning, once again, into that of the jealous rival.

Brocka's films are are always marked by strong acting, not just from the stars, but also from the rest of the cast; there is a feeling of an ensemble effort, which is not unexpected, since Brocka brings with him the crew of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) Kalinangan Ensemble. I saw "Insiang" for the first time on the big screen when a print restored by the French government was played in a Makati theater. Mona Lisa, silver-haired, graced the screening.

(This review also appears in stickslip.wordpress.com as "Two Early Brocka Films: 'Insiang' and 'Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang'")

Iron Man (2008)

marvelous Marvel

[7/10 · 26 January 2009]

With "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk", Marvel has finally arrived at a top form of the superhero movie. Granted, as Roger Ebert noted, that its themes are not as multi-layered as the Ang Lee version, nor its characters as complex and ambivalent (Bruce Banner: "When it happens, when it comes over me, when I totally lose control … I like it."), I still prefer this Hulk incarnation precisely because it does not take itself too seriously, and simply delivers a popcorn movie with a tight plot, wit and humor, and, dare I say, ample CGI whizz-bang.

Critics who complain about the lack of investment in meaning and psychology have obviously not read comic books. Not that such works are deficient in meaning, rather, they generate it differently, than say the realism of 19th century novels. Comic books do not aspire to realism, but rather to formula and stereotyping (cartoon), much like soap operas. They are most effective when their audience recognize the class of forms they are citing: "this is the part where the bad guy gets his just desserts", and exactly how he gets it–how the premise was set up and the story cleverly told–is what makes or brakes the deal.

This is precisely my frustration with the first two X-men movies–they were too solemn, too much trying to make a point, too busy filling their cup with meaning extraneous to propelling the narrative. They felt too held-back, saddled, as if reluctant in being superhero movies. "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk", on the other hand, joyfully embraced the genre, dropped all pretensions of meaning, and delivered the comic book goods.

(This review also appeared in stickslip.wordpress.com as "'The Incredible Hulk': Marvelous Marvel")

The Dark Knight (2008)

Heath Ledger makes 'The Dark Knight' darker

[7/10 · 26 January 2009]

Heath Ledger, playing Batman's arch-enemy The Joker, elevates the character into mythic status in "The Dark Knight". Forget Cesar Romero's and Jack Nicholson's campy take on the character. Ledger's Joker is no joke. He is not just 'the bad guy', the evil villain serving as foil to Batman's hero. His sociopathy is beyond good and evil: it thwarts the very possibility of moral order. It is like a force of Nature, a principle of chaos. His Joker is the Tarot's Fool, the Dahomey's Legba, the Eddas' Loki, the commedia dell'arte's Pulcinella (Punch). He gets away with anything through deception, thievery, even murder. He is the malignant embodiment of the archetypal trickster.

(This review also appears in stickslip.wordpress.com as "Heath Ledger's Joker is No Joke")

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

A meditative take on one of the legends of the Old West

[8/10 · 25 January 2009]

Andrew Dominik's film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" meditates on the hero cult, and the complicity between the obsessive and its object of obsession. Yes, the right word to describe this odd Western is *meditative*, for it ruminates on its subject, in slow takes that settles on minute gestures, in lyrical narration that seems to pause than to advance the narrative, in dirge-like music with the rhythm of slowly melting snow, and the impeccable photography of landscapes of desaturated palettes like an Andrew Wyeth canvas.

Critics were split over this movie. Some found its pace (at 152 min) too much of an ordeal, faulting the writer/director for the waste of time on this meandering and self-indulgent 'doily' of a Western (The Hollywood Reporter, Salon). What else can be added to the story of Jesse James and Robert Ford that hasn't been told, that would merit such long-winded treatment? The answer: the protracted anguish of both characters, deftly portrayed by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. Pitt is back in form since "A River Runs Through It", infusing the screen with both menace and sympathy with his Jesse James. In contrast Affleck's Ford squeaks in a feeble voice, gazes like a pained animal, and is both pitiful and creepy. Contrary to complaints, both characters are obsessively watchable, and the movie does hook you in its lilting rhythm; the small details do build up and accrue, and resolve into a final clarity. And here, I agree with Variety:

"But any sense of viewer impatience is soon overtaken by the film's accumulation of detail on every front--narrative, historical, folkloric, behavioral and psychological. Pitching the dialogue in a way that neatly injects prairie twang with a literary lyricism, Dominik settles into an expansive narrative strategy of the sort often found in novels and longform series, wherein the story skips and meanders among events whose relevance and meaning may be initially unclear, but which are all there for good reasons." (Variety, 31 Aug 2007)

You need the stamina from reading 19th century novels, or watching a Kurosawa take with the camera planted on the tripod whilst actors play out the scene, to earn the rewards of this film. And it is finally rewarding.

(A long version of this review appears in: stickslip.wordpress.com as "That Dirty Little Coward That Shot Mr. Howard")