The Norwegian film is making an international splash. The PR campaign has been a Blair Witch rip-off, but I’m really curious about this one. Norwegian horror will be a big part of my ph.d. thesis, and so far we’ve stuck to a very narrow genre definition here…
Category: To the movies Page 3 of 6
I defended M. Night Shyamalan when he took a beating for Lady In The Water. I found The Happening much more interesting than most Hollywood output. Now, he has headed into the territory of the fantasy epic.
It’s the summer of Nolan. Inception rules the box office. It’s a blockbuster, for sure. But it’s nothing like what we have come to expect from traditional Hollywood summer fare.
I admit that I was overwhelmed, and my review is here.
Having thought about the film some more, I want to suggest that it’s got three traits that are worth pondering, and that illuminate problematic areas in much blockbuster screenwriting:
1 – Concept and consequence.
The world that Nolan creates in the film… The basic premise of the plot within this world, or rather worlds… There is so much setting up, and there is a seemingly endless potential for expansion. Indeed, the first hour of the film is dense with dialogue and set-ups, which need to be satisfactorily payed off in the second half of the film. Nolan elegantly by-passes stereotypical Hollywood storytelling in this area.
I’ve seen some comments here and there by people who were underwhelmed by the action sequences. But for me, the ultimate trick of the film is the expanding time frames in consecutive dream-worlds, and the way Nolan masterfully ties this concept to the very-slowly-falling van that drives off the bridge. The way time almost grinds to a halt here, at least in one layer of the story, and then the shock as the characters are plunged back into reality… I gasped more than once.
2 – Leaving the device alone.
The technology that enables the characters to travel between worlds is never properly explained. Thank God! It’s a given in the film’s story universe that all the characters are already familiar with it. Some will say this is chickening out from explaining the impossible. I would say that’s exactly the point, and Nolan is smart enough to understand that his audience would not accept any attempt at explanation, and trusts us enough to leave it alone and get on with the story.
3 – Character ambiguity.
A key point in the film. There is no real hero in Inception. DiCaprio’s character is a deeply flawed and often unsympathetic man. Nolan makes the best use of DiCaprio that I’ve seen in a long time. But added to this, Inception also lacks a villain. Ken Watanabe could be seen as the antagonist of the piece, but this assumption quickly falls apart. Thus, the film becomes something much more interesting than your common blockbuster, and provides a roller-coaster ride that is also deeply intelligent and emotionally complex.
The counter-point exists with Marion Cottilard’s very one-dimensional character. Which ties in perfectly with the intellectual concept of memories and dreams as the film unfolds.
I still think that Christopher Nolan is one of the three or four most interesting American filmmakers working today. David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky are others. And I still root for M. Night Shyamalan, although I have yet to see The Last Airbender…
Tim Burton´s take on Alice in Wonderland has of course been out for quite some time now. The reason I haven´t seen it until now is mainly that I´ve fallen off the Tim Burton train. He has done some unique and brilliant things in the past. Big Fish in particular was a high point for me, and I have fond memories of watching that movie with my late mother. But his later works are increasingly anemic and passionless. I´m afraid Burton has lost his edge, or perhaps his love of genuine storytelling.
This is painfully evident in Alice in Wonderland. From the first frames it´s clear that Burton is merely painting by numbers. The characters are bland cardboard cut-outs, flat and lifeless. Burton constantly underestimates his audience: witness the casting and characterization of Hamish, Alice´s husband-to-be. The movie is trying to hit us over the head with the message “Hamish is a dreadful bore, and Alice shouldn´t marry him!” But in the end it all just comes across as bad storytelling.
So what´s going to be Burton´s next project? Perhaps an adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh, where Christopher Robin returns as a grown up, and goes into an epic battle with sword in hand to defend the Hundred Acre Wood? Or Pippi Longstockings, where grown up Pippi has been diagnosed as psychotic, and insitutionalized for 15 years, before she finally breaks out and reclaims her villa in an epic battle with sword in hand?
Count me out from now on. I´m not interested.