Changeling (2008) A Film by Clint Eastwood

Contrary to pyschological norms, Clint Eastwood's creative instincts have arguably increased in response to aging. As a director he is more calculated than ever, and it shows with his latest film Changeling, the true story of the corrupt L.A.P.D. in the 1940's. His film depicts Christine Collins, a working class mother who is lied to by the police after her son disappears inexplicably, and whose well-being is unceasingly ransacked by the authorities that are in place, whether it's the crooked police captain or the menacing lead psychiatrist of the asylum that she is "thrown" into (or as it is so poignantly put by the captain, "escorted" into). The police return the incorrect son to Ms. Collins and she insists it's not hers ("because a mother would know," she pleads); in her attempts to prove her case to the police, her words are unfairly digested and flip-flopped continually. She is irrationally deemed as socially unacceptable.

These acts are all in the interest of sustaining the public image of the self-conscious department of justice. Without a doubt, you'll find yourself squirming in your seat in disgust and wondering if this could still be relevant with today's authorities. After all, they'd be hiding their flaws. Thanks to Eastwood's undeniable wisdom as a storyteller, we are allowed to sift through this question and an array of others. When the plot broadens to grand scope-juggling several bowling pins and managing to catch them all-there is a growing sense of terror. A heinous killing spree and a several fresh faces are shuffled in, but everything pieces together and maintains focus. This is the type of film that could have been burdened by sentimentality and incessant violence, and besides the forced clincher line that ends the film, Eastwood spares us of both of these Hollywood trademarks. Like Mystic River and his duo of World War II films, he exhibits deftness at handling a powerful drama.

In his earlier years, masculine shoot-out films reigned supreme in his oeuvre, but he has become more level-headed and actually brings to screen a largely feminine tale with Changeling. Angelina Jolie plays Ms. Collins, who Eastwood handles pretty well despite occasionally bordering on unrealistic. For a single mother whose son is presumably her life, she is awfully concerned with her chic wardrobe, and through thick and thin she is adorned by an impenetrable layer of bright red lipstick and dark eyeshadow. She works as the supervisor to a telegram enterprise so surely she can afford these items, but one gets the sense that Jolie just couldn't let her pretty girl image be tampered with in a heavier film.

Her sometimes questionable acting is balanced out by two mammoth performances however. John Malkovich (no surprise!) plays a passionately driven and active evangelist in support of Christine's case. It's rewarding to see him bark at the woman in the psych ward. Also Jason Butler Harner plays a senseless serial killer who is downright disturbing to look at. Tom Stern's Oscar-worthy cinematography is also notable. The lighting is superb in its sharp dark and light shadows, although for a director who recently praised longer screen time for singular images in his Sight and Sound interview, some of the greatest shots are often times quickly left in the dust. Fortunately however, Eastwood's amateur days appear to have disappeared in the dust just like Walter Collins, so there is only a promising future to look forward to.

Ordet (1955) A Film by Carl Th. Dreyer

After viewing two Dreyer films, I'm starting to understand the necessity of his plain and formalized cinematic language. It's certainly not a style that grabs your attention or demands praise. This puts the Scandinavian director's body of work close to two other understated masters who are thought of as the ultimate examples of truth and humanity in film: Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu. With Vampyr and now Ordet under my belt, I just haven't been able to find an affinity with the director's films, something that I achieved instantly upon viewing only one Bresson and Ozu film respectively.

Ordet is the most blatant study of religious faith ever recorded on film. It tells the story of the Borgen's, a Danish family living on a farm who inevitably build towards a spiritual crisis. Each character undergoes a significant transformation in the film: the granddad Morten Borgen begins as a skeptic of prayer and ends as an embracer of the "warmth of life"; the son Johannes believes for a great part of the film that he is the reincarnated Christ and ends freed from his nearly insane behaviors; the son Mikkel begins as an agnostic and ends with perhaps the strongest faith; Anders Borgen clings to the wish of obtaining the tailor's daughter and eventually is fulfilled, and the tailor has an organized fundamentalist belief which he reverses considerably, finally allowing his daughter to marry Anders. These metamorphoses are the foundations of the truly miraculous climax that ensues when the daughter Inger, wife of Mikkel, is rebounding from intense labor.

Although Ordet's ending is magnanimous in its optimistic, faith-supporting religious appeal, I found it to be unrealistic. It was rewarding and moving from a plot standpoint, but it is seen better as a allegory on the excesses of faith than as a palpable occurrence. Nonetheless the film is a complex, sophisticated work of art in light of its incredibly dry but focused vision. Dreyer strips his locations down to the bare minimum, revealing mainly white walls and mundane portraits on the walls (which curiously always seem to mirror the people who own them). He avoids music and manipulative cutting, resulting in hopelessly austere camerawork that usually involves one shot per scene. The visual style that I find has existed in both Vampyr and Ordet is mainly mid-level compositions that continually pan around the room to observe the action. I find myself wishing Dreyer would frame more delicately. I also believe that Bergman's The Seventh Seal was a far more interesting religious exploration, with the use of a pessimistic mood and beautiful cinematography. However, one can't deny Dreyer's place in the maturation of film as an art.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) A Film by Paul Thomas Anderson

Many of the films of Paul Thomas Anderson are like the characters in Shakespeare plays; they have one fatal flaw. In Punch-Drunk Love, his first and only full blown romantic comedy to date, real human emotion is too often subverted in the interest of all things quirky. With what was called a shockingly serious performance, Adam Sandler plays a nervous and impulsive small businessman who gets himself into trouble when he hands his credit card over to an erotic phone chat company. To me, Sandler plays his normal fidgety self, the one strength being that there is a pinch of him not thinking he's most the most hilarious human on the planet. His character Barry Egan can actually be analyzed as a socially awkward twitch rather than a self-inflated maniac. On an average day, a peculiarly named girl Lena Leonard stumbles upon Barry's workplace and he is struck with affection. Beforehand, he acquires a harmonium off the side of the street, which Anderson strains to connect to the plot, but ends up only portraying a pathetic guy's attachment to the random beeping of notes. By the end, as if by some stroke of miracle, he plays a chord.

This is all meant to be funny I suppose, but Anderson builds each joke up too anxiously with the help of Jon Brion's obtrusive score. The ticking percussion serves its purpose literally; when the tick stops, an awkward characterization springs up and then it starts back up again. The music is absent however for the most baffling line of the film when Lena whispers to Barry, "I wanna chew off the skin on your face." Punch-Drunk Love is overflowing with quirks. Anderson's directorial style in the film is at times admirable but his hope of impressing art film fans feels too self-conscious. There are useless tidbits of tye-dye animations that interrupt the viewing experience once in a while; they seem like a way of affirming that "yes, this is indeed a romantic comedy and is intended to be very flowery despite the frequent spurts of anger." I couldn't make much sense of their true purpose.

The visual style is beautiful and quite Kubrickian, like Anderson has displayed in much of his work, but he fetishizes it to the point of self-indulgence. In the scene where Barry first notices the harmonium on the road, a shot that relishes the grandeur of the long street is on screen. Then Anderson reverses this shot to look the opposite way. As if that wasn't overkill, he then proceeds to show two more wonderful depth of field shots. One of these images for a prolonged amount of time would have worked better for the action that follows the pensive silence. Although Punch-Drunk Love charms frequently and is pretty engaging (something I've left out), Anderson's gimmicks shine through far too much. The film is a declaration to the fact that Anderson matured in a shortage of time to create his masterpiece There Will be Blood.

Brand Upon the Brain! (2006) A Film by Guy Maddin

Guy Maddin is the type of artist whose overwhelming originality leaves audiences feeling powerless and in a state of stunned admiration. With Brand Upon the Brain!, the specific result is a disorienting trip through Maddin's auteurist mind, which has channeled the primitive days of cinema and modernized them to astounding proportions. He has always been an immensely personal filmmaker, leading some to peg him as a self-indulgent, overly arty experimenter. However, someone who takes such an innate fondness to the mythologizing of their youth and rummages the art of film in the process is someone who should never be labeled so negatively.

2006's Brand Upon the Brain! is a pyschosexual expedition through Maddin's zany childhood. Utilizing the techniques of silent film, grand-guignol, and experimental film, he devises a constant mood of menace surrounding the Black Notch Island he inhabited in his youth. His reinvention of these methods is evident in the technically sophisticated breed of editing he presents. Superimpositions, marauded speed-up and slow-down effects, and jump cuts are relentless. One minute, you may feel like you're viewing a student's flashy experimental piece, and the next you'll be in absolute awe by the amount of work that must have been put into it. In a Poe-esque tell-tale way, Isabella Rossellini narrates the fantasy of the fictionalized Guy. His mother is a forever watchful spy, perched at the top of the family's lighthouse, which is also home to a laboratory rat father and a legion of orphans. Guy's heart is melted by the coming of a woman named Wendy who plays a sweet harp, but soon enough she transforms into her brother Chance Hale to pursue Guy's sister. (Wendy's a lesbian.)

Maddin attacks this haunting fantasy with incessantly recurrent imagery such as "The Horn of Chastity", "The Kissing and Undressing Gloves", and "The Harvest of the Nectar", which is perceptibly the juice from the father's orphans. Odd, yes, but also humorous and enchanting. Brand Upon the Brain! feels a bit like childhood story time, except with a dark edge and a discombobulated mood. If you're a fan of David Lynch but also enjoy Charlie Chaplin, you'll find great satisfaction in this visual feast. When it was released, it actually toured live with a full orchestra (the score is a masterpiece on its own) and foley artist - sounds like something that would likely reverse my opinion of theater in general.

W. (2008) A Film by Oliver Stone

The arrival of a biopic on the current US President George W. Bush immediately sparked my curiosity. I'm not exactly an enthusiastic follower of politics, but I'm no stranger to the President's inadequacy. I couldn't help but wonder how a Hollywood film would portray one of the most trivial politicians in American history. Then I saw that Oliver Stone directed W., which is no surprise when taking into account the slew of politically charged films he has churned out in his career, (JFK, Nixon, World Trade Center, and Born on the Fourth of July among them). There were many people angered by the portrayal of Bush, saying that Stone was "beating him while he's already down". I disagree; I was pleased to see an unbiased film that never felt politically heavy-handed and was in fact quite leisurely in tone. Stone just placed on the screen the personality that is George Bush's and left the audience to decide what to think of him. The film is unlikely to reverse anyone's opinion of Bush however; it will only crystallize firm held love or hate beliefs of him and at best will make one sympathize with a man who is just utterly incompetent.

The film is well researched too, jeopardizing entertainment for a truthful account of George's ascent into adulthood. To an extent, his parents neglect him. His father, the successful politician, believes he's not doing anything in his life besides drinking alcohol. When little Bush realizes this is for the most part true, he clings to superficial religious faith and decides to run for Governor of Texas. With the help of his new nurturing wife Laura, he miraculously is elected. Josh Brolin, who's really making a name for himself after his impressive work in No Country for Old Men, embodies the President with all the intensity, albeit false intensity, that the real Bush exudes during his addresses to the nation. There are several other strong performances in the film, such as Richard Dreyfuss's turn as the far more decisive Dick Cheney. He, along with Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfield, and Condoleezza Rice, act as Bush's brain trust. They realize he is passionate in his political attempts, but it is inevitable that he needs a strong foundation to correct him when he's wrong, (which is a frequent occurrence).

While W. musters up a fascinating portrait of Bush, it seems that the timing of it is a bit wayward. Political season is certainly getting spicy, and that has taken the focus away from Bush. Had this film been produced five years from now for example, the result could have been a film with a bit deeper of a psychological study, and undeniably more historical relevance. At that point, the country will have already seen the fruits of post-Bush reconstruction (hopefully?), and therefore a biopic on him would be more powerful. Imagine if Ray was made in the 1960's; the effect would have been tragically impermanent. Unfortunately, this reasonably well made film may slip into that category, and the tacky baseball dream sequences and sometimes dragged on length won't help.

Killer of Sheep (1977) A Film by Charles Burnett

It's always special to see a film in which every frame breathes the personality and dedication of its maker. Charles Burnett's debut Killer of Sheep is one of those treats. The film looks and feels at times like a cheap 70's documentary, but beneath its hazy layer of grain, it's a heartfelt neorealist work. It revolves around a black family in a downbeat shantytown USA neighborhood ostensibly during the 1970's when the film was made. It is non-narrative cinema and can be applied to the "slice of life" cliche, where the main purpose is to establish a time, place, and feeling rather than come full circle with the characters. What it does is it keeps the characters at a safe distance, the closest being a father who works at a slaughterhouse yet yearns for a happier life and a more pleasurable job. He comes home to his wife day after day with little to say.

Along with the rest of the adults in Killer of Sheep, the father seems to have reached a point in his life where he should no longer fool around. Youth and adulthood is a primary contrast that is established. The kids indulge themselves in the understandable ingredients of naive restlessness: running around, kicking and punching for no reason, and playing rock wars. In the often times industrial ruins of the neighborhood, it is evident that they are making the most of their meager situation. The adults on the other hand have been through the vagaries of youth; they must deal with serious matters but too often seem unprepared for them. Stan, the father, appears to be the only one entirely conscious of this fact amidst the several wacky friends he has.

When the film drifts into poetic fancy at the slaughterhouse, the sheep are an important image to take into account. Cradled in pens awaiting their death, the sheep can't help but be aware of impending doom. At times they huddle together and flee the workers, but to no avail. Are these sheep representations of the adults in the film? Have they nowhere to run but death? If one looks at the latter question, Killer of Sheep has a pessimistic, haunting tone to it. It would place Stan among other memorable film loners who are all too aware of life's fate. Unfortunately, these rare instances of beauty are only touched upon. There's not enough attention paid to the sheep to describe the film as an allegory. Sometimes Burnett in his most sincere attempts shows us stretches of unadulterated life that end up being a bit boring. You can praise him for his compassion and ability to evoke nostalgia, but great lines like "I always told you to have a spare, but yous'a square, so you aint keep no spare!" occur a bit too infrequently. What's most compelling about these sequences is Stan's toddler daughter, whose girly behaviors are extremely endearing. Coupled with a lo-fi blues soundtrack that works magnificently, Killer of Sheep has the ability to touch emotionally, but at times it feels a bit like flimsy poetry.

What Time is it There? (Ni na bian ji dian) A Film by Tsai Ming-Liang (2001)

From the cramped quotidian living spaces of Taipei to chilly Parisian streets, What Time is it There displays the alienation of two souls with graceful sensitivity. Like the rest of Tsai Ming-Liang's cinema, it is contemplative and lingers on the loneliness of its inhabitants, but it also has a humorous poignancy that is rare in his films. Where Goodbye, Dragon Inn shifts into hollowness, What Time is it There delves into Charlie Chaplin on depressants. Most of the comedic sequences are very dry, but there are a few that exhibit methodical physical comedy.

The overarching sentiment is not a humorous one however; just gaze into the powerfully stagnate expression on Lee Kang-Sheng's face and you'll get the idea. He plays the characteristic loner in Ming-Liang's work. Here he is a twentysomething living with his mother after his father died, and working on the streets of Taipei selling watches. When a young woman confronts him one day and shows an interest in one of his watches, the two forge a mystifying connection. She informs him that she's taking a trip to Paris, so he sells her the watch before she leaves and proceeds to set as many clocks as he can find to Paris time. His actions seem trivial, but they also appear to be rooted in a kind of supernatural longing for the girl. Presumably to feel connected with her, he even watches and rewatches the classic French film The 400 Blows. Simultaneously, the mother whom he's distancing himself from prays incessantly in hopes of regaining the spirit of her lost husband, whether in his original form or in that of a cockroach in the living room fish tank. (The explanation for this odd sentence can be found in one of the hilarious scenes of the film).

The lives of these three quite Bressonian characters are observed silently. Deviations from the apparent "plot" are aplenty, but it's the cumulative urban remoteness that is important. Feelings of hopelessness are only eradicated partly by the meaningless erotic behaviors that the three engage in late in the film. Ming-Liang's film is substantially alienating because of the spare camerawork. There is always a feeling of existential detachment in the wide angled shots that reveal several important compositional elements before the faces. Not a single camera movement is existent either; instead the audience is left to imprint the gorgeous visuals that are forever static on the screen. Red, green, and black swirl at different depths in each shot, creating mesmerizing mosaics as beautiful as any shot in Goodbye, Dragon Inn. After the enigmatic ending of the masterful What Time is it There, I was left with a brain stamp of a Ferris wheel and loads of thoughts.