The Illusionist
Neil Burger, 2006
A stage magician (Edward Norton) butts heads with the crown prince of Vienna (Rufus Sewell) – first over a shared love (Jessica Biel), later as an attempt to avenge her murder at the Prince’s hand.When The Illusionist was released, I completely overlooked it. After all, it was the “other” period piece about magicians that came out around the same time as the superior The Prestige. It may not be a match for Christopher Nolan’s film, but it’s a decent, if unexciting piece in its own right, and is certainly worth seeing.
The film’s greatest strength is the cinematography. Everything is bathed in shades of yellow and brown, with lots of blown-out, gauzy highlights and deep shadows. It’s all quite lovely to look at. The acting is a bit more of a mixed bag. Edward Norton is terrific as Eisenheim the performer, but never seems to quite get a handle on his off-stage persona. Rufus Sewell is effective but a little hammy, and Jessica Biel is kind of a non-presence. Surprisingly to me, Paul Giamatti, as the inspector caught in the middle between Eisenheim and the Prince, runs away with the picture, though. I’m not really a fan, based on the typical Giamatti persona that seems to show up in nearly all of his movies, but he impressed me quite a bit here.
Unfortunately, despite the beautiful cinematography, the interesting story, and the strength of Giamatti’s performance, things just never really come to life. This is a classic example of a whole that is less than the sum of its parts. There’s a sort of malaise over the whole thing – events just kind of happen, and the dramatic moments don’t really have any drama. This is a problem, because the lengths that several characters go to require a certain degree of passion, which just never comes across. To some degree, this is by design – there’s a very deliberate old-fashioned feel to the filmmaking – but something went wrong between intent and execution.
6.5/10
Tsotsi
Gavin Hood, 2006
A young thug (Presley Chweneyagae) nicknamed Tsotsi (which literally translates as thug) accidentally kidnaps an infant and becomes a better person because of it.Two facts about Tsotsi immediately come to mind. First, it’s an academy award winner for best foreign film. Second, it comes from the director of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. These two facts create very different expectations. The truth, of course, lies in between. What we have in Tsotsi is an interesting story that isn’t as fully fleshed out as it needed to be, probably a result of compressing it down from the original novel.
The main issue in that regard is that Tsotsi only interacts with the child in a few scenes, which reduces it to a life-changing symbol. The story still makes sense because we know that a child represents innocence, and that in order to care for it, he has to take on a new role he’s uncomfortable with, but it remains abstract. This is compounded by the fact that Chweneyagae’s performance is (by design, most likely) somewhat inscrutable. Tsotsi’s friend Aap actually had a more fully realized and motivated arc.
On the plus side, most of the scenes are very effective when taken individually, with the murder on the subway and Tsotsi’s terrorizing of a crippled man as standouts. The lighting is very aggressive, in that 80’s era Joel Silver production sort of way. I definitely enjoyed looking at it. In the end, I can’t quite recommend it, but you could do far worse.
4.5/10
L'année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad)
Alain Resnais, 1962
I’m not even going to try.This movie is pretty damned unsettling. From the constantly prowling camera to the dissonant organ score to Sacha Pitoeff’s Karloff-like glowering and Giorgio Albertazzi’s Lugosi-stare, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a horror movie, rather than a French art film. Throughout the film, I had a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if something terrible was about to happen or – even worse, that it was already happening, and I just didn’t recognize it. And perhaps I was right – after watching the whole thing, I am leaning toward viewing it as a ghost story. There’s as much evidence for that as there is for any other interpretation, although to be honest, it probably doesn’t matter very much.
Aesthetically speaking, Last Year at Marienbad is pretty terrific. The hotel in which it takes place is filled with long, ornate corridors that the camera continuously roams through, which are complimented by a series of paintings that represent additional space – a room, a garden, another corridor – that illuminate the artifice/reality dichotomy that pervades the entire picture. The garden that serves as the central location looks almost like a painting itself – if I didn’t see the actors walking through it in three dimensions, I’d be tempted to assume that’s what it was. Really, I could go on and on about all of the fascinating things in this movie. I haven’t even touched on the frozen people, the matchstick game, or Delphine Seyrig’s bizarre poses.
That’s not to say the movie is perfect – it is one of the artiest of the art films, filled with surrealistic imagery, a plot that falls somewhere between perfunctory and non-existent, and no easy answers to any question you might have (no answers period, really). This isn’t necessarily a problem – in fact, I tend to enjoy that sort of thing - but it took almost a half an hour before the movie started to work its magic over me. For that half hour, all of the artistry tended to feel a lot more like wankery, and it was pretty rough going. Once I got over the hump, it was very rewarding – but I can’t really fault anyone for giving up before that point.
8.5/10
Saturn 3
Stanley Donen, 1980
Alex (Farrah Fawcett) and Adam (Kirk Douglas) live alone at the remote hydroponics lab Saturn 3. Their peaceful life is disrupted when Captain James (Harvey Keitel) shows up with an experimental robot that is programmed directly from his brain. Unfortunately, the programming in the captain’s brain includes murderous rage and an uncontrollable lust for Alex.Hoo-boy. This one’s a stinker. The first shot of the movie manages to rip off not one, but two more successful films, with a lengthy overhead flyby of a large spaceship (a la Star Wars) and a score that’s trying its best to be Also Sprach Zarathustra. Things get a little more original after that, but they also get considerably more boring. The pacing grinds to a halt and the dubbing of Harvey Keitel’s voice keeps him from ever feeling like part of a scene, which makes it hard to get immersed. Not that there’s much to get immersed in – the characters all have one dimension, at best. And that’s being generous. I would expect a lot better from Stanley Donen and Martin Amis (yes, you read those names right).
This movie ultimately leaves me with only two thoughts – first, what kind of twisted spaceship designer would put a hatch to the outside in the locker room, and then string razor wire across the opening? Second, of all the ways I could eventually die, being strangled by a naked 64-year-old Kirk Douglas is somewhere near the bottom.
2/10
Progress: 59 (Par +5)
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