In honor of Taika Waititi’s latest Oscar win, this week’s review will
be a throwback review of his and co-writer/director Jemaine Clement’s
2014 horror mockumentary “What We Do in the Shadows.”
Both Clement and Waititi have always had a somewhat unconventional
sense of humor, if the latest Waititi film “Jojo Rabbit” (2019) is any
indication.
“Shadows” is no different. It takes the genre of horror
and flips it, making fun of it in the same way “This Is Spinal Tap”
(1984) makes fun of the rock music industry — they both use the style of
the mockumentary.
“What We Do in the Shadows” follows the daily life of three vampires,
two of whom are played by Clement and Waititi, whose lives are
interrupted when their oldest flatmate changes a human into a vampire.
The film unfolds in ridiculous humor and a little bit of gore, but that is to be expected in a vampire film.
This film pays homage to many well-known classics such as “Dracula”
(1931), “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), and even “Twilight” (2008).
Homage might be too kind a term for what “Shadows” does. If anything,
this film is an hour and a half of them endearingly making fun of the
vampire horror genre.
Spoofs and parodies are often difficult things to create without
becoming incredibly cheesy, like “Scary Movie” (2000). Those films have
seemed as though they would never stop being churned out and nearly
exhausted the horror spoof genre for me, personally.
“Shadows” doesn’t become cheesy or tiresome with its jokes. In fact,
there aren’t any jokes in the film; it is made up entirely of humorous
situations, and that is where the difference lies. Comedic things just
happen to these characters, rather than them saying something and it
needing a punchline.
The dialogue of this film is so well done that I’d be incredibly
happy to watch another three hours of these characters bickering.
These vampires aren’t what one would typically imagine when they
think of vampires: they don’t live in some large castle, they live in a
house in Wellington, New Zealand. They aren’t the graceful, brooding
type like Dracula. They are awkward and have no idea what the latest
trends are, which is a joke in and of itself.
“What We Do in the Shadows” flips the entire horror genre on its head
and answers question like: How do vampires spend their time? What do
they do in the shadows?
Overall, what makes this film so funny is that it takes a subject so
mundane — the idea of four guys sharing a flat in Wellington, New
Zealand — and makes it ridiculous: the four guys are vampires.
If horror is something that would usually spook you, but you enjoy
the concept, this film might be for you. It is not scary; however, there
are gory moments with a decent amount of blood shown. It is funnier
than it is spooky, so if that sounds intriguing, I would absolutely
recommend this film.
It is ridiculously hilarious and bound to give you a good time.
The cinema of Lasse
Hallström, always toeing the fragile line between sincere tenderness and
full-blown schmaltz, is most affecting when immersed in the
complexities of childhood experience. My Life as a Dog remains
the best representation of Hallström’s filmmaking prowess, a wondrous
children’s story that organically overlaps the magic of youth with the
harsh realities of impending adulthood. In the story of Ingemar (Anton
Glanzelius), an inquisitive young boy forced to spend the summer in the
countryside so his sickly mother can recuperate from tuberculosis,
Hallström foreshadows the themes of isolation, mortality, and compassion
he would further develop in his best American film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Instead of sentimentalizing Ingemar’s emotional highs and lows, My Life as a Dog
relishes the ambiguities inherent to his impressionable gaze, the gaps
in his memory that seem as natural and cyclical as the changing seasons.
While death is a constant in My Life as a Dog,
it’s never sensationalized as a morbid curiosity or gimmick. Instead,
Hallström focuses on the ripples of mortality, how Ingemar connects his
personal anguish with experiences of loss from supporting characters.
Ingemar spends much of the story observing other people suffer from
various ailments, his mother being the obvious example, but also in the
case of a bedridden elderly man living with his Uncle Gunnar (Tomas von
Brömssen). It’s as if proximity to the process of death is more
important than the event itself (we don’t see either character die).
Whether Ingemar is bringing his mother breakfast in bed or reading aloud
to the decrepit old man from a woman’s underwear catalogue, there’s a
focus on the nuances of wrinkled skin, frail hands, or skeletal bone
structure, and how Ingemar views these details in from the vantage point
of a child.
Despite its contained 1950s rural setting, My Life as a Dog
references the world at large through Ingemar’s contemplation of other
people’s experiences with tragedy. Random newspaper stories from around
the world define his frank voiceover narration, which comes during hypnotic cutaways of the starry night sky. Hallström creates a
juxtaposition of separate temporalities and experiences to structure
Ingemar’s tangential thought process, a way for both character and
audience to make sense of events that often defy expectation. The
defining example of this aesthetic trend, a story Ingemar references
more than once, is of the Russian space dog Laika sent into orbit as an
experimental precursor to manned flights. Ingemar continuously ponders
why anyone would let a harmless dog die alone hundreds of thousands of
miles away from home, especially after his own dog is taken away to a
kennel before his departure for the countryside. Once again, the
personal aspects of his consciousness merge with surrounding world.
Still, for every sequence in My Life as a Dog concerned with
the subtle and unseen ramifications of death, there’s countless more
about the rhythms of life, punctuated by Björn Isfält’s breezy musical
score bridging sequences of vibrant movement and discovery. During
Ingemar’s extended vacation to Gunnar’s hometown, he meets a wide array
of unique characters that expand his physical and emotional world. He
plays soccer, learns to box with a tomboy named Saga (Melinda Kinnaman),
and helps build a small gazebo with Gunnar. Fields of green grass,
crystal clear streams, and dense forests frame these moments, as Ingemar
spreads his wings away from the heartache of his mother’s sickness.
It’s always clear the adult world and its conflicts are unfolding
simultaneously on the fringes of Ingemar’s heightened childhood
experience, but whether it’s an argument between his aunt and uncle or a
fight between workers at the local glass blowing factory, these are
merely momentary distractions to the overall world of play.
Time
is never a concern for Ingemar since he has no need for dates,
deadlines, or responsibilities, and this might be my favorite aspect of
Hallström’s filmmaking. My Life as a Dog is one of the few
children’s films that defies this sort of temporal structure, allowing
fleeting moments of experience, like an embrace between two friends or
naked woman being sketched by the light of a candle, to progress without
any constraints beyond the elemental observations of a child’s
imagination. In a way, Hallström relinquishes the pace of the film to his child protagonist, and Ingemar’s meandering thoughts often
splinter without notice to incorporate whatever his impression of the
world becomes at that particular moment. This makes for a beautiful and
incomplete vision of one boy’s subjective act of remembrance.
It’s extremely disheartening that Hallström has never been able to recapture the hypnotic and honest feel of My Life as a Dog during his tenure as a Hollywood filmmaker, even though What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
comes close. In fact, his American career reflects an extended 20-year
slide downward into the dank realm of melodramatic drivel (Dear John
being his worst offense to date). Alas, it wouldn’t be the first time a
talented foreign filmmaker was consumed by such Western indulgences.
Still, My Life as a Dog and its sublime vision of childhood
will always be there to remind us of the filmmaker Hallström once was,
and potentially could be again.
Image/Sound
My Life as Dog is often defined by
physical surroundings and seasonal imagery, mainly the lush greenery of a
countryside summer and the dense snowcaps of a Swedish winter. These
elements parallel Ingemar’s experiences with life and death in
fascinating ways. Criterion’s strong 1080p high-definition transfer
improves on their standard-definition disc in this respect, accentuating
the textures of his environment so the viewer can experience them with
an added sense of clarity. The color schemes are also superbly realized
with this disc, my favorite being a shot of Ingemar and Saga aglow in
warm light while resting in hay. The sound design is less impressive, if
only because it stems from a compressed monaural track that sometimes
lowers and rises mid-scene.
Overall
One of the great films about childhood perception, with atmospheric beauty.
Cast: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman, Kicki Rudgren Director: Lasse Hallström Screenwriter: Lasse Hallström, Reidar Jönsson, Brasse Brännström, Per Berglund Distributor: The Criterion Collection Running Time: 101 min Rating: - Year: 1985.
Science fiction is never really about the future; it’s always about us. And Arrival,
set in the barely distant future, feels like a movie tailor-made for
2016, dropping into theaters mere days after the most explosive election
in most of the American electorate’s memory.
But the story Arrival is based on — the award-winning novella Story of Your Life
by Ted Chiang — was published in 1998, almost two decades ago, which
indicates its central themes were brewing long before this year. Arrival is much more concerned with deep truths about language, imagination, and human relationships than any one political moment.
Not only that, but Arrival is one of the best
movies of the year, a moving, gripping film with startling twists and
imagery. It deserves serious treatment as a work of art.
Arrival is smart, twisty, and serious
The strains of Max Richter’s "On the Nature of Daylight" play over the opening shots of Arrival,
which is the first clue for what’s about to unfold: that particular
track is ubiquitous in the movies (I can count at least six or seven
films that use it, including Shutter Island and this year’s The Innocents) and is, by my reckoning, the saddest song in the world.
The bittersweet feeling instantly settles over the whole
film, like the last hour of twilight. Quickly we learn that Dr. Louise
Banks (Amy Adams)
has suffered an unthinkable loss, and that functions as a prelude to
the story: One day, a series of enormous pod-shaped crafts land all over
earth, hovering just above the ground in 12 locations around the world.
Nobody knows why. And nothing happens.
As world governments struggle to sort out what this means — and as the people of those countries react by looting, joiningcults, even conductingmass suicides — Dr. Banks gets a visit from military intelligence, in the form of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker),
requesting her assistance as an expert linguist in investigating and
attempting to communicate with whatever intelligence is behind the
landing. She arrives at the site with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner),
a leading quantum physicist, to start the mission. With help from a
cynical Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg), they suit up and enter the
craft to see if they can make contact.
It’s best not to say much more about the plot, except
that it is pure pleasure to feel it unfold. The most visionary film yet
from director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) and scripted by horror screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Lights Out),
its pacing is slower than you’d expect from an alien-invasion film,
almost sparse. For a movie with so many complicated ideas, it doesn’t
waste any more time on exposition than is absolutely necessary. Arrival
is serious and smartly crafted, shifting around like a Rubik’s cube in
the hand of a savant, nothing quite making sense until all the pieces
suddenly come together. I heard gasps in the theater.
Arrival is interested in how language shapes reality
The film’s premise hinges on the idea, shared by many
linguists and philosophers of language, that we do not all experience
the same reality. The pieces of it are the same — we live on the same
planet, breathe the same air — but our perceptions of those pieces shift
and change based on the words and grammar we use to describe them to
ourselves and each other.
For instance, there is substantial evidence
that a person doesn’t really see (or perhaps "perceive") a color until
their vocabulary contains a word, attached to meaning, that
distinguishes it from other colors. All yellows are not alike, but
without the need to distinguish between yellows and the linguistic tools
to do so, people just see yellow. A color specialist at a paint
manufacturer, however, can distinguish between virtually hundreds of
colors of white. (Go check out the paint chip aisle at Home Depot if
you’re skeptical.)
Or consider the phenomenon of words in other languages that describe universal feelings,
but can only be articulated precisely in some culture. We might
intuitively "feel" the emotion, but without the word to describe it
we’re inclined to lump the emotion in with another under the same
heading. Once we develop the linguistic term for it, though, we can
describe it and feel it as distinct from other shades of adjacent
emotions.
These are simple examples, and I don’t mean to suggest
that the world itself is different for people from different cultures.
But I do mean to suggest that reality — what we perceive as
comprising the facts of existence — takes on a different shape depending
on the linguistic tools we use to describe it.
Adopting this framework doesn’t necessarily mean any of us are more correct
than others about the nature of reality (though that certainly may be
true). Instead, we are doing our best to describe reality as we see it,
as we imagine it to be. This is the challenge of translation, and why
literal translations that Google can perform don’t go beyond basic
sentences. Learning a new language at first is just about collecting a
new vocabulary and an alternate grammar — here is the word for chair,
here is the word for love, here’s how to make a sentence — but
eventually, as any bilingual person can attest, it becomes about
imagining and perceiving the world differently.
This is the basic insight of Arrival: That if we
were to encounter a culture so radically different from our own that
simple matters we take for granted as part of the world as it is were
radically shifted, we could not simply gather data, sort out grammar,
and make conclusions. We’d have to either absorb a different way of seeing, despite our fear, or risk everything.
To underline the point, Dr. Banks and the entire
operation are constantly experiencing breakdowns in communication within
the team and with teams in other parts of the world, who aren’t sure
whether the information they glean from their own visits to pods should
be kept proprietary or shared.
Arrival is about more than talking to one another. It’s about the roadmaps we use to navigate the world
It’s not hard to see where this is going, I imagine —
something about how if we want to empathize with each other we need to
talk to one another, and that’s the way the human race will survive.
And, sure.
But Arrival also layers in some important
secondary notes that add nuance to that easy takeaway. Because it’s not
just deciphering the words that someone else is saying that’s important:
It’s the whole framework that determines how those words are being
pinned to meaning. We can technically speak the same language, but
functionally be miles apart.
In the film, one character notes that if we were to
communicate in the language of chess — which operates in the framework
of battles and wars — rather than, say, the language of English, which
is bent toward the expression of emotions and ideas, then what we
actually say and do would shift significantly. That is, the prevailing metaphor for how beings interact with each other and the world is different. (Some philosophers speak of this as "language games.")
This matters for the film’s plot, but more broadly —
since this is sci-fi, and therefore actually about us — it has
implications. Language isn’t just about understanding how to say things
to someone and ascribe meaning to what comes back. Language has
consequences. Embedded in words and grammar is action, because the metaphors that we use as we try to make sense of the world tell us what to do next. They act like little roadmaps.
You have empathized with someone not when you hear the words they’re saying, but when youbegin
to ascertain what metaphors make them tick, and where that conflicts or
agrees with your own. I found myself thinking a lot about this reading
Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers In Their Own Land,
which is up for a National Book Award this year and describes the
overarching metaphors (Hochschild calls them "deep stories") that
discrete groups of Americans — in this case, West Coast urban liberals
and Louisiana rural Tea Partiers — use to make sense of the world. She
isn’t trying to explain anything away. She’s trying to figure out what
causes people to walk in such drastically different directions and hold
views that befuddle their fellow citizens.
Arrival suggests that our mental roadmaps need constant adjustment
Part of the challenge of pluralism is that we’re not just
walking around with different ideas in our heads, but with entirely
different maps for getting from point A to Z, with different roadblocks
on them and different recommendations for which road is the best one.
Our A's and Z's don’t even match. We don’t even realize that our ownmaps are missing pieces that others have.
Presumably one of these maps is better than the others,
but we haven’t agreed how we would decide. So we just keep smacking into
one another going in opposite directions down the same highway.
Arrival takes off from this insightin
an undeniably sci-fi direction that is a little brain-bending,
improbable in the best way. But it makes a strong case that
communication, not battle or combat, is the only way to avoid destroying
ourselves. Communication means not just wrapping our heads around terms
we use but the actual framework through which we perceive reality.
And that is really hard. I don’t know how to fix it.
In the meantime, though, good movies are somewhere to start. Luckily Arrival
is a tremendously well-designed film, with complicated and
unpredictable visuals that embody the main point. Nothing flashy or
explosive; in some ways, I found myself thinking of 1970s
science-fiction films, or the best parts of Danny Boyle’s 2007 Sunshine, which grounded its humanist story in deep quiet.
The movie concludes on a different note from the
linguistic one — one much more related to loss and a wistful question
about life and risk. This may be Arrival’sbiggestweakness; the emotional punch of the ending is lessened a bit because it feels a little rushed.
But even that conclusion loops back to the possibilities
of the reshaped human imagination. And this week, especially, you don’t
need to talk to an alien to see why that’s something we need.
Amarcord presents a scathing satirical critique of Italian provincial life during the 1930s, the height of the fascist period (1922–43). In this era, Mussolini’s dictatorship enjoyed its greatest popular support. While Fellini’s depiction of the provincial world under fascism provides a complex political and cultural interpretation of the period, his portrayal of the everyday lives of the inhabitants of Rimini, Fellini’s birthplace, awarded him international acclaim. The worldwide magnitude of the film derives from its stylistic playfulness and ability to fluctuate between humorous images and serene depictions of human existence. Not only was the film successful at the box office, it received the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 1974.
The inhabitants of Fellini’s imaginary Rimini are not divided into good anti-fascists and evil fascists. Instead, all of the characters are sketched out in masterful caricatures, comic types with antecedents in Fellini’s earlier films. Fellini’s fascists are not sinister, perverted individuals but pathetic clowns, manifestations of the arrested development typical of the entire village. As Fellini himself wrote in an essay-interview entitled “The Fascism Within Us”: “I have the impression that fascism and adolescence continue to be . . . permanent historical seasons of our lives . . . remaining children for eternity, leaving responsibilities for others, living with the comforting sensation that there is someone who thinks for you . . . and in the meanwhile, you have this limited, time-wasting freedom which permits you only to cultivate absurd dreams . . .”
Yet the hilarious portrait Fellini draws—of the ridiculous parades, the gymnastic exercises in uniform, and the small daily compromises necessary to live under a dictatorship—speak volumes about what life was like in that era. Through the sequences in which the Amarcordians greet a visiting fascist bigwig, and the scene in which they row out in the sea to catch a glimpse of the passage of the Rex (an enormous ocean liner that was the pride of Mussolini’s regime) coming from America, Fellini reveals the mechanism behind the mimicry of the cinematic image; he discloses film’s function as a mediator of authentic sexual desire. These scenes expose the townspeople as people dominated by false ideals and idiotic dreams of heroic feats and romantic love. Such public behavior has its direct psychological parallel in numerous scenes of daily life at home, in schools, and in church, with the clever comic touch that is Fellini’s trademark.
More than any other Italian film treatment of fascism, Fellini’s Amarcord manages to explain the public lives of its characters by minute details of their private lives. The sense of intimacy and immediacy that the film creates allows the audience to recognize certain aspects of themselves in these characters. One of the most interesting stylistic features of Amarcord is the proliferation of narrative points of view. In the original Italian print, we discover a complex mixture of direct addresses to the camera by various characters, as well as voice-overs providing information or commentary on the film’s action. In a few significant instances, this voice-over presence is provided by Fellini himself, something rendered moot when viewing prints dubbed in English. To define Amarcord as merely another “political” film would fail to do justice to such a poetic work. The film’s title means “I remember” in one of the dialects of Fellini’s native province, but this does not amount to a strictly autobiographical interpretation of work. While Amarcord, as its title suggests, contains a great deal of nostalgia, Fellini’s use of nostalgia as a means of romanticizing the past serves to underline his belief that fascism was based upon false ideals, and also his recognition that regret or nostalgia is as inevitable a sentiment as refusal.
Thus, Fellini offers Amarcord not just as a political explanation for a dark period in Italy’s national life, but as an important clue to the understanding of Italian national character as well. Though the film denounces the state of perpetual adolescence and illustrates Fellini’s belief that refusal of individual responsibility characterizes Italian society, it never degenerates into dogmatic treatise. Instead, Amarcord performs a certain magic that only a master of the cinema could accomplish.
It’s been a long wait for Albert Finney’s film follow-up to
“Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.” And though “Tom Jones” is a period
piece and very different it has the same lustiness and boisterous
content with which to protect the star. It should breeze its way
cheerfully through the boxoffice figures. It has sex, Eastmancolor, some
prime performers and plenty of action. Tony Richardson has directed
John Osborne’s screenplay with verve, though, occasionally, he falls
back on camera tricks and editing which are disconcerting.
Based on Henry Fielding’s enduring novel, story is set in Somerset, a
West Country lush county, and in London during the 18th century. Hero
is Tom Jones (Albert Finney), born in suspicious circumstances, with a
maidservant dismissed because she is suspected of being his unwed
mother. He is brought up by Squire Allworthy (George Devine) and leads a
rollicking life in which women play a prominent part before he finally
escapes the gallows after a frame-up. He finds a presumably happy ending
in the arms of a neighborhood daughter, Sophie, played in rather
over-genteel style by Susannah York.
Ramifications of the plot, which enables Finney to indulge in some
considerable sexual activity with a variety of delectable dames, are too
complicated to need discussion. But the somewhat sprawling, bawdy and
vivid screenplay of John Osborne’s provides some meaty acting
opportunities and the thesps grasp their chances with vigorous zest.
Finney is big league. He slips through his adventures with an
ebullient gusto that keeps the overlong film on its toes for most of the
time. Hugh Griffith and Edith Evans as Squire Western and his sister
ham disarmingly. Miss Evans has some of the choicer cameos in the film.
Joan Greenwood, George Devine and Wilfrid Lawson are others who get top
credits for their work. Angela Baddeley, Rosalind Knight, Rachel
Kampson, Jack MacGowran, Freda Jackson and Joyce Redman are others and
rate benevolent nods. David Tomlinson with a brief but effective comedy
appearance in a guest role as an aristocratic heel, and Diana Cilanto
have limited roles but nevertheless prove that it makes sense to bring
stars with knowhow to do brief jobs.
Eastmancolor captures some good location and period stuff, lensed
well by Walter Lassally, particularly in the Newgate Prison sequence as
well as a fox hunting episode.
Director Richardson has occasionally pressed his luck with some
over-deliberate arty camera bits. The music of John Addison is a trifle
obtrusive and lacking in period style. However, “Tom Jones” measures up
as a genial energetic comedy, with an added bonus is Micheal MacLiammoir
putting over occasional narration with smooth wit and perception.
Rich.
1963: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Music Score.
Nominations: Best Actor (Albert Finney), Supp. Actor (Hugh Griffith),
Supp. Actress (Diane Cilento, Dame Edith Evans, Joyce Redman), Color Art
Direction
Tom Jones
UK
Production:
Woodfall. Director Tony Richardson; Producer Tony Richardson; Screenplay
John Osborne; Camera Walter Lassally; Editor Antony Gibbs; Music John
Addison; Art Director Ralph Brinton. At London Pavilion.
Crew:
(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Original review text from 1963. Running time: 128 MIN.
With:
Tom Jones - Albert Finney
Sophie Western - Susannah York
Squire Western - Hugh Griffith
Miss Western - Edith Evans
Lady Bellaston - Joan Greenwood
Molly Seagrim - Diane Cilento
Squire Allworthy - George Devine
Lord Fellamar - David Tomlinson
Mrs. Miller - Rosalind Atkinson
Black George - Wilfrid Lawson
Mrs. Fitzpatrick - Rosalind Knight
Partridge - Jack MacGowran
Mrs. Seagrim - Freda Jackson
Blifil - David Warner
Mrs. Waters (Jenny Jones) - Joyce Redman
Parson Supple - James Cairnososs
Bridget Allworthy - Rachel Kempson
Thwackum - Peter Bull
Mrs. Wilkins - Angela Baddeley
