There was a bit of an upset at the 2009 Academy Awards when it came to the Foreign Language Film category. Though most critics predicted that the Israeli film Waltz With Bashir or the French drama The Class would walk away with the top prize, the award instead went to a small Japanese film many people hadn’t seen. As I haven’t see either, I can’t say whether or not Departures indeed deserved to win. However, I can say that it’s a good film, despite a formulaic plot and a score that frequently distracts from the film rather than enhancing it.
Departures follows Daigo (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist who moves back to his old hometown after his orchestra is dissolved. Desperate for a job, he spies a classified ad for “assisting departures” and decides to apply, thinking it’s most likely for some sort of travel agency. It’s actually a listing for a funeral home and involves the ceremonial cleaning and preparation of bodies in front of mourners before they can be placed in a coffin. Given the taboo nature of death in Japanese society, it isn’t exactly a dream job, but he decides to give it a try at the behest of the director, Mr. Sasaki (played to perfection by Tsutomu Yamazaki).
Are you:
a) a fan of good music,
b) someone who doesn’t automatically dismiss any film described as “artsy,”
c) a consumer of hallucinogenic and psychedelic substances, or
d) a tortured soul consumed by angst and searching for your place in the universe?
If you answered “yes” to any of those, you’ll probably like The Wall, the 1982 musical film based around the Pink Floyd album of the same name. And if you answered “yes” to all four, it could potentially become one of your all-time favorite films - the cinematic equivalent of manna from heaven.
When the closing credits of Serbian Film began to roll, I could only sit paralyzed with my mouth drooping slightly and my eyes glazed over as I processed what I had just seen. My brain seemed unable to produce any sort of coherent thought, let alone come up with an answer to the question of what to do next. How should I respond? I spent the remainder of the evening not wanting to say much to anybody, preferring to sit in silence and attempt to figure out... something, I'm not sure what. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to have sex. I wanted to castrate myself. And I wanted all of these things equally. At some point during the climactic scene, I realized that I was a living example of the phrase "physically shaken," my arms and legs spasming like some sort of micro-seizure. It would not be an exaggeration to say I was reduced to a quivering mess of a man; Serbian Film chewed me up and spat me out, and that was that.
"I wanted this not to be a gay story or a straight story but to be a human story." --Tom Ford
As anyone who knows me can tell you, I don’t really care much about fashion. It’s just not one of those things I find to be interesting or important. I hear the word “Prada” and the first thing I think of is Meryl Streep. But despite my complete and utter ignorance about this element of Western culture, I wasn’t surprised to learn that A Single Man director Tom Ford is the former creative director of Gucci and now runs his own fashion label. Who else would be able to combine framing, color and design into such memorable imagery?
Indeed, even if you walk away from Ford’s directorial debut feeling let down by the overall product, it can’t be denied that the man has a gift for the aesthetic. The film is set in the early 1960s and follows George Falconer (Colin Firth), a gay university professor struggling to cope with the death of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode). It’s been eight months since the fatal car crash, and George has decided that he can’t take the grief anymore. Today will be his last day before committing suicide. It’s a bleak premise, and the cinematography acts as a visual representation of George’s spirit.
"You think I'm a dick?"
"Uh, no. But I do know that occasionally you have a tendency to act in a phallic fashion."
--Tape
Few films I’ve seen recently have left as much of an impression on me as Richard Linklater’s Tape. Despite being a fan of a great deal of Linklater’s work, I was apprehensive about sitting through a film built around what might at first seem like a cheap gimmick: the entire thing takes place in a single room. Linklater has been successful with his character-driven pieces in the past, but his experiments don’t always pan out the way one might hope – A Scanner Darkly, which involved a unique process of rotoscoping animation over the actors, was a dismal experience from start to finish. And before you start sending me hate mail, yes, I’m aware Linklater first used the effect in Waking Life, but I have yet to see that film and can only hope that it fared better than its successor.
Released in 2001, Tape is a micro-budget film shot on digital video – it looks like Linklater went out and bought a camcorder at Best Buy and decided to shoot a movie. Based on a play written by Stephen Belber and sent to Linklater by frequent collaborator Ethan Hawke, Tape takes place in a single hotel room. There are three characters. It’s a simple set-up, with not much in the way of what mainstream viewers would call “action.” Like many of the films in Linklater’s oeuvre, most notably the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset duology, this is a film that relies first and foremost on dialogue.
If that sounds boring to you, don’t worry: Tape is absolutely riveting.
It’s official: Guy Ritchie can still make a good movie.
Sherlock Holmes isn’t as memorable as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, but it’s a fun time in the theater and that’s all I was really looking for. From the very beginning, it’s clear that Ritchie knows how to handle a big-budget blockbuster: the costumes are lavish, the architecture is ornate, and the set design screams “19th Century London.” The script and art direction perfectly capture the Age of Enlightenment, from the wheels and cogs of the Industrial Revolution to the extreme emphasis on rationalism and the mistrust of religion.
But this isn’t your grandfather’s Sherlock Holmes. This is a Holmes who seems to enjoy beating people up as much as proving he’s smarter than they are. He frequents bare-knuckle boxing arenas (complete with Ritchie’s trademark slow-mo fistfights), takes on henchmen twice his size, and doesn’t think twice about leaping out of tall buildings. This is a Holmes with balls as big as his brains, the kind of detective a 21st-century audience can get behind. Ritchie directs the action set-pieces with a frenetic energy that feels exciting without being disorienting. While there’s quick-cutting galore, there’s no shaky-cam to distract from the geography of the scene, and as a result Sherlock Holmes is at the very least a fun romp through back-alley London.