Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)

An overblown epic about childhood mistakes morphing into adult regrets, Atonement is nothing but a bore. It has been overpraised for its use of cinematic flourishes, which really did nothing but to confuse a story best kept simple and sincere. The first and second acts that involved the intrigues of an upper-class British family vacationing at the countryside lacked the lazy yet critical elegance of Altman or Davies. (Let's all admit it: we watch these kinds of movies to both marvel at the lives we do not and cannot live and be bitter at our incapacity to live such a life of comfort.) The act was dished out through frenetic cuts and deplorably grandiose camera techniques which showed nothing but the filmmakers' lack of internal sense of pacing or framing. It seems the filmmakers wanted to say something about class, but kind of missed the fact that their pornographic focus on the upper class deny them the right or the ability to be conscious of it. (Robbie was a help's son, but so what? He seems like he has nothing better to do than flirt with the family's pretty girls and dine with them. In short, he's a gentleman in ratty clothes.) This overuse of literary/cinematic high-mindedness reached its peak with the five-minute Dunkirk scene, which was not only detached from the rest of the movie but merely indulged the civilian fantasy of the infantile soldier. Briony's character however suffers the greatest. Her “perspective” involved the most use of dollies, cranes, and jump cuts, but what it crucially left out is Briony herself. When she is a young girl, she remains pitifully immature. When she becomes old, she did not necessarily grow, just become more pitiful. Her sexuality was never explored, only portrayed as curio in the film's display of Corruption. (In fact, the film is so cowardly as to limit adolescent sexuality to rape.) When she grows old, she merely becomes an overblown tween whose only lesson from the past is regret and sorrow. Which is sad, because a mature Briony would have salvaged this dry and humorless movie (and actually raise the idea of “atonement” to “salvation”), and would have given reason for Vanessa Redgrave's appearance.

Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

Feeling through a world that has already ordered itself without consulting him, Frankenstein's mosnter is most pathetic not because he is merely different--taller, shoulders more squared, eyes recessed deeper--but because his emotions and sensation are the same yet incommunicable in a world where such emotions and sensations are no longer just as such, but rather understood through complex indoctrinated systems that dictate how to act, move, and to socialize. Not that the Frankenstein clan necessarily chooses to ignore the new sensations that Frankenstein feels and thinks he must explore, but rather because their only association with it is through the supporting system of customs, rituals, and prejudices. Without these, the Frankensteins are as "abnormal" as the monster, but the safety of which they choose not to leave. The final scene of the burning windmill with the monster trapped inside is most haunting because it clearly points to this binary between the monster and its creators: with the monster, the pain of murder and being murdered is clearly etched into his face and psyche. He understands murder not just through legalistic descriptions, but as the mere termination of life (the girl: first she speaks, next she's gone). The crowd on the other hand understands it only through ideas of retribution, normalcy, order. While the monster's reaction to his murder is pure agony, the mob's reaction to the murder of one of their own is one of being wronged (which, of course, implies a right). Whale's design for the film is straight out of Caligari's hospital through Conrad's eyes. Frankenstein's laboratory has walls that undulate, ceilings that spiral up, and hallways that juts into the horizon through exaggerated tromps d'oeil. Lights criss-cross to further push the effect of the set construction, highlighting shadowed corners, menacing beams, light from the building exteriors. Cmpare this, the monster's birthplace, to the grand rooms of the Frankenstein mansion, where the decor and construction is ordered by "good taste," by what is acceptably aristocratic.

Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935)

The story of a surgeon's fanatic love for a woman he cannot have, Mad Love is a prime example of the influences of German expressionism in early sound Hollywood and involved the collaboration of three huge imports from the Weimar studios: the great actor Peter Lorre and the cinematographers Gregg Toland and Karl Freund (acting as the film's director). Peter Lorre is his most exaggeratedly best in this movie, eyes bulging out further than in Fritz Lang's M and his gleaming dome reminiscent of Uncle Fester if his travails as a monstrous creature was ever taken seriously and not just for comic relief. Lorre's Dr. Gogol is as sinister as any German monster, but his expressive face, pathetically stubbly fingers, and short stature that causes him to always have to look up gave this horrific monster a humanity and even a reason for being so evil. All around him, truth, morality, and sexuality are being traded for mere francs, and he cannot participate not only because he is far too generous (he tells a crying mother that she does not have to surrender her last fifty francs, only later to discover that she is wearing a giant gleaming ring), but because ironically, he is far too ugly to ever be part of this "normal world." His efforts to "own" the thing he loves--which in essence is what has been happening during the entire film, people owning and buying each others' devotions and allegiances--fires back, leading to his sad demise (the reunion of the woman he covets and her husband is heard in the background, while Gogol slowly dies). Gregg Toland and Karl Freund adds to Lorre's tragic character the eeriness and highly-contrasting shadows of German cinema, especially the use of sillhouettes to represent characters (a technique that will later find its greatest expression in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), a film clearly influenced by Citizen Kane (1940), which Toland lensed). The constant interchange between high-angle and low-angle shots, Freund's specialty (he innovated the use of multiple camera angles for use in television broadcast) here worked well in depcting Gogol's psychological downfall and eventually, his death. In essence, Mad Love is a horror masterpiece and a great example of the German contribution to Hollywood cinema.

Bjork's "Declare Independence" (Michel Gondry, 2007)

I've never been a big fan of Bjork's music, simply because I don't really know how to respond to it. I never know if she's playing with the pop form, going beyond it, or not even bothering with it at all (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly makes listening to her music a little harder). But I am a fan however of Michel Gondry's videos, and this one is no different. Gondry's signature of building simple strokes into a cacophony of effects suit the song's industrial sound well, and adds a touch of irony and a layer of complexity into Bjork's relationship with pop music ("declare independence," she says to an audience whose head is connected to her megaphone).

Ira and Abby (Robert Cary, 2006)

Obsessed in romanticizing and pathologizing the neuroses of people trapped in the confines of large cities and drowned in seas of faceless human beings incapable of communicating, Ira and Abby's opening scene is a red flag enough: Ira (Chris Messina, who depicted a more balanced city dweller as the Republican attorney Ted in Six Feet Under) is babbling on and on while in his therapist's couch. When his therapist breaks up with him, he walks out into the streets, Rilo Kiley's "Ripchord" playing in the background, used in the most literal way possible. The film would have been fine, if it dwelled simply on Ira and Abby's (played by Jennifer Westfeldt) relationship and shotgun wedding(s). Instead, it is hampered by the movie's desire to address the "issue" of marriage, as a contract and as an expression of social constructs and pressures. It failed to recognize the act of marrying and signing contracts as first a display of devotion between two people, and second as a recognition of the state to officiate such emotions existing between two human beings. In the end, the film's focus on marriage as contract rather than declaration of true faith made the "issues" of marriage (infidelity, loneliness) a little trite and pointless, the promise to stay merely being just a contract. The movie was highly critical of marriage, but never fully delved into the very motivations people have in having the contract regardless. The promotion for the film says that it is a "subversive" movie, which goes to show how much easier it is to reject an established idea than it is to understand it and know the very reasons why people allow ideas to be established and become dogma.

New Video for Beirut's "Elephant Gun"

Great music video for Beirut's "Elephant Gun," directed by Alma Har-El.

Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)

Jason Reitman's sophomore work has been as of late garnering much praise, as suggested both by sing-song critical response and its box office success (that is, relative to such a small production). From the opening credits to the last lines uttered, it is however nothing original, taking much of its inspiration (or blueprint?) to the smattering of oddball indie-coming-of-age productions that have been a staple of the American independent cinema since Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993) and Wes Anderson's Rushmore (1998) and came about. All the kids are hip, alienated, and demoralized, and the world first presents itself in the form of angry parents, complicated issues, and utterly depressing music. But the one thing that puts Juno closer to the pioneering films of the genre and away from its generic cousins is its Iranian-like understanding of people in situations, eschewing the moralism of films such as Saved! (Brian Dannelly, 2004) and The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999) for the receptivity to complexity of reality present in films such as Pretty Persuasion (Marcos Siega, 2005) or Sugar & Spice (Francine McDougall, 2001). In Juno, parents are angry but never demonized, adolescent choices are clearly clueless yet made in earnest, and youthful rebellion is made foolish but made understandably part of the process of being introduced to the responsibility required by the imposing world from which teenagers are trying to make themselves distinct. Even sexuality is treated cheekily yet honestly. The film never shied away from the physicality of teen sex, but always makes it clear that sex during puberty is profoundly awkward, albeit painfully necessary if one ever hoped to grow (one character's, Mark (Jason Bateman), struggle to grow-up was even portrayed as an extension of a very disturbing attraction between Mark and Juno). Unfortunately for this film, the screenplay was never fully fleshed out by Reitman's camera work, which sadly remained dull despite the possibilities presented by the screenplay. There are a lot of unnecessary crane shots (I suspect to make it seem as "deep" as a Wes Anderson movie) and when the scene does not call for it, Reitman cuts a scene into shot-countershots (especially the pivotal scene between Juno and her child's father, Bleeker (Michael Cera)). It sucks, because what we could have derived from these scenes if they would have been cut-up less would have elevated the film to that of a Wes Anderson movie. But as it stands, Juno is a great example of how a "hip," "smart" indie comedy can be understanding without being snarky about the issues it raises.

PS: From the previews before the film, I have my first must-see movie on my list--Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, due to come out on 25 JAN 2008.