Sin #44: Kubrick: Master and Commander

A man raises his eyebrow and stares directly into the camera. He is sitting down in the Korova Milk Bar next to his chums while he gives a monologue about rape and a little bit of the ultra-violence.

A little boy drives his tricycle through the open halls of an ominous hotel as he encounters twin sisters; suddenly an overwhelming wave of blood comes pouring in. At the same time, his father starts seeing ghosts.

Dr. Strangelove begins explaining the dire consequences of a nuclear strike by the Russians who are ready to deploy their weapons after an insane American military commander has disrupted protocol and initiated an invasion.

An intelligent machine named HAL is responsible for taking a couple of astronauts on a secret mission to uncover a distress signal. HAL begins to boycott the mission and one of the astronauts decides to shut him down. As he drifts off he begins to sing: daisy, daisy…give me you answer do…

All these classic scenes come from the same imagination; the imagination of Stanley Kubrick, a filmmaker who brought us some of the most powerful images on the screen. He began his career as a photographer and turned to feature films after his fascination with the mechanics of film technique. To his co-workers he was a perfectionist who oversaw every aspect of the production and endlessly repeated takes until he found the perfect moment (which drove many of his actors insane, especially Shelley Duvall on the set of “The Shining”) but he usually delivered works of art that became part of popular culture. With each movie Kubrick began to consolidate himself as one of cinema’s great masters and one of the essential film auteurs.

Every time he released a movie, it became an event; that is until he passed away on March 1999, days before the premier of his last movie “Eyes Wide Shut”. In the documentary “Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures” he is remembered by family and friends as a cold, detached and obsessive artist but also as a loving and caring husband and father. The impact of his films was undeniable (some to the point of controversy, like with “A Clockwork Orange” which was held responsible for a wave of crimes that emulated the characters in the film).

Today, his movies are seen as classics; works that pushed the boundaries of each genre and colonized a new place in the subconscious of audiences. As an artist, few directors were as influential as Kubrick and few were as beloved; his brilliance echoes in the works of today’s talents (like Darren Aronosfky or Paul Thomas Anderson) and will, undoubtedly, carry on.

Sin #43: Devil in the Church

Father Olive O’Grady is a devious predator who began his sexual molestation rampage back in the seventies whilst living among naïve catholic families that trusted him. For decades he abused their trust, engaged in sexual activities with young children and moved to different parishes in California, hiding behind the hypocritical veil of the holy church. For them pedophilia remained merely a nuisance and not a sin or even a destructive force among families; it’s almost an ancestral tradition for the clergy, after centuries of enforcing a ridiculous celibacy oath, to take children and “touch” them as they simply put it. Frankly, all this is sickening and disgusting.
“Deliver us from Evil” gives faces to the victims of pedophilia and to its perpetrators making the movie a devastating document against the attitudes of the church and the conspiracy to cover up and even protect members of its organization. These charges go all the way to Pope Benedict XVI who is, even today, receiving criticism for his choices on the matter. Can the church survive this scandal? I hope not, since they need to account for the thousands of molestation cases all around the world.

Watching this documentary I was confronted by a series of conflicting emotions. Hearing O’ Grady’s confessional made me angry and enraged; here’s a man that’s clearly damaged and somewhat detached from his terrible actions and yet he is a monster that enjoys hiding in plain view, whose regrets are clearly insincere and who remains a cold and evil human being. As for the victims, I felt compassion and utter sadness since this man ruined their chances of happiness forever; their stories are the hardest parts to watch.

There’s also another movie related to the subject that’s more ambiguous about the moral implications of abuse. That’s “Doubt” starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, in which a priest is accused by a nun of molesting a child in her school; of course she doesn’t have definitive proof but she senses something wrong and becomes transfixed in punishing him. People around her think it’s merely a personal vendetta and that the priest has always been exemplary in his behavior but she sees behind his lies.

Of course, the audience can draw their own conclusions about the characters in “Doubt”, but after watching “Deliver us From Evil” they acquire another layer of complexity. One might be a stimulating and intellectually challenging movie but the other is simply heartbreaking and unforgettable. It’s a shame that justice will never be served as these men roam around in their cloaks and betray the faith people bestowed on them.

Sin #42: Pen Pals

There’s something quite special about writing a letter, and when I say letter I mean an actual hand-written piece of paper. Even though we’ve become accustomed to the wonders of computer advancements, I’ve always thought there was something impersonal about e-mails; sure, they are quite easy to send and practical to write but I’ve never been as interested or stimulated by them and I’ve grown frustrated by the amount of spam currently sitting in my inbox. Of course these are troubles of modern times; some decades ago all people had were pens, paper and writing machines (which use can be equally frustrating, at least for me).

For a lonely girl living in the seventies in Australia it must have been hard, considering that her school mates make fun of her and at home her father is distant and mother is a raging alcoholic. It seems that her only friends in the whole world are some ugly figurines of a cartoon show on TV; this is the life of Mary Daisy Dinkle.

On the other side of the globe, in New York City, an obese man with serious psychological problems lies in his couch watching TV and eating chocolate hot dogs. He spends most days as a recluse and suffers from constant nervous breakdowns; this is the life of Max Jerry Horovitz.

One day Mary goes to the post office and rips a page from the archives that feature Max’s address. She decides to write to him and explain her current situation; he writes back and suddenly an unusual friendship starts to develop.

“Mary and Max” is a delightful stop-motion animated film from Australia that may be too mature and sophisticated (and rather sad) for younger audiences. We follow the journey of these two characters and care for them; they are more human that many of the ones that feature in live action dramas.

I don’t know why the Academy failed to nominate “Mary and Max” in the best animated feature category but at least they honored “The Secret of Kells”, a fantastic Irish cartoon that returns to the classic 2D tradition of animation (which is getting rare in the American animated industry).

In a way “The Secret of Kells” is also about writing; this one is more about passing the traditions and ideas of a community. The book of Kells remains one of the most important objects of Celtic folklore and the movie does a great job in taking these tales and make them accessible for all audiences.

Both these movies are superior entertainments that not only amuse but also move us. They are testaments to the power of ideas.

Sin #41: Good Luck!

“The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.”

Chris Wilton

These words open Woody Allen’s great “Match Point”. In it Allen takes us on a story of jealousy and betrayal that ends in tragedy (he gives us a big clue by having Chris read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment at the beginning of the story).

Reading the opening words again reminded of a Spanish film called “Intacto” that features a group of characters with very good luck indeed. They engage in a diabolical series of tests where they bet all of their possessions and even the fates of other people (there’s a particularly thrilling sequences where the characters are blindfolded and forced to run through the woods).

“Intacto” was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and represents another fascinating Spanish thriller that’s smart, suspenseful and utterly original (much like “Cronocrimenes”, another wonderful film). It’s fascinating to contemplate characters who gamble with their lives in bizarre situations. If there’s really such a thing as good luck, then it’d be interesting to deal with the consequences of fate and destiny (if indeed there’s a cosmic purpose in each life).

On the other hand, there’s got to be people with very bad luck, people like Bernie Loots, the hero of “The Cooler”. Bernie works in a casino in a very curious role; he goes around the tables looking for people on a winning streak and with a simple touch brings them bad luck (hence the name, cooler). This amazing trait, however, comes with a price; in order to bring bad luck Bernie has to be endlessly depressed. For years this hasn’t been a problem but now he has met a beautiful woman named Natalie; for the first time in his life he is happy and in love.

“The Cooler” isn’t a supernatural drama; its down-to-earth approach to Bernie’s ability is refreshing and the film is sometimes sexy, sometimes funny and always very entertaining.

Do I believe in luck? I think so. Sometimes things happen beyond our reach and understanding. If people could control those uncertain events they’d have a great and mighty power. At least we have the good fortune to experience terrific movies about luck, that’ll do for now.

Sin #40: The Two Sides of Lonely

Some people are really lonely. Take Lars, for example; he’s a socially awkward young man who works in an office and doesn’t have any friends, he lives next to his brother’s house and isolates himself on most of his spare time. He’s so distant that even human touch physically hurts him.

One day something strange happens; he informs his brother and his wife that he’s found a woman he likes and that he’d like to introduce them to her. Of course they’re delighted by the news since it means that maybe Lars can eventually become an active member of the community once again and lead a normal life. The curious thing about her is that she isn’t a woman at all; she’s in fact a sex doll named Bianca and part of a delusional fantasy created by Lars.

“Lars and the Real Girl” isn’t about madness or even loneliness but rather understanding and forgiveness. With its premise it could work as either drama or comedy but the film is wise and tender about its subject and empathizes with Lars. Even though the attitude of Lars’s community isn’t realistic, there’s a naïve sense of joy and at the end it even leaves us with a smile.

On the other hand loneliness can indeed lead to madness. Imagine a stranger arriving on a barren wasteland of a town. He can be kind and somewhat charming but there’s something odd about him lurking beneath the surface; a woman starts falling for him and invites him to live with her and after that very strange things happen that include a crazy paranoid conspiracy theory and the notion of a bug infestation.

“Bug”, directed by William Friedkin (who also made “The Exorcist”) is a diabolical thriller that gradually becomes more and more ominous. It starts with simple characters that eventually delve into madness and never come back. The last scenes of the film are so far the deep end that we admire the acting even more since the actors go to risky places losing all sense of vanity in the process.

The movie resembles the play it was based on since it mostly happens on a single set and uses a lot of dialogue. Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd are simply amazing but this hardly qualifies as a feel-good movie. It may begin as a movie about loneliness but it ends being about disease and utter lunacy.

“Lars and the Real Girl” and “Bug” are completely different movies, both in tone and structure, but both deal with troubled human beings. “Lars” suggests redemption for its hero while “Bug” pretty much implodes at the end. Both films are interesting and risky experiments that don’t settle for conventions.

Sin #39: Religious Ways

It always seemed to me that Catholicism was all about guilt; after all, Christ died for our own sins and the bible is filled with stories about human frailty and weakness. Confession and penitence became means of clemency to a God who happened to change his ways from Old to New Testament, by sanctimoniously punishing or forgiving in accordance to the laws of the prophets who wrote the passages in that holiest of books.

Judaism on the other hand seemed more about taking back. After all, they survived a holocaust that threatened their extermination and some even rose to become the richest men in the world. Their traditions and celebrations always felt a little foreign to me; the Bat Mitzvahs, the Kabala, the appearance of their Rabbis or even their unorthodox ways of mixing Hebrew words. It’s a fascinating doctrine that evolved from centuries of mysticism and wonder.

It’s apparent that the Coen Brothers grew in that world and that they finally made a movie about it with “A Serious Man” which may be their most personal film and the most curious on an amazingly singular series of films. The brothers have always had a strange sense of humor in their movies (“Fargo” was said to be based on a true story which they later said was a playful lie and “O Brother Where are thou?” was said to be based on “The Odyssey”, even though they admitted to never having read the book); here they start with a bizarre and intriguing prologue that may o may not have anything to do with the rest of the movie. In it we learn about a curse that arrives when one is visited by a spirit; can we really trust this story?

The rest of the movie focuses on Larry Gopnik, a physics teacher whose wife is about to leave him for his best friend, a student is trying to blackmail him, and whose brother-in-law recently moved in with him. Even though he suffers a lot of humiliations throughout the movie he remains calm and patient. As a means of therapy he decides to visit a series of Rabbis who don’t offer him much help (one even tells him a baffling dentist story that, again, may not have anything to do with anything).

With “No Country for Old Men” the Coens were criticized with their ambiguous ending (and the unexpected fate of Anton Chigurgh) and once again they leave us baffled with a sudden and unexpected conclusion in “A Serious Man”. It made me smile how the brothers avoid closure and instead leave the audiences to come up with their own thoughts; by doing so they make the movie unforgettable.

Sin #38: Brutal Awakening

There are some scenes that simply stick in the mind like a haunting dream. Gaspar Noe’s “Irreversible” has a few that provoke disgust and fascination on equal measure (it has to be noted that this movie had the most walkouts of any film the year it was released).

“Irreversible” utilizes a backward narrative to tell a rather simple revenge story that ends (or rather begins) with true irony. The film starts with a series of strobing lights blinding us and a manic movement of the camera that finally settles after a while. In its initial sequence a man enters a gay club and viciously attacks a man who he thinks raped his wife. This scene is astonishing in its use of special effects to simulate an uncut shot of stunning brutality. Then there’s the infamous 10 minute rape scene (with a static camera that morbidly observes and becomes a passive bystander) that also uses computer effects to enhance the cruelty of the moment.

As the movie progresses we realize that the deep sadness and hate starts turning gradually into a naïve sense of happiness; the couple enjoys energetic and loving sessions of sexual intimacy (actors Vincent Cassell and Monica Bellucci are married in real life) and when the movie is over we reflect on how good and ordinary people can become victims of violence and turn themselves into monsters of the society that failed to protect them.

It’s been a while since I saw “Irreversible”, but its power stayed with me long after its screening. It is not an easy movie to digest and its cruel imagery and powerful performance make it resonate beyond any conventional drama.

Recently I saw another powerhouse of a movie called “Martyrs” that also starts out as a revenge thriller and later becomes a psychological horror movie of astonishing cruelty and difficult moral implications. It evolves from its themes of child abuse and torture into a demented and operatic play with spiritual undertones.

This movie also uses pretty sophisticated special effects to convey very graphic scenes of mutilation and leaves us pretty shaken up with a conclusion that defies logic and enters the realm of diabolical fanatism.

Both “Martyrs” and “Irreversible” are French movies that go beyond any possible genres; they don’t believe in formulas or “happy endings” and their audiences are so specific that it’s a wonder they even get made (most audiences would find them cruel and repulsive). But they are works that go for the fences and whose images haunt the subconscious.

Sin #37: Eddie

Has anybody seen “Glen or Glenda”? This is director Ed Wood’s cautionary tale about intolerance at a time when cross-dressing and homosexuality were seen as society’s scurrying diseases (it’s sad to think that in 60 years much hasn’t changed). Nobody argues against the morals or overall message of “Glen or Glenda”; most people nowadays focus on its ineptitude. Here’s a film that’s so awful and incompetent that even though it’s only 68 minutes long it feels like it takes a lifetime to be over. I’m sure it was a passion project for Wood (himself a cross-dresser) but why did he decide to make it so inaccessible, bizarre and utterly incomprehensible?

It is said that Ed Wood was the worst director in cinema history but I digress sometimes on the subject…Uwe Boll might be worst than Wood (I’m not really in the mood of watching their entire catalogue of productions to really find out, although watching “The House of the Dead” was pure torture). The point is that even though Wood’s movies are pretty terrible, they were deeply personal and there’s a sense that he tried his very best to deliver. It’s a shame that they don’t acquire the quality of being so bad they’re good (they could at least have been unintentionally funny like the recent cult classic “The Room”, but no, they are all boring as hell).

The best thing associated with Ed Wood is Tim Burton’s film about the director. In another wonderful performance, Johnny Depp plays him as a cheerful and energetic moviemaker that was just too happy to be making movies. He didn’t care about cheesy sets or costumes, bad performances or incoherent narratives; he just thought about giving his audiences an unforgettable spectacle. The most touching aspect was his relationship with Bela Lugosi (brilliantly played by Martin Landau), an actor too washed out and deep in his drug addiction for anyone to ever want to work with him anymore. Bela appears in “Glen or Glenda” as a sort of puppet master or god-like character (“pull the strings!”) that doesn’t really have a reason to appear on the film (the devil also makes an appearance, it must be said).

“Ed Wood” is my favorite movie of Tim Burton because it’s a celebration of Kitsch and it introduces the joy of moviemaking. Ed Wood might have made the worst movies ever but few people had more fun making them; his energy is contagious enough to cheer for him.

Sin #36: A Dry Journey

Three brothers find themselves on a train to India in search of some kind of spiritual answer and a chance to meet their mother after she went to live on a monastery.

Peter, the oldest, is married and expecting a child; even since before their father’s funeral he has always considered himself his father’s favorite son. Francis, the middle son, recently tried to commit suicide and is the most anxious to bring the brothers together. Peter, the youngest, has been traveling a lot and is currently on a strange and undesired relationship; he’s the most eager to get off the train and return to his mellow existence.

“The Darjeeling Limited” starts out with a brief prologue called “Hotel Chavalier” in which we meet Peter and his on-and-off girlfriend (played by Natalie Portman). It’s a lovely short film that actually expands on the emotional impact of the film. As for the movie itself, it’s another one of those Wes Anderson gems that focuses on a family using dry and witty humor. Much like “The Royal Tenenbaums” and even “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” it’s about how a dysfunctional family can find ways to work together y discover that beyond their differences they actually love each other.

One of the things that strike me the most in an Anderson film is its visual palette. He loves warm tones, saturated colors and a stylized use of textures. In “The Darjeeling Limited” he finds a perfect marriage between his style and the Hindi culture, that is itself quite bright and colorful.

The one film that failed to connect was “The Life Aquatic with Steve Sizzou” which was as visually interesting as the rest of his movies but felt more like a hollow exercise in stylized dramatization without any emotional resonance. One watches this movie at arm’s length, waiting for something really interesting to happen (while we are kind of entertained by the nice images). And even though it features good performances from a wonderful cast it remains merely a curiosity.

Wes Anderson is a true talent and remains one of the great filmmakers to emerge from the indie movement. His movies are dry and charming (sometimes even a bit tragic) but at the end they make us unreasonable happy; I think they have to seen more than once to appreciate all the little nuances creeping under the surface. Even in his latest venture, his first family film “The Fantastic Mr Fox”, we can still recognize his trademarks and smile (even though this time we see puppets instead of people).