Saturday, November 20, 2010

Not a Review of 127 Hours, or, Why I Hated Slumdog Millionaire

Just watched the trailer for 127 Hours and I can tell you that I will never, ever see this film, unless I am trapped somewhere for hours---or days—on end and am forced to watch. I couldn’t even stand the trailer, even though the famous amputation is not even hinted at therein. The frenetic pace of the preview, the claustrophobic spaces of the canyons, the glorification of the extreme outdoorsman is all too much for me. Knowing that a rather gruesome amputation takes place in all its gory detail is also, I confess, a good deal of my aversion to seeing this film. That said, it is getting great reviews, so I am open to changing my mind. I think.


The problem is that Danny Boyle, who exercised my worst fears and willies by putting me front seat at a blinding of a young child is the director I most want to avoid at this point, never having made it through Trainspotting and hating his Academy Award-winning feature Slumdog Millionaire, site of aforementioned blinding. I mean I really hated it, not just disliked it.
I’d like to revisit just why, and am hoping for loud and fervent disagreement, as well as encouragement to actually see 127 Hours so that I can have more to bitch about.


Slumdog, like Boyle’s other films, also got lots of great reviews, with a few notable exceptions. Anthony Lane got it right when he critiqued Slumdog Millionaire in The New Yorker. The fabrications were a bit much at times: the “millionaire” questions serendipitously dovetailing with the protagonist Jamal’s specific memories; the police, who once they stopped torturing Jamal, revealing themselves to be very good listeners who had just been having a bad day. Lane posits that formulaic nature of the plot is a fault. But I think the very real problem with the film (if we can say “real problem” when discussing a film about orphans in Mumbai) is that it doesn’t quite settle between the fairy tale aspects of the movie and the realistic situations the film portrays.

Slumdog offers the viewer a glimpse of the very worst that life has to offer. Several scenes are laced with particular dread: the blinding and maiming and pimping of children convinces the American viewer that things are bad indeed. The menace contained in those scenes is well-wrought, and much of the views of Mumbai slum life are visually powerful. Nonetheless, such scenes are tinged with a smug (and perhaps, necessary) relief: we know in advance that our protagonist will be spared such a fate, and will triumph over his circumstances.

There are moments when the terrifying realism contained in parts of the film give way to a strange, Hollywood-esque sensibility. Take the example of the latrine scene—are we supposed to laugh when Jamal emerges, covered in shit, to approach his hero film star? Or do we wince at the fetidness of his situation? I wondered if the young Jamal came down with a raging case of dysentery when it was all over; all we got was an image of him being scrubbed clean by his mother, and emerging healthy and intact soon after. Is this a foreshadowing of Jamal’s future triumph over his impoverished past?

My assessment is that the schizophrenia of the film doesn’t serve the narrative well. The most interesting parts of the film to me were those that got short shrift. The MC of the quiz show hints at a past as a child of the slum. But this merits a single mention and then is gone. Does he want Jamal to win or lose? The ambiguity of this character, his slightly menacing air, is compelling. He is so compelling, so theatrical—the entire look of the stage and this characters stagecraft are reminiscent of an old-time circus big-top launched into the twenty-first century—that I felt sorry for his American counterpart, the dullard Meredith Vieira, who will always pale in comparison henceforth.

The police chief, too, is one of these underused characters. He decides not to torture Jamal, but to psychoanalyze him; the change in stance hints at depths barely revealed as his sympathy for Jamal increases. Instead of developing these characters, we are given Salim, whose path seems clear from the first. Or the hapless character of Latika, who in true cloistered princess form only exists as a plot catalyst and eye candy. She is moved about like a pawn by one male character and then another and another still. While it might be accurate that girls and women often have little agency over their lives, it’s hard to see that the filmmakers are merely aiming for veracity in this case. What it does is render Jamal’s motivation for all he does—and thus, the plot—flat and uninvolving. We have no sense of Latika as a person; she is rendered as ideal, or an idea. I had so many questions. Why, I wondered, doesn’t Jamal ever learn her last name? Seeing as how Latika grew up in the slums with no access to dental care, why are her teeth so perfect?

What if, instead, this film stayed on track and followed the bleak life of the blinded Arvind, forced into servitude by the man who has maimed him? What if we were to actually witness, in some way, the forced prostitution of Latika, instead of having it alluded to, all while her good looks are emphasized and eroticized (recall her twirling in dance, with bejeweled arms and ankles)? What if we saw Jamal’s living quarters while he is working as a chai wallah?

What if, instead of moving back and forth from reality bites to fantasy, we were to stick with the fairy tale all the way? Scrappy kids make their way through Mumbai slum life, take jobs: one brother (Salim) goes to a life of crime, the other takes a job as a chai wallah(Jamal) and tries to educate himself (all while wearing the beautifully pressed dress shirts he sports in all the final scenes). They fight over the girl. Boy loses girl, gets girl loses girl goes on show and wins girl back. Cut to dance number.

As it was, the Bollywood-style dance number at the end had a tinge of incredulity. Was this really how we were going to end this practically joyless film? Or were we all celebrating in dance because those of us in the theater never had to witness such misery ever again if we so chose? While I’ve loved this kind of thing in Bollywood films like Bride and Prejudice, it seemed discordant given the material of most of Slumdog. Finally, the forced pursuit of the happy ending, along with the trumped-up serendipity of the final quiz show question and stage-lit reunion of the lovers left me feeling empty.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone is one of the best films I've seen recently. The beauty of the cinematography, even while filming ugly scenes, is extraordinary, as we are given a glimpse of a hidden America that lies smack in the heartland. The story of a teenage girl who searches for her drug-cooking father, who has put their house up as bail bond, takes us in to the so-called "meth belt" in the Ozarks. This teenager, Ree Dolly, cares for two younger siblings and a mentally ill mother, while keeping danger--mostly from her own relations--at bay. The constriction of that place, with its poverty, its deprivation and its danger works on the viewer to convey a sense of dread and despair. Single moments create tremendous impact: in one scene, Ree visits the high school she seems to rarely, if ever attend. We see, briefly, two classes in session: one in child rearing, and the other, a junior ROTC class, with teenagers marching in formation in a run-down gym. Ree looks longingly into that gym, but hunches her shoulders and moves on.
One of the strengths of the film is the veracity of the acting, which at no point seems to be acting; the players meld into the surroundings effortlessly. This is no doubt credit to the script, which seems at times as composed of a kind of rough poetry, speech rendered simultaneously metaphoric and concrete.


I contrast this to another film getting Oscar buzz, the terrible The Kids are All Right which is painfully predictable at times and seems to be getting rewarded for showing lesbians as regular married folk. Gosh, lesbians are just like other people! Who knew! What might have been interesting was the "relationship" with the sperm donor of the couple's children. This character, played by Mark Ruffalo, is changed by knowing his children, but the evolution just sort of happens. Unexplored too, are the complex tensions and feelings that might arise from such a situation. Instead, the focus is back on the married couple, (dykes have problems, too!!) with a large lens on the terrible Annette Benning, who as Nic, a type A obstetrician, chews the scenery much as she did in American Beauty (the only weak spot in that film). It doesn't work here. Julianne Moore is good as always, as is everyone else but Benning, but so much centers around Benning's character and the contrived interplay between each actor that the film never really comes together. I won't be a spoiler and tell you what conflict is created from this mess, as it is too ridiculous and too glaringly, um, predicable, as is the set up for the ending scene. Predictable. I cannot figure out what everyone is so excited about. Not the writing, not the acting, nada!

Moving on to Black Swan, another award favorite. Natalie Portman does a good job as Nina, a tortured ballerina, and Mila Kunis as her rival is fun to watch. While the film was entertaining, I agree with David Denby (in The New Yorker) that the movie "turns the uncanny into shtick" and lacks control. Much of it is so over the top that my companions and I found ourselves laughing out loud. Part of the problem is that it doesn't know quite which way to go. Is the rival ballerina after Nina? Could be a suspense thriller. Is Nina's mom a whack job, out to keep her little girl under her thumb by messing with her head? Could be a complex psychological drama. Is, in fact, Nina just losing her mind? Yes, guess so. But even that could be mined for more interest and subtlety that we get here. Fans of director Aronofsky will probably enjoy the spectacular and fantastic aspects of this, and not care about the obviousness or incoherence. It was a hoot, though. Danke schon!

I'm giving Tangled a big thumbs up. All the best of Disney--good story, good music, a ton of fun. We had a three generation outing for this one, and everyone enjoyed it.

I'm looking to see as many films as I can in the coming weeks just so I can have arguments with my friends about how bad most are...fun! What should I see next?