Sunday 20 February 2011

Great Movie Scenes: Fargo, the "TV Scene"

*This highlight contains spoilers for the movie Fargo*

So I reviewed Fargo a few days back and rewatched it yesterday to see if I picked up on anything new. I did.

Somehow I totally missed a really brilliant scene that I think emphasises just how hot the Coens are on details that are easy to miss. It's only around a minute long, but that minute conveys so much.

Right after an amusing interlude in which cop Marge Gunderson interviews two dim-witted prostitutes, the scene cuts to a zoomed out shot of a snowy shack. Inside Gaear and Carl are waiting with the kidnapped Jean for a ransom call.

Even from the location shot we can hear Buscemi's Carl muttering insults at the TV set in the cabin. As the film's wonderfully calm soundtrack plays in the background, the camera moves inside.

From there the view passes from Carl banging the TV and becoming increasingly infuriated, back to Gaear (who is sitting silently, almost as if catatonic) and then on to Jean, who is also quiet but breathing quickly as though scared, a bag over her head.

These shots repeat themselves, zooming in further on each character slightly. As the scene progresses, Carl's lamentations grow more desperate.

"There's nothin' to do!" he cries helplessly. "F**kin' TV won't even...come on, baby! Plug me inta the ozone! F**kin' shit box!"

All through the scene the background music proceeds with contradictory gentleness, building in volume as the camera finally begins zooming in on the malfunctioning TV screen. As we zoom in, Carl's profanity gets worse and worse until he is apparently screaming at the TV in an uncontrollable rage ("F**K! F**K!!").

The TV suddenly gets a picture and the music and yelling stops immediately - a beetle in a nature documentary scuttles around, and the view zooms out to show that the TV is located in the room of Marge, who is happily cuddling up to her husband.

The first time I saw the scene, I really, really laughed. Buscemi's ability to make his character so ludicrously irate over such a trivial affair is really convincing. Stormare's Gaear is so zoned out and disinterested that he highlights this really well.

Then I got to thinking - other than for the amusement factor, why was this scene included? Why was the music chosen for this scene?

The music is a haunting violin piece that plays recurringly throughout the film. Here it contradicts Carl's screaming and at the same time invites us to speculate a higher purpose to the events shown.

Then I realised - the scene is actually very significant in determining the moral compass of the story and comments on the personalities of the characters. In that 40 seconds to a minute, this small scene sums up everything that makes the movie great.

Buscemi's character throughout the film becomes increasingly violent, erratic and uncaring. Not only does this scene foreshadow his eventual fate and the disintegration of any humanity he had, it also throws light on the state of his life and Marge's quote at the end of the film (see the review).

Carl's life is so empty and futile that he just loses it if he can't watch TV. He isolates himself from what he seems to crave (company) by picking a silent brute for a partner and gagging his hostage. He sleeps with call girls throughout the film, apparently unable and unwilling to emotionally commit to a woman. In a way, I think he's perhaps one of the most tragic characters in the story, he's just so pathetic.

Gaear, meanwhile, is (to quote Ebert), a "sullen slug". He'd be just as happy with the TV broken as fixed. He's happy not to talk to anyone. If you annoy him, he's happy to kill you. We can't even imagine what he'd want to spend the ransom money on, because he doesn't even seem to have a shred of human normality in his being. He doesn't have a life at all.

Both of them ignore Jean completely in this scene, showing the fundamental selfishness and lack of empathy they both have for other human beings. It is also, interestingly, the first and only time we see Jean after the kidnapping and before Gaear callously kills her off-screen.

As for what's on the screen - a beetle in Marge's house, on a nature show. Carl cannot pick the reception for this programme up. Does that suggest that his actions are fundamentally against the natural way of things? I think they certainly highlight another disconnect between people like Carl and Gaear and "functioning" society.

The narrator explains that the beetle is "carrying a worm back to it's nest", a striking parallel with the kidnapping which I think is meant to encourage this train of thought.

Marge by contrast is happy simply being with her husband, and eventually decides she is going to sleep. She has no need for the TV, or the material desires that it represents.

Ironically, the guy who gets to watch the TV in the end is the disinterested Gaear.

That so much inferrence can be put into a single minute of film is pretty remarkable.

Great film, great scene. Here's the YouTube recording:

Saturday 19 February 2011

Movie Review: Fargo

So, yet another review ( I will really have to get back to Blood Bowl soon!) and yet another "Coen brothers" movie.

Fargo is quite similar in terms of themes to No Country For Old Men, yet also reminds me of a Shakespearian play in terms of the tragedies that seem to befall practically every character in the story.

Just like NCFOM it focuses on a merciless, senseless evil in a traditionally laid-back, moral rural setting and the impact such an invasion of darkness has on the casual observer.

Similarly, Fargo also has elements of dark comedy. I'd say it goes further than NCFOM in that regard (which is more thrillery all around) and goes into the territory of all out black comedy in places.

One point, in which a character screams incredulously "I got f**kin' SHOT! I got f**kin' shot IN THE FACE!" made me burst out laughing. It's peculiar that I can't pin down exactly why that scene is so funny, but the delivery and the context of the line (as well as the response of the other party) just showcases the edge on things perfectly. The events that unfold are so outrageously grim at points and so extreme that the instinct they grab hold of is the instinct to laugh.

The cast of this film are universally fantastic in their roles. Peter Stormare and Steve Buscemi deserve a special mention as characters Gaear Grimsrud and Carl respectively. The two are a great double act.

Carl is cowardly, anger-prone, nervous, loserish criminal and yet is more human than his partner. He can't seem to stop talking. We sense there is a shred of
humanity in him despite his unpleasant nature, particularly after the first death on screen.

Gaear Grimsrud has no such human spark. He hardly ever speaks throughout the film (much to Carl's annoyance) unless it's to make a threat or deliver a statement matter-of-factly.

He's a heavily built, intimidating man, yet also gives the impression that he is somewhat mentally slow - a brute in every sense of the word. Below this exterior there lies mystery.

His name doesn't sound American. Unlike Carl, he hardly ever begins yelling or getting angry - he simply kills people who anger him instead. He's like Anton Chigurh if he was obsessed with pancakes, less intelligent and a lot less professional.

He doesn't approach that almost metaphysical level of evil, but he has an animalistic, brutal simplicity that makes him a great villain.

Buscemi's character morphs throughout the picture. He starts off slimy, unpleasant and yet more eloquent than his partner, then slowly shifts towards losing that spark himself. In a way he seems to mingle with Gaear's personality - he loses any morals he may have had, while Gaear ends the film the more coldly rational of the two.

The plot itself is interesting. It's impossible to go into detail without spoiling it, but it concerns a car salesman named Jerry (William H. Macy) trying to prop up his financial situation by having his own wife kidnapped. Needless to say his hiring of Carl and Gaear to carry the task out is very ill-advised, and the whole plan quickly goes awry. It's hard to say who is more pathetic - Jerry or the criminals.

There are many parallels in the story between seemingly unrelated characters that show up in many different sub-plots, another nice trait of the film.

Following a trail of corpses and carnage is Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), a pregnant cop in Brainerd, Minnesota (the setting for much of the story) who tries to fathom the situation unfolding before her. She, as Tommy Lee Jones in NCFOM, has a great line near the end of the film that provides some redemption for all that we see before.

So Fargo is a strange beast. It's a crime film, a comedy film and a strangely poignant tale all rolled into one. There is a brilliant irony to the story too that you will only get once you see it.

I'll leave you with one of Marge's quotes: "[It was all] for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well...I just don't understand it."

5/5.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJUvPZI3Cr4

Monday 7 February 2011

Movie Review: No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men is pretty close to being a "perfect" Thriller.

The movie, set in 1980, focuses on the convergence of the lives of 3 men in Texas. The story focuses on the escalating violence and immorality associated with propagation of the heroin trade at the time and contrasts it with "the old times".

One man is Llewyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an everyman character from humble origins who one day happens upon a drugs deal gone wrong in the middle of the desert. He encounters a dying dealer who begs for water - Moss doesn't have any, and instead checks to see if anyone else survived the incident.

Eventually he finds the last dealer dead under a distant tree. Next to him is a case containing $2 million.

Moss takes the money home, where he has an attack of conscience and goes back to the scene to give water to the dying man. This act of kindness ultimately gets him embroiled in a terrifying chase.

The second man is experienced Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a man who has been Sheriff since he was 25. Early in the film, he narrates his confusion on how the world seems to be changing, quoting an example of a very callous murderer he recently brought to justice.

He mentions with fondness how the "old timers" never had to carry guns on their belts - something that has changed enormously in recent years in his mind.

He has several excellent monologues in this vein which really sum up parts of the film nicely.

The third man is the enigmatic Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Chirgurh is the character that really steals the show.

He is the hitman contracted by one of the drug factions to find the money taken from the deal (inside the case, unknown to Moss at first, a tracking device is hidden). Chigurh has an implaceable accent and is clearly not from Texas.

He is a completely merciless psychotic who is very, very good at his job. While he is undoubtedly unhinged, the most disturbing thing about the character is how efficiently and intelligently he carries out his murders.

After accepting the contract, he promptly decides to simply take the money for himself instead of returning it to his clients - and then he executes them calmly with a handgun before leaving the scene.

Chigurh also has his own twisted philosophy on life. He is obsessed with fate, and throughout the film we see several scenes in which he apparently decides whether or not to take the life of a character with a coin toss.

Take this pitch-perfect scene in which Chigurh is apparently antagonised by the small talk of a petrol station clerk:



Throughout the film, he becomes an almost supernatural force, silently killing anyone who he feels like.

His unusual choice of weaponry reflects his demented personality - at one point he fires at Moss indiscriminately (killing an innocent in the process) with a silenced machine gun. Many of his other killings are carried out with a silenced shotgun, a gun which mirrors his quiet-spoken but brutal personality perfectly.

Most creepy of all, however, is the "oxygen tank" an ill-fated policeman notes that he carries with him. It is a captive bolt gun which fires a pressurised cylinder used to kill cattle. Chigurh uses it to break the door locks of his victims with a sudden, soft hiss...and is not against using it against people either.

I've deliberately avoided plot details as discussing them too much ruins the film. Hopefully I have illuminated the characters (Chigurh especially) who are really fantastic.

The film is quite violent and I'm surprised it achieved a 15 certificate rating. Swearing is actually pretty low throughout the film.

Final Word:

If you want a Thriller with a real punch that raises a lot of questions by the end, No Country For Old Men is for you.

The plot will unfold in ways that you honestly can't predict.

5/5.

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Sunday 6 February 2011

Movie Review: Equilibrium

So this film was on TV last night, and I figured I'd review it.

Set in a dystopian (near) future after WWIII, mankind has successfully eliminated all war, murder and other unpleasant elements of human nature. This is done by making everyone in society take a daily dose of a psychoactive drug named Prozium. Prozium apparently suppresses all emotion in those who take it.

Everything is watched over by an omnipresent Big Brother style figure named Father. The film borrows heavily from 1984 in it's style and ideas.

In combination with this drugging on a huge scale, all materials that may provoke an emotional reaction (art, music, literature and so on) are rated "EC-10" for emotional content. Anyone in possession of such contraband is summarily executed or arrested for interrogation (after which execution always seems to follow anyway).

These laws are enforced by "Clerics", highly trained agents who practice "gun kata" and use their deadly talents on "Sense Offenders" without hesitation.

Now, let me get one thing straight here: gun kata is one of the biggest flaws of the film. It's basically an excuse for some absolutely ridiculous action sequences. Action directors do not seem to understand that sometimes the occasional bit of shooting that makes sense is far more exciting than completely ludicrous gunfights that are physically impossible.

The principle of this fighting style seems to be ripped from the Matrix - "gun fu" in other words. We get a brief explanation from one character that the style trains a fighter that every possible angle at which he can shoot at and be shot at from is statistically predictable.

Hence a master of "gun kata" can supposedly land many shots on targets all around him without aiming simply by analysing where the most likely placements of enemies are. He can also dodge incoming fire using the same principle.

Quite how you can possibly calculate the exact probability of getting shot from a certain angle in a 360 degree 3d arc in the microsecond before someone can pull the trigger is never explained. Perhaps all Clerics actually have quantum supercomputers for brains and can see into the future too? :\

Clerics also seem incapable of fighting less than 6+ opponents at once. I have no idea how "predicting" bullet trajectories will do you any good when fighting 6 people with machineguns at point blank range, but apparently in this film such logic is irrelevant.

Anyway, this totally inadequate "explanation" basically means that the director can stage preposterous scenes like the one which opens the film.

Christian Bale plays John Preston, an elite Cleric. He walks into a building held by Sense Offenders, switches the lights out, and walks into a room full of them. He then simply stands in the middle of the darkened room staring straight ahead and begins gunning down everyone without even being able to see where they are. With pistols.

Despite the fact he is not even moving and his gun illuminates him clearly standing in the middle of the room all return fire (from machineguns nonetheless) misses him. It truly is an absolutely dumb scene, clearly meant to appeal to the "Whoaaa, duddddeee!" crowd.

Pretty much every action sequence in the film is the same bullshit, and there are around 4-5 such scenes. The only one that was remotely interesting was when he beats up a bunch of guys with his pistols and even that was totally over the top.

Anyway, Preston finishes up there and burns the original Mona Lisa, which was what the rebels were guarding. He catches his partner Cleric (Sean Bean) apparently skipping his drugging and sneaking poetry away to read. The interaction between them early on in the film is one of the better scenes by far.

From then on Preston himself manages to accidentally deprive himself of his dosage and feels emotion for the first time. The film proceeds to get quite interesting, but at every point I started getting intrigued one of the above stupid action scenes had to crash in with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Ultimately, the biggest failure in the plot in general is the unfeasability of the regime. There are several huge gulfs in logic: Preston is revealed early on to have allowed his wife to be arrested and killed for "Sense Offence".

Later in the film, he is accused of having "relations with a female". Wait, wut? So apparently you can have a wife, you just mustn't show emotion towards her? How does that work? How do you ever get married without having love in the first place?

Surely either everyone should be single, or the state should marry people on convenience in an emotionless society? And how about the kids he has? Why did he ever have a desire to have kids (or even to have sex) if he had no emotion?

Similarly, Preston's enemies (aside from one in particular) are all doped up, but still occasionally display anger, surprise, alarm and smugness...which suggests Prozium isn't exactly doing it's job properly, or the direction and scriptwriting is schizophrenic. I think probably the latter.

And if books and art are outlawed, how do you educate people? To free humanity completely from emotion, you'd have to deprive them of their jobs and education too. These issues are not tackled.

Overall I wanted to like the film, I really did, but the completely over the top action (which is curiously dull most of the time) is a bad habit that is hard to ignore. The indecision of the script on what it wants to be (pure action, thriller or musing on society) muddles everything and by the end no ideological statement seems to be made beyond "isn't a world like this shitty?"

Final Word:

It's a passable film and I think I'd watch it again if it was on. Ultimately though it isn't bold enough to drop the Matrix rip-off crap and as such it feels a bit like it sold its soul for cheap action scenes.

The film also meanders along ploddingly at times. It lacks that "oomph" needed to really make a movie watchable.

2.5/5


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