Mute Witness: On “Synecdoche, New York”

September 14, 2008Posted in2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blog, Charlie Kaufman, Film Festivals, TIFF

originally published September 14, 2008
As threatened, a few stream-of-consciousness thoughts on Charlie Kaufman's latest…

When Synecdoche, New York premiered at Cannes, I remember being annoyed by how feeble the critical coverage on it was. But I get it now. This is a film I'm hard-pressed to describe, let alone review in depth, after just a single viewing. I can say that I see why Kaufman kept this one for himself rather than entrusting it to Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry—it's so dense and cryptic that it would be nigh uninterpretable by anyone but the source. Kaufman is a pretty meat-and-potatoes director, all things considered, but there are so many idiosyncrasies built into the material that it's stylish by default.

TIFF ’08: Gigantic

September 13, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Romance, TIFF
**/****starring Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Jane Alexanderscreenplay by Adam Nagata & Matt Aseltondirected by Matt Aselton by Bill Chambers Gigantic is littered with dead and loose ends, which wouldn't be a big deal if this were the quasi-freeform jazz of a Cassavetes or even an Apatow wannabe, but is a considerable problem when taking into account the crispness of the film's aesthetics. The clean 'scope compositions and fat-free performances become increasingly incongruous; by the time the movie stops short with everything and nothing resolved, you're convinced the filmmakers snatched a script out of the oven half-cooked after a window…

TIFF ’08: The Wrestler

September 9, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Darren Aronofsky, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Sports, TIFF

***½/****
starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Todd Barry
screenplay by Robert Siegel
directed by Darren Aronofsky

by Bill Chambers Mickey Rourke has spent the Aughties staging a series of mini-comebacks, but they’ve mostly sidestepped his iconography in favour of transforming him into a character actor. Not so Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, which is poignant largely for how it reflects and refracts the Mickey Rourke mystique. Quite aware of his film’s ghoulish appeal, Aronofsky, after spotlighting the visage of young, beautiful Mickey Rourke under the main titles, shields Rourke’s face from view long enough that even though we know what he looks like now (that detour into prizefighting and God knows how many botched surgeries really took their toll), his first close-up still causes momentary grief. But the film is not just about lost youth, Rourke’s or otherwise (44-year-old Marisa Tomei, reacquainting Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead viewers with her breasts, God bless her, plays the kind of stripper pitied by her clientele): it’s about how the culture of ’80s nostalgia–arguably the dominant culture–is like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, arrested in a childlike state and unable to resist squeezing the life out of Reagan-era totems. Wrestling, meanwhile, proves to be the perfect analogue for acting in that its Golden Age, like Rourke’s, was somewhere around 1987, the year of Angel Heart and the seminal WrestleMania III; when Rourke’s washed-up Randy “The Ram” Robinson, permanently cast out of the ring by a heart attack, challenges a neighbourhood kid to a game of Nintendo wrestling, suffice it to say the conflation of relics is nothing less than poetic.

TIFF ’08: Rachel Getting Married

September 6, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Directors: Jonathan Demme, Drama, TIFF
**/****starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mather Zickel, Bill Irwinscreenplay by Jenny Lumetdirected by Jonathan Demme by Bill Chambers Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married has the cultural disadvantage of arriving soon after Margot at the Wedding and the personal one of following Claire Denis's 35 Shots in my screening log. Denis does so much more with so much less; perhaps sight-unseen, people have been calling this a return to form for Demme (as in, the form before The Silence of the Lambs created certain commercial expectations of/obligations in his work), but I don't remember him ever being this histrionic. And my…

TIFF ’08: Lorna’s Silence

September 3, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Italy, TIFF
Le silence de Lorna***½/****starring Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukajwritten and directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne by Bill Chambers That figures: I'm finally ready to get on board the Dardenne Brothers bandwagon and everyone's bailing. What I like--maybe love--about their latest, Lorna's Silence (Le Silence de Lorna), is that it zigs when you expect it to zag, which may peg me as superficial (some reviews of the film have admonished it for having a plot) but which nevertheless strikes me as a refreshing change of pace from the neorealist wallowing of their earlier work. (To my…

TIFF ’08: The Girl from Monaco

September 1, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, TIFF
La fille de Monaco**/****starring Fabrice Luchini, Roschdy Zem, Louise Bourgoin, Stéphane Audranscreenplay by Anne Fontaine, Benoît Graffindirected by Anne Fontaine by Bill Chambers Her ringtone is a wolf whistle, her bedroom is decorated with Princess Di memorabilia, and she says things like "I feel orange." She's The Girl from Monaco. She's also a coarse variation on Sarah Jessica Parker's SanDeE* from L.A. Story (this time, it's she who does the weather), duking it out for the soul of lawyer Bertrand against his emotionally-involved bodyguard, Christophe. Bertrand (Fabrice Luchini) is in Monaco representing a suspected murderess (Stéphane Audran) in a case…

TIFF ’08: Derrière moi

August 31, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals, TIFF
Behind Me**½/****starring Carina Caputo, Charlotte Legault, Patrice Duboiswritten and directed by Rafaël Ouellet by Bill Chambers The title translates as Behind Me, which is sort of where I want to put this Lukas Moodysson-esque downer. I hasten to add, though, that this is a work of fierce emotional intelligence, and I honestly can't decide whether its profoundly upsetting closing minutes (however bullshit they might be) are an example of the characters letting us down or the filmmakers letting the characters down, cynically betraying them and the scenario for shock value. What's interesting is that the logline sent out to the…

TIFF ’08: A Christmas Tale

August 29, 2008Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Christmas, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, TIFF
Un Conte de Noël***/****starring Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Cosignyscreenplay by Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuel Bourdieudirected by Arnaud Desplechin by Bill Chambers A Gallic collision of The Family Stone (ugh) and The Royal Tenenbaums (woo) but far more palatable and novelistic than that might suggest, Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noël) unfurls over Christmas in bourgeois Roubaix, where the dysfunctional Vuillards have congregated to weigh their options now that matriarch Junon (Catherine Deneuve) has been diagnosed with cancer. She needs a bone-marrow transplant, and the only potential matches are black sheep Henri (Mathieu Amalric) and Henri's…

TIFF ’07: Lust, Caution

September 22, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, China, Drama, Film Festivals, Romance, Taiwan, Thriller, TIFF, War
***/****starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehomscreenplay by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus, based on a short story by Eileen Changdirected by Ang Lee by Bill Chambers Blessed with an achingly beautiful score by Alexandre Desplat, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a more tasteful Blackbook, which is odd considering how much more graphic it is in its depiction of not just sexuality but, thanks to a darkly-comic homage to Torn Curtain, violence as well. Where Blackbook director Paul Verhoeven is a vulgarian, though, Lee projects civility and cultivation. That's how he so often manages to…

TIFF ’07: The Tracey Fragments

September 20, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, Esoterica, Film Festivals, TIFF
½*/****starring Ellen Page, Ari Cohen, Max McCabe-Lokos, Max Turnbullscreenplay by Maureen Medved, based on her noveldirected by Bruce McDonald by Bill Chambers When I say that The Tracey Fragments applies the Tarnation method to fiction filmmaking, I say it exasperated with the whole Pied Piper mentality that follows any aesthetic innovation. I admire Tarnation, don't misunderstand, but a big part of that admiration rests in the picture's total invention and definitive application of a form that fits its function. Unfortunately, for every E.T., there's a Mac and Me--and for every original like Jonathan Caouette there's a dilettante-in-waiting like Bruce McDonald.…

TIFF ’07: George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead

September 15, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: George A. Romero, Film Festivals, Horror, TIFF, Zombie

Fest2007dead***/****
written and directed by George A. Romero

by Bill Chambers The problem with 2005’s Land of the Dead is that it could’ve been made by virtually anybody at virtually any time. While I imagine that George A. Romero, stalwart hippie that he is, has an anticapitalist streak a mile wide, that picture’s “eat the rich” trajectory ultimately felt like a rather flimsy pretext for Romero to resume chronicling social change through the prism of his precious undead. Given that the “Dead” films have typically had long incubation periods, it’s surprising to see Romero return to the well so soon, but then it was probably best to hit the reset button post-haste. George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead does just that in more ways than one: Here, Romero disentangles himself from the cul-de-sac of a zombie-human détente by starting from scratch in the present tense, making this the Casino Royale of the series.

TIFF ’07: Mother of Tears: The Third Mother

September 9, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: Dario Argento, Film Festivals, Horror, Italy, TIFF

Fest2007tearsLa terza madre
***/****
directed by Dario Argento

by Bill Chambers Sanity and fatigue are ineluctable corrupting influences on an aging filmmaker, but it brings me great pleasure and no small relief to be able to report that while Mother of Tears: The Third Mother–Dario Argento’s long-gestating conclusion to his “Three Sisters” trilogy–is neither as artful as Suspiria nor as dreamlike as Inferno, it nevertheless surpasses expectations fostered by Argento’s recent work to emerge as his best movie in decades. Fitting that Argento should choose to tell the Rome-set story of Mater Lacrimarum last, marking this as a homecoming in more ways than one.

Why I’m Not Formally Reviewing ‘Control’

September 9, 2007Posted in2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blog, Film Festivals, TIFF

originally published September 9, 2007Control is an authentic-feeling biopic about the late Ian Curtis, the epileptic front man for Joy Division who committed suicide–though a revisionist theory absurdly contends that he "accidentally" hung himself from the clothesline in his Manchester flat–in 1979 at the age of 23. Spoiler. Directed by music-video auteur Anton Corbijn and objectively lensed in black-and-white and 'scope by Martin Ruhe, the film overcomes the central miscasting of Samantha Morton as Ian's wife Deborah (though she would've nailed this role in her Morvern Callar days, she's far too long in the tooth for it now) with the near-perfect casting of Sam Riley as Curtis, Craig Parkinson as Tony Wilson, and Alexandra Maria Lara as Annik Honoré, a.k.a. The Other Woman. (Morton's incongruous star-power is easily explained by the basis for Control's screenplay: Deborah Curtis' own memoir Touching from a Distance.) The film is admirably not a hagiography while engendering empathy for a gifted asshole more successfully than, say, Man on the Moon, and the song recreations are surprisingly persuasive, although I was a bit disappointed with how literalmindedly the music is applied at times.

TIFF ’07: King of the Hill

September 2, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Film Festivals, Spain, Thriller, TIFF
El Rey de la montaña***½/****starring Leonardo Sbaraglia, María Valverde, Pablo Menasanch, Francisco Olmoscreenplay by Gonzalo López-Gallego, Javier Gullóndirected by Gonzalo López-Gallego by Bill Chambers A political thriller in the sense that it's bound to polarize audiences, King of the Hill (El Rey de la montaña) is if nothing else gripping from beginning to end. The effective, switcheroo set-up finds lost souls Quim (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and Bea (María Valverde, who from certain angles suggests Monica Bellucci's little sister) hooking up anonymously in the bathroom of a gas station, after which Bea makes off with Quim's wallet. Giving chase, Quim is shot…

TIFF ’07: Emotional Arithmetic

August 31, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals, TIFF
**/****starring Susan Sarandon, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne, Max von Sydowscreenplay by Jefferson Lewis, based on the novel by Matt Cohendirected by Paolo Barzman by Bill Chambers A "Never Forget" PSA done up as a Bergmanesque psychodrama, the destined-to-be-retitled Emotional Arithmetic at least has the good sense to co-opt Bergman veteran Max von Sydow, who turns in the kind of twilit performance that functions as both a compendium of and an exquisite gateway to a storied career. Asked point-blank how he managed to survive the Holocaust, a prison sentence, and shock therapy, Sydow, as the noble but senile Jewish poet Jakob…

TIFF ’07: Just Buried

August 27, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Horror, TIFF
*½/****starring Jay Baruchel, Rose Byrne, Graham Greene, Nigel Bennettwritten and directed by Chaz Thorne by Bill Chambers Just Buried (formerly Pushing Up Daisies) stars Jay Baruchel as Oliver Whynacht (get it? "Why not?" Me neither), a neurotic with a really annoying affection (his nose bleeds when he's nervous) who inherits a small-town funeral parlour from his estranged father. He's ready to hand over the reins of the money-hemorrhaging business to a competitor when he falls under the spell of the Lady Macbeth-like mortician, Roberta (Rose Byrne), whereupon the two hatch a scheme to drum up business that rather rapidly transforms them…

TIFF ’07: Angel

August 27, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Romance, TIFF, UK
**/****starring Romola Garai, Michael Fassbender, Sam Neill, Charlotte Ramplingscreenplay by François Ozon & Martin Crimp, based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylordirected by François Ozon by Bill Chambers François Ozon is what David Bordwell might call a "polystylist," though his eclecticism has mostly yielded diminishing returns. His latest finds him suiting up for yet another genre, and although it could be considered something of a throwback to his early features Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women (if by virtue of its roots in someone else's material), he's too tony now for the vaguely subversive pastiches with which he…

TIFF ’06: Black Book

September 25, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Belgium, Drama, Espionage, Film Festivals, Germany, Netherlands, Thriller, TIFF, UK, War
Zwartboek**/****starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijnscreenplay by Gerard Soeteman & Paul Verhoevendirected by Paul Verhoeven by Bill Chambers The word on Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (Zwartboek) around the TIFF was that it's "Showgirls meets Schindler's List," which is a cute bit of shorthand but decidedly misleading, not that I can begin to imagine what that movie would be like. All it really means is that we're never going to let Verhoeven live Showgirls down, so who can blame him for going back to Holland, where he's still an object of veneration? Alas, you can take Verhoeven…

TIFF ’06: Everything’s Gone Green

September 22, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Comedy, Crime, Film Festivals, TIFF
*/****starring Paulo Costanzo, Steph Song, JR Bourne, Gordon Michael Woovettscreenplay by Douglas Couplanddirected by Paul Fox by Bill Chambers After popularizing the term "Generation X" with the title of his debut novel, Douglas Coupland staked a claim in the chick-lit-for-guys genre, his publishers no doubt hoping that zeitgeist lightning would strike twice. If anything, Everything's Gone Green, Coupland's first foray into screenwriting, makes him seem like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused, still courting the teenage and twentysomething idealists because even though he gets older, they stay the same receptive age. Here we learn that Vancouver has sold out to…