Elysium (2012)

The first part of Elysium actually made my heart pound: it's a riveting start that conjures up a quite alarming picture of life on earth ... and in space. Alarming, because it's also familiar. Los Angeles has become one enormous overpopulated shanty town. People are shuffled around in an authoritarian system of work, but they seem to be dependent on the art of making do, of taking advantage of the situation. Their lives are guarded by robots who carry out the no-nonsense bureaucratic routines. In a slightly Marcusean vein, the main character is employed in a factory where these robots are put together - his precious work (many are unemployed) contribute to his own oppression. Neill Blomkamp here treads on the path he demarcated in District 9: dystopian films with a clear political agenda. Elysium has the politics, it has the setting - but what is sure doesn't have is a good sense for storytelling. Bloomkamp opts for action hero extravaganza and the film's potential goes down the drain, being swallowed up in a gigantic maelstrom of bombastic music, predictable fight scenes and tacky lines. This is the second part of the film, in which Matt Damon, our hero, is on a mission to save himself, his girl, the girl's daughter and the rest of humanity living on earth. What's the answer? The space shuttle taking them all to the space station - Elysium - on which the wealthy & privileged minority reside and there the sick can be healed by laying down in glass box. Their minister of Defence (an icy Jodie Foster - it's rumored that the role was written for a man but she wanted the job anyway, she's great) prefence n:o 1 is to keep the people on earth away from this haven of ordered and pleasant life. The space station itself remains a caricature of sterile mansions and people who walk around in coctail parties speaking French. Elysium could've been a great film about polarization, precarious life and environmental drainage. The stage was set for a great powerful movie about what is already going to hell. Instead, the Elysium we got is a bombastic action flick that tries so hard to press all the right buttons. Bloomkamp's attempt at resolution might be the most preposterious in the history of cinema (revolution is pressing a button) but his vision nonetheless is a haunting one. I hope he will drop the action film pretension and make other kinds of movies.

A Single Man (2009)

Tom Ford clearly wanted to make a gorgeous and wistful film, a film that is more about mood than story, more about feelings than action. A Single Man has the surface, it has the striking look, and I was totally engrossed in this sad story about a man who grïeves his dead lover. That said, this is not a film that will change my life. It didn't unhinge me or set me on a different path regarding how I look at things. Is this to say that its beauty was shallow or false? No, maybe not. Just that, somehow, this film didn't quite succeed in what it tried to be: a personal film, a film that speaks about an individual person. In some sections of the film, I felt that the whole thing started to drift off in a sort of general moodiness - the problem was not the emphasis on mood (I love Wong Kar Wai) but when mood starts to feel propped up. It wasn't like that all the time, but now and then. As some reviewers have pointed out: the aesthetics of lush commercials is not far away. And, indeed, one point of reference here is Mad Men - the same problem there. Colin Firth plays the sophisticated college prof, an Englishman who lives in LA (Firth lends him a dignified but sensual demenor). We see him alone and we see him with other people and all the time we get the sense that there is something amiss. We learn that the man's life has taken a drastic turn since the death of a lover. I think the film handles the topic of grief quite well - but one thing I had a hard time understanding was the point of the romantic flash-backs. To me, they were annoying and superfluous. The scenes that depict a young student's attempt to lure his teacher into bed works better and I also liked the quiet encounter between our main character and a boy who thinks he has been picked up for sex, but the situation turns out to be about something else. (In this scene, Ford's taste for gorgeous setting works quite nicely even though it is SO over the top.) I'm not sure whether Ford had some deeper intention with his use of style - whether the very aesthetisized settings and clothes are to reflect the main character's attitude - he expects nothing of life, it should just be kept in order. But nothing here really breaks the spell, and that's precisely what I craved the most when watching the film, that the surface would sometimes be demolished to reveal something else. But - no. Not really. A Single Man remains much too self-conscious, and it is this that makes it hard to be moved by this film.

Niagara (1953)

Niagara falls is supposed to be a romantic place perfect for the blossoming love of honeymoons. Or that's the idea. Henry Hathaway turns these images around in his melodramatic but eerily suggestive crime flick Niagara - he makes the thunder of the waterfall into the soundtrack of a nightmare inhabited by kind-hearted folk from the country and a troubled couple. Well, I tend to like this kind of stuff. A bit corny, over-the-top action suspense scenes in the brightest technicolor you've ever seen. Like a cheaper version of North by Northwest! I guess Hitch must've stolen all his ideas from this movie. Marilyn Monroe is excellent as the dame with secret and dangerous plots on her mind and the other actors are mostly good, especially Joseph Cotten who plays her traumatized war veteran husband. - OK, the plot is utterly silly and there are many things that make this movie quite off-putting if one thought about it more (the duality of femininity on display: the sexy one and the 'moral' one) but somehow I was lured into this sleazy movie. Damn you, technicolor gloss!

Circumstance (2011)

Maryam Keshawarz is a new name in Iranian cinema and I hope she will make more movies after Circumstance, a quite good, but far from perfect movie about young people in love and the society that makes their love invisible. Keshawarz is eager to show us images of Teheran we might not be used to: underground clubs, young people who are more interested in dubbing Milk to persian than leading the traditional life. The kids in the film have lots of secrets and the adult world is shown to tolerate their rebellion to some extent, but there are limits. And some things can't even be mentioned or spoken about. This is the case with the love affair of Atafeh and Shireen. Close friends - ok, but that's all others see. Keshawarz explores the class differences that have an impact on their lives. One of them is a pampered kid with a brother who goes from being an addict to a faux-religious moralist with his own dark secrets. It is mostly this middle class life we see, people who mix the underground clubs with a polished appearance. Keshawarz has many things on her mind here, and sometimes she is too intent on showing us HOW IT IS, so some things here end up as caricatures, too hastily or drastically portrayed to be believable, or engaging. Simply: melodrama abounds. This is a shame, because the film clearly has potentialities.

Compliance (2012)

Compliance (dir. Craig Zobel) may be based on real events and it sure brings up some important points about authoritarian relationships - but I wasn't crazy about it, even though there are several interesting dimensions one could discuss at lenght. The story is told in a simple way, the time frame of the story is limited and the narrative is set in one and the same location. Given the chilling quality of the tale, Compliance develops into a claustrophobic movie about precarious workers and power relations. We are introduced to a staff of fast food workers. They work the hectic Friday shift and even though people are busy there is the normal bullshit and the ordinary jokes. There is tension between the workers and we somehow suspect this will be a long night. But then there is a phone-call and one of the employees are taken to a back room. A guy has presented himself as a police officer. One of the workers are said to have stolen a customer's purse. Over the phone, the 'cop' is commanding the middle-manager of the joint, Sandra, how to proceed with the 'investigation'. Sandra is having a rough day and she is eager to please the good officer. Things soon get out of hand and outrageous orders are handled out while the staff get all the more uncomfortable with the situation. But the guy is after all a cop so they better do as they're told. The title, Compliance, gives away the basic theme: these people don't ask unnecessary questions, they are obedient and even when things seem weird, they comply. The lack of protests or questioning is placed against the backdrop of corporate hierarchies and ideas about Professionals (they MUST know what they are doing, right? they are the EXPERTS). Early on in the movie, we learn that the employees are constantly surveilled, constantly looked at as potential rule-breakers - in other words, they are treated like trash, like people who the managers should treat a bit roughly so as to elicit the best response - compliance and fear. And well, even the middle-managers are just as scared as their colleagues. Sandra is worried about the managers above her, and she wants the place to be run impeccably, after all, she's the one responsible for the general order. Sandra, then, is both the one who is doing the surveillance and the one feeling that others are scrutinizing her job performance. - - - All this could have been the recipe for an awesome and critical film, but my problem with Compliance was that the film somehow tried to take the viewer by the hand, 'look, THIS is going on'. I am still unsure what didn't work so well in this movie. Was it the overwrought acting (but it always had some great moments where the acting was spot on)? The plot? Sensationalism? The answer is probably all of these. Anyways, Compliance was difficult to watch and for all its weaknesses this was an interesting story about the contemporary workplace.

The Diary of a Worker (1967)

To be honest, I had lots of preconceived ideas about what The Diary of a Worker (dir. Risto Jarva) would be like. I thought it would be stiff, doll-like actors screaming their way through a phony manuscript. Well, you know, this is what Finnish movies are often like, not all the time, but often enough. Well, I was wrong. This was a great film, with lots of artsy surprises to boot, a Finnish attempt at nouvelle vague (in a good way). Diary of a Worker does not shy away from expressing some chunks of left-wing politics. Jarva shows a society undergoing some drastic changes (in the sixties, urbanization in Finland was still underway.) It's a film about work, class differences and ideas about family life. Two young people - a welder and a secretary - fall in love and the film chronicles their everyday struggles and their hardships - and all this with a sort of hard-boiled matter-of-factness. The guy takes a job in another city and the girl has difficulties at her job, and withdraws into herself. I am not sure how common this was for Finnish movies in the sixties (honestly, I don't know) but the film's portrayal of how the war (WWII) left traumatic traces both in people who fought in the war, and the generation who lived with their parents' silence and strange reactions is gritty and unsentimental. The same thing goes for how the film tackles political disagreements. Jarva does not depict differences of opinions, but differences in attitudes to life. And usually he does this quite successfully. This is a film I must watch again. The editing technique alone makes this film worth watching. AND: some great music, too!

It's a free world (2007)

Ken Loach is an uneven director. You never know whether his film will be great, mediocre or quite awful. It's a free world explores an interesting and important topic - the labor market - but the cinematic qualities did not overwhelm me. The characters remain sketches, the plot feels contrived at times and the whole thing feels like a TV movie. It's the political passion of the story that makes me continue watching. Loach has the heart in the right place and he has an eye for the ailments of contemporary society. But sadly, this political drive is never transformed into the qualities of a good movie. The story follows two young women who set up a recruitment agency in London. The whole thing is quite DYI, and they do not have a licence, so the business takes play on the shadies side of the law, even though their expressed intention is to make business legitimate in time. They try to formulate some rules about what to do and what not to do, but the labor market is a chaotic sphere and business opportunities are business opportunities. So everything is negotiable, and the 'principles' go down the toilet. While Loach makes it clear that the two play in a business that is driven by exploitation and that trying to be moral is far from easy in a world dominated by capitalist interest, the film still relies too much on weepy scenes and sentimental turns. - As often with Loach, I get the impression that he didn't spend as much time on the film as he should have. But I like Loach's analysis, and the title is apt. Yes it's a 'free world', you can do anything you want - but it's nonetheless a  world where workers are exploited, business opportunities are sized and some people make lots of money. Loach offers no false hope, and I am glad he did not present some cheap avenue of resolution.

Close-up (1990)

Close-Up, directed by Abbas Kiarostami is a goofy film that plays with the medium of film on about a thousand different levels. In some cases, I have problems with that kind of approach (it can get self-indulgent) but this film was enjoyable to an extent I couldn't predict. So here we go: the film is based on real events but it's is a fiction film, a mocumentary, but oh wait, the actors play themselves. The story is about a man who impersonates the famous film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. In this way, he gets in touch with a family, who all think that the guy is making some movie, in which they will act. But soon enough they start suspecting that he is not who he appears to be, and they call the police. He is detained, and tried. The film follows the trial and in the end of the film we see fake-Makhmalbaf together with the real deal Makhmalbaf. No, it doesn't get self-important.

It's a funny film with lots of stuff to admire: the whole thing works splendidly - most of all Kiarostami's direction. I'm not sure how he persuaded the deceived people to participate in the film, but their acting (or whatever we call it) is great.

The film poses questions about the nature of acting (how can it NOT?), questions that have philosophical depth: what does it mean to act? How is acting different from impersonating, and is impersonating and acting the same as pretending? And how is it different from fraud? What does it mean to appear as a specific person and that people believe that you are that person, what kind of responsibility is involved here? These questions arise in connection with the entire idea of the film, to let people play themselves doing stuff they really did do (to some extent), at the same time as the film also was created through improvisation. But these questions is also tackled in the story itself, where we are led into a number of conversations about identity and, you guessed it, identity theft. And then you will also be encouraged to muse about the concept of identification.

But then again this is also a story about why the guy impersonated Makhmalbaf, what kind of problems he was haunted by and what kind of attitude he takes to himself and the people he encounters. It's a sad story about escaping oneself to pretend to be somebody else.

If you intend to watch one hyper-reflective film-about-film-about-film, watch Close-up. And don't miss the last couple of scenes, where you find yet another goofy use of the technique of film that makes you attend to the art of film-making itself. But I hope my review did not give the impression that the film is engrossed in technical jokes. This is not at all the case. Kiarostami is rather preoccupied with moral questions about responsibility.

What Maisie Knew (2012)

Despite some minor flaws What Maisie Knew (dir. Scott McGehee & David Siegel) is a moving and heartbreaking film about adults too invested in their own narcissistic lives to be able to pay attention to the needs of a child. What Maisie Knew is not about child molesters or even cruelty. All of the characters are well-meaning people who on some level want things to work out for the best - it's just that people are so self-involved that their attention is never whole-hearted; the film portrays busy adults (a mother who is a rock star and a father who is an art dealer), always on the go, always involved in a thousand projects and a bunch of knotty relationships that needs to be managed. The kid in the movie, Maisie, never fires away deep lines about the malaise of childhood. Instead, she is like kids are, wide-eyed, confused, sad - and in scene after scene, we see her trying to please these obnoxious adults (OK there are also less hapless adults on display in the film). A sign of the quality of the film is that it lets things be unstated - as a matter of fact, it is the things that are never said, quiet disappointment, awkwardness that is never articulated, that really left this film in my consciousness for a long while afterwards. It is strange to say this but the poor kid is both an open book and a mystery - and I think this is the real strength of the film (it doesn't intrude). Some scenes are overly dramatized, but still: What Maisie knew captures a very ordinary side of human relations - that people try and there is hustle and bustle, but nobody really pays attention to the patterns of what is going on. Also: thumbs up for the acting in this movie. The film is based on a novel by Henry James (!); after having watched the film it would be interesting to read the novel that takes place in a very different cultural setting.

Farinelli (1994)

Gerard Corbiau's Farinelli is a clumsy movie with good music. Farinelli is an opera star during the 18th century and his brother writes grandiose music for him. They share everything, even their dates. When he performs in concerts, women faint and everybody are amazed by his high-pitched voice. Farinelli is a castrato and it is this aspect that is the foreground of the film. The film's preoccupation with male organs is both tedious and pompous, and the only thing I got out of this film is some director's mouldy ideas about masculinity. On the other hand, it is fun to watch Farinelli's over-the-top presence, his mannerisms and how he created a new idea about the performer. The biggest problem with Farinelli is that it is not going anywhere. It's a messy film with lots of threads and themes, and plenty of uneven acting to boot.

Limbo (1999)

John Sayles is famous for his indie movies and Limbo is a perfect example of indie Americana: the story is set in Alaska and the gallery of characters is rooted in ordinary life. It's quite a challenge to describe what this film is really about. One could present is as a low-key adventure film about people trying to survive under straining circumstances but one could also emphasize the film's take on knotty relationships. The three central characters are a fisherman, his new girlfriend, a divorced lounge singer and her daughter, a teenager who tries to get through the turmoil of life. So one could perhaps say that the story is about different aspects of survival: surviving ordinary life, surviving changes, and adapting to extra-ordinary situations that makes the tensions of relations obvious. Even though there are moments where Limbo opts for melodrama rather than more subtle storytelling, what I like about it was how it tuned in on the closeness between people (closeness and the fear of closeness), a subject you do not really come across that often in movies. The 'adventure' part thrilled me less than the beginning of the film. Sayles managed to work up a great start for the film by conjuring up the life of one small town in the middle of nowhere - the sort of conflicts that are built up over time, evolve and change, but never disappear. But the drastic shift from down-to-earth rural drama to drug dealers and murders was a bit hard to stomach. Stylistically, the film is quite confusing to watch. It assembles beautifully quiet scenes of work and ordinary conversations, but then it changes gears and places itself in schmaltz mode with sugary music or panoramic angles. BUT: Limbo is a nice little film and even though I have some complaints I fully embrace the unconventional ending.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Mildred Pierce (dir. Michael Curtiz) is full of melodrama, tense moments and fierce conflicts. Is it a good movie? Well, like many noir movies, it works itself up with a doom-stricken progression that doesn't let go of the viewer. Let's say it's a tight movie, and memorable because of that, and because of its feminist agenda. The film includes some of the cruelest and brattiest characters in the history of film and some scenes actually manage to muster up a plethora of social commentary directed at class society and women's role as house wifes, workers or self-made business people. But it's the drama that owns the film, along with the general bleakness that overshadows the film. Empires crash down, a murder is committed and misery abounds. Joan Crawford is good as hard-working Mildred, who tries to do the right thing, which also includes giving in to her bratty daughter's every whim. One thing that's at least a bit interesting about Mildred Pierce is that it doesn't glorify motherhood. The film chronicles the tale about a mother who panders to her kid's excessive needs and desire, without ever questioning them. She never lives her own life; first, she lives for her husband and then for her kids. Film noir with a feminist message - quite a rare treat.

How I Ended This Summer (2010)

If you've seen Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return, I guess you haven't forgot it. I haven't at least. It was something about the atmosphere in that movie, the tension, the way the story progressed, that riveting film experience hasn't left me in peace. Great movie. From almost the first image (despite the HORRIBLE music) The Return was what I thought of when I started watching Aleksey Popogrebsky's How I Ended This Summer (he also made Roads to Koktebel, I recommend it!). However, I don't think the latter film holds up to the earlier film's subtlety, but there are still things I admire about it, above all, the remarkably grim cinematography (every single image bears an air of foreboding) and some of the use of sound (even though the machismo metal music one of the character listens to is extremely horrible, it kind of fits in). The one thing bothering me is the vacuity in how the story is developed. The film almost transforms into a weird action movie; you know, the sort of story where the only concern you will have is who kills whom. But that is just part of the film, and it starts out great.

Sergei, and middle-aged man with a severe sense of duty works with Pavel, a younger man, on a remote meteorological station up in the Arctic area. The younger man is often reprimanded for his unprofessional behavior and we see that the relation between the two men (who have only each other) is extremely strained. Things start to get out of hand one day when Sergei is away on a fishing trip and Pavel gets a message about something that happened to Sergei's family.  - - - What works best is the depiction of the difference in attitude towards the work they are commissioned to do. Sergei is the old-timer who takes an honor in doing everything meticulously. He is aware of their hash living surrounding, including the risks of their job. The younger colleague doesn't take his job as seriously. He's bored and his attention is easily diverted. For him, it's a temporary thing, an adventure. They depend on another, but they don't trust each other. - - - - It's the quieter scenes that haunted me. They munch on walrus meat, the sun hovers on the horizon, the wind blows hard, there are chores to do. Pavel works on an abandoned nuclear electric generator. Or: the ghostly sound of static noise from the short-wave radio, a noise that changes all the time, and seems to carry a world of secrets. Or: as Sergei receives a message from his wife, read by an official on the short-wave radio, he turns to Pavel to ask what a 'smiley' is. - - - How I Ended This Summer has many flaws, but it is also a film working with what its got: some hellish moments of tension. 

Grey Gardens (1975)

Edith and Little Edie (she is not so little, she is 56), mother and daughter live in a dilapidated mansion on the country. They are both artistic souls with a taste for the extravagant (they love music) and their entire demanor has an air of poise. But that doesn't prevent the house from being cluttered by things and being in an overall state of negligence. Racoons live in the attic and there are cats everywhere. A few years before the documentary was made, the house was fixed up by their relative Jackie Onassis. Grey Gardens (dir. Maysles brothers, Ellen Hovde) is one of the most peculiar documentaries I've seen - pecualiar and, somehow, both funny and deeply sad. Edith and Edie are presented as reclusives who, mostly, live in the past. The documentary follows them in what for them is ordinary life; they sing, they dance, they argue, they tell stories. The presence of the camera makes a huge difference. It is clear that both of these women love the attention they get, and they enjoy embarking on tales about how it used to be back in the days and in Little Edie's case, what life could have been like. She constantly blames her mother for holding her back, for luring her back to her twenty years ago, interrupting her successful and glamorous life in New York. But the truth seems to be more complicated. Grey Gardens explores a relation of co-dependency, but where none of the parties is ready to really acknowledge in what way she is dependent on the other. This turns out to be one of the sources of conflict. It's rare to see a movie about people who know each other so intimately, and whose relation is so close (some scenes evoke a sense of claustrophobia) but there are also things they don't see, or want to see, in each other, there are moments when they try to keep up the distance between themselves (keeping up appearences is all-important, but in these women, one is not so sure what is a pose and what is, you know, something else). It's hard to explain the brilliance of the film. Is it the pleasure of watching two eccentrics who don't care much about the external world - or, for that matter, the state of the household (as one of them says in a rare moment of reflection, 'mother is not much of a cleaner' and in another scene, Edith calmly watches a cat pissing behind the portait of her younger self standing next to the bed)? No, it's not the kind of pleasure where you take some kind of comfort in other people's weird activities. Because as I said, Grey Garden is also sad. Of course I was amused by the ladies' constant singing, their weird clothes and broken story-telling (sometimes they both talk at the same time), but most of all I was disturbed by the self-deception shown in the film, a form of delusion expressed as an escape into an inner sphere, a sphere where you revel in sweet memories, fantasies or in outbursts of ressentiment. I was also tempted to read the film on a more metaphorical level, as a story about aristocracy and decay, but I don't know. Edith and Edie used to belong to high society, and that is also how they think of themselves now (in the documentary). In one of the few scenes involving other people, they receive guests who come to celebrate Edith's birthday. The fancy-looking, uncomfortable guests are placed around the kitchen table but the chairs are so dirty that they get a bundle of newspapers to sit on so that their clothes are not soiled. A while passes, Edith and Edie talks, and then the guests are gone, leaving to house to its usual rhythm.