February 2020

Dunkirk

Back in 1915, David Wark Griffith made silent epics that helped to define the language and syntax of cinema. He himself claimed to have invented the close-up and scenes with restrained emotion, but his main contribution was actually the concept of parallel editing: the capacity to cut between separate narratives in order to extend the dramatic tension of an overall film.

And despite the fact that Griffith figured this out more than 100 years ago, Nolan seems to have missed a few essential steps to achieving potency with this technique. While I appreciate the attempt, cross-cutting between actors that have not been thoroughly established does not achieve the desired effect. We cycle back and forth between the fighter pilot (played by Tom Hardy), men on the beach trying to evacuate, and a “civilian” rescue boat on its way to Dunkirk to pick up soldiers.

But the transitions between each narrative are arbitrary, cutting on action that is ill-motivated to get us to the next perspective. Sometimes, the effect would produce an amnesic shaking of the head as you entered the new scene, other times it would be aggravatingly disjointed. I suppose these abrupt shifts could have been used to great effect in conveying the harshness of the soldiers’ experiences, except they were too inconsistent to be intentional.

There were plenty of things I liked, especially the costume design and their authenticity to maintaining the look and feel of the water and air craft. And there were a few scenes I found genuinely moving, such as the way the men treat the body of one particular character when he dies. It was familiar and delicate, and it helped connect you to these men struggling to save themselves and their comrades.

The natural tone and colour of the cinematography was also great, although I disagree with the notion that it was worth a 70mm viewing – it actually did little both to contributing to the story and their framing did not take full advantage of the format. You look a movie like “Lawrence of Arabia,” and it becomes obvious what the power of 70mm can do. While some people may have had a more immersive experience, that’s incumbent upon a number of conditions – least of which means sitting in a spot where it’s conducive to a large-format viewing.

Don’t get me wrong, the film was still tense, and I think most people had that experience watching it. But there was this obnoxious attempt to manipulate one’s subconscious that was distracting to the point of irritation. Namely, they played with a ticking stopwatch effect to the point where it went past being pedantic and just felt stupid and contrived. In being noticeable, it detracts from the true impact; it resembled the overwhelming violin you often hear in the “emotional” scenes of Spielberg films, letting the music do the heavy lifting instead of the narrative context.

And since we’re on about the narrative, there really wasn’t much. It felt like one logistical obstacle over another, without any regard to personal, individual investment. I liked the fact that they mostly used lesser known actors, but the narrative arc only superficially touched upon an event that is chock full of incredible details.

The events of Dunkirk are truly fantastic, and are not popularly revisited in history classes, and yet Nolan merely condenses the entire, nearly insurmountable obstacle into a five-minute verbal exchange between the executive brass. I mean, imagine watching Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” without the perspective of Kinski’s character, whereby the movie is simply about pushing a boat over a mountain. You’d easily lose interest. …I lost interest.

Strangely enough, a YouTuber recut the film down to 8 minutes and made it a silent film, and it works! Compressing the action made it far more interesting, which begs the question, does Nolan’s interpretation of the story warrant a feature film? I say no, even though the actual story could easily fill that time slot. Check out the recut silent film here:

Should you go see this film? Eh. Is the 70mm amazing? Eh. Is it a tense and action-packed movie, one that’s hydrophobic as fuck? Sure, but while there is a lot I like about this movie, it felt too disordered to recommend. I neither liked nor disliked it, and I think that is a dangerous place to be for any art.

I have little opinion about it, but am only writing this review in contrast to a more capable film I saw earlier in the day called “Fires on the Plain,” for which I will soon write a review. Where that film actually shocked me, especially for its 1959 content, Nolan’s film merely watered down (quite literally) events that were fascinating in their own right.

Comments: I actually think Lee did a fantastic job cutting together each scene; a less capable editor would have cut too quickly with the large format, and it would have felt rushed. My critique is solely with the STRUCTURE, not the style of the editing. Unfortunately, our brains have not evolved commensurate with the technology, and I meant to make that distinction – between visual trends and the foundations of establishing clarity for transference of information.

Even though there are plenty of “modern” techniques exist in older films – such as Abel Gance’s editing style – they evolve over time; however, the way we perceive clarity of information by way of media is somewhat universal: you can alter the presentation and the tempo and the style, but the core process in how we collect and logically form conclusions follows a particular format unique to the human experience.

Different from the old Masters, Nolan’s choices to cut back to the different narratives does not feel chaotic, but simply arbitrary and it lacks a GEOMETRIC cohesion. Scholars and essayists can point out specific spots in, let’s say “Intolerance,” where the action demands a break and a shift to another perspective – both visually and thematically, according to the anchor of film. The event of Dunkirk was the anchor here, and the relationship between land, air, and sea did not gel in any way that seemed intentional or by design.

I mean, it is what it is, but I don’t typically think of him as a lazy filmmaker – and it just feels a bit lazy. Reminds me of Tony Zhou’s analysis of John Sturges’s commentary of “Meanwhile, back at the ranch….” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GXv2C7vwX0

An Anachronistic Nightmare

This film is an anachronistic fucking nightmare, best illustrated in its combination of having the protagonist driving an Oldsmobile with an 8-track tape player and the other a Prius. Oh, but Ryan Gosling’s character has *classic* style, just look at his pretentious wing-tip shoes.

In all honesty, at least he can act, which is more than I can say for Emma “Play To The Camera” Stone. She plays/is a hammy, dilettante hipster – the kind of insufferable theatre-folk who hang around community venues lamenting that we no longer live in the goddamned 1950s.

Grow the fuck up! As a whiny, tyro actress, she doesn’t seem to understand how filmmaking works – despite working as a barista on a production lot. (Psst, when you’re walking by set and an AD tells you they’re rolling, you fucking shut the fuck up!)

While watching Singin’ in the—, I mean La La Land, I couldn’t help notice that no one could dance – despite having a choreographer work through the numerous routines. Dance should be free and fun, expressive and physical; walking with a little gyrating hardly counts, turds. And despite Gosling being the ONLY redeeming quality in this film, the motherfucker can’t sing OR dance. Take your goddamned hands out of your pockets when you move, wang.

Who do you think you are, Gene Kelly? You forget, he’s actually good. I get that having a “oner” looks cool, but the camerawork was as maladroit as the clunky performers. Seriously, they move like crap! And a voice coach for everyone involved would’ve paid HUGE dividends. Stone’s singing was laughably poor, and I’m as fit to judge a singer’s performance as William Hung.

A quick word about the cinematography: it was largely UGLY. A friend asked me to review this film before they view it, and I think this alone is reason enough to abandon the attempt. I can count the number of interesting shots on one hand, which – coincidentally – is the same number of well-delivered lines in this picture (done solely by Gosling).

I know the DP has an ASC accreditation, but it warrants me giving this tip to him: don’t light an actor’s face with a full green key. They look fucking DEAD and putrid, like Emma Stone is a rotting corpse approaching her boyfriend for dinner. It isn’t clear if they just live adjacent to a 24-hour laundromat or if she’s been zombified and is after his brains.

Despite An American in P—, ahem, La La Land’s attempt to blend songs into the scenes, they do so terribly – awkwardly fading to silence as the mediocre, pre-recorded music track fills in as diegetic.

I mean it when I say that the references weren’t cute; they were borderline shit attempts to use features that made those movies great as a means to improve the garbage you’ve laid out. This movie was like Singin’ in the Rain, only if by “like” we mean imagined by a complete fucking moron.

During one scene in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg— dammit…La La Land, they show a very brief clip from Rebel Without A Cause, which both those twats don’t even finish because the Rialto’s projectionist DOESN’T DERSERVE TO FUCKING LIVE! Who the hell BURNS the fucking film!?! You stupid shitstain…this isn’t Cinema Paradiso for God’s sake!!! Your fucking theatre deserved to be shut down.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that, even though it was a brief shot, I found myself instantly wishing I were in THAT screening…or that this pile of maggot piss lit on fire. I don’t often wish for a movie to be over so early in the story.

This movie lacks style, completely. I know I’ve been making jokes about the thieving they did to pander to people that don’t even understand why they like musicals (and they FUCKING SHOULD BECAUSE THEY CAN BE AWESOME).

But the film is such a Frankenstein’d piece of shit that it actually has to include a scene where two of the actors discuss the evolution of jazz (and making it more accessible to younger audiences) as a metaphor for why this movie simply…doesn’t…work…. Hey bruh, let me finish your analogy: you say jazz is dying, perhaps. You know what else is dying? Original movie concepts…and you fuckers are operating the guillotine.

In the end, I’m not sure what this film was intended to be. It was unfunny, uncreative, musically inept, artistically bankrupt, visually bland (with terrible VFX in some places), and ultimately paced so poorly that it crawls to its own, slow, drawn-out death. Pass on this monstrosity. I’d rather chow through a fish-oil flavoured vat of Vaseline than sit through it again.

The Greasy Strangler

“Bullshit artist!”
“Bullshit artist!”
“You’re a bullshit artist!”
“Bull-SHIT! Art-IST!”
“I call bullshit on that.”
“You’re a horse shit artist.”
“I call horse shit. You’re covered in horseshit.”
“B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T A.R.T.I.S.T. Bullshit Artist!”
“You’re the world’s biggest bullshit AND horseshit artist!”

This is some of the dialogue from a movie that is nearly impossible to describe. It goes on like this for almost 5 minutes, and there are similar scenes that defy logic in how long and repetitive they become. The film is garbage in the most beautiful way.

For almost 90 minutes, you wade through unending flashes of fake dongs that strain against inappropriately cut disco attire, enlarged scrotums that look like they were spawned from the nightmarish imagination of Matthew Barney, oversized pubic bushes that resemble fake afro wigs glued to the crotch, and copious amounts of grease trap fat – viscous and filthy –in which both food and people are submerged.

The film is disgusting and irreverent, but still fascinatingly entertaining. One look at Jim Hoskins, the director, kinda says it all. His image should accompany the dictionary definition of disturbed creep with a sex problem. He’s like Tim and Eric meets Quentin Dupieux (director of “Rubber”).

In one scene, three men stand by a motel vending machine, discussing their frustration over how a bag of paprika potato chips is lodged against the spiral dispenser. They are not significant characters, having just come from a disco tour (given by our protagonists) in which they demanded free drinks that were offered in the tour’s brochure. This infuriates the father, who abruptly ends the tour and, subsequently, the scene.

Here’s the scene that follows, as they stand at the vending machine: one of the men asks what the chips are made of, to which another man quickly replies “POtaTO,” making the syllables indistinguishable and the word unintelligible through his heavy Indian accent. The listener asks him to repeat the word over and over and over again, yet the Indian man enunciates it in exactly the same way each time.

There is a volley of question and predictable, nonsensical response – like an elaborate Meisner exercise of repetition. The scene mounts to a crescendo whereby no true resolve occurs, then it dramatically switches gears as the third man says, “I think he’s trying to say “poTAto.” The scene wraps up, as though the exchange never happened. This trend of nonsensical volley is repeated throughout film (as indicated at the very beginning of this review).

While on the subject of Meisner, I feel compelled to talk about the acting. A little research reveals that the cast was initially unwilling to participate in the film. They were so turned off by the script – and I’m not surprised – because it reads like gibberish. The language and character interactions are terribly forced and overly self-aware. The film reads like the worst kind of student film – one whose creator possesses the perfect storm of incredible stupidity with an overinflated ego, both of which obfuscate their ineptitude (there’s a name for this condition, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect).

Yet, because of the unwavering commitment of the acting talent, it totally works. They are transformed from a stilted troupe of Tommy-Wiseau-level amateurs to fascinating personae that keep you engaged. The horrendously delivered dialogue actually pulls you closer to them, not further away. This film works BECAUSE of the actors; it required their complete trust in the vision and their commitment to flawless execution.

There’s a scene where the father character exits a building wearing his signature disco outfit (fake penis exposed and all) and a spotlight flashes on him against a blank brick wall. He immediately begins a dance routine as the spotlight tracks alongside his lateral movements – à la Gene Kelly in “Singing in the Rain.” The spotlight suddenly cuts power, and the father resumes his normal walk off-screen in the darkness. There is NO overt motivation or explanation behind breaking the fourth wall in this way, yet it was important enough to elaborately draw attention to behind-the-scenes production elements.

The music is intriguing, like Kavinsky trying to craft a soundtrack for a Super Mario Bros 3 reboot. I can’t call it good because of its use, often set as a leitmotif that signifies a character shift into an altered state of mind. It grates on the nerves, enforcing an atmosphere of confusion and restlessness.

Of the thousands of films I’ve seen, this stands out as the most intentionally bizarre. There is an unbroken focus in its approach and directorial vision that warrants some level of respect – even though it often feels like unnecessary work to get the creative team where they want to go.

In the end, the film does touch on some relatively beautiful, touching points about passing the baton of family values and the nature of complex familial relationships, but first trudges through gallons of shit to get there. It’s doubtful they needed to go through the shit at all, but that’s partly what keeps you engaged – tirelessly investigating the purpose of and motive behind what unfolds onscreen.

You need to go to this film, but not because I think you’ll enjoy it. You may, in fact, loathe it. But it’s an experience you’ve never had and one you will likely never have again.