Two Films in Two Days- a Reflection

Last Thursday I saw 12 Years A Slave, and Friday I saw The Wolf of Wall Street. Both were something of an occasion; my cinema trip on Thursday was the first time I'd seen a film on my own, and Friday's marked my first 18 certificate, first Scorsese and first 3 hour movie in the cinema. Here are my thoughts on both.

12 Years A Slave

dir. Steve McQueen

I will be very clear: this film is important. As many people as possible should see it. The cynicism with which some cinematically misinformed fools dismiss this - some without even watching it, I might add - as 'just another slave movie' is both misplaced and despicable. I genuinely don't even understand that charge, there simply haven't been many mainstream movies made about or heavily featuring slavery. It is a difficult subject, and one that casts an often unwanted light on to America's less than honorable past, which must account in some part for this deficiency. But more simply, it is not 'just another movie' in any sense. Forgetting the social context, 12 Years A Slave is an extraordinary piece of work. Here's why.

This film seizes hold of your emotions and doesn't let go, even when it's over. Through the beauty of the dialogue, un-intrusive camera work , some of the best acting I've ever seen and obviously the story itself, I had an experience in the cinema I never have before. 

The story is that of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film shows his experiences as a slave, struggling against cruel masters, constant degradation and despair itself. Early on, he says two things that show he understands the situation he is in, even if he cannot comprehend it. Firstly, after being warned that to survive, he must keep his head down and not make trouble, until circumstances change, he declares 'I don't want to survive; I want to live'. Some time later, he finds himself in a similar situation, except this time the roles are changed and he finds himself saying 'I will survive. I will not fall into despair. I will keep myself hardy until freedom is opportune'. That last line seems to me to be the most important. He struggles throughout his 12 years to find the line between complete capitulation and dangerous defiance. His free life is still waiting for him, and he will return.

I won't go into plot description too deeply today, so I'll say only a little bit more. I truly feel that eventually, people will talk about this film as one of the greatest ever made. Watching it is such an intense experience; when the credits rolled, nobody moved in the cinema. I could hear everybody quietly crying as i sat there for a good 5 minutes trying to compose myself. Some of the scenes are genuinely difficult to watch, and others are hard to take your eyes away from. Throughout, the camera returns to simple close ups of Solomon's face, the horror and pain on his face truly heartbreaking. Perhaps the best shot of all is near the end, he stares off screen in despair , moving his gaze until he is looking only at the audience,as if beseeching their help. Then he looks elsewhere. If there was doubt before that Chiwetel Eijiofor's performance is anything less than astonishing, there is none after this moment.

My favourite scene is the extraordinary one in which Solomon and his fellow slaves are burying a fallen worker. They gather round the grave, and start to sing Roll, Jordan, Roll. Solomon seems to struggle internally with something, I won't try to guess what. But he seems to come to some kind of resolution, and sings with them, his passion burning on his face. Music plays an important part in this film, but none more so than in this scene.

Obviously, this movie invites comparisons with Django Unchained. The difference is that Django is a nasty, self-satisfied exploitation film; 12 Years  A Slave is art. 12 Years A Slave is magnificent. A vital, horrific, important and heartbreaking film. I could not recommend it highly enough.

The Wolf Of Wall Street

dir. Martin Scorsese

I love Scorsese. I love DiCaprio. My favourite collaboration of theirs is The Aviator , but I also love Gangs of New York, the Departed and Shutter Island. So it was with great disappointment that I find myself disliking their latest effort. 

Again, I will be quite clear. I have no qualms with a movie presenting a violent, misogynistic, racist, homophobic or any other such unpleasant world/characters on screen. But I do have a problem with spending three hours watching a horrible man doing horrible things in his horrible world and receive almost no comeuppance whatsoever.

And that is my issue with the film. I found it very very funny almost all throughout, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. Jordan Belfort- this is another true story, bear in mind - is a stockbroker who has figured out a way to make huge amounts of money very quickly by swindling people who can little afford it. He uses their money to live lavishly, extravagantly, despicably carefree. There are so many orgy and drug use scenes that I started to get very bored with it all.

The treatment of women is very bad too. As I said, I have no problem with a movie depicting a misogynist world, but when all the female characters are sex workers, eye candy or whiny, unpleasant wives then it feels like the movie is almost tacitly approving of it. This I don't like.

There are no specific scenes that ruin The Wolf Of Wall Street , it's just the tone and the length that made me dislike it so. It is funny, but ultimately there seems to be no point to it whatsoever. You don't like the protagonist, so there's no way in to the movie there. You're not as rich as he is, nor are most people stockbrokers, so there's no in there either. It's not even making a point about the excesses of the financial sector, because Jordan Belfort seems to get off scot free! If these weren't clear enough from the movie anyway, the real man himself actually has a cameo near the end. I found this bad taste indeed. It seems something of a companion piece to Goodfellas and perhaps also Casino , but this is nowhere near as good as those classics. The thing is, they had a point to them, a focus. This has none.

 While it may be funny, Leo may be great and you might slightly enjoy it at the time, this is not  a very good film, and certainly not up to the standards of Scorsese's best work.

  

Film Releases I Am Looking Forward To

Inside Llewyn Davis

dir. The Coen Brothers

Her

dir. Spike Jonze

Inherent Vice

dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Film Recommendations

A few films that have really impressed me recently


That's not to say they were released this year, but any I watched for the first time this year. Here we go:



A.I: Artificial Intelligence
dir. Steven Spielberg

I watched this on recommendation from the excellent Wittertainment team at 5 Live, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo. They interviewed Spielberg on the show and Mark apologised for giving it a bad review when first released, saying he now considers it his 'enduring masterpiece'.

Thus, I came to this fascinating, heartbreaking film.Conceived by Stanley Kubrick and finally made after his death, A.I bears the marks of both its creators. The distanced, chilly precision of Kubrick's camera blends with the instantly familiar style of Spielberg to create a truly enthralling film.

David is a robot, a 'mecha' in the film's language, the first ever robot boy created to truly love a human. But will a human ever love him? To his human 'mother', he is at first a replacement and later, when her biological son is returned to her, a danger. To his brother, he is a toy. To the mecha-fearing humans, a hate figure. And to his creator, he is merely an achievement. The movie is this but so much more. So many questions are raised and none answered, and there are a great many tearjerking moments. Fans of genuinely interesting, provocative sci-fi must watch this truly underrated Spielberg film.




Silver Linings Playbook
dir. David O. Russell

A silly romcom, is what I expected, a throwaway movie with throwaway characters. But I was intrigued by the title and the acclaim it was receiving, so I watched it. With growing surprise I found myself not only enjoying the film, but really loving it.

In general it is just a romcom, albeit one with an edge, but in the details there can be found wonderful performances, unconventional humour and a refreshingly real heart. A heart that's strong enough to ask the audience to accept a romance without the obligatory sex scene. There are some truly funny moments here, like the diner scene, Jennifer Lawrence unexpectedly joining Bradley Cooper's jog, and most of De Niro's scenes. I'm also grateful to this movie for showing us that Robert De Niro can still act when he wants to.

The performances are fine indeed, and with David O. Russell's careful direction, this film is just great really. Lovely stuff.

Cloud Atlas
dir. The Wachowskis

Magnificent! After a torrent of reviews calling it everything from a failure, to boring to a disappointment, I expected little. But I simply cannot understand this. Cloud Atlas is truly magnificent. Gripping from open to close, it is a bold, intelligent and adventurous picture that never compromises its values for the sake of excitement and explosions.

And what are these exactly? It seems to celebrate freedom, intelligence, honesty, love and storytelling itself. Across 6 storylines and 7 time frames that go from historical epic, to drama, to thriller, to comedy, to sci fi, the movie weaves a web of connections and coincidences that illustrate the similar challenges and emotions that humanity always has and always will face.


Lost In Translation
dir. Sopfia Coppola

When one hears the phrase 'adult movie',  one thinks of (not porn) lots of swearing, violence, nudity and perhaps hard drug use. I would describe Lost In Translation as an adult movie, but for exactly the opposite reason to the above. To say that it has two lead characters, dissatisfied in their respective relationships, away from home and both clearly attracted to the other for whatever reasons, the least we would expect of a lesser movie is a regretted sex scene. If not that, then a passionate declaration of love perhaps, and a tearful explanation  of why they can't be together.

But Sofia Coppola treats her audience as adults who understand that for these characters, this just isn't the right story. They are adrift geographically and metaphorically, lonely and isolated in a city full of strangers. They connect with one another, and not in a lazy Hollywood way but truthfully, through the sharing of silences and awkward situations. They share a bed one night, but they simply lie there next to each other.

There are indeed many moments where sex is there, hovering outside the door as a plausible and perhaps even expected possibility. But instead they take something else from their week together, and when they leave perhaps their lives will be better for having met.

The ending is sheer perfection. What words do they share in their final goodbye? We do not hear, but they have earned their privacy, they deserve it. And as adults, we should respect that.

Synecdoche, New York
dir. Charlie Kaufmann

Nobody can accurately describe this movie in any profitable sense, one can only give fleeting impressions of the different aspects that make up a deeply moving, unsettling and confusing whole. Totally bewildering would not be an unfair way to describe Synecdoche, New York. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman (my favourite actor, so definitely a good start) is a middle aged stage director, who is falling away from his wife, his health and his confidence. So many things happen I genuinely don't know how to convey the essence of this film. It can be found in incredible surreal passages where a woman buys a house which is always on fire, and only decades later dies of smoke inhalation, or where Caden (our protagonist) realises he never noticed the tattoo on his wife's back, or where in order to achieve complete truth in his play, he hires first an actor to play himself, then an actor to play the actor playing himself, and later an actor to play the actor playing the actor playing himself.

These isolated moments still don't convey what this film is about. Charlie Kaufmann has said that he wanted to create a horror film about things people are really afraid of. Like growing old, becoming ill, making nothing of oneself, the horrific and remorseless march of time. There are moments where Caden seems to wake up mid conversation to realise that years, or even decades have passed without his noticing. When his wife takes herself and their child to live in another country, the child accidently leaves behind her diary. But as the years pass, Caden reads the diary to discover his daughter writing about her forgetting her father and discovering who she is without him.

He wants to put on a play simulating life in New York, and to do so buys an impossibly huge warehouse, creating another city within it, one that has yet another warehouse inside it. Caden grows elderly and still the play still isn't finished, but that never seemed to be the point.

Truly, this film is mesmerising. Only after watching it several times can one begin to understand the depth of its greatness. Or indeed, understand it at all.