Motifs in 2011 Cinema: Disillusionment.

Perhaps because it’s one of the youngest artistic forms, cinema is often assessed in much different manner that literature, or the visual arts. We discuss it in terms of genre, not in terms of thematic offering. Comparing, for example, Corpse Bride and Up because they’re both animated leads to some dubious discussion especially when – like any art form – thematic elements examined in cinema and the way different filmmaker address them make for some stimulating discussion. Motifs in Cinema is a discourse, across nine film blogs, assessing the way in which various thematic elements have been used in the 2011 cinematic landscape. How does a common theme vary in use from a comedy to a drama? Are filmmakers working from a similar canvas when they assess the issue of the artist or the family dynamic? Like everything else, a film begins with an idea - Motifs in Cinema assesses how the use of a single idea changes when utilised by varying artists.

- Andrew K.
Disillusionment.

One of my favorite songs says "disillusion takes what illusion gives" and this couldn't ring truer than it does while looking back at the cinema of 2011. The last decade was characterized because its up and downs were more extreme than anything else in the past. When things got bad, it meant war, terrorist attacks, pandemics, severe economic crises, social revolts, harsh weather changes and natural disasters etc. When things got good - if they ever did - it seemed like the world was closer to unity. Not so surprisingly, most of the good came in direct response to the bad, with entire countries uniting to help out a smaller nation in need, technological and scientific breakthroughs and perhaps naively in the promises made by a series of politicians who for a split second seemed like they would be able to change the world.
The movies of 2011, more than before, focused on how all of the good eventually let us down, how racism, intolerance, war and corruption just might've won the battle.

In Meek's Cutoff - perhaps the most aggressive political commentary of 2011 - Kelly Reichardt questions the Obama administration's lack of direction. Her story of wandering pioneers might not seem like a straightforward "movie" in the sense that it never worries about being entertaining and has no regard for plot. However embedded in its desolated landscapes lies the greatest story never told: how people abandon everything precious to them for an ideal that might never materialize. Realizing these people are lost isn't as heartbreaking as the delusional nature of the man leading them (played with astonishing charisma by Bruce Greenwood) who is more keen on preserving his public image than on acknowledging his flaws and how he let his people down. Meek's Cutoff cleverly uses history to make a point out of the cyclical nature of our universe.

This cyclical nature is repeated in Drive a film that takes place in a Los Angeles that seems to have never moved past the Reagan era. A labyrinth of decay surrounded by neon lights, Nicolas Winding Refn's tale questions what happens when society has lost all signs of latent humanity. L.A. here becomes the ultimate symbol of disillusionment, a city where people once came to dream (there is nary a sign of Hollywood glamour, we only see the menial tasks performed by stuntmen and strippers) but now are in deep search of a hero.
That the hero they get is a morally ambiguous macho figure speaks more about how the icons of valor are thought of as primitive creatures that predate the times we live in.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo then gives us a hero(ine) that fits more in our times. Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) might not be Homer's idea of a savior, but in these times when corporations deal with our private information, she gets the Julian Assange badge of honor for "criminal heroism". When and how exactly did telling the truth and trying to make things right by way of immorality became a sign of courage might be a task more adequate for sociologists, but we'll take our salvation in any way it comes, right?

Although salvation makes no sense when thinking that a single epidemic might invalidate all of our moral codes. In Contagion we saw how an illness not only destroyed lives but shook survivors as well. What is the point in trying to preserve any signs of humanity when we commit the greatest acts of inhumanity against ourselves?
Steven Soderbergh's masterpiece was a chilling reminder that globalization is making us stronger only by giving us a false sense of unity, when in fact countries seem to wish they could erect walls to contain their own troubles without ever recurring to "friendly neighbor" behavior. That we see so many people in the movie trying so hard to contain the pandemic and have them fail so miserably is both horrifying and somehow relieving. Does it make sense that the end of times is then becoming the hedonistic poison of choice to so many people?

The Tree of Life wasn't without loss of illusion, in fact the entire premise circles around having a son realizing he'll never satisfy his father. On a larger scale, the film is also an essay through which Terrence Malick tries to satisfy a supreme power (the ultimate father figure) by trying to find the very essence that created him. It would be facile to blame daddy issues for all that's wrong in the world (despite what Freud would prefer) but The Tree of Life pulled off the ultimate hat trick by offering us a second chance, perhaps those who have faith will find solace in an afterlife. The rest of us are stuck down here mesmerized by the way in which our hopes reach for the sky only to crash with irreverent violence.

Guys and Classic Dolls.

Head over to PopMatters and check out our list of the Best Male Performances of 2011. Since you're already there, also make sure to read my review for Design for Living.

Super 8 ***

Director: J.J Abrams

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard

Bruce Greenwood, David Gallagher, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso

Ryan Lee, Noah Emmerich

From its opening shot, Super 8 reaffirms something we've always sorta known: J.J. Abrams is a natural born storyteller. In an exceptional display of economy he lets us know the location of the story (the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio), the time frame (1979) and using a tiny bit of backstory, lets us foresee the future of its leading character, 14-year-old, Joe Lamb (Courtney) who after losing his mom is left under the care of his stoic father, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Chandler) who, to say the least, has no idea how to deal with the child.

Fast forward a few months and Joe is now helping his best friend Charles (Griffiths) produce an epic zombie film using a simple Super 8 camera. Their world is shaken when school beauty Alice Dainard (Fanning) agrees to be in the movie. Joe, Charles, Alice and their other friends, Preston (Zach Mills), Cary (the scene stealing, precociously Truffaut-esque Lee) and leading man Martin (Basso) leave their homes in the middle of the night to shoot the film's centerpiece at an old train station.

While the boys gasp in the presence of Alice - the way in which Abrams captures prepubescent awkwardness is delightful - they hear the loud noise of an upcoming train. The Herzogian Charles decides that this event will only help make their movie better and orders for the cameras to roll as the train suffers a derailment and consequent explosion. The children leave unharmed but realize the train had an enigmatic cargo that now has been set free upon their little town.

To say more about the film's plot would be to take away one of the film's many pleasures which is the rich feeling of everlasting discovery with which children face their summer vacations and miniature adventures. Of course, this being a movie and all, their adventure demands to be seen on the big screen, yet under the expert hands of Abrams, the film never loses that sheer cinematic delight which invites audience members to think things like these might happen to them as well.

Shot as a loving tribute to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: the Extra-terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film reminds us of a time when going to the movies assured us that we were in for a treat. Abrams not only pays homage to Spielberg by recreating his cinematic style (along with the superb DP Larry Fong who despite his overuse of flare achieves some stunning work by reminding us that images can be epic and economic) the director also manages to emulate the emotional content of these iconic films in ways that not even Spielberg himself can achieve now.

Abrams' directing of children is astonishing because he lets them be without having them forget that they are after all playing parts in a movie, this is especially poignant in scenes where the kids shoot their own film and it can arguably be said that Abrams has them playing characters on three different levels.

Despite all the makings of a geek landmark, the film is especially admirable because it's able to work as entertainment and aesthetic treatise, notice the way in which Abrams toys with genre and reminds us that cinema has always tried to position itself in two different aspects of existence. Perhaps the film might have some autobiographical touches - the aforementioned character of Charles for example - but it also succeeds by becoming a mirror onto which the audience can project their own life experiences. It might be corny to say so but more often than not Super 8 is a reminder of why we even go to the movies in the first place.

Meek's Cutoff ***½

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Cast: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson

Zoe Kazan, Neal Huff, Will Patton, Tommy Nelson, Rod Rondeaux

The advent of Cinemascope brought with it bigger visions of where cinema could take audiences, with it came sprawling musical numbers, larger-than-life Hitchcockian nightmares and the magnificence of the Wild West in all its glory.

For what epitomizes widescreen more than the imposing image of the rocky towers of Monument Valley in The Searchers? With this new expanding screen, filmmakers were finally able to encompass the oppressing feeling of liberty that nature added to stories about cowboys, natives and pioneers.

The idea of the United States of America that was exported to worldwide audiences in these films was one of ample opportunity as long as you could withstand its obstacles (whether they were social, emotional, racial etc.)

Soon enough, the Western was subverted across the Atlantic where filmmakers like Sergio Leone grabbed on to the darkest aspects of this cultural and geographical expansion and explored the way the rest of the world perceived America.

Therefore, the first thing we must ask ourselves about Kelly Reichardt's revisionist entry in the genre is: why did she shoot it in 1.37:1 format?

Meek's Cutoff is presented to us, not in the epic landscape format favored by John Ford, but in the boxy Academy format, which instantly takes us to a time when films like Stagecoach were being made.

Perhaps Reichardt's intention was to take us back in time by using earlier cinematic language to contextualize her story about settlers in the 1800s. After all, it's fairly common for memories to be influenced by images we've seen in the movies. This is why some people imagine the past in black & white.

However effective this may be, if this was her purpose, she's not only subjugating the idea that genres should constantly evolve, she's also disregarding audience members who might not detect this with ease, or at all.

Those for whom film format is indistinguishable, will then wonder why the natural landscapes onscreen feel almost claustrophobic despite their grandeur. It is here, where the movie starts working on a psychological level. It is here, where Reichardt's genius surfaces: she is working on different layers, all of which work depending on the eye that beholds them.

Meek's Cutoff is one of those movies that requires extra attention, not because of the complexity of its plot, but precisely because of its languidness.

The entire film is presented to us in the first ten minutes. The setting is the Oregon Trail, the year is 1845. Three families traveling in wagons and carts are being led by explorer Stephen Meek (Greenwood) towards their final destination.

As the film begins we see the settlers go on about their daily lives-on a journey that is-as they wash clothes, cook and then prepare for further travel.

Despite Reichardt's, and cinematographer Chris Blauvelt's, best efforts to highlight-or perhaps contrast-the beauty of these daily rituals, we soon get the feeling that something's not right.

The husbands (Huff, Dano and Patton) and wives (Williams, Kazan and Henderson) discuss matters separately and soon we understand that they seem to be lost.

Meek reassures them that everything is fine but tensions begin to grow as they start running out of water and supplies. Their voyage becomes even more complicated when they capture an Indian.

The group becomes divided as some claim he should be killed before his tribe members find them, while others think he could help them find water.

Here Reichardt explores the dynamics of gender in society as we witness how the wives speak in whispers, fully aware that they have no actual "voice" in the decision making. This becomes especially potent when we realize that the women have ideas that might actually work, as opposed to the men's obvious inefficiency and apparent fear of Meek.

The director isn't one to hide her feminism under nonsensical disguises but unlike filmmakers that stigmatize non-mainstream ideologies, she is able to recreate the need for said currents of thought to appear.

In Meek's Cutoff she channels this with Emily Theterow (Williams), who to the shame of the others decides that the Indian should be treated with respect. Of course, the film's politics aren't Disneyfied and we understand at all times, that Emily's treatment of the Indian depends on what she can get out of him.

What's more, in her defense of this stranger, she challenges Meek and the entire patriarchal structure that has defined their journey seems on the verge of collapse. The film studies the purpose of following traditional structures under anomalous circumstances.

We are left wondering then, if a shift in power during the journey would result in long lasting change, or would thing return to normal once their destination was reached?

The film then is by all means a political work, not only because it challenges our notions about the status quo but because in doing so Reichardt, perhaps unintentionally, recreates time appropriate situations, because Meek's traditionalism and stubbornness can easily be perceived as a parable of the Bush administration , but his calm charm and "coolness" in the face of adversity easily take us to the Obama who only recently seems to have achieved an actual purpose in his presidency (it's a freaky coincidence that like Meek, his sudden decisiveness relied on the seemingly accidental encounter with a feared enemy).

If the film seems to be trying to discuss too much, it's only testament to art's capacity of molding itself to the necessities of those who consume it, for it can be said that a few years ago, the film would've been touted as a liberal pro-immigration essay and fifty years ago it would've been feared for its subversive takes on feminism and segregation.

Meek's Cutoff is transgressive political study, a convention-defying genre film and all in all, an excitingly entertaining film (you must watch it if only to witness the year's most authentic action sequence!) but overall it's an ambitiously ambiguous, but never purposeless, evaluation of American history: how they got there and where they're going.

Because when all is said and done few images of this movie year will remain as potent as that of Michelle Williams fearfully holding on to a rifle, trying to reach a compromise between physical and ideological survival.

Star Trek ***1/2

Director: J.J Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto
Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Bruce Greenwood
John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy

Coming straight from planet Camp, the original "Star Trek" series exploded upon the world, and its living rooms, in the year 1966. More than forty years after its release it has spawned ten feature films, several multi-season TV incarnations, countless books and toys as well as a dedicated legion of fans for whom the Vulcan salute is nothing if not sacred.
The effects of the phenomenon are such, that even if you're not a Trekkie, you will at least know of the existence of Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Nimoy) and the USS Enterprise.
You also probably will have been subject to one of the many incarnations of "Star Trek" at least once in your life.
If none of the franchise's many options have sparked your interest in it, then director J.J. Abrams' glorious reinvention might just as well do it.
Setting his story years before the original series (although time traveling and positioning is something of a malleable element here) he takes us to discover the origins of Kirk, Spock and how they came together for the Enterprise's maiden voyage.
James Tiberius Kirk (Pine) is a young rebel who enrolls in the Starfleet to solve some daddy issues. His father died in the thrilling sequence before the credits, serving as a premonitory basis for the rest of the feature, while injecting you with an adrenaline rush the film will try to maintain throughout its running time.
Spock (Quinto) is a half human-half Vulcan genius who gave up emotions as part of his academic training and has battled all his life with keeping a balance between his both sides.
Upong meeting Kirk at Starfleet Academy they both dislike each other (one's volatile, the other's a Vulcan...) but have no time to work out their differences when Earth comes under the menace of Captain Nero (Bana); a psychotic Romulan who's set on destroying every planet in the Federation (the "United Nations" of sorts in the Trek universe).
Before you can say "beam me up", they find themselves aboard the Enterprise along with fellow cadets Dr. Leonard McCoy (Urban), communications officer Uhura (Saldana), helmsman Hikaru Sulu (Cho), navigator Pavel Chekov (Yelchin) and engineer Montgomery Scott (Pegg) all under the command of Captain Christopher Pike (a splendid Greenwood).
The masterful screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman then focuses on the central mission while establishing personalities and backstories for all the characters.
Those familiar with the series (who don't fall into conservative devotion and purism) will perhaps think "oh, so that's how this and this happened...", while people who have never seen a single episode will be engaged by what is essentially an adventure story where you give a damn about the people.
Great part of this is owed to one of the most inspiringly casted ensembles in recent film history. Most of them (like the original series' actors) are recognizable enough to be familiar, but not flashy as to take away from the plot being established.
Pine's Kirk is a wonderfully seductive combination of Han Solo and James Bond. He's capable of kicking enemy ass, while throwing around insultingly charming one liners (that would make Shatner proud) and he's got some serious chops as well (his anger and stamina scream "movie star").
Quinto is a revelation as Spock. Counting on more than his bone structure to fill his character's suit, he stands at a very difficult place in terms of how far to push (or not to push) his acting.
Spock is emotion-less and most of the time Quinto's work reminds us that it was a decision of his own making. The actor then suggests what might've taken someone to make this choice and in one particularly moving scene we see him restrain all signs of feeling, mixed with the quiet pride of thinking he made what's best for everyone else.
Saldana is sexy and bold, Urban is terribly magnetic, while Yelchin, Cho and particularly Pegg are bona fide scene stealers.
Bana, behind heavy makeup and tattoos makes for a fascinating villain mixing brutal violence with some sort of coherent purpose and Nimoy who makes an unexpected apperance brings gravitas and serenity (not to mention, ironically, a powerful sense of humanity) to something that might've been ridiculously cheesy.
For all the refreshing sense in this "Star Trek" there is also a very respectful approach that never borders on idolatry and is seen in every aspect of the production.
The costume design is simple and elegant, while Scott Chambliss' production design is breathtaking. His Enterprise is one part Ikea (think cool, approachable streamline) two parts futuristic airline.
Daniel Mindel's cinematography is highly efficient and evocative (despite an overuse of flare). His work in the action sequences (combined with Michael Giacchino's utterly majestic score) puts you right in the middle of the events and his smooth travelings in grounded scenes remind us of the ebbs and flows of time which is a recurrent theme in the plot.
And as usual it's perhaps Abrams' who makes the best impression of all. His devotion to every project he gets into is remarkable and "Star Trek" is no exception.
Abrams seems to live in the universe he's (re)-creating and maximum attention is put on every level. There are inside references for Trekkies (who will no doubt recite along in the electrifying conclusion) and enough fun sights (Gasps! Is that Winona Ryder?) for those who came to accompany them.
But what makes his film so marvelous is that he taps into what made "Star Trek" so popular to begin with. Abrams knows that the places and people here were never part of our universe. The events may be happening near or in planet Earth, but this one isn't in the Milky Way, it belongs in the universe of pop culture.
Therefore, like what will be the most controversial element of his reboot, Abrams travels back in time to make us feel exactly like the first people who saw "Star Trek" in the 60s; where despite the starting war, social revolutions and uncertainty there was hope.
Whether it was the possibility of setting foot on other planets or just getting this one in its place, there was a sense of unity and wonder that's very needed right now.
Abrams could've grounded himself on the premise of "realism" (and delivered some dark political message concentrating more on the fate of the planet Vulcan), but his particular brand of reality comes in the fact that he reminds us of the power for change that lies within each of us.
The twists and turns may not make physicists happy, but they remind us that both science and media entertainment were originally intended to make our lives better.
Who needs real science when there is so much fun to be had in this fiction?