The Disaster Movie to End All Disaster Movies!

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

As much as I love Pe, Kiki looks astonishing in this! Someone please give me this movie NOW!

Never Let Me Go ***½

Director: Mark Romanek

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

Andrea Riseborough, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling

Never Let Me Go begins with a title card that reveals we're about to take a trip to a past that never existed. One where human beings had finally found a way to cure disease and life expectancy had grown to 100 years.

This past also meant a different route had been taken and some had obviously suffered; however, we almost immediately understand that this isn't an exploration of the ethical rules and alternate history that shaped this events but merely a snapshot of a few lives trapped in it.

The scene then changes to Hailsham school, a seemingly idyllic boarding school where quite simply, clones were raised to donate organs during their adulthood.

Twenty-nine year old Kathy (Mulligan) narrates her own story, first within the confines of Hailsham and later in the "outer world". We see how as a child (played seamlessly by Isobel Meikle-Small) she develops a crush on the introverted Tommy (Charlie Rowe) and how, after they learn about the nature of their existence (in a perfect scene with a devastating Hawkes), their lives only seem to take a minor twist, as Kathy's friend Ruth (Knightley) begins a romantic relationship with Tommy.

Why the plot focuses more on the friends and not the secret they've just learned about their fates is one of the many things that make this such an enigmatically, beautiful piece.
Director Mark Romanek shoots Alex Garland's screenplay (based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel) with the utmost trust in that there is an entire universe contained in what we are not seeing.
The matter of fact-ness with which these young people embrace the source of their existence is so unromantic that we are forced to wonder if we shouldn't in fact envy them, for they have already solved dilemmas that have plagued human kind since its start?
Where are we going? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Because of Romanek's precise hand and elegant formalism we see the characters' reactions as something that just couldn't have been any other way. These people have not been raised in the same way the rest of society was.

This makes it absolutely fascinating to watch as they try to fit in the world they only know through horror stories and eventually through duty. The cast does a terrific job in creating all these subtleties that don't entirely give them away but help establish the fact that they aren't as the others.
Knightley for example, seems to always hesitate before she does something. This hesitation is minimal and the actress disguises it beautifully giving us just enough. The plot may sometimes try to turn her into a villainous creature, or an antagonist to be more precise but because of the actress' committal to the role we see that this is just her nature.

Same with Garfield, whose contained performance doesn't really scream "romantic lead" but his quiet grace makes for something irresistible in the context.

In one of their best scenes together we see Tommy and Ruth have sex, as she acts like someone she must've seen on a movie, he covers his face unsure as to how he should be acting.
It's strange and somewhat off-putting that the filmmakers never really try to make us "understand" what's going on. We get a grasp that there's an entire hierarchy at work and that there must be harrowing stories to be told about these clones, yet by choosing to concentrate on these three characters we are being made part of the society that's beyond Hailsham.

As Ruth, Kathy and Tommy begin to get entangled in their very own way of love and survival, and the mood becomes more quietly moving and not macabre, we realize that this isn't a film about clones, it's a metaphor about existence itself.

Therefore Ishiguro, Garland and Romanek have gotten away with telling us the story about our own existences and making us believe we're watching something completely external. Once we begin to think about this, we are moved to explore if there is anything really natural about the things around us.
Is love, for example, a game we invent just to keep ourselves entertained while we await our demise? Do we not too sometimes stop fighting against a fate we have determined has been written in stone for us?

The movie's themes are embodied beautifully by Carey Mulligan's performance. Through her simple performance we realize that the fact she accepts her fate with such resignation makes the film's events all the more heartbreaking.

And it's ironic that the film should even result moving when everything about it is so sterile and distant.

Then it clicks on us, nothing in the movie is heartfelt because how could it be? When a heart is something that can be so easily extracted from us at any time.

Life During Wartime ***

Director: Todd Solondz
Cast: Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy
Ciarán Hinds, Paul Reubens, Michael K. Williams, Michael Lerner
Dylan Riley Snyder, Christopher Marquette, Renée Taylor
Charlotte Rampling

Last we saw the Jordan sisters-Joy, Trish and Helen-they were going through some heavy issues. Joy, was trying to overcome her lover's suicide and find an emotionally balanced man, Trish was coming to terms with her husband Bill's arrest on charges of pedophilia and Helen was coping with the burdens of artistic expression.
The year was 1998, the film was Happiness and all these characters were being played by different actors.
It's impossible not to wonder why Solondz would want to revisit these characters in the first place. These weren't people you exactly wanted to spend more time with; they were damaged, cruel, painful to watch and most of the time impossible to empathize with.
Perhaps this is why he cast new actors, to provide these familiar people with different shades, to make their return easier to assimilate or is there something more metaphysical to all this and the drastic change is meant to symbolize how much these people have actually been transformed (it's also interesting to wonder if this film will appeal to those who haven't seen the original).
Joy is now played by Henderson who infuses her with an elfish vulnerability. The film starts in the same way Happiness did and for a second or two we wonder if Solondz is trying to parody his own movie. Joy even says she feels "just a little deja vu" and as the film advances, the screenplays throws in all sorts of meta references and stunt casting (Reubens plays the ghost of Joy's ex-lover and it's inevitable to avoid associating another character with Reuben's own past).
Janney's Trish is a sad combination of hope and regret, the actress tones down on the bitchiness of her predecessor and turns Trish into someone a bit more human. Her relationship with her son Timmy (Snyder) is the equivalent of the one her husband (Hinds) had with their son Billy (Marquette) in the prequel.
Watching her discuss rape with her child doesn't have the morbidness one would expect. It's not as if Solondz gets pleasure out of scandalizing, it just shows how these characters must cope with the complications of being parents, for what exactly can be defined as good parenting?
Are they better off by concealing sexual concepts from their children or are they doing good by being explicit about what goes on during intercourse. In fact one of the film's "twists" has a lot to do with misconception and mis-communication on this subject.
The overall theme of the film is the quest to fulfill the adage of "forgive and forget", Solondz asks us how are these characters supposed to act when their country is at war.
Timmy brings up terrorism all the time and he interrogates his mom's boyfriend (Lerner) about his opinions on matter he finds imperious.
But what are we supposed to make of the characters' coldness, emotional messes, perversions and such, when the fact is that the war mentioned isn't even being fought in their country?
Are they shielding themselves from accepting that maybe they too have responsibility in their own lives? Before they can move on and forget we have to wonder if these characters will be able to forgive themselves for starters.

Another Reason to Hate Piracy.

Kirsten Dunst better start practicing her damsel in distress screams from the Spider-Man franchise. She's just been cast as the lead in Lars von Trier's Melancholia.
You know I'm a sucker for anything that springs out of the mad Dane's imagination but this news also means something bad for me.
Kiki is set to replace none other than Penélope Cruz! (I'd written about this before)
The most awful thing about it all is that Pe passed on Lars to star in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie!
The paycheck must be amazing and a movie star needs her couture and all, but how does someone in their right mind say no to Lars for Pirates?
Cruz reportedly said that she was just so excited to work with Rob Marshall again after Nine but has she seen the Pirates movies? The last two were silly excuses for making a buck and robbing audiences everywhere of the chance to reason as they were full of plot holes, inconsistencies and some of the worst written dialogue this side of James Cameron.
Not cool Pe...not cool.
But just how awesome is this for Kiki on the other side? She's been away from the screens for quite a while and truth be told her acting chops haven't really been developed in the way we expected after her work with Sofia Coppola.
When I first heard rumors that she had been cast in a von Trier movie I was ecstatic thinking that she had been cast as the third lucky actress to play Grace in The U.S. of A trilogy and that Lars had finally gotten started on Wasington.
I mean aesthetically it would make total sense that Kiki be the successor to the vastly superior Nicole Kidman and the surprisingly good Bryce Dallas Howard right? (The red hair and virginal all American looks...)
Either way this project is still very much in my "must watch" list, while Pe just made the first post-Volver choice I'll probably be passing on.
Read the full story here.

The Duchess **1/2

Director: Saul Dibb
Cast: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes
Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Rampling

In the year 1774 Georgiana Spencer (Knightley) was married to William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (Fiennes).
After becoming Duchess, Georgiana became one of the most influential women of her time. She was a style and fashion icon who also took political matters at hand, despite the fact that women weren't allowed to vote, and supported the American Revolution among other controversial causes.
She also had to endure her husband's distance as he demanded a male heir from her, his constant infidelities and eventually even had to acknowledge his mistress, Lady Bess Foster (Atwell), as part of their family.
Georgiana eventually took a lover as well: Earl of Grey, and eventual Prime Minister and famous tea flavor, Charles (Cooper). If this all rings a bell it must be added that Georgiana was Lady Diana Spencer's great-great-great-great aunt.
The genealogical link invites us to wonder if the film's intention is to point out the Spencers bad luck with royal marriages, lead us to sigh about how little has changed in the role of women or just serve as an E! True Hollywood Story, two centuries in the making.
In what might be as close to a Princess Di biopic as we're getting any time soon, Dibb's adaptation of Amanda Foreman's biographic novel, is a gorgeously designed, fascinating, albeit aimless, portrait of womanhood in both the realms of royalty and society.
Since the characters are at the service of a director and a screenplay who have no real idea what is it they want to say, it's amazing how they deliver such amazing performances.
Knightley, who just keeps getting better and better, infuses Georgiana with a wit and charm beyond her time.
Barely a child when the film starts, by the conclusion she has evolved into a woman who's lived through more than what is expected of someone her age. The screenplay suggests that she was highly effective as a political advocate, but the only evidence we get of this is in the defiance Knightley gives Georgiana.
The film rarely shows us episodes outside her immediate space (Knightley is featured in almost every scene) and because of this our impressions of the character rely on some title cards, other characters' dialogues and mostly Knightley who perhaps doesn't need external help to make us perceive what everyone else saw in the Duchess.
Perhaps the most affecting quality about her character is her palpant disappointment when she realizes that her fairy tale is over. "Does he love me?" she asks to her mother (Rampling) after she learns of her bethrotal. The glow in her eyes as painful as her neglect to wonder if she loves him back.
Her change can be detected years later when she cynically agrees "how foolish of me to think I could converse with my husband", with this Knightley disappears as Georgiana emerges.
Atwell is wonderful as Lady Bess, because in all her Pompadour glory she makes it impossible for us to completely hate her, somehow we even begin to understand her choices.
But perhaps the character that stays with you the most is the Duke. The person we were supposed to see as a monster becomes in Fiennes expert hands as much a tragic figure as the heroine.
At film's start the Duke barely says a word and moves in a predatory way. During the honeymoon scene as he disrobes his wife he wonders why are their clothes so complicated. When she suggests that fashion is the only way left for women to express themselves something in his eyes suggests a sudden sadism in getting rid of them and just getting to the act.
We later begin to grasp the fact that his monstruosity was in fact that of a complete generation in which men were brought up to believe in mysogyny (with much support from the women themselves it must be said).
Fiennes mannerisms let us see that this is a man who finds it easier to express love to his dogs than to creatures he grew up thinking were meant to procreate.
"I love you in the way I understand love" he says to his wife and in one moment of revelation the film turns upside down making us wonder how much, if, either of them are to blame for the unhappiness in their lives.
Fiennes barely needs to speak to provide a touching portrait of why the political currents mentioned through the film are needed in the world.
Their characters are reminders of the need to evolve, which is why it's sad that "The Duchess" tries so hard to be so much at once without being anything.
When Georgiana attends the theater, a group of men sketch her picture which later appears in the papers as if they were winking "Hello" and "People" tabloid-ness from the screen.
We see little of what it is that made these people who they were and in the end the film never does justice to the historical people and to the absolutely brilliant actors playing them.