Force Majeure Review

Force Majeure
Directed by Ruben Östlund
Released in 2014

A staple of disaster movies is the breathless proclamation of love: The world may end any moment, so let me tell you now how much I love you, baby. By this yardstick, Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure is an anti-disaster movie, both literally, because the avalanche early on in the film turns out to be innocuous, maiming no one, and generically, because that false alarm awakens only hostility between two lovers and everyone they meet. For the confidence and subtlety with which it goes about saying all it has on mind, Force Majeure already feels like a classic, and it’s both hard-hitting and grotesquely comical enough that time very well may agree.

The premise is one of caustic genius. While vacationing at a ski resort in the French Alps, an upper-middle class Swedish family sits down for lunch when they witness a controlled avalanche build a threatening momentum towards them. At first the father Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) laughs off the rising voices of his wife, Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), son Harry (Vincent Wettergren) and daughter Vera (Clara Wettergren), but just as a cloud of snow consumes the balcony they’re on, Tomas decks an old man to the ground as he sprints off the scene, with only his iPhone in hand. After a minute of unease, the cloud dissipates and Tomas returns to the table where his abandoned family sits, shell-shocked. The rest of the film tries to come to terms with what Tomas revealed to his family when their lives were threatened most.

This film has many, but not too many, ideas weaving in and out of one another, and chief among them is an interrogation of gender relations. When acting on instincts of the blood and nerves, Tomas is clearly a coward, but when the dust settles he too settles back into the never-scarce persona that is the suave, deflecting male authority figure. Whether he is conscious of his aggression or not, he casts his wife as overly dramatic and tells her, while recounting a modified version of their episode to a couple friends over dinner, “You got a bit afraid but…” before gesturing to himself.

Ebba knows Tomas, by virtue of his gender, can determine the narrative of what happened, but she also knows that no one likes messing with a shrieking bitch who has downed one too many glasses of wine, and so she — again, whether conscious of it or not — demeans herself in the company of friends in order to set the record straight. Lisa Loven Kongsli digs into a Bergman-esque monologue, filmed mostly in one take, with the kind of simultaneous severity and sensitivity indicative of great talent, and given the acclaim this film has received since premiering in May at Cannes, we should expect to see her again.

Occasionally, Östlund’s camera crops Ebba’s head out of the frame, while her husband and children sit and lie down and, most of all, complain below her — if there’s any visual metaphor that better illustrates the invisibility that comes with being an intelligent woman and mother, I have not seen it. Ebba is, in fact, fiercely, dogmatically intelligent, to the point where she distrusts the emotions of others, particularly those of her husband. She has now seen that his very wiring prioritizes his safety over that of his family and how can she live with that? No amount of penance can change that fact, which explains why Östlund films an emotional scene late in the film from alienating, hilarious angles — Ebba knows melodrama is all a lie at this point, and you’ll know from the opening shots that Östlund believes the same.

Like Jacques Tati, Östlund tells his story, or rather the discomfiting truths that lie below it, through its setting. This luxury ski resort must promise families a good time to reconnect, yet the film features, in near-silent sterility, the automated devices like ski tows and moving walkways that isolate these family members from one another and keep them in rote single file. Ambient sounds like screeching ski lifts, electric toothbrushes and the vibration from cell phones provide comic relief in a slightly (and purposefully) annoying way, jabbing us until we realize there is no nature, and thus no bliss, for the affluent family so in love with their objects.

Force Majeure has three amazing, borderline surreal moments, one of which I will not spoil (though I will say it’s inexplicably loud) and the other, at the very end, from which I will vaguely conclude has to do with how armistice is the default state of modern marriage. The other one, which occurs first, unfolds in one long shot, when Tomas and his Norwegian pal Mats (Kristofer Hivju, Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones and much nicer here) sit on flimsy folding chairs and sip from frosty pilsner glasses. It’s mid-day, yet a throbbing EDM song blares from off-screen speakers and a young girl approach the men to express her friend’s interest in Tomas. She leaves, they grin and starting bobbing their head along, yet she returns to clarify that her friend was looking at another man, adjacent to them, not Tomas — god almighty, not Tomas. It’s a profoundly awkward scene, basically Force Majeure in microcosm: Everyone wants to break the rules, but more than anything the world knows how to break you, and will, if you refuse to notice the cracks.

4 Stars Out of 5

This article was written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location here.

Eyes Left to Wander

Below is a short blog post I submitted for my Global Cinema II class. I talk about Stan Brakhage’s Desistfilm (1954) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966).

The essence of art cinema is ambiguity. Some art films lead you down winding narratives, lining up different perspectives for scrutiny (a la Rashomon) or throwing out much semblance of a plot altogether (a la Mulholland Drive). Others leave the morals of their characters up in the air, forcing the viewer to render a verdict (Bicycle Thieves). Most art films play with perspective, trying to undermine the sanctity of the disembodied camera recording unnoticed that Hollywood ascribes to. Very often, the camera adopts a disorienting or subtly prejudiced view of an art film’s characters, or otherwise encourages a meta-cinematic reading, meaning that terms like “voyeurism” and “the gaze” enter the conversation.

Brakhage, of course, aspired to convey a new way of seeing throughout his life. An early effort like Desistfilm has the the capacity to shock today, over 60 years later, because it disorients us in a familiar space. Who thought we could find a college party more nauseating through film than through actual witness and participation? Yet the energy of Brakhage’s buzzing, flying camera not only throws the visual plane in scrambles but also leaves the possessor of such a perspective unclear. Is he trying to simulate the revelry of the twentysomethings of his time, or trick us with a visceral satire of how alarmist adults viewed the rebellioius James Deans and Natalie Woods that were their children in the 1950s? It is difficult to depart with a final answer, yet the meta-cinematic style assures us we keep asking these questions. As Brakhage puts it, “Very often people look directly at the camera and sometimes even flash a smile. Or I would include references to the fact that it was a film—flares, scratched titles, etc. ... I believe most artists whose work has any lasting value to a culture put out warning signs like these to say this is not a window into reality but an art work” (Ganguly 141).

Antonioni based the foundation of his art on the act of seeing: “My narratives are documents built not on a suite of coherent ideas, but rather on flashes, ideas that come forth every other moment” (91). He knows a disciplined, inquisitive viewer will question the images shown on screen, accepting each shot not as some objective truth of a diegetic moment but more a revealing or a concealing in service of mood and theme. Story as well, but in such a plot-light film as Blow-Up, we do not decode what happens so much as how it happens.

In fact, Antonioni seems to deliberately flaunt any forward progression of narrative throughout most of Blow-Up. When the photographer shoots a few models, he gets bored and does something else. When he gets Vanessa Redgrave to come over and undress, he leaves the room to spend time retrieving a useless boat propellor. Seymour Chantman says, “In Blow-Up, distraction is no longer simply a bad habit: it has become a way of life” (140). The fleeting impermeance of the events leads us to grasp onto the mostly staid, contemplative cinematography to find our meaning. Yet “even the surfaces have become deceptive,” as the memorable fade-out in the last shot proves (Chantman 142). The photographer and the epiphany he reaches — I personally think he is seduced back to the fantasy life, away from the worrisome burden of vigilante investigation — matters less than the conclusion the viewer reaches, regarding the act of watching Blow-Up.

“I just watched a film that tricked me,” a viewer can conclude, “yet the arrogance to which it meets that goal astounds me.” We are seduced by naked bodies that are “neither erotic nor vulgar” (Antonioni 91). We are riveted by a murder story that goes nowhere. We are pulled in yet left at a distance. The clinicality of Antonioni’s images contain meaning on their own, as we have discussed in class already. But these images ultimately prove the power of cinema — art cinema, specifically — lies in the potency we presume all cinematographic images to have, even as we never think twice about what we see through our very eyes.


Works Cited:
Antonioni, Michelangelo. The Architecture of Vision: Writing and Interviews on Cinema.

Chatman, Seymour. Antonioni or, The Surface of the World.

Ganguly, Suranjan. "Stan Brakhage: The 60th Birthday Interview." Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader.

Visual Collision in Ménilmontant

The following is a paper I wrote for a film class I am taking this semester. Academic writing requires more patience than journalistic writing, both for the reader and the writer. In this case, my aim was to deconstruct a few scenes from a film while also presenting a readable, mildly amusing argument connecting all the film theory jargon. The film in question is called Ménilmontant, a little-known and silent avant-garde film by Soviet-French director Dimitri Kirsanoff. You can watch this beautiful, 37-minute film in full on YouTube.

Stuck in a Nightmare You Can't Get Out of:

Visual Collision in Dimitri Kirsanoff's Ménilmontant

For all the romantic analogies between dreams and movies, is it not rare for us to even remember our dreams? In Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Georges Méliès nods to a young boy in his studio and says, “If you’ve ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around … this is where they’re made.” Most of us have difficulty recalling the specifics of our most recent ‘sweet’ dream. Less problematic, however, is reliving our nightmares (Suddenly, Méliès’ quote transforms into a creepy omen). The fragmentary structure of nightmares, as we piece them together after the fact, lends itself to film well and has undoubtedly influenced countless filmmakers. One of them is Dimitri Kirsanoff, the Soviet-French director of the 1926 masterpiece Ménilmontant. The silent Ménilmontant stresses filmic storytelling through its montage editing à la Sergei Eisenstein, yet also warps the gap between cuts with an innovative use of protracted dissolves and double exposure. The eminence of colliding images, whether adjacent or superimposed, makes for a very visual, dreamlike editing technique.

The scenes in Ménilmontant that prescribe to a strict Soviet montage style may follow an established set of cinematic rules, but they use this framework to build an intimate series of images aimed at arousing intense emotion from the viewer. The film opens with a brutal struggle: An unknown, and practically unseen, man brandishing an axe hacks the protagonists’ mother and father to death. Those protagonists are two sisters — the younger, more prominent one played by Nadia Sibirskaïa and Yolande Beaulieu as the older, ancillary sister — frolicking in the forest down the road, giggling as a cat scales a tall tree. Thus, their parents’ horror proves a stark juxtaposition; Kirsanoff likely wielded montage editing for this reason. Eisenstein asked the question, “What characterizes montage and, consequently, its embryo, the shot?” and answered it with, “Collision” (21). “Conflict lies at the basis of every art,” he declared (21). This concept takes on social dimensions when imbued with the Marxist class struggle he and his pro-Soviet intellectuals preached (before Kirsanoff left the U.S.S.R., that is). But, for the aesthetic and apolitical analysis of this essay, the Soviet montage method generates action, tone and meaning.

Ménilmontant opens with a close-up of a cottage door and its glass shattering from an unseen force. This shot orients at about 45 degrees from the door’s parallel, and cuts to a perpendicular view of the door and the violence behind it (with a continuity error of the glass intact). We see very little besides a blur of faces and hands. Cut to the doorknob twisting, back to the door, back to the knob — cut to the wife opening and running out the door as the assailant grabs her hair, with the camera framing her face in a startling close-up. Cut then to the husband opening the door (in another apparent continuity error), and the killer following him as he walks out. It then cuts to a strange low angle shot of the wife stumbling out the door, with her white dress covering the screen for a seamless natural wipe into a shot about 180 degrees around, of the killer’s and wife’s feet stepping forward out of frame. In yet another continuity issue, the next shot frames the attacker in a blurry close-up with the open door behind him and the couple completely absent. The husband has his back against a wall in the next shot, while the subsequent shot cuts back to the killer shaking his head side to side in a vigorous, rabid motion. One of the more unforgettable images follows, with the wife jutting into the frame from its left side, only to be pulled in and out of it by the man who is messily murdering her. After two more shots of this repeated action, we see the axe propped against a log and cut to a reverse eyeline match of the husband who recognizes its presence. So does the killer, as Kirsanoff cuts to him in a grinning close-up. The two men wrestle in the next shot, which then cuts on action to the husband’s hand reaching for the weapon in a close-up of the axe. About four more back-and-forth shots like this repeat, and then we see the bloodied wife in a close-up, reaching out her hand and pleading for her life. The most memorable image — the extreme close-up of the husband and his agape gaze of terror — soon follows, as does a still, high contrast image of the axe held high in the air. We then see the killer hack away, only to disappear through the bottom of the frame where our imagination finishes the rest.

This all times in at right under 40 seconds, with 34 shots, making an average shot length of 1.17 seconds. The swift editing overwhelms the viewer with the power of these images, while the increasing acceleration of cuts builds tension. Kirsanoff communicates ideas both simple and profound through the “assembly of [the] elements” “of montage” (20). Cutting back and forth, multiple times, from door to doorknob demonstrates the time it takes to open the door; the escalating speed of these cuts, as well as the confused swirl of limbs behind the windowpane, instills in the viewer the desperation this husband and wife must have felt. With the exception of the quick still image of the raised axe, the editing in the opening sustains its invisibility and only seeks to communicate a subjective perspective of a violent event, in hopes that this scene will arrest the viewer. Technical limitations may have stripped dissolves and double exposure from the opening, but the disjointed barrage of this opening scene (rife with perhaps purposeful continuity errors) infuses a nightmarish quality that is achieved through its montage style above all other factors.

But just as some dreams frighten us with confusion and speed, others wring us of energy through lingering images and sensations. Kirsanoff inverts the montage technique in several key scenes, placing one image over another. These overlaps span a breath of time to numerous seconds, with the intent to convey internal character struggle. There are a few, more stylistic touches in this vein, such as when the girls leave home and head for the city: A continued shot of a long, tree-studded dirt road holds steady while the subject — the girls — of the image transports down the road in a series of jump cuts masked by long dissolves. The same technique casts the younger sister and her rapist across his apartment in an effort to expedite narrative and establish an unsettling mood to his abode. 

Multiple pre-Vertov city montages with a liberal use of superimposition occur throughout Ménilmontant; the most powerful sequence would be when the younger sister walks by the river with her illegitimate child. An unsettling point of view shot drifting alongside a concrete sidewalk barrier, focusing on its sharp edges before panning left to reveal the lethal tides just yards away, commences this series. Kirsanoff cuts to a reaction shot of the girl, who keeps on staring into the inviting waters as seen through POV pans down the stream and distorted close-ups of the waves. A shot of the water then lays over a close-up of the girl throughout a lengthy dissolve; as she closes her eyes, the frame becomes solely hers once more. Her exact immoral fantasy remains unclear, — Does she want to throw herself into the water? Her baby? — but the potential of utilizing the river weighs down on her, quite literally, through editing. As her baby wails and she puts her ear to the child in a vain attempt for comprehension, the city begins to meld into her torment. Double (and often greater) exposure centers a close-up of the girl in the frame as blurs of cars and faceless pedestrians layer over. An even closer shot of the girl seamlessly follows as the frenetic metropolitan superimposition continues. Kirsanoff goes so far as to take the girl out of the frame completely and let us see and — through Paul Mercer’s eerie music — hear her agony, one steeped by rape, murder, betrayal and abandonment. An innocuous establishing shot of a bridge now deforms into an indictment of modernity and the toll it takes on the innocent and vulnerable. The girl walks dejectedly through the city as these thoughts continue to wash over and fight within her. What is a nightmare to us cements as a cold, harsh reality to this girl. She wants to wake up from it all but cannot, for the only escape is ending herself, once and for all.

In Ménilmontant, Kirsanoff balances his homeland’s established editing school with a new one very much his own. The “collision” of moving images rooted in Soviet theory creates a bloody collision of axe and human skin, as well as all the victims’ fears piling up until that final point. Superimposition of disparate visual icons expresses one young girl’s inner pain and its underlying cause. Despite colliding these techniques not only in the same film but also often in the same scene, Kirsanoff builds a consistent, surreal mystique to the whole film. Ménilmontant hits so close to home, so often, that the dreamlike feel teeters on raw realism. When that sick awareness creeps upon you, however, it is wise to pinch yourself and be thankful you have the option to walk out of the theater.

The Artist Review

The Artist

Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Released in 2011

If you knew nothing of The Artist and sat down in a theater as it started, it would take a good five to ten minutes until you realized it was a silent film. The classic, Powerpoint-goes-analog titles might tip you off, but the protagonist, movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), relies on his body to speak. He watches his newest film from behind the theater’s screen, where on the other side a packed house of suited men and bourgeois women sit, gasping and laughing as if on cue. Valentin enjoys watching himself and his ability to yield such physical emotions from his audience. When the film ends, he jumps onto stage to bask in the applause. His female costar fumes in the wings as he delays her entrance by first recognizing the film’s animal actor, his multitalented Jack Russell Terrier. He throws his arms in the air, makes sweeping bows and even tap-dances under the spotlight, all with that winning smile that says not a word.

We can tell this man is obviously full of himself, for one, but also that his talent, voice and, alas, image lie in his overwhelming, eloquent physicality. Only when Valentin negotiates with the jowly, cigar-chomping studio executive (a magnetic John Goodman) does he talk with any sort of regularity, the dialogue of which we see through interpolated text cards. The people love him, and he scoffs at the prototypical demoes of “talkies,” a noisy bazaar that would surely ruin the spirit of cinema. His alluring protege, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who personifies the American Dream that looks, dedication and even better looks will take you anywhere, catapults overnight to stardom by committing to the new technology. The talkies take over Hollywood in only a few bustling years starting when The Artist does, in 1927, and, with Black Tuesday and the subsequent Depression slamming the country simultaneously, George Valentin falls on hard times. 

Director Michel Hazanavicius stays true to his goal and delivers - and through the Weinsteins, actually distributes - an actual silent film in our ever loud 2011. Iris and wipe edits and a swinging score by Ludovic Bource are what we see and hear. Thankfully Hazanavicius acknowledges his contemporary audience by playing with silent film conventions, adding sound or tricking us with intertitles that may have more than one meaning. 

Watching a silent film, in a theater (truly the only way it can be experienced) reveals small but crucial differences. For instance, only at the most defined moments do sound films ever drop to complete silence. We usually feel quite awkward when the coughs of the audience or yells from the exterior hallway’s Icee-fueled children echo during those excruciating seconds. Bource’s score pulses underneath for nearly the entire runtime, but it is not a heartbeat, and there are little moments of aural blankness that may frustrate modern audiences. If anything, these seconds just emphasize the eminence of images.

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo fill these images with pleasing features and irrefutable likability that will win over all movie lovers accepting of a little change. Dujardin channels silent film icon Douglas Fairbanks as a swashbuckling, thinly mustachioed gentleman with the screeching echoes of fawning fans derived from his namesake, Rudolph Valentino. Bejo’s Peppy Miller boasts elegance and spunk, and both of these actors work tremendous chemistry with one another, as it is their relationship that propels the film. Well, those two and that miraculous dog.

The Artist soars when it stays closest to the ground, in the smallest of moments. The delicate relationship between Peppy and George grows during the multiple takes, all spliced together, when he must dance with her for just a moment but fails to keep his composure after they both drift out of character and into each other’s arms and minds. Or when George sees an attractive set of dancing legs under a curtain and mimics her moves until their barrier disappears and they recognize one another again. This comic foreplay champions the silent film format, and the two rise above any need for the stilted flirtation that Judd Apatow’s crew has brutally bludgeoned us now for five years running. 

The film has such a good heart, and when it tries to prove to us otherwise it almost loses its wings. Hazanavicius milks the melodrama with bipolar sobriety to disrupt the pacing and overarching mood, message. For just another victim to the Great Depression, George should cherish the fame he held compared to the lonely starvation that 99% of artists suffer on the street. Because while George may be immensely likable, what with that grin of gold, he remains self-absorbed and reluctant to change until the most extreme circumstances brought by those he shunned. Not necessarily a role model, but a model at least for the power of fortuitous friendship, whether from his loyal dog, butler (James Cromwell) or Peppy. 

This year’s Hugo studied the same era, as well as similar themes like lost fame and unrecognized talent, from the opposite end, with sound, color, CGI and digital 3D. Scorsese knew his subject, French film pioneer Georges Méliès, well and could relate. Michel Hazanavicius here does not make such profound connections, yet nor does he ever fall back on unremembered nostalgia. He has his own story to tell, crafted for an audience in the 21st century. It is Jean Dujardin, though, who connects with his character, and thus the audience, so completely that you may just sift through your brain wondering what old films you saw with tortured star George Valentin. They were black and white and without sound, but alit with a smile fused from the stars. 

Final Verdict:

3.5 Stars Out of 5

Hugo Review

Hugo

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Released in 2011

I always ramble on in my reviews about how Movie A loves the art of film (Super 8) and how Movie B stands as an all-out assault to the craft (Transformers 3). Somehow I even managed to testify how The Muppets comments on the nuances of filmmaking. This college freshman is just hopped up on too many film history courses to realize that not everyone makes movies with that meta-theory, this-next-one-goes-out-to-André-Bazin approach. Relax. But now one of the greatest storytellers in film history as well as its most vocal advocate has gifted us Hugo. Those gushing instincts are rushing back. Martin Scorsese did not just want to make this film; he needed to.

Marty, who has dedicated his career to stories about mobsters, psychopaths and mobster-psychopaths, loosens the knuckles for once to write this loveletter to cinema. Hugo can be labeled “family-friendly” but it speaks strongest to those who have a history with the movies. The darker color palette, 2-plus hour length and deliberately slow pacing may bore kids raised on flashy visuals and simple narrative substance. 

With that said, Robert Richardson’s cinematography and the visual effects department’s work stun from the opening shots where busy clock cogs transition seamlessly into an aerial view of an equally busy Paris. The set design of the train station, where Hugo lives, glorifies the era while still uncovering its grime. Scorsese, who loves tracking shots a la Goodfellas, coasts the camera across train platforms and through steam pipes with precision and purpose. The 3D lends a dimension to help us appreciate it all. Instead of the typical Eraserhead approach equating new technology to a loss of humanity, these beautiful strokes of bustling industry praise the wonder of human progress. The celluloid reel itself was a new step in progressive ingenuity.

Georges Méliès, visionary behind the ubiquitous 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon, explored film’s potential when it was still shunned as a passing novelty. Méliès, the man, lives in the world of this movie. But first he must be found, and orphan Hugo Cabret toils to reunite the spirit of the artist with the current pessimistic shell left of the man. The years between the end of Méliès’ career, brought by World War I, and the early 1930s setting of the film have not been kind. His films are, to his knowledge, all extinct in physical form and memory, and even historians write him off as dead. He has grown bitter with the world and shuts himself and his family off from his former profession and eternal passion. With the help of Méliès’ goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), Hugo tries to reach the neglected director to show him that his work has not been forgotten.

The movie spends time detailing the biography of Méliès, but its heart lies in young Hugo. More so than any other protagonist in the Scorsese canon, Hugo reflects the man behind the camera. Social outcasts as children, they find solace at the movies. There is a great scene where Hugo takes Isabelle, who has never seen a movie before, to the theatre. Safety Last!, inspiration for the film’s poster and clock tower scene, is screening and Isabelle finds the suspense of a man nearly falling from a building rapturous. You can imagine this scenario as Marty’s perfect date. After the death of his father, Hugo goes to extreme lengths to fix the mysterious automaton connected to film history. Even Hugo’s dreams are shot and cut with the omnipotent visuals of a silent movie. Despite the pressures of his largest budget and targeted demographic, Scorsese answers only to his heart. 

Asa Butterfield hits the pathos that a role of such Oliver Twist lows and highs demands. Chloë Moretz swore obscenities in Kick-Ass, but she speaks with a more dignified maturity here. Both of these young actors have potential to crossover to successful careers as they are already catering to adults more their own peers. The rest of the cast list contains some big names that should be left unseen until the end credits roll. Look for a little romance between two Harry Potter actors, one in a distinct change of form. I will mention Sacha Baron Cohen, agent provocateur in Borat and Brüno, who plays the grouchy station inspector eager to send any stray children to the orphanage. His service in the Great War, where he sustained a crippled leg, has left him cold and lonely over the years, but a lovely flower saleswoman reignites that dormant tenderness. His character is played for laughs in his bumbling chase sequences - where Marty’s soaring camera captures crowd-pleasing physical gags with rare grace -  but he surpasses this caricature to become, like most of these characters, a real person. 

The Inspector and Méliès both lost their way with their loss of innocence, so it takes an innocent soul like Hugo to put them back on track. Brian Selznick’s acclaimed novel, the basis for John Logan’s screenplay, insists humans are inherently good and great art will never die. A heartwarming notion, if a little idealistic. Scorsese’s spin advocates for the preservation of film, something he has long championed. Almost all of Méliès’ reels were melted down to plastic for the heels of women’s shoes, and he thought no one would care. Only by a streak of good luck pursued by Hugo’s goodwill were the remaining works found. 

This is not how things happened in real life. The story of Georges Méliès is largely factual, but the boy Hugo is a manifestation of a very creative mind. No, Marty is not urging you to drop your pursuits and become a lab rat at The Criterion Collection. He wants you to appreciate the significance of art’s most vulnerable medium, and not just its aesthetic value. Only film can bring dreams to life, in one place, where children and elders can watch together and await the adventure ahead or nod at the superimposition of image with their own past. This truth reaches all ages and all years, from film’s invention to this day. And with more kids like Hugo - perhaps even those watching this film - the future will be safe, too. Children are the future, after all, even in the past. 

Final Verdict: 

4.5 Stars out of 5

Midnight in Paris Review

Midnight in Paris
Directed by Woody Allen
Released in 2011

We all wear our rose-tinted glasses when looking back at the past. When time cements itself in history, only captured through the technological and cultural means of yesterday, it codifies the events, making our present look featherweight in comparison. Such literal backward-thinking frames the characters of Midnight in Paris. It fittingly serves as the folly for them as well. 

Woody Allen's 41st feature length picture strolls through fantasy while still lightly harnessed by reality. There is surprise in the very nature of the story, in how it deviates from what is likely expected from a film billed as a "romantic comedy".  Paris, a character of such pronounced beauty, wonderfully captured by cinematographer Darius Khondji, housed the great intellectuals throughout history. Their contributions and spirits have left an imprint on the city to this day, as if their aura still lingers in the air. And in Midnight in Paris, not only does their ambiance remain, but their flesh and blood as well. See, the main character Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) transports back to a 1920s version of Paris by midnight, via an antique Peugeot. He freely interacts with them, and they with him, until the night is no longer young. The science behind such time-travel is never explained, and it does not need to be, for the audience's suspension of disbelief is willfully checked in with the coat hanger from the start. 


Gil is visiting Paris with his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and her two parents, played by Kurt Fuller from Wayne's World and Mimi Kennedy, the nagging Karen Clark from In the Loop. Gil falls in love with the city (who doesn't?), though Inez does not share such a passionate bond. It does not help that Inez's two old friends appear without invitation, dictating their trip's events from then on. They are Paul (Michael Sheen) and Carol (Nina Arianda), the former "didactic" and a "pseudo-intellectual" espousing trivia of such obscurity to cover their falsity, and the latter simply fawning over her prize. It is no surprise Gil and Inez take notice, but for different reasons. Paul's arc from insufferable hack to something more stands by as nothing more than a minor subplot but is both entertaining and interesting as it is not hard to imagine Allen's critics labeling him the same in the past. The company Gil finds himself with Paris by day is rather dull, and certainly by conscious choice. 


But of course everyone will look unappealing when put beside Paris. Yet, Allen proves us wrong. He fills The City of Light with an equally bright set of faces. Tom Hiddleston (also in Thor this summer) perfectly embodies F. Scott Fitzgerald, as does Alison Pill as his wife, Zelda. Corey Stoll's Ernest Hemingway speaks with such profound formality that either serves to prod at our current lack of eloquence or perhaps reveal the romantic view Allen himself regards these subjects. Perhaps it is neither, but rather a parody (he is basically drunk the whole time) that remains completely unironic and respectful. Kathy Bates actualizes the strong-willed Gertrude Stein whose Paris years are so storied. There are so many other familiar costumes donned, hair styles recognized, names dropped that threaten to push this film into a cameo circle of famous flappers and sheiks. But Allen directs the nods so respectfully and with enough restraint, and the actors fill their respected roles so brilliantly, that it never sinks into a panache but remains a loveletter to a place and time. To reveal any more names would rob a sense of surprise (do not look at a cast list for your own good), but I will say to be ready for a lively appearance from Adrien Brody.


There probably is not another actress alive who better personifies the elegance, maturity, and, of course, beauty of Paris than Marion Cotillard. Her grace and looks do not belong to our time it seems - filmmakers have taken note by casting her in period pieces like Nine, Public Enemies and her Oscar-winning La Vie en Rose - and she turns in a dignified performance as the mistress of the arts that eventually catches Gil's eye. Her character, Adriana, is similarly stuck idolizing a past she knows not much of like Gil. Their shared infatuation for the yesteryears forms a special bond, one that ultimately faces conflict as they face reality. There is an endless longing for what came before throughout mankind that ultimately inhibits progress if pursued to action, or inaction. We must face the realization that the history books are not written until after our time, at which point the longing to return to a time before the most recent stretch of progress, technology and life seems so enticing. Allen explores this theme with interesting results, both heralding the past yet not declaring it the be-all and end-all. 


Owen Wilson fits into the Woody Allen mold remarkably well, handling such lofty themes and variable moods with ease. Watch The Darjeeling Limited for proof of the skills of the Drillbit Taylor star, and then this film will cast aside any lingering doubt. The lines, of course written by Allen, are witty and quick, filled with references to pop culture yet not to the point they are esoteric. Gil's first midnight stroll produces hilarious reactions of disbelief and stunned silence, and Allen creates realistic situations (as realistic as they can be in a fantasy really) that Wilson handles with subtlety that never turns outrageous. A successful but shallow screenwriter searching for depth as he struggles with composing a novel, Gil encounters the dream scenario when he hands his manuscript to Stein. His story, about a man who owns a nostalgia shop ("what's that?"), and the insightful critique Stein offers, helps him reconcile with his true self and his own time. 


There is so much to admire in Allen's direction; you would think after 40 films he would take the easy road but that is not his style. The early scenes when Gil, Inez, Carol and Paul stroll through Versailles display Allen's talents as equating blocking to power. Paul leads and dominates the frame, for he craves the reverence. Gil is a stronger man than he, and when he calls Paul's bluff on his lack of knowledge (with a piece of info acquired through a rather humorous circumstance), he simply walks out of frame, leaving Paul to answer to the two cheerleaders who may raise doubt. Allen provides such careful coverage of the party scenes as well, surveying the scene with purpose, showing key faces, hiding others to find out later of their presence. He is an undisputed master, and Midnight in Paris may as well be his 21st century triumph showing his skills have not faded but only aged like the wine they drink so liberally here. 


I love Midnight in Paris. It is one of the more charming films to arrive in some time, reminding me much of the aforementioned The Darjeeling Limited in its respectful treatment of such a beautiful locale, transferring to a rich celluloid feel that is best seen in a cinema. The dialogue is witty and lacking pretense, and offers a new look - and perhaps renewed interest - in such critical figures of our Western culture. It digs even deeper, however. Its mediation on love, of its weight and potential for eternity, ties with its views on the past, for both must be carefully considered before diving into. The initial glamor can wear off, for only time can tell what is true. Only time...


Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars Out of 5