Our Picture Perfect President

With Nov. 6 a full week behind us, the implications of President Obama’s reelection and Mitt Romney’s defeat should have settled in by now. So, now would be an ideal time to talk about it all, right? Wrong, actually. News outlets have moved on (hello, General Petraeus), and the public is just thankful the election is over. Imagine how peaceful Ohio must be at this very moment. Frankly, I am just tired of all the encomiums for Nate Silver and autopsies of Karl Rove, as on the nose as both may be.

Pushing politics, demographics and numbers aside, what can we learn from the most expensive campaign in American history? Not much, to be honest, but for me it reaffirmed the importance of a candidate’s image. Voters consider personality a decisive factor — a vital and uniquely human facet of our decision-making process. As much as we heard about how Romney is the perfect father, husband, parishioner and so on, he had a bit of a branding problem on the campaign trail. In comparison, voters signed onto another four years of Obama because, for all his failings and empty promises, they still trusted that he could see the job through. To visualize this dichotomy, think about the most memorable images of Romney and Obama in the last few months of the campaign.

For Romney, is there any answer other than his blurry profile from the leaked “47 percent” video? A supporter may hold Romney’s reflection at Jerusalem’s Western Wall in high regard, but it is hard to detach the overt political motives of that photo-op from any compassion he may have felt. When watching the infamous Mother Jones video, it is impossible to detach the surreptitious angle of the camera from a sense of illicit voyeurism. We, not just the “47 percent” but the 99.9 percent not wealthy enough to afford a plate at such a fundraiser, are not meant to see the contents of that video, so the forbidden images sear into our minds. And what ugly images to remember. The hidden camera is distant, unfocused, ensconced between fancy glassware and obstructed by passing waiters. That its pixel resolution is no greater than that of common smartphones only inspires more unsavory associations. How do we react to amateur videos on YouTube? With laughs, embarrassment, shock and nausea, but certainly not tears or goose bumps. The aftermath of the video leak was a defining moment for the campaign, the power of media and the priorities of the electorate.

The electorate chose Obama, and, if there is one sublime image that encapsulated his homestretch promise, it was shot on the devastated shores of my home state. In the picture, the President holds close New Jersey resident Donna Vanzant, who stands about a head shorter than him. Hurricane Sandy destroyed her marina and livelihood. Tears well up in her red eyes. The digital camera’s high-resolution brings out the wrinkles on her face yet emphasizes Obama’s smooth skin and salt and pepper hair. He looks both strong and wise. He remained optimistic, as he was reported to have said, “It’ll be OK. Everyone’s safe, right? That’s the most important thing.” This snapshot is worth a thousand words and the complete picture is worth closer to a million. To his left, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie looks on in silent gratitude — to the G.O.P.’s dismay, he did not stay silent, as he appeared on all the major news networks, Fox News included, to praise the President. The Obama camp now had beautiful proof that their compassionate candidate was also a capable and bipartisan Head of State.

President Obama is no stranger to moving images, in both senses of the phrase. Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza shot a poignant photograph that hangs in the White House to this day. In it, Jacob Philadelphia, a five-year-old black boy, told President Obama, “I want to know if my hair is just like yours.” He replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” The President bowed 90 degrees for Jacob to touch his hair and realize that, yes, the most important man in the world has hair that feels just like his. In the other definition of “moving images,” Obama has an active online video presence, as his “BarackObamadotcom” Youtube account has tallied 270 million views over six years of uploads. Stars like Will Ferrell and Jon Hamm endorsed Obama without too much fuss; more impressive is the prolific output of shorts that aim to both inspire and inform — within Democratic parameters, of course.

You may have seen the post-election speech where Obama expresses gratitude to his campaign staff and, in a rare shedding of armor, chokes up and lets a few tears flow. This fulfills the meaning of “moving images” on both counts. For all of his decisions and indecisions over the last four years that I disagree with, I watch a moment like that and am stunned that such a man admits he is, after all, just a man. Whether or not that qualifies him for President is not really the point. It simply proves that, even in a year of bloated campaign finance, nothing shapes a candidate’s image like, well, an image.

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

Flight Review

Flight

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Released in 2012

The trailer for Robert Zemeckis’ new film Flight is about perfect, so, naturally, it is a total lie. The two and a half minute spot promises sex, courtroom drama, a screen-filling John Goodman and an upside down 747 skimming just meters off the ground, all jacked to The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” the omnipresent movie rock song, if there is any. Flight has all these moments, yes, but the spectacle is a Trojan horse for an unabashed, male-centered melodrama.

“Melodrama” is considered a pejorative term today, which is fair. It has become secondhand for “manipulative” and “exaggerated,” adjectives that can describe even the classics from the genre’s heyday in the 1950s. Hawkeyed critics like Dave Kehr praise them for their subtle contradictions in mise-en-scene (props, scenery, lighting). Take Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life: As a neglected black mother dies in her bed, a dated photo of her shamed, light-skinned daughter leans on her night table, beaming into space. Sirk is in on the joke, and hopes you are, too. The best melodramas are both sappy and ironic — it just takes effort to notice the latter’s undertones in the midst of all the crying, shouting, etc.

So, in 2012, we have Flight. Save for its digital cinematography and black leading man, this film could have been made over half a century ago. You can say it has and point to Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend. Both study the physical, mental and familial consequences of alcoholism and do so with a heavy hand. Your enjoyment (or at least appreciation) of the film balances on whether or not you recognize that hand and its duplicity. Put simply, Flight veers into histrionics here and there, like when airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) stumbles around his lake house with an inordinate number of empty vodka and beer bottles strewn about. Our gut may force a laugh, but are we deriding the performance or the emasculating effects of substance abuse? Oh, the drama of melodrama!

As tempting as all this social commentary may be, you may notice I am dancing around the fundamental question of a review: Is it good? Time for a diplomatic answer: It depends. The macho thriller promised by the trailer is sidelined for an effective domestic drama. Married adults with families will connect; teenagers and unchained college students, not so much. Flight features a masterful opening crash sequence, where pilot Whip saves nearly all of the passengers aboard his flight. There is an ostensible realism to the crash — the erratic descent takes agonizingly long and handheld cameras zoom in on panicked passengers and dolly backwards through the aisle. Memorable though this sequence may be, the rest of the film stays grounded. A fridge stocked with liquor replaces a plummeting fuselage as our object of fear.

Given that he drank liters of liquor not only the night before but during the fateful flight itself, Whip has a nagging feeling that he may be a bit responsible. His only scars are a cut over the eye and a limp leg, while his religious co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) will likely never walk again. Silently repentant, Whip retreats to his family’s lake house and dumps all of his booze into the sink. Even in a brisk montage, it takes a couple of minutes to dispose it all. With the stress of investigations, guilt of lives lost and long-standing family issues flaring up, Whip retreats back to the bottle, his tonic and poison.

While Flight may not always be subtle, Denzel channels the flabby screenplay with remarkable control. Whip lies to everyone, including himself, without pause, and it’s in his eyes where his subconscious betrays him. His gaze lingers too long, with glints of the unacknowledged struggle raging inside. Denzel works on another level here, slipping into his character’s mental state to the degree that I think our CIA should pull a Team America and recruit him as a spy. Expect to see his name on the shortlist for next year’s Academy Awards.

Don Cheadle and Bruce Greenwood (sporting a Sully Sullenberger stache) flank Whip as a criminal lawyer and airline union rep, respectively. Cheadle either rolls his eyes at a passive aggressive simmer or lets loose at a raging boil, making for an unusually predictable performance. Greenwood’s character is all about staying cool, which he does until he can no longer tolerate the self-destructive actions of his old friend, Whip. A jolly John Goodman also joins the cast as Harling Mays, Whip’s drug dealer and body man. The film steps into a moral quandary when, as Whip lies on the bathroom floor blacked out from boozing the night before, Harling saves the day by administering him a few lines of coke. The scene is played for laughs and, for all the hidden meanings in melodramas, I see no acquitting explanation here.

The female characters in Flight, as Julia Moser ’15 vented on The Sun’s video review online, are static and borderline exploitative. The opening minutes cut from the critical plane crash to the misadventures of Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a drug addict. She visits a porno set to score some merchandise from her dealer, who pressures her to “act” with him. She does not (*spoiler*), but it’s an unnecessary set piece in which to introduce the female lead. As it turns out, Nicole isn’t even a lead, or at least not provided any insightful lines or actions. Her lengthy introduction ruptures the suspense of the opening, and for no thematic benefit.

With just Denzel under the spotlight, Flight builds to a satisfying close, despite how predictable it may be. Denzel and Zemeckis endow Flight with all its memorable qualities — they manipulate the typical melodramatic tropes to contemplate sin, mortality and redemption. John Gatins’ screenplay does not seem to bother with women, and the two hour, 20 minute runtime will prove painful for those expecting another plane crash. Why anyone would hope to see another plane crash beats me; the title’s a metaphor, get over it.

Final Verdict:

3 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

'Lights! Camera! Inaction!'

Action holds a lot of stock in Hollywood. A director yells, “Lights, camera, action!” from his or her chair, a gun goes off and a stunt car explodes. Or something — I don’t know, it’s a very tired cliché. The point is that action rules Hollywood movies, even those without car chases or explosions. Atticus Finch would be pretty lame if he sat on his porch for all of To Kill a Mockingbird and just thought to himself, “I should defend that innocent black man … if only I weren’t so tired.” In a Hollywood film, character action, as channeled through an ‘active’ protagonist, underlines theme and generates entertainment.

Few Hollywood pictures can get away with a ‘passive’ protagonist, and, for the ones that do, they strike us as unusual or subtly profound. The ennui of The Graduate or the “Dudeism” of The Big Lebowski are groundbreaking, in retrospect. They subvert mainstream ideals of success, class and masculinity. In indie and foreign cinema, you will find more films with atypical protagonists who do not always steer the narrative.

As proof, I present two great films: City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and produced in Brazil, and The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski and produced across a smattering of European countries. Coincidentally, both were released in 2002. Even if you have not seen these films, you have heard of them. You probably have one of these on your laptop hard drive, ready to watch when you’re not in the mood forArrested Development reruns (so, never). Both of these movies feature protagonists who, for most of the plot, stand to the side and watch horrific forces destroy their homes (gangs in the “Cidade de Deus” favela outside Rio de Janeiro and Nazis in Warsaw, respectively). While a screenwriting guru like Robert McKee would decry such inaction, a passive protagonist can reflect injustices — specifically, violence — with honesty and without euphemism.

Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a smart boy unfortunate enough to grow up in a slum, narrates City of God. He introduces us to the favela’s other inhabitants, most of whom steal, deal drugs and murder on a daily basis. With little personal opinion, Rocket’s voiceover ties together a nonlinear plot that spans two decades. His one passion is photography, which allows him to appear active even when he is standing on the sidelines, “shooting” the gang members who are shooting each other. Film theorists have long loved to compare the camera with the gun, as has the general public. While the gun aims, shoots and kills, the camera aims, shoots and preserves (but this philosophizing is for another column). Rocket’s passivity allows us to see, through a naked pair of eyes, the extreme violence (to the extent where children murder other children) infecting his home.

In The Pianist, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody, in his Halle Berry smooch-winning role) survives the Holocaust through inaction, not to mention a lot of luck. He watches an execution of Jews that, for some reason, does not include him. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising rattles the street outside his friend’s apartment where he furtively squats. Another acquaintance — a member of the traitorous Jewish Ghetto Police — literally pulls Szpilman from his family as they are ushered into a cattle car destined for Treblinka. It makes for a cold procession of events, marked by horrified reaction shots rather than deliberate bouts of action. Schindler’s List, while uncompromising in its images, ends on an inspiring note thanks to Oskar Schindler’s heroism. Stories like Schindler’s provide needed hope when digesting such atrocities, but it is Szpilman’s helplessness that betrays the true darkness of the time, as hard as it may be to face.

There is a sharp cynicism in pivoting mass murder around a passive protagonist. Rocket, Szpilman and, by extension, the viewer witness inexcusable violence while surrendering the resolve to stop it. Even worse, the belligerents are not cackling caricatures but children eased into the drug trade through opium or young men brainwashed to believe their genocide is righteous. The balance of good and evil is a bit off, isn’t it? It’s no surprise Hollywood doesn’t go for the passive protagonist, particularly one under such duress. As we watch the character buckle under forces out of his or her control, we think, “Damn, that could have been me!”

Thus, a passive protagonist steers a film towards realism and away from romanticism. You could say a photojournalist like Rocket as City of God’s narrator likens it to a documentary, though that opens a whole new can of worms as the movie is still a work of fiction (even if it’s based on a true story). Its veracity notwithstanding, a film with minimal character action is likely to provoke and disturb us more than one in which an active protagonist overcomes the odds to save the day. A film like City of God or The Pianist may also offend us to the core, which is likely why some despise character inaction in all cases: Where’s the happy ending? How I am supposed to walk out into the world with a shred of respect for my species after that?

The recently released Cloud Atlas may be the ultimate antithesis to such life-negating, humbling fare. The film — which, I will say, is well worth your time — strings together six, century-spanning plot lines, all connected by different incarnations of characters, each played by the same actor. It’s ludicrous. The movie’s official plot summary reads: “An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.” The pitch allows for a lot of car chases, explosions and be-all, end-all character choices, all in service of a lie we would go crazy not to believe.

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

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 Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Directed by Stephen Chbosky
Released in 2012

You either ‘get’ The Perks of Being a Wallflower or you don’t. But if you do, it gets you, too. Ever since the source novel was first published 13 years ago, many have compared Stephen Chbosky’s coming-of-age tale to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The association makes sense, as both novels derive their power from empathy and resonate strongest with the creatures most demanding of it: teenagers. Not everyone connects with these stories — not because of class, race or age as much as a certain sensibility. Perks, as it is affectionately called, speaks to those with a curiosity unfulfilled by a school curriculum, those with a romantic streak marked by spells of sadness, those who crank up Bowie’s “Heroes” while driving with the top down and windows open because, hell, that’s life right there.

Set in Pittsburgh circa the early ‘90s, Perks tells the story of Charlie (Logan Lerman), who narrates from a series of letters he sends to an anonymous acquaintance. Charlie is a shy, troubled and brilliant kid entering his freshman year of high school. Suicide took away his one good friend just months before, and the violent death of his Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey) — his “favorite person in the whole world” — on his seventh birthday haunts him still. Struggling alone with remnants of severe depression, Charlie finds the transition more difficult than most. There’s that one girl who calls him a “faggot” for his neat stationary; other bullies join her when they learn he aces papers and completes them early. Perhaps you need to suspend some disbelief to buy that a guy who looks like Lerman can get this much flak, but think back to the dull ones in high school who saw beauty in conformity and disorder in everything else.

With nachos in his hands and nowhere to sit at the football game, Charlie summons a few words to engage Patrick (Ezra Miller), the goofy senior in his freshman shop class. Patrick’s half-sister, Sam (Emma Watson), joins them and Charlie is instantly smitten — I say “instantly” because of the angelic close-up that introduces her, with her face eclipsing the Friday night lights like a halo. After the game, Sam and Patrick welcome Charlie to the “Island of Misfit Toys,” Sam’s too-perfect title for their eclectic group of friends, which also includes “punk Buddhist” Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), kleptomaniac Alice (Erin Wilhelmi) and stoner Bob (Adam Hagenbuch). These are the creative and inquisitive types, some from happy families and others from abusive ones. If you fall under Perks’ purview, you will overlap in some way with one or more of these characters. They scrap the past in favor of the present, bonding over car rides, gifts, dancing, study sessions, movies, marijuana, LSD, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, “Come on Eileen,” The Smiths and lots of mixtapes.

Most teenage movies fall apart after these introductions, devolving into hedonism or empty moralizing. Perks is not like most teenage movies. In a rare sign of trust, producers handed directing and writing duties to the most capable hands possible: Stephen Chbosky himself. He expands the characters he created with simple but undoubtedly filmic elements (there’s grain on the image!). Soft light diffracts about the theater during a Rocky Horror reenactment the friends stage before a packed midnight screening. Their dance moves bring down the house, despite slip-ups here and there. These kids might as well be you or me during those times we stepped out of our comfort zones with a little help from our friends. Perks appeals to those moments of belonging — when “we are infinite,” as Charlie says — and asks us to cherish the love we get.

Love, in its oh-so-many forms, unites these characters and tears them apart. Sam eventually returns Charlie’s affection, in a romance with many ups and downs. Patrick carries on a secret relationship with the school’s football star despite growing homophobic pressures. Charlie tortures himself with the burden of his aunt’s death, for she died in a car crash after giving him a special birthday present. Charlie’s supportive English teacher, Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), finds an answer for all the pain the most positive of emotions seems to carry: “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

The cast (which, by the way, includes our very own Julie Leon ’15 as an extra in the first Mr. Anderson scene) dodges the histrionic pitfalls littered about these roles. Lerman delivers a quietly powerful performance that may be tough to watch for those who share or have shared his timid or depressive traits. As for Watson, not once did I think about the Harry Potter films when she was on screen. Far from an overachieving bookworm (it is Charlie who helps her study for the SATs), Sam suffered childhood abuse that left her damaged, and Watson nails the subtleties. And Miller, who terrified as the child from hell in We Need to Talk About Kevin, does an about face here, stealing the best and funniest lines. His role also demands a few potent scenes, whereupon he taps into that familiar melancholy.

I guess you can look at all this and still consider Perks to be routine, or contrived, or stereotypical. Come on, Zach, I’ve seen this all before, you say. You have, yes, and you’ve also heard, smelled, tasted and felt these moments before. Those memories rattle around your brain to this day. Therein lies your power. 

Consider life itself. So much of it abides by routine: We start with the developmental rites of passage mostly out of our control — our first hairs, teeth, steps, words, ‘potty.’ We grow up with ‘play dates,’ television programs and coloring books with shapes that have already been drawn. We begin to process what is going on, how others view us and how we view them. Bam! Acne hits, voices crack and organs grow. We feel miserable. We don’t ask for the purpose of life but for the purpose of living. We grow outward. We begin to notice a pattern. We are surrounded by people playing this same cosmic game. We realize we don’t have the answers to life but everyone else does. We ignore that they actually don’t, because we are having too much fun. We laugh, gossip, cry, fight, kiss, have sex and children. We grow old and settle in routine once more — there are bills to pay. We relax and watch our children start all over, and then their children. We die. What’s the point? Who knows. But we do know the time was worth it when we’re with those we love. We exchange jokes, secrets and mixtapes. And we watch a movie like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and think, “Huh, someone else gets it.”

Final Verdict:

4.5 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

This is Not a Film Review

This is Not a Film
Directed by Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
Released in 2011

On Sept. 24, news broke that Iran would withdraw its entries from the 2013 Academy Awards in protest of the anti-Islam video Innocence of Muslims. As we know, American-Iranian tensions run high, but this ill-timed move impedes Iran’s recent cultural breakthrough into the West. Asghar Farhadi won the country its first Best Foreign Language Film Oscar only six months ago for his masterpiece A Separation. He delivered an important speech that night, praising his country’s “glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.”

These politics have tried to hide filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who in 2010 was slapped a six-year prison sentence and 20-year ban on making movies for, among other things, “assembly [of] propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Panahi’s work, which includes The White Balloon and Crimson Gold, portrays hardships afflicting men and *gasp* women in Iranian society, similar in style and intent to post-war Italian neorealism. This fearless artist, activist and human refuses to be silenced and has drafted a stunning statement with This is Not a Film, which he smuggled into the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on a USB flash drive hidden inside a cake.

This is Not a Film is some sort of miracle — of what, I am not sure. We are assured this is not a film, as the title declares with Magritte-esque mischief (his ban specifies “film-making,” so this exercise must be fine, right?). This is a portrait of an artist — not a document, for Pahani directs, writes (whatever that entails) and edits, granting him illicit control over this work. After beginning with a few static (and immaculately composed) tripod shots of him eating breakfast and feeding his iguana, Igi, in his apartment, Panahi hands the camera to his friend and co-director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, who serves as a prophylactic separating the artist from the art. The meat here has Mirtahmasb to thank, not so much for his cinematic contributions but for his humbling comments. “You are not directing. It’s an offense,” he reminds Panahi when told to “cut.” “So, I’m not the director anymore,” Panahi replies with a laugh. His smile turns cold processing the thought.

The key set piece in This is Not a Film, if it has one, considers these ramifications. On his living room carpet, Panahi places strips of masking tape in a box, outlining a room where his next film would have taken place. He reads from his script, using his hands and feet to visualize ideas for shots and blocking. These concepts prove potent — Panahi lowers his hand from a ceiling fan, covers a few feet of air, describes an inexistent rope and moves a chair underneath. He need not mention suicide. Panahi breaks down upon realizing, “If we could tell a film, then why make a film?” Frantic to validate his art, Panahi then scans through DVDs of his past work to highlight a scene inCrimson Gold when amateur actor Hossain Emadeddin (a real-life schizophrenic) did “the directing on [him].” Emadeddin’s performance was unpredictable — emotion without ego — and “leads you to how you explain the film.” That Panahi champions actors over other filmic devices like editing and directing speaks to his humanism and respect for his colleagues — untapped qualities when holed in an apartment alone. “The film must first be made for us to be able to explain it later,” Panahi concludes in a statement so banal it grazes wisdom.

Pondering that quote, I realize I am analyzing This is Not a Film like a film. There are some beautiful shots here that could not possibly be framed without an eye for aesthetics and mind for meaning. It is safe to consider this a “film” when examining its construction, which is purposeful even if likely derived from chance encounters. Fellow Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-E’temad calls Panahi as the latter sits on a couch, perusing his laptop. While the two speak about their peers’ support for Panahi’s plight, Igi the iguana crawls on a sofa across the room. Just as Bani-E’temad says, “Everyone is getting scared off,” Panahi looks at the iguana and cuts to a shot of it hiding in a bookcase. Too clever for coincidence, I’d say. He lets the iguana direct him, but he ultimately directs the audience.

At the end, Panahi finally wields the camera and exits the apartment in a brilliant sequence I would rather not spoil. Earlier, however, there is an analogous moment that commanded my attention. Gunshots outside his apartment interrupt one of his monologues, and he opens up a window to inspect. His ears register the violence and a hint of sadness stains his face. He looks down, in despair, we think. Nope: He pulls out his iPhone to record the sounds and images for all else to see. This is Not a Film is not a plea for help but rather a display of defiance against unjust forces. In any other movie, the hero picks up a pistol or an AK-47. Here, Jafar Panahi picks up his camera and shoots away.

Final Verdict:
5 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

Looper Review

Looper

Directed by Rian Johnson

Released in 2012

Looper is a very good sci-fi movie with a very cool premise. Like Inception, sometimes that premise gets in the way of the story, and like Prometheus, sometimes that story takes one turn too many. But for a film centered on time travel, Looper does its best to remain sober, introducing its made-up rules and paradoxes without obsessing over them. Director and screenwriter Rian Johnson even finds a way to fuse all the fake science with the film’s message and direction. At the very least, it makes for a stunning first act that tapers into a solid but lesser final act upon the introduction of a woman and child (Remember I Am Legend?).

The year is 2074. Time travel is invented and immediately ruled illegal. Naturally, a seedy criminal syndicate manipulates it to kill undesirables. For some reason (DNA tracking?), disposing of bodies is next to impossible in the future, so the target is draped in a hood, strapped with a slate of silver bars (it’s a strange image to describe) and blasted 30 years into the past. In 2044, a “looper” awaits the poor chap to apparate (spellcheck tells me this is not a real word, which makes me sad) out of thin air, at which instant he blasts a hole through the target’s chest with a “blunderbuss” shotgun. It is about as impersonal a murder as one could carry out within such close proximity: Learn French with Rosetta Stone as you wait, listen for the thwap of space-time being breached and pull the trigger before the hit can make a peep.

That is how Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) conducts his business, at least. When not a heartless killing machine, Joe roams the decrepit streets of Kansas City, pumped with normalizing drugs administered through eye drops. He is numb to the world’s poverty and violence, in a daze not unlike Ed Norton’s character in Fight Club. Seth (a reliably flustered Paul Dano) could be considered his friend, but Joe makes a crucial decision that negates even that. The time comes when Joe must face himself — literally. Part of the deal with being a looper is “closing the loop”: unknowingly shooting your future self when the syndicate cuts your contract. The hitman then has 30 years to live in peace, until the gangsters come after you to take you out ... which they already did (time travel is confusing, huh?). Joe’s problem, however, is that his future self (Bruce Willis) appears without a hood, staring him right in the face. Young Joe hesitates, allowing Old Joe to escape.

Johnson wrings this first encounter for more suspense than seems possible, given how this scene serves as the hook for all the movie’s trailers. An economic sequence cuts between a slowly zooming-in shot of an unnerved Young Joe and the rippling vinyl tarp that awaits his next victim. When Old Joe finally materializes, we see him from Young Joe’s distant point of view, followed by an extreme close-up of his eyes and then Young Joe’s eyes. It is filmic storytelling that would make Hitchcock proud (the scene is revisited later with a single, quiet long shot, parodying the earlier tension). A little troubling, however, is the heavy makeup applied on Gordon-Levitt’s lips, eyes and nose, in order to achieve a greater likeness to Willis. The effect is uncanny, in the disconcerting way; I often thought, “Hey, that’s JGL wearing makeup.”

But back to Hitchcock. The crime goons — called “Gat Men,” after the comically oversized revolvers they wield — pursue both Joes after Old Joe gets away, and Looper uses the classic Hitchcock “wrong man accused” trope in regards to Young Joe. But what if the “right” man is the “wrong” man? And what if one person is two different people? The movie sits the two Joe’s across from each other in a diner booth, rivaling the famous Pacino/DeNiro scene from Heat. What would you say to your younger self? Old Joe is downright hostile, scolding Young Joe’s drug addiction and reckless indifference. A sensible path forward would pair the two together, yet Old Joe retreats back into the dark in order to avenge a death, while Young Joe moves toward the light in inverse of Old Joe’s reprehensible actions. Due to some temporal overlap best not overanalyzed, Young Joe can scar or tattoo himself to communicate with his old self; the implications of this loophole are maximized to terrifying effect early in the movie, when an older version of a character literally falls apart while his younger self is tortured (it’s a brilliant scene worthy of your nightmares). The communication between the two Joes plays with (‘pains’ is also valid) your mind and posits life as a constant flux.

Unfortunately, a lot of this magic dissipates in the final 45 minutes, when the subject pivots to Sara (Emily Blunt, surprisingly) and her son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon). The two live by themselves in a rural Kansas farmhouse, which Sara fiercely defends with a rock salt shotgun. She also, naturally, serves as a love interest for Young Joe and allows him to spill open his deep-seated torment. The pace slows down during these scenes, which is fine, and Gagnon’s performance as the troubled child never succumbs to (though it may verge on) camp. But the bond between Young and Old Joe ceases to consider the abundance of existential conflicts the script initially flirted with, and Young Joe’s diminishing screen time robs his final decisions of their allotted impact. Instead, the story focuses on the standard “killing baby Hitler” paradox and throws in telekinesis (lifting things with your mind) as an excuse for lame special effects. Johnson works hard to make time travel appear plausible and seems to joke in the beginning that a genetic mutation has granted 10-percent of humans the ability to suspend quarters in mid-air. The subsequent about face — with the expectation for us to take this paranormal ability seriously — contradicts prior expectations and reverts the final act into a capable but far more ordinary film when compared to the preceding brilliance.

A lack of humor could be culpable for these tonal and narrative inconsistencies. Johnson introduces his world’s quirks early and efficiently, but poking fun at their logical gaps could have secured a defense against all but the most myopic sci-fi geeks. Indeed, the film’s funniest joke is also a grim one: When Young Joe tells crime boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) that he’s learning French because he wants to visit France, Abe replies in a monotone, “I’m from the future. You should go to China.” Ok, maybe not wholesome laughs, but Looper could have at least afforded a lace of sarcasm, right? The Gordon-Levitt voiceover is set, the Kansas City streets are caked in crime and cynicism is practically a pre-existing condition. It all sounds like a film noir, which Johnson and Gordon-Levitt exercised in their 2006 hit Brick. Perhaps our era’s rampant flippancy will erode into abject despair by 2044. I’ll arrange for a time warp with the loopers when that day comes.

Final Verdict:

3.5 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.