DVD Review
Papillon (1973): A Film by Franklin J. Schaffner
"Papillon" is a true story which, I have no doubt, has been given the Hollywood treatment, scandalized and hyperbolized. It is the supposed, without meaning offense, true story of Henri "Papillon" Charriere (Steve McQueen), a man wrongfully imprisoned for a murder he did not commit. He befriends, or more specifically, bargains with Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman) in order to become friends. Papillon agrees to serve as a bodyguard to Dega while in prison, as Dega has become rich off of counterfeiting government war bonds and is a prime target for the other prisoners to kill, beat, or rape in order to take the money he is smuggling into the penal colony. In return, Dega will help Papillon fund his escape from the penal colony.
The story progresses, as one could expect, into the two becoming close friends whose mutual care help each other survive in conditions that would turn men into animals. After Papillon is placed in solitary confinement for a botched first escape attempt, Dega bribes a guard to place half a coconut shell into Papillon's water bowl for extra sustinence. Food rations are so scarce that the prisoners result to stealing from dead bodies, which I suspect is not the worst deed that some of the inmates have uptaken.
But, alas, frustration sets in for the audience. What we believe is the final escape attempt takes places at a most opportune time. Audience fatigue is beginning to set in, and it is believed the weariness and exhaustion of earlier, stress-inducing scenes will be relieved by a much-deserved (for the audience and for the prisoners) escape. The escape is botched, once again, and the film continues for another half-hour to forty-five minutes. Asking to cut a half hour from an already two hour and thirty minute film is not much, in my opinion. Enough of that.
The film also suffers from problems with tone; at times the film seems to want to be a buddy comedy, at other moments the film becomes heavy-handed and drawn out. Near the end of the film, in what is a strange scene indeed, Papillon arrives (I will not explain how) at a village with natives; the males are wearing next to nothing, the females even less so. Body and face paint and tribal weapons adorn their bodies. Papillon has what is assumed to be a sexual relationship with one of the female villagers, paints a butterfly on the tribal leader's chest, and one morning he wakes up and they have departed. I did not understand the significance of the scene, but I certainly hope it has one. The scene disrupted the flow of the movie, the tone, the wonderful gritty realism of prison escape drama. Not a word of dialogue is spoken for what must be at least ten or fifteen minutes in the scene with the natives. Ah, but I make a big deal out of time. "Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in," as Henry David Thoreau once wrote.
The film is ultimately satisfying, although it takes many lengthy detours to get there. The emotional fufillment between Dega and Papillon at the end of the film is ultimately less than stellar, but we must also consider the circumstances and reasoning that their relationship was founded upon. Individual scenes, such as the haunting sequences of Papillon's solitary confinement, are superb. Thus, the most fitting description for "Papillon," I suppose, would be that the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
Rating: 3/4 stars
Thursday, January 8, 2009
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Review
DVD Review
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003): A Film by Mike Hodges
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," I feel, has wasted an hour and forty-five minutes of my life.
Allow me to be more fair.
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" has wasted an hour of my life.
The problem with this particular piece of film noir is that there is too much noir: too much mystery, not enough explanation. When the payoff finally comes - well, you wish you were a gangster so you could snuff out everyone involved in this frustrating excuse for a gangster film. The audience waits and waits for the carpet to be pulled out from underneath them. The problem is that they stay standing on the carpet the entire length of the film, from the first line of dialogue to the last credit in the reel. Well, what the hell do we do now?
The first half hour or so of the film is fantastic - moody, menacing, and mysterious. Clive Owen plays Will Graham, a gangster who has finally retired to a peaceful, retreated life of lumberjacking. That's right - lumberjacking. He has essentially cut all ties from his former life, including his brother Davey who, since his brother's disappearance, has turned to a life of drug peddling and stealing anything not nailed down to the floor. Also left behind is Will's (apparant) ex-girlfriend Helen, Will's relationship with whom is never particularly explained well, or at all for that matter. For exactly what reason Will left the mob, his family, and his friends behind is never explained either, although one character explains he had a "breakdown." Another refutes that Will is too tough to have ever suffered from one.
The first act of the film has a sort of silent terror to it. We know something inevitably horrendous will happen, but we know not when, how, or by whom. Will, after all, needs to come out of retirement. Wanna know the reason? I'm telling you anyways. Davey slits his own throat for reasons immediately unknown to us or to Will. Davey's close friends say it was a shock - Davey was essentially happy; he had money and a beautiful woman (and, really, what more could you ask for?). Out comes Will for vengence.
I waited the entire film, even until the end credits, to see when the story - and backstories - would start to develop. When would we get to learn more about these characters, thier pasts, their rapports? Why would a seemingly happy young man try to kill himself? What happened in Will's old days as a mobster? Exactly who is Helen, and what happened between her and Will? Question after question develops, but very few are answered. Even when a question is answered, rarely is it a satisfactory explanation. In one of the last few scenes of the film where Will finally gets his revenge, the confrontation lasts not nearly long enough, and the main antagonist's reasoning is so flimsly that I wish as though I could forget it altogether and come up with my own explanation.
So my final question is this, directed at writer Trevor Preston: Why waste a viewer's hour and a half building up anticipation when all you're planning to do is disappoint?
Rating: 1.5 /4 stars
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003): A Film by Mike Hodges
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," I feel, has wasted an hour and forty-five minutes of my life.
Allow me to be more fair.
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" has wasted an hour of my life.
The problem with this particular piece of film noir is that there is too much noir: too much mystery, not enough explanation. When the payoff finally comes - well, you wish you were a gangster so you could snuff out everyone involved in this frustrating excuse for a gangster film. The audience waits and waits for the carpet to be pulled out from underneath them. The problem is that they stay standing on the carpet the entire length of the film, from the first line of dialogue to the last credit in the reel. Well, what the hell do we do now?
The first half hour or so of the film is fantastic - moody, menacing, and mysterious. Clive Owen plays Will Graham, a gangster who has finally retired to a peaceful, retreated life of lumberjacking. That's right - lumberjacking. He has essentially cut all ties from his former life, including his brother Davey who, since his brother's disappearance, has turned to a life of drug peddling and stealing anything not nailed down to the floor. Also left behind is Will's (apparant) ex-girlfriend Helen, Will's relationship with whom is never particularly explained well, or at all for that matter. For exactly what reason Will left the mob, his family, and his friends behind is never explained either, although one character explains he had a "breakdown." Another refutes that Will is too tough to have ever suffered from one.
The first act of the film has a sort of silent terror to it. We know something inevitably horrendous will happen, but we know not when, how, or by whom. Will, after all, needs to come out of retirement. Wanna know the reason? I'm telling you anyways. Davey slits his own throat for reasons immediately unknown to us or to Will. Davey's close friends say it was a shock - Davey was essentially happy; he had money and a beautiful woman (and, really, what more could you ask for?). Out comes Will for vengence.
I waited the entire film, even until the end credits, to see when the story - and backstories - would start to develop. When would we get to learn more about these characters, thier pasts, their rapports? Why would a seemingly happy young man try to kill himself? What happened in Will's old days as a mobster? Exactly who is Helen, and what happened between her and Will? Question after question develops, but very few are answered. Even when a question is answered, rarely is it a satisfactory explanation. In one of the last few scenes of the film where Will finally gets his revenge, the confrontation lasts not nearly long enough, and the main antagonist's reasoning is so flimsly that I wish as though I could forget it altogether and come up with my own explanation.
So my final question is this, directed at writer Trevor Preston: Why waste a viewer's hour and a half building up anticipation when all you're planning to do is disappoint?
Rating: 1.5 /4 stars
Monday, January 5, 2009
Milk Review
Milk (2008): A Film by Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant returns to mainstream filmmaking after the startlingly beautiful and haunting "Paranoid Park" with an equal of elegance and grace in "Milk," one of the most heartfelt, rousing stories ever to hit the silver screen. Sean Penn plays the politico Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public official elected to major office in the 1970s. In a performance that is sure to nab him an Academy Award win (or a nomination at the very least), Penn downplays his role, making Milk wholly human, although at times his persistence and bravery make him quite the superhero.
The film follows Milk's lengthy road from being a hippie businessman with a camera shop in San Francisco in the Castro district to becoming a member of the board on San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Along the way, he meets many sympathetic to his cause of gay rights, but much more opposition. On the opposing team is Dan White, a fellow member of the Board, who is a blatant homophobe, although some of Milk's team suspect that he may be "one of their own." White, played hypnotically by Josh Brolin, is willing to work with Milk, but only if Milk agrees to support some of his own interests. Milk refuses and makes himself an enemy (sort of). Thankfully, San Francisco mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) is supportive of Milk's endeavors and is one of the few politicians willing to work with Milk and his allies.
Milk encourages gay youth to "come out of the closet," and in doing so, inspires an entire community and more. He fights against the unethical and most certainly unconstitutional Proposition 6 in California, a law that would have banned all gay teachers from working in public schools. The proposition sadly parallels the recent Proposition 8 in California, which passed, effectively banning gay marriage. Milk and his team were able to defeat the shameful Proposition 6.
His political life, as it always does in American politics, got in the way of his personal relationships. His relationship with Scott Smith (James Franco), a man whom it seems Milk truly loved, was destroyed by days and nights of campaigning, canvassing, and protesting. His next relationship with Jack Lira (Diego Luna) takes an even more tragic turn. Milk was a man so selfless, so dedicated to his cause, that he gave up everything of his own so that a community being persecuted, being denied basic human rights, could have just a little hope to cling onto. When it comes to tragic figures, even Macbeth has nothing on Harvey Milk.
The sad ending to the story is widely known. White enters City Hall after being fired from his position on the Board of Supervisors, and assassinates Milk and Moscone. The film is not a political thriller and is never centered on the assassination, and it shouldn't be. "Milk," appropriately, is a celebration of life, a tribute to the hope a man had while living in a hopeless world. The story is ultimately a tragedy, but moments of heartfelt and sweet-natured comedy keep the film's head from sinking into tepid melodrama. Delicately handled by Gus Van Sant, a director who I am now convinced is a master, "Milk" is not only an important film, but once which should be required viewing for all Americans. Van Sant restores hope to those who believe in basic human rights for all, and as Harvey Milk said once himself, "You gotta give 'em hope".
Rating: 4/4 stars
Gus Van Sant returns to mainstream filmmaking after the startlingly beautiful and haunting "Paranoid Park" with an equal of elegance and grace in "Milk," one of the most heartfelt, rousing stories ever to hit the silver screen. Sean Penn plays the politico Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public official elected to major office in the 1970s. In a performance that is sure to nab him an Academy Award win (or a nomination at the very least), Penn downplays his role, making Milk wholly human, although at times his persistence and bravery make him quite the superhero.
The film follows Milk's lengthy road from being a hippie businessman with a camera shop in San Francisco in the Castro district to becoming a member of the board on San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Along the way, he meets many sympathetic to his cause of gay rights, but much more opposition. On the opposing team is Dan White, a fellow member of the Board, who is a blatant homophobe, although some of Milk's team suspect that he may be "one of their own." White, played hypnotically by Josh Brolin, is willing to work with Milk, but only if Milk agrees to support some of his own interests. Milk refuses and makes himself an enemy (sort of). Thankfully, San Francisco mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) is supportive of Milk's endeavors and is one of the few politicians willing to work with Milk and his allies.
Milk encourages gay youth to "come out of the closet," and in doing so, inspires an entire community and more. He fights against the unethical and most certainly unconstitutional Proposition 6 in California, a law that would have banned all gay teachers from working in public schools. The proposition sadly parallels the recent Proposition 8 in California, which passed, effectively banning gay marriage. Milk and his team were able to defeat the shameful Proposition 6.
His political life, as it always does in American politics, got in the way of his personal relationships. His relationship with Scott Smith (James Franco), a man whom it seems Milk truly loved, was destroyed by days and nights of campaigning, canvassing, and protesting. His next relationship with Jack Lira (Diego Luna) takes an even more tragic turn. Milk was a man so selfless, so dedicated to his cause, that he gave up everything of his own so that a community being persecuted, being denied basic human rights, could have just a little hope to cling onto. When it comes to tragic figures, even Macbeth has nothing on Harvey Milk.
The sad ending to the story is widely known. White enters City Hall after being fired from his position on the Board of Supervisors, and assassinates Milk and Moscone. The film is not a political thriller and is never centered on the assassination, and it shouldn't be. "Milk," appropriately, is a celebration of life, a tribute to the hope a man had while living in a hopeless world. The story is ultimately a tragedy, but moments of heartfelt and sweet-natured comedy keep the film's head from sinking into tepid melodrama. Delicately handled by Gus Van Sant, a director who I am now convinced is a master, "Milk" is not only an important film, but once which should be required viewing for all Americans. Van Sant restores hope to those who believe in basic human rights for all, and as Harvey Milk said once himself, "You gotta give 'em hope".
Rating: 4/4 stars
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