Summary: This is David Lynch's Satyricon. A 3-hour dream sequence shot in low-def digital video with Laura Dern as Lynch's muse du jour of randomness. It's not bad, considering.
Plot: Describing the plot of this movie is rather pointless. Let's just say it has Laura Dern in it. Part of the time she plays an actress, and part of the time she plays a whore, and then part of the time she's in Poland. (Actually, I don't remember now if it's Laura Dern who's in Poland, or some other woman who cries a lot.) There are also some people walking around in rabbit suits. And many ominous interiors. Lynch has said the movie is about "a woman in trouble". But so are most of his movies.
Analysis: This is similar in certain ways to Lynch's previous feature, Mulholland Drive. However, while MD was 1.5 hours of coherent narrative, followed by a 45-minute dream sequence, this one is 45 minutes of coherent narrative, followed by a 2.25-hour dream sequence. For the true Lynch-head, these statistics will not matter, but others may wish to leave at the halfway mark (except then they'll miss the superb credit sequence).
Speaking less quantitatively, Inland Empire is insane. But in a good way, sort of. There are a few too many scenes of Laura Dern creeping down a dimly-lit corridor. But mostly it is not boring, which is an accomplishment of sorts for a 3-hour movie. In fact, it is regularly interesting, sometimes frightening--my blood curdled at the distorted face of the man Laura Dern shoots toward the end--and often hilarious--Harry Dean Stanton has a bit of comedy that is simply priceless. The low-def video turns out to be a goldmine for Lynch, who does more interesting things visually than any film in recent memory. He seems to have been heavily inspired by Kubrick here, more so than in his other films. There are many scenes that are reminiscent of The Shining and 2001, both in the use of wide-angle lens and dissonant classical music (mostly Penderecki, it seemed, from the credits), not to mention the eerie baroque furniture.
To honor Lynch, some more disjointed thoughts: I suspect the movie could be an hour (or at least 45 minutes) shorter without sacrificing too many of the "good parts", and this would help to make it infinitely more accessible. What is impressive, though, is how much mileage he manages to get out of a milieu that's very similar thematically (ignoring the Polish part) to that of Mulholland Drive but is utterly different in texture. This movie nearly wiped The Straight Story, aka DisneyLynch, out of my head. And for that I thank it.
That said, what the hell was Lynch thinking when he made it? Unlike his earlier masterworks, like Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks, there is very little for the viewer to hold on to, and it's clear that Lynch knows how to hold out a branch when he feels like it. But here he chooses to go off the deep end. The result kind of reminds me of the bad poetry I tried to write in high school...only Lynch's bad poetry is much, much better.
Related links: Dana Stevens' review in Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2155504/) is spot-on.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Pan's Labyrinth (C)
Summary: The critical response to this latest effort from fantasist Guillermo del Toro (Blade 2, Hellboy, The Devil's Backbone) has been nothing short of rapturous. I cannot fathom why.
Plot: Franco's Spain, 1944. Girl and her pregnant mother go to live with SOB Fascist soldier stepdad in countryside. Girl ventures into dreamworld now and then, mostly in the form of a "faun" who informs her that she is the lost princess of an underworld kingdom and that she must complete a series of dangerous tasks in order to prove she is really immortal (or something like that). In the meantime, back on planet Earth, a war rages on between rebels in the forest and the stepdad's army.
Analysis: Given the reviews and the auspicious trailer, I had high hopes. Unfortunately, while the film is reasonably well-photographed and well-acted, it is otherwise not very good.
First off, the real world plotline is incredibly uninteresting. Basically, there's some fighting. Various people die or are tortured. Some rebels kill some Fascists, some Fascists kill some rebels. That's it.
(Side note: There's a lot of gratuituous gore and violence in the movie. There is a gratuitous scene where a doctor who is helping out the rebels has to saw a guy's foot off. There's another one where Fascist stepdad bashes a guy's face in with a bottle. There's another where Fascist stepdad sews up his own lip in close-up. This has led many reviewers to get excited about the fact that "this movie is not for kids" as if that is a badge of honor. Frankly, I think this movie could have easily been PG-13 with no loss of artistic whatever. Not that I'm against movie violence, but it should serve some purpose, whereas here it seems designed only to make the audience go "eewww". None of the gory events have any effect on the plot or the character development.)
Second off, the fantasy world plotline is incredibly uninteresting. (spoilers) The faun tells the girl to complete three tasks. Why? To prove that she's immortal or something? OK, fine, let's say that is sufficient motivation. The first task is to go into a tree and feed rocks to a giant toad until it vomits out its entire stomach, which inexplicably contains a key. Does that sound disgusting? It is, and that's pretty much all it is. Second task is to go into a strange room where a truly frightening creature sits at a table full of appetizing food. Girl's supposed to recover a knife from a drawer in the wall using a key she obtained from the first task, but she must do all this without eating any of the food on the table. In fact, she completes the task just fine until she decides inexplicably to try eating some of the food on the table, despite repeated warnings not to. This then prompts the hideous creature to put his eyeballs into his palms and come chasing after her. What a surprise. OK, I have to confess: although this sequence makes no sense whatsoever, it was the one part of the movie that I found quite enjoyable, primarily due to the Boschian hideousness of the creature. I won't reveal the other tasks, except to say that there are basically no more creatures of interest, nor any interesting fantasy realms for the girl to explore. In the end, this girl's fantasy world simply consists of some hideous creatures with no discernible unifying mythology.
Finally, aside from being boring, it is unclear what the real and fantasy worlds have to do with each other. At certain points, they interact in the sense that the fantasy world offers some help to the girl in the real world. For example, at one point the faun tells her to put a mandrake root under her mother's bed (infused with milk and a few drops of blood), and after she does this, her mother starts to feel better. And when the root is removed by the stepdad, the mother is suddenly in terrible pain again. Good tip about the mandrake root, I'll have to test it out some time.
Plot: Franco's Spain, 1944. Girl and her pregnant mother go to live with SOB Fascist soldier stepdad in countryside. Girl ventures into dreamworld now and then, mostly in the form of a "faun" who informs her that she is the lost princess of an underworld kingdom and that she must complete a series of dangerous tasks in order to prove she is really immortal (or something like that). In the meantime, back on planet Earth, a war rages on between rebels in the forest and the stepdad's army.
Analysis: Given the reviews and the auspicious trailer, I had high hopes. Unfortunately, while the film is reasonably well-photographed and well-acted, it is otherwise not very good.
First off, the real world plotline is incredibly uninteresting. Basically, there's some fighting. Various people die or are tortured. Some rebels kill some Fascists, some Fascists kill some rebels. That's it.
(Side note: There's a lot of gratuituous gore and violence in the movie. There is a gratuitous scene where a doctor who is helping out the rebels has to saw a guy's foot off. There's another one where Fascist stepdad bashes a guy's face in with a bottle. There's another where Fascist stepdad sews up his own lip in close-up. This has led many reviewers to get excited about the fact that "this movie is not for kids" as if that is a badge of honor. Frankly, I think this movie could have easily been PG-13 with no loss of artistic whatever. Not that I'm against movie violence, but it should serve some purpose, whereas here it seems designed only to make the audience go "eewww". None of the gory events have any effect on the plot or the character development.)
Second off, the fantasy world plotline is incredibly uninteresting. (spoilers) The faun tells the girl to complete three tasks. Why? To prove that she's immortal or something? OK, fine, let's say that is sufficient motivation. The first task is to go into a tree and feed rocks to a giant toad until it vomits out its entire stomach, which inexplicably contains a key. Does that sound disgusting? It is, and that's pretty much all it is. Second task is to go into a strange room where a truly frightening creature sits at a table full of appetizing food. Girl's supposed to recover a knife from a drawer in the wall using a key she obtained from the first task, but she must do all this without eating any of the food on the table. In fact, she completes the task just fine until she decides inexplicably to try eating some of the food on the table, despite repeated warnings not to. This then prompts the hideous creature to put his eyeballs into his palms and come chasing after her. What a surprise. OK, I have to confess: although this sequence makes no sense whatsoever, it was the one part of the movie that I found quite enjoyable, primarily due to the Boschian hideousness of the creature. I won't reveal the other tasks, except to say that there are basically no more creatures of interest, nor any interesting fantasy realms for the girl to explore. In the end, this girl's fantasy world simply consists of some hideous creatures with no discernible unifying mythology.
Finally, aside from being boring, it is unclear what the real and fantasy worlds have to do with each other. At certain points, they interact in the sense that the fantasy world offers some help to the girl in the real world. For example, at one point the faun tells her to put a mandrake root under her mother's bed (infused with milk and a few drops of blood), and after she does this, her mother starts to feel better. And when the root is removed by the stepdad, the mother is suddenly in terrible pain again. Good tip about the mandrake root, I'll have to test it out some time.
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