Like Anna Karina's Sweater

The needle and the damaged Cheung

Is Maggie Cheung too clean for Clean? This is the question Filmbrain found himself asking after seeing Olivier Assayas' latest, which at times seems like a love letter from the director to his former wife. Clean is easily the most straightforward and conventional film from the man whose last film was the fascinating, yet frustrating Demonlover. Clean tells the story of Emily Wang (Cheung), junkie wife of on-the-skids rockstar (and fellow junkie) Lee Hauser (James Johnston). Emily rivals Yoko Ono for most hated rockstar spouse, with magazines like Q and Mojo blaming her for Lee's decline. After an argument in a seedy motel, Lee overdoses, and Emily is sent off to jail for possession. Naturally, everybody turns against her, and she finds herself without friends, money, or custody of her young son Jay (James Dennis). At the end of her prison sentence, she decides to start over in Paris, hoping to clean her life up in order to be reunited with Jay, who is being raised by her Canadian in-laws (Nick Nolte and Martha Henry). The first third of the film, set in an ugly industrial Canadian town is quite strong, and it's unfortunate that the remainder sinks into a sort of complacency. All of the tension disappears, and Emily's struggle is for the most part nonexistent. While it's nice that Assayas avoids almost all of the junkie-going-straight clichés, things seem to come together a bit too conveniently. Though the desire to be reunited with her son is a strong motivation, we never get the sense that she's having that hard of a time with it. As Jay's grandfather, Nolte is the kind, loving old man who is also full of forgiveness, and his desire to help Emily is touching, but doesn't make for the most compelling cinema. Part of Maggie's plan towards recovery is to pursue a musical career. While in prison she (somehow) recorded demos with a fellow inmate, and lo and behold she now has the chance to record with David Roback of Mazzy Star. This thread of the story really doesn't work in Filmbrain's opinion, and comes off as little more than Assayas showing us yet another of Maggie's talents. (Though is Filmbrain alone in thinking that both her voice and the songs were pretty awful?) As a vehicle for Maggie, Clean is a tremendous success, and nobody can argue against her skill as an actress -- her performance throughout is masterful, and the scenes with her son are heart wrenching despite (or perhaps due to) Assayas' unsentimental approach. It's a side of Maggie we've not seen before, and she clearly gave her all for the part. The problem, as mentioned above, is that with her gorgeous looks and perfect skin it's hard to buy into the fact that she's meant to be a junkie just released from prison going through withdrawal. While that's not a reason to write off the film, it is a bit of a distraction. Is Olivier trying to woo her back? Did he write this for her, or is it just coincidence? Any actress would be flattered to have such a part created for her -- Emily appears in almost every scene, and Eric Gautier's camera has her looking positively radiant from start to finish (even when her hair is mussed). The screenplay, written by Assayas and newcomers Malachy Martin and Sarah Perry has its flaws, particularly in some of the supporting characters. While the thought of Jeanne Balibar and Maggie Cheung as former lovers is the stuff dreams are made of, its inclusion in the story serves little purpose (as does the Balibar character entirely). Assayas once again uses music to great effect, and though it's cool to hear some classic Brian Eno tracks, the instrumental An Ending (Ascent) is dangerously close to its overuse point (Traffic, 28 Days Later). Clean is one of those films you wish was better than it is. The fact that it starts out so well makes the disappointment that much greater. It's not a bad film, and definitely worth seeing (should it ever find distribution in the States), but it's no Irma Vep.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 3 -- Finally done!

It's amazing how many paths there are from Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (the answer to last week's quiz) to Eyes Wide Shut. Filmbrain took the Linda Manz route -- Linda Manz was in Gummo with Chloë Sevigny, who was in Dogville with Nicole Kidman who was in EWS. What's fascinating is that no two people submitted the same path -- some examples were: Richard Gere - Bruce Willis - Sidney Pollack Brooke Adams - Mia Farrow - Sydney Pollack Sam Shepard - Ed Harris - Tom Cruise Brooke Adams - Christopher Walken - Meryl Streep - Nicole Kidman but Filmbrain's personal favorite was: Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down) - Treva Etienne (Black Hawk Down, Eyes Wide Shut). It's high time Treva was recognized for his work -- who can forget his performance as the Morgue Orderly in EWS? Congratulations to Richard J from Oregon - the third place winner for this round. Any DVD from the Zeitgeist catalog is yours for the asking. Well done! Next week will be the official start of Round 4. All you newcomers that have written -- this will be your chance for fame, glory, and boasting rights. Somebody out there has to give two-time winner Aaron H a run for his money. . . Just for the fun of it (not part of any competition), here's a tough one. Send your answers to this address. Good luck!

From the Hungarian Underground

When American-born director Nimród Antal first stepped foot into the Budapest Metro, with it's labyrinth of tunnels and pipes, he felt as if he had walked on to the set of Tarkovsky's Solaris. With an impression like that, it's no wonder he chose to set his debut feature entirely in the world that exists under the streets of the Hungarian capital. Kontroll, which is being shown as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films series is a highly entertaining and often quite funny film about subway controllers -- the men and women who board trains and check that all passengers have valid tickets. It's the one job to have if you want to be hated by just about everybody. The controllers of Kontroll are a rag-tag bunch of social outcasts and misfits that are perfectly suited to this subterranean existence. Some have made the choice never to resurface, and spend their nights sleeping in empty stations. Such is the case with Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi), leader of the most ineffective crew in the network. Though he and his team of four continually confront fare-dodgers, they are entirely ineffective at issuing tickets. They are threatened with needles, beaten, spat at, offered sexual favors, or just simply ignored by the permanently stressed out Budapesters. Before the film ends, each one of them will (by one means or another) wind up a bloody mess. The film's greatest strengths are its actors and the impressive (and often claustrophobic) shots of the underground. Bulcsú and his crew might not be pleasant to look at (most of them spend a good portion of the film covered in blood, urine, foam or curry sauce) but they skillfully bring these oddball characters to life. The same can be said of the extended cast of assorted metro riders and other strange denizens that reside in Antal's fluorescent-lit world. Though one can't help but think of that other set-in-a-metro movie (Luc Besson's Subway), Kontroll manages to uniquely turn the transit system into a sort of Dantean purgatory complete with bears, angels, narcoleptics, gypsies, ravers, and mysterious hooded killers. What's odd about the film is that it feels as if it's arrived six years too late. Perhaps the Tarantino-Guy Ritchie effect has taken longer to hit Hungary, but the chase scenes (complete with seventies-sounding funk) are right out of Lock, Stock etc. That's not to say Kontroll is simply derivative -- far from it, though it doesn't quite herald the arrival of a new new-wave in Hungarian cinema. At times it seems Antal isn't sure what he wants the film to be, and the comedy-thriller mixture doesn't quite gel. While Filmbrain may not see it as the redemptive tale that some describe it as, it is a lot of fun, and though it may meander at times there are plenty of original moments that make it a worthwhile and entertaining ninety minutes. Kontroll is showing at New Directors/New Films on March 30 & 31. It opens in selected theaters on April 1.

Spend Easter weekend with Oh Dae-su

As regular readers of this site know, Filmbrain has been raving about Oldboy since May of last year. Well, it's finally opened today in selected cities around the country, and the reviews are decidedly mixed. Some see it as simply a Tarantino rip-off (a ridiculous claim), while others feel it is little more than fanboy fodder, and "symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive postmodernism". Ouch. On the other end of the scale are the critics who rave about star Choi Min-sik, or who see it as "anguished, beautiful and desperately alive ... a dazzling work of pop-culture artistry". Filmbrain has seen the film a handful of times now, and with each viewing he grows to love it even more. Sure, Oldboy is a genre film, but then again, so were Hitchcock's, and that has done nothing to lower his status as a filmmaker amongst critics and cinephiles. Filmbrain would love to hear your thoughts and reactions to the film -- good, bad, or otherwise. [Addendum: George from A Girl and A Gun has written a wonderful response to today's New York Times review of Oldboy that shouldn't be missed.]

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 3, Tiebreaker 4

It's wonderful to know that readers of this site know their Kubrick. A record number of you correctly identified last week's quiz as coming from the master's final film, Eyes Wide Shut. However, it also means that the tie for first place has grown even larger. This week -- another (fairly) easy one, but with an added opportunity to earn a bonus point. Name the film, and then using cast members alone, draw a connection from this film to Eyes Wide Shut in four hops or less. (Filmbrain can think of one path, but there may very well be others.) Maybe this will give rise to a "six degrees of Stanley Kubrick" fad. As usual, send your answers to this address. Good luck!

Two Shades of Woody

For some New Yorkers (this one included), a new Woody Allen film serves a therapeutic purpose. In most cases, it's a bit of escapism -- an idealized version of the city we struggle to live in. For roughly ninety minutes, we get to see the island of Manhattan basked in warm hues of golden brown, with two-thirds of the population (and all of the grime) missing. It's a city where the habitués all own cars (parked right in front of their brownstones) and can get anywhere without delay. A city where everybody, be it out of work actor or art gallery employee, lives in giant multi-room apartments (or lofts) furnished with fine contemporary Scandinavian or classic art-deco furniture. So lasting is this dream image, that you don't even mind the exhaust fumes from the M104 bus blowing in your face as you exit the theater. While Melinda and Melinda isn't one of the Woodman's best, it is a far cry better than the four films he made with DreamWorks, and a return to form for the NY master. (The DreamWorks films felt more like situation comedies.) It has a classic Woody opening -- the camera pans around a trendy downtown bistro and makes its way inside. There we come across a table of artist-intellectuals, deep in the middle of a discussion led by NYC staple Wallace Shawn -- "The essence of life isn't tragic, it's comic." Two playwrights (and spouses) waxing philosophical about which dramatic form holds the greater truth. A third friend tells them a story, and naturally each playwright sees it from their own Aristotelian specialty. What follows is two variations on this tale of a woman called Melinda who has just recently returned to New York City. As both incarnations of Melinda, Radha Mitchell skillfully joins the ranks of great Woody Allen leading ladies. Though her Aussie accent creeps in from time to time, her two Melindas are so different that you almost forget it's the same actress. Unfortunately, not everybody in the supporting cast is as good. Jonny Lee Miller seems out of place and uncomfortable, and his resulting performance is pretty awful. Chloë Sevigny isn't bad as the piano-playing Park Avenue shiksa, but though part of the pathos tale, she doesn't have to flex her dramatic muscles all that much. The real surprise is Will Ferrell, who is excellent as Hobie -- Woody Allen in absentia. He brilliantly captures Woody's mannerisms and verbal stylings, yet the performance is far more than a simple impression, and is actually quite subdued for the often over-the-top Ferrell. Thematically, a fair amount of Melinda and Melinda is reminiscent of some Allen's best films -- particularly in the relationship dynamics. There are cheating spouses, friends who lust after their friend's partners, and plenty of male insecurity -- one of Woody's trademarks. Not since Husbands and Wives has one of his films been so involved in the intricate details of the various couplings of his characters. Melinda and Melinda reveals a bit of the dual nature in Woody Allen, who always grappled with how to be funny in a world full of suffering. Though far less heavy than his genuine dramatic outings (nor as funny as his better comedies), both the pathos and the comedic variations, when blended together as they are, result in the most satisfying Allen film in years.

The Kids Aren't Alright

Granted, it's been quite a while since Filmbrain had "teen" attached to his age. When he turned twenty, an actor was in the White House, Wham! had the number one song in the country, and the highest grossing film was about a teenager whose biggest concern was making sure his parents kissed in 1955. In fact, the only problems cinematic teenagers faced were surviving weekend detention, trying to win the heart of the French exchange student, and going on treasure hunts with Corey Feldman. Things have changed tremendously, as Filmbrain noticed while reflecting on the thirty-plus films he saw at the Berlinale. In his Critics Notebook piece on Sundance in the New York Times, A.O. Scott pointed out the overwhelming number of films that dealt with troubled teens in one form or another. "A festival devoted to nurturing young filmmakers can be expected to have its share of coming-of-age stories and explorations of adolescent angst, but an alien whose space ship happened to land in Park City last week might have concluded, from the evidence on screen, that the United States is populated mainly by high school students whose consuming interests are drugs, sex and killing themselves and each other." There was a similar trend at the Berlinale, though with one noticeable difference -- many of the European films found young people suffering at the hands of adults. Have things gotten so bad for the young 'uns? Is it really so hard to be a teenager/20-something these days? Or is it rather the result of a new (and young) breed of filmmakers/screenwriters who are only interested in writing about their lived experiences and worst fears? That may be the case, but not exclusively -- some of the films have screenwriters who left their youth behind ages ago. This is not meant to be an all-out condemnation of these films -- some of them were quite good, but the sheer numbers were such that when Filmbrain saw Sally Potter's Yes, he realized that it was one of the first films he saw at the festival that was strictly about adults. With nearly three-hundred films in the various festival programs (not to mention the additional five-hundred films shown at the marketplace) it was possible to navigate through the festival without hitting a youth-centric film, but hard to avoid if you saw the films in Competition. Though set during World War II and based on factual accounts, both Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl - The Final Days and Lajos Koltai's Fateless are portraits of life (and death) under the Nazi regime as seen through the eyes of young protagonists. There are the three troubled children of Peacock, the case of arrested development that is Thumbsucker, the almost-homeless and beaten young women of Ghosts, and the possible molestation victim of Accused. It was the same story in other areas of the festival. There were exploited child stars (Childstar), juvenile offenders with transsexual fathers (Transamerica), alienated, gun-worshiping pacifists (Dear Wendy), abused pregnant runaways (Mila From Mars), incest victims turning to patricide (Angel's Fall (Melegin Düsüsü)), and teens literally loved to death by a parent (Barrage). The selection of new German films that made up the Perspektive Detusches Kino contained an overwhelming number of films about the under-twenty-five crowd. There were the documentaries -- Janine F., about the suicide of a young Berlin artist back in 2002, and Was Lebst Du?, which follows the lives of three young migrants living in Cologne. The features ranged from the simple teenager-hates-life-in-small-town (Smile of the Monsterfish (Das Lächeln der Tiefseefische)), to tales of pro and anti Hitler youth (Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweisspiraten)), to the oft told story of the teenage boy who shows up at the doorstep of his deadbeat dad (Netto). Is the rationale behind all this strictly a question of demographics and dollars? Filmbrain isn't sure. While it's understandable that a young screenwriter will follow the old adage "write what you know", it's getting dangerously close to over-saturation. Still, that doesn't explain older screenwriters who choose to write about the trials and tribulations of the young. While it's fair to say that ever since Rebel Without a Cause youth have been at the forefront of a fair amount of popular cinema, it's only recently that we are seeing them portrayed either as victims of an insane adult world, or as self-hating, self-centered and self-destructive nihilists. But is being a member of generation-whatever really all that difficult, or are they simply whinging? Is the rise of youth-in-crisis cinema in both the American Indie and global film scenes simply the latest trend, or are there other forces at play? Filmbrain would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 3, Tiebreaker 3

With only a handful of correct answers received for last week's quiz, there is still no third place winner. However, a few more of you have now joined the tie for first place -- including Richard J., Sachiko Y., Marcus H. and the person known simply as Herr Schönsleben. Of course, the green-pink-purple automobile comes from Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle, and not Traffic -- a mistake that quite a few of you made. In the interest of bringing Round 3 to an end, this week's quiz is fairly simple -- just use your gulliver. As always, send your guesses to this address. Good luck!

True Lies

Jacob Thuesen's debut feature film Accused (Anklaget), which was screened in Competition at the Berlinale, is a film as bleak as the Danish winter in which it's set. Like his peers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg are wont to do, Thuesen (editor on von Trier's The Kingdom) centers his film around a controversial, uncomfortable subject -- in this case, child molestation/incest, or at least the accusation of it. Henrik and Nina are an ordinary couple living a very ordinary life -- he's a swimming instructor, she's a secretary. Their only problem is their fourteen-year-old daughter Stine, a moody, quiet girl who has been growing more and more distant from the two of them. Assuming it's simply a case of puberty blues, the couple aren't terribly worried that she spends most of her time locked up in her room. That all changes when the police show up at Henrik's workplace to arrest him based on an accusation leveled by Stine -- an accusation that destroys the safe, protected, comfortable lifestyle they knew. With neighbors and even good friends turning against him, Nina is the only one who stands by his side. Stine has a history of fabricating stories, and though none has been quite this extreme, Nina has no doubt of Henrik's innocence. What elevates Accused from being a simple "did he or didn't he" affair is Thuesen's subjective take on the story. The entire film is from Henrik's perspective, and is more concerned with showing how one's life changes when accused of something rather than determining if he's guilty or innocent. This does make the film a bit more uncomfortable, especially in that Stine doesn't appear until quite late in the film, months after the initial accusation. All we are left with is watching Henrik, and trying to reconcile how we feel about him. Thuesen takes a strictly unsentimental approach -- the film is not about passing judgment, and doesn't end with the guilty punished or the innocent set free. As Henrik, Troels Lyby (The Idiots) does a wonderful job at revealing nothing -- the suffering is there, the damage has taken its toll, but it doesn't bring us any closer to the truth. One can see touches of Bresson at play here, though it lacks in the great director's humanism. This might explain why, ultimately, Accused is a less than fully satisfying film. Though watching the film is an incredibly tense experience (its 103 minutes feels far shorter), and the long-anticipated confrontation between Henrik and Stine is really quite powerful, Filmbrain found that once the film ended, there was little about it that stayed with him, nor did he find himself reflecting on it all that much. (With one exception being the performance by Kristine Rosenkrands Mikkelsen as Stine -- as brief as her role is, there is something so natural about her acting that the end result is chilling.) Still, Thuesen is to be credited with creating a non-sensationalistic film about one of the few remaining (and perhaps strongest) taboos. In the midst of the media carnival that is the Michael Jackson trial, it's a comforting thought. Filmbrain hasn't heard of a US distributor yet for Accused, but it's worth seeking out should it find one.

Life in a Northern Town

Filmbrain nearly didn't see Gu Changwei's Peacock (Kong Que), winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlinale. From the brief description he read in the festival guide, Peacock sounded like a typical "festival movie" - a family drama set in mainland China at the end of the Cultural Revolution, with a young, attractive lead actress. What encouraged him to see it was the director -- Gu Changwei -- the highly talented cinematographer behind such films as Ju Dou, Farewell my Concubine, Hurlyburly, and The Gingerbread Man. Though not every cinematographer has been successful with the transition to directing (think Christopher Doyle's Away With Words), Changwei directs with the confidence and maturity of a well-seasoned veteran. Given its Cultural Revolution setting, one would imagine a political streak running through the film, but it's not to be found at all. The generational conflicts that exist here are rooted in the standard (and universal) problems of teenage rebellion/angst/insecurity, rather than motivated by political fervor. A simple story of a middle-aged couple, their three problematic children, and the bad luck that befalls them -- no life-threatening situations, no unnecessary third-act twists -- just a group of characters so brilliantly written (and acted) that we are content to follow them through their most basic of daily activities -- a feat not easily pulled off. At times it was reminiscent of Hou Hsiao-hsien's A Time to Live and a Time to Die -- a coming-of-age story, centered around a family, narrated by one of the characters. Though divided into three sections (one for each sibling) the focus is mostly on Weihong, the daughter. Moody, unmotivated, and bored with her life in a small town situated in the shadow of a nuclear power plant, she is constantly being pressured by her mother to find a better job than her current one as a bottle washer. A stint at a daycare center ends badly when she drops a baby, but her spirits are lifted when a troop of paratroopers visits her town, looking for recruits. A chance to escape from her family, her desire increases when she falls in love with one of the paratroopers. Unfortunately, her overzealousness backfires, leaving her as a member of the crowd waving the future heroes goodbye. An end of innocence, Weihong will go through a remarkable series of changes throughout the remainder of the film. Weihong's older brother Weiguo is both mentally challenged and abnormally obese. Mocked and mistreated by many, he is a major source of suffering for his parents, and one of embarrassment for his siblings. Worried about how he will fend for himself after their death, the parents take desperate measures to find him a wife. Weiqiang, the youngest of the three children (and the film's narrator), is a quiet, intelligent boy who suffers from the family's various ordeals and sees no choice but to flee the town forever. At just under two and a half hours, Gu takes his time telling the story, but it gives us a greater opportunity to learn more about the characters and the world they inhabit. A scene of the family having a quiet meal on their tiny porch is repeated when the narrative shift changes, and it becomes one of film's strongest images. Though the family must deal with one crisis after another, the film is not about mounting tension, nor is Gu trying to evoke sympathy. It is this that rescues Peacock from "festival movie" status. Each problem is dealt with accordingly, and the family even bands together when necessary -- such as when the coal they are preparing for winter is literally washed away by the rain -- a scene that would appear rather contrived in a lesser film. Though it's fair to call the film a melodrama, the screenplay by Lu Qiang is far from conventional. Weihong's transition from innocent, naive girl to hardened, cynical woman is handled with a delicate subtlety, and Zhang Jingchu deserves a lot of praise for her performance. With outstanding cinematography that never draws unnecessary attention to itself, Peacock is a film full of surprises, and a powerful debut from a director that we will no doubt be hearing more from. (In fact, Filmbrain just read today that Gu has begun work on a sequel.)