Friday, August 22, 2008
The Dark Knight
I went to see The Dark Knight yesterday. It wasn't really a film I was dying to see, but I'd heard good things about it and the only other option was the new The Mummy action-hokum formula fest which I certainly don't want to see. I was expecting a good-ish film and a good-ish performance from Heath Ledger but imagined that a lot of the current busy heaping of praise on the film, and on Ledger's acting in particular, had a lot to do with that peculiar, slightly ghoulish, sentimentality that seems to overcome media-types in the wake of early death on the part of good-looking young actors. I still think that the quality of Ledger's performance has been a little hyped - but only a little. It is very good and so, furthermore is the film. It's nothing at all like the early 90s Batman film featuring Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Whereas that film was dark only in a cartoonishly dark sort of way and whereas in that film Nicholson hams it up to the rafters as a larger than life comic villain, The Dark Knight really is dark and Ledger doesn't play the Joker as a simple pantomime villain with extra-make-up.
Ledger's Joker is one of the most memorable film villains I've seen. What is it about his Joker? It's hard to say what's so affecting about it, but it has a lot to do with the physical postures and movement that Ledger uses to bring the character to life. The Joker slouches, round-shouldered, head pushed forward and downwards - it's a posture that suggests exhaustion or depression. There's a real sense of self-loathing and inner despair about the joker - but it's only implied and never brought to the fore. The other striking thing about Ledger's Joker is his physical awkwardness. He moves with a slightly uncoordinated jerkiness suggesting a kind of awkward self-consciousness - as if the Joker isn't quite at home, or doesn't quite belong, in his own skin. There's something about that awkwardness that is really chilling and which makes the Joker such an arresting, and memorable villain. There's something just right about it that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it's got something to do with a sort of paradoxical contrast between the character's evil and his outward appearance - in the same way that an evil clown is particularly terrifying (and the Joker, of course, is a kind of evil clown complete with flaking Big Top makeup and green hair). Making the Joker move like a difficult, gauky teenager somehow increases the wrongness of the character, making his appearance jarring or grating for the viewer. I wonder, also, if there's a sense in which the Joker appears to be possessed - he's not quite at home in the skin he occupies rather like a devil animating a stolen, captive human body.
There's a definite political subtext to the film - or, perhaps, more than one. The intended sub-text concerns political corruption. The film's Gotham City is a setting fit for a disillusioned post Iraq invasion America, tired of its political leaders. Politics is the preserve of a rich elite in Gotham City (and, here, interestingly Bruce Wayne embodies the corruption of politics). In Gotham City democracy is simply 'democracy for the money bags' - Bruce Wayne, the not so secret billionnaire, can effectively choose the city's political elite by throwing lavish fundraisers to ensure their future political success. The police department is riddled with officers on the mafia payroll. The film's 'white knight' - the honest, idealistic, campaigning politician played by Aaron Eckhardt, becomes (at the Joker's hands) a monster by the end of the film.
But there's something beneath all of this too, I thought. Something perhaps unintended, which reflects the political climate of US Imperial anxiety in the era of The War on Terror and of the rise of China. It's little surprise that one of the film's villains is Chinese - a money launderer - or that the plot involves a daredevil raid to snatch this villain from the hands of the Chinese state (which harbours him when he flees from Gotham). Here, Batman represents the right of America to do what it pleases - he is its clandestine might-makes-right operative seizing the wanted terrorist from the hands of those soft-on-evil foreigners (with the active complicity of Gotham's law enforcement authorities). Batman does extraordinary rendition. There are, furthermore, several striking images in the film which - surely deliberately - echo images of 9/11 and Ground Zero. In one shot, Batman crouches on a twisted steel girder in front of a smouldering wasteland in the aftermath of a large bomb explosion. Furthermore, it's noticeable that the villains are repeatedly referred to as terrorists in this film. The Joker and his helpers are set apart from the ordinary racketeering gangs of hoodlums and their leaders (whom the Joker steadily usurps). It's clear that the Joker represents a new breed of enemy for Gotham City - not like the ordinary thugs of before who at least acted according to certain rules of honour and certain principles of rationality. The Joker does what he does without motive. He steals money in order to burn it, he revels in chaos and destruction for its own sake. Doesn't he remind you of the American understanding of terrorists - those who attack America for unfathomable (non)reasons? And once we see the Joker as Al Qaeda it's easy to understand Batman and his shadowy co-conspirators within the Gotham apparatuses of state as representatives of/ allegorical ideological legitimation for, the US's clandestine war against its enemies. The Batman does what those in positions of democratic scrutiny cannot be seen to do. He acts with their secret blessing - even though, at the end, he becomes a hunted figure as those in authority have to be seen to disapprove of his unusual, illegal methods. Batman represents the political necessity for dirty state hands in the era of Empire. The film is on his side. We are on his side. He has to do what he has to do to beat the baddies. It's an unusual film - one which speaks to the inhabitants of an anxious superpower and those of its foreign vassals and tributaries. It speaks to those who can no longer pretend to be the squeaky clean white knights of the international stage, but who must believe the new 'disillusioned' illusion that the good guys have to get their hands dirty and occupy murky depths precisely in order to remain the good guys.
Ledger's Joker is one of the most memorable film villains I've seen. What is it about his Joker? It's hard to say what's so affecting about it, but it has a lot to do with the physical postures and movement that Ledger uses to bring the character to life. The Joker slouches, round-shouldered, head pushed forward and downwards - it's a posture that suggests exhaustion or depression. There's a real sense of self-loathing and inner despair about the joker - but it's only implied and never brought to the fore. The other striking thing about Ledger's Joker is his physical awkwardness. He moves with a slightly uncoordinated jerkiness suggesting a kind of awkward self-consciousness - as if the Joker isn't quite at home, or doesn't quite belong, in his own skin. There's something about that awkwardness that is really chilling and which makes the Joker such an arresting, and memorable villain. There's something just right about it that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it's got something to do with a sort of paradoxical contrast between the character's evil and his outward appearance - in the same way that an evil clown is particularly terrifying (and the Joker, of course, is a kind of evil clown complete with flaking Big Top makeup and green hair). Making the Joker move like a difficult, gauky teenager somehow increases the wrongness of the character, making his appearance jarring or grating for the viewer. I wonder, also, if there's a sense in which the Joker appears to be possessed - he's not quite at home in the skin he occupies rather like a devil animating a stolen, captive human body.
There's a definite political subtext to the film - or, perhaps, more than one. The intended sub-text concerns political corruption. The film's Gotham City is a setting fit for a disillusioned post Iraq invasion America, tired of its political leaders. Politics is the preserve of a rich elite in Gotham City (and, here, interestingly Bruce Wayne embodies the corruption of politics). In Gotham City democracy is simply 'democracy for the money bags' - Bruce Wayne, the not so secret billionnaire, can effectively choose the city's political elite by throwing lavish fundraisers to ensure their future political success. The police department is riddled with officers on the mafia payroll. The film's 'white knight' - the honest, idealistic, campaigning politician played by Aaron Eckhardt, becomes (at the Joker's hands) a monster by the end of the film.
But there's something beneath all of this too, I thought. Something perhaps unintended, which reflects the political climate of US Imperial anxiety in the era of The War on Terror and of the rise of China. It's little surprise that one of the film's villains is Chinese - a money launderer - or that the plot involves a daredevil raid to snatch this villain from the hands of the Chinese state (which harbours him when he flees from Gotham). Here, Batman represents the right of America to do what it pleases - he is its clandestine might-makes-right operative seizing the wanted terrorist from the hands of those soft-on-evil foreigners (with the active complicity of Gotham's law enforcement authorities). Batman does extraordinary rendition. There are, furthermore, several striking images in the film which - surely deliberately - echo images of 9/11 and Ground Zero. In one shot, Batman crouches on a twisted steel girder in front of a smouldering wasteland in the aftermath of a large bomb explosion. Furthermore, it's noticeable that the villains are repeatedly referred to as terrorists in this film. The Joker and his helpers are set apart from the ordinary racketeering gangs of hoodlums and their leaders (whom the Joker steadily usurps). It's clear that the Joker represents a new breed of enemy for Gotham City - not like the ordinary thugs of before who at least acted according to certain rules of honour and certain principles of rationality. The Joker does what he does without motive. He steals money in order to burn it, he revels in chaos and destruction for its own sake. Doesn't he remind you of the American understanding of terrorists - those who attack America for unfathomable (non)reasons? And once we see the Joker as Al Qaeda it's easy to understand Batman and his shadowy co-conspirators within the Gotham apparatuses of state as representatives of/ allegorical ideological legitimation for, the US's clandestine war against its enemies. The Batman does what those in positions of democratic scrutiny cannot be seen to do. He acts with their secret blessing - even though, at the end, he becomes a hunted figure as those in authority have to be seen to disapprove of his unusual, illegal methods. Batman represents the political necessity for dirty state hands in the era of Empire. The film is on his side. We are on his side. He has to do what he has to do to beat the baddies. It's an unusual film - one which speaks to the inhabitants of an anxious superpower and those of its foreign vassals and tributaries. It speaks to those who can no longer pretend to be the squeaky clean white knights of the international stage, but who must believe the new 'disillusioned' illusion that the good guys have to get their hands dirty and occupy murky depths precisely in order to remain the good guys.
Labels: Film
Thursday, May 17, 2007
28 Weeks Later - Not Very Nice
Went to see 28 Weeks Later last night. I'm not sure I enjoyed it. It's a good film (although not as good as 28 Days Later, in my opinion) - but let's just say that watching it is something of an ordeal. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it might be more enjoyable to drink several tins of Red Bull and then stick your head inside a very loud cement-mixer for an hour and a half.
I rather like horror films (well, good ones anyway) - but this one seemed to me to go a bit far. Not sure I can quite put my finger on it - but let's have a go. The worst thing was the relentless noise - loud, crashing noises designed to make you jump and feel like someone is tearing off your fingernails at the same time. A bit of that's all-right - but if it goes on almost without respite for the duration of the entire film it gets wearing. It's not as if it's even very clever or sophisticated - it just tires you out and makes you want to leave the cinema for a bit of peace and quiet. And I'm afraid if a director does the ya-boo made you jump fright bit (with extra-loud crashing noise accompanyment) more than twice in the same film (let alone 5 or 10 times as in many minutes) I just find it deeply irritating - not terrifying, irritating.
There are some memorable scenes in the film - I think the initial extended scene in which Robert Carlyle abandons his family and flees for his life in terror through the countryside was fantastic (there's a bit almost reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where hordes of pursuers appear over the crest of a hill and bear down on the hero sprinting for an escape vehicle - except rather more scary and not very funny). As most of the reviews I've read point out, the shots of an abandoned, desolate ghost-town London are very impressive (although the first film did much the same thing).
I wasn't really very impressed with the film's super-charged gore factor, though. One of the best things about the first film was that it had quiet bits in it in which an understated psychological kind of horror came to the fore. In the second film, however, it was all running, shooting, crashing and slashing. There's a scene in which an infected Carlyle gouges out the eyes of his wife - completely unnecessary, I thought - and just deeply repulsive rather than horrifying. These things usually work best if suggested rather than filmed in close-up. Furthermore, the original film worked particularly well I thought because the soldiers who rescue the main characters become the bad guys of the film - the director subverts convention in that the figures which in other films might represent safety, protection and the restoration of order, are transformed into monsters (worse than the infected). In the second film, however, the forces of order spend most of their time charging around, blowing things up and shooting people in a rather uncomplicated and one-dimensional fashion. OK, there's some ambiguity towards the US troops in the film - they end up trying to wipe out the repopulated London colony in order to contain the virus - but they do this out of panic, incompetence and sheer super-power heavy-handedness rather than out of any sophisticated or complicated moral ambiguity - they're no Christopher Eccleston. 'What do you expect?', the director seems to ask with a shrug - 'it's the US army and the US army just charge around blowing everything up given half a chance. It's not their fault'.
I suppose I'm glad I saw the film and on balance I'd recommend it. Just don't watch it if you've drunk any caffeine in the past 24 hours.
I rather like horror films (well, good ones anyway) - but this one seemed to me to go a bit far. Not sure I can quite put my finger on it - but let's have a go. The worst thing was the relentless noise - loud, crashing noises designed to make you jump and feel like someone is tearing off your fingernails at the same time. A bit of that's all-right - but if it goes on almost without respite for the duration of the entire film it gets wearing. It's not as if it's even very clever or sophisticated - it just tires you out and makes you want to leave the cinema for a bit of peace and quiet. And I'm afraid if a director does the ya-boo made you jump fright bit (with extra-loud crashing noise accompanyment) more than twice in the same film (let alone 5 or 10 times as in many minutes) I just find it deeply irritating - not terrifying, irritating.
There are some memorable scenes in the film - I think the initial extended scene in which Robert Carlyle abandons his family and flees for his life in terror through the countryside was fantastic (there's a bit almost reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where hordes of pursuers appear over the crest of a hill and bear down on the hero sprinting for an escape vehicle - except rather more scary and not very funny). As most of the reviews I've read point out, the shots of an abandoned, desolate ghost-town London are very impressive (although the first film did much the same thing).
I wasn't really very impressed with the film's super-charged gore factor, though. One of the best things about the first film was that it had quiet bits in it in which an understated psychological kind of horror came to the fore. In the second film, however, it was all running, shooting, crashing and slashing. There's a scene in which an infected Carlyle gouges out the eyes of his wife - completely unnecessary, I thought - and just deeply repulsive rather than horrifying. These things usually work best if suggested rather than filmed in close-up. Furthermore, the original film worked particularly well I thought because the soldiers who rescue the main characters become the bad guys of the film - the director subverts convention in that the figures which in other films might represent safety, protection and the restoration of order, are transformed into monsters (worse than the infected). In the second film, however, the forces of order spend most of their time charging around, blowing things up and shooting people in a rather uncomplicated and one-dimensional fashion. OK, there's some ambiguity towards the US troops in the film - they end up trying to wipe out the repopulated London colony in order to contain the virus - but they do this out of panic, incompetence and sheer super-power heavy-handedness rather than out of any sophisticated or complicated moral ambiguity - they're no Christopher Eccleston. 'What do you expect?', the director seems to ask with a shrug - 'it's the US army and the US army just charge around blowing everything up given half a chance. It's not their fault'.
I suppose I'm glad I saw the film and on balance I'd recommend it. Just don't watch it if you've drunk any caffeine in the past 24 hours.
Labels: Film, Zombies (sort of)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Hot Fuzz
Went to see Hot Fuzz last night. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed. It's not bad but it certainly wasn't as good as I had expected. It has its moments - the last half an hour or so is a gloriously over-the-top Tarantino-esque shoot-out and very entertaining. That last portion of the film is reminiscent of Desperado - only set in a Somerset village and featuring cops exchanging gunfire with machine gun toting little old ladies (although, of course, Channel 5 got there first with Suburban Shootout). Nick Frost is as amusing as ever and gets most of the best lines in the film. Pegg, however, isn't very funny at all. Whereas Frost plays the same sort of character he always plays (naive, boyish, day-dreaming, hero worshipping) - Frost's PC Danny is essentially the same person as Mike in Spaced and Ed in Shaun of the Dead - Pegg doesn't get to play Tim/Shaun this time. So, while Nick Frost can play to his strengths (and, yes, give the audience what they paid money to see - I paid to see Mike/Ed and Tim/Shaun in a cop buddy film spoof), there's very little that Pegg can do to find comedy in his character, Nick Angel, because Angel is a straight-laced, straight-faced and rather robotic sort of character.
I have to say that the first half an hour of the film is almost spectacularly dull, and the following hour isn't much better. There are a few laughs (mostly Nick Frost) but a lot of it is rather forced and I'm afraid we've seen most of the set-piece gags before - the fence vaulting slap-stick is essentially the same scene as the one in Shaun of the Dead (although I'm told that this is an intentional in-joke). It starts hotting up a little, however, when the grisly murders start - and the blood and gore special effects are actually pretty good. The first hour and half of the film is made interesting only because of Pegg's and Wright's trade-mark multiple film references, nods and spoofs.
There are plenty of comic actors in the the film besides Pegg and Frost - Adam Buxton (from Adam and Joe), Bill Bailey, Kevin Eldon (Big Train), Olivia Colman (Peep Show), Stephen Merchant and Steve Coogan - but almost all of them are completely wasted and given little more than deeply forgettable cameos and bit-parts.
I'm afraid I find Edgar Wright's direction style a little grating in this film. I quite like the fast, punchy editing in Spaced and Shaun of the Dead but in this film a lot of it is just uncomfortable to watch - as if Wright is trying to force his editing cleverness down your throat. There's a sequence in the film every time someone is arrested where quick fire frames of the suspect's mug shots are shown, with aggressive, discordant music in the back ground. I found that frequently repeated sequence teeth-grindingly uncomfortable as if I was being violently assaulted by means of disorienting noise and image - Guantanamo Bay style torture isn't really my idea of fun.
If you haven't seen it, I recommend you wait for the film to be shown on TV and just watch the last 30 minutes or so.
I have to say that the first half an hour of the film is almost spectacularly dull, and the following hour isn't much better. There are a few laughs (mostly Nick Frost) but a lot of it is rather forced and I'm afraid we've seen most of the set-piece gags before - the fence vaulting slap-stick is essentially the same scene as the one in Shaun of the Dead (although I'm told that this is an intentional in-joke). It starts hotting up a little, however, when the grisly murders start - and the blood and gore special effects are actually pretty good. The first hour and half of the film is made interesting only because of Pegg's and Wright's trade-mark multiple film references, nods and spoofs.
There are plenty of comic actors in the the film besides Pegg and Frost - Adam Buxton (from Adam and Joe), Bill Bailey, Kevin Eldon (Big Train), Olivia Colman (Peep Show), Stephen Merchant and Steve Coogan - but almost all of them are completely wasted and given little more than deeply forgettable cameos and bit-parts.
I'm afraid I find Edgar Wright's direction style a little grating in this film. I quite like the fast, punchy editing in Spaced and Shaun of the Dead but in this film a lot of it is just uncomfortable to watch - as if Wright is trying to force his editing cleverness down your throat. There's a sequence in the film every time someone is arrested where quick fire frames of the suspect's mug shots are shown, with aggressive, discordant music in the back ground. I found that frequently repeated sequence teeth-grindingly uncomfortable as if I was being violently assaulted by means of disorienting noise and image - Guantanamo Bay style torture isn't really my idea of fun.
If you haven't seen it, I recommend you wait for the film to be shown on TV and just watch the last 30 minutes or so.
Labels: Film
