Taking on 2011 - Top Films (Quarterly Review)

A tad overdue (curse you, term papers!), but the Quarterly Review moves on with the final entry until the wonderful month of June where the birds have risen from the ash, shattered the eggshells, dusted off the icky placenta of inexperience, spread their wings, consumed the mother's regurgitation. The flowers are fickle, they could leave you with the turn of Mother Earth's axis, I will be here forever. Pull out the reels, put on the critical cap, join me for this journey. We can never truly escape the danger zone.

5. Umshini Wam

This marks the second film (technically it's a short) that I have watched from the truly absurd Harmony Korine. Despite the paltry run time this story explores some heavy material, though at its core the movie exists as a desperate display of two clinging to a lifestyle. In a few short minutes we watch as these characters lives unravel, as they are built again. It all comes across as a semi-nihilistic -a state of being that likely does not exist - middle finger to the established conventionality of the world, a celebration of counter culture. A shrill scream. Though given the film's title, a call for revolution during apartheid movements, the film gains an extra layer as it urges the characters and audience alike to grab your machine gun.

4. The Sunset Limited

I admit in my review that I have a strong love for the Cormac McCarthy play, but I am honestly so impressed with how much staying power this film adaptation has had for me. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the two performances that anchor the movie, Samuel L. Jackson is still in strong contention for my Best Actor slot in the young year. But beyond the actors I find the thematic implications striking. Who doesn't want to philosophize about the world, to meditate on the intricacies of faith and logic? But damn it, while we talk is that ever going to stop the Sunset Limited from coming? No, and it's that haunting realization that gives the film the punch it needs to survive.

3. Poetry

Korea has provided me with some of my favorite films of the past ten years, but most of those are also products of the minds of Bong Joon-ho and Chan Wook Park, two filmmakers more known for their style. So this quieter film had me entering with a bit of hesitation, but from the opening sequence of a dead body floating face down in the water to the final shot the film had me riveted. Few products of society can said to be more beautiful than a well constructed poem, and juxtaposing that with the film's heavier plot elements of rape and murder, filtered through the eyes of an older woman slowly being taken over by Alzheimer syndrome results in one of the more striking movies of the year.

2. Jane Eyre

The latest adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel is a visual feast, composed of striking shots of a hostile country that houses a disturbing number of individuals. The film, naturally, loses a bit in translation, but Bronte's words come to life thanks to the lead performances. Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender set a chilling back and forth between their two characters that propels the film forward. It avoids, at times, some of the more complex themes that the film briefly touches on, namely the repugnance of the Rochester character and the individual desires of Jane, but the film is a technical marvel that stands out as the best period piece released in a good number of years.

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

The winner of the 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or is a masterpiece of fluidity. At times so culturally specific that one may think that it's impossible to penetrate, Uncle Boonmee succeeds by reflecting on the very construction of history and the universality of human experience. We cope with the living and dying process, the way memory is constructed and lost, the myths and legends that propel every culture. These myths, they define our place just as our place defines the myth. I don't think I realized just how wonderful this film was until I started typing a bit about it right now. I need to watch this again, and that's all I can ask from a film.

Below, I think it's only fair, to include my Unabridged List that contains the films with limited releases in 2010 that I will be counting, at the year's end, as 2011 films.

1. Summer Wars
2. Somewhere
3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
4. Jane Eyre
5. Poetry
6. The Sunset Limited
7. My Dog Tulip
8. Rabbit Hole
9. Another Year
10. 4.3.2.1
11. Umshini Wam
12. Source Code
13. Paul
14. The Green Hornet
15. Your Highness
16. The Suite Life Movie
17. Fish Tank
18. Take Me Home Tonight
19. Best Player

Rich

Comments are welcome and, for anyone with a literary mind, I encourage checking out my poetry blog filled with all original works for your reading pleasure.

Also I am on the old Twitter thing so I guess you can follow me at twitter.com/FLYmeatwad.

And Don't Go Mistaking Paradise For That Home Across The Road

The Sunset Limited (Jones, 2011)

Cormac McCarthy is, in all likelihood, the English language's best writer. At the very least he competes for the title. Lately cinema has latched on to McCarthy's works: the Coen's adapted No Country for Old Men, John Hillcoat brought The Road to life, James Franco is lobbying to helm a screen version of Blood Meridian; however, Tommy Lee Jones may, with The Sunset Limited, be the first to dip in to McCarthy's rather lean dramatic output in an attempt to bring the revered writer's works 'alive.' If movies have proven one thing time and time again it is that simply drawing inspiration from a rich source does not always yield a fruitful harvest, so in adapting one of McCarthy's denser, and much less critically hailed texts, Jones arguably has a much greater challenge than any of the aforementioned directors. The 'action' of The Road does not exist, the comedy of the Coens is not here, and whatever Franco has in mind for a book deemed unfilmable may or may not be present. And even without those qualities, Tommy Lee Jones delivers an adaptation that deserves to be mentioned alongside the best adaptation of the great novelist's works.

Clocking in at a meager 90 minutes, The Sunset Limited plays out as one long scene involving a conversation between the two main characters, Black and White. White, a professor, is saved by Black when he attempts to jump in front of the Sunset Limited train. Black brings him back to his nearly barren apartment in the ghettos of New York City to make sure that White does not attempt to kill himself again, supposedly. The situation is seemingly mundane, so Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson need to bring life to White and Black, respectively, in order to sustain a lofty premise. Both of the actors are firing on all cylinders, but the two are aided even further by the wonderful script. I am not incredibly well versed in McCarthy's works, only having read two or three, but The Sunset Limited stands out as McCarthy at his most philosophic. What appears to be a simple conversation in an apartment becomes a cataclysmic encounter of ideologies, theological and philosophical perspectives being placed together in a room and simply existing. I was not surprised to hear that McCarthy was on set quite often during filming, helping the actors and making sure his script remained almost completely unchanged from the original play.


Jones's The Sunset Limited is, much like the source material, an examination of binaries in relation to the world in which we live. What I find compelling is the dramatic construction of the film, we start out dividing these characters down to their most basic traits. Then the film goes deeper, bypassing race and starting to examine the economic gaps between the two men. White attempts to thank Black by offering him $1000, but he says that sum is minor and ups it to $3000. And it only continues to build until the movie is no longer about two men in an apartment, it becomes two forces in the universe. The film makes it rather apparent that neither of the entities are going to be forced from their position, in fact the struggles they are locked in are so entrenched in the human condition that anything other than the one testing the other seems impossible. What becomes fascinating is not just the way the two men square off, surprisingly on equal ground all things considered, but how they interact, come close to mingling, to co-existing, the hope that they, or rather we, can find reach an understanding, if not a balance. The Sunset Limited is not an exercise in ideology, it is a decathlon in existence.

Essentially, The Sunset Limited is far more dense than a simple review can cover. If I offer interpretations of the themes I would be more or less be exposing my outlooks on life. If the film has a prevalent theme it can be found in the unsolvable of the world and the resolve of humans to continue, one way or another, along the life in which we are trapped. Or given. Perhaps we are too entrenched in society to ever completely let go, or perhaps we simply tethered to a past that guides our future. This film, oddly, is most similar to the work of Sasha Baron Cohen, existing in an odd space that is capable, perhaps more than many other films, what we really know about ourselves. Borat asks the viewer to watch others and judge, but it also asks us to acknowledge how we perceive the world, by presenting constantly opposing forces, but examining them, The Sunset Limited asks us to do the same. It may be scary, it may be frightening, uplifting, depressing, too intense to handle, but with The Sunset Limited we can learn, we can discovery, we can be.


If any complaints can be levied against the movie it would have to be in the technical manner the film is constructed. Tommy Lee Jones simply does not have a camera that can keep up with the rapid exchanges between Black and White, but it also never actively gets in the way either, so it is more pedestrian than anything. At the very least it does not get in the way of the wonderful script, which is more than can be said of the score. While the score itself is beautiful, blending traditional music with the sounds of trains in the distance, it's sparring use is meant to draw attention to the more important monologues in the film; instead, by coming in so heavily and not really existing in any other context the score is simply distracting. This aspect simply seems odd, especially when all of the natural sound does enhance the script by serving as background noise that adds a sense of dread to White's more fervent speeches. Two missteps, one incredibly minor, but large enough to hold the film back from elevating it from a great adaptation to a great film.


And when it comes down to it The Sunset Limited is an outstanding adaptation anchored by a stunning script and two top notch actors giving top notch performances. The best parts of the play are captured in the film without losing any of the aspects that still makes it feel theatrical. This movie is challenging because I love McCarthy's play so much, because the ideas at the heart of the script are so appealing, I almost feel as if saying I love the film is a cop-out. So I will not profess my love for the film, because technically the aspects of the movie that film allows are its weakest parts. What I will say is that Tommy Lee Jones captures the spirit of one of the language's greatest writers and arguably makes a damn fine film in the process.

Comments are encouraged and, for anyone with a literary mind, I encourage checking out my poetry blog filled with all original works for your reading pleasure.

Also I am on the old Twitter thing so I guess you can follow me at twitter.com/FLYmeatwad.