When Push Comes to Puncture Wounds and Bullet Holes

January 23, 2014 maddwolf Leave a comment

A Touch of Sin

by Hope Madden

A handful of befuddled but beautifully realized characters fall through the tears in the cultural fabric of a too-rapidly modernizing China in Zhangke Jia’s A Touch of Sin.

The film sets four tales spinning simultaneously, each uncovering the unpredictable challenges and opportunities facing four characters who are dealing with capitalistic expansion, an unprecedented and often unstructured change in more than just their economic reality. As each grapples with the task of making a living among the unscrupulous who’ve already learned to exploit the fledgling economy, bloodshed becomes ever more appealing.

Jia’s imagination and scope are epic, but his film remains intimate. Though his pacing is slower and his dialog certainly more restrained, Jia’s film draws on some of Tarantino’s staging preferences when push comes to puncture wounds and bullet holes. Like Tarantino, though, Jia never abandons his characters.

He remains invested in each one, whether it’s the disgruntled miner hoping to hold village officials responsible for community welfare, the young woman defending her honor to herself as well as her unwelcome suitors, the transient who enjoys his freedom and his handgun, or the adolescent thrashing desperately against a lifelong outlook of meager wages and soul-crushing employers.

The physical environment is as unforgiving as anything in this bleak, colorless winter where everyone looks cold and uncomfortable – not abjectly miserable, just utterly unhappy. It’s a perfect backdrop for these lost souls, although Jia seems to be suggesting that these outcasts may not be all that atypical. Not one is in an entirely unique situation, and only the gun-happy transient even seems like an odd duck. No, these are very regular people who finally, irrevocably react rather than submit.

This is the real brilliance in his film. With each passing storyline, the line between “he just snapped” and “would I have done the same” blurs. Jia wonders throughout how an intelligent, rational person is supposed to manage with no future.

For Your Queue, New In Theaters

Rocket Makes Its Own Luck

January 22, 2014 maddwolf 1 Comment

The Rocket

by Hope Madden

The Rocket, an Australian film set in Laos, is a deviously familiar movie. It deposits a well-worn storyline in an unusual context, not to prove the universality of the human condition, but to draw attention to our cultural differences.

According to his tribe’s beliefs, Ahlo (the vibrant talent Sitthiphon Disamoe) should have been killed at birth. He is a twin – the brother of a stillborn – and one twin is always cursed, though there’s no telling which is which. But Ahlo’s mother convinces his grandmother the baby should be spared and his secret kept.

Well, that secret gets spilled when Ahlo becomes the convenient scapegoat for tremendous family upheaval, tumult and tragedy. What is there for a plucky kid to do but prove he is not bad luck?

The casting director got lucky, that’s certain. Disamoe is more than adorable – although he certainly is that. His childlike logic, stubbornness and heartbreaking hope capture your imagination.

Troubling for other reasons entirely is the outcast Ahlo adopts as his “Uncle Purple,” a James Brown fanatic and village drunk played with swagger and heartache by Suthep Po-ngam. Cinema has offered many a pairing of unaccepted youngster and unappreciated oldster, but the bitter magic these two generate is something unique. Their damage is no run-of-the-mill angst and their collaboration is surprisingly moving.

There is certainly something familiar in the plotting: an uplifting story, a ragtag bunch of misfits, and a competition that could win them their future. But the context and setting are so wildly unpredictable that nothing about The Rocket ever feels stale.

Deftly maneuvering through a series of culturally saturated, often politically charged mishaps, Mordaunt uses the Laotian backdrop to give weight to what might otherwise have been a simple tale of the boundless optimism of youth. And yes, sentimentality flavors every scene, but what’s unexpected is that the presence of death is a constant shadow.

The Rocket is a film littered with motherless children, refugees of progress, and the ghosts of war. It’s a scruffy, haunted, vivid charmer about displaced souls, of all things. But it’s with this damaged but hearty population that Mordaunt spins a memorable and satisfying tale of resilience.

New In Theaters

Building a Mystery

January 22, 2014 maddwolf Leave a comment

By George Wolf

“Emotions are like works of art…they can be forged.”

That line from writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore‘s The Best Offer strikes at the heart of an often captivating mystery that becomes hampered by contrivance.

Geoffrey Rush plays Virgil Oldman, a leading figure in the Vienna art world. A master auctioneer, Virgil is also frequently called upon to appraise various items set for auction, and to distinguish actual treasures from clever forgeries.

From the opening scenes, Rush draws us to his character, inviting curiosity about Virgil’s fussy, fastidious nature, and his strange inability to look any female in the eye for more than a fleeting moment (“Virgil Oldman” is but one letter removed from “virgin old man,” you see).

A mystery begins when Virgil takes a call from Claire (Sylvia Hoeks), an heiress who invites him to inventory the entire contents of her family estate. Slowly, Virgil becomes obsessed with the reclusive Claire, and he turns to his young friend Robert (Jim Sturgess) for help in relating to the fairer sex.

Saying anything more may be revealing too much, though there is a good chance you’ll guess what’s going on before the final reveal.

Tornatore displays nice pacing early on, and some sublime camerawork throughout, but the film begins to unravel as events require too much suspension of disbelief.

The filmmaker again shows his penchant for metaphor, with odes to deception and authenticity that will be impossible to miss, and a dark psychological tone miles away from his wistfully nostalgic Oscar-winner Cinema Paradiso.

There’s nothing wistful about this film, in fact it could have used more of the winking, mischievous spirit Donald Sutherland brings to his few scenes as an art collector.

Still, Rush is (surprise) a joy to watch, and The Best Offer will keep you engaged just from waiting to see how far “out there” it’s willing to go before Tornatore regains his footing for a nicely understated postscript as the gavel finally drops.

For Your Queue

Familiar Faces, Fresh Filmmaking Voices for Your Queue

January 21, 2014 maddwolf Leave a comment

Lake Bell makes her feature directing debut with a clever and insightful look at the world of voiceover talent, In a World… , which is available today on DVD. Also writing and starring, she plays Carol, quirky vocal coach and daughter to a buttery-voiced industry legend who doesn’t believe women belong in his business. Boasting finely drawn characters as well as wit and charm to spare, Bell’s unique debut will leave you smiling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZHBjLFu5is

Pair it with Joseph Gordon Levitt‘s debut behind the camera and pen, Don Jon. Both newbie filmmakers show surprising confidence and genuine aptitude. JGL plays a Jersey player who has either found the girl of his dreams or is facing a harsh reality about his intimacy problems. A witty and honest and insightful observation of our times.