For all those concerned that Denis Villeneuve, director of art-house pieces Polytechnique (2009) and the Oscar-nominated Incendies (2010), has sold out on his trip to the U.S., then rest assured, Prisoners is a suitably grim, adult and metaphor-laden drama which just happens to be anchored by two Hollywood A-or-there-about-listers. Beginning with an almost unbearably tense opening hour or so, Prisoners soon dissolves into a formulaic thriller, abandoning the near-unbearable tension of the opening hour and packing the film with foot-chases and repetitive torture-porn, finding itself too caught up in tying all the many loose ends together for it all to make sense.
Whilst attending a Thanksgiving dinner, the daughters of Keller (Hugh Jackman) and Grace Dover (Mario Bello), and their neighbours Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis), go missing. The only clue is a mysterious RV parked outside moments before the abduction, which is quickly found by Detecive Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a car park with an apparently stricken Alex Jones (Paul Dano) inside. After Alex is quickly released due to a lack of evidence, Keller is furious and unconvinced, abducting him and taking him to an abandoned former home in order to instigate his own method of interrogation.
Boasting Oscar-nominated cinematography by long-time Coen Brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, this is one of the finest looking mainstream thrillers in years. Drenched in grey, the miserable colour palette drapes the film in a feeling of foreboding dread. It brings to mind the beautiful and superior thriller Zodiac (2007), only without the period setting. It drags - and it does drag - on for 2 and a half hours, and the film is so lacking in humour that any realism the film was striving for suffers. It also stars Hugh Jackman, possibly the most effortlessly likeable actor working today, and watching him bang on the wall shouting "where is my daughter!?" - a line that should have been retired after Taken (2008) - is silly and unconvincing. The film takes itself so seriously that it almost becomes a parody of itself.
Gyllenhaal as Loki, however, is outstanding, and is a character I wish the film focused more on. With neck tattoos, a strange, buttoned-up (with no tie) appearance, slick-back hair, and blinking tic, it hints at a more interesting character than the film fully allows to develop. The film is more interested in not-so-subtle War on Terror parallels and comments on post-9/11 vigilantism, that sadly struggles to keep a hold of it's ever-widening plot and multiple plot strands, over-reaching itself constantly with scenes of stoic uber-seriousness. But it's splendidly filmed, and beautifully performed by Gyllenhaal, Dano and Melissa Leo (playing Alex's mother), which could have done with some heavier editing and less self-importance.
Practically neglected entirely by cinema, it seems that America is finally holding its hands up in the air; ready to face its utterly barbaric history surrounding the kidnapping of black Africans and the introduction of slavery. Last year saw Quentin Tarantino deliver a sporadically entertaining yet hardly historically accurate depiction of slavery and plantation owners in Django Unchained, but British director Steve McQueen has delivered an unflinching, heartbreaking true story in 12 Years a Slave, an account of the experiences of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a freeman living in American who is kidnapped, taken from his wife and children, and sold into slavery.
After a conflict with a sadistic overseer (Paul Dano), Northup is passed on by gentle plantation owner Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), into the hands of the cruel Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). There he finds himself caught up in a conflict between Epps' wife (Sarah Paulson) and fellow slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o). Patsey is treated cruelly by Mistress Epps simply because her husband desires her sexually, and Patsey pleads with Northup to end her life. Although coming from an educated background, and being especially skilled with a violin, Northup keeps his past a freeman quiet. But when chance leads to an encounter with Canadian abolitionist Bass (Brad Pitt), Northup sees a chance to communicate with his family back in New York.
For anyone familiar with the work of Steve McQueen, there is no doubting that 12 Years a Slave is distinctly his. His previous films Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011) can be described as works of high art, and while 12 Years a Slave features the long, haunting takes and moments of stillness that McQueen is known for, it is more recognisable as a mainstream film. I certainly don't mean that as a negative, as, given the subject matter, McQueen has to be extremely delicate with not allowing his own artistic preferences to overshadow the gravity of the story. But the film is surprisingly, yet thankfully, unsentimental. There's no big chest-beating moment of defiance or Oscar-grabbing monologues, and in fact we don't really get to know Northup as much as we really should.
Northup plays the role of protagonist (the film is based on his written account), but this is just one man. His story was one of a precious few to come out of slavery with a 'happy' ending, and 12 Years A Slave extends its focus to the experiences of the majority of slaves, giving the audience a first-hand experience of what it was like to live in this time. In a key scene, Northup stands silent as the other workers sing, and as the realisation of his situation hits home, he defiantly joins in. Patsey's story, if anything, is the more heartbreaking, caught between a drunken, lusty maniac and his contemptuous, jealous wife. In the film's most powerful scene, Epps catches her on the way back from another plantation. When he asks where she has been, she holds up a bar of soap. Mistress Epps won't let her wash. So with his wife encouraging him, he whips Patsey until her back is near unrecognisable. It's one of the most horrendous moments I've ever seen on screen, and it's all caught in one unflinching take.
The performances are universally excellent. Fassbender gets the easier role as the scowling sadist, but it is his character's Christian justification for slavery that most disturbs. Ejiofor is quietly effective in an unshowy role, but it is Nyong'o and Paulson that stand out as two women on completely opposite sides of the social spectrum. When the movie ends, although it climaxes with Northup uniting with his family, I had a strange feeling of dissatisfaction. I realised that this is why 12 Years a Slave is so powerful, as although it offers a kind resolution to a character that suffers an awful amount throughout, there's still the knowledge that this is one man amongst millions, that there has been no real justice for the perpetrators of this barbarism. As the footnotes inform us, Northup's capturers were never punished either, as it wasn't law for Northup to testify against them. It's a lot to stomach, but this is devastating, important cinema.
On the face of it, Rian Johnson's thriller Looper, utilises many conventional visual signifiers of recent science fiction films, with a high concept idea at its centre. But unlike the many other dystopian future films, it doesn't get held back by the importance of the technology within the world it creates. Set in Kansas in 2044, the opening scene sees Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) standing alone in a wheat field with a blanket spread out a distance in front of him. Appearing instantaneously is a kneeling figure with his head covered in cloth, and Joe shoots. Like many other genre films, Looper has a reliance on narration from its main character, a necessity of complex narrative, but it is an important element, and one which further exacerbates Johnson's passion for film noir (as seen in his debut high school noir, Brick in 2005).
Thirty years in the future, time travel has been invented. For unexplained reasons, this technology has been outlawed, but is being used exclusively by crime syndicate's who are using people like Joe to assassinate people they send back in time. Joe, like the other loopers he works with are narcissistic, taking recreational drugs, simply living in the moment, with no apparent concern for the future, and particularly with the world they inhabit. A looper will eventually be retired, but once a looper is no longer required, this is known as closing the loop. What this involves is their future selves being sent back in time to be killed by his younger self. In a quirk of control, a being known as the Rainmaker, is attempting to put a stop to loopers altogether by closing all the loops. Panicking when confronted with the unclothed face of his future self (Bruce Willis), young Joe is knocked aside, and old Joe escapes the find the Rainmaker as a child, and stop the death of his future wife.
Whilst many other time travel films become often convoluted in their complexities of paradox, Looper manages to disregard the codes of science fiction paradoxicals and presents a refreshing layer of humanity. In a pivotal scene, when young and older Joe occupy the same time and space, they meet in their favourite diner - ordering the same meal - and older Joe complains at his younger self at his attitude towards life (I'm pretty sure we would all participate in this diatribe presented with the same context, to tell your younger self: "You're a dick"). Whilst the young Joe has no future outlook, future Joe has an image to cling to, specifically the woman who will eventually save his life. It's a scene fraught with tension and high chances of danger for the character(s), and one that has a bit of a poke at the concepts of time travel paradox. In fact, when quizzed about the possibility of changing the future by acting differently, old Joe bursts into anger, a character and a script knowingly telling the audience who will dissect time travel contradictions to essentially fuck off.
What ensues is a customary chase narrative, with the twist that Joe chases his older self - the younger is also being hunted by other loopers, as his inability to close the loop leans that he has to be eliminated. The hunt for the young Rainmaker leads to the farm of Sara (Emily Blunt) and her young son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon). The fact that young and old Joe share the same time/space, leads to a nice touch, where new experiences of the young Joe, reverberate in the memory of the elder. With this complex central concept, it would be easy for the script to become over elaborate, but Johnson keeps the plot simple, making it an incredibly satisfying narrative, that is intelligent, but does not over-intellectualise the themes.
Gordon-Levitt's performance is unsurpassed, he manages to possess the mannerisms of Willis without poor impersonation. Just one look of the face and his eyes and mouth (particularly) have this perfect essence of Willis. It's a big little film, that brings themes of addiction, paranoia, and the idea that in our youth, we inevitably make bad choices and often damage ourselves for in-the-moment selfishness. Johnson clearly has been influenced by Philip K. Dick, and even some of Blade Runner's (1982) visual tricks are utilised here. But whilst Dickian aesthetics dictate the overbearing corporation of government, Looper has a very human heart, which is illustrated in the relationship (new to old Joe) with the farmer and her son, and provides one of the most beautiful and convincing climax's in sci-fi cinema in some time. So therefore, Looper presents a very persuasive image of a future where society has collapsed and the highest paying job seems to be a hitman, it also shows that even the most self centred of people, the types who would risk the lives of others for money (ahem), can be moved by the idea and realisation of humanistic beauty, and the innocence of love.
It's seems remarkable to me that such a massive historic event as the one portrayed in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock has largely been ignored in the movies, when it included many giants of the industry and took place in one of the most beloved era's in our recent history. The event I'm referring to is, of course, the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969. The Festival was documented in the epic 1970 documentary Woodstock, but Lee's film concentrates on the creation of the Festival, the resistance the creators were faced with by the townspeople, and the dedication that the protagonist Elliot Teichberg had in what he saw as putting money into his poor parents pockets and back into the town's economy.
Teichberg (played with ease by stand-up comic Demetri Martin) is a successful interior designer and President of the Chamber of Commerce who spends most of his time handing his parents money so they can keep running their shit-hole motel, in which his miser mother tries to saves money by turning the bed sheets over rather than actually washing them. His long-suffering father spends his days in a semi-daze after years of living with his Russian-born wife who accuses anyone in her path of being an anti-Semite and reminds them of her struggle escaping from the Nazi's during WWII.
When Teichberg overhears that the original location to hold the Festival falls through due to opposition from the town members, he uses his permit (purchased for $1 for his usual small arts festival for the theatre troupe that lives in his barn) to lure the organisers to Woodstock and obtains permission to have free reign to use the acres of land owned by dairy-farmer Max Lasgur (the ever-brilliant Eugene Levy). He is aided by festival organiser Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) and transvestite Vilma, who, being played by giant Liev Schreiber, looks ridiculous in a blond wig, but played to fantastic comic effect.
There are both strengths and weaknesses for the film, unfortunately a lot more of the latter. The film beautifully captures the era without going overboard, and it wisely keeps the focus on the main character's plight to make the concert work rather than shifting to the concert itself. But, while the character of Teichberg is interesting himself, his relationship with his mother and father takes up most of the film's focus, and it just isn't either convincing or interesting enough. His mother is uptight and unappreciative of her son's input in the family business, spending years saving any money she can while her son goes broke and the business suffers. It's a storyline that's been covered many times before and offers nothing new, although played well by the ever-reliable Imelda Staunton. Thank God, then, for the sweet relationship that develops between father Jake (Henry Goodman) and Schreiber's character, with the former fully engaging with the swarm of hippies on their motel and finding a new dimension and meaning to his life.
I must admit I was expecting more from a director of the magnitude of Ang Lee, capturing the same kind of magic found in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), but it's never quite funny, dramatic or engaging enough. Many scenes fall flat, such as a spectacularly unfunny scene where Teichberg's parents eat 'special' brownies given to them by Vilma and proceed to dance and laugh with their son before stumbling into their bedroom and falling asleep. And the inclusion of Emile Hirsch's character - an isolated and paranoid Vietnam veteran who is struggling to fit back into home life - is just poorly written and wholly unconvincing.
Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh, or maybe I just expect more from Ang Lee. It is elevated by good performances by Martin and Schreiber. It also has a few nice moments - namely when we experience a screaming crowd turn into waves of psychedelic lights through the eyes of an acid-influenced Teichberg. An easy film to watch, but disappointingly run-of-the-mill.
Whilst attending a Thanksgiving dinner, the daughters of Keller (Hugh Jackman) and Grace Dover (Mario Bello), and their neighbours Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis), go missing. The only clue is a mysterious RV parked outside moments before the abduction, which is quickly found by Detecive Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) in a car park with an apparently stricken Alex Jones (Paul Dano) inside. After Alex is quickly released due to a lack of evidence, Keller is furious and unconvinced, abducting him and taking him to an abandoned former home in order to instigate his own method of interrogation.
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