The Fountain (2006)

Sadly, I've only recently become aware of Darren Aronofsky. That's not to say that I haven't seen any of his films, it's just that I was not aware that he was responsible for such films as Pi, The Wrestler, and  Requiem For A Dream. And it was his most recent film Black Swan that brought him to my attention and since seeing that film I decided to look into his back catalog and see what I had seen. To my surprise I had seen everything except for The Fountain.

One review that i read over was from Variety, and this was because it was written around the time of its premier at Venice and since it was the first review to be written of the film. From reading this review I garnered that the director that was "overpraised for the then-hip, now dated use of pseudo-science in 'Pi,' and for the visual excess he deployed in the grungy 'Requiem For A Dream'," had now created a film where the star plays in "three stories in different time frames and switches throughout somewhat abruptly between them, although auds can parse which is going on when by paying attention to how much hair Hugh Jackman is sporting at any given time."

Two things. Number One: I'm happy to discover that pseudo-science and visual excess are now behind us in the world of film. Number Two: The Hair. The film is divided into three stories. In the first, Jackman plays a conquistador, in the second he is a scientist in modern times, and in the third he is floating through space inside a magical bubble and bald. Also, why go to the trouble of bad mouthing Aronofsky's first two films? Pi was made when he was in his late 20's and he was awarded with best director at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as Requiem For A Dream which was made when he was in his early 30's and managed to garner Oscar nominations for it. This brings to my mind F. Scott Fitzgerald. He said that American lives don't have second acts, however there was never any mention about them not having firsts.

Most people at this point have not considered the film to be a success. Probably the one thing that has created this sentiment is most likely that most viewers have not realized that the entire film takes place in the present with there being only one real (I guess this is the correct word to use here) Hugh Jackman, Tommy. The conquistador in the beginning of the film named Tomas, is the main hero of his wife Izzi's (Rachel Weisz) novel, and the spaceman named Tom Creo is the hero of the novel's final chapter which Tommy writes after he promises to finish the book sitting next to his wife's deathbed. Creo is Spanish for "I believe", which is the language that we can assume the conquistador would be speaking and Tommy steadfastly believes that there is a solution to death that will be found.  The tree that is in the bubble with Tom is the Tree of Life that Tomas (the conquistador) was searching for in the beginning of the novel and the film takes the time to explain that the bubble is on its way to a nebula that Izzy and Tommy see in the sky one evening. This line of thought could be continued for quite some time.

Can the typical member of an audience be expected to perform the sifting that is necessary to understand the plot? I doubt it. Nowaday's movies have themselves all explained to the audience before the film even begins or they have themselves explained and fully understood by the audience by the end, almost as if this is an obligation the filmmaker has to the viewer. I'd be lying if I said that I had the whole thing figured out from the get go, but it didn't take me long at all however there was some thinking involved. There is never a single moment where the film explicitly states that the man is alive during the three stories. So it can be determined that he isn't. The fictional identity of the first man is explained by Izzy's novel where she would obviously envision her own lover as a hero. The fictional state of the third man is explained because...people don't go floating through space inside a bubble, levitating, and eating bits of a tree. Ever.The film's middle section is firmly set in reality which then allows for the fantastical nature of the first and last sections. However it's the death of Izzy towards the end that stops anything fantastical is the real world from being able to occur.

Alas, as much as I enjoyed this film, I must admit that overall it is not that much of a success.  Too many transitions are present and as the film takes its course changes in tone are abundant. Some part of me thinks that I'm not seeing the whole film. It's not that the film feels unfinished, but when a film tells a story like this, parts of it had to be removed. That can be said for all films.

Memento (2000)

Memento can be seen as the film that first launched director Christopher Nolan into the mainstream spotlightback in 2000 and for very good reason. As much as I do like this film, the first time I saw it my friend pointed out what can be construed as a major plot hole: If the last thing the main character remembers is the brutal killing of his wife, then how can he remember that he has short-term memory loss?"

Guy Pearce plays Leonard, a man that has seen the horrible death of his wife and is hell bent on avenging it. The twist, however, is that he suffers from short-term memory loss upon the death of his wife and has to create a multitude of personal notes to serve as reminders of his everyday life (even memos that have been tattooed onto his body). The strange thing is that Guy Pearce's portrayal of Leonard is a interestingly moving one, which is curious and unexpected considering that it doesn't exactly have any emotional arc over the course of the film's events. This is primarily due to the disjointed nature of the plot.While Leonard seems to suffer from forgetting what has happened, the audience suffers from the complete opposite: the film begins at the end of the story and we as an audience are forced to watch it backwards until the beginning.

Ok, it's not really told backwards for it's entirety. The opening shot of the film is brilliant: a Polaroid that fades away slowly instead of slowly developing, except that every scene in the film plays out with time running forwards. Along the way there are flashbacks that serve to illuminate (or in some cases confuse) the matter at hand. In other words, Leonard is left adrift in time and so are we.

The idea of telling a narrative backwards is an old one, a famous example of it being the 1983 film Betrayal directed by Harold Pinter (also based upon the play that he wrote). It told a story of betrayed friendship and adultery, starting with the heartbreaking and miserable ending and slowly making its way through the disillusioned and disenchantment to complications to speculation to innocence. Pinter's subject was regrets and memories, and the way that adulteries most often start playfully and innocently and then result in utter misery. It was ironic and somewhat creepy how the characters of the film/play became happier as each scene moved to the next, especially when the audience was in possession of the knowledge of what was to come. The sadness in this way was deepened and amplified.

But, in contrast, Nolan's use of telling a story backwards is just that, it's just a device: it is in no way a reflection the workings of Leonard's thoughts. The film's aimless portrayal of time is simply for the amusement of the audience and does not have a thing to do with his condition. I've seen this movie several times, and on subsequent viewings I have found that prior knowledge of the plot attributed a better understanding of what was going on, but it did not change my viewing experience of it. It's ok to only see this movie once because confusion is obviously the feeling we are supposed to be in.

With all these complaints aside, Memento is still a very absorbing experience, in which Pearce plays a sort of lower class  fugitive who somberly creates maps, makes notes and continually explains over and over how he has to speak fast because in the subsequent minutes that follow he will forget the conversation. There's a scene where the clerk at a motel chooses to take advantage of Leonard's condition and makes him pay for two rooms, then cheerfully admits to his dishonesty and points out that he will not remember that he did this. At another point in the film Leonard is told "Even if you get revenge, you're not going to remember it,"  which he justifies with a reply that holds a certain and strange amount of logic: "My wife deserves revenge whether or not I remember it." A very striking and impactful facet of the story are the flashbacks that Leonard has from when he was working for an insurance agency. These flashbacks are about a man named Sammy, who appears to have memory loss, even though he seems just like himself. His wife seems to believe that he is faking, and this story has relevance to Leonard's own problem.

Leonard isn't the the only character in the film, the other major characters being  Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss). Natalie has her own Polaroid in Leonard's collection which has written on it "She has also lost someone. She will help you out of pity." Their relationship keeps starting over from the beginning of the movie. Teddy on the other hand, his role and his identity continually shift in mysterious ways until the very end of the film.

The goal of this movie is not for the audience to solve the murder of Leonard's wife ("I can't remember to forget you," he says in reference to her). If we leave the theater unsure of what just happened, that's fine. The film is more like a test, where Leonard's somewhat distorted code of honour propells him foward through a cloud of confusion toward what he strongly feels is his moral duty. Perhaps Nolan's choice of telling the story backwards was just a way for us to be able to identify with the hero.

Review: Cronos (1993)

Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos opens with the legend of an alchemist from the 14th century who invents small golden machine that is both dignified and horrifying: a small golden scarab that injects a substance that gives immortality into its user.

Then we discover that several centuries later, an earthquake in Mexico has shaken down the building that the alchemist was still alive in. The alchemist's body is found underneath a heaping pile of rubble with a stake having punctured his heart (how else) and the Cronos device hidden inside of a statue of an archangel which becomes purchased by an antique dealer named Jesus Gris (Frederico Luppi) who inevitably discovers the device and watches in terror as it attaches itself to him, only to discover later that it has made him immortal.

However in another location in the city, an industrialist (Claudio Brook) is slowly dying and somehow the journal of the alchemist has come into his possession and upon learning of the existence of the Cronos device, sends his American nephew (Ron Perlman) to go find the device.

This stuff is classic to horror films of canon and Guillermo Del Toro has presented his story (which he wrote and directed) with a very colorful realism. Also present is an undercurrent sadness and fatalism that runs in the film, from the relationship between the elderly antique dealer and his granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath) who continues to love him unconditionally even after his undead body has had some unpleasant changes to it.


The strange thing about Cronos is that it's not really a film about story, it's more a film about the characters. In works of fiction it is often common that the characters that come into possession of immortality are often not worthy of it. This is due to the idea that your typical immortal is not someone who is young and wants nothing more than to help others, but instead is an old and bitter miser whose only desire is to live longer to see how fat his wallet gets. This adds to each of the character's possession of shame: there just seems something shameful in tales like this about not being willing to go when your time runs out.

This sentiment is made more piercing as the story takes its course since immortality is given to the antique dealer by chance and not by choice: the antique dealer is a kind elderly man, whereas the industrialist is a monster and his nephew a stooge. The real meat of the story consists of the interactions between the Jesus and his granddaughter even after things have taken a turn for the worse. The granddaughter's unconditional and unchanging love for her grandfather is nothing short of touching.

Any good horror film has a sense of humor, whether it is generated by the AWFUL subject matter or by the trivality of human life that it shows. What horror films from Latin countries seem to posses is an undercurrent of religion and faith, where each of the characters are fully convinced of the existence of hell and all have good reasons for not wanting to be sent there. If, as religion so kindly teaches us, the purpose of this world is only to prepare for the next, then what greater punishment could there be than being stranded on the near shore?

Review: Oldboy (2004)

After a man becomes violently drunk and chained to a wall at a police station, his friend comes to bail him out. While his friend is on the phone, the man disappears in the middle of an empty street during the middle of the night. Once this man comes back to consciousness, he finds himself in a rundown room with nothing but an old bed, a television, bathroom area, and a desk. This is the setting of where the man will spend the next 15 years of his life without human contact. He cannot leave: there is a metal door but with no handle in sight and nothing but a small slot for food to be slipped in. Time to time a song begins to play as the room begins to be filled with a strange gas that causes the man to lose consciousness. When he comes to he finds that his clothes have been changed, his hair has been cut, and that his room has been tidied up.

During his stay, the man does not have much else to do other than watch the television. This becomes his world and he fills his journals every day with what he has gleaned from it as well as how he feels about his current situation. It's even from the television that he learns that his wife has been murdered, that the police have found traces of his blood at the scene, that his daughter has been adopted and moved to Sweden, and that if he were to ever leave he would be a wanted man.

It's safe to say that director Park Chanwook looks at the man, Oh Dae-su, in a manner that can only be seen as objective, never showing or asking for sympathy from the viewer thereby causing the audience to be very removed from Oh Dae-su and his plight. Even at one point in the film when Oh Dae-su confronts his kidnapper, the kidnapper says "I'm sort of a scholar, and what I study is you."

When we first meet Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-Sik), he is an ingrate who has unfortunately missed his daughter's birthday and now sits helplessly in a police station foolishly wearing the angel wings that he bought for his daughter. Oh Dae-su isn't a despicable man, he just has been rendered useless by alcohol.

Due to the violence and sexuality, this is the kind of film that can't really be made in the United States anymore, as a result of the values of the morally permissible upon the industry as a whole.  This is why Oldboy is such a powerful film: when it boils down to it, it's not what the film shows, it's about the different layers of the human heart and mind it begins to show over the course of the 2 hour running time.

Once Oh Dae-su is released he is a different person than when he first was imprisoned. Now he is consumed with the want for revenge and is extremely responsive to kindness. This leads up to the point where he meets Mido (Gang Hye-Jung), a young chef who instinctively feels that he has suffered, where over time she begins to feel sympathy for him, care for him, and love him.

Very soon after the beginning of the film, it quickly changes from a mystery to a tragedy of the classical sort. Without dropping a spoiler bomb on the events that are revealed as the film takes its course, it's safe to say that they aren't pointless events to exacerbate the story, but instead are events that serve to turn the screws of madness and mental anguish and poetic justice. Oh Dae-su is a man with the want for revenge so much so that it slowly becomes a consuming need for revenge, eventually when he discovers his captor's reasoning behind his imprisonment is much more diabolical than Oh Dae-su's quest for closure.

The violent scenes do not play out for mere shock value, but are more of the make up of the film. As a result of his long imprisonment, being within close proximity to anyone is a sharp stab at Oh Dae-su's emotions. At  a scene in a restaurant he asks for "something that is alive" and this is for a reason other than it being a custom to eat living seafood in Asiatic culture. It's because Oh Dae-su wants to feel the life that he has been deprived of for the past 15 years since he has been buried under death instead. This also raises the question of why Mido would take such a sorry wretched man into her life when she has so much potential. Maybe it's because she sees how he is so totally helpless, maybe it's because she believes him, or maybe it's because she's seen that the past 15 years have turned him into someone who is strong and "good" when he used to be so weak and despised.

When the moments of revelation do occur, they are bounded by the fact they are given context which attributes a deeper meaning to them. Yes, the ending is so complex that it is improbable, but it's not completely impossible because of how Oldboy journeys to the emotional extremes of human beings.So many films present themselves under the guise of a certain genre that it takes us off guard when we are presented with a film that has a statement to make.

Review: Antichrist (2009)

Ever since its release, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Despite its shocking images and actions, even despite the controversy that still surrounds the film, I still love and hate this film for its artistic cinematography and cringe worthy visuals that have haunted me long after I first watched it.

The term "antichrist" is commonly associated with being the exact opposite of Christ, but if one were to look at the Greek word that it is translated from they would see that it really means "opposed to Christ". This is a good starting point for the movie since the main character of film is not supernatural in any way, but instead just a normal man who loses the common moral values of normal people as the film's events take their course. Even though he embodies evil and lacks all good, this is more of a reflection of his nature and not a representation of who he is as a human being.

The film opens with a man and a woman making passionate love. The man, simply known as He, and the woman, simply known as She, experience this moment of pure good until their infant son in the next room crawls out of his crib and subsequently takes a dive out of an open window. This opening scene, entitled "Prologue", sets the stage for the next three chapters of the film: Grief, Pain, Despair (considerately named after the three stages of mourning). In an attempt to console She, He takes her out to their cabin (named Eden) where he counsels her in her anger, guilt, and despair.

After this event has occurred, we as an audience must assume that both He and She are at psychological breaking points. We are told that She has been spending her time researching witchcraft and has been wondering whether or not women are naturally evil. We are also told that He has been distant from She and their son, which begins to imply that He lacks emotion towards She and their son. I believe that the event of the death of their son inspires him to attempt to punish the woman responsible for the life of their son.

Grief is the first stage of mourning and in this film it is legitimate, except that they make a mistake. Their mistake lies in how they decide to try treat their grief instead of trying to accept it and move on with their lives.  Naturally the two of them realize that all the blame for their son's untimely demise lies on their shoulders for having sex when they should have been paying attention him. They feel guilt, and by the strange logic the world of this film seems to follow, guilt demands punishment.. She decides to put herself through mental punishment. For He, the punishment is having to deal with her guilt, by lecturing her in a patient and calm manner that eventually becomes more inane and ultimately destructive overall.

All of this guilt and punishment eventually leads to Pain, the second chapter. This pain is inflicted onto He and She by themselves and each other. The pain that She endures from his attempts at counseling is eventually joined by the pain inflicted upon them by nature. The forest is not what it seems, instead it houses strange creatures, such as a fox and a crow, and are depicted in way that is most certainly not natural in any manner.

This film, and especially these parts, have been attacked and referred to as "torture porn". While this film definitely has a sadomasochistic quality and feel to it, it's a stretch to call it erotic. It's hard to imagine that any viewer would find what is on screen arousing in any manner. Trier can be commended for having made a film that is deliberately shocking since it is pretty much made to shake the audience. This film can be seen as a more of a study of fear than anything else. On a more personal level it addresses the fear in people that real evil does exist in the world, that other "common" people in the world have the ability to inflict limitless cruelty onto themselves and each other.

Review: I Saw the Devil (2010)

Over the years cinema from the East has made its way over to the West, especially cinema from Korea, and my god can the Koreans make a revenge film. I Saw the Devil is a grisly horror/thriller that opens with a young and newly engaged woman named Ju-yeon (Oh San-ha) talking to her love on the phone as she waits for a tow truck to come and save her from her broken down car in the middle of nowhere. As she speaks with her love, a good Samaritan stops and offers to check her tire pressure despite her telling him that she has a flat anyway. Immediately after hanging up the phone, Ju-yeon is attacked and dragged away by the Samaritan who then promptly murders her, chops her up into pieces and scatters her throughout a river running under a bridge. Ju-yeon's lover is a man named Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hyun), a special agent for the South Korean government, who decides to use all of the powers available to him to search for the killer. After making his way through a small list of suspects he comes across Kyung-chul (expertly portrayed by Choi Min-sik of Oldboy fame), the man responsible for the brutal murder of Ju-yeon. Soo-hyun is not a man in the mood for simple revenge, but instead decides to plan a more elaborate revenge,a slow one that involves Kyung-chul experiencing as much suffering as his victims have, even if it allows Kyung-chul to continue on with his murderous ways. 


In a country that obviously up to its eyeballs in murderers, Kyung-chul seems to stand out. He like variety in his killings, utilizing unique methods of dispatch. Then there is the issue of his personality. He is cranky, irritable, quick to take offence; his hair trigger temper initiating his acts just as much as psychological state. Kyung-chul's personality however is in stark contrast to that of his hunter, Soo-hyun. Soo-hyun is quiet and patient, his emotions and grief are cloaked behind his determination, and he never stops to look at what he is doing. Through this way he is very similar to Kyung-chul and thus it never occurs to him that by hunting a monster, he himself is becoming just as and even more of a monster as his prey. 


Brutally violent, but beautiful to look at, I Saw the Devil is perhaps the best example of "cat and mouse" storytelling I've seen. Most movies that claim to be this type are more like "lion and gazelle". The hero chases the villain until he is caught or killed and then it's roll credits. This film however has a 'hero' who is not simply satisfied with simple revenge. Instead he hunts him down, tortures him a bit, puts a tracking device on him, and then lets him think he's escaped-several times. This is how cats normally deal with their prey. 


Cinematographer Lee Mogae's compositions placed next to the nighttime beauty of the South Korean countryside consistently contrast with the horrific actions that are taking place on the screen. But moving on from just the presentation, what causes I Saw the Devil to change from disgusting horror film to an ultra-violent thriller are those that are left behind in the wake of what has happened, starting with the emotionally destroyed Soo-hyun. Even though he is now in his own personal hell, he is not alone, those being with him are the father and younger sister of Ju-yeon. The course of action that Soo-hyun takes only serves to amplify his sorrow, but considering that the film's characters inhabit a world where the merciless prey upon the innocent, his decisions are understandable. 

Review: Revanche (2008)

Revanche is a German-made thriller about two things: the deep needs of female's and the criminal nature of males. Revanche tells the story of a miserable couple who go by the names of Alex and Tamara. Alex and Tamara both work at a seedy Vienna brothel where he works as a bouncer and she works as a prostitute. The two are very unhappy, with Alex sneaking around to have romantic encounters with Tamara behind his boss' back and Tamara being up to her eyeballs in debt that she will never be able to pay off on her own. Even the pimp who Tamara works for has his eye on her, where one day he visits her for sexual purposes and Alex is forced to hide under the bed humiliatingly. Realizing that they both are in need and want for a change, Alex decides to rob a bank for money that will pay off Tamara's debts and allow the two of them to run away and begin a new life. Tamara naturally begins to become nervous of Alex's plot even though he reassures her that nothing will go wrong even to go as far as making sure the gun isn't loaded.
But things do go wrong and a cop shows up and surprises Alex and Tamara as they get into the getaway car, whereupon Alex chooses to take shelter at his father's cottage in the country. It's here that the story changes from cops and robber and turns into a more human story about revenge and, ultimately, acceptance. While in the country Alex meets Susanne, the wife of his neighbor who is the cop who surprised him during the robbery.  Susanne desperately wants to have a child and the audience soon discovers that her husband is void of the ability of making her pregnant, so she begins pursuing Alex who is the the son of her old neighbor that she deeply cares for. The two of them begin having relations on a regular basis, but nothing of the long lasting relationship kind and it's during this that the real conflict of the film begins to arise. It's the possibility of violence. There's the risk of Alex's exposure as a criminal, there's the threat their togetherness presents to Susanne's marriage, and there is the possibility of harm coming to the old man. Instead of using these things to manipulate the story, they are used just to help convey a well fleshed out story.

Perhaps what I liked about this film the most was how the actors were unknown (at least to me they were to me, after all I'm not that well oriented with modern German cinema). In today's cinema, many actors are chosen because they will draw in moviegoers and make money, they are stars that directors and studios know will bring in money if their name is slapped onto the poster of the movie. This film works due to how normal the actors look, they are believable in the setting of the movie. They are unglamorous, they are plausible. Tamara represents the value that looks have in a buyer's market, and Alex looks like the lowest common denominator of society who has been worn down even more by crime and prison throughout his life.