My Week with Marilyn (2011)… And then you lose your Heart

"Light of heart and fancy-free, that's the way to start; there will be nothing to lose, until you lose your heart." Michelle Williams is Marilyn Monroe in an Oscar-worthy performance in 'My Week with Marilyn' (2011) directed by Simon Curtis. Williams has been nominated at the 84th Academy Awards and awaits verdict.

DIRECTED BY SIMON CURTIS
STARRING: MICHELLE WILLIAMS, EDDIE REDMAYNE, KENNETH BRANAGH, DOMINIC COOPER, JULIA ORMOND, DOUGRAY SCOTT, ZOE WANAMAKER, TOBY JONES, PHILIP JACKSON with EMMA WATSON and JUDI DENCH

You remember ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ with Abigail Breslin and her infamous stripper routine at the end? The child is incredible; flawless with what she had been taught to do, what she thinks the crowd wants and absolutely loves her for – a crowd consisting of none but her granddad, of course. But she believes in her performance, she drowns in the illusion of it that when it’s broken, she finds herself startled. Think of the moment the song is turned off. Little Olive claps her hand to her mouth. She is thunderstruck. So many people hate her, so many people want her off the stage. Her dance is profane or so they think. She doesn’t. She finds it to be a celebration. It’s her way of having fun, it’s her way of asking the audience to have fun with her. No one cares but her family. They oblige. And that’s enough for her. She finds fulfilment. That, we find, is all she wants.

Marilyn Monroe is like that child. This isn’t what I generalized from Colin Clark’s account. This is what I inferred from it. This is what I understood; this is what the dots looked like once I had connected them. It could be called beauty. It could be the film’s single biggest flaw. The misshapen creature masquerades intact and yearns to be loved behind the scenes. The film has us give it to her. All adoration, all warmth to our heart’s capacity. All the moments I could’ve thought the dots could be connected different – well, I didn’t think that. The film kept me with it. Michelle Williams did. For an hour and a half, I was Colin Clark. For an hour and a half, I wished I was.

‘My Week with Marilyn’ starts with ‘Heat Wave’ and ends with ‘That Old Black Magic.’ It begins and ends with a song in a complete circle. Nothing has changed. But something had happened. Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is a twenty three year old of impressive nobility but believes in cinema. He’s our Matthew from ‘the Dreamers.’ Marilyn (Michelle Williams) is his Isabelle. Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) is her Theo. They’re not twins, but they’re just as bound. They’re husband and wife. I hope you get the crux of the story from these comparisons. You should’ve watched ‘the Dreamers.’ And you should watch ‘My Week with Marilyn’ as well. In both, you’ll find cinema at its romantic best.

Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) commissions Marilyn Monroe to play Elsie Marina as he takes his ‘the Prince and the Showgirl’ to the screen. It’s a role once played by his wife Vivian Leigh (Julia Ormond) on stage. Marilyn asks her why she didn’t play the role again. Vivian replies that her Larry thinks she’s too old for the role, which, she acknowledges, is the truth. Also true is the fact that she doesn’t want to lose her husband to a much younger competitor against whom she doesn’t stand a chance. She asks Colin to keep an eye on him for her. Laurence wants Colin to keep an eye on Marilyn, while Milton H. Greene (Dominic Cooper) wants him to lay off of her. He’s a business partner who, as he says, once got his tongue burnt. But young Colin is new to both. To Cinema. To Marilyn Monroe. It’s absurd for him to even consider the word ‘No.’

The film is Adrian Hodges’ adaptation of Colin Clark’s memoir ‘the Prince, the Showgirl and Me.’ It’s what he recounts of his days as Third Assistant to Olivier. “It was a dream come true,” he says. “And my only talent was to not close my eyes.” The film is an old man’s fond recollection of youth, of days chronicled by the youngster as they passed by. It’s a memoir not written but lived. There are two scenes in the very beginning where Colin is ordered to bring Ms. Monroe from her dressing room to the sets as it had become her custom to delay. On one occasion, he catches her without her makeup on. On the other, it’s her clothes. Much later in the film, the two of them go skinny-dipping in broad daylight where Marilyn, yet again, takes her clothes off in front of him. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she says. He knows that. Not many people have seen her that way. Even lesser would actually write about it. He knows that as well.

It’s incredible how beautiful their story is in spite of the scandal it could brew. But would it cause any at all? In one scene in Colin’s omnipresence, he catches her in the middle of the night with a sheaf of Miller’s notes clutched to her chest, notes which we come to know are about her in a way she doesn’t approve of. Marilyn turns tearful when confronted; dizzy with further intimidation. She doesn’t like what Olivier does. She doesn’t like how Miller treats her either. But she approves of Colin. Would she then approve of his work, by which I mean this memoir? Absolutely, I would think. She asks him not to forget her. This is his way of showing he never has; that he never will. Not all truth is scandalous. Not all scandal is treachery. Neither are all who are treacherous cold-heartedly so. Not Marilyn. Not Colin, to wardrobe-girl Lucy (Emma Watson), even when he proves her right.

Michelle Williams is a bad impersonator but a great actress. She plays a template, not the person. She’s Marilyn Monroe off the sets of ‘the Prince and the Showgirl.’ On it, she’s Michelle Williams playing Marilyn playing Elsie Marina. A lot has been lost in the reworking that it looks better only through Colin’s eyes. I haven’t watched ‘the Prince and the Showgirl.’ I can’t imagine what one who has watched it would think of it after this film. Colin, that way, acts against his own suggestion of showing those clippings which worked than the ones which didn’t. But then he submits to us a different Marilyn – the one he saw. The more likeable version. Ms. Williams, if you remember, tap-danced to Ryan Gosling in ‘Blue Valentine.’ She tap-dances here too. And she winks. That’s another weapon she adds to the list. And that’s not all.

Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier dazzles with wit than rendition. In some scenes, I thought, he drowns in a quest for self-importance. Those have been carefully written into character and context. The others, he has Colin to counsel. This is only the second time that I watch Branagh. The first was, of course, Gilderoy Lockhart in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.’ He was aptly cast in both, I felt, in attention-seeking characters. I’ve no complaints whatsoever. Judi Dench, again, is perfectly at home playing Sybil Thorndike, a veteran actor in the production; eagle-eyed with a golden heart. There are two roles that I can associate her with. One is ‘M.’ The other is the Queen in ‘Shakespeare in Love.’ Here we have a delightful case of the latter. Dominic Cooper and Toby Jones are excusably cast, but I thought Emma Watson stretched it. She’s an important actress in an unimportant character. I found a case of bigger name against a stronger performance. A step-down on the faith ladder for me.

Colin cannot get over Marilyn Monroe. Milton discourages him to the best of his ability. Miller, on his part, needed to flee the country to gain composure. They have three different dimensions to the misshapen creature she is. The lover, the victim and the chosen protector. The presence of the other two makes me want to hear their side of the story. But like I always say, that’s another movie. This one is the lover’s take on their honeymoon. It’s simple. It’s sweet. It’s blind faith, you’ll observe. And in the end you’d find yourself asking for more.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) – Doesn’t Glitter, Doesn’t Lie

Gary Oldman is George Smiley - tired, wise and secure - in Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John Le Carre's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', nominated for Adapted Screenplay and Music Score, with Oldman earning one for himself at the 84th Academy Awards.

DIRECTED BY TOMAS ALFREDSON
STARRING: GARY OLDMAN, BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, TOM HARDY, TOBY JONES, COLIN FIRTH, CIARAN HINDS, DAVID DENCIK, KATHY BURKE, STEPHEN GRAHAM, SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA with SIMON McBURNEY and JOHN HURT

Imagine a James Bond title sequence. Bond on his way into a mission most definitely involving killing – double agents, men who know too much – whoever. He’d be all stealth and slickness on his way in, helter-skelter on the return trip. There is no easy way out. Five minutes of Steve McQueen styled muscle-car action, a couple of explosions and a triumphant stance, we’d have the title credits roll, of girls and guns and maybe even gold. A brief post-title, pre-introduction scene would feature Bond being told off by a half-amused-half-startled Judi Dench (a.k.a. ‘M’), words he’d conveniently dust off his blazer. Before we know it, he’d be on his next mission, stepping into the actual storyline.

‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ starts not too differently. Control (John Hurt), head of the British Secret Service, gives laconic instructions to field agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) about meeting up with a Hungarian counterpart who claims he has information about a Mole in their midst. Prideaux walks the streets in Budapest and meets the man at an open-air cafeteria where the waiter leaves a blotch of sweat on the table-cloth. He’s walked into trouble. An Old Lady at a window high above knows as much. Prideaux turns, paces away from the table and gets shot in a futile attempt at fleeing. The waiter wields the gun, he’s got it right only the second time, the first hitting a woman as she breastfeeds her infant. There’s a painful frame showing the child alive when the mother isn’t.

The operation having gone disastrously wrong, Control is unanimously asked to step down by his deputies, agents Percy ‘Tinker’ Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill ‘Tailor’ Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy ‘Soldier’ Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby ‘Poorman’ Esterhase (David Dencik) upon his disagreement with them going for ‘Operation Witchcraft’ involving an influx of Soviet intelligence for British nothings, in turn used as leverage to obtain American intelligence. It’s pitched to him as a ‘treasure chest.’ Control calls it nonsense. We then have an ‘out with you and your ideas’ moment where Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman lose Control, decidedly. Tinker takes top spot as replacement. Control keeps his smirk and the faith of a colleague and old friend in George Smiley (Gary Oldman).

The Bond operative, thus, splits four ways, where Control is an ‘M’ who takes the fall and takes his man with him. The title sequence is still a smooth jazz number as is most of the soundtrack and the credits roll on top of clippings of a weary, womanless and out-of-work Smiley getting used to newly-acquired idleness. He is, obviously, re-hired. Once an agent, he turns NOC, looking into the Circus’ affairs, instructed to catch the Mole. He asks for and gets the assistance of Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, who looks like a young Malcolm McDowell). Armed with both humility and ability to do everything the man asks him to, Guillam and Smiley work their way through the informants in Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke), phone-attendant Jerry Westerby (Stephen Graham) and the unorthodox (and thus, crucial) Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy, delightful).

Smiley is a sort of real-time Bond. The film even says that loud. There’s a party that Smiley keeps recollecting – a source of valuable information as we come to know late into the film. One such scene at the party has ‘the Second Best secret agent’ playing in the background as everyone sings along. Smiley doesn’t, but he’s kept in focus until fade-out. The song, as I learn, is from the Bond-wannabe ‘Licensed to Kill’ (1965), its usage suggesting the film and its makers’ acknowledgement of the standard they had set out to defy.

But ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ is not a parody. It’s a well-paced and neatly crafted suspense thriller that never gets out of Stealth Mode; a stronger comparison to ‘the Ghost Writer’ than ‘the Ides of March’ was. It’s actually a sort of equivalent. Both are translations of existing text (a 1974 John La Carre novel and a 1979 television series with Alec Guinness playing Smiley) to screen with the help of succinct performances by a galaxy of stars. The difference is the man in the middle, where the gritty giant-killer in Stephen Meyers (as played by Ryan Gosling) is replaced by the mature, more venerable Smiley, the stakes being higher and the consequences – more brutal.

Gary Oldman has the air of an Agent-turned-Watchdog, a subconscious advocate of protocol that he’s tried, tested and is tired of. Like Morgan Freeman in Fincher’s ‘Se7en’, but subtler. It’s amusing how different this performance is from his usual of recent times Jim Gordon, and how little he has actually done to make it look so. He keeps his accent, his natural gray. He acts his age – even older. There’s inherent warmth in him, an endearing droopiness. No one can play tired and wise better than Oldman can. A more physical performance could call for Liam Neeson. Oldman here is tailormade.

Bridget O’Connor (died of cancer and has this film dedicated to her) and husband Peter Straughan write the film to be the typical hard-to-understand-but-slow-enough-to-keep-track-of drama with dialogues that half-explain what’s going on, the rest left to flashbacks woven into a steady narrative. With the number of characters and the nature of plot, the details do get confusing at times. But Tomas Alfredson (‘Let the Right One in’), with poise and intensity on the lines of the great Polanski, prioritizes to set things straight. The film conveys. It doesn’t affect you; it’s not too much of a surprise. But it succeeds in bringing the movie-spy to fit the shoes of an everyday man – as lonesome, as over-worked and wise that he doesn’t do any actual killing. In that, as far as I know, it’s a first.

(2011) A Separation – But Why?

Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) when she learns that her parents are separating for real in Asghar Farhadi's 'A Separation' (2011) nominated for 'Best Foreign Language Film' and 'Best Original Screenplay' at the 84th Academy Awards

DIRECTED BY ASGHAR FARHADI
STARRING: PEYMAN MOAADI, LEILA HATAMI, SHAHAB HOSSEINI, SAREH BAYAT, SARINA FARHADI, ALI-ASGHAR SHAHBAZI, SHAHIN YAZDANBAKSH, KIMIA HOSSEINI and MERILA ZAREI

Derek Cianfrance, who made the chilling ‘Blue Valentine’ last year, once said in an interview that his worst fear as a child was the thought of his parents separating. Isn’t that universal? Death is a finality that can force acceptance. Divorce is beyond that. One moment you see them getting along. Another, you see them wanting not to. You don’t know what happened in between. The worst feeling in a human being, let alone a child, is that of having not contributed, be it for better or for worse. It’s like being most affected in a Civil war that you didn’t have anything to do with.

The ballad that it was, ‘Blue Valentine’ never really brought it down to the child’s perspective. It couldn’t have, it never tried to. It had a baby girl who was frightened by sight and by sound but didn’t know why it rained. Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’, in that aspect, works a little stronger. By that I mean it’s more devastating. It burdens its child with knowledge, destroys her further with the strain of understanding. But she doesn’t break. She does something worse. She accepts her fate. I thought of prostitution. I thought of slavery. What she goes through is just as bad.

‘A Separation’ is titled ‘the Separation of Nader from Simin’ in Persian. Which means there is no deuce. I know I didn’t watch a film about a divorce that could also have implied the separation of Mother from Child or of Father from Child. The film does not suggest it. In fact, it resists that notion. The child does not lose just one parent to the separation, she loses both. She knows that. And, not to mention, the watertight security that comes with a family that’s inseparable and as thick as thieves.

I remembered Miles Raymond in Alexander Payne’s ‘Sideways’ where he throws a passing remark on Marriage and Divorce. “Last year, it was all divorces”, he says. “This year it’s Weddings. It’s cyclical, I guess.” We’re witnessing a society that hasn’t gotten to that point yet. Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) might take matters to court, the godless people they are. Razieh (Sareh Bayat) would consider it a sin to conspire against her husband Houjat (Shahab Hosseini) like that. She wouldn’t fake-swear on the Quran to get some money they desperately need. Nader, on his part, would do it just so he doesn’t lose his little girl Termeh’s (Sarina Farhadi) respect. No doubt they’re both honorable people. But their codes don’t match.

Farhadi discusses his country in this bourgeoisie-versus-the-common battle. The matchup is uneven, just like it always is. The battle takes place on two grounds. Nader chooses his Father, a victim of deep-set Alzheimer’s, over Simin’s adamant stand on leaving the country, with or without him. She accuses him of neglecting his daughter. He blames her for not trusting him with both. Whose side do we take? Nader is plenty devoted to his Father and he loves his daughter to groom. Termeh, on her part, loves him and is happy to help. She is eleven years of age and is at that point where we know she needs her Mother, or she would real soon. But she cannot side with the aggressor for simple fear of capsizing what might otherwise just about make it to shore.

One of them needs to give up. It’s that kind of issue where neither is prepared to cope with the other’s solution. Simin picks emigration for her daughter’s sake. She’s red-haired under the shawl and we see a fleeting image of her smoking on the verandah. We place her almost immediately. She’s like Marjane Satrapi’s liberal girl-friends in ‘Persepolis’ where, as the confused post-adolescent learns, abandoning ship is a survival skill. She’s practical, yes. She eyes the future with Nader caught in the past as it appears, but for what good is this seamlessness? Nader isn’t the pinnacle of subtlety either. He shoves Razieh, his Father’s nurse, out the door, hurting her both physically and sentimentally. Razieh, we know since before, is pregnant. She’s taken to hospital the same night, where she has a miscarriage. At fifth month, the law says, abortion is manslaughter. That’s the second battle.

The accusations go in a circle with everything coming back to Nader, one way or another. Consequences mount. Settlement might imply resolution, but Nader refuses. He takes the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ stand. His daughter asks him if he really didn’t know the woman was pregnant. He responds saying he didn’t at the moment. He saw a woman who had tied his Father to his bed, locked him inside and gone on a joyride. Man turns monster as emotions blind. Termeh shows just as much hostility to Razieh at that point. In her defence, she stood by her Father. Trust is a strong-room that keeps emotions secure. But she finds hers broken in and unforgivably violated as she uncovers the truth, layer by layer.

The parents show poorly in front of their child in a see-saw routine. Termeh, initially by her Father, rolls out closer to the other pole as she deals with him by herself, eventually ending up, I believe, somewhere right in the middle. She pities her Dad in all his helplessness and hates her Mom for having brought it upon him. Then she finds him to be as inertial and misshapen as her Mother pegs him to be. She lies under oath to stop him from going to jail and fights him for having turned down her Mother’s open-arm invitation to reconcile.

In the end, she’s asked to pick a side. She says she has decided. Her choice is, tactfully and rightly so, never revealed. We know it doesn’t matter. Nader has a momentum shift against him, which Simin had caused in the first place. One is as bad as the other, where the two of them have invented dysfunction in what seemed to work previously. Now they’re just vultures pecking on their daughter who stands beside this corpse called dignity that seems to have died with their relationship.

‘A Separation’ has been universally branded the film of the year. From what I’ve watched of the Oscar haul, I would say it comes close in contest against mine – ‘the Descendants.’ Both films deal with eventuality and the show of man’s ugly side in his efforts to resist it. While ‘the Descendants,’ in this quest, served to romanticize his defeat, glorifying its hero as a man who has come to terms with his demons, ‘A Separation’ shows it unadulterated.

Cinema, as I see it, is a hypnotic medium that, to put it simply, renders us vulnerable and easy to inspire; to influence. Farhadi recognizes that in his cautious stance to not give Termeh’s decision away. The separation, on the other hand, is narrated as it is – Man and Woman with blood on their hands, awaiting verdict to tell victory from defeat. I couldn’t cherish the disappointment I felt, even though I could appreciate it. Robbie Weaver in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ asks his Father to get his Mom back to inspire his own love-life decisions. I cried the same to Farhadi. Our film experience can be crushing, hostile and almost entirely defeated, but on any day, I’d vouch for hope. ‘Death and the Maiden’ was hope at its forgiving best. ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ was hope although it’s best not to compare. ‘Blue Valentine’, like ‘the Descendants’, was a tale of glorious defeat.

Imagine this. Thirty years later, Termeh sits down with her daughter as the film unfolds in a recollection. She tells her everything up until the point where she had to decide. Would her husband have a similar story? I don’t know. The child would have a similar decision, perpetrating the cycle of being narrator and spectator of her own story, from Eleven to Forty. There’s an even younger girl (of Razieh and Houjat) whose story begins much earlier, right from the age of four. She witnesses a miscarriage, countersuits, and is made to believe that her Father killed her unborn Brother.

‘A Separation’ leaves us to a fate as pitiful as that of either of these children, helpless to do anything but ask ‘Why?’ That’s as much as my Eleven-year-old self could do. The twenty-year-old still refuses to show. I don’t think he ever would. For when it comes to such a thing as our parents’ separation, I don’t think any of us would grow up to be anything more than eleven years old.

A Better Life (2011) – How Men turn Father of Circumstance

Carlos (Demian Bichir) as he courts the snake Santiago (Carlos Linares) before he strikes in 'A Better Life' (2011) directed by Chris Weitz, for which Bichir has been nominated for 'Best Actor' at the 84th Academy Awards (pending)

DIRECTED BY CHRIS WEITZ
STARRING: DEMIAN BICHIR, JOSE JULIAN, CARLOS LINARES, JOAQUIN COSIO, DOLORES HEREDIA, CHELSEA RENDON, BOBBY SOTO with EDDIE ‘PIOLIN’ SOTELO and NANCY LENEHAN

Carlos Galindo (Demian Bichir) climbs trees. Not the branched-out ones with footholds aplenty. He climbs straight-shooters like the Palm and the Coconut, where one would need fasteners and belts and boots for better grip. Blasco Martinez (Joaquin Cosio), Carlos’ boss and, for all practical purposes, a well-wisher, provides for the equipment. On one such climb routine, Mrs. Donnelly (Nancy Lenehan) down below asks Blasco if the man is insured. Blasco is immediate to dust it off, like it’s ridiculous to even think he isn’t. But we know. Carlos (along with Blasco) is one of the thousands of illegal immigrants living in Los Angeles, having driven in from Mexico, doing the odd chore to keep the fire burning.

In Carlos and Blasco we have two different kinds of immigrants. Blasco, who’s obviously been around for longer, has a ‘hit and quit’ sort of adequacy about him. He’s the kind of guy who’s got his legs on either side of the fence all the time. Carlos, on the other hand, has completely uprooted himself and replanted in more fertile soil as he sees it. He might not have authentication in America, but he’s got even lesser in Mexico. He’s like Miguel Santos in ‘Sugar’ (made by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden) in his preference to get lost in a sea of uncertainty than to stand stagnant back home. He doesn’t have deed, he doesn’t have document. But he has a son in America for whom he wants to make life better.

In his son Luis (Jose Julian), we have a third kind of immigrant – the first generation citizen. We see him watching ‘Cribs’ on TV in his introduction sequence. It isn’t representative of his desires and longings as one might be quick to assume. It’s representative of who he is. About fourteen years old as he looks to be, Luis is friends with Facundo (Bobby Soto) and has a girlfriend in Ruthie (Chelsea Rendon) who we come to meet in a sturdy encounter with a schoolyard bully. Ruthie does half the work by telling him about her family as Luis brings him down with giant-killing aggression. Detaining him, a Policeman asks him to take his shirt off, to check in which gang’s direction his tattoos seem to point. But the boy is unmarked as he claims he is – a claim which, as we know, is only true for the surface.

Carlos buys Blasco’s business getting help from his sister Anita (Dolores Heredia), a citizen by marriage and hence in a much better position. Closer to his dream than he was ever before, he goes for a spin and a show of heart where he picks Santiago (Carlos Linares) to assist him on his day’s work. He teaches him things about work in the garden and puts his boots on, ready to climb a tree, to show him how it’s done. At the top, we see him notice something we’re sure he wouldn’t have appreciated before – the view. He has finally become Blasco with a Carlos of his own, he thinks. Except that he, with his Rousseau-like faith in people, fails to see that no one can be quite like Carlos. Definitely not Santiago.

‘A Better Life’ is written by Eric Eason, based on a story by Roger L. Simon. It is directed by Chris Weitz, a Matthew Vaughn equivalent with his film choices. We know him from the exceptionally good-natured ‘About a Boy’, his adaptation of Philip Pullman’s ‘the Golden Compass’ and the even less forgivable ‘New Moon’, the second installment of ‘the Twilight Saga.’ This film, for him, is of a fourth kind and a debut of sorts. Its premise is immediately relatable to De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece ‘the Bicycle Thieves,’ which, I thought, the film neither shies away from, nor cashes in on. Eason (a filmmaker himself known for his insightful take on Latino communities in America and elsewhere) and Weitz weave it intricately into the Mexican underbelly of LA that the story and setting become an inseparable whole. They, along with Alexandre Desplat’s (‘the King’s Speech’, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’) music score and its exceptional photography (Javier Aguirresarobe) render the film perfectly organic.

Demian Bichir plays Carlos, a central role that’s only half the weight with Jose Julian as Luis strong on the counter-balance. They’re Father and Son in a natural conflict. Bichir is a heavyweight in Mexican cinema as I came to know. He has previously played Castro in Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ – he looks uncannily like him. I saw a win-win in casting Bichir to play Carlos, a father and a human being with unquestionable morality that falls short in only the fact that he’s an illegal immigrant, driven by despair. Bichir, who is no doubt a very important actor, empowers Carlos with a swagger and his piercing eyes, features that accentuate Carlos’ strength which helps him keep his head above the water. Also to his advantage is the fact that in spite of Bichir’s prevalence in Mexico, he is, undoubtedly again, less-known to audiences, worldwide, which is crucial, at least to a film as this, where it’s important for the viewer to stay close to character and not get carried away with excitement/confusion associated with the actor essaying the role. Brad Pitt needed to go gray to make ‘Babel’ believable, but Bichir has no such necessity. See what I mean?

But in spite of Bichir’s solid performance in all its glory, I was drawn more towards Luis and a convincing portrayal by Jose Julian. The boy looks fresh in high school and dangerously treading the thin line of well-being that splits better from worse. He’s a sort of product of negligence, but with a mind of his own and a maturity to weigh things, an effect of being raised by the unshakeable Carlos. He’s a father’s pride; he’s what Allison from ‘Havoc’ should have been to keep all trouble outside. He might not be what his father wants him to be and he most definitely doesn’t want to end up like him, but he has a moral obligation and an inherent love which he embraces as seen in his efforts to help the man. He sticks to him, in short, which Carlos, with wild-eyed pride, appreciates. They’re Father and Son, like I said.

‘A Better Life’ is a very important film. For 2011; for the generations to come. It’s a course on values and the importance of commitment, of trust and honour in a time that rejoices in a lack thereof. It, however, suffers from the problem and tries to give a remedy for harbouring such ambition – Carlos might not be a great role-model as a teacher, but in Luis, we have a very relatable student. His is an interpretation of his Father’s steadfastness and not a total reenactment which he decidedly doesn’t believe in. The champion element is his decision to not yield to peer pressure, which, as demonstrated by Carlos throughout the entire movie, is a fight against the odds. It’s delightful to watch an adolescent make that decision without the compulsion of suffering. Unlike ‘Havoc.’ Unlike ‘Thirteen.’

Demian Bichir is the grease-coat on this year’s Oscars with his ‘Best Actor’ nomination – a break from a haul of exaggerated performances, one of the most defining roles of the year. It would be interesting to see if he wins it in a dark-horse sweep. What’s sad though is that this is the only nomination. None for Eric Eason. None for Jose Julian, one of the best young performances I’ve seen in recent times. None for Cinematography or Music Score. Unfair. But then, the Awards are but a link between obligations and precedence where justice for all can’t be expected, let alone be provided. Yet again, we’d have to console ourselves with the thought that the best reward for a film is to watch it. And this is me saying you should.

the Ides of March (2011) – on a Man and how he Becomes

Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney) and campaign managers Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) sit and brainstorm on their next step in Clooney's 'the Ides of March' (2011), running for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 84th Academy Awards

DIRECTED BY GEORGE CLOONEY
STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, EVAN RACHEL WOOD, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, PAUL GIAMATTI, MARISA TOMEI, MAX MINGHELLA, GREGORY ITZIN, MICHAEL MANTELL with JEFFREY WRIGHT and GEORGE CLOONEY

George Clooney’s ‘the Ides of March’ is one of two movies in the Oscar race to present an insider story on a worldwide phenomenon. The other, of course, is ‘Margin Call’, a promising debut by J.C. Chandor which, I felt, fell short in the way it worked its acting set-pieces. Both are exaggerated versions of real-time events, the hike in drama demanding substantiation in performance. A good movie is one which leaves the viewer convinced. ‘Margin Call’, I found, didn’t quite make the sale. The acting powerhouse of ‘the Ides of March’, on the other hand, sent me home, satisfied. The latter faces the might of this year’s best in the ‘Adapted Screenplay’ category, while Chandor fights ‘A Separation’ in a comparatively easier pool for writing his own script. It’s a strong case of happenstance.

Ryan Gosling plays the believer in Stephen Meyers, a strategy consultant and a junior to Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), testing the water in a sea of sharks. The two of them are chief and deputy in Governor Mike Morris’ (Clooney, infrequent) election campaign. Steve writes Mike’s speeches and advises on his policies; he contributes with literature, in short, while Paul is a sort of steer-wrestler bringing the Bulls into their game. Mike, on his part, chooses to listen to them. We’re given a backstage pass to a Democrat campaign without having to deliver coffee to get a place. It’s as simple as that.

Equally simple is the premise. It’s Ohio before North Carolina in the Primary. Senator Thompson (Jeffrey Wright, solid) is the prize to win. With him, the corresponding party gets 356 delegates rest-assured. The Republicans, headed by Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell) under the guidance of Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) take a conservative stand, going for nothing but the right wing. Or so they say. Paul meets Thompson in an encounter that seems to go well. At least that’s what he tells Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei, refreshingly brazen, off-hand and tired), a reporter for the Times working close with Gov. Morris’ campaign. Stephen believes in Paul as he works his charm alongside, winning Morris, his audience and the advances of 20-year old intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood). This, obviously, is when things start to go wrong.

‘the Ides of March’ is a tragedy of errors. Two people make a mistake each, one impulsive with a misstep that hurts no one but himself, the other – a sillier and hence hefty mistake that could put the whole campaign in jeopardy. I presume I needn’t say who is who. It is also a tale of becoming, of David-turning-Goliath to match his strength, wisdom and its ugliness. It does not empower him with undying ability. It lays down before him guidelines of priorities and a protocol that would ultimately get him the job of his superior, working for a man whom he has to conquer to gain allegiance; whom he has to defeat to get to work for his victory. His ambition becomes an action plan with sacrifice incorporated into routine. And the end is but an end to an episode in the life of a man where we get to see what he has become.

The film derives its screenplay from ‘Farragut North’ by Beau Willimon, who had written the play from his own experience in the primary campaign of Governor Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic Primary. It was premiered, I hear, as a lead-up the 2008 Presidential Election. Clooney, on his part, has made the movie a year before the 2012 Presidential run, the heat of election showing already.

Does this mean that this body of work, both in film and on stage, has anything to contribute to the actual political scenario? Is it an expose, in other words? Not entirely. The truth is that it doesn’t intend to be. It’s a tragedy that doesn’t get lost in a fortress of grandeur; which deliberates the impassive tone it takes to narrate itself made by a man who’s shown promise in this type of movie. After ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’, ‘Leatherheads’ and the class of ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, Clooney crafts ‘the Ides of March’ to be his most-riveting, subtle and incisive performance of all as Director. He has a Clint Eastwood eye for detail, not compromising on technicalities, not dwelling on them either. The key is to communicate, to keep things simple and to keep them real. He does that with precision.

Should I even start on Ryan Gosling, the actor of this generation who’s tailor-made for about any role that he’s assigned to? He is Stephen Meyers – as charming, as intense, as angry and just as sad. He’s like Kevin Lomax (from ‘the Devil’s Advocate’) with a wound to show. Like James Clayton (Colin Farrell in ‘the Recruit’) pitted against a Walter Burke (Al Pacino) who knows to keep it shut. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are convincing as veterans Paul and Tom, permanent sets in their own ideals. To Paul, it’s all about loyalty. Tom, who is oversaturated with a cynicism that has him working numbers for life, takes it as a battle of wit. They have nothing to do with the candidates whose victory, ironically to them, means everything. It’s a consultant ideal. These men, with their lives, school us against belief for the simple reason that it is absurd. They’re not opposite forces in a morality conflict. They’re tablets prescribed for guilt-free functioning, where to overdose means to ‘do better.’

Which brings me to a serious observation I made. In every tale of ruthlessness, a woman is sacrificed. It happened in ‘the Devil’s Advocate’ (the dream sequence). It happened even in ‘the Interview’, a play written by Siddharth Kumar and staged at the Metro Plus Theatre Fest 2011. It happens in ‘the Ides of March’ as well, with Molly Stearns taking the fall for the sake of two men who, literally, screw her over. I understand how dispensable she made herself to be. But it’s frightening, nevertheless. There has only been one Monica Lewinsky in as far as I know. The rest stay buried with the truth that died in an honour-killing move. Any word out is scandal, any scandal is potential threat where all such threats need to be taken care of. It’s mind-numbing.

‘the Ides of March’ is like ‘the Ghost Writer’ of this year. As exciting, as well-made. Better performed. It endears further in the way it lets itself be carried entirely upon the shoulders of the ever-dependable Gosling, who plays a stronger, more admirable scapegoat than Ewan McGregor. His Stephen fits our aspirations. We live as him. We take his fall. We come out on top in the end. And we know we haven’t won. It’s a comfortable sort of defeatism that has us grow fond of it, because sometimes, you find, you have to lose a hand to keep your reputation. Reputation is what people think of you, which in turn is what Ida tells them to in the newspaper. That, in short, is the lesson learned.

the Artist (2011) – A Celebration that ought to be its own Reward

Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin with Berenice Bejo as Peppy Miller, his sensational find, in Michael Hazanavicius' 'the Artist' (2011), nominated for ten awards including Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay at the 84th Academy Awards

DIRECTED BY MICHAEL HAZANAVICIUS
STARRING: JEAN DUJARDIN, BERENICE BEJO, UGGIE (the dog), JAMES CROMWELL, PENELOPE ANN MILLER with MALCOLM McDOWELL and JOHN GOODMAN

Michael Hazanavicius pushes the borders of Silent Cinema simultaneously paying his tribute to it with ‘the Artist,’ one of the most celebrated films made and released last year. It’s not mimicry. He doesn’t hide in the folds of yesteryear curtains on Hollywood’s majestic stage as the tycoons go out on a selling spree. The style is uncharacteristic. The performances go easy on exaggeration, the action being too continuous and gracefully paced. There has been enough deliberation in establishing that the films being filmed in the film and the film in itself are not two of a kind. George Valentin is not the same as Jean Dujardin, both being actors in movies that don’t talk.

Let me throw the cards on the table up front and let you know that I haven’t watched much of Silent Cinema myself. Charlie Chaplin is an exception. Laurel and Hardy, a bit of Buster Keaton and I think I’ve watched one film of the Marx Brothers. That’s about it. There isn’t enough nostalgia that this film could possibly evoke where I, quite frankly, belong to the ‘future’ where films talk, sing and dance with action choreography and with actors replaced by cartoons sometimes.

With that being said, it’s not like I wouldn’t like a Silent movie that doesn’t change my opinion. I’d ideally not want one to. ‘the Artist’, for one, doesn’t care. It’s not a prescription. It’s a poster. It tells you exactly what to expect from it. In fact, you’ll find it better to under-expect, much like I did. That’s how I ended up liking it more than I thought I was supposed to.

The film is set in 1927 and plays along the timeline. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a Hollywood actor peaking before his fall. Dujardin, reminding us strongly of a young Sean Connery, has the build as well as subtlety in his flamboyance to be playing the Superstar. We know he’s French but he’s made to look as Italian as his name sounds. I shall go on and assume that there hasn’t been an actual influence in the conception of his character, but if I had to, I’d say I see a Douglas Fairbanks sort of American hero in him. His movies, glossily-titled (‘A Russian Affair’ followed up with ‘A German Affair’) and almost entirely about him (a Dog plays second lead), are nonsense entertainment under the excuse of “This is what the people want.” Kinograph Studios could be an extensive parody, but I don’t know. I can’t comment.

Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, an aspiring starlet whose discovery is accidental, her success – much deliberated. Bejo’s height, slenderness and her good-natured face are almost uncharacteristic of the usual Hollywood heartthrob, we find. Garbo never smiled this innocent, as far as I know. Nor Paulette Goddard. Maybe Virginia Cherrill, who plays the Blind girl in Chaplin’s ‘City Lights.’ This likeability and her confidence had me compare Bejo to a favourite, both of Roger Ebert and myself – Amy Adams. At one point, I almost asked why not her. Like I said, Bejo is too tall, too slender and (there’s no other way to put it) too French with her physique. There were times when I could almost catch her tan. Adams, on the other hand, can feign haughtiness when she wanted to and come out likeable at that – we have seen her do that in ‘Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day.’ Plus, as the expression goes, she has meat on her bones.

But then there’s the effort of getting past the familiarity of as celebrated an actress as Adams, a barrier which someone like Bejo, who’s relatively lesser known, could easily sidestep. John Goodman as the no-nonsense Hollywood director Al Zimmer faces a much bigger problem. In Goodman, we identify more with actor than character. I could almost hear his throaty drawl in some (silent) sequences where he faces the camera. It’s a huge disadvantage. Malcolm McDowell (‘A Clockwork Orange’) with whom we’re as familiar, finds himself on better grounds in an almost unspeaking role.

This, definitely, would’ve been a big issue when films started to talk from being pantomimes with nothing but a music score conducted live or re-recorded. It would’ve been as bizarre to hear Chaplin talk for the first time in a movie, as it would be to watch Al Pacino go silent for the sake of one. Can you fathom that? This is the crisis that Valentin undergoes in ‘the Artist.’ He’s married to Silent Cinema, his actual wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) being a dinner-table guest at most. He doesn’t want to talk. Neither do the Director and Producers at Kinograph. Silent Cinema had not lost its charm, but humanity, for the very simple basic nature of it, must move on. Valentin refuses to.

He does a Garfunkel, or a Ringo Starr as you could call it. He produces, directs and stars in a silent film called ‘Tears of Love’ where he writes himself as dying in the end, leaving his Dog and a woman behind. The climax is empowering; delightful. But there’s no audience left to savour it, save for Peppy. She weeps at the ending. We don’t know what got her to, we can but guess. The forsaken man’s last-breath effort. The sincerity in his drive to entertain. The actual visual poetry. The dreadful sight of watching someone she cherishes with all her heart suffer.

This is a masterful scene, by the way. It is an intercut between scenes from the movie being projected, the actor-director and his dog resisting dejection that’s soon to show, and Peppy, who watches it with a partner from box-seats. Valentin, the hero of the movie, is pulled into the quicksand as his Dog watches; barks. The woman shouts too, asking him to grab her hand. He doesn’t. He prefers to sink instead. He does. Both the Dog and the Woman mourn. So does Peppy. And there’s no question as to who aches the most, as Valentin, the actor-director, exits the hall with his Dog trotting behind, tailcoat flowing.

Most of the sequences, as I mentioned before, are contemporary with their style. There aren’t too many close-up shots with the actor disarmed and compelled to exaggerate his or her emotion. The shots are long, continuous and careful with their pace, the subtle and underplayed performances empowered by an even simpler, down-to-earth storyline. The treatment is lax, with the film’s little emphasis on detail substantiated/found in a convenient sort of compliance with the fact that, in spite of everything, it still is a Silent Movie. It’s as under-produced and under-designed as the new Indiana Jones film. And, quite like Indy himself, it finds strength in its own minimalism.

‘the Artist’ is made by Michael Hazanavicius, a French filmmaker known for spy-parodies. Jean Dujardin too, we learn, is a Comedian. These people are new to us, but we can guess as much. I once hosted and was backstage for a show featuring a celebrated mime by the name of Laurent Decol. The man was French, simple and funny in everything he said/did, and yet his act was tragicomic. The explanation is simple. It takes a humorist to celebrate the weight of sadness, to derive joy from it. We need a comedian, an actual funny man to bring depth and seriousness to a role, not sacrificing the human aspect of it in the process. In Pantomime, we have a clear assertion of this logic.

I started with denial, adamantly refusing to accept legitimacy of a passion that can have driven one to make a film like ‘the Artist.’ I thought of Rob Marshall, I thought of ‘Chicago’ almost a decade ago. The Academy finds itself obliged to honour films that celebrate the never-ending machine that churns out almost a thousand movies a year. ‘Mulholland Drive’, in all its faith, didn’t put in a good word. ‘the Artist’ does. It’s a clean tribute from someone who absolutely drinks into the idea of selling Cinema; an idea that distorted itself with the advent of Noir and subsequent Exploitation eras. I could not possibly associate honesty with such an intention. Neither did I allow myself to be convinced otherwise.

Nevertheless, ‘the Artist’ is a glorious film, pristine; an amazing hour and a half spent on watching people who know what they’re set out to do and are pretty good at it. The Actors. The writer-director. The music score, to some extent (by Ludovic Bource). Let me remind you once again that this, as much as it can be called one, is not exactly a Silent Movie. It’s a crafty exploit that doesn’t step out of its own absurdist atmosphere – one of those films that could be made, that should be made. One of those films where watching and liking it would be its own reward; which should be its only reward. I hope the Academy agrees with me on this one. The statuette has better hands to grace.