Incendies

                 Incendies is a film that roots you deeply within it story, but never allows you any comfort once you’re there.  It is a film that works to keep you on your toes, and in a state of near confusion.  Despite this, and a somewhat convoluted storytelling method, the film manages to not lose the audience at all.  The fact that it teeters so close to being muddled works perfectly with the subject matter, and provides even more for the audience to become absorbed in.

                Incendies tells the story of Jeanne and Simon.  The two are twins who, following the death of their mother, discover cryptic information about their family:  A father thought to be dead, and a brother they never knew existed.  To honour their mother’s dying wish of reconciliation, the two must travel to her homeland in order to dig through her past and find their lost family.  The director, Denis Villeneuve, uses two storylines to weave us through the narrative.  In one, we follow the twins in present day.  In the other, we follow their mother Nawal as a young woman.  The two stories build upon one another and take turns revealing new information to the audience as time shifts from the past to the present.

                This style of back-and-forth between the past and present works well to immerse the audience in the story.  As we follow Jeanne and Simon through their mother’s past we are given an actual glimpse into her life.  When we follow Nawal through these glimpses, we discover more information about Jeanne and Simon.  This puts the audience in a very interesting position where we are given more knowledge than any of the characters in the film.  This knowledge builds upon itself to give us a more complete understanding of these people as a whole.  What the film does so well is that it gives us all this insight into the characters and the situations, but still manages to surprise and throw twists our way.  These twists never feel out of place or unrealistic because of how involved we feel with the narrative, and this makes them all the more powerful.  There were multiple times while watching this film in the theatre where there was a collective gasp at the latest revelation.  Most films that offer these sorts of surprises will try and misdirect the viewer, but Incendies keeps the viewer close to the characters and story.

                These moments are also so striking because of the way they are presented.  Sound plays a very important role in this film and it is used very effectively in bringing the audience into the setting.  There is very little music used throughout the film.  Denis Villeneuve often opts to use the sounds of the locations instead.  We see many long takes of Nawal simply walking as we hear the sounds all around her.  These sequences really bring the audience right into the film.  They seemed to be used as replacements for establishing shots, and they serve this function perfectly.  The sounds of the environment and surrounding people made the setting feel more tangible.  Villeneuve also uses sound in interesting ways to reflect what is occurring on screen.  This could be through a dulling of noise to reflect confusion or shock, or by loudly punctuating a moment of drama.  These segments of altered noise only add to the overall effect, and never take the viewer out of the moment.

                Incendies works very well in winding it’s viewers through a narrative full of twists and turns.  The many curves thrown at the audience could have very well taken away from the overall film.  However, Villeneuve manages to weave everything together in a way that only heightens the drama.  The subject matter of the film is not to be taken lightly and it is never treated that way.  The severity of each situation is never shunned.  The film often evokes a very visceral response.  This is not only because of the shocking visuals, but also because the film demands a certain investment.  After each twist in the plot, I felt that I should have seen it coming, but never could have.  Incendies is a film the presents itself so openly, but never lets you feel at ease with what you’re seeing.

Machete

Sorry for the downtime between posts but my computer somehow broke itself in the overhead bin during my flight back to Montreal.  Until I get it repaired I won't be updating every day, but I 'll try to do it as much as possible.

As for Machete, this review is going to be a little less in depth as I watched the movie about a week ago, and I didn't take any notes on the film.  Fortunately, Machete wasn't exactly a movie I needed to focus on details with.  The movie is a take on 70's exploitation cinema and it deals with the border between Mexico and the United States.  Machete is an ex-federale who ends up as an illegal immigrant in Texas.  When he is given the job of killing a Senator he ends up tangled in the life he left behind.  His only mission now is revenge on those who have wronged him.  The film follows Machete on this bloody path he is forced on.

As with any Robert Rodriguez film, we are treated to plenty of gore and off-the-wall violence.  I actually found that the violence in the film was a lot tamer than I thought it would be.  I can think of two points in the film that reached the level of bloodshed that I was expecting.  I won't reveal these because I feel that my description wouldn't do them justice, and it's the kind of thing that is better experienced first hand.  In this sense, I often felt the movie was a little uneven.  This wasn't a film that was fighting between being serious and being over the top, it is clearly the latter.  However, Rodriguez seemed to have trouble generating some really unique action sequences.  I know that it's a throwback film, but I did feel like some of the gore was just dialed in.  If it weren't for the two sequences I mentioned before, I would have just written the movie off as a regular sub par action movie.  With these in the film, you could see evidence of that craziness, but it was never really followed up by anything.  I find with these kinds of movies, I really enjoy myself when the film continues to top itself.  This simply didn't happen for me in Machete.  There is really no build-up to the big pay-offs, and the finale I found pretty lackluster to be perfectly honest.  Those big two examples I mentioned weren't built up to either, they just kind of happened.  I felt this was also true in regards to the references to exploitation cinema.  A few times Rodriguez chose to frame the shot poorly or have a pornographic reference in the film.  This worked with the throwback idea, but they just felt scattered.  It wasn't as though the whole movie was using these referential techniques, but just these few sections.  Because of this, I really felt that they weren't necessary.

I really liked a few of the casting choices in the film.  Danny Trejo was fine as Machete, but he didn't stand out too much to me.  He was playing a B-movie character, so I'm sure his direction went towards not being too much of an actor, which he pulled off fine.  The two people who I thought were great were Steven Seagal and Robert De Niro.  Seagal was perfect for his role as Torrez, Machete's arch-nemesis.  I'm a bit of a sucker for Seagal just for how notoriously bad his movies tend to be.  With Machete, I felt that he fully embraced that and even added his own bit of panache to complete the role.  I'd even venture to say that it was a well acted part, Seagal only overdid it where it was necessary, and it all came together in a really fun way.  De Niro was great because it was so crazy seeing him as the Texan Senator.  Something seems a bit off at first, but if you follow his actiosn closely you can see where he is taking the role.  I would say more but I don't want to reveal anything.  It isn't a huge spoiler, but I thought it was a really interesting aspect of De Niro's character.

My biggest complaint about the film is once again about the gore.  This shouldn't come as a huge surprise since this film is pretty much just a showcase of violence with a thin narrative to cover it.  Before anyone snaps at me for that statement, I know there is are actual issues that are dealt with in the film, but honestly they aren't what the movie is about.  I happened to stumble on Robocop on one of the movie channels a few hours after I watched the movie, and as it is one of my favorite movies I sat down to watch it again.  I thought it was an interesting movie to compare to Machete because I absolutely love the special effects in Robocop.  In Machete the big thing I noticed was the use of CGI for a lot of the bloody scenes.  There was one point in the film where someone was lying on the ground and then they got shot in the head.  With the digital effects it looked absolutely awful.  The mist of blood completely obscured everything so it was impossible to get any sort of shock out of it.  It just looked like something magically turned this person's head into red vapor.  Now I'm a huge supporter of the use of actual physical objects for special effects.  I can't stress how much better something looks when it actually is real.  That shot could have been done infinitely better with a painted watermelon wearing a wig.  I could reference the opening of Robocop, but my favorite scene in that film is when one of the Boddicker's gang gets covered in toxic waste and then hit by a car.  Both the effect of the toxic waste and the car accident are done with no digital effects, and they look incredible.  These techniques are barely used in Machete and I think the film really suffers for it.  As a throwback film, I don't really see why they chose to go with almost all digital special effects.  I thought it would have served the whole theme of the movie a lot better if they went with some non-digital special effects, and it also would have pleased me a lot more.

I'll save my rant about CGI for another post and wrap this one up here.  I don't really feel it's necessary to give any sort of recommendation for Machete.  I think that if you know Robert Rodriguez and you know the subject matter you'll be able to determine if it's a movie for you.  Sorry again for the slow updates, but I'll hopefully do another post this weekend.



If you have any comments feel free to leave some feedback and thanks for reading.

Shane

To my good fortune Shane had just started playing as I changed the channel to Turner Classic Movies.  This is a movie that I had seen before but it had been about nine years since I had seen it in school so I thought it deserved a second viewing.


As with my Sunset Boulevard post I won't be going into too much detail about why this is a good movie.  It is a classic Western that everyone should see.  It might be a little bold to call it the first Revisionist Western, but it at least helped pave the way for those new ideas to come to the genre.  The closer look this film takes in regards to the life of a gunfighter is still a refreshing idea today.  This theme steers the film into a less action-oriented story and gives us something much more genuine.  The film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and it is clear to see why.  The landscapes are beautiful and some of the darker imagery used is quite striking.  One scene that stuck out notably in this sense was Stonewall's funeral.  As the ceremony comes to an end there is a panning shot that shows the gathering of people on cemetery hill all in silhouette.  The shot almost seemed out of place in a Western, but it's somber mood works perfectly in revealing that death actually means something in this picture.

Alan Ladd is definitely one of the most charming people ever to grace the silver screen.  Watching his performance I couldn't help but be in awe.  This was largely due to the presence of the Joey character.  This is why I find it hard to call this film a Revisionist Western.  Joey's innocence and naiveté flows out of the movie and into the audience.  This paints a less than realistic portrait of Shane.  He still is the hero that rolls into town to save the day, but the film takes a less than direct approach to that conclusion.  Even though I had seen the film before I still wanted Shane to defeat the bad guys.  I wanted him to show his stuff, and in that, I believe lies the strength of Ladd's performance.  I wasn't bored of the movie or bloodthirsty, or anything of that matter.  Ladd just seemed to exude this feeling of being in control at all times.  This comes from more than just his quick action with the gun.  The film builds him up as almost a demi-god like figure.  Alan Ladd does not strike me as an intimidating or powerful person, but Shane certainly commands the respect of everyone around him.  Even when he takes his licks I found myself reacting just as Joey did.  Just knowing that Shane was big enough to take it all.  I find this type of character hard to fit into a Revisionist Western.  I do see that side of the argument though.  For a character to exude this much charisma and still hold back with it is a pretty impressive feat.  In the end though, he's still forced to be the hero, and I think he has Joey to thank for that.  It would take a lot for a kid to still look up to you after you beat up his Dad and left him forever, but I completely understood where Joey was coming from.

One last thing I'd like to discuss is the action in this movie, specifically the two fist-fight scenes. There is a point in the fight while Joe and Shane are fending off all of Calloway's men that the turn to each other, smirk, and then return to deliver blows to the faces of these henchmen.  It's a good scene, but really there isn't anything too outstanding going on here.  It was just that moment that came up that I thought I was seeing the birth of the buddy movie.  It just reminded me so much of Rush Hour when Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker high-five each other mid jump-kick.  I wanted to point it out in case anyone has seen an earlier example of this sort of thing.  If you have please let me know.  Back to serious talk, I thought the fight between Joe and Shane was a really interesting piece of filmmaking.  As the fight starts the camera doesn't even follow it.  We remain inside the house with little Joey and his mother.  Even when we finally move outside to where the action is the shot is constantly obscured.  One image that really stood out to me was when the camera was placed behind the legs of a spooking horse and the men fought in the background.  This was another section of the film that could fall under that Revisionist label.  The whole film we're waiting for Shane to really let loose, and once he does we aren't even treated to a clear view of the event.  The drama of this fight seems to reach to everything in the vicinity, but the action itself is made little by comparison.  The fury of the natural surroundings dwarfs anything these men could do, and I think this is the point in the film the comes closest to making Shane actually human.








If you have any comments, or suggestions for films to watch, please leave some feedback.  Also if you have found a similar "buddy" moment that predates this film, I'd love to hear about it.

The American

I am finding it very difficult to find a place to start talking about this movie.  I suppose I'll keep it blunt and simple to begin with.  The American is a bad movie.  It is not the kind of bad movie that I am angry about, but it just left me confused.  It's hard to even put a synopsis together because everything about the movie is either left unexplained, or is completely forgettable.  George Clooney plays a character of varying names that is being followed by men who are trying to kill him.  This forces him to into hiding in a small Italian village where he is given a job to secure a weapon for a client.  While staying in the city he falls in love with a local girl and also finds that he is still being hunted.  If you think that is an awful summary I can only agree with you.  That is honestly the best I can do with the subject matter.

The reason it is so difficult to piece together something coherent about the movie is because nothing happens for any tangible reason.  Here are just three things that are left completely unexplained:  The reason people are trying to kill George Clooney.  What his relationship is to the man who tells him where to hide.  His background that makes him so good at what he does.  The list goes on, and I feel I would be spoiling the film if I went on too much further.  But honestly, there really isn't anything to spoil about the film.  If you can't spot the "twist" from a mile it was probably because you fell asleep.  I don't even think it can be called a twist.  This is because there are only five characters in the movie.  One is George Clooney, one is a priest, and one is a love interest that has no part Clooney's criminal life.  So you can flip a coin and either way you guess you're right.  The movie isn't based on this twist or anything, but it is entirely pointless.  It doesn't add any dramatic effect, because there is no previous relationship developed between anyone and George Clooney.  Most of the times when someone gets back-stabbed and it really hits the audience it is because that person had a close bond with the person they just betrayed.  No one has a close relationship with Clooney in this film, so it didn't really matter that it happened.  It may as well have been some henchmen, because there is no character that really feels like they matter in this movie.

To illustrate that point, I haven't even used any character names from the movie.  That's because I can't remember any, even after looking on imdb.  Clooney's character changes from name to name, and the only one that stuck was Mr. Butterfly, and I'll be damned if I write this whole review calling him that.  This whole movie is just a lot of George Clooney, but he doesn't do anything.  If you were expecting action, stay far away.  I can probably count the amount of bullets fired if I just use both hands.  Now I don't need a movie to have action to be good, but I need something, anything, to happen.  I'll admit that I did like how the movie started.  I thought that the intro packed a punch and I thought that it was beautifully shot up past the credit sequence.  After that, the movie quickly falls into a cycle.  That cycle is:  Static shots of George Clooney, car commercial or landscape shot, George Clooney talks to someone, car commercial or landscape shot.  By car commercial I mean that it is a shot mostly of landscape with him driving his car through it.  These occurred so much, that at one point I honestly expected the camera to pan up to reveal financing information spelled out in the clouds.  This cycle nearly lulled me to sleep.  Nothing happens in any of these shots.  To call this a quiet movie would be an enormous understatement.  I think all the direction that Clooney was given was to move his eyes around a bit, and then maybe furrow his brow pensively if he felt up to it.  I guess he raised his voice once or twice, but even then I think it was still well within a polite speaking volume.

The other reason that this movie was so quiet was because it had little to no soundtrack.  There are moments where there is music playing but most of the time it is diegetic.  Sometimes music plays to tell you that it is a moment of tension, but that's about it.  Music is another thing that isn't always necessary, and I also understand it's absence in the film.  It didn't really bother me, but I did find it really bizarre when we hear a section of the score and clip from a scene from Once Upon a Time in the West.  Now I'm not a director, but I'd like to think that this clip was put in for some reason, that it had some resonance within the narrative.  There is actually nothing I can think of that ties the two films together.  The American does not deal with any of the themes that define Once Upon a Time in the West.  There is no revenge, no hired guns, no territorial struggle.  I suppose you could argue that Harmonica and George Clooney's character are similarly ambiguous about their motives, but at least in Once Upon a Time in the West it is fleshed out and explained.  With The American we are left just scratching our heads.  I don't think it would have been such an odd inclusion if they didn't introduce it through music first.  So, in a film with no soundtrack, we get a reference to one of the most famous movie soundtracks of all time for no reason at all.  I guess it's and Italian movie and George Clooney is in Italy.  There is the connection!  I even looked back to see if it maybe foreshadowed something but, unless you really stretch an explanation, I don't think it does.  It just seemed an odd choice that really stood out to me coupled with the lack of a soundtrack.

Another thing that felt completely out of place was the inclusion of jump-scares.  Yeah, you read correctly, jump-scares.  There are a few moments in the film that just throw a loud noise at you or a flash of black across the screen, and it just left me dumbfounded.  I can understand if the movie is supposed to be about subtlety or trying to create a subdued ambiance for the audience, but then to throw jump-scares in?  That is about the lowest level of subtlety you can get.  These occur with the same regularity as scenes of true action, they might even be more common.  This is one of the many reasons that during the scenes where George Clooney was in danger I felt no tension.  So much nothing happens in this movie, and continues to happen in scenes of danger that I just stopped caring.  That actually sums up pretty well how I felt about the movie after about forty or so minutes.  I just couldn't care about any of it anymore.  There was nothing developed about anyone.  Every character was kind of thrown at you and just left for you to guess about.  I couldn't tell you why any character did anything.  I was just waiting for a moment where something illuminated everything, and until that moment I wasn't going to be invested in anything that was happening on-screen.

Just to better explain that I am going to discuss the love story of the film.  George Clooney meets a prostitute in one of the towns he visits and they end up falling in love.  Well, they at least say they love each other, but based on what happens in the movie I can't really believe that to be true.  After they have sex Clooney makes an offhand comment about her not having to act when she's with him.  He then tells here that he is there to get pleasured not pleasure her.  I don't know the exact line, but that is pretty close to verbatim.  Somehow this causes the prostitute to seek him out and continue the relationship for no charge. They then have dinner where she asks if he has a wife.  When he says no she states that he still must have a secret.  After these two wonderfully romantic encounters, the two are in love.  That is it, they are the loves of each other's lives.  Clooney is now willing to give up his life as a black market machinist for this woman, just as long as he can get away from those who are trying to kill him.  Normally I find movie romances to make very little sense, but this one is pretty unique.  I keep searching my memory for why they are together, and none of it makes sense.  It is just another layer of confusion to add to this already toppling narrative.

I really could go on.  I haven't even got into the priest character or the female client who Clooney is working for.  It just isn't worth it though.  I've got my point across.  I didn't find any grain of purpose in any character in this film.  The narrative has gaping holes in it that seem to be there for a reason, but I can't determine what that reason is.  There are some beautiful shots in the movie.  I don't want to take away from that, but at the end of it I felt that I was more attached to the scenery than any of the characters.  If you really like still-photographs of George Clooney then go see this movie, otherwise I'd just skip this one.



If you have some feedback on this review please leave me a comment.  Maybe I missed something entirely that would fix the whole movie for me.  If that is the case let me know.  I would love to hear why anyone liked this movie.

Sunset Boulevard

Today's movie is Sunset Boulevard.  This was high on my list of classics that I had still not seen.  I won't really be reviewing this film as it is unanimously considered a masterpiece, but I will share my thoughts on it.

I really love everything about this movie.  Gloria Swanson is unbelievable in the film, as well as the rest of the cast.  The cinematography is excellent and the whole narrative is entirely captivating.  There is virtually no flaw I can find with the film.  I did notice that I was a little put off in the scene where Joe and Betty kiss, but I felt it was more due to how it contrasted with Joe and Norma's kiss and the two relationships altogether.  So there, even my one nitpick actually works out perfectly for the film.  I have nothing but praise for this movie.

One thing that really struck me about the movie, and that I'll go into a little more detail on, was the portrayal and image of the silent era star.  Recently I had read Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon which devotes a large portion to the roaring twenties and the shift into the sound era.  The book speaks of the "twin-holocausts" of the depression and the shift to sound and has a few stories about how starlets coped with these changes.  This involves several suicides, and murders, but it also talks of the people who were forced back into lives of more normality.  It really shocked me how well this film got these themes across.  Swanson's performance delivers, in every frame, the image of a life lost, but held on to.  Joe's fear of going back to Ohio also plays up this fervor of Hollywood, and Max's transformation from director to servant shows just what the town can do to you.  Also, the sets chosen reflected the grand homes that Anger describes in the book perfectly.  Billy Wilder is able to distill this piece of Hollywood history sublimely.  Norma's mansion is presented in such a way that we can almost both feel it's former grandeur, while still seeing it decay in front of us.  The finale of the film sums up Hollywood Babylon impeccably.  These stars of Hollywood are destroyed by the eyes of the world on them.  Their lives fall into greater disrepair as the camera's turn away and they only turn back to capture that last piece of drama within them.  Hollywood Babylon and Sunset Boulevard are interesting pieces to compare.  They are both mostly fabricated pieces of Hollywood history but, it is because they hint so well at what the truth of the time was, that they are so important.  I loved both the movie and the book, and they both certainly provide an interesting glimpse at the industry long since past.



If you have any comments, or suggestions for films to watch, please leave some feedback.

Be Kind Rewind

For my movie of the day I just happened to come across Be Kind Rewind on one of the movie channels.  I am a big fan of Gondry's visual style, but I was less taken by both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Science of Sleep than most.  The same seemed to ring true for Be Kind Rewind.  I enjoyed the sections of the film that highlighted Gondry's creativity and visual spark, but found that the film chugged a bit in the transitions between these scenes.  Gondry injects his unique feel of innocence and charm into the film through his defining home-made special effects.   In each of these moments I at least cracked a smile.  In the case of the Boyz n the Hood remake I found myself laughing pretty hard.  I don't think anyone can deny Gondry's creativity at this point.  There is no disputing that he does these kinds of arts-and-crafts visuals better than anyone else.  The problem is that the rest of the film lacks this feeling which made the narrative less of a point of interest overall.  I was just waiting for the next movie to be presented instead of investing myself in the characters or the story.

I will say that I did like both Mos Def and Danny Glover in this movie.  I don't think that anything that they did was outstanding, but they felt genuine and I believe that their acting style worked well with Gondry's direction.  Jack Black on the other hand felt completely out of place.  I will admit that I have never seen Jack Black in a movie that I really liked, and I really hate the character that he always seems to play.  That said, I just really don't think that he fit in with any of the characters.  It was clear that he was supposed to be the odd man out in the picture, but his actions just felt fake for the most part.  Never an actor noted for his range, he continued to show that he's really only got setting and that he sticks with that.  I believe this is best illustrated by the fact that his character does not change from the beginning of the film to the end.  He still has the same outbursts and acts in the exact same way.  I realize that his part was mostly for comic relief, but he seemed to overshadow everyone else when he was on-screen, and not in a good way.

I can't really complain too much about the movie.  It was a decent film and to be honest it probably had Jack Black in his most bearable role.  Michel Gondry still has his style to display, and it really makes for a nice comforting story.  Although I would argue that this was the weakest of the Gondry films I have seen, it was still worth an afternoon watching.






If you have any comments, or suggestions for films to watch, please leave some feedback.

Introduction and Review of Animal Kingdom

Hello everyone.  My name is Zak, and I am a twenty-three year old student of film-studies.  I am currently living in Montreal, Quebec.  With this blog I will discuss various aspects of the film medium.  This will mostly come in the form of review and critique but I will also be writing articles on a variety of film-studies topics.  My current goal is to watch at least a film a day for the foreseeable future.  This will be outside of the films screened in my classes, but I will likely refer to those films anyway.  For every film I watch, I will make at least a small post to develop my thoughts on it.  I have no established path that I will work through in terms of movie-choice.  There will be a lot of current films discussed, but I can't make the trip to the theatre every day so I also have a large backlog of films to watch.  The films I will watch will cover a large range.  As I said, I have no direction set for myself so the films will likely differ greatly from day to day.  With that said I will move onto my review of Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom is a film directed by David Michôd about a newly orphaned teenager named Joshua that is forced into the life of the family that he was once secluded from.  Unfortunately his extended family is entrenched in the crime world of Melbourne, and deal in armed robbery and drug-dealing.  As Joshua becomes a part of the family the focus of the film shifts to the new relationships that are presented, both from his family, and the police.

The film is very slow moving.  The story is presented much differently than a typical crime film.  There are no breaks in the narrative in order for a gun-battle to occur.  Instead we are treated to a more realistic look into this kind of world.  This is accomplished through some outstanding performances, particularly those of James Frecheville who plays Joshua, Jacki Weaver who plays his grandmother, and Ben Mendelsohn who plays one of Joshua's Uncles.

I found the role of Joshua to be quite interesting.  On one hand the character plays very much like how a teen would react to such a situation.  Obviously this wouldn't be the typical method of dealing with strain for everyone, but Frecheville's stone-faced performance really pulls it off.  The subtleties of expression are carried out to such perfection that the audience really can feel what Joshua is going through.  The other aspect of this character I found was that of a vantage point for the audience.  Usually the audience is given someone to relate to or to sympathize with for this sort of character.  We become invested in them in this way and therefore are able to follow the movie through their perspective.  It could be argued that Joshua is presented to us as a sympathetic character, but I found that the film sort of glosses over the death of his mother.  It is just something that happens to push him into this new situation, and isn't given any weight throughout the whole movie.  Joshua comes into the film as almost a non-entity, and this works wonderfully to give the audience a unique vehicle to experience the narrative.  His lack of emotion and deadpan delivery allow us to view the film with some sort of neutrality, and I believe this adds to the realism and overall effectiveness of the film.  He is a character we can relate to, but it is done in a way that deeply roots us into his world while still not setting him up as a hero.  Through Joshua, I was able to move through the film without being forced anywhere.

Ben Mendelsohn who plays Pope, Joshua's Uncle is a very different character.  The psychosis that he displays is presented with such a careful touch that it becomes completely believable.  As with all the performances in the film, there is nothing outlandish about this character.  Despite this, I couldn't help but react viscerally to many of the encounters between Pope and various characters.  The performance did not illicit a huge reaction from me, but it was enough to have me squirming at points.  The character himself is very well developed.  I was able to fully understand why Pope was reacting the way he was.  There was nothing that left me wondering.  His actions were sometimes surprising, but once they occurred it fell right into what the character had grown to be.  The same is true for Jacki Weaver's character, Janine.  She seems to teeter between the strength of her control over all the characters, and the weakness of her dependency on those same people.  Even from her first encounter with Joshua she projects a sort of inner strength that we see magnified as the film progresses.

The character's often toned down performances is reflected in David Michôd's take on the crime genre.  One of the first things I thought about after leaving the theatre was the lack of violence in the film.  Violence is mostly sprung on the audience.  Quick displays of violence that burst on-screen and are finished just as quickly.  There is only one complete scene of violence that I can recall, and even then it would be hard to deem it visually graphic.  Regardless, this scene, in which Joshua's girlfriend encounters Pope, packs a huge punch.  The whole film plays off this lack of violence very well.  It suits the actions of the character and, in my case, left me very anxious about when things would start to get bloody.  This made for some very suspenseful moments, and built on the realism that defined the film.  It was a nice change to see someone deal with a story of a life in crime without having to blow gaping holes in every character.  David Michôd clearly knows how to be reserved enough to make the actual intensity of his film really stand out.

With all that said, the film was not without flaws.  The pacing overall was a bit slow for me.  I didn't mind it for the most part, but there were a few times where it took me out of the movie.  The film moves so slow at times that I began to lose what was progressing the plot and what was motivating the characters.  It wasn't that I couldn't follow the story, it was more that all the character motivations in regards to the overall narrative seemed so distant that the story began to fall flat.  Thankfully all of the characters were strong enough on their own to keep my full interest.  This was most noticeable towards the end of the film.  The pacing was so slow and deliberate and then it speeds up to a point that I found a little disorienting.  There is also a point where a new character is introduced that we have never seen before (please correct me if I'm wrong), and simply walks in and commands the respect of every character in the scene.  She is there for a stated reason, but her entrance is so abrupt that it caused me to pause and really took me out of the scene. This scene also comes right before the film begins to speed up, and the coupling of the two felt very off in comparison to the rest of the film.

I did enjoy this film, but I believe I did more in hindsight than while I was actually in the theatre.  I really loved every character presented in the film, and I thought that every role was superbly acted.  The slow pacing was a lot easier to accept after finishing the film and all of the intricacies seemed to present themselves to me upon reflection.  I don't believe that this is a bad thing though.  The film still gripped me for the majority of the screening, and the originality of concept really kept me thinking throughout and afterwards.




If you have any comments, or suggestions for films to watch, please leave some feedback.