Margin Call (2011): Marginally Interesting

Hollywood is never far behind real life.  The 2008 Wall Street financial crisis that led us and the world  into the recession and the ongoing mess in which  we’re still mucking about has to be fodder for films. There’ve been some good documentaries already, such as Inside Job (2010). But a bigger challenge seems to be translating these events into a gripping drama or thriller that can catch us up and pull us inside the story.  Until now, there’ve been just a handful of attempts. We’ve had Up in the Air (2009) which sort-of reflected the crassness of corporate downsizing; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), which, despite (or because of) Michael Douglas, fetched yawns from the few who saw it; Company Men (2011), which nobody saw, despite  a great cast; and Too Big to Fail (2011),  a made for HBO movie.

Now comes Margin Call, which is set in a Lehman Brothers-ish investment banking firm just as the realization dawns that the bottom is about to fall out. The film stars Jeremy Irons as the aloof head of the company, Demi Moore and Simon Baker as ambitious risk analysts who got it very wrong, and Kevin Spacey as the head of a trading team buying and selling  $billions in mortgage backed securities. The idea is that the company can make, and has made, a gazillion dollars via leveraging these debt instruments, but that this is a pretty risky bet, dependent on these securities maintaining their largely fictional value.   A running joke in the picture is that only the geeks understand what these “instruments” really are or how they work. Upper management doesn’t have a clue. “I don’t get any of this stuff” they each say;  but oh do they enjoy those mega-profits.  

The drama occurs when a couple of analysts (Stanley Tucci and Zachary Quinto)  notice a glitch in the risk evaluation formula which suggests that the firm has gone over the limit, and is about to crash. What to do? Can it be fixed? Can it be handled? Can we unload our cartloads of  toxic securities to other firms before they realize that the stuff is radioactive? Can we stay in business if our trading partners discover we’ve intentionally sold them crap? Is it ethical to do this? What effect will our bad decisions have on ordinary people (i.e. non-bankers) out there in the U.S.? Do we have a responsibility to others? (Actually, those last three questions never really get raised in or by this film, to its discredit.)

First time writer/director J.C. Chandor does a pretty nice job building tension throughout the movie, which takes place entirely within the company and almost entirely within its office building. This insularity gives the whole enterprise a claustrophobic feel which enhances the tension, to the point where some have called Margin Call a “thriller”.  I wouldn’t go that far, but I see their point. On the other hand the dialogue is dull as paint, notwithstanding some fine acting by most of the ensemble, particularly notable given the  mediocre material.

Kevin Spacey is especially fine, and his character, Sam Rogers, is apparently designed to be the sympathetic protagonist. You almost feel for Sam, until you remember that he’s just another sleazeball banker, that the laying off of scores of his colleagues doesn’t faze him,  and that he could care less about the effect  of his company’s feckless, irresponsibility on his fellow citizens. Only two things really touch him in this whole scenario: He has qualms about selling bad assets to traders at other banks, although those reservations arise primarily from a realization that doing this could destroy his reputation, rather than from any moral principal; and he is sad that his dying pooch has to be euthanized.

Margin Call’s merit is that it gives us a revealing peek at life inside the bubble of privilege that is Wall Street investment banking, where money is the be-all and end-all, and where the prevailing view seems to be that the general public are unsophisticated, worthless peons. From their highrise offices in Manhattan, they literally look down on the rest of America (if they bother to look at all).  There is no sense of responsibility to the folks whose money these guys are playing with. Indeed, the financial “products” being packaging and traded are more conceptual than real to them. (Their own exalted salaries and benefits are real enough though.)

But I guess my gripe is that the movie doesn’t take a stand. It doesn’t educate. It provides no context and adds little or nothing to our understanding about what actually happened and why.  

Still, Margin Call is entertaining enough to hold one’s interest.  And my take seems to be the minority viewpoint.

Still in selected theaters; available until 12/26/2011 on Xfinity (Comcast) OnDemand, and on DVD/Blueray from Netflix in late December.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011): Blistering Barnacles!

This is the much anticipated nostalgia-adventure motion-capture-animation extravaganza from a pair of superstar producers: StevenSpielberg (Jaws, E.T., Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, etc.) and PeterJackson (Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong). Spielberg is the director on this project. Tintin the movie derives from the 23 volume comic book adventure series by the Belgian illustrator Herge, about the "boy reporter" Tintin, who, along with his dog Snowy, has adventures and solves mysteries. The Tintin books, most of which were written between 1930 and 1960, are generally set in the 1930's and 40’s, and feature glorious artwork and lots of globetrotting travel to exotic locales via conveyances of the day, such as trains, steamers and aeroplanes.

Tintin the movie is derived/adapted from the 11^th book in the series: The Secret of the Unicorn (1943), about the search for a hidden treasure. The look of this film truly captures the period nostalgia, the remarkable color palette, and the humor/adventure tone of Herge’s  books. If you enjoyed the books, you'll want to check out the movie.

This film reminded me a lot of Spielberg's Indiana Jones franchise, particularly the first of those pictures: Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s an affectionate homage to bygone adventure stories, with a blend of non-stop, Perils of Pauline action and exotic, drolly humorous characters and villains. There's Cap'n Haddock, an alcohol addicted seafarer, living with a family curse; Red Rackham, a shrewd and colorful pirate, and his 20^th century descendant, the scheming Ivanovich Sakharine; and two ridiculous detectives,  Thomson and Thompson, haughty and mutually blockheaded. There's treasure to be got, and hidden parchment clues to be found and fought over.

Like Indiana Jones, Tintin is plucky, smart, and ludicrously resourceful, yet often overlooks  important clues and jumps to mistaken conclusions, which leaves us, by turns, amused and exasperated. Unlike Indy, however, the protagonist-hero of this adventure has little personality, and is invariably far less interesting than the rest of the animated ensemble.  Snowy, for one, has more personality than Tin Tin - imagine Nick and Nora Charles' Asta on steroids. And Haddock steals every scene he’s in.

The true star of Tintin, however, and the reason to see the movie (unless you've got a 12 year old in tow), is the eye-popping detail and realism of the animation. The use of 3-D techniques is sophisticated and enhances our appreciation, without calling attention to itself. The rendering of the physical environment - a roiling sea, sahara dunes, clothing, skin, etc. - is fantastic. The action sequences have a physical reality to them that CGI effects in live action pictures often lack. Yet, thankfully, it always feels like an animation - it edges closer, but does not attempt cross that (increasingly notional) line separating the "real" world from the cartoon world.

The picture is not dull; it is pure plot-driven action-adventure, from the opening frame to the end. Given the Spielberg - Jackson collaboration, neither the galloping story line nor the remarkable look and feel is surprising. What is surprising, and disappointing, is the lack of heart in this film. This is very much a "comic book" movie (in the pejorative sense), despite its splendid trappings. But it’s a fun ride while it lasts.

In general release in the UK and parts of Europe; opening in the U.S. on December 21, 2011.

A Time For Drunken Horses (2000): Beautiful, Heartbreaking Gem

Wow! This independent Iranian film, only  80 minutes in length totally knocked me out. Put this on your list and see this movie. You’ll thank me.

A Time for Drunken Horses is the first feature film of the Kurdish Iranian writer/director, Bahman Gohbadi.  The movie put Gohbadi on the cinematic map, winning prizes at ten international film festivals, including Cannes; and he is now recognized as one of the region’s greatest directors. He has made four features since then, the most recent of which, No One knows About Persian Cats (2009), will be reviewed in this space in short order. (That picture resulted in Gohbadi’s exile from Iran, and the arrest of several other members of the company. )

Iran has always had a flourishing film industry, although Islamist laws, particularly restrictions having to do with portrayal of women, and, of course, laws criminalizing criticism of the government,  have made certain kinds of films difficult to produce. One way creative filmmakers have tried to sidestep these limitations is to center their stories on the travails of young kids. The director Majid Majidi has excelled at this with many terrific pictures, including  Children of Heaven (2007), The Color of Paradise (1999) and The Song of Sparrows, (2008).

A Time for Drunken Horses is in this tradition, with Ghobadi also nodding to Italian neorealist films, such as Germany: Year Zero (1948) and The Bicycle Thief (1948). Shot in a documentary style, Drunken Horses is about a family of Kurdish children living in Iran, a few kilometers from the Iraqi border. They live in a tiny village situated in a harsh, yet stunningly beautiful, mountainous landscape – lustrously captured by cinematographer,  Saed Nikzat. Mom died some time ago, and early on, the kids learn that Dad, a smuggler (whom we never meet) has been killed at the border. It falls to the eldest son, Ayoub, to hold the family together.  Ayoub is perhaps 12 years old, just a boy really, although in the harsh Kurdistan outback he is expected to “man up” at an early age  – and one of the wonders of this touching film is to watch this boy’s  earnest struggle to shoulder his new responsibilities.

Those responsibilities include providing sustenence for himself and his siblings (an older and a younger sister, and a younger, invalid brother). Early on, Ayoub also learns that his brother Madi’s condition is deteriorating and, unless Madi has an operation he will likely die within a month.  With the operation , he may have another year. Ayoub feels he must raise the money for his brother, and the rest of the film follows his and his sister Rojin's desperate attempts to do that.  Rojin bravely, movingly is prepared to sacrifice herself to aid poor Madi.

The kids playing these characters are Iranian Kurdish kids. Amateurs all, they are brilliantly believable, sincere, and beautiful. The siblings are kind and sweet in their feelings and care for Madi, who needs to take his medicine every few hours, needs to be carried almost everywhere, and gets weekly injections from the regional doctor.  Despite his handicap, Madi is accepted as is. He is family, and he is loved. There are a few adults to lend a little assistance - an uncle, the doctor – but mostly these children are on their own in an unforgiving,  but physically stunning world.

Their world is a primitive place. We see no phones, no TVs, no laptops, no cars to speak of. Smuggling seems to be one of the principal industries, and this is carried out by mule caravans. The caravans are dangerous; there is always the possibility of ambush from the government or from bandits. The weather over the mountain passes is so harsh, the smugglers add alcohol to the mules’ drinking water to make them more tractable.  In one of the movie’s most dramatic moments, the inebriated pack animals panic during an ambush with near disastrous results.

A Time For Drunken Horses gives the viewer a glimpse of real people in a world totally unlike our own. It is not a happy film, but it is a fascinating and compelling one – and very, very human. 

A warning though: this picture will stay with you. (In a good way.)

Available on DVD and Netflix streaming.

Dead End (1937): Classes Clash and Bogie, Too

Looking for light entertainment a few days ago, I hit upon Dead End, a time capsule, fluffball movie starring pretty Sylvia Sidney as plucky, hard-luck girl Drina, and also featuring 38 year old Humphrey Bogart as the dapper but no-good gangster  ‘Baby Face’ Martin,  blandly handsome JoelMcCrea as the good-hearted, unemployed architect Dave,  and Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the other Dead End Kids as, well, dead end kids. Written by Lillian Hellman (from a hit play by Sidney Kingsley) , directed by the great William Wyler, with cinematography by the estimable Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, Grapes of Wrath, The Best Years of Our Lives, etc) this movie has a great pedigree and it delivers the goods.

If you’re interested in what a ‘class warfare’ attitude really is, this is a good primer of depression era proletarian sentiment. It’s one of several works of Hellman from this period that got her in hot water with HUAC * a few years later.

Manhattan, mid nineteen thirties: the depression seems endless. Low wages, high unemployment. The rich getting richer (and flaunting it); the poor and the working classes getting poorer. The East Side has long been a blue collar, hardscrabble neighborhood, but lately the swells have discovered how dashed pleasant it is to have a nice river view, and they’ve started gentrifying the place. Right along the river are luxury apartments, with doormen, servants, terraces overlooking the water, dames in gowns and furs,  gents in dinner jackets, chauffeured limos, etc.  Out in the street are the Dead End Kids,  a gang of teen urchins, with nowhere to go (literally and figuratively), scruffy, kinda tough, but not so bad really. A few doors down are tenement houses with the salt of the earth proletariat: blue collar workers, widows, single moms, struggling young women looking for a break.

Among these is Drina, a sweet young woman, barely making ends meet, while trying to bring up her teen brother Tommy, a good kid, who, to Drina’s dismay,  is being seduced into life with the gang.  Drina is also in love with her childhood friend, Dave, who, despite a college degree and professional training, can’t find a real job. Dave really likes Drina, but is smitten  with the blonde Kay, of the wealthy set, who has taken a shine to him. Drina is understandably resentful of the rich hussie, when she is not worrying about her brother. Silvia Sidney, little known today, was the big star of this movie, and her character is the center of the story, upright, moral, worthy, yet threatened by the loss of her kid brother and the loss of love.

Meanwhile, Baby Face, a notorious thug with a big rep,  lotsa dough , fancy threads and a price on his head, is back in town visiting the old neighborhood , hoping to hook up with his old flame and see his old mother after many years. There are a lot of ways to describe Bogart, but his mug doesn’t really lend itself to a character called ‘Baby Face’ – a dilemma neatly solved by reference to a  recent  ID  shifting plastic surgery. Well, Mama rejects him and his beloved ex has become a prostitute, so we get to see a very bitter, disheartened Bogie – a disposition his mug IS well suited for.

The Dead End Kids (later known as The Eastside Kids' and later still, as ‘The Bowery Boys”) are entertaining to watch and endearing in this, their first of many  films. They certainly lively up the place. I suspect you’ll recognize them, without realizing where  or when you’ve seen them. Before.

Oh, the story is trite, but it moves along, and is never dull. We’re meant to  root for the everyday folks, and despise  the rich and powerful. There’s a curious resonance to our world. Not much has changed, eh? Except that most pictures back then had predictable happy endings.

Wyler is one of the twentieth century’s great directors, and he can certainly work a plot. Toland’s cinematography is terrific throughout, touches of noir, interesting angles, evocative close-ups. The street and the river are a bit too clean to be believed , but blame Sam Goldwyn, who vetoed a more realistic depiction.

This is by no means a ‘must-see’ flick, but it is pleasant enough and fun to watch.

Available on DVD and as a Netflix streaming movie.

*The infamous House Un-American Activities  Committee. Leaping ahead seventy-five  years, one is tempted to argue that the current House itself is engaged in un-american activities, but that’s another blog entirely.

Moneyball (2011): Home Run

Moneyball is about baseball the way The Social Network is about Facebook; which is to say that it's not, not really. The Social Network was actually about Mark Zuckerberg, and the way in which his insecurities, his single-mindedness, his inspiration and his competitive nature combined to produce this remarkable achievement. In much the same way, and with similar success, Moneyball is about Billy Beane, his insecurities, his single-mindedness, his inspiration, and his competive spirit, all of which came together to produce another kind of surprising achievement - the 2002 Oakland A's. Not coincidentally, the screenplays for both movies were written or cowritten by the brilliant Aaron Sorkin (whose other works include The West Wing, A Few Good Men, the American President, and Charlie Wilson's War). There’s big difference here, however: Zuckerberg , as played by Jesse Eisenberg, came across as a brilliant, but very weird, aspergers-ish nerd in The Social Network; on the other hand, Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, is depicted as a heroic good-guy: yes he's a bit quirky, and yes he's brilliant, but he is also amusing, perceptive, rebellious, considerate, athletic and as handsome as Brad Pitt. (The real Billy Beane's pretty nice looking as well, by the way.)

Pitt gives perhaps his greatest performance as Beane, a man with something to prove, who lays it all on the line. He is on the screen virtually all the time in this flick (except for a few on-field baseball moments), sometimes in extreme close-up, and the only disappointment is that when the film is over, he doesn't meet us in the lobby and come home with us. Pitt is so likable, and seems so natural on the silver screen, you hardly notice he's acting. His nuanced performance is reason enough to see this picture.

Jonah Hill plays Beane’s young assistant, Peter Brand, a fictional character loosely based on Beane’s actual assistant at the time, Paul DePodesta, but amalgamating characteristics of other staff members as well. Hill looks nothing like DePodesta, and acts nothing like DePodesta. Doesn't matter. Hill is as terrific playing “Peter Brand”, as Pitt is vis-à-vis Billy Beane. Brand is socially awkward, and an amusing naif in the world of professional athletes. But he loves baseball, and is a student of the game’s statistics, and in particular, of sabermetrics ("the search for objective knowledge about baseball"). He’s a Yale-educated Robin to Pitt’s Batman.

None of this stuff sits well with the old school baseball guys, the tobacco chawin’ scouts, the minor-league coaches and managers, or, for that matter the A’s team manager at the time, Art Howe, convincingly (if inaccurately) played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. These guys evaluate players the old-fashioned way - how theylook, how they swing, their batting average, home runs, catching and throwing and even the quality of their girlfriends or wives. Beane and Brand understand that their team simply can’t compete using the traditional approach – they don’t have the money. They also believe that a good portion of traditional baseball “wisdom” about building a team is horseshit. So by necessity and via creativity, these guys gamble on a different approach, based on a simple logic: How many runs will this player contribute versus that player? After all the team with the most runs (not the sweetest swings) is the team that wins. They focus on players with a high OBP (on base percentage), regardless of batting average, and pitchers that can get opposing batters out in a pinch, regardless of how they look doing it. In seeking a different kind of player, Beane and Brand hope to find “affordable” guys overlooked by the traditionalists running other teams. 5-tool players are expensive, and they don’t always work out so well. Beane knows this from personal experience.

Beane put his plan into effect in 2002. At first, it looked like the skeptics were right. The Athletics got off to an awful start. But then, with some nudging from Brad, um, I mean Billy, things started to turn around, and the rest, as they say, is history. In August 2002 came “The Streak” when the A’s shocked the world (and themselves) and set a major league record by winning 20 games in a row. Even knowing the story in advance, this is thrilling, uplifting stuff. (I especially enjoyed this part, because I was a fan at that time, and was at the ballpark for some of those games.)

But you don’t need to be an A’s fan or even a baseball fan to enjoy this picture. I know this because critics around the country from New York, Boston and Washington, DC to Miami, Chicago and L.A., have lauded Moneyball. Says the New York Post: “A crowd-pleasing baseball movie for people - like me - who don't like baseball movies.” Says The Miami Herald: “The movie is an absolute triumph of culturally relevant filmmaking – a film that will thrill and fascinate sport junkies and non-fans alike. If you like baseball, you will love this movie. If you hate baseball, you will still love this movie.”

Moneyball is based on the excellent book of the same name by Michael Lewis. Lewis was fascinated by the application of economic and statistical analysis to the building of a championship baseball team by Beane and the A's, notwithstanding a team budget that ranked last in the majors, with a player payroll less than a third that of the rival New York Yankees. Moneyball director Bennett Miller wisely homes in on Beane himself, and goes lighter on the economics and the statistical analyses, which, to be honest, would not a good movie make. Good choice.   As another reviewer put it, “Never before have statistics added up to such electrifying entertainment.”

There are some flaws. In emphasizing the Billy Beane strategy, the movie ignores or undervalues some remarkable player contributions to the Athletics brilliant season, such as pitcher Barry Zito's Cy Young Award winning 23 wins, or Miguel Tejada's MVP worthy hitting, fielding and general hustle. But this is not a documentary about the A's, it's a biopic about their amazing general manager.

I'd call it one of the best movies of the year.

In theaters in wide release.

Contagion (2011): Pandemic Procedural

Contagion is an intelligent, star-studded study of what can happen when a new, virulent and deadly virus is unleashed on the world. It’s a disaster movie, but not an end-of-the world apocalyptic flick. I describe it as a pandemic procedural, because much of the narrative focus is on how scientists and public health authorities at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and WHO (World Health Organization) deal with the scientific, societal and political repercussions of the pandemic. This may sound dull, but it’s not – it is fascinating and absorbing. You’ll leave the theater with lots to think about.

As with most disaster pictures, Contagion is ultimately about society, and how, for better or worse, people cope with a catastrophe or calamity. In the case of a flu-like plague, where a large swath of the world (and U.S.) population is susceptible, and with, say, a 25% mortality rate, should we close down airports or quarantine entire cities to slow its spread? Can we? Should we apprehend and quarantine everyone who has been exposed to the virus? Where? If there is a possible, but unproven antidote, should we run it through months of testing, though thousands are dying, or do we cross our fingers and disseminate it right away? Who gets it first? If your town is afflicted, would you continue to take public transit, would you send your kids to school, would you even go out to a public place, like the grocery, and risk infection? If you run a grocery, are you going to expose your own or your employees’ lives by even opening your doors? Don’t you have a moral obligation to the public to stay open? Should public employees protect themselves and their families first, or go out and protect the public?

How would you react in a pandemic, selfishly or selflessly- if it's your and your family’s lives at stake? Would you play by the rules or would you look out for number one? Would you trust government pronouncements about the situation? Do you think they're going to tell you the truth?

Like I said, this movie serves up some hearty food for thought. To their credit, writer Scott Z. Burns and director Stephen Soderbergh do this without crassly pulling at the heartstrings. There is no trumped-up romance to distract us. Despite the star quality of its cast, the film does not give us a singular protagonist or hero to carry us through the tumult.

Instead, we are presented with a broad set of characters - a husband and father (Matt Damon) whose wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) and child are afflicted, researchers and public health officials (Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Elliott Gould) trying to cope with catastrophe, Chinese villagers desperately seeking the means to ensure they will get timely help, an administrator (Laurence Fishburne) torn between his public duty and personal responsibilities. Taken together this patchwork of characters provides us with a global vantage point to watch as the pandemic and its fallout develop.
The performances are uniformly excellent, with special kudos to Winslet and Fishburne.

Soderbergh knows how to entertain (viz. Out of Sight; Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Ocean's Eleven, etc.), and he paces the action perfectly. The film starts with an announcement of "Day 2", and proceeds chronologically through Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, etc. This technique, coupled with the action on the ground, adds to the tension and propels us along. What about Day 1, you ask? We get there eventually.

Even pandemic procedurals need a villain, and, let's face it, it's pretty hard to personify or vilify a virus. But, again, this is really a human story, and we are offered an appropriately creepy character, one Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), a paranoid, almost messianic blogger, questioning authority, challenging official pronouncements, suggesting a conspiracy, and promoting his own remedy for the virus. Law handles his assignment beautifully: Krumweide is, by turns, convincing, creepy, galvanizing, and scary. A standout performance.

Contagion is an intelligent film for adults, but if you’ve got a kid along with you (12 and up, please – this is appropriately a PG-13 rated movie), you’ll have an opportunity for some interesting conversation on the way home.

In theaters in wide release.

The Debt (2011): Untruth and Consequences

In 1966, three young Mossad operatives tracked down a notorious Nazi war criminal in East Berlin and brought him to bay. The three agents, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington) were hailed as national heroes back home. In 1997, Rachel’s daughter, Sarah, is about to publish a new book about the adventure to great fanfare. But, Rachel, Stephan and David (their older selves played by Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds) have been harboring a terrible secret about what really happened in East Berlin, and, it seems that the real story is about to be revealed. Can they do anything about it? Should they? How does it feel, as a moral person, to have lived with a lie all of your adult life? Can one undo such a thing 30 years on? And in public life, what's more important, the perception of a thing or the truth about that thing? 

The Debt, an English-language adaptation of a 2007 Israeli film by the same name (Ha-Hov in Hebrew), gives us an interesting story, part thriller and part morality drama, and it raises interesting questions. In the hands of director John Madden, it's pretty well told, too. The opening scene is a preface to the narrative: we see the three young heroes about to deplane in Tel Aviv to photographers flashbulbs and an excited press corps. Flash forward to 1997, and the publication party celebrating Sarah’s book. Rachel (Mirren) should be happy, but she’s troubled; and when David (Wilkinson) arrives we quickly understand that she’s not the only one. At Sarah’s request, Mirren reads an excerpt from the book to the guests, and we’re off into a thrilling flashback showing us the official version of the heroic story.


The rest of the film moves back and forth between 1997 and 1966. We learn what really happened, why that story was not made public, and the terrible toll that the secret has exacted on the three protagonists. 

We also meet the most vivid character in the story, Dr. Bernhardt (Jesper Christensen), the "Butcher of Treblinka", a Josef Mengele-like villain, who committed horrible crimes against humanity in the name of Nazi science, during the war. What is fascinating about Bernhardt is partly the humanization of evil, i.e. how putting a face and a personality to such a monster inevitably allows us to almost sympathize with him ; and partly Bernhardt’s shrewd attempts to manipulate and get under the skin of the Mossad agents who capture him. The psychological dance that results is intriguing and creepy.

But the main character in this picture is Rachel. Jessica Chastain nails the role of this young, tough, committed, and yet vulnerable young woman. Much of the suspense - and the real thrills of the story - are embodied in young Rachel’s experiences, and Chastain carries all of this off with aplomb. Mirren, playing fifty-something Rachel, struggling with the fallout years later, is always fun to watch. It is not a happy role she plays – dealing with death, complicity in the big lie (knowing that she has not only lied to her daughter, but that this may undermine Sarah’s success), and understanding that she now must undertake the distasteful and dangerous task of "fixing" a festering situation that her younger self helped create. Conveniently, the two actresses look enough alike to make the transition between the 1960’s character and her 1990’s self plausible. 

The same cannot be said about her two cohorts. Tsorkas and Wilkinson, as Stephan, young and old, look nothing alike; nor do Worthington and Hinds as David. In fact, Hinds looks a lot more like Tsorkas, and Wilkinson looks a lot more like Worthington. A Bronx cheer to the casting director! Worthington, whom I last saw as the disabled Marine in Avatar, has a couple of terrific moments; and Hinds, one of my favorite English actors, is touching as the sorrowful, older David. Wilkinson handles his limited role as the older Stephan capably.

The finale is an action sequence involving Mirren which, though implausible, is exciting to watch. It’s nice to see old folks get some ‘action’. Harrison Ford still does it; Liam Neeson, too, in Unknown; so why not Mirren?

The movie does pose some interesting questions about Truth. The Mossad agents original mission was to bring Bernhardt back to Israel to stand trial, so the Truth would be known and his evil would not be forgotten. Instead, the legacy of their mission was a lie. David argued at the time that no one would be harmed by changing the story, and in fact it would be for the greater good. But the propagators suffered for it.

The director, John Madden has never been associated with action or suspense flicks, but the best thing about The Debt are the action/suspense scenes of the young protagonists. Several of his films have been thoughtful or thought provoking, particularly Corelli’s Mandolin (2001) and Proof (2005). Clearly, The Debt is aiming for the same territory. It succeeds to dome degree, but as I left, the theater, I couldn’t help thinking it could have been better still. A little too much exposition, too few loose ends. Somehow, the package is a little too neat...

In current release.

The Taste of Others (2000): Small is Beautiful

A motion picture does not have to be a star-studded blockbuster to make your heart sing, to provoke thought or to inspire your imagination. Certainly, some of our most cherished movies have been independent, relatively low-budget affairs, films such as Before Sunrise (1995), The StationAgent (2003), After the Wedding (2006), The Last Station (2009), and even last year's Academy Award winner, The King's Speech (2010). One might even argue that the big- budget movie is far less likely to touch us, to provoke us, or to engender new insights than the "small" film. But perhaps, this is just matter of taste.

The Taste of Others (Le Goût des Autres) is a little gem. It was nominated for an Academy award in 2001 in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Among other things, the film is about how taste -  intellectual, cultural and social - affects our perception of others and of our selves, and also about how, sometimes, a little taste of someone else's very different life, their style or ideas, can be the seed of change and growth. A useful means for exposure to the taste of others, of course, is romantic love, and this lovely movie follows that course in developing its themes.

The Taste of Others is the first directorial effort by Agnes Jaoui, who cowrote the screenplay with her longtime collaborator Jean-Pierre Bacri (who also happens to be her husband), and both star in the film as well.  It is a finely plotted story of intersecting lives. At the core is Castella (Bacri), a wealthy industrialist in Rouen, who is on the verge of concluding a major deal with the Iranians. But Castella is bored with his business and his life.  He doesn't want to take a meeting with the Iranians. He doesn't want to go through with the English lessons his assistant has arranged for him. Castella is stuck emotionally and stylistically; if he can be said to have any taste at all, it might be called plodding or pedestrian, symbolized by his funky, out of date mustache.

His wife, Angelique (Christiane Millet), a narcissistic interior designer with amusingly atrocious taste, and a preference for animals over people, pretty much runs Castella's home life. One day she drags him to a local production of Racine’s Bérénice, because his niece has a bit part; and much to his surprise, Castella finds himself moved to tears by the dramatic performance of the lead actress – whom he recognizes as his seemingly mousy English instructor, Clara (Anne Avaro). He goes back to the theater the next night, sans sa femme, to soak up the experience, falls in love with the actress, and throughout the rest of the film tries to ingratiate himself with Clara and her artistic and intellectual friends, buying them drinks, buying their art, etc.. Clara’s crowd, of course, believes they are superior to this boorish, unschooled, capitalist lout. But Castella is changing; his association with these people, their galleries, their conversations awakens in him a desire for something finer in his own life. And as he changes, the lives of others around him will also change.

There is a parallel story involving Manie (Jaoui), the barmaid - and sometimes marijuana/hashish dealer - at a tavern near the theater, where Clara and her friends hang out.  Manie is a friend and confidant of Clara. She also hooks up, briefly, with Castella’s chauffeur, Bruno (Alain Chabat),  and, more seriously, with Franck (Gerard Lanvin), Castella's temporary bodyguard. Manie is an independent woman, who’s tired of having affairs and wants a serious relationship, but is unwilling to be subservient to a man. Franck brags of having slept with hundreds of women over the years, but  perhaps there’s something different about this one?

We initially perceive each of these folks as defined by their ascribed roles - barmaid, businessman, bodyguard, artiste - but along the way, we get to see far more: the nuances of their personalities, emotional needs and longings. We come to care about them as real people, and we remember them.   Jaoui has created beautifully etched and astutely observed  characters, whose every move and every utterance seems right and true. It’s a remarkable achievement, aided by fine performances from the entire ensemble of actors, herself included.

One of my companions suggested that this was a film only the French could make, certainly not Americans. In that the arc of the film is propelled almost entirely by dialogue, rather than action, I would agree that this is a quintessentially French product. And I would like to see more character driven, relationship oriented movies from these shores. We do come up with a few lovely little pictures about real people now and then, like the aforementioned Before Sunrise and The Station Agent, and some of the recent Woody Allen movies, for example.

Anyway, I highly recommend this flick. Between the subtitles (which are quite well done) and the initial slow pace of the story, I also encourage you to come at it with some degree of alertness and at least partial sobriety. If you snooze, you lose. (This comes from personal experience: I started my viewing of The Taste of Others after 9 PM, following a hearty meal and several glasses of wine. I drifted in and out of the first half, not really connecting the dots; although when full consciousness returned, and I got my second wind, I was able to enjoy the second half of the film. The next day, fully awake,  I went back, re-watched the first part, and filled in quite a lot of gaps!)

Jaoui has written directed a couple of other films in, I’m told, a similar style:  Look At Me (Comme une Image) (2004) and Let It Rain (Parlez-moi de la Pluie) (2008). I can’t wait.

Available on DVD from Netflix

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): Render Unto Caesar

The story of a brilliant, but impetuous scientist, Will Rodman (James Franco), who has developed a drug to cure Alzheimers, and, while testing this on lab apes, discovers that it improves their intelligence. Vastly! To the point that the critters are a match for their human counterparts; so much so that they resent being treated like lab animals, and eventually decide to do something about it. It’s an old story. So old that it’s actually  a prequel to the 1968 film, Planet of the Apes (which starred Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Linda Harrison ). The original film was a big hit and spawned three or four sequels. The prequel (perhaps “re-launch” is more apt) is pretty good, too.

To be honest, while Franco’s character starts out as the protagonist of this story, he ends up being a supporting player to an ape (more precisely, a chimpanzee). The first lab primate to show remarkable intelligence was a female known as Bright Eyes (an homage to the nickname given to Heston in the 1968 film). Her offspring, an adorable baby chimp, is rescued by Franco and named Caesar. Caesar is raised like a member of the family by Franco, his dad (John Lithgow), and his veterinarian girlfriend, Freida Pinto).  Caesar is at least as bright as his mom, and has the advantage of being raised  much like a human child, and as he grows and matures, our attention and our sympathies shift to him.

Caesar is largely a creature of CGI (computer generated imagery), the process that, in the past several years has brought us such believable cinema creatures  as  the Na’vi  (Avatar – 2009) and Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003). Those were terrific, but Caesar is the state of the art CGI creation: a fully realized character, visually and emotionally, who winds up carrying the film.  He is “played” by Andy Serkis, who previously performed the same function as Gollum, and then as Kong, in Peter Jackson’s 2006 version of King Kong. I’m not sure how, exactly, they do this, but this CGI thing is becoming an art form. The rendition of Caesar and his hairy cohort is far superior to the special effects costumes used in the days of yore; and this may be reason enough to go out and see this picture.  

The cinematography, by the great Andrew  Lesnie  [The Lord of the Rings, King Kong (2005), I Am Legend (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009)] is remarkable as well, especially a beautiful scene late in the movie,  in which we experience the movement of a simian horde across an urban arboreal canopy by a soft, rustling sound and then a cascade of falling leaves onto the startled street below.

The story itself is good enough, if you don’t probe the logic or the meaning too deeply. There is a Spartacus theme to it – the slave (ape) uprising, and all that – which certainly holds our interest. An underlying theme about the immorality of animal experiments and the evils of greedy, corporate Big Pharma is trite but (thankfully) underdeveloped. There are specific villains to root against – most particularly a sadistic keeper (TomFelton, better known as Draco Malfoy). And then there’s a satisfying, if emotionally disorienting, climactic battle, in which we find ourselves rooting against the humans (much as we did in Avatar – what does this trend portend?) and cheering on the apes.

Freida Pinto, as the love interest for Franco, has little to do here, but she remains attractive. Franco holds his own as the good-guy human, a reasonable man (sort of), trying to make things right in an impossible situation.

This film benefits from the big screen experience, so I’d encourage you to see it at the cineplex, rather than on the home TV, if you’re interested at all.

In general release.

The Earrings of Madame De... (1954): Ophüls Gold?

Max Ophüls is considered one of the great film directors of the 20th century. "The Earrings of Madame De…" is considered perhaps his greatest work or certainly one of them. His other movies of the same period include La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1952) and Lola Montes (1955). While I had heard of all of these films, I had not actually seen any of Ophüls work before last week, when I watched Madame De with some friends. It is a tragic love story. It is beautifully shot in black and white. It has a great cast and is well acted. It also is overlong and suffers from a plodding, trite plot; or at least so it seemed to me and my fellow cinephiles.

Afterwards, we re-watched portions of the film with commentary (on the excellent Criterion Collection DVD) and I read up a little about Ophüls oeuvre, in order to better understand what we had seen and why this director was so highly regarded. From a technique perspective, Ophüls was admired for his emphasis on long, single camera tracking shots. In other words, he would shoot entire scenes with one camera, on a track, sliding along with the actor or with the action, pivoting where necessary, but without any intercutting from other perspectives or cameras. Madame De included several instances of this, including the opening shot, which tracks the female protagonist, Louise (Danielle Darrieux) - the youngish wife of wealthy, noble General Andre de … (Charles Boyer) - in her boudoir as she carefully selects a piece of jewelry to hock. Watching that opening scene a second time, paying particular attention to how it was shot, I had to admit that it was beautifully and creatively done. Thinking back, the same was true of several other moments in the film. Although Ophüls wasn't the first to use tracking shots, he was a master at it. Undoubtedly, well worth examining in film school.

Still, no matter how excellent or groundbreaking the technique, a film needs to engage us on other levels. Few people would watch Citizen Kane nowadays, notwithstanding Orson Welles' numerous creative innovations, if the story and the characters didn't engage us; but that film still works and is much more entertaining than Madame De.

Some reviewers cite the romanticism of Madame De as a wondrous attraction; but I found the love affair and the romantic anguish of the story superficial and unconvincing. Some have lauded the lavish environment in which the film is set, and while this was interesting, I've certainly seen better, such as the lush trappings of Visconti’s 1954 epic, Senso, as one example.The tragic romance was also far more convincing in that picture.

Here, we are asked to take it on faith that Louise, who likes to flirt with other men, actually falls in love with the Italian diplomat Baron Donati (Vittorio de Sica). In the late 19^th century world depicted in this movie, a married noblewoman is permitted her flirtations, but not an extramarital affair. (This rule does not apply to the men, of course.) For a woman to engage in such an affair is tres dangereux, potentially resulting in humiliation and even death. Okay, but the story doesn’t work if no particular motivation or reason is provided  for the protagonists to fall in love. While it is apparent that Louise is not in love with her husband, we are not shown why. The General is considerably older than Louise, but the Baron is every bit as old. Indeed, the husband and the paramour are very much alike: both are wealthy men of the world, suave and sophisticated. In Senso, by contrast, we understand very clearly why the Contessa is unhappy in her marriage and why she is attracted to her dashing young lover.

The acting of Darrieux, De Sica and particularly Boyer is quite good, but absent a solid story, it is not good enough to keep the movie interesting for its entire 105 minutes. Despite Darrieux’ efforts, her character comes across as an unlikely protagonist for a love story: Louise is bored much of the time, superficial, and ultimately uninteresting. By the time her situation turns tragic, we really don’t care.

What I did find interesting in Madame De was the depiction of the world of wealth and privilege in which the "action" is set. For example, early on, there is a nearly slapstick scene in which the General rushes in and out of several doors at the opera house repeatedly. At every door there is a uniformed, gold braided doorman, and each is bored out of his skull waiting around for the swells to need a door opened for them; yet the doormen quickly become exasperated when the same patron goes out, then in, then out, then in again, requiring them to get up, open the door, then sit down, then get up again, etc.  Another example is the depiction of the jeweler, Monsieur Remy (Jean Debucourt) a fawning tradesman to the nobility. It is to M. Remy that Louise goes to sell her earrings in the first place. However, it was M. Remy who sold those earrings to the General originally (as a wedding present for Louise), and no sooner does Louise depart than Remy, out of loyalty to the General, goes to him with the earrings to tell him what happened, whereupon the General buys them again from the jeweler. The difference in class and social status between this high-end jeweler and the General is palpable, and interesting to see. Still, these attractions cannot sustain a feature-length film.

I am aware that The Earrings of Madame De … and its director have their fans and supporters. I would love to hear from those folks, who perhaps can explain to me what I have failed to appreciate. I’d also like to know why the surname of the General and Louise are omitted from the title …

This film may be of interest to anyone interested in the history of cinema or directorial technique. If it is a gripping story, a heart-rending tragedy, or simple entertainment you seek, you may want to seek elsewhere.

Available on DVD (Criterion Collection), from Netflix.