Cosmopolis

David Cronenberg wrote the script for Cosmopolis in a week, and it shows.  It is based on the book of the same name by Don DeLillo, so the content cannot all be blamed on the director.  But the poor adaptation of the text into an incompatible dialogue for a film audience can be.  Robert Pattinson’s natural snootiness might have worked for the role of Eric Packer, information tycoon and rich bastard, but it unfortunately just highlights Cronenberg’s shotty adaptation job.  Paul Giamatti performs respectably, but his part is at the end, leaving you to suffer until he comes on the screen.

Directed by David Cronenberg

Adapted from Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

Starring Robert Pattionson, Paul Giamatti, Juliette Binoche

Holy Motors

 

Art’s boundary from reality requires the security of semi-automatic weapons and allows art to take life. Director Leos Carax’s Holy Motors insists ideas like this while making a tribute to cinema.   

    

We see one day of Monsieur Oscar’s (Denis Lavant) work split into nine vignettes, in which he performs highly stylized characters in the context of real life.  Each vignette is an acting appointment, and the thin blond older Cherie chauffeurs Monsieur Oscar around Paris in a long white limousine.
    

On the surface level the references to film and theater are a tribute, but Carax comments on the relationship between art and life with a meaningful approach that encourages more introspection than a documentary or a traditional narrative could allow.  The immortal Monsieur Oscar’s characters often perform violent or hurtful actions, which is a direct metaphor for art’s influence on the world.  
    

What is Carax trying to say when he makes an actor kill a man who has no art about him?  When a Godzilla-esque Irishman terrorizes a cemetery?  When a father punishes a daughter for not being popular?  The influence of the art, the drama, the actor, on reality is real and negative in this film.  Each vignette is an ode to the destruction of life caused by the art forms.  Even the interacte seems sacrilegious: a loud prog band led by accordions walk through a chapel playing loud music.
    

Carax uses interactions between Monsieur Oscar and real people to convey the relationship between art and life, but he also uses more subtle devices.  The cemetery in which the red-bearded terror wreaks havoc to the soundtrack of Godzilla contains gravestones with captions pointing people to their website.  The commentary here pertains to the immortality that art is supposed to give, and the tacky nature of a website on gravestones also jabs at the place of technology in society.  We see the highest achievement in technology in a scene where Monsieur Oscar performs an array of fight stunts in a motion-capture suit, and finally participates in a weird sexual encounter with an unbelievably flexible woman in a similar suit.  We see their encounter in suits as well as morphed into their intended forms: alien-like creatures with extra tentacles writhing around.  So, the most advanced technology is paired with vile alien sex.

   

Little windows into Monsieur Oscar’s actual wishes and experiences shed light onto what Carax may value.  There is a scene where he asks Cherie if he has an appointment in the woods today, because he misses nature.  The closest the actor comes to green space is the cemetery, where his crazed leprechaun character tramples on the dead and ravages the flowers laying on their gravestones.  Besides this, he is in buildings, and parking garages, and cars.

    

Another interesting insight into Monsieur Oscar’s character is his deterioration as the journey wears on.  At one point, the boss man who dictates the appointments comments on how tired Monsieur Oscar seems lately.  The actor also doesn’t eat the entire film, to the dismay of Cherie.

    

The setting moves to different locations around Paris with each scene, but the limousine is the place that Monsieur Oscar returns to after each appointment.  It contains his costumes, makeup, and schedule for the day.  This dressing room acts as a reference to film and drama and the place where an actor mentally prepares for the role he is to play.  
   

A skewed reality is contained in the limousine, and if we take the title of the movie as an indication of his status, we can interpret the immortality and control Monsieur Oscar has during his journey through the day as a parallel to God.  With life and death at his fingertips, and immortality on his side, what does this mean for Monsieur Oscar as an actor?  That the power of art, of music, of drama has a power that is comparable to the almighty man in the sky?  

    

These questions are the ones that Carax instigates.

Directed by Leos Carax

Starring Denis Lavant, Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes

On the Road

Kirsten Dunst and Kristen Stewart didn’t ruin On the Road only because it was adapted poorly in the first place. Kerouac’s book is a meandering tale with no real arc of plot or peak of action, so the movie, which is longer than two hours, didn’t engage the audience or make you care about the characters for more than a few scenes.  
Garrett Hedlund and Sam Riley who play Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, respectively, have great performances however, and I hope to see them in good films in the future.

Directed by Walter Salles

from On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Starring Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart,

Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams

Le Havre

Le Havre is a delightful story of optimism written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki.  Set in French port town Le Havre, the film spins the contemporary immigration problems of France into a sort of realistic fairy tale.

When authorities discover illegal African refugees fresh from a cargo ship, only the young Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) escapes.  Local shoe shiner Marcel Marx (Andre Williams) takes the boy under his care. Marx’s wife, Arletty, falls ill, and while she is in the hospital Marx takes Idrissa into his home.  A local French rock star “Little Bob,” who is in real life a rock n’ roll legend of sorts, agrees to play a show and donate the funds. With the help of Little Bob, neighbors, and a police chief who is not so dedicated to deporting the boy, Marx raises enough money to send Idrissa to his mother in England.  It is in the same day that Marx bids the boy farewell and finds his wife in the hospital, cured.

Pastels and sparse dialogue make for a soft and leisurely film.  In an almost noir style, the classic nature of the scenes goes along perfectly with the French setting, with police and old locals who band together against them.  The contrast of dark-skinned Idrissa and the port town’s light soft colors encourage the climax, when we see the boy carried away on a boat to England.  The pace drifts slowly along, with a break here and there accompanied by increased movement scenes.

With deadpan humor and a happy ending, Aki Kaurismaki manages to construct a heartwarming
film that reaches into human compassion in a classic way. The purposeful nature of the film allowed for optimism to mingle with suspicion and reflection on what it means to help others. Le Havre is a charmer I’ll keep in my collection for when I need a splash of hope.

Coming Soon