Imitation of Life

A B-list 80s popstar introduced the movie: "It's fabulous...But...Someone should just slap Sandra Dee." And how.

Douglas Sirk's 1959 masterpiece, Imitation of Life, the only one of his films to make significant money, is the melodrama to end all melodramas. But wait! It is not just a melodrama--that would be far too easy. It's a melodrama with the extra special Sirk bonus of biting social commentary: Race and Money and Sex, oh my! Perhaps the most interesting element of the commentary is the very meta commentary on the nature of cinema, especially in context of race (see Lana Turner's Scarlett O'Hara comment towards the end of the movie, for example).

The plot? Very broadly, it concerns a rising star (Turner), her daughter, her black maid, and the maid's light-skinned daughter. Lora, the Turner character, of course does all of the things that any rising star must do in the movies; her maid, Annie, looks after 'Miss Lora'; Sarah-Jane, the maid's daughter, rebels, pretends to be white, becomes a burlesque dancer; Sandra Dee whines a lot and wears ugly clothes. And it's brilliant.

Furthermore, vicious fight scenes overwhelmed by sinister jazz scores and funerals with casts of hundreds really must make a comeback.
 

The Return

Dear Filmmakers of Russia: Is it impossible for Russia to produce a non-symbolic film? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm as big a slavophile as the next girl, but people, lighten up on the overbearing "mysterious" symbolism. It's alright to move on from Tarkovsky, really it is. I wouldn't judge you if you just wanted to make a little romantic comedy, a cheesy romp through Petersburg. It could have your bad Russian pop songs, and a culminating romantic episode at, say, a park along the Neva. It could be about a boy falling in love with a girl, and there would be no drawn out metaphors for the state, or intense psychoanalytic character studies. Wouldn't it be nice to see the fun side of Russia once in awhile?

Apparently not so much. I fear that it is actually impossible for any Russian film, at least those released in the United States, to not be metaphorical in every imaginable sense. Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return, which opened stateside months ago, is no exception to this rule. The movie concerns a father, missing for twelve years, who suddenly comes back to take his two children with him on a "fishing" excursion through the Russian countryside. Gee, this doesn't seem like it will inevitably end in disaster at all.

There is limited dialogue in the movie, and very limited character development--it's largely about watching the interactions of confined characters (an interesting setup, certainly). Visually, the film is lovely, its palette largely composed of tones of slate blue, dark greens, and slightly overexposed film. I'm unclear on whether or not it was shot on DV, but it has a spectacularly grainy quality to the film that, at least in this circumstance, I very much appreciate.

The problem? The movie makes no sense. It's one of those movies that seems enamored with its ability to drop red herrings (or possibly even real clues) and not pick them up again later. Why not pick them up again later? It's because nothing matters in this movie; the actions are fairly inconsequential because the movie is little more than a veiled allegory told as a simplistic fairy tale. Despite the fact that I know virtually nothing about this movie, I remain convinced that the entire plot is an allegory for the Russian state post-Communism. This is why the film cares so little about piecing together its clues--it is about a mood thrown over the country, not about minute details.

More problematic, perhaps, is the composition of the film. It becomes at times overcomposed to the extreme. Incredibly long, lingering, perfectly aligned shots dominate the film. They're beautiful to look at it, but they do little to further the plot, and at their worst, prove to be distracting to the overall mood. And for a movie set in the chaos of the lonely wildnerness, the composition is too formal and mannered to truly work as it should.

I have no problem with the symbolic, or the making of allegorical films. It just seems as though the director of The Return had a beautiful vision (and very talented cinematographer) and decided it would be convenient for him to make it super duper mysterious while he was at it. That I find annoying; that is my problem with the film. It tries far too hard to place itself in some sort of national cinematic tradition, and in doing so , creates a very stilted vision of what it attempts to show (whether that is actually Russia, or simply the story of a father and his sons).  

Fahrenheit 9/11

Sitting in England, on the 4th of July, I suddenly had a brilliant idea. "Let's go to an advance screening of Fahrenheit 9/11," I say to my hapless companions. Cut to three hours later. We stand outside of a large (and packed) movie house, looking forlorn. "Huh. Well, that was...uh...ill advised." Nothing says celebration of patriotism like a good anti-government polemic, right? Right.

There is little for me to say about Moore's Palme d'Or winning documentary that hasn't already been said. He's a far better polemicist than an actual filmmaker; he too often goes for the cheap shot--god forbid he actually piece together a subtle sequence. Of course, this serves a purpose of its own; it is, after all, easier to win over an audience when you've been tugging on their heart strings. He has overly overt, often ill-chosen music sequences. He burdens the film with too many misplaced montages (i.e. the entirely inappropriate mocking of the small world nations composing the "Coalition of the Willing"--right, they smoke pot in Holland and have natives in Iceland, the point being?). Worse, he is an entirely poor interviewer, simpering to those he likes, abrupt to those he doesn't.

It is interesting that Moore mentions very little about the Democratic party. They owe him for that. He easily could have snuck in cruel jabs at the incompetence of Democratic leadership, or their submission to the whims of the ruling party. Instead, he sharpens the focus on key administration officials and the everyday people who are faced with the consequences of government decisions regarding the war in Iraq. Besides, the sheer mortifying picture he paints of White House incompetence overshadows most mentions of Congress altogether.

The movie's best sequences are those where Moore fades away, where the viewer is left simply with moments of sorrow (or, as is more often the case, sheer stupidity on the part of Bush administration officials). These are the moments where Moore most succeeds, and their cumulative impact is literally like being punched.

I don't know that the movie is particularly good--as a movie. The decision to reward it the Palme d'Or at Cannes remains vaguely questionable to me, without having seen the other contending films. Still, in all honesty, I have not been this moved by a movie in ages. It made me so humiliated and angry, but propelled me to want to fight, even more so than I had felt before, and, most surprisingly, was the entirely appropriate way to spend Independence Day. I mean, where else in the world could you so harshly attack the government and still have the number one movie in the country?

Also? I've said it before, but the Weinsteins are marketing and distributing geniuses. I idolize them.  

July Movie Preview

So I really only saw two new releases in June, which makes me vaguely sad...vaguely. But ta da! It's July! A whole new month of movies to get excited about, to go run off with your little friends to see. Maybe you'll even get popcorn. And maybe, at the very end of the month, I'll get to catch up on everything you saw before me. But until then, a preview.

July 2: Before Sunset. Richard Linklater's sequel to Before Sunrise, starring the original's Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and ostensibly about the same characters ten years later. The trailer makes it look largely the same as the first movie except Ethan Hawke looks haggard, which seems problematic, given that the first movie was largely based on the attractiveness of its two stars. Alas. The ravages of cheating on Uma, I suppose.

July 9: Anchorman. Will Ferrell is a god. If you think that I say this in jest, you have not yet experienced the Anchorman trailer (or Zoolander for that matter). Red polyester suits and hairsprayed hair galore! And it has Paul Rudd! Still not convinced? The trailer also has an anchorman knife fight complete with Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson. Genius!

July 16: A Cinderella Story. MK Olsen is in rehab for an eating disorder (riiight...that's what it is), Lindsay Lohan has fake boobs (I mean, uh, sure they're real Lindsay) and skin the color of an Oompa Loompa, and Mandy Moore is too old. Where do we go for our fill of teen queens??!! Clearly the only options are the fat Olsen or back to good ol' saccharine sweet Hilary Duff. Remember: When you go to see this movie, you are supporting Hilary Duff, and allowing her to usurp the Lindsay quotient. Do with that what you will, but I think I may just learn to live with an orange teen queen.

July 23: Catwoman. It was thought that the Batman series could not get any worse after the last two (poor Chris O'Donnell...where did you go), but the makers of Catwoman apparently decided to take this statement as a challenge. Judging by the trailer, they can get worse! Admittedly this movie is not about the Dark Knight himself, but close enough. It's not like I particularly like Halle Berry to begin with, but couldn't she do better than this? And the costumes? What exactly were they thinking? Catwoman: The S&M years.

July 30: The Village. For the record, I thought Signs sucked. Actually, in retrospect, I largely think that all of M. Night Shyamalan's movies are a bit lackluster. So, am I looking forward to this one? Nope, not at all, except because of the damn trailer, I now feel compelled to see it. What's beyond the village, huh??? I need to know. Maybe I can just find out on Google. But if not, I'll have been suckered in by the insufferable advertising. Grrr. But for all of you rabid connoisseurs of all things Yale, Fran Kranz does appear in this film--or at the least, has an IMDb listing for it.