Posts Tagged ‘Film’

Tonight I saw the movie ‘Transsiberian’ , directed by Brad Anderson. Transsiberian is his second film and for a second film ‘Transiberian’ is pretty amazing, even though we already knew Anderson was talented from his first film ‘The Machinist’ which I thought was one of the best films of 2005.

Transsiberian has two of my favourite actors in it: Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley. Frankly, I blindly go to any movie that has Ben Kingsley in it. I have never seen him do bad films. He’s one of the most important actors on the screen nowadays and any film he finds good enough to play in I will find good enough to watch.

Transsiberian had me at the edge of my seat for 2 hours. The films script is good, the story is excellent, the actors are top class. Two minor points I didn’t like: a too exaggerated torture scene that seems to have been put in by the demand of producers (‘must have some gore boys’) and I thought the end of the film was somewhat weak. But other than that, far better than ‘Batman’ so if you have to choose try this one, it won’t disappoint. Brad Anderson is one of the most promising directors of his generation.

Yesterday I saw the film ‘Batman, The Dark Knight’, a film that has been praised highly by many as the ‘best film of 2008′ and has a surreal rating of 9.0 on IMDB, and is replacing many film classics on its top 100 list of movies of all times.

Some time ago there was a small but interesting news rapport of a scientific research program that proved children nowadays do not have nightmares about witches and demons anymore but that comic book characters and villains played an important role in their nightmares. This is a very interesting fact which proves that dreams are culturally shaped, and it also proves that the American comic book mythology has high impact on our subconscious mind.

I think the reason we all can’t really let go of the ‘American Dream’ is simple: it’s mythology has nested itself in our genes. The Americans have, so to speak, patented the idea of magic. Whenever we think of Christmas we see a red lighted Coca Cola Truck passing by. By patenting our dreams and our sense of magic the Americans have in fact done a very clever thing: the whole world feels as if America is somehow the centre of its hopes and dreams, which is clearly hogwash but its a superstition almost impossible to get rid of: that is one of the basic characteristics of such propaganda.

The film ‘Batman, the Dark Night’ is a good film in it’s genre, but not much more than that. It’s infact a fully hackneyed film, montaged together out of stolen bits from other films. It’s completely formulaic as all hollywood works are nowadays. To call it ‘one of the best films of all times’ is a big insult to the film industry, even would we limit its scope to Hollywood.

Writer Mark twain once wrote that in writing credibility is everything. Once credibility is thrown out of the window a story simply cannot be good, he said. I think he is right, and I also think the majority of people nowadays simply don’t have any sort of idea any more what a good story actually is. There is not a single part of ‘Batman The Dark Night’ that has any credibility. Of course not, I hear you think, it’s a comic book adaptation. Well, there exactly lies the problem.

‘Batman, the Dark Knight’ reminds me of another rather painful development in our modern day world: that the best of our scientists are busy researching rather uninteresting projects purely because commerce demands it and they lack funding to do anything else. This is exactly what is going on in the film world. The best of its directors are *forced* to make these sort of comic book films, simply because a real film wouldn’t be profitable enough. It’s like seeing someone build a castle with Lego stones as it firmament: one cannot, ever, get around the fact that the basic premise of the story is childish and simplistic – ‘Batman, the Dark Night’ does its best to pretend some literary depth, especially towards the end, but the fact is that if the basis of a story is a childish fairytale you can be as eloquent as you want, but somehow that basis will always shine through.

There simply are no adult films any more. We are getting into a situation where Batman and Harry Potter films will soon be the only sort of films available, at least in the cinemas, and we see a bunch of critics lauding them like they would be classic literature. I think that is a scary development, that fits perfectly to the major developments in our world nowadays: its the propagandistic caricaturisation of our cultures. We don’t have real people as presidents any more, we have flat marketing concepts: the war hero, the Negro, the woman. It’s an attempt to hijack elections by product placement. ‘Batman, the Dark Knight’ is an attempt to hijack literature by postulating it would no longer be necessary: its enough to cut and paste strong lines and themes from other movies to have a ‘script’ nowadays, all that matters is the *suggestion* of literature rather than literature itself.

But as the major public seems content with this approach we can expect more of the same for many years to come. Having ones children dream about comic book villains might even have some advantage: it’s easier to dispel the Joker than it is to dispel an evil witch. All one has to do is flap ones wings and beat him. The New dark Batman, no longer a gentleman: is this supposed to prepare us for the next US president?

I saw My Winnipeg this evening, directed by the beloved Guy Maddin.� Tales from the Gimli Hospital is one of my favorite films, and I’m pretty much a fan of everything he’s made.� I’ve seen My Winnipeg touted as a documentary, but I think Maddin’s description of it as a “docu-fantasia” is much more appropriate.� I don’t want to give away anything but there are some stunning moments in this film (the horses being one of my favorite parts).� Maddin skillfully and inventively blurs childhood/personal myth and metaphor with surrealist imagery, using his signature black and white style.� The use of Maddin’s childhood video and photographs make this tale even more emotional and convincing.� This is one of the best films I have seen in a while.� Go. Now. Yes dammit.