Category Archives: Review
The Journey of A Lifetime: One Week, A Review
What would you do if you knew you only had one week to live?
By Maggie Tiojakin
Michael McGowan’s latest feature, titled—tada!—“One Week”, talks about last chances and roads not taken. First released at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2008, the film found its way in theatres across North America some time in March of the following year. It became an immediate box-office flop, one which Hollywood-fed audiences liked to recognize as “that Canadian movie with the guy from Dawson’s Creek in it.”
For those of you who are either too young or too old to remember Warner Brother’s popular teen drama, “Dawson’s Creek”, back in the late 90’s—it might be helpful to remind you that Joshua Jackson did not play Dawson in the series. No, no, he was better than that. He played Dawson’s sidekick-turned-nemesis named Pacey Witter, an angry teenager with a humorous take on life who was supposed to be part James Dean and part Jerry Lewis. Someone who can be funny and tragic at the same time, which, ironically, is something Jackson does very, very well.
But we’ll get to Jackson later. For now, let’s talk about “One Week”—a 94-minute road movie written and directed by the man who brought us “Saint Ralph” (2004) and “My Dog Vincent” (1998), Michael McGowan.
Throughout his filmmaking career, McGowan is known to be the kind of director who lingers on the aesthetics, screen shots that evoke poetry out of shapes and colors, as well as close-ups that reveal inner truths from his characters. Though, unlike his Hollywood contemporaries, McGowan is the kind of filmmaker who treads upon uncharted territories by way of staggering clichés.
“One Week” is a road movie suffused with road songs melancholy enough to bring anyone with an adventurous spirit to tears. It opens in a doctor’s office, where an elementary school English teacher as well as aspiring novelist, Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson), receives news of a stage four cancer eating away at his body. The doctor gives him two years, at most. And the first thing that crosses Tyler’s mind is: he should call off the wedding.
Ben Tyler is engaged to a woman named Samantha Pierce, played by Liane Balaban, who manages to look bored and disinterested throughout the entire film. He comes from what seems to be a moderately happy family. And the only psychological scar he has to show is a rude remark from a fourth grade teacher who allegedly shot down his dream of ever going to Broadway to sing musical numbers from HMS Pinafore.
The rest of the film is navigated by Tyler’s cross-country trip as he reminisces back toward the life he had before, with Sam, with his family, with his students, with himself—and he is sick of them all. Each passing mile brings forth a new revelation, including a stay in a presidential suite in rural Alberta and an unprotected sex in the middle of a Canadian wilderness with a girl who likes to sing the national anthem in French. The next morning, Tyler wakes up invigorated, free, alive. Who wouldn’t?
However, just as it is with Tyler’s cancer, “One Week” fails to resonate in parts where it has the opportunity to kick us all out of our daze and straight into the rough realm of reality. Time is running. Dance like there’s no tomorrow. Live your life to the fullest. Instead of reeling from the illness, Jackson’s character is healthier than ever, save for the occasional bouts of sleepiness and vomitting from alcohol.
The movie, in turn, lingers and savors each pointless encounter until the audience is left buoyed by rolling hills and stretched horizons and open roads. It’s “Motorcycle Diaries” without the ideology of Che Guevara, “Wit” without the gut-pulling loneliness, and “My Life Without Me” without the heart-wrenching drama. It’s a movie not yet finished, whose 94-minute run hopefully promises extra extended scenes (on DVD) – and one where the use of clichés is as fundamental as it is detrimental.
Nevertheless, even if the film had been less than entertaining, tickets would have still sold well above average just because Joshua Jackson looks good in a leather jacket. He does, really. One might even think of him as the younger version of Hollywood magnet, George Clooney. The jaws, the brooding-humorous quality in their personas, not to mention their overall bad-boy appeal. Given the right publicist, Joshua Jackson will be tomorrow’s George Clooney. But first he needs to take advanced acting lessons.
The problem with actors who do well on TV isn’t so much that they are confined to specific roles, it is that they are often unable to take themselves out of the medium that had become, for a while, a part of their intrinsic built. And it doesn’t just happen to the less fortunate of the group, it happes to nearly ALL of them.
Look at the cast of Friends, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, or That 70’s Show. Save for a selected few—Jennifer Aniston, Ashton Kutcher, etc.—most of the actors are unable to graduate to the big screen, which explains why they often end up taking lead roles in independent (read: smaller) films.
Before “One Week”, other less-than-notable performances by Jackson include a list of movies that were produced straight to videos, such as “Americano” (with Harvey Keitel) and “Lone Star State of Mind” (with Donald Sutherland and Juliette Lewis).
Today, Jackson has returned to the familiar pattern of studio sets and grueling hours. “Fringe” is a sci-fi TV series birthed by J.J. Abrams, the co-creator of successful franchises like Felicity, Alias, and Lost.
Here, Jackson plays Peter Bishop, a genius with an IQ of 190 who likes to gamble. Again, he plays an angry character with a lot of potential and too much time on his hands. (Pacey, is that you?) At least, on “Fringe”, he makes better use of his time by solving cases that had once populated mainstream sci-fi series like X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and Buffy.
Wandering minds wonder, though, what would Peter Bishop’s answer be when asked what he would do if he knew he had only one week to live?
Unfortunately, one would never know. But what we do know, he wouldn’t have spent it watching “One Week”—though he might just buy the soundtrack, download it to his iPod, and take up a cross-country ride on his bike. Just like Ben Tyler.
Vrooom! Vrooom!
Copyright © 2010. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
Joe Hill’s Ghosts, A Triumph
I’m not a fan of horror entertainment, whatever the form – books, films, music, comics, drawings, what have you. I can do a little bit of thriller, and a little bit more of suspense – but with horror, I rest my case. There’s Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and then there’s Stephen King’s version of the film; there’s Hell Raiser, or which I’d like to call “the creepy bald man with pins stuck to his head”; there’s Carrie, also the fruit of King’s imaginings; and then there’s IT, arguably the scariest clown I’ve ever seen (both on TV, and off). I detest horror entertainment – because it often looks to attract my attention by doing some cheap tricks, and tapping into my innermost, animal-like fear of the unknown. Or fear of the grotesque. Same difference.
The only horror film I did see was Child’s Play, and that was because Chucky – the dol with the voice, the smirk and grin and evil laugh – does funny and scary at the same time! It kills and it makes jokes, and between Child’s Play and Child’s Play 3 there’s enough of both that I had no problem getting myself through the trilogy. Then, of course, Chucky’s Bride came out, followed by Seed of Chucky – and that was the end of my affair with the doll. Mock-horror entertainment is worse than horror, for reasons I think you KNOW.
So it was with much trepidations that I picked up Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts from the shelf at the local bookstore which had, at the time, been having 50%-off Christmas Sale. Never mind the fact that Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. Never mind the fact that Joe Hill has won Bram Stoker Award twice. Never mind the fact that Joe Hill is making headlines everywhere. In the world of horror writers, Joe Hill is the equivalent to … I’m going to say Jhumpa Lahiri. Not because I love Ms. Lahiri’s work – but he is, in fact, that widely respected and unexpectedly good at what he does.
Just the other day I had retold at least FIVE of the stories included in Joe Hill’s debut short story collection which I found to be a mix of disturbing, haunting, heart-warming, and engaging. They are, as I recall them: Best New Horror, Pop Art, Last Breath, The Black Phone, and The Cape.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the rest of the collection isn’t any good. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Because, each of the story in Mr. Hill’s debut collection is perfectly executed. He not only has an ear for human dialog, he also has an ear for narrative rhythm – and that’s RARE among writers, let alone HORROR writers.
To tell you my impression of his individual stories would be to spoil the stories themselves, so I’m not going to do that. And I refuse to lavish on my praise, because everyone else has done exactly that – therefore to add to that would make him … oh, I don’t know, overexposed?
There’s hunger in his writing. Just as there was hunger in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. And I hope there’s going to be hunger in his next collection – because I’m going to devour that too. Happily. Though I still have two stories left in 20th Century Ghosts.
It’s not that I read slow. I just can’t bear to end the book. It’s THAT good.
Have a read – your world won’t be the same!
Copyright. 2010. Maggie Tiojakin.
DVD: Personal Velocity (And Parker Posey!)
I saw ‘Personal Velocity’ for the first time some seven years ago, when it had a limited release in selected theatres across the United States. I even remember the day I had gone to see the film: it was the beginning of winter and the sun was already retreating from the sky at three-thirty in the afternoon. Fresh out of my American Drama class; I figured I could use some entertainment. So I went to the nearest theatre and treated myself to a movie and a warm bucket of popcorn.
To be frank, what I really wanted to see that day was another James Bond installment, ‘Die Another Day’, featuring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry—but as most James Bonds’ film releases go, this one was also packed to the last seats. Besides, I had already promised someone (a Bond fanatic) that I would see it with her. Therefore, between ‘The Quiet American’ and ‘The Emperor’s Club’—I chose ‘Personal Velocity’: simply because Parker Posey, whose performance in Nora Ephron’s ‘You’ve Got Mail’ (1997) I had thoroughly enjoyed, was playing one of the three female leads.
Written and Directed by Rebecca Miller, daughter of the legendary playwright, Arthur Miller, ‘Personal Velocity’ is the film adaptation of Ms. Miller’s prose works of the same title. Packaged in an economical duration of 86 minutes, the film captures a major turning point in the lives of three women: Delia, Greta, and Paula.
These portraits—though presented separately, both in style and setting—are like pieces of a mosaic art where each contributes a unique combination of color and pattern. And Ms. Miller’s prose is haunting, in the similar way that poetry—at its best—often reaches deep into the chambers of our hearts and retracts from them bits and pieces of an imperfect soul. In this way, Ms. Miller’s decision to have someone narrate to the audience the stories of her characters is by and large a nice complimentary, without which the unifying thread among the three stories may actually be lost and thus renders the film commonplace.
Seven years ago, upon leaving the theatre and walking the long way back to my apartment, the film left beautiful imprints in my head that consisted of, largely, photographic shots embedded in Ms. Miller’s masterpiece. Though the film setting was summer-ish, the way the images lingered and toned had winter splashed all over it. ‘Personal Velocity’ is a powerful film—because in itself it has perfected the craft where art imitates life: so much that after 86 minutes, you feel as though you’ve heard some friend tell you a story about his or her neighbor. Even better, each piece has the accomplishment of a short story that may as well have been written by Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver, or Alice Munro.
No doubt, ‘Personal Velocity’ puts Ms. Miller exactly where she belongs, in the revolving world of independent films that mostly deal with real-life drama—and who better formulate this than herself, the daughter of Arthur Miller, whose penchant for setting an American Drama has garnered him the reputation as one of the most important playwrights in the history of American theatre? (Think ‘The Crucible’, ‘Death of A Salesman’, and ‘All My Sons’) Though little of what she pursues afterwards prove to be as successful as ‘Personal Velocity’. Ms. Miller’s recent films include ‘The Ballad of Jack and Rose’, 2005, starring her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis; with the latest release titled ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’, 2009, adapted from her novel of the same name.
Even so, I would recommend both ‘The Ballad of Jack and Rose’ and ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’—only if you’re the kind of filmgoer who doesn’t mind length in speech and lull in thoughts. This is not to say her films are boring: but for someone whose list of must-see films consist of mostly action, horror or futuristic flicks—Ms. Miller’s work may be … painful to watch. And if you’re the kind of person who is able to find beauty in the midst of chaos: rent or buy ‘Personal Velocity’ now. If anything, you’ll get to watch the brilliance of Parker Posey’s performance as she portrays her neurotic character (Greta) slowly falling into the abyss of her own creation.
(OK, notice how I barely mentioned the two other leading stars—Kyra Sedgwick and Fairuza Balk? Well, um, I’m really using this note to pay a tribute to the Queen of Indie Films: Parker Posey! There, I said it: Ha-ha!)
Seriously, though, the film is very, very, very good. You’d love it.
PERSONAL VELOCITY Written and directed by Rebecca Miller, based on her book of short stories; director of photography, Ellen Kuras; edited by Sabine Hoffman; music by Michael Rohatyn; production designer, Judy Becker; produced by Lemore Syvan, Gary Winick and Alexis Alexanian; released by United Artists. Running time: 86 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: John Ventimiglia (Narrator). Delia segment: Kyra Sedgwick (Delia) and Nicole Murphy (May Wurtzle). Greta segment: Parker Posey (Greta), Tim Guinee (Lee) and Ron Liebman (Avram). Paula segment: Fairuza Balk (Paula) and Seth Gilliam (Vincent).
DVD: Tokyo Sonata
Most of the time, I fail to understand Japanese films: and I have always believed that I owe it to the fact that my IQ and their IQ are on a different level altogether. There’s too much discrepancy. I can never measure up. So, when I do pick up a Japanese film, it is usually out of curiosity for the melancholic title, or out of respect and adoration for the Japanese-Taiwanese actor, Takeshi Kaneshiro. However, having Takeshi act a certain role doesn’t always help, either: and I always tell myself that it doesn’t matter what I do—I will never, and I mean, ever, measure up to the IQ level of the Japanese.
But then Departure, a 2008 film by Yojiro Takita, won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. And I thought I’d give that one a try. The premise is quite interesting: a professional cellist goes back to his hometown and works as a make-up artist for the dead. Or something like that. I was certain, somehow, that I would be able to understand the sentiments relayed in that film. I imagined it would be a comedic ride from start to finish, with some dark humor smeared across the scenes, enough to get you to think about all the awful things in life, but too mild to leave you hanging at the end of the film. This is another thing about Japanese films: most of them leave you with a sense of hopelessness, as though—five minutes before the end credits roll—the director is handing you a rope to hang yourself with. Nevertheless, I didn’t get this sense from Departure, at least from the film synopsis and reviews I’ve read in countless online publications. I was left with the feeling that Departure is as much a film about extraordinary struggles in an ordinary life as any other indie films around the world. And I love, love, love indie films. The ones that make you think and reflect: the ones that tell you to go to hell if you ever complain and say that you are dealt the worst card in life, and therefore you, more than anyone else, deserve to be pitied. Essentially, the ones that give you (and those Hollywood blockbusters) the finger.
Yet by the time I got to the DVD store, the female clerk told me to check out another Japanese film I might like: Tokyo Sonata, also a 2008 film, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I didn’t think twice, and I bought them both. I loved the titles. I loved what the titles spoke to me. I don’t know why. But when I got home, I didn’t immediately pop them into the DVD player—I tossed them in a box full of unwatched DVDs. Those I bought based on instincts, to keep the quiet bugs away.
A year went by.
This morning, I had some time to kill. I was debating on whether it would be best for me to go straight to my desk and write, or for me to stimulate my brain by watching a depressing film. It’s strange: but depressing stories do stimulate my inner-writer. I wanted to start with Departure, but something about the cover turned me off. I was not in the mood to deal with dead bodies. Underneath that film, was a copy of Tokyo Sonata. The cover depicted a family scene at an empty dinner table, surrounded by whiteness, where all the family members sit and are trapped in their own worlds, disconnected from one another, detached from the world.
The film is exactly 120 minutes long. Two hours. It feels like a lifetime. In a good way, though. I didn’t fall in love with it, at least not the way I fell for Igby Goes Down, The Many Lives of Pippa Lee, A Raisin In The Sun, Thirteen, or We Don’t Live Here Anymore. Instead, what I felt for ‘Tokyo Sonata’ was entirely self-recriminating. It reminded me of two other movies that generated for me a similar sentiment: Closer, and Notes On A Scandal. They were both difficult to watch, but there is truth in each of them that kept me glued to the screen, to the characters, to the story. And the truth is … none of us is perfect, and in a way … we’re all bound to hurt one another—even when we mean well, or especially when we mean well.
‘Tokyo Sonata’ begins with a family and ends with a family. However, it begins with a normal portrait of a solid Japanese family—a hard-working husband, a restless teenager, a child prodigy, and a dutiful wife. It’s not a perfect family, but it’s a family you can root for—if you get to know it better. Right from the start, I had a sense that the family is too fragile, and that it would easily be fractured by a single blow. They are separate components drawn to a single dwelling—and there’s nothing to keep them together other than tradition, because they have to. Then, the husband loses his job, and therefore his pride as a husband, as the head of the household. This ignites several issues within the family, most of them related to the husband’s ego and pride. His ‘authority’—as he puts it.
“Screw your authority,” says the wife, when she finds out he’s been unemployed and taken his frustration onto the children. And he stands there, motionless, watching her go.
At some point, their eldest son, who decides to join America in a battle against terror, asks his mother: “Why don’t you get a divorce? You’re still OK, you know.”
And the mother says, “It’s not that easy. It’s complicated.”
At this juncture in the film, I felt drawn in to the wife’s character more than anyone else in the film. She is the only one holding the household together, trying not to fall apart, hopelessly expecting for things to go back to the way they once were.
“How wonderful would it be if my life thus far had been a dream,” she mutters inside a dilapidated shack next to a robber-slash-instant-lover who hours ago had threatened to kill her. “To wake up and realize I am somebody else. To start over.”
While, somewhere on a street curb, with his head against a pile of fallen leaves, the husband, dressed in an orange jumpsuit that is the uniform of janitors at the mall where he now works for $8.50 an hour, repeatedly chants: “I want to start over, I want to start over.”
Of course, I’m not doing the film any justice by writing this note. The scenes I’ve described here are too little compared to the rich layers of emotions embedded in the 2-hour run. The story flows beautifully, and—amidst the tragic unraveling of a fractured family—it keeps the audience guessing, believing, wanting for an end to the tragic events that seems to never come.
I suppose, what I like about ‘Tokyo Sonata’ is the fact that it has succeeded in depicting something so horrible and grotesque in the lives of a few individuals without so much as inserting a gruesome scene, or a lewd language, or an unnecessary hyperbole which other films are too easy to fall into.
At the end of the film, I stare at the screen for a long time: watching the end credits roll. Oddly, I don’t feel suicidal. I have just watched a family of good means and standing crumbles into pieces, and then have them pick up the pieces with as much resentment as there is hope for a better tomorrow. All I can think of, at the end of it, is how I too long to start over—and how I often think to myself that maybe it would be wonderful to wake up as somebody else.
“You’re the only one who can be you,” says the wife to the grieving robber-slash-instant-lover. “That’s all we have to hold on to.”
I’m not wild about befriending people who had had us at gunpoint, but there’s something generous and a bit of an escapist in the life of a dutiful wife who has wanted, needed, demanded nothing than a peaceful household since the day she got married. And then this happens, and she is forced to discover her individuality, her inner strength, the woman inside her that is neither a wife, nor a mother.
And that’s beautiful.
For once, I realize that it doesn’t matter if our IQ levels were at such a gaping discrepancy: in this life, we seem to be battling the same demons.
Tokyo Sonata
Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Max Mannix, Sachiko Tanaka
Starring: Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi, Yu Koyanagi, Inowaki Kai, Haruka Igawa, Kanji Tsuda, Koji Yakusho, Kazuya Kojima
Release Date: Japan, September 27 2008
Running time: 120 mins.
Budget: $2.5 million
BASS 2005
I used to think that short story collections, by default, are a good thing. I still do sometimes. Because where a novel offers one life, one story, one battle; a short story collection offers a variety of universes packed in a single bind. Surely, out of the five, ten, fifteen stories featured in a single collection — I would find, at least, ONE STORY that I like.
Well, I wish it were the case.
Short story collections are very tricky: you can’t tell whether a short story collection is good or bad by reading review-like ‘comments’ on the jacket, and neither can you tell whether the writer is worth listening to by listing his or her credentials. When it comes to crafting short stories: you either have it, or you don’t. There’s no in-between.
And the best collection of short stories often includes a list of authors both known and unknown, those who stand in the spotlight, and those whose names escape us from time to time.
In order for a collection to work, it has to call forth an assembly of men and women who are more than willing to share with us their downfalls, their upturns, and everything else that comes before and after.
And nothing does it better than the Best American Short Stories (BASS) collection. Every year, a BASS collection is published, featuring new and old writers, those who give us the best and worst of life in a few pages, while either satiated with their given reputation, or still too hungry to settle for anything less than greatness. Without fail, BASS continues to challenge the way we perceive a story, and the way we process its making.
Recently, I had just finished reading BASS 2005. Curious as to whether I would actually like the whole collection, I made it a point to mark every story I read with a plus or minus sign. Plus stands for “love it”, and minus … the opposite.
I also started reading the stories in order, as presented on the ‘Contents’ page, making sure to miss nothing along the way. I was not hopscotching through the stories, I was dutifully reading it back to back, from front-to-cover, with hope that it would give me a better idea of how the stories were first assembled.
Then, after finishing up on each story, I would flip to the back page, where each author wrote a little bit about the stories, how they came to the idea for the story, and what message they wanted to relay to the readers, or themselves. I would subconsciously try to match my take on the story with what they had initially wanted to convey: and this does not always end in mutual agreement — which, I think, is okay. Readers and authors don’t have to agree on everything, they just have to show up, page after page.
Anyway. I love every story featured in this collection. All pluses, and no minuses. Each story brings me to a world not unlike my own, inhabited by people I feel familiar with, living lives that are hauntingly similar to the ones I’ve come across.
Several highlights are: The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face by Tom Perrotta, First Four Measures by Nathaniel Bellows, Natasha by David Bezmozgis, Anda’s Game by Cory Doctorow, and Until Gwen by Dennis Lehane.
You’ll be transported to several different worlds, but you’ll know each of them like the back of your hand. You’ll laugh, cry, grin, and scream as if these lives, fictional though they may be, have been yours.
Guest edited by Michael Chabon, BASS 2005 is one collection I know I’ll revisit again and again. Did I expect to get blown away by ONE story? Well, tough luck. They had me at TWENTY STORIES.
Happy reading!
Cinematix: Knowing
The option came down to Watchmen and Knowing—neither of which was particularly appealing to me; but that day being the last day of the weekend, and I had not been to the theatre in almost three months, plus the fact that my friend and I had nothing else to do (on a Sunday afternoon, no less): we insisted on going, anyway.
Not a fan of DC Comics, it was clear that we were going for Knowing: and our quick survey on YouTube only gave us assurance that that was what we wanted to see. And, while on the net, we also checked Wikipedia to look at how each film did on their opening weekends: $24 million for Knowing, and $55 million for Watchmen—but, then, Geoff Boucher of the LA Times wrote a scathing review that said, “[Watchmen is] nothing less than the boldest popcorn movie ever made. Snyder somehow managed to get a major studio to make a movie with no stars, no ‘name’ superheroes and a hard R-rating, thanks to all those broken bones, that oddly off-putting Owl Ship sex scene and, of course, the unforgettable glowing blue penis.” Of course, Knowing was no better, with A.O. Scott of the NY Times categorizing the film as a “draggy, lurching two hours [film that] will make you long for the end of the world, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered.” Still, Knowing exudes the aura of some kind of apocalyptic fun whileWatchmen hinges on boring superhero tales.
It’s a widely embraced fact that, even in Hollywood, good movies are hard to come by—though, ultimately, what matters is not quality, and instead its evil twin sister: hype. And when it comes to hype, you can’t get any better (or fiercer) than films that expose its viewers to otherworldly situations where superheroes thrive upon alienation and crazy scientists win the day with their cunning, yet most often ridiculous, theorems. Especially, when such scientist is played by actor Nicolas Cage, whose jumping-running-screaming sequences have become worldwide icons since Con Air.
Nicolas Cage is, no doubt, a man of many talents. For those of you who are not aware of his lineage, Cage may come off as one of those actors who triumph and struggle all on his own, with not a penny to his name. Like the characters he portrays, Cage has that odd look about him which disconcerts even the most stoic personality. He can be funny, but weird funny; handsome, but with an all-too-familiar streak; charming, but off-putting—basically, that nextdoor neighbor who you always forget to invite to dinner, yet who won’t surprise you when he ends up saving the world.
However, the world of Alex Proyas—an Australian director who gave us Dark City and I-Robot—is one that appears normal for the first twenty-five minutes, before it plunges into a dark and cynical underworld. Almost all of Proyas’s films deal with issues of alienation, of things not being what they seem, of anger and confusion stirring and coexisting harmoniously, or maliciously, beneath calm waters. He pushes us so far toward the edge of our conscious world until we are no longer able to prevent our subsequent fall into the unconscious, where a different kind of reality takes hold and offers us a glimpse of a future ruined by our own deeds; or one where the past and present collide into a philosophical wreck: a man investigates a city brimming with observing aliens who feed on human identities (Dark City) and a detective works on a murder case in a world where robots rule (I-Robot). Known to many as mostly a “sci-fi guy”, Proyas is obsessed with external forces stemming from outside of our human environment and threatening to change the face of humanity as we know it—whether it be through alien invasion, robotic invention, or global disaster.
Apocalyptic scenarios are nothing new. Stanley Kubrick pioneered the development of science fiction as a genre in filmmaking, notably when he created 2001: A Space Odyssey, which applied—to its full extent—the involvement and evolution of artificial intelligence, technology, and extraterrestrial life in their correlation to the human world. Since then, filmmakers around the world have been drawn to interpret the future as an exciting, but nonetheless destructive, realm where our collective fears emerge as a primary threat against our human existence. And, speaking of current collective fears: terrorist attacks and global warming are among the top contenders.
Proyas’s Knowing gives away the premise of a nearing doomsday propelled by the discovery of a list of numbers written by an elementary school student in 1959 Lexington, Massachusetts. The numbers, as astrophysicist John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) discovers, lead to a child’s prophetic visions of global disasters which have taken place in the last fifty years—with the final three looming large, in sequential order: a plane crashes to the ground, killing 82; a subway goes derailed, killing 142; and a massive solar flare, killing “everyone else” … with the exception of Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury) and Abby Wayland (Lara Robinson)—who are ‘chosen’ by black-eyed, blond-haired, milk-white men referred to as the ‘Whisperers’ to continue their race on a desolate planet flushed with green grass while the earth is blazed to bits.
The film’s trailer, shown months earlier, heavily focuses on the list, as Cage’s Koestler runs from scene to scene in a frantic effort to understand the prophecy, while his astronomist friend, Phil Beckman (Ben Mendelshon), relentlessly advises him to “stay out of it.” Every scientist needs a skeptical sidekick, who is meant to represent the audience’s sentiment, if not share their disbelief—but Mendelshon, an Australian actor, seems to have difficulty believing in the story’s plot, so much that he fakes his way through the entire film: with a frown.
On the same note, Canterbury—who was last seen playing the younger version of Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button—delivers a subliminal performance that underplays his talent as a rising child-actor on the path to become the next (and male counterpart of) Dakota Fanning. But it doesn’t mean the 11-year-old Texan doesn’t try to be better in this film, because Canterbury’s Caleb is as charming as he is persistent to find the answer to the plight his father senses to be imminent. At a glance, Canterbury gently reminds the audience of Haley Joel Osment—once Hollywood’s child prodigy and one of the youngest actors to have been nominated for an Academy Award—except he lacks Osment’s sensitive and brooding qualities, which M. Night Shyamalan honed to perfection in Sixth Sense. Thus, it is largely Proyas’s loss (more than the audience’s) to leave such a fresh spring of talent untapped where the film needs it most.
Nevertheless, the real talent in the film is none other than Nicolas Cage, otherwise known as Nicolas Kim Coppola. The nephew of an Academy Award-winning filmmaker—Francis Ford Coppola—Cage’s clout is as intimidating as it gets in the industry, though he deserves to be commended for severing any familial ties he may have with the Coppolas, even if it is merely on the surface.
Perhaps because he asserts himself less as a Coppola; at the beginning of his career, Cage showed an incredible commitment to his chosen profession by opting for offbeat productions which provided him with challenging roles that later garnered him multiple nominations at the Oscars. Earlier roles like the ones in Raising Arizona, where he plays a second-class criminal alongside Holly Hunter; or Moonstruck, where he plays Cher’s passionate love interest are inimitable signatures of Cage at his most raw (and perhaps second to best) acting period. But it wasn’t until he landed himself on the Academy Award-winning role of a helpless alcoholic next to Elizabeth Shue in Mike Figgis’s Leaving Las Vegas that he finally received the recognition he had yearned for since he began his career at the age of sixteen.
From then on, he became one of Hollywood’s darlings: sharing the same limelight with other leading men of his generation, notably John Cusack and Kevin Spacey—and the next few years proved to be some of his most productive. After Leaving Las Vegas, Cage found himself thrown into the big league, caught in an acting tango with screen legends, as well as formidable leading ladies: Sean Connery (The Rock); John Travolta (Face/Off); Meg Ryan (City of Angels); and Angelina Jolie (Gone in Sixty Seconds). But it would take him a couple of more years to be able to carry an entire film all on his own, such as in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation and Ridley Scott’sMatchstick Men.
Even so, future roles began to typecast him as an action star who takes in a single stride various familiar traits previously mastered by Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Despite his critics’ disapproval, Cage continues to accept roles that give his career a disadvantage yet keep his bank account happy. And his latest in a string of big-budget action/adventure films is Proyas’s Knowing, playing an MIT professor whose wife died in a fire and who is struggling to be a good single parent to his son—when a second plot is plugged in and the ‘list’ is revealed.
As a scientist-cum-hero, Cage’s portrayal of the film’s main character requires the type of acting that isn’t worth the millions of dollars he gets paid for; any aspiring actor is well able to work up a few tears while consistently yelping about doomsday and swinging a baseball bat to scare off invading strangers. But, like many critically failed films, the mistake doesn’t usually revolve around the acting itself and more around the writing. Knowing is a ball-busting action film that viewers hope to be better than the ones produced to go straight into videos, and few still bank on Cage to turn the wheel around—in case the plot thins out and, eventually, evaporates. Nevertheless, here is a case where neither the star, nor the director has the ability to carry an improbable scenario across the viewing distance between the screen and the audience, as the film sinks in its own plotlines and the writers, one can only imagine, were stuck in a windowless room while trying to tie-in the bits and pieces of an ingenious idea: “Oh, I know! Aliens!” —apparently, E.T. has decided to stay awhile.
Somewhere near the end of the film, Cage delivers a line that I think captures the film best: “I thought there was some purpose to all of this.”
Suddenly, an “Owl Ship sex scene” sounds more promising than two hours worth of apocalyptic mess: that’s 120 minutes of my weekend I’m never going to get back. Boo-hoo!
Copyright © 2009. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
Cinematix: A WILDE Ambition
It is generally understood that the life of a genius—from Beethoven to Virginia Woolf—is too vast, too complex and often too dramatic to be contained in a single medium: wheter a book, a movie, a special TV series, a painting, a song, or what have you. People have tried, of course, to document events, with hopes to gain a better insight into their character, transform their reason into Hallmark quotes, or grasp at their core of being: therefore rendering them ordinary: and it never works.
The same can be said of Brian Gilbert’s WILDE (1997), a biographical film of the Irish author, Oscar Wilde, whose character has become nothing short of legendary amongst literary groups the world over. Perhaps the most notable playwright and satirist throughout the late Victorian era, Wilde was an eccentric—if not modern—man who advocated the freedom of each and every individual to act, behave, do and dress as one sees fit with his or her own nature. He was a philosopher in his own right, whose take on every day trivialities has enlightened millions, possibly even tens of millions, of readers and theatre-goers: no other writer is as driven to discover or formulate the propensity of human relationships, nor as successful in applying the principles of comedy to advance the means of changing a society—but, most of all, he was an outcast: someone who was loved and despised for his differences; for standing up and speaking out; for offering the truth at a time when no one cared to hear it.
And the truth about Wilde was that he had sought within himself what we constantly look for in others: a sense of belonging.
So much of who or what Wilde was has been debated by scholars and admirers of his work. They pore over his writings looking for clues, talk to people who may be related to someone who might have known him while he was alive: Dukes and Duchesses, Lords and Ladies, male escorts and female companies—as if he were an object, an antique to be appraised for value. Too often they stumble over pebbles, the details of Wilde’s life—which by no means are insignificant—from birth to adulthood, chronicled in a manner that far too often strips him of his talent, his genuine search for human connection, and the massive burden of a culture which prohibits any individual from becoming something other than what is expected of him or her. Too often they focus on the side of Wilde’s personality that is flamboyant, sexually promiscuous, and totally uninhibited by anything and everything the world weighs against him. Yes: throughout his life, Wilde defied society and refused to play its game, but surely there was more to him than that.
Based on the 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by Richard Ellman, Wilde sums up the genius of Oscar Wilde in three structural plot lines: his marriage to Constance Lloyd (Jennifer Ehle), his “devirginization” by the young Canadian journalist Robert Baldwin “Robbie” Ross (Michael Sheen), and his fateful meeting with Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Jude Law). Each plot line leads to the downfall of Wilde (Stephen Fry): his reputation consequentially marred by the volatile and emotionally abusive relationship he carried on with Bosie, which led to his conviction in 1895 of “gross indecency” and his incarceration at Holloway, where he was to serve two years of hard labor.
The film closed on a positive note, at least for Wilde, whose wit, charm and buoyant nature are no less capable of saving him than the pleas his concerned friends and family have repeatedly made to help him rise back on his feet. In the film, as in Ellman’s biography, Wilde’s only surviving desire after two years of sentence is to reunite with Bosie, and “watch his golden hair glisten in the sun”—this, while acknowledging the immediate tragedy that would follow: the final years of Wilde’s life, the eventual unhappy end, the tragic death, which he had tried to avoid and failed.
For the most part, Gilbert’s Wilde is warm and intimate, giving the extremely controversial figure an iconic presence that the world has come to embrace: a prolific writer who strives for perfection in beauty, youth in age, and love in every possible way he is able to find it. Julian Mitchell’s script is thought-provoking—albeit considerably weighted down by Wilde’s ubiquitously quoted lines—and Stephen Fry’s performance in the titular role is no less astounding compared to the brilliant setting of late 19th century London and reenactment of Wilde’s infamous trial. Michael Sheen—who is known to play real-life characters with historical importance (e.g. Tony Blair in Stephen Frears’s The Queen and, recently, David Frost in Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon)—dazzles in his role as one of Wilde’s best friends, Robbie; while Jude Law is excruciatingly beautiful and believable as Wilde’s singular obsession as well as object of affection, Bosie. Another grand addition to the film is the British veteran stage, film, and TV actress, Vanessa Redgrave, who has the honor of playing Oscar Wilde’s mother, Lady Speranza Wilde. (A closer look will give viewers glimpses of a film star in the making, playing one of Wilde’s ‘rent-boys’, Orlando Bloom—a few years shy of his mega-blockbuster role in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy.)
In 118 minutes, Wilde entertains those who have never seen, read or heard of The Importance of Being Earnest or The Picture of Dorian Gray; while, at the same time, offers a better understanding of the man behind the beloved literary feats to those who admire him. As a collaborative effort, the film aims high without forcing to break the obvious boundaries, and the actors’ performances are, in a word, superb; but for a film that attempts to capture the life of a genius, Wilde is sadly inadequate, even distracting. It brings to mind Agnieska Holland’s Total Eclipse (1995), which tells the story of yet another genius, Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his love affair with an older man, Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis). Verlaine, like Wilde, was convicted of homosexual relations and had to serve time in imprisonment.
However, if there’s one thing that connects the two films, it would have to be the ambitious attempts of both Gilbert and Holland to take on the mammoth task of imitating life through the use of art, when life itself is often spent recklessly to imitate the aesthetics of art.
No, the silver screen is not nearly enough to contain all that Wilde represents: it reeks with mediocrity, framed by structure and is divorced from the realities of lives lived, lost, and compromised by one’s own nature. No, because in Wilde’s book, nothing is more precious than the flow, the freedom with which humans must govern their trivialities, and turn them into gems: for “Where[ever] your life leads you, you must go.”
Copyright © 2009. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
Cinematix: The Crying Game
When The Crying Game came out in 1992, I was 12—naturally, I had no access to the film. My knowledge of its existence was limited to Boy George’s rendition of the smash-hit song bearing the same title, which became a regular on the radio and was included in almost every compilation album released throughout the 1990s. Then—as I got older—I managed to forget the film ever existed, at all. It is a classic, sure; but, at the time, it didn’t seem important or attractive enough to get picked up off the shelf at the rental store. Somehow, I just couldn’t work up the “appetite” to see it.
Nevertheless, about a couple of months ago, I decided to buy it—mainly because I was haunted by a Washington Post review attached to the back cover, which said (in capital letters): “ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING, SURPRISING FILMS OF THE YEAR. IT DESERVES TO BE CALLED GREAT.” Bought it, kept it, didn’t see it until last night—or was it early this morning—at 3.30 a.m. … ’til the sun came up.
The first 35 minutes of the film failed to capture my attention. Stephen Rea is unconvincing as a go-to-it member of the IRA (Fergus); Forest Whitaker is less so as a British soldier (Jody); and Miranda Richardson makes a terrible IRA-agent-cum-ex-lover (Jude) who annoys more than she threatens. Then, comes Dil (Jaye Davidson), a hairdresser who frequents a bar called The Metro: and I was hooked. If there was any life worth saving in The Crying Game, it would be hers—and that, I realized, is the actual point of the entire film.
There is a reason why The Crying Game is hailed as “one of the greatest films ever made” and it has nothing to do with the IRA. Everyone in the film is an extra, even Rea, who supposedly has a lead role in it; because all the spotlights point to Davidson, who mesmerizes, if not enthralls, in his performance as a transgender longing for acceptance, kindness, love. And Jordan’s plot twist—however ingenious—is no match against the witty banters he has written for Davidson, to be exchanged with Rea’s Fergus and, occasionally, with Jim Broadbent’s Col.
Dil: He’s still looking, Col.
Col: Persistent.
Dil: Good thing in a man.
Col: An excellent quality.
Dil: Maybe he wants something.
Col: I expect he does.
Dil: Ask him.
Col: Ask him yourself.
The brief courtship between Fergus and Dil is exciting, yet painful, to watch. If the audience in 1992 were fooled by Dil’s unparalleled beauty and graceful sways into thinking he was actually a she; in the 21st century—where more gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders have proudly come out of the closet—it takes little effort to spot Davidson’s baritone voice, pronounced jaws, ostensibly large hands, and broad shoulders. Even so, there are only a handful of other actors who can cross-over the gender barrier in a film or otherwise in real life, and Davidson’s excellent portrayal of Dil oddly reminds me of Rent’s Angel (played by Tony Award-winning Wilson Jermaine Heredia)—except, Angel has way less character complications compared to Dil.
One of the more profound elements in Jordan’s script is his way of presenting the characters—abnormal though they may seem in the eyes of society—by breathing into them the same broken soul which resonates well in all of us. Dil’s obsession to be loved is as universal as Fergus’s quest to make amends, and in the ‘abnormal’ circumstance which unites them they find solace, only to be disrupted again by Jordan’s ‘plot twist’.
As a veteran director and writer, Neil Jordan is known for treading unknown waters: creating worlds beyond our average roundabout, and taking his audience into a universe where the normal and abnormal psyches intersect and, eventually, converged. Take his adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel, for instance,Interview with the Vampire (1994); or that of Graham Greene’s masterpiece, The End of the Affair (1999); or the more similarly themed Breakfast on Pluto (2005)—adapted from Patrick McCabe’s novel of the same title. In each film, Jordan is telling us that we’re all ‘weirdos’ in our own ways; whose longing mirrors one another’s, and whose struggles to make the most of life become, in every way imaginable, a shared conundrum.
A particular dialogue between Fergus and Col—if you listen closely—explains The Crying Game in less than half a minute:
Fergus: So who’s [Dave]?
Col: He’s what [Dil] should run a mile away from.
Fergus: Then why doesn’t she?
Col: Who knows the secrets of the human heart?
Great film? Now, there’s an understatement.
Copyright © 2009. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
Cinematix: Marley & Me
When I was 8, I had a pet spaniel named Bonnie—well, alright, I shared a joint custody with my brother. I can’t tell you how it was that we ended up having him around the house, if someone had given him to us, or if my brother had picked him up off the street, or if he was bought at a pet store. As far as I’m concerned, he might have been mailed to our address: or something. Anyway, Bonnie and I became fast friends.
One day, I came home from school and saw him waiting for me at the door. It was cute, the way he wagged his tail and barked at my arrival, the way he trotted behind me as I walked into the house, the way he licked my hands when I cupped his face. Then, after I had taken a shower and finished my homework, I decided to go out for a bit and hang out with other kids in the neighborhood. I was talking and laughing with one of the girls when, suddenly, I saw a truck heading in our direction: I took my friend’s hand and pulled her to the other side of the street, getting as far away as possible from its path, and just when I thought we were safe, the truck made this screeching sound and came to a full stop. My friend stood agape, pointing at the truck; and that was when I saw … Bonnie, lifeless, surrounded by a pool of blood.
It was devastating. When we buried him in our frontyard, both my brother and I mourned his death in our own separate ways. But life moved on, and in the next few years there were Gurcil the fresh-water fish; Chickee the chick; Jack the cat; and other pets. Some of them died, others ran away. In high school, we stopped having pets, or maybe we forgot to have pets (we were too busy discovering our youth.)
The other night—at a friend’s recommendation—I went and saw David Frankel’s “Marley & Me”, starring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, and twenty-two yellow lab retrievers who play Marley ‘the dog’. Going in, I knew it was a story about a dog; I just hadn’t anticipated the fact that it would belong to one. Throughout the duration of the film, I kept waiting for a twist, a turn, or a mild bump in the plotlines. John Grogan (Owen Wilson) just got married to a beautiful bride (Jennifer Aniston) and couldn’t believe his luck: good. John Grogan moved to the Sunshine State with his beautiful bride: good. John Grogan got the worst dog in the world: interesting. John Grogan, wife, and dog lived normal lives; John Grogan and wife had three kids; John Grogan became a sought-after columnist; John Grogan and family moved again to Philadelphia, where the trees are green and it snows in the winter: ALL GOOD. Then, Marley ‘the dog’ died: end of the story.
Cue the lights; cue the screen; take your bows; exit, please.
It’s a film inspired by a memoir written by—wait for it—John Grogan. I haven’t read any of Grogan’s columns, nor the book: and I’m not sure I want to. Some wise-ass said “A dog is a man’s best friend” for reasons that John Grogan has stated in the memoir, and again in the movie. Some say there is nothing else on earth capable of showing pure love and loyalty, save for a dog. It doesn’t matter where you come from, dogs were, are and always will be man’s best companions—for a reason.
Men love dogs because dogs make exceptional listeners, they don’t dominate and they like to be cuddled. They don’t need expensive things, or a big house: they even wait for their masters and learn to recognize the masters’ behavioral patterns. If he’s sad, if he’s happy—dogs are well tuned to a man’s emotional needs. Again, without attempting to dominate him, or perhaps because of it.
Women can love dogs, too; but survey says they love cats better. Cats are feisty: they make their own rules and are generally quite independent. Cats are restless creatures who will find better things to do other than wait for their owners to come home; cats will tear apart your home in minutes and feel guiltless about it; cats will do what they please, when it pleases them—cats are not as clingy as dogs, and they hiss and scratch for no good reason.
I admit the film has its funny and touching moments; Owen Wilson entertains, Jennifer Aniston mesmerizes, and—at one point—all the twenty-two labs make me want to reach out to them. Yet the best part of it seems to happen mostly to Sebastian Tunney (Eric Dane), a New York Times’ star reporter who is as carefree in his forties as he was in his twenties and still climbing up the corporate ladder with virtually no limit to what he can achieve. Dane is not new to the role, though, because Tunney seems less an alter-ego than a twin brother of Grey’s Anatomy’s Mark Sloan, aka Dr. McSteamy.
At the end of the film, Wilson’s Grogan says something about dogs being the ultimate friend a person can ever have, which hints at our human flaw when it comes to trust and relationships. People tend to hurt each other, while dogs are only capable of love. Well, if that’s true, I don’t see why we even bother to continue living, or take any chances at human relationships.
Alright, look: I’ve got nothing against dogs. When I lost Bonnie, I cried for days, blaming myself and blaming the world. To this day, I still remember the moment I saw him lying in a pool of his own blood and sometimes the feeling comes back without a warning, sending me into a moment of painful recollection. But, you know what, I will lose a thousand Bonnies if it means I can bring my father back to life.
Dogs may be our best friend, but they are no match compared to what we already have with one another.
Copyright © 2009. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
On Dogma, Kevin Smith and New Jersey
The movie, not the actual dogma. I love it. What’s not to love? The humor is bordering on idiocy; the concept is ludicrous; the acting is sometimes a disgrace to the profession; the plot is surprisingly simple; it’s packed with an ensemble cast—including the ever-retarded Jay and Silent Bob—that would have made George Clooney’s Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen look like child’s play (instead of Hollywood’s mega blockbuster) and it’s got the whole Catholic congregation out on some type of crusade. Brilliant.
This year marks a full decade following the film’s release back in 1999, directed and written by Kevin Smith, whose works have garnered him the reputation as a wacky, offbeat filmmaker with an appreciation for life’s mundane reality. Born and raised in Red Bank, New Jersey, Smith is known as a small-budget director with big-budget appeal. His most notable films—Clerks and Chasing Amy—are famous for being shot on an indie’s budget and making a blockbuster’s income. Clerks, in particular, was shot on a total of US$27,575 and earning some US$3.1 million upon release. You do the math.
I have to admit, Kevin Smith is not your ordinary filmmaker who’s got his eyes on Sundance and Cannes the whole time—though Clerks won the Prix de la Jeunesse in 1994 andChasing Amy swept two Independent Spirit Awards in 1997. On the contrary, he is the kind of filmmaker who cares more about what’s going on around him than away from him. Smith applies the classic rule of thumb when setting the tone in his films: write what you know. And what he knows best, apparently, is his homestate New Jersey.
An industrial state with a 9-million population rate, New Jersey is the “other sister” of New York and Philadelphia. Recently reviewed by Zagat magazine as the second most excellent state to visit (next to Ohio) with the largest number of diners, plus the largest grove of cherry blossom trees in the U.S., New Jersey hasn’t always been a popular destination. A decade ago, it was repeatedly featured as a “boring”, “lifeless” or “uninspiring” state “where nothing happens” in countless films and TV shows which were mostly made by (and for) Hollywood’s glamourous, L.A.-loving execs. As an outsider who has only been to New Jersey a couple of times—once to Atlantic City, and another time to Long Beach Island—I don’t understand what turned the state into a punchline back in the 1990s: it’s practically like any other state in the U.S., vibrant in some places and quiet in others.
Perhaps because of such stereotyping against the state’s identity, Smith felt motivated to show the unique side of New Jersey by zooming in on the various characters inspired by and modeled after the people he knew growing up. Or, maybe, he agrees with the stereotype: I wouldn’t know. Even so, in his hands, New Jersey is everything Hollywood tries to box it into—but with a lot more soul and the kind of humor that makes you want to become Smith’s best friend overnight (at least, by the week’s end).
So, what is it about Dogma that got the Catholic church all riled up?
First, according to Smith’s version of Catholicism, God is not infallible. Second, God takes on many different forms (one of them belongs to Alanis Morrisette) instead of the perennial fog-and-boom type of appearance. And third, it mocks (almost) everything that the Catholic faith celebrates. Thus, if Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was scorned for “distorting” the history of the faith; Smith’s Dogma went and flat out ridiculed it. Here’s the catch, though, Smith was raised in an Irish-Catholic family. Therefore, he wasn’t just blabbing on things he didn’t know—he was actually making a point.
To this day, Dogma remains on my top list of must-see films because it amuses me. The characters’ quest to defend their faith (or otherwise lose it) is something I think everyone can relate to. Yet Smith’s idea of the two fallen angels (Bartleby, the watcher; and Loki, formerly known as the Angel of Death) as heavenly creatures who feel wronged by God’s choice to put humans before them hinges upon the irony of our mortal perception toward heavens and angels—where goodness meets holiness—while Linda Fiorentino’s portrayal as the Last Scion (Bethany) who works at an abortion clinic capitalizes the F in funny. These premises are flawed from the beginning, and they’re supposed to be: because Dogma is, in fact, a satire.
The film does for the viewers what satires have done in the last few thousand years for millions of people: it hits where it hurts, and it twists reality around until it becomes painfully unrecognizable yet still oddly familiar. Smith was not the first satirist to raise his voice against the ways of the universe as we live it, and he won’t be the last. He knew the rules of the game, and he broke them all with the ingenuity of a concerned citizen of the world. If you had watched the film intently, closely, as Smith had created it—you would see he did nothing to break what wasn’t already broken, and his attack wasn’t so much on faith as it was on dogmatic ‘labeling’ (ergo, the title).
The clues are everywhere, and one particular clue appears at the beginning of the film:
Disclaimer: 1) a renunciation of any claim to or connection with; 2) disavowal; 3) a statement made to save one’s own ass; 4) a foresaid word for not being blamed later.
Though it’ll go without saying ten minutes or so into these proceedings, View Askew would like to state that this film is from start to finish a work of comedic fantasy, not to be taken seriously. To insist that any of what follows is incendiary or inflammatory is to miss our intention and pass undue judgment; and passing judgment is reserved for God and God alone (this goes for you film critics too… just kidding).
So please before you think about hurting someone over this trifle of a film, remember: even God has a sense of humor. Just look at the Platypus. Thank you and enjoy the show.
P.S. We sincerely apologize to all Platypus enthusiasts out there who are offended by that thoughtless comment about Platypi. We at View Askew respect the noble Platypus, and it is not our intention to slight these stupid creatures in any way. Thank you again and enjoy the show.
How anyone could have taken the film seriously as a form of attack (after reading the disclaimer) is beyond me, and—quite honestly—I don’t care enough to know.
When Dogma came out in 1999, I didn’t get a chance to see it because the film was banned from playing in Jakarta cinemas. Some referred to it as a ‘blasphemous work’ while others called it ‘pure trash’. The first time I saw Dogma was in 2002, on DVD, in my host family’s living room—alone. I thought it was funny, especially because it had Smith’s signature all over the frame and script. No other director-writer (that I know of, anyway) has the ability to turn something incredibly huge into something insignificant, and vice versa. So I fell in love with Dogma, as I had fallen for Clerks and Chasing Amy.
Then, I fell in love with Smith when I read somewhere that he had participated in a protest against the film’s release all the while carrying a sign which said “Dogma is Dogshit.” When most directors would have been busy calling up news stations and asking for “support”—he was out there with the protesters and condemned his own work for the sake of amusement. I think it takes quite a character to do what he did.
OK. So some say the film lacks intellect, or a good sense of humor, and others have forever placed it in their list of ‘worst films ever made’. But if it did what it was intended to do, if it got even one person to stand up and raise their fist into the air, if it made you—or me—a lesser person for loving it … then it must have count for something.
Sure, it’s stupid: but Smith knew that already.
© 2009. Maggie Tiojakin. All rights reserved.
