Unable to find a cure and with the world hiding from the virus mutations, the scientists attempt time travel to find the original virus and create a cure. That’s the prescient plot of 12 Monkeys (1995), that I must have seen more than 12 times already, each time more satisfying that the previous one. Last night I found it in HBO Max and I could not resist… again. In this film, I guess we’ll never know where Director Terry Gilliam’s genius starts and where it does the magic of David and Janet Peoples script, a script that was completed way before finding a director. But every time I see it again, I turn to appreciate Gilliam’s job more and more, finding new wonders in a film that is increasingly paced like a dream, where breaks in the continuity of space are so natural that you barely realize them —or you don’t want to. In other moments, its humor hit us totally unprepared. Like when, after savagely beating a guy that is hurting Dr. Kathryn Railly, he looks at the smashed body and demands respect for her saying “She is my psychiatrist!” So, I guess it is not only the writing, it is the delivery too. Also, I realized how nuanced is Bruce Willis’ acting, and not only because the script makes him capable of great violence while also be moved to tears by the “music of the 20th Century.” In more than one occasion he seems to be close to laughing for what he is saying too. And we laugh with him, in total agreement. “You believe in germs, right?” He is asked in the psychiatric hospital by the amazingly deranged Brad Pitt. “I am not crazy!” he responds, just after eating a spider. Enjoy it! This is a totally satisfying masterpiece.
12 Monos
Incapaces de encontrar una cura y con el mundo escondiéndose de las mutaciones del virus, los científicos intentan viajar en el tiempo para encontrar el virus original y crear una cura. Ese es el clarividente argumento de 12 Monos (1995), que debo haber visto ya más de 12 veces, cada una de ellas más satisfactoria que la anterior. Anoche la encontré en HBO Max y no pude resistirme... de nuevo. En esta película supongo que nunca sabremos dónde empieza el genio del director Terry Gilliam y dónde lo hace la magia del guion de David y Janet Peoples, un guion que se completó mucho antes de encontrar un director. Pero cada vez que la vuelvo a ver, aprecio más el trabajo de Gilliam, encontrando nuevas maravillas en una película cuyo ritmo conforme avanza se asemeja cada vez más al de un sueño, donde las rupturas en la continuidad del espacio son tan naturales que apenas las ves, o no quieres verlas. En otros momentos, su humor nos agarra totalmente desprevenidos. Como cuando, después de golpear salvajemente a un tipo que atacó a la doctora Kathryn Railly, mira su cuerpo desplomado y exige respeto para ella diciendo "¡Ella es mi psiquiatra!". Así que, supongo que no se trata solamente de cómo se ha escrito, sino cómo se ejecuta. También me doy cuenta de lo sutil de la actuación de Bruce Willis, y no solo porque el guion le hace capaz de gran violencia y de emocionarse hasta las lágrimas con la "música del siglo XX". En más de una ocasión parece estar a punto de reírse de lo que dice. Y nos reímos con él, totalmente embarcados. "Usted cree en los gérmenes, ¿verdad?" Le pregunta en el hospital psiquiátrico el increíblemente desquiciado Brad Pitt. "¡No estoy loco!", responde, justo después de comerse una araña. ¡Disfrútenla! Esta es una obra maestra totalmente satisfactoria.
Only in retrospect you realize how relevant to our current times and how anachronic in terms of our media culture is Lean on Pete, the story of a teenager (Charlie Plummer) who becomes an orphan and must face homelessness right away and without warning. He does not see it that way though, and as in real life stories, things happen to you while you are busy looking other way. In this case, the focus of that look is a race horse called Pete. The kid has developed a close attachment with the horse, an attachment that defies all of our cinematic clichés about a boy and a horse: there is not an exciting and triumphant riding lifting our spirits and no racing awards at the end of the road. There is only the distressing journey to the unknown, the hope of a better future and a feeling of precariousness in the middle of a happy ending that the young and courageous main character more than deserves. British director Andrew Haig has conjured a sort of discreet, reluctant masterpiece, the kind of film that, unfortunately, endears critics and goes unnoticed by the bulk of moviegoers. Beautiful and compassionate, this is one of the best movies I have seen this year so far.
I saw The Snowman yesterday. It took me more than 24 hours to digest my disappointment at the movie and also at myself. Let me explain. In the trailer you see great actors and a beautiful photography in a cold Nordic environment (Norway). Perfect, I thought: a serial killer story. Everything checked to be awesome except for the terrible reviews but I thought, “What do they know?” Then again, at the end I realized that the movie actually sucks. Big time. The director apparently apologized and explained something about an unfinished script even after they started filming. Not the first time I hear something like this but it is the first time that I noticed how terrible the results can be. Maybe Tomas Alfredson was not skilled enough to deal with the situation, I don’t know. But at the end you have wonderful actors delivering wonderful acting… that seems from another movie, pieces here and there that barely make sense, and me losing all interest way far away from the plot resolution. What a waste of time.
I think that Stephen King is so good depicting horror because he is good depicting everything else —the whole range of what is being human, that is. That’s the success of It, which takes its time fleshing out its charismatic young characters with realism and consistency to make the scares believable too. In their world, adults are cold and cruel, complicit in a way to the darkness beneath their town. You may notice Argentine Director Andrés Muschietti’s attention to detail in every scene, from the recreation of the late eighties, to an effective score that is always present but never overwhelming, and of course in the grittiness of the heavy action/special effects scenes that seem to be an effective mix of mechanic and digital artistry. Even Pennywise is scarier since he is awfully smart, and this second version of It (the previous was a 1990 2-part TV show) allows us to grasp that too. Even at a length of 2 hours plus you feel the narrative economy of a tight script. This is commercial moviemaking at its best. Do not miss it.
Taylor Sheridan directed the quasi neorealist Hell or High Water before Wind River, a slow-moving thriller that freezes your bones to their core not for the Wyoming mountains snow, but because it reminds us the dreadful reality of Indian reservations and the white-male macho violence always ready to erupt in this America that wants to be great again. Never been more impressed with Jeremy Renner who is a wildlife agent who helps to investigate a crime in this harsh environment. He actually has to act – with moving results I think – which is something we barely see in action movies anymore. Hope you can see it at the theater.
One of the most beautiful war movies ever done, Nolan’s
Dunkirk is also one of the strangest ones. Dialogues are scarce and the characters
and stories we follow seem kind of generic, as if telling an abstract tale
about British survival and heroism. The real story took place before the
entrance of the US to WWII when nearly 350 thousand English and French soldiers were rescued from an
almost sure death and abuse at the hands of the German troops. The real drama was
impressive and thousands of soldiers could not make it alive. You can just
imagine the grittiness of war must have been at its fullest. But there is no
gritty here, the hundreds of soldiers onscreen look impeccably dressed and mostly clean – you can
just gasp at what the costume budget must have been – as if coming directly from
wardrobe room, perfectly armed and geared but scared to death from invisible
Germans that besides a blind gunfight at the beginning only have a presence via
the German Luftwaffe planes bombing ships and soldiers perfectly lined up as sitting ducks at the beach and
attacking British Spitfire planes. I guess, Nolan’s goal was to show the war
from the British side, the hopelessness, the fear and finally the relief of
being rescued. I am not sure if he succeeds creating an emotional denunciation of
the ravages of war though, given the austere view we get from the few
characters we follow, but he certainly creates beautiful scenes on air and sea,
with open landscapes and harrowing air battles that will become the reason why
Dunkirk will be remembered. The large views of open skies and pristine seas
make us involuntarily think of the catastrophic effects of war on the environment,
and the resilience of humans and nature alike to its own efforts of self destruction
–abstract thoughts of an almost abstract, impressionist film that will soar the
spirits of artsy moviegoers but that probably will baffle all others.
Reading
The Scarlet Gospels (MacMillan, New
York. May 2015, available in print and ebook editions in amazon.com) is, as you may expect from a book by Clive Barker, a strange adventure. At times it recalls
the inventive fury that inhabited his early Books
of Blood, each one a compilation of short stories where a series of perverted
worlds are depicted in insane detail and magnificent prose. It counts as a back-to-shape statement, I think. The kind of Barker book that I was waiting for a long time. After the big success of his Blood books and other stories – applauded by the master of horror himself, Stephen King
– Barker decided to move permanently into the realm of the infernal, conceiving entirely
cogent demonic worlds of a richness and vastness that, in a way, seemed propelled
by a sort of encyclopedic knowledge of the netherworld. I must confess though that,
along the way, the Barker’s magic dissipated for me. Next to his determination
to show off his infernal acumen, his work got vacated of compelling characters and
his plots passed from being refreshingly fantastic to be just weird and hallucinogenic.
Way back remained those atmospheres where a unique mix of cruelty, poetic fantasy
and sensuality – or sexuality indeed, since he never avoided any valid chance
to go into the physical detail of sexual encounters among humans, ghosts or demons
– was powered by the surgical precision of his writing style.
Barker
is an ambitious messenger of the otherworldly. He has dabbled into novels and
short stories as mentioned, but also in movies as a script writer, director and
producer. The most famous of his works is of course Hellraiser, directed by Barker himself and, in my opinion, the only
one of the movies based on his books or any of his scripts – or at least inspired by
them – that was capable of recreating the sweetly disturbing atmosphere that is
the trademark of his best works.
The
main character of The Scarlet Gospels is Harry D’Amour, a private detective
that realizing his special ability to perceive and attract demons decides to
make a career out of it –a little bit like Barker himself. I remember the D’Amour
characterization by Scot Bakula in Lord
of Illusions (1995), a film also scripted by Barker. We also get
reacquainted here with one of the most famous infernal devices from Barker’s
world, a “Lemarchand box,” which is described as being no bigger than a Rubik
cube that lures men into playing with the apparently innocent “Lament Configurations”
carved into its walls. This is the box that creates havoc in the first place in
the plot of The Hellbound Heart and
in the movie that it inspired, Hellraiser,
by simply leaving ajar one of the doors to Hell so that its inadvertent players
discover the limits of human pain at the hands of one of most nightmarish
dwellers of the infernal, Pinhead.
I
might be wrong, of course, since I have not read all of Barker’s body of work,
but it seems to me that this is the first of his books that mixes the destinies
of D’Amour and Pinhead. It makes wonders for a plot that has apocalyptic keys
aplenty and that drives the unsuspecting readers to Hell and back, introducing,
in a display of daring inventive that never waivers in the face of the unthinkable,
to the master of Hell himself, Lucifer.
With
the stakes so high it was almost impossible to leave unscathed. But Barker is not
only able to pull it off with brilliance but also creates a resonating story
that ignites our imaginations with enduring creative fire.
In Whiplash we are
confronted with the meaning of artistic greatness and what we can, would, and should
do for it. The story of a student jazz drummer in a prestigious music school and his
submissiveness and eventual confrontation with his tyrannical instructor does
not seem to be an original theme to start with, but the usual teacher-student Hollywood
clichés are rendered useless here almost from the beginning, as any sense of our
current sense of “fairness” and political correctness is destroyed with
impunity.
It is up to the audience to decide if the instructor Terence
Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) is a good-intentioned monster or if he is just a
monster, plain and simple. He challenges his students with demands that seem to
be absurd, creates jealousy among them and shakes any sense of comfort that they
could legitimately aspire to. On the other side, Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller),
the student, is not painted with rosy colors either. He is serious, he is
ambitious, and his bleeding hands are a testimony of his dedication. However,
we detect a scent of arrogance in his interventions during a family dinner, and
he unexpectedly severs his relationship with a nice girlfriend that we have barely
seen onscreen and who provides a tenuous link with normalcy in his life.
Director Damien Chazelle takes both characters to a sophisticated
and cruel confrontation on the limits of sanity. Showing restraint and economy in
every scene, supported by amazing actors, and achieving a top-notch technical level
during the music performances, Whiplash delivers punch after punch of intense,
unpredictable, and genuine situations.
This might be my favorite nominee for Best Picture in the
Oscars 2015.
John Wick es una cinta sin mucho que decir, pero que lo
dice de forma extraordinaria. La trama puede resumirse en unas cuantas líneas. Wick
es un asesino retirado (Keanu Reeves) que se halla en pleno duelo debido a la
muerte por enfermedad de su esposa, la mujer cuyo amor lo hizo retirarse del
negocio del crimen. Estando vulnerable y dolido, unos sanguinarios delincuentes
lo atacan brutalmente. Wick sobrevive pero averigua que el
atacante es el hijo de un mafioso que, años atrás, lo empleaba para liquidar
enemigos. El mafioso intenta apaciguarlo pero Wick no está para disculpas y el
conteo de muertos que sigue resulta interminable. Dirigida por el experimentado stunt man Chad Stahelski, las bellamente coreografiadas peleas de Gun-Fu (tiroteos y batallas marciales) son todo un deleite, y la música es trepidante e hipnótica. Una fotografía rica en
grises y contrastes, es el vehículo de unos encuadres precisos, llenos de una obsesiva atención al detalle. Sobre la trama no queda mucho que añadir,
salvo que, en ese mundo de violenta perfección, el círculo del crimen no tiene
nada de caótico y se rige por un férreo código. De quebrarlo se corre el riesgo
de ser expulsado, no sólo del club sino de este mundo. Pero ese es otro de los
deleites de John Wick: cuando la
muerte se hace presente, es hermoso verla llegar.
Hacia
la mitad de Fury, una escena tironea la sensibilidad del espectador. El sargento apodado Wardaddy (Brad Pitt), líder
de la tripulación de un tanque americano combatiendo contra la Alemania nazi en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, confronta a la
fuerza a un joven soldado, casi un adolescente, con la
necesidad de matar. O los matamos, o ellos nos matan, dice. Entre los sollozos
del joven (Logan Lerman), que se niega rotundamente a matar a otro ser humano, el sargento coloca un arma en sus manos y lo obliga a disparar en la espalda a un soldado
alemán recién capturado.
No es
un mensaje totalmente original para una cinta bélica: la deshumanización de los soldados en la guerra es, prácticamente, lo que se espera de ellos. Además, la escena es poco
creíble. Un muchachito sensible y delicado que llega hasta el territorio alemán en 1945 sin haberse
enfrentado de cara a la muerte y que llora desgarradoramente ante su superior y
sus compañeros de armas porque no quiere cargar con la culpa de una muerte, parece
demasiado. Pero David Ayer se sale con la suya en la escena, y al final todos
nos alineamos con el sargento y la necesidad de enfrentar la violencia con la violencia.
Entendemos además, el por qué de la lección. En la guerra, todo soldado
necesita de sus compañeros para sobrevivir. Y ellos necesitan de ti.
Aunque por partes predecible, Fury nos cuenta con éxito una
historia que debe haber sido una de tantas en la Segunda Guerra, en las que la
superioridad tecnológica de los alemanes obligaba a que el heroísmo resulte
casi un sobreentendido, y los camaradas de armas lo más cercano a la patria que
defendemos. “Este es el mejor trabajo que alguna vez haya tenido” dicen los
soldados que deben enfrentar una muerte casi segura, una especie de mantra cuya
nobleza se justifica por sí sola.
David
Ayer mezcla una variopinta troupe de personajes en su tanque, no todos capaces
de despertar simpatía. Pero la mezcla se siente totalmente real, y los
caracteres poco agradables nos recuerdan esos insoportables compañeros que
alguna vez tuvimos en la escuela. En este grupo, Michael Peña rinde como
todo un soldado, uno de los pocos personajes hispanos que hemos visto en cintas
de la Segunda Guerra – a pesar de que cientos de miles lucharon en ella –
y Shia LaBeouf nos sorprende totalmente metido en el rol, lejos
de los clichés habituales de sus éxitos de taquilla. Pero el oscuro personaje
de Jon Bernthal es quien se roba todas las casi odiosas escenas en que aparece.
Brad Pitt, siempre en la nota correcta, demuestra que ser una estrella no es
algo que dé por sentado si no que trabaja duro para seguir siéndolo.
Uno de
los placeres de las películas de guerra de estos tiempos reside en la
posibilidad de disfrutar de efectos especiales prácticamente invisibles. Un realismo
extremo que en Fury resulta desconcertante
cuando vemos lo anticuado que parece todo lo demás. Llena de buenos momentos aunque
a veces sin brújula, Fury no es la
gran denuncia de la guerra que algunos quieren ver, pero merece verse aun
cuando sólo sea por el buen espectáculo que ofrece.
Estaba
embobado con Louis Armstrong –como siempre que lo escucho– cuando el álbum llegó
a la extrañísima Jeepers Creepers, una
alegre canción que Satchmo estrenó en el cine y que el mismo cine se encargó de
pasar de alegre a siniestra a lo largo de los años. Nada más extraño que la
letra escrita por Johnny Mercer, una leyenda musical de entonces. Veamos lo que
dice:
Now, I don't care what
the weather man says
When the weatherman says it's raining
You'll never hear me complaining, I'm certain the sun will shine
I don't care how the weather vane points
When the weather vane points to gloomy
It's gotta be sunny to me, when your eyes look into mine
Jeepers Creepers,
where'd ya get those peepers?
Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those eyes?
Oh Gosh all git up, how'd they get so lit up?
Gosh all git up, how'd they get that size?
Oooh, Golly gee! When
you turn those heaters on,
woe is me, got to put my cheaters on,
Jeepers Creepers, where'd
ya get those peepers?
On, those weepers, how they hypnotize, yes
Where'd ya get those eyes?
Where'd ya get those eyes?
Where'd ya get those eyes?
La
lengua inglesa es inagotable, y es imposible escudriñar todos los significados
de estos versos escritos en 1938 para una comedia llamada Going Places. En la cinta actuaba el mismo Satchmo y nada menos que
Ronald Reagan, quien 40 años después se convertiría en un célebre presidente, y
tal como la misma canción, pasaría de divertido a terrorífico dependiendo de a
quién uno se lo pregunte. En la película, el genial Satchmo es el único capaz
de hacer dócil a un caballo de carrera cantándole la canción.
En la
letra, el título y estribillo “Jeepers Creepers” parece ser una forma sublimada
de decir “Jesus Christ!”, (algo así como decir “¡Ay, Jesús!”, "¡Dios mío!" O, al
estilo boricua, "¡Ay bendito!"), un recurso común de entonces para evitar una referencia
religiosa directa usando sólo las iniciales con distintas palabras. Los “peepers”
son los ojos, claro, al igual que los “heaters”. Los “cheaters”, por su parte, son
gafas oscuras para apaciguar el impacto de esa mirada.
Bueno,
no parece nada terrorífico. ¿Por qué entonces fue tan fácil convertir esta alegre
letra en algo tan horroroso como en la cinta de 2001, JeepersCreepers? El título ayuda, por cierto. Ya en 1939,
apenas un año después de Going Places,
la Warner Bros. usó el tema en un dibujo animado de Porky Pig, donde el
tartamudo cerdito personifica a un policía que es llamado a indagar en una casa
embrujada en la que es aterrado por un fantasma. Que el cerdito Porky sea un policía
(que ya algunos llamaban “Pigs” en esos días) es un doble sentido imposible de
evitar.
Y de
ahí nos vamos hasta 2001. Producida por Francis Ford Coppola para American
Zoetrope, y dirigida por Victor Salva, Jeepers Creepers no gozó nunca de la aprobación
unánime de los críticos, pero tiene momentos indudablemente espeluznantes. La
cinta, además, fue capaz de crear un monstruo totalmente original, y no sólo con
el maquillaje y los efectos especiales, pues
el personaje que colecciona partes y miembros humanos en una galería macabra,
no se asemeja a nada que hayamos visto hasta entonces.
Para mí la película es genial exprimiendo en lo posible el lado oscuro de la canción, haciéndola
rozar esa fibra oscura que nos trepa el alma cuando pensamos en terrores
desconocidos.
Novedad
de último minuto. O al menos lo es para mí. Me entero ahora que hay una nueva secuela de Jeepers Creepers, pronta
a estrenarse. Esta sería la tercera, y a decir verdad, la segunda no fue tan buena como la original. Peor aun, el tráiler no promete gran cosa, aunque también la dirige el
mismo Salva. Mejor no juzgar demasiado aprisa.
En fin, eso es todo, amigos, Porky dixit. A seguir escuchando a Satchmo. Pero esta vez, con la luz
encendida.
I was quite impressed with this movie directed by James Gray,
who previously pulled-off a beautiful little film like Two Lovers, a mostly dialogue-based film that reached amazing realism. Working again with Joaquin Phoenix
(Bruno), Gray here casts the beautiful French actress Marion Cotillard (Ewa), the Polish
“immigrant” of the title, and Jeremy Renner in a secondary role. The story
takes place in New York after WWI, when Ellis Island became the European
gateway to the U.S. The social portrait of those days is just brilliant, with its yellowish photography and the detailed ugliness of the everyday life. In this pot-boiler of hope and hopelessness in equal measure, Gray provides a vivid background to
the characters emotional turmoil -- fleshing out a plot where simple and
universal words like deceit, honor and guilt acquire poignant
human dimension. As mentioned, the excellent cinematography makes The Immigrant a visual experience as well, but mostly, what we take home with us is the harrowing presence of Joaquin Phoenix who, once again, tears out the souls of the audience, forcing us to confront the shaky moral center that lies within
every great drama.
A Most Wanted Man is a spy movie based on a John le Carré
novel, just like the most recent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It feels like a long
drink of a good whiskey – rich, smooth and full of flavor, also discreetly explosive.
Not for kids –who will choke to death, neither for noisy beer drinkers.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the spy here. His character, Günther
Bachmann, is a German intelligence veteran who, after 9/11, has slowly created
a web of informants within the Hamburg Islamic community. Without spectacular
actions or torturing suspects, he is not out there looking for big detentions –
he wants to see the big picture and patiently follow the thread that feeds
terrorism. Chain-smoker, heavy drinker type and weary of the job and its
disappointments, Bachmann has his eyes set on Issa Karpov, a half Chechen/half Russian
Muslim who is suspect of being a radical jihadist. Issa arrives illegally to Hamburg
with unknown reasons. Bachmann superiors and also the Americans want him to be
detained immediately before he may contact other terrorists. Bachmann disagrees:
he wants to learn his motives.
Following his instincts, Bachmann labors a plot to turn Issa’s
immigration lawyer – beautiful and effective Rachel McAdams – into his ally. Issa
is a broken man, he learns, tortured by Chechens and Russians, he is the
inheritor of big money deposited in a Hamburg bank by his corrupt father, a man
whom he despises. Bachmann gets convinced that Issa is not a terrorist but, being
a practical man, he does not see a problem in using his money as bait to catch
a bigger fish – a respectable Muslim scholar who, apparently, has secretly helped
to fund terrorism through the years without being directly involved. Bachmann
also thinks that he can be used as a valuable source of information within the
terrorist network.
As we find out, all this patient needlework by Bachmann might
have been possible in a less chaotic world, or at least in the pre 9/11 world. After
the fiasco, intelligence services have just become too heavy handed, needing immediate
results. The movie implies that capturing suspects and presumably using torture
is seen as a simpler path to those ends. Bachmann, with his decent and surgical
approach, wants to save misfortune to his subjects. But he is too easy to betray
by his own and his even more powerful allies, the Americans. He is on his way
to another disappointment.
Dutch director Anton Corbijn, who was also in charge of The
American, works better in the cold. Hamburg is shown as an impersonal and
indifferent city but you wonder if this is not just a façade for an ebullient underworld. And you may say the
same about the characters. Willem Dafoe as a Bank president is a man living in a
padded luxury but silently frustrated, willing to get involved in a spy plot
and follow a beautiful lawyer into the dilapidated apartments of the poor.
Rachel McAdams, usually known for her perky, over sweetened persona, provides a
measured performance as an immigration lawyer fully committed to her protégés.
However, you start to figure out if it is not something of a more human touch, what
she is really after. Robin Wright, as the American intelligence officer, is maybe
the key to understand A Most Wanted Man. She uses her charm to gain trust from her
German counterpart but she has her own agenda. The real villain in the story, her
character exemplifies the relationship of the US intelligence with Europe, as
the friend-spying scandals with Germany, France and other countries have come
to surface – teasing them up with their resources and friendly manners,
secretly using them and aspiring to have them under control.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Bachmann is more of an open book here,
all brains and calculation on the outside, secretly caring and compassionate inside.
A man fully committed to “make the world a safer place” as he says, a mission
that transcends himself. Hoffman saved one of his best performances for last.
Directed by José Padhila, the new Robocop film starts great. The United States is
still the world policeman but, in these futuristic times, not many American soldiers
sacrifice their lives to make it possible. Our technology takes care of it. Robot soldiers
and machines take control of foreign cities —not very successfully sometimes — but
with enough good results to have conservative TV pundits like Samuel Jackson — turned into a sort of Bill O’Reilly — pushing to have the same
Omnicorp machines patrolling American cities.
Since there is a strong opposition in Congress to allow
robots in our streets, the search for a human face of this new mechanized law
enforcement that may change the public opinion becomes a search for a hybrid, a
human-robot police man. The best moments of the film take place when a scientist
–an excellent Gary Oldman, by far, the best of this new Robocop– dedicated to
provide limb replacements to amputees, interacts with the ideal candidate, policeman
Alex Murphy. Murphy was a victim of an attempt to end his life that later on we
realize was not a coincidence. The dialogue between the scientist and the
policeman is quite moving, especially when we see a man who, facing his reality
for the first time, instinctively prefers death to having this artificial life.
The situation reminded me of those lines by Roman Polansky in
“The Tenant” that go more or less like this: If I have my arm severed I can
say, me and my arm. If my arms and legs are cut off I can say “me and my limbs”,
but if my head is severed off my body, what right has my head to call itself “me”?
Well, this is not a light question in the times we live, since technology is now
able to create advanced prosthetics that can work and function as real human parts.
A remarkable, emotive scene in the film happens early, when the scientist encourages a disgraced artist to play the guitar with two mechanical arms.
All this is great but then…
the movie flops. Let´s see how.
Since Robocop is too human to beat the machines in terms of
effectiveness, his brain is computerized and drugged so that the machine part takes
over, something that makes him vastly efficient but at the same time kills whatever
is left of Murphy’s humanity. In a twist that everyone expected but that comes
out of the blue, totally unjustified by the plot, Murphy regains his human conscience
and searches for the criminals that tried to kill him.
After the action scenes de rigueur where Robocop kills
criminals armed to the teeth with weapons that came from the police itself, and
finding out that the same corporation that created him is behind this web of
corruption and crime, Murphy is “unplugged” when he is close to know too much. But
of course the repentant scientist releases him before he gets killed and Robocop
tries to arrest the president of the corporation only to find out that he is not
allowed accomplishing this task by his programming. Then again, in a forceful happy
ending that makes no sense, he overcomes this programming by sheer will and finally
kills the charismatic but ruthless mogul played by Michael Keaton.
At this point of course we are supposed to cheer for the
hero. Unfortunately, by then Robocop has spent all of our good will, and has
become a non-entity, a boring and stiff character that makes things that nobody
knows how, a character devoid of any sympathy that leaves the humanity of the
film to rest in the hands of his suffering wife played by the beautiful Abbey
Cornish.
Now, when we compare this multimillion production gone to
waste to the modest original Robocop directed by Paul Verhoeven that made
multitudes cheer, we have to agree that there is nothing like a good story, well-written
dialogues and characters, and a relentless sense of humor: “They fix everything
these days” Murphy said famously to his mate that had been shot in the old
version. Unafraid of playing the kitsch card, the original Robocop had scenes
of pure joy that made the audiences laugh but also sympathize thoroughly with
the suffering hero.
The original final confrontation is cathartic and outrageous.
We know that Murphy’s programming does not allow him to go after the company officers,
but he can finally kill his enemy, a powerful manager of Omnicorp, when his boss,
the president of the corporation, turns to the bad guy and says: “you are fired”.
We laugh, we cheer. We have a hero with us that makes us proud.
In comparison, the
new Robocop ending feels so empty that only serves to remind us that, in spite of its vast resources,
Hollywood cannot fix everything these days.
Today it was the second time I drove through the East River Mountain Tunnel in West Virginia and I decided to put it on my phone. The soundtrack is a Bach performance by Ian Bostridge coming through the car speakers. It came out pretty good. There is something nice about it. Unfortunately I could not clean the windshield better than that. It was 27 F degrees outside. 12/1/2013
Hoy fue la segunda vez que pasé por el túnel de East River Mountain y decidí captarla con mi teléfono. La banda sonora es un tema de Bach cantado por Ian Bostridge que sale por los parlantes del carro. Me quedó muy bien. Tiene un algo que me gusta. Lástima que no pude limpiar mejor el parabrisas, afuera hacían 27 grados Farenheit (unos 3 grados bajo cero en centígrados). 1/12/2013
Anoche
vi una película iraní llamada “A Separation”. Debe ser una de las mejores
películas que he visto no sólo este año sino en muchos años. Es una historia simple
pero de ramificaciones muy complejas, quizá demasiado para los espectadores
occidentales que no sólo deben seguir los enredos de la trama y los dilemas
morales de los personajes sino asimilar sus motivaciones religiosas y
culturales tan distintas a las nuestras. Uno de los misterios del cine es que no
sólo nos entretiene y nos complica la vida con sus fantasías sino que crea sus
propios espectadores. Es lo que ha hecho el cine americano durante décadas, por
ejemplo, creando una especie de espectador universal a base de la propia
cultura de los Estados Unidos. Para dar un ejemplo mencionemos el “Día de Acción
de Gracias”, que aparece miles de veces en las películas y que todo el mundo no
estadounidense acepta como cosa normal aunque nunca lo hayan celebrado en sus
países.
Pero
volviendo a la película, la principal sorpresa para mí es la madurez del cine
iraní en todo sentido. Asghar Farhadi es un director iraní que vive en París
desde hace varios años, aunque por lo que se dice en los extras del DVD, su
educación dramática y cinematográfica tuvo lugar en su propio país. Sus actores
son de una naturalidad tal que es escalofriante, ¡son capaces de hacernos creer
lo que quieran! Todos ellos son simplemente soberbios, incluyendo a Sarina
Farhadi, la propia hija del director, quien sobrelleva uno de los roles más difíciles
que puede enfrentar una actriz adolescente. Y ni qué decir del actor Payman Maadi
y, en especial, de Leila Hatami, de un talento y una belleza que quisiéramos
ver en muchas películas más.
Disculpen
que me vaya por las ramas pero esta película es tan increíble por donde se le
mire, que hay demasiado por comentar. Pero empecemos por mencionar la trama, que
empieza con una pareja de esposos de clase media empezando un proceso de divorcio
ante un juez menor. Pero no todo es lo que parece. La verdad es que la esposa
está tratando de forzar al esposo a emigrar fuera de Irán con la amenaza de la
separación. El esposo, quien parece ser razonable aunque testarudo, se resiste
a emigrar, entre otras cosas por la situación de su padre que sufre de Alzheimer,
una penosa enfermedad que, como todos sabemos, es tremendamente destructiva
para cualquier familia. Sin llegar a ninguna conclusión en la corte, la esposa
decide salir de la casa, obligando al esposo a buscar alguien que se encargue
de cuidar a su padre. Una mujer viene a trabajar en la casa, pero pronto descubrimos
que la pesadumbre que parece llevar marcada en el rostro es más honda de lo que
parece. Embarazada y con una hija pequeña que debe llevar consigo por todas
partes, su esposo está desempleado y ha estado entrando y saliendo de prisión
debido a sus deudas. Y como si eso no fuera suficiente, no puede contarle a su irascible
esposo que ha conseguido un trabajo atendiendo a un cliente varón, por más años
y Alzheimer que tenga, además de que su religiosidad la obliga a considerar
todo lo que hace a la luz del Corán poniendo su vida en un constante dilema.
Este es
el marco para el inicio del dilema moral que no tarda en sobrevenir. Cada uno a
su momento, todos los personajes se ven obligados a mentir, arrepentirse y
sufrir las consecuencias de sus acciones y arrebatos. Hacia el final de la historia,
nos encontramos con el único final feliz concebible, con la consumación de la
separación que vemos al inicio, y la hija del matrimonio teniendo que decidir
con cuál de sus padres quiere vivir.
Es en
ese momento, mientras los padres aguardan la decisión de su hija en los
pasillos de la corte, que ingresa la música por primera vez a la película, poco
antes del inicio de los créditos finales. Entonces nos damos cuenta que han
pasado dos horas sin música ni efectos especiales, sin trucos de cámara y sin
escenas efectistas ni deslumbrantes. Sin héroes ni villanos, ni lecciones colmadas
de sabiduría. Y todo este tiempo estuvimos absorbidos en un drama que nos ha jironado
por dentro con su realismo.
Descubro ahora que mi última entrada en este blog data de junio pasado. Y estamos en noviembre. Demasiado tiempo como esgrimir para la excusa de no tener tiempo. Ya pensaré en algo.
Aunque
consciente de las repetidas críticas a World
War Z por tomarse tantas libertades con la serie de libros escrita por Max
Brooks, y pese a que no estaba particularmente complacido con el pesado uso de
zombis digitales que vi en los tráilers, World
War Z me pareció una película muy entretenida, que involucra al espectador y
que cuenta con grandes momentos de suspenso cinematográfico. Sin la sanguinolenta
violencia — el gore — de otras aventuras con zombis como 28 días después y otras similares, WWZ comparte con ellas esos rápidos y cinéticos zombis que son capaces
de proezas físicas que probablemente estos no-muertos no fueron nunca capaces de
realizar en vida.
Dicho
sea de paso, la trama no es uno de los fuertes de la película, aunque resulta muy
capaz de disfrazar este hecho con un ritmo energético y una variedad de
ubicaciones geográficas. La locura de los zombis empieza abruptamente y el comando
central de la batalla parece estar decidido a poner al ex oficial de las
Naciones Unidas Jerry Lane (Brad Pitt) en un avión a salir en busca de los orígenes
de la enfermedad. Pero apenas se sube éste al avión, parece que a nadie le
vuelve a preocupar su suerte o su misión, salvo a su esposa. La cinta sigue por
supuesto a Brad Pitt en todo el trayecto. Desde Nueva Jersey a una nave de la Marina
de los EEUU, y de ahí a una base norteamericana en Corea del Sur — una secuencia
filmada enteramente en tinieblas y donde no vemos un solo zombi asiático — luego
Israel y, finalmente, el País de Gales. Es aquí donde nuestro héroe, apoyado
por lo que queda del personal científico de una base de la Organización Mundial
de la Salud, es capaz de articular y poner en práctica su teoría sobre cómo
evitar los ataques de los zombis.
Pero ninguna
trama cinematográfica lo es todo, y las escenas de acción juegan unas cartas
inesperadas y muy disfrutables, y lo logran únicamente usando una pizca de suspenso
y realismo psicológico. Una muy bienvenida adición al género del director suizo
Marc Foster (que también dirigió The Kite
Runner, Monster’s Ball y la
fallida aventura de Bond Quantum of
Solace), especialmente porque la violenta sanguinolencia de los zombis parecía
haber llegado a un punto sin retorno. Quizá alguien se hartó de ella. O quizá haya
otra explicación más sencilla: el género estaba simplemente esperando que se
involucre una estrella ya consolidada como Brad Pitt, una clasificación para
menores de 13 años, y el desarrollo de unas masivas ambiciones de taquilla.
Though I was aware of the repeated criticism to World
War Z for taking so many liberties with the book series by Max Brooks, and I was
not particularly pleased with the heavy use of digital zombies that I saw in
the trailers, I found World War Z an engaging and highly entertaining movie
with great moments of cinematic suspense. Without the gore of previous zombie
adventures like 28 Days Later and the like, WWZ shares with them the fast, kinetic
zombies that are capable of physical feats that probably the undead were never able
to do while being alive.
By the way, the plot is not one of the movie strengths and the
film is quite able to mask this fact with an energetic pace and a variety of locations.
The zombie craze starts abruptly and the commanding center of the fight against
the zombies seems to be determined to get former UN officer Jerry Lane on a
plane to find the origins of the zombie disease, but as soon as he gets in the
plane, it seems that nobody cares anymore about his fate or his mission –except
his wife. The movie of course follows Brad Pitt all along. From New Jersey to a
US Navy ship and from there to an American military base in South Korea –a
sequence filmed entirely in the dark and where we do not see one single Asian zombie—,
then Israel and finally Wales. It is here that our hero, supported by the
remaining science staff of a World Health Organization facility, is able to
articulate and put into practice his theory about how to avoid zombie attacks.
But the plot of any film is not everything, and the action scenes
play some unexpected, enjoyable cards only by involving a bit of suspense and psychological
realism. It’s a welcome addition by Swiss director Marc Foster (he also
directed The Kite Runner, Monster’s Ball
and the failed Bond adventure Quantum of
Solace), especially because the zombie gore had seemed to arrive to a point
of no return. Maybe somebody got tired of this. Or maybe there is another, easier
explanation: the genre was simply waiting to involve a consolidated star like
Brad Pitt, a PG-13 rating and develop massive blockbuster ambitions.
