The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker

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.

Whiplash (2014)

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 (2014)

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.

Fury (2014)

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.

Jeepers Creepers, la canción

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, Jeepers Creepers?  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.

Jeepers Creepers by MistyIsland1

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.

The Immigrant

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

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.