It has been, in my view, an abhorrent summer for American movies. Inception was a bright spot, but not that bright. Fortunately I've seen three foreign films that managed to do something else other than jiggle the camera, pound us in the head with baseball bats and blow shit up. Don't get me wrong, as a friend of mine once put it, "Blowing shit up just never gets old". But bad plot and cardboard cutout characters do.
From France: Micmacs à tire-larigot
Directed by French legend Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie), Micmacs could best be described as watching Cirque De Soliel set in a junkyard. It's all err... French. Beautiful, whimsical, surreal and oddly disquieting. The main character, Bazil, (Dany Boon) loses everything after a bullet gets lodged in his skull. Homeless, he's taken in by a motley crew of salvaging outcasts who make a living off Paris' discarded junk. Among this circus-like collection of characters: an old guy who makes bizarre robots out of whatever he finds lying around, shoes, toasters,etc.; a contortionist who folds herself in two and, in one scene, lies in wait inside a close refrigerator preparing to surprise Bazil.
The gang's goal is to take revenge on weapons/munitions companies that cost Bazil his old life. They plan a series of capers to shut the companies down and bring their chairman to justice.
Filmed by Japanese cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata, the look of Micmacs is very much like Amelie with rich saturated golden colors. It's a highly watchable effort, inventive and surprising, one of those films you watch to and let the images wash over you. The film does not, however, generate a whole lot of empathy or emotional engagement. Still, if you like dark comedies and beautiful images, this film should appeal to you.
Rating-> Presentation :32 Plot:26 Character:25 -> total : 83
From England: Harry Brown
Harry Brown is this: Michael Caine as an old Dirty Harry with a conscious. Harry lives in a bad area of town and spends his days playing chess with his old friend and drinking. He's a decorated Northern Ireland veteran who lives off his Royal marine pension- his time in the service is something he'd just as soon forget. His friend is murdered by the young thugs who run the area and said thugs record the murder on a cell phone then post it on youtube. When one of the thugs tries to rob Harry, well.. you can guess what happens.
But what makes this an unusually rich and textured film is Harry's battle with his conscience. There's something in his past that eats at him and, throughout the film. he struggles with the violence he knows he is about to release.
Harry Brown is a visually dynamic film, walkway tunnels pulse with light, dark alleys thick with shadow. In short Harry's apartment project gradually looks more and more like a war zone- matching his own descent into a dark violent world.
Of special note is an absolutely mesmerizing scene when Harry buys guns off a local Marijuana dealer. It's a set piece of depth and spread and Pot plant forests, ending in a running gun battle, all inside, what from the outside, looks like an everyday apartment.
And then there's, of course, Michael Caine. He's been called the world's most employable actor, one who brings style and class to every film he's in. He's Batman's butler and, for my money, not just a better actor than Christan Bale, but someone who, as Harry Brown, would kick his ass.
This is one of the best films of the year. From any country.
Presentation->29 Plot->29 Character- 32 Total:90
From Israel : Lebanon
What a great concept this is: The 1982 Battle of Lebanon shown entirely from the viewpoint of a Rhinoceros tank crew. That is, from inside the tank. If there was an award for the claustrophobic movie ever made, this would surely win.
The tank interior is a horrible, greasy, fetid environment. The crew pisses in cans, water and oil drips with such ferocity you'd think you were in the submarine in Das Boot. And it just gets worse as the film churns along. By the end you can practically smell it all.
The story- a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town - a simple mission that turns into a nightmare. The four members of the tank crew argue among themselves. The tank commander and shell loader vie for power, the paratrooper leader drops into the tank a few times- an iron man who lays down the law. It's not long before the tank gets separated, and attacked, all of which ratchets up the tension pretty effectively.
The danger with making a movie like this is that it can become what the industry terms a "Talking head" movie, which means exactly what it says. And, for me, there were a couple of moments that it fell into that trap. Clearly the filmmaker, Samuel Moaz, was conscious of this. His solution: scan the surrounding town and enemies through the tank's sighting mechanism, bringing the exterior environment into the tank and the viewer's lap. The other part of his solution- get good actors so the viewer gets pulled into their world and and forgets that the only thing on the screen for a couple of 10-15 minute swaths of time are grease-smeared talking heads.
This is one of those films I really wish I could have seen in a theater, with no distractions of any kind so that I could slide into the tank's world completely. When the last escape out of town finally arrived, yeah, it was pretty friggin' intense, exploding into my living room right as I was being talked into boredom.
Lebanon is, in the end, a really good concept that is effectively used. There are lots of good small moments in the film and, on the whole, it feel original and vital- two elements pretty lacking in the summer fare we Americans have been subjected to this year.
Presentation->31, Plot->25, Character->25, Total 81
