Back from Palm Springs. It is hard to readapt to the life here in Seattle, not watching 4 or 5 films a day. However, there are a few that I want to talk about, because of the deception – or the joy - they caused.
Somewhere (S.Coppola, USA, 2010): Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a bad-boy actor stumbling through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. With an unexpected visit from his 11-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning), Johnny is forced to put things in perspective and ask himself some vital questions. Or at least, that is what Coppola wants. Unfortunately, you realize quite rapidly that these questions are not vital at all. Johnny is just bored, and so are we in front of the emptiness, the length and the boringness of her film. When it should focus on the relationship between a father and her daughter and the perdition of a Hollywood star, it simply focuses on random stuff such as a show given by two stripers in Johnny’s room - Sofia films the ENTIRE performance – he falls asleep... so do we -. I used to be a big fan of Coppola’s films. I fell in love with Virgin Suicides and adored Lost in Translation. When Marie-Antoinette came out, I was very disappointed and completely discombobulated. Too many rock effects, too many bouffant dresses, too many macarons, and no script – that was a shame. The bad thing is that I hoped she would noticed it, and come back with more profound stories, with tortured, lost, touching protagonists. With “Somewhere”, she simply shows us that she knows Hollywood – its people- and the Chateau Marmont. But other than that, the best she can do is start the film with her main character driving his car in circle on a circuit – metaphor: his life keeps going around and around but doesn’t go forward – and ending it with the same character driving away from L.A to the countryside, stopping his car in the middle of nowhere and finishing the road walking. It is so depressing that all I could do was laugh. So please Sofia, wake up or stop making films and go back to your shopping sessions, draw bags and clothes, but NO MORE OF THIS.
King’s Speech (T. Hooper, UK, 2009): After his brother abdicates, George ‘Bertie’ VI (Colin Firth) reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded nervous stammer and considered unfit to be King, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). At first, I wasn’t convinced at all by the script – a stammer trying to learn how to speak correctly for two hours seemed pretty boring – but I have to admit that I was wrong. The film is brilliantly directed – some fantastic shots in which Hooper places his protagonists not at the center of the screen but aside, on the left or right corner, which gives them much more presence. The actors, meaning the trio Firth/ Rush/ Bonham Carter, is splendid, and there is no way to get bored.
Submarino (T. Vintenberg, Denmark, 2010): It is the story of two brothers who were separated from each other at a young age by a tragedy that split their entire family: the death of their baby brother. 20 years later, Nick's life is drenched in alcohol and plagued by violence, while his kid brother struggles as a junkie to give his son a better life. A hard-hitting but intensely spiritual drama that has nothing to do with Festen – for those who loved this amazing family drama directed by the same guy years ago. The use of the camera is totally different, sober but aesthetic. Nevertheless, Vintenberg goes even deeper in the sordid realism of his story. There is not an ounce of hope, not a single ray of sunlight. The city he films is grey, his protagonists are dressed with dark clothes, the buildings are drab and the ambiance is gloomy. Even if the characters are touching, in the end, I wonder if it is not too much pathos for a single film to treat – it becomes slowly unbelievable, in the objective sense of the word -. You are not even surprised or chocked when the son discovers his father high in the bathroom, with his heroin needle still planted in the arm. Plus, there are some script mistakes or absurdities, SO big that you see it coming minutes and minutes before it actually happens – for example, you learn at the end that the dead baby brother was named Martin and OH so surprisingly, that’s the name of the son of the kid brother. I would be lying if I said that it is a bad film – compared to Somewhere, it is almost a masterpiece – but I believe that Vintenberg can do better – and he proved it with Festen.
MJ.
