Filed under: creativity, movies | Tags: elijah wood, Flashdance, Franck Khalfoun, maniac, oedipal complex, thriller, torture porn, video nasties
Just a steel town girl on a Saturday night
Looking for the fight of her life
In the real time world no one sees her at all
They all say she’s crazy
There’s a cold kinetic heat
Struggling, stretching for the peak
Never stopping with her head against the wind
She’s a maniac, maniac at your love
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
She’s a maniac, maniac at your love
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before
It can cut you like a knife
If the gift becomes the fire
On the wire between will and what will be.
Strange to think that these lyrics from Maniac, the number one hit from Flashdance, were actually written for the 1980 “video nasty” original of this movie.
23 years later director Franck Khalfoun has remade Maniac as a far glossier art-house offering. Its main feature is that it’s shot almost entirely point of view by the main protagonist, schizophrenic and enthusiastic scalper, Frank Zito played by Elijah Wood. Why Wood chose to play this part is anyone’s guess. It’s as far from The Hobbit, Lord of The Rings and Happy Feet as anyone could begin to imagine, but it’s to his credit as an actor that he has chosen to do so.
It’s a curious movie. Billed as truly terrifying and extraordinarily sick, the truth is it’s not nearly as bad as the so called “torture porn’ that’s graced our screens of late. In fact with its classy soundtrack by “Rob” with echoes of 2011′s Drive and 70′s thriller noirs and its interesting use of what appears to be a form of tilt shift photography it’s a really interesting technical achievement.
Wood carries the whole thing off well, he never milks the part and he’s almost a sympathetic character as he quickly ravages the sexually active female population of Los Angeles and uses their hair as the finishing pieces to his collection of vintage mannequins. Clearly he has issues with his mother’s promiscuity which has sent him into such an Oedipal lather and she doesn’t come out well in his estimations.
Overall it’s interesting rather than brilliant.
It won’t get much of an audience but it’s most certainly recommended if you have the stomach for the more graphic moments.
Filed under: Arts, creativity | Tags: 9/11 history, afghanistan conflict, American politics, Jessica Chastain, Kathryn bigelow, modern history, osama bin laden, pakistan, torture, torture porn, UBL, water boarding, zero dark thirty
Jessica Chastain’s performance as “Agent” Maya is as restrained as Kathryn Bigelow’s direction of one of the most monumental moments in detective and military history.
It’s so restrained (as is the direction) that one almost thinks it’s for real.
I honestly can’t imagine how two men could have taken the story of UBL (Osama Bin Laden) being meticulously hunted down and killed and made it as restrained and yet still menacing as this absolute triumph of a movie. But Bigelow and Chastain do just that.
Chastain, hard as nails, yet soft as silk, throughout, carries the movie with so much ease it’s like she isn’t actually acting. She is miraculous. But only because Bigelow affords her the space to breathe, the edit to breathe, the whole idea to breathe with such subtlety that it’s almost as if there IS NO DIRECTOR.
Is this documentary or drama?
There’s been much made about the depiction of torture (especially water-boarding) in the first reel that it sounded to me like I was about to embark on a torture-porn outing. Believe none of that. This is no torture porn movie. The only porn is what inspired it. Yes, the beginning is uncomfortable, but it is considered, restrained and important in the storytelling.
For two hours this astonishing piece of film does next to nothing other than scratch away at the forensics of tracking down the most untrackable mass murderer in history before exploding into the dimmest lit, scariest half hour of action you’ll see in any action movie. And you know the outcome. Weird.
It IS a documentary really.
Character development is minimal and storytelling is at best sketchy, off camera, challenging to the viewer (but that’s what’s so involving about it).
It’s pindrop territory – I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a quiet cinema audience. Popcorn eating would have incited a riot in our multiplex.
James Gandolfini makes his second cameo performance this year in an Oscar nominated movie (after Argo) and it shows that he is politically connected and wise of late career choice. Soon, perhaps, we’ll see him in full-bodied, lead role political material.
Two hours in, the first bars of music creep into the soundtrack. The effect is electrifying. It almost immediately disappears before re-emerging in the credits. It’s that kinda film where music seems unimaginable, yet Alexandre Despal’s contribution is vital.
The final scene sees Chastain reflect on her achievement. Her tears were echoed by mine.
A monumental achievement in cinema.
Filed under: Arts, movies | Tags: antichrist, charlotte Gainsbourg, cutting off clitoris, lars von trier, torture, torture porn, willem dafoe
They're behind you!
I’ve had the DVD for a while now and not viewed it but it was shown on Sky Indie last night so we watched it at last. I’m not sure if it was edited for TV because it wasn’t as shocking as I expected. I like Lars Von Trier although he has a rather variable output. Breaking the Waves is surely his masterpiece, the Idiots, well, a bit idiotic. This falls squarely in the middle for me. Full of self importance and symbolism but stunningly filmed.
My 16 year old son arrived home just at the most graphic moments of “real strong sex” and proclaimed “What on earth are you watching!”
I found the acting a bit too mannered for my liking. Charlotte Gainsbourg just seems to be trying a bit too hard throughout with her breathiness and Willem Dafoe is so desperately earnest that you entirely fail to engage with him.
The “torture” aspect of the movie is actually a bit hilarious if the truth be told. What’s it all about? Ach who knows, who cares really. Female and male stereotyping? The lack of god in the couple’s grief? I couldn’t really tell you and that’s a pity because I think it is trying to desperately connect at some higher level.
The scene where Charlotte Gainsbourg visibly cuts off her clitoris with a pair of scissors does make “Stuck in the Middle” during Reservoir Dogs seem rather light-hearted.
