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Reviews
Silent Night (2002)
A well-crafted and memorable tale for the Yuletide
My wife and I discovered this TV movie around the time of its first airing. It's since become a seasonal treat that we enjoy every few years. "Silent Night" is an unconventional Christmas story, in a very different vein from the likes of "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Miracle on 34th Street" (neither of which obliges its characters to cauterize a shrapnel wound with a red-hot knife blade). Yet in our household it remains a small but significant gem, one that eschews holiday sentiment in favour of a powerful, real, and inspiring statement about the human condition.
The story itself is straightforward. On Christmas Eve, 1944, two groups of soldiers -- one Allied, one German -- descend separately on a hunting cabin where Elisabeth Vincken and her young son Fritz have taken refuge from air strikes on their city. On Elisabeth's insistence, the soldiers agree to leave their weapons outside and declare the cabin "neutral territory" for the night while they wait out a howling snowstorm. The film then charts both the conflict and the gradual bond that evolves between the opposing sides as they move from hostility and mistrust to an ultimate understanding of their shared humanity. That the story is based on real-life events only further heightens its dramatic impact.
I found the film reminiscent of "12 Angry Men" in how this process of mutual acceptance is mediated by a single, morally-driven figure. Elisabeth is effectively a surrogate mother to her guests, the sole female presence in a volatile cauldron of male aggression. I confess that I was initially leery about the choice of Linda Hamilton for this role, for while I'd found her convincing enough as a female Rambo in the "Terminator" series, I was dubious about how well she could pull off a German hausfrau. Happily, my qualms proved short-lived: I was genuinely amazed by how seamlessly Hamilton inhabited her character, conveying warmth, pluck, vulnerability and steel with equal ease and conviction. It's a nicely nuanced turn that instantly elevated her, in my estimation, from a merely capable actress to a consummate performer.
The remainder of the cast is made up of relative unknowns. This works to the film's advantage, since we are able to focus more on the characters than on the actors playing them. The performances are uniformly solid, with no false notes that I could detect. It is one of the film's strengths that none of the principals is an absolute hero or villain; each has a sympathetic (and effectively rendered) perspective which fuels both the tension and the eventual coming together of the two sides.
The true magic of the movie is how effortlessly it portrays this process, segueing smoothly between baleful looks and lighthearted cheer, violent outbursts and quiet compassion. (Dashes of humour also help move the story along... the homage to "Dueling Banjos," with an American and a German soldier belting out "O Christmas Tree/O Tannenbaum" while relieving themselves in the snow, is a personal favourite.) The basic theme that "we're all more alike than different" can be off-puttingly corny, but in this case it is treated with care and infused with genuine emotional insight to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.
My only real quibble with the film is confined to the DVD edition, which inexplicably removes the present-day sequences that bracketed the initial broadcast run. While showing only the flashback portion doesn't dilute the potency of the story, I do feel it removes some of the story's meaning by denying us the chance to see the broader impact of that fateful Christmas Eve on two of the characters' lives. I would recommend seeing the fuller version (with present-day scenes intact) if at all possible, for a deeper, richer appreciation of its timeless themes.
Treed Murray (2001)
Don't judge this film by its title!
**POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS IN PARAGRAPH 5**
I watched "Treed Murray" for the second time the other night, and found I had forgotten just how brilliant this film was (in spite of its atrocious title). I agree with the reviewer who contends that Toronto is the only setting where this storyline would work, since gang members in any American metropolis would have just whipped out a gun and settled the matter in about 5 seconds flat. Instead, "Treed Murray" serves up a mesmerizing study of human psychology, where no character is black or white and no one emerges unscathed.
The situation is straightforward. On his way to work one morning, advertising executive Murray takes a shortcut through a city park, where he's accosted by a teen named Carter who asks him for money. Murray refuses and shoves Carter down, whereupon he is chased by Carter's gang and takes refuge in a tree. The rest of the film involves Murray's attempts to talk his way out of the tree, using his skill as a master manipulator to play head games with his captors.
That's the plot in a nutshell, but this is by no means a plot-driven movie. It's more of a modern morality play, one that would easily lend itself to a stage treatment. Each character is carefully drawn and defined by their place in society: Murray, on the top rung of the social ladder, literally looks down on the "punks" from his perch on high. He judges them as they pace below him, trapped in limbo, unable to move onward due to their thirst for revenge. Yet the arrangement is not as one-sided as it looks, for the 5 youths -- under the command of Shark, their streetwise leader -- manage to hold their own against Murray's alternately glib and savage tongue. They repay his malice in numerous ways, even as he works to erode their gang loyalties and pit them against one another.
The balance and flow of the film are expertly realized, thanks to outstanding performances from a (small) cast of relative unknowns. We alternate between swells of violent hatred and quiet, tender moments where the enemies connect emotionally or unite briefly for a common cause. It's frequently hard to identify whether a character is being genuine or manipulative by what they say -- an ambiguity which serves the movie well, since it forces us to question and doubt along with the characters. I found it nothing short of riveting to witness the shifting power dynamics as the characters expose one another's prejudices, while inadvertently uncovering their shared humanity. It's raw and unsettling stuff to watch, but it carries a powerful message: like Murray and the street gang, we are all bound to one another as fallen creatures. Each one of us is flawed and vulnerable, equally capable of compassion or of ruthless depravity.
My picks for favorite scenes include: 1) Murray's sermon on how he, the marketing guru, "made" the gang's resident poser; 2) Murray's one-on-one scenes with Kelly and Carter; 3) Murray dropping his coat to cover a shivering Kelly; 4) the nail-biting climax; and 5) the chilling walk-through of Raven and his gang, proving that there are far greater evils in the world than the cat-and-mouse antics of our main characters.
Don't let the title put you off. "Treed Murray" is a movie well worth seeing
and one you're unlikely to forget for a long time after.
Eight stars out of a possible 10.
Elephant (2003)
A mammoth achievement
**WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS**
'Elephant' is the most disturbing movie I have seen in a long time. Modelled on the Columbine High massacre (one of the film's gunmen even shares a name with real-life killer Eric Harris), it is a compelling yet strangely dispassionate turn from Gus Van Sant, director of 'Finding Forrester' and 'Good Will Hunting.' These previous efforts led me to expect something equally life-affirming in 'Elephant,' but boy, was I wrong. The film is stark, unredemptive, and yet in spite of that (or maybe because of it), utterly haunting.
The film presents a cross-section of students in a suburban high school (ostensibly in Portland, Oregon, though the setting is never revealed -- the school's name is always out of focus or just slightly off-screen). It's billed as just another ordinary day at school, but from the DVD cover we know exactly what's coming. Van Sant pushes this suspense to the extreme with a stream-of-consciousness approach and languorous pacing. Minimal cuts, extended traveling shots, and surreal slow-motion segments all leave us writhing in our seats, riveted by the knowledge that calamity is always just around the corner.
Van Sant's style serves another purpose: to show the torpor of adolescence in middle-class America. His intricately observed images paint a portrait of high-school life which is at once excruciatingly authentic and eerily detached. The characters' emotions seem muted, their interactions somehow banal. It's an odd take on a period of life I associate more with emotional extremes
but the mood is so effectively drawn that when the climactic carnage finally erupts, it seems almost as much a product of sheer boredom as of long-simmering rage and hatred.
Against expectations, the shooting scenes provide no release from tension. Van Sant treats them with the same clinical objectivity as everything that came before. The gunmen don't scream or run, but pace the halls calmly, methodically, not even breaking a sweat. Their targets seem more catatonic than terrified. Moreover, the audience's brief exposure to each character leaves little room for empathy. Instead of grief, we feel only horror and pity. This restraint works for the most part, but occasionally rises to the ridiculous, as in the scene where John and his dad find each other safe outside the school. I know his dad is sloshed, but come on now -- no parent could be *that* blasé on finding their child alive in the midst of such catastrophe.
The naturalism of the acting suggests a loose script based on situational improv -- like the approach used in 'The Blair Witch Project,' another film which blurs the life/art boundary by using the actors' real names for their characters. If this *was* the technique behind 'Elephant,' I can't help what wonder what impact it must have had on the teenaged actors, particularly those playing the disturbed gunmen
one can only hope they had good counselors close at hand. Especially mesmerizing is the actor playing Alex, the mastermind behind the shootings and the only character to show a measure of complexity. He's a Hannibal Lecter protégé, a discordant mix of culture and callousness. He plays Beethoven on the piano (shades of 'A Clockwork Orange'), fumbling intermittently to reflect his inner turmoil. He quotes Shakespeare as he stalks the hallways with his AK-47. (His acquisition of this weapon is one of the film's most chilling scenes: watching a documentary on Hitler, the boys are interrupted by the arrival of a delivery van. One signature later, they're opening the box and admiring its contents with the rapture of children on Christmas morning.) But my own favourite scene involving Alex is the one where he returns to his empty house the day before the shooting, aimlessly opens the fridge and drinks milk straight from the carton. This teenage moment, so striking in its familiarity, seems perversely at odds with the pathology beneath his baby-faced exterior.
Adults in the film are peripheral to the action, and not one has a significantly positive role. John arranges a ride for his drunken father, only to be reamed out by his intolerant principal. Alex's mom is equally harsh and indifferent. None of the grownups seem capable of providing their kids with support or genuine connection. Oddly, it is John, after enduring the worst treatment by the adults, who emerges as the film's sole hero. In another scene plucked straight from Columbine, he is told by the killers to 'go home' but instead stays behind, pacing the parking lot to warn others against entering the school.
While much of the film's content was cryptic, the only scenes that left me truly clueless were the ones with Benny. I got that he was actively seeking out the gunmen, but what for? To act the hero or commit suicide? Doubtless the ambiguity was deliberate, but for me the whole Benny sequence was just weird, distracting and out of place.
The film's final enigma is its title. Is Alex and Eric's shared psychosis the 'elephant in the room,' a danger no one will acknowledge for fear of getting too closely involved? Are their murderous grudges an example of how 'elephants never forget?' Or does the title allude to their feeling of freakishness, like Dumbo with his enormous ears? For this viewer, only one thing is certain: after watching 'Elephant,' I'll never hear 'Für Elise' in quite the same way again.
Eight stars out of a possible 10.
One Hour Photo (2002)
Pretty much "picture" perfect
**SPOILER ALERT FOR PARAGRAPHS 5 AND 6**
"One Hour Photo" is one impressive movie. I honestly can't remember any other film I've seen that managed to be both creepy and deeply affecting at the same time. Once I got past "Hey, it's Robin Williams with a bleached crew-cut!", I was completely immersed in his performance as Seymour ("Sy") Parrish. It's a tour de force for Williams, and proof positive for the final 3 skeptics that he can be just as brilliant in dramatic roles as he can in comic-genius mode. Even before the traumatic roots of his obsession are revealed, Sy is a perfect-pitch blend of goosebump fodder and heartrending pathos. He's a stalker, you can't help but shudder, yet at the same time you can't hate him. And the soulless, caged-animal look in his eyes when he's caught in the police cruiser's headlights seemed to perfectly crystallize his character: lonely, desperate, crying out for some connection to life beyond the safe but soul-crushing banality of the photo counter at Sav-Mart.
Thematically, the film offers a scathing indictment of the voyeuristic thread running through modern American society. The image of Sy settling down to watch TV, while his montage of Yorkin family photos fills an entire wall in the background, captures this theme most powerfully. As in Hitchcock's masterful "Rear Window," director Mark Romanek forces viewers to recognize their own role as armchair voyeurs. Through the medium of a (movie) camera lens, we too observe and judge the emptiness of Sy's existence and the disintegration of his fragile hold on reality.
Carrying along this camera metaphor is Romanek's stunning cinematography. It evokes Stanley Kubrick (especially in the nightmare sequence) and M. Night Shyamalan with meticulous emphasis on symmetry and perspective lines...not to mention painstaking use of color as an arc into the different characters. Sy is painted in neutral, lifeless tones (not only his clothing, but also his apartment and even his car), in contrast to the Yorkins, who are saturated with bold, vibrant hues. Standout moments in this category include the psychedelic, puke-coloured cast of the parking-lot when Sy discovers the crack in his windshield, and subtler strokes like the blood-red chair in the otherwise stark-white interrogation room.
Some commentators have criticized the film for a lack of plot and "paper-thin" performances from the supporting cast. I agree that anyone who rents "OHP" looking for a plot-driven movie is bound to be disappointed. It's not about plot; it's an intensive character study, the same sort of approach Shakespeare used in "Macbeth." Even when the spotlight isn't directly trained on Sy, it's still generally reflecting some aspect of his character -- for example the scene of Will and Nina Yorkin's argument, which establishes the critical difference between Sy's idealized vision and the reality of a strained marriage. Within this "one-man show" framework, I though the supporting cast did just fine. The only one that jarred a little was Gary Cole, and that was only because I couldn't stop seeing his previous, insufferable turn as a boss in "Office Space." (I kept waiting for him to say "Yeahhhhh... I'm, ahhh...gonna have to, ahhhh...get you to go ahead and ahhhh...move your desk, Sy...")
Other shortcomings were few and minor. **SPOILER ALERT** Sy's revelation of his childhood trauma seemed a little out of sync to me. It was an insightful, perhaps obligatory, scene (and another magnificent piece of acting by Williams), but it might have seemed less obtrusive if presented earlier on in the film, rather than at the end as a typical sort of "oh yeah, and by the way, this is why I'm such a head case." But that's nitpicking, really. The only other thing that troubled me was Jake's complacency in talking to this man, barely more than a stranger, who freakishly pops up at his soccer game. I kept wondering, "Didn't anybody streetproof this kid? *I'd* sure as hell have told my parents when I got home!"
I don't feel this movie was too predictable. The ambiguity of what happened to the pictures from Sy's shocking "photo session" plainly frustrated some, but I found it intriguing. The other ambiguity I liked was how the film blurred the lines between heroes and villains. The fact that Will Yorkin survives in the end *did* come as a surprise, but it wasn't inconsistent with Sy's character. Either outcome would have fit, and I felt this choice had more power because forcing Will to live with the shame of his infidelity was the greater punishment. The scene of his homecoming was an exquisite and devastating example (not the film's first or only, by any means) of how much one can convey on film without words...and stalwart proof that the supporting characters had more to do than just play backdrop to Sy's chilling psychodrama. **END SPOILER ALERT**
The film is so richly textured that I could go on for pages more, but I'll wrap up just as I came in: "OHP" is an extraordinary picture. It forces us to examine that squeamish area of the psyche that no one wants to admit exists (much less to visit!), implicates us in the act of voyeurism, and at least for this viewer, leaves an indelible impression. Hats off to all, especially Williams and Romanek!