The Sign Outside Does Not Say Possibility of Vacancies: Bug (2006)

I will navigate toward a film if it involves a variety of things, some of these include specific details like the acting of Michael Shannon, or the incredibly engaging post-structuralist cinematic leanings of William Friedkin.  In more general terms I am always intrigued by a film that decidedly limits itself in terms of cinematic space or revitalizes what one would assume to be a genre focus that has been wrung dry of any critical possibilities.  Imagine by elation when I discovered that all of these elements were on play simultaneously in the 2006 film Bug, which for a variety of different reasons appears to have come and went with little to no flair, despite it being a rather stellar work in not only the genre of horror-thriller, but also a rather well-executed exercise in narrative filmmaking that works within a linear framework, but still manages to reject any degree of normalcy.  I would even boldly assert that while, Friedkin has always been one to push the cinematic narrative conventions within the real of traditional industry filmmaking, Bug is a work fully entrenched within the experimental and to a degree the avant garde.  Perhaps this films  biggest injustice was its being marketed as a horror film, something that is, undoubtedly, true about its existence and is certainly what led me to engaging with it in the first place, only barely making the cut for inclusion this month, but it is so much more that simply a genre piece with well-delivered elements.  Friedkin's Bug is a very thought out and pin-pointed working of the cinematic tool and its ability to capture the human psyche, particularly one whose fracturing extend not only outside a singular body, but might even occupy multiple versions of self-hood within even a single extension.  Friedkin's film makes sure not to flail about with some of the traditional narrative establishment elements, instead choosing focus his time on the hyper-specific elements of his two main characters, resulting in allowing Michael Shannon to shine, as is usually the case, however, much to my surprise, once the usually underwhelming Ashley Judd does find her footing within this film she manages to exude her own very respectable performance, culminating in a film whose veneer is so thin that realizing one is watching a revolution in cinema practices unfold is only one of its many fantastic elements.

Bug centers on the character of Agnes White (Ashley Judd) an apparently down and out on her luck woman who has holed herself up in the walls of a motel room, avoiding the calls from her recently paroled ex-husband by engaging in heavy consumption of alcohol and self-medication through a lethal cocktail of various pills and narcotics.  While visiting a friend at her job one night, she tangentially meets Peter Evans (Michael Shannon) a ex-military soldier who is considerably soft spoken, but, nonetheless, quite nice to Agnes who takes a quick liking to his simple earnestness.  After an string of incredibly open discussion about their pasts and personal opinions Agnes invites Peter to stay in her place, if only for a non-platonic comforting figure, a notion that seems to parallel Peter's own desires as he ends up spending the night sleeping on the floor at the foot of Agnes' bed.  When Agnes awakes she discovers, not Peter, but her ex-husband Jerry (Harry Connick Jr.) in her house she panics, but again the reemergence of Peter seems to save the situation, his calm attitude diffusing the situation with Jerry. It is not long after this encounter, however, that it becomes clear that Peter might not be as well of as it would suggest, admitting to paranoia surrounding being bitten by bugs, after the two awake during a bed bug attack after a night of intercourse.  What begins as an innocent consideration of a person who is really picky about what things touch his skin, unfolds into something far more complex as Agnes realizes Peter is deeply invested in notions of conspiracy theory and his own body being a vessel of experimentation for the American government, causing him to begin invasion proofing the house with a combination of insect killers and eventually lining the place with aluminum foil, even going so far as to attack a man claiming to be an advisor to him when he was allegedly in a mental hospital, this reaction part of what Peter believes to be a larger conspiracy.  After the murder of this man, Peter questions the loyalty of Agnes one last time, before the two complete an ultimate cleansing from the invasion of bugs, in that they burn the room down, self-immulating themselves in the process.  A snippet in the middle of the credits, however, suggest that a world of normalcy exists somewhere after the plot has ended, perhaps even the possibility that nothing truly occurred in the first place.

I cannot even begin to fathom what I might consider in terms of the critical theories and themes running throughout this movie.  There are the obvious approaches which consider the film for its varied and violent depictions of a particular sect of paranoid schizophrenics whose fears lead to layers of self-mutilation that in its most intense forms extends onto other posies. A sort of Münchausen by proxy in an extreme cinematic form.  Another reading could also look at the ways in which this segments the body horror film into a very small space, looking at two individuals personal identity struggles and the ways in which the outside world is infesting its demands and purportedly "ideal" way of existing upon them, while they react in an allergic and grotesque way.  I could also attempt to tackle the psycho-sexual issues at play in this film, particularly those considering the paternal and maternal in relation to a lost youth or childhood.  All of this is working within Friedkin's Bug and to great success I might add.  Where I think another narrative might emerge is that the film also carries a degree of addiction narrative about it, both in regards to Agnes and Peter, who seem to constantly be either consuming or injecting things into their bodies that are far from healthy, each shade deeper on this scale resulting in their falling apart as humans in very real and tangible ways.  For Peter his decaying is in a much more psychological way, although this fracturing from reality also leads him to remove teeth from his mouth again also a possible result of unseen drug use.  Agnes' own fractured identity as a result of addiction seems somewhat more apparent beginning with her blatant alcoholism and her deep depression induced at the reminder of losing a child, although its factuality is always up for debate, perhaps being a direct result of her alcoholism in the first place.  The narrative, as such, becomes an issue of two addicts coming together and feeding off one anothers' drive to destroy, ultimately, doing so not only to bodies that are completely healthy and trying to help, but to their very space of living, as if to break from the confines of existence itself.

Key Scene:  Michael Shannon and teeth.  Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd talking about variants of insects.  Michael Shannon doing anything.

This is a cheap enough DVD to buy, I assure you it is worth the minimal investment.

He Doesn't Like You Watching Us: Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

For someone who might have either actually read this blog since its inception, or happens to have trolled through all the posts I have made, will know that I am a huge supporter of the original Paranormal Activity film, citing it both as one of the major works in the horror genre, while also defending it as one of the best films of the year of its release.  Now, since then, I have managed to keep up with the franchise, not counting its foreign spin-offs, although I plan to hunt them down eventually and while I did not blog about them due to time restraints, or more likely a lack of an internet source during their respective viewings, I have decided to return to this film, for what I thought would be the final installment in the series, but as I have come to realize there is purportedly a fifth film in the works, one that seems to be focused n a family of color, which is both revolutionary in terms of sub-genre horror filmmaking, but also ripe with the possibilities of poorly executed narrative.  Either way, Paranormal 4 is a moderately successful addition to the franchise, paling in comparison to the original and falling short of the VHS based restrictions of the third film, but certainly trumping the second film which is outright the least realized of the series.  Here, in what begins to be an obvious set up for the next film, viewers are rushed through a narrative that is at times genuinely scary, but still wraps together far too quickly and manages to build upon nothing established in the first films, aside from the continual connections of one character.  The tricks are minimal and aside from a rather visually stunning use of the Xbox Kinect sensors playing heavily into the plot this was a surprisingly simple and predictable entry into the series.  This is particularly a shame since the extra heavy reliance on digital here in this film could have provided for a new level of paranormal invasion, perhaps even a complete destruction on the panoptic, surveillance like look at the movement of evil through a fractured household.  Paranormal Activity is certainly not a bad film, I was thoroughly scared throughout, but in the same sense I was always aware of how uninspired this film proved to be.

Paranormal Activity 4 begins by showing the through line of all the films Katie (Katie Featherson) playing with her infant nephew, whose name in the earlier film is Hunter, also showing her stealing the child before a card explains that the two remain missing to the point where this narrative jumps off.  The film now beginning on October 31st of 2011 looks at the life of a family, most specifically the daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton) who is attempting to deal with the fracturing relationship of her parents Doug (Stephen Dunham) and Holly (Alexondra Lee) while also proving a decent big sister to her younger brother Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp).  Furthermore, Alex is also interested in a neighborhood boy named Ben (Matt Shively) despite his rather obvious one-track mind and the condemnation of his presence by her parents.  When new neighbors move in however, things get a bit unusual when the young boy Robbie (Brady Allen) begins showing up inexplicably at their house at all times of night, first scaring Alex when he appears in the corner of their tree house late at night.  What follows is far more disturbing, when after an accident Robbie stays with the family for an extended period of time.  It is during this time that unusual events occur, things such as weird spectral presences emerging, or Wyatt and Robbie staring blankly for hours before talking to what appears to be nothing.  It is not until chandeliers begin nearly killing Alex, or knives that had gone missing begin falling from the ceiling that the remainder of the family takes notice.  However, at this point, Wyatt has become fully involved with the entity that has invaded their house, a small child that is indeed captured on the laser projection.  When attempting to uncover truth about the events, at the neighbors home, Alex runs into Katie who begins inquiring about Wyatt and his well-being.  This moment leads to Wyatt explaining that he is actually named Hunter, an issue that when brought up by Alex to her parents leads to them chastising her inquiries as being in bad taste, and when she has a final traumatic encounter with the paranormal while her parents are at dinner, things become irreversible as her mother and Ben are attack while she is at dinner with her father, upon returning and discovering the problem, she quickly runs to the neighbors home, only to find things far more disturbing than she could have imagined.

If, as I suggested, the first film is about the fall out of a relationship between two people played out as a metaphor of paranormal haunting, then this the fourth film is the first to truly look at how such a extended issue might affect a child.  Alex is a person suffering from finding an identity and certainty in the face of her parents failing marriage, always hyper aware of how things might affect the sensitive Wyatt, but also using this protection to mask her own insecurities, which are played out rather brilliantly in her relationship to Ben, one that is awkwardly sexualized, but never one of forced consummation.  It is clear that she is initially hesitant to embrace Ben, because he does not support her fears regarding the paranormal invasion of her house, or by extension understand her suffering at the sight of her parents fighting.  With this in mind, it is interesting to see how things shift when Ben is made aware of the reality of the paranormal, or by extension comes to understand the tense relationship between Doug and Holly and is particular witness to the incredibly unhealthy relationship between Wyatt and Robbie.  In fact, the invasion of Robbie into the space of the film, also takes on a shade of the metaphoric as many relationships attempt to fix their domestic issues by adding a child to the equation, here, as is usually the result, the act fails miserably.  The metaphor goes to the somewhat implausible by making it result in incredibly violent events, but this does serve as a nice parallel to the traumas faced by children born into such divisive households, ones where argument and anger prevail out over mild temperament and well-reasoned dialogue.  One could read Alex as the figure capable of doing precisely this, however, her inability to speak against the emotive is double through her being incapable of proving the presence of the paranormal to her skeptical and detached parents, each having their own mocking indifference to her concerns, perhaps because they refuse to validate the existence of the paranormal, or, more likely, because they are far too preoccupied with their own marital sufferings to create a space of dialogue for Alex and Wyatt.  As such, Alex finds herself forced to be a maternal figure to her younger brother a burden that weighs heavily upon her and is evidence very intensely in the last few seconds of the film.

Key Scene:  The real surprise her is how well Brady Allen, the child actor playing Robbie, delivers his performance.  Usually creepy kids rely on looks alone, but when Robbie stares into the camera in this film, it is all the more intense by Allen's great delivery.

This is on Netflix in both an R and unrated version, I am uncertain as to the difference in the two, perhaps a few less boob-based pieces of dialogue.  Either way, watch this and the other films in the franchise, which I believe are all currently available for streaming.

Women Make The Best Psychoanalysts, Until They Fall In Love: Spellbound (1945)

I enjoy doing blogathons, first because it proves a great way to extend my voice beyond the rather small crowd of readers hear at the blog and engage in dialogue with fellow film bloggers on great works of cinema.  The result is often a greater, of not completely new, understanding of a work, or awareness to a work I would never have come across prior.  Second, I also enjoy these blogathons, because, thus far, they have provided me wonderful opportunities to revisit some of my favorite films.  Michael and Jill's TCM Summer Under the Stars blogathon has already allowed me to re-watch the zany The Blob much to my elation.  This second post for the month, in correlation with TCM's day devoted to Gregory Peck afforded me a chance to revisit my favorite Hitchcock film Spellbound.  Considering that it has been some time since I had seen the film and have certainly been able to pad out my Hitchcock blind spots to varying degrees since, I can still say that this film is undoubtedly and unequivocally my favorite, indicative not only of the elements that have led to Hitchcock become the first definitive auteur, but also some of the ways in which Spellbound, a work decidedly entrenched within psychoanalytic narratives, manages to reject the subject matter and visual innuendos made ever so infamous by the late director.  I know that there are quantifiably better, indeed perfect, works by Hitchcock, but given that Hitchcock is clearly poking fun at himself affords this film a layer of detached irony that is less clear in his later works, not to mention the use of Ingrid Bergman, who also happens to be my favorite actress.  Pairing the great leading lady with the equally adept Gregory Peck results in a narrative that flows with intensity and earnestness that makes its winding deceit and dreamlike trance accessible.  Hitchcock wrote the texts on modern horror and thriller filmmaking and it is all on display to great effort in Spellbound, right down to the jarring last scenes in all their erie impossibility.  If all of this is not enough to sell the skeptics out there, may I remind you that Salvador Dali helped create the dream sequence for which this film is most well-known, and its very existence challenges even the most liberal understanding of cinematic possibility.

Spellbound focuses primarily on the experiences of Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) a psychoanalyst, whose identification as a woman has proved both advantageous and hindering in her movement upward in the unconventional science.  The retirement of her boss and mentor Dr. Murchinson (Leo G. Carroll) proves quite troublesome, only to be extenuated by the immediate arrival of his replacement in Anthony Edwards (Gregory Peck) whose text on guilt and the labyrinth is a particular favorite of Constance's.  Hoping to stick to her guns and remain focused on her work, an initial dinner meeting between Constance and Anthony leads to obvious sexual tension that results in Constance finding herself creating excuses just to meet the new doctor, an encounter that assumedly leads to sex rather early.  It is during this meeting that Constance realizes that all might not be well with Anthony, particularly when he passes out after looking at the shadows of her robe, clearly breaking into some bizarre psychosis in the process.  The next day news comes of Antony Edwards not being alive and well, but dead after a murder, a picture affirming that he is in no way the person present in the psychiatric hospital.  Kowtowing to the suspicion, the false Anthony flees in fear, only to be followed by Constance to a hotel in New York, where it is revealed that the man, now going by John Brown, believes himself to somehow be tied to the murder of the real Anthony Edwards.  This allegation, Constance believes, is a result of mental deterioration and does not result in truth.  Committing to the act of helping John, whose last name is later revealed to be Ballentine, Constance helps the mentally troubled man discover that his fear of shadows and lines, comes from an unfortunate experience during skiing when he witness the real Edwards die inexplicably, a vision that opens up a repressed memory from his childhood involving a fatal accident with his brother.  Despite creating a rather clear psychoanalytic picture of Ballentine, Constance is stifled when authorities find a gun wound in the dead Edwards, to which neither have an explanation.  Despite Ballentine's being jailed, Constance continues her search for the truth, discovering that a little more than passing memories led to the death of Edwards and the psychological decay of Ballentine.  Indeed, foul play was afoot from the onset.

Let's talk about sex.  If this were any other film by Hitchcock, that would likely be the appropriate way to begin a critical analysis, and considering that this particular work makes it clear that it is pulling from the theories of Freud it would seem obvious to do just that, however, Spellbound may well be the least psychoanalytically inclined of his films.  Sure there are moments that would make even Freud blush, the fork and knife scene at the initial meeting between Ballentine and Constance being an obvious example, not to mention the surrealist touch with Dali's involvement.  Yet, none of this suggest a film where repressed memories are the result of wild navigations through the world, such as are the case in Vertigo, nor do the crimes take on a degree of sexual supplanting, as occurs in Dial M for Murder or Rope.  Beginning the film with a quote from Shakespeare, Hitchcock creates a film that centers the blame for crime and violence in the individual, further suggesting that their actions are not results of deeply entrenched psychological issues from one's youth, but a result of frivolous jealousy and assertions of lost masculine privilege.  For what may be the only time in Hitchcock's filmic career, a criminal act occurs, simply out of criminal intent.  That is not to say that the film does not extend on to explore psychological issues in other ways.  Take for example its look at the character of Constance, which is highly problematic by contemporary standards.  Considering that Hitchcock was quite invested in the world of the subconscious, his desire to degrade women is nothing new, except here it is particularly verbal and highly against their place in a career that would afford them authority.  Constance is played up to be good at her job, unless of course a dashing man enters the picture, at this point she loses all sense of rationality and is willing to forgive a man of murder (albeit correctly) on his word alone.  Guilt also figures prominently into the film, whether it be the falsified guilt of Ballentine early on or the very real guilt that faces the killer in the films next to last scene that involves one of the most haunting uses of point-of-view camera work in cinema to date, all adds up to the suggestion that what is ultimately the worst about murdering, or believing that one did so, is not the act, but the inability to get over doing so at a later time.  To be void of such guilt, would make one a Psycho...which is a discussion for a different blogathon.

Key Scene:  While I wanted to be unique and go against the obvious choice, one cannot help but adore that dream sequence designed by Dali.  It is the close a viewer will ever get to seeing what it would have looked like were Hitchcock to have worked in the era of German Expressionism and surrealism.

There are blurays of this available in multiple box sets, or individually.  There is also a Criterion DVD that is OOP, which is how I watched it, as such I will let you decide how to track this movie down, but I will note that it is worth doing so in the near future.  The movie is an absolute must see work.  As before I am grateful to Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and ScribeHard on Film for being able to participate in the TCM Summer Under the Stars blogathon.

I'll Show You The Life Of The Mind: Barton Fink (1991)

I have seen quite a few films involving The Coen brothers, even going so far as to describe No Country for Old Men as an example of the rare perfect movie.  While I am used to their films being incredibly comedic and intensely centered in action heavy moments, Barton Fink provided me with an entirely different viewing experience, that while not the norm for the Coen's certainly proved to be enjoyable and incredibly intense.  Combining some stellar performances by both John Turturro and John Goodman, a film about intelligence, accessibility and the delving of one's psyche into the paranoid evokes the greatest of emotive responses one can imagine while watching a film.  I find this to be one of the most complex and introspective films in the Coen oeuvre and place it second only to A Serious Man in what I would claim to be my favorite film by Joel and Ethan.  Perhaps it is the centralization of character evident in both these works that make me love the films, or the complete lack of concern for spatial formality, but something about the magical realist nightmare evoked in Barton Fink makes for a stellar two hours of film viewing.  While this is somewhat early in the Coen's filmmaking career one can, nonetheless, find moments of their soon to be traditional touches, whether it be cameras focusing on events occurring outside of the room in which events are filmed, or fixation on seemingly arbitrary objects.  I personally could not help but pick up on some clear similarities to the world David Lynch creates in his seminal work Blue Velvet.  Barton Fink is a magnificently realized work that explodes into a much larger film than one will initially expect.  The work considers how we consider factual events in a biased narrative, as well as what role we place on creativity in a writer's output, especially when their work is always influenced by outside forces.  While many a films have been made about making films, I would place Barton Fink in the highest of rungs.

The film centers on a character of the title's sake Barton Fink (John Turturro) a New York based playwright who has found recent success with his gritty and minimalist plays focusing on the common man.  While we are shown him enjoying lavish dinners, he is offered high paying work to write screenplays in Hollywood, an offer he finds slightly offensive and counterproductive to his guttural desires to speak for the working class.  Agreeing as a means to gain money to pay for multiple plays in the future, Barton flies out Hollywood and stays at the surprisingly dilapidated and unoccupied Hotel Earle, with the exception of the the under zealous bellhop Chet (Steve Buscemi).  Once situated in his room, Barton attempts to begin writing a gritty "wrestling picture" only to undertake insufferable writer's block, a problem exacerbated by the distraction of continually peeling wallpaper and the constant interruptions by Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) a talkative, rotund life insurance salesman.  Barton seeks inspiration outside of the hotel, eventually running into a idol writer of his W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), who it becomes quite clear has spiraled into alcoholism, much to the disdain of his wife Audrey (Judy Davis), for who Barton begins to take a liking.  Eventually winning over Audrey and earning an extension on his script writing, Barton convinces her to spend time with him, however, upon awaking he realizes she has been inexplicably murdered.  Seeking help from his only friend Charlie, Barton disposes of the body, only to become a key witness in the investigation of Charlie, of who viewers learn is actually "Mad Man" Munch an infamous serial killer.  Needless to say, Barton's daily life becomes absurd all leading to an intense run in with Charlie/Munch that, nonetheless, allows him to burst through his writers block and provide Capitol Studios with a script, one that is instantly despised and leads to his being put on restriction, although he is told to stay in Hollywood as he is still on contract.

One of my favorite elements of Barton Fink are the multiplicities of interpretation allowed for this work.  Of course some of the more obvious interpretations center on the creative process, or class consciousness.  However, it is many of the more obscure yet equally tangible elements of the film that I find intriguing.  It almost has a The Shining element in that one  can pick up various possibilities for commentary.  One element of note is the suggestion of a critique of Fascism within the narrative, particularly in that it represents a clearly Jewish character in Fink avoiding the suppression and attacks of fascist nationalism.  This is overtly emphasized when he is accosted by detectives Mastrionatti and Deutsch whose clear German and Italian ties draw upon Fascism.  Similarly, a reading involving ideas of slavery has emerged, citing the singing of slavery songs and spirituals as an example, although a connection to notions of possessing intellectual property could certainly add some validity to this specified reading.  Finally, and of course most notably is the fact that this could all be an imagined film, which begins with the fact that we are shown moments through the eyes of Barton, especially since it begins with him watching his own play, a fact that is never verified to exist outside his own mind, a quick cutting to a near point of view of him entering into a ritzy restaurant almost solidifies it, if not at the very least helping to rationalize the absurd moments in which he witnesses a hotel become engulfed in flames only to seem fine moments later.  We are never sure what his rejected script consists of, but perhaps that has been what we were shown up until this point, after all there is a wrestling scene between Charlie and Barton that could serve as the inspiration for the script, amidst all its latent homoeroticism.

Key Scene:  For the key scene please refer to the quote in the title of this post.

I watched this on Netflix via Watch Instantly, but was so enamored with it that I intend to purchase a copy and would certainly urge you to do the same, although I would hold out for a bluray release.

Your Shadow Is Over The LIne: J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (2000)

Sitting nicely between at the beginning of The New Korean Cinema wave, as well as clearly show influence from the Hollywood infiltration in Suth Korea the few decades prior, Chan-wook Park's much heralded and well received J.S.A., or Joint Security Area is an action thriller done right.  Often credited as Park's introduction to popular moviegoers, J.S.A. has subtle hints to the methods and commentaries the director would later incorporate in his Vengeance Trilogy, of which Oldboy is perhaps his most well-known work.  It contains a handful of well-known Korean actors, ones whose faces I can now identify, although learning names is still taking some practice, and comments upon perhaps the most strenuous of subjects to the Korean person, the hyper-intense relationship to their bordered communist neighbors North Korea.  Like Shiri, a work that was for quite some time the highest grossing film in South Korea, J.S.A. considers the validity and necessity of a division between Korea and goes so far as to cross the seemingly impenetrable, all be it non-physical, border.   As a thriller, J.S.A. is exceptional, playing into the all to familiar practice of a non-linear narrative within South Korean films, yet managing to use this detachment from temporal space to create contradictions between the recounting of hotly debated events resulting in the murder of a North Korean soldier.  As a film deeply entrenched within the political concerns of a divided Korea moving into the 21st century, Park is careful to consider the validity and verifiability of accusations of rule breaking, particularly when the tensions are predicated on political ideologies, ones enforced by colonized forces and non-present entities.  A border crossing film in the most literal sense, J.S.A. questions the notions of ideological divides and posits a possibility of something transcendent of such detachments, especially when loneliness and a longing for fraternal bonds come into play.

Joint Security Area situates itself quite knowingly within the history of a divided Korea, going so far as to incorporate images and writings reminding viewers, mostly Koreans already aware of the hostilities, of the lynchpin created by the DMZ in the 1950's.  With little explanation beyond this the film depicts the results of this pin being pulled when a shot fires and a North Korean soldier is killed, resulting in a shoot-out between two divided nations.  What follows is the joint investigation by a fictitious global initiative noticeably similar to the United Nations, which intends to investigate how the incident began. The investigation is led by Major Sophie Jean (Yeong-ae Lee) a child of a Korean War refugee and Swiss woman.  If her gender were not already a point of contention, her problematic mixed identity certainly adds a problematic layer. Yet as her investigation begins it becomes clear that the stories provided by the South Korean soldiers engaged in the act, as well as their North Korean counterparts do not match up, heavily predicated on a lack of explanation to a missing firearm slug.  For the South Korean army Sergeant Lee (Byung-hun Lee) represents the point of inexplicability, yet it becomes apparent that he has crossed over to the North Korean side, purely by accident, but, nonetheless, stepping on a mine in the process.  Lee is discovered by Sergeant Oh (Kang-ho Song) who is wary at first of his pleas for help, but after explaining that he can diffuse the bomb with his help Oh reluctantly agrees.  The two share a few moments of discussion and eventually end up sending mail to one another via a flying brick.  Upon the joking suggestion of another soldier in the North Korean Army Lee finally crosses the border and after initial fears the group begins hanging out, eventually bringing another soldier from each side into the picture.  The group keeps their meetings secret, but during one night of revelry, they are discovered leading to a panicked firefight that kills two North Korean soldiers.  The remainder of the narrative centers on Sophie's discovery of this, as well as her own problematic past as it relates to the Korean divide.  Tragically very few survive the entire altercation and the two countries remain problematically severed.

I mentioned in the introduction that this is a film entirely concerned with border crossing, this of course expands way beyond the simple idea of moving from the South to the North and exists on metaphorical levels as well.  Firstly, Sophie represents a variety of crossed borders, firstly in her mixed race identity that crosses national borders, as well as social and political ones.  Similarly, her place as a female within the masculine oriented world of the military represents a border as well.  Even the methods by which the film narratives itself transcend borders, Park's non-linear narrative and use of time both as a grounding signifier and a means to undermine moments crosses temporal borders quite frequently.  Of course the film, while bookended by Sophie's experiences is inevitably about the soldiers experiences as they do cross that literal border.  In crossing the "Bridge of No Return" Lee and Oh have invariably crossed their countires ethical and political borders as well, ones that have very dire consequences resulting in the very least with incarceration and at the very most death. However, the group also transcends notions of fraternal relations, almost to the degree of intimacy as they share food, fond memories of their girls back home and a latently sexual exchange of spit.  However, what proves to be the greatest border crossing has to be Park's choice to depict North Korea not as a place of propaganda driven blind followers, but a country being destroyed by lack of food and a grounded economic future that, nonetheless, finds hope in their leaders and the ideas of communism.  Park's film advocates a unison between two opposing ideas that does not mean synthesizing, nor does it mean absolute exclusion.  It, like Shiri, envisions a a border that exists to mark nothing more than delineations, but can always be moved across with little threat to one's life.

Key Scene:  The moment when the soldiers decide to take a picture of their friendship, Park choose to up the graininess of the scene, subsequently causing it to have a nostalgic feel in line with sentimentality and it comes off beautifully.

This movie is a bit pricey and I had to rent it from the USC library to watch.  With that being said it is quite excellent and purchasing a copy is on my to do list, as it should be on yours.

Do I Have To Be The World's Champion Blind Lady?: Wait Until Dark (1967)

I went into Wait Until Dark not realizing who Terence Young one, only to do a quick IMDB search and realize he is responsible for the earliest, and, and to some degree, best James Bond films.  Once again this creates a film that is not entirely a horror genre film, but instead a thriller in which one woman attempts to save her life, while also dealing with the troubles of blindness along the way, which appear to manifest themselves in both a physical and metaphorical way.  Wait Until Dark carries a level of suspense that is almost Hitchcockian in its composition and a couple of extremely wry moments of humor that hearken back to Audrey Hepburn's performance a few years earlier in Charade.  While one could definitely argue for this film being a bit on the slow side I would venture to say that the closing moments are so damned rewarding and well-executed that the wait is certainly justified and Wait Until Dark consists of some excellent characters, all with brilliant performances, non greater than Alan Arkin as a psychotic killer whose poise and planning are inconceivably precise.  The world of Wait Until Dark moves dangerously around being ruled by contingency and change, quite similar to a film noir movie and manages to set nearly all of its scenes within an apartment, quite similar, but not as technologically brilliant as Rope.  From the hip title cards, to the technicolor palette of the film and right down the the sleek fashions worn by the characters in the film, Wait Until Dark is a movie from Hollywood that simply is no longer made and certainly suffers from a lack of awareness.  Not to mention, considering that this is a month dedicated to horror movies, Wait Until Dark definitely has its share of tense moments, as well as one genuine scare jump.

The film begins in a drug heist manner with a woman named Lisa (Samantha Jones) waiting for an old man to fill a doll with heroin, prior to her smuggling it on a plane from Montreal to New York City, however, upon arrival she realizes she is being trailed and passes the doll off to a man she met on the plane named Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) who is a photographer in New York.  Upon attempting to access the doll later, Sam is unable to find it, due a neighbor girl borrowing it without permission, and dismisses the entire event leaving his blind wife Susy (Audrey Hepburn) to deal with the aftermath, which involves a group of henchmen and a hired killer trailer her with the intent of finding the doll.  The henchmen Mike (Richard Crenna) and Carlino (Jack Weston) play a friend of Sam's and a cop respectively who try to play up on Suzy's blindness to scare her into returning the doll, while the assassin Harry Roat (Alan Arkin) plays a handful of different roles, which becomes immediately suspicious to Susy who has learned to listen to sound clues besides ones voice for identification, taking note of a particular limp of Roat's.  Once Susy metaphorically sees that she is being tricked she plans, along with the help of a neighbor girl named Gloria (Julia Herrod) a means to protect the doll as well as her self which includes employing a non-verbal communication system with Gloria as well as removing every light from the apartment to gain an advantage over her non-blind attackers.  Mike and Carlino forfeit when the realize they are no matter for the cunning woman, only to be killed by the maniacal Roat, who then takes it upon himself to attack Susy and attempt to rape her, something we are led to believe he also did to Lisa.  Ultimately, Susy wins out and is rewarded with the loving return of her husband Sam.

I could play up on blindness as metaphor in this film, but that is far to easy of a reading and is probably exhausted at this point in time, instead I would rather focus on what this film says about intersectionality and how we define and acknowledge able-bodied individuals in society.  Susy is certainly at a disadvantage in some ways, in that she is sequestered to a rather indoor life, because it is dangerous for her to walk across even at cross walks without loosing her sense of direction and becoming a point of frustration for everyone in her path, of course, this says a lot about a groups inability to help when they would rather honk at a blind woman than get out of their car and help her cross the street.  Furthermore, even in a house prepared for her to move about blindly, the slightest movement of a chair or relocation of a object can throw one's entire ability to navigate a space in the way an able-bodied person might, something that is emphasized multiple times throughout the film.  However, what is perhaps most interesting is that it reconsiders how we discuss a blind body.  In societal conceptions of blindness we either assume a person to be born blind or to acquire the unfortunate trait in their old age, yet in the case of Susy she is a fairly young woman who has gained the handicap while still able, causing distress for herself, as well as those who help her, as is realized in scenes of frustration with both Sam and Gloria, yet in times of adversity, it is shown that Susy can not only be self-sustaining, but excel in self-preservation as well, a complete reconsidering of how a blind person engages with the world.  Furthermore, this film also deals heavily with theories of gaze in horror films.

Key Scene:  The closing moments between Hepburn and Arkin are cinema gold.

I am glad to have made a blind (no pun intended) purchase of this brilliant film and cannot recommend it enough, should you find yourself a fan of any of the people involved I would suggest purchasing the DVD immediately, however renting might be the best initial option.

There's Nothing Out There: The Mist (2007)

Let me get this out up front.  I am a huge proponent of director's intent.  I loathe Ted Turner's push to "colorize" classic films like It's A Wonderful Life amongst others.  Furthermore, I am completely opposed to when production companies force directors to sacrifice their visions in the name of ticket sales and accessibility.  This was the case for Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Mist.  Darbont's intent was to release the film in black and white for a variety of cinematic and thematic reasons, yet; his producers refused him this right and demanded that it be in color.  While I cannot speak to it being the reason it fell to the wayside that year for horror films, I strongly feel as though its critical acclaim may have increased considerably were he allowed to film it with the chiaroscuro elements of black and white present.  Luckily, for cinephiles, the most recent DVD release includes the black and white version of the film as an extra disc feature and it is the vision that this post shall review, because I am simply going to pretend the color version does not exist.  With the choice to remove color, The Mist becomes a much more astute social commentary that emits moments of abrasive imagery that makes viewers cringe in discomfort, much like Tony Kaye's seminal documentary on Abortion titled Lake of Fire...a term that to no surprise emerges on at least one occasion within The Mist.  If it were not for Kubrick's version of The Shining, Darabont's adaptation could well be my new favorite take on a Stephen King work, although it appears that at least one movie a year is an adaptation of the prolific writers work, so that statement could change quite quickly.

The Mist focuses on life in a rural Maine town following a storm of cataclysmic proportions.  Painter David Drayton (Thomas Jane) serves as the films main character, as he attempts to make amends with his neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braughber) after a tree from his yard destroys his boathouse.  Realizing the frivolity of the entire situation, both David and Brent, along with David's son Billy (Nathan Gamble) head to the town grocery to gather supplies to begin repairing their respective houses.  While the power is out at the grocery things seem relatively normal and each begins doing their shopping, however, things become unusual as military police begin showing up and demanding that a group of young recruits cut their leave short to help in clean up.  Things grow suspicious quickly and are only worsened when a town resident runs out of the mist into the store claiming to have viewed something in the dense fog.  This event begins the flickers of paranoia within the grocery store, which will provide the setting for most of the films remainder, as David leads an expedition to the stores docking bay, which proves the claims of a creature being in the mist to be true.  A tentacled beast and many mutated bugs exist in the fog and begin preying on the various people within the grocery.  At this point, things begin to fall apart within the store, people begin arguing over whether or not to stay, which ultimately proves to be the dividing point between David and Brent.  Furthermore, a fire and brimstone spouting woman begins to convert followers with her claims of the mist and the beasts as being a sing of the end of days.  While at first her claims are dismissed, with the death of various people and the continual attacks of the monsters she begins to recruit followers, eventually becoming so maddened as to suggest sacrificing Billy to the creature.  David reacts quickly and with the help of a handful of other people escapes the grocery store and grabs a truck to escape.  On their drive out of town, toward Portland, they see the various creatures, most notably a gigantic spider like beast roaming above them.  Along the way they run out of gas, completely incapable of doing anything, David uses a gun to take those travelling with him out of their misery, including his own son.  He is left alone without any bullets to linger in loneliness.  As David steps out of his car to scream in agonizing defeat, military vehicles drive by him to rescue survivors and burn down the infestations of the monsters, if only his group had waited ten more minutes they would have survived the entire ordeal.

The Mist, as Darabont has stated himself, is not about the monsters that exist in the exterior world of the film, but instead those that exist in the interior minds of the people within the film, whether it be David's own struggle to assert himself as a respectable father, or Brent's concern with proving himself as a respectable outsider, even if doing so means legal actions.  Even the narratives secondary characters find themselves battling inner demons, most notably Ollie (Toby Jones) the stores assistant manager who constantly struggles to assert authority despite being of small stature and his being victim to continual ridicule by his superior.  King's work also exudes the issues of religious proclamations in the face of troubled times and in Darabont's adaptation it is clearly suggested that the religious zealot Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) is doing more harm than good by proselytizing to the individuals trapped in the store.  However, Darabont also chooses not to depict her character's imminent death, perhaps as a bleak commentary on the future of religious extremism in America.  Finally, the film has a certain timelessness about it, something that Darbont admitted to intending within the film, while David certainly possesses as cellular phone, everything else within the film suggests a an America from various generations, whether it be the 80's style vehicles or the 50's feel of the town grocery.  The struggles and turmoils of an American unity is central to the film and The Mist reminds viewers that a constant demand for opposition only hinders America.  I am unintentionally on a kick of "storm as a metaphor" films, but I do not mind that considering that, they have all been enjoyable and it seems as though the paranoia of something worse to come is pertinent in the rhetoric of the upcoming political election, as well as the continually worsening state of the world economy. 

Key Scene: The scene in which David finds his wife after leaving the grocery store is incredibly oneiric.

The Mist in black and white is something to be viewed, while it is not an incredibly important film it is quite enjoyable and worth renting, although make sure to get the second disc, because that is where you will find the black and white version which is the one you want to watch.

Dream Is A Shadow...Of Something Real: The Last Wave (1977)

Peter Weir is an interesting director his subject matter and overall cinematic oeuvre are quite spectacular, yet each films is inherently different and the most keen of cinephiles find themselves forgetting that he directed certain films because of their uniqueness.  For a rather in-depth analysis of the director I cannot recommend enough the blog Frederik on Film, which intensely analyzes the auteur, picking out key shots to match each film thematically across Weir's ever expanding career.  I myself intend to do a similar analysis of Danny Boyle in the future, but for the time being, I will simply focus on The Last Wave as a stand alone film, one that is rather early in the directors career.  A dark film, The Last Wave, is a psychological thriller of sorts that is more in line with Ken Russel's Altered States, than something like Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout, to which it is often compared.  It is a classic commentary on the abrasive effects of colonization, yet in Weir's crafty hands it also becomes a study of an aging marriage, a focus on the troubles of antiquated methods of law and most importantly the problem of projecting one's ideologies about life onto an individual despite their methods of living being completely foreign.  Weir's approach never seems to preachy and manages to stick quite nicely to its genre, yet at no time throughout the intensely filmed piece of cinema do viewers question what is being said, in fact, one will find themselves constantly amazed by the layering of ideals portrayed within the movie.

The Last Wave opens rather simply with a group of children playing during recess, only to have their games interrupted by an intense storm that produces a deluge of water and enormous pieces of hail.  After this rather inconsequential event, we are shown Sydney at night, while an unnamed Aborigine flees fellow Aboriginals.  Just at the moment when he thinks he has escape, an elder Aborigine sticks a wand out of a car, stopping the young man in his tracks and killing him in the process.  This inexplicable death, later determined to be a heart attack results in skepticism on the part of local law enforcement and as a result they hire a well-known corporate tax lawyer named David Burton (Richard Chamberlain), who agrees to the task partly out of pity, but also because of eerie dreams he has been having involving visions of an aboriginal boy.  Initially it appears as though Burton will fail to get through to the young men do mostly to language barriers, but the emergence of a well spoken Aborigine named Chris (David Gulipilil) who explains that it is impossible to describe the mans death, because it involves actions from the "dreamtime," which is a shadow of the reality in which he and David live.  This bizarre revelation is only greatened by Chris introducing David to his friend, and elder Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula) another individual who has occupied David's dreams.  In the process of defending the group of aborigines, David becomes obsessed with the notions of "dreamtime," so much so that he becomes distanced from his family and even begins attempts to obtain relics and tools from the Aborigine ceremonies.  As David becomes obsessed with what he believes to be an impending apocalypse, he finally confronts the elder shaman in an underground lair, who is none other than Charlie.  It is during this confrontation that he discovers a subterranean labyrinth of tribal wonders, items he attempts to take with him, particularly a stone mask that appears to resemble David.  In a fit of panic he drops the mask and escapes with intentions of warning about the last wave of destruction that will destroy Sydney, however, he fails to make it in time and falls to the ground to visions of the wave hitting the city.

As noted in the introduction, the film is incredibly concerned with colonization and its affects on urban Australia.  David is clearly the outsider to urban life, living in a nice home on the countryside, preoccupied with tennis and his well to do children.  Furthermore, he is a corporate tax lawyer and defends individuals who are clearly fine off as it is and have no need for more benefits.  It is not until the outsiders preoccupy his mind that he must acknowledge their presence, because he is literally unable to function without doing so, and it is only made clearer by the fact that his friends and wife dismiss his concerns as frivolous.  Only David is concerned with the struggles of these individuals because only he deals with it on a mental and visceral level.  Yet with all his concern for the Aboriginal peoples, he is not only incapable of grasping their ideals, but his inevitable exoticization of their culture leads him to a position of greed and lust that results in his downfall.  For David, it becomes a desire not to prove that the men are innocent, but instead to show that he has come to understand the inner working of an exclusive group...this is clearly not the case.  The wave that is to cleanse Sydney then becomes more relevant as it likely represents a removal of notions of class, race and perhaps gender from societal dominance.  Ironically, David cannot blame the native peoples for the apocalyptic results, because as he realizes upon finding his visage in a mask in the films closing scenes, it is wholly his fault from a position of power for not helping to end such destruction.  He and the world he comes from clearly ignored the destruction of those below and his slighted attempts at redemption were simply too little, too late. 

Key Scene: The opening sequence with the storm is rather intense and grabs viewers into what will be a crazy film.

The Last Wave is one of the lesser acknowledge films within The Criterion Collection, but as avid followers of the company know that usually means that it is one of the best gems in the entire catalog.  Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy, before it suffers the tragedy of inevitably going out of print.

Say Hello, She Is Like Your Second Mother: Carnivore; Beasts of Prey (1985)

I remember pondering all the possibilities of American influence on Japanese cinema upon initially entering into heavy film viewing.  I would watch films like Vengeance Is Mine and Jigoku and find myself drawn to their similarities to what was being done in America during the era.  I was quite certain that no other country displayed influences form The United States in quite a way, until I sat down to watch a relatively old Korean film in Kim Ki-Youngs Carnivore, also known as Beast of Prey and Carnivorous Animal.  A film that is preoccupied with the fears of modernity, particularly those involving shifting gender norms and sexual power dynamics, Carnivore is melodramatic, cinematic and horrific all at once.  I was a bit thrown off when reading that Kim Ki-Young's work was considered to be placed solidly within the horror genre upon initial release, but when viewing this narrative I found it to be fitting, although the work clearly flirts the lines of dark comedy as well.  The movie offers no clear moments of redemption, nor does it provide a single good character, rather ironic for a film steeped in the traditions of melodrama.  As has been the case for so many Korean films thus far, Carnivore does not succinctly fall into one single genre, in fact it is very much a hybrid of multiple genres, layered together, at times rather abrasively, but mostly with flawless precision.

Carnivore follows Kim Dong-sik, an aging securities firm employee, who is becoming forced to take a back seat to his wife's successful business ventures in transports.  He begins to question his own masculinity and spends much of his time drinking at a local bar, which clearly doubles as a brothel.  This action is only worsened by the fact that his wife also spends her evenings at a bar for women to meet young gigolos.  During one particularly bad night, Kim blows a large some of money at the bar chatting with a young woman.  The madame of the bar-brothel tells the young woman that she is responsible for obtaining his large bill and suggests she offer herself sexually to recoup the debt.  Engaging in a rather brief sexual encounter in the back of Kim's car, the woman becomes infatuated with Kim and demands that they move in together.  At first dismissive, Kim finally agrees to build two homes as he realizes his wife and himself are doomed for failure.  Despite the concerns of his whole family, Kim engages in the two homes and finds himself revitalized by the lust and vivacity of a younger woman.  However, the lines between his first family and his new mistress begin to blur and come to a climactic crash during a birthday celebration in which his family and lover are simultaneously present.  The mistress, engulfed with jealously demands that Kim spend the night with her, an action that would directly break the agreement between his wife and the mistress.  Regardless of the pact, Kim agrees to stay with dire results, after a fiery round of intercourse, the mistress stabs Kim and he falls down the stairs in defeat, just as his family enters the house to inquire to his tardiness.  The film then closes with claims of the events being based off real events, a fact that I am unsure about.

I mentioned this film being squarely in the horror genre, much like Audition, much of the film seems rather mundane and unfit for the genre.  However, for those of you who have seen Miike's dark work, it become clear in the back half of the film that it is something grotesque and completely horrific.  The last thirty minutes of Carnivore certainly adhere to this notion between the stabbing and the slipping sanity of those involved within the bizarre love triangle.  This bit of action, does not fully explain the horror within such a film though, instead the disturbing qualities within the film rest solely in the absurd, something that directors like Hitchcock used extensively in their horror works.  Arguably, a viewer knows that what is being depicted is not normal; however, the characters within the narrative treat it as the usual, recall Vertigo if you have any questions.  Between the unquestioned visits to gigolos and Kim being dressed as a baby, nothing is made to seem out of the ordinary.  Even the agreement between Kim's wife and mistress seems bizarre, because it is done so with almost business like formality.  It has been said that Korean audiences laughed loudly at many of the scenes within the film, I can imagine that it is due partly to the ridiculous scenarios depicted; however, I would also venture to say that it is from a bit of discomfort at the fears of such actions occurring as a result of modernity.  I cannot claim this to be one of my favorite horror films, but the unusual approach to such a genre and its clear intention to mesh genres may very well make it one of my favorite genre hybrids.  It is realized and incredibly scathing in its intentions.

Key Scene:  The scene in which Kim begs for candy is absolutely brilliant...you will know it when it happens.

This films accessibility suffers from region locks and the like, yet, thanks to the Korean Film Archive it is instantly available, with subtitles, on Youtube.  Please take advantage of this viewing opportunity before the film is inevitably removed for some stupid reason.

There's A Storm Coming Like Nothing You've Ever Seen: Take Shelter (2011)

I really am beginning to regret making my favorite films of 2011 list so early, particularly considering that I had not seen a considerable amount of films that received critical acclaim from the year.  It is likely that films like The Artist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and even Drive would have replaced some of my choices.  However, I was adamant that no film I watched from last year would be more spectacular and profound than Tree of Life.  This was certainly the case, until I watched Take Shelter.  Without a doubt, this Jeff Nichols film about paranoia and the decaying of the family unit within rural America is one of the best films of the past decade and contains what may very well be the best ensemble acting performance of last year.  A film like this gives me faith in the possibilities of independent film in the next decade, considering that its budget was nothing compared to a work like Super 8 or Midnight in Paris, yet manages to exude both the thrill of cinema and honesty of good narrative better than both of the previous films combined.  I also mentioned that The Muppets film accrued much of its praise from being an astute observation of the economic woes in The United States, however, its comedic leanings lessen some of its pertinence, where as Take Shelter focuses on the same issues in a grating and inescapable manner, and for that its is also brilliant.

Take Shelter, set in Ohio, the heart of tough living American in the past few years, focuses on the daily interactions of Curtis (Michael Shannon) a working class man struggling to support his loving wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and the medical demands of their deaf daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart).  Curtis seems capable of dealing with his heavy demands; until he begins have hallucinatory dreams about an impending storm of yellow water that will leave nothing in its destructive path.  As a result of the paranoia that insues with his dreams, Curtis begins repairing a worn down storm shelter in his backyard, despite the economic demands of such an endeavor.  Initially realizing the absurdity of his actions, Curtis keeps his projects a secret to his wife and friends, only recruiting the help of a co-worker to help build the storm shelter.  As the dreams become more dark and the economic demands become greater, Curtis finally falters and his visions hinder his ability to be productive.  He loses his job and his wife becomes enraged with him and at one point he completely falls apart at a luncheon attacking his former friend and yelling at everyone in the room with a prophetic omen about the impending disaster.  As a result of love, or perhaps fear, Samantha follows Curtis into the shelter on a particularly stormy night and they await a passing storm.  Eventually they leave the shelter to realize that everything is fine and that their world is back to normal.  The family then takes a much needed trip to the beach where, Curtis watches Hannah become preoccupied with a storm brewing across the ocean.  Samantha steps outside and witnesses the storm herself, suggesting that Curtis was indeed right about his fears, or in a more bizarre possibility that the entire family has slipped into a destructive paranoia.

While paranoia certainly influences the narrative of the film, Take Shelter is far more concerned about the effects of the economy on family relationships, particularly when money proves an inescapable burden.  I plan not to elaborate in too great of detail on this because I am going to formulate a paper about this for an academic journal, but I will give a few general commentaries on this notion.  First off, the film inserts various brief scenes about money woes through the film, whether it be the depictions of the family eating the same meals every day, or Curtis' pricey trip to the gas pump.  All these brief additions are intended to set up a monetary demon for the family that is constantly attacking them, only to be worsened by the dangling promise of healing Hannah through a pricey medical procedure.  With these notions in place, the impending storm could represent a variety of ideas whether it be complete bankruptcy or the fears of divorce it is something that could cause a frenzied panic and, furthermore, an anxiety so great that Curtis would need to seek psychiatric advice.  In one of the films more brilliant scenes, Curtis takes his family into the house built within the shelter, one created from using a storage unit as a portable home.  It could be read as creating a sort of new sphere, separate from the private and public, considering that neither has proved beneficial to the family.  However, as the film proves, even this new creation is useless as the "storm" that influences the entire narrative finds new methods to attack Curtis and his family.

Key Scene: The dream sequence between Curtis and Samantha...you will know it when it happens.

Take Shelter is a gem of 2011 that was all but ignored.  Thanks to the excellent podcast Battleship Pretension, I was turned onto this film and I can only further their recommendation and demand that you get a copy on bluray.  It will be worth your time and money.