This Kid Is Flat Out Magic: Speed Racer (2008)

I will preface this review by noting that I once dressed as Speed Racer for a costume during career day in high school.  This will assuredly make my reactions to all things relating to the franchise particularly notable, especially something like a live action remake of the film.  I will admit that I was wholly aware of this film when it came out in 2008, but purposefully avoided seeing it because at the time I did not want my nostalgia, and frankly, still rooted adoration for the film negated in any serious way.  I had been told, prior to getting into the film that this was not good by the general film going public who were assumedly expecting something in line with The Wachowski's other works prior, such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta.  I admit that Speed Racer, in its seizure-inducing visual styles and seismic like pacing, is a far cry from the previously mentioned films, but when it comes to a directing duo such as Andy and Lana Wachowski repetition is simply not a thing of interest.  Speed Racer was critiqued for not appropriating the franchise and was dismissed as being all thriller with absolutely no filler.  I find both of these accusations to be indicative on individual critical lenses that cannot accept that the film is managing to do both of these things in such a synchronized way as to completely move beyond a space of live action remake to a complete revisioning of the world of Speed Racer.  Between a noted choice to create a cyberspace for the world, one that incorporates CGI graphics with a very early pixelated look and the after effects added to many of the motions undertaken by the character it is a noted shame that Speed Racer did not receive a greater degree of praise for its absolutely thrilling use of special effects.  The Wachoswki's clearly took their source material to heart and managed to create something that was both true to the material as well as infused with their own cinematic points of interest, the delightful uses of kung fu in the film being a great example of just this occurrence.  Indeed, Speed Racer the film is not the cartoon, because as a live action film it cannot perfectly recreate that which does not exist in the real.  Between the vibrant colors, purposefully measured acting of the performers and a keen eye for narrative scope, Speed Racer gets as close to the cartoon as possible without relying on cel animation to exist.

Speed Racer focuses on the title character of Speed (Emile Hirsch) who is a member of the independent racing family The Racer's.  While Speed has become the new hope for racing in the family he is living under the shadow of his late older brother Rex (Scott Porter) who died in a car crash much to the sadness of his father Pops (John Goodman) and Mom (Susan Sarandon).  Nonetheless, Speed proves from a young age that he is simply tied to racing, therefore, spending his days becoming better at the sport, letting it even invade his dreams.  Supporting Speed are the other members of his family Sprite (Paulie Litt) and a pet monkey Chim Chim (Willy and Kenzie), alongside Sparky (Kick Curry) the Racer's mechanic and Speed's girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci).  When Speed makes a name for himself during a big race, he becomes the object of affection for various racing companies, including the corporate power figure Royalton (Roger Allam).  Despite being offered lavish goods and the highest training, Speed refuses to join the Royalton racing team, thus leading to him becoming a target of the other drivers who are part of a fixing scheme that is affecting the professional racing circuit.  Approached by the enigmatic and stoic Racer X (Matthew Fox) in unison with Inspector Detector (Benno Fürmann) Speed is asked to help create a team that will directly counter the corruption in the sport.  Although initially hesitant, Speed agrees to join when another racer Taejo Togokahn (Rain) also joins forces with him and X.  Unfortunatley, during the race it is revealed that Taejo is under the strings of a larger corporate scam, leaving Speed no choice but to enter into a highly contestable race and prove that he is not only the best racer in the circuit, but that he can achieve victory without playing into the scheme of fixed matches.  After the affirmation of Racer X, who Speed believes to be his deceased brother, Speed takes on the greatest racers in the industry and even manages to catch one of them in the process of cheating.  In victory, Speed ushers in a new era of racing where skill and compassion trump deception and wealth.

If this were any other filmmakers work, I would be inclined to read the narrative on a very cursory level, completely overlooking the possibility of gender politics, ethics and even religion at play in the film.  The Wachowski's however, are not any other filmmakers, and whether it be their masterpiece The Matrix, or their more contentious recent film with Tom Twyker Cloud Atlas it is certain that they take narrative to be something that works on layers and pulls from various sources to create its details.  Speed Racer is a lengthy movie considering its subject matter and potential intended audience, but it is very much in this length that the film can be discussed for its use, or lack thereof, of linear narrative to create identity and empathy in a film.  It would be simple to read this as a film about Speed Racer coming into his place as the future of a name in racing and it is very much that, however, the layers of performing the part of prodigal son, unwilling patriarch and thing of spectacle all emerge within the fantastical frenzy of the film.  The way figures move throughout the film in a layered, free floating manner suggests that as much as the narrative is decidedly predicated upon the decisions and actions of Speed, it is also in unison and constant engagement with the other figures in his life, both those incredibly close to him like Trixie and those almost wholly detached, such as the announcers whose voices and visages emerge in as almost a high a frequency as the main characters.  This all coalesces to suggest that every motion or action is in regards to a layer of contingent events that if altered even in the slightest could change the entirety of the narrative.  For example, Racer X knows that by revealing his identity to Speed in a very real sense could prove the very change that would minimally alter his ability to win the Grand Prix.  In a more cinematic and metaphorical level, Speed while still a good sport, nonetheless, has to learn that the best way to win a raise is not to be straightforward from beginning to end, but does require navigating outside the boundaries of the track, because these spaces are of equal importance to his advancement.  It is when he must use the Mach 5 to climb the side of the mountain, in the process skipping a section of the track, that he moves into a new space.  The Speed that is capable of unquestioned victory learns that linearity is futile, when those around are willing to help and hinder such progression, even if in an accidental manner.

Key Scene:  The outdoor kung fu fight is an excellent aside, in a film that is for all intents and purposes about race car driving.

This film is without a doubt one of the most underrated films of the past decade, alongside the other Wachowski work Cloud Atlas.  It pops of the screen and demands a bluray purchase unlike any other film.

Deprived Of Lessons, I Decided To Run Away: Fantastic Planet (1973)

Some amazing films I come to the way of multiple suggestions from prolific and reliable sources, whether they be dear friends or noted critics.  Other wonderful experiences with films come from picking up a previously unknown film as part of a package or at a flea market both that probably lifted their merchandise from questionable sources to begin with.  I am fond of the results that come from both of these avenues of discover, however, there is a third set of discoveries that seem to be my personal favorite, those being the movies that I unearth during occasional bouts of insomnia or a general inability to sleep.  Usually hoping to find something with an ambiance or simplicity that will lull me into drowsiness and eventually sleep, I end up finding works whose surreal leanings and captivating narratives challenge my pseudo sleep state to its very core.  In the past movies of this vein have included the surprisingly poignant look at mental illness and online gaming through Ben-X, or jarringly, yet critically realized experimental films like Damned If You Don't.  Last night I found myself facing the rare moment of lethargic awareness and was hesitant to commit to anything lengthy and decided that the cult classic French animated film Fantastic Planet would serve as my point of viewing, because I assumed that it would be easily paused should my weariness overcome me, however, I realized almost seconds into the film, with a shrill opening and freaky aesthetic, that Rene Laloux's animated statement on the nature of human existence, would be stealing the next hour of my possible sleep and I was completely fine with that outcome.  Fantastic Planet, is as its name suggests very fantastical.  In the animation style made known by Terry Gilliam and famous by The Beatles Yellow Submarine, Fantastic Planet takes on a bizarre quality, full of humanoid figures whose blank stares and robotic movements both captivating and disconcerting.  The visuals alone could have been enough for me to completely embrace this work, but the fact that it makes very focused and astute statements about the existential being only add to its importance.  Honestly, I am surprised that I did not find myself completely haunted by nightmares when the film finally, and abruptly ended, its exhaustive nature proving the perfect dose to my quest for rest that happened immediately.

Forbidden Planet begins with the frantic fleeing of an unnamed woman who darts back and forth with her child in hand as objects inexplicably fall from the sky blocking her path of escape, suddenly and very intensely blue fingers and hands begin flying towards her, eventually grabbing her and lifting her into the air and immediately dropping her.  The pressure of the fall causing the woman to die as her young child looks on in a state of confusion.  The blue beings are known as Traags and tower over the small humanoid creature that they refer to as Oms, and aside from existing in a tribe-like state, the Oms are primarily seen as playthings for the Traag children, who are not yet capable of existing in a state of constant meditation like the adults.  One young Traag named Tiva decides to save the small child of the recently deceased woman Om, naming him Terr and teaching him the ways and world of the Traags.  Terr, realizing the wealth of knowledge in front of him, laps up everything that Tiva has to teach, in the process becoming a sentient creature aware of the relationship he possesses as a creature in relation to the Traags.  This leads to Terr fleeing in fear of his ultimate demise, bringing along with him a device used by the Traags in the hope that he can share the knowledge with other Om tribes living on the outskirts of the Traag fortress.  Now possessing the information most dear to the Traags the Oms mount a revolt, led by Terr that results in the first death of a Traag at the hands of Oms.  The Traags baffled by such a possible occurrence, up their "extermination" of the Oms in a stroke of genocide by poison gas.  Terr and a handful of other Oms escape the ordeal.  Eventually, with his expansive knowledge of Traag culture, Terr is able to take control of one of their devices, a laser that interferes in the Traags copulation thus breaking their hereditary line.  The Traags are forced then to acknowledge the presence of the Oms as something far more than playthings, but as a group equal to them in power and resilience, despite their relatively diminutive stature.  The film ends with a suggestion that the feuding between both groups has ended and that a peaceful coexistence has emerged between the Traags and Oms, one that is assumedly to last forever.

Fantastic Planet is one of those films whose true meaning, like its animation style is something familiar and identifiable, yet terribly intangible and clearly a simulacra of what a viewer would assume to be reality.  Leave it to a French animator to create such a film.  However, in its seemingly impossible nature, one can grasp multiple possibilities, ranging from realized statements on colonization and French guilt, to far reach introspective considerations on metaphysical identity as it relates to an insurmountable and endless universe.  I realize that to attack this film from any direction is to ultimately rely on reading specific moments or interactions and to invariably ignore others, but it is truly rare for a piece of film theory or criticism to appropriate every single frame and interaction into the larger theory.  As such, I want to touch upon the highly existential nature of this work, one that posits a world so left up to contingency, chance and an impossible control over things as to suggest that they are part of a game in which the Oms, an appropriate allusion to Hommes, the French term for humans.  I have talked about game theory in the past on the blog as it relates to a work like The Cooler, wherein the casino setting doubles as a metaphor for a person being subject to contingency and chance, even in the most seemingly assured of situations.  In Fantastic Planet this notion that a human is subjected to some game played by an unseen force, is placed in the metaphorical hands of the Traags who literally use Oms as their playthings.  Of course, the question then becomes what meaning arises from Terr's discovery of the cogs at work.  This is either a moment where he submits to the existential understanding that all is meaningless, aside from what he deems his own, in his case a quest for knowledge.  Another possibility is that the film is intended to depict a push toward enlightenment after being stuck in an existential malaise, in this the dreary and haunting presence of the Traags double as that constant woe resulting from meaninglessness.  Indeed, it is probably appropriate to read the work as a work about achieving enlightenment, at least in this case it makes the quite out of nowhere ending highly positive.

Key Scene:  People who have read many of my blog posts know I am a sucker for openings that immediately establish the mood and precedent for a film.  Fantastic Planet very much has such an opening and I promise you it will yank you into its world quickly.

Relatively cheap DVD's are available for this film, but since I intend to go region free with my bluray player in the upcoming months, I intend to get the French bluray that is available.  Should you be in that market, I would suggest doing the same.

Together, We Can Turn This World To Fucking Rust: Testuo, The Iron Man (1989)

I should begin by explaining why I have been a bit less consistent in blog posts over the past two weeks or so.  Firstly, I decided to do the 100 films for June challenge which has meant keeping a pretty consistent viewing schedule going, one that has taken up much more time than I expected, particularly since I included a considerable amount of films that were on the lengthier side.  I would think about posting and then get distracted by a back-to-back feature of some daunting two hour works.  This, of course, is only half the reason, since I still find myself allotted with a good bit of time in between.  Aside from my regular summer job I have also been given the incredibly fortunate opportunity to be part of a upcoming book, in which I will have an academic article published in and it has meant doing some heavy duty research and the like, again taking up more time than planned.  I am being vague with it until it is a certainty, but once that is official you better believe I will be posting in regards to it her on the blog.  All that out of the way I have come with a film so intensely its own and indicative of the possibilities of post-modern cinema as to assure it would be a great cinematic experience for me, made all the more excellent by it being one of the classics of post-sixtes Japanese cinema, while also existing before the big push towards J-horror in recent years.  The film I am referring to is the maddening and demented, industrially fueled Tetsuo, the Iron Man, directed by Shinya Tsukamoto and had been a film that was long on my shame list for films that I had yet to encounter.  I knew I needed to see it upon it also receiving mention on The Story of Film documentary and boy am I glad I finally made it around to this work.  It is parts David Lynch paranoia in human interaction, part Cronenbergian sexual/bodily violence nightmare and even pulls heavily from Teshigahara, for some of its more oeneric, ghastly elements that are heavily influenced by its Japanese cultural milieu.  While I can begin to draw these deserved comparisons, Tetsuo still very much stands as its own work, one with such a fevered editing pace and visually jarring schizophrenic nature that it is really a surprise the film has not been championed as a horror classic all its own.

Tetsuo, the Iron Man begins with images of a man known only through the reveal of the closing credits to be The Metal Fetishist.  Played by the director, The Metal Fetishist is shown running pieces of metal ocrros his teeth and jabbing pieces of steel into his exposed flesh, until he realizes that these actions have allowed for maggots to invade his wounds.  Disgusted the fetishist runs out into the street and is immediately rundown by a driver and his girlfriend, simply known as The Man (Tomorowo Taguchi) and The Woman (Kei Fujiwara).  Fearing for his well-being and the trouble that could be caused by the vehicular manslaughter they dump the fetishist's body into a ravine and go on with their life as though it did not occur, however, when The Man begins to notice tiny pieces of metal protruding through his face, as though it were beard stubble, it becomes clear that the fetishist has moved beyond the grave to exact a physical revenge upon his murderer.  The man, who is then shown attempting, unsuccessfully, to retain some normalcy at his life in business, as well as with his relationship to his girlfriend, begins to have his body taken even more over by the metal, which grows out through intravenous means and even begins to reproduce itself in the form of sexual organs, all to the dismay of the few onlookers throughout the film, as well as the viewers.  Eventually, after a frightening nightmare in which The Man's girlfriend takes on her own metal form, his evolving body reacts by destroying the theoretical threat of The Woman in a violently sexual manner, followed almost immediately by the emergence of the fetishist from the newly laid corpse.  The Man, now completely formed into The Iron Man begins a battle with the fetishist over the industrial and urban spaces of Japan eventually merging into one collective bodily form that agrees to undertake the task of destroying the entire world by turning it into rust.  The new form more insane and layered in various extremities takes to the streets of Japan at a frenetic pace as the term GAME OVER appropriately flashes upon the screen.

The body transformed and mutated is certainly something that is not unfamiliar to this blog, particularly as it is tied to deeply troubling psychological aspects, as is the case in a beloved film of mine I'm A Cyborg But That's OK (also of which I plan to juxtapose with Tetsuo for a presentation), nor is it entirely new to the world of cinema itself, stretching at least back to the themes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis which looks at the possibilities of alteration and simulacra when considering the human body.  Of course, what makes Tetsuo so particularly engaging is that it takes this theme and these images which are decidedly entrenched within the realm of science fiction and appropriates them to be both within their original genre framework, while also reflecting upon what spaces of the horrific and grotesque, one might even say carnivalesque that a cyborg body could inhabit.  Furthermore, when extending this idea of cyborg, one must remember that it is often the case, narratively speaking, that these human-like robots are made entirely of synthetic materials which are metals and the like altered to appear to be the anatomy of a human body.  A case could certainly be made that in Tetsuo the exact opposite is occurring, wherein The Man's body is taking its fleshy human parts and altering them to achieve a degree of metallic perfection, or a fetishistic ideal, helping to explain the decidedly sexual nature of many of the encounters, or more aptly put confrontations in this film.  Much like the aforementioned Cronenberg films this invasion comes at the aftermath of some sort of high-level guilt experienced by a character, whether it be the failure to protect something or a forced and unsuccessful repression of natural desires, in the case of Tetsuo it appears to be some bizarre combination of the two.  The Iron Man transformation occurs as a result of the paranoia and guilt that emerges after committing a murder, even if accidental and this troubling occurrence, allows for other walls to be let down, particularly tumultuous and tense relations with those close, ones that can lead to violent and penetrating actions that range from emotionally harmful to physically violent.  Tetsuo is as much a metaphor as it is experimental art, moving, much like the title character between the emotive concerns for a simple existence and the industrialized demand for constant growth and upward expansion at the cost of nothing.

Key Scene:  The rust and stainless steel monologue is powerful stuff.

The DVD's available are both out of print, therefore they catch a lofty price, however, one is available on Netflix and is definitely worth renting.