Before Christopher Nolan hit the mainstream and became a household name
with the multiplex likes of Inception
and The Dark Knight trilogy, he made Memento, a small neo-noir thriller more
cryptic than Inception and doubly as thrilling
as Batman. Guy Pearce is Leonard Shelby, a man suffering from short-term memory loss who uses notes and tattoos as
clues to hunt the man that raped and murdered his wife. The intriguing puzzle
is told in two
sequences, one a series of scenes in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and
another a series of colour sequences shown in reverse order, both of which are
perfectly edited together. Half of the thrills come from trying to solve the
crime before Lenny can, and even after the final reveal you’ll want to watch it
again just to see if everything adds up.
If anyone is wondering what an art film may look like, go and watch a
David Lynch film. Known for his surrealist films, he uses dreamlike imagery and strange
plot elements to construct his own cinematic style that has resulted in the
coined term ‘Lynchian’. According to his Wikipedia page his films are so wacky
that they ‘have been known to "disturb, offend or mystify" audiences’.
So yeah, his films are weird. I have only seen one of his movies, that being Mulholland Drive and it is just
as ambiguous and brilliant as one could imagine. In her breakout role Naomi
Watts plays a cheerful Hollywood-hopeful who has moved to Los Angeles to chase her
dreams in acting. She soon comes across an alluring femme fatale woman played
by Laura Harring who has been left amnesic after a car accident on Mulholland
drive. Together the pair search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams
and reality. The end will leave you wondering what was real and what was
fantasy. Perhaps the most unique aspect about the film is the complete
rejection of Hollywood narrative order, which is fitting considering the whole
piece is a criticism on the allure of Hollywood. The electronic score by Angelo Badalamenti is menacing, and creates an
aura that pervades an equally mysterious and romantic vibe. This is cinema at its
purest.
Is it pretentious to call The Fountain
a profound film? It is uncompromisingly ambitious and epic, spanning across
three different timelines over the course of one thousand years, but at it’s simplest
the fountain is a touching love story. At first glance it's repertoire of
abstract images and slow plot pace may seem indulgent and intimidating, however
beneath the layers is a message not hard to comprehend. Darren Aronofsky is an
auteur director and every one of his films is a masterpiece but only recently
has he garnered mainstream recognition with his intense look into the worlds of
wrestling and ballet in The Wrestler and Black Swan respectfully. Hopefully his
recent rise to fame will encourage audiences to explore his earlier catalogue.
For a so-called ‘art film’ Drive
is a pretty traditional action flick. The storyline is simple, and all the
better for it: a Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in
trouble when he helps out his neighbour and her ex-criminal husband. The film is
wonderful in its subtleties; Ryan Gosling perfectly depicts the main
character's introverted and withdrawn mental state without coming across as
simple. The script itself is short in dialogue leaving the entrancing visuals
and graphic imagery
to convey ideas and emotions without direct exposition. A brilliant understated piece.
A story of family, religion, hatred and madness, focusing on a
turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business, There will be Blood is Macbeth for
contemporary audiences. Daniel Plainview played by Daniel Day Lewis is a man consumed
by greed in this fictional narrative about the discovery of oil. An Oscar
winning performance makes for a dark tale about an obsession for power and
recognition.
Undoubtedly the scariest thing about the events of Requiem For A Dream is the fact that there are no untruths. All the
horrifying consequences that result from the characters’ drug addictions are
all too real and without embellishment. The most of tragic of which is Ellen
Burstyn’s portrayal of an elderly widow’s visceral descent into a drug induced utopia
where she regains the youthful appearance of her past and fits into an old red
dress, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. Requiem for a dream is a masterpiece in
hindsight, although while viewing it is disturbing, despairing and gloomy. It
will scare you from drugs for the rest of your life. Overall a harrowing, but ultimately
rewarding, viewing. (And you thought black swan was a tough watch).
“The first rule of fight club
is you do not talk about fight club.”
Technically I am breaking the rules here, not just because I’ve broken
the first rule of fight club but because Fight
Club isn’t an art film, even if at one point the executives at 20th Century Fox considered to market it as one, but it certainly is a cult film
and an arty one at that. Edward Norton, known only as narrator, plays an insomniac office worker
suffering from a mid-life crisis who attends a support group for testicular cancer victims
and finds an emotional release that soothes his insomnia. In looking for a way
to relieve the numbness of existence, his life crosses paths with a devil may
care soap maker (Brad Pitt) and together they form an underground fight club. From the outside looking
in fight club is a guys movie where men get a kick out of bashing each others
faces in and then take their hatred for society to the extreme by destroying
material things that the populace find so enticing. Underneath the surface
however there is much more to the story. David Fincher once described Norton’s
character as an everyman and that his film is a coming of age tale for 30 year
olds. What makes Fight Club so appealing
is that at one point or another we’ve all considered the prospect of rebelling
against a consumerist society even if it’s wrong and detrimental. There is a
Tyler Durdin in all of us.
French director Luc Besson’s best art house action movie to date is easily
Léon:
The Professional, released in 1994 staring Jean Reno and a very
young Natalie Portman in her first feature film role. Leon is an introverted
hit man who finds himself caring for a young girl after her family is murdered
by corrupt criminal cops. She becomes convinced that Leon’s protectiveness is
in fact a profession of love, and although their relationship never quite
spirals into criminal territory,
the film dwells on their unusual dynamic to an emotionally satisfying degree as
he trains her to become a young assassin. Reno has never been better, Portman
becomes an instant star and Gary Oldman steals every scene he’s in. At its
heart, Léon: The Professional is a character study about a simple man
who learns to love again.
A sweet childhood tale about a pair of young lovers who flee their 1950s New England town causing a local search party to fan out and find them. Directed by Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom is a warm, whimsical and old school kid’s summer comedy. Quirky, comic and visually beautiful.
