DARK SHADOWS AND THE REMAKES
This is not a review. I haven’t seen the new movie starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton. Although based on a 60's soap opera that was very successful because included a vampire, ghosts and monsters, the trailers and early summaries of the movie tell us that Burton decided to make it into a comedy.
When I was a child I loved Dark Shadows. It was shown in my country much later and as a regular night series, not as a soap opera. Apparently both Burton and Depp were also fans of the show, so we can suppose this is some kind of homage. Jonathan Frid, the original Barnabas Collins (the star of the show) has a cameo on the film, which I guess lends some consistency to this idea.
Many people have complained that the American film industry has run out of ideas. Indeed, it seems like in the past few years the amount of sequels, prequels and remakes has increased substantially. Although I think that none of these possibilities is bad per se, the truth is that in most of the cases we end up with mediocre or bad movies. Why?
Well, regarding prequels and sequels, it stands to reason that if they are organic to the story they probably will be better than if they are made as an afterthought just to cash in the success of the original film. So, in principle at least, when prequels and sequels are planned from the very beginning, because the story benefits from, or even requires, a larger format to say what it wants to say, probably any subsequent movie won’t be too bad comparing to the first one. And even though we know that financial considerations are always important in making a follow-up movie, when only financial factors are considered there are more chances or ending up with a less satisfying product.
Both The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series are good examples of this: because condensing more that one volume in a movie was impossible without eliminating too much of the details, from the very beginning there were supposed to be at least three Rings and seven Potter films (in the latter case they made eight). The movies were also quite successful both with the critics and the box office.
This, of course, is not guarantee of success. The live action adaptation of the animation series Avatar: The Last Airbender was supposed to be comprised of three films, one for each season of the series. But the first movie (The Last Airbender), directed by M. Night Shyamalan, did so poorly in terms of reviews and earnings that any plan seems to be suspended or cancelled.
On the other hand, it seems that it is much more common to come up with the idea of a sequel or a prequel when any movie does well in the box office. So even stories that don’t seem to need any further development are subject to a series of sequels because of their financial success. The Matrix and Star Wars are good examples: in both cases, the movies were self-contained, and although there was always room to explore more, this did not seem necessary. The Matrix, in particular, seemed to have a very definite ending, with Neo discovering his superpowers and starting to free the people from the machines. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the movie was such a success that they decided to continue the story with a sequel that brought more of the same, increasing the quantities and lowering the quality — more fights, more chases, more special effects, more characters; less originality, less resolution of themes. The second sequel, The Matrix Revolutions, was especially unsatisfying, due to the increased repetition of elements, the noise, the pompous blah blah, and with an ending the made little sense.
And we’re not even touching all the Rockys, Friday the 13ths, Nightmare on Elm Streets and more.
The remakes are usually motivated by the same factors, but obviously have other sources. When the original movie (or TV series) is a foreign one, it’s even better if people don’t know about it, so the producers have carte blanche to do the modifications they feel they need to do in order to make the story more understandable or palatable to the American public. Sometimes it works, as it happened with The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, but in most cases it doesn’t, or at least not quite, because when you change some of the things that made a movie or a series good, those things are really not replaced but lost.
In many cases, the original movie or show is American, and what the studios want in that case is use the fame of that film or TV programme to capture an audience. In other words, part of the publicity surrounding a movie is devoted to inform people about it, about its existence and general theme, characteristics and actors. When the studios do a remake of an old movie, part of that agenda is accomplished without an extra expense in publicity: the audience knows about the theme, the characters, et cetera.
From an artistic point of view, the producers may seek to improve on the original, because is there really a point in doing the same thing? I didn’t watch the 1998 version of Psycho, directed by Gus van Sant, but I read it followed exactly the same structure of the original, even repeating scenes frame by frame in some instances. What for, if you have the 1960 movie, I may ask? So there have to be some changes. It could be changes in the general looks (so it won’t look dated), in the rhythm (for a generation with attention-deficit tendencies), in the technical aspects (better special effects, better sound, better music). Critics tend to agree that Ocean’s Eleven from 2001 is better than the movie from the 60s, in which the Rat Pack spent most of the movie looking and acting cool. Some argue The Thomas Crown Affair from 1999 is a bit more slick and better built than the 1968 movie, with the possible exception of Pierce Brosnan not being Steve McQueen. And although for purists the only Solaris that is worth watching is the one directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy (1972), there is not doubt that the lighter and much shorter (99 minutes vs. 167 minutes in the original) version from 2002 may have been the only one most of the American public was ready to watch.
But there are two little conundrums in this approach. First of all, the producers will have to fight the very thing they are seeking: the public’s memory of the original work. If the film or show was bad, then probably the remake will be better, but what would be the point of remaking a bad movie? If the film was good, then it will be difficult to top that or even get close. But it’s not only the comparison of the quality of the two versions, but also what the original meant to the public. If it meant something important from an emotional point of view (because of the experiences associated with watching the movie, or because the film resonated with what the viewer was living at that moment, or for any other personal reason), the comparison will be disadvantageous for the new version, in spite of its intrinsic quality. If the original movie was bad in the eyes of the viewer, he or she won’t go to the theatres to see the new one.
Of course, in some cases the producer do not care. As far as they can disguise the idea as something that is not completely stupid, and put enough action, comedy, romance, and loud music there so they can sell this spawn, they are happy. Transformers and its sequels are good examples.
But in some other cases they take something and make some sort of parody out of the original, as it has happened with Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie’s Angels and I spy, among others. And among those others, Dark Shadows.
The second conundrum, then, is related to the first one. None of these shows were great, so chances are people who remember them won’t be inclined to see new versions of said shows. But they were popular and, in some ways, unique, so there’s also the possibility that people remember them fondly, in which case they won’t appreciate the parody and the unnecessary change in some of the element of each show (like the personality of a main character or the importance of a particular part of the plot), which again may result in their decision of not watching the new version. On top of that, many people won’t know or remember those shows, especially the audience who are usually fans of the actors in the new movies; people who like Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson or Johnny Depp probably won’t know or care about those old shows.
So... what’s the point in making these new versions if the people who don’t remember the original shows would (or wouldn’t) go to movies in which these actors and actresses star anyway, regardless of the fact that these movies are original, remakes, sequels or any other thing? And the ones that remember the shows likely won’t go to the theatre to watch a film based on something that was bad to begin with, or was good enough for him or her to try to protect the memory of such show from spurious and soulless exercises in greed.
I feel either way depending on the movie, but I particularly resent this version of Dark Shadows, because I loved the show. I don’t think it was a great series, but I watched it as a child and have nice memories of it, in the same way some people may have loved Charlie’s Angels or The Dukes of Hazzard, not because they were wonderful but because in that particular moment of their lives it was great to watch those shows. I don’t see the point in taking the theme, the name and the characters and make a comedy out of it (or a parody of a straight comedy, if you know what I mean). They take away the only thing of a real value in a show like this, the fond memories, and give back nothing but generic material with mediocre acting, which seems to be the specialty of late of the Depp-Burton alliance.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Monday, July 11, 2011
TRANFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
Time wasting is an art that I have cultivated for a long time. It guided me, at some point, to watch Transformers, the 2007 movie. I remember that is was a box office success, and that many critics were surprised that they actually liked it. Indeed, it was not such a bad movie. With such terrible premise (giant robots that come to Earth and desguise themselves as cars, trucks and planes) and background (plastic toys that became a rudimentary animation series and a comic strip), it turn out to be fun, as far as your frontal lobe was basking in the sun somewhere else.
Once I forgave the premise, I mildly enjoy the action, the touches of humour, Megan Fox... but could not get over a couple of things. The first one may not be important for this kind of movie: besides Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, I could not recognise the robots. The fact that they were essentially big grey piles of metal changing shapes and moving around a lot did not help at all. But, as I said, that may not have been important. For the conosseurs, that must have not been a problem; probably they could recognise each robot by almost invisible features. For other people, lost in the action and the music, knowing that the good robots had blue eyes and the bad ones had red eyes was likely enough.
The second thing was, at least for me, more difficult to accept. The thing is, Michael Bay is, at best, a mediocre director, and usually he is a bad one. Everything in the movie followed a by-the numbers structure that seemed assembled, well, in a plastic-toy factory. You see, at the beginning there si some suspense and anticipation. Then things are revealed. The music soars when it has to soar. There is an underdog (portraid with a certain natural charisma by Shia LaBeouf) and a girl that is absurdly sexy. The complications are predictable and, well, simple. The comic relief is delivered in the precise moment it should be delivered. In other words, there is nothing original, surprising, human about the movie. We are supposed to care about the couple, but Megan Fox is a mannequin (and acts like one) without any depth, and LaBeouff, in spite of his intensity, is just a collection of mannerisms. We are supposed to care about humankind, but we see very little of it. We are supposed to care about the good robots and we can barely distinguish them. It is like caring about talking fridges.
Then, the second movie, Revenge of the fallen, came. It was a mess. Everybody, including LaBeouff and Bay, critisised it (shameless, those two). Why, because on top of all the faults of the first movie, the plot was very convoluted and confusing. There were more, and bigger, robots; more people and more action, the music was louder, the jokes more frequent. But those were only distractions, so you would not notice how simple and stupid everything was.
So, the third movie is, in a way, a return to the roots: a more straightforward plot with clearer good and bad guys. Critics and public seem to think so: although in Rotten Tomatoes and the IMDB the ratings are lower than the first movie’s, they are definetely higher than the second’s. Indeed, the movie is a bit like the first, with the same strengths (is there a noun for a quality that is not particularly strong?) and the same weaknesses, but given the fact that the movie lasts not a lot less than three hours, there had to be more excesses. LeBeouff returns, of course, in his mumbling intense verborreic mode. Megan Fox is gone, replaced by more of the same, a model that barely acts, but moves around in short dresses and protrudes her lips in a way that even Angelina Jolie would found shameful. More robots, more damage, louder music, more characters... Actually, the movie includes a few more improbabilites as excuses to bring back familiar faces, like John Turturro’s and Tyrese Gibson, and then populates the screen with the likes of Francis McDormand, John Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey and Alan Tudyk, in some cases only to have more mouths to attach jokes to. Obviously, character development or psychological depth are utterly absent.
The producers even manage to include a kind of agressive product placement: not only the good guys transform mostly into GM products, but the bad guys seem to have a predilection for Mercedes. In the end, this only shows that the movie seems to have one goal: sell as much as it can. And, perhaps, prepare the field for the next installment.
Once I forgave the premise, I mildly enjoy the action, the touches of humour, Megan Fox... but could not get over a couple of things. The first one may not be important for this kind of movie: besides Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, I could not recognise the robots. The fact that they were essentially big grey piles of metal changing shapes and moving around a lot did not help at all. But, as I said, that may not have been important. For the conosseurs, that must have not been a problem; probably they could recognise each robot by almost invisible features. For other people, lost in the action and the music, knowing that the good robots had blue eyes and the bad ones had red eyes was likely enough.
The second thing was, at least for me, more difficult to accept. The thing is, Michael Bay is, at best, a mediocre director, and usually he is a bad one. Everything in the movie followed a by-the numbers structure that seemed assembled, well, in a plastic-toy factory. You see, at the beginning there si some suspense and anticipation. Then things are revealed. The music soars when it has to soar. There is an underdog (portraid with a certain natural charisma by Shia LaBeouf) and a girl that is absurdly sexy. The complications are predictable and, well, simple. The comic relief is delivered in the precise moment it should be delivered. In other words, there is nothing original, surprising, human about the movie. We are supposed to care about the couple, but Megan Fox is a mannequin (and acts like one) without any depth, and LaBeouff, in spite of his intensity, is just a collection of mannerisms. We are supposed to care about humankind, but we see very little of it. We are supposed to care about the good robots and we can barely distinguish them. It is like caring about talking fridges.
Then, the second movie, Revenge of the fallen, came. It was a mess. Everybody, including LaBeouff and Bay, critisised it (shameless, those two). Why, because on top of all the faults of the first movie, the plot was very convoluted and confusing. There were more, and bigger, robots; more people and more action, the music was louder, the jokes more frequent. But those were only distractions, so you would not notice how simple and stupid everything was.
So, the third movie is, in a way, a return to the roots: a more straightforward plot with clearer good and bad guys. Critics and public seem to think so: although in Rotten Tomatoes and the IMDB the ratings are lower than the first movie’s, they are definetely higher than the second’s. Indeed, the movie is a bit like the first, with the same strengths (is there a noun for a quality that is not particularly strong?) and the same weaknesses, but given the fact that the movie lasts not a lot less than three hours, there had to be more excesses. LeBeouff returns, of course, in his mumbling intense verborreic mode. Megan Fox is gone, replaced by more of the same, a model that barely acts, but moves around in short dresses and protrudes her lips in a way that even Angelina Jolie would found shameful. More robots, more damage, louder music, more characters... Actually, the movie includes a few more improbabilites as excuses to bring back familiar faces, like John Turturro’s and Tyrese Gibson, and then populates the screen with the likes of Francis McDormand, John Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey and Alan Tudyk, in some cases only to have more mouths to attach jokes to. Obviously, character development or psychological depth are utterly absent.
The producers even manage to include a kind of agressive product placement: not only the good guys transform mostly into GM products, but the bad guys seem to have a predilection for Mercedes. In the end, this only shows that the movie seems to have one goal: sell as much as it can. And, perhaps, prepare the field for the next installment.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What happened in the federal elections?
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional political analyst. I do not read all the news and only seldom watch the TV news. This is only my opinion.
Why? Why did the political landscape in Canada change so much? Why did the Conservative Party and the NDP go up, and the Liberals and the BQ go down so dramatically? There are many reasons, and a thousand analyses in the press will cover them all. But to me there are two important factors that have substantially contributed to the results of yesterday’s elections. The first one is that the traditional asset of the Liberal Party, being in the middle of the road, became a liability. When both the Conservatives and the NDP did not seem so “extreme” for some tastes anymore, the Liberal got squished. It did not help, either, having a couple of not very charismatic leaders (Dion and Ignatieff) and platforms that seemed lost in times of crisis. At least the Conservatives and the NDP (and, of course, the Green Party) seemed to have clear agendas, which meant you either agreed with them or not. With the Liberals it was unclear what they really wanted and what they would do with the power. In more stable times, that is actually an attractive proposal, not to rock the boat. But just emerging from a recession, decisive action and clear direction toward the economy and social spending are what people want.
I feel sorry for Ignatieff. He was mercilessly attacked, and I would think he is an intelligent and honest man. In addition, being uncharismatic is something you could also say about Steven Harper. But not having a lot of charisma added to a fussy political platform is a bad combination. With Harper, people may think he is robotic, emotionally uninvolved, monotonous in his discourse, but nobody doubts he is a very good strategist and his ideas and political direction are very clear. You either like him or not (or perhaps love him or hate him) but you cannot ignore him. Furthermore, he was in power. Once you are in power, you are visible, more in what you do and say than in your image. Ignatieff did not have the benefit of showing what he could (or not) do. He had to rely on his image to get to people, and being a somewhat aloof intellectual was not the road to political fame. His history did not help either, having lived outside of Canada for a long time, and calling himself a liberal, but having supported some Bush policies, like the Iraq war.
Jack Layton, on the other hand, is quick, funny and charismatic. You may not like his ideas, but you cannot disregard him as a murky blob in the political spectrum. In a difficult economic time, he embodies very clearly Harper’s political opposite: if Harper’s recipe is to strengthen the economy through reducing government spending (especially cutting social spending) and creating an attractive field for private investment (lowering taxes and offering an advantageous legal framework), Layton proposes strengthening social services and support networks. It is easier to decide between one and the other, instead of trying to find out exactly where the liberals stand.
The second reason for the results is local politics. I believe that the fact that the liberals have dominated the provincial political landscape of the two more populated provinces in Canada (Ontario and Quebec) in the last few years works as a disadvantage for them. It is true that provincial and federal politics are very different, but I think people make some connection between the two of them. If they feel the premier has not responded to the people’s needs, it is more difficult to trust a federal government that, at least in principle, belongs to the same party. Both McGuinty and Charest are in quite a low point in terms of popularity in their provinces. People think they have not responded as they should have to counteract the effects of the recession. And the fact that the Conservatives have not recently had a premier in any of the most populous province (with the exception of Alberta, where both the economy and the political views are at odds with the rest of Canada) has given them a sort of political carte blanche. They have not had to fight any political perception at the provincial level, they have not had to justify why the premier of their party did this or did not do that.
And what about the Bloc Québécois? I think they are in a very difficult position, with an agenda that only interests one province. Still, why did they not get more seats in Quebec? Well, perhaps of the second reason, the provincial politics, but with a twist. The federal candidates actually are provincial ones: they only come from Quebec, and their platform only affects Quebec. And although they are not in power in the province, their MPs have not delivered from the federal level. The same problems, the same complains, are present among the voters every election. Even people who would like Quebec to separate may think: “Well, if we are going to play the federal game, at least we should get some results from the party,” which has not happened in a way that meet people’s expectations. On top of that, their main point, the separation of Quebec, seems to be dormant. The BQ itself does not seem to believe in it so fiercely anymore. They do not mention it as often, they do not propose a lot of things that require the separation to work, they do not offer unique solutions to the problems of the province that would be better served by separating from Canada.
I think this neglect is on purpose. Of course, the most obvious reason would seem that the political moment is not propitious to debate that subject, but I also think they do not think it is the best moment for the separation to actually take place. With a stronger Canadian economy and currency than the American counterparts, is it not wise to stay in Canada instead of hoping to get a privileged partnership with United States?
Why? Why did the political landscape in Canada change so much? Why did the Conservative Party and the NDP go up, and the Liberals and the BQ go down so dramatically? There are many reasons, and a thousand analyses in the press will cover them all. But to me there are two important factors that have substantially contributed to the results of yesterday’s elections. The first one is that the traditional asset of the Liberal Party, being in the middle of the road, became a liability. When both the Conservatives and the NDP did not seem so “extreme” for some tastes anymore, the Liberal got squished. It did not help, either, having a couple of not very charismatic leaders (Dion and Ignatieff) and platforms that seemed lost in times of crisis. At least the Conservatives and the NDP (and, of course, the Green Party) seemed to have clear agendas, which meant you either agreed with them or not. With the Liberals it was unclear what they really wanted and what they would do with the power. In more stable times, that is actually an attractive proposal, not to rock the boat. But just emerging from a recession, decisive action and clear direction toward the economy and social spending are what people want.
I feel sorry for Ignatieff. He was mercilessly attacked, and I would think he is an intelligent and honest man. In addition, being uncharismatic is something you could also say about Steven Harper. But not having a lot of charisma added to a fussy political platform is a bad combination. With Harper, people may think he is robotic, emotionally uninvolved, monotonous in his discourse, but nobody doubts he is a very good strategist and his ideas and political direction are very clear. You either like him or not (or perhaps love him or hate him) but you cannot ignore him. Furthermore, he was in power. Once you are in power, you are visible, more in what you do and say than in your image. Ignatieff did not have the benefit of showing what he could (or not) do. He had to rely on his image to get to people, and being a somewhat aloof intellectual was not the road to political fame. His history did not help either, having lived outside of Canada for a long time, and calling himself a liberal, but having supported some Bush policies, like the Iraq war.
Jack Layton, on the other hand, is quick, funny and charismatic. You may not like his ideas, but you cannot disregard him as a murky blob in the political spectrum. In a difficult economic time, he embodies very clearly Harper’s political opposite: if Harper’s recipe is to strengthen the economy through reducing government spending (especially cutting social spending) and creating an attractive field for private investment (lowering taxes and offering an advantageous legal framework), Layton proposes strengthening social services and support networks. It is easier to decide between one and the other, instead of trying to find out exactly where the liberals stand.
The second reason for the results is local politics. I believe that the fact that the liberals have dominated the provincial political landscape of the two more populated provinces in Canada (Ontario and Quebec) in the last few years works as a disadvantage for them. It is true that provincial and federal politics are very different, but I think people make some connection between the two of them. If they feel the premier has not responded to the people’s needs, it is more difficult to trust a federal government that, at least in principle, belongs to the same party. Both McGuinty and Charest are in quite a low point in terms of popularity in their provinces. People think they have not responded as they should have to counteract the effects of the recession. And the fact that the Conservatives have not recently had a premier in any of the most populous province (with the exception of Alberta, where both the economy and the political views are at odds with the rest of Canada) has given them a sort of political carte blanche. They have not had to fight any political perception at the provincial level, they have not had to justify why the premier of their party did this or did not do that.
And what about the Bloc Québécois? I think they are in a very difficult position, with an agenda that only interests one province. Still, why did they not get more seats in Quebec? Well, perhaps of the second reason, the provincial politics, but with a twist. The federal candidates actually are provincial ones: they only come from Quebec, and their platform only affects Quebec. And although they are not in power in the province, their MPs have not delivered from the federal level. The same problems, the same complains, are present among the voters every election. Even people who would like Quebec to separate may think: “Well, if we are going to play the federal game, at least we should get some results from the party,” which has not happened in a way that meet people’s expectations. On top of that, their main point, the separation of Quebec, seems to be dormant. The BQ itself does not seem to believe in it so fiercely anymore. They do not mention it as often, they do not propose a lot of things that require the separation to work, they do not offer unique solutions to the problems of the province that would be better served by separating from Canada.
I think this neglect is on purpose. Of course, the most obvious reason would seem that the political moment is not propitious to debate that subject, but I also think they do not think it is the best moment for the separation to actually take place. With a stronger Canadian economy and currency than the American counterparts, is it not wise to stay in Canada instead of hoping to get a privileged partnership with United States?
Monday, July 19, 2010
INCEPTION
Inception (2010) is the latest movie by director Christopher Nolan, who has helmed films like Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Insomnia, The Prestige and Memento. Little, simple, linear movies are not the hunting grounds for Nolan. He makes multi-layered movies in which usually the time goes back and forth. In Inception, the layers are even more literal.
The plot describes a world like our, but in which technology exists that allows people to get in other people’s dreams. In some cases, this is used to share dreams. In some others, people called extractors go into someone’s dream to steal secrets. For such an operation, a team is needed, usually comprised by an architect, who shapes the dreamscape; an operator, who deal with some practical matters, like security, within the dream; sometimes a ‘shapeshifter’, someone who can deceive the subject of the dream into believing this person is someone else; and the extractor himself.
Dreams, in this movie, are very clear narratives in which the absurdities tend to follow a logical path that is usually guided by the imagination and will of the architect. The apparent contradiction with how we usually experience dreams — fragmentary, vague, jumpy pieces of life — is explained simply by stating that all the confusion is actually added later, when we wake up, while when we are in the dream we simply experience it and accept is as normal.
Leonardo diCaprio is Dom Cobb, an extractor, according to himself the best there is. He used to be an architect, but not anymore. He had to leave his children and his home in United States and he can’t come back because he was accused of a crime. But a tycoon offers Cobb the chance to have the charge removed, if he does the impossible: not to steal an idea, but to plant one in someone’s mind, a process called inception.
Cobb creates a very complex plan that involves going into three levels of dream with a team of six individuals. On top of the obvious difficulties, there are two complications: Cobb’s dead wife tends to show up derailing his plans in the dream world — she is a ghost from his subconscious. The second one has to do with the regular mechanism that makes the extractors wake up, which is to die within the dream, but which, in this case, does not work. Given the multi-layered nature of this dream, if the people in the dream die, they go to limbo, which is the realm of subconscious.
This construction is amazing, not only the logical construction, but the visual edifice, the action scenes, the suspense and the concepts involved. The core question, of course, when you have such real narratives in dreams is: how do you know what is a dream and what is reality? This is a question that has been regularly explored since the times of Plato, and possibly before that. Although the movie does not dwell in this question, you can see it suggested in the most essential scenes of the film. Don’t we all live trying to make our dreams come true? If they come true, does it really matter that they are not real?
If I have to find negative points in Inception, I can think of two, and they both involve the main actors. Both diCaprio and Ellen Page (Ariadne, the architect) are excellent actors, but perhaps because Nolan was too busy with an extremely complicated plot (he also wrote and produced the movie) and a million details involved in an extraordinary visual and action landscape, he seemed to have forgotten the emotional depth the characters, in particular Cobb, should have portrayed. The plot is telling us this is a desperate character, on the verge of psychological collapse, capable of doing anything to come back to his children, pursued by ghosts and drowned in pain, but diCaprio does not show that, at least not with the intensity and sincerity needed to convey this emotional picture. In most of the movie, that is fine, because the action does not give Cobb the chance to be submerged in those feelings. But every once in a while you feel that tears or screams or a semi-catatonic state are in order. The artifacts of his mind invading the dream tell us what is happening inside him, but not his face nor his voice or his body.
Ariadne, on the other hands, seem to have too many answers for someone who is so new to the game. She figures out things too easily, and keeps her head cool, even in very dangerous circumstances, and (at least for me), that makes the character unreal, a bit unbelievable. This is not a problem of acting or directing, but of character development, and I would think that the problem lies in the writing. It does not help that Ellen Page looks so young. Although we know the character is brilliant, we also know that some responses come from wisdom, and wisdom is not only intelligence and knowledge, but also experience.
Still, these are minor problems. In a lesser movie, they would be more important, but in Inception, we are drank with amazing images and ideas that are masterfully exposed. One more point: Hans Zimmer, the music composer, has given us a wonderful soundtrack, something that seems like an auditory train: tremendous, frightening, unstoppable; something that carry us through this extraordinary ride.
The plot describes a world like our, but in which technology exists that allows people to get in other people’s dreams. In some cases, this is used to share dreams. In some others, people called extractors go into someone’s dream to steal secrets. For such an operation, a team is needed, usually comprised by an architect, who shapes the dreamscape; an operator, who deal with some practical matters, like security, within the dream; sometimes a ‘shapeshifter’, someone who can deceive the subject of the dream into believing this person is someone else; and the extractor himself.
Dreams, in this movie, are very clear narratives in which the absurdities tend to follow a logical path that is usually guided by the imagination and will of the architect. The apparent contradiction with how we usually experience dreams — fragmentary, vague, jumpy pieces of life — is explained simply by stating that all the confusion is actually added later, when we wake up, while when we are in the dream we simply experience it and accept is as normal.
Leonardo diCaprio is Dom Cobb, an extractor, according to himself the best there is. He used to be an architect, but not anymore. He had to leave his children and his home in United States and he can’t come back because he was accused of a crime. But a tycoon offers Cobb the chance to have the charge removed, if he does the impossible: not to steal an idea, but to plant one in someone’s mind, a process called inception.
Cobb creates a very complex plan that involves going into three levels of dream with a team of six individuals. On top of the obvious difficulties, there are two complications: Cobb’s dead wife tends to show up derailing his plans in the dream world — she is a ghost from his subconscious. The second one has to do with the regular mechanism that makes the extractors wake up, which is to die within the dream, but which, in this case, does not work. Given the multi-layered nature of this dream, if the people in the dream die, they go to limbo, which is the realm of subconscious.
This construction is amazing, not only the logical construction, but the visual edifice, the action scenes, the suspense and the concepts involved. The core question, of course, when you have such real narratives in dreams is: how do you know what is a dream and what is reality? This is a question that has been regularly explored since the times of Plato, and possibly before that. Although the movie does not dwell in this question, you can see it suggested in the most essential scenes of the film. Don’t we all live trying to make our dreams come true? If they come true, does it really matter that they are not real?
If I have to find negative points in Inception, I can think of two, and they both involve the main actors. Both diCaprio and Ellen Page (Ariadne, the architect) are excellent actors, but perhaps because Nolan was too busy with an extremely complicated plot (he also wrote and produced the movie) and a million details involved in an extraordinary visual and action landscape, he seemed to have forgotten the emotional depth the characters, in particular Cobb, should have portrayed. The plot is telling us this is a desperate character, on the verge of psychological collapse, capable of doing anything to come back to his children, pursued by ghosts and drowned in pain, but diCaprio does not show that, at least not with the intensity and sincerity needed to convey this emotional picture. In most of the movie, that is fine, because the action does not give Cobb the chance to be submerged in those feelings. But every once in a while you feel that tears or screams or a semi-catatonic state are in order. The artifacts of his mind invading the dream tell us what is happening inside him, but not his face nor his voice or his body.
Ariadne, on the other hands, seem to have too many answers for someone who is so new to the game. She figures out things too easily, and keeps her head cool, even in very dangerous circumstances, and (at least for me), that makes the character unreal, a bit unbelievable. This is not a problem of acting or directing, but of character development, and I would think that the problem lies in the writing. It does not help that Ellen Page looks so young. Although we know the character is brilliant, we also know that some responses come from wisdom, and wisdom is not only intelligence and knowledge, but also experience.
Still, these are minor problems. In a lesser movie, they would be more important, but in Inception, we are drank with amazing images and ideas that are masterfully exposed. One more point: Hans Zimmer, the music composer, has given us a wonderful soundtrack, something that seems like an auditory train: tremendous, frightening, unstoppable; something that carry us through this extraordinary ride.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Hello, world
Well, this is my blog (also in Spanish version). I always arrive late to the party. I had a web page long ago and it looked amazingly static. No animation or flash features or fancy background. No interactive capabilities. Not much of anything. And my facebook page is a great way to waste my time looking at trivialities other people seem to care about.
Now everybody seems to be jumping to the twitter-mobile texting world, and I barely use a cell phone, don’t see a point in twitter, and deep down feel that all this ‘tribune to the world’ is just a self-indulgence device to convince ourselves that we are important, that we have an audience, that our opinion matters.
But, what is life, if not a delusion about goals, directions, importance? We think we go somewhere, that we can make a difference, and that in a few of the bricks that build a better world our name is there, somewhere.
Still . . . either we jump from a bridge or give that delusion a sense of reality and a modicum of satisfaction. If that satisfaction pays some money, even better. But only a chosen few make a living out of expressing opinions. The rest of us have to find pleasure in the elusive sense of creation. Where there was nothing, now we have words and ideas, and with a bit of luck, an interesting, informative and, perhaps, well-written article. At the end of the day, that beats changing channels and caring too much about the derivate lives of fictitious characters (not that I don’t enjoying watching TV, only that following the lives of Jack Bauer, Jack Shepherd, or some other Jack doesn’t leave as, in the long term, with a lot to account for).
So, here I am, thinking that perhaps twitter is not such a bad idea after all, specially when I think that 140-character limit may reduce the amount of time wasted in this endeavour. Well, maybe, every once in a while, there will be something that needs more words to be described or analysed or praised. I am looking forward to persuading myself that I will regularly find that something.
Now everybody seems to be jumping to the twitter-mobile texting world, and I barely use a cell phone, don’t see a point in twitter, and deep down feel that all this ‘tribune to the world’ is just a self-indulgence device to convince ourselves that we are important, that we have an audience, that our opinion matters.
But, what is life, if not a delusion about goals, directions, importance? We think we go somewhere, that we can make a difference, and that in a few of the bricks that build a better world our name is there, somewhere.
Still . . . either we jump from a bridge or give that delusion a sense of reality and a modicum of satisfaction. If that satisfaction pays some money, even better. But only a chosen few make a living out of expressing opinions. The rest of us have to find pleasure in the elusive sense of creation. Where there was nothing, now we have words and ideas, and with a bit of luck, an interesting, informative and, perhaps, well-written article. At the end of the day, that beats changing channels and caring too much about the derivate lives of fictitious characters (not that I don’t enjoying watching TV, only that following the lives of Jack Bauer, Jack Shepherd, or some other Jack doesn’t leave as, in the long term, with a lot to account for).
So, here I am, thinking that perhaps twitter is not such a bad idea after all, specially when I think that 140-character limit may reduce the amount of time wasted in this endeavour. Well, maybe, every once in a while, there will be something that needs more words to be described or analysed or praised. I am looking forward to persuading myself that I will regularly find that something.
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