Light & Shadow

In the American character today, there are few things in shorter supply than political courage.  Indeed, the depth of partisan conformity in Washington, D.C., has made the very idea of “going against the grain” all but unpalatable.  Yet since America’s founding, there has been the occasional profile in stately valor, in which the leaders of the time did what was not merely unpopular, but which carried enormous negative consequences much worse than the prospect of losing the next election.

The first and foremost of these was the founding itself.  The 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, based on the engrossing 2001 book by David McCullough, does many great things in re-imagining the life and times of the most underappreciated of founding fathers, but perhaps the most fundamental is to show the absolute nerve it took to declare independence from the mighty British Empire.

John Adams is packed to the gills with drama and excitement to make even the most casual history buff breathless with curiosity, but the central event in the series—the vote by the Continental Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence—is so intrinsically significant, and so painstakingly established by the filmmakers, that its dramatic force springs from within.  The moment, when it comes, carries a surprising emotional impact, in part because it is so flabbergastingly simple.

Political courage comes in two forms, and John Adams gives voice to both.  The first, and by far the most celebrated, was the Continental Congress formally denouncing George III as a tyrant and declaring the thirteen American colonies “Free and Independent States,” just at the moment when the king himself declared that any such insurrection would be met with the execution of every individual who took part.  When the rabble-rousers in Philadelphia pledged “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” they were not speaking rhetorically.  Lest we forget, the idea of revolution in the summer of 1776 was, by all accounts, neither remotely feasible nor especially popular outside the convention hall.

At the same time, the Continental Congress bore witness to another face of moral daring—that of the skeptics who shared the rebels’ disdain for the king but viewed independence as perilous and foolhardy.  Then, as now, speaking against a partisan consensus was no easy task.

The rhetorical leader of this faction, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, is portrayed in John Adams as an honorable and honest man who believes to his boots that betraying the English crown will lead to ruin for the American colonies, and who concedes publicly that his illustrious reputation will likely be destroyed by his steadfast opposition to the emerging Glorious Cause.  Although Dickinson agrees to excuse himself from the final vote—in an eleventh-hour deal to ensure the declaration is passed—he does not compromise his principles.  Adams, a man of principle if ever there was one, would never allow such a thing to happen.

The eloquent objections of men like Dickinson—and the seriousness with which they are considered—are essential to the climactic roll call’s effect, punctuating the full significance and audacity of this decidedly treasonous act.  As the final, unanimous vote is recorded and the clerk announces, “The resolution carries,” the hall becomes deadly silent, as we are invited to read the curious looks on the various delegates’ faces.  Having just made the most momentous decision of their lives, knowing not how things will turn out, their unspoken recognition is that this act might well have been their last.

The roll call

I’ll start by addressing the pun that will be made by so many bloggers over the next few weeks: No, Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass does not kick ass. It is a flawed but mostly enjoyable film that is better than most of what is currently playing in the major theaters, but you’d lose nothing by waiting for DVD. Its trailers promised a hyper-violent, tongue-in-cheek superhero movie, and it delivers, just much better on one count than the other.

This is the story of Dave Lizewski. Dave, played by Aaron Johnson, is a normal high school student, with no particular talents or interests beyond hanging out with his friends, reading comic books and masturbating. In his voice-over, Dave muses “Like most people my age, I just existed.” But one day Dave has an idea: If there are real villains in the world, why can’t there be real heroes? And so, with nothing but a silly costume and a desire to do some good, Dave brands himself “Kick-Ass” and decides to go out and enact some vigilante justice. Unfortunately, while stopping his first crime, Dave is stabbed and hit by a car. The accident damages his nerves, making him less sensitive to pain, and allows him to draw interest from his crush, Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), who just happens to think he’s gay. Once he’s healed, Dave puts his suit back on and finally succeeds in stopping his crime, which leads to a youtube video of his exploits, national attention and a Myspace page full of people requesting help (yes, seeing Myspace does make it feel a bit outdated).

But Dave is not the only vigilante in town. Damon and Mindy Macready (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Grace-Moretz) have been preparing for years to wage a vigilante campaign against New York’s biggest mob boss, Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). Even though Mindy is only eleven years old, she is as tough and violent as anyone else in the film. As his henchmen begin to get killed off, Frank suspects that it’s the work of Kick-Ass, and sends his son Chris (Christopher “McLovin” Mintz-Plasse) out as a superhero named Red Mist to find Kick-Ass. As Dave struggles to balance his relationship with Katie and his new lifestyle, the war between the vigilantes and the mob grows increasingly intense, leading to a series of betrayals and hyper-violent shootouts.

As you would expect from a story about a bunch of nerds dressed in costumes fighting crime, the film is full of supposedly comedic references to other superheroes and superhero culture in general. Unfortunately, these are the film’s weakest points. Throwing in an occasional reference to Watchmen doesn’t seem particularly interesting when your film itself is so obviously influenced by the classic comic.  The film straddles an odd line, as it tries to force much of the comedy on the audience (a lot of it does work) and maintain a serious tone through the second half. There are other flaws, most notably some poorly handled exposition and the development of Chris and Katie, both of whom make various decisions throughout the story that seem completely contradictory to their characters. Thankfully, in both cases the actors are strong enough to overcome these script flaws. While there are some laughs from just seeing McLovin as a superhero, Mintz-Plasse moves beyond the role that made him famous and adds a little depth to what could have easily been just another less likable nerd. Fonseca has proven with this and Hot Tub Time Machine that she has enough comedic timing to make a name for herself, and she does a better job with the more dramatic take on the normally dull “superhero’s girlfriend” role. The real standouts of the cast though are young Chloe Grace-Moretz and Nic Cage. Mindy is the film’s most violent, foul-mouthed character, and many people have expressed outrage at such a young girl behaving like this, but it’s her strength as an actress that stops it from being exploitative. Mindy is an immensely damaged young girl, probably warped beyond repair, and there are few young actresses that could get that in alongside the comedy inherent to an 11 year old superhero. Cage, of course, has always been excellent in the right role. Most of these roles have been in smaller films that didn’t make it to the local multiplex, so it’s refreshing to see him at his best in a film like this. In fact, it may be the best performance he’s ever given in a mainstream film. Like his daughter, Damon is a broken person who should not be anywhere near the apartment full of guns where he and Mindy sleep, and like his young costar, Cage captures that insanity and hides it behind a face of madcap hilarity. His Shatner-style delivery while in costume is one of the funniest parts of the film, and is by far the most successful reference to other superhero films, making fun of Christian Bale’s ridiculous growl in the recent Batman films.

Matthew Vaughn made his name producing Guy Ritchie’s late 90s output, and his first feature, 2004’s Layer Cake, owed heavily to Ritchie’s annoying post-Tarantino style of filmmaking. Thankfully, unlike his friend, Vaughn has matured as a filmmaker, and this is among the most aesthetically pleasing superhero films to come out of Hollywood. This doesn’t come through in the more tongue-in-cheek first half, but rather in the second, which is far closer to a regular superhero film. There are sequences here that almost rival Michael Mann’s Collateral, arguably the best looking American action film of the last decade, if not ever, in terms of how Vaughn films the action. And oh what action it is. The strongest moments in the film come when it drops the obvious irony and allows the audience to appreciate the simple joy of watching an eleven year-old girl brutally killing a room full of henchmen or the amazement that will come after the film’s final kill, one of the most amusing I can remember in a movie. Thankfully, the film does not condone the actions of Damon and Mindy, who seem to enjoy slaughter, but instead asks us to laugh at them. There’s some discussion of the psychological motivations of the vigilante, but Vaughn and Mark Millar, who wrote the comic that the film is based on, avoid that territory, already so thoroughly covered in Watchmen (the comic, not the movie). That would not fit in this film, even if it would be an easy road to cover. At its worst, this is a film that tries to do too much, by throwing jokes where they aren’t needed and adding drama to funny moments, but at its best, Kick-Ass is simply fun, and occasionally that’s enough.

-Adam Burnstine

Kick-Ass is rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use - some involving children.

It opens everywhere on April 16^th, 2010.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn; written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn; based on the comic book series by Mark Millar; director of photography, Ben Davis; edited by Eddie Hamilton and Jon Harris; original music by Ilan Eshkeri and Henry Jackman; art director, Russell De Rozario; produced by Matthew Vaughn, Brad Pitt, Adam Bohling, Tarquin Pack, David Reid and Kris Thykier; distributed by Lionsgate. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes.

With: Aaron Johnson (Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Chris D’Amico/Red Mist), Chloe Grace-Moretz (Mindy Macready/Hit Girl), Nicolas Cage (Damon Macready/Big Daddy), Mark Strong (Frank D’Amico), Lyndsy Fonseca (Katie) and Clark Duke (Marty).

Earlier this year, amid all the hype surrounding Katherine Bigelow’s Oscar win, another, possibly more impressive, achievement by a female director went ignored in the mainstream media. In a poll of hundreds of New York’s film experts to determine the best Latin American films of the last decade, the top spot did not go to standards like Y Tu Mama Tambien, City Of God or Amoros Perros, but rather to Lucrecia Martel’s 2001 debut, La Cienaga. In fact, all three of her films wound up in the top ten of that list. 2004’s The Holy Girl, in my opinion her best work yet, finished ninth, and 2008’s The Headless Woman, which is playing at the MFA this week, finished eighth. No other director had more than one in the top ten. I highly recommend seeking out copies of her first two films, but it’s the third that concerns us at the moment.

People have spent the last decade comparing Martel to Michelangelo Antonioni, and it would appear that she’s taken some of that to heart. Aside from some more interesting aesthetic and thematic choices, the basic plot of The Headless Woman bears some similarities to that of L’Avventura. Vero, a blonde (like Antonioni’s muse Monica Vitti) dentist may have struck and killed a young boy with her car. After the accident, she continues driving for a few minutes while the handprints of a child appear on her window, possibly from her daughter playing in the car before and possibly as a message from a ghost. We then see her being driven to the hospital during a storm and checking into a hotel for a few days. Immediately after the accident, Vero apparently cannot remember anything, including the members of her family, and she develops a detachment from the world around her. Like L’Avventura, we never know if she actually hit the child. Even when she tries to find out, the men in her life—her husband and his cousin who she has an affair with, try to cover her tracks, despite not completely believing that she committed any crime. This blurred line of reality, in which the audience has no idea what to believe, is reflected in the final shot of many of the main characters through the thick glass doors of a restaurant. The space between the doors is still clear, but every other image we see is completely distorted, just like the concept of truth in the film.

Of all the comparisons between Martel and Antonioni, the most important is their shared ability to place the characters within the environment of the film. All three of Martel’s films have been set in the same sweltering area of Argentina where she grew up, and that swamp-like atmosphere (La Cienaga means ‘”The Swamp” in Spanish) controls every aspect of the characters’ lives. It’s so muggy that they can simply fade in and out of focus, moving back and forth between our In-focus perception of the screen and the world of the film itself. Antonioni’s characters are always in focus, but still less prominent than their surroundings. In a sense, they simply become a part of their environment, souls trapped between the promise of the future of and the false morality of the past. Martel does this in a more obvious way. In keeping the focus on one character in each scene, the others can walk in and out of the oppressive atmosphere around them, only occasionally stepping forward into full focus. Highlighting the oppressive nature of the atmosphere also connects Martel to Eastern European filmmakers like Bela Tarr and Sharunas Bartas, who use the cold industrial wasteland of post-Soviet Eastern Europe in almost the exact same way that Martel uses the stifling heat of Argentina. While The Headless Woman is not her best film in my opinion, it does represent a step forward as a filmmaker in this sense. La Cienaga focused mainly on the environment, and how it affected the characters, and The Holy Girl was mostly concerned with moving its characters in and out of focus, but here Martel does both, moving her characters around their decaying environments and randomly into and out of each other’s lives. That decaying environment is also reflected in the lives of Vero’s family. They are all cheating on each other, going insane, falling ill and having a generally unpleasant time, which seems to make perfect sense when you consider the atmosphere around them.

The shallow focus makes it clear that each character exists in his or her own universe, suffering from an Antonioni-like alienation from the universes of the other characters. Of course, they do occasionally come together, but you must always look into the out of focus background, where characters less essential to the scene will still be acting out their stories. This was more prominent in The Holy Girl, where the isolation was more absolute, but The Headless Woman uses this technique to a different effect. Almost every shot of the film is focused on Vero, and there are many instances in which she silently stands in the foreground as the supporting characters talk about their lives, even though we can’t see their unfocused faces. Because of this, we are granted a far deeper understanding of Vero’s character, and we are ultimately able to ask if she has been complacent in everything that happens after the crash. The magnificent performance from actress Maria Onetto adds layers of depth to the character because she decides to leave the question of blame for everything that happens after the accident up to the audience.

In the end, it seems like Vero has become complacent in the possible cover up by doing almost nothing. The men in her life seem to be the only ones who do anything illegal, possibly removing her files from the hospital and erasing her from the hotel’s database. The film frequently attacks the “male gaze” by keeping Vero’s head literally cut off by the frame or shadow, so only her body remains visible. There are also many highly voyeuristic over the shoulder shots of parts of Vero reflected in mirrors. The men in the film watch her and profess to love her, despite the fact that she almost never shows any trait particularly worthy of love. She’s cold, distant and uninterested in those around her, and they only serve her for physical reasons, and they could care less if they don’t see her head. It would thus seem that Martel is criticizing men for our wildly irresponsible behavior regarding women. Vero’s mostly white family is both dependent on and repelled by their darker, native servants, and thus there’s obviously a deeper criticism of Argentinean society on the whole as well, but I know little of the subject, and don’t feel fit to discuss it. After just three films, it seems clear that Lucrecia Martel will be playing a major part in the future of cinema, and as her fame grows, I can only hope that more of her films receive proper releases, but at the moment, I must encourage you to take a chance and see The Headless Woman, which really is one of the great films of the last few years, during its limited run.

-Adam Burnstine

The Headless Woman is not rated.

It will be playing at the Museum Of Fine Arts until May 8^th, and is currently available on Netflix Instant Watch.

Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel; director of photography, Barbara Alvarez; edited by Miguel Schverdfinger; art directior, Maria Eugenia Sueiro; produced by Pedro Almodovar, Lucrecia Martel, Agustin Almodovar, Tilde Corsi, Veronica Cura, Esther Garcia, Cesare Petrillo, Enrique Pineyro, Vieri Razzini and Marianne Slot, distributed by Strand Releasing. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes.

With: Maria Onetto (Veronica), Claudia Cantero (Josefina), Cesar Bordon (Marcos), Daniel Genoud (Juan Manuel) and Ines Efron (Candita).

I first fell in love with the work of Marco Bellocchio after viewing I pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket, 1965), a masterpiece of Italian cinema that perfectly captured the psychological disturbances of its characters.  My fondness for the director’s work was reignited after his 2003 drama Buongiorno, Notte (Good Morning, Night), which also beautifully presented the turbulent states of mind of the main characters.  Needless to say, I had high expectations for Bellocchio’s most recent work, Vincere, which followed the tragic life of Ida Dalser, the first and secret wife of Benito Mussolini.  Hoping to see the same in-depth (almost frightening) psychological analyses of the film’s historical characters, I was disappointed in the lack of character development, as well as the confusing plot structure.  Despite the efforts of Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who plays Ida, the performance falls short of expectations, as Ida is portrayed as a psychologically two-dimensional and co-dependent woman, merely obsessed with her idol, rather than a victim of Mussolini, as was supposedly intended.

The film’s powerful beginning—a young Mussolini (Filippo Timi) challenging God to strike him dead within five minutes to prove His existence—immediately captures interest and curiosity.  We are introduced to Mussolini (before his rise to power), who captivates Ida Dalser with his political beliefs and charisma.  The film jumps between two moments that occur years apart: Ida’s first and brief encounter with Mussolini, and their reunion.   The two fall passionately in love, just as World War I erupts.  Ida proves her love for the emotionally-distant Mussolini by selling her home, business, and belongings to fund his newspaper.  Over time, Ida has a son, named Benito Albino, whom Mussolini recognizes.  However, after leaving to fight in the war, Mussolini abandons Ida and the young Benito for Rachele Guidi (Michela Cescon), whom he eventually marries.  Ida, understandably outraged, writes letters to any and every authority (including the Pope), claiming to be Mussolini’s true wife, but to no avail.  As Mussolini rises to power, Ida and Benito Albino are first placed under strict surveillance and later separated, with Ida being placed in an asylum and the young Benito being sent to a boarding school.

Despite Mussolini’s denial of their marriage (and of course he then denies that he is the father of Benito Albino), Ida continues to write to the authorities, claiming that Benito Albino is Mussolini’s true heir.  After years of torture and imprisonment, Ida has the opportunity to be released if she admits that she is not the wife of Mussolini.  Although very little screen time is devoted to the young Benito Albino, he does receive some attention as a young man.  In a powerful scene, a college-aged Benito (also played by Filippo Timi) presents a compelling impersonation of his father for his mates.  The impersonation proves the resemblance between father and son (after all, children are always the best at impersonating their parents), but also shows the psychological state of a young man after years of isolation.  The film’s conclusion is as strong as its beginning, though I must warn you, it is not uplifting.

While the story of a dictator’s secret wife and child is—I would argue—inherently interesting, Vincere’s plot is sometimes confusing, as Bellocchio jumps around temporally and often assumes that the audience is familiar with the life of Il Duce.  That being said, Vincere is by no means a history lesson of the life and career of Mussolini or of a fascist Italy.  After Mussolini abandons Ida and his son, very little screen time is given to the dictator other than brief scenes and some archival footage of the real Mussolini.  Although this absence of Mussolini establishes Ida as the main character of the film, it becomes difficult to discern Ida’s relationship to Mussolini both during and after his rise to power.  Also, characters’ names and titles are often unclear.  We do not learn of Ida’s name until well into the film, as she sells her possessions for Mussolini’s newspaper, and several government officials are inserted into the film without explanation.

Most important, the proof of Ida’s marriage to Mussolini is extremely ambiguous.  A wedding scene between Ida and Mussolini is depicted late in the film (Ida is already institutionalized and her sanity questioned), but could this be a dream or a flashback?  Also, Ida claims that government officials ransacked her home on Mussolini’s command, stealing all of her documents, and therefore she cannot produce a marriage certificate.  However, several characters suggest that the very document that could prove Ida’s truthfulness and save her and her son is tucked away in a known hiding place within the home, leading me to wonder why they did not simply present the marriage certificate and save Ida.  Could this ambiguity be the result of a plot hole or merely a matter of translation?

However, there are also several aspects of the film that deserve recognition.  The rapid Eisensteinian editing of archival footage of Mussolini’s rise to power and Italy’s role in both World Wars is particularly interesting, capturing the political fervor of the population, as well as the vulnerable state of the nation.  However, it must be said that the lack of resemblance between Filippo Timi and the real Mussolini can potentially be confusing to those unfamiliar with Il Duce’s appearance.  Many scenes are beautifully shot, often using chiaroscuro lighting (particularly in the opening scenes).  A particularly beautiful image occurs late in the film, with Ida imprisoned within the dark asylum, yet a window to the outside world shows a beautiful Christmas Eve’s snowfall.  Such shots almost allow for us to forgive the film of any faults…almost.

The confusing plot structure and ambiguities detract from Ida’s character.  Rather than a woman victimized and ruined by Mussolini, Ida often seems unnaturally obsessed with the dictator, idolizing him as a teenage girl might obsess over a Hollywood heart-throb.  To be clear, I am not justifying Mussolini’s treatment of Ida.  However, throughout much of the film I found myself wanting to tell Ida to move on with her life without Mussolini.  Because of her obsession with Il Duce, it is difficult to discern Ida’s sanity, and, as a result, she does not have our complete sympathy.

Overall, Bellocchio’s Vincere is thought-provoking and beautiful to watch.  While it does not capture my affection as his earlier works, it definitely provides us with something to talk about.  I personally appreciated how the film refrained from judging Mussolini politically, therefore avoiding a preachy tone.  Rather, it focused on the dictator’s treatment of Ida, allowing us a glimpse into a little-known aspect of Mussolini’s history.  Finally, while it may have fallen short of my (high) expectations, Vincere nevertheless reminded me of why I love the work of Bellocchio in the first place and encouraged me to re-view those films that sparked my appreciation of this gifted director several years ago.

-Melissa Cleary

Vincere opens at the Landmark Kendall Square Theater on March 26, 2010 and is not rated.

Directed by Marco Bellocchio; story by Marco Bellocchio; screenplay by Marco Bellocchio and Daniela Ceselli; director of photography, Daniele Cipri; edited by Francesca Calvelli; original music by Carlo Crivelli; production designer, Marco Dentici; produced by Christian Baute, Mario Gianani, Hengameh Panahi, and Olivia Sleiter; released by IFC.  Running time: 122 minutes.

With: Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Ida), Filippo Timi (Mussolini and Benito Albino), Corrado Invernizzi (Dr. Cappelletti), Fausto Russo Alesi (Riccardo), and Michela Cescon (Rachele).

Since taking his first foray into seriousness with Annie Hall in 1977, Woody Allen has been nothing if not upsetting, morally and emotionally.  His earliest films were one laugh riot after another—ingenious, cheeky, odd—but he really hit his stride when he embraced his inner Ingmar Bergman in the late 1970s and beyond, asking the Big Questions with an uncommon, mature solemnity.  Manhattan surveyed the emotional wreckage of a man whose wife left him for another woman.  Crimes and Misdemeanors implied that murder was an acceptable solution to a mistress problem.  Match Point argued that morality is meaningless in a world dominated by luck and happenstance.

These one-line synopses are deceptive, however, because they suggest Allen’s serious projects are devoid of his legendary humor.  They are not.  To see a Woody Allen production is not to choose between comedy and tragedy, and his collected works are not so easily divided into categories as are, for example, William Shakespeare’s.  Unlike Bergman, whose films have almost no humor at all—perhaps that’s the reason some are considered “dated” in today’s irony-strewn culture—Allen sees comedy and tragedy as the yin and yang of life.  Film, which reflects life, should contain both.

Accordingly, I offer 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters as the best movie Woody Allen has ever made, due in large part to its understanding of that very fact.  Amongst an enormous and distinguished cast, it is Allen himself who is involved in the film’s key scene.

As Mickey Sachs—a screen variation of Allen’s own persona, as ever—Allen plays a TV producer paralyzed with fear about his own mortality.  Called simply, “The hypochondriac,” worried that the fact of death renders life meaningless, Mickey embarks on a hapless odyssey through New York to find an answer that might put his mind at ease.  He tries religion—his own, Judaism, has long failed him—then calls upon the likes of Plato and Freud, but nothing lifts his spirits.  He’s too clever and pessimistic.

Finally, Mickey has a breakthrough, and the way it comes about shows Allen’s knack for blending tragedy with comedy.  Following a failed suicide attempt—the rifle slides off his forehead because he is sweating so much—Mickey escapes his apartment, takes a long walk and eventually wanders into an art house theater, which happens to be showing the great Marx Brothers farce Duck Soup. In voiceover narration, Mickey describes watching the film—“I had seen it many times as a kid and always loved it”—with new eyes.  How dare he despair, he hears himself say, when life offers such treasures as Groucho Marx?  Mickey’s life improves immeasurably from this point onward.

Is this a cop-out?  Hannah and Her Sisters has been noted—and faulted, by some—as being Allen’s only “serious” film with a happy ending.  In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby described the movie as “warmhearted,” which is indeed a characteristic that often eludes Allen’s work, even when successful.  It is noteworthy that Allen’s two biggest idols and influences—Ingmar Bergman and Groucho Marx—are as far removed from each other, thematically, as can be.  Bergman stands as a modern monument to tragedy, while Marx’s career was a zenith in American comedy.

Yet both men inhabited the same world—simultaneously, for 59 years—and were able to reach audiences who enjoyed them both.  That the ideas and ideals of both men could be merged into one is a tribute to Hannah and Her Sisters as a film, to Woody Allen as a filmmaker and to the much larger truth that comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin.

-Dan Seliber