I must make a confession, because it will underpin this entire review; the core concept of James DeMonaco's "The Purge" intrigued me from the moment I heard about it. I do not mean that as a comment on the credibility of the idea, nor is that my way of saying that I think it should be enforced, but I found the idea that a Government would make crime legal for one night a year interesting. I doubt it's the kind of thing that would ever really get pushed through in America, but if you take it for what I took it to be, a hidden statement on human nature, then it takes on an interesting element.
Human nature, too, is something inherently interesting to me, and hence I was pleasantly surprised when this film revealed itself to actually be about that. Sure, it markets itself as and has the trappings of a home-invasion horror film, but there is a kernel of human truth here. Take the scene where a man, having been let into the home of a well-to-do suburban family by their pacifist, idealist son, is wanted by a group of sinister killers waiting outside. The family flip-flop between options; let the man go, let him be killed, but be safe themselves? Or keep him safe, but put themselves in danger?
Sure, it's hardly the Stanford Prison Experiment, but the film nevertheless is actually about something. The worth of a human life.
It's about other things, too. It's about a whole mass of things, and there's enough material here for a good four movies, which is astonishing when you consider the 80-odd minute runtime. The film begins on an unexpected satirical note with the mentality that the purge is a new American tradition, for which people should be thankful.
Again, it's hardly Orwell, but I did appreciate it.
The film even, in the final five minutes, does a u-turn that you can kinda see coming, but certainly not the way it arrives, and arrives at that most tricky of subject matters; an (again satirical) expose of small-town thinking and mentality.
Once more, we're hardly dealing with Bunúel or Lynch here, but y'know, sometimes you just have to go with it.
I went with it. And I came away with a certain admiration for this film, which spreads itself so thin that at times it resembles a wafer. But it's a damn tasty wafer, perhaps with a crude representation of John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" engraved on it, or something.
The technical stuff; acting wise, it's as good as it needs to be, and then a bit better. Ethan Hawke, as the salesman of security equipment for the purge, and the patriarch of a solid family unit, proves once more that Ethan Hawke can elevate any film into at the very least watchability. Lena Heady, as his wife, initially appears to be saddled with the role of unquestioning spouse, but comes into her own and develops a conscience as the film goes on. Rhys Wakefield as the well-educated, well-spoken "Polite Leader" of the gang breaking into Hawke's house, whilst essentially stealing Michael Pitt's turn as a similarly mannered psychopath in Michael Haneke's "Funny Games", nevertheless delivers the sinister chills.
It's also made with a slick, clean Hollywood professionalism, which makes for a visually uninspired but nevertheless better than functional look. Cinematographer Jacques Jouffret has given us a grey colour pallete, perhaps reflecting the overall morality of the movie (or maybe a stylistic choice) but he also has fun with the little flourishes, such as using a first person perspective from a creepy baby doll on wheels made by Max Burkholder's aforementioned pacifistic son. It's not going to kickstart a new cinematic movement, but it doesn't disgrace itself, sticks to what it knows, and plays to its strengths.
It tries, goddammit, and it's never less than an engaging, interesting, fun, weird, original, occasionally brutal, consistently inconsistent ride that's relatively unlike anything you've probably seen. If you can get over the trappings of the home-invasion thriller lying at the films centre, then this is an oddball piece of work which could have been annoying, but ends up being not quite fascinating, but certainly intriguing.
I'm going to call it a bits and pieces movie. It doesn't stick to one creed, and flits about like a child with ADHD. But, y'know, sometimes all you want is some bits and pieces, especially if they're some damn tasty bits and some really flavoursome, ephemeral pieces.
Showing posts with label Ethan Hawke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethan Hawke. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Review of Boyhood (2014)
I cannot recall a film being made which is more geared towards my generation. I am 18 years old. If it doesn't seem presumptuous to say so, this film was made for me. I went to see it with my girlfriend, who is also 18, and although we didn't grow up together we did grow up with the same things, the same music, TV shows, books, and videogames, and I'm fairly sure this film was made for her as well.
The plot is simple, and the manner of telling is ingenious. We follow a young boy called Mason from the age of 5 to 18, with the catch being that the film was made over 12 years, with a segment being shot once a year. Mason is played by Ellar Coltrane, and he was born on the 27th August, 1994. I was born on the 9th December, 1995. There's only a year and five month's difference there. He would only be in the year above me in school, if we were to have gone to the same school. I cannot review this film objectively, because to do so would divorce me personally from the subject matter. However what I can do is give a take on the film grounded in the kind of child it's about.
First and foremost; the film represents an enormous leap of faith on the film-makers, and Richard Linklater, who wrote and directed, in particular. So much could have gone wrong. What if an actor had died? What if Coltrane had decided he no longer wanted to be a part of the film? What if there had been a disagreement during the making as to how the film should turn out? Yet this leap of faith merely highlights how miraculous, and precious, this film is. It is a compassionate and dignified work which humbles the viewer.
A wonderful tracking shot occurs very early on. To the tune of Coldplay's "Yellow", a song I vividly remember as being one of the first songs on the radio that I recognised, we start with a close-up of Mason's face. Age 5, he has the look of a dreamer. We pull back, and see him lying on the grass, looking at the clouds. A conversation with his mother reveals him to be an inquisitive young boy who does his homework, but forgets to hand it in because the teacher didn't ask. Unsurprisingly, he has a habit of looking out the window during lessons.
Consider these scenes, for a moment. Think about how they were shot. In 2002, Linklater and company were embarking on an epic voyage. Surely there must have trepidation; these are the scenes which are going to open a film set on the very precipice of innumerable opportunities. Get them wrong, and perhaps they set up the film badly. Maybe they're in a tone different to the one that will eventually pan out.
That they set the tone perfectly, and the sheer wonder in the film-making doesn't let up for all 166 minutes, simply shows how sure a hand Linklater has over his material.
From here, we go on to find the core people in Mason's life. His mother, played by Patricia Arquette, is a divorcee looking after Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the director's own son). She's at once a caring, thoughtful woman and that very rarest of movie mothers that I cherish; a damn good one. Flawed, perhaps, and with a self-admitted penchant for choosing alcoholic men to be a part of her life, but one who cares deeply for her children.
Samantha is the opposite of Mason in the way that siblings often are opposites; she starts out the film as a bold and brash, precocious and deceitful child, and is the counter to Mason's thoughtful youngster (although she doesn't necessarily end that way). We get to meet her as she sings Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again" (another song I remember from my youth) much to Mason's quiet chagrin.
Then the film bursts outwards, in the way our lives expand as we get older and meet more people. Mason's father, divorced from Mom, played by Linklater regular Ethan Hawke, is in Alaska to begin with, although he later moves back to be a more active father in the upbringing of his children, and by the film's close is a regular player (for which I am thankful, because Ethan Hawke is a welcome presence in any movie).
What grabbed me most immediately was how real the film seemed. None of these characters were clichés or stock characters. The mother is well-drawn from the outset. The father evolves from the guilty dad trying to make amends for his absence early on into a loving, thoughtful father (although a very well-written scene implies that he wasn't ready to be a father when Mason was born, and perhaps he did the kinder thing by ducking out of responsibility for the first six years of Mason's life- he's certainly the kind of man who does better with older children).
There are, as I have mentioned, a slew of alcoholic men in Mom's life, and these are perhaps the only characters who seem to be two-dimensional. But sit and think about it; some people are just plain unlucky. Certainly, the men, when Mom met them, were genuine and nice people. Their alcoholism reveals itself slowly, and then suddenly, as one particular dinner table outburst involving the first husband, Professor Bill Welbrock (a memorably slimy and nasty Marco Perella) devastatingly details. Mom, simply, has bad luck with men. Sometimes life just works out like that.
Which is fitting, because this film is as honest as anything where life is concerned.
It is also worth a mention how funny the film can be, especially in the scenes with Ethan Hawke. He brings a genuine puppy-dog enthusiasm that is near-palpable, and frequently hysterical. Whether it's offering up pseudo-intellectual (yet utterly valuable) advice such as "life doesn't give you bumpers", or the cringe/funny moment where he's trying to give Samantha advice regarding contraception and boys, his presence is a beacon of light in the film. I also appreciated the pop-culture references; little things like the songs I've mentioned, along with the TV shows like Dragonball-Z and even the inclusion of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP were all staples of my own childhood. Linklater has purposely made the film with a time-capsule kind of element, relishing on the details which were new at the time but are now dated. I like that; the film acts as a paean about, an ode to, and a document of the times in which it was made, times in which I grew up and which are infinitely familiar, and yet this exacerbates the timeless quality of the writing and the characters.
The cinematography, by Lee Daniel and Shane F Kelly has a certain subdued, observant quality which suits the material to a T; we are simply presented the actors in a non-stylised, plainspoken way which doesn't intrude, and allows us to bask in the film.
Where the film is at its best, and luckiest, is in the casting of Ellar Coltrane as Mason. He starts the film as one of the most adorable children imaginable, and ends it as the kind of teenager I knew; the kind of teenager I was, and I suppose am. Throughout the film he carries this abashed, ineffable curiosity and wonder at everything he sees. He also turns out to be that very rarest of movie teenager, like Patrick Fugit's William Miller in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, who isn't dumb. He's not sex obsessed, but rather just views sex as another part of growing up- which it is. He has his own ambitions. He's smart. He can be a bit lazy, but his focus is on the things he loves, which turns out to be photography and art. How special it is to find a teenager in a movie who has ambitions at all!
Yet this ambition is a quality shared by the film itself. It's 166 minutes long, and it's one of the shortest 166 minutes I've ever seen (Transformers 4, which is the same length, seemed twice as long). It doesn't waste a single one of those minutes. It touches upon many themes, such as religion, the Iraq war, the early-noughties political climate, popular culture of the time, the nature of family. It also understands the simple pleasures life can bring; the kind words of an acquaintance. A home-cooked meal. Summers spent in a swimming pool and a trampoline. Hell, even the how a bad haircut can be ruinous for a young person, especially in a school setting.
Oh, how I could go on. This is a film that contains multitudes, and is made with an abundance of spirit which cannot help but touch the viewer. I was touched, deeply. It represents an act of nobility on the part of Richard Linklater, who marks himself, along with his "Before" saga (which joins the same couple every nine years at different stages of their relationship), as a director immensely interested in the passing of time. As well as an immensely skilled director.
A personal note. I feel as though this is a film that I will take with me through the rest of my life. So many little touches encapsulate the first eighteen years of my existence. I cannot rate this film more, not just because of what it does, but because of what it means to me.
It ends with Mason finally at college. He has just had a tearful farewell to his mother, yet despite himself he is excited by the possibilities which lie before him. the life he can carve for himself.
In two months, I will be at university, the American equivalent of college. No doubt I will have a tearful farewell to my mother, and my father, which will also run alongside my excitement at the life I am about to live, a life I am about to carve for myself.
The final shot of this film is immaculate in its simplicity. Mason has made three friends on his first day of college, and has gone hiking with them. There is a girl he likes very much, and he is just sat next to her. We regard him, and her, looking about them, taking in their life, taking stock perhaps. They are on the verge of everything that is about to come, for them. The shot is just long enough to call attention to how long it is. Then we cut to black.
I can say what I want as objectively as I can about this film. But as someone who is going to experience their own hike of some description in the near future, all I will say is this; for circumstances as similar to mine, this film is a gift, to be cherished, and all I can say is to see it, see it now, allow yourself to become immersed in it, and come out the other side having seen one of the most humane and tender dramas, films, you could imagine.
The plot is simple, and the manner of telling is ingenious. We follow a young boy called Mason from the age of 5 to 18, with the catch being that the film was made over 12 years, with a segment being shot once a year. Mason is played by Ellar Coltrane, and he was born on the 27th August, 1994. I was born on the 9th December, 1995. There's only a year and five month's difference there. He would only be in the year above me in school, if we were to have gone to the same school. I cannot review this film objectively, because to do so would divorce me personally from the subject matter. However what I can do is give a take on the film grounded in the kind of child it's about.
First and foremost; the film represents an enormous leap of faith on the film-makers, and Richard Linklater, who wrote and directed, in particular. So much could have gone wrong. What if an actor had died? What if Coltrane had decided he no longer wanted to be a part of the film? What if there had been a disagreement during the making as to how the film should turn out? Yet this leap of faith merely highlights how miraculous, and precious, this film is. It is a compassionate and dignified work which humbles the viewer.
A wonderful tracking shot occurs very early on. To the tune of Coldplay's "Yellow", a song I vividly remember as being one of the first songs on the radio that I recognised, we start with a close-up of Mason's face. Age 5, he has the look of a dreamer. We pull back, and see him lying on the grass, looking at the clouds. A conversation with his mother reveals him to be an inquisitive young boy who does his homework, but forgets to hand it in because the teacher didn't ask. Unsurprisingly, he has a habit of looking out the window during lessons.
Consider these scenes, for a moment. Think about how they were shot. In 2002, Linklater and company were embarking on an epic voyage. Surely there must have trepidation; these are the scenes which are going to open a film set on the very precipice of innumerable opportunities. Get them wrong, and perhaps they set up the film badly. Maybe they're in a tone different to the one that will eventually pan out.
That they set the tone perfectly, and the sheer wonder in the film-making doesn't let up for all 166 minutes, simply shows how sure a hand Linklater has over his material.
From here, we go on to find the core people in Mason's life. His mother, played by Patricia Arquette, is a divorcee looking after Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the director's own son). She's at once a caring, thoughtful woman and that very rarest of movie mothers that I cherish; a damn good one. Flawed, perhaps, and with a self-admitted penchant for choosing alcoholic men to be a part of her life, but one who cares deeply for her children.
Samantha is the opposite of Mason in the way that siblings often are opposites; she starts out the film as a bold and brash, precocious and deceitful child, and is the counter to Mason's thoughtful youngster (although she doesn't necessarily end that way). We get to meet her as she sings Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again" (another song I remember from my youth) much to Mason's quiet chagrin.
Then the film bursts outwards, in the way our lives expand as we get older and meet more people. Mason's father, divorced from Mom, played by Linklater regular Ethan Hawke, is in Alaska to begin with, although he later moves back to be a more active father in the upbringing of his children, and by the film's close is a regular player (for which I am thankful, because Ethan Hawke is a welcome presence in any movie).
What grabbed me most immediately was how real the film seemed. None of these characters were clichés or stock characters. The mother is well-drawn from the outset. The father evolves from the guilty dad trying to make amends for his absence early on into a loving, thoughtful father (although a very well-written scene implies that he wasn't ready to be a father when Mason was born, and perhaps he did the kinder thing by ducking out of responsibility for the first six years of Mason's life- he's certainly the kind of man who does better with older children).
There are, as I have mentioned, a slew of alcoholic men in Mom's life, and these are perhaps the only characters who seem to be two-dimensional. But sit and think about it; some people are just plain unlucky. Certainly, the men, when Mom met them, were genuine and nice people. Their alcoholism reveals itself slowly, and then suddenly, as one particular dinner table outburst involving the first husband, Professor Bill Welbrock (a memorably slimy and nasty Marco Perella) devastatingly details. Mom, simply, has bad luck with men. Sometimes life just works out like that.
Which is fitting, because this film is as honest as anything where life is concerned.
It is also worth a mention how funny the film can be, especially in the scenes with Ethan Hawke. He brings a genuine puppy-dog enthusiasm that is near-palpable, and frequently hysterical. Whether it's offering up pseudo-intellectual (yet utterly valuable) advice such as "life doesn't give you bumpers", or the cringe/funny moment where he's trying to give Samantha advice regarding contraception and boys, his presence is a beacon of light in the film. I also appreciated the pop-culture references; little things like the songs I've mentioned, along with the TV shows like Dragonball-Z and even the inclusion of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP were all staples of my own childhood. Linklater has purposely made the film with a time-capsule kind of element, relishing on the details which were new at the time but are now dated. I like that; the film acts as a paean about, an ode to, and a document of the times in which it was made, times in which I grew up and which are infinitely familiar, and yet this exacerbates the timeless quality of the writing and the characters.
The cinematography, by Lee Daniel and Shane F Kelly has a certain subdued, observant quality which suits the material to a T; we are simply presented the actors in a non-stylised, plainspoken way which doesn't intrude, and allows us to bask in the film.
Where the film is at its best, and luckiest, is in the casting of Ellar Coltrane as Mason. He starts the film as one of the most adorable children imaginable, and ends it as the kind of teenager I knew; the kind of teenager I was, and I suppose am. Throughout the film he carries this abashed, ineffable curiosity and wonder at everything he sees. He also turns out to be that very rarest of movie teenager, like Patrick Fugit's William Miller in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, who isn't dumb. He's not sex obsessed, but rather just views sex as another part of growing up- which it is. He has his own ambitions. He's smart. He can be a bit lazy, but his focus is on the things he loves, which turns out to be photography and art. How special it is to find a teenager in a movie who has ambitions at all!
Yet this ambition is a quality shared by the film itself. It's 166 minutes long, and it's one of the shortest 166 minutes I've ever seen (Transformers 4, which is the same length, seemed twice as long). It doesn't waste a single one of those minutes. It touches upon many themes, such as religion, the Iraq war, the early-noughties political climate, popular culture of the time, the nature of family. It also understands the simple pleasures life can bring; the kind words of an acquaintance. A home-cooked meal. Summers spent in a swimming pool and a trampoline. Hell, even the how a bad haircut can be ruinous for a young person, especially in a school setting.
Oh, how I could go on. This is a film that contains multitudes, and is made with an abundance of spirit which cannot help but touch the viewer. I was touched, deeply. It represents an act of nobility on the part of Richard Linklater, who marks himself, along with his "Before" saga (which joins the same couple every nine years at different stages of their relationship), as a director immensely interested in the passing of time. As well as an immensely skilled director.
A personal note. I feel as though this is a film that I will take with me through the rest of my life. So many little touches encapsulate the first eighteen years of my existence. I cannot rate this film more, not just because of what it does, but because of what it means to me.
It ends with Mason finally at college. He has just had a tearful farewell to his mother, yet despite himself he is excited by the possibilities which lie before him. the life he can carve for himself.
In two months, I will be at university, the American equivalent of college. No doubt I will have a tearful farewell to my mother, and my father, which will also run alongside my excitement at the life I am about to live, a life I am about to carve for myself.
The final shot of this film is immaculate in its simplicity. Mason has made three friends on his first day of college, and has gone hiking with them. There is a girl he likes very much, and he is just sat next to her. We regard him, and her, looking about them, taking in their life, taking stock perhaps. They are on the verge of everything that is about to come, for them. The shot is just long enough to call attention to how long it is. Then we cut to black.
I can say what I want as objectively as I can about this film. But as someone who is going to experience their own hike of some description in the near future, all I will say is this; for circumstances as similar to mine, this film is a gift, to be cherished, and all I can say is to see it, see it now, allow yourself to become immersed in it, and come out the other side having seen one of the most humane and tender dramas, films, you could imagine.
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