Wow: a week without chaff. Out of twelve new-to-DVD films, six are definitely worth a watch, and the other half are what I may start calling "Mixed Blessings": While they all have good stuff going for them, they manage to undercut the good with enough mediocre moments to lessen their overall impact. But let's get to the wheat.
A performance to remember anchors BOY A, and it comes via an actor you may have seen if you were smart enough to catch Robert Redford's underrated Lions for Lambs or the tiresome, silly bodice-ripper, The Other Boleyn Girl: Andrew Garfield. Here is near-perfect match of actor and role, and Garfield's face, changing moment-to-moment in a manner that keeps you glued to the screen, is a non-stop wonder. Everything in his performance works -- face, body, manner, voice -- and he's surrounded by other good actors, including the always excellent Peter Mullan and Katie Lyons doing some lovely work. If the story seems pre-destined, I imagine that tales such as this generally are. That renders Boy A no less effective, only sadder.
If you've ever wondered what Ken Russell's work was like prior to his his going off the deep end of the artist-biography genre, rent KEN RUSSELL AT THE BBC which offers three of his early work done for the BBC. I've only watched Disc One, but the films included there are enough to have me queuing up for the other two discs. Elgar (1962) is stately combination of re-enacted scenes and documentary footage, seamlessly combined into one beautiful 52-minute work that features much of his composer's music on the soundtrack. The black and white photography is stunning, and Russell has rarely seemed as reticent yet full of fine and thoughtful ideas as here.
The Debussy Film (from 1965) offers the 28-year-old Oliver Reed's bull-like body and gorgeous face/voice as French composer Claude Debussy. From the photos we see of the real Debussy, Reed was an inspired choice as both the actor playing the composer and the "La Mer" man himself (Russell turns this into a film about a film). At 82 minutes, this is the longest of the three films and also the least, though still worthwhile.
For my money, the best of the three is Always on Sunday (also from 1965), which details the strange and alternately sad and amusing later life of Henri Rousseau who did not even begin to paint in serious until his middle years--after his first wife and some seven (or was it nine?) children had died. As played indelibly by a man named James Lloyd (who, according to the IMDB, never appeared in another movie or television role), Rousseau seems a near simple fellow with a great gift who was determined to present it to the world. Thank goodness. (He actually imagined himself a "realist" painter, and this bizarre idea was used by his lawyer to have him acquitted of some trumped-up charges in a court of law.)
In this 45-minute episode, Russell begins using some of his heavy-handed approaches that would later become near-trademarks (the crowd laughing at Rousseau's work, which goes on far too long). But these moments are few and far between. What's left is Mr. Lloyd's splendid work, and another of Russell's interesting views of artists unappreciated and misunderstood in their own time. Maybe someday people will feel the same about Russell himself. For now, I plan to move on to Disc 2 in this very welcome DVD series.
Another subtle, sad Israeli ensemble film, JELLYFISH is even more fluid and tangential than ususal. It's poetic, too, in its conception, form and photography. Full of connections made and missed, it left me both saddened and oddly fulfilled, the way certain artful films can manage -- as though I were floating just slightly above the land-locked characters. Co-directed (with Shira Geffen) by Etgar Keret, the fellow who wrote the original short story upon which the movie Wristcutters was based), this one is elusive. My companion found it nowhere near as good as did I, but I must recommend it on the chance that you'll find it as special as I.
That's one of the things about movies: Not only should you trust them (to a point), as my blog title would have it; you should also give them a chance. Open yourself up to the experience your writer/director is offering. Try to connect. If you can't, fine. There'll be others. But when you do, ah, the chance to actually see things a little differently and then to understand a bit more of life in our world.
The other three "wheat" films of the week -- Snow Angels; Bigger Stronger, Faster; and Taxi to the Dark Side -- I covered individually last week. Scroll down a bit for the reviews. All three of these movies (two documentaries and one narrative) are good examples of my Trust Movies philosophy: Snow Angels because of the actors' and adapter/director's ability to connect so precisely to the emotion of the moment, "truth" continually appears from each character and new situation. Bigger, Stronger, Faster keeps expanding its reach until it is almost impossible to go away from the movie carrying the same attitude and preconceptions with which you came to it. And Taxi to the Dark Side simply explores again our doings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo quietly and concertedly until -- unless you turn off your DVD player mid-movie -- there is no escape from its very troubling conclusion.
No more time today, so the "Mixed Blessings" I shall have to cover tomorrow:
WAR, INC.
ALONE WITH HER
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
THE UNFORESEEN
CSNY DÉJÀ VU
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