IN WHICH THE AUTHOR IS REALLY, REALLY NOT AMUSED... "COSMOPOLIS"

Stop and think for a second, if you will, what kind of things Mothers tell their daughters. To smile more, wear prettier clothes, make more jokes, you know, be more positive... Not mine. Mine reads my film reviews on my blog and goes “you can’t like every single film you watch dear, be a bit negative from time to time”. I don’t even know how to deal with the comment and it keeps coming up roughly every three weeks.

It is true that when I started off I only wrote about films I liked. Because I had started the blog to recommend films – in a funny kind of way it made sense to me that I would write about the positive and not the negative. I have – even Mom agrees – changed my tone a little as I have continued writing on this blog – and on other websites  - I have begun to veer more and more towards films that have – for better or worse – incited strong emotions in me.

Cosmopolis is one of those films. And the strong emotion it incites in me is a deep sense of disappointment. I mean, hand on heart, I have never been a massive fan of Robert Pattinson (I haven’t even been just a tiny bit of a fan of Robert Pattinson) but I wanted him to do well on this one. The plot looked surreal and intriguing, I am a massive fan of David Cronenberg, you know… I had hopes…

This is the story of young millionaire Eric Packer. One day he gets into his limousine and orders his driver to take him across town, for a haircut. This is easier said than done because this is no ordinary day; there are many “happenings” along the way that will waylay him. In the process, Packer comes across all kinds of characters; some known to him, some strangers… Some friends, some foe… And as you plunge with him deep into this extraordinary odyssey, you can be sure, this is no ordinary drive across town.

Ok so here’s the lowdown. Basically the film is a poetic and philosophical essay on our times, delivered to us mainly through Pattinson and a plethora of other characters  whose main raison d’etre seems to be to demonstrate various philosophical points rather than to actually advance the storyline in any way.  I mean, I say storyline. The film has the bare bones of a storyline and little else besides. For the most part, Cosmopolis is a slow moving essay, read out loud by multiple, changing voices. And how does the film solve the problem of these multiple voices – by harmonising the tone and delivery of all the characters throughout the entire film.

As far as logic goes there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Even if you don’t really expect a 22 year old computer genius and a Packer’s 41 year old mistress (Juliette Binoche) to speak in the same way, ok, let’s suspend disbelief like a good audience. The one main thing about Cosmopolis that really, really stuck in my throat was the complete unnaturalness of every single actors delivery all the way through the film. I have read a lot of online commentary blaming it largely on the writing. And the writing is no doubt a part of it, it does have some very strong, very valid philosophical points buried in there but it couldn’t have been expressed in a more roundabout way if it tried. The aim with the delivery was, I think, to make it slightly stilted to give a sense of a sort of “end of times” brand of ennuie. The whole “problem” Eric has is that, at 28 he has reached the top, he is at the pinnacle, and he gazes out in a world-weary way around him (at 28. I know) and sees… Well, nothing good. And more importantly nothing new. And at the beginning I was very tempted to lay the blame on Pattinson’s door and an inability to convey subtle emotion but as the film advanced, I realised they were all talking like that. By like that I mean a distinct falseness that is almost certainly put on. The aim is probably to firstly give an impression of the uncomfortable and “false” world Eric lives in and is sick of, but also to stop us from “connecting” to the characters and makes us concentrate on the contents of the philosophical discussion – a sort of self-reflexivity, if you will. The problem is, where it should have just hinted at this and left it as an almost indiscernible undertone, Cosmopolis cranks the volume up to “are you nuts” and leaves it there.

Now let me make another point clear. I usually love films like this. They are not everyone’s cup of tea, I myself am not always in the mood for them. But Terrance Malik is one of my favourite directors. I love loosing myself in a good philosophical point. But the problem with this kind of film is that it has to be very, very delicately balanced and very well thought-out. Otherwise the film stops being a dialogue-driven philosophical masterpiece and wanders off into the domain of pretentious drivel…

I am sorry to say this, but I found Cosmopolis grossly miscalculated and utterly unwatchable. I devoutly hope that in the future Cronenberg will stick to what he is good at, i.e. making philosophical points via striking stories and actions, not explaining the living daylights out of it…

TAKING THE NEXT STEP IN YOUR DEVELOPPMENT - IN THE CREEPIEST WAY POSSIBLE - "DEAD RINGERS"

I had a thing about this film for some reason. Not a good type of “thing” either. I’m not sure why I had this thing; it has everything I usually go for in a film. Plot twists, a brilliant director, a brilliant leading actor (I mean, Jeremy Irons, come on…).  I got the feeling that somehow it would be a little too creepy. I came across the film multiple times and avoided it. Until I saw it in the school library and thought, you know what, this is dumb. I need to get over this. And boy am I glad I did. Here’s for getting over one’s fears and moving on. It can be one heck of an experience. Just like meeting the Mantle twins – only slightly less creepy.

The thing that’s creepy about Elliot and Beverly Mantle is the fact that they are pretty much impossible to tell apart. And this, as you can imagine, is a fact that the twins take full advantage of. They are famous gynaecologists, in reality quiet and sensitive Beverly does the research and the outgoing Elliot implements it, managing the “PR” side of things. But be it in consultations, board meetings and even on dates, the twins live perfectly interchangeably. After all they are the only ones who can tell each other apart. Until, that is, Claire Niveaux, a sultry actress with a very interesting gynaecological problem waltzes into their lives.  The unthinkable happens. The shy and reticent Beverly falls madly in love with her. And for the first time in the twin’s lives, he wants to keep her all to himself. Now there are several problems with this plan. Firstly, what will Elliot – who is generally rather good at getting exactly what he wants in life – say about this and secondly, will either of them survive this first severing of their umbilical cord?

First of all, Ok, I do love the idea. And I am pretty sure that throughout history twins have abused their looks and replaced each other in various capacities. I wouldn’t know, I’m not a twin. However, my cousins are twins, one of my dearest friends is one of twins and I mean… Yes, they call them “identical” twins for a reason, but it is realistically quite easy to tell them apart. I guess it’s all about suspending disbelief and all that but I don’t know, possibly because I was hanging out with my cousins who are twins just before watching this, I found suspending that bit a bit hard. But let’s not split hairs. At the end of the day, some twins are almost impossible to tell apart. And although it is abundantly clear that Jeremy Irons plays both, he does both so well we can let it slip. By the way, this is an opportune moment to remark on how hard it actually must be to play not one but two very complicated parts in the same film. Congrats to Jeremy Irons,  it must be hard enough getting into one character but he very successfully manages to get into two at once.

Or is it two, really? Because, while playing around and using every gimmick in the book with the twins thing, Cronenberg is really asking, as far as I can tell, whether they actually are two people or two halves of the same person. The way Kusturica phrased it in “Arizona Dream” was “one person too big to go through life in one body” or something to that effect. We may well be able to say the same of the Mantle twins. It reaches the point when, every time Jeremy Irons appears on the screen, it is literally anyone’s guess which one he is. But don’t worry, clues are abundant. The insecurity lasts just long enough to shake you. And shake you this film will. It is definitely, definitely not for the faint of heart. But worth every spine chilling minute. 

TRUE LOVE CAN COME IN ANY FORM... "M. BUTTERFLY"

Now, this film is one I had to watch for a completely separate project I was working on. But the film BOWLED ME OVER. I had high expectations of the film (David Cronenberg is by far one of my favorite directors and Jeremy Irons is… Well, Jeremy Irons) and trusted the opinion of the person who said I should watch it but I really did NOT expect it to turn out to be one of the most striking love stories I have ever watched… Add to that, although I couldn’t verify it 100%, this seems to be inspired by real events – and Madame Butterfly.

Rene Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) is a perfectly average government official working in the French consulate in Beijing. The year is 1964; China is still “the mysterious orient” albeit with slight communist tendencies but nothing too serious. Rene has a very average life. He is in accounts; he is known as more of a pen pusher than anything else, is married and attends consulate events, pretty much like everyone in the French consulate. But then, one such event introduces him to the opera and a quite extraordinary diva. A Chinese artist, Mademoiselle Song, sings excerpts from Madame Butterfly. Rene later snatches a moment to talk to her – her beauty, her voice and her independent spirit charm him. He goes to the Beijing Opera to watch her perform, finds out where she lives… And she seems to respond to his feelings in the same way… Rene will be transformed; his love for Mademoiselle Song makes him confident and strong. She has strange and rather backward views on sex, (she will not let him see her naked among other things) but her feelings are without a doubt real… However, there are many things about Song that Rene doesn’t know… One of them is that in traditional Chinese theatre female parts are principally played by men… But it is not the secret concerning Song’s body that will be Rene’s downfall…

If you thought that this seemed similar in topic to “The Crying Game”, you would be right. Indeed that is the other film the same person advised me to watch. I did watch The Crying Game when I was younger and I was deeply affected by it but not as much as M. Butterfly. Irons brilliantly portrays the straight-laces Gallimard who is first transformed by love but then transformed again as he finds out the person he loved never truly existed on more levels than one… And John Lowe (who you surely will remember as the adult emperor in The Last Emperor) is stunning as the enigmatic Song Liling. It is this sense of lies and loss, of truth and illusions, that makes the film a true rollercoaster. I mean yes the sexual tensions, the acting, the whole atmosphere of the film were all absolutely stunning but the thoughts and feeling it left me with at the very end were the things that truly bowled me over... What is real? What is illusion? Does what makes us actually happy matter more than either sometimes? A film with great depth that I most strongly recommend…

Oh and by the way, if you reckon by hinting at one of Song’s many secrets I have ruined the film for you, do not be fooled. I knew this before I started watching as well… And it still succeeded in bowling me over…