The Tree of Life

 By: Matthew Kerwin

 
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth … when the morning stars sang together?” Job 38: 4,7

Imagine a film without a concrete beginning or ending, instead a series of vignettes, a kaleidoscope of images and ideas where you can come in and pick up at any point and create any story you want. This film is about life–yours, mine, your friends, or neighbors. It is bountiful – in the sense that has something to give to anyone—- if one is willing to indulge themselves in the viewing process. You must let down your defenses, your inhibitions and enter Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” a film not meant to be watched, but experienced.

Malick ‘s stylistic approach is philosophical– above and beyond the rest of Hollywood. He is the master of unrelated narratives and poetic grandeur; when nature, image and sound are brought from the foreground while plot, dialogue and character are reeled back.

On paper this film seems straightforward–  A family with three boys growing up in the 1950s from a small Texas town. But in context it is an honest flow of memories from Jack, the eldest boy’s point of view and his loss of innocence while struggling with the death of his older brother. We are implanted into Jack’s most intimate memories. Memories that evoke, pain, suffering, resentment, regret, disappointment, love, happiness, innocence, growth, triumph, desire. In actuality, the family was merely a vessel for Malick to paint a bigger picture about the meaning of life and why we are here.  The film itself invites the viewer to dissect life from its most outer shell, to reflect on the purpose of our existence while surrounded by an infinite, powerful and magnificent universe. We humans find it complex to come to terms with it all, habitually relying on religious faith in order to come to terms with our own life and death. For nature is merciless. It does not care If we suffer or pray — It is indifferent, unaffected by human emotion. “The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by.” While life can bring overwhelming pain and suffering, part of the secret of life is expanding our love through grace or nature. The question is: Which one will you follow?

The Thin Blue Line

Like the old adage timing really is everything. Nothing exemplifies this better than The Thin Blue Line. Every once in a while a story comes along that captivates the nation and visionary director Errol Morris seemed to be at the right place at the right time when investigating the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood. All the stars were aligned for Morris who was actually coming to Texas to interview Dr. James Grigson, a Dallas psychiatrist nicknamed “Doctor Death” but after interviewing Randall Adams who was convicted of killing Wood, Morris began to shift gears on his topic. Adams was in the 11th year of his life sentence for the crime he insists he didn’t commit. To make matters worse there was evidence pointing towards the supposed witness to the crime  David Harris, but he was a minor at the time of the murder and it was easier to prosecute Adams. Call it fate, call it karma, Harris ended up in jail for another crime in 1985, just in time for the filming of the documentary.  You cannot make this shit up, this film reminded me of a hoaxy James Patterson novel. The beauty of this film is that it became bigger than Morris ever could have conceived and I must say—-it is nothing short of miraculous. During the final scene Harris confesses to the crime and Adams walks out a free man.  This is the perfect Shawshank Redemption-esque fairytale ending that we all were rooting for. To top it off, the final scene of Harris, who talks wonderingly about the fact that a person’s whole life can be changed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Is Randall Adams an innocent man?” Morris asks Harris.

“I’m sure he is.” “How can you be sure?” “Because I’m the one that knows.”

This dialogue was initially meant to be shot using a camera, but Morris’s equipment broke down that day and they resorted to a tape recorder to capture the dialogue. Perfect timing right? I think so, its chilling to the bone and really captures the eeriness of the entire case.

The style of filming breaks all the traditions of the documentary format, including the interview process where the interviewee is looking into a mirrored lens that makes it look like they are talking to someone across from them. Morris also makes use of visually striking objects such as a swinging clock, the use of cop lights, and reenactments from the night of the murder. The thing I like most about Morris’s style was the decision not to use narration or voiceovers, the film flows smoothly without someone guiding us along  which makes the viewer engage themselves into the characters even more.

The Illusionist

Sylvain Chomet’s “The Illusionist” is nostalgia wrapped in bubble wrap- it’s very fragile for an animated film and the style suits it perfectly. The screenplay is the final act of the late great Jacques Tati, who is famous for films such as Mr Hulot’s Holiday, Playtime and Traffic. The film itself is about an aging Magician, a vagabond of sorts who goes from one place to another, wherever he can find steady work, a paycheck and an audience. He eventually ends up in Scotland and crosses paths with a young girl who seems to be the only one who admires his work and they decide to move in together and form a kind of Father- Daughter relationship. The relationship also shows the drastic differences that are defining them; the magician is slowly disappearing and being replaced by loud rambunctious bands, whereas the girl is slowly emerging into her own shoes. The main character’s look is definitely an homage to Tati, who sports an identical long slender frame, trench coat and a trademark pipe. The film feels like an extension of Tati because it captures the magical charm that surrounded him, but sadly signifies how tragic and troubled his family life was like.

Biutiful

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep” One moment you can have something that is beautiful, a family, a successful career, and complete euphoria, but the next moment can be filled with sadness, conflict, or despair and then we disappear. In Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful” we get a blend of both. Javier Bardem plays Uxbal, a good-natured man dying of cancer that resorts to illegal things to provide for his family. Uxbal lives with his two children in a very run down part of Barcelona and you get a sense early on this is a man who will go to extreme lengths to support his children at any cost. In the midst of taking care of his children Uxbal is in a complete free fall, he has a struggling relationship with his bi-polar wife and they have scenes of extreme frustration when it comes to communication and co-existing with one another. Here is a couple that has a deep love for each other but can’t stand to be in the same room with each other either. This relationship has many layers like any normal relationship has and you connect with them on some level if you have ever had a difficult relationship with someone you love. To make matters worse Uxbal is in cahoots with his boss at work, and his drug dealing associates. He is surrounded by so much noise and clamor that the audience may forget this is a man who is slowly dying piece by piece.
The glue that holds the film together easily goes to Bardem, who was recently nominated for his performance. He easily has the most range and screen presence I have seen in years. Although this movie is very challenging and difficult at times, it is a must see for Bardem’s performance alone.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

After I viewed this film for the first time, I was convinced it was a hoax. As it is, Banksy pushes the envelope with his very political and thought provoking street art. Making this documentary was just a new medium for him to transmit his… work. He also may have used the “hoax” controversy to create a new art form. With that in mind, I personally think Banksy is trying to prove a point or send a message to audiences around the globe. For instance, if the media has so much power and manipulation over how we think when it comes to news, politics, and religion, then Banksy can successfully manipulate us into thinking a certain way too. Take Thierry Guetta for example, how did he go from a creepy stalker with a camera to making millions? Is he smarter than you and I? I just think it’s baffling that someone like Mr. Guetta can go from a man with no direction in his life,( a man who filmed random nonsense) to a self made millionaire overnight by taking Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup can painting and merely changing the soup can into a spray-paint can and selling it for an insane profit. Is that art? Thats relative, but I can’t be too surprised; we do live in a world where one of the most popular TV shows is “Jersey Shore” so it wouldn’t shock me if this wasn’t a hoax, and if that’s the case— we are to blame for feeding into this nonsense – that may be what Banksy is trying to prove, after all Thierry’s pseudonym is Mr Brainwash.

Restrepo

Published By: Matthew Kerwin

“The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, -for war is a drug.”

From the very start of the documentary we are introduced to a group of young men around  19-24 years of age. They are in what looks like some sort of vehicle headed for deployment. The first scene is homemade, shot POV style by one of the soldiers. It captures some of the guys bonding, laughing and joking with one another—most of all it shows us that soldiers aren’t the stereotypical  “juice headed man with a machine gun”,–they are like you and I. They have personality and emotion- they could be your family, your friend, your neighbor.  We see the exterior of the soldiers; they are like steel but throughout the documentary we find out the interior has cracks and can be fragile.

  Filmmakers Tim Hetherington of “The Devil Comes on Horseback” fame and  Sebastian Junger bring us this hauntingly beautiful footage in the form of  “Restrepo”

These gentlemen followed and documented the soldiers of a U.S. platoon in the Korengal Valley for an entire year. I was sucked into the void of helplessness known as  “The most dangerous place in the world” and  I can only imagine how terrified all of  the soldiers were when they were in the midst of battle because I was petrified watching 8,000 miles away. 

 The name Restrepo is taken from a fallen soldier of this particular platoon, Juan “Doc” Restrepo. He had charm, wit and charisma. He was likeable and everyone in the platoon had only great things to say about him. He was held in such a high regard that the platoon named an Out Post after him.

Platoons in the U.S. armed forces become more than partners they become family. This platoon is no different, each guy cares for the other like they were of the same blood.

Like Devil Comes on Horseback, Restrepo shows war at its ugliest, the soul at its darkest and the mind at its most unstable.

Some of the most poignant parts of the film were without dialogue; they were strictly headshot stills of individual soldiers. Eerie silences, scenic mountain shots and frantic gunfire captivated the film so poetically that I was left feeling numb and grew attached to the individuals that were being documented.

One scene that exemplifies this is also the hardiest to watch. [Spoiler]—————

The scene involves Staff Sergeant Rougel during the mission “Rock Avalanche” he is ambushed by a group of Taliban soldiers and is killed instantly. The camera captures the reaction of his fellow soldiers, they all have a deep fear in their eyes like they had just seen a ghost—watching this just sent shivers down my spine. One of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen in any film is the reaction of the soldier who broke down at the sight of Rougel’s lifeless body. This took my breath away and left me in tears,  it was just gut wrenching.——————-Spoiler

What I liked most about this film is the guerilla style camera work with no narration or commentary from the film makers. It really helped enhance the quality of the film, showing the raw and long term effects war has on the human mind. This movie will stay with you, just like war haunts a soldier for the rest of his or her life.

Films of 2010

Published by: Matthew Kerwin

 Well folks, 2010 has come and gone, we had some laughs, we had some cries and we also saw some films that made us do both.

I wont make a top 10 of the year, instead i’ll talk about the  films that left an impression on me for better or worse. First and foremost, it was a fairly slow year in terms of great films so that is why i take this approach instead of a traditional ” top 10 list”.  I would like to designate  the 2010 year in movies as “the little engine that couldnt”.  It started out with great promise with such releases as ” Shutter Island, Toy Story 3 and Secretariat” , but  followed with the absymal, Takers, Book of Eli, Paranormal Activity 2, and Alice and Wonderland. (there were more horrible films, but i wont go Debbie Downer on you.) Also, if you liked any of the films i catagorized as terrible, i am so sorry for your taste in movies.

This year just never had many original concepts or ideas like we have seen in the past. Alot of the good films were even pusing it with recycled material or sequals. This is a bit alarming, but i hope it was just one of those years where nothing came together just– perfectly.  Dont get me wrong i absolutely loved some of the films that were released last year, but i wasnt blown away like years past. Maybe i have been watching too many movies and have become too picky for my own good, i’ll let you be the judge of that.

These films are in no paticular order.

  Blockbuster films

 Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan,The Kings Speech, 127 Hours,The American

Limited released films

Winters Bone, Blue Valentine, Somewhere, Animal Kingdom, I Love You Philip Morris, Another Year

 Documentaries

Exit Through The Gift Shop, Citizen Architect, Lemmy, Catfish,Restrepo

 Animated Films

A Town Called Panic, Toy Story 3

Foreign Films

Mother, The Secret In Their Eyes, Biutiful and Dogtooth

Other films that you might want to check out as well,

Shutter Island, And Everything is Going Fine, Never Let Me Go,Carlos, Monsters

Most challanging film this year goes to:

Enter The Void

Drop me a comment,

Let me know if you agree or disagree with the films i chose and what ones you would have put in their place.

127 Hours

Review By: Matthew Kerwin

Bio-topics are always difficult to do properly because  it’s a challenge to give the real person being depicted on-screen justice.  Danny Boyle  gets it right and does Aron Ralston and his amazing true story proud.

  The film 127 hours is based on the book Between a Rock and a  Hard Place, the story about Aron Ralston, a mountain climber who gets trapped under a boulder while scaling the canyons near Moab, Utah. James Franco plays Ralston and he does a superb job bringing Ralstons energy and demeanor  to the big screen. Aron has to go to desperate measures to survive, which means, to keep this G rated, will do some pretty crazy stuff to live.

Many things were done well in the movie, the cinematography was fantastic, for the wider shots, vibrant and scenic, for the personal and closer shots of Ralston,  very tight and isolated. The acting very well done as well.  The only thing I would change would be part of the script, I know it was based on Ralstons book but it would be very beneficial to get the viewer inside Ralstons head a bit more. The beginning of the film could have benefited from a little less from the side characters and more on Ralstons life.  I understand that the movie is mostly about Ralstons struggle with the boulder, but it would have touched home with insight on Ralstons life. It would have been smart to incorporate a scene with his family a few days prior to his canyon trip.

Having said that,the one con that  almost took me away from the movie was the music selection, or for that matter, the abundance of music throughout the film. Boyle decides to team up with composer A.R.Rahman again, but it doesn’t work. Throughout the movie we have Bollywood style music weaving into and out of a few scenes and then to top it off,  an auto-tuned Bollywood ballad during the more crucial scenes. Instead of having me lost within the scene, it had me laughing in disbelief. I might be in the minority, but I think minimalism would have worked for this movie. A little less music and more of a character study.

 Overall the movie was touching and very well done. I recommend this film to anyone that enjoys movies that are based on a real events and have real consequences.

Rating: B

Black Swan

Review by: Matthew Kerwin

Rating: B +

Independent film maker Darren Aronofsky adds another notch under his belt of high tension character studies. He showed us the harsh realities of drug use in Requiem for a Dream and the sad and desolate world of a wrestler, in The Wrestler. With Black Swan, Aronofsky shows us the cut throat world of competitive ballet. Going into this film i wasn’t sure what light the ballet would be perceived in, but boy was i mesmerized.

A young girl in her early twenties is in her room standing in front of a mirror looking at her small, petite, malnourished body. She has tears in her eyes, bruises cover most of her back and legs. She just got home from ballet practice and is still not satisfied with her practice session a half an hour prior. She starts to stand on the tips of her feet, they begin to crack and she winces in pain. She falls back down on her feet and reaches for her foot. As she slowly begins to take the ballet shoe off, her bandage reveals a small patch of blood. She continues to unwind the bandage from her foot and examines her toes. They are very disfigured, swollen and bleeding. She nonchalantly picks at her big toe and starts to peel away the nail. After disposing her nail she gets a fresh bandage, wraps up her foot, slips her shoe back on, wipes the remaining tears from her face and continues to practice.

Perfection is an understatement for this young ballet dancer named Nina, wonderfully portrayed by Natalie Portman, who will most certainly be nominated for an Oscar, for an extremely chilling performance about a ballet dancer who is driven to the edge when her professional drive overwhelms anything else in her life. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica, (played by Barbara Hershey), who treats Nina like she is a five year old child and is also very jealous of Nina’s accomplishments as a dancer.When artistic director Thomas Leroy , (played by Vincent Cassel), decides to replace the aging ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new, much more stripped down version of Swan Lake, Nina is at the top of his list. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (played by Mila Kunis), who in comparison is much more raw and carefree opposed to Nina, who is tame, shy and vulnerable. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina exemplifies the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted and sensual friendship, Nina begins to channel her dark side, a sign that could lead to self destruction.

Clint Mansell adds a beautiful score that compliments the movie nicely, frame by frame. Mansell reinvented and used much of the original score from Swan Lake,  composed by the legendary Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Black Swan is a must see film this year, check it out!

Movie Review: A Serious Man

Reviewed By: Matthew Kerwin

Grade- A

The Coen Brothers have done it again!!  From the creative minds that brought us movies such as “Fargo”, “The Big Lebowski” and “No Country for Old Men” grace us with their latest film “A Serious Man.”

A Serious Man tells the tale of  Larry Gopnik, a Jewish physics professor (played wonderfully by the relatively unknown Michael Stuhlbarg) his wife and 2 kids who live in the suburbs of St Louis Park, Minnesota  during the late 1960’s.  The film centers around the father of the family, Larry, as he deals with a mid- life crisis. His wife informs she is leaving him for his best friend and to make matters worse, one of  Larry’s students is bribing him with money to get a passing grade. His annoying brother Aurthur is living on his couch, his son is experimenting with marijuana while struggling to pay attention in Hebrew school and his daugher is stealing money from him for a nose job.The film is said to be inspired by real life events based on  the upbringing of Joel and Ethan Coen, the movies directors.

What makes this movie work on so many levels is from the great job and approach that Michael Stulhlbarg brings to his character Larry.Larry could have been portrayed as a man who takes pity on himself and looks for sympathy and comfort from others. Instead, Stuhlbarg plays Larry as more of an optimistic and hopeful man who has fallen on hard times, but turns to faith for healing. Everyone around him seems to have a grudge or deep loathing hate for him, including his wife and kids. As the viewer i kept wondering why anyone could hate this man. He works hard, stays out of trouble and provides for his family. This movie isn’t laugh out loud funny, but has a quirkiness to it that makes you chuckle and feel for the main character as he struggles to make ends meet.

On a side note, The films cinematographer Roger Deakins re-teams with the Coen brothers after being absent from their last film “Burn After Reading” and does a masterful job getting great shots of Minneapolis suburban life. While the Coen Brothers stay on top of their game with a great written screenplay and a meticulous attention to detail as always.

For those of you who loved “The Big Lebowski”, “Fargo” and “Burn After Reading”, don’t expect the same kind of comedy from “A Serious Man”. It’s your more traditional black comedy and more serious in its approach, pun intended. 🙂 ( sorry)

I for one loved this movie and cared deeply for the main character Larry and caught myself cheering him on to turn his life around.

This is definitely in the top 5 of my favorite movies from 2009, go out and rent this!