Paranoid Park (2007)

Stream of consciousness filmmaking is closely linked to the written counterpart, but because words are intellectual this form of writing is literate, whereas in cinema it feels more like memory. Moving images have an instant validity, and when a story is not linear, when it depends on the mind of a teenage kid with a lot of time on his hands, the work is experimental and involves us despite the disjointed, often fractured and confusing storytelling. Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park is a great and rare example.

Other examples in contemporary American cinema are some of Van Sant’s other recent works. He is proving himself a remarkable talent, one that even his early successes could not have hinted at. Paranoid Park is about an incident and characters that live it, but there is no storyline. Alex is a skateboarding kid. He hangs around with his best friend Jared who convinces him to go to a place that Alex admits he is not ready for: Paranoid Park, a grungy skate park in Portland. One night when Jared goes away, Alex goes to the park, meets some older guys, runs away with one of them via spontaneous freight train, and an incident occurs. This is linear progression, but Paranoid Park exists in Alex’s writing. He’s constantly writing in what I at first thought was an extended journal. Only at the end of the film did I understand that Alex is writing over the course of one night, and the majority of the film’s final scenes actually take place—chronologically—somewhere in the middle of the film’s short 84 minute running time.

We often see the same scenes repeated. The shots of Alex in either his uncle or his mother’s house show him entering his bedroom from a room where we had seen him previously write. I believe every time we see this same setup we are seeing the exact same moment in this character’s life. Why would Van Sant construct his film like this? He does a similar thing in Elephant, but there because of the structure of the film we were seeing several different stories taking place congruently. Here we have one perspective, Alex’s, and the conceit doesn’t seem like it could fit but it works remarkably well.

Well, why does it, and why do we see these repetitive moments? This is not a question to be asked but merely a fact we must accept. I personally found the challenge of deciphering this movie a welcomed change of pace from most films that predictably proceed in a linear fashion. I often wonder why films need to tell a story. It takes a skilled hand to render 90 minutes or so of screen time without a clearly defined story, characters and conflict, but often times the results of these experiments is quite fascinating. They are not slice of life films, a term I despise because of the connotations the phrase conjures. Rather they are experiences, impressions of life, and Van Sant’s treatment here creates an impression of a character. I often say that this is the ultimate reach of the cinema, to create impressions. A movie is a work of art, not life, and often times, films of this kind contain a hyper-reality that gives us, the audience sitting in our seats looking at a 2-dimensional flat screen, a sense of how the director uses reality to create his vision.

The film, however, though essentially about a death, is not a mystery nor is it suspenseful. Van Sant doesn’t show us the character most duplicitous in the crime or event as receiving punishment. He suggests it is coming and indeed creates a great deal of fear and paranoia and the utter indifference one so young, of a sort or type typical in youth culture for the past decades, but the film is never “about” the crime. It is about a kid dealing with the fact that he, directly or indirectly, is responsible and now has to deal with it. The film, however, is more definitive than I am suggesting, but because the narrative material is comparatively slight I will remain vague so as to not spoil for you the mood and anticipation I certainly got watching it.

One thing I greatly appreciated was Van Sant’s use of aspect ratio. Most films are in a wide-screen format, some 1.85:1 or even worse they’re in scope, something narrower like 2.35:1. This basically means the screen is rectangular. I don’t like looking at movies this way. In a sense the aspect ratio renders everything as a landscape, at least in terms of framing a painting; there’s either portrait or landscape. The landscape composition is meant to show beauty, and in cinema I find a square ratio, 1.37:1, is more fitting in capturing reality. It cuts off our peripheral vision and focuses in on what the director wants.

I love Gus Van Sant’s modern, experimental work. I love that it’s done by an American filmmaker. It shows us that American cinema isn’t dead yet. Paranoid Park is intelligent, thought-provoking movie making, about characters of a certain age, and still refreshingly original.

Paranoid Park (2007)
Director: Gus Van Sant

Writer: Gus Van Sant

Stars: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu and Taylor Momsen

USA / France

In English

Runtime: 84 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0842929/

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007, Voyage du ballon rouge, Le)

It’s almost impossible to describe how joyous it is to watch a film like The Flight of the Red Balloon.  It’s a masterpiece, the best film I’ve seen in the last 10 and more, and its power comes from the simplicity and beauty of its story, its images, and from the lives portrayed.  I used to think that for a film to be powerful and profound it must be dark or ugly, downright depressing so it can easily move its audience, but that is an immature thought.  The Flight of the Red Balloon is about the peaceful and hectic qualities of life that make existence such a magical thing.

I can’t give a plot summary.  It would sound boring, banal even, and may discourage potential viewers. Things happen in the film but they are elliptical, and a linear description would not serve the film well.  It is told from the view point of a red balloon, and we are dropped into the story looking in on three very special figures.  Fang Song, the Chinese film student studying in Paris; her new employer, Suzanne, a free-spirited mom; and Simon, her son, the child Song is now nanny to.  I could describe the events overseen by the balloon but the film would seem insignificant.  This is a film that has to be seen.  It needs to act on our senses.  Only then we can appreciate the experience.

Suzanne is a performer.  Her grandfather was a puppeteer and she now does the narration and voice work for puppet shows.  She is a mess, a ball of energy with weird fashion and a wonderful personality.  She is always losing things or forgetting appointments—she has so much to do, and yet the people around her she never forgets.  She has an instant rapport with Fang Song.  Immediately she trusts her son with the girl, has her make a key to their apartment.  The film might exist in a hyper reality where things are far from perfect but they are still slightly untouchable.  This might be what I loved about the film more than anything.  It is liberating to sit back and have such a soothing, happy experience without guns, violence, cussing, and all the ugly things that most movies rely on for entertainment.  The Flight of the Red Balloon is as aimless as a free-wielding balloon.  Conventional screenwriting techniques would proclaim this structure a failure, and indeed if the screenplay read verbatim like the final cut of the film it would probably not be a good read.  But this is a movie.  It exists in sounds and images that create a great impression of life as I certainly would like to live it.  Director Hsiao-hsien Hou has the eye and temperament of a master.  He does not rely on typical, beautiful compositions or clean kept streets for beauty.  Life in Paris is beautiful, or can be, just as it can be anywhere, and any pretense of creating artificial beauty is not needed.  Life is beautiful as it is.

This is not a film about nothing, or a slice of life.  I think we have certain impressions of such phrases.  I would say The Flight of the Red Balloon is a film about living.  Think of how many people we pass each day, how many names we’ll never know.  We will hear snippets of conversation or create scenarios based on what we can see, but for all of it we are no better off than a shiny red balloon.

The great surprise in this film is the character of Simon.  It’s very tricky to create honest child characters.  I think so many of us are disillusioned with life that we cannot recall what existing as a child was like.  In American movies, young kids, ages 4-8, are blank-eyed, silent and morose things that are more creepy than enduring.  Simon Iteanu is everything I would hope a little boy could be in real life: bright, inquisitive, interested in creativity, in cinema, painting, puppets; he sleeps with a stuffed bear and exists enough in the modern world to use a digital camera and play Playstation video games.  He has answers to questions, insights and observations, like when Suzanne is arguing with a man on the phone who may or may not have been her lover or his father—we’re not privy to such information.  Suzanne screams, “I need a man beside me and there is no one beside me.”  Simon in the back seat says, “I am a man.”  The delivery is much more charming than the words, and the little Simon Iteanu is superb.  Juliette Binoche we expect a perfect performance from, Iteanu is a revelation.

One of the greatest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie is Suzanne’s final scene.  She has just argued heatedly with a neighbor, slammed the door in his face and now sits teary-eyed before her son, Fang Song, and a piano tuner.  The camera stays on Binoche’s face.  She calls her son over to her, asks what he did in school.  They hug and she smiles.  Simon goes off to play his Playstation.  Suzanne smiles serenely, still fighting back tears, shaken with anger as she asks the piano tuner if he’ll retune the piano okay.  Binoche does something magical.  Her expression, her attitude, her talent—I don’t know the right word, but this is a true moment of tranquility and it always makes the hairs on my arm stand.

I can only describe moments in the film.  There is not a thing wrong with it.  I could detail every scene but a masterpiece like this is better off discovered fresh.  I had such a profound reaction to this picture that I hope I am not overselling it.  Subtle movies affect everyone differently and it simply moved me like few films have.  I like to think the red balloon is watching all of Paris.  Only occasionally does it appear at the window.  Often it is floating in the sky.  Think of the stories that exist in the film that we do not see.  What does the red balloon know, and what other magic has it seen?

Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

(a.k.a. Voyage du ballon rouge, Le)

Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writers: Hsiao-hsien Hou and Francois Margolin

Stars: Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu and Fang Song

France

In French

Runtime: 115 minutes

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826711/

Love Songs (2007, Chansons d'amour, Les)

Why is sadness and humor so closely related?  Christophe Honoré’s musical Love Songs is a bittersweet film that remains one of the great pleasures from this productive auteur.  He takes a revisionist approach to the movie musical, telling a contemporary story with contemporary music by the French songwriter Alex Beaupain, and the result is a joyous and very sad story of love, loss, and life redeemed with new love.

Three people, Ismaël, Julie, and Alice, share a life together in Paris.  Alice is into non-sex, and Julie is desperate to keep Ismaël but unhappy with their current life.  She confides to her sister Jeanne that Ismaël is forcing her to break up for him.  Julie dies almost literally of a broken heart and Ismaël becomes an emotional wreck.  He dodges Julie’s loving family, tries to build on his friendship with Alice, but to spare himself pain he distances himself from emotion.  Until Erwann.  Erwann is a young kid determined to have Ismaël love him.

Louis Garrel is my favorite actor.  He embodies cinematic spirit better than any performer today, and he reminds me a lot of Jean-Pierre Léaud.  Léaud was a very divisive actor from the New Wave and is Garrel’s godfather, so the parallel is fair to draw.  But Garrel is more accessible than Léaud maybe because he’s more handsome and his personality more playful and innocent.  Even when he’s in bed with two women he retains his innocence.  The secret might be that he’s a terrific actor.  He has become a muse for Honoré, but the director’s true muse is Chiara Mastroianni.  Love Songs was her first film for Honoré and she has since appeared in every one of his films, including a single shot in La belle personne.  She is very good as Julie’s sister, and like her mother she can handle a musical.  The dynamic between these three characters is the saddest thing about Love Songs.  It is clear that Julie loves Ismaël because she gets so easily upset at him for disappointing her.  For possibly many reasons, Ismaël is constantly keeping her away.  We see him more than once avoiding true physical emotion with her, which only aids Julie’s worsening emotional health.  When she dies, Ismaël is destroyed.  Her family is destroyed, and Jeanne tries to get Ismaël to remain close to them.  I think it quite clear that she is in love with him.  And he constantly disappoints her, too.  She finds a woman in his bed that isn’t Alice and Jeanne is hurt.  She finds someone else in his bed and things become clearer for her, but not easier.

The obstacle the film might have with mainstream audiences is that it believes in pansexuality, the idea that sexual pleasure is not be limited by gender.  I think that is a very unrealistic argument.  Most people know which sexual partners appeal to them.  But because Love Songs is a musical, I was swept away.  That Erwann could get through to Ismaël is a satisfying finale but wholly unrealistic.

So a good question to ask: in a musical, is the story more important or the music?  Can we forgive a fantasy if the music is so infectious?  To each his own, but I certainly could.  Love Songs has an implausible story.  I don’t believe that Ismaël, who we’ve seen sexually linked with three different women, would fall for Erwann, a boy, no matter how adorable he is.  Yet, this is a fantasy and I wanted to believe that Erwann’s potent amours would break Ismaël down and rebuild him.  I’m probably using the wrong words to describe the situation.  The film really isn’t sentimental or sappy.

Honoré’s greatest strength is the energy he brings to his films, an energy and rhythm always supported by the grittiness of real life.  He is a cinefile two generations removed from the New Wave, and this connection is important to follow a lineage through the great history of French cinema.  Honoré is the finest director of his generation, the thematic and stylistic heir of Godard and Truffaut.  He doesn’t believe in simple emotions, at least as a filmmaker.  That’s why parts of this film are heartbreaking.  I haven’t seen my share of musicals, but what I understand is that they are happy, with happy endings.  The ending of Love Songs is hopeful but the tragedy of loss always hangs over.  Take the song “Au parc,” sung by Jeanne.  She describes the renewing seasons and the ever-present playful children at the park she and her sister grew up in, but she always remembers, “It will all be there, except for you.”  Or the unusual love song Ismaël sings to Erwann when they first make love.  He asks Erwann to find Julie inside of him and kill her a second time so that Ismaël can move on.  Their love is built on need more than sexual attraction.  Erwann, a virgin, desires Ismaël and Ismaël needs a body to cling to.

The real revelation in the cast was of course Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet as Erwann.  He’s since become a regular in French films.  I like him a lot in this film.  He has a terrific voice.  If I had to name the scene-stealing performance though, I would signal out Clotilde Hesme.  She plays Alice, the third party in the ménage-a-trois.  I felt her role was not as substantial as Garrel’s or Ludivine Sagnier’s as Julie but Hesme has a quality about her that is charming and a regal look that I found stunning.

Alex Beaupain has written the music for every one of Honoré’s films.  In what forms a trilogy, Dans Paris, Love Songs, and La belle personne are, in Beaupain’s words, ‘movies with songs’.  Love Songs is their only full length musical.  Beaupain is a great songwriter.  His lyrics are intelligent, ironic, and absolutely charming.  I listen to his two studio albums at the gym and I don’t even understand French.  They just sound great.  I won’t do a song by song breakdown, but “De bonnes raisons”, the opening number, is in many ways a call back to the 60s.  Towards the end of this upbeat swanky song there’s a guitar riff, nearly buried under the lyrics, that is so 1960s it just makes you smile.  “La Bastille” is one of the saddest songs in the film.  Julie sings about how the rain outside empties the square of the angel statue of the Bastille.  Each member of her family takes a section of the song, and we see that while they love and are happy, such happiness is joined with the sorrows of life.

But the storytelling remains simple.  If I have one negative criticism it would be that the film is rushed.  It’s almost 100 minutes but especially with my most recent viewing I felt the story was hurried through.  Often times the pace is too quick; we aren’t given the time in between story beats to contemplate or even orient ourselves.  Other times, especially in the latter half of the film, this rushed approach hinders the storytelling.  Some things feel washed over just to get to the next musical number.  For example, when Erwann gives Ismaël his keys, inviting him to stay, Ismaël not only has a change of heart by agreeing to go home with him, he seems excited by the idea.  This is contrary to what he has just said.  Such changes of mind are understandable, but the film doesn’t make his sudden change of mind clear.

The plot isn’t the thing.  All I can say to recommend Love Songs is that it makes me happy.  I can talk forever about these moments, like when Ismaël jokingly tries to cut off Alice’s tongue with a pair of scissors or when Alice kids him about not being circumcised when he’s Jewish; or when Alice, Julie and Ismaël dance on the streets of Paris; or the playful and dynamic song “Le distance” where Erwann tires to seduce Ismaël; and every scene with Julie’s family.  Come to think of it, Love Songs is one of my favorite films, imperfect as it is, sad as parts of it is, but its energy and mood make it a lot of fun to watch.

Love Songs (2007)

(a.k.a. Chansons d'amour, Les)

Director: Christophe Honoré

Writer: Christophe Honoré

Stars: Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet and Chiara Mastroianni

Music: Alex Beaupain

France

In French

Runtime: 95 minutes

Buy Love Songs at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Songs-Ludivine-Sagnier/dp/B001DJ7PUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1302383159&sr=1-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996605/

Disengagement (2007)

The problems of a nation are paralleled in one family.  Ana and Uli are step-siblings, reunited by the death of their father in France.  Ana has been raised as a Westerner by the New York born father, and Uli was adopted shortly after the father divorced his mother.  Uli was raised on the Gaza Strip.  In France, the siblings enjoy each other’s company.  We learn that, apparently, the father was not a very loving man.  He did not want Uli’s mother to move to Israel and had since lived his life apart from Uli.  Ana has no ties to her Jewish heritage.  Ana is a frivolous, flirtatious woman with no ties to anything, except an erotic, intense interest in her half-brother.  The death of their father reveals a secret long forgotten: Ana had a child at a Kibbutz many years ago and unbeknownst to all the father has spent a lot of time with the girl in Israel.  In order for Dana to receive her grandfather’s inheritance Ana must bring it to her herself.

For those unfamiliar with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Disengagement might be confusing.  I myself have only a superficial understanding of the conflict, but as I understand it after WWII when the allies were dividing up all of Nazi Germany’s conquered lands, it was seen fit to give the land of Israel to the Jewish people.  “A land without a people for a people without land” was the mission statement; only the Palestinians had been living in the Holy Land for centuries and were forced out in a global effort to atone for the misdeeds against all Jews in WWII.  It was an immoral decision, politics and religion aside, since millions of people who had committed no crimes were forced into an area at the edge of the country, and since then lives have been lost and hatred spews on the Gaza Strip.

One does not need an opinion as to which side is right.  In fact, neither and both are.  What Disengagement makes clear in scene after scene is that there are only losers in this conflict. 

When Ana arrives in Israel she is forbidden to enter the same Jeep as her brother.  This is the first in a small series of events that forces her to shed her thin skin.  Juliette Binoche, only the greatest living actress, plays Ana in a curious way.  The beginning scenes in France are too long.  Part of why they feel this way is that Binoche is almost unbearable to watch.  Her voice is so odd, shrill and high-pitched.  It’s clear her accent is more American that her normal speaking voice, but I think she and director Amos Gitaï made a very bad decision.  I said Ana is a frivolous woman but that is an understatement.  When we first meet her she is annoying, and Binoche is giving a bad performance.  I was shocked since she has been perfect in all the movies I’ve seen.  What Gitaï does is create a contrast, showing Ana before her introduction to the problems of the Middle East and after, having been involved in disengagement, the process of removing a group of people from their homes.  This contrast, however, is very short sighted.  Just because Ana is a Westerner doesn’t necessarily make her carefree and vapid.  Many Americans don’t have a clue as to the problems of Israel, but in all fairness the problems are too many to follow and people have lives and concerns of their own to deal with.  This character is more archetypal.  That doesn’t excuse the material.  It would have benefited from a more leveled depiction of a human being unfamiliar with these problems.

While I was disappointed in the first half hour of the film, once Ana and Uli, played by Liron Levo, arrive in Israel the film becomes terrific.  It is a political drama.  Not a thriller; director Gitaï carefully crafts an even playing field where every human being, Israeli and Palestinian, are decent, loving people.  Uli, we learn, is an officer for the Palestinian army, and Gaza is going through disengagement—all the Israelis are to be removed from their land.  No one can claim to hate the other side, and this is the stupidity Gitaï revels in pointing out.  The people respect each other.  The Palestinians soldiers are given sever orders to not injure the Israelis.  The Rabbi offers his love to Uli just before the gates are torn open and the soldiers perform their duties.  Stuck in the middle is Dana, Ana’s forgotten daughter.  An Israeli, everything she has in life, her garden, her students, will all be taken away from her.  Dana’s reunion with her mother is brilliantly staged.  Ana circles around the school playground.  She knows which teacher is her daughter, and Dana recognizes Ana from the photographs her grandfather showed her.  Dana touches her mother’s face and they hug.  Few words are shared, but because this situation is so understandable, the tears from both actresses are very well felt.

Unavoidable in any anti-war film is the view of the soldiers.  In a visual medium they suffer the most because we see them perform their duties even when, in the case of Disengagement, they hate what they have to do.  I wish there was a way to fix this problem.  There is a way, by depicting the ridiculous discussions of the politicians or rebels that decide the orders, but in an intimate film like this these scenes would distract from the material.  It’s a shame because Uli is a loveable person.  Liron Levo is a revelation here.  He is one of the few male actors alive that embodies humility and strength on the screen.  The finale reunites step brother and sister, just after Dana is lost in a van carrying out the Israeli civilians.  When once their friendship was so strong Ana detests the man in uniform before her.  He reassures her they will find Dana, but all Ana can scream is, “Leave me alone.”

One of the most heartbreaking images appears on the edges of the frame.  When a reading of the Torah is disrupted by Uli and the Palestinian soldiers, a Jewish worshiper, as he is being removed, hugs tightly the soldier forcing him out.  I was so struck by this image, so brilliantly on the fringes of the film, and it has so much meaning.

Disengagement (2007)

Director: Amos Gitaï

Writers: Amos Gitaï, Marie-Jose Sanselme

Stars: Juliette Binoche, Liron Levo and Jeanne Moreau

Israel / France

In Hebrew, English, French, Italian and Arabic

Runtime: 113 minutes

To purchase Disengagement visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Disengagement-liron-Levo/dp/B00455JE58/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1301206042&sr=1-1

IMDB link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871512/