Carnage (Roman Polanski)

A most impressive cast.

"Why can't they leave?" Luis Bunuel asked Gil Pender in Woody Allen's fantastical "Midnight in Paris" after the latter pitched the former a film idea (that is to say, the plot basics of "The Exterminating Angel"). "They just can't," Gil answered. Such is also the case for Roman Polanski's protagonists in "Carnage", a film based on the Tony award-winning play "God of Carnage", written by Yasmina Reza.

If the bourgeoisie characters in "The Exterminating Angel" can't seem to find a way to leave a lavish dinner party, "Carnage's" characters can't seem to break a cordial meeting (they decided to hold such because of their respective kids' earlier altercation in a park) because of, well, some cobblers, coffee, and just the right amount of angst and mutual disgust.

Watching the film with a certain consciousness of the performers involved, I can't help but feel a larger-than-life thump somewhere within me that reminds me of something akin to a beautiful heart-ache. John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet. 4 Oscars and 8 nominations combined. As a film lover, if the mere idea of those names and these numbers joining forces for a film project is not enough to put you into a state of bliss, then I'm afraid nothing will.

Although in essence almost the same with Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in its approach on situational degradation, only this time armed with parental sensibilities, "Carnage" is tightly humorous and uniquely energetic in all its hard-edged argumentative glory that these actually evoke a certain charm that can only be attributed to this film alone.

The cool but sharp-tongued Alan (Waltz), a lawyer whose intent to actually join in onto the whole conversational fiasco is constantly failing because of the repeated rings of his cellular phone. And then there's his wife, Nancy (Winslet), an elegant woman in her mid-thirties whose collected exterior is not enough to fend off the power of Scotch and nausea.

While on the other side, there's Michael (Reilly), your typical American husband who is, as what his wife claimed him to be, seemingly contented with living a life of mediocrity. And lastly, Penelope (Foster), Michael's wife, a writer who feels the plight of people in Africa (Darfur, specifically) but can't seem to feel the plight of her own lack of emotional control.

These four parents, after they have initially welcomed each other and ate cobblers together like fine, civilized folks, gradually transform into all-out verbal warriors one moment, pathetic criers the next. With wide-reaching topics in the tip of their tongues such as the "John Wayne" concept of manhood, the superficiality of writers, and, well, some hamsters, "Carnage", aside from being a study of contemporary parental thinking, is a teeth-gnashing, word-jousting, vomit-inducing (quite literally) little confessional of a film with just enough unraveling tirades that finely express the film's honest-to-goodness take on the oftentimes childish vulnerability of adult life.

Roman Polanski, after directing the more than impressive "The Ghost Writer", a thriller that is also a borderline adventure film, chose to direct a small, enclosed and set-limited film with only his actors and actresses to create wonders with. Fortunately for the exalted exile, his actors are immediately wonderful all on their own, with a powerful material working greatly to his advantage. What came out is a film that is a bit too standard in its technicalities, but one, just like other stage-to-film adaptations, that is relentless in its verbal athletics, poignant in its emotions and purely articulate in its entirety.

FINAL RATING

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)

The immortal mirror scene.

My film review/analysis of what may be the best film ever made:

With its main target being to portray the extremely acute post-Vietnam War angst and disillusionment, director Martin Scorsese focused his lenses and vision to a lone cab driver cruising through the filthy streets of New York that almost alludes to a contemporary 'hell', and subtly articulates about the ambiguous nature of insanity. And the result is, well, not just his masterpiece, but one of the finest films American cinema has to offer. It stars Robert De Niro in a heavily complex (and one of the screen's greatest) performance as Travis Bickle, exhibiting both his mastery of subtle acting and his ever-escalating intensity.

But his Travis Bickle is never just a character. He is a representation. A social mirror of how depression and loneliness exist in a subjugated psychological fragment of society where existence is just for the sake of it, and the meaning of the word 'interaction' a fading afterthought. There are those who do not want to meet any new people save for some of his/her few acquaintances. There are those who do not know people much but is striving to meet some. And then there is Travis.

One of the film's timeless aspects is its disturbing, angry, but ultimately sad narration by Bickle himself. Here's a man who transforms his solitude into an anger-laden vigilantism against the so-called 'filth' of the streets. Here's a man who has nothing but his own breathing body and his own deteriorating psychological health. But at least, here is a man who stood up. But to look at Travis Bickle as a flawed hero is far from what "Taxi Driver" is all about. To look at him as a man with a goal and and a concrete initiative is far from the film's nightmarish view of what Travis Bickle is and what he's in for.

If we'll go into a direct assumption that him saving a young prostitute is a heroic deed, then why haven't they just made "Taxi Driver" into a dramatically redemptive little action movie? The answer is this: the whole 'saving the prostitute' mission he had is, like his existence, just for the sake of it. Looking at Travis's motivational pattern, all of his actions root out from him being rejected by the beautiful campaign worker Betsy (played by Cybill Shepherd).

With him having nowhere to go from there, he went on for a plan to assassinate presidential candidate Charles Palantine, not just to horribly capture the imagination of countless people regarding the fact of how terribly 'far-out' a man can be to do such a thing (John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman already captured ours in real life) and also to take hold of Betsy's attention. This is where ambiguity regarding his actions really starts to go haywire.

Some would say that his plan to kill Palantine is a condemning act to blame the said candidate for not being able to clean up the city's filth. But take note of their scene inside Travis' cab earlier in the film. Their conversation, although a bit distant in nature, is an honest exchange between two men craving for change. See how Travis' eyes went from being patronizingly phony into deeply-set ones as he stated how he wants someone to just flush all the city's scum down the toilet.

In all fairness, Travis do want some change, but relating this sentiment with his act to kill Palantine for not being able to do so (to do something with the city, that is) is foolish. Just like a common psychologically disturbed fellow resulting from extreme social isolation, Travis dreams of 'grandeur'. He wants to be 'that' man that has purposely killed the presidential candidate, and the people will remember him for it. The same applies to his final ditch effort to save the young prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster in a performance that earned her an early Oscar nomination) from his manipulative pimp (played by the great Harvey Keitel).

Because he failed in his previous plan, and also maybe because he has thought that killing a high-profile political figure may put him into the psychotic row of the history pages, Travis decided to enter the territories of folk heroism and masqueraded himself as an obscure social crusader, albeit an extreme one. Take note of the film's tagline: "On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody." Travis Bickle may have achieved cult status as an ideal cinematic anti-hero, but I view him more as nothing but a confused and heavily disillusioned fellow who wants to prove something within himself and to everyone, even if it takes a casualty or two to do it. But although I do not see him as a hero, I see him as a truly sympathetic figure, and a truly saddening one at that.

Scorsese (along with Paul Schrader's masterful screenplay), with his ethereal but deeply unsettling depiction of 70's New York City, enhanced by Bernard Hermann's misleadingly seductive yet menacing musical score, symbolically pushes Travis Bickle into a lonesome spotlight in the middle of a show, only to subsequently find out that audiences are filing out of the venue even before he had the chance to step into the stage. "Taxi Driver" is the manifestation of how he may have hypothetically felt at that moment, and the result is a film of unequaled greatness. Please do watch this film, and let the brilliance of what 'true' cinema is all about pervade within your soul.

FINAL RATING

Nell (Michael Apted)

Lovell and Nell; the quiet struggle to understand.

Though certainly not a 'great' film in any way, "Nell" is probably an ideal film to be shown on Sociology classes. It's a tale about the eponymous girl who was raised in extreme isolation, talking in unfinished old English, and often initially mistaken to be inflicted with mental retardation. Jodie Foster (in perfect Oscar-bait mode) gave a very believable, often unrecognizable rendition of her, stripping of the intelligence, psychology and measured calculations of Clarice Starling (a role that launched her A-list status in Hollywood) and ably portrayed the deficiency of her actions resulted by lack of social exposure, and the uncommon depths and purity of her heart brought forth by not being able to do so.

Liam Neeson was quite good (though a bit stiff, I may say) as the concerned Dr. Lovell, a character that, along with Nell herself, formed the film's primary emotional connection whose slow development was very prevalent throughout. Yes, "Nell" is a pure tear-jerker for the easily touched, but for the more experienced film-goer that has gone through and endured so much Hollywood cheese, 'tears' is never impossible, but an almost otherworldly 'sob' is quite pushing it. Which brings me to my personal conflict as to "what will be the real reason if ever I let out a tear for the film?" Will it be the penetrating human drama displayed? Or will it be a genuine thump into my heart regarding Liam Neeson's struggles to cope up with her real-life wife Natasha Richardson's (who played Paula Olsen in the film) untimely death? Seeing them all happy and hugging and kissing each other in the film makes me lean on the latter more.

"Nell" isn't just about Nell herself and her subsequent integration into mainstream reality. At some point, it's also about the doctors themselves. And as what Richard Libertini's character Dr. Paley stated (a quote that lingered with me long after the film has ended): "Even caring has an ulterior motive". Beyond all our aspirations to help others, to give meaning to other less fortunate people's lives, is an unconscious, buried search for our own and an impulse to internally conform with how other people may view us. Dr. Paley followed it up with the claim that even Mother Teresa's unconditional caring in Calcutta is truly a mission for her existential re-assurance. That may be debatable, but the film's clear and considerable articulacy of the sociological human condition clearly isn't.

FINAL RATING