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

Chinatown (Roman Polanski)

A nosy fellow.

A second viewing.

What make film noirs such a joy to watch are their own unique ways of weaving complex plot devices and interestingly enigmatic characters into one riveting narrative. And as a bonus, we also get to see compelling notions about morality and some hints of psychology. This is the generalized beauty of the said genre that we come to love. But then there's also a sole ingredient in it that is also the flavor base of the whole course: An exemplary anti-hero.

This is what Jack Nicholson's great performance as J.J. Gittes has particularly achieved here in "Chinatown" with his combination of passive body languages and a sense of motivational indifference. He is a seedy private investigator who helps (with cash on the side, of course) husbands and wives find out a truth or two about their marital problems by way of his sleuth abilities. He talks with clients briefly, calls for a standard contract, and done, he is in for the job. This is Gittes' job that even makes him a sort of a celebrity for some but an object of disgust for others. Director Roman Polanski (handling an original material written by Robert Towne, who has gone on to win an original screenplay Oscar for it), who directed the film with low-key mastery, has able to highlight Gittes' occupational detachment from those commonly accepted (banker, insurance agent, police) in society or at least, in its late 1930's L.A. setting.

Consider the scene in the barber shop where he engaged into a brief but loud argument with a banker about the validity and social soundness of his job. As far as we're concerned, we want Gittes to win the said argument and put the banker into a whole lot of verbal beating. But Polanski, who is acting like a personality censorship agent (a brief display of selective exposure), immediately cuts the scene and transitioned it into the next where we see Gittes calm and cool again. This can be Polanski's unnoticeable answer to a potential criticism of the film not having enough back story to fully expose Gittes' psychological connection with the eponymous place. In Gittes' world where everyone wants to find out skeletons in one's closet by way of a private investigator, he prefer his own to be in utter concealment.

And then there is "Chinatown's" handful of unforgettable characters, ranging from the most enigmatic (Evelyn Mulwray, one of the film's highlights, greatly played by Faye Dunaway) to the most villainous (Noah Cross, played by the great John Huston), and even to the most mundane of fellows that hates 'nosy fellas' (cameo by Polanski himself).

As the film progresses with its one-bit pace that may detract some viewers who prefer their mystery/thriller films shaken and quick to the fullest extent, we also come to immerse into the sepia-toned Los Angeles setting, back in the days where it is still labeled as a 'desert city'. The dried riverbeds that is repeatedly visited by a boy riding a horse, the orange groves that speaks of both serenity and danger, and the desolately oriental mood in the Mulwrays' home, which also houses a salt water garden pond that is ornamental as it is pivotal. These key places of mystery and intrigue has been established with an almost otherworldly musical score and an escalating sense of dread that makes the film a lot more arresting, despite of its degree of quietness, than any other 'louder' films of its kind.

Judging from Gittes' actions that transforms him from an amoral observant into an unconditional hero, it can be wholly concluded that J.J Gittes', no matter how far he may put his emotions away from the conflicting gist of what he is trying to investigate, unhealthy trait of increasingly treating every case he handles a tad too personal is his obvious downfall. But isn't that what essentially makes him human?

The allusion to Chinatown is, contextually speaking, quite misleading. Unlike the earlier "Midnight Cowboy" (in its case, New York City) or the later "Maynila: Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag" (Manila), "Chinatown", aside from the happenstance connection of Gittes' past to the said place, never treats the culturally different area as a visual protagonist unlike how the other two aforementioned films have done so. The place was even introduced with nothing else but bits of establishing shots. But what the film has powerfully highlighted instead is the fact that it may not evoke the stirring qualities of a definitive visual texture that may accompany the said place, but it gave texture to J.J. Gittes' heart and soul even more so, especially when the silently doomed climax creeps into the screen in a sequence that is one of the most devastating amalgamations of honest emotions, violence, outright hatred and confusion ever on cinematic display, downplayed by the raw innocence of Chinatown's bewildered silence and cheap neon lights.

'Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown". It may be an immortal line that stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of 'Rosebud' and 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn', but judging from the overall cinematic wallop of "Chinatown" itself, to 'forget' it is the last thing you'll ever do. This is powerful stuff.

FINAL RATING

Macbeth (Roman Polanski)

Torment, ambition and lust for power.

Film Review Archive (date seen: October 26, 2010)

Shakespeare's dialogues may not be that accessible these days, but Roman Polanski's rendition of his play about ambition wrapped within madness and paranoia is quite simply a great piece of cinema to behold.

It's great to hear the deep, flowery Shakesperean words, but what makes this film much more than a screen adaptation of one of his works is how Polanski has made it: Full of imagery bordering insanity and nightmare, performances teetering between stagy rhetorics and tragedy personified, the pure green fields of Wales as the stage for the depressing sight of the lonesome Cawdor castle, and the painful, furious emotions seemingly incorporated by Polanski himself (wife Sharon Tate being murdered just years prior to the filming of this picture).

Now, back to being "accessible", if I'm going to recommend a Shakespeare adaptation that can tell the story easily without the laborious chore of comprehending the playwright's complex language, then I'm going to say "Throne of Blood" by Akira Kurosawa, albeit it being set in feudal Japan. But if one wants to see the pure power of the play, heightened by a master filmmaker's great vision of Macbeth's slide into ruthless lunacy, then "thou shalt not look further". I do not know whether that came out sounding like one of the ten commandments, but there you go.

FINAL RATING