Still, the songs are good and catchy, and the melodrama is well-played. Characters are thoroughly rich and interesting, each with a very particular arc that complements the overall plot of Saving The Theatre. Add to that a thick coat of sentimentality hanging over virtually the whole film, and it’s a very delightful Festival package: a fantasy film grounded in the political and social trappings of depression-era Paris.
Here’s another movie that is in love with Paris that puts you in love with it also. Beautiful, fantasy-rich shots of the 1930’s skyline coupled with charming performances reminded me a touch of Amelie, even in the film didn’t approach that kind of whimsy. I’m also crushing a little on Nora Arnezeder.
***
Wendy and Lucy ~ A movie so small and precious that even writing this small capsule feels like it may be over-thinking it. The long version is this: a girl with no money loses her dog. And that’s it. In the Q&A that followed the screening, the director mentioned that Todd Haynes recommended Michelle Williams for the lead role after reading the script. This seems to me like unintentional comedy. After all, it’s tough to imagine how spare the script for this film must have been.Girl walks. Girl calls dog. Girl sleeps in car. End scene.Still, Haynes was right and Williams is amazing in every way as the girl with no options left. While she spends most of the run-time of the movie walking from parking lot to railroad tracks or negotiating what little is left of her money with a local mechanic, she nevertheless shines throughout, particularly in the second half as bad luck piles on bad luck.
If it’s not already dead obvious, this is a downer of a movie redeemed only because we are afforded a real sense that this is only one chapter in a much larger story. There are no references to the chapters that came before and lord knows, the story to follow could still have a very happy ending. As far as it goes, this is a small gem that won’t be for everyone.
(I switched this out for Ghost Town, which I didn’t need or even really want to see.)
***
Waltz With Bashir ~ At equal turns gorgeous and horrible, Waltz With Bashir works on so many levels that I don’t want to say much until I’ve had the chance to see it again. The quasi-animated universe of the film is stunning and innovative, providing a surreal backdrop to what amounts to a trip through a collective memory. The sense of what we remember and what we imagine is revelatory, as is the multi-sided history provided for the Lebanon war and massacre of the late-80’s. (Strange to think of this as what it is: a really trippy, animated documentary…)
Honestly, I can’t stress enough how visually spectacular and emotionally satisfying this film is. The final moments of the film deliver as heavy a sledgehammer to the heart as anything I’ve seen this year.***
The Wrestler ~ Magnificent. Worthy all of the hype that will follow it when it opens in wide release.
I’m such a big Aronofsky fan. I think he is one of the most exciting directors working today but even so, I have to recognize that the magic in The Wrestler completely belongs to Mickey Rourke. I’m not sure the movie would have had half the impact without him in the title role. Rourke does all the heavy lifting here (no pun intended). He is in every way the heart and soul of the picture.
Aronofsky is so restrained that there are virtually no giveaways to clue in his involvement. There’s no trace of the visual artistry of The Fountain or the hyper-invention of Requiem for a Dream. Instead the film is a modest, dressed-down character piece about a broken-down man looking for connections with the people around him. Rourke is at turns sympathetic, pathetic and charming, exposing layers to his personality that I’ve certainly never seen from him before. (In his intro, Aronofsky described the experiencing like trying to shoot an eggshell which changes colours under different light.) There will be a lot of people asking where Rourke has been for the last 20 years; it’s a career high that feels in every way like the same post-script experienced by The Ram in the film.I loved this film.
[Off topic – There are a number of great surprises in The Wrestler but none quite as big as the one waiting for me when the movie ended and the lights came up: that’s the irreversible image of Evan Rachel Wood and Marilyn Manson sucking face in the seats in front of me…ah, young love.]
***
Universalove ~ The token art-house experiment. I knew this one would be a roll of the dice and as a result, I’m not surprised or disappointed that the gamble didn’t pay off. Described in the festival program as a quasi-music film that spans the globe with disjointed stories of love and romance, the good news is…well, the music is pretty good. Not a traditional musical in the sense that any of the characters sing or perform, the songs that make the framework of the film are by the band Naked Lunch and simply underline the action (think any John Hughes film but 1,000 times more pretentious and artful.)
Unfortunately, like an awful lot of music films, the movie doesn’t work out so well when there isn’t a song at the centre of the action. Worse, in classic indie style the director insists on putting his characters through such agony and pain that any leftover sense of “love” or “romance” is suffocated in death, dysfunction and misery. I realize I’m a sap but I wanted something a little more charming. By the time the distraught husband character in the film decides to drive the dead and bloodied body of his wife back home instead of to the hospital (she was hit by a truck), I was ready to bale.
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