Danger: Points of View

The films this summer have had an unusual amount of political content. Though it isn't only "the times in which we live" the heated political climate must most certainly have prompted several of the films we've seen this year. There seems to be something in the air. This year's filmmakers have something to say. But do they know what it is? Are they saying it well? Are they worth listening to? And how does one separate the messenger from the message?

Take Bill Cosby criticizing the black community early this summer or Neil LaBute's semi-annual savage explorations of the inhumanity of patriarchal power structures. Or more obviously, if you wish, witness Michael Moore's criticiques of American administration and corporate controlled media. And see: When one criticizes the status quo, labels --often misleading ones, are bound to follow. If a filmmaker, for example, chooses to criticize the way "we" operate as a society, he/she is often considered a misanthrope. As if any questioning of prevailing ideas or ways of life or a trait of certain social or political constructs are condemnations of the human race. Sometimes the messenger gets killed due to the message because the content it contains proves unwelcome. Other times the messenger, despite the gait and acoutrements of his position, has nothing much to say. A useless life, but it's easier to survive that way in heated environs. And perhaps most common and most damning with politically minded art is that sometimes the message is contradictory and commits artistic suicide.

Notes on: Dogville, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Manchurian Candidate,
The Terminal, & The Village

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DOGVILLE
I am of two minds when the subject of Dogville arises. On the one hand I deeply respect and love Lars Von Trier's unshakable auteurial stance. His filmography is so fearless and potent, that it seems as if he could eat most directors for lunch should hunger strike. But, on the other hand, this particular filmic feat --a parable filmed rather brilliantly on an almost blank stage, leaves me a little colder than his usual fare. His films often push me to scary emotional places but, happily, I admit, I go. The Von Trier oeuvre includes enough social commentary and intellectual play to keep my mind awake while my eyes are gushing.

As usual Lars Von Trier, has something rancid on his mind. This time out we're investigating the evil hypocrisies of groupthink and small town 'goodness.' While we're at it we're also checking in with the Mad Dane's favorite protagonist, "the persecuted immigrant." This time she's expertly portrayed by Nicole Kidman, and her name is Grace. The name proves both a true and misleading moniker. While she's less innocent than the previous heroines of the Golden Heart Trilogy (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, and Dancer in the Dark) she has more to ward off and survive. All the old threats from Von Trier's previous films are there, as well as a new and particularly inhuman threat: Capitalism. That's a lot of ground to cover and Dogville divides its time smartly into nine chapters making it feel shorter than it is. It takes time out to comment on its own length and where you're at in the story, helping you through the lengthy process.

Dogville magnificently overcomes its own peculiarities and inciendary politics to sing a universal tale (the anti-American label is a gross simplification and misleading since the target is so much wider) of modern civilization's hypocrisy and its social but hardly civilized hierarchies. Yet it feels, for this viewer, too much like its target. It mirrors its own concerns; it's a little less human than Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves. Dogville is a colder and more obvious viewing experience. Not a tear did I shed this time out, but the film's artistry; it's perfectly realized and challenging aesthetic conceit, is moving in and of itself.
B+

Our next few pictures leaves me somewhat befuddled. It's a case of the messenger being as loud as the message.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11
Michael Moore's über successful anti-Bush rant, Fahrenheit 9/11 has been one of the year's two most unusual blockbusters (the other being that gorefest about our Lord and savior). Never has a non-musical documentary reached such a stratosphere of box office glory. One could say that Michael Moore hit the zeitgeist with his picture, but the zeitgeist kept hitting back. It's still uncertain as to what noisy group will be leading America in the fall: Those that represent the followers of the current administration or those who would like to take America back from the dangerous precipice it happens to be leaning over.

Though most detractors like to bury the film based on Moore's messy journalism and cheap shots, they're missing the point. The movie is not so much a feat of journalism. It's more a personal spewing of pent-up rage at a world leader who, let's be frank, keeps asking for it. As a film/documentary/whatever it's no masterpiece. It meanders, repeats itself, and has a far less cohesive and brilliant thesis than its big director's last triumph, Bowling for Columbine. It's hard to be brilliant when your primary message is as simplistic as "this president sucks!" 9/11's message may be blunt and rude but it's also completely true. And since the corporations that control our nations press aren't giving the nation much by way of discussion and multiple opinions, the film is something of a miraculous cure for what ails us. No, it isn't lifting the level of discourse but it is allowing people in big numbers to hear a second opinion. We need second opinions, lest we all walk of the aformentioned cliff, like TV news brainwashed lemmings. Taken for what it is, this unique personal political documentary object/weapon /rage-against-the-machine is a roaringly funny and moving success.
(Do I agree with it? A / What do I think of it as a film: B )

THE VILLAGE and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
The next two pictures are also strange birds this movie season. I wasn't expecting politics from M Night Shyamalan, who is (more power to him and Disney's marketing machine) as famous as his films, but that's sort of what he's giving this time around. And I was expecting politics from Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate but I didn't get them. While there is certainly something to be said for defying expectations, it's best to replace the absent expected results with something else that proves even more interesting than what the viewer was expecting...

Whatever message M Night Shyamalan was trying to convey within The Village seems terribly muddled. What could have been a particularly revelant story of an isolationist fearful commune (like the town in Dogville a possible stand-in for America the beautiful) keeps getting distracted by the demands of serving up Shyamalan's trademark twists. This brand name director's writing has never been his strong suit and this film will do nothing to alter that common opinion of his work. The structure is completely beholden to the twist. The demands of his trademark "gotcha" weigh this initially interesting concept down till the whole enterprise feels as wooden, dead, and silly as the ensemble's awkward fumbling with retro-linguistics. Shyamalan the writer will be doing Shyamalan the director (who is great at staging individual scenes) a huge favor if he turns in his resignation letter or even if he merely sets the "twist" formula aside the next time they work together.

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