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

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As for the film's political message I couldn't suss it out. It's very obvious that the depiction is of a people entirely controlled and governed by their fears. But, how are we to feel about this? How does the director feel about fear as the primary political tool of society? I was waiting for a statement which never came. As an audience member I like a bit of ambiguity in film, particularly in the ending of pictures. But I am also completely willing to let a director guide me. And this director is a guider. His third actor voiceovers, key repetitions of important lines that re-reveal the twists in case you weren't paying attention are prime examples of this. Everything about Shyamalan's work suggests a director who doesn't appreciate ambiguity. This director thrives on telling you what you're seeing, on interpreting the events for you. But where do we end up in The Village? Right back where we started. We're no better or worse off and none the wiser. Some may praise the film's fuzzy abrupt finale as ambiguous but as for myself, based on the auteur's filmography, it strikes me as a copout. He was done 'twist'ing, so the story was over. "Never mind about those confusing political insinuations... I never figured out where those were going."

And speaking of chucking the politics...

Jonathan Demme's remake of the 1962 cold war political thriller The Manchurian Candidate arrives in a particularly heated time in American political life. So how is it that if feels so lukewarm? It could be the replacement of specifics with generalities. Instead of detailed threats to our well being like brainwashing, political duplicity, McCarthyism, The Cold War, assassins, and the Republican National Convention all of which factored into the original masterpiece, we get vague paranoid threats like someone is watching us, chips are implanted under our skins. Then weget evil politicians without party affiliations and the popular abstract evil bogeyman of today's movies "the corporation." In the real world all powerful mega-corporations may well prove society's downfall but on film they are something of a dud as villian's go. There's just not much "there" there. You can't see them, hiss at them, love to hate them, or fear them in a tangible movie-ish way.

Everything that was particularly juicy about the original is here, sometimes in cleverly modernized ways and sometimes simply because it was once there. The primary example of useless leftovers is the incestuous overtones of the mother-son dynamic. In this remake the moment when it arrives feels embarassed, tacked on. As if Demme couldn't decide if he wanted it there but "hey, it was in the original!" Yet in the original it felt right, it was delivered with no hesistation and it only added to the mindf*** of the rest of the plot. And the 1962 version also had the advantage of Angela Lansbury's brilliant turn. In 2004 we get Meryl Streep. Unfortunately she's delivering an uncharacteristically obvious "performance!" She may be chewing on scenery but she lacks the bite that Lansbury brought to the role in a much sneakier and far more harrowing star turn.

Do yourself a favor and rent the original, one of the greatest thrillers of all time. It's as sharp and nasty as thrillers come, a true giant of the genre. Johnathan Demme is a talented filmmaker, but this is still a copy. They lose resolution in the process. This Candidate is both the same and a much lesser beast.

Shyamalan doing the twist: C- Demme twisting in the wind: C-

THE TERMINAL
For maximum immediate critical appreciation and survival, it's sometimes best to have no discernible politics at all. (Which is a political statement in and of itself if you think about it.) Why dirty your hands with a point of view, when you can just milquetoast your way through and be adored by the masses? This is a succesful tactic of many politicians and many filmmakers, too. While it may be rude to lump Spielberg in with such a crowd, it feels accurate to me. Sure he made Schindler's List and The Color Purple but politically minded period pieces are in their own way pandering to the apolitical. History has already picked winners and losers. It's already clear which "side" everyone is and should be on. Spielberg is a centrist filmmaker for partisan times. He doesn't seem to have any political bent and therefore he doesn't bend anyone out of shape. He is adored by many different types.

But sometimes, no point of view, is the same thing as a point of view. You can make enemies when you don't choose sides. This is especially true if you're making a contemporary film. No visible lines have been drawn in the political sand but since you're dealing with the topical, the here and now, you might be handed the stick to draw with. In The Terminal the apolitical nature of Spielberg's approach gets in the way of solid filmmaking.

The Terminal tells the soft and cuddly story of a man named Victor, a foreigner stranded in New York's JFK airport terminal. His country is in turmoil, his visa is suddenly invalid and he has nowhere to go. Trapped in the airport, without an identity he reluctantly begins to settle in and starts growing roots. He spends his time building friendships with airport workers, romancing a stewardess, working on the sly, and hoping and waiting for his visa situation to clear up.

Yet, despite the specificities of the plot (the country from which Victor springs may be fictional but the plot points throughout are detailed and many) no discernible message emerges. No statement comes to light that requires these politically loaded plot points like international visas, terrorism fears, security, xenophobia, civil wars in order to decipher. Even the films titular setting contibutes not a whit to the film's messaging. About the only thing I could suss out as far as thematics go was "follow your dreams!" and "love crosses boundaries" -those are lovely points to make but they're evident in just about every uplifting or romantic film. The international and politically connotative mechanics of the plot then are utterly superfluous, the heavily affected accent which Tom Hanks essays utterly uneccesarry, and at least a good 3/4th of the plot is revealed in retrospect to be of a throwaway nature. The Terminal is as empty as modern filmmaking gets. It has no ideas and only temporarily disguises itself as a film of existential/political or even romantic/dramatic substance. This toast gets real soggy with too much time in the milk.
D+

-Nathaniel R

 

 

Related Reviews:
Dancer in the Dark review
Bowling for Columbine review
Minority Report review
Screening Log -Manchurian Candidate (62)

 

All reviews and commentary by Nathaniel R.
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