05/07/2002 Entry:
"Baran - Majid Majidi (2001)
Donnie Darko - Richard Kelly (2001)"

I saw six films this weekend, four in theatres. I've been debating how to cover them, juggling various grouping schemes (like for instance, discussing all the Middle Eastern films together) but instead I will discuss them as I saw them. It just seems more natural that way, the impressions of one film always move into the next. The one exception is I'll probably do a longer piece on A Taste Of Cherry separately.

Seeing six films in two days (2 Saturday, 4 Sunday) is a somewhat intense experience. In a way, you don't get to give any single movie its due, because I feel that films are better off being left to sit for a while. However, the reality of my situation is that if I want to get to everything I'm interested in then this is how I have to do it, especially since I really can't get to anything on weekdays.

Baran was the first viewing early Saturday afternoon at Piper's Alley. The film looked very nice - bright and vibrant. This makes me wonder even more about Cat's Meow, which I saw here last week and looked hazy and washed out. I had put it off to a dull lamp in the projector but now I wonder. I was going to poke my head in after I got out of Baran and give it another look, but I chickened out.

Baran was somewhat different stylistically from other Iranian films I've seen, but not in a bad way. There were some very nice crane shots, shooting up the middle of a building construction site which I liked quite a bit. Even some nice use of slow motion for impact at various points - like when the Latif character gets hit by a cop. Compared to someone like Kiarostami, Majidi may as well be PT Anderson. Thematically the movie was also more emotional (sappy?) than the others. I shoud clear up the fact that I've really only seen four other Iranian films (A Taste Of Cherry, Close Up, Djomeh, Kandahar) so my background in this area is admittedly somewhat limited. I have read that Majidi is known as "the Iranian Spielberg" and judging from this film, I can see where people are coming from.

My enjoyment of this film was marred by two events, neither of which had anything to do with the film itself. First, was a person behind me, who fell asleep and began snoring about five or ten minutes into the film. After getting more and more annoyed, I finally turned around and whacked him with my copy of The Reader to wake him up. The second event is related, because this annoyance and subsequent whacking came at a time a critical plot point was being exposed (the revelation that Mahtan was actually a girl) which I subsequently didn't catch on to until much later in the film. Now, this seems pretty stupid in retrospect, I have no excuses. Obviously realizing it later (I think around the scene wherein Latif discovers Mahtan working with the other women in the river) put a whole lot of earlier material into place. I would very much like to see this again though, in order to kind of get a better idea of the impact and storytelling.

The discussions of the treatment of Afghani refugees in Iran was interesting, since I hadn't realized a lot of the legal and political issues associated with that. The ending seemed even more distressing now than it probably was when the film was made. You see these people heading back to Afghanistan, and you are pretty sure they are going to die in the war, and you marvel at the pointlessness of it all. I'm sure there are some who would argue that now they would be going back to a better place, and they are probably right overall (assuming they can avoid being bombed.)

After Baran it was down to Film Center for a screening of Donnie Darko. I almost didn't go to this, since I knew I had the DVD coming from Netflix. I am so glad I did though, the big screen is the only way to fully appreciate this film. You could not pick a film more different from Baran in almost every single way. Richard Kelly has taken the directing style of P.T. Anderson and created a film that is kind of like a cross between American Beauty and Jacob's Ladder. In an interview I found somewhere, Kelly mentioned 12 Monkeys as a touch point, which makes perfect sense.

There were several things I really enjoyed about Donnie Darko, and a couple things that annoyed me, and one thing that actively made me mad. First off, I love the way this film was made. Shot selection, lighting, use of sound and music were all wonderful. There were so many really effective scenes, I will simply list some here. The virtuoso Head Over Heels sequence - particularly the end. The camera swings to the dancers, and as they begin their routine, they slowly enter into beat with the song before slowly drifting out of synch again. Nobody can tell me that was an accident, and it was wonderful. This whole sequence was a great way of introducing the whole cast of characters at the school. There were many other scenes where the subtle introduction of slow motion was used to great effect. The BB gun/Smurfs scene was one good example. As you hear the BB coming through the air almost like a missile dropping then the bottle falling apart as if it was under water. Scenes like that just heighten Donnie's disconnection from reality. That scene had another great touch - as Donnie and his friends watch grandma death from up on the hill, Kelly introduces some kind of grass or branches very lose to the lens and way out of focus, as if they are watching fro behind a tree. It really brought a voyeuristic aspect to the scene. The final scene which I want to get down is the one outside the school where Donnie kisses Gretchen for the first time. This really reminded me of a similar scene in The Virgin Suicides - Kirsten Dunst kissing the bad boy in his car out of nowhere. Both these scenes had tremendous impact, because they were so unexpected and out of context. A final scene which I loved was the Mad World scene at the end. The sort of all-knowing voyeuristic camera work, summing up everyone's emotions to a perfect piece of music has precedence in films like American Beauty and Magnolia, and its very effective.

A theme in the fim which I haven't really seen discussed is that of spiritual emptiness and the subsequent fear of death. The concept of what goes on in the beyond has been with film for quite a while, back to The Seventh Seal and I'm sure beyond. But this is somewhat different. I have been thinking lately that a lot of what is now termed teen angst is steeped in a lack of spirituality that really boils down to when I'm dead thats it. Because I don't believe in god or any kind of afterlife. And since there is nothing after I need to make my mark now, and since I probably won't, life is meaningless. I have had this belief for a while, largely because I suffer from it myself, however this is the first time I've seen it addressed in film so directly. Although I haven't seen the film, from what I've heard Stolen Summer begins to address this somewhat as well. The ending, Donnie's claim that the great thing about death is that you have so much to look forward to, seems to imply that he has resolved this to himself sufficiently to laugh in its face. I have no idea where this comes from though, which leads to my wish that the ending had been landed with a little more grace. There are questions unanswered (as there should be) but to my mind the wrong ones get answered. There is much during the film which sets up the technical matters of the ending (how is the time travel done, how does DOnnie end up back in bed) and not enough resolving Donnie's spiritual matters, which I would argue are really at the core of the film. One point which expands on this, is the fact that unlike typical teen angst movies, Donnie Darko has a pretty good relationship with his parents, who are understanding and honestly trying to help him. Contrast this to something like American Beauty or even worse, Pump Up The Volume - a film in which all adults are given the intelligence of ants. You might argue that Donnie's troubles all stem from his mental instability, but I feel there is something more trying to be said there.

The rampant nods to other movies actually became somewhat distracting at some point, although they're kind of fun. The one I noticed that nobody else seemed to was the similarity of the movie theatre scene to American Werewolf In London. I can't help but think that by putting Evil Dead and Last Temptation Of Christ together, Kelly was trying to sum up his entire film on a marquee.

There were two plot points that bugged me. First, after torching the motivational speaker's house, Donnie should have heavily smelled of gas, but when he returns to the theatre Gretchen doesn't mention anything. Lazy. Second, there is no way that the psychiatrist would wait three days to call Donnie's parents after a session like Donnie had, where he mentions people being killed. Its just not realistic. I would also like to address the airplane voiceover at the end. I am not a moron, I've just watched the damn movie, I don't need to have a scene repeated to me to make sure I remember it. Give me some credit, PLEASE. Donnie's conversation with Noah Wylie was filmed an paced in such a way that it was obviously a point that would be returned to later. It was totally unnecessary to repeat it later. Jacob's Ladder recently did this too, and it drives me crazy.

I think that overall this was my favorite film of the weekend, even though it seems to hve had the most flaws. Is it just because I love Tears For Fears? I'd like to think its because it reached for more, and even though it failed at some of it, I like to see the effort. I am also admittedly a product of Hollywood fimmaking, and I have this kind off off-kilter wackily shot film in my blood. I might revise this view somewhat later. Either way, I find the prospect of more Richard Kelly films an exciting one.