Dystopia—it’s the new Utopia.
Quite brilliant, really, when you think about our current state of affairs and the increasing need to retreat into the cocoon of denial and escapism. Guillermo del Toro brings us this alternate, down-the-rabbit hole reality that just might be more trippy than Lewis Carroll’s gobbledygook for young children. Pan’s Labyrinth brings the magical realism that is Mexican filmmaking to the fore—and it dazzles like a vertiginous hallucination with colors and textures that jump off the screen. The cerebral teaser tagline, “What happens when make believe believes it’s real?” just might be oblique enough to make you pause and use the very squishy labyrinth that is your brain.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a tragically beautiful dreamscape that grows out of the carnage of the Spanish Civil War in 1944. The new trend in filmmaking seems inclined to harness the bucking bull of violence—not the Jackson Pollack, splatter paint/comic book bloodshed of Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, but the kind of hole-in-your face, cannibalistic action that leaves you with your mouth rigidly clenched in “O.” FYI people: fatalistic beauty is in.
At the heart of the movie is a stoic young beauty, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who has mastered the art of the dreamy, yet pointed stare. Ofelia is either one precocious young chica, or she’s got some serious emotional baggage after her mother Carmen shacks up with the sadistic Fascist Captain Vidal. Nice work Mom.
Ofelia finds outlet in the stony walls that make up the tellurian labyrinth, discovering the Faun, who directs her to three tasks that will ensure her immortality. With off-putting opaque eyes, the tree-limbed Faun (played by the ever protean Doug Jones) is a creaky beast who oversees the entrance to the magical underworld. Heaven and Hell intersect in the tightly coiled walls of the labyrinth, which stands for all things polar and paradoxical. Conceived as preadmite—the maze is the figurative aborted maternal womb foreshadowing the fall of mankind.
The literary and mythology references run rampant, from the sinful seduction of food, to an Odyssean descent into the underworld. Physical deformity becomes the norm as products of the war and Ofelia’s imaginative surplus. A baby-eater with some impressive baggy skin post-natal-starvation is hands down the biggest freak out, certifiable enough to scare the bejeezus out of a grown adult. I have to wonder what kind of childhood Del Toro experienced to conjure up such a monstrosity. But nightmares schnightmares, it’s just harmless make believe right?
At times, the immediacy of Vidal’s warfare threatens to completely overtake the enchanted alternate world—I almost became disillusioned with the very reality of the movie itself. But Harry Potter, take note: this is magic when it’s all grown up, and it sure as heck beats the living daylights out of some prepubescent fantasy with wands. Now, just where is that damn rabbit hole?
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All the stars of black Hollywood came out to celebrate the 2nd Annual Black Movie Awards in Los Angeles. Writer, director, and actor Tyler Perry, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” hosted the 90-minute show that honored the African-American film community.
Akeelah & the Bee took home 4 awards, including the award for Outstanding Motion Picture of the Year. Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett both won for Outstanding Actor / Actress in a Supporting Role. Of course the film was nothing without leading lady, actually teenager, Keke Palmer who walked away with a BMA for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role.
Legendary actress Cicely Tyson was presented the Distinguished Career Achievement Award by no other than the legend herself, Oprah Winfrey. Yes—gal pal Gayle King was there. She watched this momentous occasion from the audience.
But all the excitement started way before the show even began. Fans cheered the actors and actresses as they walked down the red carpet. Some ditched their dates and came with family instead. Tracee Ellis Ross of “Girlfriends” arrived with her kid brother, Evan, and Mario Van Peebles showed up with his legendary dad, both sons, and his adorable little girl.
Age has been good to Billy Dee Williams. He looked as handsome as ever in his dark suit and he still had all his hair.
Reality queen Omarosa and comedian Monique garnered attention for different reasons. Omarosa let her boobs do the talking while Monique let the hairs on her legs do the pointing.
And then of course what would stars be without their fans. One crazy woman jumped onto the red carpet and had a reporter take a picture of her with “ATL” actress Megan Good.
Still, the night turned out to be a success. Until next year.
posted on 12:44 pm 11/04/2006Headlines, Movies, Reviews | Comments (0) | Permalink |
It’s been 2 years, 9 months, and 16 days since “Lost in Translation” was released and we’re still talking about it. At least one of us is. Join C&V’s own Matthew as he explores the issues of identity and the fragmented self found in Sofia Coppola’s film.
-amit
Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation provides several insights into the context of its own creation and the ideologies at work within the scope of the film’s narrative. Specifically, the sequence where, because of the insomnia tandem to jetlag, Bob and Charlotte end up in the bar together late at night and ultimately disclose their reasons for traveling to Japan. This sequence pointedly illustrates themes of fragmentation of the self, the struggles of the postmodern individual to recover his or her identity from the clutches of a highly commodified atmosphere, women as vulnerable without male accompaniment, and capitalism as a governing force behind human interaction (such as marriage, travel, scholastic achievement, etc.). Cultural theorist Celeste Olalquiaga, in her Megalopolis, describes psychasthenia—a condition where an organism cannot differentiate itself from its surroundings—as a condition of the postmodern individual. She writes: “Incapable of demarcating the limits of its own body, lost in the immense area that circumscribes it, the psychasthenic organism proceeds to abandon its own identity to embrace the space beyond […] vanishing as a differentiated entity,” and what is more, “[d]islocated by this ongoing trompe l’oeil, the body seeks concreteness in the consumption of food and goods, saturating its senses to the maximum” (2). Lost in Translation, then, can be seen as a film that chronicles a stint in the journey of two dislocated characters that must interact with a foreign milieu through familiar methods of consumption with hopes to ground themselves as differentiated individuals within a commercialized culturescape.
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The Maltese Falcon, in 1941, constructed a dark, amoral universe that would become the home of the noir hero, eventually defining an entire movement. Film noir is a mindset, a total package that consists of plot, theme, characters, and mise-en-scene working together to encompass an overriding sensation of darkness and amorality. Though critics tend to define the end of film noir with Orson Welles’ 1958 thriller, Touch of Evil, the movement’s presence is still with us today in neo-noir movies such as Curtis Hanson’s L. A. Confidential.
[more...] posted on 2:14 am 05/22/2006
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The Wild Bunch is like a swift kick to the guts. It’s salt in a wound. It’s a cinematic rape of the senses. A bombardment of quick cuts and violence. A stab at the jugular. A punch to the spleen. It’s a movie that exudes masculinity. That assaults unsuspecting viewers with a story of “unchanged men in a changing land” doused with a healthy dose of the ole Ultra Violence. The Wild Bunch is, in short, perfection. Here’s why…
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