By Joe Bendel. This might be the quietest film about punk-rock ever produced. Sure, Jonen could peel the paint off the walls when he was shredding, but his subsequent gig as Buddhist monk is much more sedate. Yet there is a connection between the two that screen writer-director Naoki Katô intriguingly explores in Abraxas (trailer above), which screens during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Abraxas will likely shatter most viewers’ preconceptions of Buddhist monks. In addition to his punk-rock past, Jonen is a bit of drinker with a cute but increasingly exasperated wife Tae and young son Riu. Genshu, the resident temple priest, also has an attractive younger wife, making Abraxas quite the recruitment film for Buddhist religious service. Genshu however, is at peace with his path. Jonen by contrast, hears the siren call of the extreme music he used to make. Yet it is not the past glory he misses, but the oneness with sound. He is not looking to fill a void, rather he seeks the void.
Indeed, the punk-rock playing monk might sound precious, but there is nothing cutesy about Abaraxas. To his credit, Katô never dumbs down the material, crafting one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking films about Buddhism (or any religion) in quite some time. Despite the importance of punk, it is only heard sparingly in Abraxas. Instead, it is the sounds of rain and even more prominently silence that Katô shrewdly employs to set the tone throughout the film.
Still, Katô ‘s film is hardly the cinematic equivalent of a scholarly religious treatise. Dealing with universal issues like loss and the need for belonging, Abraxas would be an excellent companion film to Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning art-house breakout hit Departures.
Appropriately Zen-like, the entire ensemble demonstrates ease and restraint in their parts. Though Japanese alt-rocker Suneohair (a.k.a. Kenji Watanabe) gets to rock-out and act a little crazy from time to time, it is still a very grounded and sincere performance. In many ways, Kaoru Kobayashi quietly supplies the heart and soul of the film as Jonen’s senior Genshu, expressing wisdom and tolerance while sounding like a fully dimensional character instead of a cliché in the Kung Fu tradition. Manami Honjo brings a warm, smart presence as Genshu’s wife Asako – while as Tae, Rie Tomosaka supplies surprising depth and nuance in what could have easily been a standard issue nagging wife role.
Abraxas may very well be too subtle to generate the heat it merits in Park City. Yet, it is a richly accomplished film that deserves to find audience (and an American distributor). Highly recommended, Abraxas screens again on Tuesday (1/25), Wednesday (1/26), Thursday (1/27), and Friday (1/28) as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
By Joe Bendel. For college kids, secret societies should only involve getting hammered after performing silly rituals. Unfortunately, ‘Smith’ has stumbled across an apocalyptic death-cult intent on igniting nuclear Armageddon. It’s kind of a bummer, but at least he never lets it cramp his sex life in Gregg Araki’s Kaboom (see the trailer here), which screens at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in advance of its New York opening next week at the IFC Center.
Smith’s orientation vacillates between gay and bi, but his considerable unrequited lust for his surfer roommate Thor remains constant. Though undeniably hetero, the dumb blond exhibits enough meterosexual tendencies to keep hope alive. About the only person on campus Smith wouldn’t sleep with is his lesbian BFF Stella. Acting as Stella’s wingman at a party, Smith eats a bad cookie, if you know what I mean. Much to his mild surprise, he hooks up with London—a chick. Soon thereafter, Smith thinks he witnessed the murder of a mysterious Red-Haired Girl from the party while tripping his lights out on the way home. There is no evidence to be found in the light of day, but strange occurrences seem to suggest “they” know he knows. Then things get weird.
Roxane Mesquida in "Kaboom."
This is a Gregg Araki movie, so there is more sex of various persuasions than an MTV show aimed at young teens. If you can deal with that, it’s all rather amusing watch Smith, his platonic friend Stella, and friend-with-benefits London get pulled into a totally outrageous end of the world scenario. It turns out that Stella’s new lover is a witch—not a Wiccan, but a real witch, and quite a possessive one at that. Meanwhile, Smith learns that his father did not die when he was young after all, but succumbed to the dark side of the Force, taking over a doomsday cult he had been researching.
Despite its goofiness, Kaboom is rather bold in one respect: explicitly comparing Smith’s cultist father to L. Ron Hubbard. Most likely half of Hollywood will never work with Araki now, but he is probably less inclined to care than Ricky Gervais. Yet, the strange thing about Kaboom is that in between all the hooking-up and snappy snark, the secret conspiracy story is actually fairly tense, at least until Araki goes all-in with an outrageously over the top third act.
Even with his creepy unblinking eyes, Thomas Dekker makes a surprisingly compelling hipster protagonist. Clearly comfortable with acid-drenched dialogue, he establishes a nice bantering rhythm with Haley Bennett as Stella. Kelly Lynch also adds a welcome measure of mature tartness as Smith’s unsentimental mom, Nicole. She helps to compensate for the ridiculously broad (even clumsy) supporting turns from Chris Zylka as Thor and James Duval as “The Messiah,” their stoner R.A.
Though Araki is steadfastly indie, cinematography Sandra Valde-Hansen gives it a professional luster that rivals the disposable studio teen comedy of the week. Thanks to production designer Todd Fjelsted, Kaboom has a legit campus atmosphere as well. Make no mistake, though: those who look for things to be offended by will have no trouble finding them in the film. It is over-sexualized and nihilistic, but also more funny than not. Recommended to those who already know they’ll dig it, Kaboom screens at Sundance tonight (1/22), Monday (1/24), and Saturday (1/29) and opens real next Friday (1/28) at the IFC Center in New York.
By Joe Bendel. A French cowboy just sounds wrong—disturbing even. It turns out that such trepidation is justified, yet it makes for interesting viewing in Jonathan Caouette’s hard to explain new short film, All Flowers in Time, which screens tonight as part of the New Frontiers shorts programming block at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
The French Cowboy in the film is sort of like the old MTM cat, giving the sign-off at the end of a warped Dutch children’s program. His barrage of subliminal images seems to give kids strange ideas and red glowing eyes, sort of like the monkey spirits of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee (although if you haven’t seen that, you’re not really missing much).
Those prone to obsess over questions like why and how this is happening are likely to be frustrated by Flowers. However, anyone who ever wanted to see Dutch kiddie television produced somewhere deep within the Black Lodge of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will delight in Caouette’s bizarre visuals (no giants or dwarves, though). The greatest surprise in store for viewers is Chloë Sevigny’s unexpectedly likable and charismatic lead performance, especially given the macabre twist of her central scene, as well as Flowers’ overall surreal vibe and experimental aesthetic. Indeed, the let-me-show-you-a-scary-face game she plays with the young boy in her charge (relationship unknown) is an effective set-up vehicle for creepy chills, not that Caouette is really going for that (or maybe he is, who can say really?).
One thing is certain: Caouette is indulging in quite a bit of gamesmanship throughout Flowers. However, it actually builds towards something somewhat interesting, even if it leaves a ten gallon hat full of question unanswered. Strangely watchable (‘strange’ being the key word), Flowers screens tonight (1/21), Saturday (1/22), Monday (1/24), Tuesday (1/25), Friday (1/28), and Saturday (1/29) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
By Joe Bendel. Norway faces a number of tricky public policy challenges, like an aging population, an influx of culturally dissimilar immigrants – and the increasingly belligerent troll colonies. The Norwegian government would like to keep that last one a secret. However, a student film crew stumbles onto the truth in screenwriter-director Andre Øvredal’s The Troll Hunter, a darn well put together monster movie that screens as part of the Park City at Midnight track during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Our title character is the most grizzled civil servant you will ever meet. Hans has no hatred in his heart for the ginormous ogres he hunts. He just has a job to do, working for the double-secret government office of troll affairs. Suspecting he is a bear poacher, aspiring journalist Thomas and his classmates start rather unsubtly tracking the tracker. Fed up with his bureaucratic boss and the piles of departmental red tape, the hunter decides to show them the truth: the trolls are out there.
Though it probably cost less to produce Troll Hunter than to ship the film to Park City, the trolls look shockingly good (more or less resembling big, hulking gnomes), thanks to the canny work of VFX supervisor Oystein Larsen and cinematographer Hallvard Bræin. Presented as the student crew’s salvaged videotape, much in the manner of Blair Witch, the film’s rough look well serves their troll effects. No harsh close-ups here, just flattering wide shots.
While the college kids are all essentially expendable, Otto Jespersen is all kinds of awesome as Hans. The found footage conceit always makes character development problematic, but his cranky Troll Hunter feels like a fully formed, flesh and blood person, albeit a considerably difficult one. In fact, given Jespersen’s rep as the Bill Maher of Norway, his time is probably better spent chasing trolls through the forests of Vestlandet.
Øvredal truly engages in kitchen-sink filmmaking, cherry-picking some clever traditional troll lore while slathering it all in generous helpings of black humor (much of which comes courtesy of the acerbic Troll Hunter himself). Øvredal also sprinkles a thimble full of socio-political “relevance” on top, but wisely never belabors his points. While it is hard to read too much into the trolls’ ferocious response to the smell of the blood of Christian believers, there is an unmistakable anti-developmental message weaved into the subtext. Fortunately, it is not pronounced enough to distract from a good clean troll hunt.
Troll Hunter is one of the most entertaining Norwegian monster movies in years. Øvredal really pulls it off, getting a key assist from Jespersen as his crusty protagonist. Proudly representing the Kingdom of Norway, Troll Hunter screens tonight (1/21), tomorrow (1/22), Tuesday (1/25), next Friday (1/28), and the following Saturday (1/29) at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
By Joe Bendel. In the future, child labor laws will be loosened in Japan. It will be for a good cause though: the salvation of humanity. Only pre-teens can fit into the cockpit of the Evangelions, the huge cyborg-like fighting machines created to protect the earth from the otherworldly peril it faces. It is a grueling task that extracts a costly toll from the young pilots in Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, the second film in screenwriter and “chief director” Hideaki Anno’s big-screen “rebuild” of the popular Japanese anime, which opens this Friday in New York and San Francisco.
As 2.0 opens, the Earth is once again under attack by “Angels,” hulking robotic extraterrestrial beings apparently impervious to all conventional weaponry. Shinji Ikari still flies his Eva unit in hopes of winning the approval of his severe father, who oversees NERV’s Evangelion program. His feelings for Rei, the emotionally fragile lead Eva pilot, continue to percolate. Into their midst comes a new pilot, Asuka, a Euro hotshot who arrives on the scene like Maverick at the Miramar TOPGUN school. Unfortunately, none of them expect the radical transformations in store for the Evas, nor the resulting implications for their own humanity.
Also crediting co-directors Masayuki and Kazuya Tsurumaki, 2.0 shrewdly incorporates proven elements from popular film and television, like the shadowy cabals of The X-Files and armored behemoths pounding each other silly, a la The Transformers. However, Anno’s anime utilizes strangely inverted Christian imagery, like the killer “Angels” that often explode into crosses when they are destroyed and “Lilith,” the life-giving angel, preserved beneath NERV central command disturbingly crucified on her cross. In fact, the original anime was somewhat notorious for its dense mythology, which has reportedly been streamlined for the rebuild. While its symbolism has the potential to become deeply troubling in future installments, for now it earns the first two Evangelions credit for ambition and novelty.
Frankly, elements of the meta-conspiracy revealed in 2.0 might even confuse those who saw 1.0, but most viewers going in cold will pick up enough to appreciate the rock-em-sock-em action sequences. Anime fanboys though might be disappointed by the lack of “fan service” aside from an AustinPowers shot of Asuka. Yet as animation, Evangelion represents the high-end of anime, featuring some rather striking imagery.
For those who sparingly partake of anime, the Evangelion series is one to check out. Smarter and more neurotic than the industry standard, it is an oddly compelling excursion into apocalyptic science fiction. Many theaters, including the Manhattan Big Cinemas (1/20) and the Viz Theater at New People (1/20) are screening 1.0 prior to 2.0’s opening (on the 21st both in New York and in San Francisco).
By Jason Apuzzo. “Well, the time has come to ask, is ‘dehumanization’ such a bad thing? Because good or bad, that’s what’s so. The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren’t. The whole world, not just us. We’re just the most advanced country, so we’re getting there first. The whole world’s people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things useful only to produce and consume other mass-produced things, all of them unnecessary and useless as we are …”– Howard Beale, from Paddy Chayefsky’s Network (1976).
“What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.” – Michel Foucault.
I thought I would take a little time out today from the usual run of events here at Libertas to review a favorite film of mine that for various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: George Lucas’ THX: 1138 from 1971. There is an excellent, new Blu-ray edition of the film available out there for you collectors right now, and I recommend it highly.
Future shock: from George Lucas' "THX: 1138."
THX: 1138 is probably best known as the film that started – and almost ended – George Lucas’ directing career. The film was based on a student short Lucas did at the USC Cinema School called “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” (the “EB” standing for “Earth Born”; THX-1138 was actually Lucas’ phone number at the time). That student short, incidentally, happens to be included in the Blu-ray edition, and is definitely worth watching. Around USC Cinema circles the short is something of a legend – in large part because it does everything a short is supposed to do: tell a powerful story quickly, visually, by ‘cutting to the chase’ as fast as possible. In fact, the original “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” is nothing but a chase, involving a lone future-worker’s escape from a totalitarian society.
The story of how “Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138:4EB” got translated into a feature is a long and complex one; suffice it to say the crucial players were Francis Coppola and his newly formed American Zoetrope Studios, plus the cabal of USC Cinema friends Lucas dragged up to the Bay Area with him (most notably Walter Murch), plus a few key executives at Warner Brothers like John Calley – who would later stab Lucas and Coppola in the back once the film was completed. And actually the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of THX: 1138‘s creation is essentially the story of American Zoetrope itself – the fledgling dream of Francis Coppola to found a Bay Area filmmaking colony of independent artists, set up in opposition to the factory-mentality of Hollywood. Appropriately, the Blu-ray features a great documentary on the founding of American Zoetrope, and the role THX: 1138 played in that company’s rise and fall … and rise again.
Bad day at the office: Robert Duvall in "THX: 1138."
So what, then, is THX: 1138 about? The film focuses on a worker in a futuristic, dystopian, police-state underworld who begins to have a crisis of conscience about his meaningless life and the oppressive, stultifying world he lives in. He rebels – awkwardly at first (he stops taking his tranquilizers, makes illicit love to his roommate, etc.) – and then finally decides to escape.
And that’s really it – the entire film in a nutshell.
What makes THX: 1138 worthwhile and interesting as a film is the striking world Lucas creates out of what was a very modest budget at the time – exactly $777,777, to be precise (executive producer Coppola was superstitious about numbers). The key to the film’s arresting, futuristic ‘look’ – a look that now seems prescient – is what might be described as a Japanese minimalism, combined with a similarly Japanese emphasis on bold, static compositions and a simple color palette.
Lucas initially wanted to film THX: 1138 in Japan, for two reasons. First, Japan seemed at the time to be the most futuristic of countries with respect to its integration of technology into the normal flow of living. (It still seems to be that today.) Secondly, Lucas and Walter Murch (who edited and co-wrote the film) were into Japanese movies at the time – particularly those of Kurosawa and Ozu. They were fascinated by the ‘alien,’ non-Western quality of Japanese rituals – and the degree to which Japanese filmmakers made no effort to explain these rituals for non-Japanese audiences. This ‘alien’ quality was exactly what Lucas and Murch were looking for in order to depict a futuristic society in which individual identity was put in jeopardy.
One is tempted to think here of Marshall McLuhan, who around the time of THX was proposing that the whole world was becoming “orientalized,” and that in the future none of us would be able to retain his or her cultural identity – “not even the Orientals.”
Static compositions, featuring static people.
We begin the film with THX (played with subdued intensity by Robert Duvall) at work on an assembly line, helping to put together what basically look like droids. He’s having a tough time of it, though, not able to maintain his concentration or focus. Is he having psychological problems? We don’t yet know. In THX’s world, all emotions are suppressed through the compulsory use of drugs – drugs that resemble “soma” from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
An early crisis comes in the film when THX’s female roommate ‘LUH 3417’ (Maggie McOmie) stops taking her drugs, and secretly substitutes a placebo for THX’s normal tranquilizer. As THX’s sedative wears off, he finds himself experiencing emotions, doubts, even sexual desire. Chief among these emotions is anxiety, and his work at this point definitely begins to be affected.
Nothing he tries helps. THX goes home, for example, to watch TV – actually holograms. TV in the future, however, has basically been reduced to three different sorts of programming: 1) mindless, sadistic violence; 2) porn; 3) glib, meaningless ‘talk shows.’ Sound familiar?
Everything in THX’s world, incidentally, is impersonal and automated. For example, looking for solace, poor THX visits a kind of high-tech confessional booth which features a generic religious icon (known as “Ohm”) who mutters impersonal, pre-recorded platitudes. “My time is your time … blessings of the State, blessings of the Masses … work hard, and be happy.” THX vomits in one of the confessionals, so disgusted is he by what he hears. He goes home to masturbate (off-screen) – although he’s only able to do so with help of an automated machine. In Lucas’ future, all forms of private experience have been automated, regulated, rendered ‘technological.’
THX is eventually incarcerated for his ‘bad behavior,’ and dragged off to a white limbo prison – where he encounters a group of maladjusted freaks similar to the crowd Jack Nicholson encounters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. My favorite in this group is Donald Pleasence playing ‘SEN 5241’ – a cliché-spouting, bureaucratic functionary. Pleasence’s dialogue in this portion of the film is really delicious, filled with ridiculous platitudes and non-sequiturs. It’s actually some of the funniest stuff Lucas has ever written.
The ‘prison’ in this portion of the film has a Waiting for Godot/existentialist quality to it, in so far as there are no walls of any kind. In fact, THX’s big decision to ‘escape’ the prison consists merely in Duvall’s deciding to walk away into the unseen distance. That’s it. Lucas’ point here could not be clearer: most of the walls we experience in life are illusory, and self-created. Sometimes all we need do is walk away from what’s holding us back.
And, interestingly, most of the prisoners in THX’s white limbo prison are afraid to escape – even though nothing is physically holding them back. Eventually THX and SEN make their way out into limbo on their own, where they encounter ‘SRT’ (Don Pedro Colley), who is actually a hologram who’s managed to escape the underground world’s computer network. SRT reminds one here of the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz, or of C-3PO from Lucas’ later Star Wars. Even robots apparently need a little freedom, too.
A future in which love is forbidden.
THX eventually discovers LUH’s tragic fate, which has a little bit of a ‘Lot’s wife’ feel to it, and then an extended escape sequence begins through the city’s vast underground road network. THX is chased here by android police on motorcycles, and to this day I’ve never understood how Lucas got guys to drive that fast on motorcycles with faceplates on. Weird.
The robot police pursue THX up toward the surface, but – and this is one of the film’s more arch, ironic touches – the budget expenditure allotted to capture THX becomes too great, so the computers tell the robot cops to stand down! Beautiful. Those future dystopias are always running out of money, aren’t they?
We finish the film with an incredible shot that is best appreciated on Blu-ray. After spending the entire film underground, in artificial lighting, THX emerges onto the surface of the Earth in front of an enormous, orange, blazing sun – photographed with what must have been a 1000mm lens. It’s a striking scene that is repeated in 1977’s Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker gazes out on the twin setting suns of Tatooine, contemplating a future of adventure and freedom he doesn’t believe he’ll ever have. In THX’s case, he certainly does achieve his freedom – although the exact nature of that freedom, and of his future, remains unclear.
Thus ends THX: 1138. And now comes the $64 million question: on the whole, is the world of THX relevant to the world of today?
I think the answer must be: yes.
Are we currently living in a world in which the government is intruding into too many aspects of our daily lives – and using advanced technologies to pry into our privacy … even beneath our clothing? Of course we are. And why do we allow this? Because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that it’s necessary, and that a benevolent state apparatus has our best interests in mind.
I’m reminded here, among so many other things, of what is currently going on at our nation’s airports. All of us are now being scanned, X-rayed and disrobed at our airports if we commit the crime of wanting to fly. Book a flight to New York, for example, and you’re likely to find yourself stripped in public – or having your naked form recorded onto a government hard drive. (“Don’t worry – we’ll make sure it gets erased!”) And so a commercial flight can now turn into an exercise in exhibitionism, an opportunity to get scoped-out and humiliated by a government official – all for the crime of traveling.
But that’s not all. New devices are now being marketed that conduct psychometric exams of airline passengers, who are required to answer a battery of questions (to a computer) to determine whether they fit a pre-defined psychological ‘profile’ of someone wanting to blow-up an airplane. Our own Homeland Defense officials are apparently very interested in this technology. And why wouldn’t they be? (After all, perhaps they could even determine if someone might attend a Tea Party rally.)
As citizens and as customers, why do we put up with this? We do so because we’ve been brainwashed, made docile (and literally, in many cases, sedated with drugs), and ultimately because we want to put up with it. Because we’ve been sold the politically correct bill-of-goods that all ‘humanoids’ – whether they be Gramma Betsy from Kenosha, or 18-year old Ahmed from Lahore – are just as likely to blow up a plane as anyone else. Why? Because bureaucratically we’re all the same – just numbers in a system. And if you happen stand up and protest this madness, if you complain about ‘the system’ and its obvious inadequacies and dangers – you can expect to be accused of being a bad person. You’re not with the program! You’re ‘off your meds,’ ‘hateful,’ ‘paranoid’ and a danger to public safety.
This is the world we live in, and this is the world of THX. Indeed it’s altogether amazing – and unnerving – how almost everything about Lucas’ film seems appropriate today.
The experience of freedom.
A few final words about the Blu-ray itself: the image on this film is fantastic; also, Walter Murch did some of the most striking sound design work of his career on this film, and there are superb documentaries (”Master Sessions”) on the Blu-ray that cover that subject for the cinephiles out there.
One quibble I have with the film is its portrayal of sex in the future: namely, there is none. Lucas decided to go the Orwell/1984 route and predict a ’sexless’ future in which children are created primarily in test tubes. Needless to say, I don’t think a sexless future is on our horizon – at least here in the West. Sex is omnipresent and omnipotent today, so Lucas probably would’ve been shrewder to go with Aldous Huxley and Brave New World, or with Yevgeny Zamyatin and We, and predict an orgiastic/promiscuous future in which monogamy is forbidden and children are collectively raised ‘by a village.’ (Lucas otherwise seems to have borrowed the shaved heads and number-names from Zamyatin, or perhaps from Ayn Rand’s Anthem?) This orgiastic/group-sex/collective consciousness future seems much closer to where we’re headed, and the subject of sexual relations is the only area where THX: 1138 seems off-kilter.
THX: 1138 is a great experimental film, however, with a lively and sardonic sense of humor about our world. Underneath that humor, of course, is an authentic social critique of our society – as we march happily toward a future of conformism, sedation, docility and political correctness.
Indeed, the punk-rock playing monk might sound precious, but there is nothing cutesy about Abaraxas. To his credit, Katô never dumbs down the material, crafting one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking films about Buddhism (or any religion) in quite some time. Despite the importance of punk, it is only heard sparingly in Abraxas. Instead, it is the sounds of rain and even more prominently silence that Katô shrewdly employs to set the tone throughout the film.
