“It happens”

"The Kids Are All Right"

Written by Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko,

directed by Cholodenko.

A lady married to another lady has a swing with a guy. The guy happens to be a sperm donor whose “goods” both ladies used way back to get pregnant. The key word here is “happens.”

The lightness and the speed of the story, its charming, California light bathed characters are deliciously vulnerable, vaguely self aware of their shortcomings yet unable to successfully conquer them, in short they are us, seen through the emphatic writing and directing lenses.

The character work done by the creators and the actors is of such a caliber that it is not the externality of the persons on the screen (for example their sex orientation) that drives their development. Rather it is the characters’ inner psychological struggles with their own growth or the lack of it (which we all can relate to) that makes the heart of this storytelling.

Strangely enough (or not, since what follows is a classic recipe for good writing) this universal dimension is achieved largely because the story told is the story lived: the co-writer and the co-writer/director explore their own issues and experiences in the script.

The anecdotical devise of the marital cheat “happens” to involve the guy who eighteen years earlier or so anonymously donated sperm and who now, tracked down by the resulting kids, meets the mothers and goes nuts over one of them. She does too. However the fact that he is the father of her kid is of secondary importance. What’s most pressing is their mutual inner void and vulnerability, coupled with physical attraction. That’s at least what I saw on the screen and what I heard as the explanations for this plot maneuver given by Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg at the Creative Screenwriting Podcast conducted by Jeff Goldsmith.

The way the filmmakers treat the reasons for the fling’s attraction is the key to the tone of the story. The woman sees a man. The fact that he is the (anonymous) sperm donor/the father of her child does not trigger any “mystery of the DNA”, "oh God, he is the father of my child" fascination. Such approach could have possibly resulted in a take on the story bordering on philosophical ruminations - still potentially remaining a comedy. And it would not have to be pretentious: image what Woody Allen or Charlie Kaufman would do with such a concept.

The Cholodenko/Blumberg take however purposely keeps the events and the motivations of the characters south of “profound”. The characters struggles with their overwhelming weaknesses are enough to fuel a satisfying narrative and keep us glued to the screen. After all, in our daily lives we first encounter our own character limitations and only then rarely (if ever) become aware of the underlying metaphysical or evolutionary dimensions of our existence.

chemical in your brain

"127 hours" A film by Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, James Franco

OMG! What a film!

“Free Blood” sets up the “narcotic” vibe with their furious “Never Hear Surf Music Again” and the story that follows keeps up the mad pace and never releases its grip. This pace keeping is by itself already amazing considering that the film is about an immobilized man. How do you tell a story of a guy who can’t move? As an action flick. Naturlich! The structure resembles an hour-glass shape (a clever poster): from the “in your face” universal opening crowds montage through a singular ordeal zeroed in on a rock in the middle of the canyon slot we go back to the universal, because as “Free Blood” sings:

There must be some fucking chemical
(Chemical in your brain)
That makes us different from animals
(Makes us all the same)

Danny Boyle (whom previously I disregarded - both “Trainspotting” and “Slumdog Millionaire” plainly bored me) here grabbed me by the throat and forced to follow his storytelling exactly as he designed it. (I got that after hearing him and Simon Beaufoy talk with Jeff Goldstein on the Screenwriting Magazine podcast). To so effectively create a racing visual story about an immobilized fellow takes extraordinary skills. I came out of the movie theater shaken to the bone (no pun intended - for those who know the pivotal scene).

Some critics say the storytelling is manipulative and cynical forcing upon the viewer notions of guilt and redemption of Aron Ralston. I didn’t get that this way at all. My understanding of the film was that whatever happened to the hero happened because “shit happens”. The misfortune wasn’t brought by Ralston's shortcomings as a human being. It just happened. Granted, he did not leave a message where he was going and so nobody was able to help him, but, from a dramatic point of view, that was to keep the guy alone, and in reality it was everyday carelessness of being already high on his drug (as most of us are most of the time anyway). The scenes from his past were most likely the reaction of the psyche to the horrifying predicament. They were triggered by the “If I hadn’t only....” mechanism, more the result of the horror of the entrapment and not a court case for the reasons of the misfortune.

Misfortunes are around us. When they strike we usually react by “why me”. That’s why the filmmakers take this aspect and magnify it to the limits by the music video opening. It clearly says “it’s about all of us, folks”, “we are all drugged one way or the other”, “his kick is the outdoor sport, what’s yours?”

The second psychological mechanism of a misfortune is the already mentioned “if I only had not ...” We seek in our past justification for what befalls upon us. Sometimes shit happens with a reason, sometimes not. In case of Aron Ralston, we really don’t know the reasons. A transcendental intelligence maybe knows it. Not Ralston. Certainly not Danny Boyle.

I feel Boyle just tries to get inside the hero’s mind and recreate the “if I only had not...” mechanism. Accusing him of cruelty and manipulation and of feeding off some “gore porno” tendency does not in my opinion have any grounds. His work is light years away from such exploitation flicks like for example “The hostel” (that was a morally bankrupt film!) The final act in "127 hours" is not redemption (for some previous sins), but the result of fighting for once’s life and being strong enough and focused enough to win. On the other hand, films are individual, magical encounters and everyone should be free to experience them in a singular, original way. One man’s poison is another man’s medicine.

Vibrancy is one of the words Danny Boyle stresses when discussing the film. He indeed keeps the story alive. Is it the two DP units of (as he stresses) equal status that add energy to the storytelling? Not to mention a virtuoso direction itself, a very precise script and of course an amazing actor. Simon Beaufoy talks about the virtue of speed (not that speed!) in orchestrating a movie going experience. When he teaches screenwriting he makes his students to write a script in (if I remember well) three weeks. He explains that “what is missing in structure and depth is compensated by energy and drive”. Something like this says Werner Herzog when he talks about editing. Judging by their work the guys are right. (How come I struggle for a year with the editing of an hour long sociological documentary? That’s a rhetorical question I do not even wish to start answering here.)

Anyway, “127 hours” is a paean to the human spirit, an uncompromising invitation to participate in a brutal (but screen safe) experience that through its extremes reiterates with full gusto what it means to be alive. Or as “Free blood” sings in the motto:

"Take it if it makes you numb
Take it if it make you come
Take it if it makes you naked
Take it!"

At war

"Restrepo" by

Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger

A few quotes from the makers:

On the best advice for a documentary filmmaker: “Do not, under and circumstances, cede editorial control of the film to anyone else.” They did not and financed the shoot themselves.

On not including close up graphic shots in the film (despite having filmed them): “It’s better to watch death from a distance. It forces the viewer to be more engaged. A shocking close up disconnects”.

Tim says that the camera became his gun giving him a way to control the experience (“the camera was my gun. (...) Because of it I was not afraid.”)

Indeed, the immediacy of this film is shocking from the moment it becomes clear that the filmmakers are right in the middle of combat and their obsession with covering the scene at times stays ahead of their safety, while the soldiers main objectives is kill the enemy without getting killed.

So, what does it take to provide the viewer with an emotional experience of the events filmed? Clearly being close to the subject of the storytelling, becoming one of its participants and acquiring their perspective helps. But there is more: a balance of restrain and immediacy is needed as well. It seems that to the makers of Restrepo withdrawing certain elements of the subject matter (not creating a narrative porn with showing everything in full detail, and I do not mean only the physical stuff) makes space for the viewer to experience that which the heros themselves struggle with.

The filmmakers select their canvas and style by sticking to the filmed unit, by avoiding an attempt to give the “bigger picture”, by limiting their ways of handling traumatic moments, by carefully entering (or not entering) the psyche of their heros. The combination of these decisions is very powerful.

The audience together with the characters on screen does not fully comprehend or is able to fully process the experience. And, contrary to the intuitive urge to show more, this controlled discrepancy between the limited narrative approach and obviously full filmmaking access to the surface of events creates an emotional, gut wrenching feeling of being in the middle of things. Because being in the middle excludes full control and understanding.

Brainwashed

"Exit through the gift shop", directed by Banksy.

This extraordinary film (among its many other virtues and accomplishments) is a metaphor and a warning to filmmakers: do not attempt to compete with the real life you film. When you do you most likely will become pompous and ridiculous. Know your place!

On the other hand if you choose to switch places and become “the theme” yourself, you may become rich as did Mr. Brainwash. Actually, the warning seems rather a saddening reflection on human nature - as we know from even a casual glance around many a time those on top (in many fields - not only art) are there mostly because they want to be there more than the others, not because of their superior merit. All thanks to the quill-ability of the brainwashed public who doesn’t know shit from Shinola and doesn’t want to strain too much for understanding and self-examining, which as we all know is painful, time consuming and simply damn hard. This biting undertone is very Banksy-ish.

The film is also a very successful exploration of tensions between the narrative as such and its subject. The self-awareness of the filming tool (and I do not mean Mr. Brainwash or his earlier incarnation Mr. Guetta, but the meta narrator calling himself Banksy) allows the narrative to be actually split into two parallel plots: in the first we watch the unfolding of “the real” story of Thierry Guetta, in the second we glimpse into the intentions of Banksy as a storyteller, commentator and our guide to the strange world of his field. Banksy’s choices to come in and out of the film, to switch its path by pushing Guetta to become an artist himself, to frame everything in a strong, focused, first person narrative create a powerful sense of not only intense looking at the portrayed world but also at the tool he uses to portray it with.

It is an insightful look into a pitiful state of ourselves as a consumer culture. Done with sadness, empathy, love and a sense of humor. Bravo.

The quotes

“Each photo violates its subject”

“To speak is not to see”

“Unless you know your own story you do not exist”

“Get rid of your defenses so you can go the furthest”

“What you do for the least important person, you do for me”

“An anecdote cannot embrace reality”

“Movies are not character, but question driven”

Camera as consciousness

Gaspar Noe before introducing “Enter the void”

“Enter the void” is a wonderfully mad film, experimenting with the subjective, which could possibly be the next breakthrough in screen storytelling.

This daring experiment in visual representation of consciousness is based on three devices: camera as a point of view, compression of key emotional memories, camera floating above after death.

During the Q&A Noe brings up studies of how brain stores memories, how consciousness reacts to visual stimulus, possibilities of using 3D to better represent life experiences on the screen. One sentence from his talk particularly jumps at me: “in many respects the future is more real that the past.”

While “Irreversible” had a 3 page long script and was done on the fly, “Enter the void” was written in 103 pages during several years. Yet, the structure in “Irreversible” is stronger. There are at least two possible explanations of that:

Perhaps it was meant to be like this. For Noe (at least from what he is saying) “The Void” was to be like a trip, with all pluses and minuses of a trip including an oppressing length (‘my trips were always too long”) and certain meandering. So it is rather an exercise in a state of mind than an exploration of the flow of our lives (which seems to be the theme of “Irreversible”.)

Or:

Noe believes in spontaneity and removal of any obstacles to the “creative flow” - he is his own camera operator and insists that the energy has to come to the set at the last minute. Yet, such directorial spontaneity did not seem to translate into the writing spontaneity/freshness and so the basic structure got surprisingly predictable in the long time it took to write/prepare the film. Noe “overcooked” the storyline a bit. If his directorial freshness could be applied to designing (writing) of such technologically complex film as “Enter the void” it could mean revolution not only in screen storytelling but also perhaps a step forward in our self-understanding.

Essential cinema

“Essential Killing”, script: Ewa Piaskowska, Jerzy Skolimowski,
DP - Adam Sikora, directed by Skolimowski

Upon disappointments with “The Social Network”, “Inception” or the latest “Harry Potter” I rejoiced with “Essential killing”, almost danced upon seeing it. Cinema is not over! New paths are possible.

The other films felt tired, used up, artificially jazzed up, whereas the Skolimowski’s latest brings in zest, energy and aliveness. It displays humbleness about the events being told. The storyteller of this film does not present himself as smarter than the story. He follows it with respect, with his eyes wide open and ears ready to receive signals that are not predetermined by narrative cliches. In "Essential Killing" there are questions rather than answers. There is openness rather than arrogance. Empathy rather than pushiness. The film does not feel calculated and displays naturalness, mystery and poetry. At the same time there are moments which rise eyebrows in the plausibility department. If that’s the price for the overall energy, so be it.

Reality in Skolimowski's hands gets more penetrating treatment than in those other extravaganzas. I do not think it is only because “Essential killing” is not a Hollywood film and as such can afford to be a more genuine representation of what life feels like. (After all there are Hollywood directors who do not talk down to audiences.)

Conclusion: If a plot is unclear, muddy and or spotty (that’s the case with the four mentioned titles) it may be better to pay less attention to justification of such undercooked structures and instead focus on life and emotions contained within them. Creating scenes that (supposedly) explain psychological or plot intricacies usually reduces sequences to mechanical statements dutifully strung together. Skolimowski does not care much for that - instead he focuses on life which floats in front of the lenses. Thanks to that his screen pulsates with vitality so rare in today’s fiction cinema.