SUCKER PUNCH

It is rare these days that I go out to a multiplex and watch a new film in a cinema, but I decided to make an exception with Zack Snyder’s new film “Sucker Punch”.  In the film we follow Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who has been sent to an asylum after accidentally killing her younger sister while attempting to protect her from their abusive stepfather.

The asylum is run by Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), who continues the cycle of abuse by selling the girl’s virginity to whoever will pay him the most, whom he refers to as the “high rollers”.  On the staff of the asylum is a Russian doctor, Dr. Vera Gorski (played by Carla Gugino), who teaches each of the girls an individual dance that they must learn.  These dances are what the high rollers use to determine which girl they want to spend the night with.  However, within the dance, Dr. Gorski, also tries to get the girls to lose themselves to another reality (in an attempt to escape the pain), to focus so hard on it, that they end up in another world where they are not powerless.

When Baby Doll is finally called upon to perform her dance, she succeeds in entering another reality, where she meets a strange old man (played by Scott Glenn) who gives her the plan on how to escape the asylum.  He tells her that she will need to go on five journeys and find something in each that will assist in the escape.  They include a map, fire, a knife and a key.  The fifth thing is a mystery.

After returning to reality, Baby Doll enlists the help of four other girls to help in the escape.  These girls are Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jenna Malone) and her elder sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish).  Initially the girls are unsure about trying to escape because they believe it to be an impossible task as “no-one has ever escaped the asylum before”.  Baby Doll ensures them that it will be fine and that it possesses no danger, because everyone will be watching her dance (yes, she’s that good), while the others steal the stuff they need.  Each time Baby Doll dances she, along with the rest of the group, enters a new reality (dressed in either schoolgirl or fetish outfits), where the girls must find the same thing they are looking for in the real world.  For example, when they are trying to get the map, they must also find a map in Baby Doll’s imagined world, which in this case is in WWI where they have to fight zombie German soldiers.

This is just a terrible movie, in fact it is worse than that, it is embarrassing.  This film just does not make any sense at all.  The main problem is the fact that the alternate realities seem to have no links to the real world what-so-ever.  What I mean by this is if these realities take place in Baby Doll’s mind, just what are the other girls doing in the real world while their adventures are going on.  I’ll give an example: when they are trying to get the map, it is up to Sweet Pea to sneak into Blue’s office and steal it while he is being distracted by the dancing of Baby Doll.  That’s fine, but Sweet Pea is still a part of the fantasy world fighting in the trenches, when in reality she is in a completely different room.  It doesn’t make sense and because of that you feel no tension when they are in the fantasy world because there are no consequences (in the real world) if they fail. This begs the question whether the other girls have knowledge of or experience the adventures that are going on in Baby Doll’s mind?  I’m not sure they do, and it is never explored or explained.

Another problem with “Sucker Punch” is Snyder’s terrible (and inappropriate) choices with his music.  Throughout the fantasy action sequences, pop songs are loudly played while the girls are performing whatever heroic acts that they are, but the music never seems to work with the images at all.  As much as I will give him props for using a Bjork song, it just didn’t gel with the samurai action that was being portrayed at the same time.  The problem with this is that it makes the songs themselves very noticeable, when their job is to actually complement the visuals, not over-power them.  Snyder really needs to study the work of both Scorsese and Tarantino, as these guys are both masters at taking pre-existing songs / music and adding it to scenes, and making it work so well that by the end of the scene you would be sure that the song was written exclusively for it.  

Unfortunately the actors do not fare much better, but to be fair, they had very little to work with, as the script is very poor.  Out of all the girls, I think the two Australians, Abbie Cornish and Emily Browning, come out of this film best, but compared to their previous work, their performances here are seriously below par.  I must admit that I am a fan of Oscar Isaac’s work (he was simply amazing in “Balibo”), but he does have the ability to go over-the-top at times (Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood”), which is definitely the case here, but he does it here in such a fun way that his performance as Blue is probably the only thing I enjoyed in “Sucker Punch”.  He may have been chewing the scenery, but at least he was entertaining.

What I keep hearing about the film is that it is “visually stunning”, but even on this level, the film fails miserably.  Personally I am sick to death of computer generated environments in movies these days.  Call me old fashioned but I actually prefer sets that have been built which actors can act around.  “Sucker Punch” looks exactly like the type of video games that are played today, and perhaps this idea would have worked better in that format, because it certainly doesn’t work as a film.  One of the biggest insults that I have heard, is that with this film Zack Snyder is becoming a “visual stylist” in the same class as Brian De Palma.  Excuse me?!?!?!  Sorry , but that statement is just ridiculous because he is not even close.  While I do appreciate him attempting a scene of “pure cinema” in the opening of “Sucker Punch”, I hate to say that it fell considerably short.  I want to point out that I am not one of these Zack Snyder bashers, because I have enjoyed his previous films that I have seen, it is just that this film needed a lot more work.

That is the main problem I think, because when I first heard him talking about this project a couple of years back, he was talking about how it was going to be a hard R-rated film, but as time went on, he decided it should be PG-13.  This isn’t a problem in of itself, but it was an indication that Snyder wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the film, which is sadly representative of the final product.  Further evidence was that he shot the film almost like a musical with dance numbers throughout which he ultimately cut.  I just feel he needed to work out exactly what he wanted the story, and thus the movie, to be, before he went ahead and filmed it.  This feels like a first draft of an idea that has been fast-tracked into production.

Overall, to say that “Sucker Punch” was a disappointment would be just stating the obvious.  It is a film that does not work on any level, with whole scenes making little or no sense at all (I had no idea what they were doing on a train in one of the fantasy sequences), with a plot that is so simple that it borders on the ridiculous [The escape plan is so basic, are you really trying to tell me that no-one in that asylum had thought of it before].  I’ve read a few theories on the internet trying to explain the hidden depths of “Sucker Punch” (most seem to think that the whole story is from “Sweet Pea’s” point-of-view where Baby Doll doesn’t really exist, which actually makes some sense), and if these depths were what Snyder was really going for, it is a shame because they would have made the film infinitely better, but directorially he has failed in bringing these ideas to the screen.

To end on a positive note, I will say that Abbie Cornish looked absolutely gorgeous throughout the film and she is the main reason I am bumping my rating up to………

1 Star.

Oh, and good news, the blu-ray version of the film is going to be an extra 18 minutes longer, which will include darker material that had to be cut to get the PG-13 rating.  Hopefully some of this footage will make the film better to understand.

ROSEMARY'S BABY

This was the film that announced to the world that Polanski was a major cinematic talent.  Everyone sat up and took notice of “Rosemary’s Baby” ensuring it of its “classic” status.  In fact, I’m sure that if you asked Polanski admirer’s to name his masterpiece, the majority would say this film.  Personally, I would not have named this title, but do not get me wrong, this is a fantastic film, and is very, very well made.

“Rosemary’s Baby” was also the last film of the Polanski retrospective that has been held at The Astor cinema over the past few weeks, which I have enjoyed immensely.  Seeing “Rosemary’s Baby” on the big screen in 35mm was a revelation (much like “The Tenant”), it just looked so gorgeous and was like viewing the film for the very first time.

Most people know the story of “Rosemary’s Baby” but for those that do not, I will give a quick rundown of the film.  The story starts with a young married couple, Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, who are looking to buy an apartment.  Guy is a struggling actor and this is the main reason that the couple move to New York, in an attempt to try and find more stage work.  So far he has done little of any significance, just a few commercials and a couple of television pilots that were not picked up, but Rosemary believes in her husband and readily agreed to the move.

The apartment they choose is a grand old one, where the previous owner had recently passed away.  While telling one of their friends about their recent purchase he informs the couple that the building that their apartment is in has a strange history behind it.  So much so that someone had even claimed to have brought forth the devil himself there.

One day while Rosemary is home by herself fixing the apartment up, she gets a visit from Minnie Castevet, one of her elderly neighbours from upstairs.  Minnie invites the Woodhouse’s over for dinner, and although the invitation is genuine, it appears that Minnie’s primary motivation for the visit was to get inside the apartment just to see what Rosemary had done to it.  When Guy gets home, he is not thrilled at all by the invitation, which by now Rosemary has accepted, stating that once you let these people into your life, they are very hard to get rid of.  However he agrees to go just to be polite, but explains to Rosemary that this would be a quick visit and it will be a one-off thing.  To everyone’s surprise, Guy gets along fantastically well with the Castevet’s, especially Roman, Minnie’s husband, while it is Rosemary that ends up finding them a little strange and intrusive.  It soon becomes a regular thing for Guy each night to go upstairs and spend some time with the old couple, while Rosemary stays by herself alone.  However she is never forgotten as Guy always comes home with food that Minnie has made for her.  One night after eating a chocolate mousse that Minnie had prepared for her, she starts to feel very dizzy and so Guy puts her to bed.  Rosemary starts to have a very weird and vivid dream about a boat that she is on, which also has JFK and Jackie O on it as guests also, which is then intercut with more weird hallucinations of people undressing her and attempting to have intercourse with her, until she witnesses the terrifying image of what appears to be the devil himself.

When she awakens from this nightmare everything appears to change for the better.  Her relationship with Guy (which had been on the decline since moving) starts to improve, as does Guy’s luck with finding quality work, as he is cast as a major player in a big play, and best of all, Rosemary finds out that she is pregnant.  Her dream of starting a family has just become a reality.

While this is meant to be a joyous time for Rosemary (and it is), it is interrupted again by Minnie who insists that Rosemary see their very good friend, Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, who just happens to be the best obstetrician in the country.  He turns out to be a doctor who is in favour of natural medicines rather than popping pills, and he organizes Minnie to make a special drink (using the herbs from her garden) that will give her the sufficient vitamins and minerals needed during her pregnancy.  This becomes a daily ritual which frustrates Rosemary more and more, because she feels that she is no longer in control of her own pregnancy.  It reaches a breaking point when Rosemary suffers from severe abdominal pain, only to be told that the pain is normal and that it will be gone in a couple of days.  A few weeks later and the pain has not changed, Rosemary is convinced that she is not being looked after properly, and so tries to get a second opinion.  However no matter how hard she tries, forces outside her control always seem to send her back into the care of Dr. Sapirstein and her neighbours.  She ends up cracking thinking that everyone is against her and that they all want her baby for themselves.  She does not trust anyone, including Guy, and then “all hell breaks loose”.

[Well, that wasn’t the brief description I was hoping for, was it?!]

This is a beautifully directed picture by Polanski, and is the kind of horror film that they no longer make anymore.  The film is all about mood and atmosphere rather than blood and gore, and the film takes its time in telling its story, as opposed to most horror films today, which move from victim to victim in a blur.  The reason why “Rosemary’s Baby” works as well as it does is because it is a character piece, the whole focus is on its characters.  We really care for these people (particularly Rosemary), so when things start going bad for her and she is in danger, we actually care about what is happening to her.  This in turn creates the suspense of the picture.  In fact for the majority of the film you could classify it as a drama (with supernatural tones) until the finale when the paranoia sets in and it becomes a full-on horror film.

Mia Farrow is sensational as Rosemary coming across as a very innocent, hippie-like girl, who appears very fragile, except of course when she feels her baby’s life being threatened.  Her extreme likability in the role obviously makes it easier for us to care for Rosemary and everything she endures.  I must admit that I have never thought Mia Farrow to be particularly attractive, but for the first half of this picture (before her infamous “Rosemary’s Baby” hair-cut), she is downright gorgeous.  Once she does cut her hair though, she (deliberately so) starts looking very gaunt, pale and sickly, as the problems she is having with her baby during her pregnancy is affecting her personal health dramatically.  The transition from innocence to paranoid is also very affectively handled in Farrow’s performance.

John Cassavetes plays the role of Guy and does so very well and importantly for the success of the film he always keeps his motivations ambiguous.  You really are never sure if he is in on everything that is happening to Rosemary or if he is just a caring husband unsure of what to do.  Sometimes he comes across like a real slime-ball, only looking out for what is best for himself, while other times he appears to truly care about Rosemary’s terrible ordeal.  The other performer that I want to mention is Sidney Blackmer who plays Roman.  He is just a standout and subtlely steals every scene that he is in, because he just seems so real – he could be your grandfather.

However I have to say the biggest flaw of “Rosemary’s Baby” is the casting of Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet, and her terrible over-the-top performance.  Personally I cringe whenever she is on screen, because she just does not fit in with the rest of the picture.  She comes across as more of a caricature than a real person, which is problematic, because the film is only going to succeed when you believe it all to be real.  She is a little more restrained when she is acting alongside Sidney Blackner, but when she is by herself she is excruciating, and she almost destroys this brilliant film, and because of this I think Polanski really needed to reign in her performance.  I will say that she certainly looks the part, but that is the only positive I can think of regarding her.

Speaking of “the look”, this appears to be a production designer’s dream, because the apartment looks sensational.  The attention to detail is breathtaking and this all adds to the atmosphere of the piece.  Because the majority of the film takes place in Rosemary’s apartment, it needed to almost become a character itself, and it has done just that.  The cinematography by William Fraker is just gorgeous to look at, and together with Polanski (this is the only time the two worked together), they created a much more restrained look than his previous films.  There is a lot less of the shots from crazy angles, and instead we have very still shots or if the camera does move, it does so very subtlely.  My favourite shot of the whole film is a still shot of the doorway into the lounge room where Guy and Roman are talking during their first visit over for dinner. Slowly a small puff of smoke (the guys are smoking cigars) drifts from behind the wall into where we can see it, in front of the doorway, and it just feels so ominous and chilling.  I assume this is when the “deal is done”.  It is such a simple shot, but it is so gorgeous to look at and from a story perspective, it is incredibly important.  Another favourite shot is one near the finale with Rosemary walking with purpose with a knife in her hand.  It is shot from a low angle and just looks so cool and is very reminiscent of a shot from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Torn Curtain”, which was shot two years prior to this film.

The only time the rhythm of the film changes is when we see Rosemary’s dream.  It becomes slightly more surreal and the shot compositions become a little stranger, as well as some extra usage of the point-of-view shot.  It is funny, but I have never thought of Roman Polanski as someone who excels in shooting dream sequences.  In this regard Wes Craven, David Lynch and Brian De Palma, all come to mind immediately, but after seeing all these Polanski films in quick succession I’ve noticed that “The Tenant”, “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby” (all the films of the “apartment trilogy”) all have dream sequences and all are very impressive cinematically (although my favourite would be the one from “The Tenant”).

Speaking of the “apartment trilogy”, it is a testament to the quality of all the films involved when I say that “Rosemary’s Baby” is my least favourite of the three.  However, it is such a strong film and deserves all the recognition that it has received.  Overall, I think “Rosemary’s Baby” is a great film with a stunning finale (which thankfully Polanski smartly leaves to your imagination) and would be the film I would use as an introduction to Polanski for those that want to know what he is about and make him the special filmmaker that he is.

4 Stars. 

I just had to mention that the poster for "Rosemary's Baby" is an absolute classic. Why don't they make posters like this anymore?!   

CUL-DE-SAC

The penultimate film in this Polanski Retrospective is the film that he made directly after “Repulsion”, his 1966 picture “Cul-De-Sac”, which unfortunately I find probably the most frustrating of all of his films.  There is so much about this film that I love, but overall as a whole, it just doesn’t really work for me.  I love the initial set-up, with the two gangsters hiding out at a newly-married couple’s house (which just happens to be a castle) while waiting for their boss to come and get them after a failed job.  In fact, most of the first half of the film I really enjoy, which has some fantastic black comedy throughout, but every time that I watch “Cul-De-Sac”, there is one scene that always takes me out of the film, and I start to lose interest.  It is a scene about halfway through which is done in one long continuous take – all eight and a half minutes of it.  The scene takes place just after they have buried one of the gangsters (who succumbs to his wounds), all the while drinking the wife’s homemade vodka.  Now intoxicated, the gangster and the husband have a heart-to-heart about his wife, the castle they bought and just how unhappy he is (contrary to how he looks).  While this conversation takes place, the wife goes into the ocean to clean herself off.

While the scene is a good one emotionally, as we truly start to find out something about our characters, the way that it is shot just loses all the atmosphere and energy that the film had before it.  The whole scene feels labored and you actually feel the time going by.  What makes it worse is that Polanski choose to shoot the scene in one shot not for any artistic reason, but because he was behind schedule and the money-men were on his case, so to catch up he shot the scene in a day, that would normally take five.  I suppose that this is a reality of filmmaking, but it is a shame because the scene just loses all the energy of the film previous and I always find my mind wondering during it, thus taking me completely out of the film.  In fact that seems to be my main problem with the film in general – the pacing.  It just feels too languid.  I think if it had been tightened up in a few places, we would be talking about this film in a much higher regard, and dare I say it, could be claimed as another Polanski masterpiece.

For the most part, it is an incredibly well acted film. Both Donald Pleasance as George (the husband) and especially Lionel Stander as Richard (the head gangster) are outstanding, and Jack MacGowran impresses in his small role of the doomed gangster (he impressed Polanski so much that he was immediately cast in his next film “The Fearless Vampire Killers”), but unfortunately Francoise Dorleac as Teresa (the wife) doesn’t fare as well.  Francoise Dorleac is actually the sister of Catherine Deneuve and seeing “Cul-De-Sac” immediately after “Repulsion”, you notice the similarities between the two girls straight away.  Both are very striking and gorgeous women, although in terms of acting (in regards to the Polanski films they starred in), I believe Deneuve was the better actress.  This may be because Dorleac’s character, Teresa, is quite unlikable in “Cul-De-Sac” plus she has a lot more dialogue than her sister did in “Repulsion”, and thus her thick French accent (as well as her knowledge of the English language) becomes more of an issue here.  Sadly Dorleac only made three more films after “Cul-De-Sac”, as she was killed when her sports car flipped and burned on a roadway in Nice, France, about a year after Polanski’s film was released.  She was only 25 years of age.  We were never given the chance to see if she would have become as big a star as her sister ended up becoming.

Gil Taylor is back doing cinematography duties after his brilliant work in “Repulsion” and like that film, his work here is also outstanding.  After being cramped indoors the whole time for the previous film, I’m sure that it would have been a nice change of pace to work in the open spaces of the island that “Cul-De-Sac” is set, although he has stated in interviews that he had a hell of a time making it all match, due to the crazy climate of the island.  Personally I think he does a magnificent job disguising this fact.

Polanski is also back with his regular screenwriting partner Gerard Brach, and what they bring to the table is a great story with some hilarious dialogue and situations.  They also continue to tackle very similar themes from Polanski’s first film “Knife In The Water”, and that is what it means to be a man, and how a man’s pride or ego affects the way he reacts to a situation.  As well as all of that, it investigates male and female dynamics and even turns them on their head (for example, when Richard first breaks into the house and is confronted by Donald Pleasance’s character, he is dressed in a female’s nightgown with his face all done up in make-up).  In fact, if you strip it all down, “Cul-De-Sac” is really an alternative version of “Knife In The Water” with the exception being that the female character in this film takes a much more aggressive role and attempts to influence the actions of the men, where as in “Knife In The Water”, the men’s actions are all for the benefit of the woman (who is much more passive).  An example of this is when the couple are locked in their bedroom while Richard calls his boss.  Teresa verbally abuses George for not doing anything, claiming that a real man would have stood up for his wife.  She continues to belittle him while at the same time trying to egg him on in an attempt to get George to act.

The title of the film, “Cul-De-Sac”, is really quite brilliant as it basically describes all of the character’s situations, as well as a few other points in the film.  The title roughly translates to “Dead End” which is true of many things in the film.  First the castle itself is situated at the end of a road that twice a day, due to the tides, is unreachable from the outside world.  The entire road gets flooded making it impossible to reach or leave when the tide is in.  Secondly, both the situations of the gangster and the husband are in fact “dead ends”, [SPOILERS] with the gangster’s end being a literal death, and for George, he realizes by the end of the film that he is in an emotional dead end, by being in a loveless marriage.

Speaking of ends, the final shot of the film is so brilliant and so utterly heartbreaking.  We finally see the impact of the emotional torment George has had bottled up inside him, since the end of his previous marriage, when we see him sobbing on a rock and calling out his previous wife’s name.

Overall, while there is a lot to like about “Cul-De-Sac”, my problems with the pacing and my dislike of Francoise Dorleac’s character, make the film a frustrating experience for me.  However, it is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of black comedies or Polanski in general.  One final note is that, sadly, this was the last time that Polanski shot a film in black and white.

3 Stars.

Again my wife came along to see this too (after all it was a double-header with “Repulsion”)and basically didn’t like this film either, although she said that she liked it a little more than “Repulsion” because it had more of a plot.  She gave the film 1and ½ stars.