CRAWL

In this day and age where films are regularly more bloated than they need to be, I find it more and more exhilarating to find a film that isn’t afraid to tell its tale economically and entertainingly and then just finish.  The new debut feature from Australian filmmakers, The China Brothers, “Crawl” is the perfect example of this.  It is lean, mean and packs quite a punch, and its short running time is definitely a positive.

The story of “Crawl” is a simple one.  After assassinating the owner of the local garage, “The Croatian” heads to the only bar in town to be paid from the man who hired him.  That man is Slim, who also owns the bar, and after hearing that the hit has been successful is only too happy to pay the man who performed the deed.  “The Croatian” is one of those quiet, mysterious types.  He says very little, but expresses a lot through his eyes (which are ironically often hidden behind the large brim of the hat he always wears), and you are never in any doubt that the man is capable of extreme violence.  After receiving his money, the hitman is ready to leave the small town, likely never to return.  Meanwhile, a worker at the bar, Marilyn Burns, is nervous and excited at the possibility that tonight may be the night that her boyfriend, Travis, finally pops the question to her.  After her shift at the bar, she rushes home to prepare herself and her house for her boyfriend’s arrival.  She wants this to be a night that she will never forget.  Unluckily for her, her wish is going to become a reality but not in any way she may have dreamed, as circumstances involving Slim’s deal with “The Croatian” as well as a simple car accident, will find Marilyn fighting for her life in the place she feels safest, her home.  It suddenly becomes a life and death situation for everyone involved, as a major double-cross is discovered while being in the wrong place at the wrong time changes the fate of everyone.

While the film is not perfect (it actually has a number of flaws) “Crawl” is a seriously good debut feature from director Paul China.  During my viewing of the film, I was in no doubt that China was a fan of the works of Alfred Hitchcock and the Coen Brothers, as well as Roman Polanski.  Their influence is felt all over “Crawl” and not in the over-the-top “homage” department either.  “Crawl” never feels derivative of these past master’s work, rather China has used his knowledge of these films to expertly craft his own feature.  The most impressive thing about “Crawl” is the way China continually builds and expands upon the suspense until the nail biting finale.  The way he goes about doing this is all visual, as the majority of the second half of the film is dialogue free, and it is all about the camera work telling the story which is masterful.  You are never in any doubt that China knows what he is doing, and his camera work is as accomplished as that you would see from a director who had been working for decades, it is so sharp, it is almost hard to believe that this is his debut feature.  Nothing is too flashy, it is just his shot choices and compositions are all so perfect, and when he does do something different, it just adds to the suspense.  There is a moment of slow motion used towards the end of the film that is just brilliant, as you really fear for Marilyn’s safety in this moment.  These days the use of slow motion is way over-done to the point it has lost its effectiveness, but by only using it in a key sequence here, China shows how powerful the technique can still be.

Something that I find a little frustrating is the fact that “Crawl” is often called “slow” or a “slow burn” type film.  This couldn’t be further from the truth; it is just that today’s audience apparently needs something to happen every ten minutes to keep their attention.  This is a throwback to the way films were made in the past, simply and economically, and these things do not make a film “slow”.

The performances from the three main actors are pretty good although Georgina Haig stands out in her role as Marilyn.  She is outstanding going from the giggly and nervous girl expecting to be proposed to and then becoming the terrified girl who is willing to do anything to survive.  I really loved her performance, it just felt so real, and I particularly loved the scenes of her getting the house ready for Travis’s arrival.  It doesn’t hurt that Haig is also extremely beautiful.  The way that George Shevtsov portrays the villainous “Croatian” is as a very slick, and quiet professional.  He says little and doesn’t come across in his manner as very aggressive but there is no doubt that the man has a dark soul, which is brilliantly shown in the final scene of the film, with his wry smile as he knowingly destroys someone’s life (incidentally the final shot of the film is just perfect).  The way China has dressed Shevtsov and framed him in his shots, he has created an almost mythic quality to “The Croatian” character.  In some ways, he reminds a lot of Anton Chigurh from the Coen Brother’s “No Country For Old Men” (which “Crawl” resembles a lot of at times).  He just comes across bigger than he really is in the world.  Paul Holmes, who plays Slim Walding, gives an over the top and broad performance that for me, didn’t always work.  He had moments when I thought his portrayal worked, but the majority of the time it just fell flat for me.

As impressive as “Crawl” is, I think Paul China still needs to work on his writing, as this was definitely the weak point of the film.  Dialogue was far too simple and (again) broad, and it was all stuff we had heard countless times in these sorts of films.  Personally, I believe China is smart enough to know his deficiencies, which is why he relies so heavily on the visuals in the second half of the film.  In terms of plot, there is one major moment that makes little sense that involves the victim of a road accident, which I don’t want to mention in case I reveal too much about the film.  

Just briefly I need to mention the work of Christopher Gordon who provided the music score for “Crawl”.  If there is one thing in the film that could be considered derivative of films past it would be the score as it echoes a lot of the work from the great Bernard Herrmann (not to mention a little Pino Donaggio), but do you know what, I couldn’t care less because the music was so effective, it just added to the already amazing level of suspense and tension.

Overall, this is such an impressive first feature by the China Brothers (Benjamin China is credited as producer, although I am not sure if this is like the Coen Brothers where both have had part in all duties, but one takes the directors credit, while the other the producers credit), and I am seriously looking forward to their future work.  It is obvious that the understand the thriller / horror genre and are no doubt fans of it themselves (the main female character is named after the main actress in Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”).  Their build up of suspense is brilliant, and it is so good to see a film rely heavily on the build-up rather than the gore of the pay-off.  Do not get me wrong though, as “Crawl” has enough bloody moments in it to satisfy fans too.  The other thing I loved was that this was a film that relied more on camera placement and movement rather than special effects.  I long for the day filmmakers remember that if you tell your story well, you do not need the spectacular of special effects.  It is clear that the China Brothers understand this and behind the strength of their first feature, I hope they have a very long career.  

3.5 Stars.

LOOPER

Just from a viewing of the trailer for “Looper” one would get the feeling that the film is just a futuristic thriller based on time travel, but believe me, there is a whole lot more going on in “Looper” than that.  When I entered the cinema to watch the film, I was doing so on the name value of Rian Johnson, the writer / director of “Looper”.  I absolutely adored his previous feature, the caper comedy “The Brothers Bloom”, and was thoroughly looking forward to his new film but had deliberately stayed away from learning too much about it beforehand.  The film was made with little about the plot being given out with the exception that it was going to be a sci-fi film, but eventually information started to trickle out.  Still when the trailer finally arrived, I found myself only watching it the once, and to be honest, it was a little disappointing; I thought it looked very generic.  However, I was always going to see it regardless because it was Rian Johnson’s new film, and I am happy to report that “Looper” turned out to be the most intelligent and entertaining “mainstream” film that I have had the pleasure to sit through at the multiplexes in quite some time.

Like everything I seem to review on this blog, “Looper” is best when you know as little as possible about it going in, so I will only give you the bare essentials.  “Looper” is set in the future in the year 2042, a time when time-travel has yet to be invented.  Thirty years from that future though it has been invented and then immediately outlawed.  However if a criminal organization wants a target eliminated and all traces of his existence gone, they illegally send the target back in time to the year 2042 where they are assassinated by a select group of men known as loopers.  The job of a looper is a grand one because it pays well and you get to live the high life which in the future of 2042 is something a lot of folks do not get to see, as it appears the world is completely rundown and the economy has collapsed.  The only rule of being a looper is that you cannot ever let your target escape, even if the target is your future self.  Our main character Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper and has abided by this rules and enjoyed its perks since getting the job, however when the inevitable day comes that his future self is sent back to him, he is initially distracted by the appearance of his older self, which gives the Old Joe (Bruce Willis) the time to knock him out and escape.  Knowing he has broken the ultimate rule of a looper, Joe realizes that he must find his future self before he himself is eliminated for failing in his duties.  While he is intent on finding and killer his future self, something is bugging him about the appearance of the Old Joe.  Normally when his victims are sent to him they are bound and hooded, where as his older self was neither.  It soon becomes a battle over whose life is more important or worthy to be saved as both versions of the same man are fighting for their lives.

That is a pretty convoluted and confusing write up about the film, but let me tell you that I have truly left out the majority of the film’s secrets and plot.  One thing that I loved while watching “Looper” was that it suddenly hit me that I had no idea what was going to happen next.  I cannot tell you the last time I entered a film and didn’t know what to expect, but it was exhilarating.  As I mentioned above, I thought “Looper” was an absolutely amazing film experience, it was brilliantly written, filled with complex ideas and characters and it went to places, both dark (very dark) and deep, that I was not expecting.  I mention the film being brave and that is because it actually has the balls to follow through on an idea that would be shocking for most, and yet is crucial for the film to work in a serious manner.  It is very hard to talk about without giving anything away but it is along the lines of the idea of whether or not you would be able to kill Hitler as a child (whilst he is still innocent of any crime) if you knew of the atrocities he would commit in the future.  I can understand film distributors would be very uncomfortable with this part of the film and I am sure it would have made the film hard to get made because of it, but even though it is so disturbing, I love the fact that the filmmakers were brave enough to follow through with the idea and not dodge it.

In terms of filmmaking, Rian Johnson continues to get better and more confident with each film.  He really knows how to use the camera to tell his story and yet he is never overly flashy with his camera moves.  It is a well known fact that I love the visual side of cinema, and again, I was blown away by the visuals of “Looper”.  For a futuristic time-travel thriller, the look of the film is quite subdued; it is not filled with flying cars, laser beams or giant metropolises, it actually has an old time feel to it which I really responded to.  Particularly when they end up in the corn fields of Kansas, it actually had a 1950’s feel to it all.  Production design on “Looper” is never flashy, but is incredibly detailed and the world created feels real and lived in, making it much more believable than the CGI filled worlds we are now so used to in futuristic films these days.  The glorious widescreen photography by Johnson’s regular cinematographer, Steve Yedlin, is the highlight of the film for me, especially again during the scenes at the house in the corn fields.  His use of the autumn colours of brown and yellows are masterful and he creates both an inviting and sinister environment around the same place.

Acting wise, the majority of the cast does a great job.  Current “it” guy of the moment, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fantastic as the younger version of Joe intent on fulfilling his job description and hunting down his future self.  Levitt has undergone some facial adjustments here (in an attempt to make it more plausible that he would grow to look like Bruce Willis) and the effects are marvelous.  It is very obvious that it is Levitt playing the character, but your eyes know that something is different about him but it is hard to pinpoint what exactly, and yet it is never distracting.  I have got to admit, I really liked his look in “Looper”, it gave him a much harder edge than he usually portrays.  The older Joe is played by Bruce Willis, and if there is any weakness in the film it is in his performance.  He just plays the role too broadly and doesn’t seem to commit to the role as strongly as Levitt.  It is not that he is bad in the role, but there still seems to be a lot of “Bruce Willis” in his portrayal; he doesn’t lose himself in the character.  My favourite performance in “Looper” though is from the always magnificent Emily Blunt, who plays the character of Sara, and lives in the house situated in the cornfields I keep mentioning.  Blunt, a British thespian, plays an Southern American here and I thought her accent was so spot-on and convincing, she is just amazing.  I do not want to reveal too much about her role here but I will say that a lot of the heart and emotion of the film comes from her character and because of this she has a number of demanding scenes which she performs perfectly.  At times she has to be incredibly tough, while moments later she needs to be tender, and she transitions from each mood very smoothly and realistically.  As well as these three main roles, both Paul Dano and especially Jeff Daniels provide great support in smaller roles; in fact I thought Daniels was brilliantly cast against type.

I briefly mentioned the script before which has been smartly written and importantly hasn’t been dumbed down for its audience.  Johnson clearly respects his audience and their intelligence and as such doesn’t overemphasize moments in an attempt to make sure we understand and thus losing the magic of the said moments.  While up front and center, “Looper” certainly appears to be a thriller about time travel, this actually isn’t the case.  The film has a much more emotional center and has more to do with love, or how far people are willing to go for the loved ones in their lives.  As such the time travel aspect is more of a device and is often put into the background.  Knowing that the themes of “Looper” are more important than the time travel aspect of the story, Johnson doesn’t want the audience to get too caught up in the paradoxes of time travel and as such he has two characters at different times in the film mention this very point with Jeff Daniels’ character saying it best when he says “This time travel crap, just fries your brain like an egg….”.

Overall, I absolutely loved Rian Johnson’s “Looper”, and it was definitely the best mainstream film I have seen in a very long time.  Every aspect of the film was done brilliantly and thoughtfully, and something rare in cinema these days, “Looper” has a perfect ending, that relies less on guns and more on heart.  I cannot recommend this film enough, so even if you were put off by the generic trailer, I urge you to take a chance on “Looper” because I am sure you will get a lot more out of it than you would be expecting.

4.5 Stars.  

 

BURNING MAN

The reviews that I always find the hardest to write are for those movies that I really love.  I never feel like I can express well enough exactly what makes the film special and I also struggle not to include spoilers even though I would prefer audiences to go cold into these special films.  “Burning Man” is a film that I love and I am going to do my best to explain why.

Right from the start of the film we are thrown into the thick of the story without knowing anything about what is going on.  We are given disjointed images and scenes that are not even presented in any sort of chronological order, scenes may be in the present, and the next from the past, and the next, again, may be from the future.  Character definitions and relationships are all kept hidden from us due to this disjointed style and the relationships we think we understand from these opening minutes turn out to be entirely different.  Some audiences, I believe, could find the opening of “Burning Man” to be incredibly frustrating due to it being very hard to be certain exactly what is going on, but for me, I loved the opening and the confusion deliberately caused at the start.  It intrigued me right from the opening frame and sharpened my mind for what was to come.

As I alluded to, “Burning Man” works so much better without knowing too much about the plot going in, but what I can tell you is that the center of the film is the character of Tom (played by Matthew Goode), who plays a British chef living in Australia with his wife and young son.  When the images of the beginning start to become clearer we learn that Tom is dealing (and not very well, mind you) with a tragedy that has recently hit his family.  Not only is he struggling to come to terms with what has happened but he is also using his grief in an overly manipulative way with his friends and family by becoming incredibly selfish and aggressive.  Although it is never intentional, he believes that the world owes him something and he can get away with doing or saying anything and everyone will accept it due to his grief.  He begins to head down a path of self destruction as he starts ignoring both his family and work duties, but is he able to bring himself back in time, because we know through one of the opening images that Tom is involved in a serious car accident.  Is this a result of his not caring about the world anymore or will the accident sharpen his mind and refocus him about what is really important in life?

“Burning Man” is an incredibly personal project for director Jonathan Teplitzky who went through a similar trauma to what the character of Tom is going through.  Although it never went to the extant shown in the film, Teplitzky also found that he was using his grief as a crutch, and this was the seed that grew into the film we have now.  Teplitzky does an amazing job telling this heartbreaking story and making it seem so real.  He never over-sentimentalizes moments to tug at the heartstrings which is a smart move because he creates enough real emotion in the story he is telling.  I suspect telling aspects of your own story would be a challenge simply because you would want the audience to feel what you went through yourself, so making the film sentimental would’ve been a huge trap, which luckily Teplitzky does not fall into.  He is also brave at creating a character who is so unlikable and then him have be the person you want the audience to sympathize with.  Tom is such a selfish person, at least when you initially meet him, that you think it is going to be a chore to sit through two hours with the guy, but luckily Teplitzky shows us the man before the tragedy struck and he is a completely different person, so loving and caring towards his family and friends, and you can see why his friends would stick by him even after his appalling behavior.  The other brave decision Teplitzky made was in the way he decided to present the story to the audience, in the frenetic non-linear and heavily edited style.  It is a decision that could seriously alienate some viewers but for me it was totally mesmerizing.  I never once felt like Teplitzky did not have a hold on his story, and instead of being confused by the constantly changing timelines shown, I was intrigued.  It created a suspense of just wanting to know exactly what happened to this man.  I also loved that images that you thought had a certain meaning at the start of the film turned out to mean something completely different by the end.  The way the film had been edited if done poorly could’ve caused the film to implode in on itself, but the work by Martin Connor here is just exemplary.

As much as the story belongs to Jonathan Teplitzky, the film belongs to Matthew Goode who gives a truly amazing central performance as Tom.  The amount of different emotions he has to project here is enormous and he nails every one, never under or overplaying a moment.  He does a great job at presenting a seriously unlikable fellow in the first half of the film, and yet an utterly charming man when we witness his past.  He is always very real and in the moment, and I especially loved scenes when he got angry about what he was going through (I would love to talk about the scene in question here, but to do so would give away the mystery of the whole film).  Tom goes through quite the emotional journey throughout “Burning Man” and Goode never makes a wrong beat throughout.  

Besides Goode, the rest of the cast are uniformly excellent with everyone giving beautifully nuanced performances.  I was absolutely blown away by Bojana Novakovic who plays Tom’s wife, Sarah, and who is equally going through some tough emotions of her own.  Like Tom, Sarah goes through quite a transformation of her own, and again Novakovic’s portrayal is always honest and real.  She is also just luminous to look at.  I think this is the first time I have seen her on screen but she is stunning.  The other performance I want to mention is that of Essie Davis who plays Sarah’s sister, Karen.  Although her screen time is limited whenever she is on screen you sit up and take notice.  I should also mention that there are some nice turns by veteran actors Rachel Griffiths and Garry McDonald in bit parts also.

I cannot finish this review without mentioning the cinematography by Garry Phillips, it is stunningly gorgeous.  He makes Bondi look amazing and I couldn’t help but notice an amazing similarity to Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life”, with even certain images from both films almost looking the same.  Since both films were released in the same year, this appears to be one of those coincidences that happens from time to time, but to be named in the same sentence as Lubezki, is the highest praise for Phillips in my eyes.

Overall, I just loved “Burning Man” and was incredibly moved by the entire experience of watching it.  It has been brilliantly shot, edited, written and directed by all involved, and the actors portraying their roles are all magnificent.  My favourite scene of the whole film is when we are witness to the characters being told of the tragedy, and we as an audience are so incredibly moved by the entire thing, even though we are yet to meet the character in question.  This is an amazing feat by director Teplitzky to make us care about the fate of a character we do not even know.  The way the story has been presented is exhilarating cinema in my eyes, and while it could cause frustration in some viewer’s eyes, without it “Burning Man” could have turned into a generic “movie of the week” weepie.  Instead by being brave, Teplitzky has almost created a masterpiece with this very personal work.  I cannot recommend this film enough.

4.5 Stars.