Reviews
Kynodontas (2009)
Thought-provoking
This movie can be seen as an allegory for the deceptions committed by parents, governments, and all those in positions of authority, in the name of safety and protection. Yet despite the horror of the situation the movie ends on a hopeful note, affirming the impossibility of suppressing the innate human desire for freedom.
I wouldn't say I enjoyed this film, but it did give me something to think about. Other commenters have complained that the movie is slow moving and at times even boring. This is true, but it's not exactly a fair criticism. You could make a movie with the same premise but more plot or character driven, but that would result in an entirely different movie. If you're in the mood for an uncomfortable but thought-provoking film, then this might be the film for you.
Un dimanche à la campagne (1984)
(Not Just) A Sunday in the Country
I think this film can be appreciated on several levels. For some viewers, this is just a happy family portrait, reflecting a more peaceful time and recalling one's own memories of family outings and quiet Sunday afternoons. I think this point of view is mistaken, but I can see why people feel this way. The film is externally slow- moving and peaceful, like a sunny river. But like a river, there are strong currents lurking, invisible, under the surface -- currents that cannot be seen, but only observed indirectly from their effects.
There's a lot more going on here than just ninety minutes of bucolic peacefulness. Pay attention to the details, the small looks and gestures, the things said and things left unsaid. You can almost see the fine strands that link the characters, like a spiderweb, where each character's movements are felt by all the others. The role of the narrator, often disparaged in film, is used effectively here, giving the film a somewhat novel-like quality and reminding the viewer of their presence as an observer.
There's more to be said about this film, but I don't feel quite up to it. In any case, the real meaning of the film can't easily be described in words -- which is a good thing, or the film would be unnecessary. So watch the film yourself, if you haven't already, and see what you think.
Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko (1994)
Impressive
I find it hard to summarize this film, since it is sort of all over the place. The main plot of the film involves the tanuki (raccoon-dogs) of the Tama hills near Tokyo and their struggle against the encroaching development that is destroying their woods. As the tanuki attempt to defend their home through the use of their shape-shifting abilities, they are also challenged by an inability to agree on the best course of action and a growing sense that their efforts may be inevitably doomed to failure.
The film, like its tanuki characters, seemed a bit unfocused at times, especially towards the end. Indeed, the plot mainly served as a set-up for showing a succession tanuki antics. Admittedly, said antics were very entertaining, but at 2 hours of runtime I'd prefer a little more narrative support.
Some have referred to this movie as environmentalist in nature, but viewed from that standpoint, it is actually somewhat weak. I was especially disappointed by the ending, which I thought failed to make any meaningful comment on the sequence of events depicted in the movie. Without giving too much away, it seemed like the movie was saying, "Development and urban sprawl are inevitable, but oh well. At least there are still golf courses and parks!" It was as if the people making the film didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I have nothing against ambiguity, especially with such a broad theme as the conflict between humans and nature, but I thought the overall effect of the film was wishy-washy, avoiding more serious questions for the sake of preserving a lighthearted tone.
The best aspects of this film in my opinion were its unrestrained playfulness, wacky sense of humor, and use of Japanese culture and folklore, much of which was largely unfamiliar to me as a Western viewer. The art and animation were also quite well done, with realistic natural elements rendered quite convincingly and an overall visual harmony between the static backgrounds and animated figures. Despite the shortcomings mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, I enjoyed this film quite a bit. 7 / 10.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Poorly executed
This film sounds interesting, but unfortunately it is not very good. The basic plot outline is that some schoolgirls and a teacher disappear while on a picnic to a local landmark. Attempts to find them are unsuccessful, and the mystery is never explained. I find this interesting because there are several real-life events that are somewhat like this, for example the Dyatlov Pass incident and the Mary Celeste. And indeed, what is interesting about the events is not the explanation, but the mystery itself, so the fact that the mystery remains unresolved at the end of the film doesn't bother me.
However, despite its potential, several things about this film do not "work", in my opinion. First of all, the time period and setting are not executed convincingly. I can't really put my finger on it, but there is an artificial feel to the film and its characters that makes it impossible to believe that these are real people in a real time period. Granted, the characters are fictional, but the film fails to effectively create the illusion of a cohesive reality.
In addition to this, the film is rather heavy-handed with its delivery of themes. For example, setting the picnic on Valentine's Day seemed unnecessary. The description of the rock as the girls are riding in the carriage is another overly blunt attempt at symbolism: "Siliceous lava forced up from deep down below..." Yeah yeah, repressed Victorian sexuality, whatever. This is the sort of thing much better shown through actions and visuals than communicated so directly. The repetition of "important" lines at later points in the film also seemed over-the- top and unnecessary. Clearly the director did not trust the viewers enough to let them figure this stuff out for themselves.
Finally, the film suffered from plotting and pacing issues. In contrast to some of the reviewers here, I actually thought the film had too much action, not too little. Despite its slow-moving feel, the film actually jumps from one event to the next for the entire film. First the girls disappear, then there's the investigation, then Michael and Albert return to the rock, then Michael is found by Albert, then Irma is found, and so on and so on. It's like the writer is afraid we'll get bored with the film if we don't have something new to consider every few minutes. Unfortunately, all these peripheral events distract from the film's essence and diffuse its energy, leaving little time to fully explore the strangeness of the first disappearance or its effects on the remaining characters.
To conclude, though built on an intriguing premise, this film lacked the subtlety, insight, and craftsmanship necessary to develop its premise in any meaningful way.
Neko no ongaeshi (2002)
Great setting, bland story
I guess to begin I'll summarize the movie as I saw it. Initially, the story starts out with an ordinary female student experiencing the minor ups and downs of secondary school. This goes on for a while, but the real action begins when the protagonist saves a cat crossing the street and is drawn into the bizarre, fantastic, and wonderful world of sentient talking cats. The cat world was so original and absurd that I found myself frequently laughing out loud with delight as I watched. Eventually the protagonist gets out of an arranged marriage and makes her way back to the human world with the help of some friendly cats and some animated statues. Along the way she has gained confidence in herself, or something like that.
From the summary, you can tell that this is a pretty typical hero's journey / coming of age type of story. Unfortunately, the movie was too short for the story to properly develop. At an hour and a quarter of run time, there is simply not enough room to create and develop characters, introduce a fantastical world, and carry out a plot before the ending. The result was that these various elements (characterization, setting, and plot) all competed for screen time and none of them were really done justice.
This was not helped by the writing and characterization, which were quite weak and formulaic. In particular, the supposed personal transformation the protagonist experiences is just not believable. The protagonist is so little developed (she spends most of her time making various dismayed gasps) that she really functions more as a MacGuffin on legs than an actual character.
Of the three elements of narrative -- character, plot, and setting, I felt the setting was the best developed. As I mentioned before, I loved the sheer ridiculousness of the Cat Kingdom, somewhat reminiscent of the imperial court of feudal Japan, as well as the dollhouse-coming- to-life aesthetic of the Cat Bureau. Of course, we only get to see a small part of this world, but I felt like the setting had greater potential that could've been explored in more depth.
If the creators intended to make the movie a travelogue of the Cat Kingdom, they should have tightened up the story to spend as much time as possible in the fantasy world, and removed some of the irrelevant details from the protagonist's home life. On the other hand, if they wanted to tell an actual story, they should have taken more time to do so and maybe put some real effort into the writing and character development. They could've even done both if the movie were longer. Instead, they aimed somewhere in the middle and achieved neither.
As a complete work, I'd consider this movie a failure, but I'm giving it 6 stars for the imaginative world and for making me laugh.
Broken Flowers (2005)
Terrible
This movie attempts to be wise and subtle, but the whole thing is incredibly, painfully fake. Right away the audience gets to see what kind of movie it will be. The main character Don is talking to his neighbor on the phone. The neighbor offers him coffee. "Will it be a cup of... Ethiopian coffee?" Don asks. Here we have an entire line solely for the purpose of telling the audience that the neighbors are Ethiopian. I think that's when I realized that the movie was going to be awful. (The stiff interaction with Don's current girlfriend was bad too, but I figured it might be an outlier. The Ethiopian coffee proved it was part of a larger trend.)
I would have stopped watching at that point, but I had paid money to rent the film so I felt obligated to sit through it. The movie basically goes from bad to... equally bad. Bill Murray plays Bill Murray, as usual. We soon meet his (Ethiopian) neighbor Winston, who plays the part of the quirky, cheerful spirit guide character for our hero. Not much more to say about him. With the prompting of his sidekick, Murray grudgingly goes on a journey in search of his past partners and possible progeny. Each of these former girlfriends apparently represents a different stage in his life, from lusty (and lustful) youth, to grim middle age, to the bitterness and decay of aging, and finally to death. After completing his journey Murray returns to where he started, but with newfound perspective. Instead of worrying about some past love, maybe he should settle down with that colorless woman from the start of the film, he thinks... (Things are looking pretty bleak at that point.)
At the end of the film, Murray meets a kid who might be his son and buys him some food. There he delivers some pearls of wisdom, possibly intended to sum up the lesson he's learned from his travels: the past is gone, the future hasn't happened yet, so the present is all you've got. "Are you a Buddhist?" the young philosopher wonderingly asks Murray. (The poor kid -- he should give up philosophy and take up a less mentally challenging pursuit, like screen writing.) Then the kid runs off, there's a momentary, confusing shot of Murray's real-life son driving by, and Murray is left standing at a crossroads to ponder what to do next.
To summarize: this movie was intended to be a thought-provoking portrait of a man revisiting his past and confronting his own character, but it was written with all the emotional depth and humanity of a romantic comedy. The result was painfully insincere, uncomfortable, and often boring. In a word, terrible.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
Eugh...
When I saw this film, I initially thought it was incredibly unrealistic. But it turns out, to my surprise, the historical aspects of this film are pretty close to reality. Apparently dance marathons in the 1920s and 30s, also known as "walkathons", did proceed something like the one depicted in the film. Many of the details of the competition — 10 minutes of sleep per hour, several meals a day eaten while standing, sponsors, contestant performances, the proposed "wedding", special endurance events — actually occurred in historical dance marathons. Even the ending is not too far from reality — in 1928 a Seattle woman attempted suicide after finishing in fifth in one such competition.
However, despite the apparent historical accuracy of this film, it remained unconvincing due to poor writing and characterization. The character played by Jane Fonda was supposed to seem desperate and bitter, I think, but just came off as cruel and dislikable. She wasn't just defensive, she seemed to go out of her way to hurt and antagonize those around her. What a b****, seriously. The male lead was also underdeveloped; his only character traits were a sort of perpetual bewilderment and a vague fondness for the ocean and/or the sun. The MC was probably supposed to seem like a long-time showman with occasional moments of sympathy for the contestants, but his alternations between kindness and callousness just seemed inconsistent. The other characters functioned as sort of bipedal set pieces and were given even less depth and development than the main characters. In fact, the only development that seemed to happen during the film was a long, slow slide into exhaustion, both for the characters and the audience.
This brings me to my second complaint — the pacing was rather poor. Due to the nature of the competition, there were long periods where nothing was happening. These could have been used to give us some more insight into the characters' thoughts, feelings, or motivations but instead the audience was treated to periods of boredom, sporadically broken up by miscellaneous events, few of which had any real significance to the story. The ending just came out of nowhere for me, although I figured out midway through what was going to happen due to the clumsily-administered flashbacks and film title. It was as if, after reaching a certain desired length for the film, they decided it had to end somehow and this was the quickest way. Since we never really got to see why the whole thing mattered so much to the female lead, there was no motivation for her sudden plunge into suicidal despair at the end. The intended metaphor is of a broken-legged horse, writhing in suffering on the ground. But all that I saw in front of me was a bitter woman who was apparently unable to cope with the tragedy of a ripped stocking, an unsuccessful acting career, and a rigged endurance competition. And the laconic male lead, while seeming to exude a sort of naive sympathy for everyone around him, didn't seem to have any good reason for assisting in the act. If he really cared about the Jane Fonda character, he would've taken the gun away from her and put her to bed.
There were a couple of other things that bothered me here and there. One thing was the pointless partner-swapping somewhere in the middle of the film. The Fonda character has known the Sarrazin character for a few weeks at most, most of which was spent shuffling around half-asleep. Why would she even care if he sleeps with some woman? The whole thing just seemed contrived and unnecessary. A second quibble was with one of the last scenes of the movie, where the male lead utters the movie's line that makes the movie's title. To all you would-be screenwriters out there: DON'T EXPLAIN THE F***ING SYMBOLISM! It's enough to show the woman falling down like the horse in the meadow. We don't need to have the guy specifically tell the audience what it meant.
If I had to say the one defining flaw of the movie, it was that it spent too much time showing us the particulars of the event and not enough letting us get to know the characters. Interestingly enough, by placing the focus on the event itself and not on its participants, the film effectively denies the characters their humanity, showing them instead as little more than livestock. As a result, the drama is reduced to spectacle and the viewer is placed in the same role as the people who attended these events back in the 20s and 30s. I don't think this was intentional, but it was still interesting. It kind of makes you wonder: why am I watching this?
Cast Away (2000)
Flawed, but worth watching
When I first saw this movie, I enjoyed it. But I had a nagging feeling that something was off. Upon reflection, I realized what the problem was: the movie is actually very poorly written. In fact, the only thing that saves it is Hanks's powerful, largely wordless depiction of a man struggling to survive in the harsh environment where he has been stranded. Everything else about the movie is pretty bad. Here are a few of the main flaws.
Poor dialog and characterization: The characters don't behave like real people, they behave like movie characters. A classic sign of an untalented writer. This is especially true of the main character, Chuck, who undergoes the largest amount of development. His character changes, but everything basically occurs offscreen. First we are presented with an exaggerated caricature of a work-obsessed businessman. Once he arrives at the island, we see him face some of the challenges of life away from civilization. Then four years later, we see the character transformed into a kind of Robinson Crusoe, toughened by years on the island, grimly determined to survive in his harsh environment. Finally, we see him back in society, pretty much the same as before but more subdued, having found new meaning in his life as a result of his isolation. This is all well and good, but the problem is that the movie doesn't really give insight into the nature of this transformation, it just tells us the results. There's not really a sense of gradual change, just "before" and "after" pictures.
This leads to the second major flaw, a poorly delivered message. The message itself -- that we should appreciate life, pursue the things that matter to us while we still can, remain open to new opportunities, and so on -- is a good one, though certainly one that we've all heard before. But the writer, in delivering this message, uses the same tactic of telling the viewer what to think rather than showing it naturally. The main character even has a monologue where he tells his friend (and the viewer) what he's learned from his time on the island. And the movie ends with a particularly blatant scene of the main character standing at a literal crossroads as he considers his future. The writer clearly thinks that viewers are idiots and won't understand the message without scenes like this. Give the viewers some credit! That kind of didacticism is both unnecessary and ineffective. It cheapens the message to the level of a greeting card or self-help book.
The third major problem is inept pacing. In an attempt to create a certain unity of action, the writer introduces us to all of the characters before the island part, then shows us them all again at the end. This isn't always a bad thing, but he spends far too long doing so. A more skilled writer could suggest all of this background with a few deft strokes. This writer, though, gets bogged down trying to show us all the details and tie up the loose ends. This is distracting and tedious, especially given the unrealistic dialog as I already mentioned. Also, it gives the movie a distinct sense of unevenness. Nothing really happens during the beginning and end scenes. The writer is just telling the viewer the setup (at the beginning) or telling the viewer the epilogue and delivering the moral (at the end). The result is that instead of a natural sequence of rising and falling action, we are given a kind of "plot inselberg" (in a double sense) in the middle surrounded by flat, rolling hills of boring exposition at the beginning and end.
Even with so many flaws, I'd still recommend this movie. Tom Hanks gives a truly gripping portrayal of a man almost completely cut off from society, forced to depend entirely on himself for survival. For best results, just fast forward until you see the main couple opening presents in the car, then turn off the movie after the scene with the cargo ship. The rest is just a waste of time.
Labyrinth (1986)
Pretty good, not great
I think this was a fine movie, and it was interesting to see the puppetry, 80s soundtrack, and so on, but the core story was pretty average. For someone very familiar with the hero's journey (I used to read a lot of fantasy novels as a kid), this movie had little new to offer. I don't have a problem with this tried-and-true story structure, but the movie just didn't do a particularly good job of executing it.
While the basic motivation for the plot (a wish gone awry, more or less) has good potential for a story, the goblin king seems a little too wooden for the setup to really be convincing. Does he actually want to keep the child, or is his real intention to give the heroine a test of character? It seems like the answer is neither. He repeatedly professes dismay at Sarah's progress, yet does little to stop her and seems to be strangely uninterested in what's happening. Bowie certainly looked the part but I think his uninflected portrayal failed to be compelling overall.
Another thing I thought was problematic was the lack of real threat in the story. Throughout the movie, the heroine encounters trials such as: getting lost, falling in a hole, and having to cross a bad-smelling swamp. I understand the movie was geared towards children, but I think the level of menace and dramatic tension could have been increased without making the movie too family-unfriendly. After all, kids already know fear. There are certainly things I fear as an adult, but nothing can equal my childhood terror at the thought of raccoons (don't laugh), terrible creatures of the darkness that invaded our yard to shatter our illusions of suburban security and raid our trash cans. But I digress. My point is, the challenges faced by the heroine seem pretty tame even by kids' movie standards.
The final abyss was especially weak. Rather than a climactic scene in which the heroine has to confront her own inner demons, she instead has to overcome... Escherian staircases? Then she struggles to remember a monologue (as the main antagonist waits patiently) and finally triumphs when she utters the last line: "You have no power over me". Well, that's all well and good, but it really could have been a lot better. (Even "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" had a more exciting climax, and in that story the main antagonist was inclement weather!)
Still, the movie had some good messages about responsibility and growing up, the power of friendship and kindness, and so on. And it was pretty imaginative. It's something I wouldn't mind my kids watching, if I ever have kids. All in all, it was pretty good -- just not great.
The Fall (2006)
Not good
As a work of audiovisual literature, this movie was an utter failure. The plot, such as it was, was not particularly interesting. Characterization was minimal, a fact which was worsened by several very poor acting performances (especially from Waddell and Pace). The narrative pacing was uneven and the direction felt cluttered and at times incoherent.
That being said, the visuals of this movie were truly wonderful. The environments were dreamlike, evocative, beautiful. Really the only thing that gave the movie any structure at all were the visual motifs linking people, ideas, and themes. But unfortunately visuals alone were not enough to save the movie.
The Artist (2011)
Very Okay
Well, this movie was... okay. Not great, not terrible. It's an interesting idea to try making a silent film (in fact, I thought the places where the film did use sound effects were rather silly), but I think they should have tried to make a more substantial movie instead of relying on the style as a gimmick. The plot was rather thin for the most part and parts of it seemed a bit overwrought. I had no particular problems with the acting, at least not with the lead parts, but there wasn't a whole lot of interest to the characters because their roles were so one-dimensional. I'd be interested to see what could be done with silent films if the filmmakers weren't trapped in the idea of making some kind of "tribute" instead of adding something of their own to the work.
Mary and Max. (2009)
Woah
This movie, like most things, had good and bad aspects. I will first enumerate the bad things, then the good ones.
One of the more off-putting things about this movie, for me, was its art style. People and animals are depicted in grotesquely distorted forms. I'm not sure what the purpose was for doing this. Another problem with the film was its tendency towards crude humor, lame visual gags, and slapstick comedy. As with the distorted figures, this aspect of the film did not seem to contribute positively to the work as a whole and I'm not sure why these moments of silliness were included. Perhaps the filmmakers were trying to avoid idealizing their subjects, but I think they went too far in the other direction. In general, I thought the film's explicit attempts at humor tended to misfire. For me, the humor in the film came from the characters themselves and not from things like watching goldfish be killed in a series of unlikely accidents. Another problem with the film is that its secondary characters tended to be one- dimensional, and most of them were killed off by the end of the film, either to provide "humor", advance the plot, or both. It seemed contradictory to me that the film explored the main characters' lives with such understanding and sympathy, yet treated the secondary characters as little more than moving scenery pieces.
Despite the complaints I have listed above, this film moved me deeply and I was actually in tears by the end. That's not something that happens often. So what about this film was so powerful? Its main characters. The letters the two characters write are extremely believable and yield so much information about each character. In fact, it didn't take long before I stopped thinking about Mary and Max as characters, and started thinking of them as real people. I felt that I could personally relate to both of them, and that was why the film had such a strong emotional impact on me. But the movie goes further than just creating convincing characters. Through the lives of the characters and the evolving relationship between them, the movie touches delicately on topics like loneliness, friendship, depression, disability, and what it really means to be human. (I think the film also tried to capture something of the scope of life's journey and the passage of time, but it was less successful at addressing this.)
Overall, I think the movie tried to do many things, but it really only succeeded at one thing, which was depicting the evolution of the relationship between Max and Mary. But where it succeeded, it really succeeded. 7/10 stars.
Waitress (2007)
Just awful
Here's a brief summary of this mess of a film. A young waitress and pie-maker is trapped in an unhappy marriage. After becoming pregnant, she mopes around and has an affair for about an hour and a half, after which all her problems are solved by cute baby footage and a kindly old moneybags ex machina.
Plotting, as you may have guessed from the above summary, suffered from the writer's obvious lack of talent. In terms of dramatic action, the movie basically introduced its premise (a pregnant woman in an unhappy situation has an affair with her doctor), stagnated for an extended period of time, and then resolved everything suddenly at the end as Earl, Dr. Pomatter, and Old Joe simultaneously vanish in a puff of smoke. This is not how you make a plot!
I can't really comment on characterization in this film, because there weren't any characters. The worst portrayal was the husband Earl, a ridiculously exaggerated figure with no redeeming qualities or really any qualities at all beyond being mean. The lead character was also very poorly drawn – I think she was supposed to represent a strong character trapped in a bad situation, but in reality she did almost nothing for the whole movie before suddenly finding her true calling as a mother. She didn't develop in any way – basically she just suffered for a while and then had all her problems solved by money and a divorce. The doctor is as much of an empty shell as everyone else. Pretty much all he does is make doctor-like remarks that sound about as realistic as the setup for a pornographic scene, mixed with unconvincing declarations of feeling. I suppose he is supposed to seem sincere and romantic, but it just doesn't work.
The Help (2011)
Not Believable
I thought that this movie was supposed to be set in the American South in the 1960s. But really it seems to be set in an alternate universe where nothing makes any sense. How is it that the protagonist has grown up in the same society as all the other (racist) women, yet has a completely modern, 21st century viewpoint? Things just don't work that way.
Racism in the movie was portrayed as a pervasive but ultimately trivial issue. The movie reduced racism to the petty meanness of society ladies, largely skirting issues such as sexual harassment and mob violence. We have one scene of police brutality and another scene with a vague reference to a shooting, but these events seem to come out of nowhere and vanish without a trace afterward. What happens to the woman who is arrested, after the arrest? We never find out.
Another thing that bothered me about this movie was how the black women are portrayed as largely feeble and helpless until the white women ("Skeeter" and Celia, in particular) teach them to stand up for themselves. This was partly due to the fact that the movie was, first and foremost, about Eugenia's coming-of-age experience and not about "the help" at all. But still, it was dissatisfying.
In addition to these issues, the characterization was rather poor and the cinematography was nothing special.
I wish I were more well-versed in history, so I really lay into this movie properly. But even as my uninformed self, I could tell that there were many things wrong with this movie. Not recommended.
The Apartment (1960)
Really great, but not quite perfect
I'd like to begin with saying that this film was very well-done. I'm not going to elaborate on that -- I'm no film expert, and anyway, that's what professional critics are for. What I really want to talk about is something else, something more about the film's overall narrative structure than about the cinematography or directing or acting.
The movie starts out looking like some kind of light satire, having a laugh or two about those womanizing executives or what-have-you. But the story soon begins to take on more dimensions -- romance appears, the satire begins get more serious, dramatic elements are introduced... These new aspects of the story absolutely make the movie what it is and give it the depth it needs to be fully satisfying. That the writers were able to bring all these pieces together while still bringing plenty of comedy to the mix is a true testament to their talent and craftsmanship.
But around the middle of the movie, I began worrying about where it was all heading. Basically, my concern was that the writers were going to sacrifice the integrity of the story for the sake of the audience. Baxter is such a sympathetic, likable character that I couldn't help but wanting things to turn out all right for him, and I suspect that many viewers would feel the same way. In a lesser movie, Fran would surely "fall in love" with Baxter by the end of the film, maybe as soon as when she is recovering from her suicide attempt. Baxter would then be inspired to stand up to his mean old boss, and... you get the picture. Yet aesthetically, that sort of ending would just feel too tidy and predictable for a story as broad as this one. So even though emotionally I wanted Baxter to get the girl, intellectually I began praying that he wouldn't.
So, as it turned out, the film ended somewhere in between. The ending to the film was well-handled, but still I found it a little too compact for my liking. If it had ended just one scene earlier, with Fran leaving Sheldrake at the New Year's Eve party, I would've been fine with it. But the last scene in Baxter's apartment felt unnecessary and forced, as though the writers just couldn't stand to end the story without some romantic payoff. This was probably intended to provide narrative closure, but ironically it left me less satisfied than a more ambiguous ending would have.
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
All shine and no substance
This movie is visually rich and fairly engaging, but some key element is missing to tie everything together.
The movie's narrative structure is fairly simple: Krank, the evil creation of an anonymous mad scientist, is kidnapping children to steal their dreams for himself. Krank's henchmen kidnap Denree, adopted younger brother of One, a slow-witted but good-hearted circus strongman. One bands together with pristine street urchin Miette to bring Denree back and defeat Krank in the process.
However, the plot, when examined more closely, is full of implausibilities and inconsistencies. Taken together, these plot holes comprise one of the film's major flaws: the whole universe seems to exist solely for the purpose of supporting the story. Sadly, this makes it seem very contrived and one-dimensional. For example, the "cyclops" people, who are seen as a formidable force at the beginning of the film, completely vanish from the story midway through. Miette's fellow orphans seem much more like a band of ragtag adventurers out of some Disney production than real street kids. The villainous conjoined twins are plenty villainous, but they don't seem to have any real motives, making them pretty bland, predictable antagonists. And so on.
Another issue I had with the movie was that a love of spectacle seemed to subsume a sense of balance and pacing. There were plenty of visually interesting moments, but they typically flashed past once and then vanished, never to be seen again. Examples include the carnival seen at the beginning of the film, the stronghold of the Cyclops-men, and the underwater home of the bearded inventor. Each of these settings suggested an interesting world in themselves, but the movie only paused in each location long enough to show us the most interesting visuals, then resumed its relentless march onward. This gave the movie a somewhat scattered feeling, as though it couldn't ever really commit to its setting.
Oddly enough, this rapid stream of visuals was accompanied by a rather slow-moving plot. There are basically three phases to the movie: the call to adventure, a series of advances and setbacks, and the final confrontation with Krank. Unfortunately, both the challenges the protagonists face and the corresponding resolutions of those challenges are caused by forces entirely beyond the characters' control. Everything is external to them -- they basically bumble through the plot without ever making significant choices. Thus, the monomyth is crippled, there is no fatal flaw that the hero must confront, and the "climax" feels weak and pointless. The characters undergo no changes over the course of the film. There is no real progress, just a lot of aimless wandering.
For all its shortcomings, the movie does have some good points. For the most part, the acting is good, with particularly strong performances from Judith Vittet as Miette and Ron Perelman as One. Jean-Claude Dreyfus also did a great job in his supporting role as Marcello. I didn't really care for Dominique Pinon as the unnamed creator ("The Original") and his assorted clones, but maybe that's just me -- I tend to find his exaggerated grimaces disagreeable rather than funny. As I mentioned earlier, the movie does a great job creating rich visual environments. It sort of reminds me of a concept painting for some post- apocalyptic video game - full of grimy textures, well-lit interiors with dim backgrounds, and highly saturated lighting. I actually saw this in a fairly low resolution on the internet, but the visuals still drew me in to the world of the story.
In conclusion, I'd say this film is worth watching for the interesting visuals – but don't expect much more than that.