Category Archives: Viewing Diary

Viewing Diary – The Deep Blue Sea, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Raid

Written by . Posted on April 25, 2012. Filed under Viewing Diary. Tagged , , , , , . No comments.

The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

Dir. Terence Davies

Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea is a masterwork that transforms its source material, a play by Terence Rattigan, into pure cinema. The dramatic tension is overwhelming from its opening sequence and the psychological intensity of the protagonist’s state of mind is conveyed so palpably, with perfect cooperation from sound, image, and Rachel Weisz’s performance as Hester. The blurry glow of memory permeates the mise en scène, creating a dreamy, glossy but altogether gloomy Postwar London. It is this context of Postwar London, which rarely interferes with the plot but somehow always drives it, rendering the anxieties of the suicidal Hester almost synonymous with that of a nation recovering from such a confusing trauma. The opening and closing images say it all—mirroring crane shots of a London street and home, at first pristine and then all but destroyed—creating a before & after dynamic that is echoed in Davies’ stylistic choices. Emphasis on reflections, and windows create a sense of before & after in every sense—before & after the war, before and after love, before and after happiness. When all that is good seems to be in the past, the choice is to live in it and succumb to it, or to look forward, against all reason. This is the mental battle Hester wages with herself. Were this released here in Vancouver last year, it would have made my top ten of 2011, but now it’ll have to settle for being the best new film I’ve seen in 2012.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Dir. Lynne Ramsay

We Need to Talk About Kevin is an irritating mess of a film, made up of interesting individual pieces that do not fit together. It is straightforward and simple, but made to seem complex by an embarrassingly pretentious structure, choppy associative editing and “look-at-me” images that all say very little. It is at once a film about the bond between mother and child, a horror-ish film about an evil child, and a film about a woman trying to live with a difficult past, and finally, it seems, a film critical of the human voyeuristic craving for carnage. Lynne Ramsay experiments with different styles for each, alternating between naturalism, suspense, ironic detachment, and even dark humour. In no way do these things function as a whole. John C. Reilly’s unsurprisingly great presence is ultimately wasted, and even Tilda Swinton’s performance feels undermined by Ramsay’s erratic choices that never feel precise and never feel part of a unified vision. The most serious problem with the film is how unconvincing its relationships are rendered by Ramsay’s direction. It is difficult to care about a mother/son story when one has difficulty believing in their relationship. The fleeting flashbacks to his childhood are too detached, and one can only gain a shallow sense of their history. Ramsay’s ambitions ultimately are too ill-conceived to make for anything other than an interesting failure.

The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Dir. Gareth Evans

After its problematic first few minutes dominated by exposition and a dangerous black & white moral setup, The Raid accelerates and innovates, creating a celebration of violence that destroys itself. We have no one to root for (aside from maybe one character). Both the criminals and the cops are made up of bad people, and the brutality they exchange with one another becomes interesting in that we don’t really care about who is left standing, but rather are invested in seeing them all fall. Though it isn’t until its second half that the choreography takes over (as it should), there are sparks of genius. The most memorable sequence is when the police are all trapped on the 6th floor, the lights are out, one floor above them the armed criminals look down, but neither can see each other. The camera cranes up and the light ever so slightly brightens so as to allow the audience to understand the situation. The suspense is, as they say, nail-biting, and the ensuing chaos actually feels like chaos—thanks to a “shaky cam” that still knows how to be coherent in the midst of franticness.

Viewing Dairy – Un été brûlant, Dragon Eyes

Written by . Posted on April 13, 2012. Filed under Viewing Diary. Tagged , , . No comments.

Un été brûlant (2011)

Dir. Philippe Garrel

At one point in Un été brûlant, Monica Belluci’s character talks to Louis Garrel’s character about one of his paintings. He accuses her of not liking it. She says it isn’t that she likes it or not, but that she either finds his paintings to be soothing or upsetting (and in this case, upsetting). The films of Philippe Garrel tend to be both at the very same time. There is something reassuring about his gentleness, but all of his films are characterized by deep sorrow. In a Garrel film, sadness precedes the inevitable circumstances that will cause it, yet I would never describe his films as hopeless, even if that’s exactly what they seem to be. If that were the case, I wouldn’t watch them, and moreover they wouldn’t move me like they do. In the torturous, eternally pessimistic universe of his cinema—where suicide exists, even when not articulated—the weight of existence is expressed in every gesture, and each emotion made out to be a desperate plea to live and love. The presence of “the void” is more clearly revealed in Garrel than in any other filmmaker’s work. Un été brulant is ultimately a film about children, of choosing or not choosing life, for oneself, and for others. As with Antonioni, his films are about the acceptance of life as burden, but the latter of these two auteurs is more fragile, as if with each frame there is a chance that Garrel will change his mind—that the burden is too much, and the pull of the void too strong not to succumb to. But then he makes another film. Another desperate plea to live and love.

Dragon Eyes (2012)

Dir. John Hyams

Between Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Dragon Eyes, there is no ambiguity about John Hyams being a legitimate force in the action genre. His proficiency as a director of action—on its own impressive—is drastically outweighed by his more intricate formal control, his manipulation of mood and tone. The inherent reflexivity of his violence is made effective through visual precision. Each frame is unified in creating a world made sad by violence, even as the violence itself is beautiful. It’s in the angles, the faces, the music, the spaces between action (surprisingly gentle pauses) and the digital aesthetic. There is no doubt that a strongly moral force is guiding the camera and what unfolds before it. Hyams sympathizes with action heroes. He admires their physical prowess and talent as performers but also recognizes their burden. The action hero is expected to do his dance and take his leave, again and again. In Hyams’ films one can recognize this limitation tearing at the seams. Jean-Claude Van Damme (in both Regeneration and Dragon Eyes) is presented as a master, an ideal, but one who is used up (even if it’s just those wrinkles, that face). The digital cinematography shatters the artificial façade of the action film. Hyams is boldly articulating this new naked action cinema, stripped of the sheen that made us so complacent as viewers. We are now confronting a much more complicated landscape, an action universe that is evolving to the point of doubting itself—or believing in itself as something new. The strength of ideas in Regeneration may not have been matched by Dragon Eyes, but it has been matched—if not exceeded—by its mise-en-scène (has melting-pot-America ever been aestheticized so effectively?), which confirms Hyams could probably make a good action film out of anything. An affirmation of his auteurism: any universe could be rendered as his own by his camera. It seems redundant to point it out, but with Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning coming later this year, John Hyams is all-but-set to join the ranks of Paul W.S. Anderson, another contemporary auteur creating beauty in the unlikeliest of places.

Viewing Diary – Haywire, The Artist, Mulberry St.

Written by . Posted on January 22, 2012. Filed under Reviews, Viewing Diary. Tagged , , , , , , , . No comments.

Haywire (2012)

Dir. Steven Soderbergh

With Haywire, Steven Soderbergh continues to push the boundaries of popular narrative form. He has always been interested in experimenting with how to tell a story, but more recently has really tested just how far he can go with making his films as efficient as possible, oftentimes challenging rules of continuity, while still holding the film together. Soderbergh condenses character development and narrative information, walking a fine line between tightly constructed filmmaking and an almost avant-garde evasion of convention. Many of his stylistic ambitions from Contagion (my favourite of his films) can be found here, but in a different context, and ultimately in a more rigorous exercise—it is often difficult to locate Soderbergh’s interest in content (assuming he has any), and Haywire may be one of his more elusive works. His efficiency does find its match though, in the film’s protagonist Mallory (MMA fighter Gina Carano); She’s smart, quick and nearly devoid of sentimentality (but, like the filmmaker, she may have a tiny soft spot). In all of her one-on-one combat scenes, Carano’s strategy is all about technique, her form is as precise as Soderbergh’s. Mallory is seemingly built up to be an unstoppable weapon, but a point is made to reveal her fallibility. The action sequences feel entirely authentic (the other actors do a marvelous job trying to match Carano’s ability), although their real-world feel may not be sensational enough for the common moviegoer, and indeed people may be turned off by Haywire, as some were with Contagion, as both films feel like Trojan horses when viewed at the multiplex (a special pleasure, from my point-of-view). Soderbergh employs natural sound during these considerably long sequences, which among other things gives the impression of exhaustion as each fight is drawn out. The result is a palpable sense of physicality, an element all but absent from action films.

Speaking of the film’s use of sound, Haywire seems to have two modes. The first is in natural sound, which aside from the fight scenes emphasize real-world ambiance in more mundane moments. One hears the creaks of a wooden floor, the light buzzing of an air conditioner, and in the case of dialogue scenes a sense of the environment’s impact on voices (open vs. closed spaces etc.). The second mode is when the film’s soundtrack completely gives in to its very cool poppy/jazzy musical score by David Holmes. The range of settings is noticeably atypical: a desolate airport, flat boring hallways and rooms, an upper class home in darkness (not unlike The Limey), a villa, and a climactic battle on a sunny beach (where the sounds of waves overpower those of the fight). Soderbergh seems driven to defy the filmmaking status quo as much as possible while delivering a seamlessly told story. Cross-cutting between locations all over the world (as he did in Contagion) within a non-linear structure, he plays with spatial and temporal possibilities more than any other Hollywood director. As this pre-(quasi)-retirement phase of the self-described uninspired filmmaker’s career develops, it is quickly becoming his most fascinating period.

The Artist (2011)

Dir. Michel Hazanavicius

At first glance, The Artist may seem like an ideal companion piece to Hugo—Scorsese’s film integrates history of silent cinema into its story, and even appropriates silent film footage in several sequences, and The Artist is a modern day silent (for the most part) film—but ultimately these two thematically linked works are opposed to one another in how they view cinema. Scorsese emphasizes how movies transcend time as well as their technology and materiality, even sharing his “stage” with Georges Méliès as if to say that films that are worlds apart can stand right next to each other as equals. In Scorsese’s universe, cinema is immortal and of a cyclical design, in which past and future work together. The Artist couldn’t get more linear-minded. It is a film about (it’s a stretch to say it’s really about anything, but I’ll humour it) progress, and evolution. Its final statement (which comes in an awkwardly staged abrupt happy ending) is that as cinema transitions into different technological phases (silent to sound, black/white to colour, film to digital), it will find something new that keeps the art form rejuvenated. This view point doesn’t really revere the past, but rather sees the progress of the medium as a means of survival. Indeed, cinema’s ability to adapt and survive (through the great depression and two world wars, for example) as a strong economic institution is fascinating, but this seems to be The Artist‘s sole message. Boiled down to its essence, The Artist is a film about cinema as a business, and Hugo is about cinema as art. As love letters to the movies, the distinctions are obvious. Hugo‘s means of homage are intricate and deeply felt, The Artist rips off narrative pieces, music, and makes confusing references. Confusing in that it poses as a silent film homage, yet its references are all over the place. Why quote Citizen Kane? There is no contextual reasoning or thematic justification. It’s just easy and obvious. Worse is taking Hermann’s score from Vertigo and borrowing (to put it nicely) its power in the cheapest of ways (and for the sake of shallow, fluffy melodrama?).

There are things to like in The Artist, and it is “well-made” (whatever that means). Jean Dujardin is very good as the protagonist, he has the right physicality and gestural range. He resembles Gene Kelly, and evokes Douglas Fairbanks rather effectively. The film is fun at first, with moments of whimsy and charm, but it quickly throws that out in favour of dull (over-serious, even) melodrama. The last two-thirds of the film are needlessly whiny and somber. Singin’ in the Rain‘s spin on the coming of the sound era was a joyous celebration of modern cinematic technology that didn’t pretend to lament the silent era’s demise. The presence of Uggie the dog in the film, the protagonist’s talented, adorable companion, is symbolic of the film’s attitude towards old movies, which can be summed up with the phrase: “isn’t it cute?” Such reactions were certainly had by my fellow audience members, who chuckled mildly (no real laughs are to be had at this surprisingly “straight-up” film) at The Artist‘s demonstration of silent-silliness. The Artist adopts silent aesthetics, but its referential style is a superficial demonstration of cinephilia. A film like Hugo says infinitely more about silent cinema (and cinema in general). Hugo is tribute; The Artist is parody, and it’s not quite clever enough to realize it.

Mulberry St. (2010)

Dir. Abel Ferrara

Everyone is welcome on camera in Abel Ferrara’s Mulberry St., a documentary that explicitly reveals the warmth behind the underrated auteur’s gritty, crude exterior. The film has no guiding narrative. It drifts from encounter to encounter with different personalities, many eccentric, in New York’s Little Italy during the Feast of San Gennaro. Not since Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican has there been such an intimate portrayal of the Italian New Yorker experience, and together in a double bill the films complete one another. Scorsese’s film is about history and family while Ferrara’s gives you a sense of the streets, the people—both cover the food.

Mulberry St.’s free-flowing feel is its most endearing quality; like Ferrara himself, there‘s something chaotic and disorganized about the film, but that’s just in his/its nature. We often see the initial exchange between Ferrara and his subjects and occasionally witness as he asks for permission to film (something most any other filmmaker would cut, but tidiness is not one of Ferrara’s concerns). The peak of the film’s nonchalance comes when Ferrara actually begins to review footage he shot earlier in the doc—and complains about how it fails to capture the colour of his girlfriend’s (Shanyn Leigh) red hair. The richness of the film comes from the people we get to meet: vendors, restaurant owners, China Girl bit-part cast members, random people on the street, and genuine locals (we also get to meet Abel and Shanyn’s three cats!). There are also some “celebrity” cameos, including chance encounters with Matthew Modine and Danny Aiello (Sal from Do the Right Thing). Modine comically enters the film via segway like Gob in Arrested Development. Shanyn takes a spin, and then Ferrara attempts to give it a shot before being stopped by his girlfriend, while Modine nervously says “I’m afraid the wheel’s coming off”. Aiello talks acting with Ferrara, and shares a nice anecdote about working with Spike Lee, who he says allowed him to rewrite his own lines.

Throughout the film, we get personal moments with Ferrara, as he recounts filming 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy (his porno), complains about lawsuits and the failed distribution of Go Go Tales, shares artwork that interests him (“Ever seen this Van Gogh painting? Check it out”), and, as it seems to be getting increasingly difficult to catch him without a guitar, we also see him perform. He is often seen with a beer in his hand (in one moment his manager Frankie Cee reveals that Ferrara is drinking upwards of 30 bottles of beer a day), but, notably, has since gone sober. We see that, like his cinema, Ferrara is rough but artful. The camera intuitively weaves through hallways, stairways and up and down Mulberry St., guided by its search for anything interesting to film, which for Ferrara is just about anyone. Show me another documentary so filled to the brim with life—I doubt there are many out there.

Viewing Diary – A Dangerous Method, Fallen Angels, Gamer

Written by . Posted on January 14, 2012. Filed under Reviews, Viewing Diary. Tagged , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Dir. David Cronenberg

It’s no wonder that A Dangerous Method has divided critics; the film is alternately obvious and subtle. Moreover, it could be said to represent a sort of culmination of David Cronenberg’s increasingly mainstream period (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises), which is characterized by a more traditional approach to narrative, and a less explicit (but still explicit) investigation of his usual themes. This partly has to do with the fact that Cronenberg hasn’t written his own screenplay since 1999′s eXistenZ (although this is to change with his next film, Cosmopolis, scheduled to be released later this year). In abandoning Cronenberg’s “arthouse” and “b-movie” sensibility, he has subsequently been abandoned by some fans and critics alike, who see this embrace of more widely appealing material as selling out. But Cronenberg has not abandoned his obsessions, and even if we can no longer look forward to grotesque animatronics and wound-fucking, the dark pleasures of his cinema remain intact, and (don’t shoot me) is it not possible that perhaps this a legitimate maturation, and one which sees Cronenberg more concerned with form than ever before? Surely A Dangerous Method is a testament to this—it is easily one of his greatest formal accomplishments—as was Eastern Promises, which contrary to popular opinion, is one of his better films. In the past, his films could be too clinical and didactic, and were always best when they retained a mystery (Crash, his indisputable masterwork) rather than feeling like a purely psychological exercise. A Dangerous Method achieves this balancing act, and the film’s more veiled intents are difficult to uncover. Towards the end, it becomes clear that in addition to its interest in establishing the film’s historical figures as confused obsessives with their own limited perspectives, Cronenberg is concerned with Jewish/Aryan relations (Cronenberg, it should be noted, is Jewish) and illustrating a larger portrayal of European consciousness before the dawn of World War. The film’s post-script, clearly tongue-in-cheek, points out that Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), both Jewish, were victimized by Nazism—Freud fled the Nazis and died of cancer, Spielrein was shot by Nazis in a synagogue—while the Aryan Jung “lived peacefully” until his death in 1961. Cronenberg portrays Jung sympathetically, as he butts heads with Freud and struggles with his desires, but at the same time takes great pleasure in defining his flaws and ambiguities. Ultimately, Freud is not really examined in comparison, shown as a stubborn but mild man, mostly restricted to his office, alone, and shown in vulnerable moments, collapsing at one point in humiliating fashion in front of his rival. Jung’s quest to further psychoanalysis comes from an ambition to better the human being, an all-too Aryan idea. The birth of modern psychology is articulated as a time of self-investigation and uncertainty, and in its two primary figures, Cronenberg finds a self-destructive quality in the European consciousness as the turbulent first half of the 20th century approaches.

Fallen Angels (1995)

Dir. Wong Kar-Wai

I like most of Wong Kar-Wai’s films, but since being introduced to the popular auteur, I have had a bit of a “so what?” attitude towards him. At first I surrendered to the beauty of In the Mood For Love (I now think it to be overrated), and the ambition of 2046 (even more-so), but an indifference has been growing inside me. In the last while, however, I finally got around to seeing Happy Together, and more recently, Fallen Angels, and I may be changing my tune. The latter is now my favourite of his films, and I would argue, his most complete (incompleteness being an unfortunate quality attached to much of his work). In articulating the urban alienation of Hong Kong living, Wong’s most dominant theme, he has, as many filmmakers do, restated the same idea in different ways. In the Mood For Love‘s careful, ornate approach is to hone in on the tragic inability to connect with another person, and the impossibility of romance to exist as anything but a silent wish. Fallen Angels isn’t so ostentatious, opting to use fast-paced, overtly fun framing and editing to articulate this serious syndrome that In the Mood For Love essentially turns into a fetish. The film is divided into two stories, which overlap quite subtly. In one story, that of a hit-man and his female “partner” whom he never works with directly, two characters are, in a sense, living the same life simultaneously, separately but co-dependently. Both are completely alienated from society, existing in their own outsider world of canted angles and jump cuts. Their process is detailed by Wong in poppy fashion, but there is tragedy in how his characters revolve around one another. Through these characters we imagine a Hong Kong full of the detached and lonely whose perfect matches are just around the corner, but always out of reach. In the other story, a mute, also resigned to a life of relative solitude, is detached from society but exists in a distorted version of its system of living, compensating by working in random shops he breaks into after hours, forcing unwilling customers to participate in his comical fantasy. When the mute’s life intersects with the hit-man’s, it is brief and anti-climactic. Wong’s characters are magnets who expose to each other the wrong side, repelling, not attaching. The energy of the filmmaking makes for an interesting contrast with the themes, perhaps increasing the poignancy of this vision of a world defined by its recurring image of a dark tunnel with a single guiding light, in which one is either alone, or not—and how rarely the latter is the case.

Gamer (2009)

Dir. Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor

 The manic brilliance of Neveldine/Taylor reached its highest point (so far) with Gamer, which, if not as fun as Crank: High Voltage, is more cohesive and focused. The confusing satiric notes of the Crank films make it difficult to affirm just what, if anything, Neveldine/Taylor want to say, but that’s part of their appeal—meticulously crafted, vulgar “trash”, that puts other contemporary action films and filmmakers to shame with few exceptions. Gamer is also less funny, dishing out its spoonfuls of sugar with equal components vinegar and cyanide, but it finds the duo at their most articulate. Its seemingly most obvious target is that of the vicarious violence of video games, but Neveldine/Taylor aren’t cynical here—they clearly love sensationalistic violence and often celebrate it (they love it the same way Verhoeven loves SFX, an almost purely technical admiration). Instead, their focus is on the avatarism of 21st century life, or, the disassociation of realities from living. The universe of Gamer is one where cyberspace and physical space have collided so as to be difficult to distinguish, and where ignorance and immorality are the dominant forces. Everyone lives at the expense of others—as, essentially, people must do in a consumerist society—and control is capital. Some amazing sci-fi touches outdo most middle/highbrow films, such as a bedroom/digital interface in which Simon (the young man who controls Gerard Butler’s character) contently relaxes amidst a cyber-abyss. Another clever moment features a shot/reverse shot between Michael C. Hall’s villainous Ken Castle and a news program, both shots featuring digital backgrounds, the presence of reality completely eradicated between the forces of media and technology. The unification between Neveldine/Taylor’s form and content is at its most comfortable in Gamer. I can’t think of other filmmakers more concerned with NOW, amongst the mainstream or amongst festival approved auteurs, and these guys are a great deal better at articulating it, anyhow.

Viewing Diary – Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Zodiac

Written by . Posted on December 22, 2011. Filed under Reviews, Viewing Diary. Tagged , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Dir. Steven Spielberg

There is a lot to like about Spielberg’s first animated film. It’s gorgeous to look at. The environments are stunning, and the film’s movement (Spielberg’s primary obsession in the film) is at once limitless but bound to Spielberg’s cinema. 3D makes all these things all the more pleasing. Oftentimes, Tintin is exciting and fun—but something is missing. In some ways, it is most similar to the Indiana Jones films, which I also have problems with, and partly for the same reasons. As a protagonist, Tintin (like Indy) is an intelligent, assured hero, so accustomed to adventure so as to be completely prepared for all its surprises. Think of Spielberg at his best. His protagonists have a naivete and a vulnerability (maybe the most important quality) and it is when these characters are confronted with the strange and wonderful, that his films are at their most moving—in most cases his characters are confronted with situations beyond them, that are either frightening or awe-inspiring, or both. Thus, from Tintin a key element is absent, the one that raises Spielberg films from being just expertly crafted to having an intangible magic. That being said, all else is intact, and at its best Tintin is among Spielberg’s best adventures. One chase sequence is among the best of its kind and may even be Spielberg’s highest accomplishment in crafting action. Spielberg’s ambition seems to be to do what he couldn’t quite do with a camera—in some ways Tintin is ideal Spielberg, where his camera can keep up with his instincts, and it is when this ambition is realized that the film at least approaches greatness. Snowy, Tintin’s dog, is a more ideal character for Spielberg in this universe, one that evades characterization and yet has the most personality—a purer vehicle for what is a successful exercise in extreme fluidity, if nothing else.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Dir. David Fincher

How is Fincher so blunt and subtle at the same time? The straightforwardness of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, like Zodiac, is almost a smokescreen. Fincher’s fixations are so complexly realized that it is difficult to pierce the simplicity of their appearance. This is, of course, precisely what makes him one of the most interesting contemporary filmmakers working in Hollywood. Not as obvious with its obsessions with technology as The Social Network, but just as invested in the integration of tech into its narrative, as part of its own process, though not as its subject. The punk CGI explosion of the opening credit sequence (truly one of Fincher’s shining moments) reveals explicitly what Fincher is concerned with in the film. The coming together of two characters, and the intervention of technology as an underlying element. The relationship between Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig’s Mikael Blomkvist is surprisingly moving, and what makes the film work. How Fincher develops the characters on their own for what must be the first hour of the film is all in service of what is a fast-moving but arresting portrayal of a sincere connection. The used and abused Lisbeth gives herself to Mikael because he asks of nothing from her, and although the matter-of-fact nature of their coming together is about as unromantic as one can imagine, it is seriously affecting. This effect is possible because of how Fincher has laid out these characters lives (not in a typical characterization sense, we don’t know them so deeply, but we know them as Fincher likes to know his characters, through routine, demeanor, etc.) and especially because of how the film portrays sexuality. Quick, pleasure seeking sex—not “making love” but fucking—is actually rendered as the film’s most human gesture (note one sex scene where Mikael, distracted, begins to talk, but Lisbeth insists he shush while she climaxes).

Defining this relationship is the film’s most important element—Fincher disrupts the comfort of the whodunnit narrative, shifting the structure so as to make plot’s natural peak just a bump on the road, and removes the emphasis from the mystery, and extending the prologue-esque early portion of the film beyond what other filmmakers would be willing to—the real arc of the film lies in Lisbeth and Mikael and how they change each other. Fincher ends on a deceptively quiet shot (as he has done before), so modestly tragic, and in retrospect, rather beautiful. In some ways, this is his most evasive great film, and the one that most fervently demands for a repeat viewing, for a chance not to penetrate the mystery of the plot, but the mystery of the narrative—this distinction being the one that classifies Fincher’s digital cinema, where his stories are no longer collaborators with his style, and the telling of them is all that remains. Seven/Fight Club/etc. Fincher vs. Zodiac/Social Network/etc. Fincher = stylized stories vs. stories swallowed whole by their telling.

Aside: A fun train of thought; contrast Fincher’s investigation of character via sexuality with Cronenberg’s—Fincher doesn’t care about psychology, or deep inner-workings, but cares just as deeply, but about the surface. Cronenberg wants to know what makes people tick but Fincher is a better listener.

Zodiac (2007)

Dir. David Fincher

I initially thought this was a great film back when I saw it on 2007, but upon revisiting it in preparation for Fincher’s new film, I’d say it’s more like a masterpiece. One of the most fascinating Hollywood films of its decade, Zodiac is a maddening experience. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself as obsessed as the characters—but the trick is not to—Fincher isn’t, he’s just mapping out time as it unfolds relentlessly. Like with The Social Network, this is about characters alienated by obsession and driven from real life by their intelligence. Watch as each character crashes and burns, with the biggest brain left standing, satisfied with himself above all else, but alone. Fincher’s suspense here is completely singular, separate from anything we’d simply associate with whodunnit plots of the past. The driving force of the film is the friction between the investigators and time as they subtly become separate from reality. Watch how Fincher quietly shows the cracks of real life as small moments between large momentous stretches of “cracking” the case. Also, note the lack of synchronicity between the characters’ obsession and the filmmaking. Fincher holds the film steady, refusing to crack like his characters, he even films a murder (in what may be cinema’s most effective stabbing since Psycho, I kid you not) with little cutting (no pun intended), in some ways amplifying the real horror of it but also refusing to sensationalize what takes place. He takes his time and is more like the killer than his pursuers. He doesn’t give into their obsession—though he does chart it meticulously—but perhaps that’s a different type of obsession, the one that has made Zodiac, The Social Network and now The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo into fascinating charts of information, and brilliant exercises in narrative form.