Tag: review

Gone Girl

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Despite being a young ‘un living in modern Melbourne, I often find myself lagging with trends and this one in particular is the positivity surrounding David Fincher’s Gone Girl, adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel. Having seen it last night with a fresh mind and a happy belly, I gone-girl-DF-01826cc_rgb.jpgwas absolutely absorbed into Nick Dunne’s plight, battling the media frenzy accusing him of murdering his missing wife. The plot’s Psycho-esque turnaround halfway through the film, during which Rosamund Pike’s Amy reveals her whereabouts and her psychopathic methods of spicing up her marriage, leaves the audience flabbergasted by the audacity of her character’s pure evilness. For once, paying customers are batting for the happiness of an Affleck character, no longer criticising him for performance (cough Daredevil and Batman?). Although yes, one would roll their eyes at Nick’s naivete smiling for the cameras, taking selfies with random female strangers and continuing her adulterous relationship with a student; on second thought, these moments of stupidity are somewhat realistic for the modern married man. Despite leaving the theatre very content with what I had just taken in, I was left wanting more with the cliffhanger ending, and though I haven’t read the novel myself (and trust me, I’ve downloaded the audiobook right after seeing the film), I was hoping for more than a one-sided manipulation game between wife and husband. I wanted to see Nick and Amy go into a sociopathic showdown destroying each other’s credibility. I cannot wait to begin the audiobook experience, not just to compare and contrast the adaptation differences between film and novel, but to clarify uncertainties that would’ve been left out deliberately such as Amy’s baby’s paternity–the only humane reason why Nick Dunne wasn’t going to kill his wife. Despite my thirst for content, I was satisfied with the ending, as it was the only way to preserve the characters’ motivations. A true sacrificing hero, good man Nick Dunne would endure living with his psychotic wife to bear a child which, would inevitably be, the spawn of the She-devil.

FIVE STARS.

Riches to Rags

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Woody Allen’s recent Blue Jasmine is a Greek tragedy-esque story about a glamorous woman whose ambition and naivete leads Blue_Jasmine_posterherself to her own downfall. Quite possibly, the film gravitates itself around Cate Blanchett’s remarkable acting talents. Here, we are shown that she can pull off not only an Elven Goddess-like figure (LOTR fans) or a Manhattan social elite, but also a woman on the constant verge of nervous breakdown.

Allen creates a wonderful assimilation of past and current events in Jasmine’s life, allowing room for comparison in the changes of the protagonist’s lifestyle, as well as deduction on how things came to be. This is only emphasised by a fantastic cast that perfectly captures the classes of which the characters originated from. The transformation of major characters i.e, Jasmine and Ginger, is justly transparent with the sensational work by the wardrobe department.

Allen, as one would see in this film, has the ability to portray a multi-layered complex of a character’s story through a single phrase or movement. Jasmine’s pains from her complicated childhood, of having an adulterous husband and of crashing from her previous opulence are mirrored in her public breakdowns, during which she would mutter a few words to accentuate a flashback. The audience would not find it hard to sympathise for her plight right to the end, overlooking her mean condescension of the meager yet happy sister and her boyfriend.

Without spoiling too much of the elaborate yet superbly rich scripting of the film,  I would say that this is a definite must-watch for the film enthusiast keen on going to the theaters.

 

The Dreamers (Three)

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A perk of working part-time at a video store, more than anything, is stumbling upon the most eccentric films you would ever lay MV5BMjA4MDU3ODM3OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwMDE0Njc2._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_your eyes upon. Bertolucci’s The Dreamers conveys the story of Matthew, an American student who finds himself entranced with the lives of the exotic French beauty Isabelle and her unorthodox-thinking twin brother, Theo. The film begins by conveying the three protagonists’ addiction to the cinematic art, for which they consistently attend the Cinémathèque Française. This provides us many opportunities of insight into the world of cinematic exclusivity by using snippets from both classic and New Wave films.

Bertolucci’s cinematography in the film reminds me (once in a while) of Godardian techniques, specifically in his choice of long shots and sweeping (panning) movements. The use of red to shock symbolism in certain scenes is another example of this intertextuality. A key moment arrives when the film’s Theo quotes the cahiers du cinema‘s “the camera is like a peeping hole,” aligning this statement to the curious child’s keyhole to his parents’ bedroom. Of course, the film maker himself adapts this within the voyeuristic elements of the film, as the audience continue to pry into the lives of the three teenagers like the inquisitive stalker.

Essentially, the film’s plot holds over the American kid thrown into the sensual gratification of the French siblings, enraptured in a whirlwind of sexual experimentation without no necessary direction. Bertolucci, and of course the actors themselves, are largecommendable in being unafraid to reveal the extent of what the human body is capable of, in a flurry of flesh, smoke and bodily fluids (and not just blood, at that). The film also touches on the taboo topic of incest, exploring the abnormal proximity between Isabelle and Theo.

This is one of those films that welcomes response in opposites, or the “You love it or hate it” scenario. It isn’t really something that I would look forward to seeing more than twice, but it is definitely something to try if you want something out of the conventional.