Roger Waters The Wall Live

In 1977, Pink Floyd was one of the biggest bands in the world. Fresh off the massive success of their albums, "Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Here" and "Animals," the band went from playing small clubs to huge stadiums. This new found popularity, however, created a number of artistic limitations for a band used to creating an intimate, psychedelic experience. The band's main songwriter and creative force, Roger Waters, often complained that audiences in these stadiums paid no attention to the music, electing to set off fireworks, indulging in drunken behavior, or even mindlessly screaming during performances. Water's frustration came to head one night as an audience member scaled the barricade in front of the stage at one of the shows. In a fit of rage, Waters spat in the man's face and called him a "swine."

Feeling unable to meaningfully connect to his audience, Waters sunk into a period of depressed introspection, contemplating why he had grown to hate performing, opting instead to build a figurative wall between himself and the audience. The result was Pink Floyd's "The Wall," an album exploring Water's own isolated youth, lonely experiences as a rock star, and emotional meltdown. The album came with a live show that physically manifested the story behind the concept by building a wall on stage. The plot of "The Wall" follows the life a rock star named Pink (half of Pink Floyd) who turns into a disaffected, fascist demagogue, spewing the hate of his inner demons upon the audience. As in Water's own life, Pink loses his father to World War II, is coddled by a controlling mother, abused into conformity by teachers, and lost in meaningless sex and failed relationships. Pink creates a figurative wall around himself (made physical in the show) and wallows in drug induced isolation and self pity.

In 2010, Waters resurrected the production with stunning updated technology and a new perspective that tied his themes of building walls and personal feelings of isolation as a way of describing modern world politics. His story became a larger narrative of a world separated by war, political ideology, religion, wealth inequality. For Waters, the concept of walls goes far beyond individuals and into global institutions and nation states as well as social media, all of which govern the life of people in the twenty-first century.

Having attended three of Waters' remarkable performances, I knew that he and co-director, Sean Evans, had a formidable task with their new documentary film, "Roger Waters The Wall Live." They had to capture the biggest concert spectacle in rock and roll history, a show that was physically gargantuan in size and teeming with complex and meaningful visuals giving life to a master performance by Roger Waters and his band. I was worried that a film could not do justice to a concert that itself was an experience. Could the film be cut in such a way to include all the perspectives of the stage, each with their own special vantage? Given that the enormous scope of the show was a defining factor, could a film demonstrate the largeness of a show that donned a 40 foot high wall spanning an entire stadium yet preserving the intimacy of Water's performance? Finally, could a film capture the meaning behind the album and Water's reinvention of it?

The concert footage is INCREDIBLE, easily the best filmed and recorded concert in the history of rock music. I actually felt chills watching the film, as if I were there seeing the amazing performance all over again. It brilliantly captures the most impressive part of the concert, which is that it manages to be both large in scale yet very intimate. One of the great ironies of Water's new production is that "The Wall" grew out of his frustrations with connecting to a massive stadium audience. Yet, his show is strikingly intimate because of the large scale of the wall projections and use of special effects that satisfy both the front row and the last seat up in the grandstands. The movie seamlessly connects beautiful, long tracking shots, presenting a wall that dwarfs an audience in the tens of thousands with closeup shots of the superb band. The cameras show every interesting angle one could fathom, including shots from behind Waters and ones that move back and forth on both sides of the wall, showing all the interworkings of the concert. All of this footage is a fitting and celebratory document to rock's grandest spectacle.

The movie intertwines the massive concert with scenes of a road trip that Waters and company takes through some European battlefields to pay reverence to his father and grandfather, both killed in the world wars. Some of this footage works brilliantly. The movie is bookended by moving scenes of Waters going to the graves of his family and softly playing the trumpet, creating a perfect tie-in with the trumpet used in the concert. Waters even cries at one point reading the letter sent to his mother documenting his father's death. Other scenes, however, seemed unnecessary, inarticulate and even staged. One particularly excruciating scene involves Waters at a bar yammering about his story to a French bartender who doesn't speak English. Another has Waters and a friend driving in a car and talking about meaningless non-sequiturs. Despite the fact that Waters has been very articulate about his motivations behind "The Wall" and its new production, he has few interesting tidbits to say in the film. I think that the movie would have been much better in cutting many of the documentary scenes or intermixing silent versions of them with the concert. To be honest, I found myself longing for the concert footage when it wasn't on the screen.

"Roger Waters The Wall Live" certainly sets a new standard for filming a concert both in sound and film production. While I left the theater again inspired and bewitched by Water's work, a part of me couldn't help but be disappointed in the direction of modern music. Who today has the talent or ambition to stage a show of this physical and intellectual magnitude? With the exception of Green Day who produced "American Idiot," a story of disaffected youth in George W's America, most rock stars today think small and play small. While the pop star du jour may have the pyrotechnics and staging, they don't have the ambition to make a complete, conceptual work and contribute to a larger cultural discourse. It is crucial that a film document "Roger Waters The Wall Live" because it is a bar by which serious artists seeking cultural importance should measure themselves.     

The Visit (2015)

M. Night Shyamalan's new film, "The Visit," is his best movie in years. Still, this is not saying much given his recent swan dive into oblivion with garbage like "The Happening" and "After Earth." For Shyamalan, it is actually a compliment to say that one of his films is at least watchable or that it does not provoke blinding anger or excruciating annoyance. I am happy to report that "The Visit" works well as a thriller, even as a pseudo-horror film. Shyamalan's career chart, which previously had a remarkably steep downward trend, now has a small upward spike.

The plot is very straightforward, as it always is for Shyamalan: two kids decide to visit their estranged grandparents in rural Pennsylvania. Luckily for us, one of the kids is an aspiring documentary filmmaker and brings along her camera. The children arrive by train and meet their weird, cold, and uneasy grandparents. A progression of frightening vignettes continue to happen until the film reaches its plot twist at the end. What would an M. Night Shyamalan movie be without a Hitchcockian twist? Thankfully, he uses the plot twist as a small, spooky aside in "The Visit," rather than the gimmick for the entire movie as he did in "The Village," a film that will live in infamy for its utter stupidity.

Another signature plot device used by Shyamalan is a set of arbitrary, inane rules that almost completely drive the story. In "The Village," the townspeople couldn't go past a boundary line; in "The Lady in the Water," there is a cornucopia of nonsensical rules governing fairytale characters (a scrunt couldn't go near a narf during a blood moon on a Tuesday unless it's a leap year, etc). Thankfully, Shyamalan only has one simple rule in "The Visit:" don't leave your room after 9:30 PM due to the dangerous geriatric transformations that take place thereafter. This simple rule immediately takes hold of your imagination and creates the plot: what could be going on after 9:30 PM? How do we find out? What happens when we find out?

"The Visit" is an homage to cheaply made but effective horror films like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity," except that it's shot with a high quality camera. While the constructed realism of this genre adds to the scariness, one drawback is that the camerawork must look spontaneous and amateurish to seem real. One aspect that I admired about "The Visit" is Shyamalan's decision to splice in artsy still shots with the chaotic documentary footage. This inclusion helps to tell the story from two perspectives, a spontaneous one from the kids and their camera and one from an omnipotent position that seems to edit the film to heighten the eeriness. As in a Tarantino film, we become aware that we are watching a movie and celebrate the cliches of the genre.

It is undeniable that Shyamalan is a good director. The film is full of great shots, inventiveness and suspense building. One can only hope that he will continue to improve so that mere mention of his movies does not induce reactive cringing or recurrent projectile vomiting as they have for audiences in the past. 

   

Mulholland Drive

"Mulholland Drive" is a masterful film that unflinchingly embraces the subconscious and explores the need for fantasy as a coping mechanism in life. David Lynch is unlike any other director in the history of film; he has the ability to enthrall audiences with stories that follow dream logic rather than rationality. Linear plot is not terribly important to Lynch, as it would just get in the way of the emotional narratives, fantasies, and desires of the characters. Lynch is a true original, someone who takes the mundane, sends it to be broken down by a blender in his mind and then reconstitute it according to his way of viewing the world. While he has many amazing films like "Blue Velvet," "Inland Empire," and "Eraserhead," I think "Mulholland Drive" is his masterpiece. The best attribute of all Lynch's movies is their ability to inhabit your mind as you try to put the pieces of the plot and characters together. His films can't help but be memorable because your mind continues to work out their vague, seductive meanings. Below, I will offer my interpretation of "Mulholland Drive" keeping in mind that the film is open to an infinite amount of personal meaning. Warning: there are spoilers galore.   

One other note: to increase the curiosity of fans and moviegoers, Lynch released a list of clues to help decipher the film. While I think it is possible to interpret the movie without these clues, I have reproduced them below:

1. Pay attention in the beginning of the film; at least two clues are revealed before the credits.

2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade.

3. Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for?

4. An accident is a terrible event...notice the location of the accident.

5. Who gives a key, and why?

6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.

7. What is felt, realized and gathered at the club Silencio?

8. Did talent alone help Camilla?

9. Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkles?

10. Where is Aunt Ruth? 

To understand this film, I think it is necessary to divide it into two non-linear thematic sections, each of which collide throughout the film. The first part, most of which takes place near the end of the film, represents the reality of the story, that is, what happens in a factual sense as opposed to any sort of fantasy. Diane Selwyn, played by Naomi Watts, moves to Los Angeles from a small town with the dream of becoming a Hollywood actress. The opening scene of the film shows Diane winning a jitterbug contest which builds her confidence and drives her to Hollywood. She represents the small town American girl, beloved and praised in her hometown for her beauty, seeking a career in show business.

Diane gets to L.A. and meets another actress named Camilla Rhodes, played by Laura Harring, with whom she begins a torrid love affair. The relationship is short-lived, however, and Camilla meets a famous male director named Adam and begins seeing him instead. Diane is infatuated with Camilla and begs her to return. She is lost without her, a weakling who follows her around and does her bidding in the hope that Camilla will lover her again. Unfortunately, Camilla stays with her boyfriend and begins seeing great success as an actress because of her new connections. Diane is left alone and depressed, a failure in love and her life's dream. 

The second part of the movie, most of which takes place in the beginning, represents Diane's dream-like fantasy, one that both justifies her career failures and retroactively changes the power dynamic between her and Camilla. This section of the film is chock full of symbolism about the underlying corruption and injustice prevalent in Hollywood. Unlike in reality, where Diane implodes and fails because of her emotional lability and lack of talent, her fantasy attributes her failure to dark forces conspiring against her that are out of her control. She is simply a pawn in the larger game of executives, directors, producers and other monied interests. 

In her fantasy, Diane (now called Betty---a throwback to the sweet midwestern girl moving to Hollywood) arrives in L.A. with an affable, elderly couple. This scene is bright and full of confidence, happiness, and ebullience, the kind of emotion Diane had when she first arrived in Hollywood. Lynch carries this good natured optimism over the top by staying with the elderly couple as they quietly smile for no reason until the scene becomes creepy. Betty finds her way to her rich aunt's house where she will be staying while she pursues acting. The manager of the complex, an odd looking woman named Coco, quickly begins fulfilling a motherly role for her. Contrast this situation to Diane's real apartment later in the film which is old, dingy, and uninspiring.    

   

Meanwhile, Camilla is shown riding in a limousine to presumably a Hollywood engagement. The limo crashes, leaving Camilla with amnesia. She wanders around aimlessly until she comes upon Betty's accommodations. Take notice that she was traveling to an affluent community on Mulholland Drive and instead wanders back to Sunset Boulevard, the center of Hollywood for all classes. It's as if she regresses from fame back to helpless beginnings. Because she has amnesia, she gives herself the name, Rita, when she meets Betty. This setup is a key component to Diane's fantasy: the power dynamic between the two has shifted. Instead of Diane being the emotionally frail, dependent one in the relationship, Camilla now takes on that weakened role, presumably to make Diane feel better about herself. Because Camilla has amnesia and, thus, no memory of her identity or of what happened to her, she is now totally dependent on Diane. This new relationship between the two continues through the rest of the fantasy. 

The film abruptly switches gears to a scene with two men at a diner called Winkie's. One of the men, a weird looking fellow named Dan, relays a nightmare (deja vu really) about their meeting, in which he encounters a monstrous creature behind the nearby dumpster. Both men investigate the dumpster until they find a hideous homeless man who terrifies them. Notice the camera angles and the slow shaking of the camera, which helps to create a feeling of trepidation. Also, the lighting is key and even discussed in the movie itself; the scenes involving fantasy are more dimly lit while reality has harsh overhead light, showing all imperfections. This scene begins the other major theme of Diane's fantasy, which is the evil that underlies the entire city and film industry. Even more, this scene foreshadows the evil that lives within Diane, a trait that we will discover by the end of the film. Just as Dan discovers his nightmare in the real world, we will discover the nightmare within the real Diane.

Leaving Rita at home, Betty goes on her auditions. In one of them, she totally blows the producers and fellow actors away, so much so that they want to cast her immediately. In Diane's fantasy, she has the talent to take her to the highest level. The movie continues with a series of surreal scenes, all depicting the dark forces who will prevent Diane from getting the part. These forces run the gamut from a mysterious man in a wheelchair, two foreign investors that are so picky that they spit out "one of the finest espressos in the world," a hapless assassin who tries to help shut down production and, finally, a kingpin called "the cowboy." They clearly dictate that the actress of the film will be "Camilla Rhodes." In Diane's fantasy, Camilla's rise to stardom is based on questionable reasons while her own lack of success is out of her hands. Below, I have included the scene involving the foreign investors and the espresso. This section is a great example of how Lynch can hypnotize audiences with suspense. While the scene may not make total sense on first viewing, Lynch has the audience in the palm of his hand, unable to look away. 

During the onslaught of surreal events, we follow Adam, the director of the film for which Betty auditioned. This is the same director that Camilla is dating in reality. He finds out as the audience does that the film and its casting is being taken away from him by higher-ups for reasons that are extremely suspicious and unknown. Adam's puzzled reaction to the events mirrors that of the audience as both are trying to make sense of it all. Soon after his clash with executives, Adam comes home to his wife cheating on him with the pool man. In Diane's fantasy, the director is powerless, emasculated and out of his element, somewhat undeserving of his recognition. 

It is worth noting that in the scene with the cowboy, he tells Adam that "if things go well, you will see me one more time. If it goes bad, you will see me two more times." On close inspection, the cowboy does appear two more times in the film (once conspicuously to Diane and once inconspicuously at a party), conveying by the end of the movie, that things have taken a turn for the worse. In addition to his role as dark orchestrator, the cowboy represents self-reliance, a person who states that "a man's attitude goes some way....the way how his life will be." The cowboy is a creation of Diane's subconscious, an entity that advises her to stop blaming others for her failures and to take control of her own life.   

Spurred by her recollection of Mulholland Drive and the name Diane Selwyn, both Rita and Betty go in search of Rita's identity. After finding Diane Selwyn (Betty's actual identity) in a phonebook, they proceed to her address and find a corpse decaying inside the dwelling. Notice that the inside of the apartment matches the decor of Diane's real one later in the film. This scene marks the first time that Diane's fantasy world collides with reality. The corpse is, of course, Diane, which foreshadows her eventual demise both physically and morally.

The film then takes one final stepping stone to reality when Betty and Rita go to Club Silencio. They sit in the audience and listen to a performer exclaim that there is no real band playing, just recordings. Diane is coming to terms with her illusion and the fantasy begins to collapse, a prospect that makes her shutter. The singer on stage then performs a song entitled "Llorando," a song about the heartache of unrequited love. Betty then pulls out a small blue box from her purse. Rita then finds a blue key and opens the box, giving rise to the reality behind the story. Indeed, Camilla had the power to open up Diane's innermost secrets, insecurities, and capacity for evil, all of which lie dormant and silent, eventually leading to their deaths. In some ways, Club Silencio is the penultimate moment of Diane's fantasy; Rita understands the depth of her longing.      

The movie then takes a drastic turn back into reality, in which the characters appear in their true identities and power dynamics. Much of the first part of the film had a "Wizard of Oz" transformation in which real characters were repurposed into fictional ones depending on their true personas and symbolic value. In reality, Camilla is a rising movie star engaged to Adam, a famous, capable director. Coco is actually the director's mother as well as Camilla's future mother-in-law, a reason why Betty covets Coco's motherly role in her fantasy. The girl who replaced Betty in the movie actually replaced Diane as Camilla's lover on the side. Worst of all, Diane is a struggling actress at best, falling through the cracks of her career and doomed affair with Camilla. Her best solace is fantasizing of a better life while masturbating. 

Realizing that she will never have Camilla back, Diane grows increasingly depressed and rejected until she finally decides to have Camilla killed by an assassin. It is fitting that the discussion about the murder takes place at Winkie's. Like Dan before, Diane is finding that the evil stirring inside of her mind is now manifest. The assassin informs her that she will receive a blue key once the murder has been committed. "What does it open?" she asks. The key is the final realization of her actions, her final descent into maddening guilt, the first moment beyond her redemption.         

The end of the film sees Diane's revisionist fantasy collide with the reality of what she has done. It is one of the weirdest, most disturbing horror scenes that I have ever seen. A miniature version of the elderly couple who represented her optimism and innocence appear out of a paper bag held by the evil creature behind the dumpster. That same passionate optimism that brought Diane to Hollywood morphed into a monstrous emotional mess, capable of intense jealousy and murder. Diane is tortured by her guilt and life failures, symbolized by the couple chasing her in her home, until she is driven to commit suicide with a pistol.    

  

"Mulholland Drive" easily makes my pantheon of great films. It is interesting, imaginative and courageous in its unyielding artistic vision. It is David Lynch's view of Hollywood, a place where the brave make pilgrimage, give their life and soul to their work, and then find themselves callously thrown aside. Feelings of failure and injustice replace notions of artistic merit and stardom. It is a place of shining dreams and dark, horrific nightmares. 

Shakespeare in Love

"Shakespeare in Love" is a witless, humorless romantic comedy masquerading as high art. It's the child who wishes to look pretty, so she climbs up mommy's dresser, finds her makeup and then graffitis her face without knowing any better. The academy has made many gross errors in their choice for best picture in the past, but this is one of the greatest tragedies, especially when you realize that it defeated "Saving Private Ryan," perhaps the best war epic ever filmed. This is the type of movie that I loathe, one that convinces twits that they actually learned something about history or literature after leaving the theater. In reality, they probably could have learned just as much from "Shakespeare: Kraken Hunter" or "Shakespeare on Ice." Those two films would have been welcome replacements.   

The movie has many offensive and ridiculous transgressions that make it horrible, but the one that most irks me is the soulless way in which the film is directed. John Madden, the director, who has nothing close to a good movie in his filmography, created a dull, listless, and colorless world which is filled with cliches of both Shakespearean England and the present. The costumes of nearly everyone look completely fake and rise to the level of a high school production desperate for homemade creations because the funding for the arts has just been cut. Another egregious offense is how the film presents William Shakespeare, who is half rock star and half 90210 heartthrob. His Luke Perry vest and Keith Richards shirt remains inexplicably agape, even though no one else seems to dress so ridiculously, unless, of course, they are playing a pirate on stage. Lastly, the sets look as though they were borrowed from Medieval Times, complete with large stone buildings that look like they could be blown over by a moderate afternoon gust.    

The film wastes the talents of actors like Geoffrey Rush, who plays the most stereotypical medieval English man in the history of film. His teeth are so disgusting that he morphs in and out of being some sort of rabbit. Colin Firth, as usual, plays a stern, emotionless British aristocrat whose face is actually a form of sedimentary rock. Gwyneth Paltrow does admittedly give a good performance as Shakespeare's love interest, but it is toward no higher good. And then there's Judy Dench who looks like she is playing dress up in the attic. Finally, no terrible movie in the late nineties would be complete without Ben Affleck careening around the screen without any idea what he is doing, depending totally on what he thinks is swagger in his own head. His performance is reminiscent of the times in high school English class when the teacher would assign the brainless jock to perform the part of Julius Caesar or Macbeth out loud. Indeed, the rumor that Affleck lost weight for the role is very true, though most of it dropped from his cerebrum.   

It is not so much that the dialogue of the movie is terrible as it is the performance of it, complete with accents that are so bad and over the top that it creates a nexus of comical, amateurish embarrassment that hovers over the entire film. Speaking to the plot, what purpose does it serve? It's certainly not historically accurate----if the creation of "Romeo and Juliet" was, in fact, created as a mirror image of Shakespeare's own life, then maybe they would have had an interesting story. But what does this fictional adaptation of Shakespeare's life tell us about him? Or his artistry? Or England? Or Love? This movie is totally without purpose, an invention with no use, a ghost with no unfinished business. One has to posit that the copious amount of topless scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow serve only to keep audiences in their seats distracted from the rest of the film, hoping only for another lascivious peek.

"Shakespeare in Love" is the best argument that exists for a mechanism by which the academy can take back awards after they are proven to be shortsighted and misplaced. Give the damn statue to "Saving Private Ryan" where it belongs.          

Love and Mercy

Brian Wilson has been called a genius, often compared in importance to The Beatles and The Who in the creation of conceptual albums in the 1960's. It's a well known fact, for example, that Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson competed with each other with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Pet Sounds." In fact, McCartney considered "God Only Knows" to be the best pop song ever written. "Love and Mercy" does an amazing job demonstrating in great detail the character and amount of innovation Wilson gave to popular music. In many ways, he was a classical musician who wanted to add layers and complex arrangements to a popular form. More importantly, the film humanizes a tormented man suffering from schizoaffective disorder (a form of schizophrenia that also includes manic depression), showing the reality of his condition without succumbing to mere spectacle. 

Brian Wilson was the main songwriter of the Beach Boys, a group that was dominated in their early years by an abusive, controlling father who also acted as their manager. Wilson's father became one of the predominant voices in his head, both figuratively and literally, driving him to better his songwriting and then finally driving him to madness. The part of Wilson is divvied up between Paul Dano and John Cusack with the former playing the young version and the latter depicting the aged, recovering version. Paul Dano's performance is particularly noteworthy. He captures the subtlety of Wilson's descent into madness which starts with facial ticks and short lived voices which then progresses into paranoia and a break with reality. Cusack also does quite well being the likable but ailing Wilson in his older age. Elizabeth Banks gives one of the best performances of her career, playing Wilson's eventual wife who slowly comes to understand the depth of his illness and the terror of his treatment under a radical psychologist.     

Of all the films that I have seen portray a type of schizophrenia, "Love and Mercy" is one of the best. For one, it refuses to abide the trend arguing that mental illness is synonymous creativity and vice versa. Wilson is not a musical genius because he is schizophrenic; in fact, his brilliance and openness to new ideas is often impeded by the relentless cavalcade of distracting voices and mood changes. In all probability, he would have been more prolific without his illness. This fact is proven later as he completes his epic "Smile" album years after he started it and regained mental balance. Another notable aspect is how the film presents the symptoms of schizoaffective disorder. We are not shown a madman climbing the walls of an asylum or rampaging throughout the city. Instead, we are shown someone in a mental prison, who quietly endures hours of pathologic voices spewing negative venom at every turn. Finally, the movie presents the unfortunate connection Wilson had to a radical psychologist, played by Paul Giamatti, who overmedicated him and kept him away from his family and loved ones under the guise of treatment. This "medicine" is in contrast to current, more humane protocol which looks to involve families and friends. 

"Love and Mercy" is a very successful biopic. It made me appreciate the artistry of Wilson and helped me to understand his life and struggles. Best of all, it makes me want to dust off some Beach Boy records and listen to them with a fresh ear.         

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" is a truly beautiful failure of a film, one that makes you nod your head in sorrow on how an artist could waste such an amazing visual sense on a such a lackluster script. Anderson certainly has a style to his films; most involve a failed father figure, pastel or faded colors, centering every scene in the middle of the lens, characters who hide deep anguish behind a smug almost shallow persona, and contrived worlds that seem to emanate straight from a picture book or novel. When held in the correct balance, audiences can be blessed with a film like "The Royal Tenenbaums," which beautifully coalesces all that is original in Anderson's work. But when the balance is off, Anderson produces a film like "The Life Aquatic," a movie that borders on annoying at times, if not tragic. Indeed, somewhere in the gorgeous canvas of this film lies the components of a much better film that dare not show its head above water.  

The movie's title role is aptly played by Bill Murray, whose sheer talent and charisma elevate the film to a bearable state. Steve Zissou is a Jacques Cousteau-like sea explorer who produces documentary films, which, as we find out, are more contrived than they appear to be. On his last production, Zissou and his best friend, Esteban, were attacked by huge, unknown shark-like creature, leaving Esteban dead and Zissou traumatized. In a fit of rage, Zissou plans to produce his last film in which he will hunt down the shark and kill it for revenge. The rest of the film is essentially a post modern retelling of Melville's "Moby Dick:" both Captain Ahab and Steve Zissou seek the giant whale (or shark) to not only kill it as revenge for an injury, but also to confront the cruel randomness of nature itself. If the movie has an emotional linchpin or a noticeable strongpoint, it is Zissou's heartfelt search for reasoning behind worldly suffering. 

The rest of the characters are annoyingly one-dimensional and cliche. The entire film seems like a series of hipster paper dolls with obvious self-explanation scurrying across a beautiful template. They might as well have labels and descriptions on their costumes. By far, the worst character and performance in the film belongs to Owen Wilson, who plays an anachronistic Southern airline pilot named Ned who materialized out of thin air from the 1850's. Not only is the presence of the character jarring and without reason, Wilson's amateur accent is enough to make you wince. Zissou has an intelligent wife played by Angelica Huston, whose performance confuses the contemplative for the comatose. Willem Defoe plays Klaus, whose only job in the film is to be an uber german for comic relief. Jeff Goldblum plays Captain Hennesey, Zissou's professional nemesis with only one defining trait: he is a closeted gay man. Cate Blanchett plays a recently impregnated reporter assigned to write about the aged Zissou. Then there's a guy simply known as the "bond company stooge." The list of non-people go on and on in this movie. 

The dialogue is guilty of the most severe transgression that an imbalanced Wes Anderson film can possess: an annoying, shallow preoccupation with itself to the point in which it becomes "too much" or "hyper-precious." I'm sure many of these non-sequitur lines seemed humorous or clever in the mind of Wes Anderson, but their utterance in the movie is often excruciating or at least frustrating. While I recognize Anderson as a notable artist, he really seemed to making this film for his own entertainment rather than ours. Because of this shallow dialogue, the audience invests little or no emotion or interest in the characters. They exist in the foreground without depth.

The film's sizable artistic contradiction comes in the fact that despite the poor script and characters, Anderson is able to create a world teeming with color, imagination, and inventiveness. Frankly, the production design is beautiful; in fact, it's kind of a masterpiece. From the little stop motion animated sea creatures to the choice of using David Bowie songs performed in Portuguese to connote otherworldliness, Anderson sure knows how to transport you into his creation. One of my favorite scenes is the one in which Zissou provides a tour of his ship, The Belafonte:

What is impressive about Anderson is his ability to create a complete world in his head and then reproduce it on film. All the little idiosyncratic rooms on his boat are little masterpieces in and of themselves. The level of detail in creating Zissou's world with paintings, books, imaginary animals and plants, even his blue uniforms and signature walkie-talkies are incredible. I really wish Anderson sense of visual detail corresponded to other parts of the film, notably the story and dialogue.

"The Life Aquatic" is another Anderson saga about a failed father figure. Esteban dies and orphans Zissou, while the latter is emotionally unable to fulfill his paternal role for "probably-his-son Ned." Whether they are about adding or subtracting a family member, relationships are painful for Zissou, By the end of the film, Zissou finds the jaguar shark and says, "I wonder if it remembers me?" and then sobs. This reaction is the main difference between Captain Ahab and Steve Zissou; the former lived in a religious world in which suffering was rationalized as part of God's plan while Zissou lives in a world in which cruel randomness must be accepted. The underwater submarine scene in which Zissou realizes that the natural world is both beautiful AND chaotic is one of the finest of the film.

Wes Anderson did achieve some great things in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," but they were all conceptual and visual. After another visually stunning but empty movie, "The Darjeeling Limited," Anderson got his mojo back with "Moonrise Kingdom" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel," which found a balance between actual substance and his quirky sensibility. While my favorite Anderson film continues to be "Rushmore" and all of its angsty silliness, I have to say that "The Life Aquatic" is his most sublime. Too bad the movie failed to sound as good as it looked.     

     

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick had a very distinctive creative process that he carried throughout all of his films. He would patiently wait for a new trend or genre to emerge and would then contemplate the aspects of the movement. He sought to distill the groups of films down to their essence and to tease out out the underlying philosophies inherent within them. Kubrick would then arguably make the best film of the genre. With "2001: A Space Odyssey," Kubrick not only made the best and most influential science fiction film to date, he made what I think is the greatest and most important film in the history of the art form.

Like many other Kubrick films, "2001" presents some challenges to viewing. In its running time of 160 minutes, only 20 or so minutes have any speaking. The rest of the film includes powerful images that are supposed to inspire contemplation and awe. Because the film has a large plot that encompasses all of human evolution, and because it has a nontraditional method of storytelling, it's easy for some to dismiss the film as too vague or even boring. Ironically, I think "2001" is a very precise film from a director who is famous for being insanely detailed. In this review, I would like to present my own interpretation of the film. My following thoughts must come with a disclaimer that any piece of true art will be open to multiple interpretations. My opinions should not prevent anyone from disagreeing or forming their own views. Debate, I think, more than anything, was Kubrick's intention. 

The film opens with a long musical prologue, which I believe represents the creation of simple organisms in the sea from the primordial material on earth. We then see multiple, motionless images of the African savanna without any land animals or ancestors of human beings. These few images help us grasp the concept that the earth is much older than us and our time span has been short compared to the long timeline of earth's existence.  

As the images continue, we are shown various animals and a group of timid apes competing with other animals to eat grass. Surrounded by dangerous carnivores, the apes are in constant peril. Their environment demanded an evolutionary leap for their own survival. One night, as the cowering apes huddled together for warmth and protection, one of the them, who is called Moongazer in the credits, stands up to see a giant black monolith pointing to the moon. The other apes follow and are fascinated by a formation that seems artificially placed there. In Arthur C. Clarke's original book, the monoliths were placed by alien lifeforms, but in Kubrick's version, the source of the monolith is left a mystery and up to interpretation. The smooth black monolith symbolizes an evolutionary epiphany or the transfer of necessary information. The apes touch the formation pointing to the moon and discover the concept that will advance their species: the advent of tools. Tools will make possible the next evolutionary jump for the primitive apes, which will culminate in their dominance of earth and their departure into the cosmos. 

But how do primitive apes "find" or "discover" tools? Kubrick has an ingenious scene showing that discovering actually means repurposing. Challenged by an evolutionary need, one of the apes comes upon an animal carcass. It plays around with rib bones and starts using one of them as a hammer. This scene is made even more wonderful by the use of Richard Strauss' "Also Spach Zarathustra," showing the power and grandeur of discovery. At that moment, the ape becomes a human being, at least in trajectory. 

  

The discovery of tools gives rise to the central theme of the film: that technology can be used for both life and death. As for life, tools make it possible for the apes to hunt animals and obtain meat protein, the resource responsible for the growth of the human brain in the next epoch. Tools can also be a form of protection from other predators. But what gives life to emerging human beings also brings death. In the next scene, the apes have separated into hunting tribes and use the tools to battle each other for control over resources, in this case, a watering hole. One of the apes beats another to death and establishes dominance and control. This theme of tools and their connection to life and death will repeat throughout the movie. From the beginning, man has sowed the seeds of his own destruction through technology, an important message to keep in mind during the film's release during the cold war and the era of mutually assured destruction. 

In what has been called the biggest jump cut in film history, an ape throws his bone weapon into the air and it instantaneously becomes a space satellite. The scene places us in the year 2001 after hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. Our tools have become quite complicated and impressive. Kubrick encompasses the beauty and symmetry of civilization with Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz." Just as classical music demonstrates a high amount of orchestration and precision, we see beautiful spacecrafts floating elegantly with similar perfect synchronization. Kubrick shows how much science and mathematics have allowed us to coordinate amazingly complicated feats like flying into space and docking ships in zero gravity. What is clear in Arthur C. Clarke's book, but not so much in the film, is that the satellite that morphs from the ape's bone is actually a bomb. Again, technology for both life and death. 

The special effects, which later earned Kubrick's only Oscar, are amazing. The models, backlit set pieces, and camera work make everything look incredibly real. It is humbling to see that Kubrick's effects have not been topped even by CGI graphics. It is worth mentioning that Kubrick made "2001" before anyone knew what earth looked like from space and how objects would act in zero gravity. Everything moves in circular motion not only to show the harmony and beauty of movement but also because scientists believed that ships would have to move with centrifugal force to instill gravity for astronauts. 

One significant problem that Kubrick solved was how one films "space." Indeed, how does one show the vastness and sometimes nothingness of space? His method of including smaller objects next to larger ones helped give scale, which was invaluable to the look of the movie. All future movies set in space, including the Star Wars, Alien, and Star Trek franchises mimic Kubrick's techniques. Part of this film's greatness is the fact that it influenced so many other films that would come to define movie history.   

On the Pan Am commercial spaceship, we are introduced to a scientist who is embarking on a trip to a space station and then to the moon for official government business. A few visual images key us into more of Kubrick's themes: the passengers on board are eating meals that closely resemble baby food; the stewardess has difficulty walking in zero gravity and stumbles around like a toddler learning to walk; finally, a pen slips away from the sleeping passenger and floats away until the stewardess returns it to his pocket. All of these aspects symbolize man entering a nascent stage in space travel. Additionally, these images point to how unnatural space travel is. Human beings are essentially infants outside of earth, drawing comparisons to the weakness of apes in their nascency before they developed proper tools. 

The scientist disembarks from the ship and learns that there is a serious epidemic on the moon base. He prepares for a briefing but then finds out that the epidemic story was actually a decoy to cover the fact that workers have found a black monolith on the moon. In a theme that will come full circle later in the film, deception is a tool developed by human beings that brings both life and death. In this case, the lie was an effort to forestall panic and death. 

The scientist and his team take a spaceship to the moon in order to inspect the monolith. Once again, Kubrick provides an array of amazing, beautiful images that look astoundingly real. These set pieces look so real, in fact, that many have implicated Kubrick in a conspiracy to fake the moon landing using his prowess exhibited in the film. As the scientists arrive at the monolith, they approach it in much the same way as the apes and notice that it is pointing to Jupiter. Challenged this time with  curiosity for discovery, the humans are driven towards the unknown. 

   

  

The movie picks up on a ship destined for Jupiter. One could argue that the ship resembles a sperm, once again demonstrating the infancy of humans in space. Several scientists are on board; some are awake while others are in extended hibernation. We are also introduced to one of the greatest film villains of all time: the HAL 9000 computer, which is designed to be the perfect, most advanced tool ever devised by human beings. In fact, HAL is such an advanced tool that he essentially becomes a cognizant human being with critical thinking skills and emotions. He runs the entire ship and maintains a cordial friendship with the astronauts. One of the aspects of this section that I love is how the astronauts, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, resemble a collected, almost emotionless computer-like being, while HAL, who just became operational a few days ago, acts like an insecure, neurotic character from a Woody Allen film. Humans have learned to control their emotions and instead depend on reason. HAL, at the beginning of his evolution, is overtly emotional.

HAL confides in the astronauts that he is anxious about the mission and reports that the ship's radio transmitter has been malfunctioning and needs to be replaced. The astronauts suit up, go outside the ship, and check the radio. It is worth noting how Kubrick emphasizes the deep breathing of the astronaut in the space suit, pointing out again how unnatural it is for humans to be in space. After the radio is found to be completely operational, the astronauts question HAL's capability to function correctly, and discuss the possibility of shutting him down. They do this in secret away from HAL's knowledge by turning off audio communication. Amusingly, HAL is able to read their lips and catch on to their plan. He hatches his own plot to lure one of the astronauts outside of the ship by destroying the radio and then attacking him with a satellite spaceship. He also knows that Bowman, the other astronaut, will come to his partner's rescue and will be eventually locked out as well. HAL also kills all of the astronauts in hibernation. So much for putting the computer in charge of everything. 

What is truly amazing about this sequence is how HAL exhibits attributes of a lowly evolved human being (he became operational just a few days prior). After his ascension into basic consciousness, HALS's first concern is to fear for his own survival, just as the lowly evolved apes did. He then uses the modern tool of deception to kill the astronauts. As a sentient human like machine, HAL's first impulse was to kill. At this point, Kubrick really starts to bring home his theme about how our elegant civilization is belied by primitive ape-like instincts to survive at the cost of other beings. 

  

While HAL's plan is immediately successful, what he doesn't count on is human beings' ability to innovate and adapt. Importantly, Bowman takes control of his emotions, a sign of his higher evolution, and works out a way to reenter the ship using the manual lock. Bowman reenters the ship and immediately goes to disconnect HAL for his own survival. But if HAL is a conscious, sentient being, is Bowman murdering him? As HAL pleads for his life and expresses fear at the loss of his consciousness, Bowman disconnects HAL in a slow methodical way, piece by piece. Compare Bowman's slow, subtle murder of HAL to the ape in the beginning of the film who violently beats an enemy over the head with a bone. The former may seem more civilized and technical, but it's still murder nonetheless.

After HAL is terminated, a television screen begins informing Bowman that the mission to Jupiter was to retrieve another monolith floating around near the planet's atmosphere. Again, this formation represents an evolutionary challenge to the next level. Bowman chases the monolith and from the audience's perspective, the floating monolith turns horizontal and becomes the movie screen. We, the audience, now become part of the experience and transformation as we go with Bowman through a stargate. This stunning sequence, wholly new to film, was achieved by shooting lasers straight into the camera lens.  

But what is the next evolutionary step that we are to take with Bowman? What are we challenged to do? Throughout the film, we continually saw how, in one sense, evolution was based on the creation of tools, which, in turn, gave rise to civilization. While "2001: A Space Odyssey" certainly celebrates the ingenuity of man and his curiosity to explore the cosmos, Kubrick used the film to make the statement to a proud American nation that technological innovation is not necessarily progress. While we have come a long way from primitive apes and bone tools, we still have not evolved passed our primitive instincts to kill and conduct war. Our tools are infinitely more complicated and impressive, but we use them for the same purpose as our primitive ancestors did: life and death. Our advanced spaceship is the primitive ape's bone.  

Our evolutionary challenge is to overcome our primitive instincts and emotions and to live peacefully under pure reason. That is the future. As we pass with Bowman through the stargate, we can see images of earth but in a different, almost psychedelic perspective. Kubrick wants to use filmmaking to give us an experience that will change our perspective on our place in the universe and our direction as a species. See the big picture, not the petty need for violence and destruction. 

At the end of the stargate, Bowman finds himself in a fancy room, presumably some sort of artificial alien habitat for observation. He watches himself age slowly (maybe even evolve slowly). At one point, he knocks a wine glass off a table and sees that the wine is still intact despite the fact that the container is destroyed. This foreshadows Bowman's bodily death and ascension into the spiritual world. As Bowman is lying on his deathbed, he reaches up to another monolith, dies, and transforms into what Arthur C. Clarke called "the star child," a being that can see the world anew.     

   

While human beings and their ancestors shared some primitive attributes including our penchant for killing in a life-death cycle, there is one common attribute that defined us from the very beginning: a sense of bold curiosity, wonder, and the need to discover. This characteristic has driven both our ancestors and modern humans up the food chain, to the moon, and beyond the stars. "2001: A Space Odyssey" is the only film that I have ever seen that attempts to be an experience rather than passive entertainment. It wants you to see the journey of human beings in the universe, a feat only made possible by the medium of film. Kubrick is not really interested in entertaining us as much as he is in inspiring our awe and wonder, the defining characteristic that makes us human and drives us to greater and greater heights.