Date Night: Shadow of the Vampire

In which I review a randomly-selected movie from Netflix with Becky.

It's hard to believe that nearly a month has come and gone since the last Date Night.  But with this installment complete and a second one already waiting in the wings, don't expect such gaps to become the norm.

I have always found silent films to be especially entrancing.  There's a zen simplicity in silence - meaning found solely in the visuals - especially since thunderous explosions and snappy dialog come cheaply these days.  You can't multitask through a silent film: can't tweet or update statuses or surf the net.  It's an unforgiving aesthetic that forces you to either pay absolute attention or become hopelessly lost in the narrative.

Perhaps this is why I was so intrigued by Shadow of the Vampire, a film depicting the creation of one of the greatest silent films ever produced: F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  Having been unable to secure the film rights to Bram Stoker's Dracula, the production was troubled before it ever truly began.  Deciding to simply change a few superficial details, Murnau pushed ahead with his film regardless.  But it was Max Schreck - the actor chosen to play the iconic Count Orlok - that proved to be film's greatest obstacle.

Max Schreck was a method actor before the practice gained public notoriety.  As I have mentioned before, method actors are a peculiar breed of thespians that entrench themselves in the psychology of their character both on and off the set - supplanting themselves for that of the fiction that they portray on screen.  When filming, there was never a Max Schreck: only Orlok - only the vampire.  He "play[ed] the part of an actor playing the part of a vampire," only appearing in front of the cast and crew in full costume and makeup, only at night, never breaking character during the film's entire production and was only to be addressed by as Orlok.  Understandably, rumors surged on set that Max Schreck actually was a vampire.

Shadow of the Vampire takes those rumors and runs with them, positing that Schreck was, in fact, a vampire that Murnau scouted out for his film's antagonist.  He is never shown eating, only drinking from a decanter of blood, a bottle of schnapps and a decapitated bat.  Although Murnau lists the various companies and productions that Schreck was a part of when introducing him to the rest of the cast, that cover is soon thoroughly disproved.  When Murnau's crew demands to know what he promised Schreck in exchange for appearing in the role, he answers Greta Schroeder, the film's lead actress.  In addition to ripping out his co-star's throat, over the course of filming Schreck hospitalizes one crew member and kills two others.  While filming Nosferatu's climax, Murnau orders the set's shutters to be lifted, using the sunlight to kill Schreck on camera.

Max Schreck was the role that Willem Dafoe was born to play.  He was always an unsettling-looking actor, with a wide Grinch-like grin, massive teeth with prominent canines, buggy eyes, dark lips and a sloping leathery face; combined with Schreck's own exaggerated makeup - ashen flesh, pointed ears, elongated incisors, bald head with wisps of white around his ears, overlong fingers with claw-like nails - it creates a character of unparalleled unease.  Additionally, Dafoe is able to fully embody the stiff, lumbering and altogether unnatural posture and movements of German Expressionism: the film aesthetic that informed Nosferatu's production.

The resulting film is neither a biography of an eccentric actor nor a historical drama depicting an especially troubled production.  Shadow of the Vampire is neither Hitchcock nor Lost in La Mancha.  It is something altogether darker: a revelation in one man's desperate obsession for authenticity and perfection, regardless of the cost that must be paid for it.  It's caught somewhere between John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige: self-destruction as a willful act of creation.

I don't know what exactly I was expecting to see when I sat down to watch Shadow of the Vampire, but this is certainly not it.  It was a mesmerizingly horrific experience, blurring the lines between biography and fiction until the two became hopelessly intermixed.  It is a film that any fan of horror and the early film industry should experience.  Overall, I give the film a 7.5 out of 10 and Becky gives it a 7.

If you liked what you read, please share this post on social media and subscribe to this blog in order to keep up with the latest posts.  Ask questions or share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Date Night: Zodiac

In which I review a randomly-selected movie from Netflix.

I honestly have no idea why I waited so long to watch Zodiac.  I've wanted to see it since it hit theaters in 2007 as the next big film from the director of Fight Club and Se7en.  I didn't watch it in 2008 after Robert Downey Jr. returned to the A-list in Iron Man.  I didn't watch it after blind-buying it in 2009, nor after Mark Ruffalo became a household name in the wake of The Avengers' unprecedented success.  I waited until it was streamable on Netflix, and even then I waited over a year before I sat down to watch it.

Zodiac, based on Robert Graysmith's 1986 novel, opens during the Zodiac Killer's murder spree across 1960's California.  While San Fransisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery's coverage of the murders puts him at odds with homicide detectives Dave Toschi and William Armstrong, anti-social cartoonist Robert Graysmith becomes just as fascinated with the killer's reign of terror as he is horrified by it.  When victims stop piling up in the early 1970's, however, the public loses interest; Paul Avery is fired from the Chronicle, detective Armstrong transfers out of homicide and Detective Toschi moves on to other cases.  Despite the incredulity of the police and the concern of his wife, Robert Graysmith launches his own private investigation into the murders to uncover the identity of the Zodiac.

Rightly praised for its accurate recreation of the investigation surrounding the murders, Zodiac plays out more like a History Channel dramatization than a thriller built around a real-life Hannibal Lecter.  The characters are used less for their dramatic interactions as they are for their reactions to what the unseen antagonist does.  Greysmith's son seems to only be included because of the killer writing to the newspaper that "school children make nice targets.  I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning.  Just shoot out the front tire [and] then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."  Avery has a wife that briefly speaks from the other end of a telephone and is only mentioned again after she kicks him out of the house (presumably because of Avery's increasingly antagonistic and erratic behavior towards the police investigation).  Toschi's wife exists purely to be annoyed when Graysmith wakes her and her husband up in the middle of the night with another Zodiac theory while Graysmith's wife only seems to exist to steal their kids away to her mother's as Graysmith becomes more and more obsessed with the identity of the Zodiac killer.

Paul Avery (left) and Robert Graysmith (right)

Coming in at over two and one half hours, Zodiac's methodical pacing causes the film to drag where similar films seem to fly by.  The decision to cover the whole of the Zodiac's twisting investigation over three counties and two decades, though admirable, makes for a cumbersome and unwieldy film.  Given how superfluous Graysmith's inclusion is in the first half of the film and how equally superfluous Avery's inclusion is in the second half, the film as a whole would have strongly benefited from cutting one or the other character out entirely: focusing on a single one of their investigations alongside Toschi's.  This would have allowed the film to more thoroughly explore the unfolding drama of the lives of those effected by the murders in a more-efficient 2 hour run-time: more than enough time to explore the details of an unsolved serial killing.

Although well-written, well-acted and well-directed, Zodiac is a film that is far less than the sum of its parts.  Its sole concern with solving the mystery of the killer fails to allow it to delve into the lives of those that he affects: the surviving victims and terrified families worried that their children will be used for target practice on their way to school.  Although ambitious, it's ultimately average.  I give the film a solid 7, while Becky gives it a 6.

The banality of evil: the alleged Zodiac killer.

Random Movie #8: Pulse

For our eighth randomly selected Netflix movie, Becky and I watched the 2001 Japanese horror movie Pulse.  While I had seen its absolutely atrocious remake, I had heard considerable praise for the original (according to the blog They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, it is the 246th best reviewed movie of the 21st century).  Besides, the exceedingly unsettling poster alone made the movie at least worth checking out.

When Tokyo florist Kudo Michi (Kumiko Asô) begins to worry about absent co-worker Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi), she goes to his apartment to see what is the matter.  During the course of their conversation, Taguchi casually walks into an adjoining room and hangs himself.  It becomes rapidly apparent, however, that this is only a single occurrence in a widening pattern of suicides throughout the world, caused by ghosts crossing over en masse to the world of the living.

Pulse is the Japanese progression of Dawn of the Dead, which declared that "when there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."  Like its predecessor, Pulse envisions the afterlife as a dimension of finite space: overcrowded with the spirits of the dead.  The core difference between them, however, is how the dead choose to interact with the mortal.

Romero's zombies wage a crusade against the living, seeking to either consume or convert anybody that they come across.  They don't want to amicably co-exist with the living, but to conquer them one meal at a time.  Kurosawa's ghosts, however, are the displaced dead: refugees from their own phantasmal realm (which one character describes as "eternal loneliness").  They are the "tired, [the] poor, / [the] huddled masses yearning to breathe free" in a new world filled with promise and possibility.  Our world is their last, desperate hope for an afterlife.

The internet videos that are viewed throughout the film are windows into these ghosts' hellish afterlife.  What we see is a dim and isolated room where every face is obscured by darkness.  The words "HELP ME" are written repeatedly on all of the walls.  As the video progresses, we see a figure enter the room and strangle its existing occupant: presumably a territorial dispute over what little space remains in this afterlife.  And, given that ghosts are eternal beings, the implication is that they must endure these promethean tortures for all eternity.  The unforeseen consequence of their intrusion on our world, however, is that any living being that they come in contact with is stricken with suicidal depression, further exacerbating the root issue of an overcrowded afterlife.

The ghosts' invasion of the living world is modeled within the film by a computer program in which a series of white dots move listlessly through a black screen.  If the dots ever touch one another, both are destroyed.  If any move too far away from one another, though, they are propelled closer together.  This program doubles as an apt metaphor for all human interaction: we both fear isolation and crave human contact.  Because of this, we propel ourselves toward one another with wild, often reckless, abandon, resulting in our own mutual self destruction.

The medium for this destruction is modern technology.  Kurosawa presents it as a means of isolating, rather than connecting, people, which invariably results in despair.  Instead of making meaningful, personal relationships, we seclude ourselves in our rooms (which are so very like those occupied by the invading dead) and surf the web.  By the time that we venture forth beyond technology, it is far too late: we have become as desperate and self-destructive as the dead themselves.

Pulse is a movie that improves considerably upon retrospection: something which is more appreciated than enjoyed.  While its production quality and scares are only so-so, its soberly meditative take on people's relationship with modern technology is thoughtful and depressively tragic.  Becky and I both give the movie a respectful 6, the same that I have awarded to Flatliners, Insidious and The Evil Dead.

Random Movie #6: The Wind that Shakes the Barley

For our sixth random Netflix movie, Becky and I saw the 2006 war drama The Wind that Shakes the Barley.  I have wanted to see this movie since it first came out in 2006.  Initially it was because it looked interesting and starred Cillian Murphey.  Later, this grew to include its Palme d'Or win from that year (best described as the equivalent of winning a Nobel Prize in film).

Damien (left) and Teddy (right)

In rural 1920s Ireland, Dr. Damien O'Donovan (Cillian Murphey) prepares to leave his hometown for a job in a London hospital.  After a farewell game of Hurling (a game similar to Field Hockey), a group of English soldiers confront them for hosting an illegal public gathering, resulting in the summary execution of friend Micheál Ó Súilleabháin (Laurence Barry).  After his initial misgivings about fighting an unwinnable war, Damien's brother Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) convinces him to join the Irish rebels in their war against English oppression.  But while Teddy is satisfied to compromise with the English, Damien will not be satisfied until Ireland achieves full independence.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is an a-typical war drama, having far more in common with dialog-heavy dramas like 12 Angry Men than with action-laden epics like Saving Private Ryan.  Rather than focusing on the sanguine skirmishes between the Irish rebels and English troops, the film emphasizes the surrounding debate of Irish nationalism and independence.  The real battles are not fought amidst the fields of Anthenry over territorial gains, but in the court rooms and churches over the distribution of wealth and the exact nature of the new Irish government.  The war itself, which ends 45 minutes before the end of the film, merely exists to provide context for such a debate.  

The film is a deeply immersive experience that steeps the viewer in the fiercely-fractured context of 1920s Ireland.  Its title - The Wind that Shakes the Barley - is drawn from Robert Dwyer Joyce's tragic ballad of the same name, which is sung during Micheál Ó Súilleabháin's funeral.  The song, which strongly parallels O'Donovan's own story, tells of an Irishman torn between his nationalist love of Ireland and his romantic love of his sweetheart.  After his lover is murdered by an English soldier, he joins the IRA and fights in the war.  Its choral references of barley refer to the fact that the Irish rebels would carry barley in their pockets as marching provisions.  When soldiers killed in combat were buried, the barley would take root and cover their unmarked graves.

Another song prominently featured in the film is Óró, Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile, a traditional ballad that was intensely popular during the Irish War of Independence.  The song welcomes home the soldiers who have "scatter[ed] the foreigners" that have threatened the country, comparing them to national heroes like the pirate queen Grace O'Malley.  It is performed by the Irish rebels emerging from a fog-seeped road, marching toward the a stationary camera and accompanied only by their footfalls.  Though it lasts less than a minute on camera, it remains one of the most enthralling and memorable moments within the film.

At the heart of The Wind that Shakes the Barley is an intensely personal tragedy.  Much like the American Civil War, which pitted entire families against one another, brothers Damien and Teddy ultimately find themselves on opposing sides following the Ireland's eventual treaty with England, which turns Northern Ireland into a Puerto Rico-like commonwealth that remains under English control.  Damien refuses to stop fighting until Ireland is completely independent of England, accusing Teddy of "wrapp[ing himself] in the [...] Union Jack: the butcher’s apron."  Teddy, fearful of England's threat of "an immediate and terrible war" if hostilities should continue, believes that the treaty is the best possible outcome that they, a rag-tag group of rebels, could hope for.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley easily numbers among the best war movies ever made despite, paradoxically, de-emphasizing the events of the war proper.  Unlike most films, where anticipation breeds disappointment, this one was well worth the seven-year wait.  While Becky only rates this exceptional film an 8, I rate it a 9, placing it on par with the likes of Apocalypse Now, Lincoln and A Man Escaped.

Random Movie #5: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

For our fifth Netflix installment, we returned to one of my additions to the bucket: the 2010 horror film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.  First shown to me by an intensely enamored friend, it seemed to me that it would be something that Becky and I would enjoy watching together.

Eight-year-old Sally Farnham (Bailee Madison) has recently moved to Rhode Island to live with her estranged father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) while they restore the ancient Blackwood Manor for resale.  Even though Alex and Kim try to make her feel welcome, all she wants to do is to go back to her old home with her mother.  One morning, while exploring Blackwood's extensive grounds, Sally discovers a hidden chamber accidentally frees a tribe of pixie-like creatures.  It is only afterwards, however, that she realizes that they want to kidnap her and bring her to their warren under the manor.  Her father refuses to believe that she is telling the truth, leaving her to defend against these nocturnal invaders on her own.

Though not an altogether inaccurate label, I would hesitate to advertise Don't Be Afraid of the Dark as a horror film.  Doing so creates an inaccurate set of expectations in the viewer (similar to my opinion of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Last House on the Left).  Between its whispered threats and murine antagonists, it is intimately more creepy than terrifying.  It could be more appropriately described as a melancholic meditation of the effects of a broken home on a too-often overlooked child.

To this end, the film is structured less like a modern horror film than it is a Greek tragedy.  The imps in the house are only a threat to Sally, whose most formidable weapons are a night light and a Polaroid camera.  Though he was capable of stopping the imps' assault throughout the film, Alex is too preoccupied with his work to take even the slightest notice of the danger that his family is in.  By neglecting Sally's need for companionship when she first arrived, he opened her to the tempting offers of friendship that the imps promised her in exchange for releasing them.  By refusing to believe Sally's increasing visible fears, he placed all three of them perpetual danger.  By refusing to leave the house when even Kim was begging him to, he ensured that the creatures would tear his family apart.  Although Alex himself survives the ordeal, he is burdened with the guilt of knowing that his constant inaction directly resulted in the film's tragic climax.

By starring a girl who was only eight-years-old at the time that filming began, director Troy Nixey and writer / producer Guillermo del Toro took a considerable risk with the emotional core of the film.  The old Hollywood adage, "never work with animals and children," is a direct warning against making this exact kind of child-centric film.  The quality of child actors is notoriously unpredictable, running the gamut from Daniel Radcliffe to Jake Lloyd.  "Not terrible" is often the best that anybody can expect.

Bailee Madison, however, gave a rare and moving performance as the haunted Sally Farnham.  Her character is surprisingly complex, torn between her instinctual need for her father's protection and her aversion toward a man who is essentially a complete stranger to her.  Madison's performance captures every nuance of a girl forced into a broken family.  She conveys the sour resentment of being uprooted from a reasonably stable home, the giddy wonder of a girl discovering strange new "friends" and the desperate need to be believed.  Amidst a solid-but-forgettable cast, she succeeds at giving a truly exceptional performance.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark features all of the darkly beautiful visuals that are characteristic of Guillermo del Toro.  Blackwood Manor, rooted with secret passages and draped in heavily saturated colors, is entrancingly beautiful.  It is a pristine vision of old world opulence.  This, in turn, is contrasted against the savage imps that infest its walls, nightmarishly rendered on paper as often as they emerge from the shadows.

On the whole, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a solidly entertaining and reasonably executed horror film.  Becky and I agree that this film is a solid 7, comparing favorably to Alien, Carrie and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Random Movie #2: Equilibrium

Another random movie has come and gone without incident.  For our second selection, Becky and I saw the 2002 sci-fi action film Equilibrium which was, needless to say, a pretty stark contrast to Monsoon Wedding.  This was another film that I had previously seen that I thought that Becky would enjoy (this time on recommendation from a friend).

The film is set in the aftermath of a devastating third world war.  As humanity crawls from the ashes to rebuild its shattered civilization, it is agreed that the world will not survive a fourth such war.  In order to prevent mankind's extinction, the new government attacks what they see as the root of "man's inhumanity toward man: his ability to feel."  By governmental decree, the entire populace is medicated with an emotional suppressant called Prozium and anything that could elicit an emotional response (which ranges from the Mona Lisa to puppies) is strictly prohibited.  Both failure to medicate and possession of banned materials are capital offenses.

John Preston (Christian Bale) is a Grammaton Cleric: a special operative that suppresses terrorists who have gone off of their state-mandated Prozium and incinerates any contraband that they might possess.  After accidentally missing a dose of Prozium himself, Preston begins to feel for the first time: awe at the beautiful works of art that he destroys, remorse for killing his rogue partner and sympathy for the men and women who simply refuse to be medicated any longer.  While he tries to make sense of these new emotions, he becomes a double agent for the terroristic resistant movement while attempting to dissuade his new partner's growing suspicions about his loyalty to the state.

Equilibrium is basically what would happen if the Wachowski brothers directed Fahrenheit 451: a slick, stylized action-thriller with some incredibly riveting fight sequences.  As masters of Gun Kata, a combination of martial arts and markmanship, the Grammaton Clerics are this film's equivalent of The Matrix's Agents.  In the very first scene, we see John Preston enter into a blackened room surrounded by armed terrorists.  After they send off some panicked, scattered fire and a few whispers, Preston makes a series of precise shots to every man in the room.

While it's not exactly "the thinking man's action movie," it never-the-less is thoughtful.  The treatment of the dystopic future is very intimately unsettling.  Robbie Preston (John's son) is largely comes off as the second coming of The Omen's Damien: calm, composed, insightful - essentially nothing like what an actual child is like (owing to Prozium).  The tragedy that befalls Preston's wife is genuinely heart-wrenching, both in John's inability to defend her and the nature of why it happened to her.  Most memorable of all is the Clerics' inability to understand why the terrorists would keep adorable Bernese Mountain Dog puppies (one going so far as to ask if they ate them)

While the film is not without its faults - including a minor case of Reindeer Games' "One Twist Too Many" Syndrome - they are not so great as to detract from what is an admittedly exciting film that delivers everything that it promises.  While essentially a poor man's Matrix, it is still a more thoughtful, measured and entertaining addition to its genre than most other action movies.  Both Becky and I rate this film an 8, putting it on par with The Boondock Saints, Fearless and I Am Legend.

Random Movie #1: Monsoon Wedding

For our inaugural random movie, Becky and I ended up watching Monsoon Wedding, a 2001 Indian romantic comedy.  This selection was one that I had added to the movie pool.  I had previously viewed it in one of my film classes at ISU and thought (correctly so) that it would be one that Becky would enjoy watching.

The film follows a traditional, Punjabi Hindu family in the days immediately preceding the arranged marriage of daughter Aditi Verma with Texas Indian Hemant Rai.  But, as ever, the course of love does not run smoothly.  Increasingly anxious over the prospect of marrying a man that she has never met before (and moving halfway around the world with him), Aditi begins an affair with her married ex-boyfriend.  The mounting pressures of the wedding begin to compound with Lalit Verma's (Aditi's father) increasing financial difficulties and concerns over his son's effeminint behavior (cooking, dancing and not playing sports).  P.K. Dubey, the wedding planner, falls in love with the Verma's servant Alice, who shuns him due to an embarrassing misunderstanding.  Cousin Ayesha begins seeing a visiting Australian, Rahul, behind everybody's back.  And, on top of all of this, a dark secret from adopted daughter Ria's past threatens to break the family apart.

Monsoon Wedding is able to successfully combine the relatable humor of My Big Fat Greek Wedding with the deeply personal tragedy of The Celebration.  The film doesn't focus on any one plotline or set of characters.  Instead, director Mira Nair is able to deftly balance and develop every plot she introduces to fruition (similar to Joss Wheddon juggling an incredibly full cast of characters in The Avengers).  Aditi's anxieties over the wedding are weighed equally with her father's;  Ayesha's light-hearted secret is balanced against Ria's heart-rending one; even the romance between Aditi and Hemant does not over-shadow P.K. and Alice's own courtship.  Every story has its moment to shine.

The most impressive aspect of the film is that despite the increasingly dramatic nature of the Verma's problems, Nair avoids succumbing to histrionics.   Instead of sickeningly over-the-top drama, she offers us dramatic composure.  And, in doing so, she is able to create a complete image of the family, not just one or two individual characters or plotlines.

Monsoon Wedding is the film that My Big Fat Greek Wedding wanted to be: a sometimes-comedic, sometimes-dramatic big-picture view of a large family's wedding.  The real difference between them is that in Monsoon Wedding, family is shown to be comforting and protective rather than suffocating and often very silly.  This is an exceptionally entertaining production with an infectiously vibrant energy woven throughout the film.  Ultimately, I would rate this film an 8.5, putting it on par with Much Ado About Nothing,  Silver Linings Playbook and Persona.