A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightly, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel

A Dangerous Method begins and ends with Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightly) inside a coach. In the beginning, she screams and thrashes hysterically as her horse-drawn coach approaches the Swiss mental institution where she is soon to meet and be analyzed by Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender); in the end of the film, ten years later, Sabina exits the frame in a motorized car, a much evolved and accomplished character, pulling away from Jung who played a large role in her development. She is crying, but her grief is representative of a functional woman who is saying goodbye to her unrequited love affair with Jung.

Cronenberg's latest film can be best approached through the summation of each of these scenes; the gradual transformations of its three central characters (Spielrein, Jung, and Freud) on the cusp of major historical shifts, the onslaught of the World Wars. It is surprising, then, that the film, at only an hour and half long, did not continue on the path of a sweeping, narrative epic. The result is that it largely feels inconsequential and short-lived.

This is a shame considering the film's finest attributes. The relationship between Carl Jung and his mentor/best friend Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen, giving the strongest performance) is genuine and touching. Their written correspondences throughout the film serve not only to solidify their intrinsic friendship, but also amplify the most engaging and unique aspects of their characters. After their first meeting, Freud points out to Jung that they have been in conversation for thirteen hours. Jung is apologetic, and Freud assures him not to be; they have already established a friendship that will last a lifetime. The eventual dissolution of that friendship, caused by divergent academic goals and in part by Jung's refusal to account for his mistakes, is the strongest and most tragic plot line of the film.

In contrast, Jung's doomed and scandalous love affair with the sexually crippled, yet brilliantly dedicated psychiatry student and patient Sabina is meant to grip the audience to the same extent, yet fails to do so. This is not necessarily the fault of Fassbender and Knightly; although I would argue that Knightly, in trying her best to play Sabina with heightened idiosyncratic naturalism, often fails to ground her character in the narrative and thus bolster audience sympathy of their relationship. But the major weak spot is Jung's character, which is drawn poorly. By the end we still do not have a definite sense of what drives him. Well which one it is, ambition or passion?

Cronenberg paints wonderful juxtapositions between the repressed Victorian lifestyle of Jung and his wife and that of a burgeoning, neo-liberal counter lifestyle, which we live today. This is most prevalent in Jung's rushed encounter with sexually free psyhoanalyst Otto Gross (a wonderful Vincent Cassel). Gross's presence in Jung's life is meant to drive him toward Sabina and away from his reservations regarding sex and adultery. However, by the end, we realize that his scenes with Gross have only served as a convenient plot development to do just that.

One must wonder what could have been if A Dangerous Method had extended its narrative to culminate in the deaths of Frued and Spielrein during WWII. The film takes us to pre- World War I, wonderfully predicted by Jung's foreboding dream involving "the blood of Europe". However, as the film ends, we are left seduced (ha ha) by a solid and beautiful period piece with exemplary performances, but little else to chew on.

C

The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil (2009)

Director: Ti West

Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tim Noonan, Greta Gerwig, Mary Woronov

A serious concern pervades as to the benefit of remaking film years, even decades, after they are released. On the one hand, remakes continue the positive tradition of reproducing strong narratives (i.e storytelling) throughout the generations, pointing towards the engaging and transitive properties of certain storylines. On the other hand, the constant prevalence of remakes poses a threat to innovation and original screenwriting and filmmaking, since they are easy cash-cows for studios that have little interest in innovation to begin with.

Case in point, The House of the Devil, which is not a remake as much as a re-imagining of the Satanic Cult horror trend of the 70's and 80's. Why not take a once popular sub-genre and modify it for the better, not necessarily mimicking it as much as tailoring to perfect it? Ti West's result is a wonderfully frightening and entertaining journey over the course of a day (under the backdrop of a lunar eclipse that proves more relevant than initially expected) as college sophomore Sam accepts a lucrative babysitting job to afford the new apartment she desperately needs.

The first hour (two-thirds) of the film involves Sam (Jocelin Donahue) finding her dream apartment through a generous landlady (Dee Wallace), mulling over ways to secure financial income to afford it, discussing her situation with amazing realism and sincere dialogue with her best friend Megan (an awesome Greta Gerwig), and accepting a babysitting job spontaneously (and recklessly) after being contacted by a creepy and obviously- not- normal patriarch, Mr. Ullman (Tim Noonan).

Sam is offered four hundred dollars for her watchdog services one night, which, in all honesty, few of us would turn down! "Did you ever think it is too good to be true?" asks Megan, pissed that her friend is refusing to reject an obviously dangerous situation. Of course it's too good to be true, but when has that ever stopped us from taking risks? (SPOILERS) Megan's abrupt and stomach-turning murder is the first scene of the consistently even-paced film that sets into the motion a legitimate sense of danger, whereas the earlier portion of the film only gives a profound sense of uneasiness. No scene competes with this in the factory of disturbingly relatable material, except for when we meet Mrs. Ullman, as she enters a dining room, turns to the mirror, and ala Polanski, sneers in the reflection.

The last half hour of the movie rockets into bloody supernatural chaos, after Sam has gradually investigated the entire house in boredom, introducing the pivotal spaces (i.e rooms of the house) that our villains will manically chase us through, like a maze. The result is that West's pacing comes off a delicately wound up coil, all segments relevant and tied to the other, finally springing to a snap by the end.

By the time the credits roll, we know all the why's; why the lunar eclipse, why Sam, why she was forced to drink a horrifying witch's blood... and why she is saved. This cohesion elevates West's film from typical homage, to highly mastered horror.

A

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man (2005)

Director: Werner Herzog

I had been eager to see Grizzly Man since it first came out, and much like Polanski’s Repulsion (which I still haven't seen, but remain certain that viewing will be the life-changing event of my film experiences), I waited patiently for many years until the opportune moment arrived; when it came out on Netflix instant! Now, a week after seeing it, I have to say: if you asked me to pick five films to send to outer space in a sealed capsule along with the works of Shakespeare and Bach, Grizzly Man would be one.

This is because Werner Herzog’s documentary on bewilderingly eccentric and grossly engaging “bear enthusiast” (props Wikipedia) Timothy Treadwell captures, in a surprisingly non-abstract manner, several major important human themes that any worthy alien species should encounter: man’s role in the natural world, man’s relationship with animals, man’s relationship with the self, man’s relationship with expression, and the creation, modification, and dissemination of those expressions. Rich with paradoxes, queries, mysteries, and tragedy, Grizzly Man ultimately concludes with a refreshingly non-ambiguous message.

I’ll get to that later. Let’s begin with paradox.

Timothy Treadwell spent thirteen consecutive summers living in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska among bears in total seclusion. He videotaped hundreds of hours of footage of his experience, in hopes that he could raise awareness of the environmental degradation caused by people that, he believed, was harming these creatures. When the film opens, we are provided with one of Timothy’s shots of an enormous, muscular grizzly bear shockingly close to the lens. This footage is like nothing we have ever seen on the Discovery Channel before, and throughout, Treadwell’s films provide an appropriate and deliberate juxtaposition with Herzog’s documentary that involves, primarily, his tragic and gruesome death. Thus, we have the paradox of Treadwell, with his intentions to shoot footage to raise awareness of bears, having been killed by bears, never aware that his footage would be used as the central subject matter for one of the most prolific documentaries by one of the most prolific filmmakers of all time.

A second paradox, most eerily, comes in the form of the Treadwell’s self-righteous, and yet appealingly innocent demeanor as he films himself in the wilderness. His physical affection for a little fox friend, audacity to swim with the bears and violate their territory, and incomprehensibility at the cruelty of nature (he greives at the sight of any dead animal) makes him a figure of paradox, someone who is passionately willing to live alone in nature, and clearly loves it, but remains unable to fully adapt to its harsh elements. This insight is further bolstered by the reality of his death, being killed by the bears he dedicated his life to “protect”.

The result is that witnessing Treadwell in his films is akin to witnessing the walking dead, a live human (on film anyway) whom we cannot help but attempt to comprehend how he appeared after being dismembered and eaten. It’s constantly befuddling for the viewer, the incomprehensibility of death in the sight of life. This is something that only film can achieve, as Herzog knows too well. Moreover, the reality of Treadwell’s narrative, in contrast to a fiction narrative, underscores the fact that so often real-life stories trump fictional stories in their richness of irony and characterization.

This is why Herzog bravely attempts to balance the living Treadwell with the notoriously dead figure. Herzog admires Treadwell, we all know that, even though the director never for once glorifies him. Like all people, Treadwell is flawed and blessed, and the result of his persona, as portrayed through the lens of Herzog, is a cinematic hodgepodge of defects and perfections. Herzog never stops portraying Treadwell as a tragic fugure, whether through interviews with his loved ones, or (most heart breaking) through a home video, provided by his parents, of Treadwell as a young boy doting on his pet squirrel.

Mysteries are abundant in Grizzly Man, namely the circumstances of Treadwell’s girlfriend’s role in his life and work, or the gory circumstances surrounding their deaths (most notably the infamous recording of their death cries, thankfully and skillfully left off-screen forever). However, in the end, Herzog’s opinion on Treadwell is not illusive. Unlike scores of documentaries that document but never go so far as to preach, Grizzly Man concludes with a singular eloquent and poetic message: in man’s attempt to understand his role in nature, he is actually attempting to understand the nature within himself, in all of us, which, in the end, regardless of what you think of Treadwell, solidify Treadwell’s life and death as irrevocably important.

Couldn’t have written it better myself.

A+

Fish Tank

Fish Tank (2009)

Director: Andrea Arnold

Cast: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kiersten Wareing

Fish Tank is a film about entrapment and the seeds of failure, and every scene up until the end is calculated to leave the viewer feeling as enslaved by long embedded societal structures as our heroine, Mia. Fifteen year- old Mia (played by an excellent Katie Jarvis) resides in the East London projects with her neglectful, verbally abusive mother, Joanne (Kiersten Wareing), who largely acts like a teenager herself and renders no doubt that she birthed Mia at too young an age, and her bourgeoning delinquent little sister, Tyler. When we meet her, she has already headed down the exponential path of self-destruction and future dereliction, scoring cheap malt cider on the side and instigating physical fights with neighborhood girls. Once we see the interior of her low-income tenement, the helplessness of her destitute situation becomes astoundingly clear; tiny, cheap televisions stand as center pieces in every room, playing realty shows featuring people with ostentatiously shallow lives. Mia, her mother, and sister can only confront one another with harsh shouts and name-calling (namely “cunt” and “bitch”), and fully embody a non-family that has for years been devoid of love and demonstrations of love. It is no wonder that throughout the film Mia is only able to confront people with suspicion and violence.

Mia’s solace comes in the form of a safe space, fittingly an abandoned flat overlooking industrial London. It is here she practices self-choreographed R&B dance routines, and her seemingly intrinsic passion for dance is amplified as the movie progresses, most stunningly in a scene which takes place in an internet café, when Mia watches youtube videos of talented break dances, the camera steadying on her unknowingly wide-eyed, smiling face.

This scene is one of many that makes her character relatable to all of us, despite her cultural- economic circumstances. Anyone who has a passion for art, whichever medium it may be, will understand the catatonic state of witnessing exemplary talent you admire, are envious of, and strive to reach. One critic, Lauren Wissot, focused her review on the fact that Mia is on the cusp of some proto-feminist sexual awakening. But to approach Fish Tank in these post-modern terms detracts from the essential humanism and literary universality of her character and circumstances.

Enter Mia’s foil, the bewilderingly charismatic and attractive Connor (Michael Fassbender). As her promiscuous mother’s lover, Connor is attractive to Mia not only because of his physique and charm, but also because he treats her as if he’s the doting father she never had. When Mia passes out drunk after swiping and chugging a bottle of vodka at her mother’s house party, Connor carries her to her room like a small child, and delicately removes her sneakers and pants, tucking her into bed. Even more attentively, Connor insistently encourages Mia to pursue dancing, because she’s “really good”. Counter wise, her mother scoffs and mocks when she sees Mia dancing outside Connor’s car after the family takes a trip outside the city, and Mia, of course, takes her rage out on the culprit of her vulnerability, Connor, screaming, “You’re nothing to me!”

Of course Connor is everything to Mia, and remains, in the end, a figure who transforms her life for the better by not transforming her life. It is this irony that makes Fish Tank an exemplary narrative, despite its crucial mistake of (SPOILERS) turning the central foil into a skeezy, lecherous child molester. After reflecting on the film a day later, it is remarkable to me how little would have changed in the film’s brilliant story arch had Mia and Connor not fucked on the sofa. He would still have a wife and young daughter at a more affluent home in the suburbs, and still have remained the same lying, false male figure to Mia, shattering her hopes of love and trust. After having encouraged her throughout the entire film to audition to dance for a night club, which cleverly turns out to be a strip club (another entertaining twist in this story), Connor neglects and scorns Mia in the end, whom had perfected her routine to his favorite song, “California Dreaming”. But this does not stop her from still going to the audition and playing his song and trying anyway. In the end she walks off the stage mid-song, triumphantly in my eyes. Forever walking away from Connor’s song and, therefore, her memories of him, Mia realizes that only she can save herself from future ruin... but only by having once had faith that a stranger could do it for her.

If Mia’s final dance with her family is any indication, she realizes she is better off without all these losers, and sacrifices her up-until-then hidden dancing talent to prove just that, ultimately exiting the frame no longer trapped.

A-