notes

when i saw this film the first time i wasn’t as impressed as the screening last night.  despite knowing the end, i found the suspense of the refugee camp to be damn near unbearable.  and i do think the photography has a great deal to do with this.  this past summer i was talking to a guy from london who found this film terrifying.  i think it’s interesting that for people who can associate with the settings, the film takes a whole new perspective.  the decay of landscape and scenery is very poignant, and when we consider how a future world will look, i think there is a greater resonance with the viewer.  it’s easy to say, oh, in twenty years the civilized world will enter into totalitarian, militaristic regime.  ideas are easy to articulate, but looks lends themselves to feelings, and this is where i think ‘children of men’ is strongest; i cannot help but feel the visuals, i cannot escape that effect.

also, i think clive owen is incredible in this film.  the subtleties of theo, the intermittent ‘aw, fuck’ as he hobbles on his cut foot through the camp streets add to the dimension of the experience.

and finally, just a pure opinionated value-judgment, i think this is cuaron’s best film.

So Del Toro won’t take the directing chair if there’s not a monster on the call sheet.  while on the one hand i’m not surprised by this comment, i do find it a little unfortunate.  I would really like to see Del Toro attempt something outside of his preferred horror/gothic/fantasy element.  Not that his films are suffering-i think much of his work is brilliant-but i do think they could suffer.  stylistically and thematically i think del toro has found a niche which he has explored almost to perfection (i’m displaying a bias towards Pan’s Labyrinth).  patrick commented earlier in the semester about the similarity in style of Cronos, Devil’s Backbone, PL: a fluid unraveling of visuals both captivating and illuminating (in reference to plot/style harmony).  I’d like to see Del Toro do a film without a monster.  in fact, i’d be really curious to see what a film from del toro without special effects would look like.  i find del toro the most talented and interesting of all the filmmakers we’ve looked at, so i’d love to see him explore, head outside of the films that he generally makes. 

just a few afterthoughts… i wonder what is going through the moroccan policeman’s head as he approaches the young boy.  the camera lingers on his face for a while, but he is wearing sunglasses and we don’t see his eyes.  i really appreciate this ambiguity: i’m not sure whether the officer is reconciling with the situation, with himself, or maybe he is simply pitying the boy.  once again, like much of this film, communication is lost at this moment.

and, much like lost in translation, i enjoy not knowing about the content of the  letter (so i don’t like the shot of the letter and what it says) that chieko gives the policeman. this moment let my mind explore the possibilities of what was written and the character became more fruitful to me.  there is something incredible, at least to me, in what is not known as opposed to what is known (and i truly love the end of lost in translation precisely because of this reasoning)

i was thinking about this during our class discussion today: what are the implications of such a heavy title as Babel.  i realize that the language barrier and the lack of communication (which leads to misfortune) but i was wondering if the correlation to the story of babel could be taken farther.  if i remember correctly (and my memory could be totally off) the tower of babel was built by man in order to reach the heavens and overthrow God.  and God destroyed the tower and dispersed the human race in multiple languages, hence ‘tribes’, such that mankind could never communicate fully with each other and conspire against god.  this is my sunday school recollection of the story.  In the film, we clearly see the communication difficulties, but i’m wondering about the metaphysics of the film.  i hate to ask such a deep question, but in a film that makes use of vast landscapes and minute subjects in relation to these landscapes, i think it is valid to ask and reflect on the condition of humanity and our fallibility to chance, randomness.  The moroccan father asks his children ‘why did you bring this upon us?’ and i can well imagine that his thoughts as he held his dead son might have been ‘why?’   I think, as viewers, we are left in a position to ask why and reflect.  I don’t interpret Babel in a strictly, socio-political, international way because i think that subtly woven beneath its stories are questions of our own control, our own being.  Titling a movie Babel is a deliberate move, one that carries many connotations and not just in regards to  communication, perceptions, and the ‘foreign.’

i’d be interested in thoughts on the ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ and how this film fits into the image we’ve been sculpting of cauron.  harry potter is clearly fantasy, a project more characteristic of del toro, but cauron executes incredibly well, with great visuals and an auteur’s sense of his own creation (this film deviated more from the book than many fans appreciated).  yet, if we think of cauron as an auteur, there are elements of the film (such as camera style, non hand held) which are quite removed from what we expect.  let me clarify, i can watch a del toro film and say ‘that’s del toro’ ( i mean the intro to devils backbone and pan’s labyrinth are almost identical).  but with cauron, i don’t know if i’d be able to say ‘this is him’ and ‘this isn’t’.  (like del toro, i think the same association applies to innaritu; we can all tell his film style.)  so the harry potter film is an interesting piece in that it helps verify the diversity of cauron, who is a much more difficult director personality to locate.  (i mean, if one watch prisoner of azkaban, would they be able to tell it was cauron who made it?)  i’m curious if this can be seen as an advantage to cauron: he is not as tell tale of the other directors (del toro, innaritu).  let’s admit, these directors are recycling some of the same material and styles; has cauron escaped the confines of an overriding personal theme and style?

i’ll give rodriguez his due respect for making an enjoyable, low-budget action movie about gunslingin’ guitarists, but, really, where was the sex?  the tension, the intrigue, the letter opener to the balls was all there, and no payoff.  maybe the mariachi was a eunuch.  i feel that the steamy boinking of salma hayek in desperado is compensation for el mariachi’s lack thereof.  and then there’s ‘from dusk till dawn’, which any respectable person should watch, which is adamant about breasts (i think the guns and sex appeal has stuck for rodriguez (sin city indulges itself)).  it’s too bad young robert was shy about mariachi, it would have rounded out the film.

at the end of the film, as sean penn is giving his dialogue, there are some scenes edited in from moments prior to the ‘accident’: christina’s sister giving her the finger, jack’s waving goodbye to his friend at the bar.  i think it’s interesting that we see these scenes at the end of the film at the point where we’re considering the progression (and consequences) of the characters’ lives and the magnanimity (the encompassing effect) of the ‘accident.’  i’m divided at the end, with these shots, unsure whether to feel confident in human ability to overcome (redemption in the weight of 21 grams) or overwhelmed by randomness.  i guess this plays in with the questions of what is gained or lost in 21 grams.  in essence, what is the effect of 21 grams?

 and i’ve got the same question for the british girlfriend as penn: why does she go ahead with the pregnancy?  maybe guilt, as guilt seems to be the driving force in this movie.

the concept of the road film is very interesting in y tu mama tambien.  in the road film there is generally a dual traveling: that of the physical trip and then that of the characters (they learn or discover something about themselves and their relationship to others or the world).  I guess i think of the road film as a type of discovery film.  i’m being really generic here, but using the notion of discovery was very helpful to me in thinking about this film.  ultimately, what does the end of the road bring?  the simple answer is death but i don’t think the film’s that centralized to one notion.  these are a few of my observations: the naivety and indifference that tenoch and julio exhibit towards their surroundings is very similar to the way any human intereacts with issues they don’t physically or personally effect them.  what i see in this, life goes on with or without them.  the point is made literally when louisa dies.  There is an outside world that exists beyond the lives of our characters.  death is only one small part of the road. 

as for secrecy, which has a prominent role in the film, who really wants themselves completely exposed.  even the deepest friendship is comprised of certain secrets.  my favorite film quote “no one knows anybody, not that well.”  that secrets have destructive power is nothing new, but this power is only manifest when secrets are told.  if tenoch and julio hadn’t said anything things might have been different.  the only character to stay quiet is louisa; she keeps her secret till the end and is, presumably, happier for doing so. 

what i take from y tu mama tambien is a film about passing.  the road is transitory, things come and go, but always the world outside of ourselves remains.  what does the end of the road bring?  more road.

 apologies for the inconsistency and vagueness of my observations.

rodriguez is an excellent craftsman, not so great a storyteller.  i mean, ‘escape from new york’ inspired him to start making movies.  i love ‘escape’, it’s great fun and that’s what i think of rodriguez.  i don’t have much more to say about rodriguez than that, and really, i don’t think he’d expect anymore.

del toro’s style is already taking shape in cronos.  the slow, smooth visual aesthetic of the camera, the soft cuts that are characteristic of his later films are all at work in cronos.  i believe the cinematographer is the same.  for a horror film, which is how the story presents itself at first, cronos is very tame.  the only shocks i witnessed were the skin puncturing (very visceral).  so i’m not quick to think of cronos as horror.  the story is a manipulation of convention (at least from an american perspective of the vampire film)  but it is well executed and the fluidity with which the story unfolds reminds me (again) of his later works; in particular devils backbone and pan’s labyrinth.  it’s interesting that the tools that make his most recent cinema so engaging and intriguing are already in place in 1993.