Timecrimes: Grade C

C
Time Crimes (2007)
Karra Elejalde, Bárbara Goenaga; Writer and director Nacho Vigalondo. (Spanish, subtitled).

Hector1, a perfectly ordinary middle class guy (Elejalde) is sitting in his back yard with his wife when he spots a naked woman in the nearby woods. He goes to investigate and is attacked by a scary guy with his head wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. Terrified, Hector1 runs, stumbling into a nearby scientific laboratory where a technician urges him to hide in a big vat of milk. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is just barely believable, so we go with it. Well, what do you know but that big vat of milk is actually a time machine! It’s a terrific realization of a time machine. Why do we always assume such a machine would involve complicated electronics, sparks and electric motor noises? The vat of milk sends Hector1 back in time, but only an hour. He emerges from the vat as Hector2, confused, and walks back through the woods to spy Hector 1 sitting in his lawn chair with his wife, an hour ago. Hector2 is enraged that this “other fellow” has appropriated his wife, and vows to kill him. The scientist explains that the other fellow is himself, but Hector2 doesn’t get it. Presumably, if he did kill Hector1, he, himself (Hector2) would cease to exist. Hector2 then inadvertently gets into a car accident, cuts his head, which he wraps with bandages. A buxom young woman comes to his aid. Needless to say, she will end up naked in the woods where Hector1 will see her. The plot convolutes further until a Hector3 emerges from the time machine! I was unable to keep the time travel paradoxes sorted out, and it seemed like a lot of illogical nonsense to me. Maybe my mind is just too inflexible. I would have preferred more insight into the characters’ thinking, rather than just watching their strange behavior. But the story has a neat idea and the movie is amusing enough.

A Few Days in September: Grade B

B

A Few Days in September (2006)

Juliette Binoche, John Turturro, Sarah Forestier, Tom Riley, Nick Nolte. Writer-Director Santiago Amigorena. French and English – subtitled.

I was shocked to see how Juliette Binoche had aged, although she would say the same about me. I haven’t seen her on screen in many years, and it is a pleasure to see her again. She still has “the look” and her acting is as compelling as ever. She is some kind of a government agent, U.S. I think, trying to find the mysterious CIA rogue agent played by Nolte (who appears at the end just in time to get shot). Why she needs to find him is never clear. She has in tow his clueless adult children (Forestier and Riley). All of them are followed by enigmatic hit man Turturro. He casually kills several clerks to establish his ruthlessness while he also hunts the mysterious David. Who he works for and why he is on the hunt is unknown. Meanwhile, untrustworthy American, Saudi, and French guys are also after David. So the story is a mish-mash of a chase theme and though we never know the characters’ exact roles or motivation, it all hangs together just enough to highlight the fine acting, witty dialog, great locations (Venice and Paris), and outstanding cinematography. I especially enjoyed the technique of having the camera set to a flat depth of field then having characters walk in from the blur to the focal point. Neat. Turturro does an excellent job as a smiling, poetry-reading assassin who has to call his psychoanalyst after he kills someone. Even though the overall tone of the film is noir-ish (neon reflecting in dark, rain-slicked streets, gratuitous murders, kitty lapping the expanding pool of blood, etc.), and the category pretends to “thriller,” I would say this is actually a subtle comedy.

Closure: Grade B

B

Closure (aka: Straightaheads) (2007)

Gillian Anderson, Danny Dyer. Writer-Director Dan Reed. British.

This slightly claustrophobic revenge movie is extremely violent, much more so than a war or gangster movie showing dozens of people mowed down by automatic weapons or shot in the head by hired killers. Nor is it stylistic violence as in Kill Bill and similar movies. This is far more violent because the action is so personal and well motivated. Anderson and Dyer are beat up and raped by a cocaine-crazed gang on a lonely highway. As they slowly recover from their ordeal, Anderson accidentally discovers where the ringleader lives. The pair stalks him with a gun but Dyer is inclined to let it go while Anderson is bent on bloody revenge. But as developments ensue, Anderson becomes ambivalent. Then she gets over that and finds a brutal revenge that satisfies her, but then Dyer is suddenly unsatisfied and wants complete, bloodthirsty revenge, reversing their earlier dispositions. The scenes are so violent because we understand exactly what the perpetrators are trying to accomplish and we participate in their psychological need. Despite that considerable cinematic achievement, I thought the characters were so emotionally inconsistent that I often felt jerked around. This was true of the substory characters as well. Anderson and Dyer especially are alternately manic and depressive, filled with grim determination then ambivalence, compassion flipping to detachment. Maybe that’s how people would be in such a situation, but it didn’t seem authentic to me. Also, several story points were not properly motivated, such as having Dyer sneak into the bad guy’s house. Photography seemed dark and dreary; even the outdoor scenes, which was perhaps appropriate to the theme, but not very attractive to look at. Music was unintrusive. Despite some flaws then, after a slow start, the film gives a good ride if you can tolerate the violence.

13 Tzameti: Grade B

B

13 Tzameti (2005)

George Babluani; Writer-Director: Géla Babluani. French, subtitled.

Babluani is a young roofer working on an old mansion when an envelope with a ticket and instructions accidentally comes into his hands. Since the owner of the house died and he will not be paid for his work, he decides to use the ticket and follow the instructions, based on a conversation he overheard about possibly big financial rewards. The film is in beautiful black and white, well composed and photographed, reminiscent of French existential films of the 60’s. The “deal” he walks into is an illegal gambling operation very similar to the situation of Christopher Walken's in The Deerhunter. That outcome was was disappointing after such a nice tense buildup. There are so many more interesting story possibilities for a young man walking blindly into an illegal deal. Anyway, the life and death gambling proceeds in the obvious way with predictable outcome, although a few surprises await the young man on the way home. There is a faint existential theme: “A man only lives once and dies once. Why not do it this way?” But the situation was formulaic and abstract, robbing such words of their meaning. The acting is good and the photography very pleasing, but the tension of the central set piece was too contrived to be engaging.

Breach: Grade B

B

Breach (2007)

Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe, Laura Linney. Director Billy Ray.

Cooper is Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who sold secrets to the Soviet Union and Russians until caught and sentenced in 2002. His newly assigned assistant (Phillippe) works for FBI counterespionage and is supposed to get incriminating evidence on Cooper. The movie is thus a cat and mouse between the clever, intuitive, and paranoid Hanssen and the untested but ambitious young assistant. Laura Linney is Phillippe’s control officer in a standout performance. The realistic squalor of government offices is palpable and the acting is competent. The story is one big mind game, yet unlike All the President’s Men, another mind-game movie, there is no forward momentum, no unfolding development, no surprise. Manufactured suspense, such as waiting for a download to complete while the boss’s key turns in the lock, is so clichéd it no longer creates tension. The actual Hanssen case is far more interesting than this movie. Why couldn’t they have shown his career of deception and its FBI fallout? Movies are a visual medium. The film also did not adequately portray his motivation. He is intelligent, arrogant and feels underappreciated, but that could describe a lot of us, and we don’t become traitors. Cooper gives a fine reptilian performance, but his character remains opaque. In all, an unsatisfying but enjoyable story worth hearing.