The Frame » film-2002

Russian Ark

Jandy — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:47:44 +0000

Russian Ark is a tour through Russian culture via the St. Petersburg museum-cum-palace The Hermitage. I really can’t tell you much about the story, though (what story there is involves the narrator and a French man he somehow meets as he travels through The Hermitage’s history and their discussion of Russian culture–the French guy is always interesting, giving an outsider’s view on the relationship between Russia and European culture), because the thing that Russian Ark will be remembered for is its virtuosic use of one single take. The camera takes the narrator’s point of view, moving through The Hermitage, sometimes through history (as they move into a new room, it will become a different time period), roving from conversation to conversation, from work of art to work of art. I’m making it sound like a documentary, which it isn’t. I apologize, but there isn’t a traditional story, either. Director Aleksandr Sukurov had exactly one day to shoot the film (the museum would only close for one day to allow his crew in), and eventually, if he hadn’t gotten the film in the take we have, he wouldn’t have been able to get it at all. It’s an incredible technical feat, just getting all the right actors in the right costumes in the right place at the right time, making sure the support crew wouldn’t be visible–my mind boggles just at the planning involved. I recommend that you do watch the making-of documentary on the DVD if you watch Russian Ark; it’s probably as interesting as the film itself. The question of whether or not the single-take is merely a gimmick, though, in terms of the film as a whole, is one I haven’t been able to answer yet. I enjoyed the technical prowess, but technical genius merely for the sake of technical genius is not always enough, and I think Sukurov is right on the line here.
Above Average

Talk to Her

Jandy — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:02:25 +0000

Talk to Her twines together two stories, one of a young man loving a ballerina from afar and becoming her nurse when she is put in a coma by a car accident, the other of a journalist and a female bullfighter who is gored by a bull and ends up comatose in the same hospital. The two men become close friends as they care for their charges. The film is more serious than some of Almodóvar’s others, and involves some events that make it difficult at times to continue to sympathize with the characters, and yet we do…Almodóvar is incredibly good at creating complex characters that elicit complex reactions. It’s a sweet film about friendship and love in non-traditional circumstances.
Well Above Average

The Spanish Apartment

Jandy — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:40:58 +0000

A “Spanish apartment” is a French phrase connoting something into which you put a bunch of varied elements and see what comes out. In the case of this film, it literally refers to an apartment in Barcelona housing seven to nine students from all over Europe. The main character is French, and he goes to Barcelona for a year on an exchange program, and ends up in this apartment with guys from Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark, and girls from England, Spain, and Belgium. The film is a delightful mishmash of cultural perspectives, linguistic pitfalls, and romantic interludes. It even manages to throw in a backpacking American at one point, as well as the “ugly tourist” stereotype in the form of the English girl’s boorish brother. Walking a fine line between perpetuating stereotypes and breaking them down, the film may not always succeed, but it is highly entertaining all the way through.
Above Average

Equilibrium

Jandy — Sat, 06 May 2006 20:56:38 +0000

In an indeterminate future, it has been decided that the reason for all the world’s problems with war and violence are caused by the fact that people have emotions…so it is decided to eradicate all emotion, through removing things that elicit emotion–books, music, photographs, heirlooms, families. The main character is an elite policeman, commissioned to enforce the ban on emotion and seek out and destroy members of an underground resistance. One day, however, he neglects to take the mandatory dose of emotion suppressents, and he become susceptible to the very emotion he has sworn to uproot. Soon he is working with the resistance to take down the faceless, all-controlling dictator running the metropolis. Basically, take The Matrix, cross it with Minority Report, and throw in a dash of Metropolis. It’s nowhere near the quality of any of these films–the effects are extremely cool, but the invincibleness of the main character gets old after a while. You’re never worried whether or not he’s going to make it, as you are worried for Neo. There’s no tension between whether or not the system has good qualities, as there is with the Pre-Crime system. Still, it’s not half-bad, for a couple of hours of viewing pleasure.
Average