Get Low (Aaron Schneider, 2009)

Yesterday was Sunday, September 26, and in my mind, the first fully realized day of fall.  As I was riding to the Landmark Theater in Kendall to catch the 1:25 showing of Get Low, I saw that the humble Boston skyline was subdued under the thick cover of clouds.  The muted gray seeped into everything, and though the summer smoldered it had lost contrast and color.  What better time is there to turn to film, which in itself is just color and contrast?  A descending day of white and gray is the perfect world to abandon for another; it is a variable, where nothing is being missed.

This turned out to be the perfect preface for Get Low – a film about regret in the dwindling years of the hermit protagonist, Felix Bush (Robert Duvall).  The strongest part of the film comes far too soon; we watch an enigmatic Duvall escape from a burning building (where his character is formed) and then see him 40 years later hiding behind an enormous beard, where he threatens trespassers on his remote property (what he has become).  It certainly functions, albeit somewhat of an abridged adaptation of the first 20 minutes of There Will Be Blood (2007), and I found myself entranced by his senseless mutterings and heavy breathing.  Personally, I would have watched Duvall putt about his cabin and tend to his mule for the entire film.  Watching him play awkward around his ex-lover’s sister, Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), was also a treat.  Together they completed a history and a lifetime that we were not privy to.  Regrettably, that was about it for decent acting.

Buddy (Lucas Black) has the unfortunate habit of overplaying his thought process on his face (can you count the beats?).  Bill Murray is both out of time and out of character as he attempts to portray Frank Quinn, the destitute owner of a funeral home.  He’s obviously meant to introduce some lighthearted humor, but I left with the distinct impression that he spent most of his lines making fun of the film itself.

Despite that, it was the filmmaking that left the sourest taste in my mouth.  Every scene dripped so much lubrication that at times I felt transported to some early 90′s TV-rendition of On Golden Pond.  Subtle dolly shots for no apparent reason, pushing in to accentuate a beat–torn from the well-worn pages of the hollywood handbook–it was all too much.  It’s unfortunate because the ideas of the film are relatively interesting, but I was so constantly reminded of the director attempting to heighten the emotion I found it impossible to actually engage.

There are certainly some moments, primarily those alone with Bush, that are worth the ticket price, but I wouldn’t rush out the door.

]]> http://sainteliotandco.com/reviews/get-low/feed/ 0 http://sainteliotandco.com/reviews/growing-up-at-the-end-of-humanity/ http://sainteliotandco.com/reviews/growing-up-at-the-end-of-humanity/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:00:12 +0000 Giampaolo Bianconi http://sainteliotandco.com/?p=1441
The Road, dir. John Hillcoat (2009)

One of the most harrowing moments in The Road comes early, when the boy’s father (Viggo Mortensen) reminds him how to kill himself: put the gun in your mouth, aim upwards, and pull the trigger. When the time comes you’re gonna have to do it just like everybody else. The moment perfectly encapsulates the film’s unpretentious bleakess. I must seem to you like I’m from another world, the father tells his son. Mortensen’s pale, emaciated body carries encyclopedic knowledge of a world that has passed to ruins—when he dies, it will die also, making room for the innocence of the child (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and his overwhelming humanity. It’s something, we’re reminded at the end of the film, the father may have been close to forgetting.

Where the book indicated how stilted relationships would be after the end of civilization—arguing with sodomizing road agents and escaping the gaze of cannibalistic southern gentry isn’t quite like running into your neighbors at the supermarket–the film manages to convey the awkward normalcy of these exchanges, their frigidity and gray hopelessness as much as their brief glimmers of optimism.  What makes The Road so remarkable is its unwillingness to let its visual representations–which, as concrete images, can in a sense never be abstractions–interfere with necessary narrative ambiguities.

I was worried about the inclusion of flashbacks involving Charlize Theron as Mortensen’s wife. My fear was that such glimpses of “the world before” would replace central ambiguities with trite generalizations. Yet the flashbacks were unobtrusive, verging on shifty memory or even dreamlike fantasy. Furthermore, by choosing to set certain fantasies in a past that is not just their past (today) but also our past (the late 60s or early 70s), Hillcoat merges our nostalgia with their nostalgia, making the serenity of the past seem much more earnest.

Hillcoat’s camera is patient and curious. He makes use of wide, static shots that convey the strange beauty of an ashen, alien landscape, only a shadow of the earth we inhabit. During a scene with an elderly blind wanderer (Robert Duvall), Hillcoat lets the fire dance off the actors’ faces before cutting ominously yet subtly to the father’s pistol. I knew this was coming, says the old man. There were signs. Entrusted to a less talented actor this line could have sunk the film, mired it in unremarkable ecological moralisms. Yet with Duvall, it is suggestive without overplaying its hand—much like the film itself.