nan | 楠木

Contagion, the latest film from director Steven Soderbergh, is both a thriller and a social study. The film follows the outbreak of a fictional deadly pandemic, and tracks an ensemble of characters impacted by it – the staff at the CDC and the WHO, on-the-ground doctors, opportunistic profit-seekers, and victims and survivors. Sometimes a character bridges several types of those roles.

The most haunting aspect of the film is the realization that all this could actually happen. Indeed, similar events (of lesser impact) have happened in the past, with SARS being the most notable in recent memory. In the film, the pandemic causes widespread anarchy, and scenes reminiscent of The Road and 28 Days Later – you get the image. It feels over-dramatic, but none-the-less the thriller part of the film works.

The character study portion, is mixed. A blogger who is trying to manipulate public opinion for his own profit is one of the more interesting and original characters, while there are plenty of characters who show humanity’s better side via mostly selfless and courageous acts. Some of the plot doesn’t really hold against logic, but the film’s style (sometimes almost documentary-like) makes them feel subtle enough.

Contagion is definitely not a feel-good film. It is also not a conventional thriller which you can sit back and enjoy. It has many moments which make you cringe, and lots of scenes where the more you reflect the more multi-dimensional they become. Recommended.

(8/10)

Super 8 generally garnered favorable reviews, and may be the most interesting blockbuster film this summer so far, but it’s still a far cry from the heights of E.T. or Close Encounters of a Third Kind, two films by producer Steven Spielberg that have often been quoted in reviews. JJ Abrams deserves credit for the retro style, and the first half of the film feels very much like Stand By Me and other films which focused on a an excellent ensemble of children characters; but as the film racks up its pace in the second and third act, the plot loses most of its character and becomes a rather routine affair. There are expected close calls, major plot revelations (some which were obvious much earlier), and an ending obviously inspired / influenced by the two Spielberg films aforementioned.

This is not to say that Super 8 is unsatisfying as a film – it is an enjoyable affair, and probably offers much more depth than most of the other blockbuster titles this summer – it’s just that, for a while, based on the Twitter chatter, I had built up much higher expectations for Messrs. Abrams and Spielberg. If only the whole film was as entertaining as the little gem hidden during the ending credits.

Hours before the Academy Awards this year, I saw The Fighter in San Francisco. I’m really glad I saw it – it’s a delightful film of genuine emotions and the source material is multi-faceted with plenty of food for thought.

The film stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, as brothers Micky and Dicky. They come from a extended dysfunctional family with low income and low education. Their only prospect is their talent for boxing, first displayed by the elder Dicky, who unfortunately squandered his career to a drug addiction, leaving Micky as the only person in the family that’s apparently generating income. And Micky seems to have his best years behind him, being poorly managed by his mom and Dicky, and suffering a string of losses. His life seems to take a turn for the better when he meets Charlene, a local bartender who has also squandered most of her life away but who desperately wants a change. Under her influence, Micky breaks away from his family’s grip and starts looking out for himself; meanwhile, Dicky finds himself in prison. The rest of the story follows the tensions and drama of Micky trying to revive his career while also keeping his family together.

Micky is the type of role that Mark Wahlberg could play in his sleep, and the actor is evidently very at ease. It’s a decent performance through and through, and he is well supported by two Best Supporting Academy Awards in Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. Bale again demonstrates great versatility and range in his acting, while Leo deftly portrays the emotionally fragile and incompetent mom who tries to run the family.

Boxing, or “violent” sports in general (e.g. American Football), always make for great movie material, as the sport itself becomes a natural metaphor for the struggles outside the sports-arena. In the case of boxing films, which seem to be particularly popular, this is often cliché. What separates a great boxing film (say, Million Dollar Baby or Raging Bull, and perhaps the original Rocky) from a good / average boxing film (e.g. The Hurricane, Cinderella Man) is often how un-formulaic the film is in leveraging the sports-as-life metaphor (and obviously how original / creative the script is). It is not surprising that the main characters of all the above mentioned boxing films are struggling economically in life, since boxing (in terms of people who actually do the sport) is rooted in the lower socio-economic class to begin with. Therefore social inequality and topics such as racism are naturally found in the narratives, but the better films (in my opinion) skillfully layer these topics into the narrative, as opposed to making them the center of the narrative (nothing wrong with this by the way, just that this is more likely to result in clichéd scenarios). The Fighter is blessed in that it is first and foremost a story of brotherly love, and only second a story about the dysfunctional lives of the poor. This gives it richness and depth.

8/10

习惯了一个人去那家艺术院线的影院看电影，每次都是稀稀落落的只有几个人，没想到《黑天鹅》那场却几乎是爆满。于是对片子又多了些许的期待。

我未曾看过影评人士谈这部电影常提到的其它几部讲芭蕾的电影（主要是1948年的The Red Shoes），所以不能够横向比较。关于那些与David Lynch、David Cronenberg的比较，我倒是的确看懂了一些。我自己的感觉是，Aronofosky坚持了自己一惯的表现手法，那就是把美的东西撕裂粉碎，以毫不隐晦的方式直击观众的神经。《黑天鹅》在这个层面上，与Aronofosky的前作《梦之安魂曲》和《摔跤王》并没有什么区别。

我想我很喜欢《黑天鹅》的原因，是其选材。它描述的是演艺人对“戏”的追求，这一向是我极其感兴趣的选题。剧情并不出人意料，追求完美的芭蕾舞演员Nina，在走向艺术巅峰的路上逐渐将戏里戏外混为一体，进而几近精神失常，最终以生命演绎了最完美的天鹅湖。某些剧情元素也是可以预见的，譬如说片中一场同性恋戏，之前已经有了足够多的暗示。还有那些常规的惊悚片手法（突然的音乐、声音，快速的画面剪切），略显低级但是还好没有影响电影主线。瑕不掩瑜，尽管《黑天鹅》有上述的“俗套”，但Natalie Portman全身心的投入，以及剧本巧妙地将戏与现实的结合，还有电影精湛的摄影与制作价值（美工、音乐），使得这依然是本年度最好看的电影之一。

走出电影院，我想起的是蔡琴的那首《给电影人的情书》，其实那首歌的歌词大约已包含了我对《黑天鹅》的全部感受：

多少人爱你遗留银幕的风采

多少人爱你遗世独立的姿态

你永远的童真 赤子的心态

孤芳自赏的无奈

谁明白你细心隐藏的悲哀

谁了解你褪色脸上的缅怀

你天衣无缝的潇洒 心底的害怕

慢慢渗出了苍白

你苦苦地追求永恒

生活却颠簸 无常 遗憾

你傻傻地追求完美

却一直给误会 给伤害 给放弃 给责备

何悲 何爱 何必去愁与苦

何必笑骂恨与爱

人间不过是你寄身之处

银河里才是你灵魂的徜徉地

人间不过是你无形的梦

偶然留下的梦 尘世梦

以身外身 做梦银亮色的梦

以身外身 做梦中梦

Oliver Stone’s original Wall Street, that seminal film about finance in the crazy 80s, remains the definitive main-stream Hollywood film on Wall Street, and gave aspiring investment bankers a real “role model” in Gordon Gecko. So it’s not surprising that 20 years later, when the world has gone through another financial crisis (and a much more severe one than the 87 stock crash), Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas pair up again to show Gordon Gecko’s second act. Unfortunately, the end result is a muddled effort, and in the words of my friend, a film that “never really took off”.

Part of the problem is the richness of material available. I myself have read two very interesting books on the 08 financial crisis, Too Big to Fail and The Big Short. These two books tell two sides of the same story – the former focuses on the deal-making and desperate negotiations during the eventful summer of 08; the latter focuses on the wise few who bet against the insanity of the market and won big, though philosophically they are also to blame for aggravating the situation. You can see glimpses of these books in Money Never Sleeps – especially two deal-brokering scenes at the New York Fed, which are essentially not-so-subtle references to the similar events around Lehman Brothers and later, AIG. But these snippets, while interesting, does not really tie together with the film’s main plot, and looks out of place – the film-makers are making explicit social commentary at the expense of the story, and the commentary is not really anything new. And then there’s the random clean-tech plot elements, which also are distracting and act as cheap plot devices (the central goal of Shia LaBeouf’s character, Moore, is to get $100MM funding for a nuclear fusion startup, and that’s what motivates the character).

What (almost) gets the film going is that Michael Douglas still commands the screen as Gordon Gecko. To some extent, Gecko twenty years later is even more fearsome than the powerful corporate raider he was in the 80s. He has lost most of what he had, and that makes him hungrier to claim it all back; and the years have just made him even more shrewd and cunning. But the allure of this character alone is not enough to rescue the whole film.

There are several references to the original film, starting from the same font used in the opening credits, to Charlie Sheen’s cameo (besides a few other original cast members’ cameos), to the same end-credit song. While there is nothing wrong per se with paying homage to the first film, to me they only felt as stark reminders of the difference in quality in the two films. The script is simply not at par, and often dissolves into disjoint populist diatribes at Wall Street greed; and the characters are really dumbed down – the one-dimensional good banker Zabel, who is Moore’s mentor and committed suicide when he couldn’t rescue his firm, is particularly unrealistic.

In sum – the plot is a botched product, and there’s little intelligent material in this unworthy sequel; Michael Douglas still shines, but the film only has some novelty value to fans of the original.

5/10

The Town is Ben Affleck’s gritty crime drama about an armed robbery gang from the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. While the story is generic and formulaic, the film is very well executed and generates real emotions about its characters.

Affleck is Doug MacRay, the semi-mastermind of a gang of four; Jeremy Renner is James Coughlin, Doug’s childhood friend and the head of the gang. The gang takes on tough armed robbery leads, generated by a local mob boss who is a florist by day. On the right side of the law is Jon Hamm, who plays FBI agent Adam Frawley.

The more I think of it, the more The Town feels like a Boston remake of Michael Mann’s LA crime drama, Heat. While Heat was probably unnecessarily long at almost 3 hours, that did give it the luxury of significant side plots to grow the range of characters, and not just Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s respective lead roles. The Town is much more economical, running at just over 2 hours; that however also translates into very one-dimensional characters. MacRay is the one that the audience is meant to care about, the one that we desperately want to see a happy ending for; Coughlin is the crazy one that will mess up everything; and Frawley is the resourceful and relentless cop that will pull all strings (including of course intimidating the women in MacRay’s life) to stop the gang.

My other minor complaint is regarding the somewhat happy ending, which felt like a small cop-out (spoiler warning). Obviously it is not easy to kill off the central character, but to give him a happily ever after – that’s not very satisfying either, since he hasn’t paid his share of dues to justice and conveys the wrong message. Maybe I’m just looking for too much meaning in a genre film.

All that aside, this is a high quality production. The action scenes look realistic and dramatic (again, think Heat remake, set in Boston), and the narrative is well-paced and generally full of tension. A very enjoyable 2 hours indeed.

8/10

WARNING: spoilers below, free flowing from my subconscious

It’s almost impossible for me not to like Inception, the sixth full-length feature film from director Christopher Nolan. His tastes for complex narratives and imaginative scenarios are a natural draw, and the the premise of Inception is in many ways so much grander than all his previous works.

As audiences have learnt from the trailers and posters, Inception is about the manipulation of dreams. The central character, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), specializes in stealing secrets from targets (“the mark”) through their dreams. For reasons later revealed, he cannot return to his family in the States because of criminal charges; his latest client, Saito (Ken Watanabe) promises to resolve this predicament if Cobb completes the mission – the caveat being, this mission is not about extraction (stealing secrets), but inception: planting an idea in the mark’s mind.

The film spends the first hour or so going through its complex rules of the game, as Cobb assembles an ensemble cast to support him: Ariadne (Ellen Page) is the architect, the person responsible for crafting the virtual world that the team and the mark will dream into; Eames (Tom Hardy) is the forger, and specializes in impersonating others to manipulate the mark; Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is the chemist, the person providing the drugs that allow the team to build multiple layers of dreams (dreams within dreams). And of course, there’s the dependable Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is the point man, always right by Cobb’s side. The mark is Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the inheritor of a vast energy empire. Saito’s idea is to let Fischer willingly dismantle his father’s empire, hence the inception.

What really complicates things is the ever-presence of Cobb’s wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), in the dreams. The alternative narrative is therefore Cobb’s complex past, how his wife died, and why she is living in his subconscious. Mal threatens to sabotage Cobb’s plans, which as viewers can guess leads to an eventual confrontation during the film’s climactical moments.

Much like its layers of dreams, Inception shines on multiple layers. At the very foundation, the film’s imaginative premise (dreams can be shared, and therefore manipulated; numerous laws govern the dream world, e.g. what happens when you die, or how you can wake up, and how perception of time changes) opens up the space for wildly creative scenarios – the most typical example of this is the triple narratives that develop in parallel during the “dream within a dream within a dream” act. The montage jumps freely from one dream layer to another, while at the same time pumping up the intensity of the action, which forces the viewer to scramble to keep up with the pace.

At the next layer, the film’s semi-open ending leaves multiple interpretations available. It’s early days yet, but I have already formed three or four distinctively different versions of “what really happened”, thanks to some lively discussion on IMDB and elsewhere. I’m quite sure that in the near future movie fans will be intensely debating Inception in a manner similar to the discussions around The Matrix (how many Matrix solutions were there, back in the day?). Based on what the viewer judged to be “dream” and “reality”, it is very possible to build elaborate and contrary explanations to the plot. Without seeing the film a second time, I have to say that many of the theories currently floated seem plausible.

At its most meta layer, Inception is brilliant in its exploration of consciousness and perception of reality. Just as The Matrix did over a decade ago, Inception challenges viewers to ponder on their perception of reality. Who is to say we are not living in an elaborate virtual world, whereas our physical beings are occupying a completely different world (or in the case of The Matrix, being used as batteries for the computer)? In Inception, the characters had personalized “totems” that helped them distinguish dream from reality – a small personal item that only the person knows about and carries around at all times, so that it is difficult to be manipulated and can serve as a “reality check” in the literal sense. But as the viewers find out during the open ending, these totems can be deceptive. Inception‘s discussion of the blurry line between dream and reality echoes some of the most basic metaphysical questions that mankind has pondered since time inmemorial – “what is being”? Does the world exist independent of the mind, or dependent on the mind?

As you can probably see, I’m clearly in love with this film. Perhaps Inception‘s greatest strength is its accessibility. It can be enjoyed as a mind-bending action thriller, where you take most of what was said by the characters as true, and perhaps just ponder a little bit on the ending. Or, you can dive in at the deep end and explore the endless possibilities of what it “really meant” – most of which I’m sure goes beyond Christopher Nolan’s original thinking, but the fact that it is open to interpretation is exactly the beauty of the construction. A film that will develop a rabid cult following and will be talked about for many years to come.

10/10

《太平洋战争》(The Pacific)是HBO的10集短剧，以二战太平洋战场为题材，汤姆·汉克斯与斯皮尔伯格监制，无论形神都是《拯救大兵瑞恩》以及《兄弟连》的姊妹篇。或许有《兄弟连》（以及近10年来诸多二战题材的影视作品）在前，《太平洋战争》所塑造的场面以及探讨的主题观众并不陌生，也因此这部剧集倘若有所突破，那便是在人物描写上。

或许有些意外的是，《太平洋战争》的10集里面，固然不乏类似《拯救大兵瑞恩》片头30分钟那样标志性的战争场面，但总的说来剧集的节奏是被刻意放缓的。更多的场景是在描写困于丛林消耗战的士兵如何缓慢地、一步步地走向崩溃边缘─“日本鬼子”只是这场为生存而战的搏斗中的众多敌人之一，太平洋小岛的雨季、热带疾病、物资的匮乏等等都是巨大的障碍。缓慢的节奏让《太平洋战争》与同样描写太平洋战场的《细细红线》异曲同工，只不过与后者相比，《太平洋战争》里少了许多对自然与神灵的探讨。

就人物的塑造而言，《太平洋战争》的情节主要围绕三个真实人物─因在Guadacanal战役英勇表现而获得荣誉勋章的John Basilone；和平年代是记者的一等兵Robert Leckie；以及来自上流家庭的少年Eugene Sledge。后二人所著的关于太平洋战场的回忆录是剧集的重要素材，大概也因此他们成为剧集主要人物。与《兄弟连》相比，剧集对次要人物的描写要少很多，给人印象深刻的大约还有3-5人，也都是直接与三位主人公相关联（Basilone的妻子，Sledge的几个朋友等）。

三位主人公讲述了关于战争的三个侧面。Basilone的故事是典型的爱国英雄故事，他在Guadacanal一战成名，遂被调回美国，被当作推销战争国债的宣传工具，奔走于美国各地。他的生活犹如电影明星（剧集描写他如何与好莱坞女星有染），然而精神上他极度匮乏。他渴望回到战场，回到战友身边，军方却只让他当训练营的教官。在训练营他结识了自己后来的妻子，然而婚后不久他便再次投奔太平洋战场，并在硫黄岛战役冲锋时牺牲。“出师未捷身先死，长使英雄泪满襟。”这是观众最熟悉的题材，其核心价值是超越自身的牺牲精神（“不要问你的国家为你做了什么，而要问你为国家做了什么。”）；虽然并无新意，但是中规中矩，剧集在执行上也足够有感染力。

与Basilone相比，我对Leckie和Sledge的故事更感兴趣。Leckie所代表的是另一类战士─他忠于国家，但身上并没有英雄主义与巨大的使命感。作为一个知识分子（记者），他对战争有着理性的思考，并有着近似消极避世的心态─在战场上他最精心的工作似乎是他所维护的一个战地图书馆。他渴望和平年代，向往着爱情与家庭生活。剧集描述了他的两段感情─部队在澳大利亚休整时他与当地女孩的热恋，那位女孩最终因为看不到他回来的希望（战死，抑或回到美国而不是澳洲）而结束了这段感情；以及战争结束后他回到家乡，与他长期相识的邻家女孩的恋情。

Sledge的故事代表的则是对人性的反思以及少年在战火中的成长（套用越战电影《生于七月四日》的广告词，”a story of innocence lost and courage found”）。Sledge家境优裕，他的父亲试图以他有心颤为由阻止他应召入伍，然而Sledge一心想与伙伴Sidney一同奔赴战场，在耽搁了一段时间后还是成为了一名海军陆战队军人。战争的极端残酷摧残了他年少的心灵，Sledge一度变得极为暴虐（枪杀手无寸铁的日本士兵）。然而当他意识到自己下达的指令将一个日本婴儿变成了孤儿后，Sledge重新找到了自己的人性。在他此后的余生里，他将一直受到关于这场战争的噩梦的折磨。

剧集在架构上，主要以Guadacanal, Peleliu和Okinawa三场战役为背景。最后一集，讲述战事过后主人公们如何向和平生活转变，是画龙点睛之笔，感人至深（Basilone的妻子去首度拜访亡夫的父母；Leckie与邻家女孩相爱；Sledge回到家乡后却不能平静，深受心灵创伤的折磨）。

7/10

Green Zone opens hauntingly. It’s March 2003, and a group of senior officers in the Iraqi army are holding an emergency meeting. The coalition forces have began the bombing, and there are rumblings in the background. The meeting ends; the officers disperse, and they step outside you realize the extent of the bombings – the entire city of Baghdad is in flames.

It’s a particularly disturbing scene, in the sense that I was immediately reminded of the controversy surrounding the legality of the war. It is such a tremendous suffering for the Middle Eastern nation, which makes the question of “why?” even more pungent.

And this is all intentional – Green Zone isn’t at all shy to be politically charged. While the much-praised The Hurt Locker was all about subtlety and focused on the human story of the war, Green Zone is a cry of anger that specifically challenges the legality of the war, through a commercially palatable plot (Jason Bourne in Iraq!) to gain more audiences.

Critics have lamented the film for its weak plot. I think the fundamental flaw of the plot is that it tries to cover too much ground in 2 hours, and therefore loses a lot of plausibility – how can a low ranking officer (Matt Damon) uncover the whole fabrication of WMD intel in a matter of days on the ground? The compromise between plausibility and adrenaline-charged action was not well balanced, so while the film is generally engrossing and entertaining, it’s quite lacking in stimulating serious conversations.

On the plus side, Matt Damon is an obvious choice for his role. He brings natural credibility as the protagonist who just wants the truth, and the film doesn’t spend any time trying to build up his profile and background. To a large extent, the plot consciously leverages the image of Bourne – a man hunting for the truth.

At the end of the day, this is not award winning material in any sense – but it’s still a fairly enjoyable film and it carries a specific message. Worth checking out if you’re at all interested in the genre and topic.

7/10

The first signs that Shutter Island may not appeal to my tastes came very early – when the actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, playing a couple of US marshals, first step on said island and is being transported to the central facility, a loud and intrusive score starts blaring. The ominous cellos make your heartbeat race, and I couldn’t help but notice that this is an effect typical of horror flicks – the opening credits of The Shining immediately comes to mind, where an otherwise scenic drive up to a mountain resort is transformed into a trail into your worst nightmare, thanks to the eerie score. Indeed, quite a few critics have picked up on these editing choices.

Shutter Island is primarily concerned with blurring the line between what is real and what isn’t. DiCaprio’s character, Teddy Daniels, is brought in to investigate the disappearance of a patient at the mental asylum housed on the island. As the audience soon discovers, Daniels has his own agenda to pursue (partly driven by the events surrounding his wife’s death), and the asylum is not all it seems.

Some of the film’s most visually compelling scenes are Daniels’ dreams, which are a rich collection of montages stunningly designed. Sharp colors, camera tricks and some haunting settings combine to make impressionable images – in one scene, Daniels (a WWII veteran) is back in the concentration camp at Dachau and witnesses the slow agonizing death of a SS officer; in another, he is reunited with his wife and as they embrace she starts to effuse water and blood (a piece of the puzzle).

Being a psychological thriller, Shutter Island goes off in several directions, intentionally. There is a general sense of direction, through the plot device of the island and its facilities being sectioned off by accessibility – Daniels has access to Ward A and Ward B, but Ward C, originally a fortress, houses the most dangerous (and therefore the most interesting) patients and is off limits; and then there is a lighthouse, cautiously guarded and far from the main facilities. It seems that these areas house the answers to the mystery, and the film naturally builds up in tension as Daniels explores these grounds.

Ultimately, at 138 minutes, Shutter Island just drags a bit too long for me. The puzzle is an interesting one (what is the truth? What’s real and what’s not?), but it takes an strenuous effort to sit this film through. It is a stylish production, full of memorable individual scenes, but as a whole it doesn’t particularly stand out.

7/10