"If you only see one film this year..."
Man, have I just seen one of the best films...
Now, I'm not usually given to hyperbole, so I don't know if I'm far enough removed from the film (temporally speaking, not personally) to say it's the best film I've seen this year. I've seen some good ones: Lost in Translation, Spidey 2, The Triplets of Belleville, Hero, the list goes on. This has been a good year for some quality indie releases. Most of the major studios have their indie divisions fully up and running. Movie-goers are finally paying attention to some really important films, and they are becoming genuinely interested in the big festivals like Sundance and Cannes.
(Sudden rant)
Admittedly, like pop music, we will always have the droll and the banal; that vulgar swill that the masses clamor after. We need it, actually. Young filmmakers can't support themselves, and small studios can't support the small filmmakers. They are supported by the excesses of the
big-budget, big-star, over-hyped, over-produced, Spam-on-celluloid, same ol' plot, blockbuster (what does that even mean anymore anyway?), CGI-drivel-where-nobody-even-really-holds-a-camera-anymore, that-everyone-wants-to-see-because-they-don't-have-to-think-while-they're-in-the-theater-much-less-when-they-leave, mega-movie (not film).
But it's the overages, the leftovers if you will, that help to fill out the budgets of the films that force the viewer to take a closer look at the actors because they can't afford a crane to hold the camera 100 ft above the actor's heads. As a result, the actors really have to act. An art lost since the summer of 1977. They're filled with music that's deep and poignant because they can't afford a soundtrack with musicians that are as bloated and over-hyped as the movies that use their music. They show believable places and follow believable plots because they can't afford for some computer engineer (that knows little of real life outside of a cubicle) to "create" sets that only exist on a hard drive.
And the rant is over, as abruptly as it began.
The film is Garden State. And I should mention, the film's website (usually as useless as the films (movies) they advertise) is as worthy of a couple of hours' visit as is the film itself. Especially entertaining is Zach Braff's blog. Hilarious in places. Zach is the writer/director and also stars on NBC's Scrubs. A remarkably worthless show, but this film proves that Zach has unsuspected depth below his TV star skin.
I'm not a reviewer, nor am I a writer about film. I know what I like: I like films that present me with a character I can identify with, then use that character to hold up a mirror on my life or the life of someone I know or of society (well, at least the society I know). This one has accomplished the three-fold mirror. I saw some of myself, much of my relationship with my wife, and a great deal of the existential subculture of Western modernity.
Rising from the ashes, the end of the movie is hopeful, raging in the face of uncertanty and fear. In the end, none of us really knows how it's all going to turn out. We don't really know how our decisions will affect the course of our life or that of those we come in contact with. But we can't spend all our time in the pits waiting to get all the kinks worked out, waiting for the machine to run perfectly. We have to take it out for a few laps at a time, and why not have a companion? Especially one we love to be with.
Love affirming, life affirming, liberating.
I particularly appreciate Zach's blog where he reflects on what he sees as the meaning of the film. After a paragraph of trying to explain it in his own terms he defers to a song on the soundtrack by Colin Hay (former lead singer of Men at Work), and to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." He recommends reading it a couple of times and adds that it truly is beautiful.
Agreed, and I'm now even more of an admirer of this film than I was immediately upon finishing it. This film is school for wanna-be filmmakers. This film is school for wanna-be humans. As INXS so eloquently phrased it: "Live, baby, live now that the night is over, and the sun comes like a god into our room: all perfect light and promises."
As Prufrock himself put it,
"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
Now, I'm not usually given to hyperbole, so I don't know if I'm far enough removed from the film (temporally speaking, not personally) to say it's the best film I've seen this year. I've seen some good ones: Lost in Translation, Spidey 2, The Triplets of Belleville, Hero, the list goes on. This has been a good year for some quality indie releases. Most of the major studios have their indie divisions fully up and running. Movie-goers are finally paying attention to some really important films, and they are becoming genuinely interested in the big festivals like Sundance and Cannes.
(Sudden rant)
Admittedly, like pop music, we will always have the droll and the banal; that vulgar swill that the masses clamor after. We need it, actually. Young filmmakers can't support themselves, and small studios can't support the small filmmakers. They are supported by the excesses of the
big-budget, big-star, over-hyped, over-produced, Spam-on-celluloid, same ol' plot, blockbuster (what does that even mean anymore anyway?), CGI-drivel-where-nobody-even-really-holds-a-camera-anymore, that-everyone-wants-to-see-because-they-don't-have-to-think-while-they're-in-the-theater-much-less-when-they-leave, mega-movie (not film).
But it's the overages, the leftovers if you will, that help to fill out the budgets of the films that force the viewer to take a closer look at the actors because they can't afford a crane to hold the camera 100 ft above the actor's heads. As a result, the actors really have to act. An art lost since the summer of 1977. They're filled with music that's deep and poignant because they can't afford a soundtrack with musicians that are as bloated and over-hyped as the movies that use their music. They show believable places and follow believable plots because they can't afford for some computer engineer (that knows little of real life outside of a cubicle) to "create" sets that only exist on a hard drive.
And the rant is over, as abruptly as it began.
The film is Garden State. And I should mention, the film's website (usually as useless as the films (movies) they advertise) is as worthy of a couple of hours' visit as is the film itself. Especially entertaining is Zach Braff's blog. Hilarious in places. Zach is the writer/director and also stars on NBC's Scrubs. A remarkably worthless show, but this film proves that Zach has unsuspected depth below his TV star skin.
I'm not a reviewer, nor am I a writer about film. I know what I like: I like films that present me with a character I can identify with, then use that character to hold up a mirror on my life or the life of someone I know or of society (well, at least the society I know). This one has accomplished the three-fold mirror. I saw some of myself, much of my relationship with my wife, and a great deal of the existential subculture of Western modernity.
Rising from the ashes, the end of the movie is hopeful, raging in the face of uncertanty and fear. In the end, none of us really knows how it's all going to turn out. We don't really know how our decisions will affect the course of our life or that of those we come in contact with. But we can't spend all our time in the pits waiting to get all the kinks worked out, waiting for the machine to run perfectly. We have to take it out for a few laps at a time, and why not have a companion? Especially one we love to be with.
Love affirming, life affirming, liberating.
I particularly appreciate Zach's blog where he reflects on what he sees as the meaning of the film. After a paragraph of trying to explain it in his own terms he defers to a song on the soundtrack by Colin Hay (former lead singer of Men at Work), and to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." He recommends reading it a couple of times and adds that it truly is beautiful.
Agreed, and I'm now even more of an admirer of this film than I was immediately upon finishing it. This film is school for wanna-be filmmakers. This film is school for wanna-be humans. As INXS so eloquently phrased it: "Live, baby, live now that the night is over, and the sun comes like a god into our room: all perfect light and promises."
As Prufrock himself put it,
"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."
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