Category Archives: Politics

SIFF 2015: The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor **1/2

October 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 30, 2015)

If you’ve seen Roland Joffe’s 1984 war drama The Killing Fields, you’ll likely never forget the extraordinarily moving Oscar-winning performance by “non-actor” Dr. Haing S. Ngor. Ngor didn’t need to call on any Actor’s Studio “sense memory” tricks to deliver his utterly convincing turn as a man who somehow survived and escaped from captivity during Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s unspeakably bloody purge of his own people…he had lived the experience himself. Arthur Dong’s documentary fills us in on what led up to Ngor’s surreal moment in the Hollywood spotlight, and his subsequent second life as a political activist. Unfortunately, despite the late Dr. Ngor’s admirable achievements and Dong’s noble intentions, the workmanlike construct of the film makes it a bit of a slog; it loses focus and runs out of steam about halfway through. Still worth seeing for the simple fact that (Joffe’s film aside), few have expended time and energy to document the worst holocaust since WW2.

Documentary, Politics

Seattle Jewish Film Festival 2014: Brave Miss World ***

September 17, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 22, 2014)

Cecilia Peck’s documentary is a portrait of Linor Abargil, an Israeli beauty queen turned women’s rights activist. That conversion was borne of a horrific personal trauma. At the age of 18, and just 6 weeks prior to being crowned Miss World in 1998, she was kidnapped, stabbed and raped while visiting Italy. Peck and her camera crew followed the seemingly tireless Abargil around the world for five years, documenting her drive to ensure that her attacker (eligible for parole this year) never sees the light of day, and continue her ongoing campaign to promote awareness of this often unreported crime. Everywhere she travels, she encourages victims to begin their healing by giving testimony. This is the most moving and inspiring aspect of the film; listening to these women (of all nationalities, social strata and ages) recounting their experiences and realizing how much courage it takes to come forward. You can’t help but feel outrage at the most maddeningly puzzling aspect of this vile and violent crime: Why does the burden of proof fall largely upon the victim?

Documentary, Musical, Politics

Quick take: Finding Fela ***

September 17, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 6, 2014)

The first 15 minutes or so of director Alex Gibney’s portrait of Nigerian music legend/political icon Fela Kuti teeters on becoming a parody of All That Jazz. Choreographer Bill T. Jones struts and frets upon the stage, rehearsing his company for a Broadway production of Fela! (it premiered back in 2009). Jones wrestles with how to convey the complexities of Kuti’s artistic, political and personal personas…while still retaining the catchy tunes and the jazz hands. However, just as you’re scratching your head and wondering if the real Fela will ever show up, he does; albeit in bits and pieces. With patience, you will grok the method to Gibney’s madness; he’s taking the tact that Al Pacino used in Looking for Richard; juxtaposing the theatrical with the historical to “find” his protagonist. While jarring at first, the theatrical framing makes more sense as the film progresses, functioning as a Greek chorus to bridge the archival snippets. While fans may not discover much that hasn’t already been revealed in previous documentaries, Gibney’s approach is fresh; bolstered by outstanding editing and slick production values.

Documentary, Politics, War

The happy executioner: The Act of Killing ***1/2

September 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 3, 2013)

“At first, we beat them to death… [but] there was too much blood…to avoid the blood, I [devised] this system,” explains former Indonesian government death squad leader Anwar Congo, the “star” of Joshua Oppenheimer’s audacious documentary The Act of Killing, and then helpfully offers an instructive (and macabre) demonstration of his patented garroting method (with the assistance of a stick, some metal wire, and a giggly “victim”).

Then, the eupeptic Congo breaks into an impromptu cha-cha dance.

This is but one of many surreal moments in Oppenheimer’s film (exec produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog). Congo is a self-described “gangster” who claims to have personally snuffed out 1,000 lives during the state-sanctioned liquidation of an estimated 1,000,000 “communists” that followed in the wake of the 1965 overthrow of the Indonesian government. As a series of like-minded regimes have maintained power ever since, men like Congo and “co-star” Herman Koto (Congo’s compatriot and a paramilitary leader), who would be considered war criminals anywhere else, are feted as heroes by their government and worshiped like rock stars by paramilitary youth groups.

As it turns out, Congo and Koto were not only quite amenable to skipping down memory lane happily revisiting the scenes of their crimes, but offered to take things even one step further. In a pitch straight out of (the ever-prescient) Network, they generously offered to reenact their exploits by portraying themselves in a Hollywood-style gangster epic. Needless to say, this counter-intuitive mash-up of hard-hitting investigative journalism and ebullient “Hey, I have a barn, let’s put on a show!” participation from the very parties that the filmmaker aims to expose could be enough to make some viewer’s heads explode.

However, sandwiched between reality TV moments like watching the narcissistic Congo and Koto studiously dissecting their “dailies”, rehearsing torture scenes (for which they can no doubt double as their own special consultants) or recruiting palpably alarmed civilians to play doomed “communists”, Oppenheimer slowly exorcises the ugly truths behind their braggadocio. It goes without saying that there had to be some form of major systemic collusion going on to enable a state-sanctioned genocide of this magnitude.

For example, it turns out that Congo and Koto’s own killing spree was facilitated with help from an old pal named Ibrahim Sinik, a “successful newspaper publisher” who used to interrogate suspected communists in his newsroom. As Congo recalls, “When he had the information, he’d say ‘Guilty!’ and we’d take them away and kill them.” After all, as Sinik himself adds, “Why would I do such grunt work?! One wink from me and they’re dead!”

I know what you’re thinking: These men are morally reprehensible, untouchable and beyond redemption, so why indulge them this sick, self-aggrandizing movie star fantasy? (Picture the warm and fuzzy feeling you’d get if the next Powerball winner turned out to be one of those 97 year-old former Nazi camp guards). What’s Oppenheimer’s point? Is he crazy? He’s crazy all right. Like a fox. Because something extraordinary happens to one of our “heroes” when he insists on playing one of his own victims in an execution reenactment. Something clicks, triggering a hint of what we call “empathy”. As we know, that is the gateway drug to “conscience”.

The moment of epiphany is telegraphed by a semantic slip. Through most of the film, the victims are referred to as “communists”. But at this crucial moment, one of the killers calls them human beings. Those two words open the floodgates; and the crushing enormity of his own horrible deeds makes him physically ill. Oppenheimer’s unblinking camera lingers on this hunched-over, violently retching old man, now stripped of swaggering bravado and revealed to be no more than a wretched creature as pathetic and pitiable as Tolkien’s Gollum. Still beyond redemption, perhaps, but recognizably human.

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Music, Politics

Blame it on the boogie: The Secret Disco Revolution **1/2

September 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 29, 2013)

Remember the disco era? I try not to. Yeah, I was one of those long-haired rocker dudes walking around brandishing a “Disco Sucks” T-shirt and turning his nose up at anything that smelled of Bee Gee or polyester back in the day. What can I say? I was going through my tribal phase (I think it’s commonly referred to as “being in your early 20s”). Now, that being said, I sure loved me some hard funk back in the mid 70s. A bit of the Isley Brothers, War, Mandrill, Funkadelic, etc. oeuvre managed to infiltrate my record collection at the time (in betwixt the King Crimson, Bowie, Who and Budgie).

But I had to draw the battle lines somewhere around the release (and non-stop radio airplay) of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (ironically, I love the film itself). In retrospect, I think what offended my (oh so rarified) sense of music aesthetic was that while “disco” plundered R&B, funk, soul (and even elements of rock’n’roll) it somehow managed to expunge everything that was righteous and organic about those genres; codifying them into a robotic, repetitive, and formulaic wash. But hey, the kids could dance to it, right?

Now, I am extrapolating here about disco music itself, as one would reference “blues” or “jazz”; not “disco” as a cultural phenomenon or political movement. What did he say? “Political movement”?! Actually, I didn’t say. Director Jamie Kastner is the person who puts forth this proposition in his sketchy yet mildly engaging documentary (mockumentary?) The Secret Disco Revolution. I think he’s being serious when he posits that the disco phenomenon was not (as the conventional wisdom holds) simply an excuse for the Me Generation to boogie, snort and fuck themselves silly thru the latter half of the 70s, but a significant political milestone for women’s lib, gay lib and African American culture.

He carries the revisionism a step further, suggesting that the infamous “Disco Demolition Night” riot (ignited by Chicago shock jock Steve Dahl’s 1979 publicity stunt, in which a crate of disco LPs was blown up at Comiskey Park in front of 50,000 cheering fans) was nothing less than a raging mob of racists, homophobes and misogynists. Hmm.

Kastner uses the aforementioned 1979 incident as the bookend to disco’s golden era (kind of like how writers and filmmakers have used Altamont as a metaphor for the death of 1960s hippie idealism). For the other end of his historic timeline, he (correctly) traces disco’s roots back to early 1970s gay club culture.

How disco morphed from a relatively ghettoized urban hipster scene to arrhythmic middle-American suburbanites striking their best Travolta pose is actually the most fascinating aspect of the documentary; although I wish he’d gone a little more in depth on the history rather than digging so furiously for a sociopolitical subtext in a place where one barely ever existed.

Kastner mixes archival footage with present day ruminations from some of the key artists, producers and club owners who flourished during the era. The “mockumentary” aspect I mentioned earlier is in the form of three actors (suspiciously resembling the Mod Squad) who represent shadowy puppet masters who may have orchestrated this “revolution” (it’s clearly designed to be humorous but it’s a distracting device that quickly wears out its welcome).

So was disco a political statement? When Kastner poses the question to genre superstars like Thelma Houston, Gloria Gaynor and Evelyn King, they look at him like he just took a shit in the punch bowl. Hell, he can’t even get any of the guys from the Village People to acknowledge that their wild success represented a subversive incursion of gay culture into the mainstream (they’re likely toying with him because he’s belaboring the obvious…”The Village People were camp?! I’m shocked! Stop the presses!”).

Well, here’s how I look at it. Dion singing “Abraham, Martin and John”? That’s a political statement. James Brown singing “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud”? That’s a political statement. Helen Reddy singing “I Am Woman”? Tom Robinson singing “Glad to be Gay”? Those are political statements. KC and the Sunshine Band singing “Get Down Tonight”? Not so much. And as for Kastner’s assertion that anyone who wore a “Disco Sucks” T-shirt back in the day (ahem) was obviously racist, homophobic and misogynistic, I would say this: I have never particularly cared for country music, either…so what does that make me in your book, Mr. Smarty Pants?

Culture Clash, Politics, Road Movie, Social Satire

No future: Top 5 Thatcher era films

September 15, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 13, 2013)

Digby did a great post earlier this week with an interesting cultural angle regarding the passing of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. She recalls how the Thatcher era (1979-1990) “was a fertile period in British music”, that blossomed in tandem with the “very active political opposition to Thatcherism”. The socio-political ennui that fueled those punk anthems Dibgy cites also informed the work of some young British filmmakers. So as a sort of companion piece to Digby’s post, I’ve selected five films that share the ethos:

High Hopes – “Guess what its name is?” asks Shirley (Ruth Sheen), whilst pointing at a potted cactus plant. When their house guest shrugs, her husband Cyril (Philip Davis) chimes in, “Thatcher! Because it’s a pain in the ass; prongs you every time you walk past it.” Cyril (an old-school Marxist who works as a motorbike messenger) and the earth-motherly Shirley are at the center of Mike Leigh’s wonderful 1988 character study.

In his usual leisurely yet compelling fashion, Leigh pulls you right into the world of this sweet, unpretentious working-class couple and the people in their orbit. There’s Cyril’s elderly mum (Edna Dore), with whom he dutifully stays in touch (despite the fact that she voted Tory in the last election, to his chagrin). Cyril’s shrill, self-centered sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) is a piece of work; while she also stays in touch with Mum, she sees it as a bothersome chore. Her exasperated husband (Martin Burke) is starting to view his marriage as a bothersome chore. And then there is an obnoxious yuppie couple (Lesley Manville and David Bamber) that you will love to hate.

Many of Leigh’s recurring themes are present; particularly class warfare and family dynamics (the thread about Cyril’s aging mother reminds me of Ozu’s Tokyo Story). And like most of Leigh’s films, it’s insightful, funny, poignant and ultimately life-affirming.

The Ploughman’s Lunch – In a 2009 article in The Guardian, a number of UK writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and arts critics weighed in regarding Thatcherism’s effect on each of their respective fields. This was theater and film director Richard Eyre’s take:

Thatcher’s relentless emphasis on money and management and marketing illuminated the value of things that couldn’t be quantified, and her moronic mantra “there’s no such thing as society” gave the humanitarian and moral a conspicuous importance. So, although I didn’t think it at the time, it’s possible that Thatcher gave the arts a shot in the arm.

And indeed, Eyre’s 1983 film is probably the most politically subversive of my five selections. Bolstered by Ian McEwan’s incisive screenplay, the story is set on the eve of the Falklands War. Jonathan Pryce tackles the unenviable task of making us care about an inherently smarmy protagonist with considerable aplomb.

Pryce plays a cynical Oxford-educated Radio London news writer who falls madly in love with a TV journalist (Charlie Dore). She reciprocates in a platonic fashion. Frustrated, Pryce begs a pal (Tim Curry) who also happens to be Dore’s long-time co-worker for ideas. Curry suggests that Pryce, who has been commissioned to write a book on the Suez Crisis, could score points by ingratiating himself with Dore’s mother (Rosemary Harris), an historian who once wrote a commemorative article on that very subject. Pryce’s love life takes a few unexpected turns.

While it may sound more like a soap opera than a political statement, McEwan’s script cleverly draws parallels between the self-serving sexual machinations of the characters and what he may have felt Thatcher was (figuratively) “doing” to Britain at the time.

It’s interesting to note that the denouement, which features the three journalists covering the 1982 Conservative Party Conference, was surreptitiously filmed at the actual event (you’ll see snippets of Thatcher’s address) as the actors nonchalantly mingled with the crowd (begging comparison to Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool).

Radio On – You know how you develop an inexplicable emotional attachment to certain films? This no-budget 1979 offering from writer-director Christopher Petit, shot in stark B&W is one such film for me. That said, I should warn you that it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, as it contains one of those episodic narratives that may cause drowsiness for some after about 15 minutes. Yet, I am compelled to revisit this one annually. Go figure.

A dour London DJ (David Beames), whose estranged brother has committed suicide, heads to Bristol to get his sibling’s affairs in order and attempt to glean what drove him to such despair (while quite reminiscent of the setup for Get Carter, this is not a crime thriller…far from it). He has encounters with various characters, including a friendly German woman, an unbalanced British Army vet who served in Northern Ireland, and a rural gas-station attendant (a cameo by Sting) who kills time singing Eddie Cochran songs.

As the protagonist journeys across an England full of bleak yet perversely beautiful industrial landscapes in his boxy sedan, accompanied by a moody electronic score (mostly Kraftwerk and David Bowie) the film becomes hypnotic. A textbook example of how the cinema can capture and preserve the zeitgeist of an ephemeral moment (e.g. England on the cusp of the Thatcher era) like no other art form.

Sammie and Rosie Get Laid –What I adore most about this 1987 dramedy from director Stephen Frears (My Beautiful Launderette, Prick up Your Ears, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, High Fidelity) is that it is everything wingnuts dread: Pro-feminist, gay-positive, anti-fascist, pro-multiculturalism, anti-colonialist and Marxist-friendly (they don’t make ‘em like this anymore).

At first glance, Sammy (Ayub Khan-Din) and Rosie (Frances Barber) are just your average middle-class London couple. However, their lifestyle is unconventional. They have taken a libertine approach to their marriage; giving each other an unlimited pass to take lovers on the side (the in-joke here is that Sammy and Rosie seemingly “get laid” with everyone but each other).

In the meantime, the couple’s neighborhood is turning into a war zone; ethnic and political unrest has led to nightly riots (this is unmistakably Thatcher’s England; Frears bookends his film with ironic excerpts from her speeches). When Sammy’s estranged father (Shashi Kapoor), a former Indian government official haunted by ghosts from his political past, returns to London after a long absence, everything goes topsy-turvy for the couple.

Fine performances abound in a cast that includes Claire Bloom and Fine Young Cannibals lead singer Roland Gift, buoyed by Frears’ direction and Hanif Kureishi’s literate script.

This is England – This film from director Shane Meadows (Once Upon a Time in the Midlands) was released in 2007, but is set during the Thatcher era, circa 1983. A hard-hitting, naturalistic “social drama” reminiscent of the work of Ken Loach and British “angry young man” films of the early 60s, it centers on a glum, alienated 12 year-old named Shaun (first-time film actor Thomas Turgoose, in an extraordinary performance).

Shaun is a real handful to his loving but exasperated mother (Jo Hartley), a struggling working-class Falklands War widow. Happenstance leads Shaun into the midst of a skinhead gang, after the empathetic and good-natured gang leader (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing and offers him unconditional entrée. The idyll is shattered when the gang’s original leader ‘Combo’ (Stephen Graham) is released from prison. His jailhouse conversion to racist National Front ideals splits the gang into factions. Shaun decides to side with the thuggish and manipulative Combo, and it’s downhill from there.

As a cautionary tale, the film demonstrates how easily the disenfranchised can be recruited and indoctrinated into the politics of hate. As a history lesson, it’s a fascinating glimpse at a not-so-long ago era of complex sociopolitical upheaval in Great Britain. As a drama, it has believable and astounding performances, particularly from the aforementioned Turgoose and Graham, who positively owns the screen with his charismatic intensity. Not to be missed.

Culture Clash, Historical drama, Politics, War

MacArthur’s lark: Emperor **

September 14, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 9, 2013)

The heroes and villains are not easily delineated in Emperor, an uneven hybrid of History Channel docudrama and Lifetime weepie based on Shiro Okamoto’s book and directed by Peter Weber. Set in post-WW 2 Japan at the dawn of the American occupation, the story centers on the roundup of key Japanese military and political leaders to be tried for war crimes.

President Truman has appointed General Douglas MacArthur (a scenery-chewing Tommy Lee Jones) to oversee the operation; he in turn delegates “Japan expert” Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (tepid leading man Matthew Fox) to see that the task is executed pronto. Fellers is also directed to investigate whether the biggest fish, Emperor Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka) gave direct input on war strategy. MacArthur has allotted him only a week or so to conduct his investigation (no pressure!).

Indeed, the question of the Emperor’s guilt is a complex one (and the most historically fascinating element of the film). Was he merely a figurehead, kept carefully squirreled away in his hermetic bubble throughout the war and occasionally trotted out for propaganda purposes? Or did he have a direct say in military decisions, perhaps even giving a blessing for the attack on Pearl Harbor?

And there is the cultural element to consider. MacArthur (at least as depicted in the film) was shrewd enough to realize that if he could build a working relationship with Hirohito, perhaps the Emperor could in turn persuade the populace to cooperate with their overseers, thereby expediting the rebuild of Japan’s sociopolitical infrastructure. Even if he was a paper tiger, the Emperor’s words traditionally held substantial sway over the Japanese people.

Unfortunately, screenwriters Vera Blasi and David Klass shoot themselves in the foot and sidestep this potentially provocative historical reassessment by injecting an unconvincing romantic subplot involving Fellers’ surreptitious search to discover the fate of a Japanese exchange student (Aya Shimada) who he dated in college (the young woman, whose father was a general in the Imperial Army, returned to Japan before the war). The flashback scenes recapping the relationship are curiously devoid of passion and dramatically flat, grinding the film to a halt with each intrusion.

While Fox has a touch of that stoic Henry Fonda/Gary Cooper vibe going for him, his performance feels wooden, especially when up against Jones, who makes the most of his brief screen time (even he is given short shrift, mostly relegated to caricature and movie trailer-friendly lines like “Let’s show them some good old-fashioned American swagger!”).

I get the feeling that at some point during the film’s development there was an interesting culture-clash drama in here somewhere. But when the denouement is a re-enactment of an historic photo that slowly dissolves from the actors into the actual photo? That is almost never a good sign…

Con Game, Conspiracy a-go-go, Politics

Bad hair decade: American Hustle **

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 21, 2013)

While I was waiting for the lights to go down at a packed sneak preview for David O. Russell’s American Hustle, a Gandalf-looking fellow wearing what can only be described as a Jed Clampett hat squeezed in next to me, gave me a nudge and asked, “So, what’ve ya heard about this one…is it kinda like American Gigolo?” (They always find me…I don’t know how, but they do).

Now praying for the lights to go down, I forced a polite smile and said “No, I don’t believe it’s about male hustlers. It’s about con artists, although it does take place in the 1970s.” He paused for a moment of contemplation. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “so it’s kinda like Boogie Nights?”

While stealing a quick visual check of the house for any other available seats, I replied “No, I don’t think it’s about the porn industry. I understand that it’s based on the Abscam scandal…if you remember it.” Huge mistake. “Ah! We must be about the same age! What year were ya born? Tell me, do ya have a good home life?”

Mercifully, I was saved by the lights.

My new BFF may have inadvertently stumbled onto something. It turns out that American Hustle actually is one of those “kinda like” movies. It’s kinda like GoodFellas, just not as stylish. It’s kinda like Jackie Brown, just not as clever. It’s kinda like Married to the Mob, just not as funny. And if you’re expecting All the President’s Men, fuhgettaboutit. Consequently, it is neither a candy nor a breath mint.

It’s best described as New Yorkers screaming at each other for an interminable 2 hours and 18 minutes (with guest conniptions from the Jersey side). After the winking disclaimer “Some of this actually happened“, we are introduced to sleazy con man Irving (Christian Bale), who preys on marks with the help of his “British” girlfriend Sydney (Amy Adams). When the two stingers get stung by an undercover FBI operation, the hotshot agent in charge (Bradley Cooper) offers them a deal if they help him catch bigger fish by conning a mobbed-up Camden, NJ mayor (Jeremy Renner) into serving as unsuspecting facilitator.

The “sting” here is on the audience, because Russell and his co-writer Eric Singer, while proving quite skilled at window-dressing this as some kind of rollicking, vaguely sociopolitical 70s period piece, use the retro vibe as sucker bait to string us along waiting for something interesting to happen; by the time we realize we’ve been had, the credits roll. There is far too little focus on story or character development and too much fixation on fashion, furniture and hair (Bale’s Rube Goldberg comb-over, Cooper’s perm and Renner’s pompadour deserve their own credits).

And while I’m nitpicking…about that music. While I love those super hits of the 70s as much as anyone else, if the story is set in 1978, why are 90% of the songs on the soundtrack from the early 70s?

It’s a drag to see such a good cast wasted. Bale, Adams, Cooper, Renner and Jennifer Lawrence (playing Bale’s estranged wife with aplomb) are skilled, but even the best actors need some direction every now and then (like when to dial it down to a dull roar, an instruction that apparently went either unspoken or unheeded). So don’t be conned.

Have a nice day!

Art world, Documentary, Politics, Road Movie

SIFF 2013: Tito on Ice **1/2

September 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 25, 2013)

When you think “road trip!” you usually don’t envision trekking through the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia while schlepping along the mummified remains of Marshal Tito (or a facsimile thereof). That is apparently what Swedish underground comic artists Max Andersson and Lars Sjunneesson did, to promote their book Bosnian Flat Dog at an alternative comic convention in Sarajevo. For his documentary Tito on Ice, Andersson and co-director Helena Ahonen mix Super8 footage from the trip with cardboard cutout stop-motion to create an offbeat (if scattershot) pastiche about art and politics that works best whenever focus shifts from the artists to recollections from people who came of age in the midst of the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s. This aspect recalls the 2007 animated film Persepolis, which was based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel about growing up during the Iranian Revolution.

Politics, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Nutted by reality: The Adjustment Bureau **1/2

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 5, 2011)

Do to others as you would have them do to you

–Luke 6:31

Do what thou wilt

–Aleister Crowley

Doo-be- doo-be-do

–Frank Sinatra

There is a contemporary film sub-genre that I like to call Guys with Fedoras. A Guys with Fedoras film is usually sub-headed under (although not necessarily restricted to) science fiction films. Think along the lines of Dark City, The Matrix, or A Beautiful Mind. When the Guys with Fedoras show up, you just know that the the rug is about to pulled out from under someone’s feet, and anything could happen.

Up is down, down is up. These guys are the reality benders, the cerebral copulators, the puppet masters. They may very well be the nebulous “they” who are so often referenced hose in the throes of delusional paranoia (or fervent prayer-in which case “they” may be referred to as “angels” or “demons” ). That is, if you believe in that sort of thing. At any rate, it does bring up interesting questions, like “What is reality?” Or, “Am I really the master of my own fate?” Or, perhaps of the most importance, “Does this explain why my iPhone picks the most inopportune moment to drop my call?”

All these conundrums and a large orange soda are incorporated into The Adjustment Bureau, perhaps best described as a “sci-fi romantic thriller”. This marks the directing debut for screenwriter George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum, Oceans Twelve), who adapted from a short story by Philip K. Dick (“The Adjustment Team”). The result? Well, it ain’t Blade Runner (or even Total Recall), but it is an engaging (if not 100% original) diversion that breezes along amiably, like a lightweight mash-up of Wings of Desire, The Truman Show, and Bedazzled (I refer to the original Peter Cook/Dudley Moore version, of course).

Matt Damon settles in comfortably with his role as New York politician David Norris (a Brooklyn native) who is running for the U.S. Senate. Young, handsome, energetic and blessed with a winning persona, he looks to be a shoo-in…until his reputation is besmirched by a NYC rag (a certain Rupert Murdoch property, I believe) when they publish a revealing frat party photo from his college days.

Consequently, the mood at David’s campaign HQ on election night is less than joyous. Just prior to delivering his concession speech, he ducks into a washroom to steal a few moments of private reflection, and “meets cute” with a charismatic ballerina (Emily Blunt). Like many of us who have had the occasion to bump into charismatic ballerinas in the men’s washroom, David instantly falls head over heels-and the feeling appears to be mutual. It’s Damon and Blunt’s (and the film’s) best scene; buoyed by some well-written and delivered repartee that recalls the flirtatious and sophisticated exchanges between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest.

Before the two can arrange their first date, however, duty calls-and David has to go give his Big Speech, and Elise (the name of our washroom-lurking ballerina) has to flee before security catches up with her (don’t ask). David, inspired by the chance encounter, gives the speech of his political career; snatching a kind of PR victory from the jaws of defeat. Now, things are looking up for David…until he’s cock-blocked by the Guys with Fedoras, who now enter the picture.

Actually, they are much more subtle in their meddling ways than, say, the New York Post. You see, “they” are not out to shower malevolence onto David; in fact they are only “authorized” to make the tiniest little “adjustments”, here and there, to assure that everybody on the planet follows their destiny, as has been pre-ordained by their boss, who is only referred to as “The Chairman”. Are you following all this so far?

Now, as omniscient and all-powerful as these “case workers” appear, they can still be trumped by Chance. It was Chance that David and Elise’s paths crossed; turns out that they are not pre-ordained to be together, and this has the Guys with Fedoras’ underwear in a bunch. Any further elaboration risks spoilers; suffice it to say if Chance trumps the agents of fate, I think there is a general consensus that Love Conquers All. An existential game of cat and mouse ensues between David and the forces “conspiring” against him.

So, despite the dark and visionary sci-fi pedigree and a $50 million budget, is this sounding like a glorified update of It’s a Wonderful Life? After all, wasn’t Clarence the Angel a sort of a benevolent “adjuster”, a case worker assigned by the “boss” to nudge Jimmy Stewart back onto his Pre-Ordained Path? Although the “G” word is never mentioned, it’s clear that the “Chairman” represents You-Know-Who.

I still can’t decide whether writer-director Nolfi is telegraphing a weirdly fundamental Christian message; especially since it is implied that if David insists on pursuing and consummating the love of his life, he does so at the expense of not only the bright political future that has been pre-ordained for him, but the fame and fortune that Elise is “destined” for in her chosen profession (the catch being, he has, by pure chance, stumbled into the man behind the curtain and learned about the Chairman’s plans, while she remains oblivious).

The message seems to be that they are not allowed to have both. Mustn’t go against the will of God, you know, and give in to Temptation-or you’ll be tossed out of the garden (although, in this case, I can’t figure out if David and Elise are supposed to be Adam and Eve…or Edward and Mrs. Simpson). All that speculation aside, if you are a sci-fi fan, you will likely enjoy the ride. It’s also refreshing to see a reality-bending thriller that doesn’t O.D. on CGI and shit blowing up (there is some violence, but none of it fatal-which is a refreshing change of pace). And hey, any film featuring Terrence Stamp playing a kind of super-Ninja adjuster can’t be all bad, right?

If Sinatra is The Chairman, and The Chairman is God, then…never mind.