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Pre-Oscar Alert: A Look at This Year's Critical Response (Nov 14)

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Written by Nelson Carvajal

Friday, 14 November 2008 06:31

If only the media would handle early critical reception from year round film festivals with the delicate approach of popping someone’s cherry. If only. Instead, a good movie can sometimes have its eyes and brains fucked out so much—and so early—that by the time that fragile beauty comes around to the rest of us, it is a big gaping, bruised hole that probably was prettier in its more reclusive days; In the months before the critical gang bang nights in Toronto or New York, where the itinerary is filled with alcohol and that aura of elitism that emulates from the advantage of seeing material before the ticket-buying masses.

If only.

Such is the case with Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” an overall joyous film that has somehow devolved from a notable achievement for indie auteur Boyle to—as Obama once coined—a “pig with lipstick.” Which is a shame really. “Slumdog” really is for Boyle what Roger Ebert calls “a personal triumph.” But that’s where the accolades should peak. In the early chapters of “Slumdog,” Boyle does channel Fernando Meirelles’ “City of God” with its propelling camera movements down the slums of poverty and its intoxicating editing technique but as the film pushes forward in its two hour running time, it loses Boyle’s voice and begins doing a modern cover of Charles Dickens. Of course, that’s never a bad thing, but for “Slumdog” it grows to be its Achilles heel. The words “coincidence” and “luck” are stretched to the outer points of space with Malik, the film’s protagonist, who is sure to be remembered as the toughest bare foot hero in the cinema since John McClane in the original “Die Hard.” Malik (Dev Patel) stepping into the shoes (is there a pun here?) of Oliver Twist will be a winning attribute. And it is. Go figure.

So then why all the gushing over another male Cinderella story?

Ironically, it’s the very the order of the plot in “Slumdog” that mirrors 2008’s year in the cinemas—and more importantly the critical reception of those films. Just as the not so pleasant early chapters of “Slumdog” depict life as cruel and pointless, so do two of the year’s most brilliant films: David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels” and Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” (the U.S. version). “Funny Games” knocked the wind out of audiences and their conventional expectations of narrative. Within its ‘against the rules’ bravura approach were instances where a villain would break the fourth wall, tease the audience and even kill good people without getting caught! A majority of critics and audiences were quick to write off Haneke’s disturbing masterpiece as a snuff piece or a pretentious lesson in film fiction. You can see why right? I mean, murderers killing innocent families and killers getting actually away with it? Erroneous! That sort of thing never happens in real life [insert laughs here].

With “Snow Angels” what you have is a modern tragedy placed in the hands of one of our most brilliant filmmakers (minus his commercial project “Pineapple Express”) David Gordon Green. Sam Rockwell gives a truly Oscar worthy (though he won’t get nominated as he is sure to get shit thrown at him for being vulgar and liking tits in “Choke”) performance as a man who is more than a drunk religious fanatic. He is the result of an only child small town home—a boy who knocked up his high school sweetheart, couldn’t provide enough for his new family and eventually gave way to substance abuse. Oh, but he’s back. And he thinks he’s found God. The subtle nuances Rockwell gives Glenn Marchand are more exhilarating to revisit than most films in recent memory.

But life is not all depressing. Just as the middle portion of “Slumdog” begins to show layers of the fantastic, so did Tarsem’s “The Fall” which debuted in cinemas near the middle of the year and actually woke to some ecstatic reviews. Yet “The Fall” never struck a false note. It always remained a red-blooded adventure that kept close to its inner coil of darkness.

I’m not saying that to be great a work has to be downright depressing. But I’m also not a bandwagon kind of guy. Sure “Slumdog” is entertaining but while watching it, there’s a strong disconnect—a missing ingredient. At times it feels as if the film puts its characters in bad situations just for the sake of making the audience cringe. In fact, by the time the resolution came (absent of a physical red ribbon on the upper right corner of the screen) I just was kind of pissed. I mean, I enjoyed the film but I felt there was just too much stress (not even plot—stress) strained by that point where I couldn’t forgive the movie. Sure the Bollywood number at the end is charming but it ends up being only the lipstick. Noel Murray of the A.V. Club (someone wisely absent from the critical gangbang) wrote this in his review from the Toronto Film Festival: ““Slumdog Millionaire” has its charms, but in a way its charms are part of the problem—the film seems to be trying too hard to make poverty relatable, by equating being poor to love that transcends all obstacles, and underdogs who beat the odds. It's rousing in all the wrong places.”

A movie can be provoking and dark while still saying something. Will people walk away from “Slumdog” and immediately discuss the Muslim slayings depicted? Or discuss the socioeconomic crisis? Probably not. Did people walk away from “Funny Games” and discuss the slayings in that film? Absolutely. So much so, they even argued over it, even referring back to Haneke’s original foreign language version of the film. Will people walk away “Slumdog” and talk about the complexities of young love lost? Not to any great extent. The film in the end swept that dirt under a nice Indian rug. “Snow Angels” left people engaged at the thought of how two people so much in love in their younger days can only be driven to murder each other by the film’s end. Will people question some of the unbelievable coincidences in the film (like the order of the Millionaire game questions paralleling Malik’s life or just about anything else in the film)? Maybe. Probably in its DVD shelf life.

But was logic even a question when it came to “The Fall”? No. “The Fall” was that brilliant instance where it was okay to throw away your inhibitions but not at the expense of story.

If you want to see a great film that brims with edgy darkness and concerns young love watch “Let The Right One In” from Sweden. Now there’s one of the year’s very best. Or how about the powerfully bright and optimistic last section of

“Ballast” (and the first half of that movie is really fucking depressing). Where’s the bandwagon when you need it?

But, then there’s poor “Slumdog Millionaire.” A real fun movie that is not boring. Had the media and critics kept their erections discreet, audiences might have had a chance at watching the movie for what it’s supposed to be: A no strings attached escapist fantasy. Instead, what you’ll hear as we approach Oscar season are the words “great” and “masterpiece.” Which it is not.

It was just written.

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