Suspension of Disbelief

For the ones who think they never heard of the director Mike Figgis, I will remind you of "Leaving Las Vegas". Yes that director!

I have been a fan of Mike Figgis since 1988 when he wrote and directed Stormy Monday and I really enjoyed Liebestraum and The Loss of Sexual Innocence. Not all his movies are "Hollywood" type like Leaving Las Vegas and it takes an acquired taste and thinking outside the box to appreciate some of his work.

Suspension of Disbelief is one that's not for the people who like straight forward movie. It's a story of a man who writes movie scenarios and happens to write one that involves us with this movie ("Participation Mystique") because he is writing the scenario for the movie we are watching and Mr. Mike Figgis does an excellent job with this concept.

The story takes us to different parts of this man's life, such as the world of his daughter who, within this movie, is a starting actress in another movie; the fact that there is a death (murder or accident?) which involves few people, and so on … (I don't want to spoil it for you). This movie takes you in different directions and still revolves around the same characters.

I personally enjoyed it because it's really close to what life is all about: A lot of things are happening at the same time and you don't know which one is the most important until you think about your personal life and understand that all of them are important. Your day to day life is not just a story within the same theme. After all, you are the story of your life!

If you expect a packaged ending to this movie, you will be disappointed but if you understand that you are the continuity to this film and understand that you, through your thinking, are supposed to draw your own conclusions for an ending, it will leave you interested even when the movie is over.

I have to admit, that the original title is better than the German translation (which I translated back to English). We get a German actor here who is quite convincing in being ... well quite hard to decipher. Then again, we also have a story of others trying to deceive - but to what end and with what purpose? If there is one ... and who can we trust? Things that get layed out here.

And then we have the movie within a movie - which adds another layer to it. Which you'll either appreciate or not while watching this. Just do not expect this to be an erotic highlight or whatever you may read into this ... it is sizzling at times, but it is more teasing than actually pleasing ... that rhymes sort of! Nice. So you got the information, now you can decide if this is for you or not.

I liked it pretty well.

You have to put yourself in mind that what you are watching is a sort of film noir, with a beat score ... jazz from the 50's. In this movie, director Figgis may be working out some of the themes he runs into in his everyday cinematic life. But what seems most to be going on is an exploration of the possibilities in each of us. The movie is rather existential, which perhaps fits with the beat mantra, the era from which, born in 1948, the director himself sprang.

Realize that you are watching an art film, but one that makes a little more sense than David Lynch's Mulholland Drive or some of Terence Malick's self-conscious work. I found the ending a bit silly, and I began to expect a different denouement, one that would have been darker, perhaps with a twist. But the movie doesn't really leave you hanging to work out your own ending quite as much as so many modern movies do, and which the main character, a screenwriter and part-time screen writing teacher, says is okay because "life doesn't have a pat ending," to paraphrase. The ending even had a little of the Casablanca about it ... boy, I'm really mixing homages here. This movie probably won't go down in the pantheon of greats like Casablanca, but it was a nice effort; sort of an indulgent one, as the attitude the screenwriter takes toward the up-and-coming generation seems to be. But the screenwriter hasn't lost his touch, may even be more attuned than those coming up behind. Plus, Sebastian Koch is pretty nice to look at.

I will normally sit and watch a picture that may have a director attempting a novel treatment. I can usually interpret what is going on - I do watch silent pictures.

In this picture I vainly tried to work out what was going on, who was what and where was whom. All to no avail.

In the end I gave up after about half an hour - I was becoming bored and restless.

I do wish that some people making pictures would realise that their audiences go to pictures to be entertained and pay good money for this.

After watching this load of cods-wallop, my first thought was to send an invoice to the director to compensate me for my time in having to sit through it.

Mike Figgis continues to move in his own inimitable fashion creating films that require concentration, patience, and some indulgences from the viewer, but films that in the end are like wonderful paintings to hang in a gallery for repeated exposure and admiration. Figgis wrote, directed, composed the musical score, edited, and performed the cinematography for this puzzling work: it works very well if your mind is sharpened and up to a challenge.

Socialite Martin (Sebastian Koch) is an accomplished writer of cinema and theatre who now teaches his trade to film school students. Fifteen years ago his wife disappeared after an argument, has not been seen or heard from since, and Martin has been left to singly raise his daughter Sarah (Rebecca Night) who aspires to be an actress like her mother. At her 25th birthday party, Martin encounters the mysterious Angelique (Lotte Verbeek) who is found dead the next morning. An investigation by the police leads to Martin being the prime suspect and with the arrival of Angelique's twin sister Therese, who comes to London regarding her sister's death, and with whom Martin has a fascination, comes even more questions concerning their brief fling. The are subplots galore: the entire film is being written as we see it and the director of Martin's film (Eoin Macken) is obsessed with Martin's daughter Sarah who also becomes physically involved with Therese. If all this sounds confusing it is meant to be: Martin's creative ploy is the concept that the character is the plot – and while it is puzzling at times, the manner in which it plays out is absolutely masterful.

Other actors in the supporting cast include Julian Sands, Lachlan Nieboer, Frances de la Tour and Kenneth Cranham. Every aspect of this film is creative – split screens, naming of scenes, strange photographic images, and interplaying story lines that somehow connect. This is a tough film but deserves the attention of those who love art films. The only problem is the level of sound of the spoken lines – it needs subtitles despite being n English, but none are available.

Grady Harp