Laitue_Gonflable

First of all, I would like to say that without a doubt this is Lynch's worst film effort to date. Having received at best lukewarm reviews in most of the film publications I'd read, I went to see it with a slight sense of trepidation but an open mind - which I guess is the only way you can see a Lynch film, unless you're a die-hard fan. The trepidation was not only justified but actually shocked at this blurred and obfuscating mosaic of incoherence.

Ostensibly a follow-up to 2001's Mulholland Dr., this film evidently has a similar premise in mind as we meet Laura Dern's Nikki who lands the lead role in an exciting new film. However, this thematic construct ("plot" is NOT the right word) is not as pronounced as in Lynch's earlier effort as it is hidden among sequence after sequence of pointlessly minor-key music saturating long, long shots of lampshades with a ridiculous air of foreboding, and a whole bunch of confused and frankly pointless diversions.

What made Mulholland Dr. interesting was that it consisted of a first half that almost made sense, and a second half that then went about mystifying everything we'd seen up to that point, but because the essential players remained mostly consistent and their reactions and mentality changed inexplicably, it at least gave the viewer a sense that this tangled mystery could be solved. What's more, it had wonderful colour, style, and a beautifully satirical sense of Hollywood even as it subverted the very myth of Hollywood.

In Inland Empire, delightful eccentricity plummets into sheer infant-like dementia. The grainy texture and hand-held camera work which can stand up so well in the hands of Mexican filmmakers here lends the whole film an amateurish air, but that's mainly because the film itself is so badly constructed. The over-enthusiastic use of Dutch camera angles, unusual lighting effects and shrill screaming violins makes it look like something that a first-year Cocteau-wannabe film studies student might put together the night before an assignment is due - while on an acid trip. What I'm trying to say here is that what Lynch managed with subtlety, humour and precocious genius in Mulholland Dr. goes much further in this film, and extends far beyond the pretentious lunatic fringe.

I personally don't believe this film, like other confronting and obscure pieces, is love-it-or-hate-it. Your options are to hate it, or not get a single second of it but don't mind. It's interesting that it took 2000 years for the literary world to flush Aristotelian notions of plot construction down the toilet and Lynch has achieved the same thing some 100 years after the advent of film.

However, I don't mean to suggest that this is some post-modern masterpiece. It isn't. In fact I think many critics in writing about this film have been extremely generous, understating its sheer blind absurdity for one of two reasons - either they would like to forgive the director for wasting three hours of their life, or because they are so firmly convinced of Lynch's genius that behind this incomprehensible drivel must lie some prodigious meaning.

But I for one am firmly convinced that there isn't, and that Lynch's undeniable genius has here bypassed any semblance of reason, and the "touch of madness" which to some extent may constitute genius has ballooned into excess. Furthermore, I believe that if Lynch's name were not attached to this movie, it would not find a release in any market. What makes this ironic is that if Lynch were locked up in a mental asylum, he himself would never be released.

That's all this is: the unleashing of a twisted mind on an unsuspecting public.

There is an inherent danger in looking retroactively at early films from established directors. As with Jarmusch's "Permanent Vacation", Bertolucci's "The Grim Reaper" or even Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss", it can be difficult - after garnering an admiration for a director - to look back at their less refined beginnings.

Such is the case with Wong Kar-Wai's As Tears Go By (Wong gok ka moon). During the film's early stages, it feels somewhat like an unhappy coupling between a flashy Hong Kong martial arts film and those really cheesy Chinese serials where the emperor's daughter accidentally falls pregnant to the chief eunuch warrior (or whatever, I've never watched one with subtitles). Having said that though, it doesn't quite reach the extremes of either: firstly because the action and violence, although the driving force of the film, are not in the least stylised but are in fact quite confronting; and secondly because the cheese of the soap opera elements is really only apparent through the use of dodgy 80's music. But this is simply dated, not inappropriate - after all, the same could be said about Blade Runner, although the montage about halfway through this film set to a Cantonese version of "Take my Breath Away" is just embarrassing.

As Tears go By also happens to get better as it progresses. Perhaps this is because the romance between Ah-Wah (Andy Lau) and Ah-Ngor (Maggie Cheung), which seems ready to overpower the film early on, becomes sidelined to the underground-crime half of the plot, which is certainly the most successful and believable half. Wong craftily creates a hard-boiled atmosphere and there is a lot of emotional resonance in the relationship between Wah and his young protégé, Fly (Jacky Cheung). Unfortunately, the same cannot really be said of the male-female relationship between the two stars. It manages to gain a small amount of credibility purely through the fact that we have seen the quiet girl-bad boy romance explored to greater depths in other films. Put this small amount of believability aside however, and it has a very tacked-on, Michael Bay kind of feel to it.

Although the film is easily criticised, one can nevertheless see Wong's style making its first appearance here, and I can certainly see the justification behind one reviewer's quote on the DVD case: "A promising debut". I would like to particularly single out his clever use of intimate but skewed, 'Dutch' camera angles to highlight the (forgive me for this expression) humanistic dehumanisation which would foreground his more recent and more famous films, "In the Mood for Love" and "2046". He also drives the film at an excellent pace, in spite of the fact that alternations between the subplots give it a slightly episodic, fragmented feel.

Ultimately, my major complaint is simply that while both the romance and the action have a great deal of potential, used together in this way they don't work. Personally I think Wong could either expand on the romance more or eradicate it entirely, and he would have a more complete film.

And while hoping not to contradict myself, I have to say that the above comments, which pervaded my thoughts for 90 minutes of this film, were quite rocked by the superb conclusion - framed within criminal violence but so much 'about' the romance - let me just say, whatever I may have thought about most of this film, it was definitely worth it for the ending. Overall, interesting mainly for being Wong's debut and definitely a taste of things to come.

6/10

I went to see this movie as part of my annual vow to see as many of the Oscar nominations as possible, and this, more than any previous hiccups, reminded me of just how misguided that vow can be.

Before I begin my rant about everything that's wrong with it, let's just say that I think the Oscar nomination committee scored an absolute bloody home run with this one. Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy are clear standouts here, the former in particular delivering an extremely gutsy performance, and I think she will win - not only because she's very good but also because Oscars so frequently seem to go to actresses who deliver one great performance but are destined never to do anything worthwhile again (That is, of course, an appalling generalisation but I can list quite a few examples from the past). Also, the music is great although I have a couple of misgivings which I will go into later.

But the Best Picture "snub" which is gathering so much publicity was an absolute triumph of seeing through the bull and it's been a long time since I've been so satisfied with such a decision. In essence, Dreamgirls is nothing except a cheap excuse to throw together a sequence of impressive musical numbers with a connecting storyline which is little more than a bunch of glib, trashy soap opera episodes.

But what makes Dreamgirls such a terrible cancer on the bowel of the musical genre is that, unlike other recent films like it (I'm comparing it particularly here with Chicago, Ray, and Walk the Line) it never seems to be going anywhere. Chicago, you've got a murder trial to look forward to; Ray and Walk the Line you've got the guilt of a childhood tragedy and a powerful addiction to overcome. Dreamgirls, by stark comparison, features a mess of characters, none of whom are dealt with in depth, and a similar mess of conflicts, while never making it clear exactly where the conflicts lie, who they're between or exactly why the audience is supposed to care whether they go one way or the other.

The film's biggest weakness is hence its narrative. By the end of the narrative, the conflicts and characters converge, but for the middle hour and a half I felt like it was stumbling blindly from one song to the next, never sure of what it's doing. The fact that it all makes sense and there is resolution at the end does not excuse the clumsy route it takes to get there. Basically, we have a beginning, and we have an ending, while the intervening two hours are just a blur out the window as we speed by (while listening to some great soul music through the car stereo, as it were).

Its other major weakness is that, as hard as it tries, the film can't justify its own mishmash style. Firstly, it thinks it is a story about a rise to stardom and the bumpy road along the way. Therefore, it mingles the action of the film with interspersed live performances of songs that have a particularly relevance to that particular chapter of the performer's life. However, given that the songs featured here don't actually exist outside the film, any poignancy seems a bit ambitious when you compare it with far more successful moments in Walk the Line: the performances of "Ring of Fire" and "Walk the Line" spring to mind. Secondly, Dreamgirls thinks it is a musical and therefore, episodic dialogue can be sung, rather than spoken. I can't speak for anybody else watching the film but the scenes where this happened seemed actually very silly to me. Firstly, given that for the majority of the film, the action is spoken while the songs are performances both within and without this fictional world, it frankly seems unnecessary, particularly given their attempt to use the technique I just mentioned of 'fitting' a song to the narrative. Secondly, unlike the great old musicals of the fifties and sixties, by the time one of these scenes appears, the film has become far too grounded in reality for any suspension of disbelief to occur. Thus it is left wanting one of the crucial elements that made the old musicals work, while the other crucial element - namely, spectacular choreography - is also absent, unless you consider six people walking in time to music around a stage spectacular. It essentially tries to blend the biographical style of Ray and Walk the Line with the twee style of - say - Singin' in the Rain. Ambitious though it is, it certainly doesn't work. It's either realism in musical form or its 'a musical', it shouldn't be both and I think this is a good example of how a film also "can't" be both.

Therefore, having outlined Dreamgirls' major shortcomings, I could almost forgive it, except for one final problem, and that is, it is BORING. At the risk of colouring the rest of my review, I am compelled to say that I haven't been so tempted to walk out on a movie since I was stupid enough to see Scooby-Doo back in 2002. As I've said, the songs are good but they're only good aurally: there's nothing to entertain the eye and certainly nothing to entertain the mind while they're happening. As I've said, this film is nothing more than an excuse to put these songs on the screen. Fortunately, Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson were able to find the opportunity to act herein and save it from being an atrocious waste of effort.

In summary, all I can say is, buy the soundtrack if you're that interested. The extra money is worth the tedium you'll save yourself.

3/10