No Such Thing

Imagine that the original "Outer Limits" folks remade "King Kong" in their standard monster style and you have a good idea of "No Such Thing's" look and feel. Then throw in a little "Mighty Joe Young" banter, "Beauty and the Beast fashions", and "The Song of Bernadette" for good measure.

The film is a stylistic masterpiece and the banter between the beast and Beatrice (Sarah Polley) is surreal comedy at its best. If you enjoy quirky and subtly off-kilter films then the superficial story of "No Such Thing" will be a real pleasure in itself. Don't let frustration over the underlying meaning ruin the fun during the first viewing-just go with it.

The DVD does not contain a director's commentary so the viewer is left to speculate on just what this thing is really about; what themes Hartley is serious about and to what degree the obvious themes are just there for parody and laughs.

My retrospective take is that it is about the interplay of evolution and intelligent design, with the monster an artifact left over from creation. God created the monster, knowing that humankind needs fear for motivation. He expected us to have evolved beyond fear and hate of each other long before now, creating a need for the monster. But this did not happen, making the monster irrelevant and God disillusioned with humankind. Both he and the monster are bored with the stupidity they see.

God decides to intervene so the monster can go away and be put out of it's misery. He chooses Beatrice for this mission and she goes through a miracle survival experience to heighten her appreciation for life and to give her a distanced perspective free of fear and hate (the plane was going to crash with no survivors). Sarah Polley is perfectly cast as Beatrice; her Beatrice is somehow both detached and expressive. If you enjoy Polley you will love this character.

Virginia Woolf: Someone has to die Leonard, in order that the rest of us should value life more.

NO SUCH THING (3 outta 5 stars) A weird kind of project for indy art movie writer/director Hal Hartley... a modern day version of "Beauty and the Beast". A heavily made-up Robert John Burke is "The Beast", a near-immortal monster living as far from humanity as he can. Unfortunately, people still keep seeking him out, causing him to respond with violence. All he really wants is the peace of death... and when pretty, young reporter Sarah Polley is taken to him as a sort of sacrifice he offers to spare her life if she'll help him find a missing scientist who may be able to grant him his fondest wish. The movie starts out well... the monster gets some funny, earthy dialogue and the tentative relationship with "The Beauty" doesn't seem too forced. Towards the end, however, the story seems to fall apart a bit... becoming less believable and a little unfocused. The movie concludes in grand "art movie" style... with a series of arty crosscuts and fades that look very stylish... but don't really bring things to a satisfying close.

I enjoy Hartley's work. I found _Trust_ absolutely fantastic. I am also thoroughly disenchanted with the media and the society that it greats. What I'm trying to say here is that I wanted to like this movie. However, after sitting through it not once but twice in the same evening, I'm afraid that _No Such Thing_ is subpar at best.

My biggest complaint comes from the script, which feels clipped and constrained in the 100 minutes or so the movie takes. Too often, the story moves us and the characters from one locale or situation to another with little or no explanation how we got there (for example, when the monster is first in an experiment room and then in a filthy alley with no connection between the scenes). The dialogue, usually razor sharp and the highlight of Hartley's films, often falls flat and stops short of articulating the meaningful points that Hartley no doubt understands and desperately wants to communicate. The characterization suffers either from being much to heavy handed (as with Beatrice's boss, who goes so far over the top even satire is offended) to choppy and uneven (as Beatrice herself, who flucuates from nice girl to martyr to party animal to nice girl to martyr without a breath. At least one character (Artaud) had an accent so thick that it was nearly impossible to tell what he was saying (see: _Cold Mountain_), and I get a feeling from what I understood that his character was central to the message of the film.

There were some high points. Burke is fantastic as the monster and provides the most enjoyable moments in the film with his cynical, resigned brand of dark humor and philosophical undertones. I've never met an immortal monster that existed since time began, but if I did, I'd be willing to bet that it would be a lot like this guy.

Polley also does a good job with the bizarre material she's given, especially in the beginning and the end of the film. It is to her credit in the middle that she does not make the script seem ridiculous at all, even though objectively it is.

For the part she gives us, Mirren is also wonderful as Beatrice's cold hearted boss. She's obviously having the time of her life in this role.

Final analysis: this is for Hartley or Polley completists, and not really for anyone else. Another entry in the book of disappointing films.

Hal Hartley is an original film maker. With this film, which I recently saw in DVD form, he presents us a modern day parable about the media an its influence on our lives.

It's curious to see how ahead of his times Mr. Hartley is when he deals with paranoia, even before the attacks of 9/11, in his own subtle way. It was not intentional, I'm sure, but he proves to have a keen eye for what was coming.

The film is not one of Mr. Hartley's best, but we see his sure hand behind all what he is trying to do here. He is working with a cast that is working with him for the first time, with the exception of Robert John Burke, the Monster. Sarah Polley, is one of the best actresses working in movies these days. Her Beatrice is a study in contrasts. Also excellent, as always, is Helen Mirren, Beatrice's boss who is ruthless, arrogant, and manipulative. She knows the secret of how to get attention in the worst possible ways. Julie Christie makes a rare appearance as a kind doctor who befriends Beatrice.

The scenery in Iceland is magnificent and Mr. Hartley captures it brilliantly.

No Such Thing (2002) was my first Hal Hartley's movie. Checking its site on Netflix when I ordered the DVD, I was intrigued by the viewers' reviews on the very first page that differ from one star to four, and by the Top 10 Lists of the viewers who had seen the film already. The lists included "Independent does not mean good", "Don't Waste Your Stamp", and the most sincere "What the heck am I watching?" I knew that I was going to see a different, controversial, and interesting movie. After I saw it, I was very impressed. I know that I will look for more Hartley's works.

As far as the story goes, like many directors before and after him Hal Hartley re-tells the old but immortal legend of Beauty and the Beast which is set in the modern, post 9/11 (even though the movie was made before September 11, 2001) world. The film is worth watching for many reasons. First, it is visually beautiful and poetic especially the scenes shot in Iceland, mysterious far-away country. It did not surprise me that the monster made the remote Iceland his residence. Second, the music score that Hartley wrote himself was appropriately gripping and disturbing. Third (and very important for me), any movie that would place in one scene two of the greatest actresses of older generation, Helen Mirren and Julie Christie, and young but enormously talented and charismatic Sarah Polley and let them do the magic of acting together, is a remarkable movie in my book. And the last one, it is the interesting and compelling, satiric and biting retelling of Beauty and the Beast dropped against the frenzy of the modern media hunger for sensations at the time when terrorism is omnipresent. The film explores the nature of the beast in original, ironic, and clever manner. I guess I can call it a Hartley way. The bitter, cruel, deadly tired from eternal insomnia and scornful (quite often for good reasons) to human race monster as played by Robert John Burke, is sarcastic, scary, observant and strangely sympathetic. I would recommend the film and I am sure in case of No Such Thing, independent does mean good.