frereloupe9

Well not really , I am after all a huge self admitting LOTR fan :D but this long review will be a testament of how much KALA gives me to think "hey there's hope after all !"

so here we go;

Watching an Indonesian Film in the Cinema, is like playing Russian Roulette with a cheap Potato gun; it doesn't hurt that much, let alone kill, but it keeps hitting on that same darned spot & it'll definitely leave a traumatic albeit small-but-plenty bruise marks.

While movie production has been going steadily if not rapidly in the country, Its no secret that quick-to-be-rich scheming producers has been churning out films that will make Deep space Nine seems like Fellini's 8 1/2 by comparison. Capitalizing on cheap shot-with-video production filled with hopeful yet untrained Soapie stars that barely grow breasts, shooting it faster than you could say "Roger Corman" and then slap the finished products with misleading titles and posters that looks like its been photoshoped by the producer's clueless but hopeful secretary, you know the types; little small town Betsy with the "Can Do" attitude.

OK, that was a brief history of Indonesia's current Industry's situation, sad but almost true, hence its no surprise that the arrival of natural born rebel filmmaker like Joko Anwar into the whithering local industry feels like a much needed dope injection of fresh cinematic foray. One thing that cannot be denied; the man definitely masters and inhabits an extremely eclectic artistic prowess; after the highly entertaining Joni's Promise, Joko took a drastic turn with his sophomore piece, and needless to say, it does not disappoint.

KALA starts with what seems to be an allegory to Indonesia's current condition, chaotic, bleak, and ticking like a time bomb, the fictional country governed by faceless powers that created a nation filled with zombified residents.

After a series of trepidation for things to come, we are introduced to the two main protagonist of the film; (playing Greek-Gods allegory here with the two names) Eros the jaded beefy cop,not without his unshaken sense of justice. And then there's Janus; the scruffy, doe-eyed journalist. Janus is riddled with marriage and career problems, what's a guy to do? He's suffers from chronic Narcolepsy. These two will carry the bulk of the story like a tasty blend of Dashiel Hammet's characters.

Though the two didn't know each other, the story soon unravels its wheels of happenstance that would connect the two and the role they soon play.

Through a series of unexplained deaths and freak occurrences, begins a surreal journey that would reveal that Janus and Eros's destiny might hold a bigger part in the country's future, the key to the mystery they are trying to solve lies within the existence of a beautiful mysterious bar croon-stress Ranti, adding creep factor to the plot is a pale ghostly rastafarian like figure in adult diaper, and the fact that whenever rasta man appears, head starts to roll.

KALA is such of a film where aside from the two main protagonists, everyone else seems to have their own hidden agenda, after all the main plot device is really about the legendary "Treasure" hidden by the first president. This again, really effectively reflects the harsh reality of Indonesia's heated "grey area" circumstances, intended or not. This is only Joko Anwar's second film but already he choose to take a drastic direction, visual or narrative wise, compared to the high energy, lush with urbane colors that filled Joni's promise, KALA is painted bleak and moody, asserting moldy and broken down exteriors of a city that has seen better days, suppressed color palettes that spells doom and hopelessness, the dialogue within the film keeps to the minimal level, reminiscing of Noir classics, uttered by tough rain coated jaded men and cynical femme fatales under thick layers of smoke and shadows. Just witnessing above, I personally can hardly wait what approach does Joko have in store for his next project.

The acting here ranges from great to decent, Fachri Albar is especially good as the narcoleptic bumbler, never fully comprehending the mysterious happenings around him, Albar's nervous twitch and hunched awkward demeanor really makes a convincing delivery. Then we have Eros, played by the vigorous Ario Bayu, channeling a much younger Morgan Freeman in SE7EN, his youthful look smolders with ravaged confliction and wise beyond age vibe. Towering Model Fahrani plays Ranti, the smoky voiced bar singer pleasant to look at even from her first appearance and by the time KALA's revelation reveals who she really is, you'll be cheering her entrance in the final scene, man is she hot.

Other memorable performances includes pop star Shanty as Janus's wife with flexible loyalty, Arswendi Nasution plays an effective greasy corrupt official complete with a villainy pony tail, and lets not forget August Melasz & Frans Tumbuan; two senior actors playing two types of lawmen, the good and the bad respectively.

The music in KALA is another thing worth noting, a crazy cryptic combination of Indie progeny Zeke Khaselli's trippy vocal and Aghy Narottama brash composition evokes melodies from a fairy tale-ish town that we thought only to be heard in tale-telling songs, only here, the music supports the town that inhabits KALA.

Tethered to the bone with criticism towards the powers that be, KALA never borders to overly political, as a film itself, it holds firmly in its main goal; to entertain. Although some would argue that its theme and pace might be an acquired taste, however for those who have the patience, the wait is worth the trip; like a juiced up mixture of Fritz Lang head butting Shaymalan and Jeunnet, KALA turns out to be one sparkly cocktail that does not leave a hangover.

Something truly evil bellies within the womb of what we called the informatical media pyramid, what started as mere pages in some housewife magazines about Ben and Jlo's love tapestries, could actually resulted in the very destruction of "Gigli" having been called the worst film of 2003, well i can asure you this much, a good film "Gigli" ain't, but the worst film of 2003? truly a sick and unforgiving work of Media frenzy.

I admit that I've been long a tolerant follower of Martin Brest's works, The re-imagining of "Scent of A woman" and "Meet Joe Black" although both not anything outstanding, i would say Marty have a penchant for being able to work the sparks between his main protagonists...take Chris O'donnels and Al Pacino's in SOAW or Brad Pitt's and Claire Forlani's and Hopkins in MJB.

I am not to sure whether the chemistry between Ben and Jen happened throughout the production or after or before, but regardless,I can say that in Gigli the two characters chemistry works out just fine.

Sure its a film which seems to has lost in touch on what genre should it belongs to, and hell, I don't deny that theres some amazingly bizzare occurence that happened within the film, memorable writings suddenly interwoved with some really surreal lines, truly the writer/director (here being Mr Brest himself) had either alot of chutzpah or too much caffeine to allow it all spill in the final cut, ppl who had seen this know what I ment; yeah it's that whole "gobble, gobble" thing, and such bizarre concoctions occurs now and then through out the film.

The acting job ranges from Above Decent to Mediocre, short wise no one really gave a shameful performance as it was so bluntly subjected through those Razzie awards thing,Ben Afleck is naturally the same man-boy he usually plays, here to his benefit, as the role seems to fit himself just fine; lightweight.

Jlo carries herself with ease into the Bisexual contractor character,and this kind of sultry never broke a sweat role seems to fit her really well, its just too bad about the sometimes awkward dialogue she was given.

The guy who played the Mentally disabled young man was okay,not being fleshed out enough I think, the dude who played Gigli's boss did some pretty funny impersonation of Bobby De Niro, but if its purposely done, then I must say its a guilty pleasure.

C. Walken in a very brief appearance didn't fail to deliver, the thing with Walken is that no matter how brief he appears in a film you'll always left wanting for more. Al Pacino, seems to be doing a favour by fitting into a one day shooting schedule, and he does what Al Pacino usually Do, Screams out his lines in a thunderous tone at some climaxing point & add about 678 punctuation mark at the end, and you can tell that he enjoys it, and so do we, although his scene in this film seems to belong in film that might be called "Devil's Advocate redux (with a touch of organized crime)" ..hence just making this film more bizzare.

Oh yeah...the whole argument-of-Vagina-and-Penis-whilst-doing-yoga thing, was intriguing, yet the presented scene plays out like some sort of Andy Warhol type of motion picture piece, its just weirding some of the audience out of their sense, it might be the misplaced background music, it might be the kitschy aura , I've no idea frankly...it could be that Martin Brest is thinking way ahead, and we as an Audience are simply not ready for the ahead-of-trend mumbo jumbo he tries to apply here.

Other than that Gigli's flaws seems to occur from the hype that surrounds its release, sure, lets say ..what if Ben and Jen was never enganged, or at the time wasn't Hollywood's first page material then I suppose Gigli would do just alright, its a bad film sure, but its 5 out of 10 bad, not 1.9 out of 10...oh yee cruel world.

Now this is a sweet interesting film, and hey, a film in a film is never dull, take me words lad, take Gods and monsters(1998) for example,anyway, if you know Mamet, then you know that his stuff was never below average, and yes i mean the stuff that he directed and the stuff that he wrote..unless he only act as an uncredited writer (which he sometimes does on bigger scale films). And before some people start to whine "ohhh not His wife Rebecca Pidgeon againnnnnhhh" , personally i do not find anything wrong with it, i mean what is wrong with the mutual respect between husband and wife both breed together as artists? (~_^ )..Pidgeon isn't a lousy actress, well Pidgeon always play..Pidgeon. just as MIchael Caine plays Caine and Hopkins play Hopkins..to top of it all he is the director here and he can cast anyone he damn wants. So this sweet little tale begins with Film Director Walt Price scouting a new location for his movie "The Old Mill" , being forced out of the last town for some reason that i couldn't remember. goverment stuff clashing with artistic ideals probably. Anyway they arrived at some ole' Vermont town, ensured that this is the right spot to continue the production, they began to make a move and from here on , we are offered with the tale of crews that choose to shoot first and ask question later, againts the raggity towns people whos more than ready to "welcome" the shooting, alas each with different reasons. What advances this film from the rest of the float-muck that came out at 2000 was probably theobvious ability of Mamet to corporate with his casts and thus produced the best ensemble performance since Magnolia (1999) or so i think. Even if you're a pop corn junkie who have less understanding about complications of making a movie, this wouldnt thump your cerebrums, hell , my 14 yr old Sister laugh at the usual "Mamet- dialogue -oriented" Jokes and she got Clueless (1995) as one of her favourite movie. Unfortunately, this film was never a box office, and naturally this reflects the majority of cine-audiences taste who still limits to liking style over substance, while style in this film got "MAMET" written over it, substance is second to none, kinetic it isn't yet if you like the out of towner kinda comedy minus the cliches' then this is your bag of surprises. Alec Baldwin is the kind of actor that do well providing the script fits his true nature, and in this case he did a good job as Bob Berenger, the pederastic movie star, Sarah Jessica Parker being the Julia Robert-esque actress who wouldnt bare her boobs on screen for religious reason, however an extra $800k would change her mind. Man, i would like to comment on every acting prowess thats so painfully effective here, i mean come on, Phillip Seymour Hoffman he never sucks (yep i use the plain word"never sucks"/"unsucks") here he plays the shy scriptwriter whose self dillema empowered his true kind nature, missus Mamet plays the usual idealistic free spirited -yet-cool-l-o-v-e interest, nothing new, she looks lovely as always, Julia Stiles was given little to do, thats a shame ,as the matter of fact the only flaw in State and Main is probably that theres so much great actors appearing here alas underused, and they ain't even a cameo role , take Ricky Jay , Stiles or that Guv'nor who played the other Lebowski in The big Lebowski(1998), cant recall his name, just as i cant recall most of other character actors names. I conclude my praise for the acting with the performance of character actor David Paymer as the roughnecked take-no-bullsh*t Producer, stealing every scene he is in, with his razor mouther utterings, he got the best lines in this flick, all in all this almost preceeds the Movie producer role of Dustin Hoffman as Stanley Motts in Wag the Dog (1997) i said almost! Ok so this is it ladies and germs, a film that is so tongue sweet, you'll require no snacks while watching it. enjoy this one and follow it straight away with Heist (2001) another quality Mamet sleeper that its shine has unshamingly stolen by other Similar film that came out at that year too, directed by the Jolly who fills the voice for Miss piggy. 4 outta 5 stars. +4 for the most entertaining ensembled performance in recent years and a simple from the outside yet complex in the inside plot. -1 for whatever,but mostly for abandoning some of the great actors talent because ...theres just not enough time.