I am woman, hear me yawn.

Albert Nobbs (2011)

Directed by Rodrigo Garcia

Story by Istvan Szabo, written by John Banville, George Moore and Glenn Close

Based on the short story  The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs by George Moore

Albert Nobbs is a dull film and I can’t for the life of me even comprehend how I would review it without major plot spoilers. You’ve been warned, or hopefully, spared. Which sucks, because I liked the advertising campaign that riffed on Rene Magritte’s Golconda imagery, and had high hopes that Glenn Close would really tear through this thing. Oh well.

Pretty much me watching the thing...

Glenn Close plays Albert Nobbs, a waiter at a hotel in Dublin at the turn of the twentieth century. Nobbs is a woman posing as a man in these circumstances, and why is pretty much alluded to by the screenplay as being a product of certain traumas and opportunity that occurred when Nobbs was much younger. Nobbs works undetected as a relative non-entity in the hotel, quiet and reserved almost to the point of annoyance. Just because the character is transgendered doesn’t make them engaging, sheesh. Anyway, Nobbs is thrilled to discover that a painter employed by the hotel, Hubert Page, is also a woman posing as a man. Page is boisterously played by Janet McTeer, and becomes some sort of a catalyst for Nobbs, who sees his loving relationship with a wife as aspirational. So, naturally, Nobbs looks towards PYT Helen Dawes, a maid at the hotel played by Mia Wasikowska, and fantasises about taking her as his wife and opening up a tobacconist. That also sells sweet meats (gross). Of course the arrival of the handsome and aggressive young Joe, Aaron Johnson (AKA Sam Taylor-Wood’s much younger husband) complicates this pipe dream somewhat when he takes on Helen as a bit of crumpet (the anachronism is somewhat apposite to this review). Sounds interesting right? WRONG. YAAAAAAAAAAAAWN.

Let’s begin by acknowledging this as a passion project for it’s lead Glenn Close, and one which she has harboured for approximately two decades since portraying the lead in a stage adaptation. Close co-wrote the screenplay, produced the film, and co-wrote the end-credits song sung by Sinead O-Connor. Because it’s set in Dublin. Also Albert Nobbs speaks with a cockney accent that borders on ridiculous. And holy geez, by the time the end credits dirge Lay Your Head Down (SPOILER ALERT! THE SONG TITLE IS OVERLY LITERAL because Nobbs dies after falling asleep with concussion, but not before dreaming of It’s-A-Wonderful-Afterlife) I wanted to tear up a picture of Close like it was the Pope… Which is saying something because I love her as an actress, Dangerous Liaisons  (Stephen Frears, 1987) being a career highlight for me. Earlier roles and performances have been imbued with a tenacity and verve, as well as a sympathy. Close is usually such a layered performer that it hurts to see her phone in a performance so hard, especially in something she’s been fighting to make for so long. Woman was Cruella DeVille DAMN IT.

Admittedly, this most likely stems to the screenplay, which merely illustrates events chronologically rather than work to reveal complexities or conflicts that may resonate between scenes and hint at character arcs, and the non-committal and plain direction by Rodrigo Garcia (best known for episodically structured films that work around large female ensembles, like 9 Lives and Mother and Child).

Frustratingly, there is a central conflict and conceit to Albert Nobbs - chiefly the danger and anxiety and risk of posing as a man in this period, and the societal limitations for women that may inspire such drastic measures, as well as the myriad gender and sexual politics that would shade these implied subtexts to the narrative - that the film itself seems unwilling or uninterested in developing with any kind of potency, urgency or hell, even emotion. Instead the film quietly sets it’s protagonist off into the night as some kind of pariah, wiping it’s hands neatly off of any obligation to honour it's intriguing premise with any sort of narrative provocation.

Maybe the sheen on the project has dulled over the years of fighting, which kind of shows in the lead performance of Close. Fatigue must have set in for her to tip her mannerisms so far into the restrained and reserved that they fail to register at all. It’s admirable that she should manage to pursue Albert Nobbs to it’s fruition, but ultimately if this was going to be the blunted result of all this labouring it would have been better off left unfulfilled. Also, Close never quite convinces as male or female in the role? Which I guess was intentional? Ku….dos? I know David Stratton said she looks like Robin Williams in this movie (maybe in Bicentennial Man), and I kind of see this.

Getting that movie confused with the tagline for A.I: Artificial Intelligence, I know.

Which isn’t to say that the film doesn’t have merits. Janet McTeer and the character of Hubert Page have far more material to work with, and it’s no surprise she blows Close out of her own spotlight. Her performance essays charm and swagger and confidence, that entirely reacts against the superficial cipher of Close’s Nobbs character. I haven’t in quite a while wished for a film to switch protagonists, but it’s clear a far more riveting and complex tale is to be told from Page’s perspective. McTeer, through voice projection and modulation alone, imbues trite line deliveries with revelations of her character’s past and intimations of her present idyll and happiness in her ‘unorthodox’ marriage. Close and her achieve a frisson of some kind of chemistry, but these scenes are bewilderingly few and far between. Am I wrong for wanting a tragedy along the lines of Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberley Pierce, 1999), only set in 1898? One with an informed and sympathetic queer voice directing it? Don’t kill off your protagonist and try to sell it to me as some kind of tragedy when there is nothing to invest in except for minor sympathy that they were a bit pitiable!

Such an inert passion project about a potentially intriguing queer topic  nonetheless manages to become interesting as it hijacks itself with unintentional camp value (although I wouldn’t be expecting an Albert Nobbs float at the next Mardi Gras for fear of inciting toxic narcolepsy). Let’s start with the puntastic name. Let me tell you the restraint it took to not title this review Albert Knobs. Because that’s almost how literal the plotting and pacing of this film is.

Secondly, there is a hallucinatory scene where Hubert and Albert (God I’m only just realizing the names are strikingly familiar and that Albert means knob in slang…) run around in dresses, and what I guess is meant to illustrate the complications of the characters’ transgender perspectives instead becomes sabotaged by my mind’s eye wandering off to images of Matt Lucas and David Walliams as two drag queens on the beach in Little Britain. 

'But I'm a lady' indeed.

 Props where they’re deserved, the actresses look suitably uncomfortable in dresses, and probably not just because they’re hideous. The dresses, that is. I know of a cute anecdote about Glenn Close that doesn’t involve her looking after Christopher Walken’s cats (they’re neighbours), but refers to how she likes to keep one costume per character from every film she’s done. I wonder if this number was a keeper for her or whether she opted for one of those jaunty Bowler hatted tops and tails numbers Albert wears when courting Helen on afternoon walks… You know, the type of outfit Diane Keaton wears to the Oscars.

What ensemble would YOU keep?

Speaking of costuming, Janet McTeer is dressed ridiculously as a man, with shoulders so broad they dwarf her head and Tobey-Maguire-as-douchey-emo-Peter-Parker-once-the-alien-symbiote-has-taken-over-in-Spiderman-3 haircut. 

She looks like a linebacker (when Close is content to look more like a Pez Dispenser) and it’s really off-putting until you see her knockers and realize that they’re massive. 

GIANT HOOTERS on a woman pretending to be a man. That’s the realism this film strives for, evidently. Good on it for trying though, because McTeer capably acts beyond the limitations her norks would otherwise have provided. Which begs the inevitable, yet obviously unanswered too-difficult question of ‘Why would a woman, in this era, think to pass off as a man if her boobs were thusly ample?’.

And yes, I realize I’ve used four alternative terms for breasts in a paragraph. Not bad.

So basically, in summary. (Al)BLERGH NO(bbs).

Nominated for three Academy Awards. Three more than Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011) was nominated for, because I expect this movie to be three times better at truthfully limning queer experience. DERP.

2.5/5

MVP: Janet McTeer, by a couple of mamaloogas

Pretty people get sad too. They just look better.

It's my first proper film review for the site! FYI I'm deciding to rate films in the style of Margaret and David, in half integers out of 5. More often than not I'll waver between ratings, like 3/3.5, etc. because I have no real idea as to how to be so brutally honest as to doom my opinions to a numerical value.

Okay, let's get the ball running (mixed metaphor!) with Norwegian Wood.

Norwegian Wood (2010)

Written and directed byTran Anh Hung

Based on the novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami

I have to admit I have a problem wherein I purchase books more than I read them. Blame it on a need to feel like I had an extensive library that reflected my tastes as a wannabe aesthete that I could show off, or the fact that I have always and will always be a hoarder, or the fact that I buy things to fill an emotional vacuum in my life. All of the above are applicable. The reason I bring this up is because even though I have an extensive array of writing by Haruki Murakami, a lot of which I have read mind you, I have never read Norwegian Wood. This is partly due to the suicide themes that run through the novel. Suicide of a friend is something that has affected me, and it would be remiss of me not to preface a review of this film without admitting as much. It probably goes a little towards explaining why I never got around to reading the source material of this film, even at the height of my hunger for Murakami’s fiction of which I can count my 19 year-old self as a fan. There is an anxiety and a pensive sadness that creeps up on me if I linger on material addressing the subject of suicide, wherein personal and subjective melancholy becomes inseparable from the fiction I’m exposed to.

In spite of this, the pedigree behind the film adaptation of Norwegian Wood was enough to make me confront this deeply seeded aversion to this thematic material. French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung has impressed me with the two films of his I have seen. The Scent of Green Papaya (1993) and Cyclo (1995) are wildly impressive works of minimalist film-making. Minimal in the sense of conventional narrative devices such as plot and dialogue that is. Both films have a stunning attention to visual and aural canvasses, and Tran Anh Hung utilizes langorous pacing and editing to convey a particularly tactile atmosphere. The silences in his films are essential to the construction of this affect on the viewer. Through nothing more than careful attention to insect chirps and the way natural sunlight falls, and modulating the way in which his characters sparsely and lyrically deliver their dialogue, he succinctly conveys the humid atmosphere of the rural Saigon setting in The Scent of Green Papaya. The same applies to the way Ho Chi Minh City is redacted through the sounds of constant traffic and existing neon and fluorescent light sources in Cyclo.

Given these auteur-stamped sensibilities, my familiarity with the conflation of deadpan humour, whimsy and emotion in Murakami’s prose,  the casting of Rinko Kikuchi (whose assured command of the mute character in Alejandro Gonzelez-Inarritu’s Babel (2006) indicated that she would be more than capable of meshing with the minimalist sensibilities of Anh Hung), cinematographer Ping Bin Lee (whose lensing of In The Mood For Love has to be one of the most evocative visual portrayals of emotive repression and sublimated desire I have ever seen) and composer Johnny Greenwood, the film certainly had a lot of ingredients that indicated potential. I love the combination of ennui and heartbreak, and if it’s wrapped in preppy 60’s threads, all the better to gaze upon in my opinion.

The film opens with a quick succession of scenes and voice-over narration that establishes the close bond between high school friends Toru Watanabe (Ken’ichi Matsumaya, who looks like the Japanese equivalent of Keir Gilchrist, who plays Marshall in The United States of Tara) and Kizuki (Kengo Kora), and Kizuki’s girlfriend and lifelong soul mate Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi - Academy Award nom nom nom-inee). Kizuki’s suicide at the tender age of 17, which is frankly depicted in the film with an excruciating efficiency, forms a melancholy specter over the actions of the rest of the film. Toru moves afterwards to study drama (including Greek Tragedy – my sides!) at university in Tokyo amidst a backdrop of student protests, where he reads a lot and becomes drawn to the womanizing Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama), who has a girlfriend, Hatsumi (Eriko Hatsune) that is fully aware of his exploits and inexplicitly tolerates this without resorting Lorena Bobbitt style revenge. Naoko and Toru reunite in Tokyo and consummate a developing romantic relationship on her 20^th birthday (Turning 20 in Japan is considered a passage into adulthood so check out them thematic layers.) She is clearly still distraught by the unexpected passing of Kizuki, and is admitted to a mountain retreat to come to terms with her severe depression in solitude. Reiko (Reika Kirishima), an older patient of this retreat, provides guidance for Naoko and chaperones Watanabe’s visits to her. Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, Toru befriends charismatic classmate Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) and suffers from a clear case of guilty attraction, which although reciprocated is complicated by both of their current relationships. The film closely follows Toru’s relationships with both Naoko and Midori over the course of two-ish years, and the tragedy that ensues from this hot mess of entanglements.

Did I mention that death and repression seem to be two recurrent themes? In other words it’s a perfect date movie.

Tran Anh Hung’s typical attention to visual and aural details is used particularly well in establishing the many threads of the story. The first half of the film is largely expository, paced briskly yet with a measured consideration of mis-en-scene and atmosphere. The result is a film that looks and sounds stunningly beautiful, and feels authentic to conveying the tumult of emotions bubbling under the surfaces of the films gracefully attractive protagonists. Paramount to this is the way in which sexuality and sensuality is portrayed in a tactile way. The sex scenes are very good at being intimate and discomfiting. Talk about Norwegian WOOD, right?

The camera work does at times move unnecessarily, briskly following characters as they pace backwards and forwards trying to inarticulately express their FEELINGS. Johnny Greenwood’s score whilst luscious and stirring, occasionally feels overwrought, and Rinko Kikuchi’s performance seems to descend into histrionics in order to convey Naoko’s despair, which is at seeming odds with the nuanced restraint of Ken’Ichi Matsumaya’s performance as Toru and Anh-Hung’s general approach to the material. In fact, his use of slow motion and the montaged approach to connecting scenes and disparate passages at times seems a little too evocative of a turgid music video, and by the time the conflict for Toru between these two women is firmly established the rhythm guiding the exposition of these characters seems to halt entirely. Scenes linger, and the narrative seems to project a pensive-aggression.

 

Still, in light of this, the film remains beguiling, if not for nothing else other than it’s technical elements. Landscapes and seasons are breathtakingly framed and pulsate with Bing Pin Lee’s stunning cinematography (despite a few glitches with the digital projection system of the cinema during scenes featuring windswept hair).   

Yen Khe Luguern’s costume design brilliantly evokes the 1960’s setting without relying on garish period-detailing accoutrements, instead focusing on perfectly fitted outfits in soft hues that balance both the delicate and complex emotional textures of the characters with their social and economic considerations. 

Dressed like an anachronistic American Apparel catalogue, the clothing seems at once contemporary, period and tailored (excuse the pun) to each individual character. Note the way that Nagasawa refuses to take off his outerwear during a particularly tense dinner scene, as if he were already planning an escape from his girlfriend Hatsumi before they even sat to eat.

This scene, in which Toru is coerced into sharing details of an exchange of sexual partners with Nagasawa to Hatsumi, is one of the best in the film. And one in which spare and considered dialogue is pinned on careful observation of actor’s non-verbal reactions, which are wisely privileged. Through Eriko Hatsune’s portrayal of Hatsumi, we witness the fracturing of her poise and collected façade, her jaw clenches with unease as Toru clandestinely tries to explain his reasons for following Nagasawa’s womanizing ways, adroitly demonstrating his emotional insecurity and immaturity. The scene works in the context of the narrative to expand upon the catastrophic consequences which repression and denial potentially hide.

 

Hatsune nails the scene outright, and the apparent subtext revealed here is the incongruity between Western cultural concepts of free love anchored to the 1960’s setting, which the characters attempt to embrace; and a very Japanese notion of emotional repression and ‘saving face’. 

 

The film is a success in it’s own right, conveying a sense of nostalgia, romance and melancholy and knowingly understanding how these three facets of human experience are oft intertwined. But I feel as if the abandonment of narrative propulsion over-saturates the film in atmospherics and it becomes aimless. The film seems more plot-driven than the previous works I’ve seen of the Anh Hung,  and perhaps unnecessarily so given the focus placed on atmospherics and mood to communicate an emotional state. It’s just that when the two elements are intertwined the result is jarring, making the latter seem unmotivated and meandering, leering focus towards holes in the consistency of the main narrative. The film does seem overly long because of this, which is a shame because of the discernible pulse there is coursing through the meticulously detailed surface. Okay, I've been restrained so far, so I might as well just say it - more like BOREwegian Wood, right?

If the film had abandoned the linear focus of it’s narrative a bit more freely, and concentrated on how moods and emotions transfer from one recollection of Toru to another, the film may have maintained a dream-like focus that imparted a more profound heartbreak on this viewer. Instead, I left with a slightly unsatisfied and not nearly sustained enough swoon.

3.5/5

MVP: Eriko Hatsune

FYC: Best Actress in a Leading Role 2010

Did you know there is a strange little rule in the Academy Awards regarding the eligibility of Foreign Films getting nominations? Every year countries from around the world choose to submit a single title each for consideration in the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards. Generally a film has to open for a one week qualifying run in Los Angeles in order to be up for Academy Awards consideration in other categories, like Director, Actor, Screenplay, etc.

Unless it is submitted for foreign film consideration, then it doesn't need to have the one-week run in order to get Oscar nominations. However if a foreign-language film submitted by their respective country fails to get a nomination in the Foreign Film category it can still be eligible for nominations in categories in the year of it's eventual release in Los Angeles wherein it meets qualifying criteria. If it does get a nomination for foreign film then it can't be eligible for nominations in other categories the following year.

In the past this hasn't been an issue for a film like Woman of the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Academy in 1965, and then for Best Director in 1966 once it had opened to the general public. The bizarre rule I described is only a recent complication added to the arcane regulations of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; meaning that quality foreign films generally get shafted in categories apart from the one they're condemned to. The actual rules concerning which films can be selected by which country are also unnecessarily complicated too, but let's not go there.

This digression into the politics governing the Foreign Film branch of the Oscars is of relevance to news regarding my pick for the best film of 2010, Mother, director Joon-ho Bong's exhilarating subversion of thrillers, noir and procedural police-investigative genres. The film was South Korea's submission for the foreign film branch of the Academy last year, following it's critically acclaimed unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009. The film failed to get nominated, and was eventually released in the United States March 2010.

Earlier today the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) voted upon its end-of-year awards, and the results included the relatively surprising decision to award Hye-ja Kim Best Actress for her sympathetic and captivating work in Mother. The 69 year-old Korean Actress is a virtual unknown outside of her home country, where she is regarded for her television and stage work (she even played the title role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier in a Korean production of Doubt, the same role taken by Meryl Streep in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film adaptation), but is certainly an inspired selection by the voters; a no-brainer really if you regard the exquisite detail and complexity she energises the film with. Congratulations also to the film being considered Runner-up for the Best Foreign Film category, too. Congratulations all around!

This is causing me to be indescribably optimistic that perhaps as an esteemed pre-cursor to film industry awards, this win will propel Hye-ja Kim into the race for a Best Actress nomination at next year's Academy Awards. It would mean great things for the film, and hopefully secure it a larger audience outside of film festivals, arthouse cinemas and Korea, basically. The film is so good it deserves this. However, I will choose to ignore the relative obscurity of some of the LAFCA's winners in previous years (including Yolande Moreau for Best Actress in 2009 for Sértaphine (Martin Provost, 2008)) as signs of their esotericism and intellectual snobbery towards American Studio productions more likely to attract awards momentum, in order to make this point.

Basically, even thought this post will have no eventual effect on any outcome which may occur, I hereby submit Hye-ja Kim's performance For Your Consideration as Best Actress in a Leading Role 2010, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She's eligible! The film, which has no apparent awards campaign mounted, is available on DVD and Netflix! Also Asian performers are so routinely ignored by big-name awards bodies, that this nomination would definitely constitute as some form of affirmative action!

Foreign language film nominations create the illusion that your organisation is sophisticated; that you voters care about the medium as an art form and is not enshrined in the agit-prop politics of the corporate studio system! I would be more than happy for you to use this film to demonstrate this cause.
Plus, I want to see her on the Los Angeles Red Carpet in a pretty dress being interviewed by flummoxed American reporters who have no idea who she is. Maybe it would even lead to stunt casting in future Hollywood projects as an elderly, wizened neighbour, or better yet, a villain! This would make me so incredibly happy. So very, very giddy with joy and wonder. You have precedence, fools!

It would be like Ida Kaminska's nomination for The Shop on Main Street (Elmar Klos, 1965), back when your organisation appeared to have taste and acknowledged films with subtitles. Think of the possibile repercussions a simple number one on your ballot may have.

Nathan, out.

Why Movies Are Better Than Real Life - Casting The Social Network

Nathan here.

Having recently viewed The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010), I can safely say that it certainly lived up to its gargantuan hype and overwhelming critical approval. One thing that struck me most about the film was its casting; the whole ensemble sparring off of each other nicely and delivering Aaron Sorkin's (oftentimes verbose) dialogue with precision. I was convinced Harvard was all Ralph Lauren and acapella choirs, but I had little idea how much like Hogwarts it was, only with more halogen lighting and rowboats instead of broomsticks. Thanks David Fincher!

Also - one especially magnificent detail was costume designer Jacqueline West's decision to have Mark Zuckerberg complete his robe-and-pyjama attire with a pair of Y-3 Yohji Yamamoto sandals. Kudos to the details!

However this post is not meant as a proper review; a considered one should follow in the next few days. What I wanted to highlight in this post is how the casting of the ensemble seemed to elevate the material through a collective handsomeness. Yes, we may be viewing unlikeable characters doing despicable things, like betraying and talking condescendingly to each other; and yes, a lot of the film is centered around unengaging activities such as computer programming, spamming, blogging (I do mine usually without pants) and going to university lectures. For example, one scene showing computer programmers hacking off against each other (?) has them doing so with shots of alcohol and a chorus of fellow excited computer geeks around them, and the incongruity of the two activities seemed absolutely convincing to me, as if it were so sad it must be true. This isn't like Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001), which had that ridiculous scene of trying to make computer hacking thrilling(!) and sexy(!) by having Hugh Jackman's character receive a blow job while simultaneously stealing the president's phone number? I think Swordfish was the name of a computer virus, maybe a bank account. What a stupid title for a movie that isn't about food or animals or directed by an Iranian. I don't remember that movie at all actually, but I do recall the ludicrousness of that particular scene. Woof!

Anyway, I digress. The original point I was trying to get to is that the hypnotic casting of chins and cheekbones, and in the case of Andrew Garfield, eyebrows, combines with the talent of the actors and the script and the pacing to make for an engaging film, contrary to the banalities of the subject matter and the relatively obtuse characterisations which are ultimately drawn.

Left: Mark Zucker-BLERGH amirite?

Right: Jesse EisenBABE (I don't think I'm doing this right)

 Left: Eduardo Saverin? More like Ed-LARD-o.

Right: Andrew (An-DROOL) Garfield

Left: Cameron (?) Winklevoss. Or the other one. WHO CARES right?

Right: Armie Hammer (ME)

Left: Sean Parker (Ugly-balding-baby-head who looks like Jerry Bruckheimer's abortion)

Right: Justin Timberlake. More like Limber-Take (?)

But seriously though, even the relative stunt casting of Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker is totally apposite to the way the character invigorates the narrative of the film. He is portrayed as a slimy, charismatic rock-star type, and no doubt the audience's awareness of Justin Timberlake's pop persona outside of the context of the film communicates everything we need to know about the Sean Parker character in a convenient shorthand. It's actually difficult to imagine a perhaps more capable character actor of the same age group managing such a feat with the role based on performance and characterisation alone.

So congratulations to Laray Mayfield and your casting prowess, for transcending the original material you were given with and helping to shape a film we can all appreciate at least on face value alone. And by 'material you were given' of course I mean the real-life mugs of the Generation Y-ers the film is based on. Not to self, billionaires - lay off the pork belly confit with scallop reduction, swordfish steaks, foie gras pies and 80 year-old scotch! It's making you look puffy around the face.

Also the real Mark Zuckerberg looks like a Street Shark.  The brown Whale shark one, Big Slammu.