MentalPolyphonics

First, let me say that I may be prejudiced against the adaptation because they cut my favourite scene from the book: when Max’s bedroom gradually transforms into a forest. In film this could have been done so slowly over the course of the whole establishing act, but instead Max just walks to some woods in the local park. How hard is it to stay true to source material that’s 40 pages?! Anyway…

The film opens with Hollywood’s consistent message that women are evil and single mothers are especially evil. It’s nice that Eggers nailed it on his first time out. But then femininity seems to fill the rest of the film.

The fantasy world here is not a little boy’s. It’s either the fantasy of a little girl (“guess what, mummy? Barbie and Ken are having marital strife!”) or the projected fantasy of a psychotherapist (“tell me more about the fat monster that represents your father and punches holes in family trees”). No child would sit through this movie.

Co-opting a child’s story for nostalgic adults is fundamentally dishonest to the source material. Why can’t Jonze, Eggers and all their hipster fans go rip off someone else’s childhood?

Little boys’ fantasies are like play-within-a-play that Max dictates in the first act (what’s with all the teeth symbolism, anyway?):

…The vampire bites off the top of a building and loses his teeth. Another vampire says, ‘Why are you crying? Those are your baby teeth.’ And he says, ‘No they’re not; they’re my adult teeth.’

It’d be way more fun to watch a movie about wild rumpus.

Finally watching Gilliam’s Brazil. The action sequences are great!

Physical violence is one of the most difficult parts of shoestring film development. In Brazil lots of the physical blows are done across camera cuts, so you never actually see them hit.

When you’re doing film you want to show as little as possible — just jump between the important parts.

Susan wants a sandwich, gets on the elevator, crosses the lobby, crosses the street, lines up, orders, pays, crosses back, heads up the elevator, sits at her desk, and eats the sandwich. Except on film. Then she: Wants a sandwich, maybe she orders or pays, and then she’s eating it back at her desk. You just show the key points.

That’s what the physical violence is like in Brazil: We see a kick, we see someone flying backwards. The impact is superfluous, implicit, which makes those sequences easier to film as well. You shoot someone kicking off camera. You shoot someone falling over. Edit-edit-edit and movie magic presto-chango you’ve got violence without stunt people or specialists.

Good ‘ol Gilliam. I loves it.

[Added: And a clear Bronyenosyets Potyomkin reference in the climactic gun battle! It really is everywhere.]

After three days of torture Christ Jesus Christopher Johnson flies up into the sky with a promise to return and save his people. Some on the right speculate he’ll return violently.

Saul Wikus starts as a member of The Sanhedrin MNU, persecuting the outsiders because messianic cults prawns aren’t kosher. Eventually he converts to the cause, becoming St. Paul an alien.

There’re no plots like the old plots, eh Blomkamp? It’s about time someone did more Alien Nation, anyway. Cat food? Milk? Get it? Anybody? Is this thing on?

District 9 has a couple of problems with characterization. First, Wikus (the protag.) is an annoying unintelligent coward — even after he’s had his catalytic I-have-the-Golden-Fleece hero-moment. He’s very hard to get on-side with as a protagonist. This, though, could well have been by design. I could see humanity being very difficult to get along with, very stupid and fickle, if a being wasn’t used to us.

Wikus is a complex character, fine, but you really need complex villains for difficult protagonists to shine. The villain in the story is humanity, but that’s far too big to make dramatic sense. We whittle it down to MNU, okay, a couple of bad old-guy corporate-cog suits but still too nebulous to really work. Our antagonist targeting systems settle on Venter, the terminal testosterone case merc death-squad leader.

Except just being a fascist jock with a gun really isn’t enough characterization to make Venter an effective foil for Wikus, and so the protagonist’s characterization crumbles. Without Vader, Luke is just a whining farm boy — our enemies bring out the best in us.

Setting is the third character, and it’s almost there. The mockumentary style has problems when you stray from it to do private scenes — suspension of disbelief gets a bit turbulent. The movie I would have liked to see would have shown Venter as a soldier guarding humanity from the violent prawns. Get us on his side, then show his fall: One day a prawn eats his wife and kid. Okay, now there’s a reason Venter hates the aliens, a reason he’s a mercenary for MNU, and as a special bonus we’re on his side because prawns are scary.

Then we segue to Mikus the slum administrator and build even more rapport with him — he’s kinda brave protecting us from those mean aliens. Finally my imaginary version of the film shows us that we were wrong to hate — we build sympathy with the visitors as normal — but Venter can’t forgive and forget so he’s destroyed.

Then Venter isn’t one dimensional, he’s tragic. Mikus gets a good foil which explains his vacillation somewhat more, and the setting is used to pull the audience in and really hammer the theme. Our point of view shifts from Venter’s to Mikus’, from Legion-backed-Sanhedrin to Disciples of the Living Christ. Oh well, missed opportunity.

On the whole I quite liked it. The graphics are very tight, helped by the shakeycam and use of authentic humans (bumping through the uncanny valley). The gun battles are pretty good — the alien weapons fun.

The exposition of the back story is masterful and the first contact scenario’s premise is satisfyingly unique: Aliens show up and we have to cut our way in to the derelict saucer and rescue them with our awful state-of-the-art social workers. The cognitive dissonance that idea created in me had the pleasantly discomforting quality that theory generates when it slams into reality. “Wait, these are aliens with an interstellar craft and we have to give them aid? Fucking reality never works out how you expect…”

See Inglorious Basterds in a theatre, at night, with a weekend crowd.

I’ll wait. I’m going to write and think and write. Please see it, I beg you. After the first reel I was thinking of recommending you save your cash and just pirate it, but then I got the point — and it’s a basterd of a good point.

Don’t just see it — watch it. Pay close attention. Close. Think! Think! Think! You will be well-rewarded.

I will say this: Inglorious Basterds is a relief. This is what the theatre-going experience should be: I’m exhausted, I’m disgusted, I’m elated, and I’m on the verge of tears. I’m angry and awed and ashamed.

I’ve just seen one of the best films of our generation. Tarantino is a genius and the film a performance piece.

See it in-theatre, at night, with a rowdy weekend crowd. Think!