Sunday 20 February 2011

True Grit

As has felt increasingly customary, we head into another Oscars build-up with the Cohen brothers heavily featuring among the nominations, or noms as our clipped hacks have dubbed them.

The smart Jewish kids from Minnesota have blasted into the Hollywood fraternity and show no signs of heading for the hills anytime soon.

They return to our screens with True Grit; based on a 1968 Charles Portis novel - which itself was made into a Henry Hathaway directed picture a year later with the same title, starring “The Duke” John Wayne – but it is the book that the Cohens cite as their primary source.

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) has just seen her father murdered by blockhead farmhand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) in Arkansas who has now absconded.

The 14-year-old girl seeks retribution and enlists Deputy US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down so he can be brought to justice.

Cogburn - an alcoholic, half-blind ruffian is initially reticent but eventually agrees to take on the job but insists Mattie remain at home.

The fly in the ointment appears in the form of LaBouef (Matt Damon) a cocky Texas Ranger who wishes to bust Cheney for the shooting of a politician in his native state.

Mattie refuses his assistance as if LaBouef succeeds, Cheney won’t face any charges for the murder of her father and will face prosecution in Texas.

She also rebuffs Cogburn’s desire to carry out the task on his own and thus all three set off into the wilderness to tackle Cheney but quickly find the unforgiving environment – and its inhabitants – could scupper their plans.

The Cohens flights of fancy are recognisable from the offset; biting humour mixed with laconic social realism.

A native American about to be executed attempts to speak his last words but is killed before he can finish, Mattie and Cogburn encounter a bedraggled bearded individual in the forest with a grizzly’s head for a hat who claims to be a doctor.

The film is also infused by the ornate Kings James English dialect which only enhances the setting ; in response to a question about why a man was hung so high from a tree, Cogburn replies “I do not know. Possibly in the belief it'd make him more dead”

Hailee Steinfeld is terrific as the pint sized, straight-talking heroine; school masterly in the Jean Brodie sense, belying her teenage years - however sadly her character develops little throughout the film.

Fresh from his Oscar winning turn in Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges seems to have retained the grubbiness and southern drawl his performance in that picture contained and he is highly entertaining as the grumpy sidekick to Steinfeld.

Perhaps outshining both is Matt Damon whose arrogant and unflustered LaBouef is strangely affecting; flicking through the movie’s changing gear shifts with ease.

One problematic aspect to the proceedings is how little True Grit strays from the well trodden path of the Western genre – the Cohen’s playful inversions of convention such as their rollicking treatment of the police drama in Fargo or their otherworldly approach to prohibition era America in Miller’s Crossing are what has made the duo such respected luminaries.

But the straight-faced delivery with which True Grit develops leaves one feeling a tad unsatisfied despite how enjoyable the viewing experience is.

And the views are stunning as regular Cohen collaborator and cinematographer Roger Deakins brings the rugged, exhausting Texas landscape to the fore; from the striking mountain peaks to the beads of sweat running off a stallion’s back.

The Cohen stagecoach may continue to roll and while this cannot compare with their very best, it is still a highly captivating and boisterous watch.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Black Swan

So Darren Aranofsky returns to our screens two years on from slobberknocker The Wrestler to muse on the despotic world of ballet; swapping piledrivers for pliƩs.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is cast as the lead in a production of Swan Lake in New York by forceful director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) but quickly finds out balancing the angelic elements of the White Swan with the ferociousness aspects to the Black Swan is a difficult and unnerving task.

Her initially enthusiastic mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) begins to take her daughter’s role increasingly seriously and as Nina immerses herself in play she finds her relationship with close friend Lily (Mila Kunis) and Thomas becoming intense in more ways than one.

Part horror, part dark romance, Aranofsky’s film is a visual spectacle that owes as much to Mulholland as it does to Frederick Wiseman’s judicious documentary on the Paris Opera; La danse.

The camera is seemingly a free agent, sweeping the viewer through long, whirling takes in a style reminiscent of Gasper Noe’s Enter the Void; also produced last year.

What begins out as a portrait of an exploitative director taking his lead girl under his wing - so to speak - develops into a hypnotic morass as Nina entrenches herself into her performance which has an equally physical and mental impact on her.

High octane scenes of body horror and female sexuality could be hackneyed and voyeuristic from a less assured director but Aranofsky creates the right air of menace and sensuality – often combining the two – to enrapture his audience.

Cassel’s Thomas - blunt and red blooded - is perhaps the hardest role to pull off with his requests for his star often bordering on the absurd but the film gets away with this due to its balletic setting where - no doubt - madcap directors are ten a penny.

It would be wrong to call this pure expressionalism; its origins in the work of David Lynch and Fritz Lang belie its sheer beauty – the shots linger on Nina as she puts on her pointe shoes, for example - and there is an aesthetic clarity to the picture which is dissimilar from the oft kaleidoscopic portrayal of Americana in pictures like Lynch’s Wild at Heart.

However Hershey’s portrayal of Nina’s obsessive mother has a touch of Mommie Dearest to her; painting abstract faces of her child and doting over her as though she was pre-pubescent evidenced in Nina’s bedroom which is filled with cuddly toys and splashed in Barbie pink.

When Nina turns to Lily (Kunis) as a form of social support and belated teenager rebellion, we see her darker side as the two girls let their hair down – and other things – on a night out. Kunis is brilliant as the part manipulative, part supportive pal exuding confidence and sexiness in equal measure.

Mention must go also to Winona Ryder as Beth; a former gem in the ballet company’s crown now seemingly discarded by Thomas who begins to lose her grip on life with drastic consequences.

As Nina steps into Beth’s shoes as the ballet’s prima donna, the tumultuous pressure to deliver in a highly competitive, strained environment see the movie end in a shuddering, ear-popping climax.

Black Swan, in its central themes of performance and obsession, is a terrific tale of a women’s disconnection from reality into fantasy. A Red Shoes in a post-David Cronenberg world.