Guess what - a film needs a plot - neighboring sounds

I cheated and looked at some of the review capsules on metacritic and have to say that AO Scott hit it on the nose in observing that the Brazilian movie Neighboring Sounds (2012) is a thriller without a plot. How you feel about thrillers and plots will determine how you feel about this film. I personally don't care for thrillers and do like plots so for me this moderately ambitious film was a washout. In essence it's a film about a high rise neighborhood in a brazil city more or less controlled by a mobbed up patriarch, a place with bored and disaffected haves and their servants and nearby neighbors the havenots most of the black or native. The film raises many potential plot elements - a woman poisons a neighbor's barking dog, a woman commit suicide by jumping off railing (unseen), a car thief hits the vehicle of his cousin's girlfriend, a housewife buys marijauana from water-delivery service, guy keys the car of woman who won't tip him - and more - none of which develops into anything. The one plot element that does move forward is the three thugs who set up a security operation - at first it seems like a shakedown but then like a legit biz until at the end - 2 hous 10 minutes mind you - we see their real motive - revenge - a v weak and strained payoff after so long a journey. The director , Mendonca?, has obvious skill and ambition - some of the scenes play v well on their own - so I suspect he could do well w better material a ruthless editor, and a little less pretension - e.g., just because you open film w montage of exploited peasants does not make your film Wild Rice or Hallelujah.

Portrait of an Artist: Gregor Crewdson

Ben Shapiro's documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounter is the kind of low-key documentary that I most admire (see Sweetgrass as a perfect example thereof) - the filmmaker is completely a background presence, and the film is a pane of clear glass through which we view the subject matter (or it appears to be so - of course there are a million directorial decisions, in filming, editing, and so on - but in the best documentaries we are not aware of these decisions at all, we appear to be or feel as if we are just looking at life, or just peering into someone's consciousness - like great fiction, for that matter - the mirror held up beside the highway). No background music to control and manipulate us; the only flaw in my opinion was his brief inclusions of the interviews with a few of Crewdson's friends, Banks and Moody and a mag editor, which made the film too much of a testimonial in those moments - should have been just Crewdson talking and thinking. I knew nothing about Crewdson himself until watching this but came away hugely impressed with his photography - as the movie makes clear he "stages" each of his photographs with all the care and attention with which a director stages a scene in a movie, more actually because each shot will stand as an independent work of art, not as a frame among moving images and narration. The influences are obvious, and some are cinematic: the spookiness of Hitchcock, the vibrant eeriness of David Lynch, the loneliness of Hopper. Also his attraction to the abandoned mill towns of Western Mass shows the state and the region in a manner never seen before - his photos are great works of art, monumental. Most impressive, we get to really see how the mind of an artist works during the act of composition - something rarely if ever captured on film or anywhere else (there are moments of this in the Dylan pic Don't Look Back, but nothing like here) - a fine picture on its own and even more powerful as a meta-creation, an homage to a major artist.

We have met the enemy: The Human Condition

M. Kobayashi's six-part epic wartime melodrama The Human Condition is as dark, unrelenting, powerful as anything you'll ever see - not for everyone for sure, and hardly a cheerful or uplifting moment in the whole nine hours, but we were totally captivated by the story and the unrelenting struggle for survival, with so many great scenes, and all centered on a strong lead character, Kaiji: the story follows him from his time as a manager in a Manchurian mine with war prisoners scripted into forced labor (Kaiji is a progressive socialist, and his ideas are squashed time and again), his entry into the Japanese Army near the end of WWII on the Manchurian front, and, in the last two parts, his struggle with a small band of survivors to make his way past enemy Chinese and Russian troops through Manchuria to reunite with long-suffering wife, Michiko. In earlier post I compared this epic with Doctor Zhivago, and there are similarities, but by the end I see it as much less romantic and far darker - perhaps a better comparison would be with Grapes of Wrath - the constant struggle for ideals, survival, against terrible odds and circumstances. Throughout, the worst opponents are not the "enemy" but the fellow-Japanese soldiers (and sometimes civilians) with their rigid adherence to discipline and their indifference to brutality and tyranny: the worst being the veteran soldiers who torment the new recruits, the Japanese leaders and translators who do the dirty work for the Russian troops, and the mine operators squeezing every bit of life out of their POW workers. The many unforgettable scenes include the arrival of the POWs at the mine, the torture of the Terado, forced to die during "latrine duty," Kaiji's confrontation with the veterans in their bunkhouse, and the many crowd scenes shot outdoors - miners working, prisoners in rebellion, digging the trenches, the march to the mines, the march under Russian guard. A great if difficult movie, or really series of movies, by a director little known in the U.S. and little known for any other major work, but this one's enough.

The Japanese Doctor Zhivago: The Human Condition

Parts 3 and 4 of M. Kobayashi's epic drama The Human Condition (1959) continue with the horrifying saga of Kaiji, an intelligent and humane young man with "modern" ideas about the fair treatment of workers: in parts 1 and 2 we saw him figuratively crushed by authority as he tries to reform conditions in a mine on the Manchurian frontier during WWII; parts 3 and 4 continue his story as he's drafted into the army in the waning days of the war and terribly brutalized during basic training (part 3) and then, in part 4, he becomes a PFC and tries to be kind to his recruits but he is harassed and essentially mauled be a troupe of veterans who despise his modern ways of training. It's a story of almost unrelenting suffering, and told in an operatic style, but for all that completely captivating and, as in parts 1 and 2, full of very memorable scenes, some claustrophobic scenes in the crowded barracks (the fight against Kaiji, the tormenting of a weak soldier and his eventual suicide), and even more so the outdoor scenes: digging trenches before battle, an escape toward the Russian border through a brush fire and a marshy bog. The romantic element of the story is much less significant in this section - except that we see Kaiji becoming increasingly hardened to life during his time in service and further removed or even estranged from his young wife - it is obvious that he will never be able to return to this marriage after the war (another element enters as he meets a young nurse who gets shipped off to the front - though they are polite and decorous to one another, there are definitely sparks). This epic is in some ways the Japanese Doctor Zhivago - a story of a man of high ideals torn apart over a long span of time by historical events, finding some solace in love but also great pain and anguish, especially as he is torn between conflicting loves and conflicting ideals.

Summer of 68: Mad Men latest episode one of the best

Season 6? 7? whatever we're in in Mad Men had been generally running on empty for a few episodes, but the Sunday broadcast gave the series a jolt of energy - I noticed on the credits that creator Matthew Weiner wrote this episode, so I was expecting a pretty good one - not disappointed. After a langourish but promising opening episode - too long and slow-paced, two-hour episodes are a mistake - but it did establish the important theme of the disintegration of Don's personality and hinted at a possible 2nd new identity for the shape-shifting hero: this theme, however, has not been developed or even touched on really since the first episode, though we do see Don increasingly as a sex-addicted man who will ruin everything in his life eventually just to seduce another woman. He even breaks the taboos - sex with wife of close friend - just because he can; meanwhile Meaghan is getting to realize that Don is no longer interested in her, or not the way he was. Enter this episode, in which among other things: M.'s French mother convinces her to dress sexy to keep Don's interest, it works (for now), Don tells off the despicable Jaguar dealer, kissing that prestigious account good-bye and pissing off everyone in the agency; Pete runs across his father-in-law in a Manhattan whorehouse, embarrassing for both, but the dad pulls his account from the agency - Pete getting increasingly isolated, and tensions building in Peggy's relationship with the Jewish journalist, as she's obviously getting more interested in her boss, and finally Don and Peggy's agencies pitch a Chevy account jointly and decide to merge - great, because Peggy had been slipping off the edge of the plot lately. All of this sounds very gossipy and soap, but despite that the series keeps us, or me, tuned in because of the strong central personalities, the evocative period detail (we're now in 1968, a hopeful moment when people though McCarthy or RFK could win the nomination), and the inside look at developing an ad pitch and wooing and winning clients. One of the best episodes - and the series sure needed it at this point in the season.

Homeland Insecurity: Season 2 just as good as season one - bring on # 3

Season 2 of Showcase Homeland is just as taut, suspenseful, surprising as Season 1, and therefore maybe even better than that great season in that now we know the characters better and we don't need as much exposition. The plot is a little less baroque as we now understand that Brody was a terrorist who backed off at the last minute and is now being played for by both sides. There are many great scenes and dialogues throughout the season: all of the interrogation scenes are great, esp Carrie (Claire Danes) with bringing Brody around to become a spy for the CIA and Carrie/Danes in a powerful interview that goes very wrong with the journalist/terrorist who'd been handling Brody. The secondary plot involving the Brody daughter, Dana, and her relationship with the veep's son, Finn, is played very well - I think the actress playing Dana is perfect as a smart but somewhat sullen and misguided teenage girl. The early episode when Brody is in Gettysburg with the terrorist tailor while his wife expects him at a fundraiser is one of the best as well. The plot clicks together in a satisfying way at the end - resolving some questions, opening some new ones, and leading on very well toward a Season 3 I hope - as [ spoilers] Brody gets framed (or so it would appear) by Nazir and the terrorists and has to escape from the U.S., leaving open the question not only of what will happen to him but also: how they hell did they get his car and fill it with explosives? Could he really not have been in on that? I've even gotten to like the mumbly, mannered Mandy Patinkin as Saul. I do have a few quibbles: I really don't buy into the love relationship between Brody and Carrie  - esp in the last episode, I was like a little kid, thinking enough of the mush let's just move this story - their relationship is entire sexual and iconoclastic; as a romance, it couldn't last for more than a weekend. I also wonder why Nazir would ever come to the U.S. and, if so, why he was so reluctant to kill Carrie when he had the opportunity. And is the death of the veep by remote code to his pacemaker in any way possible? Those quibbles aside, Homeland remains an entirely engrossing series with some fine acting, writing, directing, and production values - even the score, which I usually find I detest these days.

Before the flood - and after: The Impossible

Though the end is never in doubt, The Impossible, a pan-European production (in English) that follows the travails of a family of five caught in the 2004 Thai tsunami as they fight to survive and to find one another in the devastation and chaos, is a real nail-biter with some truly incredible scenes of terror and destruction. The smashing of the waves on the beach community, the long toss through the roaring water as the mom, Maria (Naomi Watts), tries desperately to stay near her oldest son, the horrifying scenes afterwards as they make their way, scared and badly injured, with no shoes, minimal garments, across a ruined plain - just harrowing to watch, painful. Perhaps even more horrifying are the scenes in the overcrowded hospital, the tent communities, the refugee centers, as Watts fights for her life and as many others try to find their loved ones and to get word of their survival - or of the death of others - to those back home. I only wish the film had been shot with more of a documentary feel - it is based on the true survival story of one (Spanish?) family - but it's obvious that the filmmakers were hoping to reach a wider audience (hence, the transposition to an English family, with star lead actors, Watts, who is excellent as always, and MacEwan - sp?) and to the emphasis on high emotion and melodrama: I hated the soaring orchestral score, and I felt the reunion scenes were emotionally over the top. Nevertheless, I realize I'm not the typical moviegoer, so I appreciate the nod to commercial conventions - and there's enough going on in this movie to overcome these, for me, drawbacks. They managed tremendous verisimilitude in creating the landscape of destruction and in simulating the horrifying minutes after the tsunami, the pace is generally good, lots of dramatic moments that within the context seem credible. At the end, we see a brief snapshot of the family on whom this movie is based - I'd like to know more about them; I suspect their outcome wasn't quite as good as the outcome we see in the movie (though Watts's full recovery left in some doubt, which I did admire).