Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Three girl-movies, in a way...




Devil Wears Prada

Made some years ago and wonderfully cut - short 1-3 sec pictures, music rhythmically  dancing with visuals - small film about a girl, career and fashion. I  like fashion and I have been a girl, still am  in some ways. I'm a proud bitch and as such a bit different from this little woman. To be a proud bitch doesn't mean that I would not be thoughtful and considerate - I am, but submissive I'm not! And I serve only the truth, whatever that may be.

Female icons: high heels, make up, lacy underwear, clothes on the whole - a nice quick cut collage of pictures, yezzz. Characters:  Boss and the others,, rough cut. Then on close-ups there are the dedicated and ambitious Emily, the suave male editor Nigel,  whose ambition is for the magazine, and a punch of other staff and editors that remain shadow like stereotypes. And the private sector: Nate, cooking boyfriend, Lily, an old friend and Lily's boyfriend who knows about fashion more than the others together, This foursome has dinners with wine in cozy restaurants, and keeps the spirit up -  until Andy begins to stand on her own.

Andy gets the job by chance and keeps it by taking challenges and solving problems with admirable determination. Her original ambition was for serious journalism, and fashion is just a side step on her way, but she takes it seriously and listens to her surroundings, takes winks and hints and is developing. The circle of friends condemns her change and she breaks up with Nate, the boyfriend, - funny though that Nate can have his potatoes but Andy not her clothes. The movie seems to imply that potatoes have more in them than clothes but clothes and fabrics also have to be made, they too have processes and have deep knowledge behind each item. Their relationship is not under special scrutiny so it is hard to say how things have been, but they seem in many ways childish, for example Nate's birthday -  who above 15 years gets mad if someone misses a birth day party? Certainly Nate is not supporting Andy in her struggle. On the whole it seems to be meaning that Andy shall be as she has always been... make the safe choices and follow the path marked for her ages ago...

After Andy decides to part with Miranda (Boss) she demurely returns home, asks Nate to forgive her all...  Nate has got a new job in Boston but it is ok  for him to go - because of... I don't know what!

Now someone might say that loyalty to friends and loved ones is admirable and ambition is selfish. Might be but loyalty that asks for sacrifice from the other is too often just for women. When did you see a picture where a guy would give up everything for a woman? I don't seem to recall any such...

The visual appearance is lively, fresh and fascinating, and I like it a lot as well as the music. The clothes are partly great partly ordinary. Paris is lovely, NY is lively - and what else? Don't know...  Yes, Ann Hathaway is working well as Andy, delicate smiles and moods.

****  with  - for hierarchies and submissive thinking... but this is not a critic, no - this is just my subjective thoughts about this movie today - tomorrow might bring other thoughts...








Burlesque

'Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which itself derives from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.
A later use of the term, particularly in the United States, refers to performances in a variety show format. These were popular from the 1860s to the 1940s, often in cabarets and clubs, as well as theatres, and featured bawdy comedy and female  striptease.  Some Hollywood films attempted to recreate the spirit of these performances from the 1930s to the 1960s. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.(wikipedia)'

A-girl-and-career -story with straightforward and a bit old fashioned plot: bar waitress Ali/Christina runs from a rural hellhole in Iowa to LA with a bit of money and a lot of attitude. She tries to find a job - no luck, and walking streets in the evening sees a dark girl up a staircase in striped socks and fancy clothes smiling to her. A man comes to get the girl inside...  Burlesque Lounge says the sign. Ali enters this club of  funny dimensions: a small building hides quite a space... Entering the club she asks the man behind the counter if the place was a strip club...

In the stage Cher is performing with the dancers - these numbers containing singing and dancing are the best part of this not-so-cinematic movie. Both Cher and Christina Aguilera are good in their own ways and Cher's 'Last of me' song got Golden Globe 2011.  And Ali is hooked! She wants to dance on stage too and asks Tess/Cher, but Tess refuses outright. So Ali goes to the bar and takes a tray - she starts to serve. And she comes back the next night looking ever better...

Eventually Ali's hotel room is robbed and that leaves her without both lodging and money. She goes to the bar boy Jack and gets to sleep on his couch. Ali classified Jack as gay but he is not. He has a fiancee in NY and sharing apartment stays innocent. 

At Lounge B one of the dancers, Georgia, gets pregnant and a substitute is needed. Tess and Sean audition several dancers, and Ali comes and wants to be considered. She says she can do everything Tess wants to wich Tess's reply is that she has to convince, to take her place on stage. So Ali dances... and gets the job. 

In B the dancers dance and lip sync to the great singers singing in the background - Marilyn Monroe with 'Diamonds...' etc. Ali wants them to sing REALLY. And Tess laughs to her until... One night the star dancer Nikki is drunk and Tess relieves her in favor of Ali. Nikki is raging and cuts off the music in the middle of their dance. It is 'Tough Lover' and after a moments shrill silence Ali starts to sing and after a moment the band follows. It is a huge success! Tess is overwhelmed and starts to build a new show around Ali.

This is the nutshell. Of course there  is the trouble about money. Real estate agent wants to buy the club to tear it down and after many coincidences Ali manages to get an idea and solves the problem: Tess has to sell the air rights above the club to another builder and the club is saved. Also Jack and fiancee enter to an crash course and half of the big bed is suddenly free.  So Happy End!

Naive story, not much of characters... but the movie is entertaining and the dance-and-sing numbers are good in an innocent  way that makes one smile, and that is a lot. Also the way the space inside the club takes shape and changes is intriguing with different staging for each song - kind of theatre without intermissions! The back stage rooms with mirrors for make up and clothes rails build the atmosphere. And the man, who takes care of both Tess and the stage, Sean, is calm, sympathetic and gay - he'll find a caring relationship before the end...

Yes, entertaining, a bit theatrical, good singing, nice clothes, suitable shooting and lighting... No, it is not a great movie but still I like it! 

*** with + for the spirit!









Black Swan

Tchaikovsky's ballet  is a story of prince Siegfried and swans that turn to maidens in the night time. The prince finds the swans and falls in love with Odette, beautiful white swan. Odette tells him of the evil wizard Rothbart who did cast a spell on the girls. Only someone who shall love Odette forever can remove the curse. And Siegfried promises to save her...
Next evening in the ball Siegfried meets Rothbart's daughter Odile, who looks like Odette, and Siegfried is deceived: He asks Odile to marry him. Too late he seeks Odette, who forgives him but has to die. When Rothbart comes to the pond she throws herself in the water and Siegfried follows her to death. This act of love destroys Rothbart.
The double role of Odette/Odile, innocence and seduction, is a chance for a female dancer to show virtuosity: Odette as lyrical and Odile as temperamental with the famous 32 fouettèts, round and round on tip toe...

The movie Black Swan has as background  this ballet, but it is by no means a film about ballet, no. I might even say that it is a story a narcistic male tells of a woman's mind... it is suffocating and adolescent, and as such can only be a product of a male imagination. Maybe that is the way a male mind work, but they just don't have the courage to say so. Instead they do a projection... 

Apart this fundamental flaw Black Swan is an enjoyable movie. It is cinematic in sketching the environment and the characters. Camera flows carefree images and then again images restricted and full of angst. The light and colours in the rehearsal space are neutral and airy. The clothes have been designed by Rodarte and depict finely the young women in their intriguing simplicity. And Natalie Portman fairly deserved her Oscar as Nina, the neurotic and troubled girl. 

The main character Nina is to dance the double role of Odette/Odile as her first solo performance. She is young, very highly strung, brought up by an ambitious mother whose own career Nina's birth possibly broke. And Nina is a very good girl. The ballet company's choreographer and leader is Thomas Leroy, absorbingly played by Vincent Cassel, who tries to get some flame to Nina and her performance. The ex-prima ballerina succumbs under a car and portrays a warning example of a successful career when lying like a broken doll in her hospital bed.

Nina's trials to gain passion to her performance are booze, dope and lesbian fantasies... How does that sound? To me it reminds of boy's initial rites when trying to become a man. It is told that the first intercourse for a boy is mainly a rewarding experience meaning that getting an ejaculation is the main thing, but for a woman it is mainly a disappointment - for her it is only the first in a series of exploring experiences, which at some point may lead to the  mastery of orgastic relaxation.  So the story just doesn't sound plausible, it sounds unbelievable, like a broken plate.   Boys can be so brittle, but girls are made of tougher material. So it is a boy movie in decoy. 

The subject of Nina's lesbian fantasy is a new comer in the ballet company, Lily, who sketches as a bad girl and takes Nina out to a disco, offers dope and promotes free, confidential dancing. Thomas Leroy puts her as an example to Nina and maybe it is meaning that Nina by imagining Lily kind of pleases Thomas...? As well as the finale this part is very hazy and inexplicable. Also the delusions and hallucinations  of Nina are weird and inexplicable: is this the way a mind deteriorates? I have known some neurotics and schizophrenics, and somehow my idea is different - but that is just the point: Aronofsky is allowed to his view! And the whole movie is a respectable achievement. 

In the mother-daughter -relationship I don't want to interfere... she is far too old not to have rebelled...  Natalie Portman does an excellent job in  portraying the moods and feelings of this young woman without questioning them. I wonder what kind of ideas she may herself have had about this character - she has in her time gone through the same process as Nina in this fiction.

On the whole, as I already said,  an enjoyable cinematic experience, even if I disagree of the contents. And the music crowns the experience!

**** 



These three movies tell stories of girls - Burlesque is an old fashioned story with a modern attitude - Devil's attitude towards women is conservative in comparison. And the Swan is a fantasy. I wonder weather serious mental disorders are more common in male population than female? Is there a study about this? I know that women eat more medication but that is because they believe in symptoms and medication more than men, who use more drugs... 







Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Yes, I might have an opinion or at least something to say

About some movies, like I had of 'Unthinkable'. I would not call them critiques or reviews, no. I'd just say they are my personal thoughts and reflections of something I have seen. I'm not a critic, no, but a fellow artist, who has experienced something watching these random films... I'm not academic and my thinking and views are totally subjective mixing in my feelings and ideas in a probably quite anarchic way. My way. The only I can have...
There are movies I like, and then there are movies I consider weird like 'Never let me go' - the book was weird, too.  There are older movies and some new ones... During last two weeks I have seen again after years 'The English Patient' and 'Out of Africa', and did still like both. There are movies I have tried to look through, but not succeeded, like '127 hours', 'Buried' and 'Somewhere' - just can't find anything cinematographic in them...
And I don't like long, continuing shoots, no, even if most think them as 'very highly cinematic' as I don't like 'Citizen Kane'  even if I understand why it is promoted and held as the best in the world. I disagree: it is not much of a movie... Orson Welles was clever in a witty way, not in a passionate way, which might have produced better movies... in my opinion. I like sentimentality in movies more than cynicism - and being on the same level with the characters, not above them.

I might want to write about t hose two, and new ones, yes, 'Black Swan', because I did dance ballet as a girl and I don't like Aronofsky's way of thinking... and the same theme - young woman and her ambition - in 'Devil Wears Prada' and 'Burlesque', which I found exhilaratingly funny and sentimental. And yes, in a stupid and everyday way, but I still liked it!

And then the love of years, 'Constant Gardener' - I do so like it! It, too, is sentimental and people in it are very much in loss, but it is an extremely good movie in many ways. And there are others... many others...  Maybe some days if there is nothing else... thinking is so easy and fluent compared to writing - writing is like walking with sticks!