Side Shots

No mercy is shown to the players in Ballast, and not much more to the film's viewers. The camera quietly trails the travails of a family in the Mississippi Delta. It documents what at first appears to be the minutiae of their lives, though soon proves to be the actions and results of traumatic, life changing events. The audio is occupied by only the sounds the characters make, without a touch of non-diegetic embellishment. Everyone's movements resound while moments of silence open up an emotional void.

The tone brilliantly suits the content, as Lawrence (Michael J. Smith Sr.) appears to merely exist, as if tragedy has overtaken him and he can see nothing but the same down the road. We realize why when we learn his brother -- soon revealed to be his twin -- has been recently killed, but moreso when Lawrence's pre-adolescent nephew, James (JimMyron Ross), comes to hold him up at gunpoint.

James' issues are a point of sympathy for Lawrence, likely why he undergoes the repeated holdups in his home without any kind of retaliation. The progress of these events play like knocks on the door to infinite unhappiness.

Young James certainly cannot see beyond his current state, with his father dead and mother struggling to make ends meet. James takes to the wrong crowd by running errands and picking up a habit in the process. His dependency makes him beholden to the dealers, as he's made Lawrence to himself by repeatedly robbing him for drug money. James rides his moped through fields in an attempt to abandon the oppression of his life. Yet when he can no longer pay the dealers for his habit, they come after him. The film's most harrowing scene comes when his mother is caught in the middle.

The gun-toting James may seem like child's play for writer/director Lance Hammer -- an image the fosters moralizing about youth on drugs. But when the gun goes off we realize that a kid with an impulse could easily turn into a willful killer. Hammer's handheld camera following James is urgent even if steady -- it reflects the objectivity devoted to truth over sentimentality.

Surely this could be the stuff of lurid melodrama, given the tragedy, drugs, and the Southern setting -- suitable for both Flannery O'Connor and daytime talk-show trash. Before these media forms reflected such situations, there was a truth to such poverty and oppression -- one that Hammer's miraculous narrative style realizes in an emotionally wracking tale.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 10:48 AM

Even the more inventive thrillers will fall back on convention, as this new French entry does in its opening minutes. Here we find an idyllic outdoor dinner, in which the camera circles guests to create a tone so dreamlike that, alas, we're ready for a doze. At times like these, no one seems to have issues -- it's as if weekends never end and retirement comes by 35. The tranquility here feels exploitative, like a premise hardly worth filming, until it's shattered by storytellers with better plans ahead.

Not that the general premise breaks new grounds. Cliches be damned, Alexandre's (François Cluzet) love for Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) really does seem endless. Having been inseparable since adolescence, the couple radiates the world around them, whether lulling with friends or taking a late-night skinny dip. Cue the upheaval when Margot leaves the water and screams out from beyond sight, right before Alexandre's clubbed in the face and we follow him to a blackout. The film takes us ahead eight years, with Alexandre lost as his soul mate is presumably dead. Funeral scenes crosscut with flashbacks of their wedding make a stale taste return for the viewer. Yet tension soon rises to make this as smart and crisp as the best of the recent paranoid thrillers -- i.e., Michael Clayton and In the Valley of Elah.

Attentive as a pediatrician but emotionally numb, Alexandre revives after receiving some mysterious emails. Like answers to his prayers, they lead him to think that Margot is alive, and that deception was was used to pin a serial killer for her death. From here, the framework of the case loosens until Alexandre cannot trust anyone, as he's caught in a conspiracy and chased as if by a Hitchcock McGuffin. Here writer/director Guillaume Canet (whose script is based on the Harlan Coben thriller) finds a consistency on tone and method to deliver it. As brisk as things become, clarity wins out, as the hand-held camerawork Bourne for many a chase sequence has no place here. For full-blooded anxiety, thugs surface out of nowhere, one of them a birdlike woman who throws chops and masters pressure points of sheer agony. But devotion leaves Alexandre dauntless, even if saved by a thug whom Alexandre bailed out of a possible child abuse accusation.

Far from a clever payoff, the final revelation is calculated and serves the story arch more than its own purpose. Again we're reminded of Hitchcock's MacGuffins, those plot-igniting devices that would lie limp when revealed (like those inane plutonium bottles in Notorious). To realize humanity behind the suspense, the makers of thrillers need to master the finest forms of trickery. Whenever a new development arises, and viewers await further tension, the film cannot forget its characters' fears and desires, or else we glide into superficial melodrama. Canet sees Tell No One as Alexandre's mission, through which he progresses to reclaim his life purpose. Even if he a great enlightment is never to be his, the triumph of his will makes his quest worthwhile.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 10:15 PM

In a 1968 interview, Jimmy Stewart told Roger Ebert about an elderly man who wandered out of the woods during an on-location shoot in Canada. "Which one of you is Stewart?" the man said, and Jimmy kindly responded. Far from starstruck, the man explained to Jimmy how he'd never forget one scene of his, in which Stewart says a bit of poetry to woman in an adjacent room. The scene was vague to Stewart at the time, though it lived on vibrantly for the aged moviegoer.

The memory stayed with Stewart as did the moment in Come Live with Me, with Hedy Lamarr, for the man in the woods. Often one grand image or moment allows us to commit to memory a work that would fade away otherwise.

Part of Cassell Illustrated's "Great Moments" series, Defining Moments in Movies, edited by Chris Fujiwara, collects such immortal moments, as interpreted by a gang of fine film writers. Moments takes us decade by decade to profile scenes often emblematic to their respective works. By relating the bit to the whole, this book creates something we could call movie metonymy, a micro-scale approach to film criticism.

Much of this hefty text of what seems like countless entries includes the undisputed greatest moments, from the first hand-cranked, silent images to the latest adored by critics. Expect the obvious, like Charlton Heston's parting of the Red Sea, though the entries on such standbys provide surprising, well-written responses. (Don't be fooled by the coffee-table design -- never again will you judge a slick book by its cover.) Widely known moments in avant garde history are also to be found, such as the slit eye in Dali and Bunuel's Un chien andalou, while many lesser-knowns appear later. From a variety of contributors, the brief entries capture the moments and their significance in a snapshot, making the text into an immediate critical reader, friendly to buffs and the intellectually curious alike.

With tons of films covered -- we're talking months of browsing time here -- even the seasoned moviegoer will discover new films/directors, while entire movies are refreshed from memory. By also including "Key Events" and "People" in movie history, Moments turns into a nice little primer on film history.

Collected by decade, however, the entries lack thematic coherence and continuity. Zhang Yimou's entry shares a page with Billy Crystal in the Hitchcock spoof Throw Mama from the Train, wrongfully reflecting the logic of late-night channel surfing. And occasionally, an entry fully misses the mark: the shock of a tiger jumping from the jungle (now a cliche) hardly defines Apocalypse Now, Coppola's Herzogian quest into the unknown. Yet such misfires are few in a text full of riches. Get shuffling, and upgrade that Netflix account.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 8:40 PM

One image in this film is purely apocalyptic: a computer reproduction shows specs swirling away from a mass of white, which director Herzog tells us in voiceover is a polar cap losing iceberg-sized pieces into a warming sea. The creeping destruction is subtle, even if our species grants it a fast approach. It is one key discovery made at the tip of the world, which Herzog investigates in full in this new, extravagant documentary.

This filmmaker can't resist extremes, both geological and psychological. His trademark fictional films look to obsessives who want to conquer the unknown, which often results in suffering and madness. Herzog's documentaries seek out real-life examples of the same, some who survive, while others, like Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man, are consumed by their obsession.

Encounters doesn't zero in on one obsessive, but portrays the colorful eccentrics drawn to live and work in Antarctica. Much of the film feels like an essay, as it investigates local wildlife -- one lone penguin is programmed to journey to his peril -- and the natural wonders under the tundra waters, filmed after strings of dynamite crack a hole through deep ice. Yet this purportedly nature documentary muses on everything it encounters, and hints toward all the other wonders of the world beyond our sights.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 6:35 PM

We thought members of the communist party had it bad during the Hollywood blacklist. In fear of losing their jobs, those brought to testify before the House of UnAmerican Activities Committee knew their livlihood was on the line. When it convicted Hollywood members for having commie ties or sympathies, the House ruined careers and left many writers working under pseudonyms.

But a similar fear grabbed critic Kyle Smith of the NY Post when he attempted to review Trumbo, a documentary now in limited release that focuses on one of the Hollywood Ten. Hardly an objective word appears in Mr. Smith's review, as he cowardly panders to the politics of his rag. With an opening line that compares socialists to Klan members, we see that Kyle Smith, nervous about his own job in the current critic-demising environment, channelling all the red scare he can to please his boss. I know Mr. Smith is known to be a humorist, but this is just too moronic to be ironic. A poor excuse for criticism that leaves a flag-waving nut yellow.

I found Trumbo to be a capable document on a very interesting character. [review here] A critic that makes his column into a political soapbox should be next for the pink slip.
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 10:43 PM

Thank you for visiting IDT via that 'scape that widens our eyes and, too often, weaken our brains. In our time of obsessive viewing, in which handheld gizmos can order up the net's "simplest" pleasures, we at IDT are happy that you, who view media thoughtfully, have come for some informed thoughts on film.

This group blog will offer news, criticism, and personal insights about that ever-present medium. Our mission: to keep viewers thinking, and hence, the viewing material interesting - and to have some fun along the way.

We welcome your thoughts and comments about our film writing that reflects IDT's varied interests in lit, politics, the arts.

Enjoy - we're glad to have you,

-M. Sorrento
IDT Film Editor, and Film Blog Keeper
posted by Matthew Sorrento at 11:41 AM