Late Harvest

natebell — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:39:03 -0800

Struggling to keep up with a busy fall, lagging a little behind as usual, the reviewer soldiers on…

An Education. Smooth piece of ‘60s nostalgia about an English schoolgirl who must choose between the steady, humdrum life her parents envision for her and the bohemian pleasures offered by an exciting but unscrupulous older man. What looks like a routine coming-of-age drama at first glance comes vividly to life under the judicious direction of Lone Scherfig (one of the original members of the Dogme 95 group, if anyone still remembers), who demonstrates an intense appreciation for what it feels like to be young and intelligent and restless and trapped. As the schoolgirl, the incandescent Carey Mulligan simulates a wide assortment of emotions with the ease of a seasoned professional.

Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wes Anderson comedy, family-safe but sophisticated enough to pass muster for all but the strictest cinephiles, about a domesticated fox who falls back on his animal instincts when his family is threatened by greedy farmers. Roald Dahl’s story proves an ideal opportunity for Anderson to spin yet another portrait of a youthful spirit struggling to accept responsible adulthood. The stop-motion techniques and autumnal English settings bring to mind Nick Park, and afford Anderson even more control over his constructed universe. None of it dampens the fun of the whole enterprise, or cheapens the emotion at its core.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans. Modestly budgeted Werner Herzog police thriller (you heard correctly) about a wild cop whose back pains lead him from Vicodin to cocaine while investigating a drug-related murder. Highlighted by an expertly cracked Nicolas Cage performance and a strange—and strangely lengthy—interlude involving hallucinatory iguanas, the film is as funny as Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant was anguished. Herzog treats the New Orleans environment as he would the jungles of Peru (with plenty of attention paid to local color), and even the smallest role is interestingly cast and played. Worth seeing as a novelty item, but the all-encompassing weirdness and sordidness of the project is finally taxing.

La Danse. Two-and-a-half hour high-def video documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet that observes many arduous rehearsals, performances, and the occasional financier meeting, all without recourse to backstage drama, narration, interviews, or even a helpful nameplate to identify the onscreen subject. Frederick Wiseman, legendary practitioner of the direct cinema, is the man at the helm, and he never imposes a point of view, so that the independent mind is allowed to wander where it likes, picking up stray details here and there, taking in the atmosphere, admiring the spectacle of bodies-in-motion. While it’s a far cry from the heated muckraking of Titicut Follies and Law and Order (Wiseman’s little-seen early masterpieces), the viewer is grateful for a piece of filmmaking that doesn’t cajole or bully—in other words, a documentary that is content to document.

The Road. Cormac McCarthy adaptation that wavers uncomfortably between brutality and sentimentality, about a father and son engaged in a long trek across an ashen wasteland—a less spectacular and more sobering vision of the apocalypse than the usual Hollywood fodder. John Hillcoat’s direction comes briefly to life during a hair-raising scene in the basement of a band of cannibals, but fails to disguise the story’s lumbering, episodic gait. Viggo Mortensen, looking like a skid row refugee in his soiled snow coat and grubby beard, rises to the role of father with utmost dedication.