Revenge: A Dish Served Cold and Well-Garnished

I take a somewhat guilty pleasure in revenge stories. I imagine the moviegoing public shares my fascination, else there would be far fewer filmed vendettas. The simplest revenge movies offer the audience opportunities for guilt-free sadism. At other times, the genre can be intellectual, ironic, and even funny. Today's movie is an odd beast – a marriage between a revenge film and an art film. I am happy to report that it does both genres justice.

The Korean director Chan-wook Park is most famous for his 2003 film Oldboy, which may or may not receive an American remake. Oldboy is in fact the second film in Park's "Vengeance Trilogy". Though the three films share themes, each has a unique plot and characters and can stand alone. I decided to watch Lady Vengeance (called Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in some markets), the final film in the trilogy and a critical favorite.

Lady Vengeance's basic premise is simple, but the film tells its story in a highly unconventional way. Words appear from the clouds; our viewpoint suddenly turns upside-down; a character's face shines with intentionally comic CGI light; people in pictures come to life; dreams blend into reality and past merges with present. The camerawork is surreal, funny, and somehow easy to follow. All too often, such elaborate cinematography goes hand-in-hand with poor storytelling. In Lady Vengeance, however,the film's mode harmonizes with the plot's motion.

The success of the classical revenge story depends on establishing a visceral connection with its audience. For Park, however, thrills are subsidiary to thought. His elaborate staging and cold classical soundtrack distance us from the action without distracting us; we are given room to ponder, analyze, and perhaps judge the characters and their actions. The film's aesthetic framework keeps us from ever fully identifying with anyone in it. I understand that there are in fact two versions of Lady Vengeance; the less popular of the two is even more artistically daring than the "normal" cut. The second version of the film begins in color, but eventually fades to black and white. I would have liked to have seen this take on the film, as several scenes – particularly the last - seem written for the purposes of this device.

Once again, I've managed to write several paragraphs on a film without once describing its plot. Lady Vengeance's eponym is Geum-ja Lee, a thirty-two year old woman recently from thirteen years' imprisonment for her murder of a five-year-old boy. Though Geum-ja confessed to the crime, she was in fact (mostly) innocent. In prison, Geum-ja spent much of her time formulating a plan for her vengeance against the true killer. Like so much else in this film, Geum-ja's wrath takes on a thoroughly unconventional form...

Young-ae Lee plays Geum-ja; her cool beauty and suppressed emotions carry the film. She's quiet, sad, and painfully aware of her sins. She's clearly a sort of monster, but she's nonetheless sympathetic. We don't expect her to take any lasting pleasure from her retribution, but we understand why she could never give it up. The other actors in the film are fine, but the movie would have failed without such a successful lead.

As much as I enjoyed and appreciated Lady Vengeance, the film is not without its problems. The movie spends a great deal of its time establishing the characters of Geum-ja's prison friends, yet most of them vanish from the second half of the film. A police detective collaborates in Geum-ja's highly-illegal revenge, but we never learn enough about him to understand why he behaves as he does. And though this is hardly a major failure, one vital character, though supposed to be a native English speaker, does not sound the part at all.

I was highly impressed with Lady Vengeance; whether or not I blog about them, I shall certainly watch the other two films in Park's trilogy. And perhaps Mr. Hollis-Lima would like to watch his vampire film, Thirst. I have no doubt it would wash the Twilight aftertaste right out of his mouth. Lady Vengeance is a fine fine film.

Indecent Exposure, or How to Mention both Adam Lambert and the Supreme Court in the Same Breath

Some things never change. Way back in 1956 – the days of television's childhood – Elvis Presley's hip gyrations had a way of stirring up controversy. Ed Sullivan, a famous broadcaster, vowed to never allow such a vulgar act on his show. Once the ratings for Presley's appearance on rival, Steve Allen's show came in, however, he suddenly had a change of heart. Presley's performance on The Ed Sullivan Show has since become one of pop music's greatest triumphs over the supposed squeamishness of the American television viewing public.

Here, in 2009, another bizarre parallel with the middle of last century has emerged: the resurgence of the Red Tide. With the Great Healthcare Debate raging, cable news has overflowed with activists passionately expressing their fears that this country has fallen into the hands of communists. It is funny, then, that most of the politicians who stand firmly against government-run health care strongly advocate another trademark of communist government: censorship. When the country was suddenly, and violently, forced to witness the disturbing reality of human anatomy during 2004's Super Bowl Halftime Show, more political demand for censorship of broadcast television and radio emerged than ever before.

A number of CBS stations were fined for the incident – not because they had creative input in the performance, not because they hired the producers who did have such input and not even because they were part of the network that hired those producers. These individual stations were fined because they, ultimately, were the messengers; with very little awareness of what CBS was providing to them (and certainly no idea what liberties Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson would take), they merely handled the last leg, bringing the show to the screens of Americans. Suddenly, television stations were like turkeys on Thanksgiving – ready to fall victim to spurious government fines at any time.

The folks at the Fox network were clearly feeling the heat from their station managers when they decided to take the government to court over an incident of their own. (Cher decided to say "fuck" while accepting an award at the Billboard Music Awards.) The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where earlier this year, the fines were ruled legitimate on the grounds that "even isolated utterances can be made in… a vulgar and shocking manner, and can constitute harmful first blows to children." In other words, the government can censor television and radio broadcasts because of the children.

Apparently, some things do change... such as the validity of the First Amendment.

What is the result? Broadcast TV has become a grotesque patchwork of arbitrary taboos and shocking lapses in standards. The government has never prosecuted a network for showing violent fare; the old adage that you can show a man severing a woman's breast before you can actually show a breast has only become more accurate. Any number of weekly crime dramas revel in the graphic details of heinous crimes, but only one has faced a fine: Without a Trace featured a (contrived) orgy scene, without a trace of nudity or violence, that led to fines. Ironically, the government's clear admonition of any and all nudity has come alongside a notable increase in network television sex scenes.

So, while it is true that television networks rarely balk at catering to the lowest common denominator, they remain victims of the government's arbitrary regulations. The Federal Communications Commission only has one written guideline for networks to follow: Do not show anything "indecent" between 6AM and 10PM and never show anything "obscene." No further detail is provided and only the latter part has any basis in the Constitution.

Out of this maelstrom emerges the latest chapter in the saga: Adam Lambert at last weekend's American Music Awards. Lambert's performance featured an overt, S&M theme. During the course of the song, he was surrounded by scantily clad men and women, wrapping their limbs around him. Early on, one of them – a man – crawled up to him and simulated oral sex. A minute or two later, Lambert stuck his fingers into a female dancer's crotch. At the end of the number, Lambert kissed a male member of his band. ABC, the show's broadcaster, was quick to claim that Lambert's rehearsals suggested that a slightly less risqué performance would take place. ABC also, promptly, cancelled Lambert's scheduled appearance the next morning on Good Morning, America, for fear of him doing something else unexpected.

The media has largely focused on Lambert's allegations of double standards. He claims that female performers often do such suggestive performances, including same-sex kissing, without any complaints. (His point was effectively proven when a CBS News report on the incident blurred his kiss, but showed Madonna and Britney Spears kissing uncensored.) Yet, it is unlikely that ABC reacted the way it did due to any double standard, especially given that it is considered friendly to the gay community by activist groups. Instead, it is obvious that ABC fears fines in a territory that, time and again, government regulators love to tread: live music performances.

Still, ABC is hardly an unwitting victim. The theme of the number, including the costumes and most of the choreography, was clearly approved by the network. They knew exactly what they were getting into; they were simply trying to walk the line and they tripped. Similarly, most of the blame fell on Janet Jackson back in 2004 when, in reality, the network approved a song that included lyrics such as, "I gotta have you naked by the end of this song." Can CBS really blame Justin Timberlake for delivering on a promise that they knew he would make?

Network TV is not a cesspool because of a "fuck" here and a boob there. (It is not really a cesspool at all; that is cable's honor.) What plagues broadcast television is the pursuit of profit – the constant catering to the masses at the expense of social responsibility and artistic ambition. No amount of regulation will ever fix that problem; it runs far too deeply. This fact applies to the government, as well. If politicians genuinely wanted to crusade against "indecency," they would tackle television's obvious scourge: rampant, graphic, cynical displays of violence. They would also probably do so without compromising constitutional rights. There are no powerful political contingencies, however, pushing for such things, so politicians have no motivation to pursue them.

Ultimately, the best we can ask for is letting free speech be truly free, letting parents do the parenting and reminding those who dislike network TV that they can always (gasp!) turn off the fucking TV.

There is one glimmer of hope that suggests things are heading this way. Fox's case was limited to judging whether or not the Billboard Music Awards incident violated the FCC's guidelines. A number of Supreme Court justices made it clear that their decisions stood within this narrow scope and that, if allowed to consider the larger issue of those guidelines' legality, the justices would likely declare them unconstitutional. Here is hoping that the First Amendment turns out to be one of those things that never changes.

Getting Past the Past: Memento

Last week I took a look at Christopher Nolan's first film; this week I'm looking at his second. Sometime in the next few weeks, expect looks at Insomnia and The Prestige.

Following may have played the independent theater circuit, but Christopher Nolan didn't enter the mainstream until the release of his second film, Memento. Nolan's second feature film uses many of the same tricks and teases that Following did, but here they're far better integrated into the film's plot. Furthermore, Memento is forty-five minutes longer than Following; Nolan has far more canvas on which to paint. Memento may not be as original as some critics think – it borrows a lot from its predecessor – but it remains one of the best thrillers I have ever seen.

The film's protagonist, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) lost his ability to create short-term memories on the night that his wife was raped and murdered by the mysterious "John G." Lest he forget his enemy's name and crimes, Leonard has tattooed his body with various details about the murder. He supplements his body-writing with an assortment of notes to himself, annotated Polaroids, and a map of the unnamed city he's staying in. But how can Leonard hope to catch his wife's killer when he doesn't even know how long it's been since the night of the crime? Besides, Leonard freely admits that he won't even remember taking his long-delayed (?) vengeance...

As does Following, Memento unfolds its story out of chronological order. In Nolan's first film, the protagonist always thinks he knows what's going on around him; the shuffling confuses the audience, but doesn't reflect his mental state. One of the few things that Memento's protagonists knows for sure is how much he does not know; the viewers share his bewilderment and confusion. Following's structural games are entertaining and intriguing, but the story would have functioned perfectly well with a more straightforward plot progression. Memento, on the other hand, would lose most of its poignancy and much of its suspense were it arranged in chronological order.

This is an odd sort of admission, but some of the best parts of Memento are the parts that aren't there. Following has an almost airtight plot; once you've seen everything, you can put all the story's pieces together and form a coherent story. Memento's story isn't entirely inscrutable, but there are several important events that we never see. The audience has far more interpretative freedom. Great mystery films have left out crucial information before – consider the general's chauffeur in The Big Sleep – but rarely in a manner so well-considered and clever as this film.

Nolan's films tend to be far more philosophically engaged than today's typical film. To be terribly reductive, Following discusses the seductive nature of evil, Batman Begins is about fear, The Dark Knight is about ends and means. Memento is about subjectivity and the nature of reality. As Leonard puts it early in the film: "Just because there are things I don't remember doesn't make my actions meaningless. The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?" Leonard recognizes solipsism as a peril; he knows that time passes, even if he doesn't remember it.

I'm not sure if Memento is Christopher Nolan's best film – I haven't seen Insomnia or The Prestige, for one thing, and The Dark Knight is one of my all-time favorite films. To say that Memento may be Nolan's greatest film is to give it a great deal of praise.

The Title Suggests Inherent Dimness

Full disclosure: I kind of liked the first Twilight film. It had a long list of flaws, most of which could be blamed on Melissa Rosenberg's crappy screenplay, but despite them, the film managed to convey something authentic. That now-somewhat-famous shot of Edward and Bella lying in a bed of flowers is an undeniably potent representation of two teens lost in the throes of hormonal love. Thanks, in most part, to some surprisingly beautiful cinematography (courtesy of Elliot Davis) and an eerie score (from Carter Burwell), the film's flaws were smothered in its striking, ethereal atmosphere. Twilight can be written off as cheesy, but it made the thirteen year-old girl in me swoon.

Consider my heart broken. None of the crew from the original film returns for New Moon – neither the music nor the cinematography are anything to write home about – but Summit Entertainment did hold on to Rosenberg. This ensured that New Moon retains all of the flaws of the original, while shedding most of its redeeming value.

Even if one was somehow unaware of Stephenie Meyer's book series going into New Moon, it would not be long before he or she would identify the movie as an adaptation of a novel. All of the pitfalls are present here: A meandering plot, half-baked character progression, a lack of identifiable themes and, of course, a rather unsatisfying ending. (The Writers' Guild of America sorely needs to hold a seminar on how to adapt a novel into a screenplay. Hollywood seems to fail at this task more consistently than almost anything else.) I have no idea how good Meyer's books are, or if the source material can partly be to blame, but it is safe to say that Rosenberg is taking the painfully short-sighted "stay as close to the source material as possible" route with her scripts – and moviegoers are paying the price.

As we rejoin our pasty couple, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are in a stable relationship, but are beginning to run up against the inherent weirdness of vampire-human dating – she is worried about aging, and he is worried about eating her. Way too many allusions to Romeo and Juliet suggest where this is heading. After a bit of (extra?) brooding, he decides to cut her loose and move out of town. This sends Bella into a nigh-suicidal phase, complete with misguided thrill seeking and night terrors. She eventually turns to her old friend, who is newly hot, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) and their relationship grows quickly. Still, Bella has no intention of getting over Edward. This leaves Jacob with growing frustration, particularly as his involvement with his Native American tribe's fight against vampires deepens and he is forced to protect Bella from her own wild behavior. Eh, the Shakespeare connection left off at some point back there but, rest assured, the parallels return for the ending, albeit not as closely as some viewers might wish.

None of these developments are nearly as engrossing as they could have been, since the film only devotes a few minutes to a given thread before wandering off in a different direction. A fifth-wheel date between Bella, Jacob and a boy from school, for example, is played for all of the awkward laughs it can be until Jacob arbitrarily, and comically, goes into a fit of rage. The boy from school disappears from the rest of the film, taking the cheeky sense of humor that drove the previous few scenes with him. I would also be remiss if I did not mention that the film has a jarring, third act change of scenery to rival that of Transformers 2. It makes a vague sort of sense within the film's plot but, being the umpteenth hard turn the script takes, I had trouble caring enough to pay attention by this point.

Director, Chris Weitz does little to mitigate the shortcomings of the script. This is no surprise, considering that his last film was the debacle known as The Golden Compass. There are one or two moments of flair: Bella sulks away three months of her life in one shot and a dive off of a cliff has a nice, surreal bent. His best known work, however, is American Pie. Like his predecessor, Catherine Hardwicke, he seems to have been chosen for his experience with teen movies. As such, he is only marginally capable of shooting an action sequence.

Yet, the true problems arise elsewhere. Weitz proves unable to finesse the melodrama into something palatable – an achievement Hardwicke managed to eke out in Twilight by putting more dramatic emphasis on Bella's down-to-earth interactions with her father. In New Moon, the man simply shuffles into her room every few scenes in order to do some perfunctory parenting. As evidenced by my description of the movie date midway through the film, Weitz also occasionally fails to subdue the film's comedic aspects sufficiently. In the midst of all of the melodrama, it just leads one to wonder how much of the film is a joke.

The cast bears much of the blame here, as well. Stewart does not have much range. Her dry, basket case schtick gets her through most of the movie, but it wears thin, and the higher the drama gets, the more grating it becomes. When Edward's life is in danger, and the best she can do is stutter loudly, it saps all of the drama out of the scene. Pattinson underplays about as much as she does, but he can at least get through an entire sentence with relative ease. By far the biggest problem is Lautner. He may have been able to step up to the role physically, but he fails miserably in every other respect. As a meek, ancillary character in the first film, he did well enough, but he is simply not capable of portraying his character's growing intensity. Despite his six pack, he still sounds like the kid who gets beaten up in gym class. One of the worst scenes I have witnessed this year is his rain-drenched argument with Bella; Lautner does not sell a single frame of it.

The honeymoon is over, and the reality of the situation is grim. Summit has proven that its priority is to squeeze these films out as quickly as it can before the fad wanes. Accordingly, Eclipse is due out next summer. Most frustrating of all, the new crew is intriguing; David Slade, director of Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night will take the helm. Melissa Rosenberg, though, remains the writer. I continue to see potential in the series, but something tells me that Twilight and I are star-crossed lovers. You know, like Romeo and Juliet.

London Lurking: Following

As some of you may know, The Dark Knight was by far my favorite film of 2008. Mr. Hollis-Lima liked it, too. Earlier this year, I blogged about the trailer for Nolan's next film, a science fiction thriller called Inception. Nolan's second Batman seems to have overshadowed all his previous work, even the much-praised Memento. I thought it would be entertaining to do a Me and Matt on Media retrospective of all Nolan's earlier films, starting with his debut movie, Following.

Memento was praised for its shuffling of scenes and timelines; Following does much the same thing, though it lacks the narrative justification (i.e. Guy Pearce's brain injury) for the confusion. There's a frame story – the protagonist in a police station, telling a detective his story – but I don't think the audience is supposed to assume that he's telling it in this disjointed fashion, especially since there are a few important scenes that our protagonist doesn't even witness. The plot would be extremely interesting even without the rearranged scenes, but the conceit generally works. Though a tad pretentious and slightly nonsensical, putting the plot's puzzle together is extremely satisfying.

Following's plot is highly and self-consciously noirish; it's a psychological thriller shot in black-and-white. With one exception, the thief Cobb (Alex Haw), the cast list doesn't even give character names. Instead, Jeremy Theobald is "The Young Man," Lucy Russell is "The Blonde," and John Nolan (the director's uncle) is "The Policeman." The archetypical character descriptions suggest a pastiche or homage, but Following hardly lacks for originality. The protagonist, though a fool, is far less an everyman than the typical noir sap. "The Young Man" is a struggling and unemployed would-be writer who has found a new way of gathering material: tailing random people through London's streets.

It's damn creepy, but he doesn't harm anyone until the day he tails a well-dressed gentleman carrying a mysterious duffel bag. As it turns out, this man is a burglar named Cobb; he's in the market for a partner-in-crime. Following is all well and good, he explains, but it's nothing to match the transgressive thrill of breaking and entering. The young man isn't terribly intelligent, so he follows Cobb into his life of crime. Soon he's dating one of his past break-in victims, a beautiful blonde with a mysterious connection to a very bad man... Given that the film opens in a police station, one can't expect things to end well for our poor following fool.

It's rather sad to look at Following's cast on IMDB. All the film's actors are very good, but very few of them have appeared in much else, though Nolan gave several of them cameos in Batman Begins. Lucy Russell's role is by far the most traditional – her character is a classic femme fatale. Alex Haw as Cobb is simultaneously charming, dapper, and threatening; he's by far the most energetic actor on the screen. Jeremy Theobald plays the lead, a sucker, a follower (in every sense of the word), and a pervert with an odd mix of meekness occasional confidence. He's likable, but his downfall is darkly comic, not tragic.

I can't finish my review of Following without mentioning its budget. Nolan had very little money to make this film, but he did a phenomenal job working around his lack of funding. Most of the film takes place inside the same few rooms, but this makes sense for the story. According to IMDB, the director and stars were only able to shoot on Saturdays, as they all worked the rest of the week. Films shot under such conditions should not be as good as this one.

Much of Following seems to prefigure Nolan's later work – the magnetic villains reappear in The Dark Knight, while the plot convolutions show up in Memento and (if the film is at all like the book) The Prestige. There's also one wonderful inadvertent "premonition" of later Nolan in the film, but I'll leave that for viewers to discover on their own. For all its affinities with the director's later work, Following seems to stand apart from the rest of the Nolan canon. For one thing, it's extremely quiet and low-key, hardly words one would associate with today's Nolan. In addition, Following is a very short movie, only seventy minutes long. Nolan's last movie was almost twice as long as his first.

Following is available on DVD and on Netflix Watch Instantly. It's worth your time.