Wicker Park
At a certain point in the day, the afternoon sunlight comes streaming through the blinds in my apartment, striking my television screen and making it all but unwatchable. Well, I watched a lot of DVDs today (
All About Lily Chou-Chou,
Gonin, and
A Band Apart for instance), and late in the afternoon, I found myself faced with an unwatchable TV screen. What to do? Why go to the movies. However, I was faced with an unenviable choice. Which movie with middling reviews would I go see?
Vanity Fair?
Open Water?
Wicker Park? Hmm, well
Wicker Park, an English-language remake of the 1996 French film
L’Appartement, is directed by Paul McGuigan (
Gangster No. 1 and
The Reckoning) and co-stars my current on-screen crush, Rose Byrne, so
Wicker Park it was.
Well, it wasn’t
Citizen Kane, but
Wicker Park was a fairly entertaining experience. For one thing, its really nothing like the commercials, which are designed to evoke such glossy, early 90s thrillers such as
Single White Female or
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, but surprise, surprise,
Wicker Park is barely even a thriller and Byrne’s character, despite several choice moments featured in the trailer (which are actually taken out of context), is not a psycho (well, not really).
Wicker Park is actually a fairly old-fashioned romantic, melodrama. Its one of those films where the plot is nothing but a contrived series of coincidences, but the screenplay works so hard to cover all the bases (and I mean all the bases, what with the many flashbacks filling in all the backstory, over and over again, from different perspectives each time) that the rational response of “that’s fucking impossible!” is morphed into something along the lines of “aww, that’s nice.” And McGuigan directs the hell out of the film, artsying up this relatively old-fashioned, pop melodrama with moody cinematography, slow-motion shots, freeze-frames coupled with zooms, and digital superimpositions for no discernible point. However, Chicago in the winter looks appropriately cold, really cold.
Wicker Park is actually a reunion of sorts, featuring both of the female, romantic leads from
Troy, charisma-free but beautiful Diane Kruger and cute as a button Rose Byrne, who vie for the affections of up and coming advertising executive Josh Hartnett. An obsession with his first love, Lisa (Kruger), never ceased after she disappeared two years previously, and a fleeting glance of a woman in a bar, who may or may not be Lisa, is enough to propel Hartnett’s character on a wintry quest to find his true love, not to mention to blow off both his job and potential fiancee. Aided by old friend, and shoe salesman, Matthew Lillard, Hartnett eventually finds “Lisa,” but it turns out to be another woman all together (Byrne). The film enters semi-
Vertigo territory, both when Hartnett begins to fall for the new woman, and when the screenplay starts providing extensive details via flashback halfway through the film, setting up a bit of Hitchcockian tension as we wait for Hartnett to discover the truth.
Perhaps inspired by Hitchcock, the film eschews standard generic conventions and does not go on autopilot, playing up the soapier, romantic aspects of the film, and making Byrne’s character, who could have been just a stock psychotic, much more sympathetic, even contrite. Also refreshing is the lack of violence, you know, except for the emotional kind. While not exactly a good film per se (most people, would consider
Wicker Park a “guilty pleasure” but I hate that term), it is constantly watchable and entertaining, and even surprising in some respects. At least worth watching on cable or DVD.
The Saddest Movie in the World?
This was the conclusion that I came to after watching Ozu's 1953 masterpiece
Tokyo Story on Friday night, the first film in a semester long Ozu retrospective at the
UW Cinematheque (click on the link for the full schedule). So simple and heartbreaking, I would have burst out in tears if not for the dehydration caused by the breakdown of the AC, particularly during the scene when Kyoko ask her widowed sister-in-law Noriko (the luminescent Setsuko Hara) if life is disappointing, and with a wistful smile hiding years of pain, replies "It is..." If anyone can point out a sadder movie, please do so.
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Pretty much the only film I was remotely interested in seeing in the theater this holiday weekend was the new documentary by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (
Brother’s Keeper and
Paradise Lost : The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills) detailing the angst, infighting, and reconciliation surrounding the creation of Metallica’s 2003 album,
St. Anger.
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, is a minor film when compared to the duos other documentaries, but it should appeal to more than just the band’s fans, many of whom were in the attendance this afternoon when I saw the film (me, well, I was never a big fan of the band, even though my high school friends were, and I really haven’t like their music since the 1991 release of their eponymously titled album). While a bit self-congratulatory, the film is a combination of a much more detailed and entertaining
Behind the Music sudser, the film in fact having its genesis as a project for VH1, and a document of the often painful, protracted, and frustrating creative process, something I’m hopelessly addicted to (that would explain my affection for such TV shows as
Trading Spaces and
Iron Chef).
Taking place over the course of about two years, the films begins with the band at a particularly low point, just after the departure of longtime bassist Jason Newsted. Getting ready to enter the studio to record their new album, the band is basically burnt out and at each other’s throats, especially lead vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and they are tenuously held together by therapist and sweater enthusiast Phil Towle. Watching these paragons of thrash metal talk in “therapy-speak” is pretty funny (they talk so seriously and solemnly about their personal and artistic differences that one local critic compared the film to
This is Spinal Tap), but things really don’t get any better until well after James Hetfield’s return from rehab for alcoholism, which delayed the completion of the album for over a year, when the band bonds over their collective distaste of dealing with a radio conglomerate (the film clearly positions this sequence as a turning point ). From then on out, the band rediscovers the joy of playing together and creating music, and they regain the ability to work together as a group (actually using the tools provided by their therapist), which of course comes at the expense of their relationship with their therapist, which, as depicted in the film, becomes much less professional and much more ambiguous. Towle becomes something of a everpresent hanger-on, and begins to appear desperate and annoyingly assertive (then again, I’d try to hang on to a gravy train paying me $40,000 a month too), which leads to the bands several attempts to break with him, and I’m not really sure from the film if they were able to or not.
This being a Berlinger-Sinofsky production, the two filmmakers can’t help but be drawn into the film itself, again. Upon Hetfield’s return, he begins to object to the ever intrusive camera and the looming presence of the boom mikes, which leads to a meeting between the filmmakers and bandmembers, all captured on film. Though there is talk of scrapping the film altogether, the meeting ends inconclusively, and of course, the project continues. This scene, as well as later scene where the band discusses the documentary with their lawyer and new bassist (the band decided to buy the rights to the footage from VH1 when they decided to take the project in a new direction, but this is not explicated in the film), kind of parallels the difficult experience of the band creating the album with the filmmakers creating the documentary, though presumably without any internecine fighting. Both are the results of hours upon hours of music and footage, “funneled,” in the words of Lars Ulrich, into a final, coherent product. I’m sure on the DVD commentary, this connection will become much more explicit.
