A Perfect Murder

Someday I may come to appreciate this director more (with this glorious exception); but, for the time being, the original, family-rated genre of noir – even noir with a moral foundation as almost all of Hitchcock's works possess – seems to miss the point. Noir is based on the presumption not only that we are fallen, but also that our plight is irreparable. Life with a moral end is for fools; charity is feckless because everyone is trying to exploit everyone else; the only thing worth doing is surviving, however enormous the price for that survival. Noir has led to subsets of modern genres of cinema, most notably those glorifying professional cozenage that only seem to please people who like seeing others squirm (I cannot count myself among those sadists). Yet for many years ostensible prudishness and family values – two things that can be both admirable and nauseating – ultimately prevented noir from doing what it was made to do: namely, be as sleazy as possible. Sexless, bloodless noir, as it were, is worse than alcohol-free beer; it's more like alcohol-free vodka. Modern cinema, however, allows for practically everything and often to great gory excess, and noir has rightly claimed its portion of the fun. Now tough-talking gumshoes actually see the marrow of murder with their (and our) very eyes, and the guileful gals who routinely attract these gumshoes – along with a lot of other unsavory types – do more than kiss and smoke cigarettes. This evolution would explain the rather smashing improvement on one of Hitchcock's classics in the form of this film. 

We are trapped in the eternal triangle that has spawned so many stories of every quality level: a husband (Michael Douglas), a wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), and a paramour (Viggo Mortensen). Our husband, Steven Taylor, is in love with money, himself, and his wife's money, in that particular order. His wife Emily, about twenty-five or half Steven's age, has a gaudy family inheritance coming her way and so spends her time learning languages for work as a United Nations interpreter; that Emily's knowledge of languages appears to straddle the supernatural should tell you the film's exact proximity to reality. The third component in this fine set to accompany the wealthy materialist and the hyperlearned ingénue is, of course, the womanizing, penniless artist, who has the rather unfabulous name of David Shaw. David is a character who obviously has done some bad things in life, mostly, we suspect, to unsuspecting women. His artistic ability lies predominantly in his image: he is relaxed and cool in a studied way, always ready to emphasize art's superiority to life, always indifferent to the vicissitudes of the daily grind, which, as any genuine artist will tell you, is a sure sign of a fraud. Real artists constantly vacillate between plunging headlong into the creative world they love and embracing the realm in which everyone else seems to exist. The dichotomy has led many fine minds down to path to a total disconnect with common activities, words, and thoughts, and ultimately to dreary isolation in the darkest corners of their ever-lacerated psyche. Our David, who paints rather shabby, omnifarious blurs, as well as a few bathetic portraits, is not who Emily thinks he is. She is madly in love with him while he keeps a certain distance abetted by an occasional semi-confession that suggests he might be changing his ways. Apart from the explicit lack of evidence of change in womanizing charlatans throughout history, there is also the tiny matter of sweet Emily's moneybags ancestry – a fact that does not elude the watchful, leering eyes of Steven.

Douglas has long held the title of most loveable sleazeball, and for good reason. There is something in his speech and mannerisms that expresses selfish desire in such an aesthetically pleasing way that we cannot help thinking how one goes about maintaining such an aura. Near the beginning of our tale he confronts David with extensive knowledge about his adultery, a revelation that would have brought someone truly enamored to plead for the well-being of his soulmate. But this is precisely what does not occur. Once his game is exposed – that is to say, once Steven phrases his suspicions in such an unambiguous way as to show exactly what he thinks of David – the artist retreats to the impecunious and helpless persona that has served him in the past in the pluming of many a silly goose. A satanic pact is then struck that should tell you all you need to know about the two men at work. Of course, as satanic pacts go, this one dooms both sides when it goes awry owing to one party's hesitation, a quite justified hesitation at that, to trust the other party. Steven insists on attending his weekly card game, Emily is instructed to take a long, hot, reflex-deadening bath, and I will leave matters right there.

The original Hitchcock production was based on a play that functioned by having oblivious characters being offscreen at crucial moments, one of the easier conceits of drama since the Greeks began plotting a bevy of bad things during their soliloquies. The annoying stage details notwithstanding, what Dial M for Murder suffers from is the old adage of all talk and no walk. The characters scheme and dream with such malice but then behave so civilly to one another that it would take superhuman acting to overcome, which while good is not on hand. A Perfect Murder, in its reluctance to pull punches, transforms an intriguing story that could easily have originated as a barroom test of oneupmanship into a greasy, messy parable for getting what you wish for. And for Steven and David, what they really want lies far beyond the young blonde heiress who ricochets between them.

To Be and to Have (Être et avoir)

There are numerous miniature delights in this film, yet perhaps the most magnificent scene comes during a springtime thunderstorm. A sixtyish teacher (Georges Lopez) accompanies two students with two umbrellas from the door of his schoolhouse to a waiting van, a much more complicated task than one would imagine. The two children are not nearly as different in age as some of his other pupils, yet one of them follows his instructions precisely, covers his head with his satchel, and understands the principle of the fragile device keeping him dry; the other, however, seems to get none of this, even though a small child instinctively knows what to do when it rains. A microcosm for Lopez's remarkable world, at once tiny and enormously large.

The smallness comes from the location of our documentary, rural France (we begin and end our visit with cows and green fields as interminable as Sahara dunes). Without a spot of research you would not guess that the population of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson numbers no more than a few hundred, in no small part to the warmth Lopez imparts to both his immaculate classroom and his pupils, ages four to ten. At the beginning, we have a lesson in orthography using a word that every French child will have mastered before he sets foot in school; later, Lopez will teach his youngest prodigies the male and female versions of "friend." That the children of different ages have to interact and yet retain more than a little discipline and decorum in that interaction does not bother them, and it certainly doesn't bother Lopez. He is courteous, caring, immeasurably patient, and perhaps most importantly, perfectly calm. His voice only goes up in mock emotion or to emphasize a part of a sentence not quite understood. At one point we are told that he shares teaching duties with a certain Tatiana, but no evidence of such partition ever manifests itself. When the younger ones are playing (Lopez understands they will learn nothing if they are browbeaten all day), the older ones are assigned projects that harness some of their strengths as well as delve into their weaknesses. We get little of the home life of the students apart from a quick glance into the farmhouse of the class heavyweight, Julien. Julien helps his mom sweep the stalls of their farm then struggles with her through his math homework with an alarming lack of confidence – perhaps because every wrong answer is met with the back of her hand (another relative suggests the equation, "What's six smacks a day for two days?"). Julien has a tense relationship with his only coeval, Olivier, who is more sensitive and therefore more the victim than the bully. When we find out Olivier's secret towards the film's end, we nod in recognition. Such are the simple concerns of children, rarely mysterious, cynical, or evil. Their pain is reflected in their attitude, and a great teacher like Lopez knows the truth before they sob it to him quietly.

About two-thirds through, our documentary halts its depiction of daily events to interview the schoolmaster. A man of infinite serenity, Lopez surveys the plight of his father, a farmhand from Andalusia and, as he puts it, "what we call an immigrant." His father, like all good parents, especially those of humble means, only wanted his son to have a better life than he did. And Lopez always knew what he wanted to do. He never boasts that he was especially talented as a schoolchild, although if the aim of education is to prepare one for adult life, then few could have been as successful. "I used to love being in school so much as a child," he says, "that I would spend my free time playing the teacher for other kids, even some my age." The pleasure that crosses his lips as he relates this oddity is not one of self-satisfaction, but of contentment with the world. How can the world be wicked if it allowed him to identify his vocation as a child and pursue it with such zeal? And aren't children the future of this world? His father died twenty years ago, right before he arrived in Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, but Lopez has been teaching for thirty-five years and is only eighteen months away from retirement. Upon hearing him confess his plans, his children resort to a stereotypically French fail-safe strategy and threaten to strike.

It is perhaps sad that the film engendered a lengthy legal dispute which can easily be researched online, a dispute motivated, it should be said, not by finances but by what is perceived as a breach of privacy. What is more interesting is the film's title, a pair of helping verbs, to wit, the two ways to conjugate compound verbs in French. You could also say that some things are and some things have things that are; perhaps there are people who are themselves owing to personality and people whose personality is based on their possessions. We are never told whether Lopez has a family or whether, like a nun or priest, he has simply adopted a community as his own. Nothing interrupts our enjoyment of the quiet moments shared by trees and snow, the plain road, the simple beauty of winter. Lopez seems in harmony with all these pacific elements, as if his wisdom were as natural as the rapport that the children develop because they understand that squabbling and pouting will never take them far in this life or any other. They cook together, breaking eggs and pouring flour; they correct each other in the mildest way; they rarely tease or push – and such instances are met with swift intervention by Lopez. And what of the turtle seen crawling through the schoolhouse at the film's beginning, or the vivarium of chelonians seen later on? A mawkish image for the torpor of modern education? As it were, it most likely indicates that for some a vocation is not thrust upon them but grows within. And if the beauty of the world is within you, you will remark little difference between a tiny little town in France and the sunset beaches of Tahiti. Not that everyone has any interest in Tahiti.   

Lights in the Dusk

At the beginning of this film, a young man who will end up being our protagonist cowers in the corner as three natives of this language scurry by discussing some of the great authors in their literary tradition. It is of no coincidence that the last name we hear as distance mutes their voices belongs to this writer of genius whose "shadow is so big you can't see the sun." It is likewise appropriate that Gogol's most famous short story features a protagonist not unlike Seppo Ilmari Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen), the sweet, loyal, and utterly hapless security guard around whom the film revolves.

Koistinen, as he is referred to exclusively apart from one vital scene, has all the makings of a soul for whom society has neither patience nor space. In a quick series of vignettes, Koistinen incurs the annoyance of his superiors who assure each other once he leaves the room that "he will learn," gets bullied by his colleagues (what we understand to be a regular occurrence), orders a drink and gets rebuffed by the blonde to his right and threatened by the large man to her right, almost gets smashed by a bathroom door as he wallflowers himself to an awkward spot, and is generally stared at by other bar patrons with the repugnance that overcomes some people upon the sight of incorrigible floundering. He claims this will all end with the establishment of his own business (we see him in some class or consultation taking furious notes), but he is abused in his loan interview and forced out the side door like some embarrassing relative. Unlike most underdogs, Koistinen is a handsome fellow who under normal circumstances would not have any trouble getting a date; what normal behavior entails, however, remains to be seen. His behavior is identical to everyone around him, but the results of his actions do not even sniff the others' success or efficacy. This strange hitch can be attributed to Kaurismäki's typically laconic methods whereby the only real character is Koistinen and not one of his actions is real at all. While he struggles to behave the way society dictates – in other words, the way the privileged and powerful behave and prevent others from behaving – the entire supporting cast, with a few allies to be revealed in time, provides nothing more than obstacles to his own development. So if everyone else reacts in a predictable way because they are predictable and clichéd, Koistinen reacts that way because he thinks that is what he needs to do to get ahead, not realizing that as a sensitive and benign exception in a cold, malefic world, the opposite would help him. 

With this setup in mind, the plot – as film noir cookie cutter as all its characters – suddenly becomes very dynamic. Koistinen's duties as night watchman include security for a jewelry store, and so we are hardly surprised when a young blonde (Ilkka Koivula) takes an interest in him and almost demands that he return the favor. They go out on one of the most unilateral dates in cinematic history, most brilliantly embodied by the movie house scene in which she is watching something coy and light and he is only watching her as if the real film were taking place in the pinna of her ear. The abrupt cuts from scene to scene give one the impression of how futile an existence like this can quickly become – even in a privileged and beautiful country like Finland – although those in love are supposed to get along and separate themselves from the rest of the world. The blonde's true intentions, or at least those of the people who are interested in Koistinen, would only come across to the most callow of viewers as novel and require no explanation here. Yet at every step the photography is impeccable, such as the extra time given to the band whose lead singer has everything a young woman interested in rock singers might desire, another contrast to our seemingly talentless protagonist. A film as unimaginative and impatient as most of the cast of Lights in the Dusk would let her carry on with him, throwing salt and fire into a very open wound. But unlike the vast majority of his peers, Kaurismäki has no interest in cruelty or subjugation. All that he wants to show is the possibility of redemption, the bad stuff occurring off-screen so that we are often left staring at just-vacated premises. 

Another fascinating conceit is the polyglot soundtrack, which associates a certain stereotype of the language with its scene. It begins in Spanish, almost as a harbinger of a Carmen-like character, moves to American rock when consummation seems possible, drifts into snowy weather and Russian when Koistinen has lost all hope (Russians also seem to be partly responsible for his predicament), has Finnish when he regains his freedom, as if he were restored to his "natural surroundings," then seems to conclude in French when he and one of his few allies accept their fate. There are countless people just like poor Koistinen and their routines in both work and love are as hopeless as his. Many more live to take advantage of such people because that is really the only way they can satisfy their selfish urges, not to mention feel better about their own shortcomings. That's why Koistinen should have been paying more attention to that radio description of a scorpion: its abdomen might indeed resemble a string of pearls, but at the end there is only pain.

The Wolfman

A few years ago a friend called a film we both admired, to my budding surprise, a political allegory. When asked by a third person and someone who had not seen the work to justify his statement, he proffered a couple of short sentences thankfully not smug or discomfiting. The name of the film need not be mentioned here, nor the remarkable parable he detected. What is important about such minor revelations is the thought invested in the symbols of the written or filmed word. Critics have always tended to praise works that can sustain more than one reading even if all the possible interpretations are rather thin. And what of works that really only have a single possible meaning yet internally wrestle with two or three? A question that may well be asked of this film.

The premise is so imbedded in literature that it requires little introduction. Upon a dark Victorian moor, someone or something has carved up three men, including Ben Talbot (Simon Merrells), son of Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), a local landowner and widower. The town elders are less superstitious than one might have supposed and expect a scientific explanation from the gypsies stationed on a nearby meadow. The Roma settlement possesses the usual assortment of trained animals and necromancers – the former suspected as dangerous, the latter suspected as fraudulent – but we learn other details. Namely, that Sir John's late wife was also a Roma who committed suicide about twenty-five years ago – just when, it turns out, another local remembers finding a shepherd and his flock slaughtered in a most barbaric fashion. This wife is buried in a sepulcher with an adjoining shrine graced with nightly visits by Sir John. By his own estimation he is quite dead (he speaks in a hurried, breathy, almost overfamiliar tone like a busy ghost), and he might as well have been for the last twenty-five years to his elder son, Lawrence (Benicio del Toro). Sent to America after the familial tragedy, Lawrence Talbot has become a world-famous stage actor, although you would never guess so given the brief snatch of this play to which we are treated. However improbable a film’s hodge-podge of accents may be given its plot and setting, they should never detract from the overall effect – yet this is precisely what occurs. Del Toro's looks and gestures are convincing, but his cadence is distinctly Spanish and his voice, I suspect, too high-pitched to qualify him as a Shakespearean lead (his Yorick speech smacks of parody). Lawrence is summoned to the moors, specifically to Blackmoor, as the family estate is called, by Ben's fiancée Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). Their first exchange in his dressing rooms induces the other cast members to clear out, he makes a poignant remark about the "shifting character of man," and we understand, even if we have never seen or heard of the original film, that Lawrence will go to Blackmoor and discover some horrible things. 

In the train moorward he is buttonholed by a sinister elderly gentleman (Max von Sydow) who, for reasons unknown to everyone including Lawrence, wishes to bestow upon the actor his walking stick with wolf’s-head pommel acquired "lifetimes ago" in Gévaudan.* After looking at his fellow traveler sidelong a few times (one of the film’s lovely little touches) Lawrence falls asleep as the eternal countryside glides on. When he awakes he finds the vanished old man, who was dapper and well-spoken in a very ingratiating way, to have been in all likelihood a figment of his tortured mind. If it weren’t, of course, for the cane left leaning against the opposing seat. As Lawrence finally makes it to Blackmoor a series of unfortunate incidents occurs, some of which are roundly predictable, others not. We are not, in any case, overmuch concerned with predictability as Lawrence is destined by the laws that govern dramatic convention to assume the responsibilities and ills of the title character. He views Ben’s grisly remains kept in a butcher’s shop beneath gigantic, looming pincers and then tells his father he came because of “Ms. Conliffe’s letter,” when she visited him in person (the letter is mentioned at some other point, but this may be a dramaturgical glitch). The suspected killer is described as “a fell creature,” a nice pun for those who like old words, and the villagers continue to bandy about some theories until the beast strikes again. Given the sheer numerical disadvantage, we may harbor some, ahem, grave reservations about the wisdom of the beast’s attack, which is so ostentatious as to seem forced. One wonders whether any animal would attack a lit camp of almost a hundred people – unless, of course, it thought it could kill them all – but another explanation whispers to us. 

Some fantastic chiaroscuro occurs in a cemetery that will remind you of Stonehenge with fog that assumes the shape of claws and teeth, as well as some odd looks between Ms. Conliffe and Sir John and between Sir John and his faithful manservant Singh (Art Malik). These moments serve pure atmosphere and the atmosphere is most evil at every corner and bend of The Wolfman, even when the requisite Scotland Yard investigator (a glowering Hugo Weaving) gets involved. Weaving plays Inspector Abeline, whom Lawrence rightly identifies as having been part of the investigation of this mysterious figure. Abeline smirkingly addresses Lawrence with the platitudes always directed towards screen stars even if he doubts he is talking to a sane man. “There are no natural predators left in England,” he tells the American, “who could inflict such savage injury,” but the natural has long abandoned Lawrence’s terrible daydreams. Towards the film’s middle, Abeline takes us on a very different route that some claim pads the script with an unwarranted derailing. Yet it is this very premise which lands Lawrence back in the asylum to which he was consigned for one year following his mother’s death that makes the most sense. The double-talk and psychobabble that ensue (and that are given cameos throughout the film) are eradicated in a fantastic scene resulting in a few glorious minutes of unadulterated havoc before the film succumbs to the necessities of the plot. Not that there isn’t time for a medallion and a curse or two.    

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* Note: this scene appears to have been cut from the theatrical version, but included on the DVD.

The Departed

I gave you the wrong address. But you showed up at the right one.

Successful, enduring criminals – be they of the pocketbook or the heart – must be able to do one thing well, and that thing is lie. They must live under the guise of law-abiding normalcy and profess no knowledge of underworld happenings; yet for them to move up (or down) within this realm, they will have to know how to double-cross, triple-cross, and endure an endless series of betrayals just to emerge victorious. We will need a word far stronger than Pyrrhic to caption such winners' accomplishments, who don't seem nearly as happy as they should be. That is likely because they know full well the ways of the gun, which have replaced the ways of the sword without overmuch changing the outcome. A brief introduction to this much-acclaimed film.

We begin with an unmistakable voice, for our immediate purposes inhabiting the body of Francis "Frank" Costello (Jack Nicholson). At this point in his career it seems unreasonable to expect Nicholson, who rightfully owns one of cinema's most enduring reputations, to do a role that might disparage his off-screen persona. Thus even without hearing the racist platitudes he utters strolling through the noonday Boston shadows, we know what his philosophy "a man makes his own way" really means. This suspicion is reinforced in a measured early scene in which he stands very still behind sunglasses, his voice slithering from his lips. People at a family diner react to his presence, and their first impression is fear. The second, especially after a lascivious remark directed at the owner's teenage daughter, is disgust; but their third impression is perhaps unforeseeable. As he dismisses the girl from her cashier duties, Costello whispers something in her ear that induces a genuine, coquettish smile; later comments suggest that this type of banter comes to him with enviable ease. So when he turns his attention to a ten-year-old boy by the name of Colin Sullivan, we might expect the mesmerizing of a true prodigy – but this is precisely what does not occur. Costello's life (we begin to get flashbacks of his methods) is neither appealing nor safe; that he is about to turn seventy is a testimony to both his sadistic ruthlessness and a long and passionate affair with Lady Luck. And as Colin, who pleases Costello by unhesitatingly identifying the phrase non serviam with this author, replies that he does indeed do well in school, our gangster finds that they have something in common. "That's called a paradox," Costello quips, talking about himself. But what he is actually saying is that given some of the alternatives in South Boston, a microcosm of life's struggles to an Irish immigrant, organized crime is simply what people do who think the Church, the State, and every authority in between do not really abide by another Latin phrase, Deus est Deus pauperum.

Is it all about money? Well, insanity aside, there is no other explanation. Consider when a grown-up Sullivan (Matt Damon) graduates from the academy for Massachusetts State Troopers, still completely under Costello's patronage (that Costello, a publicly-known mobster, drives up to the ceremony grounds is either audacity or a glitch in the plot), and moves into an apartment that will make him "upper class on Tuesday." If his "co-signer" is who we think it is why does he want to draw attention to himself? Is there nothing more suspicious than a cop who lives in a luxurious home? These and many other, admittedly minor points in The Departed are left unaddressed, mostly just to maintain the plot's pleasantly frenetic pacing. As Sullivan is set to be Costello's inside man, we meet a moody, somewhat delicate fellow by the name of William "Bill" Costigan Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio). While Sullivan seems like he could have come from decent, hard-working folk, Costigan's pedigree is decidedly felonious: his uncle was a high-ranking criminal, as was, we are told, most of his family, and Bill spent weekends in thug-infested Southie. In fact, the only males in his family who did not have a connection to organized crime were Bill and William Sr., whom everyone labeled an underachiever because he worked baggage carts at the airport. Much later in the film, a rather dubious source insinuates that even William Sr. had criminal tendencies, although "he would never accept money" – and whatever that means may depend on what you would do for a bit of coin. With his high SAT scores, gentle manner, and pretty boy looks, Costigan doesn't strike one as a typical cop – even if he has attended and excelled at the same academy that graduated Sullivan. And for that reason, among others, is he a near-perfect candidate to infiltrate Costello's gang. 

Counterpoised moles are hardly a novelty and, indeed, The Departed is itself a remake of one of Hong Kong's most successful cinematic ventures. I cannot say I plan to see Infernal Affairs – one of the greatest movie titles of all time – because most of its pleasures will likely already have been filched by Scorsese and his exquisite cast (a scene with Chinese gangsters, a tip of the hat to the original, is perhaps the film's least necessary, merely allowing Costello to indulge in more ethnic slurs). After the identity-switching motif starts feeling at once contrived and too devoid of genuine suspense, one character makes a brilliant leap in logic by entertaining a second character’s advice then reversing it. The utter genius of this tactic is undermined by the fact that it seems to bear fruit that very day, but such is the expediency of the plot. This monumentally fateful decision triggers a slow climax that shines at so many moments it is hard to count them all. The best may be when one mole calls the other, and neither one says a word, both of them fully aware that the person on the line is either the spy each has long sought or a dead man (and, in a way, he is both). Another occurs at a funeral, when we see one character approaching from very far off and know she will not look at much less stop for Sullivan, who issues perhaps the film’s most piteous single line. Yet the film will be remembered not for its moments of silence but for its barbs, most of which are not printable without expunction. Costello gets some of the finest repartees (the quote that ends “With me, it tends to be the other guy” must rank as the absolute best), as does a bilious bully of a cop called Sean Dignam (Mark Wahlberg), who has some choice words about everyone, including federal agents. It is when, however, a dead man turns up that we thought could not possibly be a policeman, but is declared as such by the evening news, that we start to wonder about another scene which suddenly makes much more sense – including the unforgettable line that begins this review.

I have never cared terribly much for this famous trilogy. Yes, Coppola’s works are beautifully, almost tenderly, produced; but the romanticizing of the Mafioso lifestyle belies the ugly truth of its daily business. That is why The Departed and, in a very different way, this brutal masterpiece, are more powerful statements on America’s most revered bandits (this work, also by Scorsese, while at times even-handed, likewise drifts too far down lover’s lane). Although The Departed is very much a character study, the details do not allow us to forget we are dealing with a grim environment (this is, in other words, not a French film). Surveillance and technology sustain shocking failures, fistfights break out regularly over trifles, and, as is usually the case among men who beat heads for a living and those who seek to arrest those men, an endless litany of filth drips from everyone's mouth. The vitriol is pervasive and nasty, but verbal violence, talking the talk, especially in this age of political correctness, is the first rite of the outlaw. The only person somewhat immune to this disease is police psychiatrist Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga), the lone female with more than two minutes of screen time and/or four lines of dialogue. Apart from the teenager in the opening scene and a few pro forma 'policewomen' who do nothing more than smile shyly, Madden is the only female who isn't a corpse, nun, hooker, or secretary – the four age-old misogynist categories subscribed to by imbecile men. At least we can report that something will happen to Madden that is wholly predictable, and something else that is dramatically incorrect yet laudable, specifically because it so defies expectations. And does the rest not defy expectations? I think a rat can always see it coming.