Control yourself, man...

Jim Jarmusch’s new film The Limits of Control is an adulterated director’s film and, subsequently, a curate’s egg. But, by God, it’s a beautiful egg. One wonders, in fact, how the hell the movie would have turned out if the director of photography wasn’t the acclaimed Christopher Doyle.

The film is as tricksy and meandering as anything Jarmusch has ever done. Isaach De Bankolé plays the otherwise unnamed ‘Lone Man’, a walking enigma on a mission in modern-day Spain. It’s not clear what his mission is, or what exactly his meetings (in various locations, including Madrid, Seville, on a train and in the countryside) actually mean. The attendees are invariably starry, such as Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal, all in various stages of ‘kookiness’. A typical rendezvous consists of swapping matchboxes, which tend to contain small notes inscribed with hand written messages. All messages are written in a mysterious code, made up of letters, numbers and symbols. During the journey he is tempted by sex, guns and mobile phones, but refuses all, in order to complete his job. His only indulgence is his repeated visits to an art gallery. It’s all very mysterious.

So mysterious, that for a pretty bulky film (it runs at a shade under two hours), there’s not a lot in it. There are repetitions, inversions, echoes and motifs which stretch across its length (much-repeated phrases and actions, the unfathomable use of the same incidental music numerous times). Its episodic narrative is akin to something from a Kakfa novel (where nothing is explicitly explained, it just happens, with these off-kilter ‘happenings’ straddling the line between the wry and the uncomfortable). The star names appear for only a couple of minutes each. Tilda Swinton probably makes the biggest impression, not least because of her unusual attire and character’s rather vocal penchant for old films.

And due to all this self-consciousness and repetition, it’s a slow, difficult watch. Even Jarmusch’s most ardent fans will probably find longeurs. The pill is considerably sweetened by the cinematography, which is crisp, colourful and precise. There’s some lovely images throughout, edited together beautifully. The use of cutting between objects and places featuring opposing geometric images is fun and playful; and also akin to something from an Eisenstein movie. This is one of the points where the lack of character development or a traditional narrative works wonders; the film’s intrinsic bagginess allows extended moments of this visual riffing. That said, the movie is still far too long.

That just leaves the question of what the film is actually about. Is it just an exercise in style and form? Or is the journey metaphor in the film (it begins in an airport, involves lots of waiting and ends with a trip in a car) of any significance? Certainly, the film begins with a philosophical quotation and continues in a chin-stroking vein, with much cod-intellectualizing throughout. Unfortunately Jarmusch’s wry crown does slip several times, and the movie falters and stalls into juvenile, ‘far-out’ existential discussions. All this leads you to wander indeed what, if anything, he is trying to say and, to some extent, what the point of it is.

The Limits of Control is a cool, glacial film full of intrigue and visual beauty. Ultimately it’s too detached and self-conscious to be anything else than an interesting experiment, and it’s certainly not a piece that stands up to Jarmusch’s best work.

Strike the pose

In the news last week: Tate Modern’s new exhibition, Pop Life: Art in a Material World, has run into trouble over one of the items on display: a nude photograph of Brooke Shields. Veteran Gary Gross took the picture when Shields was ten years old, and the work is presented as the basis of a room by Richard Prince. It is the first time Prince’s room has been displayed in the UK. And although the Tate insists they consulted with lawyers before deciding on the piece, the gallery has now decided to close the room, prompted by a visit from the Metropolitan police.

Naturally, this raises all kinds of questions involving censorship, decency and legality, but a more specific question is the treatment of the image in the confines of the exhibition. How we see something is at least partly decided by its context.

On the surface, and judging by its title, Pop Life: Art in a Material World is an exhibition concerned with the relationship between art and commerce in a society post-mechanical reproduction. We have Warhol wallpaper, a Keith Harring shop, Takashi Murakami as polymath pop-art producer.

However, really, the show is about both extremity and exploitation. There is exploitation of the artist as a self-made brand (Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Harring), the artist exploiting the boundary between personal and private (Tracey Emin, Andrea Arnold) or the artist crawling along the borderline of taste (the Prince piece, or the photos of actors portraying Nazis). It’s about audacity and pushing boundaries, as well as being about the triumph of money over taste, and about the recycling of images for different means. The product is not as important as the image it projects. It’s the idea that matters, that sells.

In another exhibition, Prince’s work might be placed asuch so it would be judged on aesthetic value. Would this make much of a difference? In this exhibition it appears as an example of the treatment of celebrity, of how an artist treats, how he recycles, a pre-existing image. Is this its only merit as an artwork? Does this count it as cheap, shocking? Possibly not, if the image is strong and effective enough.

Ultimately, it’s one of those lines of questioning that is more important than any answers that will be delivered (which will almost probably be less than definitive). It asks how far it is acceptable to go. You can say all you want about censorship, taste and the law, but what is most interesting is that we are still discussing this issue in what is, according to the exhibition, a world where anything (be it Koon's erection, Emin's troubling childhood or images of actors as Nazis) can be bought, sold, changed, used and exploited.

Camerana

There have been many pretenders to the throne, but in District 9, director Neill Blomkamp becomes the new James Cameron.

Along with Lucas and Spielberg, Cameron led the blockbuster vanguard in the eighties, producing both highly commercial and highly individual films. The writer/director wedded trashy boys’ stories (aliens, robots, sea monsters and spies) to forward-thinking themes that just enhanced his brash, entertaining chutzpah style (the strong female leads of Aliens and Terminator 2, the threat of nuclear war in The Terminator, through to the technological sea exploration of Titanic and The Abyss).

Although this highbrow-meets-lowbrow style influence can still be felt by fanboy directors such as the Wachowskis (The Matrix movies: CGI versus Eastern mysticism) and J.J Abrams (Lost: an island adventure versus existentialism), nobody has seemed to create this same unpretentious, tongue in cheek work since Cameron. Lost’s engimatic schtick has grown tired quite quickly, with Abrams turning to work on remakes and sequels, whilst the Wachowski’s have failed to live up to their promise.

In District 9, an alien spaceship comes to stand above ‘80s Johannesburg. After disembarking, the aliens are reluctantly herded into the segregated ‘District 9’. Cut to the modern day, and District 9 is a hotbed of corruption and crime, complete with gang culture and inter-species prostitution. The government decide to turf the aliens out and start again, in ‘District 10’. Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is in charge of this operation, however when down in the district, he gets infected by a mysterious fluid, and begins to transform into one of the aliens.

District 9 is a film made by someone steeped in a certain tradition; it’s as dedicated to it as Cameron was dedicated to his pulp fiction (the robots, sea monsters etc), his b-movies (he did, after all, start his career on the set of Piranha 2) and his love of the spectacular ‘70s disaster movies which helped inform the overblown set pieces of later efforts Titanic and True Lies. District 9 is clearly filmed by someone who grew up watching James Cameron movies, and other classic sci-fi of the late ‘70s and ‘80s. There are many of these reference points; there is David Cronenberg-like body horror as Wikus begins his transformation (most specifically, The Fly), a cutesy alien child (E.T.) and the examination of the relationship between humans and aliens (V., Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

It only falters when Blomkamp strays from this; as a successor to Cloverfield (its most stylistically similar contemporary). The film begins in faux-documentary style-- talking heads, direct addresses to the audience, emphasis on following its subjects around-- however, as soon as the action starts this approach is abandoned. Although this means proceeds are more audience friendly than Cloverfield, which at times induced motion sickness, the consequence is that the tone is inconsistent, albeit uncluttered.

Thankfully, like a Cameron film on speed, the material is rich in compensation. Commentators have already commented on the Apartheid similarities, such as segregation and forced removals. If anything, Apartheid is used as a jumping-off point; although images from the alien ghetto are reminiscent of this, District 9 equally brings to mind the early days of the Holocaust and the escalating pogroms of the Jewish ghetto. There are clear parallels between the human experimentation on the aliens to that of Joseph Mengeles.

Ultimately, the film is concerned with human selfishness and defensiveness, something typified by the central character. Throughout, Wikius makes self-serving decisions that backfire or fail. There’s a crucial one in the second half, in which his self-serving thought process is astounding. Yet these decisions are entirely in keeping with this defensive, suspicious society that denies these aliens equal rights.

District 9 also possesses plenty of offbeat humour, similar to Cameron’s back catalogue. There are some gung-ho (yet also quite blackly comic) laughs from exploding aliens; humour that could have come out of Aliens. However, there are also more uncomfortable laughs present; the central character’s bumbling, awkward incompetence produces Gervais-like cringe comic moments. Uncomfortable or not, all of this humour goes with deflating an otherwise potentially portentous atmosphere.

The uncomfortable nature is one of the differences from a Cameron film. The movie presents quite a misanthropic vision, and, in this way, another contrast to JC. In Cameron’s world, evil comes from an Icarus complex; Titanic sinks because it is too ambitious a project, and the machines take over in the Terminator films because people have created too much too soon. In Blomkamp’s world it comes from people themselves; the aliens seem to be the (mostly) innocent party.

However, as with JC’s The Terminator, Blomkamp has given us a low-budget spectacle which is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Funny, scary, sad, original, exciting and spectacular: who needs Avatar?

Laid Bare

When I think of Werner Herzog, I think of his gas mask wearing, blues-listening maniac father role in the film Julien Donkey-Boy. Whatever you think of Harmony Korine’s day-glo nightmare of a movie, the casting of Herzog was inspired. Werner is inherently idiosyncratic, a singularly demented force of nature, and left-field weirdo cinema would be much less fun without him.

It’s hard to think of someone who would make Grizzly Man with the same degree of empathy as this guy. The documentary follows bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. Another singular character, Treadwell regularly travelled to Alaska to observe grizzly bears. He films his every interaction with the beasts. In the last few years of his life, he made trips with his girlfriend Amie. They both got killed in October 2003 there, by one of the more unruly of the animals he was following.

The key to the movie is the way Herzog approaches his material. He does not condescend his subject, or raises an eyebrow in bemusement at Tim’s audacious tracking and interactions of his curiousity. Herzog plays it straight, acting as an only occasional narrator and interviewer, barely appearing on the camera (we only see the back of his head, his back and his arms). Subsequentally, the few direct character judgements come from the people who knew Treadwell, in disarmingly frank interviews. Herzog sifts through Treadwell’s self-shot footage and probes the man’s nearest and dearest, but he also believes a man has got to do what he has got to do.

The director also seems to identify with Treadwell as a filmmaker. It’s clear that Treadwell has a complex relationship with the camera; it’s hard to say how much is performed persona for the camera. This is a question which underscores most documentaries, but is brought to the fore here. The backbone of the movie is composed of this filming; Treadwell on Treadwell; the man in his own words. Throughout, not only do we ask ourselves why he, Treadwell, is shooting the footage (is it, as Herzog suggests ‘a tool to get his message across’, or is it one giant home move? There is some pretty bald, confessional material here) but why we are watching proceedings. Are we waiting for footage of the mauling?

Naturally it’s not just Herzog behind the film; it helps that Treadwell filmed interactions with the bears. It is footage that speaks for itself. There are several uncomfortably close encounters shown from the outset. It’s heart-in-your-mouth stuff. There is one scene of bears fighting which is time-stopping, and rivals the output of the BBC’s Bristol nature unit. There’s also some affecting, unusual film of the man’s relationship with tame foxes. Everything is awash with tragedy, not only because we know that Treadwell eventually succumbs to the wildness of his bears, but because his girlfriend is also a victim, and because this guy is clearly desperate and deeply damaged.

As the film enters its second half; the apparency that this man’s tragedy was there from the start really begins to hurt. Treadwell's troubled past is gradually revealed; as suspected, his independence is portrayed as borne out of darkness, pain and sadness, of weakness, rather than strength. As we learn more about him, the continuing footage displayed, gains extra effect with every new piece of information. The film is cemented as something beyond a curiosity; it has real, excoriating resonance.

Herzog’s central characters are usually on the edge of society, dancing with madness, and strongly independent. Indeed, he is currently touting his re-imagining of Abel Ferara’s Bad Lieutenant around the festival circuit. But it’s with Grizzly Bear he has gained the most attention, the most plaudits and the most awards. It’s an extraordinary film; a combination of two unique, extraordinary individuals. It’s frightening, fascinating and deeply sad. It’s pretty fucking different.

Baldwin

America has many showbiz families; everything from the Jackson family and the Copollas to, erm, the Arquettes, and somewhere in the purgatory of the respectability rankings are the Baldwins. At the forefront of this great family is the oldest acting brother, Alec. He’s had his highs (The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross) and lows (Thomas and the Magic Railroad). But he’s always been interesting. Recently, he’s had a slew of notable roles starting from the excellent, William H. Macy testicle-exposing gambling flick The Cooler, in 2002, continuing through to the Aviator and The Departed.

And now Mr B has moved to the telly. 30 Rock is a critic’s favourite in the States, but it’s not a widely viewed one. The US audience figures rate it in the bottom half of the prime time figures, despite garnering multiple, record-breaking Emmy nominations.

In it, he plays TV network executive Jack Donaghy. He’s a largely suave, deadpan and smug figure, who manages to bundle his control-freakery and surprising insecurity in a thick layer of power and sophistication. Like The Office’s boss-from-hell David Brent, he thinks he is funnier than he is (in one episode he sits in, and starts controlling a writer’s meeting), and he is hopelessly inept with personal relationships (in another episode he sets his lead writer Liz Lemon up on a date with a lesbian, hopelessly second guessing her sexuality inaccurately).

It’s an interesting, and initially a baffling, choice for Baldwin. Perhaps it’s because the sitcom is a bit of a grower, as on the surface, and on first viewing, it does seem a little bland. It’s less than heady mixture of token black character, neurotic women and a benign gay isn’t some strange brew that’s going to shake the sitcom map up much. Its observations and intelligence pale into comparison to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the sadly axed Aaron Sorkin drama, which ploughed the same behind-the –scenes-on-TV field. However, it’s the one-liners, the performances, the snappiness and the warmth of 30 Rock which add up to something which is more than the sum of its parts.

However, it’s something that is a completely astute career move. Baldwin has shown us he can do all kinds of movies, from action (The Edge, The Hunt for Red October) to comedy (State and Main), hip indie (The Royal Tenenbaums) to utter bilge (The Adventures of Pluto Nash). Now he’s going to show us he can mellow out, develop a character and not need limelight (he’s credited last in the credits; ‘…and Alec Baldwin’).

In it, Baldwin is controlled, insidiously threatening and screamingly funny. He has screamingly hot sexual chemistry with Fey. And he’s not falling into TV because his career is on its last legs; he’s moving into TV because he wants to. He came from there; he is embracing his roots. He steals scenes from the already wonderful Tina Fey. He is great. He is The Baldwin.

Dear Cinders...

‘You haven’t seen Cinderella?’ My colleague almost choked on her decaffeinated tea. ‘I’ll bring it in’.

And so she did, along with Sleeping Beauty. I smuggled the DVDs into my bag, under a copy of a T.C. Boyle novel and my sandwich box. When home, I took my pizza out of the oven, poured myself some fizzy and broke out the duvet.


I sat down to the strains of the familiar saccharine strings that open every Disney film before 1960, questioning why I chose this over going to see the latest Almodovar movie. The fantastical story, the bright colours, the ‘hilariously’ named mannish stepsisters (Anastasia and…Drizella?). In fact, it could almost be an Almodovar movie.

But within minutes, I had succumbed to The Disney Effect. Who cares that the vast majority of the film has got very little to do with either the Grimm Brothers’ original tale, or the sanitised version I grew up with? There’s a distinct lack of toe hacking butter knives, for starters. I certainly didn’t give a spit when I was presented with the distinctly Tom and Jerry-alike moggy, mouse and hound hinjinx that dominate the first half of the movie.

I booed—to myself, silently (I do live in a shared flat, after all) – when the evil stepmother (thinking herself so resplendent in her castle which was truly crumbling as much as her aged face) orders Cinders to go on a cleaning frenzy after becoming the victim of a step sister’s rage. I cheered when Cinderella’s animal friends fashion her a simple, elegant dress. And cheered even more, when the Fairy Godmother turns up and her magics her up a new one.

It’s a typical Disney movie; singing animals, songs with nonsensical words (bippety boppity boo?), a central female character with an unfeasibly cheery disposition, an evil crone and, of course, a happy ending. Think Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland and, to some extent, Mary Poppins, and you’re there. And I was singing along.

Although the subplot involving the ageing, nervous prince is a little irritating (although it does make narrative sense, providing thematic parallels with the main story arc), the fact that the glass slipper fitting story point makes very little sense, and, despite being Germanic in origin, parades the American Dream as wantonly as a plot can in a fairy tale, Cinderella is truly a delightful confection of a movie. Now, altogether now, ‘bippety boppidy boo!’

Banksy in Bristol

I stood for four and three quarter hours to get into the wretched Banksy show today, all the way convincing myself it would be worth it, that it was the cultural event of the year because it was an outstanding achievement. Periodically, I gave passers by doleful looks, just in case they didn’t see the metaphorical cross on my back as represented by my perma-scowl and my increasingly pronounced limp, caused by flowering foot cramps and torrid misanthropy after hearing the inane droning of others in the queue.

The queue didn’t stop at the museum’s entrance. We filed past some garishly painted portaloos, made up to look like Stonehenge. The first photo opportunity. I waited, patiently, as every person in front of me fucked their photo up a few times, due to a trickling of punters exiting the show, past this first, and last, piece of art.

We shuffled a little more, finally entering the museum proper, past a trashed ice-cream van, complete with real-life security guard inside. People, however, had caught a glimpse of the selection of statues scattered around the entrance hall. And decided to take photos of these instead. They smiled in front of the camera, the shutter clicked, and their morose expressions took their faces back over.

We entered a room stuffed with Banksy paintings. I could see most of these becoming t-shirts pretty soon. Some self-serving audio was being played somewhere; miscellaneous guff concerning Banksy as grafitti artist and public menace. I remember reading something about that a few years ago.

We were advised not to take flash photography. So many people packed the galleries, most of whom were flagrantly disobeying this advice, the gallery minions had stopped enforcing the policy. I was forced to look longer at some of the art, getting increasingly bored of it, as I waited for a line of people in front of every picture, fuck their photos up a few times (thanks to people being less considerate, walking across the frame).

By the staircase, were animatronics, some of which were previously displayed in New York, in cages. The swimming fish sticks had seemed to stop swimming. I felt as processed, taken advantage of and tired as the chicken, now in chicken nugget form, feasting on its water bowls, full of BBQ sauce. Instead of the mother hen looking over me, I could feel Banksy’s stare from somewhere. I remembered the stencilled message on the side of the museum ‘This is not a queuing opportunity’ and swear I could hear laughing from somewhere.

Things were quieter upstairs, except for the odd family charging through the galleries, past the Renoir, the George Stubbs the Beryl Cooks trying to find the ‘hidden’ Banksy exhibits.

Ultimately, I was only in there for an hour. Bansky has become part of the establishment. He needs to go beyond these visual equivalents of sound bites, which look so attractive on t-shirts, warranting perhaps a ten-second glance in a gallery, and create something which would deserve more scrutiny, and less attention.