Postmodern Idiosyncrasies

Picture the scene: A casting call has gone out for actors and extras, the main criteria being their ability to perform prolonged death throes and a willingness to wear squibs. At least, I’m assuming that there was a call for extras, because surely no single country could possibly have as many stuntmen as The Raid must have needed… I went to see the film under protest, because whilst I don’t particularly enjoy brutal violence, and because I have little to no interest in seeing The Dictator, I know someone who does enjoy the former and was willing to pay to avoid the latter. So, whilst it was no surprise that film was fairly relentless in its use of bone-crunching violence and gouts of gore, none of it was done with the voyeuristic glee or sadism that I might have been expecting. By the measure of the times it’s almost tame, and used the juxtaposition of its fast-paced fight scenes to those few quieter ones to add a note of pathos to the violence which was being presented as more than strict survivalist struggle, those fights which had a particular meaning within the narrative.

Not that these more restrained aesthetics stopped me from wincing the night away and looking down when something surprising or explicitly graphic seemed likely, but it did mean that watching The Raid felt a little bit less prurient or psychotically detached than some films of a broadly similar ilk. It falls to a few genre stereotypes nonetheless; the film perpetuates the tired cliché of violence as something balletic, something with an intrinsic style and beauty, which is an idea belied by literally every act of genuine violence in history and any competitive marital arts you might care to watch. In addition it undersells the physical cost of any injury, short of death or maiming, by having some of the characters suffer the kind of abuse that would probably leave them in intensive care for a prolonged period of time and instead makes them stagger for a few minutes. There’s also that convention by which everyone you encounter seems to have trained in some form of unarmed combat, Pencak Silat in this case, for at least a few years… An understandable necessity perhaps, but still faintly absurd when the entire workforce of a meth lab suddenly begin to fight with an ease and aplomb Bruce Lee would have had to have given his sincere approval.

It’s not surprising, given that the action and martial-arts movie genres seldom have much more to recommend them than these particular indulgences, but that ring of absurdity is actually fairly pervasive. The tension ramped up by the enclosed setting of a single block of flats and the fits and starts of horrifically plausible violence go out of the window somewhat when, for instance, someone bashes an opponent’s head against the wall fourteen or fifteen times in a matter of seconds. At which instance, and similar, I laughed, though I felt certain that the laugh wasn’t intended by writer/director Gareth Evans and wasn’t approved by my own moral compass. In its cinematography and choreography The Raid is stylised and accomplished, frenetic without sacrificing clarity except on those occasions which demand it, and extremely well cast. The story’s paper-thin, but the acting manages to take the backstory from mere suggestion to something that feels like it’s there and motivating everyone involved. Impressive and viscerally horrendous in perilously equally measures, the only thing I can say for sure is that The Raid is probably the best cinematic Welsh/Indonesian collaboration I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying… something?

Posted in Review Stuff
Tags: Aria Prayogi, Celluloid Nightmares, Donny Alamsyah, Fajar Yuskemal, Gareth Evans, Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Joseph Trapanese, Matt Flannery, Mike Shinoda, Pierre Gruno, Ray Sahetapy, Tegar Setrya, The Raid, The Raid: Redemption, Yayan Ruhian

BACIGALUPO

(BAH-CHI-GUH-LOU-PO)

RINGS A BELL

BY THOM DICOMIDIS

Bacigalupo wakes up late

his alarm-bird didn’t take its bait

So he skips breakfast, skips the shower

but then his Whirly’s out of power

Desperate now, he fires a flare

and moments later a Cantone is there

The driver looks slightly askew

but steers the Cantone straight and true

which is fine, up to the bend

and then there comes an abrupt end

But Bacigalupo won’t be stopped

although his day’s already cropped

he swaps an Aviand for a lie

and boldly shoots into the sky

and finally reaches The Fell

where Bacigalupo rings a bell

THE END

Posted in Fictitious Stuff, Poetry Stuff, Children's Stuff
Tags: Poem, Illustrated, Bacigalupo, Bacigalupo Rings A Bell, Alarm-bird, Cantone, Aviand, Whirly, (bah-chi-guh-lou-po), Bacigalupo (bah-chi-guh-lou-po) Rings A Bell, Children’s Stories

“There’s nothing offensively bad in Dark Shadows…” This was my tellingly off-the-cuff review of the film in response to a friend’s casual question. I also caveated this estimation immediately: “except the overt sexualisation of a fifteen year old character played by a similarly aged actor.” If the damnation of faint praise is bad, the damnation of qualified indifference is surely worse?  It was, as fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s shared oeuvre will be glad to hear, very Burton-esque and chock full of Deppisms too. But these elements have passed from being staples of the pair’s work and become tired and overfamiliar. The film sees Johnny Depp playing Tim Burton’s “Johnny Depp character” in a very “Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaborating” Tim Burton film. So, really, you already know whether you want to see Dark Shadows or not.

Posted in Just... Stuff, Review Stuff
Tags: Bella Heathcote, Chloë Grace Moretz, Danny Elfman, Dark Shadows, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Johnny Depp, Jonny Lee Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tim Burton

The metric along which the distinctions between art, erotica and pornography are measured has always been open to a particularly broad reading of its definitions, being as much a matter of personal taste and an indication of one’s social and sexual politics as anything which can be demarcated into rigidly defined categories. Room in Rome, loosely based on the Chilean film En la Cama and the first predominantly English-language film by Spanish director Julio Medem, comes from a cinematic tradition far more physically and sexually unabashed than its mainstream British or American counterparts. Since sex and sexuality are integral parts of the human experience, even if only in their diminution or disavowal, this allows for the idea of a romance which extends beyond the purely romantic and into the carnal, the erotic in all its charged potential, with the characters nakedness as much a concern of feelings as flesh. But whilst the act of entanglement can itself be very expressive it does open up a film to the criticism that it offers merely, for instance, the titillation of a Sapphic tryst… So does Room in Rome work as something akin to art or, in the absence of some deeper meaning of thematic concern which justifies the sex as a necessary component of the narrative, is it nothing more than well-intentioned softcore pornography?

I’d argue, though tentatively and with certain caveats, that it’s the former. By throwing the two characters Alba (Elena Anaya) and Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) together, both of whom are essentially on the run from some unpleasant truth about the state of their everyday lives, Room in Rome can explore ideas of a desperation that would not be so complete were it not shared. When the two meet Alba is looking for a brief respite, one night of sex with someone other than her partner, one night that isn’t tainted by grief, and that the object of her lust professes to be straight merely adds a frisson of challenge to the seduction, effort undercutting the infidelity. If she had taken home a more assured partner there would have been no film, just fucking followed by guilt, but as she and Natasha open up to one another, albeit at first with defensive lies and stories which reveal more than intended, their shared motivations bringing them together. But again, this would merely be a friendship without the sexual component, and Natasha’s shift from fear to ecstasy through wavering passion is integral to that. Her hesitation, and the fact that we see it gradually diminish, is vital, even if the camera is arguably more enamoured of the sex than the substance of any given moment.

So the sex, while necessary, seems focused a little too heavy on exciting the audience’s libidos rather than conveying the story, but there’s more to the film than that. Alba and Natasha’s couplings are interspersed with dialogues, games where they catch each other out and discover more shared experiences. Their depressions complement and foster a connection, until out of the desperate loneliness they share their attraction becomes the seed for something more, an escapist fantasy (on which creatively delusional aspect of depression I’ve written about before). These are emotionally diverse roles which could have easily been subsumed to the erotic, played as unnecessary interludes, but which are handled deftly save an occasional intrusion of melodrama where seriousness overshoots its intended affect (yes, “affect”). The playfulness of the two lovers, who speak to one another in English because it’s a language they share but whisper secret and not-so-secret admissions in Russian and Spanish, is endearing, the build-up to a seemingly inevitable ending full of a heartbreak that the audience are not spared. The sincerity of the film, its obvious aspirations to be something more than merely fodder for prurient interests, and the genuine need to explore the physicality of the characters mean that Room in Rome is a better film than its marketing suggests, a genuinely warm and insightful film.

With sex in it.

Posted in Review Stuff, Essay-Type Stuff
Tags: Loneliness, Depression, Habitación en Roma, Alba, Elena Anaya, Natasha, Natasha Yarovenko, Enrico Lo Verso, Room in Rome, Julio Medem, Julio Rojas, Katherine Fugate, En la Cama, The Art/Porn Divide, Sapphism, Escapism

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN CHANGED ALMOST IN ITS ENTIRELY IN RESPONSE TO SERIES CREATOR & SHOWRUNNER DAN HARMON BEING FIRED VIA PRESS RELEASE.

The previous version of this post was critical of Community in the way that only a despondent fan would choose to be; focused on my ambivalence towards the commissioning of a fourth season given that the third was more inconsistent in quality than its predecessors. But in the shadow of a cowardly piece of politicking by Sony Pictures Television and the light of a three part season finale which was both brilliantly funny and incredibly touching, that critique seemed embarrassingly entitled, seemed unfairly harsh. Whilst these episodes reminded me what I would be missing if the programme had been cancelled, the news of Dan Harmon’s abrupt dismissal firing made me more livid than I would have guessed possible.

I was a huge fan of Community (PROOF!) from the first time I saw it, a smart character comedy which I hyped and proselytised about to friends, friends of friends and the friends of friends who were mainly fans of Friends. I was even glad that the first season and change had already aired; it just meant I could watch all the episodes I’d missed in a glut, gorging myself on twenty minute bursts of exceptional comedy. Soon (too quickly) I was caught up, and so I had to learn patience (tempered with repeat viewings to prevent brutal withdrawal) as I waited eagerly for each new episode, always slightly resentful of any activity or event which meant I might have to wait a few days longer.

Dan Harmon created Community, and fought the studio at every turn in order to deliver a programme as close to his ideal as possible and, given that the only other writer from the first season and two key producers have also departed, can the programme really be anything other that a pale imitation of its former self? To quote part of Dan Harmon’s disproportionately gracious response to the news which he himself heard via the internet reporting on the press release the studio sent out: “I’m not saying you can’t make a good version of Community without me, but I am definitely saying that you can’t make my version of it unless I have the option of saying “it has to be like this or I quit” roughly 8 times a day.”

So what are we, the devoted audience, to do? Do we boycott season four out of principle, or because to watch it seems likely to be as though we are watching the jerking, unnatural movements of a loved one’s revenant? Do we watch and scorn, showing Sony how badly they’ve misstepped by trampling over something we love and a creator we trust? Should we expect the cast and crew to quit en masse and heap opprobrium on any or all who stay on? That last one’s a “no”, obviously; but if someone takes one of your favourite things and smashes it to pieces before handing it back should you be expected to say “thank you”? The audience doesn’t own Community, even Dan Harmon only owns 10% of it, but  just as that 10% is essential the calibre of fans the programme has deserved and attracted (for the most part) has been vital.

We’ve taken up the hashtag sixseasonsandamovie on Twitter, used blogs and Tumblr and every social network and community platform going, and we’ve shared our enjoyment with friends and family and total strangers alike. Community was something we shared in too, but the heart of the show has been torn out in an incredibly callous and calculated fashion in service to a bottom line which cares nothing for creativity, sentiment, or even quality. The new showrunners, without even the meagre contractual protections offered to Dan Harmon, will be bullied into kowtowing, into making the programme the way the studio wants to see it. Except that ideally they don’t want to see it, they just want to sell it, which means bland homogenisation, the death of ideas. It means Community in inexorable decline.

Posted in Essay-Type Stuff, Just... Stuff
Tags: Abed Nadir, Alison Brie, Annie Edison, Ben Chang, Britta Perry, Chevy Chase, Community, Creative Control, Dan Harmon, Danny Pudi, Dean Pelton, Donald Glover, Gillian Jacobs, Jeff Winger, Jim Rash, Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, NBC, Pierce Hawthorn, Ratings, Shirley Bennett, Troy Barnes, Yvette Nicole Brown

The becalmed skies and clement weather felt wrong, not fit for wicked purpose, for the horrible task which had brought them together. Only the moon seemed to fit, waxing and radiant casting its pallid light and leaving pale shadows in its absences. It had been nearly twenty since they had gathered last, the shame of that meeting making the commonplace and incidental occasions where their paths crossed by day guilt-ridden and awkward. These three elders, the village priest, the mayor and the doctor, taking the heredity roles their parents had left them, the heavy responsibilities that they could never bear to speak of. The villagers knew, of course, they were all complicit in lesser ways, less direct ways. But the final decision always fell to the elders.

They had tried to limit the extent of their culpability, had reduced the choice to blind luck, a lottery, but since they had overturned the decision once themselves when the result condemned the Mayor’s daughter, it didn’t help them sleep any easier. Still, they had held off the choice as long as possible, kept Hannah as safe as circumstances allowed, but to no avail. The priest had discovered her three days previously, the pain of her damned existence finally too much to suffer under any longer, hanged from the beams in her room, her ward, her prison. The rope she had used, if you could call it such, was made from the pages of her bible, her only possession, softened in saliva, bundled and twisted until it was strong enough to support her tortured and emaciated form, if only for just long enough.

So the inevitable, the horrendous task they had been diligent in avoiding and that they had faced only twice before, was upon them. They picked the name in silence, a draw whose simplicity belied its importance, and shamefully relieved that it was a loss they could all stand, they carried the terrible news to the girl’s family. Her mother opened the door and began to weep, quietly at first and then in wracking sobs as she felt her daughter’s future collapse into a cycle of endless horrors. Nonetheless, she went upstairs and fetched her daughter down and let the priest rebaptise her, a new name for her new purpose, the mark a martyrdom she might never understand but which would protect her village. She was taken back upstairs to bed, so that the nightmares might begin, and the elders left, heads low and walking away from one another without looking back.

To those who had first made the deal the price had seemed acceptable, a sacrificial offering in exchange for protection from the plague that was ravaging the hamlets and villages around them, the plague which had cut a decaying, necrotic swathe through the town and cities with upon whom their trade depended. One girl, a farmer’s daughter named Hannah who had incurred the then-priest’s wrath over some rebuff, with whom the power which offered them protection could toy and tarry for the rest of her life, could tease out the threads of her sanity until her mind and soul were left in tatters. But then, when she died, driven to take her own life, the plague returned, and the elders were offered a choice. There would always be a girl, a plaything for the darkness to torment, or a vile death would claim them all, and everyone who tried to flee. So the elders chose a girl and called her Hannah thereafter, and when she died they chose another, and as the elders died their children took their places, and then they chose another.

Some parents fled, taking their accursed and haunted children with them as though the distance might spare them, as though evil measured miles and abided borders in the ways mere mortal shells are forced to, as though their departure wouldn’t be punished by the encroachment of an impossible sickness their ancestors had unfairly avoided. Others had, very rarely, exercised a kind of mercy, offering their child whatever lies on the other side of oblivion rather than the pain which Hannah’s life promised. A cruel kind of mercy really, since their daughter’s passing meant that the elders would be forced to reconvene and select another sacrifice to carry the burden of a long-distant sin. To select another Hannah.

Posted in Fictitious Stuff
Tags: Evil, Horror, Martyr, Sacrifice