Atom Egoyan's latest film is a fractured and timely parable commenting on everything from terrorism, racism and religious intolerance, to education, an unchecked internet, and the exploitation of suffering. A lot to be sure, and maybe too much, because for me, the result is a film that works well as a tightly crafted dissertation, but one without the emotional heart and sense of reality to keep it from feeling like anything but a well constructed technical exercise.
The film begins with Simon, a teenage boy orphaned years before, being asked by his teacher to translate a newspaper article about a terrorist tricking his pregnant wife into boarding an aeroplane with a bomb in her luggage. Simon, with the help of his teacher convinces the rest of his class, and then the wider world that this is in fact remarkably similar to the story of his own parents. From the classroom, the story ripples out across the internet where Simon holds court in webcam chats with strangers, drawn to his story for their own myriad reasons. Gradually the truth of Simon's parents' life and death emerges and questions about which characters are manipulating which comes to the fore.
I personally found aspects of Adoration to be fascinating; From traditional news media using Wikipedia as a research tool, to Lonelygirl on YouTube being unmasked as an actor, there is a genuine concern with the reliability of information on the internet and this film taps right into it. Ideas of internet celebrity and unreliable blogging are tied into wider concerns about terrorism, post-9/11 paranoia and a more general sense of emotional distance - The characters that sit and listen to Simon are everything from racists, looking to go on a diatribe with a modicum of anonymity, to lost souls, desperately using Simon's story to fill an emotional hole in their own lives.
While such themes gave me a lot to think about, my patience with the film dwindled as it went on; As the narrative threads are drawn together a little too neatly to be believable, too often I felt like the characters were more like chess pieces being moved around to serve a function, rather than felling like real people. You could argue that this misses the point, that Adoration is more of an allegory than a traditional narrative, but for me Egoyan's earlier Exotica was a much more successful blending of character driven story and intelletual discussion than this.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
London Film Festival: Frost/Nixon
Telling the true story of TV presenter and sometime journalist, David Frost's attempt and subsequent success at getting the only television interview with disgraced former US President, Richard Nixon, Ron Howard has directed a thinking man's Rocky, a politically charged, but never polemic thriller that is in love with the idea that simply pointing a camera at someone can reach into their soul and reveal their true person.
Like Howard's earlier Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, is a film in which the outcome is already known - Apollo 13 makes it back safe and sound; Nixon apologises to the American people on TV - yet throughout remains thoroughly engaging, and at times edge of the seat exciting. Frost and his small team comprised of a pair of political outcasts and a television producer, are portrayed as the underdogs, granted an interview with Nixon because not only are they paying the most money, but because Nixon's team feel they can control the message. Michael Sheen's Frost is a charismatic playboy, wheeling and dealing and charming his way to success, not necessarily with the ability to make good on his promises; The question of whether he's in it for the ratings and his own fame, or as his team hope, to get a definitive character assassination of Nixon on tape, for everyone in the world to see is asked throughout the film.
Frank Langella's Nixon is a man of even greater depth; You can see in his eyes the constant scheming, thinking and outwitting. He is written and played as a man haunted by his past, lonely and isolated, consumed by self loathing and hatred, and undeniably human. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the film is just how empathetic one feels towards him; The film makers have managed to cut through thirty years worth of political anger and looked upon him as a person with failings like any one of us, yet never let us forget that his position meant those failings brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the loss of trust in the American political system for generations.
While both lead actors mimic some of the physical and oral mannerisms of their real life counterparts, these are both genuine performances, not mere impressions. The film portrays them as verbal boxers, sparring throughout the film, building to a final act showdown (which is even prefixed by a Rocky-esque training montage with books being hit instead of frozen meat) that is as tense and exhilarating as any car chase or gunfight. Indeed, this is a film that moves infinitely more briskly and with more vitality than Howard's plodding adaptatation of The Da Vinci Code and points at a director reinvigorated or at least returning to the form he's managed previously.
The essence of the film is that the camera can lay a person bare for all to see, that it can offer redemption and condemnation in equal measure. Frost/Nixon's script, direction and performances manage to capture this perfectly.
Like Howard's earlier Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, is a film in which the outcome is already known - Apollo 13 makes it back safe and sound; Nixon apologises to the American people on TV - yet throughout remains thoroughly engaging, and at times edge of the seat exciting. Frost and his small team comprised of a pair of political outcasts and a television producer, are portrayed as the underdogs, granted an interview with Nixon because not only are they paying the most money, but because Nixon's team feel they can control the message. Michael Sheen's Frost is a charismatic playboy, wheeling and dealing and charming his way to success, not necessarily with the ability to make good on his promises; The question of whether he's in it for the ratings and his own fame, or as his team hope, to get a definitive character assassination of Nixon on tape, for everyone in the world to see is asked throughout the film.
Frank Langella's Nixon is a man of even greater depth; You can see in his eyes the constant scheming, thinking and outwitting. He is written and played as a man haunted by his past, lonely and isolated, consumed by self loathing and hatred, and undeniably human. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the film is just how empathetic one feels towards him; The film makers have managed to cut through thirty years worth of political anger and looked upon him as a person with failings like any one of us, yet never let us forget that his position meant those failings brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the loss of trust in the American political system for generations.
While both lead actors mimic some of the physical and oral mannerisms of their real life counterparts, these are both genuine performances, not mere impressions. The film portrays them as verbal boxers, sparring throughout the film, building to a final act showdown (which is even prefixed by a Rocky-esque training montage with books being hit instead of frozen meat) that is as tense and exhilarating as any car chase or gunfight. Indeed, this is a film that moves infinitely more briskly and with more vitality than Howard's plodding adaptatation of The Da Vinci Code and points at a director reinvigorated or at least returning to the form he's managed previously.
The essence of the film is that the camera can lay a person bare for all to see, that it can offer redemption and condemnation in equal measure. Frost/Nixon's script, direction and performances manage to capture this perfectly.
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