DEFIANCE

Written by Clayton Frohman and Edward Zwick
Directed by Edward Zwick
Starring Daniel Craig, Live Schreiber and Jamie Bell


Viktor Panchenko: But Jews do not fight.
Tuvia Bielski: These Jews do.

DEFIANCE opens with what felt to me like an unintentional act of its own defiance. Black and white footage made to look archival, graces the screen in a harrowing montage. There are the screams of children being pulled away from their parents; there are the images of Nazis senselessly putting guns to the backs of people’s heads and pulling the triggers. There is even a score driven by the violin work of Joshua Bell that sounds an awful lot like the one in that Spielberg movie with the girl in the red coat. Director, Edward Zwick’s message is clear. He doesn’t want to talk about the holocaust. Why should he? We all already know the story there. In case we don’t, he is sure to throw in a few facts up on screen between the quick and horrible imagery. The holocaust is not the story he wants to tell. However, reducing the holocaust to a montage so that the audience is brought up to speed is such an offensive trivialization of a mind-blowing tragedy that it is a miracle that DEFIANCE ever manages to recover from its first few moments.


The story that Zwick is in such a rush to get to is actually well worth telling, just not worth the steps he took to get there. Daniel Craig, Live Schreiber and Jamie Bell are the Bielski brothers. The SS has killed their parents and most other siblings and they have sought refuge in a nearby forest. Before long, they run into a number of other people who have found themselves in the same situation. The numbers grow into a community and even though they barely have shelter to keep themselves warm through the winter and rarely get to eat more than a bowl of potato soup, they have something far more valuable; they have their freedom. As DEFIANCE is quite pleased to boast, the Bielski’s beautiful acts and the thousands of lives that were saved by these acts are the untold holocaust story. Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t told all that genuinely. Instead, Zwick, along with co-writer, Clayton Frohman, chooses to highlight conventional devices like brotherly alpha male conflicts instead of focusing on the gripping reality around them.


Like Zwick’s last offering, BLOOD DIAMOND, DEFIANCE is set in a dire situation to make the conventional plot points seem that much more horrific. It is the kind of movie that makes me wish it would have been better than it was as the story itself is quite moving. Somewhere in the middle of the lengthy stay in the forest, DEFIANCE finally finds its footing and allows the true bravery of the Bielski’s to shine. I only wish Zwick’s sense of satisfaction in being the first to show the Jews taking a stand and fighting back didn’t taint the whole thing. Oh, and I think someone should tell him that Spielberg beat him to that punch too.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Written by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade
Directed by Marc Forster
Starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright and Judi Dench


M: Bond, if you could avoid killing every possible lead, it would be deeply appreciated.”

When we last left James Bond (Daniel Craig), he had just found out that the first woman he ever gave his heart to had betrayed him. You do not get James Bond to feel something and then walk all over that newfound vulnerability. You just don’t do that and, if you knew how hard it was for this particular brand of man to get there to begin with, you couldn’t do it with any good conscious. When we last left James Bond, he also reinvigorated a franchise that wasn’t in any actual serious danger of disappearing. Impressive, yes, but that is what James Bond does after all; he impresses with every fiber of his perfectly sculpted being. The trouble is there is only so high you can get and Craig’s first outing as Bond, CASINO ROYALE, was not just impressive, it made me a believer in a character that has meant very little to me over the decades. So where does the first Bond sequel, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, go from there? Not very much further it seems. Apparently, the best hands were played in the last game.


I don’t mean to make it sound horrible; it’s just disappointing. QUANTUM OF SOLACE lacks the boundless, unexpected energy of CASINO ROYALE. This isn’t for lack of trying. The action starts to move before you even have a chance to get comfortable with a high-speed car chase through the scenic Italian seaside. Then the action continues through underground tunnels, massive crowds, across rooftops, down scaffolding and through panes of glass while fighting in mid air and hanging from ropes. I didn’t say it lacked in actual action. It’s just that this particular action isn’t as exciting or original as what we’ve already seen. Sure a boat chase that plays out like bumper cars in the water – with guns! – is exhilarating but it isn’t as bracing as a two-man chase through a construction site, leading up to a fist fight 200 feet in the air on a narrow crane. Instead, every scenario Bond finds himself in seems facile and there is never any real question as to how it will play out. The caliber of stunt is much more Jason Bourne than James Bond. At one point, I half expected Matt Damon to show up running alongside him on the rooftops of Port au Prince.

While the action is still gripping, if somewhat less original, it is the story that is most thin in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Oscar winner, Paul Haggis, had to turn his script in before the writer’s strike began last year to make sure that production would not be delayed. The result is rushed, expectedly. Themes like trust, truth and vengeance are tossed around as concepts but never solidified as concrete dilemmas in the characters’ lives. And while one doesn’t necessarily go to a James Bond film for depth, one does expect a certain complexity to the plot. In what is the shortest Bond film ever made, Bond’s motivation is restricted to tracking down a mysterious terrorist group called Quantum. He must find out who and where they are and their eco-terrorist plot seems secondary to that. Bond must also contend with another vengeful force, Camille (a gorgeous and commanding, Olga Kurylenko), who is out to avenge her family. Could it be that she has come in to Bond’s life to show him the reality of holding on to a need for revenge for so many years? Probably but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on him at the end of the day.


I have a love/hate relationship with director, Marc Forster (love FINDING NEVERLAND and STRANGER THAN FICTION, hate STAY and THE KITE RUNNER) and was certainly skeptical when I heard he was coming on to direct this 22nd Bond film. He had never done any film this size and this explosive in his career but there are teams of people around on big budget pics like this to make sure that all the action comes off as it should. Forster was brought on for his storytelling abilities. This is fine logic but there is barely any story to tell here and he can’t be faulted for having little to work with any more than the screenwriters can be faulted for having to get something in before going on strike. QUANTUM OF SOLACE certainly falls closer to the love side of my relationship with Forster than the hate side but more time needs to be taken with the next Bond – give Craig the time to do what he did first time out and show us the man behind the wheel of the Aston Martin. You can’t just grab whatever you have behind the bar and slap a martini together in no time, expecting Bond to drink it. He would simply send it back and demand you make it again.

DVD Review: CASINO ROYALE

Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis
Directed by Martin Campbell
Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelson, Jeffrey Wright and Judi Dench


M: I knew it was too early to promote you.
James Bond: Well, I understand double 0’s have a very short life expectancy so your mistake will be short-lived.

Nothing I am about to say will be news to the legions of existing Bond fans around the world. For the rest of you Bond neophytes, of which I also consider myself a member, it may interest you to know that CASINO ROYALE, the 2006 official relaunch of the decades-old franchise, had been made already twice before. The first incarnation, made before the franchise was unleashed, was a live CBS television production. It was later made in 1967 as a spy spoof starring Peter Sellers. This meant that Bond creator, Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel had truly never been made the way it was intended for a theatrical audience. For years, the rights to the script were buried beneath so much paperwork that it was a miracle the lawyers were able to free it up to be made in 2006. At this point, the Bond series was at a financial high point but there was concern the icon had staled some. Clearly, Bond wasn’t going away but something needed to be done. The decision was a risky one. The decision was to start at the beginning and introduce the world to a new Bond for a new day. The risk paid off.


CASINO ROYALE is an introduction to a new Bond and to a new man behind the tux, Daniel Craig. Fanatics were skeptical; after all, the man is blond and has clear, blue eyes. Craig brings a ruggedness and real grit to Bond like we have not seen before. Craig’s Bond is still smooth and confident but he is also vulnerable and capable of feeling something. Craig is also hyper sexualized as Bond. The way he wears his pants, the way he walks out of the ocean, water dripping down his perfect chest – these kinds of images have always been reserved for the infamous Bond girls. While the ladies are still lovely, Bond now has something for everyone. The men will still want to be him – order the same martini, drive the same Aston Martin – and the women will still swoon over him, only now, Bond earns it. This franchise dates back to the 60’s but it only now seems to have figured out how to broaden its appeal to universal levels.


On the eve of the first Bond sequel in history, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, CASINO ROYALE has been re-released as a special edition on DVD and Blu-Ray. This edition is a much more complete package, containing over a dozen special features, when the original edition only contained four. For such an intensely action packed film though, the features rarely reach the same heights of excitement. First off, and I can’t solely hold the people behind this release responsible for this, but marketing people need to stop naming features randomly without detailing what it actually is. To find the behind the scenes on this film, I had to randomly select features and wait to see what they would hold. What they did hold was quite a bit of understated explanation about legal rights and Bond throughout history and unfortunately, not enough about how director, Martin Campbell, managed some of the most energetic action sequences in recent history. It may make for fascinating material for hardcore Bond followers but it gets tedious for those of us specifically interested in this particular film.


I may have expected the unbridled vigor of the film to translate more to the features and commentary but CASINO ROYALE has enough wallop on its own to make up for any disappointment. It is no small feat to invigorate a decades old franchise and to make an excellent film that just happens to be a Bond film is equally impressive, if not more so. Bond may have never left but it feels like he just arrived.

FILM


BD

THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Written and Directed by Chris Weitz


Lyra: What’s this?
First High Councilor: It’s the Golden Compass, Lyra. I feel you’re meant to have it.
Lyra: But what’s it for?

Young Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) lives in a world where witches wage war and giant polar bears are warriors. The people she walks amongst walk alongside their daemon spirits, which are essentially each person’s soul manifest in physical and animal form. The ruling power of this world is called the Magisterium and they seek more to control rather than govern. Everything in the world began at one time with dust but now dust and the supposed answers it holds for a better future are not to be mentioned in public settings. This is a world divided between free will, the individual powers held within the soul and a looming force that threatens to eliminate the infinite possibilities these privileges provide. Unbeknownst to her, Lyra is the central figure in the inevitable clash that lies ahead and her power can be found in her ability to read the world’s single remaining alethiometer, otherwise known as THE GOLDEN COMPASS. When held by this little girl, the alethiometer will reveal the answers to the questions that have yet to be answered. Lyra’s world is beautifully painted and richly textured but why we need to be there to see it never becomes clear in this icy, hollow attempt to become the next must-see fantasy trilogy.


Writer/Director Chris Weitz originally backed out on directing this project. He felt the grandiose special effects driven blockbuster was out of his directorial league. Having only directed a couple of smaller comedies (ABOUT A BOY and an uncredited second director on AMERICAN PIE), I can understand why he would be overwhelmed by the task of adapting Philip Pullman’s first book in the “Dark Material” series. I’m not clear on why he decided to come back on though because his lack of confidence in his own capabilities as well as the competency of his audience is omnipresent throughout the film and leaves THE GOLDEN COMPASS on rather thin ice. Once the first ten minutes of narration have given us all the information we will need to understand our surroundings (see the first paragraph of this review), the subsequent scenes seem to run in a very specific order. One scene will explain what we are about to see, the next will show us what has just been described and the one that follows will clarify whatever we might have missed. If Weitz does not feel his magical world to be believable, how can we be expected to?


Urgency is also lacking in THE GOLDEN COMPASS. We know because we are told that Lyra, according to the prophecies of the witches, is the one person with the ability to read the alethiometer. We also know that, again because we are told, that a great war is coming. Lyra’s special talent will be pivotal to a positive outcome in this battle. The battle itself has something to do with free will, dust and control. What we are not told is exactly how these things tie back to Lyra. Without knowing what all this fighting is truly for (which may be missing as the novel’s religious implications and criticisms have been removed almost entirely as to not alienate any viewers that may have been offended by these subjects). Still, we know that no good can come if anything is to happen to Lyra so there is never any actual fear or concern that she is in any real danger. Young newcomer, Richards, is charismatic and fun enough to win over your sympathy and caring as Lyra, but this is not enough in Weitz’s world. No, here, escape from each perilous situation she finds herself in is certain and thus the film is devoid of suspense and often disappointingly predictable.


THE GOLDEN COMPASS is much more along the same vein as the Harry Potter movies or the Narnia franchise than a successor to the thrown where the Lord of the Rings trilogy sits quite comfortably. Peter Jackson drew millions into the plight of a few hobbits by allowing their journey and its importance to speak for itself and by making correlations between that world and ours. Weitz has no control over the vast ground he has to cover. He’s got polar bears, daemons and witches to think about; he’s got to build a story when the original intended theme is not allowed to be mentioned overtly; he’s got legions of fans to please while simultaneously appeasing the demands of the Hollywood executives that sign his checks. It’s as if Hollywood is the contemporary Magisterium and Weitz is little Lyra. Hollywood wants to control everything and make sure that certain elements remain unmentioned and Weitz holds the key to a strong future. Only Weitz hasn’t learned how to read his golden compass and what he leaves us with is an obvious play for fantasy gold that will likely please very few.

THE INVASION

Written by Dave Kajganich
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel


Yorish: A veneer of civility hides our own self-interest. That is the nature of our world, yes?

When you live in a world where violence is the answer to so many conflicts and misunderstandings, manifesting itself as war or hate crimes or road rage, it is easy to see aggression as an instinctual human behaviour. We don’t like to acknowledge it as such but we certainly can’t pretend it isn’t there. In response, we humans do what we can to keep these impulses under control. Some of us meditate; some of us medicate. We strive to be better people and better people don’t give in to their anger. In Oliver Hirschbiegel’s THE INVASION (a remake of the 1956 classic, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), a unique opportunity is given to humanity. You are first infected with an alien genetic code. Then, when you fall into REM sleep, your genetic code is reprogrammed. You wake up feeling refreshed and like yourself, with all your memories and knowledge in tact. There is just one tiny difference. There is no more hate. Only humanity rejects this opportunity despite all their previous efforts to accomplish exactly this. While this conundrum might make THE INVASION insightful, it certainly doesn’t make it necessary. After all, the original already made that point over fifty years ago.


I suppose the rational was to bring attention to all that we have in place today to help numb our senses. THE INVASION is determined to assert itself as a timely film while distancing itself from its B-movie roots. In the original, the alien epidemic makes its way to neighboring towns with farmers making their deliveries. Flash forward to 2007 and the disease is traveling the globe through contaminated e-bay purchases. Granted, times are more complicated than they used to be. Nicole Kidman’s Carol Bennell text messages her son, Oliver (Jackson Bond), to remind him to take his anti-anxiety medication before bed while he stays with his father for the first time after his parents’ divorce. Between all that, the portable video games and seemingly endless hours of television watching, there are plenty of ways to numb the senses. Perhaps Hirschbiegel wanted to modernize BODY SNATCHERS into a contemporary thriller to shake people up, to show that we all need a good smack in the face to wake ourselves from our trances. After all, if Carol Bennell is fighting her hardest to hold on to the spirit inside of her, why have we allowed our modern world, read aliens, to dull our potential? To make that point though, THE INVASION would have to actually be thrilling.


Aside from a few unexpected scares, THE INVASION is pretty low on chills. In fact, it often feels as though the film is having its own crisis of identity, bouncing back between a polished, intellectual suspense piece and an explosive, effects-heavy action flick. This might have something to do with the number of hands involved in the production. Hirshbiegel’s original cut was said to be tepid and drawn out. The producers, who had already sunk a lot of money into the film, called in bigger boys to tweak it here and there into something with a bit more pulse. The Wachowski Brothers (THE MATRIX) were brought in for rewrites and James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA) was hired to shoot new footage. Without seeing Hirschbiegel’s original product, it’s impossible to say for certain whether they helped or hurt the final version but THE INVASION’s visual aesthetic is probably the strongest thing it has going. Slick picture and sharp edits that play with time and space add a much-needed edge to a story that has been dulled by an air of self-importance. The final cut is well paced and smooth but the film’s salvation was clearly more important than creating meaning in humanity saving itself.


It’s funny when you think about. THE INVASION warns us of what might lie ahead if we continue to allow our modern conveniences to run and control our lives. If we would just think less about everything, than it wouldn’t bother us so much but the sacrifice is human development and progress. Yet, in order to actually enjoy THE INVASION, one has to do exactly that – stop fighting, shut off and allow the reprogramming to happen.

MUNICH

Written by Tony Kushner & Eric Roth
Directed by Steven Spielberg

Writer's Note: This first paragraph talks about the final scene of the film. I do not discuss anything that will ruin the ending for you but you have been warned.

It is a gray day. Avner (Eric Bana) meets with his former employer from the Israeli government in a park in Brooklyn, New York. He has nearly lost his mind to paranoia, always wondering when someone will end the hunt and finally find him. During his unofficial employment with the Mossad, Avner headed a team of five men whose mission was to track down the members of Palestinian terrorist group, Black September. This group was behind the tragedy at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany, where 11 Israeli athletes were murdered after being held hostage. It has become abundantly clear that he can and likely will suffer the same fate as the men on his hit list and he needs reassurance that he can at the very least trust the people of his homeland, the people that trusted this mission to him in the first place. His former liaison, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), dismisses his concerns, allowing Avner a moment to breathe. Ephraim then declines Avner’s invitation to break bread and two large buildings in the background of the frame catch your eye while Avner stands still and puzzled. These two buildings are the twin towers destroyed on September 11, 2001 in what has been described as one of the most devastating terrorist attacks ever to take place on American soil. This moment, I apologize, comes at the very end of the film and stretches the issue of justification past the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, finding Spielberg asking his audience if there is ever any true resolution to any ongoing violent conflict between nations or between peoples.

Spielberg’s film interpretation is not specifically about the Munich killings but more so about what came afterwards, while always paying mind to what came before and led up to the event. In telling this story, he is walking a fine line trying not to offend while remaining authentic. I don’t doubt Spielberg’s genuine interest in remaining objective here. In fact, it was imperative he do so to successfully force his audience to question the usage of violence as a means to resolve conflict. Had he shown the Jewish retaliators as nothing more than a beaten people unquestionably right in their quest for revenge, than he would have created nothing more than a sympathy inducing manipulation. Of course there is something of a sympathetic element for these assassins who see themselves as soldiers but that’s inevitable as their people were undeniably wronged in Munich at the hands of murderers. Only these five men are not your typical soldiers. They’re toy-makers, antiques dealers, expecting fathers. They are regular men with one common dedication among them, Israel. Their convictions can only take them so far as when it comes time to actually pull the trigger or detonate the bomb, the awareness that they are about to take someone’s life becomes a painful curse they hadn’t realized their beliefs might not be able to carry them through. The lack of experience as well as the naïve approach become visible as Avner corners the first name on the list. He fumbles as he pulls his gun from his pants and almost lowers it while the condemned begs for his life. Is this really going to help change the future for the better? No. However, the alternative is to take the Munich injustice sitting down.

MUNICH is not just a moral conflict story about the nature of right and wrong despite watching heroes become detached from the brutality of their lives. It is also an energetic thriller. Spielberg has delivered so many solid, enjoyable popcorn movies in the past and here he brings his knowledge and applies it to the tragic underbelly of humanity. The unofficial Mossad kill team are natural underdogs because of their small, humble lives and not because they’re Jewish. They travel from one European city to the next, gathering information on the locations of the names on their list and carrying out their duty to kill these men. Spielberg brings so much humanity to these hunts. Innocent bystanders’ lives are often threatened or ended and even the men they are meant to kill have families and fragility. The heroes also make small, potentially disastrous errors on their missions. This all leads to the paranoia and confusion over whether they’re making these mistakes or are outsiders setting them up to make them. In some, the paranoia leads to guilt while in others, the guilt leads to insanity. And as if the viewer weren’t in enough despair already, Spielberg doesn’t show the Munich massacre at the beginning of the film to charge the audience behind the Israelis. Instead he reveals the developing details at different intervals throughout the film to remind the viewer how this particular mission began. And as we are wrapped up in the intrigue and morality of this mission, these violent flashbacks serve also as reminders to the team of a reality they had long left behind out of necessity.

Of course the Israel/Palestine conflict did not begin with the Munich Olympics killings. And Spielberg does not tell the story of the mindset behind the men who carried out that mission. If he did though, I would imagine there would be just as much torment in the minds of those killers as the killers who are this film’s heroes. MUNICH does not pass judgment on nations but on mankind, asking us to find the better way. As the Israel/Palestine conflict is not over, nor the numerous other needlessly violent world conflicts, and though MUNICH takes a rather violent approach to advocate peace, it still makes a powerful and intelligent argument for immediate change.