THE ROAD

Written by Joe Penhall
Directed by John Hillcoat
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and Kodi Smit-McPhee


Man: I think it’s October but I can’t be sure.

We all walk it. At times, we might think we know where it’s headed but we would be lying to ourselves if we said we knew that with utter certainty. The fact is that the world outside your window is constantly changing and one day, it may not even be there. It is the manner in which you handle that fact that defines a significant part of who you are. You could not bother with any of it seeing as how it is all essentially meaningless anyway. On the other hand, you could see the time before you as precious and infuse it with everything you have in order to create your own meaning in this great, big world. There is no right or wrong way to do it but your shot is now and you’re walking down that road whether you want to or not. Do yourself a favour though and see John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic reflection on the human spirit, THE ROAD, while you’re out there.


Just as it is in the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy that the film is based upon, there is no confirmation as to what halted life as we knew it. It could have been a nuclear disaster or a solar explosion but how it happened hardly matters. What does matter is what is done after it happens. Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron are a seemingly happy couple before and tragically divided after. All he can see is how fortunate they are for having survived and how they must persevere given this particular fortune. All she can see is how everything worth living for before is now gone. Caught between them is the young boy (fresh face, Kodi Smit-McPhee) that was conceived before and born after the world ended. There isn’t much plot to speak of, just a journey to find hope in the form of food or comfort or warmth and security. Luckily, Mortensen leads with a strong command and a determined sense of purpose that both impresses and inspires a similar determination in the viewer.


The road for the movie itself was a lengthy one. THE ROAD was due to be released last fall but the studio felt that the marketplace was crowded and that the film could benefit from a stronger post-production period. I can’t say how the film stood up a year ago but it certainly stands up straight and tall now. Cinematographer, Javier Aguirresarobe (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, NEW MOON) paints bleakness with so many shades of gray that the absence of colour becomes a colour all unto itself. Of course the canvas he has to fill is inspired by an incredibly detailed and realistic production design. This is a world covered in ash and littered with abandoned vehicles and discarded belongings. Barren trees crash to the ground without warning and empty basements might be filled with much sought after canned food or people simply wasting away and waiting to be eaten by other people. It isn’t an easy world but it is still the only one they've got.


You know what they say, right? It isn’t at all about the destination. As Mortensen and Smit-McPhee make their way south, they teeter back and forth between belief and defeat. They don’t know what’s waiting for them; they just know they have to keep heading there. Just like the road underneath your own feet, THE ROAD is not an easy experience. It is however one of unconventional beauty that is rich with meaning and that leads to a place of deeper understanding. You just have to walk it.

APPALOOSA

Written by Robert Knott and Ed Harris
Directed by Ed Harris
Starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons


Virgil Cole: That’s the law.
Randall Bragg: That’s your law.
Virgil Cole: Same thing.

Before an image even appears on screen, you can hear the galloping of horses. Their slow stride announces the tone for the hours to follow and within the first five minutes, you know you’re in for a long ride. A slow and steady pace can work easily, especially for the western genre. Only there is a difference between a leisurely gait and dragging your feet. Ed Harris’s second directorial effort and first time out at the writer’s table, APPALOOSA, is a modern western stuck in a conventional frame that tries so hard to be authentic that it ends up coming across as farcical. As Harris and sidekick, Viggo Mortensen, swagger down the dirt roads of their busted down town, they say things like, “Watch you don’t spook the horses,” or, “while the bees are in the butter.” All the while, you’ll shiftin’ in your spurs, waiting for the men folk to ride off into the sunset so you can mosey on outta there.


Harris and Mortensen plays Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. They are the law, or at least they are their own brand of the law, and they’ve come to the town of Appaloosa to rid it of an evil tyranny otherwise known as Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons). Bragg basically has his way with the town and has no respect for the current law while Cole has his way with the town under the guise that he is the law. It is Cole’s job to take down Bragg and bring him to justice. He does just that with very little trouble or excitement and he must then accompany the prisoner to a neighboring town so that he may be executed for murdering Appaloosa’s former sheriff. Of course, the journey doesn’t go smoothly and of course there is an inevitable shoot out. In between all that, there is a lot of talking. Long conversations about nothing particularly relevant go on incessantly and finish long after the fields have been plowed (or in other words, the point has been made). Every turn is expected making every moment as flat as the western plains of New Mexico.


Enter Renee Zellweger as Allison French. Her character is just as lame as her name and her purpose is unbearably offensive. She appears out of nowhere, descending from a train car, dressed in a costume that borders on circus clown, and her arrival announces the obvious intention of ensuring that female viewers have someone to identify with (and not just Mortensen to stare at). Recently widowed, Miss French is clearly in the market for a new man. Cole wants to fill that hole. Miss French knows a good catch when she sees one and before what seems like just a week has passed, they are buying up property and she is nagging him that he never brings his friends round for dinner. She is woman as temptress; she is woman as bothersome and controlling; she is woman as distressed damsel; and she is woman as devil that should never be trusted. Perhaps Harris and co-writer, Robert Knott, thought they were being authentic to the period but all they come across as is misogynistic.


APPALOOSA is at times laughably melodramatic. It is so staged and so awkwardly paced that it often feels like amateur theatre. A central theme of men facing difficulties with having feelings, let alone expressing them, runs throughout. If only the men behind the camera had infused some actual feeling into the film, it might then have felt as though there were a purpose greater than just an excuse for the cast to get dressed up like cowboys and play with their guns.

EASTERN PROMISES

Written by Steven Knight
Directed by David Cronenberg


Nikolai: Nice bike. How much do you want for it?
Anna: It has sentimental value.
Nikolai: Sentimental value … I’ve heard of that.

When it comes to films made by veteran Canadian director, David Cronenberg, certain promises are expected to be kept. The name promises something dark and twisted, something gruesome and haunting, something disturbing and seductive. Cronenberg’s latest, EASTERN PROMISES, certainly makes good on all these accounts and solidifies his new, more linear but no less disconcerting approach to filmmaking. Gone are the days of surreal experiments where fetishists get off on colliding cars and the ensuing scars or twin gynecologists playing patients for patsies. Now is the time for the Russian mafia in London to be given a human touch. No, now Mr. Cronenberg is not so concerned with being bizarre as he is with being blunt. As with his last masterpiece, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, Cronenberg has made PROMISES into a straightforward story and morality tale, much to the dismay of film students everywhere. Fear not though, students. Accessibility does not make Cronenberg irrelevant. If anything, it means that brilliantly polished stories about the underbelly of humanity can be told without any unnecessary sentiment, allowing for them to be both provocative and bloody as all hell.


It rains just as much in Cronenberg’s London as it does in the real London. The rain ushers in the heavy yet steady hand of this director, whose work always seems to be weighed down by a looming sense of despair and discomfort. Still, though the viewer is pulled into a world where cutting the tips off of fingers and slitting throats is just as normal as a well-balanced breakfast, nothing is so simple as good and evil as absolutes. Like the sky the rain is falling from, everyone is surrounded by an ambiguous grey. Naomi Watts plays a mid-wife named Anna. On one tragic evening, Anna helps to bring a baby into the world at the expense of the very young, heroine-addicted mother’s life. She does not want to see the child fall into the system as the girl cannot be identified to find her next of kin so she makes it her mission to find the girl’s family before this can happen. It may all seem noble but her saintly act also serves to appease the pain she has felt since the miscarriage of her own child months before. She couldn’t save her baby but she can certainly try to help this one. Her search leads her directly to the door of the Russian mafia and this is where she meets Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). At the moment, Nikolai is just the driver but he’s got hopes to one day be part of the real family. He would be perfect for the job as he is calculated and cold when he needs to be but then again not so as he also takes the time to encourage the slave sex-worker he’s just been with to find a better life. People are complicated; Cronenberg knows this and this is what gives EASTERN PROMISES its depth.


Though regular Cronenberg cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky, guides EASTERN PROMISES with a tranquil glide that sets the pace as both unnerving and engrossing, it is Mortensens’s performance as an aspiring mafioso with a nagging sense of compassion that is most memorable and moving. His face is harsh and guarded behind his dark sunglasses and beneath his slicked back, immaculately placed hair lies a mystery that is being heavily protected. His presence is daunting as he steps from a black town car, dressed to match, from his shoes to his gloves. He is naturally imposing and his icy composure and unflinching dedication to his superiors make him frightening without really trying. He is not so much trying to intimidate others into submission though but rather to keep them away. Yet there is something about him that inspires those around him to see a reason to trust him. Perhaps it is his reliability or perhaps it is just that you know once you meet him that you would rather have him on your side than on the other. Mortensen, working with Cronenberg for the second time after his tortured performance in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, is transformed and nearly unrecognizable as Nikolai. And while his character is extremely guarded, he still manages to find himself in a very naked position before the film’s end, in what is a shocking and exhilarating fight sequence that finds Cronenberg, as God, going after Nikolai when he is at his most vulnerable. Proving himself to be a vengeful God, Cronenberg punishes his character for allowing himself to relax for three seconds to appreciate his success.


The fight sequence is already being heralded as one for the books that will be talked about for years to come. I have a feeling we will be hearing just as much talk about Mortensen’s performance, Steven Knight’s script and Cronenberg’s direction come awards season. After setting the groundwork with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (which I actually do prefer over EASTERN PROMISES just because it left me with more on my mind), the mainstream film community seems finally ready to reward one of its veteran contributors. If you’re going to sell out, I can’t imagine a better way to do it.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Written by Josh Olson
Directed by David Cronenberg

To decipher and comprehend the nature of anything in the present, one must have a solid understanding of the past history leading up to the present moment. With “A History of Violence,” Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg explores whether one man can escape a violent past to maintain a simple yet meaningful present while ultimately avoiding history repeating itself through future family generations.

Viggo Mortensen plays Tom Stall, the owner of a local diner in a small town. His life is simple and fulfilling. He starts each day around the dinner table with his beautiful wife, Edie (Maria Bello), infant daughter (Heidi Hayes) and mild-mannered teenage son, Jack (Ashton Holmes). The stall family is functional, happy, balanced. It is both comforting and reassuring to see such a pleasant family where everything isn’t perfect but the effort is being made and the commitment is strong. Everyone does their part, from Jack feeding the dog to Tom sitting up with his daughter after a nightmare to Edie dressing up like a cheerleader to roleplay with her husband. This family seems aware of how fortunate they are to have each other and to live in the town of Millbrook, where people stop to say hello on the street as they walk past, where people aren’t faceless.

Cronenberg takes his time with this setup, allowing us to become drawn in to this comfortable place. Of course, we have the knowledge that something bad is on its way from before the film started which builds tension as we wait. It also makes the fall so much further as there is much at stake for the Stall’s. On one insignificant day, Tom fights back with precision and intensity against two men that hold up his diner and threaten his patrons. Tom’s act of extreme bravery garners him national media attention and subsequently leads some gentlemen, of the disturbing and frightening nature, to the town of Millbrook and his diner counter. Led by Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris), these men accuse Tom of being someone he claims not to be which in turn forces him to face who he used to be, who he has become and how to integrate both of these sides of himself.

Tom’s use of violence is shown as a means to defend one’s self as well as to intimidate at times. This dichotomy debates whether violence is the only solution to violence. In the case of the diner incident, there is a threat of pain and death, forcing desperation and preservation to become the controlling factor. There is no question that Tom did the right thing by protecting himself and his patrons but the nature and reality of the violence is still difficult to stomach for those who witnessed it. To further show a pattern of history and legacy being passed on, Jack takes from his father’s example, consequently blurring the lines when he fights back against a bully in school who accuses him of weakness. Violent tendencies in youth are more primal as they supposedly don’t know any better or don’t have a complete understanding of their emotions forcing them to act out instinctually. To have violence as a natural reaction, as in the case of the unsubstantiated bullying, confirms it as a means to mask a greater fear. To have Jack fight back asserts his power and self-worth but could easily lead to an unhealthy reliance. Like his father, Jack could end up having to walk away from a life where violence is a normal part of that life. But like his father, will he ever truly be able to leave it? Violence can show up anywhere and creep back in at any time.

“A History of Violence” is haunting and disturbing. It is a quiet film that moves at the pace one would expect in a town like Millbrook and when the violence unravels itself on screen, it is quick and sudden. It is cold, senseless and gory and it will both shock and jar you. The unsettling carnage lingers in silence and so will you.