I watched the following films about five to six weeks ago now and never got a chance to write about them. At this point, I forget the minutia of each film and any serious review I write will be terrible, so I thought I’d give very condensed thoughts on each.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Director: Guillermo del Toro) – B. This is a good film with very nice make-up and costuming. The storyline gets muddled at points, and I really have no idea what its ending was supposed to signify. Roger Ebert recently (to my surprise) added this to his “Great Movies” pantheon, and since he knows what he’s talking about more than I do, I suppose I have to recommend it.
8 ½ (1963, Director: Federico Fellini) – A-. 8 ½ is an amazing picture. Its main character, Marcello Mastroianni, is absolutely brilliant as a director struggling with “director’s block” while trying to work on a new picture. This has been called the best movie about being a director in the history of the cinema, but that would be pigeonholing a film that is nearly impossible to classify. There are so many shades and nuances to the main character that he remains an enigma even when he’s telling the truth, and Fellini does an incredible job of “bouncing” the ensemble cast off of him and using each one to push another of Mastroianni’s buttons. Though I did love the film, a small part of me couldn’t help but think that my liking was enhanced a bit by all of the glowing reviews I had read about it beforehand, and thus the A-.
I told you that would be brief! Now let’s move on to the full reviews.
Fail-Safe (1964)
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Principle Actors: Walter Matthau, Henry Fonda, Larry Hagman, Frank Overton
Fail-Safe is a movie that perfectly resembles and reflects the coldness and inhumanity of nuclear war. It shows us, by using a perfectly plausible scenario, how reliance on machines to perform our duties and make our decisions can easily backfire and throw humanity into chaos. It also attacks man’s propensity towards paranoia, greed, and dominance, and how these emotions dilute what is truly important. It’s a dark and scary film, well acted and well directed.
The film takes place in bunkers, cockpits and dimly lit boardrooms. We begin with General Bogan (Frank Overton) showing off America’s newest defense system to a couple of domestic diplomats; every threat in the world is shown on a giant screen with the help of satellites and cameras. The system is meant to monitor Russian activity in case of a potential strike on American targets. A possible attack registers in the system, and American bombers scramble to their designated positions.
The threat turns out to be a jet airliner flying at a low altitude, but malfunctions cause one of the bomber squadrons to set off on an attack mission to Moscow. The remainder of the film follows Bogan and others deliberating what to do, how to stop the bombers, and trying to shoulder the pressure of the potentially catastrophic world event.
Henry Fonda is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors. Here, he portrays the President of the United States, a role he handled so well that several actually called for him to run for the office after this movie was released. Fonda is perfect as the president. He’s stern and forceful, but he’s compassionate and he understands the tremendous stress that General Bogan and the others are under. He is flanked at all times by his Russian interpreter, a young Larry Hagman (who would go on to great success as Dallas’ “J.R.”). Hagman becomes the voice of the Russian premier, and some of the best scenes in the film are of Hagman and Fonda both huddled around the same telephone, trying to save the world from destruction. Hagman’s attempt at keeping his cool conflict with both his own nervousness and the shocked disbelief of the Russian premier, the man whom he is interpreting.
There is no real life in Fail-Safe. Everything is dark and gray. All of the action is performed on giant, inhuman screens and in the minds of the participants. This works especially well; the screen looks like an Atari game on which the fate of the world rests. The men fixate, relying on a computer graphic to tell them what’s going to happen with their planet.
Lumet indicts our (at the time) never ending worry about Russia and our ensuing reliance on machines and technology to fight our wars for us. The whole situation is brought about by a hardware malfunction in the first place, and the human obedience to machines and their directives remains uncompromised until it’s far too late. Fonda attempts to reach the lead bomber pilot by phone, and the pilot refuses to listen, having been taught that the Russians have the capability to emulate the President’s voice. Later, he ignores the hysterical pleas of his own wife in order to carry out his ill-received objectives. Fonda and the Russian premier both understand that they have ignored the human aspect of war; in the race to one-up each other technologically, they’ve both ensured the world’s destruction.
The ending of Fail-Safe is haunting. Fonda makes a decision I hope no president ever has to make in real life. The way he finds out that he has to make this decision is more haunting than the decision itself. A truly fine film.
A-
Rescue Dawn (2006)
Dir: Werner Herzog
Principle Actors: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies
In my review of Werner Herzog’s The White Diamond, I wrote a bit of how much adoration and respect I have for his work. Werner Herzog’s films are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and each film of his I haven’t seen before is like an event for me. Though Rescue Dawn was released after I became a Herzog aficionado, I didn’t make it to the theater to see it. I was quite curious to see how Herzog worked with a big-time actor in a relatively mainstream picture.
Because Herzog directed Rescue Dawn, I may have unfairly held it to a higher standard than I would if someone like McG directed it. Herzog’s films have such a unique style that it was a bit of a surprise, and perhaps a disappointment, to see a rather straightforward movie from him, regardless of the subject matter.
Rescue Dawn is a movie with two distinct halves. The first half involves the crash landing and capture of American pilot Dieter Dengler (Bale), shot down over Laotian land during the Vietnam War. Dengler is transferred by his original captors to a small POW camp somewhere in the jungles of Laos that houses five other prisoners. The rest of the “first half” of the film follows Dengler’s developing friendships with the other captives and their attempts to devise an escape plan together.
We get nice performances from the captives. Jeremy Davies plays Gene, a prisoner of 2 ½ years who has convinced himself of the delusion that the Americans are coming to rescue them any day now. He’s so sure of this that he’s willing to compromise any escape plan Dengler and the others come up with. Steve Zahn plays Duane, who quickly becomes Dieter’s best friend in the camp. Zahn walks with a weary shuffle but glares with wild eyes; his attempt at maintaining hope for escape and anger at the enemy despite his growing physical handicaps. Zahn is a bit out of place here, but the material doesn’t require him to do all that much and he handles the role nicely.
A major problem with Rescue Dawn is the Laotian captors. They aren’t menacing and they aren’t believable as a real threat to the prisoners. Dengler is put through some minor torture (getting his head dunked into water, being tied to the ground in the town square), but he and the prisoners never seem like they’re in imminent danger. The prisoners have nicknames for the captors, and one is a midget named Jumbo who sneaks extra rice and toothpaste to them when the other guards aren’t looking. Compare this to The Deer Hunter, which drops us into one of the most frightening POW scenes in cinema history. The Deer Hunter was instantly effective due to the frightfulness of the enemy and the danger posed to the main characters. The cartoon character guards in Rescue Dawn served to lessen Dieter’s ordeal, rather than enhance it.
The “second half” of the film involves the escape of the prisoners and their trek through the jungle in search of rescue. I don’t think there’s a better director at filming in the jungle than Herzog, and he handles these scenes perfectly. Dieter and Duane end up on their own, and their friendship and struggles with an unfamiliar terrain and impossible odds is incredibly effective. Herzog shows the jungle as an even more formidable enemy than the Viet Cong, and their attempts to survive despite both are truly captivating.
Though Rescue Dawn doesn’t represent “classic Herzog”, it’s a great experience with strong performances and a tremendous second half and ending. Recommended.
B
John Lacey
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