The Dailies 3/31/11: No One Who Speaks German Could be an Evil Man!

Once (2006) – B

· Directed by John Carney

· Starring Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová

· Awards: Won – Best Original Song

· Once is a charming romance-musical, with main characters Glen Hansard (guitarist and vocalist of real-life Irish rock band the Frames) and Markéta Irglová falling for each other in Dublin, helped in no small part to their mutual love of music. The songs they create undoubtedly mark the high points of Once, and the storyline sometimes feels like a device to simply get us to the next musical number. It’s not the characters or their budding romance we’re attracted to, but the songs that come as a result of their relationship. Once is a pleasant time, but sometimes it feels more like an elongated music video than a real film.

Death Proof (2007) – C-

· Directed by Quentin Tarantino

· Starring Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson

· Snappy, lengthy dialogue is a hallmark of Quentin Tarantino, but there are some instances where a verbose approach is not the right one to take. Death Proof is about a maniacal stuntcar driver (Russell) who enjoys killing young, beautiful women. Yet it spends most of its almost two-hour runtime in bars or around a breakfast table listening to those same young women talk, and talk, and talk, about God knows what. When Russell appears in the film, things work, but the film spends way too much time dilly-dallying and not enough time delivering on what it claims to be. It’s a real slog.

The King's Speech (2010) – A-

· Directed by Tom Hooper

· Starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter

· Awards: Won – Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actor (Firth), Best Original Screenplay; Nominated – Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Supporting Actor (Rush), Best Supporting Actress (Carter)

· Though people might be sick of hearing about it, The King’s Speech is a truly terrific film and deserved to win last year’s Best Picture Academy Award. For those who don’t know the story, Firth plays Britain’s King George VI, a man expected to be a shining example to his subjects in all facets of life, but who is afflicted with a speech disorder that prevents him from even talking to his people without stuttering. He enlists the help of a commoner speech therapist (Rush) to help him with his problem, and the growth of their relationship throughout the film is one of its many joys. For those who are repelled by the hype, it’s well worth checking out.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – B

· Directed by David Lean

· Starring William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa

· Awards: Won – Best Actor (Guinness), Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music (Scoring), Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay; Nominated – Best Supporting Actor (Hayakawa)

· David Lean, also the director of other epic films such as Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, is one of my favorite directors. I had heard fantastic things about The Bridge on the River Kwai, and while I’m not disappointed, it fails to live up to the levels of those aforementioned films. The Bridge on the River Kwai follows two stories; in one, Alec Guinness is a British colonel trying to maintain control of his men within a Japanese POW camp during World War II, and he is eventually tasked with leading them to build a railroad bridge over a Thai river. The other story follows William Holden, an American soldier, and a group of British officers trying to thwart its construction. Guinness is fantastic, but the film feels too conventional compared to some of Lean’s other output. Lawrence of Arabia is a journey. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a movie.

Feature Presentation

Das Boot (1981)

· Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

· Starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann

· Awards: Nominated – Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay

Life on a U-boat during World War II was difficult, dangerous, and cramped. The likelihood of U-boat sailors surviving the war was not high; the very nature of a U-boat submarine means near certain death should it be sunk. U-boats danced in and out of danger, attempting to clandestinely attack Allied ships and slink back down into the depths before the inevitable counterattack. Surviving a U-boat mission required nerves of steel and perennial efficiency and teamwork from the crew. Any slip-up meant death.

Das Boot follows the voyage of the U-96, a German U-boat on a mission in the Atlantic. The nerves of steel on the boat are supplied by Capt.-Lt. Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (Prochnow), who leads the men on the boat by example and never loses his cool. While under depth charge bombardment and with the ship being violently rocked and lights and alarms going on and off, he forcefully directs his subordinates. The captain holds the ship together in many ways; he not only attempts to steer the boat out of danger, but his presence maintains and safeguards the morale of his men.

It would be easy to lose one’s morale on a U-boat. Director Wolfgang Petersen expertly displays the ship’s narrow, unfriendly confines. His camera work follows men as they run though the boat, crawling through hatches, climbing ladders, avoiding obstacles piled up in their way. Through this perspective we get a feel of how tight the quarters are and the effort required simply to get from one place on the ship to another. A U-boat is no place for the claustrophobic.

There is a sense of dread palpable throughout Das Boot. The damp aura of the ship provides some of that, to be sure, but it’s the vulnerability the men feel throughout their journey that causes it. There are stretches in Das Boot where the men on the ship are waiting to die. Much of the movie consists of pulse-pounding scenes of the men gasping and praying through depth charge attacks. Any moment could be their last, and there are no prisoners of war taken from a submerged submarine.

Being in such tight quarters and sharing such experiences leads to the crew’s (and the film’s) ultimate triumph. Sunk to the ocean floor, and facing a multitude of crises, the crew works together and relies on one another to fix the boat and miraculously raise it from the depths. The ship’s second-in-command, Chief Engineer Fritz Grade (Wennemann), has one of the best scenes in the movie, when after countless hours spent fixing the boat, he reads off the ship’s rising depth meter in jubilant disbelief.

There are other strong performances in Das Boot as well, including that of narrator Lt. Werner (Grönemeyer) and the ship’s only fervent Nazi, played by Hubertus Bengsch. But it’s the ship that stars in the film, providing shelter and life to its occupants but filling their every moment with worry. It’s Petersen’s understanding of this that makes Das Boot such a one-of-a-kind experience.

A-

Braveheart (1995)

· Directed by Mel Gibson

· Starring Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan, Angus Macfadyen

· Awards: Won – Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Makeup, Best Picture; Nominated – Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Sound, Best Original Screenplay

Braveheart is the film at least partially responsible for bombastic, stylistic and sappy blockbusters winning Best Picture Oscars. Sure, before Braveheart, epic films like Ben-Hur and the aforementioned The Bridge on the River Kwai won that award, but those films had substance, strong acting, and heart (pun intended). Recent Best Picture winners like Titanic and Gladiator have their merits, but they’re depthless. They’re enormous enterprises that look impressive but don’t really do anything. Much like Braveheart.

Braveheart certainly has the look and scope of an epic film. It follows William Wallace (Gibson), the famous Scottish crusader who rebelled against British injustices in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Braveheart follows Wallace’s life, beginning with the killing of his father and brother at British hands, then the killing of his wife at British hands, and you get the idea. Wallace seeks revenge, not unlike Steven Seagal, and his charisma and determination spark a full scale rebellion against British authority in Scotland.

The storyline is effective in its simplicity, but the film plays just like every other Mel revenge film, except this time he’s in a kilt. It ain’t Shakespeare, and little in terms of Braveheart’s story truly differentiates itself from Ransom or Payback. It’s a revenge fantasy that stops periodically to dabble into romance or political squabbling. That the direction Braveheart takes is couched in historical legend doesn’t elevate it, but rather cheapens it.

Braveheart would be truly abysmal were it not for its amazing battle scenes, which provide the unquestioned highlights of the film. They are tremendously choreographed, and Gibson (acting as director) does well to depict the maelstrom of chaos that was medieval combat. I found myself anxiously awaiting the battle scenes and suffering through the other slop, and perhaps that’s a part of Braveheart’s problem. The showdowns between the Scottish and the British serve to punctuate how mundane the rest of the film is.

Braveheart isn’t a bad film, but its mythic elevation and Best Picture win remain puzzling. It’s entertaining, and nothing more, which is still more than a lot of films can say. It’s just that when the next bloated, overexposed “epic” blockbuster wins a major Academy Award, we’ll know what to blame.

C

John Lacey