Since I've decided to make this blog a running tally of my initial impressions of theatrical films peppered with the odd home viewing, and since The Lorax was so slight and the other films I took in this week were more interesting, I've opted to combine the lot. I wasn't expecting much from The Lorax and that's what I got. A brightly colored, nebulous nothing of a film whose toothlessness is all the more lamentable for its squandered potential. The plaintive cry of the source material is neutered and turned into an indistinguishable, simplistic morality tale. Not that I really care about the environment or how thoughtful children's literature is being co-opted by money grubbing corporate overlords, mind you. This is the world we live in, the best of all possible worlds really, so I can manage to suppress the perfunctory hypocritical rage becoming of cynics my age. My issue lies with the paltry amount of laughs and the pedestrian, expected art design. There's some nice voice work, especially by Ed Helms, but ultimately this is a one and done proposition for me, to merely be cataloged and never considered again.My one run in with Terrance Malick before Tree of Life was The Thin Red Line, which I found to be an exhausting chore. A breathy, self important piece of navel gazing that only came to life when Nick Nolte was blowing a gasket reprimanding Elias Koteas. The critical reaction and end of year plaudits bestowed upon Tree of Life have been so overwhelming however, that I could no longer dismiss it. For the first hour or so, I was convinced I might have a new personal top 10 film of all time entry. The shot composition and fluidity is so arresting it must be seen to be comprehended. There is a purpose and continuity to the imagery rarely seen. There is one upside down shot of the shadows cast by children on a swing set that I found so devastating I have been incapable of getting it out of my head.
There is a long, wordless sequence where the big bang and earths origin plays out like a languid, heavenly symphony of color. It is cinematic perfection, the logical extension of Kubrick's Stargate in 2001. This is exactly the kind of film making I want to see more of. Impressionistic, painterly and inscrutable. The mind wanders and is untethered from the laborious tedium of narrative storytelling. It is bold, revelatory and my favorite thing about the film.
Unfortunately, this lofty aside catches back up in the timeline to Pitt's portion, which I would expect is akin to little Terry Malick vomiting his childhood onto the screen verbatim for an hour. It is deeply unpleasant and thoroughly uninteresting. To me, at least. The acting is all magnificent, but after the jaw dropping detour through creation, the petty squabbles, Freudian clashing and Oedipal longing of it all just struck me as gaudy and grotesque. I can see how the juxtaposition of the epic and the rural connects for some viewers, but for me it did not. I understand the concept of as below, so above, I just didn't feel it at work here. It becomes a tiresome and repetitive profundity parade, ending with a coda that seems to suggest the film should have been titled Sean Penn Goes to Heaven on his Lunch Break. In any case, that first hour is stunning and I'm sure I will get something different out of it every time I watch it for the rest of my life.
Michael Shannon has been on my radar ever since Bug, but more so World Trade Center. The movie did little for me save for Shannon showing up and delivering a performance so intense, I became an instant acolyte. He demands your attention when onscreen and you willingly give it, presumably out of sheer terror. So, the prospect of him playing a man suffering from apocalyptic delusions was like catnip to a miserablist such as myself. Before breaching spoiler territory (which, seriously, SPOILERS coming up), I must recommend watching this film and listening to the two excellent episodes of the always reliable /Filmcast discussing it. Essentially, Shannon plays a man suffering from dreams depicting a coming storm in which he is beset by attackers both faceless and familiar. Viscous rain with the appearance of motor oil falls and birds menace in unnatural attack formations. He shuts out his family and friends and tries to deal with the problem on his own. Exacerbating matters is the history of mental illness in his bloodline through his mother, whose condition became so untenable, she has been in assisted living since he was a child.
Shannon begins to fortify a storm cellar in his backyard to the concern of his family and the detriment of his financial situation, losing his job and health insurance (his deaf daughter requires a costly surgery natch) for unauthorized use of his employers machinery. After pushing his marriage, social standing and sanity to their respective limits, a storm eventually comes and he retreats to the cellar with his wife and daughter. The storm seemingly passes and his wife begs him to accept that fact and unlock the door, symbolically reentering both reality and life with his family. He capitulates and finds the sun shining and damage no more catastrophic than some askew shrubbery. He sees a specialist with his wife, who encourages him to go on that vacation to the beach they were planning. While there making sandcastles, his daughter looks worriedly to the ocean. His wife comes out and we see them all take account of the multiple tornadoes coming in with the tide. The motor oil rain falls on his wife's hand. She nods at him and simply says, "Ok." Cut to black. The End.
To me, two of the great joys in film are having them resonate with and illuminate your own existence and the conversation divergent interpretations of them can occasion. /Film and others have postulated Take Shelter is about mental illness, communication, marriage, the financial crisis, even a modern retelling of the Noah parable from the Old Testament. I can see the validity in all these, and more importantly, sense how the life history and current situation of each person proffering these differing opinions colors their take.
As a married, nearly 35 year old father of a 10 year old son, this film hits me about as close to home as a movie can. I need health insurance for my sons glasses, braces and various check ups and can certainly relate to the pressure of maintaining employment to provide these essentials. I understand the importance of communication and honesty when it comes to sharing and building a life with my lovely and patient wife. I also deeply feel his characters sense that something terrible is on the horizon, be it financial or environmental collapse, natural disaster, hell, I wouldn't dismiss alien invasion at this late stage in the game. My point is, this film is about everything that people feel it is about, and with varying degrees of intensity relates to each person watching it. The important thing is to be thinking and feeling while watching a film and Take Shelter inspires both.
No one relates the feel or logic of a dream better than David Lynch, but director Nichols comes distressingly close here. The sequence where Shannon and his daughter are attacked after a car accident is so vivid and painfully familiar to anxiety dreams I have had, watching it made it hard for me to breathe. The scene where his wife frantically calls 911 as Shannon fitfully seizures in bed, paralyzed by night terrors is every spouses nightmare. To be powerless to help your partner is as awful as it gets. This film is a snapshot of where a lot of people are at right now in this country. Struggling to make ends meet, begrudgingly accepting consensus reality while shakily sizing up society's tenuous grasp on civility. Ever mindful of possible collapse, contemplating the loss of control and comfort. A state of heightened, unending anxiety brought on by living in the shadow of one successful act of terror and the two unsuccessful wars it wrought.
This is an extremely important film for this time. The conversation that has come from it is vital discourse, in that it represents a manner for us to indulge in a little group therapy, exorcising National demons and comprehending our collective fears. Not unlike the fear of sex and science producing Dracula and Frankenstein in the early 30's or Abu Ghraib disgust propagating the torture porn boom in the mid to late 2000's. This sort of dialog is why movies are important. Without these films, books, music and art in general, not to mention the record of our interpretations, we would be unmoored, drifting senselessly in the indifferent cosmos.
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