Bending and Twisting the Western Genre

When watching a revenge story, you know you're getting into something that's rough, bloody and intricate.  When Quentin Tarantino handles one, you can bet that you're going to get those three adjectives in abundance.  Tarantino has directed such tales of gory revenge with the two Kill Bill movies and Inglourious Basterds.  In pure Tarantino style, he brought scenes of snappily original dialogue and sequences of blood-splattering violence.

In his new western, Django Unchained, he tackles a dark period in history, just as he did with Nazism in Inglourious Basterds.  In this film, he goes into the brutality involved with slavery in America.  It's another of his own thrillingly imaginative and brutal takes on a victimized group in history fighting back to be able to live a life without worry of persecution.

Two years before the Civil War, bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) frees a group of slaves that is being taken across the country by the Speck brothers.  One of these slaves, Django (Jamie Foxx), is asked by Schultz to help him find the Brittle brothers, a group of pitiless killers, because he knows Django can identify them.  Schultz agrees to free him in exchange of his help.  Later on, Schultz trains Django to be a bounty hunter, and helps Schultz kill some of his targets.  Afterwards, the two go on a journey disguised as purchasers of slave fighters to a plantation known as "Candyland" to save Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from its ruthless owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Jamie Foxx closely resembles some of Tarantino's revenge-driven characters, such as The Bride in Kill Bill and Shosanna in Inglourious.  All three of these characters are broken from their losses, but rise up and will do anything to right the wrongs that were done to them.  Foxx presents the sad submissiveness of Django as we see him chained to the other slaves, his troubles and distress in his expression illuminated by the soft light of Schultz's lantern as the two meet for the first time, and his soft voice reflecting someone who has been broken down.  When he's released, there's still that uncertainty that he carries for the world around him, taking notice of the harsh racism around him.  But, he then makes the satisfying change from victim of prejudice to a combatant, unleashing a hidden fury in him.  Django isn't afraid to assume his role as a purchaser of slave fighters, but Foxx brings out the conflicted feelings that his character feels for what he is doing, especially as he watches a fighter being savagely attacked by dogs and doesn't do anything about it, with the fear of giving away his cover.  He doesn't show any disagreement with this happening, but he clearly feels it in secret.  But when he fights back, he fights back hard, being stunningly relentless and unforgiving as he gets back at those who have taken over his life.

Christoph Waltz has the calm, cool and collected nature of a fearless cowboy as Schultz, a man of strict conviction.  He could be facing extreme danger, but still keep his wits about him.  He is a comical and skilled smooth talker, discussing his way reasonably in and out of situations, his knowledgeable and logical thinking being his main trait.  As a bounty hunter, he's sneakily violent and, forgive the cliche, has a few tricks up his sleeve, literally at one point.

Leonardo DiCaprio is savage and vile as Calvin Candie.  His character is very similar to that of Waltz's role as Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious.  He is persistent in his mission to demean and hurt his slaves, to bring them down to nothing but meat.  What's horrifying about his character is that most of the violence he commits towards his slaves isn't done directly by him, but by having them fight each other for entertainment as he sits back with his malicious grin while sickly enjoying this blood sport.

There is a scene in the film where Schultz tells Django the origin of the name "Broomhilda."  Schultz recognizes the name due to him being of German descent, and this particular name comes from a German folktale.  He tells of a woman, Broomhilda, was the daughter of a god, and was sent to a mountaintop guarded by fire and a dragon as a punishment for disobeying her father.  When we first see Calvin, he is having a smoke in a room with lights hanging around the wall.  He is the dragon guarding what he believes is his.  The set design for this meeting with Calvin cleverly parallels that German tale.

Samuel L. Jackson is the film's other main villain, Stephen, who is Candie's head slave, a tall and daunting individual with a merciless look in his eyes.  What's deplorable about his character is that he's an African American who has turned against his own race and dutifully serves his owner without any trouble.  He will have you shaking your head in disappointment at what he has become.  It's like he has been brainwashed by his master, trained to hate what Candie hates as well.  This relates to one character saying how the one thing worse than whites owning blacks is blacks owning blacks.  While Jackson's character doesn't own any slaves himself, this has some connections to the aforementioned notion of blacks going against blacks.

Tarantino's screenplay begins similar to how many of his other films begin, with some memorable exchange of dialogue followed by an act of violence.  This sets the tone for a Tarantino film, to let the audience know they will be getting a fun and heavy mix of sharp conversations and Tarantino-like roughness.  As the script concentrates considerably on the interactions between Django and Schultz, this allows us to see their relationship go from the student learning from the master to the student becoming the master, in full detail.  In terms of the film capturing a part of our history that deals with injustices committed against a certain group of people, Django Unchained can be considered a companion piece to Inglourious Basterds because that film also deals with violence against a repressed group and has a cold, vicious antagonist.  However, those comparisons become obvious to the point of being somewhat distracting in some areas of the film.

As Tarantino does in all of his films, he brings a love for violent set-pieces.  He prefers the over-the-top, shock-value style that he's famous for.  But, seeing as how he has equally good talent for delivering terrific dialogue, I say he gets a free pass for his bloody sequences, seeing as he doesn't just rely on that.  With each film, he takes a certain genre and puts his own original touch to it.  For Django Unchained, he uses the western genre to create a gritty revenge tale of slaves fighting back.  It's American history in the eyes of a daring filmmaker.

Final grade: A-

A Life Worth Living

Many films have dealt with the bonds between humans and animals.  While animals don't typically have voices in film, that doesn't hinder them from helping to tell a story.  And, in the case of Pi Patel, one particular animal helps him get through an extremely challenging ordeal.

In Ang Lee's adventure drama, Life of Pi, based on the novel by Yann Martel, the uplifting journey of the title character is one of the most thrillingly beautiful survival stories ever told.  With a tale that spends most of its time afloat in the Pacific Ocean, Lee has managed to craft a grand view of a narrative that asks questions about the universe, spirituality and faith, and offers fascinating possibilities in those complex factors.

Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) lives in India with his parents and brother, where they own a zoo.  When his father decides to close the zoo and move his family to Canada so they can sell the animals, Pi reluctantly follows.  They then set out to sea on a Japanese freighter.  While on the voyage, the freighter becomes caught in a violent storm, and later sinks.  Pi emerges as the only survivor.  That is, human survivor.  In his lifeboat, he finds that he is sharing it with a ferocious Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker.  As tension begins to rise, Pi realizes that his survival will not only count on food and water, but taming Richard.

For a newcomer, Suraj Sharma gives a star-making turn as the resourceful Pi.  His performance is one of the things that the film relies on the most because much of the film focuses on his time out at sea.  Just as his character takes control of his life-threatening scenario, Sharma does so with his scenes as he displays both joy and anguish during his journey.  Even if some scenes call for limited dialogue, Sharma can wonderfully convey his feelings solely through facial expressions; we see amazement reflected in his eyes as he gazes on and enjoys the wonders of the sea and catch his glares at Richard Parker as he tries to match his animal ferocity as he attempts to tame him, like a cast-away ringmaster.  

Irrfan Khan, as an adult Pi, narrates his tale in a way that shapes him like a storyteller of wisdom sharing his fantastical experiences around a campfire.  As he tells his accounts to a young writer (Rafe Spall), Khan tells his story in a serene manner the whole time, but the viewer can detect pure emotion as he remembers the hardships that he went through.  Although his voice remains calm and ponderous, one can see him going from elation to pain and back again as he tells different segments of his story.

Sometimes when a 3D movie is released, its use of the extra dimension will likely be compared to that of Avatar, and rightly so, seeing as it set the stage for new forms of moviemaking.  Even though many 3D films after Avatar have failed to live up to its trailblazing use of 3D, there have been some exceptions, and Life of Pi is one of them.  It really is the best use of 3D since Avatar, even better than last year's Hugo.  With the use of CGI and 3D, the tiger looks startling real, and appears as close to a real tiger without it actually being one.  The ocean looks so clear and pristine that in one shot of Pi and Richard on the lifeboat, the camera is looking down on them from above, and the reflection from the sky and the clouds on the water makes it look as though they are actually in the sky.  In one particular nighttime scene, Pi looks through the water in awe as he sees a large school of jellyfish who give off bioluminescence, filling the ocean around Pi with strikingly lovely light.  This is just one of many points in the movie where I thought, "This is pure magic."

In the middle of all the astounding visuals, the screenplay by David Magee carefully develops the relationship between Pi and Richard.  This is certainly not the average "boy and his animal" story, but is rather a deep look at the spirituality of the main character and his belief that animals have emotions.  There is one hauntingly beautiful scene where we first meet Richard.  In this scene, Pi tries to feed Richard, but when his father catches him, he tries to show Pi that the tiger is carnivorous and doesn't feel emotions, and forces Pi to watch Richard kill and eat a goat.  Nothing much is shown in the killing, but what we do see is something more significant.  As Richard first comes out, the camera is on level right at his face, and we are staring directly at him.  Although he looks like he doesn't exhibit emotions, that first connection and eye contact we have with Richard helps us to begin understanding what it is that Pi sees in these animals.

Director Ang Lee's use of 3D shows that just because a movie relies heavily on visual effects, that doesn't mean that it's simply a "special effects" movie.  This film is loaded with artistry, and a filmmaker like Lee, who has dealt with impressive visual effects before in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Hulk, uses 3D to help the audience become more immersed in Pi's situation as we experience both beauty and danger in the journey with him.  Pi's wonderment of the world around him is reflected in the shots of him marveling at the storm before disaster strikes, the oceanic setting and a small mysterious island that Pi lands on at one point in the second half of the film, and Lee brings all of this to rich realization.  Life of Pi exemplifies what a story can do with just a few key elements.  In this case, it's a boy and his tiger.

Final grade: A

Top Five Favorite Films of 2012

A new year has just begun, but we can still look back on some of the best films of last year.  There was a cavalcade of highly memorable films, from booming superhero adventures to unique comedies to hard-hitting dramas.  While there is so much to choose from as to what's the best, the list is limited, unfortunately.  Honorable mentions belong to the found-footage film Chronicle, the lighthearted indie Safety Not Guaranteed, the brutal police drama End of Watch, the sci-fi mind-bender Looper, and Quentin Tarantino's brutal and bloody western Django Unchained.

But, there are only five movies that can make list, and each of them has contributed to a very entertaining year at the movies.  All of them demand several viewings, and will have the audience engaged in conversations right after.  These are some of the definite films to remember from 2012.

1) Argo - Ben Affleck's film about the escape of six American hostages during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis is one of the most tense thrillers to come out in recent memory, and Affleck is one of the best directors working today, having displayed consistently great filmmaking after only three movies.  He delivers scenes of unbearable suspense with funny and heroic characters.  A viewer shouldn't be turned off by the fact that politics play a part in the film; it's not all about the reasons behind the crisis.  It's about the dangerous voyage that a brave group of people made through Iran to get back home.  

2) Flight - Robert Zemeckis could not have made a better and more memorable return to live-action filmmaking than with his latest drama.  The story about airline captain William Whitiker (Denzel Washington), who makes a daring emergency landing, only later to be under scrutiny because of his BAC while flying the plane, is a deeply analytical  study of Washington's character as he tries to kick his alcohol addiction.  Despite this being a character-driven drama, Zemeckis brings some of his flair for visuals for the harrowing landing sequence.  With an emotional performance from Washington, as well as a breakout performance from Kelly Reilly as an ex-junkie who tries to help Whitiker get his life together, Zemeckis has given audiences a stimulating character study.

3) Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson is a quirky storyteller, and that is what allows him to bring some highly original material to the screen.  In his latest film, he focuses on two preteens (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) who begin a relationship, against their parents' wishes.  It's a tale about the complexities of growing up and of making mistakes and learning from them.  Anderson's off-beat characters and distinctive brand of comedy creates a film that is gleefully relatable to anyone who has experienced the joy of that first childhood crush.

4) Life of Pi - One would think that making a film out of Yann Martel's novel would be a challenge, considering how the greater part of the story involves the title character stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.  However, in one of the best filmmaking achievements of the year, Ang Lee has made a visual marvel of an adventure story that's mythic, poignant and enchanting.  A superb performance from newcomer Suraj Sharma as Pi, strikingly beautiful special effects, and a commendable use of 3D makes Life of Pi a powerful testament to the strength of a human's will to survive.

5) Beasts of the Southern Wild - Like Life of Pi, this film is a survival story and has a performance from a young and talented newcomer, Quvenzhane Wallis.  The narrative follows young Hushpuppy who tries to save her father (Dwight Henry) from his deteriorating health after a storm ruins their southern Louisiana bayou community.  This being the first feature from director Benh Zeitlin, he employs magical realism that gorgeously blends elements of Hushpuppy's imagination with the reality of the devastation around her.  Hushpuppy may be the bravest child character in 2012 cinema, and her unwavering courage puts this film on a majestic canvas.