On A Dangerous Method

Cronenberg. Mortensen. Fassbender. Knightly. Sex addiction. Freud. Jung. This appears to be a mixture that could not fail in creating a subversive and provocative piece of cinema. Yet, A Dangerous Method is a film that is often boring and too reliant on exposition. For a film about psychoanalysis and the hidden meaning of dreams, the script, written by Christopher Hampton, is so transparent and on the nose it feels like a first draft, yet to be honed down into a film for adults, capable to acquiring meaning from subtle language. At one point, Fassbender’s Jung actually enters a room, hands on his hips and announces, “I’m back!” This is just one, obvious and humorous example. The worst cases come in the discussions about the groundbreaking approach to therapy that Freud and Jung pioneered. The script assumes that the audience are so ignorant that the actors are forced to speak as if directly and patronisingly to us and not each other, which is an immediate sign of a film in trouble.

Other signs that A Dangerous Method doesn’t know what it wants to achieve is the messy structure that takes us through a series of sequences occasionally unrelated and often requiring us to discard previous scenes that were either insignificant or gratuitous. Even after five minutes we feel like we have missed important information regarding the characters.

Cronenberg’s last two features (also starring Viggo Mortensen) have been A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), films that raises questions and challenge the audience. A Dangerous Method is either a complete misstep or is the result of the film being taken off Cronenberg and re-cut for a ‘mainstream’ audience. Either way, it is a huge disappointment.

On Carnage

Over eighty minutes, Roman Polanski’s Carnage (adapted from Yasmina Reza’s Le Dieu de carnage (The God of Carnage) stage play) plays out a meeting in real time between two married couples whose sons have been involved in a physical confrontation. From the opening discussion about the implications of the word ‘armed’, replaced by the less polemic ‘carrying’, Carnage brims with intelligence, humour, embarrassment and confrontation that develop to fantastically entertaining levels. The acting is superb, as would be expected from Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C Reilly and Christoph Waltz. Yet equally as impressive is Polanski’s roaming camera that communicates, as much as the fantastic script (by Polanski and Reza) the ever-changing emotions of the characters. The only slight disappointment in this otherwise fantastic film is the lack of closure, which is rarely a criticism, but here, maybe because of the short running time, more is wanted from the characters, especially a more decisive ending. Yet, watching the characters’ back and forth, a resolution may never be achieved.

On Awards and The Descendants

Two films have dominated the award nominations from late 2011 and ending with the Oscars this week. One is The Artist; the other is Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Last week’s Bafta’s saw The Artist clean up in almost all categories it was nominated for. The question is should The Artist, a paint-by-numbers story without dialogue, be rewarded for its uniqueness over Payne’s tragicomedy? The answer is probably not. This is not to say that The Descendants is vastly superior to The Artist or any other nominated film (Moneyball (2011) and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (2011) are the most deserving of those regularly nominated), but it is still superior.

The Descendants, representing a massively different view of Hawaii than most people will be used to, it is very well crafted story, fantastically acted and able to hold its audience’s emotions in the palm of its hand. The story refuses to be predictable and refuses to let its characters become stereotypes. This can occasionally be to the films detriment as a refusal to conform can often be translated as trying too hard to win the audience. What The Descendants does do is challenge us on some level to ascertain levels of culpability to characters in situations that are difficult, relatable and engrossing. This ensures the film is always engaging and always reaches the emotional highs it aims for, whether those are comedic or tragic.