Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry and Scorsese's New York, New York both feature in this post that also includes a Thai movie with a very long name by a director who also has a very long name. In this post you will read about Scorsese's epic experiment, the similarities between the movies of Marvel Studios, and how a movie that makes very little sense can still be completely magical.
Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1997): A man drives around the brown and orange rocky hills of Tehran looking for someone who will agree to accept money to help him kill himself. The man, Badii, has dug a grave for himself, and has decided that he will kill himself in that grave and needs someone to bury him. This film is notorious for a couple of reasons, one is because of the ending, which I will get to soon, the other is because many, including respectable critics, have found the film very difficult and boring. The whole movie consists of Badii driving around and talking to the people he meets and trying to convince them to help him kill himself. Kiarostami never films scenes in an exciting way, he's a director that shows and never likes to preach in showy ways, so all the shots are steady and never moving. The shots alternate between shots inside the car and wide shots of the car driving on the landscape. I can understand why the languid pace may be difficult for some, but I found the philosophical conversations about suicide between the characters fascinating, and the rocky brown landscape provided a mesmerizing backdrop to it all.
The three main conversations that Badii has in the film are with a soldier, a pious Afghan Muslim, and a taxidermist. All three of the conversations reveal much about who the people Badii are talking to are and where they are in Iranian society. There is irony that a soldier is afraid to kill a person who actually wants to die, there is a fascinating discussion about suicide from the point of view of the Quran, and the last conversation with the taxidermist is about why it is life's simple pleasures that make it worth living. Most films about suicide focus on the conditions that put the person in question in the position that makes them want to commit suicide, but in Taste of Cherry we never find out why Badii wants to commit suicide. This is a film about what people think about the act of suicide. We see from different perspectives what people think, and it is telling that the person who eventually agrees to help Badii is the one who has attempted suicide himself. Only those who have been in the position of wanting to kill themselves can truly understand why someone would want to kill themselves, even if they are against suicide. Despite being about a man who is going to kill himself, the film is essentially a humanist film about the simple pleasures in life and what makes life worth living.
But what really vaults this movie into great movie territory, and what I think vaults Kiarostami into great director territory, is the ending. It's not really a spoiler, because this doesn't reveal a plot point, but the ending of the movie is ambiguous regarding whether or not Badii commits suicide. But that's not even the stickler, it's the real ending which comes in the form of a video recorded scene of Kiarostami and his crew filming the last shot of filming for Taste of Cherry. We see Kiarostami yell to everyone that it's a wrap, when we see the video recorded scene backed by the only non-diegetic music in the movie it is a shock, because it is very different from the aesthetics of the movie we just saw. Some see this as some sort of cop-out from giving us the real answer to what happens to Badii, but this scene is actually one of the most brilliant endings I've seen in a while. Kiarostami has always said that he hates it when movies preach, and that he likes to show people things and let them decide for themselves. It's a simple concept really, and he does it in all of his movies that I've seen. That ending makes sure that we remember that what we just saw is a movie, something that was created by an artist for interpretation and reflection. It is not the plot that was important, but what we have taken away from Badii's journey. Kiarostami wants to make sure that we know we had an experience, and the lesson we take away from that experience is completely up to us.
Grade: A-
The pacing of the film is slow and reflective. The cinematography is also still and reflective, the camera moves very little, and when it does, it moves very slowly. Much of the time the Thai jungle is included either completely in foreground, or somewhere in the background. But the sound of the jungle is always in the foreground and always loud. That jungle sound creates an enchanting dream-like atmosphere that drives the movie away from a meditation, and into more of an encapsulation. We don't see the the world of the movie from the outside, but we experience it more closely with the brilliant technical decisions and flourishes. While there are scenes in the film that are very difficult to interpret, much of the movie is fairly easy to follow. We understand what Boonmee is experiencing, and we see that the spirit world has opened up to Boonmee has he comes closer to death and reminisces about possible past lives. While I did not understand everything in this movie, and that's something I usually like to do, I still found the experience one of the most unique film experiences to be had. Unique does not mean great, but it means unique. It is very possible that with more knowledge of Thai culture, or eastern philosophy, or just multiple viewings, more of the films beautiful imagery will make sense. Weerasethakul is a director whose talent cannot be ignored, and his sly but completely beautiful and reflective sense of filmmaking is incredibly unique. His newest film is one that is one that completely encapsulates everything that is wonderful about him.
Grade: B+
New York, New York (Martin Scorsese, USA, 1977): This movie is known as the one in which Scorsese tries and fails to do a tribute to the old Hollywood musicals of the 1940's, but that's actually a misconception. This isn't supposed to be a tribute to old Hollywood musicals, it is meant to combine the artificiality of those 1940's musicals with the intense realism that Scorsese and the Hollywood of the 1970's was known for, and he mostly succeeded. I say mostly because it's really the intense realism that is effective on any level, and the artificiality created by the obviously fake sets and such were a bit unnecessary. The plot is definitely one that could have come out of the 1940's, a saxophone player and a singer get romantically involved while they try to become stars. It's a long film, maybe a little too long, that follows these two people from the beginning to the end of their relationship, and even past the end. Both lead actors, Robert De Niro and Liza Minneli play their characters with intense emotional realism, De Niro especially. De Niro essentially plays Jake LaMotta from Raging Bull in much of this movie, a more laid-back LaMotta in the first half, and a true LaMotta in the second half. It's a realism that is refreshing to see in a movie like this, and while Minneli is mostly subdued in the movie, there are a couple scenes where she gives that emotional intensity right back to De Niro and those scenes are the most memorable.
I love Scorsese, and I am very fond of long epic films about people, so this fit my sensibilities real well, but even I can admit that the film does not come together completely. The movie is coherent, but there are sections of the film that feel a bit too long considering the relevance and impact they have on the whole of the film. One scene in particular is a musical show that Minneli's character is in, and that scene is completely overlong and difficult to sit through. There's also the occasional 40's style that is evident in the first half, but as the movie gets deeper and deeper into its emotions that style kind of gets lost and irrelevant. When those emotions are running, the movie feels completely contemporary. I don't think that's much of a knock against the film because the emotion is there and its felt, but it does show why some of the stylistic choices in the movie were unnecessary. Scorsese does best what Scorsese does best, and that's showcasing the setting of the film and creating a place where these characters can play out their difficult relationship. New York, New York is definitely an experiment, and a very ambitious one, but ultimately it was a successful experiment. There are a few flaws that Scorsese definitely learned from, but the movie almost always (the long musical scene being an exception) leaves you interested in the world of the characters, and the characters themselves. For a movie that's 163 minutes long, that's a pretty impressive accomplishment.
Grade: B-
Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, USA, 2011): Marvel Studios has made five films thus far, all leading into the upcoming Avengers movie that will see all of the superheroes team up. While the first one, Iron Man, is still easily the best of the bunch, considering the track record of all superhero movies not made by Christopher Nolan, it's quite impressive that they have not yet made a horrible movie. Even Captain America, a film I don't think is all that impressive, is at least not horrible. They seem to stick to a formula that people seem to connect to, and then go with it. Many critics were fond of Captain America because it followed the formula well and it didn't try to be too serious or ambitious. But personally, I think that's what is lacking from this movie and all Marvel movies. I don't think I can say any of their movies have been great, the first Iron Man comes the closest, but even that one is completely uninteresting towards the end. Captain America is most similar to Iron Man because this film also starts off good, but when the costumes and villains come in, it starts going off the rails.
Steve Rogers starts off as a scrawny kid who wants to join the military and help his country. The genuine bravery and desire that he shows during that first half of the movie is actually pretty successful, and the message of the movie gets across. But when Rogers gets into the Captain America and starts fighting Red Skull, who is a horribly written character (horrible villains is also a common aspect to all Marvel movies with the possible exception of Thor), that is when the movie becomes a bland action film. Joe Johnston has a keen visual eye in this film when it comes to the retro production design, but he can't better the generic screenplay. The main thing that Iron Man had that Captain America didn't is humor. Steve Rogers is not particularly a funny guy, and none of the characters surrounding him are funny. Tommy Lee Jones has the only good laughs of the film, and that's only a couple, and considering this is supposed to be a pulpy comic book movie, a lack of laughs can be disastrous, especially if the story and action are not terribly compelling which is the case in this film and all other non-Nolan superhero movies. Captain America is certainly watchable, but it's far from anythings special. Hopefully someday Marvel will learn that the problem with their comic book movies, is that they are too much like comic books.
Grade: C-
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