Written at the time of the films' American releases. Since then, Joon-ho Bong directed the film Parasite, which won the 2020 Best Picture Oscar, as well as awards for best script and best direction.
"The Knots of the Heart"
"A boy's best friend is his mother."
Mother Yoon (Hye-ja Kim) ekes out a living dispensing naturopathic herbs and running an underground acupuncture practice, all for her backward son Do-joon (Bin Won), 28 and a perfect example of not knowing what he doesn't know. With severe ADD, he has problems with memory retention; the least little thing, shiny or not, will distract him. The phrase "Hold that thought" is lost on him, an impossibility with his sieve-like mind. His type never learns.
You'd think his mother would. Mother Yoon watches her son like a hawk, and though she doesn't approve of him running with "a bad crowd," she can do nothing, or else the boy will storm off and get into some other trouble, or go drinking until all hours, or get beat up. Something...and usually bad. The cops know all about him. He's crossed their paths more than once.
So, when a young girl ends up dead on the night Do-joon goes on a bender, the police arrest him and hold him for trial. And he has no answers for what he was doing that night. This sends Mother into a maternal tizzy, and she works the neighborhood, trying to make nice with the victim's family, obtaining the services of a shady lawyer, but when those avenues prove unrewarding, she begins to investigate the case on her own, pursuing every blind alley and path paved with her Good Intentions.
And you know where that leads.
One could say that this is a Hitchcockian nightmare with its themes of dangerous Moms and wrong-man incarcerations, butMother(aka "Madeo"), directed by Joon-ho Bong (who directed the monster hit The Host) hails from Polanski-town,with its themes of obsessiveness, self-delusion and destruction. As played by the internalized Kim, the title character is so wrapped up in her maternal self-sacrifice that that she doesn't see how much she's giving up to save her son. As she digs deeper into the victim's past, she must come to grips with her own, and for all the searching her final destination is her own Soul.
Sounds grim, and even a little cruel. Cruel, it is. But, Bong—as he showed with his previous monster movie—has created an intricate little trap of a film, with moments of horror and humor combined, sometimes with their arms so tightly wound each other, they could strangle, whether from love or malice. One senses an ironic glee from the director, who keeps inserting little touches of humor into the proceedings to keep things from getting too heavy, and makes one think that maybe God puts us through such trials, because it's such good sport to see us flail.
If Bong is having a good time torching the ants in Mother, Australian director Nash Edgerton is chortling and cracking open a Foster's, making life miserable for the denizens of The Square. It, also, is a tightly wound thriller—more in the classic film-noir mode—with its Aussie blue-collar workers effortlessly slipping into "tough-guy" mode. It begins, as many noir's do—with an illicit affair, and the attempt to make it legit—but it soon crumbles around its own foundation, turning into quicksand. Like construction, it's not a good idea to go in and throw away the blue-print.
Foreman Raymond Yale (David Roberts in a fine "everyman" performance) is building a resort of "honeymoon suites" for Hubbard Construction in Sydney, Australia. He's getting a bit of side-work in, as well, (or "a bit of mischief" as is the phrase) in an affair with Carla Smith (Claire van der Boom). Both are trapped in loveless marriages: he's just "middle-age-crazy" and her husband (Anthony Hayes) is a low-life criminal. One day she discovers hubby has stashed a bag of cash in the attic—a sizable sum. She decides to tell Ray in an attempt for them to skip out and start anew with a nest-egg. Ray's hesitant. Carla takes that as a sign that an affair is all it's going to be and dumps him.
And if everything was going to be fine..that's where the movie would end. Ray can't give up Carla, so they plan their escape and to hide the theft of the loot, they arrange to burn down the Smith's house—the evidence of the switched bag will burn up, and no one will be the wiser.
Well, the last part's true, anyway. The Square is a noir deep in the tradition-ditch of such illicit classics as Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Body Heat. The perfect plot starts to unravel before it can be set in motion, and soon both Carla and Ray are hip-deep in complications that get worse and worse, and messier and messier—the perfect trial for a relationship. For all the efforts to "make things better," things simply couldn't get worse...until they do.
Director Edgerton, who, before he started turning out short films*worked as a stunt-man, always finds the good angles to shoot from, and is more than happy to lead the audience into several very uncomfortable situations that have a gritty realism to them, all to make the audience squirm as much as the characters do, then tops it off with a neat little irony that twists the knife. Like his protagonists, this director might be too clever for his own good. It will be interesting to see what he does in the future and whether he'll deepen his material. For now, though, as an exercise in noir, this one is pretty special.
* The Square is preceded by Edgerton's 2007 shortSpider, which is a good preparation for how sadistic a film-maker he can be to his audience. The less said the better, but don't be surprised if the film leaves you wary of the director, and tempted to walk out before the feature starts.
Alfie(Lewis Gilbert, 1966) This is the film that catapulted Michael Caine to the A-list of stars—a bit of a wonder, that, as he essays the titular lead in this character study of a complete rotter of a misogynist, a taxi-driver/chauffeur whose relationships with women are as transitory as any fare.
One shouldn't be too surprised by this, I guess, as audiences have always had a tendency to gravitate to, and even admire, villains, be they "Scarface" or Darth Vader or Brando's "Wild One" or "The Godfather." Maybe it's the nature of film to be a spectator sport and with the safety of being removed from any hurtful fall-out, we can choose to imprint on "bad guys" and their assertive natures to do harm. Maybe it's just wish-fulfillment on audience's parts—"I wish I could get away with that in my own life" and especially nowadays as there's no Hays Code strictures requiring just punishments be meted out by the end of the picture. There don't need to be ramifications anymore, and in this brave new world, the heroes and villains get all mixed up. Here, the term "anti-hero" need not apply.
"I suppose you think you're gonna see the bleedin' titles now.
Well, you're not, so you can all relax..."
Caine's Alfie Elkins is no anti-hero. He's a bloke trying to make do for himself and making no apologies for it ("You've got to live for yourself in this world, not for others."), certainly not to his conquests, and certainly not to the audience, whom he addresses directly from the get-go, in mid-assignation with a married woman (he may be misogynistic, but he doesn't discriminate). In his first-person discourse*he's as cheekily blunt as he is with his ladies in question (and their questions usually revolve around commitment, something Alfie is adamant he'll have no part of—"I don't want no bird's respect - I wouldn't know what to do with it.").
So, we watch as he tramples over hearts in his own memorial parade: There's that married woman, Siddie (Millicent Martin) cheating on her husband, while Alfie goes back to his cheated-upon girlfriend Gilda (Julia Foster) who lives with him for a time, quite unhappily as he refuses to even consider "settling down" with her ("I told Gilda from the start that I ain't the marrying sort." he says by way of explanation. "And do you
know what?" he continues cluelessly, "She don't mind. She's a stand-by and she knows it. And any
bird that knows its place in this world can be quite content."). That must include—in addition—the manageress of his dry-cleaners, a "foot-comfort" technician, a woman named "Dora", "the odd bird that came by chance" like Carla (Shirley Anne Field)—the nurse at his convalescent home when he's diagnosed with "spots" on his lungs, the girl he picks up on the motorway (Jane Asher),
the wife (Vivien Merchant) of a fellow patient (Alfie Bass) at the convalescence, and a woman,
Ruby (Shelley Winters), who he chats up while taking photographs as a side-hustle.
"My understanding of women only goes as far as the pleasure. When it
comes to the pain I'm like any other bloke - I don't want to know." And he doesn't want to know; if there are complications, inconveniences—like a couple pregnancies—he'll lay down the law of how it's going to be and any reluctance just spells (for him) merely the end of any consistency in his hook-up schedule. He's a hit-and-run heart-breaker, not sticking around to see the damages. Alfie...and Alfie...show the dark underbelly of "the Swingin' 60's" and what happens when the swinging stops—you're left twisting in the wind, basically; things don't look so "gear" when people are chewed up in them.
Caine plays this cad as charmingly as he can, speaking breezily without much change of expression and little irony betraying any self-awareness. For all the winking at the camera that could have been, Caine avoids it with a mostly passive expression that is betrayed by a speech-ending toothy grin or a darkness around the eyes when the situation—and they're usually those rare instances when he's not totally in control—calls for punctuation. That lack of countenance betrays an empty heart inside.
One of the themes I keep harping on throughout these posts through the years is that love is a form of insanity. It's not a disparagement, just an observation that love—and its inherent selflessness—is the one thing that can circumvent the tendency of our alligator-brains to favor self-preservation above all else. Alfie is a movie that leans into that argument to a horrific degree; his predisposition to his wants and needs (as if he needs anything or anyone) lines up with his absolute disdain for anything resembling a caring regard for other human beings. People are opportunities to be taken advantage of, not fostered. And, for awhile, that's suitable.
But, the armor around his heart does have some dents in it. When his girlfriend Gilda gets pregnant, she decides to keep the child—despite Alfie's initial reluctance—and, for a time, Alfie, uncharacteristically, accepts his role as father to little Malcolm, taking pride in his son and devoting time to him (notwithstanding that a baby in a baby carriage helps attract women). But, Gilda grows weary of his fair-weather fatherhood and leaves him to marry another man. Later, he has to actually confront the consequences of his actions, and, in trying to find another path, gets a comeuppance...of sorts...as he finds himself on the receiving end of his past behavior, leading to some soul-searching and to the film's final "What's it all about?" (Cue Burt Bacharach, sung by Cher...produced by Sonny**at least in the States-side release).
It's a tough, funny—in a black-hearted kind of way—film that breaks barriers of subject matter while also shaking its cane at the unraveling moral fabric of its society, both teasing and admonishing with the same strokes, and drives home the scrambled cliche that "Time Wounds All Heels."
* Of, course, it's in first-person—Alfie doesn't think of anybody but himself.
** I'm glib about it, but Burt Bacharach's end-credits song is (to my ears) the best of his song-book (reportedly, he thought so, too), providing an "on-the-nose" counter-point to everything that has gone before, with clear-eyed "let-me-spell-it-out-for-you" lyrics by Hal David. Something even non-believers can believe in.
Last Friday would have been Stanley Kubrick's 95th birthday. I don't know if this blog will be around for the centennial, but, for the moment, here's another look at a classic scene from a classic Kubrick film.
The Set-Up: The Kubrick Trap. There are those who see it as a maze, but it is usually more lethal than that. People don't just lose their way...they're constantly being threatened with losing themselves...or their lives. The machinations that threaten to grind the souls in Kubrick's movies take many forms: they may be societal or social—political systems, class systems—military, technological, even supernatural. They may even be hard-wired into the folds and curves of the protagonists' grey-matter (talk about your mazes!). And the people who populate in the chess-master Kubrick's films are merely pawns to those designs.
But even pawns can occasionally take a King.
Rarely.
Because I don't talk about Stanley Kubrick enough,* I'll be eventually putting up some scenes from Kubrick films that show those traps being set. This one is one of the best, from an early film in Kubrick's career—Paths of Glory—a controversial** small-budget film set during World War I, for which Kubrick had the luck to get an actor the caliber of Kirk Douglas to star.***Paths of Glory tells the story of one attack that goes wrong, slipshod in planning and impossible in execution. The general whose idea it was to launch it in the first place is outraged and humiliated that the troops could not pull it off. And so he decides to set an example by court-martialing and executing members of the troop. He cynically decides that he will bury the evidence, blaming the men for the failure, and blustering his demands for satisfaction. He has the power and he will use it. In the chateau headquarters of the generals, the war is a game of advancement, and General Mireaux will not fall on his sword for anyone.
This meeting, directly after the attack, is a triangulation between strata of power—Mireaux will dress down his subordinate, Dax—in command of the troop—in front of the older, craftier General Broulard, who serves as referee, negotiator and Master of Ceremonies. Broulard is a political animal in the military game, assuaging egos, keeping his eye on both The Big Picture and his ambitious subordinates. Far from the front, he specializes in watching his back. He is the master manipulator by not choosing sides—other than his own. Mireaux, however, is a martinet—vain, egotistical and callous, seeing the war as a personal stepping stone for advancement and his greater glory. Dax, on the other hand, is literally in the trenches, making due with the situation as it is handed to him. Orders are orders, but orders come from men and men are flawed.
But you can't say that. Not to the men who control your life...and see lives as disposable...and a means to an end. So, Dax is in the uncomfortable position of being caught between the men who depend on him and the men who don't care. He is fighting two fronts: the simpler fight at the trenches with a common enemy with its deadly consequences, and the more complicated political fight above, with the men who control all Fates.
The fight for the Ant Hill done (a spectacular sequence, shot with only two simultaneously running cameras), Kubrick concentrates next on the fallout, away from the close-quarter muddied trenches and the chaos of the battlefield, in the immaculately airy rooms of the Neoclassic French headquarters that don't look like they've ever seen the destruction of war. Kubrick stages it literally for its triangulation (as he will stage the subsequent court-martial as a chess-match). The set-ups reflect the politics and advantages of the argument and the participants' relative position in it. Isolating medium shots of individuals. Close-ups for emphasis. Bonding two-shots (if one can call it bonding). The editing more closely follows reactions than words (as usual, with the Sunday "Scene" we put the dialog only contained in the individual shots, and here the dialogue is pointedly broken up, emphasizing the visual rather than the dialog), eyes darting from one man to the other searching for political advantage, seeking the important "two against one." Even when Mireaux is at his most emotional ("For cowardice!"), Kubrick is focusing on the reactions of Dax and Boulard, the former surprised and outraged while the latter looks away, betraying a slight embarrassment at the out-burst and Mireaux's lack of civility. Kubrick saves his most looming close-up for Broulard, who must finally rein in Mireaux's self-pitying melodrama ("I was talking of [executing] a hundred men. Now we're down to 12.") for the sake of a compromise that neither of the other two parties is comfortable with.
And the dialogue is blunt, direct and brutal...but not without insinuating nuance. A product of Kubrick, Calder Willingham and early Kubrick collaborator Jim Thompson—he of the brutal pulp fiction novels, including The Killer Inside Me—it reflects Thompson's ability to see the worst in people and have them express it without their having any sense of self-examination or discretion—the ultimate in ego, bordering on pathology. The frankness of the dialogue—despite the political under-pinning that restrict it—has a tension all its own; add Kubrick's insistence on focusing on the reactions to it and you have a very full, very tense scene of one-ups-manship. Production will be starting soon on Lunatic at Large, a "lost" Kubrick project,**** written by Thompson in the late 50's. The Story: The French attack on The Ant Hill, an insignificant scrap of land save for advantage and the vain-glorious ambitions of General Mirieuax (George Macready) has not gone well. Led by Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), the infantry were cut down almost immediately—some of the men not even able to leave the trenches. Incensed, Mirieuax even attempted to have French guns fire on the troops to provoke them. The aftermath of the battle is a debriefing and dressing down of the Colonel by Mirieux in the luxurious headquarters of General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), both mens' superior and a particularly political military man. Action!
MIREAUX: I ordered an attack. Your troops refused to attack.
DAX: Our troops did attack, sir, but they could make no headway.
MIREAUX: Because they didn't try, Colonel. I saw it myself. Half of your men never left the trenches.
DAX: A third of my men were pinned down because the fire was so intense.
MIREAUX: Don't quibble over fractions, Colonel.
MIREAUX: The fact remains that a good part of...
MIREAUX: ...your men never left their own trenches. Colonel Dax, I'm going to have ten men from each company in your regiment tried under penalty of...
MIREAUX: ...death for cowardice. DAX: Penalty of death? - MIREAUX: For cowardice!
MIREAUX: They've skim milk in their veins instead of blood.
DAX: It's the reddest milk I've ever seen. My trenches are soaked with it! MIREAUX: That's just about enough out of you. DAX: Well, I'm not going to mince words and stand by when-- MIREAUX: Colonel Dax...
MIREAUX: ...If you continue in this manner, I shall be forced to place you under arrest. BROULARD: I believe the colonel has a point, even though he makes it rather bluntly. This is not a trial...
BROULARD: ...but it does bear certain aspects of one, and Colonel Dax technically is cast...
BROULARD: ...in the role of the defense. In view of the gravity of the charges, a court of law would grant him all possible latitude in...
BROULARD: ...presenting his case. MIREAUX: Latitude is one thing, insubordination another.
BROULARD: I am merely offering an opinion, General. Please do not feel constrained to accept it.
MIREAUX: I'm perfectly willing to accept it, General Broulard.
DAX: I'm sorry, sir. I certainly didn't intend to be insubordinate.
DAX: My only aim is to remind you of the heroism these men have shown on every...
DAX: ...occasion in the past. MIREAUX: We're not talking about the past. We're talking about the present.
DAX: But don't you see, sir? They're not cowards, so if some didn't leave the trenches, it must have been because it was impossible.
MIREAUX: They were ordered to attack. It was their duty to obey that order.
MIREAUX: We can't leave...
MIREAUX: ...it up to the men to decide whether an order is possible or not.
MIREAUX: If it was impossible, the only proof of that would be their dead bodies lying in the bottom of the trenches.
MIREAUX: They're scum, Colonel. The whole...
MIREAUX: ...rotten regiment is a pack of sneaking, whining, tail-dragging curs.
DAX: Do you really believe that, sir?
MIREAUX: Yes, I do. That's exactly what I believe. And...
MIREAUX: ...what's more, it's an incontestable fact.
DAX: Then why not shoot the entire regiment?
[Broulard scoffs at the notion] DAX: I'm perfectly serious. BROULARD: Well, now, Colonel, you're missing the point entirely. We don't want to slaughter the French army. All we want to do is to set an example.
DAX: Oh, well, if it's an example...
DAX: ...you want, then take me.
BROULARD: Take you?
DAX: Yes, sir. If it's an example you want...
DAX: ...one man will do as well as a hundred. The logical choice is the officer...
DAX: ...most responsible for the attack.
BROULARD: Come now, Colonel. I think you're overwrought.
BROULARD: This is not a question of officers.
BROULARD: Paul, we don't want to overdo this thing.
BROULARD: Suppose we just make it a dozen.
MIREAUX: I was talking of a hundred men. Now we're down to 12.
BROULARD: Paul, let's not haggle over this thing anymore.
BROULARD: Let's get it settled once and for all...
BROULARD: ...so we can all live with it.
MIREAUX: Well, perhaps I was a bit too anxious to see proper justice meted out. I've spent my entire life in the army. I've always tried to be true...
MIREAUX: ...to my principles. That's the only mistake I can ever be...
MIREAUX: ...accused of. I'll settle for this: Have the company commanders select one man from each company in the first wave. Three...
MIREAUX: ...in all. BROULARD: Well, that's very reasonable of you, Paul.
BROULARD: The court martial will meet at the chateau at 3:00 this afternoon. MIREAUX: Will that be...
MIREAUX: ...convenient for you, General? - BROULARD: Oh, I won't be there, Paul.
MIREAUX: You won't be there?
BROULARD: No. I think it best that you handle this matter on your own.
MIREAUX: Probably so.
DAX: General Mireau,
DAX:...if it's at all possible...I'd like to be appointed counsel...
DAX: ...for the accused. MIREAUX: I'll take the matter under consideration. BROULARD: Oh, we can permit that here, Paul.
* This is sarcasm. If anything, I talk about Kubrick and his films too much, and actually I try to avoid it, spacing them out to avoid some sort of overload.
** Because of its harsh depiction of the French military, it was banned in France—and if it was shown at Cannes, no doubt Kubrick would have been made "persona non grata," as Lars von Trier was in 2011.
*** Subsequently, Douglas, when producing Spartacus, replaced director Anthony Mann (no slouch in the directing department) with his young "find," Kubrick. The experience created a fine film, but soured Kubrick from ever again making a "Hollywood" picture again. From then on, it would be his projects with his rules.
**** Literally, it seems. Kubrick was going to film it after collaborating with Marlon Brando on the pre-production of One Eyed Jacksbut Spartacus became his next project. Then, amidst his notes and papers and books on just about everything, the script was misplaced—something that Kubrick, it is reported, always regretted. I wrote the above piece in 2011. In 2010, it was reported that "Lunatic at Large" was being pursued for production with actors Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johannson slated to star. As of 2024, nothing has come of it. Yet.
