Taxi Driver: In Depth

Scorsese, 1976



In 1959 director Robert Bresson came out with an eminent character study known as Pickpocket. It was a restrained, tightly controlled look at the psyche of a man who suffered from social disconnect, whose only form of social interaction was picking pockets in the streets of Paris. Soon after Pickpocket made its way to America, a young film student, Paul Schrader, discovered it - and thus the seed for the 1976 masterpiece ‘Taxi Driver’ was sewn. Young filmmakers of the 1970s were heavily influenced by the auteurs of the French New Wave, and since the studio systems in America were falling apart, the executives decided they might as well give these new, young filmmakers a chance to make the pictures they wanted. Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Easy Rider paved the way, and soon young, independent filmmakers were making the films they wanted - with little to no studio involvement. During this time the young Paul Schrader - with almost no previous experience - wrote a script about a lonely man, a taxi driver. Influenced by his own experience with social disillusionment, books such as Nausea and most predominantly the aforementioned film Pickpocket, Schrader produced the script for one of the best character studies ever made in only a matter of weeks. He did not expect anyone to pick it up, but one thing led to another and soon director Martin Scorsese and the new but already famous actor Robert DeNiro were attached to the project. Taxi Driver was given a greenlite - and American cinema was never the same again.

Social Disconnect and Attempted Integration



The film revolves around a lonely man named Tavis Bickle; a Vietnam veteran who ``can't sleep nights,’’ and has absolutely no purpose or drive in life as he drifts aimlessly through New York. He says, ``I ride around most nights - subways, buses,’’ but figures, ``if I'm gonna do that I might as well get paid for it.’’ Thus we first encounter Travis as he tries to get a job as an NY cab driver. “How’s your driving record,’’ asks the cab boss. “Clean. Like my conscious,’’ Travis grins. Right off the bat we can already tell Travis is a bit different. Taxi Driver’s overlying theme is social alienation; Travis realizes that he leads a meaningless existence, floating through New York like he didn`t even exist, disconnected from society. He sits in porno theatres for hours but finds himself completely unstimulated and unaffected by them. He tries to talk to people, but it`s all in vein because he doesn’t actually know what to say or how to communicate. Any attempt to make contact and join with society fails. At one point, as he is entering a porno theatre, he tries to strike up a conversation with one of the female clerks. She doesn`t even look at him as he fumbles about trying to ask for her name. What does Travis think he is doing? He is going into a porn theatre, what sort of chance does he think he has with this girl? Travis’s attempt to ‘make contact’ predictable falls apart. He resigns to buying some popcorn and a chocolate bar.

Travis is an alien creature trying to exist in a human world. He does not know how to interact with people, and the only form of socialization he experiences is through limited ‘social’ activities; riding on a bus or subway or by sitting in porn theatres. Other than that, he is completely alone. He simply does not know how to interact with society. Travis says, “I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.’’ He believes he should conform with society; blend in - be ‘normal’. But he can’t seem to figure out how. He decides to become a cab driver because he figures if he might as well be paid for drifting around the city. But really it is an attempt at joining ‘society’, because as it is society is a building with a window with him on the outside looking in. Removed, but attempting to find his way in.

The problem is that Travis, in addition to not knowing how to interact with the world, also doesn’t know how to react to it. The images in the theatres are unfocused blurs. He stares into the distance, boring holes through the screen, probably not even aware of what he’s watching. A homicidal maniac (played by Scorsese in a brilliant cameo) has Travis pull the cab over as he explains his wife is cheating on him with a black man, and that he is going to kill her with a .44 magnum. This seems to have absolutely no emotional impact on Travis what so ever. His expression barely changes, and he says nothing in response to the raving maniac. He doesn’t even look at him in the rear view. Nothing seems to ‘register’ with Travis. Throughout the entire film Travis seems distant and removed from his world. When people talk to him they have to repeatedly say his name just to get his attention. “Travis. Travis... Travis!” And even something as simple as a pill dissolving in a glass of water is enough to completely remove him from the conversation. Travis is a man who does not know how to react to his environment, and doesn’t know how to react to other people. Even the violence he sees on the street seems to elicit little emotional response in him, and later in the film after he shoots a robber dead he leaves with the milk still in his arms, unmoved by the fact that he just killed a man.



So Travis does not how to interact with nor does he react to his surroundings. But he also does not understand them or his world. Travis is naive in his perceptions of everything around him. As he begins driving his cab, he begins to see more and more of the underbelly of society - but he begins to think that everywhere is like that. He specifically chooses to drive in those areas because he has become obsessed with them. He hates the filth of the city and wishes a “rain [would] come and wash all this scum off the streets.” But he doesn’t seem to understand that he is focusing all his attention in negative areas and therefore is going to see negative things. “All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal.” He begins to think that this sort of environment is the world; his vision becomes narrow and obsessive – even pathological. The psyche of Travis, however, does not understand how this could be. His perception of the world has always been that it is a good place; a sort of white washed 50s delusion of sorts. He has little understanding of the real world; he says he ‘doesn’t know much about politics’ or ‘movies’ or ‘music’. He is almost a childlike in his understanding of anything.

That is when he picks her out of the crowd. “She was wearing a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They... cannot... touch... her...,” he narrates while the camera pans across his diary with the same words (a throwback to Pickpocket). For him she is perfect and angelic, the complete opposite of the scum he sees on the street. He’s instantly entranced with her, not because he loves her, but because he sees her as a sort of ‘solution’ to the filth, or at least that she can rescue him from it. But he does not seem to understand that that she is a fantasy, an apparition. He projects onto her what he believes a perfect person should be. At first he parks outside the campaign headquarters for ‘Palantine for President’, which she slavishly volunteers at, and just watches her during his lunch break. He builds an idea in his mind of what she is like, how perfect she is. Eventually he decides to walk in and ask her out. It is a bold move, considering he was basically stalking her. Again, Travis has absolutely no idea how to act in society, and he really sees nothing wrong with his approach. Perhaps out of sheer morbid curiosity, Betsy actually accepts. But Travis was upset about Betsy’s friend Tom who she was laughing with as he came in to meet her. To Travis Tom was a joke - an inconsequential blip on the map. Of course, Travis fails to realize that he is just as small and unimportant as Tom, because he has already begun building himself up as a ‘hero’ who is above everyone else. But that will come into play later.

Travis ends up failing to have any real conversation with Betsy, though. He can only complain about how silly that man she is friends with is. He tries to ask something different (where she is from) but as soon as she’s answered he obsessively goes back to Tom. Travis’ narrow perception of the world makes it impossible for him to accept that the perfect angel he has built Betsy out to be is actually quite dull, boring and ‘ordinary’. They have absolutely nothing in common, but Travis is terrified of loosing what has become his last bastion of hope. He becomes obsessed with Palantine, who she worships and devotes her life to. He has absolutely no conception of what Palantine actually stands for, but because he believes Betsy is ‘perfect’, Palantine therefore “must be good”. But Travis is never able to understand the politics, and like everything else, he remains distant, unable to connect. In a last ditch effort to form some sort of connection with her, he brings her to a porno theatre. It’s the only thing he really knows; the only ‘social’ place he is comfortable with. But Betsy is immediately repulsed and storms out in anger; it is a wonder that Travis expected anything different to have happened, but again he really has no understanding of how other people behiave, and he ends up devastated.

The brilliant Bernard Herrmann score for Taxi Driver perfectly illustrates the duality that Travis created in Betsy. As the film opens you have the beautiful, romantic jazz (which becomes Betsy’s theme), and on the other hand you have the dark, ominous drum beats which seems to perfectly embody the darkness of the film. Both are juxtaposed with each other in the jarring opening sequence, each sharply interrupting the other as if in eternal battle. But later in the film, this sharp distinction can be applied to Travis’ relationship with Betsy. On one hand she is the beautiful, perfect angel that he’s made her to be in his fantasy world, but on the other he begins to realize she is actually like the rest. “Let me tell you something. You're in a hell, and you're gonna die in a hell, just like the rest of 'em!” he yells at her. His world has been shattered. His attempt to interact with society has failed. His attempt to integrate with society has failed. His attempt at understanding the world has failed. And Betsy, the one he saw as coming down to save him from the filth, turned out to be no different than the rest.

Loneliness and Disillusionment


Where's Waldo? Travis is even physically and visually distant from society.

At this point in Taxi Driver, Travis shifts from the social disconnection that he has been trying to deal with to social alienation. During the first act of Taxi Driver Travis, is removed from the world, but he attempts to enter it through Betsy. He attempts to ‘make contact’, so to speak, and integrate himself like everyone else. But he fails; Betsy (i.e. society) reject him. Now, instead of trying to join society, he removes himself from it completely. Society has alienated him and he sees grows to hate it entirely, with no interest in partaking in it any longer. Many people say Taxi Driver is about loneliness, which is true, but for much of the film Travis has imposed loneliness on himself. He now does nothing but roam the streets of New York in a cab by night, and sit in his room by day. He stares blankly into the television, a glaze in his eyes. Once again he has no meaning, purpose, or direction. He is obsessed with his hatred of the outside world, and retreats to the ‘safety’ of his cab and apartment, severed from the world. But then he comes across Iris.

Iris is the opposite of who he made Betsy out to be; Iris is a 12 year old prostitute drug addict runaway. Iris is basically the definition of the scum that Travis hates; she is one of the “animals [that] come out at night.” But in Travis’ fantasy world, 12 year old girls should be playing with dolls and going to school. Granted, they should be, and Taxi Driver certainly isn’t saying 12 year olds should be whores,but we all know that in reality there are child prostitutes. But Travis cannot accept this, and finally he has purpose in life again. Before his goal was Betsy; he wanted her, but could not have her. Now his goal is Iris; he can have her, but does not want her. But he does want to remove her from her environment, somehow saving her and vindicating himself, at least in his conscious mind. Since Travis has entered a state of deep social alienation, he is looking for a way to destroy that which does not accept him. Iris represents a complacent, dark society that he tried but failed to enter. In Travis’ mind, if he removes Iris from her circumstances and changes her, he will have effectively ripped a cosmic hole in the very fabric of society. It could be seen as Travis deciding to do something ‘good’, but I see it as Travis deciding to destroy that which he has grown to hate.

Now Travis has a goal; purpose, drive, motivation. He “gets organized.” “50 push ups every morning...no more destroyers of my body.” In a brilliant montage by Scorsese we see Travis getting into shape, vowing to take complete control over him body. He goes out and buys a series of guns in the now famous scene where he buys four pistols including a .44 magnum (hmm, didn’t we meet someone else who was talking about one of these?) Back at his apartment he shines his boots, creates contraptions for his guns, and prepares the bullets for an inevitable battle he seems to think is coming. He looks at himself in the mirror, talking to invisible people he believes he might get into a confrontation with. “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” He is building himself up to be an intimidating individual, at least in his mind, and the way he seems to be putting on a dress rehearsal for violence seem to indicate he thinks of himself as sort of cowboy hero.

Now he believes he is prepared to rescue Iris. He goes to her pimp, played by a startlingly convincing Harvey Keitel, and pays for time with her. Travis is shocked with how promiscuous Iris is, but this only hardens his resolve. He tells her he has gallantly arrived to rescue her, but is surprised that she doesn’t want to be rescued and that she actually looks up to ‘Sport’ the pimp as a sort of father figure. He only leaves after they agree to have breakfast the next day, but he clearly was caught off guard by her demeanour. The next day during breakfast, Iris explains how Sport is there to protect her from herself, and how she doesn’t mind what she does. Travis does not understand, because once again this does not fit into his perceptual box of what a 12 year old should be like. And he also is confused with how she refuses any help. Travis ran in like a knight in shining white armour, but he leaves having accomplished nothing and once again feeling rejected. Betsy rejected Travis and now Iris rejects him, choosing a pimp over him.

Travis spirals into depression once more. He sits in his apartment brandishing his guns, staring endlessly at the nothingness of the television. He puts his foot on the TV stand and ever so slowly pushes it until the TV crashes to the ground and breaks - his last connection with society shattered. He is all alone. He is “God’s lonely man.” But old posters of Palantine still plaster the walls of his apartment; a cold reminder of Betsy and a symbol of a detached, hypocritical society that refuses to accept him. Travis now decides to assassinate Palantine - the father figure of Betsy and a singular personification of a society. Travis shows up at a Palantine rally. The camera focuses on his body but does not reveal his face; Travis opens a pill bottle, spills a few in his hand begins to bring them up to his mouth - the camera rushes up to his head. He now sports a shocking mohawk. He grins ominously from the edge of the crowd, clapping mockingly as he waits for the speech to end.

Destruction



Interestingly, Palantine’s campaign slogan is “we are the people”, yet during all of Palantine’s speeches there are armed police officers and secret service separating the politician from the masses. The way Scorsese shot Taxi Driver really is brilliant because even through the visuals we get a sense of social disconnect, and in addition to a visual distance between Palantine and the crowd, there is a striking visual distance between Travis and the crowd. Travis is out on the fringe, physically distant from everyone else. He wears a beat up army jacket, dark sunglasses and now has a mohawk. When the people clap he waits and joins in several seconds later; but his clap is at a different rhythm, separate from everyone else’s. Everything about Travis now stands out, and he is physically and emotionally independent of the world around him. At first he was rejected, but now he chooses to be alone. He deliberately removes himself – even physically – from society. He doesn’t want to be a part of it any longer. At this point, he wants to destroy it. Travis moves in to pull his gun to kill Palantine – the ultimate act of hate - but he stands out in the crowd much too clearly and the secret service chase him away. His first attempt at physically attacking society has failed.

Travis rushes back to his apartment to collect himself. He failed at destroying one ‘father figure’ representation of society - but quickly moves onto the next. If he can’t destroy Palantine, a phony politician who mirrors Betsy (shiny and perfect on the outside, but rather shallow and fake on the inside) and her rejection, then he will destroy Sport and the other pimps, who represent the underbelly of society which Iris chose over Travis. He speeds over in his cab and walks up to Sport. Travis is so different in his appearance and the way he carries himself that Sport doesn’t even recognize him. “How’s the pimp business?” Travis mocks before shooting Sport in the gut. He moves onto the apartment building where Iris works in and sparks a brief but explosive gun battle. Travis shoots a man’s hand off with the magnum, but Sport is not dead – Travis is shot in the neck, but still stands and finishes Sport off with the rest of his ammunition. Travis moves upstairs and is caught off guard by another gangster. He is shot in the arm, but manages to shoot the man in the face with far more bullets than necessary. “I’ll kill yeah! I’ll kill yeah!” a wounded pimp screams as he tries to attack Travis as Travis limps into the room where Iris is cowering. Travis stabs the pimp in the hand and then shoots him in the head, brains splattering all over the wall. Iris is huddled on the coach, her cries piercing the sounds of violence, Later a strange silence overcomes the building. Travis points a revolver at his head and pulls the trigger. Click, nothing. He takes an automatic. Click, click. Nothing. He slumps on the coach as the police arrive.

The haunting Herrmann creeps in and Travis locks eyes with the camera. He takes his hand which is dripping with blood and points it at his head like a gun. “Peuuuhhh...peuuuhhh...peuuuuhhh...” The brilliant Scorsese cuts to a camera looking down from the ceiling. We slowly begin to crawl away from Travis... across the room, we drift down the hall... Soon we are in the corridor and observe the silent aftermath of all the violence. Now we are outside and the camera cranes higher and higher looking down on the growing crowd of police and onlookers. Travis chose Palantine and Sport as representations of a society that did not accept him as well as a society which he perceives as scum and filth. Saving Iris may have been his way of somehow cleaning up the streets, but I think on a deeper level Travis resented the fact that Iris chose Sport over him, and the final act of violence was actually a selfish act of revenge -not a selfless act of heroism.

None-the-less, Taxi Driver cuts to months or years later and the camera pans over a clipboard filled with newspaper. A voice over recites a letter posted on the board from Iris’ parents, thanking Travis for rescuing her. The various newspaper clip headings reveal that the media made Travis out to be a hero and that he has made a full recovery. Soon we see Travis again, back with his normal haircut and normal clothing, and back to driving a cab. He is chatting with some other cabbies when he realizes he has a fare; he hops in the cab and begins to drive, but realizes his fare is actually Betsy. They have a ‘normal’ conversation with each other - more normal than any they had before. Travis refuses her money and bids her farewell, driving off. Travis seems to be ‘okay’ now. But as he is driving off there is a strange ringing sound and his eyes shoot to the rear view mirror. Nothing. Nothing is there. But apparently Travis is still a disturbed individual. A ticking time bomb of social alienation which could explode at any moment.



Another interesting thing about the epilogue is how the media apparently made him out to be a hero. Taxi Driver questions how easily the media is capable of turning a man into a hero or a villain. After all, was Travis really a hero? No. He shot all those pimps because Iris chose them over him. And had Travis been successful just a couple hours early and killed Palantine, he would have been the villain. It is not a big part of the film because this media exploitation is only explored during the last five minutes, but it defiantly makes you question the way media can so broadly paints people as either heroes or villains. Travis was made into a hero, but he most certainly was not one.

But it seems unfair to have such an expansive review of Travis and the themes of Taxi Driver without mentioning the art of the film. Paul Schrader’s script is obviously a masterpiece, as we have explored, but there is also Scorsese and DeNiro to consider. Scorsese gives such a unique vision to the Schrader script and he shoots in a way that screams of ‘alienation’. Travis walks one way and the camera pans the other way to meet him later instead of tracking with him. Travis speaks on the phone and the camera slowly drifts away, studying an empty corridor. Scorsese gives Taxi Driver a brilliant visual atmosphere which perfectly embodies the themes and character of the film. DeNiro is Travis Bickle. In what is DeNiro’s crowning performance, and what I believe to be one of the best performances of all time, he breathes life into the character like no other actor could have. Every movement, every pause, every blank stare – perfectly timed, perfectly honed. The performance is something you cannot deny having a major impact on acting and cinema. Overall, the Scorsese/DeNiro/Schrader team are an incredible blend of talent. Schrader allows us a startling examination of the psyche of a disturbed man. Scorsese provides a brilliant visual context for Travis to exist in, and his work with the camera, editing and the great Herrmann score allowed for Taxi Driver and Travis to be fully realized. DeNiro took the fascinating character of Travis and blew everyone away with his performance. DeNiro became Travis, and again, the performance is one of the best I’ve ever seen committed to the screen.

But even with all this artistic talent and brilliance, Taxi Driver is still the best character study – and indeed, my favourite film– ever made because of the character of Travis. He is an absolutely fascinating, enigmatic, and intriguing character. Like Pickpocket, I can watch Taxi Driver over and over again because I always find something new while studying the characters of each respective film. In Taxi Driver, the overall theme of social alienation and the three stages Travis goes through (1. social disconnect & attempted integration, 2. loneliness/disillusionment, and 3. destruction) prove to be endlessly compelling subjects. I believe the film is extremely intelligent on a number of levels, and many I did not even touch base on (paranoia or racism, for example). Taxi Driver is made of many layers, and each layer delves deeper and deeper into the world of Travis Bickle; each level saying something different - something insightful and perceptive. I’ve always felt that character studies and films that focus on society and alienation had the most influence on me. In that sense, Taxi Driver is the film that embodies everything I love about the character study and cinema itself. Each time it grows on me a little bit more, and I learn something a little bit different about Travis. It’s a complex labyrinth of themes and subtext, but ultimately Taxi Driver is Travis Bickle... an endlessly fascinating enigma of the human psyche. A puzzle of social alienation and personal exploration. A cinematic, Dostoyevskian masterpiece the likes of which has never been seen, and perhaps, never will be seen again.

Stalker

Tarkovsky, 1979



Andrei Tarkovsky was more than just a director - Tarkovsky was an artist in that he used a medium of art to express his deepest personal reflections about life and humanity. Anyone can be a director and make a movie, but Tarkovsky transcends as an artist in that his films realize the true voice of cinema, and he uses this voice to speak to his audience in a way that is difficult to describe, and can perhaps only be experienced. In Tarkovsky’s 1979 masterpiece Stalker (Сталкер), he takes the audience on a journey of spirituality. It’s a film of haunting visual beauty, brooding atmosphere and spiritual exploration. Tarkovsky’s Stalker is not so simplistic to cater to the masses though, and it’s a film which can be interpreted in many different ways. But perhaps that is the true beauty of it – like life itself - everyone finds something different in the meaning of Stalker... but everyone does find something.

Tarkovsky’s films are slow and methodical, and Stalker is certainly no exception. Running at nearly three hours and consisting of almost no real plot turns or twists, it would be an epic bore in the hands of most directors. Stalker is set in an unspecified city, though it can be assumed it takes place in an eastern bloc country. Near this city is a mysterious place called “The Zone” which is cordoned off by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers who shoot on sight. Yet as Stalker begins, we learn that three men – ‘Stalker’, ‘Writer’ and ‘Professor’ are planning to travel to ‘the Zone’. As it turns out, there is a mythical room in the middle of the Zone in which your innermost wishes are granted. However, the Zone is a dangerous place which requires the guidance of an experienced ‘stalker’ to navigate. The slightest wrong move and The Zone will snatch your life from you. It is never explained exactly how the Zone came into existence. It is mentioned that a meteorite fell creating it or that celestial beings left it as a gift for humanity. But what is immediate is that it is a supernatural place, one fraught with danger and mysticism.

If this at all sounds like a sci-fi plot to you, you are not mistaken. But unlike most sci-fi films, Stalker has been stripped of all conventions and all that is left is what is the essential core. There are no elaborate sets, there is no CGI. No space battles, and no monster hunting them down. In fact, the film features the three characters dodging death from a place. The ‘monster’ in this ‘sci-fi’ is ‘the Zone’, which is basically a backwater wasteland of overgrown grass and dilapidated wreckage. Yet the brilliant Tarkovsky takes this environment and crafts the thickest of atmospheres; an atmosphere so effective that Tarkovsky is able to frighten the viewer by merely having the wind blow. It is a film that builds and builds with tension but never releases it; there are no ‘scares’ in Stalker. There is only an atmospheric build up of tension, and Tarkovsky was skilled enough to maintain the suspense the entire time without ever having to resort to any ‘payoffs’. Stalker is quite simply one of the most atmospheric films I’ve ever seen. The Zone is nothing but wasteland, yet there is something mysterious and haunting about it – frightening, even. Death seems to loom around every corner, but you can never quite figure out how or why. You just sense it. At one point in the film Writer pulls out a gun to which Stalker exclaims, “who are you going to fire at?!” Indeed, the Zone is everything around you, yet it is ‘nothing’. Tarkovsky realized the potential in this, and that’s how he was able to take such masterful command of the film’s atmosphere and suspense.



Part of the way Tarkovsky turned a simple landscape into such a metaphorical symbol and source of ambience was through the way he shot it. It goes without mentioning that Stalker is quite simply one of the most breathtakingly shot films of all time. And I use the word ‘breathtakingly’ for a reason; there are shots in this film that literally had me letting out a silent gasps of breath. Tarkovsky always had a way with visuals, and Stalker is some of the best evidence of this. Right from the opening shot you find yourself instantly captivated; Tarkovsky’s frames in Stalker are filled with labyrinths of detail and information. Tarkovsky’s patience and discipline are also to be marvelled at and respected; his shots hold for long lengths of time - many times minutes on end - always lingering, allowing you to reflect. He doesn’t cutaway for reaction shots, and I loved how many conversations between characters were shot entirely from the perspective of only one participant. The use of light and shadow is absolutely impeccable, and sequences such as the one in the tunnel are what I consider pinnacle examples of cinematography. The way the landscape in the Zone is photographed is impressive, and the light green vegetation in conjunction with the hazy mist creates a sensation of a naturalistic mysticism. Tarkovsky turns an otherwise ordinary wilderness into its own character, ‘the Zone’. The gorgeous sepia photography is perhaps some of the most impressive in the film, creating an intended atmosphere of disillusion and despair while taking full advantage of light and shadow to craft stark images which remain seared in my mind.

Hand in hand with the striking, unforgettable cinematography is Tarkovsky’s revolutionary treatment of time, for which he was well known. Tarkovsky believed that cinema is simply a matter of sculpting away at ‘time’, taking the parts out which are unnecessary and whittling it all down to an essential core which becomes the heart of the film. The only other art to incorporate time is music, but many directors fail to recognize and take advantage of this; but Tarkovsky based an entire career on time. Stalker, like all of Tarkovsky’s work, is slow and deliberate. You can tell how carefully he constructed every sequence. Shots linger for long periods of time, and the audience finds themselves more often reflecting on shots which otherwise would have been forgotten with a director who would have cut long ago. There are even sequences of the characters simply sleeping, but Tarkovsky knows how to harness ‘time’ and is able to manipulate it to entrance us. It’s a very interesting experience, being in the hands of Tarkovsky, and while his films are long and slow to progress, they are by no means boring because we are in a constant state of captivation. Tarkovsky uses time as a painter uses a brush, and if that doesn’t count for brilliance, I don’t know what does.

But what makes Stalker a film that so profoundly affected me was its spirituality. What films that do have something to do with spirituality usually have an aspect of spirituality to them - but Stalker is spirituality. There really is no other way to describe the journey you partake on in Stalker than to say it’s a spiritual one. It is a fascinating and revelling exploration of humanity. The three main characters, ‘Stalker’, ‘Writer’ and ‘Professor’ are all personifications of our deepest desires. Stalker is on an eternal quest for faith; he wants something to believe in so he can help others through difficult times. Writer is searching for inspiration; he wants what time he has on Earth to say something important and make a difference in people’s lives with something he can reveal to them. Professor is in search of truth; he wants to better understand the world he lives in so he can make it a better place. These are three desires that everyone longs for at some point or another because they bring meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. Each character is looking for it in a different place, but each is looking for essentially the same thing to fill the same spiritual hole.

The Zone can be seen as a metaphor for a number of things relating to spirituality. For example, I believe it could be seen as representing life itself. The film is long and slow moving, and every step through the Zone feels prolonged and drawn out. ‘The Room’, located at the center of the Zone, can therefore be thought of as that eternal ‘meaning’ or ‘truth’ the everyone seeks. They want to reach it before they die, and therefore do everything in their power to escape death for at least a little while longer. In Stalker, the characters move gradually and deliberately; they are terrified of the Zone (life) snatching their lives from them before they find the Room (representing absolution or truth). But when they finally do come upon the ‘threshold’ of ‘the Room’, they find themselves too terrified of what they’re inner most desire would actually be. Stalker never enters the room because he does not think he needs it; his journey towards truth is supposed to be fulfilled by leading others to faith. The nihilistic Writer hesitates and does not enter because of how terrified he is of what his true innermost wish would be granted. Despite his eternal search for inspiration and ultimately meaning, he finds himself afraid of what he will find. The Professor had ulterior motives the entire journey; he is afraid of this mysterious Zone because he cannot understand it in the context of fact and science. Despite a life searching for truth, he perhaps finds himself more terrified by the faith others seem to find in the inexplicable Zone than not finding it himself. Rather than finding truth, he would rather destroy it because he cannot understand it.



So while the entire concept of ‘the Zone’ may seem simplistic and dull on paper, it is in fact a brilliant metaphor for life, spirituality and the search for truth. Stalker is not a religious film by any means, but instead it explores the spiritual journeys that everyone ventures on during their lives. Tarkovsky was a devout Christian, but this film deals in a broader context than simply 'religion'. Stalker is a faithful man, he believes in something bigger than this dark world – yet he feels unfulfilled because he can’t seem to get others to see what he believes in. In fact, Stalker can almost be seen as a prophet who is sacrificing his well being to helps others. Writer is an agnostic character; he thinks there might be something out there – a God or a profound truth - but is not sure. He wants to find something, but can’t seem to come to grips with how it would change him. Professor is an atheist – he does not believe in what cannot be studied and tested – to him there cannot be a God or a truth that sums up existence - and therefore the very presence of the Zone is threatening to him. But he hesitates in destroying it because he realizes his very existence revolves around looking for truth, and that is what the Zone could help him with, even if he doesn’t understand it.

So in this sense, the Room could be seen as ‘God’. But I feel the spiritual journey in Stalker can be seen in a much broader context than that. The Room doesn’t have to be a ‘god’; for some it is simple ‘meaning’, and others it is ‘purpose’. But I think religion has been with mankind since the dawn of time because we all look for something supernatural or divine – something that would explain why we are here and give us meaning. In that sense, I believe the Room can be seen as a divine, supernatural or otherwise profound ‘truth’ which transcends our understanding. Everyone searches for it, but it takes a different form for everyone. The brilliant thing about Stalker is the Room represents that ‘truth’ everyone hunts, no matter the form it takes. Stalker is transcendent in its spirituality because everyone can relate to it. It is metaphorical and difficult to process at times, but it is a film that begs to be experienced, considered and meditated upon. It’s probably the most spiritual film I’ve ever seen because the entire film is journey through the soul – it is spirituality, and that is something almost no other film ever made can attest to. Of course, there is a lot more going on in the subtext of Stalker, it’s a brilliantly intelligent film, but I believe the heart of the film to be the spiritual journey through ‘the Zone’ in search of ‘the Room’, something that is deeply human and an experience everyone can relate to.

One can only say so much about a Tarkovsky film without writing an entire book, however. Stalker and his other films are so packed with questions and meditations that it can be mind boggling and even intimidating at times. But Tarkovsky said that he found often children best understood his films. Perhaps that is because at the very core of his films are quite simple truths, and we simply get too wrapped up in trying to understand the complex metaphors he uses to explore the essence of humanity. I believe Stalker is a film which demands patience, and it does not ‘pay off’ in the traditional sense of most movies – but it is such a profoundly spiritual, visually beautiful and artistically masterful film that it’s hard not to consider Stalker one of the best examples of what cinema is truly capable of. Tarkovsky is my favourite director because he realized the potential of cinema to explore spirituality and did so in such a beautiful, artistic manner that his films, Stalker being his seminal work, transcend the shackles of what we normally consider to be cinema.

Death Sentence

Wan, 2007



“Revenge is a dish best served cold.” An old Klingon proverb, we are told at the beginning of revenge epic Kill Bill. And who doesn’t like being served a nice, chilled dish of a revenge movie from time to time? The latest is the vigilante justice movie Death Sentence by James Wan of ‘Saw’ fame and starting Kevin Bacon. If you are familiar with the Death Wish movies, you’ll be familiar with Death Sentence, as they are both based on the same book.

Basically, a man’s son is killed in what appears to be a convenience store robbery (but actually turns out to have been a gang initiation killing), and while they killer is caught, he slips through the fingers of the justice system and is let free. Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is of course outraged that the man who killed his son isn’t getting at least life in prison, and you can see where the movie goes from there. Hume basically starts a one man gang war with the thugs and they in turn go after the rest of his family. It is fairly simplistic, but then again, what revenge movie isn’t? It’s about a guy just trying to avenge his son’s death, and that’s what you should expect going into it. Now I won’t reveal anymore of the plot, so you can feel safe reading on if you haven’t seen it.

Death Sentence actually works better than I expected, especially with the terrible reviews it got. However, the problem is it could have worked a lot better, and after about half way through the movie a lot of things happen that almost make you scratch your head, wondering just what exactly the screenwriter was thinking (or smoking) when he wrote this movie. The driving force of the movie is basically Kevin Bacon. If it wasn’t for him, this ship would have sunk - and fast. But he delivers an extremely effective performance, both as a man who just lost his son and also as a man who is out for justice. I don’t know who thought of casting Kevin Bacon, but it was a great decision and he delivers.

And of course, being a revenge movie you are going to have some action revenge scenes, and I was kind of surprised that they delivered in this. They are pretty intense and you can really feel the blows and see the hits. This is defiantly not a pg-13 affair – and it doesn’t feel over stylized or manically edited (like the director’s previous Saw movies), either. There is even a really great tracking shot that went on for quite a few minutes about a third of the way through. After a while I realized what I was watching hadn’t been cut for a while, and it was actually a very well constructed sequence, I was impressed. The second half of the movie is decidedly over the top, and sometimes goes too far, but I still think if you are just sitting there to see a revenge movie, then you’ll generally be happy with the revengin’.

But despite a very strong Kevin Bacon and some action scenes that deliver, Death Sentence is far from perfect. There are a lot of really poorly set up sub plots (i.e. the one with the police detective, or the one with the fat guy in the Bubbles glasses) which didn’t serve to accomplish anything other than...well I’m not sure what they were going for with those at all. In addition to this, there are some pretty big plot holes... maybe I wouldn’t call them plot holes, but I would say there are defiantly some instances where you find yourself wondering, “after all this shooting in the middle of the busy city, you’d think there would at least be some police sirens,” and things like that. In addition to this there are a lot of sequences which would have been fairly strong on their own legs, but the filmmakers seemed to always jump in and have a character come from nowhere to explain the obvious or cue emotional music in a scene that didn’t need it. Instead of just letting the audience watch the scene unfold and support itself, they seemed to always seemed to interrupt the flow to explain things to the lowest common denominator. “Hey, maybe they won’t know they are supposed to feel sad now. Put some sad music in there.” It comes off as lazy screenwriting and a lack of respect for the audience.

But the biggest problem of all with Death Sentence is how it seems to justify everything Bacon’s character does. While we do sympathize with him, and we do want him to succeed and avenge his son’s death, I feel that the movie was doing one thing but saying another. It was showing how revenge ultimately doesn’t fix the problem. He doesn’t get his son back and he actually makes things a lot worse for him and his family. Sure, he gets to have some revenge, but at what cost? This is what Death Sentence seemed to be doing, it’s what we saw, and in that respect I actually think it was thematically strong. But what it seemed to be saying was that Bacon’s character was doing the ‘right’ thing and that in the end it all ‘comes out in the wash’ type thing. But that makes no sense because we just saw Bacon’s character have his life torn apart in pursuit of revenge and we saw him loose everything – so why did the movie seem to always want to say otherwise? We clearly just saw Bacon’s character ruin his family’s lives, so why try to make it look like he did the right thing?

So Death Sentence does have a lot of flaws – giant, gaping, nearly fatal flaws – but it does seem to somehow stay afloat. It’s a boat that has a giant hole in its hull but just doesn’t quite seem to want to sink. What’s keeping it from going under is the exceptional Kevin Bacon who turns in a performance that basically makes the movie, and a series of serviceable action sequences which are generally intense and satisfying, if over the top. It’s unfortunate that the movie sunk a bit lower during the second half due to some bizarre plot twists and “what just happened?!” moments, and the fact that the movie does one thing and says another is a huge, inescapable flaw. Death Sentence would otherwise have been a much stronger revenge film – one that has some fairly well done action scenes but one that also tries to actually say something about the nature of revenge. As it is, it’s a movie that has some fairly well done action scenes but one that doesn’t quite know which way it is going thematically and one that treats the audience like they are a flock of goats. But if you were interested in this movie in the first place, you should still give it a shot, even if you just wait for DVD.

The Invasion

Hirschbiegel

The Invasion certainly has the makings of a good summer movie; you have big name stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and you have a plot about aliens taking over the world. What more can you ask for in a decent summer movie? Everyone loves movies about aliens taking over the world. The trailer seemed a promising mixture between intrigue and suspense, and while it came out late in the summer, it seemed like one of those movies that was simply a little late boarding the summer movie boat and that it would deliver none-the-less. Unfortunately for movie goers, The Invasion turns out to be a half baked, crusty excuse of a movie.

As I said, The Invasion certainly had potential; a plot involving an alien creature taking over the bodies of people as they slowly take over the world seemed intriguing. It is the 3^rd remake of the original 1950s classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so it was based on some solid material, and overall it seemed like it would be a quality thriller. After all, one of my favourite paranoia thrillers is The Thing, a movie about an alien that takes over peoples bodies and systematically picks off a band of Antarctic researchers. The Invasion actually started off decently, and I liked the atmosphere as psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) begins to notice that people are acting a bit ‘strange’, but as the movie continues it enters a sharp nose dive and spirals out of control, never recovering. By the last half hour The Invasion is nothing but a smouldering pile of wreckage.

One of the problems with The Invasion is that so much of it is utterly absurd, yet the movie takes everything so dead pan seriously. The ‘alien’ that is taking over the bodies of humans turns out to be nothing more than a virus, and the humans that have been infected by it are not too much more compelling or scary. For most of the movie they just walk around the city streets in a sort of trance, occasionally looking blankly at the main characters. It is supposed to be ominous and scary, but it just looks really weird, and after a while it becomes quite juvenile and silly. To make matters worse, when you are cornered by one of the infected, what do they do? They vomit all over your face. When you expect to see a movie about alien possessed humans bent on turning you into one of them and all you get are infected people who puke all over you and then walk away, it is a bit disappointing.

Furthermore, The Invasion has a strikingly stale, artificial feeling to it. It is the cinematic equivalent of a hospital operation room. It actually was very alienating, and I felt like the movie wasn’t allowing me to be sucked into the story. It kept the audience at arm’s length, allowing you to observe, but not participate. The pathetic attempts by screenwriters to have characters explain everything scientifically is just unconvincing and sad. The movie treats the audience like they are idiots and has no respect for them. The result is an audience that stands back and realizes just how stupid the movie really is. By the time the movie is at the last act, you know there is no salvaging it and all you can do is sit back and watch it spin out of control, crash, and burn. You would think it would at least be entertaining to watch a disaster unfold in front of your eyes, but surprisingly it was just really boring. This is not a ‘so bad it’s funny’ movie. This is a ‘so bad it’s...well just really, really bad’ movie. The ‘climactic car chase’, conclusion and epilogue are so half baked, contrived and stupid that when the credits roll you almost feel sorry for everyone involved. Kidman and Craig did not deserve this.

The moral of the story is to not go see The Invasion. It is slow, feels artificial and manufactured, takes itself too seriously and most importantly is just plain dumb. It’s a stupid movie. There isn’t often a situation where using words like ‘dumb’ and ‘stupid’ are sufficient, but in this case The Invasion is just that. At first I was thinking, “hey, this isn’t so bad,” but after about twenty minutes I could see why it got such bad reviews. By the last half hour I couldn’t help but just feel really sorry for everyone that was involved in making the movie – but maybe that was just me trying to deal with my boredom. If you want to waste two hours watching a movie about people that puke all over your face, then this is for you – otherwise, just plain avoid it.

Straw Dogs: An Exploration

Peckinpah, 1971

Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs has always been somewhat of a black sheep in the world of cinema. When the film came out it was bombarded with criticism and controversy over the violence, and while decades later the controversy has died down, the film still sharply divides opinion in movie circles. Roger Ebert for example, hates the film. Others swear it as the best film Peckinpah ever made. Truth be told, it is easy to see why someone wouldn’t like, or even hate the film. It is a film that intentionally upsets the viewer’s preconceptions of what a movie and a narrative should be, and shatters the idea of what a ‘protagonist’ should act like. But despite this, I would still recommend most people check Straw Dogs out, because it is such a deep and layered film with so much to say that it would be a shame if someone missed an opportunity to experience this shocking, ultraviolent character study of a masterpiece.

Straw Dogs is set in Britain, in the foggy, obscure country side where David Sumner, a mathematician, and his wife Amy (Susan George) have just moved from America to supposedly get away from the social upheaval of the 1960s and 70s and live in a more peaceful environment where David can do his work. As the film progresses, it observes the playful but deteriorating marriage of the two leads, while at the same time focusing on the locals who are not too accepting of an American moving into their quaint village. David has hired a number of the rather conspicuous locals to fix up his roof, but they start to pick on him, making fun of him behind his back. David knows this, but he is a pacifist and doesn’t want conflict, so he lets it slide. But as time goes on, the men he hired to just fix his roof get more and more bold, their ‘practical jokes’ becoming ever more invasive and even dangerous.

The real meat to Straw Dogs lies in the character of David and the films incredible subtext on violence, which is not always dangled in front of the audience for easy digestion but instead requires you to step back and really think about what the film was really saying. David Sumner: Simple, inoffensive mathematician. The film actually gets the audience to sympathize with David at first because he really doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He may be a little meek, and seems a bit too caught up in his math, but he still comes off as a likeable type of guy. His wife, Amy, is a beauty but is completely the opposite of David. She doesn’t seem to appreciate his work, she is much more outgoing and promiscuous than him, and while there are a few early scenes where they seem happy together, you soon get the feeling that she is quite bored in their relationship. After a while, you begin to question both what she saw in David in the first place, and why she continues to stay with him.

As Straw Dogs progresses, poor relations between David and Amy become much more apparent. David just wants to be left in peace, and Amy feels bored and unappreciated. She gets into many fights with David, but David is a pacifist. He doesn’t like conflict, he doesn’t want to fight. But Amy ever so subtly pushes him and pushes him, and you can tell how much David is growing weary of her. When alone, he curses her under his breath. But never actually does so around her, because again, he is a pacifist and simply doesn’t want to rock the boat. David’s pacifism becomes an important aspect of Straw Dogs, because all his anger and frustration is never vented – it just continues to grow and grow inside of him. The film is such a fascinating character study in this aspect, because it explores just how much a human can take until he is brought to his breaking point.

The breaking point comes in the form of the rather miserable looking locals he hired to fix his roof. They don’t like the American, though it is never really explained why. It could be they feel threatened by a foreigner ruining their way of living, or it could be they are jealous of his alluring wife, which is a whole other topic which could be extensively explored on its own. But the men taunt and tease David, and later they begin to outright torment him. Since David is so non-confrontational, they see him as an easy target to bully. He never fights back, and in fact tries to remain quite polite towards them. But as their pranks turn to the morbid and the outright dangerous, David draws closer and closer to snapping. Straw Dogs studies David with a magnifying glass, and with every slight insult you can see David growing increasingly enraged, though he never lets on to anyone that the anger is growing inside him.

Eventually, the locals lure the easy to take advantage of David on a ‘hunting trip’, but of course end up stranding him in the wilderness. This is a dark turn in Straw Dogs, because while David is sitting in the middle of nowhere, the men go back to his house and confront his wife. What starts as a simple drink soon turns to lust, and before Amy knows it she is being beat by one of the men into submission and subsequently a rape occurs. This is the first major instance of violence in Straw Dogs, and it’s an important one because after a while Amy actually ends up smiling and she stops struggling. A lot of people felt extremely put off by this, but it simply is a case of Peckinpah making the audience feel uneasy about the violence. The rape seems almost worse in that she actually ends up liking it, and the rape often cuts to David who is bumbling around with a shotgun in the middle of nowhere while it is happening, as if to add insult to injury. David finally accepts that the others have long ago left, and ends up walking home in a sort of pathetic acceptance. David probably knew something like that would happen, yet he was too weak to say no.

When David gets home, he tells Amy he is fed up with the workers and that he will fire them the next day. Interestingly, Amy doesn’t say a word about the rape. It is as if she is so sick of his passiveness, that the rape was almost a way of getting back at him, and while she seems haunted by it, she perhaps relishes the fact that David has no idea what happened. She didn’t want the rape to happen, but while it was happening she found pleasure in the fact that David had no idea what was going on. And while she is haunted by it afterwards, she enjoys the thought of the dumb, fumbling David being none-the –wiser, and she doesn’t tell him. This is simply one of the many fascinating facets of Straw Dogs which could be explored entirely on its own.

However, the focus of this exploration is on David. He ends up firing the local men who basically shrug and walk away; the only real reason they probably even bothered showing up was to taunt him in the first place. This would have been the end of David’s problems with his bullies, but unfortunately for him a bizarre turn of events occurs and he ends up hitting a child rapist who is being hunted by the village with his car in the fog of the night. David does not know who the man is or that he is being hunted, however, and ends up taking him to his house, calling the local pup to see about getting a doctor. The men looking for the rapist are told where he is being held, and they set off for David’s home. This is what leads to the brutal conclusion of Straw Dogs, a sequence that is impossible to forget.

The men end up barging into David’s home and demand he turn the rapist over to him. But David has had enough. This is the last straw for him. He refuses to turn the rapist over, knowing he will be beaten and probably killed. The locals get physical with David and push him to the edge. David’s pacifism has been taken advantage of for too long. He decides to finally stand up to his bullies and kicks them out. It is interesting to point out, however, that David is not doing this because he cares about the rapist's well being. David is not a noble knight, he actually doesn’t really care about the guy. This is a very interesting part of the film, as David turns out to be a pretty despicable person when it comes to his motivations.

The men end up laying siege to David’s home and the violence erupts. At this point, David sees a chance to finally vent all his anger and rage – everything that has been building up. But the final sequence isn’t just about him venting his anger over the torment the men put him through. It is broader in that this sequence marks a point where David finally knocks down the walls of his passive idleness. He moved from America because he couldn’t stand the political turmoil. He became distanced and alienated from his wife because she was confrontational and always on his case. The local men were the last straw, they drove him to the brink, and finally he simply lets it all go.

What proceeds is one of the most brutal depictions of violence I’ve seen. Granted, since Straw Dogs has come out there has been much more visually violent scenes in movies, but at the very core of David’s final rampage of violence is a heated intensity unmatched by almost anything I’ve seen before. This intensity – this hatred – is what makes the scene so brutal. You can feel David’s rage as he fights and kills the intruders. What starts as keeping them out of the house turns to fighting for his life - but the brutal sequence makes you question David’s motivations behind the killing. He could easily have just sent the rapist out and saved himself a lot of trouble, but he didn`t because at this point he wanted an excuse for violence. And you can see it in his eyes, in his face. He is enjoying it. He loves it.

This is what I loved so much about the film. It takes a character like David who is a push over and shows how he has always inwardly wanted to just explode into violence. Straw Dogs reveals that inside everyone is a primal rage and that when pushed to the edge or given an opportunity, people are capable of incredible violence. The film puts a passive character like David in a situation where he has a chance to become the bully and simply observes what happens. All his life he has been bullied and pushed around, but when he finally sees a chance to do what he has subconsciously, and later consciously, wanted to do - go on a rampage of violence – he takes it. And for him it is almost a sexual thing. He is finally asserting his dominance and all of the sudden he is the bully, he is the one with the power. He finally is standing up to all those people who took advantage of his mild mannered personality and he loves it. It is not a case of him defending his wife’s honour, as he doesn’t even know she was raped. It isn’t a case of him defending the rapist, as the rapist really doesn’t deserve to be defended, nor does David really care what happens to him in the first place. He says he is defending his home, but really he is just creating a situation for himself which will invite violence.

After the last person is killed, David looks around at the bottom of the stairs and sees all the death and blood. The house is ruined and is strewn with bodies. His wife stands at the top of the stairs shaken and shocked. But he doesn’t really care about her. He goes up and leads the rapist to his car, driving him home, leaving a terrified Amy all alone in the house. He doesn`t give her a second thought. In my favourite shot of the film, and I have to say what may be one of my favourite shots of any film, a smile slowly creeps across David’s face. Not a smile of happiness or a smile of relief. It’s a chilling smile of sheer enjoyment. He loved the violence. It was the rush of his life. It`s what makes the character of David so intriguing to study. Peckinpah reveals through David just what sort of dark brutality man has inside of him; what kind of violence he is capable of. And the chilling part just how much he enjoyed it.

Of course, Straw Dogs has so much more hidden and buried inside of it. You can see underlying themes everywhere you look, just begging to be investigated. It`s all in all a fascinating looking glass into the heart of a man who is pushed to the edge – and it`s an unsettling look at just how much people are capable of under the right circumstances. It should be mentioned that for such a complex character as David to really work, you need to have a great actor, and in this case Dustin Hoffman turns in one of his most stunning performances. He is perfect as the quiet, mild mannered mathematician - and he is brilliant as a man who turns to primal violence.

All in all, Straw Dogs is a masterpiece because it has a certain intensity to the violence, and at the very core of the film you can feel the heart of David pumping, and when David explodes in violence, so does the film. The violence is shocking and brutal; hard to watch not because it is graphic, but because of how much David seems to enjoy it. It is a film you could watch many times over, always finding a new strand of subtext to pull at, and you would always find something new or fascinating. There are simply so many themes and underlying suggestions that it is overwhelming. David is an incredible character to study, and Hoffman brilliant in the role. But I think the thing that send chills up my spine and told me that this film is something special is that cryptic, sadistic smile that David reveals in the final shot. It was at that moment I knew that Straw Dogs is one of the best character studies about violence I`ve ever seen. A masterpiece in raw, unapologetic cinema.

The Last Samurai

Zwick, 2003

Looking back on The Last Samurai, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s one of those films that – despite all the flaws – you still love. Most of the time films are weighted down by their faults, which The Last Samurai is to a degree, but in this case there is something at the core of The Last Samurai which always seems to suck me into the world, warts and all. It’s a beautiful film – visually, musically and spiritually. It has a heart that most Hollywood epics lack, and that is probably why years later I still look back on The Last Samurai fondly.

The story, about a white man who ends up fighting for the samurai he was hired to kill, could easily have your eyes rolling; typical ‘American comes to save the day’ type thing. But instead, America actually is the bad guy in this movie and Cruise’s character, Nathan Algren, is the one who rebels against imperialist expansion. Granted, I do think the movie took it too far at times, and there is an obligatory ‘bad guy American’ character who felt like he was dropped in just so that Nathan have an opposite character as his nemesis, but overall I was still glad that they didn’t make it feel too much like Algren was going to save all the Samurai by himself.

Instead, The Last Samurai turns out to be more of a spiritual journey for Algren. Instead of him being a heroic do-no-evil hero, he is actually a drunk with no reason to live. When he is captured by the samurai and taken to their village, he begins a journey of self realisation and redemption. He begins to find inner peace, he discovers purpose. The audience very closely identifies with Algren’s journey because the spirituality and sense of harmony he seeks is something that everyone can relate to. I think that is why I can watch The Last Samurai so many times; I feel like I know what he is looking for, and I see it in the samurai way of life. There is defiantly a very spiritual aspect to the film, and it’s the strongest, best developed part – the heart and core – of The Last Samurai. I also really loved the character of Katsumoto, both because of the amazing performance from Ken Watanabe, and because I really liked how Katsumoto and Algren mirrored each other. It’s buried deep in the subtext, but if you look closely there is a very close relationship between the two characters – an ‘understanding’ – which was very well developed.

But what would a samurai epic be without battles and katanas? The Last Samurai features some fantastic sword play and battle sequences throughout. They are like intense torrents of adrenaline and emotion that carry you away. They are fantastically shot and you really get an appreciation of how much skill the samurai had in battle. The choreography is wonderful, and nothing is hidden with editing. You can tell they put a lot of work into the battles, and it shows. I did think there was a certain ninja battle that was very awkwardly inserted, as if they felt there hadn’t been enough action in the last 15 minutes, but beyond that the rest of the battles have meaning and purpose behind them.

The entire film is great eye candy, though, and everything looks breathtaking and stunningly shot. Beautiful scenery, excellent sets and all around superb production values in everything from costumes to props. I simply cannot fail to mention the incredible Hans Zimmer score which perfectly embodies everything about the film. The Last Samurai simply would not be the same without the score Zimmer came up with. It gives a rushing energy to action scenes and a gentle touch to the quite ones.

Unfortunately, the ending has to be mentioned. Everything was going great, even the final battle was a fulfilling spectacle and finale. But when the last samurai are all charging on their horses during their last stand until they are mowed down by the chain guns, things simply went downhill and you could tell the work of Hollywood producers was to blame. First of all, what are the chances that, of the 400 samurai who started the battle, the very last two happened to be Algren and Katsumoto? I mean they are the only ones alive on the battlefield. I found this was an incredible stretch. Furthermore, I thought it should have ended with Algren taking his life along with Katsumoto – representing Algren’s acceptance of the samurai way of life and finally finding his inner peace- because things keep going downhill for the rest of the film.

After Algren somehow makes it out alive, he goes to the Emperor and actually convinces him that the samurai way of life is something worth preserving and he kicks the American imperialist pigs out of the country, as if to justify to the audience all the samurai dying. And then Algren goes to live with the samurai and finally the film ends. It really should have ended 15 minutes before with Algren killing himself with Katsumoto instead of catering to the lowest denominator and making a few people who didn’t understand the themes of the film feel good when they walk out of the theatre. It’s unfortunate, but the ending of The Last Samurai does not live up to the rest of the film and kind of goes against a lot of what it worked to build.

But despite the blunder of an ending, The Last Samurai is still a movie I’ve come to very much appreciate and enjoy seeing even after its release all the way back in 2003. It has a heart to it - a spirituality - that most Hollywood fare completely lacks. There are flaws and problems, and you can tell that it didn’t entirely escape the clutches of Hollywood producers, but even so the core of the film remains intact. Algren’s journey is beautiful and spiritual - one that you find yourself relating to. And on top of that are some excellent sword battles, stunning photography, and one of the best film scores in recent memory. I guess the best way to sum The Last Samurai up is to say it’s a bit like the other person in a relationship; despite all their warts and flaws, you still love them.

Come and See

Kilmov, 1985



War movies are an interesting breed because the subject they focus on is so universal - humanity has been plagued by war since the dawn of time, and we are no stranger to it. Yet war films still tend to fascinate us, despite how chillingly close we’ve become accustom to the subject. Granted, many are excuses for set piece action scenes, and others are nothing but expensive pieces of flag waving propaganda – but when a war film does it right, it can be powerful material. Some of the greats include The Thin Red Line, Cross of Iron, and The Cranes are Flying. But Elm Kilmov’s 1985 masterpiece Id ii smotri (Come and See) transcends every war movie ever made. In fact, it’s one of the best films ever made, period.

The thing that sets Come and See apart from most war films is that it doesn’t glamorize it. A lot of war films – even the good ones – tend to glamorize war, inadvertently or not. There are not very many that make you hate war. Come and See makes you hate war. It has purity about it in this way I’ve never experienced in a war film before. I’ve seen films come close to it, such as Cross of Iron, but no film has ever been as pure in its revulsion of war as Come and See. It depicts war as it is: a sick, twisted, grotesque animal. The very fabric of the film seems to detest the very idea of war. I know this seems like an exaggeration, but having watched the film twice, I still can’t shake the feeling. It’s nothing I’ve experienced before.

Come and See is certainly not for everyone, however. It could nearly be classified as a non-narrative film. The main character is a Russian boy named Flor who is eager to join a band of Belorussian partisans. His face is filled with anticipation of finally being able to join the struggle. The film follows Flor the entire time, and the film is told entirely from his perspective. There really is not much of a ‘plot’, as there is no ‘goal’ in the film. It just follows Flor around as he finds himself experiencing the war and drifting closer and closer to what can only be described as hell on Earth. It has a wandering, aimless feel – but in a good way. The audience, like Flor, never knows what’s going to happen next because Flor is lost, both physically and mentally. He drifts through the battlefields, the wilderness and the swamps. He meets a girl who travels with him, but as soon as they find each other they are separated. He decides to travel back to his village, only to discover the population had been massacred. He is alone, he is scared, he is angry, he is confused – and the brilliant thing about Come and See is the audience feels exactly the same way.

It should be mentioned that Come and See is also one of the more ‘abstract’ war films you’ve probably ever seen. But this is simply part of the brilliance of the film. The sound mix is completely unconventional. The score is a haunting, chilling mixture of sounds. A droning plane over the sound of distant tanks mixed with the screams and wails of a crowd becomes the music. Sometimes there will be a dim piece of Mozart mixed with the sound of birds, but it’s distorted and muffled because Flor is shell shocked - and therefore so is the audience. A lot of the sound in this film is distinctly distorted. It serves to create a feeling of uneasiness, and even of alienation. The music and the layered, frantic, disorienting sound makes your head spin and as the film progresses it gets more and more intense until the horrific, climatic sequence where the sound hits a crescendo and doesn’t let up. It lets you know you’ve arrived in hell. But there are very few films that have took such marvelous advantage of the artistic capabilities of sound. Instead of having sound just for the sake of dialogue and so forth, Come and See brings it to an entirely different level where sound is a key instrument in painting the horrific experience that the film is.

Visually I loved how everything was filmed on location and how there are no camera filters or crane shots or anything fancy. I wouldn’t say it’s done documentary style, but it is done in a frank and realistic fashion, and it feels like you really are wandering the scorched earth of the battlefield. Even the technical aspects seem eerily real, such as some of the firefights where tracers are flying just above the character’s heads. When I looked into it, I found out this is because in certain sequences, they used REAL ammunition. I even read that Aleksei Kravchenko – the actor who plays Flor – said he could actually hear bullets whiz just over him during filming. No wonder everyone looked so genuine. But back to the visuals, I really liked the muted colour pallet and the way nothing is tampered with. It’s like they set up a shot in the middle of a swamp, filmed, and just kept it like it is. They didn’t doctor anything up or stylize with the visuals. It just looks real and it’s all and all a very ‘gritty’ film, visually.



Now I mentioned before the devastating sequence during the climax, and I’ve got to say more about it, because it’s one of the most overwhelming depictions of evil on film that I’ve ever seen. Basically, the Germans end up herding an entire village population into a church and lock them in. Flor ends up trapped inside as well, but so far no one is quite sure what is happening. The film begins to turn into a frenzied, manic, hellish nightmare. As mentioned before, the audio becomes thick, confusing, disorienting and terrifying. You begin to question if what you are watching even real? The German soldiers are like a band of thugs - dancing around, screaming, yelling, and singing. It’s like we are watching some horrible dream. Next thing you know the Germans start throwing grenades in the church, and before you know it they’ve set it on fire. They are laughing and enjoying themselves, it’s as if they don’t even think anything of it. They’re just going to burn 500 people alive and then go for a coffee break. It’s a difficult sequence to watch – both because of the subject matter and because of the way Kilmov was able to turn it into a surrealistic nightmare. It’s also interesting to note that even though it’s one of the most horrible, evil things I’ve seen depicted, you never actually see the violence. Kilmov was a master at horrifying his audience without having to use bloods and reaction shots, and this sequence can attest to that.

The final scene features a broken Flor standing over a picture of Adolf Hitler. The camera looks squarely on his face. At the beginning of the film his face was full of youth, vigour and enthusiasm. At the end, Flor’s face is weathered and wrinkled, like that of an old man. He aims at the depiction of Hitler and begins to squeeze off rounds into it. Every time he shoots stock footage of Hitler and the war cuts in and the manically edited music and sound kick in. Everything is moving backwards – the entire history of the war unfolds in reverse. Flor continues to fire and the unrelenting music, sound and frenzied editing continues until we finally rest on a picture of Hitler as a little boy. Flor stops, completely drained, his eyes empty and dull. His soul broken.

And that’s why Come and See is the masterpiece that it is. It is the most successful film I’ve ever seen that shows what war does to the very soul of a person. The film spits on war, it is disgusted by it. I’ve never seen a film before that made me so despise it. It uses sound, music and visuals to shocking effect. Kilmov disorients, frightens, and otherwise terrorizes us with his brilliant mixture of audio and visuals, and truly creates an atmosphere of sheer dread and horror. There are sequences in this film I will not soon forget, the images seared in my mind. Ultimately, Come and See is one of the best films I’ve ever seen because the audience can so closely identify with the main character. We feel his outrage, his anger and his broken heart. We feel hatred; we feel his loss of hope and humanity. When Flor is firing into the picture at the end, we are carried away in a torrent of raw emotion which has been building for two hours. All the wars, all the chaos, all the destruction, all the hate - Come and See is unique in that it allows us to experience it all, and by the end we feel drained and hopeless. An intensely emotional experience like no other; a masterpiece of film, and a horrifying looking glass into the horrors of what human kind is capable of.