Happy, Happy - Bumbling Romance

Movie: Happy, Happy

My Rating: 4 stars

I enjoy Scandinavian comedies—especially Norwegian ones.  Life is so harsh and bleak up there that you’d have to develop an eccentric sense of humor to cope.  Norwegian dramas tend to be a little too dark and depressing for my taste, but if you add an element of humor to mix you get some pretty interesting and strange stories.  This story is about an unhappy couple that lives out in the wintry, isolated, Norwegian countryside.  Kaja and Eirik are miserable together, and seem to just be trying to get through their days without killing each other (or themselves).  Kaja is an inherently happy lady who wants nothing more than a loving family and a little “intimacy.”  However, Eirik is entirely uninterested in that sort of closeness.  Things start to look a little more interesting when a glamorous, cosmopolitan couple from Denmark (Elisabeth and Sigve) move into their rental property next door.  Kaja is very excited to possibly have a new friend in the beautiful, sophisticated Elisabeth.  And, Eirik seems pleased to have some of her bubbly energy directed away from him for a while.  Their young son seems intrigued by the new couple’s adopted African son.  Maybe a little too interested.

Kaja has an effervescent personality, and she is very prone to overindulgence—wine, food, games, sharing personal information.  And, she’s been so neglected for so long that she just can’t help falling into bed with Sigve when she finds herself alone with him.  Of course, he makes it very easy for her with his easygoing city morals.  But, this sort of breezy affair usually doesn’t last very long.  And, in this case, the two lovers are discovered very quickly, since they live right next door to each other and can’t stop making googly eyes at one other.  This film does have some pretty silly moments, but I think I was expecting a little more of a comedy than it turned out to have.  The real focus of the story seems to be more about the difficulty of adult relationships.  There are so many ways they can go wrong.  Passion can fade, one’s partner can be tempted away by another, or, he can become fat and lazy.  The list goes on.  The light humor in this film merely serves as a way to make this painful subject a little easier to watch.  This seemed like a little bit of a bait and switch to me because all the trailers I had seen were so lighthearted.  But, I still enjoyed the film for what it was, even if it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

The Sleeping Beauty - Sinister Fairy Tale

Movie: The Sleeping Beauty

My Rating: 4 stars

I enjoy these modern retellings of classic fairy tales.  And I’ve been watching my fair share lately.  So, I figured, while I was on this kick, I had might as well exhaust the genre. This time I went with yet another retelling of the Sleeping Beauty tale.  There seems to be a recent phenomenon where we’ll get three of four versions of the same story released all at once.  For example, there are two or three different Snow White films playing in theaters now.  And, I’m not ashamed to say that I’m planning on watching them all.  Maybe I’ll even get my butt off the couch this time and see them in the theater!  I’m not sure whether directors feel the need to jump on the bandwagon of the hot new trends.  Or, maybe this is the only way to raise enough money to finance a project—by going with a tried and true formula.  But, perhaps there is something a little more subtle at play.  Filmmakers could just be tapping into some faint cultural trends that are blowing about in the winds.

This is a French take of the old story, by director Catherine Breillat.  She also directed the recent Bluebeard.  I like these French films, because they are so fantastical and a little creepy.  The French seem to have a pretty dark and nightmarish vision of these old fairy tales.  I guess they haven’t forgotten how harsh life used to be in the dark ages.  People bloomed young, and they usually died that way too.  So these films are usually laced liberally with a fair amount of sex and death.  I guess that could have something to do with that permissive European sensibility.  But, even the happy, modern versions that we’ve scrubbed and sanitized for children seem to have some pretty sinister elements in them.

This film jumps right into the scary parts of the Sleeping Beauty Story.  (Well, right after we get to enjoy some topless fairies frolicking in a river, that is).  But, one of the first scenes has the evil fairy bestowing her “gift” of an early death on the little newborn princess.  But, our lovely, nubile fairy godmothers arrive just in time to prevent total disaster.  And, this is where some of the creative, modern interpretation comes in.  The fairies say they can prevent the princess’ death at 16-years-old by turning the curse into a one-hundred-year sleep.  The other fairies then gift her some wild and crazy dreams to help her wile away the years.  And, those dreams provide the main bulk of the story in this film.  They are confusing and non-linear, and they feel slightly dangerous.  These stories really do capture the feeling of a restless, fitful sleep.  It’s pretty intoxicating and beautiful.  The film is also short enough to avoid becoming tedious.  I like Breillat’s bare bones, yet creative takes on classic stories.  She preserves just enough of the original story, while adding some disturbing, modern touches.  They never feel forced or outrageous.  I definitely recommend checking out more of her films.

Sleeping Beauty 2011 - Pervy Horror

Movie: Sleeping Beauty (2011)

My Rating: 3 stars

We all know that there’s no new perversion under the sun.  If an idea has ever popped into your head, chances are pretty good that there’s some old lecher out there who wants to do it.  And, that’s kind of what this movie is about.  Not that it gets into anything too crazy or exotic.  But it’s got the same level of creepiness.  Emily Browning plays Lucy, a very beautiful, yet struggling college student who is forced to take some rather “unsavory” jobs to make ends meet.  I know this sounds like a pretty well worn story—the old “stripping her way through graduate school” plot.  But, this story feels a lot darker and a lot more desperate than some of those old clichéd movies.

Lucy’s situation is pretty bad.  She wants to stay in school, but she can barely afford food to eat, let alone her tuition and rent.  She has a couple of jobs already—she waits tables and participates in medical trials.  There’s also a little non-sexual “girlfriending.”  Every now and then she’ll try to pick up some businessman at a swanky bar for some impromptu prostitution.  But, when all those things just aren’t cutting it, she decides to sign up to work at a high-end fantasy service.  This includes some pretty tame work, like being a lingerie cocktail waitress at some old man’s creepy private party.  But, then there’s some pretty sinister stuff too.  Once the agency begins to trust Lucy, they press her to begin working as a “sleeping beauty.”  That means she takes a teacup of sedative, and then gross old dudes pay to fondle her in her sleep.  And, let me tell you, the kinds of people paying for this service aren’t nice, handsome gentlemen with good personalities.  The only way Lucy can even guess what’s being done to her is by checking to see which part of her body is sore when she wakes up.  It’s a horrifying idea.  There’s lots of nudity in this film.  As you would expect from a film about “soft” prostitution Emily Browning strips down pretty often.  But, the context is really too depraved for the nakedness to be enjoyable.  At least I hope that’s the case.

I don’t need to tell you that this is a very dark movie.  I’d almost classify it as a psychological horror, because we can see Lucy’s life barreling out of control, and we are powerless to stop it.  We know she’s going to get hurt sooner or later.  Well, she’s already pretty mentally damaged, but it’s hard to watch it move on to physical distress as well.  This is a really well done movie.  Emily Browning is an amazing actress.  She goes to a nightmarish place in this role, and it’s pretty scary.  But, this film is really only for a very limited audience—people who are strong enough to endure some pretty disturbing images, but not who are too jaded to realize how wrong those images are.

My Joy - Total Soul-Crusher

Movie: My Joy

My Rating: 2 stars

This is one of those films that makes you feel tired deep in your bones.  I don’t know if this is a particularly accurate depiction of life for the less fortunate living in Russia, but if it is, I weep for humanity.  The film doesn’t have one narrative, common thread, or even one character that we are following throughout.  That’s probably because most of the people we are introduced to in the film wind up dead after not too much times passes.  So, this film winds up giving viewers more of a portrait of a time and place, rather than a story.  And, that portrait isn’t very pleasant.  When there aren’t very many resources to go around—whether they be jobs, money, or hope for the future—people stop worrying about being good or decent, and start to figure out how they can best get some of those things for themselves.  That usually means screwing over someone else pretty royally—stealing someone’s bags a gunpoint, holding another guy’s truck hostage at a checkpoint until a sufficient bribe is paid, secretly moving into a family’s home in the night, and squatting there until they are ousted by a group that is even more heavily armed.  It’s pretty grim.  And, no one ever needs much of a reason to kill someone else.  There’s no reason not to when life doesn’t seem to be worth very much.

The subject matter alone makes this film hard enough to watch.  The non-linear style makes it even harder to follow.  The story is so dismal, and all the characters are so uniformly unsmiling and pessimistic that it’s often hard to keep track of who is who, and why a certain person is doing a particular thing.  Everyone’s motives seem to be the same: to just escape this hell on earth for a little while.  And, the outcomes of all these endeavors always seem to end up the same too: bad.  But, the characters seem to expect this, and none of them seem very surprised or even very disappointed when things go poorly.  It’s like they’re sheltering themselves from the world by wrapping their expectation is a kind of numbness.  This stuff isn’t very fun to watch.  And, there isn’t even a compelling story line to hold an audience’s attention, or any thrills to break up the monotony.  I can’t recommend this film to you unless you are unnaturally obsessed with all things Russian.  It’s a real bummer.  If you can think of a film with a more ironic title than this one, let me know.

Tiny Furniture - Viva la Slob

Movie: Tiny Furniture

My Rating: 4 stars

It’s kinda unnerving to come into contact with a really confident person.  So many people these days seem to be compensating for all kinds of insecurities—even the most beautiful and successful people out there.  So, when I encounter someone who is just putting herself out there so un-self-consciously, I find it totally fascinating.  Lena Dunham is far from perfect.  She’s a little dumpy, doesn’t pay particular attention to personal grooming, and the only characters she seems to play are exaggerated versions of her own personality.  But, she knows all these things already, and none of it seems to bother her a bit.  Confidence has always been the most attractive personality trait anyway, and Lena Dunham has plenty of that.

Dunham’s character in this story, Aura, is a fresh graduate with a totally useless liberal arts degree.  There’s not much in this world that a degree in Film Theory is going to prepare you for.  But, she doesn’t seem to be too worried about having nothing to do with her life, though, because she can always crash back at the family home with mom and little sister.  And, she seems fairy certain that something good will come along—both in terms of a career, and romantic prospects.  I can’t tell whether the source of this confidence is a sort of bright-eyed naivety or just a devil-may-care attitude.  This character lives in Manhattan, so that seems to indicate a certain level of awareness of the world.  But, then again, she has lived a pretty sheltered life in an astronomically huge loft apartment with her mother who is a very successful working artist.  Her mom has made a fortune taking photos of tiny furniture.  That kind of life doesn’t really breed a realistic view of the world.  So, it’s still a mystery.

I liked this movie a lot.  It’s totally different from anything else out there these days.  Lena Dunham is one funny actress.  And, she plays these slobby characters so well.  Her characters are totally unapologetic for how they look, the wealth they were raised with, and for their total laziness.  It’s an interesting way to call attention to this new attitude that young adults seem to have.  In the past, these little brats would be vilified, and made out to be the clear antagonist in a story.  But, I think that making them the protagonists almost calls attention to the phenomenon a little better.  We’re left having to root for such flawed people, and that doesn’t always feel so good.  I’ve heard that Dunham’s character in the new TV series Girls is very similar to her character in this movie, but I haven’t seen that yet, so I can’t confirm whether that’s accurate yet.  You’ll have to let me know.  But, if any of this stuff interests you at all, you’ll definitely want to check out this movie.