WE OWN THE NIGHT ****
DIRECTED BY James Gray
STARRING Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes
US 2007 117 mins.
HALLAM FOE ***
DIRECTED BY David Mackenzie
STARRING Jamie Bell, Sophia Myles, Ciaran Hinds, Claire Forlani
UK 2007 95 mins.
When did family bonds become so conjoined with crime sagas? Easy: in The Godfather (1972), whose Corleones were fathers, sons and brothers as well as killers and extortionists. James Gray has been operating at the confluence of crime and family in all three of his films so far – the others being Little Odessa (1994) and The Yards (2000) – and now, in We Own the Night, offers a kind of flipside to The Godfather: family’s still the invisible force binding dramatic molecules together – but this time we’re talking cops instead of robbers.
The title is the wishful-thinking motto of the New York Police Department, circa 1988 when the film is set. We open with black-and-white photos of old-school cops, all paunches and gruff expressions, backed by the mournful wail of a lone trumpet or sax – then segue straight to the druggy rapture of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and Joaquin Phoenix emerging from the darkness into half-light, his lupine features contemplating girlfriend Eva Mendes as she lies on a couch. He puts his hand on her crotch; she pulls at her bra, allowing one of her breasts to spill out invitingly. They’re in a club called El Caribe, and the song continues as the camera pans overhead slowly, unhurriedly, looking down on revellers. The sequence throbs with sensual abandon – contrasting sharply with the next sequence, a cops’ testimonial taking place in a rented church. Fat little kids play outside. Inside, the buffet offers hard-boiled eggs and cold pasta salad in foil containers. A cop in a wheelchair accepts greetings from well-wishers. Weary wives nod their heads to the music. Mark Wahlberg shadow-boxes with a fellow cop, then gets called away to talk business with police chief Robert Duvall. The vibe is clannish, no-nonsense and a little oppressive.
It’s worth describing the atmosphere in detail, because We Own the Night is all about atmosphere (the plot is a bit predictable). It’s also worth describing the contrast in detail, because that contrast underlies the whole movie – the contrast between hedonism and continence, immorality and rigid probity (“We don’t fight dirty!” vows Duvall). That’s often been the guiding tension in crime movies, even those where criminals are the heroes: think of Michael Corleone repressing his feelings in The Godfather and its sequels, or Denzel Washington’s drug lord in American Gangster, a hard-working Puritan surrounded by libertines. Phoenix is the pivotal figure in this case, the black sheep of the family – Wahlberg plays his brother, Duvall his father – and the film charts his gradual conversion from Them to Us (or Us to Them), hooked and reeled in by implacable blood ties.
It’s also worth noting that “Heart of Glass” dates from 1979, years before the film’s supposed setting. “The idea that if your film takes place in 1988 it should only have music from 1988 shows a totally limited sense of history,” Gray has scoffed – but he might as well have said ‘I don’t care about that stuff! I don’t deal in realism, I deal in ambience’. For better and worse, We Own the Night is music-video cinema. Gray loves the drama of people emerging from or disappearing into darkness – Phoenix is swallowed up by blackness just before his downfall, then later steps into whiteness (a haze of white smoke) before his redemption – or luscious Mendes walking slowly towards the camera in a low-lit room, smoke from her cigarette weaving behind her. The film’s prevailing tone is melancholy, the visuals dark and gloomy, Wojciech Kilar’s music often just a single keening note, low in the background. Gray isn’t much of a writer, but he comes to his hackneyed devices from interesting angles: the climactic shoot-out takes place in a field of reeds – in Little Odessa it was a backyard hung with laundry – while a car-chase in pouring rain becomes one of the year’s most thrilling set-pieces.
At the end of it all is Family, ambivalent as the film’s bittersweet ending. The cops are a kind of family, forever strategizing in each other’s homes and living-rooms (“Sorry about the mess, Sandra,” one of them calls out when it’s time to leave), talking of their “brothers” killed in the line of duty. The gangsters, too, are family, the old man even proving his villainy by using his 10-year-old grandkids. Father and estranged son ostensibly hate each other, but family bonds run deep. “Crazy kid,” whispers Duvall sadly, sitting with his near-dead son in the ambulance; “Stupid kid…” The film’s last two lines bring a lump to the throat, all the more touching for being delivered (apparently) without emotion – yet the ending is also a kind of failure, heavy with the wreckage of lost dreams. To quote Michael Corleone in Godfather Part III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in…”
Family’s everywhere these days. Denzel apes “the Italians” by bringing his trashy clan to help run his drug empire in the aforementioned Gangster (it doesn’t work out), while the amiable National Treasure sequel has Nicolas Cage taking his parents along on the quest for the Lost City of Cibola. All these films are showing at the multiplex – but there’s also Hallam Foe, a low-budget Scottish drama at the Pantheon in Nicosia (it may or may not transfer to other towns), starring Jamie Bell of Billy Elliot fame as a somewhat troubled young man. When we first see Hallam, he’s spying on a fornicating couple from his treehouse – then takes out his little box of treasures and puts on makeup in tribute to his dear departed Mum, before pouncing on the couple like an avenging angel. Like I said, troubled.
Those early scenes feel closer to Deep South melodrama than Scottish slice-of-life – though Carson McCullers would’ve added a darker payoff, Hallam coming off a bit too cleansed and healthy at the end of his coming-of-age. The second half rambles a little, as our young hero leaves the family mansion – heavy with memories of Mother and the forbidden charms of hated Stepmother – and journeys to Glasgow where he gets a job and takes up with an older woman. Bell is a character actor in the making – not exactly leading-man material but possessed of a sullen dreamy quality which is often very effective, Hallam an introverted boy watching inscrutably, fooling around for his own private pleasure, putting on dress and earrings, sketching a baby suckling on a giant nipple with the creepy plaintive caption “BABY NEEDS BOTH”. Like I said, troubled.
This may be the best time of year for films about family (as opposed to “family films”, which is now just a tired euphemism for kiddie cartoons): Christmastime is always the high-water mark of meeting distant cousins, wallowing in family lore and being in the same room with people who (somehow) share your genes. Now, with the New Year underway, we look back on it all with wonderment and a kind of relief – and may well conclude that we love these people, but we also feel like killing them occasionally. Hallam Foe would understand. Don Corleone probably wouldn’t.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few months. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Prices quoted don’t include shipping. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
FLANDERS: Brutal drama about young French men going off to fight an unnamed war; harrowing or pointless, according to taste. No extras. [UK]
PRIVATE PROPERTY: More French perversity, a claustrophobic drama about a mother and her two grown-up sons, starring the great Isabelle Huppert. Extras include interview with the director. [US]
TRIAD ELECTION: Also known as ‘Election 2’, Hong Kong director Johnnie To’s sequel is more violent but equally chilling on behind-the-scenes Yakuza maneuverings. Include interviews and a making-of. [US]
ZOO: A documentary about men having sex with horses? Yuck! Actually artistic, compassionate – and very tasteful, as I keep telling people. Includes director commentary. [US]
APARTMENT 1303: “From the team behind ‘The Grudge’…” Japanese horror marches on. [UK]
OLD FILMS
DELIVERANCE (1972): ‘35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition” turns out to be nothing special – just the usual making-of documentaries – but the film’s still a classic, and you get commentary from director John Boorman. [US]
THE THREEPENNY OPERA (1931): Another high-end disc from the Criterion Collection, doing right by splendid German version of Brecht-Weill musical play; much of Kurt Weill’s music is gone, but you still get ‘Mack the Knife’ plus ferocious Lotte Lenya performance. A second disc includes a French version, ‘L’opera de quat’sous’, filmed simultaneously with the German. [US]
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS (1964): Criterion again, giving the deluxe treatment to rather obscure (but colourful) B-movie, transposing ‘Robinson Crusoe’ to outer space. Extras include commentary. [US]
FLASHDANCE (1983): ‘Special Collector’s Edition’ of disposable (but much-loved) 80s fluff, starring Jennifer Beals. Trailers, featurettes and “an exclusive 6-track music CD”. [US]
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977): Much better disco musical also gets a ‘Special Collector’s Edition’, including commentary from director John Badham and “Dance Like Travolta” featurette. [US]
VINCENT PRICE: MGM SCREAM LEGENDS COLLECTION: 5-disc set featuring the urbane horror star, including a special edition of ‘Witchfinder General’ (1968) and six more films – including ‘Theatre of Blood’ (1973) – plus an entire disc of documentaries with titles like ‘Vincent Price: Renaissance Man’. [US]
CRUISING (1980): Al Pacino as cop trying to infiltrate the gay S&M scene in hugely controversial thriller, branded as homophobic when it was released. 2-disc ‘Deluxe Edition’ includes commentary by director William Friedkin and featurettes on the film’s troubled history. [US]
THE ‘UP’ SERIES (1964-2006): In 1964, director Michael Apted interviewed fourteen 7-year-old children from diverse backgrounds all over England – and has been coming back to them every 7 years since, charting the changes in their lives (the latest instalment was ‘49 Up’). Now 12 hours long, the series is a fascinating mix of soap-opera and social history; DVD includes Apted commentary. [US]
