TWO NEW FILMS DEAL IN DOWNBEAT, AND PAY THE PRICE
VALKYRIE ***
DIRECTED BY Bryan Singer
STARRING Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson
US 2008 120 mins.
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD **
DIRECTED BY Sam Mendes
STARRING Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon
US 2008 119 mins.
Nothing succeeds like success. It’s true in life as it is in movies. Make some money, get a smidgen of celebrity and you’ll find yourself surrounded by hangers-on, hoping your success will somehow rub off on them; fail at something, fall flat on your face and watch them all give you a wide berth, afraid you’ll somehow jinx them. It’s the same with films, especially commercial films: people want to see heroes who succeed, not those who fail. From Citizen Kane to The Assassination of Jesse James, film history is littered with acclaimed movies that were snubbed at the box-office, just because they were too pessimistic – because they dealt in failure, and perhaps reminded viewers of their own failure.
Valkyrie (not exactly snubbed at the box-office but by no means a blockbuster, especially considering its budget) has an even bigger cross to bear – because in this case the failure is known in advance, being the tale of a plot to kill Hitler in 1944. That the plot didn’t work goes without saying, giving every minute of the two-hour running-time a sad, poignant undertow. To its credit, the film remains gripping, and sometimes very tense – but it’s hard to avoid a suspicion that it’s working overtime to distract us from the downbeat resolution, especially since director Bryan Singer concentrates mainly on plot mechanics, not so much on character. The whole thing moves at a pumped, pulsating pace – yet we don’t know much more about our hero (Tom Cruise as Col. Von Stauffenberg) at the end than we do at the beginning, when he writes in his diary that his “duty as an officer” is “to save human lives” by killing Hitler.
His treason, of course, is fully justified, because he’s a patriot – “I’m a soldier, I serve my country; but this is not my country” – and also because he’s a family man, implicitly doing it for his flaxen-haired kiddies. There’s also another reason, as laid out by another conspirator: the attempt must be made, he explains, for the sake of German pride – so the world will know “not all of us were like him”. This is a can of worms, first opened by Downfall (2004), an account of the last days of the Third Reich that became a global hit but had highbrows howling. The Germans are trying to play victim, they cried – trying to exculpate themselves, trying to tell the world they were tyrannised by Hitler as much as anyone. Downfall was German, of course, hence slightly different, but it still seems strange watching Valkyrie – a film about ‘good’ Nazis – so soon after The Reader, which solicited sympathy for a concentration-camp guard. What’s next, all-singing Nazis like in ‘Springtime for Hitler’?
Germany’s ready for change in Valkyrie. The plan almost works; indeed, the most frustrating thing is how much goes wrong – “This is a military operation,” notes one of the plotters wryly; “Nothing ever goes according to plan” – yet how close they come to succeeding. The turning-point finds Goebbels literally with a poison capsule in his mouth, ready to bite down; it only needed a different officer in that situation – a less stalwart Nazi, one who’d have ignored Hitler’s voice on the phone – and everything might’ve been different. Failure in thrillers always turns out to be a near-miss (it’s more dramatic); Valkyrie joins the ranks of The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and The Day of the Jackal (1973), other tales of ‘doomed’ missions where failure is assumed from the beginning.
Are there compensations? Absolutely. Nail-biting scenes involving a bottle of Cointreau, a row of identical brown briefcases and a brazen piece of bluff with an empty phone-line. Marvellous support from British character actors, mainly Bill Nighy as the weakest link and the great Tom Wilkinson as a canny opportunist. Intrigues and cabals, plus a clever scene where Cruise has to sound Wilkinson out without actually divulging anything about the conspiracy. Even Cruise himself, who’s currently the Man You Love to Hate but always delivers onscreen (which is all that matters). Like the plot it depicts, Valkyrie may be doomed from the outset but it gives it a damn good shot. If it’s a failure, it’s an honourable one.
The same can’t be said of Revolutionary Road, which starts from a much-acclaimed source (a 1961 novel by Richard Yates) only to end up banal and simplistic. To be fair, Yates’ thesis – that suburban life is soul-destroying – may have seemed more original in 1961 than it does today; indeed, Sam Mendes (who directed) has already made a film with this thesis, the way-overrated American Beauty 10 years ago. But Road is still unimpressive, leaving a pair of good actors – DiCaprio and Winslet, the sweethearts from Titanic – marooned in a sea of obviousness.
Leo and Kate are the Wheelers, who live in the suburbs (the time is the 1950s). Leo has a good job, but Kate is unhappy as a housewife in the neat little house on Revolutionary Road – and Leo is initially receptive to her entreaties. Remember our youthful dreams, she pleads. Why waste our lives here? Let’s go to Paris, where we can be what we want to be! He agrees, and Kate is glad – but a new job offer comes along, and he starts getting cold feet. Will it all end happily? Clearly not. The details may be unpredictable, but the Wheelers have ‘failure’ written all over them.
Alas, they’re partly to blame for their own misfortune – especially Leo, whose character is fairly maddening. He seems smart, yet he keeps saying tactless things like “Well, it wasn’t a triumph or anything” (of his wife’s acting, right after her performance) or “If you need a shrink, it will be paid for”. He also gets the Perfect Opportunity to solve his dilemma, because Kate gets pregnant – which he can exploit to do what he secretly wants, i.e. stay in the suburbs – yet he foolishly shows his hand and makes himself look like the bad guy, when all he had to do was keep quiet. Even the couple’s fights are unconvincing – they fight like a modern couple, Leo never using the obvious weapon men possessed in the 50s, viz. that women needed men to support them – and Mendes has a heavy touch, illustrating corporate drone-hood with not one but two shots of the suit-and-tie army going to work in the morning, tending to a kind of deadening artiness. At one point in the film there’s a bloodstain – and that stain is so symmetrical, so obviously ‘directed’ to look just right, that it totally distracts from the tragedy behind it.
Road is indeed a tragedy, and paid the price for its pessimism. Touted as one of the big Oscar front-runners, it flopped at the box-office and won only one major nomination – for Michael Shannon, as a frankly psychotic young man who befriends the Wheelers – no surprise perhaps in a year when the irrationally optimistic, relentlessly upbeat Slumdog Millionaire swept the board. Maybe we should blame the recession, but I don’t think it makes any difference: in good times or bad, failure is a tough sell at the box-office. Give me your fit, your glamorous, your huddled masses yearning for vicarious vindication. Everybody wants to be handsome and successful.
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
KUNG FU PANDA: Good cartoon, even better DVD: extras range from the predictable – featurettes, games, director interviews – to the less predictable, e.g. a Chinese chef showing us how to make noodles. Also includes a plea to Save the Panda! [US/UK]
CHOCOLATE: Autistic girl is martial-arts whiz in this Thai action flick from the director of ‘Ong Bak’. Extras include deleted scenes, interview with the director and a featurette on the (stunning) fight scenes. [UK]
MAD DETECTIVE: More Asian action, this one a wild cop thriller from ace Hong Kong director Johnnie To, released by the excellent Masters of Cinema label. Extras include two lengthy interviews with To. [UK]
KIT KITTREDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL: Best kids’ film in years, charming and un-ironic, with Abigail Breslin as a plucky little girl in the Great Depression. No real extras. [US]
LOU REED’S BERLIN: Concert movie of a historic concert – Lou Reed playing his controversial album ‘Berlin’ live for the first time since it came out in the early 70s. One for completists. [UK]
OLD FILMS
THE FILMS OF BUDD BOETTICHER: A popular choice for DVD Release of 2008 (at least among film buffs), 6-disc set collects five of the best B-Westerns ever made plus a feature-length documentary on their director, Budd Boetticher. The titles are ‘The Tall T’ (1957) – which may be Boetticher’s masterpiece – ‘Decision at Sundown’ (1957), ‘Buchanan Rides Alone’ (1958), ‘Ride Lonesome’ (1959) and ‘Comanche Station’ (1960), all starring the ageless Randolph Scott. Great stuff. [US]
PATRICK (1978): Catatonic young man is really a killer! Stylish horror from Australia, a real cult movie in a great new transfer with commentary by director Richard Franklin. [US]
THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND (1975) and THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (1978): It’s a good week for Australia! Two Aussie classics from director Fred Schepisi, released separately in deluxe packages with loads of extras. Commentary, featurettes and more. [UK]
WIM WENDERS’ DOCUMENTARIES: Axiom Films in the UK are putting out most of the Wenders back-catalogue – including this box-set of five films including ‘Tokyo-Ga’ (1985) and ‘Notebook on Cities and Clothes’ (1989), his visual essays on Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu and Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, respectively. Other titles are ‘Lightning Over Water’ (1979), ‘Room 666’ (1982) and ‘A Trick of the Light’ (1995). Extras include deleted scenes. [UK]
I’M NOT RAPPAPORT (1996): Remember this one? No, probably not. Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis are grumpy old men on a park bench in talky, likeable comedy. [UK]
