My Review: Maps to the Stars (5/10)

“On the stairs of Death I write your name, Liberty.”

I don’t consider myself a David Cronenberg fan since some of his recent films didn’t appeal to me and I haven’t had the chance to see his earlier movies, but I do tend to appreciate his work more than I actually enjoy it. This was the case with the incredibly twisted and dark Hollywood satire, Maps to the Stars. It wasn’t a joyful or pleasurable experience for me, but I did admire some aspects of this film. I tend to go for more straightforward narratives than surreal films so that explains why I enjoyed A History of Violence and Eastern Promises much more than his other films. Those two films remain my favorite from Cronenberg. Maps to the Stars was a major improvement from Cosmopolis, but I still had a hard time accepting some of the dark humor and Cronenberg’s hyperrealistic style. I’m sure Cronenberg fans will love this film because he uses plenty of symbols and makes fun of the vein world of celebrities. Using Hollywood itself to establish his familiar dark backgrounds, Cronenberg goes full mode with these messed-up and unpredictable characters. The film has a Greek tragedy structure as well as incorporating familiar ghost story elements to the narrative. Maps to the Stars is as insane as the world of the celebrities it tries to portray. There is also a lot of industry talk going on in this film exploring the Hollywood dynasty and the obsession people have for celebrities. 

Like in most of Cronenberg’s films the characters are difficult to sympathize with and of course it is the case once again with these self centered celebrities who seem to be completely messed up. No one does a better job than Julianne Moore who plays a manic-depressive washed up movie star. She is amazing in this film, but completely annoying at the same time. I wasn’t a huge fan of Evan Bird and John Cusack’s performances. Cusack went over the top with his character and it didn’t really work for me. Mia Wasikowska on the other hand is very subtle in her performance. She seems to pick some strange roles, but she pulls them off. Her character has scars in her body from burns, but they aren’t nearly as disgusting as the souls of these celebrities. Cronenberg seems to be obsessed with disfigured women in his films, but he makes sure we notice that what really is disfigured in Hollywood are the souls of these celebrities. I can give Cronenberg credit for his style, but I can’t say I enjoyed this film. I still don’t understand what was going on with that fire sequence in the film. The CGI was terrible and the scene looked completely fake, but I’m not sure if Cronenberg was intentionally trying to make it so considering he has a twisted sense of humor. 

My Review: Cosmopolis (2/10)

¨There's a poem I read in which a rat becomes the unit of currency.¨

Oh David Cronenberg what have thy done? Despite making some great films in the last few years (such as A History of Violence and Eastern Promises) Cronenberg has directed what is in my opinion the worst film of 2012. Cosmopolis is 100 minutes of complete torture, I did not enjoy the experience one bit and was hoping the pace of the film would pick up or that there would be some cool pay off at the end, but neither of those things happened. I can honestly tell you that I considered walking out on this film so many times, but for some reason I decided to stay with it. This is a film I will not be revisiting ever, although I know that in order to understand it completely several viewings need to take place because it is based on a philosophical novel written by Don DeLillo that is hard to follow. The film is very slow paced as you follow the main character for almost the entire film inside his limo talking to several different characters that jump in and out of his vehicle. The dialogues are really profound and pretentious as everything they are talking about serves as a sort of metaphor or symbolism on capitalism. If to understand the dialogues in the novel you need to read them over and over again, imagine how much more difficult it is to understand everything that Cronenberg is trying to throw at you in these dialogues where you can´t pause and go back to make sure you listened and interpreted things correctly. The entire film seems to be anti-capitalistic or at least a form of protest against cyber-capitalism and economics in general. The movie does seem to share some parallels with the Occupy Wall Street movement that took place. I don´t see how anyone other than those people who have read the novel will understand everything that is going on here. I am not even sure if Cronenberg understood everything that DeLillo was really trying to say in the novel, or if he simply had a different interpretation of things. The film is heavily pretentious and it was just a torturous experience for me, which is too bad because I really enjoyed some of his previous work (especially his films with Viggo Mortensen).

The film centers on Erick Packer (Robert Pattinson) a young billionaire living in Manhattan who decides to get on his limo and drive across town to get a haircut. Despite being warned by his security official, Torval (Kevin Durand), that the President is in the city and that the streets are completely jammed by traffic and protestors, he insists on taking the limo and getting his haircut. Therefore he spends almost the entire day in his limo, only getting off sporadically to grab a bite to eat or talk to his wife, Elise (Sarah Gadon) whom he encounters on several occasions during the day. While he is in the limo he´s always talking to someone who he happens to come across, some who work for him and seem to be his advisors, while others some sort of acquaintance like Didi (Juliette Binoche). He even has a doctor get in the limo and do his daily routine medical checkup (including a prostate exam) on him while talking economics with a colleague. Erick encounters all sorts of people and even an angry mob that is protesting in the streets (reminiscent to the Occupy Wall Street movement), but it is something he´s willing to do in order to get his haircut. Torval even mentions to him that someone is threatening his life, but Erick continues to move on. The entire drama plays out as a sort of metaphor on economics and capitalism, but the dialogues are really hard to follow as there are so many symbolisms and metaphors which I found very heavy handed and philosophical.

Near the end of the film there is a heavy dialogue scene between Pattinson´s character and Paul Giamatti´s that I was hoping would pay off for all the effort I put into it by sticking with it, but not even the dependable Paul Giamatti saved this film. I know some people liked this film, and I’m guessing because they probably had read the novel or are into all these philosophical and economical debates that Cronenberg is trying to raise, but I really had a hard time understanding everything that was going on. I wasn’t a big fan of Cronenberg´s latest film, A Dangerous Method, but that film is a masterpiece compared with Cosmopolis. I really disliked this movie and wasn’t entertained with any of the characters or the dialogues they were having. I couldn’t connect with this film in the same way other people who enjoyed this might have. I would much rather see Pattinson in Twilight again than watch this film; that is how much I hated this film. I hope Cronenberg returns to his A History of Violence days instead of making these pretentious philosophical movies that seem not to answer any questions in particular. Or maybe I just didn’t get it, but I am not willing to sit through a second viewing of this film and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone either.

  

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My Review: A Dangerous Method (5/10)

¨Experiences like this, however painful, unnecessary and inevitable, without them, how can we know life? ¨

David Cronenberg`s A Dangerous Method was one of my most anticipated films of 2011 for several reasons: First of all I loved Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen`s first two collaborations together in A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Those two films were among my favorite when they were released. Mortensen has always worked really well with Cronenberg and I had high expectations for his role as Sigmund Freud in this film. Add Micheal Fassbender, who has turned everything he touches into gold this year; to the mix and you have yourself one of the most anticipated films of the year. I was really looking forward to what these three men could do together alongside the beautiful Keira Knightley. I`m not familiar with psychoanalysis, but I do tend to enjoy the subject matter somewhat so I was really looking forward to this movie. Perhaps those high expectations were my downfall because this was a completely different movie from the previous two that Cronenberg had directed. This was more focused on the dialogue and relationship between the characters. This isn’t an action film with shocking scenes; it is more of a reflective film that analyzes the relationship between Freud, Jung, and Spielrein. I just felt the pace of the movie was too slow and that there wasn’t enough time between the transitions to further develop each character and their relationship together. I felt like I had seen an incomplete film, or that several scenes were missing. The film focuses more on the relationship between Jung and his Russian patient Spielrein, and not so much on Freud, so that was something else I wish would`ve been different.

The film is based on John Kerr`s book of the same name, and from Hampton`s play ¨The Talking Cure.¨ Hampton himself adapted the screenplay for this movie. The story takes place during the early 1900`s in Europe. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) is a psychiatrist and firm believer in Freud`s recent theories. When a young Russian patient named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is sent to him at his office in Switzerland, he finds the opportunity to apply Freud`s methods on her. Jung has amazing results and ends up helping Spielrein and bringing her back to normal society life. Spielrein suffered from some sort of dementia, but thanks to Jung she is able to return to her medical studies. Despite her rehabilitation, Jung continues to treat her, and he writes to Freud (Viggo Mortensen) telling him about his amazing results. Jung is invited to Vienna by Freud and together they have an interesting thirteen hour conversation about their discoveries and theories. They begin an interesting friendship and write to each other over the years about their new findings. They do have their discrepancies in some areas since Freud only is willing to point out the problem, but Jung wants to go further and try to help the patients recover and not just single out their problems. The movie also focuses on Jung`s relationship with Spielrein as she becomes his lover presenting him with an internal conflict since she is his patient, and there is also the fact that he is married to Emma (Sarah Gadon).

The main problem I had with this movie was the pacing the film had. Despite being only 100 minutes long, the movie does feel much longer and it seems to be missing something. I felt like I was seeing an incomplete picture. After a while the dialogues and conversations got boring, despite the fact that the performances were all incredible. Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen are both terrific actors and they shone in the scenes in which they were together, but the problem was that they didn’t share too much screen time together. They spent most of the time corresponding through letters. The main protagonists were Fassbender and Knightley and unfortunately her character wasn’t very fascinating. She did give a good performance, but I just felt at first her dementia was really distracting and exaggerated. It was weird to see her rehabilitated so quickly. I wanted to see more of Viggo Mortensen and less of the others. Vincent Cassel had a small but great supporting role and it was he who mostly influenced Jung into wanting to have an affair with his patient. My expectations were set way to high for this movie and by the end I was disappointed. I hope Mortensen and Cronenberg return to their previous work and continue to collaborate together in a similar project. One that will be more climactic than this film which at moments felt like nothing really interesting was happening.

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