New in theaters: First Sunday
New on DVD: 3:10 To Yuma, Zodiac: The Director’s Cut
This week marks the second birthday of the Filter, and I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who reads this column regularly. Please keep the feedback and e-mails coming, and as always it’s fun to see comments left at the bottom of the page. I’m pretty passionate about movies and moviemaking, and having the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you each week is something special.
Last weekend I was feeling a little contrary, as I sometimes do at the end of every year, so I rented two equally-lauded films that couldn’t be more different if they tried: Eastern Promises and Paris je t’aime.
Set in London, Eastern Promises follows the exploits of Viggo Mortensen’s Nikolai, a driver and assassin for a secret family of Russian mobsters. Mortensen plays Nikolai like a strong silent type. He never breaks down. Never shows weakness. He’s just, as he continually insists “the driver.” I like the acting choice there. His character’s nerves and emotions were severed off and cauterized with brutality long ago, so why should we feel anything for him or see through his facade? You never know whether he wants to murder every thug above him on the food chain to take over the empire or leave it all behind to work in a motorcycle shop. That mystery kept me guessing and engaged with the film till the end. His agenda and loyalties are put to the test when he meets Naomi Watts’ nurse Anna, who is caring for the infant daughter of a prostitute Nikolai’s ruthless boss had killed. Anna also has the dead girl’s diary, written in Russian, which names her attacker.
Armin Mueller-Stahl is superb in the godfather role of Semyan. X-Files fans will remember him as the mysterious Strughold from that series. Semyan’s sniveling son, and heir to the crime family thrown, is played by Vincent Cassel, and nobody does wounded sleazebags with just an ounce of empathy like Vincent Cassel. His range and nuance are amazing. The guy really is something to watch, even if most of the characters he plays are total scum buckets.
This film is occasionally violent but ultimately character-driven. On that count it does not disappoint. Just don’t go in expecting a huge climax with car explosions and hails of gunfire. Director David Cronenberg, whose similarly paced and episodic film, A History of Violence, is also worth a spin, doesn’t do Hollywood endings. The explosions and gunfire are all in the mind at the end of this one.
Now for Paris je t’aime. Like a lot of people, I’m sure, there were parts of this I really enjoyed and others that never came close to connecting with me. See, the movie is actually 18 short films strung together. They are all set in Paris, but all directed by and starring different talents. What ties them together, ostensibly, is the theme of romance or love. Like 17 Hotel Chevaliers, plus one freak-out vampire segment: Vincenzo Natali’s Quartier de la Madeleine. That one has two things that reminded me of Sin City: a bleak, graphic novel palette and Elijah Wood. I don’t single out this piece because it’s my favorite. Those would be The Coen Brothers’ Tulieres and Tom Tykwer’s Faubourg Saint-Denis.
The Coens have their old standby Steve Buscemi (who was excellent as director and star of the recent Interview, play an American tourist reading a travel guide in the Paris Metro subway. Despite the stern warnings in his book, he makes eye contact with a nearby couple making out and serious trouble ensues. I liked this one because this very incident could have happened to me in real life in 2001. In fact I imagined something very similar to this scene taking place for real when I spied a necking couple on the Metro while traveling with a group of LSU students for the summer. I’m glad Buscemi got it and not me.
Like Wes Anderson’s Hotel Chevalier, Tykwer’s Faubourg Saint-Denis stars Natalie Portman as a misunderstood object of affection. This time her would-be lover is a blind student who daydreams the entire content of the film from first meeting to courtship to romance to heartbreak. The wiz-bang editing, fast pace and thrilling music in this short film really made it stand out for me.
Other than those, you get Nick Nolte walking and talking in the dark, Willem Dafoe as a clip-clopping cowboy, Maggie Gyllenhaal smoking out and something with some mimes in it. All told the collection is really engaging, though. Is the film the final word on Paris or on love? No. But it’s a unique experience to sit at home and watch a series of short foreign films. If you’ve never done that, Paris je t’aime is a very accessible, enjoyable and non-pretentious place to start.
