"INNI" dir. VINCENT MORISSET

Standing in stark contrast to Sigur Ros' last concert/documentary film "Heima," director Vincent Morisset films the band almost exclusively in the live setting, focusing on the tremendous and at times overwhelming emotional power of the music made physical. Sigur Ros are a band of unusual force, able to summon great swathes of catharsis as well as hushed and intimate declarations that seem to speak to each listener individually; Morisset captures both extremes here, showing a band at the absolute height of their craft. The cathartic moments taeke center stage here, perhaps as a response to "Heima"'s more affirmative examination of the Sigur Ros experience, creating a piece rich in mood and atmosphere and way heavy on intensity.
The band performs a full set intercut with minimal moments of archival footage dating back to earlier moments of their career; specific attention is paid to the members struggling to answer such insipid questions as "How would you describe the music?" The interviewers asking these things almost seem malicious, trying to trap the band into admitting to some sort of pretense on their part in the ultimate realization of their sound. Sigur Ros have been accused of artistic distance in the past and acute reservation regarding discussion of their work, but these interviewers' inability to grasp the ethereal, incredibly personal quality of the band's music speaks to a shallowness on their part. Their refusal to simply let it exist, to be a matter of shared communication and organic creation between the band members (and audience) is insensitive to the point of critical density. The need for definition indicates the discomfort Sigur Ros' intensity of vision can cause; you either get it and respond to it or you don't. The critics in Morisset's film don't get it.
In watching "Inni" the band's self identification as a heavy metal group seems only half in jest. The guitars roar like hurricanes throughout, filling the air with the plaintive and yearning screams of frustration Sigur Ros uses them to summon. This is a loud show; even the near moments of silence when only Jonsi Birgisson's impassioned vocals ring solo seem deafening. This is a band that can summon up something real and pure and inexplicable that other bands are incapable of approaching. The emotional impact of the music is shattering, unlike anything i've felt across years of listening to thousands of bands and records. There is something special about Sigur Ros. They know it, their fans know it, and both are unafraid of it. The concert becomes less a performance than a transference of something otherworldly; for those attuned to the right frequency a Sigur Ros show is more about sound being given over in order to inhabit you than a simple run through of some songs. It's a deeply personal experience, and even just watching the film allows for most of that communication to reach out.
From a visual perspective, Morisset chooses simplicity and favors the austere pallet of black and white to render this most otherwordly of bands. The film is grainy, shadowy and at many times unfocused but it all works; never once do you feel like you're in the presence of an amateur director. The choices presented are all done for their stylistic effect and relationship to the music. Reality seems to waver in and out, and the crushing physicality of much of the music almost demands the heavens above break in two. The archival footage plucks you from those cradling moments of performance, breaking the thrall. The use of color here only reflects the importance, the towering life, of the performance footage. Color seems drab and dead, black and white seems alive and crackling with electricity. The film's penultimate moment (which could really be any, depending on your personal relationship with the songs) for me comes in the final song, a performance of "Popplagio" that begins in the archival footage and carries over into the concert proper, a flawless transition that highlights the song's endurance as well as the clarity of vision Sigur Ros have possessed virtually since their formation. "Popplagio" builds to a shuddering, sky-cracking crescendo that culminates in a torrent of shards of something (rain, paper, who knows what?) flying across the stage; the band seems to be playing in the middle of, and simultaneously summoning, a blizzard. It's achingly beautiful, emotionally draining, and enthralling to the point of trance.
In that capacity "Inni" functions as a perfect companion piece to Sigur Ros' recorded output. While "Heima" sought to humanize the band and clarify some of the mystique surrounding them, "Inni" gives over to that mystique completely and becomes a piece that perfectly summarizes the "experience" of Sigur Ros. This is as close as you could come without being there; despite its hyper stylizing you never once feel that you're being made to view the band in any specific way. The film, much like the music, is for you and you alone, open to your personal interpretation and most especially your emotional reaction. Morisset has created a portrait of something enigmatic and treasured. That portrait is now part of that enigma.

"HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART II" dir. DAVID YATES

And so the circle closes. After a decade the saga of Harry Potter sees finality with the release of "The Deathly Hallows, Part II." Few film franchises in history have been as successful or inspired as much fervent loyalty as the Potter films; the only remotely comparable series I can think of is the similarly epic "Star Wars." Nearly as popular (if not moreso) as the books which birthed them, the Potter films occupy a special place in the cultural zeitgeist, existing somewhere between the bloated mass saturation of blockbuster entertainment and the revered world of serious, artistic filmmaking. Director David Yates has done a wonderful job transforming the last four films into works of visual art beyond their literary templates; though he stumbled a bit with his first Potter film he's grown increasingly confident and visionary as a director, easily resulting in the series' best work. While the first film's audience has no doubt followed the series to this point, the level of viewer maturity has not grown up the way the books or the films have. The giddy mentality that accompanied the midnight screening I attended truly saddened me, because it pretty much signifies to me that Yates' film is going to be regarded as merely the final nail in a piece of gross consumerism, rather than as the serious, beautiful work of art it truly is.
Picking up exactly where "The Deathly Hallows, Part I" left off, "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) desperately hunting down the final horcruxes in the hopes of weakening Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) to the point where he can be defeated. This last leg takes our heroes to the depths of Gringotts bank and back to Hogwarts, where the final battle will be waged. It's a breathless, fantastic journey that speeds along at a frenzied pace, making this the most action-oriented and spectacular entry in the series as well as one of its darkest. "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" is a basically a downward spiral of frustration, fear, despondency, and destruction; there's a pallor of doom that hangs across every hulking setpiece, and several supporting characters find themselves struggling with the idea that they're caught up in a hopeless struggle that's gone beyond the idea of good and evil, where the only real certainty is death. Harry seems less a beacon of hope than a magnet for defeat; the world seems just as hollowed out, grey, and indifferent as it did in "The Deathly Hallows, Part I."
The destruction that Yates focuses on is magnificent and all-encompassing. Under attack from Voldemort and his army, Hogwarts absolutely crumbles, leaving mountains of rubble and stinking pools of fire blazing across its emptied courtyards. The onslaught of the advancing forces is a brutal machine, seen as a force of total and consuming repressed hatred. At times some of the battle scenes in "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" reach an almost celestial sort of immediacy, replete with a bloodlust, hypnotism, and extravagance that rivals the work Peter Jackson did in "The Two Towers." Yates seems to revel in this mercenary opulence; it almost seems as though the cast's exhaustion is felt through the way Yates allows the to tear down the manufactured world they've inhabited for the last ten years. In that sense the fall of Hogwarts carries with it an extra weight and a crippling sense of poignancy; this is a complete dismantling, the very essence of magic reduced to a bitter and earthly nothingness.
It seems tragic, and it is. Harry martyrs himself for a higher purpose; so too does Severus Snape (Alan Rickman.) Death has an elegance in the Potter universe-it's to be revered and respected, never pandered to, and never toyed with. Certain powers are beyond the grasp of even the most powerful men; certain magics are simply not allowed. Walking with evil boasts a danger. Voldemort's main failing is obviously his pride-even in a world without Harry Potter Voldemort is bound to fall, consumed by his own grandeur and spiraling ever deeper into the dank recesses of his voided personage. Yates understands this and stages "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" as high tragedy, one in which loss surrounds and sorrow falls across the land like so much snow and ash. You are made to feel the hopelessness, the anxiety, the frustration, the terror. But also the anger and the tension, all the repressions that have been building and building across several films. It makes the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort that much more intense, despite knowing the outcome-there's a grotesque, seething violence to their opposition, an encapsulation of what each stands for-and allows the actual drama of the final wand war to find its voice and scream its ferocity across every corner of the screen.
For all its intensity, "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" also has moments of severe loveliness and beauty. Snape's death and the subsequent tour through his memories are rendered in a bittersweet, deeply melancholic haze of sorrow and regret. You can feel the pangs of jealousy as he watches James effortlessly woo away his beloved; we suffer with Severus we see the true lengths to which he goes in order to protect Harry and thereby declare his love. As it's revealed that some of Dumbledore's (Michael Gambon) motives towards Harry may be selfish, Snape's are truly rooted in love and a desire to make something good out of a defeated life. The strength of his character shines here, and Rickman plays it understated, with class. For me this is the emotional crux of the novels and I was glad to see it translates so well to film. Yates drapes these memories in painterly, naturalistic detail, trading effects for the simple beauty of trees waving in the wind and a child's lovelorn gaze. It's gorgeous almost to the point of painful; it's a bursting heart hidden away in a two hour flurry of fire and vengeance. Ron and Hermione finally lock lips here as well; Yates plays it down and sneaks it in the aftermath of a mad dash to destroy a horcrux. The pairing feels natural and real, a gravitation of human emotion breaking away from wizardly horrors and strained exposition.
One of the major complaints lodged against "The Deathly Hallows, Part I" was the pacing. Critics alleged that Yates relied too much on epic, massive landscapes and too little on character interaction. This film remedies that but doesn't sacrifice any of the splendor that Yates has so successfully been capturing throughout his Potter films; what surprises me most is how few of those critics remember that the final book was mostly comprised of aimless searches and bitter bouts of exhaustion. In that regard Yates' film was a perfect evocation of the source material; it's nice to see that here, in the final film, he's finally grown comfortable with allowing his film space to breathe and grow without having to worry about running long or losing viewers because of it. A film like this is a double-edged sword for a director; on the one hand you've got a near limitless budget and the ability to make your wildest visionary dreams come to life, on the other you've got a necessity to fit said film into a very narrow corner of expectation with little allowance for true creative license. It's a marvel to me that Yates has made these last films as pretty as they are; while previous directors' entries in the series have been visually arresting, very few of them have been honestly visual affecting. For that alone Yates deserves praise; "The Deathly Hallows, Parts I and II" are films that can stand up against nearly anything released in the last several years as far as photography is concerned. "The Deathly Hallows, Part II" goes even further and ties that visual element to a near relentless whir of frightening, tense action that blows away most of what's been vomited into the theaters in 2011.
As a modern film that straddles the line between art and commerce, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II" exceeds nearly every expectation that could have been set for it. Yates has sent the series out on an extreme high note and it's unlikely that anyone else could have helmed this vehicle so successfully and steered it towards such lofty artistically inclined shores. While there were certainly comprises (another fairly brief run time, unnecessary moments of levity) the overall result is a fairly unblemished adaptation of this century's most engaging literary phenomenon; it's hard to imagine anything like this coming along again in my film-viewing lifetime. Years ago a friend had to pay me to read the first four Harry Potter novels because I had been so disappointed by the first film (I found it overly childish and somewhat patronizing); I'm glad I took the money and gave the novels, and the later the films, a second chance. While the general audience may not really appreciate the marvel David Yates has given them, the few who have actually grown up with the novels in the intended manner will find an intense, deeply felt end to the story that's been with them for so much of their lives. The saga may have ended, but the magic continues.
And the dragon is really fucking cool.

"TABLOID" dir. ERROL MORRIS

Reality almost always reads more interesting than any fiction if you're willing to go deep enough. The absurdities and cruelties that befall people just like us are far more crazy and outlandish than anything that could be invented; if it's possible, then somewhere it's probably happened. Few filmmakers get this better than Errol Morris, who excels at unearthing flagrantly bizarre stories and suggesting labyrinthine webs of connection between subjects and events. The people he chooses to highlight are most often a little off themselves, but virtually always well-spoken, candid, and confident in their presentation of events. Morris' ability to so expertly navigate this grandiose, subterranean world allows us a rare glimpse of the truly unexpected; to return back to our average lives having stood on the precipice of something confounding but sublime. His latest film, "Tabloid," goes further than he's ever gone-it's fucked up and strange and funny beyond belief-but it also demonstrates, again, the illusory nature of "truth" and the radical power of self-conceptualization.
"Tabloid" spools out the flabbergasting story of Joyce McKinney circa 1976 through the early '90's. Growing up in Utah amidst very staunch religious values, McKinney's average high school misbehaviour was thought of as "bad girl" antics. One evening she met Kirk Anderson and immediately fell insanely, obsessively in love with him. Anderson was a Mormon but fell hard for McKinney, much to the chagrin of his very traditional parents who opposed the relationship. One day, Anderson simply disappeared. McKinney tracked him, at great expense, to London, where his parents had sent him to be fully indoctrinated into heavy traditional Mormon beliefs. Along with her deeply devoted friend Keith, McKinney chartered a private plane to fly them to London and retrieve Anderson from what McKinney categorized a cult. Abducting Anderson at gunpoint (with a fake gun), she and Keith took him to a cabin in the English countryside where she chained him to a bed and raped him repeatedly over a period of three days. McKinney described the "weekend" as a consensual honeymoon, a sort of "deprogramming" to bring Anderson back. Anderson thought differently; managing to escape during a town outing he later arranged for McKinney's capture and subsequent trial, resulting in a spotlight dance with the British tabloids that lasted for a number of years and made McKinney a bonafide celebrity akin to the Octomoms and Paris Hiltons of today.
The press ate McKinney up and she played it for everything it was worth, delighting in the attention (despite later protestations of the same) and courting the cameras as she traipsed across the London party scene. The trial left the constabulary and courts flabbergasted at the events she recounted, rendered even more unbelievable by the sheer candor and confidence with which McKinney recalled her actions. What McKinney called a honeymoon Anderson described drolly as three days of wide-eyed terror and emasculation, a befouling of his Mormon ideals that left him dangerously close to a lifetime of Satanic influence. Both parties detailed an extreme scenario existing at opposite ends; the majority of those involved in the events seem to recall the "truth" as being an amalgamation as both stories meeting somewhere nearer the middle of the recollections. Morris makes no judgment himself, preferring to let his cast tell their stories and the viewer to make her own assessment.
Those stories are the heart of "Tabloid," and they're very interesting. Aside from McKinney herself, Morris devotes considerable time to two London tabloid journalists, the pilot who flew McKinney and Keith to London, a Mormon missionary, and a Korean geneticist (more on that later.) All of them are extremely open, engaging, and funny. Each reveals layers to the story that confuse the issues at hand and obscure the actualities of the situation they're attempting to recall; Morris makes no attempt to steer the "facts" in any particular direction, nor does he feel compelled to condescend to us by categorizing McKinney's actions as "right" or "wrong." That question is truly blurred because the facts that eventually surface regarding McKinney's background suggest something more sinister may have been at work. On photo assignment for one of the London rags in Los Angeles, Kent Gavin describes the wealth of material he drudged up concerning McKinney's sordid past: through an old obsessed boyfriend, Gavin unearthed hundreds of photos of McKinney engaged in acts of prostitution and light pornography (dramatic bondage and vaguely tasteless nude photography.) McKinney flat out denies the existence of these, claiming photo manipulation and slander; unfortunately Gavin reveals most of the photos (everything that wasn't published) were lost when the paper changed owners years ago. What, exactly, are we supposed to believe?
Peter Tory, the other journalist interviewed, seems to gravitate more toward the lurid. Gleefully reveling in the sexual bizarreness of the case, Tory paints McKinney as something of a ringmaster presiding over her own private circus, turning her tabloid celebrity into a form of bondage and domination over the public at large. Tory sees McKinney and the public as being caught up in a grossly symbiotic relationship with one another; Joyce pulled all the strings and the public lapped it up, demanding more, ever more. Only when things began to get out of McKinney's control (when the pornographic photos began to turn up in the papers) did she retreat and cry foul, railing against the invasions towards her person that she fully embraced and courted only weeks before. McKinney believes the hyperfocused attention drove her to a crippling state of agoraphobia; the hunter becomes the hunted and the hunted becomes the invisible. McKinney also says that "...if you tell a lie long enough eventually you'll believe it"; it's difficult to view her version of events as absolute truth when her self-image is so perfectly constructed to be resistant to anything that might question that version. An argument could be made as to the necessity of this sort of thick skin given McKinney's history with celebrity, but a more likely explanation is far simpler: McKinney only wants to be viewed in the way she wants you to view her.
Manipulation and obsession inform the broader points of "Tabloid." McKinney is obsessed with Kirk Anderson from the moment she meets him, despite the fact that he's a pasty, fat, boring person. By all assessments there was nothing remarkable about him; Peter Tory wonders openly what attracted McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming, to Anderson at all. Perhaps it was the ease with which she was able to commandeer his life; perhaps his blandness reflected a brighter image of her for herself. McKinney's friend Keith was similarly obsessed with her; his motivations throughout the ordeal remain obtusely unclear, but we can surmise that he was probably hoping some sort of romantic relationship would eventually blossom between McKinney and himself. The obsession extends outward; as much as McKinney was a slave to her own desires the media was a slave to hers. The public's own obsession with the "truth" of the matter allowed McKinney to carefully craft her persona and create the idea of what she wanted the public to see. At first the relationship worked marvelously, with the various magazines holding McKinney up as something completely new and astonishing-a good Utah girl pushed to the brink by the discriminatory actions of traditional Mormonism, going all in for the sake of love-but eventually they demanded more, digging deeper and rejecting McKinney's crafted image of herself in favor of something closer to a newer, perceived "truth." Only when her manipulations failed did McKinney begin to be bothered by all the attentions; only when she could no longer be who she wanted to be did she view the game distastefully.
A different filmmaker might have challenged McKinney; Morris instead gives us leave to weigh everything we're given and draw our own conclusion about her. If he had challenged her "Tabloid" would have been a much different film, something that perhaps took itself too seriously or purported to be some sort of vehicle for historical accuracy and ideology rather than the strange, delerious tour through weirdness it is. There's nothing sacred in Morris' methodology; it's people as they are, being who they are, judgment be fucked. In that manner "Tabloid" is revelatory, with Morris demonstrating why he's one of the American documentarists most capable of approaching Werner Herzog's "ecstatic truth"; there's a beauty hidden beneath all the layers of the varying narratives that can speak deeply to some of the problems currently plaguing modernity. McKinney's case is messed up but it's far from unique; her tabloid dalliances are almost exactly the same as the ones that exist today, staring you in the face at whatever grocery store line you find yourself standing in. There is no immunity from this sort of media deluge. It's all around you, and it's screaming at you to pay attention to it. This is part of the cultural consciousness; it's your duty to know about this sort of shit.
McKinney is never really able to escape the spotlight, even despite her battle with agoraphobia. Retreating to her parents' spacious farmland to begin a life of loneliness and reflection that she hopes will produce a book about her experiences, McKinney finds herself besieged by story-hungry, photo-stealing opportunists trespassing onto her land and into her privacy yet again. Hoping to dissuade their efforts she brings home a monstrous pit bull she names "Tough Guy"; later she brings home a smaller pit bull runt whom she christens "Booger." It doesn't take long for tragedy to strike. Tough Guy goes crazy and attacks McKinney, severing her hand at the wrist. Booger perishes trying to save McKinney from the carnage. Despondent and isolated, McKinney hears something about cloning and decides to have Booger brought back to life. Paying a doctor in Korea $150,000 to craft a new Booger lands McKinney in the shutter eye once again, even moreso when the cloning is a smashing success yielding five (!) perfect little Boogers for McKinney to fawn over; it's interesting that she again finds herself amidst an ethical maelstrom attached to her actions. It's almost as though Morris is suggesting through this chronology that we demand more from our celebrities than they can possibly give, pushing them to the furthest reaches of outlandish, extreme behaviour. It's not an indictment (he is, after all, the person making the film) but it's close to a warning-be careful about what sort of value you place on entertainment or the lines will begin to blur dramatically.
For all it's over the top theatrics, "Tabloid"'s most striking, transcendent moment comes towards the end during McKinney's sabbatical to her parents' farm. Shooting home footage for unknown purposes, McKinney passes the camera over a backyard plot of land four different times, her narration detailing how little is there, how nothing changes, how stagnancy informs the majority of our surroundings. Watching it you want to find something different in each pass, some important little detail that will allow the scene to make perfect sense, but there's nothing. There's just a want, a nervous, anxious ache to see SOMETHING, anything, rather than the dull and lifeless parade of dropping greenery that makes up the McKinney estate. It's a riddle offered up to both the audience and McKinney. How much do you want this to have meaning? It's difficult to accept that not everything does, that randomness and circumstance shape our lives just as much as the choices we make.
"Tabloid" is ultimately a study of some of those choices and their outcomes; Morris holds this story up for your subjective appraisal. If there is an actual "truth" here it's marvelously obscured by myriad recollection and the dusts of time; you can accept one version or many and come out with a different set of meanings for each. Though not as poetic as some of Morris' other films, "Tabloid" still boasts an impressive amount of visual trickery and playfulness; anything more than a light touch would have detracted from the ridiculously immersive narrative that unfolds. The weight of the issues and problems at hand never bog the film down-it's still laugh out loud funny-but they never fully retreat either, hanging like spectres across the shadowy murk of fuzzy ethics and frustrating revelations that comprise the bulk of the work. Morris wants you to realize that entertainment is never free; someone always pays, and behind every fucked up unbelievable circle of events concerning people far removed from there's a true human element. We may build pedestals to turn people into idols, but we seem just as eager to tear those pedestals down and reduce the idols to ash when they don't meet our expectations and demands. These architectures are eternal; the actual implications of those structures' continued existences are for you to figure out.

"TROLLHUNTER" dir. ANDRE OVREDAL

The world is full of mysteries. Places unvisited, wonders unseen. As much as human arrogance posits the idea we've seen everything and are just improving on concepts understood, the reality of existence is that there are hundreds of millions of things that we haven't discovered or haven't even begun to figure out. We're blind out there, grasping at a grandiosity that's more expansive than our minds can really comprehend. Parts of the world bemoan an ancientness that confounds us-Stonehenge, Easter Island, Giza-all of them harbor secrets we can only guess at, crafted out of minds more attuned to the magic song of the natural world than ours, befouled by modernity and detachment. We simply can't imagine the primeval anymore. "Trollhunter" is as much a refutation of that idea as it is a lament for its truth; while on the one hand the film marvels at fairy tales come to life, it also examines the sadness resulting from our inability to really appreciate the wonder of those stories.
"Trollhunter" purports to be a truth of its own; the opening credits posit the conceit that what we're about to view is found footage released by the Norwegian government as a public service. What we're to do with it, how it's to shape the direction of the future, is a matter left to the viewer. The most immediate problem is your personal choice to believe what you're seeing. The film follows a group of university students making a documentary film about bear poaching in the Norwegian wilds. Fiercely regulated by the government, bear hunting is a practice left to a few licensed professionals; rogue activity in decreasing populations is something of a potential ecological crisis. Believing they've found the man responsible, a gruff and tired nomadic loner named Hans (Otto Jesperson), the students pursue him relentlessly; following him on a midnight outing results in a chaotic chase through the Norwegian woods culminating in the destruction of the students' car by some sort of creature, leaving the kids exasperated and bewildered. After giving them a lift, Hans intentionally lets slip what he's really after: trolls. He allows the students to film his hunts provided they make the footage readily available and do whatever he says; the intrigue proves impossible to resist, and so begins a descent into Norwegian mythology and breathless unbelievability.
"Trollhunter" takes an obvious aesthetic cue from "The Blair Witch Project"; shaky handheld cameras and a faux cinema verite style make the picture seem lower budget than it really is, as well as lending it a sense of authenticity. But where "Blair Witch" exacted thrills from little more than suggestion, "Trollhunter" rolls out its titular fiends in a veritable parade of aplomb. Trolls are encountered quickly and without much hunting at all, tromping through woods and creeks and bearing all to a wide-eyed group of jaded college-age intellectuals. It's as though the trolls are a remnant of what gets lost when we reach a certain age, a reminder of the awesome power of imagination and an open mind. Ovredal never treats the trolls as anything less than magical; even as Hans rattles off their different species and bemoans their pitiful intelligence the trolls' depiction practically demands a belief in that missing magic that birthed them so long ago. They are ancient, yes, but they're creatures like any other in Hans' (and the government's) mind, more capable of being nuisances than wondrous sights to behold. The incompatability of the trolls with the modern world is one of the film's major themes; it's somewhat sad to see Hans so indifferent to the implausability of the creatures he's tasked with hunting down but at the same time it's realistic. You would get tired of trailing giant, smelly monsters for 30 years too. "I'm so sick of this crap," Hans mutters from beneath a makeshift suit of armor as he prepares to attempt drawing a blood sample from a rabid Ringlefinch. It's a beautiful moment because it so fully captures exactly what "Trollhunter" is about-the brutality of modern life grinding down the last true moments of magic floating free in the world.
Social criticism aside, "Trollhunter" is a rollicking piece of filmmaking. Ovredal's direction veers perfectly between documentary drolldom and massive spectacle whenever a troll is on the screen. It's difficult not to feel dwarfed during the final sequences, when the team encounters a giant (200 some feet tall) Jotnar troll roaming the barren windswept mountains of Norway's more forgotten regions. It feels like you're in the presence of something ancient and removed and totally beyond what you know; it seems like the gates of Valhalla can't really be that far off. Perspective is the film's greatest strength, and Ovredal exploits it whenever possible, showcasing the incredible coolness and weirdness of his creatures struggling to survive in a world they no longer belong in. The photography is as gorgeous as you'd expect, capturing the wilds of Norway in lush and subdued tones of green and blue, showing a world removed from total modern assimilation despite its ever-creeping onset. The landscapes feel old, haunted and flooded with myths and magicks. Jesperson is wonderful as Hans, coming off as both tired of his life and sensitive to the fact that trolls are just animals attempting to survive as they always have. Hans takes no joy in exterminating them; it's just a job like any other (or not, depending on how ingrained into modernity you've become.) The students, on the other hand, never really seem to grasp what they've uncovered, taking it all in without any real contemplation. The film moves at a fairly breakneck pace but their reactions still seem vaguely inappropriate, without the right amount of deference to legend or respect for the sights they've born witness to. It would probably be difficult to accept, yes, but the sheer majesty of the Jotnar troll should inspire at least some sort of meekness; even i felt it a little just watching it. If that's part of Ovredal's goal, depicting modern malaise, then he's extraordinarily successful in achieving it.
As cool as "Trollhunter" is, it's far from perfect. The plotline concerning the government cover-up is pretty thinly drawn, and aside from Hans there aren't very many strong characters other than the assorted trolls. Humorous asides concerning bear poaching and the difficulty of acquiring bear carcasses indigenous to Norway are funny but ultimately detract from the deeper message of the film. Ovredal needs to choose exactly what he wants his film to be-a layered meditation or blockbuster entertainment-because it isn't adept enough to be both. For me the enormity of the message (and the trolls that present it) makes me wish Ovredal had gone a little more serious with the work but hey, these are fairy tales bought to life. Being able to see that life, a potent mixture of mythology and history coming together, is more than worth the price of admission. The question of authenticity is all but done away with the moment the first troll lumbers into view; this is a work of high fantasy for those who haven't forgotten just how engrossing the surreal and the impossible can be. Seriously creative and seriously fun.

"ROAD TO NOWHERE" dir. MONTE HELLMAN

Like most forms of art, film at its best offers total transcendence. Film can transform reality and immerse us in a world not entirely unlike the one we know, but one where the things we do think we know are totally illusory and falsified. This sort of transformation is difficult to achieve in cinema because the artist is working with vision-it's not easy to create a sense of removal from something that's right before the viewer, nor is it easy to break the barriers of time and chronology that we subconsciously impose upon whatever it is we're involved in. When a film gets there, to that enigmatic place where all the assumptions fall breathlessly away, we find ourselves lost in a dream, completely held in sway by the painting moving all around us. Monte Hellman's phenomenal "Road to Nowhere" exists in that place, allowing us a transfixing alternate reality where actuality and fiction intersect in a troubling, deeply hypnotic manner.
That intersection is apparent right in the film's opening shot, of someone popping a DVD labeled "Road to Nowhere" into a computer and pressing 'play.' The hand belongs to director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) and "Road to Nowhere" is the film he's been laboring over for weeks, a labyrinthine but poorly-written film noir based on a bizarre murder-suicide that shook a small town several years back. The details of the crime are hazy, the finer points very convoluted, but it involved financial manipulations on a major scale, false identities, stolen dental records and stolen bodies and what may or may not have been a passionate murder. At the center of the rat's nest is the beautiful, haunted Velma Duran (Shannyn Sossamon) who supposedly drove her car into a lake and drowned after witnessing her possible lover, millionaire Rafe Taschen (Cliff De Young), crash his plane into the placid waters before her. Haven and his writer Steve (Rob Kolar) think the story will make a serious, intense film and embark on an odyssey of creation that sends everyone involved down a major rabbit hole. After casting exploitation actress Laurel Graham (also played by Sossamon) in the role of Velma, Haven's connections to reality begin to waver and the lines between truth and fiction become seriously and irrevocably blurred. This is a film that deals in doppelgangers and intentional obscurities, deeply layered and working with multiple character mirrors, creating a seriously disassociative and magnetic sense of vagueness that engulfs the viewer and brings them ever deeper into Hellman's world. It's film noir in the most epic sense, Raymond Chandler as seen by Howard Hawks in "The Big Sleep" or Mickey Spillane as interpreted by Robert Aldrich in the equally mindfucking "Kiss Me Deadly."
Throughout the film Hellman deconstructs our expectations of linearity and jumps back and forth between the actual details of the actual crime and the machinations of those involved and the ongoing struggles of Haven to bring to life his filmed version of those same events. Having no real knowledge of what truly happened to Velma (or Taschen) demands that Haven and Steve attempt to fill in the blanks themselves, relying on the investigations of sexy, heavy-drinking blogger Nathalie Post(Dominique Swain) and former insurance investigator turned set builder Bruno Brotherton (Waylon Payne); as the truth grows murkier Haven finds himself obsessing over Velma and in turn Laurel, who bears more than a passing resemblance. Obsession turns to disconnect, disconnect threatens insanity, insanity begets violence and the ideas governing the world we're so comfortable with begin to fall away, leaving us bereft of anchor and drifting further out into dark, misty reaches of the great unknowns. This simple outlining may read loose, but there's so many characters and so many questions working betwixt levels the film becomes a study in dreaming, a demonstration of connectedness across an array of consciousnesses as beguiling as it is narcoleptic.
"Road to Nowhere" is a twisted knot of motivations past rational understanding, an illustration of events that confuse and obfuscate rather than open themselves up to realistic interpretation and appreciation. Hellman paces his film languidly, letting it flow like a quiet stream through all the dirty recesses of the familiar until it washes up against the cold cement walls of consequence. Those familiar with any of the director's work will understand the lulling momentum, the fixation on long takes and the focus on space and style over narrative drive or action. Even the dialogue is meandering and sparse, reveling in suggestion rather than exposition, dealing in evocation and atmosphere rather than explanation. This is heavily stylized filmmaking concerned with rich questions of existentialism, echoing work by Antonioni, Bergman, and Erice, the latter two of whom are paid tribute to in the film as Haven and Laurel wile away late nights watching their work. Fitting that Hellman chose Erice's "Spirit of the Beehive," as it's another fevered, delerious work concerned with the dangerous power of imagination and hidden areas of the world where things don't exist the way we're used to them existing. The photography in "Road to Nowhere" is subtle and understated; the lush greenery of North Carolina bears silent witness to illusion and sensual immersion. The lighting is equally subdued, with the majority of the film taking place in empty nocturnal scenes charged with menace, reminiscent of some of Gregory Crewsdon's staged photography. Hellman clues us in by setting several scenes in tunnels, as though telling us there's only so much of this we're going to get, even with eyes wide open; the narrowness of our field of vision doesn't allow us to take in all the necessary detail. In the hands of a lesser director this sort of manipulation could come off as pretentious but Hellman understands that what isn't seen, what isn't even knowable, is far more important than what's presented, especially when the question is one of philosophy and imagination. Being is more than vision; understanding is a matter of interpretation and introspection, not blind and blithe handholding. Hellman thinks we're better than that, that on some level we're all capable of this sort of psychic navigation.
This is an ambitious film, and it succeeds entirely. Few films in recent memory have mesmerized me so thoroughly. Every loose narrative thread is another path to the dark; every small clue uncovered is another brick in the towering wall of obsession. There's no moral center, no value placed on anything. This is a strange world of passion, sensuality, transfixion, illusion, and above all, danger. Watching it, i was reminded deeply of David Lynch's own noir excursion "Mulholland Drive"; but while Lynch commits fully to the incommensurability of modernity and dreams, Hellman embraces the idea of reality as nothing more than a series of overlapping dreams. Lynch uses dreams as a communication and an obvious alternate space; Hellman constructs dreams as the space upon which all other "realities" issue forth. The constant blur of the "real" and the "constructed real" are meant to fold over into each other and create only one nebulous intersection where one person is the same as many and identity is little more than a man-made imposition on true existence. Whether you're witnessing something that really happened or a simple reimagining of those events becomes utterly irrelevant as the film progresses; what you're left with is simply movement. It is there. It is open. It is everything you want it to be, and it is terrifying in its absolute and engulfing magnificence. "If it made sense i wouldn't be interested," Haven tells Nathalie. I feel the same way.

"SUPER 8" dir. J.J. ABRAMS

At a breakfast gathering awhile ago, some friends and I were discussing the fact that there are certain types of films that aren't made anymore. They're difficult to define and not genre specific, but when you see one of them your heart kind of fills up and you gasp a little inside at the blush of sweet nostalgia that overtakes you. The film we were talking about was the John Candy/Dan Ackroyd vehicle "The Great Outdoors"; other prime examples would be "Uncle Buck," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T.," and, most definitively, "The Goonies." These are films that were so closely intertwined with their time they couldn't really be made today, and their narratives spoke to an idea of patience amongst audiences who were willing to entertain something slightly more thoughtful, exuberant, and wide-eyed. J.J. Abrams' wonderfully entertaining "Super 8" looks to tap into that hazy innocence and for the most part succeeds, resulting in a breakneck film that subtly references much of the above while still throwing in enough thrills and destruction to appeal to a modern aesthetic. Abrams trades on his audience's knowledge of these films; while you don't have to be a late-twenties/early-thirties geek to enjoy "Super 8" it sure as hell makes the ride more fun and allows the emotional aspects of the film to resonate a tiny bit more.
Set in small town Ohio circa 1979, "Super 8" follows a tight-knit band of horror film obsessed middle schoolers through the making of their latest celluloid opus, a no-budget zombie film that director Charles (Riley Griffiths) hopes to enter in competition. While obviously an amateur effort, it boasts impressive effects and makeup work courtesy Cary (Ryan Lee) and narrative focus Joe (Joel Courtney.) Joe's make-up and model building are especially advanced, showcasing a sensitivity born from his mother's death months before. The production hits a snag when Charles realizes he needs to introduce a female lead; after roping in the dreamy, bleary-eyed Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) to play the role the kids sneak out to film a crucial scene at the train yard. From here the film absolutely takes off, beginning with a train derailing that screams with wanton, joyous destruction and an adrenalized approach to the idea of "thrilling." The kids manage to catch it all on tape, including one of their teachers driving his truck straight into the train, causing all the damage. One of the train cars spills out a mountain of weird cosmic white cubes; Joe pockets one and becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of how the cube and the crash fit together. To say too much more is to spoil the fun; best to just let the film grab you by the hand and lead speeding down its dark, freaky hyperfun tunnels.
Fitting that Steven Spielberg had his hand in three of the films i mentioned earlier. He's executive producer here and its from his pool of influence that Abrams draws most liberally (and reverentially.) Abrams' intent is to recreate the sort of "kids against the world" movie so intrinsic to the early 80's; everything in "Super 8" can be traced back to the magic of "The Goonies," whether it's the effortless interaction of all the kids and their broadly drawn personalities (scaredy-cat, pyromaniac big-mouth, egomaniacal fat-kid, sensitive and wounded everykid, doe-eyed love interest) or the relative inefficacy of adults' ability to believe, Abrams paints a world in which children hold the power to unlock the mysteries lurking just beneath the surface. "Super 8"'s mysteries are a little more brutal and frightening than those found in "The Goonies" but even that film held the threat of death over its protagonists; Abrams merely swaps one set of oppression and obfuscation (the Fratellis) for another (the U.S. Army), giving his kids ample enemies and situations to circumnavigate. The Spielberg connection has another key role to play in "Super 8" as well defining the sort of film Abrams is emulating; Spielberg has never shied away from his interest in extraterrestrial life, nor has he ever seemed to tire of the mystery and contemplation associated with the more paranormal aspects of its suggested existence. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T." both dealt with misinterpretation and the necessity of a childlike wonder to appreciate the events that unfolded; so too does "Super 8" rely on an appreciation of the vast weirdness of the universe and an adult world's tendency to punish rather than try and understand. This narrow adult view results in "Super 8" being a much darker film than you'd expect. There's a lot of menace, terror and death hidden in the Ohio shadows.
Adults prove completely unreliable in the film, some well-intentioned (Charles' parents) and some totally lost (Joe's father) but all somehow distant and unable to peacefully traverse their kids' world. Abrams captures this gap masterfully, illustrating the pains and frustrations of trying to communicate with people who are supposed to be able to help us and guide us but end up caught in their own petty squabbles and notions of what's important, ultimately failing those they're meant to protect. Alice's father attempts to prevent her from seeing Joe because of the guilt he feels over his role in Joe's mother's death (which was virtually nil); his feeling of complacency in what was essentially an act of universal indifference creates a despondency that only alienates his daughter and poisons his own life. Joe's father feels similarly towards Alice, unable to let the pain of loss go and be a father to a son who desperately needs him to be one. He channels all of his grief into his police work, attempting to be a guardian to the entire town rather than the one person who most needs him. These intergenerational rifts necessitate the strong relationships between the kids, forcing them to create their own webs of support and essentially their own contained world. Abrams establishes and maintains this sense of removal better than most any film in recent memory, tempering nostalgia with pain and a bittersweet sense of loss not felt since "Stand By Me" (another film "Super 8" owes a strong thematic debt to.)
As the various kids the cast is uniformly excellent. Some characters are more detailed than others but virtually every actor inhabits their role with fervency and determination, speaking to how fun this film must have been to be in. Riley Griffith is particularly outstanding as Charles, lording over the group like a mini Orson Welles infatuated with his own vision and imagined magnetism. Joel Courtney plays Joe well, illuminating his artistic sensitivity and empathy. Ryan Lee infuses Cary with an impish sense of cataclysm, delighting in all things pyrotechnic, while Gabriel Basso makes Martin's fearfulness into an endearing trait rather than the stumbling plot block it could have become. Elle Fanning is also excellent as Alice, bringing the washed-out playful narcolepsy she displayed in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" to a new level, creating a teenage dream girl whose neither "manic" or "pixie" but mysteriously alluring, leaving little wonder that she creates some discord within the group. It no doubt helped that Abrams allowed the cast to actually make the zombie film the kids are working on (it screens during the credits and is very fun) and learn about each other through creative interaction; their comfort and closeness with one another shines through and gives "Super 8" an authenticity that most films struggle to create.
Everything here works. Abrams has fashioned a marvelous tribute to the sorts of films he (and by extension, a lot of us) loved as a kid. The creation of a world populated with wonder and mystery is difficult to resist, whether you're twelve or, like me, thirty-two. Quality storytelling never gets old, and films like "The Goonies" never really feel dated. J.J. Abrams has taken the best of Spielberg's cosmic interests and fused them to a coming-of-age story that's both affecting and exciting. This is blockbuster filmmaking of an entirely different sort, one that doesn't dismiss its audience as explosion-hungry idiots or pander to base emotional response. "Super 8" is an absolute blast-the first 20 minutes are totally edge of your seat rollercoaster style fun-and it gives new hope to the idea that summer films are brainless garbage only looking to make back their investment. By embracing his own geekery again, Abrams has given us another intelligent film that still manages to be character driven and fun as hell.

"THE TREE OF LIFE" dir. TERRENCE MALICK

As inscrutable as it is beautiful, Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" sets a new standard for film as poetry. Beyond dense and layered to a point of near total obfuscation, the film unfolds with a languid, riverlike pace, floating along as a dream and surrounding you like a universal meditation. There are big, huge ideas here, rolling across the sky as clouds, daring you to try to reach out and touch them. This is a film about everything Malick has ever considered, and by turn everything we too have ever considered; attempting to wrestle down nothing less than the meanings behind the meanings and the point at which any of our existence began to be significant, Malick creates an homage to the awesome spectacle of being in a way that almost no other filmmaker has been able to do.
This is a piece of art that is really beyond any sort of criticism because the vagueness of the narrative and the overwhelming feel of the universal aspects leave room for little other than subjective interpretations; you may come away from this film feeling a renewed sense of spiritual awareness, you may come away from this feeling a deep-rooted anger towards the way your life has panned out, you may come away from this feeling beyond confused and wondering what, exactly, you're supposed to do next to try and make sense of any of what you've witnessed. The raw material is there for you to work with, and I think part of what Malick has put into this picture is a freedom to look at the themes and ideas and mould them into whatever you need them to be. There is obviously a great deal of Malick himself in this picture, at least as much as we're likely to ever get, and it becomes very easy to think of "The Tree of Life" as the film he's been steering his career towards for the last forty years. It's that epic, that expansive, that immersive...but there's an intimacy at the heart of it that pulls against the universality that dominates the film's framework.
Visually the film is stunning; Malick's images are pure majesty, photographed instances of literature in motion, the weeping sorts of compositions that line the sleeping hearts of time's greatest artists. Red blood cells coalesce into nebulas, white blood cells morph into the stars themselves, dinosaurs engage in strange acts of what might be mercy, trees sway and dance, and planets rise across the horizon and assert themselves as the universe's great obstinancies. It all seems larger than it could ever possibly be, like Malick is trying to get at something that even he isn't able to entirely grasp. That sense of mystery haunts every frame of "The Tree of Life"; i think it's the film's greatest strength, but that level of open-endedness could very well be off-putting to less philosophically minded viewers. This is most definitely a think piece, and if you don't come away from the film with about a million different questions about what the fuck is going on all around you all the time, then "The Tree of Life" has failed in its only real identifiable theme. Malick wants us to be in awe of everything around us; all of nature has value, all of life is inscrutable, and trying to understand something so beautiful and vast and magnificent is beyond mere mortal applications of thought. As it ventures further into theoreticals, philosophy ultimately begins to fail as it dissolves into math and logic; Malick's film is able to expound on these sorts of questions in a more poetic and visionary way, and in this manner his philosophical engagement with questions of being becomes slightly easier to comprehend. Not that there are any answers here-there aren't-but there's an attempt to illustrate what's inside.
Like "The Thin Red Line," much of the film's narrative is advanced via an interior dialogue; questions of upbringing and personality and how much we get from whom and what is actually us in the raw dominate the proceedings. The actions that these dialogues give way to don't seem near as important or epochal as the questions that led to them; much of the film has a hushed and quiet pace befitting intense contemplation. For me, a lot of the film was spent simply trying to listen as i was bowled over by image after breathtaking image, idea after confusing idea. The story exists to give the film some sort of grounding; how it ties into the concept of being in the universe, how we're supposed to fit Malick's simple earthborn sliver of time into EVERYTHING, is a slightly more difficult puzzle to put together, one that i'm not really sure i can do.
This willful obscurity helps make the film much more alluring; the jumbled cohesiveness and tendril-like extensions of implied meanings create a resonance that maintains hold long after the credits have rolled. Watching "The Tree of Life" feels a bit like walking through impossible halls of architecture is some removed astral plane, forever staring up at beauty and vision that you don't really get. It seems lifted from another realm, plucked out of a churning magic and let loose on the reality we've come to know. It's a little discomfiting but in the best possible way; Malick's demand that you think about what you're seeing becomes intuitive as the puzzles stack on top of each other.
There's little else i can communicate about "The Tree of Life" other than it is an absolute must see for anyone remotely interested in film as art. Malick has attained a status similar to that of Kubrick, and rightly so; the ambition seen here is so far-reaching it becomes reckless, more fearless and challenging than any other film you're likely to see in the next several years. Questions, at their best, give way to more questions, an infinite dialogue with possibility and perception. "The Tree of Life" wants that dialogue with you, and it wants to open you up to the insane, explosive beauty and wonder that exists all around you. Every action, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, has a mirror in gargantua near infathomable. We don't think about these things enough, but Terrence Malick does-his wish to convey that sense of awe and grace is a gift to the world of film. This is a major work, and i cannot recommend it more highly.