Gateway Cinephiles

Film Diary: Private Property (Nue Propriété)

2006
Director: Joachim Lafosse
Viewed: January 20, 2008
Format: DVD - New Yorker Video (2007)

Review: The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

2007
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Viewed: January 17, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

It’s tempting to compare The Orphanage and Pan’s Labyrinth, and not just because both are recent Spanish-language fantasy-horror films that delve into childhood fears. Both films employ a similar tactic for their scares—gnawing dread punctuated by the odd moment of gruesome gore—and both wear the ambiguity of their central mystery as a badge of honor. What’s more, The Orphanage’s promotional material is aggressively touting Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro’s producer credit. Yet these similarities strike me as only skin-deep. The Orphanage’s protagonist is an adult, and director Juan Antonio Bayona is less interested in the perspectives of children than in his heroine’s understanding of and relationship to them. In some ways, The Orphanage is the mirror image of Labyrinth. Where del Toro’s film examined the ways that children cope with and defeat real horror through fantasy, Bayona addresses how hope and fantasy—or delusion, if your prefer—govern a parent’s understanding of and attitude towards their child.

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3-Minute Intro: Murder on the Orient Express

Screened: January 18, 2008
Format: DVD - Paramount (2004)
Selected By: Beth

Sidney Lumet’s 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is easy to overlook amid the director’s imposing filmography, but it stands out as one of the finest films ever made in the traditional consulting detective genre. An 84-year old Christie, who would pass away less than two years after Murder’s premiere, declared that she was completely satisfied with Lumet’s adaptation, typically dry praise bestowed on no other film version of her work. Murder gathered together a cast as impressive as Lumet would ever work with: Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Jacqueline Bisset, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, and still more. The film’s shooting schedule had to accommodate concurrent appearances by many of these luminaries on the London stage.

The elegance of Christie’s story, and in Lumet’s and screenwriter Paul Dehn’s faithful adaptation, lies both in its lean traditionalism and its unconventional twists. Fundamentally, Murder is a familiar locked room mystery. Here, the room is the titular train, stalled by a snowdrift somewhere deep in the Balkans. The story’s mystery evokes the Lindbergh kidnapping that likely fascinated Christie’s contemporary readers. This ripped-from-the-headlines conceit would eventually come to typify legions of crime dramas. Eschewing the tidy resolution of the typical consulting detective story, Murder offers not one but two possible solutions—one brutishly simple, one positively epic in its complexity.

Typically for Lumet, Murder is characterized by the director’s inclination for intimate storytelling and technical innovation. The tight confines of the set demanded a pioneering use of radio microphones for a feature film, and forced Lumet to shoot the climax multiple times in order to obtain the angles he desired. Albert Finney, as Christie’s beloved detective Hercule Poirot, was particularly taxed by these repeated shoots, as his concluding monologue was eight pages long. Finney came to regret the role, which for some time solidified a fictional image of him as a 55-year-old Belgian (Finney was 38 and English). Although Peter Ustinov’s portrayal in later films would become a more familiar incarnation of Poirot, Finney’s resolute performance, combined with a truly all-star cast and Lumet’s craft, established Murder as the definitive adaptation of the most widely-read novelist in the world.

Review: Alvin and the Chipmunks

2007
Director: Tim Hill
Viewed: January 18, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

I’m not sure if words can express how horrible Alvin and the Chipmunks is. This movie-going experience was a field trip with my students. Usually movie field trips are great: once the kids are seated, you just have to worry about trips to the restroom and not falling asleep.

Let me put it this way: I willingly and cheerfully took children to go to the bathroom, because it meant I got to stand in the hallway and wait for them instead of watch this movie.

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Film Diary: Manufactured Landscapes

2006
Director: Jennifer Baichwal
Viewed: January 17, 2007
Format: DVD - Zeitgeist Films (2007)

Film Diary: Shaun of the Dead

2004
Director: Edgar Wright
Viewed: January 16, 2008
Format: DVD - Studio Canal (2004)

Having just watched Hot Fuzz, I was in the mood to go back and revisit Shaun of the Dead. I was happy to find I still liked it better–and that there are a few Shaun of the Dead callbacks in Hot Fuzz. I’m always impressed at how effortlessly this film mixes horror, comedy, and even touching sentimental moments. I always laugh when Shaun is asked if his Second Coming LP should be thrown at the zombie girl in the backyard. The LP was a largely unpopular sophomore effort by a much-loved British band, the Stone Roses. Shaun almost sheepishly replies, “I liked it.” I liked it, too Shaun.

Film Diary: Inland Empire

2006
Director: David Lynch
Viewed: January 15, 2007
Format: DVD - Absurda / Rhino (2007)

Film Diary: The Golden Door (Nuovomondo)

2007
Director: Emanuele Crialese
Viewed: January 12, 2008
Format: DVD - Miramax (2008)

Film Diary: Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

2007
Director: Dwayne Carey-Hill
Viewed: January 9, 2008
Format: DVD - 20th Century Fox (2007)

Film Diary: Caché

2005
Director: Michael Haneke
Viewed: January 8, 2008
Format: DVD - Sony (2006)