No Such Thing is set in a presumably not-too-distant, chaotic future, where sleazy newspaper editors like the wasted Miranda Richardson look for sensational, morbid stories to distinguish themselves from the run-of-the-mill news about terrorists releasing poison gas in New York’s subway and the president contemplating suicide. She sends a news crew to investigate reports of a monster in northern Iceland and, upon finding out that they probably were killed by the monster, allows her dull assistant Beatrice (Sarah Polley, complying with the Hartley-ordained lack of emotion) to go look for them. This is where you discover that, in this horrors-upon-horrors world, one of the most alarming developments is that Icelandair evidently no longer exists. Anyway, Beatrice (who’s a stupidly naïve, “nice” simpleton) eventually makes it to the monster’s (Robert John Burke) lair, and they get to talking in a kind of “I’m going to rip your head off” way and somehow wind up at the nonsensical conclusion that – because he wants to die but is technically kind of unkillable – she’ll find the one guy on earth who can kill him but only if he comes back to civilization with her despite his proclivity for killing people. [One of the few truly entertaining scenes in the movie is the monster’s half-whining, half-ranting speech about how being around people, civilization, “all of it,” gives him the irresistible urge to kill. He pauses and adds, deadpan, “Drinking helps.” (Another unintentionally funny scene is when the monster snatches a walking stick from an old blind woman and “breaks” it “over his knee,” except that you can see the stick separate – into two neatly sawed halves – a split second before it actually touches his knee.)]
And, of course, by the time they get to New York, there’s like a bond between them (get it? Beatrice and the Beast?) and she gets all sad when he becomes basically a freak in the media carnival – like, what did she think was going to happen? The movie can’t sustain even its own internal logic by this point: the monster becomes a meek, helpless doll because he promised Beatrice he wouldn’t hurt anyone even though he says he doesn’t believe in promises and even though he's been killing people since before they existed or something; some massive worldwide effort is evidently made to bring the one monster-killing guy to the very hotel where the monster is staying and then at the last minute the powers that be decide to keep him away from the monster at all costs; dowdy dullard Beatrice lets herself be strapped into some S&M costume for a press conference and then happily never takes it off again. And the ending is annoyingly elliptical and “deep” yet still a blatant cop-out.
It's a fairly typical Hal Hartley film; in other words, takes its sweet damn time going nowhere. The dialogue is pretty insipid, with pompous pseudo-intellectual ruminations that don't even make much sense. The monster disconcertingly interrupts his stilted, archaic speech with contemporary expressions and much foul language -- or maybe it's the other way around -- which seemed affected and precious to me at first, but I grew to like it by the end of the movie because at least the monster was entertaining from time to time, and he was about the only character who showed any emotion.
But hey – Iceland!
I’m starting to keep track of where I find recommendations for books and movies so that I know who to trust (and who to blame), and so I know that it was Entertainment Weekly that recommended Comic Book Villains as an exception to the rule of direct-to-video movies. But I knew it was a bad sign when, in the opening credits, I noticed that the producers of the movie were the three lead actors (Donal Logue, Michael Rappaport, and DJ Qualls), which to me says that this was a buddy project that no one else would finance. (Amazingly, Kevin Smith is not at all involved in this film.)
It’s actually an amiable, amusing film for about the first half – Qualls narrates the story of the feud between two comic-book store owners, Logue, a “true believer,” who runs a small, shabby shop frequented by devotees who argue incessantly over superhero minutiae and who sneers at but secretly envies his competitor, clean-cut Rappaport and his wife (Natasha Lyonne), who don’t much care for comics except in the financial sense and whose store is bright and spacious and sells stuff like Pokemon cards and toys to bring in the soccer moms. Qualls, being a true believer himself, sides with Logue but, as the feud escalates ridiculously, finds his morals and decency pulling him away from everyone.
As the feud spins out of control, so does the movie. Most alarming to me was how easy the writer/director seems to think it is to kill someone. I get how the obsession becomes all-consuming, but there is a line that isn’t easily crossed, and not only do the characters heedlessly walk right past that line, they never seem to notice it at all. The lack of remorse or even recognition destroys whatever shreds of sympathy you may have clung to for any character. The movie’s ending is not only overly violent but also bashes the very passion it’s been celebrating and suggests bitterly that “do what you love and the money will follow” is a big crock of shit. I don’t know who the filmmakers thought their audience would be, but in any case they alienate both the true believers and the mockers – they start off reinforcing the self-worth of comic (and any other) collectors, but ultimately their message is that comics (and presumably other obsessions) at worst make you do horrible things and at best are a waste of your time. And that last phrase is a perfect summing up of the movie.
I didn’t plan my rental-watching well, which is
how I ended up starting
a nearly four-hour movie at 10:00 p.m. because I had to return it the
next
day. Frankly, I didn’t expect to be finishing the film, because a
four-hour Bollywood movie climaxing with a winner-take-all cricket game
between a gang of ragtag underdogs and a polished team of
upper-crusters
just didn’t seem… what’s the word? … interesting. So I was a
little
surprised to find myself not just awake, but alert and engaged at 2:00
a.m. Lagaan is a terrific film (it was nominated
for
best foreign language film at the 2001 Oscars),
deftly paraphrasing the brewing Indian revolt against their British
occupiers,
without neglecting the sweet romantic sub-plot.
You can’t help but adore main character Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) at first sight; we're introduced to him as he shadows hunting parties of British soldiers from the nearby regiment so that he can scare their prey away at the moment they shoot. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s crazy gorgeous (he’s got a little Rupert Everett thing going, as my friend Lynn told me, which kind of motivated me to go rent the movie, which had been languishing on my “to see” list for a while). He and lovely, feisty Gauri (Gracy Singh) have a teasing, flirting relationship that Gauri, at least, would like to be permanent. Together, they make a terrific couple, and their courtship is great fun to watch.
Meanwhile, India is suffering a drought, which makes it difficult for Bhuvan’s village and others to pay the annual lagaan, or tax (in the form of crops), to the British colonizers. When the village goes en masse to plead for a lower lagaan, Bhuvan’s pride and hotheadedness get him into something of a pissing match with the British commander who is, as are nearly all the Brits, an arrogant, poncy twerp. End result: against the urgent pleas from his neighbors, Bhuvan accepts the commander’s challenge of a cricket match between the villagers and the regiment. If the village wins, they and the whole territory are exempt from lagaan for three years. If the Brits win, the village must pay triple lagaan.
Bhuvan takes the challenge thinking cricket is much the same as a traditional Indian children’s game, but he finds it’s quite different. A sympathetic Englishwoman has to explain the rules to him and the other villagers who, slowly and reluctantly, rally to his cause and honestly, even her dumbed-down version didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I started to understand it a little more watching the actual match, but I’m still foggy on some things. Like, it seems to be to the pitching team’s advantage to hit the batter with the ball as incapcitatingly as possible, because evidently if the batter can’t stand up, he’s out and no one can replace him. This rule would seem to invite a great deal of abuse. I mean, imagine Roger Clemens in a cricket match. Although, weirdly, if the batter gets better after a while, he can bat again, which I guess is the advantage of a game that stretches out over days. And speaking of stretching out over days, I still have to say that cricket is not the most thrilling game in the world, even when it’s dramatized and compressed for a movie.
But the movie is engaging and even thrilling -- you won't even notice the 224-minute running time. It’s a microcosm of the impending Indian revolt against the British, still some years away at the time the film is set. The villagers gradually overcome their fears to join the rebel on whom they initially turned their backs, and Bhuvan develops into a brave, dedicated leader who first coaxes the men to join him through appeals to either their patriotism or their personal pride, and then wins their loyalty. As clichéd as it might be, it’s still stirring to see not only the village, but the province come together to cheer Bhuvan’s cricketers – the stunning, proudly native crowd of Indians swarming to see the match must certainly unsettle the Brits, whose gleaming regiment suddenly seems pretty skimpy.
Note: Lagaan is a Bollywood movie, meaning that
it’s
a
musical. The songs are catchy, with unusual and entertaining
choreography,
but they do go on. There’s not many of them, though, and it’s
easy
enough to speed through them if, like I was, you’re pressed for time.
When I was returning the movies, I had to wait at the counter to tell someone that Lagaan’s disc was messed up (it kept skipping, freezing, and losing sound, which seems to be a common affliction of Bollywood movie rentals because they’re popular, yet the rental places don’t get it through their thick skulls that they should get maybe more than one copy of these movies instead of another 50 of The Scorpion King). The guy in front of me told the clerk he was returning The Piano Teacher because “I didn’t know it was in another language.” You know, it’s a good thing I was feeling depressed, because if I had been a little more cheerful, I would not have been able to suppress a snort of derisive laughter. I mean, first of all, what a fuckin’ tragedy – how are you expected to watch a film in another language? But I can see where the video box purposely obscures the movie’s Frenchosity. It’s not like it has the title in a different language in parentheses under the English title. Oh, no, wait, it does. Okay, well, the names could be any nationality – you know, because so many American and British names have accents and those funny things under the “c” and are like “Benoît Magimel.” And you’d think that they’d say on the box that it’s in French with English subtitles… and they do. (I can’t help wondering: why in god’s name did he rent The Piano Teacher if he’s the type of person who refuses watches films in different languages? The box certainly isn’t arresting, and how could he possibly have heard about it without also finding out that it’s not in English? Reminds me of the morons who walked out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because they didn’t know it was in Mandarin, or the people who walked out of Evita because they didn’t know there would be “so much singing” [verbatim quote, folks]. I’m at a loss to figure out how you could decide you wanted to see this movie yet not know key facts like that it’s French, which is a different language.)
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