Promised Land (2012)

 


PROMISED LAND                 B-                   

USA (107 mi)  2012  d:  Gus van Sant                          Official site

Gus van Sant helped make Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s careers by directing them in their Academy Award winning first screenplay, GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997), coming to the rescue again at the last moment filling in for what was to be Matt Damon’s initial foray into directing, pulling out with just 5 weeks before shooting began, but van Sant admirably pulls off a respectable small-town picture set in the rural farm country of Western Pennsylvania.  While the film has a conventional structure of big city corporate honchos visiting small time farmers eager to buy up farmland leases in order to drill for natural gas, promising large sums of money, in some cases millions, to farmers whose land may already be leased due to the hard economic times.  Seemingly easy pickings, two corporate sales personnel are sent in from Global Solutions, a rising West coast star Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and his partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand).  Buying flannel shirts and a pick up truck to look the part, they set out to convince the town to accept the company’s offer of money in exchange for drilling rights.  This has all the makings of a David vs. Goliath scenario, especially when an aging town spokesperson, the plain speaking Hal Holbrook as Frank Yates, a local science teacher, suggests this offer could ruin their land and water supplies.  When Butler suggests those are just rumors supplied by their competitors, Yates counters that this is a dangerous and tricky business where accidents or catastrophes have been known to happen.  When he urges the town to put it to a vote, Butler has 3 weeks to convince a majority that hydraulic fracturing technology, which can drill deeper than previously expected, has led to major increases in natural gas reserves and may not only get them rich, but that it’s safe and may be their only option.

The subject is reminiscent of Laura Israel’s recent documentary WINDFALL (2010) about installing giant wind turbines in upstate New York, especially since the chosen area happens to be among New York’s poorest counties and represents financial incentives to the dramatically declining dairy farm business.  What’s curious is the cross-section of people in town, rural folks who all know and trust one another, who have natural suspicions of outsiders, but who like the sincere, folksy, look-them-in-the-eye approach of Butler.  His position is immediately undermined, however, by the arrival of co-writer John Krasinski as Dustin Noble, a hard corps conservationist representative who aims to win over the town, immediately out-applying the folksy charm at local watering holes, singing popular country ballads on open mike night, providing pictures all over town of dead cows in the wake of Global Solutions drilling.  Soon he has the citizens eating out of the palm of his hand, including a bright and attractive local schoolteacher Butler has his eye on, Rosemarie DeWitt as Alice.  What seemed like a simple proposition turns into a personal nightmare, as Noble is brash and intuitive, knowing everything ahead of time about Butler and Global Solutions, where he’s always one step in front of their efforts, leaving this expert corporate team to continually second guess themselves.  His swagger and confidence gone, as much of the town has turned against them, Butler is running out of options.  While he has a majority of the landholders signed under contracts, he doesn’t have a majority of the town’s eligible voters. 

What’s intriguing about the film is the audience tends to side with Matt Damon, even if he’s a corporate shark, because he’s just an Iowa farm boy himself whose town lost everything when the Caterpillar plant went belly up.  In his mind, he’s actually helping these people, offering what they need, but audiences also tend to be suspicious of $9 billion dollar corporations that rarely tell the whole truth.  It’s also easy to side with Noble’s counter arguments, as no one likes to see dead livestock, but his arrogance in continuing to show up the corporate superstar is infuriating.  Despite their high powered reputations, there’s little evidence of it on display, as instead this corporate duo seem like a beaten team, especially when they construct a country fair and carnival, complete with a Ferris wheel, pony rides and pig races, even a tractor pull, all the things local farmers and their families adore, but a downpour of rain puts an end to that dream, leaving them hopelessly outclassed by a smug amateur.  The picture of the rural locale is beautifully captured by Linus Sandgren, while the melancholic score by Danny Elfman is quietly in reserve, leaving a sad tinge to this picture, as there was never much of a fight.  The only face to face discussions take place at that initial town meeting, where the voice of Frank Yates becomes the conscious of the community, as he demonstrates a knowledgeable foresight in not jumping at the money.  But the overall picture is clouded somewhat by a mysterious plot twist that suggests the argument is not fully resolved, that it is still developing, and that each community will have to deal with a similar story.  What’s perhaps most surprising is how close this story resembles the predictable plot to THE MUSIC MAN (1962), where a swindling outsider comes to sell a bill of goods to the unsuspecting people of River City, Iowa, where the town’s goodness and moral righteousness, not to mention the attractiveness of the town librarian (Shirley Jones), makes him see the light, turning a con man into a productive citizen.  A similar state of enlightenment adds a touch of ambiguity to this picture as well, where the moral seems to be “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” 70s Mother Nature *Chiffon* Margarine Commercial - YouTube (31 seconds).

Into the Wild

INTO THE WILD             B+            

USA  (140 mi)  2007  ‘Scope  d:  Sean Penn

Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth.   

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)

For all of Chris McCandless’s philosophical musings downplaying the human interactions in life, believing the essence of the natural world around us is the truth that will liberate us from our social confinements, it is the social interactions in the film that work best.  While there is still plenty of artistic pretension to this film, which could have lopped off a good twenty minutes or so, not the least of which is some of the self-centered poetic soliloquies found in McCandless’s own prose, this is an extremely effective film because of how it compresses all the places he visits into such a short period of time, leaving behind quite a powerful impact.  Emile Hirsch plays the college graduate McCandless who still has $25,000 left in his college account after he graduates from Emory University, believing he’ll probably use it to attend Harvard Law School.  But that is his parent’s dream, not his, and over the course of a summer visit to the west coast in 1990, it redefines him as a person, having major ramifications over the next two years of his life, as he pretty much drops out of the society he endlessly rails against, gives his money to charity, and charts a course for himself hitchhiking on the road, kayaking through the Grand Canyon all the way to Mexico before he embarks on his dream to live a great Alaskan adventure into the wild.     

Using a series of voices as the narration, many of which are literary references, but also choice musical passages throughout by Eddie Vedder as well as yellow writings onscreen made to resemble letters he composed, he also reads from his own poetic diary entries, which has the effect of being too heavy handed, as the language is oblique and unclear, closer to an internal rant than anything defining, and at least initially it diminishes the power of the immense imagery that accompanies his journeys.  But after he disappears off the face of the earth on his journeys, when his sister and his parents begin to realize he’s intentionally leaving no trace of himself, his sister’s voice continues the narration, which is more heartfelt and does a better job of describing who he is, including the family he’s leaving behind.  Everything that leads to his Alaskan adventure is stunning in its depiction of life on the edge, whereas when he finally arrives in the great vast unknown, there is no one left to talk to other than himself, and one does scratch their head wondering what this is all about, thinking how Werner Herzog might have interpreted this differently, as this idealistic guy alone in the wilderness bears a strange resemblance to one of Herzog’s last films, GRIZZLY MAN (2005).  Thankfully, Penn decides to interrupt his Alaskan adventure with flashback sequences of earlier picturesque human stories that fortified his intentions to make his Don Quixote-like (though it was not on his reading list) single-minded quest, filled with a satchel of precious books from Jack London, Henry David Thoreau, Boris Pasternak, to Leo Tolstoy. 

Filled with a natural curiosity about life, an appealing smile, but a fairly morbid view of humans, McCandless weaves his way across the country, working in the wheatfields of South Dakota, traveling for a brief period with a hippie couple that is undergoing serious relationship issues, a liberated Swedish couple listening to a blaring MC Hammer at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a kind and helpful woman working at a homeless shelter, which offers unique imagery of the loneliness of disconnected souls in Los Angeles, rediscovering the hippie couple again at their trailer home in the desert, where he befriends an eerily sorrowful young singer (Kirsten Stewart), which leads to his connection with an aging veteran (Hal Holbrook) who poignantly takes him under his wing before reluctantly setting him free.  The time he spends with each is invaluable, as it gives him a perspective that is otherwise missing from his all too sheltered life from the Virginia suburbs, but he’s still too young to know what to make of it.  All he can think about is Alaska.  But for the viewers in the audience who have other things in mind, this is a real treat, as the characters are beautifully constructed within their worlds and they actually hold the meaning of the film, as within the interconnectedness of things, the time we share with others holds the greatest meaning in our lives.  But McCandless is hell-bent on making his journey alone, finding an old abandoned Fairbanks commuter bus for shelter, where he finds a spot with a vantage point of Mt. McKinley including a panoramic mountainous view near Denali National Park.  It’s exactly what he was looking for, calling it his Magic Bus, where he continues to make diary entries of significant events.  But as Herzog discovered before him, nature is not always the idealistic paradise of our dreams, as it contains both birth and death in equal numbers, and a beautiful soul does not give anyone an advantage when attempting to survive the elements.  Some of the imagery of the film is breathtaking, shot by Eric Gautier, but some of the staged shots of McCandless are literally parodies of the art form and the film would have been better served without them.  Despite the signature Penn overdramatic staginess on occasion, most of this film is well constructed, somber, hauntingly beautiful and packs a powerful punch.  Great film to sit through, even in its longevity…

Postscript:

While not as detailed as Jon Krakauer’s terrific book by the same name, one can’t help but value the movie version, despite overall aspects that are admittedly disconcerting.  This is another sumptuously gorgeous film shot on 'Scope by Eric Gautier (no slouch) that looks great on a big screen, shot using a mix of digital and Super 35 blown up to 35 mm.  I would wager this is a better depiction of Kerouac's On the Road than Walter Salles's yet to be seen 2012 Cannes version, as I felt it did an excellent job observing the road, and how disconnected from mainstream existence you feel on the road, developing abstract theories of existence, singular interest in books and philosophies, where a book is as valuable as any friend, and where the detached nature of how you feel comes to mean so much more especially because of the disconnection to society.  The singular obsession of this guy to experience an adventure "into the wild" goes through a lot of stages, where the people aspect before he heads to Alaska is invaluable, as for all practical purposes, he's already there.  He just doesn't realize it.  "Into the wild" is really a state of mind that exists in your head, not a vast wilderness in Alaska, as it turns out, which is really only icing on the cake.  McCandless on the road really underestimates the value of his earlier experiences, which I thought Penn handled very well.  Hal Holbrook received plenty of accolades for his performance here, and it's an unusual portrayal, especially in a "youth movie," where the elderly are usually stereotypical and/or fodder for comic relief.  Not so here, as he presents the very heart and core of the film, namely posing the question:  what do people mean to each other?  Is this at least as significant as the worth of nature?  Because the people aspect is so heavily punctuated with detail, it balances the film's eventual love affair with Alaska. 

Penn can be obnoxious onscreen as he is in life, so there is that, but this film isn't so much about Penn as what he can bring to a young man's idyllic journey.  The fact that McCandless is headstrong and careless seems to be part of his psychic dimension that Penn can appreciate, or perhaps even relate to, where you get the feeling he was young and impulsive, also prone to fixation, where throughout his ordeal he remains just a kid, making reckless decisions in haste without having the wisdom to think them through, where acting on impulse often leads to disastrous results.  But that is youth.  More to the point it is the obsession of youth, where they get their mind made up on something and won't let go, where he becomes infatuated with the *idea* of the wild, much like people fall in love with the idea of love.  It is a film about personal ideas, growth, and exploration, a far cry from most of what's onscreen these days.  While I could never say it is a complete success, but the ambitious nature of the project took some guts and I felt much of that translated to the screen.  It did succeed in planting the seeds of curiosity and exploration, the love of the journey and the idea of wanting to be *on your own.*  

This is a special time of life, post college, pre career, compare this to THE GRADUATE (1967), for instance, which quickly veers towards romance, where discovering yourself, much as the Beats did, is rarely given any kind of unique understanding, as it has here.   

While the book may be better, largely because the author has his own worldly insights that he continually interjects throughout, and also because it better explains what happened to the poor kid stranded out there alone.  The movie does a good job, however, in describing the path he took to get there. 

Water for Elephants

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS                           C+                  

USA  (122 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Francis Lawrence

An interesting box office combination, pairing the ever appealing Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon with teen idol sensation, Twilight boy Robert Pattinson, both extremely attractive and gorgeous to look at with People magazine important Hollywood faces, where, expectedly, the producers should make a killing.  And placed in between these two, keeping them apart, why not implement another Academy Award winner, that sadistic Nazi from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009), Christoph Waltz playing another sadistically evil man audiences love to hate?  Let’s see, add up the Witherspoon crowd, the Twilight crowd, and the Tarantino crowd - - surely this is a match made in box office heaven.  It very well may be, and it’s pleasantly enjoyable enough, but typical genre material, safe and playing by the book, with little razzle dazzle or excitement except the look of the film which appears terrific in the trailer, but uses the tried and true TITANIC (1997) formula of an old geezer (Hal Holbrook) recalling the entire film in a flashback sequence.  Based on a best selling novel by Sara Gruen, the present recalls the Depression days, where Holbrook, an escapee on the loose from a nearby nursing home misses his connection of meeting his son at the circus, as he’s there in the evening while the performance took place in the afternoon.  That leaves him plenty of time to have a drink with the young circus owner (Paul Schneider) and pour out his memories of the world’s worst circus disaster way back in 1931.  Beautifully photographed by Rodrigo Prieto, especially the sensuous lighting scheme, which makes the intimate scenes in the cramped, lamp lit train cars seem even more delicate while also capturing the spectacular colors under the big top of the circus. 

Pattinson, who will forever be associated with the Twilight series, doesn’t really stake out new territory.  He’d have to be a deliciously evil guy for that to happen, or disfigured or handicapped in some kind of way, where he has an altogether different perception than being just another pretty face, as he is again here.  Overly naïve and always idealistically good, he is the same character simply transplanted into a different story, an aspiring young veterinarian whose final exams are interrupted by the death of his Polish immigrant parents, leaving him to fend for himself, broke, alone, and homeless, as the bank took the house.  Hitching the rails, as so many did during the Depression, he just happens to hop the train of the Great Benzini Brothers traveling circus, where he quickly makes a name for himself as the animal vet.  But what really attracts his eyes is the star of the show, the scantily clad bareback rider, Witherspoon, blond and in curls, wearing backless, form fitting silk dresses, looking sensational.  She’s married, however, to the boss of the show, the ringmaster Christoph Waltz who tyrannically rules with an iron fist, surrounded by guys with muscle who protect his every move.  Immediately seen as a penny pincher and a guy who will do anything for a buck, like kick guys off a moving train if he can’t or is unwilling to pay them, his questionable ethics and ruthless tactics are betrayed by his perfectly charming and civilized manner, where his mood see saws back and forth, becoming uncontrollably jealous and wildly paranoid when he’s had too much to drink.  In other words, he’s the fun character to watch, while the other two are running around behind the scenes trying to ignite sparks that never come. 

But since this is a circus story, the real star of the show is Rosie the elephant, an animal with a soft spot for alcohol, but instantly becomes their sensational new act, the one designed to fill seats and make them rich, even though the initial performance goes haywire and nearly gets the star rider killed.  But not to worry, elephants are smart and notice the difference in mood and temperament in terms of how they’re treated.  Pattinson prefers not poking the poor animal with the hook, while Waltz gores the thing repeatedly until it bleeds.  Pattinson’s good guy routine catches the twinkle in Reese’s eye, as both are animal lovers, and of course, Rosie is delighted by a friendlier handler.  Perhaps the most absurd moment in the movie occurs when Pattinson discovers the animal speaks Polish, as it responds to commands in Polish and suddenly does circus tricks.  Well this certainly saves the audience from having to endure the painfully repetitious acts of learning how to train an animal.  Like magic, the animal saves the show.  Waltz, on the other hand, continues to mistreat the animals, but none more than Reese, his own personal pet, that he likes to train his own way.  If Pattinson objects, there are the muscle guys who will beat him bloody, forcing him to witness her mistreatment in silence.  As he’s about to leave the circus for good, admitting he’s been whipped, there’s a commotion under the big top, where someone has released all the wild cats, where the lions and tigers are charging the audience and causing mayhem, screams everywhere as some people are trampled.  In the middle of it all, of course, true love finds a way, sending the audience home with a Hallmark picture postcard finale, using a system of painting by numbers, supposedly pressing all the right buttons, but ultimately lacking in every respect except how to shoot the animals and the star performers and make them appear superficially glorious.  The movie is easy on the eyes, but by the end, one is reminded of the infamous P.T. Barnum expression:  “There’s a sucker born every minute.”