Mad Max: Fury Road. A trip down post-apocalyptic memory lane

Where do I start? The incredible production design, the riveting action, the incredible characters with a lived-in feel to their look and equipment? All of these bombard the senses when the introduction and initial set-up, Max, an insane lone survivalist, who suffers from flashbacks from his traumatic past, sets the story in motion.

The story is simple, but the landscape is rich in detail and has so much substance to it, the style and mood in perfect subservient harmony to the main characters and their motivations, that one viewing will definitely not be enough once you collect your jaw from the floor.

As with previous efforts with the Mad Max films, George Miller (genius!) does not hold back on the primal, visceral and grotesque. What's amazing is that he is no less deft when showing emotion and the longing for freedom, especially in the magnificent Charlize Theron. The story evolves from her character's decision to escape with a gaggle of women from the clutches of the warlord Immortan Joe. She takes with her a huge tanker full of fuel.

It's become a commonplace thing to say someone or something got owned, but without an ounce of exaggeration or grandiosity, one can say that George Miller OWNS this genre. Before the original Mad Max films, nothing as raw and real had graced(?) the screen. To my amazement, in spite of his recent efforts making kiddie fare like 'Happy Feet' and it's sequel, the master only gets better with time.

Describing the plot could be done in two lines. Describing the details on the screen as the plot unfolds is nearly impossible. The richness of detail and the knowledge that each character on screen has actually lived a life that could be made into a story of it's own provides a realness and in case of the escapees, a sense of desperation and hope that never lets go even as a macabre automotive ballet provides incredibly realistic and unrelenting action.

Immortan Joe, a warlord, has taken over a supply of fresh water and has created an army of slaves to fight his wars, breed his progeny and to survive on his largesse when he choose to shower the unwashed masses with a some water. Oil is in scarce supply and wars are being fought among rival gangs and towns for control. Imperator Furiosa, the Charlize Theron character, escapes with some of Joe's wives and is headed for 'Green Place' where she grew up before being taken captive by Joe. Max has been captured by Joe's War boys and his blood is being used for generating power. Yes, it's these touches, and the movie is filled with them, that pass by so quickly in a world so dense and real, its requires a repeat viewing.

The party sent out to capture the runaways takes Max along for the ride, and to use his blood to power the vehicle they ride in. Some spectacular chase scenes later, Max ends up along with one of the Warboys, Nux (Nicholas Hoult) helping the women escape.

None of what I have described here can really be called a spoiler. The visual mastery and superior storytelling skills make this an adventure for the ages.

Don't miss it!

Interstellar: A space odyssey redefined

The comparisons are inevitable. A sci-fi saga with the sweep and magnitude of Interstellar is a major achievement and the only other monolith, pardon the pun, of equal stature, is Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of course, Kubrick achieved something more conceptual. The story, the characters and the drama were subservient to the greater, more philosophical musings about the nature of consciousness, evolution and humanity's relationship with the tools it creates.

Nolan, while no less ambitious, takes a different approach. As he has done before with the Batman saga, he makes the science believable, the characters relatable, providing a gravitas necessary to the proceedings for when the science fiction kicks in. For the last 30 minutes of the film to feel plausible without the camp feel of 60s sci-fi, the earlier base has to be built on a real feeling of a crumbling civilization, desperate humanity in search for answers, and the real human drama that makes the story about the people in it. The science fiction is secondary to the needs of the characters and their need for finding a new home.

The story begins with older people narrating their experiences when a crippling drought hit the planet, covering it in dust, then moves to the lifes of one family, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his two kids, an older son who is a bit of a bully and a younger daughter Murphy ( Mackenzie Foy) who is a child prodigy at science. Cooper is now a farmer but was once a pilot and engineer. Murphy reports strange ghost-like apparitions living in her room and this propels the story to the discovery of a secret NASA mission. Cooper is recruited for a mission that may be the only hope for saving mankind. Beyond that, the story cannot be told without massive amounts of spoilers. So i will stay out of the plot and write about the general impressions about the movie itself.

Nolan does not shy away from high concept, hardcore science. He has managed the unique feat of taking a physics text book and making it into an interesting movie without sacrificing the seriousness of the science it uses to tell the story. If anything, physics teachers everywhere must be overjoyed at the prospect of using references from the film to explain concepts such as space and time, multiple dimensions and of course, the real effects of the theory of relativity if one could travel through a wormhole. I am sure professor Hawking will be pleased. Someone has come along to make a movie companion to 'A brief history of time'.

But the biggest comparison will be to Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece. There are many similarities. A mysterious object left around a planet in our solar system. In 2001, it was a black monolith on one of Jupiter's moons. In Interstellar, it is a wormhole that allows us to travel to a distant galaxy. The Nolan film envisions a much bleaker future, where humanity has been pummeled into submission by the aftermath of climate change, reducing it to a post-apocalyptic dust bowl. The optimism shown in 2001 is long gone, as has been evident in most modern day movies that tackle the future, and rightfully so, since scientific data points to exactly such a bleak future in coming years, if humanity continues on it's self-destructive path.

Nolan manages to insert mythological and biblical themes, and ambitiously interweaves both the legend of Lazarus and the myth of Icarus in the form of one character who is a surprise element to the first-time viewer, since his presence in the film is not advertised in any of the promotional material. You have your action movie tropes and your cliffhanger (literally) moments, which never intrude on the deft storytelling, and yet, somehow, the action is neither an impediment nor the main draw here.

In lieu of the psychedelic ending of the Kubrick film, we now get an equally mind-bending 'time-maze' sequence, but is much more plot driven and suited to our times, just as the consciousness expanding final scenes were apropos for the 60s. Tight editing and the relentless pace of the action does not allow the emotional scenes to seem contrived. Taking a realistic approach to how a stripped down, decline-phase era NASA would look, eschewing whiz bang special effects beyond what is needed to give a realistic look into such a future allows for the tone to remain in the realm of plausibility. It is to Nolan's credit that he can handle deep themes by making them seem more real, based in a world we recognize. Grand posturing and attempting to create a visual extravaganza would have taken away from the depth.

Which is not to say that the special effects, when needed, aren't first rate. Particularly haunting was the scene where the spaceship travels to Saturn and we see it as a tiny blip with a part of the planet and it's ringspan as the backdrop. Equally effective is the tidal wave scene, set on a prospective new home planet. The music has the necessary melancholy and foreboding timbre to accompany the action on the screen. Nolan also avoids showing off, and making the technology the centerpiece, as Kubrick did, with the gravity-defying jogging track and video phone call. Some of those things don't impress us to the same extent, not only because they now exist, but also because CGI has given us every effect imaginable and the “how did he do it?” factor of amazement no longer exists. Also, it helps to drive the story if the very existence of humanity is at stake.

In place of HAL, the omniscient, omnipresent AI that watches over every move the astronauts make in 2001, we now have some of the most uniquely designed machine creations that have graced(?) the silver screen in the form of the shape shifting lego piece/steel beam amalgams with screens. Not since Oblivion, a run of the mill sci-fi action adventure, and it's rotating axis spaceship, have I seen something so unique. The AI is human level and one of the robots has a bit of a smart-ass wisecrack problem. (He can't stop) But these are not the kind of sentient machines that want to impede the proceedings. They do make it livelier and add a 'we're in the future' element sometimes missing because of the stripped-down, bare bones feel to the show.

The performances are all first-rate, down to the younger version of Cooper's daughter. Michael Caine and John Lithgow are used sparingly but shine nonetheless. Anne Hathaway is a revelation and McConaughey continues to amaze in his new 'serious actor' avatar. A movie that will only get better with time, and one that I enjoyed immensely on the first viewing.

The Godfather Saga

I read an interesting review of the Godfather Part III by Geraldo Valero on Roger Ebert's blog recently. Here is the link http://blogs.suntimes.com/foreignc/2009/12/geraldo-valero-of-mesico-citydiscusses-the-godfather-part-iii.html

I loved the fact that like most die-hard fans of the Godfather saga, Mr. Valero also goes through moments of turmoil at what the third Godfather could have been and how Coppola botched it up by casting his daughter Sofia as the female lead. Now that we know Sofia a bit better, maybe she should have been assisting daddy behind the camera instead of reducing the glamour quotient onscreen (would you seriously choose her over Bridget Fonda?). The women in all the Godfather movies have been puppets of destiny. The men perpetrate all the action and the ladies just stay in the background and react to events. Maybe having Sofia as an assistant director would have allowed us to see the events as seen through the eyes of the Kay or Michael's daughter. Connie doesn't count because she is 'one of the boys' except in the first film when she played the docile younger sister. In the other two movies she is the fourth Corleone brother. However, Kay, Michael's mother, Mary and even the short-lived Appolonia were innocent bystanders watching the Corleone juggernaut from a not-so-safe distance.

A brilliant suggestion by Valero comes in the matter of consigliere Tom Hagen as played by Robert Duvall. I have agonized over this one for many hours since the movie first came out. The exclusion of Robert Duvall, who declined for monetary reasons, is an unpardonable sin. Valero's solution is pure genius. Cut Diane Keaton out of the picture. Open the movie with a funeral scene, (Kay lying dead in the casket, seen in long-shot), and give the left over money to Duvall, because quite honestly, it isn't a Godfather movie without Tom Hagen. The bigger blunder, even bigger than omitting Hagen, is to replace him with George Hamilton (of all people) . Mercifully, the Hamilton character does not have any major role in the machinations as Hagen did, delivering threats to movie producers, bringing errant senators back into the fold in Nevada brothels, or giving a sly smirk in reaction to proclamations by Don Vito or Don Michael. What Duvall can imply with a slight twitch of his lips or a subtle hint with his eyes, Hamilton cannot hope to match, no matter how deep his tan. Having dapper George play that role just serves as a reminder that this seat was previously occupied by Hagen, and made me wonder "what would Hagen do here?" in almost every scene that has 'preening George' in it. Imagine the first two movies without Hagen. Can you imagine Hamilton in the prison yard, talking to Frank Pentangeli, asking him to do the right thing for the family? I don't think so.

In the first two movies, there was a seamless blending of storylines. The second part is more complex and has flashbacks that show us the life of Don Vito as a young man. This was the best part of the movie and lessened the impact of the sheer sadness of Michael's life post-Vito. The second movie is a dull, melancholy downer if one watches it without the flashbacks. I personally think that the third movie begged for some kind of a flashback device that explained to us the events between the 40s and the 70s. I could have excused the lack of a proper consigliere and the choice of Sofia as Mary, had there been some insight into the Machiavellian scheming and events that led to Michael making a $100 million gift to the Vatican in the third film. And it's not like we are talking about a dull period in history. I mean, the 60s?!? Jack Kennedy? Vietnam? Puzo could have woven a lot of that material into the story. Puzo's genius was in taking real-life events and making them into memorable vignettes in the Godfather saga. Johnny Fontane is a stand-in for Sinatra and his mob-assisted rise to stardom. Yes, he got out of a band contract after a few wiseguys showed up to threaten the bandleader, Tommy Dorsey. Interestingly, Sinatra's role in "From Here To Eternity" was to be given to Eli Wallach who plays Don Altobello in Part III. The story of Las Vegas, using Moe Greene as a stand-in for Bugsy Seigel, the Cuban revolution as seen from the eyes of the American mob, these were perfect blends of fact and fiction. While Coppola and Puzo used this same formula in the third installment, using the real-life Vatican bank scandal, including the hanging of God's banker from a bridge, it only whets the appetite for a flashback retelling of Kennedy's rise to power with Don Michael playing power-broker.

My biggest complaint with III, though, is the enormous chunks of footage spent on nostalgia. As the main storyline stalls when the Corleones congregate in Europe, and the love story of Kay and Michael continues, an absurd amount of time is spent on relevant but boring characters. Michael's son, the Don's grandson, is that dull?? Michael's old bodyguard from back when he was hiding in Sicily makes an appearance, but mainly stays in the shadows and so does the crippled Don Tommasino. Between the first and second movies, there was a gap of 4 years, but between the second and the third, about 14 years had passed. Enough to make Coppola rest on his laurels, get fat, (literally) and lose his edge. Between 'Apocalypse Now' and the third Godfather, he had made nothing that was remotely close to the excellence of the Godfather films or 'The Conversation'. It was a sorry state of affairs, but he made it worse by adding an element of nostalgia that served no purpose other than self-indulgence. Again, a flashback device would have added some punch to the narrative, using a 'point, counter-point' structure as with the second installment, and left less time for meanderings through the old country.

On the flip side, there were some stroke-of-genius moments in the movie. Andy Garcia was perfect for the nephew role and perfect as a combination of all four Corleone men that came before him. He had Fredo's touch with the ladies, Sonny's temper, Michael's brain and Vito's guts. The scene in his apartment when he deals coldly with would-be assassins is reminiscent of the Fanucci murder from the second movie. Eli Wallach cast as the main baddie was a brilliant touch. He could have fit in perfectly with any of the strong characters in previous films. I can imagine him with conspiring with Tessio, Clemenza and Pentangeli or bantering with Hyman Roth. Joe Mantegna, however, inserts too much schtick and has too many associations with crap like 'Baby's Day Out' to work as a real Godfather character with depth or menace, but he does OK since he is cast as a bit of a buffoon anyways. The Vatican bank scandal was based on true events and was a subtle jab at the biggest con-game of all time, organized religion after it gets corrupted by human greed. In a way, it is fitting that most bloodbaths in the first two Godfathers take place during events of religious significance, and the grand finale ends with the corruption of the Vatican itself.

Overall, as a stand-alone film, the third Godfather is a good piece of movie-making, but no one, not even Coppola, could live up to the standards of his own first two attempts on the subject. "The Godfather: Part III" will always be the good movie that could have been great.

Vivek

Avatar 3D. Cameron's Masterpiece.

(originally written on December 19th 2009)

Got back from the theater yesterday in a state of bewilderment, sheer awe and feeling sensations that the movie-watching parts of my brain have not experienced since 1999 when I felt something similar as I walked out of the theater having watched The Matrix. In both cases, It wasn't just the special effects, or the cool sci-fi story with whiz-bang action scenes, it was those combined with a story that could have only been told with those effects, at that point in time, and with new leaps in technology specifically created to tell that story, by visionary directors. I have felt something similar after watching the Star Wars saga for the first time as well as The Indiana Jones movies, to a lesser extent. However, as a milestone of technical innovation married to amazing storytelling, there is Star Wars, then The Matrix and now, Avatar 3D.

The one thing that separates Cameron from Lucas, however, is that Cameron doesn't lose sight of the fact that even for epics, good story-telling and believable characters are a necessity. He is a master of the craft, having honed his skills on progressively bigger budgets, always providing a compelling storyline as a backdrop to aliens, futuristic robots, secret agents, or lovelorn couples aboard sinking steamers. Like Lucas, there is myth and allegory about human nature and the consequences of technological advancement without moral progress in the Terminator movies and in Avatar, but unlike Lucas, the characters have more depth than the "action figurines spouting sound-bites in deaden monotone" that populate the last three installments of the Star Wars universe.

The story itself is simple. Greedy miners from Earth land on a planet called Pandora trying to strip mine unobtainium (yeah !) and think of the local native humanoid native race, the Na'avi, as a nuisance to be eradicated so they can get their grubby hands on the ore. The hero is a Marine with no legs that can 'jack' himself into a body that was created by combining human and Na'avi DNA so he can act as cultural ambassador between the humans and the natives, but also to to do recon for the head military honcho of the mining operation. The hero encounters exotic beasts in the jungle, falls for the local hottie, who conveniently happens to the be chief's daughter. At the moment of showdown between humans and the Na'avi, our man choses sides against the humans.

However, the story itself doesn't do any justice to the movie at all. It's well known that Cameron took a 12 year break after Titanic, and worked almost exclusively on not just the Avatar movie, but also on the 3D technology that he needed to be able to make the film the way he wanted it to be. If I had any doubts about the 3D, they vanished soon enough, once the jaw-dropping scene of spacemen waking out of their hibernation pods unfolded. This is not your daddy's 3D, folks. For one, the effect extends inwards so there is a feeling of looking inside an aquarium. The stuff popping out towards you, as with 3D movies of the past, still exists, but not in the gimmicky sense. We now have a sense of depth so objects in the background appear "in there" as opposed to the stuff that pops out which is a contrast and forms the "out here" component of the 3 dimensional screenscape. It is the closest thing to having a holographic image projected out in front of you.

The genius of Cameron is that he understands that this situation requires a complete re-think of composition, framing, and movement within the frame. This would have stymied a lesser director, but in this case it simply provides more degrees of freedom to innovate. Cameron understands that a new idiom is now needed for the placement of actors. Along with the use of the standard rule-of-thirds to place the character in a vantage position, one now has to sandwich her in the "middle" of the 3D screenscape and have the scene unfold without any of this technical wizardry taking away from the narrative. This has been achieved with near flawlessness.

Once you get past the technology itself, the story is so compelling that within about 10 minutes, I forgot all about the technical stuff and just got involved in the action unfolding on the screen. I mean, I was aware i was watching something special, something akin to the first glimpse of "The Wizard of Oz" in color for audiences who had only seen black and white up to that point, but I was more interested in the story. The digital effects are the best I have seen so far, and the creation of a whole new world, with an entire ecosystem of flora and fauna to match is an achievement in and of itself. The forest is lush, enchanting, but when the fierce creatures arrive on screen, the menace and sense of danger is palpable. This is, after all, the man that directed Aliens.

The best use of 3D is the breathtaking scenes overlooking waterfalls, ravines and others places as seen from a height. You actually feel like you're watching from high above enough to make you giddy. However, to only talk about the movie as technical masterpiece is to undermine Cameron the storyteller. There are not-so-subtle references to the Iraq war, American colonization driven by oil and other natural resources, modern man's greed and disdain towards indigenous people and their habitats as he moves relentlessly towards buried treasure. The deeper meaning, of spirituality, the oneness of all of life, everything coming from and going back to the one source is an amalgam of the gist of all great traditions, similar to the concept of "The Force" Lucas uses in Star Wars, his re-telling of myths and archetypes , influenced by the work of Joseph Campbell, or the Wachowskis Matrix saga influenced by the Integral vision of Ken Wilber. I am curious to hear about that aspect and his motivations if Cameron ever talks about it in interviews.

I walked out of the theater a satisfied customer. The 12 year wait was finally over. My man had delivered a masterpiece as promised. I just hope I don;t have to wait another 12 years for his next one. I would like to see the word prolific attached to his name for the rest of his career.

Cheers

Vivek