the willing suspension of disbelief
Abre Los Ojos (1997) Alejandro Amenabar
There is a famous story that the taoist philospher Zhuangzi had a dream in which he had imagined himself to be a carefree fluttering butterfly. Upon awaking Zhuangzi realised that he could not really distinguish between whether he had actually been dreaming about being a butterfly or whether in fact he might actually be the butterfly who has just begun dreaming about being a man. Amenabar's inventive thriller pivots around a similar central connundrum. After the playboy protagonist is disfiguired in an accident caused by a rejected lover he finds himself in a psychiatric prison accused a murder that he cannot remember. We follow him as he tries to piece his world back together but every answer only raises another question: what are we to believe and who should we really have sympathy for. When the whodunnit plot takes a turn into territory reminiscent of JG Ballard's near-future dystopias, the questions become more about identity and memory and the sense of selfhood. Penelope Cruz gives an affecting performance and her character's fragile compassion is a stark counterpoint to the shallow egotism of our protagonist. She reprised the same role in the english language remake Vanilla Sky; the pitiful popcorn treatment which that Tom Cruise vehicle gave these themes is only excused by the hope that it might encourage others to seek out the profoundly thought-provoking original.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Jonathon Demme
In much the same way that Francis Ford Coppola's filming of the works of Mario Puzo, in his Godfather trilogy, brought that author more kudos than his writing probably deserves, so Demme's adaptation of Thomas Harris' book is far superior to its pulp fiction source material. The serial killer is one of cinema's favourite stereotypes but, if sufficiently sensitively handled and subtly drawn, it can become a powerful archetype aswell. Anthony Hopkins acclaimed portrayal of the central psychopath, a cultured psychiatrist with a predilection for cannibalism, is the pivot upon which the whole plot turns. In stark contrast to lesser sequels, prequels and remakes, the characters here are sympathetic and the storyline is horrifically believable. Jodie Foster and Scott Glenn in particular both play their parts in a way that allows you to imagine other stories between the lines of this one, thereby giving the characters a greater depth than they might alternatively have had. It is an interesting device to make Hopkins second fiddle to another killer, having him reflect upon his own pathology so as to lead the good guys to capture his protégé, Buffalo Bill, as played by Ted Levine. And Levine himself brings an admirable human side to the part of an inhuman monster, the killer who has such power to take life away is at the same time both emotionally frail and socially abused, aware of his maladaptation and desperate to change. It invites the audience to ask to what extent actions can be ever excused by underlying explanations; where do we draw the line between responsibility and culpability. That is a question as old as Sophocles' plays of the Oedipus legend. It is important that we continue to ask it.
A Room with a View (1986) James Ivory
The partnership of Ismael Merchant as producer and James Ivory as director became synonymous with the impeccable adaptation of period novels. They bring their characteristic skill for using costume and decoration to evoke a bygone age to this story by EM Forster but, more than that, it is the brilliant bringing to life of his characters and their concerns that so successfully translates the broader themes of the story onto the screen. The juxtaposition of propriety and passion is perfectly balanced between the middle-class English tourists, so convinced of their modernity but shackled to their Victorian values, and the beguiling backdrop of renaissance Florence, embodying a culture that is decadent and gently decaying. That same apposition is present in the romantic connection of the two lead characters, Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch and Julian Sands as George Emerson. The film is, on one level, essentially a social comedy, brilliantly played out by an ensemble cast (including Maggie Smith, Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow) but beyond the ironic observations deeper questions are being asked. How can we ever be happy when convention trammels our freedoms, should we embrace progress or try to hold onto the pastoral, what is the meaning of our effective impotence to be able to really change anything. Ultimately, as are we told by Denholm Elliot's character, whatever you understand the "eternal question" to be, the only thing that you really need to know about it is that the answer is "yes".
The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick
Given a broader canvas (as in "A Clockwork Orange", "Full Metal Jacket" and "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Kubrick often seemed to loose focus, as if his legendary attention to detail could never hope to be maintained at scale. The plot of Stephen King's novel, on which this film was based, restricts him however to concentrating upon three characters and one location, and it results in a spectacularly taught pyschological horror. The tension between husband and wife, Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall, is harrowing; a study in the violence trembling below the surface of domesticity. The claustrophobia of the family's isolation is magnified by the huge art deco sets of the hotel's deserted interior. And Danny Lloyd's precious performance as the child who sees more than the adults themselves understand is pitch perfect acting. Kubrick's pioneering of the steadycam, for long tracking shots and point-of-views, a technique which has subsequently been recycled into cliche, is used here to build atmosphere and to reel the audience in, step by menacing step. Similarly the incidental music of Bela Bartok, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, is beautifully threaded through the scenes, matching the actors gestures, expressions and reactions, sliding us from unease into terror. In an age of disposable films where Hollywood has become cyncicaly adept at making us laugh, cry and smile, it still takes genuine craft to make you shiver.
The Thin Red Line (1999) Terrence Malick
Malick has only made three films in three decades but here his auteur's hand is at its most effective and most effecting. Ostensibly a retelling of the battle for Guadalcanal Island during the second world war, the film is an unashamedly difficult exploration of deep and complex themes. Essentially, it is all about trying to achieve balance between opposing forces. Like Coppola's Apocalypse Now, it uses the chaotically amoral backdrop of war to frame the characters’ inner searches for meaning; and like Boorman's Deliverance, it contrasts the lush poetic beauty of the characters’ natural surrounds with the grim horrors that they both see and cause. The ensemble cast combines a handful of powerful cameos with multiple narrating leads. Stand-out performances include Nick Nolte as the colonel trying to balance his responsibilities with his regret for an unfulfilled life, Sean Penn as the sergeant trying to balance his capacity to lead with his capacity to feel, Elias Koteas as the captain trying to balance his care for his men with the courage required of him and, among the privates, Ben Chaplin and Jim Caviezel, both haunted by the idea of love out of reach, the former for his wife, the latter for the frustrated possibility of living a harmonious life. The ethereal music and studied cinematography build the resonance of the piece and are testament to Malick’s stated method of “finding the film” during shooting and editing. There are no easy resolutions here, but repeated watching rewards the viewer with a deeper understanding of important questions.
All the President's Men (1976) Alan J Pakula
The story of how Woodward and Bernstein's investigative journalism into the Watergate scandal brought down Richard Nixon might sound like an unlikely basis for a great thriller but Pakula pulls it off with distinction. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford invest the protagonists with so much depth that its hard to believe the real life characters could be much different. And Jason Robards gives a masterclass performance as their fierce and fiercely redoubtable editor at the Washington Post. It is difficult for us now to imagine the fear and suspicion that pervaded seventies America but the film paints best the portrait of conspiracy by telling us the simple facts, tracing the chain of evidence that led to exposing corruption at the highest level on the broadest scale. The story effectively tells itself, as indeed it would always have had to eventually, which lets Pakula focus on the style of the telling. There is a sharp, bright realism to the cinematography, a documentary feel to the scenes in the newsrooms particularly, inspired use alternately of silence and natural background noise, a sense of indefinable unease in the basement carpark meetings with deepthroat, a genuine feel for the urgency and frequent frustrations of getting the story. The overhead shot in the Library of Congress, where Woodward and Bernstein become increasingly small as the camera pulls upwards and takes in more and more of the vast floor of the reading room, is a perfect image for the individual pitched against the system, surrounded by the information and desperately trying to chase down the truth.
Kundun (1998) Martin Scorcese
Scorcese is better known for many other films, celebrated for the iconography of "Goodfellas" and revered for the iconoclasm of "Raging Bull", but this personal project, a biography of the life of the Dalai Lama, combines all of his strengths while avoiding any of his failings. If proof was ever needed that truth is better than fiction then this rich rendering of the life of the people of Tibet, how their society is informed by their Bhuddist heritage and how it was devastated when the communist Chinese invaded, then this is it. The visuals are simply stunning, breathtaking landscape and rich ritual costume and architecture, and Scorcese's capture of it all in his lens is highly accomplished. It is hard to imagine any scene could have been better composed or the tragic story any way otherwise told. The atmospheric score, by Phillip Glass, uses a mix of traditional Tibetan instruments and rhythms. The actors are all unknowns but (and partly probably because of that) they seem to become the characters that they are meant to portray, variously gentle, compassionate, humorous, suffering, resilient, deeply committed to a way of life that really means a way of being. The mysticism implicit in the choosing of a child as leader of a state and a religion, the belief in oracles and in reincarnation, is both delicately and deeply drawn for the audience by the use of montages of mountains and rivers and the awe inspiring design of sand mandalas. All of which makes the eventual clash with Mao's supposed reformers so shocking and so harsh. The crumbling of the traditional culture and the pain of its guardians forced to watch helplessly as it it happens is powerfully documented. The Dalai Lama's exile to India ends with him foreseeing the death of the men who helped him escape, his last sight of them becoming a vision of their white horses slick with blood. Films that move you to feel differently are rare enough but one which makes you want to act differently is a real treasure.