Coen brothers go West

The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have been rather prolific over the past years, maintaining around one new release per year. After their "No Country for Old Men" Oscar triumph a few years ago, they've presented audiences with offbeat humor ("Burn After Reading") and existential dilemmas ("A Serious Man"), all filtered through eccentric eyes. Coen films are easily identifiable by their unpredictability, unconventional protagonists (The Dude stands chief among them) and off-beat dialogue.

In light of the above, I'm a bit taken aback by all the comments stating how their latest film, the Western remake "True Grit", which features the above elements, is their most audience friendly and straightforward work. If "straightforward" here means that one thing leads to another in the film, then yes, it is straightforward. But sometimes it seems as if "straightforward" is meant to mean "simple" or "plain", and that is patently incorrect. Along with these statements are implications of how their film is a conventional, if well written, embodiment of recognisable genre iconography.

Bah. I never thought that one could make a Coen movie sound "conventional" but that's what some people would have one believe. Actually, "True Grit" is another 'clearly Coen' film; the brothers have taken stock characters and a vengeance-based plot and turned it into something profound. Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld, who commands this film front and center) is a fourteen year-old girl looking for her father's killer, a man she believes goes by the name of Tom Chaney (a greasy Josh Brolin). She has the will but not the way to get him herself, and so she employs (though that may not be the best word to describe this transaction) a US marshal called Rooster Cogburn (a character made famous by John Wayne and immortalised by Jeff Bridges). They are sometimes aided in their quest by Laboeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who's been on Chaney's track for some time and looks forward to apprehending him. (Steinfeld and Bridges are superb.) 

Looking at the above plot description, the film does sound "straightforward", so let's get the "straightforward" qualities out of the way. There are landscape shots captured by legendary Roger Deakins. There's a shoot-out. Men are tested by the elements, their own internal weaknesses and by their companions, with whom they nearly inevitably butt heads. However, there is more to the film than those genre indicators. For instance, the landscape shots only appear some time into film, and are not used as an initial establishing device as most Westerns use it. And the action, when it happens, is always bound to the points of view of key characters, and in one instance the action is brutal and abrupt.

There is what one might call "character development" for one character, while another completely subverts the notion. In addition, there is a scene where Mattie and Rooster expect a familiar face to appear, and when this does not happen and they face instead someone that seems half animal, Rooster's reply is priceless. This moment - with the character's placing in the middle of the frame instead of somewhat to the side - is pure Coen ingenuity.

"True Grit" thematically addresses the idea of doing what has to be done, doing the right thing, sometimes against great odds and at great cost. Still, as the opening and closing shots make clear, "True Grit" isn't just a Western with outlaws, lawmen and beans around the fire. It is a celebration of the genre and trappings. The opening shot seems at first to be a movie frame fluttering into sight and then reveals itself to be a memory from a long time ago. This evokes not only the narrative content that opens the film, but also makes us aware that we are watching a type of movie that went out of fashion a long time ago (at least at the box-office) yet never goes away completely. In a goosebumps inducing final shot, the filmmakers display their love for the genre as much as the movie characters with just enough respect and sentiment.

"True Grit" is the best Western since "Unforgiven" and was nominated for 10 Oscars.

(I thought that "No Country for Old Men", another type of Western, was the best film of 2008, and I listed "A Serious Man" in my top ten of 2010.)

The 10 Best Films of 2010

I have missed much this past year, my big screen outings often derailed by a variety of other obligations. Most significantly, I guess, is that I missed “The Social Network” – I arrived at the cinema only to find out that the film was only showing an hour’s drive out of town, which meant spending additional time I did not have. I’ve tried to catch up with other titles on DVD, but there was no way to see every single candidate. I missed "A Prophet", "Departures" and others. So be it.

For the record, the two worst films I saw in 2010 were “Surrogates” and “Precious”.
Bruce Willis’s shockingly outdated SF/identity thriller “Surrogates”, seems like the mangy bastard offspring of “Minority Report” and “I, Robot”, both of which are vastly superior to this film. Willis hams it up as a cop looking for the person behind a spate of robot-related killings. See, in the future, people use robotic versions of themselves to go outside of their homes and interact. Terrible.

Then there’s the exploitative, bizarrely over-the-top and mind-boggling “Precious”, which received so many accolades the past two years it made my head spin. When I finally saw the film, my head spun again, this time like Regan’s in “The Exorcist”. I’ll give credit to brave Gabourey Sidibe, but the film is crammed with misguided creative decisions. Avoid.

Writing about film is intensely gratifying, which is why I miss it so when I don’t get around to it. As I said earlier, here’s hoping 2011 is more cine-accommodating.

Let's begin with an honorable mention for "Inception". Chris Nolan’s blockbuster dream-drama boasts not only a stunning cast (look out for a delicious performance by Tom Hardy) and scene upon scene of inventive spectacle, but also a smart screenplay that doesn’t even rely on a final twist to pull the rug out from under viewers. Hans Zimmer’s score is already the stuff of legend, even if the old master is showing signs of listening to his own work too often. As good as the film is, it's a narrative second to "Memento".

Another film worth looking out for is "Moolaade". Senegalese master Ousmane Sembene’s last major work never got a release in South Africa; in fact, it showed for two weeks in a single cinema on the continent. The subject matter may have something to do with the film’s lack of local visibility: female circumcision. Sembene’s filmmaking is simple but highly effective; the film addresses not only genital mutilation but also the tension between tradition and modernity in certain African communities. It’s energetic, wonderfully acted by a cast of amateurs and to the point – track it down if you can.

10. Toy Story 3
The best way to describe “Toy Story 3” is to call it the year’s best action film. It’s an escape caper like no other and a thrilling finale to the trilogy, a beautifully animated adventure about growing up, letting go and sticking together.

9. The Hurt Locker
The Oscar winning drama is, in spite of the backlash against the film, a very, very good, tight and tense film as it details the daily work of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. At times you can feel the sun in your eye and the dust on your teeth. Starring Jeremy Renner, the film is well acted and superbly edited. I was too hard on it the first time I saw it, mistaking its crafty narrative progression as ‘formulaic’; it deserves a place on year-end lists. (I still don’t like the final shot though.)

8. A Serious Man
The Coen brothers strike again, crafting a gorgeous looking, meticulous tale about an American Job coming to terms (or not) with one of life’s key facts: enduring uncertainty. At times the film is hilarious, at others baffling. Its questions on the nature of existence and existential ambiguity itself haunt me.

7. The White Ribbon
Michael Haneke’s films are in many ways never easy to watch but are always highly rewarding. This black-and-white, two-and-a-half-hour opus on collective transgressions and the sins of the father dressed up as a possible murder mystery just before the beginning of WWII is captivating. The cinematography is the year’s best.

6. Everlasting Moments
Jan Troell’s Oscar-nominated family drama is a sentimental, classical triumph. The film tells the story of Maria (Maria Heiskanen), whose interest in photography adds meaning to her often troubled domestic existence. The film is a powerful meditation on the power of the image, something this film itself demonstrates with aplomb.

5. Shutter Island
For some reason many critics dismissed Martin Scorsese’s moody thriller, which is based on Dennis Lehane’s novel about two detectives looking for a missing patient on a small island dominated by a mental institue in 1954. The less said about the story, the better. With this and “Inception” in a single year, 2010 belonged to Leonardo DiCaprio. Like “Inception”, this one deserves multiple viewings.

4. Fantastic Mr Fox
The eclectic Wes Anderson follows up the delightful “Darjeeling Limited” with this animated feature based on Roald Dahl’s popular children’s book. The film has all of Dahl’s characters and story, but the infusion of Anderson’s wit and peculiar view of human relationships makes the film into something greater than the sum of its parts. It is the year’s best animated film, with apologies to Pixar.

3. Fish Tank
Andrea Arnold is one of my favourite filmmakers working today. Her debut feature “Red Road”, about a woman who pursues a man she spotted via CCTV while at work, was deservedly a Cannes darling. Her latest, “Fish Tank”, single handedly reworks British social realism from an exclusive female viewpoint, and the result is a riveting work about equal parts youthful naivety and class tensions. Michael Fassbender is great as romantic interest Connor, but this is young Katie Jarvis’s film all the way.

2. Antichrist
When Lars von Trier proclaimed himself (only half jokingly) the best director in the world at Cannes, many derided the self serving statement. I suppose it’s easy to forget the emotional force of “Breaking the Waves” and the unnerving qualities of “The Idiots”; Von Trier truly is a leading figure in world film. “Antichrist” solidifies his position. This is a brilliant film, disturbing beyond personal expectation. In this dense, dark drama, a married couple mourn the death of their young son in a cabin in the woods, embarking on a journey of physical and psychological mutilation. As the couple, Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are magnetic. Watch it at your own risk.

1. Hunger
Steve McQueen’s devastating prison drama deserves accolades for a variety of audacious directorial decisions and Michael Fassbender’s acting. By not giving the audience a protagonist until late in the film, “Hunger” makes pointed comments about social control today by positioning its story in the Irish-English conflicts of the early 1980s. The infamous 17 minute shot, where Bobby (Fassbender) and a priest (Liam Cunningham) discuss suicide and martyrdom, amongst other things, is sheer bravado.

"Hunger": a dialogue

Creating atmosphere in "Antichrist"

Jarvis in "Fish Tank"