Vera Drake (2004)

I have been a casual admirer of Mike Leigh since watching his exuberant Topsy Turvy (1999) and reading about his improvisational directorial style. Therefore, I watched with wonder as the first half of Vera Drake unfolded with assuredness and unmistakable form. The camera follows Mrs. Drake, steadily like its poised narrative, as she effortlessly fulfills her role as servant and, generally, the maternal figure of her surroundings while the editing weaves together the rigid social classes of post-war England in a formal posture. This form carries a message. In Leigh’s harsh ideology, one’s socio-economic status, either poor or rich, determines a fixed set of possible outcomes or paths; if one were rich but socially inept, suffering ensues, whereas if one were poor but morally absolute, the letter of the law punishes. Those wealthy and who employ Mrs. Drake were unaffected by her secret occupation.

Mrs. Drake performs illegal abortions outside hospitals. Her methodology is unproven but her convictions are pure. She is a saint, but with such virtue amongst mortals there is no hope for tolerance. From this standpoint, her story reminds me of the narrative of Joan of Arc; she is established as a god-sent, exposed for her earthly deeds and penalized by the law of her day.

Vera Drake is like two different films put together due to the discrete tone of its two halves. Part one, occupying approximately one hour, is the embodiment of harmonious existence, both for Mrs. Drake’s family and those she touches on a daily basis. In part two, she is crucified and her network of lives touched turns dissonant. Its midpoint, a jarring transition that launches our protagonist (& the audience) into an emotionally harrowing second half comes so swiftly it risks asphyxiating a sympathetic viewer.

The turning point of Mrs. Drake’s life does not come as a surprise in the narrative. However abrupt and traumatic its tonal shift, there is no concealing the fact that she had it coming. In the plot of the film, her story is not instigated by external forces. The cause for Mrs. Drake’s fall from grace is completely internal. She performs her occupation in secret meetings behind closed curtains and, upon her apprehension, admits fully to her lawbreaking. Therefore, the sympathy for the protagonist is singularly pinned on her unique sense of morality.

Mrs. Drake thought herself moral, her judges did not. The final judgment against her, in a verdict scene commanded with absoluteness by actor Jim Broadbent’s magistrate (whose severe baritone could induce a full confession from any partially-realized guilt), illustrates the exclusivity of moral viewpoint from the letter of the law. But it appears that Mrs. Drake’s suffering was greatest when her sense of right & wrong came under her family’s scrutiny, especially that of her disenchanted son.

It is truly heartbreaking at the narrative’s midpoint when the dramatic irony in a working-class family’s celebratory gathering, the peak of cumulative life-affirming events for the unsinkable Drakes, hangs their harmonious bubble by a thread and eventually crumbles with unfathomable quietness. Leigh’s Vera Drake is a memorable accomplishment in dramatic tension. Imelda Staunton, who played the shrill secondary character in Ang Lee’s Sense & Sensibility, gives a performance that will make her synonymous to the title character.

Spartan (2004)

I watched Spartan in two seatings as a result of careless consumption of antihistamine drugs intended to bolster my viewing attention. On the other hand, I sufficiently read the synopsis for well-known playwright David Mamet’s recent film to form expectations & found his genre film unpredictable & absorbing. Spartan is a political thriller where the lead character’s substance or flesh does not emerge in the exposition. In fact, the first 10 minutes or so introduces a tiny sub-branch of highly-trained military automatons (US Marines) who solve secret government problems with razor-sharp physical prowess. Next, the main premise is quickly tossed on an interrogation scene & expounded via Mamet’s signature fast & tough dialogue: the president’s daughter is missing. The film’s attention is on the talking heads, some belonging to the president’s political machine, others to the super-soldiers awaiting instructions from these executives. The unconventional manner with which the film unfolds, unless one is well-versed in Mamet-tongue, defines the tension between the narrative & the audience. Therefore, those expecting earlier audience identification with a protagonist may be disappointed.

A quick glance at critical reviews (say, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ ) reveal mixed responses. Some critics trashed its character logic, while others insist that Spartan is merely a Mamet facsimile from tried materials. However, James Berardinelli (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/master.html) makes a good point by saying, “People in Mamet films don't talk the way they do in real life; their words, and the way they say them, are stylized”. Once you accept Mamet’s unique approach, his highly contrived plot and plain lack of realism become moot; the film is stripped down to engaging narrative conflicts and a contemporary political ideology.

Spartan is a message film in the same veins of Barry Levinson’s slant in Wag The Dog (1997). But it is not parody since the protagonist, Scott (Val Kilmer), pays a serious price before the drama concludes. The film's tone is equally grave. Mamet merely puts the eyes of a military man as a surrogate for his audiences’ in order to implicate the “uncheck-able” theatrics & cold-bloodedness of a political-survival mechanism as seen from the backstage. The film shows the backstage of the US presidency in a negative light, which I suppose can be applied to any complex political engine in the world. This comes as no surprise from a left-wing artist.

Birth (2004)

A film about unresolved grief that's subversively life-affirming. Just remember the music & you will agree. This is a "Nicole Kidman, actor"-movie that needs at least one viewing experience. May bring to mind the close-ups used in Dreyer's "Passion", but with a lingering-shot technique.

I cannot review this film better than this righteous dude from a blog called "Culturespace".

Match Point (2005)

The brilliance of Woody Allen's narrative about a social climber does not become apparent until the end of its second Act. The film opens with a thesis statement on how luck determines men’s fortunes though seldom acknowledged as so; over narration, the spare visuals show a tennis ball volleying back & forth, in slow motion, across a stationary net. Prior to the fade-out, the ball hits the top of the net and a freeze frame captures the event in mid-air as the narrator expounds on the two possible outcomes. In the middle of the final Act, an analog of this scene, now a ring as the projectile hitting a guard rail when the river was its intended goal, finds new meaning within the story, one that doesn’t appear to favor our amoral protagonist. With steady pacing and patient construction up to this high point, the film then fires successive plot points into a finale executed with the precision of the concluding movement of a classical symphony.

Match Point is a formal, classy flick. Many will no doubt identify it as a thriller even though such genre elements are mostly visible only in its last 30 minutes. I suppose most thrillers feature a plot that showcases the tense portions or “final-hour” of its story (Mann’s Collateral comes to mind), but Match Point is distinctive in that it is complete with most of its backstory and the build-up towards the final action. Andrew Sarris (in the New York Observer) drew a comparison between this film & Allen’s earlier Crimes & Misdemeanor, which is both more humorous and serious at the same time. Match Point is different, more stately and, perhaps, feels more cosily European than any of his other films. It’s more Chabrol than Hitchcock; philosophically speaking, it poses existentialist dilemmas instead of resolving conflicts with a conventional moral sensibility. This film ranks amongst Allen’s best films, a list that includes Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes & Misdemeanor, and Deconstructing Harry.