Review: The Sacarment

Year: 2013 (U.K. Release 2014)

Director: Ti West

Screenplay: Ti West

Starring: Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Kate Lyn Sheil

Synopsis is here

I didn’t give The Sacrament further thought after watching it and there lies the problem. The idea is a strong. Something that I usually enjoy pursuing. The writer/director behind the film is one I admire and generally enjoy his work. The problem I found is that the main influence of the movie, was much more terrifying in real life than anything The Sacrament throws at us. If you’ve seen the terrifying documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006), then this may seem like an unnecessary appendix.

Ti West is a curious filmmaker. I enjoy the genuine affection he has given to his previous, vintage tinged horror. I’m also a big fan of the unhurried pace of his storytelling. Allowing the unease to creep into the frame.  In both The Innkeepers (2011) and The House of the Devil (2009), West pulls off the difficult task of making the mundane feel macabre and does so by giving his scenes a touch more breathing space.  He once again tests the attention spans of some of the more easily distracted patrons, but giving The Sacrament a similar pace. The length has been never my issue with this film, however as the films other elements never seemed to gel.

Despite being a “found footage” horror, the film’s smooth camera work does little to instill the fear of god. Add to this the film’s flat dialogue, awkward performances and the films wish to try and recreate the Jonestown massacre like an overtly polished crime re-enactment more than a film in its own right. Unlike Kevin Smith’s grim and grubby Red State (2011), which holds the right balance between its influences and Smith’s fictional aspects, The Sacrament feels too much like mimicry to stand out on its own. 

Whereas Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple  manage to startle with its small inserts of grainy VHS footage, allowing the survivors recounting of the story to fill in the gaps. The Sacrament explicitness only ever feels forced. Small moments are effective. Reaction shots of children obliviously sucking down Kool-Aid are unsettling, while Gene Jones’ “father” has a distinct sleaziness to his charming speeches.

The film, however, never gets really gets under the skin as it should. Strangely, it feels slightly too close to the material, it’s influenced by, yet holds none of the power. It’s a shame the film never reaches the same woozy feeling that the likes of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) creates, although that movie is more intelligent with its usage of points of view. The Sacarament stumbles over simpler aspects. West’s found footage movie suffers from the tropes which annoy others when they watch similar films. A camera is dropped when a character tries to evade gunman. The solders fine the camera a leave it (after dropping typical explanatory dialogue) and then leave the camera, despite being extremely wary of the filming near the beginning of the film. Other cameras clearly get destroyed while filming, yet have footage that blend seamlessly with the rest of the film. The found footage is an interesting angle, but awkwardly utilised. That said, the film’s opening segments lend a certain web 2.0 authority to them.

The Sacarment never feels like it cracks the veneer of civility in the way that one would like. Certain parts feel too manufactured, while other aspects have a clumsiness about them I just wouldn’t expect. The Sacrament won’t put me off the next Ti West film, but this entry feels all very surface level. Particularly where other flawed yet provocative films about cults have been released recently. The Sacrament has a competency that raises it above a few one or two found footage films, but it never manages to capture the spirit of the time like it could. Better luck next time.  

Review: Blue Caprice

Year: 2013

Director: Alexandre Moors

Screenplay: R.F.I. Porto

Starring: Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Joey Lauren Adams, Tim Blake Nelson, Leo Fitzpatrick

Synopsis is here

It’s an obvious theme to draw on but identity rears its head so much in Black African-American lead movies. So many “black” films deal culturally who they are as people, who they wish to be and of course how White America often perceives them. What interests me about Blue Caprice is the true story of the DC snipers that inspired the movie. When the story first broke, the suspects of the crimes we considered to be white gunman, who were army trained. This alone touches on the depth our cultural perceptions. The idea that the gunmen could be black seemed almost alien to people.

For me such institutionalised thought makes crimes like the one dramatised in Blue Caprice all the more frightening. To think that only some people will commit certain transgression will only allow the evil to flow quicker and easier.  Alexandre Moors’ film toys with the audience with this information. Hearing of America “striking back” during the Iraq spew forth from old T.V sets. The murderous plan that slowly uncovers during the film is full of jihad-like talk and yet it feels more like convenience than a true “calling”. Even more concreted elements of the plan fall to the wayside once we begin to follow the titled Blue Caprice which prowls the Washington highways like a rusted monster. The car takes on a persona of its own with its ordinariness becoming the most remarkable and threatening thing about it.  When we watch, we consider Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). In the same way we wouldn’t suspect the taxi to hide such malevolence, we wouldn’t think twice about the Caprice.

Blue Caprice may not be as potent as Taxi Driver, but the comparisons are still strong. Caprice shows us lonely, confused men, hurt by the women in their life.  We see a mother who selfishly care only for herself and another (unseen) ex-wife and mother who does what she can to keep her children away from their father. We have an unfortunate boy with no parental figure and a father who only seems to create misfortune, by the way of kidnappings and restraining orders.  These men with no outlets for their repression meet through an unexpected circumstance and begin a relationship forged on their hurt. They blow off stream with shooting practice and wrestling in the woods.

 At first we pity the films youth; Lee (Richmond), as he like so many young black men is left with little guidance from his own parentage. As John (Washington) enters his life, he also enters his mind. Clouding it like the overcast weather that inhabits Washington DC. John’s behaviour reeks of deception, he mutters about his old neighbourhood as ghosts who ousted him once his relationship ended yet flitters around Lee (and the frame) like a malevolent apparition. Speaking to his protégé with an eerily calm yet forceful tone. At first their conversations never sound dangerous. Like the Caprice there’s an anonymity about them that shades the villainy.

Blue Caprice constantly hides in the grey and the shade, chilling the bones with its quietly tense nature. It’s the flecks of blood that creep you out more than the full act. The killings are non-descript and never gratuitous, their victims just seem to disappear or drop down dead. The fear hangs in the air like a foul smell. Any sadness we felt about the plight of the two swiftly melts into horror and frustration. It sympathy was felt, it will definitely be lost by the final frame.

But that’s if we had any to begin with. Moors’ film may feel a little too “sundance-like” with his shallow depth of field shots and remind one of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant with much of its blocking of Lee. But from its opening it craftily foreshadows the characters demise with its Hitchcock like framing of characters behind gates and bars. The film's use of light and shadow often obscures the faces of the lead, particularly in the beginning. The film keeps us at distance. Already making sure these people remain “unknown” to us. The last line is a question posed to a person of authority and us ourselves. It burrows to a depth we need from such a drama.  Despite having some of the screenplay’s weakest dialogue, it is far more open ended than you think on first glance, but plays into so much of what I’ve mentioned. When the question is asked, we wonder too. Because we realise what identities broken or missing can cultivate.

Review: We Need to Talk about Kevin

Year: 2011
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Screenplay: Lynne Ramsay, Rory Stewart Kinnear
Starring: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller


Synopsis is here

NOTE: My review is not explicit about major events in the film but there is enough written that might annoy. If you are sensitive about such matters, you may wish to watch the film first. In short, I dug this film.

The films most troubling moment comes at the end of the film. A gesture is made which asks the viewer "could you?" The gesture is so slight and unassuming and yet it displays details so much about the films central relationship. The same scene makes sure also carefully makes sure that one is left in the dark from other questions you might have answered, particularly the one we always ask when such tragedies occur.

Eschewing the episodic nature of the novel (Eva writes letters to her husband Franklin) We need to talk about Kevin comes across as part Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003) and Joshua (2007, George Ratliff) but doesn't lose any of the spirit of the book. While Ramsay's film seems to have softened Eva somewhat (this view may be very dependant on personal perspective) but the themes of nature versus nature and love unconditional still stand strong. Said themes lie upon the board acting shoulders of one Tilda Swinton, whose complex and problematic performance carries the weighty burdens of guilt and shame easily, along with the larger issues at hand.

Swinton, dominates the film with a towering performance that helps raise the questions both the book and the film ask.While film does take away some of the background of the book and gives us a more streamlined story (Eva's throwaway mentions of America's political landscape; for example, are stripped away) this doesn't make Swinton portrayal of Eva any less conflicting. Small scenes; such as the doctor asking Eva not to resist during childbirth, or one of the earliest moments of Eva living life to the full in a tomato throwing festival slowly build up the image of a woman who believes that motherhood was thrust upon her. Even Eva look (with no offense to the brilliant Swinton) is not one of a mother. Well, not one we usually prescribe to. The look that lingers on Swinton's face throughout is a mixture of doubt and fear. The book furthers the detail of the hesitations but Swinton's ability to carry a scene and Ramsay's simple yet sharply shot scenes help place the message in the forefront.

Swinton's features become even more haunting as you see her paired up with Ezar Miller who plays the titular Kevin. The similar look of the pair is spurred on by their personalities. Eva's inner reluctance is mirrored by the external acting out of Kevin. The relationship slowly becomes a battle of wills more than anything loving. As Kevin grows, he seemingly tests his mother. From his incessant screaming when in her arms (observe the silence when in his fathers), to the answering back, to the teenage aloofness he displays before the so called Thursday event. We question her issues, as only she that holds any fears or frets about Kevin and her selfishness is clearly evident. In the early stages everything done can be attributed to merely a child being a child. As the film continues one may ask is Kevin's behavior due to the coldness of his own mother? Is this attention seeking at it's most extreme?

Ramsay tackles the books obstacle of unreliable narrator with visual aplomb (Atonement's Seamus McGarvey as Cinematographer) and splintered narrative structure. Told in flashback; Eva is often introduced into scenes with obscured, out of focus shots that pulled into focus, highlighting the haze of memory. She is surrounded constantly by the bold uses of the cautionary colour of red. Blood? Danger? When we first meet Eva she's drenched in tomato clearly in love with the moment, later we see her washing and scraping red paint off her house. Interestingly enough both can be looked at the same way depending on how you feel on the situation.

A sparse score from Johnny Greenwood and a bout of sound design racks up the mood and tension with timebomb sounding sprinklers and teeth gritting scrubbing. The most telling use of sound is the awkward moment when Eva relieves the tension of a constantly screaming Kevin by standing next to construction work.

However, this is a film based mostly on performances. Swinton is in excellent form here. Eva is a selfish mother but one we still care for in a peculiar way. This is down to Swinton's ability to draw emotions from places that many wouldn't be able to. Her body language shows us a character battered by guilt. We grow frustrated by her impatience of her own child and yet as the film rolls to it's conclusion we still share empathy...to a point. Ramsey's film stands on a knifes edge when it comes to the blame game. Ezar Millar shines well here as Kevin and does well to hide the menace under a veneer of teen aloofness. The film isn't as ambiguous with his character as it could be (Millar often looks just a bit one note evil) but this doesn't exclude him from doing the part well enough. John C Riley settles into a role that reminds us how well he can do oblivious (see Magnolia), and what is it with him this year with films with missing hamsters?

We need to talk about Kevin is one of the highlights of the year for me. A tense psychological drama which drums up difficult questions we often find reluctant to answer. Is Kevin a monster? To many, he is. If we were to read the paper of a true event that takes place within the movie we would denounce Kevin very quickly. We would quickly shove pop psychology (see: this entire blog) into the situation and make ourselves feel better as we try and make the matter more digestible. We have to as the real reasons are far too horrible to even try and rationalise. This film toys with our simple notions and knocks the foundations enough to disturb.