Film Junk » Between Dimensions

Between Dimensions: Solaris (1972)

Curt — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:09:43 +0000

Between Dimensions is a continuing feature that examines science-fiction on the screen in all of its forms: big or small, good or bad. Bring an overnight bag to your couch. This star trip takes awhile. Solaris is about first contact and tells its story most authentically. It is sprinkled with tantalizing hints of an incomprehensible alien presence and deftly threaded with some of humanity’s long-standing existential issues. These factors combine to create the conditions that in turn perplex, humble, and threaten the movie’s cast of characters. Be warned however. Solaris is also the ultimate litmus test of a viewer’s attention span. Transformers this is not. For better or worse, Solaris tells its story (from a novel by the great Russian sci-fi writer, Stanislaw Lem) in almost real time. For better because you are cocooned in layer after layer of allegory and allusion. This style ensures that you are impacted the same way the Solaris’ crew is – frightened by the alien presence, deeply concerned for humanity, and afraid for your own sanity. For worse, because this meticulous layering takes 90 real time minutes. It proceeds with a somnolent rhythm delivered by a stolid Russian cast that will severely test your enthusiasm for wanting to be present at first contact. Solaris begins at the country home of the cosmonaut, Kris Kelvin. Nothing has been heard from the mission station on Solaris for years. The last cosmonaut returned with a story of a strange alien sea and hallucinations that might have been real. To resolve the mystery of Solaris’ crew, Kelvin – a psychologist – is dispatched to the planet. On his arrival, he finds only 2 surviving crewmembers – a third has just committed suicide. Kelvin finds the two survivors in deep contemplation about their experiences and pretty much indifferent to his arrival. Get some sleep, we’ll talk in the morning, he’s told. At this point, the pace picks up. Alien constructs appear – seemingly human – as our survivors investigate the sea and its influence on them. Intriguing questions of alien intelligence, human identity, and intimate personal bonds carry the movie to a simple but satisfying conclusion. The final visual has some of the same shiver that ends Planet of the Apes. The last hour of Solaris makes up for the slow build of the opening ninety minutes. Tarkovsky tantalizes the audience with glimpses of people who shouldn’t be on the station. Furthermore the two remaining scientists never mention them. His actors are at their best when Hari (the dead wife of Kelvin) appears and soon begins to suspect her own unreality but in very agonizing terms. At one point, Kelvin leaves her in his room alone and she panics. Using only her fists and arms, she breaks though a strong metal door. It startles Kelvin because a human couldn’t do that. It startles us because it’s the first loud noise and violent action (well sort of) in the film. The cinematography is marvelous. The movie opens with the camera caressing sea grasses gently waving in the clear waters swell. It then tracks through the rich, damp countryside. You can almost smell the earth. Tarkovsky is equally adept in creating the space station. Techy, organized, but fraying around the edges, it’s the perfect metaphor for these humans confronting the unknown. Sequences occasionally toggle between B&W and color. This helpful style keeps the visual energy up when the story pace slows. Another brilliant sequence hints at our fate. As the exhausted Kelvin stretches out to sleep, the camera starts at mattress level on his shoes, slowly slides up his torso until lightly coming to rest by his chin. It foreshadows the impact of Solaris’ heaving sea as its presence inundates the human visitors. The film is not without oddities. Kelvin arrives at the space station dragging a very cool carry-on bag. You can imagine the light speed premium Aeroflot charged for that. His monogrammed pajamas also seemed curious in this mostly emotionally flat movie. Even more so, an extended camera shot wandering through Bruegel’s Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap barely hints at its purpose – Kelvin’s love for his native Earth or his humanity being absorbed by Solaris’ sea? Solaris is definitely a mind trip, not a visual extravaganza. For its time (very pre-CGI) the space station set is compelling and believable in the same way the station in 2001: A Space Odyssey was. The visuals of the Solaris sea suggest unfathomable power with a sinister overtone. Or perhaps that’s just what we project into it. Tarkovsky uses his actors mostly monotonally to realistically portray the unsettling unknown of first contact while challenging our definition of humanity. It’s all very believable. So if you really, really like SF – e.g. if you don’t need to see starships transiting wormholes - and if you are intrigued about alien contact, you will enjoy this movie. Perhaps Solaris’ best achievement is its ability to suggest an alien without reverting to a rubber suit or overdone effects. Only one other movie has been as successful with this approach – 2001: A Space Odyssey. What’s out there was invoked with nuances and visual suggestions that left experiencing first contact up to your personal brain chemistry (straight or enhanced) at the time. Until there actually is a first contact, that’s the best a science fiction movie can do for you. And Solaris does it.

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Between Dimensions: Chrysalis (2007)

Curt — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:39:25 +0000

Between Dimensions is a continuing feature that examines science-fiction on the screen in all of its forms: big or small, good or bad. Cops and Robbers Metaphysicalized with Panache The recent Bruce Willis film Surrogates reminded me of a French film called Chrysalis. Their shared idea – what makes up our identity – can play out many ways. (All the films based on PKD stories are testament to that). My advice? Just skip Surrogates. Rent Chrysalis. Julien Leclercq has directed a smoothly styled film noir (more correctly, un very slick filme bleu-noire) of French cops searching for the abductors of young women who, as illegal aliens, are highly vulnerable to exploitation. Expertly threaded into this somewhat generic story is a dramatic neurological breakthrough. It gives the film its energy by spinning in and out of the basic cops and crooks with inventiveness and a lot of visual elan. The backbone of Chrysalis’ story is tough-minded cops doing their job in a futuristic Paris. The settings are a mix of shiny future and grimy underlayer. The thugs are nasty and vicious, cold-bloodedly dispatching officer David Hoffman’s wife/partner before the opening credits finish. The film doesn’t pause as the intense search for the abductors melds into a parallel one for his wife’s killer. David’s nature – already bleak and morose – needs only a few more down clicks to reach the brutal level of those he is chasing. A new partner Marie (in a minor filmic flaw, a little too bright-eyed and compassionate for a cop) does little to bring him out of his hell. As a snitch sets up the wife’s murderer for David and Marie to take down, this future Paris is revealed in small but telling details much in the way Blade Runner used ambience and gadgets to engage you. Iris scanning is de rigueur. Hand scanners quickly reveal bar coded citizens’ identities. The police all have transponders embedded in their neck. Workspaces are sharp-edged. Desktops are interactive. The cars we see are appropriately not-of-our-time. What makes this future work is the photography – actors and settings are captured in a beautiful deep ice blue and rich black. It’s like a full moon was pulled from the lighting truck. Thanks to this style the static shots and the action scenes are exactly as they should be – distant, slightly strange, and most unnerving. The real anxiety unfolds benignly. A brilliant neurosurgeon – Marthe Keller playing the icily confident doctor – is attempting to rehabilitate her daughter after a horrendous car accident. (Also in those hard working opening credits.) Our medical future is glimpsed in slowly revealed flashes that are both macabre and chilling. As this thread plays out, the police, the gangster, and the surgeon are unwittingly intertwined. The clue? Some characters either have (or will get) small burn marks on the top and bottom of their inner eyelids. For the hardcore SF crowd, that’s a major coordinate. The hospital settings also are future tense – the operating theatre, the surgeon’s office, even the wards have been bleached of the familiar. And it is in the operating theatre that the film’s signature visual takes place. (Although strictly speaking it is a huh? moment.) From Paris, she performs surgery on a little boy in Mexico. The future becomes astonishing as her digitally gloved hands grasp the boy’s organs holographically in techno blue and star white. Two robot arms assist her. The choreography of the surgeon, the robot arms, and the patient is astonishing. It evokes nothing less than Kubrick’s elegant dance of space ship and space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although if you don’t like Yanni, you might find the music not quite up to the standard of Straus. But it worked very nicely for me. While we’re on the subject of signature visuals, a close second is the savage fight (in two parts) between David and his fugitive, Nicolov. The first encounter in David’s apartment gives new meaning to the word pulp as their furious fists, forearms, and other bony body parts pound each other into staggering, bleeding hulks. This is not your typical Han Mu Do. The speed (cinematically tweaked?) of their blows generates a demented intensity that elevates this combat to the level of the knife fight in Eastern Promises. Part 2 reprises the battle with the same intensity and level of damage as the film pounds its way to a resolution. (And post this review if you’ve spotted the Yikes! moment concerning Nicolov. It leaves a black and blue bruise on this otherwise fine film). Chrysalis is about characters and their passions first, science fiction second. And it’s better for it. We engage with these characters and get to live in their world. That world may be the future but the passions have been around for thousands of years. By Leclercq striking this balance between characters and setting and managing two story lines so adroitly, he turns an SF film into a great movie.

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Between Dimensions: Star Trek is Ours (An Intergenerational Rant)

Curt — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:56:38 +0000

This new Star Trek movie. It’s not real. I mean it’s not the real Star Trek. You see, my generation (the boomers if you need to know) owns Star Trek. We saw it first. We saved it from cancellation. And we kept it alive for 79 episodes and six films. So make no mistake. We own it. It’s encrypted with our generational genes. And we never gave it away. We like it the way it is. Don’t even think about doing a tribute movie. We’re the ones who preserved Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and the crew in amber. And so they cannot be re-imagined, re-invented, re-vivified, or re-interpreted. They can only be rerun. If you accept the above, then it represents a formidable barrier for any moviemaker to overcome. J.J. Abrams appears to have done it. He gave us a head fake (he said he’s a fan) then backed-up one screen generation in order to appeal to the Gen-X and –Ys that he hoped would fill the theatre. As they say in our national sport, he found a shooting lane and scored. Admittedly not without some awkwardness but in spirit and tone he has put us owners on notice. He has found more creative juice within the original idea and it informs almost every scene we see. At its best, this Star Trek is all about its characters. Its actors and script find moments of magic where they evoke the original character’s sensibilities and relationships but do it with freshness and conviction. It is most apparent in the early exchanges between Bones and Kirk. You know you’ve enjoyed the moment before but you’re feeling it like the first time. It is not plagiarism masquerading as tribute. It is a creative idea that continues to spin off enchantment. The plot is nothing special – default space-opera. A super nova destroys Romulus and turns the Romulan Nero into a rogue raider bent on revenge (pirates anyone?). Since Spock Prime (the original) had failed to stop the destruction of Romulus, Nero goes after him and the Vulcan planet. Throw in some red matter to seed black holes, some time travel to weasel the audience into going along with the plot, and the new buddies Kirk and Spock working out their joint karma while stopping Nero and you have an enjoyable action film where characters count. (Bonus feature: no one says “Go go go!” in spite of some obvious opportunities. I like this future.) The ambience is good – not Blade Runner level – but it’s easy to feel you are inhabiting the future. The Enterprise bridge looks purposeful and optimistic. If you’re a Romulan however, your order to terminate all interior designers has worked. Their death ship is a morass of evilly lit construction sites, underground tunnels, and half-submerged torture chambers. Their planet-killer is an ingenious space drill with a stratospheric platform that provides a setting for an on-the-edge action sequence that is breathtaking. Even the gestation of the black hole has some quantum moments for collider fans everywhere. The bad notes are minor and quite ignorable. Kirk’s tendency to womanize is overplayed in the early scenes and pretty much disappears as the movie progresses. Spock on the other hand breaks half a dozen rules in the Federation manual (let alone the Star Trek ethos). Shock value I suppose but it goes nowhere and doesn’t really add to the movie. The new cast performs fairly well. Chris Pine as Kirk seems physically miscast but then has his moments with Bones and Spock. Zach Quinto looks and acts like a young Spock seeking his destiny. Most of the supporting characters participate adequately although Simon Pegg as Scotty seems a bit contrived. What really makes the movie work is J.J. Abrams riffing on the original’s central theme – the intellect vs. the heart - in as accomplished a manner as Roddenberry. Because of it, the audience engages with the main characters and is rewarded with those shivers of déjà vu squared previously mentioned. I can hardly wait for the sequel where Kirk learns …to…speak…with that dis…tinctive…style. It happens in the Enterprise lounge. Kirk is eavesdropping on a midshipman who has 3 female colleagues listening attentively. The midshipman speaks with words joined in a way that was never meant to be. In the next scene, Kirk is in the Captain’s Chair, explaining to Spock – with his new buckboard syntax – why instinct rules. As Kirk conveys the inevitable “go with the flow” conclusion, Spock just gives him that stare. It says, “I know why a star goes supernova but I just can’t figure this dude out”. That moment (and others like it) will be worth the loaning of our treasured Star Trek to J.J. Abrams a few more times. He has threaded the needle by finding a way to leave Kirk and Spock intact in younger shells. I’m not sure the new ones foretell the richness of the originals - the younger generation always seems a little shallow and superficial to the older one. Kirk and Spock may earn their amber or not. But for now, we have a real alternative to the reruns.

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Between Dimensions: Starman (1984)

Curt — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:59:08 +0000

Between Dimensions is a continuing feature that examines science-fiction on the screen in all of its forms: big or small, good or bad. Starman Still Connects… But With Keanu? As the winter of ‘09 has refused to depart gracefully, some movie time travel seemed a smart avoidance technique. I found myself stopping in 1984 wondering how well Starman would hold up after a quarter-century. I had vague memories of Jeff Bridges acting but nothing more. I’m pleased to say that Starman remains an excellent film. More surprisingly though, it seems to be what fans were expecting from Keanu, Scott Derrickson, and company in their unsatisfying remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Starman’s premise is classically simple. A UFO is spotted heading for California. This “provocative” flight path encourages the air force to shoot it down. The alien presence survives the crash in Wisconsin. While browsing his new neighborhood, the alien enters a cabin owned by Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen). Deep in grief over the recent loss of her husband Scott, she is crying her way through home movies and a bottle of wine. She soon nods off only to be awakened by a blue light. The light morphs into a baby, which to her shocked amazement grows into her husband right before her eyes. As he tries a variety of languages (learned from the Voyager probe) to talk with her, Jenny replies by passing out. When she wakes the new Scott (Jeff Bridges) is still there and asks for help. Then insists. Although this movie could slip into predictability quite easily, it most definitely doesn’t. Instead, it focuses intensely on these two characters and how they move from being strangers of the furthest kind to two entities with an emotional bond that almost (but not quite) spans the universe. Considering the director’s well-earned reputation for his "let’s go to the gore" moves, John Carpenter displays an astonishingly light touch, letting the two actors carry the story while making us care about their fate. Except for the weedy opening premise (the aforementioned Voyager was the alien’s invitation to visit - duh), Starman threads the alien encounter theme through the classic two lonely people falling in love with grace, humor, and sensitivity. Of course a chase drives the narrative. But it is nuanced with imaginative encounters and underplayed effects. With the military in pursuit, Jenny and Scott make a run for his rendezvous for his ride home. The emotional entanglement for the audience comes as we watch Jenny deal with her dilemma. Her beloved husband is dead. This alien has brought him back to life with quantum accuracy. She is agonizingly torn between her heart’s second chance and her head’s rejection of what she is experiencing. What makes this tightrope work is the acting of Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen. He is all alien and without any CGI. From his twitchy, bird-like movements and learner’s gait to his stilted syntax, his portrayal of an alien learning to be one of us is moving, humorous, and very real. Yes, he has some otherworldly tricks but they are used sparingly. They make the pursuit more engaging while bringing him and Jenny closer. Karen Allen shows great range as she moves from disbelief and fear through understanding and finally to complete surrender. Through it all, Carpenter uses deft touches of humor to enhance the believability of our characters plight. It’s not hard to find the humor in tutoring an alien to act like us but it requires a great director and good actors to bring it off with such style. They even maintain that deft touch in a short sequence in SF’s location-of-choice, Las Vegas. But you might ask. What does this have to do with Keanu and his remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Quite simply what we have in Starman is a re-imagining of the 1952 classic. It is something we might have hoped for from Scott Derrickson but understandably didn’t get. Both films support a Christian motif if you want to look. Then consider Starman’s story arc: both aliens arrive and are greeted with hostility; both live with us to gain an understanding of humanity; both connect with a female who eventually is won over; although their alien powers would seem to be a deal-breaker, they allow themselves to be hounded and chased; Klaatu leaves Gort, Starman leaves a representative who will be a teacher of men (this is a rather crude description of Starman’s emotional high point but I don’t want to give the fun away) Visuals echo the earlier film e.g. Gort carries an unconscious Helen Benson in his arms. Scott as the alien carries Jenny the same way as he saves her from a fiery collision. One line serves both movies almost word for word: "You are at your very best when things are worst". Re-imagining a classic idea can be done. It just needs imagination and the directorial and acting chops to let the heart of the story come through. Not an easy task. But then that’s what they get the big bucks for. If you liked this movie nothing else measures up. Species totally cocks it up. Enemy Mine tries hard. As does The Arrival. The Thing from Another World (1951) gets the closest. And I’m not a big David Bowie fan.

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Between Dimensions: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Curt — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:48:02 +0000

Between Dimensions is a continuing column about science-fiction and other unearthly matters written by Curt Dwyer. Sci fi nerds (including yours truly) live with the knowledge that the more alien an alien gets, the more indistinguishable he/she/it will be from a god. In the case of The Day the Earth Stood Still, this plays out badly for Klaatu our planet's first alien visitor. The humans fearful of his seemingly omniscient abilities, shoot him. Given that Klaatu knows a lot about Earth, I’m surprised he expected anything less. Seriously though, this gem of a movie from sci fi's golden age builds from this quantum naiveté to craft a story of honesty, innocence, and hope. It uses its star's monasterial aura, inspired casting, and quickly paced story to lay out a case for a dramatic change in human behavior. You could call it galactic intervention therapy. Klaatu arrives on Earth in the early ‘50s. As if his flying saucer and Gort his 10 ft tall robot wouldn't get enough attention, he lands on a ball field in the middle of Washington. There he announces his intention to speak to world leaders on a matter of importance to all humans. The shooting ensues and he soon finds himself in a hospital under guard confronted by an inept politician. Amazingly, he executes a midnight run (today's 20 somethings could take a lesson here), suitcase in hand, and ends up in a Washington boarding house. There he meets Helen Benson played by the engagingly crisp Patricia Neal. Klaatu's roomies put human nature on display confirming his fears about the potential success of his mission. During the rest of his stay, he runs into the usual suspects – politicians, the military, scientists, and the media – mostly with the same results we human's experience today. So much for a VIP pass for aliens. Although the action is predictable, the director, Robert Wise, keeps the believability factor high as Klaatu, with Helen's son Bobby (Billy Gray) in tow, works his way through various encounters to his last hope, a meeting with the world’s scientists. An Army pursuit through Washington ends with Klaatu being shot yet again. But Helen – whom Klaatu has come to trust – heads for Gort with the instruction "Klaatu barada nicto". As the likely inspiration for the more compelling Klingon wedding song, it's not a bad line. Then Gort takes matters into his own 12" hands. With some support from Helen, Klaatu is resurrected to deliver an ominous admonition about the rules of the 'hood before leaving. What's good about this movie? The talent. First is Michael Rennie who plays Klaatu. As a human, he could pass for alien. His persona is gently out there. His tall, lean frame is ethereally animated seemingly without needing joints for locomotion. His superior voice is clear, firm and with a dusting of an accent. His gaze fixes his audience in place. Who needs CGI (or Keanu Reeves for that matter) when a director can work with such raw material? Right behind Rennie is an engaging cast who keep the action convincing. Patricia Neal bites into her role as a strong-minded woman who knows what’s right for her and her son. Do we see a precursor to Sigourney Weaver here? Probably not but it feels right. Then Sam Jaffe does a fine turn as a default Einstein who comes to accept Klaatu as real and his message as the most important the world may ever hear. Robert Wise is also what's good about this movie. His story engages and keeps your interest as it ebbs and flows perfectly with the drama. Although his framing is mostly conventional (there is only one clunky segue when they need to have Klaatu go to the hospital) there are enough jumps to overhead shots and worldwide sequences that the movie is never visually boring. And Wise keeps a sense of humor about it. The scientist questions Klaatu's modification of some difficult equations by asking how he will know they will now work. Klaatu responds, "Well, they got me from my planet to yours". Point taken. Klaatu’s formal farewell is embellished with a hand and forearm gesture that sets a standard for small perfect touches that make a movie genuine. When I realized where this movie was going, my initial response was to recall Rodney King’s plaintiff, "Why can’t we all get along?" But that knee-jerk sarcasm came before I was completely taken by the honesty and innocence of this gem. It's a simple movie for an arguably simpler time. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a great time out from this too much with us world.

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Between Dimensions: It’s My Orbit and I’m Sticking to It

Curt — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:39:26 +0000

Between Dimensions is a continuing column about science-fiction and other unearthly matters written by Curt Dwyer. I had always suspected I was just a step off the main path. The day I found the list confirmed it. Browsing Amazon’s science fiction community, I had drilled down to their top 10 dystopian novels from the last 50 years. I had read them all. No surprise there. But what did it really mean? I was lost in that familiar fugue when Film Junk surfaced. It was an opportunity to review sf movies as well as be editor-at-large on world-tipping issues central to the science fiction genre. So here I am. I came to science fiction through horror. As a three year old, I was often read bedtime stories. I don’t recall the stories. I do recall the reader. A silver metal strip – bent roughly to approximate a nose – ran down the middle of his face. It was held in place by an elaborate construction of white plaster bandages. Bordered by the bandages were the reader’s eyes – circled by navy blue and deep black skin tones. The reader was my father. He was the goalie for the Georgetown Raiders. Before goalie masks. From these bedtime interludes, I emerged with two passions – hockey and horror. By the '50s, my interest in horror had mutated into holocausts – nuclear to be specific. I quickly realized the dire social consequences of displaying that particular obsession in high school. So I sublimated my fears into outer space just in time to take a seat at 1953's War of the Worlds. In full color and eye-filling detail, the aliens relentlessly pursued Gene Barry and Ann Robinson across a rapidly disintegrating California. Even the atomic bomb (dropped by a flying wing – how cool) couldn’t crack the alien’s protective shields. Humanity was ready for the dumpster. I confess I never saw the ending coming. (Unfortunately, I’m much better at guessing endings now). As that gnarly, scarlet red, fever glistening alien doomed by earth’s viruses reached out of the saucer, I was amazed at how a great story, well-directed and persuasively shot could become totally real in your head. George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was another matter. It was showing at the Camden Theatre in North London. Brilliant movie. A genre buster. I was immediately sucked in to the absolute terror. Trapped in a rickety old farm house. Surrounded by the sloppily resurrected dead looking for fresh flesh. Unfortunately the vast majority of the British audience was in stitches – laughter not surgical – from being totally incapable of going with the premise. That movie was another epiphany. Some concepts just don't travel well. Only with 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead has it become apparent that the Brits now get it. Besides working on a Vin Diesel perspective and an alienography (two different subjects actually), I am also trying to suss out what the pope is doing with an observatory. Paranoid in the extreme, I came upon this nexus of faith and cosmology when Brother Guy, the Pope’s astronomer spoke to the local astronomy club. (Yes we have a real observatory here called the Custer Institute. And an hour away is the world’s third largest collider. That’s no coincidence). Brother Guy grabbed his audience’s attention with the front page of the National Enquirer – the one with the devil’s face asteroid. He seemed mildly pissed (scratch any holy man and you’ll find attitude) that the Vatican hadn’t been credited for saving Earth from this particular menace. He then went on to share his real passion - analyzing the components of meteorites. I confess I left after the 6th metallurgical histogram. But not before I realized that this geek façade was just cover for a much deeper purpose. Stay bookmarked.

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