Review of Osama (2004) by Mr. B — 11 Jun 2004

[b][font=Arial][u]OSAMA (Siddiq Barmak, 2004- 1st Barmak Film)[/u][/font][/b].

[font=Arial]It?s hard to watch Osama without noticing the plot similarities between it and Majid Majidi?s Baran. Both are centered on the unfair rights of women in the Middle East. It could be Majidi?s charming style that dominates his films or the differences between life in Afghanistan (where Osama takes place) and Iran (where Baran takes place), but when compared to Osama, Baran looks like a slightly tame and forgiving portrait of the misogynous attitude that both films show.[/font].

[font=Arial]Osama starts with thousands of women?their faces covered by their burkhas?protesting on the street chanting, ?We are not political. We are hungry. Give us work.? But the Taliban (still in power at the time the film is set) break up their march. Here the three main characters are introduced?Espandi, Osama (the name given to the girl by Espandi) and Osama?s mother. All three are not involved in the protest, but they do witness it and the effect on Osama is a powerful one as she peeks out from behind her door. Osama?s family is without a father, so Osama?s mother is forced to send her daughter to work (in disguise as a male).[/font].

[font=Arial]There?s something interesting in what comes next (it also slightly mirrors Baran). No one knows about Osama?s gender?except Espandi. Although Espandi does threaten to expose Osama (and seems like the type of kid who would do so), he ends up not only keeping quiet, but also helping her and swatting away rumors that she is a girl. A similar thing happens in Baran. Latif, an Iranian worker, gets his job taken a way by a young Afghan girl (although she is disguised as a boy). Latif originally has a strong hate for her (obviously, since she has just taken his job), but when he finds out that she is a girl, he becomes a sort of guardian to her. Through helping the girls hide their gender, both lose their originally snotty attitudes and become caring and understanding people by the end of their respective films.[/font].

[font=Arial]I liked Osama, but the film is never able to go beyond that. The characters are always kept at arms length, partly because of the limitations of the non-professional actors and also because Barmak never attempts to look any deeper into the characters. The girl?s performance was fairly bland, and only Espandi is given a distinct personality. It?s a film that is interesting for its importance (first film from Afghanistan post-Taliban) and the situation it presents, rather than its quality as a film. [/font].

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[b][font=Arial][u]FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL (Errol Morris, 1997- 2nd Morris Film)[/u][/font][/b].

[font=Arial]Quick, how are being a topiary gardener and a wild animal trainer similar? Unfortunately, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control doesn?t answer this question. The film combines four separate interviews that Errol Morris conducted?one with a naked mole rat expert, and the others with a robot scientist, a topiary gardener and a wild animal trainer. It?s a sporadically interesting film that lacks a focal point for the stories to revolve around. It never gets a solid rhythm going, because Morris only spends a few minutes with each story before cutting back to the next one. [/font].

[font=Arial]It?s true, Morris tries to connect the four stories, but his efforts are in vain. There are some techniques Morris uses to try to answer the question I ask in the first sentence that are moderately successful?overlapping the audio of one story, with the visual of another one?but none of them are able to bring a sense of cohesiveness to the film. To me all four stories are interesting ones, as are the people who tell them, but they don?t work well as a film.[/font].

[font=Arial]This was Morris?s trial run with the ?Interrotron?, a camera he later used in Fog of War. It works well here, but its effect isn?t as powerful because none of the interviewees grab your attention as much as McNamara did. In his answers, McNamara never looked away from the camera (the purpose of the ?Interrotron?), but in Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control the interviewees are a little more timid and shy. Near the end of the film, the animal trainer emotionally tells about his role model, Clyde Beatty, but he often breaks eye contact with the camera, lessening the effect.[/font].

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[b][font=Arial][u]RUSHMORE (Wes Anderson, 1998- 1st Anderson Film)[/u][/font][/b].

[font=Arial]A disappointing?but still slightly impressive?comedy directed by Wes Anderson. The visual gags are the parts to savor in this film (Max?s play on the Vietnam war, ?Heaven and Hell? and Herman interrupting a phone conversation to block the shot of a young kid), as are some of the great ideas (Max getting thrown out of a private school and going to a public school). But for a comedy, the dialogue is surprisingly flat and uninspired. Sometimes its offbeat nature makes it hard to relate to and that is why the dialogue, to me, was a little bare. The cast is strong, and arguably the high point in the film, especially Jason Schwartzman (debut) and Bill Murray (as always), but they aren?t given enough to work with. Still plan to check out both Royal Tenenbaums and Bottle Rocket. [/font].

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[b][font=Arial][u]TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (Sylvain Chomet, 2003- 1st Chomet Film)[/u][/font][/b].

[font=Arial]The last two greatly hyped animated films- Spirited Away and Finding Nemo- left me greatly disappointed. So for Triples of Belleville, I kept my expectations in check and was not just surprised, but blown away. Triplets of Belleville is both the coolest and greatest animated film that I have seen.[/font].

[font=Arial]Chomet, like Miyaski, uses animation to create the bizarre, and refreshingly so in the days when digital animation has all but taken over the mainstream. So while technology has allowed animation to become more realistic, Chomet animates Triplets of Belleville so it strays as far from realism as possible. The first highly creative step comes in his use of proportion. On a biker?s figure, Chomet accentuates the muscles the biker builds when bike riding (the thighs and the calves). It creates a frightening image of a famished rider slowly scaling a mountain with only a skeleton left of him (except for his massive calf and thigh muscles). Then there is a ship that the bicycle robbers board that reaches nearly to the sky, but is very thin too.[/font].

[font=Arial]Chomet proves he has a sense of humor too. In Belleville, everyone is huge. Not height wise, but rather in waist-size. Even the stoplights have been changed from the common slender man crossing the street to an overweight one. Belleville is intended by the director to be an amalgam of New York City, Quebec, and Paris, and all the obese townspeople a representation of consumerism. In one shot of the city there is a mimicking obese version of the statue of liberty.[/font].

[font=Arial]Animated films have recently become so dominated by one-liners that one often forgets that comedy can also come in subtler forms. Triplets of Belleville is there to remind you. In one scene, a worn out and exhausted Tour de France trainee is taken in by an old woman living with her dog. The biker has the previously mentioned ?accentuated muscles? and the old lady goes about massaging him with a vacuum cleaner, an eggbeater, and a lawn mower. There?s another hilarious scene at the house of the ?triplets of Belleville? where the triplets make dinner and desserts made up of frogs. Each time a train passes by the window of the house the lady?s dog barks at it, but when served his frog soup?in which the frog is alive and comes out of the bowl and walks towards the dog?the dog indecisively begins barking at both the approaching frog and the train. In fact, there?s no dialogue in the film, at least none worth putting subtitles in for, and in such a stylized, and bizarre, film this works well.[/font].

[font=Arial]There are two different musical sequences that had me simply smiling at their coolness. The first comes when the triplets surprisingly approach the lady and her dog under a bridge and break into song, snapping their fingers and going through the dance motions. The other musical sequence is when the triplets play at a local cabaret. The instruments they play are more commonly seen in houses?a refrigerator, a newspaper, and a vacuum cleaner?than they are used as musical instruments. You have to see it, because words don?t do the film justice.[/font].

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[b][font=Arial][u]THE LADYKILLERS (Joel Coen, 2004- 6th Coen Brothers Film)[/u][/font][/b].

[font=Arial]How the Coens have truly changed directions in their films since the bizarre, but brilliant O Brother Where Art Thou and the flawed, but successful homage to film-noir Man Who Wasn?t There. They started their attempt to win over the mainstream with the painfully mediocre Intolerable Cruelty, and continued with their remake of the 1955 film The Ladykillers. With these two films the Coens have taken steps in the wrong direction, but with that said The Ladykillers still provides lots of fun.[/font].

[font=Arial]Hanks is the star here, and knowing this, he hams it up to the extreme. His performance is one of the funniest of his career (his body language often contrasts with his dialogue making for some hilarious sequences). He plays the ringleader of a motley crew?a quiet man called simply ?The General?, foul-mouthed Gawain, IBS victim Garth, and an unsuccessful football player Lump. The film loves to make stereotypes of these characters and exaggerate them to the extreme, almost to the point of mocking their existence.[/font].

[font=Arial]The Coen?s shtick gets old here though. The characters become dull caricatures that overstay their welcome, and other than Irma P. Hall and Tom Hanks, who are fun to watch all the way through, the other actors aren?t talented enough to bring anything fresh to the characters. They are left with bloated stereotypes that the Coens have implanted into the script.[/font].

[font=Arial]Some Coen plot devices are evident here?all the characters die in bizarre ways (accidental suicide, strangling, choking on a cigarette, killed by a piece of a statue)?as are some of their stylistic habits. One of the most frequently used shots in the film is the overhead shot of a boat filled with garbage passing under a bridge and the dead bodies of the men being thrown in the boat. [/font].

[font=Arial]The Ladykillers shows the Coens and the actors having fun?but not making their best films.[/font].

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