#50: The Shawshank Redemption – It pays to play the long
game
A man is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. For
the next ten years, he bides his time inside Shawshank Prison, making allies
where he can and waiting for the moment when he can finally escape his
confines. Frank Darabont, co-writer of the previously-discussed Nightmare On
Elm Street 3, has a penchant for bringing the works of Stephen King to the big
screen, but he tends to stick to the less recognisably-Kingian stories. From
this to The Green Mile to his later work with The Mist, he not only chose
decidedly different material but also showed a startingly amount of
understanding of the text to bring it roaring to life on screen. This film,
more so than anything else he has touched to date, accomplishes that goal.
The acting is fantastic, with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman
holding down the fort very nicely, and it makes for some very harrowing points
about the American prison system and how much it affects those within it, but
most importantly for me, this is a showing of how patience and playing the long
game can yield amazing results. This applies to the production itself, since
this is one of the few longer films that I can actively sit through in one
sitting, but it also applies to the story at large. Andy Dufresne wins the day
not through mass aggression or raging out at the system that wronged him.
Instead, he wins by taking his time, leaving everyone around him unawares of
his hidden planning, chipping away bit by bit and wading through shit (both
figuratively and literally) until he hits fresh air for the first time in
years. As someone who takes a rather slow and methodical approach to most
things in life, feeling more than comfortable with a long wait so long as I
have something to work towards, I take a lot of inspiration from this film and
the trials and triumphs of its main character.
#49: Se7en – My favourite character in all of fiction
That descriptor doesn’t apply to any of the immediate
suspects in this film. The acting is indeed phenomenal, with Morgan Freeman and
Brad Pitt making for one of my favourite buddy-cop duos in film, and Kevin
Spacey is eerily effective as the psychopath behind it all, but the
flesh-and-blood characters aren’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the
character that you see and hear and feel
the presence of in every single frame of this film. The character who is the
most affected by the events of the narrative. The character who shows such
distinct development that it actually warrants being called as such. The
character that is the unnamed City that the story takes place in.
This is Andrew Kevin Walker’s talent with world-building at
its absolute peak, making the setting of this film feel like it deserves equal
billing alongside Pitt and Freeman. Throughout this story of a serial killer
wanting to use the Seven Deadly Sins as a message for the sinners, we keep
hearing little details about the City that give it agency in its own right.
Like how Freeman’s Somerset mentions that women in the City are trained to
shout “Fire!” if they are attacked… because no-one responds to calls of
“Rape!”. Or how that very mindset and others aren’t ever questioned by the
police force, who mainly remark that it’s just “always been this way”. Or how
that same police force not only appears lethargic at the thought of actually solving
crimes, but is also more than willing to give away police information to anyone
with enough cash in hand.
Put all of this together with Spacey’s John Doe and his
ultimate intent and, despite how vile his actions and aspects of his
methodology are, I can’t help but see his point. Human depravity has poisoned
the City, turning it into a wasteland where apathy is applauded and virtue is
either ignored or punished. It isn’t given a name because it could happen
anywhere, but because it is so isolated, it’s also a microcosm of urban
America. Add to this David Fincher’s honed-to-perfection directing, adding
suitable grunge and grime to the frame, and you have a depiction of human
morality and its consequences unlike any other.
#48: The Butterfly Effect – Jesus undoes himself
Is there such a thing as a metaphysical guilty pleasure? If
so, I think this film qualifies. This psycho-thriller about a man with the
ability to travel back through his personal history, change events and alter
his future, appeals to a very worrying part of my psyche. Part of my inherent
sense of pacifism and altruism comes packaged with a raging martyr complex; I
view my own existence as inherently worth less than anyone else’s, so I would
willing give mine up so that someone else’s would be spared.
A bit grim, but then again, this film follows suit. The way
it portrays how trauma affects people, particularly children, can often venture
into the realms of tasteless, and some moments can be outright bizarre out-of-context,
like when Ashton Kutcher’s Evan uses his powers to convince someone else that
he has the stigmata. However, I ultimately have no problem with those aspects
for two main reasons. One, it shows enough genuine understanding of the effects
of trauma and how much seemingly-minor events can lead to bigger developments
that it rings true through all the unpleasantness. And two, by the time it gets
to the ending (the real ending
attached to the Director’s Cut, not the theatrical version), it brings me to
the point of heavy sobbing and it everything else into perspective. I have
enough self-awareness to know that my own martyr complex and sacrificial
mindset isn’t exactly healthy,
#47: Fight Club – Anarchy’s wrecking crew goes every step
too far
Fight Club entered the public consciousness through its
surface-level details: Two men decide to open an underground fighting ring that
allows its members to let go of their societal expectations, return to a more
primal existence and outlet their inner aggression. The idea is rather appealing
and, when juxtaposed with the film’s finely-honed commentary on Western
capitalism and the loss of identity it leads to, even advisable.
But then the rest of the film happens. What begins as an
underhanded but still healthy return to far simpler practices, before buyable
commodities dictated our worth and our existence, turns into a look at how
unchecked anarchy can lead to a far greater evil than what it sets out to
subvert. The word “snowflake”, now used to describe anyone a person deems as
being too “soft”, in its modern context came out of this film, used in a speech
from Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden to describe how little the individual ultimately
matters in this society. I live in a world that keeps trying to insist that
Tyler, the high-rise-bombing misanthropic figment of someone else’s imagination,
is the guy whose rhetoric should be used. I shouldn’t need to be getting this
defensive about a film I genuinely love, but it’s so surreal thinking that
nowadays, the people most likely to quote one of my favourite movies are people
I’ll most likely never get along with.
As for me, though, I see this as a case study in how a bit
of anarchy can be cathartic… but if left unchecked, it does serious damage. All
good things in moderation, even when it comes to reality-bending slices of
grunge like this. Also, amazing direction, great performances from Pitt, Helena
Bonham Carter and Edward Norton in my favourite role of his to date, and the
soundtrack by the Dust Brothers of Paul’s Boutique fame is perfect.
#46: Beetlejuice – What kind of person would choose to live in a haunted house?
A common trope of the haunted house sub-genre, one that has
been lampooned to the ends of the Earth, is why the main characters decide to
stay in a house that they know
contains elements of the supernatural. Most of us watch these stories and ask
the natural question of “Why haven’t you moved house yet?”, and while some more
recent efforts try to answer that question as best they can, the cliché still
persists and continues to draw ire from many, myself included.
I bring this up because this film, the sophomore effort from
Tim Burton, looks into answering that question. This story of a recently-dead
couple, played brilliantly by Alex Baldwin and Geena Davis, who haunt their
house while it is bought by a family of upstate yuppies, highlights that it
would take someone so conceited, so hungry for attention, so not-having-qualms
with manipulating the dead for their own amusement, to stick around in a house
like this. To add to this, we have Michael Keaton’s iconic turn as the titular
character, embodying all things chaotic and incapable-of-giving-a-shit with one
of the most energetic performances I can recall. It’s a great comedy that shows
one of the purest versions of the Burton aesthetic, but it also serves as a
great satire of the sub-genre it sits in, giving the kind of in-depth genre
examination that I have come to love
in cinema as a whole.
#45: Romeo & Juliet (1968) – Romantic word erotica
One of the few things about my own psyche that I never
managed to get a handle on is my fascination with figurative language. As much
as I pride myself on being direct and to-the-point with whatever I have to say
(even if I tend to say far more than is necessary in most cases), there’s
something about figurative language that appeals to me. That mode of phrasing
that relies on the ephemeral and the abstract to illustrate its point rather
than direct and plain language.
It is because of this that I have a real love for William
Shakespeare, the original scriptsploitator. While his stories occasionally
leave a bit to be desired, it’s the man’s way with words and ability with
wordplay and imagery that appeals to me the most, with this story in
particular. Director/co-writer Franco Zeffirelli, through a strict adherence to
period detail and a genuine understanding of the text, produces what I consider
to be the definitive version of the story. This is the kind of film that I can
just put on and let the utter poetry of the dialogue wash over my brain,
detailing the sensation of first love in its purest form and showing it as a
means to cut through age-old societal conflict. It’s an archetypal love story,
but it more than deserves that place in history as I have as much love for this
story as it does for the very concept of love.
#44: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Meditation of blood
and poison
For a film primarily about lovingly-framed sword fights and
martial arts, this is one of the most soothing films I’ve come across. Rather
than being a straight-up adrenaline rush like so many action films out there,
this film emphasizes both the conflict and the quiet in-between to deliver
near-literal meditations on the ideas of loyalty, courage, love and war. The
fight scenes themselves are absolutely gorgeous, showing the most graceful
wire-work ever put to film, but it's the conversations between the characters
that earn a place in my heart.
From Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien reminiscing on the romance
that could have been, to Lien and Jen Yu’s strained sistership, to Jen and Dark
Cloud’s hopeless romantics, to Jen and Jade Fox’s toxic protégé/mentor
relationship, it’s the context behind all the clanging of metal and ripping of
cloth that makes this a mediation worth taking. Contemplating how much blood
can be shed and how much poison can be administered before everything falls
apart, as well as how the promise of the divine shouldn’t override the needs of
the mortal soul, in a way that excites at times but mostly brings me into a
true Zen state of mind. Between this and playing a lot of Dynasty Warriors
growing up, I developed a real fascination with swordplay; I even taught myself
swordplay with a wooden training sword, which I still have to this day. Not as
a means of inflicting damage on others, but as a means of personal meditation,
inspired by this very film.
#43: Princess Mononoke – Man, beast and god working as one
A grand, beautifully-animated epic courtesy of Japanese
cinematic maestro Hayao Miyazaki, this film shows not only the most
concentrated aspects of Miyazaki’s form of environmentalism, but also a
sparkling clarity about what is required to fulfill it. Starting on a note of a
young hunter being cursed by a poisoned boar god, the film’s narrative only
grows from there into a complex spider’s web of conflicts and alliances between
Billy Crudup’s nomadic hero Ashitaka, Claire Dane’s wolf-child princess San, the
iron workers led by the opportunistic Lady Eboshi, voiced by Minnie Driver, and
the divine forces of nature all around them.
The film shows the three forces of man (the iron workers,
turning the ecosystem around them to their advantage), beast (the many animals
and forest spirits, like San’s guardian Moro, voiced with utter feminine
authority by Gillian Anderson) and gods (the animal personifications of the
divine like the great Forest Spirit whose life, death and rebirth serves as the
focal point of the larger narrative) and how they conflict and contrast each
other. But as the film begins to resolve, we also see how those three forces
are capable of working as one for a greater cause: Their shared survival, as
their co-existence ties their fates together. I recognize that some conflicts
will leave both sides permanently at war with each other, but thanks to films
like this, I also see how working together can do great things.
#42: Sin City – Grit-covered sunlight
Whenever the film noir genre is brought up, this film is
always the first thing to comes to my mind. The starkly literal black-and-white
world of Basin City, the vivid imagery of the dialogue and voice-over
narration, the distinct moments of colour to emphasizes people and actions, the
amazing fight scenes that show Robert Rodriguez as a bona-fide master with
framing and editing on a green screen, and the incredibly poignant characters
who shine as beams of sunlight in a world covered in blood and gristle.
The disgraced detective who gave his freedom and his life
for a girl he was sworn to protect. The ex-con who tears an entire city apart
for the one woman who showed him affection. The psychotic boyfriend who fights
the police and the mob in equal measure to atone for his crucial mistake. The
women of Old Town who took control from the pimps and made a sanctuary for
themselves. All of these figures are depicted with the kind of grittiness you
would expect from the cross-section of maverick Robert Rodriguez, former king
of sequential crime Frank Miller and a guest directing spot from aesthetics
student Quentin Tarantino, but they are allowed the chance for their sheer
virtue to ring through. Fighting tooth and nail for those you love, and those
who love you in return, even if it means confronting the religious, political
and judicial systems that seek to corrupt and distort that virtue.
A lot of people take issue with the Miller-brand sexism and
gratuity of these stories, but I only see the raw and uncompromised good of the
mains here. As far as comic book characters go, Bruce Willis’ John Hartigan,
Mickey Rourke’s Marv and even Clive Owen’s Dwight each represent grim but
holistic attributes that I took to heart when I first watched this movie, and
have kept true to as best I can ever since.
#41: 20,000 Days On Earth – A sermon at the altar of
performance
This is less of a film and more a religious sermon, one
devoted to one of the most divine processes we humans have access to: The power
of artistic creation. Musician Nick Cave influenced a lot of my childhood, as I
spent many days listening to Murder Ballads on my mother’s stereo and
marvelling at the manic glee of The Curse Of Millhaven and the heart-dropping
coldness of Henry Lee, and this film shows the crystallization of that creative
spark that I grew up recognizing.
Part documentary, part dramatization and all poetry, both
visual and aural, this semi-fictional look at the making of Nick Cave And The
Bad Seeds’ 2013 album Push The Sky Away gives Nick a lot of space to espouse on
his views of humanity, reality, the creative process and how those three
influence each other. It is a fascinating look at the creative process, with
Nick giving some of the most bestial and primal imagery of his entire career in
how he describes the way he makes art. What’s more, thanks to the visual chops
of directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the camera work by DOP Erik Wilson
and the nimble editing of Jonathan Amos, those words are turned into a flurry
of performative magic, showing that the act of artistic expression as a
singularly powerful force, one that can transform a mortal man into a divine
creature. When it gets to the final performance of Jubilee Street, and we see
Nick Cave become so invigorated on stage, I feel a great fire come alive in
myself to make that kind of transformation. To go from a withdrawn and
socially-reclusive genius into a galvanizing performative force once the music
kicks in; such is the divine power of art.
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