cinema

Hope you guys have been keeping warm this past week, as that damn groundhog appears to have been way off this year. Regardless, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some great cinema that’s available right through your Netflix account. Today I’ll be looking at Naked, a challenging British art-film from the 90s that’s even more chilly than New York’s February climate. I’ll try and keep this review extra warm though.

Title: Naked
Director: Mike Leigh
Writer: Mike Leigh
Year: 1993
Running Time: 131 minutes
Starring: David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Katrin Cartlidge
Genre: Drama, Art-house, experimental film (horror?)
Similar To: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Happiness; The Master

As I get older, the more I realize that I no longer want clear-cut answers from films. I no longer want to be spoon-fed stories about absolute good vs. absolute evil, as I just don’t see that as pertaining to real life anymore. I want morally ambigous character, and a world view that sees life as being grey, rather than black or white. Also, I want open-ended stories that don’t overfeed us with too much information. I want film’s that I can mold into my own entity. With that said, it’s easy to see why I feel Mike Leigh’s 1993 film Naked is one of the richest films I’ve come across in terms of moral density, as well as an uncomfortable piece of art.

It’s a bit of a challenge for me to describe the film in a synopsis, as the film is skeletal in terms of having a traditional plot. Right from the start, this is a film that shows that it’s not throwing any punches, as we witness the film’s main character Johnny (David Thewlis) rape a woman and then steal a car. He rides to the Dalston neighborhood of London (which he describes as unpretentious) where he hooks up with his old girlfriend Mancunian (Lesley Sharp), and from there any idiom of a plot pretty much disintegrates. For the next two hours we see this character wander around the disheveled neighborhood interacting with people and usually subjecting them to his domineering claims. Manic, sexually hungry, self-destructive and clearly intelligent, Johnny is a strange beast to watch no doubt, and perhaps a figurehead of sorts too.

Why is this film so starkly dark? Well, the simple answer is that the truth isn’t always pretty. Naked is a very direct social commentary, and like Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover it’s a scathing critique on Thatcherism. Unlike that earlier film, however, Mike Leigh has more of an interest in “kitchen-sink: realism, and mostly avoids allegories in relating tales of those that became downtrodden under the wrath of the Iron Lady. It becomes readily apparent that Johnny is a victim of circumstances, as his sloppy way of walking and musings with intellectualism hint that he likely has a social disorder. He’s a rather ugly looking man for sure, but the world around him isn’t any less wretched. Filmed in a grey-palette and occasionally using wobbly camera techniques, Naked is one of the few films to really understand the sickly and disorienting nature of urban life, but is it a reflection of Johnny’s frame of mind or vice-versa?

Naked proved to be quite a success for Mike Leigh as it won him the best director awards at Cannes, and has continued to be seen as a highlight in his filmography. Today though, it’s easy to forget that the film was quite a departure for British director Mike Leigh at the time of it’s release. While the filmmaker had been known for making film’s that were both political and modest, there were overt comedic elements to films like Life is Sweet and High Hopes that seem to have all been wiped out for this one. Still, Leigh’s experience with comedy actually does contribute to the film’s craft, as Naked actually does have a lot of improv in it. David Thewlis made up much of his character’s dialogue while doing rehearsals, and they were incorporated into the final script. It resulted in giving the film a very organic feel in terms of character interaction, and the scenes involving Johnny discussing his world views are fascinating. Johnny does show a human side to him as the film goes on, and it’s hard not to admire his philosophies, even if they can come off as naive. Even those that have no interest on England’s Thatcher years should be able to unearth some telling information about the paranoia and fear that social outsiders hold in contemporary society. It wouldn’t be right to call Naked a dark comedy, but it’s not without it’s moments of levity.

Naked is certainly aptly titled, as it’s the justification for the brutality we see on screen. Stripped of morals, honor, class and hope, we witness these characters at their most bare, yet also question how far away our own lifestyles might be from there’s. It’s as harsh and unpleasant a film as it ever was, even twenty years later when graphic content has become more common in mainstream films. Still it’s undeniably potent, and a film that all appreciators of arthouse cinema should see. After viewing this, however, you might need to settle down with something a lot lighter. Fortunately, Mike Leigh’s more recent film Happy-Go-Lucky, a complete 180 from Naked, is a joy to watch and also readily available for streaming on Netflix.

Did you catch Seven Psychopaths last October? …yeah, didn’t think so. Martin McDonagh’s latest film certainly made back it’s modest budget of 15 million dollars, and received plenty of solid reviews, but it certainly wasn’t the talk of the cinema landscape. As a self-proclaimed film critic, I have to say that Seven Psychopaths holds a unique distinction for me, as it was the single film of 2012 that I had the most mixed feelings towards. With the film arriving on DVD and Blu-Ray today, here’s why I feel you might want to catch/skip this underrated/overrated crime comedy.

In describing the plot, it’s best to put it like this: It’s a cross between Adaptation and Pulp Fiction. Like the former of those two films, writer/director Martin McDonagh basically writes himself into the film as a fictionalized version of himself (played by Colin Farrell), who is a struggling Hollywood writer trying to complete a screenplay. He’s having writer’s block with his latest screenplay entitled Seven Psychopaths (The film is very self-referential if you haven’t noticed), and idles his time drinking and hanging out with his jerk-ass friend Billy Buckle (Sam Rockwell). The film’s action kicks in when Billy and his accomplice Hans (Christopher Walken) steal the dog of a cartoonishly insane gangster (Woody Harrelson), and Marty finds himself drawn into their hijinks. Throughout the film, we uncover the “psychopaths” that give Marty’s screenplay its inspiration.

For the uninformed, Martin McDonagh is a rather distinguised writer for both theater and film. The 42-year old McDonagh (a dual citizen of both England and Ireland) spent much of his 20s and 30s creating acclaimed plays such as The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Cripple of Inishmaan, before deciding to turn his attention to making movies. In 2004 he wrote and directed a short film called Six Shooter which turned out to he a hell of a debut, as it won the 2005 Academy Award for best short film. His first feature film, In Bruges, came out in 2008 and proved to be a well liked dark comedy, and seemingly a sign of an illustrious film career to follow.

Seven Psychopaths is easily his most mainstream work to date, but his sense of black humor isn’t hampered too much by the commercial leanings. Filled with clever fuck-laced dialogue, parodic gangster tropes, and so-bloody-it’s-fun violence, Seven Psychopaths easily finds it’s place amongst other post-Tarantino crime films. It’s clearly not anything new, but that doesn’t keep the movie from being any less watchable. McDonagh certainly proves to be an actor’s director here, as the entire cast shines. The characters are all as playful as they are violent, which is certainly what the film’s tone is going for. Granted, the film is undeniably random and messy throughout, but the acting and scenarios are so creative that Seven Psychopaths remains highly enjoyable for 80 out of it’s 109 minutes.

…Then the final act happens and boy does it disappoint! The film’s creativity seems to suddenly dissipate, and we’re left with a half-assed shoot-out to climax the film. What’s worse, the “pivotal” moments that follow fall flat as well, and the writing just comes off as lazy. Granted, the film visually peaks in a scene that precedes the climax, but it’s still hard not to feel that the end is a bit of a cop-out. Seven Psychopaths needed to have a really crazy yet sublime ending, that would of made up for the film’s random nature, and nicely delivered its message on the arduous process of writing and re-writing a film script. Instead, what ever McDonagh was trying to say goes right out the window through a cliche-heavy ending that truly lacks spark.

So critics were right to call Seven Psychopaths a fun film (at least for the first two-thirds), but it ultimately fails as a commentary on screenplay writing. Certainly worth a view, especially if you love crime movies, but to be honest it’s difficult for me to recommend this film to very many people. It’s possibly too slow for the action movie crowd, and arthouse audiences are likely to find it too flawed or over-the-top to be worth the price of admission. For that reason…I’m gonna have to recommend that you go see In Bruges instead.

Netflix’d: Naked

Seven Psychopaths: Why Martin McDonagh’s Crime Comedy is Worth a View, but Not a Purchase.

cinema

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