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Hanna - Movie Review
Grade: B
With the fast-paced action flick Hanna, director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) strays away from the emotional dramatic genre where he undoubtedly thrives in. But without losing his art film credentials, Wright crafts an action film that attempts to merge both elements of blockbuster and art. From the Nouvelle Vague-esque title opener, it is obvious that Hanna strives to be something special, a stepping stone into making the half-hearted genre of blockbusters, into true cinema.
Hanna revolves on an unraveling plot that relies on the vagueness of its background information. Spending her entire childhood in a remote forest in Europe, Hanna is trained by her father, rouge CIA agent Erik (Era Bana), for an implicit task that lays in the mystery of the story. From her training scenes with Erik, displaying Hanna’s super strength and intelligence, we can see that she is no ordinary adolescent. The film’s movement commences when Hanna feels she is ready to take on her task, purposely igniting a signal intercepted by the malicious CIA operative Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett). This signal ends up starting a chase that essentially becomes the basis of the film.
Hanna displays an unbridled amount of originality hardly projected to a mainstream audience. Wright shows his versatile directing ability, displaying his skill in creating cinematic value in an otherwise quality-dying genre. With a commendable screenplay (written by Seth Lockhead and David Farr), a modern Chemical Brothers score, and top notch editing, Hanna is able to encapsulate a stylistic feel usually not seen in big budget films. The action is consistent and at times suspenseful, and the cast’s praiseworthy performances are able to balance elements of violence and emotion. But while Hanna succeeds in creating the feeling of an art film, it ends up trying too hard and feeling too excessive, with moments that display unnecessary moments of style. As a result, the novelty loses its steam, making the conclusion feeling somewhat anticlimactic. But overall, even with its excessive endeavor, Hanna is an exuberant original experience that admirably breaks the recent pattern of senseless action films. Grade: B
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Rabbit Hole - Movie Review
Grade: C
Director David Lindsay-Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole is an example of poetry in action. To further this analogy, the film conveys the reality of emotion and heartbreak in a manner that is both abstract and relatable. While this emotion surely resonates from the stellar performance by Nicole Kidman, there is an utter lack of inspiration or purpose to give the film any sort of a compelling aspect.
Rabbit Hole is the film adaption of David Lindsay-Abaire’s play depicting the lives of two parents (Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart) who have recently lost their 4-year-old child. While the premise is overly simple, it is brought to life by the emotional realism of Kidman’s performance. In perhaps her in one of her greatest portrayals, Kidman is able to personify agony through the subtlety and constraint of her performance. The actress does an impeccable job of employing emotional restraint within her character resulting in the heartbreak and pathos within the film’s grim material. This performance will clearly be overshadowed by Natalie Portman’s effort in Black Swan, but Kidman’s performance is perhaps even more complex in the fashion where she controls her character. Acknowledging the effort of the ensemble as a whole, Eckhart compliments Kidman’s acting, but it is obvious that the film’s core lays in his counterpart.
Along with Nicole Kidman’s amazing performance, the writing adapted from Lindsay-Abaire’s play finely illustrates the picture of the pain expressed by two parents. The realism of the writing prevents Rabbit Hole from becoming merely melodrama lost in the absence of plot direction. So while the realism is defined, the purpose of this aspect is absent. Rabbit Hole places heavy emotion within its audience, but it ultimately just leaves it in an unchanged manner throughout the film. While it can be seen as simply a social illustration of coping with death, it never really has any purpose. The film does not really give hope nor a conclusion of despair. Overall, Rabbit Hole is a marvelous and well-acted portrayal of a common human emotion of despair, but that is in all actuality the sole definition of the film; Resulting in a film that seems somewhat rewarding but wholeheartedly empty. Grade: C
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Black Swan - Movie Review
GRADE: C+
Coming from a successful award circuit with The Wrestler - which consequently restarted Mickey Rourke’s acting career - director Darren Aronofsky returns with the ballet-based psychological thriller Black Swan. Following in the footsteps of Aronofsky’s previous films (Pi, Requiem For A Dream), Black Swan is a dark psychological nightmare with disturbing cinematography that freely crawls underneath the skin of its audience. In his newest venture, it seems as if Aronofsky took stylistic notes from Jean-Luc Godard and at the same time attempted to make a vague statement. Essentially, Black Swan is a film that has too much style and pretentiousness rather than its implied substance.
Like The Wrestler, Black Swan converges most of its attention onto a single character. Natalie Portman strays from her archetypal roles and impeccably plays the innocent character of Nina; an aspiring ballerina who receives the star role of the “Swan Queen” in an upcoming rendition of Swan Lake. The production of Swan Lake requires the queen to play the innocent White Swan and the provocative Black Swan. Primarily, the film focuses on Portman’s conservative character, who must under pressure, contrastingly channel her inner malevolence to “perfectly” perform her role. Portman IS the highlight of this film. Like with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Portman defines herself as an actress in this film. Although it takes an excessive amount of time to buildup to Nina’s breakdown, the final half of Portman’s performance is flawless. The spectrum of emotion and insanity she displays is so real, she has truly locked the “best actress” category for the upcoming award season.
While Portman’s performance is flawless, this brings to question the real point of the film. Aronofsky places symbolism in the film that is vague and at the same time obvious. With different scenes of shocking imagery such as the sensual scene between Kunis and Portman, it is really difficult to grasp why the film possesses such figurative scenes. There are various points of blatant symbolism, giving the impression that the film attempts to be deep. An exemplification of this complaint is the non-stop sensuality seen in the film. I acknowledge that it is to bring out Portman’s immorality and show the effects of a disturbed artist, but there is just so much that it overshadows the brilliance of the film. There are too many figurative aspects in Black Swan. That is where the film loses substance, it tries to be cerebrally abstract even when it is not. The film really should have focused on Portman’s mental breakdown rather than employing figurative imagery.
Even though the film’s “figurative” impression refrains itself from being a masterpiece, Black Swan is one of the better technical films that 2010 offers. Set aside the excessive focus on deepness, Aronofsky’s film is visually gorgeous and its intensity immense. The visual imagery is the disturbing essence that you expect from the director. It digs into your emotions, and it stays there throughout the movie. Black Swan is gritty and raw, and the usage of handheld filming is subtle yet effective (unlike movies like Hancock, which uses it in an irrelevant fashion).
Overall, Black Swan is a visually striking film and a unique one at that. Black Swan disturbs, but that sadly is solely what drives the film as a whole. Arronofsky attempts to place an nonexistent underlining meaning that tries to intertwine itself with an arthouse feel. It can essentially be seen as a pretentious failure in an attempt at that genre, but hopefully audiences will just ignore the film’s senseless statement. Grade: C+
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