Film
Teenagers, eh? With their crazy clothes and their pretentious ideas about outsidership and their lack of moral fibre. Aren't they a scream?
Well, actually, no, they're not. In fact, they're quite dull. Throwing up at illicit parties, stressing about unresponsive boys and eagerly planning a life away from those killjoy parents (they're just so, like, authoritarian, man) is great when you're fifteen. But by the time we hit the big two-oh, most of us have realised that dying our hair green isn't going to bring down capitalism. We've also got wise to the fact that that the best thing to do where the big, bad outside world of jobs and money is concerned is to ignore it as far as is possible, and avoid management consultancy at all costs.
So Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World, a film that screams "target audience: middle-income 18-25" so loudly that you want to go home and listen to classic FM, runs into some rather major difficulties fairly quickly. The big idea is that we'll identify right away with Enid (Thora Birch), the film's insecure protagonist. We'll then wait with breath baited as she tackles the thorny issues of growing up in a world that just doesn't understand her; Where to live? What to study? Which chunky jock to date? It's unfortunate, then, that we have no desire to be reminded of what whiny, self-obsessed shits we once were. Who cares where Enid lives, when the choice is between a ridiculously airy apartment with her best friend in suburbia on the one hand, and her spacious family home along with her well-meaning dad and his friendly fiancé on the other? What is it to us whether she trots off to college or gets a job in Starbucks? Why should we be interested in who she chooses to shag?
This isn't to claim, of course, that a film can't work on this sort of microcosmic level. American Beauty and Magnolia both managed to universalise the concerns of their white, middle-class protagonists, and make worthwhile points about the nature of suburban life. Ghost World, however, prefers to abandon what made these two films work (namely sharp characterisation and self-deprecating humour) and instead ram down our throats the fact that every decision Enid makes is, like, really important, y'know? Trying and failing to be a Catcher in the Rye for the millennium, the film tries to present each bout of angsty indecision as both a political statement, and also a tragic reminder of how individuality can be devalued and crushed. There's plenty of easy laughs at the expense of the art establishment (because that's not been done before) and lots of jokes about trendy lefties with all their irrelevant book-learnin'. But what there isn't is an awareness of the narrowness of the protagonist's perspective, or any sense that the confusion she's feeling won't last forever.
Neither is this gut-wrenching earnestness redeemed by finesse; in fact, so sloppy is the plotting that you feel at times like you're watching someone's Media Studies homework. Lonely hermit Seymour (made the most of admirably by Steve Buscemi) looks to the uninitiated like a dreadful warning of how banal real life actually is. He works in the head office of a fast food chain, collects comics and isn't very good with the ladies. But the plot requires us to see him as some kind of redeeming force, and accept that Enid would rather jump into bed with this saggy specimen than give things a try with the yummy Josh. The only consolation is that there's worse to come: this incoherence pales into insignificance when compared to the film's ending. Corny enough to make you want to mug a granny and use the money to buy crack, this truly dire bit of filmmaking neatly solves all Enid's dilemmas by invoking that classic plot device, the bus that doesn't really exist. Clearly intended to inject the film with a sense of wonder at the workings of the universe, it succeeds only in making us feel patronised and slightly nauseous.
A redeeming feature (make the most of it, there aren't many) is the honest eye the film casts over the suburban landscape. The usual aerial shots of clean streets and boxy houses are replaced by a mish-mash of dingy restaurants and billboards, graffiti and dusty sidewalks. Refreshing though this is, however, its scope is narrowed by the naiveté of the plot. And after an hour-and-a-half of self-obsessed navel gazing, the thought of Gwyneth Paltrow and Richard Gere tripping through a cornfield in Tuscany threading flowers through each other's hair seems positively appealing.
As much fun as getting your ears pierced and about as subversive, Ghost World will doubtless be hailed as a classic by those who have read the cult comic upon which it is based. To the rest of us, however, it looks suspiciously like an unsophisticated attempt to get troubled indie kids to part with their cash. Get your teengae kicks elsewhere.
Heleina Postings
Words are lies' says Asami, 'Only pain is truth'. Indeed, the torture scene which forms the climax to Audition's story is perhaps one of the less hallucinatory in a haunting movie which initially has a very linear structure before becoming a melee of flashbacks, alternative scenes and dream sequences. In terms of plot, too, duplicity is the order of the day: Aoyama, a middle-aged salaryman holds an audition, ostensibly to find an actress, in an elaborate yet pragmatic scheme to find a 'charming and obedient' wife. Asami, an applicant with whom he rapidly becomes obsessed, lies about her past in order to appear as the archetypal innocent Japanese girl. She is beautiful, superficially meek and charming, dressed always in white, her back towards the camera for much of the scene in which we are introduced to her. Her lies are far darker than his, however, and she emerges as calculating, psychopathic, and vengeful of auditions of another kind when she was a young ballet dancer.
As this suggests, Audition is a film about submissiveness and dominance of the sexes: While we are informed that one of Asami's victims was a female figure of authority, the most indelible image we are given is that of a brutally mutilated man eating from a dog's food dish. Asami's motivation is the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a man; her rationale, she eventually explains, is that men cannot be singularly devoted, and instead always tell lies. The role of subservient acceptance that Asami refuses to assume is echoed disturbingly throughout by the other female characters: The girls at the audition, which is presided over by two men, are treated as objects, and are viewed in terms of their relationships with men. At the beginning, Aoyama draws parallels between fishing and finding the 'perfect catch'. The female office worker who has 'lost her tongue' and cannot tell the truth, can, with macabre irony, be related to Asami's literal removal of her victims' tongues.
Asami is, of course, a subversion of the putative ideal bride, and can be thought of as the personification of an envisioned backlash against the patriarchy and chauvinism hinted at, but not explored, throughout the earlier scenes. Crucially, however, she is not a heroine: her application for the part of 'tomorrow's heroine' is heavy with irony. Rather than a genial and innocent girl, she's a brooding figure hunched amid the darkness of her room beside the telephone. She expresses of traits associated with the irrationally obsessive woman desperate for love, and has no qualms about using her sexuality as a manipulative tool: Asami is personification of a modern-day succubus to be feared by men, rather than a heroine of any sort. The fear she evokes is extended to the sexual act itself: Not only are sexual images interspersed with extremely gruesome and disturbing ones, but the torture scene has overt sexual overtones ('deeper, deeper'; her shrieks of delight; the image of the needle of the syringe).
The climatic torture scene is, as this might suggest, painful viewing, and in this way, the audience's empathy with the victim is sealed. Hitherto, Aoyama has been depicted as a loving father, and a contemplative, lonely widower, who approaches finding a new wife with a comic and affable ineptitude. It was not he who initiated the audition and his main goal was always to find love, rather than just a sexual partner (it is she who seduces him). No member of the audience would consider his punishment justifiable. Ultimately, therefore, the perspective is that of the man, and the audience cannot help but hate the deceitful yet seductive, cruel yet beautiful female character.
Perhaps the greatest recommendation of the film is the fact that this review was born from a need to get some persistent thoughts onto paper. It is perhaps difficult for a foreign viewer to distinguish intentional examples of patriarchy and praxis, yet as the credits roll, there are no illusions: for the director, Takashi Miike, the struggle for power between the sexes in Japan is a loaded issue fraught with so much emotion that it warrants such a grotesque metaphor. But because of the direction of the audience's sympathy, it is difficult to argue that the movie is a deconstruction of misogyny, rather than simply an unpleasant reflection of it. Audition contains no positive message; like Asami herself, it appears innocuous, yet it has a dark heart. Disturbing, but not for the right reasons.
Arthur Smyth
What do you mean, you thought that was it? You didn't think we'd abandon you just because term was over, did you? You did? Well, you were wrong. Don't be depressed about being stuck in suburbia with only a vac essay for company for six weeks; go see a film. You know it makes sense.
Committed Tolkeinites who stay up late into the night poring over maps of middle earth are in a frenzy of expectation about this big-budget, FX-laden treatment of the trilogy's first instalment In fact, so high is the level of anticipation surrounding this that you're allowed to be excited about this even if you (gasp) haven't read the book. Featuring such luminaries as Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler, this is essential viewing for anyone who fancies a bit of good old-fashioned escapism, and is sick to the back teeth of damn Harry Potter.
As if the original wasn't harrowing enough, this reissue of the Francis Ford Coppolla classic features over fifty minutes of previously unseen material, all of it, presumably, exploring man's inhumanity to man and detailing our inability to exercise power ethically. Mmm, topical. Promises more panoramic views, more Marlon Brando, and more in-jokes for fans to obsess about. Lovely.
From the studio that brought you Toy Story, this film about big scary monsters that are allergic to ickle kiddies is possibly your best chance of regressing to happy kid-dom this Christmas. Aside from stealing you little brother's Lego Hogwarts, that is. Expect plenty of slick animation, dollops of slush and a feel-good factor off the scale.
22nd Nov 2001