The Hurt Locker (2009)

Here's a film I've been meaning to see since about November that I just today finally got around to seeing. Unfortunately, the quality of the film did not correspond too well with my desire to see it. Hurt Locker is far from a bad movie, but it's also not at risk of being a masterpiece.

If I could describe Hurt Locker in as few words as possible, I would just call it a fantastic war movie. However, that's much different than calling it a fantastic movie. Apocalypse Now! is a movie set during a war, but I would never think of it as a war movie, because the inner struggles of the lead characters are so much more important than the actual war story. Same goes for a movie like The Thin Red Line or Rescue Dawn.

That isn't the case with Hurt Locker. The characters are all pretty well rounded, but almost all of the character development is saved until about the last half hour when all the characters have to suddenly come to terms with various issues. When resolution for the lead character finally comes, it's delivered in an unfortunately heavy handed speech to an infant while holding a jack-in-the-box. Best Picture material, naturally.

So, war movie. Under this criterion, the film shines gloriously. The audience never has to deal with dull generals, no scenes depict officials trying to create the perfect plan to defeat the enemy, nothing of that sort occurs. Instead, there is the simple concept that everyday brings new challenges, and in war, this means life or death. That makes the movie tense, as it often is. The movie follows a unit that neutralizes bombs (which the opposing forces seem all too willing to take their time in detonating).

I don't really know much about Kathryn Bigelow, but her direction here is pretty top notch (a quick glance at Wikipedia informs me that 1) she directed that surfer movie with Keanue Reaves, and 2) she was married to James Cameron, no doubt 2 mistakes). The cinematography is really quite excellent, and even the firefight scenes aren't especially dull thanks to the camera work.

As a film, I have no real complaints about The Hurt Locker. It's not a bad movie. I would even call it a good movie, but nothing more. It's not incredibly unique in its approach, but at least it isn't entirely riddled with cliche. Also, any movie that takes awards away from Avatar is fine by me. I think it fails in its lofty attempts to be a brainy war flick, but succeeds in separating itself from the glut of action heavy war movies. I would put it on par with a movie like Jarhead, which I actually thought was surprisingly good.

Das weiße Band (The White Ribbon) (2009)

Michael Haneke, to put it lightly, is difficult. His newest feature, (which unfortunately just came to Eugene this week) Das weiße Band, 2009 Golden Palm winner at Cannes, is no exception. The only way I know how to describe it is imagining Bela Tarr had directed Haneke's earlier film Cache, which made a surprising number of best films of the 00's lists.

The film moves at a very deliberate pace, yet never fails to engage. All the characters are fully developed. The dialogue is natural. The acting is tremendous, especially considering the extensive use of child actors in key roles.

It's the last point that I find most entrancing about the film (other than the spectacular camera work, a strong point in any Haneke film). The ensemble cast consists of a large number of children, and their acting generally outshines all but a few of their adult counterparts. Interestingly, the intrigue of the ability of these child actors is reflected in the perplexing narrative, which remains up for interpretation, as is generally the case in Haneke's films.

The movie itself tells the tale of a small German town on the eve of the first world war (a fact that's never really made clear until a character learns of Ferdinand's assassination about 2/3 of the way into the movie). In the town, a number of unexplained accidents happen, and the locals are terrified.

The viewer is left with nothing with questions by the end of the film. Like other Haneke films, the ultimate question is whether or not the questions the audience likely leaves with matter in the first place (I'm being intentionally vague in this review so as not to spoil anything). By not bringing reconciliation in an expected way, Haneke is really attacking the very cinematic idea of closure.

Haneke is a master filmmaker, and this is him at his finest. I'm not going to suggest that I was utterly blown away by the time the credits ran, but this movie really was next to perfect. From the preview, this made me think it would be something like The Village, without being awful. And in actuality, that's kind of what it was. Haneke presents the same kind of small village paranoia in a subtle way incomprehensible in mainstream American film as of late.

Given how incredibly excellent this film was (though, ultimately, I don't think it unseated Antichrist as my favorite film of 2009), I'm really excited to see El secreto de sus ojos, which nabbed the Oscar for best foreign language film this year (at which point I turned off the TV to avoid having to look at James Cameron anymore).