April 2015 – Consumed By Film

Director: Ruben Östlund

Release Date: April 10th, 2015 (UK)

Genre: Drama

Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli

As far as family vacations go, this is one for the ‘iffy’ pile. Force Majeure unfurls a day-by-day account of a couple’s wintry retreat to the French Alps where, as it turns out, avalanches are the least of their worries. We join Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) as they ski with their two children atop vast snow ranges, surrounded by ominous looking mountains. An eerie atmosphere driven by the mechanical squawks of equipment dominates early, but it soon becomes clear that there isn’t anything conventionally disconcerting going on here.

The titular “superior force” indeed exists, but not exactly in the way you would think. Director Ruben Östlund delivers a bait-and-switch disaster piece, one entirely without action and instead built upon the perceived consequences of disaster. Had the Swede focused primarily on the drama element, Force Majeure would almost certainly be one of the year’s most suspenseful and unnerving films (it still manages to be both of those, to a lesser degree).

After a seemingly enjoyable first day, our spotlighted family sit down with other holiday-makers to enjoy an outdoor lunch. An innocuous explosion unsettles everyone and, despite Tomas’ insistence that nobody is in danger, mounds of snow begin pillaging towards the restaurant. The scene is intense, but it is the characters’ instinctive reactions to potential fatality that provides the pivot from which Östlund’s parable spins.

What we end up with thereafter is a sniping ninety minute liquidation of family life and patriarchal values, completely fuelled by this avalanche experience. It becomes an anecdotal reference point, recounted particularly by Ebba in awkward situations. Through her increasingly disturbed exterior, Lisa Loven Kongsli manages to rekindle much of the earlier scene’s tension when conversing with others. The topic is somewhat over-egged by the end of a discussion between Ebba, Tomas and two acquaintances (one of whom is Game of Thrones’ Kristofer Hivju, he in a somewhat familiar setting). It’s an unnecessarily long sequence that, resultantly, veers close to overdoing Östlund’s message. “I can’t take this seriously anymore, we’ve been going on for hours,” says one of the party. Touché.

The characters themselves are quite annoying, but they’re meant to be. Nobody exits with an outright air of self-preservation, though Ebba is clearly supposed to garner the most sympathy. Tomas, played well by Johannes Bah Kuhnke, manoeuvres from an apparently unfocused husband to a crumbling mess. Bearing tonal continuity, the various characters niggle away under your skin with the same irritation as the events unfolding around them. Wisely, screen time for the children is kept to a minimum.

Alongside this overtly sombre underbelly, Östlund opts to incorporate a satirical layer that serves only to butt helmets with the aforementioned seriousness. If you can forgive a wintry gag: it’s as if the director is trying to put on a pair of skis when he’s already wearing snowboard boots. The nudging comedy isn’t nearly as effective, instead often awkward and confused — an outpouring of emotion from Tomas seems like something that should be taken seriously, but the prevailing attempt at satire renders it somewhat amusing.

Force Majeure wanders into a tonal snowstorm on occasion: is it meant to be piercing and tough, or self-aware and playful? The accompanying subtitles are funnier than most of the attempts at humour, which is a blessing in disguise (though ultimately damning). It is worth noting a crowd-gathered-around-a-mobile scene that does successfully evade the tonal ambivalence, generating a chuckle or two.

In an attempt to bridge this gap between witty satire and ponderous drama, the film succumbs to some heavy-handed storytelling — a conversation between Ebba and her frivolous friend about the pros of an open relationship is too coincidental, then ends up going nowhere anyway. This clumsiness reaches a crescendo during the concluding moments, presenting an ending that is ridiculously on-the-nose. Any tonal reservations notwithstanding, Östlund shows throughout that he is a smart writer with interesting ideas related to perceived societal norms. Why the filmmaker choose to pen such a careless finale is baffling, as it completely undermines much of dramatic effect laid out in earlier scenes.

There is no disputing Fredrik Wenzel’s brilliantly engrossing cinematography, nor the equally impressive sound design. A sense of discomfort and discombobulation gradually grows from elements such as worrisome wooden creaks and an odd sci-fi night-scape. A Clockwork Orange is the obvious musical touchstone and Wenzel’s patient, scoping shots are certainly Kubrickian, though whether the famous director’s influence goes beyond style is up for debate.

Force Majeure is an intriguing film, perhaps on the cusp of something really biting. However, its tonal imbalance distracts a great deal from the thought-provoking drama on display. Anything the film might say about parenting, peer trust, and human instinct is left frozen by an oddly misfired ending. Much like Tomas, it seems Östlund shouldn’t have let his guard down.

Images credit: IMP Awards, Collider

Images copyright (©): TriArt Film

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Release Date: March 6th, 2015 (UK and US)

Genre: Action; Science-fiction; Thriller

Starring: Shartlo Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman

As Chappie gets under way atop a wave of rolling news clips and documentary-style snippets, there’s a vague familiarity in the air. We soon meet Dean (Dev Patel), a quirky and smart employee, and shortly thereafter encounter the film’s titular robot (Sharlto Copley). The two become entrenched in a rebellion against corporate injustice, where agendas are warped by power and economics. There is a CEO overlord (Sigourney Weaver) with iffy morals and a brash militant understudy (Hugh Jackman) with iffier intentions, and it doesn’t take long for our artificially intelligent robot to intertwine with humanity’s complexities.

If you can hear any bells ringing in your mind at this point, it is because Chappie is another Neill Blomkamp film wrapped up in the woes of society and class and science. It’s District 9. It’s even sort of Elysium. The thematic content isn’t bad at all — the director has proven in the past that exploring societal issues can be a rewarding experience. Rather, Blomkamp’s third film struggles because it doesn’t differentiate itself from his previous two.

Nor does Chappie click tonally. We’re in a constant kinetic flux, the tone jumbled and jumping around too much, a problem embodied by our central machine who manifests as a bubbly toddler one minute and a gun-wielding lunatic the next. The robot doesn’t garner enough empathy to start with because he (it’s male, apparently) has never been a human. But the disconnect is ultimately established due to Chappie’s lack of identity. A human character can get away with this lack of identification because we can relate to a person more than a robot. It is possible for an AI character to do the same — Alicia Vikander manages without personality in Ex Machina — but not in this instance. Chappie, voiced fairly well by Sharlto Copley, is at his most engaging when he’s acting up; a car-jacking scene is one of the film’s few brilliant moments, almost as culturally reflective as it is hilarious.

Generally though, the bits and pieces that make up the film are all a bit weird. As former soldier Vincent, Hugh Jackman (despite being an entertaining watch) looks like he is about to film a Steve Irwin biopic. The South African duo, a musical group known as Die Antwoord, don’t fit into the gritty urbanised world. They belong in a Tim Burton fantasy adventure, though on the basis of their performances here, that won’t be happening any time soon. For some reason, Sigourney Weaver — who will be teaming up with Blomkamp again for his upcoming Alien revival — is underused as a plain company figurehead.

On the more reality-mirroring side of things, we see capitalist manipulation: “It’s expensive, it’s big and it’s ugly,” is the reply Vincent receives as he tries to sell army-ready machines to the army (we’re subsequently left to wonder why money isn’t being thrown at him). A thematic favourite of Blomkamp, machine intelligence versus human ideology, fuels an underbelly that is certainly justified given the postmodern technological surroundings, yet never really amounts to much. Had they not been made in such close proximity to one another, you would be forgiven for thinking the folks behind Chappie were privy to Wally Pfister’s Transcendence in relation to ideas on concluding. Despite that movie’s many shortcomings, it is actually better and more accomplished than Chappie.

On an aesthetic front, the post-industrial setting is a good one, however instead of being a vehicle for entrapment, the relentlessly murky and dank atmosphere quickly becomes a trend-setter for the bland story unfolding (pathetic fallacy gone wrong). There are some impressive slow motion shots employed during the action sequences that reverberate well with the film’s technological arc. In fact, Trent Opaloch’s cinematography is a success — in purely visual terms the film does its job. Opaloch worked on Blomkamp’s previous two outings as well as The Winter Soldier, and his notable efforts have earned him a spot on the next Captain America film too.

Unfortunately, the visual aspect can’t quite rescue Chappie from a messy final third. The film slowly saunters along towards a fairly energetic conclusion but by then we’re sitting wondering why we should care. There are so many different parties involved in the action at the end that it feels like the battle of the five armies all over again. In screenplay terms, this wholly contrived finale is just about the final nail in a coffin of banality and nonsensicalness.

Chappie isn’t a bad film, but at some point Blomkamp needs to change things up or else risk artistic homogenisation. He is obviously a talented filmmaker; the simple fact that his films have something pertinent to say about how we live, have lived and might live is testament to his skill level. But after two solid outings, Chappie feels like a step backwards. It’s almost as if the director who once challenged the norm has conformed to it.