Photographic Memory (USA) (doc) Director Ross McElwee

Sixty five year old documentarian Ross McElwee brings his his latest effort, an examination of his relationship with his nineteen year old son Adrian, and a look back at some time he spent in France when he was around his son’s age. For the uninitiated, McElwee is a North Carolina native who has taught undergraduate film at Harvard University for many years. Films like Sherman’s March (1986); Time Indefinite (1993); and Bright Leaves (2003) have combined excerpts from the film-maker’s own life with various historical anecdotes (autobiographical and otherwise). For some the naval gazing may be too much, the stories too “small,” but for those who have followed his work, the film-maker’s search for identity and his curiosity about his relations/relationships are loaded with sociological insight with universal appeal and relevance. Photographic Memory begins with shots of the director interacting with his somewhat surly son, who is obsessed with his various technological gadgets. Because Adrian has appeared in several of McElwee’s previous documentaries, there is some context for us seeing the change in him McElwee describes, though the film shows us clips to reinforce the juxtaposition. Adrian is not sure what he wants to be (whether he even wants to attend college, etc.); he cuts school and stays out late drinking and smoking with friends. The director is worried about his son’s physical risk taking (he’s into extreme sports); substance use; and general disaffectedness, and seems befuddled as to how to deal with him. His confusion and feelings of helplessness lead the director to re-examine his own past, including the time he spent as a photographer’s assistant in Brittany. McElwee makes the trip the village where he lived above his mentor/boss’ photography studio and developed a relationship with a local girl, Maude, with whom he later lived and worked. As always, McElwee’s pace is leisurely; he is hardly after sensationalized subjects, and makes no attempt at grand pronouncement. He also does nothing to obscure the fact that we are experiencing stories filtered through his own, subjective view of the world, which is pretty much the point.

Starlet (USA) Directed by Sean Baker  Written by Sean Baker; Chris Bergoch  Starring Dree Hemingway; Besedka Johnson; James Ransone; Stella Maeve; Karren Karagulian; Asa Akira; Manuel Ferrera

Forty two year old Sean Baker’s low budget feature (his fourth) is an interesting look at a young porn actress Jane (Dree Hemingway) and her relationship with octogenarian Sadie (Besedka Johnson), a woman she meets after purchasing an antique thermos from her at a yard sale. Baker does well keeping a firm grasp over the minimalistic story, which could have easily devolved into cliche at any number of key moments. Instead, with an emphasis on atmosphere over plot, the writer/director resists the urge to go the obvious route and allows his characters the depth of multi-faceted human beings. He also successfully walks a fine tonal line by accurately depicting the porn world and resisting the tug to sanitize it or to apologize for or explain Jane’s choices; but he is also not invested in salaciously focusing on the sex itself. The one on set scene, while graphic (Hemingway had a stand-in) is well shot and matter-of-factly delivered; given just enough breadth and run time to make us buy it without feeling overly voyeuristic. Though first time actor Johnson’s performance is a bit uneven, she is aided by the young, model-esque Hemingway (real life working model daughter of Mariel; great-granddaughter of Ernest), who plays Jane with a flat affect worthy of a person dissociated from the uglier aspects of her life. James Ransone and Stella Maeve as Mikey and Melissa, the train-wreck couple with whom Jane shares an apartment in The Valley, and Karren Karagulian as Arash, her middle eastern porn producer boss, are standouts in a strong supporting cast that includes several real life porn actors who are actually used in bit parts to good effect.

Mud (USA) Directed by Jeff Nichols  Written by Jeff Nichols Starring Matthew McConaghy; Tye Sheridan; Jacob Lofland; Sarah Paulson; Reese Witherspoon;  MIchael Shannon; Ray Mackinnon; Joe Don Baker; Paul Sparks; Bonnie Sturdivant

Thirty four year old Arkansas native Jeff Nichols’ follow-up to his rightfully acclaimed 2011 film, Take Shelter, is a quasi-coming of age story about 14 year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his dealings with fugitive from justice Mud (Matthew McConaghy). Nichols’ third film (his first was 2007s Shotgun Stories) demonstrates continued steady-handedness and relatively artful navigation of tricky genre waters.

Nichols does well with the performances, particularly those of his young protagonist (Sheridan first appeared in Terrence Malick’s 2011 Tree of Life) and the actor playing his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland in his debut). Both young men overcome a few rough patches to give nicely lived in turns. In fact, Nichols’ casting is uniformly excellent, with key roles filled by veterans Reese Witherspoon (as Mud’s longtime love Juniper); Sarah Paulson (as Ellis’ mom Mary Lee); Ray Mackinnon (as Dad Senior); Sam Shephard (as mysterious older neighbor Tom); Michael Shannon (as Neckbone’s oyster diving uncle Galen); and Joe Don Baker (as villain King).

McConaghy continues his recent run of solid work (The Lincoln Lawyer; Bernie; Magic Mike; Killer Joe; The Paper Boy) and despite the locale actually manages to keep his shirt on for most of the film. He soft pedals the titular Mud with an understated approach, leaning only on some tattoos, a cracked front tooth, and a mop of disheveled hair to aid him in his portrayal of a locally raised killer on the run hiding out on a Mississippi River island with little more than the clothes on his back, a small boat, and a pistol. Getting actors like Shannon (who has now appeared in all three of Nichols’ features) and Witherspoon to sign on for smaller supporting spots is a coup in and of itself, and their abilities assist in imbuing the film with a weight it might otherwise have lacked.

The pace is langorous in places as Nichols traverses the path of a hybrid meditative coming-of-age tale (moments remind one of something like Stand by Me) with some crime/thriller elements. The alchemy is not completely successful as the character study is somewhat less than complete (it’s further muddied by essentially having two protagonists), and the thriller plot is not amped up enough to effectively qualify as such, but the film is still satisfyingly atmospheric, capturing the lifeblood of the region. Though not as magical or evocative as, say, Beasts of the Southern Wild, elements having to do with a dying way of life for the marginalized people residing on, and making a living from, the water, are nicely woven into the fabric of the piece. The financial struggles of the working class/working poor has emerged as a key theme in Nichols’ nascent career.

While the metaphors are a little too overtly placed, the dual love stories a little too neatly parallel, and the denouement overblown by a long shot, the true pleasure of Mud emerges in small moments of emotion that distinguish Nichols as one of the best young directors working in American cinema today.

To the Wonder (USA) Directed by Terrence Malick  Written by Terrence Malick  Starring Olga Kurylenko; Ben Affleck; Javier Bardem; Rachel McAdams; Tatiana Chiline; Romina Mondello; Charles Baker;

Reportedly based on personal experience, Terrence Malick’s elegiacal tone poem is a dreamily photographed (by the uber talented Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki) meditation on loneliness, connectivity, and romantic love. Freed from the constraints that normally dictate the general course for pretty much every other director working in mainstream American cinema, Malick is able to layer his impressionistic renderings with all the voice-over, classical music, and dialogue free imagery he pleases, employing his customary back-lit exteriors, low angles, and roving steadi-cam to evoke the beauty of wide landscapes, architectural design, elements of nature, erotic lovemaking, and human faces bathed in dappled shards of light streaming from the setting and rising sun.

With Malick doing present day for the first time, the film begins in Paris with the achingly lovely Marina (Olga Kurylenko) spending time with Neil (Ben Affleck). As Marina speaks in intermittent voice-over, enigmatically (and often simplistically) ruminating on the nature of love and their moments together, we observe the two as they spend time seeing the local sites (notably, the castle at Mont St. Michel), lying next to one another in loving embrace, laughing, running, and gazing into one another’s eyes. We soon meet Marina’s daughter Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline), who accompanies the couple on some of their excursions. Eventually, the nearly silent Neil asks Marina and Tatiana to return to his Oklahoma home with him.

In the United States, we immediately get more of the same types of visuals, save the different, rural landscape of the American west. Scene after scene of gorgeous, lovingly delivered moments consisting of the de facto family interacting with one another. But life soon begins to creep in, and so do the strip malls, cookie cutter suburban neighborhoods, and fast food restaurants (though Lubetzki and Malick still extract beauty) that help define the environs. There are almost no traditional scenes of full dialogue, but as Neil moves through his barely furnished home it becomes clear that he is less than satisfied with the arrangement. Eventually, Marina (who doesn’t work) and Tatiana (an outcast at school) too begin to feel the lacking of something deeper (from Neil/the situation), an emptiness that they can neither refute nor completely define, but one that infects the household.

The story widens as Marina and Tatiana exit and another beautiful woman, Jane (Rachel McAdams), a childhood friend of Neil’s who is also a single mother, enters into a sexual relationship with him. The time-line is not crystal clear, and we cannot definitively discern when this relationship is taking place (present? past?), but either way it is obvious that Neil has real difficulty connecting with others. Solipsistic and uneasy, he was/is either not in love with these two women and/or is overwhelmed by the existential angst enveloping him.

There is also a social realist/humanistic element added to the mix as Neil’s job involves inspecting work sites/testing chemicals in the land around the homes of some impoverished local residents, and we hear these people speak in bits and pieces about their health problems and living conditions. This is the same community that Catholic priest, Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), ministers to, and the connection between he, Marina, and Neil is strengthened slightly by the fact that the couple are both Catholics who attend his church (Marina also sees him for confession).

All of these lead characters are suffering from some sort of spiritual malaise, and in each case the problem has something to do with an inability to connect on a deep level. Neil seems to have serious issues with communication and intimacy; Marina has had trouble loving men who do not seem to return this love with equal intensity; Jane has been similarly let down in her relationships; and despite his obvious good deeds and intellectual wisdom, Father Quintana seeks a more palpable connection to the God he has devoted his life to.

Malick manipulates our sensory perceptions to assist in demonstrating how far removed his characters are from being truly, viscerally present in the day-to-day world. People speak to his lead characters, but their voices are muted. It is if his leads are perpetually floating, and therefore the sounds of other voices (the ones not in their heads) are drowned out by an overwhelming din of dread/anguish/self-involvement. Marina, Neil, Father Quintana, and Jane all seem to be the kind of people who are perpetually lost in thought, living inside their heads, and mired in a kind of philosophical quest to quench the emptiness and longing that plagues them.

Unfortunately, because all of the main characters experience the world in this way (keep in mind actors like Rachel Weisz; Jessica Chastain; Amanda Peet; Michael Sheen; and Barry Pepper were all exorcised from the final cut), the entire proceedings seem to be mired in a dreamworld and there is little to butt up against it - at least anything that pierces their individual haze. This lack of texture means that the film plays out without this way of existence being called into question or challenged in any real way, and whether intentional or not this has the effect of minimizing the others (the poor; the ugly; the elderly masses who rotate around them) as if they were not actual human beings. The only brief antidote to the thick fog of malaise comes from an overwritten speech by Marina’s friend Anna (Romina Mondello in a cameo) who forcefully argues against allowing the world to envelop you; insists Oklahoma is dead; and tries to convince Marina she needs to live in the moment, to be light, to do what makes her happy no matter what.

To the Wonder is a work of art, and while it is certainly more narrowly focused than Tree of Life, the films’ admittedly enticing opaqueness also assists in keeping it from greatness. Missing from the finished product are those scenes that might have penetrated our psyche in a deeper way and/or illuminated something revelatory about human nature. While the voice-over has it’s moments, too much of it feels trite, repetitive, and obvious. Malick is often content to let the images and sentence fragments stand on their own and does not feel particularly compelled to explain or allow us any further in by more deeply penetrating these individuals and their core relationships.

As much as he is a maker of narrative film, Malick is a poet, philosopher, and painter, and as such trades principally in metaphor and imagery, prompting us to bring our own life experiences to bear to connect the dots for ourselves. He is a singular talent with the ability to help redefine cinema, but as exquisite as this film is, in the world of narrative movie-making To the Wonder is like an undeniably great painting delivered by an artist who died before its completion.

The House I Live In (USA) Directed by Eugene Jarecki

Eugene Jarecki (Freakanomics; The Trials of Henry Kissinger) brings us a documentary examining America’s war against drugs. Using the family experience of his childhood nanny/domestic Nannie Jeter, Jarecki (perhaps not fully aware of the slicing irony involved in this connection) attempts (somewhat awkwardly) to add a quasi-personal element into the mix, weaving his tale of the history of drug enforcement and its overwhelmingly disparaging affect upon minorities and people of lower economic class. Ex-journalist/ author/TV producer David Simon (The Wire; Treme) offers an informed perspective, helping to ground the film, and Jarecki manages to present a wide array of profiled perspectives (including professors; drug cops; judges; attorneys; convicted dealers; inmates; prison employees, etc.) to highlight the folly of the demonizing of street narcotics and the economic machinations of the prison industrial complex. Mandatory minimum sentencing and the disparagement between punishment for certain kinds of drugs; warehousing of inmates; and the racial statistics involving offenders are looked at with a rational, though highly skeptical eyes. One of the ongoing challenges for any documentarian is to address trenchant, unpopular subject matter and distill it in such a way that it is palatable to a wide audience. Jarecki manages to break down the history of an escalating campaign against drug abusers and sellers and the attendant results it has had on our society. The study is an interesting one from a psychological perspective and speaks to the morays and fear-mongering that are so much a part of the national political landscape. The idea that what we are doing isn’t working is virtually unassailable. Detailed, tenable solutions to the very intricate social issues involved aren’t quite as readily accessible.

The Central Park Five (USA) (doc) Directed by Ken Burns; Sarah Burns

From Sarah Burns and her famed documentarian father Ken comes the well-modulated story of the five black and latino teenagers convicted of the April 1989 rape and assault of twenty eight year old, white investment banker, Trish Meili (left in a coma with one eye and no memory of the incident), who had been jogging in Central Park. After being brought to the police station and aggressively interrogated for long hours, given no food, told lies about the evidence, and continually promised that their cooperation would allow them to go home, Antron McCray; Kevin Richardson; Raymond Santana; and Kharey Wise all confessed to various levels of participation in the crime and implicated others whose names were fed to them (some of the five hardly knew one another) by signing a statement and repeating it in front of a video camera. Despite verbally going along with the police story after being told his fingerprints were found on the victim, Yusef Salaam refused to sign the confession or give it in front of a camera, but he was implicated by the others. Ranging from 14-16 years of age, the Harlem teenagers had been part of a large, loosely associated group of 25-30 teens causing trouble in the park that night, and all admitted being in the general area, though each of the five denied actually participating in several assaults, including the punching of a bike rider. Many of the young individuals who were part of the group that night were brought in and confessed to various levels of participation in the lesser crimes, but only five were charged with the more serious assault and rape. The publicity surrounding the case created a maelstrom in the city and the press released the names of juvenile offenders (which were supposed to have been protected) while withholding the name of the victim (she later wrote a memo, entitled I Am The Central Park Jogger). At two separate trials, all were eventually convicted despite the absence of a shred of physical evidence (and the existence of the DNA of an unidentified male found on the victim), and the fact that the taped confessions varied widely in literally every pertinent detail involving the crime. The film does not hold back in its indictments of the many who contributed to this miscarriage of justice, including weak, ineffectual parents and sub-par defense, but reserves its most pointed criticism for a lazy and seemingly racist police department; mayor (Koch); press; jury (of mixed race); and prosecutor’s office. While, incredibly, there was a serial rapist committing crimes in the exact area at that exact time, and one of the detectives involved actually worked both cases, this information was neither brought forth, nor was that rapist’s DNA tested to see if it was a match. In 2002, that same man, Matias Reyes, confessed to committing the rape by himself and his DNA matched the semen found on the scene. While the convictions were vacated, it was too late to reverse the fact that the five had served between six and thirteen years in prison, and (for the ones who had gotten out) upon release, were forced to register monthly as sex offenders. A shameful, appalling indictment of an entire system that is made all the worse by the fact that the city still refuses to compensate the men for the crimes it committed against them. Sarah Burns’ contribution is evident here as this is not a typical, sweeping historical Ken Burns project. It remains tightly concentrated on the story while still managing to pay heed to the pertinent peripheral aspects of the case.

The Place Beyond The Pines (USA) Directed by Derek Cianfrance Written by Derek Cinafrance; Ben Coccio; Darius Marder  Starring Ryan Gosling; Eva Mendes; Bradley Cooper; Ray Liotta; Rose Byrne; Ben Mendelson; Bruce Greenwood; Gabe Fazio; Dane Dehaan; Olga Merediz; Mahershala Ali; Robert Clohessy; Harris Yulin; Emory Cohen

Thirty seven year old co-writer/director Derek Cinafrance spent years trying to get his first feature, Blue Valentine, to come to fruition. His second took him a lot less time to make happen, but while it has its strengths, The Place Beyond the Pines suffers from monumental pacing/plot issues that serve to undercut the strong mis-en-scene from a director with a promising future in cinema.

While Blue Valentine was a tightly wound, plot-light story about a doomed relationship that employed a fractured time line; stunning cinematic visuals; and two incredible lead performances to create one of the finest debuts from a director in recent memory, Cianfrance’s sophomore effort reaches for far more and falls disappointingly short of the mark. Structurally, it’s essentially a three part, multi-generational story of two families that ultimately plays like three separate films crammed into one.

Initially, we get a promising study of the most interesting character in the film, the heavily tattooed carnival stunt motorcycle rider Luke Lanton (Ryan Gosling), who is approached after a show by diner waitress Romina (Eva Mendes), a woman he slept with during the previous year’s visit to Schenectady. Luke discovers Romina had gotten pregnant from their encounter and gave birth to his son Jason (Dane Dehaan as a teen) a few months previous; and despite the fact that she is ensconced in a seemingly happy live-in relationship with Kofi (Mahershala Ali), Romina leaves enough of a window open for Luke to decide to quit the carnival and make a home there. He befriends local garage owner Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), who turns him on to robbing banks, and thusly sets in motion a course of events that will have dire consequences for several families.

The second section involves the rookie beat cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who fatefully crosses (get it?) paths with Luke, and the impact this meeting has upon him and his family. The son of an ex judge (Harris Yulin), Avery has a law degree, a beautiful wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne), and a young son of his own, AJ (Emory Cohen as a teen). His story-line (which is literally like another, separate film), however, is beyond familiar, calling to mind countless recent dirty cop films set in New York (Pride and Glory; We Own the Night; The Son of No One) and elsewhere (The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call; Rampart), and eventually playing out with enough uncomfortable similarities to James Mangold’s Cop Land in particular that it would not be out of line to call it derivative. Ray Liotta’s presence as bad cop Deluca (in a role we’ve seen the actor play many times before) does Cianfrance no favors in differentiating between the two.

The third section jumps fifteen years ahead to the sons of Luke and Avery, Jason and AJ. At this point the film has slowed to a clunky crawl and so the entire third section/act feels anti-climactic. There are some potentially powerful ideas at work having to do with fathers and sons and the dysfunction and pain we pass on through generations, and others concerning the nature of fate and how decisions we make can have lasting and far reaching consequences upon on our own lives and on those of the people close to us, but the best elements of this section are buried in a morass of plot that feels like a strange hybrid of recent political thriller (Ides of March; The Contender) and troubled teenager drama (We Need to Talk About Kevin; Elephant).

Ex Faith No More frontman Mike Patton’s score (mixing popular (Springsteen; Hall and Oates; Bon Iver), classical, and original music) has its moments, though it also seems to be chasing this unwieldy tale, and ultimately tries to do too much. The visuals are excellent, with cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (Shame; Hunger; Everyday) replacing Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine DP Andrij Parejh, who reportedly dropped out because he dreamt he would die on set if he shot it. As it was, Bobbitt was injured while attempting to complete the opening steadicam shot that includes an intricate motorcycle stunt in a cage. Like nearly everything else in the film, however, all the nice camerawork and lighting gets covered up (or at least minimized) by a lack of narrowed focus.

Cianfrance is a gifted filmmaker who will hopefully go on to make a long list of beautiful and insightful films. The director has a nice touch with actors and elicits laudable performances from begining to end. But while the dialogue is authentic and fittingly terse, Cianfrance the screenwriter needed to spend significantly more time (beyond the 37 drafts of the script) with his co-writers Ben Coccio and Derek Marder fleshing out an overwritten, hubristic, poorly paced, and at times distressingly unoriginal plot.

Spring Breakers (USA) Directed by Harmony Korine Written by Harmony Korine  Starring James Franco; Selena Gomez; Vanessa Hudgens; Ashley Benson; Rachel Korine; Gucci Mane;

Thirty nine year old Harmony Korine (Gummo; Julien Donkey Boy; Mister Lonely; Trash Humpers) has been oft labeled the enfant terrible of American cinema. While that moniker probably no longer applies, he has remained a provocateur since writing the script for the controversial film Kids (1995).

In the intervening 17 oddd years, he has, along with shooting numerous short films and music videos (Sonic Youth; The Black Keys); writing another script for Kids director Larry Clarke (Ken Park); displaying his photography; and writing books (A Crack up at the Race Riots), made a handful of what could only be termed avante garde features. These have varied in quality, budget, and scope, but at least owe their sensibilities to some recognizable roots in transgressive and European art cinema. It is no mistake that Korine has, in the past, collaborated with the likes of Werner Herzog and Leos Carax, fellow filmmakers who have also been labeled as outsiders and odd ducks by some in the press.

Spring Breakers is right there with Korine’s other highest budgeted film (Mister Lonely), but it is his most commercial by a longshot. Not only does he have the ubiquitous James Franco (Alien) as his male lead, he also features ex Disney stars Selena Gomez (Faith); Ashley Benson (Brit); and Vanessa Hudgens (Candy), who partner with Korine’s wife Rachel (Cotty) to make-up the female college student foursome (Emma Watson was originally slated for the Benson role) who first pull a robbery to finance their spring break, and then get caught up in worse while on it. Clad mostly in colorful (usually matching) skimpy bikinis (and sometimes baclavas), their very presence ensured a certain audience consisting of their fans and anyone who might want to see a few of these previously virginal (at least on screen) princesses (figuratively at least) deflowered.

While there have been flashes of brilliance from the get go, in the past it has been hard to zero in on Korine’s talent because he has resisted the tug of conforming to more recognizably constructed narrative, but if Spring Breakers proves anything it’s that Korine has the capability, if he desires, to deliver films that at least skirt the edges of mainstream cinema. Perhaps his casting choices here were some kind of meta commentary on society, an ironic gag, and/or a gimmick meant to sucker us all in to watching his Spring Break Art Film (thus being a joke on those arriving for mere titllation), but in the end what difference does it make?

The very idea of riffing on such a banal, vacuous, and hedonistic institution in any kind of serious way is an amusing one in and of itself. And while Korine does approach the material with some level of seriousness, there is also a kind of tongue and cheek reveling in the decadence and overall absurdity of the landscape. Throughout most of the film Korine interlaces footage he shot during an actual Spring Break in St. Petersburg, Florida; mixing that with clips of his young actresses placed in the midst of some of the frenetic overindulgence. The efforts give the film a level of realism and/or naturalism that is maintained until the disappointing final ten minutes.

Korine employs a too healthy dose of Malick-like voice-over from Faith, the religious do-gooder of the bunch, and though tonally hypnotic when combined with the often wonderful photography (DP Benoit Debe), much of it is also repetitive. The narrative is unfortunately threadbare, and the repetition of innocuous phrases (both spoken onscreen and not) intended as sincere life philosophy gets a bit tiring pretty quickly. Korine is intent on fracturing the time-line and repeating moments (he often will have Faith say something in voice-over laid over one image and then we see the action related to the original line with that same line repeated on screen and so on), and while this works to create a more abstract, impressionistic piece, it also clearly exists to mask the fact that there isn’t enough fleshed out story here. To whit, given what winds up on-screen, the run time could have been chopped by at least twenty minutes, which may have resulted in a more cogent and impactful finished product (though the reduced time would have been a serious issue for theatrical release).

On the whole, the acting is solid. No one would accuse any of the female leads of possessing powerhouse chops, but Korine has worked with non-pros a lot in his career and knows how to minimize weak work and mine moments of truth. There is a section with a fearful Selena Gomez that becomes mostly about the anticipation of whether she’s going to be able to squeeze out a single tear or not (she does). James Franco as rapper/drug dealer is the obvious standout as he fully commits to the sheer ridiculousness of the role with nary a wink toward it all being an elaborate “act”. With this said, the actors aren’t given much in terms of character shaping in the actual script itself, with the virtually interchangeable Candy, Cotty, and Brit being particularly under-drawn.

While Spring Breakers touches upon ideas of feminism and race, Korine mostly avoids overt political statement, except as it relates to the characters’ expressing their own life stories. Clearly, with a soundtrack (by Skrillex and Cliff Martinez) consisting of a predominance of hip hop (along with techno), and the presence of rappers Gucci Mane (Archie) and Dangeruss, the influence of black music culture permeates. These suburban white girls use hip hop influenced street terminology they see as cool/hip and their following Alien (a white man acting like a black man) is melded into some larger expression of idolizing hard core street culture and those involved in it, and to what extent that translates into real life. At one point, when confronted with being in the company of real, hard core African American thugs, Faith says, “I’m uncomfortable. This isn’t what I signed up for.”

The girls very need to demonstrate their individuality and power potentially references the constricts of male dominated society, religion, and small town America, though again, these themes remain largely in a safely subtextual place. The film seemed to hold the promise of more subversiveness in this regard, but what we ultimately get is women following a male lead. Further, though it points at danger with its guns, violence, and drug and alcohol use, the sex (outside of some topless shots from extras; one from Rachel Korine; and a non-explicit threesome in a pool) is actually fairly tame, a let down given the boundary pushing possibilities.

Already, Spring Breakers is the most financially successful film in Korine’s career by a long-shot. Only some overly langorous stretches and a completely over- the-top finish seriously hurt its potential for greater heights. Whether the ending is Korine’s nod to the overall artifice (film itself/the business?), an embracing of genre, or a cop out when faced with creating a sincere finish is difficult to discern.

Wuthering Heights (UK) Directed by Andrea Arnold  Written by Andrea Arnold; Olivia Hetreed  Starring James Howson; Solomon Grave; Paul Hilton; Shannon Beer; Kaya Scodelario; Lee Shaw; James Northcote; Nichola Burley; Steve Evets

Interesting 4:3 photography (from talented cinematographer Robbie Ryan) is the highlight of 52 year old Andrea Arnold’s (Red Road; Fish Tank) third feature film, a re-imagining of Emily Bronte’s classic 1847 novel. Shot in an impressionistic, highly cinematic hand-held style dominated by natural light and candle light, Wuthering Heights is immersed in the wind blown earthiness of its Yorkshire countryside environs. A nameless young West Indian boy (Solomon Grave as a boy; James Howson as an adult) is brought to a working farm by its master Mr. Earnshaw (Paul Hilton) and, named Heathcliff at his baptism, endures a sorrowful life buoyed only by his budding relationship with Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine (Shannon Beer as a girl; Kaya Scoledario (Skins) as an adult). The tone of the film is, to say the least, bleak, and instead of extended, fully played-out dialogue scenes, we are given long passages of silence with pretty, Malick-esque shots of nature and characters more often than not exchanging wordless looks and/or sentence fragments. Wuthering Heights is a film that requires one to take it in as a whole, to the let the accumulation of images do their intended work. It is also a piece that isn’t asking to be liked, and therefore is not easily embraced. There is no signposting or reliance on genre conventions - rather, a disquieting unease resulting from dissonant editing choices and the opaque delivery of information. With accents as thick as the mud on their boots, the non-professional actors who make up much of the cast lend a certain level of authenticity to the proceedings. Arnold also eschews soundtrack in a furthered attempt at naturalism, period, and an aversion to the studied romanticism marking the previous visual adaptations of the author’s work. The fact that Heathcliffe is black, and perhaps an escaped slave, imbues the story with a social relevance extending beyond the obvious class issues at play, and his cruel treatment is skillfully albeit coldly recounted. And while the visual imagery of Cathy and Heathcliff as children, with their time spent running in the fields; him surreptitiously observing her movement inside the house; their furtive glances at one another, is lovingly rendered; what is less successful is a fully realized (or at least felt) sense of visceral attachment derived from their unrequited, though enduring love. With inexperienced actors kept in an understandably rigid emotional box, we are allowed only the smallest of scraps detailing who and what these two are as people and what exactly is between them. While Arnold was clearly not endeavoring to make a film with a clearly plotted path from point A to B to C, we are still able to roll with the rambling nature of the events. The lack of emotional connection between the two key characters, however (regardless of how much this is part and parcel of the nature of their relationship), ultimately proves more difficult to fully overcome. While the plight of a poor, mistreated creature and the bond between him and his age appropriate, opposite sex sympathizer and partial-protector may on the surface be the tried and true stuff of classic tragic love stories, it is also perhaps (in and of itself, that is) not enough to carry the day. It is therefore true that the second half of the film (with Heathcliff returning and Cathy now married) proves something of a let down, or at least merely provides a kind of flatlined continuation of the previous section as opposed to some escalating denoument one can hardly help anticipating. Still, Arnold should be applauded for her risk taking and fidelity to the creation of abstract cinema in a highly commercial world. An artistic triumph but not necessarily a completely successful narrative.

Anna Karenina (BRIT) Directed by Joe Wright Written by Starring Keira Knightly; Jude Law; Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Kelly Macdonald; Matthew McFadden; Olivia Williams; Domnhall Gleeson; David Wilmot; Emily Watson; Michelle Dockery; Alicia Viander

Working from a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, Joe Wright takes on Tolstoy’s one thousand page classic with Keira Knightly as the titular Anna. Set in 1874 Russia, Karenina details the tragic love story between Anna and Count Alexi Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a handsome, young, womanizing military man. Knightly is strong as a woman who was married at age eighteen to a man she didn’t love, and later bore his child, Sergei, but has been going through the perfunctory motions in a lifeless marriage; a performance likely benefitting from her ongoing collaborations with Wright (Atonement; Pride and Prejudice). With his hair thinned, Jude law is older husband, Count Alexei Karenin, a respected Russian statesman with a coldly dull countenance.

Karenina has been done many times before on stage, radio, television, and film as a drama, musical, opera, and ballet. On film, there have been multiple versions in English; Russian; and French; and even ones in Hungarian and Egyptian. The Wright/Stoppard production has the film taking place mostly in a theater built specifically for the production. Scenes occur on the stage itself, in the wings, galleys, aisles, theater boxes, and the like; and there are multiple interesting transitions with fluidly moving sets and even characters walking directly outside as if by magic; with the entire production enveloped in a stylized feel as if unfolding in some netherworld of ballet/musical/drama.

As much as Karenina is one woman’ story, it is also about the restrictive Russian society of the time, and a group of relationships - Anna and her husband; Anna and her lover Vronsky; Anna’s brother Prince Stepan Oblonsky (Matthew Mcafadyen) and his wife Princess Dolly (Kelly Macdonald); and their daughter Princess Kitty (Alicia Vikander) and her eventual husband, land owner Konstatin Levin (Domnall Gleeson). Adapting Karenina into feature film length naturally involves leaving out a wealth of information from the novel, and while the film does well evoking the spirit of the book, there is a feeling of watching something resembling a two hour highlight reel.

Though technically wonderful (DP Seamus McGarvey; Production Designer Sarah Greenwood), the artistic purpose of the artifice is not readily identifiable. Perhaps the idea is that properly evoking the world is too expensive so the next best thing is to admit that fact, embrace it, and fully acknowledge the folly by pointing most obviously to the artifice, but if so the purpose is not full integrated into the finished product. The attempt should be applauded as should the aplomb demonstrated in the periodically mesmerizing technical prowess, but the why is never adequately answered.

The cast is a good one, with additional support provided by Olivia Williams as Vronsky’s countess mother; Emily Watson as Countess Lydia Ivanova; and David Wilmot as Levin’s brother Nikolai.