Introduction and Evil

As I begin this blog, I would like to first preface everything on explaining my position. Any schmo can write a blog these days, and they do. Cyberspace is littered with hundreds of thousands if not millions of long, winding online journals in which the authors do nothing but bitch and moan about things that piss them off or what is wrong with things around them. If they move to praise of anything, it is mostly to state the very obvious. For me, I often find it very difficult to find a movie forum where conversation can remain civilized before the name calling begins, then I realize that I am dealing with teenage rookies.

But there lies something else, I myself am indeed a rookie. Let me explain my credentials. I have none. Though I am a graduate of film studies at UC Santa Cruz I don’t consider that adequate training. Film students may learn about film and the underlying theory that accompanies, all very valuable indeed, but what is missing from the curriculum is something much more simple, that of appreciation.

As a film student, I found the opposite. I learned to detest film. A film student learns to dissect film much like a biology student dissects a frog. I learned to see inside a film, without ever first stopping to see how beautiful it might have been first. I sought out what the film was based on, that is I tried to see what was wrong with it. Underlying social values and prejudices, hidden meanings and psychological explanations for the directions cinema has evolved. Now, that is all very fascinating in itself. Very important stuff to learn, very enriching material, nevertheless I felt the most important aspect of film was lost completely. You are supposed to enjoy film. I suppose then if you can balance your enjoyment with insightful critique, then you could have the makings of a critic.

So there is what I aim to be I suppose, a critic, even though I cannot stand critics. This brings me around to one of my first complaints I made which is these days everybody is a critic. Everybody has an opinion and well they should I guess, but I don’t understand why everybody has to be so venomous about it. Discussion boards on IMDB.com are insanely repetitive, name calling and chest puffing happening so quickly that any insightful question or topic is either trivialized or the subject completely changed to something more explosive within just a few postings. By way of this blog, I can open topics of conversation, as an amateur critic among amateur critics. And I will be of use and of interest only in so far as my amateur judgment is sound, stimulating, or illuminating (credit please to James Agee).

Those who know me might be expecting me to next start waxing on the majesty and perfection of such recent releases like the recent Oscar giants There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. Perhaps all in good time. Enough has been written about them for now. I recently restarted my dormant Netflix account and, gotta love it, all 418 movies in my queue are still there waiting for me. After the predictably slow winter season of movies where Hollywood unleashes all the slop not fit for tent pole seasons, I’ve settled back into watching a lot of the older and foreign movies I haven’t gotten around to watching again. Such treasures I’ve recently uncovered for myself include A Canterbury Tale, The Witches of Eastwick, Dead Ringers, if…, Kind Hearts and Coronets, as well as a number of gems by Michael Haneke and the irrepressible Preston Sturges.

The most recent film I saw and my first one delivered to my doorstep was Mikael Håfström’s Ondskan (Evil). The story of a violent but bright youth who following expulsion from his high school finds his last scholastic opportunity in a stuffy private boarding school where the students keep the law and the teachers remain only in the classroom. I love movies like this. The setup with the lead character, Erik Ponti, pummeling the bejesus out of some poor kid prepares you for a movie where “the violence” must and will come. For no matter how hard he tries to keep a low profile and strive to do well his nature forces him into a corner where he must either cower on his knees or stand up and fight. Ponti is a boy who will never assume the former.

Films of this sort, that is the boarding school sort, are the perfect realm to showcase a microcosm of society, where good and evil is allowed to be worn very plainly on everyone’s sleeve. There is very little room for gray area. The lead character or characters in such films must find a way to fight against the stuffy or obsolete powers that be so that they don’t lose who they are and the don’t submit to rotten society. If lucky, stay a student at the same time. But its all or nothing. The protagonist will either succeed or fail, others may be sacrificed along the way. Brutal, often sadistic punishments are handed out and the division between warring factions stretches the length of an ocean. Its essentially the same plot structure of a fantasy movie, which may be why Harry Potter is such a wild success. Two similar genres blending together so seamlessly creates and environment that while few people have been in such situations, we can all inherently identify with.

Håfström had shown a fluid sense of direction and scenery with his film. So fluid that it scarcely felt foreign at all save the subtitles translating the Swedish dialogue. The move to Hollywood felt all but assured, and sure enough after Ondskan’s success Håfström found himself moving to California and never looking back. He has so far given us the misfire Derailed and the terrific horror-thriller 1408 during his American residence. After 1408 Håfström seems to have found his footing in Hollywood on the quality side of town (its a small but prosperous neighborhood) so to speak, and his next project is an ambitious period piece called Shanghai featuring John Cusack and Chow Yun-Fat. Should be interesting, Håfström is clearly a very capable talent and evokes very strong performances from actors of all walks, and I have little doubt that he can be a Hollywood acquisition of top form as long as he doesn’t get too comfortable like the blown talents of Wolfgang Peterson and John Woo. Please Mikael, don’t forget your roots whatever happens. While Derailed worried us forminute, you’re too good to go to waste.