Film is my Life: June 2008

LMU Homework - The Triplets of Belleville - 2 of 15

This somewhat silent film style animation, has quite a different story. The general plot... a little boy lives with his grandma (I'm assuming his parents have died) who tries constantly to make the boy happy, she buys him a dog... which helps but when she figures out he truly wants a bike she gets it for him right away. The boy's life is focused on training for the tour de france. In the race the boy along with two other of the last racers... are captured by the french mafia and put into a sort of derby-gambling bike show as a money making scheme. All the while the grandmother is in desperate search for the boy with his dog companion. When she starts to give up hope she befriends the triplets of belleville (old singers). They make music together until one day they discover the mafia and are able to team up to track down the boy and take down the mafia. The movie ends with a lovely chase scene where the old ladies kick butt!

Overall the main thing that surprised me was that this 2 hour was story was quite engaging for being nearly silent! The sound was either music or the over dramatized sounds of life. The animation was quite awesomely done everything was very big and proportions being completely distorted were very surreal.

There was a lot of satire in the film... Belleville seemed to represent New York. People are animated very large... obesity seemed to have a certian beauty or status in this society. The dog dreams made me laugh... and they were in black & white.

All in all a very interesting film and a very unique and unconventional way of telling a story. Watch it.

Labels: lmu homework, movie review, triplets of belleville

LMU Homework - Chinatown - 1 of 20

Chinatown has pretty much nothing to do with chinatown.
The basic plot as best I can retell it because this story was not predictable and quite unique... goes something like this:
Gitties (Jack Nicholson), a personal spy, is hired to pin Evelyn's husband as an adulter by a woman who we later find out isn't really Evelyn but Ina Sheilds. Anywho Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) later comes files a lawsuit against Gitties, while Gitties tries to figure out who set him up.

His next pursuit is of the husband himself... whom he finds dead. Now that he's dead Evelyn comes back and drops the lawsuit and suddenly the tables turn to where now Evelyn decides to really hire Gitties. As he still tries to unravel the mystery of her husband's death many things unfold coming upon these final facts: Kathrine (who the Husband supposedly had the affair with) is really Evelyn's sister and daughter... her father (who owns all the water supply of Los Angeles County) killed her husband due to disagreements about who should own the water and who should have kathrine... Everything was a huge set up to hide the father's power and money scheme... in the end evelyn is killed by the police (who her father owns) and the father takes the daughter, and Gitties is let free instead of arrested ("as a favor")... corruption and injustice win...

There were some great shots... and as with many movies made on true film the continuous shots have to be made more interesting to keep the story moving and the audience engaged. There is one shot where there is a spot on the lens!!! (even the classics have blunders) The sound is nothing brilliant... everything has a noise... props are more pronounced and sound Fx are seventies cheesy. One thing I noticed was there was hardly music... just when it was getting tense and/or something was about to reveal itself.

Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist) is the director and has a wonderful little cameo where he cuts Jack's nose.
Just before watching this movie I watched a documentary on the trial scandal on his conviction: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. It was interesting to see footage of this man and here about his life. His mother was killed by the Nazis, his father was sent to a German concentration camp 2 years into the war and was killed... but he survived. From an early age he knew he wanted to have something to do with cinema. He moved out to London, free from the communist life he'd known, he now strove to become what he always wanted and nearly overnight became a sensation. He moved to Hollywood and made huge productions married Sharon Tate and generally was living the lime life. When Sharon, pregnant, was brutally murdered (Charles Manson)... Polanski crumbled and the media twisted it as though he was the murderer. He was able to recover from the slander but he was more insecure than ever. And as the trial unfolded the media never ceased to defame him and print lies. So he fled the country and has yet to return (until recently if he did return he would have been arrested). He is still held in high regard as one of the most influential directors of the time.

They talk in the documentary about how almost every Polanski movie dealt with how corruption and injustice triumphed over the young and innocent... Chinatown is no exception. The corruption of power wealth and greed in man.
Its odd though too that Polanski's life would continually be tortured by injustice specifically in the media.

Thinking about all this has left me with a question... What makes a great person?
Polanski is a star-studded, unique, talented director; but his morals seem to have been lacking greatly... was it just then? was it a lapse of judgment? Or do some people have a dark side?... Do you have to have morals to be great? (I would like to think so... but many could say Hitler was a great man in history for his amazing command over so many people but he had absolutely no morals... I do not know. Maybe its not about greatness... its about how humble you can be while believing in yourself.)

Labels: Chinatown, lmu homework, movie review, Roman Polanski