0 Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

USA, 95 minutes
Director/writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Photography: Robert Elswit
Music: Jon Brion
Editor: Leslie Jones
Cast: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Karen Kilgariff, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán

After Boogie Nights (155 minutes) and Magnolia (188 minutes), director and writer Paul Thomas Anderson was showing some signs of a tendency toward bloat. Anderson wanted to make a shorter movie and for some reason he wanted to work with Adam Sandler, who was then within range of the peak of his box office powers. I'm willing to give Anderson the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't commercial appeal he was after. More likely something along the lines of what Martin Scorsese managed with Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy: putting an overfamiliar (and frequently tiresome) comedy icon in an utterly new context, which at the same time is profoundly appropriate.

Sandler plays Barry Egan, a self-styled businessman barely eking out a living. At the time of the movie he is operating out of office space in a warehouse somewhere in industrial Los Angeles, attempting to sell novelty products as some kind of B2B (business-to-business) enterprise evidently aimed at trade shows and/or Las Vegas casinos. He wears a ridiculous blue suit that many people ask him about but he never explains. On the side, he is at work on other schemes. They are all a little ridiculous. He has seven sisters who harass and belittle him, and a bad case of rage. A really bad case of rage. In case you were wondering, Punch-Drunk Love is a love story—and a wonderful one.



But very strange. Sandler's rage is only incidentally explained—frustrations with his sisters and more generally an inability to connect and fit in with others. Mostly it appears to be just an element of his personality and mostly it's played as comedy, with broadly exaggerated eruptions in which he destroys large windows, public bathrooms, attacks and beats people, etc., with an ominous threat back of that that he will suddenly break down into fits of weeping. Full disclosure: I have not seen many Adam Sandler movies and know him only by general reputation. The basic persona puts me off. (And I know this is a much darker version of the usual.) But his comic instincts here are undeniable—not only is he good at pulling laughs out of these scenes and situations, he's even better at modulating that into the image of a stalking lunatic who's barely in control of himself at all. It's much more often a much more frightening and worrisome movie than it is funny.

Lena Leonard, his love interest, is played by Emily Watson, who is sneaky-good and completely winning too. Anderson's screenplay is great at developing these characters but I think this is also one of Watson's best performances, and not an easy one. Lena is a coworker of one of Barry's sisters, Elizabeth (Mary Lynn Rajskub, better known as Chloe from 24). Elizabeth wants to set them up, which is fine with Lena because she has been interested in Barry ever since she saw his picture in a family portrait with his sisters. But Elizabeth has not been able to engineer getting them together, as Barry resists everything his sisters want, so one of the first scenes we see, before we even know who she is, is Lena taking the situation into her own hands to make a seemingly random introduction.

Another subplot involves a call that Barry makes to a phone sex line that goes badly wrong, as the woman on the other end decides she wants more money from him and attempts to blackmail him. Her boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman, predictably brilliant in a small role) sends four brothers to Los Angeles from his base in a mattress store in Utah to threaten and extort Barry. Is there a bible story about seven sisters and four brothers? With Anderson, one wonders.

Lena, meanwhile, travels a lot for her work. She and Barry have a troubled but generally successful first date but soon after she has to go to Hawaii for her job. Barry follows her, and at about this point—actually, at the end of their first date—the movie quite unexpectedly begins to go remarkable places as a romantic comedy. You find yourself absolutely rooting for this love affair to work, in spite of all misgivings about Barry, which are gnawing and never go away entirely.

In Hawaii, of all places, it shamelessly turns just beautiful, again in spite of everything. As Barry puts it, as he and Lena sit quietly at an outdoor patio with a view of the ocean and sunset over drinks and dinner, "It really looks like Hawaii here." Revelations about Lena come that make her seem a good match for Barry—personality flaws, in other words. But they only serve to make the match seem more inevitable, and right, in some irrational and deeply felt way. It is a movie about love, signaled indeed by use of the word "love" in the title, and it is convincing, touching, and heartening.

Of course, as a Paul Thomas Anderson exercise, Punch-Drunk Love remains open to any number of charges of excess. Jon Brion's soundtrack, for example, is too often merely pretentious, distracting and alienating. And I still don't much care for Adam Sandler—in fact, I suspect not liking him is part of what makes the movie work. And no, I'm not comfortable either with the admixture of casual mental derangement and comedy. But keeping it short may have been a worthwhile goal for Anderson as ultimately it is its brevity that saves it, I think. It brims with creative energy, it goes to numerous jaw-dropping crazy places, it grounds itself in love start to finish, and it's over, leaving a good taste. It's a good one—maybe even my favorite Anderson, after only Boogie Nights.

Detail: Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

0 Russian Ark (2002)

Russkiy kovcheg, Russia / Germany / Japan / Canada / Finland / Denmark, 99 minutes
Director: Aleksandr Sokurov
Writers: Boris Khaimsky, Anatoli Nikiforov, Svetlana Proskurina, Aleksandr Sokurov
Photography: Tilman Buttner
Music: Sergei Yevtushenko
Editors: Stefan Ciupek, Sergey Ivanov, Betina Kuntzsch
Cast: Aleksandr Sokurov, Sergei Dreiden, Maria Kuznetsova, Leonid Mozgovoy, David Giorgobiani, Alexander Chaban, Maxim Sergeyev

As much as anything it is doubtless the technical achievement of Russian Ark that has pushed it so high on the list of 21st-century films at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, so that's as good a place to start as any. It's impressive—one continuous single take on a steadicam, lasting over 90 minutes, and on top of that an epic costume drama with a cast of thousands. Think of all the famous long takes you know—in Touch of Evil, Goodfellas, The Player, and/or Gravity—and multiply exponentially. As a mathematical formula, it may be expressed as [Touch of Evil x 9] to the power of Barry Lyndon. I wouldn't have believed it possible myself if I hadn't spent a month one week looking it over carefully.

Russian Ark is no easy breeze of a picture, and falls easily and quickly into the look and feel of the most pretentious and aimless art film. That technical achievement is remarkably subtle, at least for someone like me who often has to have long takes pointed out, and otherwise the movie features not one but two central characters who appear to be time travelers or perhaps shape shifters of some kind, or perhaps ghosts (one is never seen—he is represented by the camera point of view), who spend the movie prowling the corridors and galleries of the magnificent Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, swapping barbs and a general air of sadness as scenes from some 300 years of Russian history materialize and play around them. Put it this way. You're unlikely to get much out of this if you don't know at least something about Russian history and probably if you aren't willing to look at it more than once. I know that's a damning review so I hasten to add: It is worth your energies. But anyone can understand why a body might not be inclined that way.



Indeed, I'm not always sure the grand experiment proves out. By going so far to one extreme of cinema, it incidentally ratchets up the theatricality. Occasional mistakes in timing or inappropriate awareness of the camera on the faces of some of the players, for example, would normally call for another take to iron out. That luxury was not afforded director, co-writer, and co-star Aleksandr Sokurov with such self-imposed constraints as this, and so in many moments Russian Ark has more the quivering live feel of a stage production, which diminishes it some. Add to that the dense literary overlay with the narrative high concept of a kind of science fiction ghost story about the eternal husbanding of Russian culture, and you have a project that is insanely ambitious (and potentially doomed in countless ways).

But the fact is its many small flaws come to seem minor as the picture unfolds its many, many impressive treasures—literal and figurative. The artwork and interiors of the Hermitage carry the day when nothing else does. In the end I think the single take is appropriate enough, if only for the counterpoint and symmetry it provides to one of Soviet Russia's acknowledged masters of cinema, Sergei Eisenstein—the pioneer of montage and other cinematic arts of the cut. There is not a single cut in Russian Ark, of course. I don't read that as a rejection of Eisenstein's aesthetic, however, but more another element to add to what is really this picture's central preoccupation: the vastness of Russian culture, which in turn is a reflection of the vastness of Russia itself.

Russia is not just the place where montage was invented, Sokurov's decision implies—it is a culture capable of embracing all of cinema. And art. And life. And death and time too. The not-so-friendly ghost that we see, a Frenchman played masterfully by Sergei Dreiden, credited as "The Stranger" but known by our ghost of the camera as "The European," is caustic about Russia, dismissing it with withering arrogance as a country of European copycats and wannabes. Our ghost of the camera, a Russian credited at IMDb.com as "The Time Traveller" (Sokurov, who is not credited in the picture for this role), glumly attempts to rebut him. In the terms of this narrative, the other is all that each of these two ghosts has, and the Time Traveller is the first to recognize the wisdom in not alienating his only companion.

Meanwhile, the costume drama, the great artwork on every wall, and various historical scenes play out and swirl around us continually, moving through some 33 or more chambers of the museum complex, including a grand finish in the Winter Palace. There are other ghosts too. There is the cruel Peter the Great. There is the great patron Catherine II, and there she is again, later, running away from the camera in an extraordinarily beautiful outdoor scene. (It is the cold gray weather of an afternoon in late December. The footsteps of people crunch in the snow.) There is the pomp and bluster of a diplomatic function involving a Persian envoy. There are soldiers performing formal marching maneuvers. And there is the spectacular ballroom scene in the Winter Palace at the end, complete with full orchestra and hundreds of graceful dancing couples.

It's not hard—and it's somewhat tempting, certainly on first view—to dismiss Russian Ark as a stunt, a kind of documentary in real time of production design and a bit of a showoff at that. But there's actually so much to this. The first distinct sound we hear is a ship's horn and the last image we see is of the sea. The "ark" conceit, a vessel that is alive and vital with a cargo of essential Russian culture and sailing the oceans of time, is worked out meticulously and carried off well. The formidable Hermitage Museum and its vast collection—only a fraction of which is glimpsed here—provide a setting that is nigh perfect. And cinematographer Tilman Buttner deserves mention for pulling off such a physically demanding task and keeping it remarkably beautiful.

Detail: Russian Ark (2002)

0 Heathen (2002)

Along the David Bowie comeback trail I must admit that this is (another) one I missed. Full disclosure: I have been off the David Bowie comeback trail since Let's Dance and certainly by Tin Machine. But to be perfectly clear, I bear him no real ill will. I just lost interest. Not even Outside, the 1995 reunion with Brian Eno, ever had much appeal. Some of the albums I arrived at late, perhaps most notably 1984's Tonight, possibly 1987's Never Let Me Down, turned out to be better than expected. But I have learned to be cautious with this fine old fellow. A little study clarifies the appeal of Heathen—mostly the familiar Thin White Duke/Bing Crosby persona reunited with a bunch of the old gang. A good bet. Tony Visconti, last seen with Bowie on Scary Monsters, is the producer, and those on hand include something new and something old at every turn: Carlos Alomar, Lisa Germano, Dave Grohl, Tony Levin, Pete Townshend, etc. There are covers of songs by the Pixies, Neil Young, and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy (which when listed that way appear almost focus-grouped in their clinical precision), but most of the songs are by Bowie. Now I would be kidding you if I tried to say this didn't have its share of some very delectable moments, e.g., the surprising crispness of Townshend's texturing on "Slow Burn," the sultry and effective mood of "I Would Be Your Slave," a certain vaguely retro charm to "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship," with some nice horns too, and especially the callow beauties of "Everyone Says 'Hi'," which somehow for me connects all the way back to the earliest songs he wrote, when it was Davy Jones & the Lower Third. And the sound of Heathen is resolutely familiar and comforting. There's no doubt about that—I never mind hearing it play. But ultimately it just kind of sits there and flops around a little. I note the nice moments in passing. The rest of it fades hard into the background. Even when I try to concentrate on it my mind wanders. It's just the same old problem. It doesn't interest me that much. I like it more than Outside, but maybe not as much as Tonight. Let me put it that way.

Detail: Heathen (2002)

0 Spellbound (2002)

USA, 97 minutes, documentary
Director/photography: Jeffrey Blitz
Music: Daniel Hulsizer
Editor: Yana Gorskaya

Spellbound is so formally effective as a documentary of the annual National Spelling Bee competition, sponsored by the E.W. Scripps company, a media conglomerate, and held in the late spring of each year in Washington, D.C., that one wonders why it hasn't been done more often. It focuses on the competition in one year, 1999, and well before the competition has begun hand-picks eight competitors to follow, traveling to their home towns, interviewing their families, friends, and teachers, and sketching five-minute portraits of each.

These choices were clearly not made randomly—among them are three of the final eight competitors, including the eventual winner, along with children of Mexican and Indian immigrants and children from poor and disadvantaged and from upper-middle-class and privileged households. Regions represented include California, D.C., Florida, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas. It's a real potpourri, and if the mechanics behind it show, the final result speaks for itself: an absolutely riveting portrait of a competition capable of suspending time the way any closely contested athletic competition can.


The winning formula is right there, obvious if implied: Carefully choose eight competitors based primarily on their chances of winning, and secondarily on demographics and certain elements conducive to storytelling, and do some location work. In this short feature fully half the running time is devoted to introductions, which is likely another clue to why this works so well. It feels deliberate, even as it is nimble. I think, for example, of TV's Survivor, which is all formula though its many reality-TV constituent factors are flexible enough to accommodate frequent tweaking. Survivor nearly always "plays"—anyone watching the first six episodes of any season will tend to care how it ends. But already there is a clue to the difference there: Survivor goes on (and on) across multiple episodes for hours and hours over a period of months, whereas Spellbound is only 97 minutes.

Which brings us to Jeffrey Blitz, the director and photographer of the original video footage that we see here. Spellbound is his first feature, and in the time since he has made another documentary (Lucky, in 2010, about lottery winners), a narrative film (Rocket Science, 2007), and has directed episodes of TV's The Office and Parks and Recreation (none of which I have seen). It's hard to know what to make of this resume exactly. He does not appear to me to be amply rewarded for Spellbound, but perhaps he works slowly and methodically, or is picky about what he does.

Part of me wants to say it is Blitz's passion that makes Spellbound so good, and that's true insofar as it motivated him to do the legwork of going into some depth with the eight competitors he featured. Part of it is also the clarity with which he saw the inherent drama itself in a spelling bee competition. But I suspect the biggest part of it was luck. He could not have known ahead of time, for example, that Angela, the bubbly daughter of Mexican immigrants in Perryton, Texas, would be required to go a mind-boggling 54 rounds to win her regional competition to qualify for the National. And there are set pieces here that could never be scripted (as the saying goes), built around competitors desperately flailing at words they obviously have never heard of, notably "wheedle" (Angela), "corollary" (Nupur), and "darjeeling" (Neil). They are amazing, indelible moments.

Blitz's instincts are not always on the mark. He clearly thinks he has found documentary gold in Harry, going so far as to open the whole picture on him in an out-of-sequence moment that is more alarming than anything else. To me, the high-strung kid from New Jersey is grating. But Spellbound otherwise quickly gets down to its business and wastes little time. In fact, the most remarkable aspect of it may be its structure, which patiently lays the groundwork of acquainting us with its characters, and then puts them through their paces with a steady but natural ratcheting of tension that is almost imperceptible. Its second half goes by in a tremendously satisfying blink, which stands up well to repeated viewing.

Phil has written previously about Spellbound, making an evocative comparison to 21 Up (a hint to Jeffrey Blitz I am almost tempted to forward along because it's such a great idea and now is the time). He might be a little more inclined than me generally to read political themes into it, although that's certainly an overtly calculated element of Neil's father, an Indian immigrant who spouts familiar platitudes about the impossibility of failure in America if one is willing to work hard. (In fairness, standing in his Orange County mansion which he built himself, he's not a little persuasive on the point.)

In fact, Neil's father to me is a good example of exactly what makes this film work. At first, he appears to be a nightmare of the pushiest kind of pressuring parent, drilling and drilling and drilling Neil on words (occasionally mispronounced, as "epitome," which Neil's father rhymes with gnome) (and Neil spells correctly). Neil's father concocts an elaborate strategy of studying patterns of spelling by word origin, and lectures Neil and the camera on the single-minded goal of success by winning. But in the end this man is not that cliché at all, coming off instead as a kind, compassionate, and infinitely supportive father during and after the competition.

Granted, he could have been simply playing for the camera. But there's very little that's simple or programmatic in Spellbound, and it's fascinating how Blitz takes on what appears at first to be an insignificant and narrow slice of nerddom, and burrows deep inside it, creating a vast world of complex and fascinating characters and motivations. I still have to wonder why it isn't done more often. Probably the gatekeepers insist that it's already been done, with this very movie, but couldn't you do reality-TV seasons with it? Wait, maybe that's a bad idea.

Detail: Spellbound (2002)