In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 39

EPISODE 39: Shostakovich & Shockers [1:22:37]
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It's Episode 39 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. We might be a little off-form this week, as Pete is still ill and Cal is hungover, but we've got some juicy-looking films to ponder. We aim to be positive by bringing out our irregular Red Light District segment and pimping the best films we've seen in the past month, which include a Russian classic and a film about a woman who rents cats. We check out "Stoker," the latest bloodthirsty offering from arthouse favourite Park Chan-Wook, and there's blood on the hands of Richard Gere's troubled billionaire too, in Nicholas Jarecki's "Arbitrage". While Pete opted for masculine thriller "Broken City" Cal sat down for Lasse Hallstrom's adaptation of Nicholas Sparks novel "Safe Haven," but we both saw part two of Terrence Malick's prolific streak, the grand, romantic "To the Wonder." Tune in to find out which one of us was reduced to tears by Malick's film, and listen to our confessions of which films never fail to make us blub. 

To the Wonder (2013)

To the Wonder
Directed by Terrence Malick
Starring: Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem
Grade: B

Those put off by the broader themes in Malick’s vision in “The Tree of Life” can be assured that “To the Wonder” reverts to a form of romantic personalisation that won him loyal supporters back in “Days of Heaven.” A rural-American setting once again provides the landscape for a story which reinforces themes of dislocation and estrangement, but details them as a destructive factor in a relationship, rather than a uniting, primitive bond, as in his 1978 romance.

The courtship of Affleck’s Neil and Kurylenko’s Marina exercises Malick’s enterprising visual flair, his inherent tenderness as a filmmaker giving their romance a swooning, crystallising glow. The couple’s subsequent deterioration echoes common relationship issues like cultural mismatch, commitment phobia, and even boredom, problems which could easily grow repetitive and tire a film so attached to narrative pitfalls, like last year’s “Keep the Lights On.” Malick’s style ensures that, largely, this isn’t the case, never fully immersed in the finer details of the couple – we get flashes of dialogue regarding VISA trouble and a sexual issue, but never more than that – and therefore able to curb the potentially overwrought nature of their relationship in favour of his trademark visual storytelling.

 

The disadvantage of this technique is that “To the Wonder” becomes more reliant upon individual performances than any of Malick’s previous films – save for maybe “Badlands” – to provide bursts of characterisation, and the success of the cast members vary significantly. Kurylenko gives an astonishingly layered performance, imbued with the precocious, playful qualities which make her endearing in the first place, but reveal themselves to be tiresome and misguidedly idealistic that it’s no wonder Neil loses interest in Marina. Affleck – who it’s good to see back in front of the camera again – fares less well, not necessarily through a particular fault of his own, but rather that Malick seems less interested in his character’s plight than Kurylenko’s, whose effervescent complexion fits more with his entrancing, romanticised view of a doomed love affair. In any case, he doesn’t afford Affleck as much freedom as Pitt in “The Tree of Life” or Caviezel in “The Thin Red Line,” tortured male characters who were far easier to identify with.

While some attest that “The Tree of Life” is a religious film, its reverence of the natural mystique reads more to me as a spiritual piece uncommitted to God, or Jesus. The attempts to introduce Catholicism into “To the Wonder” sit less well – not because they represent a more specified belief system, but because they’re closely associated with guilt, and there isn’t a strong enough sense of duty from either of the couple to warrant that aside. At under two hours “To the Wonder” feels drawn out, too, although positively so: the conviction of its director towards creating an emotional pull makes the film visually extraneous without letting its characters overstay their welcome, and may perhaps best demonstrate the appeal of Malick’s unique brand of cinema.

Shaken, Stirred, and Still Sexy

Quantum of Solace

Directed by Marc Forster

Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton

Grade: B

Defiance may still represent a worthy 2008 farewell for Daniel Craig but it also plays a key role in his more renowned blockbuster, a second outing as James Bond, and the franchise's 22nd offering Quantum of Solace. While, prior to 2006's Casino Royale, many die-hard 007 fans were left outraged and panicked at the appointment of Craig in the part, the success of his Bond remains a rather double-edged sword. This man is packed with attitude, charisma, a ruthless edge that's much wilder than Connery, Moore et al. but achieves impact through a relative abandonment of the grace of his predecessors in favour of coarse, arrogant necessity. For some it may be a bitter pill to swallow but it's interesting how this man has shaped Bond, changed the nature of his world, and sought to make his filmmakers obedient recipients to his call. Daniel Craig didn't edit this film but you feel like every burst of action, chase sequence, explosion, is somehow a product of the volatility he has brought to James Bond.

Quantum of Solace doesn't do any backtracking from the path Casino Royale so brusquely lain, and neither does it make any attempt to create a tale as epic or glamorous. Instead it modestly builds upon Casino, beginning with the Bond tradition of a high-speed chase to represent the organisation's chasing of leads. But as soon as that's done we get a development; M is nearly killed by one of her own personal bodyguards, and we quickly learn that there's a major criminal organisation that the British Secret Service know hardly anything about. This admission, as it turns out, is a lot bigger than it at first appears. Solace is the picking up of the pieces, the entrails of the storm, the consolidation, and as such the leads are sparse and there isn't really a clear sense of the scope of the criminality Bond is up against.

Resultantly Solace can sometimes feel stingy and slight in its compactness, giving us a very lineated systematic storyline and barely ensuring that there's enough to think about. But the quality of its troublesome collection of characters; from vengeful Bond girl Camille (Ukrainian Actress Olga Kurylenko playing a Bolivian of all things), to Swept Away's Giancarlo Giannini returning to reprise his Casino role (this time on the side of good), and most notably Mathieu Amalric's excellent turn as a villainous third-world exploit artist, provide a more than hefty sense of notoriety for Craig to digest and decode.

At just under two hours this particular 007 installment feels like a bit of an excursion, an epilogue. The events of Casino has clearly left Bond's heart and pride sorely tested, and this only forces him to become more immersed in his work. But the problem is that his task is a vague and unfocused one. This film is cohesive but what it's detailing definitely is not. Quantum of Solace reads as a preachy and pedantic title yet emerges as pretty apt -- not because the film is as firm and definite as its name (it simply isn't) but because the solace is the main element to extract from it. James Bond is alive; sexually charged, laying the smackdown, doing his job even when his employers would prefer otherwise, shaken and stirred. But make no mistake, this man is recovering, and Quantum is just the sort of firecracking stop-gap he needs.