The HurricaneWritten by Dudley Nichols
Directed by John Ford
USA, 1937

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“My name is John Ford and I make Westerns,” so the legendary filmmaker once declared. As has been pointed out (by Martin Scorsese among others) that statement in a sense discounts the great director’s non-genre works, like the four features for which he won Academy Awards: The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). But with more than 140 directing credits on his résumé, it also sidesteps many lesser known, though quality, Ford films, those that either fall into the middle of the road category or those that are very good, if not quite great. That’s where his 1937 romantic drama The Hurricane comes in.

Produced by Samuel Goldwyn, directed by Ford (two years after The Informer and two years before his groundbreaking Stagecoach [1939]), and written by Dudley Nichols, himself an Oscar-winner for his writing The Informer, The Hurricane obviously has talent behind it. This to say nothing of a cast that includes Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, and John Carradine, who all do a fine job, even if they are essentially playing standard types. Further credit of note also goes to James Basevi, Ray Binger, R.T. Layton, and Lee Zavitz for their special effects work, not a common point of recognition in 1937. While there is a satisfying story for about three-quarters of the film, at the end of the picture it is the titular storm that steals the show (and it better, having cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and taking more than five weeks to shoot). A little clunky at times, and with some visibly flimsy back projection, this final disaster sequence is nonetheless successful and certainly looks exceptional by such early standards.

Technical achievements notwithstanding, to get to The Hurricane’s emotional poignancy there has to be a worthwhile story and engaging characters, and here, we have both. The story essentially revolves around newlywed South Sea natives Terangi (Hall) and Marama (Lamour), who must part not long after their wedding, as he sets off to his work on a schooner and is soon thereafter imprisoned. A central conflict is with the pitiless French governor, Eugene De Laage (Massey), who is joined on the island of Manakoora by his more sympathetic wife (Astor). Then there is the drunken Dr. Kersaint (Mitchell), serving as something of an arbiter between the island natives and the governor.

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When Ms. Laage first arrives, greeting her generally unfeeling managerial husband, there is a clear love between the two, so we know De Laage is not totally callous. But it is a romance with far less evident passion than that between Terangi and Marama. Is this distinction due to the comparative youth of the two locals, or is it something inherent in their uninhibited culture? Aside from being compared to children (insofar as innocence on the plus side and ignorance on the negative), the other most common point of reference as far as how the French occupants view the natives is that they are akin to animals, in the way Terangi swims, for example, or the way he moves about the boat. It is rather demeaning, and even the understanding Dr. Kersaint, who respectfully identifies with their way of life, still regards their simplicity as childish. On a more positive note, this analogy also suggests the instinctual ability of the native people and their natural vitality. Terangi, who is held in high local esteem for his personality as well as his good looks, is also repeatedly acknowledged for his physical prowess—at one point, we see him wrestle, kill, and gut a shark, all while in the water…and then he eats it, raw.

In any case, there is a pronounced disparity in how the indigenous people live and view the world and the way they now grapple with the rules and regulations of the “civilized” foreign governance. Further contrast is clear just after the wedding ceremony. As Terangi and Marama make their way out of the church, a clamoring throng of natives, who are yelling, running, jumping, happily and playfully celebrating the occasion, quickly abduct the somber wedding march and turn it into a buoyant party. There is a markedly more lighthearted liveliness in their existence, which will fly in the face of expected convention.

Such instinctive energy is also why it is so difficult for Terangi to remain incarcerated. After getting into a scuffle that quite unwittingly carries political ramifications, Terangi is subsequently locked up in Tahiti. The situation may have resolved itself with reasonable due process, but Terangi, the wildly free spirit, refuses to stay put (further spurred on in part by the injustice of his confinement to begin with, and in part by the knowledge of Marama’s pregnancy). Each time he attempts to escape, his sentence grows longer and his punishment more severe. His initially minor penalty is eventually increased to 16 years in prison, eight years into which he again tries to flee and this time succeeds. Unfortunately, during this jailbreak his situation goes from bad to worse as, with apparently a single blow, he kills a guard on his way out.

As Terangi makes his way back home, the impending storm coincides with the growing tumult on the island. Contributing to the animosity while Terangi has been away is the fact that De Laage held in his hands the ability to bargain for the captured hero’s release. His heartlessly law-abiding refusal sets him at odds with nearly everyone. Once Terangi returns and is promptly hunted down by De Laage, the hurricane makes landfall, which sends everyone into a death-defying panic.

Though they first appear as the washed-out, storm-damaged leftovers of a former paradise in flashback, the South Sea islands that serve as the film’s primary setting are shown in their pictorially resplendent beauty, more in line with what the travel folders would say, as Dr. Kersaint puts it. It is key that the islands are presented as such, for while there is the main character-driven drama of the film, the movie is just as much, if not more, about the islands themselves and their aboriginal inhabitants. Ford thus includes a number of sequences showcasing details of cultural flavor. Sure, it may be a generally Hollywood-ized take on the setting (filmed predominantly on a massive Goldwyn set), but for someone who knows next to nothing about the authenticity of the location and its citizenry, like myself and presumably much of the film’s 1937 audience, it is attractive and effective.

Few have ever been able to compose a shot like John Ford, but in a film of this lesser caliber, while nothing is necessary displeasing, some of the interiors are rather underwhelming, shot adequately but nothing more (though Ford’s filming of Lamour might rank just below his treatment of Maureen O’Hara as the finest of his glamorous female depictions). Once outside, however, Ford and cinematographer Bert Glennon, who would shoot other films for the director likeStagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Wagon Master (1950), and Rio Grande(1950), really seem to let loose. Not to the extent of his authentic Western locations, but with a similar flair for the majesty of environment, Ford’s imagery in these sequences is outstanding; the second unit footage from the shooting on genuine South Pacific locations sets the visual scene and is incorporated nicely into the perception of naturally appealing regional realism.

While the end of The Hurricane is, in some ways, still a happy one, it is mostly unbelievably so, being built from a series of lucky coincidences and absurdly fortunate chance. There are also a few sequences in the film that falter under hokey sentimentality, occasionally setting the picture back for a moment or two (as when the local priest acknowledges God’s ultimate judgment, which is then followed by some wondrous sky-gazing and the sounds of angelic harmonizing). Still, for a film by a master who was perhaps not at his best—having already established high expectations—this is a solidly entertaining motion picture.

Pather Panchali/Aparajito/Apur SansarWritten and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1955/1956/1959

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The Criterion Collection set of Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy has been one of the more eagerly anticipated releases in recent years. These masterworks of world cinema, widely acclaimed for decades, have been long overdue a much-deserved superior treatment on home video. Now though, benefitting from a 4K digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and L’Immagine Ritrovata, and with a wealth of bonus features, these exceptional films are available in the superb presentation so many have been waiting for.

But to start at the source, such a treatment would not have been warranted in the first place were the films themselves not so remarkable, and that they most certainly are. As no less an authority than Akira Kurosawa puts it, “To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun.”

Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road, 1955), Aparajito(The Unvanquished, 1956), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), the first two based on novels by Bibhutibhusan Banerjee, the third on an original story by the author, follow Apurba Ray—Apu—from childhood through his early 20s. Apu is played by Subir Banerjee, Pinaki Sengupta, Smaran Ghosal, and Soumitra Chatterjee, in four key phases of his life, and while he is not always the main subject of every drama that occurs, he is the only figure consistently present, and it is through his eyes and emotions that the films poignantly register.

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It would seem in Pather Panchali that Apu’s older sister, Durga (Shampa Banerjee at first, then Uma Das Gupta at a slightly older age), acts as the primary protagonist. She is the one who drives along much of the story, mostly because of her penchant for stealing, which repeatedly lands her in trouble. It is more than 20 minutes into the film before the charming young Apu is given his phenomenal introduction, rising up with wide-eyed youthful exuberance as Durga wakes him one morning. Aside from some basically innocuous childhood shenanigans, the school-aged Apu ofPather Panchali is frequently on the margins, simply bearing witness to the world around him. Still, his relationship with Durga is the most complex and interesting in the film, and when their occasional sibling rivalries subside, the two share in several extremely touching moments of intimacy.

Dramatic tension in the first two films also weighs down upon Apu’s mother, Sarbojaya (Karuna Bannerjee), while Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee) is the relatively carefree father. In a characterization repeated later in Ray’s work, the man of the house is the idealist, the generally laidback layabout, while it is the wife and mother who suffers the anxieties of everyday life. She is also often the disciplinarian of the children, while the father is himself likened to an immature adolescent, at least in temperament. Harihar makes ends meet by being a priest, but on the side, his passion is writing plays and poetry, and it is to those endeavors that he devotes most of his time and effort. While such artistic goals undeniably have their cultural value, in Pather Panchali they contribute to a spousal clash of pragmatism versus naïve optimism. His art is important, but will it pay the bills? That, he does not so much worry about, but Sarbojaya does, for she has no such lofty devotion, at least not any longer; he still has his dreams, she only had hers. The conflict of aspirations and harsh realizations sets up a recurrent narrative challenge awaiting Apu, who, over the course of the three films, will face any number of obstacles thwarting his objectives, those short-term and life altering.

Also established early on, and again resonating throughout the trilogy, oftentimes directly influencing the realization or abandonment of idyllic ambitions, is the natural progression of life: births, deaths, weddings, funerals. As these three films follow several years in the life of one character and give ample attention to many of those around him, a major motif is subsequently that of youth versus old age, how the two differ and simultaneously compliment one another. This is first embodied by Durga, with her mischievous behavior, and by the defiantly stubborn elderly aunt, Indir Thakrun (Chunibala Devi), who lives with the family. Sarbojaya scolds the old woman for acting at times like a child, with the implication in this instance being that the very young and the very old are connected in a way those of middle age are not, that they both view things in a similar fashion, act accordingly, and are correspondingly chided (after all, it’s usually for the aunt that Durga steals fruit). The young and old are, in a sense, free from the burdens and the worries of middle age; they either are not yet there or have lived long enough to surpass such concerns. In those central years is where the trouble lies, though, as seen by Sarbojaya’s varied anxieties and the struggles of Harihar, and that is where we leave Apu by the time of Apur Sansar, with a tumultuous adult life ahead of him. “There are always good times and bad,” says Harihar, and so it goes that in the Apu trilogy; death is ever present and ever varying. There is the prolonged process of the aunt’s gradual passing in old age, the sudden and irrevocably fatal sickness of Durga and Harihar, and the death of Sarbojaya, most likely spurred on by emotional turmoil. Life and death, the trilogy shows, do not discriminate by age.

For all of Harihar’s faults, and however much Sarbojaya may deride his seemingly frivolous ambitions, by the end of Pather Panchali it is he who paves the way for the family’s move and a new chapter in the lives of all involved. Following the premature death of Durga and Harihar’s attainment of a new job, Aparajito picks up with the Ray family in the city of what is now Varanasi. Harihar continues his part-time religious work but soon succumbs to illness, which leaves Sarbojaya again under great duress. For a substantial portion of the film, Apu is not yet the primary point of focus, as that revolves around his mother and father. But it is still by way of his sense of sideline curiosity that much of what is seen is understood and chronicled.

Following his father’s passing, and his mother’s decision to move back to the village, Apu does gradually become the central figure, and he is now faced with his own decisions to make, particularly as they relate to his education. His detached childhood innocence and cheerful way of life is slipping away. Now he is concerned about his studies in Kolkata, which leaves him at odds with his mother, who frets about being left alone. He therefore has to choose between leaving her and their relative comfort in order to act on his own dreams, or to remain and become a village priest, like his father, with his goals relegated to merely what might have been, like his mother.

In Pather Panchali‘s Bengal village, Ray and cinematographer Subrata Mitra find and express an extraordinarily complex beauty in the natural simplicity of the forest. The nature photography glistens with images of sprinkling sunlight, textured foliage, and scenes of tranquil stillness. In this rural tableau, structures organically grow from, and meld with, the environment in a synchronicity of wilderness and settlement. In certain interior sequences, Ray adds to the realism of the location by retaining unrelated, though reasonable, background sounds and voices, never abandoning the notion that there is continually vigorous life beyond the frame. It’s what Ray biographer Andrew Robinson calls a “living backdrop.” While this may make for a richly authentic setting, it is often more than Sarbojaya can stand. For her, “it’s like living in the jungle.” For better or worse then, by the time ofAparajito such a setting seems a million miles away. The soft lushness of their bucolic village has given way to an urban hardness. The family’s new neighbors move freely around and are generally congenial (though perhaps a little too forward), but they remain strangers, and the Ray family, too, are strangers in a strange land.

Later, when Apu arrives in Kolkata, he is similarly stricken with an eager bewilderment, marveling at unexpectedly commonplace features of modernized civilization, like electricity. Though only hinted at in Pather Panchali, the conflict of primitivism and modernity is front and center in Aparajito, as is the blending of the natural and the artificial. One gets this sense right away, as the film opens with residents bathing in the Ganges river as it flows along the man-made banks of Varanasi (we see it again even in Kolkata, as pigs roam free right outside Apu’s multi-storied apartment building). The split division of the natural environment and that of urban development visually reflects the half-and-half position of Aparajito itself, which ultimately finds Apu at a personal crossroads. The surroundings also signal a tonal shift, with an urban location that is intimidating and even frightening in its newness. For this and in other ways, Aparajito is clearly a transitional film and does not work quite as well as a stand-alone feature. Having seen where Apu is coming from, we relate to his perception of foreignness, and do so with considerable anxiety. Ray thus films this middle feature with less obvious vitality, replacing it with the feeling that there is nothing beautiful or magical here.

When the somewhat older Apu is successfully on his own, his mother remains concerned for his safety and for his health. She becomes a solitary, tragic figure, even more than she already was, and the sadness registers prominently on Bannerjee’s face (she, along with the child actors of Pather Panchali, gives the best performance of the trilogy). When Sarbojaya purposely doesn’t wake the visiting Apu one morning, hoping he will miss his train back to the city, her pathetically guilt-ridden expression speaks volumes.

After Sarbojaya dies, and with Apu finally left by himself, he is now free to act on his life without the constraints of familial responsibility, with no attachments, no ties to bind him to his previous existence. One thing that remains, however, is the enigmatic majesty of trains, that perpetual symbol of movement, progress, and modernity—three key themes of the Apu trilogy, and also a feature that carries connotations of Apu’s steadily dissipating childhood wonderment; one of the finest scenes in Pather Panchali, the first scene actually shot, involves Apu’s astonished viewing of a passing train. (In Aparajito, the opening shot is taken from a train, and in Apur Sansar, Apu lives near a rail yard. But by this point, the thrill is gone.)

The adult Apu in Apur Sansar is a talented writer (following in that half of his father’s footsteps), who has earned something of a reputation for his college work on village life. This, it would seem, is the one way for Apu to keep his upbringing alive, for now he is fully entrenched in modern life, a life of restaurants and movie theaters, slacks and button-up shirts. Still, he lives modestly, and still he struggles to find his way. While attending the wedding of a friend’s cousin, Apu quite unexpectedly finds himself in the midst of an unraveling ceremony. Seen to be in the right place at the right time, and despite the fact he initially decries the proposal as being from the “dark ages,” Apu reluctantly steps in to take the reticent groom’s place. His unanticipated marriage is no doubt a major step in his life, and it is a step he is drastically ill-equipped to take, emotionally and financially. But Aparna (Sharmila Tagore), his new bride, is beautiful, and besides, it is nevertheless another, perhaps inevitable step in life, a way to accomplish some semblance of mature, adult stability.

For a time, Apur Sansar takes the shape of a common, modern domestic drama. Though Aparna is less educated than Apu, she pleasantly assumes her new role and together the two share some of the trilogy’s most pleasantly tender moments. Apu’s life is destined to be marred by tragedy, however, and this too is not meant to be. When Aparna dies during childbirth, Apu abandons the boy, and after he spends time in a period of bearded, nomadic wandering, he is faced with yet another decision about the next path to take.

Apur Sansar ends with a beautifully arranged final sequence, a satisfying conclusion to the series, one that conveys, for the first time, Apu’s now full engagement in a world of his own (hence the third film’s subtitle). It is, as critic Terrence Rafferty writes, “a passage that both evokes the past and implies a future—a moment in which two people, one grown, one not, stand on a threshold.”

Far more of an amateur production than the latter two films, Pather Panchali was created with a small, inexperienced crew. It also has a less straightforward narrative than the following two features, opting instead for a fluid slice of life depiction of the Ray family, with a perceptive authenticity in detail (setting, clothes, props, habits, etc.) rather than plot. This first installment, a groundbreaking leap forward for Indian cinema, is likewise therefore less reliant on classically effective emotional cues (though Aparajito and Apur Sansar are by no means melodramatic), and stylistically, as in the nature scenes noted above, it is also the most visually dynamic. For these reasons, it is the best of the three films. Regarding its liveliness and intensity, Chatterjee says the movie is, “like an eagle swooping down and carrying our hearts up to the sky.” It is no surprise Pather Panchali had a successful New York premiere even though it was shown sans subtitles. There is no translation required to such visual resonance.

Generally though, while his films are always aesthetically pleasing, Ray frequently films without any blatant synthetic flourish, but with a background as a graphic artist and having worked under the tutelage of Jean Renoir, he was fully capable of elegant pictorial compositions, striking camera movements, and emphatic editing when necessary. There are times when he incorporates an explicitly stylized punctuation to the already dazzling intrinsic imagery. In Pather Panchali, for example, there are two such shots: when he dollies alongside the aunt in an unconventional profile close-up as she walks in front of hanging rugs, and when Sarbojaya is seen walking inside her darkened house by candlelight, shot from the nighttime shadows outside.

Enhancing Ray’s masterful writing and direction, a number of other individuals played integral roles in the greatness of these three features. First, and perhaps foremost, is Ravi Shankar, whose stirring score is inseparable from the imagery and tone of the films. Then there is cinematographer Mitra, editor Dulal Dutta, and production designer/art director Bansi Chandragupta. Ray may have been the guiding force behind the scenes, but without the contributions of these and other key figures over the course of several years, what distinguishes this trilogy would never have been so fully and magnificently realized.

While a trilogy was not his original intent, it’s good Satyajit Ray ultimately chose to continue following Apu. Pather Panchali stands on its own as an exceptional motion picture, Aparajito carries further the themes and complex character relations, and Apur Sansar rounds everything up, but the three films together, as one universally affecting document, make the trilogy the incomparable cinematic accomplishment that it is.

Bad Boys/Bad Boys IIWitten by Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, and Doug Richardson/Ron Shelton and Jerry Stahl
Directed by Michael Bay
USA, 1995/2003

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Say what you will about Michael Bay—and people have said a lot about Michael Bay—the man knows how to make an action movie. Bad Boys, from 1995, his first feature film, and its sequel, from 2003, which is making its Blu-ray debut as part of a 20th anniversary collection from Sony Pictures, are just two notable examples. These films are bursting at the seams with car chases, gunfights, explosions, and more, much more. There isn’t a whole lot beneath the surface, but there doesn’t really need to be. What these two films set out to do, they do very well, and what Bay does best, he does better than anybody. That may not always (hardly ever) be critically acceptable in terms of “quality cinema,” but the result is skillful, vigorous, generally entertaining, and extremely profitable. Cases in point: the two Bad Boys films.

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Before getting to the action, though, which is the most impressive and laudable element of every Michael Bay movie, Bad Boys is built on a standard buddy film template, with a clash of personalities joining together when necessary in the interest of professional duty. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence play Miami narcotics detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. While they have differing tactical methods, the two prove essentially efficient, even if they leave in their wake a trail of dead bodies and collateral damage. Neither work exactly by the book, but the movies wouldn’t be much fun if they did. Their character contrast is not only in temperament and methodology, but also in their individual history and their private social status: Marcus is fairly domesticated with a wife and children, relying on his paycheck, and keen to play it safe; Mike is a bachelor, a ladies man, from a wealthy family, and more than willing to take risks. Marcus is high-strung and anxious; Mike is smooth and confident.

In the first film, when Mike and Marcus must swap lifestyles, this disparity perfectly sets up the humor latent in their conflicting personas, thus serving the purpose of the movie’s primary comical conceit. In the second Bad Boys, Marcus’s sister Syd (Gabrielle Union) enters the picture. She works for the DEA and, unbeknownst to Marcus, is in a relationship with Mike, which suggests his womanizing ways have passed since the prior film. That is one point of tension between the partners. But further complicating their relationship is the revelation that Marcus has apparently had enough of Mike’s recklessness and has put in for a transfer.

This is about the extent of the films’ character development and evolution. The deepest example of Mike and Marcus achieving any sort of profound realization is in the loyalty, the brotherhood, that despite antagonism nevertheless remains. By comparison, the bad guys in the two films, who are hardly worth mentioning, are simply bad and generally inconsequential…save for them being the bad guys. Their major point of differentiation is that in the first movie they deal in heroin while in the second they deal ecstasy. Compared to this standard nefarious triviality, Mike and Marcus are reasonably substantial individuals.

Still, nothing about any of this is particularly earth shattering, and Bay himself acknowledges the poor script he was working from with the first Bad Boys. But what kept his interest, and indeed, what makes the films entertaining (along with Bay’s visual initiative—more on that later) are the charismatic Smith and Lawrence. While there is no heartfelt association between these men and the audience, we don’t mind spending a few hours with the two of them. There may be an overabundance of the incessantly chaotic bickering that occurs in most partners-in-opposition film scenarios, but there is a strong chemistry that works. To make up for the initially lackluster screenplay, Bay allowed for Smith and Lawrence to improvise a good deal of their confrontational agitation. Their corresponding talents show in the naturally humorous combative banter and the amusing interactions with others, from their colleagues to the hapless boy showing up to take out Marcus’ daughter. Sometimes the two, especially Smith, strut and pose to play up the visual coolness of their swagger, but it’s all in good fun. In fact, while it’s perfectly understandable that Will Smith would want to broaden his range and venture into more dramatic opportunities (though the success of that outcome has been debatable), there is obviously a reason why roles like these are what made him a star.

The main attraction for any Michael Bay film, though, and the two Bad Boys are no exception, is Michael Bay. Some may argue with justification that Bay’s cinema is all style and no substance, and true enough, Bad Boys is a largely cosmetic series, but it does undeniably have style. Bay has an extraordinary knack for visual flair, and in this sun-kissed Miami setting, the films are sleek, glamorous, and spectacularly realized. Bay’s mobile camera, his integration of low and canted camera angles, his use of dramatic slow motion, it all works superbly in this cinematic milieu of hyper-dynamic action. With this is Bay’s music video aesthetic, accentuating frenetic editing, fluorescent coloring, embellished lighting, and a largely effective sense of pacing. Though he notes the quick cutting in the first film was partially a result of his having to cover up some of the faulty sets (he comments on the film’s “low” $19 million budget and points out he personally put up $25,000 in order to get one explosion), both films proceed at a satisfactorily expedient tempo. A criticism regarding some of his more recent films is that their length borders on self-indulgent gratuitousness (the last Transformers was 165 minutes long), but for both Bad Boys, he keeps things dynamic, building on a steady momentum.

These stylistic hallmarks are all evident in the first Bad Boys film, which is flashy but never overly so. But for better or worse, Bay turns the visual voltage up to eleven with Bad Boys II. Everything about the second Bad Boys is slicker and more extravagant: there are better cars, and more of them; better car chases, and more of them; better stunts, and more of them. The violence, pursuits, and explosions are gloriously over the top and the action sequences are lengthier and much more elaborate. WithBad Boys II, Bay was working off a considerably higher budget (about $130 million), which, along with nearly 10 years of technical advancement, also increased the amount of digital imagery. This he seamlessly and creatively integrates to admirable effect. Most impressive in the sequel are the digitally enhanced single takes, Bay using the CGI at his disposal to have the “camera” seemingly swoop in, out, above, below, and through realistically impossible structures, often without a perceived cut. The films are also increasingly expansive in terms of settings and set pieces, with the action tracking over large portions of the Miami area (and beyond, in the case of the sequel). Less remarkable, though nonetheless vital to Bay’s overarching approach toward action, are common elements like glass breaking, water spraying, and debris flying. It may not all be substantive, but it is expertly accomplished.

Now, of course, the above is not to suggest the Bad Boysfilms are great works of cinematic art. Though enjoyable, they have more than their fair share of flaws. Leaving the narrative issues aside (Bay says the first film has logic you could drive a truck through), there is a treatment of women that is questionable at best. Bay by no means holds a monopoly on such a liability, and (male) filmmakers have been doing this since the advent of the medium, but with the lingering close-ups, suggestive angles, and mostly clichéd presentations, both Bad Boysfilms are marred by an objectifying sexualization or a demeaning physical portrayal of most featured females (a holdover from Bay’s Victoria’s Secret commercials?). I don’t believe there is any maliciously sexist intent in any of this, but it is present. There are also issues with the comedic tone of both Bad Boys, which ranges from good-natured wisecracks, often punctuated by funny pop culture allusions, to sophomorically crass commentary. The jokes in the two films, either voiced or visual, include a host of dubious material: gay jokes, rat sex jokes, erection jokes, ethnic and racial jokes, cadaver jokes, fart jokes, and, when Marcus accidentally downs some ecstasy, drug jokes. Some admittedly work; some most certainly do not.

Perhaps something like 13 Hours will change this, but one of the easiest and most common charges against Bay is that for what his films are worth—for those who are even willing to give his films some worth—their value is largely derived from superficial qualities. They look good, the characters are amusing enough (if occasionally annoying and not heavily engaging), but the films are, ultimately, frivolous exercises in overblown action and special effects. Be that as it may, and the Bad Boys films do skirt this territory, though they are less reliant on effect-driven exhibition than theTransformers series, for example; I can’t help but find his work immensely enjoyable.

Bay was not yet 30 at the time of production on the firstBad Boys, and he had years of successful and widely acclaimed music video and commercial experience behind him. It’s with this background that he developed the type of artistry I admire, one of pure visual bravado. Without getting into a whole theoretical/historical justification of Bay’s filmmaking, movies like Bad Boys fall in line with a cinematic concept going back to the purpose of movies at their inception: inventive imagery, pure spectacle, in Tom Gunning’s immortal words, “the cinema of attractions,” where story and character are secondary to simply seeing something incredible, technically if not logically. With Bad Boys and elsewhere, the argument I go back to with Michael Bay is that even if his films aren’t serious, aren’t especially well written, and do get carried away in terms of their barrage of action content, they ultimately still look amazing. Is that enough? I don’t know, sometimes I think it is.

New on Video: ‘Code Unknown’

Code Unknown
Written and directed by Michael Haneke
France/Germany/Romania, 2000

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Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown, the director’s 2000 follow-up to his brilliant 1997 film Funny Games, opens on group of deaf children playing sign-language charades. It’s an oddly provocative opening, in that it instantly leaves one to speculate where such a scene is heading, and yet is curiously soon forgotten as the film proper begins, only to be recalled again at the very end of the movie. While this may appear as an arbitrary insertion of an apparently irrelevant parenthesis, there proves to be more to the inclusion than one could initially gather when the scene is first presented. It would indeed be impossible to understand its full significance until the film concludes, for like these children attempting to guess the phrase or word mimicked by another, Code Unknown is itself about figuring out behavior, trying to deduce and comprehend the meaning behind individual actions and expressions, to solve a cryptic code of conduct and human interaction.
Haneke assigns Code Unknown the subheading of “incomplete tales of several journeys,” an apt accompaniment given the fragmentary nature of the film. Certain scenes stop and start abruptly, many without any sort of establishing shot or concluding narrative signal; the vignettes, in their singular, isolated presentation, do feel occasionally incomplete. But as the stories gradually evolve amidst a montage of spatial and temporal shifts and character (re)introductions, a larger world begins to form. Spanning diverse locations over an indeterminate period, Haneke paints a broad multicultural picture, one that has as its basic grounding a preliminary sequence introducing the primary characters, from there branching off to side stories providing prior and succeeding context.

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Juliette Binoche plays Anne Laurent, an actress who one day runs into Jean (Alexandre Hamidi), the younger brother of her war correspondent boyfriend, Georges (Thierry Neuvic). After going their separate ways, Jean callously tosses some trash at Maria (Luminita Gheorghiu), a vagrant sitting on the sidewalk. Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), a Malian immigrant, sees the offense and confronts the boy. They fight, the police are called, and Anne takes Jean while Maria and Amadou are arrested; she is deported to Romania and he is harassed though subsequently released. From this initiating action, the film follows each of the characters as they deal with the direct and more subtle repercussions of the incident.
When Anne first encounters Jean, he says he tried to get into her apartment but the code was changed, and when he tried to call her, all he got was her answering machine. Like the averting of this intended communication, Code Unknown is concerned with connections both missed and made. Haneke charts these people and the way they interact as perceptively as he covers the places they inhabit. In choosing to film in long, single takes, with the actors’ movements dictating the direction of the camera more so than any sort of strictly ornamental design, he shows a world that vividly comes alive as any given scene unfolds. As the main characters come and go, interacting with their surroundings, this uncut stylistic choice allows us to also witness others around them, and we are invited to consider the stories of these strangers as well, especially those in the more populated public places (an original title for the project was, in fact, “Strangers”). There are often those who, though on the periphery of the primary narrative, nevertheless make an impression. Some are up to no good, others want to do the right thing; one scene with Anne on the metro shows both facing off. As the full significance of those to whom we are introduced is not necessarily clear at first—their back-story, motivations, and personality traits only developing as the film continues—we find ourselves uncertainly drawing conclusions of character. Much like those in the film, we identify features and inferences based on our own assumptions and even prejudices. Anne’s occupation as an actress is a symbolically revealing one, giving the implied suggestion that she, like everyone else, is essentially playing a part in a larger drama. Think of Shakespeare’s As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.” The parts here, and their respective scenes, range from the dramatic (Anne hearing apparent child abuse) to the banal (she does so while ironing), the two often mingling as in life.
With its expansive structure, Code Unknown looks at the respective issues of both adults and children, and in its surveying fragments, we see lives marked by moments of minutia and downtime and moments of great anxiety, from plowing a field to attending a funeral, and everything in-between. There are those who live lives of relative comfort versus those who live lives of hardship and struggle. In this film that brings together multiple points of view concerning Europe’s immigrant culture, Haneke, who was himself making his first feature outside his native Austria, is also examining the impact of diversity, in terms of cultural, economical, and generational collision. In classic Haneke style, it’s not always a pleasant merger, but it is chaotically realistic (though he does call the film his “mildest”). And as per his norm, Code Unknown achieves its emotional potency due to a steadfast simplicity, a direct presentation of behavior with all its blemishes. As much as his camera may give the spectator the impression of observational objectivity, however, several of the characters find themselves in conflict over whether or not they should get involved in the problems of others; should they stand up for one who has been wronged and defend the innocent, or should they sit back and disengage from the troubling world? The “code,” then, could also be the unclear rules that govern a society, the shared conventions that influence and guide behavior. Jean may have been disrespectful, but should his actions be necessarily countered by violence? That’s not the answer either. So what is? As the title of the film suggests, that code is unknown.
This type of multi-character, multi-leveled narrative is a somewhat familiar construct, but one with endless variations. And under Haneke’s continually clever direction, the result is one of the most formally audacious and ambiguous attempts at such a character-driven mosaic. As with Funny Games three years prior, Code Unknown was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Though it would lose out to Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, it ultimately came away with a special Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and further established Haneke as a major figure in the world of international cinema.

Mulholland Drive
Written and directed by David Lynch
USA, 2001

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Included with the original DVD release of Mulholland Drive was a note giving David Lynch’s “10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller.” These were teasing vagaries like “Where is Aunt Ruth?”, “Who gives a key, and why?”, and “Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: at least two clues are revealed before the credits.” As provocative as these clues are, none are particularly helpful when it comes to deciphering the mysteries of this mesmerizing film. Still, as points to ponder, they do add even further dimensions to one of the best, most fascinatingly perplexing films from a director who knows a thing or two about fascinating and perplexing films.
Leading up to the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Mulholland Drive, which does not include these clues but does contain interviews, a deleted scene, and behind the scenes footage (as per Lynch’s home video instructions, however, there are no chapter stops), there was much online anticipation and discussion concerning the film. One repeated refrain was that it is a typically uncategorized horror movie. Certainly, like most of Lynch’s work, there are more than a few unsettling moments, with the threat of danger looming in one sequence after another, and at least one stunning jump-scene works just as well after repeated viewings as it did upon seeing the film for the first time. But if one is going to place Mulholland Drive into the horror genre, one must also accept that it is just as much, if not more, a comedy.

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In fact, to think of Mulholland Drive as a strictly horror film is to take both Lynch and the film itself far too seriously. As evidenced by the aforementioned clues and their almost comically unhelpful suggestions, as well as Lynch’s own penchant for coy, self-analytical ambiguity and the film’s inclusion of The Cowboy, the hokey, mannered dialogue, the moments of overt absurdity (miniature old people gyrating their way out of a blue box), and the mere appearance of Billy Ray Cyrus, Lynch is obviously having some fun with the film and its prevailing craziness. There are times when even the fictional characters seem bemused by what others are saying and the strange way they behave. This potential for cross-genre categorization owes a good deal to Lynch’s distinct approach toward both humor and horror; no one else out there has quite the same sense of what is funny and what is terrifying, and no one else so creatively mingles the two. A pervading unease may emanate throughout the film, particularly in its later sequences, but when you have a scene featuring a rather heavyset woman being accidentally shot and thinking it was simply a ferocious bite of some sort, it is hard to be too caught up in any conventional notion of fear.
As generally bizarre as the many elements of Mulholland Drive are, there is, at first anyway, an established story. Betty (Naomi Watts, in a breakthrough role) arrives in California fit to burst with fantasies of stardom and the wide-eyed wonder of naive Hollywood dreams. Unexpectedly greeting her at her aunt’s house is the mysterious “Rita”—not her real name—played by Laura Harring, who is suffering from memory loss following a car accident. Together, the two try to unscramble Rita’s confusion and piece together the disjointed puzzle of her life. In time, they also fall in love. The major side plot involves the tumultuous casting for a film, and the difficulties this process causes for director Adam (Justin Theroux), who, much to his chagrin, becomes beholden to the men pulling the strings behind the production, and maybe even behind more than that (among the shady figures is iconic Lynch actor Michael J. Anderson as Mr. Roque).
For a time, there looks to be a relatively straightforward trajectory of storylines. Despite the occasional moments of outward irrelevance, those illogical scenes that may only marginally become significant, the predominant stories join in a basically rational confluence of narrative. But by about the 90-minute mark, something happens. After Betty and Rita visit Club Silencio, an uncanny theatrical venue Rita suddenly wakes up speaking about, and the camera soon thereafter zooms into an inexplicable blue box, from there, nothing is ever quite the same. The film concludes with an onslaught of disparate sequences bearing only confounding resemblance to the previously assumed plot, bringing together a convergence of identity confusion, creation, and collusion. Certain familiar elements and characters reappear, but rarely, if ever, in their previous context, and to what new purpose they now function is never quite clear.

The opening sequences of Mulholland Drive are filled with clichéd dialogue resembling something between an antiquated melodrama and a poorly written soap opera (again, making it very funny), and Watts especially excels in these early sections, where her sugary sweet persona is enhanced by the kind of purposefully bad acting only good actors can do well. Here and continuing on, behavior is peculiarly exaggerated, with erratic laughter, eccentric actions, and characters displaying no trace of naturalism whatsoever. The dialogue is just plain enough to be comical, and just odd enough to be creepily ominous: “Could be someone’s missing, maybe,” “Someone is in trouble. Something bad is happening,” etc.
Like the dialogue, some of the more memorable moments in the film deftly ride the generic line of comedy/thriller, as in the hilariously intense Luigi Castigliane espresso scene (Luigi played by Lynch composer extraordinaire Angelo Badalamenti), and the famous Winkies sequence, with its foreboding conversation about a frighteningly realistic dream and a man who perhaps lives behind the establishment. Scenes like these are among the most impressive in the film, but the question is, are they in accord with the film’s larger premise? Not necessarily. But do they heighten the movie? Absolutely.
This sort of necessity of the unnecessary seems to fly in the face of standard narrative conventions, but in Lynch’s omniscient hands, it contributes to part of why a film like Mulholland Drive is so enthralling. The film is designed to encourage inevitable attempts at interpretation and understanding, but it is largely a futile effort to find a rhyme and reason for everything. Why Lynch is so exceptional, then, is that despite this awareness and acceptance of a never realized complete comprehension, one still wants to go back and attempt to figure it all out, even if it becomes readily evident that to do so would be an impossibility. His films manage to coalesce in spite of the randomness, so that while by the end of the film much is left uncertain, everything still seems, in an odd way, unified. Lynch presents a world that is so detailed and so expertly realized that it is thoroughly acceptable, even as it is paradoxically implausible.
In the Criterion interview with Watts, she says the titular road carries with it symbolic connotations of being a place where both great things and bad things can happen. Aside from just Mulholland Drive, the film is a haunting love-letter to much of what defines Los Angeles, the sights and sounds of which Lynch has long had a stated affinity. Shots of the cityscape with its patches of light and darkness give the film a surreal sense of location, a depiction of L.A. as if in a dream (clearly befitting the film’s tone and Betty’s own declaration of the region being a “dream place”). It also has to do with Lynch’s visual sensibility, which though at times can be rather flashy is often also skillfully subtle. Go back to that Winkies scene. Adding to the tension there, building on an understated anxiousness, is a hovering, restlessly mobile camera. Its impact is effective, but it’s only obvious if one really looks for it; otherwise, it is simply felt psychologically as part of the audio/visual tapestry of the film. This is what Lynch also speaks about regarding his distinctive union of image and sound, and the investigation of what comes first and how the two connect. Most notably due to Badalamenti’s immense contribution, the sound design of Mulholland Drive is superb in its mixture of score, diagetic sounds, and ambient noise. In separate interviews, Lynch and Badalamenti speak of capturing or creating a “mood,” and as much as anything, this dense atmospheric quality is what makes Mulholland Drive so unnerving.
Amidst the general plot of the film, springing up from time to time and expanding the overarching mystery of the picture, are seemingly arbitrary inclusions of unusual characters, settings, or props. Details like an untouched breakfast, a familiar ashtray, a phone, a blue key (the same shade of blue that repeatedly appears throughout the film), all lead us to assume—and to subsequently search for—a veiled implication based purely on their recurrence and Lynch’s stress of their presence via calculated close-ups. In his interview with the director, Chris Rodley points out the movie’s obvious clues, but also notes, “there are many other things that are important visual and audio indicators that are not obvious. So at times it does seem as if you’re delighting in teasing or mystifying the viewer.” Lynch denies this notion: “No, you never do that to an audience. An idea comes, and you make it the way the idea says it wants to be, and you just stay true to that. Clues are beautiful because I believe we’re all detectives. We mull things over, and we figure things out. We’re always working this way. People’s minds hold things and form conclusions with indications. It’s like music. Music starts, a theme comes in, it goes away, and when it comes back, it’s so much greater because of what’s gone before.”
David Lynch has embarked on a number of side ventures—painting, coffee, music—but he is a man born to make movies, and one sees this with Mulholland Drive in his complete mastery of all aesthetic facets, from lighting to framing to camera movement, to say nothing of the stories he develops and the singular worlds he subsequently creates. Whatever his intentions, and however much he chooses to acknowledge his cinematic mischievousness, one thing is certain: such inscrutability is enough to keep many, including myself, coming back to his work—and this film in particular—over and over again.