philosoraptor42

Chronicle (2012)

This film seemed to come out of nowhere and the trailer absolutely blew me away. (Though I advise everyone to steer clear of the trailer if they want to have the best cinema experience.) This is a brand new found-footage movie. It doesn't hit the heights of "Troll Hunter", but then again I think both of these films take the crown away from "REC" (which really impressed me by both having interesting characterisation and giving a good reason for the continued use of the cameras even after things get rough).

The film follows an introverted boy who has decided to film his life because he wants a record of the way he is treated by his aggressive alcoholic father. As a means of distancing himself from the frightening world around him he has decided to film everything. This sounds pretty contrived to start with, but it actually becomes pretty natural after a while.

rhoda_rants, you were absolutely right about how they control the cameras. The way "Chronicle" makes the film feel more natural is having the camera held up by the characters' mysteriously aquired telekinetic powers.

The characters are a greater strength here than in Troll Hunter. We have three central characters who interact in a very real one. However, it becomes clear that two of the more "jock" (yeah, that's really not a UK-English word, but since this is an American film it seems to fit) characters would not be so interested in spending time with our introverted protagonist with the camera if it weren't for the powers they find themselves sharing. The limits of telekinesis are slowly extended over the course of the film. There also seem to be clear rules on how the powers work. It seems that for our protagonist the telekinetic powers give him a way to express his inner life in a way that his more extroverted friends can also understand and the way the relationship develops is actually quite well planned.

The only thing that I'd say negative about this film is (and isn't it always) the final act. It makes it especially awkward for this review. If my comment was that the ending spoils it, that'd be easy. Unfortunately the ending doesn't spoil it. It just makes it slightly less good of a movie than I hoped it would be. I suppose the point to make is that while many people are comparing this to more typical superhero films such as X-Men, the only point where it really feels like one of those films is in the last act. For those who liked the movie "Unbreakable" as much as I did, this might help to understand the appeal. Just like "Unbreakable", "Chronicle" considers what it would be like if superheroes were real and does it in a much more compelling and exciting way. The problem with the final act is that in order to take the action to the next seemingly inevitable stage, the film suddenly takes a rather more cliched turn.

Rather than actually going into spoilers, I think it might help to arm viewers with a few comparisons to Akira. Hollywood has been threatening us with an American live-action remake of Akira for a while and perhaps "Chronicle" will make up for the disappointment that remake is expected to deliver. Akira is about a disturbed boy with an inferiority complex who finds himself transforming and gaining strange kinds of superpowers. At one point in "Akira" it's suggested (with differing clarity depending on whether you are watching subtitles or listening to dubbing) that the process is causing a transformation from human to god. It's an evolution of sorts. (Though at the same time in "Akira" it's also about an imbalance of nature, with a creature reaching a higher level of evolution before it's ready. It's perhaps more indicative of the idea of karma than a serious consideration of evolution per se.)

As well as this kind of "evolution" theme turning up a little randomly at one stage towards the end of "Chronicle", another parallel with "Akira" is the way some of the powers are animated. As you'd expect from telekinesis, it involves making things rise around you. Anyway, at a certain point in "Chronicle" we see our central characters causing small rocks and dirt to rise around them in a way that I found very evocative of the Akira imagery. Sure "Akira" is set in a post-apocalyptic future (though some have noted that since the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan has been essentially post-apocalyptic anyway), while "Chronicle" is set in modern day. However, there are clear parallels in the ways the powers develop and some of the underlying themes of the film.

"Chronicle" is brilliant fun and I wonder whether I'm not sometimes more critical of films when I see them at the cinema than when I see them on DVD. Perhaps I'll be changing my mind on this when I rewatch it on DVD just like I did with "X Men: First Class". However, in the meanwhile I do think things go a little cliched in the last act and so for now this is a very good film, but it doesn't get the A grade.

B+

Hesher (2010)

Wow, okay. I found this in Filmdrunk's list of best films of the year for 2010. It's a good little list and now that the only film on the list that I haven't seen is "Youth In Revolt" I'd say that, asides from "The Social Network" (which takes the lowest spot), I'd agree with every film included in that list.

I've been interested in the concept of "Hesher" for some time now. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as the unhinged metalhead druggie who simply follows no rules. I was a little concerned with the part of the premise whereby he befriends a child, but I was intrigued enough by the chance of a darker Gordon-Levitt performance anyway. Quite a while back I saw "Mysterious Skin". It's not a film I want to revisit any time soon, but it was a really interesting film about child abuse and there's no doubting the power behind Gordon-Levitt's performance. And now, seemingly to make sure no one forgets his ability (because let's be honest here, "Inception" was hardly the showcase of his talent you might hope for) Gordon-Levitt strikes again with this indie film where every time he's on screen he completely blows you away.

There's one particularly scene in "Hesher" which I am going to call "the swimming pool scene". While Hesher (which in case anyone was wondering, is the name of Gordon-Levitt's central character) seems pretty unfazed in nearly every scene, somehow he seems to be able to become far more animated and energetic without it seeming like a major change. What defines Hesher is his unpredictability. Whenever he walks anywhere he seems to do it powerfully and with determination and even if he's just standing still there's always the impression that he could make a sudden threatening or shocking motion at any time. So in the swimming pool scene, we start off with Hesher lying in a sunbed and we finish the scene with absolute mayhem and Gordon-Levitt's co-stars Natalie Portman and Devin Brochu (the child actor) are left shell-shocked at the end. Gordon-Levitt regularly has scenes like this that had me paralysed with laughter because his character is so perfectly over-the-top. Not ridiculous, but just one of the most incredible movie characters of recent years.

So we've got a film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman (yes, she's doing well here too), with a child actor who actually does a damn good job too. I've already admitted that I was laughing hysterically for much of the film because of the strength of the central performance and I began this review with "wow". So... what's the negative side? Well, in the end Gordon-Levitt's character is able to provoke such a powerful reaction because he contrasts so jarringly with the rest of the movie.

To make a fairly poor analogy, think of the role that Shaggy and Scooby have in your typical Scooby Doo episode. There's a fairly run-of-the-mill mystery with some (as far as I can remember) fairly dull characters, but then it lightens up when you have the sections where Shaggy and Scooby are running down corridors away from the main bad guy. These scenes are a far cry from the mystery story which the cartoon starts with and finishes with, but essentially it's the way this slapstick contrasts from the main plot that caught the child audiences' attention. Well the Hesher character works a similar way. We've got our central plot of a boy whose mother has died, dealing with a depressed father and a grandmother who is losing her sight. Then we have a spanner in the works in the form of this druggie metaller whose first introduction involves him throwing an explosive in the general direction of a policeman to avoid being caught squatting. He blames the child for attracting attention to where he was living and insists that the child helps him stay in their house instead.

Hesher is very much an anti-hero, with more emphasis on the "anti" than the "hero". He's also precisely the sort of character you'd expect writers for Filmdrunk to find hilarious. (Check out one of their Frotcasts, to hear how their immature humour works.) Perhaps it's missing the point to wish the whole film was simply about him and didn't feature this child's angst on top of that, but the fact is that behind the Hesher character we have a fairly run-of-the-mill indie movie which doesn't really know how to end. Some of the stuff the child decides to do actually felt even more confusing than Hesher's random actions. The child in the film is constantly trying to buy a car that's being towed away at the very start and even when we discover the car's significance, it still wasn't obvious to my why the child was doing this.

A top notch performance of a top notch character which introduces some absolutely incredible black comedy into what would otherwise be a dull indie flick. Well worth watching and overall a good solid movie, but sadly the background world which Hesher inhabits makes the story rather limited overall.

Oh, almost forgot to mention. Towards the beginning of the film we see the child in a lesson at school where he appears to be getting a lecture in Freudian theory. The class is asked about the metaphoric function of dreams and whether they are premonitions or expressions of feelings, but instead of actually getting students to put their hands up and answer questions, the teacher then goes on to start linking dreams to relationships with one's mother. Seriously, film scripwriters out there, there are lessons taught in school and university that aren't about Freud, okay? And if you are setting your scene in high school, don't have the teacher giving long verbose lectures to the class. (Why does it feel like the most realistic depiction of a school lesson I can think of is in "The Craft"?)

B-