Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 10/27/19

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Dylan Minnette, Zoë Soul, Erin Gerasimovich, Kyla-Drew, Wayne Duvall, Len Cariou. Screenplay: Aaron Guzikowski. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Production design: Patrice Vermette. Film editing: Joel Cox, Gary Roach. Music: Jóhann Jóhannson.

Overlong, overcomplicated, and sometimes just flat-out preposterous, Prisoners succeeds in casting a creepy spell even when you're questioning its improbabilities. It succeeds mainly because director Denis Villeneuve trusts that he can overcome the narrative flaws, and because he's working with a phenomenal cast headed by Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal and generously provided with other first-rank actors like Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano. To my mind, Gyllenhaal stands out among even this company for his richly internalized performance as the detective in charge of the disappearance of two little girls. He buttons his shirts to the top, shielding himself against the world, determined to solve the case even when he's taking shit from his own captain and from the angry father of one of the missing girls, a volcano of a man beautifully embodied by Jackman. Roger Deakins's Oscar-nominated cinematography also casts a cold spell over the film, in which the external weather -- rain, snow, bleak days -- is a correlative for the emotions haunting the souls of the characters. There comes a point when you realize that the film isn't meant to be subjected to literal-minded analysis, that it's a parable about cruelty and loss, a validation of Jackman's character's mantra: "Pray for the best, but prepare for the worst." Villeneuve's adherence to this vision and his cast's abundant skills somehow overcome any desire we may have to impose a more realistic view on the material, to pick apart its contrivances and inconsistencies.