Fantastic Mr. Fox
Dir: Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson can do no wrong in my book. His movies are so unapologetically human (you know, those flawed, imperfect humans you hear about), that I cannot help but be capivated by the quirks of the Rushmore hero, the Darjeeling Limited brothers, all the Tenenbaums, and Steve Zissou. He brings this same trait to all the main characters in his first animated feature--except they aren't human at all! Instead, they are a community of stop-motion animated foxes, beavers, and opossums, living ordinary lives in a world that is more akin to Wallace & Gromit than Shrek. [That is to say, in an animated movie that doesn't try to cater to two audiences simultaneously.] Rather than laying on a hipper-than-thou ironic detachment with a few winks to the adults in the audience (I'm talking about Shrek--hated it!), Anderson creates a universe of his own that is more authentic because it doesn't cater to anyone.
With a dream cast of actors (their voices are so distinctive that their mannerisms are infused into their animated counterparts), and a smart, witty script, you will be enchanted by this nuclear family of foxes. Ironically, the human characters are the one-dimensional ones.
Anti-Christ
Dir: Lars von Trier
Believe it or not, the previous film is not the only one this year that features a talking fox. "Chaos Reigns." That's the only line delivered by a denizen of the creepiest woods you are likely to see anywhere outside of Deliverance country (I hope!). But this fox's warning comes a little late for us viewers, who have already endured an exhausting build-up of tension between a couple who have escaped to these woods to get over the grief of losing a child to their own negligence.
That scene of their child's accidental death comes at the beginning of this aptly-titled film (any scene depicting a child dying violently is a cinematic no-no), serving notice to everyone brave enough to buy a ticket that you are about to be taken to a place you've never been before. The first clue I had was in the soundtrack: the opening scene of this married couple (Charlotte Gainsbourg and, who else, Willem Dafoe) having sex is filmed in slow-motion black and white, to the strains of the beautiful Handel aria "Lascia ch'io pianga" from Rinaldo (I'm listening to it as I write this review!) The words are instructive:
Let me lament / my cruel destiny /and yearn for liberty.
May grief, in its mercy, / shatter the bonds / of my torment.
The device was used most-recently in Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" -- start the film with a beautiful piece of music to contrast it with the depravity to come. Oh, and the depravity does come. But von Trier has a deeper purpose in taking his audience further and further into this Dante-esque hell, and it is not to titillate: it is to depict nothing less than mankind's struggle between good and evil in visceral, stomach-churning terms. In scenes that defy description, both horrible and beautiful, you realize this director is striving to reach something profound.
I am going to stop right here to warn my readers that I am not recommending you see this film. To paraphrase a far-different film: "You can't handle the Anti-Christ!" It is too dark and unsettling for everyone but the hardest-core film buff. Not only does it show more full frontal nudity than any non-pornographic film seen by this reviewer (me!) -- it goes so far beyond the unwritten pact a filmmaker has with the public (loosely, to be 'entertained'), that it renders conventional criticism pointless. You have never seen anything like it, and very probably will wish you never had.
The Road
Dir: John Hillcoat
Chaos reigns in a big way in this film: a 2-hour slog through a post-apocalyptic hellscape (filmed in Pennsylvania ... I'm just sayin'!). This Cormac McCarthy-penned yarn is bleaker than "No Country For Old Men" by a country mile. Imagine the overriding concern of the surviving inhabitants of a post-nuclear world being the best way to commit suicide so you won't get eaten by cannibals, and then imagine it not being played for laughs (cf. 'Welcome to Zombieland.') Throw in a few big-star cameos (covered in mud), and that's the movie, right there.
I'm a big fan of Viggo Mortensen, and nobody does grungy like him. He does have some nice scenes with his son (also well-played), when they are not being chased by cannibals. Charlize Theron is good at grungy, too, but she walks out of the movie (literally), so maybe she knows before we do that this Road isn't leading anywhere. Don't let the uplifting ending fool you into thinking this trip was worth the effort: it wasn't (I'm just sayin').
There you have my holiday movie reviews -- God Bless Us, Everyone!
