I just returned from an advance screening of James Cameron’s new film Avatar. Initially I was skeptical after seeing a trailer, but I’ve become an enthusiastic convert. In order to appreciate what Cameron and his vest technical crew have accomplished, you have to see the film in 3-D digital projection. This production really does lift both CGI and 3-D technology to a new standard. The alien world of Pandora and its inhabitants take on a convincing presence, and the combination of 3-D imagery and dynamic camerawork has a visceral impact.

Yes, the film has cartoon villains and some stock situations, but the script actually is not bad as far as blockbusters go. Cameron is painting in broad, mythic strokes, and it mostly works very well. What I found amusing is the script’s not-so-subtle critique of colonialism: in the most expensive movie ever made, the hero is a soldier who serves a colonial power. He learns to see–literally–from the indigenous people’s point of view and joins their struggle. It helps that the technical crew has made every effort to render the Na’vi faces expressively, so that we can fully empathize with them. The crude motion capture and dead eyes that made the characters in The Polar Express look like sluggish CGI zombies are thankfully a thing of the past. Avatar’s world is certainly worth the visit; I want to see it a second time, only in 3-D Imax.

I managed  to catch Lars von Trier’s Antichrist on its last night at the Landmark Midtown in Atlanta. Long before the dedication to Andrei Tarkovsky appeared in the film’s closing credits, I spotted any number of visual echoes of Tarkovsky’s work. Lesson: if you want your film to look “important,” imitate Tarkovsky. Just mix together some desaturated color, black and white, slow motion, rain or other objects falling from nowhere, shots of wind blowing curtains, Baroque music on the soundtrack, and you’ve got Art. 

Actually,  Antichrist was neither as bad as the hostile crowd in Cannes seemed to think, nor was it quite as good as Roger Ebert aruges in his review. The performances by Willem Dafoe and especially Charlotte Gainsbourg are remarkable. Gainsbourg more than earned the Best Actress award at Cannes; if I ever watch the film again, it will be because of her. Their reactions to each other and to the tragedy that engulfs them give the film the emotional credibility it needs to work in the face of extreme, at times ludicriously horrific situations. In a couple places the dialogue falls flat, but I think this is due mainly to Trier working in a second language.

Yes, much of the imagery was beautiful, dark and rich. But in some of the darker scenes the photography had that tell-tale, flat video look. Anthony Dod Mantle is a gifted cinematographer, and the smaller camera probably helped preserve the intimacy that the actors needed to pull off their performances, but high definition video still hasn’t caught up yet with good 35mm stock.

Trier’s view of relationships and the gender divide owes much to Strindberg, but I was also surprised to see a deliberate Medieval sensibility running through the film. Yes, the film is misogynistic, but you have to give him credit for taking the whole thing seriously enough to hire a “Misogyny” consultant. That’s one film credit you don’t see very often.

Still courtesy of Janus Films

I just saw Götz Spielmann’s Revanche (Austria, 2008) at the Landmark Midtown and strongly recommend it. Starting this Friday (July 31) it’s moving to the Plaza Theatre, so there’s still a chance for fellow Atlantans to see it on the big screen.

This is an unusual instance where Janus Films, long known for distributing arthouse classics by directors such as Bergman and Kurosawa, has picked up a new film. Actually, it’s a worthy addition to their catalog and more than deserved its Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film; I think it will continue to attract a following after it has been released on DVD and (especially) Blu-ray.

Spielmann’s spare, restrained directorial style reminds me of Robert Bresson and the Dardenne Brothers. It’s arguably too long at 121 minutes, but the deliberate pacing does allow for the gradual revelation of character that the film’s underlying conception requires. The plot concerns Alex (Johannes Krisch), an ex-con and a handyman at a brothel, who falls in love with Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrainian prostitute, and nurtures plans to rescue her by scoring a large sum of money and fleeing the country. After a failed bank robbery, he takes refuge in the countryside, where his aging father (Hannes Thanheiser) lives on a farm. Inevitably he runs into conflict with the neighbors, which include Susanne (Ursula Strauss), a young woman who takes Alex’s father to church every Sunday, and her husband Robert (Andreas Lust), a police officer.

What I have in mind by comparing Spielmann to Bresson and the Dardenne Brothers is a specific set of stylistic devices. First, the film lacks a conventional music score, relying instead on natural sounds which often become significant motifs in their own right. The two most striking examples of this are the buzz saw and the sound of the father’s accordion playing. Ambient sounds also serve to evoke the powerful presence of nature in the Austrian forest.

Another of the film’s Bressonian traits is its use of meticulously composed static shots that recur as visual motifs. At times the stationary camera results in a disconcerting use of offscreen space, such as when Alex walks off camera in the hotel room but we continue to hear his voice, or in another shot in the farmhouse where he suddenly stands up and his head goes out of frame while the camera remains in a low position. (Usually the camera operator will pan or crane up to keep the actor’s head in frame.) Martin Gschlacht’s cinematography is the most beautiful work I’ve seen in a while; it uses mostly natural light to create subtle gradations of light and shadow that function thematically, but not in any overly obvious way. Ultimately, the film’s terse but richly suggestive style serves to underline the deeper spiritual dimension of the film, which becomes apparent as it unfolds. The tranquil closing shot is unforgettable.

However, I don’t want to leave the mistaken impression that Revanche is purely an exercise in style. The performances are vivid and assured across the board, and I loved how Spielmann convincingly depicts the unglamorous daily operations of the brothel. For instance, we see Alex restocking the sheets and the prostitutes chatting in the break room. At the same time, seemingly offhanded remarks by the brothel owner take on unmistakably sinister undertones, reflecting the underlying brutality of the system. If you don’t see this film on the big screen, I recommend at least seeing it on Blu-ray, since its remarkable sense of space and place will inevitably lose some impact on DVD.