Caché and Casino Royale: Art, pop, and the middle shelf

I recently saw Haneke's Caché which could superficially be referred to as a genre film, a thriller, but the overall tone, the treatment and the intentions behind will warrant its place on the top shelf where I keep DVDs of films by Kieslowski, Fellini, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Resnais, etc. The main preoccupation here is not "whodonit" but rather the way we deal with guilt. This is a deeply moral film about injustice, prejudice and responsibility. SPOILER::: If you look carefully, in the long static exterior shot of the school at the end credits you can find the son of the first suspect chatting with the accuser's son. This can lead to different assumptions regarding the origin of the videos and the drawings, but none of given preference by Haneke, who I think was more concerned with the psychological consequences of the actions commit ed by these kids father's when they themselves were young. This tends to tip the end of the story more towards the social, emotional implications of the relationship between these two boys::::::: SPOILER END

Movies that encourage reflexion rather than cater to our immediate instincts usually go in that self, along with subtle dramas and narrative experiments.

The kind of movies I enjoy the most, engage you intellectually as well as emotionally and delve into important subjects, leaving the audience enough room to play an active role, enough room for their interpretations and own feelings.

Memento which is a genre picture, a film noir of sorts, that none-the-less requires participation and leaves a bit of room for interpretations goes on the middle shelf directly underneath, along with movies like Vertigo, Jacob's Ladder, Abre Los Ojos, The Shining, American Beauty. I'd place on this middle shelf my own movies Idle Mist and the Waking Shadows trilogy (under construction). As I work on a new screenplay, (I procrastinate by posting here), I wonder where the finished product would go... The top or the middle shelf, I'm still undecided as it keeps shifting as I type.

The bottom shelf is dedicated to genre movies, the entertainments that reproduce the simple boyish glee I felt as a child. The kind of films my dad and I enjoyed together, for example, and the movies influenced by those comicbooks and adventure or mystery books I read during my first decade. Many of them don't hold up too well. I've seen martial arts movies that as a kid I thought were awesome and now are either excruciating to watch or unintentionally hilarious. But when truly talented filmmakers relish in the sheer energy of these tales, maintain the tone while deepening the dramatic potential, the end product becomes irresistible to someone like me. As a grown up I dread most 70s and 80s martial arts films but instantly loved Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee didn't fare as well with his version of another pop icon, the Hulk. After offering a more ambitious, serious approach to the psyche of the beast in the beginning of the movie, it was incoherent to show that same CGI creature running like a stubby green version of the flash, bouncing off the mountain walls while crushing tanks and helicopters later on. It got worse when the Hulk was quickly drowned on the CGI spectacle that was supposed to be his final nemesis. It's a shame because Lee is a great filmmaker, and I've loved his dramas and quirky asian comedies. Filmmakers of his caliber usually bring out the best out of popular entertainment. Chris Nolan, for example, accomplished with Batman Begins what I had long fantasized about for this character. A rendition faithful to the best, more cinematic comics. As in everything, in comicbooks there are great creators and mediocre ones. Nolan was successful because he drew from the gems,the Frank Millers and the Alan Moores who've tackled Batman instead of getting bogged down by all the lesser efforts. It is his own taste and ability as a filmmaker that makes this judgement possible. In a similar way, Alfonso Cuaron, director of such daring dramas as Y Tu Mama Tambien, raised Harry Potter's game. When true artistic sensibilities are brought to entertainment the results come across as more than mere cash-ins on established properties. And this old boy who loved reading Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Salgari, Ian Flemming and the adventures of Jupiter Jones and company will always get a kick out of flicks like Donner's first Superman, Burton's first Batman, Batman Begins, Spiderman2, X2, Hero and Casino Royale.

Appalled by the recent Brosnan versions 007, I had about given up on the character that I first enjoyed through the Fleming novels I read as a child. But Craig's secret agent inhabits the type of bond flick I was longing for. Dangerous, rough and more concerned with drama than gadgetry. Not to be taken too seriously but overall a well told fun yarn, filled with still over-the-top yet more realistic action and even some decent acting. Who would have thought? Oscar-winner Paul Haggis's dialog is less heavy-handed in Bond than in his social drama Crash. (I completely sympathize with your attack on racism, Paul, but did you really have to hit us over the head with your intentions every two seconds? I was constantly pulled out of the story, not so in Million Dollar Baby). Some of the action at the beginning of Casino Royale is more effective than anything I've seen in years, so much so that it makes the end pale in comparison and runs the risk of making the movie seem anticlimatic. It's a small complaint. I was more annoyed by the computer animated intro that had absolutely nothing to do with the overall style of the movie. This Bond's strengths are its grittiness and pseudo-realism, the energetic jolt, the classy rough edges, everything that's missing from the cardboard cut-out simulations on the intro that bored me to tears. As much as I liked Chris Cornell on Temple of the Dog and the later Soundgarden albums, his singing here is entirely out of place. Something with a more contemporary yet classic style like an original song by Gnarls Barkly, or a Nina Simone track from the Verve Remix albums would have worked much better. I also didn't feel the chemistry between Craig and Green. The fact that she looks like she could be up to thirty years younger than him doesn't help. Their romance scenes on the beaches and the boat, with the lush music rising were also a bit off-putting. Unlike most other cliches in the movie, these scenes were glaringly distracting. But these are my only qualms in an otherwise satisfying flick which, considering the previous installments, is as heaven sent as Nolan's take on the Dark Knight after the catastrophe that was Schumacher's Batman and Robin (and his Batman Forever... Perhaps some of his fetishes on these films would've been more at home in his great little film Flawless).