Being John Malkovich

I first saw Being John Malkovich for a film class in college.  This was supposed to help us focus on the aspects of acting.  Before this film, I guess I saw acting as a simple thing.  Get in costume, say some lines, make it sound convincing, right?  No way.  The ideas the film presents about being inside someone else, slowly taking them over and the relationship between puppet and puppeteer fueled a very zen-like discussion in class which we related to the art of acting.  The film alone was a head-trip, the discussion was like, far out man.  Sometimes I miss my hippie classmates.

The story is wonderfully far-fetched.  An out of work puppeteer, Craig (John Cusack), finds a job as a filing clerk.  The company, that seems its only function is to file papers, is located on the 7 ½ floor of an office building.  As in, half way between two floors, and half the height, causing everyone to stoop over when standing.  Behind a filing cabinet, Craig finds a tunnel in the wall, crawls in, is transported inside John Malkovich for about fifteen minutes and then is spit out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The characters are just as strange as the setup.  Craig has all his aspirations wrapped up in being a famous puppeteer, with looks odd enough to match.  His greasy, unkept beard and ponytail combination would deter most respectable job offers.  His wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), looks just as odd, but brings a friendlier charisma to herself.  She keeps several animals in their small apartment, most of them suffering from some form of mental trauma.  At work, Craig meets Maxine (Catherine Keener), a calculating woman who knows she is beautiful and uses her looks to toy with people.  While Craig tries to win over Maxine, who pushes him into turning the Malkovich portal into a  quick business, Lotte discovers her attraction to Maxine while she is inside Malkovich.

This may sound like a lot of confusing  paradoxes, but the film has a way of presenting them so smoothly.  The love triangle (or square really, since Malkovich becomes the link bringing Lotte and Maxine together) does not become an overpowering force.  The relationships between the characters needs the portal and uses Malkovich for his body and later his power and fame.  The ideas between puppetry, acting and the role of poor Malkovich are easily linked.

Being John Malkovich is so smart and out there, not one thing in this film is normal.  Yet, we accept it all and want more.  We happily enjoy that there is a floor 7 ½ made for the love of a midget woman with a portal into John Malkovich behind a file cabinet.  We love accepting all these crazy things and the odd people.  That is what makes this film worthy of my Oscar-Snub series.

While this film is smart, witty, well written and a ton of fun, I think it had one major flaw to keep it out of the Best Picture category.  No matter how many times I see this film, the cinematography irks me.  During my first screening, I honestly thought something was wrong with the projection system, the image was so dingy.  It’s a little odd to find so much gray in this film’s palette when the story is so colorful.

Still, the fact that there is so much going on in this film, in terms of ideas, plot twists and endless surprises is priceless.  At times, there can be a huge mix of emotions all at once.  In my favorite scene (one of the best comedic scenes of the 90’s), where Malkovich has entered his own portal to be in a world where everyone and everything is himself, I laugh until I cry and become very disturb all at the same time.  What a hilarious nightmare.

“I have seen a world that no man should see!”

The Killing Fields

Based on true events in 1970s Cambodia, Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) is a New York Times journalist covering their civil war.  Local Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) faithfully helps Schanberg cover the tragic stories of the war.  When the embassies are warned against the Khmer Rouge invading the capital, Pran sends his family to leave with the American troops but he chooses to stay behind with Schanberg and the other journalists, including a photographer played by John Malkovich.  The foreigners will be able to leave, but all the native Cambodians will be forced into labor camps and subject to endure hard labor or execution.  When Schanberg and Pran are split up,Schanberg dedicates his work to finding Pran, earning him awards in journalism.  Pran must just find a way to survive.

This is obviously not a Hollywood film.  Our American hero, Schanberg, doesn’t hold much power and shows little brawn.  After he has to leave Pran behind, he does everything he can to find out his location and get him out of Cambodia.  The extent of his efforts is typing up letters and sending them out with photographs of Pran attached.  These are not the bold American heroics Hollywood would show us, but it is all the real Schanberg could really do.

Since a narrative led by Schanberg back in New York would be pretty boring, the second half of the film switches perspectives.  We see how Pran survives his captors under complete silence and repression under the Khmer Rogue’s Year One policy.  It’s here that the film shines and makes us understand the dire severity of the situation in Cambodia.  The majority of the second half of the film has little dialogue but what is shown explains more than conversation could.  Here, random executions happen all the time and anything that could improve life is destroyed by the children who seem to be systematically brainwashed.  It looks like the leaders of the Khmer Rouge are extinguishing everything about modern civilization and instilling agrarian values into the children.  There is no value for education, religion, family or life outside of mundane manual labor.  The brutality administered by the children, seen to be the future leaders of this new age, can be very disturbing and disheartening.  Part of this new age is to execute anyone who seems to have any formal education, so Pran stays completely silent to make them believe he is simply a peasant.  Being locked up in the embassy was the easy part of Pran’s journey, escaping the labor camp will prove to be a harrowing task.

For his portrayal of Dith Pran, Haing S. Ngor became the second non-professional actor to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.  Ngor also endured being a captive of the Khmer Rouge and escaped.  Many of the scenes in the film were very intense for Ngor, being so similar to the real life horrors he endured.

The Killing Fields is one of those rare films that everyone should see, but most won’t or won’t want to.  For your average film fan, that’s perfectly understandable since this is very un-Hollywood film.  But Cambodia is one of those moments in history that the average American doesn’t know very much about, and that’s a shame.  For any film, history of human rights buff, The Killing Fields should be on your must see list.

“The wind whispers of fear and hate.  The war has killed love.  And those that confess to the Angka are punished, and no one dare ask where they go.  Here, only the silent survive.”

Places in the Heart

In the middle of the depression, Edna (Sally Field) and her family seem to be one of the few lucky people in a small Texas town still living comfortably on a steady income, until her husband is accidentally killed by a drunk black man.  Suddenly, after years of only doing housework and raising kids, Edna must find a way to provide for her two small children and keep the bank from buying the house.  When a wandering black man, Moze (Danny Glover), who can do nothing but beg for work and food in the racist south, suggests that he help Edna turn her land into a cotton farm.  Seeing no other option that can keep her and the kids together, she becomes the face and Moze the know-how to running a cotton farm.  Along the way, Mr. Denby (Lane Smith) from the bank does, what he calls the Christian thing, and gives her his blind brother-in-law, Will (John Malkovich), as a paying tenant in her house.  Edna, Moze and Will become like family through hardships and tragedies to make the cotton farm a success.

One of the first obstacles that Edna and her gang face is a destructive tornado.  These scenes can be heart pounding and suspenseful for even the most seasoned storm chaser in tornado alley.  Between the daughter, Possum (Gennie James) playing alone in an upstairs room where a tree blows the wall in, and the son, Frank (Yankton Hatten), running from school across town with the tornado quickly approaching, we’re scared to think of the fate of Edna’s family.  Thankfully, both Will and Moze have formed an attachment to the kids enough to help ensure their safety, even by putting their own in danger.  The images of the aftermath of the storm are haunting and devastating, for me, they only echo the recent events in Alabama in Missouri.

Basically, the film is a sum of all my worst fears.  Becoming a widow with young kids and no work experience outside the home to make an income off of sounds like one of the worst predicaments I can imagine.  Of course, the time period set in the midst of the depression is just a double whammy.  And then the tornadoes seems like extra icing on the already decked out cake.

Even with all these fears helping me sympathize and identify with Edna and her lovable outcast gang, I didn’t find Places in the Heart to be anything of extra special significance.  I have no real complaints about the film, the acting was great all around and the story kept me intrigued from beginning to end.  Yet, there was just some spark of greatness that I’ve come to expect from most of these Best Picture nominees.  It’s always a little disappointing when just that one last element is missing.

“Peace of God.”

Dangerous Liaisons

Imagine France around the 1760’s.  Everything is so elaborate with a thousand ruffles, powdered wigs and no one can get a breath of fresh air with their girdles so tight.  Sounds stale and boring as their afternoon conversations, right?  Well, it’s surprisingly anything but once the games of lust and seduction start.

That’s right, these horny French aristocrats get bored and amuse themselves by taking bets to see what virtuous maidens they can seduce.  All while keeping their well bred eloquent speech in tact.  Honestly, I groaned while reading the Netflix summary and was surprised by how much I enjoyed the movie right from the start.  In that first scene, Malkovich saunters in, leans on a fancy couch and turns his head to casually stare at a young woman’s blossoming bosom.  It only gets better.

The all star cast is delightful.  We’ve got Glen Close and John Malkovich as the ring leaders and their play things Michelle Pheiffer, Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves.  Yes, they have character names, but the thing is, they don’t stick since they’re very French and proper.  Close and Malkovich are both rich and powerful, they know how to play society’s games to have anything and anyone.  They’re ex-lovers as well, extra spicy.  Anyway, they hear Thurman is set to marry one of Close’s ex-lovers.  Close wants Malkovich to seduce the virtuous Thurman so that her ex will be humiliated.  Close also makes a more challenging bet with Malkovich, to seduce a devoted married woman (played by Michelle Pheifer).  If he succeeds, his reward is one last night with Close.  He sets off and uses Thurman as a pawn in an elaborate game of deceit, blackmail and lust.

Sounds like fun, huh?  It is!  It’s hard to imagine that underneath all the powder and ruffles are these red-blooded conniving beings that take so much pleasure in power and suffering.  But both Close and Malkovich play their characters with such proper gusto.  Their long winded proper aristocrat speech can feel stuffy and steamy at the same time.  It’s full of wit and diabolical emotion, something many actors in similar roles would let fall flat, like old balloons.  It’s sheer joy to watch these two greats play off each other like a big French game of cat and mouse.

It’s not all just talking either, this is about lust and seduction so this film can’t shy away at the bedroom scenes.  One of the most poignant details for me was that after a conquest, more than once, one partner will write a letter to their rightful partner in bed on their lover’s bare back.  How can an affair get juicier than that?

I really cannot recommend Dangerous Liaisons enough.  The historical setting is perfect; any adaption more modern would be a horrible injustice and could make it as cliché as American Pie. The acting is wonderful, the story is as meaty and succulent as a perfect steak.  Not to mention, the obviously deserved Oscars for art direction and costume design.  Grown ups, ditch the raunchy teen comedy for a night and get your kicks in a more sophisticated way.  You won’t regret it.

“I have no intention of breaking down her prejudices. I want her to believe in God and virtue and the sanctity of marriage, and still not be able to stop herself. I want the excitement of watching her betray everything that is most important to her.”

***This is my pick for 1988.  Rain Man is good, but Dangerous Liaisons is just more enjoyable all around.***