Vox Lux

A Vox Of Delights

Vox Lux
2018 USA
Directed by Brady Corbet
UK cinema release print.

Vox Lux is a film I wanted to see, primarily, because I’ve been following Natalie Portman’s career since I first saw her at the cinema back in 1994 in Luc Besson’s Leon (aka The Professional in the US). I remember singling her out as an astounding actress at the time, although I didn’t expect to see her in anything else because... you know... child actors. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw, years later, that she was given the part of Queen Amidala in Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace (one of the best of the Star Wars films made outside of the original trilogy) and its subsequent sequels and, since then I’ve seen her in a fair few things. And she tends to knock things out of the park as an actress and you only have to see her in films like Closer, V For Vendetta and Jackie to realise just how brilliant she is. Her role in Vox Lux as pop music diva Celeste is another of those roles that gives her an opportunity to shine and her performance in this has received a lot of praise and, rightly so.

The other reason I was keen to see this, originally, is that I’d heard a lot of word of mouth on Twitter saying that Vox Lux is the Citizen Kane of this generation and singling out writer/director Brady Corbet as ‘the new Orson Welles’ in some respects. However, since this was only showing in a very few cinemas in London I was beginning to doubt the veracity of that claim especially when I got to the cinema and found myself almost but, not quite, alone in the auditorium. By the time the film began to play there was maybe 8 people in the cinema but, still, not the size of audience I would expect from an opening weekend... especially not with ‘review buzz’ like that.

As it happens, the film is utterly brilliant and, although I do have some problems with parts of it, which I’ll get to in a minute, I have to say I’m very glad I took some time out of my usual routine to track this down and see it on a large screen at a cinema because, frankly, it’s got a kind of power to it which I suspect may be diminished on various home viewing media. That being said, it’s no Citizen Kane either, although I can see how people might want to draw on that comparison on a purely superficial level.

The films tells the story of a meteoric rise to pop stardom of the central character Celeste and of her relationship with her sister, played by Stacy Martin and manager, played by Jude Law. However, it’s split into four sections (or three sections and a prelude) and Natalie Portman plays the Celeste character in her 30s. Celeste in her teenage years, as covered in the first two segments and taking up a sizeable part of the film, is Raffey Cassidy (who you might remember as the robot girl from Tomorrowland, reviewed here). Now, as bright as Natalie Portman is in this film... and that’s very bright... I’d have to say that Raffey Cassidy absolutely steals the movie, in a dual role too since, when she’s not playing young Celeste, she’s playing Celeste’s daughter Albertine for the final two chapters.

Another fantastic performance is Willem Dafoe as the off screen narrator of the piece, lending the film a documentary aspect and giving the story a sense of foreshadowing in a similar manner to the way Wes Anderson might use a narrator to comment on what you are about to see. Added to his performance, though, is a mixture of different styles of camerawork, movement, film speeds and aspect ratios which, coupled with a foreboding and quite striking score by Scott Walker (sadly only available as a stupid download as opposed to a proper CD, so I am doomed never to hear it away from the images) lends the film a certain sense of both gravitas and a very sinister quality. After the prelude, which I’ll get to in a moment, this narrative and mise en scene takes away any form of comfort blanket from the audience, who is now primed that absolutely anything could happen. So it would be true to say that, in the words of a young Martin Scorcese, the film is ‘fraught with peril’.

Okay, so, the prelude. Something happens here which was somehow telegraphed, I feel. I suspect I wasn’t supposed to be expecting anything from it and the naturalistic style of the acting and lack of scoring at these points maintains the sense of cinéma vérité. However, I kind of knew what was coming a good minute or three before it happened and, well, I hope it’s not giving anything away by saying that part of the exploration of this Celeste character is a way of looking at how violence and tragedy can affect the course of a life and pull and tear at it from different directions (including as a catalyst for success and inspiration) as that life plays out.

However, just because I was expecting certain things to happen doesn’t mean to say that the prelude isn’t effective. It is and, even though we’ve seen these kinds of scenes played out before (no, really, I’m not going to tell you what happens here, go see it yourself) the director manages to render it in such a way that you still feel a certain amount of tension and suspense as to how things are going to play out. The opening credits sequence which leads us out of the scene after this also, in a single moving camera shot with a little twist in the middle, somehow, seems to exert a certain pressure on the audience that similar sequences in other movies have not been able to achieve. It also starts a series of almost morbid obsessions from the director with point of view camera shots speeding down tunnels and, I have to say, even though they’re nothing like as long or daring, I can’t help but wonder if Corbet was somehow influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky’s version of Solaris and also whether these shots are standing in for something else... perhaps a metaphor for growth points in Celeste’s life? Possibly not but... I can wonder.

The pop songs in this film are not too shabby either... which helps maintain a sense of artistry behind the main character. The songs are actually provided by pop music artist Sia, who I only really know from her end credits song on the Wonder Woman soundtrack (that movie is reviewed by me here) and, again, they’d be pretty good as a stand alone listen if only they would release this thing on CD instead of their cheaply mixed electronic shenanigans (see my review of The New Analog here for more details on modern practices in regard to finance over quality of the art in terms of sound mixing for downloads).

Now, I did have one problem with what was, it has to be said, a very powerful and gripping movie and it was this... it doesn’t have an ending. It just kind of stops. Now, I’m pretty sure I know how this was supposed to end or, rather, how I would have ended it. I have to say I felt the whole film had been building to a certain point and that this expected conclusion, and narrative aftermath, would have been the best way to end the film and use that final moment as a call of judgement of the main protagonist. In fact, if I was to bet money on it, I’d say that the film may have had a different ending which was probably even shot but, out of sheer bloody mindedness, Corbet deliberately went for a lack of closure and culmination of the story arc, probably because he didn’t want audiences second guessing him. However, I did feel like this was a kind of ‘cop out’ in this respect and that it does damage the picture somewhat and make everything we’ve seen come before feel a little hollow.

So, no, it’s no modern Citizen Kane, that’s for sure. Having said that, though... I would urge anyone with a love of film to go and seek this out while it’s playing on a big screen because, frankly, slightly flawed as it might at first appear, it is a bit of a masterpiece and it does feel like one is watching something put together by a cinematic genius. Whether this label is maintained throughout this writer/director’s career (he’s already acted in a number of films too) is something which remains to be seen but I can’t wait until we can get a Blu Ray release of this thing so I can study just why the film, in an entirely unrelated genre, unsettled me a lot more than most modern horror films do. Make no mistake, Vox Lux is a great work of art with some truly arresting sequences and a sense of ‘reading between the frames’ level mystery which makes you want to come back to it again. Absolutely spectacular and something which I think a lot of budding young film makers might find themselves quite inspired by.

Tomorrowland

Hack To The Future

Tomorrowland
2015  USA
Directed by Brad Bird
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very slight spoiler on the content 
of one action scene in here towards the end.

Tomorrowland is a new movie by Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles (which I loved) and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (reviewed by me here). It’s based around, or at least inspired by, concepts and ideas from the long running Disneyland theme park attraction Tomorrowland. However...

First of all, I’ve never had the opportunity to go to Disneyland so I really can’t say how much of a good... um... adaptation (?) it is of the original attraction but, I suspect the “inspired by” I just tagged it with is probably closer to the truth than anything else you’d want to say because, it turns out, the place has gone through a lot of reinventions and reboots in its long history, since it first opened its doors in 1955.

Secondly... I wasn’t that sure of what to expect from a movie based on a theme park attraction. The only ones I can think of, off the top of my head, are the Disney Pirates Of The Caribbean movies and... well I figured that at least the first one was okay. Can’t say a lot for the three sequels but, using that twisted logic, I decided to give this movie a go because the trailer was kinda intriguing and with that kind of track record from the studio... well... as long as I steered clear of Tomorrowland 2: Dead Man’s Jetpack... I figured I should be fine.

Now, I was unaware, when I went into this movie, about the decidedly mixed reception this film had been getting with people but I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The only thing I really knew about it going in was what I said in my first paragraph and what I’d seen on the trailer which has been playing at my local cinema for the last few weeks. But the film surprised me by being, a) quite good and b) not what I was expecting after seeing said preview.

Now I’m sure a fair amount of my readers will have seen the trailer in question, which includes footage of a girl touching a randomly found pin badge and being transported to a future world of wonder whenever she touches it, while simultaneously still existing in her own time and place... although she is blind to our own experienced reality while she’s touching the pin. Well, all I can say without giving away too much about the film, which I’m really not wanting to do here, is that the version of the future world she sees and as the audience perceives it is not the whole story and is a little misleading in its entrance into the main premise of the film. And so I have to congratulate the writers and directors in taking a page from their own screenplay when it comes to the nature of the trailer in regards to the actual end product but... again... I don’t want to elaborate that point too much for fear of spoiling some of the reveals in this to you.

What I will say is that the main protagonist who you see in the trailer, asides from a nice bookend, framing element coming in at various points in the movie, doesn’t really arrive in the film as a properly established character until at least 20 mins into the movie but... that doesn’t matter and it’s a nice surprise because the film does jump in time a little by starting out in 1964 and then shooting off to the present day. Of course, not all of it is set in the present day, due to the nature of the story. Regardless of this, though, it starts off running and continues with a helter skelter pacing that really doesn’t let you stop and breathe much before the next exciting spectacle is upon you... and this film is all about cinematic spectacle, that’s for sure.

Now, it’s a great film but it does have its issues... the excessively hasty pacing being one of them. I would have preferred a little more stillness in there, I think, but Brad Bird is especially well known for
his animated masterpieces and that kind of art form does tend to move things along faster. Also, I suspect this is Bird’s natural preference for movie making too so that’s fair enough. It’s a personal issue I have with the film and I think that might be more my problem than anybody else’s.

Another thing I found kinda hard to handle, and I suspect this is another aspect of Bird’s personality, which is probably why he melds so well with Disney, is that the film is extremely hopeful, naively so perhaps, and is all about believing people can make a positive difference to the world... which is great. However, I did find it a little bit preachy and way too overkill in a lot of places. To explain...

When I was a young ‘un, growing up in the 1970s, my mum and dad used to take me, pretty much every year, to see the pantomime version of Peter Pan on stage. More often than not it would have Ron Moody playing Captain Hook and usually, for some strange reason, a grown woman playing Peter Pan (which possibly confused a load of kids but who am I to judge?). I think I probably loved it but I remember one part of the show where audience participation was a must. Peter Pan’s trusted ally, the fairy Tinkerbell, would be half dead and on the ropes... her little light fading and about to be extinguished forever. That is, unless the audience, with the power of their combined voices, could yell at the stage that “We believe in faeries” really loudly. Then, of course, after much frenzied repeat yelling and much milking of the audience, Tinkerbell’s little light would return to full brightness and we could all carry on with the show. I’m pretty sure that this probably carried over into the classic Disney cartoon of this J. M Barrie property too... although it’s been so many decades since I’ve seen it that I can’t be absolutely sure if it did. The point is, the film Tomorrowland suffers, if you want to see it that way, with a manifestation of exactly the same thing. It’s all about people believing enough in the future so that their will power can change and fix it... and so this whole “Tinkerbell solution” is something the director here has in common with that and... well, even as a kid, I used to hate that bit of Peter Pan.

Other than this stuff, though, the movie is a really fun ride... if you’ll pardon the analogy. There’s conflict and chase scenes aplenty with a much more ruthless and deadly intent behind the group of henchmen sent to kill our three heroes than you may guess from the trailer. Bird is not afraid to show both people and “animatronics” dying in the movie, if it helps provide credibility to his fairytales... something of which I wholeheartedly approve when it comes to getting certain points across and maintaining a modus operandi which won’t upset the suspension of audience disbelief.

This film is, by nature, extremely CGI heavy but, even with that constant distraction, the three main protagonists played by George Clooney, Britt Robertson and Raffey Cassidy are all really excellent and Hugh Laurie as their main antagonist, of a sort, is a good balance to address the kinds of cynical audience issues (such as some of the ones I have) and then hold them up as a villanous response for the three heroes to punch against. It all works extremely well.

The film has some nicely designed frames, some good editing which rarely gets confusing during the intense action sequences and a brilliant score by one of the director's chief collaborators, Michael Giacchino, sounding a lot here like he’s channeling Philip Glass in a couple of sequences (and I really hope they decide to put those cues on the upcoming soundtrack album.. fingers crossed). Michael Giacchino rarely turns in a dull score and his work here is par for the course... that is to say, appropriate and wonderful.

The film includes a nice little nod to Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Jules Verne but the best scene for me is when Britt Robertson’s character Casey is trying to track down information on the pin and she goes to a science fiction memorabilia store. Here you will see a whole range of cool stuff as set dressing... the store is amazing and I was all over spotting the many references which includes models of Robby The Robot, Robot B-9 from Lost In Space, Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still, a lifesize Han Solo in carbonite and a load of other cool stuff that will make collectors and fans alike wondering the prices of such things. A major action scene takes place in this store and, at one point during a chase, there is even a copy of the old Planet Of The Apes board game which I had as a kid and I recently mentioned in my review of Planet Of The Apes here. The only thing which was bugging me was... did they actually destroy any of these collectibles. Mr. Bird, for the record, a “no nerdy science fiction items of memorabilia were harmed during the making of this motion picture” during the end credits would have taken a weight off my mind.

Seriously though people, barring the caveats I mention elsewhere in this review, Tomorrowland is definitely worth some of your time. It’s a slick, action packed folly where all the main protagonists have their eyes on a prize of a hopeful  and positive future for the human race. It’s kinda like a mid-1980s sci-fi blockbuster but with more budget to bring some of the crazier concepts to life properly and with some really great actors in front of a crew and director who clearly know what they’re doing. Not a great movie but a really charming, good one which is definitely worth at least one watch... and I’m sure a whole bunch of you are going to dig it a lot more than I did so... you know... put it on your list and check it out sometime. And watch out for low flying jetpacks.