seven psychopaths: bunnies and casuistry

It doesn't want to be the Lock-Stock-ish bruto-comedy for which it was billed in American markets. That is, in fact, the film's central conundrum: a world-weary Irish screenwriter exiled in L.A. is suffering writer's block. He has the title, 7 Psychopaths, but is tired of writing violence,-- is, in fact, sufffering an uncharacteristic attraction to pacifism.

As the title suggests, it is less a unified effort than a picaresque story-book telling psychopathic tales. Not even full tales, but half-tales, as our squeamish scribe can hardly bear to let them come to their fruition. This embryonic state opens space for a complexity that is rare in the genre, and although much about the movie is frustrating, it offers powerful moments of melancholy along with its (slightly weary but often effective) humor.

Because the screenwriter is a hardly-veiled version of McDonagh himself, the movie is free to address its own flaws, as when the Christopher Walken psychopath reads the screenplay and complains that the women have nothing interesting to say, indeed, seem to be there only to die violently. (In one of the funnier self-knowing nods, the Sam Rockwell psychopath, who frequently holds a gun to the head of the Woody Harrelson psychopath's kidnapped shih-tzu, points out that you're not allowed to kill animals in movies, only women.)

The Rockwell psychopath's romantic search for the great climactic shoot-out, stymied at every turn by jamming guns, recalcitrant participants, and the physical truth that heads don't really explode when you shoot them, is one of the finest explorations of Hollywood's ethical code in a year filled with cinematic explorations into the roots and meaning of human cruelty. It is also a personal continuation of McDonagh's own philosophical search: this character can be seen as an extension of the younger, scarier psychopath in his Oscar-winning short "Six Shooter", a kid who kills with awful randomness and without self-catechizing, apparently in search of a Grand Guignol suicide-by-cop, and who has one of the funniest dying laments I've ever heard.

Those of us who went in hoping for the lopingly genius mix of acid humor and melancholy of In Bruges were in for initial disappointment. This is nowhere near as easily enjoyable a film, but it is also less concerned with entertaining than with its own internal debate. When the screenwriter tentatively posits the lame-sounding possibility that perhaps his movie wouldn't end with a great fiery shoot-out, but instead the characters might talk things over, the Rockwell psychopath snorts, "What, are we making French films now?" One of its more fruitful images is that of the Zodiac Killer as a happily aging hippy surrounded by rabbits and with posters of Gandhi and kittens papering his walls, and it is both an indication of the kind of humor this movie offers and a good choice for its central metaphor. Can people change? Once devoted to violence, is there a way to turn back? Is there an expiration date on the length of time we have to carry our sins? And what about an expiration date on our national sins? (In another moment of humor, the half-naked prostitute, making polite conversation with the ex-Viet Cong psychopath, asks, "Didn't we have a big war with you guys one time?")

Colin Farrell's screenwriter and Christopher Walken, as a sort of retired psychopath, play off one another extraordinarily well. Walken's amused, droll underplaying encourages Farrell into enthusiastic over-playing and then undercuts it in a happy rhythm. It's much more pleasing than the film's more central, and more frustrating, pairing of Farrell with Sam Rockwell, as Rockwell heads over the top and Farrell is forced into a quiet, straight-man role which does not inspire his finest work. He's an actor of action, Farrell, and a good one, but ill at ease when pinned passively into a chair, whereas Walken should be given Oscar after Oscar for the continuing fineness of his watching, listening, and spontaneous reacting. And for that perpetually exquisite thing he does with his eyes, when he goes from nice guy-Walken to psycho-Walken. I will never tire of that, no matter how many times I see it.

It's not the worst thing I've seen Rockwell do, and not the best. Even when he's at his full-on fightin' weight nowadays he tends to fall into his ancient schtick (which, now I think of it, is just the opposite of what Walken is doing, continually feeding new life into familiar choices, so that they feel vibrant with every repetition). Nonetheless, McDonagh has entrusted him with the most important role in the film, and he does pull off some great moments. One of my favorites is when he's doing an obviously improvised impression of Farrell and it's all "gosh and begora, bejesus," an Irishman straight out of John Ford.

As far as supporting cast, God only knows why Abbie Cornish and Olga Kurylenko took on these entirely thankless and offensive roles. Cornish somehow manages, against the roaring misogynist tide, to find three dimensions in her insulting non-character, but Kurlyenko is lost and wasted. On the masculine side, we've got Kevin Corrigan and Michael Pitt as mob underlings, and a great sequence with Harry Dean Stanton as a psychopathic Quaker.

The long and the short of it is that once you've let go of what you thought it was going to be and enjoy it for what it is, it's like nothing you've ever seen before. For those of you who have never experienced the vast, Sturm-und-Drang joy that is McDonagh at his best, either onstage or on film, here's a short introduction via the New York Times, in which McDonagh jokingly defends his work:


Reporter: In the film, a character's head explodes, there's a decaptitation and a man's hands
are fastened to a table with knives and then he's burned alive.

McDonagh: But there's a rabbit in that scene. There's a lovely rabbit. It's not all violent.

my top ten films of last year

And here they are, late, in order of love, and swathed in shadows.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. A Turkish police procedural which reaches so gracefully beyond the bounds of its genre in all directions that it touches the numinous.

Looper
dir: Rian Johnson. An action movie with time travel, so well written, acted, and directed as to transcend its genre.

Kill List

the Loneliest Planet
dir: Julia Loktev. A perfectly orchestrated symphony of good acting, lovely cinematography, bold editing, and a story so finely told that its turning point, although it happens so fast you might miss it if you turn your head at the wrong moment, shocks in a reverberant way which even horror films seldom achieve.

the Master dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

Seven Psychopaths

Lawless
dir: John Hillcoat. Violence and family loyalty amongst bootleggers via the pen of Nick Cave and director of the Proposition and the Road.

Beyond the Black Rainbow

Sleep Tight
dir: Jaume Balaguero. A low-key Spanish psych-thriller that will leave you speechless and possibly sleepless.

Searching for Sugar Man




An odd thing about films from this past year: one thing they have in common, even those on this list (with the possible exception of Looper), is that I think I will never be tempted to watch any a second time. That goes for Moonrise Kingdom, too, for all its sweetness, and Django Unchained, for all its fun.

With the exceptions of Searching for Sugar Man and The Loneliest Planet, every movie on my list gets dark to a place of such uncomfortableness, as Jayne Cobb would say, that I doubt I will be tempted to return. That goes for Silver Linings Playbook as well, just barely knocked off in the final stages. Because it's David O. Russell, it isn't an easy ride, but it manages to bring to the surface both darkness and light in the dynamics of family and other relationships with veracity and apparent ease by exploding well-planted depth charges around his characters. I was glad that Jennifer Lawrence took Oscar home for that.

Obviously I enjoy flaneuring in the shadows or I wouldn't have chosen most of these. Cruelty is hard, though, and this seems to be a year for examining cruelty, from Zero Dark Thirty on down. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia succeeds most fruitfully in its exploration, most gorgeously, and with stunning patience and wisdom in leaving unanswerable questions unanswered. Looper comes in second in its exploration of the genesis of evil in a human being. The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's tour-de-force, makes his last one, There Will Be Blood, a movie so tough that audience members were left breathless and anxiety-ridden in its wake, seem like an easy amble in the park.

It might be a reflection on my own current psychic place, or it may be a reflection of the changing movie-going experience, which used to be a sanctuary when I was young and now more resembles an assault, but I found that many of the films I saw this year I enjoyed objectively while never immersing myself fully in their worlds. Runners-up Moonrise and Django were two of these, both of which I enjoyed for their vision and galloping enthusiasm, but which felt so pointedly contrived that I felt they were holding me at a distance, not letting me enter fully in. Stand over there, Wes Anderson was saying, and watch, and feel, but from that distance. Stand over there, Tarantino always says these days, watch the awesomeness as I spew my love of cinema all over the screen, but stay over there, watching from the appropriate metafictional distance.

my one-night eric cantona film festival

Elizabeth (1998. dir: Shekhar Kapur)is in its way a stunning achievement. Had there been any doubts about Cate Blanchett's genius before her astonishing embodiment of that great queen, certainly everyone was genuflecting thereafter. (She even manages the tiniest nod, in a particular facial gesture, towards Glenda Jackson, which endears me, as Jackson will always be the face of Elizabeth to my generation.) The movie carries an air of astonishing veracity while wearing its moments of blatant dubious historicity garishly and without shame (the idea that Mary of Guise died because she took Walsingham into her bed is preposterous, but so satisfying a turn in the story that we cheer it). And it is not just Blanchett's Elizabeth who shines, but everyone, from Christopher Eccleston's intimidatingly charismatic Norfolk to Geoffrey Rush's strangely likeable Walsingham, down to the smallest handmaiden roles.

But when I revisit it, as I have again recently, it is not for these factors but for one particular segment which emits a sort of siren's call for me: the bit in the middle with Eric Cantona and Vincent Cassell.

This was the first I ever saw of either (I was never, and, with all due respect to Sir Alex, never will be, a Manchester United fan). Who can resist the ridiculous charm of Cassell's impish and completely unsavory Duc D'Anjou, come to court the maiden queen? ("Yes, yes, I am wearing a dress.") Cantona, as the unfortunate French ambassador tasked with igniting passion between these two unlikely royals, strikes just the right notes of strength and subtlety.

Which brings us nicely round to the point about Cantona: that he's a good actor. Remember, this was long before I fell in love with football, and, as an American, I was easily ignorant of his massive celebrity and august skill set. He was a French actor doing a good job, and that was all. It was only in retrospect, after I read Roy Keane's memoir and watched an old Cup final, that the weight of it hit me.

French Film (2008. dir: Jackie Oudney) proves that his turn in Elizabeth was not a one-off: that in a completely, unjustifiably unfair way, this man who was one of the great strikers of his era, maybe of all time, is also a very good actor. Not the Joe Namath kind of good, where you go, "That guy does OK for a football player," but the kind where he a) seems like a real actor, and b) is good. His pretentious French director is spot-on here. The other actors are also very good, incidentally, and the film itself has surprises and good writing, but I am sufficiently jaded now against films about finding and keeping love that I cannot be bothered to care. Except about Cantona. He has a particularly adept way with a sly, sidelong glance.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

The Cantona-est of all Cantona films is, of course, Ken Loach's Looking for Eric from 2009. Another movie from a genre that generally leaves me cold, this is the story of postman, Manchester United fan, and all-around good-hearted loser Eric (this is an example of England's cottage industry of heartwarming underdog-makes-good-but-it's-his/her-mates-that-really-count movies) on the verge of a breakdown who gets his life together with the help of imaginary playmate Eric Cantona. The family stuff is hit and miss, but at least unconventional (the postman is single parent to two teenaged boys, both stepsons abandoned by his second estranged wife), but I'll tell you what this film gets exactly right: the mindset of the football fan. It flames brilliantly to life when Eric the Postman is walking around reminiscing with Eric the Footballer about great moments from the latter's career, which Loach very kindly shows us. The football is exciting, and the moment Cantona chooses as his greatest ever ("It wasn't a goal. It was a pass. A gift.") is so beautiful as to take your breath right away, a Messi/Fabregas type of chipped pass into the box, perfectly weighted and brilliantly aimed to the foot of his full-speed team-mate, who fires it into the corner of the net where the keeper has no chance of stopping it. The best joy of this movie is in its love of football, and that's a thing to celebrate. It's hard, as well, to resist the climax, in which three caravans full of Man U supporters in red shirts and rubber Cantona masks take on the wicked wide boys who have been endangering the postman's family. Or its denouement, when the celebrating lads are reboarding their buses and the leader calls out to a laggard, "Come on, Cantona, you dozey git. I hope you haven't been robbing." We, of course, know what this fellow does not, that when the Cantona mask comes off, the real mccoy will be beneath it.