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A HIDDEN LIFE: A Tribute to the Courage of Conscientious Objection
Terrence Malick’s timely latest explores the patient power of non-violent protest
I count Terrence Malick among my holy trinity of directors, alongside Paul Thomas Anderson and Stanley Kubrick. If Kubrick’s my Father, someone who explores the inner workings of human nature, exposing our flaws and weaknesses, and PTA’s my Son, someone who’s learned from those weaknesses and believes that we can find an ultimate redemption in them, then Malick is my Holy Spirit. He’s a director whose films explore those underlying mysteries — there’s a fascination with why we take the paths we choose, the unseen hands that guide us down them, and how our life’s journeys relate to the Universe at large. While the other two focus heavily on the trappings we create for ourselves, be it Vice or some other corruptibility, Malick’s films are urged on by a more spiritual hunger, more crises of conscience.
Whether it’s attempting to satisfy that hunger between those we love as in To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, or Song to Song, or in the faith in a higher power with The Tree of Life, Malick’s recent characters find themselves searching for deliverance or comfort in something beyond the material world, often to the confusion or anger of those around them. I love these films because they acknowledge the pain of uncertainty and doubt, and how tempting it can be to bury ourselves in distractible things — but also Malick’s films believe that there will come a time where, if we search hard enough, and surrender ourselves to what the Universe reveals to us, that beautiful sense of purpose and fulfillment will emerge.
His latest, A Hidden Life, follows a father compelled by his own crisis at a time of widespread moral corruption. Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer, is drafted by the Nazis at the dread-soaked beginning of World War II. Franz has spent his life trying to build “a life above the clouds” for his family — an idyllic life, free of the troubles of the world. Over the course of the film’s first half, Franz reckons with how naive and wrong this belief is as his fellow townspeople fall under the sway of Nazi dogma. The townspeople’s hatred fractures their community into those eager to please their new rulers, and those fearful of incurring their wrath. Franz turns to his spiritual leaders, hoping for some higher guidance, but even they have fallen under the boot of Hitler, acknowledging one’s sense of duty and subjugation even as their church bells are melted for bullets. Franz goes through with Army training, but his biggest test comes when all soldiers are required to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Faced with isolation, imprisonment, and potentially execution the longer he holds onto his conscientious objection, Franz struggles to hold true to what he believes is right in a world that’s lost its way.
While Franz’s choice may seem easy to an audience with nearly eighty years of hindsight, A Hidden Life refuses to make Franz’s choice free from grueling consequence. Franz is gripped with indecision before he chooses to refuse Hitler’s oath as much as when he’s being coerced to recant it. His family, especially his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner), has accepted and champion Franz’s decision to maintain the moral high ground — still, Franz must reckon with what might happen to them in his absence. Franz’s repugnance at Nazi war crimes quickly makes enemies of his fellow community, and the Jägerstätters find themselves quickly ostracized. The Church, Franz’s last refuge and moral compass, urges him to keep his treasonous thoughts to himself, and to obey his leaders.
Malick illustrates this widespread alienation through the use of language. At the film’s beginning, Franz and Fani speak German with their fellow townspeople. As A Hidden Life progresses, there seems to be a deliberate divide between English and unsubtitled German — as if Fascism has created a Tower of Babel-like situation that’s split a once-unified people among those who believe in the idea of Volk and those who don’t. There’s a systemic resistance towards Franz’s actions, one that’s suffocating in its pervasiveness. What makes Franz such a memorable character, though, is his decision to follow through with this choice to act, to not give into fear and hatred.
Franz’s choice is clear; but again, A Hidden Life refuses to give this clarity an easy path to travel. When Franz refuses to surrender his loyalty to Hitler, few understand his willingness to accept the magnitude of consequence he’s bringing upon himself. Even more doubt the efficacy of his actions against such unified oppression. Franz’s court appointed lawyers suggest that the Oath is something others don’t take seriously, that his troubles are thus self-inflicted moral indulgence. Others, like his tribunal judge (a moving final performance by Bruno Ganz), take Franz’s passionate, resolute suffering as an indictment of his own choices, and reply with the belief that Franz’s actions are too small to amount to any major change. Franz is made to suffer as a reaction to his stoic determination, from physical brutality at the hands of prison guards, to more psychological torture as Fani undergoes the grueling journey between Austria and Berlin, Germany to appeal for her husband’s safety, only to be undercut by indifferent bureaucracy. Both Franz, and Fani by extension, are subject to the reactionary blows and dangers of this system, all because they refuse to comply.
But what unifies the anger and indifference they face is a uniform refusal to acknowledge what validity Franz may have in his beliefs. The world Franz lives in is one that’s so buried and equally resolute in its ideology that to acknowledge its shortcomings is to acknowledge the evils committed in its name. Which makes Franz’s refusal to comply not only so alien, but so dangerous. It’s why his lawyer is so puzzled by Franz’s refusal to sign a piece of paper to go free. His response, “But I am free,” is so contradictory to someone who has already sold off what morality they may possess. But even though he doesn’t intend to hold up a mirror to his oppressors’ actions — “I don’t say, ‘he’s wicked, I’m right’” — Franz does force those who interact with him to reckon with their actions, and their place in this world of cruelty.
Because to Franz, his words and actions mean everything in the world.
“A man may do wrong, and he can’t get out of it to make his life clear. Maybe he’d like to go back, but he can’t. I have this feeling inside me…that I can’t do what I believe is wrong.”
This interaction forces his judge to literally sit in the throne of the judged. And even though he passes the death sentence on Franz, effectively silencing him in the eyes of the State, he cannot deny the effect the encounter with Franz has on him.
A Hidden Life explores familiar ground for Malick — the question of the efficacy of our actions lingers through The Thin Red Line (“What can a single man do in all this madness?”) — but Franz Jägerstätter’s story further deepens this crisis by connecting it to the same ephemerality explored through his recent autobiographical trilogy that began with The Tree of Life. A Hidden Life doesn’t just explore whether or not there’s a God that allows evil to happen, but also reckons with how much evil we are willing to let happen before we choose to act. There is both a consciousness of a higher morality, but also a moving sense of individual responsibility and action. We cannot wait for judgment to be passed, to let ill be done and wait for a larger reckoning. To let that be the case is to abdicate any sense of individual conscience. Rather, Malick encourages us to hold fast to our beliefs of truth and justice in times of hatred, to cast down our swords and practice non-violence in the wake of cruelty. A Hidden Life is a refusal to accept violence and depravity as man’s natural state. That in the larger scheme of things, this steadfast dedication to one’s moral causes, unwavering in their fortitude, will outlast any temporary evil.
A Hidden Life is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital from Searchlight Pictures.
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KINETTA: Yorgos’ Lanthimos Debut is Both Frustrating and Fascinating
The first solo film from the Greek Weird Wave director finally hits US shelves courtesy of Kino Lorber
In writing about Dogtooth and Alps for Cinapse earlier last year, I noted how Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ films often focus on the trivialities people use both to define themselves and relate to others around them. It’s a recurring theme throughout his career, often to wildly hilarious and violent ends as his characters’ attempts to literalize the world around them fail to give them deeper understanding of their increasingly chaotic inner lives.
Kinetta, Lanthimos’ first solo film as a writer-director, is just as chaotic and (something I didn’t think possible) even more frustratingly opaque than his other films. Largely dialogue-free and intentionally meandering, Kinetta follows a trio of unnamed inhabitants of a Greek resort town in its deserted off-season. The Maid (Evangelia Randou) turns down uninhabited rooms and spies on what little inhabitants there are, while miming struggles with invisible assailants. The Clerk (Aris Servetalis) has a fascination with driving and control. The Detective (Costas Xikominos) loves BMWs and instructing the actions of Russian escorts he visits. The trio’s fascinations coalesce in their bizarre beat-for-beat recreations of true crime murders — the Maid is the victim of the Clerk, as the Detective films on. The act of recreating these murders both gives illumination into and an outlet for the opaque desires of their actors, but it’s clear that as their role-play increases in intensity that something else threatens to come to the surface.
Suffice to say, Kinetta is truly a bizarre film. All of the notes of Lanthimos’ filmography are there below the surface, from the mannequin-esque characters to the rippling effect their violent actions have on the world around them. However, Kinetta is also a film that resists clear and easy viewing. Lanthimos might as well be implementing the cinematic equivalent of social distancing, as he keeps his audience at far more than an arm’s length away from fully gleaning insight into the characters and world of his film.
What keeps us engaged, though, is how Lanthimos does paradoxically invite us to figure out the goings-on of Kinetta, to read as much into these three misfits as we can. It could be read that this is Kinetta’s overall goal: to get its audience to try and penetrate the inner lives of these characters in the same way that they feel compelled to recreate these disturbing events.
Initially released in 2005, Kino Lorber has now given Kinetta a stateside debut on Blu-ray and DVD. Kinetta’s a beguiling yet equally repulsive film that definitely isn’t for everyone — I’m not 100% sure it was for me. But, alongside Dogtooth and Alps, Kinetta provides an intriguing look into the formative stages of one of today’s best directors.
Video/Audio:
Kino Lorber presents Kinetta in a 1.78:1 1080p HD transfer with a 2.0 Greek Stereo track, with an accompanying English subtitle track for the feature. Detail is as well-preserved as it can be for Kinetta’s intentionally color-drained, muted color palette, with a healthy amount of film grain and overexposure that reflects the film’s low-budget, shot-on-the-run production style.
Special Features:
- Commentary by Amy Simmons provides a much-welcome guide through Lanthimos’ enigmatic film. Simmons acknowledges Kinetta’s deliberately opaque story and structure, and draws much from the experience of watching the film–notably the seeds of disturbingly playful deadpan humor and blunt, claustrophobic violence that would flourish throughout the rest of Lanthimos’ filmography.
- Trailers for fellow Kino Lorber releases.
Kinetta is now available on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Kino Lorber.
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Criterion Review: LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
A beautiful digital restoration of the technicolor noir is now on Blu-ray
Two of Gene Tierney’s best-known film roles involve deep obsession. In Laura, a detective investigating her disappearance becomes infatuated with Tierney’s Laura as he learns more about her (it doesn’t hurt that the decorations in her apartment include a huge portrait of her). In the less witty Leave Her to Heaven, Tierney herself plays the infatuated one. Ellen (Tierney) has a meet-cute with an author, Richard (Cornel Wilde), on a train. In Teirney’s capable hands, Ellen enchants both Richard and the audience. Of course, the audience gets to see both the glittery facade of an ideal she presents for him as well as the cruelty of her true self.
“Ellen always wins.”
Richard might seem a better fit for Ellen’s adopted sister, the more pragmatic Ruth (Jeanne Crain). Yet he’s enamored of Ellen’s ethereal beauty and air of mystery, and when she proposes marriage — after an accidental run-in with her ex (Vincent Price, also in Laura) — he can’t fight the temptation. Ellen’s skill for manipulation is clear from the start.
She has learned to play a role when men are involved; the women in her life are keenly familiar with this aspect of her personality. Her mother (Mary Philips) regrets the extremely close relationship Ellen shared with her father. Ruth is wary of Ellen’s machinations, while at the same time wishing their sisterhood was deeper and truer.
Ellen’s sinister tendencies are emphasized by Leon Shamroy’s cinematography, with interior scenes shot from a low angle as patterns of light and shadow paint the ceiling. The set design, along with Shamroy’s shooting style, adds a claustrophobic feel to the technicolor noir. Even the verdant exterior shots are tinged with menace, especially if Tierney is involved. In a pivotal death scene at a calm Maine lake, Tierney’s face is cold and expressionless behind a pair of sunglasses.
Tierney is vicious as Ellen, desperate to keep her man yet aware that he will someday come to realize what kind of person she really is. She appears luminous in the digital restoration of Leave Her to Heaven, now out on Blu-ray from Criterion. But the 1945 film from director John M. Stahl proves that appearances can be quite deceiving.
The new Criterion BluRay package includes:
- a half-hour long interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith about Stahl, the director’s previous “womens’ pictures,” his visual signatures, how film noir connects to melodrama, and an analysis of Tierney’s performance in Leave Her to Heaven, as well as the cinematography and production design
- trailer
- booklet essay from Dare Me author and producer Megan Abbott
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Two Cents Film Club: THE VELOCIPASTOR
Sometimes we just pick something because of the title.
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Velocipastor. Half pastor, half veloci. Sometimes we just dive into a pick without really knowing just what it is we’re diving into, and this was one of those times. The Velocipastor is a real, actual, 90 minute movie about — a preaching dinosaur? Chapter 40 of the Book of Job? Wait, are those ninjas on the poster?
Brendan told me I could either do The Velocipastor or The Fanatic but not both, so here we are. Did I make the right choice? Let’s find out…
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
It’s with great sadness that we say goodbye to a horror icon. Stuart Gordon has made an indelible impact on horror films since hitting the scene with 1985’s Re-Animator, and we want to honor him by sharing one of his best — and yet lesser known — films. Dagon is Gordon’s ultimate Lovecraft adaptation, a deeply atmospheric descent into the nightmarish world of the Chtulhu mythos.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Never fear, The Velocipastor is here. I was waiting for this one for months and months before it finally dropped. Much to my dismay, I was unable to attend my Philly screening. As the film was screened in the basement of a United Methodist church that I used to use for punk concerts in my pre-kids mid-20s, I’m sure it was the most incredible atmosphere to see such an irreverent and bizarre low budget film.
With this said, I was able to get my hands on the film not too long after and it didn’t disappoint. Complete with a “missing reel” and over the top concepts and action, this is a film that’s hard not to have fun with. Those who don’t appreciate it likely have no soul… which is a shame because the Velocipastor is here to save all of our souls.
From beginning to end, this is a fantastic low budget blast. The acting is (intentionally) not great and the effects are a mixed bag, but this film is exactly what fans of low budget and microbudget film should be looking for. If you haven’t watched yet, check out the trailer and you should be completely sold. (@thepaintedman)
So I had pretty much no real idea of what to expect with this one except that it’s called The Velocipastor and released by Wild Eye which is known for bottom-budget yet interesting horror movies.
The Velocipastor hangs a 90-minute movie on a wordplay, and not even a particularly good or accurate one one at that (“raptor” and “pastor” only half-rhyme, and technically the character isn’t really either).
On the surface there’s certainly a perception that the mashup title hews close to a “Sharknado” — that school of filmmaking that says let’s get two weird unrelated concepts and jam ’em together and see what happens. Setting out to make an intentionally bad movie is a difficult thing to pull off with any level of success, but I’ll say this for Velocipastor: it avoids the worst-case scenario, which would be to simply feel like a lame cash grab.
It’s definitely throwing a lot of weird stuff at the screen — a world populated by Christian ninjas, a cartoonish pimp, and a priest who gains the ability to transform into a dinosaur — but it doesn’t ever feel cynical about it. It’s a fun, self-aware, and low-key murder-and-mayhem adventure with a few chuckle-worthy gags and a laughably chonky dinosaur costume, and gives the sensation that the folks involved were having fun making something silly to share with the world. (@VforVashaw)
Brendan Foley (via DM):
Sorry Justin, guess I have no soul.
This is honestly the kind of movie that I just cannot stand, the intentionally bad bad movie that is constantly winking at you about how dumb and silly it is. Truly great bad movies are the result of artistic vision and drive as pure as that behind any masterpiece, whereas movies like this that keep pausing to remind you that they know how stupid they are just come across as smug and airless to me.
I’m sorry to say that I lost patience with this one very quickly. I love low budget genre cinema and the spirit of invention and creativity that go into pulling off magic on a shoestring budget. But movies like The Velocipastor that go out of their way to make the least amount of effort possible just bum me out. Glad the other guys seemed to like it, though. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Next week’s pick:
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KNIVES OUT: You Can’t Resist Rian Johnson’s Delightfully Deadly Murder-Mystery on Blu-ray
One of 2019’s best reaps rewards in home video revisits
My favorite big-screen viewings are the ones that become a communal experience for the audience, ones where each viewer becomes locked into the same exciting emotional rhythm the film provides. Over the course of his career, Rian Johnson has deftly honed this particular skill. From Brick to The Last Jedi, Johnson burrows deep into the tropes of his chosen genres and mines them for as many subversive twists and turns as possible. While this unpredictability would sate other directors, Johnson consistently has gone a step further, never losing sight of creating well-drawn, empathy-driven characters to set on these wild narrative paths. Whether on the big screen or now on home video, Knives Out sees Johnson at his absolute best. He turns the whodunnit into a why-dunnit and back again, creating a fast-paced, gripping tale rich with hilarious characters and a hell of a lot of heart.
The film follows an investigation into the murder of acclaimed mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) after his 85th birthday party — and in the eyes of gentleman sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), every member of Harlan’s family is a potential suspect in the man’s demise. Was it headstrong real estate magnate Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis)? Her womanizing, baby-boomer husband Richard (Don Johnson)? Maybe the blame’s on Harlan’s son and publisher, Walt (Michael Shannon), or Harlan’s influencer daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette). There’s also the missing Ransom (Chris Evans), whose conspicuous absence leads to its own share of family secrets. To get to the bottom of this, Blanc relies on Harlan’s aide, Marta (Ana De Armas); but Marta’s holding some deadly secrets of her own, ones that threaten to upend everything we know about the night of Harlan’s death.
One of Knives Out’s strengths is that it’s as surprising as ever, whether you’re a newly-initiated viewer or putting the Blu in for the umpteenth time. The reason for this longevity, surprisingly, is that while Johnson and his cast know that these reversals and reveals are part of the lifeblood of the murder-mystery, they must serve the overall story rather than the other way round. The twists of Knives Out play into a far larger tapestry, fueled by a ridiculously-stacked cast of memorable characters with compelling, unpredictable motivations. The result is that every twist means that much more to us as it does for the characters onscreen. Knives Out is an endlessly enjoyable roller coaster of empathy, delivered with sheer confidence in each line and cut both in front of and behind the camera.
VIDEO/AUDIO:
Lionsgate presents Knives Out in 1080p 1.85:1 HD, with an English Dolby Atmos track, 2.0 English descriptive audio, and 5.1 French and Spanish dub tracks. English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are provided for the main feature.
Steve Yedlin’s rich, labored-over cinematography is well preserved here. Of particular note is the healthy amount of artificial grain that grants Knives Out a filmic look that transcends its Arri Alexa origins. The intricate details of the Thrombey mansion transfer well here, too; I’m definitely going to have a blast pausing and reading the various ridiculous titles in Harlan’s library. The surround audio track showcases the delightful strings of Nathan Johnson’s soundtrack as much as it does the film’s crackling dialogue. Overall, it’s a high-quality presentation of a stellar flick.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- 2 Audio Commentaries: The disc features Rian Johnson’s self-released solo commentary during the film’s theatrical run, as well as an ensemble commentary with Johnson, cinematographer Steve Yedlin, and Trooper Wagner himself, Noah Segan.
- Deleted Scenes: 2 brief excised subplots, one delving into Walt’s gambling debts and the mystery of his broken leg, the other revealing the unfortunate side effects of Joni’s Flam products. Both add to the characters’ already duplicitous motivations (and thankfully give Riki Lindholme more to do), but are easily removed strands of story from an already chock-full plot.
- Making a Murder: A feature-length documentary covering every facet of Knives Out’s production, from the excitement of pre-production, the fast-paced shooting schedule, to the film’s eventual premiere at Toronto, Fantastic Fest, and Los Angeles. I know it’s old hat to say that a film’s cast and crew definitely had fun during production, but come on, the Knives Out set looks like it was the best summer camp ever.
- Rian Johnson–Planning the Perfect Murder: An interview with the writer-director on conceptualizing the world of Knives Out and the intricacies of bringing the various threads of the story together in the script stage.
- Q&A: A 45-minute post-screening session featuring the film’s cast and crew.
- Marketing Gallery: Featuring three theatrical trailers, a Hitchcockian introduction to the film by Rian Johnson, and three viral ads from the world of the film: Thrombey Real Estate, Blood Like Wine Publishing, and Flam.
From its endlessly rewatchable main feature to its surprising king’s ransom of supplements, Knives Out is easily a staple of anyone’s Blu collection. Now to make room for the future Blu of Untitled Knives Out Sequel alongside it.
Knives Out is now available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital courtesy of Lionsgate.
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Two Cents Dons THE MASK OF ZORRO
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
One of Hollywood’s favorite pastimes for the past few decades has been pouring lots and lots of money into flashy updates of classic pulp heroes, or new characters explicitly drawn from the example of classic pulp heroes.
Alas, it never quite seems to work out.
The Phantom. The Shadow. The Rocketeer. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The Spirit. John Carter. And of course, the kill-shot that may have finally finished this trend for good, The Lone Ranger.
Surely everyone involved in these enterprises has nothing but the best and most noble of intentions. And pretty much every one of the films listed above has some degree of cult following (maybe not The Spirit) attuned to the specific frequency the filmmakers sought.
But the movies never quite work right, and the audiences never show up.
Well. Except for one time.
1998’s The Mask of Zorro was a long-gestating project that went through a number of hands. At one point producer Steven Spielberg was going to direct himself, before opting instead to hire young up-and-comer Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez cast his Desperado leading man, Antonio Banderas, to be the new Zorro, only to depart himself when producers would not agree to his budget requests (the final cost ended up being over twice what Rodriguez asked for). Instead, directorial duties were handed by Martin Campbell on the heels of his reviving the dormant James Bond franchise with Goldeneye (and right before he would revive the dormant James Bond franchise with Casino Royale).
The Mask of Zorro opens at the end of the career of the classic Zorro, as heroic nobleman Don Diego de la Vega (Sir Anthony Hopkins) has decided to end his nightly Batmanning and devote himself entirely to his wife and child. But his life is destroyed when the vengeful Don Rafael Montero (Stuart “Dr. Hatcher, nooooo.” Wilson) murders his wife and steals his daughter. Twenty years later, de la Vega escapes imprisonment and decides a new Zorro is needed to save his now-grown daughter Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and free California from tyranny. His choice: Banderas’ Alejandro, a good-hearted, bumbling bandit who cleans up awfully nice.
Antonio is the one with brown eyes Together, de la Vega and Alejandro must work together to save Elena and protect California from Montero’s evil schemes, and avenge the death of Alejandro’s brother at the hands of the sadistic Captain Love (Matt Letscher).
Buckles are swashed, derrings are do’ed, with no less than Olympian swordmaster Bob Anderson (who worked on *checks notes* all of your favorite movies) making sure that the swordfights are some of the best that have ever been.
The Mask of Zorro was a massive hit when it was released, and remains a beloved high-water mark for fans of ’90s action cinema. While much of the cast and crew went on to long and accomplished careers, this particular formula was never quite replicated, not even when the whole gang got together again years later for The Legend of Zorro.
So strap on your best sword and make sure your hat is on tight. It’s time to put on The Mask of Zorro.
Next Week’s Pick:
Oh hey, we’re doin’ The Velocipastor.
Available on Amazon Prime and Free (ad-supported) on Vudu.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests
Austin Wilden:
The Mask of Zorro’s alchemical mixture of all the right elements in just the right places makes for one of the grandest feeling blockbusters I’ve ever watched. Set design, costumes, stunts, score and the performances of the assembled cast compliment each other in a way that makes the over two-hour runtime race by and leaves you longing for more.
It’s similar to the mix that made the other swashbuckler with a screenplay by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, Curse of the Black Pearl, work years later. Namely that it’s committed to not overcomplicating itself and focusing in on the central characters’ arcs above all else. The three main characters, Alejandro, Elena and de la Vega, all have easy to understand motives, relationships and connections with the antagonistic duo of Rafael Montero and Harrison Love. When the sword fighting, rope-swinging and horse-riding action kicks in, you understand what brought all the participants to that point and their goals. All that action and character work happens in a way that makes it look so effortless you wonder what happened to Martin Campbell by the time he was making Green Lantern.
Of course, the biggest highlight is the sword fight/flirt in the stable between Alejandro and Elena, where Banderas and Zeta-Jones’ chemistry burns hotter than the goldmine explosion that caps off the movie’s climax. (@WC_Wit)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
What do Batman Begins, Casino Royale, and The Force Awakens have in common?
They’re all damn good movies who’s big central “hooks” were done better, earlier, and all in a one movie, by The Mask of Zorro.
You’ve got the masked vigilante with the double life, an “origin” that reboots a beloved action/adventure hero with his recognizable gear *and* a continuation of a pop mythology icon that passes the sword to the next generation AND *ALSO* they do the “truck sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark” of horse chases. This movie it’s so good — and makes being as good as it is look so easy — that it makes me embarrassed for other movies. Like, this was the same level of “everything coming together just right to make the platonic ideal of a swashbuckler” as the first Pirates of the Caribbean, except all those secret ingredients in Pirates feel accidental but confidently purposeful in Zorro.
And did I mention it’s a movie that takes the subtext of “sword fights are basically sex scenes” and decides that subtext is for fucking cowards?
Every one of the actors shows up to work but is also eager to play, the fight and chase scenes are impeccably shot and communicate clear narratives of action, James Horner’s score rips the entire roof off (the dude was coming off of both Braveheart and Titanic so he *knew* he was hot shit and came to show off), and things blow up so gotdamn awesome that the film uses lion and tiger roars in its explosion sound effects. Also, one time Zorro dual-wields swords to duel two guys simultaneously and it’s some of the raddest weapon shit outside martial arts cinema.
There’s still a few things that our current blockbusters could learn from The Mask of Zorro. Namely, more swords. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
The Mask of Zorro does so much right that it’s hard to understand why so many other movies get it wrong. Why can’t all action movies have action this clean and well-choreographed? Why can’t all ensembles be this well-assembled and be having this much palpable fun? Why can’t all adventure movies have this clear a narrative structure, while also having the patience to take time to give each piece time enough to breathe?
Why can’t there be more GODDAMN swordfights in Hollywood blockbuster?
The Mask of Zorro is just one of those very special movies where all the elements aligned in just the right way. It’s no wonder that it has proven nigh-on impossible to replicate, even by different combinations of the same creative team. I do hope that someday someone gives Banderas the opportunity to pass the mantle to another Zorro in a big, splashy blockbuster, but we should never stop being grateful that the great Fox got one Hollywood outing this outstanding. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
“The hero’s mortal enemy steals his child to raise as his own” may be a familiar story beat (you’ve seen it elsewhere — The Count of Monte Cristo, Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to cite new and old examples), but that’s because it’s so compelling. The Mask of Zorro is a phenomenal work of action-adventure sword fights and setpieces, but this heartbreaking familial dynamic is what powers its passion.
With two generations of Zorros both loving the same woman — one as her father, the other as her suitor — the swordplay and heroics serve a purpose. Villains are vanquished, wrongs righted, and swashes buckled. So perfectly did the film capture its adventurous tone and boisterous, acrobatic action that other films of a similar vein — even its own sequel — struggle to prove its equal. (@Austin Vashaw)
Further reading:
Next week’s pick: The Velocipastor
Watch on Amazon Prime
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ESCAPE FROM PRETORIA: A Prison Break Film Isolated From a Deeper Context
The dramatization of the 1979 jailbreak is an entertaining watch–but fails to fully reckon with the deeper struggles of South Africa’s Apartheid past
One of the best books I read as a kid was a little book fair tome called “Usborne’s Tales of Real Adventure.” It was a gripping read for a preteen, with crazy survival stories and escape attempts, from the Hindenberg to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s crash-landing in the Libyan desert to my favorite story of the bunch: Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee’s escape from Pretoria Prison in South Africa. Jenkin and Lee, imprisoned for their roles in the fight against Apartheid, managed to escape what was touted as South Africa’s Alcatraz, and their bravery and determination helped expose yet another chink in the crumbling armor of the racist South African government. I didn’t appreciate the magnanimity of this escape in the context of the Apartheid regime, but these men’s ingenious prison break in the name of their ideals stuck with me for years.
Naturally, as soon as I heard 20-odd years later that Jenkin and Lee’s escape had received the film treatment, I was on board. On paper, Escape From Pretoria’s got everything — a timely story about ideological and moral resistance against institutional corruption, Daniel Radcliffe and Ian Hart reuniting, and suspense-driven intricate escape processes. In execution, the film’s pretty decent; though one can’t help but feel like its dedication to the minutiae of Jenkin and Lee’s escape comes at the cost of a more thorough and needed exploration of its own ideals.
Escape From Pretoria follows the months-long construction of an escape plan formulated by South African apartheid activists Tim Jenkin, Stephen Lee, and French national Leonard Fontaine (substituted for Egyptian-Australian activist Alex Moumbaris). Jenkin and Lee are imprisoned for year-length prison sentences for a non-lethal ANC leaflet bombing of a public street; Fontaine is another political prisoner serving years inside and away from his son, whom Fontaine is only allowed to see for a half-hour each year. From the moment Jenkin and Lee step inside Pretoria, an escape plan is forming — but they face opposition not just from the extremely racist guards, but from their fellow prisoners. Denis Goldberg, an ANC Veteran imprisoned at the same time as Nelson Mandela, views their imprisonment as a monastic symbol of their struggle; and while he is happy to advise the jailbreakers on the dangers of their quest, he believes that their success only predicates future harsh punishment by the government. Unswayed by the dangers around them, Jenkin, Lee, and Fontaine use everything from broomstick crank handles, wooden keys, and gum-and-string pulley systems to inch closer to freedom.
Escape from Pretoria boasts a solid ensemble cast anchored by Daniel Radcliffe, Daniel Webber, and Mark Leonard Winter. Jenkin is easily one of Radcliffe’s best roles, an unwavering idealist who approaches his hardships with an equally unflappable degree of pragmatism. Webber does act as more of a sounding board to Radcliffe’s ideas, but manages to inject light humor in contrast to his co-star’s gravitas. Leonard provides more pathos to the group with his material, but his over-the-top performance feels sometimes out-of-place, drawing further attention to his character’s position as a substitute for another real-life person. Ian Hart gives a decent supporting turn as well as an almost anti-mentor in Goldberg, illustrating another shade of the cast’s shared ideals to somewhat self-destructive ends.
Like other prison break procedurals, Pretoria crafts much of its narrative on the minute process of escape, and the many methods that the trio used to escape are mined for effective suspense throughout. Jenkin, Lee, and Leonard only have so many materials to work with, requiring just as much trial-and-error for each step of their process. Writer-director Francis Annan and co-writer L.H. Adams milk each moment for what its got, especially in a sequence where Jenkin must fish a stray wooden key out of a closely-patrolled hallway using nothing but gum at the end of a string.
As entertaining as the process-driven story may be, Annan and Adams’ laser-focus on it does come at the expense of the greater context of the escapees’ imprisonment. There is tension between Jenkin’s group and Goldberg’s when it comes to the rationale of escaping a political prison. Namely, whether it’s more noble to endure imprisonment for one’s ideals with dignity to morally humiliate your aggressors, or to escape in order to undermine their power and hopefully incite meaningful change. However, viewers aren’t given much — if any — of the climate of the outside world to go on, aside from a brief beginning sequence illustrating the circumstances that led Jenkin and Lee to be arrested. Radcliffe’s Jenkin is given much of the expository legwork of Pretoria in lengthy voiceovers, which set up the anti-Apartheid dynamic well, but Jenkin’s voiceover and his brief tensions with Goldberg do little to illustrate exactly why this struggle means so much to them personally, and what effect their suffering may have on the outside world.
That’s not to say that prison break films can’t be as straightforward as this one. The equally detail-obsessed A Man Escaped by Robert Bresson is a clear influence on Escape from Pretoria, from its structure to its soundtrack choices. But Bresson’s film still reckoned with serious issues of its time, from whether to collaborate with one’s oppressors to the limits of faith in the wake of dispassionate human suffering. There’s clearly room for Pretoria to greater reckon with the legacy of Apartheid, especially since Annan and Adams are turning their gaze to the past in a time of hostility towards immigrants and other heightening ethnocentric policymaking. However, these aspects go unexplored in favor of repetitious tension, no matter how entertaining that tension may be. As someone excited to explore this story beyond what I learned as a kid, I can’t say my knowledge of Jenkin and Lee’s escape deepened by a considerable margin. That said, Escape from Pretoria is still a solidly-made film by everyone involved. If anything, it may inspire people to check out Jenkin’s published memoir about the escape and motivate viewers to engage in serious conversation about the nature of political imprisonment.
Escape from Pretoria is now in theaters and on demand and digital from Momentum Pictures.
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THE FAN (1996) & THE CONTRACTOR (2007): A Wesley Snipes Double Feature
Any night with Wesley Snipes is a good night
Mill Creek Entertainment does a fair amount of these types of double feature home video releases, with a couple titles featuring the same star on one disc with a bare bones menu and zero double features. That’s exactly what you’re getting here with this latest Mill Creek release featuring a couple of Wesley Snipes titles that have virtually nothing in common with one another at all besides Mr. Snipes. Neither film is a homerun, if you will, but I’d never seen either title before and as an active Wesley Snipes fan, this felt like an ideal opportunity to double feature these titles whilst on a nationwide COVID-19 voluntary quarantine. You’re going to get a couple of Wesley Snipes movies here, both on Blu-ray and on DVD. That’s it. Each film has its moments, so read on!
The Fan (1996)
Many will remember this one as it played to a wide theatrical release and came out between Demolition Man and Blade… so it’s pretty much peak Wesley Snipes era. What I didn’t personally remember at all until the film was playing before my eyeballs is that none other than Tony Scott directed this. And those are all the ingredients you need to know to make it worth checking out The Fan. You’ve got peak Wesley Snipes and the ever aesthetically pleasing Tony Scott behind the camera, so therefore you can sit back and enjoy the ride.
The set up here is very much a kind of Cape Fear lite with Robert De Niro playing a genuine, fleshed out character who is going to eventually devolve into a frothing mad stalker of Wesley Snipes’ pro baseball star Bobby Rayburn. It’s not as though the beat by beat plot points are the same as Cape Fear, but it feels like extremely similar territory for De Niro. Of course, De Niro is great and brings his A game to the role. But The Fan is kind of underwritten and never really rises to any kind of greatness as a stalker thriller. There’s a lot here to pique your interest and keep you watching, but it never soars into the bleachers.
Tony Scott’s energetic direction is the outstanding element of The Fan. The guy just makes this otherwise standard fare really pop. And as with much of his oeuvre, he visually grabs you right from the start and never lets go. The movie just looks and feels propulsive and menacing and Mill Creek’s Blu-ray does a solid job of conveying that vibe to your tv screen. It’s a San Francisco movie, with The Giants being the team Rayburn has recently signed to with an outrageous (for 1996) $40 million contract. So you do get some classic San Francisco visuals delivered right to you from Mr. Scott.
The cast would be the other big standout making The Fan worth a watch. Snipes is not playing a jacked action hero here. He’s a dramatic lead, with a son to care for and a career stalling out even as he reaches the heights of superstardom. De Niro’s Gil Renard is actually the main character, however. You split a lot of time between Gil and Bobby, with a fair amount of tension building and character development going on. When things finally do escalate to violence and tragedy, it actually feels a little bit heightened and detached from the human drama that had been playing out previously.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of The Fan is that, while it should feel fresh and relevant today with social media allowing for a culture of toxic fandom to have taken over pop culture, it really doesn’t offer much in the way of insight. Gil is just a tragic figure. A man pushed to the breaking point who let his obsessive tendencies win the day and veer him down a tragic path of violence. Meanwhile Snipes’ Bobby Rayburn spends most of the movie not even knowing Gil exists and repeatedly asking “what do you even want from me?” once they become locked in a third act battle. You can certainly feel echoes of relevance to today’s rampant fan entitlement problem, but nothing ever really incisive ends up being divined from The Fan’s fairly weak screenplay.
Beyond just Snipes and De Niro you’ve also got nice turns from Ellen Barkin and John Leguizamo, but while they do a lot with their limited screen time, neither character amounts to much and Barkin’s shock jock radio sports reporter gets totally sidelined by the end as just an observer, which is unfortunate.
The Fan has a lot going for it with a great cast and even better director. It goes down smooth and easy and offers few surprises. You’ve seen this movie before, and you’ll see it again, too. But never with quite this mixture of talent in the dugout, which earns it a mild recommendation.
The Contractor (2007)
I’m going to be honest. I popped this one in and watched it first, because this is exactly my kind of movie. I adore direct to video action cinema for some reason, and I’m not daunted at all when a project like this happens, later in a star’s career perhaps, at a fraction of the budget of the projects they did in their career peaks. I’ve seen dozens and dozens of films just like The Contractor.
It’s a pretty solid direct to video title on the spectrum of these types of things. It’s competently directed and written, tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end… and it lets Wesley Snipes be the badass leading man he is. The basics of filmmaking are all pretty much there. And trust me, this isn’t a given with DTV films of The Contractor’s ilk.
The problem with The Contractor is that it commits the cardinal sin of DTV action cinema: It’s boring.
Snipes stars as James Dial who is, oddly, not really a contractor at all. Rather, he’s a retired CIA operative who is given “one last chance” to kill the terrorist who had eluded him in a botched job that ended his career. Awesomely, Dial lives on a ranch in Montana, training horses. This kind of trope will never grow old, and Dial’s aloof badass vibe is perhaps the movie’s best character beat. Of course, the job goes south, Dial ends up on the run, and that’s when The Contractor commits its second unforgivable sin: It saddles Dial with a precocious kid sidekick. Fortunately actress Eliza Bennet actually fleshes out Emily quite well and that actress has gone on to work regularly, it appears. It’s just that this is an action movie trope that does get old with a quickness and didn’t help this film be any more thrilling. There’s never a moment where the action sequences surprise or stand out in any way. There’s no doubt whatsoever that Dial will turn the tables on those who are setting him up. Perhaps the film benefits from not making Dial some kind of super soldier, and focusing more on the human drama of an assassin on the run teaming up with a struggling teenaged girl. But it’s less fun with that approach.
Frequently DTV films like this one feature ONLY the star above the title in terms of recognizable actors, but The Contractor managed to roll the dice in 2007 and cast a remarkable pre-Game Of Thrones duo with Charles Dance playing an aging British investigator and Lena Headey playing his daughter (and also an investigator). That’s right, The Contractor brings us a pre-Game Of Thrones father/daughter Lannister reunion. It’s the most remarkable thing about the film here in 2020, and sadly neither character really has much to do as written, though those two actors obviously shine with their sub-optimal parts.
The Contractor is never remarkable, though it never dips into incompetence either. As Snipes is an innocent man on the run, you get a very “poor man’s U.S. Marshals” vibe while watching The Contractor. Which is unfortunate as U.S. Marshals was already a poor man’s The Fugitive. There’s little to recommend here beyond Snipes always being an enjoyable watch and the accidental casting coup of future Game Of Thrones stars in supporting rolls. I may have to revisit U.S. Marshals now, though, so The Contractor definitely inspired something within me.
And I’m Out.
The Fan / The Contractor double feature disc is now available as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack from Mill Creek Entertainment.
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FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE Screen Comparisons: Kino 2K Restoration vs. 2009 Blu-ray
On March 17, Kino Lorber Studio Classics brings the war-action film Force 10 From Navarone (1978) back to Blu-ray in a new edition (previously released by MGM in 2009).
The sequel to the 1961 classic The Guns of Navarone features an all-star cast including Harrison Ford, Carl Weathers, Franco Nero, and a who’s who of the James Bond franchise: Robert Shaw, Richard Kiel, Barbara Bach, Michael Byrne, and Edward Fox, not to mention director Guy Hamilton.
Kino’s new disc boasts a brand new 2K scan, and the difference in overall sharpness and visual fidelity is clear. Additionally, the new scan has done a much better job of capturing more of the full frame. (The movie’s file size also weighs in at 80% larger, though a small factor of that is attributable to a newly added commentary).
Superior detail:
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
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Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino Coverage of frame:
Kino’s scan is consistently less tightly cropped, allowing more of the image to appear on the screen on all four sides. Here are a few shots where this difference is a bit easier to spot, based on the objects or tangents around the periphery.
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino Color Correction:
Extensive color correction has been applied to the film. A “rosy” blush apparent in many outdoor scenes has been mitigated, and ightly vivid green foliage has been scaled back to more natural tones.
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Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
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Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
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Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino High Desaturation & Contrast
Overall, Kino’s colors look quite great as the prior screens demonstrate — but at time the changes are overzealous. This is more readily apparent in lower light scenes, where some of the colors lose their lustre in favor of a more desaturated, high contrast appearance.
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino As harsh as that last example appears, it’s worth noting that this choice does make the nocturnal scenes easier to “read” and less murky, and especially in motion— for example:
Throughout the film there are also a few times where the old disc’s palette has simply has a more natural appearance, though these are in the minority:
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino Notes on Revised Titles
I don’t have a frame of reference for what the film’s titles originally looked like in 1978, but both Blu-ray editions appear to have recreated or retouched versions of the opening credits sequence.
The 2009 disc features some especially garish, ultra-sharp bright yellow text which looks computer-created and is obviously not from the film’s era. Kino’s new disc has a much more subtle/natural appearance, though they opted to replace the setting test of “Somewhere in England” (left alone in 2009) to the same aesthetic.
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino Additional comparisons:
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Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino 
Top: Old MGM // Bottom: New Kino
In addition to a new 2K scan, Kino’s disc also have some new bonus features:
- Audio commentary by filmmaker Steve Mitchell and Author Jay Rubin (Combat Films: American Realism)
- Theatrical Trailer (1:44)
- Additional trailers: Ambush Bay (2:44), The Devil’s Brigade (3:46), Hornet’s Nest (2:39), The Secret Invasion (3:11), The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2:32), Tobruk (2:48)
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon:
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Except where noted, all 16:9 screen images in this review are direct captures from the disc(s) in question with no editing applied, but may have compression or resizing inherent to file formats and Medium’s image system. All package photography was taken by the reviewer.
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The Still Wonder of FIRST COW
Kelly Reichardt made a western about friendship and it’s beautiful
Courtesy of A24. After a mysterious open with a hiker and her dog making a discovery in a more recent time, First Cow moves back into the early 19th Century Oregon territory. Cookie (John Magaro, The Big Short) is near the end of his journey as a cook for a crew of fur trappers when he finds King-Lu (Orion Lee) hiding in bushes. Cookie takes care of King-Lu, and the two men, who both feel like outsiders in this wild northwest region, become fast friends. Meanwhile, a lone milk cow is making its way to the wilderness.
Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women) creates a vision of the west rarely seen in film. Inclusive casting provides a more realistic view of the trading post as it may have been. Indigenous women watch from shore as the cow is ferried across the water, and different accents are spoken by the men in the watering hole. King-Lu tells Cookie he loves the region because “history isn’t here yet.”
Courtesy of A24. The wilderness is lush, with greens that pop off the screen. Reichardt and crew make this world appear one full of wonder and possibility, wherein a couple of friends could dream of opening a hotel together on funds they raise from Cookie’s baking talents. With no women around to place in a typical domestic role, Cookie and King-Lu are shown sewing, sweeping, and baking (such a unique sight in westerns that I found it noteworthy).
Courtesy of A24. First Cow is based on a novel from Jonathan Raymond, who co-wrote the screenplay with Reichardt; they’ve collaborated on other films in the past. There’s humor to this story, which made our audience laugh out loud a number of times. Sure, the title celebrates the cow, but the film celebrates this friendship between two men of differing backgrounds. First Cow is a kind and gentle film, a sweet — but not saccharine — work that leaves the viewer smiling. Such a film is a balm in these uncertain times.
First Cow is scheduled to open March 20 in Austin theaters.
