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ENDURING
IMAGES RESONANCE IS A SCIENTIFIC TERM used in fields as varied as physics, mechanics, astronomy and chemistry, but its main definition is "the quality of being resonant," which is primarily associated with sound and music. However, I'm interested in another definition of resonant: "having the ability to evoke or suggest enduring images, memories or emotions." Light, movement, color, form and texture create images that remain in my mind long after some movies. It's as if I have fallen under the spell of certain images and am mildly drunk on pleasure. These images ask for my continued attention, which calls for a more relaxed focus than driving a car, for instance, and I think about them often. Vague, half-formed ideas, thoughts, feelings and sensory memories come up. Catching these fleeting impressions before they slip away is like trying to remember a dream you were in just the minute before you awoke. Sometimes I persuade an image to linger by agreeing to contemplate it without trying to "interpret" it. I do this in galleries and museums when I want to see more deeply into a painting or other artwork. Insights come when I'm receptive to the image on its terms. "Image" has another meaning, too. As a superficial expression of what's trendy this minute, image dominates popular culture. The notion of a psychologically layered image involves looking beyond appearance and is a learned art. Violent images may also resonate, but they are more difficult to work with than nuanced images that speak to the soul. Three 2002 films are more resonant than any other for me, while all of the films selected have unforgettable qualities. A film's wholeness — its image, as I am using the word here — comes through its story, setting and direction; the actors' abilities to express creatively the emotional life of the characters; and the collaboration of cinematographer, musical composer, film and sound editors, production designers and costumers to fulfill the filmmakers' vision.
Talk To Her is an original, the story of two men who become friends in a hospital, where the comatose women they love require full-time care. A love story we haven't seen before, it reminds us that many varieties of love exist, and all are worthy of our respect. The year's best musical score features composer Alberto Iglesias's melodic music and the spellbinding solo by Caetano Veloso of "Cucurrucucú Paloma." It sweetens the film's rich emotional ambiance, while a silent film and dance sequences increase its artistic delights. The Hours tells the story of three women, their work and the people they love. The women's daily lives, thoughts and feelings seem to reach out to one another across time and place. Suffused with feeling, this meditation on melancholy clarifies that each of us must consciously decide the time and means to change our lives, regardless of the needs of others. Phillip Glass's cool minimalist musical score amplifies the film's formal restraint, making its impulsive emotional moments even more powerful. Far From Heaven is set in 1957 in an upper-class, white, Connecticut suburban community, where individuals lash out at a woman and two men who express desires that fall outside conventional boundaries. An indictment of hidebound mid-America at mid-century, the film's powerful emotional punch is inflected by its regal profusion of colors and textures. Here the surface beauty belies the psychological turmoil of the characters. Lambent gazes speak for characters who lack language to express their feelings, while Elmer Bernstein's lush music recalls melodramas of the era and reinforces the characters' unspoken longings. Gangs of New York spins an epic tale of violence and revenge set among mid-19th century Irish Catholic immigrants and ruthless Protestant gangs who rule a lawless neighborhood in what was not yet a city. It focuses on two men from opposite sides and one woman, who is connected to both men. Its images of brutality are too personal for some. Set 140 years later in the same city, 25th Hour follows a former drug dealer who spews venom about the city's multi-ethnic populations while glaring at his own image in the mirror. Violent images also serve a purpose in this film. By the end, we understand his rage masks his grief at having to leave a place he loves. In both films, the city figures as a living force that forms, destroys or saves the characters. Resonant images of the city abound. The final image of the city in Gangs is mind-boggling in its stirring similarity to the opening image of the towers of light in post-9/11/01 New York in 25th Hour. Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee have raised the stakes on cinematic representations of this city they both love. Likewise, Warsaw, Poland is a major character in The Pianist, where a Jewish classical pianist finds shelter and survives through an incomprehensible six-year struggle against Nazism. He escapes deportation to Auschwitz and observes the Warsaw Ghetto uprising from a hiding place. In contrast, The Fast Runner gives us an equally strong-willed survivor whose tribal relationships and a deep knowledge of the harsh, frozen landscapes of the Arctic Circle aids his survival. These two men have more in common than their profound cultural differences might suggest, namely that the instinct to live overwhelms personal choice. Both films contain unforgettable, highly charged images. Adaptation is not epic in any sense, nor is it about surviving bitter realities. Alternating between the "real world" and desperate fictions from the mind of a Hollywood writer suffering major writer's block, this rollercoaster ride ends in a crazy-mirror house. Here every literary and cinematic cliché imaginable is thrown full-tilt at the helpless viewer. Inspired madness, this beyond-screwball comedy is very funny indeed, and it continues to yield its treasures over time and multiple viewings. From an imaginative time outside of history, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers continues its mythic journey toward a final battle to determine if cooperation, love and respect for others will endure or if might alone will prevail. The pivotal character is a non-human (animatronic) creature called Gollum. His lizard-like animal nature overcomes all attempts to civilize him, but we discover that his ongoing, internal dialogue feels uncomfortably familiar. Therein lies the mystery, and few have gauged it better than J.R.R. Tolkien and now Peter Jackson. Solaris is set in deep-space in a future time aboard a roomy scientific laboratory spaceship in orbit around a huge ocean-planet. Tucked in the heart of its sci-fi storyline is a haunting love story that brings spiritual and psychological questions in its wake. Death and love, the unknowable secret of life, remain for us to ponder, along with the otherworldly beauty of a sentient planet. NOTE: Films and individuals nominated for Academy Awards 2002 (ceremony March 23) are noted below by an asterisk. I'll be talking about this year's Oscars with Erin Bruce and Al Peterson on KEZI-TV's morning show. Friday, march 21, between 6:30am - 7am Also, please join Nanci Lavelle and me the following Sunday, March 27, on Alan Siporin's "Critical Mass" at noon on KLCC-FM to talk about the past year in movies. See reviews for all ten films at online movie archives at www.eugeneweekly.com.
TALK TO HER (Hable con Ella) *Written and *directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Executive producer, Agustin Almodóvar. Cinematography, Javier Aguirresarobe. Editor, José Salcedo. Music, Alberto Iglesias. Artistic design, Antxon Gomez. Costumes, Sonia Grande. Choreography, Pina Bausch. Starring Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling and Rosario Flores. With Geraldine Chaplin, Caetano Veloso, Pina Bausch, Malou Airaudo. Sony Pictures Classics, 2002. R. 112 minutes. (See EW online movie archives.) The first thing you notice is the film's European sensibility, and next you realize that flamboyant Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is using a most delicate touch. This sophisticated, entertaining and touching tale of unrequited love, longing.and loneliness is his best work ever. In a small hospital, a devoted, effusive nurse, Benigno (Javier Cámara), cares for an unconscious dancer, Alicia (Leonor Watling). He speaks of her privately as his girlfriend, and he talks to her all the time as if she can hear him. A few rooms away, an emotional Argentine writer named Marco (Darío Grandinetti), waits near the bedside of his comatose lover, Lydia (Rosario Flores), a bullfighter. He cannot speak to her. He is nearly mute with blame, even though she was gored in the ring. An ingenious mosaic of pathos and comedy, the film is fascinating and deeply moving. The improbable friendship between Benigno and Marco defies sentimentality to become an unaccustomed love.
THE HOURS * Directed by Stephen Daldry. *Written by David Hare; based on the novel by Michael Cunningham. Produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Fox. Executive producer, Mark Huffam; Cinematography, Seamus McGarvey. *Editor, Peter Boyle. *Music, Philip Glass. Production Designer, Maria Djurkovic. *Costumes, Ann Roth. Starring Meryl Streep, *Julianne Moore and *Nicole Kidman. With *Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Dillane, Allison Janney, John C. Reilly and Miranda Richardson. Paramount Pictures, 2002. PG-13. 114 minutes. (See online movie archives). Performances great and small flesh out Michael Cunningham's exquisite novel as imagined for the screen by David Hare and directed by Stephen Daldry. Nicole Kidman makes poignant writer Virginia Woolf's diminishing intellectual abilities (by mental disease), but she is never self-pitying. Instead she quietly and courageously determines her own future. (Kidman did not work with a screen double for the scene in the river.) Meryl Streep portrays a warm woman bound to the past, who finds herself again after a tragedy and is able to move on. Julianne Moore shows how her life is unbearable to a woman trapped within the image of an ideal mother and housewife. Ed Harris flashes fire in his searing portrait of a poet dying of HIV, while Stephen Dillane brings grave dignity to Leonard Woolf's bone-deep sadness. Claire Danes, Miranda Richardson and Toni Collette are superb in supporting roles.
FAR FROM HEAVEN *Written and directed by Todd Haynes. Produced by Christine Vachon, Jody Patton. Executive producers, Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney, John Wells, Eric Robison, John Sloss. *Cinematography, Edward Lachman. Production design, Mark Friedberg. Editor, James Lyons. Costumes, Sandy Powell. *Music, Elmer Bernstein. Starring *Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert, with Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis and James Rebhorn. Focus Features Release, 2002. PG-13. 107 minutes. (See online movie archives.)
Far From Heaven follows the fractures in an all-American suburban marriage during an era of big business, great social hypocrisy and false hopes for equality. Dennis Quaid gives an exceptional performance as a married company man. Unable to hide his homosexuality any longer, he remains deeply shamed by it. Julianne Moore plays the consummate perfect wife, who comes unglued when her marriage unravels. When her character realizes that she doesn't know how to feel, much less talk about it, she turns in despair to Dennis Haysbert, the highly educated single father gardener she employs. Both risk losing everything for one afternoon together. Like Ang Lee's The Ice Storm for a later period, Todd Haynes resonant film gets everything right about the late 1950s.
25TH HOUR: Directed and produced by Spike Lee. Written by David Benioff, based on his novel. Produced by Lee, Jon Kilik, Tobey Maguire, Julia Chasman. Executive producer, Nick Wechsler. Cinematography, Rodrigo Prieto. Production design, James Chinlund. Editor, Barry Alexander Brown. Costumes, Sandra Hernandez. Original music, Terence Blanchard. Starring Edward Norton. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper, Rosario Dawson, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Tony Siragusa. Touchstone Pictures, 2002. R. 132 minutes.
GANGS OF NEW YORK * *Directed by Martin Scorsese. *Written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, Kenneth Lonergan, based on a story by Cocks; inspired by Herbert Asbury's classic stories. Produced by Alberto Grimaldi, Harvey Weinstein. Executive producers, Michael Hausman, Maurizio Grimaldi, Michael Ovitz, Bob Weinstein, Rick Yorn. *Cinematography, Michael Ballhaus. *Editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Music, Howard Shore. Executive music producer, Robbie Robertson. *"The Hands That Built America" by U2. *Production design, Dante Ferretti. *Costume design, Sandy Powell. *Sound, Don Banks. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, *Daniel Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz. With Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas and Brendan Gleeson. Miramax Films, 2002. R. 165 minutes.
THE PIANIST * *Directed and produced by Roman Polanski. *Written by Ronald Harwood; based on the 1946 memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman. Produced by Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde, Polanski. Co-producer, Gene Gutowski. Executive producers Lew Rywin, Henning Molfenter, Timothy Burrill. *Editor, Hervé de Luze. *Cinematography, Pawel Edelman. *Costumes, Anna Sheppard. Production design, Allan Starski. Music, Wojciech Kilar. Starring *Adrien Brody. With Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, Julia Rayner and Jessica Kate Meyer. Focus Features, 2002. R. 148 minutes.
THE FAST RUNNER (Atanarjuat) Directed by Zacharias Kunuk. Written by Paul Apak Angilirq. Produced by Apak, Norman Cohn, Kunuk. National Film Board of Canada producers, Germaine Ying Gee Wong, Sally Bochner. Cinematography, Cohn. Editors, Kunuk, Cohn and Marie-Christine Sarda. Music, Chris Crilly. Art direction, James Ungalaaq. Costumes, Micheline Ammaq, Atuat Akkitirq. Starring Natar Ungalaaq, Sylvia Ivalu, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Madeline Ivalu, Pauloosie Qulitalik, Eugene Ipkarnak, Pakkak Innukshuk, Neeve Irngaut. Igloolik Isuma Productions, 2001. Lot 47 Films, 2002. R. 172 minutes.
The mind of writer Charlie Kaufman is a thing to behold. He lays it all out before us, like a crazy quilt with patches made from all the fabulous plot lines he starts, abandons or chases down to the end, all stitched in place next to one another. But only if you can get really, really far away — say, like, on the moon — can you see the big picture. Truth is unimportant when you're dealing with writer's block, and synopsis is impossible. Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper are all so good you could kiss them. Well, maybe not Cooper, but certainly Donald Kaufman, if you can find him.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE TWO TOWERS * Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair and Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Produced by Barrie M. Osborne, Jackson and Walsh. Executive producers, Robert Shaye, Michael Lynne, Mark Ordesky. Cinematography, Andrew Lesnie. Production design, Grant Major. Editor, Michael Horton. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Bernard Hill, Brad Dourif, Miranda Otto, Liv Taylor, David Wenham, Karl Urban, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis. New Line Cinema. PG-13. 179 minutes.
SOLARIS Written for the screen and directed by Steven Soderbergh, based on the book by Stanislaw Lem. Produced by James Cameron, Rae Sanchini, Jon Landau. Executive Producer, Gregory Jacobs. Cinematography, Peter Andrews (aka Steven Soderbergh). Production design, Philip Messina. Editor, Mary Ann Bernard. Costumes, Milena Canonero. Music, Cliff Martinez. Starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone, with Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies and Ulrich Tukur. Twentieth Century Fox, 2002. PG-13. 98 minutes.
TIER
TWO: Some of the films listed here are now available on DVD or VHS; others will be soon. (I know that's how you use this list.) Reviews available at online movie archive on www.eugeneweekly.com are linked. 24-HOUR PARTY PEOPLE This wild film by Michael Winterbottom witnesses the birth of new British music in Manchester, where the Factory Records label and dance clubs of the 1970s and '80s changed it all. Stars Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson, the real-life owner of The Hacienda Club and one strange dude. Hilarious.
ABOUT SCHMIDT The only problem with filmmaker Alexander Payne's tale of a retired, empty Everyman played with restraint by Jack Nicholson is that Payne and Nicholson thought they were making a dark comedy, but the audience thinks it's a bleak drama. The consequences of living an unexamined life are serious. AUTO FOCUS Paul Schrader's tale of a television star, Bob Crane, with a major sex addiction is definitely not for everyone. Set in the 1960s, the film is hard to watch, but Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe do truly excellent work. Sex is graphic, unrelenting and demeaning, and the fate of a man whose celebrity ends in notoriety is just sad. BLOODY SUNDAY Fictional re-enactment of the 1972 march in Derry, Northern Ireland, in which peaceful marchers for civil rights were fired on by British soldiers. Paul Greengrass's cinema-verité style is riveting. Stars James Nesbitt as an elected member of Parliament who does his best but fails to keep the march peaceful. It's unfortunate that the film seems timely today. THE BUSINESS OF FANCY DANCING Sherman Alexie's unpretentious art film played Eugene briefly this winter. About growing up on the rez, living in white society, and fitting in or not as an Indian artist, the film stars Evan Adams as a gay poet. Quietly persuasive and funny. CATCH
ME IF YOU CAN Steven Spielberg's romp of a film follows
the antics CHICAGO « The film everyone in the country likes better than I do is a sure bet to pick up a load of Oscars this Sunday. Its razzledazzle magic is enhanced by song and dance from Catherine Zeta-Jones. DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS Stacy Peralta's entertaining documentary stars scrappy young kids from the California beach towns, who took their surfing chops to the Santa Monica and Venice sidewalks, asphalt and empty swimming pools during the drought years of the 1970s. There they invented skateboarding. This fab film is now making the cable television scene as well as DVD, VHS.
IGBY GOES DOWN Director Burr Steers has a great cast to work with in this oddball film about a rebellious smart kid named Igby, played hauntingly by Kieran Culkin. Also outstanding performances from Claire Danes, Ryan Philippe, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Goldblum, Amanda Peet and Bill Pullman. Appalling, outrageous, hilarious black comedy. MINORITY REPORT Steven Spielberg's first great film of the year was this sci-fi piece based on a Philip K. Dick short story starring Tom Cruise, head of a Pre-Crime unit in Washington D.C., which has been murder-free for six years. Absolutely unforgettable performance by Samantha Morton is the high-light. Intriguing and entertaining thriller. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE Paul Thomas Anderson takes lots of chances with this uncommon little romance between Adam Sandler and Emily Watson, and not all of them pay off. Sandler tries too hard to appear ordinary, but he is just too squirrely. Watson is totally in touch as always, and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzman make some of the wild plot twists credible. ROAD TO PERDITION Sam Mendes' Depression-era gangster flick did not find its audience, but it has new life on the small screen. Terrific performance by Paul Newman as the godfather and Tyler Hoechlin as Tom Hanks's kid. Conrad Hall's fabulous cinematography is painterly and gorgeous, and I fell in love with the film's look. SECRETARY This truly offbeat comedy by Steven Shainberg boasts a delirious performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal as the secretary, whose boss, played by James Spader, needs to punish her from time to time. She gets all the way into it, and after hours they turn the office into a haven for cheeky strokes. A screwball comedy for our time. Y TU MAMá TAMBIéN Alfonso Cuarón's priceless tale of self-discovery and desire also shows a Mexico ruled by political corruption and greed. Maribel Verdu is the older woman who travels to the beach with two randy adolescents, played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. Inspired sex comedy, with serious overtones.
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A
surprise contender, Spike Lee's film tracks the regrets of a mid-level
heroin dealer on his last day of freedom and explores the limits of
friendship. Played judiciously by Edward Norton, Monty Bragan may
waste his last day on revenge fantasies or he may have to accept that
he chose the job with his eyes wide open. We're not sure even when
he decides to spend his last night partying with his best friends
since high school. And when he asks his stock-broker buddy (Barry
Pepper) to do one last favor for him, we're still in the dark. But
by morning we see the light. In this nearly all-male film, regret
suffuses all. Impressive performances by Norton, Pepper and Brian
Cox, as Monty's father. 
Martin
Scorsese's characters live on the filthy streets and shabby tenements
of a place called Five Points. Street hustlers and hard-boiled killers
pack themselves into gangs. Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) rules
them. When Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns, the Irish-immigrant
gang his father led, the Dead Rabbits, is gone. An orphan girl named
Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) is a smart, quick pickpocket. Important
characters circle this trio, including Brendan Gleeson as Monk McGinn
and Jim Broadbent as William "Boss" Tweed. Noo Yawkers in particular
don't want to know that their favorite city was a crude, lawless frontier
a scant century-and-a-half ago, but Scorsese shows it in all its gory
glory. This is who we are, the film says, not just who we once were.
Violence is not only part of who we are as a people, it is a defining,
historic characteristic.
Adrien
Brody's unadorned performance in Roman Polanski's WWII epic is remarkable
in part because the man he portrays is not a hero. He is not political.
He is a pianist, an artist, a snob. But when given the opportunity
to live while the other Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto are being loaded
into cattle cars, he takes it. The struggle to survive takes all his
energy. Resistance isn't an issue; food and shelter are. Instinct
wins. He survives. And we are stronger for it.
An
evil shaman comes into an Inuit tribal family, teaching the leaders
to murder and love power. From this time forward, others evil actions
such as exile, sexual predation and murder come to the people. The
fast runner, one of a pair of hunter brothers, survives. He runs for
his life across the Arctic ice floes, naked and barefoot. His survival
is miraculous, and from it, good things come to the people. Amen.
ADAPTATION
Directed by Spike Jonze. *Written
by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman, based on the book, The Orchid
Thief, by Susan Orlean. Producers, Edward Saxon, Vincent Landay,
Jonathan Demme. Executive producer, Peter Saraf. Cinematography, Lance
Acord. Production design, KK Barrett. Editor, Eric Zumbrunnen. Visual
Effects Supervisor, Gray Marshall. Music composer, Carter Burwell.
Costumes, Casey Storm. Starring *Nicolas Cage, *Meryl Streep and *Chris
Cooper, with Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Brian Cox.. Columbia
Pictures, 2002. R. 112 minutes.
Tolkien's
middle book and Peter Jackson's second film takes place after the
breakup of the fellowship, with the result that the ongoing stories
of the various old and new characters are more complicated. But to
get to the final battle for Middle Earth and the future of all that
we hold dear, we must go forward. Advancing does not always feel like
progress, however, as Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) learn
when they capture Gollum, a slithery, pale creature that says he will
lead them to the Black Gates of Mordor. The most intimate moments
occur as Frodo struggles against the power of the ring, and Gollum
mutters to himself his darkest plans. Brilliant!
I
thought director Steven Soderbergh was nuts to take on the revival
of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film, but having seen both it's clear that
they are about totally different things. Tarkovsky's film is beautiful,
but little happens to the Russian astronauts onboard the Solaris,
except the silent erosion of their humanity. Soderbergh makes his
film a love story, and dramatic things happen onboard, including madness
and murder. George Clooney takes risks; Natascha McEllhone creates
an unusual character but makes her seem real; Jeremy Davies goes bonkers
in a great performance; and Viola Davis stays human and rational,
but at a price. It becomes a meditation on death and is beautiful,
like a dream. 
FRIDA
Julie Taymor's ambitious film stars Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and
her wayward husband, Diego Rivera, is played by Alfred Molina. The
film tries to cover such a large swathe of Mexican history that its
focus gets lost. Nevertheless, Frida is the most beautiful
film made this year, and aficionados of this outrageous pair will
not be disappointed. Played Eugene for a criminally short time.