TIM WONG’s belated year in review continues here.


» [Part A] | Part B

NEW ZEALANDERS too, like Americans, have reason enough to denounce Lars von Trier and his gospel of the anti-everything. This is, after all, a man who once proclaimed that Lord of the Rings can “kiss my [skinny white Danish] ass”. While my opinion of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth triptych isn’t about to be as forthcoming as an ass kissing, I’m not about to immediately subscribe to this country’s own Vow of Chastity either, one which declares it a national sin to cast down anything but unchallenged praise upon this monolith of a trilogy. I say this, despite a failed attempt to resist the industrial temptations of Return of the King, as there is actually something of a confused movie to be found beneath all this unbearable love, hype and over-protectiveness.(3)

If Return of the King is a great film, it is only in terms of its mass, volume and muscle-to-fat ratio. This super-combo of a finale is oversized in every sense of the word; a weighty, bloated monstrosity with plenty of heart and personality, but one that needs desperately to get on a diet. Quick. Clearly, Jackson has a lot on his plate here: a threesome between two hobbits and a schizophrenic; a New Zealand landscape to milk dry; a lawn of Orcs to mow; a ring to destroy. The deliverance of the film is simple enough – get rid of the ring so we can all go home – yet its single-mindedness belies how congested this 200+ minute, deep vein thrombosis-inducing journey really is. Peter, also nearing the end of his journey, shows us why his eyes are indeed bigger than his stomach with an entire “Where Are They Now?” special. Highlights in this episode include a series of trick fade-to-blacks, a Disney-inspired goodbye and a Britney Spears drive-thru marriage! Wasn’t everyone just meant to group pose for the camera and then cut straight to blue credits? Whoops, wrong trilogy.

I’d like to think there is at least some consensus here; that there’s just too much to consume – not necessarily in content – but in the film’s overall conception. Or is Jackson just giving us what we want: the ending to rule all endings? Well, he’s giving the Tolkien groupies what they want, therefore excluding the rest of us who aren’t fond of Dungeons & Dragons, never read or particularly enjoyed the books, but who certainly like and can appreciate a good movie. That’s me (raises hand), and I know I’m not alone. If I’m not a fan of hobbits and elves and pixies, should I even be watching the film? Probably not. Yet this type of cinema is supposed to be inclusive of all, including the pretentious know-it-alls of this world (raises hand). What would make this film – any film – deserving of greatness isn’t an Oscar for Best Picture, isn’t a dubious Top 10 berth on IMDB.com’s 100 Best Films of All-Time, but a capacity to win-over the uninitiated and move the ever reluctant to tears (raises hand).

Maybe the film is universal of all cinema? It’s certainly good at humoring its devotees. And what seemed cheesy to me did make everyone else sob. Or maybe I’m right to cringe while the rest of the theatre cries itself a river? Return of the King is, either way, resoundingly popular, so even though it’s subtlety that I most demand from this film, I know I’m not going to get it (literally), and neither are the fans (figuratively). Did I find any subtleties beneath all this dense, Middle Earth overgrowth? No, although I did Wow! at an ellipsis and Gasp! at a Vertigo shot and even paused at one point to ponder whether the Board of Classification should be warning arachnophobes of the you-know-what. Mostly, I just wanted the film to slow the hell down, wanted the camera to stay still, wanted to be able to absorb the spectacle for just one fleeting, precious moment.

What I like about Apocalypse Now Redux – a film of similar scale and almost identical length – is its quiet moments, its moments of stillness and contemplation that buffer the chaotic demands of Riding the Valkyries or smelling the napalm. Return of the King has plenty of chaos and not nearly enough silence. Does anyone ever take a break in Middle Earth? When there’s a gold ring to lose and a gold statue to win, I guess not, making it something of an uncanny allegory for the Peter Jackson Story. And we all know the story by now. Having pitched to every studio in Hollywood, our very own hobbit-in-disguise swayed the powers that be to finance not one, but three gigantic films. Maybe they should have agreed on four. I know that sounds ignorant, but this third film is just so obese, and needs at least another 90 minutes for the appendix that the ending practically is. Peter, New Zealand loves you. Hell, I even love you. I just don’t quite love your movie (yet).


BEING pessimistic about movies – which I concede I’ve been lately – is easier than finding something positive to say without sounding clichéd or over exuberant. The year ahead then should at least present us with a flawed optimism in the shape of Gus Van Sant’s yet-to-be-released Elephant. Already the bravest film of 2004, both caution and astonishment is required in what is, perversely, at first an experience in meta-elation, and then alternatively, one of complete devastation. Euphoria comes from film’s composition – spatially time is prolonged, across sprawling school corridors and halls, occasionally to the point of slow motion in brief, subjective bursts. We follow – or rather float – behind characters perpetually where nothing really happens. Elias shoots a roll of film and then processes it; Britney, Nicole and Carrie eat lunch and then throw it up; Jordon plays football and then meets his girlfriend. “An ordinary high school day. Except that it’s not,” states the film’s tagline.(4)

If there’s a center to the film, it’s John. His wisp of bleached hair, slouchy jeans and meaningless yellow t-shirt represents the fact that he’s a teenager, and that’s all. In the hands of Larry Clark, John would be hopeless, oversexed and doing things to Anna Kournikova. To Van Sant, his ambiguity is his innocence. Even Michelle, on display as the self-conscious anti-Cheerleader who is teased in gym and who volunteers at the library, is only a mere reflection of the geek-stereotype because nothing is ever reciprocated other than appearance or the occasional mannerism. Van Sant’s kids are actually personalities underneath a social façade – or a stereotype, as we prefer to call it – which we happily cross-reference into neat categories for our own judgmental convenience. Little else is reveled about the Jock or the Bohemian or the Loser apart from what is left to speculation, precisely because this ethnography of High School attempts to remind us that our understanding can only ever reach as far as the surface of peer status, popularity or ostracism.

These characters aren’t underdeveloped; they’re just unexposed. The film begins with John arriving late to school – he seems generally well liked, is worried about his drunken father, gets a kiss from a girl, Acadia. He becomes more or less our counterpoint (to Alex), not only because the film recalibrates itself several times using a scene between John and Elias, but because of where the film – and John – ends up. Midway through, our attention shifts to Alex, who is picked on, plays Beethoven on the piano and is slightly unstable. It’s about the same amount of detail that we’re given for every other character, yet the film makes an unusual, if not unnecessary digression by honing in on a flashback of Alex and his buddy Eric as they play violent video games, order firearms online, and watch a Nazi documentary while awaiting the delivery of their killing devices. The film is, of course, escalating towards a Columbine-style shooting, and these accounts of impending doom – including a revelation that Alex and Eric are gay – tend to somewhat contradict the deliberate lack of insight Van Sant has already established.

What happens next we cannot possibly comprehend. Is the fact that Michelle dies first a required irony? Yes and no. The film up until this point has been aestheticised in a kind of glaze or over-gloss; impossible to articulate, but somehow translated into the student’s actions when Michelle is killed. John, leaving the building as Alex and Eric enter it, is both aware and oblivious to what is about to eventuate, telling everybody to stay away, yet telling nobody why. Alex and Eric, in army surplus and carrying automatic weapons, are terrifying in their state of calm. Van Sant, making like he’s Takeshi Kitano, shatters any sense of blissful anomie with bursts of violence that are short, blunt and instantaneous. It’s here that the film turns into the surrealist reality it has threatened to become all along, where students no longer react to the sound of gunshots, but are actually drawn into them. It’s a profoundly saddening work, one that registers only afterwards, as if experiencing shock. And when the shock resides, we’re left with a film called Elephant; maybe, just maybe the best of its year.

» [Part A] | Part B

See also:
» Just Another Top Ten List
» More Belated Top Tens