Ghastly Ghost

What is going on with these directors who were in the seventies considered to be making high quality risqué films, such as Werner Herzog, Martin Scorsese and now Roman Polanski? What is it with their decision to suddenly start making mainstream, often clichéd high production film? Where Werner Herzog more or less got away with it (see previous review) now we have this preposterous film by Roman Polanski called The Ghost. I must admit, the cast list already made me nervous: Pierce Brosnan, who has never really been known for his great acting skills, Ewan McGregor, who had been making worse and worse films as the years have passed (two words to point out the start of his downfall: Star Wars) and Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall. Who will score very high on this year’s worst British accent list, in atrociousness almost comparable to Dick van Dyke’s Cockney in Mary Poppins.

Flabbergasted I came out of the cinema after seeing The Ghost last night; had this piece of ridiculous fodder been made by the same director who once made Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and more recently, though perhaps not in the same league, The Pianist? Over-the-top and completely unbelievable characters marked my shock in the first few scenes, the “typical” American agent being one of the worst, continuing with wooden acting and badly written dialogue in the next few. Ewan McGregor is doing another one of his stumbling fools, supposedly identifiable characters in the likes of all of Hugh Grant’s performances (It seems to fit a common American view on British people), while Pierce Brosnan is doing a very two-dimensional impression of an overly cocky politician involved in some dirty business. All of the characters were so unbelievable that to me it didn’t matter one bit if bad things started to happen to them. The only passable performance of the evening was by Olivia Williams who seemed slightly credible, as much as that was possible with the ridiculous plot twists of the story, as seemingly injured but possible scheming Adam Lang’s wife Ruth. There were some weaknesses in her performance, though mostly plot-related. For instance, when a likely affair between Adam Lang and his secretary is implied and then only in the most clichéd way by the passive-aggressive remarks of disgruntled Ruth. Why bother? It just adds to the incredibility of the story if no one seems to act like any normal person would.

Where Shutter Island and Bad Lieutenant were at least passable or mildly entertaining, The Ghost is a comedy, albeit not meant as one. The conspiracy plot twists just made me giggle in their reverence of the ‘intelligence’ they were revealing. And why does it make perfect sense to believe everything you read on the Internet after you’ve Googled someone’s name?

The ending only seems to confirm that the director didn’t even have the heart to persevere with this preposterous story. Bang, paper flying, The End. What?! To be honest, all this madness makes me fear for the much-anticipated Terence Malick project soon to premier at the Cannes film festival. If a director with credentials like Polanski can mess a film up as badly as this.



P.S.
Rereading this review I believe the amount of question marks proportionally reflect my shock and indignation of this film

The Dark Side of Moon

Last night I was fortunate enough to have a second viewing of the film ‘Moon’ by Duncan Jones. For where I had my doubts about the pace of the film and the conclusion of it the first time I saw it, this time I found it full of plenty of great moments to make for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. In the first few seconds after it had started for instance, I remembered again the fantastic soundtrack. It creates a mood not unlike the one in 28 Days Later, a film that with great music by bands such as God Speed You Black Emperor. One of the few flaws in the film also had to do with the music, however. There are some emotional moments that have been too prolonged almost to the verge of making them pathetic, a somewhat manipulative piano-tune definitely has something to do with this. I had a feeling that the strength of this film could have been severely increased has these moments not been so persistent in making the point of trying to move us. When the director pushes emotion he obviously fails, which is such a shame since this film was a fine piece of craft until this point. But seeing as this film is a debut performance by first-time director Jones we can allow for some small mistakes. What majesty he gives us otherwise!

We can see clearly that the director wanted to make a point of realism by showing a space ship that has clearly been lived in. The wear and tear is visible and throughout the whole film amusing tiny gags are present for the alert viewer, such as a post-it note on the HAL-like computer saying ‘kick me’. This computer, GERTY, is also a highlight of the film, as none other than Kevin Spacey voices it. His cool and under-emotional voice guides our main character, Sam Bell, through his trials and tribulations. It is remarkable that Sam has only been allowed GERTY, a creature that shows sympathy with stereotypical smiley-faces, as his sole companion on the three-year long stay in outer space. No wonder much of the film is about Sam Bell's visions/delusions that at first seem to be a reference to Tarkovsky’s Solaris, but soon turn out to be more of a plot element than a poetic one. There have been some criticism on this film saying it’s too much of a rip-off of Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but these are inevitable when doing a film about a man alone in outer space with nothing but a computer by his side. This is about the only thing that links the films and I believe the criticism has more to do with the genre than with this actual film. Space ships and stations are a very recognisable setting and they tend to feel very familiar to us from films we have seen previously. The criticisms seem to be more about this feeling than something concrete.

This movie is mostly held together by a great performance by Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, which is vital as his presence takes up about 90 percent of the film’s screen time. He has to act out a character in an increasing state of mental and physical dilapidation, the physical part of which gets quite extreme near the end of the film. His battle with loneliness and existential fears are very recognisable despite the foreign setting of a space station in the future. This is a movie with a heart that is believable and despite some small flaws that we will have to ignore for the time being it is a magnificent first feature film. Let’s hope some of these beginner’s problems will be solved on his next project, which I heard is going to be another science fiction film.

Disclaimer:
To conform to all the other reviews that have been written about this film, include the following words in some sort of pun: David Bowie, Zowie Bowie, Ground Control to Major Tom, Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars