Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis is strange and fantastic.

It takes place in the world of the super-rich, in particular, Robert Pattinson's character Eric Packer and his stretch limo, the main setpiece of the film. His actual job is unclear, but it's a futuristic take on a major stockbroker. Packer is mostly concerned with two things: his own demise, both medically and financially, and getting a haircut. He is driven through the city in his high-tech stretch limo as associates, employees, and lovers stop by and his chief of security, Torval flutters over him. Torval has reasons to be worried; the president is in town, clogging the streets, there is a fledgling anarchist movement using the rat as its symbol, and someone is plotting to kill Eric. Eric, however, remains detached about everything but the unpredictability of the yuan, and his haircut.

The entire film is detached in general; the dialogue, lifted straight from the book, is clinical and dense with philosophy. Most conversations seem like monologues, a chance for the character to spout their worldview, and in some ways it's almost lyrical. The film is also divided into two distinct worlds: the car, where the vast majority of the action takes place, and the outside world, which is showing signs of civil unrest, and is where Eric's assassinator lies. Eric's world is in his car, where he has everything at his fingertips and can keep track of his quickly diminishing assets;  the outside world doesn't really matter to him. This sounds like it would make for a completely cold and flat film, especially with the equally clinical cinematography, but the flatness creates an unreal atmosphere that is truly what the film is about. The dialogue, setting, and characters are all in a world based on theory, and Eric and his colleagues are completely wrapped up in it.

Eric's car is the real barrier between the concrete and the theoretical; the best scene that describes this is when Eric meets with his financial theory adviser. She has a monologue about the nature of society and economics while a riot is going on around them; the protesters swarm the car, carrying a giant rat effigy and vandalizing the limo, and neither her or Eric responds in the slightest. As they pass through, Eric sees a person immolate himself, and her only comment is that the idea is completely unoriginal. This is a person killing himself in the most painful way possible, and her only concern is that it's been done before. In her world, all that matters is the big picture of how social unrest works; the actual people involved don't concern her.

It's easy to interpret this scene, and the film as a whole, as taking a stand against the "1%"; all of the money involved is in stocks, which fluctuate in ways that can seem like magic. Eric doesn't seem to have a concrete concept of money at all, best shown in a scene where he convinces one of his lovers to make an offer on an art gallery that she repeatedly insists is not for sale. But the economics are only a backdrop on a character study about someone who is intensely detached from the outside world. What he does and says and what he thinks is okay lead to some truly great moments (the prostate exam scene is particularly funny), and the stakes get higher as he begins to push his boundaries in a world that is actually against him. Cosmopolis isn't trying to make a statement about money, but instead exploring how a closed environment can warp a person's view of reality, and how they try to reconnect with the world outside.

A list of films, Fall/Winter 2012 edition

I have to admit, this post is much more for me than usual, (I've really been dragging my feet on a Cosmopolis post), but I thought it'd be a good idea to write out some of the films I'm interested in seeing that are coming out later this year. There's a lot of interesting stuff coming up, and I plan to try and save some cash to see a few NYFF films. ($24 for one ticket hurts!)

August (now)

• Robot and Frank: It seems like this is getting mixed reviews, but if you haven't noticed, I really like robots/androids/AI, so I'm excited to see it.
• Side By Side: I love film, and I'm really sad that it's dying out so quickly, and I'm always interested in cinematography. Learning about the processes of shooting on film and digital will be really great, and apparently Keanu Reeves is a pretty damn good interviewer. (I also still have a soft spot for him anyway after all these years.)
• Lawless: It looks interesting, Tom Hardy is in it. I haven't read any reviews of it yet, but I might try and catch it if I don't blow my money on other films (or booze, let's be honest here).

September

• The Master: I have never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and to be honest, I don't think The Master is really my thing, but it's shot on 70mm and critics are freaking out about it and I should probably get on the PTA train at some point anyway. I really hope it'll be projected on the full 70mm over here.
• Looper: The fact that I haven't seen a Rian Johnson film is pretty silly, there's been a lot of buzz around this film, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Do you really need much more?
• Samsara: A very close friend recommended Baraka, which I still haven't seen. There's no 70mm screenings, apparently, but I'm positive this is something I need to see in theaters.
• Dredd: I think the twitter campaign got me, but it at least looks like my kind of fun. Also Karl Urban helps.

New York Film Festival

(note: these don't have as good reasons, to be honest, the fact that they're at the festival is usually draw enough. Either that, or I just saw a critic rave over it. Unfortunately, unless money starts falling from the sky I probably won't be able to see more than one, two if I'm lucky.)

• Caesar Must Die
• Fill the Void
• Holy Motors
• Lawrence of Arabia (restoration)

October

• Cloud Atlas: I'm really hoping this is good, because I loved the trailer, and I still believe in the Wachowskis.
• Seven Psychopaths. Yeah, I'm not going to lie, all I know about it is that it has a cool cast, including Tom Waits. Sometimes I don't have the best reasons.
• Argo: Not entirely sure about this film, but the trailer interested me, so it's another 'depends on cash' sort of thing.

December/January/whenever it comes out?

• Django Unchained: I was in love with Inglourious Basterds, and the premise of Django seems even better. I heard that the release date might get pushed back to 2013 but hopefully it'll come out before the year is over. I'm actually so excited for this that I'm trying my best to go in blind; I haven't watched a single teaser and the only images from production I've seen were by accident. I went into Inglourious Basterds not expecting much, and I'm hoping I can be pleasantly surprised by Django too.

The Animatrix - The Second Renaissance: crimes against sentience and its importance in the Matrix trilogy

So I promised I'd write something following up my Ash and David comparison, but uhhh...that might not be happening anytime soon. I've been kind of lazy in trying to get the Alien DVD, and now it's been close to a month since I saw Prometheus, so David is kind of falling out of my mind. I also meant to see Aliens just to talk about Bishop, but that never happened either. I really do want to get back to that at some point (or at least mention something about Bishop, since he seems like, chronologically, the first android in the series that doesn't try and kill anybody), but for now it's kind of on the back burner until I get around to watching Aliens or rewatching Alien.

So instead of talking about androids in the Alien franchise, I want to talk about the machines from the Matrix trilogy. Now, now, I know Reloaded and Revolutions are intensely unpopular (I still think Revolutions is decent, it just doesn't live up to the first film), but don't worry, I don't really plan to mention them. In fact, I'm not going to talk much about the first movie either (though I do love it and need to watch it again so don't be surprised if there's more Matrix talk in the future). I'm going to talk about the Animatrix, specifically The Second Renaissance segments. The other parts are all pretty good (I'm also a huge fan of World Record and Program), but The Second Renaissance has a depth and sophistication that the others do not, mostly because it tells the backstory of the world pre-Matrix. I read somewhere that its story was originally intended to be one of the other Matrix movies as a prequel, but some sort of executive meddling prevented that. I'm really torn on whether I'd like it better as a full movie or in this form. I think it definitely has enough to make a feature out of, but on the other hand, there's some powerful and disturbing imagery that I'm not even sure they could get away with in live-action.

(Interesting but unrelated: the machines were originally enslaving humans to use their brains as processors instead of using their bodies as energy, but the powers that be thought that might be too complicated for people. I almost wish they had kept it in though, at least so smartasses would stop bringing up flaws in the battery logic. Not the point!)