|
|
||
|
|
CLOSER In Patrick Marber's brilliant stage play, which debuted in London in 1997, this image is all too apropos because love is something that that knocks his characters down and cuts them up. In Mike Nichols' faithful film adaptation, which thankfully works off of a screenplay written by Marber himself, "Closer" maintains all of the bite and brutality it showed on stage. Though the film is static and doesn't bring anything new to the table, it delivers Marber's whip-smart dialog intactsomething more than worthwhile on its own. Examining the most familiar topic of modern and ancient Western art, love, "Closer" manages to find a new angle for discussing the horrible things we do to ourselves, and one another, in the name of it. The story concerns a love square of sorts between four strangers in London. The action is set into motion by Dan (Law), a wannabe novelist who makes his living writing obituaries. When he goes to get a book jacket picture taken for his first novel, he immediately falls for his photographer, Anna (Julia Roberts), an American divorcee. Dismissing the fact that he's already living with Alice (Natalie Portman), a wild child American who is the subject of his book, Dan confronts Anna with the news that he must see her again. It's that simple: He's in love. After playing matchmaker in one of the funnier scenes in the movie - Dan pretends to be Anna in an online chat room, talking dirty with a stranger, Larry (Owen), in cyberspace - he inadvertently introduces his beloved to her future husband. As
these four principals swap partners and positions, "Closer" documents their
lives and intertwined fates over a span of four years. Whether breaking up or
making up, each scene is set up as a showdown between two of these characters,
one that inevitably gives us a deeper glimpse into who they are and what drives
them. In one of the more gruesome scenes in the film, Larry begs Anna to describe in detail where and how she cheated on him with Dan. It's a self-defeating act that, on some level, also seems like one of self-preservation. Like Larry, we all commit such trespasses: We shouldn't need to know the particulars of such things, but we simply can't help ourselves.
Striking as strong a chord now as it did seven years ago when it premiered,
"Closer" forces you to think about the landmines inherent in romance,
and how we often throw ourselves onto them. Despite its staid set up - the
confined meetings between the characters worked better on stage -- the film
still delivers the goods. And, for those who never saw "Closer" performed,
seeing it on film will prove particularly sweet.
Like Stone's previous movies about controversial and misunderstood men, "Nixon" and "The Doors" (about Jim Morrison), "Alexander" is an excessive story about an excessive guy that drags on too long and becomes inadvertently comical. Attempting to get at the heart of what drove his titular subject, and lay bare the soul of a man who got it all and destroyed himself trying for more, Stone misses the point altogether; "Alexander" ultimately tells about how a vast kingdom was won while saying very little about the man who was the king. "Alexander" is a story about a man who has become the stuff of legend and, who lived so long ago, that his actual history is somewhat unknown. He established the largest kingdom of his day, putting 90% of the known world under his rule. Aside from those feats, Stone's film attempts to tell the more personal story about the man Alexander wasflaws and all. Born to a sorceress mother, Olympias (Angelina Jolie), who idolized him and told him he was the son of Zeus, Alexander had a fraught relationship with his womanizing father, King Philip (Val Kilmer), who questioned his son's legitimacy even as he groomed him to be a leader. Literally the stuff of Greek tragedy, Alexander's fate is illuminated in an early scene when his father gives his young son an abbreviated Classics lesson. With a torch in hand Philip shows Alexander the cave drawings of the unfortunate souls who came before them, people like Prometheus (who stole fire from the Gods and was sentenced to have a regenerating liver that a vulture would pick apart every day for eternity) and Medea (who killed her sons to wound her husband for his treachery). The king leaves his son with the idea that greatness comes at a cost. In other words, it's lonely at the top. The bulk of Stone's film is spent showing how Alexander took an army of men, 40,000 to start, and led them on a seemingly endless trek through the Eastern world. Was he driven by a diplomatic desire to bring Hellenic culture to barbarians or was he a madman in search of the end of the world? In the first distinctive battle Alexander wages, where his significantly outnumbered Macedonian army defeats the Persians, Stone displays some of the most dazzling footage of the film. Like seeing the Orcs take on the rest of Middle Earth in the "Lord of the Rings" movies, the brutality and horror of combat comes to gory life. For better or worse, Stone combines striking overhead shots with close-ups to good effect: He makes familiar images of men slicing off limbs and gorging torsos look new. But, after its first extravagant battle scene, "Alexander" slips into drudgery. As the delusional and confused king drags his men further east, conquering kingdoms as he goes and acquiring more minions for his ever-growing wagon train, his motivations and actions become dull and pointless. Is he a ruthless despot or an enlightened ruler? Is he sleeping with everyone - his friend Hephaistion (Jared Leto), the cabana boy-type who draws his nightly bath, his Asian wife Roxanne (Rosario Dawson) and his mother - or no one? The most disappointing thing about "Alexander" is that it scandalizes behavior that wasn't scandalous during ancient times. Stone injects a tense homoeroticism into the film - Farrell exchanges suggestive glances with most of the bare-chested boys on screen and repeatedly has long embraces with Hephaistion - as if to convince his audience that Alexander liked boys but didn't necessarily screw them. Stone
never shows his male characters engaging in any homosexual behavior (aside from
a brief rape scene in the beginning). With "Alexander" Stone
reminds us that it's preferable to show men killing each other than kissing each
other.
|
|
|
|
Enable frames | |
|
home | out/about | events | personal | store | classified | real estate | forums | archives | contact |
||
