NYLON Magazine - September 2007 - (Page 158) FILM STRIPS EDITED BY LUKE CRISELL LAKE OF FIRE Nearly 15 years in the making, Tony Kaye’s ambitious documentary on the ferocious American abortion conflict made waves at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and is almost certain to provoke a new round of debate as the film makes its debut just as the Presidential race heats up. Up until now, Kaye has been known as the difficult yet gifted director of American History X and assorted glossy commercials for multinationals like Nike; he’s not the sort of character you’d expect to pull off something as unflinching, and balanced as Lake of Fire. Shot entirely in black-and-white, which lends the film an eerie, silvery quality, Kaye weaves interviews with pro-choicers like Noam Chomsky and pro-lifers such as Randall Terry (the terrifying founder of Operation Rescue) with footage from events including marches, Senate hearings, and clinic shootings; he cleverly uses the many interviews themselves as narration, eschewing the more traditional voice-over format. The result is a personalized, exhaustively researched chronicle of what is perhaps this country’s most emotionally charged political issue. Unsurprisingly for a film of this scope, it’s long, and one can’t help but feel the urge to claw at the armrest when Terry and his cohorts are given ample screen time to spew their fire and brimstone (the film’s title refers to the Biblical damnation that pro-life activists believe awaits those in the prochoice camp). But perhaps Kaye’s greatest achievement is the fact that you can’t quite tell which side of the debate he truly aligns himself with; there’s no audience pandering, no gimmicky attempts to trick the many interviewees into revealing anything but their own perspectives. Instead, Kaye lets the images, sometimes graphic, often revelatory, and the events as they unfold speak for themselves. Then—unlike certain other documentarians—he gets the hell out of the way. SARAH HAIGHT 3:10 TO YUMA It’s all very well capturing the most notorious outlaw in the country, Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), but then there’s the small matter of transporting him to the gallows. In James Mangold’s fantastic remake of the 1957 film 3:10 to Yuma, that task is undertaken by a small band of disparate locals including salt-of-the-earth war veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale). And it’s the relationship that develops between Wade and Evans that defines this classic neo-Western, which is replete with shoot-outs, robberies, flirtations with barmaids, and a gun-twirling sidekick (Ben Foster). Mangold’s exquisite exploration of Wade and Evans’s complicated (and by complicated we don’t mean in the Brokeback sense) relationship is pitched against Evans’s interaction with his own sons. Trust, loyalty, respect, guns, chases, gold, dynamite, and lots of horses—they’re all here in what is a compelling, and unexpectedly poignant tale. ANDREA CUSICK DVD: CINEMA 16: EUROPEAN SHORT FILMS Ah, the short film. The format gives the filmmaker the chance to get in, say his piece, and get out quickly. It’s a smaller investment for both the director and the viewer, and in the ADHD age of YouTube, that definitely has its advantages. Cinema 16’s latest two-disc compilation, this time of European mini-masterpieces, offers even the casual viewer a welcome alternative to Hollywood’s overly long threequels of summer. Take, for instance, the Dickand-Jane-Go-to-Hell madness of Run Wrake’s animated Rabbit, which rejoices in the naming of objects (tables, cups, etc.) with a vivisectionist’s attention to detail. Or Virgil Widrich’s surreal nod to German Expressionism in Copy Shop. The auteurs also tip their chapeaux to the nouvelle vague in Toby MacDonald’s spot-on Je T’aime, John Wayne and Mathieu Kassovitz’s wordless and whimsical Fierrot le Fou, which reimagines Godard as a one-up-manship competition on the basketball court. The common thread woven through these otherwise unavailable gems is how boldly the directors exploit the creative freedom the short format allows while restoring faith in such an underappreciated mode of cinematic expression. With director’s commentaries on most segments, aspiring filmmakers should consider this an elite three-hour film school and take notes. The rest of you, dim the lights and pretend you’re at Cannes. REBECCA RODRIGUEZ FIERCE PEOPLE The son of the “Elvis of Anthropology,” Finn Earl (Anton Yelchin) is not spending his summer the way that he’d hoped. Instead of joining Dad (who he has yet to meet in person) on a trip to study the Yanomanö Tribe in South America he is whisked away by his drug-addled, masseuse mother (Diane Lane) to the New Jersey estate of her wealthy client, Ogden C. Osborne. Intrigued by the complicated social web of the high society he has been thrust into, he decides to study the inner workings of the privileged family that he will be staying with for the coming months. He is quickly surprised however, when he begins to find comfort in the milieu that he initially felt so alienated by. Finn works for and bonds with Ogden, while simultaneously falling in love with his granddaughter (Kristen Stewart) and forming a close friendship with his older grandson (and fellow anthropology enthusiast) Bryce (Chris Evans). As soon as it seems that all of the characters may very well ride off into the sunset together, Finn is mysteriously attacked in the middle of the night resulting in finger-pointing from all directions that breaks and strains the fragile relationships within the two families. Though the culprit is surprising, the film finds its impact in the parallels one can draw between the politics in the most structured of societies and a primitive South American tribe, some of which we’re all sure to have noticed once or twice in our own lives. MALLORY RICE MICHAEL CLAYTON Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a New York law firm workaholic, complete with failed marriage, neglected son, and accumulating debts. His firm, Kenner Bach & Ledeen, has cornered him into a dissatisfying fixer position and the length of his remaining tenure is undetermined. The high-profile settlement underway with the company’s client U/North goes awry when attorney Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) stops taking his medication, has a moral awakening, and begins to build a case against the crooked company that he has been defending for years. Tilda Swinton plays the unsettlingly frigid face of U/North, Karen Crowder, who will do whatever it takes to ensure that the company’s secrets stay buried. As things get more intense, Clayton finds his life and employment status in grave danger. Wrought with suspense from beginning to end, the film is balanced by the witty banter between Clayton and almost every character he comes in contact with. Proving his professional worth and superiority to most of his higher-paid colleagues, Clayton attempts to clean up the biggest mess of his career. MR
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