Friday, September 9, 2011

Day 1: September 8

Play

Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog) C+

Elevated only slightly above your average true crime doc, alternately, by Herzog’s fundamental respect for human life and his sly, blunt manner with interview subjects. The latter goes hand in hand with insensitivity: although his deadpan banter is sometimes hilarious (as when he winkingly suggests that killer Jason Burkett’s wife smuggled his sperm for purposes of artificial insemination) and sometimes penetrating (he declines to correct Burkett’s dad when he names 1941, instead of 2041, as his son’s parole date, apparently on the hunt for Freudian slips), it’s hard to commend on ethical grounds. Plus, this murder is banal stuff, and unlike, say, Timothy Treadwell, Burkett and Michael Perry are no match for Herzog’s own quirks: although we’re initially led to believe murder was an anomaly in the Conroe gated community, tragedy gradually seems so commonplace that audience members could be seen stifling befuddled laughter when victim Susan Stotler’s daughter mentioned in passing a preacher getting hit by a train.

Play (Ruben Östlund) B

Ruben Ostlund is no more or less than Michael Haneke armed with a Psychology textbook and a book of matches, but is that a bad thing? In Involuntary, a teacher recreates Asch’s conformity experiments, only to fall victim to ostracism herself; his new film examines both the strength and futility of Sherif’s Robber’s Cave, by subjecting two opposing groups to shared pressure, then dismantling it. (Witness the phenomenal pushups scene, in which the participant and audience members alike have exactly the same chances of human warmth as they do falling prey to manipulation.) The result is often stomach-churning discomfort, sometimes perplexity: okay, I get the cradle, but the Native American band? And the closing dance number? What? Östlund’s films are worthy of serious consideration—this, his previous feature and Incident by a Bank are essential viewing—but I have to give his latest my Uncle Boonmee Award for unsatisfying brilliance.

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