Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle (2004)

Sometime during my teenage years, my mom started listening habitually to NPR. In fact, if you were to walk through her house today, I guarantee that you would never be out of earshot of one radio or other tuned in to some human interest story about a guy who has built a solar-powered wildlife shelter for tuna...or something. Now, as a young lad I just wanted to jam to punk rock, and I had no time for BBC News and Talk of the Nation, because those things were obstacles to me listening to And Out Come The Wolves 50 times a day.

But a few months ago my iPod ran out of batteries during my commute and by some masochistic impulse I switched on the radio and tuned into NPR, and it's since gotten its grimy hooks into me. What was an unbearable ordeal to me as a rambunctious youngster has turned into a daily ritual: listening to NPR while driving.

Why on earth am I telling you this? Well, the other day there was a news piece on North Korea and one of the commentators mentioned, in passing, Guy Delisle's 2004 autobiographical graphic novel Pyongyang. I was so blown away by the premise that I went out immediately and bought a copy.

Here is an interesting tidbit that you can casually throw into conversation at a cocktail party: a large amount of conventional (non-computer) animation for Western firms is done in North Korea, including Disney blockbusters like The Lion King and Pocahontas. The (maniacal) North Korean state owns several animation companies that do a lot of the "grunt" work for large foreign companies. It's very similar to most industries, really. Our Nikes, for instance, are designed in Oregon and sold in Chicago, but they're stitched together by toddlers in Kathmandu, or wherever.

Anyway, the Western companies send liaisons and conceptual artists to North Korea to oversee production. Guy Deslisle is one of these. A Canadian animator, he traveled to North Korea to work at SEK Studios, one of North Korea's largest animation companies, on behalf of his Canadian employer. As opposed to the incredibly railroaded and brief visits of some American journalists that you may have seen (like the Vice Magazine report), Delisle was given a surprising amount of access, since he was A.) an employee and not a tourist, and B.) not American. He had to be accompanied by a guide at all times, like all foreigners, but he didn't bring a camera with him and thus he had a lot more leeway to wander off than would be given to a journalist. However, as an artist, Delisle was able to later draw clear depictions of what he saw from memory, and these drawings became Pyongyang.

I am so in love with this premise that I was willing to overlook several things that would otherwise have been obstacles to me enjoying the book. For one thing, I've never liked comic books. This is strange, because I've been a dork my entire life and I've always proudly displayed all the figurative badges of dorkdom -- Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Magic: The Gathering, etc. I just never connected with comics. It wasn't a lack of exposure; growing up in the Chicago suburbs it is literally impossible for a boy to not own a few comic books at some point. I just never really felt like they provided a logical path for my eye to follow, and generally just found them visually confusing. It didn't help that most superhero-oriented comics have pretty weak stories. I had a vivid imagination as a kid and even back then I found most of the stories overwrought and pointless. I got into chapter books at a pretty early age (not to brag or anything), and so I never really had a use for comics, and thus never formed the sort of lifelong attachment to them that a lot of men my age seem to have.

On that score, I subsequently never got into the whole "indie" "graphic novel" scene, and in a lot of cases I find that sort of thing a bit repellent. Keep in mind this is just my personal prejudice talking, and I have no doubt that there are artists creating worthwhile works of power and beauty within the medium, but the basic line drawings and overly-confessional tone of most of the indie comics I've perused seem almost knowingly infantile. A bit cutesy, to put it more simply. When an artist makes a conscious decision to make his main character's face a couple of lines and dots, they are generally removing much of the visual medium's potential for emotional nuance, and that means it falls to the dialogue to explain a bit too much to the reader. And given that a few small panels are in their own right a space-limited forum in which to express ideas, the finished product usually comes out facile and overly simple, thus giving off a childish quality, whether intentional or not. Essentially what I'm saying is that indie comics aren't really my bag, baby.

However, Pyongyang is a fascinating case where the medium is a natural consequence of the creator's real-life circumstances (wanting to depict the weirdness of life in North Korea without the use of a camera), and its interest is dependent on that. This book undeniably works best as a graphic novel, and for that I am duly impressed as a non-comics fan. In many cases, the surreal facts of living in the world's most viciously totalitarian state are softened by Delisle's gentle, spare visual style; much of this imagery is the definition of "politically charged" and the fact that it is delivered in this form takes much of the edge off and allows for more rational analysis.

That is not to say that the content of this book is any less bizarre and shocking. The only way you wouldn't know about the North Korean regime's sadistic draconian grip on the whole of its population would be if...well, if you lived in North Korea. This final bastion of brutally severe Stalinism is the most closed and secretive society on the planet, and to catch even a glimpse of its daily goings-on is to see unadulterated surrealism. There is a pervasive cult of personality built up around Kim Il-sung, the North's founding dictator who, despite the disadvantage of being dead for 17 years, is still officially President. Nearly meeting him in (short, pudgy) stature is his son and successor, Kim Jong-il, celebrated psychopath and horror film enthusiast. Together they form the world's only communist familial dynasty.

An interesting theme that Delisle explores is this sort of extreme conversational opacity that I experienced many times during my stint in China. When talking to somebody about politics (I used to try to talk to my coworkers at my dad's office), it's generally like having a conversation with a very polite brick wall. If you ask someone a relatively straightforward question, like "Don't you think it would be nice if you could express your dissatisfaction with something your government is doing?", you will most likely get an extremely circular and convoluted answer that winds up proclaiming that the state is amazing, God bless the state. It's this weird mixture of propagandist cultural programming and extreme Asian politeness that runs the gamut from coming across as naive to being viciously passive aggressive. In Pyongyang, Delisle depicts this sort of exchange quite deftly, and in varied situations. I was impressed with his ability to capture the essence of its weirdness.

Another recurring motif is the limited resources of North Korea and the bizarre hierarchy of priorities that dictates how those resources are used. Take electricity, for instance. Much of the 50-story hotel Delisle lives in during his stay is completely unlit. At night the city is plunged into darkness, as rationing does not allow the citizens to even light their own apartments. However, when foreign delegations stay at the hotel, the entire thing is brightly lit for the duration of their stay to give the impression that energy conservation isn't an issue. When Delisle is given a tour of the elaborately pointless Pyongyang subway system, it too is completely illuminated. Issues like this are tied up with the general Asian cultural feature of "saving face", twisted up with bizarre North Korean logic and social control.

In much the same vein, Delisle is taken on many "impromptu" (they are very carefully timed and arranged) visits to various North Korean cultural landmarks, like a visit to a museum that is full of gifts to the Dear Leader from governments around the world, which range from comically everyday items like forks to gold to elephant tusks. There is also a museum featuring paintings of American soldiers forcing a child to drink motor oil. Everything that is shown in North Korea serves a dual purpose: to deify the elder or younger Kim, and to undermine the global powers that threaten North Korea's supposed hegemony. The gap between this internal image of North Korea and its leaders and the opposing reality is so bizarre that it's funny, and Delisle capitalizes on this absurdity frequently.

Any foreigner living in Pyongyang must inevitably confront feelings of guilt. After all, foreigners live like members of the government's ruling elite; they eat piles of oily food each night while people mere miles away are literally starving to death. I thought Delisle could have done a more thorough job exploring this particular avenue, but he does reference these guilty feelings a few times and the human mind, after all, is adept at normalizing strange circumstances.

To that end, Delisle injects quite a bit of wry humor, if not outright fun, into the proceedings. With not much else to do, he often gently pokes fun at his omnipresent guides, and the jokes are made much funnier by the simple fact that they are obliviously humorless throughout. To rise to a position where one becomes the face of the country for foreigners, a North Korean must distinguish themselves as being a fanatical ideologue, and this unwavering devotion to the regime is actually quite funny in its strangeness. It would be tempting to portray these particular people as inhuman freaks, but Delisle's depictions are really quite affectionate, and he takes pains to suggest that they're simply the product of environment.

Although the book is autobiographical, I thought its weakest point was that Delisle spends a lot of time focusing on the details of his animation job and explaining non-Korean related things about the animation industry. I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to care about this stuff. His job is often a springboard for weird interactions and experiences, so I understand that he must give a cursory overview of what he's doing, but there are a few times where he simply talks about animation and it is unrelated to his treatment of North Korean society. I found these instances disruptive and self-indulgent.

While we're on the subject, however, I'd like to give my take on Delisle's drawing style. Despite the fact that I spent some time up front emphasizing that I'm not a huge fan of this kind of DIY-style comic book, I think Delisle's intensely personal, "small-time" drawing style works incredibly well within the context of this material, because it emphasizes the unbalanced power dynamic of the individual running up against a monolithic state. While this type of drawing is typically used in confessional, whiny stories about romantic relationships and the like, here it is transposed onto a much larger and more dramatic stage, and it is interesting to see how Delisle exploits that. A statue of Kim Il-sung, for instance, looks suitably huge. and it is drawn in this interesting three panel page:


The motion of the reader's eye, top to bottom, is against that of Delisle's eye, which goes from the shoes up to the face. This sort of visual conflict would simply not be possible in any other medium, and once again it is nice to see Delisle take full advantage of such opportunities. And although much of the book is simple line drawings (but very nicely shaded line drawings), Delisle includes full-page chapter-dividing drawings that are beautifully composed and evocatively drawn. It is in these drawings that he best captures the loneliness, sadness, and strangeness of the country. In an empty, half-darkened banquet hall, for example, the scene is made more powerful by the depiction of Delisle sitting alone at one of its many tables. Because although the invisible majority of oppressed common people are kept off-limits to Delisle and thus are not really depicted in the book, it is in the emptiness of the lavish banquet hall that one can feel their presence, through their absence. The reader can feel them there because they are excluded, both from Delisle's interactions and consequently from the drawing itself.


Although I've tried to give an overview here, the truth is that this is a book that works on its own terms, and the only way to experience it is to read it for yourself. I will say this about it: if a non comic reader such as myself was completely transfixed by it for the three hours or so it took me to read it, I would say that it is a work of considerable power. It is a completely novel approach to the persistent difficulty of conveying the reality of life in North Korea to outsiders, and as such it is also a work of importance and significance. Understanding North Korean society will continue to be relevant well into the future, even if/when the regime topples, because it is an almost pure example of the power of social programming. Pyongyang, I feel, captures the essence of this dynamic in a way that has been impossible to accomplish with more traditional forms of media. It is a fine work, and to top it off I had a lot of fun reading it, so you should too.

The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight (2003)

Lately I've been feeling like all my friends have their lives figured out, and I'm the only one who is still unsure of what I want. I'm 26, and whether this sense of uncertainty is a natural phase or some massive personal defect still remains to be seen. Still, I miss being able to sit around with people and have long metaphysical discussions about ideas and values, about beliefs and philosophy and what things mean. Is giving up this kind of conversation one of the costs of being an adult? If so, for me it's a bitter pill to swallow. I almost want to say we've simply moved into a more cynical era, but that strikes me as something an old person would say.

Anyway, a week ago I watched the recent filmed version of The Taqwacores. It was breathtakingly mediocre --if the director had bothered to actually record ADR I think it would have been miles better-- but it was based on a book I enjoyed and it was filmed at a venue in Cleveland where I've seen shows (Tower 2012). I was in Ohio in early 2009 to visit a very dear friend of mine and I made a stop in Clevo to see Empire and Triceratops play the Tower. I remember there still being Muslim punk graffiti on the walls from when they had filmed the movie.

Watching the film reminded me to dig out my copy of the 2003 book. I couldn't find it, the reason being that sometime around 2005 I lent it to my friend Nate, who is supposedly a working class skinhead and shouldn't be relying on handouts (just kidding Nate, I love you). But seeing as how my room is littered with things I've "borrowed" from people over the years, I consider that loss officially cut and I bought a new copy of The Taqwacores to read. This is the digital age, after all, and Amazon Marketplace (One-Click Ordering; I don't fuck around) is what separates us from the beasts.

Speaking of the digital age --and more pointedly, its attendant hyperbole-- this book has been called "The Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims." Damn! The first time I read this (it's printed on the back of the book) I made a sort of "psh" sound, because although I enjoyed the book very much when I first read it, Michael Muhammad Knight is not the most elegant of authors and the novel could do with a good deal of blocking.

However, the more I think about it, I realize that that reaction was arrogance on my part. This book was written primarily for young Muslims, and not being a part of that group, it's not really appropriate for me to make value judgments about what a work should mean to somebody else. In fact, this book inspired an actual, real life "taqwacore" scene. I went through my second reading of the novel with that in mind, and I found it to be an immense help, not least because it made me quash my incredulity at Knight's oftentimes hopelessly naive and romanticized depiction of the punk ethos and aesthetic.

In terms of this review, that is a very important point. This is a novel about Islam that uses punk as a device, not the other way around. The more you know about something, the more difficult it is to accept contrivances that contradict your individual expertise. The "punk" elements of this book are a contrivance. Knight treats the various punk subcultures (street punk, straight edge, skinhead, etc) as if they were all part of a cohesive melting pot of a larger, inclusive "scene." While on some technical level this may be true, there is no way these characters would run in the same social circles, let alone live together. It is more than a bit ironic that, in a novel that attempts to subvert the misconception that all Muslims are ideologues without individual characteristics, Knight simply lumps "punks" together with a similar disregard. But, as I've said, this is the wrong way to read this novel. It's best to accept the novel's contrivances and allow them to take you where they will, because much like a science fiction novel, The Taqwacores' contrivances are an integral part of its ability to explore the human mind and heart.

The book follows a Pakistani-American college student, Yusef Ali, through a year living in an all-Muslim punk house in Buffalo, NY. Populating the house are colorful characters such as Umar, a straightedge fundamentalist Sunni (with "2:219" tattooed across his throat) who is the novel's main antagonist when it needs one; Jehangir, a street punk Sufi mystic who is drunk more often than not; and Rabeya, the only female housemate, a feminist who wears a full burqa covered with punk patches. Yusef is not a punk; he's majoring in engineering because his parents told him to, he's never had a drink in his life, and he shops at Aeropostale. But he is open-minded, if a little bland, and the novel needs him as a sounding board for the wild philosophies of the characters around him.

And there is a lot of sounding off. It is essentially a loosely connected series of dialogues occasionally broken by something more reminiscent of a "scene." What happens to the characters is not nearly as important as the differing ideologies each of them represents and the conversations they have that express those ideologies in great detail. The effect is similar to the dialogues in Douglas Hofstadter's classic meditation on thought process; Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (not that I'm comparing Taqwacores to Hofstadter's book in terms of content or quality): although the ideas in both books could be expressed solely in essays, they are made more vibrant and easily digestible when presented as a back-and-forth conversation between characters.

There are a lot of ideas thrown around in the book, and I will only skim the surface here. Of all the housemates, only straightedge tough guy Umar adheres to the strict, near-monastic life of sobriety, abstinence, ritualized prayer, and halal dietary laws. A main theme that is constantly pulsating in the background is: what makes a good Muslim? Conversely, what makes a bad Muslim? Is there a prescribed role for women within the community? Is there a place for gays in Islam? Is marijuana strictly forbidden, frowned upon, or permitted? What place do violence, swearing, mixing with nonbelievers, and a myriad of other issues have? I believe Knight addresses and answers all of these questions, albeit to his own satisfaction.

A major issue the book has is its large cast of characters. Some of them are occasionally the impetus for an interesting conversation (The pot-smoking skater Fasiq being one), but generally they feel unnecessary and their presence sometimes derails the proceedings. Do we really need a Sudanese rude boy? A Latino ex-Muslim? An Iranian junkie "skinhead" who is partially homeless? Sometimes it feels like a contrived effort to be inclusive, and frankly the novel would be stronger with a more exclusive focus on Yusef, Jehangir, Umar, and Rabeya. Indeed, the central conflict of the story is that between the dogmatic extremism of Umar and the drunken tolerance of Jehangir. Knight comes down pretty hard in favor of Jehangir, but every character has their say, and as a person who is somewhat prone to judgmental extremes, I think Umar is portrayed quite fairly. That being said, meaningful conflict between these two characters should have happened more often, to the exclusion of the peripheral characters, even if that meant paring down the length of the novel (which, by the way, is a fast 250 pages; I read it in two days).

I have used a lot of space to point out the novel's flaws, and they are many, but the truth is that this is the kind of book that revels in its own flaws. This isn't even a book that was intended for publication; Knight printed out the first copies himself, stapled them, and gave them away for free, zine-style. And although the novel seems a bit clumsy and meandering at times, Knight is writing about a very clumsy and meandering stage of life, both for himself and for his characters. You can't get hung up on specifics when reading this book. Who cares, for instance, that the characters listen to garbage like The U.S. Bombs and Roger Miret And The Disasters? You just need to look past it. (Although I will say that it's criminal that a character like Umar listens to Minor Threat and Youth of Today as opposed to SSD and Judge) The writing can be a little rough (Yusef Ali's responses to a long philosophical soliloquy by another character is typically, "Wow."), but there are genuine moments of inspired creation, like Yusef's first masturbation experience, or a late night trip to a masjid (mosque) where the squabbling characters pray together.

One thing that needs to be pointed out: there are a lot of Arabic and Urdu phrases and expressions thrown around, both in the narration and the dialogue, and unfortunately no edition of the book that I've ever seen has had a glossary. The book is, of course, aimed at Muslims, most of whom I assume are familiar with a lot of these phrases, but for us kafr it is a little frustrating to have to be looking things up all the time.

Despite everything negative that could be said about this book, there are passages that are quite beautiful, and the last chapter or so is simply exceptional. In the final pages Knight breaks from his slightly wrought narrative style into a much looser and satisfying stream-of-consciousness poetic style. If he could have sustained this over the course of the entire novel the book would be unequivocally brilliant. Still, you won't hear me complaining about a thought-provoking book with an outstanding finale.

Do I recommend The Taqwacores? Six years after my first reading, I still found it very engaging, challenging, and enjoyable, but it might have a very different effect on someone that has a different background and values than me. Here's the highest compliment I can pay it: it reminds me of the long conversations I used to have with my friends when we were teenagers, and for me that is lofty praise in the extreme. It reminds me that having an open mind is often better than being sure of oneself. The novel has certainly struck a chord with a generation of young Muslims, and as a means to awaken young minds, you could do a lot worse. Despite being written as Knight's farewell kiss-off to mainstream Islam, at its core The Taqwacores is about individuals finding ways to express their love for their beliefs, and each other, on their own terms. In a society where even our subcultures are constantly trying to pull young people this way and that, I am very happy that Knight's work has hit home with a few of them. 20 year old me would agree.

The Proposition (2005)

“There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things.
Sun, and moon and stars, brother; all sweet things.
There’s likewise a wind on the heath.
Life is very sweet, brother.”

A man who sits dying wheezes these words about halfway through The Proposition. His killer moves in close and finishes the poem: “’Life is very sweet, brother; Who would wish to die?’” There is a smile of recognition between the two men. The killer continues, “George Borrow, I believe. A worthy writer, and a beautiful sentiment, sir.” He shoves him over. “But you’re not my brother.”

The Proposition is the finest film Western made in my lifetime. That is not an easy distinction for me to grant, since Clint Eastwood may be my favorite living actor and Unforgiven was undoubtedly one of the greatest films (of any genre) of the entire 1990s. But while Unforgiven was superb and the best-ever filmed rumination on the Western genre itself, The Proposition is a singular work of art that is so thematically rich that it would take a long time to fully explore its depths. I'll just give a brief summary in this review.

While the thematic elements of the film are nuanced and wonderfully layered, the plot is rhythmic and simple. The basic premise is outlined within the first five minutes. It is set in the wilderness of 19th Century Australia. Charles and Mikey Burns, two Irish brothers of the murderous Burns Gang, are captured by police in a brothel following a bloody standoff. Police Captain Stanley (who is after the third brother, the sadistic gang leader Arthur) offers Charlie the following deal: venture into the outback and kill Arthur, and he will pardon both Charlie and Mikey. "You want me to kill me brother," says Charlie, expressionless. "I want you to kill your brother," agrees Stanley.

Mikey is taken prisoner and Charlie is given a gun and a horse and is released. And here you have the film. Charlie, played in a superlatively understated performance by Guy Pearce, must choose between his brothers. It is strongly implied that Mikey is mentally handicapped, and Charlie had escaped the gang with him only recently. It is obvious to Charlie, and to the audience, that it would be better for everybody if he simply went through with the plan and killed Arthur. However, they are brothers and such a thing is not so easily done. It is this conflict between the reasoned and the idealistic, between the utilitarian and the Kantian, that forms the basic underlying conflict running through the entire film.

Meanwhile, the small frontier town that Captain Stanley polices is similarly on edge. Word gets around that Stanley had Charlie released, and a public bloodthirsty for revenge against the Burns Gang (responsible for a series of horrific murders, rapes, and home invasions), begins to grumble darkly for Mikey's execution and against Captain Stanley himself. Stanley does his best to hold back this vicious tide of public opinion, but he is thwarted in his efforts by Fletcher, his boss, and Martha, his wife, who was friends with a local woman the Burns gang brutally raped and killed. David Wenham plays Fletcher, the boss, as a bowler-hatted, starch-shirted dandy who pressures Stanley for blood while fussing over his own suit. Emily Watson brings to the character of the wife an overriding sense of decency and humanity, qualities that seem increasingly like a liability as the film marches grimly on.

In fact, every single actor in this film is magnificent, and none more so than the American Danny Huston playing the keystone role as the sociopathically charming Arthur Burns. Director John Hillcoat lets the movie run nearly 40 minutes before Arthur is even glimpsed onscreen, a similar technique to that used in King Kong. And like the savage ape, for the first third of the movie Arthur lurks in the back of the viewer's mind, a menace only hinted at with fear. Even the rebel aboriginals are afraid of the fearsome "dog man" who lives in the rocks. When Arthur and Charlie finally do reunite, the viewer is surprised. Arthur is an affable, wisecracking Irishman who is fond of literature and seems to exhibit genuine care for his brothers. However, Hillcoat and Cave never let the viewer completely forget that Arthur is a vicious rapist and murderer. There are a few significant shots were Arthur is sitting alone, glaring off into space with a startlingly vacant expression. He is a perfect sociopath: a homicidal maniac wearing a jocular mask of sanity.

Consider one of the film's best dialogue exchanges: Arthur and his gang (the psychotic, childlike Samuel Stoat and the tough aborigine Two-Bob) are getting set to ride off to commit a horrific act of violence. They stop to admire a sunset:

Samuel: It sure is pretty.

Arthur: You can never get your fill of nature, Samuel; to be surrounded by it is to be stilled. It salves the heart: the mountains, the trees, the endless plains. The moon, the myriad of stars. Every man can be made quiet and complete. Even the lowliest misanthrope or the most wretched of sinners.

Samuel: What's a misanthrope, Arthur?

Two-Bob: Some bugger who fucking hates every other bugger.

Samuel: Hey! I didn't ask you, you black bastard.

Arthur: He's right, Samuel. A misanthrope is one who hates humanity.

Samuel: Is that what we are? Misanthropes?

Arthur: (smiling) Good Lord, no. We're a family!

Huston plays this role with considerable depth and great mastery. He explores the idea of a man with an ostensible sense of "family", and culture, but utterly bereft of human decency and empathy.

Guy Pearce is pitch-perfect as the introverted Charlie Burns. With his stringy, lanky muscles and greasy, matted hair, Pearce looks less like a man raised in the desert as he does a man made of the desert, with any trace of fat, and weakness, and civilization boiled away by the sun. Pearce plays him with heavy resignation: he knows what he has to do but is reluctant. It's more than just that, though. Charlie Burns is resigned to his life; he is a hopeless character. Doing the right thing by taking Mikey and escaping the gang leads directly to the ghastly catch-22 that he finds himself in.

On the subject of characters, a special mention must be given to the great John Hurt as Jellon Lamb, a self-styled intellectual and bounty hunter that quotes Darwin and holds nonwhites in elevated contempt. Hurt plays the role with a transfixing theatrical bombast, and after viewing the film it's easy to forget that he's onscreen for less than ten minutes. In a film packed to the gills with performances of surpassing excellence, Hurt distinguishes himself by reciting every line like it's a precious treasure: he portrays a man so self-interested that he speaks like a Shakespearean actor, like he's delivering lines from a stage. It takes a very good actor to play a bad actor, and Hurt steals the show for the duration of his appearance.

The blasted, alien landscapes of the Australian outback command a considerable amount of attention from the camera, and Hillcoat is wise to allow himself many long and reflective shots of the terrain. The cracked ground and gnarled, twisted trees look like they belong on Venus. Thick black flies cling to living people as if they were corpses. The implication, of course, being that there are places on Earth that human beings were simply not meant to inhabit. Does the fact that humans persist in these environs speak more of human ingenuity or of human stupidity? This foolhardy will to conquer is, I suppose, one of the greater mysteries of our species.

With that in mind, central to the thematic scope of the film is the notion of savagery as opposed with civilization, and the ambiguity with which both are manifested. “I will civilise this land,” intones Captain Stanley several times in the film, although it smacks more of self-assurance than of conviction. Special attention is paid to Stanley's wife and her carefully cultivated English frontyard garden, which is juxtaposed almost comically against the hellish Australian desert just beyond the fence. At several points in the film, the garden is used as a representation of English civilization encroaching upon the land, which is itself resistant to that force. It is a barrier, also, against the wild, and against the specter of Arthur Burns and the violence, the violation of order, that he represents.

Before the film's brutal climax, Stanley dismisses his aboriginal butler. The man removes his oxford shoes before walking beyond the fence of the garden, and a shot lingers on the empty shoes. This separation represents a physical transition from forced decency back to natural chaos, both in terms of the characters in the scene and in terms of the narrative of the film itself, very much like the shattering of Piggy's spectacles in The Lord of the Flies.

Mrs Stanley herself represents decency, and femininity, society, and polite Christianity; all the delicate social constructs that the harsh environment annihilates without much effort. The only God present in this film is a complete and palpable absence. "I was, in days gone-by, a believer," says one character, "But alas, I came to this beleaguered land, and the God in me just...evaporated."

Pearce and Winstone’s dual protagonistic roles, which represent reasoned nuance, contrast sharply with the extreme and uncompromising characters of Arthur Burns and Eden Fletcher, who inhabit the opposite ends of the film‘s savage/civilized spectrum. Charlie Burns and Captain Stanley are trapped in a position where they must choose between a sort of self-contained virtue for which they will receive nothing but contempt, and capitulation to the pressures of their respective societies. Stanley eventually capitulates, whereas Charlie does not. The Arthur Burns and Fletcher characters, representing the black-and-white extremes of anarchic chaos and social control, eventually reveal their complete indifference to the plight of the characters they seek to influence.

The Proposition shows, therefore, that while it is morally ambiguous, it is not indifferent. In this, it is similar to Leone’s Man With No Name series, wherein the Clint Eastwood character is drawn to a kind of virtue that at first appears to be self-serving, but in actuality is more complex. He is not virtuous because society demands it of him, he is virtuous simply because his own nature makes him inclined to be so. And so it is with Charlie Burns.

It is interesting that most of the greatest Westerns have been made by non-American filmmakers. In some regards I suppose Westerns are similar to science fiction; they manipulate a setting in order to explore certain depths of the human heart that can't be explored within the ordered bounds of contemporary society. This drive is universal. The parallels between Australia's wild frontier period and America's are also fascinating. Consideration is certainly given in this film to the similarities with which the native peoples on both frontiers were treated, a nod to the troubled history America (and American Western film) has had concerning Native Americans.

The screenplay was written by Australian musician Nick Cave, and his love of language is apparent. The tight, spare dialogue embodies the adage "show, don't tell." It is a deeply impressive script, influenced by Conrad and Golding, fully embracing the figurative heart of darkness that lurked above and below the surface of the works of both writers. Cave also composed the film score, and I can say unreservedly that it's one of the best film scores I've ever heard, filled with droning fiddles and eerie hums. Sometimes a barely perceptible buzz will underscore an entire scene, filling every gap with tension. It is brilliant stuff.

I have seen The Proposition about ten times now, but I still find myself startled, intrigued, and amazed by the depth of its themes and performances. Its eerie tone, literary scope, and gorgeous photographic style make it a thoroughly commanding work. See this film.

Paradise Now ( الجنّة الآن‎) (2005)

What drives a man to commit an act as universally reviled as a suicide bombing? The global news media has preoccupied itself with this question for quite a long time now. Well, maybe that's inaccurate. The media has been preoccupied less with the question than in assuring itself (and us) that it has the answers. An Islamic terrorist bomber, we are to understand, acts from either fanatical religious zeal or from a rabid cultural resentment of Western values; i.e. they "hate our freedom".

These overly facile presumptions go virtually unchallenged in our society, in fact I would say they are taken pretty damn well for granted by people of all political stripes. The suicide bomber is portrayed as a psychotic maniac, and for anyone involved in politics or news to suggest otherwise would be career suicide (excuse the pun). It is a significant risk, therefore, for a filmmaker to humanize suicide bombers; to actually search for the reasons behind their actions. I think the idea of portraying a terrorist as relatable in some respects is extremely scary and threatening to some people. These people (and many of them were firmly opposed to the production of this film) are avoiding the elephant in the room: that one terrible act does not necessarily represent the sum total of a human being's thoughts, feelings, and personal history. There are discrete personal reasons people do things that carry greater significance, and to caricature a terrorist's motivations helps to perpetuate their actions.

Said and Khaled, the subjects of Paradise Now, are not fundamentalist zealots. Neither can I imagine them holding a grudge against us Westerners over our MTV and Coca-Cola. They are somewhat mild-tempered twenty-somethings, auto mechanics in the Palestinian city Nablus. They have that air of two men who have been friends since boyhood. You get the sense that, if they were more talkative sorts, they'd be finishing each others' sentences. They while away their time after work smoking cigarettes and listening to cassettes on a hillside. Said is quieter, an introvert. Khaled has a macho streak, but he's friendly and kind. There is very little about either of them that suggests violence or menace. Both are intelligent and well-spoken. Neither, however, seems particularly happy.

The story revolves completely around the two men and their struggle with what they are about to do. Both performances (by Kais Nashef and Ali Suliman) are a study in brooding understatement, and at times the men are (intentionally) difficult to read. However, the audience is given the character of Suha, a beautiful young woman who was educated abroad and returns to Nablus with European-accented Arabic and a sense of values at odds with many of her countrymen. She offers a modern, Western perspective on the events going on around her. She also acts as the conscience and moral center of the film. When she argues with Said and Khaled, she is saying things that they know are true, but have taught themselves to ignore.

After work one day, Said is approached by Jamal, a handler for a Palestinian terrorist cell. He tells Said that tomorrow is the day that Said will cross over to Israeli territory with Khaled. Once there, they'll blow themselves up on a crowded bus. Sometime before the events of the film, the two men had requested that they be given a mission like this, on the condition that they do it together. Said's response to Jamal is understated: "Are you happy?" asks Jamal. "Yes, very. Thank God," replies Said in a monotone. His face gives nothing away, but there is a significant moment shortly thereafter where Said sits alone in his room, staring off into space while the camera regards him quietly. Later he is restless, unable to sleep. The camera cuts to Jamal, who is sleeping comfortably.

They all meet together the following day at the group's hideout. Said and Khaled are given shaves, haircuts, and crisp new suits. They eat a last meal together and then bombs are strapped to their torsos. They cannot be removed except by a key that Said and Khaled will not be given. They are permitted a hurried meeting with the leader of the terrorist organization, who gives the impression that he's had the same conversation with many men before.

Said and Khaled are driven to the Israeli border and told to rendezvous with their contact on the Israeli side. Once they climb through the fence, however, they're spotted from a distance. There are gunshots and the men flee. They get separated and Khaled runs back to the handlers. Said hides before going on alone, contemplating carrying out the mission on his own. Back at the hideout, the men start to grumble over the possibility that Said has betrayed them. Khaled won't hear any of it and drives off in a frenzy to find his friend.

I won't give away the entire story, but I will say that the movie peels away the layers of each man's social conditioning and bravado, and reveals the feelings and fears that are deep below the surface. In my opinion, I don't believe the film asks the viewer to sympathize with Said and Khalem's actions, it simply asks that they be regarded like any other person: with consideration given to the context of their lives.

An Islamic suicide bomber, by definition, commits an act that is intended to provoke a political response. It is all too easy, therefore, to pigeonhole the motivations of the man himself as overtly ideological. The main underlying theme of this film is thus: it is unwise and inaccurate to end with these easy assumptions. Ideology can be a powerful motivating force, but for a man to be capable of killing himself and innocent people around him, there must be a greater and more personal drive. It's my opinion that the entire Arab-Israeli conflict centers not on a difference of religion, but on the kind of tit-for-tat tribal violence that is endemic throughout human history. People hate each other for believing in different gods. But the reason people kill each other is more likely because they know someone who's been killed by the other side. A mother, a sister, a friend. The need for revenge is personal, it's more real than a simple difference of political opinion. If you kill a man's family, he'll come looking for revenge. Ideology has little to do with it.

Religious fanaticism and political extremism provide a convenient mask that one can hide their own personal vendettas behind, however. Observe, for instance, how Said and Khaled frequently conceal their real motivations behind a wall of ideology. When Khaled records his "martyr video" (a popular genre at the local video store, we later find), he goes on a political/religious rant -- read none-too-convincingly from a sheet of paper. Said is never reluctant to make his feelings towards the Israelis known, but he keeps the real reasons for that resentment hidden. We're given a glimpse of the sort of casualness with which violent oaths are thrown around in Israeli/Palestinian culture: overheard conversations in a cafe and in a taxi contain hyperbolic threats directed generally towards Israel and Jewish settlers, almost as asides to normal small talk. Is this sort of thing meant to be taken seriously? I doubt there's an easy answer for that, but my feeling is that in this culture it's expected and not a very big deal.

I don't mean to imply that the film lets the two men off the hook completely. They are pawns in a big game, it is true, but they are allowing themselves to be manipulated. Both know that what they are doing is wrong, but they have been conditioned by a culture of violence and by a desperate need to be somebody, to have an effect on what is going on around them.

A recurring theme in the film is the feeling of a loss of control, that one's fate is already shaped by large forces with too much momentum to stop. We see that this resignation is used as a kind of avoidance of the present. Said is in love with Suha, for instance, but what does that matter when he is going to die tomorrow? There is a scene where Said and Suha drink coffee together, and Said describes a personally formative (and violent) memory from his youth, in his characteristically unassuming way:

Suha: Do you go to the movies?

Said: No. There's no cinema in Nablus anyway.

Suha: I know, but have you ever been to a cinema before?

Said: Yes, once. Ten years ago when we burned down the Revoly Cinema.

Suha: (pause)...You did that?

Said: Not alone. There were lots of us.

Suha: Why? What did the cinema do to you?

Said: Not the cinema. Israel. When Israel decided not to employ any workers from the West Bank, we demonstrated. Then we ended up in the cinema and burned it down.

Suha: But why the cinema?

Said: Why us?

This is an incredibly human film. There is genuine warmth, and humor, and sadness that all emanate from the uniformly superb performances. You find yourself hoping Said and Khaled turn back, and not just because they are about to do something so unthinkable, but simply because they are easy to like, easy to identify with. Abu-Assad has crafted his characters delicately, with great care. The actors dance through the dialogue with grace.

Don't let my pretentious analysis of the film stop you from enjoying it. It is a well-crafted and enjoyable work. Every aspect of it is well done, and some of the shots are eye-poppingly gorgeous. The plot is taut and exciting. The fact that the film is a significant artistic achievement doesn't hamper its ability to appeal to and affect the viewer's emotions on a very basic level.

Do I understand the terrorist mind better for having seen this movie? Maybe. I think that the point--and the tragedy--of the film, however, is that Said and Khalem aren't impenetrable psychopaths that defy comprehension. Given a different set of circumstances they would almost certainly be much like any of us: appalled at the depths that the forces of violence can drag a man down into.

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that I think Lubna Azabal, who plays Suha, may be the most beautiful human being I've ever seen in my entire life. I welcome your strong opinions on this subject.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie (2008)

For somebody who writes in such a terse and unambiguous style, Joe Abercrombie sure leaves me feeling conflicted. Now that I'm through the second book (of three) in his First Law series, I am still torn over how to feel about the series.

First of all, let me get this out of the way: there is still no map in this book, and after doing a little research, I found this, which is essentially Abercrombie's disavowment of maps (at least as far as his series is concerned). There are some good points brought up there, but I think on the whole Abercrombie is quite wrong about the way his books are read, and a quick dive into some SF/fantasy forums seems to confirm this. My point is this: the geography of Abercrombie's world is very discrete and confusing, and expecting readers to remember place names and locations in a 500+ page book is simply unreasonable. The main thrust of Abercrombie's anti-map argument is that the inclusion of maps and other graphics railroads the reader's imagination and takes them out of the story. But the fact is, when I have no idea what the hell is going on because I'm confused about the geography, that's hardly an immersive experience either.

That's enough about that, however. I can respect the man feeling strongly about the way his creation is published. On the basis of its contents, however, I am still not 100% sure how I feel about this book, just as I was unsure how to place its predecessor. The books were written one right after the other (more on that later), so they are consistent with one another in the extreme, for better or worse. I still found the Glokta character fascinating, but with irritating mannerisms, for example. There are still a few too many characters that are too similar to one another. There is still no sense that any of the main characters are ever in real danger.

However, this is a two-sided coin and the aspects of Blade Itself that I found excellent are still very much present in Before They Are Hanged. The story picks up right where The Blade Itself leaves off, and the book as a whole is similarly fast-paced. I read the majority of this book yesterday (probably about 400 pages or so), and I must say it flashed right by. Abercrombie has a gift for building tension and keeping a long story engaging, but it never feels cheap or manipulative. He doesn't resort to constant cliffhangers like George R.R. Martin, for instance. Which is commendable, since Before They Are Hanged juggles three or four groups of characters, depending on the point in the story, in a variety of locations. The rotation through these groups isn't a fixed 1-2-3-4-repeat cycle either; sometimes a chapter will end with one group and then the next will start up again with that very same group. I was very grateful for that, and pleased to see that Abercrombie has enough confidence in his skill as a narrator to avoid the urge to insert artificial tension with chapter breaks.

Most of the praise Abercrombie has gotten over the series has centered mainly on his unconventional approach to character archetypes. For example, the wise old fantasy wizard is here, and he is both wise and old, but he is also cranky and manipulative and self-serving. Here is my concern: it's all well and good to defy the standard fantasy character models, but is it a valuable undertaking when done for its own sake? Abercrombie certainly likes to shake things up, but when all the pieces have settled does it make for a better story? I'm not sure. George Lucas tapped into a vast collective cultural subconsciousness with Star Wars, by studying ancient storytelling archetypes and reworking them into a pulp sci-fi setting. Abercrombie does almost exactly the opposite, and while the results are interesting, I'm not totally convinced it has a purpose beyond simply being different.

Having said all that, I do like the characters and their interplay. This book pays off much of the characterization Abercrombie labored over in Blade Itself, since we can now see all these strikingly disparate personalities bouncing off one another. A few of the character arcs, such as they are, are quite pleasing as well. There is a very arrogant character who is humbled over the course of the novel, and although that was almost impossibly predictable, it still proved to be satisfying, and the predictability of it actually blended nicely with a very unlikely romance that develops between two other characters.

Even though most of the other characters have come into their own in this, the pivotal volume, Inquisitor Glokta is still the main attraction, so to speak. I enjoyed his playfully sardonic letters to his superiors sent from the remote city he has been given the impossible task of defending. His italicized "inner voice", as I have mentioned before, still grates on me for some reason though. However, this is still a gift of a character, and the subtle changes bubbling to the surface within Glokta may be the most redemptive and rewarding quality of the novel, period.

On the whole, Abercrombie has a gift for characterization, and slipping in and out of the voices of the POV characters. It has a very sitting-around-the-campfire storytelling feel to it, and I imagine that's what he was going for. He has a good feel for natural-sounding dialogue, though maybe not quite as good as he thinks. His fights are well-choreographed, and while that might not be a good reason on its own to recommend these books, it is ultimately very important because there is quite a bit of fighting done.

There is one more thing I feel I should mention. Abercrombie released this trilogy at a pace of one book a year, and frankly that's fucking remarkable, especially considering the length of the books (over 500 pages each). That's well over a full page a day, and that doesn't even take publishing lead time, rewrites, editing, etc into account. In an era where the more popular fantasy writers have the luxury of extremely relaxed deadlines, it's so refreshing to see a big name with a strong work ethic. We live in a digital age and fans can now instantly contact their favorite authors on their blogs or through email, but if anything I feel that has allowed writers a much more convenient medium through which to post excuses. I am not just referring to George R.R. Martin, although that motherfucker is undoubtedly the worst. My point is, hats off to Joe Abercrombie for keeping that nose to the grindstone.

I've just decided that I'm likely overthinking the First Law series. These books are probably best read as enjoyable, if ultimately rather disposable, fiction. There are no particular profound human truths revealed in the pages of these novels, but they are first-rate adventure stories, and the pages whiz by in a blur. I suppose the real mark of how I feel about this series thus far is that I have already ordered the final installment, and I can say unreservedly that I'm looking forward to reading it.

Big Fan (2009)

This is a startling, painful film. I watched it last night, and then immediately re-watched it. The funny thing is I hadn't even planned on watching it, or any movie for that matter, last night. But I was at my mom's to do laundry and she was watching some dumb indie romance film, and one of the trailers on the DVD was for Big Fan. I also didn't expect to find myself with so much to say about the film, but I've been thinking about it all day, and that is certainly a rarity for me.

Robert Siegel, who wrote The Wrestler, wrote (and also directed) this film. On the surface, it's a film about sports fanaticism, but really it's about brokenness, and loneliness, and what contributes to an irretrievably damaged person's self-worth. I can't really say much on the subject of sports mania, since I don't really understand it myself. I followed the Cubs very closely for a few years and enjoyed going to games, but I wouldn't even be able to tell you who their starting pitchers are now. However, there are untold millions of people in this country who are fanatical. It is a critical component of our society's cultural landscape, but like I said I don't quite understand it and we'll leave it at that (although I will say, I got a little warped satisfaction while watching this and thinking of all the people who spam my facebook news feed with hyperbolic sports updates).

Obsessiveness in general, however, I do know a little about, and I think the majority of people do as well. There are things in every person's life that become the object of too much preoccupation. It could be a lover, or a career, or a collection, or a combination of things. Big Fan looks at a case of extreme, crippling obsessiveness and asks the viewer to gauge their own level of perspective.

Paul Aufiero, played by comedian Patton Oswalt, is a New York Giants fan and nothing else. He is 36, lives in his mother's house in Staten Island, works a night job taking tickets in a parking garage. He spends every waking moment of his life listening to sports talk radio and following Giants football. He spends countless hours carefully writing down scripts that he later reads when calling into his favorite sports radio show. He passes them off as spontaneous. He practices his inflection to make it sound more natural. He and his best (only) buddy Sal go to every Giants home game, only to spend it watching the game on TV in the parking lot because they can't afford tickets.


Paul is the kind of guy who refers to the players on his team by their first names. He deludes himself into thinking that his and Sal's presence in the parking lot will have a positive impact on the Giants' play. He lives for his late-night tirades on the radio show, and is also on a first-name basis with the radio programmer who puts his calls through to the DJ. He loathes his faceless call-in nemesis, Eagles fan "Phil from Philadelphia" with pure vitriol. In Paul's mind, football fandom is a war of sorts and Phil is his bitterest enemy.

This may sound like the setup for a broad comedy, but this is a drama that is both intense and disturbing. There is little in the way of plot; almost all of the movie's running time is dedicated to a detailed character sketch of a man with a total lack of personal identity. Paul wants things that all men want: he wants his voice to be heard and accepted. He is persistent, dedicated, and single-minded; interestingly, these are things that are typically lionized in the movies. But I don't know if I've ever seen a character as straight up pathetic as Paul Aufiero.

Paul's character first and foremost represents cognitive dissonance. Paul has spent his entire life suppressing whatever assertive, self-improving instincts he may have had. He is absolutely dedicated to something that, ultimately, even diehard fans would admit is quite trivial in the grand scheme of things. Paul has forced the incredibly complex system of his own human emotions into one linear scale; he feels good about his life if the Giants are winning and he spirals into despair when they are losing. In the process he has lost the ability to feel anything about the life he himself is living.

He and Sal are out for pizza one night when by chance they see the star of the Giants team, Quantrelle Bishop, at a gas station across the street. They begin to follow him, with a notable absence of discussion beforehand. The star linebacker and his entourage stop first at a house in the hood, quite obviously to get some drugs, but the naive Paul and Sal are of course perplexed watching from a distance. They then continue on to a high-end strip club in Manhattan. In a drawn-out and (intentionally) awkward conversation, Paul and Sal debate on the best way to approach Bishop and his entourage. They cluelessly try to send a drink over, but when this fails, Paul musters up his courage and walks over. At first the guys do what some cool black guys do when presented with a goofy white guy: they talk about him as if he isn't there while sort of acknowledging his presence ("Check out this motherfucker!"). Bishop himself is dismissive but humors them for a little. Then Paul lets slip that they had followed them from Staten Island and the coked-up Bishop goes ballistic, attacking Paul and knocking him out.

Much of the rest of the film's plot, such as it is, concerns Paul's subsequent dilemma: does he press charges on Bishop, thereby probably sending him to prison and ruining the Giants' Super Bowl hopes? A cop comes to see Paul in the hospital and asks him to go through the details. Paul feigns amnesia. The cop can tell he's lying. "We don't know what happened at that club," Paul later says on the radio in defense of Quantrelle Bishop, and you can see that he has almost, but not quite, convinced even himself.

Paul's brother Jeff is an ambulance-chasing attorney with all the typical trappings of success (a giant suburban McMansion, a comically large-breasted wife, and one of those Peter Francis Geraci-style TV ads - "have you been injured in a car accident?"). In short he is the diametric opposite of Paul. Interestingly, the movie never tells us which brother is the elder. I suppose what's important is that no matter their ages, Paul is still the child of the two. When Paul wakes up in the hospital, Jeff immediately sees lucrative possibility and tries to pressure Paul into suing. Paul refuses flat-out.


At first I found it curious that Paul isn't completely spiritually broken by the attack. After all, the man he most admires, most needs, treated him with the utmost scorn and hostility. To make matters worse, he is put in a position where he could hurt his team, and by extension, his life. But then I realized that the predicament is in many ways probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to Paul: inasmuch as he can hurt the team by pressing charges against Bishop, he can also save it by keeping quiet. What Paul yearns for most is power, a voice that will affect things, and here he is given it. He needs it, he needs to feel important. But of course there is a high price. Under stress from the situation Paul has a seizure. We suspect it could be from the trauma of his injuries, but he later admits that a CAT scan revealed nothing. He is killing himself from the inside out.

A running thread throughout the film is of repressed sexuality, and the latent sexualization of sports figures. On the wall in his bedroom, Paul has a giant poster of Quantrelle Bishop emblazoned with the slogan "quarterbacks beware." In one sequence, the camera pans over the poster in close-up, and we can see the pornographic quality inherent to it. When Paul and Sal are in the strip club, they are surrounded by beautiful women, but when offered a lapdance, Paul brusquely brushes the stripper off and continues to stare intently at Bishop. Paul masturbates in bed (under his childish NFL bedsheets), but doesn't use pornography and we see him in wide-shot. We can't tell what he's thinking about, and we certainly don't want to know. The need to be the "#1 Fan" has completely eclipsed all the other needs in his life, including the physical.

It is impossible to watch Patton Oswalt in this film and not think of Robin Williams in One Hour Photo. Both are manic but pretty lighthearted stand-up comedians, known for verbosity and fun goofiness. Both also channel that manic intensity into scary roles as obsessive loners. I like Patton Oswalt's comedy, but was even more impressed by his ability to inhabit Paul Aufiero. He has the boyish face and mannerisms necessary to convey that Paul is an arrested child of sorts, but also the focus to suggest something more sinister.

There is a twist late in the film where Paul confronts somebody. To get ready, he puts on his football jersey and paints his face in the style of fanatical sports freaks everywhere. There's a shot where he's looking into a mirror and smears the first of the paint on his face. The look on Oswalt's face at that moment made my soul crumple. He stalks around like Pagliacci the tragic clown, a sinister mask of white paint. The sequence leading up to the confrontation is so tense and awkward I actually had to turn the movie off for a few minutes. Oswalt is absolutely brilliant in these final scenes. He has pathos, and power.

Kevin Corrigan has a supporting role as Paul's only friend, Sal. Every time I've seen Corrigan he's been completely miscast (in my opinion) as a laconic tough-guy type, which in my opinion always falls flat because I don't find him particularly menacing. Contrarily, he hits all the right notes in Big Fan as Paul's enabling accomplice. Sal provides a few laughs courtesy of his clueless nature (at one point he tries to persuade Paul that sodas that come in brown bottles are healthier for you than those that come in green, because they're "more natural"), but even as a support character I found him satisfyingly complex. On one hand, he could be viewed as even more pathetic than Paul, since he stays up to listen to Paul's scripted tirades on the radio and then call him to offer congratulations on a job well done. He's the easygoing lackey of the two, like the kid who happily goes along with whatever games his friends want to play. However, we get brief hints that Sal isn't as far gone as Paul. He has his own apartment, for one thing, even though it's dingy and small. He seems to enjoy following football, contrasted with Paul's pathological need. The sharpest contrast between the two, however, comes in a couple quick cuts so fast it'd be easy to miss: when Paul is following Quantrelle Bishop through Manhattan, the camera follows the car cruising slowly through the neon-walled canyon of Times Square. Cut to Sal, who is staring up at the lights in wonder. Cut to Paul, whose eyes are locked on Bishop's car with intensity.

Big Fan is not a great movie, although it is certainly a very good one and one you should watch. The biggest shortcoming is the ending, which doesn't quite pay off what the film has put us through. It takes us to the brink but then chickens out, and I haven't decided if that was wise or not.

On that note, it is necessary to point out that this movie was initially conceived as a broad sort of comedy. I skimmed through several reviews after I was done watching it and was surprised to find that some reviewers had seen it as a black comedy. Maybe it will play that way for you, but I only saw a few instances where the movie was really going for laughs, and those moments sit a bit uncomfortably with the tone of the rest of the film. Certainly there is the potential here for a 40 Year Old Virgin style comedy, but it would require a massive script overhaul and a completely different style of direction. This is, in fact, the bleakest movie I've seen in a long time. It is also very ambivalent about how we should feel about Paul. In Siegel's The Wrestler, we can sympathize with Randy "The Ram". We hope for him, because all in all he's a nice man, and he's trying to better his circumstances, even if that means desperately trying to recapture a past life. We're not quite so sure what to do about Paul. He is quite literally both protagonist and antagonist, the cause of his own masochistic self-annihilation. What does that mean for the film? It means The Wrestler was a better and more enjoyable movie, but Paul Aufiero is the more fascinating character.

So who is Paul? We never really find out completely, which I think was wise. We don't know when and how he became obsessed with football, because as far as the movie is concerned he always has been and always will be. We don't understand what motivates him, beyond a need to be heard and accepted, because we aren't privy to anything that happens to him prior to the beginning of the movie. He is barely a man; he represents the idea of obsession and inward hate.

The opening shot of the film is of Paul's parking attendant booth, tiny against the stark background of the parking garage. Paul's voice repeats over and over: "I can't tell you how sick I am..." It isn't until the next shot that we see Paul is practicing one of his radio diatribes, and that is just the first half of a sentence, not a declaration. But the first impression is the more honest, and the more lasting. Paul could not, in fact, tell you how sick he is, because he won't admit it even to himself.

Zatoichi (座頭市) (2003)

For the Japanese moviegoer, there may be no framework better established than that of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. He is a gentle, soft-spoken, middle-aged man who wanders around the 18-century (Edo period) countryside, visiting gambling parlors and helping people in need. He carries a cane with a sword hidden inside, and when he is sufficiently provoked, the sword flashes out and a very surprised yakuza's blood sprays all over the place. Great stuff. A series spanning no less than 26 films was made, starring Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi himself.

I took a general Japanese culture class in college, and we spent a few days watching a Katsu Zatoichi film, if that tells you anything about how ingrained in Japan's cinema culture the series is. I was transfixed. There is something innately satisfying about knowing that some tough-talking yakuza bully is about to get his intestines splattered all over the wall by a meek blind man.

It is a revered, slightly cheesy franchise that remained dormant for many years until this re-imagining by the great Takeshi Kitano (known in his home country as "Beat" Takeshi), a venerated Japanese actor and artist, a published poet who is perhaps best known for portraying hard-boiled yakuza tough-guy types. (Years ago he was in an accident that paralyzed one side of his face, and a running joke in Japan says that you can't tell which one, since his expression never changes) Western audiences may know him best as the "teacher" in 2000's Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル), which is awesome, by the way, and will probably get its own entry on here at some point. Kintaro is also a major Japanese directing talent, and he brings his usual uncompromisingly singular vision to Zatoichi.

The story stays true to the feel of the original Zatoichi series. It feels episodic in some ways: it's just one of the blind swordsman's many adventures, and that gives a subtle depth to the way Kitano portrays the character. Anyway it begins in the manner of many (most?) samurai flicks: a country village is under the thumb of two opposing Yakuza clans. Zatoichi totters up the road with his cane. He meets a widow (the lovely Michiyo Okosu in an equally lovely supporting role) who offers him a place to stay ("Don't get any ideas," she warns him). He wanders into town to gamble and comes across her nephew, a comically pathetic gambling addict who is none too lucky at dice. Guadalcanal Taka, a Japanese comedian, is hilarious as the hapless nephew. He plays it earnestly and gets a lot of big laughs. Through a series of misadventures they meet a pair of murderous geisha, and the plot turns toward revenge drama. There is also another dangerous newcomer in town, a ronin who has been hired by one of the clans as a yojimbo, or bodyguard/retainer. He may be as fast as Zatoichi, and we see him ruthlessly kill a lot of people. He's not an evil character like his employers, though, and we see the movie heading toward a climax we don't necessarily want to see played out.

This is classic stuff, but many directors tend to get heavyhanded and ham-fisted with such rich material. Kitano, on the other hand, has a deft touch. He knows what scenes need real emotion, he knows when the audience needs a little (or a lot) of blood, and he knows when to inject his bizarre sense of humor, which is quite frequently.

Kitano, like Kurosawa (if that comparison may be permitted), has an eye for the austere and balanced. This is a beautifully shot film. Typical action movies, in the US and abroad, have developed a sort of common visual language within the past twenty years that has become dogma. Fast camera movement, even faster cuts, camera shaking all over the damn place. These developments were striking the first few times we saw them, but to me it's grown tiresome. Kitano's Zatoichi has a refreshingly unique feel. There is frequent camera motion, to be sure, but just as often Kitano sets up still, contemplative shots that allow the viewer to ruminate a little. Imagine that. Overall the scenes are filmed methodically, with gentle pans and zooms that regard the subjects thoughtfully. Kitano often lets a shot linger for a few seconds longer than we've become accustomed to, and it is jarring but incredible at the same time. People and backgrounds are arranged precisely.

And yet this is an action movie. There is no lack of blood, in fact during the fight scenes it is spraying everywhere in fine jidaekgi (samurai flick) fashion. Kitano said in an interview regarding the film that he doesn't like sword fights where the swords clash together too much, as it isn't true to life. Watching these scenes I have to agree (no, I have never been in a sword fight, unfortunately); when two men are trying to kill each other they don't move so the audience can follow, they try to cut their opponent down as fast as they possibly can. The swords flash out and the action is over in a second. That is not to say that the choreography isn't fantastic, though.

Striking visuals contrast with the serene, earth-toned look of the film, and the whole thing feels very familiar and surprising at the same time. Kitano dyed his short hair bleach-blond for the role, I assume for no other reason than it visually distinguishes Zatoichi. It was a bold choice, but like many other bold choices that went into this film, Kitano pulls it off completely.

The most arresting, and delightful, thing about this movie is the undercurrent of percussive rhythm throughout. There are short musical interludes woven into the film; farmers swinging hoes into the ground in a complex syncopated beat, people in a field dancing in time with falling raindrops, workmen building a house. This is not a "musical" at all, at least not in the way we typically understand that term, but these little interludes are perhaps the true showcase of Kitano's talent as a director. He obviously has a deeply intuitive understanding of the subtle beats of combat scenes, but he applies that knowledge to every aspect of his film; everything from the way Zatoichi's footsteps crunch on the dirt path to the way the characters speak, the timing of the cuts, etc.

Speaking of music, this film has one of my favorite movie scores, by the composer Keiichi Suzuki. The film is silent when it has to be, but often it is alive with simple, percussive tunes. Xylophone, Japanese drums, electric organ. The modern, avant-garde character of the score clashes in a really pleasing way with the traditional, conventional look of Edo Period Japan.

It's not really giving anything away to say that movie ends with a big, elaborate dance number where all the characters come out on a stage and stomp away to pounding Japanese drums. This is a controversial aspect of this film, but I find myself wondering why. I thought it was an absolute delight. Does it make sense plot-wise? Maybe not, but plot is hardly the focal point of this movie anyway. I think it ties together the rhythmic sensibilities of the entire film, but more to the point it's memorable and fun. People bitch about strange things. The conventionality of the modern action movie is to blame, probably. In the West, it seems like all of our revered franchises (Bond, Batman, et al) are being re-imagined as gritty, dark, heavy-handed films with all the joy sucked out of them. What's wrong with simply having some fun at the movies? Anyway, it's yet another risk I'm glad Kitano took. It's a perfect finale from a fearless director.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (2007)

Let me get the ball rolling on Blade Itself by pointing out a shockingly dumb quote from John Enzinas of SF Site that is featured on the back cover: "I could happily recommend The Blade Itself for the fight scenes alone." Okay. Just to be clear, this is a book. It's a bunch of pages between two covers. It's not a Jackie Chan movie, it's a damn book! Why on earth would you ever recommend a book to someone on the basis of its fight scenes!

Maybe this sort of thing is just symptomatic of how pervasive the influence of video games has been on the fantasy and sci-fi communities throughout the last decade or so. On that point, maybe Enzinas' quote is insightful in some regard. No, I take that back. But moving forward, maybe this is weird but The Blade Itself has a distinct video game feel to it. Now, that isn't really a good thing or a bad thing in itself, and fortunately Joe Abercrombie makes it work. Here's what I mean: there are four or five major characters, and this is more or less a getting-a-team-together story (this is the first in Abercrombie's First Law series). The major characters feel a bit like character classes in an RPG game: a swordsman, a wizard, a barbarian, an archer. Thankfully, they are all well written and Abercrombie gives each of them a unique voice.

Speaking of which, the book is similar in structure to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, with the story being told from the third-person point of view of several characters. Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, on a rotating basis. Their stories weave into and out of one another, but not in the dizzyingly complex way of Martin's books. Like I said before, this is mostly a book about a team getting together, so the individual stories head toward one another, inevitably.

The world the action takes place in feels a bit Plain Jane, but in the end that isn't a handicap because this isn't the kind of story that calls attention to its surroundings. The action is centered around The Union, which is a familiar-feeling stand in for Western Europe, or close enough. To the north, there is the expected frozen wasteland filled with warring tribes, and to the south there are various other kingdoms, deserts, and so on. Maybe my main gripe with this book is that, at least in the edition I have, there is no map! There is quite a bit of travel in this book and I felt that it could definitely, definitely have benefitted from one.

Abercrombie has a good writing style. It gets the job done. He's no Patrick Rothfuss, but fortunately for him he's no George Martin, either. He's pretty spare on description, which I found pleasant, but your results may vary. The Blade Itself is nothing if not a page-turner, and Abercrombie's no-frills approach keeps things moving along at a pretty rapid clip. It took me less than four days to get through all 527 pages (that is 131.75 pages a day), and I had work a couple of those days, so obviously Abercrombie has a gift for holding the attention of his readers. And it's not like every single chapter ends with a Martin-style cliffhanger either; this is simply well-written fantasy.

One thing that is weird about this book, though, is the insane amount of characters described as being uncommonly huge. That may strike you as a weird thing to notice but it seems like every other character that is introduced is strikingly large and strong. No exaggeration, there must be more than ten such characters in this novel. Very strange and a little distracting.

Up to this point, I haven't mentioned a character that is simultaneously the best and worst part of the book: Sand dan Glokta, the only POV character that doesn't feel at all like a unit in a Squaresoft SNES RPG. Glokta is an ex fencing champion and war hero who was captured by the enemy on a campaign. He was tortured and disfigured in the enemy's dungeons, and returns to his homeland ruined and disgraced. His friends abandon him and he finds himself in the office of Inquisitor (torturer) for his government. Glokta's chapters mainly focus on the political sphere of the Union, with him and his Practicals (assistants) capturing people and torturing them for information. Crippled and disfigured, Glokta's entire life revolves around pain, both the pain he endures from his old injuries and the pain he dishes out to his captives. Pretty interesting stuff, but Abercrombie wrings the whole thing dry a bit. Glokta has a constant internal monologue, which can get pretty annoying. It's like, yeah, we get that Glokta is cynical and sniffs out people's ulterior motives, but I found myself just wishing he would shut up sometimes. This made the Glokta chapters frustrating to read; he is easily the most interesting character but his little italicized monologue bits really strained my patience.

That's not to say, of course, that it ruined the book, and on the whole it's a pretty minor gripe. I liked the characters, even if they were a little too close to archetypes. Abercrombie does a great job at making their perspectives distinct from one another. If you are curious, the much-lauded fight scenes live up to their reputation, I guess, but don't get the impression that this book is just a bunch of battles. There is plenty of violence, but for me the most exciting part of the fight scenes was just seeing who would come out of them alive, because I actually ended up caring about most of the major characters, which is the most important thing for this kind of fantasy. I have the next installment in the mail and I'm looking forward to reading it.