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April Showers: The Fifth Element

waterworks each weeknight at 11 as we turn on the cinematic shower.

True Story: The house my family lived in from the time I was nine years old until high school graduation had an unusual bathroom. I didn't think it was so terribly unusual because I lived with it but whenever friends would come to visit for the first time they would always demand to see the bathroom. They'd heard, you see. The storied feature in question was a sunken shower. You had to step down into it, as if it were an in-ground swimming pool and it was larger than your traditional shower or bathtub. But there were no rounded smooth edges, just tiles. So it wasn't, unfortunately, a comfortable bathtub unless you find sharp flat corners restive for reclining against, in which case… are you an invertebrate?

 I suddenly flashed to my parent's old house while watching The Fifth Element recently.  In the scene in question, law enforcement of one sort or another (it's hard to keep track in Luc Besson's frenzy-filled futurism) has entered Bruce Willis's building and good ol' Bruce realizes he needs to hide his strange guest, supreme being Leeloo (Milla Jovovich).

Where else? The shower, that most private of places... except maybe in the movies.

read the rest after the jump. (safe for work.)

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Distant Relatives: The Toy Story Trilogy and The Films of Ingmar Bergman

Robert here, closing out the first season of my series Distant Relatives, (where we look at two films, (one classic, one modern) related through theme and ask what their similarities/differences can tell us about the evolution of cinema) with a two part special.

The meaning of life

It may seem like a cheat to compare a trilogy of films to a director’s entire collected works. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to find elements in anyone’s filmography that happen to match up to the Toy Story films which cover a wide array of human (er, toy) emotion. But it’s not just random or occasional moments or themes that we’re talking about. When I see the Toy Story films, I see a primary emphasis on the two concepts that Ingmar Bergman explored though his entire career: the quest for meaning in life and the sorrow of being parted from those we love (one might also say the silence of God is in there but I find it to me more of an offshoot of those two motifs, more on that later). Indeed if Ingmar Bergman were a modern animator the Toy Story films may very well be what his output would look like.

But let’s talk about quests for meaning and the importance of relationships in today’s animated films. These are ubiquitous themes. The heroes of films like WALL-E, Shrek, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, How to Train Your Dragon, Up all find themselves on a quest that will bring a new sense of purpose to their rather humdrum lives. In the process they make a new connection or rekindle an old connection with a friend, spouse, family member, etc. The relationship helps them complete their quest, and the quest reinforces the relationship, all together bringing a new sense of meaning to all involved.

So what makes Toy Story special? Two things. First, in the Toy Story films, all three, the quest isn’t reinforced by coming together, the quest is coming together. No one is trying to save the world, rescue a princess, defeat a villian, cook a meal, quell a dragon, or protect a giant bird. No one is trying to assign new meaning to their lives. They’re simply trying to hold on to their current meaning by coming together (consider the quest of the characters in The Seventh Seal to simply return home, or the children in Fanny and Alexander to rejoin their family). Secondly, without grand designs, the characters of Toy Story tend to ask heavier questions. The kind you’d find in an Ingmar Bergman film, like “what is my purpose here?” “am I fulfilling it?” “what would it become if the being whose love gives me meaning ceased loving me?”

When somebody loves you, everything is beautiful...

In Bergman’s films this “being whose love gives meaning” takes on two forms. The first is God whose presence characters like The Seventh Seal’s Antonius Block or Tomas, the preacher from Winter Light search desperately for, hoping that it will lead them to some sense of light. The second is a spouse or partner. Bergman, who was married five times, made several films including Scene From a Marriage and Shame (as well as writing the great Liv Ullman film Faithless) about the dissolution of a marriage and the meaninglessness into which both parties are subsequently thrown.

The role of god/partner is filled in the Toy Story films by the toys’ owners. No, Andy is not a god, but he is a higher being. he owns the toys. They live in a world of his creation. While the toys don’t exactly worship Andy, they do occasionally suggest that they should accept his will for their being, such as Woody’s insistence that they resign themselves to the fate of the attic. But Andy and the other kids don’t require any faith in their existence. They’re flesh and blood. And in this way they fulfill a somewhat spousal role, not in a romantic sense, but in that they encompass the great love that the toys hope to find in life, and once found, they consider themselves fulfilled (or at least should be). But there is another dynamic going on here. As quasi-owner, playmate, and provider of love, kids will see a very parental relationship between Andy and his toys. However, although the toys get autonomy between playtimes, there is no eventual emancipation. Quite the contrary, it’s the owners who eventually move on leaving the toys as empty nesters. Imagine that, all the love you desire from parent, partner, and god pent up in the impulsiveness of a child.

Parting is such unendurable sorrow

Which is why the characters of Toy Story live in constant fear that it could all end tomorrow. And if it does, what does that say about the meaningfulness of the entire experience? There is, in the world of Ingmar Bergman and in the world of Toy Story, no greater sorrow than the separation from a loved one. When Jessie the Cowgirl is discarded by Emily or Lotso by Daisy it’s enough to throw someone into a state of perpetual sadness or evil, like the unfeeling sisters of Cries and Whispers. When Woody sees the newer better looking Buzz Lightyear arrive, he fears for the outcome experienced by Scenes from a Marriage’s Marianne (played by Liv Ullman). Replaced by a younger model. Through no fault of your own. You just aged. You just were. And it was not good enough.

Even worse is the possibility that what you always perceived as love was in fact ambivalence. That the presence of chaos and meaninglessness is your fate. In Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, Harriet Andersson’s Karin has a mad vision of a spider god, a Deity not of love but baseness, staring at her with if not uncaring, utter contempt. There is no god to provide you with love. God is a spider. God is Sid. The presence of a character like Sid in Toy Story is the (shocking for a child’s movie) recognition that chaos and darkness exist. That just as easily, yoy could have been Sid’s toy. Like the mysterious perpetrator who goes around mutilating animals in Bergman's (underseen but great) The Passion of Anna, Sid mutilates his toys with no real purpose but his perverse pleasure. And to witness those mutant toys is like Max von Sydow witnessing his “mutant” neighbors in Hour of the Wolf. It’s the realization that you are in the presence of a truly evil creator. Life loses meaning. Chaos reigns.

CONTINUE TO PART TWO How does one regain meaning in a world like this: By assuming power? By taking a place of honor in a museum? By defeating the evil Emperor Zurg? Travel to heaven and hell and back.

Links: Penélope & Javier, Guy & Kate, Mavericks & Vampires

 Penélope & Javi
EW Penélope Cruz to headline Woody Allen's upcoming untitled Rome picture.
US Weekly First photos of the Blessed Babe of Penélope and Javi. His name is Leo. Awwww. Love the photo of Penélope with the pacifier in her mouth.
The Wrap Javier Bardem in final talks for Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower.

Awwww. Look at Baby Leo.

More News
Awards Daily Boon Jong-Ho (of Mother and The Host fame) will head the Camera D'Or at Cannes this year (they're the ones that pick the "Best First Film")
Gold Derby the Grammys are shedding 31 awards in a streamlining effort. The weirdest switch is dumping the gender specificity. I would die if the Oscars did this. Actresses would never get nominated for everything.
Movie|Line attempts to keep track of the competing Snow White projects, currently scheduled to open within six months of each other next year.

Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell in the FRIGHT NIGHT remake

80s Mania
Cinema Blend Top Gun is returning to theaters for its 25th anniversary. Ride into the Danger Zone!
NY Post shares new photos from the remake of Fright Night.

Finally...
Cinephilia & Sass names his 5 favorite Guy Pearce performances. Agreed fully on #s 1 & 2. Last weekend while watching Part 3 of Mildred Pierce a rather funny R-rated conversation from both straights and gays in the room erupted (It was awesome. As is his ass in Mildred Pierce. Unfortunately I can't share it, the conversation; I've been told by a girlfriend that the convo is strictly off-blog limits. Damn her!). The Guy/Kate scenes are the best ones in Mildred Pierce because they have more life pulsing through them, and not just because half of them erupt into tetchy sex scenes. The series is best when Mildred is angry and Monty & Vida (soon to become Evan Rachel Wood) are the only ones who significantly raise her temperature.

Doesn't it always feel like Guy is going to have a breakthrough that never quite comes? He has these big seminal movies and then... Shouldn't he be as famous as, like, oh Russell Crowe? Well, maybe not that famous. But it does seem like Hollywood has been inattentive? Or hasn't Chris Nolan been inattentive? For someone who reuses actors why not throw Pearce another plum role?

Not that he isn't busy post-King's Speech.

After piercing Pierce (sorry) he'll co-star in the Nicolas Cage thriller The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, headline the Australian drama 33 Postcards, appear in the sci-fi film Lockout with Maggie Grace and then reunite with John Hillcoat (who obviously loves him: The Road, The Proposition) for The Wettest Country in the World.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Crazy Stupid Love"

The tradition here at The Film Experience is to break down new movie trailers under Yes, No and Maybe So reactions. It's a way to measure expectations rather than allow good (or bad) marketing to totally control us. But watching the trailer for the new comedy Crazy Stupid Love defeated my critical sensibilities entirely. It left me giddy and "Can I see this today. Please!???"

This single image best sums it up.

It's more for the two thumbs up than for the Tomei, though our thumbs are always up for Marisa, too. But this is one of those rare trailers wherein every new star that appears just ups the pleasure ante.

I guess we should play the game anyway. For consistency's sake.

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