Beginning of May: the days are longer, the temperature is more agreeable and the sun is more present: here comes spring! Spring is the season of renewal and hope; the dark moments are past us and we hope to be able to start all over again and to let our mistakes behind us to be able to find a new path. It’s thus the perfect occasion to do a small top 5 (subjective) of the films approaching the theme of renewal and redemption, whether the characters are successful or not in their attempt.
5) Vivre sa Vie (My Life to Live) – Jean Luc Godard, 1962.
The film tells the story of Nana (Anna Karina), a young woman who decides to leave her husband and her son to focus on her dream of becoming an actress. Unfortunately, her desire of renewal does not go the way she wished and she is constraint to work in a shop. Unsatisfied with this life that bores her and in an attempt to improve her lifestyle, Nana decides to become a prostitute. The film is divided in twelve short episodes that depict different moments of Nana’s life.
Despite its rather depressing subject, the film owns an ambiance as joyful as its main character. Godard finds his cinematographic and aesthetic inspiration in cinéma verité, as he adopts a documentary approach to tell Nana’s story. Yet, more than being about the inconvenient of prostitutes’ life, the film seems to explore the existentialist questions that its character asks herself. The contrast between the cinematic approach, which is rather crude and anchored into reality, and the very spiritual subject of the film is really pleasant. The oeuvre never falls into solemnity and never affirms anything categorically; consequently, the spectator can let himself go with the flow. Moreover, and that is rare enough to be underlined, the film makes its audience reflect without letting them sink into in the seriousness of the depths of the human soul.
Everything in the film tends to grace: the camera’s movements and the angles centred on the hypnotic character that is Nana, and the captivating acting of Karina. Very graceful and voluptuous, the actress is a real magnet both for the camera or the spectators. Her charming accent, her magnetic gaze, her joyful dance moves and her flowing gesture are elements that contribute to make Nana look mesmerizing.
Despite approaching a crude subject in a very realist way close from documentary, My Life to Live offers an enchanting and poetic moment, favouring a reflection both deep and pleasant.
4) The Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan, 2012.
Renewal is a theme very recurrent in super-heroes’ movies as most of the super-heroes have to face a deep existential crisis and to fight their internal demons to be able to incarnate justice in a better way. One of the best films of this genre is probably The Dark Knight Rises.
The story takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. To remind you the implications, Batman had at the time decided to stop his service. Indeed, in order to preserve the heroic status of Harvey Dent, Gotham’s White Knight, Batman had accepted to sacrifice himself by endorsing the responsibility of Dent’s crime as well as the responsibility of his death. If it allowed lowering the criminality at Gotham thanks to the maintenance of the anti-crime unity of Dent, the arrival of Bane, a masked anarchist terrorist, obligates Bruce Wayne to come back from his exile. However, the hero realizes that he has to find resources deep inside him and that he has to accept to change before being able to change the city’s fate.
Let’s point at the elephant in the room as of now: the film is far from being as good as its predecessor The Dark Knight (2008). Nonetheless, it is still very very very good! The film’s ambiance is even darker than the one of the previous episodes and thus reflects perfectly Bruce Wayne’s psyche. The photography and the composition serve magnificently the film’s thesis, reflecting both Batman’s depression and the chaos that falls onto the city.
The monumental soundtrack of the film contributes to its epic aspect. Hans Zimmer succeeds in creating sounds seeming to come from the depths of the earth, just as Batman’s antagonist: Bane. And despite the mastery of his melodies, Zimmer achieves to to make them just accompany the action, without becoming omnipresent, as it is sometimes the case in action movies.
Let’s approach the subject of action. Once again, The Dark Knight Rises is really strong in this domain. The fight scenes are very well choreographed and perfectly balanced, there aren’t to many of them or not enough. The dual Batman/Bane is impressive because of its authentic violence that differs from the genre’s archetypes.
But what makes the film’s strength is definitely its scenario, which is excellent, as usual with Nolan, and deserved by dream team. Despite its 2h40, the film seems really short because it is so suspenseful and full of surprises. It also makes its audience think about questions both political and personal. But above all, it shows the deep weaknesses of a super-hero that is finally very human; and it is one of the fist movies of the genre to do so. Batman is not a super powerful entity anymore, but a hero that has to fight his personal demons before being able to fight those that falls onto the city.
In the end, the film is not only very entertaining thanks to its high quality action scenes, but also a beautiful object whose cinematography and soundtrack are full of darkness and yet depict a world where nothing is totally black or white.
3) Trance- Danny Boyle, 2013.
Trance tells the story of Simon Newman (James McAvoy), a young auctioneer, who has to face a robbery as he leads the auction process of a Goya’s painting, “The Witches’ Flight”. Simon applies the procedure that he repeated multiple times in order to save the painting from the robbers, but as he tries to resist to the group’s leader, the robbers hit him on the head and he loses consciousness. When he gets out of the hospital, Simon is partially amnesiac and does not remember what happen to the painting that went missing during the robbery. Things become more difficult when Franck (Vincent Cassel), the leader of the theft, threatens Simon in order to convince him to help him to find the painting. In order to summon his memory and to discover what he has done of the Goya, Simon goes to consult a hypnotherapist, Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson).
We face here a total renewal, as Simon has to reconstruct entirely his memory not only to find the painting but also to find himself again. Consequently, the spectator faces a gasping thriller whose issues are exciting. The very short takes and the precise and dynamical editing amplify the feeling of emergency that Simon has to face and thus immerge the spectator directly into the action. The very good performance of James McAvoy contributes as well to allow the audience to identify with Simon.
The exploration of the theme of hypnosis is also very interesting. Cinema has rarely approached the subject in such a good way, and the film uses it as pretext to offer beautiful dreamlike scenes. The structure of the movie, divided between real scenes and hypnosis scenes, compose an enigma that the spectators will intent to resolve thanks to the clues disseminated in the exploration of Simon’s unconsciousness. The scenario is thus really solid and offers a surprising ending.
Despite its thriller quality, the film remains very joyful and warm in terms of cinematography and colours, and consequently offers an original vision of the genre, very pleasant to look at. The soundtrack is also very nice and contributes to preserve the film’s lightness despite its subject, while maintaining an intense and dynamical rhythm.
Trance is thus an original thriller, very agreeable to watch. If it is not unforgettable, the film still offers to the spectator a nice paper chase served by excellent actors and a dynamic and beautiful mise-en-scène.
2) Raging Bull- Martin Scorsese, 1980.
Just like the super-heroes’ films, the films about sport, and especially about boxing, approach very often the themes of redemption and renewal as well.
Raging Bull is one of the best boxing films of history and approaches our theme in a superb way. The film tells the real story of Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), an American boxer with Italian origins. Coming from a modest milieu, Jake succeeds in rising to the top thanks to phenomenal fights that lead him to the title of world championship. But his ambition and his arrogance will make him accumulate the failures in his personal life. Jake will have to accept his forfeiture to be able to try to rise again.
A lot of boxing films possess this theme and this structure in common, yet Raging Bull distinguishes itself thanks to its very strong emotional charge. The film does not enchain banal scenes; on the opposite, the tension seems to escalate as time goes by.
The fights scenes are magnificent and impressive to look at but also very codified from a cinematographic standpoint and thus offer metaphors that are very interesting to explore. Scorsese especially investigates the themes of sin and redemption and consequently gives a christic dimension to Jake.
The grandiose performance of De Niro is very remarkable too. The role indeed allowed him to obtain the Oscar of Best Actor in 1980. The actor is here on top of his carreer. For the role, he changed multiple times his morphology and is completely unrecognizable at the end of the film. Whether during the combat scenes, the dramatic ones or the ones where LaMotta sinks into a pathetic affliction, De Niro is astonishing and the epic music emphasizes his moving performance.
If there is only one boxing film to watch, it is really Raging Bull, one- of not THE- masterpiece of the genre, which is a movie simultaneously moving and impressive, epic and humble.
1) American History X-Tony Kaye, 1998.
We cannot talk about films approaching renewal and redemption without mentioning American History X! Almost twenty years after its release, the shocking film of Tony Kaye is more than ever very topical.
The story is the one of the Vineyard family, established at Venice Beach. The older son, Derek, joins a skinhead neo-Nazi movement after the death of his father, a fire fighter who died killed by a black dealer as he was trying to extinguish a fire in a Los-Angeles’ ghetto. The younger bother, Daniel, admires his brother a lot and seems to follow his path. A night, Derek kills two black guys who were attempting to steal the car of his dead father. He is thus condemned for three years of incarceration. When he finally gets free, Derek is a new man whose ideology and values completely changed. He will from now on attempt to prevent his young brother to sink into hate and violence.
American History X is a shocking film, one of those that remain in your memory for a long time. This is due to its story that makes reflect a lot about the source of hate, about the consequences of fear, about the causes of change and about the signification of difference.
It is also due to its violence, very wearisome, even though it is very aesthetic. Indeed, most of the violent scenes happen in the past, a past that the director of photography decided to represent in a very artistic black and white. The film thus offers a subtle reflexion about the relation that the purest evil nurtures- and has always nourished- with beauty.
The acting is for its part fantastical: the film would probably not be the same without the very lively performance of Edward Norton who meets here one of the best role of his career. Edward Furlong is also very convincing, and his baby face full of despair reinforces the lyricism of the cinematography. The alchemy between the two actors functions very well and allows the film to become very moving in its last segment.
Indeed, the film does not only make its audience think about the different themes it approaches, it also appeals the spectators’ feelings and aims to trigger an emotional reaction. Yet, despite this emotional side, it avoids the pitfall of being manipulating or moralizing, as it offers a very logical succession of the events, so that the spectator can only deplore the dramatic yet expected consequences of the hate and of the fear of the other.
To summarize, American History X is a film simultaneously beautiful, clever and moving that says a lot about the epoch we livie in. It is because it is hard to watch that it is necessary to watch it.
