Review of Elizabethtown
I saw Elizabethtown last night.
I was very worried after reading reviews for this movie. It was pretty negative all around, which made me think that Cameron was slumping or that his filmmaking may have lost it's spark after Vanilla Sky. I admit that I wanted Cameron to dazzle me, but I still went into the theatre dreading the train-wreck to come.
So what happened? Did it work?
Oh yeah. . . it worked.
This is the best movie of the year.
In my opinion, this movie is flawless. At no point did I feel that Cameron was lazy or misguided with this movie. He didn't extend scenes gratuitously, forget about the characters, slow down the plot, or take liberties with the themes. He did exactly what he set out to do, because this movie is not about any of those things.
Unlike a typical movie, there is no reason to provide endless narrative about what's going on, or explain away many of the unresolved conflicts that exist. After seeing this movie and understanding how it can make you feel, adding manufactured conflict would be pointless. It doesn't need escalating dramatic tension from scene to scene in order to keep the whole thing flowing. Instead, Cameron goes deeper, and paints a tapestry of moments driven by emotion.
In a way, you could say that this movie is a very experimental concept. I have seen countless movies (good ones, too!) that go through an hour and a half of premise, just to build to an earned moment at the end, where the music kicks in and the women in the audience are cued to cry.
This movie is 2 solid hours of moments like that. Cameron layers them into this movie like a string of pearls bunched up in your grandmother's perfumed jewelery box. He doesn't earn these moments by putting the characters through a bunch of shit, or complicating their interactions just to make it more dramatic. . . he does it by drawing on the shared experiences of his audience. Me. Us. Everybody. Each scene doesn't exist to reveal something for the next scene. Instead, each one stands on it's own with it's own set of dramatic consculsions.
I've never seen a movie like this in my life.
Consider the sci-fi movie, Serenity. I liked it quite a bit, but Elizabethtown is leaps and bounds better. To prove the point, pick a single scene from everybody's "Browncoat" favorite. Now watch that scene on it's own, wiping away everything else you know about the movie or the characters. Does that scene hold up on its own? What can you pull from it. . . or better yet, how does it feel to you? Is it beautiful? Is it warm? Does it make you understand the beauty inherent in existence? Does it make you wonder about the capacity of your own emotional states? Does it surprise you? Does it help you to grasp any unversal connection between yourself and your felow man? Or, is it like every other movies these days. . . just trying to be cool? Now, compare that scene to any random scene from Elizaebethtown, adn you can see how much is there.
To be fair, Cameron takes EXTREME liberties with reality, creating situations that are pretty surreal and borderline impossible. Yet, each one is grounded in the familiar. Just as Serenity chooses to take its liberties with the reality of future technology and political strife to paint a picture that expresses its thematic point. . . Elizabethtown does the same thing. Only its goal is not thematic, but a dive into the vast palette of universal human emotion. To live, to love, to feel.
I fantasize alot. I dream about being a writer, an artist, an exporer, a filmmaker, an innovative thinker, an inventor, a musician, a hero, a villian, an astronaut, and countless other things. The purpose of such fantasy, at least for me, is about exploring trust. It's about putting yourself out there, warts and all, and letting the chips fall where they may. They're fantasies about DARING to be yourself in embarrassing situations, and finding out that there are so many others who share your point of view. Having strong intersts in things like D&D, science fiction, or anime is a social risk, but you do them anyway because you want to. Maybe you even need to.
Along with all those kinds of nerds, I think that it's possible to be an emotional nerd. Someone who dares to get sappy, despite the jaded world and the flash-in-the-pants philosophies that rule this time and place. Other filmmakers, like Paul Thomas Anderson, or writers like Charlie Kaufman, must come to terms with their fear of rejection only to make something that is quite easily rejectable. Sometimes it works critically, and sometimes it doesn't. I think Cameron's films, especially Elizabethtown, fall firmly into that company. It's easy to reject it, dismising it's scope for sentementalist pap. When you add in that this movie is partially based on Cameron's experiences with his own father's death, that rejection will hurt all the more. In my opinion, Cameron is extremely brave, and has shown the brass balls to proclaim himself a colossal "emotional nerd." And kudos to him for making such an unusually powerful film.
My grade: A+
posted by Chris W. @ 11:31 AM
