In Which Violent Delights Abandon Violent Ends

Convincing Nihilism

by DAYNA EVANS

Carnage
dir. Roman Polanski
79 minutes

Carnage, Roman Polanski's latest, is seventy-nine minutes, features only four characters, is not a part of the Fast and the Furious franchise, and — worst of all — is an adaptation of a stage play. What kept me watching as I struggled with the desire to never have to see Jodie Foster’s face again was the possibility of a blooper reel of John C. Reilly clips at the end in which he happily goofs around. Yes, the individual performances of Carnage are convincing, and their interactions with each another feel natural, but sometimes I found myself asking, "Why does this movie exist?" And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

The film opens with a long shot of a scene of young boys arguing in a Brooklyn Bridge Park and an altercation between two boys in particular leads to one grabbing a large stick and whacking the other across the face with it. It looks painful because that stick was, like, really big. This is our expository opener from which the whole film moves forward. Cut to the glowing screen of a Mac, where Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster) narrates an insurance claim as she types, three adults standing behind her. Penelope is predictably wearing octagonal tortoise glasses and is a skilled typist.

From the minute she presses print and lets the claim stream out of the printer into her hand, we have now witnessed all of the action Carnage has to offer. Quietly, I prayed that at least Ethan Longstreet, her “mutilated” son, will show up to bear to us his totally gnarled face and incisors, for necessary gruesome effect. (He doesn't.)

Because there isn’t much else to the plot, and the scene is set within the same boringly obvious Brooklyn apartment, stylized with attention toward modern academic nuances and laden with postmodern art books, apple-pear crumble, and fresh tulips from the "florist on Henry Street," we are forced to focus on the ultimate devolvement of civility between four grown adults. Even the merest discord amounts to high drama for Polanski: when Penelope asks Nancy if she knows a florist, she stares blankly at her. The viewer bears witness to a conversation-cum-argument between the couples for the entirety of the movie, and despite the short length, what it provides is not in itself enough to be compelling.

Enjoying the tension of watching Carnage is about praying for things to get physical — the closest we come is when Penelope tosses Nancy's very expensive-looking purse into the air and Nancy shrieks, "She broke my makeup mirror! And my perfume bottle!" I found myself applauding their sons for at least having a little more gall to pursue resolution with violence instead of with ninny philosophical language and whining. Probably that is Carnage's entire point.

Despite its shortcomings — lack of plot, lack of realism, lack of purpose — there is a glowing light to Carnage that cannot be forgotten, and his name is John C. Reilly. Call me biased because of my love for Steve Brule and Stepbrothers' Dale Doback, but this man is like a blessed angel sent from heaven to shine all over Jodie Foster’s perpetually grapefruity face. While Penelope is busy screeching about her out-of-print Kokoschka book that Nancy has vomited all over, ("There is no other one; it’s a reprint from the catalog of the 1957 show in London"), Michael is busy just playing the role of refined, adult goofball. "Is cobbler cake or pie? Why should pizza be a pie?" he asks, as a means to lighten the conversation. An interesting question, Michael! Perhaps the film's screenwriter (the same as the play — Yasmina Reza) could have added some more thought on that conundrum.

Instead, the decision was made to erode even Reilly’s character into a moral absurdity that looks weirder on him than the maroon merino wool V-neck sweater that he’s wearing. We find out that he’s somewhat of a nihilist. Does a man who refers to vomiting as "tossing your cookies" make for a convincing nihilist? Not exactly. The poor guy is afraid to touch his son's hamster (as he abandons the animal in the street) out of a severe psychological fear of rodents. I mean, come on.

The other adults — Nancy, Penelope, and Alan — are all decently acted, as well, but none really have the bite in them that I was looking for. Penelope is a pitiful drunk who turns into a puddle of tears and belligerence after two sips of scotch, while Nancy becomes less buttoned-up and more of a loud-mouthed aggressor who throws around slurs like "faggot" when she’s feeling feisty. Christoph Waltz, brilliantly cast as Alan, is a sinister and rude attorney who has yet to learn table manners. And though his character acting is brilliant, his constant barking into a blackberry (product placement) only begs the question of why his wife, an investment broker, is not as busy. She has nothing to damned do except sit around and wait to stage reconciliations between adolescent boys. And why the hell is her hair pulled back so tight?

Carnage gets most of its mileage by repeatedly pointing out Brooklyn mothers have no sense of humor. Penelope even reminds us, "I don’t have a sense of humor and I don't want one." Or maybe it’s just all mothers in general who don’t know how to laugh at things that are funny. Michael and Alan get to be leaders of gangs and Ivanhoe disciples, a contrast that strikes me as a little unfair and a lot outdated. It's also impossible to believe that pearl-wearing, fresh linens, and patent-heeled Nancy is actually a Brooklyn mother. That cerulean Pashmina scarf has never seen the light below 57th street.

Watching the claustrophobic Carnage, I was entertained by the novelty of the performances, contained as they are in a small space. By the end, I started to dislike it and was, more than anything, irritated by its existence. This represents an unfamiliar kind of betrayal for me because I usually sit through every movie quietly disliking it from the get-go unless it’s full of explosions or it gives me an opportunity to admire the overt dullness of Paul Walker.

The film concludes with a dramatic gesture from Nancy, who pulls the Henry Street tulips from their vase and smashes them all over the recently vomit-covered coffee table as she lazily mutters, "This is the worst day of my life." The blackberry buzzes, the screen fades to black, and within seconds, it fades back to a little orange hamster sniffing happily in the grass outside in the big, bad world. And boy, do we feel for that hamster. Free from the caricatures of New York City parenthood, there are no bounds to what you can do, little guy. Run with it.

Dayna Evans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Bangladesh. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She tumbls here.

He's Only One Man: Roman Polanski

Daniel D'Addario on Frantic

Kara VanderBijl on Tess

Alex Carnevale on Bitter Moon

Karina Wolf on Repulsion & Cul-de-sac

Polanski's Script

"Out Loud" - Kidstreet (mp3)

"Nineteen Ninety-Three" - Kidstreet (mp3)

"Penny Candy" - Kidstreet (mp3)

In Which We Ingratiate Ourselves to Quentin Tarantino

The Green Leaves of Summer

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The Third Reich is too large to be absorbed from any one angle. The Nazis were the darkest enemies of mankind, and it is hard to believe they even existed. The central Nazi in Inglorious Basterds is Col. Hans Landa, a captain in the SS who got the anecdotal slag of 'Jewhunter.' Young Jewish men everywhere, encouraged by the perpetual sneer on Col. Landa's mug, rumble with plans to destroy this villainous creature. Quentin Tarantino makes the other wet dream of every Jewish boy a reality.

Only the boy isn't really Jewish, he's a Gentile. Tarantino loves all sorts of people, all different types of  directors. He's also not exactly subtle about showing off his allegiance to each of them. Tarantino's uncircumsized ex-Baptist Aldo (Brad Pitt) is Errol Flynn part seventeen, a hunkering lout of virtue and good will towards men. He joins the 800+ filmic references in Basterds, from Footloose to Godard to DePalma to Kiarostami to Kubrick and around the world entire.

Tarantino is suggesting that the culture of the Jew should be expanded to include the plight of people of color, the plight of his own Italians, and the plight of blonde-haired "Jews" with blue eyes who believe they also to have something to fear. Quentin isn't the first wannabe Jew, everyone quakes in delight at being 'chosen.' Like the formality of an SS uniform, it allows us our darker pleasures.

Because the Gentile shares the aims of the Jews, wishes to become a Jew, Aldo's mixed fighting force of Basterds is the result. Tarantino lets his horror f-buddy Eli Roth star in the film along with Jews like Samm Levine and B.J. Novak, and to no one's surprise they are all pretty terrible. The Gentile members of the crew aren't much better. Tarantino's method of shooting demands excited, if not particularly-inspired performances from his actors. Even Goebbels is more gigglish, immature fop than serious obstacle.

As Hans Landa, the villain around which ethnicities oscillate, Christoph Waltz is the exception. He carries Inglorious Basterds through the total embodiment of evil, throttling a woman if the situation demands it, or simply suggesting he'd prefer milk over wine. Each is equally sinister. It is an ongoing surprise to us all that Earth contains these creatures who ruled the Gestapo and were the hardest of the orc-like men.

In contrast, the film sets up a would-be hero and dismisses him savagely. No one is safe from Tarantino's characteristic bloodshed, and once again that's eternally the point. Looking at any part of the Third Reich can be confusing, as with the dark side of an object viewed from the front. Can we really believe that another part of it isn't there?

This movie drew a considerable Jewish audience at a theater in Manhattan, but there is much to recommend for the Gentile in Inglorious Basterds as well. Really this film is for him, for no moral query about this period could be asked of a Jew. We know his answer. The question is posed to the Gentile; he must respond to the intractable Jewish question. Should hatred and fear be countered with even larger levels of violence, or shouldn't they? Is it wrong to take pleasure in killing the men who end the world?

It isn't, and once you get that under your hat, you're halfway towards grasping the particular psychology of Shosanna Dreyfus, which to my ear is a rather Gentile-sounding name. Handed a star-making role, our Jewess heroine is no Barbra Streisand, she isn't Rita Hayworth. She is an icy blonde who confines her hirsute relationship with her French African employee to chaste kisses.

In the film's climactic moment she invites a movie star into her quarters and gives over to him more than she would a mere fling. We require the Nazis to remind Gentiles of what they can become upon giving in to such disturbing moments. Without them, how would we measure how to stretch ourselves, how much we treasure human decency and love?

War is harsh, Tarantino writes. He makes it flashy and he casts Diane Kruger for throaty Uma Thurman laughs, but there is no suitable reaction to the violence that surrounds such frivolity. At more than one point more than 20 men die in mere seconds. This is real sacrifice, Tarantino says, what war takes from its soldiers: everything.

Why did America defeat the Nazis after resolving to ignore them? Our later certainty over our moral role in the fate of Europe's Jews flattens the real debate that occurred over whether this was America's war to be involved in. Many resolved that the United States would ignore the fractious bickering of European powers.

Inglorious Basterds takes place mostly in France when it was occupied, one of the more polite occupations in human history. The French people weren't alone in being cowed by the Nazis, but surrender often looks better with victory behind you. Watching the Nazi vermin walk among the high places of France is a test run for how they might have lived with dominion over the larger world. "I'll get a few paintings from the Louvre to spruce this place up!" Goebbels laughs.

When it came to it, a Nazi in hiding in this country could look like other men, blend into the fabric of the land and renounce the evil he served. Therefore the Basterds mark those they leave alive by carving a swastika above the brow, for a permanence that no longer exists in our world, where mad ideologies comfort each other on the internet.

Tarantino puts women in the center of his action. (His part of the Grindhouse double feature Death Proof is perhaps the most feminist film of the 2007 period.) He loves women, loves to watch them press and push through the stolid workings of men. He adored Uma Thurman's earthy sexuality, and he's equally eager to worship at the altar of French actress Melanie Laurent. This is my favorite scene with Laurent, where she prepares for her life as a beautiful but deadly destroyer of Nazi-kind:

She and Kruger operate as scale models of themselves in miniature. They do what needs to be done to further the aims of the Republic. In this way, they are like Jedis, or at least highly eroticized llamas.

There is nothing else like the abandon Tarantino shows in these moments. He is a fearless filmmaker, marking the treads between people like hands on the clock of history. He may mix metaphors worse than that, but each "chapter" — as the sections of the films announce themselves — is a beginning worthy of the masters he first saw when he worked as a clerk in a video store.

Since video stores are going out of business and will soon be relegated to the place where horse-drawn carriages and telegraphs await us, it is appropriate to credit them for making Mr. Tarantino, who can foist such evil on us with a knowing delight.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here.

"The Surrender" — Ennio Morricone (mp3)

"The Green Leaves of Summer" — Nick Perito (mp3)

"Tiger Tank" — Lalo Schifrin (mp3)

"Slaughter" — Billy Preston (mp3)