Matrix Resurrections and The French Dispatch

 Some more little thoughts...

The Matrix Resurrections

Lana Wachowski continues to be the most interesting blockbuster filmmaker of the century, bringing back arguably the most visually impressive action franchise in history with an instalment that…has kind of weak action and doesn’t look that good. Genius! Honestly this doesn’t look or move that much worse than most other contemporary blockbusters and there’s definitely intentionality to the choices, but what is the point of a Matrix movie that cant distinguish itself visually.

Dumb question; this series has always been jam packed with ideas about who we are and how we live in a world that increasingly seems designed to isolate and commodify us, with each successive instalment interrogating the previous entry and trying to find some new truth, something that the matrix cant take away from us. In Resurrections Wachowski continues to drill down into the core of the series premise, fully aware that 20 years on the original films have been assimilated, commodified and weaponised by the very system they are trying to critique, and looking for something, anything, that can be used as the foundation for a better life, a better world.

The movie’s search for, and ultimately celebration of, genuine human love and connection is so honest and cringy and sincere and wonderful, and the chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann-Moss is so charming and electric, that the lack of cool gunfights or, at times, intelligible plotting begin to feel less like shortcomings and more like essential elements to Wachowski’s world view. This film has all the heart and wit, personality and idiosyncrasy, integrity and empathy, that’s missing from other action tentpoles, and as such it shines so much brighter.       


The French Dispatch

Effectively and touchingly argues for its own existence, the necessity of frivolous, artsy, humanist nonsense that might not be financially acceptable in todays world, but leaves it that much dimmer in its absence. I honestly cant understand getting mad at Wes’ style; the way he choreographs his production design, moving props, actors, camera, the set itself, is thrilling. This doesn’t get at the heart in the way Anderson’s very best does, but it’s so funny and sweet and packed with such a variety of deadpan performances, who could be mad. Anyone who cant see the humanity running through all the twee affectations and accoutrement is missing the wood for the trees.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uncut Gems review

Uncut Gems made my top ten of 2019 list which was a little surprising as I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as I had been led to believe I would. It’s a testament to the films greatness then that I still do think of it as great, the best example yet of Josh and Benny Safdie’s take on the slimy, sketchy, pulse raising underbelly of New York. The film thrusts us into the sparkling hurricane of a life of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a diamond district adrenaline addict who gets his fix by making a series of increasingly ludicrous and high stakes bets, hedges and parlays. To be honest that might not be the exact right terminology, but the movie isn’t really concerned with the technicalities either, hand waving the jargon and giving Howard a clear sequence of tasks to complete no matter how convoluted the specifics.       This is the movies great trick, to create a sense of whirling, fast paced chaos whilst never letting the audience lose sight of what need...
Read more

Little Women review

Greta Gerwig has been on the promotional trail in the last few weeks talking about her second solo feature, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s landmark 1868 novel Little Women. I would encourage listening to as many of her interviews as possible, the longer the better, as they provide the best insight as to how and why her sophomore effort is as magnificent as it is. Interviews with filmmakers are often not as interesting or insightful as you want them to be, with many giving vague or over rehearsed answers to questions they’ve heard hundreds of times before; this is not the case with Gerwig. She has been passionate, generous and articulate in describing her relationship with the novel and the various choices she made in adapting it. She can provide in depth reasoning for every narrative and filmmaking decision, displaying an intelligence that makes her ascension as one of Hollywood’s top talents seem retroactively inevitable and totally deserved. The film she has made refl...
Read more

The Northman

  Everything about The Northman is supersized: the muscles, the action, the budget, and for filmmaker Robert Eggers, the stakes. The Norse epic represents a significant step up onto the worlds stage for a director previously responsible for niche little indie genre flicks, decent hits in and of themselves, but free of the expectations a near $100 million budget will bring. The last ten years have seen many indie breakouts like Eggers suddenly catapulted to box office juggernaut status off the back of just one or two films (Colin Trevorrow, Taika Waititi, Etc) and almost all have lost their creative soul in the process, delivering branded content (TM) studio noted to unintelligible blandness. The supersized risk of The Northman lies in how much it feels like an Eggers film, only bigger. An Eggers film, for those uninitiated, means a semi-mythic period piece dripping with exhaustively researched historical detail, down to the tiniest, grimiest piece of fastidious production desig...
Read more