The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Just when it increasingly appears the wells of Hollywood's creativity have dried up, continually resorting to reworking tired cinematic and narrative clichés, films like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button emerge to unexpectedly rekindle faith in the industry. Intriguing enough by its mere storyline core (a man is born a senior citizen, and 'ages' backwards throughout his life), what could have resulted in an overly gimmicky excuse for a melodrama is seemingly effortlessly transformed by the delicate directorial touch of David Fincher into something far less contentious and volumes more poignant and lyrical. A haunting, resonant exploration of time, life, death and the transition from one to the other, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button miraculously manages to be sombre and emotionally draining without once becoming excessively dour, with sublime bits of charm, humour and hope peppering the profundity and making it a true cinematic experience for the ages.

To call The Curious Case of Benjamin Button close to a contemporary masterpiece would hardly be overstating things, and yet such praise feels out of place, not because the film is not deserving of it (far from it) but that it makes no claims as to aiming for such heights - were it not for the enormous budget and stars, the film could easily have been a small, independent production. Few films prove so enormously ambitious and yet ultimately unassuming, with such vast scopes, and yet such simple aims all things considered, and Fincher toes the line between the grand and the intimate with remarkable precision. Moreover, it is interesting to see perennial cynic Fincher tap into such unbridled emotional resonance (the film is unlikely to leave a single dry eye in the house), and yet such moments are pure sentiment trimmed of all sap and Hollywood tear-jerking cliché, making them all the more gently genuine and lasting. If his past films such as Fight Club and Seven appeared to be expunging hidden depths of suppressed rage and bitterness, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button appears an attempt to tap into more tender feelings, and the result is in no way less magnificent.

While on very first impression the film might be sized up as overlong, rambling and full of extraneous subplots, over time it becomes increasingly clear the film's intent is not merely to tell the story of Button, but, to the best of Fincher's considerable ability, to live alongside him, complete with all the highs, lows, and little bits in between. This not only provides incredible empathy and pathos for Button's unconventional situation, but allows the story through the character to extrapolate and explore deeper existential themes, reflecting upon the notions of time and its fleeting potential, the overlap of life and death and the importance of living life to the fullest regardless of adversity. While it can be argued that despite this the script still has the occasional clunky bit of exposition, with storytelling so operatic yet paradoxically quiet and unassuming, such concerns only register as rare minute breaches in the film's incredible quality.

Fincher's flair for stunning visuals also carries through in fully force, from the luscious period costuming and sets to the bold visual contrast between the exhilarating (a tense second world war sea battle) to the amusing (boyhood/elderly man Benjamin discovering alcohol) to the heartbreakingly dramatic (Benjamin's quietly horrified meeting with his father) and the seamless flow between them. Alexandre Desplat's luminous musical score and Claudio Miranda's grandiose cinematography ably reinforce the lyrical content. This all, of course goes without even mentioning the film's most central hook, the visual effects and prosthetic 'reverse aging' effects. At first startlingly convincing, the greatest testament to the incredible visual talent on display is how near immediately the viewer forgets about it, remaining so engrossed in Button's bizarre story to extract one's self from the narrative enough to properly appraise the incredible work put into it - a sign, if any, of masterful film-making.

As the titular Button, Brad Pitt is simply a marvel, delivering a performance which is quiet, ego-less, unshowy and all the more supremely effective and credible for it, perfectly convincing no matter what age or contrasting physical appearance. Infusing unassuming heart and unspoken pathos into a character stoically resigned to 'unusual' circumstances rather than milking them for all their emotional worth, Pitt's Benjamin Button becomes an unforgettable underdog for the ages, all the more effective from Pitt's continual refusal to adhere to cliché or Hollywood showboating. Cate Blanchett proves just as marvellous, also essaying a character over the course of over 70 years of her life and proving completely convincing and heartwarming every step of the way while delivering a tremendously emotional performance with the utmost precision and grounded care. Rather than delivering a typical female romantic lead type, Blanchett's Daisy is a fleshed out, enormously credible human being, making her romantic struggle with Button all the more achingly affecting. Supporting the lead duo and their simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking relationship, Taraji P. Henson gives an enormously powerful yet understated performance as Button's surrogate orphanage mother, and Jason Flemyng proves a perfect combination of quirky and hauntingly credible as Button's estranged father. Finally, Tilda Swinton delivers a performance layered with emotional volumes and nuance as a fleeting romantic interest of Button's, managing to both capture the audience's heart and contempt simultaneously.

Despite demanding nearly three hours of the viewer's life, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button makes every last second more than worth it, its power and incredibly uniform quality made all the more appealing by its lack of pretension and vehement avoidance of cliché. While the story or length may not appeal to every last audience member, it is all the more of a shame, as such unanticipated cinematic mastery deserves to be enjoyed and reflected upon by as many as possible.

Se7en

Se7en is a very complex and deep movie, while also being quite disturbing. Andrew Kevin Walker created one of the most original spec screenplays of all time, but it is the kind of story traditionally used more as a writing sample than actually made into a movie. But the creative team of director David Fincher believed in this extremely dark, uncompromising story, and made it just the way Walker wrote it.

The story revolves around two extremely well-drawn characters, David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman). In one sense their relationship is the ultimate cliché -- the old veteran cop paired up with the brash rookie (though Mills is not actually a rookie, just new to the unnamed city where the movie takes place). But the contrast between these two characters is played out not for laughs or cheap drama but as the real working out of a moral question. Somerset, the lonely, cynical older detective, cares about people but has seen too much of the dark side of life to have much hope for society. Mills is not as intelligent as Somerset (kudos to Pitt for being willing to play a character that frequently looks foolish), and he lives by a simplistic belief in the power of law enforcement to change the world.

Throughout the movie, the two characters struggle with this conflict -- is human society basically rotten, and can one person do anything to make a difference? Somerset, an intelligent, well-read man, is smart enough to recognize the truth, however painful that is. Mills is the kind of person who has never truly questioned the simple "values" he was raised with. Somerset tries to educate him, tries to warn him, but ultimately fails.

In the end, it is only John Doe, the serial killer, who can teach Mills (and by extension the audience) the truth -- that this world is very often shockingly vicious and senselessly cruel. Doe and Somerset actually have similar views of society and the world, up to a point. But while Somerset still cares about his fellow human beings, Doe hates them, and takes out his rage in a series of gruesome murders based on the seven deadly sins.

This movie is about the investigation Mills and Somerset undertake of Doe's murders, his "sermon" to the world through serial killing. Ultimately, Mills and Somerset can only do so much to try to stop Doe; the killer always seems at least one step ahead of them, and stays that way until the very end of the movie. In a normal Hollywood film, Mills and Somerset would "win" in the end by catching Doe and setting the world right again. But Andy Walker had a quite different ending in mind, and Fincher and his team take the shocking conclusion all the way to the limit of tension and drama.

This movie, like Fincher's "Fight Club," was controversial for being violent and gruesome. Certainly there are a number of gruesome and disturbing images of murder victims' bodies, and many aspects of the story are very troubling, to say the least. But only one person is shown being killed on screen, and by far the worst of what happens in this story happens in the viewer's imagination. Unlike most films that have high levels of violence -- including, for example, Reservoir Dogs or Silence of the Lambs -- this movie genuinely attempts to grapple with the moral implications of what is being shown on screen. In direct contrast with, say Quentin Tarantino, who uses extreme violence for shock effect and to gain notoriety, Fincher actually shows less violence on screen and raises far more probing moral questions in the viewer's mind. I cannot think of any movie that contains as much genuine debate and discussion among the characters about crime and human morality as this one does -- while never becoming dull or preachy for a moment.

I cannot finish this review without a word about Mr. Fincher's extraordinary visual talents. This is a man who ranks with the top handful of directors of all time in his knowledge and grasp of film-making technique. Everything from set design to lighting, selection of film stock and processing techniques, camera movement, frame composition, and editing work together to create an entirely new level of visual brilliance. Fincher's use of technique brings to mind nothing more than the work of Steven Spielberg in the 1970s, the last time a director this extraordinary burst onto the Hollywood scene. A whole generation has passed since then, and there is a new wave of techniques and tools available to the filmmaker of the nineties. Fincher uses every one of these tools to their utmost. The technical work and supporting actors are uniformly superb. This is a movie that works on every level. Andy Walker, having written a mind-blowing screenplay, must have been stunned when he saw the finished film. This movie will rock you to the core.

Fight Club

Undeniably one of the best films of the tremendous cinematic year that was 1999, David Fincher's Fight Club is a cultural landmark. Chuck Palahniuk's acerbic first novel (and still the best the 5 of his books that I've read) is visualized with Fincher's stylistic creativity and the result is a modern classic.

Edward Norton plays a white collar stiff, whose life is so nondescript that he is known only as The Narrator. He acknowledges that he is mired in shallow consumerism; a slave to the "IKEA nesting instinct." He is also an insomniac and can only find catharsis and sleep after sitting in on 12-step program meetings for dying people. This strategy fails, however, when Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) pulls the same stunt and ruins the reality that he has found. After an explosion that destroys the narrator's apartment, he moves in with soap salesmen and revolutionary Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Together, they start an underground society in which men reject civilization and unleash their primal urges upon each other.

Fight Club is often described as anti-consumerism or anti-establishment. There are, however, two less talked about ideas that I take away from it. The first is the conflict between biology and society. Sitting on a bus, the protagonists see a rather gaudy advertisement for Gucci underwear. Durden asks derisively, "Is that what a man looks like?" I would argue that it is the insidious nature of the consumer culture, that it actually emasculates men by tapping into their male drives. It is the natural role of the male to be the hunter/gatherer, so buying things has become the modern incarnation of this. Another example of this interplay occurs when the narrator described how his father would leave his family to start a new one every six years. "Setting up franchises," says Durden. Interestingly, the behavior described here does approximate the behavior of human males, pre-civilization. The short average duration of modern marriages suggests the hard-wired nature of this behavior. The fight club, however, is an outright rejection of modern society, in which men revel in short bouts of non-lethal violence, perhaps as they were meant to. When these urges are bottled up, it may not be too much of a stretch to suggest that the result can be wars and genocide.

There are also, I believe, religious implications to the fight club and to Project Mayhem. Tyler Durden's philosophy seems to be part anarchism and part determinism, behaviorism and materialism (in the metaphysical sense; certainly not in the consumerist sense). He is about three parts B.F. Skinner and one part Henry David Thoreau. It is those facets of Skinner-type philosophy that are of the most interest to me and that Durden espouses most fervently. Like any good materialist, he utterly rejects the notion that human beings have any special worth. He extols to his followers: "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else... We are all part of the same compost heap." Yet ironically, in supposedly freeing his followers from consumerism, he makes them slaves to his own purposes. They are shaved to become like the oft-mentioned sacrificial "space monkeys." They are removed of their names (this has a very anti-Christian feel to, since the having of and giving of names by humans is considered an important gift from God among the most meticulous followers of that religion). "Sooner or later we all became what Tyler wanted us to be," says the narrator. Durden also expropriates the idea of 'hitting bottom' as the beginning of salvation (the 12-step program is a fundamentally religious construct), further casting him as a sort of Anti-Christian. B.F. Skinner suggested that understanding the science of human behavior was the key to controlling that behavior benevolently. Similarly, Durden exerts control over his followers for what he believes are good ends. Whatever the merits of those ends, there is no doubt that Tyler, in some ways, becomes very much like the corporate fascists he despises.

Finally, Fight Club is a definitively 'male' movie. This is neither good nor bad, but it is undeniable. The character of Marla is entertaining, but almost entirely defined by her relationship to the two male protagonists. The picture would have almost worked without her. The idea of castration is presented as a deeply held male fear and is used skillfully throughout the movie. If we can take one thing away from this film, it would be the danger of denying the difference in biology between males and females. Males have a need for some level of violence and it is important that we have acceptable outlets for it. Conversely, it is interesting to take note of some of the ways in which society attempts to homogenize the sexes. Take the idea of "paternity leave" for new fathers - it's great in theory and it should certainly be an option, but I can almost guarantee that it will never become the norm, because it is a practice that is just so contrary to our deeply ingrained biological drives. To deny this is the height of naivety and will do no one any good.

Overall, Fight Club makes my top 10 list for superb acting (especially by Norton, the best American actor of his generation), great humor and satire and its excellent script, thanks largely to the excellent source material. To conclude, I'll quote the deterministic, yet strangely comforting words of Chuck Palahniuk, from near the end of Fight Club (the book): "We are not special. We are not crap or trash either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens."