From The DVD Archives- "Fast Food Nation" & "Children of Men"

3-10-07

Nobody makes films like Richard Linklater. Nobody has the confidence to create real characters and just drop the camera into their lives without being slaves to plot and conventional narrative techniques. "Fast Food Nation" has so much to say, and it could have been scripted to manipulate the audience into believing a "message". Instead Linklater presents us with people who are just going about their ordinary lives and trying to do what they think is best. Which is life, and it's messy and sprawling and each day you are exposed to facts and ideas that you can choose to ignore or act upon.

Which isn't to say that "Fast Food Nation" doesn't have a message. Of course it does, but it's offered on the screen in such a way that you can believe it or not. There's no sledgehammer here (such as Oscar winning films like "Crash" and "In The Bedroom"), and I can't help but think of what one of the characters (played in a cameo by Bruce Willis) says: “Most people don’t like to be told what’s best for them.” Nobody likes a lecture, not even college students who sit in a hall with notebooks and pens. Didactic rants, even ones that could be good for you, will always fade from your memory when something more entertaining comes along. Of course that same character also said that “everybody has to eat a little shit”.

Although it isn't perfect, it's interesting and unique and I really think we're lucky that somebody like Richard Linklater is giving us these kinds of films. Honestly, how many directors could have pulled this off? The book, which I'd like to read but haven't yet, was a best selling eye opener to the food industry. It's non-fiction and laden with facts, the kind of material that would normally only exist on paper, or possibly lend itself to a documentary. But the book was adapted for fiction by the author Eric Schlosser and Linklater . . . with the sole emphasis on character. It's one thing to explain how human beings have been tossed into a meat grinder because of an indifferent society and corporate greed. But it will resonate more if you show it, as Linklater has, through the every day lives we all lead.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460792/

03-29-07

Just having watched "Children Of Men", the only complaint I have is that I did not see it on the big screen. Because once the bleak view of the future and the violent images fade, you are left with the feeling that you were treated to an amazing cinematic experience. Compelling story, strong characters, and visual acumen that is rarely achieved, "Children Of Men" is a film that will lodge itself into your brain for a long time to come.But it's not easy viewing . . . it's terror and fear and war and you can feel the bullets whizzing your ears. Some people might refer to Alfonso Cuarón's as trying to achieve a documentary style. I think that is wrong. With his long takes and camera movements and saturation of detail, Cuarón truly puts you in the film. Just like the recent works of Linklater ("Fast Food Nation") and Fincher ("Zodiac"), "Children Of Men" breaks the wall and transforms you from spectator to participant.

I’ve heard some people criticizing the film for being too much a political statement of the current war in Iraq. Hearing such comments are extremely disappointing. What the director has done is just held up a mirror and shown how brutally violent and insipid all war is. The text and subtext of the film also deals with immigration, world over popularization, and the environment. These are human issues, not political issues.The World is going to shit, and elephants and donkeys and red and blue states aren't going to save it. Individuals, acting with integrity, are our only hope.We need more films like “Children of Men” to remind us of this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/