Worlds of Wonder

by
Thor
Klippert

The minute I heard Peter Jackson was directing The Lord of the Rings, I knew it would be great. Along with Joe Dante, Jackson remains one of the few directors whose name alone can get me in the theatre. Perhaps it's because he's clearly a movie lover of the first order - not merely a fan or an academic, but an artist who understands and accepts the value and power of stylized entertainment, and knows how to maintain authentic emotion amid artifice.

One of the dominant emotions in The Fellowship of the Ring is the helplessness various characters feel when tempted by power. For the most part, these are not bad people, but they're not perfect either, and the unnatural attraction of the Ring brings out the darkness already in them. Ian Holm (as Bilbo Baggins) has perhaps the strongest moment in the film when, midway through, he encounters his "precious" once again, and reacts for all the world like a recovering drug addict.

I can't imagine anyone but Holm doing what he accomplishes here, but then the entire cast seem made for their roles - Christopher Lee's pitch-black voice as the wizard Saruman; John Rhys-Davies' earthy bravado as the dwarf Gimli; and I'd swear that Liv Tyler lent her SAG card to an actual elf. Only when Cate Blanchett appeared, late in the film, as an Elven queen, did I have the reaction, "Oh look, there's a famous movie star with funny ears on," and that was probably unavoidable given the static and expository nature of her scenes.

The prologue, summarizing the events of The Hobbit and the backstory of the Ring with flashbacks and voice-over narration, is similarly conventional. The main body of the film, though, is seldom less than gripping, and even those who only respect Jackson's films for their creative bloodletting will get their money's worth.

Playing in considerably fewer theatres nationwide (if any at all by this point) is the European production Tuvalu. I employ the vagary "European" because the ratio of nationalities involved (German director, French lead actor, Bavarian lead actress, Bulgarian location) make that necessary, but I think the filmmakers would be flattered by this. Tuvalu is very consciously a universal entertainment, with minmal dialogue and a mise-en-scène that tells us everything we really need to know without the need for subtitles. It has been compared (by those few who have reviewed it) to a silent film - probably because of its use of tinted monochrome photography and its circus-clown heritage - my take is that if David Lynch and Guy Maddin collaborated on a movie it might turn out something like this.

The story, by Michaela Beck and director Veit Helmer, is charmingly simple. A public bath, the last old-fashioned building in an industrial wasteland, is threatened with demolition. It is clear that the building's survival thus far has been due largely to oversight (the bath's few impoverished patrons pay with buttons rather than coins, and the lifeguard is blind) and that it is up to the resourceful handyman (Denis Lavant) to find a way to make things work out. Enter the girl, (a captivating newcomer named Chulpan Khamatova) who has an agenda of her own, and matches our hero in creativity and determination. The legacies of Keaton and Lloyd abound.

Do try and see this in a theatre if you can. It may seem old-fashioned, but like those old silents, it was made for the big screen - the wide screen in this case. Happy hunting!

©2001 Thor Klippert
CineScene