Savages: Drug Problem

Savages

Directed By: Oliver Stone

Written By: Oliver Stone, Don Winslow, and Shane Salerno, based on a novel by Winslow

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta, Salma Hayek, Demian Bichir, and Emile Hirsch

Director of Photography: Dan Mindel, Editors: Joe Hutshing, Sturart Levy, and Alex Marquez, Production Designer: Tomas Voth, Original Music: Adam Peters

            Oliver Stone’s cinematic sensibilities are equivalent to a sledgehammer to the face—Subtlety is not his forte. His camera is constantly moving, changing shades of colors and hues, flashing between them, and his soundtrack filled with a mix of rock and roll as well as intense classical, all to pummel you into submission. When Stone goes off the rails, most notably in films like JFK and Nixon, it brings you into the paranoia and intensity of the characters he focuses on. When he pulls it back, even just a little bit, it reveals the shallowness of his filmmaking. Wall Street and Platoon have not aged well to say the least, and dear goodness let’s not remember World Trade Center, which turned 9/11 into a Lifetime movie.

            So perhaps we should be happy that in Savages, Stone has returned to the intense filmmaking that has made him an auteur (Would he be Expressive Esoterica or Strained Seriousness?). Or perhaps not. Based on a Don Winslow novel, Savages is a drug movie, which could be a good ol’ summer shoot-em-up if it wasn’t for Stone’s operatic sensibilities. It begins with a draining voiceover by Blake Lively, whose name is Ophelia but goes by the name O (The other Hamlet reference is all the dead bodies). She explains that she’s the lover of Chon and Ben, who provide Laguna Beach with the world’s finest marijuana (“The THC levels are 33%” they exclaim, which means nothing to this non-smoker). O uses a little of each for both—Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the brawny, military man who has “wargasms,” while Ben (Aaron Johnson) is the hippie free spirit who wants to help the world with $10 laptops and solar panels when he’s not getting rich.

Miss Bala: A Pretty Face Joins An Ugly War

Miss Bala

Directed By: Gerardo Naranjo

Written By: Gerardo Naranjo and Mauricio Katz

Starring:  Stephanie Sigman and Noe Hernandez

Director of Photography: Matyas Erdely, Editor: Gerardo Naranjo, Art Direction: Ivonne Fuentes, Original Music: Emilio Kauderer

Rated: R for bloody, truthful violence.

There’s a strong dynamic between two very different worlds at the heart of Miss Bala, a Mexican crime saga from director Gerardo Naranjo. Laura, a young woman who has been forced to help a powerful drug lord, watches as a DEA agent is run over, dragged through the street, and hung over a highway, his corpse bloodied and barely hanging together. The drug lords then take her to a fixed beauty pageant, where the bright lights practically blind her, the atmosphere of the event promoting youth, beauty, and love.

This clash of universes, and the fallacy between them, centers the powerfully shot but somewhat hollow drama, which made a splash on the festival circuit last year.Naranjo made some headlines in 2008 with I’m Gonna Explode, a unique exploration of youth and class with the powerful energy adapted from Godard’s Pierret Le Fou (full disclosure; I worked on the subtitles for I’m Gonna Explode while interning for IFC Films). Here, Naranjo is in somewhat stripping down the crime thriller to its essentials—the Italian mafia film Gomorrah might be this film’s distant cousin—though it indulges with its cinematic excess. The outcome is a somewhat mixed result that may interest audiences with its bizarre but true story of a beauty queen involved in the drug war, but rarely finds a way to outlive its genre ties and speak candidly about the issues it raises.

New York Film Festival: Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala

Miss Bala

A Film By Gerardo Naranjo

Mexico

            The clash of situations is at the heart of Miss Bala, a Mexican crime saga from director Gerardo Naranjo. Laura, a young woman who has been forced to help a powerful drug lord, watches as a DEA agent is run over, dragged through the street, and hung over a highway. The drug lords then take her to a fixed beauty pageant, where the bright lights practically blind her and the atmosphere promises youth, beauty, and love, which couldn’t clash more with the men controlling her lives.

            But clash is also one of the fatal flaws of this gorgeously shot but somewhat hollow film. Mr. Naranjo made a huge splash at the New York Film Festival in 2008 with I’m Gonna Explode, a unique exploration of youth and class with the powerful energy adapted from Godard’s Pierret Le Fou. Here, Mr. Naranjo is in somewhat stripping down the crime thriller to its essentials—another NYFF hit, Gomorrah, might be this film’s distant cousin—though it indulges through its camera. The outcome is a somewhat mixed result that may interest audiences with its bizarre but true story of a beauty queen involved in the drug war, but rarely finds a uniquely statement on the terrible situation.