Interlude: Zacharek Zingers

You may hear today that Stephanie Zacharek, the chief film critic for Movieline, will be let go from her position July 13th. It's of course the latest in a string of critics losing their positions. I often disagreed with Zacharek, but she was a damn good critic. Her post on The Artist during the Slate Movie Club is easily the most interesting defense of that film I read during the film's inevitable Oscar run. To honor what is an idiotic movie, I dug through some of her work at Movieline and found some of my favorite lines. Editors, take note:

"If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing." -Inception (July 14th, 2010)
 

"The picture has a pale, worn-out look, as if the blood is being drained from it even as we watch – like the characters who populate it, it looks ready for some kind of rejuvenation that may never come." -Post Mortem (April 11th, 2012)

"As the end credits of this last dour Swedish snooze-a-thon started rolling, I clapped my notebook shut as if it were the last day of school. Huzzah! Bring on David Fincher. Please." -The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (October 28th, 2010)

"His body is gangly and puppet-like in that preadolescent way, but every movement is resolute: When he chases after the various kids who, repeatedly, try to steal his precious bike, he throws off sparks of grim determination, like a single-minded marathon runner. Maybe, in the end, he outruns the movie." -The Kid With A Bike (May 15th, 2011)

"Reichardt and her cinematographer, Chris Blauvelt, allow the weather, the time of day, and the landscape, as it shifts little by little beneath the settlers' feet, to determine the movie's color palette: One minute we see strata of sky, clouds and scrubby land rendered in dry, parched tones; the next we're transported into an early-evening fever dream of unreal-looking purples and blues right out of a Maxfield Parrish painting." -Meek's Cutoff (April 7th, 2011)

"When Katz shows the four playing a board time, they're clearly having a great time, and not ironically -- Katz gives us the sense that he cares for his characters, as opposed to just using them as mouthpieces for the discontent of his generation." -Cold Weather (February 4th, 2011)

"Not since Antichrist has a man suffered so greatly at the tiny, grabby hands of God's creatures." -Fury Vengeance (April 28th, 2010)

Post Mortem: Living Among the Dead

Post Mortem

Written Directed By: Pablo Larraín

Starring: Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Amparo Noguera, and Jaime Vadell

Director of Photography: Sergio Armstrong, Editor: Andrea Chingnoli, Production Designer: Polin Garbizu, Original Music: Joan Cristobal Meza

            The first few sequences of Post Mortem from Chilean director Pablo Larraín immediately invite us into a cryptic world that controls us from the opening shot. We follow Mario, a middle-aged, very quiet and very repressed man, as he stands inside his home. Looking out his window, he spies on his neighbor, a beautiful woman with a boisterous and revealing posture. He follows her to a burlesque show, and then down into the lair underneath the stage to where she lays, where he overhears some dialogue that suggests she may also be a prostitute. He asks if he can drive her home, which she accepts. Why does he do this? Larraín’s camera remains almost still, with composed and exacting shots that keep us focused without revealing any sort of inner detail.

            In many ways, I wished that the rest of Post Mortem would then fill in those details, which ends up being a very puzzling film that mixes the psychological and political. I missed Larraín’s first film, Tony Manero, which followed a killer who dressed up as the Travolta character from Saturday Night Fever. And Post Mortem has a lot to say about Chilean psychology and history, though perhaps it is more aimed at audiences who know more about the uprising that led to Pinochet’s violent and brutal dictatorship. But for audiences (like myself) who go in blind, Larraín certainly has a very unique voice that makes Post Mortem still an interesting look into this confusing and devastating world.