Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Following My Basic Cinematic Instincts

Tags: Criticism, Sweeney Todd, Close-Ups, Musicals, Dexter

As I’ve been telling people a lot lately, I’ve discovered a sort of “test” that I use when trying to decide how I feel about a film: I casually glance back at the film at a later date.

Huh?

Sounds obvious, right? Well, maybe. Here’s the thing: walking out of the theater, I’m tempted to overreact, positively or negatively, because I’ve just finished experiencing a film. But when I speak about “casually glancing back,” that’s what I mean. I don’t mean sitting down and thinking, “Hmm, how much did I actually enjoy There Will Be Blood?” or “Is No Country For Old Men really that great of a film?” “Casually glancing back” is simple, but very telling. I simply place the thought of a film in my head, and the very first thought that pops into my head—that’s how I feel about the film.

I’ve noticed that I can talk myself in to liking or hating pretty much any film; I can justify it any way I like. But that subconscious reaction that pops up when I’m off-guard—it’s much more difficult for me to fool my subconscious.

For example, I was really looking forward to Pan’s Labyrinth. I heard nothing but fantastic things about the film, so when it finally opened in Dallas, my girlfriend and I didn’t miss it. Walking out of the theater, conflict overtook me; I wasn’t quite sure what to think. The hesitant, negative thoughts on the film were pushed back in favor of only the positive things that I saw; apparently I took the ending to Life of Brian to heart (“Always look on the bright side of a film…”). I started saying to myself, “Yeah, I really liked the faun, and the girl was very good. That last shot was really great…” Sure, I guess I did like this movie, it was very good. But what happens when I “casually glance back,”—what pops into my head without me realizing it? “Disappointing.” “Eh.” Words like that. When I stop fooling myself, I realize that I was sorely let down by Guillermo’s film.

A little while back, I wrote a post about how I was unsure if I should trust my feelings right after seeing a film—even days after. I’m still of the viewpoint that my most accurate opinion of a film is the one I have after being years removed from it. But in the meantime, I feel like this new approach (new to me, that is) is a little more foolproof in the sense that it tries to bypass my emotions and biases by tapping into my subconscious.

What brought on this “revelation?” Sweeney Todd, back in December. I came out out of the theater that night telling myself, “I guess that was pretty good.” The next day, my brother asked me what I thought of it, and I said “It was good, I liked it.” But—you guessed it—I discovered that that’s not how I really felt. When I start getting honest, I realize that Sweeney Todd let me down. I’m not really sure why people raved about it so much. Oh, sure it’s not a bad film, no. But I mean, a “near-perfect musical?” “Tim Burton’s best?” “One of the ten best films of 2007?” I have to take issue with all of these assessments. I don’t have the initiative to write a full-scale review on Sweeney Todd right now, but for starters, some of the sound mixing was off (Helena Bonham Carter’s first song), the singing wasn’t that great to begin with, and the cheesy music seemed stood in stark contrast to the film’s dark atmosphere. But what really bothered me was how “weightless” the film felt. The characters…had no weight. The story…had no weight. The way-too-bright blood…had no weight (I’m positive the blood was a stylistic choice, but it looked more like paint than blood, and that really bothered me).

All these thoughts seem like an awful lot to keep bottled up, don’t they? To be in denial of?

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I recently started watching a show about another demonic, unlikely murderer: Showtime’s Dexter. Some of my beef with Sweeney Todd is that it’s not brutal enough to be taken seriously yet it doesn’t have enough fun with itself for me to enjoy it; I guess the concept of a barber that kills people isn’t amusing enough for me. Dexter, on the other hand, from the couple of episodes that I’ve seen so far, seems to know how to handle itself. The “protagonist” is a forensics blood splatter expert by day and a calculated serial killer at night. The show is serious and sometimes brutal, but it’s unafraid to make light of the situation—Dexter admires the techniques of the murderers he tries to track down, and we laugh when people compliment him on how solid and “good” of a man he is.

I saw the first two episode on Netflix, online. The pilot one didn’t have a title sequence, but the second one did, and boy was I impressed. It perfectly captures the show’s ability to be dark yet playful at the same moment. In it, we see Dexter going through his morning routine, but because of the cinematography, every innocent little activity seems gruesome and dangerous. As I’ve confessed before, I’m a sucker for good close-ups, and the Dexter title sequence uses them to near-perfection:

It serves as the perfect way to say, “He may be a disturbed serial killer, but he’s really just a regular guy.” I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be comforted by that or not. But I do know how I feel about it.