Movie Review: The Last Station

This week I took a ride to Russia by way of England. Not literally of course, travel frightens and confuses me. I got a chance to see The Last Station, which opens at Film Streams this weekend. I know you can't rush out and see it right away after reading this, but hopefully this will wet your whistle for a bit of British biography (of a Russian dude).

War and Preach
Tolstoy’s tale is told by way of the Themes

Writer/director Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station, based on the novel by Jay Parini, is likely as engaging a movie as can be made about a battle over Russian copyright ownership. Every bit as visually exhilarating as it sounds, the entirely non-Russkie cast deploys British accents and relentless grimacing to bombastic melodramatic effect. The air of importance is more preached than earned, but if you freely opt to watch a dramatization of Leo Tolstoy’s last year, you’re likely inclined to buy what’s being sold.

As if resigned to please the eyes as little as possible, the film opens with terse text presented in the least offensive type font imaginable. We’re told that Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is a pretty big deal, having inspired a worldwide Tolstoyan movement centered on passive resistance and other harmonious ideals. His wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), loves him as much as she loathes Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), a leader of the movement and insensitive douche.

Chertkov entrusts the committed Tolstoyan Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy) to live at the family estate and to keep tabs on the manic Sofya in order to ensure that she doesn’t interfere with Chertkov’s plans to wrest control of the copyrights to Tolstoy’s writings. Sofya rather reasonably wants the rights to provide for the 13 children she bore ole Leo and attempts to persuade Valentin to sympathize. When he isn’t busy being conflicted about who’s right about the rights, Valetin is busy gettin’ his swerve on with Masha (Kerry Condon), a fellow devotee. The juxtaposition of the young couple discovering love and the elderly duo struggling to hang on to it plays out against a climactic signing of a piece of paper.

Obviously, what’s on display here isn’t derived from plot or eye candy, but top-notch acting from all involved. Although Mirren and Plummer sport the same screen time, Plummer earned a Best Supporting Oscar nod whereas Mirren earned a Best Actress nom, likely because she’s Helen freakin’ Mirren. Plummer is at his scraggly-bearded best, while Mirren mostly chews scenery because she’s earned that right. In reality, it’s McAvoy that holds the film together, as his transformation from wide-eyed idealist to slightly downtrodden realist is as close as the film comes to a significant development.

Surprisingly funny at times and never boring (or enthralling), this well-acted endeavor creates a desire to seek more about Tolstoy. Now, if it had both created and satisfied said desire, The Last Station would have been first rate.

Grade = B

Movie Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Hey there bloggies! I'm 99% sure we had a weekend, I'm just not sure I remember it. Why, it seems like only yesterday that I was sitting here, typing you a feverish missive. One thing I know I did this weekend was check out The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I loved it. It was one of those reviews where I sat down thinking it was good but not great and then concluded it was great not good. Another note: When compiling our weekly report card, I couldn't help but notice that the grades were pretty high right now...then I remembered the season we're in. Right now, we're getting all of the good stuff that had been leisurely parcelled out elsewhere, which is yet another reason why I justify waiting until January of 2010 to do the best of 2009 here in Omaha. Anyhoo, just another movie to mention in that same conversation, as I've once more doled out an A. Ebert said this was one great year...he wasn't wrong, not by a long shot.

Morality Playtime
Do not pass on Parnassus

Terry Gilliam is cilantro.

Those who love him, covet his wild flavor; those who don’t, loathe his odd aftertaste, spitting him out after the first bite. Unsurprisingly, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not Gilliam’s evangelical masterwork and will fail to convert a single reluctant devotee. It will, however, breathe fire back into the bellies of the believers with its subtle fragrance of Brazil and whimsical hints of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Virtually mocking the “advancements” of James Cameron and his ilk, the imagery and narrative of Parnassus speaks as much about good and evil as the responsibility of storytellers to literally sustain the universe with imagination. No pressure.

Although it should be equally remembered for Gilliam’s rebirth, Parnassus will likely only be recalled as the final cinematic resting place of the late Heath Ledger. Ledger, who previously worked with Gilliam in the epic turd The Brothers Grimm, stars as Tony, an amnesiac found hanged beneath a bridge by a troupe of performers. Anton (Andrew Garfield), Valentina (Lily Cole) and Percy (Verne Troyer) retrieve and revive Tony, to the delight of Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), who sees the stranger’s arrival as a potential turning point in his wager with the devil (Tom Waits) for the soul of Valentina, Parnassus’s daughter.

The wager plays out thusly: Parnassus uses his traveling stage show to convince viewers to enter a mirror that transports them to a world made of their imagination. Once inside, they will be presented two options: take the devil’s shortcut or Parnassus’s more difficult, but rewarding, path that leads to redemption on earth through creativity. The first to five souls claims Valentina’s. Within the framework of the centuries-old morality play, Gilliam and Charles McKeown crafted a story that seemingly points a finger at derivative modern moviemakers. Thankfully, it isn’t a wagging finger or a middle digit, but one that beckons others to simply try harder to recall the power inherent in imagineering.

As has been well documented, the untimely death of Ledger towards the conclusion of filming resulted in an interesting but vastly creative decision. Each of the three times Tony enters the mirror, he is transformed into a different actor. Tragic necessity may have demanded the inclusion of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrell, but the film is inexplicably better for it, which is not to say Ledger’s performance isn’t another stinging reminder of his now absent talent. Indeed, all performers are engaging, most notably the lightly maniacal Waits and the luminescent Cole, who is seemingly a Japanese anime character come to life.

It’s hard not to read Parnassus in a light other than that projected by the globally dominant Avatar. Whereas Cameron’s threadbare story seemed like the product of neglect, Gilliam’s simplistic work is a thin, but carefully chosen and easily approachable, skeleton on which truly unique visuals are hung. To be clear: this ain’t Brazil, but boy is it nice to see Gilliam back in that hemisphere.

Grade - A