The Damage Done
We finally got around to seeing Collateral - on DVD, of course, because we don’t make it up to the theatres nearly often enough – and it was splendid. Violent, a thriller in the final sequences, but overall a worthwhile piece of cinema. Tom Cruise was, as everyone’s already said, nearly unrecognizable and turned in the best piece of acting I’ve ever seen from him. The political philosophies of the two men, and how they expressed the choices they made from their respective world views (not to mention the choices themselves), were presented in the best tradition of post-modern cinema: subtly, making use of the medium, exploiting what it means to see and to be seen, even while never leaving anything untold.

On the other hand, Dogville, which would usually fall into the post-modern classification, was, ultimately, so tremendously flawed, that even what was good about it, and what was post-modern, failed, perhaps not least because of John Hurt’s narration throughout. It wasn’t entirely the fault of the movie being presented as a stage play, because it was obvious immediately that Lars von Trier was twisting Our Town inside-out, although that did make for some wooden performances, but the script itself was so over-moralizing, and explicated every element of the film’s action and intentions, and not just in the voice-over, as to spoil the entire film. Does von Trier really believe this is all there is to present-day America, that there are no such flaws elsewhere, in Europe, for example? The bloodbath in which he resolves his critique is simplistic, and a surprise coming from the director of Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. Everything worthwhile in the movie was lost. The Idiots is playing on SBS late tonight, and we’ll probably tape it, but I don’t know if I can screw up the courage to watch it.