Tiny Furniture

All writing, all acting, all directing Lena Dunham emerged sporadically into the small-screen scene just last year with her acclaimed television series GIRLS, which seems to have snowballed since its pilot to marmite status. Accordingly everyone seems to be looking at her earlier full length feature Tiny Furniture (2010). Like GIRLS it's about the not-knowing-what--you're-doing twenties. And this is also just as love or hate. 

The self-consciously self-pitying tagline 'Aura is having a very, very hard time' is an instant irritant which seems to perforate the tone of film. This is about someone feeling a little (or a lot) sorry for themselves about their indecision and incomprehension of what to do with the life-shaped elephant in the room. Ergo the lack of plot or direction, and the multitude of scenes of Aura sleeping, Aura looking mopey then going to sleep, and Aura waking up from sleep.  And another thing!: I know it's more realistic and god bless Lena Dunham for being imperfect like the rest of us, but half the time I found myself distracted by her insatiably knotty hair. 

I didn't feel drawn to Dunham's Aura. She's a different protagonist but I found her even more of a doormat than Hannah from GIRLS, and less funny. She lets guys walk all over her, specifically Jed, played by Alex Karpovsky who also stars in GIRLS (again, better character, there's a theme here), and some dude she meets at work. Both of whom, might I add, being neither sexy nor charming enough to justify letting them get away with their behaviour (if it was Jon Snow I'd understand). With Jed, Aura invites him to stay with her while he is in New York for a short period. This being an already over-friendly move considering she barely knows the guy, he proceeds to act like a total douche and she does not seem to mind. Here's a particularly irksome snippet which occurs after Aura's mother kicks him out when he's been staying more than a week:

Jed I feel like you should make sure you can deliver something before you promise it

Aura Well, I didn't like not deliver I mean you stayed in the house for a week, but I know you're totally right.

And yet, judging on the explicit doormat-syndrome we encounter here, it seems as though Dunham has deliberately framed her character in this way. Maybe we don't like seeing this behaviour because it in fact reminds us of our own weaknesses. Aura is imperfect not just by film character standards, but as in real life, normal person. She's a dick to her best friend, her mum, herself, but aren't we all. 

Tiny is raw and authentic as you like, with Dunham casting her own mother and sister to play her mother and sister, and filming it in their actual apartment. This possibly explains the grazing verisimilitude of their on-screen dynamic, with screechy-voice, nonsensical, often petty skirmishes reminiscent of my own experience of familial arguments. The sex scene in this is probably the most undignified thing I have ever seen. Moments after casually checking if he has AIDS, Aura and some loser she's been semi-chasing throughout the film get diggity in, in her own words, 'a pipe in the street'.  It's the low point of the film; you really feel her sense of self-disgust when she relays it to her mother afterwards. 

And yet, despite any criticism which can be made: nudity is brave, wretchedly awkward sex scenes are brave, disregarding hair and make up is brave. This must not be forgotten. What's more Dunham's writing is guillotine-sharp and sweetly perceptive. This was a progressive step towards GIRLS, a chrysalis if you will, one I  recommend to watch if you can handle the self-indulgent insularity of indie films.

American Beauty

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst… And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.



Look closer. Sam Mendes' (Skyfall) direction met with Conrad Hall's mellifluous cinematography and a captivating, yet inherently disturbing, performance from Kevin Spacey to create this dark and often bitter nineties satire with a comic bite. Centred around, but by no means limited to, the perspective of Lester Burnham, a man 'awakening' to the realization that he is bland, forgettable and has nothing to show for his life. Commence mid-life crisis, but not the kind you think you know. A tale magnifying the flaws of suburban American life, where an appearance-obsessed culture is undressed to reveal the intricate unpleasantries which lurk beneath. The film also follows the lives of Carolyn (Annette Bening), Lester's dissatisfied and sporadically maniacal wife, Jane (Thora Birch), his weird and 'misunderstood' daughter, and Jane's overtly sexual friend, Angela (Mena Suvari), the sneeze which nudges Lester's avalanchine crisis. 

The eponymous American Beauty sprung from the name of a rose, which is the films' main star. Perhaps most memorably, we see the Beauty in Lester's fantasia. Scarlet petals burst from Mena Suvari's breasts as she strips, and surround her as she bathes on that iconic film poster. But these red roses leak through the confinements of dream sequence to perpetually permeate its waking mise-en-scene. Whether it be the perfect picket-fenced garden, embroidered with the flowers, to the injection of the blood red hue of Angela's lipstick, Carolyn's coat, the front door. As in The Sixth Sense and that piercing scene from Schindler's List, red punctuates the film, a symbol of lust, passion, fertility, violence and eventual death. A rose is the vision of intricate perfection, which is what, in their embodiment of the American Dream, these characters strive for. 

But American Beauty urges the audience to look closer. It happens that the eponymous character is more than it seems, the ironically named American Beauty species of rose being prone to rot at the root, despite its superficially pleasing aesthetic. As its petals obscure and eroticise Angela, who is also more and less than she seems, the beauty is a shroud to the deep set rot which settles just below the surface of suburban life. The narrative trajectory leads the characters to discover beauty in less obvious places. Jane is befriended by her dealer neighbor (Wes Bentley) who introduces to her, literally through a camera lens, the way he sees the world. A carrier bag blowing in the wind mesmerizes the (admittedly probably stoned) fellow. But the ultimate message here, I believe, that beauty, just like art, is subjective to the beholder. Objects or people we may not deem special or beautiful can be more exquisite than superficial beauty, if we look closer. 

filmsneeze

Welcome to the new blog name. I decided to change from 'Film Nerd' because honestly it's too cliche, too blatant, and some smug bugger had already nabbed the address. If you don't like it with the greatest respect I don't really care; posts are going to be similar and I promise more frequent.

Look out for more old film reviews, film news, my opinion on new films and maybe even a little bit of the small screen tucked into filmsneeze 2013.
























Coming Soon... Oz the Great and Powerful and American Beauty