That's My Dad.

Shame - 

As a critic, I will encounter a film like Shame and end up drowning myself in thoughts. Directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender, Shame is a textbook example of modern art-house cinema and an unflinching examination on addiction, more determined than any film about its subject matter.

Fassbender and McQueen previously rose to fame with their 2008 gritty masterpiece Hunger; a physically demanding and eternally frightening biopic. The two create a blend of transgressive and audacious art and the well won’t be drying out soon. For the sake of cinema, this duo needs to make a generation of films together; the two creative forces are beyond restraints of human efforts, they are immaculate. 

It’s a little ironic to define, describe or critique Shame; a film that functions through emotion and rarely words. Yes, art-house films almost always follow such an agenda. But the brute artistic force and dexterity McQueen brings with his camera lens steals the words from my tongue and, like Houdini, makes them disappear. Both of his directorial efforts leave me stunned, effected and traumatized for severe amounts of time. 

Sure, we can talk about Fassbender’s performance: his impenetrable forces put as an actor physically and cerebrally. We can bring up the undermined values of Shame: Carey Mulligan’s best career performance, ground-breaking cinematography, visual language and scene structure. We can also point out the unfathomable script the film has been built. 

But instead of technicalities, I want to bring up a question. Why do people drink black coffee? 

You might say, through the pain of the consummation, there is a new state of mind to be explored. Or maybe after a point in life, you get used to the feeling. Or perhaps one gets sick of cream and sugar; needing a kick in the head. 

I say, there is an undefinable zenith humans can reach, but fear. It comes from getting addicted to a force like black coffee. It is this zenith found in Michael Fassbender’s vexation. It’s found through Steve McQueen’s unyielding exploration of the human condition. It’s a zenith known as shame, and this film was the mirror revealing its face to us. 

(10/10)

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Haywire -

Muffled from any synthetic action-cinema styles, Steven Soderbergh’s latest piece of art-house coolness, “Haywire,” is a revenge thriller more raw and bare boned than any ‘Bourne’ artifact could ever come close to. (8/10)

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A Separation - 

Just before you dismiss the category of “foreign film”, this film is an exception worth turning heads for. Revolving around an intimate and challenging subject matter of human relations, A Separation is a dark and unusually thrilling story about a divorce in a family and the massive ripples it creates within a small circle of searingly complex characters. Through it all, A Separation is the most gripping, emotionally and psychologically intense drama and Iranian film not only released from 2011, but for many years to come. (10/10)

Drive is a two-toned poem. Cool, calm and collected. Disturbing, psychotic and heartless. There is a major split personality component to this film, a bizarre and an unforeseen mixture of elements; like drinking Mexican Coke in an American bottle. Drive is a 50/50 blend of pure art-house and grind-house; both film styles constantly given homage to by current film-makers, but never combined so dreamily like this before.

We have our unnamed protagonist, played by Ryan Gosling. Serving as a humanistic and heartless bastard, Gosling’s character is the vehicle of the film’s ultimate purpose and Gosling couldn’t have been a better driver; not literally. The biggest rush that Drive produces comes from the shifts it takes on multiple levels. With the delicate care to its characters and their relationships, primary characters allow themselves to show, not tell their psychological state. The cast make it a point to pour idiosyncratic humanism in their performances, offering a stripped-down, minimalist style of acting; common art-house stylization. The film’s approach to action is where we see the player flip the table over. When Drive comes off as a highly sensitive, quiet and sweet tale, we get bashed on the head with a load of out-of-place violence with such gore and heartlessness that we can only be astounded. It’s the only film that manages to capture the swing and psychotic nature of a ruthlessness in a protagonist. The only reason why Drive’s action comes off so disturbing is in its dense and intricate context. Blood and gore are aspects to violence that are usually given in overdoses in order to establish a tone, but with Drive, we’re completely thrown off our feet with progressive attacks of violence serving a grand purpose to create an unconventional thrill. 

Aside from shift, Drive covers its bases with a rich amount of thought. The film manages to capture glimpses of abstract existentialism all while blurring the line between realism and fantasy. Technically superior in all aspects to the point where everything comes off as dangerous, sexy and slick. Drive tips its hat to many old works, ranging from the classic style of Steve McQueen’s Bullitt to Gosling’s uncompromisingly cutthroat performance that echoes the likes of Eastwood and Bronson. It’s an inventive rework on the heist genre that always seems to get successfully remodeled. 

Drive is not a people’s film. This is strictly a work to and from art-house/film-obsessed folk. Its cast will befuddle many and please very few; director Nicolas Winding Refn is one of many directors who deliberately undermine their cast in order to carve out raw and rough performances that contrast their usual work. This always sheds light on entire layers of actors who never had the opportunity to expose. Yet on all terms and conditions, Drive is sincerely a challenging work to take in and appreciate. As a work of colorful inspiration, I cannot deny Drive the title of the slickest, meanest and finest art-house work in recent years. 

This film was my dad.