joel schumacher's '8mm'

i first saw (most of this film) when i was about 13. i had recently been given my first tv for my birthday and so i spent most nights in my bedroom trawling the channels until the early hours of the morning. typically ending up on bravo hoping to find some soft core porn. i discovered 8mm on channel 4 (mainly because bravo was broadcasting some car program instead of large silicon breasted women performing simulated sex). and the memory of this film has stayed with me since. discovering the urban myth of snuff followed by raw visceral imagery certainly leaves an impression on you, espcially when you've only recently learnt that a lesbian isn't a type of cat like i had suspected (thanks for the info bravo).

i should perhaps mention that snuff is seen as the most extreme of fetishes, shrouded in mystery and commonly believed to be an urban myth. it's main premise being to rape a woman then slaughter her on camera. cheery no?

now, i don't like nicholas cage. it's not that he's a bad character actor, it's just that he can only play one character, nicholas cage. also whenever he has a go at being funny it's more embarrasing and cringe worthy then humourous. case in point, his gags in 'gone in 60 seconds'. this places him in my personal table of 'unfuny and unbendingly singular character actors' up there with adam sandler and keanu 'if i had two more legs i'd be a table' reeves. although in defense cage and sandler have both performed in good indie films where they've managed to break away from their pidgeon-holed hollywood existance. 'punch drunk love' in sandler's case and 'adaptation' (an ironic name) in cage's. anyway back to the title of this, so far ranting, blog, 8mm.

as, painstakingly, detailed above i don't like cage, but this is one of his rare gems, probably in part because the script writer didn't give him any 'funnies' to say. not that this is a comedy, in fact it's one of the darkest films to come out of hollywood. the story focuses around a rich women who finds a snuff film in her recently deceased husband's stash and sends private detective cage off to see if the film is real and whether or not the victim truly died. as such cage embarks to discover the truth, during which he learns of the darker side of human sexuality. as such there is a fair amount of graphic imagery and background props throughout the film. from; asphyxiation, mutilation, enemas, bondage, rape, peadophilia and of course the core of the film, snuff.

cage's character evolves through the film. the first time he watches the 8mm film he can barely stomach it, constantly averting his eyes in revulsion. however the more he watches it for his investigation the more relaxed he becomes, despite the increasing concern that the film may be real. in one scene cage is sitting on his hotel bed, smoking and on the phone to his wife while the 8mm loops itself in front of him. it's not as such that he comes to enjoy or even except this extremism of sex, that would be an entirely different film and would never of been released, but he becomes acclimatized to it. it doesn't effect him as much as it would of before.

we also see that it starts to affect certain aspects of his character, something joaqeen's....whackeee....pheonix's character picks up on. after both returning from a search through the darkest bowels of the sex markets pheonix asks cage if the stuff he saw turned him on. to which he denies most strongly. but it's countered when pheonix points out that it didn't exactly turn him off either, a strong suggestion as to how cage is changing.

later on we can see how cage has changed. when he returns to new york for his revenge , he asks the mum of the deceased girl if she wants him to kill the men who slaughtered her daughter. he starts off asking her for her consent, a yes or no, then swiftly changing to ask if she loved her daughter. when the mum obviously answers yes he also takes it as consent to murder the, i suppose we could call them, perverts. but it's not just for the mum, and it's not because of his strong moral ethic either, that's been broken down from what he's been exposed too. he's also doing it for pure near sexual pleasure.

in the final shot of the film when cage is clearing leaves off his lawn he looks up to meet the eyes of his wife. we can see how haunted he looks, he's tasted forbidden fruit and it'll stay with him for the rest of his life.

one of the touches in the film i really liked was when machine removes the gimp mask and we finally see his face. and what do we encounter? the monster is a balding middle age man who you wouldn't think twice of if you passed him in the street. he admits he wasn't disturbed as a child and he's not mentally degenerate, he just loves to hurt people. and if you ask me, that's a fucking terrifying idea!

so in the sum-up, a well crafted film, very dark and atmospheric, the mise-en-scene gritty throughout, to reflect the depravity people can sink down too. not on par, or even really close, in disturbing cinematography of the likes of irreversible, but certainly one to watch if you want to see the sort of things hollywood can occasionaly bring to fruitiion. also need a special mention for using come to daddy by aphex twin, a classy song that fits the scenes in the film perfectly. one of only gripes with the film, except that it has cage in it, was that they should of gone with their first choice of director, david fincher. sorry schumacher but i can't help imagine how much astonishing this would of been with the man behind se7en, zodiac and fight club directing it.

coming soon, not a clue! it could be fear and loathing in las vegas, it could be a hitchcock, it depends which one i pull off my shelf first.

gaspar noe's 'irreversible'

now to begin with i would like to mention a friend told me about this film and he said that there's a great scene in an alleyway where you see a couple shag from start to finish. he was almost right, if you count an anal rape scene as a 'great shag'. but i'll get to that later.

first off i want to mention how impressive i thought the movie was from an editing perspective. most of the scenes are shot in a single sweep, although at some points you can tell that digital post production was used when an actor may of cocked up half way through a 12 minute scene. the free flowing feel to the construction is certainly impressive and it almost puts the 11 minute battle field scene in cuaron's 'children of men' to shame in respects to choreography. as to the structure of the film, if you've seen momento then you'd understand how this movie plays.

i have a feeling many people seeing irreversible would say something along the lines 'they've used the same idea as momento', when interestingly it's actually the other way round. momento was a hollywood film using french cinematic techniques and genres; by this i mean the noir genre and a non linear plot line. this plot structure was first used in american cinema properly by tarantino in pulp fiction, where the story doesn't simply progress from start to end, but jumps about from one part to another. well momento and irreversible took it one step further and flipped the whole film round. the major difference between momento and irreversible though is that noe didn't want to make the film too accessible to the public. in momento when one scene ends it finishes on the start of the previous scene. in irrevesible it stops at exactly when the previous scene started, which at times means you have to sit there and think 'now is this the same scene or the next one?'

now from structure to camera work. simply put, it's insane. the first three of four minutes has the audience watching the camera spin round and round, rolling and looping through an alleyway. in fact for the first half of the film this is pretty much how the camera operates. it was a technique specifically chosen by noe to create nausea in the audience, think of that running scene in blair witch and you'll know what i mean. later on in the film the camera starts to stabilise in conjunction with the plot. unlike most films where the climax is obviously at the end noe has it right at the start, a scene so violent and perverse it verges on exploitation. although thats not to say its the worst scene, thats about 40 minutes in.

the camera works in reaction to the events on scene, the more sane and less disturbing it becomes, the more the cameraman starts to level out shots. after watching the whole film it's easy to see why noe reversed the plot line. by the end of the film the sweet and realistic conversation between marcus and his girlfriend alex helps the audience forget about the barbaric events. well, up until the point where marcus jokes to alex 'i want to fuck you in the arse', then all the imagery comes flooding back.

if this film was flimed linear then i think there would of been even more walk outs from cannes then there was (200 our of 2400 people). nausea in the film as i've already discussed was used through insane camera work, the events on screens and even one more aspect, one which i thought would of actually been banned. for the first 30 minutes of the film noe uses a sound frequency which is often heard during earthquakes, it also is a sound that makes people fill nauseous. the only other example of such a sound being used in a film that i know of was resident evil. marilyn manson was the sound man for the film, and he used brown noise throughout the film, along with low frequency soundwaves to make the audience feel a big 'queasy'.

in essence i wouldn't say this film was for the kids, or any normal movie goer. you need to be in the right mind frame for this film, sadistic would be the best explanation. if you want to see exactly how far you can blur the line between pornography, exploitation and necessary on screen events then is the right sort of film. as i said in my last blog, i've watched it once before but i never ever ever will again. that's not to say i don't respect the film.

it's a masterpiece, of the marquis de sade variety, but a masterpiece still.