KeeganDeWitt Reviews

Borat (2006)

Attended 1st Ever Screening

[10/10 · 4 February 2006]

Many would probably agree... this film has the potential to either be amazing or absolutely awful. Last night I attended the first ever screening in Marina Del Ray. "Borat" is not only the hardest I've laughed in a theater since "Wedding Crashers", it may be the hardest I've laughed EVER. It it expertly handled, fusing fiction with non fiction and constantly testing the boundaries of taste and decency in the best, most socially revealing ways. In many ways, it is like a meeting of "Breaking The Waves" and "Jackass". It uses confrontational non-fiction set ups to create massive discomfort, and in the process, revealing both the light and dark of it's subjects.

In fact, I found myself having a tough time labeling it. Although it is a definite step in the direction of "Jackass", it holds some of the same relevance as a Michael Moore documentary. Sasha Baren Cohen tears us apart with laughs, and in doing so, holds a mirror up to America in ways twice as revealing as any Michael Moore voice over ever could.

This film, if Fox has the guts to really give it the push it deserves, could signal a dramatic shift and appeal to a very wide 20-30 yr old, left wing, educated demographic.

This film is truly an incredible thing to witness. My film of the year thus far.

9 Songs (2004)

A unique experience

[9/10 · 26 July 2005]

It seems strange to have such an affection for a film that is so flawed and fails in so many areas. Either way, I really really enjoyed Nine Songs, a relationship drama told strictly through sex. First, we'll list the failures. The acting of our female lead is a bit suspect and makes her, in the end, unlikable. The photography, although intimate and immediate, suffers from it's DV quality and makes you wonder how beautiful this film could have been shot with the eye of perhaps... Lars Von Trier's dogma lense. Most importantly, the movie relies on two ingredients that in the end prove a bit useless. We are reliving the story in memory via the male lead as he travels through Antarctica. Although it is an interesting metaphor and a captivating landscape, it seems almost entirely unnecessary. We hear him say "you can be clostraphobic and agoraphobic all at the same time, much like the bedroom." Secondly, and most important, the live music is inconsequential, although good. The actual image quality is low, the songs play for too long, the lyrics apply to the narrative not at all, and the bands all flirt with one style (Michael Nyman being the exception). I must say, there is an outstanding version of "Jacqueline" by Franz Ferdinand.

Now let me tell you where the film succeeds. We experience two young, naive, selfish personalities infatuated with one another, and the idea of one another. This is expressed in the most immediate and intimate fashion: SEX. We see two people in the prime of a relationship, in which the most sex is had, and as much as possible, however possible, symbolizing favors, trust, forgiveness, revenge, and all the other facets of a relationship. These scenes also succeed because of their length, the total lack of music, and the director's willingness to let them exist without explanation. Although these two characters are not even particularly likable or explained to us, we end up feeling as if we've shared something very deep with them, solely based on the extent to which we are asked to hang with them throughout the long and graphic and no holds barred sex scenes.

It may seem sick, but by the end, as a graphic fellatio scene ends with actual ejaculation, you have become so acclimatized to this topic, and it being our main source of communication, that there is an almost unspoken dialogue between all parties. Instead of feeling offended, we feel love for the privacy of the moment, for the trust and sharing that happens there. Instead of feeling aroused, we feel compelled by the motives, interested in the roles played and mindful of the moment shared.

By asking that you step into a theater, with total strangers, and watch many graphic sexual encounters, many unexplained and without the usual Hollywood ramp-up, you have signed over a certain amount of control and comfort as an audience-member, which in the end, offers a truly unique experience of the "love story". When all is said and done, "Nine Songs" evoked a truly unique and loving response from me, in spite of the fact that as a film, it fails in many areas. I would not say that many films should be made like this, but I would say that it is flirting with a new form of love story that is raw, beautiful and in the end, no matter how many times it fails, honest by the sheer default of it's topic.