Archives.
02.03.02 - 05.25.02.
05.26.02 - 09.14.02.
09.15.02 - 11.26.02.

LUDIC LOG

Snowy evening here in Chicago, a perfect night to go see a movie with a good friend. Snowy nights always seem like the time for taking in a flick, I don't know why.

Todd Haynes is without question one of the most talented directors in American film today. His masterpiece, Safe, is an incredible piece of work, and as I headed off to see his latest, Far From Heaven, I thought about how he's one of the few filmmakers about whom you can say he hasn't made a bad movie. After seeing it, I'm pleased to report that he still hasn't. However, it's not quite the masterpiece it's made out to be -- perhaps by design.

Far from Heaven is, unlike the irony-drenched genre films of the Coen Brothers (who Haynes much resembles, both stylistically and topically), an homage picture that unabashedly wears its heart on its sleeve. To say that it's influenced by the melodramas of Douglas Sirk is a rather massive understatement. Ranier Werner Fassbinder (another filmmaker Haynes favors) made modernist tearjerkers influenced by Sirk; with Far from Heaven, Haynes has essentially made a Douglas Sirk movie that Sirk had the bad luck to die before getting the chance to make. It's relentlessly Sirkian, from its title to its themes to its look to its dialogue all the way down to its credits. So to accuse it of not being a great movie is perhaps a bit short-sighted; Haynes has obviously done exactly what he set out to do.

On the other hand, that might not be enough. When you manage to evoke Douglas Sirk and the melodramaticists of his era as well as Haynes has done here, you get the good (lofty sentimentalism, issue-oriented drama, witty setpieces, gorgeous setting and tone), but you also get the bad (obvious plots, visual shorthand that's just short of cliche, terribly arch dialogue, and rampant hokeyism). Haynes hasn't so much made the kind of movie that Sirk would have made if he were alive and doing films today; he's made the kind of film that Sirk made back in the 1950s, with scarcely a hint other than minor technical innovations to clue the viewer in that the film is of recent vintage. The few times that something occurs on screen that wouldn't have been permissible in a film made in the era the film so successfuly reproduces, it comes as almost a shock. None of this is to say that it's not a good movie -- it is. But you have to go into it knowing exactly, rather than generally, what to expect.

Far from Heaven tells the story of a Connecticut housewife (played with consummate professionalism by Haynes' favorite actress, Julianne Moore) who finds herself increasingly attracted to her black gardener. The gardener is played by Dennis Haysbert, an actor previously unknown to me, but it's a revelatory performance. At the same time, Moore's husband (a controlled, angry performance by the spotty Dennis Quaid) is coming to terms with his homosexuality. This is the sort of movie that could easily beat you over the head with its emotional twists and turns. In fact, it does beat you over the head with its emotional twists and turns. But again, that's sort of the point. If the movie has a central theme, it's to desperately communicate the impossiblity of the entire situation in its place and time, and it does this with a minimum of preaching and a maximum of simple, if a bit heavy-handed, illustration. At every turn, Haynes (who is proving himself as masterful an illustrator or repression and confusion as Scorsese is obsession or Hitchcock was paranoia) opens up doors, and knowing exactly how they're going to be slammed in our faces only blunts the pain a little. It's a simplistic and sappy film, but never a labored one, and even surprising once or twice: Haysbert's character could easily have turned into the "Wise Negro" stereotype so common to current Hollywood product, but never does; and it's to Haynes' credit as an outspoken and explicitly gay director that he handles the story of Quaid's equally untenable position with dignity and understanding, but still allows him to be kind of a prick.

In the end, it's not a great film, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be one. Looking back at its place in Haynes' amazingly solid body of work, it doesn't have the superlative brilliance of safe or the sure-handed daring of Poison, but it succeeds at its clearly stated purpose far better than did the underrated but still extremely problematic Velvet Goldmine. It's certainly worth a viewing, and while it's far from a masterpiece, it's equally far from a misstep.