Short Cuts

The Unrecovered is undoubtedly the film of an academic, not a filmmaker. A visual essay which attempts to examine the effect of the events of Sep. 11th on the average American’s psyche and the myriad connections between people and media in the wake of that fateful day, The Unrecovered has been a four-year endeavor for its director, Roger Copeland, professor of theater and dance at Oberlin.

The film itself is an assortment of television clips, found footage, scenes from existing films and three newly filmed narrative threads. Billed as a “horror film with a brain” and “the first feature-length fictional narrative film about the psychological aftermath of 9/11,” The Unrecovered sets its mission to critique modern media culture’s wordplay, paranoia and reproducibility.

The Unrecovered’s collage style problematizes traditional artistic appraisal of the work, since the majority of its engaging ideas and images are culled from sources other than those responsible for the film. In this light, The Unrecovered’s very status as an objet d’art is put under question. With this in mind, any serious analysis of the film’s worth necessarily considers its unsound structure.

The film’s slight narrative and reliance on repetition undercuts its intentions and creates a whole that is less than the sum of its parts. The film belabors its points by perpetually replaying segments of found footage (from an uprooted tree to clips of Fight Club) and repeating banal worldplay (“Cut and paste. Cut and paste. I link, therefore I am”). The gratuitous repetition is meant to serve a purpose in analyzing the preponderance of media drivel in our society, yet the point is subverted by the film’s inability to present this in a creative or cinematic manner.

Though The Unrecovered does not succeed as a narrative film, the director’s notes reveal a substantial intellect; these interesting ideas pertaining to a post 9/11 world are misused, however, in the cinematic medium. Showing and reshowing shots of dictionary definitions or closeups of documents being typed on computers serve no visual purpose. The Unrecovered is even structured as an essay, stating a thesis, dividing itself into “paragraphs,” speaking directly to the viewer in an almost scholarly fashion (“Try experiencing this...without thinking of this”) and reiterating its main ideas over and over again (the “butterfly effect,” metaphor/meta fear, media and memory).

The film also suffers from its lengthy production phase; even the Palme d’Or winning Fahrenheit 9/11 concedes to diminished relevance when viewed today. For example, the film immerses itself in the anthrax scare of fall 2001, which in perspective seems irrelevant, a frenzy driven by fear rather than actual widespread danger.

While the filmmakers may have intended to criticize the culture of fear surrounding the incident, its inclusion now appears to be symptomatic of the hysteria-inducing media. Similarly, where the film seeks to examine the way a state of heightened fear can cause the average person to devolve into a conspiracy theorist, it scrutinizes the paranoia in such a heavy-handed and overly exaggerated manner that it loses credibility and realism.

Finally, for a film with such lofty ambitions, it ultimately is politically uncomplex. Bible-thumping and flag-waving extremists are predictably denounced, prophecies of the apocalypse are examined in uninteresting terms (“The end times. There is no end of time. There is only clock time”), Hollywood is castigated (“Halloween. Hollywood. Halloween. Hollywood. All treat. No trick”) and analysis of our media culture is simply frustrating (“Mediation. Media Nation. Mediation. Media Nation”).

The Unrecovered will be screening at Oberlin in Wilder 101 on Nov. 18 and 20 at 7:30 p.m.

The Squid and the Whale

The Squid and the Whale is the directorial debut for Wes Anderson’s collaborator Noah Baumbach, who co-authored the screenplay for last year’s The Life Aquatic. Taking his cue from Anderson, Baumbach decided to make a film based on his own experience of his parents’ divorce.

The Squid and the Whale is concerned with the issues that arise when Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels), a once famous author past his prime, and his wife Joan (Laura Linney) finally succumb to the problems that have built up over the years.

From the opening sequence, the family is paired up into alliances between Bernard and the eldest son, and the younger son and his mother. As a result of the divorce, the two sons must divide their time between the mother’s home and the father’s newly purchased house nearby. This is the cause of much of the film’s drama.

The tensions are displayed with a degree of humor that is both absurd and discomforting. The causes of the divorce are unveiled to the sons and the audience. Particular attention is given to the mother’s sexual promiscuity, which becomes well documented, both for comic effect, and also as one of a series of events designed to show the reactions from the various other family members.

In addition to this, Baumbach repeats many of his plot devices, while he shows the characters’ relationships as well as their evolving concepts of each other. One example of this is the constant return to tennis as a central theme with which to explore the characters.

Another is the repeated use of Pink Floyd’s song “Hey You.” This is first sung by the sons, with painful consideration on the lyric, “Together we stand, divided we fall.” This is sung right before the divorce occurs, and it is a sort of plea from the two sons to keep the family intact.

Baumbach’s recurring use of the song suggests that he believes in the strength of family unity. However, the film offers very little evidence that this would be a good thing. One question, when the two parents are so flawed and uncompromising, whether they can stand together as a family. As the talent show sequence proves, the family can’t even sit together.

Most of the performances in The Squid and the Whale fall a little flat. Daniels has been heralded in the media, but in reality, the film is not one of his strongest and he brings nothing unique to the part. William Baldwin is disappointing in what should have been a career-defining comeback role. Anna Paquin confirms that she is destined, at least for the time being, to be typecast in overly sexualized roles.

Jesse Eisenberg, who plays the eldest son Walt, is the best to watch. Partially this is due to his being the most developed role in the film. Walt is Baumbach’s alter ego and the film becomes his story. The film is more interesting when it is seen through Walt’s eyes, but Baumbach’s inabilities are exposed in the uneasy shift from the family story to Walt’s tale of coming to terms with his relationship with his parents.

It’s a shame that Baumbach doesn’t spend more time on Walt, as he seems to run out of ideas in this 88-minute film and it would perhaps have been a stronger effort if he had tried to develop Walt’s story more. The arbitrary illness inflicted on Bernard towards the end just demonstrates how weak his screenplay is, as there is no explanation for this sudden moment of drama.

The comparisons to Wes Anderson are inevitable after Baumbach’s role in The Life Aquatic. It’s fair to say that Baumbach has attempted to recreate the same sort of failed patriarch in Daniels that Anderson has managed with Bill Murray and Gene Hackman. The trouble is that Baumbach seems to lack the imagination to create such intricate characters as Anderson. Anderson’s films often succeed due to their layers and details, but The Squid and the Whale is all surface and feels empty.

This is also true of Baumbach’s comedy overall, which too frequently relies on shock value than anything else and makes for a mixed viewing experience. At times the script does produce terrific one-liners and amusing other lines, but on the whole the film makes one cringe more than laugh.

Baumbach may develop into a better screenwriter or director, but on the evidence shown in The Squid and the Whale, he has a long way to go.

– Oliver William Pattenden