Flawed Genius
Insanity & Brad Anderson's "Session 9"
I watched Session 9 last night, a film directed by Brad Anderson, and like his most recent film The Machinist it's a rather surreal, creepy psychological character study hidden beneath layers of mystery. This movie sees a group of workers go to an abandoned mental hospital to de-asbestos-ise it (I think) and then one of them disappears and creepy shit starts happening.
The Machinist reminded me of David Lynch and Mulholland Drive in that it was essentially an intricate psychological puzzle, albeit comparitively a rather lackluster effort in that it was by far less imaginitive and crafted with noticably less competence than Lynch's film and was far too easy to figure out what was going on - thus reducing the impact of the final revelations. Session 9 reminded me more of Stanley Kubrick and The Shining. Session 9 lacks that film's brilliant imagery but certainly holds its own in terms of creating an ominous feeling of constant tension. This film is a real mood piece.
Now, I don't mind a film that makes the audience work to get answers, but I think after seeing Mulholland Drive create such an intricate layer of complex mystery and then actually comprehensively and coherently unravel to reveal a wholly satisfying underlying truth before the film's end, that when a film like Session 9 concludes in a fragmented, murky way that requires plenty of afterthought to "get," it does seem less impressive and less... skilled, I guess, in its creation. It's one of those films in which the insanity of a lead character gives the director creative license to add in creepy shit at his will because of a what-isn't-real-doesn't-matter type of attitude, as an unfocused means to a focused end. For example the creation of a sense, upon reflection, of the crazy character's paranoia is brought about when we are lead down a path towards one possible reason for the disappearence of one of the workers when the psycho-guy imagines there is something more to David Caruso's character talking to a couple of youths than just an innocent chat that Caruso claims was a warning not to spraypaint the building (ie. maybe Caruso was involved and hired the punks to attack the missing guy because he and that guy had personal issues between them). Is that clever in hindsight, misleading the audience and characterising at the same time without the audience's knowledge? Maybe. But to me it also comes across somewhat as a means of stringing the audience along to pad the film's short running time out with "intrigue" because it's a little... gimmicky. Maybe that's harsh criticism but I can't say I was impresse by it in execution even if it sounds like a decent idea on paper.
More things I'm not happy with. We hear sessions (up to... session nine of course) of a former patient's interviews with her doctor which essentially form a parallel story to what is happening to the insane character in this movie, in terms of different personalities both guarding the weak from the truth (he doesn't realise until the end what he has done) and exploiting the weak to do what they could not on their own (an evil voice he hears is not supernatural but rather the part of him that brings him to kill). That's quite cool, and helps us understand the tragedy behind the lead character and what has happened and where he ends up. But like The Machinist the weakness here lies in simply creating a puzzle, jumbling it up and putting it together for the audience as if the putting together is somehow clever because something else links to what the final puzzle looks like. Any idiot could do that. Any idiot couldn't execute the whole film as well as Anderson, but I don't find the particular aspect of the film described above as being clever. It just makes it easier for the audience to understand what is happening or has happened to the crazy guy in a way which doesn't require anything more than what amounts to voice-over, as opposed to crafting our sense of understanding in the film itself and the character's interactions which would have made this movie a true, and I mean this, "masterpiece." By definition.
And while I liked the film's ability to end ultimately in a way which makes the audience realise that there was nothing supernatural going on afterall (which more horror movies should aim to do because it's much more impressive to have a non-cop-out actual "realistic" truth behind it all) the director exploits the supernatural angle near the end before this realisation with the power cutting out as a means of making certain scenes more creepy. Lazyyyyyy.
For all my criticism I really liked this movie. It had balls. It was original. It was cleverer than usual, just not as clever as it thought it was (like The Machinist which is, by the way, not as good). As such it gets a weak B or 3.5 out of 5. Certainly recommended, just forget everything you just read above when watching it because otherwise you'll figure out what is happening.
Easier said than done.
Anderson needs to find the Mulholland Drive balance before I'm truly impressed by his insanity-driven psychological mysteries. His two films I've seen are either too easy or too complicated to figure out at the right time in the film to be truly satisfying. Lynch made Mulholland Drive in a way that you "got it" before the absolute end - then you could enjoy the final scenes with this tremedous feeling of understanding, allowing you time before the film's conclusion to comprehend what has been happening and subsequently be affected by what happens in the end with the understanding of the tragedy of the film's characters. By doing this it enables the audience to form a connection on an emotional level; a connection which is quite a feat for a film so intellectually engaging but emotionally detached from its audience for it's first four-fifths. And it's what elevates Mulholland Drive to A territory, and through failure keeps Anderson's movies down at an inferior level of filmmaking.
I watched Session 9 last night, a film directed by Brad Anderson, and like his most recent film The Machinist it's a rather surreal, creepy psychological character study hidden beneath layers of mystery. This movie sees a group of workers go to an abandoned mental hospital to de-asbestos-ise it (I think) and then one of them disappears and creepy shit starts happening.
The Machinist reminded me of David Lynch and Mulholland Drive in that it was essentially an intricate psychological puzzle, albeit comparitively a rather lackluster effort in that it was by far less imaginitive and crafted with noticably less competence than Lynch's film and was far too easy to figure out what was going on - thus reducing the impact of the final revelations. Session 9 reminded me more of Stanley Kubrick and The Shining. Session 9 lacks that film's brilliant imagery but certainly holds its own in terms of creating an ominous feeling of constant tension. This film is a real mood piece.
Now, I don't mind a film that makes the audience work to get answers, but I think after seeing Mulholland Drive create such an intricate layer of complex mystery and then actually comprehensively and coherently unravel to reveal a wholly satisfying underlying truth before the film's end, that when a film like Session 9 concludes in a fragmented, murky way that requires plenty of afterthought to "get," it does seem less impressive and less... skilled, I guess, in its creation. It's one of those films in which the insanity of a lead character gives the director creative license to add in creepy shit at his will because of a what-isn't-real-doesn't-matter type of attitude, as an unfocused means to a focused end. For example the creation of a sense, upon reflection, of the crazy character's paranoia is brought about when we are lead down a path towards one possible reason for the disappearence of one of the workers when the psycho-guy imagines there is something more to David Caruso's character talking to a couple of youths than just an innocent chat that Caruso claims was a warning not to spraypaint the building (ie. maybe Caruso was involved and hired the punks to attack the missing guy because he and that guy had personal issues between them). Is that clever in hindsight, misleading the audience and characterising at the same time without the audience's knowledge? Maybe. But to me it also comes across somewhat as a means of stringing the audience along to pad the film's short running time out with "intrigue" because it's a little... gimmicky. Maybe that's harsh criticism but I can't say I was impresse by it in execution even if it sounds like a decent idea on paper.
More things I'm not happy with. We hear sessions (up to... session nine of course) of a former patient's interviews with her doctor which essentially form a parallel story to what is happening to the insane character in this movie, in terms of different personalities both guarding the weak from the truth (he doesn't realise until the end what he has done) and exploiting the weak to do what they could not on their own (an evil voice he hears is not supernatural but rather the part of him that brings him to kill). That's quite cool, and helps us understand the tragedy behind the lead character and what has happened and where he ends up. But like The Machinist the weakness here lies in simply creating a puzzle, jumbling it up and putting it together for the audience as if the putting together is somehow clever because something else links to what the final puzzle looks like. Any idiot could do that. Any idiot couldn't execute the whole film as well as Anderson, but I don't find the particular aspect of the film described above as being clever. It just makes it easier for the audience to understand what is happening or has happened to the crazy guy in a way which doesn't require anything more than what amounts to voice-over, as opposed to crafting our sense of understanding in the film itself and the character's interactions which would have made this movie a true, and I mean this, "masterpiece." By definition.
And while I liked the film's ability to end ultimately in a way which makes the audience realise that there was nothing supernatural going on afterall (which more horror movies should aim to do because it's much more impressive to have a non-cop-out actual "realistic" truth behind it all) the director exploits the supernatural angle near the end before this realisation with the power cutting out as a means of making certain scenes more creepy. Lazyyyyyy.
For all my criticism I really liked this movie. It had balls. It was original. It was cleverer than usual, just not as clever as it thought it was (like The Machinist which is, by the way, not as good). As such it gets a weak B or 3.5 out of 5. Certainly recommended, just forget everything you just read above when watching it because otherwise you'll figure out what is happening.
Easier said than done.
Anderson needs to find the Mulholland Drive balance before I'm truly impressed by his insanity-driven psychological mysteries. His two films I've seen are either too easy or too complicated to figure out at the right time in the film to be truly satisfying. Lynch made Mulholland Drive in a way that you "got it" before the absolute end - then you could enjoy the final scenes with this tremedous feeling of understanding, allowing you time before the film's conclusion to comprehend what has been happening and subsequently be affected by what happens in the end with the understanding of the tragedy of the film's characters. By doing this it enables the audience to form a connection on an emotional level; a connection which is quite a feat for a film so intellectually engaging but emotionally detached from its audience for it's first four-fifths. And it's what elevates Mulholland Drive to A territory, and through failure keeps Anderson's movies down at an inferior level of filmmaking.
posted by Steve @ 9:25 AM
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