Screen Machine

Review: MIFF ‘10: The Illusionist, Splice, Air Doll

The Illusionist

Dir. Sylvain Chomet

It’s impossible to discuss The Illusionist without reference to the revered Jacques Tati, mischievous master of French slapstick. The film is adapted from an unproduced Tati script; it borrows much from his work in its extremely sparse dialogue, delightful physical comedy, and outlandish physiognomies; and its protagonist, the eponymous Tatischeff, is an animated version of Tati. Even a Tati novice (like me) can plainly see Sylvain Chomet’s eagerness to pay homage to the great director. This manifests most abruptly in a sequence where Tatischeff stumbles into a darkened cinema and comes face-to-face with M. Hulot of Mon Oncle—played, of course, by a live-action Tati.

Oncle is really an excellent reference point for The Illusionist. Both films throw together a guileless old trickster and an unhappy but admiring minor, in this case a Scottish country lass with stars in her eyes. Both films contrast wistful scenes of a declining quasi-pastoral lifestyle with the encroachment of a merciless and nauseating modern world. Tatischeff is equally as confounded by this new world as was Hulot—a comparison made most forcibly in the garage where the illusionist works nights, strung with rubber hoses straight out of the Plastac factory.

Despite the breathtaking Scottish landscapes, though, the elegaic mood becomes stifling. I felt like I was trapped in Chomet’s head, suspended in his miserly nostalgia. The lament for the loss of an inspiring artist and an idyllic way of life never descends into sentimentality, but neither are we permitted to accept the loss. The “modern”—represented by rock music, crass advertising, electric lights—is invariably equated with nagging poverty, and the death of the creative life, which seems to me to be awfully neat. The film ends with Tatischeff abandoning his ward to seek, perhaps, his final destination. In context, this feels like a small-minded, selfish response to change. Come on, Tatischeff. Man up.

– Yoshua Wakeham

Splice

Dir. Vincenzo Natali

Within the science-fiction genre, most films on the subject of cloning are laden with symbolism. Splice is no exception. Starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, the film is interesting for its psychological analysis of the dark desires that lurk within the family unit. Any attempt to construct a recognisably scientific logic of cloning is laughable. The sequence on this subject comes complete with a basic “cloning for dummies video” on the theory behind the splicing technique, overloaded with lay-scientific terms (think Jurassic Park).

What is interesting is the engagement with cultural theory on the subject of cloning, notably Jean Baudrillard’s theory of sameness. This is that cloning represents a death drive, an inner desire to devolve back to the initial state of a microcosm, a tiny form that endlessly reproduces itself. Endless reproduction of the same in Splice is realised through incestuous sexual activity. I will not spoil the climactic scene through further description – but will tell you that it saves the film just at the moment the audience was becoming listless with typical Hollywood dramatic action.

The best aspect of Splice is its combination of pseudo-scientific logic and a kind of physiological surrealism. Key moments of conception, birth and death are its most visually spectacular features. The bizarre intercourse between Ginger and Fred, two mutant creatures spawned from splicing the DNA of different animals together, reminds me of the raw beauty in natural conception. The binding of fluids is visualised without the impenetrable barrier of flesh to hinder our view. The film draws not only upon David Cronenberg’s mutant humans, but also from the monsters in films such as Aliens and It’s Alive; the bodies of the creatures are overtly sexual and fascinating in their representation of the darkness that can be found in human sexual desire.

Unfortunately, any attempt to evolve the genre is stalled through the awkward and age-inappropriate costume design. I never thought I would say this about a film, but having the main protagonists dressed as emos (haircut included) for the entire duration hindered me from fully immersing myself. Even when the scientists conduct high level, biologically hazardous experiments, all are dressed in blazer jackets and plaid pants – complete with band buttons and patches. Furthermore, the moment when Brody and his brother (played by Brandon McGibbon) hi-five each other, and salute with the exclamation “double helix,” completely detracts from any previous suspense. Splice is the annoying cousin in the science-fiction family, mostly funny when it does not intend to be.

- Lauren Jayne Bliss

Air Doll

Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda

This film is something of a departure for Hirokazu Koreeda, and probably a bad introduction for the uninitiated since most of the departures one encounters in Air Doll make it seem like a lesser Koreeda film. In place of his usual precise camera placements, we are presented with a repetitive dollying camera. In place of the earthy grain in the images of his earlier work, an almost digital crispness. In place of his organic “realist” narratives (and I would even describe the supernatural-ish After Life in this category), Koreeda is here working in the realm of fable (with the concomitant danger of being read as simplistic).

Yet Koreeda’s tale of a sex doll who attains consciousness and discovers what it means to be human is in keeping with his past work in the way he locates the meaning of being human in a no-meaning. In a Koreeda film people are born, create questions for themselves, and then die without the finality of being able to answer any of their questions. In his more optimistic films, characters use the realisation of this no-meaning to unhook themselves from larger narratives (the “expectation-of-family” in Still Walking or “revenge” in Hana) but in Air Doll, we must be content with a mysterious death.

Koreeda also exceeds himself in Air Doll in some interesting ways: He gives us his first explicit sexual scene (and a sublimely weird one at that) and he captures the true beauty/banality of Tokyo, far from the dreamy playground of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

- Brad Nguyen

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