Film Review: ‘Capital’ presents soul-crushing portrait of CEO life
November 1, 2013
Let’s face it, it’s hard to sympathize with anyone inhabiting the world of the one-percenter. It’s no surprise then that legendary filmmaker Costa-Gavras gleefully jumps in and paints a rather cartoonish portrait of high-level managers jockeying for position at a fictitious bank called Phenix. Blending both a morbid sense of humor with a rather bleak outlook, Costa-Gavras has adapted Stéphane Osmont’s Le Capital to plumb the icy depths of greed and how it corrupts all levels of humanity.
Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh tearing into the role with steely restraint) is an ambitious cad who, from the start, is ready to sink his teeth into his impending role as interim CEO at Phenix after the current CEO keels over on a golf course, grabbing his crotch. Marc dives into his new position with reptilian cool as if he has played out this role a million times over in his head. But all the preparation in the world cannot seem to ready him for the degree personal compromise ahead, as infinite temptations seem to arise before him. Meanwhile, there are always predators from inside and out who want to take what he has.
It’s hard to feel anything for these people. They battle to double their million-dollar-plus salaries while looking at numbers that foretell lay-offs (their preferred term is “staff adjustments”) in the thousands. The mostly male characters float about various metaphors for money molded to fit their place in life. 
Ultimately, a phrase like “money is a dog” becomes “money is the master.” There’s drama with a supermodel (real-life model Liya Kebede) who Marc treats as a high-priced call girl. That relationship ends with a sickening, brutal scene that does little to redeem Marc.
Not that Costa-Gavras has any agenda to humanize these people. The film is tautly-paced and painted with a shimmering, almost surreal color-palette. Though it relies on a lot of talking action, the film feels action-packed, nevertheless. It’s not so much about character, as it is about their actions. These are less people than money-hungry vessels. Even Marc, the film’s main protagonist, feels less than human despite a few fantasy sequences that expose his vulnerable side. But these are brief, internal moments that have little influence on the plot. In “reality” he’s a calculating creature that ultimately feels hard to relate with. This gives the film a satirical sensibility that may let down those looking for something more profound.
Last year, David Cronenberg unleashed Cosmopolis, also adapted from a book, a film that examined the corrupting power of seeming limitless wealth with even cooler iciness as it teetered toward the edge of humanity (Read my review: ‘Cosmopolis’ offers indictment of capitalism through an accomplice’s eyes – a film review). Cronenberg’s take on Don Delillo’s 2003 book stands as the stronger movie examination of such characters. The oft-unfairly maligned Robert Pattinson did a stirring job as a similarly cold and distant character accumulating wealth via algorithms who looks back toward a more innocent self to find his humanity and then engage in a brilliant tête-à-tête with one of those he stepped upon on his rise to power (a marvelous Paul Giamatti).
It’s not easy to make these kinds of characters compelling. Costa-Gavras does not pretend to try to humanize them. This is about the corporation as man-eating entity. The management are its tools. The problem is, as one hedge fund manager (Gabriel Byrne) notes, they think money is a tool, but it is actually the master. It’s all about maneuvering for capital, which equals power and then watching the company cope and settle to enjoy its greediness. Humanity is only collateral, and Costa-Gavras knows how to show that.
Capital is Rated R (for language, sex, violence … and greed), is in English and French with English Subtitles and runs 119 minutes. It is distributed by Cohen Media who provided a preview screener for the purposes of this review. It opens Friday, Nov. 1 in my area of South Florida at the following theaters:
Koubek — Miami, FL
Bill Cosford Cinema — Coral Gables, FL
Frank Sunrise — Fort Lauderdale, FL
Living Room Theaters – Boca Raton, FL
Regal Delray Beach 18 — Delray Beach, FL
Regal Shadowood 16 — Boca Raton, FL
It opened in New York City on Oct. 25 and may also be playing at a theater near you, if you live outside of South Florida.
The Independent Ethos’ Best Films of 2012 (so far)
December 31, 2012
There were many great film experiences for me this year. I had more access than ever thanks to the Florida Film Critics Circle, a group of professional film writers who welcomed me into their group in 2011. We voted on many films for several categories. The results of these winners was posted and discussed a bit here.
However, as the critic motivated to celebrate the independent ethos of creators of art, my votes for best films and their components often steer toward another direction. Well-made films are not always easy to understand (though they must first be well-made: smart, writing, illuminating pacing, surprising cinematography, an eye for mise–en-scène, great soundtracks and powerful acting performances can all be found in the films listed below). If I learned one thing while completing my MA thesis on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is that the depiction of the sublime should never seem literal. I would blame Ang Lee’s Life of Pi for something like that. It is also well and good that a film have entertainment value. I won’t deny that I enjoyed Ben Affleck’s Argo, but was it something more than thrilling jingoistic entertainment? It was not. Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty does a little better, as it explores the slipperiness of the notion of truth. It’s a subtle thing, overshadowed by lots of dramatic violence, including 20 long opening minutes of torture, explosions and a climactic ambush attack whose results are no spoiler (review to come sometime next week).
Though one of the better film experiences of the year, Zero Dark Thirty still does not enter my top 10 (it may enter my top 20— that list to come in February). My top 10 are for those looking for something even deeper. It starts with a gut feeling that is hard to explain, but even if you cannot understand the film at first glance, there is something in it that makes you feel you saw something different. These films often warrant and reward repeat viewings (or a lengthy review on my part). Several of the films listed below I did see more than once this year. Here are my top 10 films of 2012, as of Dec. 31 (with links to my original reviews were appropriate. Note: all titles are links that will re-direct you to the title’s Blu-ray version on Amazon. By buying the item through that link, you support the Independent Ethos with a commission at no extra charge to you):
1. The Master
2. The Turin Horse
3. Holy Motors
4. This is Not a Film
5. Amour
6. Take This Waltz
(This film was not reviewed on Independent Ethos)
7. In the Family
8. Beasts of the Southern Wild
(This film was not reviewed on Independent Ethos)
9. Moonrise Kingdom
10. Cosmopolis
Now, why “as of Dec. 31” or the “so far” in this post’s title? As noted in a similar post for 2011, based on my experience as a film critic in Miami, many great foreign films of the year do not make it to my area until the early part of the following year. Amour saw its debut in Cannes at the start of this year, but will not see official release in Miami until the end of January. Thanks to my membership in the FFCC I had a chance to see this movie way in advance. However, I still have not had the opportunity to see much praised foreign works like Miguel Gomes’ Tabu, Christian Petzold’s Barbara and Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills. I also have some catching up to do. I have yet to see Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds and Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone. So there is still time for the top 10 to shift. In order to make up for the shift and allow for some text to explain my top 10 (the under-appreciated and often superficially understood Take This Waltz especially merits some explaining). In February, I plan to do what I did for my favorite films of 2011 with this post and this post. So here’s to looking forward to what 2013 has to bring. Happy New Year, indeed!
‘Cosmopolis’ offers indictment of capitalism through an accomplice’s eyes – a film review
August 24, 2012
With Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg, that one-of-a-kind director who delights in exploring the darkest twists and turns of cinematic language in order to illuminate our shadowiest corners, points his lens at a man so full of money he seems to have paid for it with his humanity. For those who think being so rich that you have trouble spending all your money is something to aspire to, consider Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson). He’s a man so out of touch with his feelings, he needs death to find life. It’s a subject befitting Cronenberg’s seeming obsession with intellect, behavior and the material world, and the director certainly takes off running with it.
No matter what subject Cronenberg probes in his films, he has refined them over the years to exude a hyper-real, creepy atmosphere. This includes his most recent, seemingly straight-forward film, A Dangerous Method, an examination between Freud, Jung and their mutual patient Sabina Spielrein (An antidote for Oscar hype: My 20 favorite films of 2011 [numbers 20-10]). That film seemed fixated on bringing the writings and theories of psychology by this trio to life via ponderous dialogue. Despite some primal physical encounters, the real battles between these intellectuals were fought in dialogue, and those words were often quite sharp.
Cosmopolis, a film that takes place in a prescient future of civil unrest where people like Packer cannot throw away their money fast enough, fits in snug with the Canadian director’s style, especially in his obsession with bringing to life the written word, similar to A Dangerous Method. 
Though it is a cinematic adaptation of Don Delillo’s 2003 book, this remains one of the most offbeat Cronenberg films since the surreal video game vortex that was eXistenZ, which shamed The Matrix that same year of both films’ release (While The Matrix was all literal exposition, eXistenZ actually created the feeling that “the matrix” was real, and we were living it). The dialogue of Delillo, too meandering and breathless to seem realistically possible, remains intact and only heightens the strange quality of the film.
The Cronenberg touch is there from the brief abstract, digitized opening title sequence, which features droplets of black, gray and brown paint a lá Jackson Pollack as they dribble onto an earthy, glowing orange canvas. Cronenberg has said opening titles offer an important gateway to a film, so it matters metaphorically. My only regret about the opening is that he does not allow it to continue longer, like the old days of film. A throbbing electronic pulse and the jangle of a swelling electric, reverbing guitar, recalling Edge’s playing for U2, provides the soundtrack that crescendos and then diminuendos in one sweep. As the end credits will reveal, Cronenberg regular Howard Shore is still his go-to for film scores, though this score, a collaboration with Canada’s synth-obsessed indie band Metric, feels different from any other in their history together. It still works well throughout the film as it pulses and rumbles to life on occasion in the film. The score often swells up out of silence, ticking and humming to highlight certain moments of heightened exchanges between characters before diminishing and fading away, almost phantasmagoric in its shifting quality, heightening a sense of foreboding that permeates the film.
In the film’s first scene, a camera positioned low to the ground tracks across a fleet of white stretch limousines. One after another, the hulking metal tubes loom, awaiting launch into what seems to be New York City. Some of these might very well be decoys, as the film will imply 
Eric is a powerful, infamous executive many want to see dead. For all the criticism and expectation weighing on Pattinson as the kid in the Twilight films, his portrayal of Eric fits snug in the Cronenberg world. His sleepy eyelids and stiff jaw suit the character well, and even if the British actor’s version of an American accent might seem odd to some, it only adds to the distant alien quality of the character. Clearly exuding his Master of the Universe status, Eric exchanges terse sentences with his head of security, Torval (Kevin Durand). “I want a haircut.” “The president’s in town.” “We don’t care. We need a haircut.”
From these first lines, anyone who is a fan of Cronenberg knows they are in for something existing beyond an experience in life or in the movies, for that matter. The interior of the limo is sound proof to the point that all you hear are the voices of the people inside. It’s so disquieting that it reveals just how much one takes ambient noise for granted. 
The saturation of color, even between light and shadow seems so unreal that Jay Baruchel appears almost unrecognizable as he contorts his face stressing over Eric’s nagging, if monotone, questions of the security of their computer network. It marks the first of many meetings inside the limo, as the film features a parade of characters that typify the excesses of capitalism from hip computer geeks to lusty cougars to hollow rap stars, among the most obvious. Every once in a while, Torval appears, offering his boss impromptu risk assessments that grow more and more sinister as the film progresses: “We have report of imminent activity in the area … nature as yet unknown.”
In the limo, Eric sits in what appears to be a throne with armrests that glow and flicker with data on money exchanges. The interior is all gorgeous lighting and symmetrical framing. Outside the vehicle’s windows, the cityscape glides past so smooth it appears like a cheap green screen effect. But it’s also by design, as this guy may just be rich enough to afford limos that have the best shock absorbers money can buy. The bubble the limo provides also emphasizes Eric’s distance from the rest of the real world. With Cosmopolis, Cronenberg presents a snapshot of a creature of money, and he explores the expanse of imagination to show just how extremely rich Packer is. The man makes money by the “septillionths” of a second, hording it and spending it with no regard. Eric is prepared to buy whatever he wants, as everything has a price for him. During a meeting in the limo with an art dealer and casual sex partner Didi Fancher (Juliette Binoche) he tries to negotiate the purchase of the Rothko Chapel. It is also one of the few times he looks frustrated, as she tells him it’s not even for sale. “It belongs to the world,” she says. “It’s mine if I buy it,” he responds.
Other instances in the film where Eric seems frustrated occur in the company of his colder half, his new bride, Elise Shifrin (Sarah Gadon), revealed as a rich heiress who fancies herself a poet. She holds out sex, as he asks for it with little reserve, much less romance. He cannot find the soul required for the effort, it seems. He has already had sex on his throne inside the limo with Didi, who thrashes about in reverse cowgirl like a giddy girl. It may seem depraved, but it serves to illuminate how out of touch this man is. When Elise sees him after the deed, she says, “you smell of sex.” He shrugs and blames his prostate check-up in the car by a doctor who finds his gland “asymmetrical.”
The heightened stylization of acting and staging never rings hollow, though some have argued the film has little “story.” Instead, it meshes brilliantly with the subject matter on an almost surreal level. This is a film about something more than crossing town for a haircut. This is a man on a quest to feel something again. Not that he is supposed to be sympathetic, but how many can know what life is like for a man as rich as this man? Eric becomes an enigma, enhancing his extreme, violent behavior during the film’s final scenes. Most everyone in the world of Cosmopolis indeed seems to want to see the man dead, as riots blow up in the street and a final confrontation with a whispering unhinged character (Paul Giamatti) looms to cap off the film.
Cosmopolis ends on what seems an open-ended note. But what happens after the film cuts to black matters little compared to a slight glimpse of humanity revealed by what leads to whatever that end may be. Like the best Cronenberg films, the moment is a mix of the banal and the extreme, highlighting the journey more than celebrating a pat conclusion. Cronenberg’s best films, Videodrome, A History of Violence and eXistenZ, present the audience with a mirror, and it can prove unpleasant for some, so knee-jerk responses by viewers might not all be flattering, but that speaks to the film’s potency.
Cosmopolis may be over-the-top and unreal, but its satirical sensibility is not far off the mark. One need not look further than a certain presidential candidate who drops $10,000 bets like they’re $5. Or pop culture mega millionaires with their own reality shows who have sacrificed their souls for portraying femme bots on television to sell high interest/short-term credit cards and “fashion” to their followers. Cosmopolis is a brilliant indictment on capitalism and the class divide it has spawned, something all too real in today’s zeitgeist.
Cosmopolis is Rated R and runs 108 minutes. It is distributed by Entertainment One who provided a preview screener for the purposes of this review. It opens today, Aug. 24 in my area of South Florida at the following theaters:
Regal South Beach 18 — Miami Beach, FL
AMC Sunset Place 24 — South Miami, FL
Gateway 4 — Fort Lauderdale, FL
Regal Delray Beach 18 — Delray Beach, FL
Regal Shadowood 16 — Boca Raton, FL
Edit: Cosmopolis returns to theaters in South Florida for an exclusive run at the Miami Beach Cinematheque beginning Friday, Oct. 5 at 9 p.m.
(Copyright 2012 by Hans Morgenstern. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)
New David Cronenberg projects fleshing out
May 13, 2010
According to “Variety,” the other day, Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard are now officially attached to headline the cast in David Cronenberg‘s version of Cosmopolis, a novel by Don DeLillo.
There isn’t much information on the film on the Internet right now (and I have noticed many stalwart Cronenberg fan pages seem kind of stalled with information). The film is most definitely in its early development stages (“Variety” says shooting will not commence until March of 2011). From what I read about the book, it takes place a decade ago. If the story is up-dated for the current times, it could prove a timely subject.
Farrell will play the role of a young billionaire who watches his fortune slip away from the back of his limousine over the course of a day in NYC. Cotillard will play his young bride. The film sounds like it could be quite a claustrophobic experience, as it most takes place inside the vehicle. It also sounds demanding on Farrell’s capable acting skills. If it works out, it could be a fine Cronenberg experience.
The Canadian director is one of those rare filmmakers still working in the major studio system that offers a very distinct and incomparable vision through cinema. His work is well-known for its harsh explicit violence, paired with a taste for surreal horror manifested from psychological disturbances within the unconscious. Cronenberg has played with monsters, technology and many an inhuman mind to explore the power of the mind over the flesh. His early films were mostly regarded as B-movie, 70s and 80s horror fare, but grew more sophisticated with Dead Ringers (1988) at the end of the 80s, exploring the mind as the monster.
Since eXistenZ (1999), his films have become even more grounded in the real world. I think his amazing skill at handling horror and reality has only grown stronger since. He stages things in his movies with such power and looks so deep into the effects of things like murder and violence that he truly highlights the power of the cinema screen as mirror.
His last film, Eastern Promises (2007), offered a harrowing trip into the underground world of Russian gangsters in America. Before that Cronenberg received wide praise for his adaptation of the graphic novel A History of Violence (2005). Viggo Mortensen played both lead roles with award-worthy aplomb. 
As a matter of fact, Mortensen is currently readying to begin shooting A Dangerous Method with Cronenberg at the helm. According to the IMDB, that begins shooting this month and will precede Cosmopolis. It is in pre-pro and will not see release until 2011. As fitting to the director of some of the most psychologically rooted movies in film history, it is based on the novel A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein. Kiera Knightly us to play Spielrein and Michael Fassbender is to play Carl Jung, while Mortensen will be Sigmund Freud.
So, just wanted to share the news the Cronenberg is hard at work on new films, and next year should provide a fruitful one for fans of his original cinema.
Independent Ethos 