The White Ribbon (2009, Austria/Germany/France/Italy)

I wouldn't say that Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon starts off innocently - far from it - but apart from some of the typical long takes and following shots, it lulls you into something of a disarmed state until about midway through, when certain scenes make it evident exactly who is behind the camera. Despite one storyline that is far sweeter, and seemingly genuinely so, than anything I've seen Haneke do in the past, the majority of the intertwined plot threads focus on the venal, vengeful, and quite probably evil nature of humanity. I like Haneke's films quite a lot, but it can be hard to leave the theater without wanting to lock yourself away for several days until some meager hope in humankind returns.

That said, I did not find The White Ribbon as affecting as, say, Cache or Funny Games. Perhaps because it is less audacious in its structure, more focused on giving the lie to what we find familiar or nostalgic - surely a reason for Haneke's choice to film in low-contrast black & white. Possibly because he makes it quite plain from the opening minutes who is most likely responsible for at least the immediate crimes that are being perpetrated in the village. Then again, perhaps he leaves such obvious clues because it is not the crimes themselves that are meant to be "solved", but rather the more hidden roots of those crimes. Are some people just born evil? Or do layers upon layers of national and personal history come together to create the perfect incubator for evil? And why do some succumb, and others not? Haneke, true to his nature, never seeks to answer these questions in the declarative. Instead, he leaves just enough on the screen to lead each viewer to his or her own interpretation. Why else would the narrator open the proceedings with a caution that the story we're about to see may in fact not be true?

A Single Man (2009, USA)

Tom Ford's adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel, A Single Man, is quite obviously a labor of love. All of the tiny visual details resonate, from the elaborate female hairstyles of the early '60s, to the precise cut of the main character's suit, to the light shining off a bare torso or faintly illuminating the downy hair on a young girl's legs. It is sometimes these things, Ford seems to say, the small moments that catch the eye and stop the heart a beat, that are as important to life as the deeper connections people make between one another.

In another, more emphatic, actor's hands, I think the main role of George Falconer would have easily tipped over into melodrama. Ford might be precise, but he's also a novice director, and it takes someone as quiet and contained as Colin Firth to help keep things under control. And this is another one of Ford's triumphs - he's wise enough to step back and let Firth do his thing without hinderance. The scene where George gets the phone call informing him that his partner has been killed in a car crash is a perfect case in point - Ford keeps the camera utterly still, letting Firth do all the heavy lifting.

And it is heavy lifting. Nearly a year after his partner's death, George Falconer is still lost, deciding one day that his life is no longer worth living. A Single Man is the chronicle of that day, cataloguing George's movements through it, from humble to inspired, that reflect not only on his final decision but also on the kind of man he is, and the kind of life he's led. It's a good life, one perhaps to be proud of, but George's grief can't quite let him realize this. As such, it's a film imbued with a startling amount of tension - particularly for a period piece about an aging English professor - as Firth and Ford draw the audience into George's semi-conscious search for something that will spark a sense of hope again.

On a somewhat random note - maybe it was the glasses, but in some shots, Firth reminded me a bit of Michael Douglas. This is not a good thing.

The Duchess (2008, UK/Italy/France)

Let's all watch as a pretty lady has her spirit broken! Yay!

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009, UK/Canada/France)

It's sad that the only thing that gets me to a Terry Gilliam film these days is a rare (well, somewhat rare - he's also apparently in The Book of Eli, also coming out this month) performance by Tom Waits. I used to love Gilliam, and some of his films - Brazil in particular - will always be among my favorites. But over the last fifteen years or so, ever since the questionable success of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (no one else could have adapted the book quite so well, but it was pretty much a bomb at the box office), Gilliam has gone down his own rabbit hole, bouncing back and forth between sloppy, more mainstream films like The Brothers Grimm and equally troubled personal projects such as Tideland. Parnassus has elements of both. It's got the star power and a scope that tries to play to the rafters, but the themes - about the power of choice and imagination - are pure Gilliam. Unfortunately, it's also a total mess.

I can't remember where I read someone who guessed that digital technology was the worst thing that could have happened to a director like Gilliam. Watching Parnassus, you can see exactly what they meant - the film gets caught up in extended fantasy sequences, which look fairly good, but are incredibly simplistic in content. Instead of pushing the story forward, everything grinds to a halt, and when it comes time for the big finale, Gilliam makes a crucial mistake by placing it in this fantasy world, and the movie turns into total mush.

Not that there isn't good stuff here. Gilliam's visual aesthetic is at its best when rendering images such as Parnassus' traveling show, and the wastelands that the actors live in when not performing. Lily Cole is surprisingly good as Parnassus' daughter. And Tom - Tom should act more, if he's not going to tour. You get the feeling, watching Parnassus, that Gilliam essentially let his old friend do whatever the hell he wanted, but Waits' exchanges with Plummer's Parnassus are at the heart of the film, and Waits is also the only person who looks like he's having any fun at all. Which, for a movie about the power of the imagination, is rather sad.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009, USA/New Zealand)

Michael Sheen is kind of awesome. Going directly from Frost/Nixon to the incredibly inessential Underworld: Rise of the Lycans is quite the jump, even if they were filmed in reverse order. Does he have a really big mortgage? Need an excuse to go to the gym? Get really bored playing Tony Blair? (Three times and counting.) Or maybe he just has a great sense of humor?

I'm not entirely sure how Rise didn't go direct to DVD. There's nothing here, save some awesome scenery-chewing from Bill Nighy, that wasn't told - in much-appreciated brevity - in the prior two Underworld movies. Plus, the special effects are crap, and duck-lipped Rhona Mitra is a pretty poor substitute for Kate Beckinsale. The discovery that they are currently considering a fourth movie just floors me. What's left to tell? Selene's high school awkward phase? Victor's brief stint on the London stage in the 18th century? The vampire vs. werewolves concept was fun the first time around, but swiftly fell victim to the law of diminishing returns. As I can't recommend quitting while they're ahead, just quitting would probably be the way to go at this point.

Blue Spring (2001, Japan)

Released only a year apart, Blue Spring is nearly the perfect companion piece to Battle Royale - if high-schoolers are this fucked up, why not ship them to an island and let them duke it out to the finish? Blue Spring takes place in the final days of the school year, as a group of senior boys try to figure out what they'll do after (or, more likely, if) they graduate. The constant question - work or college? - is played out as a joke, as none of them has much of a chance at either. Quite predictably, they react to their impending crisis in various violent and sudden ways, while the growing conflict between two of them, Kujo and Aoki, takes center place. Even this narrative, however, is sketchy at best - based on a manga of short stories, Blue Spring doesn't have any sort of real plot to push it forward, just a succession of more or less related sequences framed by the crisis of growing up. There's some good stuff here, but in general the whole thing feels rather slight, missing the dark sense of humor that made Battle Royale's treatment of the same subject matter work so well. (And it never hurts to have Beat Takeshi as a ringer.)

Sleep Dealer (2008, USA/Mexico)

Like a Philip K. Dick story, Sleep Dealer is clumsily written and structurally unsound, but rife with fascinating ideas. A science fiction narrative blended with harsh social critique, Sleep Dealer takes place in the not-too-distant future, in a Mexico where migrant workers can now plug into a machine in order to take menial jobs in America, instead of physically crossing the border. The tech is similar to that in eXistenZ and Strange Days, but utilized for an entirely different purpose - as one character says, "All the work - without the workers". It's actually a fairly comprehensive view of the life of a migrant worker - coyotes, backbreaking and occasionally dangerous labor conditions, low pay, societal exclusion - even down to the excessive fees charged for sending money back home to the family. Unfortunately, newbie director Alex Rivera can't hang all of this on a strong story or script, and even his often arresting visuals get bogged down in the plodding direction. Still, with this kind of blend, it will be interesting to see if Rivera's technical abilities can catch up with his imagination.

Police, Adjective (2009, Romanian)

Police, Adjective follows detective Cristi (Dragos Bucur) as he tails three suspects in a drugs case over the course of several days. And that's pretty much it - Christi tails. He waits, half hidden behind structures, he smokes cigarettes, and occasionally he winds his way through the maddening bureaucracy of his police precinct, trying to dig up more evidence in his case. One small detail - the suspects Cristi is tailing are approximately thirteen years old, and the crime they're suspected of is dealing, or perhaps just smoking, small amounts of hash. And as Cristi wrestles with the impossibilities of police work in post-Communist Romania, he also has his conscience (remember that word - know what it means?) to wrestle with, all of which feeds into the penultimate scene, an incredible feat of understated filmmaking, wherein Cristi has to face both his internal conflicts and those that pressure him from outside. It's ridiculously dry, but with a little patience, surprisingly hilarious - especially once the dictionary comes out (please note title).