Movie Rec: "Avatar"
Sunday, January 10th, 2010 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
retsukoWhen I see a movie as over-hyped and disputed as "Avatar", it's often hard to just view the film as a whole, a coherent story/product, without thinking of all the blog essays I've read bashing it and the general consensus of "pretty but MEH" I've heard from most people who've already seen it. And I'm very well aware of the violence inherent in the system political problems that are inseparable from the main story. So I'm pleased to say that even with all the problems, there is still a highly beautiful piece of filmmaking in here--not subtle by any means, but filled with gorgeous, captivating visuals of amazing creatures and a truly wondrous world.
OMG TEH PRETTY: The plants on the planet Pandora are simply gorgeous and reminded me of deep sea creatures. The trees are majestic and stunning; there are floating mountains and bioluminescent flowers; there are cool horse- and dragon-like creatures, and the whole thing is one big feast for the eyes. Really, I would have been happy if the entire movie was spent flying around the planet, looking at all the native flora and fauna, and being immersed in a completely different world. The 3D elements of this part of the movie were absolutely worth the extra $3 to rent the glasses.
HOWEVER.
Ahem, James Cameron? SUBTLETY: LOOK INTO IT!: First of all, unobtainium. O RLY?! How much trouble would it have taken to search 'latin-english dictionary' on the internet, find the latin word for 'unobtainable', and use that instead of this? And if this movie was 20 years in the making, there's a double- (nay, even triple-!) why not? moment here. I don't know how the actors managed to keep a straight face when talking about it. Fortunately, they didn't talk about it all that often.
Secondly, thorny political issues: this is the ultimate guilty white man's movie. The plot is along the lines of, white colonization force appears, one white man makes friends with natives, learns their savage ways, gets it on with native woman, rebels against commanding white forces by appropriating native myths, and is heralded as native chief as white colonization force is defeated. The cheese of this story is tempered (ever so gently) by the fact that the natives do win (albeit with white guy's help) and get to escort the colonizing force out of their lands after a fight where the planet itself comes to their aid.
A subset of the thorny political issues has to do with the presentation of race and gender. Gender-wise, this film barely passes the Bechdel test (definitely more than two women, but while they do talk, it's sort of a shouted conversation about how best to repel the invading forces), but there a lots of instances of women being in charge and generally competent. Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver both get some good set pieces wherein they ask important political questions and make influential decisions. The Navi (natives--again, Cameron, SUBTLETY LOOK INTO IT) appear to have a pretty balanced society in which men and women can be leaders and hunters, and even though it's the hackneyed "mother earth" idea, the great spirit of the planet is identified as female. Race-wise, this is a lot trickier. Almost all of the invading forces are white, except for the token hispanic and the token black guy, both of whom rebel against their corrupt white leaders. The Navi aren't shown to have different ethnicities. The savior of everyone is most definitely the white man, and the Navi hail him almost as a God at one point. There is definitely some racefail going on here.
The sad thing about the race- and subtlefail is that at the core of this story, along with the gorgeous visuals, there are actually some very interesting ideas, foremost among them the idea that all the trees on the planet are interconnected, with roots like synapses--the planet is one big brain. There's also the idea that the Navi physically connect with the brain, and with the animals they ask to serve, that they're linked to everything around them in this specific way. (Again with the subtlefail, I know, but it works very well within the framework of the story that's been set up.) I also highly suspect that a junket through Cameron's DVD collection would reveal the complete works of Hayao Miyazaki, most notably "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" and "Nausicaae". There's no outright stealing, but there's some suspiciously similar story and visual themes.
In short: James Cameron produces something that, while it has significant political issues, is a solid, entertaining, and beautiful piece of work. The story may be overdone and hackneyed, but, by gum, I was on the side of the native people fighting back against the white colonizers, and it's pretty hard not to be. Well worth the bargain matinee and extra 3D admission.
~~~
Trailer Park: "Percy Jackson & The Olympians" looks like a great deal of franchiseable fun; Tom Cruise does not entice me at all to see movies anymore; and "Piranha 3D" looks a terrible, goofy throwback to monster movies of the '50s and '60s.
OMG TEH PRETTY: The plants on the planet Pandora are simply gorgeous and reminded me of deep sea creatures. The trees are majestic and stunning; there are floating mountains and bioluminescent flowers; there are cool horse- and dragon-like creatures, and the whole thing is one big feast for the eyes. Really, I would have been happy if the entire movie was spent flying around the planet, looking at all the native flora and fauna, and being immersed in a completely different world. The 3D elements of this part of the movie were absolutely worth the extra $3 to rent the glasses.
HOWEVER.
Ahem, James Cameron? SUBTLETY: LOOK INTO IT!: First of all, unobtainium. O RLY?! How much trouble would it have taken to search 'latin-english dictionary' on the internet, find the latin word for 'unobtainable', and use that instead of this? And if this movie was 20 years in the making, there's a double- (nay, even triple-!) why not? moment here. I don't know how the actors managed to keep a straight face when talking about it. Fortunately, they didn't talk about it all that often.
Secondly, thorny political issues: this is the ultimate guilty white man's movie. The plot is along the lines of, white colonization force appears, one white man makes friends with natives, learns their savage ways, gets it on with native woman, rebels against commanding white forces by appropriating native myths, and is heralded as native chief as white colonization force is defeated. The cheese of this story is tempered (ever so gently) by the fact that the natives do win (albeit with white guy's help) and get to escort the colonizing force out of their lands after a fight where the planet itself comes to their aid.
A subset of the thorny political issues has to do with the presentation of race and gender. Gender-wise, this film barely passes the Bechdel test (definitely more than two women, but while they do talk, it's sort of a shouted conversation about how best to repel the invading forces), but there a lots of instances of women being in charge and generally competent. Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver both get some good set pieces wherein they ask important political questions and make influential decisions. The Navi (natives--again, Cameron, SUBTLETY LOOK INTO IT) appear to have a pretty balanced society in which men and women can be leaders and hunters, and even though it's the hackneyed "mother earth" idea, the great spirit of the planet is identified as female. Race-wise, this is a lot trickier. Almost all of the invading forces are white, except for the token hispanic and the token black guy, both of whom rebel against their corrupt white leaders. The Navi aren't shown to have different ethnicities. The savior of everyone is most definitely the white man, and the Navi hail him almost as a God at one point. There is definitely some racefail going on here.
The sad thing about the race- and subtlefail is that at the core of this story, along with the gorgeous visuals, there are actually some very interesting ideas, foremost among them the idea that all the trees on the planet are interconnected, with roots like synapses--the planet is one big brain. There's also the idea that the Navi physically connect with the brain, and with the animals they ask to serve, that they're linked to everything around them in this specific way. (Again with the subtlefail, I know, but it works very well within the framework of the story that's been set up.) I also highly suspect that a junket through Cameron's DVD collection would reveal the complete works of Hayao Miyazaki, most notably "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" and "Nausicaae". There's no outright stealing, but there's some suspiciously similar story and visual themes.
In short: James Cameron produces something that, while it has significant political issues, is a solid, entertaining, and beautiful piece of work. The story may be overdone and hackneyed, but, by gum, I was on the side of the native people fighting back against the white colonizers, and it's pretty hard not to be. Well worth the bargain matinee and extra 3D admission.
~~~
Trailer Park: "Percy Jackson & The Olympians" looks like a great deal of franchiseable fun; Tom Cruise does not entice me at all to see movies anymore; and "Piranha 3D" looks a terrible, goofy throwback to monster movies of the '50s and '60s.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 12:33 am (UTC)I was amused by a post somewhere--I think Boing Boing?--mocking how safe Cameron's plot choices were, and listing all the things he could have done differently to take more risks--and all the things they suggested were as purely cliche as the movie itself, just more morally gray. Moral ambiguity = not actually a synonym for sophistication, or even courageous and creative storytelling.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-14 12:35 pm (UTC)