Post by tipou on Mar 16, 2009 18:59:06 GMT
[glow=red,2,300]*** SPOILERS ***[/glow]
ok so i saw "victory" yesterday.
i was prepared for a sarcastic comment, having read some
reviews about the movie on this here thread, but, no... i dare say that i liked the movie in fact.
so willem dafoe (THE GOOD GUY) is a a very disenchanted and bored soul living alone in a hut on an island In the pacific. he gets to town to get some things, and sees irene jacob (THE GOOD GIRL), violonist/prostitute who is about to be sold by simon callow (lovely to see him again) to the hotel owner (jean yanne, also lovely to see him). at irene's request he steals her away to his island. the hotel owner is pissed off.
so when sam (THE BAD GUY) and rufus (THE BAD GIRL) comes to his hotel with their handsome mugs and very, very bad table manners (see the card game if you dare), he sends them after willem. apparently there is a treasure for sam to find on willem's island. and he needs it badly.
but jean yanne also informs rufus that there is a woman for him, and he needs one even worse, it seems, than sam needs money. only, see, rufus keeps the info for himself. sam is soooo afraid that any woman will get near rufus (his "secretary", yeah, sure, uh-huh, if you believe that, i have land to sell you in florida), that he will certainly not get after willem if he knew that a woman is sitting on his expected chest of gold, so to speak.
sam and rufus, always down on their luck, have some problems locating willem - the pacific is a large place - so when they get to destination, they are in quite a bad shape (hence the less than perfect rufus complexion as seen in caps above). out of pity, and a bit of silliness, really, willem lets them stay, but feels that something is wrong and hides irene just in case.
soon, we learn that there is no treasure. only willem and irene know that. rufus doesnt care, its the girl he wants, and he goes after her like a bull in heat, which has him deserve the nasty knee-in-the-crutch reaction seen in another cap above.
which does not discourage him in the least, quite to the contrary. see, by now, we know that rufus is the craziest of the foursome, by a mile. i mean, next to him, anthony perkins at the very end of psycho is the guy you want to have a beer with. this is one F***ed up dude. so he still goes on with his plan to take her and leave sam (saying he's fed up to crawl on his belly - got ya), and he even believes that irene will follow wilfully. well, she is so expressionless, you can't hold it against him if he misunderstood.
so by now willem really would like sam and rufus to go, but his servants have left him, rightfully getting out of trouble they have nothing to do with, and also sam has stolen his only gun. he tries to hide on the island with irene, but the locals dont want to deal with the crazy whites either, so he is forced back home.
a lot of bang bang shoot shoot follows, and only one of the four will survive. and it's not rufus. and it's not sam. and it's not irene (if it had been, it would have been really a sarcastic turn of event, since she had look dead from the start).
true, the actors' play was a bit weird at time, but i think it was the director's choice to make them work that way.
i mean, you KNOW it's the director's fault when you catch willem dafoe underacting. dont get me wrong - i love Williem - but he can be over the top at times. might have been a bit too restrained for my taste here, but you had to believe him, and you did.
irene jacob i have seen in a few french movies, and she is not usually the languishing, depressing figure she was there. i mean, you wonder why willem is immediately smitten, and does not want to shoot himself when he sees her, she looks like a dr. kevorkian clinique advertizement, or, equally disturbing, like those kids with huge teary eyes in those kitsch paintings-on-velvet of the 60's and 70's.
i mean, in other movies, irene is not exactly ethel merman, but still, not that sinister. like, ok, you had bum luck, you're not happy, you need a break, we got it, how about a smile when the poor guy saves your life? come on, she is supposed to be happy, and STILL looks like she is going to hang herself any moment.
sam neill... what can i say. he's sam neill. i am sorry, but the guy is always perfect. his shady, seedy, still gentlemanly (somehow), mysterious mr. jones is quite intriguing. you KNOW he shags rufus, yet he still needs to paw young chinese guys and smoke opium (this is 1913, guys, crack would have made for a more lively character, but there you go).
he plays a guy who goes from weird charm to deathly threat at the drop of an eyelid, without even using a threatening word. this is quite a fascinating piece of work mr. neill does there, considering that he is lying around and high like a kite most of the time, and that whenever he moves - not often - he would easily be beaten at the clock by any ancient dying snail pulling a cartful of, say, radishes (for example).
yes, again, i end with our rufus, because he is the fourth element of this joyful company, and because i want to end another one of my reviews with praises for his amazing talent. basically, he could have played pretty-but-deranged, it would have been ok. he was asked to play pretty-but-deranged-and-dangerous, and the dangerous part he has nailed down like a bad loser's hand to the card table - litterally.
***PERFECT ACTING MOMENT ALERT ***
watch his eyes, in this scene. if you don't believe, for a split second, that he has really done it, and if not, that he would do it given the occasion, you are blind. i mean, this look is the danger in dangerous. i have never seen such believable madness in any actor ever. period.
i mean, its the kind of look, if you had been there on the set, knowing fully well it was rufus sewell in front of you and you were ready to jump him as soon as the director yells cut, that would have made you run away, jump in the pacific, and swim until you reached hawaii.
he maintains, and even increases, this tension, ever so slightly, in each scene he's in - yet he never ever does one iota too much. perfect control. once again he inhabits his character to the point of becoming the character - so how could he do too much?
rufus's martin ricardo is the least explained character among the leads. nothing, strictly nothing is said about his past or origins, not by the narrator, not by the other characters, not by himself. yet, you understand it all. at the end of the movie, you would almost be able to write his biography.
i mean, that is one good piece of acting if ever i saw one.
ok so i saw "victory" yesterday.
i was prepared for a sarcastic comment, having read some
reviews about the movie on this here thread, but, no... i dare say that i liked the movie in fact.so willem dafoe (THE GOOD GUY) is a a very disenchanted and bored soul living alone in a hut on an island In the pacific. he gets to town to get some things, and sees irene jacob (THE GOOD GIRL), violonist/prostitute who is about to be sold by simon callow (lovely to see him again) to the hotel owner (jean yanne, also lovely to see him). at irene's request he steals her away to his island. the hotel owner is pissed off.
so when sam (THE BAD GUY) and rufus (THE BAD GIRL) comes to his hotel with their handsome mugs and very, very bad table manners (see the card game if you dare), he sends them after willem. apparently there is a treasure for sam to find on willem's island. and he needs it badly.
but jean yanne also informs rufus that there is a woman for him, and he needs one even worse, it seems, than sam needs money. only, see, rufus keeps the info for himself. sam is soooo afraid that any woman will get near rufus (his "secretary", yeah, sure, uh-huh, if you believe that, i have land to sell you in florida), that he will certainly not get after willem if he knew that a woman is sitting on his expected chest of gold, so to speak.
sam and rufus, always down on their luck, have some problems locating willem - the pacific is a large place - so when they get to destination, they are in quite a bad shape (hence the less than perfect rufus complexion as seen in caps above). out of pity, and a bit of silliness, really, willem lets them stay, but feels that something is wrong and hides irene just in case.
soon, we learn that there is no treasure. only willem and irene know that. rufus doesnt care, its the girl he wants, and he goes after her like a bull in heat, which has him deserve the nasty knee-in-the-crutch reaction seen in another cap above.
which does not discourage him in the least, quite to the contrary. see, by now, we know that rufus is the craziest of the foursome, by a mile. i mean, next to him, anthony perkins at the very end of psycho is the guy you want to have a beer with. this is one F***ed up dude. so he still goes on with his plan to take her and leave sam (saying he's fed up to crawl on his belly - got ya), and he even believes that irene will follow wilfully. well, she is so expressionless, you can't hold it against him if he misunderstood.
so by now willem really would like sam and rufus to go, but his servants have left him, rightfully getting out of trouble they have nothing to do with, and also sam has stolen his only gun. he tries to hide on the island with irene, but the locals dont want to deal with the crazy whites either, so he is forced back home.
a lot of bang bang shoot shoot follows, and only one of the four will survive. and it's not rufus. and it's not sam. and it's not irene (if it had been, it would have been really a sarcastic turn of event, since she had look dead from the start).
true, the actors' play was a bit weird at time, but i think it was the director's choice to make them work that way.
i mean, you KNOW it's the director's fault when you catch willem dafoe underacting. dont get me wrong - i love Williem - but he can be over the top at times. might have been a bit too restrained for my taste here, but you had to believe him, and you did.
irene jacob i have seen in a few french movies, and she is not usually the languishing, depressing figure she was there. i mean, you wonder why willem is immediately smitten, and does not want to shoot himself when he sees her, she looks like a dr. kevorkian clinique advertizement, or, equally disturbing, like those kids with huge teary eyes in those kitsch paintings-on-velvet of the 60's and 70's.
i mean, in other movies, irene is not exactly ethel merman, but still, not that sinister. like, ok, you had bum luck, you're not happy, you need a break, we got it, how about a smile when the poor guy saves your life? come on, she is supposed to be happy, and STILL looks like she is going to hang herself any moment.
sam neill... what can i say. he's sam neill. i am sorry, but the guy is always perfect. his shady, seedy, still gentlemanly (somehow), mysterious mr. jones is quite intriguing. you KNOW he shags rufus, yet he still needs to paw young chinese guys and smoke opium (this is 1913, guys, crack would have made for a more lively character, but there you go).
he plays a guy who goes from weird charm to deathly threat at the drop of an eyelid, without even using a threatening word. this is quite a fascinating piece of work mr. neill does there, considering that he is lying around and high like a kite most of the time, and that whenever he moves - not often - he would easily be beaten at the clock by any ancient dying snail pulling a cartful of, say, radishes (for example).
yes, again, i end with our rufus, because he is the fourth element of this joyful company, and because i want to end another one of my reviews with praises for his amazing talent. basically, he could have played pretty-but-deranged, it would have been ok. he was asked to play pretty-but-deranged-and-dangerous, and the dangerous part he has nailed down like a bad loser's hand to the card table - litterally.
***PERFECT ACTING MOMENT ALERT ***
watch his eyes, in this scene. if you don't believe, for a split second, that he has really done it, and if not, that he would do it given the occasion, you are blind. i mean, this look is the danger in dangerous. i have never seen such believable madness in any actor ever. period.
i mean, its the kind of look, if you had been there on the set, knowing fully well it was rufus sewell in front of you and you were ready to jump him as soon as the director yells cut, that would have made you run away, jump in the pacific, and swim until you reached hawaii.
he maintains, and even increases, this tension, ever so slightly, in each scene he's in - yet he never ever does one iota too much. perfect control. once again he inhabits his character to the point of becoming the character - so how could he do too much?
rufus's martin ricardo is the least explained character among the leads. nothing, strictly nothing is said about his past or origins, not by the narrator, not by the other characters, not by himself. yet, you understand it all. at the end of the movie, you would almost be able to write his biography.
i mean, that is one good piece of acting if ever i saw one.
