Film Reviews

Directed by Takashi Shimizu

Columbia Pictures

We hear only the high-pitched moan of the floorboards creaking as a woman’s shoes walk slowly across the floor: This space is completely dead, we see shoes, we hear floorboards—that’s it. The camera begins to pan ever so slowly across the floor; we hear nothing and only see the grainy, wooden expanse of floorboard, board after board laid perfectly side by side—sparse and chic turned ominous. The camera stumbles upon a door, it bursts open, the hand of the dying woman drops, a guttural boom blasts from the sub and that four-dollar bucket of flat Diet Coke resting patiently at your side becomes fizzy and fresh on your lap as you jump—hard.

It’s these moments—when some random horrific element comes from nowhere—that make the first act of The Grudge, Hollywood’s latest attempt at remaking a foreign blockbuster, extremely enjoyable. Yet tension gives way to torpor as the first act crawls to a close: The slow reserved pace that initially generates bloodcurdling moments soon begins to retard the motion of the film. It never picks up pace leaving the great horror movie moments without resonance at all: They are simply empty shocks. Even the supposed surprise ending becomes an “Oh, okay” moment instead of a “Wow, no way, that’s his father?” one.

The film features a so-so B-list cast with Sarah Michelle Gellar starring as Karen, the non-vampire-slaying, non-mystery-solving exchange student in Toyko, Bill Pullman as Peter, an ill-fated professor and Grace Zabriskie as Emma, an elderly woman who’s either a heavy heroin addict or a precog. Except for Zabriskie reinventing the doped-up old woman role, the rest of the cast disappoints—especially Gellar. Sure, she can wield a wooden stake, seduce her brother and spot Scooby Doo like no one else, but Gellar just can’t handle the role of horror heroine.

Takashi Shimizu, director of both the original Japanese release and the American remake, exhibits a deft hand in the film’s opening third, combining Ozu-like pacing and Hitchcockian suspense with images reminiscent of Thomas Struth’s Shinju-ku (Skyscrapers) series. Indeed, Shimizu’s Tokyo (like Struth’s Tokyo) is an infinitely complex urban cityscape where all the disparate, chaotic elements seem to coalesce in a single symbiotic moment.

And the plot plays with this notion by mixing folklore with the fantastic. When someone dies in a rage, sorrow lingers in the place they died, spawning undead creatures that will murder anyone that attempts to inhabit that space. Thus, one woman’s obsession with a university professor begets a grudge that will leave her and her murdered son undead, forever lurking in their old home killing anyone who tries to move in. Jumping back in time we see the murders of several innocent bystanders throughout the film as they all in some way become connected with the home.

We see this passive philosophical notion of our random interconnectedness perverted into a chilling precept of horror. Shimizu makes the most of this, generating tension and genuine terror with a slow, sweeping camera that seems to glide across the traditional Japanese interiors with neither rhyme nor reason; he uses frequent long takes with symbolic tableaux in the foreground and complex interactions occurring in the background. Shimizu takes this potent philosophical notion and maximizes it’s potential for a startling filmic effect; at least, for the first 30 minutes.

Although this effective introductory passage certainly intrigues the audience, the film never grasps the depths and subtleties of the themes it’s trying to provoke: It extends this air of sophistication and depth yet it never follows up on it. Bad performances all around and a reliance on an auterist aesthetic being able to triumph over a woefully shallow script are to blame here. Combine the long takes with middling actors giving painfully over-articulated performances and you have something of a mess. Set against the background of bold visual filmmaking and the near incoherent plot, the performances stand out—for their lack of skill.

The movie, then, becomes a woeful drudge of cinematic excess: It’s cool for the sake of cool.

—Bryant Jones

Woman, Thou Art Loosed

Directed by Michael Schultz

Magnolia Pictures

Woman Thou Art Loosed is a misnomer. Titling this film Movie Thou Art Disturbing, Depressing, Not Very Uplifting Nor Powerful At All! would be far more appropriate.

This adaptation of Bishop T.D. Jakes’ book, Woman Thou Art Loosed, is about a woman’s struggle with her demons both emotional and literal. The main character, Michelle, played by Kimberly Elise, is raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of 12, and cannot reconcile her painful past with her spiritual quest for God. She faces this conflict after her first stint in jail—she was arrested for either drug abuse, prostitution or all of the above: the incoherent script never clarifies and, honestly, no audience could really care less about these particulars. The point of this movie is to illustrate a fable rather than sticking close to a comprehensible scenario.

To Elise’s credit, she does as much as possible with such a weak script, but every actress would falter in scenes such as when her love interest asks her to tell stories from her time in jail, and she responds jokingly, “I was getting raped in the shower and a woman was pulling my leg, just like I’m pulling yours.” No, I’m not making that up. That is an actual line in the film. This dialogue may have in fact been the best and the worst sequence in Woman Thou Art Loosed.

This movie should not be released in theatres. It should not even go straight to DVD or VHS. It should be overnight Fed-Ex’ed to Lifetime, where they can show it over and over again in their next “Girl Has a Troubled Childhood, and Her Life Is Filled with Rape, Drugs, Prostitution and Murder Movie Marathon.” It would fit right in with their nightly line-up.

At least Jakes’s story managed to tackle a lot of important issues in the 96-minute film. It touches on issues arising from rape, child abuse, child molesting, domestic violence, adultery, alcoholism, denial, various forms of illicit substance abuse, prostitution, and of course, murder. And for the sake of providing some hope, there are five or six extensive sermons by the bishop himself.

If waking up early on weekends to watch Jakes on The Church Channel is your thing, then I would give this movie five stars and never believe any of your stories about prison rape. If it is not, then I would highly recommend avoiding this one. Even with all of Michelle’s depressing life experiences, I was expecting some sort of happy ending, but no sign of redemption ever arrives.

However, she does make a house out of popsicle sticks that has a door and a window that is supposed to symbolize hope and internal peace. Despite tremendous artistry and skill, I must say that I did not feel that peace or the hope of that window and door. I just felt kind of disturbed, annoyed and unhappy that I had spent two hours watching the film.

So filmgoers, skip this one. You’ll regret seeing it. And if you want to see it, just wait until it gets to Lifetime, if it’s even good enough to make the rigorous damsel-in-peril screening process.

–Theodore B. Bressman