The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, January 9, 2015 — 7
By BRIAN BURLAGE
Daily Arts Writer
Joel and Ethan Coen (each
credited with the “Unbroken”
screenplay) are no strangers
to
the
idea
of
suffering.
They made “A
Serious Man”
in 2009, which
is
essentially
an entire movie
dedicated
to
the exploration
of
a
single
question: why
do bad things happen to good
people? Of course, the Coen
brothers weren’t the first to
borrow this question from the
Book of Job in the Bible, nor
have they really been successful
in trying to provide a good
answer. But what they have
managed to do is address, with
great honesty, the perplexity
man faces when he tries to
understand his circumstances.
“Unbroken” proves, to a certain
extent, that humanity’s struggle
derives not from his attempt
to comprehend evil, but rather,
from his attempt to comprehend
evil’s intention.
There’s a scene in the film
that
illustrates
this
point
very simply. Louis Zamperini
(Jack
O’
Connell,
“Harry
Brown”), the film’s captive yet
determined hero, stands on the
roof of a POW barrack with a
couple of fellow prisoners and
soldiers. Together they watch
as American planes bomb the
Japanese territory just outside
their camp. As they work to
extinguish small fires on the
barrack
roofs,
they
begin
discussing
their
fate.
One
prisoner remarks on how close
the Americans are getting to
the camp. Another prisoner
reassures everyone that in a
few weeks the Allied forces will
liberate them all. More telling,
however, is when a prisoner
claims
he’s
overheard
the
Japanese officers talk about the
Allied approach, and how the
officers had made an agreement
to kill every prisoner in the
camp. Suddenly, the prisoners’
situation becomes shockingly
clear: if the Allied forces lose,
they will all be executed, and
yet, if the Allied forces win,
they will all be executed.
After a moment of silence, one
prisoner asks, “Then what are
we supposed to pray for?”
This question is central to
“Unbroken” and its effort to
retell the remarkable story of
Louis Zamperini, an Olympic
runner who volunteered to fight
in World War II, who drifted for
45 days in a small life raft at sea
and who was taken prisoner by
the Japanese and tortured for
nearly two years. We watch as
conflict after conflict befalls
him: the death of a friend and
soldier, the savage assault of
fellow prisoners, Zamperini’s
own gruesome and frequent
beatings. We watch as his face
takes repeated blows — both
from
Mutsuhiro
Watanabe
(newcomer
Miyavi),
the
camp’s commander, and from
other prisoners – and we see
it break and heal, break and
heal what seems to be a dozen
times. “Unbroken” runs for 137
minutes, and a solid 110 of them
take us straight into the grit of
Zamperini’s suffering. Soon the
prisoner’s
question
becomes
more relevant for us, as the
audience: where is the hope in
all this misery?
Zamperini’s
story
is
a
testament to the unbreakable,
irreducible will of humankind,
and to the power of the mind
in times of enormous adversity.
However, Angelina Jolie, in
her directorial debut, tells this
grand story with sufficient
grace, but not the necessary
grace.
Scenes are too often lost to
the drama of the endeavor;
the film actively tries to make
the audience believe in the
value of the story. But the
story itself, even if it had been
filmed on a $100 budget with
an iPhone camera, would be
able to deliver its own value
a thousand times over. The
narrative doesn’t need any
additional drama, yet too often
Jolie tries to streamline it as if
the emotion needs a cue. Take,
for example, the flashbacks
that
Zamperini
experiences
while Watanabe is beating him
senseless. The scene shifts
between Zamperini running
shirtless on a beach and lying
shirtless in a pool of blood in
a Japanese POW camp. The
opposing images do nothing
to complement one another;
instead, given the fact that at
one point Zamperini had the
choice to leave the camp but
decided to stay, this flashback
sequence almost makes you
root against Zamperini for
not
taking
his
chance
to
escape. This kind of audience
resignation
(withdrawing
empathy
from
Zamperini’s
story) is indirectly elicited far
too often in the film.
Another major issue is the
film’s conclusion, which occurs
suddenly and fails to provide
the joyous emotion or relief the
viewer has been anticipating
for two hours. After so much
anguish, despair and defeat,
the short-lived victory at the
end of the film feels a bit like
self-mockery. It’s as though the
victory is not what matters. It’s
as though Zamperini’s story
hinges only on the degree of
his suffering, and that through
it, through his endless abuse as
a victim and a POW, does the
significance of his story finally
emerge. For the film to be titled
“Unbroken” seems almost, well,
backward. At the end of it all,
we’re again left wondering
without any real direction or
answer: what are we supposed
to hope for?
Film’s stars talk
‘Into the Woods’
Anna Kendrick and
Chris Pine sing the
praises of musical
adaptation
By VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
“Into the Woods” may have
earned its name as a Sondheim
musical, but the Disney film
revamp adds a modern twist. In
a conference call The Michigan
Daily attended, “Into the Woods”
‘s storybook couple Anna Kend-
rick (“Pitch Perfect”) and Chris
Pine (“Star Trek”) — Cinderella
and Prince Charming, respec-
tively — discussed the challenges
of bridging the stage-to-film genre
differences and ushering a classic
fairytale into a new era.
Though any given first grader
could coherently summarize the
Brothers Grimm tales featured in
“Into the Woods,” the stars argue
that a new adaptation still holds
relevance.
“The great thing was that
(director Rob Marshall, “Chi-
cago”) really embraced a modern
sensibility for all the characters,
because since these stories kind
of belong to the ages, you know, it
makes sense that in some ways we
update them every generation,”
Kendrick said.
And update them we do. The
film’s Cinderella differs from other
renditions in that she has a greater
awareness of the individual agen-
cy she has to shape her life’s trajec-
tory. Kendrick explains how she
made Cinderella’s timeless charac-
ter her own “sort of over-thinking,
over-logical, neurotic princess,”
even as the world seems to be col-
liding around her.
“I think modern women have
a tendency to over-think every-
thing and they don’t trust their gut
and we have to look at everything
from every angle and find the right
decision, and she’s doing that the
entire piece until something that
she really has to reckon with hap-
pens,” Kendrick said. “You know,
when the community is in crisis,
suddenly it’s very clear for her
what’s important ... she’s very cen-
tered and she’s very calm, more so
than she is in any other moment in
the piece.”
In contrast, Pine took on a
more satirical portrayal of Prince
Charming.
“Everybody in this film goes
through these really wonderfully
complex journeys and they expe-
rience joy and heartache and sor-
row and grief. And then my prince
is just way more two-dimensional
than that, and … I think that I had
a lot of fun bringing some levity to
the picture, or tried to — there’s a
bit of a buffoon in the prince,” Pine
said. “Cinderella gives him the
chance to really feel and to really
connect with her, and I think he
does for a brief second, but then
does make the choice to kind of go
back and run off and relive over
and over and over again this story-
book life that he is so accustomed
to.”
Because of its heightened real-
istic awareness, “Into the Woods”
sheds the idea that the stories of
the Brothers Grimm are nothing
more than a sweet bedtime story.
Instead, it offers entertainment for
children and adult audiences alike.
“There’s the element where it’s
pure fantasy and it’s exciting for
kids and then there’s an element
that’s really specifically centered
towards parents, which is we have
to be careful what we tell our chil-
dren, and children take lessons to
heart, and it’s sort of about under-
standing that they’re listening to
us even if doesn’t feel that way,”
Kendrick said.
But
successfully
updating
familiar tales and their charac-
ters wasn’t the only thing the
film adaptation had to master.
At its core, “Into the Woods” is a
musical, with an incredible, well-
known score by one of Broadway’s
greatest geniuses. The film adap-
tation must do Sondheim justice,
and though both Kendrick and
Pine have previous singing expe-
rience, molding their technique to
fit a new discipline was a welcome
challenge.
“The musical theater genre is
very specific, and the sound that
you’re going for is obviously quite
different than something like the
country music I did before. But
I had a lot of fun learning the ins
and outs of the technique and of
the genre,” Pine said.
Kendrick agreed, calling this
performance “harder, a lot harder”
than her 2012 work in “Pitch Per-
fect.” But still, she said, “singing
Sondheim is so rewarding and ful-
filling and it was just, it was just a
dream come true.”
It also helps that they’re in good
company. From director Mar-
shall to accomplished lead actors
Meryl Streep (“The Devil Wears
Prada”), Johnny Depp (“Pirates of
the Caribbean”) and Emily Blunt
(“The Adjustment Bureau”), “Into
the Woods” features a strong, star-
studded cast. For two actors mak-
ing the technical jump, there’s no
better place to be.
“I think Rob really set the tone
in the beginning. You know, he’s a
director that comes from the the-
ater world so he recognized the
importance and the real luxury
of having a month of rehearsal
before you ever show your wares
to the public. And he made sure to
build that in,” Pine said. “And even
though, all of us, we didn’t get a
chance to work with everyone, we
did get a chance in that month to
see one another and to see what
everybody was doing. And I think
that really helped infuse the proj-
ect with a sense of community and
that we’re all kind of on the same
page. And I think you’ll hopefully
feel that great feeling in the film.”
DISNEY
“Ugh, moooooooom, I already cleaned my room.”
‘Unbroken’ cracks
under its own weight
What are we
supposed to
hope for?
UNIVERSAL
“My leg!”
Gorgeous,‘Wild’ hike
By REBECCA LERNER
Daily Arts Writer
“What the fuck have I done?”
This sentiment echoes like a
heartbeat
through
the
first
scenes of “Wild,” based on the
bestselling memoir, as inexpe-
rienced hiker Cheryl Strayed
(Reese Witherspoon, “Mud”)
begins
her
1,100 mile jour-
ney
to
emo-
tional recovery
on the Pacific
Crest
Trail.
Strayed’s pain
is
introduced
even
before
she is, through
the groans of
agony that come from a black
screen, leading to an image of
her torn-up feet due to hiking
hundreds of miles in ill-fitting
boots. Though she loses her
boots, she continues to walk
through both her emotional and
physical pain.
As Strayed first sets out on
the trail, the audience is forced
to play connect-the-dots with
jagged flashbacks to put togeth-
er the course of events that
led her there. Though she has
recently endured a divorce with
her ex-husband Paul (Thomas
Sadoski,
“The
Newsroom”),
the true tragedy of her life is
the death of her mother (Laura
Dern, “Enlightened”), whose
optimistic and curious spirit is
introduced in dreamy but short
scenes. After losing her mother,
whom she describes as “the love
of my life,” Strayed embarked on
a rampage of self-destruction,
including the heroin use and
promiscuity that result in her
divorce and odyssey on the PCT.
Some of the most anxiety-
provoking scenes come not from
the life-threatening conditions
or rattlesnakes, but from the
sole idea of a woman hiking
alone for 94 days. A naïve and
inexperienced hiker, Strayed
often relies on the kindness of
strangers for rides, food and
encouragement in ways that
her male hiking counterparts
cannot.
However,
the
dou-
ble-edged sword of this help
rears an ugly head in the form
of unwanted attention from
severely creepy male hunters.
Later when Strayed meets with
fellow hikers, they dub her “The
Queen of PCT,” because strange
men are always willing to help
her. Strayed’s weary smile at
this supposed “gift” forces the
audience to look deeper into
the fist-clenching nervousness
felt whenever she is alone and
confronted by a man on the
trail. The irony is that while
these men perceive women like
Strayed as blessed to receive
favors and male attention, there
is always an underlying danger
present that they do not recog-
nize.
Witherspoon’s portrayal of
the emotionally distant Strayed
is authentic and well-done, but
could have used more assistance
from the supporting characters.
Unsurprisingly, the film’s most
touching moments come from
her interactions with her moth-
er and her brutally honest best
friend Aimee (Gaby Hoffmann,
“Obvious Child”). Her exchang-
es with them show who Strayed
was before her life went to hell,
and why an audience should
care that she finds her way back.
When trapped in the confines
of her own internal monologue,
Strayed can become almost
intolerably
self-aggrandizing
and pretentious. But in between
eye-roll-provoking
proclama-
tions of “how wild it all is,”
Strayed proves herself to be
funny, self-reliant and strong.
Directed beautifully by Jean-
Marc Vallée, the film alternates
between long shots of the harsh
but stunning wilderness and
close-ups
of
Witherspoon’s
grimy, makeup-free face. He
grounds the narrative well, as
a love story between a mother
and a daughter. Strayed walks
her way to being the woman
that her mother raised, letting
the audience experience the les-
sons learned with each footstep.
FILM INTERVIEW
MOVIE REVIEW
MOVIE REVIEW
C+
Unbroken
Rave 20 and
Quality 16
Universal
B
Wild
Michigan
Theater and
Quality 16
Fox Searchlight