Movie Review: Last Love (2013)

The film Last Love’s tagline says ‘It’s never too late to love life again’. Sandra Nettelbeck tries hard to project this and she does succeed to some extent but the overall impact is not great. Whatever she achieves is killed in the last 15 minutes of the film and one is just left feeling somewhat bitter!

Michael Caine plays the role of an aging widower Matthew Morgan, a retired Princeton philosophy professor, who lost his beloved wife three years ago. He lives alone in Paris, drowning in silent grief. A chance meeting with Pauline (Clemence Poesy) a young Parisian cha-cha-cha teacher brings some spark in his lifeless life and brightens it up. Or so it seems.

He says her hair reminds him of his late wife’s; she says she liked his beard for it reminded her of her late father’s. Slowly and strangely Pauline’s entire life seems to revolve around Matthew, strange because their relation is so ambiguous. It’s vague whether it is platonic affection that arises out of their respective loneliness or there is an undercurrent of real desire. 

Why need there be a clear demarcation one might say. Agreed! I did not have a problem for the most part of the movie. But as mentioned above, the last part just messes it all up and you’re left wondering.

When Matthew attempts a serious suicide, his two children Miles (Justin Kirk) and Karen (Gillian Anderson) come down from America on a disappointing note. They are not happy about having to be there as is evident from Karen’s remark, "An overdose is not my favorite excuse to come to Paris but thanks for making an effort, Dad." The two, especially Miles, develop an instant hostility for Pauline seeing her as “our future stepmother for all I know”.

Things take a turn from here and Nettelbeck seems to have found a shortcut to put things in order, which is far from convincing. Cliché and melodrama end up in disaster.

Michael Caine is undoubtedly a brilliant actor and he’s fairly good here. Only sometimes it seems that he is merely reading out his lines in a detached manner. Many people also have a problem with his (fake) American accent. Poesy is good in her part, and shares a good chemistry with Caine. Gillian Anderson has the least screen space but she plays it to the hilt.

I don’t have a problem with slow paced films but the languid pace might disturb some. Hans Zimmer’s score is subtle to suit the tone and mood of the film, but even though it looks very promising it too goes downhill. Michael Bertl though deserves great applause for the wonderful cinematography. Paris has been shot so well and one would (for the nth time) end up falling in love with the city.

Last Word: Last Love is not a bad film. It does take up serious issues deal with them well in the first half. It is the end that majorly disappoints. This film really had the potential to be better, so much better.

Rating: 7/10

Movie Review: Taxi Driver (1976)

When you watch Taxi Driver and The Wolf of the Wall Street (TWOTWS) back-to-back, both movies for the first time, you can’t help marvel at the genius that Martin Scorsese is. I shall now keep TWOTWS and Leonardo out of this. They are anyway getting their required due but more importantly because this is about Taxi Driver, a landmark film indeed, about Robert De Niro and his fabulous act of Travis Bickle, and of course THE man behind it Mr. Scorsese.

The film brings out the angst and existential plight of the protagonist Travis Bickle. He is an honorably discharged U.S. Marine who becomes a taxi driver to cope with chronic insomnia. He is hopelessly lonely, a vagrant without family or friends. He only has thoughts, dark thoughts for his company.

“Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.”

Travis wants to save a 12 year old prostitute (Jodie Foster) from a sleazy life and return her to her parents in Pittsburgh. He is not an evil person but he is so disturbed with and tired of the street scum that he becomes obsessed with cleaning the New York City. 

“Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.”

In some ways, I see the movie as a cross between two of my favourite books – Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’. Beckett’s Godot is a masterpiece of existential angst and just like in the play Travis too feels hopeless and doomed. Though Paul Schrader was inspired by Dostoyevsky’s ‘Notes from Underground’ (I haven’t read it) I can draw parallels from his other work ‘Crime and Punishment’. The book focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov who plan to kill a pawnbroker, arguing that with her money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless vermin. In the film Travis plans on assassinating a leading candidate running for president and has his reasons for doing so. All three works focus on the lonely and desolate protagonists.

No review/writing about Taxi Driver is complete without the mention of ‘You talkin' to me’. In this scene Travis is looking into a mirror at himself, imagining a confrontation which would give him a chance to draw his gun. Schrader’s script only read, "Travis speaks to himself in the mirror", but De Niro improvised the dialogue. Who knew then that it would go on to become one of the most famous and often imitated soliloquies in film history. Indeed, a lot of this film is about De Niro’s performance! Another scene that stands out is when we see the transformed De Niro in a Mohawk haircut at a political rally.

Both Michael Chapman’s cinematography and Bernard Herrmann’s phenomenal smooth, jazzy music play an instrumental part in the success of the film. This was Herrmann’s final score before his death. He had first refused to score for the film but later took it up after reading the script. The very first shot of the yellow taxi cab moving slowly in the dark rainy streets of New York gives a glimpse of the excellent cinematography. Most of the shots are slow and deliberate, with an aim to offer an insight into Travis’ mind, his loneliness and alienation. 

Taxi Driver has been shrouded in controversy ever since it released and it is no surprise to me. Jodie Foster played a highly controversial role of an underage prostitute, for which she even received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Since Foster was just 12 years old during the filming of the movie, her 19-year-old sister Connie Foster was cast as her body double for some explicit scenes. Even then, for her tender age, Jodie deals with some profound and extremely adult material and handles it very well.

The film does have an overbearing influence. One of the most controversial episodes is of John Hinckley Jr. who drew inspiration from Bickle’s character and attempted to kill President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 in order to prove his love to Jodie Foster.

The ending of the film also has been highly controversial and debatable. First the massacre and violence in the climax leaves a long lasting impression. After that Scorsese has given the film a very unexpected open-end. It is controversial for its vagueness and its inability to state a clear purpose of reality or fantasy. It is open to interpretations and till date there are various discussions about the same.

Despite the controversies, Taxi Driver is a classic, one of the best from the Scorsese-De Niro team. It elevated Scorsese's status as a director, and it assured Paul Schrader's reputation as a major screenwriter. 38 years and it still doesn’t seem dated, this is how brilliant it is! A must watch!