The 33

Director: Patricia Riggen/Starring: Antonio Banderas, Lou Diamond Phillips, Juliette Binoche, Kate de Castillo, Gabriel Byrne, Rodrigo Santoro and James Brolin

The 2010 Copiapo Mining Accident in Chile's Atacama Desert, where 33 miners were trapped for 69 days underground, riveted the world and became a headline mainstay. A concerted effort by engineers and mining personnel from around the world made a difficult rescue possible. Malnourished and weak, the men were supplied--by way of drilling--with food, water, clothes and electronic devices to enable the miners to maintain contact with their rescuers and loved ones. The miner's struggle to stay alive in a dangerous environment and the rescue effort that followed soon after, were made possible through ingenuity and the human spirit. A film version of such an incredible story deserves a powerful telling but though director Patricia Riggen's The 33 dramatizes the accident and the rescue, it fails--in spite of its well-meaning efforts--to capture the suspense and danger of the miner's seemingly hopeless struggle underground and the desperate attempt to rescue them above ground.

Like the real-life multinational effort that made the rescue possible, the film-makers have called upon an international cast that includes Juliette Binoche, Antonio Banderas, Kate de Castillo, Rodrigo Santoro and Gabriel Byrne to portray Chileans, with mixed results. Though it's hardly a stretch for Castillo, Banderas and Santoro to sound Chilean, the accent proves unwieldy for Byrne and Binoche, whose best efforts come to naught.

The mine caves in after the 33 miners begin what seems like a typical day below ground. Among the crew is a Bolivian, whose shabby treatment becomes an issue later. We get background on some of the miners. One miner's love-life is shambles as his mistress and his wife vie for his attentions. Another fights alcoholism while yet another is only days from retirement.

After the mine collapse, which is caused by a slab of rock twice the mass of the Empire State Building, the way in and out of the mine is obstructed; leaving them cut-off from the surface. The foreman assigned to oversee miner safety; Don Lucho (Lou Diamond Phillips) becomes consumed by guilt; believing he has failed in his job. Though Lucho's position as foreman gives him authority in the mine; a miner named Mario Sepulveda (Antonio Banderas) becomes de facto leader. It is Sepulveda's stubborn optimism that lifts the miner's spirits and their gloomy mood as they face further disasters and almost certain death.

After Sepulveda and another miner discover the ladders leading to the surface were never completed, the other miners prepare for a protracted stay; many believing a rescue will never come.
The miners also begin to think pragmatically as they begin rationing 3-day food supplies.

Above ground, the Minister of Mining; Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro); petitions Chilean President Pinera (Bob Gunton) for help, reminding him of the government's duty to intervene. Pinera commits government resources to helping the miners, with Golborne directing the effort.

Meanwhile, the miner's wives and girlfriends become a sustained presence at the mines; demanding information about their loved ones and forcefully resisting the mine company's attempts to disperse them. Leading the familial gathering is Maria Segovia (Juliette Binoche), who, like the others, waits impatiently for any news regarding the miners.

Unsure of the miner's fates, Golborne learns a common area in the mines which serves as a living space may be the area where the survivors congregate. Deterred by the slab of stone blocking the entrance, attempts are made to drill down to the miners to provide life-preserving supplies. As days drag into weeks, the rescue attempt draws the attention of the world media; which in turn attracts outside support. A drawn-out rescue operation makes it necessary to summon a state mining engineer named Andre Sougarret (Gabriel Byrne) to assume leadership in the operation. In time, drilling makes it possible to provide much-needed supplies to the men below.

How the miners cope with their predicament provides much of the drama in the film. As one might expect, bickering and petty factionalism take hold briefly before the miners unite in common cause. We see their supplies dwindle to almost nothing as meal portions become minuscule. Fighting despair but losing hope for a rescue, the supplies temporarily lift sagging morale and make it possible for the miners to maintain video contact with the leaders of the rescue. More importantly, the families are able to converse with their wives and children, which boosts spirits all around.

But though life-sustaining supplies bring relief, the problem of actually bringing the miners to the surface creates another problem. Attempts to employ massive drills to create a shaft into the rock are initially unsuccessful as a massive drill bit is shattered. The metallic fragments make a large magnet necessary, which in turn means summoning the necessary implement from Brazil. Sougarret and Golborne realize that every delay means one more day the miners' lives are endangered by the shifting rock in the mine, which also complicates rescue efforts.

As we see news programs from around the world broadcasting the rescue effort, one month underground becomes two. In spite of their dire situation, we see the miners gradually form an unbreakable bond.

After Sougarret and the Chilean government nearly give up the miners for dead, Golborne's determination to rescue the miners reverses what almost becomes full capitulation by all parties involved. With renewed resolve, another attempt is made with the help of an American engineer named Jeff Hart (James Brolin).

As previously mentioned, the accident and subsequent rescue were hardly wanting for suspense, drama and heart-breaking and heart-warming sentiment. But somehow the film only stirs interest rather than giving us a visceral experience. It is competently dramatized but it never leaves us breathless with suspense. Part of the problem may be we know the outcome before hand but the film itself never does much to make the audience forget it knows.

As also previously mentioned, it was difficult to overlook the various accents, particularly Binoche's. Though I highly esteem her as an actress, even she can't overcome a hokey, Chilean accent. She deserves better. Vaudeville accents are the domain of lesser actresses, like Meryl Streep; not French film stars with boundless talent.

I wanted to like the film more but a whiff of Disney seeped into the story. The real-life events ended happily (thank goodness) but the ordeal must have been hell for many involved. It's that hellish aspect that's lacking in The 33. What we're left with is something pretty decent but who pays multiplex prices to see something decent?

What this movie needs is a small screen to make its tepid, emotional output seem gargantuan, which is how I recommend one see the film.

The important thing is the miners survived, with their health intact. A so-so movie about their ordeal is less important in the grand scheme.

Clouds of Sils Maria

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Olivier Assayas/Starring: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Grace Moretz, Lars Eidinger and Johnny Flynn

Clouds of Sils Maria, Olivier Assayas' exploration of an aging actresses anxieties and insecurities, is intellectually satisfying and symbolically rich and though not a great film, it commits to stimulating our minds and features some terrific performances.

Assayas' film is a story within a story and his deliberate attempt to dissolve the barrier between the two leaves us wondering if an actress' life and a role for which she is famous have coalesced to form a powerful but disturbing reality.

Inhabiting this role is the venerable Juliette Binoche, an actress with limitless talent who proves to be the most appropriate casting choice; her real-life acting career is also subject to the unforgiving ticking clock the film industry creates for actresses who face obscurity or oblivion in middle-age.

Binoche plays Maria Enders, an actress of international renown who has been offered a part in famed playwright Wilhelm Melchior's play; Maloja Snake. En route to a tribute honoring the literary figure, she learns of his sudden death, which occurred while hiking near his retreat in the Tyrolean Alps.

Maria earned a measure of fame for having played a character in Melchior's famous work; a play (and subsequently a film) about a middle-age female executive who falls in love with a young woman employed in her company. The relationship becomes a psychological melee as the younger woman indulges in manipulative head-games. As her middle-age anxieties leave her emotionally vulnerable, the older woman becomes the younger woman's pawn, which ultimately leads to her suicide.

Maria's performance as the younger woman became a touchstone for other actresses taking on the role. The new production calls for her to play the older woman's part, which she approaches with trepidation. And like the fictitious, mature woman in Maloja Snake, she is feeling acutely aware of her age and is fearful of the role, which she sees as a confirmation of her worst fears.

Maria's personal assistant/friend Valentine (Kristen Stewart), is with her at all hours of the day, reading lines and attending high-profile functions. As the two women rehearse Maloja Snake dialogue, their relationship begins to mirror the play. Assayas ensures the play's dialogue and Maria and Valentine's conversations become almost indistinguishable, thereby creating a continuum where fiction and reality co-exist.

And as the women become emotionally involved in the play-reading, Maria sees Valentine's interpretations of the characters as callow ravings while Valentine begins to reel from Maria's oppressive anxieties.

The title of Melchior's play refers to an uncommon meteorological phenomenon whereby clouds creep through a mountainous Alpine pass like a snake, hence its name. The peculiarity serves as a metaphor (in my interpretation) for the stealthy advance of old age; how it happens upon one like a slithering reptile. To witness the phenomenon is a figurative acceptance of one's mortality.

While the production approaches, Maria and Valentine watch films of the play's co-star, Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz) in preparation. Jo-Ann is a young star who draws tabloidy attention and who sometimes stars in bloated Hollywood blockbusters. Maria and Valentine attend a screening that stars Jo-Ann in her latest movie; a silly super-hero genre flick that may resemble something Maria once performed in in her younger years but now mockingly scorns. While Maria scoffs, Valentine is aware of Jo-Ann's widespread popularity and reminds her that the young actress is now the reality that won't go away.

The film is essentially is three parts. In the first, we see Maria as media darling, her feminine sex appeal still volcanic and vital. In the second, we see her undergoing a physical transformation; she is shorn of her pretty locks; a cosmetic harbinger of sexual decline and a prelude to a literal and metaphorical menopause. And the third, we see Jo-Ann subjected to fierce media attention; fleeing paparazzi and maneuvering her way through a scandal involving her new boyfriend. While the young actress' life is of keen interest to the media, Maria finds herself to be a marginal figure in Jo-Ann's dramas. As we watch the two women seek refuge from paparazzi in an escaping limousine, Maria is almost left behind. The scene is an effective depiction of Maria's inevitable obsolescence as a star and her imminent exile from the media epicenter she once occupied.

Assayas' film is about the terror of growing old and the film industry's low regard for actresses who have reached the middle-age ceiling. It is interesting that Maria isn't able to see the Snake until later in the film, when she finally accepts the wrenching reality of aging.

As the film captures Maria in different stages of aging, the characters themselves represent women in the respective stages: Jo-Ann is as Maria once was; a confident, cocky ingenue maybe slightly contemptuous of her elders; Valentine is the middle-ground between the young and old; one too old to be young and too young to perceive the metaphorical Snake while Maria's middle-age is the final stage; the accelerated slide to dotage.

Binoche is no stranger to nuanced material and she handles it with consummate skill, as we might expect. It is a delightful surprise to see Stewart and Moretz in an Assayas film; their presence shows both actresses are eager to take on more challenging roles and they acquit themselves quite well.

Assayas' narrative structure is compelling and clever; the play within a play within a movie works famously and manages to sustain its coherence.

Though the film is pleasing to the mind, I didn't find it absorbing. It should be seen for Binoche's performance and the interplay between she and Stewart and its astute commentary on the film industry's attitudes about women. The film works but falls well short of greatness, in spite of its ambitions. If nothing else, Assayas can be commended for engaging our minds, if not entirely our hearts.

Words and Pictures

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Fred Schepisi. Starring: Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Bruce Davison and Amy Brenneman

Clive Owen plays Jack Marcus, a private school English teacher who is also a writer of minor renown. When he isn't arriving late for school, he is angry with his class for what he sees as their creative torpor. He also edits the school literary magazine, which is in a slump. The school administration and board threaten to stop publication of the magazine due to the modest quality of the content. Jack contends with a slump of his own in his writing life; a fact weighing against him in his fight to retain the school publication. Compounding Jack's professional misfortunes are his drinking problem and a strained relationship with his estranged son, who he rarely sees but with whom he shares awkward phone conversations.

Enter Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), a painter who has enjoyed some acclaim for her work but has left the city to join the faculty at Jack's school as an art teacher. Her reputation for being difficult precedes her and in the first meeting between Jack and Dina, she coldly resists the playful game he enjoys (and which members of the faculty find annoying) where he asks players to come up with multi-syllabled words. The two share some repartee but Dina mostly gives him the cold shoulder.

If Jack's flaw is his drinking, Dina's is more physical; she has rheumatoid arthritis that is growing progressively worse and which interferes with her work. She often tosses her brush or slashes at the canvass in frustration, unable to maintain motor control.

The movie sets up the characters nicely but they are also too familiar: the hard-drinking writer facing an uninspired class and an artist losing her ability to create. There is more than a whiff of cliche here, which is too bad because Owen and Binoche, two excellent actors with enough screen presence to ignite a haystack, deserve better. They manage to distract the audience from the shortcomings of the writing to keep us watching.

As Jack warms to Dina; the two continue to trade multi-syllabic words in the hallway and her class. A mutual-attraction develops. Adding some color to their budding romance is a debate the two agree to stage where they argue the merits of words versus pictures. Both Jack and Dina have respective moments in class where they hope to convince the students of their arguments. Jack tries to impart an appreciation of the power of words, citing the Declaration of Independence ('We hold these truths to be self-evident...') to underscore the impact of his point. That Jack would use the most famous lines of the Declaration is odd, given their hypocritical nature. He seems to forget that words in political documents can sometimes ring false and hollow if they lack the gold-standard of action to support them. For a professor so bright, this seems like a glaring omission but I guess we are supposed to be in awe of Jack's rhetorical brilliance. In class, the students egg on the teachers, with "Mr. Marcus said' and 'Miss Delsanto said;' which are their pointed attempts to create tension for the coming debate.

The film, like it's nuance-challenged title, makes a stab at the cerebral with its various themes related to words, language, pictures and drawings and the failings of all to sometimes effectively convey meaning and emotion. This could have been explored with some depth but like everything in the film, the themes are worn as fashionable garments; desperately grasping at intellectual credibility.

Again, this is too bad because Binoche and Owen share some fun moments with prickly repartee. Dina's struggle with arthritis could have and should have been a tragic, powerful subplot while Jack's eventual disclosure to the school board that he submitted a poem his son wrote to the new issue of the school literary magazine--an act that threatens his job and fractures his newly-established romance with Dina--seems like another unconvincing, mechanical plot contrivance to show he still has some semblance of integrity. As Jack bears accountibility for his ethical breach and addresses his crippling drinking problem, Dina manages to deal with her arthritis.

Many scenes made me cringe, particularly the one in which the class jerk, Swint (Adam DiMarco) greets Jack outside the school with a salute and 'My Captain, My Captain.' This unwelcomingly recalls Peter Weir's unfortunate, equally cringe-worthy Dead Poet's Society. Another is a sequence where Jack smashes his belongings in his home to further express his frustration, which reads more like the director's we-need-to-show-Jack-losing-control memo to Clive Owen rather than unpredictable, unanticipated behaviour.

And when the debate finally arrives, it's a major disappointment, concluding in what seems to be minutes. Nothing of any importance is exchanged; only interesting quotes by notable artists and writers and Jack's platitudinous chatter about how words and pictures are of equal value and importance and blah, blah, blah.

The Owen/Binoche chemistry is incandescent but the script, Schepisi's stubborn sentimentality, and the film's lazy, cotton-candy intellectualism scuttle what promise the movie had. If movies were merely words and pictures, then an infant's haphazard scribblings would serve just as well as a screenplay. Maybe that's what the cast had to work with.

Godzilla

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Gareth Edwards, Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Brian Cranston, Juliette Binoche and Sally Hawkins

Gareth Edwards' Monsters was a strange, creepy aliens-invading-earth film that managed to make a political statement about illegal immigration and execute it with more nuance and drama than Godzilla, his sophomore film feature. Godzilla is more of what summer movie-fare has become: incoherent, thrill-free, CGI-drenched destruction and noise that you wish would end sooner than it does. What is more peculiar than the creatures plodding across the screen is the presence of Juliette Binoche and Sally Hawkins; two fine actresses more accustomed to more demanding characters and scripts. It's a real head-scratcher but actors have to make a living too and both Binoche and Hawkins are probably unaccustomed to earning salaries like those they earned here.

(Brian Cranston) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) are engineers for a nuclear facility in Japan (the initial shot of three nuclear silos I'm sure are meant to evoke an uncomfortable image of the Fukushima Plant) when he notices strange seismic readings that go unnoticed by everyone else. Before he can bring this data to anyone's attention, the nuclear plant suffers a major catastrophe; the three silos collapse into the earth. But Joe suffers a greater loss; the loss of his wife to radiation during the accident.

The story leaps ahead 15 years. Brody's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has returned to his home in San Francisco after serving in the Army, where he is greeted by his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and child enthusiastically. He isn't home long before he receives a call from his father, who has been arrested for trespassing on the premises of the former nuclear plant--now off-limits to the public. As Joe awaits bail, Ford flies to Japan to see his father, still haunted by the loss of his wife and still obsessed with the seismic anomaly he discovered years before. Ford, impatient with his father's inability to move on, asks Joe to accompany him back to San Francisco. The father insists he stay to unravel the mystery behind the nuclear plant. Donning protective suits, Joe and son wander through the former plant grounds. Joe then discovers the place isn't the radioactive site the Japanese government would have everyone believe after removing his headgear.

The two are eventually caught and incarcerated near where the government guards something top-secret: a "thing" not of this world, thrusting above the surface. The object begins to move and what it is connected to emerges from beneath the ground; a hulking, multi-storied creature that crawls on all fours (and sometimes flies), which embarks on a destructive ramble through the plant and beyond. In the carnage and chaos, Joe and Ford escape. Once the world learns of the rampage, the American Navy is alerted and assigned the task of confronting the creatures.

We learn the creature is a primordial, dinosaur-like beast who once lived deep in the earth but has surfaced in a figurative response to man's rapacious need for minerals and environmental plundering. We also learn the creature has a mate, who carries unhatched offspring in her glowing womb. The creatures feed on radiation and in their hunger for more, they turn to west-coast America, specifically San Fransisco (allowing Elizabeth Olsen to remain connected to the narrative). Why the creatures don't attack a nuclear energy-rich country like France is, I guess, beside the point. (It probably goes without saying that film-goers in this country need to see their own shores menaced; Parisians being crushed by monsters probably wouldn't elicit much sympathy from American audiences).

As the creatures arrive on the west coast, they begin their savage tour of destruction; the U.S. military powerless to stop them.

Meanwhile, the American navy tracks another large creature moving slowly under the ocean; its vertebrae riding ominously above the surface. The creature heads for San Francisco Bay and in due course it is revealed the creature is called Godzilla and has emerged to re-set the balance of nature and more to the point; kick some monster butt in San Francisco.

The characters all become part of the drama, save for those who perish along the way. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the movie-stud who becomes implausibly involved with the military in their various missions while Elizabeth Olsen is given little to do but stare with mouth agape at the gargantuan terrors kicking buildings around. Sally Hawkins seems lost in all commotion while Cranston often seems a little-over-the-top.

The battle commences, carnage becomes rife and what the hell it all means beyond mankind upsetting the balance of the planet not even Ken Watanabe's Dr. Ichiro Serizawa can answer. What it does mean for Hollywood is a franchise opportunity and employment for the legions of special effects crew hired to make San Francisco architecture look expendible and rubble-sexy.

I actually had to fight off the drowsies several times during the movie. I've noticed this has become a ritual for me during Hollywood blockbusters. That so much mega-decible racket could cause drowsiness means Hollywood may have developed an antidote to insomnia. Can't sleep? Godzilla just might challenge NyQuil for sleep-inducing supremacy.