A Chronicle of What and for Whom?

The "found footage" style of filmmaking has arguably grown tired among movie goers.  The complaints range from too much queasy-cam to low budget production value.  Oh, I suppose it had its place at one time.  "The Blair Witch Project," for instance used the ingenious tactic of marketing the film as actual recovered footage.  Because the actors were unknown, it worked.  Each subsequent attempt has had varying levels of success, but am I the only one who thinks employing this technique for "Chronicle" was unnecessary?  Oh, it tries to be clever and sidestep the usual question of plausibility by having a central character state his reasoning for filming everything toward the beginning of the film.  He has an abusive father and says he will be documenting everything from now on.  Whether he means the abuse or literally everything is unclear.  Cruel school mates also inquire about the camera.  "I'm just filming things" he says.  Well, okay.

"Chronicle" is the first feature film from 26 year-old director Josh Trank.  It isn't hard to surmise his love of comic book movies because in its relatively brief 84 minutes, "Chronicle" has a surprisingly strong narrative and well-developed characters.  The script by Max Landis is even up to par, serving up a well-balanced tone.  These are good starting points for a film that, throughout its first act, has a lot of fun developing an original mythology for a "real world" superhero tale, although none of the characters ever refer to themselves as such.  The first act also features some really nice pacing, with one sequence in particular that is creepy and unsettling. 

"Chronicle" introduces us to Andrew (Dane DeHaan), a lanky kid who has problems at home.  His mother is dying of cancer, his father is a former firefighter and now a professional drinker.  It seems the abuse has been going on for awhile, so Andrew decides to capture some of his torment on camera.  There is also abuse at school, with the traditional bullies of teenage cinema tripping, pushing, slapping, and name calling.  The only thing I didn't see the bullies do was give Andrew a swirly or stuff him in a locker, but maybe the camera was off for that.  Andrew's cousin Matt (Alex Russell) is a fairly popular kid with good looks and he hangs out with Steve (Michael B. Jordan), who is running for class president and is surprisingly charasmatic for the most popular kid in school.

There is a rave at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the woods (aren't they always) and Matt figures Andrew needs to get out more and invites him along, but requests that he not bring that pesky camera.  Of course Andrew does anyway, because without it, we wouldn't have a movie.  Steve notices Andrew on the grass and introduces himself, and then promptly invites him to come check out a hole that he and Matt have found.  The hole is the stuff of sci-fi legend; it is perfectly round, appears to be endless and emits an ominous hum that should disturb them.  Before you can say "Vote for Steve," he is ninja jumping into the abyss, closely followed by Matt and Andrew, camera in tow.  What they find is slightly obscurred but appears to be a large, crystaline object that has the remarkable ability to change colors and make Andrew's camera act goofy.  Whatever else happens the audience doesn't get to find out, because the next bit of footage we see is what the boys call "the baseball test," where they throw a baseball at one another until Andrew is able to stop it inches from his face using only his mind.  Woah.

What follows is a series of teenage adventures where the boys use their newly discovered powers to goof around.  This is all a bit refreshing because how often do we recall Clark Kent lamenting his desire throughout his teenage years to use his powers just once to score a touchdown?  Andrew, Matt and Steve discover that trying to do too much too soon causes them to have severe nosebleeds.  Matt theorises that the powers are "like a muscle; if we stretch them too far, we'll strain them."  Sounds reasonable to me.  They start off small, levitating teddy bears through the toy aisle, yanking gum out of a hapless dope's mouth, etc.  Of course this inspires laughs, because in a sadistic way, we understand that if given the same powers, we might do the same types of things.  Before long, however, Andrew unwisely uses his powers in a supernatural form of road rage, with disastrous results.  Upset by his thoughtless misuse, Steve and Matt rightly concede that there must be some rules when it comes to using their abilities.  Not the way Andrew sees it.

Enough of the plot.  There are many great discoveries in the second half of "Chronicle," with some truly astonishing action sequences.  Josh Trank has concocted a surprisingly dark tale and some of the scenes of peril rival much of what we see in the end of the world blockbusters.  This would all be truly effective but for the implausibility of Andrew's jarring shift of attitude.  His development throughout the first half is pretty touching, we feel for him and hope that he will see better days.  Just when he begins to and has some really nice things happening in his life, the plot requires him to be bad and he descends too quickly into the tired cliche that is every tormented high school boy we see on the news.  He listens to nobody, monologues on video diaries about obscure theories of the animal kingdom, and screams at the very people he should not be screaming at.  His solution in responding to his father's cruelty is far and away more cruel than anything he has ever endured.  That's too bad, because he deserves better than to be downgraded to the token villain of the movie.  It also lessens the impact of one of Matt's vital decisions late in the film.

I mentioned before the "found footage" method and I must say it is a gimmick that wears thin.  How can you respect cinematography in a film that is meant to appear like it was shot on home video?  Oh, Andrew uses his powers to float the camera around, and this provides steady shots of vital scenes, but what of the other footage?  We see events from the perspective of security cameras, police dash cams, news reels, cell phones, and even Matt's girlfriend Casey (Ashley Hinshaw) seems to be inexplicably recording everything in her life.  It all appears assembled into a conveniently cohesive narrative structure, but we are never told why.  If you want to present these events as real-life, why not go full-tilt and provide them a context?  Otherwise, we're left to guess why the footage wasn't just shot the traditional way.  I can only imagine how "Chronicle" would look on an IMAX screen, projected in High Definition.

These qualms aside, "Chronicle" provides a great deal of entertainment in its brisk run time.  Josh Trank certainly infuses a great sensibility for action, effects and a good story into a complex and compelling mythos.  While the ending leaves room for it, I'm not sure there would be much point in a sequel.  "Chronicle" is too smart to be resigned to becoming a franchise.  Although perhaps someone could follow the new Hollywood trend and remake it in five years and scrap the "found footage" aspect.  That might be interesting.  As it is, "Chronicle" would be better served by simply providing the excuse that 'Hud' gives in "Cloverfield."  A character in that movie asks him why he keeps recording.  "People are going to want to see this" he says.  Exactly.

Come To Think of it, Everyone is Wearing Black

                                  

With one of the most gripping and horrifying opening scenes in recent memory, I suppose "The Woman in Black" would earn the distinction of being an 'atmospheric' horror film that relies on mood and starkness to inspire a sense of fear rather than gore and human cruelty.  This is an elegant period film that some have mistakenly set in the Victorian era, but I believe is more correctly placed in the Edwardian era, circa 1910, or thereabouts.  It stars Daniel Radcliffe in his first post-'Harry Potter' outing as Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor (Lawyer) sent to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman.  I was surprised to find that I didn't really think of the boy wizard once while watching the procedings here and for a movie that doesn't require much of its young lead, you'd think that would be easy to do.  My focus instead was on the mounting dread and mystery surrounding the titular woman in black, and when a horror film with a thin story is capable of drawing my attention so deeply, you know it has done something right.

Apparently "The Woman in Black" is a remake of a 1989 TV movie of the same title, itself based on the novel by Susan Hill.  I never saw that one, but this version, just as british, has been directed by James Watkins, whose only previous feature was the exceptional "Eden Lake."  He expertly sets a mood here not only with a grim color palate and lots of mist,  but with a relentless build-up puncuated by cleverly placed jump scares.  Jump scares are the oldest trick in the book for horror features, but Watkins gets around the commonality by putting them precisely where you'd expect, and then ruthlessly placing one or two more right after it.  In the film's most antagonizing sequence, I counted at least three that I did not see coming.

The plot itself is no great shakes.  Arthur Kipps is dispatched by his firm to settle the estate of Ill-Marsh house, a forboding mansion only accesible by timing the tide that washes over the single road to the front door.  Arthur has lost his wife to childbirth, and cares for his young son Joseph (Misha Handley, interestingly enough, Radcliffe's godson).  Arthur's firm has been displeased at his despondent nature and makes clear that this assignment is his last chance.  Leaving behind Joseph with the promise that they will be reunited in three days' time, Arthur takes a train to the village.  At first he finds hostile locals, and a couple none to eager to offer him a room at the local inn.  Perhaps they know something of Ill-Marsh house.  Perhaps they have good reason to fear meddlesome outsiders. 

Arthur finds one friendly local named Daily (Ciaran Hinds), who happens to be the only villager with an automobile.  Daily offers to drive the young solicitor to and from the isolated marsh house on the condition that Arthur join him and his wife for dinner.  This dinner is perhaps one of the most bizarre and eventful dinners in the history of cinema, but perhaps the 'twins' would have been better suited to a comedy.  Turning down their offer for a room, Arthur contends that he'd rather work through the night sorting through endless documents looking for the last will and testament of one Mrs. Drablow (Alisa Khazanova).  What Arthur begins to uncover in the mess of papers is an even messier history involving the Drablow's deceased son, whose body was never recovered from the depths of the muddy marsh.

The rest of the details are your pleasure to discover.  Details involving the identity and motivations of the Woman in Black, the reasons for the hostile villagers and a context for that frightening and mysterious opening scene.  This is all played out in a seething, ghostly atmosphere complete with the sounds of creaking, pounding, rocking, crying children and even a barking dog.  Come to that, Kipps is actually the most silent entity in the film.  Daniel Radcliffe's performance is subdued and understated; a far cry from his Harry Potter role to be sure, but what is there for him to do, really?  He plays Arthur as a grieving man not much given to spiritual mumbo jumbo.  He does not scare easily, and seems to persue each new development with the expectation that he will find a logical explanation.  When things turn out to be more than he bargained for, his thoughts turn to his son and deceased wife.

In an age where people seem to only want to see blood spilling and heads rolling, it is nice to see a horror feature that relies on atmosphere and creaky old houses.  Although, the theatre in which I saw "The Woman in Black" was fairly full, so maybe there is still an audience for this sort of film.  While thin on plot and long passages where nothing is said at all, it is a credit to director James Watkins that this movie serves as many scares as it does.  Danielle Radcliffe also deserves credit for carrying a feature with just grim stares and an occasional wordless jolt.  If anything, it shows that he has roles waiting outside of Hogwarts School.  It'll be interesting to see his career develop.  In any case, "The Woman in Black" is an effective, chilling feature.  The ending provides enough mystery to inspire interpretive conversation.  I think my feeling on it would be similar to Arthur's.  Wherever those train tracks lead, he doesn't much care; he has what he needs and so do we.