Today's Review: I, Daniel Blake

Het was even schrikken toen Ken Loach na Jimmy's Hall in 2014 zijn pensioen aankondigde. Welke regisseur moest het nu voor de hardwerkende, uitgebuite 'man in de straat' opnemen? Twee jaar later is de inmiddels tachtigjarige Loach toch weer terug met een aanklacht tegen sociaal onrecht. Gelukkig maar, want hoewel zijn vorige film een fijn luchtig drama was, is het niet de meest wenselijke laatste aria van de grootmeester. I, Daniel Blake, goed voor een Gouden Palm in Cannes, laat een krachtiger indruk achter. De film toont Loach opnieuw in topvorm als voorvechter voor de genegeerde massa, in een sociaal drama dat uitstekend de balans vindt tussen zwaar drama en zwarte komedie. 

De Daniel Blake uit de titel is een timmerman op leeftijd uit Newcastle, die moest stoppen met werken na een hartaanval. Sindsdien is hij aangewezen op een uitkering, maar het verzilveren hiervan gaat hem niet gemakkelijk af. De grootscheepse bureaucratie rond het Britse bijstandssysteem draait tegenwoordig niet meer om het financieel bijstaan van de zwakkeren in de samenleving, maar om het hen met allerlei Kafkaëske regels zo lastig mogelijk maken om hun geld te krijgen. Al snel gaat zelfs een doorzetter als Daniel kopje onder in het bijstandsdrijfzand, dat hem dwingt de hele dag te zoeken naar werk, dat hij van zijn arts niet mag aannemen omdat het zijn dood zou kunnen betekenen. Zelfs dan is hij nog beter af dan de jonge alleenstaande moeder Katie, die met haar twee kinderen gedwongen moest verhuizen vanuit Londen en eveneens slachtoffer dreigt te worden van de harteloze uitkeringsmachinerie. Onder het motto 'gedeelde smart is halve smart' sluit het tweetal vriendschap, om zich met niets dan wederzijdse hoop te handhaven in hun uitzichtloze situatie.

Het aankaarten van dergelijke wanpraktijken is een doorlopend thema in Loach' lange kruistocht voor sociale rechtvaardigheid. De regisseur brak precies vijftig jaar geleden door met de televisiefilm Cathy Come Home waarin hij eveneens een slachtoffer van het barmhartig geachte bijstandssysteem opvoerde. Die uitzending bracht de nodige publieke afschuw en de roep tot hervorming teweeg. Vijf decennia later lijkt het er niet op dat er veel verbetering heeft plaatsgevonden. Integendeel, meer mensen zijn slechter af dan destijds, terwijl de bureaucratie rond het uitkeringssysteem alleen maar omvangrijker vormen heeft aangenomen. Het is dus prijzenswaardig dat Loach zijn jubileum viert door nogmaals zijn kritische blik te werpen op deze mensonterende praktijken. Hoewel de film het niet moet hebben van nuance - het waarom achter het bizarre overheidsapparaat blijft achterwege - is het prettig dat Loach onze ontgoocheling niet slechts zoekt in tergend drama, maar evenzeer humor aandraagt om de absurditeit van dit systeem bloot te leggen. Dat maakt het geheel voor de toeschouwers wel zo dragelijk.

De troef van I, Daniel Blake is de keuze om de titelfiguur niet door een regulier acteur te laten vertolken, maar door een komediant. Hoofdrolspeler Dave Johns heeft een lange staat van dienst als stand-upcomedian, maar maakt hier zijn speelfilmdebuut. Zijn sublieme komische timing, gepaard met zijn innemende voorkomen, staat garant voor een uitstekende vertolking, een herkenbaar alledaagse verschijning en een oase van gezond verstand in een surrealistische wereld vol verwarrende regeltjes. Er kan en mag gerust gelachen worden dankzij de humor die Johns' personage typeert, maar elke lach wordt desondanks succesvol getemperd door het besef dat dit absurdisme op feiten gebaseerd is. De humor is wrang, want de ernst is nooit ver weg. Tegenover de aimabele Daniel plaatst Loach Katie's tragedie, allesbehalve lachwekkend. Ook actrice Hayley Squires blijkt een schot in de roos in de rol van de jonge moeder die ondanks alle tegenwerking van de staat twee koters moet opvoeden en hen probeert te hoeden voor alle leed. Tranentrekkend is haar bezoek aan een voedselbank, waarbij ze gedreven door honger zich stiekem op een blik groente stort, om vervolgens bevangen te worden door immense schaamte. Hoewel een voorspelbaar lot in haar afdaling in de wanhoop ons niet bespaard blijft, compenseert Squires' overtuigende spel die tekortkoming.

Het is die wisselwerking tussen Katies tenenkrommende drama en Daniels zwarte komedie die I, Daniel Blake tot een memorabele film maakt. Loach slaat ons niet murw met overdadig serieus opgediende onmenselijkheden, maar weet ondanks de rijkelijk vertegenwoordigde humor toch onze verontwaardiging op te wekken. Het is een hachelijke balans die alleen een vakman als hij gedegen weet aan te brengen. Cynisme sluit hij bovendien uit, want volgens hem is er altijd ruimte voor hoop zolang gewone mensen anderen in nood bijspringen. I, Daniel Blake maakt duidelijk dat pensioen voor sociale kruisridders als Loach niet weggelegd is. Want zelfs na vijftig jaar strijd blijft er nog genoeg onrecht over om de goede man nog vele films bezig te houden. Het heeft er alle schijn van dat Loach zal sterven in het harnas. Hij zou het niet anders willen.

Back in black... with vengeance

Men in Black 3: rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

In the midst of all the super hero action bombarding our cinemas this summer, you'd almost forget there's more to comic book movie adaptations than just superhumans epically fighting each other. However, just because super heroes are doing extremely well at the box-office, doesn't mean the Hollywood studios have given up on other type of comic book movies, especially when reinterpreting such comics for the big screen did very well financially for them in the past. Therefore, after “only” ten years of neglect, the Men in Black are finally back to once again protect us against the worst scum of the universe. Their last film turned out to be one of the worst sequels in recent history, almost ruining the franchise as a whole due to bad writing, bad chemistry between the lead actors and most of all, embarrasingly bad jokes, so this time their mission is to prove to the audience once again why we do want to watch their secret missions guarding us against extra-terrestrial violence. Fortunately, and surprisingly after a decade of inactivity, they succeed, making us fondly remember the first film and largely forgetting the debacle that was their second adventure.

Warning! Here be spoilers! Unlike the previous films, Men in Black 3 does not open in medias res during one of the coolest secret government agency's missions, or even on this planet, but instead witnesses a pretty nifty prison break on the moon's maximum security prison for dangerous aliens. It makes sense extra-terrestrial inmates are indeed locked up extra Terra, but apparently it would have been a more sensible move not to hire inapt, thick-headed, overweight human guards to handle security, as they all get viciously killed off, some in rather gruesome PG-13 ways, courtesy of the film's central bad guy, the one-armed Boris the Animal (thanks to the FX team an effectively scary and grotesque Jemaine Clement), who after reclaiming his freedom sets off to kill Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Mean while, to show a decent amount of time has passed between this film and the dismal previous MIB installment, we are re-introduced to Agents K and J (Will Smith), working closely together as partners, instead of one learning the intricacies of the job from the other like before. They're still not fully connecting emotionally, K being grumpy and cynical, while J is overly energetic and possesses a seemingly more complete range of human emotions, but such differences are only a good thing for the audience, since it makes the characters complete each other and play off one another perfectly, exactly as was the case in the first film, but was so painfully lacking in the second. And so the excellent chemistry between Jones and Smith is the best thing to return, as well as the most surprising considering it was absent last time, plus the two actors haven't worked together for a decade, but undoubtedly rediscovered their ability to bounce back witty dialogue and bizarrely funny gags between them with the help of a script that actually contained witty dialogue and bizarrely funny gags. It's a good thing the pair found each other again, since the relationship between them is the driving factor in Men in Black 3's plot line.

After spectacularly raiding a Chinese/alien restaurant for selling illegal extra-terrestrial animals as food, which also is used to remind the viewer just how well K and J work together on cases like these, K receives word Boris has broken out of jail, puzzling J as to what the deal is between them and K of course withholding information from him since it's not his damn business. Next day, J returns to the office only to find K missing and none of their colleagues remembering their top agents ever working together. Turns out Boris travelled back in time to successfully murder K and change history, so his people, the Boglodites, a dangerous parasitic race of aliens scouring planet after planet and killing all life in the process, can conquer Earth in the present after all, instead of being doomed to extinction thanks to K foiling their evil schemes in the past. With the invasion starting, J has no choice but to time-jump after Boris to 1969 in order to save his partner, and the future of planet Earth. Introducing time travel into a franchise that never seemed to revolve around it previously is often a bad sign (I can think of a TV show that did pretty good until messing with time proved to be the first stage in its undoing, as well as a beloved Sci-Fi franchise which got completely reset/screwed over because time travel offered just such an irresistibly easy cop-out solution), but in the case of Men in Black 3, it's more like an added bonus, since it opens up the possibility for having J and a younger K (now played by Josh Brolin) teaming up to save the future, making their relationship feel fresh, familiar and funny all at once. 

Brolin proves to be the perfect casting choice for the role of replacing Jones for most of the movie, having skillfully copied his accent, mannerisms and natural charm, and thus pulling off this less experienced but more human K both fully convincingly and compellingly. Plus, Smith and Brolin prove as good a combination of acting and action talent as Smith and Jones did, while keeping the existing levels of humour and character compatibility intact. Thanks to Brolin, who also cleverly uses this opportunity to remind us why he's often called one of the most acclaimed American actors at this moment, we don't miss Jones for a second, because we're totally buying he is Jones. Also, because of the now minimal age difference between the two characters, K and J are finally on a believably equal level, both of them knowing things the other does not and actually sharing them, instead of the much older K supplying all the knowledge, and J most of the resulting action, while the former keeps important stuff to himself for the latter (and the audience) to figure out.

Aside from reinvigorating the K & J relationship, the plot also utilizes the chance for laughs offered by the fish-out-of-water element of a guy from the present visiting the odd world of the past, though it does not make as much use of this opportunity as one would have expected, appropriating the date of July 1969 mostly for plot reasons because of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, which does not allow the film to linger too much on other, more cultural events of the same era which would have made for great comedic moments. Fortunately the jokes that do jump at this occasion work well, incuding older incarnations of MIB technology being of elephantine proportions compared to Smith's pocket size equipment, or Andy Warhol revealed to be a MIB agent who's tired of his own visual art and requesting to be allowed to fake his own death to get away from it. Most of the best temporally related jokes though are claimed by the alien Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg in a hilarious role), a survivor of the previous Boglodite act of genocide who offers the Men in Black a device to protect Earth from the imminent invasion, and, as a five-dimensional entity in disguise (i.e., a silly hat), can foresee any and all possible futures, making him ramble on and on about the various possible outcomes and the unlikeliest random elements effecting them.

Armed with Griffin's plethora of foreshadowings, K and J set out to deploy his device (by attaching it to the Apollo 11 so it can create a safety net around the planet) and defeat Boris, of which there are now two, the one from the present (that is, 1969) and the one from the future (don't worry, the time travel does not lead to overly complicated situations but remains fairly straightforward, which also works only in the movie's favour). The existence of two Borises simultaneously, both of them hating the other for what they perceive to be their weaknesses, could also have used more fleshing out, making the threat feel more real since future Boris knows exactly what will transpire and could steer past Boris away from his own mistakes, while both MIB agents are not fully aware of the precise order of happenings due to Griffin's mental incoherence; the plot however, fails to fully capitalize on this chance and has each Boris fighting a single MIB agent alone. At least the plot delivers some stunning action scenes on top of a missile launch tower to make up for this oversight, which is also deployed to make some good use of the 3-D effects (yes, this summer blockbuster too is released in 3-D), though it's the time-jump scenes that provide the most impressive displays of depth.

Overall, Men in Black 3 offers everything Men in Black 2 did not, the most important thing being the status of a worthy successor to the (still superior) first installment in this franchise, despite containing some minor plot imperfections. Director Barry Sonnenfeld, responsible for all three films, redeems himself for his previous failure, while Smith and Jones prove they can still work together to great results if aided by a good script. Brolin only adds more depth to their existing relationship by exploring it in more detail and straying away from the previously used master-apprentice dynamic between both characters. And at the same time, we get more aliens (new species, but also some old fan favorites including the obnoxious worm guys), more cool gadgets (like the much advertized gyro bikes) and a lot of new jokes, most of them actually funny this time around. Now, if we could only time-jump and erase Men in Black 2 from history somehow, this franchise would have a much better overall track record...

And now back to superhumans epically fighting each other.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/meninblack3/

Blob, The (1988)

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

This remake of the 1958 original film is less of a mixed bag genre wise and more of a straightforward horror film: the abundance of gore makes it clear it has no pretensions to be anything else. An gelatinous alien organism lands on Earth in a small American town and starts devouring its inhabitants, quickly increasing in mass until little escape seems possible for the remaining survivors, who also find themselves confronted with a secret government agency intent on capturing the life form for its own shady purposes. Several teenagers must try to evade both these sinister agents and the hungry entity itself to stay alive, in the classic eighties horror tradition. If you can stand the goriness of people being consumed alive, you might find this a fun though otherwise unremarkable decent horror flick. However, the typical love triangle between teenagers present in this film can cause some irritation. At least you won't end up with a very annoying theme song stuck in your head as you would have in 1958.

Starring: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch

Directed by Chuck Russell

USA: TriStar Pictures, 1988