MSN Goes to the Movies: Some Contrary Views Make for Great Conversation

BY JEREMY WALKER

I’m off to double “Waltz With Bashir” and “Rachel Getting Married” with $7 matinees at Encino Town Center, a clean, well-programmed house with good presentation that favorably compares to the skanky Regent Fairfax on Beverly, the only L.A. theatre at which I could be utterly, uncomfortably perplexed by “Synecdoche, New York” and then emotionally scarred by “Wendy & Lucy” and its sublime performance by Michelle Williams that I fear not enough voters will see.
I’ve heard a lot about the performance that may be Williams’ main competition for an American independent Best Actress slot: Anne Hathaway getting all raccoon-eyed and jangly in “Rachel” as she struggles with the idea that a weekend furlough from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding does not make the day all about her. I’ve been a fan since Hathaway played Jake Gyllenhaal’s wife in “Brokeback Mountain,” sharing psychic space—but no scenes—with Williams, who was nominated for her work in that film.
As I drive over Kanan I hear a report that the 101 is backed up to Tampa. I’m anxious about missing the beginning of “Bashir” because I know little about the movie’s subject, Israel’s 1982 war with Lebanon, but thanks to light volume on Ventura I make it into the theatre just as the feature begins. The screen floods with a cartoon image of nude men bearing AK-47s and bathing in the flickering yellow light of flares.
“Bashir” is easily among the five best pictures I’ve seen this season and deserves to be nominated in that category, space Disney is also asking voters to consider for their groundbreaking animated film “Wall-E.” For me, “best” in animation involves filmmakers stretching the medium beyond entertainment into a catalyst for cultural reflection. The producers of “Wall-E” and “Bashir” both achieve this, and I suspect both have distinct but equally persuasive, deep-pocketed camps behind them.
But while “Wall-E” is meaningful, its pragmatic destiny is to pacify minivan cargo, an audience I admit will be called upon to one day save the planet. But I ultimately buy into the more urgent argument “Bashir” director Ari Folman makes at the controversial conclusion of his picture, even if I don’t fully agree with what the choice does for the film’s overall aesthetic: his movie is “best” because it really happened. Just as war has changed, so have war-and anti-war-movies.
Later, exiting the Encino Town Center parking lot, the radio reports ground forces crossing into Gaza; I imagine those campaigning for “Bashir” may hone its Best Picture edge against the whetstone of current events. As I approach Malibu Canyon I hear more reports of bloodshed and wonder if “Bashir” and even Spielberg’s “Munich” (which I loathed) have bolstered Israel’s image, perhaps helping convince the diplomatic community that Israel has learned from past wartime mistakes as it defends itself once again. But maybe I am expecting too much from the movies. Once home I see news that “Bashir” has just been named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics, with “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Wall-E” coming in second and third in their voting.
Oh, and Ann Hathaway is unnervingly good as a 90-day-sober-yet-still-raging narcissist in “Rachel Getting Married,” but after meeting her parents (Bill Irwin and Debra Winger) I didn’t blame her.
I also don’t blame Declan Quinn for his jittery camera or the production’s one-stop-shop solution to score, design, location, casting and choreography demands: it all works, and the last, poignant “Special Thanks” credit on the roll is for the late Robert Altman, who did something similar with his 1978 class farce “A Wedding.” But when compared to the vibrant accomplishments of “Slumdog Millionaire” or the epic challenges met by the makers of, say, “Benjamin Button” or “Che,” I can’t see how “Rachel” has a chance in the craft categories. But I can see Hathaway running into her “Devil Wears Prada” co-star Meryl Streep at a certain luncheon in Beverly Hills next month.
As far as recommending the film: if you found this edition of Awards Watch inappropriately, maddeningly self-referential you’d probably walk out of “Rachel” even if it were showing on an airplane. If, however, you are sort of amused that I managed to make the column, well, all about me, you may find deeper rewards in screenwriter Jenny Lumet’s considerably less self-consciously fashioned take on family and recovery.