DVD review: Clone Hunter Often, sci-fi and low budget indie productions go together about as well as chocolate and onions. The high budget demands on special effects eventually hamper the entire story. Clone Hunter is indeed [ ... ] |
What to make of the ending to Inception? So far, my favorite film this year is Christopher Nolanís Inception. Not only does it deliver all the action and thrills expected of a big budget summer blockbuster, but it has inspired endl [ ... ] |
DVD Review: The White Ribbon The White Ribbon is a drama starring Christian Freidl, Ulrich Turkl and Burghart Klaussner. Directed by Michael Haneke. |
DVD Review: Shutter Island The film begins on an ominous note. Eerie strings play as the film fades to white. Soon, a ship appears out of the fog. Cut to a gumshoe, looking and speaking as if he has stepped straight out of a [ ... ] |
| DVD Review: A Serious Man |
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| Written by Trent Daniel |
| Monday, 01 March 2010 11:58 |
 A Serious Man is a dark comedy starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, and Adam Arkin. Directed and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen. It is fitting that the protagonist, one Larry Gopnik is a physics professor in this typically challenging-but often rewarding-Coen brothers film. He seems to believe that he can use formulas to find a logical resolution to nearly any question, yet he fills his giant blackboard with unintelligible calculations that look impossible on the surface. Indeed, even he refers to challenging paradoxes of physics, such as Schroedingerís cat and Heisenbergís uncertainty principle, which basically means ìwe can never know what is going on.î With this film, the Coen brothers ask the basic question we all ask at one point, ìWhat does God want from us?î As anyone familiar with the Coens might expect, the answers are neither simple, nor particularly pleasant. Perhaps only they, however, could make such a bleak film at its core so funny. The film starts with a strange but funny prologue seemingly set in 19th Century Europe, in which an old man may or may not be a dybbuk (roughly translated as a Jewish zombie). Does this prologue imply that Larry is cursed? It certainly seems that way. Try dealing with all of this at once: A wife who wants to leave him-yet have him pay for the divorce The wife leaving him for Sy, a slovenly bear of a man who has the gall to offer condolences to Larry. Mysterious letters written to Larryís school that threaten his chances at tenure. A foreign student who tries to bribe Larry, then threatens to sue him for defamation. A son only interested in F-Troop and pot. A daughter who wants a nose job. A gun toting neighbor who might be anti-Semitic A jobless brother who, when not snoring on the couch, is in the bathroom draining the cyst in his neck. In short, Larry is a latter day Job, with his story set not in Biblical times, but in 1967 suburban Minnesota (which, btw is seemingly similar to the neighborhood of the Coen brothersí youth). He openly asks why all this is happening to him and his quest for an answer leads from his lawyer to three tiers of rabbis. What makes the film poignant to some viewers-while frustrating others-is that everyone has basically the same answer: ìI donít know.î From the above description, the film seems very bleak (and again, at its core, it is). What is perhaps surprising is how funny this film is. Thanks to the Coensí wicked sense of humor and the performances of its largely unknown but gifted cast, it seems that the more Larryís burdenís mount, the funnier the film becomes. Perhaps this dark humor is a way of the Coens channeling a distinctly Jewish trait-as a people who have been given horrific burdens throughout history, they have often found the best medicine is to laugh at these burdens. Like most Coen films, A Serious Man is not for all tastes (one person who watched the film with me hated it). However, it is still a strong rebound and a return to their familiar quirky form after the misstep that was Burn After Reading. Just donít expect any easy answers (such as why a goy has Hebrew letters on his dentures). |
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