Cold Mountain

Technorati Tag(s): Movie, Reviews

Set aside Cold Mountain's boring, predictable and oh so mainstream story, and you still have a flawed movie which occasionally hovers around greatness.

Yes, the first fifteen minutes are interesting; yes, they are quite bloody and dirty; yes, having so many people on the screen as opposed to 3D characters (vis a vis Lord of the Rings) makes interesting scenery; but it's all ruined when Inman (Jude Law) takes out Ada's (Nicole Kidman) picture then tucks it inside a book which, predictably burns. But, and also predictably, the photo does not.

Yes, Ruby's (Renee Zelwegger) character is smarmy enough to be likable, but it's tailor made for the Oscars, and Renee can't really act.

Yes, everything good they've said about this movie is great.

Here are a few things they haven't talked about.

There's a scene deep into the film where Inman has to drag around five dead men who're handcuffed to him. It's never clear why he's draggin them, although he's probably doing it to reach a dead guard's pocket, wherein lies the key to the handcuffs. The amount of effort it takes to drag so many men is neither downplayed nor overplayed. It's just right. It's not impossible, but it's no walk in the park.

The scene where Ruby's father, a musician, is almost shot, is also terribly cliche, but well executed. He plays a song which his killer sings with him. Then boom.¹

The scene where Ruby twists the cock's head, comic gold.

Also of special note is almost every scene of brutality--from walking on a pile of wood placed upon a woman's hands to undressing a soldier (Cillian Murphy in a completely underused cameo), letting him run away and then watch a woman (Natalie Portman in perhaps the only worthwhile role she'll ever have; that's not saying she actually portrays it well) shoot him--as well as the stark contrast of the costumes and the sets in almost every frame.

Giovanni Ribisi dragging a dead cow is also entertaining.

Jude Law gives a strong performance. Perhaps not one of the best ten or even twenty performances I have seen, but certainly stronger than either of his co-stars.³

And quite possibly the strongest moment of the film: Inman stumbles into a corn field. A group of negroes holding baskets of eggs passes by. He offers them a dollar for an egg, and tells them he means no harm. They eye him up, then walk away. These are no troubled yet ready to serve slaves. They don't want to kill all whites, but they're not about to help them if they don't have to. Of course, the director ruins it by having soldiers shoot the negroes not five seconds later.

Which is, I suppose, the trend with this film. Each time the films sets up a great scene, something cliche happens and ruins it.

Central to the film is a man's travel home to his love. Fine, dandy, Kay O, but check this: the woman he loves, the woman he suffers so much for, he's known her for about as much time as you know a character in one viewing of a half-hour sitcom.

Right after the scene where he drags his handcuffed corpses, he meets a mountain goat lady who patches him back up with weird forest drugs.

Ada gets a glimpse of the future in a magic well mirror.

And what about the letters she sends him? If I ever write lines like the ones she writes, I'll make sure I keep them locked up. Overtly sentimental, incorrigibly sappy, meant to tug at our emotions. They fail. Massively.

Nicole Kidman does a passable job of faking an accent. So does Renee. Jude fails. You just can't help noticing his British clippiness. It springs forth.

Inman's journey is also stale. Every possible predicament that could befall him does. From dead boatladies to snivelling, rotten conmen who, using the illusion of food and sex con Inman and his buddy.

More cliches: Inman gets more than one opportunity to have sex. Being quite the noshy young fellow, he totally denies it. Talk about principle, dude. Another cliche? Cillian Murphy's character who tries to go cover the baby, and the accompanying soldier who tries to rape Portman's character. For once, can't we see a group of soldiers who are completely ruthless? Why not show someone blowing the baby's head off? Cruel? You bet, but didn't that ever happen in war? If art is supposed to mirror life, if art is supposed to encompass everything that is human, every facet of our behavior, then isn't it only right that absolute savagery be portrayed too? Why does a soldier need to rape a woman? We've been shown a character who vehemently, as I said, denies offers of sex; so why can't we have a soldier who simply doesn't feel the need to rape every woman he sees?


More? Sure. But is there any merit in discussing them? I don't think so.

The biggest complaint I have with the movie is also, sadly, a director's way of creating a film that will cater to the brainless sap which comprises most of the cinema goers.

The story is about a lover's journey to his woman. Almost four years later. With only a kiss and about two hundred spoken words as the reason. Oh, sure, Inman declares he doesn't believe in the war's cause anymore, but that's just happy crappy.

So, scene: Jude Law walks home and his beloved Ada confronts him with a gun and commands him to turn around and leave. Cause, you know, he's grown a beard and she deosn't recognize him.

He turns around, shaken, completely unsure about what to do. He starts walking away, and then she recognizes him. Who knows how.

She shouts his name, and the camera zooms in tight over his face with Ada's silhouette blurred behind him.

He closes his eyes and...

Can you please say perfect ending shot? I don't know about you, but this is the point where the movie should end. It wouldn't make the movie great, but it'd make the movie a lot better.

Shirley Jackson, in her amazing The Haunting of Hill House, says, "Journeys end in lovers meeting."

Why didn't Anthony Minghella follow this simple but elegant rule?

Instead, we get a further half an hour where tremendous shit happens and Inman ends up dead. Uh, before that he sleeps with Ada. Once. Or maybe half a dozen times. And can you believe it, she gets pregnant! Isn't that novel?

Instead, we get an epilogue where everybody's happy and Ruby's father has escaped a total of three attempts on his life. Ruby appears to be a mother too.

Everybody's happy, except... what's the fucking point of watching almost two and a half hours of film where the guy we're supposed to root for dies? The point is, I don't care if he dies or lives. I don't care what comes after he meets Ada. That's the end for me. Everything else is just excess fat. Included only to please those who seek end of movie duels and happy people.

See, the duel scene, I knew, absolutely, positively knew that both blondie and Inman would die. No hesitation, no doubts.

But still, for a moment after blondie fell down and we focused on Inman, I started hoping that for once we wouldn't be fed another cliche. That Inman would live. How terribly stupid of me.

Should you watch this film? At least once. Absolutely. It's gorgeously filmed, and you will take some of the images with you when you leave. Just ignore the story and dialog. Hear the dialog to some other movie on your iPod⁴, if you prefer.

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¹Irritatingly, the father survives.^2
2Also irritating is the way the killers find out that Ruby's father is a deserter. When father tries to fool the killers into thinking he's just a musician and not a deserter, the fat guy admonishes him and divulges all the information. how stupid is that? Even fictional idiots (which the fat guy obviously is) should have enough common sense to play along.
³Did you notice how similar Jude Law and Ewan McGregor look with beards?
⁴Did you check out the new video iPod yet?