Early in Jean-Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders, we see Arthur (Claude Bresseur) standing in the stairwell outside a classroom, trying to convince Odile (Anna Karina) to drop her school course and assist him and Franz (Sami Frey) in robbing her own household. Rather than recoil at the suggestion, Odile sees it as a potential salvation from her drab existence in Madame Victoria’s residence. With subtle resentment evident in her voice, Odile says, “Madame Victoria wants me to learn a practical trade. She wants me to be a nurse. But I don’t want to.” During the final sentence, Godard slyly focuses the camera on Odile sitting on the stairs, holding the railing’s grate as if they were prison bars. The shot perfectly captures her feelings of social imprisonment. Godard’s first few films (Breathless, My Life to Live, etc.) frequently focus on self-liberation, and Band of Outsiders smoothly continues the trend. In an era where poor heist films—and spoofs of heist films (such as Snatch)—are the primary contributors to the genre, it’s refreshing how well Band of Outsiders holds up today. It’s an exhilarating experience.
Band of Outsiders progresses quickly, but still crams a great deal of development and mood swings into its 95-minute run-time. Odile’s orgasmic excitement for these daring men and their plot is accompanied by an underlying fear that she’s fucking up the secure life she has back home. Arthur’s frenetic nature and Franz’ sporadic brooding rhythmically complement her confusion, creating believable relationships. The exception is the romance between Odile and Arthur, which smells phony due to it consummating in about fourteen seconds. Fortunately, though, it never threatens to disrupt the primary themes. Unlike Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, where the central characters’ love triangle is so ludicrous that it destroys the entire narrative structure, Band of Outsiders only requires brushing reality aside for a few brief moments. The epilogue supports the notion that Godard himself isn’t taking love seriously himself.
At the film’s halfway point, there’s a wonderful scene in a diner where the entire soundtrack shuts down for a ‘moment of silence.’ No voices, music, or background noise. Uneasiness grasps the screen, breeding tension and curiosity. Immediately afterwards, Franz, Odile, and Arthur begin dancing in the center of the diner. Godard’s exact intentions here aren’t fully clear to me, but I think he’s trying to illustrate the characters’ burning desire for intense independence. Backing up this theory is the mirroring scene later on, when the three companions sprint through the Louvre at full gallop. It’s an electric few minutes, filled with rebellious behavior that screams of self-doubt and a desire to quench it. The silence in the diner is the yin to the trio’s usual yang.
Godard serves as narrator, injecting Band of Outsiders with a voice-over that rarely feels intrusive, if never fully necessary either. During the dance scene, however, Godard “takes a digression to tell us the hero’s feelings.” Arthur visualizes kissing Odile. Odile wonders if “the boys” notice her breasts bouncing in her sweater—the coy usage of “boys,” and the image in general reinforces her breathless view on the entire affair. And Franz, the most somber of the group, thinks of “everything and nothing. He wonders if the world is becoming a dream.” These thought processes forge the identities; Arthur and Odile go off together that evening, leaving Franz with only solitude for company. But an evening doesn’t equal a lifetime, and the character progressions confirm it. The performances punctuate these themes; Karina exuberantly carries the show, while Bresseur and Frey are strong in their more restrained roles.
Quentin Tarantino has often proclaimed his adoration for Band of Outsiders (his company is called Band-à- Part), and it’s easy to see the stylistic similarities in his work. In fact, Godard concludes the picture with the narration, “my story ends here, like in a pulp novel, at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, nothing wanes.” Touche; it seems that Pulp Fiction‘s birthday is actually in 1964, not 1994 as its IMDB date may lead you to believe.
4/4
With Hulk, director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) viciously bucks the long-lasting trend that blockbusters are cash cows and little more. Hulk has divided the masses because it daringly attempts to say something, rather than ride a tidal wave of special effects to a $200 million dollar payday. Unlike the overblown The Matrix Reloaded, it succeeds without coming across as pretentious. Injecting subtlety into a picture about a 15-foot green monster might seem counterproductive, but for those with patience and an attention span, the payoff is far more rewarding than Spiderman or any other typical summer flick.
Unlike most comic book lead characters, the Hulk is neither hero nor villain. His alter-ego, Bruce Banner (played drearily but effectively by Eric Bana) can’t control his powers, transforming into the Hulk whenever his anger rises. As such, Bruce is a far more complex character than Spiderman or Wolverine, and Lee doesn’t shy away from that. There’s some telling but easy-to-miss banter early on between Bruce and his lab co-worker and ex-girlfriend Betty (an adequate Jennifer Connelly), where Betty mentions his lack of aggression as a reason for their breakup. Though Bruce is at this point unaware of his powers, his reserved nature is already apparent to the viewer, which is why Bana’s quiet portrayal is what’s needed. More importantly, it’s obvious that Betty’s line has a hidden meaning, referring to Bruce’s lack of sexual energy as well as his inability to open up about his past. Subconsciously, Bruce has always been reclusive (his condition, which emerged from a virus that his father passed along to him from birth, didn’t rear its head until a lab accident brought it out), and it’s evident that his passivity led to sexual frustration in his relationship with Betty. This scene is crucial for many reasons; it sets the tone for Bruce’s character and for the first 90 minutes of the film, which focus on development.
Contrasted with X2 or Spiderman, Hulk may seem plodding or even boring to today’s mainstream generation of action-hungry teenagers, but the amount going on under the surface here leads to the most complete lead that the genere had seen yet. As a result, the final scene between Betty and Bruce packs an astounding punch, feeling so authentic that the comic feel of the movie slips entirely away. Additionally, the sharp eye will notice that the Hulk never once initiates an attack. Even in his enraged state, he has enough control of his emotions to only fight in self-defense. The passivity that is internal for much of the film transcends itself to an external state, and results in many lives being saved. Utilizing split screens and other sharp editing techniques, Lee often mirrors the panels of a comic book strip, which keeps the pacing and tension up even during the deliberate stretches. The computer graphics, a source of much concern among the public prior to release, is surprisingly strong—no CGI character yet, with the possible exception of Gollum in The Two Towers, has had shown such genuine emotion in its face. The movements are fluid and the interaction with humans believable. And despite the extreme artiness of the film, there’s plenty of ass-kicking as well, particularly in the final 45 minutes. I suspect that the film is receiving such mixed reviews because many cannot bring themselves to accept that a film of this genre can be deeper than The Mummy. The lack of unfiltered action confuses them into a tizzy, and leads to a dislike of the film. The summary of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes sums up the misunderstanding of this film perfectly—”too much talking and not enough smashing.” I admire Lee greatly for avoiding the usual abundance of smashing, focusing instead on making Bruce Banner human. All in all, Hulk represents a quantum leap in summer entertainment—a thoughtful and moving superhero flick with enough action to keep our blood pumping.