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Jennifer and Harry take no prisoners |
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| 08/12/2009 |
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Troubled adolescents and teenagers devouring their own and others’ lives seems to be the shared theme of two Noir films. The first is Harry Brown, which officially opened the Festival and competition. The second, out-of-competition title Jennifer's Body, which closed the tour de force of Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody that began with an adventurous trip from the US and continued this morning with a triple encounter with the press and public for the film as well as for her autobiography Candy Girl.
Director Daniel Barber and producer Kris Thykier presented Harry Brown as a story that is both extreme and at the same time rooted in reality. The film centers on a widowed, retired ex-Marine. He has little desire to remember his violent past fighting the IRA, and lives in a London estate where youth anger is devoid of idealism and exists only in and of itself; where life flows senselessly and ends in a macabre killing game.
According to Barber, Harry Brown (played by Michael Caine) is an extreme example of people who faced with a powerless police force decide to take matters into their own hands, to act on their own.
“The film comes from the social reality in the UK,” continued Barber, “where a large number of young people are literally disconnected from the rest of the community. We didn’t want to scorn the police. The problem is that alone they aren’t capable of fighting crime, which is always spreading. Nor did we want to glorify the avenger. If anything, this story is just a warning about a situation that must be solved.”
As for Michael Caine, says Barber: “He immediately felt for the character, in a way he could see himself in Harry, both in his age and military past, even though Michael is much more agile and in better shape than Harry. Sometimes I had to ask him to walk slower! In any case, I spoke to him a lot about the screenplay and we developed it even more while shooting.”
The creature played by Megan Fox – in the film directed by Karyn Kusama and scripted by Cody – is of a totally different nature, however. Cody explained that Jennifer’s Body is supposed to work on a few levels: “On the one hand it’s a commercial, fun thriller. On the other, it’s a deeper political statement about the things young women face today. I was lucky to have met Karyn. We met with a few people before her but [she] had a sophisticated understanding of what we were trying to do, which was pretty bizarre.”
More than bizarre, even original: a horror film written by a woman, directed by a woman and starring women. “Although horror is a pretty feminist genre,” added Cody, “the films are almost always made by men so the perspective is almost always male. It’s true that other films have had strong and important female characters, but I think that the female perspective is particularly strong in Jennifer’s Body.”
Says Cody about her voracious heroines: “I think the best way to describe them are girls with a bite, in this case literally. This is a story about hatred among girls, sexuality, the death of innocence; and even about politics, in terms of how cities respond to tragedies. Anyone who responds unconventionally is branded a traitor. As for entertainment, I wanted to write a popcorn movie that could appeal to everyone.” Which is exactly what’s happening with Cody’s successful autobiography Candy Girl, much to the writer’s mortification, she says.
The competition continues tomorrow with two very different films, both terrifying however. From Norway comes Pål Øie’s Hidden, a story of ghosts and a past that re-emerges brutally, from a director considered the leader of the horror genre at home. The second is US title Zombieland, whose very title belies the filmmaker’s desire to unite zombie classics and comedy. The film’s cast includes Bill Murray, who has a short cameo playing a zombie version of himself. |
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