Rudo y Cursi - Interview with Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal

Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal are back in their first film together since their breakthrough performances in Alfonso Cuaron's film Y Tu Mama Tambien, with the new film Rudo y Cursi, which hits theaters on May 8. Luna and Bernal play two brothers who live in an impoverished Mexican village and work in a banana plantation, when they're given a chance at a better life as professional soccer players, after a talent scout discovers them. Beto (Luna), a firey and passionate goalie is nicknamed Rudo ("Tough") and Tato (Bernal), who harbors aspirations to be a singer, is nicknamed Cursi ("Corny") and their lives are transformed for better... and worse.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Carlos Cuaron, Alfonso's brother who also co-wrote Y Tu Mama Tambien, and the first film produced under the new company Cha Cha Cha, which was formed my the Mexican filmmakers Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron.

Movie Web had the interviews.

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Jim Jarmusch talks about The Limits of Control

The NY Times has a great article about Jim Jarmusch's next film, The Limits of Control. I'm a big, big fan of the Musch and so I am really looking forward to seeing this one. Lots of great actors and the usual dream like quality to it from the sound of it. Have a read of some of the article here to see what goes in, or rather what doesn't, to Jarmusch's filmmaking technique. Check out the rest of the article though as lots more great stuff there. Thanks to Pam for sending me the link.

The Limits of Control harks back to the existential crime films that enjoyed a golden age in the late ’60s with Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Samourai” and John Boorman’s “Point Blank.” Mr. Jarmusch summed up his intentions with typical dry perversity: “I always wanted to make an action film with no action, or a film with suspense but no drama.”

In keeping with his fondness for repetition and episodic structures, “The Limits of Control” takes shape as a series of interactions and transactions. The lone man runs into a series of colorful types (Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal, Bill Murray and others, making the most of minimal screen time), most of them envoys of a sort, who dispense gnomic instructions and presumably less pertinent ruminations. Matchboxes branded “Le Boxeur” are exchanged. Some contain a piece of paper bearing coded inscriptions, which the De Bankolé character dutifully folds up and swallows, washing down the clue with a gulp of espresso.

Mr. Jarmusch’s previous film, the melancholic “Broken Flowers” (2005), in which Mr. Murray played a graying lothario who goes in search of his former flames, seemed like the product of a mellowed middle age. But “The Limits of Control” affirms that at 56 he remains open as ever to experimentation, perhaps even to new ways of making and seeing movies.

There are obvious affinities between “The Limits of Control” and Mr. Jarmusch’s most adventurous film, “Dead Man,” which received mixed reviews when it was released but found its way onto many critics’ lists of the best movies of the ’90s. Each film undertakes a journey that is as much metaphysical as literal: a trip in more than one sense. By opening with a quotation from the Rimbaud poem “The Drunken Boat,” with its hallucinatory visions of being lost at sea, “The Limits of Control” even picks up where “Dead Man” left off, with Johnny Depp’s character being pushed out to sea and into the spirit world.

The title comes from an essay by William S. Burroughs about mind-control techniques. “I like the double sense,” Mr. Jarmusch said. “Is it the limits to our own self-control? Or is it the limits to which they can control us, ‘they’ being whoever tries to inject some kind of reality over us?”

But the title also registers as an acknowledgment that control, while unavoidable in the messy collective endeavor of moviemaking, runs counter to Mr. Jarmusch’s free-form approach. He starts with specific actors, gathers up seemingly unrelated ideas and settles on situations and moods before filling in what passes for a plot. “I work backwards,” he said. “That can be dangerous, and it can take a while.” For “The Limits of Control” he had even fewer starting points than usual: an actor, a character and a place, the curving Torres Blancas, a Madrid apartment tower that he first visited in the ’80s.

Location scouting was critical, since the movie, as Mr. Jarmusch saw it, was very much a matter of finding evocative spaces and landscapes and responding to them. The film came together as a connect-the-dots exercise. He sketched out the character’s itinerary, beginning in the cosmopolitan capital, Madrid, then heading south to the Moorish city of Seville on a high-speed train that traverses the olive groves and almond orchards of the Andalusian countryside. The eventual destination is the southeast, the lunar desert terrain near the coastal town of Alméria (where many spaghetti westerns were shot).

Mr. Jarmusch started filming without a complete script; instead he had what he called “a minimal map,” a 25-page story. The dialogue was filled in the night before a scene was shot. “With Jim it’s always about what’s between the lines,” said Mr. De Bankolé, who has appeared in three of Mr. Jarmusch’s previous films.

The odd little totems and fetishes embedded throughout the movie may seem arbitrary, but mention any one of them and Mr. Jarmusch will riff at length about its personal significance. He had received the Boxeur matches, which are common throughout Africa, as gifts, first from the musicologist Louis Sarno, then from Mr. De Bankolé, who was born in Ivory Coast. The black pickup truck that transports Mr. De Bankolé’s character to his ultimate destination, down to the slogan emblazoned on it (“La Vida No Vale Nada,” the title of a song by the Cuban singer and revolutionary Pablo Milanés), is modeled on one owned by Joe Strummer of the Clash, who appeared in “Mystery Train” and, before his death in 2002, lived part time in the south of Spain.

Music was the most important key to the rhythms and textures of the film. Mr. Jarmusch’s soundtracks are the height of hipster connoisseurship: Neil Young’s feedback-choked guitar vamps on “Dead Man,” RZA’s sinuous hip-hop on “Ghost Dog,” Mulatu Astatke’s Ethiopian jazz-funk on “Broken Flowers.” For “The Limits of Control,” which called for a soundscape that he described as “layered, big, sort of damaged,” he relies on distortion-heavy epics by ambient-noise bands like Boris and Sunn O))).

Like Forest Whitaker’s urban samurai in “Ghost Dog,” Mr. De Bankolé’s character is an apparent adherent of Eastern philosophy. The lone man practices tai chi and has a deliberate, Zenlike air to him. (At museums he takes in only one painting per visit.) Mr. De Bankolé said he got into character by reading the Japanese martial-arts manual “The Art of Peace.”

“It would slow me down,” he said. “He should be almost floating when he walks.”

Mr. Jarmusch is not a practicing Buddhist, but he said, “it’s a philosophy that speaks to me more clearly than others.” He does tai chi and qigong and has come up with a concentration exercise — “a cross between meditating and taking a hallucinogenic drug” — that requires him to pay close attention to all noises within earshot. (In a lovely sequence Mr. De Bankolé’s character lies on his bed in a Seville apartment as the light changes and the sounds of the neighborhood wash over him.)

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Rudo y Cursi - Trailer for new football comedy film

Beto and Tato are a pair of rivaling, dim-witted brothers who work on a dusty banana ranch and play soccer for their local team. Beto, a goalie whose hot temper on the field earns him the nickname of Rudo, dreams of becoming a professional soccer player, while Tato wants to be a famous singer. They both share the dream of building a big house for their mother, but all of their desires seem completely out of reach, that is, until a talent scout, Batuta, discovers their skill on the field and brings them to Mexico City.

Rudo y Cursi is both written and directed by first-time Mexican filmmaker Carlos Cuarón and stars Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.

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The Limits of Control - On set photos in Spain for Jim Jarmusch's latest

Some amazing photos from the set of Jim Jarmusch's latest film, The Limits of Control. I posted the trailer yesterday and today the amazing Pam sent me these photos. Fantastic stuff. The were all shot in either Senes-Almeria or Madrid in Spain. Above is Tilda Swinton and below is Jim himself both in Madrid. Looks like Jim is talking to Isaach De Bankolé and Gael García Bernal.

The Limits of Control is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Mr. De Bankole), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. His journey, paradoxically both intently focused and dreamlike, takes him not only across Spain but also through his own consciousness.

Below are a few shots that appear to be from the film. Always nice to see these kind of things especially the behind the scenes on a film. Shaping up to be a very interesting film indeed.



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The Limits of Control - Jim Jarmusch's latest.

"How did you get in here?"

"I used my imagination."

This film looks amazing and has a brilliant cast.

The new movie from filmmaker Jim Jarmusch ("Broken Flowers," "Down by Law") is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise). The location shoot there united the writer/director with acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle ("In the Mood for Love," "Paranoid Park"). Isaach De Bankole stars in the lead role for Mr. Jarmusch; this marks the duo's fourth collaboration over nearly two decades, following "Night on Earth," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," and "Coffee and Cigarettes." The film also features several other actors with whom Jarmusch has previously worked, including Alex Descas, John Hurt, Youki Kudoh, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton; and actors new to his films, including Hiam Abbass, Gael García Bernal, Paz De La Huerta, Jean-François Stevenín, and Luis Tosar.

The Limits of Control is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Mr. De Bankole), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. His journey, paradoxically both intently focused and dreamlike, takes him not only across Spain but also through his own consciousness.

I'm a big fan of Jim Jarmusch and I think that looks fantastic. Haven't a clue what is going on but love the imagery and the whole feel of it. I will definitely be keeping a close eye on this one.

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Blindness, 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Alive Braga, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, Don McKellar
Running Time: 120 minutes
Score: 5 / 10
This review by debblyst

Being an admirer of Saramago's towering masterpiece and Fernando Meirelles's talent, I went to see "Blindness" with a pure heart but toned-down expectations; we all know how movie adaptations of great literature can be disappointing. But I wasn't prepared for the dismal formal and philosophical nada that is "Blindness" -- it could very well be entitled "Blandness" instead.

The problems start from the opening credits: after the names of a dozen international production companies comes the hype tag "A Very Independent Production". Following this tongue-in-cheek "manifesto", the opening scene -- of the first man turning blind inside his car -- belies it all: it looks alarmingly like an ad for the new Fiat Punto (Fiat is one of the backers, of course). It's a shameless piece of merchandising that immediately distracts you from what's supposed to be a harrowing scene; you pay attention to the car, not the man (excruciatingly played by Yusuke Iseya, in the film's worst performance).

The "very independent production" has more than a share of compromises, such as the terribly contrived Japanese couple, who seem to inhabit another film, with an undue prominence probably there to satisfy the Japanese producers and market. Or the timid, squeezed-in "action" flashes (cars crashing, planes exploding) to satisfy "action" lovers (definitely NOT the public for "Blindness"). Or the rather inexcusable decision to film in English an author (Saramago) who brought new heights to Portuguese-language prose, just to employ American stars and accommodate the international market.

The film never finds a tone -- it falters between the novel's apocalyptic allegory of society's prejudices, cruelty, ridicule and flawed power systems, and an thriller-like thread that has nothing to do with the book's style. Saramago took the idea and politico-philosophical implications from Camus's "La Peste" and made it a haunting literary piece, NOT because of the plot but thanks to his exquisite prose.

It would be easy to blame the film's failure solely on Don McKellar's unimaginative, schematic adaptation that resembles a first draft, riddled with bad dialog and pedestrian ideas, plus a narrator (Danny Glover's character) that confusingly comes in halfway into the film. But the problems are all around: César Charlone's cinematography never transcends the obvious (the blurring "white blindness" finally drains the film of all life; it takes away the visual as well as the emotional edge); Marco Antonio Guimarães's music is abysmally bland; Daniel Rezende (the superb editor of "City of God") never finds a compelling rhythm, alternating hurried scenes with unnecessary longueurs (e.g.the embarrassing "cute dog" sequence). Art director Tulé Peak gets the claustrophobic squalor of the asylum quite right, but the chaotic garbage-filled streets often look suspiciously composed.

The actors seem lost, and that's a shock considering Meirelles's former films (remember how "City of God" had all-around brilliant performances?). Though they're supposed to play stereotypes (doctor, wife, whore, etc), they lack the complex character development that is one of the high points of the novel; we end up caring for no one. Mark Ruffalo, of whining voice, emasculated demeanor and gutless face, looks like a boy who's lost his mammy rather than a dedicated ophthalmologist who slowly sinks into depression by his impotence to help others or himself. Danny Glover plays a beaten one-eyed old man incongruously sporting a supermegawhite Hollywood dental job that renders him impossible to believe in. The Japanese couple are given particularly ludicrous scenes and dialog. Alice Braga has a strong face and sexy attitude, but her character's complexities never surface, especially the nature of her relationships with the young boy and the doctor. Maury Chaykin's repellent character (the man who was already blind before the plague and becomes the meanest s.o.b. of them all) is underwritten and under-explored, and he turns to overacting for attention. Don McKellar's thief is an embarrassment and Sandra Oh's cameo is a waste.

Julianne Moore spends the first half hour repeating her role of the depressed/misunderstood wife in "The Hours". She's never allowed to show bewilderment as to the "why" she's the only one to keep her eyesight, but she's good when she gets into action and has a great final shot, though she could take a break from her de rigueur slow-motion crying scene, with that weird thing she does curling her mouth upside down (my friend said "Oh, no, it's coming!"). The best performance comes from Gael García Bernal playing the amoral, dumb, jackass opportunist: he makes an unbelievable character (how about his rise to power? And gun? And ammo?) come to life -- in his scenes, we recognize Meirelles's naughty, un-PC sense of humor.

Above all, it's Meirelles (director, co-producer and responsible for the final cut) who disappoints, letting his customary highly assertive film-making flounder in hesitation here. Perhaps he felt the burden of having to be faithful to the masterpiece of a Nobel-winner who's still alive. Perhaps he felt crushed by the brooding, gritty material; Meirelles seems rather on the cool nice guy side, and he's best when he can let his irony and humor show (as his films "Domésticas" and "City of God" prove). His sex scenes are REALLY bashful, though, looking more repressed than discreet. The novel's apocalyptic, sarcastic tone would need an aggressive, irrepressible director of wild imagination like Buñuel to do it full justice (the characters' passiveness/impotence recall "Exterminating Angel"). In this our time, Béla Tarr could've made it gloriously bleak; Lars von Trier could've turned it into a shattering, sardonic horror (if he got back into the splendid form of his "The Kingdom"/"Zentropa" days).

"Blindness" is not bad at all; it's just insipid and frustrating. Maybe Meirelles should do next a Portuguese-speaking Brazilian film again, to re-fuel his soul with his own culture, language and themes. Brazilian cinema needs him badly; abroad, he's just one more talented, competent "foreign" director, and these multinational ventures often turn out muddled or impersonal (think Kassovitz, Susanne Bier, Hirschbiegel...). He can do much better, and we deserve much better from him.
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