You Just Give In (Ravenous)
- Ravenous (Antonia Bird). Jan. 5th, 4:45pm + 6:54pm (with Robert Carlyle's commentary track). View count: 8?
I've seen this movie enough now that it's very easy to just think of it as a thing that happens, rather than a crafted, created work. I may have to give it a rest for a while. However, I'm finally going to write about it.
This is a movie that I love a good bit. It's a weird movie, with some rather serious tone problems, and the more I find out about it the more I suspect that most of the best things about it came from independent action of the people involved (as opposed to a top-down directorial vision; although the director did bring a lot to the table, her contributions were largely in collaboration with the other principles (screenplay, the final scene)).
There's a lot of setup; as Antonia Bird says in some interview, 'the film does not really get going until [Robert Carlyle's] character arrives,' which is maybe twenty minutes in? She also regards a lot of the early flashbacking and Mexico scenes as unnecessary (which she apparently came aware of while showing the movie to a british audience... hm. Poor stupid americans and their poor stupid editing).
However, the overall structure is fairly unharmed by studio demands; probably the lack of location snow hurt the production more. I don't know how this was done. Presumably someone at Fox was really either in love with the movie or just never watched it, because its weird nature was not really taken into account for marketing purposes. No one knew how to sell it, but it got made anyway. And yet the first director was removed from the production because of 'creative differences.'
There are hints here and there that Robert Carlyle had so much clout that he was the one to pick Antonia Bird (with whom he was friends) as the new director, and so therefore maybe he was also their shield from Fox's meddling. He'd just gotten done with a whack of high-profile movies, so maybe he was just sort of golden at that point.
This also meant that Antonia Bird pretty much let him do whatever he wanted, which turned out well in this film. He has a strange part to play, with a character transformation half of the way through, and in general a lot to do.
There's only really one place where this backfires, and that place is at the cave, where Robert Carlyle is doing a little vocal freakout as prelude to killing people. It's completely too long, and furthermore it's impenetrable. He says on his talkover track that it was meant to be a counterpart for and takeoff on what Toffler (Jeremy Davies) was humming, but it's really quite baffling. I've seen this movie probably eight times, and I wouldn't have known that had he not told me (actually the scriptwriter's talkover mentions this too, a bit more clearly too, but you get the idea).
Otherwise he does fine, underplaying when appropriate and even getting off a few gags.
(The other problems I have with the movie are almost all in that same scene; one of which is the complete loss of spatial sense around the cave, but I'm not going to scene-by-scene this.)
Guy Pearce is much more of a Hamletty cipher, usually very passive. He apparently worked out his character style during the presence of the first director, who was going to play the film completely seriously, and did not alter this when the tone of the movie completely changed. This worked out probably fine, since having him wisecrack or suchlike would really have rankled. As it is, he's very much the quiet center of things, until he finally finds something to care about.
The basic plot is about cannibalism, with more or less the rules of vampirism. You eat human flesh, you get cannibal healing factor. All your problems go away, except for your shiny new need to eat people. Guy Pearce has accidentally become a cannibal and plays the Louis from Interview with the Vampire part, all oh I can't possibly eat human flesh while Robert Carlyle is the taunty crazy one who tries repeatedly to get him to do so anyway.
This sort of knowing attitude is necessary, but the first time I saw the film I was decidedly confused as to how to interpret it. Was it essentially a horror film, with tiny snippets of humor? Was there actually supposed to be humor at all? I was pretty sure that the scene in which 'Run' was used was supposed to be darkishly humorous, and, seriously, I can't even say 'He was licking me!' with a straight face. And yet! It's hard to tell. The movie doesn't really resolve into 'dark comedy'; more 'slightly amusing and tongue-in-cheek horrorish screed against expansionism. And stuff.'
This is in large part the fault of the (incredibly great) score. The score is seriously an excellent work on its own (Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman!), but it relatively seldom displays a sense of humor. (Funny tracks: 'Welcome to Fort Spencer', 'Run', 'Checkmate', and, okay, 'Noises Off', but that's two minutes long only.) 'Boyd's Journey,' which is used at the beginning and reprised at the end, to great effect, is probably the best travelling music I will ever hear. But it betrays nothing on the humor side of things.
I've sort of made my peace with this issue; I think that it ultimately holds together as a movie. It's definitely strange and possibly a little hard to get a grip on, but, man. Loads of great acting. Even smaller parts are played well. No one is too flat to care about. Fairly brilliant character strokes, lots of fake blood, excellent score. It's original, really, sort of a new take on an old mythos.
Conclusion: I think you should watch it. But be prepared.
You're WELCOME!
I've seen this movie enough now that it's very easy to just think of it as a thing that happens, rather than a crafted, created work. I may have to give it a rest for a while. However, I'm finally going to write about it.
This is a movie that I love a good bit. It's a weird movie, with some rather serious tone problems, and the more I find out about it the more I suspect that most of the best things about it came from independent action of the people involved (as opposed to a top-down directorial vision; although the director did bring a lot to the table, her contributions were largely in collaboration with the other principles (screenplay, the final scene)).
There's a lot of setup; as Antonia Bird says in some interview, 'the film does not really get going until [Robert Carlyle's] character arrives,' which is maybe twenty minutes in? She also regards a lot of the early flashbacking and Mexico scenes as unnecessary (which she apparently came aware of while showing the movie to a british audience... hm. Poor stupid americans and their poor stupid editing).
However, the overall structure is fairly unharmed by studio demands; probably the lack of location snow hurt the production more. I don't know how this was done. Presumably someone at Fox was really either in love with the movie or just never watched it, because its weird nature was not really taken into account for marketing purposes. No one knew how to sell it, but it got made anyway. And yet the first director was removed from the production because of 'creative differences.'
There are hints here and there that Robert Carlyle had so much clout that he was the one to pick Antonia Bird (with whom he was friends) as the new director, and so therefore maybe he was also their shield from Fox's meddling. He'd just gotten done with a whack of high-profile movies, so maybe he was just sort of golden at that point.
This also meant that Antonia Bird pretty much let him do whatever he wanted, which turned out well in this film. He has a strange part to play, with a character transformation half of the way through, and in general a lot to do.
There's only really one place where this backfires, and that place is at the cave, where Robert Carlyle is doing a little vocal freakout as prelude to killing people. It's completely too long, and furthermore it's impenetrable. He says on his talkover track that it was meant to be a counterpart for and takeoff on what Toffler (Jeremy Davies) was humming, but it's really quite baffling. I've seen this movie probably eight times, and I wouldn't have known that had he not told me (actually the scriptwriter's talkover mentions this too, a bit more clearly too, but you get the idea).
Otherwise he does fine, underplaying when appropriate and even getting off a few gags.
(The other problems I have with the movie are almost all in that same scene; one of which is the complete loss of spatial sense around the cave, but I'm not going to scene-by-scene this.)
Guy Pearce is much more of a Hamletty cipher, usually very passive. He apparently worked out his character style during the presence of the first director, who was going to play the film completely seriously, and did not alter this when the tone of the movie completely changed. This worked out probably fine, since having him wisecrack or suchlike would really have rankled. As it is, he's very much the quiet center of things, until he finally finds something to care about.
The basic plot is about cannibalism, with more or less the rules of vampirism. You eat human flesh, you get cannibal healing factor. All your problems go away, except for your shiny new need to eat people. Guy Pearce has accidentally become a cannibal and plays the Louis from Interview with the Vampire part, all oh I can't possibly eat human flesh while Robert Carlyle is the taunty crazy one who tries repeatedly to get him to do so anyway.
This sort of knowing attitude is necessary, but the first time I saw the film I was decidedly confused as to how to interpret it. Was it essentially a horror film, with tiny snippets of humor? Was there actually supposed to be humor at all? I was pretty sure that the scene in which 'Run' was used was supposed to be darkishly humorous, and, seriously, I can't even say 'He was licking me!' with a straight face. And yet! It's hard to tell. The movie doesn't really resolve into 'dark comedy'; more 'slightly amusing and tongue-in-cheek horrorish screed against expansionism. And stuff.'
This is in large part the fault of the (incredibly great) score. The score is seriously an excellent work on its own (Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman!), but it relatively seldom displays a sense of humor. (Funny tracks: 'Welcome to Fort Spencer', 'Run', 'Checkmate', and, okay, 'Noises Off', but that's two minutes long only.) 'Boyd's Journey,' which is used at the beginning and reprised at the end, to great effect, is probably the best travelling music I will ever hear. But it betrays nothing on the humor side of things.
I've sort of made my peace with this issue; I think that it ultimately holds together as a movie. It's definitely strange and possibly a little hard to get a grip on, but, man. Loads of great acting. Even smaller parts are played well. No one is too flat to care about. Fairly brilliant character strokes, lots of fake blood, excellent score. It's original, really, sort of a new take on an old mythos.
Conclusion: I think you should watch it. But be prepared.
You're WELCOME!