Bridge of Spies, The Forbidden Room

Tom Hanks in Bridge of Spies

Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies left me underwhelmed, a feeling I've experienced with a lot of his prestige pictures. He remains one of the cinema's most proficient technicians, but his self-consciously serious films are ultimately undermined by their lack of intellectual rigor. Spielberg is so intent on following his gushy Hollywood heart that his pictures end up being overly platitudinous. 

Once again, Tom Hanks is called upon to embody American values and there is no actor better at portraying earnest decency. However, there is not much else on display. Hanks has little to play off against except for Mark Rylance's justly praised performance as a Soviet spy. Amy Ryan is wasted in a stock role, as is Alan Alda. The CIA and anti-commie hysteria are set up as straw dogs to be knocked down.

What most hinders the film is that the parallel story of Francis Gary Powers is not nearly as compelling as that of his Russian counterpart, Rudolf Abel. Like Brad Johnson and Alison Doody before him, Austin Stowell, playing Powers, must have thought his ticket to immortality was guaranteed by signing onto a Spielberg film, only to be consigned to the dustbin of history by the director's terminal blandness.

Spielberg does score one directorial coup in the waning moments when Hanks' lawyer flashes back to the victims of the Berlin Wall crisis as he gazes on New York tenements from the LIRR. Dynamic moments like this, though, are sorely lacking in Bridge of Spies. Even the historical waxworks of Lincoln came to life more often thanks to a sharper script. Spielberg's artistic complacency has meant that he hasn't directed a fully satisfying film since Catch Me If You Can. 

In contrast, Evan Johnson and Guy Maddin's The Forbidden Room displays the value of a director continuing to explore his personal obsessions regardless of alleged thematic import. The plot, such as it is, is a batshit amalgam of movie genres. Narrative sense is happily tossed out the window as Maddin dives into his unconscious where a trove of early 20th century cinematic tropes emanate; as they have since his debut.

The Forbidden Room

The Forbidden Room is Maddin's first feature collaboration, but it is firmly entrenched in the territory staked out previously in his oeuvre. Much like recent Godard, the spirits of the cinematic past (the ghost of Gosta Berling forever calling The Prisoner of the Desert) are conjured in a cinematic séance.

The Forbidden Room brims with visual invention as Maddin and Johnson dice and splice their players into a hallucinogenic bricolage. Silent film titles and facial features melt into one another. Three strip Technicolor Westerns merge with Noir, and the green funk of a submarine picture. Indeed, emulsification is both Maddin's theme and practice.

Happily, despite the usual awkward avantisms, the film is an enjoyably frothy cocktail. Cinematic history is toasted as pieces of its rich tapestry, with names such as Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling and Mathieu Amalric, float by. By most standards, The Forbidden Room is a bit of a mess, but it is one of the few recent films that will repay multiple viewings. (4/16/16)