Men Go to Battle

Zachary Treitz's Men Go to Battle has been dismissed as Civil War mumblecore, but I found it to be an auspicious debut. The film was made for peanuts and has the expected defects: murky cinematography, dance troupes and reenactors ambling through to save the producers a buck, sub-monophonic sound, but Treitz makes even the defects signify. Sound and vision are appropriately reflective of a world where the protagonist brothers are adrift and in peril. Some critics seemed to expect the characters to have dialogues like the New England Brahmins of  A Quiet Passion or their learned Southern counterparts in The Beguiled, but these are illiterate Kentuckians who can barely stammer pleasantries about the weather.

The cast is variable, but never jarringly bad. Timothy Morton as the beset upon Henry Mellon carries the movie with downtrodden aplomb. Treitz often tracks ahead of him, emphasizing Morton's dour face as he marches ever forward into one calamity after another. Men Go to Battle is not revelatory cinema, but it is honest and decent within its limits.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Gian Maria Volonte

Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, from 1970, is a Kafkaesque tale of a police official who murders his mistress and is then tasked with finding the murderer. The protagonist is a psychopath who ambivalently generates clues for his minions. His relationships are sado-masochistic with the official reveling in his dominance and power. Petri wants Gian Maria Volonte's power monger to represent the institutional corruption of Italy under the Christian Democrats, but overplays his hand. 

The film stays afloat because of vivid cinematography, incisive editing, and a bravura performance by Volonte. Volonte, best known as a hapless villain in Sergio Leone's Dollar films, gives a fleshy, vivid spin to his portrayal of a man who seems affable on the surface, but is a monster underneath. Petri seems to enjoy letting his thesps take their rips, to varying effect. Florinda Bolkan, as the victim, flails about without establishing a character as she and Volonte's character engage in S&M role playing in flashback.

What prevents this chestnut from reaching classic status is not Petri's theme, Lord knows the perfidy of Italy's powers that be was and is irrefutable (check out Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily), but Petri is unable to express this visually. He is able to express his disgust at the candy colored decadence of late 60s Italy, but bogs down his narrative with close-ups of his cast mugging in an attempt at a black comic effect. The final half hour is especially belabored as the denouement is telegraphed by Petri's Marxist sympathies. Volonte memorably embodies the titular character, but Petri undermines his film's impact with blasé camera set-ups and thematic overkill.

Colossal

Jason Sudeikis and Anne Hathaway in Colossal

Nacho Vigalondo's Colossal  was a box office bomb that deserved better. Anne Hathaway plays Gloria who must return to her hometown after her boyfriend (the omnipresent and talented Dan Stevens) kicks her out of his New York apartment. Gloria is an out of work alcoholic who does little but party away to the wee hours. Oscar, a bar owner in her hometown with whom Gloria shares a past, hires her as a waitress. This is a mixed blessing for Gloria as she stays up till dawn after work drinking with Oscar's cronies.

The film lurches into Sci-Fi territory when a Godzilla like monster starts rampaging through Seoul and Gloria comes to realize that she shares a psychic connection with the creature. In many ways, this is the weakest aspect of the film. Vigalondo lacks the feel for spectacle of a del Toro and the carnage is typical Godzilla fu. However, Vigalondo's script is good at etching the arrested development and relationship struggles of thirty somethings. The characters are quirky without being twee, all ambivalent mixes of good and bad.

Vigalondo coaxes good performances out of his cast. Hathaway is too damned healthy looking to play a party girl, but her character's smart mouth is a good match for her verbal dexterity. The role is a stretch after a career playing awkward princesses and put upon waifs and Hathaway is up to the challenge. Similarly, Jason Sudeikis has heretofore mostly played nice guys in comedies, but is able to conjure darker hues as Oscar. Tim Blake Nelson and Austin Stowell are both effective as Oscar's drinking buddies, though I wonder if Stowell can do more than be stupid and beautiful. Vigalondo has an impressive number of credits as a writer, actor and director, mostly in Spain, and I hopes he gets to helm another Hollywood effort.