I ♥ Huckabees is the sort of movie you want to root for. A star-studded, super-high-concept comedy that aims for heights most films don't even acknowledge, this is a movie that sets a course straight for the sun. The bad news is that it doesn't get anywhere remotely within wing-singeing distance. But the very fact that the film sets its sights so high also means that its fall is all the more spectacular.Truth be told, the movie barely even achieves lift-off, despite the illusion of speed generated by a cast of quirky characters scurrying about in all directions at once. What Huckabees director David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings) seems to be aiming for here is an experimental fusion of screwball comedy and one of those "meditations on identity" that Charlie Kaufman knocks off in his sleep. The result is a movie that takes such enormous chances and falls so flat on its face that we can't help but consider the old snake-swallowing-its-own-tail conundrum that implies there might ultimately be very little separating something perfect from something perfectly awful (cough, Brown Bunny, cough). And if that sort of quasi-philosophic hair-splitting appeals to you, it's just possible that you might enjoy I ♥ Huckabees, a movie that is virtually wall-to-wall existentialist hair-splitting — or what a crueler critic might unkindly refer to as philosophical masturbation.
The story here, or as close to a story as Huckabees gets, involves a lank-haired environmentalist-cum-poet named Albert (Rushmore's Jason Schwartzman) who hires a couple of wacky "existentialist detectives" (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) in order to find out why he suddenly feels that life has no meaning. The movie alternately meanders and zips through a series of verbal and visual non-sequiturs, introducing an intertwined ensemble of kooky characters, all of whom at one point or another find themselves in the throes of some deep personal/philosophical crisis that the detectives are called upon to address. There's the charming but soulless corporate executive (Jude Law), the model repelled by her own beauty (Naomi Watts), the firefighter who's lost his religion after "that big September thing" (a surprisingly effective Mark Wahlberg) and, this being a comedy about philosophy, a French existentialist sleuth, played by no less a EuroStar than Isabelle Huppert.
All of this is related in a scrambled, non-linear manner that apes the patterns of human memory (with some digitally tweaked visuals underscoring the point), not unlike a more frenetic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The movie is smart as a whip, in an almost painfully self-conscious way, but it's not particularly interesting, and the wordplay — non-stop chatter, really, shtick — ultimately begins to take on the abrasive quality of white noise. The rapid-fire, often overlapping dialogue in Huckabees has the ring and rhythm of classic screwball, but little of the wit, and Russell's apparent strategy of transforming the characters' angst into the stuff of madcap entertainment is a noble experiment that simply doesn't work. After all, how many times can you watch characters mouth phrases like "ultimate truth" and "your perception of reality" and still be expected to sit there with a smile or a thoughtful expression on your face?
Maybe Russell is poking fun at his own intellectual pretensions, subtly linking all the frantic on-screen activity in his movie with all of its endless mental gymnastics, both of which seem to lead exactly nowhere. If that's the case, though, the movie's point is too obscure to be effective, and we still wind up feeling like we're being subjected to a Where's Waldo? for the cerebral set.
I ♥ Huckabees seems far less concerned with being focused or funny than with being "different," and the experience of sitting through it is a little like passing through the classic stages of grief, only in reverse. We start out open and accepting of Russell's grand experiment, sink into depression, eventually become angry as its considerable flaws manifest themselves, then, finally, slip into a denial state where we beat our heads against the wall attempting to rationalize what went wrong with this picture. Huckabees is a mess, but it's a strangely endearing and ambitious mess, a curious misfire that seems to be winking at us from that place deep inside where a really, really good movie is tucked away.
Battle Star
It's one of the most important movies ever made, and this week we're lucky enough to have two different but equally satisfying ways of experiencing it. For those of us who still appreciate the pleasures of seeing a film projected up on the big screen in all its 35mm glory, the Oct. 22 screening of Gillo Pontecorvo's classic The Battle of Algiers at St. Petersburg's Eckerd College is a must-see. Then again, there's an enormous amount of historical, political and aesthetic context to Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece that will only be available to those savvy enough to get their hands on the Criterion Collection's recently released edition of The Battle of Algiers, a magnificent three-disc set that easily ranks as one of the greatest DVDs ever produced.
The Battle of Algiers depicts Muslim militants using any means necessary to rid their nation of the occupying forces of a Western power. The Arab country in question is Algeria in the 1950s and the occupiers are the colonialist French, but anyone who misses the parallels to our present situation in Iraq would have to be blind. As if further proof of the continuing relevance of Pontecorvo's film were required, it's worth noting that this is the movie that was screened for bigwigs at the Pentagon and the State Department in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq.
The movie still packs a wallop, drawing attention to a multitude of political and moral ambiguities while succeeding beautifully as art, as drama and as thriller. Employing a documentary-like approach that was nothing less than revolutionary at the time and still looks fresh and convincing, Pontecorvo and cinematographer Marcello Gatti use handheld cameras to shoot the film "newsreel-fashion," in many of the same locales where the actual events occurred. The feeling of authenticity is heightened by crowd scenes so elaborately choreographed they appear to be spontaneously generated chaos, and a remarkably believable cast consisting largely of non-professionals.
The Battle of Algiers is an accurate, objective but never less than engrossing dramatic recreation of the Algerian uprising, concentrating on pivotal events taking place in the mid- to late-'50s, a crucial time period when the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) adopted in earnest a strategy we're all too familiar with these days — the systematic murder of innocents. (In one of the movie's most chilling and famous scenes, a trio of Algerian women carry bombs to a local café, then calmly consider the smiling young faces they're about to obliterate.) As the Algerians escalate their campaign of atrocities, the French military respond in kind, using vastly superior force and even torture in a desperate attempt to crush the rebellion. The movie casts what appears to be an all-seeing, unblinking eye on all of this, contrasting the morally dubious methods of both sides, even as it considers the monumental tragedy swallowing up all of the players.
Personally, I can't wait to see that 35mm print of The Battle of Algiers projected on Eckerd College's big screen, but I doubt it could look any better than the glorious transfer appearing on the first disc of Criterion's invaluable three-DVD set. Criterion's landmark edition goes beyond that, however, with hours of copious extras, including fascinating insights from artistic types like Spike Lee, Oliver Stone and Julian Schnabel, as well as conversations with U.S. Government Counterterrorism officials Richard A. Clarke and Michael A. Sheehan, and ABC News' Christopher Isham. The set balances excellent documentaries on Pontecorvo's methods and the film's production with numerous, meticulously produced pieces on the history of the Algerian conflict and thoughtful, informed examinations of how the events depicted in the film shed light on what's happening today.
So, what to do? Buy the Criterion set or get in line for the screening? In a perfect world, the thing to do would be to grab the DVD and check out this rare, big-screen presentation, but, in reality, that might just be above and beyond the call of duty except for the hardest of hardcore film buffs. Still, it's a great film and a great DVD. Either way you experience it can't be anything but right.
lance.goldenberg@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2004.