_Inherent Vice_ isn't an unpleasant experience. In fact
it could be Paul Thomas Anderson's least annoying film,
since the usually insufferable Joaquin Phoenix plays a
spaced-out "private eye;" he hardly says anything, and
is a passive observer recording what the other, more
enigmatic characters have to say. I let the DVD run
without getting upset at it, unlike Anderson's other
films which tend to rile me up. My main impression is
that it is "pretentious" although that is the opposite
of what the word means. It is unassuming, devoid of
ambition to be new, lulls you to sleep with the familiar
and the cliched, fades into the background of so many
other stoner/private-eye/70s dramedy. The film simply
pretends to be everything else you've seen. Even the
idea of the female voice-over narrration by Jade is
"borrowed" from somewhere else (_Badlands_, _Days
of Heaven_). I can never manage to think of a
new idea/paradigm that Anderson has ever come up
with himself.

Watching that DVD back-to-back with Terrence Malick's
_Knight of Cups_, which I've seen 3 times previously,
makes for an astonishing revelation. Malick's film
is also set in Los Angeles, about a passive, largely
mute protagonist navigating a landscape made up of
lively faces, voices, and personalities. But despite
its languid pace, the film is a call to arms, a plea
to wake up from the sleepy molass, the deep sleep
of our lives and our cinema exemplified by Anderson's
lazy _Inherent Vice_. When I look on the Hollywood
agents, moguls, socialites, and party-goers in _Knight
of Cups_, I think of Anderson and his enablers.

The "period," grimy, lull-you-to-sleep cinematography
of _Inherent Vice_ makes you feel stuck in the muck,
pulled downward, drowning. The transcendental images
in _Knight of Cups_ is by comparison Aurora Borealis.
They are so startling clean, there is this incredible
sanctity to them; they make me feel like I am looking at
everything (including my own life) for the first time.

A year since I last saw the film, I like it much better
now because I recognize it as a huge departure. If
_Days of Heaven_ is impressionism, and _The Tree
of Life_ and _To the Wonder_ are van Gogh, _Knight of
Cups_ approaches surrealism. There are so many scenes
that takes place in the protagonist Rick's mind.
_Knight_ is apparently mostly shot on film, but
there are a number of scenes where the lense has
an extremely short focus length (digitally shot?);
as the camera swirls around, the edge of the frame
becomes distorted, the world unrecognizabl -- a
fluid, droopy Salvatore Dali fever dream. The use
of locations is just astonishingly evocative, perhaps
the best in all of Malick's work; the empty highrises,
the desolate rundown urban ruins, the gardens and
oceanfronts which nourish and revitalize, the deserts
that speak to the soul. They are truly windows into
the charaters' innermost existence.

The Blue Ray disk is excellent. It has subtitles
which are indispensible in further understanding
of the film. I discover that Della (Imogen Poots) is
actually in the lavish party with the Antonio Banderas
character through the subtitles; she is made up so
differently I don't recognize her there. The disk
has a short featurette where the actors discuss their
experience. Teresa Palmer, who does not give the
best performance of her career, nevertheless comes
off as the most intelligent. All the actors focus
on the improvised nature of the acting and the dialog;
this must be the way Malick manages to connect with
the young people in the contemporary world and make
the spoken words feel anchored. (I am reminded how
the great Eric Rohmer retreated into historical
drama in his last years, unable to connect with the
young.) _The Thin Red Line_ has a polyphonic dialog
track too, but most of the lines are at least
"suggested" by the director. In _Knight_, apparently
the actors are free to say anything. Several of
Teresa Palmer's lines become repeated in Christian
Bale's monolog; she must have intuited the essence
of the story and therefore have managed to
illuminated its themes with her words.

I thought that the "death" referred to the film is
about Rick's brother Barry. Now I wonder if it isn't
about Ruth, the estranged mother. In addition to
being a giant artistic advance, _Knight of Cups_ is
also an incredibly personal film for Malick. I
cannot begin to say how moved I am by the experience.
Now I cannot wait to see his new film _Song of Songs_,
which was made at the same period of _Knight
of Cups_ and will likely amplify the ideas that I
belated discovered in the latter film.

(for A.)

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