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June 26, 2006
I have scarcely been to the cinema for years. It coincided with the collapse of Australian national cinema and its outdated conceptions of what the Australian people and nation are.
I watched a DVD of Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring over the weekend. It is the first of the three books (and films) in J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'd seen bits of Fellowship on television before and I'd read Tolkien long ago--but I couldn't remember much of the fantasy's Manichean narrative. I have yet to see the other films in the trilogy ---The Two Towers or The Return of the King-- and have no knowledge of Jackson's earlier splatter movies or his Heavenly Creatures.
It's an impressive film in spite of the flawed romance of the elf princess, and the wooden the elf queen scenes in the light filled elf land of Rivendell that suggests overlit theme-park tackiness. The boys and men are constantly gazing at each other longingly and holding each other in their arms.
The film visually works best with the darkness --eg. the stripping of Isengard---and it becomes cinematic and intellectually engaging with the journey through the Mines of Moria, the giant-sized trolls and armies of orcs and the traversal of the Bridge of Khazad-Dum is pumped up onto a far grander cinematic scale
It is up there in epic-scale with the blockbuster Star Wars but it is not as good a film as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But then it is only introducing us to the world of Middle-Earth and its denizens and creating the quest that gives coherence to the episodic adventures. The visual effects trickery (CGI) was not at the expense of the film, even if the emphasis was more on the spectacle and its effects to express the narrative.
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Gary, Jacksons film Brain Dead was one of the funniest films I ever saw.The section where the hero uses a lawn mower held at chest height to mow through the zombies is hilarious. Altogether the film has a great understanding of archetypes especially the all devouring mother.
Perhaps the Rings trilogy is part and parcel of the propaganda campaign being used to promote the manichaen good vs evil smash of civilisations. If we can only eliminate the enemies of "freedom" then everything will be hunky dory.
Perhaps it will even be necessary to terminate the sub-human denizens that infest the Planet of Slums!! Before they breed like rabbits (barbarians) and attempt to breech the walls of civilisation!
The culture wars shouting match in Europe is now promoting that theme.