Wonderland (1999)

Wonderland (Michael Winterbottom, 1999)

Wonderland is a lovely film, probably director Michael Winterbottom's best film to date. It's like looking at a well-kept salt water aquarium, where the individual fishes are all very interesting to look at; their interactions among themselves, with other species, and their environment, transport you into a hypnotic state of static observation. The aquarium is modern London; the different kinds of fishes are the citizens of different races and denominations; the rocks, corals and plastic structures are the tenements, the bars, the restaurants.

When viewing the artifacts swimming inside an aquarium, you tend to quietly observe a favorite subject --- probably a family of fishes doing something uniquely engrossing. Yet at times your eyes would follow another fish, but then quickly get back to your original subjects. Winterbottom treats his characters the same way; his subjects, a London family and their closely connected acquaintances, are painted with pathos, yet most of the time, his camera (under the direction of cinematographer Sean Bobbitt) would stop to peer at the faces of other citizens (the expectant date, the immigrant beggars, the ravenous football fans, the onlookers of the fireworks display). It's a worthwhile endeavor. Winterbottom seems to be saying that his characters aren't living inside a bubble; that they are connected in that intricate emotional and social web of other middle and lower class Londoners; that all these other faces Winterbottom lovingly gives time to have their own stories to tell, probably even graver than his subjects.

Winterbottom tells their stories with poignant accuracy. The film is set on a specific long weekend (Thursday to Monday morning) wherein a host of events coincidentally happens. He starts everything off with a botched blind date. Nadia (Gina McKee) cleverly eases her way from an uninteresting date. She eventually ends her Thursday night with a dozen replies from her message to a dating service; fervently hoping to hook up with that perfect date. Nadia's two sisters are Debbie (Shirley Henderson) and Molly (Molly Parker). Debbie is a beautician who singlehandedly takes care of his pre-teen son as the father (Ian Hart) is completely immature. Molly is very pregnant with her first child with husband (John Simm), who suddenly feels an unbearable anxiety with the coming of another mouth to feed.

By the morning of Friday, we get a sense of these characters' problems; Winterbottom further deepens their histories, their pains, and their longings. It's an investment that we're willing to make. We learn of these sisters' parents (Jack Shepherd and Kika Markham), an aging couple whose married life is being snatched away by daily bingo games, sleepless dogbark-filled nights, and flirtatious drunken dances with a next-door neighbor. There are sideplots (involving the lonesome son of the next-door neighbor and a couple on a romantic getaway) that will only eventually find meaning and satisfactory connections by the film's end.

Winterbottom keeps you drawn. He infrequently injects certain scenes with the music of Michael Nyman, usually during the night wherein Bobbitt's grainy cinematography are most intense, and stylized with fast-forwards, slow-motions that enunciate internal happiness or sorrow. While the film has an overall feel of depressing realism, it is balanced with the normal and natural joys of life --- childbirth, infatuation, motherhood, a long-awaited reunion. It's a balancing act that respects the depth and possibilities of reality; there are no ill-conceived literary connectors as mostly used by Iñárritu or fellow wannabes. The film offers a satisfying look at London life; and in that aquarium Winterbottom builds for us, there are no plastic-made beautiful mermaids, lavish windmills and castles. Just reality, hard-hitting, difficult to digest, but ultimately redemptive and worth it.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom, 2005)

I haven't read Laurence Sterne's "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy," an 18th century novel from which Michael Winterbottom frames his film on. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story can be accurately described as an adaptation of Sterne's novel the same way Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002) is an adaptation of Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief." Instead of dwelling on the events that ensue in the novel, the film concentrates on the creative process, of writing ,with Adaptation, and of filmmaking, with Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is a film full of surprises. We are aware that the title character is an 18th century creation, yet he begins his narration with a Groucho Marx quotation. Once we get the mood of what could be a period piece, characters start destroying what was effectively woven by directly talking to the narrator. In a way, the film feels more like a "Making Of" special feature in the DVD of the more faithful adaptation of the novel with Steven Coogan as the narrator who is tasked in discussing his experiences as an actor in this supposedly important and expensive period piece. Then, one thirds of the film, the film entirely shifts focus and wades away from the novel's storyline and follows Steven Coogan in his routine as an actor, and much more surprisingly, as a new father, a boyfriend, a celebrity, and as a private individual.

The film begins with Steve Coogan (portraying himself) and Rob Brydon (also portraying himself) seated while their prosthesis and make-up are applied. They engage in mundane banter regarding the color of Brydon's teeth, and whether Brydon's role in the film (as Toby, uncle of the fictional Tristram Shandy) is a starring or a supporting role. The obvious butt of the film's larger-than-life joke is with Steve Coogan, who is one of those very good actors who haven't quite reached super star status. He can be aptly described as a B-class movie star, his most recognizable Hollywood work being Around the World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan. There's a whole lot of humor about Coogan's inadequacies and insecurities as an actor. He insists on getting higher heels for his shoes as he admits he has insecurities with his height. He gets a bizarre nightmare when his co-star Rob Brydon gets a meatier role upon his absent-minded suggestion that another novel's character be written on the screenplay to allow another star to topbill the film. For that, kudos must be given to Coogan for being so game and having what could have been uncomfortably too personal aspects of his life committed in this film, a comedy, at that.

What's more wonderful is that Coogan doesn't merely lend his personal life to the film, but also performs as himself, and as Tristram Shandy and his dad, quite well. His arguments with Brydon, his internal and external conflicts, his personal angst and professional neediness, all of these aspects burst in due fashion for our enjoyment and quiet discernment. The other characters are memorable too. Rob Brydon's presence is discomforting for Coogan, a likely competition, not only for popularity and topbilling, but also for romance and to a certain degree, machismo. Yet Brydon in the film is not a dashing fellow. He acts by the book, and in the end credits, he tells how his acting is a mixture of Al Pacino and Barbra Streisand. He's not attractive, nor is he that much taller than Coogan, yet he is a formidable competitior. Although Coogan gets the role of Tristram Shandy, Brydon's Toby has a much meatier presence, and gets a macho battle sequence, and a romantic interlude with none other than Gillian Anderson.

Michael Winterbottom's body of work notions of a recurring theme of blurring the lines of reality and fiction through cinema. In The Road to Guantanamo, he supplants a straightforward documentary about the Tipton Three with reenactments that enunciates the harsh realities sought to be hidden from the public eye. In This World tackles the concerns of refugees with Winterbottom's near-documentary cinema verite style of filmmaking. 9 Songs is both pornographic and artistic, using actual sex scenes filmed for effective titillation and as a convincing criticism of the lifelessness of romantic relationships. 24 Hour Party People is a mockumentary about rockers. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story fits Witnerbottom's filmography like a glove as it easefully simplify the complex delineations between reality and fiction in the zany world of filmmaking.

The Road to Guantanamo (2006)

The Road to Guantanamo (Michael Winterbottom & Mat Whitecross, 2006)

The biggest joke in Michael Winterbottom and co-director Mat Whitecross' docudrama The Road to Guantanamo comes from the mouth of Donald Rumsfeld, words captured in an archived news clipping of one of his press conferences that was used in the film. Like the devil's puppet or a gravely naive political personality, he justifies the prison camps in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as within the confines of the standards put forth in the Geneva Convention. The truth is the very existence of these notorious prison camps is a sidestep of the United States from the adhered human rights principles enshrined in the Geneva Convention. Why would the land of the free and the brave spend millions of dollars building these facilities in a Communist nation, presumably where torture and other questionable methods are accepted but painful truths, when there are legal means of turning over these supposed terrorists to their jurisdiction. Why are these supposed terrorists handcuffed, blindfolded, and kept for years in an unknown location, treated like animals by a nation that espouses freedom and bravery? It's plain and ridiculous and if The Road to Guantanamo is acceptable evidence in the international court of law, I hope it finds Bush guilty beyond any reasonable doubt of the most heinous of crimes: masquerading evil as beautiful concepts of justice, turning these atrocities into palatable practice.

The Road to Guantanamo recounts the tale of the Tipton Three, three British men of Pakistani descent who travel back to their motherland to find wives for themselves. While in Pakistan, they make a side trip to Afghanistan where the United States is currently staging its supposed war against terror. They get mixed up along with the Taliban fighters, and upon the surrender of the Taliban regime, they get rounded up along with the fighters and are brought to the Kandahar airbase, and later on, brought to Guantanamo Bay for further interrogation.

Winterbottom and Whitecross interview the Tipton Three. Their recounted tales are reenacted, filmed in a style that is not unlike Winterbottom's style in In This World (2002). The resulting effect is tremendous. The narration by the three Pakistani-born Brits are cringing enough by themselves, but coupled with realistic depictions of the actual happenings, it becomes moving. Perception may differ with regards to one's political leanings, and the film has suffered backlash because of its so-called anti-American sentiments. It doesn't really matter if the Tipton Three had anything to do with terrorism. That is beyond the point. The film does not seek to emotionally attach its viewers with the plight of these three. In fact, casted to play the three are anonymous actors, who look very much like each other, further removing any invitation to connect with the three. Whatever characterization is gathered not from the reenactment but from the interviews with the Tipton Three themselves. In other words, Winterbottom and Whitecross are out to drive a deeper point, not to relish within the confines of meager cinematic storytelling, but to declare that there is something inherently wrong in this American practice.

The depictions of the happenings in the prison camps are harrowing although I am sure it is much more harrowing in real life. In the film, we get a glimpses of humanity from one of the prison guards who idly requests one of the Tipton Three to rap, and in return, kills a huge tarantula he notices while the prisoner is sleeping. Those instances of kindness may or may not be around at present times, but the reality of everything is that the injustices, the lack of due process, the prolonged captivity with hardly an ounce of evidence to justify such, is happening, far from the prying eyes of the citizens of the United States.