Anomalisa (15.)
Directed by Charles Kaufman and Duke Johnson.
Starring David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan. 90 mins
Normally any artist whose work is described as “surreal” will be also be reckoned to be obscure, mysterious, perplexing. Charlie Kaufman is one of the strangest, most bizarrely inventive voices in American cinema – a tunnel into John Malkovich's head; a machine for erasing sad memories – but his films are entirely straightforward. Typically his scripts create enormous, surreal labyrinths for audiences to puzzle their way through, but they always take you directly towards the human heart. The arrangements may be as arcane and elaborate as Brian Wilson in his “Smile” period, but beneath it all he's just a pained singer songwriter, strumming acoustically and singing about his pain.
His latest is a simple tale about a one night stand and alienation. Michael Stone (Thewlis) is a successful author and public speaker who is an expert on customer service and is deeply dissatisfied with his life. Flying into Cincinnati to deliver a speech, he checks into his hotel and looks for some human connection, just like any other bored business traveller. The Kaufman touch is to render it in stop motion animation and to have Stone hear all the rest of the world in the same voice (Noonan) and see it as the same face. His evening takes off when he finds a woman with a different voice and face.
Anomalisa is an adaption of his 2005 play for sound, filmed with its original cast. There are plenty of small, hidden sight gags to be taken in but this is by far his simplest, most straightforward piece. There isn't a lot to Anomalisa, events move at a steady pace and it reveals itself equally slowly. I am not sure a live action film could gradually draw audiences into its twist of reality the way this does: the full extent of Stone's condition sneaks up on you, you're learning more right up to the end of the film. Also I don't think live action would've allowed him to get away with such a lethargic pace, or have scenes where Stone goes out to the ice machine to stock up. Stop motion animation makes every action seem almost wondrous because you can really see the effort that went into it, which you don't with hand drawn or computer animation. (That Thewlis's Northern tones suggest Wallace and Gromit is an inadvertent but welcome benefit.)
In one way Kaufman's surrealism can be seen as a kind of defence mechanism, or coping strategy to deflect attention away from the fact that what he is dealing with is real and blunt pain. In his collaborations with directors Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry they have managed to lighten the darkness, allow the comic invention to neuter it just a little. When he directs the weight of his despair comes straight at you. Synecdoche is, I think, one of the best film of the last ten years but it is terribly sad. Anomalisa goes straight to it but the result is more ambiguous. It is certainly achingly sad and yet it is does feature a form of very intense human connection. There's something very human about the way it is simultaneously wretched and joyful.
Extras
These are rather disappointing. There is a 25 minute Q&A after a pre-release screening in London with the two directors and producer Amy Tan is informative, though it suffers from the universal curse of such events – that most of the questioners are only interested in the sound of their own voices.
The rest of it is a bunch of one or two minute long featurettes, that are just specialist trailers.
Normally I have very little interested in the Making Of, but this time, this time, I'd really liked to have found out more about the film.
Directed by Charles Kaufman and Duke Johnson.
Starring David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan. 90 mins
Normally any artist whose work is described as “surreal” will be also be reckoned to be obscure, mysterious, perplexing. Charlie Kaufman is one of the strangest, most bizarrely inventive voices in American cinema – a tunnel into John Malkovich's head; a machine for erasing sad memories – but his films are entirely straightforward. Typically his scripts create enormous, surreal labyrinths for audiences to puzzle their way through, but they always take you directly towards the human heart. The arrangements may be as arcane and elaborate as Brian Wilson in his “Smile” period, but beneath it all he's just a pained singer songwriter, strumming acoustically and singing about his pain.
His latest is a simple tale about a one night stand and alienation. Michael Stone (Thewlis) is a successful author and public speaker who is an expert on customer service and is deeply dissatisfied with his life. Flying into Cincinnati to deliver a speech, he checks into his hotel and looks for some human connection, just like any other bored business traveller. The Kaufman touch is to render it in stop motion animation and to have Stone hear all the rest of the world in the same voice (Noonan) and see it as the same face. His evening takes off when he finds a woman with a different voice and face.
Anomalisa is an adaption of his 2005 play for sound, filmed with its original cast. There are plenty of small, hidden sight gags to be taken in but this is by far his simplest, most straightforward piece. There isn't a lot to Anomalisa, events move at a steady pace and it reveals itself equally slowly. I am not sure a live action film could gradually draw audiences into its twist of reality the way this does: the full extent of Stone's condition sneaks up on you, you're learning more right up to the end of the film. Also I don't think live action would've allowed him to get away with such a lethargic pace, or have scenes where Stone goes out to the ice machine to stock up. Stop motion animation makes every action seem almost wondrous because you can really see the effort that went into it, which you don't with hand drawn or computer animation. (That Thewlis's Northern tones suggest Wallace and Gromit is an inadvertent but welcome benefit.)
In one way Kaufman's surrealism can be seen as a kind of defence mechanism, or coping strategy to deflect attention away from the fact that what he is dealing with is real and blunt pain. In his collaborations with directors Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry they have managed to lighten the darkness, allow the comic invention to neuter it just a little. When he directs the weight of his despair comes straight at you. Synecdoche is, I think, one of the best film of the last ten years but it is terribly sad. Anomalisa goes straight to it but the result is more ambiguous. It is certainly achingly sad and yet it is does feature a form of very intense human connection. There's something very human about the way it is simultaneously wretched and joyful.
Extras
These are rather disappointing. There is a 25 minute Q&A after a pre-release screening in London with the two directors and producer Amy Tan is informative, though it suffers from the universal curse of such events – that most of the questioners are only interested in the sound of their own voices.
The rest of it is a bunch of one or two minute long featurettes, that are just specialist trailers.
Normally I have very little interested in the Making Of, but this time, this time, I'd really liked to have found out more about the film.
