Film Clichés that have got to go: Mirror Shots

Lucas Versantvoort / June 2, 2015

If you watch movies on a regular basis, chances are you’ve seen shots that include mirrors. Shots like these can be set up in such a way that you don’t know you’re viewing the action through a mirror until the camera pans, zooms out, etc. or they can be rather straightforward like when the camera shows both the character and his/her reflection. What prompted me to write this little rant is just how many films, series, etc. seem bent on using mirror shots. It’s like all cinematographers had a big meeting and decided to employ these shots as much as humanly possible.

But what really gets to me is the supposed ‘symbolism’ of a shot like this and I use that term very loosely. Typically, a mirror shot has a psychological function, to convey something about a character’s inner world. The meanings can vary, but it’s usually something like suggesting a character has an ulterior motive, a guilt-ridden psychological makeup, a split personality and so on. While I'm all for symbolism, the problem for me is that these shots are often so mind-bogglingly obvious in their intentions that I wonder why filmmakers even bother to use them. Even worse is that it’s so obvious the filmmakers want you to notice their precious little mirrors. Usually, the camera will be positioned in such a way as to explicitly emphasize the reflection, as if saying ‘do you see the reflection? Do you see it!?’The filmmaker might as well just walk up to you and say, ‘you see how his reflection in the mirror ‘reflects’ his troubled personality? Golly, ain't I clever?’ 

Gee, I wonder what all those reflections mean...

And these shots are everywhere. Somehow, filmmakers across the globe have gotten it into their collective noggins that mirror shots are clever, a watermark of high quality cinema. I just don’t understand it. You’d think that new ‘psychological’ shots would be invented after the previous ones have been run into the ground, but no, we’re still aiming our cameras at mirrors in a last ditch effort to give our films a semblance of quality. Just last week, I saw Andrew Niccol’s Good Kill which was a pretty decent film, but even there Niccol couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of mirror shots. Especially funny is the scene after an argument between the protagonist and his wife during which he smashes the mirror with his fist—because that’s what guys do when they’re angry, they smash mirrors with their fists… Afterwards he sits alone and we see his fragmented reflection through the fragmented cracks of the mirror, conveying to us his guilt-ridden, 'fragmented' mind…get it?

To me, mirror shots have become as infamous as the 360° shot (where the camera rotates around one or a couple of characters). It might've been impressive back when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, but people need to wake up, take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror (heh heh) and realize that mirror shots aren’t clever or subtle, not anymore at least; they draw too much attention to themselves for that. The way I see it, the concept's been pretty much run into the ground.

Tomorrowland (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / June 1, 2015

It’s always interesting to see a director, known primarily for his animated fare, to direct a live-action film. Granted, this isn’t his first rodeo; he’d already directed Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol. Tomorrowland, in a nutshell, is a film about hope, specifically about hope for the future. As Frank Walker (George Clooney) tells us in his opening monologue, back in his day, the future was different; everyone looked at the future with optimistic glee. And yet, at some point, optimism turned to pessimism and the future turned bleak. Tomorrowland then is Brad Bird’s way of saying, ‘let’s put away Orwell’s 1984 and make a brighter future for ourselves.’ A nice sentiment for sure. Unfortunately, the film attached to this sentiment has some fatal flaws.

            We start our journey with young Frank Walker showing his unfinished jetpack at a science fair. It’s rejected but a young girl, Athena, sees something in him and tells him to follow her group through the theme park using a special pin. He sneaks on a ferry, enters a tunnel and due to the pin ends up in Tomorrowland. We then cut to the present to a new character, a girl called Casey Newton (played by Britt Robertson, aka I-can’t-believe-it’s-not Jennifer Lawrence). Like the young Walker, she shares an enthusiasm for the future, outer space in particular. She eventually finds a similar pin like the one Walker was given in her belongings. When she touches it, she’s instantly transported to Tomorrowland. But the pin has a limited amount of power and so, Case has to find another way of getting there and it isn’t long before she crosses paths with Athena, an older Frank Walker and a gang of killer robots seeking to prevent them from going to Tomorrowland at all costs.

            I’ll start with the bad: the plot is a bit of a mess. This isn’t so much due to poor writing as a poor narrative structure. But then again, since one of the film’s writers also wrote and created Lost, I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, we first follow young Walker who we then leave behind to follow Casey who then stumbles from scene to scene before finally meeting Athena and old Frank Walker and only then are the film’s villain and the main goal slowly revealed. Mind you, at this point we’ve only got about 20-30 minutes to go.

This means that there’s only two things that keep you interested: Casey’s desire to go to Tomorrowland and the action set pieces. The film does a good job of first introducing you to Tomorrowland and then taking it away, leaving you to share Casey’s desire to return. As for the action, it’s pretty inventive and fun. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll probably know what to expect: lots of lasers, time warps and so on. The enemy robots are a funny bunch too, particularly the leader, Dave Clark (Matthew MacCaull) who has this robotic grin on his face that just cracks me up. It’s like Schwarzenegger’s Terminator smile, only funny. I like some of the in-jokes as well. There’s a fight in what I think is a comic book store with all kinds of memorabilia strewn about, referencing Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, etc. When the fight breaks out, composer Michael Giacchino makes musical references to those films’ scores. It’s pretty neat if you can spot them.

So there’s a lot to like: inventive action, humor, the works. But it’s the lacking sense of structure that drags the experience down. You can only share Casey’s desire to travel to Tomorrowland for so long before you start questioning the point of it all.

Good Kill (2014) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / June 1, 2015

From the director that brought you Gattaca with its probing analysis of the possible misuse of genetics comes Good Kill, a probing analysis the U.S. Military’s use of drones. Part political thesis, part character piece, even the very title indicates something about strange nature of a ‘good kill’ and how these good kills start to negatively affect the main character and his family life. When we observe him at his job, the film’s riveting; it’s the tiresome scenes on the home front that unfortunately drag this film down quite a bit.

            Meet Major Thomas Egan, Taliban fighter by day, loving husband by night, although ‘emotionally distant husband’ would be the better way of describing him. Egan spends hours and hours every day in a booth in a military base in Las Vegas using drones to bombard enemies or ‘possible’ enemies. Afterwards, he goes home to his wife (played by Mad Men alumnus January Jones) and kids. However, he can’t help but take the job home with him as he finds it increasingly difficult to ‘compartmentalize’ his troubling thoughts and feelings of guilt.

            The film alternates between his job and his home life and how the former affects the latter. Needless to say, it’s the scenes on the military base that are the most riveting. There we’re treated to what Niccol is most passionate about: politics, moral dilemmas and so on. For instance, at one point a CIA spokesman orders Egan and his colleagues to bomb the building a suspect just entered. They do so, but afterwards they’re ordered to bomb the ruins of said building again, in case any of the people trying to dig people out are conspirators as well. What do you do? These could very well simply be citizens trying to do the right thing. The CIA spokesman gives them his mathematical reasoning for why going for the second strike is the ‘right’ thing to do: that the long term benefit for the safety of America’s citizens has been weighted against the risk of any Taliban conspirators surviving and so on. From a mathematical point of view, it seems like the logical thing to do, but try telling that to Egan… All these scenes and many more form the heart of Good Kill and the number one reason why you should watch it. On the other hand…

            …the scenes at the Egan residence are the weakest of the bunch for sure. I get why they’re there. They’re supposed to add an extra layer to Egan’s character. Just watching him struggling with his job wouldn’t be enough; it has to affect a marriage as well. The problem is that the spousal scenes feel derivative, they don’t have nearly the impact the should. The marriage scenes are supposed to prevent the film from just being about Egan, but ironically, due to the predictable nature of these scenes, that’s precisely what happens. We know he’s only going to distance himself from her more and more until their relationship reaches a breaking point; we know there’s going to be a big fight, etc. It’s not that the scenes are bad per se; it all just feels a bit ‘been there done that’. What’s worse is that even though the entire film’s about Egan, we never really grow to like him. We mostly see him as a man who keeps his thoughts to himself, staring into the distance. I get that that’s the point and that it’s what’s undermining his relationship with his wife, but the audience-character relationship is something else entirely. No director’s out there going like, ‘we have to make sure that no one will like the protagonist’. Because the film keeps Egan at a distance, so do we maintain our distance from the proceedings.

Niccol has a knack for creating entertaining, yet thought-provoking films (Christopher Nolan could learn a thing or two from him). Gattaca is a great example. Good Kill comes close to achieving the same balance, but the tiresome, predictable domestic arguments and our indifference toward Egan hold the film back a great deal. Still, it’s nice to see a major filmmaker tackle the troublesome topic of military drones.

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie

Van de regisseur van Gattaca, een film over de mogelijke sociale gevaren van DNA in de toekomst, komt nu Good Kill, een film over de sociale gevaren van militaire drones. Aan de titel is al te merken dat Good Kill wil ingaan op het paradoxale effect van een 'good kill' en hoe deze 'good kills' het (innerlijke) leven van de hoofdpersoon beginnen aan te tasten. Met de scenes waarin de hoofdpersoon op z'n werk is, is de film op z’n best. Het is echter het voorspelbare drama aan het thuisfront dat Good Kill uiteindelijk tot slechts een 'good film' maakt.

Majoor Thomas Egan bestrijdt overdag de Taliban en komt 's avonds thuis om liefhebbende echtgenoot en vader te spelen. Eigenlijk is 'emotioneel afstandelijke echtgenoot' de betere omschrijving. Egan zit talloze uren in een klein hok op een militaire basis in Las Vegas drones te besturen en vijanden of enkel verdachten te bombarderen. Meteen na zijn 'normale' werkdag keert hij terug naar zijn vrouw (January Jones, uit Mad Men) en kinderen. Het probleem is dat hij zijn werk en zijn schuldgevoelens mee naar huis neemt en dit begint hem zijn gezin te kosten.

De film wisselt steeds tussen de scènes op Egan's werk en het thuisfront. De bedoeling is natuurlijk om de wisselwerking tussen de twee te laten zien, maar het zijn de scènes op de basis die het echte hart van de film vormen. Daar trakteert regisseur Niccol ons op wat hem het meest bezighoudt, de politieke en morele implicaties van drones. Dit is bijvoorbeeld te zien wanneer een woordvoerder van de CIA aan Egan en co de opdracht geeft om een zojuist gebombardeerd gebouw nogmaals te bombarderen: dit om mogelijke verdachten die hun vrienden uit het puin proberen te graven ook meteen om te leggen. De kans is echter groter dat die mensen alleen maar onschuldige burgers zijn. De CIA-woordvoerder zegt dat hij en zijn collega's de risico's tegen elkaar af hebben gewogen en dat dit de beste optie is: het overleven van Talibanstrijders betekent een grotere kans op toekomstige Amerikaanse slachtoffers. Bijna wiskundige logica, maar dat helpt Egan niet om te gaan met zijn constant groeiende schuldgevoelens. Het zijn dit soort scènes die de film het kijken waard maken. De scènes aan het thuisfront...

...zijn echter een heel ander verhaal. Deze vervullen natuurlijk een emotionele functie, maar het probleem is dat je je daar constant bewust van bent. Je snapt dat het niet interessant zou zijn als Egan op zichzelf woonde; nee, het is interessanter als het een huwelijk aantast, want dat zorgt voor extra druk, emotie. Probleem is dat je altijd op een afstand naar Egan's huwelijk aan het kijken bent. In tegenstelling tot de drone-aanvallen zijn deze scènes uit een huwelijk nooit raak... Er moet natuurlijk conflict gecreëerd worden, dus voel je makkelijk aankomen dat Egan steeds meer in zichzelf zal keren en dat het lot van zijn huwelijk beslist zal worden. Deze huwelijksscènes zijn niet per se slecht geschreven, maar voorspelbaar en beroofd van enige emotie. Het andere grote probleem betreft Egan zelf. Hoewel we hem leren kennen, geven we nooit echt om hem. Natuurlijk hoort dat bij het personage. Hij is bijna altijd in gedachten en dat ondermijnt zijn relatie met zijn vrouw, maar de relatie tussen kijker en personage is anders. Je kan je niet voorstellen dat Niccol koste wat kost ervoor wilde zorgen dat de kijkers Egan maar niks zouden vinden, want dat zou het succes van de film zeker ondermijnen. Maar ja, dat is dus wel gebeurd. Omdat Egan op afstand wordt gehouden, houden wij automatisch ook afstand van de film. 

Niccol weet vaak entertainment en interessante thema's succesvol te combineren in zijn films. Gattaca is een goed voorbeeld. Good Kill komt ook in de buurt, maar de vermoeiende scènes aan het thuisfront en onze onverschilligheid ten opzichte van Egan belemmert het succes enorm. Toch is het mooi om een Hollywood-film te zien die het thema drones tackelt op een manier die recht doet aan de complexiteit.