Tropic Sprockets
Wild
KONK LIFE COLUMNIST
Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) gives us another collaged and stream of consciousness trip in “Wild.” Both the book and the film are based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, detailing her life on the Pacific Crest Trail as she journeyed up it in the effort to re-assemble and re-assert her being. Reese Witherspoon plays Strayed as a pale, hatchet-like hiker who is both worried and fearless. Every gesture, every motion she makes brings pain, and in this incarnation Witherspoon is an indigenous, ambulatory Christ figure, her blood mixed with the thorny berries that she picks from a tree.
Strayed is driven, each individual act is a hindrance or an obstacle. Her pack, named Monster, is gargantuan. Like a huge man-hand, it presses upon her, squashing her into a blonde thimble. If that is not enough, her foot is a bloody pulp, blistering and scorched. Still, she carries on. Through it all, her mother (Laura Dern) sustains her, a spirit of memory.
True to form, director Vallee delivers wondrous poetic verve, at times almost reaching the anxiety of a phantasmagoria. Strayed is both driven and pursued by the element of blood. The blood of a unfortunately killed horse, the blood jabbed from a needle during her drug addiction, and the blood of her mother, dream-drenched by guilt. A hiker she is, but she is also a dream walker, half voodoo princess, half day-of-the-dead observer and participant.
The film is subversive in the fact that even under a heroin haze, Strayed remains in control and powerful with her quest clearly in place. The men in the film, from Cheryl’s ex Paul (Thomas Sadowski ), to fellow hiker Greg (Kevin Rankin), and farmer Frank (W. Earl Brown) are either passive, neutral or generic. And if the men are not in retrograde they are quickly stripped of desire under Cheryl’s gaze as in the case of the hopeful ranger (Brian Van Holt) or the predatory and wolfish T.J. (Charles Baker).
This is a film where women are made for power and men are either meek, mundane or seen as abusive. The omnipotence of feminine power comes to the fore. Vallee gives a tribute provocatively as well: In one scene, a fox appears, fixing Strayed with a piercing but questioning look. Given the heavy snow and the dark pointed woods, this moment is right out of Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist.”
The film can also be seen as a more benign and naturalist version of “Gone Girl.” Like Amy, Cheryl is constantly patronized, though all the while, she alone has a plan in her head. Mystery is paramount and just as in Gillian Flynn’s story, the men here remain stumped and mystified by Cheryl’s resilience in a desert terrain. “Wild” creates a rich satisfying prism of a woman walking between the shades.
It is Reese Witherspoon’s strongest film, and under Vallee’s direction her fun-loving debutante persona all but disappears.
Interstellar
Director Christopher Nolan of the popular “Dark Knight” films hits us again with a punchy, existential outer space epic that is one part cowboy film and one part enigmatic voyage. Astronaut Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a former pilot and farmer, coping with the spoils of his land. While the location is never explicitly identified, it is safe to say that it somewhere Midwest.
The main crop, after all, is corn. All is not the Emerald City, however. The field is under a blight. Nolan consulted documentarian Ken Burns (The Dust Bowl) in creating these details and in its interpretation of a menacing Nature, Nolan’s “Interstellar” is nothing short of marvelous. Cooper cannot make ends meet and his family is becoming ill. Despite this being the age of the iPad, we may as well be in the realm of Dorothy Gale’s sepia Kansas.
This gives the film a striking and evocative edge. Nostalgic, poignant and emotional, the visuals quote directly from a diverse film history. When seeing a drone, Cooper flips out and runs for the fields. His daughter Murphy (McKenzie Foy) thinks she sleeps with a poltergeist, as books and toys fly off the shelves occasionally.
In the manner of an M. Night Shyamalan film, Cooper becomes obsessed and drives to NORAD. Murphy hops on board. Cooper approaches the fence. There is a jolting buzz and a blinding terrible white light. But our hero, Coop, is fine. As it turns out, he is being briefed by NASA and asked to participate in a mission: Earth is becoming extinct and another planet must be found suitable for human residency.
Although the film evokes E.T., 2001, and 3:10 to Yuma with its suspenseful tension and Western style climaxes, the philosophical puzzles are uniquely Christopher Nolan. McConaughey is terrific as the bronze space traveler as torn apart from being a single dad as he is from G force. Another highlight is the forceful battle of life and death between Cooper and the egotistical Dr. Mann (Matt Damon) all set on the wastes of a hostile ice planet, which in reality, is set in Iceland.
“Interstellar” in the mode of a 21st century cliffhanger will never fail to keep you guessing. Yes, the casting of Anne Hathaway is reminiscent of a certain Sigourney Weaver heroine and certain set pieces imitate the “Alien” franchise but Nolan still has enough sleight of hand in his quantum thrills to make it both contemplative and tense.
The sight of a single huge wave, Lucifer horned like a leviathan is a sensation, and the last of “Interstellar” sneaks up on us with an unexpected punch, making a fitting retro “Twilight Zone” episode, while also speaking of our primal human impulse of love and the perils of loss.
Write Ian at [email protected]
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