Somnopolis

Last week I was asked by a friend to give my opinion on a rough cut of a documentary on the Burmese military dictatorship. I hasten to add this was just to make a note of my emotional response, not due to the value of any views I may hold. As such I only watched the very beginning of the rough cut. I would like to discuss what my impressions of that experience were.

It begins with hidden footage of the day-to-day horrors of life in Burma. We as the intended audience are only seeing this due to activists and native Burmese smuggling the shots out of the country at great personal risk. Immediately the footage establishes just how everyday, in the most awful sense of the word in this context, death and misery are to these people. The police and military target their own citizenry, forcing them to live in terror, exhausting their will to resist and depriving them of even the most basic dignity. A woman is shown standing beside an open graveside dug in the dirt, sobbing as a body wrapped in black cloth is lowered into the hole. We see citizens forced to their knees in the street and beaten with truncheons by uniformed thugs. The visual shorthand that typically signifies a secretive, brutal regime – the police man reaching out to cover the camera lens that bears witness – is also employed.

What strikes me most forcibly about these scenes is that they are unsurprising. I am aware of the extent of the regime’s brutality to its people. I doubt there are many who aren’t. The smuggled footage itself only serves to confirm that knowledge, perhaps confront us as viewers with our own indolence and apathy, but nothing more than that.

The documentary then introduces us to its subject, a man who lived through the Burmese regime and has escaped. When we meet him he is watching a dvd of the Sylvester Stallone film John Rambo. Following the title screen, our hero’s name in thick red font on a black background, the film locates the action in Burma with a scene of soldiers massacring innocent Burmese. There is a quick cut to a child being shot in the chest. We see several people running from the soldiers, only for them to be executed in slow motion.

The man is shown breaking down in tears after watching the scene. He says it is just like his memory of life in Burma.

I am troubled by this scene in the documentary. It acts as a contrast to the reality of the footage at the beginning of the film. Here is horror courtesy of camera techniques, blood squibs and paid actors, packaged for our entertainment. This is a fiction that apes the brutality of the real. It also presents a solution to the crimes committed against the Burmese in the form of Stallone’s monosyllabic Vietnam veteran. Rescuing Western peace activists from captivity, his violent dispatching of the villainous soldiers is cathartic for cinema audiences. Here at least is a form of intervention we can all agree on.

There is a scene featured in the trailer for John Rambo when Darla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is rescued from being raped at the last possible second. The  soldier unbuckles his belt, grinning at his victim. The moment is stretched out, with Julie Benz’s pitiful cries for help. Then our hero appears and garrottes the soldier.

This was how the film-maker’s advertised their picture. There are bad people in Burma doing bad things. In this movie, Rambo kills them dead, in a variety of interesting ways, and rescues a white chick from being raped (but not soon enough that you won’t be denied some small vicarious thrill).

Why set  John Rambo in Burma? The franchise needs a villain, just as its fans need their Two Minutes Hate. Commies are gone and the majahideen are something of an embarrassment for Stallone, given that his character previously aided and abetted them against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. For the next outing of the series, it is rumoured Rambo will be fighting werewolves.

And so the suffering of the Burmese people becomes a cartoon for our amusement. Watching that man cry as he watched the beginning of Stallone’s film made me angry and sad all at once. He recognized in the slow-motion captured fakery the real. Cinema-goers though were afforded a fictional catharsis that allowed them to ignore it.

Addendum – since writing this blog, I have been told the finished film will not include the scene discussed above. All the same I felt I should publish this piece, as it affected me quite strongly.

Last weekend a guy I know complained that Braff’s character in Scrubs is the least funny character in the show, yet it would not be able to hang together without him. I laughed and said that was the Seinfeld effect – George, Kramer and Elaine are far funnier than Jerry, but he’s the centre of their world. In Scrubs you’ve got the same deal. JD is the lynchpin of the show. Without him the Janitor and Dr. Cox would not have as rich a target to torture. So the continued success of Scrubs would depend upon the studio renewing Braff’s contract. He’s a strange character actor, maybe an Alan Alda for the 21stc.  Which is why he has the right idea by expanding outwards into directing, writing and starring in Garden State. With these extra strings to his bow he should neatly avoid being pigeon-holed as ‘that funny looking guy’ (and god bless the Coen Bros. for writing that line for Steve Buscemi).

Here’s the thing though. Audiences don’t like actors. They like personalities. If you’re a headlining star, how much acting do you actually do? Don’t stars play endless variations on the same characters? See the press hissy fit that explodes every time Tom Cruise plays a villain or his scumbag chauvinist in Magnolia. There are exceptions, Meryl Streep for one, who’s wearing her age beautifully. Adaptation allowed her a range that stretched from vulnerable to austere, to a coke-addled sex-fiend. All within the one movie!

Braff’s not an established star. Apart from Scrubs and a cameo in Arrested Development, I’m not sure what else he’s done. His popularity rests on his character JD. So why was Garden State a success?

In his first film as writer/director Braff gave himself the role of a morose depressive returning home for his mother’s funeral. A failed actor, popping rainbow coloured pills at every opportunity – not a happy camper. Braff has created a character as different from JD as possible, with auto-biographical notes. He side-steps accusations of self-indulgence (which stars frequently get when they try to ‘act’) by peopling his film with eccentrics and wackos. And Nathalie Portman. Important that. Not to mention the music of the Shins, who are friends of his. So Garden State stands as a security blanket large enough to provide its star with room to manouvere. JD is a vaguely effeminate nerd crippled by insecurity. These traits are doled out among the supporting cast of the film. Therefore audiences key into those self-same qualities that they would in Scrubs. Those who see the film that are not familiar with the show, come away from with a different perception, allowing for Braff to appeal to both newcomers and fans at the same time. It’s a canny move. Does anyone remember that Sylvester Stallone has played a union leader, or a gangster (not to mention a New York cop in Nighthawks whom we are introduced to in drag)? How about Naomi Watts as a raven-haired anarcho-terrorist, or Harrison Ford as a family man doctor based in the Amazon? All of these films failed because the star-wattage simply wasn’t there. The actors were not playing ‘themselves’. Braff appears smart enough to realize that the business of actors/stars is to deliver product, not expand their range. Unless you’re Luis Guzman. But we all love him.

One final thing – Seinfeld and Green Wing are two of the best comedies out there. Cos cruelty is funny folks.