"Hotel Mumbai" and "Never Look Away"

A couple of odds and ends today that I wanted to get down some thoughts about.

First up is "Hotel Mumbai," based on the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, and the invasion of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in particular.  It's an unusually brutal dramatization of a terrorist attack, especially when you put it up against similar films like "Patriot's Day." Usually, I watch films like this and wonder to myself how I'd respond in a similar situation.  "Hotel Mumbai" makes it very clear that I'd die almost immediately. The terrorists are smart, well trained, utterly without scruples, and relentless. They kill people in great numbers, and none of the main characters have any means to try and stop them.  Survival largely means evading detection and having tremendous luck. So "Hotel Mumbai" often feels more like a horror film than an action picture.

Nearly all the major players we see are fictional, stand-ins for the real life individuals.  I suspect this was done to allow the filmmakers to take more dramatic license and to show more graphic and upsetting images than we'd see if they had to worry about being sensitive toward the actual victims.  So the lovely international couple, David (Armie Hammer) and Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi), and their baby boy are put into harrowing situations that didn't actually happen. Sikh waiter Arjun (Dev Patel) is brave and heroic to a fault, representing all the hotel workers who helped to hide and protect their guests.  One of the few real life figures is the head chef, Hemant Oberoi, who takes up a leadership role during the crisis and is played by the beloved Indian actor Anupam Kher.    

This is the feature directing debut of Australian Anthony Maras, who orchestrates the chaos and the melodrama very well.  He also co-wrote the screenplay with John Collee, which makes some interesting choices that a typical Hollywood production wouldn't have.  In many ways "Hotel Mumbai" follows the standard template of a disaster epic, keeping the POV with a small group of photogenic leads, and manufacturing an uplifting ending despite the overwhelming tragedy.  On the other hand, there are some scenes and developments that feel like they were included to subvert the typical narrative. It's difficult to get into without spoilers, but let's just say that I appreciate the amount of narrative emphasis placed on certain characters.  Also, between this and "Counterpart," Nazanin Boniadi is quickly becoming an actress I'd watch in anything.  

"Never Look Away" is a title I almost skipped, mostly because of its three hour running time.  From Florian Henckel von Donnarsmarck comes an epic piece of historical fiction, loosely based on the life of Geman artist Gerhard Richter.  We follow the life and times of Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling), who grows up in Nazi Germany and is deeply affected by the commitment and execution of his aunt Elizabeth (Saskia Rosendahl) for mental illness.  As a young man, after the war, he becomes an art student and falls in love with Ellie (Paula Beer), the daughter of Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch). Seeband was secretly once a highly placed Nazi doctor and official, who disapproves of therelationship and tries to thwart it.  

The narrative is unhurried, spending roughly a third of its running time on Elizabeth's story, and another third on Kurt and Ellie's romance, before the final third finally gets around to Kurt's development as an artist and paying off all the thematic elements that the first two thirds of the film set up.  As with von Donnarsmarck's "The Lives of Others," the narrative is very straightforward and quickly digestible, with all the major ideas clearly delineated. It's a fairly easy watch in spite of its length, with a trio of good performances from the leads. Frankly, it's the kind of film we don't see much of anymore, with its unusual structure and emphasis on grand ideas over characters.  I haven't seen a film romanticize artistic freedom in such epic terms in ages.     

And for me, that's irresistible. I love films about artists and the artistic process.  The last third of "Never Look Away," though terribly indulgent, was pure catnip for me.  I loved seeing Kurt's rebirth as an artist, finally allowed to follow is own impulses and paint for himself.  I loved the portrayal of the nutty Dusseldorf art institution he joins, and the modern artists he becomes friends with.  Obviously the film's grand finale needs the context of the earlier sections to pay off properly, but I'd have been happy just watching Kurt's modern art antics for the entire three hour running time.  Of course that would have been a very different film, and the one that actually exists is a perfectly lovely, sensitive, piece of cinema. And I hope more people take the plunge and seek it out.

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