Overbaked Snacks to Eat in the Tub

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The New York Sun

You’d think it impossible in the fall of 2004 for anyone to be frivolous or bored. But no, people insist on their right to have empty heads, so that when something finally plops in, they can remark on the ripples. How else to explain the buzz of notoriety attending the pompous drama “Birth?” Since premiering at the Venice Film Festival – Europeans are bored, too! – the movie has been known for having a 10-year-old boy climb into a bathtub with Nicole Kidman. Whether audiences are flustered, incredulous, or merely jealous, I do not know.


Whatever the case, there’s plenty of other dumb, glum, pretentious stuff to gawk at here. The kooky bathtub scene arises from the premise that Sean (Cameron Bright), the 10-year-old, believes himself the embodiment of Anna’s dead husband. Dead-eyed and portentous, he materializes one night (with help from the doorman) in her luxurious duplex. Anna proceeds to slowly flip out, as does Joseph (Danny Houston), her boring fiance. Much welling up of the eyes ensues, as director Jonathan Glazer (“Sexy Beast”) ponders the mysteries of love, devotion, and the mental crumbling of the upper crust.


Forget the tepid scandal, this sophomore sludge is noteworthy for being the most instructive film of the year. It teaches us the following important lessons:


How To (Over)Bake a Concept: Mix “Ghost” with the “Solaris” remake, powder with spice from Kubrick movies, garnish with one Oscar-Winning Superstar and a gooey dollop of Moody Child Actor, place under lukewarm heat.


How To Glaze Your Concept: Hire Harris Savides, cinematographer of “Elephant.” He will shoot your film as if through a scrim of gray green mold. Delicious!


Where To Set a Movie: Among the extremely rich. This is always a sexy move, one that gilds your picture with importance and glamour. It also permits ready access to Central Park (so evocative in winter of wintry emotions!) and fabulously appointed Upper East Side apartments (Ms. Kidman, so expensive, emotes best in the glow of recessed lighting.)


And yet: How To (Inadvertently) Ridicule the Super Rich. What happens when Park Avenue confronts a metaphysical intrusion or working-class nipper? Perplexity, vacuity, bad acting. Mr. Glazer’s specialty is to ping-pong reaction shots between well-coiffed nincompoops with blank looks on their faces.


How To Express Total Ignorance of New Yorkers: Imagine that a boy from the outer boroughs and a woman draped in Tiffany would ever, ever go for a casual tour of Central Park in a horse-drawn buggy.


How Not To Be Subtle: Make a supporting character (Anne Heche) bury her secret in Central Park, followed by a close up of – dirty hands!


How Not To Write Dialogue: “That’s not Sean.” “Yes it is.” “No, it is not.” “Yes, it is.”


***


“Saw” is useful to maniacs, as a casebook of ridiculously elaborate killing.


Example: Give your victim a large dose of poison, cover his flesh with inflammable goo, then lock him in a dark room with nothing but a lit candle and a locked safe. Assume your best evil-emphysema voice and tell him the antidote is inside the safe, the combination to the safe is written on the walls, and the walls can only be examined by candlelight. You may practice your “muahahahaha!” while waiting for the barbecue.


Or: Lock a rusty metal contraption to a woman victim’s head and give her several minutes to find the key before her jaw is snapped off. Provide her with a penknife and a way out of her dilemma: The key to the face-clamp may be found in the stomach of the man, immobilized by opiates, on the floor. Chop-chop, now!


Better yet: Place two men in a rank, fluorescent-lit bathroom and chain them to pipes. In the middle of the room, place a tape recorder, a revolver, and a corpse lying in a pool of its own poisoned blood. Provide your victims the rules of the game via microcasettes hidden in a toilet. Doctor Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) will have until 6 p.m. to kill Adam (Leigh Whannell) or else his wife and children will die. Give Adam a hacksaw too dull for cutting chain but more than sharp enough to get though his ankle.


The maniac learning from all this might remark that related lessons were taught by David Fincher’s “Seven.” But then “Saw” has another trick to teach: How to recycle images, ideas, plots, and gimmicks from a dozen other movies and turn them into a vicious guilty pleasure. The tooth blades may be shopworn, but if you slash at the audience with enough derangement, you’re bound to hit an artery. “Saw” is freaky, down and dirty, icky-groddy, seat-clutch scary. It’s one mashed up, messed up little movie.


“Saw” cuts back and forth between the Larry-Adam lockdown and flashbacks in which we learn about the “Jigsaw” killer and the incompetent cop perusing him (Danny Glover). The former is subtle enough to base his operations on “Stygian Street”; the latter cracks up on the death of his partner and becomes obsessed with revenge. Mr. Glover’s hackwork is at least as terrifying as anything done by Jigsaw and his implements.


The plot is much too ludicrous and convoluted to bother with. We get crazy clowns, pig-faced creeps, suspicious orderlies, mannequin factories, chilling dioramas, sneak attacks, shotgun booby-traps, severed limbs. Pieces of the puzzle are rammed to fit as if by an evil toddler, but the picture that emerges is so unhinged and enthusiastic you can forgive the preposterousness of it all.


The New York Sun

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