Yet another dusty thing from 2010 I’ve recently unearthed. A movie review – Shutter Island

What if my whole universe turned out to be a delusion ? Is it possible that the good person I think I am has always been a big fat lie ? Does this all really exist or is it only a giant hallucination ? This is the kind of questions you ask yourself when the ending credits appear on the screen. When Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed to name but a few) works on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), the result is bound to be explosive. And Shutter Island doesn’t disappoint.

Let’s rewind. Shutter Island, Ashecliff Hospital for the so-called criminally insane, 1954. US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) set foot on this island, which is not exactly the ideal holiday destination, in order to find a missing patient, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer). However, we quickly understand that Teddy’s real aim has nothing to do with that particular investigation and that Dr Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is hiding what’s really going on (or not going on, for that matter). The original (wo)manhunt turns into a quest of the self, a desperate search for sanity in an insane world. A world where the real lunatics are not necessarily easy to find once we’ve gone beyond the obvious. In the end, the concepts of truth, reality and identity have become blurry at best. Just when you thought Lost was the best a director could do with an island…

In a perfect horror movie setting (a bit too much so, as a matter of fact… What are the odds of a storm destroying all communication devices on an isolated island full of dangerous maniacs and surrounded by deadly cliffs ? Please.) vaguely reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Shining, Martin Scorsese skillfully directs his way through a highly twisted plot with the help of his now usual accomplice Leonardo DiCaprio (their fourth collaboration after Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed), as brilliant and troublesome as ever since he reached the grown-up stage (I’m talking about the post-Titanic period) in his interpretation of a tortured widower scarred by what he discovered in the Dachau concentration camp and his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams)’s death. Through the eyes of its main character, the movie oscillates between nightmares and reality until we can no longer tell them apart. The only thing remaining in the end is that once you’re considered out of your mind, it’s forever and no one will ever listen to you again. Even the viewers will eventually doubt your word in their cozy movie theater seats. But don’t take my… word for it, go watch it !

Article published in MUSE in April 2010.

Picture: By Siebbi (Leonardo DiCaprio) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

A book review – Andre Agassi’s Open, an Autobiography

You thought you knew Andre Agassi? You even thought you liked him? You will no longer be so sure of those facts after reading Open, Agassi’s life story. “Disturbing” and “confusing” are the first words that come to mind when you start turning the pages. How on earth can this millionaire champion who played until he was 36 dare write – and not only once – « I hate tennis »? When one is ranked number one in the world with enough money for a whole life of idleness in 1995, how come he keeps playing a game he loathes until 2006, only stopped by physical problems? What is the urging need to suddenly drop that bomb? In other words, this book is more of a shrink session than anything else. Since you’re probably sitting on a couch reading this, it seems appropriate.

Many people said that Open was a bit too… yeah, open. Particularly about Agassi taking crystal meth, a recreational drug, during a particularly rough time of his career. Rough times. This book is mainly about that. Agassi gives the impression of managing to turn every supposedly positive moment of his life into something lame. Every peak moment is okay at most. So what about negative ones? They are devastating. Every defeat is excruciating (for someone who’s supposed to hate his sport, it’s a detail worth stressing), Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy is a prison where practice is like drilling rocks. But his worst nightmare is what he calls « the dragon », the tennis ball machine he is confronted to during his whole youth, bound to « hit harder », as his omnipresent and monomaniac father’s favorite catch phrase goes.

That’s the source of his hatred for tennis. Although it’s still a bit hard to buy that, it’s conceivable that a boy who does nothing else than hitting balls in the desert outside Las Vegas might want to rebel. But still, all this seems a little exaggerated. As if Agassi needed to justify all his escapades, from the pink mohawk to the wig (his hair seems to preoccupy him much more than his forehand) and the drugs (I’m not spoiling, The New York Times has already revealed all this). In the end, only one question comes to the amazed reader’s mind: why? To clear his conscience? To sell more books? To provoke? Agassi answers questions nobody would have thought of asking but he forgets to bring a response to this essential interrogation.

Paradoxically, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy reading this. As troublesome as this narrative can be, you can’t pretend not to like the feeling of entering a fellow human being’s private thoughts. Furthermore, the novel-like style makes this autobiography a page-turner. Agassi seems to remember (or reconstruct) every tiny detail of his life, even ridiculously insignificant things such as exactly how much time he spent in the shower before his last but one appearance in the Arthur Ashe Stadium at the 2006 US Open. The usual search for authenticity – even though it seems almost ironic in this case – is at work. Accordingly, this biography is suitable for tennis fans (reliving matches you saw years ago live from Agassi’s brain is not without charm even though you still can’t imagine he’s thinking « I hate tennis » while lifting a trophy) and non-initiates (Agassi’s  beautiful or tormented relationships with people like Gil Reyes, Brad Gilbert, Pete Sampras or Steffi Graf as a mere human being would raise anyone’s interest) alike. As a matter of fact, you can even read that as if it were fiction given the fact that Agassi’s description of his own feelings might not even be remotely connected with the notion of truth. Is it time you completed your Christmas shopping list ? Try that, it’s fun. Or watch Twilight, it’s your choice after all.

Article published in MUSE in December 2009.

Picture: By Chris Josefy (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons