Monstrous reinvention
Looks like The Blair Witch Project’s fake documentary is back in style, because the big hit of the week is Cloverfield, which copiously borrowed Blair Witch’s template. Similar to the Blair Witch, Cloverfield pretends to be a recovered video footage of a giant monster attack on Manhattan (think Godzilla, or Ultraman), shot by civilians who presumably perished in the disaster. The video was initially taken at Rob Hawkins’ (Michael Stahl-David) farewell party, which was rudely disrupted mid-celebration by the unseen creature. His guests at the party, including brother Jason (Mike Vogel), his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), her girl friend Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) and Marlena’s admirer-cum-cameraman Hud (T. J. Miller), rushed to the rooftop, and later down the streets, in time to witness the creatures’ handiwork – exploding skyscrapers, collapsing buildings and the highlight from the trailers – the tumbling, decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty. After receiving a distress call from his longtime crush Beth (Odette Yustman), Rob and co. embarked on their own rescue mission when the authorities refused to help. (They’ve got a gigantic monster to subdue, goddammit!)
Cloverfield is pretty daring for a mainstream endeavour. It is simply what it is, and never cheated or strayed from the one-camera-only point-of-view from beginning till the very end. Like the Bourne movies, the handheld gimmick created an intense “being there” feeling, not unlike watching a news coverage of a riot or a battlefield, though the constantly jerky camera may be too hardcore for the squeamish (more so than even The Bourne Ultimatum). I doubt there were other monster movies that had used this approach, mainly because most studio heads would balk at the idea of never fully revealing the real star of the movie, the monster itself, at any point in the movie. Then again, how would a regular civilian be able to see the monster in full view, when his points-of-view are limited to ground levels and altitudes that buildings in the vicinity can only provide? But the money shots in monster movies are never money shots, because showing the monster too early or too much often deflates the mystery and fear for the creature, or provide too much opportunities to scrutinise the rubber suit or bad CG. Kudos then to Matt Reeves (for directing it) and J. J. Abrams (for allowing it) who both understand that less is truly more.
Because the cinematography has to mimic the qualities of a standard household digital camera, every shot in Cloverfield looks grainy and de-saturated, a far cry from the pristine images offered by the Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-man movies. Together with the restricted viewpoints, the impaired glimpses of the monster are actually more exhilarating than if the camera had artificially floated above and around the monster in high definition. It’s both majestic and terrifying to observe the destruction of a city at the hands of a 300-foot abomination through this flawed, narrow view.
And what an abomination it is. Till now it’s still quite difficult to recall the shape of the thing. Because of its fair skin tone, at a glance it looked like a human crawling on all fours (reminiscent of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s juggernauts but without their exoskeletons), which really stoked my imagination about what it was at the time. A deformed, giant human being would have been such an original and sick idea for a monster, but later shots of the thing dispelled that. It looks more like a spider from some chance aerial views of it, but pesky buildings always obstruct the sceneries. As if the creature wasn’t causing enough damage, latching on to its body are much tinier but just as spidery things whose bites have horrific consequences. What are they, exactly? Where do they come from? Why are they here? The movie does not answer these questions. Time will tell if the Clover-fiend will become a classic, recognisable movie monster like Godzilla (the Japanese one) or the alien in Alien (my prediction: quite unlikely), but the creature works better if it continues to stay shapeless and mysterious like the bogeyman.
I also noticed that the filmmakers found a clever way to sneak in some flashback sequences (in service of the story and character developments) in the form of a recording of one of Rob and Beth’s past romantic outings. Unwittingly, Hud used this tape to record the party and subsequent events of the night, writing over the original footage. But the older content occasionally pops up during the beginning (he didn’t fully rewind the tape prior to recording), middle (when he stopped to check the tape or when the tape skipped) and at the end (when the recording stopped for the last time). The Rob and Beth sequences gave the movie some breather moments, provide additional information about the characters, and poignantly bookend the movie, without ever breaking its one-camera, one-recording rule.
I’m guessing that after the success of Cloverfield at the box office, they’re going to try this fake documentary approach on every other genre. In a way, they kind of already did with horror (Blair Witch) and comedy (see Borat, Jackass), so what’s left are the action (Bourne’s pseudo-documentary style really doesn’t count), drama (but we get a lot of this already from reality shows, so maybe not), martial arts (a tough one to pull off), and science fiction (futuristic, not medieval fantasy of course; where would a peasant get a digital camera in those times?) genres. - BMF
Directed by Matt Reeves (The Pallbearer, Future Shock) and written by Drew Goddard (Lost, Alias (TV series)). Stars Michael Stahl-David, Odette Yustman, Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan and T. J. Miller. |
