Indie geeks everywhere have been talking about Christian Bale's massive physical transformation for Brad Anderson's new flick The Machinist. He lost over sixty pounds (a 1/3 of his body weight) and slept as little as two hours a night to play a malnourished insomniac who is slowly losing his gourd.
Screening at 11:45 at the Landmark last eve, the film was a hard ticket to get, even with a press pass, but boy was it worth it. Andersen's spooky, noir-influenced tale of penitence and insanity is a suitable vehicle for Bale's disturbingly gaunt appearance (he literally looks like a Holocaust victim) and riveting performance. The director appeared briefly afterwards, talking about the film's links to Hitchcock and the literary influence of Dostoevsky. His most interesting comments revolved around how the film's DP Xavi Gimenez used extremely minimal lighting to emphasize the sharp angles of Bale's jutting bones and how the soundtrack included pieces from the world's leading theremin player, flown in just for the occassion.
Overall, a bizarre, richly textured film that should garner Bale some awards nominations. A definite fest highlight.
Before the film, I ran into IFP Chicago head Elizabeth Donius, who had just checked out Tarnation and spoke highly of The Wooden Camera.
Preceding all of that, I caught Harvest Time, from Russian director Vremya Zhatbiy.
The slow-moving film tells a simple tale of a poor farm family with a crippled patriarch and an increasingly unstable mother. The mother shows an obsessive work ethic toward her combine-driving and the father keeps the children entertained with circus tricks and music.
The visual composition was outstanding, with Zhatbiy focusing on some maginificent threads of the rural fabric, but ultimately the film serves more as a sort of cinematic tone poem than a story-telling vehicle.
Tomorrow: Christopher Walken the lion tamer...
Comments