August 11, 2009

• Gran Torino – wtf was that?

  peter travers – 3.5/4 stars.
  roger ebert – 3.5/4 stars

  variety, ny times, chicago trib & sun, new yorker, usa today, salon.com, washington post, etc.  all gave it positive reviews. 

  wow, seriously?  i thought Gran Torino was kind of a piece of shit.  (spoilers abound beginning here, but read anyway.  this movie is so predictable that i won’t be ruining a single moment.)

  i thought it was a piece of shit on several different levels but let’s start at the most basic: as a film.  more specifically the writing, acting and probably directing.  this movie is a ramshackle house just barely standing and the weakness starts at its foundation, the writing.  almost every single story element felt a little too convenient, aka contrived, to me.  nothing ever felt like a natural occurrence, or like it naturally progressed from the previous scene.  why does the cousin care so damn much that thao join his gang?  how is walt just perfectly there to save sue from the thugs.  why does thao go along with the plan to steal walt’s car?  how is walt perfectly around to notice this girl likes thao?  why does that girl in purple talk to walt?  why does walt care enough to talk to thao about it?  how did he raise such money-grubbing selfish children?  why does walt talk aloud to himself except to explain to the audience what he’s thinking?  didn’t it all feel a little too made up?  nothing happened that didn’t make me question why.  the film just took for granted that the audience would follow this long series of, in my mind, unlikely events.  and it did it almost like it felt like it had to, like the film just tried to plow through the required elements to make this very standard film formula. 

  and the dialogue.  gawwwwwd.  “you know something?  you’re alright, kid.”  i can’t tell if it’s all the crappy writing this movie had to suffer or the crappy acting, but the dialogue, again, felt incredibly unnatural.  every time sue or thao opened their mouths, i squirmed a little in my chair because i felt uncomfortable for them.  even eastwood.  his line delivery at times was laughable.  i felt like i was watching some high school kid fucking around with the AV equipment. 

  now let’s talk about the other parts of the movie i disagree with.  this is much more an interpretation, so fuck you.  this movie is a blanket absolution of racist america.  now i’ve heard countless comments about how it’s actually the opposite, and how it shows asian immigrants in a human way.  i think that’s bullshit.  now, i doubt clint eastwood sits at night hatching plans to subvert race relations in america.  in fact, i genuinely believe he’s trying to help race relations, so whatever offends me here, it’s probably unintentional, but i feel like it’s misguided. 

  this character Walt.  an obvious racist, and this is made obvious by his flippant use of words like zipperhead and gook.  but otherwise a great citizen.  he’s racked with guilt about a minor tax cheat, decades ago.  he scorns the youths that don’t help the old lady with her groceries.  he fought for his country and won awards for it.  he’s the only one in his neighborhood that maintains his house nicely.  he seems like he’s worked hard all his life.  aside from his outpouring of racist epithets, he’s the standard good american, grumpy but good. 

  then he meets this family next door and he sees the err of his ways?  not.  he takes them in because he sees them as human beings, yes, but it’s never quite clear if he gives up his racism altogether or if he just sees this family as an exception.  the fact that he never, to the very end, gives up his hurling of racist labels at everyone hints at the fact that he never really does give up his racist thoughts.

  now here’s the tricky part.  is his racist speech a symptom of his racism?  or is he just “talking like a man”?  by the end of the film, walt has saved the family through his own sacrifice, yes, but he pretty much behaves exactly as he always behaved, calling people spic, zipperhead and spook.  you can say that that’s just Walt being Walt, and i’ll agree with that, but only if “being Walt” means “being racist”.  by the end we understand Walt better and he’s obviously some kind of good man — a good American — therefore his racism becomes more palatable to us, especially since he earned some respect by making the ultimate sacrifice, but is his racism then negligible?

  if you are more comfortable with his racism by the end of the film, so be it, but call it like it is.  it’s still fucking racism, no matter what he did at the end.

  and this is what i mean by this film being a blanket absolution.  the moral i get from this film is that a lifetime of hate can be forgiven if we make a huge sacrifice at the end to make up for all the wrongs we did.  did his sacrifice at the end make his lifetime of racism disappear?  i feel like the movie would like us to think so.  personally, i think, rather than count on complete, one-step absolution, racist america should just stop being — and acting — racist.  how’s that? 

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  and wtf was up with that shaman?  no, that’s not racist.  exotic asian in touch with the otherworlds, speaking truths that only a real mystic spirit-walker can know.  me love you long time. 

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  • 10:16 am
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