I often get mixed up between A Serious Man (Coen brothers’ essential Yiddish comedy) with A Single Man (Tom Ford’s directorial debut). Both got a lot of nominations during last award season. Both take place in the 1960s – an era with a very specific sentiment: fear. Both pivot around a male protagonist – a college professor – with his daily struggle with incredibly profound matter: what makes life worth while. Although both character take different approach in find the answer to this question (and one can argue that A Serious Man takes this question into greater depth) but I feel a very similar subtext that the film makers are trying to posit to the viewers.
Since I saw A Single Man is still fresher in my memory, I’ll just write about it now. A Serious Man needs a re-run and more mulling over.
A Single Man is a glimpse to the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth) – one day of his life, to be precise. It’s not just any other day for him – although his life has been an excruciatingly dull repetition of routines since his lover was killed in a car accident 8 months ago.
George is an British man who lives in Los Angeles to teach English in a local college. He is a man of impeccable taste, as we can see from his dapper clothes and his remarkably stylish house. But as we see he wakes up that morning and goes through his routine, we can begin to see that the superficiality is covering up a giant gapping void. That morning, just like every other morning, he rips open the seal of a brand new white shirt. It symbolizes a fresh start, a clean slate, but then we see he is dreading the present and continuously haunted by the past. His house is filled with expensive-looking furniture, but it looks cold and inhabitable.
But it hasn’t always been that way. Months ago, George would wake up to a sight of Jim (Matthew Goode), his lover, playing in the garden with his terrier. This flashback sequence and many others in the film allow us to learn bit by bit about George and Jim’s relationship. The flashback are not presented in reverse chronological order, rather each flashback is related to an event that happen is present day. At times, the flashback can be gut-wrenching, but sometimes it’s also heart-warming. But then, as they include a memory of someone who’s already passed away, there’s poignancy even in the happiest memory.
As the film takes us through one important day of George’s life, we also meet several characters that play an important role in his life: his best friend Charley (Julianne Moore) who has known him since they were young boy and girl in London and now she lives in LA as well. She reminds us of a writhing flower – beautiful, frail and very tragic.
There’s also Kenny Potter (Nicholas Hoult aka the boy with Vulcan eyebrow from About a Boy, all grown up), one of his students who seems to be harboring an interest at him. Kenny reminds George a bit of his dead lover: young, naïve, lively and sure of himself.
There’s also his neighbour Mrs. Strunk (Ginniffer Goodwin), a perky housewife you’d normally see on those absurd, colorful advertising from the 1960s, and Carlos (Spain guy) a Spain James Dean who come to LA from Madrid to become an actor but end up soliciting outside grocery stores.
hey look! it's Contra's album cover in the background. tee-hee.
The thematic arc in the film, I guess, is how interaction between George and each of these characters during the course of the day affects his outlook to life. And perhaps also how these people who are alive and breathing can ‘exorcise’ the ghost of the past and his dead lover.
What really caught my attention in this film is the exceptional sense of aesthetic. As the film is directed by Tom Ford (THE Tom Ford of Gucci fame), it makes sense that he brings his own brand of couture polished-ness into the film. Every cast member looks like a model – the actors and actresses are very beautiful people to begin with, but with the carefully and thoroughly designed wardrobe and make up, they really look like retro mannequins – and very fashionable ones.
is this the most beautiful ensemble cast or what.
Still frame of any scene in this film are also meticulously stylized and might as well come from Vogue/Harper’s Bazaar fashion spread. The cinematography plays a lot with color – the color grading attempts to enhance/capture the emotion on each scene: desaturated mute colors when George is bleakly reminiscing about his past, into vibrant gleaming red when George is talking to Carlos. We can also see a transition when George is brooding in the bank lobby, and one of the Strunk kids come over and talk to him. We can see the change in color scheme, literally like there’s red sun rising right next to them. Very dramatic.
There’s also many slow-motion, distorted, surreal scenes in the film which may put the film in the verge of becoming very similar to an extended TV commercial for designer brand perfume. It’s THAT visually arresting.
But even with this ‘hard, shiny formica coating‘ of style and beauty, I still feel that the film manages to be emotionally captivating in its best moments. This is due to the excellent performance of the cast members, and also…I’ve never subscribed to the idea that films with strong visual/stylistic idiosyncrasy tend to be superficial or gimmicky. It’s up to the viewers whether they want to experience such films merely on superficial level (and be bothered as hell by it) or they can regard the stylistic idiosyncrasy as an element of the story.
All in all, I think the film is refreshing. It does not give any formal conclusion on what makes life worth while, but nor do I think any film should attempt to do so anyway.
