The Quiet (2006)

If we continue the talk about independent movies and stay thrillers aside, indie drama films should definitely take the place in this trend. Among inexperienced directors drama films are even more popular than thrillers because you have no need to invent an interesting storyline rather make the action and narrative more and more weird and deviant. We could call this “tension”, a thing analogous with suspense in thrillers. Thus we obtain hundreds of films about completely odd things and completely odd people, up to disgusting and abomination, and the one question remains: for whom are they fucking filmed?

Often the necessary concentration of tension (like suspense) is maintained and supported by a story background related with a kind of deviation, from sexual to social. Sexual ones are used more often, maybe just because in case of social one (sociopathy - child trauma - family troubles) it is harder to formulate and solve the conflict, leaning on psychology. Sex and its role in human life are lucid by default, intuitively, so, using the words of V. Pelevin, it all is a direct trial to control audition through wow-impulse (preferentially oral).

Background of sexual deviations (from sexual side of relationship in isolated microsociety and up to deep psychiatry like paraphilias) is not a token of profanation in state of art or act that aspires to be one, but usage of such provocative substrate should have strict story foundation and be supported by all (ALL, I said) auxiliary means from actor’s performing to light distribution in a single frame and soundtrack subtleties; otherwise such trial has to be considered as an attempt to have an easy ride without any perspective, in other words, this is a straight road to B type.

Director of “The Quiet” definitely was impressed as fuck with Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty”, and with this impression he started to build his own “American Beauty”, with black jack and hookers. Just compare actors representing two of main personalities: Elisha Cuthbert is definitely a reminiscence of Thora Birch, and Michael Donovan is a price-off variant of Kevin Spacey. Moreover, airtight type of action in movie (almost always in the house, close to classicistic unity of time and place), and conflict distributed between the characters of gender and age gap are reminding Mendes’ film more and more.  But, as it was to be expected, this variant became less interesting and a bit secondary, so then director decided to tighten the screws.

First of all, from story of conflict between teenager and adult Babbit transfers the drama into space within the whole family, endowing the action with the huge piece of sickness. Second, transparent and quite expectable main storyline is equipped with merely weird satellite tale of Dot the Deaf yet Cute Girl, whose still gaze drills viewer and whose mute speeches gather chills near the neck. She thoroughly listens: how the guy like to masturbate, how the girlie hates his father, how mother slowly goes nuts due to medications, and all this with ultimate poker face. Cool story, ha? Like a lever?

So, is “The Quiet” just a cheap family drama about silly daughter and naughty father, peppered with some kind of parallel winking sidestory? However not, it is not, because I would like to guess that all aforementioned things was the screen, that should overshadow the real movie sense. Dot, from adornment of originally poor storyline, become the linchpin of it. She isn’t a passive onlooker beholding on true inferno gaping near her, although it seems to be opposite; her inner struggles are not background anymore, and words she pronounced silently with such reluctance are not mere words.

As in “American Beauty”, additional personality placed in the storm’s eye become a catalyst, a spit that gives rise to avalanche, and directly with the help of Dot this anthem of self-destruction went right to the chorus. Moreover, the action is dramatically expanded by the trace Dot leaves on the plot while reacting with another people. Simple alchemy of teenager interrelationships kneaded on sex, sport and pop culture became feeble when stood face to face with her, and only with her severe, self-merciless monologues movie get its wholeness.

And of course, the real pearl of this motion picture is Dot herself performed by peerless Camilla Belle. Her image combines almost touchable fragility and simultaneous utter, ultimated hardness; she is definitely like a string – trembling, thin and seemingly weak, but made of metal and able to bring death, the string that was broken in that grand piano, the string that has become the solution of all. Dot carries emptiness with herself, a kind of shell that constantly surrounds her with the center in her bottomless grey eyes, and all the sounds and intentions are slowly withering approaching this center.

As A Result: movie with false bottom, whole and stylish

Watch It?: yes

Jamin Winans - Ink: The Complete Soundtrack

One of the most beautiful and most universal thing of the whole art is fairytale. Good fairytale is convenient to anybody, good fairytale gently carries and smoothly teaches the very essence of any moral imperative that cannot be force-fed or integrated artificially, good fairytale is just interesting, beautiful and merely charming. But what fairytale is good? This is the question, and unfortunately here we cannot answer to it, but nonetheless we can notice that all well-known fairytales are heavily burdened with moral load of some kind. Fairytale teaches – this is its obligate property and possibly the most significant one, and it teaches children.

Thus we could make a conclusion, that fairytales host some values which are perpetual – such values that don’t alterate during the time and are and will be valid now and forever. So the scenery can differ, background can substitute the other one, swords and bows become lightsabers and blasters, but values of love, friendship, trust (underline what you would like more) are everlasting. Well, this conclusion seems right, but we cannot decline that the world is changing, and modern children lives not in a shanty near the dark and creepy forest full of hungry animals, but among wireless connection and synthetic polymers. So questions like “Why couldn’t this stupid Red Riding Hood call 911?” or “Does Davy Crockett have an optical sight on his gun?” are illegible no more – they are logically supported, and thus we need a new type of fairytales, stories of our world, world that we live in.

Fortunately, we have such kind of stories, although there are not so many examples of them, and despite people’s conservatism and headthickness, and “Ink”, independent movie filmed by Jamin Winans, is the very fairytale – fairytale of XXI century. We will not discuss the film here, because I already wrote about it (though in Russian), but I should notice that this film has number two (silver medal) in my movie top. So the one thing that must be mentioned particularly while talking about “Ink” is the music used in it.

Director of a movie usually is a man that has the whole look of it in his head. This look of course includes not only the picture and video work, but all the sound engineering. Often director has no talent or time or just don’t want to do this, and then he hires a sound director and/or composer, but we have totally different realisation level when director can do this (write music and arrange it) by himself – the best examples are John Carpenter’s “Halloween” or Don Coscarelli’s “Phantasm” whose main themes run a chill down the spine. Situation with “Ink” lays in the same sphere of events – Jamin Winans is also the composer of it, and he did perfectly know how should his film sound.

As well as all “Ink” and particularly its picture, its sounds are cold and fragile, run far and far away in hollow chilly air of the action. Narrative temp is not so fast even in the moments of the most story acceleration, and music flows spilling its crystal drops as if it is already nothing to hurry. Leisure, transparent melodies backgrounded by similarly cool effects and pads weaves the same story that is being pictured on a screen, and it adds even more emotions that separate picture contains (for example, it makes scenes of Jacob’s Chain or John’s walk through the hospital just harrowing and bloodcurdling). Every time or couple of seconds is tightly conjugated with the action, and music doesn’t leave the viewer until the end of film.

I cannot call music to “Ink” outstanding or breakthrough – it does no revolution in any style and genre, it is not complex or unusual, it is not even academic. Jamin Winans wrote quite simple themes that could be easily recognized and distinguished from another, and despite their simplicity and sense that you already heard this somewhere, they are quite memorable. Instrumentation, simple as well as music structure – soft, cold and deeply sounding piano (with gentle touch of reverberation), pizzicato strings, curtains of deep and warm synth pads, and different percussions with different effects – this is all and enough that could be needed to make a masterpiece.

As it should be, there are reprises, variations and modulations of sequences and motives; themes float up and slowly drown down, alterate and appear again, and most of them create the sense of something really private that know only you and something that only you can tell to somebody.

And the main theme – soft, chilly and nearly disappearing piano sequence dusturbs something profound, something that lay on the very bottom of the reason and heart, and is just touching as fuck. Moreover, it is so touching that Joe Carnahan was not fastidious to borrow it in a form of “The City Surf” song to his new film “Grey”, and damn me if it didn’t sounded awesome there.

As A Result: perfect soundtrack for perfect modern fairytale

Listen It?: of course, but better is to watch it

Watch It?: fuck yes what are you waiting for, dummy