Beyond the Multiplex

Fast forward: Anthony Hopkins disappears into "Slipstream"; "Lynch" offers smoke, mirrors, not much light; trapped with "The Living and the Dead"
I could expend many words trying to explain the plot of Anthony Hopkins' film "Slipstream" to you, but that would be even more boring than telling you my dreams, because I'd be telling you someone else's dreams. Nominally, "Slipstream" is about a man named Felix Bonhoeffer (played by Hopkins) who's writing a noirish Hollywood thriller but finds the characters and plot invading his life, or maybe vice versa. It's apparently not an accident that he shares his last name with a leader of the anti-Nazi German resistance, because we keep seeing images of Hitler (and also images of Richard Nixon, whom Hopkins once played).

Even those sentences suggest a coherence that absolutely does not exist in "Slipstream." The film has moments of goofy delight, some pseudo-David Lynch spookery and a couple of comic supporting turns, most notably John Turturro's (as an abrasively stupid Weinstein-esque studio mogul) and Christopher Kennedy Lawford's -- yes, his parents are who you think they are -- as a garrulous cinematographer. Stella Arroyave, who is Hopkins' wife and who produced the picture and stars in it, turns out to be an agreeably wry screen presence.

Beyond that, you're talking shots of desert scenery and the night sky (very pretty, by cinematographer Dante Spinotti), a lot of psychic-meltdown sequences in which scenes and bits of dialogue repeat over and over again, a shootout on a Los Angeles freeway, some ranting and raving by Christian Slater in a fedora hat (what else is new?), and a talking spider or two. No, really. I thought the talking spider was kind of cool, but the movie as a whole is nonsense. I'm glad that Hopkins has apparently been using the bland, middlebrow stage of his acting career to experiment with massive doses of psychotropic chemicals and open the doors of perception and all that. Next time, maybe he'll just write a manifesto. (Opens Oct. 26 in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.)

Maybe "Slipstream" just proves that making semi-comprehensible dream-based films is not as easy as it looks. The documentary "Lynch" explores the master of this particular school of cinema as he prepares to shoot "Inland Empire," his improvisational venture into hi-def digital video, which was widely ignored by viewers last year. Made by a collective of David Lynch acolytes known as blackANDwhite, "Lynch" offers a fascinating view of Lynch's irascible personality (and insatiable appetite for coffee and cigarettes), and captures him discussing his formative years in Idaho and Philadelphia, as well as his 30-year involvement with Transcendental Meditation. I suppose you could say that Lynch's creative process also comes into clearer focus -- in this case, he was making the shit up as he went along, and it shows, too. (Opens Oct. 26 at IFC Center in New York.)

Simon Rumley's "The Living and the Dead" begins as a rigorous study of a crumbling family in one of those crumbling English country houses. Lord Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd-Pack) has a sickly wife (Kate Fahy) and a twitchy adult son named James (Leo Bill) who seems to be schizophrenic, epileptic, autistic and devoted to wearing a suit that fit him snugly at age 15. Bill's performance as a damaged young man who desperately wants to please his parents is not delicate and may not be politically acceptable to all viewers, but it's an uncanny and powerful one. When Brocklebank goes away on business and mom's nurse fails to show, James blows a gasket and the movie does too. Rumley's realism and restraint abruptly vanishes, plunging James and the viewer into a jittery, nightmarish maelstrom of sound and image meant to capture his permanently altered state. "The Living and the Dead" is not an easy movie to sit through, and its darkness may be a little mannered, but it's an elegant construction with real emotions buried deep inside. (Now playing at the Pioneer Theater in New York.)

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)