January 2013 - Les Misérables

Tadpole thinks: (I've tried to minimise spoilers, but they're inevitable)

Whilst I am typing away at my laptop, Theodora’s at a Church activity. The previous line is vague hint at our respective feelings about Les Misérables. In case you don’t catch that, she likes it and I don’t*. Precisely that isn’t obvious, but I need an introduction to my Les Mis review… forgive me. Forgive me for the crappy intro now and the rant (which you probably won’t agree with) in advance.

* After all, faith is an important element in Les Mis. Having gone to a Catholic school for more than a decade, I know the teachings of repentance, forgiveness and sacrifice too well.

Oh, Les Misérables, how you have disappointed me! I have noticed two schools of thought for this film, namely – BEST MOVIE OF 2012 OMGZ and ok this is alright. You should know I advocate the latter school. BEST MOVIE OF 2012 OMGZ seems to dominate though… an interesting phenomenon to note, many of those who are of this school of thought think Les Misérables is an English name that's pronounced as LES MIS-SER-RUH-BUH. I sound mean here, but please do not promote a film as the best film of the year without having done any research. A film is not a mere two-hour entertainment. It is a lesson, be it history or moral. If you enjoy your cinematic experience, do some background research and teach yourself something! I understand that some people may not realise the name Les Misérables is French, since the film itself is English-speaking… but provided you have common sense/have done a bit of research, you will know it’s French!

Besides, I find it bothersome that some fans have no reasons to support their love for the film. As a fiery Aries, heated debate is my thing. I find it uninspiring when you are one of the million blind fans who say something is amazing just because 999999 other people say so.

We're already 300 words in but I've only been raving with no arguments to support my position. To differentiate myself from the blind fans, I am going to voice out my opinions:

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate Les Mis. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I had imagined I would. You know when you had high hopes for a film and it didn’t live up to your expectation? The film would seem to be worse than it actually was if you didn’t expect so much. I'd suspected this is the case for Les Mis until I had a week to think about it. I also suspect you readers are hating me, with your blood boiling. “GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE!” you may say. To put out the fire burning in your heart, let me begin by saying what I like about Les Mis. This will be short as you have heard so many good things that any more will begin to bore you.

1. Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman are SO good. We have heard only good things about Hathaway’s short performance. I’m with the majority here. She is stunning. I was quite bored even before the film hit its 30-minute mark. But Hathaway’s “I Dreamed A Dream”? It converted me from a hater (I never really liked her until now) to a fan. As for Jackman, he’s astonishing as Jean Vanjean. You would not say bad things about an actor who shines throughout the whole of the 162 minutes of the film, would you? I was genuinely surprised by his performance and his amazing voice… then I remembered his performance at the 81st Oscars.

2. Tom Hooper’s choice to use the live-sung approach. Live-sung is definitely not new but it has never been used in such a large production. A lot more work had to be put into the production of Les Mis because of this. It was worth it though, since this approach gave the film the much-needed raw emotions.

Now, I’ll talk about what I don’t like. One of the main reasons why I don’t like Les Mis is because I don’t feel the “connection”.

1. It's choppy and fragmented. I contribute this as one of the reasons for my lack of emotions for the film. It’s supposed to be a tear-jerker… so I should really feel the tension and the sadness and etc. But my confusion overcastted my other emotions. Why is this happening? What’s going on? What did I miss? I believe there’s too much to be packed into the film so it has to move at a fast pace, missing some details here and there. It’s OK as this often happens for adaptations. Well, to be very honest, I haven’t read/seen much about the original story so I don’t know if the original story is this fragmented as well. But there’s another point I want to talk about – the story itself is too MELODRAMATIC. As a rational human being, some parts are just not believable… then again, I don’t know about the original story. But the film's killed my interest to read the Victor Hugo’s novel.

2. Camera angles. I didn’t go to film school and certainly don’t know much about films, but at certain times I wish I could tell Tom Hooper he should drop the extreme close-ups. I really like them in The King’s Speech, and this Hooper signature is the one of the main reasons why the “I Dreamed A Dream” sequence is so successful. Close-ups bring us close to the actors so we could see every emotion, every twitch of their noses and every water molecule in their eyes. In short, close-ups are extremely powerful. Yet sometimes, too much is too much. Close-ups lose their effect when they are over-used. As an audience member, my gut instinct told me that I wanted to see more than Eddie Redmayne’s cute freckled face during the student revolution scenes. My brain was shouting inaudibly to the silver screen ZOOM OUT FFS.

3. Russell Crowe. I’m not going to talk about his singing because many have, but this point is also related to the live-sung approach. Obviously, using this approach is unfavorable to actors/actresses without a good voice, the imperfect singing of Russell Crowe didn’t really bother me. His face did. Why did he look so uncomfortable?

4. A minor comment. For musicals, I often get the Original Soundtrack (OST) so I could preach to all my family and friends the songs from the films, a.k.a. singing them out loud really badly in their face… but the Les Mis OST is barely listenable. I listen to it regular, but not on repeat. The songs were not recorded in a studio (hence the album is called “highlights”), theu were recorded during the “live-sung” performance. For most songs, there is no music at first, then the music will slowly fade in. Occasionally, the film’s sound effects would be recorded in and I would jump at a sudden bang.

5. I found myself checking my watch constantly during the screening… Am I alone here? Allow me to say, the film itself was quite hard to pull through.

6. I love being emotional and crying over films. I cried at Les Mis, but I felt that it had failed to evoke my emotions. Somebody told me I would need tissues just five minutes in, so I brought two extra packets with me. I only needed one tissue paper. What a bummer.

If you’ve skipped to this paragraph, hello! I’ll repeat myself – I don’t hate Les Misérables. I just don’t like it as much as I thought I would or as much as other people do. I’d give it 5 out of 10? I can’t bring myself to tell you I love the film because I don’t.

Edited on 11 January 2013: Oscar nominations came out yesterday. Lots of people have predicted previously that Les Mis would receive a double-digit number of nominations. Turned out it only received 8. Bad day for Les Mis, but perhaps it’s really overrated… Though the Oscars aren’t always credible :P

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Fish thinks: (yep, spoiler alert here too)

Les Misérables, the film-musical fusion dish that was instantly craved by the population since its publication, is surely a grand production. Family members, many friends and reviewers on IMDB all agreed simultaneously without hesitation that it was a splendor. Personally, I found the movie entertaining and moving at points. Yet, to those who described Les Mis as “impeccable”, I beg to differ.

Let me start with the actors. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway enhance the film with their excellent performances portraying Jean Valjean and Fantine. Jackman surprised me with his bloodshot eyes and cringing back at the very first scene. Knowing him merely from X-men and Australia, I always thought he could scarcely convey emotions from his stiff face and eyes that seems only capable of delivering rage. Les Mis proved him otherwise. Not only he could act, but he could sing like a lark too. Jackman’s most remarkable act is the scene when he struggled between good and evil inside the church. He expresses a series of sentiments, while singing and pacing to and fro the altar- one take through. I was amazed seeing him transform from despair, realization, anger, and confusion to swelling with confidence and passion. Say no more, applauses!

Hathaway, though not as eye-catching as Jackman, shone in her own charming way. Fantine’s terrible encounters and lovely voice earned the sympathy of the audiences, despite only having a short time on screen. And salute to her having those beautiful locks of hair chopped off! She displayed respect for her profession, and evoke ours for her.

Russel Crows was a bit disappointing, and as a result he is the one I bitched about most of the time. He seems rather reserved and expressionless, but it could attribute to his character being a conservative Javert who feels numbs striving to withhold his values that contradict with reality. In fact, the deeper I review, I realized I had exaggerated on the actors’ performances and that only Jackman and Hathaway left me flabbergasted. The movie created a lot of illusions.

Let’s move on to the plot. I think some of the scenes could be further developed or explained- examples include the Jean Valjean’s dying process, and Valjean’s father-daughter relationship with the grown Cosette. The rushing scenes attribute to the rich plot of Les Mis, and the plot could be trimmed to produce longer and more emotionally profound scenes.

Furthermore, I just couldn’t get myself to cry despite the plot being touchy and all, because I am conscious that the music wants to draw our emotions. Before, I was worried that I am heartless and cold-blooded because while I shuffled on my seat for 159 minutes tearless, my sister’s sniffs could be heard since the very beginning of the film. To analyze the cause rationally, isn’t it almost certain that a person may be moved under such music with such an intensity and facial expressions with such dramatic vigor?

I must confess I really don’t know much about the background and story of Les Mis (guiltily, because I had studied English Literature during high school), and actually have mistaken the revolution held by Marius and Enjolras as the French Revolution (lucky I didn't take History!), so perhaps this contributed to the doubts I have for the film.

What I like about the film is the fluidity the scenes flow from one to another, and that the last scene adequately wrapped up the play, pointing out that the ultimate paradise after death sweeps all the pain and indignities away and brings them eternal happiness- all the endurings are worth it. It was also a pleasure to admire the handsome and vibrant faces of the young men, whose hot blood sizzles with passion for reform and patriotism. Sacha Cohen (The Dictator) and Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech) make a dazzling pair whose quirky gestures and wicked flashes of expressions caused the audience to roll with laughter. Minor characters like Eponine and the little boy who are both killed during the revolution emit their own rays of sunshine through their voices.

My favorite scene is the very beginning when Jean Valjean and the slaves sing out the sufferings of their endless labor, “look down, look down...” It scare the hell out of me that I couldn’t even recognize the disheveled Jackman. Ipso facto, the intensity of misery already sinks into the audience, and lasts throughout the film. I could hardly breathe. “24601!” The serial number is hauntingly impactful. I could feel Valjean’s helplessness when he was repeatedly addressed with numbers instead of his own name.

Christian friends of mine suggested me to read the film in a religious angle. I shall do so when I rewatch Les Mis another time, because oddly enough, though I was touched by Valjean's pursuit of truth and spiritual fulfillment as a Christian, I didn't have an epiphany regarding the religion when I come to think of it. In a nutshell, Les Misérables is a good film, but it could go deeper. I’ll just end my review abruptly but I hope you see my point:)

P.S. I apologize for uploading my review late! Happy new year to y'all!