Undertow (MGM)
Video: B Audio:
B- Extras: B+ Film: A
David Gordon Green exists in the wrong time period. His three films — George Washington, All
the Real Girls, and Undertow — belie the decade of their
realization. Green’s big-screen work is
firmly ensconced in the 21st century, but you would never know it to
look at them. In a decade where, so
far, big-budgets decadence, low-brows, and underwhelming Oscar bait are the
rule, Green’s films recall the work of Terrence Malick and the cinematography-driven,
thoughtful pictures of the Seventies.
Green’s latest film, Undertow, is his most
Malickian work yet. With its plodding, existential sentimentality wrapped in
the guise of a chase thriller and staggeringly beautiful cinematography, Green
channels the best of Badlands while adding a new masterpiece to his
oeuvre.
With the trials that come with being brothers as its
central meditation, Undertow focuses on the Munn family, father John
(Dermot Mulroney), his two kids, Chris (Jamie Bell) and Tim (Devon Alan), and
his brother, Deel (Josh Lucas). As a
farmer in the Deep South, John left the city life behind after the death of his
wife. But things aren’t well. Chris is a juvenile delinquent who gets the
brunt end of his father’s aggression most days, and Tim has a condition that
prevents him from eating without throwing it back up almost immediately.
The routine is broken up unexpectedly when the flashy Deel
shows up at the family farm after being released from the honor farm. John is, at first, suspicious of his
brother’s random dropping-in. But that
is soon washed away by John’s need to mend the fences between him and his
brother and the apparent want of Deel to do the same.
The conversations between John and Deel during these
moments are wrenching. Here are two
brothers who have let money, women, and the promises of their father — which
might have been based on lies — get between them. John, for his part, wants to put the past behind him — he moved
out to the country, after all, to escape it — but Deel isn’t so quick to let
bygones be bygones, at least not without some kind of restitution for a life
gone wrong.
Mulroney and Lucas are brilliant in these scenes, emoting
with their facial expressions and turns of their eyes to convey their feelings
and motivations. There’s not much to
the dialogue in this minimalist film, so the responsibility lies in the actors
during these scenes to make them convincing — Mulroney and Lucas more than
handle the task.
The story of John and Deel is paralleled in the
relationship between Chris and Tim.
Chris wants to be out there, chasing girls and causing trouble, while
Tim wants to be a good son, help his father when he can — he’s too weak to do
much physical labor — and just be as normal a kid as the situation allows. The similarities between Chris and Tim and
John and Deel aren’t lost on the two older men, with Deel especially
highlighting how similar Chris is to him (and probably with good reason, we
find out later).
But where John and Deel are ripped apart by the
circumstances of their lives, Chris and Tim are brought together by them. Any schism that existed between the two
disappears instantly when they witness a life-changing altercation between
their father and uncle, thrusting them off the farm and on the lamb.
The “chase” segment of the film takes up nearly the whole
second half of the film, but the pursuit isn’t what’s important. Instead, it’s the exploration of these four
characters’ relationships and the quiet introspection of what it means to be a
brother.
Green’s approach to this is similar to how Malick — a
producer on Undertow— ponders the relationship between man and nature in
The Thin Red Line, set against the foreground of war and violence, and
the relationship between man and woman in Badlands, set against the
foreground of conformity and violence.
In Undertow, Green sets his thoughts behind violence, as well,
and achieves the same sort of success as Malick has with his films.
Also similar to Malick is the strong cinematography coloring
the world of Green’s characters. The
Munn family farm is small and utilitarian, unlike any other farm seen on film
in recent memory. Yet, it’s shot in a
way that makes it loom large and foreboding.
The nature Chris and Tim spend a great deal of time in — forests, banks
of rivers, gutted-out relics of urban structures — are also filmed this
way. The most innocuous site carries
with it a feeling of dread and harm, and it’s only the setting of the end of
the film, a hospital, ironically, that carries with it a feeling of safety.
Credit for this should go to the cast as much as
Green. Like with how Mulroney and Lucas
emote so effectively in their scenes together, Bell and Alan convincingly
convey the dire consequences of their situations, both through their actions
and their mannerisms. Equally important
is that they are able to pull off being from the South when, in actuality,
neither of them are. Alan is from Los
Angeles and Bell is a Briton, but listening to them and watching them is like
witnessing native Southerners ruminate on their existences. And with more and more films being released
with actors who can’t pull that off, it becomes an ever-greater mark of quality
acting.
As a whole, “quality” isn’t a strong enough word to
describe Undertow. It most
certainly is that, but it’s so much more.
It’s smart. It’s grabbing. And it’s real. Too few films can claim that anymore, and it’s good to have a
filmmaker like David Gordon Green working today who can continually deliver the
way he has — even if he is a filmmaker not of his own day.
MGM, to its credit, knew how to bring a DVD to
market. With its newer films, the video
and audio quality is assured of being top-notch. Such is the case here, with the earthy browns and greens being
rich and full, and the dirty, grimy texture of the film just oozes off the
screen. Sonically, there isn’t much
happening here besides dialogue, but in the rare instance of louder scenes —
such as a drive on a dusty country road in a loud old sports car or a dust-up
brawl — the sound field is layered with subtly and depth.
But most impressive about MGM is that it knows when it has
a film on its hands that deserves the deluxe treatment. Its special editions are among the best
money can buy, and while Undertow doesn’t get the “special edition”
treatment, it certainly gets an array of extras betraying its small production
and limited theatrical run.
Headlining the disc is an audio commentary with Green and
Bell that is interesting and informative.
Because Green is such a knowledgeable filmmaker, he brings to bear a
great deal of information about his work, making for a wholly enjoyable
commentary listen.
This is followed by one of the better making-ofs on a
non-Criterion Collection disc. “Under
the ‘Undertow’” is a nearly-30-minute on-set production diary put together
by the cast and crew of the film; the brainchild of Lucas. Rather than being your run-of-the-mill
glad-handing doc, this making-of gets down and dirty and in your face with the
people who made Undertow come together.
There is a focus on the crew of the film, which is great because we
rarely get to see these people in action dealing with the complications a film
shoot brings. But here we do, and it
results in the stand-out extra on the disc.
Next are two deleted scenes, one basically an extended
version of a scene already in the film and the other a scene between Deel and
Tim that, while it would have slowed the film down, should have maybe been left
in the picture. The scene humanizes
Deel’s character much more than any other scene, and it puts an interesting
face on the conclusion of the film.
Rounding out the extras are an animated photo gallery, the film’s
original theatrical trailer, and trailers for other MGM DVDs.
All in all, not a bad set. MGM could have easily slapped a trailer on a disc and packaged it
out without a second thought.
Thankfully, they didn’t do that, and the result is an excellent DVD
experience for one of the best films to come along this decade.
- Dante A.
Ciampaglia
