Zodiac

David Fincher’s 1995 horror/thriller Se7en revitalized the horror genre and presented to us a dark mind beyond human imagination. In his new movie, Zodiac, he shows us a kind of evil that is even scarier because it doesn’t just happen in make-believe movie screen but is based on actual events in real life.

Between December 1968 and October 1969, a so-called The Zodiac Killer terrorized Northern California, killing five people and wounding two. The Zodiac sent a series of letters to the press and his identity remains unknown till this day. Zodiac is a faithful account of police investigations and one man’s search for the killer. The movie is based on The San Francisco Chronicle’s former editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith’s (in the movie, played by Jake Gyllenhaal) two books on the Zodiac Killer.

The movie actually feels like two films put together. The first half is more or less a police procedure drama. If it hadn’t had all the familiar faces, it could have even passed as a Paul Greengrass style docudrama. It makes clear how a major serial killer case is pursued by the police, shows each step that police takes to capture the killer and also displays all the mistakes authority has made in their investigations. How far apart the police work in this movie is from what Hollywood likes us to believe in all those Dirty Harry shoot-out police dramas. As we are shown all the details in the police work, we can easily identify with lead detectives’ frustration with bureaucracy and heavy work loads. It is eye-opening for ordinary folks like me to realize the immense difficulties in tracking down a seemingly random serial killer and follow a hot case as it slowly turns cold. It also makes me marvel at our current technological advance. At one point in the movie, the police want to trace the suspect’s phone call. They need to have the caller stay on the line for 15 minutes (!) in order to trace the call. That is an eternity in today’s standard.

The second half of the movie is really about one man’s obsession with the case. The plot keeps the case going, but also delves deep into both the good and the bad sides of obsession. There are many ways to destroy a person and a family. Killing may be an easy one, but one’s life can be affected in many ways by what one chooses to do. Robert Graysmith is at the Chronicle when the letter first comes in. As years go by, he becomes obsessed with the elusive killer and has put his personal life on the line in pursuit of the truth.

Fincher has really rolled two movies into one and their common theme is the Zodiac Killer. Each half of the movie can easily be expanded into a feature length movie by itself and be considered an outstanding work. Put together the entire movie is different from but far more superb than his breakthrough movie, Se7en. Zodiac is over two and half hours long and it does lag a bit near the end, but it is shot with such assured direction and fresh perspective that it is worth the long hours in a dark theater. The movie is frightful without overt violence and gratuitous gore. In this movie, Fincher shows that he is the true master of horror. He understands “the most elegant emotion of terror is the psychological horror that takes root in the viewers' mind and sustains itself long after the lights have come up.”(Creative Screenwriting on terror and fear) The fear in his movie is steeped in audience’s anticipation of some horrible things to happen. In fact, the scariest part for me is that when Graysmith is in the basement with a possible Zodiac Killer. The guy stands in the shadow and we are not able to see any expressions on his face. Later when he suddenly shows up behind Graysmith, it gives a big jolt. That scene in its lighting and shadows is very much like the duel scene in 2002 Japanese auteur Yoji Yamada’s The Twilight Samurai. Even though both movies are not horror movies, they have scared and thrilled me far more than most horror junks floating around today.

The lead actor Jake Gyllenhaal is the weakest link in this movie. His age is about the same as Graysmith’ when the Zodiac Killer was first known, but he just seems so green even for his young age. It is hard to see him as a divorced father in the beginning, let alone perceiving any maturity he may have gained through the years in the movie. Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune complains that Gyllenhaal had hardly aged through the span of years in the movie, but to be fair, neither did most of other actors in the movie. The only one who really ages is the Robert Downey Jr.’s character. Downey may be typecast here again, playing another cynical role who struggles with his alcohol and possible drug addiction, but he is charming and pleasant to watch as always. Maybe because of his own demons years ago, when it comes to show the devastation an abuse can do to a body, he is absolutely believable and heartbreaking to see. Mark Ruffalo is another terrific actor in this movie. Like Downey, not only can he deliver an emotional punch, but also is able to lighten the mood from time to time with his delivery of a line or a simple gesture. In my eyes, Ruffalo and Downey are two best comedic dramatic actors working today. They never try to be funny. They act like an average Joe and induce laughter by merely being one of us. I am also happy to see quite a few of my favorite actors such as Elias Koteas, Anthony Edwards and Philip Baker Hall working in this movie. It is good to know that after disappearing for a few years, they are still working in the industry.

I am not convinced that Graysmith has unmasked the real killer in the end. We may never know the truth about the Zodiac Killer, but this movie has done its best in objectively depicting a decade-long search for a real-life demon.

Grey Gardens (on DVD)

1975 documentary Grey Gardens has become a cult classic ever since its release and spawned an undying interest in its subjects. Currently the musical, Grey Gardens, is earning rave reviews on Broadway. There are also talks that a feature film based on the documentary, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, is also in the works.

After watching the documentary, I don’t understand where all the hoopla comes from and why people are so fascinated with other people’s misfortunes. The movie made by two brothers, Albert and David Maysles, centers on two eccentric real-life figures. Grey Gardens was the estate where Edith “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale and her middle-aged daughter “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale lived in almost complete isolation for more than twenty years. They gained some notoriety when National Enquirer exposed their squalid living conditions and revealed them as aunt and first cousin to the famous Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. The entire time while watching this movie I felt sick, angry and puzzled. The mixed emotions were not a result of powerful filmmaking. In fact the movie looks like some amateur family video. I don’t think Maysles Brothers had done much work. The two Edies were the best performers any director could have dreamed of. Actually the two ladies both had ambitions in performing professionally when they were young. Now in their old age, they still lived in their past and refused to acknowledge the present. Maysles Brothers did not show us how the mother and daughter came to be in the state they were in. They were only interested in showing the eccentricity of the pair. It is so obvious that these two individuals were deeply mentally disturbed. The entire movie borders on exploitation of the sick and the weak. There is no obvious reason as to why Maysles Brothers needed to make this documentary except to satisfy people’s curiosity about the rich and the famous even if they were only rich in the past and only famous by association. It was really the beginning of the cultural downfall that is now in full swing in the wake of Anna Nicole Smith’s death.

Big Edie and Little Edie were such tragic figures that they could have walked off the pages of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie or A Street Car Named Desire. Like the mother and daughter in The Glass Menagerie, they also called Maysles Brothers “gentleman callers” when they came to film. It is heart-breaking to see their sadness and loneliness to be explored on screen for public consumption. Even if they had wanted their last shot at being stars, any responsible filmmakers should have had the decency to do the right thing. What they needed was not a camera to follow them and then desert them. They needed professional help!!!

Daughter from Danang (on DVD)

2002’s documentary, Daughter from Danang, may be remembered more for its subject matter than its cinematic achievement. It was nominated for Best Documentary Award at the 2003 Oscars. The movie uses a very conventional documentary style mostly employed by PBS documentaries to tell another tragedy incurred by Vietnam War. At the end of the war, the American government started “Operation Babylift” to bring thousands of Vietnamese orphans and Amerasian children to the United States to be adopted by Americans. Daughter from Danang follows Heidi, an Amerasian kid raised by a single woman in the South, when she embarks on a journey to be reunited with her birth mother after 22 years. Unfortunately blood is not thicker than water in this case. It is heartbreaking to see a mother find her daughter and then lose her again. It is chilling to see how American culture has made us so selfish and indifferent to other people’s suffering. In the movie, Heidi is appalled by her siblings’ frank request for money. She is disgusted by their “greediness” while I feel more ashamed for her lack of compassion. It is plain to see that she doesn’t need to give her Vietnamese relatives much money to help them out. Her siblings’ request for her to support her birth mother with a monthly stipend doesn’t sound so outrageous. In a country like Vietnam, a monthly check of $100 could go a long way. I seriously doubt that would have given her too much burden. To me, it seems that she is the true greedy one. The organization who helps these adopted kids find their birth parents apparently doesn’t prepare them for the cultural difference. Tragedies are bound to happen when they have difficulty communicating because of language and cultural barrier. Daughter from Danang doesn’t have any distinctive cinematic style. It tells the story mainly through interviews with the subjects, but what a story they tell! After watching it, it will make you question the merits of war and view your family relationship on another level.