Fletch's Film Review: The Hurt Locker and Paper Heart

"But when a supposed piece of fiction turns out to be more of a documentary than every other documentary made - in that it truly just documents the proceedings - you have to wonder if it wouldn't have been better off being a little less aloof about it's reason for existing."

I wrote that five months ago about the French film The Class, but I could very well say the same thing about Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, an exciting, pulse-pounding and [insert other synonyms here] film about a bomb squad in Iraq circa 2004. I'd imagine that - if nothing else - that makes me the first (and possibly last) person to compare those two films to each other. But it's true. They each had me wondering the following sentiment upon exiting the theater: if you were to take away the handheld cameras that directors have seemed so addicted to over the past few years, what would you have remaining?

You'd have a piece of fiction with few real characters and nary a narrative to be found; in other words, you'd have a bad movie. But something about that "real feeling" seems to trick the mind into thinking that the sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Perhaps it is, after all.

In The Hurt Locker's case, we have a film that follows around a core group of three members of Bravo company as they travel around Iraq diffusing one bomb after another. In each case, the tension grows, the stakes raised higher either by the circumstances of that particular bomb, the company's unpredictable leader, Staff Sergeant James (28 Weeks Later...'s Jeremy Renner), or both. The tension is palpable, and we come to sympathize with the squad as they take one step forward and two steps back; their unseen enemies are constantly a step ahead of them, like computer viruses getting harder and harder for McAfee or Norton to crack.

However, outside of a short detour into Emotionland when the circumstances of a particular bomb hit a bit too close to home for James, the film does little more than trail a few yards beyond the group. Locker has been praised for being the best of the Iraqi War movies to date, partially (or is ist particularly?) for being so impartial, in that it doesn't take sides, neither condemning or condoning the war or our reasons for being there. But when the visceral rush is the only thing that remains, aren't we left only with a "roller coaster" action film with stock characters? If there no message, no conclusion, no lessons learned, then what was the point?

Of course, all that being said, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the movie. Opinionated or not, it does put you in the situation like few other films, and as much as I rail on films that seem dreadfully longer than their run times, the 131 minutes fly by. On top of that, Renner and his co-stars (an excellent Anthony Mackie, playing our conscience and common sense, and Brian Geraghty, the nervous rookie) don't seem to be playing characters at all; they are these guys, and the only shame is that we learn so little about them.

Paper Heart, on the other hand, exists seemingly for no other reason than to toy with your expectations of what a documentary are. Comedian Charlyne Li and her crew (shown onscreen in the person of director Nicholas Jasenovec) refer to the proceedings on multiple occasions as a documentary, but the film is practically anything but.

Long story short: Yi's premise is that she believes that she is incapable of falling in love, or at least of feeling as though she is. Being the curious cat that she is, she decides to travel all over the country in search of some eternal truths: what is love, how do you know when you're in love (or out of love), and what were the paths that people took to get to being in love with another person?

It's a noble (yet Quixotic) quest, and the audience (and her crew) is certain to doubt Yi's proclamations from the start. Her interactions with "real folks" around the country - amongst them, a gay couple in NYC, a judge and attorney in Texas, and a divorcee in the South - are endearing, made better by the Gondry-esque re-enactments shown while the interviewee tells their story. Created by Yi, they're crude paper-and-cellophane (or whatever other cheap tools she had at her disposal) constructions, but aside from being charming, they are filmed incredibly, with excellent angles and a strong eye that makes their MS Paint-level quality feel damn real. They are far and away the best thing the film has going for it.

However, they seem also to serve only as yet another reminder that this is not in fact a genuine doc driven by curiosity but merely a vehicle for Yi to showcase her appeal to Comedy Central execs, maybe in the hopes of landing herself a show. Reinforcing that is the unnecessary name-dropping done by the film early on as Yi "interviews" (if one question and 20 seconds of screen time qualifies as an interview) her "friends" such as Seth Rogen, Demetri Martin (who indeed has or had a Comedy Central show), Martin Starr, and David Krumholtz (who is shown but not interviewed).

It's not long after this that the film falls off its wheels. Yi meets Michael Cera at a party; soon after the two are dating, though the way each acts, you'd think they were auditioning to be dating. The director, lights in his eyes, sees their relationship as gold for the doc: here she is filming a doc about love, and she just might be falling in love! How perfectly serendipitous!

Only it's not. At all. What little truth there might be in the real-life relationships of Yi, Cera and Jasenovec are revealed to be no more real onscreen than the paper re-enactments. It's all a big act - a joke of Andy Kauffman-like proportions done at the audience's expense, sold all the more by the likability of the "stars."

Cuddly as they may be, don't buy it.

Fletch's Film Rating:

The Hurt Locker

"Darn tootin!"


Paper Heart

"Whatever."