The Dark House - Film Review

Truth? There is no such thing.

A morally distant and oddball outing from writer/director Wojciech Smarzoswki, The Dark House (Dom Zly) is a story piecing together a strange episode at a rural farmhouse and the disorganised investigation that follows.

Following the sudden death of his wife and the emotional breakdown in it's aftermath, zootechnician and heavy drinker Edek 'Edward' Srodon (Arkadiusz Jakubik) takes up a position at a state owned farm in the countryside, after selling all of his possessions in an effort to restart his life. En route to this new job, Edek winds up at another farm, owned by Zdzislaw (Marian Dziedal) and Bozena (Kinga Preis), and spends the night. Over the following few days, he strikes up a strong bond with them, particularly the troubled Zdizislaw, as he stays on a little longer. After concoting a scheme to brew and sell homemade moonshine, the two are on the cusp of becoming business partners. Until something goes horribly wrong.

Intercut with these scenes is the 'present', some time later. It is midwinter, and the very same farm is a crime scene, manned by a newly arrived team of People's Militia officers, led by Lieutenant Mroz (Gary Oldman lookalike Bartlomiej Topa). Along for the ride are a legal prosecutor, a pregnant wife and colleague husband team (evoking memories of Fargo, much like the snowcapped pastures), and a shady and politically minded superior keeping a close eye on both the case and Mroz, in a murky case of dirt digging and potential conspiracy. Add to that them bringing along a freshly shaven Edek, so he can recount the events that led to an immolated barn and three corpses. Things are far from simple, as the blurb suggests.

While the material itself sounds hard boiled and edgy on paper, one of the pillars of Smarzowski's interpretation is a quirky and occasionally inappropriate edge of dark humour, adding to the previously mentioned Coen Brothers influences. While the sharp bite of subtext allows plenty of jabs at the communist era engulfing 1970's Poland, it is little more than a backdrop and serves up red herrings rather than proving deeply relevant to the winding, chaotic story. If anything, more stock is put into the weakness and stupidity of the characters and, by extension, of people in general. Numerous funny background events give the film an emotion debt, while the constant heavy drinking of almost every player in the plot clues in to a epidemic still relevant.

Although he cleverly plays around with callbacks and Chekhov's Guns, one of the problems that Smarzowski runs into is tone displacement. The film starts at the beginning, with Edek narrating and introducing himself, and the background that led him to the titular farmhouse. It seems to be a personal journey film, one that cuts between time periods in explaining the events of the past and the consequences felt in the present. However, once the later period is established, we find that Edek is no longer the main character. While he may drive the flashbacks, it is Mroz who takes centre stage during the investigation, even allowing the chance to delve into some ultimately spurious subplots which don't match up to the mood of Edek's experiences.

While the farmhouse based plotline, with Edek growing familiar with his surroundings and new housemates, provide a gleeful dysfunction that levens the story, the crime scene segments contain anarchic comedy in a serious context, almost like a travelling circus moving through a warzone. It seems that each of the officers are ill-disciplined drunks, with no real care for their work, and no sense of professionalism. The honesty and authenticity of this is debatable, to put it mildly, but there is a jarring sense of weirdness about watching the overwhelmed Edek trying to retrace his steps through the dark house while trying to ignore the ridiculous behaviour of his captors.

Giving a few laughs and some nice cinematic touches, Smarzowski is indeed an intelligent filmmaker, and knows a good story. But for every step The Dark House takes towards excellence, it muddles the next, and ends up being bogged down by various clashes in approach and style, emerging as a mix between a comedy that's too serious, and a drama that's too comedic. While this makes for entertaining viewing, it doesn't make for engrossing cinema.

Overall, an enjoyable eccentric film, with much to enjoy, but one clearly conflicted and held back by it's inability to decide exactly what it is, and why.


7/10

Californication: Season 5 Review

On Sunday 1st April, Californication's fifth season came to an end on a cliffhanger and amidst fairly mixed messages, both from the show itself and directed at it from fans.

A chapter of the "sexiest show on TV" that rehashed the tiring boy chases girl format, at least for a brief while, saw a new, almost Zen like Hank trapse back into his old life in the Golden State in a new, truly haphazard series of adventures that has left many loyal viewers to question series creator Tom Kapinos's ability to hold his shit together. And with good reason. Let's recap...

From New York, New Hank

Season 5 starts a couple of years after the events of the Season 4 finale, which saw Hank driving into the sunset, having finally it seemed let go of the hold Karen had on his life and path. Now, Henry Moody Jnr. is back in the promised land, NYC, set up with a nice apartment, a fairly crazed significant other and a new bestseller on the shelves, paradoxically named 'Californication' and presenting a fictionalised account of his years on the West Coast.
However, the call comes and Hank makes his return to LA for business, bringing him back into the circle of dysfunctional, downright debaucherous life in the City of Angels.

Charlie, erstwhile agent and best friend, is still agenting it up, and still very much dedicated to his 'bedding 100 women' pledge. In fact, single life has turned him into a rather depraved and sex obssessed figure with creepy connotations. Despite this, he is sharing the responsibility of raising the now born, now troublesome Runkle spawn (Stuart, a boy named for his step father). Marcy is shacked up with now husband Stu Beggs, and seems to have shaken off any kind of responsibility in the process.

Most significantly, Karen and Becca are once again found incased behind the white picket fence of fixed family life, this time literally. Karen is married to Richard Bates (last seen off the wagon in Season 3), an arrangement that seems to be a happy one for all concerned. The Becca is now at college and dating a young man named Tyler, who is described as a "young Hank".

Although he claims to just be dropping by for a visit, motivated by a screenwriting opportunity to pen a movie vehicle for rap superstar Samurai Apocalypse, the return becomes permanent when Hank's unhinged girlfriend burns down to his Big Apple home, leaving him marooned on Runkle's couch, and destined to get caught up in the shenanigans to follow. Amongst the action is a dangerous dalliance with singer Kali on the flight over, a girl who later turns out to be Samurai's sweetness, and the unexpected visit of Carrie, the arsonist ex. Cue the antics.

Fresh Faces, Familiar Stories

Naturally, Season 5 attempts to add some new elements and play with the unseen hiatus between ...And Justice For All and JFK to LAX. As well as the aforementioned new circumstances, a few minor characters have also found themselves dropped for conveniance sake.

Despite appearing to be a positive figure, a love interest for Karen that Hank could actually respect, Michael Ealy's Ben has been put on a bus, along with daughter Pearl. Becca, immersed in a rock band previously, no longer seems to house any musical ambitions. This opens the door for Bates, an interesting character played by Jason Beghe who essentially out-Hanks Hank at every turn. The only previous connection between Karen and Bates, however, was that they slept together while Bates was her college teacher, raising some significant questions about the age gap. Similarly, Karen's logic in finding someone much wilder than Hank to be her new Hank is devoid of sense.

He is one of six major recurring characters during the season, one of two retained from Californication's back catalogue (the other being Stu). While well played and enjoying some great scenes and dynamics with the other players, he is sadly exploited within the story. As soon as he gets put back on the sauce as a prank, and indulges in his 'mangina' bit, it's clear his deployment was to give Hank a quicker route back at Karen.

The others who come back for more suffer from similar problems. Kali starts off as an interesting character, well developed and with a clear voice, but a clear issue develops upon the Samurai interest. Hank's position in the 'don't tell anyone about us' set up, started by an unknowning hook up and with the constant threat of exposure and punishment, is worryingly similar to the Hank-Mia relationship in Season 1. To make matters worse, after 'Love Song', the Season's obligatory flashback episode (one of the most even episodes of the run), she all but disappears from the plot, both in terms of screen time and personality. Her few appearances are designed to create trouble elsewhere, with actions horribly out of character.

Samurai Apocalypse, or Sam for short, starts out as charismatic and interesting, with great chemistry with Hank, but quickly fades as his dialogue and plot path becomes repetitive and predictable, and he too is exploited to cause tension and build up to the endgame. RZA plays the part well, but is sold short by a lack of interest in the writer's room (an increasingly desolate place, as I'll touch upon later).

Meanwhile, there is the matter of Tyler. Hyped as the 'younger, hotter Hank', he is played as a precocious and arrogant youngster who lacks that one key element of Hank that makes him so amiable: charm. While he is constatly referred to be the aforementioned moniker, any actual evidence that he is like our hero in any sense is apparently left to fold out offscreen, and his immoral attributes and deplorable behaviour makes the rose tinted treatment of him by everyone other than Hank (and Bates) painful to watch. He turns out to be a writer, an excellent one with a ferocious screenplay that becomes a major story point, and this turn is seized upon and throttled speedily, to the detriment of the idea, and sees the boy become a major Hollywood screenwriter overnight.

Stu Beggs, played by the accomplished film and TV character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, transforms from eccentric but hardline producer into a preening, shouting caricature this year, taken to bouts of over acting and obssession with sex. The entire Runkle clan, in fact, becomes a hideous mess of psychotic behaviour, perverse sex games and apathetic distress, with the kid ignored for long stretches both on and off screen. Lizzie, a young English nanny, is brought in with aspirations of Hollywood, and sets about bleeding Charlie dry in painful fashion.

Stupidity & The Single Men

The wacky plot developments in the season are offset by a recurring and negative theme, and those that do work are usually mishandled. While Californication previously had crazy moments and ridiculous situations, they worked within the story and had some singularity of purpose as well as high laugher inducement. However, 5 doesn't quite tap this.

Well played incidents, such as Sam, Hank and Charlie hijacking a police ride along, are spoiled by the lack of reprecussion for law breaking in the next episode. This is particularly jarring considering that Hank is possibly still on probation. Other misdemeanours aim for stupid and funny, but wind up being over the top and pointless. Tyler's mother, her book of penises and lesbian life partner served no purpose within the greater scheme of things, and is the whole interaction is disposable in that it never has any significant effect on the characters.

Later on, Hank is suddenly revealed to be a huge fan of a legendary, Werner Herzog inspired German film Director, who turns out to be a stereotypical Deutsch monster who provokes Hank's chivalrous knight schtick and gets punched. This entire light on its feet segment is singularly devoid of point or wit, only bringing a smile but the quick cameo provided by Beatrice Trixy, Hank's occasional soul mate hooker. Drea De Matteo, once of The Sopranos, appears in a one episode role as a stripper so utterly incapable of interacting with normal people that it's mind boggling.

This is one of the biggest problems the season suffers. One of the charms of the show in the past has been the intricate balance in plotting, which has allowed surreal situations to occur within the story's folds, blips of action within the canvas of events. In Season 5, the situations are simply ridiculous, camp and tripe, and have no bearing on anything. It's a symptom of poor and lazy planning in developing of the episodes, and a lack of narrative focus.

In fact, the suspicion emerges that the show's popularity for it's ludicrous encounters has affected the priorities within its production. So these strange comings together are pushed to the forefront, and the ridiculousness is pumped up to 11, resulting in stupid instead of silly.

Also apparent is desperation, with by-products including a meangingless cameo by Rob Lowe's psychotic method actor Eddie Nero, complete with warped dialogue and frantic, awkward mannerisms. One of the most popular new faces in Season 4, here Nero is wheeled out as a basket case.

Familiar Faces, Different Voices

However, the most stark and disappointing failing of the Season is the 'development' of the main characters, our merry band of five who have spent four years moving forwards, backwards and sideways in an understandable, characteristic, if not fucked up, manner.

Much criticism has been aimed at Karen and Becca's portrayal this year, and these arguments have been mostly valid. When the pair need to be stupid to suit the show's needs, they become so. An egregious example of this occurs in the episode 'Here I Go Again', when Hank takes the fall for another character's failing and is verbally demolished by his two ladies. Tyler, the interloper, quickly deduces what is truly going on, and even attempts to step in, while the two women who know Hank better than anyone fail to spot the blindingly obvious. It seems, at this point, that the pair are champing at the bit, waiting for an excuse to tear into him. This whole scene is later rendered meaningless when it is revealed through exposition that Karen found out what really happened, and now is sweet on him again.

But it goes deeper, and gets much worse, than this. For starters, Becca serves no fuction other than occasionally hating Hank and constantly serving as Tyler's one man personal army, despite the shit he puts her through. Her lines lack the spark of young Becca, instead relying on spike and poorly thought out snarkiness.

Crucially, though, Karen no longer sounds or acts like Karen. Lover her or hate her, she was consistent for the previous four seasons, with a clear voice. Her dialogue was distinctive and personal, her motives in keeping with her personality, attitude and experiences. She was a fully coloured, filled out character, after patient and thoughtful development and care. In Season 5, she sways and swings as if bi-polar, the words not matching. At times, it's hard not to see her as a role played by Natasha McElhone, rather than as Karen.

The Runkles are also badly affected. Marcy has mutated from fiesty, loveably crude cougar-smurf into a selfish, vacuous and humourless house troll, and also shows signs of her self in two episodes (one of which is the finale), while Charlie's increasingly over-emotional and over exaggerated nuances bare the hallmarks of cruel impersonation. His sexual escapades and obssession also make him come across as a pervert, something the show has always managed to stay away from. There is also a lack of good camaraderie and banter with Hank, a staple of earlier times.

Ironically, Hank himself is also a changed man, but this time for the better. He is more often than not the responsible one, and much of his pursuits are moral and caring. The self-loathing and self-destructiveness which always landed him in the pits has gone, as has his childish neediness and recklessness. Despite this sounding like a deconstruction of the character, it works very well, a breath of fresh air which suits the tone of moving on. He has grown up. And, interesting to note, he beds comparitively few women this time round. Rather than trying to disrupt Karen's household, he goes to great lengths to protect it.

The Flaws & The Future

One potential explanation for the failings of Season 5 can be found by trawling through credit listings, savouring in details. Namely, the work load taken on by one Tom Kapinos.

Of the run's 12 episodes, half were written solo by Kapinos, including the final four. Among those are At the Movies and Pervents & Whores, two of the most uneven half hours. Each of the other six episodes were also written by the showrunner, albeit along with another scripter.

Though the man devised the entire show, writing the first season as a film originally, it is clear that Hank's creator was running desperately short of inspiration at times. Much of the time spent resembles an artist trying to recreate their best work, and overshooting, instead drawing a lampoon. When even unapologetically daft material becomes boring, it's a sign that there is a lack of heart in the design, and this perhaps best sums up the Season. Too many episodes come off as first draft scripts badly in need of touching up, and while Seasons 1 and 2 were intracite and precise, perfectly balanced and weighed up, Season 5 feels rushed. It even fails to top 3 and 4 in terms of comedy.

Despite having played the character down to a tee for years now, Evan Handler's performances as Charlie this year did not help the show, perhaps down to the direction he was handed. Many lines are delivered with hammy glee and eye bulging energy reminiscent of a crack addict attempting to appear sober, and too much emphasis in one sentence undoubtedly makes anyone sound like a retard. As mentioned before, Stephen Tobolowsky suffers from a similar trait, while Madeleine Martin's handing of Becca seems less adept than it did when she was 13. The fact that each of these acting critiques can be reasonably put down to writing is a horrendous indictment.

The finale, a Season 2 esque wrap up display with Hank doing the good thing and marshalling everything and everyone together, comes off as half good and half bad rather than simply average, due to the displaced realism that has become common (to be clear, one of the show's characters breaks the law in a serious manner twice, both for undoubted crimes that would lead to serious jail time, and walks away without any question of punishment) and the uncharacteristic behaviour of the main protagonists. It does, however, have a punch to the gut in its conclusion, one that deflates the happy ending. A mood whiplash, this moment has significant ties to the Season's opening, and has a bitter logic more inkeeping with the show's early days.

It also sets up a cliffhanger for the already announced Season 6, with much in the balance. Where Californication can go next remains to be seen, and if the next run will prove to be the last, its final destination may be predictable, but the final leg of the journey surely won't be.

Lets just hope that the route is planned out in significantly more detail beforehand, since the wave of mediocre storytelling that hit Season 5 does not bode well. It is, though, rather reassuring that a bellow par Californication is still significantly better than most other shows. With clear direction, however, perhaps Hank will get what he always wanted, and in convincing manner. Here's hoping.

Best and Worst of 5

Best Episode: The Ride Along

Worst Episode: At the Movies

Best Performance: David Duchovny (Love Song)

Worst Performance: Stephen Tobolowsky (The Party)

Best Moment: Hank vs Tyler (The Party)

Worst Moment: Lars and the hookers (At the Movies)


Overall Season Rating: 7/10