Death and honor are thought to be the same, but today I have learned that sometimes they are not.

No 131 – The Last of the Mohicans
Director – Michael Mann

So I’m back… July has been manic, but I have been really busy:

Cough Cough *CLICK ON THE LINK* Cough Cough

So deal with it… anyway, here are some bloggles for you to gawp at:

I expected this to be another story from the ‘Outsider is taken in by tribe of natives and then fights with them’ genre… and whilst TECHNICALLY it is (as Daniel Day Lewis could never be passed off as an actual Native American), the act of being initiated into the society happens many years before the film starts – so it isn’t really part of the plot.

The plot is about revenge, double crossing and war – and whilst that may sound really juicy, the film also manages to be really fucking dull. How dull? Well I stopped the film several times. Once to make myself some dinner, and once to answer the phone and have a little chat. I didn’t even pull that shit with Tree of Wooden Clogs.

This film is not as dull as Tree of Wooden Clogs.

But lets talk about the good bits first…. It was lovely to have a film in which the Native Americans and the American settlers live together amicably. I’m so used to it all being cowboys ‘n’ injuns that it felt refreshing to see a new villain, though ‘villain’ seems the wrong word. This film triumphs in painting everything with shades of grey… so morality is never black and white. The baddies are really all that bad. The goodies aren’t really all that good. It feels realistic.

It is also worth recording this one description of the French:

They’d rather eat and make love with their faces than fight

AMEN! Never before have I been so proud of my duel nationality.

So, the film plods along as Daniel Day Lewis and his Mohican friends escort a British army chap and his ladies off to see the ladies’ dad – who is in a camp. Meanwhile the American settlers are tricked and bullied and there is talk of sedition and King and Country and yada yada.

There is a love triangle… people act like cocks…. People then see the error of the ways and get all noble. Everything in the film is pretty standard and is very well executed, I just couldn’t connect with a single character. I just didn’t give a shit about their plights or anything…. I can’t pin point what was wrong with the film… but something was definitely wrong when the only element of the film that piques my interest are the beautiful beautiful military uniforms.

I would love to enter a society where we could start wearing tri-corner hats again.

So… as the title implies – which means it can’t be a spoiler (but if you don’t want to know how this film ends just stop reading)… shit goes down and leaves only ONE MOHICAN…. The last of them…. And just look at the Mohican army:

Tough battle….

But that last Mohican isn’t Daniel Day Lewis… oh no, even though he lived all his life with that tribe, they don’t want his honky ass polluting their blood stream. So even though he has a lady by the end and they can have all the babies, the Mohican tribe dies out due to one man’s racism.

Or at least that’s what I took away from it all….

There's a whole ocean of oil under our feet! No one can get at it except for me!

No 144 - There Will be Blood

Director - Paul Thomas Anderson

This is a tense film. It deals not only with the difficulties of getting oil out of t'ground, but also with the heavy theme of manipulating people for your own personal goals. In case you have any doubts, the film paints its tension thick and plainly. The films near wordless introduction shows just how difficult and dangerous oil prospecting can be, but also racks up the tension with Jonny Greenwood's marvellous score.

At its simplest, this is a battle between two men. Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview, an oil tycoon and Paul Dano's minister Eli Sunday. The two certainly do spa, but really it is about a lot more than that. It is about greed, it is about obsession, it is about cruelty and isolation. It is also about the worrying similarities between Plainview's cruelty and narrow mindedness and that of Sunday.

It is also superbly acted. Much has been said about Daniel Day-Lewis. He is well known for his method acting and for his intensity. So it is only right that he turns in a wonderful performance. A man who's love of oil begins as a pursuit and ends up a full blown obsession, essentially driving him to insanity and leaving him a hollow husk of what he once was.

The real surprise comes from Paul Dano. His performance of Eli begins as a man wanting to make a buck, a man with maybe dubious moral piousness. But it ends as an equally broken man. Equally obsessed.

The 'I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE' scene has been noted may times for being incredibly powerful, and yes.... Day-Lewis is remarkable in it, creating a fascinating character noticeably on the brink of utter madness. But Dano is holding his own, and doing so well. He portrays a very difficult character and one with potentially a much more dramatic arc than Plainview.

Yes, the final scene may have him mostly looking scared when up against Day-Lewis' mighty performance, but Eli's journey has been more interesting, richer.

Not bad for Klitz

See - I managed to discuss Paul Dano and not use Gigantic to segway to Zooey Deschanel... whoops.

The film isn't exactly plot heavy - there is no dramatic journey from event to event. Instead we focus on one big event - Plainview trying to get oil - and allow the characters to bounce off each other.

The relationship between Plainview and Eli, and Plainview and his own son are interesting and tragic. They culminate in three scenes. Firstly Eli's scene where Plainview comes to his church for Baptism. It is a cruel piece of showmanship deliberately designed to belittle Plainview and it is an important scene for Eli's own greed and vanity - Plainview's revenge comes in infamous (and already mentioned) Milkshake scene. Then there is the scene where Plainview's son leaves him to start a career. Plainview's reaction showing that Oil has completely blinkered his view on the world. That nothing is more important than the hunt for black gold.

The film is masterfully handled, from the amazing dialogue (often letting silence do all the work), the beautiful cinematography and the brutal violence of the film. In both the actions of the characters but also in the harshness of the wild west world.

It is a film which has to be experienced. It is not always an easy watch but it is utterly entrancing and one that leaves you feeling richer for having seen it.