thursday, april 24, 2008
Point Blank
Point Blank might possibly be the most subversive action film ever made. Wrapping itself gleefully in the vestments of the genre it inexorably deflates the iconography that it, ironically, defined ever after. Point blank, the film suggests, may be a blank point.Ostensibly, the 1967 film chronicles the relentless quest of a driven man, in this case Lee Marvin’s Walker. What director John Boorman succeeds in doing is questioning the underpinning of the quest itself by simply asking “Why?”
That existential query proves devastating to a man whose very name is an active verb.Still, the film starts in stasis. In a prison cell. Literally and figuratively. Walker even says so. "Cell." “Prison cell.” he utters flatly. "How did I get here?"
He is starting from nothing. It’s all been taken. Or thrown away. It's hard to say. But still he arises and finds a way to continue. It takes some doing but, once he gets going he’s certainly got inertia on his side. The problem is there is nothing else. But that can wait for later.
Walker’s fury blasts him out of the airport concourse on his quest. Revenge is driving him. The sound effect of his footfalls keep the viewers rushing along even as he drives, he waits, as he prepares to confront his unfaithful wife and his best friend that betrayed him. The release, when it comes is devastating. But unfulfilling.
From the start Boorman is setting visual clues to the odyssey his hero is about to take. The symbolism that litters Point Blankconstantly reinforces the themes of self-realization and intimacy. Mirrors, rings and screens constantly appear to underscore the progression of action in each scene. Each is laden with meaning although Walker – and the viewer – are not consciously aware of what that may be.
For example, reflections echo throughout the whole film. In almost every scene there is a mirror. Oddly, the one time Marvin sees himself – after he has shot his wife’s bed – he’s startled, but the viewer doesn’t see the reflection, just his reaction.
 |
Color is vastly important. Point Blank was Boorman’s first film in color and he was clearly determined to explore its possibilities. Swaths of bright reds and yellows contrast against blue skies and shimmering swimming pools.
“It gives you something harmonious and monochromatic,” the director explained. It also a fantastic device to subtly create relationships between characters that aren’t necessarily expressed verbally.
Nowhere is this theme of color more important than in the clothes Walker wears as it progresses. Over the course of the film he wears distinctly different suits that are based in very basic color patterns. Boorman admitted this was intentional in order to give the impression of Walker ‘warming up’ as he pursues his quest. It doesn’t seem to be that simple though. The quest has given Walker a meaning, purpose, a goal but the man is still an empty vessel.
The energy of his relentless pursuit has made him seem alive again but, really, he’s not. He’s become something else entirely. A chameleon. His changing colors don’t reflect changes within but the adoption of the environment without. He’s reflecting his environment, not expressing what lies within.
Walker starts off wearing grey and white. Washed out. Empty. His wife is much the same as her dress and apartment attest. There is no life to them, they are just simulacrums going through the motions. His wife’s color is figuratively represented by the liquids in the tub – including a close up of the reds suggesting blood – that slowly drain away.
 |
His new quest is his sister-in-law, Chris (played to perfection by Angie Dickenson). She has her own vital force and her yellow ia a brilliant burning contrast to Walker’s pale blue. Subsequently, he adopts it… draws from it and uses it to bolster his own strength.
It seems like a step in the right direction but it doesn’t last. When she leaves he changes again. He tracks down his quarry to the business building he’s taken on their color –green. The money is the bottom line now. But it really isn’t.
When Chris returns he’s still in that outfit and she is now in orange – still burning and plenty hot but not as brightly. After they clash he takes on that color as well. At the very end of the film he returns to the chameleon but, this time, he disappears into the shadows, the background of darkness.
There is a theory that Walker imagines this entire film as he dies in the prison cell or that he is a ghost throughout. There certainly is enough weird symbolic baggage in the film to make a case for this unorthodox interpretation. A gut shot is tough to survive but takes awhile to die from. Getting off Alcatraz is a mighty rough go for a healthy man as the intro suggests.
Moreover, Boorman has strewn plenty of strange images and flashbacks throughout Point Blank to give this theory credence. Although Walker is on the ferry there are interspersed images of him in the water. Which is real? The ferry seems so but notice nobody takes any notice of him and Yost and they don’t even look at each other. (In fact the Yost/Fairfax is downright spectral in his appearances as well adds to the idea).
And then ferries are known to be a pretty direct route to hell, as well. But Walker doesn’t seem ready to get off the boat and there’s no indication he’s carrying the correct fare anyway. What he does is walks directly back into his life. His footfalls ring powerfully every step
In the commentary, Boorman says the film is purposefully ambigous; "What you see is what you get." His partner on the commentary, Stephen Soderbergh, follows up with the more important observation “Does it matter?” And this seems to be correct. The spectral theory doesn't change the import of Walker's personal journey.
 |
This existential question runs alongside an uneasy undercurrent of sexual tension throughout the whole of Point Blank. It lurks on the edges of every scene as much as the threat of violence. Walker seems completely capable of handing the latter but seems to be at a loss when it comes to the former.
Boorman makes this idea explicit with the strange cuts in the love scene. Each time the lovers turn over it shows a different pair; Walker and Chris, Mel and Chris, Mel and Lynn, Walker and Lynn. The relationships of intimacy are not simply one to one, they extend throughout the entire group. And it includes the homosexual overtones as well.
Because Walker’s relationship with his adversary, Mal (interestingly, the only character with a first and last name) is infused with as much sexual tension as his relationships with both Lynn and Chris. While, to a point, it can be seen as the power struggle between the cuckold and the knave, Boorman takes pains to suggest there is much more than that as well.
Walker’s recollection of his initial encounter with Mel at the reunion involves a clumsy drunken embrace on the floor that suggests physical intimacy beyond simply camaraderie. The scene succeeds in suggesting there has been a significant and long-standing relationship between the two but it also suggests much more.
And the situation isn’t simply with this one man. The flashback scene of Walker meeting his wife shows him in the community of men being drawn out by the woman. Even though he is attracted to her, he does so from his relationship with other males.
 |
Throughout Point Blank men are repeatedly shown as seeing women solely in a sexual sense and nothing else; leering glances, knowing looks and crass innuendo. The logic here seems pretty obvious. If men tend to define their relationships with women in lewd terms aren’t their relationships with men necessarily set in similar terms?
Obviously, Chris is the most obvious sexual object in the film. She is desired by both men and, eventually, both sleep with her. But the reasons are quite different.
She agrees to Mal’s advances in order to trap him. She acts outwardly compliant but is horrified at the prospect. With Walker she is outwardly horrified but, in truth, desires him. The paradox is something that both have to struggle with because it forces them to finally be honest with each other.
And that honest dovetails with the existential question Walker is finding himself faced with as well. Sex in and of itself can be a substitute for meaning but, like money, it is eventually insufficient.
He returns to his wife but she has become empty as him. He fills his world with his quest for revenge but that should be sated by the death of his adversary. He then follows the money and that turns out to be a shibboleth as well.
The climax to the conundrum comes in the strangely antiseptic house in the Hollywood hills. He and Chris set up a perverse domesticity, sparring with each other using the weapons of a worn marriage. He ignores the conflict by seeking the distraction of television; she disturbs the peace of with the tools of the kitchen. They stalk each other through the barren halls of the house like a married couple who have failed to fill their relationship with any substance.
And when Walker and Chris finally allow themselves to be honest about their feelings, and allow themselves to fall in bed together, it creates an understanding about their relationship that Walker realizes he cannot risk.
 |
He remembers this price and, finally, realizes his own culpability in it. Why is there any reason to believe this relationship will end any differently? So now he faces the sad paradox – if he really does care for Chris, he’ll forfeit his own desires and let her go.
Which puts him back at square one. And this time, when he continues his quest the quarry reacts differently than he expects. Brewster (an energetic and delightful Carol O'Connor) immediately challenges him about his purpose; “You're a very bad man, Walker, a very destructive man! Why do you run around doing things like this?”
He falls back on his stock answer about the money but he realizes it’s not true and Brewster says as much. Suddenly, he realizes, he doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t have any reason to keep pursuing his relentless quest.
Still, he follows through with his quest even though it takes him back to where it began but, with nothing left to hold onto, he slips back into the shadows.
more: Movies
| add a comment |