On Somewhere

 

Director: Sofia Coppola

Runtime: 98 minutes

Somewhere could be everywhere. So to say, the title doesn´t give much away about the films location. The film plays mainly in Los Angeles and is centered about the life of a very famous actor. Sofia wants me to believe that this nice guy, who could be almost everybody everywhere - the father of four next door, the mechanic who fixed the refrigerator yesterday, the cute student of law on a fresh party - she wants me to believe that he is a famous actor. I don´t believe her. Famous: Yes, Actor: No. He doesn´t talk much and to me there was almost nothing to find out about his hobbies. Sometimes in the evening he orders two similar looking poledance girls into his hotel suite. I can imagine quite a few single-men like him who would enjoy that. And I believe almost everyone of them, if he had a few millions on his balance, would practically do so. Our protagonist, as Sofia demonstrates many times later in the film, does not have to order paid women. Almost every woman in the film wants to have sex with him and if there is time and space, he goes for it. Uniforms can´t be his motive: this fetish is way too harmless for any woman to not fullfil. So, Johnny Marco, why do you order poledancers and (most likely) pay them for sex? You are so bored of their dancing that you even fall asleep.... Sofia doesn´t tell me the answer either and to be honest I believe, she does not know her.

Yes, famous he is. Everybody recognizes him and he has many important meetings through the film. Still though, he is not very intelligent, does not study roles in his free time and just follows his agents orders and most of the time, for example when giving a press-conference or receiving an award, he is siginificantly overchallenged. You´d ask yourself how can he be successfull this way? Is he just in a bad phase? If yes, this is not reflected well enough as I felt the film wants to make me believe that he is always like this in his job. So, Johnny, why are you so successfull? There is no answer in the film. If he was a photo-model or something, I´d believe Sofia. 

As his ex-wife who has about one minute screen-time travels 'away', he wants to take care of his daughter before her time in a camp is going to start: He takes her with him to Italy where a film with him as the lead actor is going to be premiered. Although it´s clear that they usually rarely see each other, they spend a nice time. His daughter is a tough little girl and they have a healthy relationship.

That´s about it. There are some not very interesting (though often funny) side-characters and a few funny and cheerfull situations and dialogues. However, since there is almost no conflict in the film, there is not much happening. The editing of the film I thought was very boring. There was no dynamic coming from the editing and there were several shots cut way too late. Maybe Sofia wanted this, maybe she wanted to show something, but in these super-long shots you got the idea after the first ten seconds and the other fourty seconds are just boring as there is actually almost never something happening. Don´t get me wrong, I like films with well composed long-shots and little editing like Jarmusch´s visual meditation "The limits of control".

After he said goodbye to his daughter we see him alone in his hotel. Then he calls his ex-wife and starts whining. "I am fucking nothing, I am not a person" he says. I did not feel bad for him. Why? I never found out what he wanted to be anyways. "I am not a person"??? I thought he was a person - at least this is what Sophia was drastically trying to tell me for eighty minutes and he didn´t seem like he didn´t like his life either. Johnny was not in any conflict or difficult situation in these jetset eighty minutes and now all of a sudden I am expected to believe that his life in general is his conflict? His ex-wife does not believe him, too. "Why do not volunteer or something?" is her recommondation. "Can you come over?" he asks. "No." she answers. How could she? I thought she travelled 'away'...

All in all to me the film is lacking of inspiration, is an attempt of a real-life adaption which is working in small scenes very well and highly entertaining, but is not working as whole.

Films, critics and you

When my young love-life reached the point of aimlessness and more serious unanswered questions about life had arised, one answer was already there and definite: I never wanted to be a film critic!

Everytime when I scrolled through a newspaper or magazine and a critique appeared, I thought to myself: Why would anybody want to read this? The most common answer by relatives and friends was: "People read this because they want to know whether they should go see the movie or not."

Go! / Don´t go!
Nowadays there are many critiques like this in the newspapers and all over the internet: Three point five out of five stars, "Exceptional", "Recommended before or after candle-light dinner" and if you are honest the accompanying ten lines of text are rarely more revealing than a trailer or a poster. Therefore I don´t consider "Go / Don´t go!"-critiques as critiques but as almost useless information.

The more sophisticated answer to my question is "It´s a judgement of the movie by a film critic".

(I) judge the film
The modern trend in film critiques goes something like this: The film is the object. The critic who watched the film is not the subject. The critic is objective! How can he? Well, he is a film critic. He does not care if you are going to watch the film or not. He believes that after you read his critique you know everything about the film and especially it´s impact on our universe. He tells you what actors are "good" in the film, whether the director "succeeded" or not and so on. He makes you forget that he in fact is nothing more than a Pete with a pen and since we don´t know anything about Pete and his personal life, his critique is as worthless as a lamp without a bulb.

You might have noticed that the reason why you go to the movies is everything else but a film critic or his review. Most of the time it is a friend telling you that you "must see it!". And rarely more. And you go there!

Now here is the tiny but important difference to the "Go! / Don´t go!" critique. A friend told you to go. Your friend is a good guy, you know it. He is intelligent and shares a lot of interests with you. If he likes this film, chances are high that you will enjoy the evening together with another friend. We can therefore venture to deduct that people following the "Go! / Don´t go!" critique are rather poor souls with

a) no friends or
b) friends who all read the same magazine.

But this is not important and who cares for them anyway? There must be a reason why they have no friends, right?

You might probably also have noticed, that you learn more about a friend of yours when you tell him about a film which you think is great and he tells you he thinks its crap. The arising discussion about the film usually fades into a discussion about personal likes and dislikes, art and beauty in general and often even about philosophical views on life.

This is why I believe without doubt that the only real critique is a subjective one in which the critic reveals as much about himself as he reveals about the movie. This way he enables you to trust or doubt him before seeing the movie and to agree or disagree with him afterwards. And I don´t think it should be called critique or review. It should be called...

Subjective statement
Films are subjective statements. There is one film and many viewers. They see it and in them the film transforms into a new subjective statement. When somebody is talking about a film both of the following can happen: He reveals something about the film or the film reveals something about him. This happens in the same way in which the film reveals something about its director, as the film is the directors "critique or review" of a story or event that existed before his film (as a real event, a screenplay, an idea...). When we are talking about films we all transform into newly influenced different subjective statements about a film and sometimes, after a year or two we see the film again and notice - how much we have changed!

To that power of art in films I dedicate this blog. You will read my very subjective thoughts and impressions on newly released films and those that existed before I was born. You will read my rant and praise on others impressions. One thing I promise: It won´t be boring unless you are.


P.S.: I will try to post German translations simultanously (as German is my native language) and probably somebody will help me for my fellow Russians. Please feel free to correct all my grammar and word mistakes and send them to lee.leegraf.grafATgmail.com