Saturday, December 31, 2016
Havoc (2005)
A coming of age story about two young women, Allison and Emily, played by Anne Hathaway and Bijou Philips, which revolves around discovery and identity – the gray area between adolescence and young adulthood. The girls are surrounded by two groups of men. One group is friends from high school, the other, gangbangers from East L. A. The girls and their high school friends are from the Hills or, presumably, posh suburbs. They drive Mercedes and vintage cars. Their home lives are fragmented by parents too preoccupied and self-absorbed to recognize the growing transformations in the young girls. Incompetent and inadequate, the parents do not know how to respond to the children. For instance, after posting bond for Allison, arrested with gangbangers selling crack on the streets, the only consolation her mother offers is a bowl of soup!
The girls and their friends adopt and emulate gangster culture and lifestyles, but not the intrinsic values. Through smart, powerful direction by Barbara Kopple, it is revealed that the identities these kids create for themselves are based on what they see on TV and in videos, what they hear in gangster rap, what they read about. They aspire to live out their fantasies. The contrast between the privileged youth and the real gangsters they meet in the hood is profound. Far from a reality check, however, it is a reality discovery. Allison’s love interest, Toby, a ridiculous rapper gangster wanna-be, wets himself when a gun is pulled on him in the hood.
The over-arching theme to this movie is the budding sexuality of the two girls, like the painting “Puberty” by Munch where a young girl sits on a bed with her shadow – large, obscure, dominating, obscene – beside her. The shadow signifies the onset of the girl’s sexuality, that freight train of awareness and actuality. It’s a power that is vast, overbearing and complex.
Compared to the girls, the men’s stories seem trivial, a stereotypical search for meaning through violence and arbitrary drug use. In conversations between Toby and Allison, it is immediately apparent that she is more mature, deeper, searching, enigmatic.
The one gleaming exception to this set of circumstances is Alvarado. Excellently played by Freddy Rodriguez, he is Allison’s other love interest, more hers than his. He is curious about this girl from the Hills, and introduces her to the realities of the hood and explains the rules and differences between the suckers and the moneymakers, the slaves and the masters. He is humanized by being shown at home with his family and at a block party in his own element. On the street he maintains the appropriate persona. To the girls it is real and exciting, an experience unattainable at home and at their parties. And it is this excitement that leads Allison and Emily to explore the hood more frequently, more fervently, and also perpetuates the climax of the film when they go too far. The climax itself is almost circumstantial, a confirmation that the girls – the possessors – do not know how to articulate or express their essential being, their cause. Their dilemma is common to most adolescents. They are treated like girls at school and home when they are really already women; they are treated like women outside when are really just grown-up girls.
There is an authenticity in Kopple’s depiction of the teenagers: what they do, where they go, how they interact. Who from the suburbs hasn’t gone straight to the hood once they’d procured a car and a driver’s license? The contrast between the two cultures – rich, white upper class and dark, urban gangster – credible. Credit also must be given to screenwriter Stephen Gagham, a prodigious talent. There is a dramatic dynamic between the two girls when they interact with themselves, their parents, friends and the new gangster friends. There is another dynamic with the character Eric who videotapes his friends as a hobby. The director employs the “movie-within-a-move” technique with intent and purpose. The kids use the camera to express themselves, their awareness, interest and desire. It shows how each character role-plays through the eye of the camera, and also, paradoxically, through the events of their lives. The central dilemma arises when the kids’ play-acting is transposed onto the reality of the streets.
There are real consequences to the cultural exchange suburban kids and the gangbangers. The girls become victims of their explorations, and the men that follow them victims of each other. All according to the role of the dice.
The girls and their friends adopt and emulate gangster culture and lifestyles, but not the intrinsic values. Through smart, powerful direction by Barbara Kopple, it is revealed that the identities these kids create for themselves are based on what they see on TV and in videos, what they hear in gangster rap, what they read about. They aspire to live out their fantasies. The contrast between the privileged youth and the real gangsters they meet in the hood is profound. Far from a reality check, however, it is a reality discovery. Allison’s love interest, Toby, a ridiculous rapper gangster wanna-be, wets himself when a gun is pulled on him in the hood.
The over-arching theme to this movie is the budding sexuality of the two girls, like the painting “Puberty” by Munch where a young girl sits on a bed with her shadow – large, obscure, dominating, obscene – beside her. The shadow signifies the onset of the girl’s sexuality, that freight train of awareness and actuality. It’s a power that is vast, overbearing and complex.
Compared to the girls, the men’s stories seem trivial, a stereotypical search for meaning through violence and arbitrary drug use. In conversations between Toby and Allison, it is immediately apparent that she is more mature, deeper, searching, enigmatic.
The one gleaming exception to this set of circumstances is Alvarado. Excellently played by Freddy Rodriguez, he is Allison’s other love interest, more hers than his. He is curious about this girl from the Hills, and introduces her to the realities of the hood and explains the rules and differences between the suckers and the moneymakers, the slaves and the masters. He is humanized by being shown at home with his family and at a block party in his own element. On the street he maintains the appropriate persona. To the girls it is real and exciting, an experience unattainable at home and at their parties. And it is this excitement that leads Allison and Emily to explore the hood more frequently, more fervently, and also perpetuates the climax of the film when they go too far. The climax itself is almost circumstantial, a confirmation that the girls – the possessors – do not know how to articulate or express their essential being, their cause. Their dilemma is common to most adolescents. They are treated like girls at school and home when they are really already women; they are treated like women outside when are really just grown-up girls.
There is an authenticity in Kopple’s depiction of the teenagers: what they do, where they go, how they interact. Who from the suburbs hasn’t gone straight to the hood once they’d procured a car and a driver’s license? The contrast between the two cultures – rich, white upper class and dark, urban gangster – credible. Credit also must be given to screenwriter Stephen Gagham, a prodigious talent. There is a dramatic dynamic between the two girls when they interact with themselves, their parents, friends and the new gangster friends. There is another dynamic with the character Eric who videotapes his friends as a hobby. The director employs the “movie-within-a-move” technique with intent and purpose. The kids use the camera to express themselves, their awareness, interest and desire. It shows how each character role-plays through the eye of the camera, and also, paradoxically, through the events of their lives. The central dilemma arises when the kids’ play-acting is transposed onto the reality of the streets.
There are real consequences to the cultural exchange suburban kids and the gangbangers. The girls become victims of their explorations, and the men that follow them victims of each other. All according to the role of the dice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)