Dans Papers - May 18, 2007 - Jindabyne Hot Fuzz

Everythin' was so fine and nice in Richmond, Virginia during Joe and Junko's huge garden party, where good ol' boys' barbecue and Japanese cuisine share honors with incredible gardens. 'Tis sad that the Queen and Prince missed a genuine American, nary-a-white-tie party. Let's go for a taste of the Brits' film fare for the heck of it, to a placid, small town north of London where Miss Marple was want to encounter a murder most foul and wicked. However, the tranquil town of Sandford, pictured in Hot Fuzz, becomes a bloody hell of the now typical, lock-and-unload-an-explosive-mass-of-gore-and-freakiness, American action flick. It's a riot-racked parody of lustful bloodletting and bang-up belly laughs. And then, way down under, to the far away castoff Brits of Australia, who've produced the quite serious, sobering Jindabyne, a morality tale of atonement featuring a haunting metaphor of buried experiences that may surface, emotionally. It also gives us a marvelous performance by Laura Linney. Like the global distance of the two films, they are miles apart.

Jindabyne, in the mountains of southeast Australia, is now a resort lake for sports such as fishing and skiing. But in 1960, the town, deep set in the valley, was stagnant. It was purposely flooded and left to rot, giving the outdoor people a leisure time paradise. The creative director, Ray Lawrence, fashioned this film and the innovative 2001 film Lantana in a many threaded, storytelling style that has influenced important recent films, such as Babel and Crash. The director utilizes the method to explore the many ways a group of individuals is affected by a singular incident - the discovery of the body of a murdered aboriginal woman by a group of men fishing in the Jindabyne area. Almost innocently, they decide to continue their fishing for another day or two as planned before they notify the police. Oh, yes, the men were shocked, especially Stewart, enacted by that stalwart performer Gabriel Byrne, but at the time, they had no idea that their insensitivity would, or could, stir up such turmoil within their family lives. In particular, Stewart's wife Claire, a transplanted American portrayed to the soul by Ms. Linney, is outraged. Not only is there the male/female difference in feelings of gender but, also the pressures of the many social and moral issues within the community. Besides Claire and Stewart, there are other frostbitten events preceding the gruesome corpse discovery. Following the birth of their son, Claire had a mental episode and left their home. Upon returning, she had to contend with Stewart's interfering mother. Claire's American sensibility adds to her need to therapeutically work out the jolting incident - to sift through healing and find closure - whereas local women think of moving on and not doting on the shame and her anger of the men's behavior. Linney's ability to exhibit psychological clarity grabs our attraction to her and enhances her gentle saneness. On the other hand, we are especially moved by her vulnerability.

The downside of Mr. Lawrence's adaptation of a Raymond Carver's short story is its ambitious reaching to say a great deal about race, sexual differences, friendships, hate, evil and its inexplicable pervasiveness. Don't be intimidated. In this case, more is not bad at all.

Just as Jindabyne's director has influenced filmmakers, so have Hollywood's violence-laced, hi-test, high-testosterone geeks influenced the world market. The terrorizing obviousness of the bang-bang, boom-boom movie makes it ideal to satirize Hot Fuzz with the team. British comedian-writer Simon Pegg and director-writer Edgar Wright who, with Pegg's partner, Nick Frost (see their cadaver, decaying Shaun of the Dead), are able to recreate the frenzy of quick-cutting, insanity-ridden, brain-dead crime dilemmas that end with shootouts that promise to be the ultimate end dead-on. Hot Fuzz not only manages to copy the madness with tongue-in-cheek, they rip them to shreds.

"A plot?" you ask. Why not? Pegg is too good a cop for London. He's making the others look bad. So, they relocate him to a precinct in the sticks. Pegg is so good there, too, that he manages to see through "accidents," to the delight of the rotund Frost, a frustrated policeman who longs to leap over a car while firing his pistol sideways. His father is a daft chief inspector played perfectly by Jim Broadbent, one of the dozen great acting delights who elevate this movie - Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan, Edward Woodward and Billie Whitelaw, Legends all. Downside? True to replicating the likes of a Michael Bay-directed movie or a Jerry Bruckheimer production, Hot Fuzz is too long, but so is the neck of the starring swan. It's gracefully long.

Guy Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award-winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmy's and various film festivals. Sarah Halsey assists him.