July 6, 2007

The Method.

The Method James van Maanen's got a recommendation for you. Notes'll follow.

How often does one encounter a narrative film tackling the themes of globalization, capitalism, employment and other current big-business practices? Documentaries may approach this (The Yes Men, Life and Debt, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, etc). But a drama? And one that is also a witty, nasty satire? Forget it. Particularly if you're imagining such a film might come from the US. We're still waiting.

Spain, however, gave one to the world two years ago, with El Método - which made its American debut as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Spanish Cinema Now program in 2005 and, thanks to Palm Pictures, is finally opening in NYC today as The Method.

Updated through 7/7.

A man in a rush takes a car to a hi-rise, at the foot of which, in the streets, a political/economic protest is raging. He elevates to the upper floors, and we discover he is actually one of several candidates for a rather cushy job at an important international company. So begins a movie that is about as timely, funny, fast-moving (considering it takes place mostly in one room), surprising and important as anything you'll see this year. You'll have to pay attention to keep up with the quick subtitles and subtleties, but the payoff is extraordinary. That is, if you appreciate being made to think, laugh, gasp and stay alert.

The director, Argentina's Marcelo Piñeyro, gave us the wonderful Wild Horses and the interestingly overwrought Burnt Money, and the screenplay - based on a play by Jordi Galcerán - is co-written with the director by the very talented Mateo Gil (Thesis, Open Your Eyes, Nobody Knows Anybody, The Sea Inside). If this doesn't ring your bell, then the opportunity to see a large handful of Spain's finest actors should clinch the deal. Here are Eduardo Noriega (hunk alert!), Carmelo Gómez, Eduard Fernández, Pablo Echarri (hunk alert #2), Héctor Alterio and on the distaff side (these ladies, beautiful to a fault, are mostly ball-breakers here) Adriana Ozores, Natalia Verbeke and Najwa Nimri. Each nails his/her character quickly and cleverly, and pulls us along at a break-neck pace. This is an actor's movie, certainly, but among its ten international awards are also those for film, screenplay and editing (Iván Aledo).

If The Method does not finally quite live up to it promise - either there are a few too many twists and turns, or I may have missed a connection or two due to my eyes racing between subtitles and visuals - I think you may forgive it. I certainly did. When faced with something this intelligent, timely, entertaining, full of politics, economics and class (in both senses of the word), one does not look that gift horse in the mouth. If you can't get to one of the few major cities where The Method plays theatrically, the DVD will be out, so Palm promises, later this summer.

"The setup promises a corporate cousin of 12 Angry Men, but as this film... unreels, it seems more like Glengarry Glen Ross with splashes of Samuel Beckett and Survivor," finds Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times. "The sum total of this gamesmanship is a suspenseful, funny film that touches on a corporation's responsibility to society, the price of ambition, the persistence of workplace sexism, the destructive competition between women, and why it's a good idea to take an extra shirt to your next interview."

Earlier: Nathan Lee in the Voice.

Update, 7/7: Marcy Dermansky enjoys the "spellbinding skullduggery and bare-knuckles sexual politics."



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Posted by dwhudson at July 6, 2007 5:41 AM

Comments

How about Office Space, I think it was a passable satire of all the things you mentioned.

Posted by: carlos at July 6, 2007 2:54 PM

Also, there's IN THE COMPANY OF MEN and AMERICAN PSYCHO, not exactly obscure films.

Posted by: Steve at July 7, 2007 1:05 PM

Thanks, Carlos and Steve, and yes, American Psycho, In the Company of Men and Office Space are indeed examples of films that address corporate culture and modern business practices. While I liked all three of these films, especially Harron's (a clever critique posing as a psychological slasher movie) and LaBute's (which of course is filled with his usual frightened and vicious males), and prefer Judge's Idiocracy to his low-key and slightly slacker-esque Office Space, the three, being from an earlier decade (all pre-9/11), did not address head-on ideas such as globalization and other newer business "programs" to keep capitalism afloat for a bit longer. This is what I found so bracing about The Method. Though it's been nearly two years since I first saw it, I still remember sitting agape at how timely and relevant it seemed.
We can go back to the 1950s or earlier and MGM's Executive Suite or Gregory Peck as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit for critiques of the corporation. Capitalism must always change--not its basic philosophy but its current practices--in order to keep up with its sated and thus vanishing marketplace. Much of the third world is imploding, as in parts of African, or fighting back, as in the Middle East. And now that China, the great new Capitalist hope (it's even got a dictatorship to keep it in line: the perfect match!) is gracing us with poisoned pet food and toothpaste, putrid pork and just about every food and safety scandal imaginable, I expect we will see within a very few years other new films that address the latest business "trends." But I shudder to imagine what life--and our moviemakers--will be offering us. The final shots of "The Method" might give us a clue. Two years ago I thought these were perhaps a tad too symbolic. Now I wonder if they weren't simply prescient.

Posted by: James van Maanen at July 8, 2007 9:05 AM