Death Note (2006)

Despite its popularity, I have never been tempted by the manga Death Note and its many spinoffs and adaptations; it seemed to be all goths and pretty boys, exactly the kind of manga I cannot get into. Lovefilm delivered the 2006 live action adaptation the other day, and I don't know how close it is to the source material, but it's really quite good.

Genius law student Light Yagami becomes disenchanted with the justice system when he discovers that many of the worst criminals get away with their crimes either through various technicalities, or a lack of confidence and courage from their accusers. It is then that he meets Ryuk, a god of death, who gives him the Death Note, a book with prophetic abilities; if a name is written in the book, then that person will die in whichever method is detailed by the writer, or a heart attack if left unspecified. Light sees this as an opportunity to restore justice to the world and sets about doing away with criminals. The police suspect that the deaths are no coincidence but can find no connection, so turn to another genius, L, so reclusive that he speaks to them through a laptop, his image hidden and his voice disguised. The bulk of the film details the battle between Light and L as they attempt to outmanoeuvre each other.

It's something of a cross between The Silence of the Lambs and that rash of US oddball-genius-solves-crimes shows, and on that level it's more than satisfying, with plenty of fun crunchy bits as we see the pair's plans to defeat each other play out step by step. That said, what impressed me most about the film, and where it has a surprising depth, is in the moral questions it asks.

It starts out as a bog-standard musing on vigilantism and the limits of the justice system, but as the story goes on, it gets more complicated as a result of how the characters develop. Light comes across as a cocky little git right from the start, although it's clear that he cares about people, and it's this combination that leads to his use of the Death Note; that would be enough characterisation for many scriptwriters, but they go further in this film -- I can't go into any details for fear of spoiling it -- and by the end, it asks the viewer some tough questions about their view of the protagonist.

This is all mirrored and somewhat inverted in secondary protagonist L; he's as clever as Light, but sees the investigation as a game to be won or a puzzle to be solved, and the larger question of right and wrong seems to be irrelevant to him. He also seems arrogant but it's less a sense of superiority and more like a detached distance, as he sees only patterns and numbers; he is quite happy to risk and even sacrifice people to draw out his quarry, again forcing the viewer to ask who they're rooting for in this tussle, and why.

For its part, Death Note doesn't provide answers. It presents two characters, each with merits and flaws and each tied into a number of difficult moral quandaries, and then rolls the credits. Like Princess Mononoke's intelligent examination of environmental issues, the film says that there are no easy answers, that life is too complicated, full of compromise and synthesis, and leaves the viewer to figure it all out. It's one of the most subtle, clever and philosophical films I've seen in a long time.

As such, one would think that Ryuk, larking about Light like a Sisters of Mercy version of Roger Rabbit, would spoil the whole thing, but the irony is that this black-clad god of death lends a light-hearted edge to the film. He hangs around as a buddy of sorts to Light, watching TV in his room and eating the family out of apples, and I have to admit that the character design is quite good. The cgi used to realise the character is a bit rough around the edges at times, but he's not in the film enough for it to be a major issue. His inclusion doesn't make the story any less grim or rob it of its depth, but it does rescue it from any possible danger of devolving into navel-gazing self-importance.

Death Note itself is only the first half of the story; a second film was released the same year, and that has now been pushed to the top of my rental list. We'll see how it compares.

In Which Your Author Expresses the Opinions of a Traitor

I see that Toy Story 3 has been nominated for Best Picture, marking the first time that the eighth instalment in a franchise -- because let's face it, The Incredibles, WALL-E and Up aside, they've been making the same film over and over since 1995 -- has got the nod. It's also been nominated in the animated category, which it will almost certainly win, not least because it's up against only two other films and anyway, Pixar Always Wins.

It would take a goof of As Good As It Gets or Forrest Gump proportions for the Academy to give Best Picture to Toy Story 3 this year with such a strong pack around it, but that's not why it won't win. It won't win because it's a cartoon, and cartoons aren't Proper Films. The thing is, despite my hatred for the ruin Pixar has visited upon the animation industry, I would almost like to see them win it this year.

As the story has it, the Academy panicked when animated films started to be taken seriously -- in the US that is; everyone else was already grown up enough to realise that cartoons could be more than trashy Saturday morning fodder --- in the 1990's, with Disney pulling their socks up and getting Beauty and the Beast into the nominations, The Lion King shortly after, Miyazaki not content with the traditional single masterpiece, and yes, Pixar's arrival on the scene. Being, at the end of the day, a bunch of stuffy old snobs, the Academy set up the Best Animated Feature award in 2001 so that there would be no danger of a mere cartoon showing up the real life actors. This backfired when pretty much everyone in the world asked why Wall-E didn't even get a nomination in 2009, despite being the best film of the previous year.

It's a petty, patronising little trinket designed to silence fans of animation and nudge them off into their own little ghetto, and it should be done away with. Even if it means Pixar pick up a Best Picture statuette.

CLiNT #1

Long-time readers will know that I have little love for Mark Millar. He dragged himself up to being a fairly strong writer circa 1999-2000, but since then it's been all empty bluster and superficial shock tactics, as he swaggers around the comics world like some kind of rock star, rather than a ginger bloke from Coatbridge. On the other hand, this swagger brings with it a rampant enthusiasm for comics, and one which appears utterly genuine, even if some of the things he actually says on the subject are rather less so. If someone is going to try to rejuvenate the moribund boys' comics anthology, then it should be someone with this almost berserker level of energy; much as I tend to dislike his comics, I can't think of many better personalities to have as figurehead for a project such as CLiNT.

More here.

Anti Intellectualism

I realised two things today: one, that I get a real buzz from talking about "highbrow" subjects like philosophy, science and history, and two, that I'm terrified of talking about these subjects. They're not related; it's not the same kind of excitement/fear you might get from a rollercoaster, for example. No, I get all excited to be talking about this stuff, but then from somewhere comes this fear that I don't really know what I'm talking about, and the people with whom I'm having this conversation are going to know, and it's all going to come to an embarrassing end.

This has all come up because we've got a temp in my office. Ostensibly, I'm her boss, but not only is she a bit older than me, and something in me thinks that authority and age should be proportional, but she's got a PhD and a fierce intelligence, and I feel like some kind of charlatan. She told me yesterday how she worked in shops until her late twenties, decided enough was enough and got herself a string of degrees, and that got me thinking about how I left my degree behind almost ten years ago. This then developed into a conversation about my interest in philosophy, her interest in history, and it all got a bit indulgent and BBC Fourish, but then I started worrying about just how knowledgeable and clever I was, and I clammed up.

I also became quite aware that I was having a conversation, in broad daylight, in front of a room full of people, about the political and social effects of the English Civil War, in particular the change in role for the landed classes, and it made me feel like a right pretentious twit.

So yeah, that was a good day.

Newsflash: Metaphors Are For Stupid People

From the Radio Times, on Being Human:

"The metaphor of werewolves, ghosts and vampires as outcasts from society works well, although Toby Whitehouse is surely good enough to cast away that crutch and write about real people."