by Brett Parker
One of the most peculiar yet enriching aspects of cinema is the philosophical ways a particular film’s ideology can tap into primal spiritual truisms nested deep within our own soul. For some movies go beyond the standard opening weekend criticisms and represent specific moods and codes that take on a surprising human dimension far beyond the confines of a movie’s pop product tailoring. Not to say that each film that fits such a profile is chalked up as Great Art, but even disposable Hollywood fluff can put forth ideals that can strike one with the same power as a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It’s thoughts like these that flood my heart as I realize I got quite a bit out of James Bond’s last outing, Spectre, amidst a world that apparently didn’t. I’ve read criticisms pegging the dark 007 tale as redundant, sluggish, preposterous, and vapid--and I don’t even think most of these musings are fully wrongheaded--but I feel Sam Mendes and a crew of master technicians have crafted a work that acknowledges the shadowy depths of the globe we inhabit and the stark, subtle instincts we need in order to properly deal with such darkness.
I’ll spare you the minute details of my life and those around me, but I can say with confidence that as a man in the throes of his thirties living in such a bewildering American landscape in 2016, I’ve observed despair and solemnity up-close-and-personal. Don’t think for one second that my life is an ongoing series of Charles Dickens hardships, but negative energy fueled by the unstable and fearful times we inhabit appear to be spilling over into everyone’s psyches lately. I’ve dealt with stresses and then had to sit back and watch almost everyone around me deal with difficulties that easily dwarf mine by comparison. For a hard lesson this planet dishes out with brute force at times is how life isn’t the sugary-sweet cinematic dreamscape in which everything is going to work out bright and sunny in the end. This globe is filled with sinister forces that use hopelessness, duplicity, and hostility as strong weapons. Such darkness can exploit the unpleasantness lurking beneath one’s environment to create a cocktail of chaos and calamity that can prove merciless to people’s inner-state. It’s the kind of darkness that can knock the most optimistic of free-thinkers down to an existential Hades with a swiftness as scary as its coldness. When black waves of tragedy threaten to engulf you and it feels like the Devil himself has the game rigged, how on Earth do you keep on playing?
Such feelings helped me to strongly identify the most striking thing about Spectre: how shrewdly Sam Mendes has allowed the ominous and hellish overtones of such a dark world to infect the traditionally glamourous cinescape of the James Bond formula. The traditional fixings of a Bond picture are right there on the screen--Bond Girls, secret gadgets, foreign locales, grotesque death traps, etc.--yet they all feel trapped in a bleak, unforgiving nightmare. The cryptic quote that opens the movie--”The dead are alive”--and the image of Bond disguised as a Skeleton at The Day of the Dead Festival in Mexico City alert the viewer that the secret agent is plunging into a deathly realm where spirits of the underworld have taken a stronghold on all things decent. The brooding cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema (Let the Right One In, Interstellar) almost serves as an antithesis to the typical Bond movie look, draining the screen of the lush colors and exotic vitality we’ve come to expect from the tradition. As if the Grim Reaper himself is draining the Bond universe of blood and mojo, Hoytema’s morbid shadows and hellfire-tinged hues bring a 007 movie the closest one’s been to looking like an all-out horror movie.
Spectre follows Bond’s quest to uncover a secretive and expansive villainous enterprise that has its hand (or tentacle) in every shady deed on a global scale, especially the danger and foes he’s faced in past adventures. The closer Bond gets to unraveling the mysteries of this shadowy organization, the more his immediate world is thrown into desperate chaos. His MI6 home base is faced with extinction, he’s pushed onto the world stage without a government calvary to back him up when needed, he witnesses a secret meeting with devastating dealings and a brutal murder, he’s forced to show trust towards a shady adversary from his past, he’s subjected to a literally mind-blowing form of torture, and he comes to discover that a crucial chapter from his rocky childhood may have inadvertently led to manifesting most of the evil in this world. One tip-off to the film’s suffocating tragic overtones is the melancholy bitterness inherent in the Bond Girls on display this time out. Monica Bellucci (in full-knockout mode) represents the sultry Bond Girl who is a surefire magnet for death and danger, only she goes out of her way to make you feel the defeat and nihilism that would infect such a person. Lea Seydoux represents the more headstrong beauty who can assist Bond in tricky action situations, but a complicated tragedy in her world and Bond’s connection to it forces her to defy being a mindless bedmate and reveals the peculiar pain inherent in such a woman in Bond’s deadly orbit.
The Daniel Craig James Bond pictures as a whole appear to have the fantastical mission of depicting what 007 adventures would look like within the confines of the real world. Casino Royale showed how the Bond formula could be birthed into a realistic setting, Quantum of Solace acknowledged the unforgiving evil that would have to walk alongside a man in Bond’s profession, and Skyfall gloriously depicted the adventurous grandeur that would emerge if you reconciled the ideas of a fantastical Bond adventure with a gritty, realistic one. Since these earlier Bond films brought a neo-realistic sleekness to Ian Fleming’s original view of the James Bond myth, Spectre gives the same treatment to the ultimate villainy in the Bond legend and paints a more specific idea of how a realistic secret agent could be thrusted into an over-the-top spy thrill ride. The unsettling mystery, grotesque hostility, extravagant architectures, and deranged baddies that have been crucial elements in a long history of Bond villains gets placed under the microscope of dramatic realism, and we realize how the sinister hunger of evil minds can spawn high-octane violence on a grand scale.
The film’s big revelation involves the ying-yang effect of having a villainous entity that holds as much global reach and psychological trauma as Bond himself. So even though Christoph Waltz’s turn as legendary archenemy Blofeld was pegged as Walz’s heel business as usual, you can almost miss the subtle brilliance of his portrayal, which plays up on Daniel Craig’s icy restraint in devilish ways. If Craig filters Bond’s charm and charisma through a smoldering shield of subdued intensity, then Waltz follows suit by serving as an evil twin to Bond’s style, delivering his steely glare right back to him. Even the deeply-absurd backstory that connects both hero and foe brings a remarkable closure to a dilemma posed in Casino Royale: how using trauma’s to fuel ones internal fires can cause wild flames that could have the whole world burn. This is why at a crucial moment when Bond declines a killshot and exclaims “I have better things to do” brings a surprising human catharsis for a character who historically deals in shallow victories.
While Daniel Craig is widely regarded as on of the best James Bonds ever, there were those who sensed a certain weariness within him on this particular outing. This feeling was most likely fueled by a widespread blogosphere tidbit where Craig noted in an interview that “I’d rather slash my wrists” than play Bond again. Not only do I feel such thoughts take away from the lovely fact that Craig now wears the role like a familiar glove with the same nonchalant confidence Sean Connery possessed, but even if a certain disgruntled gruffness is apparent in the role, it doesn’t at all betray how Bond would conduct himself in a real-world-gone-Hades. If you pay close attention to Craig’s nuances throughout the movie and the deadly business at hand, you’ll realize Bond’s demeanor holds hidden wisdom on dealing with scary challenges. For if all hell is breaking lose around you, it’s best to keep your elemental values as close to the chest as possible and use them to push you forward by any means necessary. There won’t always be time in life for cutesy chit-chat and sexy rendezvous, for it’s best in dire situations to cut out all nonsense and hype-up everything in your soul to vanquish darkness. Manliness is more than wearing flashy suits and crashing sports cars, it’s putting aside petty emotions and seeing terrifying tasks through no matter how soul-crushing the journey. You can strip a man of toys and money, but the morals and spirit that pushes him through is what truly makes him a man. While I’ve always been enthusiastic about Craig’s Bond arc from the start, his universe becoming a brooding horror show this time out has illuminated his lionhearted qualities with a quiet effectiveness that you could almost blink-and-miss, for real men don’t always have time for show-and-tell.
I’ve heard the points of those who’ve taken the time to intelligently report the flaws in Spectre and I admit I don’t outright disagree with all of them. The film is certainly not as exciting as Skyfall and I even wonder if it would’ve benefitted more from the kind of creepier vibes on full display in Quantum of Solace. In a way, perhaps a movie that tries to be both a painstaking-portrait of supreme villains and an adventurous James Bond picture is contradictive and self-defeating in itself, for the absurdities within the Bond formula would hinder the seriousness of a film trying to explore brutal evil while the grim realities of global shadiness puts quite a damper on the fun we’ve come to expect from even the most serious of 007 thrill rides ( a tightrope difficulty that was also very apparent in Quantum of Solace as well).
I’ve ingested all these observations and find I do not care, for I received a personal satisfaction from the film that may feel too hyperbolic and peculiar for most ordinary tastes. Perhaps I had too many plain M&M’s the night I saw the film, allowing my inner-12-year-old to take too strong a hold on my rational adult mind. Perhaps I was jonesing too hard for a thrilling cinematic experience after an underwhelming summer movie season that left me starving for a tentpole flick that actually delivers the goods. But as I sat down in front of a beloved IMAX screen on a lonely autumn night, I was weighed down by stresses and hardships that had me begging for escapism and our modern day James Bond treated me to an exciting reminder that one must Keep Calm and Carry On like a Badass. We can all drive off into a sunset of our choosing with rewards at our side as long as we don’t allow the evil forces of this world to knock us off our paths. Spectre was good, old-fashioned fantasy wish-fulfillment to me, and that, my friends, is what movies are truly all about. So one should not cry for the lukewarm reception towards Spectre, for the rich cinematic history of the James Bond universe will always provide a relevant place in history for the movie’s legacy and its relationship to the grander myth at large will always be noted upon as long as people still talk about James Bond. However, any time from here on out when Spectre randomly shows up on whatever screen I happen to be watching, I’ll smile in recognition of how a movie everyone pegged as disposable provided me with True Grit ideas on how to overcome adversity with the calmness of one of Her Majesty's Secret Service.
