Max
Rental with snacks
Max is a film that utterly stymies my writing abilities. It's a difficult, unique film, heaped with the irony of retrospect and based only partially in cold hard fact, but one that you and your cronies can discuss for hours on end. It's a study in contrast, opposites, including the terrible question of whether the arts really can avert violence. You say you never heard of it? It's shocking, really. It's about Hitler, sort of, but it's a side of Hitler few people want to acknowledge ever existed. Let's get this straight - I agree that Hitler was a maniac, driven beyond any reason to set horrible machinery in action. One must also concede that however misguided and perverse his end goals, his machinations were genius. His cohesive marketing of his vision, for lack of a better phrase, is legendary for making normal people into monsters by his sheer power and charisma. And it is Hitler as the tortured, uncharismatic genius of a nobody, the frustrated artist and unwilling speech class participant, that Max as a film deals with. Of course, much of the irony is seeing a film that is entirely made up of foreshadowing, about this skinny, pale, aimless slacker whose true skill lies in sensitive portraits of puppies and landscapes, before he would be the mad icon we think of him as today.
But who is Max? Max (John Cusack) is a Jewish art gallery owner from whom Hitler (Noah Taylor, from Shine) seeks advice, guidance, respect, even patronage. Max is a bitter, wealthy and philandering veteran, robbed of his own art by the loss of his arm, and he lends a hand to struggling young Adolf. Hitler finds Max's hypocrisy and his brand of protest through performance art disgusting; not for its content, but for its execution. Which is more valuable? Technique or expression? Cohesiveness or content? Methods or motives? Hitler is an ascetic whose only vice is a rather unpopular view on the purity of blood. He turns off the girls not for being racist, but rather for being obsessive. His rage boils at being ignored, at being frustrated, at being weak and small and ruined by his own blood. He needs an outlet, and Max is trying to give him a way to find a positive outlet. Irony again - when the Jewish art dealer sees Hitler finally finding his true voice (on paper) and perceives it as metaphor, and encourages Hitler, toward his own demise. Max is the subject of the film, technically speaking, though Max and his actions and his world is more of a catalyst for Hitler's transformation, and Max could have been his own savior.
Some of the dialogue is so absurd, knowing the ultimate outcome of this 1920's Munich semi-friendship, that one wonders how any line delivery could make them work. Cusack is of course the only man for the job. Noah Taylor, apparently focusing his career on showing the artistic pre-madness genesis of prodigies (see: Shine), is an amazing Hitler. His awkwardness, his fury, his obsessiveness, insecurity, his misplaced humilations and judgemental glowers, are all a delight to watch. These two men live such deeply distinct lives. Little is discussed in the cinema of the time before WWII, before the man became a monster, before politics and art had their lovers' tiff. War was depravity and it was glory, depending on who wins of course. Audiences seem to flee before this movie, not wanting to see Hitler as a sympathetic character driven to the highest of all brinks by his extreme situation and lack of outlet. They don't much want to see a Hitler movie that has comedy slipped between the cracks either. It's fascinating, though I wonder how much is based in fact and how much is dramatic license. None of it feels impossible, although so much "woulda shoulda coulda" can make your head spin.
On a certain level, this movie is like a negative of the Last Temptation of Christ. A warm and humanstic view of a larger than life icon before the famous and enormous events that made the subject an icon, with one act of betrayal (perceived or real) by a conflicted character that could have averted the whole result.
I should note that I watched this film in a double feature with The Pianist, which is a sobering afternoon to spend, even if one does soften the blow with The Producers. We know how Hitler in Max turns out, but it is fascinating to see him get there.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2002-2003 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. reviews@cinerina.com Check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource http://www.mediamotions.com for 1999 releases
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