I re-watched two Tom Cruse films over the past two weeks, and have come to different opinions about them from the first time I watched them several years ago. Those two films are Vanilla Sky and Collateral.
Collateral
My initial view of Collateral was dim: I found the existential hitman concept tired (done by better by Leon, funnier by Grosse Point Blank and a thousand times in numerous Hong Kong movies (usually staring Chow Yen Fatt)). The dialogue is weak and the conversations between the hitman and taxi driver sounds like it was written by a particularly angsty teenage who has just discover puberty.
The plot is kind of interesting, in a "what would I do in that situation" kind of way, though the taxi driver's lack of ingenuity makes him kind of bland and dull. Tom Cruise is one dimensional as Vincent; Fox is one and half dimensional as Max.
But what is fully fleshed is the city itself: Los Angeles. The city is alive and absolutely three dimensional. The existentialism exists in the glass and concrete, in the lines of palm trees, in the metal boxes and electric street lights.
Nearly every scenes is a song to the city. The angles, the reflections, the interiors, and the vast highways. The spotless subway, the straight lines brushing up, pressing against and entrapping the people inside. Making them dance, stay up late, and carry on driving.
I think my view of Collateral changed after living in Japan. London doesn't have the new building, the glass, steel, and grey. London has red brick and terracotta tiles. But cities in Japan, like Michael Mann's Los Angeles, maintain a dull throb of life, wherever your are and no matter how late.
Vanilla Sky
I remember thinking after the first time I watched this that it was all a bit too clever clever and not enough ideas. Again, cryogenics is not a new idea and neither is confusion between dreams and reality. (I remember a group of friends and I made up a song called dreams and reality when I was in the first year of secondary school).I also didn't really relate to Paul Aames. He was a bit too smarmy, a bit too successful, a bit too in your face and a bit of a bastard to his friends. I remember not liking the ending, the explanation of the Kurt Russell character. Too twee. Too cute. No good.
But I started watching again yesterday on TV, and I was mesmerised. Some films have to be watch twice: first time to experience it, second time to try and make some sense of it. I didn't realise how clever the dialogue was: the repeating themes of sight and happiness, Benny the dog, masks and appearances. Disfigurement.
I've also seen the original Spanish version - Abre Los Ojos - on which this is based, again a good few years ago. It was good, but still flawed. Some things were better, some worst was my opinion at the time.
But now, a little older, I see it for what it is. It isn't anything to do with the denouement and subsequent explanation, nothing to do with posh people losing fame, money, and beauty, but the whole story is about lost opportunity. Cameron Crowe does what he does best, makes a love story that reaches in you.
It's about chances slipping away. About the chance encounters that linger and burn, that you think could have bloomed. The kernel unplanted and unwatered. Those people that make an impression, an indelible smudge on your soul that you can't shake and even if you could, never would want to erase. Those nights that bring on the what ifs and the how about.
About those girls that saw right through you and pierced your humanity and those girls that knew they destroyed you and tried to fix you with simplest of smiles.
And the end is just about loss. About tasting what could have been, making the whole experience even sadder. Heart crashingly sad.
And the final decision is to choose a life of loss overl dreams because at the end of the day, you are human and your desire to live is stronger than your desire for happiness.