Some filmmakers may have reached a critic-proof position. Paul Thomas Anderson is a perfect example. I don't think one viewing alone can do justice to his work. Anything can happen in a PTA film. He is one of the very few filmmakers unafraid to venture into some uncomfortable and awkward places. Ever since his directorial debut with Hard Eight (aka Sydney), Anderson has always been a disruptor—the good kind, that is. Even when narratives in his films don't readily become accessible on first viewing, there's a level of deftness to his storytelling approach that's very reassuring.
PTA purists who grew up with his filmography and cannot find fault in any of his films, even in Inherent Vice (regarded by some fans as his least accessible work), will most likely agree on the point that they're not bad. (Or does excessive devotion to a certain filmmaker make it difficult for them to acknowledge occasional slip-ups?)
Anyway, One Battle After Another is finally here, and I have to be honest here: I can't quite make up my mind as to whether I appreciated the film wholly or loved most of it. One thing I can say for sure: It's not bad; far from it. It belongs to that category of cinema that's more likely to get better upon revisits. It has happened before. And I cannot say this for all filmmakers. I don't believe in calling a film "bad" or "terrible" when it boasts a form that manages to engage my attention throughout its near-three-hour runtime.
And for a politically charged portrait about radicals, isn't a radical narrative structure befitting?
The Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer is another audacious work from PTA, proving yet again that he is the kind of filmmaker capable of opening up doors and pathways in your mind that hitherto didn't exist. It has some of the funniest performances, courtesy of DiCaprio—wearing an outfit resembling Jeff Bridges' from The Big Lebowski—and Sean Penn (Col. Lockjaw is his most memorable character in a long time), and competent turns from Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. We get lines like, "Get down like you're about to suck a d***." We get a hilarious nod to Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove. (Kubrick and Sterling Hayden would've probably rolled on the floor after hearing someone say, "Semen demon.")
To put it simply, PTA is the kind of filmmaker blessed with the powers to rewire your overstimulated brain, which has been corrupted by the toxic, exhausting after-effects of numerous reels and information overload. Some would scoff at the idea of calling PTA’s films "escapist", but that's just what I would use. And
One Battle After Another has been described as PTA's maiden foray into action filmmaking. Such a description, too, might invite ridicule from some whose idea of action is non-stop gunfire and explosions.
Well, that's just a narrow way of looking at things, isn’t it?
One Battle After Another is action filmmaking at its purest. It could be Anderson's way of tipping his hat to John Sturges' excellent Bad Day at Black Rock, about which he once told the Los Angeles Times that you can learn more from it than from 20 years of film school. The 1955 film is packed with enough nerve-wracking moments, but it may slip under the radar of those seeking pyrotechnics every minute.
How many would accept a one-armed geriatric "hero" who, despite his relentlessness, appears vulnerable at a crucial point? That is, before he devises ingenious methods to bring to justice a group of racist villains who run the small town at which no locomotive would dare to stop.
PTA's film, too, features unconventional heroes living in a near-dystopian alternate reality rife with racial discrimination. A world where ordinary-looking assassins get orders to dispatch any white man who knowingly or unknowingly engages in an illicit relationship with a black woman. One chase sequence in One Battle After Another redefines the expression "rollercoaster ride." It literally does the same thing, but on a long, undulated highway. The effect, on IMAX, is hypnotic to say the least.
It brings to mind a classic movie car chase regarded as one of the best of all time, from Steve McQueen's 1968 police thriller Bullitt. It's a chase that may look ordinary at first, but seen on an IMAX/PXL screen, you slowly begin to get that tingling sensation often associated with heights. And when we finally get to the payoff, we understand why the preceding moments had to be staged and cut that way. It's the kind of novelty factor and unorthodox, yet rewarding, filmmaking grammar that recalls some of the Hollywood greats of the 1960s and 1970s.
PTA, though coming from the generation that succeeded similarly disruptive masters — Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Rafelson (DiCaprio is named 'Bob Ferguson' in the film), Dennis Hopper, John Cassavetes — embodies their same fervently iconoclastic spirit which generates work that stands out from the cookie-cutter fare churned out by most.
Even James Cameron, regardless of the admirable ambition of his Avatar films, hasn't shown us anything in a long time that ventures outside a prescribed comfort zone, despite the advantages of his brand name and the stars who work with him. It's why the new PTA film feels as much like a big event as a new Scorsese or Spielberg outing.
Thank you, Mr Paul Thomas Anderson, for existing.
