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reVIEW (8)
EL MAQUINISTA
(THE MACHINIST)
Brad Anderson’s El Maquinista (The Machinist) is the most bewildering film I managed to see from 2004.
It’s the story of Trevor Reznik (a horrifyingly emaciated Christian Bale), who hasn’t slept for a year, and the gradual unraveling of his so-called life, when strange incidents begin to take place. It’s the kind of film that makes no effort to give the audience any idea about where it’s going; the kind of film where you keep on waiting for the other shoe to drop, unaware if the shoe’s going to be a high-heeled stiletto, black-leather dress, or steel-toed motorcycle.
There is an enigma at the heart of The Machinist, to be certain. The question is, if, by film’s end, the viewer will find the answer worth having waited for.
Edited by Luis De La Madrid and shot by Xavi Gimenez (the excellent editor and cinematographer tandem of Jaume Balaguero’s chilling Los Sin Nombre and Darkness), The Machinist has a bleak air about it, bordering on the oppressive without actually crossing over into the why-is-it-always-dark-and-raining territory of Se7en. But as visually interesting as the film is, it is in its script (by Scott Kosar, who also penned the scripts for the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror) where The Machinist breaks down.
The central mystery, of course, is why exactly has Trevor not gotten any sleep for the past year? Why is it that outside of his job, the only regular socializing he does is with Stevie, a prostitute played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, who starred opposite Keanu Reeves in A Walk in the Clouds), an airport waitress he’s visited every single night for the past year?
The beauty of a mystery is when there are enough clues that the attentive and analytical audience member can actually solve it just before the final reveal. Just take a look at The Sixth Sense. All the clues are right there, if only we interpret them properly. The problem with The Machinist is that, though there are clues handed out to the viewer, they’re rather general and ambiguous, so much so that actually solving the puzzle before the climax is a slim, nearly non-existent possibility. And because the clues are not very precise, the audience could be left annoyed and irritated as the end credits begin to roll.
Ultimately, the most disturbing aspect of The Machinist is the physical transformation Bale underwent to play the insomniac Reznik, losing 63 pounds—a third of his body weight—making the Oscar-winning thinning-down Adrien Brody did for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist look positively little league by comparison.
Having debuted on the silver screen in 1987, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, and the lesser-known Mio, moj Mio (Mio in the Land of Faraway) from Vladimir Grammatikov, Bale has gained a reputation for the intensity and dedication he brings to his craft.
When he bulked up and honed his body to a stunningly high-definition for Mary Harron’s American Psycho, then maintained that build for Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium, I was suitably impressed by Bale’s ability to take on the physical transformation a specific role entailed. And though this latest feat is no less impressive, it is also a shocking thing to see.
You just know there is some deep, dark secret at The Machinist’s core, something so disturbing it can turn a man into the wasted husk we see on-screen. It is, I believe, this added pressure on the final answer to The Machinist’s dark question that results in its collapse.
Not that the answer is light-weight by any means, but somehow, it doesn’t seem enough, not for a feature-length film, where drama is heightened and magnified from its real-life proportions. In the end, the movie does not successfully convey the weight, the magnitude, of what we learn is the truth. Like John Polson’s Hide and Seek, the final reveal of The Machinist just seems too prosaic given all we’ve seen leading up to it.
Anderson’s previous psychological thriller Session 9 (with David Caruso, who managed to move from New York to Miami without seemingly becoming a different character) was also a slick little package that sadly lacked substance and cohesion once the wrapping had come off.
Maybe, if Anderson eventually manages to hold a solid script in his evidently capable directorial hands, we’ll all see the great film he so clearly wants to show us.
Until then, we’ll have to make do with the tantalizing possibilities already visible in his near-misses.
Parting shot: A Spanish production, The Machinist was filmed before Batman Begins, and Bale had to quickly gain back all the pounds he’d shed to bulk up to play Gotham’s Dark Knight.
Parting shot 2: I’m eagerly awaiting Anderson’s next film, Transsiberian, hoping this is the one that’s gonna kick my a$$.
Aside from that, Luis De La Madrid is also helming the upcoming The End of the Summer.
(The above review began life under the name, “Out Of Order.”)
(The Machinist OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)
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