THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

"Can you cure me?"

"No."

Joseph Merrick has always been a fascinating individual to me.  And David Lynch has always been an artistic hero of mine, so it should come as no surprise that I really like THE ELEPHANT MAN.  Yeah, it's about as historically accurate as SURF II, but who cares?  It's still a great film that transports the viewer into a thought-provoking world of freaks, dark corners, peaks and lows of human behavior, and explores the definition of what it is to be a human being.

After the surrealist opening, we see London Hospital surgeon Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) walking through a carnival.  There have been rumors about a certain freak show attraction known as "The Elephant Man" (played by John Hurt).  He has a grossly enlarged head, thick lumpy skin on his back, an enlarged right arm, a twisted skeleton, and numerous other things physically wrong with him.  The two eventually meet (Hopkins' face in that scene is so sublime that it brought a tear to my eye) and soon "The Elephant Man", whose real name is Joseph Merrick, moves into the London Hospital as a permanent guest.  It is there that the good doctor discovers that inside this monstrous body there is intelligence.  He's emotionally scarred from the abuse and ridicule he's endured, but once he begins to open up Merrick turns out to be a very kind and wonderful man.  Not an animal, a man.  

Writer/director/sound designer David Lynch might be known for his more surrealist works, but THE ELEPHANT MAN is, for the most part, a very straight-forward and skillfully told story.  And the B&W photography is absolutely perfect!  Outside of the actors ages, it's almost impossible to tell when this film was even made!  And speaking of actors...John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins are tremendous in this film!

Overall, THE ELEPHANT MAN is kind of a downer of a movie, but it's still a remarkable achievement and worthy of your time.  Recommended.

Interesting side note: It's rumored that Producer Mel Brooks deliberately went uncredited because he feared that his name in the credits would be a distraction from the serious nature of the film.

SNOWPIERCER (2013)

"I believe it is easier for people to survive on this train if they have some level of insanity."

Set in 2031, SNOWPIERCER tells about how way back in ye olde 2014 countries all over the world purposely released some climate engineering shit into the atmosphere in hopes of counteracting the rising temperatures...it worked.  It worked so well, in fact, that it created another ice age and nearly killed all life on Earth.  D'oh!

Nobody knows how many people survived in underground bunkers or caves.  SNOWPIERCER only tells story of a large group of survivors on a massive train that drives around all over the planet nonstop.  Now the logistics of a train driving fast as shit, nonstop for 17 years busting through mountains of snow and walls of ice is completely ridiculous, but whatever.  The entire movie is filmed in a kinda vague, surrealistic way so I don't think reality was what the filmmakers were going for.  I think SNOWPIERCER is more about style.

As such, it succeeds.  The story is about the inhabitants on the back of the train (the "slum" area) getting sick and tired of their living conditions, so they revolt and start making their way to the front of the train.  All kinds of hip imagery and fight scenes follow.  If you don't put too much stock into the story and just enjoy the ride, SNOWPIERCER is an enjoyable ride.  The fight scenes could have been more brutal, but I definitely got a SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM vibe a few times (the woman in the yellow jacket scene and the look on Tilda Swinton's face during the night vision scene) so that was a good thing.

Quick pace, good acting (I especially liked Alison Pill as the tripped out school teacher...eyes all rolling back in her head with psychotic fervor), plot holes galore, under use of Kang-ho Song, exciting action scenes that look good but lack any real violence, good lighting, unsatisfying ending.

For what it is, SNOWPIERCER is a fun film.  I would really like to see a ultra-gritty video game version. [Update 2021: The Snowpiercer level on Hitman III is dope!]

Worth a watch.