An intriguing, elusive film.

Rating: Null/10 (28 January 2009)

Contrary to what one might think, this film is not about "story", it's not about "people", hence all that talk about lack of warmth and emotional detachment is not really relevant. It's a self reflective film making, an intellectual cocoon dealing with itself, the way it's made and especially its star in a very enclosed way which almost seems to be intentioned to shut out the spectator. Whether one likes him or not, Brad Pitt is a Movie Star. Over the last two decades he became an iconic representation of a kind of classic idea of what this term means  someone who's physically so out there, who possesses some kind of charisma which has nothing to do with intellect, cultural gravitas or even acting ability. Valentino had it. Garbo had it, as did Garry Cooper, or Hedy Lamarr. It's the ability to be a beautiful, emotionally blank canvas which invites the spectator to project his or her own fantasies on. This attribute caused directors to explore and use Pitt as A Star. Early on, Redford recognized it and used him as a surrogate self, celebrating his effortless physical charms while acknowledging the dark sides of this kind of persona in A River Runs Through It. Last year Andrew Dominik showcased him as an older, more reflective Star to Affleck's groupie. The casting of Pitt as Jesse James in itself was a major artistic choice. From Thelma and Louise through Meet Joe Black to Troy there's a conscious use of Pitt's presence and the way people react to it. A decade ago Fincher made Fight Club in which Pitt portrayed himself, or rather a fictional fragment of the imagination, formed in the shape of a certain movie star named Brad Pitt who actually exists as such in the cinematic universe of that film (Norton and Bonham Carter are seen in front of a theater showing Seven Years in Tibet). It was a study of the fascination our culture has with media promoted artifacts and the fact that "stars" are likewise objects one is encouraged to lure after. And now Fincher continues and explores the very essence of that abstract entity, the movie star. Benjamin Button's life doesn't look like a real person's life nor he life of a real person who's a movie star. But as it can only be materialized within the realm of a movie, this life can be looked at as a metaphor to the "life" of the abstract notion which is what a "movie star" is. Since this entity exists only in the body of work of the star, it is not obliged to follow the linear chronology mere mortals do. Watching On Golden Pond first, then Mister Roberts, followed by Grapes of Wrath and finishing with The Farmer Takes a Wife and one have a curious case of Henry Fonda. It has nothing to do with the real person who was born in 1905 and died in 1982. Jodie Foster is exactly my age. Yet if I watch Taxi Driver today, the only "Jodie Foster" I'll ever know, the one in the movies, is 13, I'm still 46. The character of Benjamin Button - or BB (just like Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monro, or indeed, Brigitte Bardot) - is passive. It goes through life and this world without real involvement, but it's a cinematic journey, each section of it corresponds with the contemporary cinema of its era  from Griffith's Victoriana, through L'Atalante, the war movies of the '40s, Red Shoes, American in Paris, even Turning Point. It is filled with references to movies a New Orleans streetcar, Blanchet's character's name. Pitt seems to be channeling familiar cinematic idols  a Gene Kelly, a Dean or a Brando and finely a young Brad Pitt. Blanchet's hair was once Moira Shearer's while one might be thinking of Katherine Hepburn and Blanchet herself as Hepburn at some point when the older Daisy emerges. And then there are these little theoretical footnotes, about the kind of existence the cinema enables  the reversal of time which brings the clockmaker's son back to life, the analyzing of Daisy's accident. The running joke about the guy who was struck by lightning seven times, each time presented as a cinematic miniature is all about the movie star who can "die" many times in different movies then come back in another. So this is how one should look at the way Benjamin Button fulfill the ultimate vocation of the movie star  incarnating the romantic fantasy. His two significant love affairs are presented as two very different cinematic romances. First there's the early '40s movie  set in a secluded, exotically romantic place, confided in location and time, a kind of movie where the camera will always stay discretely outside closed doors. And later we're treated to a '60s movie, relatively explicit (naked bodies strategically covered with sheets), much more kinetic and outdoorsy. But in both cases it has nothing to do with real life, and these romances are ended once the "movie" ends - whether it's Casablanca or Barefoot in the Park, it can never evolve into a story about paying the mortgage or changing diapers. As a counterpoint to BB's there's Daisy's life. Not only does it go along "normally", she's a dancer. Dancing is the ultimate example of live performing art as a fleeting, elusive action which exists only while it actually happens as opposed to the ever lasting nature of performance captured on film. And off course the way her career evolves, brutally ends and then being revisited in a kind of secondhand way as a teacher is a way to accentuate the uniqueness of the cinematic immortality. (One can also look at it as a comparison between the hard gained, labor and talent based stardom of the Bette Davis school, represented on and off screen by Cate Blanchet, and the fame based on luck and genetics, like the one attributed to poor Pitt).