Rage (2009)

Touches You

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Rage has been given a most surprising rating, which is what prompted me to write my review, though I don't usually do that. Surely this is a very unique film in terms of how it was conceived and so the outcome couldn't have been predicted prior to completion and distribution. This is a film that presents no more than individual characters' worldviews translated to the number of lines they each had alone on screen while being recorded. Centered around the film's subject, which is this fashion event and fashion in general, the things the interviewees said gave me material to form a solid picture, insight into what I ultimately wanted to see, and Rage succeeds tremendously here: how tiniest details give away a person's whole value system, and the value systems tend to be flawed as they are human. The actors brought with them a quality of fearlessly facing the camera through the role and also I give them credit for being very interesting on screen. The tone they set at the end is deserving of praise because it concludes the film effectively. On the whole Rage is, ridiculous as it is at times, a study of human nature, it just uses a particular setting, and perhaps that is what people are put off by. I can imagine the idea working for other subjects too, and certainly think Rage deserved to be ranked higher - really, I am surprised. Hence, I contribute with my rating of 10.

Sally Potter takes chances. There are so many unique aspects of this film that reviewing it is difficult. The major aspects of the film include the very au courant 'rage' of blogging as a means of communication, the 'rage' to stay young and in fashion (that almost daily changing series of fads of what is in and what is out), the 'rage' of focusing everyone's attention on celebrity antics including drugs and death, the 'rage' to buy everything (if you don't own it and it looks like it is going to be popular then buy it), the 'rage' of climbing into the media world, be it film, fashion, television searching for that promised 15 minutes of fame, the 'rage' of PR, minding the selling promotion of a product without concern of its value, the 'rage' of creating new fragrances with a special name for fame, and the 'rage' for maintaining a wealthy or famous class and a poor or service class. Potter manages to take us through all of these phases with brilliant writing, fascinating character studies, experimental lighting and photography, and one of the best uses of color fields ever on film. The premise is simple yet strong. A blogger named Michelangelo follows the backstage proceedings of a New York Fashion Show: we never see him, we see only his daily blog entry and the images of the interviewees through his cellphone camera - the individuals all are part of the hyped fashion show cum ramp walk of fashionista Merlin (Simon Abkarian) who designed the clothes, Miss Roth (Dianne Wiest) who owns the company, Mona Carvell (Judi Dench) the fashion critic who writes for the media coverage, Otto (Jakob Cedergren) who works managing PR, Mr. White (Bob Balaban) who directs the show until he is replaced by the overeducated image builder Dwight Angel (Patrick J. Adams), Frank (Steve Buscemi) a hard nosed photographer who has spent better time on the war fronts in the Middle East taking 'meaningful pictures', financier Tiny Diamonds (Eddie Izzard) who buys everything he wants including his bodyguard Jed (John Leguizamo), models Minx (Jude Law in drag) and Lettuce Leaf (Lily Cole), pizza delivery boy transformed in to model Vijay (Riz Ahmed), and Anita de Los Angeles (Adriana Barraza) the seamstress who simply wants to remain invisible. Two deaths occur - one car accident and one shooting - and that brings in Detective Homer (David Oyelowo) who investigates while displaying his own brand of Shakespeare to the blogger's cellphone camera. All of this complex story happens in the form of interviews - each star is dressed in well designed clothes and each poses in front of various colored screens. The ending of the interview brings the whole experience together. Potter's immaculate and imaginative script gives each one of these gifted actors room to shine in a one person act. It just simply works and never for a moment does it become dull. Sally Potter gave us 'Orlando', 'Yes', 'The Man Who Cried', and 'The Tango Lesson'. She is one of the most imaginative and skilled writer/director units in the business. Grady Harp

RAGE is certainly not a movie for everyone. I could see how it would make some people very angry, and I am sure many people walked out of this. However, being an actor myself, watching these performances in their most intimate and raw presentation was nothing short of brilliant. Sure, there are a few flaws, but the truth behind the film is good acting can and SHOULD stand alone. All you really need is a great actor, and a camera pointed at them. It's a series of monologues given by some of the best actors out there. The performances that stood out to me most were: Judi Dench of course, John Lequizamo (who gives perhaps his best performance here), Bob Balaban (who is both hilarious and heartbreaking), Dianne Weist (who can do no wrong), Riz Ahmed (who I didn't know before this and hope to see again), and finally the best of all Adriana Barraza! You should rent/buy this movie just for her monologue about desiring to be invisible. Its a strange little film. But also a brilliant one.

I greatly enjoyed this film and have no idea why all of the IMDb reviewers seemed so bitterly scorned by this production. I found so much of this movie to be funny, sad, or at least entertaining. I thought the writing felt honest and sharp, and i found the acting to be superb, because IT FELT LIKE I WAS WATCHING REAL HUMAN BEINGS. Everyone else who commented seemed to have a problem with the performances but i thought they felt authentic. I think we could probably all agree that some people working in the fashion industry might on occasion behave in a way that is a little over dramatic. So when the characters in this film are portrayed behaving in an overly dramatic way, as many of them are, it makes complete sense to me. I thought this was a really unique (I'm saying this because I haven't seen any other movie shot with only actors sitting infront of blue screens) way to tell a story and I was really glad I picked it up. A fellow reviewer complained that Rage was plot-less, but it felt as ambiguous as something a teenager might put together but still had cohesive elements strong enough to leave you, or at least me, with a sense of what transpired off camera, which I believe was the aim of the director. I mean, so it is rather beyond the scope of possibility that some teenage black kid got to interview all of these people, repeatedly, and did so while they were not trying to be interviewed. But I think the statement that, "Rage shows how ugly and downright wrong it is to allow the production, fiancé and distribution of 'anything goes' cinema," is a horrible and self indulgent criticism of a artistic work you didn't like. There are a lot of things down right wrong in this world; creative expression typically isn't one of them. And also that isn't how you spell finance.