Ankur – Page 24

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ disappoints despite having solid material to work with

Zero Dark Thirty is a curious film that tries to walk a fine line between being a documentary and an action film. Much has been written about the controversial nature of the film for its depiction of torture techniques. Setting that aside and judging the film based purely on its artistic merit, I found it coming up short. The first half of the film is a major drag; the plot progresses slowly and I found myself disinterested in the machinations that it went through in representing the backstory of how Osama bin Laden was tracked down. Despite devoting a lot of screen time, the film hardly spends any time on meaningful character development or in making any kind of cogent political arguments. Dan (Jason Clarke), the only slightly-interesting character, is taken out of rotation early on and the rest is spent on making Maya (Jessica Chastain) appear “spunky” by dropping expletives in a meeting with top CIA brass. Mark Strong’s acting talent is wasted by giving him a bit role in the film.

The pace picks up with the last quarter of the film devoted to the actual military operation – ‘Operation Neptune Spear’ – which took down Osama bin Laden. It is here that Kathryn Bigelow’s direction works its magic in portraying the tension of the soldiers in an understated manner; along the lines of the iconically-understated manner in which she portrayed the sniper ambush in The Hurt Locker. The dialogue in one particular scene – where a Black Hawk helicopter crashes at the insertion LZ – is sure to remind viewers of Black Hawk Down. I was glad that the focus was kept on the teams in battle rather than relying of the crutch of cutting back to situation room far away with satellite imagery to explain the battlefield narrative as many war films tend to do.

Zero Dark Thirty feels like a film where Bigelow is relying on the goodwill of The Hurt Locker to score points with critics and the audience. I couldn’t help comparing Zero Dark Thirty to other genre films such as Syriana and Body of Lies that do a better job (in my opinion) of character development while keeping the pace consistently snappy. In a word: disappointed.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

CAZZETTE

The music video for Beam Me Up begins with fake documentary commentary saying “Nobody knew where they came from, they just appeared”. It’s an apt metaphor for the meteoric rise of Seb Furrer and Alex Björklund, the Swedish electronic dance music duo who form CAZZETTE. Beam Me Up has shot up Billboard’s Dance Mix chart at number 7 and rising in the past few weeks, making CAZZETTE one of the hottest new acts of 2012 in this genre. They’ve dubbed their take on EDM as ‘dub house’, a combination of dubstep and house so infectious that it makes me want to spontaneously break into dance.

What’s unique about CAZZETTE’s career is that unlike other bands who are running scared of music streaming services, they decided to make their début by releasing their first album Eject (in three parts) exclusively on Spotify. Part of the charm is that they created an app within Spotify to replicate the visual interface of playing a mixtape. Creating a curated experience through specialised apps is something other artists have also tried – Def Jam and David Guetta in particular come to mind – but CAZZETTE’s take on what an ‘album release’ should be in a world of streaming music is refreshing precisely because it is a ‘natively digital’ experience. They borrow a lot of heritage from other contemporary EDM artists: they were signed on by the same company who manage Avicii and released an official remix track for Swedish House Mafia. Other borrowed touches are more subtle, such as the duo wearing ‘cassette head’ masks during live shows much like deadmau5 wears a mouse mask.

While I found the tracks on their Eject Pt II – Weapon, Endorphine, and I Surrender – to be underwhelming for their sameness to current EDM fare, the first part of their album release with tracks such as Beam Me Up, Run For Cover, and The Rat are all a delectable fusion of genres that has rightfully won them a nomination in this year’s Swedish Grammy Awards. Eject Pt III picks up the slack with its eminently danceable tracks such as Renegade and a bonus track titled Blood Theme – which I loved for its pop-culture reference, as it’s a remix of Daniel Licht’s theme for the American TV show Dexter. Overall, CAZZETTE has become one of my favourite contemporary artists in the genre for their ‘brand’ image and innovative style.