Sunday, November 23, 2008

Milk

by Ari

“You gotta give 'em hope. You gotta give 'em hope”. These are the lines delivered by Sean Penn at the end of Gus Van Sant’s brilliant and moving drama on gay activist Harvey Milk. It’s extremely difficult in the realm of the biopic to offer an uplifting message without manipulating the audience or succumbing to the worst conventions. Some directors take an experimental route to avoid the pitfalls of the genre (Haynes with I’m Not There, Corbijn with Control), while others embrace the formula but manage an even hand (Scorsese with The Aviator). Either way these filmmakers are walking on tight rope, so it’s doubly admirable when a film like Milk gets it right. Van Sant follows the Scorsese/Aviator approach by making Milk accessible without losing his artistic signature and entertaining at the same time it’s profound. The film is remarkable and beautiful, finely written by Dustin Lance Black and masterfully directed and acted by Van Sant and his cast respectively.

It opens with Milk (Penn) recording his life story on a tape to be listened to in the case of his assassination, cutting back ten years to the beginning of his rise in San Francisco, and all the struggles and battles it took to become the first major openly gay politician. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to go into detail about what this amazing man did for the gay community or the impact he had and continues to have on people worldwide, but considering the recent insult to civil rights that was the passing of Proposition 8, this story is as important and pressing as ever. It’s told that way too. Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black’s passion is intense and infectious; the kind of passion that brings out the best work from a talented ensemble that truly believes in the material.

In the ten year span of the film’s narrative we get the relationships with Milk’s lovers (James Franco and Diego Luna, both heartbreaking and moving in their own unique way), the rapport between his political team with members like Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch, nearly stealing the film) and Anne Kronenberg (Alison Pill), and finally the tense and ultimately tragic situation with Dan White (Josh Brolin in another remarkable performance). Van Sant shifts between impeccable historical recreation and touches of grandiose operatic tragedy, but neither stylistic flourish takes away from the central, driving theme of the story - they only enhance it.

Milk immerses the viewer into the social and political mind-set of the period, with stock footage adding to the realism and immediacy of the events, a touch that creates a feeling of being somewhere between a documentary and a biopic. It’s gripping, emotionally charged filmmaking led by another career performance by the already legendary Sean Penn. His Harvey Milk seems so identifiable, energetic, tender and passionate that it seems like you’ve been personally recruited for this epic journey with the rest of them. He’s a blazing personality, so rich and emotional and alive that witnessing his elation (one sequence in particular) was enough to bring tears to my eyes. It’s an uplifting film that also fires you up, one of the best of the year.