Bernie Michalik's posterous site

Somewhere is
* a film about a man who is like a zoo animal. His creature comforts are
tended to, and his publicist takes him out, much like a zoo keeper does.
Like zoo animals, the protagonist, Johnny Marco, lies around with nothing
to do. His cage is a car, a hotel and a city.
* a love story about a father and a daughter. It's not romantic love, but
it is love. Like a good love story, it skips all the dull and boring parts
and shows all the best parts. It captures what it is like to be the father
of a girl, regardless of level of income
* a film about an addict. Johnny is addicted to his way of life. He lives
life in a stupor. Like the character in Garden State, he drifts through his
life, until he is finally thrown from this by the love he has for another
person.
* a small or petite film. It is is small but well made. The scale is small
and the length is short.
* an exercise in looking. Coppola uses long takes and still or slow moving
pans or zooms in order to make you look at the film consciously. Shots are
taken just for the sake of exposition. Shots are taken to make you look.
* a series of vignettes, for life is a series of vignettes.
* part of a trilogy in my mind. If Coppola had said this, she would have
received more slack for filming again in a hotel. As it was, the less kind
critics attacked this. Yet no one seriously criticizes Scorsese or Spike
Lee or the Coen Brothers for reusing settings.
* smart in the way it brings in signs and messages. It's the signals, like
warning lights, flashing in front of Johnny that his is unable to see
* a film about emptiness and what happens when that emptiness is filled and
how that takes hold of a man and shakes him
* titled Somewhere but it is really no where, a place undefined. But it can
also be a place we aspire to. That's where Johnny lives: a place you can
aspire to but nowhere at the same time.

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