JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008)

 

JCVD, the latest release from martial arts action hero Jean Claude Van Damme, cleverly utilizes the preconceived notions audiences have of the Muscles from Brussels, resulting in a surprisingly emotional and thematically rich film that easily ranks among Van Damme’s best.

Van Damme, who plays himself, is an aging action star whose stagnating career is the least of his problems. He is also on the losing end of a custody battle for his daughter and is struggling to come up with sufficient finances to pay his lawyer. His checks bounce and the ATM’s reject his credit cards. In a last ditch attempt to acquire some cash, Van Damme returns to his roots and heads for his native hometown of Brussels where he is still revered as a local legend and hero. Once he arrives in the capital city of Belgium, things go awry as Van Damme unwittingly finds himself at the center of a bank heist, with the police mistakenly thinking he is the mastermind behind the operation.

From the very beginning, it is clear that JCVD is different from the standard Van Damme action vehicle. True, the very first shot of the film is a several minute take of our muscular hero scurrying through a war torn landscape, blasting away with various weaponry and kicking and punching his way through enemy soldiers. However, on several occasions, Van Damme is visibly out of breath as he leans against a wall or fallen soldier and wheezes for a moment before carrying on. A couple punches clearly do not connect with their intended target, missing the soldiers by a fair distance. One begins to ponder if Van Damme is too old for this kind of film. Then all is revealed when a wall falls down, revealing that it is in fact a movie set. Van Damme begins quarreling with the uncooperative director about how he is 47 years old and “it’s hard to do everything in one shot!” It sets the tone perfectly for this rule breaking film.

Director Mabrouk El Mechri constantly has fun toying with the film medium. Sounds are amplified, distorted, even muted completely to bring out the full emotional impact of the events unfolding. Characters refer to the camera itself. The narrative constantly shifts back and forth chronologically, playing with the audience’s perception of the events being displayed.

Perception seems to be a running theme throughout. With the way the editing is done early on, we the audience are led to believe that Jean Claude is indeed responsible for the robbery. Later on, a flashback shows that this is not the case and he is merely another hostage, proving our previous perceptions of the events to be false. Numerous citizens of Brussels speak of Van Damme as if he is a mythical figure, and some are disappointed when he is not constantly willing to meet their demands for banter and autographs. Two adoring male fans comment on how Jean Claude is shorter in real life than they thought he would be. A female cab driver scolds him for not wanting to talk to her, saying that she loves his movies but he is “rude” and that he looks better in his movies. Even though the police think that Van Damme is robbing the bank, throngs of supporters gather outside brandishing hand painted signs in support of “JC”. For all they know he could be robbing the bank, but they still love him simply because of his celebrity status.

Mechri utilizes a variety of stylistic devices to get his points across. At one point, the actual film reel shakes and slows down so we can see the individual frames before once again resuming the normal 24 frames per second. In another surreal moment, Van Damme breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the camera, delivering a heart felt and very much autobiographical monologue (nearly six minutes in length, shot in one uninterrupted take) about how he came to be a “movie star”. Van Damme’s acting shines here,  and he convincingly shows us a side of him that we have never seen before. He is somewhat self-loathing, and condemns himself for some of his past actions. When he asks himself what he has done in this world he cries “Nothing! I’ve done nothing!” and goes on about how he feels guilty for having succeeded when so many other worthy people with admirable qualities have failed. It is sure to be a divisive scene, but this reviewer found it to be very effective in increasing the emotional resonance of the picture.

JCVD is a film not afraid of challenging convention, and manages to bring up some interesting themes regarding the idolization of celebrities by the media and fans, and how we often have preconceived notions about things we really know nothing about. If this is the new direction that Van Damme is planning to take his career in, call me a fan.

Advertisement

~ by thebeast43105 on December 8, 2008.