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"8 Mile" Review by Adrian Hyland “"Genius is the brilliant invention of someone looking for a way out." - Jean-Paul Sartre. The Detroit of Curtis Hanson's new film "8 Mile" is a black, claustrophobic, anonymous city, and with the help of the virtuoso Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (who shot "Amores Perros"), Hanson gives us what feels like an authentic depiction of an urban American way of life. Prieto's imagery has great acuity; the city may be full of darkness but we see what we need to see with absolute clarity. We see that for the characters in "8 Mile", happiness isn't an option. They are looking only for a way out, a release, and Hanson is careful not to show us this way out. There are no mandatory shots of the skyline, no 'glittering cityscapes', just a relentless pattern of dirty streets and trailer parks, and a growing sense that for these guys there is no escape. "8 Mile" recreates that feeling of spiritual confinement that is part of living in a big city, and because it also takes us inside the artistic struggle of its white-boy rapper Rabbit (played by Eminem), we feel a tremendous sense of release when finally, through his art, he transcends his origins and finds his 'way out'. The last shot of this movie is truly uplifting, because the scenery may not have changed, but the man has. The brilliance with which "8 Mile" is executed may be down to Hanson and his crew, but anyone who remembers where they were when they first heard "Stan" will know that Eminem understands cinematic storytelling, and the movie's strong narrative drive can probably be attributed to the rapper's own acute sense of drama. And while he may or may not have had a hand in devising the suspense mechanism that sees Rabbit's moment of truth, his first public performance, withheld until the very last minute, it is Eminem alone who can be held responsible for the fact that when 'the moment' does arrive, it carries with it the unmistakable purity and strength of a great artist at work. Over the years Eminem has refined his art to the point where there is now very little that's complicated about it. You never find yourself wondering what he's talking about, as is often the case with other rappers; his choice of language transcends the hip-hop genre, while his delivery remains true to hip-hop's storytelling tradition. Eminem mixes his humour and his anger in the way a great stand-up comic like Richard Pryor might, and with each line comes the shock of the new that sets him apart from the kind of mundane rappers who tell us how 'lyrical' they are. There are no linguistic flourishes with Eminem, because like a master storyteller he lets the story tell itself. If Eminem's recordings are characterised by a sense of barely controlled anger, then his on-screen presence is a beautiful contradiction: he has a ghostly calmness, as if living purely according to his own internal clock. The question of whether or not he can act is somewhat irrelevant, because for him to have completely mastered the craft of becoming someone else would surely have compromised the whole scenario, which is after all that of Eminem's life story, not of a fictional character that needs 'creating'. What is impressive in "8 Mile" is that there is a real sense of connection between him and the other actors in the cast, especially in his scenes with Brittany Murphy, with whom he shares one of the more convincing sex scenes of recent times. Murphy has a strikingly original presence; I can't think of another actress who could have made the character of Alex so disconcertingly hungry - she won't be needing to audition for any of those upcoming 'nymphomaniac groupie' roles with this performance in the can - and the chemistry between her and the sullen, unsmiling Rabbit is just right. Kim Basinger seems miscast as Rabbit's mother (the comic scene in which she forces the details of her sex life on her son would probably have worked better in an Eminem song), but Hanson's superb directorial control can be felt in the almost uniformly excellent performances of the rest of the cast, and although the conception of one or two of the characters feels contrived, the momentum of the story never really suffers as a result. "8 Mile" represents a triumph for Curtis Hanson, who after the cringe-fest that was "Wonder Boys" re-establishes himself as one of the best directors in Hollywood. His films have always had quality acting and a strong sense of place, and in "L.A. Confidential" he made one of the most viscerally exciting movies of the '90s, but "8 Mile" is a different kind of film, with a different subject matter. In "L.A. Confidential" the threat of physical danger was everywhere, and Hanson infused his sun-drenched locations with a kinaesthetically charged atmosphere that promised violence. In "8 Mile" Hanson's primary interest, as it was in "Wonder Boys", is in the artistic process, and although there is violence in "8 Mile", it doesn't linger in the mind, because we know that on these dark streets it's Rabbit's spirit, not his body, that's in danger. When Eminem as Rabbit takes the bus to work and, with his headphones on, drifts off into that personal space that is his only deliverance, mentally firing off verbal shots that accompany the beat in his ears and the bomb-site of a city that is his view through the window, everything becomes clear, his destiny seems as inexorable as the rhythm of the music, and we feel privileged to be watching an heroic act: the creation of something where there was previously nothing. — Adrian Hyland studied post-production at South Seas Film & Television School. He now works as a news editor at TV3. |